A Stranger, Yet at Home

PRUDENCE WARNER stood twisting her brown hair into an irreproachable knot at the back of her head. She looked at herself in the glass, with gray, honest eyes beaming softly under straight pretty brows. Her mouth was sweet but homely, and her nose was delicate. She was thirty-five and a spinster,— a very contented one; but it may have been that her contentment under the limited conditions of her life arose from a somewhat limited nature. She was habitually diligent in the Sunday-school, and devoted to the temperance society. She liked to sew on her gowns, and sometimes found pleasure in very harmless gossip. This last idiosyncrasy was fiercely denounced by her mother, Mrs. Arvilla Warner.

“ The idee,” said that matron once, " of pesterin’ yourself to find out what stuff Mrs. Coggeshall’s a-goin’ to cover her furniture with, when there’s Emerson — blessed man ! — a-layin’ on that table, in a figerative sense, jest waitin’ to let you get acquainted with him.”

“ But, mother,” Prudence faintly answered, gazing depreciatingly at the blue and gold volume indicated, “ T can’t understand Emerson very well, and what I do understand don’t seem quite orthodox to me.”

“ And what call have you to be orthodox ? ” retorted Mrs. Warner, who, being herself a staunch Unitarian, felt much aggrieved because her husband had remained a Baptist during all the years of their married life, and Prudence in early girlhood had experienced religion, and been baptized into her father’s faith.

“ It was all that Lorenzo Haynes’s doin’,” thought the indignant mother, — “ foolin’ round her with his soft speeches.”

She was about right. Young Haynes, a big-eyed divinity student, had been the hero of Prudence’s one love dream ; a dream that had vanished many years before Prue, at thirty-five, stood brushing her soft hair in the virginal solitude of her pretty room.

One of the peculiarities of Miss Warner’s situation in life was that the members of her family did not really bear to her the relation they nominally did. Mr. Warner was not her father, but her uncle, and only by marriage at that. His first wife had been the sister of Prudence’s mother, and had taken the baby when that mother died. She, also, soon followed the world-accustomed pilgrimage, and passed out of the sight of eager eyes. Then Mr. Warner married Arvilla Gould, who had tenderly cared for the adopted child. All her life, Prue had been well beloved, but tamely, except for the brief period during which her clerical lover had been both true and ardent. On the whole, Prue had nearly succeeded in teaching herself that the moderate certainty of her home affections was worth more than that flickering flame had been, and there was no real trouble now in the eyes that were reflected at her in the mirror.

Her own father, Stanton Dudley, had married a second time, been widowed, and wedded again, and after this threefold experience had himself died, leaving a widow, Prue’s unknown step-mother. Somewhere among these marital changes another daughter had been born to him, a fair, slight girl, with cheeks that bore the fatal New England flush. When very young, she had married a man somewhat older than herself. Under his loving eyes, her wild-rose bloom grew into a deeper hectic, then faded and paled in death. Darius Kingman left the country at once, and settled in business in China. Once in a while he acknowledged his connection with Prudence by sending her gifts, which she displayed to her village friends with some pride.

“ From my brother,” she would say, gently lingering on the words.

“ Oh, he ’s only a half brother-in-law, at best: cried Maggie Stafford, on one such occasion; “and yet he’s the only real relative you have in the world.”

“I’m sure,” broke in Mrs. Warner, sharply, “ Prue’s folks think just as much of her as anybody’s else’s folks do of them.”

Maggie was a young married beauty, struggling for an assured position among the good-natured village aristocracy, who were easily induced to open their doors part way for her. They criticised her a good deal, but tolerated and even rather liked her, both women and men feeling the charm of her unusual beauty.

On this afternoon of which we have spoken, when Prudence had at last finished arraying herself, she went downstairs, and met Mr. Warner bustling into the sitting-room.

“ Where’s mother ? ” asked he.

“ There she comes, up the street,” answered Janet, the pretty handmaid, flinging open the porch door. Prue stepped to the threshold, and saw her mother approaching. She was an elderly woman, tall and spare, with thin, high features, which were shaded by a silk sun-bonnet and a green veil tied over her forehead. Spectacles, also green, garnished her nose. She wore a black silk gown, and with her gloveless hands pushed forward a doll baby-carriage, in which were laid several bundles.

There ! ” cried Mrs. Warner, as she came up the steps, a moment later. “Janet never told me till just now we was out of lump sugar, and I up an’ bundled off after it; and I thought I might as well lay in some rice and tapioca the same time. I knew, with all my years, I could get it quicker ’n Janet, not being so much interested in the young man in the store. That’s where my years are a real help to me.”

Prue, stooping, shook some dust from the black skirt.

“ Marm’s all ready in the parlor,” said she. “ Come and see how nice she looks. But, oh, mother, don’t forget that Janet will take the teacups from you to pass! ”

“ I won’t let her forget,” pertly quoth the maid.

“ Come, come,” commented Mr. Warner ; “ you talk as if mother was a child.”

Several ladies were now seen corning to the front door, and the family went into the parlor to receive them. They clustered around “ Marm,” Mrs. Warner’s aged mother, who sat with calmly folded hands.

“ Ninety-five to-day,” said her sonin-law, “ and she don’t look a bit over eighty.”

“ Oh,” quavered the old lady, “ but I don’t feel nigh so spry as when I was on’y ninety. I didn’t think I’d live to see this day.”

“ That’s so,” said her daughter. “Mother’s just been bent on dyin’ all this spring. Didn’t want me to make up this dress for her, for fear she would n’t wear it. But I was bound she should have it, anyhow.”

