Come Down

I.

“AND are people saying — have you heard that Edgar wants to marry Polly Keys ? ”

“ Yes,” I said, “ I have heard.”

She stood before us that evening for the last time as she had been in days forever gone by. The shadow was already falling, but this was still the Mrs. Fairthorne whom we had known, would know no more, — tall, massively handsome, upright without conscious effort ; though middle-aged, in some flashes of expression childishly young; the old rippling roughness in her gray-brown hair, and the shawl which she was wont to wear half slipping in large, loose folds from her shoulders. Her way of pulling this shawl up now and then, of patting down those rebellious tresses, had always seemed a part of herself. Not that either’s being wrong troubled her much. Her slovenliness, or rather the disdain of general appearance into which it merged, was still more characteristic. Her pride, till humiliating challenge and defeat came, openly beyond escape, was such as feels no need of outside props. The figure might be called commanding ; but the face, large and fleshy - jawed, with nose, though aquiline, too heavy, was hardly of patrician type. And after all, rather simply, broadly human than aught else she seemed, there in the twilight, against the background of her past, gazing with startled dismay upon the future.

Her pride !

We two girls bent over our work by the window, near what light was left. The woman of fifty, after that pause for question and answer, was again pacing restlessly back and forth through the gathering dusk inside. As if spoken more than half to herself came presently her next words: “To think he should care so little for the blood that runs in his veins! ”

The keynote of all had been struck.

Annice Field glanced up. “ It is hard to bear, Cousin Mary, I know,” she said.

The other gave an impatient start.

“ You know, child ! You! Yes, I dare say — about as much as you care ! If you ’d ever tried to please him, it might have been different.”

“ I, Cousin Mary ! I!”

Annice shuddered slightly. Tried to please Edgar Fairthorne ! I thought of some one whom she had pleased without trying, and without Mrs. Fairthorne’s leave or knowledge. Gentle blood had brought Annice but few of life’s advantages. Her own sense of its importance was less strong than a new opposing feeling. Yet that elder influence clung fast. Would the baseness of Edgar’s treachery mean a loyal rallying here, part won back or all lost?

“ It’s little sympathy I expect from you, Annice. Even with Margaret — no older — I feel the difference. It seems you can’t understand. If you think I need a lesson, this is hard enough. Who would n’t object to Polly Keys ? ”

“ I can understand that, at least, Cousin Mary, if not some other things. A Keys ! Polly Keys ! Mr. Craven does not think her really bad ; but far better might be bad enough to you, — even simple want of high blood in goodness itself, let alone low, in such as she! It must be hard.”

“ Mr. Craven thinks ! not bad ! Let him take her himself, then ! He has sprung from hardly better.

She paused again, and looked dazedly around, like one half waking from a dream, at the old, cracked, faded portraits on the walls; at the old silver hunting-horn over the mantel, graved with her coat-of-arms ; at the volumes of Scott just below,—her one novelist, in whom she had always found (or fancied) a congenially high appreciation of what these things meant to her. It was very old, that Family so dear to her heart, with its hints of “ down the country ” colonial splendor, of earlier mysterious English dignities. Was it coming now to this—Polly Keys! No, Annice could not sound the deeps here.

“ He shall not marry her,” came that voice through the dusk, as she paced once more to and fro; still strong, though quivering with strange, new doubt. “Marry Polly Keys—a Fairthorne! To think of his wanting to do it ! I suppose people are calling this a judgment on me for keeping him here so—my only child! Since that hateful war everything’s been topsy - turvy, wrong side out. All the young men must go away, — out West, or somewhere, — or go to work at home, like slaves. Gentlefolks must live like upstarts, or be trampled underfoot. We’ve had enough without all that. I could n’t let him go away; and with the land rented out, what was there for him to do here ? Why should a gentleman born — a Virginia gentleman — work in any way, if he can help it ? I could n’t send him off to college, or traveling, like his father, but I ’ve kept him from that much, at least. And at most times he’s been satisfied. Why should n’t he be ? Why should he turn against me now ? As for his going to the Red House, did n’t his own father use to go there ? How could I dream, after all my care in keeping him away from even the nicest plain girls, — dream of his ever wanting to marry — to marry — Polly Keys, a low-born creature, in herself hardly respectable! ”

What could one say for comfort here ? As I folded my work and rose to go, only a commonplace question came : —

“ Shall you be at church to-morrow, Mrs. Fairthorne ?”

