His Daughter First

I.

THE train was late and the station was dark. A single employee with a lantern stood on the platform. There were no lights, nothing to indicate the presence of a village or even a house.

Paul walked forward for his portmanteau, and then followed the platform to the rear of the station where a sleigh was waiting.

“Is this Mrs. Kensett’s carriage? ” he asked.

The coachman touched his hat and Paul took his seat, turning up the collar of his coat and drawing the robe close about his feet, for the night was bitterly cold.

“ How far is it ? ” he asked.

“About a mile, sir.”

The road followed the bank of the river, invisible under its double covering of ice and snow. A long slope of dark pines shut out the eastern horizon, but on the west the plain, broken only by the straight lines of the fences with their fringe of leafless bushes, stretched as far as the eye could see, white and silent under the winter stars. Nowhere a sign of life, nor any sound save the monotonous singsong of the sleigh-bells and the sharp crunching of the hardened snow under the hoofs of the horse.

Paul was wondering whether his cousin Dolly had changed since she had become Mrs. Cecil Kensett.

“Think of Dolly a mother and a widow! ” he said to himself.

The road curved sharply into a covered bridge, climbed a long hill through a dark gorge, and then emerged upon a wide undulating plain. The sky was clear, yet one could not see far. A fine crystal mist, that winter haze which only the North knows, crisp as the frozen snow and glittering with myriad points of light, filled the silent air. A few isolated farmhouses, white and naked as the fields, were passed; then, in the distance, huddled like sheep in a storm, the houses of a village became visible.

In her letter of invitation Dolly had said Miss Frazer was still with her, — Margaret. Dolly was always writing about Margaret, with that reiterated note of admiration which finally provokes resentment. How enthusiastic Dolly always was about people for whom she cared!

As they neared the village the outlines of a low ridge detached themselves from the background of distant hills, and from one of the dark clusters of pines which patched its surface shone a glare of lights, blurred by intervening branches and reflected by the snow.

“That must be the house,” thought Paul; and then his mind reverted again to Miss Frazer, of whom he had unconsciously formed that mental picture which grows up about the name of a person we have never seen. Now that he was nearing his destination he began to wonder whether he should see her tonight. The train was two hours late, — it was already after midnight. Dolly of course would be at the door. “No, probably not, ” he said half aloud, thinking of Miss Frazer again.

“Sir?” said the coachman, turning on his seat.

“Is that the house? ” asked Paul.

“Yes, sir, on the hill.”

At the foot of the ridge there was a wide gateway, like the entrance to an Italian villa, with curved wing-walls, and high posts surmounted by large balls ; then a long driveway that seemed to wander in an aimless fashion between the pines and hemlocks, until it suddenly disclosed the white gambrel-roofed house with its broad piazzas and Ionic portico. One cannot always tell what is in men or houses which on the first approach seems to say, “Ah, it is you! I was expecting you, and I am glad, ” — a certain warmth of welcome, which does not, however, descend to familiarity. Paul felt this at the first glimpse of the brightly lighted windows, even before the door opened and he heard Dolly at the head of the stairs crying, —

“Paul, Paul, is it you, is it you? ”

“No,” he thought, “she has not changed; she is the same dear Dolly.” She had her arms about him before he could reply.

“Yes, it is I. The train was fearfully late, Dolly. I thought you would be in bed.”

“I, in bed! what an idea! We have been waiting for you for two hours. Come up to your room, there ’s hot tea there. Oh, how glad I am you are here! ” she cried, turning to look back at him as he followed her up the stairs.

Dolly was not beautiful. Her hair was too light, her face too colorless. But her blue mobile eyes and sudden smile atoned for all that was lacking in color and form. She could not keep the warmth of her heart out of that smile or its quick impulses out of those eyes.

“Margaret has gone to bed,” she said, as she opened his door. “She knew we would have such a lot of things to talk over. Are you cold ? ”

“No, not in the least, but this fire is just the thing! ” he exclaimed, crossing the room to the blazing hearth, beside which the tea was smoking in its silver urn. “Who is Margaret? ”

Dolly looked at him with one of her quick reproachful smiles. The question seemed to give him back to her more than his actual presence.

“ How like you! You know perfectly well who Margaret is. But take off your coat, Paul, ” she added, unbuttoning it with her own fingers. “And you have not yet asked me how I am.”

“You don’t give me any time, Dolly. Besides, you are always well, and — happy too ? ” he said inquiringly, stooping to kiss her hair.

“Oh, how good it is, how good it is to see you! ” she murmured, paying no attention to this last sentence.

“And Dorothy, she is well? How old is she now, Dolly ? ”

“Five. You shall see her to-morrow. Sit down, Paul; I just want to look at you. ”

He laughed and dropped into the easychair drawn up before the fire, watching her as she poured the tea. Her hands trembled a little, and something very like tears was shining in her eyes. Yes, she had changed. She was a little older, of course; and there was something in her manner which made him observe her sharply, although he put it down to the excitement of his arrival. Dolly used to be as clear as day.

A servant had brought in Paul’s portmanteau and taken it into the adjoining room, through whose open door Paul could see his cousin moving about, silently inspecting the bed and toilet-table, as if to see that everything was in order, and as if she had not already done so a dozen times during the day.

“I wanted you near me, Paul. This is my own parlor,” she said, coming back to sit down on the arm of his chair. And then she began to tell him about Dorothy, and to question him about his journey and plans. But there was an air of constraint in all she said.

“Margaret said we should have so much to talk over,” she explained, as though aware that he was conscious of her manner; “so we have. I thought we should begin now, before the fire. I have been looking forward to it every minute of the day. And now that you are here, ” — she drew a long sigh, — “that is enough.” She lingered a moment. There was apparently much to say which she did not say. When the moment of meeting comes one does not always plunge into all one anticipated.

“I am so happy that you are here,” she said, when she bade him good-night.

Paul remained sitting before the fire a long time after she had gone. Though he had scarcely looked about him, everything in this room seemed familiar. For some reason that he could not have explained it satisfied him, — as a woman’s dress satisfies the eye that is not afterwards able to describe it. Was it because it was so comfortable, because he felt the touches of a hand he had so long missed ? Or simply because he himself was so glad to be there ? He felt as if it were his own room, in which he had lived for a long time.

“It is like home,” he thought.

Above the fireplace hung the portrait of a young girl in a large hat with a black plume. He watched the firelight shadows flickering on the wall and passing like a caress over the face in the dark Florentine frame, — a face with something more than mere beauty in it, for mere beauty can even repel. No, beauty was not the word, but fascination, — the confiding smile about the mouth, the fearlessness in the earnest gray eyes, and the indescribable charm of modesty with which the hand held the green drapery over the breast. He wondered who it was, as rousing himself at last he began to unpack his valise and undress.

From his window he looked out upon the fields and hills, gaunt and bare, over which the newly risen moon spread a cold even light. It was a picture without color or feeling or depth, such as a savage might have drawn in outline on the sand. Nature herself seemed to have died out of this white world, but his heart warmed and responded to it. It seemed to say to him: “You have seen other lands, the fluent shadows, the murmuring life, the mystery and lure of other nights. But you were born here, in my arms. You are my child, and I only can touch your heart.”

On the way to her room Dolly stopped at Miss Frazer’s door.

“Margaret, are you asleep? ”

“No, come in. Did your cousin come? I heard the sleigh-bells.”

“Yes, the train was two hours late. I am so happy, Margaret. I just came to tell you that. I don’t expect you to like Paul,” she added, after a pause.

“It is of no consequence whether I do or not, ” said Margaret, “but I shall not quarrel, Dolly dear, with any one whom you love.”

II.

When Paul came down to the breakfast-room the morning after his arrival the winter landscape was radiant with sunshine. It poured in through the deep window which, extending out upon the piazza, seemed to take in a part of the outside world, and to bring into the room the light and freedom of the sky. There are windows which are merely holes in a wall, which make one feel a prisoner, and shut out all they reveal.