“ It ’ll do beautiful to be laid out in,” said Marn, smoothing its shining folds. “ Dear, dear me, Arvilly, what a time it is sence I was to a funeral ! ”

The ladies drew out their fancy work. Maggie Stafford sat down by the last gift Darius Kingman had sent, a lovely cabinet, that Prue had transformed into a writing-desk; not that she wrote much, but it had pleased her fancy to make the pretty, curious structure serve as a sort of shrine for the unused literary implements belonging to the family.

“ This is very nice, I’m sure,” said Maggie, passing her fingers over the inlaid surface. “ It must be very convenient. I suppose, Mrs. Warner, you’re such an intellectual person, you write and compose a great deal.”

“ Not I,” said the matron, with a toss of her head. “ I thank the Lord I can use my measuring tape on myself as true as on anybody else, and I know too much to waste my time a-writing things I would n’t take the minutes to read if somebody else had written them.”

“ How Maggie always does rub mother the wrong way ! ” mused Prue, with a quiet smile; and then, on some pretext, she stepped to the door and looked out across the road. The level sunbeams shone into her eyes, under the flowerladen boughs of apple-trees. A tiny bird, all brown and yellow, swayed on some frail support among the grasses. The grass itself shimmered in the warm, low light, and pink apple-buds seemed to pale visibly into white blossoms, their blushes dying as they grew used to the kisses of the sun.

How lovely it all was! Prudence turned her eyes, and saw a man walking up the road beside the orchard wall. She gave an amazed little cry, started eagerly forward, checked herself, stood a moment irresolute, then advanced slowly to the gate, and when the stranger came up she put out her hand, and he took it, before either spoke.

“ You must be Prudence,” he said at last. “ Do you know me ? ”

“Yes, Darius.”

They went into the house together.

“ Good land! ” cried Mrs. Warner. “ Yon don’t mean it! Darius Kingman, as I live ! ”

“ Come here, come here,” said Marm, in a high tone. “ I’m ’most blind, an’ I want to see if it’s really him.”

Everybody talked, and laughed, and exclaimed, while Kingman stood looking down at the aged woman, — everybody but Prue, who kept very silent, watching Darius with shy, glad eyes.

Kingman spoke very deferentially to the old lady. He might well have smiled to see her. Around her withered throat she wore a black ribbon, on her head a cap made of cheap laces, both black and white, mixed with lavender ribbon, and round her head was tied, with long ends, a bright green string, which held on her spectacles. Down each of her temples were laid six little locks of gray hair, shaped like buttonhooks. After Darius and Prue became intimate, she confided to him the information that those gray locks were cut from Marm’s dead husband’s brow, more than twenty years before, made up into their present ornamental shape, and were now bound on to the widow’s forehead under her cap.

The husbands of Mrs. Warner’s guests arrived a few minutes after Kingman, and then all the questions and welcoming uproar began again, till it became known to everybody that one of the gentlemen, Mr. Coggcshall, who was a cousin of Darius, had had some communication with him, and knew of his intended return. It did not transpire that evening, but in the course of a few days the whole village learned that the traveler had come to help Mr. Coggeshall in the management of a new factory.

Amid the hubbub around Marin’s chair, Janet’s clear voice was heard saying that supper was ready ; and I regret to be obliged to chronicle the fact that, during the progress of that meal, Mrs. Warner became so absorbed in telling Maggie Stafford, what every one else at the table knew, about the china that came into her own family when one of her uncles married “ a real, foreign-born French woman,” that she forgot to give the cups of tea to Janet, and started them herself on uncertain journeys from hand to hand around the table. The maid pursed up her lips and unpursed them, balanced her waiter irresolutely for a moment, then tapped her mistress on the shoulder, whispered fiercely, “ Give it to me, ma’am,” and seized a cup from the absent-minded matron, which she bore triumphantly to Mr. Kingman ; while Mrs. Coggeshall made some remark about the Russian tea she had drank in Europe, and Maggie Stafford silently wished that she also were a connoisseur in teas.

A few evenings later, as Prudence was weeding her flower bed, Darius came into the garden, and strolled up to her. She flushed slightly, holding out her soiled hands with an apologetic gesture of exhibition.

“ Never mind,” said he. “ I saw a pump in the field as I came through. I am sure you can find water enough to make them clean.”

“ Oh, yes,” she answered, feeling a little confused, — “ in the meadow. That’s where they water the cows.”

He laughed, threw himself on the grass, and stared up at the apple blossoms.

“ How unlike China! ” he said at last.

“It must all seem strange to you,” she ventured, rather timidly.

“ Strange,” he echoed, “yet so familiar. It’s coming back to first principles with a vengeance, to take up life in a New England village, after going round the globe in search of a destiny.”

She did not half understand him, but she smiled, and he felt encouraged to go on.

“ I feel the spell of old associations already. I am sure I have made my circuit. I have traveled far, but all my paths lead me back to the starting place.”

He plucked the blades of grass under his idle fingers, and played with them for some moments ; then broke the silence suddenly: —

“ Prudence, will you go with me to the Quaker meeting on Sunday ? — First day, I suppose I should say.”

She glanced up, surprised. “ Yes,” he continued dreamily, “the old faith knocks within my heart, where it has always lain hidden, and demands to come out and rule my life again.”

She was really a little frightened, as well as much puzzled, at the turn Darius’ remarks had taken; but as she knelt there by her flowers, with raised face and perplexed eyes, something in her sympathetic though uncomprehending womanhood stimulated him to reveal his thought more fully to her.

“ Do you not know,” he said, “ that I was born and bred a Friend, but was disowned when I married your sister ? ”

“ Oh, yes,” she answered. “ I had forgotten it.”

