A Faithful Failure

THE journey from New York to Hamilton, N. H., can be made in seven hours, a period of time which may or may not be long to the passengers, according to circumstances. To Maurice Wentworth, a man of nearly forty, who was traveling over the road for the first time in many years, the journey seemed interminable, for he occupied himself in reviewing the events that had taken place since he and his brother were boys in Hamilton, and this exercise of mind was not conducive to cheerful thoughts, How often, as a lad, he had watched the train steam away from the Hamilton station into an unknown world, with the determination strong within him to win a distinguished place in that world ! And now it was bringing him back as poor and unknown as he had been when it had taken him away ! ” I am nothing but ‘ a faithful failure,’ ” he said to himself bitterly, borrowing a phrase from Stevenson.

His brother, on the other hand, was unusually prosperous, and Maurice asked himself if Robert’s apparent selfishness had not been justified by results. If he had pushed his fortunes with little regard to the rights of others, he was now in a position to hold out a helping hand to the less favored, for he was rich, influential, and happily married ; while he, the elder brother, was alone in the world, and coming, at Robert’s invitation, to spend the summer with him in the old homestead, while waiting for some opening by which he could earn his living.

“ East Hamilton ! ” called the conductor, breaking in upon his reflections.

Hamilton was the next station, and Wentworth looked out of the open window at the familiar scenery, and saw that here, at least, nothing had changed while the fortunes of men were being made or marred. As he glanced at the halfwooded hills that encircled the horizon, and at the river rushing tumultuously over its rocky channel, now half hidden in the woods, only to flash into life again when there was a gap in the forest, it seemed but yesterday since he had gone over this same road, an eager, hopeful boy.

Meanwhile, Robert Wentworth and his wife, who were driving down to the station to meet their relative, reviewed his career after their own fashion.

“ Maurice is such a good fellow that it is a pity he hasn’t a little more push,” said Mrs. Wentworth.

“A little more?” her husband returned. “ I should be devoutly grateful if he had any.”

“ Robert, I can’t bear to have you say such things about your brother, for he is so nice to the children.”

“Yes, taking care of children is his forte. If he were a woman, he could earn his living as a nursery-maid.”

“ How unkind of you ! He is a very bright man, and would have made a brilliant lawyer, I have no doubt, if it hadn’t been for the trouble with his eyes.”

“ Charlotte, a man who is bound to succeed will succeed, even if the Lord and the devil are both against him, and a man who is bound to fail will fail. I believe in predestination to that extent. The trouble with Maurice’s eyes need n’t have made his ranch life a failure. Do you suppose I should make a failure of ranch life if I were obliged to try it?”

“No, clear,” his wife said soothingly. “ I don’t think you could fail at anything.”

They reached the Hamilton station, as she spoke, and the next moment the brother who owned that he had failed was in the presence of the brother who owned that he had succeeded.

Robert saw a tall man come forward to meet him, with an air of gentlemanly shabbiness, and a face full of careworn lines, which, together with his gray hair, made him look ten years older than his actual age. It irritated him to find that Maurice showed so plainly the marks of having passed a cheerless and unprosperous life, and his vexation was increased by the fact that he bore a strong family likeness to himself. Maurice, on the other hand, was struck by the fact that his brother had scarcely changed in the last ten years. He was as handsome as ever, and showed unmistakably that the world had lavished its best gifts upon him. Maurice saw, too, a vivacious little woman, with sparkling black eyes, sparkling diamond earrings, a wealth of red roses on her leghorn hat, a rainbow of colors in her gown, and a cascade of fluttering ribbons.

“ I am so glad to see you, Maurice,” she said, with a cordiality that was very grateful to the lonely man. “The children have talked of nothing but your coming for days. They enjoyed your visit in New York so much. It was a pity that Robert lost, it! And to think that you boys haven’t, seen each other for ten years ! ”

Their way led through the town of Hamilton, with its long, elm-lined main street and its straggling group of shops and wooden churches, and then uphill for two miles until they reached the Wentworth farm. Here Maurice and his brother had lived when they were boys, and here Robert spent his summers, having remodeled the old homestead, and turned it into a comfortable modern dwelling. As they approached the red house under the elm-trees, a bevy of small girls, headed by a little boy, ran down the road and presently surrounded the carriage.

“ Uncle Maurice ! How perfectly Splendid that you have come ! ” exclaimed Beatrice, the eldest of the children.

“Guess what we have got in a barrel, uncle Maurice ! ” said Eleanor. “ There are three of them, and their eyes have n’t opened yet.”

“ They mast be chickens,” he observed solemnly.

“ Chickens in a barrel ! How funny you. are, uncle Maurice !”

By this time their uncle had descended from the wagon and was going along the gravel path toward the porch, his left hand seized by Eleanor, and his valise borne away in a determined manner by Beatrice and Bobby, while three little girls struggled to get possession of his disengaged hand.

“ Don’t quarrel so ; leave your uncle in peace,” their father said sternly.

