The Lions in the Way

“I DON’T see why you turn down the light like that, ” said Mrs. Axtell querulously, “unless you ’re expectin’ a ghost to call, — the kind that come about dark, — a sort of spiritual bat, ” she continued, with grim humor. “That makes me think: I see Elsie out lookin’ into a mud puddle one day, so I put up the window, — it was the northwest window of the parlor, ” she explained with a born realist’s passion for detail, — “and asked what she was lookin’ for.

“‘ God,’ says she.

“‘ Why, Elsie! ’ says I surprised like.

“‘ You said he was in de sky, ’ says she, ’an’ de sky ’s in de water, an’ I ’m goin’ supp’ise him when he comes. I see an angel alweady — just de tip of her wing goin’ by. ’

“She’s a cute one,” said Mrs. Axtell fervently. “She ’s most too good for this world, seems to me sometimes, and it’s a kind o’ relief to ketch her stealin’ my pickles, ’cause then I know she ’s got enough original sin to season her and keep her human.”

“No trouble about that, I guess,” said Myra, more as a form of words than an attempt to reply.

She did not explain that the dim light suited her mood as she sat close under the white mantel, very still except that her hands closed nervously now and then upon the arms of the chair, and her face moved as the earth seems to quiver at times under the shadow of a passing cloud. Her eyes were always stealthily seeking the door, along the paths of dust — that cement of our common mortality that binds us together — as it gathered insolently in her very sight. She had lost her courage for work since this terrible suspense had caught and held her in its net.

“Kerosene ’s cheap,” said Mrs. Axtell, returning to her grievance; “that is, some cheap,” she added cautiously. “There ain’t no great need o’ settin’ in the dark.”

“I wish you ’d stop making such a guy of yourself, mother, ” said Myra, a little fretful under the nervous tension, and with some notion of applying a counter-irritant. “Little Barbara Lane asked me the other day when you were going by if you were Mother Goose. ”

Mrs. Axtell laughed. She was a grotesque study of a woman, small, and so spare that the joints showed like knots under the withered skin, her shoulders hidden by a black shawl that must have been gifted with immortality, it had outworn so many generations, and her head concealed within the depths of a great poke bonnet. She had found the bonnet in a chest in her garret, and was wearing it more in the interest of her gospel of economy than the economy itself. From under this awning her large eyes threw out a watchful, half-humorous light.

“Well,” she said, “I ain’t one to let good silk and the time spent in shirrin’ it go to waste on account of its not bein’ the fashion of this generation. I ’m makin’ myself a kind o’ trumpet call to this village, to warn ’em against extravagance.”

“That bonnet looks as much like a trumpet as anything, ” said Myra impatiently.

“Besides,” continued Mrs. Axtell, “I see they was so bent on talkin’ about Linda Brett I thought I might as well draw off a little attention on to myself. So I put on the bunnit — an’ it done it.”

“I should think it did,” said Myra irritably.

“What’s the matter, anyway?” asked Mrs. Axtell, when she had watched her daughter in silence for a few minutes. “You act as if you was afraid of something. You have n’t really got the light turned down for a ghost, have you ? ” she inquired facetiously. “I’ve always heard they was mighty poor company — especially a body’s own. Everybody has their own ghosts, they say, and they get quite a neat property in them when they ’re poor enough other ways. An’ they have to lay ’em one by one, here, or there, or somewhere, nobody knows. That ’s what your aunt Rebecca Chase used to say — an’ I guess she knew.” Mrs. Axtell’s statement that a thing was what her sister Rebecca said, and she guessed she knew, was to her as the seal of Solomon — and beyond it there was no appeal.

“Come, what is it? ” asked the mother. “You ’ve taken to worryin’ too much. There ’s no use tryin’ to regulate the sunset and the moonrise all the time; you’ve got to let things blunder along by themselves once in a while. That ’s what your aunt Rebecca said — an’ I guess she knew, ” she added softly, after a few minutes. Mrs. Axtell’s whole creed of conduct was made up of the proverbs and epigrams of her sister Rebecca. It was as if she had tried to throw her whole personality into the mould which her sister had fashioned.

