Nobody

by Susan Warner

TWO SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

Lois was inclined now to think it might be quite as well if something hindered Mr. Dillwyn's second visit. She did not wonder at Madge's evident fascination; she had felt the same herself long ago, and in connection with other people; the charm of good breeding and gracious manners, and the habit of the world, even apart from knowledge and cultivation and the art of conversation. Yes, Mr. Dillwyn was a good specimen of this sort of attraction; and for a moment Lois's imagination recalled that day's two walks in the rain; then she shook off the impression. Two poor Shampuashuh girls were not likely to have much to do with that sort of society, and—it was best they should not. It would be just as well if Mr. Dillwyn was hindered from coming again.

But he came. A month had passed; it was the beginning of December when he knocked next at the door, and cold and grey and cloudy and windy as it is December's character in certain moods to be. The reception he got was hearty in proportion; fires were larger, the table even more hospitably spread; Mrs. Barclay even more cordial, and the family atmosphere not less genial. Nevertheless the visit, for Mr. Dillwyn's special ends, was hardly satisfactory. He could get no private speech with Lois. She was always "busy;" and at meal-times it was obviously impossible, and would have been impolitic, to pay any particular attention to her. Philip did not attempt it. He talked rather to every one else; made himself delightful company; but groaned in secret.

"Cannot you make some excuse for getting her in here?" he asked Mrs.
Barclay at evening.

"Not without her sister."

"With her sister, then."

"They are very busy just now preparing some thing they call 'apple butter.' It's unlucky, Philip. I am very sorry. I always told you your way looked to me intricate."

Fortune favoured him, however, in an unexpected way. After a day passed in much inward impatience, for he had not got a word with Lois, and he had no excuse for prolonging his stay beyond the next day, as they sat at supper, the door opened, and in came two ladies. Mr. Dillwyn was formally presented to one of them as to "my aunt, Mrs. Marx;" the other was named as "Mrs. Seelye." The latter was a neat, brisk little body, with a capable air and a mien of business; all whose words came out as if they had been nicely picked and squared, and sorted and packed, and served in order.

"Sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Armadale" she began, in a chirruping little voice. Indeed, her whole air was that of a notable little hen looking after her chickens. Charity assured her it was no interruption.

"Mrs. Seelye and I had our tea hours ago," said Mrs. Marx. "I had muffins for her, and we ate all we could then. We don't want no more now. We're on business."

"Yes," said Mrs. Seelye. "Mrs. Marx and I, we've got to see everybody, pretty much; and there ain't much time to do it in; so you see we can't choose, and we just come here to see what you'll do for us."

"What do you want us to do for you, Mrs. Seelye?" Lois asked.

"Well, I don't know; only all you can. We want your counsel, and then your help. Mr. Seelye he said, Go to the Lothrop girls first. I didn't come first, 'cause there was somebody else on my way here; but this is our fourth call, ain't it, Mrs. Marx?"

"I thought I'd never get you away from No. 3," was the answer.

"They were very much interested,—and I wanted to make them all understand—it was important that they should all understand—"

"And there are different ways of understanin'," added Mrs. Marx; "and there are a good many of 'em—the Hicks's, I mean; and so, when we thought we'd got it all right with one, we found somebody else was in a fog; and then he had to be fetched out."

"But we are all in a fog," said Madge, laughing. "What are you coming to? and what are we to understand?"

"We have a little plan," said Mrs. Seelye.

"It'll be a big one, before we get through with it," added her coadjutor. "Nobody'll be frightened here if you call it a big one to start with, Mrs. Seelye. I like to look things in the face."

"So do we," said Mrs. Armadale, with a kind of grim humour,—"if you will give us a chance."

"Well, it's about the children," said Mrs. Seelye.

"Christmas—" added Mrs. Marx.

"Be quiet, Anne," said her mother. "Go on, Mrs. Seelye. Whose children?"

"I might say, they are all Mr. Seelye's children," said the little lady, laughing; "and so they are in a way, as they are all belonging to his church. He feels he is responsible for the care of 'em, and he don't want to lose 'em. And that's what it's all about, and how the plan came up."

"How's he goin' to lose 'em?" Mrs. Armadale asked, beginning now to knit again.

"Well, you see the other church is makin' great efforts; and they're goin' to have a tree."

"What sort of a tree? and what do they want a tree for?"

"Why, a fir tree!"—and, "Why, a Christmas tree!" cried the two ladies who advocated the "plan," both in a breath.

"Mother don't know about that," Mrs. Marx went on. "It's a new fashion, mother,—come up since your day. They have a green tree, planted in a tub, and hung with all sorts of things to make it look pretty; little candles especially; and at night they light it up; and the children are tickled to death with it."

"In-doors?"

"Why, of course in-doors. Couldn't be out-of-doors, in the snow."

"I didn't know," said the old lady; "I don't understand the new fashions. I should think they would burn up the house, if it's in-doors."

"O no, no danger," explained Mrs. Seelye. "They make them wonderfully pretty, with the branches all hung full with glass balls, and candles, and ribbands, and gilt toys, and papers of sugar plums—cornucopia, you know; and dolls, and tops, and jacks, and trumpets, and whips, and everything you can think of,—till it is as full as it can be, and the branches hang down with the weight; and it looks like a fairy tree; and then the heavy presents lie at the foot round about and cover the tub."

"I should think the children would be delighted," said Madge.

"I don't believe it's as much fun as Santa Claus and the stocking," said Lois.

"No, nor I," said Mrs. Barclay.

"But we have nothing to do with the children's stockings," said Mrs. Seelye. "They may hang up as many as they like. That's at home. This is in the church."

"O, in the church! I thought you said it was in the house—in people's houses," said Charity.

"So it is; but this tree is to be in the church."

"What tree?"

"La! how stupid you are, Charity," exclaimed her aunt. "Didn't Mrs.
Seelye tell you?—the tree the other church are gettin' up."

"Oh—" said Charity. "Well, you can't hinder 'em, as I see."

"Don't want to hinder 'em! What should we hinder 'em for? But we don't want 'em to get all our chil'en away; that's what we're lookin' at."

"Do you think they'd go?"

"Mr. Seelye's afraid it'll thin off the school dreadful," said Mr.
Seelye's helpmate.

"They're safe to go," added Mrs. Marx. "Ask children to step in and see fairyland, and why shouldn't they go? I'd go if I was they. All the rest of the year it ain't fairyland in Shampuashuh. I'd go fast enough."

"Then I don't see what you are goin' to do about it," said Charity, "but to sit down and count your chickens that are left."

"That's what we came to tell you," said the minister's wife.

"Well, tell," said Charity. "You haven't told yet, only what the other church is going to do."

"Well, we thought the only way was for us to do somethin' too."

"Only not another tree," said Lois. "Not that, for pity's sake."

"Why not?" asked the little minister's wife, with an air of being somewhat taken aback. "Why haven't we as good a right to have a tree as they have?"

"Right, if you like," said Lois; "but right isn't all."

"Go on, and let's hear your wisdom, Lois," said her aunt. "I s'pose you'll say first, we can't do it."

"We can do it, perhaps," said Lois; "but, aunt Anne, it would make bad feeling."

"That's not our look-out," rejoined Mrs. Marx. "We haven't any bad feeling."

"No, not in the least," added Mrs. Seelye. "We only want to give our children as good a time as the others have. That's right."

"'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory,'" Mrs. Armadale's voice was here heard to say.

"Yes, I know, mother, you have old-fashioned ideas," said Mrs. Marx; "but the world ain't as it used to be when you was a girl. Now everybody's puttin' steam on; and churches and Sunday schools as well as all the rest. We have organs, and choirs, and concerts, and celebrations, and fairs, and festivals; and if we don't go with the crowd, they'll leave us behind, you see."

"I don't believe in it all!" said Mrs. Armadale.

"Well, mother, we've got to take the world as we find it. Now the children all through the village are all agog with the story of what the yellow church is goin' to do; and if the white church don't do somethin', they'll all run t'other way—that you may depend on. Children are children."

"I sometimes think the grown folks are children," said the old lady.

"Well, we ought to be children," said Mrs. Seelye; "I am sure we all know that. But Mr. Seelye thought this was the only thing we could do."

"There comes in the second difficulty, Mrs. Seelye," said Lois. "We cannot do it."

"I don't see why we cannot. We've as good a place for it, quite."

"I mean, we cannot do it satisfactorily. It will not be the same thing.
We cannot raise the money. Don't it take a good deal?"

"Well, it takes considerable. But I think, if we all try, we can scare it up somehow."

Lois shook her head. "The other church is richer than we are," she said.

"That's a fact," said Charity.

Mrs. Seelye hesitated. "I don't know," she said,—"they have one or two rich men. Mr. Georges—"

"O, and Mr. Flare," cried Madge, "and Buck, and Setterdown; and the
Ropers and the Magnuses."

"Yes," said Mrs. Seelye; "but we have more people, and there's none of 'em to call poor. If we get 'em interested—and those we have spoken to are very much taken with the plan—very much; I think it would be a great disappointment now if we were to stop; and the children have got talking about it. I think we can do it; and it would be a very good thing for the whole church, to get 'em interested."

"You can always get people interested in play," said Mrs. Armadale.
"What you want, is to get 'em interested in work."

"There'll be a good deal of work about this, before it's over," said Mrs. Seelye, with a pleased chuckle. "And I think, when they get their pride up, the money will be coming."

Mrs. Marx made a grimace, but said nothing.

"'When pride cometh, than cometh shame,'" said Mrs. Armadale quietly.

"O yes, some sorts of pride," said the little minister's wife briskly; "but I mean a proper sort. We don't want to let our church go down, and we don't want to have our Sunday school thinned out; and I can tell you, where the children go, there the fathers and mothers will be going, next thing."

"What do you propose to do?" said Lois. "We have not fairly heard yet."

"Well, we thought we'd have some sort of celebration, and give the school a jolly time somehow. We'd dress up the church handsomely with evergreens; and have it well lighted; and then, we would have a Christmas tree if we could. Or, if we couldn't, then we'd have a real good hot supper, and give the children presents. But I'm afraid, if we don't have a tree, they'll all run off to the other church; and I think they're going already, so as to get asked. Mr. Seelye said the attendance was real thin last Sabbath."

There followed an animated discussion of the whole subject, with every point brought up again, and again and again. The talkers were, for the most part, Charity and Madge, with the two ladies who had come in; Mrs. Armadale rarely throwing in a word, which always seemed to have a disturbing power; and things were taken up and gone over anew to get rid of the disturbance. Lois sat silent and played with her spoon. Mrs. Barclay and Philip listened with grave amusement.

"Well, I can't sit here all night," said Charity at last, rising from behind her tea-board. "Madge and Lois,—just jump up and put away the things, won't you; and hand me up the knives and plates. Don't trouble yourself, Mrs. Barclay. If other folks in the village are as busy as I am, you'll come short home for your Christmas work, Mrs. Seelye."

"It's the busy people always that help," said the little lady propitiatingly.

"That's a fact; but I don't see no end o' this to take hold of. You hain't got the money; and if you had it, you don't know what you want; and if you did know, it ain't in Shampuashuh; and I don't see who is to go to New York or New Haven, shopping for you. And if you had it, who knows how to fix a Christmas tree? Not a soul in our church."

Mrs. Barclay and her guest withdrew at this point of the discussion. But later, when the visitors were gone, she opened the door of her room, and said,

"Madge and Lois, can you come in here for a few minutes? It is business."

The two girls came in, Madge a little eagerly; Lois, Mrs. Barclay fancied, with a manner of some reserve.

"Mr. Dillwyn has something to suggest," she began, "about this plan we have heard talked over; that is, if you care about it's being carried into execution."

"I care, of course," said Madge. "If it is to be done, I think it will be great fun."

"If it is to be done," Lois repeated. "Grandmother does not approve of it; and I always think, what she does not like, I must not like."

"Always?" asked Mr. Dillwyn.

"I try to have it always. Grandmother thinks that the way—the best way—to keep a Sunday school together, is to make the lessons interesting."

"I am sure she is right!" said Mr. Dillwyn.

"But to the point," said Mrs. Barclay. "Lois, they will do this thing, I can see. The question now is, do you care whether it is done ill or well?"

"Certainly! If it is done, I should wish it to be as well done as possible. Failure is more than failure."

"How about ways and means?"

"Money? O, if the people all set their hearts on it, they could do it well enough. But they are slow to take hold of anything out of the common run they are accustomed to. The wheels go in ruts at Shampuashuh."

"Shampuashuh is not the only place," said Philip. "Then will you let an outsider help?"

"Help? We would be very glad of help," said Madge; but Lois remarked,
"I think the church ought to do it themselves, if they want to do it."

"Well, hear my plan," said Mr. Dillwyn. "I think you objected to two rival trees?"

"I object to rival anythings," said Lois; "in church matters especially."

"Then I propose that no tree be set up, but instead, that you let Santa
Claus come in with his sledge."

"Santa Claus!" cried Lois. "Who would be Santa Claus?"

"An old man in a white mantle, his head and beard covered with snow and fringed with icicles; his dress of fur; his sledge a large one, and well heaped up with things to delight the children. What do you think?"

Madge's colour rose, and Lois's eye took a sparkle; both were silent.
Then Madge spoke.

"I don't see how that plan could be carried out, any more than the other. It is a great deal better, it is magnificent; but it is a great deal too magnificent for Shampuashuh."

"Why so?"

"Nobody here knows how to do it."

"I know how."

"You! O but,—that would be too much—"

"All you have to do is to get the other things ready, and let it be known that at the proper time Santa Claus will appear, with a well-furnished sled. Sharp on time."

"Well-furnished!—but there again—I don't believe we can raise money enough for that."

"How much money?" asked Dillwyn, with an amused smile.

"O, I can't tell—I suppose a hundred dollars at least."

"I have as much as that lying useless—it may just as well do some good. It never was heard that anybody but Santa Claus furnished his own sled. If you will allow me, I will take care of that."

"How splendid!" cried Madge. "But it is too much; it wouldn't be right for us to let you do all that for a church that is nothing to you."

"On the contrary, you ought to encourage me in my first endeavours to make myself of some use in the world. Miss Madge, I have never, so far, done a bit of good in my life."

"O, Mr. Dillwyn! I cannot believe that. People do not grow useful so all of a sudden, without practice," said Madge, hitting a great general truth.

"It is a fact, however," said he, half lightly, and yet evidently meaning what he said. "I have lived thirty-two years in the world—nearly thirty-three—without making my life of the least use to anybody so far as I know. Do you wonder that I seize a chance?"

Lois's eyes were suddenly lifted, and then as suddenly lowered; she did not speak.

"I can read that," he said laughingly, for his eyes had caught the glance. "You mean, if I am so eager for chances, I might make them! Miss Lois, I do not know how."

"Come, Philip," said Mrs. Barclay, "you are making your character unnecessarily bad. I know you better than that. Think what you have done for me."

"I beg your pardon," said he. "Think what you have done for me. That score cannot be reckoned to my favour. Have no scruples, Miss Madge, about employing me. Though I believe Miss Lois thinks the good of this undertaking a doubtful one. How many children does your school number?"

"All together,—and they would be sure for once to be all together!—there are a hundred and fifty."

"Have you the names?"

"O, certainly."

"And ages—proximately?"

"Yes, that too."

"And you know something, I suppose, about many of them; something about their families and conditions?"

"About all of them?" said Madge. "Yes, indeed we do."

"Till Mrs. Barclay came, you must understand," put in Lois here, "we had nothing, or not much, to study besides Shampuashuh; so we studied that."

"And since Mrs. Barclay came?—" asked Philip.

"O, Mrs. Barclay has been opening one door after another of knowledge, and we have been peeping in."

"And what special door offers most attraction to your view, of them all?"

"I don't know. I think, perhaps, for me, geology and mineralogy; but almost every one helps in the study of the Bible."

"O, do they!" said Dillwyn somewhat dryly.

"I like music best," said Madge.

"But that is not a door into knowledge," objected Lois.

"I meant, of all the doors Mrs. Barclay has opened to us."

"Mrs. Barclay is a favoured person."

"It is we that are favoured," said Madge. "Our life is a different thing since she came. We hope she will never go away." Then Madge coloured, with some sudden thought, and she went back to the former subject. "Why do you ask about the children's ages and all that, Mr. Dillwyn?"

"I was thinking— When a thing is to be done, I like to do it well. It occurred to me, that as Santa Claus must have something on his sledge for each one, it might be good, if possible, to secure some adaptation or fitness in the gift. Those who would like books should have books, and the right books; and playthings had better not go astray, if we can help it; and perhaps the poorer children would be better for articles of clothing.—I am only throwing out hints."

"Capital hints!" said Lois. "You mean, if we can tell what would be good for each one—I think we can, pretty nearly. But there are few poor people in Shampuashuh, Mr. Dillwyn."

"Shampuashuh is a happy place."

"This plan will give you an immensity of work, Mr. Dillwyn."

"What then?"

"I have scruples. It is not fair to let you do it. What is Shampuashuh to you?"

"It might be difficult to make that computation," said Mr. Dillwyn dryly. "Have no scruples, Miss Lois. As I told you, I have nothing better to do with myself. If you can make me useful, it will be a rare chance."

"But there are plenty of other things to do, Mr. Dillwyn," said Lois.

He gave her only a glance and smile by way of answer, and plunged immediately into the business question with Madge. Lois sat by, silent and wondering, till all was settled that could be settled that evening, and she and Madge went back to the other room.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

AN OYSTER SUPPER.

"Hurrah!" cried Madge, but softly—"Now it will go! Mother! what do you think? Guess, Charity! Mr. Dillwyn is going to take our Sunday school celebration on himself; he's going to do it; and we're to have, not a stupid Christmas tree, but Santa Claus and his sled; and he'll be Santa Claus! Won't it be fun?"

"Who'll be Santa Claus?" said Charity, looking stupefied.

"Mr. Dillwyn. In fact, he'll be Santa Claus and his sled too; he'll do the whole thing. All we have got to do is to dress the children and ourselves, and light up the church."

"Will the committees like that?"

"Like it? Of course they will! Like it, indeed! Don't you see it will save them all expense? They'll have nothing to do but dress up and light up."

"And warm up too, I hope. What makes Mr. Dillwyn do all that? I don't just make out."

"I'll tell you," said Madge, shaking her finger at the others impressively. "He's after Mrs. Barclay. So this gives him a chance to come here again, don't you see?"

"After Mrs. Barclay?" repeated Charity. "I want to know!"

"I don't believe it," said Lois. "She is too old for him."

"She's not old," said Madge. "And he is no chicken, my dear. You'll see. It's she he's after. He's coming next time as Santa Claus, that's all. And we have got to make out a list of things—things for presents,—for every individual girl and boy in the Sunday school; there's a job for you. Santa Claus will want a big sled."

"Who is going to do what?" inquired Mrs. Armadale here. "I don't understand, you speak so fast, children."

"Mother, instead of a Christmas tree, we are going to have Santa Claus and his sled; and the sled is to be heaped full of presents for all the children; and Mr. Dillwyn is going to do it, and get the presents, and be Santa Claus himself."

"How, be Santa Claus?"

"Why, he will dress up like Santa Claus, and come in with his sled."

"Where?"

"In the church, grandmother; there is no other place. The other church have their Sunday-school room you know; but we have none."

"They are going to have their tree in the church, though," said Charity; "they reckon the Sunday-school room won't be big enough to hold all the folks."

"Are they going to turn the church into a playhouse?" Mrs. Armadale asked.

"It's for the sake of the church and the school, you know, mother. Santa Claus will come in with his sled and give his presents,—that is all. At least, that is all the play there will be."

"What else will there be?"

"O, there'll be singing, grandma," said Madge; "hymns and carols and such things, that the children will sing; and speeches and prayers, I suppose."

"The church used to be God's house, in my day," said the old lady, with a concerned face, looking up from her knitting, while her fingers went on with their work as busily as ever.

"They don't mean it for anything else, grandmother," said Madge. "It's all for the sake of the school."

"Maybe they think so," the old lady answered.

"What else, mother? what else should it be?"

But this she did not answer.

"What's Mr. Dillwyn got to do with it?" she asked presently.

