He looked about this atrocious room, and his jaw hardened. This, for Milly's niece! Poor girl, poor friendless girl! He had known, of course, that the girl was poor. He and Milly had been poor, too. But, oh, never like this! This was being poor sordidly, vulgarly. He had seen and suffered enough in his time to realize how soul-murdering this environment might be to one who knew nothing better. He himself had had the memory of the old house in which he was born, and of low-voiced, gentle-mannered men and women; he had had his fine traditions to which to hold fast. He reflected that he would have a great deal to make up for to Nancy Simms!

The noon whistle had blown. People had begun to come in, men whose first movement on entering was to peel off collars and coats. They barely glanced at the quiet, white-clad figure as they passed the open parlor door, but stampeded for the basement dining-room. Mr. Champneys could hear the scraping of chairs, the rattling of dishes, the hum of loud conversation; then the steady clatter of knives and forks, and a dull, subdued murmur. Dinner was in full swing, a dinner of which boiled cabbage must have formed the piece de resistance.

Came a hurried footstep, and Nancy Simms entered the room. He was sitting with his back to the window; she sank into the chair fronting him, so that the light fell full upon her.

She was strong and well-muscled, as one could see under the enveloping apron. Her hands bore the marks of dish-washing and clothes-washing and floor-scrubbing and sweeping. They were shapely enough hands, even if red and calloused. The foot in the worn, down-at-the-heels shoe was a good foot, with a fine arch; and the throat rising from the checked gingham apron was full and strong; her face was prettily shaped, if one was observant enough to notice that detail.

She was not pretty; not even pleasant. Her discontented face was liberally peppered with the sort of freckles that accompany red and rebellious hair; her mouth was hard, the lips pressed tightly together. Under dark, uncared-for eyebrows were grayish-green eyes, their expression made unfriendly by her habit of narrowing them. She had good teeth and a round chin, and her nose would have passed muster anywhere, save for the fact that it, too, was freckled. Unfortunately, one didn't have time to admire her good points; one said at first sight of her, "Good heavens, what a disagreeable girl!" And then: "Bless me, I've never seen so many perfectly unnecessary freckles and so much fighting-red hair on one girl!"

"You'll hafta hurry," she admonished him, fanning herself vigorously with a folded newspaper. She wiped her perspiring face on her arm, tilted back her chair, revealing undarned stockings, and waited for him to explain himself.

He handed her his card, and at the name Champneys a faint interest showed in her face.

"I had a aunt married a feller by that name," she volunteered. "Was you wishin' to find out somethin' about him or Aunt Milly? Because if so I don't know nothin' about him, nor yet her. I never set eyes on neither of 'em."

"I am your Aunt Milly's husband," he told her. "And I have come to find out something about you."

"It's took you a long time to find your way, ain't it?" Her manner was not cordial.

"We will waive that," said he, composedly. "I am here, and my visit concerns yourself. To begin with, do you like living with your mother's step-sister? That is her relationship to your mother and to my wife, I believe?"

"No: I don't like livin' with no step-aunt, though she ain't that, bein' further off: an' no real kin. If you want to know why I don't like it, it's all work an' no pay, that's why. First off, when I was too little to do anything else, I minded the children an' run errands an' washed doilies an' towels an' stockin's an' sich, an' set table an' cleared table an' washed dishes an' made beds an' emptied slops. Then I helped cook. Now I cook. Along with plenty other things. How'd you like it yourself?" Her tone was suddenly fierce. The fierceness of a strong and young creature in galling captivity.

His wandering life had given him an insight into such conditions and situations; and once or twice he had seen orphan children raised in homes where they "helped out." Chattel slavery is easier by comparison and pleasanter in reality.

Before he could answer, "Nan-cy! You Nan-cy! Come on here an' set them pie-plates! My Gawd! that girl's goin' to run me ravin' crazy, tryin' to keep her on her job! Nancy!"

Nancy looked at Mr. Champneys speculatively.

"Is what you got to say worth me tellin' her to set them plates herself?" she asked.

"Well worth it," said Mr. Champneys, emphatically.

She jumped for the door with cat-like quickness. Also, she lifted her voice with cat-like ferocity.

"I'm busy! I can't co-ome. Set 'em yourself!"

"Can't come! What you doin'?" shrieked the other voice.

"I'm entertainin' comp'ny in the parler, that's what I'm doin'! It's somebody come to see me. An' I'm goin' to wait right here till I find out what they come for!"

On the heels of that, Nancy slammed the parlor door, and sat down.

"Now say what you got to say, an' don't waste no time askin' if I'm stuck on livin' here with somethin' like that!"

"You wish, then, to leave your aunt?"

"She ain't no aunt of mine, I tell you. She ain't nothin' but my mother's stepfather's daughter by his first wife. Sure I want to leave her. She took me because she needed a servant she didn't have to pay reg'lar wages to. I don't owe her nothin'. Nor him, neither. He's worse 'n her."

"They are not kind to you?"

"No, they ain't what you'd call kind to me. But you ain't come here to talk about them, I take it. What was you wantin' to see me about, Mister?"

"Suppose," said he, leaning forward, "that you should be offered, in exchange for this," his gesture damned the whole room, "a beautiful home, travel, culture, ease, all that makes life beautiful; would that offer appeal to you?" He looked at her earnestly.

"No housework, no cooking! Clothes made for me especial? Not hand-me-downs an' left-overs? No kids to mind, neither day nor night?"

"Housework? Old clothes? Minding children? Certainly not! I am not hiring a servant! What are you thinking of?"

"I'm thinkin' of me, that's what I'm thinkin' of! I'm wearin' her old clothes on Sundays now. I hate 'em. They look like her an' they smell like her and they feel like her—mean an' ugly an' tight. If I could ever get enough money o' my own together, an' enough clothes—" she stopped, and looked at him with the sudden ferocity that at times flashed out in her—"earned honest, though, and come by respectable," said she, grimly, "then I'd get out o' here an' try something else. I'm strong, an' if I had half a chanst I could earn my livin' easy enough."

His jaw hardened. He couldn't blind himself to the fact that he was disappointed in Milly's niece; so disappointed that he felt physically sick. Had he been less fanatical, less obstinate, less fixed upon his monomaniacal purpose, he would have settled a sufficient sum upon her, and gone his way. His disappointment, so far from turning him aside, hardened his determination to carry the thing through. He had so acutely felt the lack of money himself, that now, perhaps, he overestimated its power. Whatever money could accomplish for this girl, money should do. The zeal of the reformer gathered in him.

"I wish," he explained, "to adopt you—in a sense. I have no children, and it is my desire that you should bear the Champneys name—for your Aunt Milly's sake. I propose, then, to take you away from these surroundings, and to educate you as a lady bearing the name of Champneys should be educated. You will have to study, and to work hard. You will have to obey orders instantly and implicitly. Do you follow me?"

"As far as you go," said she, cautiously. "Go on: I'm waitin' to hear more."

"Aside from yourself, I have but one close relative, my brother's son. You two, then, are to be my children."

"How old is he?"

"About twenty."

"But if you got a real heir, where do I come in?" she wondered.

"Share and share alike. He's my nephew: you're Milly's niece."

She reflected, a puzzled frown coming to her forehead.

"You're aimin' to give us both a whole lot, ain't you? But I've found out nobody don't get somethin' for nothin' in this world. Where's the nigger in the woodpile? What do I do for what I get?"

"You make yourself worthy of the name you are to bear. You place yourself unreservedly in the hands of those appointed to instruct—and—ah—form you. Make no mistake on this head: it will be far from easy for you."

"Nothin' 's ever been easy for me, first nor yet last," said Nancy Simms. "So that 's nothin' new to me. I want you should speak out plain. What you really mean I'm to do?"

For a moment the iron-willed old man hesitated; he remembered young Peter, eager, hopeful, crystal-clear young Peter, back there in South Carolina. He looked challengingly and fiercely at the girl, as if his bold will meant to seize upon her as upon a piece of clay and mold it to his desire. Then, "I mean you're to marry," he said crisply.

"Me? Who to? You?" asked Nancy, blankly.

"Me!" gasped Mr. Champneys. "Are you demented?"

"Well, then, who?" she asked, not unnaturally. "And why?"

"The other heir. My nephew. Peter Champneys. Because such is my will and intention," said he, peremptorily and haughtily, bending his eagle-look upon her.

"What sort of a feller is he? He ain't got nothin' the matter with him, has he?"

A wild desire to slap Milly's niece came upon Chadwick Champneys at that.

"He is my nephew!" he said haughtily. "Why on earth should he have anything the matter with him?"

It occurred to him then that it mightn't be such an easy matter to get a high-spirited young fellow, with ideals, to take on trust this young female person with the red hair. He felt grateful that he had exacted a promise from Peter. The Champneyses always kept their promises.

"I'm wonderin'!" said Nancy, staring at him. "Why are you so bent on him an' me marryin'? You say it's just because you want it, but that ain't no explanation, nor yet no reason. After all, it's me. I got the right to ask why, then, ain't I? You can't expect to walk in unbeknownst an' tell a girl you want she should marry a feller she's never laid eyes on, without bein' asked a few questions, can you?"

He knew he must try to make it clear to her, as he had tried to make it clear to Peter. Peter, being Peter, had presently understood. Whether this girl would understand remained to be seen.

"I wish you to marry, because, as I have already told you, you are my wife's niece, and Peter is my brother's son. I have of late years become possessed of—well, let's say a great deal of money, and I propose that this money shall go to my own people—but on my own conditions. These conditions being that it shall all be kept in the Champneys name. It is an old name, a good name, it was once a wealthy and an honored name. It must be made so again. I say, it must be made so again! There are but you two to make it so. The boy is the last, on my side; and you're Milly's. Milly must have her share in the upbuilding—as if you were her child. Now, do you see?"

