"She must instantly know," said the former, "what sort of a serpent she has in her service. If I were in her place I would never let that creature touch my baby again."

"Touch the baby!" exclaimed Mrs. Petter, "I wouldn't let her touch me. When a person with such a disposition begins on infants there is no knowing where she will stop. Of course I don't mean that she is dangerous to human life, but it seems to me horrible to have any one about us who would be looking at our muscles, and thinking about our bones, and wondering if they worked together properly, and if they would come apart easily. Ugh! It's like having a bat in the room."

Mrs. Cristie was not in the mood to give proper attention to the alarming facts which were laid before her by the two women, who found her sitting by the window in her room. It had been so short a time since she had come from the garden, and the blossom of the sweet pea, which she still held in her hand, had been so recently picked from its vine, that it was not easy for her to fix her mind upon the disqualifications of nurse-maids. Even the tale that was told her, intensified by the bitter feeling of Miss Rose, and embellished by the imagination of Mrs. Petter, did not have the effect upon her that was expected by the narrators. She herself had been a student of anatomy, and was still fond of it, and if she had been able properly to consider the subject at that moment, she might not have considered it a bad thing for Ida Mayberry to have the experience of which she had boasted.

But the young widow did not wish at that moment to think of her nurse-maid or even of her baby, and certainly not to give her attention to the tales of her landlady and the spinster from Lethbury.

"I must admit," she said, "that I cannot see that what you tell me is so very, very dreadful, but I will speak to Ida about it. I think she is apt to talk very forcibly, and perhaps imprudently, and does not always make herself understood."

This was said with an air of abstraction and want of interest which greatly irritated Miss Calthea. She had not even been thanked for what she had done. Mrs. Cristie had been very civil, and was evidently trying to be more so, but this was not enough for Miss Calthea.

"We considered it our duty," she said, with a decided rigidity of countenance, "to tell you what we know of that girl, and now we leave the matter with you"; which was a falsehood, if Miss Calthea was capable of telling one.

Then with much dignity she moved towards the door, and Mrs. Petter prepared to follow; but before going she turned with moist eyes towards Mrs. Cristie, and said:

"Indeed, indeed, you ought to be very careful; and no matter how you look at it, she is not fit for a nurse, as everybody can see. Make up your mind to send her away, and I'll go myself and get you a good one."

Glancing out of the door to see that the Lethbury lady was out of hearing, Mrs. Cristie said:

"You are very good, Mrs. Petter, and I know you wish me well, but tell me one thing; wasn't it Miss Rose who proposed that you should come to me with this story about Ida!"

"Of course I should have told you myself," said Mrs. Petter, "though I might have taken my time about it; but Calthea did not want to lose a minute, and said we must go right off and look for you. She was as mad as hops any way, for we were talking to Mr. Tippengray at the time, and Calthea does hate to be interrupted when she is talking to him. But don't you worry yourself any more than you can help, and remember my promise. I'll stick to it, you may count on that."

When Mrs. Cristie had been left to herself she gave enough time to the consideration of what had been told her to come to the following conclusion: "She shall not have him; I have made up my mind to that. Interrupted by Ida! Of course that is at the bottom of it." And having settled this matter, she relapsed into her former mood, and fell to thinking what she should do about the sweet-pea blossom.

She thought until the supper-bell rang, and then she rose and with a pretty smile and flush upon her face, which showed that her thoughts had not in the least worried her, she put the sweet-pea blossom into a little jar which she had brought from Florence, and which was just big enough for one small flower.

At supper Walter Lodloe was very quiet and very polite, and Mrs. Cristie, who was opposite to him, though not at all quiet, was also very polite, but bestowed her attention almost entirely upon Mr. Tippengray, who sat beside her. The Greek scholar liked this, and his conversation sparkled.

Miss Calthea Rose, who had accepted Mrs. Petter's invitation to spend the night,—for if ever she was going to do anything at the Squirrel Inn, this was the time to do it,—did not like Mrs. Cristie's politeness, and her conversation did not sparkle. In fact she was quieter than Mr. Lodloe, and paid little heed to the chatter of her neighbor, Lanigan Beam. This young man was dissatisfied. There was a place at the table that was sometimes filled and sometimes not filled. At present it was empty.



"I cannot see," said he, speaking to the company in general, "why babies are not brought to the table. I think they ought to be taught from the very beginning how to behave themselves at meals."

Mr. Petter fixed his eyes upon him, and, speaking through the young man, also addressed the company.

"I'm not altogether in favor of having small children at the table," said he. "Their food is different from ours, and their ways are often unpleasant; but I do think—"

"No, you don't," interrupted Mrs. Petter from the other end of the table—"you don't think anything of the kind. That has all been fixed and settled, and there's no use in bringing it up again."

Mr. Petter looked at his wife with a little flash in his eye, but he spoke quietly.

"There are some things," he said, "that can be unfixed and unsettled."

Mrs. Cristie hastened to stop this discussion.

"As I own the only baby in the house," she said, with a smile, "I may as well say that it is not coming to the table either by itself or in any other way."

A thought now tickled Mr. Tippengray. Without any adequate reason whatever, there came before him the vision of an opossum which he once had seen served at a Virginia dinner-table, plump and white, upon a china dish. And he felt almost irresistibly impelled to lean forward and ask Mr. Lodloe if he had ever read any of the works of Mr. Jonathan Carver, that noted American traveler of the last century; but he knew it wouldn't do, and he restrained himself. If he had thought Lodloe would understand him he would have made his observation in Greek, but even that would have been impolite to the rest of the company. So he kept his joke to himself, and, for fear that any one should perceive his amusement, he asked Mrs. Petter if she had ever noticed how much finer was the fur of a cat which slept out of doors than that of one which had been in the house. She had noticed it, but thought that the cat would prefer a snug rug by the fire to fine fur.

Calthea Rose said little and thought much. It was necessary that she should take in every possible point in the situation, and she was doing it. She did not like Mrs. Cristie's attention to Mr. Tippengray, because it gave him pleasure, and she did not wish that other women should give him pleasure; but she was not jealous, for that would have been absurd in this case.

But the apparent state of feeling at the table had given her an idea. She was thinking very bitterly of Mrs. Cristie, and would gladly do anything which would cause that lady discomfort. There seemed to be something wrong between her and Mr. Lodloe, otherwise the two lovers would be talking to each other, as was their custom. Perhaps she might find an opportunity to do something here. If, for instance, she could get the piqued gentleman to flirt a little with her,—and she had no doubt of her abilities in this line,—it might cause Mrs. Cristie uneasiness. And here her scheme widened and opened before her. If in any way she could make life at the Squirrel Inn distasteful to Mrs. Cristie, that lady might go away. And in this case the whole problem that engrossed her would be solved, for of course the maid would go with the mistress.

Calthea's eyes brightened, and with a smile she half listened to something Lanigan Beam was saying to her.

"Yes," she thought; "that would settle the whole business. The widow is the person I ought to drive away; then they would all go, and leave him to me, as I had him before."

And now she listened a little, and talked a little, but still kept on thinking. It was really a very good thing that her feeling towards Mrs. Cristie had so suddenly changed, otherwise she might never have thought of this admirable scheme.



XX

AN INGENUOUS MAID

Mrs. Cristie was unusually prompt that evening in going to the relief of Ida Mayberry, but before she allowed that young woman to go down to her supper she put a question to her.

"What do you mean, Ida," she said, "by talking about dissecting babies? Whatever you may have done in that line, I do not think it is very nice to bring it forward when you have charge of a child."

"Of course it wasn't nice," replied Ida, "and I should never have thought of speaking of it if it had not been for that thing from Lethbury. She makes me so angry that I don't know what I say. You ought to hear Lanigan Beam talk about her. He has confided to me, although I am not sure that he should have done it."

"Of course not," said Mrs. Cristie, very promptly; "he should not have confided anything to you."

"Well," continued Ida, "he told me, but said he would not breathe it to any one else, that the great object of his life at present was to rid this neighborhood of Calthea Rose. He says she has been a plague to this community ever since he has known her. She is always ready to make mischief, and nobody can tell when or how she is going to do it. As for himself, he vows she has made it impossible for him to live here; and as he wishes to live here, he wants her to go."

"And how does he propose to make her go?" asked Mrs. Cristie.

"He wants her to marry Mr. Tippengray, which she is very willing to do, and then he is quite sure that they will go away and travel, and stay abroad for a long time. He knows that this will be the very thing that she would want to do."

"And I suppose," said Mrs. Cristie, "that Mr. Beam told you all this in order that you might be induced to help on the match between Mr. Tippengray and Miss Rose."

"That was exactly his object," said Ida; "he said that everybody ought to help in this good work."

"And then, I suppose, he would like to marry you," remarked Mrs. Cristie.

"He hasn't said so yet," replied Miss Mayberry, "but I think he would like to do it."

Mrs. Cristie brought down her little fist upon the table, regardless of her slumbering child.

"That man is utterly without a conscience," she exclaimed. "If he hadn't kept on engaging himself over and over again to Calthea Rose, she might have married somebody else, and gone away long ago. He has no one but himself to blame that she is still here to worry him and other people. And as to his wishing to sacrifice Mr. Tippengray to his ease and comfort, I think it is the most shameful thing I ever heard of. I hope, Ida, that you did not encourage him in this iniquitous scheme."