"He's going to help," said Madge. "It's nothing but kindness. He supposes it is something good to do, and he says he'd like to be useful."

"He hain't no idea how," said Mrs. Armadale, "Poor creatur'! You can tell him, it ain't the Lord's work he's doin'."

"But we cannot tell him that, mother," said Lois.

"If the people want to have this celebration,—and they will,—hadn't we better make it a good one? Is it really a bad thing?"

"The devil's ways never help no one to heaven, child, not if they go singin' hymns all the way."

"But, mother!" cried Madge. "Mr. Dillwyn ain't a Christian, maybe, but he ain't as bad as that."

"I didn't mean Mr. Dillwyn, dear, nor no one else. I meant theatre work."

"Santa Claus, mother?"

"It's actin', ain't it?"

The girls looked at each other.

"There's very little of anything like acting about it," Lois said.

"'Make straight paths for your feet'!" said Mrs. Armadale, rising to go to bed. "'Make straight paths for your feet,' children. Straight ways is the shortest too. If the chil'en that don't love their teachers wants to go to the yellow church, let 'em go. I'd rather have the Lord in a little school, than Santa Claus in a big one."

She was leaving the room, but the girls stayed her and begged to know what they should do in the matter of the lists they were engaged to prepare for Mr. Dillwyn.

"You must do what you think best," she said. "Only don't be mixed up with it all any more than you can help, Lois."

Why did the name of one child come to her lips and not the other? Did the old lady's affection, or natural acuteness, discern that Mr. Dillwyn was not drawn to Shampuashuh by any particular admiration of his friend Mrs. Barclay? Had she some of that preternatural intuition, plain old country woman though she was, which makes a woman see the invisible and hear the inaudible? which serves as one of the natural means of defence granted to the weaker creatures. I do not know; I do not think she knew; however, the warning was given, and not on that occasion alone. And as Lois heeded all her grandmother's admonitions, although in this case without the most remote perception of this possible ground to them, it followed that Mr. Dillwyn gained less by his motion than he had hoped and anticipated.

The scheme went forward, hailed by the whole community belonging to the white church, with the single exception of Mrs. Armadale. It went forward and was brought to a successful termination. I might say, a triumphant termination; only the triumph was not for Mr. Dillwyn, or not in the line where he wanted it. He did his part admirably. A better Santa Claus was never seen, nor a better filled sled. And genial pleasantness, and wise management, and cool generalship, and fun and kindness, were never better represented. So it was all through the consultations and arrangements that preceded the festival, as well as on the grand occasion itself; and Shampuashuh will long remember the time with wonder and exultation; but it was Madge who was Mr. Dillwyn's coadjutor and fellow-counsellor. It was Madge and Mrs. Barclay who helped him in all the work of preparing and ticketing the parcels for the sled; as well as in the prior deliberations as to what the parcels should be. Madge seemed to be the one at hand always to answer a question. Madge went with him to the church; and in general, Lois, though sympathizing and curious, and interested and amused, was very much out of the play. Not so entirely as to make the fact striking; only enough to leave Mr. Dillwyn disappointed and tantalized.

I am not going into a description of the festival and the show. The children sang; the minister made a speech to them, not ten consecutive words of which were listened to by three-quarters of the people. The church was filled with men, women, and children; the walls were hung with festoons and wreaths, and emblazoned with mottoes; the anthems and carols followed each other till the last thread of patience in the waiting crowd gave way. And at last came what they were waiting for—Santa Claus, all fur robes and snow and icicles, dragging after him a sledge that looked like a small mountain with the heap of articles piled and packed upon it. And then followed a very busy and delightful hour and a half, during which the business was—the distribution of pleasure. It was such warm work for Santa Claus, that at the time he had no leisure for thinking. Naturally, the thinking came afterwards.

He and Mrs. Barclay sat by her fire, resting, after coming home from the church. Dillwyn was very silent and meditative.

"You must be glad it is done, Philip," said his friend, watching him, and wishing to get at his thoughts.

"I have no particular reason to be glad."

"You have done a good thing."

"I am not sure if it is a good thing. Mrs. Armadale does not think so."

"Mrs. Armadale has rather narrow notions."

"I don't know. I should be glad to be sure she is not right. It's discouraging," he added, with half a smile;—"for the first time in my life I set myself to work; and now am not at all certain that I might not just as well have been idle."

"Work is a good thing in itself," said Mrs. Barclay, smiling.

"Pardon me!—work for an end. Work without an end—or with the end not attained—it is no better than a squirrel in a wheel."

"You have given a great deal of pleasure."

"To the children! For ought I know, they might have been just as well without it. There will be a reaction to-morrow, very likely; and then they will wish they had gone to see the Christmas tree at the other church."

"But they were kept at their own church."

"How do I know that is any good? Perhaps the teaching at the other school is the best."

"You are tired," said Mrs. Barclay sympathizingly.

"Not that. I have done nothing to tire me; but it strikes me it is very difficult to see one's ends in doing good; much more difficult than to see the way to the ends."

"You have partly missed your end, haven't you?" said Mrs. Barclay softly.

He moved a little restlessly in his chair; then got up and began to walk about the room; then came and sat down again.

"What are you going to do next?" she asked in the same way.

"Suppose you invite them—the two girls—or her alone—to make you a visit in New York?"

"Where?"

"At any hotel you prefer; say, the Windsor."

"O Philip, Philip!"—

"What?—You could have pleasant rooms, and be quite private and comfortable; as much as if you were in your own house."

"And what should we cost you?"

"You are not thinking of that?" said he. "I will get you a house, if you like it better; but then you would have the trouble of a staff of servants. I think the Windsor would be much the easiest plan."

"You are in earnest!"

"In earnest!" he repeated in surprise. "Have you ever questioned it? You judge because you never saw me in earnest in anything before in my life."

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Barclay. "I always knew it was in you. What you wanted was only an object."

"What do you say to my plan?"

"I am afraid they would not come. There is the care of the old grandmother; they would not leave everything to their sister alone."

"Tempt them with pictures and music, and the opera."

"The opera! Philip, she would not go to a theatre, or anything theatrical, for any consideration. They are very strict on that point, and Sunday-keeping, and dancing. Do not speak to her of the opera."

"They are not so far wrong. I never saw a decent opera yet in my life."

"Philip!" exclaimed Mrs. Barclay in the greatest surprise. "I never heard you say anything like that before."

"I suppose it makes a difference," he said thoughtfully, "with what eyes a man looks at a thing. And dancing—I don't think I care to see her dance."

"Philip! You are extravagant."

"I believe I should be fit to commit murder if I saw her waltzing with anybody."

"Jealous already?" said Mrs. Barclay slyly.

"If you like.—Do you see her as I see her?" he asked abruptly.

There was a tone in the last words which gave Mrs. Barclay's heart a kind of constriction. She answered with gentle sympathy, "I think I do."

"I have seen handsomer women," he went on;—"Madge is handsomer, in a way; you may see many women more beautiful, according to the rules; but I never saw any one so lovely!"

"I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Barclay.

"I never saw anything so lovely!" he repeated. "She is most like—"

"A white lily," said Mrs. Barclay.

"No, that is not her type. No. As long as the world stands, a rose just open will remain the fairest similitude for a perfect woman. It's commonness cannot hinder that. She is not an unearthly Dendrobium, she is an earthly rose—

'Not too good
For human nature's daily food,'

—if one could find the right sort of human nature! Just so fresh, unconscious, and fair; with just such a dignity of purity about her. I cannot fancy her at the opera, or dancing."

"A sort of unapproachable tea-rose?" said Mrs. Barclay, smiling at him, though her eyes were wistful.

"No," said he, "a tea-rose is too fragile. There is nothing of that about her, thank heaven!"

"No," said Mrs. Barclay, "there is nothing but sound healthy life about her; mental and bodily; and I agree with you, sweet as ever a human life can be. In the garden or at her books,—hark! that is for supper."

For here there came a slight tap on the door.

"Supper!" cried Philip.

"Yes; it is rather late, and the girls promised me a cup of coffee, after your exertions! But I dare say everybody wants some refreshment by this time. Come!"

There was a cheery supper table spread in the dining-room; coffee, indeed, and Stoney Creek oysters, and excellently cooked. Only Charity and Madge were there; Mrs. Armadale had gone to bed, and Lois was attending upon her. Mr. DilIwyn, however, was served assiduously.

"I hope you're hungry! You've done a load of good this evening, Mr.
Dillwyn," said Charity, as she gave him his coffee.

"Thank you. I don't see the connection," said Philip, with an air as different as possible from that he had worn in talking to Mrs. Barclay in the next room.

"People ought to be hungry when they have done a great deal of work,"
Madge explained, as she gave him a plate of oysters.

"I do not feel that I have done any work."

"O, well! I suppose it was play to you," said Charity, "but that don't make any difference. You've done a load of good. Why, the children will never be able to forget it, nor the grown folks either, as far as that goes; they'll talk of it, and of you, for two years, and more."

"I am doubtful about the real worth of fame, Miss Charity, even when it lasts two years."

"O, but you've done so much good!" said the lady. "Everybody sees now that the white church can hold her own. Nobody'll think of making disagreeable comparisons, if they have fifty Christmas trees."

"Suppose I had helped the yellow church?"

Charity looked as if she did not know what he would be at. Just then in came Lois and took her place at the table; and Mr. Dillwyn forgot all about rival churches.

"Here's Mr. Dillwyn don't think he's done any good, Lois!" cried her elder sister. "Do cheer him up a little. I think it's a shame to talk so. Why, we've done all we wanted to, and more. There won't a soul go away from our church or school after this, now they see what we can do; and I shouldn't wonder if we got some accessions from the other instead. And here's Mr. Dillwyn says he don't know as he's done any good!"

Lois lifted her eyes and met his, and they both smiled.

"Miss Lois sees the matter as I do," he said. "These are capital oysters. Where do they come from?"

"But, Philip," said Mrs. Barclay, "you have given a great deal of pleasure. Isn't that good?"

"Depends—" said he. "Probably it will be followed by a reaction."

"And you have kept the church together," added Charity, who was zealous.

"By a rope of sand, then, Miss Charity."

"At any rate, Mr. Dillwyn, you meant to do good," Lois put in here.

"I do not know, Miss Lois. I am afraid I was thinking more of pleasure, myself; and shall experience myself the reaction I spoke of. I think I feel the shadow of it already, as a coming event."

"But if we aren't to have any pleasure, because afterwards we feel a little flat,—and of course we do," said Charity; "everybody knows that. But, for instance, if we're not to have green peas in summer, because we can't have 'em any way but dry in winter,—things would be very queer! Queerer than they are; and they're queer enough already."

This speech called forth some merriment.

"You think even the dry remains of pleasure are better than nothing!" said Philip. "Perhaps you are right."

"And to have those, we must have had the green reality," said Lois merrily.

"I wonder if there is any way of keeping pleasure green," said Dillwyn.

"Vain, vain, Mr. Dillwyn!" said Mrs. Barclay. "Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe! don't you know? Solomon said, I believe, that all was vanity. And he ought to know."

"But he didn't know," said Lois quickly.

"Lois!" said Charity—"it's in the Bible."

"I know it is in the Bible that he said so," Lois rejoined merrily.

"Was he not right, then?" Mr. Dillwyn asked.

"Perhaps," Lois answered, now gravely, "if you take simply his view."

"What was his view? Won't you explain?"

"I suppose you ain't going to set up to be wiser than Solomon, at this time of day," said Charity severely. But that stirred Lois's merriment again.

"Explain, Miss Lois!" said Dillwyn.

"I am not Solomon, that I should preach," she said.

"You just said you knew better than he," said Charity. "How you should know better than the Bible, I don't see. It's news."

"Why, Charity, Solomon was not a good man."

"How came he to write proverbs, then?"

"At least he was not always a good man."

"That don't hinder his knowing what was vanity, does it?"

"But, Lois!" said Mrs. Barclay. "Go back, and tell us your secret, if you have one. How was Solomon's view mistaken? or what is yours?"

"These things were all given for our pleasure, Mrs. Barclay."

"But they die—and they go—and they fade," said Mrs. Barclay.

"You will not understand me," said Lois; "and yet it is true. If you are Christ's—then, 'all things are yours;… the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come: all are yours.' There is no loss, but there comes more gain."

"I wish you'd let Mr. Dillwyn have some more oysters," said Charity; "and, Madge, do hand along Mrs. Barclay's cup. You mustn't talk, if you can't eat at the same time. Lois ain't Solomon yet, if she does preach. You shut up, Lois, and mind your supper. My rule is, to enjoy things as I go along; and just now, it's oysters."

"I will say for Lois," here put in Mrs. Barclay, "that she does exemplify her own principles. I never knew anybody with such a spring of perpetual enjoyment."

"She ain't happier than the rest of us," said the elder sister.

"Not so happy as grandmother," added Madge. "At least, grandmother would say so. I don't know."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

BREAKING UP.

Mr. Dillwyn went away. Things returned to their normal condition at Shampuashuh, saving that for a while there was a great deal of talk about the Santa Clans doings and the principal actor in them, and no end of speculations as to his inducements and purposes to be served in taking so much trouble. For Shampuashuh people were shrewd, and did not believe, any more than King Lear, that anything could come of nothing. That he was not moved by general benevolence, poured out upon the school of the white church, was generally agreed. "What's we to him?" asked pertinently one of the old ladies; and vain efforts were made to ascertain Mr. Dillwyn's denomination. "For all I kin make out, he hain't got none," was the declaration of another matron. "I don't b'lieve he's no better than he should be." Which was ungrateful, and hardly justified Miss Charity's prognostications of enduring fame; by which, of course, she meant good fame. Few had seen Mr. Dillwyn undisguised, so that they could give a report of him; but Mrs. Marx assured them he was "a real personable man; nice and plain, and takin' no airs. She liked him first-rate."

"Who's he after? Not one o' your gals?"

"Mercy, no! He, indeed! He's one of the high-flyers; he won't come to Shampuashuh to look for a wife. 'Seems to me he's made o' money; and he's been everywhere; he's fished for crocodiles in the Nile, and eaten his luncheon at the top of the Pyramids of Egypt, and sailed to the North Pole to be sure of cool lemonade in summer. He won't marry in Shampuashuh."

"What brings him here, then?"

"The spirit of restlessness, I should say. Those people that have been everywhere, you may notice, can't stay nowhere. I always knew there was fools in the world, but I didn't know there was so many of 'em as there be. He ain't no fool neither, some ways; and that makes him a bigger fool in the end; only I don't know why the fools should have all the money."

And so, after a little, the talk about this theme died out, and things settled down, not without some of the reaction Mr. Dillwyn had predicted; but they settled down, and all was as before in Shampuashuh. Mr. Dillwyn did not come again to make a visit, or Mrs. Marx's aroused vigilance would have found some ground for suspicion. There did come numerous presents of game and fruit from him, but they were sent to Mrs. Barclay, and could not be objected against, although they came in such quantities that the whole household had to combine to dispose of them. What would Philip do next?—Mrs. Barclay queried. As he had said, he could not go on with repeated visits to the house. Madge and Lois would not hear of being tempted to New York, paint the picture as bright as she would. Things were not ripe for any decided step on Mr. Dillwyn's part, and how should they become so? Mrs. Barclay could not see the way. She did for Philip what she could by writing to him, whether for his good or his harm she could not decide. She feared the latter. She told him, however, of the sweet, quiet life she was leading; of the reading she was doing with the two girls, and the whole family; of the progress Lois and Madge were making in singing and drawing and in various branches of study; of the walks in the fresh sea-breezes, and the cosy evenings with wood fires and the lamp; and she told him how they enjoyed his game, and what a comfort the oranges were to Mrs. Armadale.

This lasted through January, and then there came a change. Mrs. Armadale was ill. There was no more question of visits, or of studies; and all sorts of enjoyments and occupations gave place to the one absorbing interest of watching and waiting upon the sick one. And then, that ceased too. Mrs. Armadale had caught cold, she had not strength to throw off disease; it took violent form, and in a few days ran its course. Very suddenly the little family found itself without its head.

There was nothing to grieve for, but their own loss. The long, weary earth-journey was done, and the traveller had taken up her abode where there is

"The rest begun,
That Christ hath for his people won."

She had gone triumphantly. "Through God we shall do valiantly"—being her last—uttered words. Her children took them as a legacy, and felt rich. But they looked at her empty chair, and counted themselves poorer than ever before. Mrs. Barclay saw that the mourning was deep. Yet, with the reserved strength of New England natures, it made no noise, and scarce any show.

Mrs. Barclay lived much alone those first days. She would gladly have talked to somebody; she wanted to know about the affairs of the little family, but saw no one to talk to. Until, two or three days after the funeral, coming home one afternoon from a walk in the cold, she found her fire had died out; and she went into the next room to warm herself. There she saw none of the usual inmates. Mrs. Armadale's chair stood on one side the fire, unoccupied, and on the other side stood uncle Tim Hotchkiss.

"How do you do, Mr. Hotchkiss? May I come and warm myself? I have been out, and I am half-frozen."

"I guess you're welcome to most anything in this house, ma'am,—and fire we wouldn't grudge to anybody. Sit down, ma'am;" and he set a chair for her. "It's pretty tight weather."

"We had nothing like this last winter," said Mrs. Barclay, shivering.

"We expect to hev one or two snaps in the course of the winter," said Mr. Hotchkiss. "Shampuashuh ain't what you call a cold place; but we expect to see them two snaps. It comes seasonable this time. I'd rayther hev it now than in March. My sister—that's gone,—she could always tell you how the weather was goin' to be. I've never seen no one like her for that."

"Nor for some other things," said Mrs. Barclay. "It is a sad change to feel her place empty."

"Ay," said uncle Tim, with a glance at the unused chair,—"it's the difference between full and empty. 'I went out full, and the Lord has brought me back empty', Ruth's mother-in-law said."

"Who is Ruth?" Mrs. Barclay asked, a little bewildered, and willing to change the subject; for she noticed a suppressed quiver in the hard features. "Do I know her?"

"I mean Ruth the Moabitess. Of course you know her. She was a poor heathen thing, but she got all right at last. It was her mother-in-law that was bitter. Well—troubles hadn't ought to make us bitter. I guess there's allays somethin' wrong when they do."

"Hard to help it, sometimes," said Mrs. Barclay.

"She wouldn't ha' let you say that," said the old man, indicating sufficiently by his accent of whom he was speaking. "There warn't no bitterness in her; and she had seen trouble enough! She's out o' it now."

"What will the girls do? Stay on and keep the house here just as they have done?"

"Well, I don' know," said Mr. Hotchkiss, evidently glad to welcome a business question, and now taking a chair himself. "Mrs. Marx and me, we've ben arguin' that question out, and it ain't decided. There's one big house here, and there's another where Mrs. Marx lives; and there's one little family, and here's another little family. It's expensive to scatter over so much ground. They had ought to come to Mrs. Marx, or she had ought to move in here, and then the other house could be rented. That's how the thing looks to me. It's expensive for five people to take two big houses to live in. I know, the girls have got you now; but they might not keep you allays; and we must look at things as they be."

"I must leave them in the spring," said Mrs. Barclay hastily.

"In the spring, must ye!"

"Must," she repeated. "I would like to stay here the rest of my life; but circumstances are imperative. I must go in the spring."

"Then I think that settles it," said Mr. Hotchkiss. "I'm glad to know it. That is! of course I'm sorry ye're goin'; the girls be very fond of you."

"And I of them," said Mrs. Barclay; "but I must go."

After that, she waited for the chance of a talk with Lois. She waited not long. The household had hardly settled down into regular ways again after the disturbance of sickness and death, when Lois came one evening at twilight into Mrs. Barclay's room. She sat down, at first was silent, and then burst into tears. Mrs. Barclay let her alone, knowing that for her just now the tears were good. And the woman who had seen so much heavier life-storms, looked on almost with a feeling of envy at the weeping which gave so simple and frank expression to grief. Until this feeling was overcome by another, and she begged Lois to weep no more.

"I do not mean it—I did not mean it," said Lois, drying her eyes. "It is ungrateful of me; for we have so much to be thankful for. I am so glad for grandmother!"—Yet somehow the tears went on falling.