"Good Lord! ain't you got funny notions, though! Who ever heard the beat? One name's about as good as another, seems to me. But seein' you've got the money to pay for your notions, them that's willin' to take your money ought to be willin' to humor 'em." Nancy, in her way, had what might be called a sense of ethics.

"You agree?"

"Well, I just got to make a change, Mr. Champneys. I can't stand this place no more. If I was to say 'No' to you, an' stay here, an' have time to think it over, down in that sizzlin' kitchen, with her squallin' at me all day, I'd end up in a padded cell. If I was to leave just so, I'd maybe get me a job in a shop at less than I could live on honest. You see?"

He nodded, and she went on somberly:

"So I'm most at the end of my tether. It's real curious you should come just now, with me feelin' that desperate I been minded to walk out anyhow an' risk things. You sure that feller ain't got nothin' ails him? Not crazy, nor a dope, nor nothin'?"

"My nephew is perfectly normal in every respect," said Mr. Champneys, frigidly.

"What's he look like in the face?" she demanded. "Is he as ugly as me?"

"He is a gentleman," said Peter's uncle, even more frigidly. "As to his appearance, I believe he resembles me. At least, he looks like what I used to look like."

"Well—I've seen worse," said she, and fetched a sigh.

A sudden thought struck him. "Perhaps," he suggested, making allowance for the sentimentality of extreme youth, "perhaps you have some notion about—er—ah—marrying for love, or something like that? There may be some young fellow you think you fancy? Young people in your—ah—that is, in the circumstances to which you unfortunately have been subjected, often rush into ill-considered entanglements."

"In love? Who, me? Who with, for Gawdsake? One feller means just as much to me as another feller: they're all alike," said she, contemptuously. "I just asked about him for—for references. You know what you're gettin', an' I got a right to know what I'm gettin'."

"You have: so please remember that you are getting a considerable portion of the Champneys money for doing what you're told to do," said he.

"I never knew till you told me so that the Champneyses had any money. But if it's there, I'm willing to do what I'm told, for my share. Why not? There ain't nothin' better for me, nowheres, nohow."

"I am to understand, then, that you agree?"

"What else can I do but agree?" she asked, twisting a fold of her apron.

The parlor door opened with violence; a thick-set man with a bald head and a red face, followed by a shrewish, thin woman with pinched lips, appeared on the threshold.

"I s'pose," said the woman, with elaborate courtesy, "we kin come in our own parler, Miss Simms? Has you resigned your job that you gotta pick out the parler to set in whilst I'm doin' your work for you?"

Nancy's visitor rose, and at sight of the tall old gentleman an avid curiosity appeared in both vulgar faces.

"Mr. Champneys, this is the lady an' gentleman I live with and work for without wages, Mister an' Missis Baxter. Mister an' Missis Baxter, this gentleman is Aunt Milly's husband, an' he's come to see me; an' you ain't called to show off the manners you ain't got!"

"Well, why couldn't you say who he was at first, an' have done with it?" grumbled the man. "But no, you gotta upset the whole house! She's the provokin'est piece o' flesh on the created earth, when she starts," he explained to the visitor.

"To aggravate an' torment them that's raised her an' kept her out of the asylum an' fed an' clothed an' learned her like a daughter, is what Nancy Simms 'd rather do than eat an' drink," supplemented Mrs. Baxter, acridly.

Nancy snorted. Mr. Champneys said nothing.

"Well! An' so you're poor Milly's husband!" said the woman, staring at him. "You wasn't so awful anxious to find out nothin' about her kith an' kin, was you? Not that I'm any kin," she added, hastily. "When all's said an' done, Nancy ain't no real kin, neither. You an' her's only connected by marriage, but bein' as you have come at last, I hope she'll have more gratefulness to you than she's got for me. As you ain't never done nothin' by her, an' I have, she's sure to."

"You make me so sick!" Nancy, with her hands on her hips, glared at the pair. "Anything you ever done for me you paid yourself for double. If you don't owe me nothin', like you said this mornin', I don't owe you nothin', neither, so it's quits. You'd oughta be glad I'm goin'."

"Goin'? Who's goin'? Goin' where?" Mrs. Baxter's voice rose shrilly. "Now, ain't it always so? You take a orphan child to your bosom an' after many days it'll grow up like a viper, an' the minute your back 's turned it'll spit in your face!"

"Goin', hey? Where you goin' to when you go?" demanded Mr. Baxter, hoarsely.

"She is going with me," said Mr. Champneys. The whole situation nauseated him; he felt that if he didn't escape from that red-plush parlor very soon, he was going to be violently sick. "I am now in a position to look after my wife's niece, and I propose to do so. From what I have heard from you both, I should think you would be rather glad than sorry to part with her."

"You won't gain nothin' by raisin' a row," put in Nancy, in a hard voice. "I'm goin'. Make up your minds to that."

"Oh, you are, are you, Miss Simms? That's all the thanks I mighta expected from you, you red-headed freckle-face! I sure hope he'll get his fill of you before he's done! Walkin' off like a nigger without a minute's notice, an' me with my house full of men comin' to their meals they've paid for an' has to have!"

"Hire another nigger an' pay 'em somethin', so's they won't quit without notice, then," suggested the girl, unfeelingly.

"How you know this feller's Milly Champneys's husband?" asked Mr. Baxter. "Who's to prove it?"

Nancy looked at him and laughed. But Milly Champneys's husband said hastily: "Let us go, for God's sake! If there's a telephone here, ring for a cab or a taxi. How soon can you be ready?"

"I can walk out bag and baggage in ten minutes," she replied, and darted from the room.

The South Carolina Don Quixote looked at the sordid, angry pair before him. He felt like one in an evil dream, a dream that degraded him, and Milly's memory, and Milly's niece.

"If you wish to make any inquiries, I shall be at the Palace Hotel until this evening," he told them. "And—would a hundred dollars soothe your feelings?"

The woman's eyes slitted; the man's bulged.

"You musta come by money since Milly died," said Mrs. Baxter. "Yes, sure we'll take the hundred. We ain't refusin' money. It's little enough, too, considerin' all I done for that girl!"

Mr. Champneys counted out ten crisp bills into the greedy hand, and the three waited silently until Nancy appeared. Champneys almost screamed at sight of her. His heart sank like lead, and the task he had set for himself of a sudden assumed monumental proportions.

"I ain't took nothin' out of this house but the few things belongin' to my mother. You're welcome to the rest," she told the woman, briefly. The man she ignored altogether.

A cab rattled up to the door. In silence the aristocratic old man in white linen, and the red-headed girl in a cheap embroidered shirt-waist, a dark, shabby skirt, and a hat that was an outrage on millinery, climbed in. There were no farewells. The girl settled back, clutching her hand-satchel. "Giddap," said the driver, and cracked his whip. The cab rolled away from the dingy, smelly house, and turned a corner. So rode Nancy Simms out of her old life into her new one.



CHAPTER IX

PRICE-TAGS

When Mr. Chadwick Champneys had visualized to himself Milly's niece, it had always been in Milly's image and likeness—sweet, fair, brave, merry, gentle, and strong. Milly's niece, of course, would be companionable. He would only have to put upon her the finishing touches, so to speak, embellish her natural graces with a finer social polish. At the very worst, he hadn't dreamed that anybody belonging to Milly could be like this red-headed Nancy. Perhaps, though, she would be less objectionable when she was properly clad.

"Drive to the best department store in town," he told the driver, briefly.

Once in the store he summoned the manager and briefly stated his needs. The young lady must be furnished with everything she needed, and as quickly as possible. She needed, it appeared, about everything. The shrewd young Jew looked her over with his trained eyes.

"Should you prefer our Miss Smith to proffer aid and advice? Miss Smith is an expert."

Mr. Champneys reacted almost with terror against Nancy Simms's probable choice.

"See that the young lady gets the best you have; and make Miss Smith the final authority," he said, briefly.

At the end of two hours Nancy returned, the two clerks and the manager accompanying her. The store people were slightly flushed, Nancy herself sullenly acquiescent. For the first time in her life she had had the opportunity to buy enough clothes of her own, and yet she hadn't been allowed to choose what she really wanted. Gently but inexorably they had rejected the garments Nancy selected, smoothly insisting that these weren't "just the thing" for her. They slid her into quiet-colored, plainly cut things that she wouldn't have looked at if left to her own devices. It took their united tact, firmness, and diplomacy to steer Nancy over the reefs of what the manager called hired-girl taste.

Nancy was silent when she appeared before Mr. Champneys in her new clothes. She thought that if she had been allowed to pick them out for herself, instead of having been hypnotized—"bulldozed" is what she called it—into plain old dowdy duds by two shopwomen and a Jew manager, she'd have given him more for his money.

Mr. Champneys, looking her over critically, admitted that the girl was at least presentable. From hat to shoes she gave the impression of being well and carefully dressed. But her aspect breathed dissatisfaction, her bearing was ungraciousness itself; nor did the two women clerks, trained to patience, tact, and politeness as they were, altogether manage to conceal their unfavorable opinion of her; even the clever, smiling young Jew, used to managing women shoppers, failed to hide the fact that he was more than glad to get this one off his hands.

Nancy hadn't taken time to eat her dinner before leaving the Baxter house, nor had Mr. Champneys had his lunch. They drove to his hotel, both hungry, and had their first meal together. Nancy hadn't been trained to linger over meals: one ate as much as one could get, in as short a space of time as possible. Mr. Champneys was grateful to a merciful Providence that he had ordered that repast served in his private sitting-room.