The children, however, who had inherited their parent’s determination, paid no heed to this remark, but dragged their guest into the house and out on the piazza. Here they deposited him in a cane-seated rocking-chair with broad arms ; and the next moment he was buried beneath an avalanche of white gowns and streaming yellow hair. Marion, Carlotta, and Eleanor, the three youngest children, contrived to climb into his lap, while Beatrice and Bobby perched on the arms of his chair, and the demure little Hester was forced to content herself with a chair drawn as close to her uncle as possible.

“ Where is aunt Ellen ? Go and find her, Hester,” Beatrice commanded.

Hester, the only obedient child in this domineering and strong-willed family, slipped down from her chair and went in search of her aunt.

“ It is so funny that you and aunt Ellen are n’t any relation, when you are our uncle Maurice, and she is our aunt Ellen,” mused Carlotta.

“ Goosie, uncle Maurice can’t be brother to papa and mamma both ! ” explained the superior Beatrice. “Aunt Ellen is awfully nice. Did you ever see her, uncle Maurice ? ”

“ Not since she was about your size, Beatrice.”

“ She is grown up now.”

“ Not so awfully grown up,” added Bobby. “ Not so grown up as mamma.”

“ I am sorry she is grown up,” Maurice owned with a sigh. He could always count upon the affection of children, but he was not so sure of the approval of their elders.

“She is taller than mamma,” Marion stated, “ but I don’t think she is so grown up in her mind, for she likes to make mud-pies.”

He heard a pleasant, gentle laugh as his niece made this remark, and upon looking up he saw Ellen standing before him. He had a vivid impression of a personality that was altogether charming. He was sensitive to atmosphere, and he felt at once that this girl was uncritical, even shy and humble.

“ I believe I don’t mind so very much to find that you are grown up, Ellen,” he said as he shook hands with her.

In the days that followed, Maurice sometimes wished again that Ellen were a child, as in that case he could have had more chances to see her ; for his time was spent chiefly with his nieces and nephew. In the minds of their parents the world was divided into two classes, — those persons who were fond of children and those who were not. They did not recognize any subtler distinctions, and realize that there were people who were fond of children for six hours, but not for sixteen, out of the twenty-four.

Maurice was sorry to find that Ellen had grown more reserved with her added years. He was especially struck with her shyness one evening when the Allens, a rich family in the neighborhood, were bidden to tea. The guests were taken out on the piazza until supper should be ready, for the day had been sultry. Mrs. Allen, fat, pompous, and dull, plied a palm-leaf fan, and listened to Mrs. Wentworth’s vivacious chatter; her husband, fatter, more pompous, and duller, talked of farming with Robert; while their son, a slender blasé youth of twenty, adjusted his eyeglasses and patronized Ellen and the sunset. The poor girl devoutly hoped that she would be placed next to Maurice Wentworth at the tea-table, for he was the only one of the men with whom she felt she had anything in common. No such happy fate was hers, however. She was seated, as befitted her youth, next to Frank Allen, while her position as sister in the household gave her his father for her other neighbor. The old gentleman ignored her, and concentrated his attention upon his entertaining hostess. The younger man, pleased at first by her charming face, vouchsafed a few remarks, but soon made up his mind that she was as dull as her narrow life, in spite of her beautiful eyes. He presently relapsed into silence, which was broken only when Ellen, catching a disapproving glance from her brother-in-law, gathered courage to ask her neighbor some trivial question, which he answered by a monosyllable.

When the long-drawn agony was at last over, and the guests had adjourned to the parlor, Robert captured Ellen as she was leaving the dining-room.

“ Wby did n’t you talk to young Allen, instead of holding your tongue like a silly schoolgirl ? ” he demanded.

“ I tried to talk to Mr. Allen,” she answered humbly, “but he did not care for what I had to say,” and she cast a hurried glance after Maurice, and wondered, in her self-abasement, if he had heard his brother’s question.

“How can you expect any man to be interested in what you have to say when you are so doubtful about it yourself ? ” Robert inquired. “ Dash in, Ellen. Say whatever comes into your head, as CharJotte does. That’s the way to do it. Say it as if it were important, and every one will think it is important; but above all, never look bored. Draw out the bores, Ellen, — that’s the way to get on. You are pretty enough to succeed, if you will only take the trouble. I shall expect to hear you talking all the evening, whether you have anything to say or not.”

When Robert left her, Ellen took refuge on the piazza to dry her eyes under shelter of the friendly darkness. She sat dejectedly in a corner, her depression extending itself even to the lines of her limp pink mull gown. Presently she heard a step, and before she could escape she saw Maurice at her elbow.

“ Suppose we take a turn out here before we go into the parlor,” he suggested. “ We shall never be missed.”

Ellen hastily tucked her handkerchief into her belt, and tried to steady her voice as she said, “It doesn’t matter about me, but you will be missed. You ought to go in.”

“ I missed ! ” He gave a short laugh. “ Ellen,” he asked, as they began to walk up and down the piazza, “ what has my brother been saying to you ? You look as forlorn as a rose that has been trodden underfoot.”

“ He wants me to be more like Charlotte. I wish I could be.”