"Glad?"—repeated Mrs. Barclay doubtfully. "You mean, because she is out of her suffering."

"She did not suffer much. It is not that. I am so glad to think she has got home!"

"I suppose," said Mrs. Barclay in a constrained voice, "to such a person as your grandmother, death has no fear. Yet life seems to me more desirable."

"She has entered into life!" said Lois. "She is where she wanted to be, and with what she loved best. And I am very, very glad! even though I do cry."

"How can you speak with such certain'ty, Lois? I know, in such a case as that of your grandmother, there could be no fear; and yet I do not see how you can speak as if you knew where she is, and with whom."

"Only because the Bible tells us," said Lois, smiling even through wet eyes. "Not the place; it does not tell us the place; but with Christ. That they are; and that is all we want to know.

'Beyond the sighing and the weeping.'

—It makes me gladder than ever I can tell you, to think of it."

"Then what are those tears for, my dear?"

"It's the turning over a leaf," said Lois sadly, "and that is always sorrowful. And I have lost—uncle Tim says," she broke off suddenly, "he says,—can it be?—he says you say you must go from us in the spring?"

"That is turning over another leaf," said Mrs. Barclay.

"But is it true?"

"Absolutely true. Circumstances make it imperative. It is not my wish.
I would like to stay here with you all my life."

"I wish you could. I half hoped you would," said Lois wistfully.

"But I cannot, my dear. I cannot."

"Then that is another thing over," said Lois. "What a good time it has been, this year and a half you have been with us! how much worth to Madge and me! But won't you come back again?"

"I fear not. You will not miss me so much; you will all keep house together, Mr. Hotchkiss tells me."

"I shall not be here," said Lois.

"Where will you be?" Mrs. Barclay started.

"I don't know; but it will be best for me to do something to help along. I think I shall take a school somewhere. I think I can get one."

"A school, my dear? Why should you do such a thing?"

"To help along," said Lois. "You know, we have not much to live on here at home. I should make one less here, and I should be earning a little besides."

"Very little, Lois!"

"Very little will do."

"But you do a great deal now towards the family support. What will become of your garden?"

"Uncle Tim can take care of that. Besides, Mrs. Barclay, even if I could stay at home, I think I ought not. I ought to be doing something—be of some use in the world. I am not needed here, now dear grandmother is gone; and there must be some other place where I am needed."

"My dear, somebody will want you to keep house for him, some of these days."

Lois shook her head. "I do not think of it," she said. "I do not think it is very likely; that is, anybody I should want. But if it were true," she added, looking up and smiling, "that has nothing to do with present duty."

"My dear, I cannot bear to think of your going into such drudgery!"

"Drudgery?" said Lois. "I do not know,—perhaps I should not find it so. But I may as well do it as somebody else."

"You are fit for something better."

"There is nothing better, and there is nothing happier," said Lois, rising, "than to do what God gives us to do. I should not be unhappy, Mrs. Barclay. It wouldn't be just like these days we have passed together, I suppose;—these days have been a garden of flowers."

And what have they all amounted to? thought Mrs. Barclay when she was left alone. Have I done any good—or only harm—by acceding to that mad proposition of Philip's? Some good, surely; these two girls have grown and changed, mentally, at a great rate of progress; they are educated, cultivated, informed, refined, to a degree that I would never have thought a year and a half could do. Even so! have I done them good? They are lifted quite out of the level of their surroundings; and to be lifted so, means sometimes a barren living alone. Yet I will not think that; it is better to rise in the scale of being, if ever one can, whatever comes of it; what one is in oneself is of more importance than one's relations to the world around. But Philip?—I have helped him nourish this fancy—and it is not a fancy now—it is the man's whole life. Heigh ho! I begin to think he was right, and that it is very difficult to know what is doing good and what isn't. I must write to Philip—

So she did, at once. She told him of the contemplated changes in the family arrangements; of Lois's plan for teaching a district school; and declared that she herself must now leave Shampuashuh. She had done what she came for, whether for good or for ill. It was done; and she could no longer continue living there on Mr. Dillwyn's bounty. Now it would be mere bounty, if she stayed where she was; until now she might say she had been doing his work. His work was done now, her part of it; the rest he must finish for himself. Mrs. Barclay would leave Shampuashuh in April.

This letter would bring matters to a point, she thought, if anything could; she much expected to see Mr. Dillwyn himself appear again before March was over. He did not come, however; he wrote a short answer to Mrs. Barclay, saying that he was sorry for her resolve, and would combat it if he could; but felt that he had not the power. She must satisfy her fastidious notions of independence, and he could only thank her to the last day of his life for what she had already done for him; service which thanks could never repay. He sent this letter, but said nothing of coming; and he did not come.

Later, Mrs. Barclay wrote again. The household changes were just about to be made; she herself had but a week or two more in Shampuashuh; and Lois, against all expectation, had found opportunity immediately to try her vocation for teaching. The lady placed over a school in a remote little village had suddenly died; and the trustees of the school had considered favourably Lois's application. She was going in a day or two to undertake the charge of a score or two of boys and girls, of all ages, in a wild and rough part of the country; where even the accommodations for her own personal comfort, Mrs. Barclay feared, would be of the plainest.

To this letter also she received an answer, though after a little interval. Mr. Dillwyn wrote, he regretted Lois's determination; regretted that she thought it necessary; but appreciated the straightforward, unflinching sense of duty which never consulted with ease or selfishness. He himself was going, he added, on business, for a time, to the north; that is, not Massachusetts, but Canada. He would therefore not see Mrs. Barclay until after a considerable interval.

Mrs. Barclay did not know what to make of this letter. Had Philip given up his fancy? It was not like him. Men are fickle, it is true; but fickle in his friendships she had never known Mr. Dillwyn to be. Yet this letter said nothing of love, or hope, or fear; it was cool, friendly, business-like. Mrs. Barclay nevertheless did not know how to believe in the business. He have business! What business? She had always known him as an easy, graceful, pleasure-taker; finding his pleasure in no evil ways, indeed; kept from that by early associations, or by his own refined tastes and sense of honour; but never living to anything but pleasure. His property was ample and unencumbered; even the care of that was not difficult, and did not require much of his time. And now, just when he ought to put in his claim for Lois, if he was ever going to make it; just when she was set loose from her old ties and marking out a new and hard way of life for herself, he ought to come; and he was going on business to Canada! Mrs. Barclay was excessively disgusted and disappointed. She had not, indeed, all along seen how Philip's wooing could issue successfully, if it ever came to the point of wooing; the elements were too discordant, and principles too obstinate; and yet she had worked on in hope, vague and doubtful, but still hope, thinking highly herself of Mr. Dillwyn's pretensions and powers of persuasion, and knowing that in human nature at large all principle and all discordance are apt to come to a signal defeat when Love takes the field. But now there seemed to be no question of wooing; Love was not on hand, where his power was wanted; the friends were all scattered one from another—Lois going to the drudgery of teaching rough boys and girls, she herself to the seclusion of some quiet seaside retreat, and Mr. Dillwyn—to hunt bears?—in Canada.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

LUXURY.

So they were all scattered. But the moving and communicating wires of human society seem as often as any way to run underground; quite out of sight, at least; then specially strong, when to an outsider they appear to be broken and parted for ever.

Into the history of the summer it is impossible to go minutely. What Mr. Dillwyn did in Canada, and how Lois fought with ignorance and rudeness and prejudice in her new situation, Mrs. Barclay learned but very imperfectly from the letters she received; so imperfectly, that she felt she knew nothing. Mr. Dillwyn never mentioned Miss Lothrop. Could it be that he had prematurely brought things to a decision, and so got them decided wrong? But in that case Mrs. Barclay felt sure some sign would have escaped Lois; and she gave none.

The summer passed, and two-thirds of the autumn.

One evening in the end of October, Mrs. Wishart was sitting alone in her back drawing-room. She was suffering from a cold, and coddling herself over the fire. Her major-domo brought her Mr. Dillwyn's name and request for admission, which was joyfully granted. Mrs. Wishart was denied to ordinary visitors; and Philip's arrival was like a benediction.

"Where have you been all summer?" she asked him, when they had talked awhile of some things nearer home.

"In the backwoods of Canada."

"The backwoods of Canada!"

"I assure you it is a very enjoyable region."

"What could you find to do there?"

"More than enough. I spent my time between hunting—fishing—and studying."

"Studying what, pray? Not backwoods farming, I suppose?"

"Well, no, not exactly. Backwoods farming is not precisely in my line."

"What is in your line that you could study there?"

"It is not a bad place to study anything;—if you except, perhaps, art and antiquity."

"I did not know you studied anything but art."

"It is hardly a sufficient object to fill a man's life worthily; do you think so?"

"What would fill it worthily?" the lady asked, with a kind of dreary abstractedness. And if Philip had surprised her a moment before, he was surprised in his turn. As he did not answer immediately, Mrs. Wishart went on.

"A man's life, or a woman's life? What would fill it worthily? Do you know? Sometimes it seems to me that we are all living for nothing."

"I am ready to confess that has been the case with me,—to my shame be it said."

"I mean, that there is nothing really worth living for."

"That cannot be true, however."

"Well, I suppose I say so at the times when I am unable to enjoy anything in my life. And yet, if you stop to think, what does anybody's life amount to? Nobody's missed, after he is gone; or only for a minute; and for himself—There is not a year of my life that I can remember, that I would be willing to live over again."

"Apparently, then, to enjoy is not the chief end of existence. I mean, of this existence."

"What do we know of any other? And if we do not enjoy ourselves, pray what in the world should we live for?"

"I have seen people that I thought enjoyed themselves," Philip said slowly.

"Have you? Who were they? I do not know them."

"You know some of them. Do you recollect a friend of mine, for whom you negotiated lodgings at a far-off country village?"

"Yes, I remember. They took her, didn't they?"

"They took her. And I had the pleasure once or twice of visiting her there."

"Did she like it?"

"Very much. She could not help liking it. And I thought those people seemed to enjoy life. Not relatively, but positively."

"The Lothrops!" cried Mrs. Wishart. "I can not conceive it. Why, they are very poor."

"That made no hindrance, in their case."

"Poor people, I am afraid they have not been enjoying themselves this year."

"I heard of Mrs. Armadale's death."

"Yes. O, she was old; she could not be expected to live long. But they are all broken up."

"How am I to understand that?"

"Well, you know they have very little to live upon. I suppose it was for that reason Lois went off to a distance from home to teach a district school. You know,—or do you know?—what country schools are, in some places; this was one of the places. Pretty rough; and hard living. And then a railroad was opened in the neighbourhood—the place became sickly—a fever broke out among Lois's scholars and the families they came from; and Lois spent her vacation in nursing. Then got sick herself with the fever, and is only just now getting well."

"I heard something of this before from Mrs. Barclay."

"Then Madge went to take care of Lois, and they were both there. That is weeks and weeks ago,—months, I should think."

"But the sick one is well again?"

"She is better. But one does not get up from those fevers so soon. One's strength is gone. I have sent for them to come and make me a visit and recruit."

"They are coming, I hope?"

"I expect them here to-morrow."

Mr. Dillwyn had nearly been betrayed into an exclamation. He remembered himself in time, and replied with proper self-possession that he was very glad to hear it.

"Yes, I told them to come here and rest. They must want it, poor girls, both of them."

"Then they are coming to-morrow?"

"Yes."

"By what train?"

"I believe, it is the New Haven train that gets in about five o'clock.
Or six. I do not know exactly."

"I know. Now, Mrs. Wishart, you are not well yourself, and must not go out. I will meet the train and bring them safe to you."

"You? O, that's delightful. I have been puzzling my brain to know how I should manage; for I am not fit to go out yet, and servants are so unsatisfactory. Will you really? That's good of you!"

"Not at all. It is the least I can do. The family received me most kindly on more than one occasion; and I would gladly do them a greater service than this."

At two o'clock next day the waiting-room of the New Haven station held, among others, two very handsome young girls; who kept close together, waiting for their summons to the train. One of them was very pale and thin and feeble-looking, and indeed sat so that she leaned part of her weight upon her sister. Madge was pale too, and looked somewhat anxious. Both pairs of eyes watched languidly the moving, various groups of travellers clustered about in the room.

"Madge, it's like a dream!" murmured the one girl to the other.

"What? If you mean this crowd, my dreams have more order in them."

"I mean, being away from Esterbrooke, and off a sick-bed, and moving, and especially going to—where we are going. It's a dream!"

"Why?"

"Too good to be true. I had thought, do you know, I never should make a visit there again."

"Why not, Lois?"

"I thought it would be best not. But now the way seems clear, and I can take the fun of it. It is clearly right to go."

"Of course! It is always right to go wherever you are asked."

"O no, Madge!"

"Well,—wherever the invitation is honest, I mean."

"O, that isn't enough."

"What else? supposing you have the means to go. I am not sure that we have that condition in the present instance. But if you have, what else is to be waited for?"

"Duty—" Lois whispered.

"O, bother duty! Here have you gone and almost killed yourself for duty."

"Well,—supposing one does kill oneself?—one must do what is duty."

"That isn't duty."

"O, it may be."

"Not to kill yourself. You have almost killed yourself, Lois."

"I couldn't help it."

"Yes, you could. You make duty a kind of iron thing."

"Not iron," said Lois; she spoke slowly and faintly, but now she smiled. "It is golden!"

"That don't help. Chains of gold may be as hard to break as chains of iron."

"Who wants them broken?" said Lois, in the same slow, contented way.
"Duty? Why Madge, it's the King's orders!"

"Do you mean that you were ordered to go to that place, and then to nurse those children through the fever?"

"Yes, I think so."

"I should be terribly afraid of duty, if I thought it came in such shapes. There's the train!—Now if you can get downstairs—"

That was accomplished, though with tottering steps, and Lois was safely seated in one of the cars, and her head pillowed upon the back of the seat. There was no more talking then for some time. Only when Haarlem bridge was past and New York close at hand, Lois spoke.

"Madge, suppose Mrs. Wishart should not be here to meet us? You must think what you would do."

"Why, the train don't go any further, does it?"

"No!—but it goes back. I mean, it will not stand still for you. It moves away out of the station-house as soon as it is empty."

"There will be carriages waiting, I suppose. But I am sure I hope she will meet us. I wrote in plenty of time. Don't worry, dear! we'll manage."

"I am not worrying," said Lois. "I am a great deal too happy to worry."

However, that was not Madge's case, and she felt very fidgety. With Lois so feeble, and in a place so unknown to her, and with baggage checks to dispose of, and so little time to do anything, and no doubt a crowd of doubtful characters lounging about, as she had always heard they did in New York; Madge did wish very anxiously for a pilot and a protector. As the train slowly moved into the Grand Central, she eagerly looked to see some friend appear. But none appeared.

"We must go out, Madge," said Lois. "Maybe we shall find Mrs.
Wishart—I dare say we shall—she could not come into the cars—"

The two made their way accordingly, slowly, at the end of the procession filing out of the car, till Madge got out upon the platform. There she uttered an exclamation of joy.

"O Lois!—there's Mr. Dillwyn?"

"But we are looking for Mrs. Wishart," said Lois.

The next thing she knew, however, somebody was carefully helping her down to the landing; and then, her hand was on a stronger arm than that of Mrs. Wishart, and she was slowly following the stream of people to the front of the station-house. Lois was too exhausted by this time to ask any questions; suffered herself to be put in a carriage passively, where Madge took her place also, while Mr. Dillwyn went to give the checks of their baggage in charge to an expressman. Lois then broke out again with,

"O Madge, it's like a dream!"

"Isn't it?" said Madge. "I have been in a regular fidget for two hours past, for fear Mrs. Wishart would not be here."

"I didn't fidget," said Lois, "but I did not know how I was going to get from the cars to the carriage. I feel in a kind of exhausted Elysium!"

"It's convenient to have a man belonging to one," said Madge.

"Hush, pray!" said Lois, closing her eyes. And she hardly opened them again until the carriage arrived at Mrs. Wishart's, which was something of a drive. Madge and Mr. Dillwyn kept up a lively conversation, about the journey and Lois's condition, and her summer; and how he happened to be at the Grand Central. He went to meet some friends, he said coolly, whom he expected to see by that train.

"Then we must have been in your way," exclaimed Madge regretfully.

"Not at all," he said.

"But we hindered you from taking care of your friends?"

"No," he said indifferently; "by no means. They are taken care of."

And both Madge and Lois were too simple to know what he meant.

At Mrs. Wishart's, Lois was again helped carefully out and carefully in, and half carried up-stairs to her own room, whither it was decided she had better go at once. And there, after being furnished with a bowl of soup, she was left, while the others went down to tea. So Madge found her an hour afterwards, sunk in the depths of a great, soft easy-chair, gazing at the fanciful flames of a kennel coal fire.

"O Madge, it's a dream!" Lois said again languidly, though with plenty of expression. "I can't believe in the change from Esterbrooke here."

"It's a change from Shampuashuh," Madge returned. "Lois, I didn't know things could be so pretty. And we have had the most delightful tea, and something—cakes—Mrs. Wishart calls wigs, the best things you ever saw in your life; but Mr. Dillwyn wouldn't let us send some up to you."

"Mr. Dillwyn!"—

"Yes, he said they were not good for you. He has been just as pleasant as he could be. I never saw anybody so pleasant. I like Mr. Dillwyn very much."

"Don't!" said Lois languidly.

"Why?"

"You had better not."

"But why not? You are ungrateful, it seems to me, if you don't like him."

"I like him," said Lois slowly; "but he belongs to a different world from ours. The worlds can't come together; so it is best not to like him too much."

"How do you mean, a different world?"

"O, he's different, Madge! All his thoughts and ways and associations are unlike ours—a great way off from ours; and must be. It is best as I said. I guess it is best not to like anybody too much."

With which oracular and superhumanly wise utterance Lois closed her eyes softly again. Madge, provoked, was about to carry on the discussion, when, noticing how pale the cheek was which lay against the crimson chair cushion, and how very delicate the lines of the face, she thought better of it and was silent. A while later, however, when she had brought Lois a cup of gruel and biscuit, she broke out on a new theme.

"What a thing it is, that some people should have so much silver, and other people so little!"

"What silver are you thinking of?"

"Why, Mrs. Wishart's, to be sure. Who's else? I never saw anything like it, out of Aladdin's cave. Great urns, and salvers, and cream-jugs, and sugar-bowls, and cake-baskets, and pitchers, and salt-cellars. The salt-cellars were lined with something yellow, or washed, to hinder the staining, I suppose."

"Gold," said Lois.

"Gold?"

"Yes. Plated with gold."

"Well I never saw anything like the sideboard down-stairs; the sideboard and the tea-table. It is funny, Lois, as I said, why some should have so much, and others so little."

"We, you mean? What should we do with a load of silver?"

"I wish I had it, and then you'd see! You should have a silk dress, to begin with, and so should I."

"Never mind," said Lois, letting her eyelids fall again with an expression of supreme content, having finished her gruel. "There are compensations, Madge."

"Compensations! What compensations? We are hardly respectably dressed, you and I, for this place."

"Never mind!" said Lois again. "If you had been sick as I was, and in that place, and among those people, you would know something."

"What should I know?"

"How delightful this chair is;—and how good that gruel, out of a china cup;—and how delicious all this luxury! Mrs. Wishart isn't as rich as I am to-night."

"The difference is, she can keep it, and you cannot, you poor child!"

"O yes, I can keep it," said Lois, in the slow, happy accent with which she said everything to-night;—"I can keep the remembrance of it, and the good of it. When I get back to my work, I shall not want it."

"Your work!" said Madge.

"Yes."

"Esterbrooke!"

"Yes, if they want me."

"You are never going back to that place!" exclaimed Madge energetically. "Never! not with my good leave. Bury yourself in that wild country, and kill yourself with hard work! Not if I know it."

"If that is the work given me," said Lois, in the same calm voice.
"They want somebody there, badly; and I have made a beginning."

"A nice beginning!—almost killed yourself. Now, Lois, don't think about anything! Do you know, Mrs. Wishart says you are the handsomest girl she ever saw!"

"That's a mistake. I know several much handsomer."