Her hunger quite satisfied, she shoved her plate aside, sighed, stretched luxuriously, and yawned widely, like the healthy animal she was.

"What we got to do now? Them women at the store said they'd get the rest of my things here, along with the travelin'-bags, in a coupla hours. I got a swell suit-case, didn't I? And oh, them toilet things! But between now and then, what you want I should do?"

It was then half-after four, and the train they were to take didn't leave until half-after seven.

"What would you like to do?" he asked.

"Can I go to the movies?"

He thought it an excellent idea. It would give him some idea of the girl's mental processes; the psychology of the proletariat, he thought, could be studied to advantage in their reaction to the movies.

He sat beside her for an unhappy hour while a famous screen comedian did the things with his feet and his backbone for which his managers paid him more in one year than the United States pays its Presidents in ten. At each impossible climax Nancy shrieked with laughter, the loud, delighted laughter of a pleased child. Her enthusiasm for the slapstick artist provoked him, but at the same time that gay laughter tickled his ears pleasantly. There's plenty of good in a girl who can laugh like that! After the grimacing genius there followed a short drama of stage mother-love, in which the angel-child dies strenuously in his little white bed. Nancy dabbled her eyes, and blew her nose with what her captious companion thought unnecessary vigor.

"Ain't it movin'?"

"Yes. Moving pictures," was the cold response. And to himself he was saying, defiantly: "Well, what else could I expect? She's not a whit worse than the vast majority! She's got the herd-taste. That's perfectly natural, under the circumstances. When I get her well in hand, she will be different."

"You don't like funny things, an' you got no feelin' for sad things," she ruminated, as they left the theater. In silence they walked back to their hotel.

The bulk of her purchases had been sent from the store, and a huge parcel awaited her in her room. It enchanted her to go over these new possessions, to gloat over her new toilet articles, to sniff at the leather of her traveling-kit. The smell of new leather was always to linger subconsciously in Nancy's memory; it was the smell of adventure and of change.

They dined together in Mr. Champney's sitting-room, although she would have preferred the public dining-room. Mr. Champneys was an abstemious man, but the girl was frankly greedy with the naive greed of one who had been heretofore stinted. She had seldom had what she really craved, and at best she had never had enough of it. To be allowed to order what and as much as she pleased, to be served first, to have her wishes consulted at all, was a new, amazing, and altogether delightful experience. Everything was brand-new to her.

She had never before traveled in a sleeping-car. It delighted her to watch the deft porter make up the berths; she decided that the peculiar etiquette of sleeping-cars required that all travelers, male and female, should be driven to bed by lordly colored men in white jackets, and there left in cramped misery with nothing but an uncertain, rustling curtain between them and the world; this, too, at an hour when nobody is sleepy. Nancy wondered to see free white citizens meekly obey their dusky tyrant. She got into her own lower berth, grateful that she hadn't to climb like a cat into an upper.

She lay there staring, while the train whizzed through the night. This had been the most momentous day of her life. That morning she had been the hopeless slavey in the Baxter kitchen, an unpaid drudge with her hand against every man and every man's hand against her. She had been bullied and beaten, she had eaten leavings, and worn cast-offs. Since her mother's death she had known the life of an uncared-for child, the minimum of care measured against the maximum of labor squeezed out of it. Until to-day her fate had been the fate of those who approach the table of Life with unshod feet and unwashen hands.

And to-night all that was changed. She was here, flying farther and farther away from all she had known. She wondered if she were not dreaming it. Panicky at that, she sat up in her berth, pressed the button that turned on the electric light, slipped her new kimono about her, and looked long and earnestly at the new clothes within reach of her hand. There they were, real to her touch; there was her fine new hand-bag; and most real of all was the feel of the money in it. Nancy fingered the money, thoughtfully smoothing out the bills. "As soon as we are settled, you will have your allowance, and I shall of course provide you with a check-book," Mr. Champneys had told her. "In the meanwhile you will naturally want money for such little things as you may need." And he had given her twenty five-dollar bills. She had received the money dumbly. This had been the crowning miracle—for she had never in the whole course of her life had so much as one five-dollar bill to do as she pleased with. She sat looking at the money, concrete proof of the reality of the change that had befallen her, and wondered, and wondered. With a sigh of content she thrust the hand-bag under her pillow, folded her kimono at the foot of her berth, switched out the light, and presently fell asleep.

In his berth opposite hers, Mr. Chadwick Champneys, more sleepless even than Nancy, was tabulating his estimate of the young woman he had acquired. It ran something like this:

Looks: bad; may improve.

Manners: worse; must improve. Particularly in speech.

Appetite: that of the seventeen-year locust. Must be restrained, to prevent an early death.

Character in general: suspend judgment until further study.

General summary of personal appearance: Nice teeth on which a little dentistry will work wonders. Not a bad figure, but doesn't know how to carry herself; has a villainous fashion of slouching, with her hands on her hips. Plenty of hair, but of terrifying redness; sullen expression of the eyes; fiendish profusion of freckles: may have to be skinned. Excellent nose. Speaks with appalling frankness at times but is not talkative.

What must be done for her? Everything.

He groaned, turned over, and after a while managed to sleep. Sufficient to the day was the red hair thereof; he couldn't afford to lie awake worrying about to-morrow.

He had long since decided upon New York as a residence until all his plans had matured. One had greater freedom to act, and far more privacy, in so large a city. They would stay at some quiet hotel until after the marriage; then he and Nancy would occupy the house he had recently purchased, in the West Seventies. It was a fine old house with a glimpse of near-by Central Park for an outlook, and what he had paid for it would have purchased half Riverton. He wanted its large, high-ceilinged rooms to be furnished as the old house in Carolina had been furnished, this being his standard of all that was desirable. He wished for Peter's wife such a background as Peter's forebears had known; and Peter's wife must be trained to appreciate and to fit into it, that's all!

The New York hotel, with its deft and deferential servants who seemed to anticipate her wishes, its luxury, its music, its shifting, splendidly dressed patrons, its light and glitter, filled Nancy with the same wonder that had fallen upon Aladdin when he found himself in the magic cave with all its treasures gleaming before his astounded, ignorant young eyes.

She hadn't thought the whole world contained so many people as she saw in New York in one day. Fifth Avenue amazed and absorbed more than it delighted her. The expressionless expressions of the women, their hand-made faces, their smart shoes, the way they wore their hair, the way they wore their clothes; the men's air of being well dressed, of having money to spend, of appearing importantly busy at any cost; a certain pretentiousness, as if everything were shown at once and there were no reserve of power, nothing held in disciplined abeyance, interested her profoundly. She had a native shrewdness.

"They're just like the same kind of folks back home, but there's more of 'em here," she decided.

The huge policemen she saw at every turn, lordly and massive monoliths rising superbly above lesser humanity, filled her with the deepest respect and admiration. The mere policemen in her home town were to these magnificent beings as daubs to Titians, as pigmies to Titans. If in those first days the girl had been called upon to do the seven bendings and the nine knockings before the one New York institution which impressed her most profoundly, she undoubtedly would have singled out one of those mastodons a-bossing everything and everybody, with a prize-ham paw.

She was cold to the Woolworth Building, as indifferent to the Sherman monument as Mr. Chadwick Champneys was acridly averse to it, and not at all interested in the Public Library. The Museum of Natural History failed to win any applause from her; the Metropolitan Museum bored her interminably, there was so much of it. Most of the antiquities she thought so much junk, and the Egyptian and Assyrian remains were so obviously the plunder of old graveyards that she couldn't for the life of her understand why anybody should wish to keep them above ground.

Mr. Champneys explained, patiently. He wished, by way of aiding and abetting the education he had in view for her, to arouse her interest in these remains of a lost and vanished world.

She stood by the glass case that contains the old brown mummied priest with his shaven skull, his long, narrow feet, his flattened nose and fleshless hands, and the mark of the embalmer's stone knife still visible upon his poor old empty stomach. And she didn't like him at all. There was something grisly and repellent to her in the idea that living people should make of this poor old dead man a spectacle for idle curiosity.

"There was a feller in our town used to keep stuffed snakes an' monkeys an' birds, an' dried grasshoppers an' bugs an' things like that in glass cases; but I never dreamed in all my born life that anybody'd want to keep dried people," she commented disgustedly. "I don't see no good in it: it's sickenin'." She turned her back upon mummied Egypt with a gesture of aversion. "For Gawdsake let's go see somethin' alive!"

He looked at her a bit helplessly. Plainly, this young person's education wasn't to be tackled off-hand! Agreeably to her wishes he took her to a certain famous shop filled at that hour with fashionable women wonderfully groomed and gowned. Here, seated at a small table, lingering over her ice-cream, Nancy was all observant eyes and ears. Not being a woman, however, Mr. Champneys was not aware that her proper education was distinctly under way.

A day or two later he took her to the Bronx Zoo. Here he caught a glimpse of Nancy Simms that made him prick up his ears and pull his mustache, thoughtfully. He had discovered how appallingly ignorant she was, how untrained, how undisciplined. To-day he saw how really young she was. She ran from cage to cage. Her laughter made the corners of his mouth turn up sympathetically.

There was something pathetic in her eager enjoyment, something so fresh and unspoiled in that laughter of hers that one felt drawn to her. When she forgot to narrow her eyes, or to furrow her forehead, or to screw up her mouth, she was almost attractive, despite her freckles! Her eyes, of an agaty gray-green, were transparently honest. She had brushed the untidy mop of red hair, parted it in the middle, and wore it in a thick bright plait, tied with a black ribbon. She wore a simple middy blouse and a well-made blue skirt. Altogether, she looked more like a normal young girl than he had yet seen her.