“ It must be a comfort to be an average, conventional person,” he assented. “ready at a moment’s notice to adjust one’s self to fashion and circumstance. That is what it means to be successful.”

“ I should like to be successful,” she admitted, “but I never can be, because I cannot talk. I am a great disappointment to Robert. He likes lively, bright people. I wish I could please him, for he has been so good to me. You know my home has been with him ever since aunt Martha went to live with aunt Ellen, when her husband died ? ”

“You were with your aunt Ellen the last time I saw you. What a quaint little girl you were! You could talk fast enough then.”

“We really ought to go in,” said the conscientious Ellen. “ Robert will be displeased if we stay away.”

“If you say so, we will ; but we must sit together, Ellen, and then we need not talk unless we have something to say.”

“ Robert won’t like it if I don’t talk.”

“ Very well; then I will say to you at intervals, ‘ It is a pleasant evening,’— a great deal pleasanter out here, by the way, than in the house. Look at the mist on the mountains, and at that little crescent moon so clear-cut against the sky. It is a shame to go into the hot parlor when you and I could have such a nice time out here by ourselves. Society seems to be a device for making people uncomfortable.”

“ But we owe something to society, and we must go in,” Ellen said firmly.

“ We will go in, and whenever Robert’s eye is upon us I will reiterate that it is a pleasant evening. He will be satisfied if he sees us talking, and you will merely have to say, ‘ Yes, it is a pleasant evening. I always did like hot drawing-rooms in summer weather.’ ”

Before the evening was over Ellen and Maurice had confided a number of things to each other, and they were soon laughing merrily ; for whenever Robert looked that way, Maurice, true to his promise, no matter what subject they chanced to be discussing, broke off abruptly, and said with an excess of gravity to Ellen, “ It is a pleasant evening.”

That evening was the precursor of many that were equally delightful. The weeks slipped away, and Maurice ceased to think of his unhappy past and his precarious future, but gave himself up to the joys of a satisfying present. He had never known before the pleasure of easy and familiar intercourse with a young girl. It did not occur to him that he, middle-aged and penniless, might fall in love with Ellen ; still less that she, beautiful and young, might grow to care for him ; but he felt an unreasonable envy when he saw the comforts with which his brother had surrounded himself, and material things assumed the exaggerated value in his eyes which they often have for those of few possessions, who, because of their poverty, are erroneously supposed to despise comforts and luxuries. Had he been successful, he reasoned, he too might have had a happy home; a wife, not unlike Ellen, older, less charming, plainer, but a sympathetic companion who would understand him and love him. He too might have had naughty, willful, but very dear and engaging children.

At last an evening came which was pleasanter than all the others. It chanced one morning that Mrs. Wentworth proposed to her brother-in-law that he and Ellen and some of the children should have an early lunch, and then drive over to Annersley, a large town ten miles away, where she wanted some important errands done. Mrs. Allen and several New York friends were to come to lunch, and it would be a comfort to be freed from some of the turbulent and omnipresent children. So it happened that a wagonful of happy people drove “ over the hills and far away,” that August afternoon. Ellen was on the back seat with Marion and Carlotta, while Beatrice and Bobby proudly shared the front seat with their uncle Maurice. Unhappily, the carriage was not sufficiently elastic to hold all the children, and poor Hester had the doubtful reward of the good, and was left behind because she was no trouble to her mother, while Eleanor was compelled to stay at home because she was so very young.

They drove through patches of dense woods and up long stretches of dusty road, with a tangle of blackberry bushes and early goldenrod on either side of the rough stone walls. Sometimes they passed deserted farmhouses with their blinds forlornly closed, and again they went by prosperous farms that had been reclaimed by summer visitors ; and all the way was brightened by a summer sun, except when the sun was obscured by summer clouds. Once they came suddenly, after a bend in the road, upon an old farmhouse, unpainted, and turned by stress of weather to a picturesque gray. Over its walls gay morning-glories were climbing, and in its straggling, unkempt garden was a profusion of hollyhocks; while on the very upper edge of the hillside, silhouetted against the sky, was a flock of white geese.

“ That is like one of Vedder’s pictures,” said Maurice.

“ What! those ugly geese, craning their necks in that stupid way ? ” asked Beatrice.

“ You are a true child of your father,” he rejoined.

“ Does n’t papa like geese, uncle Maurice ? ”

“ No, my dear, he does not.”

But if his niece was unsympathetic, no shade of the picturesque landscape was lost upon Ellen. On this enchanting afternoon, even prosaic errands in ugly Annersley caught a little of the glamour that enveloped everything. Ellen lingered unnecessarily in the shops from a willful determination to make this happy day last a brief hour longer. She hailed with pleasure Beatrice’s proposition that they should get soda water at the corner drug store, where their uncle Maurice treated them all, from Beatrice, who with difficulty could be dissuaded from having sarsaparilla, vanilla, and chocolate mixed, down to the small Carlotta. Ellen lavishly provided them with crackers, peppermint drops, and gum drops. When they started to drive home at last, and saw that the summer clouds were fast getting the better of the summer sun, Ellen recklessly hoped that they might be caught in a drenching rain, and have to take refuge in the weatherbeaten farmhouse. It was such a humble wish that it was granted her by fate. The shower was upon them almost before they knew it, and Maurice had just time to get the open wagon under shelter of the barn that was near the farmhouse, when the clouds descended in a blinding sheet of rain. It was five o’clock already, and there were eight miles still before them to travel.

