Dr. Lavendar's People

by Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

"LURCHED FORWARD INTO A CHAIR, BREATHING LOUDLY"

Alex stared at them with glassy eyes, in silence; his father kept bemoaning himself and imploring his old friend to say no more. "You won't speak of it again, Edward? He goes out of his head with rage. Promise me not to speak of it any more."

"No, John; no," Dr. Lavendar said, sadly; and as Alex's eyes cleared into bewildered consciousness, the old minister stood a little aside while the father helped the son to his feet and led him away. When he came back, shuffling feebly down the long, darkening room, Dr. Lavendar was still sitting by the fire. "He's quiet now; I—I think he's ashamed. I hope so. But he won't come out of his room."

Dr. Lavendar nodded.

John Gordon spread his purple handkerchief over his white locks, with shaking hands, and then sat down, tumbling back in his chair in a forlorn heap. "Edward," he said, feebly, "tell me about it. It was on Thursday? Had she been sick long?" Then, in a low voice, "She—didn't lack for comforts?"

"No; I think not. The man was as tender with her as—as you might have been. She was sick—I mean in bed—two weeks. She had been ailing for a long time; you remember I spoke to you about it about a month ago. And again last week."

"You—saw her?"

"Yes."

"More than once?"

"Oh, many times," Dr. Lavendar said, simply; "many times, of course."

John Gordon put out his hand; Dr. Lavendar shook it silently. Then suddenly the old man broke out, in weak, complaining anger: "He wouldn't let me write to her. I would have sent her some money. He wouldn't hear of it. He was awful, Edward. I—I didn't dare."

Dr. Lavendar was silent. It had grown so dark that he could not see the father's face. Suddenly, from behind the leafless trees at the foot of the garden, a smouldering yellow glow of sunset broke across the gloom of the room, and touched the purple cowl and the veined hands covering the aged face. Dr. Lavendar sighed.

"What can I do, Edward? I can't go to-morrow. You see I can't."

"Yes, you can, John."

"He would die; he'd have another attack. His heart is bad, Edward."

"Oh, I'm afraid it is, I'm afraid it is. But John, you do your duty. Never mind Alex's heart. That isn't your affair."

"Oh, I couldn't possibly go—not possibly," the father protested, nervously.

The glow died out. The room grew dusk and then dark. Mr. Gordon got up and reached to the mantel-shelf for a spill. "Mary used to make the spills for me," he said, vaguely. "Now our Rachel does it, and she doesn't half bend the end over." He lighted the spill, the little flame flickering upon his poor old face peering out from under his purple handkerchief. "Oh, Alex ought not to be so hard. I would go with you to-morrow, Edward, but I can't, you know. I can't." Then, with a shaking hand, he took off the ground-glass globe and lighted the tall lamp that stood among a litter of papers on the library-table. "You see how it is, Edward, don't you? I can't possibly go."

"You will be sorry if you don't, John."

"I'll be sorry anyhow," he burst out. "I'm always sorry. I've been sorry all my life. My children are my sorrow."

III

Algy Keen, his face swollen with crying, his black hair limp and uncurled, sat on the edge of the bed in the back room of a dingy Mercer lodging-house. The windows had been left open after Mary had been taken away, so that the room was cold; and there were still two chairs facing each other,—a certain distance apart. The room was in dreary order, and there was the scent of flowers in the chill air. The bed was tumbled, for the forlorn man had dropped down upon it to rest. But he was too tired to rest, and was sitting up again, dangling his stockinged feet on the shabby carpet and talking to Dr. Lavendar. He snuffled, and his poor, weak lips shook, and he rubbed the back of his trembling hand across his nose. Algy had had broken nights for a fortnight, and the last three days and nights of Mary's life he had almost no sleep at all; these two days when she lay dead in their bare room he had slept and wept and slept again; and now, when he and Dr. Lavendar had come back from the funeral, he sat on the edge of the bed and whimpered with weakness and grief.

"Well, sir, she was a good girl," he said. "I don't care what anybody says, she was a good girl. I ain't saying that things was just right, to begin with. But that wasn't Mary's fault. No; she was a good girl. And her folks treated her bad. They'd always treated her mean bad. My goodness! if they'd 'a' let me come to see her respectable, as you would any of your lady friends, 'stead of skulkin' 'round—... I can't stand the smell of those flowers," he broke out, in a high, crying voice; "I left them all out there at the cemetery, and I smell them here—I smell them here," he moaned, trembling.

"I like to smell them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They mean the old friendship for Mary. Mrs. King sent them. She's our doctor's wife in Old Chester. She always liked Mary."

"I don't see how she could help it," Algy said, his face crumpling with tears. "Well, she was a good girl. And she was a good wife, sir, too. I tell you, you never saw a better wife. I used to come home tired, and there'd be my slippers out for me. Yes, sir; she never missed it. And she was always pleasant, too; you mayn't call just being pleasant, religion, but I—"

"I do," Dr. Lavendar interposed.

"Well, so do I," Algy said, his face lightening a little. "I call it a better religion than her folks showed. Well, now, sir, I loved Mary"—he stopped and cried, openly—"I loved her (I didn't need that hell-hound of a brother to come after me)—yes, I was just as fond of her; and yet there was times when I come home at night—not—not quite—well, maybe a little—you know?"

"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar.

"But, my God, sir, Mary was pleasant. It isn't every woman that would be pleasant then, is it?"

"No, it isn't, Algy."

"Course, next day she'd tell me I done wrong. (She never told me so at the time—Mary had sense.) And I always said: 'Well, yes, Mary, that's so. And I'll never do it again.' But she was pleasant. Course I don't mean she was lively. She used to remember—well, that we'd made a mistake. You know? And she used to kind a brood on it. She talked to you considerably about it, I guess. She said you comforted her. She said you said that maybe her—her mistake had brought her to be kind o' more religious—saved her, as you might say."

"I said that she had come to know her Saviour through His forgiveness."

"I don't think Mary needed any forgiveness," the poor husband said, with tearful resentment; "I think her folks needed it."

"I'm sorry for them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They have got to remember that they might have been kinder. That's a hard thing to have to remember."

The young man nodded. "I hope they'll remember it, hard!"

"They will," said Dr. Lavendar, sighing.

"I spent my last cent on Mary," Algernon rambled on. "I got her a good coffin—a stylish coffin. The plate was solid silver. The man wanted me to take a plated one. I says 'no,' I says; 'I don't get plated things for my wife if it takes my last cent.' Well, it just about took it. But I don't care. Her people threw her off, and I did for her. I spent my last cent."

"You took her from them in the first place, Algernon," the old minister said. "Don't forget that you sinned."

"Well, you said she was forgiven," the other broke out, angrily. "I guess God's more easy than some people."

"He is."

"Well, then," Algy said, resentfully; "what's the use of talking?"

Dr. Lavendar was silent.

"I don't begrudge a cent I spent on her," Algy went on. "I had laid by $1140 to set up a place of my own here in Mercer. At least, it wasn't me; I'm not one to save much; it was Mary did it. But these last eight months have taken it all, 'cause I 'ain't done hardly any work; couldn't be away from her on the road, you know; so we had to live on that money. I could 'a' got a cheaper coffin; but I wouldn't. As for the doctor, I got the best in town. I don't believe in economizing on your wife. And I paid him. I paid him $204 yesterday morning, though it seems high, considering he didn't cure her. But I wasn't going to let Mary get buried owing the doctor. And I paid for the coffin. 'Spot cash,' I says to the man, 'make it spot cash, and name your figure.' He took off $17. Well, how much do you suppose I've got left now, Dr. Lavendar, out of $1140? Just $23, sir. I don't care; I don't begrudge Mary a cent. I thought the coffin looked handsome, didn't you?—Oh, I wish somebody had 'a' moved those chairs when we were gone!" he cried, his voice shrill and breaking.

Dr. Lavendar got up and pushed one of the chairs back against the wall and brought the other to Algy's side. The young man laid his hand on it and began to cry.

IV

"No, I suppose you don't care to hear about it, John. But I want to tell you; so I guess you'll listen to please me?"

John Gordon said nothing.

"It isn't a long story," Dr. Lavendar said, and told him briefly of the funeral. When he ended there was silence. Then, "John," Dr. Lavendar said.

"Yes, Edward."

"The man is in need."

"What's that to me?" the other burst out.

"Much," said Dr. Lavendar; "it gives you a chance."

"You mean a chance to give him some money?" said the other. "Good God! To pay the scoundrel for what he did to us? Edward, you don't understand human nature."

"He spent his last cent making Mary comfortable, John. She told me so herself."

"I will never give that—creature one penny of my clean money."

Dr. Lavendar said nothing.

The older man bent forward, shivering, and stirred the fire. The coal broke into sputtering fragments and the flames roared up into the soot. "Alex would never listen to giving him any money."

"Don't ask him to listen to it. Haven't you got your own check-book?"

"Let him rot. That's what Alex says."

"I don't believe it's what you say, John, because he was good to Mary;—and you were not."

Mr. Gordon groaned.

"Well, I won't give him anything; I'll lend it, possibly."

Dr. Lavendar frowned and got up.

Mr. Gordon put out a trembling, detaining hand.

"Edward, you don't understand.... How much do you want for him?"

"He had saved about $1200 to go into some business. It's all gone."

"Well, I won't give it to him," the other repeated, with feeble sharpness; "I'll lend it—to please you."

"I'm sorry you haven't a better motive."