The Zoo enchanted her. She hurried from house to house. Once, she told him, when she was a little kid, a traveling-man had taken her to a circus, because he was sorry for her. That was the happiest day she had ever spent; it stood out bright and golden in her memory. There had been a steam-piano hoo-hooing "Wait till the clouds roll by, Jenny." Wasn't a steam-piano perfectly grand? She liked it better than anything she'd ever heard. She'd long ago made up her mind that if she was ever really rich and had a place of her own, she'd have a big circus steam-piano out in the barn, and she'd play it on Sundays and holidays—hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo—like that, you know.

And to-day reminded her of that long-ago circus day, with even more animals to look at! She had never seen as many different animals as she wanted to see, until now. She admitted that she sort of loved wild things—she even liked the wild smell of 'em. There was something in here—she touched her breast lightly—that felt kin to them.

There was not the usual horde of visitors, that day being a pay-day. A bearded man with a crutch was showing one or two visitors around, and at a word from him a keeper unlocked a cage door, to allow a young chimpanzee to leap into his arms. It hugged him, exhibiting extravagant affection; it thrust out its absurd muzzle to kiss his cheek, and patted him with its small, leathery, unpleasantly human hands.

"It's just like any other baby," said the keeper, petting it.

"I sure hope it ain't like any I'll ever have," said Nancy, so naively that the man with the crutch laughed. He looked at her keenly.

"Go over and see the baby lion," he suggested; and he added, smiling, "It's got red hair."

"It can afford to have red hair, so long as it's a lion," said Nancy, sturdily; and she added, reflectively: "I'd any day rather have me a lion-child with red hair, than a monkey-child with any kind of hair."

Somehow that blunt comment pleased Mr. Champneys. When he took his charge back to their hotel that evening, it was with something like a glimmering of real hope in his heart.

The next day, as he joined her at lunch, he said casually:

"I had a message from my nephew this morning. He will be here in a few days."

She turned pale; the hand that held her fork began to tremble.

"Is it—soon?" she asked, almost unaudibly.

"The sooner the better. I think we'd better have it here, in our sitting-room, say at noon on Wednesday. Don't be seared," he added, kindly. "All you have to do is just to stand still and say, 'I will,' at the right moment."

"An'—an' then?"

"My nephew's boat sails at about two. He drives to the pier. You and I go to our apartment, until our own house is ready for us. You see how nicely it's all arranged."

"I ain't—I mean, I don't have to see him nor talk to him before, do I?" She looked panic-stricken. "Because I won't! I can't! There's some things I just can't stummick, an' meetin' that feller before the very last minute I got to do it, is one of 'em."

"Of course, of course! You sha'n't meet him until the very last minute. Though he's a mighty nice chap, my nephew Peter is—a mighty nice chap."

"He must be! We're both of us a mighty nice pair, ain't we? Him goin' one way an' me goin', another way, all by our lonesomes!"

"The arrangement does not suit you?" he inquired politely.

"Oh, it suits me all right," she said, after a moment. "I said I'd do what I was told, an' I'll do it—I ain't the sort backs down. But I ain't none too anxious to get any better acquainted with this feller than what I am right now. I ain't stuck on men, noways."

"You are only sixteen, my dear," he reminded her.

"Women know as much about men when they're sixteen as they do when they're sixty," said she, coldly. "There ain't but one thing to believe about 'em—an' that is, you best not believe any of 'em."

"I hope," said he, stiffly, "that you have no just cause to disbelieve me, Nancy? Have I been unkind to you?"

"It ain't me you're either kind or yet unkind to," she told him. "It's Aunt Milly's niece: you're a little crazy on that head, I guess. It's Aunt Milly's niece you aim to marry to that nephew of yours. If I was just me myself without bein' any kin to her, you wouldn't wipe your old shoes on me." She gave him a clear, level look. "Let's don't have any lies about this thing," she begged. "I'm a poor hand for lies. I know, and I want you should know I know, and deal with me honest."

She surprised him. Her next question surprised him even more.

"What about my weddin'-dress?" she demanded. "I got nothin' fittin' to be married in."

"I should think a plain, tailored suit—" he began.

"Then you got another think comin' to you," she said, in a hard voice. "I got nothin' to do with pickin' out the groom: you fixed that to suit yourself. But I don't let no man alive pick out my dress. I want a weddin'-dress. I want one I want myself. I want it should be white satin' an' real bride-like. I've saw pictures of brides, an' I know what's due 'em. I ain't goin' to resemble just me myself, standin' up to be married in a coat-suit you get some floor-walker to pick out for me. White satin or nothin'. An' a veil and white satin slippers."

He looked at her helplessly. "White satin, my dear? And a veil?"

"Yes, sir. An' a shower bokay," said she, firmly. "I got to insist on the shower bokay. If I got to be a bride I'll be my kind of bride and not yours."

"My dear child, of course, of course. You shall choose your own frock," said he, hastily. "Only—under the circumstances, I can't help thinking that something plain, something quite plain and simple, would be more in keeping."

"With me? 'T wouldn't, neither. It'd be something fierce, an' I won't stand for it. I don't mind bein' buried in somethin' plain, but I won't get married in it. Ain't it hard enough as it is, without me havin' to feel more horrid than what I do already? I want something to make me feel better about it, and there ain't anything can do that except it's a dress I want myself."

Mr. Champneys capitulated, horse and foot.

"We will go to some good shop immediately after lunch, and you shall choose your own wedding-dress," he promised, resignedly, marveling at the psychology of women.

It was a very fine forenoon, with a hint of coming autumn in the air. Even an imminent bridegroom couldn't altogether dampen the delight of whizzing through those marvelous streets in a taxi. Then came the even more marvelous world of the department store, which, "by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches, in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel," put one in mind of the great fairs of Tyre when Tyre was a prince of the sea, as set forth in the Twenty-seventh Chapter of Ezekiel.

Nancy would have been tempted to marry Bluebeard himself for the sake of some of the "rich apparel" that obliging saleswomen were setting forth for her inspection. Getting married began to assume a rosier aspect, due probably to the reflection of the filmy and lacy miracles that she might have for the mere choosing. She would almost have been willing to be hanged, let alone married, in a pink-silk combination.

The saleswomen scented mystery and romance here. The girl was no beauty, but then, she was astonishingly young; and the old gentleman was very distinguished-looking—quite a personage. They thought at first that he was the prospective bridegroom; learning that he wasn't deepened the mystery but didn't destroy the romance. Americans are all but hysterically sentimental. Sentimentality is a national disease, which rages nowhere more virulently than among women clerks. Would they rush through the necessary alterations, set an entire force to work overtime, if necessary, in order to have that girl's wedding-dress at her hotel on time? Wouldn't they, though! And they did. Gown, gloves, veil, shoes, fan, everything; all done up with the most exquisite care in reams of soft tissue paper.

She was to be married on the noon of Wednesday. On Tuesday night Nancy locked her door, opened her boxes, and spread her wedding finery on her bed. The dress was a magnificent one, as magnificent a dress as a great store can turn out; its lines had been designed by a justly famous designer. There was a slip, with as much lace as could be put upon one garment; such white satin slippers as she had never hoped to wear; and the texture of the silk stockings almost made her shout for joy. Achilles was vulnerable in the heel: fly, O man, from the woman who is indifferent to the lure of a silk stocking!

Nancy got into her kimono and turned on the hot water in her bath. At Baxters' there had never been enough hot water with which to wash the dishes, not to mention Nancy herself. Here there was enough to scald all the dishes—and the people—on earth, it seemed to her. She could hardly get used to the delight and the luxury of all the hot water and scented soap and clean towels she wanted, in a bath-room all to herself. Think of not having to wait one's turn, a very limited turn at that, in a spotted tin tub set in a five-by-seven hole in the wall, with an unshaded gas-jet sizzling about a foot above one's head! The shower-bath was to her an adventure—like running out in the rain, when one was a child. She couldn't get into the tub, and slide down into the warm, scented water, without a squeal of pleasure.

She skipped back to her bedroom, red as a boiled lobster, a rope of damp red hair hanging down her back, sat down on the floor, and drew on those silk stockings, and loved them from a full heart. She wiggled her toes ecstatically.

"O Lord!" sighed Nancy, fervently, "I wish You'd fix it so's folks could walk on their hands for a change! My feet are so much prettier than my face!"

Slipping on the satin slippers, she teetered over and reverently touched the satin frock. All these glories for her, Nancy Simms, who had worn Mrs. Baxter's wretched old clothes cut down for her!

She was afraid to refold the dress, almost afraid to touch it, lest she rumple it. It looked so shining, so lustrous, so fairy-like and glorious and almost impossible, glistening there on her bed! Carefully she smoothed a fold, slightly awry. Reverently she placed the thin tulle veil beside it, as well as the rest of her Cinderella finery, including the satin slippers and the fine silk stockings which her soul loved.

She took the two pillows off her bed, secured two huge bath-towels from her bath-room by way of a mattress and a coverlet; and with a last passionate glance at the splendors of her wedding-frock, and never a thought for the unknown groom because of whom she was to don it, the bride switched off her light, curled herself up like a cat, and in five minutes was sound asleep on the floor.



CHAPTER X

THE DEAR DAM-FOOL

"Dis place," said Emma Campbell, as the snaggle-toothed sky-line of New York unfolded before her staring eyes, "ain't never growed up natchel out o' de groun'; it done tumbled down out o' de sky en got busted uneven in de fall."