“Elsie been runnin’ away, or tellin’ a fib ? ” she inquired anxiously. Myra, the daughter to whom she had done maternal homage for so long, had been deposed at Elsie’s coming, and had sunk to the lower estate of being merely Elsie’s mother.

“Or would n’t say her prayers or somethin’ ? ”

“No, no,” said Myra desperately. “It ’s that old story — you know. I ’m afraid Glory ’s told him.”

“What story?” asked Mrs. Axtell blankly. “That about Elsie’s gettin’ into the brook and ” —

“No, no,” said Myra impatiently. “About myself. What makes you so slow, mother ? When I was a girl — don’t you remember? ”

“Oh! ” said Mrs. Axtell, as if a sudden light had dawned. “That! Why, I supposed you ’d forgot that long ago. ”

“I’ve never forgotten it a minute since Glory Ann said she ’d tell him.”

“Well, you should n’t have told Glory Ann.”

“But I did,” said Myra almost angrily, “and she said she ’d tell him some time; and he was there a week before she died. She always kept her word, you know, — she prided herself on it.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Axtell, “I remember how she used to stickle over the truth, —like her tellin’ me Millie Pond paid fifty cents for a white apron, an’ then walkin’ clear over to Scranhope to say she was mistaken, an’ it was only twenty-five, and askin’ my pardon to boot. Think of it! ” Mrs. Axtell shook her head solemnly. “ There was a queer streak in Glory — let alone the quarrelin’. It ain’t any use tryin’ to live and tell the truth like that. Well, maybe she did n’t tell him. Dyin’ ’s different from ’most everything else, ” she said grimly, “and it might upset one’s ways some, I should think; and maybe she was tryin’ to save her soul, — people do generally put it off till it has to be done, you know. It don’t pay to believe the worst till you know it ’s so. That ’s what your ” —

“Yes, yes, mother,” said Myra hurriedly.

“I know how you feel,” said Mrs. Axtell. “I ran away from my mother once when I was a girl, huckleberryin’ ; an’ I remember, when I was to the foot of Huckleberry Hill, lookin’ back and seein’ her comin’ on alone so quiet and uncomplainin’. I’ve done lots of worse things than that in my life; but when Elder Sweet used to call on us all to repent, my conscience always picked out that Saturday afternoon to be sorry for.”

Mrs. Axtell fell into a long, silent musing, over that day, perhaps, while Myra bent forward, and resting her elbows on her knees, covered her face with her hands.

The story which Myra dreaded was of her own girlhood, — of that time when the dangerous love-longing stirs in the heart of every woman, and leaves her at the mercy of that mischievous fairy who still roams the world with the juice of the herb called love-in-idleness, to anoint his victims’ eyes so that, waking, they glorify and worship what first catches that wondrous love-light.

Love was higher than law, some one had pleaded with her in those days; stronger even than the spiritual death hidden within the forbidden fruit. Love was its own good. Even the sulphur fires of the Puritan’s underworld could not prevail against a heart that was filled with it. Myra had listened shrinkingly and doubtfully, yet yielding her will little by little to the fascination of the tempter who was offering her her heart’s desire.

They had planned to meet in a distant city; but Myra, in her nervous haste and fear of detection, had taken an earlier train than the one agreed upon, and arriving, had found no one to meet her at the station. She had never been in a large city before, or even far from home; and she shivered in the loneliness of the unfamiliar air like a southern flower brought to a northern sky. The noise and constant motion of people passing about her like the quickmoving shuttles of a loom did not reassure her, but filled her with a senseless self-consciousness that made her cower at any casual glance.

“What is it? ” asked a kind-faced, elderly woman, evidently country bred like herself. “Can I do anything for you?”

Myra had been standing motionless against the walls of the station for a half hour. “He — has n’t come,” she stammered. “I — I’m lost.”

“Who? ” asked the woman.

Myra made some incoherent attempt to explain, yet not reveal the truth; but her eyes fell away guiltily from the other’s clear gaze. The stranger laid a hand on her arm. “In your mother’s name ” — she said solemnly.