"She tried to make Mr. Dillwyn say so too; and he wouldn't."

"Naturally."

"It was funny to hear them; she tried to drive him up to the point, and he wouldn't be driven; he said one clever thing after another, but always managed to give her no answer; till at last she pinned him with a point-blank question."

"What did he do then?"

"Said what you said; that he had seen women who would be called handsomer."

The conversation dropped here, for Lois made no reply, and Madge recollected she had talked enough.

CHAPTER XL.

ATTENTIONS.

It was days before Lois went down-stairs. She seemed indeed to be in no hurry. Her room was luxuriously comfortable; Madge tended her there, and Mrs. Wishart visited her; and Lois sat in her great easy-chair, and rested, and devoured the delicate meals that were brought her; and the colour began gently to come back to her face, in the imperceptible fashion in which a white Van Thol tulip takes on its hues of crimson. She began to read a little; but she did not care to go down-stairs. Madge told her everything that went on; who came, and what was said by one and another. Mr. Dillwyn's name was of very frequent occurrence.

"He's a real nice man!" said Madge enthusiastically.

"Madge, Madge, Madge!—you mustn't speak so," said Lois. "You must not say 'real nice.'"

"I don't, down-stairs," said Madge, laughing. "It was only to you. It is more expressive, Lois, sometimes, to speak wrong than to speak right."

"Do not speak so expressively, then."

"But I must, when I am speaking of Mr. Dillwyn. I never saw anybody so nice. He is teaching me to play chess, Lois, and it is such fun."

"It seems to me he comes here very often."

"He does; he is an old friend of Mrs. Wishart's, and she is as glad to see him as I am."

"Don't be too glad, Madge. I do not like to hear you speak so."

"Why not?"

"It was one of the reasons why I did not want to accept Mrs. Barclay's invitation last winter, that I knew he would be visiting her constantly. I did not expect to see him here much." Lois looked grave.

"What harm in seeing him, Lois? why shouldn't one have the pleasure? For it is a pleasure; his talk is so bright, and his manner is so very kind and graceful; and he is so kind. He is going to take me to drive again."

"You go to drive with Mrs. Wishart. Isn't that enough?"

"It isn't a quarter so pleasant," Madge said, laughing again. "Mr. Dillwyn talks, something one likes to hear talked. Mrs. Wishart tells me about old families, and where they used to live, and where they live now; what do I care about old New York families! And Mr. Dillwyn lets me talk. I never have anything whatever to say to Mrs. Wishart; she does it all."

"I would rather have you go driving with her, though."

"Why, Lois? That's ridiculous. I like to go with Mr. Dillwyn."

"Don't like it too well."

"How can I like it too well?"

"So much that you would miss it, when you do not have it any longer."

"Miss it!" said Madge, half angrily. "I might miss it, as I might miss any pleasant thing; but I could stand that. I'm not a chicken just out of the egg. I have missed things before now, and it hasn't killed me."

"Don't think I am foolish, Madge. It isn't a question of how much you can stand. But the men like—like this one—are so pleasant with their graceful, smooth ways, that country girls like you and me might easily be drawn on, without knowing it, further than they want to go."

"He does not want to draw anybody on!" said Madge indignantly.

"That's the very thing. You might think—or I might think—that pleasant manner means something; and it don't mean anything."

"I don't want it to 'mean anything,' as you say; but what has our being country girls to do with it?"

"We are not accustomed to that sort of society, and so it makes, I suppose, more impression. And what might mean something to others, would not to us. From such men, I mean."

"What do you mean by 'such men'?" asked Madge, who was getting rather excited.

"Rich—fashionable—belonging to the great world, and having the ways of it. You know what Mr. Dillwyn is like. It is not what we have in Shainpuashuh."

"But, Lois!—what are you talking about? I don't care a red cent for all this, but I want to understand. You said such a manner would mean nothing to us."

"Yes."

"Why not to us, as well as anybody else?"

"Because we are nobodies, Madge."

"What do you mean?" said the other hotly.

"Just that. It is quite true. You are nobody, and I am nobody. You see, if we were somebody, it would be different."

"If you think—I'll tell you what, Lois! I think you are fit to be the wife of the best man that lives and breathes."

"I think so myself," Lois returned quietly.

"And I am."

"I think you are, Madge. But that makes no difference. My dear, we are nobody."

"How?"—impatiently. "Isn't our family as respectable as anybody's?
Haven't we had governors and governors, of Massachusetts and
Connecticut both; and judges and ministers, ever so many, among our
ancestors? And didn't a half-dozen of 'em, or more, come over in the
'Mayflower'?"

"Yes, Madge; all true; and I am as glad of it as you are."

"Then you talk nonsense!"

"No, I don't," said Lois, sighing a little. "I have seen a little more of the world than you have, you know, dear Madge; not very much, but a little more than you; and I know what I am talking about. We are unknown, we are not rich, we have none of what they call 'connections.' So you see I do not want you to like too much a person who, beyond civility, and kindness perhaps, would never think of liking you."

"I don't want him to, that's one thing," said Madge. "But if all that is true, he is meaner than I think him; that's what I've got to say. And it is a mean state of society where all that can be true."

"I suppose it is human nature," said Lois.

"It's awfully mean human nature!"

"I guess there is not much true nobleness but where the religion of
Christ comes in. If you have got that, Madge, be content and thankful."

"But nobody likes to be unjustly depreciated."

"Isn't that pride?"

"One must have some pride. I can't make religion everything, Lois. I was a woman before I was a Christian."

"If you want to be a happy woman, you will let religion be everything."

"But, Lois!—wouldn't you like to be rich, and have pretty things about you?"

"Don't ask me," said Lois, smiling. "I am a woman too, and dearly fond of pretty things. But, Madge, there is something else I love better," she added, with a sudden sweet gravity; "and that is, the will of my God. I would rather have what he chooses to give me. Really and truly; I would rather have that."

The conversation therewith was at an end. In the evening of that same day Lois left her seclusion and came down-stairs for the first time. She was languid enough yet to be obliged to move slowly, and her cheeks had not got back their full colour, and were thinner than they used to be; otherwise she looked well, and Mrs. Wishart contemplated her with great satisfaction. Somewhat to Lois's vexation, or she thought so, they found Mr. DilIwyn down-stairs also. Lois had the invalid's place of honour, in a corner of the sofa, with a little table drawn up for her separate tea; and Madge and Mr. Dillwyn made toast for her at the fire. The fire gave its warm light, the lamps glittered with a more brilliant illumination; ruddy hues of tapestry and white gleams from silver and glass filled the room, with lights and shadows everywhere, that contented the eye and the imagination too, with suggestions of luxury and plenty and sheltered comfort. Lois felt the shelter and the comfort and the pleasure, with that enhanced intensity which belongs to one's sensations in a state of convalescence, and in her case was heightened by previous experiences. Nestled among cushions in her corner, she watched everything and took the effect of every detail; tasted every flavour of the situation; but all with a thoughtful, wordless gravity; she hardly spoke at all.

After tea, Mr. Dillwyn and Madge sat down to the chess-board. And then Lois's attention fastened upon them. Madge had drawn the little table that held the chessmen into very close proximity to the sofa, so that she was just at Lois's hand; but then her whole mind was bent upon the game, and Lois could study her as she pleased. She did study Madge. She admired her sister's great beauty; the glossy black hair, the delicate skin, the excellent features, the pretty figure. Madge was very handsome, there was no doubt; Mr. Dillwyn would not have far to look, Lois thought, to find one handsomer than herself was. There was a frank, fine expression of face, too; and manners thoroughly good. They lacked some of the quietness of long usage, Lois thought; a quick look or movement now and then, or her eager eyes, or an abrupt tone of voice, did in some measure betray the country girl, to whom everything was novel and interesting; and distinguished her from the half blasé, wholly indifferent air of other people. She will learn that quietness soon enough, thought Lois; and then, nothing could be left to desire in Madge. The quietness had always been a characteristic of Lois herself; partly difference of temperament, partly the sweeter poise of Lois's mind, had made this difference between the sisters; and now of course Lois had had more experience of people and the world. But it was not in her the result of experience, this fair, unshaken balance of mind and manner which was always a charm in her. However, this by the way; the girl herself was drawing no comparisons, except so far as to judge her sister handsomer than herself.

From Madge her eye strayed to Mr. Dillwyn, and studied him. She was lying back a little in shadow, and could do it safely. He was teaching Madge the game; and Lois could not but acknowledge and admire in him the finished manner she missed in her sister. Yes, she could not help admiring it. The gentle, graceful, easy way, in which he directed her, gave reproofs and suggestions about the game, and at the same time kept up a running conversation with Mrs. Wishart; letting not one thing interfere with another, nor failing for a moment to attend to both ladies. There was a quiet perfection about the whole home picture; it remained in Lois's memory for ever. Mrs. Wishart sat on an opposite sofa knitting; not a long blue stocking, like her dear grandmother, but a web of wonderful hues, thick and soft, and various as the feathers on a peacock's neck. It harmonized with all the rest of the room, where warmth and colour and a certain fulness of detail gave the impression of long-established easy living. The contrast was very strong with Lois's own life surroundings; she compared and contrasted, and was not quite sure how much of this sort of thing might be good for her. However, for the present here she was, and she enjoyed it. Then she queried if Mr. Dillwyn were enjoying it. She noticed the hand which he had run through the locks of his hair, resting his head on the hand. It was well formed, well kept; in that nothing remarkable; but there was a certain character of energy in the fingers which did not look like the hand of a lazy man. How could he spend his life so in doing nothing? She did not fancy that he cared much about the game, or much about the talk; what was he there for, so often? Did he, possibly, care about Madge? Lois's thoughts came back to the conversation.

"Mrs. Wishart, what is to be done with the poor of our city?" Mr.
Dillwyn was saying.

"I don't know! I wish something could be done with them, to keep them from coming to the house. My cook turns away a dozen a day, some days."

"Those are not the poor I mean."

"They are poor enough."

"They are to a large extent pretenders. I mean the masses of solid poverty which fill certain parts of the city—and not small parts either. It is no pretence there."

"I thought there were societies enough to look after them. I know I pay my share to keep up the societies. What are they doing?"

"Something, I suppose. As if a man should carry a watering-pot to
Vesuvius."

"What in the world has turned your attention that way? I pay my subscriptions, and then I discharge the matter from my mind. It is the business of the societies. What has set you to thinking about it?"

"Something I have seen, and something I have heard."

"What have you heard? Are you studying political economy? I did not know you studied anything but art criticism."

"What do you do with your poor at Shampuashuh, Miss Madge?"

"We do not have any poor. That is, hardly any. There is nobody in the poorhouse. A few—perhaps half a dozen—people, cannot quite support themselves. Check to your queen, Mr. Dillwyn."

"What do you do with them?"

"O, take care of them. It's very simple. They understand that whenever they are in absolute need of it, they can go to the store and get what they want."

"At whose expense?"

"O, there is a fund there for them. Some of the better-off people take care of that."

"I should think that would be quite too simple," said Mrs. Wishart, "and extremely liable to abuse."

"It is never abused, though. Some of the people, those poor ones, will come as near as possible to starving before they will apply for anything."

Mrs. Wishart remarked that Shampuashuh was altogether unlike all other places she ever had heard of.

"Things at Shampuashuh are as they ought to be," Mr. Dillwyn said.

"Now, Mr. Dillwyn," cried Madge, "I will forgive you for taking my queen, if you will answer a question for me. What is 'art criticism'?"

"Why, Madge, you know!" said Lois from her sofa corner.

"I do not admire ignorance so much as to pretend to it," Madge rejoined. "What is art criticism, Mr. Dillwyn?"

"What is art?"

"That is what I do not know!" said Madge, laughing. "I understand criticism. It is the art that bothers me. I only know that it is something as far from nature as possible."

"O Madge, Madge!" said Lois again; and Mr. Dillwyn laughed a little.

"On the contrary, Miss Madge. Your learning must be unlearnt. Art is really so near to nature—Check!—that it consists in giving again the facts and effects of nature in human language."

"Human language? That is, letters and words?"

"Those are the symbols of one language."

"What other is there?"

"Music—painting—architecture—— I am afraid, Miss Madge, that is check-mate?"

"You said you had seen and heard something, Mr. Dillwyn," Mrs. Wishart now began. "Do tell us what. I have neither seen nor heard anything in an age."

Mr. Dillwyn was setting the chessmen again.

"What I saw," he said, "was a silk necktie—or scarf—such as we wear.
What I heard, was the price paid for making it."

"Was there anything remarkable about the scarf?"

"Nothing whatever; except the aforesaid price."

"What was the price paid for making it?"

"Two cents."

"Who told you?"

"A friend of mine, who took me in on purpose that I might see and hear, what I have reported."

"Two cents, did you say? But that's no price!"

"So I thought."

"How many could a woman make in a day, Madge, of those silk scarfs?"

"I don't know—I suppose, a dozen."

"A dozen, I was told, is a fair day's work," Mr. Dillwyn said. "They do more, but it is by working on into the night."

"Good patience! Twenty-five cents for a hard day's work!" said Mrs. Wishart. "A dollar and a half a week! Where is bread to come from, to keep them alive to do it?"

"Better die at once, I should say," echoed Madge.

"Many a one would be glad of that alternative, I doubt not," Mr. Dillwyn went on. "But there is perhaps an old mother to be taken care of, or a child or two to feed and bring up."

"Don't talk about it!" said Mrs. Wishart. "It makes me feel blue."

"I must risk that. I want you to think about it. Where is help to come from? These are the people I was thinking of, when I asked you what was to be done with our poor."

"I don't know why you ask me. I can do nothing. It is not my business."

"Will it do to assume that as quite certain?"

"Why yes. What can I do with a set of master tailors?"

"You can cry down the cheap shops; and say why."

"Are the dear shops any better?"

Mr. Dillwyn laughed. "Presumably! But talking—even your talking—will not do all. I want you to think about it."

"I don't want to think about it," answered the lady. "It's beyond me. Poverty is people's own fault. Industrious and honest people can always get along."

"If sickness does not set in, or some father, or husband, or son does not take to bad ways."

"How can I help all that?" asked the lady somewhat pettishly. "I never knew you were in the benevolent and reformatory line before, Mr. Dillwyn. What has put all this in your head?"

"Those scarfs, for one thing. Another thing was a visit I had lately occasion to make. It was near midday. I found a room as bare as a room could be, of all that we call comfort; in the floor a small pine table set with three plates, bread, cold herrings, and cheese. That was the dinner for a little boy, whom I found setting the table, and his father and mother. The parents work in a factory hard by, from early to late; they have had sickness in the family this autumn, and are too poor to afford a fire to eat their dinner by, or to make it warm, so the other child, a little girl, has been sent away for the winter. It was frostily cold the day I was there. The boy goes to school in the afternoon, and comes home in time to light up a fire for his father and mother to warm themselves by at evening. And the mother has all her housework to do after she comes home."

"That's better than the other case," said Mrs. Wishart.

"But what could be done, Mr. Dillwyn?" said Lois from her corner. "It seems as if something was wrong. But how could it be mended?"

"I want Mrs. Wishart to consider of that."

"I can't consider it!" said the lady. "I suppose it is intended that there should be poor people always, to give us something to do."

"Then let us do it."

"How?"

"I am not certain; but I make a suggestion. Suppose all the ladies of this city devoted their diamonds to this purpose. Then any number of dwelling-houses could be put up; separate, but so arranged as to be warmed by steam from a general centre, at a merely nominal cost for each one; well ventilated and comfortable; so putting an end to the enormity of tenement houses. Then a commission might be established to look after the rights of the poor; to see that they got proper wages, were not cheated, and that all should have work who wanted it. So much might be done."

"With no end of money."

"I proposed to take the diamonds of the city, you know."

"And why just the diamonds?" inquired Mrs. Wishart. "Why don't you speak of some of the indulgences of the men? Take the horses—or the wines—"

"I am speaking to a lady," said Dillwyn, smiling. "When I have a man to apply to, I will make my application accordingly."

"Ask him for his tobacco?" said Mrs. Wishart.

"Certainly for his tobacco. There is as much money spent in this city for tobacco as there is for bread."

Madge exclaimed in incredulous astonishment; and Lois asked if the diamonds of the city would amount to very much.

"Yes, Miss Lois. American ladies are very fond of diamonds; and it is a common thing for one of them to have from ten thousand to twenty thousand or thirty thousand dollars' worth of them as part of the adornment of her pretty person at one time."

"Twenty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds on at once!" cried Madge.
"I call that wicked!"

"Why?" asked Mr. Dillwyn, smiling.

"There's no wickedness in it," said Mrs. Wishart. "How should it be wicked? You put on a flower; and another, who can afford it, puts on a diamond. What's the difference?"

"My flower does not cost anybody anything," said Madge.

"What do my diamonds cost anybody?" returned Mrs. Wishart.

Madge was silent, though not because she had nothing to say; and at this precise moment the door opened, and visitors were ushered in.

CHAPTER XLI.

CHESS.

There entered upon the scene, that is, a little lady of very gay and airy manner; whose airiness, however, was thoroughly well bred. She was accompanied by a tall, pleasant-looking man, of somewhat dreamy aspect; and they were named to Lois and Madge as Mrs. and Mr. Burrage. To Mr. Dillwyn they were not named; and the greet ing in that quarter was familiar; the lady giving him a nod, and the gentleman an easy "Good evening." The lady's attention came round to him again as soon as she was seated.

"Why, Philip, I did not expect to find you. What are you doing here?"

"I was making toast a little while ago."

"I did not know that was one of your accomplishments."

"They said I did it well. I have picked up a good deal of cooking in the course of my travels."

"In what part of the world did you learn to make toast?" asked the lady, while a pair of lively eyes seemed to take note rapidly of all that was in the room; rapidly but carefully, Lois thought. She was glad she herself was hidden in the shadowy sofa corner.

"I believe that is always learned in a cold country, where people have fire," Mr. Dillwyn answered the question.

"These people who travel all over get to be insufferable!" the little lady went on, turning to Mrs. Wishart; "they think they know everything; and they are not a bit wiser than the rest of us. You were not at the De Large's luncheon,—what a pity! I know; your cold shut you up. You must take care of that cold. Well, you lost something. This is the seventh entertainment that has been given to that English party; and every one of them has exceeded the others. There is nothing left for the eighth. Nobody will dare give an eighth. One is fairly tired with the struggle of magnificence. It's the battle of the giants over again, with a difference."

"It is not a battle with attempt to destroy," said her husband.

"Yes, it is—to destroy competition. I have been at every one of the seven but one—and I am absolutely tired with splendour. But there is really nothing left for any one else to do. I don't see how one is to go any further—without the lamp of Aladdin."

"A return to simplicity would be grateful," remarked Mrs. Wishart. "And as new as anything else could be."

"Simplicity! O, my dear Mrs. Wishart!—don't talk of simplicity. We don't want simplicity. We have got past that. Simplicity is the dream of children and country folks; and it means, eating your meat with your fingers."

"It's the sweetest way of all," said Dillwyn.

"Where did you discover that? It must have been among savages.
Children—country folks—and savages, I ought to have said."

"Orientals are not savages. On the contrary, very far exceeding in politeness any western nation I know of."

"You would set a table, then, with napkins and fingers! Or are the napkins not essential?"

"C'est selon," said Dillwyn. "In a strawberry bed, or under a cherry tree, I should vote them a nuisance. At an Asiatic grandee's table you would have them embroidered and perfumed; and one for your lap and another for your lips."

"Evidently they are long past the stage of simplicity. Talking of napkins we had them embroidered—and exquisitely—Japanese work; at the De Larges'. Mine had a peacock in one corner; or I don't know if it was a peacock; it was a gay-feathered bird—"

"A peacock has a tail," suggested Mr. Dillwyn.

"Well, I don't know whether it had a tail, but it was most exquisite; in blue and red and gold; I never saw anything prettier. And at every plate were such exquisite gifts! really elegant, you know. Flowers are all very well; but when it comes to jewellery, I think it is a little beyond good taste. Everybody can't do it, you know; and it is rather embarrassing to nous autres."

"Simplicity has its advantages," observed Mr. Dillwyn.