Ida laughed, but quietly—remembering the baby.

"Not much," she said; "in fact, I have determined, if I can, to rescue Mr. Tippengray from that clutching old thing."

"How?" asked Mrs. Cristie, quickly.

"By marrying him myself," said the nurse-maid.

"Ida Mayberry!" exclaimed Mrs. Cristie.

"Yes," said the other; "I have been considering the matter a good deal, and I think it can be done. He is much older than I am, but that isn't of great importance when people suit in other ways. Of course I would not wish to marry a very old man, even if he were suitable, for I should have to look forward to a married life so short that it would not pay; but Mr. Tippengray was not born so dreadfully far back, and he is one of those men who keep young for a long time. I think he likes me, and I am sure I can easily make him like me more, if I choose. There is nobody here that I need be afraid of, excepting you, perhaps."

Mrs. Cristie looked at her in amazement.

"Me!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," said Ida; "and this is the way of it. For a time I rather liked Lanigan Beam, for he's young and good-looking, and particularly because he seems very much in love with me; but although he pretends to be anxious to study, I know he is not very deep, and will probably soon tire of that. So when my sympathy for Mr. Tippengray was fairly aroused,—and it has been growing for some time,—it was easy enough to drop Lanigan; but before I allowed myself to become too much interested in Mr. Tippengray I had to consider all sides of the case. You seem to like Mr. Tippengray very much, and of course if you really made up your mind to prefer him to anybody else, one great object would be gained, just the same as if I married him, and he would be saved from the hole those two are digging for him."



"And in that case," said Mrs. Cristie, repressing a strong disposition to laugh, "what would you do? Perhaps you would be content to take anything that might be left."

"I suppose you mean Mr. Lodloe," said Ida. "Well, to speak plainly, I have never thought that I had a right to take him into consideration, but if the field were entirely open, I would not hesitate a moment in preferring him to either of the others."

Now Mrs. Cristie laughed outright.

"I could never have imagined," she said, "that a young girl such as you are could have such practical and business-like views about matrimony."

"Well," said the nurse-maid, "I don't see anything out of the way in my views. I want to bring an intelligent judgment to bear upon everything I do, and if the higher education is of any good at all, it ought to help us to regulate our affections."

"I have nothing to say on the subject," said Mrs. Cristie, "except that they did not pretend to teach us that at Vassar. I don't see how you can bring yourself to such calculations. But one part of your scheme I approve of highly: positively you ought to drop Lanigan Beam. As to marrying Mr. Tippengray, that is your affair, and his affair. And you may be sure I shall not interfere in any way."

Ida looked at her and smiled.

"I wasn't very much afraid of that," she said, "though of course I thought I ought to steer clear of even a possible interference; but now I can go ahead with a clear conscience."

Mrs. Cristie felt drawn towards this ingenuous maid.

"Ida," she said, taking her by the hand, "as you have been so confiding towards me, I will say to you that since you have concluded to drop Mr. Beam your choice is decidedly restricted."

"I am glad to hear it," said the other, warmly; "he is a good man, and I think he has brains that you can count on. Is it all settled?"

"Oh, no, no!" said Mrs. Cristie; "and mind, Ida, don't you say a word of this to a living soul."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid of that," said Miss Mayberry; "I never betray confidences."

"I am afraid," said Mrs Cristie to herself, as she stood alone by her baby's bedside, "that I went a little too far. It isn't settled yet, and it would have been better not to say anything about it. However"—and then her thoughts went wandering. She was going down-stairs and out of doors as soon as she had satisfied herself that Douglas could be prudently left to his slumbers.



XXI

TWISTED TRYSTS

Mrs. Cristie found the lower floor of the Squirrel Inn quite deserted. She stopped before a window in a Norman tower and looked out. Twilight was fading, but there was a young moon in the sky. By stepping a little to one side she could see the moon, with the evening star twinkling not far away from it. She did not go out, however, but slowly wandered into a long room under the roof of a Swiss chalet. Here she went out on a queer little balcony and sat down; but her view was cut off by an out-jutting upper story of the old English type, with rows of small-paned windows, and she soon came in from the balcony. There was a light burning in the taproom, and as she passed its open door she stopped for a moment and gazed reflectively at the row of dilapidated stuffed squirrels, each of which had once stood guard upon the guide-post to the inn. But she took no note of the squirrels, nor of anything else in the quiet room, but as she stood, and instinctively put her finger to her forehead, a resolution came.

"I will be sensible, like Ida," she thought. "I will go out and let things happen as they may."

She went out into the young moonlight and, glancing across the lawn, saw, near the edge of the bluff that commanded the western view, two persons sitting upon a bench. Their backs were towards her, but one of them she knew to be Calthea Rose.

"I hope that is not poor Mr. Tippengray," said Mrs. Cristie to herself. "If she has secured him already, and taken him out there, I am afraid that even Ida will not be able to get him away from her. Ida must still be at her supper. I should not have detained her so long."

But Ida was not at her supper. As she turned towards the end of the lawn Mrs. Cristie saw her nurse-maid slowly strolling over the grass, a man on each side of her. They were plainly to be seen, and one man was Mr. Tippengray and the other Lanigan Beam. The three were engaged in earnest conversation. Mrs. Cristie smiled.

"I need not have feared for Ida," she thought; "she must have made a bold stroke to leave her rival in the lurch in that way, but I suppose in order to get one man she has to take both. It is a little hard on Miss Calthea"; and with an amused glance towards the couple on the bluff she moved towards the gardens. Her mind was in a half-timorous and undetermined state, in which she would have been glad to wander about by herself and to meet nobody, or, if it so should happen, glad to meet somebody; and wistfully, but yet timidly, she wondered which it would be. All at once she heard a step behind her. In spite of herself she started and flushed, and, turning, saw Mr. Petter. The sight of this worthy gentleman was a shock to her. She had been sure he was sitting with Calthea Rose on the bluff. If it was not he, who was it?



"I am glad to see you, Mrs. Cristie," said the landlord of the inn, "for I want to speak with you. My mind is disturbed, and it is on account of your assistant, Miss Mayberry. She has been talked about in a way that I do not at all like. I may even say that my wife has been urging me to use my influence with you to get her dismissed. I assured Mrs. Petter, however, that I should use that influence, if it exists, in exactly the opposite direction. Shall we walk on together, Mrs. Cristie, while I speak further on the subject? I have a high opinion of Miss Mayberry. I like her because she is what I term blooded. Nothing pleases me so much as blooded service, and, I may add, blooded associations and possessions. So far as I am able to have it so, my horses, my cattle, and all my live stock are blooded. I consider my house, this inn, to be a blooded house. It can trace its various lines of architectural ancestry to honorable origins. The company at my house, with the exception of Lanigan Beam,—who, however, is not a full guest, but rather a limited inmate, ascending by a ladder to his dormitory,—are, if you will excuse me for saying so, blooded. And that one of these guests should avail herself of blooded service is to me a great gratification, of which I hope I shall not be deprived. To see a vulgar domestic in Miss Mayberry's place would wound and pain me, and I may say, Mrs. Cristie that I have been able to see no reason whatever for such substitution."

Mrs. Cristie had listened without a word, but as she listened she had been asking herself who that could be with Calthea Rose. If it was not Walter Lodloe, who was it? And if it was he, why was he there? And if he was there, why did he stay there? Of course she was neither jealous nor worried nor troubled by such a thing, but the situation was certainly odd. She had come out expecting something, she did not know exactly what; it might not have been a walk among the sweet-pea blossoms, but she was very certain it was not a conversation with Mr. Petter, while Walter Lodloe sat over there in the moonlight with Calthea Rose.

"You need not have given yourself any anxiety," she said to her companion, "for I have not the slightest idea of discharging Ida. She suits me admirably, and what they say about her is all nonsense; of course I do not mean any disrespect to Mrs. Petter."

Mr. Petter deprecatingly waved his hand.

"I understand perfectly your reference to my wife," he said "Her mind, I think, has been acted upon by others. Allow me to say, madam, that your words have encouraged and delighted me. I feel we are moving in the right direction. I breathe better."

"How is it possible," thought Mrs. Cristie, during the delivery of this speech, "that he can sit there, and sit, and sit, and sit, when he knows at this hour I am always somewhere about the house or grounds, and never in my room? Well, if he likes to sit there, let him sit"; and with this she looked up with some vivacity into the face of her landlord and asked him if even his pigeons and his chickens were blooded, and if the pigs were also of good descent. As she spoke she slightly accelerated her pace.

Mr. Petter was very willing to walk faster, and to talk about all that appertained to his beloved Squirrel Inn, and so they walked and talked until they reached the garden and disappeared from view behind the tall shrubbery that bordered the central path.