A bowl of roses stood in the centre of the breakfast-table, and the butler who brought in the coffee said he was to call Mrs. Kensett when breakfast was served. Dolly came in almost immediately, as radiant as the world outside.

“It seems too good to be true to see you sitting here ; I shall never get used to it, ” she said, hovering about the table in search of unsupplied wants.

“Sit down, sit down, Dolly,” remonstrated Paul; “are n’t you going to eat any breakfast yourself ? ”

“Oh, I had my breakfast long ago. I really did n’t sleep much last night. What I am hungry for is a talk, a long, long talk. But it’s not easy to begin. Think! it is years since we saw each other.” She was sitting opposite him, her chin on her hands and her elbows on the table. “I suppose starving people feel as I do, — they can’t satisfy themselves in an orderly manner. They just want to — to cram.”

“Well, there is no hurry, Dolly; and hurry always wastes. Where is Dorothy? ”

“She has gone to school. There is a very excellent school here, and Margaret often goes with her. We shall have just ourselves this morning. Which would you rather do ? sit here, or shall we take a walk ? It’s a perfect day.”

“ A walk by all means. I am glad you have n’t forgotten how to walk. Some people always give up a lot of things when they marry, — some things that made them attractive.”

“Yes, I know. But perhaps it’s age, not marriage. I ’ll go and get my furs. You will find some cigars there in the cabinet. They were Cecil’s. He used to think them good.” And Dolly smiled at him as she closed the door.

It would have been thought by any observer that these two were brother and sister rather than cousins; and such they were in sympathy and affection, though not by blood. Left an orphan at an early age, Paul had been promptly received into the family of his uncle, who never shirked a duty as he never confessed a fault. In his new environment Paul had acquired a deadly aversion for many things excellent in themselves, and in his revolt had reached the extreme which generally follows a surfeit or infelicitous compound, whether in morals or food. He never heard a church-bell now without experiencing that sense of dreariness which had characterized his childhood Sunday, and certain profane melodies which had been appropriated by the hymnal brought what used to be called the meetinghouse, with its slow-passing hours, so vividly before him that he shuddered when he heard them on the stage. Morning prayers had been too often connected with bodily punishment for the derivation from either of whatever good they might have contained for him had they been less frequent, less inevitable, and less intimately associated; and the mere gurgle of water poured into a glass was enough to transport him back to the awful stillness of the communion hour, when, sitting beside his uncle in the green-upholstered pew, he used to watch the deacons make their silent round, and wonder what it was all about. What solemn deserts of the Incomprehensible his little feet had traversed !

It is not well to speak ill of the dead. But Mr. Graham was one of those past realities in the shadow of which Paul still walked. Much good might be said of him in all things wherein the opinions of other people did not conflict with his own, and it must be admitted that a rigid conscientiousness had often led him to the verge of heroism under circumstances in which the worldly wise would have beaten a retreat. Paul was of another nature, but cast in the same mould of self-will; and being happily not altogether held down by the chains of dependence, on reaching his majority had quickly packed his trunk and set out to make his own way.

It had not been quite so easy for Dolly to emancipate herself. She had a real and genuine affection for Mr. Kensett when that gentleman asked her to share his life, but it would have been as idle to deny that the thought of freedom had not had its weight as to assert that her husband was the master-hand to sound all the deeper chords of her nature. After her mother’s death she had presided with admirable tact and sweetness over her father’s house, in which she counted for everything so long as she agreed with its head and nothing when she did not. Mr. Graham was one of those fathers in whose eyes children never grow up. Dolly had had many suitors, but either she was too young to marry, in the estimation of the man who had married a girl of eighteen, or the suitors themselves were always affected with moral disorders and deficiencies which placed them outside the pale. Mr. Kensett, however, had proved a lover whom discouragement did not discourage; and although the framework of Mr. Graham’s mental and moral system grew more rigid with age, like his physical one it grew more brittle, less enduring against importunity, and finally snapped under Dolly’s and Cecil’s united pressure. Paul, who had in the meantime obtained a position as engineer in a South African mining company, returned for the wedding; and now again, after a career whose success he regretted his uncle was not alive to witness, had come back once more, to find all these things but memories and Dolly alone in her big house at Cedar Hill.

He had needed no invitation to make his home with her during his stay in America. His first and immediate thought had been to visit her, who, much to his surprise, and for the first time since her husband’s death, was passing the winter in the country. She was by no means dependent upon society, yet Paul could not help wondering what influences had decided her to prolong her usual summer sojourn at Westford into the winter, and why her well-known hospitality had contented itself with a single guest.

He was thinking over these things when with one of Cecil’s cigars he stepped out upon the piazza. With one of those sudden changes common to a New England winter, an almost spring air had succeeded the still cold of the previous day, and the sun had already begun to undo the work of the night. The trees stirred with a suggestion of renewed life, and their branches, relieved one by one of their icy coverings, seemed to be stretching themselves for the first time after a long sleep. “It’s a glorious view, ” he said, as Dolly joined him on the porch, “but are you not beginning to long for a street of shops ? ”

“No,” she said. “I love this quiet and solitude. I quite agree with Dorothy, who is allowed to play anywhere in the grounds on condition that she does not go outside the gate alone. The other day we found her in the road, and when I reminded her of her promise she said with perfect sincerity, ' I was n’t alone, mamma. I was with myself. ’ ” Paul laughed, and there was a little pause, which Dolly appeared to be utilizing in preparation for a more important communication. “But I am not so contented with myself, Paul,” she resumed, “and have been waiting for you to talk to. You know there is no one but you, — and I am glad you have come.”

“Is it anything serious, Dolly? ” asked Paul, looking at her quickly.

“No, not exactly, — that is, I think not. There are several things. First, some business. You must listen patiently, and not form any judgments until you have heard me through. I am not sure whether you know Mr. Heald. No? Well, I wasn’t sure. He was one of Cecil’s business friends, — that is, he says he was. I never met him until last year, — at a house party in Lenox, — and we naturally spoke of Cecil. He said he used to be associated with Cecil in certain enterprises, enterprises which always turned out well; that he owed his start and much of his success to my husband, and that he regretted that he had never been able to discharge the debt. I can’t put it all as he did, and what I am saying sounds very crude and abrupt, I know. But it sounded very natural at the time.”

“What did?” asked Paul, as she paused for a moment.

“Well,” pursued Dolly, who had nerved herself to her task and could not be diverted from her orderly narration by unexpected questions, “not then, you know, but later, and with a great deal of delicacy, he told me he had been concerned in the development of some copper properties in Arizona, and that if Cecil had been alive he should have proposed their working together. He said the mines had turned out quite beyond his expectations, that they were paying twenty per cent on the investment, that in fact he was making more money than he knew what to do with, and that if I had any funds for investment and would permit him, as a matter of sentiment and gratitude, he would be very glad to give me some of the stock at par. He gave me all the details and showed me all the papers. The par value of the stock was twentyfive dollars, and it had been issued at ten. There had been two assessments of two dollars and a half, which made the amount paid in fifteen dollars a share. That was very plain, was n’t it? The shares were selling then, as I saw in the papers, at sixty. He said they were sure to go to twice or perhaps three times that, even after the issue of some treasury stock which insiders were to have at par; and that if I consented he would like to put a part of his share of the new issue in my name ” —

“You to pay for it.”

“Of course,” assented Dolly. “I could n’t accept a gift.”

“How much did you present him with ? ” snapped Paul, foreseeing the end of such romances.

“You promised to hear me through.” Paul remembered no such promise, but shut his teeth and held his peace. “It ’s nothing very serious, as I told you, only, — but let me tell you in my own way. I had a good deal of money in the bank, and I took a thousand shares, — twenty-five thousand dollars. I was n’t thinking so much of myself, for you know Cecil left me all I can ever possibly need. I was thinking of Margaret. You know she has n’t a great deal ” —

“ I know nothing whatever about Miss Frazer,” Paul retorted shortly.