“Uncle Maurice,” said Beatrice, as she climbed up into the hayloft, “ would n’t it be jolly fun if we had to stay here all night ? ”

“ I wish it would rain, and rain, and rain, for forty days and forty nights, and that we could have this barn for our ark,” added the more imaginative Carlotta.

As the minutes passed, it became evident that a fraction of this wish was to be fulfilled, and Maurice presently proposed that they should adjourn to the farmhouse, and seek shelter there for the night. They were greeted at the kitchen door by the farmer’s wife, a cheery, elderly woman.

“ Come right in and make yourselves to home,” she said hospitably, before Maurice had finished accounting for their sudden appearance.

“ I am Maurice Wentworth, from the Wentworth farm,” he said, raising his voice, for the woman was deaf.

“ Du tell! I want ter know ! I’ve often seen the farm as I’ve drove by. And so these are your children ? ” (she included Ellen in the number) — “ four girls and a boy ; quite a little family. I guess the boy is a prime favorite with his pa ? ”

“He is n’t our father; he is our uncle Maurice,” Bobby and Beatrice explained. But the woman did not hear them, and proceeded to open the parlor door with a flourish.

“ Walk right in, girls ; don’t be bashful. You and your sisters can have the spare room upstairs, she said, addressing Ellen, “ and I have a nice little corner room for your father and brother.”

“ He is n’t her father, and she is n’t my sister. She’s our aunt Ellen, and he ’s our uncle Maurice,” said Bobby.

“I ’ll get tea for you directly,” the woman continued, “ for I know little folks is always hungry, and maybe your father ” —

“ He is not our father ; he is our uncle Maurice ! ” shouted the children.

“ I want ter know ! Well, your uncle, maybe, will like a bit of steak.”

Before Maurice would have his supper, he insisted upon driving back to Annersley to let Charlotte and Robert know by telephone the whereabouts of their children.

“ It’s no use going out again in this dreadful storm,” said Beatrice, “ for papa and mamma never worry about us. They ’ll know we are safe somewhere.”

Maurice, however, was not to be dissuaded from his purpose, but took the solitary drive in the teeth of the storm.

When he returned, Ellen met him in the entry. “ How wet you are!” she said. “ I am very sorry ! The children were so hungry that I let them have their supper, but I have waited for you. I hope Robert was properly grateful!”

“ Grateful! ” exclaimed Maurice, with a little laugh. “When I told him that you and the children were safe at Farmer Brown’s, and that we were going to spend the night there, he said, ‘ Hang it, Manrice, did you drive all the way back to Annersley to tell me that ? I did n’t suppose you were picnicking in the middle of the road.' And then I heard him say to some one near at hand, presumably Charlotte, ‘ What a fool my brother Maurice is ! ’” He suppressed the epithet which had accompanied the words.

“ How unkind of him! ” exclaimed Ellen indignantly.

“ Oh no,” Maurice returned dispassionately, as he divested himself of his dripping overcoat. “ After an acquaintance of nearly forty years with his brother Maurice, I have come to the conclusion that Robert is about right.”

To take supper in the old-fashioned kitchen, with Ellen at the other end of the table pouring out tea for him, and a little boy and three small girls for his butler and maids, was a new experience for Maurice, but one that was still more delightful was in store for him. When Ellen started to go upstairs to put the children to bed, she was uncertain as to whether she ought to come down again. Anything so charming as a whole evening alone with Mr. Wentworth her New England conscience viewed with doubt. Mrs. Brown helped to dissipate her scruples when she opened the door into the parlor and said, “ I hope you and your father — Lord ! I forget that he is your uncle — well, I hope you and your uncle will make yourselves entirely to home.”

“ I shall see you again, Ellen ? ” Maurice said, as he bade the children goodnight.

“ I was just wondering whether it was worth while to come down again,” she replied, with hesitation.

“ Worth while ? ” His face clouded with disappointment. “ That is for you to judge. But I will promise not to make you talk, if you wish to be silent,” he went on, wholly misunderstanding her. “ I will read to you whatever you like.”

When she came downstairs, half an hour later, Maurice was obliged to retract this statement. “ I made a rash promise,” he remarked. “ I can’t read whatever you like, Ellen, for Mrs. Brown’s library consists of but three volumes. Which shall it be ? A chapter from the Bible, extracts from Pilgrim’s Progress, or a play of Shakespeare’s?” He held the bulky Shakespeare in his hand as he spoke.

“ I won’t disappoint you by insisting on The Pilgrim’s Progress,” she answered, with a smile. “ Let it be one of Shakespeare’s plays.”

“ Which one ? You shall choose your favorite. ”

“ If it is to be my favorite play, it will be Romeo and Juliet.”