It is usually some woman to whom the final great appeal is made. That is why the Catholic Church has instituted the worship of the Virgin. It has tried to reincarnate God in the form of a woman.

“Is she living ? ”

“Yes.”

“Go home to her and talk it over. I don’t understand, but I ’m sure you ’re making a mistake. Will you go ? ” she asked eagerly.

“Yes,” said Myra humbly.

There was an east-bound train ready to leave, and on the impulse Myra had taken it, without asking about its route. She had been carried out of her way, and as she had been obliged to change her course and wait for trains, it was after midnight when she reached Stanton. From there she had walked the four-mile distance home. The road led across the lonely plains, where the trembling of the shadows or the gossipy talk of the leaves had set her pulses throbbing. She ran when the rapid beating of her heart gave her breath to run, and came out of the plains pallid with fear, and so weary that when her feet stumbled and she fell at her father’s gate, she lay there a few minutes to rest, though the house was only a dozen steps away.

The house was dark; but her people rarely took the trouble to lock doors, and she had no difficulty in entering. In passing through the kitchen she had awakened her mother, it seemed.

“Is that you, Myra?” asked Mrs. Axtell.

“Yes,” faltered Myra.

“You did n’t stay with Glory, then.”

“No.”

“You did n’t let the cat in, did you ? ”

“No.”

“All right.”

Myra had crept upstairs to her own chamber without further challenge. She had not slept, tired as she was, but, sitting by the window, had watched the slow progress of the stars. There, beyond, somewhere on the limits of the night, she had caught a glimpse of a girl walking blindly amid dense clouds that hid a treacherous way. Some chance breeze had blown the clouds aside for an instant, and the girl had seen the black abyss close to her feet. She had drawn back in terror; and at that moment — perhaps the sudden sense of her own peril had quickened her imagination and with it the sympathy that always follows hard upon — there had come to her the cry of another woman, who complained that the love she had won had been stolen, and the same hand that had robbed her of love would take her honor and her home.

It was strange that Myra’s conscience had never troubled her very much before in regard to this other woman, for now it was hardly concerned about anything else, and even for the moment shut out her pity for her lover, perplexed and chagrined at her failure to keep her promise. Myra had caught a glimpse of the other woman once, — a plain, dull, plodding figure. She had not wondered that such a one could not hold a man’s heart; she bad pitied her a little in a girl’s thoughtless, cruel way, and complacently remembered her own reflection in the glass. But now, again and again, she begged forgiveness of the woman she had wronged, and humbled herself with bitter shame before her memory of that figure, as if it represented the womanhood of the world. The morning had brought her a new era. She had begun to put away her infatuation as something sullied and unfit ; and in time all that had remained was a sense of her own potential guilt, and a prayer for the woman who had been her friend.

The secret was her own, and might have been forever buried in her own memory if once, in the early days of her engagement, when the sunshine was flooding earth and sky, and her heart was drunk with the joy of it, she had not told the story to her lover’s sister. Myra had often wondered how it happened, and could only understand it as the outcome of her own love-intoxication, the moonlight, the perfume of the lilacs, and the mesmeric influence of the slowly swaying leaves. There had come to her a sudden longing to tell her story, — Glory had been doing some of hers in detail, — and its seasoning of sin had added only a keener zest, a spice unknown to Glory’s prosy tales, and made the temptation greater. When she had once begun, she entered into it with the self-forgetting passion of the artist, describing its first scenes with picturesque effect, its development with fervor, and its climax and possible tragedy with a dramatic skill that made her a trifle conscious of her own power, even in the telling. “I just wanted to show you a human heart still beating! ” she cried, with a sweeping gesture. “That most wonderful vision of all the world! ” Glory looked at Myra as if she were afraid her friend had suddenly become deranged. Myra had blushed, remembering that she had plagiarized the words from a story, — the one story that she had ever tried to write, — and laughed at Glory’s matter-of-fact surprise and disapproval. She had been so lost in her interest in the story that she had hardly realized how she had betrayed her own past. In truth, it had not come to her fully till her quarrel with Glory, and Glory’s threat to tell the story to her brother, then Myra’s husband.