“ I was in love,” he went on, “and what I did I would do again under the same circumstances; but those can never he. And so it has come to pass that I feel the longing of a homesick child to be again received into membership.”

“ You do not look like a Quaker,” said she.

“ Perhaps not; nor do I talk like one,” he added, with a smile. “ Oldfashioned Quakers never discuss religious matters. May be I shall feel no need of speech when I sit among them again.”

“It seems odd,” murmured the bewildered Prue.

“ I suppose it does,” he admitted. “ But truly, Prue, you can never know how deep the dye of Quakerism is to those whose souls are steeped in it, as an hereditary religion. It is only a veneer of the world I wear upon me. My garments are un-Quakerish in cut, but my thoughts are shaped after the old pattern.”

“And will you wear a drab coat ? ”

He sprang to his feet with a hearty laugh. “ I don’t know whether the inward impulse will extend so far outward.”

He started towards the house, and she followed. The path was more familiar to her, and yet it seemed as if he were guiding her, under the cherrytrees and apple blossoms, to the door of her home.

It chanced that two or three weeks elapsed before Prudence was able to accompany her brother-in-law to the Quaker meeting. Meanwhile, Darius was very busy, thinking and doing. His business arrangements proceeded rapidly towards completion. He plunged headlong into details, of which some bewildered and some surprised him. In his character, practical energy was united with dreamy speculativeness. He possessed good abilities as a business man, joined to the mental furnishing for a religious enthusiast, Remarkable in neither department of his mind, his thinking was still of an honest, truthful sort, and through all his life he had kept sight of a horizon line beyond the sordid cares or tempting passions of every-day existence. During the years spent in China, his longing for an ideal life had become intensified into what was almost a passion for a religious life. A homesick feeling mingled with the sentiment, and, uniting itself to the ineradicable impulse that a Quaker breeding gives to the soul, turned his thoughts towards the renewal of his fellowship with the church of his forefathers. Across the drift of this current came the circumstance of his entrance into a manufacturing business, involving, as it seemed to him, some complexity in his relations with many of his fellowbeings.

Darius Kingman, sickening with disgust at Asiatic life, whose conditions tried his faith in the unity of the human race, had idealized his own country, and he therefore found many things to perplex him, when he came suddenly into contact with American industrial forces, and with laborers on American soil. At first lie was delighted ; then shocked by some occurrences which left him uncertain whether these painful phenomena were normal or exceptional.

It was a perfect June morning on which Darius drove with Prudence through the sleepy heat to the old Quaker meeting-house. The roads were lined with blackberry and barberry bushes. Locust-trees grew by the stone walls on either side, and were in full bloom, making the air heavy with their sweetness. Wild-grape vines clasped trees, stones, and shrubbery in an abandoned embrace.

Prudence sat erect by Kingman’s side, and looked about her with an unwonted brightness in her eyes. He drove on in dreamy silence. The languid air, the wild fragrance, stole into his soul, exciting there a sort of sensuous fervor of religious emotion. When they reached their destination, he lifted Prue out before the worn old meeting-house, and idly suffered his eyes to rest upon her figure as she mounted the steps. She did not look unfit to take her place among Quaker women. Her bonnet was simple, and she was clad in a muslin whose prevailing tint was gray. He fastened his horse in the shed, whose yawning alcoves had sheltered the teams of more than one sober generation of meetinggoers, and then made his way into the little assembly. The memories of his boyhood came over him, as he took his seat apart from Prue, on the “ men’s side ” of the room. He fixed his eyes on the elders, sitting on the “facing seats.” Softly came the sound of summer noises through the windows. The moments went by like solemn heart-beats. The faces of the congregation were settled into stolid calm, but Darius felt as if he were waiting for something to happen. A woman rose, at last, and laid her bonnet on the bench beside her. She began to speak in a low voice, which soon soared into the well - known Quaker chant. Her sentences were disconnected, ungrammatical, and uncertain of significance ; but Darius could not judge this utterance as he would have judged it if delivered in another tone and place. Religious feeling and truth were linked too closely with such sounds, through all the experience of early life.

A small, sharp-featured man arose next. Plain as his face was, it had a look of tenderness, and his homely eyes were very earnest. His words, uttered simply, and with but little intonation, were direct. He spoke of God as if he were sure of him. “Men are slow,” he said, “ really to believe there is a God in this world. They believe in many other powers, but not in his. They are slow to think he is working right here. Yet he made men so that they need him. Man is higher than all the other creatures God has made, but he needs God more than these lower ones do. If we are not in unity with God, we cannot live right lives, so it behooves us all to watch carefully what passes within us, to see that we be in unity with him. For thus much he has left it to us to do, that we should not be mere puppets ; we must try to put ourselves into communion with him, if we want his help. If there be any who say they cannot see God, or understand him, amid the sore provings of trouble and sorrow and pain that are laid upon them, verily, it is because they have themselves closed their eyes and darkened their minds to perceive him not.”

Thus spoke the old man, in an everyday accent of voice, and it seemed to Darius that this was what he had waited for, — the speech of a man who really believed in God.

Some days after this Sunday, Darius, walking home in the late afternoon, saw Prue coming out of one of the factory tenements, where he knew some consumptive invalids lived. She carried a little covered basket on her arm, and wore her gray muslin.

“ You have been to see poor Andrews,” he said, joining her. “He tells me you have been there before.”

“ Oh, yes.”

“ You look like a sister of charity.”

“ Do I ? But I do not make a “business of doing good.”

“ Perhaps you are good enough without making a business of it. Some of us have to treat it as a very serious occupation indeed, in order to succeed much in it,” he said, slowly, as they walked, treading the flickering shadows of the willow boughs that drooped above their heads.