“Don’t get angry, Paul, please.”

“I am not getting angry, but ” —

“Everything has turned out just as he said,” continued Dolly. “I have had twelve hundred and fifty dollars every quarter in dividends ” —

“ Since when ? ” interrupted Paul.

“Since a year ago last September.”

“But how does this concern Miss Frazer ? ”

“Well, in the summer I spoke to Margaret about it. She is very proud, and of course she would not accept a gift in money from me ” —

“Any more than you would from Mr. Heald.”

“No, certainly not, ” acquiesced Dolly tranquilly. “But she said she would put some of her own money into my hands if I wished her to, and that it was not necessary for her to say that she trusted me implicitly.”

Paul refrained from further comparisons which a like confidence on Dolly’s part suggested, contenting himself with an impatient sigh.

“ So I wrote Mr. Heald I would take another thousand shares if he could spare them, ” — Paul groaned inwardly, — “and I had them put in Margaret’s name.”

“Did Mr. Heald let you have them on the same generous terms? ”

“Nearly. He said the stock was selling at eighty then, but he could get me what I wanted for forty. Margaret sold some bonds she had which were paying her only about three and one half per cent, but I insisted upon guaranteeing her the twenty per cent on the Argonaut shares, and had an agreement drawn up to that effect by her lawyer. So you see Margaret is perfectly safe.”

“What did Jack Temple say to all this? ” asked Paul dryly.

“ He knows nothing about it, ” replied Dolly. “Cecil told me before he died that so far as money was concerned I need not worry, and that in all that related to it I could trust Mr. Temple as I would have trusted him. So after a time I went to see him, — naturally I had to see him frequently then, — and I said to him frankly this: Mr. Temple, you know I have absolutely no knowledge of business, and can only trust my affairs to you as implicitly as my husband told me to do. What I have to propose is this: I wish you to manage all my investments, and to deposit my income, subject to your commissions, to my credit. On the other hand I shall draw all my checks through you and not directly on the bank. Then you will know exactly what I am spending, and I shall feel, whenever I cash my check, that I have a perfect right to do with it just as I please without consulting you. Of course you will send me statements from time to time of my balances, but if ever you think I am spending more money than I can afford, I wish you to return my check and tell me so frankly, as my husband would have done. This he has never done yet. ”

Paul smiled at the simplicity and ingenuousness of this arrangement.

“I begin to think you know the essentials of business after all, ” he said, somewhat relieved.

“It seems to me business is perfectly simple if you are dealing with people whom you can trust, I mean as to their judgment as well as their honesty, ” replied Dolly. “And that is just it. I am not worried, because I have paid for the Argonaut shares out of my income, and I am sure Mr. Temple would have warned me had there been any need. But, as you see, of the particular uses to which I put what I draw he knows nothing. He knows I have been making some improvements at Cedar Hill, and I suppose he thinks, if he thinks about it at all, that the money has gone there. If it should be lost it would be lost, and that would be the end of it. For myself I am not concerned. But Margaret’s case is different. I should be bound to return her forty thousand dollars if the worst should come. But I think, if that did come, I should not do so. It would be dreadfully hard for her to go back from twenty to three and a half per cent, and I think the best way would be to continue paying her the Argonaut income and say nothing more about it.”

“ Deceiving her in the meantime, ” said Paul.

“There are some things which are quite right to do if people do not know that you do them, ” replied Dolly resolutely. “And that is just what I am worried about, — that she would find out.”

“Certainly she would. But we will talk about that later. Finish your story first.”

“About two weeks ago,” continued Dolly, “I noticed the shares were going down. I never took any interest in such things before, but naturally I looked in the papers once in a while to see what was happening to Argonaut shares. I thought I should sell them when they were very high, — to make a lot of money for Margaret, without giving it to her, you know. But after a while they began to go down, very slowly, first to seventy, and then to fifty. And then I wrote Mr. Heald and asked him the reason. I will show you his letter. He said I was not to be troubled in the least; that the fall in the stock was due to what he called general market conditions, and had nothing to do with the mine itself; that, on the contrary, they were enlarging the plant, and that possibly there would be another assessment of five dollars for new machinery; that under ordinary circumstances an assessment for a new mine which had passed its trial period would not affect much, if any, the price of the stock, as it meant that the outlook justified increasing the working equipment; but that just now, — I am repeating exactly what he wrote,”— “and you are doing it remarkably well,” thought Paul, — “there was a falling off in the foreign demand, and that speculators were taking advantage of lower prices for the metal to hammer the market, as he called it, and to secure control. But that I must just sit still and all would come out right.”

“There are always two parties to a speculation, Dolly, and one of them generally finds it difficult to sit still.”

“I don’t call it a speculation, Paul. Mr. Heald said it was an investment.”

“Well, call it an investment. What did you reply ? ”

“Nothing. What could I?” Mrs. Kensett ejaculated, with an explanatory wave of her sable muff. “I understand everything he tells me, — nothing more. But, as I told you, about two weeks ago the stock fell suddenly, to forty, and I am beginning to be frightened, — on Margaret’s account.”

They walked on in silence, Dolly stealing an occasional rapid and inquiring glance at Paul’s face. He flung away his cigar at length and stopped short, facing her.

“You have asked my advice. Are you prepared to take it? ”

“Certainly, Paul dear. That is precisely what I wish to do.”

“Well then,” he said, “I shall go directly to Jack, tell him the whole story, and see what can be done.”

“I was prepared for that, for I thought that was what you would probably decide, ” Dolly said simply, taking Paul’s arm in her affectionate way, and inwardly thanking him for not having told her she should have done so long ago herself. “I should have seen him had you not been coming home, only it would have hurt my pride, and it was ever so much easier to speak to you. You know I never could speak to father without ” — “without a row,” thought Paul, as Dolly left her sentence in the air — “and I never want to feel that I cannot come to you with everything — everything, ” she repeated a little tremulously.

Paul stooped and kissed her, in the broad sunshine, and took the hand in the sable muff in his own.

“That’s right, Dolly dear. You are not in very deep, and we ’ll see what can be done. It may be all right, but I ’ve heard such stuff as this Heald has been giving you before. As lambs go you have been remarkably prudent, and now that you have confessed you will feel better.”

The hand in the muff grasped his more tightly.

“I am not quite through yet, Paul.”

He stopped short again and looked at her gravely.

“Oh, it’s not about money,” she added quickly, coloring a little and avoiding his gaze. And then, with evident relief for the respite, and running ahead to meet two figures which had just turned a bend in the road, “ Why! there ’s Dorothy and Margaret.”

III.

A New England country road in winter permits only two to walk abreast. “Come with mamma, Dorothy dear,” said Dolly, after the first words of greeting and presentation were over. But Dorothy, with a child’s not unusual preference for male society, clung shyly to her new acquisition, and Paul found himself following the tall slender figure of Miss Frazer with a small mittened hand in his.

As often happens before taking a single step toward any real knowledge of a new acquaintance, he was instantly conscious of liking Miss Frazer. She had given him her hand cordially, and greeted him with a frank smile from her gray fearless eyes, but her whole manner was instinct with a quiet dignity, — the reserve which attracts rather than repels. But his thoughts were still occupied with Dolly’s affairs, and had he never seen Miss Frazer again he would probably have said that she made no particular impression upon him.

A branch road sloped steeply down to the plain below where, veiled in the bluish smoke from its chimneys and the mist of the morning sun, lay Westford; and from the deep valley beyond, where the river ran hidden from view, came the shrill whistle of an engine.

“Dolly,” said Paul suddenly, “I have some rather important matters to talk over with Temple. What should you say to my inviting him up for the night ? ” Dolly turned and looked at him hesitatingly. “There’s a train that leaves New York at three o’clock which would bring him here for dinner. That will give him time enough, if the telegram finds him and he can come.”