"Nonsense, Philip! You are as artificial a man as any one I know."

"In what sense?" asked Mr. Dillwyn calmly. "You are bound to explain, for the sake of my character, that I do not wear false heels to my boots."

"Don't be ridiculous! You have no need to wear false heels. Art need not be false, need it?"

"True art never is," said Mr. Dillwyn, amid some laughter.

"Well, artifice, then?"

"Artifice, I am afraid, is of another family, and not allied to truth."

"Well, everybody that knows you knows you are true; but they know, too, that if ever there was a fastidious man, it is you; and a man that wants everything at its last pitch of refinement."

"Which desirable stage I should say the luncheon you were describing had not reached."

"You don't know. I had not told you the half. Fancy!—the ice floated in our glasses in the form of pond lilies; as pretty as possible, with broad leaves and buds."

"How did they get it in such shapes?" asked Madge, with her eyes a trifle wider open than was usual with them.

"O, froze it in moulds, of course. But you might have fancied the fairies had carved it. Then, Mrs. Wishart, there was an arrangement of glasses over the gas burners, which produced the most silver sounds of music you ever heard; no chime, you know, of course; but a most peculiar, sweet, mysterious succession of musical breathings. Add to that, by means of some invisible vaporizers, the whole air was filled with sweetness; now it was orange flowers, and now it was roses, and then again it would be heliotrope or violets; I never saw anything so refined and so exquisite in my life. Waves of sweetness, rising and falling, coming and going, and changing; it was perfect."

The little lady delivered herself of this description with much animation, accompanying the latter part of it with a soft waving of her hand; which altogether overcame Philip's gravity, and he burst into a laugh, in which Mr. Burrage presently joined him; and Lois and Madge found it impossible not to follow.

"What's the matter, Philip?" the lady asked.

"I am reminded of an old gentleman I once saw at Gratz; he was copying the Madonna della Seggia in a mosaic made with the different-coloured wax heads of matches."

"He must have been out of his head."

"That was the conclusion I came to."

"Pray what brought him to your remembrance just then?"

"I was thinking of the different ways people take in the search after happiness."

"And one worth as much as another, I suppose you mean? That is a matter of taste. Mrs. Wishart, I see your happiness is cared for, in having such charming friends with you. O, by the way!—talking of seeing,—have you seen Dulles & Grant's new Persian rugs and carpets?"

"I have been hardly anywhere. I wanted to take Madge to see Brett's
Collection of Paintings; but I have been unequal to any exertion."

"Well, the first time you go anywhere, go to Dulles & Grant's. Take her to see those. Pictures are common; but these Turkish rugs and things are not. They are the most exquisite, the most odd, the most delicious things you ever saw. I have been wanting to ruin myself with them ever since I saw them. It's high art, really. Those Orientals are wonderful people! There is one rug—it is as large as this floor, nearly,—well, it is covered with medallions in old gold, set in a wild, irregular design of all sorts of Cashmere shawl colours—thrown about anyhow; and yet the effect is rich beyond description; simple, too. Another,—O, that is very rare; it is a rare Keelum carpet; let me see if I can describe it. The ground is a full bright red. Over this run palm leaves and little bits of ruby and maroon and gold mosaic; and between the palm leaves come great ovals of olive mixed with black, blue, and yellow; shading off into them. I never saw anything I wanted so much."

"What price?"

"O, they are all prices. The Keelum carpet is only fifteen hundred—but my husband says it is too much. Then another Persian carpet has a centre of red and white. Round this a border of palm leaves. Round these another border of deliciously mixed up warm colours; warm and rich. Then another border of palms; and then the rest of the carpet is in blended shades of dark dull red and pink, with olive flowers thrown over it. O, I can't tell you the half. You must go and see. They have immensely wide borders, all of them; and great thick, soft piles."

"Have you been to Brett's Collection?"

"Yes."

"What is there?"

"The usual thing. O, but I haven't told you what I have come here for to-night."

"I thought it was, to see me."

"Yes, but not for pleasure, this time," said the lively lady, laughing. "I had business—I really do have business sometimes. I came this evening, because I wanted to see you when I could have a chance to explain myself. Mrs. Wishart, I want you to take my place. They have made me first directress of the Forlorn Children's Home."

"Does the epithet apply to the place? or to the children?" Mr. Dillwyn asked.

"Now I cannot undertake the office," Mrs. Burrage went on without heeding him. "My hands are as full as they can hold, and my head fuller. You must take it, Mrs. Wishart. You are just the person."

"I?" said Mrs. Wishart, with no delighted expression. "What are the duties?"

"O, just oversight, you know; keeping things straight. Everybody needs to be kept up to the mark. I cannot, for our Reading Club meets just at the time when I ought to be up at the Home."

The ladies went into a closer discussion of the subject in its various bearings; and Mr. Dillwyn and Madge returned to their chess play. Lois lay watching and thinking. Mr. Burrage looked on at the chess-board, and made remarks on the game languidly. By and by the talk of the two ladies ceased, and the head of Mrs. Burrage came round, and she also studied the chess-players. Her face was observant and critical, Lois thought; oddly observant and thoughtful.

"Where did you get such charming friends to stay with you, Mrs.
Wishart? You are to be envied."

Mrs. Wishart explained, how Lois had been ill, and had come to get well under her care.

"You must bring them to see me. Will you? Are they fond of music? Bring them to my next musical evening."

And then she rose; but before taking leave she tripped across to Lois's couch and came and stood quite close to her, looking at her for a moment in what seemed to the girl rather an odd silence.

"You aren't equal to playing chess yet?" was her equally odd abrupt question. Lois's smile showed some amusement.

"My brother is such an idle fellow, he has got nothing better to do than to amuse sick people. It's charity to employ him. And when you are able to come out, if you'll come to me, you shall hear some good music. Good-bye!"

Her brother! thought Lois as she went off. Mr. Dillwyn, her brother!
I don't believe she likes Madge and me to know him.

Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey Burrage drove away in silence for a few minutes; then the lady broke out.

"There's mischief there, Chauncey!"

"What mischief?" the gentleman asked innocently.

"Those girls."

"Very handsome girls. At least the one that was visible."

"The other's worse. I saw her. The one you saw is handsome; but the other is peculiar. She is rare. Maybe not just so handsome, but more refined; and peculiar. I don't know just what it is in her; but she fascinated me. Masses of auburn hair—not just auburn—more of a golden tint than brown—with a gold reflet, you know, that is so lovely; and a face—"

"Well, what sort of a face?" asked Mr. Burrage, as his spouse paused.

"Something between a baby and an angel, and yet with a sort of sybil look of wisdom. I believe she put one of Domenichino's sybils into my head; there's that kind of complexion—"

"My dear," said the gentleman, laughing, "you could not tell what complexion she was of. She was in a shady corner."

"I was quite near her. Now that sort of thing might just catch Philip."

"Well," said the gentleman, "you cannot help that."

"I don't know if I can or no!"

"Why should you want to help it, after all?"

"Why? I don't want Philip to make a mis-match."

"Why should it be a mis-match?"

"Philip has got too much money to marry a girl with nothing."

Mr. Burrage laughed. His wife demanded to know what he was laughing at? and he said "the logic of her arithmetic."

"You men have no more logic in action, than we women have in speculation. I am logical the other way."

"That is too involved for me to follow. But it occurs to me to ask, Why should there be any match in the case here?"

"That's so like a man! Why shouldn't there? Take a man like my brother, who don't know what to do with himself; a man whose eye and ear are refined till he judges everything according to a standard of beauty;—and give him a girl like that to look at! I said she reminded me of one of Domenichino's sybils—but it isn't that. I'll tell you what it is. She is like one of Fra Angelico's angels. Fancy Philip set down opposite to one of Fra Angelico's angels in flesh and blood!"

"Can a man do better than marry an angel?"

"Yes! so long as he is not an angel himself, and don't live in
Paradise."

"They do not marry in Paradise," said Mr. Burrage dryly. "But why a fellow may not get as near a paradisaical condition as he can, with the drawback of marriage, and in this mundane sphere,—I do not see."

"Men never see anything till afterwards. I don't know anything about this girl, Chauncey, except her face. But it is just the way with men, to fall in love with a face. I do not know what she is, only she is nobody; and Philip ought to marry somebody. I know where they are from. She has no money, and she has no family; she has of course no breeding; she has probably no education, to fit her for being his wife. Philip ought to have the very reverse of all that. Or else he ought not to marry at all, and let his money come to little Phil Chauncey."

"What are you going to do about it?" asked the gentleman, seeming amused.

But Mrs. Burrage made no answer, and the rest of the drive, long as it was, was rather stupid.

CHAPTER XLII.

RULES.

The next day Mr. Dillwyn came to take Madge to see Brett's Collection of Paintings. Mrs. Wishart declared herself not yet up to it. Madge came home in a great state of delight.

"It was so nice!" she explained to her sister; "just as nice as it could be. Mr. Dillwyn was so pleasant; and told me everything and about everything; about the pictures, and the masters; I shouldn't have known what anything meant, but he explained it all. And it was such fun to see the people."

"The people!" said Lois.

"Yes. There were a great many people; almost a crowd; and it did amuse me to watch them."

"I thought you went to see the paintings."

"Well, I saw the paintings; and I heard more about them than I can ever remember."

"What was there?"

"O, I can't tell you. Landscapes and landscapes; and then Holy Families; and saints in misery, of one sort or another; and battle-pieces, but those were such confusion that all I could make out was horses on their hind-legs; and portraits. I think it is nonsense for people to try to paint battles; they can't do it; and, besides, as far as the fighting goes, one fight is just like another. Mr. Dillwyn told me of a travelling showman, in Germany, who travelled about with the panorama of a battle; and every year he gave it a new name, the name of the last battle that was in men's mouths; and all he had to do was to change the uniforms, he said. He had a pot of green paint for the Prussians, and red for the English, and blue, I believe, for the French, and so on; and it did just as well."

"What did you see that you liked best?"

"I'll tell you. It was a little picture of kittens, in and out of a basket. Mr. Dillwyn didn't care about it; but I thought it was the prettiest thing there. Mrs. Burrage was there."

"Was she?"

"And Mr. Dillwyn does know more than ever anybody else in the world, I think. O, he was so nice, Lois! so nice and kind. I wouldn't have given a pin to be there, if it hadn't been for him. He wouldn't let me get tired; and he made everything amusing; and O, I could have sat there till now and watched the people."

"The people! If the pictures were good, I don't see how you could have eyes for the people."

"'The proper study of mankind is man,' my dear; and I like them alive better than painted. It was fun to see the dresses; and then the ways. How some people tried to be interested—"

"Like you?"

"What do you mean? I was interested; and some talked and flirted, and some stared. I watched every new set that came in. Mr. DilIwyn says he will come and take us to the Philarmonic, as soon as the performances begin."

"Madge, it is better for us to go with Mrs. Wishart."

"She may go too, if she likes."

"And it is better for us not to go with Mr. DilIwyn, more than we can help."

"I won't," said Madge. "I can't help going with him whenever he asks me, and I am not going any other time."

"What did Mrs. Burrage say to you?"

"Hm!— Not much. I caught her looking at me more than once. She said she would have a musical party next week, and we must come; and she asked if you would be well enough."

"I hope I shall not."

"That's nonsense. Mr. Dillwyn wants us to go, I know."

"That is not a reason for going."

"I think it is. He is just as good as he can be, and I like him more than anybody else I ever saw in my life. I'd like to see the thing he'd ask me, that I wouldn't do."

"Madge, Madge!"

"Hush, Lois; that's nonsense."

"Madge you trouble me very much."

"And that's nonsense too."

Madge was beginning to get over the first sense of novelty and strangeness in all about her; and, as she overcame that, a feeling of delight replaced it, and grew and grew. Madge was revelling in enjoyment. She went out with Mrs. Wishart, for drives in the Park and for shopping expeditions in the city, and once or twice to make visits. She went out with Mr. Dillwyn, too, as we have seen, who took her to drive, and conducted her to galleries of pictures and museums of curiosities; and finally, and with Mrs. Wishart, to a Philharmonic rehearsal. Madge came home in a great state of exultation; though Lois was almost indignant to find that the place and the people had rivalled the performance in producing it. Lois herself was almost well enough to go, though delicate enough still to allow her the choice of staying at home. She was looking like herself again; yet a little paler in colour and more deliberate in action than her old wont; both the tokens of a want of strength which continued to be very manifest. One day Madge came home from going with Mrs. Wishart to Dulles & Grant's. I may remark that the evening at Mrs. Burrage's had not yet come off, owing to a great storm the night of the music party; but another was looming up in the distance.

"Lois," Madge delivered herself as she was taking off her wrappings, "it is a great thing to be rich!"

"One needs to be sick to know how true that is," responded Lois. "If you could guess what I would have given last summer and fall for a few crumbs of the comfort with which this house is stacked full—like hay in a barn!"

"But I am not thinking of comfort."

"I am. How I wanted everything for the sick people at Esterbrooke. Think of not being able to change their bed linen properly, nor anything like properly!"

"Of course," said Madge, "poor people do not have plenty of things. But
I was not thinking of comfort, when I spoke."

"Comfort is the best thing."

"Don't you like pretty things?"

"Too well, I am afraid."

"You cannot like them too well. Pretty things were meant to be liked. What else were they made for? And of all pretty things—O, those carpets and rugs! Lois, I never saw or dreamed of anything so magnificent. I should like to be rich, for once!"

"To buy a Persian carpet?"

"Yes. That and other things. Why not?"

"Madge, don't you know this was what grandmother was afraid of, when we were learning to know Mr. Dillwyn?"

"What?" said Madge defiantly.

"That we would be bewitched—or dazzled—and lose sight of better things; I think 'bewitched' is the word; all these beautiful things and this luxurious comfort—it is bewitching; and so are the fine manners and the cultivation and the delightful talk. I confess it. I feel it as much as you do; but this is just what dear grandmother wanted to protect us from."

"What did she want to protect us from?" repeated Madge vehemently. "Not Persian carpets, nor luxury; we are not likely to be tempted by either of them in Shampuashuh."

"We might here."

"Be tempted? To what? I shall hardly be likely to go and buy a fifteen-hundred-dollar carpet. And it was cheap at that, Lois! I can live without it, besides. I haven't got so far that I can't stand on the floor, without any carpet at all, if I must. You needn't think it."

"I do not think it. Only, do not be tempted to fancy, darling, that there is any way open to you to get such things; that is all."

"Any way open to me? You mean, I might marry a rich man some day?"

"You might think you might."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because, dear Madge, you will not be asked. I told you why. And if you were,—Madge, you would not, you could not, marry a man that was not a Christian? Grandmother made me promise I never would."

"She did not make me promise it. Lois, don't be ridiculous. I don't want to marry anybody at present; but I like Persian carpets, and nothing will make me say I don't. And I like silver and gold; and servants, and silk dresses, and ice-cream, and pictures, and big houses, and big mirrors, and all the rest of it."

"You can find it all in the eighteenth chapter of Revelation, in the description of the city Babylon; which means the world."

"I thought Babylon was Rome."

"Read for yourself."

I think Madge did not read it for herself, however; and the days went on after the accustomed fashion, till the one arrived which was fixed for Mrs. Chauncey Burrage's second musical party. The three ladies were all invited. Mrs. Wishart supposed they were all going; but when the day came Lois begged off. She did not feel like going, she said; it would be far pleasanter to her if she could stay at home quietly; it would be better for her. Mrs. Wishart demurred; the invitation had been very urgent; Mrs. Burrage would be disappointed; and, besides, she was a little proud herself of her handsome young relations, and wanted the glory of producing them together. However, Lois was earnest in her wish to be left at home; quietly earnest, which is the more difficult to deal with; and, knowing her passionate love for music, Mrs. Wishart decided that it must be her lingering weakness and languor which indisposed her for going. Lois was indeed looking well again; but both her friends had noticed that she was not come back to her old lively energy, whether of speaking or doing. Strength comes back so slowly, they said, after one of those fevers. Yet Madge was not satisfied with this reasoning, and pondered, as she and Mrs. Wishart drove away, what else might be the cause of Lois's refusal to go with them.

Meanwhile Lois, having seen them off and heard the house door close upon them, drew up her chair before the fire and sat down. She was in the back drawing-room, the windows of which looked out to the river and the opposite shore; but the shutters were closed and the curtains drawn, and only the interior view to be had now. So, or any way, Lois loved the place. It was large, roomy, old-fashioned, with none of the stiffness of new things about it; elegant, with the many tokens of home life, and of a long habit of culture and comfort. In a big chimney a big wood fire was burning quietly; the room was softly warm; a brilliant lamp behind Lois banished even imaginary gloom, and a faint red shine came from the burning hickory logs. Only this last illumination fell on Lois's face, and in it Lois's face showed grave and troubled. She was more like a sybil at this moment, looking into confused earthly things, than like one of Fra Angelico's angels rejoicing in the clear light of heaven.

Lois pulled her chair nearer to the fire, and bent down, leaning towards it; not for warmth, for she was not in the least cold; but for company, or for counsel. Who has not taken counsel of a fire? And Lois was in perplexity of some sort, and trying to think hard and to examine into herself. She half wished she had gone to the party at Mrs. Burrage's. And why had she not gone? She did not want, she did not think it was best, to meet Mr. Dillwyn there. And why not, seeing that she met him constantly where she was? Well, that she could not help; this would be voluntary; put ting herself in his way, and in his sister's way. Better not, Lois said to herself. But why, better not? It would surely be a pleasant gathering at Mrs. Burrage's, a pleasant party; her parties always were pleasant, Mrs. Wishart said; there would be none but the best sort of people there, good talking and good music; Lois would have liked it. What if Mr. Dillwyn were there too? Must she keep out of sight of him? Why should she keep out of sight of him? Lois put the question sharply to her conscience. And she found that the answer, if given truly, would be that she fancied Mr. Dillwyn liked her sister's society better than her own. But what then? The blood began to rush over Lois's cheeks and brow and to burn in her pulses. Then, it must be that she herself liked his society—liked him—yes, a little too well; else what harm in his preferring Madge? O, could it be? Lois hid her face in her hands for a while, greatly disturbed; she was very much afraid the case was even so.

But suppose it so; still, what of it? What did it signify, whom Mr. Dillwyn liked? to Lois he could never be anything. Only a pleasant acquain'tance. He and she were in two different lines of life, lines that never cross. Her promise was passed to her grandmother; she could never marry a man who was not a Christian. Happily Mr. Dillwyn did not want to marry her; no such question was coming up for decision. Then what was it to her if he liked Madge? Something, because it was not liking that would end in anything; it was impossible a man in his position and circumstances should choose for a wife one in hers. If he could make such a choice, it would be Madge's duty, as much as it would be her own, to refuse him. Would Madge refuse? Lois believed not. Indeed, she thought no one could refuse him, that had not unconquerable reasons of conscience; and Madge, she knew, did not share those which were so strong in her own mind. Ought Madge to share them? Was it indeed an absolute command that justified and necessitated the promise made to her grandmother? or was it a less stringent thing, that might possibly be passed over by one not so bound? Lois's mind was in a turmoil of thoughts most unusual, and most foreign to her nature and habit; thoughts seemed to go round in a whirl. And in the midst of the whirl there would come before her mind's eye, not now Tom Caruthers' face, but the vision of a pair of pleasant grey eyes at once keen and gentle; or of a close head of hair with a white hand roving amid the thick locks of it; or the outlines of a figure manly and lithe; or some little thing done with that ease of manner which was so winning. Sometimes she saw them as in Mrs. Wishart's drawing-room, and sometimes at the table in the dear old house in Shampuashuh, and sometimes under the drip of an umbrella in a pouring rain, and sometimes in the old schoolhouse. Manly and kind, and full of intelligence, filled with knowledge, well-bred, and noble; so Lois thought of him. Yet he was not a Christian, therefore no fit partner for Madge or for any one else who was a Christian. Could that be the absolute fact? Must it be? Was such the inevitable and universal conclusion? On what did the logic of it rest? Some words in the Bible bore the brunt of it, she knew; Lois had read them and talked them over with her grandmother; and now an irresistible desire took possession of her to read them again, and more critically. She jumped up and ran up-stairs for her Bible.