“ Good heavens, child ! not that ghastly tragedy ! Ellen, you show how young you are by making such a choice. Let me read As You Like It.”

“ The tragedies are so much more romantic,” observed Ellen.

“ And you really prefer tragedy to mirth-provoking humor? ”

“ Yes. Humor is so commonplace. Besides, I can’t help going on with the plays, and thinking of the matter-of-fact lives that the heroes and heroines lived afterwards. I am sure Orlando scolded Rosalind when his beefsteak was not cooked to a turn, and that he held her responsible for all the faults of their children. I shall never forget the wild state your brother was in when my sister was making up her mind whether she would marry him. And look how comfortably prosaic they are now; how he criticises her gowns, and how he finds fault every morning with the coffee ! ”

“ And how he loves her ! ” added Maurice. “ I can hardly imagine his life apart from hers.”

“But the romance is gone,” persisted Ellen. “ Now with Romeo and Juliet everything is so complete ! ”

“ I suppose you will despise me, Ellen, as an old fellow without any sentiment, when I tell you that ray ideal of happiness is a handsome house with all the modern improvements, and a wife, who may be plain and unamiable, but who must know how to make me comfortable ! ”

“ Mr. Wentworth ! ”

“ I have not knocked about the world for fifteen years without having gained a realizing sense of the importance of good, matter-of-fact, unromantic prose. Give me a creature not too bright and good to cook human nature’s daily food ! ”

“ Mr. Wentworth, I know you are not in earnest. I have always supposed you were too ” — she hesitated—“ I have always supposed you were indifferent to such things.”

“ Then you have supposed wrong. It is not the men who have had poor coffee all their lives who are indifferent to good coffee.”

Ellen laughed.

“ It is not the men who have been unprosperous all their lives who are indifferent to prosperity,” he went on more seriously.

“ Why have you been unprosperous ? ” she asked impulsively.

“ Ah ! ‘ That is another story,’ as Kipling would say. It is not a tragedy, exactly, after Shakespeare’s manner, and yet it is not a comedy.”

“ Tell me all about your life, from beginning to end,” she entreated.

“ It is not an interesting story, Ellen ; and you, with your love of romance, will be disturbed because it is not more complete. To finish it off neatly, I ought to have died half a dozen years ago.”

“ Oh no,” she said, with a little shiver. “ Please go on,” she added, after a moment of silence.

“ It is a story briefly told. I have failed at everything, and when I had the typhoid fever, six years ago, I even failed to die.”

“ Were you very ill ? ”

“ Yes. I had as narrow a squeak as any man ever has who lives. Forgive me, Ellen : ‘ squeak,’ I realize, is not the language of Shakespeare.”

“ Were you on the ranch when you were ill?” she inquired in a subdued voice.

“ Yes. I was alone for days, until a neighbor happened to drive over and found me half unconscious. But here I am, you see,” he added cheerfully, “ all ready to read aloud Romeo and Juliet.”

“ I want to hear everything about yourself first, from the very beginning. Why was it that Robert went to college before you, when you were the older brother ? ”

“ Because he was stronger and brighter and more determined than I. Father could afford to send but one of us: so Robert went, and I stayed at home and earned the money to go later.”

“It was selfish of Robert to let you do it ! ” she cried indignantly.

“ No, it was weak of me. If I were to live my life over again, I should fight for my rights at every point.”

“You would not be half so nice if you did.”

“ Thank you, — perhaps not; but I should be a great deal happier.”

“ Are n’t you happy now ? ” asked Ellen, with a great concern in her brown eyes.

“ Just at this moment I am very happy.”

“ You know I did n’t mean that. You ought to be happier than Robert, ’ she proceeded thoughtfully, “ for you make everybody happy.”

“ Well, I am not so happy as Robert, all the same. I would change places with him in a minute, if I had the chance. At least, I would if I could go back a dozen years.”

“ You would n’t change places with him if you could. You would want to keep your individuality.”

“ Think what he has accomplished,” said Maurice, with enthusiasm. “ He is not only happy himself, but he has made a great many other people happy.”

“ Yes. I certainly ought to be grateful to him, for he has supported me ever since I was twelve years old. Only — perhaps I can’t explain myself — it sometimes seems to me as if it were better to fail than to succeed. Prosperous people are apt to lose their sympathy for the forlorn and unsuccessful, but those who have not succeeded are in touch with all sorrow and failure and misery ; and the unsuccessful class is such a large one that to belong to it implies a freemasonry with nine tenths of the world.”

“ Ellen, you almost make me determine to go on failing to the end of the chapter.”