The trembling lips grew suddenly resolute.

“ Yes, I d go even if it were not communion Sunday. People shall see that I can hold my head up still, much as some there would like it brought down. Even the church is n’t what it used to be. Looking around there now, one might think it a Methodist meeting. But what else can one expect, with the very minister an upstart, preaching in the very church where his grandfather used to be sexton ! I — What’s the matter, Annice ? I thought a wasp had stung you,— there are so many here. Old Tom Craven’s grandson an Episcopal minister! To think of it! To think — But let him dare marry my son to that girl! Well, good-by, child, till to-morrow. You ’ll all see I’m still a Fairthorne — a Fairthorne born and married — in spite of Polly Keys.”

II.

The Red House was an old square red brick structure, originally built for a crossroads tavern, which had seen more prosperous if not better days and occupants. In the August glare of a certain Sunday afternoon of which I am going to tell, it seemed, there over against its worn, sunken approaches, to swell and enlarge every crack, like some corrupting carcass,— uninclosed and dilapidated, given up to outward decay as well as inward ignoble uses, with a few old scraggy locust-trees, all that were left of the once inviting shade, and what might have been a thrifty garden run to wild waste behind. Some patches of new white shingles on the big black crumbling roof, and a new stable unpleasantly close at one side, thrust forward a discordant rawness, — the sole attempts at late improvement. Gaudy soiled paper shades hung at the windows. The litter of an untidy thoroughfare encumbered the doorways. So much for the material aspect of a place well suited to its unwholesome fame; the despair of a certain “ upstart ” minister’s heart, the plague-spot of his parish.

A little store kept in one of the ground-floor apartments had long served as legitimate excuse for the bar-room adjoining, and a gambling retreat above more than whispered about. Towards the Red House all paths of idling, drifting disreputableness from miles around seemed to tend, and that the Keys family, who had for years owned and kept it, found there a congenial abode and occupation speaks for their general character. In prosperity they too had of late come down. The Red House was not what it had been once, either as stopping-place or rendezvous. To it, instinctively, in the old days (as was said), had more than one anxious lady, wife or mother, sent, when needful, to fetch home the missing master. There were tales of cock-fighting, of horse-races on the adjacent levels, — ugly tales of midnight brawls resulting. A man had once been stabbed in the bar-room, where of course the blood splashed on wainscot and floor would not be scoured out. Another had been lamed for life in one of these scuffles. Some of the Keys women had taken no creditable part, now and then. At the time of which I write, however, this before-the-war prestige, this evil importance, had declined. Public sentiment was in revolt, with even dark hints of “ breaking up.” Other features were guardedly made second to the store-keeping. Gains were comparatively small, though customers, frequenters, still many. The old tavern had got to be as incongruous a survival as another with which this story has to do. It had been part of the under side, the shadow of a social life now, for all former good and pleasantness in it, either changed, renewed, or sinking surely to decay. All things considered, had Edgar Fairthorne but naturally betaken himself for diversion to the Red House ?

For a wonder he was not among the loungers visible this afternoon. As usual, there were half a dozen horses hitched near, and more than that number of men on the high ramshackle porch ; and yet an unusual quiet, a pause as of expectancy, hovered about the whole place, when Mrs. Fairthorne’s old-fashioned carriage, on its way from church, stopped at the door to set down Mrs. Fairthorne with two puzzled companions, Annice Field and myself.

The old inn garden back of the Red House !