“How came you to take up visiting the poor ? ” he added.

“ I did n’t take it up,” she said, somewhat confusedly. “ I never knew anything about such people, till Mr. Coggeshall built these houses by the river ; and then we had a washer-woman from one of the families, and I went there once when the cellar was flooded ; and so I kept on going, they were so near.”

“ These people were your neighbors, in short,” said he, looking at her gently,

“ and so you treated them with neighborly kindness. Well, my dear, I am not sure that searching through all the universe will find me a better gospel than that of neighborliness, — if we do not narrow our neighborhood too closely.”

He fell to wondering what would be the efficacy of the Golden Rule as an economic principle; but she, still walking by his side, scarcely heard the happy chirping of the birds above them, her heart was throbbing so because he had called her his dear.

Maggie Stafford met them thus, and glanced curiously at their faces.

“ At her age ! ” thought the young married beauty.

A few minutes later, she was sitting on Mrs. CoggeshaH’s portico, saying, “ Upon my word, I do think the English way is better. Then a girl in Prudence’s position would know at once there could be no love-making between her and her brother-in-law, and so would n’t get her mind set in that direction.”

Mrs. Coggeshall looked blandly at her visitor. " Oh, indeed,” she said. “Have you leanings towards the English church? Well, I always did like the service very much, and I have read a good deal about the Anglican division from Rome with great interest. If you are thinking about these things, I should be delighted to lend yon several theological works which I possess. Mr. Coggeshall always laughs at what he calls my ’ pious library.’ I confess, however, I never could quite make up my mind to turn Episcopalian. It was the fault of the English people. They are responsible themselves for my remaining outside their communion. I always doted on everything English till the war came, and then they were so nasty, as they say, I never could abide them afterwards. Do you remember much about the war ? ”

“Yes, though I was quite young then,” said Maggie ; and bent on returning to the charge, she added, “ I think it very odd Mr. Kingman did not come back from China to go into the army.”

“ Brought up a Quaker, my dear,” rejoined Mrs. Coggeshall, thoroughly aware of Maggie’s purpose, and equally resolved to frustrate it. " You know Quakers don’t fight; and though many of the young men in the Society did go into the army, they were those who were in the very heat of the martial spirit of the North, and caught the war fever without stopping to think of the principles of their religion. But Darius was way off in China, and only echoes reached his ear; positively, only echoes of the strife. It was n’t exactly ’ distance lending enchantment to the view,’ but something analogous to it. The excitement did not overcome the effect of a lifelong training. He sympathized, and all that, but could not take the bloody sword in hand. Oh, I respect his devotion to principle j ust as much as I honor the courage of our soldiers ! I knew several of those Quaker officers from Philadelphia. Splendid fellows ! Come into the house, Maggie, and let me show you a photograph of one of them. Such a gentleman and soldier as he was ! And to think he is dead! Yet I’ve got to that age that sometimes it seems to me as if half the world were dead, and it was n’t natural for me to have any friends alive.”

So she talked the young woman’s gossip down, hut she understood it very well, and began herself to fear that Prue might be laying up trouble for her poor little heart.

Maggie, meanwhile, rushed into the game, and began to invite Darius to visit her. She had no special desire to assume the role of married dirt. Her ambition was to have a popular house, and to move about in it with impartial smiles. Darius took Prudence there a few times. She sat in the corner, very composed and very quiet. He did not quite like the style of society they met there, and it relieved an occasional feeling of annoyance for him to see Prue on her low seat by the window.

“Am I not glad that is over!” he said one night, as they started for home. “ I would not go there so much if Mrs. Stafford did n’t manage it so that I seem obliged to. I don’t think it is consistent with my Quaker principles to frequent such gay assemblies.”

“ I can’t quite make out,” said Prue, “ how much in earnest you are about your Quakerism.”

“ I am very much in earnest,” answered he. “ Do you not think a simple style of living, on the part of the rich, might have a tendency to bring about a keener sense of the brotherhood of men ? ”

There was no reply to this remark, because just then a turn in the road brought them out of the dense shadow of trees, and there, displayed before them, was the sky all in a pallid flame with dancing Northern Lights.

After this evening, Darius generally succeeded in escaping or refusing Maggie’s invitations. That pretty lady pouted, pretended to be grieved, and finally gave a little revengeful thrust: —

“ I suppose a poor married woman like me must give up your friendship, now you are so much interested in another quarter. Oh, I know : I ought to retire to my kitchen, and leave the parlor for the ‘ young folks,’ or only come there to sit by the wall and watch them enjoy themselves. But I don’t like to do that very well,” she added, demurely folding her hands and dropping her lovely eyes, “ when the only reason I am not one of the ‘ young folks ’ myself is that I am married, not that I am old. I am really not near so old as some people I know. And truly, I don’t see why I can’t like fun and my friends just as well as if I did n’t — like somebody ever so much better, and belong to him, — in a general way. And why can’t you, Mr. Kingman ? Is she jealous ? ”

“ I don’t know what you mean,” said he stoutly.

“ Oh, but she does,” retorted Maggie, looking prettier than ever, for audacity was becoming to her. “ Or is it only a case of somebody liking you best ? Then surely you might come to my little parties. Oh, there’s my good man ! Tom, dear, don’t you see me ? Here I am, quarreling with Mr. Kingman. Come over and walk home with me, for, truly, he won’t.”

That evening there was a temperance meeting in the village, and all the aristocracy of the place were there, by way of setting a good example to the lower classes. Mrs. Coggeshall, looking across the aisle, saw Prue’s eyes resting for an instant on Darius.