Clinging to the bird-cage in which her cat Satan crouched, she further remarked, as the taxi snaked its sinuous way toward the quarters which a friendly waiter on the steamship had warmly recommended to her:

"All I scared ob is, dat dis unforchunit cat 's gwine to lose 'is min'. Seein' places like dis is 'nough to make any natchel cat run crazy."

Whereupon Emma relapsed into a colossal silence. She was fed up on surprises and they were palling upon her palate, which fortunately wasn't down. Things had been happening so fast that she couldn't keep step with them. To begin with, Peter had preferred to come north by sea, and although Emma had been raised on the coast, although she was used to the capricious tide-water rivers which this morning may be lamb-like and to-night raging lions, although she had crossed Caliboga Sound in rough weather and been rolled about like a ninepin, that had been, so to speak, near the shore-line. This was different: here was more water than Emma had thought was in the entire world; and she had been assured that this wasn't a bucketful to what she was yet to see! Emma fell back upon silent prayer.

Then had come this astounding city jutting jaggedly into the clouds, and through whose streets poured in a never-ceasing, turgid flow all the peoples of the earth. And, more astounding than waterful sea and peopleful city, was the last, crowning bit of news: Peter was going to be married! And he didn't know the young lady he was to marry, except that she was a Miss Anne Simms. He knew no more about his bride than she, Emma, knew.

That was all Emma needed to reduce her to absolute befuddlement. When food and drink were placed before her, she partook of both, mechanically. If one spoke to her, she stared like a large black owl. And when Peter had driven away in the taxi, leaving her for the time being in the care of a highly respectable colored family, whose children, born and raised in New York, looked upon the old South Carolina woman as they might have looked upon a visitor from Mars, Emma shut and locked her door, took the cat out of his cage, cuddled him in her arms, tried to projeck,—and couldn't. The feel of Satan's soft, warm body comforted her inexpressibly. He, at least, was real in a shifting universe. She began to rock herself, slowly, rhythmically, back and forth. Then the New York negroes heard a shrill, sweet, wailing voice upraised in one of those speretuals in which Africa concentrates her ages of anguish into a half-articulate cry. In it were the voices of their fathers long gone, come back from the rice-fields and the cane-brakes and the cotton-rows, voices so sweet and plaintive that they were haunted.

"I we-ent out een de wilderness, En I fell upon—mah—knees, En I called upon—mah—Savior, Whut sh-all I do—for—save? He replied: Halleluian! Sinnuh, sing! Halleluian! Ma-ry, Mar-tha, halle— Hallelu— Halleluian!"

"Good Lord!" breathed the oldest boy, who was a high-school scholar.

"How weird and primitive!" said the daughter, who was to be a teacher.

But the father's eyes narrowed, and the hair of his scalp prickled. 'Way back yonder his mother had sung like that, and his heart leaped to it. If he hadn't been afraid of his educated and modern children, he would have wept. Emma didn't know that, of course. She kissed the big cat, placed him carefully on the bed, and lay down beside him in the attitude of a corpse. She was resigning herself to whatever should happen.

Peter, upon telephoning his uncle, had been advised to prowl about until noon, when they were to lunch together. Wherefore he found himself upon the top of a bus, rolling about New York, seeing that of which he had read. He didn't see it as Nancy saw it; the city appeared to him as might some subtle, hard, and fascinatingly plain woman whose face had flashes of piercing and unforgetable beauty, beauty unexpected and unlike any other. Unlike the beauty of the Carolina coast, say, which was a part of his consciousness, there was here something sinister and splendid.

He got off at the Metropolitan Museum. He wished to see with his own eyes some of those pictures Claribel Spring had described to him, among them Fortuny's "Spanish Lady." He stood for a dazzled interval before her, so disdainful, passionate, provocative, and so profoundly human. When he moved away, he sighed. He wasn't wondering if he himself should ever meet and love such a lady; but rather when he should be able so to portray in a human face all the secrets of the body and of the soul.

At lunch his uncle, remarking his earnest face, said regretfully:

"Oh, Peter, why couldn't you be content to be a rich man and play the game according to Hoyle? Art? Of course! You could afford to buy the best any of 'em could do, instead of trying to sell something you do yourself. Art is a rich man's recreation. Artists exist in order that rich men may buy their wares."

"Rich men were invented for the use of poor artists: it's the only excuse they have for existing at all, that I can see," said Peter, composedly.

"But you'd have a so much better time buying, than selling—or rather, trying to sell," said one of the rich men, smiling good-humoredly.

"I'll have a better time working, than in either buying or selling," said Peter, and looked at his uncle with uncompromising eyes.

Mr. Chadwick Champneys sighed, face to face with Champneys obstinacy. Peter would keep his promise to the letter, but aside from that he would live his own life in his own way.

He had stared, and his jaw dropped, when he was calmly informed that Peter intended to take old Emma Campbell and a black cat along with him. Then he had laughed, almost hysterically, and incidentally discovered that being laughed at didn't move Peter in the least; he was too used to it. He allowed you to laugh at him, smiled a bit wryly himself, and went right ahead doing exactly what he had set out to do. This sobered Mr. Champneys.

"Peter," said he, after a pause, "allow me to ask you a single question: do you propose to go through life toting old niggers and black cats?"

"Uncle Chad," replied Peter, "do you remember how sweet potatoes roasted in the ashes of a colored person's fire used to taste, when you were a little boy?"

A reminiscent glow spread over Uncle Chad's face. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and stared under it at Peter. Something quizzical and tender was in that look.

"I see you do," said Peter, with the same look. "Well, Uncle Chad, Emma used to roast those potatoes—and provide them too. Sometimes they were all the dinner I had. Besides," mused Peter, "when all's said and done, nobody has more than a few friends from his cradle to his grave. If I've got two, and they don't want to part with me, why should they have to?"

Mr. Chadwick Champneys spread out his hands. "Put like that," he admitted, "why should they, indeed! Take 'em along if you like, Nephew." And of a sudden he laughed again. "Oh, Peter!" he gasped, "you dear dam-fool!"

Peter had a strenuous afternoon. Reservations had to be secured for Emma, for whom he also purchased a long coat and a steamer rug. He himself had to have another suit: his uncle protested vehemently against the nice new one he had bought in Charleston.

At dusk he watched New York's lights come out as suddenly and as goldenly as evening primroses. Riverton drowsing among its immemorial oaks beside the salty tide-water, the stars reflected in its many coves, the breath of the pines mingling with the wild breath of the sea sweeping through it, the little, deserted brown house left like a last year's nest close to the water—how far removed they were from this glittering giantess and her pulsating power! The electric lights winked and blinked, the roar of traffic arose in a multitudinous hum; and all this light and noise, the restless stir of an immense life, went to the head like wine.

The streets were fiercely alive. Among the throngs of well-dressed people one caught swift glimpses of furtive, hurrying figures, and faces that were danger signals. More than once a few words hissed into Peter's ears made him turn pale.

It was nearing midnight, and the street was virtually empty, when a girl who had looked at him sharply in passing turned and followed him, and after a glance about to see that no policeman was in sight, stepped to his side and touched him on the elbow. Peter paused, and his heart contracted. He had seen among the negroes the careless unmorality as of animals. There was nothing of the prude in him, but, perhaps because all his life there had been a Vision before his eyes, he had retained a singularly untroubled mental chastity. His mind was clean with the cleanliness of knowledge. He could not pretend to misunderstand the girl. She was nothing but a child in years. The immaturity of her body showed through her extreme clothes, and even her sharp, painted little face was immature, for all its bold nonchalance. She was smiling; but one sensed behind her deliberate smile a wolfish anxiety.

"Ain't you lonesome?" she asked, fluttering her eyelids, and giving the young man a sly, upward glance.

"No," said Peter, very gently.

"Aw, have a heart! Can't you stand a lady somethin' to eat an' maybe somethin' to drink?"

The boy looked at her gravely and compassionately. Although her particular type was quite new to him, he recognized her for what she was, a member of the oldest profession, the strange woman "whose mouth is smoother than oil, but whose feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell." Somehow he could not connect those terrible words with this sharp-featured, painted child. There was nothing really evil about her except the brutal waste of her.

"Will ten dollars be enough for you?" asked Peter. The wolfish look in her eyes hurt him. He felt ashamed and sad.

"Sure! Come on!" said she, and her face lighted.

"Thank you, I have had my dinner," said Peter. But she seized his arm and hurried him down a side street, willy-nilly. "Seen a cop out of the tail of my eye," she explained, hurriedly. "They're fierce, some of them cops. I can't afford to be took up."

When they had turned the corner, Peter stopped, and took out his pocket-book. With another searching glance at her, he handed her one five, and two ten-dollar bills. Perhaps that might save her—for a while at least. He lifted his hat, bowed, and had started to walk away, when she ran after him and clutched him by the arm.

"Take back that fiver," said she, "an' come and eat with me. If you got a heart, come an' eat with me. I know a little place we can get somethin' decent: it's a dago caffay, but it's clean an' decent enough. Will you come?" Her voice was shaking; he could see her little body trembling.

"But why?" he asked, hesitatingly.

"Not for no reason, except I—I got to make myself believe you're real!" She said it with a gasp.

Peter fell in beside her and she led the way. The small restaurant to which she piloted him wasn't pretentious, but it was, as she had said, clean, and the food was excellent.

She said her name was Gracie Cantrell, and Peter took her word for it. While she was eating she discoursed about herself, pleased at the interest this odd, dark-faced young fellow with the soft, drawling voice seemed to take in her. She had begun in a box factory, she told him. And then she'd been a candy-dipper. Now, you work in a lowered atmosphere in order not to spoil your chocolate. For which reason candy-dippers, like all the good, are likely to die young. Seven of the girls in Gracie's department "got the T.B." That made Gracie pause to think, and the more she thought about it, the clearer it seemed to her that if one has to have a short life, one might at least make a bid for a merrier one than candy-dipping. So she made her choice. The short life and merry, rather than the T.B. and charity.