John Gordon got up and went over to his library-table and fumbled about in one of the drawers for his check-book. "I'm a fool," he said, fretfully; "I don't know but what I'm worse. Lending money to— But you say he was good to her? Poor Mary! Oh!" he ended, half to himself, "I don't know why Alex is so hard." Then he took his quill and began to scrawl his check. "I'd rather see him starve," he said.

"No, you wouldn't," Dr. Lavendar said, calmly.

"Well, there! Take it! Get a receipt."

"Johnny, think better of it."

"You needn't take it if you don't want to," the other said, sullenly.

Dr. Lavendar took it, and John Gordon called after him,

"You won't tell Alex?"

Dr. Lavendar shook his head and sighed. As he drove home he said to himself that a loan was better than nothing. "But, Danny, my boy," he added, "what a chance he had! Well, he'll take it yet—he'll take it yet. The trouble with me, Daniel, is, I'm in too much of a hurry to make folks good. I must reform."

Danny blinked a grave agreement, and Dr. Lavendar, dropping his shortcomings joyfully from his mind, began to sing to himself:

"Oh! what has caused this great commotion—motion—motion
Our country through?"

When, however, a day or two later, Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to take the check to Algernon Keen, he found to his astonishment that it was not so easy to secure to his old friend even the smaller and meaner opportunity of lending, much less giving.

At first, Algernon looked at him open-mouthed. "Him—offering to lend money to—?" His astonishment robbed him of words. Then into his poor, shallow face came the first keen touch of shame. But instantly he was ashamed of his shame,—ashamed, like so many of us strange human creatures, of the stirring of God within him. He didn't want their dirty money, he said. They thought themselves so good, they couldn't stomach Mary. Well, then, they were too good for him to touch their money. His voice shook with angry grief. His bitterness was genuine, even though he used it to hide that first regenerative pang of shame. No; Dr. Lavendar could take their money back to them. "I spent my last cent, just about, on Mary," he said; "and I didn't begrudge it, either."

"I'm sure you didn't begrudge it."

Algy's weak mouth shook and his eyes filled; he turned away and stared out of the window. "He better have offered to lend her some money than me," he said. "I bet he's glad she's dead."

(Dr. Lavendar thought of Alex.) "He wants to help you now for her sake," he said.

"I don't want his money," the younger man insisted, brokenly; "he let her die."

"I think that it would please her to have you take it."

"I don't want to be under obligations to those people," Algernon said, doggedly.

"If Mr. Gordon has your note, it's business."

Algy hesitated. "I suppose he thinks I'd never pay it back?"

"If he takes your note, it looks as if he expected to be repaid."

"It's treating me white, I'll say that," Algernon said. And again his face reddened slowly to his forehead and he would not meet Dr. Lavendar's eye. "But I don't want their favors," he cried, threateningly.

"It's business, if you give your note," Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Come, Algernon, let her father do something for her sake. And as for you—it's a chance to play the man; don't you see that?"

Algy caught his breath. "Damn!—if I borrowed his money I'd pay it—I'd pay it, if it took the blood out of me."

"I will make your feeling clear to him," Dr. Lavendar said. "Let's make out the note now, Algy."

The old man got up and hunted about for pen and paper. "Here's a prescription blank," he said; "that will do." An ink-bottle stood on the narrow mantel-shelf, a rusty pen corroding in its thickening depths; but Dr. Lavendar, in a very small, shaky old hand, managed to scrawl that "Algernon Keen, for value received, promised to pay to John Gordon—"

—"in a year," Algy broke in; "I ain't going to have it run but a year—and put in the interest, sir. I'll have no favors from 'em. I'll pay interest; I'll pay six per cent.—like anybody else would."

—"and interest on same," Dr. Lavendar added. "Now, you sign here, Algy. There! that will please Mary."

"Oh, my!" said Algernon, his poor, red-rimmed eyes filling—"oh, my! my! what will I do without her?"

V

The next day Dr. Lavendar carried the note back to old John Gordon, who took it, his mouth tightening, and glanced at it in silence. Then he shuffled over to a safe in the corner of his library and pulled out a japanned tin box. Dr. Lavendar watched him fumble with the combination lock, holding the box up to catch the light, and shaking it a little until the lid clicked open. "He'll never pay it," John Gordon said.

"He'll try to," Dr. Lavendar said; "but it's doubtful, of course. He's a sickly fellow, and he hasn't much gumption. But if there's any good in him, your trusting him will bring it out."

"There isn't any good in him," the other said, violently.

And that was the last they said about it; for the time Algernon Keen dropped out of their lives.

He set up his little store in Mercer, and struggled along, advertising his samples of perfumery and pomade upon his own person; trying to drink a little less, for Mary's sake; whimpering with loneliness and sick-headache in his grimy room in the hotel where Mary had died; and never forgetting for a day that promise to pay on the back of the prescription paper in John Gordon's possession. But when the year came round, on the 2d of December, he had not a cent in hand to meet his obligation. And that was why Dr. Lavendar heard of him again. Would the doctor—this on perfumed paper, ruled, and with gilt edges—would the doctor "ask him if he would extend?" Algernon could pay the interest now; but that was all he could do. He wasn't in very good shape, he said. He'd been in the hospital for a month, and had had to hire a salesman. "I guess he cheated me; he was a kind of fancy talker, and got me to let him buy some stock; he got off his slice, I bet." That was the reason, Algy said, that he could not make any payment on the principal. But he was going to introduce a new article for the lips (no harmful drugs in it), called Rosebloom—first-class thing; and he expected he'd do first rate with it. And in another year he'd surely pay that note. It hung over him, he said, like a ton. "I guess he don't want it paid any more than I want to pay it," Algy ended, simply.

Of course Dr. Lavendar asked for an extension, and got it, though John Gordon's lip curled. "I never expected to hear from him or his note again," he said. "Probably his honesty won't last over another year."

Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to see Algy, and they talked things over in the store between the calls of two customers. Algy's hair was sleek and curly as before, for business is business; but he looked draggled and forlorn; his color had gone and he was thinner, and there were lines on his forehead, and his bright, hazel eyes, kind and shallow as those of some friendly animal, had come into their human birthright of worry. "It's this note that takes the spunk out of me," he said. "If I could only get it paid! Then I'd hire a house and have the shop in front. I've thought some I'd get married, too. It's hard on your digestion living in one of these here cheap hotels. But I can't get over thinking of Mary. I don't seem to relish other ladies. I suppose they're all right; but Mary was so pleasant." And his eyes reddened. "And, anyway, it would cost more to keep a wife, and I don't propose to spend money that way. He's treated me white, I'll say that for him; and I propose to show him—Dr. Lavendar, I haven't drunk too much only three times in the last year—honest, I haven't. I thought you'd think that would please Mary?"

"I'm sure it does," said Dr. Lavendar.

"I suppose you think," the drummer said, sheepishly, "that it was pretty darned foolish to drop three times?"

"I think pretty soon it won't be even three times," Dr. Lavendar declared; "but it's hard work; I know it is."

Algernon looked at him eagerly. "You know how it is yourself, maybe?"

"Well, I never happened to want to take too much," Dr. Lavendar said, gently; "if I had, it would have been hard, I'm sure."

"Well, you bet," Algy told him, knowingly. Then they talked the business over, and Dr. Lavendar clapped Algy on the shoulder and said he believed he'd have that house and shop yet. "Rosebloom may be a gold-mine," said Dr. Lavendar. Then he gave Algy some advice about the window display, and suggested a little gas-jet on the counter where gentlemen might light their cigars; and he told Algy what brand he smoked himself, and recommended it, in spite of its price. Algy smacked his thigh at that, and said Dr. Lavendar had the making of a smart business man in him. Indeed, Algy felt so cheered that he opened his show-case and displayed a box of his new cosmetic.

"Look here, doctor," he said, earnestly; "I'll give you a box. Yes—yes! I will. I'd just as lief as not. You maybe wouldn't want to use it yourself; gentlemen don't, often. But give it to one of your lady friends. Do, now, doctor. It don't cost me much of anything—and I'm sure you've been kind to me."

And Dr. Lavendar accepted the lip-salve, and thanked Algy warmly; then he said that the picture on the lid of the tight-waisted lady was very striking.

"That's so!" cried Algy. "She's a beauty. She makes me think of Mary."

Algernon had presented Dr. Lavendar with a cigar, and the old minister was smoking it in great comfort, his feet on the base of a rusty, melon-shaped iron stove; Algy was leaning back against the counter, his elbows on the show-case behind him. "Dr. Lavendar," he said, looking at the toe of his boot, "I—got something on my mind."

"Well, off with it, quick as you can."

"I've been thinking about the Day of Judgment."

"Ho!" said Dr. Lavendar.

"Well, sir, I get to thinking: if everybody's sins are to be read out loud before all the world—standing up, rows and rows and rows of 'em. Can't see the end of 'em—so many. I kind a' hate to think that Mary might hear—things about me."

"Well, Keen," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "I don't believe it will be that way." He hesitated a little. After all, it is a risk to take away even a false belief, unless you can put a true one in its place.

Algy stopped looking at the toe of his boot. "What!" said he.

"Now just look at it," said Dr. Lavendar. "Who would be the better for that kind of publicity? Good people wouldn't like it; it would pain them. You say yourself that Mary wouldn't like to hear that you did wrong three times."

"No; she wouldn't," Algernon said.

"Wicked people might enjoy it," Dr. Lavendar ruminated, "but—"

—"but God don't cater to the wicked?" Algy finished, quickly.

"That's just it," said Dr. Lavendar. "He doesn't. But I tell you what it is, Algy, it is painful enough to just have your Saviour tell you your sins when you're sitting all alone—or, maybe, lying awake in the dark; that's a dreadful time to hear them. It's worse than having rows of people listening."