“ Why certainly, ” Dolly replied, recovering herself. “We will hurry back and send to the office at once.

“No, if you don’t mind I will go myself now. It will save time, and there’s none to lose. I would ask you to go with me, ” he said, glancing from Dolly to Miss Frazer, “but these little legs of Dorothy’s hardly more than mark time.”

“Margaret, you go with Paul,”Dolly suggested. “ Dorothy can come with me.”

“I should like the walk very much, ” said Miss Frazer, “if Mr. Graham does not intend to run all the way.”

“We can come back as slowly as you please,” he laughed, taking out his watch; “but we shall have to hurry, — and we ’ll see what there is for little girls down there, ” he said, waving his hand to Dorothy.

They set off side by side, in the narrow lanes traced by the runners of sleighs and horses’ feet, at a brisk walk quite different from Dolly’s rather indolent pace. The road dipped sharply into a hollow where a small brook, fringed with willows, bubbled under the ice; rose again to the plain, and, after passing a few straggling houses whose slovenly appearance and untidy yards proclaimed their occupants to be residents of what Westford called the “back street, ” opened upon a long wide avenue of magnificent elms, bordered by comfortable looking and in some instances strikingly large and well-proportioned houses, from which, however, life seemed to have ebbed away in some distant past like a receding tide, leaving them to all appearances empty and silent amid their lilacs and pines. The wide grass-grown spaces bordering the road between the double lines of elms were forsaken in winter, although a snow-plough had evidently made an attempt to find the paths. Pedestrians, sleighs, and sledges shared alike the main road, which stretched like a narrow ribbon of dirty yellow down the broad expanse of white. At its extremity rose the square white tower of the church, looking down with its air of proprietor and guardian upon the common, — around which were gathered whatever signs of life Westford possessed, — its pointed spire above the square belfry overshadowing in silent disdain the small Gothic chapel which summer visitors had erected for their own use.

Paul and Margaret took the diagonal path traversing this open space toward the corner where the brick hotel, enlarged for the summer. population with scant recognition of what the summer visitor demands, marked the centre of the village. Here were the few shops which ministered to the needs of the surrounding country, and the post office with the town hall above, before which were drawn up a few empty sleighs and wood-laden sledges.

Having sent his telegram Paul looked about for the most promising of the shop windows.

“Do you suppose we can find anything for Dorothy here? ” he asked.

“It will be over there if anywhere,” said Margaret, indicating what appeared to be a Doric temple on the opposite side of the street.

“I probably made a rash promise, but you must help me out. It will never do to go back empty-handed. Dorothy’s imagination has doubtless been at work ever since we left her, though she must have everything money can buy already. Shall we try? ”

They crossed the street, stopping for a moment under the dingy portico of pillars before the windows; but they did not prove very alluring.

“What a collection! ” exclaimed Paul, as his eye searched the motley array of hardware, groceries, dry goods, and crockery. “ I am fraid it is hopeless.”

“I happen to know exactly what Dorothy wants,” suggested Margaret. “Just a common wooden three-legged stool. It’s perfectly absurd, I know, ” she added, “but she has been crazy over a milking-stool she found in the barn. She wants it in the nursery, and I am sure she will think more of it than of the finest Nuremberg toy.”

“I never should have selected that certainly, but I shall take your advice, and put all the blame on you if it proves bad. ”

“I am willing to risk it,” said Margaret, and a moment later he emerged carrying his ridiculous purchase by one of its three clumsy legs.

Now and then as they retraced their way a passer-by greeted Margaret with an awkward nod of recognition, as if half ashamed of his politeness, salutations which she acknowledged by a quick “good-morning, ” with the result of still further increasing the embarrassment of those to whom it was addressed.

“What a strange people they are,” she said. “A word of courtesy is such an effort, but an act of chivalry would be a mere matter of course.”

“It is shyness, is n’t it? ” said Paul, “and a rugged sort of independence. They greet one another in precisely the same manner, out of a corner of the eye.”

A jingle of bells caused them to step aside to allow the passage of an empty wood-team approaching from behind.

“It ’s Mr. Pearson,” said Margaret. “He always gives me a ride.” And, in fact, the horses slackened their pace as they came up, and a rough voice exclaimed, —

“Be yer goin’ my way? I’ll give yer a lift as fur as the gate. ”

The speaker was a thin, wiry little man, with weather-tanned face and tangled reddish beard, clad in a beaver cap pulled down over the ears, a long, faded blue army overcoat, and water-soaked boots.

“Shall we? ” asked Margaret, looking at Paul.

“Oh, there ’s room enough for two,” said Mr. Pearson cheerily. “It ain’t so clean as it might be, but chips and bark don’t hurt nobody.”

Paul helped Miss Frazer into the low box, open behind and boarded at the sides, above which projected stout poles festooned with chains. A bright color of health and amusement shone on her cheeks, and she laughed at Paul as she swayed to the motion of the runners on the uneven road. A haunting recollection of something seen before had come to him with every look into her face. Now he remembered. It was the child’s face in the Florentine frame in Dolly’s parlor.

“That’s a mighty handy stool o’ your’n, ” remarked Mr. Pearson, inspecting Paul’s purchase critically. “ Cows givin’ much milk up your way ? ”

“I am afraid I can’t give you much information about Westford cows,” laughed Paul. “I am a stranger here.”

“Oh, be ye,” said Mr. Pearson, who knew it all the time, but whose curiosity generally approached its quarry indirectly. “Come from fur? ”

“From South Africa,” said Paul.

“Yer don’t say!” exclaimed Mr. Pearson, regarding him with evidently increased interest. “They ’re a mighty long time a-gittin’ through their fightin’ down there.”

“ So were we, ” Paul replied, glancing at the army coat.

“That’s so, so we were,” Mr. Pearson assented. “I had a hand in it myself and oughter know. I’ve been a-drawin’ o’ my pension this very day.”

“How much do you get? ” inquired Paul.

“Fifteen dollars the fust of every month.”

“That’s pretty good pay for thirty years of peace,” Paul said.

“Waal, ’t ain’t enough to need a guardeen, ” remarked Mr. Pearson, whipping up his horses.

Paul saw that he was trenching on delicate ground and changed the subject.

“You have a good pair of horses there, Mr. Pearson.”

“So they be. I raised the off one myself. The nigh one ain’t so much account. I took him from a feller as could n’t pay his board when I kept the tavern.”

Mr. Pearson did not have exactly the air of a hotel proprietor, and Paul expressed his surprise.

“That was afore they fixed the tavern up. When the city folks began to come I sold out. They did n’t understand my ways, and I did n’t understand their’n. I had to take all the bells out the rooms, — they kept o’ ringin’ of ’em so there warn’t no peace,” explained Mr. Pearson.

“Then you are a farmer now, I suppose ? ” Paul said, exchanging a smile with Miss Frazer.

“Yaas. Farmin’ summers and loggin’ winters. What sort of a country is it down there in Afriky ? Mostly grazin’ land, I hear, —not much timber.”

“That depends upon where you are. Africa is a big country; ” and Paul described the veldt, its baked khaki-colored earth, rocky hills, and long thin lines of green along the chocolate-hued streams. Mr. Pearson listened attentively, but seemed to be pursuing his own line of thought.

“ Them pious people are a hard lot to tackle, ” he remarked at the first pause. “Yer can’t drive notions so easy as yer can horses.”

“ Mr. Pearson, ” said Margaret, as they drew near the gate, “won’t you come in and warm your feet? Your boots are soaked through.”

Mr. Pearson contemplated the articles in question as if they had no connection with himself.

“They be sorter moist,” he confessed. “I ain’t had them boots off fer a week, and won’t most likely as not fer another. Yer see, boots ain’t like traps, — yer gets out of ’em easier ’n yer gets in,” he chuckled, reining up at the entrance to Cedar Hill.

“Then you won’t come in? ” asked Margaret.