"And has it been so merry, Gracie?" asked Peter, looking at the hard young face wonderingly.

"Well, it's been heaps better than choc'late-dippin'," said Gracie, promptly. "I don't get no worse treated, when all's said an' done. I've got better clothes an' more time an' I don't work nothin' like so hard. An' I got chanst to see things. You don't see nothin' in the fact'ry. Say I feel like goin' to the movies, or treatin' myself to a ice-cream soda or a choc'late a-clair, why, I can do it without nobody's leave—when I'm lucky. You ain't ever lucky in the fact'ry: you never have nothin', see? So I'd rather be me like I am than be me back in the fact'ry."

"And do you always expect to be—lucky?" Peter winced at the word.

"I can't afford to think about that," she replied, squinting at the red ink in her glass. "You got to run your risks an' take your chances. All I know is, I'll have more and see more before I die. An' I won't die no sooner nor no painfuller than if I'd stayed on in the fact'ry."

Peter admitted to himself that she probably wouldn't. Also, that he had nothing to say, where Gracie was concerned. He felt helpless in the face of it—as helpless as he had felt one June morning long ago when he had seen old Daddy Neptune praying, after a night of horror, to a Something or a Somebody blind and indifferent. And it seemed to him that life pressed upon him menacingly, as if he and Neptune and this lost child of the New York streets had been caught like rats in a trap.

The girl, on her part, had been watching him with painful intensity.

"You're a new one on me," she told him frankly. "I feel like pinchin' you to see if you're real. Say, tell me: if you're real, are you the sort of guy that'd give twenty-five dollars, for nothin', to a girl he picked up in the street? Or, are you just a softy fool that a girl that picks him up in the streets can trim? There's more of him than the first sort," she finished.

"You must judge that for yourself," said Peter. "I may tell you, though, that I am quite used to being called a fool," he finished, tranquilly.

"So?" said she, after another long look. "Well, I—what I mean to say is, I wish to God there was more fools like you. If there was, there'd be less fools like me." After a pause she asked, in a subdued voice:

"You expect to stay in this town long?"

"I leave in the morning."

"I'm sorry," said she. "Not," she added hastily, "that I want to touch you for more money or anything like that, I don't. But I—well, I'd like to know you was livin' in the same town, see?"

Peter saw. But again he had nothing to say. Young as he was, he knew the absurdity of all talk of reform to such as Gracie. As things are they can't reform, they can't even be prevented. He looked at her, thoughtfully.

"I'm not only leaving New York, I'm leaving America to-morrow," he said at last. "I wish there was something I could do for you."

She shook her head. Her little painted face looked pinched. There were shadows under the eyes that should have been soft and dewy. "You can't do nothin'. I'll tell you why. Somehow—I—I'd like you to know."

And she sat there and told him.

"You see?" said she, when she had finished.

"I see," said Peter; and the hand that held his cigarette trembled. The thing that struck him most forcibly was the stupid waste of it all.

"Look here, Gracie," he said at last, "if you ever get—very unlucky—and things are too hard for you—sort of last ditch, you know,—I want you to go to a certain address. It's to my uncle," he explained, seeing her look blank. "You'll send in the card I'm going to give you, and you will say I sent you. He'll probably investigate you, you know. But you just tell him the truth, and say I told you he'd help. Will you do that!"

She in her turn reflected, watching Peter curiously. Then she fell to tracing patterns on the table-cloth with the point of her knife.

"All right," she said. "If ever I have to, an' I can find him, I will—an' say you sent me."

Peter took out his pocket memorandum, wrote his uncle's name and the address of the house in the Seventies which he was presently to occupy, added, "I wish you'd do what you can, for my sake," and signed it. He handed the girl the slip of paper, and she thrust it into her low-necked blouse.

"And now," he finished kindly, "you'd better go home, Gracie, go to bed, and sleep." He held out his brown hand, and she, rising from her chair, gripped his fingers as a child might have done, and looked at him with dog's eyes.

"Good-by!" said she, huskily. "You are real, ain't you?"

"Damnably so," admitted Peter. "Good-by, then, Gracie." And he left her standing by the table, the empty wine-glass before her. The streets stretched before him emptily.—That poor, done-for kid! What is one to do for these Gracies?

"Mister! For God's sake! I'm hungry!" a hoarse voice accosted him. A dirty hand was held out.

Mechanically Peter's hand went to his pocket, found a silver dollar, and held it out. The dirty hand snatched it, and without so much as a thank you the man rushed into a near-by bakery. Peter shuddered.

When he reached his room, he sat for a long time before his open window, and stared at the myriads and myriads of lights. From the streets far below came a subdued, ceaseless drone, as if the huge city stirred uneasily in her sleep—perhaps because she dreamed of the girls she prostituted and the men she starved. And it was like that everywhere. If the great cities gave, they also took, wastefully. Peter was tormented, confronted by the inexorable question:

"What am I going to do about it?"

He couldn't answer, any more than any other earnest and decent boy could answer, whose whole and sole weapon happened to be a paint-brush. One thing he resolved: he wouldn't add to the sum total; nobody should be the worse off because he had lived. So thinking, the bridegroom fell asleep.

When he awoke in the morning, he lay for a moment staring at the strange ceiling overhead; his mind had an uneasy consciousness that something impended. Then he sat up suddenly in his bed, and clutched his head in his hands.

"Lord have mercy on me!" cried Peter. "I've got to get up and get married!"

By ten o'clock his luggage was on its way to the steamer. Dressed in his new clothes, ring and license carefully tucked away in his pocket, Peter took an hour off and jumped on a bus. It delighted him to roll around the streets on top of a bus. He felt that he could never see enough of this wonderful, terrible, beautiful, ugly, cruel, and kind city. Everywhere he turned, something was being torn down or up, something was being demolished or replaced. New York was like an inefficient and yet hard-working housekeeper, forever house-cleaning; her house was never in order, and probably never would be, hence this endless turmoil. Yet, somehow, Peter liked it. She wasn't satisfied with things as they were.

He stopped at Grant's Tomb, looked at the bronze tablet commemorating the visit of Li Hung Chang, then went inside and stared reflectively at the torn and dusty flags.

"It was worth the price," he decided. "But," he added, with a certain deep satisfaction, "I'm glad we gave them a run for their money while we were at it!" The Champneyses, one remembers, were on the other side.

When he got back to his hotel the car that his uncle had sent for him had just arrived. Deferential help brought out his remaining belongings, were tipped, and stood back while the door was slammed upon the departing one. The car was held up for seven minutes on Forty-second Street, while Peter leaned forward to get his first view of congested traffic. He had once seen two Ford cars and an ox-cart tie up the Riverton Road.

Arrived at Emma Campbell's quarters, he found her sitting stiffly erect, her foot upon her new suit-case, her new cloak over her arm, and the bird-cage under her hand. The expressman who had called for her trunk early that morning had good-naturedly offered to carry the bird-cage along with it, but Emma had flatly refused to let the cat get out of her sight. Even when she climbed into the car she held fast to the cage.

"I don't say nothin' 'bout me. All I scared ob is, dat dis unforchnate cat's gwine to lose 'is min' before we-all finishes up."

It was with difficulty that Peter persuaded her to leave the cage in the car when they reached his uncle's hotel.

"Mistuh," said Emma to the chauffeur, "is you-all got any fambly dependin' on you?"

"One wife. Three kids," said the chauffeur, briefly.

"I ain't de kin' ob lady whut makes threats agin' a gent'man," said Emma, looking him unblinklngly in the eye. "All I says is, dat I started whah I come fum wid dat cat an' I 'specks to lan' up whah I 's gwine to wid dat same cat in dat same cage. Bein' as you 's got dem chillun en dat wife, I calls yo' 'tenshun to dat fac', suh."

The chauffeur, a case-hardened pirate, laughed. "All right, lady," said he, genially. "It ain't in my line to granny cats, but that one will be the apple of me good eye until you git back. I wouldn't like the missus to be a widder: she's too darn good-lookin'."

With her mind at ease on this point, Emma consented to leave Satan in the car and follow Peter. Emma looked resplendently respectable, and she knew it. She was dressed as well as if she had expected to be buried. By innate wisdom she had retained the snowy head-handkerchief under her sailor hat, and she wore her big gold hoop-earrings. Smart colored servants were common enough at that hotel, but one did not often see such as this tall and erect old woman in her severe black-and-white. Emma belonged almost to another day and generation, although her face, like the faces of many old colored women, was unwrinkled. She had a dignity that the newer generation lacks, and a pride unknown to them.

Peter and Emma went up in an elevator and were ushered into a private sitting-room, where were awaiting them Mr. Chadwick Champneys, a gentleman who was obviously a clergyman, another who was as obviously a member of the Bar, and the latter's wife, a very handsome lady handsomely and expensively panoplied. There was the usual hand-shaking, as Peter was introduced, and the handsome lady stared openly at Emma; one doesn't often see a bridegroom come in accompanied by an old colored woman. Emma courtesied, with the inimitable South Carolina bending of the knees, and then took a modest seat in the background and faded into it. She had good manners, had Emma.

Mr. Champneys glanced at his watch, and presently left the room. The clergyman, book in hand, stepped into the middle of the floor, and looked importantly religious. The lawyer smilingly invited Peter to take his place beside him. Everybody assumed a solemn look.