Mrs. Petter sat on a little Dutch porch, looking out on the lawn, and her mind was troubled. She wished to talk to Mr. Petter, and here he was strolling about in the moonlight with that young widow. Of course there was nothing in it, and it was perfectly proper for him to be polite to his guests, but there were lines in politeness as well as in other things, and they ought to be drawn before people went off walking by themselves in the garden at an hour when most farmers were thinking about going to bed. The good lady sat very uneasily on her little bench. The night air felt damp to her and disagreeable; she was sure there were spiders and other things running about the porch floor, and there were no rounds to the bench on which she could put her feet. But she could not bear to go in, for she had not the least idea in the world where they had gone to. Perhaps they might walk all the way to Lethbury, for all she knew. At this moment a man came up to the porch. It was Lanigan Beam, and his soul was troubled. The skilful Miss Mayberry had so managed the conversation in which she and the two gentlemen were engaged, that its subject matter became deeper and deeper in its character, until poor Lanigan found that it was getting very much too deep for him. As long as he could manage to keep his head above water he stood bravely, but when he was obliged to raise himself on the tips of his toes, and even then found the discourse rising above his chin, obliging him to shut his mouth and to blink his eyes, he thought it wise to strike out for shore before he made a pitiful show of his lack of mental stature.

And in a very bad humor Lanigan walked rapidly to the house, where he was much surprised to see Mrs. Petter on the little Dutch porch.

"Why, madam," he exclaimed, "I thought you never sat out after nightfall."

"As a rule, I don't," the good lady answered, "and I oughtn't to now; but the fact is—" She hesitated, but it was not necessary to finish the sentence. Mr. Petter and Mrs. Cristie emerged from the garden and stood together just outside its gate. He was explaining to her the origin of some of the peculiar features of the Squirrel Inn.

When the eyes of Mr. Beam fell upon these two, who stood plainly visible in the moonlight, while he and Mrs. Petter were in shadow, his trouble was dissipated by a mischievous hilarity.

"Well, well, well!" said he, "she is a woman."

"Of course she is," said Mrs. Petter; "and what of that, I'd like to know?"

"Now that I think of it," said Lanigan, with a finger on the side of his nose, "I remember that she and her young man didn't have much to say to each other at supper. Quarreled, perhaps. And she is comforting herself with a little flirt with Mr. Petter."

"Lanigan Beam, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," cried the good lady; "you know Mr. Petter never flirts."

"Well, perhaps he doesn't," said Lanigan; "but if I were you, Mrs. Petter, I would take him out a shawl or something to put over his shoulders. He oughtn't to be standing out there in the night wind."

"I shall do nothing of the kind," she answered shortly, "and I oughtn't to be out here in the night air either."

Lanigan gazed at Mrs. Cristie and her companion. If that charming young widow wanted some one to walk about with her in the moonlight, she could surely do better than that. Perhaps a diversion might be effected and partners changed.

"Mrs. Petter," said he, "I wouldn't go in, if I were you. If you move about you will be all right. Suppose we stroll over that way."

"I am ready to stroll," said Mrs. Petter, in a tone that showed she had been a good deal stirred by her companion's remarks, "but I am not going to stroll over that way. The place is big enough for people to keep to themselves, if they choose, and I am one that chooses, and I choose to walk in the direction of my duty, or, more properly, the duty of somebody else, and see that the hen-houses are shut"; and, taking Lanigan's arm, she marched him down to the barn, and then across a small orchard to the most distant poultry-house within the limits of the estate.

When Mr. Stephen Petter, allowing his eyes to drop from the pointed roof of his high tower, saw his wife and Lanigan Beam walking away among the trees in the orchard, he suddenly became aware that the night air was chilly, and suggested to his companion that it might be well to return to the house.

"Oh, not yet, Mr. Petter," said she; "I want you to tell me how you came to have that little turret over the thatched roof."

She had determined that she would not go indoors while Calthea Rose and Mr. Lodloe sat together on that bench.

Early in the evening Miss Calthea had seen Mr. Lodloe walking by himself upon the bluff, and she so arranged a little promenade of her own that in passing around some shrubbery she met him near the bench. Miss Calthea was an admirable manager in dialogue, and if she had an object in view it did not take her long to find out what her collocutor liked to talk about. She had unusual success in discovering something which very much interested Mr. Lodloe, and they were soon seated on a bench discussing the manners and ways of life in Lethbury.

To a man who recently had been seized with a desire to marry and to live in Lethbury, and who had already taken some steps in regard to the marriage, this subject was one of the most lively interest, and Lodloe was delighted to find what a sensible, practical, and well-informed woman was Miss Rose. She was able to give him all sorts of points about buying a building or renting houses in Lethbury, and she entered with the greatest zeal into the details of living, service, the cost of keeping a horse, a cow, and poultry, and without making any inconvenient inquiries into the reasons for Mr. Lodloe's desire for information on these subjects. She told him everything he wanted to know about housekeeping in her native village, because she had made herself aware that his mind was set on that sort of thing. In truth she did not care whether he settled in Lethbury or some other place, or whether he ever married and settled at all. All she wished was to talk to him in such a way that she might keep him with her as long as possible. She wished this because she liked to keep a fine-looking young man all to herself, and also because she thought that the longer she did so the more uneasiness she would cause Mrs. Cristie.

She had convinced herself that it would not do for life to float too smoothly at the Squirrel Inn. She would stir up things here and there, but prudently, so that no matter who became disgusted and went away, it would not be Mr. Tippengray. She was not concerned at present about this gentleman. It was ten to one that by this time Lanigan Beam had driven him away from the child's nurse.

Walter Lodloe was now beginning to feel that it was quite time that his conversation with Miss Rose, which had really lasted much longer than he supposed, should be brought to a close. His manner indicating this, Miss Calthea immediately entered into a most attractive description of a house picturesquely situated on the outskirts of Lethbury, which would probably soon be vacated on account of the owner's desire to go West.

At the other end of the extensive lawn two persons walked backward and forward near the edge of the trees perfectly satisfied and untroubled. What the rest of the world was doing was of no concern whatever to either of them.

"I am afraid, Mr. Tippengray," said the nurse-maid, "that when your Greek version of the literature of to-day, especially its humorous portion, is translated into the American language of the future it will lose much of its point and character."

"You must remember, my dear Miss Mayberry," said the gentleman, "that we do not know what our language will be in eight hundred or a thousand years from now. The English of to-day may be utterly unintelligible to the readers of that era, but that portion of our literature which I put into imperishable and unchangeable Greek will be the same then as now. The scholar may read it for his own pleasure and profit, or he may translate it for the pleasure and profit of others. At all events, it will be there, like a fly in amber, good for all time. All you have to do is to melt your amber, and there you have your fly."

"And a well-shriveled-up fly it would be, I am afraid," said Ida.

Mr. Tippengray laughed.

"Be not too sure of that," he said. "I will translate some of my Greek version of 'Pickwick' back into English, and let you see for yourself how my amber preserves the fly."

"Let me do it," said Ida. "It is a long time since I read 'Pickwick,' and therefore my translation will be a better test."

"Capital!" cried Mr. Tippengray. "I will copy a few lines for you to-night."

From out an open Elizabethan window under a mansard roof, and overlooking a small Moorish veranda, there came a sound of woe. The infant Douglas had awakened from a troubled sleep, and with a wild and piercing cry he made known to his fellow-beings his desire for society. Instantly there was a kaleidoscopic change among the personages on the grounds of the Squirrel Inn. Miss Mayberry darted towards the house; the Greek scholar, without knowing what he was doing, ran after her for a short distance, and then stopped; Mrs. Petter screamed from the edge of the orchard to know what was the matter; and Lanigan ran to see. Mr. Petter, the natural guardian of the place, pricked up his ears and strode towards the inn, his soul filled with a sudden fear of fire. Mrs. Cristie recognized the voice of her child, but saw Ida running, and so, relieved of present anxiety, remained where her companion had left her.

Walter Lodloe, hearing Mrs. Petter's voice and the running, sprang from his seat; and seeing that it would be impossible to detain him now, and preferring to leave rather than to be left, Miss Calthea hurried away to see what was the matter.



XXII

THE BLOSSOM AND THE LITTLE JAR

Perceiving Mrs. Cristie standing alone near the entrance to the garden, Walter Lodloe walked rapidly towards her. As he approached she moved in the direction of the house.

"Will you not stop a moment?" he said. "Do not go in yet."

"I must," she answered; "I have been out here a long while—too long."

"Out here a long time!" he exclaimed. "You surprise me. Please stop one moment. I want to tell you of a most interesting conversation I have had with Miss Rose. It has animated me wonderfully."

Considering what had occurred that afternoon, this remark could not fail to impress Mrs. Cristie, and she stopped and looked at him. He did not give her time to ask any questions, but went on:

"I have been asking her about life in Lethbury—houses, gardens, everything that relates to a home in that delightful village. And what she has told me opens a paradise before me. I did not dream that down in that moon-lighted valley I should be almost rich; that I could offer you—"

"And may I ask," she interrupted, "if you have been talking about me to Miss Rose?"

"Not a word of it," he answered warmly. "I never mentioned your name, nor referred to you in any way."

She could not help ejaculating a little sarcastically:

"How circumspect!"

"And now," he said, coming closer to her, "will you not give me an answer? I love you, and I cannot wait. And oh! speak quickly, for here comes Mrs. Petter straight towards us."

"I do not like Lethbury," said Mrs. Cristie.

Lodloe could have stamped his feet, in the fire of his impatience.

"But of me, of myself," he said. "And oh! speak quickly, she is almost here."