“No, thank ye, I guess I ’ll be gettin’ on towards home, ” he replied in an off-hand manner which hid a sudden attack of bashfulness.

“We are much obliged to you for the ride, at any rate,” said Paul.

“Yer welcome,” was the reply. “If it had n’t been fer them fifteen dollars yer might n’t a had it.” And with this parting shot he chirruped to his smoking horses and went jogging on under the firs.

Dolly had returned with Dorothy in that tranquil frame of mind which results from unburdening the conscience, and, it must be added, from a somewhat indefinite knowledge of the ways of the business world, fortified by the underlying conviction that all would come out right in the end. As she had said to Paul, her disquietude arose less from the fear of personal loss than from that of having prejudiced her relations with Margaret. Above all things to be dreaded were money difficulties with one she loved.

Margaret’s mother had died when her little girl was but ten years old, and thereafter Mr. Frazer had married for the second time. Margaret possessed a miniature of her mother painted shortly after the latter’s marriage, when she still retained the charm of the young girl in the dignity of the young mother. The face was admirably suited to that delicate art. A complexion of dazzling brilliancy, a small arched mouth, sweet blue eyes full of intelligence, a pure forehead under brown hair that curled like the tendrils of the vine, and withal an air of gentle reserve indicating a nature both vivacious and sincere. To Margaret, who remembered only smiles in those eyes and loving words from those lips, it had often been a happiness to find her own childish recollections confirmed by her mother’s friends, who always spoke of her in affectionate enthusiasm when they saw their old friend and playmate living again in her child.

Mr. Frazer’s second marriage cannot be said to have been an unhappy one, partly perhaps because he did not long survive it. But Margaret, with a natural tact which never deserted her, had lived with her stepmother more happily, in view of their different natures, than might have been expected. Mrs. Frazer, on returning from the short journey which followed the wedding, had said to the little girl of twelve in a decisive tone intended to avoid all discussion, “You will call me mother, dear; ” and the little girl had replied with an equally quiet decision, “I will call you mother, and I will call my own mother mamma, ” — a reply which gave the keynote to their subsequent relations. It was to Margaret’s credit that, as years went on, though her new connection often jarred and sometimes mortified her, she never betrayed it. In a certain way she was genuinely fond of her, although companionship was out of the question. Mrs. Frazer was devoted to dress, with very imperfect conceptions of its propriety; to people, whom however she criticised unmercifully ; and, while generally satisfied with herself, was never content with her own society.

After Mr. Frazer’s death she had roamed the known world over, in independent masculine fashion, in search, now of variety and adventure, now of rest, as she termed it, and finally of the altitude, climate, and waters suited to her constitution. It was strange that the Creator, who had somewhere provided these things for her own peculiar use, should have omitted to indicate where they were to be found. Fortunately Margaret had been left in sufficiently independent circumstances to free her from the necessity of following her stepmother’s eccentric manœuvres. That lady, with all her faults and foibles, possessed the redeeming quality known as a good heart. Her unusual candor was without malice, her peculiarities amused rather than offended, and her independence of character and movement rarely interfered with those of her immediate neighbors. One is tolerant of people who are a law unto themselves provided they do not attempt also to be a law for others. Moreover her angles had worn down with time, a fact which betrayed itself not so much in her forms of speech, which were still as abrupt as ever, as in the good offices which were often in such flat contradiction with her utterances. All her offending was on first acquaintance. She wore well.

Dolly, somewhat prone to take up people with sudden enthusiasms, but on the other hand steadfast as such enthusiasms rarely are, had taken Margaret to her heart at their first meeting, and the visit which began after Mr. Frazer’s death, when Mrs. Frazer started off on one of her periodical voyages of discovery, and Dolly, herself in mourning, was in need of companionship, had been indefinitely prolonged. At certain periods of the year, with great firmness on Margaret’s part and some embarrassment on Dolly’s, mysterious money transactions were effected between them which Margaret contended were absolutely necessary to her peace of mind. Women rarely take business as a matter of course.

“You are an amazing couple,” once wrote Mrs. Frazer to Margaret from Biarritz. “Icould not tolerate such a pretty girl as you in my house.”

But jealousy was not one of Dolly’s faults.

She met Paul and Margaret in the avenue as they returned from the village, and Dorothy, after delaying progress to the house by insisting at frequent intervals on sitting down on her beloved stool, was with difficulty persuaded to renounce it during luncheon.

“The mail came while you were away,” said Dolly at the table ; “there was nothing for you, Paul, but I had a letter from the Bishop, who has been preaching at Lemington, and who writes he is coming to spend the night with us. As the Bishop is to be here, and probably Mr. Temple, I thought I would ask the Fishers to dinner. I have just telephoned them, and they have accepted. I shall send the carriage for them. Mr. Fisher is a professor in Lemington College. I must ask Thomas about the horses. I don’t understand why horses should be so lame every other day. It’s most extraordinary. When I do not want them Thomas says they must be exercised, and then they frighten me to death, they are so frisky. And when I want them dreadfully, they are lame and cannot stir a step.”

The butler entered, as she spoke, with two yellow envelopes which he handed to Mrs. Kensett.

“ Why, ” exclaimed Dolly, “ here are two telegrams ! One is for you, Margaret. I suppose this is from Mr. Temple.”

“Yes,” said Paul, opening it. “He will be here at seven.”

Margaret meanwhile passed the message to Dolly with a queer smile.

“Mercy! ” cried Dolly, reading it hurriedly and looking at Margaret. “ What a woman she is! ”

The message was less laconic than Mr. Temple’s, but equally precise. Dolly read it again, aloud.

Will arrive by evening train. Do send plenty of robes. Such a dreadful cold country.

LAURINDA.

“It’s just like mother,” laughed Margaret. “Her last letter was from Nice, and she said nothing about returning. There is no address,” she added, taking up the telegram; “so I suppose she is on the way now.”

“Certainly she is! ” exclaimed Dolly. “One might as well try to stop a bombshell, and I have no inclination to. She and the Bishop will amuse each other famously, ” — and Dolly looked at Margaret with unfeigned amusement. “Paul dear, it is from Mrs. Frazer. I am dreadfully glad you are here. You and the Bishop must entertain her. You will tell her all about South Africa. But I must talk this over with Margaret, and shall leave you with your coffee and cigar. Your trunks came this morning, and you will find the papers in the library. Have you everything you want, dear ? ” she said, kissing his forehead gently, — “everything? ” and without waiting for a reply she vanished with Margaret to discuss the unexpected news.

IV.

The dining-room at Cedar Hill was large, rather dimly lighted by windows overshadowed by a broad piazza, and for that reason not used in winter on ordinary occasions, Dolly preferring the sunny breakfast-room that faced the south and east. In summer however its four low windows were open to the piazza, itself a summer drawing-room of generous proportions, to which all the life of the house inevitably gravitated. Originally this piazza had been the usual old-fashioned narrow platform where sun and rain disputed possession with any one who risked the danger of falling off its unprotected edge. But Dolly had changed all that. Widened to an extent which had been a source of bitter controversy between the architect and the local builder, bordered by a low wall and parapet from which the nasturtiums talked to the roses that raised their heads to its level from the border beyond, screened from the sun by awnings, and furnished with innumerable divans and easy-chairs in bright colors, whence long vistas of blue hills opened between the trees on the lawn, it lacked nothing, as Dolly said when she surveyed his completed work, but the shimmer and motion of the sea to make it perfect. On this winter night, when the windows were closed and the table with its glass and silver shone in the softened light of shaded candles, and the black oak paneling winked back at the firelight leaping in the chimney recessed under the Spanish altar-piece Dolly had bought in Toledo, one forgot the summer altogether.