“I shall tell him some time — when I ’ m good and ready, ” Glory said vindictively, knowing by some evil intuition that the sword that hangs by a thread kills a thousand times.

Myra had gone to her mother to make confession and ask for comfort after Glory’s threat.

“I should n’t mind,” said Mrs. Axtell. “Cookin’ ’s what a man cares about most after he ’s married, and you do beat anything. You get a knack from the Axtells, I do believe, for mother Axtell had a way with flour that was better ’n mine. She said the first thing to do was to show it you wa’n’t afraid of it. An’ as for Glory Ann, she ’d quarrel with anybody. I never see nobody like her. She ’d pick a quarrel with Moses himself if he ’d come down, I do believe. As if you had n’t a right to speak to Caroline Peck if you wanted to! ” she exclaimed indignantly, for it was Myra’s defense of a friend that had brought Glory’s wrath upon herself. “An’ he’s got Elsie!” she added triumphantly. The small Elsie filled so large a part of her own field of vision that one could hardly wonder that she fancied Elsie’s existence would atone for anything.

She had ceased her own retrospect now, and watching Myra a minute, as a botanist might scrutinize an unclassified flower, resorted to her old mode of comfort.

“Well, he’s got Elsie,” she said.

“Yes,” said Myra huskily.

“I don’t pretend to make you out,” said the mother, “but you ’re frettin’ yourself old over this; and what good does that do? Next to cookin’, a man likes to have a woman have some looks. It ’s the same with a plant. You would n’t bother with it if it did n’t look pretty, would you ? ”

“But a plant has n’t got a soul,” said Myra, rather resentfully.

“No, maybe not,” replied Mrs. Axtell dubiously. “Of course not,” she continued, as if suddenly coming to herself; “who said it had? ”

“I’ve often thought I’d tell him myself,” said Myra after a while.

“Oh, I would n’t tell him,” answered Mrs. Axtell quickly. “Wait and see if Glory did. It never pays to tell a man anything. He ’ll seem all right at the time, and afterwards he ’ll throw it up to you, when the bakin’ ’s turned out poor, or your folks have done something that don’t suit him. Never tell anybody anything unless you ’re in a terrible takin’ to have ’em know. They ’re bound to find out more ’n what’s good for ’em anyway.”

There was such an air of inspired wisdom about Mrs. Ax tell’s shake of the head that Myra could hardly help smiling, even then.

“Let ’s see! How long has he been gone ? ”

“Three weeks and one day,” said Myra.

“Lackin’ some odd minutes, I suppose, ” remarked Mrs. Axtell, with a laugh. “I ’ll tell you what’s the matter. You set too much store by him. It never pays to put yourself into anybody’s hands like that. Besides, you can always manage any one better when you don’t care too much about ’em ; and you want all your senses about you when you have a man to look after. There ’s Elsie, now! Sometimes seems to me children are a kind o’ dispensation to draw off a woman’s mind from bein’ so set on a man. An’ when they ’re grown up you have grandchildren to pet, maybe ; and if not, there’s always the sewin’ society and the prayer meetin’ to fall back on. Never put all your eggs in one basket.”

“If I could have told him myself! ” said Myra. “I’ve tried to. I’ve begun, ‘ There was a girl once ’ — or ’Once when I was a girl of sixteen ’ — but it was like trying to run in a dream — I could n’t.”

“It’s just as well,” commented the mother, “though I don’t believe Rael would mind anyway. A man don’t want an angel for a wife. He ’d be mighty lonesome if he had one. He ’d wish he ’d saved a piece of the apple and given her a taste, I guess, ” she said, laughing grimly. “There were Deacon Obadiah Spooner and his wife over in Scranhope, — you don’t remember ’em. He was one of the meek, quiet kind, and she was n’t; and she said she believed she ’d have thought more of him if he ’d given it back. It was reported she said one time she thought if she ’d been Jezebel she ’d have been glad her husband was Ahab and not Jero— no, no, the other Boam — what was his name ? He was one of the good ones, anyway, and Heaven knows they was as scarce as hen’s teeth in them days. I would n’t worry, daughter,” she said in conclusion. “I would n’t worry.”