"Please cease," said Mrs. Cristie; "she will hear you."

Mrs. Petter came up panting.

"I don't want to interrupt you, Mrs. Cristie," she said, "but really and truly you ought to go to your baby. He has stopped crying in the most startling and suspicious way. Of course I don't know what she has done to him, and whether it's anything surgical or laudanum. And it isn't for me to be there to smell the little creature's breath; but you ought to go this minute, and if you find there is anything needed in the way of mustard, or hot water, or sending for the doctor, just call to me from the top of the stairs."

"My dear Mrs. Petter," said Mrs. Cristie, "why didn't Calthea Rose come and tell me this herself, instead of sending you?"

"She said that she thought you would take it better from me than from her; and after we had made up our minds about it, she said I ought not to wait a second."

"Well," said Mrs. Cristie, "it was very good in you to come to me, but I do not feel in the least alarmed. It was Ida's business to quiet the child, and I have no doubt she did it without knives or poison. But now that you are here, Mrs. Petter, I wish to ask your opinion about something that Mr. Lodloe has been talking of to me."

The young man looked at her in astonishment.

"He has been telling me," continued Mrs. Cristie, "of a gentleman he knows, a person of education, and accustomed to society, who had conceived the idea of living in Lethbury. Now what do you think of that?"

"Well," said Mrs. Petter, "if he's married, and if his wife's got the asthma, or he's got it himself, I have heard that Lethbury is good for that sort of complaint. Or if he's failed in business and has to live cheap; or if he is thinking of setting up a store where a person can get honest wash-goods; or if he has sickly children, and isn't particular about schools, I suppose he might as well come to Lethbury as not."

"But he has none of those reasons for settling here," said Mrs. Cristie.

"Well, then," remarked Mrs. Petter, somewhat severely, "he must be weak in his mind. And if he's that, I don't think he's needed in Lethbury."

As she finished speaking the good woman turned and beheld her husband just coming out of the house. Being very desirous of having her talk with him, and not very well pleased at the manner in which her mission had been received, she abruptly betook herself to the house.

"Now, then," said Mrs. Cristie, turning to Lodloe, "what do you think of that very explicit opinion?"

"Does it agree with yours?" he asked.

"Wonderfully," she replied. "I could not have imagined that Mrs. Petter and I were so much of a mind."

"Mrs. Cristie," said Lodloe, "I drop Lethbury, and here I stand with nothing but myself to offer you."

The moon had now set, the evening was growing dark, and the lady began to feel a little chilly about the shoulders.

"Mr. Lodloe," she asked, "what did you do with that bunch of sweet peas you picked this afternoon?"

"They are in my room," he said eagerly. "I have put them in water. They are as fresh as when I gathered them."

"Well," she said, speaking rather slowly, "if to-morrow, or next day, or any time when it may be convenient, you will bring them to me, I think I will take them."



In about half an hour Mrs. Cristie went into the house, feeling that she had stayed out entirely too late. In her room she found Ida reading by a shaded lamp, and the baby sleeping soundly. The nurse-maid looked up with a smile, and then turned her face again to her book. Mrs. Cristie stepped quietly to the mantelpiece, on which she had set the little jar from Florence, but to her surprise there was nothing in it. The sweet-pea blossom was gone. After looking here and there upon the floor, she went over to Ida, and in a low voice asked her if she had seen anything of a little flower that had been in that jar.

"Oh, yes," said the girl, putting down her book; "I gave it to baby to amuse him, and the instant he took it he stopped crying, and very soon went to sleep. There it is; I declare, he is holding it yet."

Mrs. Cristie went softly to the bedside of the child and, bending over him, gently drew the sweet-pea blossom from his chubby little fist.



XXIII

HAMMERSTEIN

Miss Calthea Rose was up and about very early the next morning. She had work to do in which there must be no delay or loss of opportunity. It was plain enough that her scheme for driving away Ida Mayberry had failed, and, having carefully noted the extraordinary length of time which Mrs. Cristie and Mr. Lodloe spent together under the stars the previous evening, she was convinced that it would not be easy to make that lady dissatisfied with the Squirrel Inn. She therefore determined to turn aside from her plans of exile, to let the child's nurse stay where she pleased, to give no further thought to Lanigan Beam, and to devote all her energies to capturing Mr. Tippengray. She believed that she had been upon the point of doing this before the arrival of intruders on the scene, and she did not doubt that she could reach that point again.

Miss Calthea was very restless that morning; she was much more anxious to begin work than was anybody else on the place. She walked about the ground, went into the garden, passed the summer-house on her way there and back again, and even wandered down to the barnyard, where the milking had just begun. If any one had been roaming about like herself, she could not have failed to observe such person. But there was no one about until a little before breakfast-time, when Mr. Petter showed himself.

This gentleman greeted Calthea coolly. He had had a very animated conversation with his wife on the evening before, and had been made acquainted with the unwarrantable enmity exhibited by this village shopkeeper toward Mrs. Cristie's blooded assistant. He was beginning to dislike Calthea, and he remembered that the Rockmores never liked her, and he wished very much that she would cease to spend so much of her time at his house. After breakfast Calthea was more fortunate. She saw the Greek scholar walking upon the lawn, with a piece of writing-paper in his hand. In less than five minutes, by the merest accident in the world, Mr. Tippengray was walking across the lawn with Miss Rose, and he had put his piece of paper into his pocket.

She wanted to ask him something. She would detain him only a few minutes. The questions she put to him had been suggested to her by something she had read that morning—a most meager and unsatisfactory passage. She held in her hand the volume which, although she did not tell him so, had taken her a half-hour to select in Mr. Petter's book room. Shortly they were seated together, and he was answering her questions which, as she knew, related to the most interesting experiences of his life. As he spoke his eyes glistened and her soul warmed. He did not wish that this should be so. He wanted to bring this interview to an end. He was nervously anxious to go back on the lawn, that he might see Miss Mayberry when she came out of doors; that he might show her the lines of "Pickwick" which he had put into Greek, and which she was to turn back into English.

But he could not cut short the interview. Miss Calthea was not an Ancient Mariner; she had never even seen the sea, and she had no glittering eye, but she held him with a listening ear, and never was wedding guest, or any other man, held more securely.

Minutes, quarter-hours, half-hours passed and still he talked and she listened. She guided his speech as a watchful sailor guides his ship, and whichever way she turned it the wind always filled his sails. For the first ten minutes he had been ill at ease, but after that he had begun to feel that he had never so much enjoyed talking. In time he forgot everything but what he had to say, and it was rapture to be able to say it, and to feel that never before had he said it so well.

His back was towards the inn, but through some trees Miss Calthea could see that Mr. Petter's spring wagon, drawn by the two grays, Stolzenfels and Falkenberg, was at the door, and soon she perceived that Mr. Lodloe was in the driver's place, and that Mrs. Cristie, with Ida Mayberry holding the baby, was on the back seat. The place next Lodloe was vacant, and they seemed to be waiting for some one. Then Lanigan Beam came up. There was a good deal of conversation, in which he seemed to be giving information, and presently he sprang up beside the driver and they were off. The party were going for a long drive, Miss Calthea thought, because Mrs. Petter had come out and had put a covered basket into the back of the wagon.

Mr. Tippengray was so absorbed in the interest of what he was saying that he did not hear the roll of the departing wheels, and Miss Calthea allowed him to talk on for nearly a quarter of an hour until she thought she had exhausted the branch of the subject on which he was engaged, and was sure the spring wagon was out of sight and hearing. Then she declared that she had not believed that any part of the world could be as interesting as that region which Mr. Tippengray had been describing to her, and that she was sorry she could not sit there all the morning and listen to him, but duty was duty, and it was necessary for her to return to Lethbury.

This announcement did not seem in the least to decrease the good spirits of the Greek scholar, but his chin and his spirits fell when, on reaching the house, he heard from Mrs. Petter that his fellow-guests had gone off for a long drive.

"They expected to take you, Mr. Tippengray," said his hostess, "but Lanigan Beam said he had seen you and Miss Rose walking across the fields to Lethbury, and so they asked him to go. I hope they'll be back to dinner, but there's no knowing, and so I put in a basket of sandwiches and things to keep them from starving before they get home."

Miss Calthea was quite surprised.

"We were sitting over yonder the whole time," she said, "very much occupied with talking, it is true, but near enough to hear if we had been called. I fancy that Lanigan had reasons of his own for saying we had gone to Lethbury."

Poor Mr. Tippengray was downcast. How much time must elapse before he would have an opportunity to deliver the piece of paper he had in his pocket! How long would he be obliged to lounge around by himself waiting for Ida Mayberry to return!

"Well," said Calthea, "I must go home, and as I ought to have been there long ago, I am going to ask Mr. Petter to lend me a horse and buggy. It's the greatest pity, Mr. Tippengray, that you have lost your drive with your friends, but as you can't have that, suppose you take one with me. I don't mind acknowledging to you that I am a little afraid of Mr. Petter's horses, but with you driving I should feel quite safe."

If Mr. Tippengray could have immediately thought of any good reason why he should have staid at home that morning he would probably have given it, but none came into his mind. After all, he might as well be driving to Lethbury as staying there doing nothing, and there could be no doubt that Miss Calthea was very agreeable that morning. Consequently he accepted the invitation.