And then the door opened and the bride appeared, leaning on her uncle's arm. Emma Campbell, leaning forward, got one glimpse of the face but slightly concealed by the thin, floating tulle veil pinned on with a wreath of orange-blossoms, caught one gleam from the narrowed eyes; and her own eyes bulged in her head, her mouth fell open. Emma wished to protest, to cry, to pray aloud.

The bride was magnificently dressed, in a gown that was much too elaborate for her angular and undeveloped young figure. It made her look over-dressed and absurd to a pitiful degree, as if she were masquerading. The hair-dresser whom she had called to her aid had done her worst. Nancy had an unusual quantity of hair, and it had been curled and frizzed, and puffed and pulled, until the girl's head appeared twice its natural size. Through the fine lace of her sleeves were visible her thin, sunburned arms. Her naturally dark eyebrows had been accentuated, and there was a bright red patch on each cheek, her lips being equally crimson. Out of the rouged and powdered face crowned by towering red hair, the multitude of freckles showed defiantly, two fierce eyes lowered.

As Peter met the stare of those narrowed eyes, to save his life he couldn't keep from showing his downright consternation. His aversion and distaste were so manifest, that a deeper red than rouge stained the girl's cheek and mottled her countenance. Her impulse was to raise her hand and strike him across his wincing mouth.

What Nancy saw was a tall, thin, shambling young fellow whose face was pale with an emotion not at all complimentary to herself. He didn't like her! He thought her hideous! He despised her! So she read Peter's expressive eyes. She thought him a fool, to stand there staring at her like that, and she hated him. She detested him. Puppy!

She saw his glance of piteous entreaty, and Mr. Chadwick Champneys's bland, blind ignoring of its silent reproach and appeal. And then the long-legged young fellow pulled himself together. His head went up, his mouth hardened, and his voice didn't shake when he promised to cherish and protect her, until death did them part.

All the while Peter felt that he was struggling in a hideous dream. That bride in white satin wasn't real; his uncle wouldn't play him such a trick! Peter cringed when the defiant voice of the girl snapped her "I do" and "I will."

The clergyman's voice had trailed off. He was calling her "Mrs. Champneys." And Mr. Vandervelde and his handsome wife were shaking hands with her and Peter, and saying pleasant, polite, conventional things to them both. She signed a paper. And that old nigger-woman kept staring at her; but Peter avoided meeting her eyes. And her uncle was saying that she must change her frock now, my dear: Peter's boat sailed within the hour, remember. And then she was back in her room, tearing off the dress that only last night she had so fondly fingered.

It lay on the floor in a shimmering heap, and she trampled on it. She had torn the tulle veil and orange-blossoms from her hair, and she stamped on those, too. The maid who had been engaged to help her stood aghast when the bride kicked her wedding-gown across the room. She folded it with shaking hands and smoothed the torn veil as best she could. The beautiful lace-and-ivory fan was snapped and torn beyond hope of salvage. Nancy tossed it from her. With round eyes the maid watched her tear hair-pins out of her hair, rush into the bath-room, and with furious haste belabor her head with a wet brush to remove the fatal frizzings; but the work had been too thoroughly done to hope to remove all traces of it so easily. Nancy brushed it as best she could, and then rolled it into a stout coil on the top of her head. Her satin slippers came hurtling across the room as she kicked them off, and the maid caught them on the fly.

Back into the bath-room again, and the maid could hear her splashing around, as she scrubbed her face. When she came out, it was brick-red, but powderless and paintless. She got into her blue tailored suit without assistance, and, sitting on the floor, buttoned her shoes with her own fingers, to the maid's disgust. Then she jerked on her hat, stuck a hat-pin through it carelessly, snatched up gloves and hand-bag, and was ready for departure. The expression of her face at that moment sent the maid cowering against the wall, and tied her tongue; the bride looked as if she were quite capable of pitching an officious helper out of a ten-story window.

"My God!" said the girl to herself, as Nancy, without so much as a word or a look in her direction, slammed the door behind her. "My God, if that poor fellow that's just been married to her was any kin to me, I'd have a High Mass said for his soul!"

The brick-red apparition that swept into the room put the final touch upon Peter's dismay. He thought her the most unpleasant human being he had ever encountered, and almost the ugliest. The Vanderveldes had taken the clergyman off in their car, and only Peter, his uncle, and Emma remained.

"I'm ready!" snapped the bride. She didn't glance at the bridegroom, but the look she bestowed upon Emma made that doughty warrior quail. Emma conceived a mortal terror of Peter's wife. She took the place of the Boogerman and of ha'nts.

Chadwick Champneys had his hand on his nephew's shoulder, and was talking to him in a low and very earnest voice—rather like a clergyman consoling a condemned man with promises of heaven after hanging. Peter received his uncle's assurances in resigned silence.

Two cars were waiting outside the hotel for the wedding-party. As Emma Campbell stepped into the one that was to convey her and Peter to the boat, Nancy saw her stoop and lift a large bird-cage containing, of all things, an immense black cat, which mewed plaintively at sight of her. It was the final touch of grotesqueness upon her impossible wedding. The two Champneyses wrung hands silently. The older man said a few words to the colored woman, and shook hands with her, too.

Then the two cars were rolling away, Nancy sitting silent beside her uncle. At the corner Peter's vanished. The bride hoped from the bottom of her heart that she would never lay eyes upon her bridegroom again. She didn't exactly wish him any harm, greatly as she disliked him, but she felt that if he would go away and die he would be doing her a personal favor.

Peter and Emma made their boat ten minutes before the gang-plank was pulled in. A steward took Emma in charge, and carried off the bird-cage containing Satan. Emma, who had been silent during the drive to the pier, opened her mouth now:

"Mist' Peter," said she, "ef yo' uncle 's wuth a million dollars, he ought to tun it over to you dis mawnin'. 'T ain't for me," said Emma, beginning to tremble, "to talk 'bout Mis' Champneys whut you done got married to. But I used to know Miss Maria. And dat 's how-come," finished Emma, irrelevantly, "dat 's how-come I mighty glad we 's gwine to furrin folkses' countries, whichin I hopes to Gawd dey 's a mighty long way off fum dat gal." And Peter's heart echoed Emma's sentiments so fully that he couldn't find it in him to reprove her for giving utterance to them.

With a sense of relief, he watched New York receding from his sight. Hadn't he paid too high a price, after all? Remembering his bride's eyes, pure terror assailed him. No woman had ever looked at Peter like that before. He tried to keep from feeling bitter toward his uncle. Well! He was in for it! He would make his work his bride, by way of compensation. For all that he was a bridegroom of an hour or so, and a seeker bound upon the quest of his heart's desire, Peter turned away from the steamer's railing with a very heavy heart.

A tall, fair-faced woman turned away from the railing at the same instant, and their eyes met. Hers were brightly, bravely blue, and they widened with astonishment at sight of Peter Champneys. She stared, and gasped. Peter stared, and gasped, too.

"Miss Claribel!" cried Peter.

"Mrs. Hemingway," she corrected, smiling. "It isn't—Yes, it is, too! Peter! Oh, that Red Admiral is a fairy!"



CHAPTER XI

HIS GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE

"It is rather wonderful to turn around and find you here, Peter,—and to find you so unchanged. Because you haven't changed, really; you've just grown up," said Mrs. Hemingway, holding his hand. Her face was excited and glad. "I should have known you instantly, anywhere."

"I am told my legs are quite unmistakable. Some have said I appear to be walking on fishing-poles," said Peter.

Mrs. Hemingway laughed. "They seem to be good, long, serviceable legs," she said, gaily. "But it is your eyes I recognized, Peter. One couldn't mistake your eyes."

Peter smiled at her gratefully. "The really wonderful thing is that you should remember me at all," he told her happily, and his face glowed. That her reappearance should be timed to the outset of his great adventure into life seemed highly significant. One might almost consider it an omen.

As if they had parted but yesterday, they were able to resume their old sympathetic friendship, with its satisfying sense of comradely understanding. Her heart warmed to him now as it had warmed to the shabby boy she had first seen running after the Red Admiral in the fields beyond the river swamp. No, she reflected appraisingly, he had not changed. He had somehow managed to retain a certain quality of childlikeness that made her feel as if she were looking through crystal. She was grateful that no contact had been able to blunt it, that it remained undimmed and serene.

Briefly and rather baldly Peter outlined his years of struggle, dismissing their bleak hardships with a tolerant smile. What he seemed chiefly to remember was the underlying kindness and good humor of the folk back there in Riverton; if they had ever failed to be kind, it was because they hadn't understood, he thought. There was no resentment in him. Why, they were his own folks! His mother's grave was one of their graves, his name one of their names, their traditions and heritages were part and parcel of himself. The tide-water was in his blood; his flesh was dust of the South Carolina coast.

She saw that, while he was speaking. And against the vivid, colorful coast background she caught haunting glimpses of a tireless small figure toiling, sweating, always moving toward a far-off goal as with the inevitable directness of a fixed law. She marveled at the patience of his strength, and she loved his gentleness, his sweetness that had a flavor of other-worldliness in it.

He was telling her now of Chadwick Champneys and how his coming had changed things. But of the price he had had to pay he said nothing. He tried not to think of the bride his uncle had forced upon him, though her narrowed eyes, her red hair, her mouth set in a hard red line haunted him like a nightmare. His soul revolted against such a mockery of marriage. He could imagine his mother's horror, and he was glad Maria Champneys slept beside the husband of her youth in the cemetery beside the Riverton Road. She wouldn't have asked him to pay such a price, not for all the Champneyses dead and gone! But Chadwick Champneys had held him to his bargain, had forced him to give his name, his father's name, of which his mother had been so proud.