What we went through in those first few moments before finding ourselves there seems to me a dream. The staring of curious eyes out of that hush aforementioned ; the half - impertinent defiance, half-gratified pride of Polly Keys’s greeting ; the impression of something unusually festive and decorated about her dress, about a partly set supper - table glimpsed through the doorway admitting her; that sudden paralyzed halt in the passage where we had waited : then the lady’s revulsive stiffening from head to heel; her fierce whisper, “ I must see you by yourself,” — all this is blent and softened in the haze which encompasses a vivid central scene. But at will I stop again under the old decayed pear - tree with Annice, waiting and wondering. I see the damson hedge opposite, covered with black-knot, the stretch of seared unkempt grass between, broken by stunted shrubbery and clumps of knife-like blueflag ; see the green-stained, tilting sundial in the midst, and by this last, clearest of all, in the yellow-red sundown light, the heat thickening as it were with their own overstrained intensity, those two women standing, breathlessly pausing, face to face.

That Mrs. Fairthorne had appeared at church that afternoon dressed with unprecedented care, and with something of strange new self-assertion in mien and manner, was afterwards remembered. Her black silk gown, the lace bonnet set well back on her carefully smoothed hair, now befitted the wearer. The PrayerBook which she held in one hand, and was clasping as if unconsciously to her breast, had a gilt cross on its black cover which, though half hidden, glistened in the sun rays. Never before had her handsome face been so handsome. The brows were drawn level; the eyes blazed like a shaken dagger-point. A bright red spot burned in each cheek. The month had thinned into cruel, curving delicacy. The full lower jaw and chin, the suggestion of double chin below, looked as if cut from grayish marble. Though mingled with that new expression aforementioned, something of grosser strain, which no word but “ overbearing ” will quite suit, the transmitted pride of generations back, seemed to flash from every line and gesture. It was not only an outraged mother. The whole Family stood there in condensed reincarnation, revealed, verified, glorified. The “ commonness ” of that other, now anger-flushed from forehead to throat, showed by contrast as of earth, earthy, half shapen. The slight flutter of doubtful, uneasy pleasure discernible at first upon her countenance had faded, and changed to resentment. She looked not only coarse, but hard, her usual buxom beauty quite lost. Her heavy black eyebrows and the masculine shade on her upper lip stood out harshly. The white muslin frock and red ribbons, the bead necklace and showy breastpin and earrings, which struck one as being all brand new and donned for some great occasion, took on a cheaper flimsiness than before. Yet with all this unlikeness, what here emphasized itself most was a likeness, a kinship in very race difference, between these two ; something close, though subtly elusive; deeper than the flesh, though suggested by it, and claiming unmistakable recognition.

“ Do you think my son is really going to marry you ? ”

“ Not without askin’ my leave, ma’am.”

The words came with a laugh fully challenging the rage which began to shake those next following.

“ Your leave ! Yours! Upon my word ! And even if he were such a fool, do you think he ’d dare, without my leave, or ever do such a thing with it ? Do you think Mr. Craven would dare perform the ceremony ? Take care, girl, what you say — or expect! Take care! Young gentlemen are going for wives to some queer places nowadays, but not quite to the Red House, — not quite. The Fairthornes don’t quite marry Keyses.”

“ They don’t, ma’am ? ”

The tone, look, and smile were all of assured triumph, insolent. One moment that other paused waveringly. Did it mean defeat, or fresh attack ? Then a sweep forward, an outflung hand, and — Why, what change was this ? Pleading in that touch on the beribboned shoulder, pleading in those eyes ! What now ?

“ Let’s be reasonable, talk sense ! ” The high, haughty tone had fallen to a whisper, yet one so intense that we two apart, both evidently clean forgotten, could not miss a word. “ I know he’s bewitched, will not give you up, but don’t let ’s waste breath on talk of marrying. If he ’d taken a different notion, would a Keys have stood back ? Don’t make out to me you don’t understand ! There are other ways besides marrying. There are other ways without giving you up, and you know as well as I. I could n’t speak out to him, but you can manage. Young men will be young men. He ’s been used to having all I could give ; I’ve always tried to keep him satisfied. I can’t expect him to give up now — quite. If he won’t give you up, why — think it over.

I’ve thought and prayed about it. In church to-day, I prayed till it seemed to come right and clear. If you marry him,

I ’ll never forgive it; but once settled the other way, I ’d swear — give you a written promise to stand your friend lifelong. Don’t be afraid I’d back out. His getting tired would make no difference ; I’d more than make it up to you. Even his getting married would make no difference. The land is mine, everything — to do what I choose with. I ’d see”

She broke off short and sprang aside.