He saw by the quick change in her responsive face that she was pained because he treated her words lightly. In reality he was not unappreciative. On the contrary, it was because he was afraid of expressing too much that he expressed nothing. He looked at the young girl in her inharmonious surroundings, and the stiff haircloth chair in which she sat and the ugly yellow-and-green sprigged paper on the walls instantly became dear and homelike. Even the scarlet worsted mat under the kerosene lamp was faithfully photographed upon his mental retina. These things were part of an enchanting present which would all too soon be only an enchanting past. Ellen wore the summer uniform of her sex, a plain dark blue serge skirt and a blue silk shirt waist dotted with white, but it seemed to him that she wore them with a grace and distinction that were all her own. He was glad that she was looking away from him, as he could rest his eyes upon her with greater confidence. He would not have altered a detail of her face. The soft brown hair coiled in the knot that Robert thought too simple, the complexion which Robert thought too pale, the large dark eyes with the long lashes, the sweet mouth which Robert thought too grave, were all a part of Ellen, and to change a single detail, even to its advantage, would be to make her less completely Ellen. Suppose she were really his daughter, as their hostess had fancied ? In this case his life and hers would be inextricably joined. But no, some lover would ruthlessly claim her, — he felt a righteous indignation toward the intruder, — and the next moment his wayward imagination was picturing how it would seem to be Ellen’s lover.

“ Hear the rain beat against the window ! ” she said. “ It is a fearful night. When I was a little girl, I used to be afraid of the wind when it shrieked like that. ”

#8220; Suppose I read King Lear, since you like tragedy ? That play is in harmony with the storm.”

“ I wish you had your essays here, and then you could read those.”

“ They are as unsuccessful as the rest of my career. Sometimes the magazines and newspapers take them, but oftener they refuse them. They are not essays, by the way, but merely articles about the woods and fields and the Western country.”

“ Please give me a little sketch of one.”

“ Ellen, you are an apt pupil of my brother. Don’t start me on that subject, or I shall feel sure that you are taking his advice and trying to draw out a bore.”

Whatever her motive might have been, it is certain that she succeeded in making him talk more freely about himself than he had ever done, and the hours sped by only too quickly.

“ What time is it ? ” she asked at last, reluctantly.

He took out his watch. “ I would rather not tell you,” he owned.

Ellen glanced over his shoulder. “ Eleven o’clock ! ” she exclaimed in horrified accents. “And I thought it was n’t more than half past nine ! ”

“Good-night, Ellen.”

He clasped her slender hand in his, and wished again that he were her father, that he might claim a father’s privilege. In the watches of the night he admitted that he had been dishonest with himself: he did not wish that he were Ellen’s father.

That night, as Ellen lay awake, she felt that she had said all she ought not to have said, and left unsaid all that she ought to have said. Why had her tongue refused to translate the message of her heart, and to tell Mr. Wentworth the stimulus that his friendship was to her ? Why had she not said : —

“ When I was a little girl, you showed me all the treasures of the woods and the fields. You taught me to love nature, and to feel as if nothing really mattered so long as one had God’s blue sky overhead and a world of beauty at one’s feet. You taught me to care for books, and to feel that one never could be dull or friendless with these good comrades at hand. Robert has given me an outwardly prosperous life, but he would have left my mind cramped. And so, I believe that to fail so far as the world is concerned, but to succeed in making one human being independent of the world, is better than to succeed, as the world calls it, but to fail in regard to spiritual things. ‘ For is not the life more than meat ? ’ ”

Why had she not said this ? It was because of her miserable shyness and self-consciousness. Instead of this (oh, mortifying thought ! her cheeks burned at the recollection), she had told him that to fail was better than to succeed, thereby implying that his life had been a failure. Why had she not urged, him to try for mere material, worldly success, since he craved it ? It was because no one had ever really cared for him or believed in his powers that he, with his humble estimate of himself, had failed. A part of this she would get courage to tell him in the morning, for Ellen was still young enough to believe in “ tomorrow.”

Yet alas ! when to-morrow came it brought altered conditions. Poor Ellen could not determine what subtle change had come over Maurice Wentworth, and she was too sensitive and shrinking to force her mood upon him. It was a glorious morning, and there was no excuse for lingering at the Browns’ farm after breakfast; and indeed, she no longer cared to linger, for the charm had departed.

When they reached home, and Ellen saw Charlotte standing in the doorway, she felt a premonition that some bad news was in store for her.

“ Dear Ellen,” her sister said, “ I want to prepare you for something very sad.”

Ellen’s heart sank still lower as a sudden memory of awful sorrow years ago swept over her; then it gave a bound again when she saw Robert, Hester, and Eleanor.

Charlotte held a telegram in her hand. “Aunt Martha has died,” she announced. “ The funeral is to-morrow. Robert thinks that all three of us had better go down to it, as Maurice can stay with the children. I am so sorry for poor aunt Ellen. How lonely she will be ! ”

“ Yes,” said Ellen the younger, “ poor, poor aunt Ellen ! ”

Her mind, however, refused to feel a realizing sense of her aunt’s sorrow. She was conscious instead of a passionate regret that this journey was to come now, and lessen her time, already too short, under the same roof with Maurice Wentworth. She was ashamed of her lack of sympathy, and would fain have cried because she had no tears to shed.

Maurice drove them to the station the next day, in the same wagon that had so recently gone on a happier errand, and he watched the train wistfully as it moved out of sight.

When the travelers came home, four days later, they found a great fire of fircones and pine-balsam burning in the parlor fireplace, while the room was decorated with cardinal flowers and goldenrod, in honor of their return.