The fire was down in her own room; the gas was not lit; so she went back to the bright drawing-room, which to-night she had all to herself. She laid her book on the table and opened it, and then was suddenly checked by the question—what did all this matter to her, that she should be so fiercely eager about it? Dismay struck her anew. What was any un-Christian man to her, that her heart should beat so at considering possible relations between them? No such relations were desired by any such person; what ailed Lois even to take up the subject? If Mr. Dillwyn liked either of the sisters particularly, it was Madge. Probably his liking, if it existed, was no more than Tom Caruthers', of which Lois thought with great scorn. Still, she argued, did it not concern her to know with certain'ty what Madge ought to do, in the event of Mr. Dillwyn being not precisely like Tom Caruthers?

CHAPTER XLIII.

ABOUT WORK.

The sound of the opening door made her start up. She would not have even a servant surprise her so; kneeling on the floor with her face buried in her hands on the table. She started up hurriedly; and then was confounded to see entering—Mr. Dillwyn himself. She had heard no ring of the door-bell; that must have been when she was up-stairs getting her Bible. Lois found her feet, in the midst of a terrible confusion of thoughts; but the very inward confusion admonished her to be outwardly calm. She was not a woman of the world, and she had not had very much experience in the difficult art of hiding her feelings, or acting in any way; nevertheless she was a true woman, and woman's blessed—or cursed?—instinct of self-command came to her aid. She met Mr. Dillwyn with a face and manner perfectly composed; she knew she did; and cried to herself privately some thing very like a sea captain's order to his helmsman—"Steady! keep her so." Mr. Dillwyn saw that her face was flushed; but he saw, too, that he had disturbed her and startled her; that must be the reason. She looked so far from being delighted, that he could draw no other conclusion. So they shook hands. She thought he did not look delighted either. Of course, she thought, Madge was not there. And Mr. Dillwyn, whatever his mood when he came, recognized immediately the decided reserve and coolness of Lois's manner, and, to use another nautical phrase, laid his course accordingly.

"How do you do, this evening?"

"I think, quite well. There is nobody at home but me, Mr. Dillwyn."

"So I have been told. But it is a great deal pleasanter here, even with only one-third of the family, than it is in my solitary rooms at the hotel."

At that Lois sat down, and so did he. She could not seem to bid him go away. However, she said—

"Mrs. Wishart has taken Madge to your sister's. It is the night of her music party."

"Why did not Mrs. Wishart take you?"

"I thought—it was better for me to stay at home," Lois answered, with a little hesitation.

"You are not afraid of an evening alone!"

"No, indeed; how could I be? Indeed, I think in New York it is rather a luxury."

Then she wished she had not said that. Would he think she meant to intimate that he was depriving her of a luxury? Lois was annoyed at herself; and hurried on to say something else, which she did not intend should be so much in the same line as it proved. Indeed, she was shocked the moment she had spoken.

"Don't you go to your sister's music parties, Mr. Dillwyn?"

"Not universally."

"I thought you were so fond of music"—Lois said apologetically.

"Yes," he said, smiling. "That keeps me away."

"I thought,"—said Lois,—"I thought they said the music was so good?"

"I have no doubt they say it. And they mean it honestly."

"And it is not?"

"I find it quite too severe a tax on my powers of simulation and dissimulation. Those are powers you never call in play?" he added, with a most pleasant smile and glance at her.

"Simulation and dissimulation?" repeated Lois, who had by no means got her usual balance of mind or manner yet. "Are those powers which ought to be called into play?"

"What are you going to do?"

"When?"

"When, for instance, you are in the mood for a grand theme of Handel, and somebody gives you a sentimental bit of Rossini. Or when Mendelssohn is played as if 'songs without words' were songs without meaning. Or when a singer simply displays to you a VOICE, and leaves music out of the question altogether."

"That is hard!" said Lois.

"What is one to do then?"

"It is hard," Lois said again. "But I suppose one ought always to be true."

"If I am true, I must say what I think."

"Yes. If you speak at all."

"What will they think then?"

"Yes," said Lois. "But, after all, that is not the first question."

"What is the first question?"

"I think—to do right."

"But what is right? What will people think of me, if I tell them their playing is abominable?"

"You need not say it just with those words," said Lois. "And perhaps, if anybody told them the truth, they would do better. At any rate, what they think is not the question, Mr. Dillwyn."

"What is the question?" he asked, smiling.

"What the Lord will think."

"Miss Lois, do you never use dissimulation?"

Lois could not help colouring, a little distressed.

"I try not," she answered. "I dare say I do, sometimes. I dare not say
I do not. It is very difficult for a woman to help it."

"More difficult for a woman than for a man?"

"I do not know. I suppose it is."

"Why should that be?"

"I do not know—unless because she is the weaker, and it may be part of the defensive armour of a weak animal."

Mr. Dillwyn laughed a little.

"But that is _dis_simulation," said Lois. "One is not bound always to say all one thinks; only never to say what one does not think."

"You would always give a true answer to a question?"

"I would try."

"I believe it. And now, Miss Lois, in that trust, I am going to ask you a question. Do you recollect a certain walk in the rain?"

"Certainly!" she said, looking at him with some anxiety.

"And the conversation we held under the umbrella, without simulation or dissimulation?"

"Yes."

"You tacitly—perhaps more than tacitly—blamed me for having spent so much of my life in idleness; that is uselessly, to all but myself."

"Did I?"

"You did. And I have thought about it since. And I quite agree with you that to be idle is to be neither wise nor dignified. But here rises a difficulty. I think I would like to be of some use in the world, if I could. But I do not know what to set about."

Lois waited, with silent attention.

"My question is this: How is a man to find his work in the world?"

Lois's eyes, which had been on his face, went away to the fire. His, which had been on the ground, rose to her face.

"I am in a fog," he said

"I believe every one has his work," Lois remarked.

"I think you said so."

"The Bible says so, at any rate."

"Then how is a man to find his work?" Philip asked, half smiling; at the same time he drew up his chair a little nearer the fire, and began to put the same in order. Evidently he was not going away immediately, and had a mind to talk out the subject. But why with her? And was he not going to his sister's?—

"If each one has, not only his work but his peculiar work, it must be a very important matter to make sure he has found it. A wheel in a machine can do its own work, but it cannot take the part of another wheel. And your words suppose an exact adjustment of parts and powers."

"The Bible words," said Lois.

"Yes. Well, to my question. I do not know what I ought to do, Miss
Lois. I do not see the work to my hand. How am I ever to be any wiser?"

"I am the last person you should ask. And besides,—I do not think anybody knows enough to set another his appointed task."

"How is he to find it, then?"

"He must ask the One who does know."

"Ask?—Pray, you mean?"

"Yes, pray. He must ask to be shown what he ought to do, and how to do it. God knows what place he is meant to fill in the world."

"And if he asks, will he be told?"

"Certainly. That is the promise. 'If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.'"

Lois's eyes came over to her questioner at the last words, as it were, setting a seal to them.

"How will he get the answer? Suppose, for instance, I want wisdom; and I kneel down and pray that I may know my work. I rise from my prayer,—there is no voice, nor writing, nor visible sign; how am I the wiser?"

"You think it will not be given him?" Lois said, with a faint smile.

"I do not say that. I dare not. But how?"

"You must not think that, or the asking will be vain. You must believe the Lord's promise."

Lois was warming out of her reserve, and possibly Mr. Dillwyn had a purpose that she should; though I think he was quite earnest with his question. But certainly he was watching her, as well as listening to her.

"Go on," he said. "How will the answer come to me?"

"There is another condition, too. You must be quite willing to hear the answer."

"Why?"

"Else you will be likely to miss it. You know, Mr. Dillwyn,—you do not know much about housekeeping things,—but I suppose you understand, that if you want to weigh anything truly, your balance must hang even."

He smiled.

"Well, then,—Miss Lois?"

"The answer? It comes different ways. But it is sure to come. I think one way is this,—You see distinctly one thing you ought to do; it is not life-work, but it is one thing. That is enough for one step. You do that; and then you find that that one step has brought you where you can see a little further, and another step is clear. That will do," Lois concluded, smiling; "step by step, you will get where you want to be."

Mr. Dillwyn smiled too, thoughtfully, as it were, to himself.

"Was it so that you went to teach school at that unlucky place?—what do you call it?"

"It was not unlucky. Esterbrooke. Yes, I think I went so."

"Was not that a mistake?"

"No, I think not."

"But your work there was broken up?"

"O, but I expect to go back again."

"Back! There? It is too unhealthy."

"It will not be unhealthy, when the railroad is finished."

"I am afraid it will, for some time. And it is too rough a place for you."

"That is why they want me the more."

"Miss Lois, you are not strong enough."

"I am very strong!" she answered, with a delicious smile.

"But there is such a thing—don't you think so?—as fitness of means to ends. You would not take a silver spade to break ground with?"

"I am not at all a silver spade," said Lois. "But if I were; suppose I had no other?"

"Then surely the breaking ground must be left to a different instrument."

"That won't do," said Lois, shaking her head. "The instrument cannot choose, you know, where it will be employed. It does not know enough for that."

"But it made you ill, that work."

"I am recovering fast."

"You came to a good place for recovering," said Dillwyn, glancing round the room, and willing, perhaps, to leave the subject.

"Almost too good," said Lois. "It spoils one. You cannot imagine the contrast between what I came from—and this. I have been like one in dreamland. And there comes over me now and then a strange feeling of the inequality of things; almost a sense of wrong; the way I am cared for is so very different from the very best and utmost that could be done for the poor people at Esterbrooke. Think of my soups and creams and ices and oranges and grapes!—and there, very often I could not get a bit of fresh beef to make beef-tea; and what could I do without beef-tea? And what would I not have given for an orange sometimes! I do not mean, for myself. I could get hardly anything the sick people really wanted. And here—it is like rain from the clouds."

"Where does the 'sense of wrong' come in?"

"It seems as if things need not be so unequal."

"And what does your silver spade expect to do there?"

"Don't say that! I have no silver spade. But just so far as I could help to introduce better ways and a knowledge of better things, the inequality would be made up—or on the way to be made up."

"What refining measures are you thinking of?—beside your own presence and example."

"I was certainly not thinking of that. Why, Mr. Dillwyn, knowledge itself is refining; and then, so is comfort; and I could help them to more comfort, in their houses, and in their meals. I began to teach them singing, which has a great effect; and I carried all the pictures I had with me. Most of all, though, to bring them to a knowledge of Bible truth is the principal thing and the surest way. The rest is really in order to that."

"Wasn't it very hard work?"

"No," said Lois. "Some things were hard; but not the work."

"Because you like it."

"Yes. O, Mr. Dillwyn, there is nothing pleasanter than to do one's work, if it is work one is sure God has given."

"That must be because you love him," said Philip gravely. "Yet I understand, that in the universal adjustment of things, the instrument and its proper work must agree." He was silent a minute, and Lois did not break the pause. If he would think, let him think, was her meaning. Then he began again.

"There are different ways. What would you think of a man who spent his whole life in painting?"

"I should not think that could be anybody's proper life-work."

"I think it was truly his, and he served God in it."

"Who was he?"

"A Catholic monk, in the fifteenth century."

"What did he paint? What was his name?"

"His name was Fra Angelico—by reason of the angelic character which belonged to him and to his paintings; otherwise Fra Giovanni; he was a monk in a Dominican cloister. He entered the convent when he was twenty years old; and from that time, till he was sixty-eight, he served God and his generation by painting."

Lois looked somewhat incredulous. Mr. Dillwyn here took from one of his pockets a small case, opened it and put it in her hands. It was an excellent copy of a bit of Fra Angelico's work.

"That," he said as he gave it her, "is the head of one of Fra Angelico's angels, from a group in a large picture. I had this copy made for myself some years ago—at a time when I only dimly felt what now I am beginning to understand."

Lois scarce heard what he said. From the time she received the picture in her hands she lost all thought of everything else. The unearthly beauty and purity, the heavenly devotion and joy, seized her heart as with a spell. The delicate lines of the face, the sweet colouring, the finished, perfect handling, were most admirable; but it was the marvellous spiritual love and purity which so took possession of Lois. Her eyes filled and her cheeks flushed. It was, so far as painting could give it, the truth of heaven; and that goes to the heart of the human creature who perceives it. Mr. Dillwyn was watching her, meanwhile, and could look safely, secure that Lois was in no danger of finding it out; and while she, very likely, was thinking of the distance between that angel face and her own, Philip, on the other hand, was following the line of his sister's thought, and tracing the fancied likeness. Like one of Fra Angelico's angels! Yes, there was the same sort of grave purity, of unworldly if not unearthly spiritual beauty. Truly the rapt joy was not there, nor the unshadowed triumph; but love,—and innocence,—and humility,—and truth; and not a stain of the world upon it. Lois said not one word, but looked and looked, till at last she tendered the picture back to its owner.

"Perhaps you would like to keep it," said he, "and show it to your sister."

He brought it to have Madge see it! thought Lois. Aloud—

"No—she would enjoy it a great deal more if you showed it to her;—then you could tell her about it."

"I think you could explain it better."

As he made no motion to take back the picture, Lois drew in her hand again and took a further view. How beautiful was the fair, bright, rapt, blissful face of the angel!—as if, indeed, he were looking at heaven's glories.

"Did he—did the painter—always paint like this?"

"Always, I believe. He improved in his manner as he went on; he painted better and better; but from youth to age he was incessantly doing the one thing, serving God with his pencil. He never painted for money; that is, not for himself; the money went into the church's treasury. He did not work for fame; much of his best work is upon the walls of the monks' cells, where few would see it. He would not receive office. He lived upon the Old and New Testaments, and prayer; and the one business of his life was to show forth to the world what he believed, in such beautiful wise that they might be won to believe it too."

"That is exactly the work we have to do,—everybody," said Lois, lifting her eyes with a bright light in them. "I mean, everybody that is a Christian. That is it;—to show forth Christ, and in such wise that men may see and believe in him too. That is the word in Philippians—'shining as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.' I did not know it was possible to do it in painting—but I see it is. O, thank you for showing me this!—it has done me good."

Her eyes were glistening as she gave him the picture again. Philip put it in security, in silence, and rose up.

"Well," said he, "now I will go and hear somebody play the 'Carnival of
Venice,' as if it were all rattle and no fun."

"Is that the way they play it?"

"It is the way some people play it. Good night."

The door closed after him, and Lois sat down alone before the fire again.

CHAPTER XLIV.

CHOOSING A WIFE.

She did not open her Bible to go on with the investigation Mr. Dillwyn had broken off. Now that he had just been with her in proper person, an instinct of scared modesty fled from the question whether or no he were a man whom a Christian woman might marry. What was it to her? Lois said to herself; what did it concern her, whether such a marriage were permissible or no? Such a question would never come to her for decision. To Madge, perhaps? But now the other question did ask for consideration;—Why she winced at the idea that it might come to Madge? Madge did not share her sister's scruple; Madge had not made the promise Lois had made; if Mr. Dillwyn asked her, she would accept him, Lois had little doubt. Perhaps he would ask her; and why, why did Lois wish he would not? For she perceived that the idea gave her pain. Why should it give her pain? For herself, the thing was a fixed fact; whatever the Bible said—and she knew pretty well what it said—for her, such a marriage was an impossibility. And why should she think about it at all? nobody else was thinking about it. Fra Angelico's angel came back to her mind; the clear, unshadowed eyes, the pure, glad face, the separateness from all earth's passions or pleasures, the lofty exaltation above them. So ought she to be. And then, while this thought was warmest, came, shutting it out, the image of Mr. Dillwyn at the music party; what he was doing there, how he would look and speak, how Madge would enjoy his attentions, and everything; and Lois suddenly felt as if she herself were very much alone. Not merely alone now, to-night; she had chosen this, and liked it; (did she like it?)—not now, but all through her life. It suddenly seemed to Lois as if she were henceforth to be always alone. Madge would no doubt marry—somebody; and there was no home, and nobody to make home for Lois. She had never thought of it before, but now she seemed to see it all quite clearly. Mrs. Barclay's work had been, to separate her, in a certain way, from her family and her surroundings. They fitted together no longer. Lois knew what they did not know; she had tastes which they did not share, but which now were become part of her being; the society in which she had moved all her life till two years, or three years, ago, could no longer content her. It was not inanimate nature, her garden, her spade and her wheelbarrow, that seemed distasteful; Lois could have gone into that work again with all her heart, and thought it no hardship; it was the mental level at which the people lived; the social level, in houses, tables, dress, and amusements, and manner; the aesthetic level of beauty, and grace, and fitness, or at least the perception of them. Lois pondered and revolved this all till she began to grow rather dreary. Think of the Esterbrooke school, and of being alone there! Rough, rude, coarse boys and girls; untaught, untamed, ungovernable, except by an uncommon exertion of wisdom and will; long days of hard labour, nights of common food and sleep, with no delicate arrangements for either, and social refreshment utterly out of the question. And Madge away; married, perhaps, and travelling in Europe, and seeing Fra Angelico's paintings. Then the angel's face recurred to Lois, and she pulled herself up. The angel's face and the painter's history both confronted her. On one hand, the seraphic purity and joy of a creature who knew no will but God's will; on the other hand, the quiet, patient life, which had borne such fruits. Four hundred years ago, Fra Angelico painted; and ever since his work had been bearing witness to God's truth and salvation; was even at that minute teaching and admonishing herself. What did it signify just how her own work should be done, if only it were like work? What matter whether rough or smooth, alone or in company? Where the service is to be done, there the Master puts his servant; what the service is, he knows; for the servant, all that he has to take care of is, that step by step he follow where he is led, and everywhere, and by all means in his power, that he show forth Christ to men. Then something like that angel's security would be with him all the way, and something like that angel's joy be at the end of it. The little picture had helped and comforted Lois amazingly, and she went to bed with a heart humbled and almost contented.

She went, however, in good time, before Madge could return home; she did not want to hear the outflow of description and expatiation which might be expected. And Madge indeed found her so seemingly sleepy, that she was forced to give up talking and come to bed too. But all Lois had gained was a respite. The next morning, as soon as they were awake, Madge began.

"Lois, we had a grand time last night! You were so stupidly asleep when
I came home, I couldn't tell you. We had a beautiful time! O Lois, Mrs.
Burrage's house is just magnificent!"

"I suppose so."

"The floors are all laid in patterns of different coloured woods—a sort of mosaic—"

"Parquetry."

"What?—I call it mosaic, with centre-pieces and borders,—O, elegant!
And they are smooth and polished; and then carpets and rugs of all
sorts are laid about; and it's most beautiful. She has got one of those
Persian carpets she was telling about, Lois."

"I dare say."

"And the walls are all great mirrors, or else there is the richest sort of drapery—curtains, or hangings; and the prettiest painted walls. And O, Lois, the flowers!—"

"Where were they?"

"Everywhere! On tables, and little shelves on the wall—"

"Brackets."

"O, well!—shelves they are, call them what you like; and stands of plants and pots of plants—the whole place was sweet with the smell, and green with the leaves, and brilliant with the flowers—"

"Seems to have been brilliant generally."

"So it was, just brilliant, with all that, and with the lights, and with the people."

"Were the people brilliant too?"

"And the playing."

"O,—the playing!"

"Everybody said so. It wasn't like Mrs. Barclay's playing."

"What was it like?"

"It looked like very hard work, to me. My dear, I saw the drops of sweat standing on one man's forehead;—he had been playing a pretty long piece," Madge added, by way of accounting for things. "I never saw anything like it, in all my life!"

"Like what?—sweat on a man's forehead?"

"Like the playing. Don't be ridiculous."

"It is not I," said Lois, who meanwhile had risenn and was getting dressed. Madge was doing the same, talking all the while. "So the playing was something to be seen. What was the singing?"

Madge stood still, comb in hand. "I don't know!" she said gravely. Lois could not help laughing.