The other had started so suddenly, with such a fierce updrawing movement, that the idea of a swift-coming blow was only natural. But the fist, though clenched, was not raised.

“ You ― ! ” said Polly Keys, with a great breathless pant. “ I’m a decent woman! ”

Her red face had whitened all at once. It seemed to thin and sharpen into refinement. She rose, — she towered in a strange dignity before which the lady shrank abashed. There was dead silence for a space, both standing perfectly still. Mrs. Fairthorne, too, had paled, and again that likeness showed out. She recovered soon enough her still fiercely unyielding self ; yet on another side, shared in common with Polly Keys, an impression had been indelibly made.

Wrath and scorn, however, would have way now. The cross on the Prayer-Book flashed as she mockingly lifted the hand that held it. She laughed.

“ Oh-h ! ” she cried, with bitter derision, such as only a woman could give utterance to. “ Oh-h-h! So much better than those you’ve sprung from ! Upon my word ! so much better ! How about your aunt Sally Lawson, a kept mistress for twenty years, your cousin Susan Williams, and all the low wretches kin to you ? Do you think I don’t know — haven’t heard of them as well as you? A decent woman ! Oh-h-h ! Upon my word! You have romped and joked with men while your father was measuring out their drams. You’ve let them kiss you for finery,— rings and no telling what! I’ve seen you myself in church — since such as you have been allowed there — making eyes at them, whispering. Ah ! you can blush a little ! You can blush! You’ve been common — common — with the riff-raff of the county. A decent woman ! I might look higher than even decency, want something more for my son, though I’d not expect you, to understand that! But a Keys even decent! Oh-h-h! Margaret, Annice, hear that! Come, Annice, child, stand out and let this hussy see the sort of young lady I have the right — the right ” —

She stopped, and stood, shaking, gazing towards the house. Two people were coming down the rickety back steps, down the unkempt walk. The first, a little in front, was a young man, short of stature, loosely made, heavily lounging in gait, low-browed, weak-lipped, yet sullenjawed. A sort of depraved resemblance to Mrs. Fairthorne was heightened just now by anger mingled in his countenance with dismayed surprise and another expression, one which I had never before seen there. In this its last male representative the dignity of an old line appeared certainly run out. One might guess that but little sense to begin with had here gone unschooled, unchastened, and unenlightened. The whole story of his years : the idling in belated stagnation behind a changing time, with its new, loud call for work ; the being, with new self-denial in the very air, kept “ satisfied ” by what fallen fortune could give on one hand, and his mother’s creed as to gentlemen born would allow on the other ; the “ come-down ” at last to Polly Keys, — .all seemed somehow revealed by this presence. And yet what might that unfamiliar look mean, even besides a refusal now to give up ? As for the other man, he Was slim and “ nice looking,” dressed in clerical black, with a gentle, and at this moment anxious face, an air of pained embarrassment, as one who must perform a duty not pleasant, and with fingers bolding place in a small, plain book which he carried.

One glance at these two, and I divined what errand had brought them, knew the meaning of Polly Keys’s white frock and that expectant atmosphere indoors. Did Mrs. Fairthorne also guess ? I wondered. Annice, white and trembling, had shrunk back at that fierce call. Could she who stood there in the midst, alone, quite help seeing all this, and more ? The handsome face had grown suddenly ashenhued and old. The eyes stared with a dull look. The mocking hand fell; then went again with a wavering gesture to her heart. She moved a few steps forward, heavily, uncertainly. Her lips moved, too, but without a sound. When I took her arm and whispered “ Come,” she followed, unresisting.

As the men drew apart to let us pass, Mrs. Fairthorne gave Edgar one look, the minister another. I saw Annice Field’s glance follow this last,— saw and understood. Within the last few moments the old lifelong faith had lost, the new had been strengthened from a most unlikely quarter.

III.

“ Are these all ? ”

“ These are all.”