Calthea Rose went herself to the barn to speak to Mr. Petter about the horse, and especially requested that he would lend her old Zahringen, whom she knew to be the most steady of beasts, but Zahringen had gone to be shod, and there was no horse at her service except Hammerstein, and no vehicle but a village cart. Hammerstein was a better horse than Zahringen, and would take Calthea home more rapidly, which entirely suited Mr. Petter.

It may be here remarked that the barn and stables were not of Mr. Petter's building, but in order that they might not be entirely exempt from the influence of his architectural fancies, he had given his horses the names of certain castles on the Rhine.

Calthea was not altogether satisfied with the substitution of the big black horse for the fat brown one, but she could make no reasonable objection, and the vehicle was soon at the door.

Mr. Tippengray was very fond of driving, and his spirits had risen again. But he was a good deal surprised when Miss Calthea declined to take the seat beside him, preferring to occupy the rear seat with her back to the horse. By turning a little to one side, she said she could talk just as well, and it was more comfortable in such a small vehicle as a village cart to have a whole seat to one's self.

As soon as they were in the road that ran through the woods she proved that she could twist herself around so as to talk to her companion, and look him in the face, quite as easily as if she had been sitting beside him. They chatted together, and looked each other in the face, and the Greek scholar enjoyed driving very much until they had gone a mile or more on the main road, and had come upon an overturned wagon lying by the roadside. At this Hammerstein and the conversation suddenly stopped. The big black horse was very much opposed to overturned vehicles. He knew that in some way they were connected with disaster, and he would not willingly go near one. He stood head up, ears forward, and slightly snorting. Mr. Tippengray was annoyed by this nonsense.



"Go on!" he cried, "Get up!" Then the driver took the whip from the socket and gave the horse a good crack.

"Get up!" he cried.

Hammerstein obeyed, but got up in a manner which Mr. Tippengray did not intend. He arose upon his hind legs, and pawed the air, appearing to the two persons behind him like a tall, black, unsteady steeple.

When a horse harnessed to a village cart sees fit to rear, the hind part of the vehicle is brought very near to the ground, so that a person sitting on the back seat can step out without trouble. Miss Calthea perceived this and stepped out. On general principles she had known that it was safer to alight from the hind seat of a village cart than from the front seat.

"Don't pull at him that way," she cried from the opposite side of the road, "he will go over backwards on top of you. Let him alone and perhaps he will stop rearing."

Hammerstein now stood on all his feet again, and Miss Calthea earnestly advised Mr. Tippengray to turn him around and drive back.

"I am not far from home now," she said, "and can easily walk there. I really think I do not care to get in again. But I am sure he will go home to his stable without giving you any trouble."

But Mr. Tippengray's spirit was up, and he would not be conquered by a horse, especially in the presence of a lady.

"I shall make him pass it," he cried, and he brought down his whip on Hammerstein's back with such force that the startled animal gave a great bound forward, and then, finding himself so near the dreaded wreck, he gave a wilder bound, and passed it. Then, being equipped with blinders, which did not allow him to see behind him, he did not know but the frightful wagon, its wheels uppermost, was wildly pursuing him, and, fearing that this might be so, he galloped onward with all his speed.

The Greek scholar pulled at the reins and shouted in such a way that Hammerstein was convinced that he was being urged to use all efforts to get away from the oncoming monster. He did not turn into the Lethbury road when he came to it, but kept straight on. At such a moment the straighter the road the better. Going down a long hill, Mr. Tippengray, still pulling and shouting, and now hatless, perceived, some distance ahead of him, a boy standing by the roadside. It was easy enough for the practised eye of a country boy to take in the state of affairs, and his instincts prompted him to skip across the road and open a gate which led into a field recently plowed.

Mr. Tippengray caught at the boy's idea and, exercising all his strength, he turned Hammerstein into the open gateway. When he had made a dozen plunges into the deep furrows and through the soft yielding loam, the horse concluded that he had had enough of that sort of exercise, and stopped. Mr. Tippengray, whose senses had been nearly bounced out of him, sprang from the cart, and, slipping on the uneven surface of the ground, tumbled into a deep furrow, from which, however, he instantly arose without injury, except to his clothes. Hurrying to the head of the horse he found the boy already there, holding the now quiet animal. The Greek scholar looked at him admiringly.

"My young friend," said he, "that was a noble thought, worthy of a philosopher."

The boy grinned.

"They generally stop when they get into a plowed field," he said. "What skeered him?"

Mr. Tippengray briefly related the facts of the case, and the horse was led into the road. It was soon ascertained that no material harm had been done to harness or vehicle.

"Young man," said Mr. Tippengray, "what will you take for your hat!"

The boy removed his head-covering and looked at it. It was of coarse straw, very wide, very much out of shape, without a band, and with a hole in the crown surrounded by a tuft of broken straw.

"Well," said he, "it ain't worth much now, but it'll take a quarter to buy a new one."

"Here is a quarter for your hat," said the Greek scholar, "and another for your perspicacity. I suppose I shall find my hat on the road, but I cannot wait for that. The sun is too hot."



The Greek scholar now started homeward, leading Hammerstein. He liked walking, and had no intention whatever of again getting into that cart. If, when they reached the overturned wagon, the animal should again upheave himself, or in any way misbehave, Mr. Tippengray intended to let go of him, and allow him to pursue his homeward way in such manner and at such speed as might best please him.



The two walked a long distance without reaching the object of Hammerstein's fright, and Mr. Tippengray began to think that the road was a good deal narrower and more shaded than he had supposed it to be. The fact was, that a road diverged from the right, near the top of the hill, which he had not noticed when passing it in mad career, and naturally turning to the right, without thinking very much about it, he had taken this road instead of the one by which he had come. Our scholar, however, did not yet comprehend that he was on the wrong road, and kept on.

Soon his way led through the woods, with great outstretching trees, with wide-open spaces, interspersed here and there with masses of undergrowth. Mr. Tippengray greatly enjoyed the shaded road, the smell of the pines, and the flowers scattered along the edges of the wood. But in a few minutes he would doubtless have discovered that he had gone astray, and, notwithstanding the pleasantness of his surroundings, he would have turned back, had he not suddenly heard voices not far away. He stopped and listened.

The voices came from behind a clump of evergreens close by the roadside, and to his utter amazement Mr. Tippengray heard the voice of Lanigan Beam saying to some one that true love must speak out, and could not be silenced; that for days he had been looking for an opportunity, and now that it had come she must hear him, and know that his heart was hers only, and could never belong to anybody else. Then the voice of Ida Mayberry, very clear and distinct, replied that he must not talk to her in that way, that her line of life and his were entirely different. And she was doubtless going to say more, when her companion interrupted, and vowed with all possible earnestness that whatever line of life she chose should be his line; that he would gladly give up every plan and purpose, follow her in whatever direction she chose to lead, and do whatever she wished he should do.

Mr. Tippengray was very uneasy. The subject-matter of the conversation he was overhearing disturbed him in a manner which he did not understand, and he felt, moreover, that it was not proper for him to listen to another word. He did not know what to do; if he moved forward they would hear the wheels, and know that he had been near, and if he attempted to back out of the vicinity there was no knowing what hubbub he and Hammerstein might create. While standing undecided, he heard Lanigan speak thus:

"And as for Greek, and that sort of thing, you shall have all you want. I'll hire old Tippengray by the year; he shall be the family pedagogue, and we'll tap him for any kind of learning we may happen to want."

Instantly all thought of retreat fled from the mind of the scholar; his eyes glittered, and he was on the point of doing something, when there came from a little distance the voice of Mrs. Cristie, loudly calling for Ida. There was shuffling of feet, and in a few moments Mr. Tippengray perceived the nurse-maid rapidly walking away between the trees while Lanigan leisurely followed.

With head erect and nostrils dilated, as if he had been excited by the perception of something upside down, Mr. Tippengray again laid hold of the bridle of Hammerstein, and went on. In a few minutes he emerged upon an open space, through which flowed a little brook, and where sat Mrs. Cristie, Lodloe, Ida Mayberry with the baby in her lap, and Lanigan Beam. All of these persons, excepting the infant, were eating sandwiches.

At the sight of the little man and the tall horse, the former spattered with mud, smeared with the earth of the plowed field, and crowned with a misshapen hat with the expansive hole in the top, the sandwich-eaters stopped eating, gazed open-eyed, and then burst out laughing. Mr. Tippengray did not laugh; his eyes still glittered.

It was half an hour before the tale was told, order restored, and Mr. Tippengray had washed his face and hands in the brook and taken refreshment. Then he found himself alone with Mrs. Cristie.

"Truly you have had a hard time," said she, kindly.

"Madam," answered the Greek scholar, "you are entirely correct. This has been an unfortunate day for me. I have been cunningly entrapped, and heartlessly deserted; I have been nearly frightened out of my wits; have had my soul nearly burned out of my body, and have been foully besmirched with dirt and mud. But, worse than all, I have heard myself made the subject of contempt and contumely."

"How is that?" exclaimed Mrs. Cristie. "I do not understand."

"I will quickly make it plain to you," said the indignant scholar, and he related the conversation he had overheard.