“He won’t understand,” said Myra. “He won’t believe a good woman could have ever thought of such a thing. You can’t tell a man you ’re a good woman. It ain’t a matter for tellin’. He has to know of himself. He ’ll think I’ve cheated him. It was another woman he married — another woman he ’s taken care of — another woman that was Elsie’s mother.”

“Don’t take on so,” pleaded Mrs. Axtell. “If you had n’t been as good and trustin’ as a spring lamb it would n’t have happened, anyway; and ’t wa’n’t anything, anyhow. He won’t care. You can depend on that. An’ you must have surprised him with the cookin’ —you did me. I used to imagine he thought I ought to teach you somethin’, so you would n’t have to practice on him so much after you was married; but I never could get to it, someway. I never liked to see you in the kitchen handlin’ dough,” she said apologetically. “I liked to see you in a pretty dress in the sittin’-room with a book, or crochetin’, or playin’ the organ, or pickin’ flowers. It ’s always the way. You raise a girl for yourself, and somebody comes and takes her ; and he acts as if all the raisin’ had been for him.

“Not that I was ever sorry — in a way,” she droned on. “I don’t know what would have become of us after father died if it had n’t been for Rael. An’ the woodshed and coal-bin full every fall, an’ garden sass till I’m tired of the sight of it, an’ Rael callin’ out ‘ How are you, mother! ’ across the road, an’ a brown envelope with three dollars in it comin’ under the kitchen door every Sunday night as if the good little people brought it, and Elsie.

“I d’ know as people ought to talk about investin’ their flesh and blood, but it was the best investment we unlucky folks ever made, father anil I.”

“I often wonder how he ’ll look when he comes, ” moaned Myra, who had hardly heeded her mother’s talk, — “if he will show the difference in his face. I think of Jane Garner sometimes, and how she went to Europe and saw Mt. Blanc; and I remember when I was a little girl going over there when she came home, kind of awestruck to see her face, —but it was just the same.”

“She was a homely thing, anyway, ” said Mrs. Axtell, rising. “The stage’s late to-night, or he would have been here long ago. I guess I ’ll be steppin’ home. Rael will be tired, and won’t want to be botherin’ with me, anyway. I ’ll be over to-morrow.

“Don’t worry so, Myra,” she said, looking around the stove pityingly at her daughter. “He ain’t goin’ to trouble himself about what happened before the flood. An’ maybe Glory has n’t told him. I don’t see what good it would do her at this late day. ”

“To keep her word,” said Myra.

“Pshaw! ’T ain’t likely she’s been thinkin’ o’ that. More likely she ’s been thinkin’ o’ her sins. I hope they ’ll keep a watch on her up above, or she ’ll be havin’ the angels in a fuss.

“There’s no use frettin’ before you know you ’ve got to, and gettin’ the color washed out of your cheeks and the shine out of your eyes, when you ’ll need ’em most, maybe. Better get an old mullein leaf and rub up your cheeks a bit, and put a little cayenne pepper on your lips. They look as if the blood did n’t run in ’em. A man ’ll forgive a good-lookin’ woman a lot more ’n he will a homely one. Have you got anything good for him to eat ? ”

“N-no, ” said Myra reluctantly. “ I could n’t remember about it. I forgot the soda in the cake, and it ’s like lead; and I forgot the bread, and that ’s sour.”

“Mercy on us!” exclaimed Mrs. Axtell. “That is too bad! I can’t help you out, either; I had to get a loaf of the baker myself. I made a lot of molasses cookies a few days ago, but Elsie kind o’ took to ’em, an’ she ’s about lived on ’em, I guess. They ’re gone, anyway. Well, well! ” she said meditatively, after a pause.