Bobby flew to greet his papa, while the younger children clung joyfully to their mamma, and Beatrice and Hester put their arms around their aunt.

“ It is awfully good to get you back,” said Beatrice.

“Did you have a good time ? ” asked Hester timidly.

“ Hester,” Beatrice remarked severely, “ people don’t have a good time at funerals.”

Boor Hester, who had meant to say something quite different, and was more sympathetic in her heart than any of the children, retired, crushed and humiliated, to the other end of the room, where she was joined by her uncle.

“ Hester,” he began, “ I believe you and I are really fonder of your aunt than the other children are, but for that very reason we often fail to say the right thing. Suppose we go now and tell her how sorry we are that she has had this long, sad journey.”

He took Hester’s hand, alike unconscious of the passionate love and gratitude in the child’s heart and of the strong influence he was already exerting over her life, and they crossed the room to where Ellen sat in the window-seat, with Beatrice and Carlotta in their white gowns making a sharp contrast against the sombre folds of her black dress.

“ We have come to tell you how glad we are to get you back, and how sorry we are for your sorrow,” said Maurice.

Ellen raised her clear eyes to his. It seemed dishonest to let him think that she had suffered.

“ I never knew aunt Martha well enough to love her,” she explained, “ and so I did not grieve for myself, but merely kept thinking in a vague, outside way, ‘ How hard it must be to lose the sister with whom one has lived so many years! ’ Yet the thought did not touch me. It only saddened me, as one is saddened by sad music, or by the first bleak, gray days of winter. It was a mood, not a reality : yet now I have come away, the mood still stays, and it seems as if I could never be glad any more.”

“ How funny ! ” said Beatrice. “ I should think the time to be sad was at the funeral, and that you’d be awfully glad now to think it was over. Mamma and papa are n’t sad. They are laughing. Goodness ! Bobby has put on my shade hat. What a scamp that boy is ! ” and she slid down from her aunt’s lap and proceeded to chastise the erring Bobby.

“ Robert was so kind and sympathetic through everything,” Ellen said to Maurice. “ He is the best fellow in the world when one has a real sorrow. No son could have been kinder than he was to aunt Ellen. He felt her grief much more keenly than I did.”

“ Perhaps so ; yet you will feel it longer.”

‘ I shall have a chance to feel it for a long, long time,” said Ellen in a low voice, “ for I am going to live with my aunt Ellen.”

“Robert,” Charlotte asked that night after they had gone upstairs, “ has it ever occurred to you that Maurice is in love with Ellen ? ”

“ Great Scott ! What put that absurd idea into your head ? ”

“ I have suspected it for some time, but I was sure of it to-night by the way he took the news of her going to live with aunt Ellen. Do you suppose, if you get that position for him at Torrey and Brown’s, that he will offer himself to her ? ”

“ Charlotte, the men of our family may be fools, but they are not knaves. We don’t marry when we have n’t money enough to eke out a decent living.”

“ But Maurice has always supported himself, after a fashion.”

“ He has contrived to starve with philosophy, but he is not the man to drag a woman into starvation.”

“ It seems a pity, Robert, that such a good fellow should be so weak in some ways.”

“ It is a pity. There is hope for the drunkard, the gambler, or the libertine, for the very qualities that dragged him down may raise him up, if turned to good account; but there is no reforming your conscientious, self-distrustful, and consequently inefficient man. Lord ! what a conscience that fellow has ! I can’t think of any place that he could fill with entire satisfaction to himself, unless it were matron of an Orphans’ Home. He never could get rich in any line. He is the kind of fellow who always puts the largest strawberries in the bottom of the box. He won’t make a good salesman if he gets in at Torrey and Brown’s, for he will point out to his customers every flaw in each article. By the way, he told me, characteristically, to be sure to tell Torrey and Brown that he had had no experience as a salesman.”

“ If his eyes were only stronger, he could be editor of some newspaper,” Charlotte suggested, “ for he is clever with his pen.”

“ My dear child, he would not stay on the staff of a paper a week, for he would insist upon telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is pleasant to look forward to a future world for such men. Maurice is very well fitted for the kingdom of heaven ; only he would want to change places with some fellow who was writhing in the other kingdom before he could be quite easy in his mind.”

“ Robert, what troubles me more than the fact that Maurice is in love with Ellen is the fear that she cares for him. If she had a suspicion of his feelings, I am afraid that she would be only too glad to ‘ starve ’ with him 1 with philosophy.’ As she can’t go to aunt Ellen for a month, I wish we could send Maurice away now. Could n’t Torrey and Brown make room for him at once ? ”

“ I will write to them this moment and find out. But, my dear, I can’t believe that your sister would be such an idiot as to marry a man who could earn perhaps six hundred dollars a year.”