She sat in the great, deep invalid’s chair, near which Annice Field was standing ; sat with the firelight opposite touching here and there in ruddy mockery her aged and worn features, pinched now with acute suffering ; her body, enlarged by the dropsical disease which was yet wasting it to a sort of awful brooding majesty, propped high against pillows, still erect, her swollen, helpless feet upon a footstool. More than eight years had passed, as all earthly lime for her would soon be. The sunken yet still keen gray eyes seemed to look as proudly on death as they had those eight years looked on life ; yet into them, too, a mysterious change had come, both softening at moments to yearning sweetness, and making harder with concentrated fortitude. The richness, the exact precision of her dress at such a stage of illness would have struck a new-comer as remarkable. The snow-white hair on her temples was as smooth as hands could make it (the old wave, however, not quite subdued) under a beruched, beribboned cap. An embroidered China crape shawl hung, carefully pinned in place, around her. There were lace ruffles at her wrists, rings on her fingers. That new outward and visible assertion which inward and spiritual self (or at least a certain part of self), once pleasantly at ease, had called to its aid when wounded, worsted,— here it was still on stubborn guard. On the high mantelpiece against which I leaned were ranged the inevitable bottles of medicine, the stimulants, the cordials, called for by long illness. On a little table within touch of her hand, and on the hearth rug at her feet, lay heaped those things of which the two had spoken. Outside the windows a gray evening sky darkened yet more a gray, wind-swept November landscape.

Annice flashed a quick glance at the clock in one corner, one across the desolate fields, and instinctively my own eyes followed. Only a half-hour since his setting out! Had he reached his destination? Was he even now delivering that message ? For the first time in eight years the Reverend Gilbert Craven had this evening stood in Mrs. Fairthorne’s presence by Mrs. Fairthorne’s wish. The “upstart” who had been, however unwillingly, an instrument of her humiliation was hardly yet forgiven by that brooding and stubborn heart; but finally she had said “ Come,” and then “ Go ” on the errand now doing. A day of unusual happenings this, but it seemed to me that the last half hour had been strangest of all. The woman in the great chair had commanded ; Annice and I, as in a puzzled dream, obeyed. Now those hurried runs upstairs and down, hurried flittings from room to room, the climbing on chairs to reach high, the dusty stooping low, the opening and shutting of bureau drawers, of closet doors, and little brass-nailed treasure chests, had at last come to an end. The gathering together was done, that queer collection made. There lay family portraits and all.

She husbanded her scanty breath awhile; gazing down, making a last count; fingering over for the last time those pitiful relics dear to her heart as a gentlewoman born. Then she glanced up at the girl beside her. “ All that will suit her — and help,” she said, “I’ll leave. These must go with me.”

Annice Field looked the puzzled question, How ? What did she mean ? But the eyes were again bent down, away.

“ It’s not only because the part of me that cares for them must draw a line somewhere. There ’s another reason. I would n’t leave them if I could. I could n’t if I would. These must go with me.”

“Cousin Mary!” Annice’s voice sounded forced and strange. Still, though not often brave, she kept on : “ Can’t you quite forgive all — everything? Can’t you forgive — even now ? Cousin Mary, she has helped him, — maybe saved him. She has not seemed to drag him lower down. Has it really hurt him to work for his living and hers, — even keeping store at the Red House ? Everybody says not. Oh, I know it was hard for you, — dreadful, — but might it not have been worse ? And she has done well. She is a respectable woman. Everybody must know that much now. Is n’t it because she’s grown too good for most who used to go there that they’ve burnt the Red House over her head ? Best for all that it’s gone. You remember what he said just now, — a purification by fire ? And now everybody knows she is a decent woman.”

“ Who else knows that so well as I ? ” Her breath had to be fought for now. The words came out heavily, gaspingly, in a sort of strange, defiant anguish. “ Do you think I’ve forgotten, Annice Field ? ”

“ Dear Cousin Mary, how could you, or anybody ? ”

“ Do you think I’ve repented, though, in your way, child — Gilbert Craven’s way ? ” There was almost a smile beneath those frowning brows. “ Do you think I ’d not do the same again in my place, under the same circumstances ? How was I to know she was — better ? If it did happen so that I’ve liked her in my heart ever since, felt that, in her place, I ’d have done the same as she, even felt sometimes as if we belonged to each other, must I give up all, everything? Besides, there ’s the other reason. Did n’t I say that I could not if I would ? The Red House is gone. Let what’s turned her out of one home make room for her in another. I can’t leave them behind.”