“ Ah,” thought the matron, “ Providence evidently intends this to be a case for me. Prudence has no flesh-andblood mother, and the best make-believe one don’t thrill through every nerve on behalf of a child, as a real one does. I have n’t an idea Mrs. Warner sees a thing of what’s going on under her respectably spectacled nose. To be sure, Prue is old enough to take care of herself ; only women, unless they are married, will be women to the end of the chapter, poor creatures ! Gracious, how time goes ! It must be full fifteen years since Prue followed that Lorenzo somebody down to the river. She thought she was doing it to please the Lord, but I guess the Lord knew very well it was done to please Lorenzo. And now she’s on the road to another trouble ! ”

That night Darius Kingman sat, for an hour, alone on his boarding-house piazza. The moon shone solemnly down out of a clear, dark sky. There seemed to be no barrier between the man’s soul and heaven, — only immeasurable distance. All the passions of his life passed in review before him, like a great host marshaled under that awful sky. Events were of little moment to him compared with emotions. It seemed to him of no account what special circumstance had fired the train of feeling laid ready in his heart, or had turned his thoughts along a pathway already open before him. If it had not been one incident, it would have been another. Only one thing in all his life appeared now to have been of itself of controlling import, — his early love and loss. Apart from this single monumental experience, all his story was the story of a man’s longing after God, and all that longing had brought him back to the faith of his youth. Amid the fluctuations of modern thought, with its materialistic tendency, this alone offered a solid assurance to his mind, — the dear old Quaker doctrine, that in the soul of every man that cometh into the world is a light that lighteth all his footsteps. A thousand lesser impulses, also, drew him. back to his old religion. For the sake of his love he had once defied the Quaker discipline, which forbade marriage with an outsider ; but did he wish to do that again ? Prudence, sweet as she was to him, aroused no such passionate love as had been given to her sister. He knew very well that old customs had so far relaxed among the Friends in that section of the country that he could he admitted to fellowship with them, though it were known that he purposed marrying one of the women of the world a week later. He had no principle himself against such marriages, and yet, whether from the effect of early training or hereditary prejudice, he shrank in some undefined way from entertaining at the same time the project of joining the Society and of making such a marriage as the Society had deliberately condemned as “ disorderly.”

It also touched what small share of humor this serious-minded man possessed to find himself, in this religious crisis of his life, tempted to commit again the very same offense which had made him a religious outlaw, so many years before. But when he had reached this stage of his meditations, be told himself that he was not at all tempted to marry Prue. Why, then, was he thinking about it ? Why did her face rise before him in the moonlight, beside the radiant image of that, dead girl, whose remembered beauty even made the living Prudence seem the ghost to him ?

The truth was, Maggie Stafford’s hints had rankled in Darius’ mind, and, moreover, Mrs. Coggesliall had claimed his escort on the way home that evening, and had plainly told him that if he did not mean to marry Prue he would do well not to dangle around her any more. Mrs. Coggesliall could he very direct of speech when she chose, and she had left no doubt as to her meaning in his mind.

“ I do not believe it,” he soliloquized. “ Prue is not the girl to fall in love with any man ; nor am I exactly a charming creature. I will not go there to make talk, but there is surely no need for me to think of marrying her on her own account! Wliat an idea ! As for myself. I like lier. I really do not know why I like her so much. Sometimes, I wonder if she has any intellect, or only that, sweet, sympathetic smile, which always leads me on to talk. She never says a noticeable thing, yet I always want to tell her all I think. But I surely do not love her, or I could not analyze her thus.”

It did not occur to the man that he was not analyzing her very successfully just then, — that he was simply confessing there was some quality in her which defied his analysis ; so he went bravely on to his resolve, that he would shield her from gossip, and visit her only when compelled to do so. He rose at last to leave the silent porch. Pausing at the house door, he looked up at the moon, which now rode majestic in the midheavens. Back over his soul came a religious feeling, like the swelling of a great tide.

“ O God, my God,” he murmured, “ in all this aching, groaning world, in all this living, loving world, there is no room for any passion but the desire of thee ! ”

So evening after evening passed, and Darius did not come to Prue’s sittingroom. At first she wondered openly at his absence, playfully making little vexed speeches about it to her father and mother. Then she ceased to refer to her brother-in-law, and drooped a little in her manner; but there was nobody to notice that.

One afternoon she sat at the window, and saw Darius go by, on the other side of the road, with Maggie Stafford and her younger sister, Tessy, — a girl more golden-haired, more beautifully blonde even, than Maggie. Tessy was laughing as they passed. The laugh sounded like the note of a bobolink, Prue thought; and, thinking this, saw Darius smile kindly in answer. How well she knew that kind smile !

She rose at once, and went to her room. She saw herself in her mirror, as the door closed behind her, and seated herself mechanically in a low chair. How old and pale she looked !

“ Old ! ” she said to herself mockingly. “ I feel as if I were dead ! ”

For a full half hour she sat there, scarcely moving; then she went calmly down the stairs, took up her sewing, and listened, without understanding, while her mother read something from Darwin aloud to her.

That same evening, Darius stood once more on Maggie’s piazza, while the music of young voices floated gayly through the open windows; and she herself, a white, graceful figure, came to him, laying a hand lightly on His arm.

“ It is lovely to have you back,” said she; “and I knew you would like Tessy.”

“ She is charming,” said the man. “ But I do not feel in my element among these bright young girls. I fancy I lived too long in China to be at home in this sort of society. I spoke pigeon English too many years to find my tongue apt at compliments now. You are very kind to want to introduce me to your girl friends, but it is too late for me to make myself their comrade.”

After this, he did manage very nearly to seclude himself and, being very much occupied by bis business during the fall months, Prue was not the only one of his friends who missed the sight of him.