Algernon nodded. "Maybe you're right," he said, sighing.

The birth of a soul is a painful process. But when he went away Dr. Lavendar's eyes were full of hope.

And he grew more hopeful when, as the next year came round and Algernon again asked for extension, he was able to carry back, not only the note and the interest to John Gordon, but a payment of $24. What that $24 meant of self-denial and perseverance Dr. Lavendar knew almost as well as Algy himself.

"I don't know whether you meant it, John," he said, as the old man took the note and locked it up in the japanned box—"I don't know that it was your intention, but I believe the responsibility of debt is going to make a man of Mary's husband."

"Debt doesn't generally work that way," Mr. Gordon said.

"No; it doesn't. But He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, once in a while, Johnny."

"It's nothing to me. I'm done with him."

"'If the court knows itself, which it think it do,'" said Dr. Lavendar, chuckling, "you're just beginning with him."

"I'd rather have him decent, if that's what you mean. But I despise him."

"I don't," said Dr. Lavendar. "I tell you, John, we're poor, limited critters, you and I. We felt that no good could possibly come out of Nazareth. I must confess that when I got you to send him that money I was thinking more of the benefit to you than any effect it might have on him. I thought he didn't amount to two cents. To my shame I say it. But I was blind as a bat; the Lord had sent him a great experience—Mary's death. Well, it was like a clap of thunder on a dark night; the lightning showed up a whole landscape I didn't know. There was honesty; and there was perseverance; and there was love, mind you, most of all. Love! I tell you, Johnny, only the Lord knows what is lying in the darkness of human nature. In fact," said Dr. Lavendar, reflectively, "as I get older there is nothing more constantly astonishing to me than the goodness of the Bad;—unless it is the badness of the Good. But that's not so pleasant. No, sir; I don't despise Mr. Keen."

Nor did he despise Algy when the note had to be extended still again, although again Algy was ready not only with the interest, but with $37.50 of the principal.

VI

As Algernon struggled along with Rosebloom and cheap cigars and bright red and green perfumed soaps, the debt was lessened and lessened; and the back of the note was almost covered with extensions, yet only $317 had been paid off. In spite of himself John Gordon grew interested; he would not have admitted it for the world, but he wanted to hear about Dr. Lavendar's annual visits to Mercer; and Dr. Lavendar used to drive out to smoke a pipe with him and tell him what Algy had said and done. One day—it was seven years after the note had been drawn—a clear, heartless winter day, with a cold, high wind that made the old minister look so blue that John Gordon mixed a glass of whiskey-and-water and made him drink it before they began to talk—that day Mr. Gordon went so far as to ask a question about Algy. "Has he given you anything more for your complexion, Edward?" he said, with a faint grin.

"He gave me a smelling-bottle this time. I handed it over to Mary, and told her not to let me get a sniff of it; and she said, 'Sakes! it's beautiful!' But I'll tell you something he said, Johnny: he said that his debt to you was a millstone round his neck. And yet the truth is, it's a life-buoy!"

John Gordon looked at the soiled, crumpled paper, with its dates of extensions, and smiled grimly. "Well, I won't deprive him of his life-buoy."

"The store is doing pretty well," Dr. Lavendar went on—and stopped, because Alex entered.

"Whose store is doing pretty well," he asked, civilly enough—for Alex.

"Algernon Keen's," said Dr. Lavendar.

Alex's face changed; he looked from one to the other of the old men by the fire, and he saw his father's hand open and close nervously. But he restrained himself until their visitor had gone. He even went out into the sharp, bright wind and unhitched Dr. Lavendar's little blind horse Goliath, backing the buggy close to the steps and helping the old man in with what politeness he could muster. Then he hurried back into the library to his father.

"I should like to know, sir," he said, standing up with his back to the fire, his legs, in their big, mud-stained top-boots, wide apart, his hands under his coat-tails—"I should like to know, sir, why Dr. Lavendar sees fit to refer to a subject which is most offensive to us?" He fixed his motionless, pale eyes on his father, shrinking back in the winged chair.

"I don't know—I don't know," said John Gordon. Then, suddenly, he put out his hand and caught at the crumpled note on the table beside him and put it in his pocket. Instantly suspicion flamed into Alex's eyes. His face turned dully red, almost purple. He made a step forward as though to interpose and grasp at the paper, restrained himself, and said, with laborious politeness:

"If that is a note, sir—I thought I saw indorsements of interest—sha'n't I put it into the safe for you?"

"I won't trouble you, Alex."

Alex stood silent; then suddenly he struck the table with his fist: "My God! I believe you've been lending money to that—to that—"

Mr. Gordon began to shake very much.

"Did Dr. Lavendar presume to ask you to lend money to—to—"

Mr. Gordon passed his hand over his lips; then he said, faintly, "No; he didn't."

Alex, like a boat brought suddenly up into the wind, stammered uncertainly. "Oh; I—I—thought—" And then suspicion broke out again. "Has the creature asked you for a loan?"

"No," Mr. Gordon said.

And Alex gaped at him, silenced. Yet he was certain that that strip of paper had some connection with Algernon Keen. "I beg your pardon," he said; "I thought for an instant that you were dickering with the man who seduced your daughter. I am sure I beg your pardon for the thought," he ended, with elaborate and ironical courtesy, for his father's obvious agitation assured him that he was right. "I only felt that if it was his note, it must be kept carefully—carefully." He smiled in a deadly way he had, and opened and shut his hand as though he would close it on the hilt of a knife. "But, of course, I was mistaken. You would press it if you had his note—although 'sue a beggar.' And, besides, if we had got as far as lending him money, we would be asking him to dinner next."

Mr. Gordon cringed.

"So I beg your pardon," Alex ended, sardonically.

"Very well—very well," his father said; and got up and began to potter about among his books, as much as to say that the subject was ended.

"It is a note," Alex said to himself, and smiled.... So far the creature had gone scot-free. In these days of lawfully accepted dishonor revenge is not talked about. But perhaps it would come to his hand. Not the revenge of the instincts—not the shedding of blood, man fashion; but the revenge of inflicting misery. Not much of a revenge, of course, but the best that he could get. And so he smiled to himself....

He said no more at the time; but months later his father realized that the incident was not forgotten when Alex said, suddenly, sneering: "So your son-in-law is prospering in his business? I saw his establishment to-day in Mercer. If he owes you any money he will be able to pay cash. I congratulate you, sir."

Old Mr. Gordon made no reply. He was very feeble that autumn. Willy King told Alex that another attack of bronchitis would be the end. "He can't stand it," said Dr. King. "I'd take him South, Alex, if I were you."

Alex did not like to leave his mill in Upper Chester, but, as he told Willy, he was a good son, and always did his duty to his father. "I play dominoes with him every night," he said;—so he would take the old man South, though to go and come would keep him from business almost a week.

It was then that John Gordon told Dr. Lavendar that Alex suspected him of lending money to Mr. Keen. "And if I die," he said, "Alex will squeeze the poor devil—he'll squeeze him till he ruins him. I—I suppose I'm a great fool, but I almost thought maybe, sometime, I'd destroy that note, Edward?"

Dr. Lavendar chuckled: "I knew you'd come to it, Johnny; but—" he stopped and ruminated. "You've come to it; so that's all right. But do you know—I don't believe he can do without it quite yet awhile."

"Poor devil!" John Gordon said again, kindly. "Well, I'll let him gnaw on it awhile longer. I suppose he'll want another extension?"

"Probably," said Dr. Lavendar. "He is just holding his own this year; he will be able to pay the interest, he told me, but not very much more."

Extension was necessary, as Dr. Lavendar had foreseen; and when he wrote to Mr. Gordon about it the old man replied in obvious fear of his son. The note was in his safe, he said; Edward knew where it was; it was in the japanned box. "But I don't care to ask Alex to get it," he explained. "He doesn't know of its existence; so I'll give you power of attorney to see to it. You'd better just have Ezra Barkley put it in shape for you, because it will be necessary to go up to the house and open the safe to get it and put it back again. Alex is never at home until late in the afternoon, but Rachel is there and will let you in. You'll find some very good Monongahela in the chimney closet." Then he added the combinations of the locks on the safe and the japanned box.

"Stick that in, Ezra, will you, about going up to the house?" Dr. Lavendar said.

And Ezra stuck it in solemnly, and then held his pen between his teeth and blotted his paper. "It is estimated," he observed, through his shut teeth, "that the amount of ink used in the United States of America, in signatures to wills, since the year when the independence of the colonies was declared, would be sufficient in bulk to float a—"

"Well, Ezra," said Dr. Lavendar, chuckling, "this paper seems rather liberal. Suppose I take some cash out of the safe to repair the roof of the vestry? It leaks like a sieve."

"Your construction of liberality is at fault, sir," Mr. Ezra corrected him, gently; "this paper defines just exactly what you may do, up to the moment when the principal reclaims the paper—or dies."

"Well, I hope he won't reclaim it, or die, either, till he gets an affair we are both interested in patched up," Dr. Lavendar said; then he listened politely while Mr. Ezra told him how many times the word "ink" occurred in Holy Writ.