Dolly’s guests had arrived just before the dinner hour. The Bishop, a frequent visitor, had gone directly to his room. Paul had met Temple at the station, and after having put Mrs. Frazer into a carriage, had walked back with Jack for the sake of the air and a preliminary talk after years of separation. Professor Fisher and his sister appeared just before dinner was announced. The Professor was a young man of unmistakably aggressive temperament, which betrayed itself immediately, even before he uttered a word. It was difficult in this respect to name the chief offender among the visible elements of his personality. It may have been his manner of easy assumption, as if he were thoroughly at home in all subjects and under all circumstances; it may have been his voice, which had a peculiar rasping quality; or the fluency of his speech, which never lacked the right word, and ran on with an irritating monotony and exasperating precision like a perfectly oiled machine ; it may have been his eye, which looked you directly in the face from behind a very large pair of round glasses. Dolly declared it was his nose, which had a wavelike outline terminating in a sudden upward slant altogether unexpected, and giving the face an expression of constant interrogation. Dolly had invited him to meet the Bishop because he was a most zealous churchman, the Bishop’s right-hand man in a college community of rigid Congregationalism, — bishops, like the Creator, having often need of weaker vessels to carry on the affairs of this world. Miss Fisher, whose thin brown hair was brushed smoothly over her forehead, had apparently ceded to her brother all claims to notice. No art of the modiste could have surmounted the difficulty presented by her person, a difficulty arising from an unobtrusiveness of form as remarkable as her timidity of character. But her face was gentle and her voice low, and there was something quite touching in her evident devotion to her brother.

Mrs. Frazer, arrayed in a suit of mail of sparkling jet with a nodding white ostrich plume in her wig and a wonderful necklace of diamonds, stared at the Fishers through her lorgnette with great interest as she took Mr. Temple’s arm to dinner.

“You have such lovely silver, Dolly dear, ” she said, taking off her gloves and laying them with her fan beside her plate. It was her habit to address such of her friends as she particularly fancied by their Christian names, utterly regardless of any reciprocity of sentiment. “It is very bad taste, ” she said, turning to the Bishop, “to make such comments. But I like to have people praise my things, and I find it a safe rule to say what you like to hear.”

“A silver edition of the golden rule, ” said the Bishop, who was fond of his little joke.

“You have just returned from abroad, Mrs. Frazer? ” said the Professor, who was quite fascinated by that lady, notwithstanding what he considered the very impertinent use of her lorgnette.

“I am always returning from abroad. I have to, in order to go abroad again. One can’t stay in one place all the time, you know.”

Professor Fisher, whose acquaintance with Europe was confined to the pilgrimage made in his Sabbatical year, saw his cue and took it immediately.

“One of the great sources of superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race,” he rejoined, “is, it seems to me, the abstract, I might almost say the spiritual way in which it looks upon home and country. Think of the conditions of the last century in these colonies: two or three millions, of different origins, customs, characters, scattered along the seacoast in widely separated settlements, mutually jealous, — behind them the wilderness and the savage, confronting them the organized power of England. Refugees and emigrants themselves, surely the idea of country was to them an abstraction. But the Anglo-Saxon does not look upon the fatherland from a material point of view. He loves his acre, yet is not rooted to it. He relies upon his spiritual inheritance, his personal initiative, not upon traditional institutions ” —

“Quite so, quite so,” interposed the Bishop. “You might remind some of the over-zealous defenders of the Constitution of that fact, — don’t you think so, Mr. Temple?”

“The Constitution was certainly written under conditions radically different from those of to-day, ” replied Jack, with his accustomed brevity and directness. “ It was a remarkably wellmade suit of clothes at the time, — for a boy, — but is a rather uncomfortable fit for a grown man.”

“You are quite right, Mr. Temple,” said Mrs. Frazer, her white plume nodding approvingly. “It reminds me of my grandfather’s will. He gave his negro servant to his son with the proviso that if he was freed the whole estate was to revert to a theological seminary, and the seminary was to lose it also if ever the creed was modified by a comma. A pretty mess he made of it, trying to tie up posterity! ”

“ And who got the estate finally ? ” inquired the Professor.

“I did,” said Mrs. Frazer, with a snap of satisfaction.

“Nevertheless, I hold it to be a very lamentable feature of modern life, ” pursued Professor Fisher, “this disregard for the sanctity of written documents. The individual ” —

Here Mrs. Frazer cut the general conversation short by asking Dolly what she paid her cook, whom she pronounced a treasure, and the Professor was left to finish his sentence to Margaret.

Indeed it seemed to Paul that the Professor’s remarks were addressed quite as much to Margaret as to the company at large, and he felt a nervous irritation as he glanced across the table to see her evincing so much interest in his conversation. “How can she talk to such a cad! ” he thought. Unless an occasional monosyllable and smile of assent can be called conversation, this was precisely what Margaret was not doing. An attempt to elicit some information about life in Lemington from Miss Fisher, who had fallen to Paul’s lot in the dinner distribution, had ended in a plaintive description of the difficulties of housekeeping in that community, to which Paul listened sufficiently to enable him to make appropriate replies, arguing with himself the while that it could make no possible difference to him whether Margaret liked the Professor’s society or not. Suddenly his eyes met hers, flashing so quick a smile of comprehension upon him that the whole atmosphere of the room was changed as by magic, and for the first time he saw how really beautiful she was. To be sure Dolly had said so in her every letter, but to-night the vision Dolly’s pen had so often tried to paint was before him. It had certainly been only a glance of frank amusement, a gleam from her sense of humor, — yet it seemed to create a bond of mutual understanding which was strangely pleasant to him ; and that momentary smile, bright itself as a light against the dark shadows of the oak wainscoting, was destined long afterwards to form one of those few vivid pictures which Memory selects to sum up for us the total of the years.

“One must be greatly fatigued after such a long journey,” Miss Fisher was saying to Paul as Mrs. Frazer finished a description of her winter passage.

“Tired! not a bit, my child,” cried that lady, whose quick ear lost nothing. “The ocean ’s nothing more than a parlor car nowadays. I rode all through Armenia once, not on a sidesaddle, either. ”

“A most interesting country, ” interposed the Professor. “A most interesting country and a most detestable people,—much worse than the Turk. People who settle the affairs of Armenia in Faneuil Hall had better go there first.”

“How could you manage a man’s saddle! ” said Dolly, scenting danger and turning the subject.

“It is only the first step that costs, ” smiled the Bishop.

“Entirely so, a mere prejudice. A sidesaddle on a rock staircase looks as absurd as an Easter bonnet in midwinter. ”

“Mrs. Frazer,” said Paul, “I am going to disclose a state secret. Dolly was afraid you would be bored at Cedar Hill, and commissioned me to aid the Bishop in entertaining you. You are stealing our rôle.”

Mrs. Frazer laughed good-humoredly. “We all love flattery, don’t we? ” she said to the Bishop, taking Mr. Temple’s arm as Dolly rose. “Oh, I forgot, — it’s not Continental fashion, and we are to leave you gentlemen to finish your wine.”

“Jack,” said Paul after the ladies had gone, “I want a little talk with you.”

“All right. The Bishop always goes to bed early,” replied Jack. “There ’ll be plenty of time. No, thank you,” to the butler who was passing what Dolly, who knew much of vintages, called the Bishop’s port.

“ Whiskey and soda, sir ? ”

“No, nothing.”

“You have n’t changed your habits, Jack. Come over here where we can talk quietly,” said Paul, seeing the Bishop fast in the Professor’s net. “That idiot drives me mad.”

“Who, the Professor? You must let such fellows talk themselves out.”

“Talk themselves out! I wish he could. He began with me on Pretoria and Cape Town, as if they were suburbs. One does n’t forget Chicago and New York are a thousand miles apart, if one ever knew it.”

Jack laughed. “Never put the lid on a boiling kettle, Paul. He began with me too, on free trade, before dinner, — and he knows a lot about it, —■ only, as Mrs. Frazer remarked, he has n’t been there.”

“ Jack, ” said Paul abruptly, “ do you know Heald? ”

“Heald, Heald?” replied Jack, watching the smoke as it curled from the end of his cigar. “I know who you mean. No, I don’t know him personally.”