"Well, I don't," Madge went on. "It was so queer, some of it, I did not know which way to look. Some of it was regular yelling, Lois; and if people are going to yell, I'd rather have it out-of-doors. But one man—I think he thought he was doing it remarkably well—the goings up and down of his voice—"

"Cadences—"

"Well, the cadences if you choose; they made me think of nothing but the tones of the lions and other beasts in the menagerie. Don't you know how they roar up and down? first softly and then loud? I had everything in the world to do not to laugh out downright. He was singing something meant to be very pathetic; and it was absolutely killing."

"It was not all like that, I suppose?"

"No. There was some I liked. But nothing one-half so good as your singing a hymn, Lois. I wish you could have been there to give them one. Only you could not sing a hymn in such a place."

"Why not?"

"Why, because! It would be out of place."

"I would not go anywhere where a hymn would be out of place."

"That's nonsense. But O, how the people were dressed, Lois! Brilliant!
O you may well say so. It took away my breath at first"

"You got it again, I hope?"

"Yes. But O, Lois, it is nice to have plenty of money."

"Well, yes. And it is nice not to have it—if the Lord makes it so."

"Makes what so? You are very unsympathetic this morning, Lois! But if you had only been there. O Lois, there were one or two fur rugs—fur skins for rugs,—the most beautiful things I ever saw. One was a leopard's skin, with its beautiful spots; the other was white and thick and fluffy—I couldn't find out what it was."

"Bear, maybe."

"Bear! O Lois—those two skins finished me! I kept my head for a while, with all the mosaic floors and rich hangings and flowers and dresses,—but those two skins took away the little sense I had left. They looked so magnificent! so luxurious."

"They are luxurious, no doubt."

"Lois, I don't see why some people should have so much, and others so little."

"The same sort of question that puzzled David once."

"Why should Mrs. Burrage have all that, and you and I have only yellow painted floors and rag carpets?"

"I don't want 'all that.'"

"Don't you?"

"No."

"I do."

"Madge, those things do not make people happy."

"It's all very well to say so, Lois. I should like just to try once."

"How do you like Mrs. Burrage?"

Madge hesitated a trifle.

"She is pleasant,—pretty, and clever, and lively; she went flying about among the people like a butterfly, stopping a minute here and a minute there, but I guess it was not to get honey but to give it. She was a little honeyfied to me, but not much. I don't—think"—(slowly) "she liked to see her brother making much of me."

Lois was silent.

"He was there; I didn't tell you. He came a little late. He said he had been here, and as he didn't find us he came on to his sister's."

"He was here a little while."

"So he said. But he was so good, Lois! He was very good. He talked to me, and told me about things, and took care of me, and gave me supper. I tell you, I thought madam his sister looked a little askance at him once or twice. I know she tried to get him away."

Lois again made no answer.

"Why should she, Lois?"

"Maybe you were mistaken."

"I don't think I was mistaken. But why should she, Lois?"

"Madge, dear, you know what I told you."

"About what?"

"About that; people's feelings. You and I do not belong to this gay, rich world; we are not rich, and we are not fashionable, and we do not live as they live, in any way; and they do not want us; why should they?"

"We should not hurt them!" said Madge indignantly.

"Nor be of any use or pleasure to them."

"There isn't a girl among them all to compare with you, as far as looks go."

"I am afraid that will not help the matter," said Lois, smiling; but then she added with earnest and almost anxious eagerness,

"Madge, dear, don't think about it! Happiness is not there; and what God gives us is best. Best for you and best for me. Don't you wish for riches!—or for anything we haven't got. What we have to do, is to live so as to show forth Christ and his truth before men."

"Very few do that," said Madge shortly.

"Let us be some of the few."

"I'd like to do it in high places, then," said Madge. "O, you needn't talk, Lois! It's a great deal nicer to have a leopard skin under your feet than a rag-carpet."

Lois could not help smiling, though something like tears was gathering.

"And I'd rather have Mr. Dillwyn take care of me than uncle Tim
Hotchkiss."

The laughter and the tears came both more unmistakeably. Lois felt a little hysterical. She finished dressing hurriedly, and heard as little as possible of Madge's further communications.

It was a few hours later, that same morning, that Philip Dillwyn strolled into his sister's breakfast-room. It was a room at the back of the house, the end of a suite; and from it the eye roved through half-drawn portières and between rows of pillars, along a vista of the parquetted floors Madge had described to her sister; catching here the glitter of gold from a picture frame, and there a gleam of white from a marble figure, through the half light which reigned there. In the breakfast-room it was bright day; and Mrs. Burrage was finishing her chocolate and playing with bits of dry toast, when her brother came in. Philip had hardly exchanged greetings and taken his seat, when his attention was claimed by Mrs. Burrage's young son and heir, who forthwith thrust himself between his uncle's knees, a bat in one hand, a worsted ball in the other.

"Uncle Phil, mamma says her name usen't to be Burrage—it was your name?"

"That is correct."

"If it was your name once, why isn't it your name now?"

"Because she changed it and became Burrage."

"What made her be Burrage?"

"That is a deep question in mental philosophy, which I am unable to answer, Chauncey."

"She says, it's because she married papa."

"Does not your mother generally speak truth?"

Young Philip Chauncey seemed to consider this question; and finally waiving it, went on pulling at a button of his uncle's coat in the energy of his inquiries.

"Uncle Phil, you haven't got a wife?"

"No."

"Why haven't you?"

"An old cookery book says, 'First catch your hare.'"

"Must you catch your wife?"

"I suppose so."

"How do you catch her?"

But the answer to this most serious inquiry was met by such a burst of laughter on the part of both the older persons in the room, that Phil had to wait; nothing daunted, however, returned to the charge.

"Uncle Phil, if you had a wife, what would her name be?"

"If ever I have one, Chauncey, her name will be—"

But here the speaker had very nearly, in his abstraction, brought out a name that would, to say the least, have astonished his sister. He caught himself up just in time, and laughed.

"If ever I have one, her name will be mine."

"I did not know, last night, but you had chosen the lady to whom you intended to do so much honour," his sister observed coolly, looking at him across her chocolate cup.

"Or who I hoped would do me so much honour. What did you think of my supposed choice?" he asked with equal coolness.

"What could I think, except that you were like all other men—distraught for a pretty face."

"One might do worse," observed Philip, in the same tone, while that of his sister grew warmer.

"Some men,—but not you, Philip?"

"What distinguishes me from the mass?"

"You are too old to be made a fool of."

"Old enough to be wise, certainly."

"And you are too fastidious to be satisfied with anything short of perfection; and then you fill too high a position in the world to marry a girl who is nobody."

"So?"—said Philip, using, which it always vexed his sister to have him do, the half questioning, half admiring, wholly unattackable German expression. "Then the person alluded to seemed to you something short of perfection?"

"She is handsome," returned his sister; "she has a very handsome face; anybody can see that; but that does not make her your equal."

"Humph!—You suppose I can find that rare bird, my equal, do you?"

"Not there."

"What's the matter with her?"

"She is simply nobody."

"Seems to say a good deal," responded Philip. "I do not know just what it says."

"You know as well as I do! And she is unformed; unused to all the ways of the world; a mere novice in society."

"Part of that is soon mended," said Philip easily. "I heard your uncle, or Burrage's uncle, old Colonel Chauncey, last night declaring that there is not a girl in the city that has such manners as one of the Miss Lothrops; manners of 'mingled grace and dignity,' he said."

"That was the other one."

"That was the other one."

"She has been in New York before?"

"Yes."

"That was the one that Tom Caruthers was bewitched with?"

"Have you heard that story?" said Mr. Dillwyn dryly.

"Why shouldn't I hear it?"

"No reason, that I know. It is one of the 'ways of the world' you referred to, to tell everything of everybody,—especially when it is not true."

"Isn't that story true?"

"It has no inherent improbability. Tom is open to influences, and—" He stopped.

"I know it is true; for Mrs. Caruthers told me herself."

"Poor Tom!"—

"It was very good for him, that the thing was put an end to. But you—you should fly at higher game than Tom Caruthers can strike, Philip."

"Thank you. There was no occasion for your special fear last night. I am in no danger there. But I know a man, Jessie,—a man I think much of, too,—who is very much drawn to one of those ladies. He has confessed as much to me. What advice shall I give him? He is a man that can please himself; he has abundant means, and no ties to encumber him."

"Does he hold as high a position as you?"

"Quite."

"And may pretend to as much?"

"He is not a man of pretensions. But, taking your words as they mean, I should say, yes."

"Is it any use to offer him advice?"

"I think he generally hears mine—if he is not too far gone in something."

"Ah!—Well, Philip, tell him to think what he is doing."

"O, I have put that before him."

"He would make himself a great goose."

"Perhaps I ought to have some arguments wherewith to substantiate that prophecy."

"He can see the whole for himself. Let him think of the fitness of things. Imagine such a girl set to preside over his house—a house like this, for instance. Imagine her helping him receive his guests; sitting at the head of his table. Fancy it; a girl who has been accustomed to sanded floors, perhaps, and paper window-shades, and who has fed on pumpkins and pork all her life."

Mr. Dillwyn smiled, as his eye roved over what of his sister's house
was visible from where he sat, and he remembered the meal-times in
Shampuashuh; he smiled, but his eye had more thought in it than Mrs.
Burrage liked. She was watching him.

"I cannot tell what sort of a house is in question in the present case," he said at length. "Perhaps it would not be a house like this."

"It ought to be a house like this."

"Isn't that an open question?"

"No! I am supposing that this man, your friend— Do I know him?"

"Do you not know everybody? But I have no permission to disclose his name."

"And I do not care for it, if he is going to make a mésalliance; a marriage beneath him. Such marriages turn out miserably. A woman not fit for society drags her husband out of it; a woman who has not refined tastes makes him gradually coarse; a woman with no connections keeps him from rising in life; if she is without education, she lets all the best part of him go to waste. In short, if he marries a nobody he becomes nobody too; parts with all his antecedents, and buries all his advantages. It's social ruin, Philip! it is just ruin."

"If this man only does not prefer the bliss of ruining himself!"—said her brother, rising and lightly stretching himself. Mrs. Burrage looked at him keenly and doubtfully.

"There is no greater mistake a man can make, than to marry beneath him," she went on.

"Yes, I think that too."

"It sinks him below his level; it is a weight round his neck; people afterwards, when he is mentioned say,—'He married such a one, you know;' and, 'Didn't he marry unfortunately?'—He is like depreciated coin. It kills him, Philip, politically."

"And fashionably."

"O, fashionably! of course."

"What's left to a man when he ceases to be fashionable?"

"Well, of course he chooses a new set of associates."

"But if Tom Caruthers had married as you say he wanted to marry, his wife would have come at once into his circle, and made one of it?"

"Provided she could hold the place."

"Of that I have no doubt."

"It was a great gain to Tom that he missed."

"The world has odd balances to weigh loss and gain!" said Philip.

"Why, Philip, in addition to everything else, these girls are religious;—not after a reasonable fashion, you know, but puritanical; prejudiced, and narrow, and stiff."

"How do you know all that?"

"From that one's talk last night. And from Mrs. Wishart."

"Did she say they were puritanical?"

"Yes. O yes! they are stiff about dancing and cards; and I had nearly laughed last night at the way Miss—what's her name?—opened her eyes at me when I spoke of the theatre."

"She does not know what the theatre is," said Philip.

"She thinks she does."

"She does not know the half."

"Philip," said Mrs. Burrage severely and discontentedly, "you are not agreeing with me."

"Not entirely, sister."

"You are as fond of the theatre, or of the opera, as anybody I know."

"I never saw a decent opera in my life."

"Philip!"

"Nor did you."

"How ridiculous! You have been going to the opera all your life, and the theatre too, in half a dozen different countries."

"Therefore I claim to know of what I speak. And if I had a wife—" he paused. His thoughts made two or three leaps; the vision of Lois's sweet, pure dignity came before him, and words were wanting.

"What if you had a wife?" asked his sister impatiently.

"I would rather she would be anything but a 'fast' woman."

"She needn't be 'fast'; but she needn't be precise either."

There was something in Philip's air or his silence which provoked Mrs.
Burrage. She went on with some heat, and defiantly.

"I have no objection to religion, in a proper way. I always teach
Chauncey to make the responses."

"Make them yourself?"

"Of course."

"Do you mean them?"

"Mean them!"—

"Yes. Do you mean what you say? When you have said, 'Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners'—did you feel guilty? or miserable?"

"Miserable!"—

"Yes. Did you feel miserable?"

"Philip, I have no idea what you are driving at, unless you are defending these two precise, puritanical young country-women."

"A little of that," he said, smiling, "and a little of something else."

He had risen, as if to go. His sister looked at him, vexed and uncertain. She was proud of her brother, she admired him, as almost people did who knew Mr. Dillwyn. Suddenly she changed her tactics; rose up, and coming to him laid both her hands on his shoulders so that she could raise herself up to kiss him.

"Don't you go and be foolish!" she said. "I will forgive your friend,
Philip, but I will not forgive you!"

CHAPTER XLV.

DUTY.

The days of December went by. Lois was herself again, in health; and nothing was in the way of Madge's full enjoyment of New York and its pleasures, so she enjoyed them to the full. She went wherever Mrs. Wishart would take her. That did not involve any very outrageous dissipation, for Mrs. Wishart, though fond of society, liked it best in moderation. Moderate companies and moderate hours suited her. However, Madge had enough to content her new thirst for excitement and variety, especially as Mr. Dillwyn continually came in to fill up gaps in her engagements. He took her to drive, or to see various sights, which for the country-bred girl were full of enchantment; and he came to the house constantly on the empty evenings.

Lois queried again and again what brought him there? Madge it must be; it could hardly be the society of his old friend Mrs. Wishart. It was not her society that he sought. He was general in his attentions, to be sure; but he played chess with Madge, he accompanied Madge's singing, he helped Madge in her French reading and Italian pronunciation, and took Madge out. He did none of these things with Lois. Truly Lois had been asked, and would not go out either alone or with her sister in Mr. Dillwyn's carriage or in Mr. Dillwyn's convoy. And she had been challenged, and invariably declined, to sing with them; and she did not want to learn the game of chess, and took no help from anybody in her studies. Indeed, Lois kept herself persistently in the background, and refused to accompany her friends to any sort of parties; and at home, though she must sit down-stairs in the evening, she withdrew from the conversation as much as she could.

"My dear," said Mrs. Wishart, much vexed at last, "you do not think it is wicked to go into society, I hope?"

"Not for you. I do not think it would be right for me."

"Why not, pray? Is this Puritanism?"

"Not at all," said Lois, smiling.

"She is a regular Puritan, though," said Madge.

"It isn't that," Lois repeated. "I like going out among people as well as Madge does. I am afraid I might like it too well."

"What do you mean by 'too well'?" demanded her protectress, a little angrily.

"More than would be good for me. Just think—in a little while I must go back to Esterbrooke and teaching; don't you see, I had better not get myself entangled with what would unfit me for my work?"

"Nonsense! That is not your work."

"You are never going back to that horrid place!" exclaimed Madge.

But they both knew, from the manner of Lois's quiet silence, that their positions would not be maintained.

"There's the more reason, if you are going back there by and by, why you should take all the advantage you can of the present," Mrs. Wishart added. Lois gave her a sweet, grateful look, acknowledging her tenderness, but not granting her conclusions. She got away from the subject as soon as she could. The question of the sisters' return home had already been broached by Lois; received, however, by Mrs. Wishart with such contempt, and by Madge with such utter disfavour, that Lois found the point could not be carried; at least not at that time; and then winter began to set in, and she could find no valid reason for making the move before it should be gone again, Mrs. Wishart's intention being unmistakeable to keep them until spring. But how was she going to hold out until spring? Lois felt herself very uncomfortable. She could not possibly avoid seeing Mr. Dillwyn constantly; she could not always help talking to him, for sometimes he would make her talk; and she was very much afraid that she liked to talk to him. All the while she was obliged to see how much attention he was paying to Madge, and it was no secret how well Madge liked it; and Lois was afraid to look at her own reasons for disliking it. Was it merely because Mr. Dillwyn was a man of the world, and she did not want her sister to get entangled with him? her sister, who had made no promise to her grandmother, and who was only bound, and perhaps would not be bound, by Bible commands? Lois had never opened her Bible to study the point, since that evening when Mr. Dillwyn had interrupted her. She was ashamed to do it. The question ought to have no interest for her.

So days went by, and weeks, and the year was near at an end, when the first snow came. It had held off wonderfully, people said; and now when it came it came in earnest. It snowed all night and all day; and slowly then the clouds thinned and parted and cleared away, and the westering sun broke out upon a brilliant world.

Lois sat at her window, looking out at it, and chiding herself that it made her feel sober. Or else, by contrast, it let her know how sober she was. The spectacle was wholly joy-inspiring, and so she had been wont to find it. Snow lying unbroken on all the ground, in one white, fair glitter; snow lying piled up on the branches and twigs of trees, doubling them with white coral; snow in ridges and banks on the opposite shore of the river; and between, the rolling waters. Madge burst in.

"Isn't it glorious?" said Lois. "Come here and see how black the river is rolling between its white banks."

"Black? I didn't know anything was black," said Madge. "Here is Mr. Dillwyn, come to take me sleigh-riding. Just think, Lois!—a sleigh ride in the Park!—O, I'm so glad I have got my hood done!"

Lois slowly turned her head round. "Sleigh-riding?" she said. "Are you going sleigh-riding, and with Mr. Dillwyn?"

"Yes indeed, why not?" said Madge, bustling about with great activity. "I'd rather go with him than with anybody else, I can tell you. He has got his sister's horses—Mrs. Burrage don't like sleighing—and Mr. Burrage begged he would take the horses out. They're gay, but he knows how to drive. O, won't it be magnificent?"

Lois looked at her sister in silence, unwilling, yet not knowing what to object; while Madge wrapped herself in a warm cloak, and donned a silk hood lined with cherry colour, in which she was certainly something to look at. No plainer attire nor brighter beauty would be seen among the gay snow-revellers that afternoon. She flung a sparkling glance at her sister as she turned to go.

"Don't be very long!" Lois said.

"Just as long as he likes to make it!" Madge returned. "Do you think I am going to ask him to turn about, before he is ready? Not I, I promise you. Good-bye, hermit!"

Away she ran, and Lois turned again to her window, where all the white seemed suddenly to have become black. She will marry him!—she was saying to herself. And why should she not? she has made no promise. I am bound—doubly; what is it to me, what they do? Yet if not right for me it is not right for Madge. Is the Bible absolute about it?

She thought it would perhaps serve to settle and stay her mind if she went to the Bible with the question and studied it fairly out. She drew up the table with the book, and prayed earnestly to be taught the truth, and to be kept contented with the right. Then she opened at the well-known words in 2 Corinthians, chap. vi.

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers"—

"Yoked together." That is, bound in a bond which obliges two to go one way and pull in one draught. Then of course they must go one way; and which way, will depend upon which is strongest. But cannot a good woman use her influence to induce a man who is also good, only not Christian, to go the right way?

Lois pondered this, wishing to believe it. Yet there stood the command. And she remembered there are two sides to influence; could not a good man, and a pleasant man, only not Christian, use his power to induce a Christian woman to go the wrong way? How little she would like to displease him! how willingly she would gratify him!—And then there stands the command. And, turning from it to a parallel passage in 1 Cor. vii. 39, she read again the directions for the marriage of a Christian widow; she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, "only in the Lord." There could be no question of what is the will of God in this matter. And in Deut. vii. 3, 4, she studied anew the reasons there given. "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods."

Lois studied these passages with I cannot say how much aching of heart. Why did her heart ache? It was nothing to her, surely; she neither loved nor was going to love any man to whom the prohibition could apply. Why should she concern herself with the matter? Madge?— Well, Madge must be the keeper of her own conscience; she would probably marry Mr. Dillwyn; and poor Lois saw sufficiently into the workings of her own heart to know that she thought her sister very happy in the prospect. But then, if the question of conscience could be so got over, why was she troubled? She would not evade the inquiry; she forced herself to make it; and she writhed under the pressure and the pain it caused her. At last, thoroughly humbled and grieved and ashamed, she fled to a woman's refuge in tears, and a Christian's refuge in prayer; and from the bottom of her heart, though with some very hard struggles, gave up every lingering thought and wish that ran counter to the Bible command. Let Madge do what Madge thought right; she had warned her of the truth. Now her business was with herself and her own action; and Lois made clean work of it. I cannot say she was exactly a happy woman as she went down-stairs; but she felt strong and at peace. Doing the Lord's will, she could not be miserable; with the Lord's presence she could not be utterly alone; anyhow, she would trust him and do her duty, and leave all the rest.