Dr. Lavendar went away with his power of attorney in his pocket. And when he sent it to John Gordon to sign, he seemed to take it for granted that he and Mr. Gordon were equally interested in the development and well-being of Mary's husband. He said in his letter such things as, "You'll make a man of him yet;" and, "Your patience has given the best elements in him time to come out." Dr. Lavendar had a perfectly unreasonable way of imputing good motives to people; the consequence was he was not very much astonished when they displayed goodness. He was not astonished when, some two months later, another letter came from old Mr. Gordon, saying that on the whole he thought the note had better not run any longer. "I am going to forgive him his debt," Mary's father wrote, in a feeble scrawl; "and I'll be obliged to you if you will go up to my house and get that note and send it to me. I'm pretty shaky on my pins, and I don't want to run risks, so I wish you'd tear the signature out and burn it before you mail the note. I'll send it along to Mr. Keen. I mean to write to him and tell him I think he is honest, anyway. The fact is, I half respect the poor fellow. It's been a long winter, and I can't say I'm much better. Willy King doesn't know everything. These doctors are too confoundedly ready to send a man away from home. I should have been just as well off in Old Chester. Be sure and destroy that signature."

Dr. Lavendar read this letter joyfully, but without surprise. "I'm glad he didn't take my advice and let it go on any longer," he said to himself; "I guess I'll risk the effect on Algy now."

Then he wondered if there would be any danger of meeting Alex if he went up to the house right after dinner. "I can't manage it this morning," he said to himself. "I've got to go and see Mrs. Drayton. Well, I wish the Lord would see fit to cure her—or something."

So he went plodding out into a still, gray February day, and called on Mrs. Drayton, and stopped at the post-office to hear the news, and then went home to his dinner. "Ye're not going out again?" his Mary cried, in shrill remonstrance, when in the afternoon she saw him muffle himself up for the drive out into the country; "it's beginning to snow!"

"I am," said Dr. Lavendar; "and see you have a good supper for me when I get back." He got into his buggy, buttoning the apron up in front of him, for it was a wet snow. He had on a shabby old fur cap, which he pulled well down over his forehead, furrowed by other people's sins and troubles; but his eyes peered from under it as bright and happy as a squirrel's.

His little blind horse pulled slowly and comfortably up the hill, stopping to get his breath on a shaky bridge over a run. In the silence of the snow Dr. Lavendar did not hear the stage coming down the hill until it was almost on the bridge; then he had to pull over to let it pass. As he did so the single passenger inside rapped on the window, and then opened it and thrust his head out, calling to the driver to stop.

"Dr. Lavendar! you have heard, I suppose? Very sad. A great shock. Of course I'm going on at once to bring the body back. It is difficult to get off at this season, but a son has a sacred duty." Alex's pale eyes were bulging from his red, excited face.

"What news?" Dr. Lavendar said. "You don't mean—Alex! John isn't—your father isn't—"

"My father is dead," Alex said, with ponderous solemnity. "It is a great grief, of course; but I trust I shall be properly resigned. His age rendered such an event not altogether unexpected."

Dr. Lavendar could not speak; but as the stage-driver began to gather up his reins from the steaming backs of his horses, he said, brokenly: "Wait—wait. Tell me about it, Alex; your father and I have been friends all our lives." Alex told him briefly: He had just had a despatch; his father had died that morning; he had been less well for a fortnight. "I had a letter from him this morning," Alex said, "in which he referred to his health—"

"So had I—so had I."

"I cannot get back with the body for six days—three to go, three to come," Alex said, "but I will be obliged if you will arrange for the obsequies next Thursday."

"Yes, yes. I will make any arrangements for you," Dr. Lavendar said. He took out his big red silk pocket-handkerchief and blew his nose with a trembling flourish. "We were boys together; your father was the big boy, you know; I was the youngster. But we were great friends. Alex, I am afraid my own grief has made me forgetful of yours; but you have had a loss, my boy—a great loss."

"Very much so—very much so," Alex agreed, with a proper sigh, and pulled up the window of the stage, then lowered it abruptly: "Oh, Dr. Lavendar, are you going on as far up as—as my house?"

"As your house?" Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Oh—oh yes; I didn't understand. Yes, I am."

"Would it inconvenience you," Alex said, "to stop there? I am going to ask Mr. Ezra Barkley to come up at once and put seals on various things. I am the sole executor, as well as the heir, of course; but I sha'n't be able to attend to things for a week; and the forms of law must be observed. If you could be on hand when Barkley is there—not that I do not trust him."

Dr. Lavendar stared at him blankly; for an intelligent man, Alex was sometimes a great fool. But he only nodded gravely, and said he would stop at the house and wait for Mr. Ezra; Alex signed to the driver, and the stage went rolling noiselessly on into the storm. When, at the foot of the hill, Alex glanced back through the little oblong of bubbly glass in the leather curtain of the coach, he saw Dr. Lavendar's buggy standing motionless where he had passed it on the bridge; then the snow hid it.

Under the bridge the creek ran swiftly between edges of ice that here and there had caught a dipping branch and held it prisoner, or had spread in agate curves—snow white, clear black, faint white again—around a stone in mid-stream. On the black current, silent except for a murmurous rush of bubbles under the ice, the snowflakes melted instantly, myriads of them—hurrying, hurrying, hurrying; then, as they touched the water, gone. Dr. Lavendar, in the buggy, sat looking down at them:

"In an instant—in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed." ...

"He was my oldest friend." ("Was": with what an awful promptitude the mind adjusts itself to "he was"!) Yet as he sat there, peering out over the top of the apron and making, heavily, those plans familiar to every clergyman, Dr. Lavendar did not really believe that the plans were for Johnny. The snow fell with noiseless steadiness; the top of the buggy was white; thimbles of down heaped themselves on the hubs, tumbling off when the horse moved restlessly a step forward or backed a little and stamped. Suddenly Goliath shook himself, for the snow was cold upon his shaggy back, and the harness clattered and the shafts rattled. Dr. Lavendar drew a long breath. "G'on!" he said. And Goliath went on with evident relief. He knew the road well, and turned in at the Gordon gateway, as a matter of course. When he stopped at the front steps, the door opened and Rachel stood there, her eyes red.

"Sam will take him round to the stable, sir," she said, as Sam shambled out from the back of the house to stand at Goliath's head. "Oh, my! sir; I suppose you've heard?"

"Yes, Rachel; I've heard," the old man said, unbuttoning the apron and climbing out. Rachel took his hand and wept audibly. "I knew he'd never come back; he was marked for death. I've lived here eighteen years, and I always said it was a privilege to work for a gentleman like him."

"Yes—yes," he said, kindly. He was plainly agitated, and Rachel saw that he was trembling.

"Course you feel it, sir, being about of an age," she said, sympathetically. "Dr. Lavendar, sir, won't you have a glass of something?" With the hospitality of an old servant, she would have opened the little closet in the chimney-breast, but he checked her.

"Not yet; not now, Rachel. Leave me here awhile by myself, my girl. I'll come out to the kitchen and see you before I go. When Mr. Barkley comes, ask him to step into the library."

"Yes, sir," Rachel said, obediently; and went away sniffling and sighing.

Dr. Lavendar stood looking about him at the emptiness of the room: the winged chair, with the purple silk handkerchief hanging over the back; the table heaped with books; the fire drowsing in the grate; the old safe in the corner by the window. Outside, the snow drove past, blotting the landscape. Ezra would probably arrive within a half-hour; he had better get the note before he came. Then there need be no explanations.

When Mr. Ezra came in he found the old minister sitting by the fire, quite calm again, and even cheerful. "Yes," he said, in answer to the lawyer's very genteel expressions of sympathy—"yes, I'll miss him. We were boys together. He used to call me Bantam. I hadn't thought of it for years."

"Nicknames," said Mr. Ezra, "were used by the ancients as long ago as 300 B.C."

"Well, I'm not as ancient as 300 B.C.," said Dr. Lavendar, "but I called him Storkey; I can't imagine why, for he was only an inch and a half taller; he always said it was two inches, but it wasn't. It was an inch and a half."

"We are here," said Mr. Ezra, pulling off his gloves and coughing politely, "for indeed a solemn and an affecting task. It is my duty, sir, to seal the effects of the deceased, so that they may be delivered, intact, to the executor."

Dr. Lavendar nodded.

"In all my professional career I have never happened to be called upon for this especial duty. It is quite unusual. But Alex seemed to think it necessary. Alex is a good son."

"So he says," said Dr. Lavendar.

"Are you aware, sir," proceeded Mr. Ezra, producing from his bag the paraphernalia of his office, "that such is the incredible celerity of bees (belonging to the Hymenoptera) that they can within twenty-four hours manufacture four thousand cells in the comb? This interesting fact is suggested by the use of wax for sealing."

Dr. Lavendar watched him in a silence so deep that he hardly heard the harmless stream of statistics; but at last he was moved to say, with his kind, old smile, "How can you know so many things, Ezra?"

"In my profession," Mr. Ezra explained, "it is necessary to keep the mind up to the greatest agility; I, therefore, exercise it frequently in matters of memory." He lit a candle and held his wax sputtering in the flame. "I recall," he said, "with painful interest, that at one of our recent meetings I had the honor of drawing the power of attorney for you, from the deceased."

"So you did," said Dr. Lavendar.

"Did you ever reflect," said Mr. Barkley, "that should that power be used after the death of the donor, to carry out a wish of said donor, expressed an hour, nay, a moment, before the instant of dissolution—such act would be an offence in the eye of the law?"

"I've always thought the law ought to put on spectacles, Ezra," said Dr. Lavendar; "it has mighty poor eyesight once in a while."

Mr. Barkley was shocked. "The law, Lavendar, is the deepest expression of the human sense of justice!"