“Well, I guess I ’ll take a peek at Elsie before I go.” She took the lamp and went through an open door into an adjoining bedroom, Myra following and standing on the threshold. Mrs. Axtell tiptoed silently across the room, and shading the lamp so that it should not disturb the sleeper, bent over the iron crib. A small fair face, as delicate and daintily fashioned as the petals of a flower, and with as little personality as it waited for the chisels of heart and brain, lay on the pillow. The grotesque figure in the great bonnet made a quaint picture, there bending over the child. She might have been one of Elsie’s Puritan ancestors returned to watch her sleep. The grandmother’s face slowly suffused with pleasure, even so that it threw off some of the effect of the years under the magic of that great restorative, the joy of reincarnation in another life. One hand had strayed outside the patchwork quilt, her own handiwork. She drew the covering gently over it. A single curl had fallen down upon the child’s eyes. She brushed it away as if it had been thistledown.

“Looks pale;” she whispered, as she moved away.

“Too many cookies,” said Myra.

“Pshaw ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Axtell. “I don’t believe in crossin’ ’em much. Let ’em have what they want and trust ’em to nature, I say.

“Well, I’ll be goin’. Now don’t fret any more, ” she said, patting Myra’s shoulder in a shy, odd way. “I ’ll look in to-morrow, and I’m sure it ’ll be all right. You can know your old mother will be thinkin’ of you, anyway.” She went out of the door, found the lantern which she always carried at night, even in moonlight, and bending to see her way step by step, picked a path slowly across the street. When she had reached home she turned to wave her lantern toward Myra, as a signal that she was safe. Myra was on the porch, and waited a minute to see the night. It was full of soft magical moonlight, that gave a faint semblance of the day. Though the month was January, the ground was still bare, except for a handful of snow in a pocket of the ground here and there, or a patch of ice which the moonlight turned to satin spar. The trees, cenotaphs from which the life had slipped to find refuge in the root-crypts below, stood bleakly out against the sky, and revealed the secrets of the nests, — homes which the falling of the leaves had laid bare to any curious eye. Myra shivered, but fancied that it was not so much from the cold as from weariness of the deathlike gloom. “Oh, will the spring never come ? ” she thought. It seemed ages since that icy chill had fallen on the sky and that brown quiet on the ground.

A figure coming rapidly along the road made her look again quickly, then creep noiselessly back into the house and close the door without sound. She waited in the sitting-room, all eagerness to learn whether he would come in at the sitting-room door or go round to the kitchen entrance. He came on quickly, his footfall resounding heavily on the frozen ground. As he neared the house he began to whistle a strain of “The harp that once through Tara’s halls.” Those measures were a signal which they had arranged, so that Myra might always know that it was he who was coming. He passed the sitting-room and went on toward the kitchen. Then Myra took the lamp and put it on a bracket by the kitchen door, that it might throw a light into the kitchen, yet not so illuminating it that a man could see how pinched and sallow a woman’s face had grown. She was panic-stricken as she thought of her mother’s words. It seemed to her, too, that she would have given her one diamond, or a day’s agony, for a loaf of good bread or a sweet, light cake.

He opened the door quickly, pausing there to look about and call her name.

“Rael,” she responded faintly.

“Oh, there you are! ” he said, going toward her eagerly with outstretched hand. There was a shy perfunctory kiss, but when he had paid this tribute to conventional forms, he put an arm about her and drew her close.

“Well! Glad to see me? ”

“Ye-es.”

“Ye-es,” he repeated mockingly.

“What do you mean by that ? ” He lifted her face and kissed her cheek so harshly that the blood rushed to meet his lips. “There! ” he said. “That’s for punishment. Well, how are you and Elsie ? I hope you did n’t think I took any stock in what you wrote. ’We are very well, and getting on nicely, ’ ” he quoted the words with absurd mimicry. “Always the same. I knew you’d write it as long as you could hold up your head. I was so out of patience once I came near telegraphing to Nate Trask to let me know the worst, — it was enough to make a man suspicious in itself. Elsie asleep ? ”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go see her.”

They went in and stood together by the crib. The little insubordinate hand had stolen outside on the coverlet again. He drew it gently under the quilt. His big brown face quivered for an instant.

“ Come, Myra, ” he said after a while, “let’s go out and see the horses. Put on your duds and come on. I can’t let you out of my sight quite yet,” he added, laughing shyly. Myra put on her hood and shawl and went with him to the barn. “It does not seem as if he knew, as if he knew, ” she told herself over and over, her heart beating time to the measured words.