Peter smarted with humiliation. It was as if he had been bought and sold, and he writhed under the disgrace of such bondage. He felt the helpless anger of one who realizes he has been shamefully swindled, yet is powerless to redress his injury; and what added insult to injury was that a Champneys, his father's brother, had inflicted it.

Yet he had no faintest notion of breaking or even evading his pledged word; such a thought never once occurred to him. He meant to live up to the letter of his bargain; his honor would compel him to fulfil his obligation scrupulously and exactly.

"And so my uncle and I came to terms," he told Mrs. Hemingway. And he added conscientiously: "He is very liberal. He insisted upon placing to my credit what he says I'll need, but what seems to me too much. And so here I am," he finished.

"Yes, here you are. It had to be," said she, thoughtfully. "It's your fate, Peter."

"It had to be. It's my fate," agreed Peter.

"And that nice, amusing old colored woman who kept house for you—what became of her?"

"Emma? Oh, she wouldn't stay behind, so she came along with me. And she couldn't leave the cat, so he came along, too," said Peter, casually.

Mrs. Hemingway laughed as his uncle had laughed.

"There's an odd turn to your processes, Peter," she commented. "One sees that you'll never be molded into a human bread pill! I'm glad we've met again. I think you're going to need me. So I'm going to look after you."

"I have needed you every day since you left," he told her.

He didn't as yet know what deep cause he had to feel grateful for Mrs. John Hemingway's promise to look after him; he didn't as yet know what an important person she was in the American colony in Paris, as well as in certain very high circles of French society itself. And what was true of her in Paris was also true of her in London. Mrs. John Hemingway's promise to look after a young man hall-marked him. She was more beautiful and no less kind than of old, and absence had not had the power to change his feelings for her. As simply and whole-heartedly as he had loved her then, he loved her now. So he looked at her with shining eyes. Reticence was ingrained in Peter, but the knowledge that she liked and understood him had the effect of sunlight upon him.

"He's as simple as the Four Gospels," she thought, "and as elemental as the coast country itself. One couldn't spoil him any more than one could spoil the tide-water.

"Yes, indeed! I'm going to look after you," she repeated.

He discovered, from what she herself chose to tell him, that there had been some unpleasant years for her too. But that had all ended when she married John Hemingway, then with a New York firm and later sent abroad to represent the interests of the company of which he was now a member. His chief office was in Paris, though he had to spend considerable time in London. When she spoke of John Hemingway his wife's face glowed with quiet radiance. The one drop of bitterness in her cup was that there were no children.

"I hope you marry young, Peter, and that there'll be a houseful of little Champneys," she said, and sighed a bit enviously.

At that the face of Mrs. Peter Champneys rose before her bridegroom and the very soul of him winced and cringed. He averted his face, staring seaward.

"I know so many charming young girls," said Mrs. Hemingway, musingly, as if she were speaking to herself.

"They don't come any prettier than they come in Riverton," Peter parried. "And you're to remember I'm coming over here to work."

"I'll remember," said she, smiling. "But all the same, I mean you to go about it the right way. I'm going to introduce you to some very delightful people, Peter."

Then Peter took her to see Emma Campbell and the cat.

Emma would have crawled into her berth and stayed there until the ship docked if it hadn't been for the cat. Satan had to be given a daily airing; he had to be looked after by some one she could trust, and Emma rose to the occasion. She crawled out of her berth and on deck, where, steamer rug over her knees, her head tightly bound in a spotless white head-handkerchief, she sat with her hand on the big bird-cage set upon a camp-stool next her chair.

"I don' say one Gawd's word about me, dough I does feel lak I done swallahed my own stummick. All I scared of is dat dis po' unforch'nate cat 's gwine to lose 'is min' befo' we-all lan's," she told Mrs. Hemingway, and cast a glance of deep distaste at the tumbling world of waters around her. Emma didn't like the sea at all. There was much too much of it.

"I got a feelin' heart for ole man Noah," she concluded pensively.

When they sighted the Irish coast, Emma discovered a deep sense of gratitude to the Irish: no matter what they didn't have, they did have land; and land and plenty of it, land that you could walk on, was what Emma craved most in this world. When they presently reached England, she was so glad to feel solid earth under her feet once more that she was jubilant.

"Cat, we-all is saved!" she told Satan. "You en me is chillun o' Israel come thoo de Red Sea. We-all got a mighty good Gawd, cat!"

They went up to London with Mrs. Hemingway, and were met by Hemingway himself, who gave Peter Champneys an entirely new conception of the term "business man." Peter knew rice- and cotton- and stock-men, even a provincial banker or two—all successful men, within their limits. But this big, quiet, vital man hadn't any limits, except those of the globe itself. A tall, fair man with a large head, decided features, chilly gray eyes, and an uncompromising mouth adorned with a short, stiff mustache, his square chin was cleft by an incomprehensible dimple. His wife declared she had married him because of that cleft; it gave her an object in life to find out what it meant.

Hemingway studied Peter curiously. He had a great respect for his wife's nice and discriminating judgment, and it was plain that this long-legged, unpretentious young man was deeply in her good graces. Evidently, then, this chap must be more than a bit unusual. Going to be an artist, was he? Well, thank God, he didn't look as if he were afflicted with the artistic temperament; he looked as if he were capable of hard work, and plenty of it.

People liked to say that John Hemingway was a fine example of the American become a cosmopolitan. As a matter of fact, Hemingway wasn't. He liked Europe, but in his heart he wearied of its over-sophistication, its bland diplomacy. His young countryman's unspoiled truthfulness delighted him. He was proud of it. A man trained to judge men, he perceived this cub's potential strength. That he should so instantly like his wife's protege raised that charming lady's fine judgment even higher in his estimation. A man always respects his wife's judgment more when it tallies with his own convictions.

The Hemingways insisted that Peter should spend some time in England. Mrs. Hemingway was going over to Paris presently, and he could accompany her. In the meantime she wanted him to meet certain English friends of hers. Peter was perfectly willing to wait. He was enchanted with London, and although he would have preferred to be turned foot-loose to prowl indefinitely, his affection for Mrs. Hemingway made him amenable to her discipline. At her command he went with Hemingway to the latter's tailor. To please her he duteously obeyed Hemingway's fastidious instructions as to habiliments. He overcame his rooted aversion to meeting strangers, and when bidden appeared in her drawing-room, and there met smart, clever, and noted London.

Hemingway thereafter marked his progress with amusement not unmixed with amazement. It came to him that there was a greater difference, a deeper divergence between himself and Peter than between Peter and these Britishers. The earmark of your coast-born South Carolinian is the selfsame, absolute sureness of himself, his place, his people, in the essential scheme of things. Wasn't he born in South Carolina? Hasn't he relatives in Charleston? Very well, then!

In Peter's case this essential sureness had developed into a courtesy so instinctive, a democracy so unaffectedly sincere, that it flavored his whole personality with a pleasing distinctiveness. The British do not expect their very young men to be too knowing or too fatally bright; they mark the promise rather than the performance of youth, and spaciously allow time for the process of development. And so Peter Champneys found himself curiously at home in democratically oligarchic England.

"I feel as if I were visiting my grandmother's house," he confided to a certain lady next whom he was seated at one of Mrs. Hemingway's small dinners.

"And where is your mother's house?" wondered the lady, who found herself attracted to him.

"Over home in Riverton," said Peter Champneys. And his face went wistful, remembering the little town with the tide-water gurgling in its coves, and its great oaks hung with long gray swaying moss, and the sinuous lines of the marshes against sky and water, and the smell of the sea—all the mellow magic of the coast that was Home. It didn't occur to him that an English lady mightn't know just where "over home in Riverton" might be. She was so great a lady that she didn't ask. She looked at him and said thoughtfully:

"I wonder if you wouldn't like to see an old place of ours. I'm having the Hemingways down for a week, and I should like you to come with them." And she added, with a charming smile: "As you are an artist, you'll like our gallery. There's a Rembrandt you should see."

Peter's eyes of a sudden went deep and golden, and their dazzling depths had so instant and so sweet a recognition that her heart leaped in answer. It was as if a young archangel had secretly signaled her in passing.

When the formal invitation arrived, Mrs. Hemingway was delighted with what she termed Peter's good fortune. The invitations to that house were coveted and prized she explained. Really, Peter Champneys was unusually lucky! She felt deeply gratified.

Peter hadn't known that there existed anywhere on earth anything quite so perfect as the life in a great English country house. He thought that perhaps the vanished plantation life of the old South might have approximated it. His delight in the fine old Tudor pile, in its ordered stateliness, its mellowed beauty, pleased his hostess and won the regard of the rather grumpy gentleman who happened to be her husband and its owner. To her surprise, he took Peter under his wing, and showed himself as much interested in this modest guest as he was ordinarily indifferent to many more important ones. It was his custom to take what he called a stroll before breakfast—a matter of a mere eight or ten miles, maybe—and he found to his hand a young man with walking legs, seeing eyes, and but a modicum of tongue. He showed Peter that country-side with the thoroughness of a boy birds'-nesting, as Peter had once showed the Carolina country-side to Claribel Spring. They went over the venerable house with the same thoroughness, and Peter sensed the owner's impersonally personal delight in the stewardship of a priceless possession. He held it in trust, and he loved it with a quiet passion that was as much a part of himself as was his English speech. Every now and then he would pause before some rusty sword, or maybe a tattered and dusty banner; and although he was of a very florid complexion, and his nose was even bigger than Peter's, in such moments there was that in the eye and brow, in the expression of the firm lips, that made him more than handsome in the young man's sight. Through him he glimpsed that something silent and large and fine that is England.