“ What sort of a man is he ? ”

“He goes everywhere,” said Jack non-committingly.

“What does the street think of him?”

“Well, I don’t think he is taken very seriously. Why? Do you know him ? ”

“You remember a while ago Dolly drew a rather large check on you. ”

“Yes. Mrs. Kensett and I have a somewhat peculiar arrangement between ourselves, you know. She mails me her checks, and if her account can stand it I send her the money.”

“Yes, I know. Dolly told me about it; and a very sensible arrangement it is, too. Did you ever hear of the Argonaut mine ? ”

“The Argonaut? Never.”

“Are n’t its shares listed? ”

“They may be. I don’t pretend to follow every wildcat scheme on the market.”

“Then it is a wildcat scheme, is it ? ” “Now look here,” said Mr. Temple, settling himself back in his chair, “ tell me what you are driving at.”

“Well,” said Paul, “the long and the short of it is this: this fellow Heald has invested the money you sent in Argonaut shares for Dolly. He pretends he was a great friend of Kensett’s, and a lot of that rubbish. The shares have gone down and Dolly is scared. She told me the whole story this morning, and I told her I should advise with you. That is why I asked you up.”

“I know nothing about Argonaut. This is the first time I have heard the word since I was at school. But I will look into it directly. The money I sent Mrs. Kensett was income, and she can afford to lose it. Of course I should not have advised her to throw it away if she had consulted me. I told Kensett I would look after her capital as I would my own, —which means, you know, in such a case, better.”

“Yes,” said Paul, “but she has invested other people’s money too.” Jack looked up quickly. “You won’t ask me whose, for although she bound me to no secrecy, I know she would rather not have any names mentioned at present. The facts are these,” — and Paul gave the details of Dolly’s morning confession.

Temple listened without a word, and when Paul concluded smoked on in silence.

“He ’s been cutting a wide swath lately,” he said at last; “automobile, yacht, and all that sort of thing. He’s not my style, you know. But I have absolutely nothing against him. Are you staying here? ”

“For the present. I shall have a lot to do when the war is over, but just now I ’m in a dead calm.”

“Well,” as the Bishop rose, “I shall go down to-morrow. There is a directors’ meeting I must attend. You will hear from me in a day or two, and if I want you I will wire. You might give me a memorandum of the number of shares and what they cost. ”

“One thousand at twenty-five, and one thousand at forty.”

Paul expected to see Jack wince a little at these figures, but his face expressed nothing.

“Shall we join the ladies?” smiled the Bishop. And they went upstairs into the drawing-room.

Paul had often declared to himself that, whatever else he might be capable of, he would never struggle with a rival over a woman. There was a brutal reminder of the origin of the race in such rivalry that revolted him. This resolve did not occur to him now, nor did Mrs. Frazer’s suggestion at the dinner-table that one’s opinion of a subject sometimes changed on a nearer view of it. But it did occur to him as the Professor with his blandest manner joined Margaret, who was talking with his sister in a distant corner, how utterly unprotected a woman was against the presumption of a bore.

“Come here and sit down by me,” cried Mrs. Frazer, as he stood for a moment hesitating in the doorway. “What have you been doing with yourself all these years ? ” — readjusting her voluminous train to make room for him beside her on the sofa, — “making money, I suppose. Have you reached the stage where you are going to retire and be a good-for-nothing ? I hope not. There is nothing so lamentable as a man who takes off his harness and gives himself over to elegant leisure. It is of no use to try unless you began as a baby at the bottle. Leisure is quite bad enough for a woman, for a man it is poison. Look at me ! I am bored to death. But why don’t you marry, eh? Are there no pretty faces in Bul — Bulawayo ? You have such queer names down there.”

“Why are you women so anxious to marry off everybody ? ” Paul retorted, laughing. “We should not think of it if you did not put the idea into our heads. Are n’t we well enough off as we are ? ”

“Decidedly not. Much more interesting, I grant you. But we women are quite unselfish in the matter. Moreover, we know much better than you, I assure you, the real meaning of life.”

“ Perhaps so, — you who have seen a good deal of it.”

“No, all of us, who know nothing about it,” rejoined Mrs. Frazer, with her customary disdain for logical consistency. “Now listen to me. Woman has an instinctive knowledge of what she was intended for, — mixed up, naturally, with all sorts of foolish dreams and ideals, mere air bubbles on the placid depths of her consciousness. She knows better than you what completes life, what is life, and she would rather live it as it was meant to be lived, live it as the plant lives it through frost and drought, from bud to seed, with all seedtime means, than to know and feel and suffer nothing, like a rose in a greenhouse. You may take my word for it. Are we not always rushing into danger more unconcernedly than you ? ”

“I doubt if we do think so much of these things as you do, if that ’s what you mean, ” said Paul, looking over at the Professor.

“ What possesses Dolly to ask such people here ? ” said Mrs. Frazer, following his gaze. “That man positively maddens me. I feel constantly tempted to do something outrageous to shock him.”

“Do you?” said Paul, laughing in spite of himself, “so do I.”

“I never could tolerate people I do not like, ” she pursued, taking a cigarette from a small jeweled case and lighting it unconcernedly. “When we dislike people in a novel we shut up the book. It is a pity we cannot do so in society.”

“What is it we cannot do in society? ” asked Temple, joining them.

“What we please. But I am not speaking of you. You are an extraordinary exception. You have nothing to say to us and we all adore you. You never accept invitations and every one keeps on inviting you. You are like the Sphinx, — everybody would make a journey to hear you speak, and you say nothing. ”

Jack’s face did not change under this compliment. He detested open praise.

“I have made a good many enemies in my life,” he said quietly.

“I am quite content to have the people I dislike for enemies if they will confine their enmity to letting me alone, ” declared Mrs. Frazer incisively.

The Bishop, who had been meanwhile laying before Mrs. Kensett his plans for the mission church in Lemington, rose to say good-night.

“You must not think,” said Dolly, “that I am not interested in what you have been saying. But I must have time to consider it and to consult with Mr. Temple.” Her inclinations ran to individuals; charity in the mass appealed less quickly to her sympathies.

“Certainly, most certainly,” acquiesced the Bishop. “I would not press it upon you under any consideration, and I leave the matter wholly in your hands. You have been most generous, and I assure you I am not always coming to Cedar Hill in the guise of a beggar. ”

“You will always be welcome in any guise, my dear friend, ” Dolly replied. “ Are you going to take that horrid early train ? ”

“I must, ” he said, taking her hand, “and you will let me steal away as usual. ”

He bade each one good-night, and Dolly followed him to the door.

“You will hear from me soon,” she smiled.

Then the carriage for the Fishers was announced and every one rose.

“Did I hear the Bishop say he was leaving by the early train ? ” asked Jack of Mrs. Kensett. “I don’t like to run off so early, but there is a business meeting which I must attend to-morrow ” —

He looked away as he spoke. “That is an excuse for going,” thought Dolly.

“What would happen now, I should like to know, if you played truant for once, Mr. Temple? ” interrupted Mrs. Frazer.

“Nothing very serious, I dare say. Mabel would lose her gold eagle for one thing.”

“Mr. Temple gives all his attendance fees to Mabel, you know,” explained Dolly.

“No, I did not know it, but I do know he will spoil that child, ” declared Mrs. Frazer emphatically.

And then Dolly sent for her fur cloak, which she insisted upon Miss Fisher’s wearing home, the night was so cold; and Miss Fisher thanked her for a “most delightful evening,” and the Professor shook hands ceremoniously, expressing his great pleasure at having met every one, and the ladies said goodnight, and Paul went down with Jack to the billiard-room for a final smoke and talk before going to bed.

V.

It was nearly midnight when Paul, after leaving Jack in his room, knocked at Dolly’s door.