Of course he was obliged to call occasionally at Mr. Warner’s, but it was at least three weeks after that evening at Maggie’s when Drue met him first. She came into the house from a botanizing walk, carrying in her hand a spray of early red leaves. On her way home she had been thinking of him. She was always thinking of him at this time. She never left the house without the thought that she might see him. She never came back without the hope that he had entered her home in her absence. She never approached a window without wondering if she might not catch a glimpse of him through the revealing glass, that seemed a loop-hole in her prison walls. She never saw a figure coming towards her from the distance without the prayer that it might be his. It was not a sharp pain she felt, but a deadly suspense of the mind, a slowcreeping faintness of the heart, like the on-coming of disease or of old age.

In this mood with his name trembling on her unconscious lips, she came into the room on that September afternoon, and saw him standing beside her grandmother, — her grandmother only by adoption, like all her other relatives, poor Prue!

He was saying gentle parting words to the old lady, who peered up at him, nodding her head, till the little false curls bobbed in a manner quite unbecoming their melancholy origin.

“ Yes, yes, Darius Kingman,” said the shrill voice; “ we old folks expect you young ones to forget us. I ain’t ben a mite surprised you did n’t come, but it did seem ruther more lonesomer. I set here an’ think an’ think, an’ your Mary’s pretty face rises right up afore me like a picter I She come here a-visitin’ oncet or twieet, when she was a tiny tot; an’ I declare for ’t, though Prue was a better gal, I did like your Mary best. I set a sight by Prue, but my heart kinder hankered after Mary. She was like my little gal that died; an’ when you come it brings the thought of them both to me, — pretty little gals, your Mary, as has been dead only thirteen year, an’ my Arabella, as died sixty year ago. Wal, wal, I allus see ’em together now, an’ pretty soon I’m goin’ where they be. I think I can find ’em somewheres, — I think I can.”

As the old lady’s voice died away in an unearthly whisper, Darius turned, and saw Prue, very pale, standing before him. holding the spray of red leaves against her gray gown. He felt a sort of nervous shock, but he only bowed, touched her fingers, stooped again over Marm’s withered hand, murmured a few incoherent words, and left the house.

A few days later, the grandmother died, and Darius came again frequently to the Warners’. He was kind and helpful, but he kept out of Prue’s way, and when the necessity for visiting there passed he came no more.

The Warners did not put on mourning. “ It’s a sinful waste of time an’ money,” said Mrs. Arvilla. “ It makes the world dismaler than it need be, an’ there ’s nothin’ Christian in doin’ that. The sorrow that has to be coddled to keep it alive had better die. If anybody thinks I ain’t sorry my mother’s dead, let ’em come an’ ask me ! That’s all.”

So Prue still wore her soft grays and browns ; but when she selected her modest winter wardrobe, that year, she chose even plainer shapes and duller tints than ever before ; feeling that thus she did some slight honor to the aged woman’s memory, but further impelled by a sense that in this way it behooved one to dress whose girlhood had passed. She did not want to be old, but she had felt that she was old ever since the afternoon when she had heard that clear laugh of Tessy Martin’s ring out for girlish joy at being in Darius Kingman’s company. A man’s fate, thought Prue, was different from a woman’s. He was her own senior by several years, but he was not old in the sense that she was. He was still a welcome associate for young and beautiful maidens, while she ! — alas, what handsome boy of eighteen would laugh like that because Prudence Warner smiled on him ? She had missed not only Darius Kingman’s love, but all the blessed chances of youth. She bade herself accept her lot quietly, nor trick herself out in unbefitting clothes, but to look what she was, — a middle-aged single woman, who had been passed by.

The first time she wore her new garments to church, Maggie came up to her after the service, laughing. “ Really, Prudence, you look just like a Quaker. Have you caught Darius Kingman’s craze ?”

Prue flushed, and turned angrily away.

“ Oh, I didn’t mean anything,” called out Maggie; but the other would not answer, and walked rapidly homeward.

Prue was tempted, after this, to crown her bonnet with gay flowers, but she would not show Maggie that she felt the sting of what had been said.

Towards spring, the hands in Mr. Coggeshall’s mill struck. They paraded and held meetings. There was much gathering of people on the streets. All sorts of stories were told about everybody concerned in the business. Mr. Coggeshall, irritated by many false reports, shut himself in his house in sullen silence. Deputations of spinners and weavers besieged his door in vain. He would see none of them. Mrs. Coggeshall rattled on good-humoredly about the whole affair, and rallied her husband unceasingly at what she termed the constantly increasing evidences of his popularity with the people he employed. She treated it all as a joke, but he took the strike as a personal offense.

It was a new experience to Kingman, and impressed him deeply. He talked with everybody on all sides. By turns he grew indignant in behalf of both parties. Sometimes he was heart-sick and dismayed by the difficulties in this and many kindred situations which he investigated ; but whatever financial theories he adopted or dropped, more and more his sympathies went out to those men, women, and children to whom “ labor troubles ” meant something worse than the pecuniary embarrassment which threatened their employers.

Prudence saw him now frequently, as business consultations were often held with Mr. Warner at their house.

She did not understand political economy, and perhaps would not have been much impressed by the talk that constantly went on between her father and Mr. Coggeshall about “competition ” if she had understood it; but she noted Darius’ serious aspect, felt that he was not quite in sympathy with the others, and her heart yearned over him.

“ He seems to mind people’s troubles as if they were his own,” she thought. “ I suppose we all ought to,” she added, with the simple comment of a conscience unversed in the laissez-faire doctrines of trade.