"What a shameful way to speak of you, Mr. Tippengray!" cried Mrs. Cristie. "I did not suppose that Mr. Beam would dare to say such things to one whom he knew to be your friend. I have no doubt that if I had not called Ida at that moment, you would have heard her resent that disrespectful speech."

"I hope so; with all my heart, I hope so," replied the Greek scholar.

He said this with so much feeling that his companion looked at him a few moments without speaking.

"Mr. Tippengray," she said presently, "it is time for us to go home. How would you like to take Ida Mayberry back in your cart?"

The brightness in the eyes of the Greek scholar changed from the glitter of indignation to gleams of joy.

"Madam," said he, "I should like it of all things. It would remove from the anticipated pleasures of this day the enormous Alpha privative which has so far overshadowed them."

The young widow did not exactly comprehend this answer, but it was enough to know that he was glad to accept the opportunity she offered him. No sooner had he spoken than Mr. Tippengray remembered the hazards to which he was exposing himself by again taking the reins of Hammerstein, but not for an instant did he think of drawing back. His desire to take Ida Mayberry away from that fellow, and have her by himself, overpowered fear and all other feelings.

Mrs. Cristie's arrangement for the return pleased everybody except Lanigan Beam. The nurse-maid was perfectly willing to go in the village cart, and was not at all afraid of horses, and Walter Lodloe had no objection to sit on the back seat of the wagon with his lady-love, and help take care of the baby. Lanigan made few remarks about the situation; he saw that he had made a mistake, and was being punished for it, and without remonstrance he took the front seat and the reins of the grays.



XXIV

TRANSLATIONS

Lanigan Beam had no more fear of Mr. Tippengray as a rival than he would have had of Mr. Petter, but the apportionment of companions for the return trip nettled him a good deal, and, as a consequence of this, the pair of grays traveled homeward at a smarter pace, and Hammerstein and the village cart were soon left far behind.

The road was not the one by which Mr. Tippengray had arrived on the scene, but led through the woods to the main road, which it joined at a point not far from the sign of the Squirrel Inn. Hammerstein traveled very quietly and steadily of his own accord, slackening his gait at the rough places, thus giving Mr. Tippengray every opportunity for an uninterrupted converse with his fellow scholar; and he lost no time in submitting to her his Greek version of the lines from "Pickwick."

"I am very glad you have it with you," said Ida, "for I put my Greek dictionary in my pocket this morning, when I first came down, hoping to have a chance to do some translating, and what better chance could I have than this?"



Drawing out her dictionary and a little blank-book she immediately began her labors. Mr. Tippengray did not altogether like this. He felt an intense and somewhat novel desire to converse with the young woman on no matter what subject, and he would have preferred that she should postpone the translation. But he would not interrupt the engrossing occupation into which she now plunged with ardor. Rapidly turning backward and forward the leaves of the little dictionary, and tapping her front teeth with her pencil as she puzzled over the correlation of Greek and English words and expressions, she silently pursued her work.

Although he did not talk to her, it was very pleasant for Mr. Tippengray to sit and look upon this fair young scholar. At her request he made the tall steed walk, in order that her pencil might not be too much joggled, slyly thinking, the while, that thus the interview would be prolonged. The air was warm and balmy. Everything was still about them. They met no one, and every minute Mr. Tippengray became more and more convinced that, next to talking to her, there could be no greater joy in life than basking in the immediate atmosphere of this girl.

At last she shut up her dictionary.

"Now, then!" she exclaimed, "I have translated it, and I assure you that it is a fair and square version, for I do not in the least remember the original paragraph."

"I have the original here," said Mr. Tippengray, pulling the second volume of "Pickwick" from his pocket, "and we will compare it with your translation, if you will be so good as to read it. You do not know with what anxious enthusiasm I await the result."

"And I, too," said Ida, earnestly. "I do not think there could be a better test of the power of the Greek language to embalm and preserve for future generations the spirit of Dickens. Now I will read, and you can compare my work with the original as I go on."

The translation ran thus:

"For the reason that he who drives a vehicle of the post-road holds high office above the masses," to him answered the Sire Weller with eyes affiliated; "for the reason that he who drives a vehicle of the post-road acteth at will, undoubted, humanity otherwise prohibited. For the reason that he who drives a vehicle of the post-road is able to look with affection on a woman of eighty far distant, though it is not publicly believed that in the midst of any it is his desire to wed. Among males which one discourseth similarly, Sammy?"

"I wrote Sammy," she explained, "because I remembered that is the way the name is used in English."

Mr. Tippengray raised his eyebrows very high, and his chin slowly began to approach the sailor knot of his cravat.

"Oh, dear," he said, "I am afraid that this would not express to future ages the spirit and style of Dickens. The original passage runs thus," and he read:

"'Cos a coachman's a privileged individual," replied Mr. Weller, looking fixedly at his son. "'Cos a coachman may do without suspicion wot other men may not; 'cos a coachman may be on the very amicablest terms with eighty mile o' females and yet nobody thinks that he ever means to marry any vun among 'em. And wot other man can say the same, Sammy?"

"They are not much alike, are they?" said Miss Mayberry. "I think if Dickens could read my translation he would not in the least recognize it. The fact is, Mr. Tippengray, I do not believe that your method of Greek pickling will answer to preserve our fiction for the future. It may do for histories and scientific work, but when you come to dialect and vernacular, if you once get it into Greek you can never get it back again as it used to be."

"That will be a great pity," said Mr. Tippengray, "for fiction makes up such a large part of our literature. And it does seem that good English might be properly translated into good Greek."

"Oh, it isn't the translation," said Ida; "that is all easy enough: it's the resurrection back into the original condition. Look at the prophet Enoch. He was translated, but if it were possible now to bring him back again, he would not be the same Enoch, you know."

"One might infer from that simile," said the Greek scholar, smiling, "that when a bit of English gets into Greek it goes to heaven, and would better stay there. Perhaps you are right in what you say about fiction. Anyway it is very pleasant to talk with one who can appreciate this subject, and reason sensibly about it."

Mr. Tippengray shut up his book and put it back into his pocket, while his companion tore her translation from her note-book and scattered it in little bits along the road.

"I would not like it," she said, "if any one but you were to read that and know I did it."

Mr. Tippengray's eyes and Mr. Tippengray's heart turned towards her. Those words, "any one but you," touched him deeply. He had a feeling as if he were being translated into something better than his original self, and that this young woman was doing it. He wished to express this in some way, and to say a good many other things which came crowding upon his mind, but he expressed nothing and said none of these things. An exclamation from Ida caused him to look in front of him, and there was the spring wagon with the horses standing still.

Mrs. Cristie turned round and called to them:

"Mr. Beam says that there are some by-roads just ahead of us, and as he was afraid you might turn into one and get lost, he thought it better to wait for you."

"Nonsense!" cried Miss Mayberry; "there was no danger that we would turn into any by-ways. The road is plain enough."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Mr. Tippengray to himself. "I think that just now I was on the point of turning into a by-way."

The wagon now moved slowly on, and the village cart followed. Mr. Tippengray would gladly have dropped a good deal behind, but he found this not practicable, because whenever he made Hammerstein walk Stolzenfels and Falkenberg also walked. It was plain enough that Lanigan Beam did not wish any longer to cut himself off from the society of the lady to whom he had made a proposal of marriage, and whenever he could find a pretext, which was not difficult for Lanigan, he called back to her to direct her attention to something, or to ask her opinion about something. Miss Mayberry did not respond with any readiness, but the persistence of the young man succeeded in making the conversation a general one, and the Greek scholar made no attempt to explain to the nurse-maid that he was in course of translation.

Dinner was very late at the Squirrel Inn that day, and Mrs. Petter gave her guests a scolding. But this did not in the least disturb the mind of Mr. Tippengray, who was well used to being scolded for coming late to his meals. But something else disturbed him, and for nearly an hour after dinner he wandered about the lawn and around the house. He wanted very much to see Miss Mayberry again, and to tell her the things he did not have a chance to tell her on the road, and he also very much wished to prevent that rascally Lanigan Beam from getting ahead of him, and continuing his broken-off interview with the lady.



XXV

MR. TIPPENGRAY MOUNTS HIGH

It seemed as if every one must be taking an afternoon nap, for the Greek scholar had the grounds to himself. When he began to be tired of walking, he seated himself where he had a good view of the house, and presently saw Ida Mayberry at her window, with the young Douglas in her arms. Almost at the same moment he saw Lanigan Beam approaching from the direction of the barns.

"If he turns his steps towards that window," thought the scholar, "I shall see to it that I am there before him."

But the young man did not walk towards the front of the house, but went in the direction of his room, where the ladder stood leaning against the open window. Mounting this, he disappeared within.

The eyes of Mr. Tippengray flashed, and his face was lighted by a bright thought. In an instant he was on his feet and running lightly towards Lanigan's room. Cautiously and silently he approached the ladder; deftly, and without making the least noise, he moved the upper end of it from the side of the building, and then, putting it on his shoulder, gently walked away with it.

Around to the front of the house Mr. Tippengray carried the ladder, and boldly placed it nearly upright, under Miss Mayberry's window. In astonishment that young lady looked out, and asked him what in the world he was doing.