“ Have you gone to bed, Dolly ? ”

“No, come in,” she said. “ We have been holding an adjourned meeting. Margaret and Mrs. Frazer have just gone. ”

“It is late,” said Paul, sitting down before the fire in one of the chairs evidently just vacated. “Are you tired? ”

“No, not a bit. Jane, I shall not need you any more, ” and Dolly, with two long braids hanging down over her blue silk peignoir, ensconced herself in one of the two chairs opposite her cousin with her slippered feet on the fender. “ How like old times this is! Do you remember how you used to come up in my room, — when we were children ? ” she sighed.

“I have been talking with Temple about Heald, ” said Paul, after a pause. “Jack knows nothing about Argonaut, but he has promised to investigate it and to tell me what he may learn. I thought you would like to know, although there is little to be said at present. ”

Dolly changed her position and put up one hand to screen her eyes from the firelight, but made no reply.

“You said you had something more to tell me, Dolly.”

“Yes,” she replied slowly. “You know I hesitated at first this morning, when you proposed asking Mr. Temple here. It was not because — because of — Mr. Temple has asked me to marry him.”

In the unexpectedness and incompleteness of this announcement Paul found nothing to say.

“You are probably as much astonished as I was,” Dolly went on, speaking to the fire. “A woman is not generally unprepared for such a declaration, but you know how different he is from most men. I had never dreamed of it. He was Cecil’s best friend, and I—I really cannot explain how I felt toward him,—something as I feel toward you, Paul. You are not my brother, and you are not like an ordinary cousin. It would be absurd to say I looked upon him as a father, or a brother, — but can’t you understand? Without a father, or a mother, or a brother, and you gone, Paul, he seemed to be something of everything without being anything in particular. I always felt as much at ease with him as I do with you. And he is so kind, so unselfish, I would not hurt his feelings for the world. When he spoke to me I could not answer him.”

“ But you did answer him, Dolly, ” said Paul.

“No, I did not answer him,” she said, at length. “I just cried. He said I was not to think of it again . . . that he understood ” . . . Dolly hesitated and her voice trembled — “but I do not think he did understand — I do not think I understood myself — I thought it was just surprise and pity, but ” —her voice was very low now — “I do care for him.”

Paul leaned forward and took her hand in both his own.

“You ought to tell him so, then,” he said. She shook her head slowly, but did not speak. “Nonsense, Dolly,” he began impatiently. But she seemed to shrink from what he was about to say, and he continued gently, “Why not ? if you are sure of yourself, if you know your own heart. Life is not a play in which misunderstandings must be kept alive for the sake of the last act. There are a hundred ways in which you could tell him without — without his knowing that he had not discovered it himself.”

“ Hush, Paul, you do not know what you are saying.”

“I know so well what I am saying that if you persist in such folly I ” —

She drew away her hand and lifted her eyes to his with such a look that he stopped short.

“Dolly, you are keeping something back.”

“No, I shall keep nothing back from you, Paul. I have been waiting too long for some one to speak to for that.”

She rose as she spoke, and going to her desk unlocked a drawer from which she took a letter which she handed to him. He opened it, saw that it was in a woman’s handwriting, glanced at the signature, and then began to read: —

DEAR MRS. KENSETT, — I am so glad papa took me with him to Cedar Hill, where I had such a delightful visit. He is always going away on business, and it is so dreadfully stupid to be left alone with Miss Gaunt. Dear papa! I am quite decided never to let him go off by himself again. You have such a lovely house at Cedar Hill, and I think Miss Frazer is charming. It is no wonder you are tempted to pass the winter in the country in such a home, and I suppose the season in town is a very old story to you. To me it is enchanting, and I am having such a gay time. Papa is very good and goes with me everywhere, though I know he is sometimes terribly bored. But I mean to be very good to him. We went to the Daytons’ wedding yesterday. I think it is perfectly horrid for a woman to marry a second time, don’t you ? If any one should ever think of marrying my papa how I should hate her! He is such an unsuspecting dear. That is a point on which I am quite decided. I don’t know why I am writing all this to you, dear Mrs. Kensett. I only intended to thank you for the lovely time you gave me.
Sincerely yours,
MABEL TEMPLE.

Paul read this letter through slowly, and then again a second time, as if not quite sure that he had at first comprehended it. It did seem quite clear, and the emphasis took on a new significance on a second reading. Yet he made an effort not to think so. “Are you sure you are not reading between the lines ? ” he asked at length, looking up into Dolly’s face.

“Quite sure, Paul.”

“What a detestable little cat! ” he cried. “ One would think you were going to commit a crime. It ’s despicably impertinent and deadly selfish.”

“Oh yes, Paul, I know all you can say, ” said Dolly wearily, turning her head away and leaning her cheek upon the chair. “How I have thought over it! till I can think no more.” Paul rose, walking back and, forth behind her chair. “Do you remember,” she went on, “ how papa forbade us to play even solitaire ? and you to smoke ? Why did we obey ? There was nothing wrong in doing these things. We sacrificed — how much! — to avoid conflict, the unhappiness that would have followed if we had not yielded. We were always giving up innocent things, submitting to tyranny, while papa was alive, — for the sake of peace. There was no reason why you should not smoke except that you were forbidden to, and there is no reason why I should not marry Mr. Temple except the same insuperable one, — the unhappiness it would cause.”

“Cause whom?” interrupted Paul. “Not him, not you, not a living soul except this little tyrant. And why her ? You are not going to injure her. Why should you sacrifice the real happiness of two decent people to the pretended happiness of this — this egoist ? ” he said, restraining himself. “I tell you what, Dolly, ” he continued, stopping in front of her, “if I were to live my life over again I should live it very differently. What did we gain by surrendering our natural rights to egoism and tyranny? Peace, you say. The peace of slaves and cowards! ”

“Hush,Paul dear. Mr. Temple loves Mabel.”

“He would n’t if he knew her better.”

“Would you wish me to open his eyes ? ”

Paul found this question hard to answer.

“No,” he said at last, resuming his walk to and fro behind her chair, “perhaps not. You love him, Mabel loves herself. That’s just the difference. And you would not hurt him for the world. But if he knew you loved him, which would hurt him most? Mabel’s selfishness or your silence? Yes, I understand,” replying to her gesture, “he does not know it. You have refused him. He is n’t much the happier for that, I suppose. He may never find you out, but I warrant you he will find her out. Are you willing to have him suspect some day what he lost and why he lost it ? Forgive me, Dolly dear, ” he said, bending over her chair, for he heard the low sobs she tried in vain to stifle; “forgive me, but I don’t believe in mysteries and silence. If I were you I would go straight to Jack and tell him the truth, whatever it is. You said this morning it was right to do some things if no one knew you did them. I don’t believe it. Tell him you cannot marry him, if you cannot. But tell him you love him, that you cannot marry him because you love him. Let him have the consolation of knowing that. He is a man, with sense and judgment. Trust him as having a little of both, — as much as you have. I have never been in love, — perhaps I am all wrong, — but if ever I am in love I hope I shall not lose the judgment of sane people who are not.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Dolly lifted her face to his and touched his cheek with her lips. Her eyes were wet, but she had grown quite calm again.

“I must decide all this for myself, Paul. I knew it before I spoke to you, but it is a relief to have spoken. When you know what love is, as you will, you will know if it has no judgment it has instincts, — instincts stronger than any reasonings. I have been trying to reason, and I am tired, bewildered, — but I always come back to the same point. ”

“Have you seen much of her? do you know her well ? It is hardly fair to judge a girl by a single letter.”

“ I could love any one who would let me,” Dolly said, staring into the fire. “It is not easy to describe Mabel, she changes so. But she interests and fascinates me. I was just beginning to be really fond of her, when this came.”

“Have you answered it? ” he asked, as she took the letter from his hand.

“No, and now that you have seen it, I shall destroy it.”

She went to the fire and dropped it on the coals. “If I could burn the memory of it as easily,” she thought, as it burst into flame and shriveled into a little heap of black ashes.

Arthur Sherburne Hardy.

(To be continued)