"But, Ezra," Dr. Lavendar said, suddenly attentive, "that is very interesting. I remember you referred to the lapsing of the power of attorney when you made out that paper for me; but I didn't quite understand. Do you mean that carrying out, now, directions given before the death of my old friend would be against the law? Suppose he had asked me—last week, perhaps, to destroy—well, say that old account-book there on the table, couldn't I do it to-day?"

"Dr. Lavendar, you do not, I fear, apprehend the majesty of the law! Why," said Mr. Ezra, standing up, very straight and solemn, "such a deed—"

"But suppose I didn't want—suppose Johnny didn't want, for reasons of his own, to have anybody—say, even his executor—see that account-book; suppose it might be put to some bad purpose—used to injure some third person (of course that is an absurd supposition, but it will do for an illustration); if he had asked me last week to destroy it, do you mean to say, Ezra, I couldn't destroy it to-day?—just because he happened to die this morning!"

"My dear sir," said Mr. Ezra, "such conduct on your part would be perilously near a criminal offence."

Dr. Lavendar whistled. "Well, Ezra, I won't destroy it."

"I hope not, sir—I hope not, indeed," cried Mr. Ezra.

Dr. Lavendar laughed; he had the impulse to turn round and wink at Johnny, to take him into the joke. But it was only for an instant, and his face fell quickly into puzzled lines.

"A moment's reflection," Mr. Ezra continued, "will convince you, Dr. Lavendar, that the aforesaid account-book is now the property, not of the deceased, but of the estate. Its destruction would be the destruction of property belonging to the heirs. Furthermore, your belief that the herein before mentioned account-book might be put to an improper use, for the injury of a third person—such belief would no more justify you in destroying it than would your belief in its unfairness towards said third person justify you in destroying a will."

Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip and stared at him, frowning. "Yes," he said, slowly—"yes; I see. I did not quite understand. But I see."

Mr. Ezra solemnly began to pour forth a stream of statistics; he referred to the case of Buckley vs. Grant, and even mentioned chapter and page of Purdon's Digest where Dr. Lavendar could find further enlightenment. Dr. Lavendar may have listened, but he made no comment; he sat staring silently at the old purple handkerchief on the top of John's chair.

When Mr. Ezra had finished his work and his statistics, the two men shook hands; then Dr. Lavendar said good-bye to Rachel and climbed into his buggy, buttoning the apron high up in front of him; the lawyer mounted his horse, and they plodded off into the snow, single file. But Dr. Lavendar's eyes, under his old fur cap, had lost their squirrel-like brightness....

So Algy's note belonged to the estate; and the estate belonged to Alex; and Alex was the executor. And upon Alex Gordon his father's intentions in regard to Algy's note would make no more impression than the flakes of snow on running water. A vision of Alex's mean and cruel mouth, his hard, light eyes, motionless as a snake's in his purpling face, made Dr. Lavendar wince. The note—the poor, shabby, worn note,—that stood for the best there was in Algy, that stood for perseverance and honesty and courage; the note, which had weighed so heavily that he had had to stand up in his pitiful best manhood to bear it: the note that John had meant to "forgive"—Alex would use to humiliate and torture and destroy. Under the pressure which he would bring to bear that note would be poor Algy's financial, and perhaps his moral, ruin. "And if I had not objected, John would have cancelled it," Dr. Lavendar thought, frowning and blinking under his fur cap. He saw the smoking flax quenched, the bruised reed broken; he saw Algy turning venomously upon his enemy—for he knew him well enough to know that his code of defence would not include any conventional delicacy; he saw the new and hardly won integrity crumbling under the assault of Alex's legal wickedness. Dr. Lavendar groaned to himself. Alex could, lawfully, murder Algernon Keen's soul.

When Mary saw the old minister come into the house she was much displeased. "There, now, look at him," she scolded; "white as a sheet. What did I tell you? I'll bet ye he won't eat them corn dodgers, and I never made 'em finer."

It must be admitted that Mary was right. Dr. Lavendar did not eat much supper. He went shuffling back to his study, Danny slinking at his heels; but for once he did not notice his little, grizzled friend. When he got into his flowered cashmere dressing-gown and put on his slippers and stirred his fire, he sat a long time with his pipe in his hand, forgetting to light it. When he did light it, it went out, unnoticed. Once Danny tried to scramble into his chair, but, receiving no encouragement, curled up on the rug. The fire burned low and smouldered into ashes; just one sullen, red coal blinked in a corner of the grate; Dr. Lavendar watched this red spot fixedly for a long time. Indeed, it was well on towards twelve before he suddenly reached over for the bellows and a couple of sticks, and, bending down, stirred and blew until the sticks caught and the cinders began to sparkle under the ashes. This disturbed Danny, who sat up, displeased and yawning. But when at last the flames broke out, sputtering and snapping, and caught a piece of paper—a shabby, creased piece of paper covered with dates—caught it, ran over it, curling it into brittle blackness, and then whirled it, a flimsy, crumbling ghost, up the chimney, Dr. Lavendar's face shone with a light that was not only from the fire.

"Ha, Danny, you scoundrel," he said, cheerfully, "I guess you are particeps criminis!"

Then he went over to his study-table and rooted about for a thin, shabby, blue book, over which he pored for some time, stopping once or twice to make some calculations on the back of an envelope, then turning to the book again. He covered the envelope with his small, neat figuring, and turned it over to begin on the other side—and started: "Johnny's letter!" he said. But when the calculations were made, the rest was easy enough: first, his check-book and his pen. (At the check he looked with some pride. "Daniel," he said, "look at that, sir. You never saw so much money in your life; and neither did I—over my own signature.") Next, a letter to Alex Gordon:

"MY DEAR ALEXANDER,—I owe your father's estate to the amount of the enclosed check. No papers exist in regard to it, as the matter was between ourselves. I will ask you for a receipt. Yours truly,

"EDWARD LAVENDAR."

THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT

I

When William Rives and Lydia Sampson quarrelled and broke their engagement, Old Chester said that they were lucky to fall out two weeks before their wedding-day instead of two weeks after it. Of course, Old Chester said many other things: it said it had always known they could never get along. William, who had very little money, was careful and thrifty, as every young man ought to be; Lydia, who was fairly well off, was lavish and no housekeeper. "What could you expect?" demanded Old Chester. Old Chester never knew exactly what the trouble between them had been, for they kept their own counsel; but it had its suspicions: it had something to do with William's father's will. By some legal quibble the Orphan's Court awarded to William a piece of property which everybody knew old Mr. Rives supposed he had left to his daughter Amanda. Lydia thought (at least Old Chester thought she thought) that William would, as a matter of course, at once turn the field over to his sister. But William did no such thing. And, after all, why should he? The field was his; the law allowed it, the Court awarded it. Why should he present a field to Amanda? Old Chester said this thoughtfully, looking at William with a sort of respectful regret. Very likely Lydia's regret was not respectful. Lydia was always so outspoken. However, it was all surmise. About the time that Amanda did not get the field the engagement was broken—and you can put two and two together if you like. As for Old Chester, it said that it pitied poor, dear Lydia; and it was no wonder William left town after the rupture, because, naturally, he would be ashamed to show his face. But then it also said it pitied poor, dear William, and it should think Lydia would be ashamed to show her face; for, of course, her obstinacy made the trouble—and a young female ought not to be obstinate, ought not, in fact, to have opinions on such matters. Legal affairs, said Old Chester, should be left to the gentlemen. In fact, Old Chester said every possible thing for and against them both; but gradually, as years passed, conflicting opinions settled down to the "poor Lydia" belief.

This was, probably, for two reasons: first, because William had never seen fit to come back to Old Chester, and that, quite apart from his conduct to his lady-love, was a reason for distrust; and, secondly, Lydia had, somehow, become Old Chester's one really poor person—that is, in a genteel walk of life. After the crumbling of the Sampson fortune, Old Chester had to plan for Lydia, and take care of her, and give her its "plain sewing"; so, naturally, William was reprobated. Besides, she may have quarrelled and broken her engagement two weeks before her wedding, but all these years afterwards she had been faithful to the memory of Love! Old Chester knew this, for the simple reason that Miss Lydia, during all these years, had kept in her sitting-room a picture of William Rives, adorned with a sprig of box; furthermore, it knew (Heaven knows how!) that she kissed this slender, tight-waisted picture every night before she went to bed. Of course, Old Chester softened! Lydia may have broken her engagement and all that, but she kept his picture, and she kissed it every night. "But he ought to be ashamed of himself," said Old Chester—"that is, if he is alive." Then it added, reflectively, that he must be dead, for he had never returned to Old Chester. Yet as time went on people forgot even to disapprove of William; they had enough to do to take care of poor Lydia, "for she is certainly very poor—and very peculiar," said Old Chester, sighing.

"Peculiar!" said Martha King; "I call it something worse than peculiar to spend money that ought to go towards rent on a present for Rachel King's Anna. She gave that child a picture-book. I'm sure I can't afford to go round giving children picture-books. I told her so flatly and frankly. And then it was so trying, because, right on top of my scolding, she gave me a present—a cup all painted with roses, and marked 'Friendship's Gift,' in gilt. I didn't want it; I could have shaken her," Mrs. King ended, helplessly.

It was not only Martha whose patience was tried by Miss Lydia; the experience was common to all Old Chester. Even Dr. Lavendar had felt the human impulse to shake her. When he had, very delicately, asked "as an old friend, the privilege of assisting her," it was exasperating to have a lamp-shade made of six porcelain intaglios set in a tin frame come to him the next day, with the "respectful compliments of L.S." But somehow, when, beaming at him from under her shabby bonnet, Miss Lydia had asked him if he liked that preposterous shade, he could not speak his mind,—at least to her. He spoke it mildly to Mrs. Barkley. "We must restrain her; she brought me $2 for Zenanna Missions yesterday."