"I want to speak to you," said Mr. Tippengray, "on a subject of great importance, and I cannot afford to lose this opportunity. May I come up?"

"Certainly," said Ida.

In a moment the Greek scholar was standing on one of the upper rounds of the ladder, with his head and shoulders well above the window-sill. Little Douglas was delighted to see him, and, taking hold of his outstretched forefinger, gave it a good wag.

"It was a capital notion," said Mr. Tippengray, "for me to take this ladder. In the first place, it enables me to get up to you, and secondly, it prevents Lanigan Beam from getting down from his room."

Miss Mayberry laughed, and the baby crowed in sympathy.

"Why shouldn't he get down, Mr. Tippengray?" said she.

"If he did," was the answer, "he would be sure to interfere with me. He would come here, and I don't want him. I have something to say to you, Miss Mayberry, and I must be brief in saying it, for bystanders, no matter who they might be, would prevent my speaking plainly. I have become convinced, Miss Mayberry, that my life will be imperfect, and indeed worthless, if I cannot pass it in prosecuting my studies in your company, and with your assistance. You may think this strong language, but it is true."



"That would be very pleasant," said the nurse-maid, "but I do not see how you are going to manage it. My stay here will soon come to an end, for if Mrs. Cristie does not return to the city in a week or two, I must leave her. I am a teacher, you know, and before the end of the summer vacation, I must go and make my arrangements for the next term, and then you can easily see for yourself that when I am engaged in a school I cannot do very much studying with you."

"Oh, my dear young lady," cried Mr. Tippengray, "you do not catch my idea. I am not thinking of schools or positions, and I do not wish you to think of them. I wish you to know that you have translated me from a quiet scholar into an ardent lover, and that it would be of no use at all to try to get me back into my original condition. If I cannot be the man I want to be, I cannot be the man I was. I ask you for your hands, your heart, and your intellect. I invite you to join me in pursuing the higher education until the end of our lives. Take me for your scholar and be mine. I pray you give me—"

"Upon—my word!" was the ejaculation, loud and distinct, which came up from the foot of the ladder, and stopped Mr. Tippengray's avowal. Miss Mayberry instantly thrust her head out of the window, and Mr. Tippengray looked down. It was Calthea Rose who had spoken, and she stood under the window in company with Mr. and Mrs. Petter. A short distance away, and rapidly approaching, were Mrs. Cristie and Walter Lodloe.

"Here is gratitude!" cried Calthea, in stinging tones. "I came all the way back from Lethbury to see if anything had happened to you and that horse, and this is what I find. The top of a ladder and a child's nurse! Such a disgrace never fell on this county."

"Never, indeed," cried Mrs. Petter. "I wouldn't have believed it if angels had got down on their knees and sworn it to me. Come down from that ladder, Mr. Tippengray! Come down from it before I make my husband break it to bits beneath you. Come down, I say!"

"Mr. Tippengray," said Mr. Petter, in solemn voice, "in the name of the laws of domesticity and the hearthstone, and in the honorable name of the Squirrel Inn, I command you to come down."

There was but one thing for Mr. Tippengray to do, and that was to come down, and so down he came.

"Disgraceful!" cried Miss Rose; "you ought to be ashamed to look anybody in the face."

"Never would I have believed it," exclaimed Mrs. Petter. "Never, never, if I had not seen it with my own eyes, and in broad daylight too!"

What Mr. Tippengray would have said or done is not known, for at that instant Ida Mayberry leaned far out of the window and claimed the attention of the company.

"Look here!" she cried, "we have had enough of this. Mr. Tippengray has nothing to be ashamed of, and he had a perfect right to climb up this ladder. I want you all to understand that we are engaged to be married."

This announcement fell like a sudden downpour upon the people beneath the window, and they stood silenced; but in an instant the Greek scholar bounded up the ladder, and, seizing Miss Mayberry by the hand, kissed it rapturously.

"I may have been a little abrupt," she said, in a low voice, "but I wasn't going to stand here and let our affair be broken off like that."

At Mr. Tippengray's spontaneous exhibition of tender affection, Mr. Petter involuntarily and reverently took off his hat, while Mrs. Cristie and Lodloe clapped their hands. The lover, with radiant face, now descended the ladder and received congratulations from everybody except Miss Calthea, who, with her nose pointed about forty-five degrees above the horizon, walked rapidly to the post where she had tied her horse.



Miss Mayberry now appeared, with the baby in her arms, and an expression of great satisfaction upon her face. Mrs. Cristie relieved her of the first, but the latter increased as the little company heartily shook hands with her.



"I had supposed it would be different with you, Mr. Tippengray," said Mrs. Petter, "but people ought to know their own minds, and I have no doubt that Calthea would have often made it very hot for you, especially if you did not turn over an entirely new leaf in regard to coming to your meals. But there must be no more laddering; whether it is right or not, it does not look so. When Ida isn't tending to the child, and it's too wet to be out of doors, you can have the little parlor to yourselves. I'll have it dusted and aired."

"Excuse me," said Lodloe, coming forward, "but if you have no further use for that ladder, Mr. Tippengray, I will take it to Lanigan Beam, who is leaning out of his window, and shouting like mad. I presume he wants to come down, and as I have locked the door of my room he cannot descend in that way."

"Poor Lanigan!" ejaculated Mrs. Petter, "he doesn't know what he's coming down to. But no matter what he undertakes he is always a day after the fair."

Mr. Petter drew the Greek scholar aside.

"My dear sir," he said expressively, "I have a special reason for congratulating you on your decision to unite your blood and culture with those of another. Had you been entrapped by the wiles of our Lethbury neighbor, a person for whom I have but slight regard, and who is looked upon with decided disapprobation by those as competent to judge as the Rockmores of Germantown, I am afraid, my dear sir, I should have been compelled to sever those pleasant relations which for so many months have held us together, and which I hope may continue for years."

"My good Petter," said Mr. Tippengray, "I have a pleasant house in town, which I hope to occupy with my wife this winter, and I should like it very much if you and Mrs. Petter would make us a visit there, and, if you wish, I'll have some of the Germantown Rockmores there to meet you."

The landlord of the Squirrel Inn stepped back in amazement.

"Do you mean to say," he exclaimed, "that you know the Rockmores?"

"The way of it is this," replied the Greek scholar; "you see, my mother was a Purley, and on the maternal side she belonged to the Kempton-Tucker family, and you know that the head of that family married for his second wife a Mrs. Callaway, who was own sister to John Brent Norris, whose daughter married a Rockmore. So you see we are connected."

"And you never told me!" solemnly exclaimed Mr. Petter.

"No," said his companion; "there are pleasures of revelation, which are enhanced by a delay in realization, and besides I did not wish to place myself in a position which might, perchance, subordinate some of your other guests."

"I must admit that I am sorry," said Mr. Petter; "but your action in the matter proves your blood."

And now, Mrs. Cristie having finished her very earnest conversation with Ida, the newly betrothed pair walked together towards the bluff from which there was such a beautiful view of the valley below.



XXVI

ANOTHER SQUIRREL IN THE TAP-ROOM

"If I had known," said Lanigan Beam, as late that night he sat smoking with Walter Lodloe in the top room of the tower, "that that old rascal was capable of stealing my ladder in order to make love to my girl, I should have had a higher respect for him. Well, I'm done for, and now I shall lose no time in saying good-by to the Squirrel Inn and Lethbury."

"Why so?" asked his companion in surprise. "Was the hope of winning Miss Mayberry the only thing that kept you here?"

"Oh, no," said Lanigan; "it was the hope that Calthea might get old Tippengray. You will remember I told you that, but as she cannot now go off with him, there is nobody for her to go off with, and so I must be the one to travel."

Lodloe laughed. "Under the circumstances then," he said, "you think you couldn't stay in this neighborhood?"

"Not with Calthea unattached," replied Lanigan. "Oh, no! Quite impossible."

When Miss Rose had been convinced that all her plans had come to naught, earnestly and with much severity and singleness of purpose she considered the situation. It did not take her long to arrive at the conclusion that the proper thing for her to do was to marry Lanigan Beam, and to do it without loss of time. Having come to this decision, she immediately began to make arrangements to carry it into effect.

It was utterly vain and useless for Lanigan to attempt to get away from her. She came upon him with a sweet assurance which he supposed had vanished with her earlier years; she led him with ribbons which he thought had faded and fallen into shreds long, long ago; she clapped over his head a bag which he supposed had been worn out on old Tippengray; and she secured him with fetters which he imagined had long since been dropped, forgotten, and crumbled into dust. He did not go away, and it was not long before it was generally understood in the neighborhood that, at last, he and Calthea Rose were to be married.

Shortly after this fact had been made public, Lanigan and Walter Lodloe, who had not seen each other for some days, were walking together on the Lethbury road.

"Yes," said the former, "it is a little odd, but then odd things are all the time happening. I don't know whether Calthea has taken me in by virtue of my first engagement to her, or on some of the others. Or it may be that it is merely a repeal of our last breaking off. Anyway, I found she had never dreamed of anything but marrying me, and though I thought I had a loose foot, I found I hadn't, and there's an end of it. Besides, I will say for Calthea that her feelings are different from what I supposed they were. She has mellowed up a good deal in the last year or two, and I shall try to make things as easy for her as I can.