The horses recognized Rael’s step as he opened the door, and whinnied a greeting. He went about patting each one. “How has Jerry treated you, old chaps ? ” he asked gayly. “ I know they ’ve been fed, but I must give them an oat or two just to celebrate.” He laughed like a schoolboy as he dealt out the grain.

“Do you know what the new one, Tyrone, said to me the day I went away ?”

“What was it? ”

“I was out here feeding them, you know, and Tyrone says to me, —

“Is that tall, slight, pretty woman ’ ” — Myra laughed — " ’that comes out here with apples your wife ? ’

“ ‘Yes, ’ said I.

“ ‘She ’s a little afraid of me, is n’t she ? ’

“ ‘I guess she is,’ said I.

“ ‘Well, perhaps it ’s just as well,’ said he.” Rael laughed mischievously.

“But she is n’t afraid of Jack — old Jackie,” he said, putting an arm about the head of an old horse that had a stall apart, and laying his cheek against the creature’s muzzle. He laughed again, rather consciously, glancing at Myra.

“I can’t help it, ” he said, as he drew her to his side. “I expect to meet him in the other world; and who knows? perhaps he ’ll say a good word for me to God when I shall need one most. Come, let’s go see the cows.”

The cows were lying or standing in their stanchions, engaged in the miracle of turning hay to milk with rhythmic motion of their great jaws. Rael called each one by name as he passed along the line, distributing the meal. “There! That’s to celebrate!” he said, still laughing, as he put down the measure and went toward Myra.

“Now let’s go and get warm and have supper.”

It was not till they were in the sitting-room by the stove that they spoke of the sister’s death. Myra had moved the lamp so that its light did not shine full upon her chair, and, hidden in that shadow, said hesitatingly, —

“So Glory’s gone.”

“Yes, Glory’s gone,” he repeated slowly.

“Did she leave — any message — for — any one, or about any one ? ” she asked timidly.

“N-no I don’t know as she did specially, ” he answered thoughtfully. “I believe she mentioned some of the folks she ’d quarreled with. I believe she said to tell ’em she forgave ’em — if she did n’t get well. It did n’t hold if she did, I suppose, ” he said, checking a smile.

“Not a word — about me ? ” inquired Myra with a great effort.

“No, not in particular. She asked how you were once or twice. Oh yes — one day at the last she said tell you she could n’t keep her word, after all. It was something she was to tell me, I think — I could n’t make it out. ‘Well, perhaps I ’ll see you in the morning, ’ she said, looking kind o’ queer. She died that night.” He was silent a while, then went on to speak of some of the incidents of his stay.

“His folks wanted Lena, or I ’d have brought her home with me. I don’t know but as we ’re all bent on spoilin’ Elsie — specially your mother. It would be good for her to have to fight it out with another child of her own age; might take some of the edge off, anyway. Queer how helpless a man feels with a girl baby.”

Myra hardly listened ; the relief, the joy, was so boundless that it was even hard to bear. Her senses swam under the pressure of it.

“I ’d like to tell you that story,” she said breathlessly. “I know it. It was about a girl ” —

“Well, ” he said, smiling quizzically, for Myra had paused.

“She thought she cared — for some one ” —

“Oh! ” he said, laughing. “That ain’t uncommon.”

“No ; but — but — he was ” — she shrank bitterly from the word — “married.”

“Well, that was unfortunate.”

“She went to Boston to meet him,” Myra went on rapidly, “but he was n’t there — and she came home — and was sorry ” —

“Ever afterwards,” he said, smiling as he turned to watch her closely a minute.

“Yes,” she said, trembling, “I — I was that girl.”

“Indeed! ” he said quietly. “And what next ? ”

“There was n’t any next. That’s all.”

“Oh,” he said suddenly, “this is what ’s been troublin’ you. I knew there was something. I used to think I ’d ask you, but I could n’t do it. ‘If she wants me to know, she ’ll tell me,’ I thought; and I — I was afraid you were disappointed in your marriage.”

“Oh, Rael!”