“Is there nobody else kin to you,— down the country, or somewhere ? ” began Annice helplessly; then paused.

“ Down the country ” was where all the family trees of these parts were rooted, where everybody’s forbears had come from, — come, a century or so back, to the uplands. All ancestral estates down the country had been vast, all ancestral halls magnificent. To my ear the expression was suggestive of colonial mystery, river marshes, chills and fever.

“ Down the country ! There is nobody, not one. I thought once that you — Oh, child, don’t look that way! Don’t be hurt or mad ! But how can you know, who are going to marry old Craven’s grandson ! If’t were anybody—anybody with good blood in his veins, I might leave them with you. Now there’s none of my kin to care, even to know what these things have meant to me. If he had married you ! ” The tears gushed out at last. “ If you’d only tried a little to please him ! Oh yes, I suppose — see now it could n’t have been. That time at the Red House, when he came, I saw that all had somehow got wrong. If it was my fault — and yet how could he ? I suppose, if she wants me, I must see him too, and the children; but what is he to me now ! How can I help what’s in my very bones ? How can I ? I am a lady horn, and my grandchildren are old Jerry Keys’s grandchildren, and your children will be half Craven ! No, you can’t feel as I feel; can’t know even as Margaret knows. I hope you’ll be happy, child. I ’ve liked him too — for really marrying them. He’s a good young man, educated and all — might be a real gentleman. Of course he ’s different from the Keyses. My blood has run down there into the very rut. He’s different. He’s tried to be kind to me. I hear he’s been very kind to — them. I hope they — you will all be happy ; but you can’t know how it’s been with me these eight years.”

Annice shivered. Once more I saw the old wistfulness, the old sense of outside chill, in her blue eyes. But there was no doubt there now ; had been none since that day in the Red House garden. Here, too, had fierce pride worked out its own fall.

“ This little ring with the pearls, you must take, child; and you, Margaret, the black Prayer-Book with the cross on it. Now, both of you help me — quick ! If it goes to my heart, I may die any time, you know. Make haste — before I die or she comes. Here are all the things — and there’s the fire.”

Well, though my own unregenerate heart was perhaps too sore for and with hers to speak very strongly contrariwise, I said that time all that it seemed a kind of duty to say. When I talked of a fresh start, a new-old family springing up in a few generations to who could tell what new honors, influenced by, prizing, these very heirlooms who could tell how much, Mrs. Fairthorne said, “To come again to this ! ” “ If you want the other reason,” she cried out fiercely at last, “ think how for what these stand for I did that! ” Then, like Annice, I fell silent. This last sacrifice to a smaller god was also an atonement for sin against the greater, and not to be given up.

We cut and tore the pictures from their frames. For once their general badness was a comfort. Some of the lack-lustre eyes seemed to start into life as we did so, now reproachful, now exultant. There were hints of Edgar Fairthorne about some of the faces; dimmer hints of Edgar Fairthorne’s mother, who had been, seemingly, an exception, not in rule. One old colonial dame in long-waisted, lownecked bodice and a top-heavy powdered mass of frizzes shook her head (I fancied) threateningly. There were some ancient brocade gowns such as she might have worn; fans, laces, ribbon-knots which had gone with them, helped till now to keep alive the old traditions, the old honorable pride so brought down at last by its own perversion. We shook all out into quick - kindling looseness. There were two or three bits of old silver graved with motto and crest; two or three books, both old and dull, with the same in faded gilt on their bindings ; and Mrs. Fairthorne’s own favorite volumes of Scott in modest pasteboard backs.

“ These too ? ” asked Annice, almost sharply.

She nodded. “ There are others downstairs that will suit them better — if they care to read. These are — for gentlefolks. These too.”