“ She is a child about money matters, and she will reason that the five thousand dollars aunt Martha left her will give her ” —

“ Two hundred and fifty dollars a year,” said Robert promptly. “ At aunt Ellen’s she will have comforts and luxuries, and be the cherished daughter of the house, a much more important person than she could ever be in our large family. She will make a good match in time, when she has learned her own value, for she is a pretty girl and a sweet-tempered girl, and I suppose, if she lives with your aunt Ellen, she will eventually have all her money. Great Scott ! Fancy a girl’s throwing away all these chances to live with Maurice Wentworth in an attic ! ”

“ She is young and romantic,” said Charlotte, “ and she has no conception of the wear and tear of poverty. If we can only get Maurice away at once, however, no great harm will have been done.”

“ He shall go this week, if I have to drag him away by main force.”

Robert, who had never failed in any undertaking, did not fail now, and consequently Maurice found himself, at the end of the week, about to start for New York, to be a clerk in the wholesale firm of Torrey and Brown, at a salary of fifty dollars a month. Small as the sum was, he was afraid it was more than his services were worth. He knew that he ought to be grateful to Robert, instead of feeling a smouldering anger at the irritating way in which the chance was offered him, as if Robert were his master, and he a faithful hound, who was expected to take a cuff without a murmur, because it was accompanied by a bone; he knew that he was in no position to rebel at the distastefulness of the work, and that he ought to be glad it was to begin at once ; but every other feeling was merged in blank, dumb despair at the prospect of the immediate parting from Ellen.

Maurice spent his last afternoon out on the piazza, with a book in his hand; but his eyes frequently wandered toward the court where Ellen was playing tennis with Frank Allen. The mellow sunlight filtered through the green leaves of the oak-tree and fell on her slender figure in the accustomed blue skirt and silk waist that seemed so much more a part of her than her black dress. As he saw her swiftly sending the balls over the net, with apparently no thought in her mind beyond the game, he felt that she had entered a young world, full of gayety and sunshine, in which he had no part. Only the other day there had seemed so close an affinity between them that he had forgotten the barriers of poverty and age; but now her youth and beauty assumed their old position in his thoughts. At the end of the game the two young people sat down on the bench under the oak-tree, and Maurice saw that Ellen had learned her lesson well, for there was the same expression of attentive gravity on her face which only the other night she had given to himself. A blind feeling of jealousy seized him, as, in fancy, he saw her, in the days to come, surrounded by a throng of young fellows, and won at last by some fortunate man with good looks and wealth for his allies. He had been a fool to think that this friendship was without danger for him. He knew now that he loved her with his whole strength ; that in fact he had loved her throughout this brief, bright summer. Perhaps some day he might be grateful for this taste of happiness, but at the moment his heart was full of bitterness against society in general, and the miserable limitations of his own nature in particular. Why was he doomed to loneliness and failure, when others were blessed with love and with success ? Was not his heart overflowing with affection ? And could he not make a woman happy ?

When Ellen and Frank Allen came up the piazza steps, on their way into the house, Maurice fixed his eyes aggressively on his book. Ellen opened the door into the hall.

“ Mr. Allen, you will find my sister inside,” she said. “ She will amuse you while I go to make myself presentable for tea.”

Nevertheless she did not follow him into the house. She came over to the corner where Maurice was sitting. He did not raise his eyes from his book.

“ I have come to say my own especial good-by to you now,” she began in a low tone, “ because when you go away to-night it will be a general good-by.”

“ What difference does it make when the good-by is said ? ” he responded, almost roughly.

She turned quickly to hide her tears. She had hoped for something different, for some farewell words of regret that their happy summer was over, perhaps for a request that she would write to him sometimes. In that moment, her past, present, and future came before her with panoramic clearness, and Maurice was everywhere the central figure. She remembered a day of hopeless misery after he had gone away when she was a little girl, and the nights which followed, when she had cried herself to sleep. She recollected how she had waited and watched for a letter, which came at last, for he never disappointed children, although he could be cruel to older people, it seemed. Now her whole life was full of him, when he was present and when he was absent; and he was to be absent again, and perhaps absent always ! Well, be it so ! And since she was nothing to him, her pride would save her from ever letting him know how weak she had been. He should not claim a fraction of her regard whenever he saw fit to ask for it. She would bid him a final good-by. As she turned towards him he was struck by something in her expression.

“ Ellen, you expect to be happy with your aunt Ellen, do you not ? ” he questioned.

“Yes, but just now I am feeling unhappy at the idea of leaving my sister and the children.”

“ That is perfectly natural; but you will enjoy life as soon as you get there. They tell me that you are to have more freedom, and that you will know a great many young people : that will be pleasant for you. It is a life much more suited to a girl of your age. You are sure to like it.”

Ellen turned her head away again abruptly. “ Oh, of course I shall like it,” she said quickly. “ Children are always pleased with a new toy.” And she went into the house without another word.

“ After all, I was mistaken about Ellen,” Charlotte said to Robert that night. “ It is evident that she is not in love with Maurice, for she was so friendly when she bade him good-by. If she cared for him, she would have been colder, or else less at her ease. I am so glad that you sent him away in time.”

“ Of course she is n’t in love with him,” her husband returned. “ I told you so all along. He is n’t the kind of man that girls fancy. Poor fellow! He is destined to be a failure in everything.”

Eliza Orne White.