"What did you do?" Mrs. Barkley said, sympathetically.

"I made her take it back. I pointed out that her first duty was to her landlord."

"Her landlord has some duties to her," Mrs. Barkley said, angrily. "The stairs are just crumbling to pieces, and that chimney is dreadful. She says that Davis said the flue would have to be rebuilt, and maybe the whole chimney. He couldn't be sure about that, but he thought it probable. He said it would cost $100 to put all the things in repair—floor and roof and everything. But he would do it for $85, considering. He thinks the flue has broken down inside somehow. She might burn up some night; and then," said Mrs. Barkley, in a deep bass, "how would that Smith person feel?"

"He says," Dr. Lavendar explained, "that by the terms of the lease the tenant is to make repairs."

Mrs. Barkley snorted. "And how is poor Lydia to make repairs? She hasn't two cents to bless herself with. I told him so."

Mrs. Barkley's face grew very red at the recollection of her interview with Mr. Smith (he was one of the new Smiths, of course). "I don't mix philanthropy and business," he had said; "the lease says the tenant shall make repairs. And, besides, I do not wish to be more attractive than I am. With that chimney, some other landlord may win her affections. Without it, she will never desert Mr. Micawber."

"I am not acquainted with your friend Mr. Micawber," said Mrs. Barkley, "neither, I am sure, is Miss Sampson; and if you will allow me to say so, sir, we do not in Old Chester consider it delicate to refer to the affections of an unmarried female."

Upon which Mr. Smith laughed immoderately. (None of the new people had any manners.)

"So there is no use asking him to do anything," Mrs. Barkley told Dr. Lavendar.

"The only thing I can think of," the old minister said, "is that we all join together and give her the price Davis named, as a present."

"Eighty-five dollars!" Mrs. Barkley exclaimed, startled; "that's a good deal of money—"

"Well, yes; it is. But something has got to be done."

"And to take up a collection for Lydia! It's—charity."

"It isn't taking up a collection," Dr. Lavendar protested, stoutly. "And it isn't charity. Miss Lydia's friends have a right to make her a present if they feel like it."

Mrs. Barkley agreed, doubtfully.

"Mrs. Dale would contribute, I'm sure," said Dr. Lavendar. "And perhaps the Miss Ferises."

"I wouldn't like to ask them."

"Don't ask 'em. Offer them the chance."

"No," Mrs. Barkley insisted; "they've no right. They are not really her friends. Lydia doesn't call them by their first names." But she went away very much encouraged and full of this project of a present for poor Lydia, who, happily, had no idea that she was "poor" Lydia. She was not poor to herself (except, of course, in purse, which is a small matter). She lived in a shabby and dilapidated cottage at the Smith gates, and every month squeezed out a few dollars rent to Mr. Smith; she was sorry for the Smiths, for they were new people; but she always spoke kindly to them, for she never looked down on anybody. So, as far as position went, she was not "poor." She had no relations living, but she called all Old Chester of her generation by its first name; so, as to friendship, there was nothing "poor" about her. And, most of all, she was not "poor," but very rich, in her capacity for interest.

Now, no one who has an interest is poor; and Miss Lydia had a hundred interests. A hundred? She had as many interests as there were people in the world or joys or sorrows in Old Chester; so she was really very rich.... Of course, there are different degrees of this sort of wealth: there are folk who have to manufacture their interests; with deliberation they are philanthropic or artistic or intellectual, or even, if hard put to it, they are amused. Such persons may be said to be in fairly comfortable circumstances, although they live anxiously and rather meagrely, because they know well that when interest gives out they are practically without the means to support life. Below this manufacturing class come the really destitute—the poor creatures who do not care vitally for anything and who are without the spiritual muscle to manufacture an interest. These pathetic folk are occasionally made self-supporting by a catastrophe—grief or even merely some uncomfortable surgery in regard to their bank account may give them a poor kind of interest; but too often they exist miserably—sometimes, with every wish gratified, helplessly poor. Above the manufacturing class comes the aristocracy, to which Miss Lydia Sampson belonged, the class which is positively rolling in wealth. Every morning these favored creatures arise with a zest for living. You hear them singing before breakfast; at the table they are full of eager questions: Is it going to rain? No; it is a fair day; delightful!—for it might have rained. And the sun will bring up the crocuses. And this was the day a neighbor was to go to town. Will she go? When will she come back? How pleasant that the day is pleasant! And it will be good for the sick people, too. And the moment the eager, simple mind turns to its fellows, sick or well, the field of interest widens to the sky-line of souls. To sorrow in the sorrows of Tom and Dick and Harry and their wives, to rejoice in their joys—what is better than that? And then, all one's own affairs are so vital: the record of the range of the thermometer, the question of turning or not turning an alpaca skirt, the working out of a game of solitaire—these things are absorbing experiences.

No wonder we who are poor, or even we who work hard at philanthropy or art or responsibility to manufacture our little interests—no wonder we envy such sky-blue natures. Certainly there were persons in Old Chester who envied Miss Lydia; at least, they envied her her unfailing joyousness—but they never envied her her empty purse. Which was like envying a rose its color, but despising the earth from which by some divine chemistry the color came.

Miss Lydia's eyes might smart from the smoke puffing out into her room, but she was able to laugh at the sight of her bleared visage in the narrow mirror over the mantel. Nor did the fact that the mirror was mottled and misty with age, the frame tarnished almost to blackness, cause her the slightest pang. What difference does it make in this world of life and death and joy and sorrow, if things are shabby? The fact is, the secret of happiness is the sense of proportion; eliminate, by means of that sense, trouble about the unimportant, and we would all be considerably happier than kings. Miss Lydia possessed this heaven-born sense, as well as the boundless wealth of interest (for to him that hath shall be given). "I don't want to brag," she used to say, "but I've got my health and my friends; so what on earth more do I want?" And one hesitated to point out a little thing like a shabby mirror, or even a smoky chimney. When the chimney smoked, Miss Lydia merely took her rocking-chair and her sewing out into a small room that served as a kitchen—and then what difference did the smoking make?

And as it turned out, one shadowy April day, it was the best thing she could have done, because, when Dr. Lavendar dropped in to see her, she could make him a cup of tea at once, without having to leave him alone. She was a little, bustling figure, rather dusty and moth-eaten, with a black frizette, always a little to one side, and eager, gentle, blue eyes.

"What's the news?" she said. She had given Dr. Lavendar an apple, and put on the kettle, and taken up her hemming.

"I never saw anybody so fond of sewing," the old man ruminated, eating his apple. "I believe you'd sew in your grave."

"I believe I would. Dear me! I am so sorry for the poor women who don't like to sew. Amelia Dilworth told me that Mrs. Neddy can't bear to take a needle in her hand. So Milly does Ned's mending just as she did before he was married."

"Aren't you sorry for the poor men that don't like to sew?" Dr. Lavendar said, looking about for a place to deposit his core—("Oh, drop it on the floor; I'll sweep it up sometime," Miss Lydia told him; but he disposed of it by eating it).

"Well, as for sewing," said Miss Lydia, "it's my greatest pleasure. Why, when I get settled down to sew, my mind roves over the whole earth. I don't want to brag, but I don't believe anybody enjoys herself more than I do when I'm sewing. If you won't tell, I'll tell you something, Dr. Lavendar."

"I won't tell."

"Well, then: Sunday used to be an awful day to me. I couldn't sew, and so I couldn't think. And I really couldn't go to church all day. So I just bought some beautiful, fine nainsook and cut out my shroud. And I work on that Sundays, because a shroud induces serious thoughts."

"I should think it might," said Dr. Lavendar.

"You don't think it's wrong, do you?" she asked, anxiously; and added, joyously, "I'm embroidering the whole front. I declare I don't know what I'll do when I get it done."

"Embroider the whole back."

"Well, yes. I can do that," Miss Lydia assented. "There! there's your tea."

Dr. Lavendar took his tea and stirred it thoughtfully. "Miss Lydia," he said, and looked hard at the tea, "what do you suppose? Mr. William Rives—" Dr. Lavendar stopped and drank some tea. "How many years ago was it that he went away from Old Chester? I don't exactly remember."

"It was thirty-one years ago," she said; she put down her own cup of tea and stared at him. "What were you going to say about him, sir?"

"Well, only," said Dr. Lavendar, scraping the sugar from the bottom of his cup, "only that—"

"There! my goodness! I'll give you another lump," cried Miss Lydia; "don't wear my spoon out. What about him, sir?"

Dr. Lavendar explained that he had come back on the stage from Mercer the night before with a strange gentleman—"stout man," Dr. Lavendar said, "with a black wig. I was rooting about in my pocket-book for a stamp—I wanted to post a letter just as we were leaving Mercer; and this gentleman very politely offered me one. I took it. Then I looked at him, and there was something familiar about him. I asked him if we had not met before, and he told me who he was. He has changed a good deal."

Miss Lydia drank her tea excitedly. "Where is he going to stay? Is he well? Has he come back rich?" She hoped so. William was so industrious, he deserved to be rich. She ran into the smoky front room and brought out his picture, regarding it with affectionate interest. "Did you know I was engaged to him, years ago, Dr. Lavendar? We thought it best to part. But—" She stopped and looked at the picture, and a little color came into her face. But in another moment she was chattering her birdlike questions.

"I declare," Dr. Lavendar said, at last, "you are the youngest person of my acquaintance."