“I ’m very glad you ’ve told me — so long as you might worry, perhaps, till you did tell me, ” he said, with an odd smile. “Oh! ” he exclaimed, changing his tone, “did you get to Stanton after midnight ? ”

“Yes.”

“I saw you, then. I went by the station on the way home from Lucy Springer’s, ” he said, laughing at his own confession, “and I saw a girl come out of the station and start toward theplains. I followed her just far enough away so she would n’t know, and near enough to see her safe through. But when she came out of the plains, I thought I’d no business to be spying to see who she was or where she went, so I sat down,” he said, laughing at his own Quixotic impulse, “and waited till she was out of sight. An’ it was you! Well, well! I’ve wondered a thousand times who that girl was - a thousand times! It ’s a great relief to me to know, ” he said, laughing. “I suppose,” he said, not looking at Myra, “you had forgotten that—that other—when I came to ” —

“Oh yes, yes! ” she cried huskily.

“That’s all right, then. We won’t speak of it again. I ’m sorry you’ve worried. You ought to know me better, ” he added, beating her hand against his knee.

“Oh,” she cried, drawing away her hand impulsively, “did I make it plain ? quite plain ? Did you understand — I was the girl ? ”

“Why, yes,” he said, puzzled. “So you said.”

“You —you forgive me? ”

“Forgive! ” he exclaimed impetuously. “Why, I ain’t fit to breathe the same air with you ! Strike me, or call me a cur, but don’t ask me to forgive you. It makes me want to look around for a knothole to crawl into.”

There was a patter of small feet, a falsetto call of “ Papa! ” and they saw a small, white-robed figure in the doorway.

“Elsie! ” he cried, as she came running to his arms. He cuddled her under his coat, and wrapped the folds of her nightgown closely about her feet.

“Whose girl is this?” he asked, “and has she been good all this long time ? ”

“Co’se,” said Elsie, looking a little defiantly at her mother.

“Good every day ? ”

“Co’se,” said Elsie, watching her mother closely.

“I ’ll tell you, Myra, ” said he, “I’m hungry. I have n’t had any dinner. I was n’t going to pay fifty cents for a cup of coffee and a slice of ham, and swallow them whole for fear the train would go off and leave me. It was n’t the money, but the bargain instinct in me, you know,” he said, laughing. “Do you suppose you could get a fellow some of those extra superfine griddlecakes of yours ? ”

“I want a g’iddlecake,” said Elsie.

“Of course, ” said he, laughing a challenge at the mother. “With honey on ’em.”

“I want some honey on ’em,” repeated Elsie.

“Where are somebody’s fig leaves ? ” he asked. “I ’ll put ’em on — it’s like fitting the parts of a puzzle to do it, but I ’ll try, while mother bakes the cakes.”

“I know how they go,” said Elsie.

Myra sat staring at the two as if a film had been woven over her eyes. When it had burned away she saw clearly, and knew that they were still her own, and not those of that other possible Myra, the better woman whose feet had never stumbled among the stones and briers of this world.

She went joyfully to the kitchen, but before she began her work laughed silently — laughed and laughed again, till her frame quivered with the vibration of the mirth. Once more love had chained the dreaded lions in the way, and passing on beyond them, her heart was trying to get some of its arrears of joy as recompense for its needless agony.

She ran to the looking-glass and peered within, to see if indeed she had grown so very old, and rubbed her cheeks to bring back the color ; then remembering her mother’s suggestion in regard to the cayenne, ran to get it, but hesitated about the righteousness of its use.

“I must n’t make another mistake,” she thought, “not the tiniest one,” reasoning as one who has already used all one soul’s allowance of sin; and the cakes waited while reason and conscience took counsel overthis important ethical point. Suddenly the memory of Rael’s hunger came to her as a reproach; she ran to the stove again, and rattled the lids to let Rael know that she was really at work, while a song rose of its own buoyancy to her lips.

“Oh, don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt ? ” The music floated into the other room, where a man had paused before he began to fumble with the small footwear, and his face had whitened as he muttered between his closed teeth the one terrible oath of his life. “Curse him! The hound! ” he added, his hands closing like steel. “God help him when he comes my way! ”

Dora Loomis Hastings.