Then I took up last the great leather-covered family Bible.

A sudden spasm of coughing seized the woman in the chair. She gasped. “Some of that brandy — quick! Don’t let me go now— not yet.” Annice obeyed. “ Only the record ” — she whispered presently. “ Cut out the record.”

“Think a little,” I said. “Wait — and think! ”

She struck her wasted hand against the table. “ Is it not enough,” she asked, “ for me to leave them the book ? ”

I turned over with a trembling hand the leaves,—yellow-gray, covered with births, deaths, and marriages (Edgar Fairthorne’s marriage not among them), in the handwriting of eight or ten generations, — and it seemed to me that this was going too far. The faint musty odor that stole to my nostrils was like a breath of appeal from some burial vault threatened with desecration. “ I cannot think this either needful or right. I cannot cut them out,” I said.

“ I will leave them the book — and other books,” came the gasping voice heavily. “ I ’ll leave them silver spoons — good beds to sleep in — a house and home. Can’t I do what I choose with my very own ? ”

I handed her the knife, held the volume close. For a moment we looked steadily at each other; then the shaking hand, the eyes fell. I turned away,— tried to feel glad. One concession, at least, had been made. Mrs. Fairthorne, would die very much as she had lived. The old feeling and most of its tokens would go with her. But after all, would not the essential best be left intact for a new beginning ?

“ Make haste ! Make haste — before she comes! ”

It was a great cavernous old fireplace, black with soot of constant using. There was room enough for all — and all for once fully illuminated. Whir-r-r ! How the light, flashed on brass andirons, and smoke - browned jambs, and Venetianreddened hearth ; on the Book left lying alone upon the table ; on the dying woman’s face! Can one who was watching there, — one who could understand, who, so tried, might even likewise have offended, — can she ever forget it, that last, strange upburst, that look by it revealed ! How it burned, that crackling, shriveling little heap ! How quickly, brightly, it burned away ! The silk and lace caught fire first, —flared into filmy next-to-nothingness. Then the books opened and writhed, with a smell of scorching leather; the old paint on the canvas danced up in orange and blue; the melting silver in the midst began to drip like tears into the blood-red coals below. Whir-r-r! Whish-h-h ! How it burned ! What memories of the past and possible suggestions for the future; what true inmost heart’s feeling, even if false vanity ; what faith, if lack of wider faith, went with it ! The huge throat of the chimney sucked up its flame. Its embers dwindled and sank, down, down, down, into ashes and dust.

“ Mist’is ! ” The door was partly opened, and a black face looked anxiously in. Here ’s somebody you tole me to bring up.”

She sat straighter, steadying herself; smoothing her hair, the shawl about her. Something strangely young, simple, and sweet — a sort of childish eagerness — dawned on her face, in her eyes. She glanced at the fire. It looked as usual. Annice Field had swept the hearth and put on more wood. Mr. Craven, who had returned with a message some minutes before, stood by it warming his hands.

“ Ask her in, Kitty,” she said.

The woman who stood, next moment, in the doorway had nothing of the lady about her. Polly Keys had grown larger, coarser, rough-handed with the toil and scrubbery for which she was now famous. The purple worsted frock which she wore, the big gray blanket shawl and overtrimmed Sunday bonnet, —saved by good luck from the fire that day, and evidently donned in haste, — seemed her fitting garb. She looked a plain, decent woman, who would probably never be anything more, yet with something in face and manners which for eight years past— ever since that strange, fierce challenge to her own pride given by another’s — had set her apart from those she sprang from. Her countenance was eager, though less in its evident doubt and anxiety than pitying kindliness. For the moment she seemed to have quite forgotten somebody hesitating a little way behind ; somebody who had come, uninvited, to ask forgiveness, at least, it not love or blessing. As the eyes of the two women met, that old likeness again asserted itself ; a common primitive honesty speaking out between one who had come to the leaning-point and one who might be safely leaned upon. “ In the hour of death and in the day of judgment, Good Lord, deliver us”—from aught that may stand between our hearts and the great undying heart of human sympathy !

The lady lifted and stretched out her hand.

A. M. Ewell.