"But one thing is certain; I shall stick to my resolution not to tell her that I have made money, and have reformed my old, loose ways of living and doing business. All that I am going to keep as a sort of saving fund that I can draw on when I feel like it, and let it alone when I don't feel like it. We are going to travel,—she is wild on that point,—and she expects to pay the piper. She can't do it, but I shall let her think she's doing it. She takes me for a rattling scapegrace, and I needn't put on the sober and respectable unless I choose to; and when I do choose it will be a big card in my hand. By George! sir, I know Calthea so well that I can twist her around my finger, and I am not sure, if I had got the other one, that I could have done that. It's much more likely that I should have been the twisted one."

"What is Miss Rose going to do about her business?" asked Lodloe.

"Oh, that's to be wound up with a jerk," answered his companion. "I've settled all that. She wanted to hire somebody to take charge of the store while we're gone, and to sell out the things on her old plan; but that's all tomfoolery. I have engaged a shopkeeper at Romney to come out and buy the whole stock at retail price, and I gave him the money to do it with. That's good business, you know, because it's the same as money coming back to me, and as for the old oddments, and remnants, and endments of faded braids and rotten calicoes, it's a clear profit to be rid of them. If the Romney man sends them to be ground up at the paper-mill, he may pay himself for the cartage and his time. So the shop will be shut day after to-morrow, and you can see for yourself that my style of business is going to be of the stern, practical sort; and, after all, I don't see any better outlook for a fellow than to live a married life in which very little is expected of him, while he knows that he has on tap a good bank-account and a first-class moral character."

The autumn was a very pleasant one, and as there was no reason for doing anything else, the guests at the Squirrel Inn remained until late in the season. Therefore it was that Miss Calthea was enabled to marry and start off on her wedding tour before the engaged couples at the inn had returned to the city, or had even fixed the dates for their weddings. Calthea was not a woman who would allow herself to be left behind in matters of this nature. From her general loftiness and serenity of manner, and the perfect ease and satisfaction with which she talked of her plans and prospects with her friends and acquaintances, no one could have imagined that she had ever departed from her original intention of becoming Mrs. Lanigan Beam.

In the midst of her happiness she could not help feeling a little sorry for Ida Mayberry, and this she did not hesitate to say to some persons with whom she was intimate, including Mrs. Petter. To be sure, she had been informed as to the year of Mr. Tippengray's birth, which, if correct, would make him forty-six; but it was her private opinion that sixty would be a good deal nearer the mark. However, if the young child's nurse should become an early widow, and be thrown upon her own resources, she, for one, would not withhold a helping hand. But she earnestly insisted that not a word she said on this subject should ever be breathed into another ear.

When Ida Mayberry heard what Calthea had said about her and Mr. Tippengray's age, she was very angry, and declared she would not go to the old thing's wedding, which was to take place the next day in the Lethbury church. But, after thinking over the matter, she changed her mind, and concluded that at times like this we should all be pleasant and good-natured towards one another; so she sat down and wrote a letter to Miss Calthea, which she sent to the expectant bride that very afternoon. The missive ran thus:

MY DEAR MISS ROSE:

I have seen so little of Mr. Beam in the last few days that I have had no opportunity to express to him some thanks which are due him from Mr. Tippengray and myself. I am therefore obliged to ask you, my dear Miss Rose, to give to him a message from me, which, as it is one of gratitude, you will be pleased to deliver.

Not long ago, when Mr. Beam took occasion to tell me that he loved me and asked me to marry him,—I remember now that it was on the very day that Mr. Petter's horse behaved so badly and, unfortunately for you, tipped you out of the tail end of the little cart, and made it necessary for you to give up both it and Mr. Tippengray to me,—he (Mr. Beam) was so good as to say that if I would agree to be his wife and still wished the instructive companionship of Mr. Tippengray, he would take that gentleman into his family as a tutor. Now this, as you will readily acknowledge, my dear Miss Rose, was very good in Mr. Beam, and in return I wish you to say to him, both from Mr. Tippengray and from me, that if there should ever be any position in our gift which he is capable of filling, all he has to do is to ask for it.

Most sincerely yours,

Ida Mayberry.



And the next day in church no face expressed a more delighted interest in the nuptial ceremonies than that of the pretty Miss Mayberry.

* * * * *

It was late in November, and the weather was getting decidedly cool. There was a fire in the tap-room of the Squirrel Inn, and also one in the little parlor, and by this, after supper, sat Mr. and Mrs. Petter.

The guests were all gone; Mr. and Mrs. Tippengray, who had had a quiet wedding in New York, were on their way to Cambridge, England, where the bride would spend a portion of the honeymoon in the higher studies there open to women, while Mrs. Cristie and Mr. Lodloe were passing happy days in the metropolis preparing for their marriage early in the new year. The Beams were in Florida, where, so Lanigan wrote, they had an idea of buying an orange grove, and where, so Calthea wrote, she would not live if they gave her a whole county.

The familiar faces all being absent, and very few people dropping in from Lethbury or the surrounding neighborhood, the Squirrel Inn was lonely, and the hostess thereof did not hesitate to say so. As for the host, he had his books, his plans, and his hopes. He also had his regrets, which were useful in helping him to pass his time.

"What in the world," asked Mrs. Petter, regarding an object in her husband's hands, "made you take down that miserable, dilapidated little squirrel from the sign-post? You might as well have let him stay there all winter, and put up a new one in the spring."

"This has been a most memorable year," replied her husband, "and I wish to place this squirrel in his proper position on the calendar shelf of the tap-room before the storms and winds of winter have blown the fur from his body and every hair from his upturned tail. I have killed and prepared a fresh squirrel, and I will place him on the sign-post in a few days."

"If you would let that one stay until he was a skin skeleton, he would have given people a better idea of the way this year has turned out than he does now," said Mrs. Petter.

"How so?" he asked, looking at her in surprise.

"Don't we sit here stripped of every friendly voice?" she said. "Of course, it's always more lonesome in the winter, but it's never been so bad as this, for we haven't even Calthea to fall back on. Things didn't turn out as I expected them to, and I suppose they never will, but it always was my opinion, and is yet, that nothing can go straight in such a crooked house. This very afternoon, as I was coming from the poultry-yard, and saw Lanigan's ladder still standing up against the window of his room, I couldn't help thinking that if a burglar got into that room, he might suppose he was in the house; but he'd soon find himself greatly mistaken, and even if he went over the roof to Mr. Lodloe's room, all he could do would be to come down the tower stairs, and then he would find himself outside, just where he started from."

"That would suit me very well," remarked Mr. Petter.

"If this house had been built in a plain, straightforward way," his wife continued, "with a hall through the middle of it, and the rooms alike on both sides, then things might have happened in a straightforward way, and not all mixed up, as they were here this summer. Nobody could tell who was going to marry who, and why they should do it, if they ever did."

Mr. Petter arose and, still holding the stuffed squirrel in his hand, stood with his back to the fire.

"It strikes me, Susan," said he, looking reflectively in front of him, "that our lives are very seldom built with a hall through the middle and the rooms alike on both sides. I don't think we'd like it if they were. They would be stupid and humdrum. The right sort of a life should have its ups and downs, its ins and outs, its different levels, its outside stairs and its inside stairs, its balconies, windows and roofs of different periods and different styles. This is education. These things are the advantages that our lives get from the lives of others.

"Now, for myself, I like the place I live in to resemble my life and that of the people about me. And I am sure that nothing could be better suited to all that than the Squirrel Inn.

"All sorts of things come into our lives, and when a thing like Lanigan Beam comes into it, what could be better than to lodge it in a place where it can go no farther? and if something of a high order, something backed up by Matthew Vassar, but which is a little foreign, and not altogether of our kind, how well to be able to put that in a noble and elevated position, where it can have every advantage and can go and come, without being naturalized or made a part of us. Think, too, how high excellence can be worthily lodged, with the comforts of the North and the beauties of the South, as in the case of Mrs. Cristie's rooms; and how blooded service is not forced into a garret, but is quartered in a manner which shows that the blood is recognized and the service ignored."

"If I had known what she was when she came," remarked Mrs. Petter, "I should have put her on the top floor."

"Think, too," continued the landlord, "of noble sentiments, high aspirations, and deep learning, lodged of their own free will—for it appears that there was no necessity for it—so near as to answer every need of social domesticity, and yet in a manner so free and apart as to allow undisturbed and undisturbing reveries beneath the stars, and such other irregular manifestations of genius as are common to the gifted."

"Such as coming late to meals," interpolated the lady.

"Think, too," Mr. Petter went on to say, speaking in a more earnest voice—"think, too, of a life or a house in which there is no place for a Calthea Rose; in which she cannot exist, and which, I am happy to say, she has always opposed and condemned."

Mrs. Petter slightly yawned.

"All that sounds very well," she said, "and there may be truth in it; but, after all, here we are alone by ourselves, and, so far as I can see, no chance of being less lonely next season, for your rules keep out all common folks, and we can't count on the people who were here this year coming again."

Mr. Petter smiled. "There is no reason to suppose," he said, "that next season we shall not be favored with the company of the Rockmores of Germantown."

And with that he walked away to place in its proper position on the shelf in the tap-room the squirrel of the past season.

THE END