Miss Lydia laughed. "I hope you don't think it's wrong to be young?" she said.

"Wrong?" said Dr. Lavendar; "it's wrong not to be young. I'd be ashamed not to be young. My body's old, but that's not my fault. I'm not to blame for an old body, but I would be to blame for an old soul. An old soul is a shameful thing. Mind, now, don't let me catch you getting old!"

And then he said good-bye, and left her sitting by the stove. She turned her skirt back over her knees to keep it from scorching and held the picture in her left hand and warmed the palm of the right; then in her right hand and warmed the left. Then she put it down on her knees and warmed both hands and smiled.

II

When Mrs. Barkley heard the news of the wanderer's return, she hurried to Dr. Lavendar's study. "Do you suppose we need go on with the present?" she demanded, excitedly.

"Why not?" said Dr. Lavendar.

Mrs. Barkley looked conscious. "I only thought, perhaps—maybe—Mr. Rives—"

"William Rives's presence in Old Chester won't improve draughts, will it?" Dr. Lavendar said, crossly. And that was all she could get out of him.

Meantime, Old Chester began to kill the fatted calf. Mr. Rives liked fatted calves; and, furthermore, he had prudently arranged with Van Horne at the Tavern for a cash credit for each meal at which he was not present. "For why," he had said, reasonably enough, "should I pay for what I don't get?" So he went cheerfully wherever he was bidden. Old Chester approved of him as a guest, for, though talkative, he was respectful in his demeanor, and he did not, so Old Chester said, "put on airs." He was very stout, and he wore a black wig that curled all around the back of his neck; his eyes were somewhat dull, but occasionally they glanced out keenly over his fat cheeks. He had a very small mouth and a slight, perpetual smile that gave his face a rather kindly look, and his voice was mild and soft.

He had come back rich (his shabby clothes to the contrary); "and poor Lydia is so poor," said Old Chester; "perhaps—" and then it paused and smiled, and added that "it would be strange, after all these years, if—"

When somebody said something like this to Dr. Lavendar he grew very cross. "Preposterous!" he said. "I should feel it my duty to prevent anything so dreadful."

And there were romantic hearts in Old Chester who were displeased with him for this remark. Mrs. Drayton said it showed that he could not understand love; "though he can't be blamed for that, as he never married. Still," said Mrs. Drayton, "he ought to have married. I don't want to make any accusations, but I always look with suspicion on an unmarried gentleman." Mrs. Barkley did not go as far as that, but she did say to herself that Dr. Lavendar was unromantic. "Dear me!" she confided to Jane Jay—"if anything should happen! Well, I'd be glad to do anything I could to bring it about."

And Mrs. Barkley, who had not only the courage but the audacity of her convictions, invited the parted lovers to tea, so they met for the first time at her house. Mrs. Barkley was the last person one would accuse of being romantic, and yet Dr. Lavendar saw fit to stop at her door that morning and say, "Matches are dangerous playthings, ma'am!" and Mrs. Barkley grew very red, and said that she couldn't imagine what he meant.

However, the party went off well enough. Miss Jane Jay, who made a conscious fourth, expected some quiverings and blushings; but that was because she was young—comparatively. If she had been older she would have known better. Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions—where explanations of consolation must be made.... Thirty-one years of days, days full of personal concerns and interests, had blurred and softened and finally almost blotted out that one fierce day of angry parting; those thirty-one years of days had made this man and woman able to meet with a sort of calm, good-natured interest in each other. Miss Lydia—her black frizette over one smiling eye, her hands encased in white cotton gloves, a new ribbon at the throat of her very old alpaca—called him "William," with the most commonplace friendliness. He began with "Miss Sampson," but ended before supper was over with her first name, and even, once, just as they were going home, with "Lydy," at which she did start and blink for an instant, and Jane Jay thought a faint color came into her cheek. However, he did not offer to walk home with her, but bowed politely at Mrs. Barkley's gate, and would have betaken himself to the Tavern had not Mrs. Barkley, when he was half-way across the street, called after him. There was a flutter of uncertainty in her voice, for those words of Dr. Lavendar's (which she did not understand) "stuck," she said to herself, "in her crop." Mr. Rives came back and paused in the moonlight, looking up at Mrs. Barkley standing in the doorway. "I should be pleased, sir," she said, "to have a few words with you."

"Certainly, ma'am," said Mr. Rives, in his soft voice, and followed her into the parlor.

"Sit down," said Mrs. Barkley.

William Rives sat down thoughtfully. A tall lamp on the heavy, claw-footed table emitted a feeble light through its ground-glass globe, and Mrs. Barkley stared at it a moment, as though for inspiration; then she said, in a deep bass: "Mr. Rives, I thought you might be interested in a certain little project. Some of us have thought that we would collect—a—a small sum—"

Mr. Rives bowed; his smiling lips suddenly shut tight.

"Perhaps you have not heard that our old friend Lydia Sampson is in reduced circumstances; and some of us thought that a small present of money—

"Ah—" said Mr. Rives.

Mrs. Barkley felt the color come up into her face at that small, cold sound. "Lydia is very poor," she blurted out.

"Really?" murmured Mr. Rives, with embarrassment; and fell to stroking his beaver hat carefully. Then he added that he deeply regretted Mrs. Barkley's information.

"I knew you would," she said, in a relieved voice. "Lydia is a dear girl. So kind and so uncomplaining! And—and faithful in her affections, William."

"Ah!" said Mr. Rives again; his smile never changed, but his eyes were keen.

"Yes," Mrs. Barkley said, boldly. "Why, William—I don't know that I ought to tell you, but do you remember a sketch of yourself that you gave her in—in other days? William, she has kept it ever since. It hangs in her parlor, (horrid, smoky room!) And she keeps a sprig of fresh box stuck in the frame."

"Really?" said Mr. Rives; and his face grew a little redder.

"That's all," Mrs. Barkley said, abruptly. "Now go. I just thought I'd mention it."

"Yes," said Mr. Rives; then added that it was a beautiful night, and politely bowed himself out.

"But he didn't say anything about giving anything," Mrs. Barkley told Dr. Lavendar the next day. And whatever romantic hopes she may have had withered under the blighting touch of such indifference.

III

Mrs. Barkley's hopes withered and then revived; for as she climbed the hill to the Stuffed-Animal House a day or two later whom should she see wandering through the graveyard (of all places!) but Lydia and William. "Of course, I pretended not to see them," she told Harriet Hutchinson, "but I believe they've begun to take notice."

They had not seen her; the graveyard was on the crest of the hill, and the road lay below the bank and the stone wall, wherein were set two or three iron doors streaked and eaten with rust, each with its name and its big ring-bolt. There was a bleached fringe of dead grass along the top of the wall, but the bank above was growing green in the April sunshine. There were many trees in this older part of the cemetery, and even now, when the foliage was hardly more than a mist, the tombs and low mounds and old headstones were dappled with light shadows. Miss Lydia and William had met here, by some chance; and Mrs. Barkley, climbing the road before it dipped below the bank, had caught sight of them just where the slope broke into sunshine beyond the trees. Behind them, leaning sidewise over a sunken grave, was a slate headstone, its base deep in a thatch of last year's grass; there were carved cherubs on the corners, and the inscription was blurred with lichen. A still older tomb, a slab of granite on four pedestals, made a seat for Miss Lydia. She had been deciphering its crumbling inscription:

"Mr. Amos Sm ... Sr.
Born ...... 1734
Die ... May 7th, 1802
Aged 68

"Base body, thou art faint and weak—
(How the sweet moments roll!)
A mortal paleness on thy cheek,
But glory in thy soul!"

William, reading it, had remarked that he thought people lived longer nowadays. "Don't you?" he added, anxiously.

"We live long enough," Miss Lydia said. "I don't want to live too long."

"You can't live too long," he told her, with his sharp smile.

Miss Lydia laughed and looked down at the crumbling stone. "I think sixty-eight was just about long enough. I'm like Dr. Lavendar; he says he 'wants to get up from the banquet of life still hungry.' That's the way I feel. I don't want to lose my appetite for life by getting too much of it."

"I couldn't get too much," Mr. Rives said, nervously. "Let us proceed. This place is—is not cheerful. I like cheerfulness. You always seem cheerful, Lydy?"

"Course I am," she said, getting up. "Why shouldn't I be? I haven't a care in the world."

"You don't say so!" said William Rives. "I was under the impression that your circumstances—"

"My circumstances?" said Miss Lydia. "Bless you! I haven't any. Father didn't leave much of anything. I had $2000, but Cousin Robinson invested it and lost it. He felt so badly, I was just distressed about him."

"He should have been prosecuted!" Mr. Rives said, angrily.

Miss Lydia shook her head in horrified protest, but she beamed at him from under her black frizette, grateful for his sympathy.

"I remember," he said, thoughtfully, "that you were always light-hearted. I recall your once telling me that you began to sing as soon as you got up in the morning."

"Oh yes," Miss Lydia said, simply. "I always sing the morning hymn. You know the morning hymn, William?

"'Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily course of duty run—'"

William nodded. "Vocal exercises (if in tune and not too loud) are always cheerful," he said.

Gossiping thus of simple things, they walked back to Lydia's house and sat down in her parlor. There William told her, with a sort of whimper, that his health was bad. "I sent for Willy King—he is so young, he ought not to charge the full fee. I remember him as a very impudent boy," Mr. Rives said, growing red at some memory of William's youth; "however, he seems a respectable young man."

"Oh, indeed he is," said Miss Lydia; "he is a dear, good boy. I hope he is doing you good?" she ended, with eager kindness.