One Sunday in March, Mr. and Mrs. Coggeshall came to Mr. Warner’s, soon after the dinner which it was the village Sabbath custom to have in the middle of the afternoon. The talk turned on Kingman’s character. “ Now,” said Mrs. Coggeshall, “ you may say what you will, but I say there’s something very fine about that man. With all his Quaker stiffness, if I wanted to draw an ideal picture of a gentleman, I’d just make his portrait.”

“ A good fellow, a good fellow,” commented her husband sagely, “ but very erratic, very erratic ; ” and he puckered his lips, as if he did not like the taste of that word.

“ Yes,” said she undauntedly, “ awfully so; that’s one thing I like about him.”

“ I don’t see,” spoke up Mrs. Warner, “ as the thing you call so erratic in Darius is anything but the New Testament fanaticism put in action ; an’ for my part, I don’t think it’s respectful to the Lord, the way Mr. Coggeshall and Mr. Warner are always talkin’, as if the Almighty did n’t know nothin’ about business, when he settled his system of morality.”

“ My dear, my dear,” softly interposed Mr. Warner, “ you be a woman, and don’t understand business.”

“ The Lord an’ I together ! ” ejaculated Mrs. Arvilla.

At that moment came a low tap at the back door, and Prudence softly glided out of the room. She soon came back, and spoke with some nervousness:

“ Father, Darius wants to know if he may borrow the horse and buggy to drive to Lexville. His horse is lame. He’s got a sudden call to go, and as he may be detained he ’s asked me to go with him, so I can bring the horse back.”

“ Oh, to be sure, to be sure,” bustled Mr. Warner, rising. “ I ’ll go and see to the harnessing.”

“ No, you need n’t,” said she hastily. “ I guess Darius understands a horse as well as you do, — the times he’s harnessed Spin ! Sit still, do ! You know you’ve got a lame back, and, besides, Mr. Coggeshall wants to talk business with you.”

“ That’s so,” said the manufacturer, as Prue, despite herself, turned an appealing look to him. “ Sit down, Jacob. I guess Darius is equal to the occasion.”

But Mrs. Coggeshall noticed Prue’s excited manner, and felt a great disapproval of the proposed drive. She wanted to go straight out to the barn, and talk to Kingman again about his sister-in-law’s affections. She ached to tell Mrs. Warner how stupidly blind she was. But as she could do neither of these things, she tried to content herself by attacking Prudence’s unsuspicious mother on a point of theology.

When Prue, all bonneted and cloaked, went out to the barn, she found Darius standing beside the mare, his face very white and his lips compressed.

“ I ‘ll harness her,” said she, “ and I’ve made it all right in the house.”

“ Poor little Prue,” said he. “What a diplomat you must be, and I should never have suspected it of you ! ”

She put the mare in the traces, backed the buggy out of the barn, and even helped Darius in. He submitted with a protest, but when both were seated he gathered up the reins with his left hand,

“ You ’d better let me drive,” said she.

“ Not till we have passed the house,” he answered.

They leaned forward and bowed as they went by the sitting-room windows, and then Darius laughed a little, as Mrs. Coggeshall darted at him a wrathful look, the purport of which he suspected.

When they were on the road Prue firmly took possession of the reins, saying, “ Now tell me all about it.”

“ I have told you all there is, — just a row with Tom Murphy and Peter McNamara, as I came across the fields, looking for trailing arbutus. It was nothing. They would n’t have touched me, but they were drunk, and took it into their muddled heads to class me among their oppressors. There’s no real ill-blood among the strikers. They ’ve behaved very well, I think,” he added, with an attempt at a smile, “ considering they’ve had to do without the refining influences of higher education.”

“ Oh, but are you hurt very much ? ”

“ Not seriously; only, as I said, my arm must be broken. I think Peter did it with that big club. It did look so big, coming down on me, and I put up my arm. But I got off in decently honorable shape, I flatter my self, — Quaker as I am. I want to get to Lexville without any one hearing of it. I would n’t have Mr. Coggeshall know it to-night for the world, because — it can do no harm to tell you — he has agreed to give notice to-morrow that he will accede to some of the demands of the strikers. It is right he should do so ; but if he were to hear of this affair first, he would certainly misinterpret it, and jump to the conclusion that it was an act of deliberate hostility, and I am afraid he would refuse to do what he has promised to do.”

Kingman spoke slowly, and leaned heavily against the side of the buggy, looking faint. Prudence drove steadily, keeping her eyes fixed on the mare. The sky was darkly overcast, except around the horizon, where bits of blue showed between fleecy drifts, and in the west a glory of many colors, soft yet bright, spread itself above the distant hills. Here and there the sun behind the clouds poured its rays down, straight and luminous, across this western belt of opaline tints, causing gold to melt into a dream of rose-color, and lower still dissolving all elements into an enchanting haze, that lay upon those wonderful hills of mysterious blue.

Prue drove directly to Dr. Salisbury’s house, when they reached Lexville. The doctor received them in his office. He knew Prue slightly, and held out to her a thin brown hand, working his features very much, while he made a speech of formal welcome. She briefly explained her presence, and he cried out delightedly, —

“ And you want to make a conspirator of me, and let me secrete Kingman for twenty-four hours, till the affair has blown over! I see, I see. He shall stay here. I ’ll keep him in my own house, and doctor him privately. I like it! It carries me back to my youth, and reminds me of the fugitive slaves my father hid in his cellar.”

While he talked and ogled, the doctor placed his patient on the sofa, and prepared to examine his injuries. Then said Prudence, still standing in the middle of the floor, —

“ Now I will leave you, Darius.”

Kingman feebly smiled, holding up to her his left hand. As she took it she saw her sister’s wedding ring on his finger.

“ You have been very good,” be said. “ Some day, I ’ll try to thank you.”

She made him no answer, but bade the doctor good-by, and went out.

“ She ’s a woman, now,” said the surgeon, as he threw a puckered glance after her. Darius raised himself slightly, stared at the doctor, but uttered no word.

The secret was kept till Mr. Coggeshall was too deeply pledged to conciliation to permit of his drawing back. When the story did leak out it enhanced Kingman’s popularity very considerably. Murphy disappeared from town, but McNamara made a pilgrimage to Lexville, procured an interview with Darius, and behaved after such a fashion of sincere regret that the wounded man became the young fellow’s staunch friend.

Kingman was, however, quite ill for several days. Dr. Salisbury consequently formed a habit of going to Mr. Warner’s to report the daily fluctuations in

the condition of his “sequestered hero,” as he called the patient.

“ He’d be tol’ably good-looking,” said Mrs. Warner one day, as she watched the physician carefully tying his horse at the gate, “ if he’d only let his face alone, an’ not try to keep his features promenading round his countenance. He ain’t so very old, neither. They say his hair turned white when his wife died. I don’t believe he ’s a day over fifty. I say, Prue,” with a prolonged but feminine whisper, “ that’s why he’s so fond of comin’ here.”

“ What’s why ? ” asked Prue, incoherently ; but her mother only snorted out a laugh, and retreated to the kitchen, unkindly leaving Prue alone to receive the doctor. The matron sat down by the stove, and tittered over the boiling cabbage and corned beef.

“ To think,” murmured she, “ of anybody’s wantin’ our Prue! ”

Prudence met the doctor with flaming cheeks, which made her almost handsome, so that his ardor was fired; and although he did not actually make love to her, something in his manner left her convinced, when he finally bowed himself out, that under all the play of his hands, and the twisting and screwing of his eyes and mouth, lurked a definite intention towards herself.

When alone, she laughed, like her mother, and echoed her thought, saying, “ The idea of his wanting me ! Why, it’s ten years since any one wanted me. He’s a smart man, too, and the last one was such a fool.”

But after she had stood still a minute, laughing in a helpless, hysterical fashion, she suddenly fled to her room, as she had done the afternoon she had seen Darius walking with Maggie and Tessy. This time she threw herself on the floor, and cried, and cried.

Nevertheless, the knowledge that she had or could have a suitor proved in many ways a balm to Prue’s heart; and finally, rising from the floor, she took out a spring hat, and deliberately garnished it with a modest spray of flowers, which she had laid aside, in her selfcrucifying mood, the season before. She had no idea of trying to be a girl again, or of marrying any man, but she did not feel half so much like an irredeemable old maid as she had for many months.

Dr. Salisbury reported to his patient the visits he made to the Warners, and Darius responded that he was glad to hear they were well.

He grew very restless in his confinement, and made attempts to vary the monotony of his life in ways that retarded his recovery. The doctor fretted at him.

“ I told Mrs. Warner, this morning, that you were worse than a whole circus to manage.”

“ How do you know ? Did you ever try to manage a circus ? ”

“ Kingman, why don’t you say thee to me ? ”

“ I don’t want to.”

The doctor laughed at Darius’ slight irritation. “ I guess I ’ll have you all right soon,” he said ; “ but you must be patient, and not do such abominably rash things. Have prudence, Kingman,— have prudence.”

Darius rose to his feet, and looked at the physician a moment, before he said quietly, “ I have been a fool, doctor, and I will have prudence.”

The buds upon the trees were just enough swollen to blue the outline of the branches against the sky, and the air felt warm to Kingman’s cheek, as he made his way to the side door of Mr. Warner’s house, when he went there for his first call after his accident. The grass was pushing up its elf-like blades, sheathed in green, and the voices of children came calling through the distance with a shrill sweetness. The world looked happy, and Darius felt so as Prudence came through the yard to meet him, with welcoming eyes. She had been feeding some pet pigeons, and a dove was perched upon her shoulder,— a young bird, pure white and exquisitely slender. It looked not like a creature, but like the soul of some being.

Darius bent over the woman’s hand, and the dove took flight, its wings whirring close above his head. When he raised bis eyes be saw Dr. Salisbury standing in a familiar attitude in the doorway. It seemed to Darius that a shadow had fallen across the sky.

They all went round to the front porch, where they seated themselves, and chatted lightly about the wonderful warmth of the afternoon. The doctor was fluent. Kingman grew silent. Prudence sat quietly between the two men.

“ I’m like Gertrude,” she thought: “after getting one sweetheart, they swarm.”

But she did not really think that Darius had come a-wooing. She only felt very glad to see him, and very content, also, that her womanly attractions should be vindicated in his presence by the doctor’s attentive manner.

“ I want a glass of water! ” cried Kingman, at last, springing to his feet in helpless impatience.

Prudence rose. “ No,” said he, “ I am going to the well.”

“ You can’t draw the bucket.”

“ I ’ll help you,” said the doctor.

“ I can do it myself,” retorted he. They followed him, nevertheless, and the doctor applied himself to the wellrope, while Darius stood by, fuming. Prue went into the house for a glass. As she came out again, the white dove flew down and hovered about her. The doctor was hauling up the bucket. Darius went forward and met Prue. He looked her straight in the eyes, and said in a low tone, —

“ Choose between that man and me.”

“ Where’s your tumbler ? ” cried the doctor, as he landed the dripping bucket. Prue filled the glass, and handed it to Darius. The doctor stood only a yard away, whisking some drops of water off his clothes, but his back was turned.

“ Which is it ? ” asked Kingman, over the glass.

“ Why, you, Darius, of course,” said she.

Moreover, in due time he also joined the Society of Friends.

L. C. Wyman.