"Yes, I think so," he said, anxiously. And then he gave his symptoms with a detail that made poor Miss Lydia get very red. "And I don't sleep very well," he ended, sighing. "Willy told me to try repeating the kings of England backward, but I couldn't remember them; so it didn't do any good."

"When I don't sleep," said Miss Lydia, "I just count my blessings. That's a splendid thing to do, because you fall asleep before you get to the end of 'em."

William sighed. "The kings of England was a foolish prescription; yet I paid Willy $1.50 for that call. Still, I must say I think he is doing me good; but he recommends many expensive things—perhaps because he is young. He wished me to hire a vehicle and drive every day. Now just think of the expense of such a thing! I suggested to him that instead of hiring a conveyance, I would go out with him in his buggy whenever he calls. He is a very young man to treat an important case," William ended, sighing. Then he asked Lydia about her health, with an exactness which she thought very kind.

"Yes, I'm always well; and so sorry for the poor people who are sick," she said.

"You are a good nurse, aren't you, Lydy?" he asked.

"I'm always glad when I can do anything for a sick person. I'm so sorry for 'em," Miss Lydia said, kindly.

"And you are economical, aren't you, Lydy?" Mr. Rives inquired, in his mild voice, "and not fond of dress?"

"Bless you!" said Lydia, "how can I be anything but economical? And as for being fond of dress—I'm fond of my old dresses, William."

"That is an excellent trait," said William Rives, solemnly. Then, catching sight of his own portrait—the slim, anæmic young person in a stock and tight-waisted coat, with very small feet and very large hat, he got up to look at it. "I—have changed a little," he said, doubtfully.

"It's more becoming to be heavier," Miss Lydia said. And this remark gave him such obvious satisfaction that when he went away his perpetual smile had deepened into positive heartiness.

It was after this talk that he finally added his offering to the "Present" which just then was occupying Old Chester's attention. "And how much do you suppose I got out of him?" Mrs. Barkley asked Dr. Lavendar. "$1.50!"

However, other friends were more liberal, and by the end of May the $85 (grown now into the round sum of $100) was ready for Miss Lydia. A little silk bag, with a scrap of paper twisted about its ribbon drawing-string, was thrust one evening by an unknown hand into Miss Lydia's door. In it were twenty five-dollar gold pieces. "From old friends," Dr. Lavendar had written on the scrap of paper.

"Sha'n't we say—'for repairs'?" Mrs. Barkley asked, doubtfully.

"No," Dr. Lavendar declared; "I'd rather say 'to buy curl-papers.' Of course she'll use it for repairs; but we mustn't dictate."

Nobody saw Miss Lydia gasp when she opened the bag, and sit down, and then cry and laugh, but probably every friendly heart in Old Chester was busy imagining the scene, for every friend had contributed. They had all done it in their different ways—and how character confesses itself in this matter of giving! ... Mrs. Dale, who gave the largest sum, did it with calm, impersonal kindness. Martha King said that she had so many calls upon her charity that she couldn't give much, but was glad to do what she could. Miss Harriet Hutchinson said it was a first-rate idea, and she was obliged to Mrs. Barkley for letting her have a hand in it; as for Mrs. Drayton, she said it was a great trial not to contribute, but she could not do so conscientiously. "I make such things a matter of prayer," she said; "some do not. I do not judge them. I never judge any one. But I take all such matters to the Throne of Grace, and as a result I feel that such things are injurious to a poor person, and so I must deny myself the pleasure of charity."

William Rives said that he would be pleased to contribute, and Mrs. Barkley had a moment of intense excitement when she read his check—$150. But her emotion only lasted until she put on her spectacles.

And yet, when Lydia, sitting at the kitchen table, wiped her eyes and counted her gold by the light of a candle in a hooded candlestick, she felt, somehow, William's hand in it. For, by this time, William's friendliness was beyond any question. He came to see her every other day, and he told her all his symptoms and talked of his loneliness and forlornness until they were both moved to tears.

"Poor William!" she said, her eyes overflowing with sympathy. "Well, I'm glad you have plenty of money, anyhow. It would be hard to be poor and have bad health, too."

"But I haven't plenty of money," William said, with agitation. "How did you get such an idea? I haven't!"

And then Miss Lydia was sorrier for him than ever. "Although," she said, cheerfully, "poverty is the last thing to worry about. Look at me. I don't want to brag, but I'm always contented, and I'll tell you why: I don't want things. Don't want things, and then you're not unhappy without 'em."

"Oh, Lydy, that's so true," Mr. Rives said, earnestly. "I'm so glad you feel that way." And he began to call every day.

"It's plain to be seen what's going to happen," said Mrs. Barkley, excitedly, and whispered her hopes (in secret) to almost everybody in Old Chester—except Dr. Lavendar. He became very ill-tempered the moment she approached the subject. But she was jocose, in a deep bass, to Miss Lydia herself; and Miss Lydia did not pretend to misunderstand. She reddened and laughed; but her eyes were not clear; there was a puzzled look at the back of them. Still, when she sat and looked at her gold the puzzle lightened, and her face, under her black frizette—in her excitement fallen sidewise over one ear—softened almost to tears. "William is kind," she said to herself.

And, indeed, at that very moment William was referring to her in most kindly terms. He was sitting in Mrs. Barkley's gloomy parlor, on the edge of the horse-hair sofa, and Mrs. Barkley was regarding him with romantic interest. "I have been much saddened, ma'am," he was saying, "to observe the destitution of Miss Lydia Sampson."

Mrs. Barkley beamed. Was he going to do something, after all? She spoke in an amiable bass, twitching her heavy eyebrows. "Our little gift, which has gone to her to-night, will make her more comfortable. I could wish it had been larger," she ended, and looked sidewise at Mr. Rives, who bowed and regretted that it was not larger. He then coughed behind his hand.

"Mrs. Barkley, I wish to approach a subject of some delicacy."

("He is going to do something," she thought, excitedly; "or perhaps he means marriage!")

"Mrs. Barkley, in past years there were passages of affection between Miss Sampson and myself" (Mrs. Barkley bowed; her heart began to glow with that warmth which stirs the oldest of us at the sight of a lover).

"We were younger in those days, ma'am," William said, in his soft voice.

"Oh no!" she protested, politely. "Why, you are very well preserved, I'm sure."

"Yes," said William, "I am. Yet I am not as young as I once was."

This drifting away from Miss Lydia disturbed Mrs. Barkley. She lowered her chin and glared at him over her spectacles, saying, in a rumbling bass: "Neither is Lydia; and it's hard for her to be destitute in her old age."

"Just so," Mr. Rives said, eagerly—"exactly. She is not as young as she once was, which, for many reasons, is desirable. But I think she is healthy?"

"Why, yes," Mrs. Barkley admitted; "but I don't know that that makes it easier to be poor."

"But I infer that poverty has taught her economy?" William Rives said.

"Yes; but poverty is a hard teacher."

"But thorough—thorough!" said Mr. Rives; "and some people will learn of no other."

Mrs. Barkley was growing impatient; she gave up marriage and thought of a pension.

"Yes," said William; "she is economical, and has good health, and is fond of old clothes, and is kind-hearted, and doesn't have any wants. Excellent traits—excellent. I have looked very carefully at the items of expense in regard to a housekeeper or nurse."

Mrs. Barkley stared at him in bewilderment. Was he going to offer Lydia a position as housekeeper? She was fairly dizzy with this seesaw of possibilities; and she was perplexed, too, for, after all, badly as Lydia needed assistance, propriety must be considered, and certainly this housekeeping project was of doubtful propriety. "Because you know you are neither of you very old," she explained.

Mr. Rives looked disturbed. "Yes, we are," he said, sharply. "Quite old enough. I would not wish a youthful wife, for—many reasons. There might be—results, which would interfere with my comfort. No, Lydia is no longer young; yet she is sufficiently robust to make me extremely comfortable." The light was breaking slowly on Mrs. Barkley. Her face flushed; she sat up very straight and tapped the table with her thimble. "The expense of an extra person is not very considerable, is it?" Mr. Rives said, doubtfully. "It was in regard to this that I wished to consult you."

"Not more than the wages of a housekeeper or a nurse," Mrs. Barkley said, in a restrained voice.

"Exactly!" cried Mr. Rives—"granted that her health is good."

Mrs. Barkley opened and closed her lips. Her impulse to show him the door battled with her common-sense. After all, it would mean a home for Lydia; it would mean comfort and ease and absence from worry—plus, of course, Mr. Rives. But if Lydia liked him, that wouldn't make any difference. And she must like him—her faithfulness to the picture proved it—and he was an agreeable person; amiable, too, Mrs. Barkley thought, for he always smiled when he spoke.

"Would you live in Old Chester?" she managed to say, after a pause.

"Yes."

"You would build, I suppose?" Mrs. Barkley said, trying, in the confusion of her thoughts, to make time.

"No," Mr. Rives said; "we would reside in Lydia's present abode."

"In Lydia's house? You couldn't!—why, it would be impossible!"

Mrs. Barkley, her mouth open with astonishment, saw, suddenly, that this project was not comfort plus William, but William minus comfort. "You couldn't! The chimney in the parlor is dreadful; it smokes whenever the wind is from the west."

"But, as I understand, Lydia has been provided with the means of mending the chimney?" William said, anxiously.

At this the rein broke. Mrs. Barkley rose, tapping the table with alarming loudness and glaring down at her guest. "William Rives, I have been a perfect fool. But you are worse—you are a mean person. I'd rather live with a murderer than a mean man!"