She went down-stairs at last, for she had spent the afternoon in her own room, and felt that she owed it to Mrs. Wishart to go down and keep her company. O, if Spring were but come! she thought as she descended the staircase,—and she could get away, and take hold of her work, and bring things into the old train! Spring was many weeks off yet, and she must do different and harder work first, she saw. She went down to the back drawing-room and laid herself upon the sofa.

"Are you not well, Lois?" was the immediate question from Mrs. Wishart.

"Yes, ma'am; only not just vigorous. How long they are gone! It is growing late."

"The sleighing is tempting. It is not often we have such a chance. I suppose everybody is out. You don't go into the air enough, Lois."

"I took a walk this morning."

"In the snow!—and came back tired. I saw it in your face. Such dreadful walking was enough to tire you. I don't think you half know how to take care of yourself."

Lois let the charge pass undisputed, and lay still. The afternoon had waned and the sun gone down; the snow, however, made it still light outside. But that light faded too; and it was really evening, when sounds at the front door announced the return of the sleighing party. Presently Madge burst in, rosy and gay as snow and sleigh-bells could make anybody.

"It's glorious!" she said. "O, we have been to the Park and all over. It's splendid! Everybody in the world is out, and we saw everybody, and some people we saw two or three times; and it's like nothing in all the world I ever saw before. The whole air is full of sleigh-bells; and the roads are so thick with sleighs that it is positively dangerous."

"That must make it very pleasant!" said Lois languidly.

"O, it does! There's the excitement, you know, and the skill of steering clear of people that you think are going to run over you. It's the greatest fun I ever saw in my life. And Mr. Dillwyn drives beautifully."

"I dare say."

"And the next piece of driving he does, is to drive you out."

"I hardly think he will manage that."

"Well, you'll see. Here he is. She says she hardly thinks you will, Mr.
Dillwyn. Now for a trial of power!"

Madge stood in the centre of the room, her hood off, her little plain cloak still round her; eyes sparkling, cheeks rosy with pleasure and frosty air, a very handsome and striking figure. Lois's eyes dwelt upon her, glad and sorry at once; but Lois had herself in hand now, and was as calm as the other was excited. Then presently came Mr. DilIwyn, and sat down beside her couch.

"How do you do, this evening?"

His manner, she noticed, was not at all like Madge's; it was quiet, sober, collected, gentle; sleighing seemed to have wrought no particular exhilaration on him. Therefore it disarmed Lois. She gave her answer in a similar tone.

"Have you been out to-day?"

"Yes—quite a long walk this morning."

"Now I want you to let me give you a short drive."

"O no, I think not."

"Come!" said he. "I may not have another opportunity to show you what you will see to-day; and I want you to see it."

He did not seem to use much urgency, and yet there was a certain insistance in his tone which Lois felt, and which had its effect upon her, as such tones are apt to do, even when one does not willingly submit to them. She objected that it was late.

"O, the moon is up," cried Madge; "it won't be any darker than it is now."

"It will be brighter," said Philip.

"But your horses must have had enough."

"Just enough," said Philip, laughing, "to make them go quietly. Miss
Madge will bear witness they were beyond that at first. I want you to
go with me. Come, Miss Lois! We must be home before Mrs. Wishart's tea.
Miss Madge, give her your hood and cloak; that will save time."

Why should she not say no? She found it difficult, against that something in his tone. He was more intent upon the affirmative than she upon the negative. And after all, why should she say no? She had fought her fight and conquered; Mr. Dillwyn was nothing to her, more than another man; unless, indeed, he were to be Madge's husband, and then she would have to be on good terms with, him. And she had a secret fancy to have, for once, the pleasure of this drive with him. Why not, just to see how it tasted? I think it went with Lois at this moment as in the German story, where a little boy vaunted himself to his sister that he had resisted the temptation to buy some ripe cherries, and so had saved his pennies. His sister praised his prudence and firmness. "But now, dear Hercules," she went on, "now that you have done right and saved your pennies, now, my dear brother, you may reward yourself and buy your cherries!"

Perhaps it was with some such unconscious recoil from judgment that Lois acted now. At any rate, she slowly rose from her sofa, and Madge, rejoicing, threw off her cloak and put it round her, and fastened its ties. Then Mr. Dillwyn himself took the hood and put it on her head, and tied the strings under her chin. The start this gave her almost made Lois repent of her decision; he was looking into her face, and his fingers were touching her cheek, and the pain of it was more than Lois had bargained for. No, she thought, she had better not gone; but it was too late now to alter things. She stood still, feeling that thrill of pain and pleasure where the one so makes the other keen, keeping quiet and not meeting his eyes; and then he put her hand upon his arm and led her down the wide, old-fashioned staircase. Something in the air of it all brought to Lois's remembrance that Sunday afternoon at Shampuashuh and the walk home in the rain; and it gave her a stricture of heart. She put the manner now to Madge's account, and thought within herself that if Madge's hood and cloak were beside him it probably did not matter who was in them; his fancy could do the rest. Somehow she did not want to go to drive as Madge's proxy. However, there was no helping that now. She was put into the sleigh, enveloped in the fur robes; Mr. Dillwyn took his place beside her, and they were off.

CHAPTER XLVI.

OFF AND ON.

Certinaly Madge had not said too much, and the scene was like witchery. The sun was down, but the moon was up, near full, and giving a white illumination to the white world. The snow had fallen thick, and neither sun nor wind had as yet made any impression upon it; the covering of the road was thick and well beaten, and on every exposed level surface lay the white treasure piled up. Every twig and branch of the trees still held its burden; every roof was blanketed; there had been no time yet for smoke and soil to come upon the pure surfaces; and on all this fell the pale moon rays, casting pale shadows and making the world somehow look like something better than itself. The horses Mr. Dillwyn drove were fresh enough yet, and stepped off gaily, their bells clinking musically; and other bells passed them and sounded in the nearer and further distance. Moreover, under this illumination all less agreeable features of the landscape were covered up. It was a pure region of enchanted beauty to Lois's sense, through which they drove; and she felt as if a spell had come upon her too, and this bit of experience were no more real than the rest of it. It was exquisitely and intensely pleasant; a bit of life quite apart and by itself, and never to be repeated, therefore to be enjoyed all she could while she had it. Which thought was not enjoyment. Was she not foolish to have come?

"Are you comfortable?" suddenly Mr. Dillwyn's voice came in upon these musings.

"O, perfectly!" Lois answered, with an accentuation between delight and desperation.

And then he was silent again; and she went on with her musings, just that word having given them a spur. How exquisite the scene was! how exquisite everything, in fact. All the uncomelinesses of a city suburb were veiled under the moonlight; nothing but beauty could be seen; here were points that caught the light, and there were shadows that simply served to set off the silvery whiteness of the moon and the snow; what it was that made those points of reflection, or what lay beneath those soft shadows, did not appear. The road was beaten smooth, the going was capital, the horses trotted swiftly and steadily, Lois was wrapped in soft furs, and the air which she was breathing was merely cold enough to exhilarate. It was perfection. In truth it was so perfect, and Lois enjoyed it so keenly, that she began to be vexed at herself for her enjoyment. Why should Mr. Dillwyn have got her out? all this luxury of sense and feeling was not good for her; did not belong to her; and why should she taste at all a delight which must be so fleeting? And what had possessed him to tie her hood strings for her, and to do it in that leisurely way, as if he liked it? And why did she like it? Lois scolded and chid herself. If he were going to marry Madge ever so much, that gave him no right to take such a liberty; and she would not allow him such liberties; she would keep him at a distance. But was she not going to a distance herself? There would be no need.

The moonlight was troubled, though by no cloud on the ethereal firmament; and Lois was not quite so conscious as she had been of the beauty around her. The silence lasted a good while; she wondered if her neighbour's thoughts were busy with the lady he had just set down, to such a degree that he forgot to attend to his new companion? Nothing could be more wide of the truth; but that is the way we judge and misjudge one another. She was almost hurt at his silence, before he spoke again. The fact is, that the general axiom that a man can always put in words anything of which his head and heart are both full, seems to have one exception. Mr. Dillwyn was a good talker, always, on matters he cared about, and matters he did not care about; and yet now, when he had secured, one would say, the most favourable circumstances for a hearing, and opportunity to speak as he liked, he did not know how to speak. By and by his hand came again round Lois to see that the fur robes were well tucked in about her. Something in the action made her impatient.

"I am very well," she said.

"You must be taken care of, you know," he said; to Lois's fancy he said it as if there were some one to whom he must be responsible for her.

"I am not used to being taken care of," she said. "I have taken care of myself, generally."

"Like it better?"

"I don't know. I suppose really no woman can say she likes it better.
But I am accustomed to it."

"Don't you think I could take care of you?"

"You are taking capital care of me," said Lois, not knowing exactly how to understand him. "Just now it is your business; and I should say you were doing it well."

"What would you say if I told you that I wanted to take care of you all your life?"

He had let the horses come to a walk; the sleigh-bells only tinkled softly; no other bells were near. Which way they had gone Lois had not considered; but evidently it had not been towards the busy and noisy haunts of men. However, she did not think of this till a few minutes afterwards; she thought now that Mr. Dillwyn's words regarded Madge's sister, and her feeling of independence became rigid.

"A kind wish,—but impracticable," she answered.

"Why?"

"I shall be too far off. That is one thing."

"Where are you going to be?—Forgive me for asking!"

"O yes. I shall be keeping school in New England somewhere, I suppose; first of all, at Esterbrooke."

"But if I had the care of you—you would not be there?"

"That is my place," said Lois shortly.

"Do you mean it is the place you prefer?"

"There is no question of preference. You know, one's work is what is given one; and the thing given me to do, at present, seems to be there. Of course I do prefer what my work is."

Still the horses were smoothly walking. Mr. Dillwyri was silent a moment.

"You did not understand what I said to you just now. It was earnest."

"I did not think it was anything else," said Lois, beginning to wish herself at home. "I am sure you meant it, and I know you are very good; but—you cannot take care of me."

"Give me your reasons," he said, restraining the horses, which would have set off upon a quicker pace again.

"Why, Mr. Dillwyn, it is self-evident. You would not respect me if I allowed you to do it; and I should not respect myself. We New England folks, if we are nothing else, we are independent."

"So?—" said Mr. Dillwyn, in a puzzled manner, but then a light broke upon him, and he half laughed.—"I never heard that the most rampant spirit of independence made a wife object to being dependent on her husband."

"A wife?" said Lois, not knowing whether she heard aright.

"Yes," said he. "How else? How could it be else? Lois, may I have you, to take care of the rest of my life, as my very own?"

The short, smothered breath with which this was spoken was intelligible enough, and put Lois in the rarest confusion.

"Me?—" was all she could ejaculate.

"You, certainly. I never saw any other woman in my life to whom I wished to put the question. You are the whole world to me, as far as happiness is concerned."

"I?—" said Lois again. "I thought—"

"What?"

She hesitated, and he urged the question. Lois was not enough mistress of herself to choose her words.

"I thought—it was somebody else."

"Did you?—Who did you think it was?"

"O, don't ask me!"

"But I think I must ask you. It concerns me to know how, and towards whom, my manner can have misled you. Who was it?"

"It was not—your manner—exactly," said Lois, in terrible embarrassment. "I was mistaken."

"How could you be mistaken?"

"I never dreamed—the thought never entered my head—that—it was I."

"I must have been in fault then," said he gently; "I did not want to wear my heart on my sleeve, and so perhaps I guarded myself too well. I did not wish to know anybody else's opinion of my suit till I had heard yours. What is yours, Lois?—what have you to say to me?"

He checked the horses again, and sat with his face inclined towards her, waiting eagerly, Lois knew. And then, what a sharp pain shot through her! All that had gone before was nothing to this; and for a moment the girl's whole nature writhed under the torture. She knew her own mind now; she was fully conscious that the best gift of earth was within her grasp; her hands were stretched longingly towards it, her whole heart bounded towards it; to let it go was to fall into an abyss from which light and hope seemed banished; there was everything in all the world to bid her give the answer that was waited for; only duty bade her not give it. Loyalty to God said no, and her promise bound her tongue. For that minute that she was silent Lois wrestled with mortal pain. There are martyrs and martyrdoms now-a-days, that the world takes no account of; nevertheless they have bled to death for the cause, and have been true to their King at the cost of all they had in the world. Mr. Dillwyn was waiting, and the fight had to be short, though well she knew the pain would not be. She must speak. She did it huskily, and with a fierce effort. It seemed as if the words would not come out.

"I have nothing to say, Mr. Dillwyn,—that you would like to hear," she added, remembering that her first utterance was rather indefinite.

"You do not mean that?" he said hurriedly.

"Indeed I do."

"I know," he said, "you never say anything you do not mean. But how do you mean it, Lois? Not to deny me? You do not mean that?"

"Yes," she said. And it was like putting a knife through her own heart when she said it. O, if she were at home! O, if she had never come on this drive! O, if she had never left Esterbrooke and those sick-beds!—But here she was, and must stand the question; and Mr. Dillwyn had not done.

"What reason do you give me?"—and his voice grated now with pain.

"I gave none," said Lois faintly. "Don't let us talk about it! It is no use. Don't ask me anything more!"

"One question I must. I must know it. Do you dislike me, Lois?"

"Dislike? O no! how should I dislike you?" she answered. There was a little, very slight, vibration in her voice as she spoke, and her companion discerned it. When an instrument is very high strung, a quite soft touch will be felt and answered, and that touch swept all the strings of Mr. Dillwyn's soul with music.

"If you do not dislike me, then," said he, "what is it? Do you, possibly like me, Lois?"

Lois could not prevent a little hesitation before she answered, and that, too, Philip well noted.

"It makes no difference," she said desperately. "It isn't that. Don't let us talk any more about it! Mr. Dillwyn, the horses have been walking this great while, and we are a long way from home; won't you drive on?"

He did drive on then, and for a while said not a word more. Lois was panting with eagerness to get home, and could not go fast enough; she would gladly have driven herself, only not quite such a fresh and gay pair of horses. They swept along towards a region that she could see from afar was thicker set with lights than the parts where they were. Before they reached it, however, Mr. Dillwyn drew rein again, and made the horses walk gently.

"There is one question still I must ask," he said; "and to ask it, I must for a moment disobey your commands. Forgive me; but when the happiness of a whole life is at stake, a moment's pain must be borne—and even inflicted—to make sure one is not suffering needlessly a far greater evil. Miss Lois, you never do anything without a reason; tell me your reason for refusing me. You thought I liked some one else; it is not that; I never have liked any one else. Now, what is it?"

"There is no use in talking," Lois murmured. "It is only pain."

"Necessary pain," said he firmly. "It is right I should know, and it must be possible for you to tell me. Say that it is because you cannot like me well enough—and I shall understand that."

But Lois could not say it; and the pause, which embarrassed her terribly, had naturally a different effect upon her companion.

"It is not that!" he cried. "Have you been led to believe something false about me, Lois?—Lois?"

"No," she said, trembling; the pain, and the difficulty of speaking, and the struggle it cost, set her absolutely to trembling. "No, it is something true." She spoke faintly, but he listened well.

"True! What is it? It is not true. What do you mean, dear?"

The several things which came with the intonations of this last question overset the remnant of Lois's composure. She burst into tears; and he was looking, and the moonlight was full in her face, and he could not but see it.

"I cannot help it," she cried; "and you cannot help it. It is no use to talk about it. You know—O, you know—you are not a Christian!"

It was almost a cry at last with which she said it; and the usually self-contained Lois hid her face away from him. Whether the horses walked or trotted for a little while she did not know; and I think it was only mechanical, the effort by which their driver kept them at a foot pace. He waited, however, till Lois dropped her hands again, and he thought she would attend to him.

"May I ask," he then said, and his voice was curiously clear and composed,—"if that is your only objection to me?"

"It is enough!" said Lois smotheredly, and noticing at the same time that ring in his voice.

"You think, one who is a Christian ought never to marry another who is not a Christian?"

"No!" she said, in the same way, as if catching her breath.

"It is very often done."

She made no reply. This was a most cruel discussion, she thought. Would they never reach home? And the horses walking! Walking, and shaking their heads, with soft little peals of the bells, like creatures who had at last got quiet enough to like walking.

"Is that all, Lois?" he asked again; and the tone of his voice irritated her.

"There need not be anything more," she answered. "That is enough. It is a barrier for ever between us; you cannot overcome it—and I cannot. O, do make the horses go! we shall never get home! and don't talk any more."

"I will let the horses go presently; but first I must talk a little more, because there is something that must be said. That was a barrier, a while ago; but it is not now. There is no need for either of us to overcome it or try to overcome it, for it does not exist. Lois, do you hear me? It does not exist."

"I do not understand," she said, in a dazed kind of way, turning towards him. "What does not exist?"

"That barrier—or any barrier—between you and me."

"Yes, it does. It is a barrier. I promised my dear grandmother—and if I had not promised her, it would be just the same, for I have promised to obey God; and he forbids it."

"Forbids what?"

"Forbids me, a Christian, to have anything to do with you, who are not a Christian. I mean, in that way."

"But, Lois—I am a Christian too."

"You?" she said, turning towards him.

"Yes."

"What sort of a one?"

Philip could not help laughing at the naïve question, which, however, he perfectly understood.

"Not an old one," he said; "and not a good one; and yet, Lois, truly an honest one. As you mean the word. One whose King Christ is, as he is yours; and who trusts in him with the whole heart, as you do."

"You a Christian!" exclaimed Lois now, in the greatest astonishment.
"When did it happen?"

He laughed again. "A fair question. Well, it came about last summer.
You recollect our talk one Sunday in the rain?"

"O yes!"—

"That set me to thinking; and the more I saw of you,—yes, and of Mrs. Armadale,—and the more I heard of you from Mrs. Barclay, the more the conviction forced itself upon my mind, that I was living, and had always lived, a fool's life. That was a conclusion easily reached; but how to become wise was another matter. I resolved to give myself to the study till I had found the answer; and that I might do it uninterruptedly, I betook myself to the wilds of Canada, with not much baggage beside my gun and my Bible. I hunted and fished; but I studied more than I did either. I took time for it too. I was longing to see you; but I resolved this subject should be disposed of first. And I gave myself to it, until it was all clear to me. And then I made open profession of my belief, and took service as one of Christ's declared servants. That was in Montreal."

"In Montreal!"

"Yes."

"Why did you never say anything about it, then?"

"I am not accustomed to talking on the subject, you know. But, really, I had a reason. I did not want to seem to propitiate your favour by any such means; I wished to try my chances with you on my own merits; and that was also a reason why I made my profession in Montreal. I wanted to do it without delay, it is true; I also wanted to do it quietly. I mean everybody shall know; but I wished you to be the first."

There followed a silence. Things rushed into and over Lois's mind with such a sweep and confusion, that she hardly knew what she was thinking or feeling. All her positions were knocked away; all her assumptions were found baseless; her defences had been erected against nothing; her fears and her hopes were alike come to nought. That is, bien entendu, her old fears and her old hopes; and amid the ruins of the latter new ones were starting, in equally bewildering confusion. Like little green heads of daffodils pushing up above the frozen ground, and fair blossoms of hepatica opening beneath a concealing mat of dead leaves. Ah, they would blossom freely by and by; now Lois hardly knew where they were or what they were.

Seeing her utterly silent and moveless, Mr. Dillwyn did probably the wisest thing he could do, and drove on. For some time the horses trotted and the bells jingled; and by too swift approaches that wilderness of lights which marked the city suburb came nearer and nearer. When it was very near and they had almost entered it, he drew in his reins again and the horses tossed their heads and walked.

"Lois, I think it is fair I should have another answer to my question now."

"What question?" she asked hurriedly.

"You know, I was so daring as to ask to have the care of you for the rest of your natural life—or of mine. What do you say to it?"

Lois said nothing. She could not find words. Words seemed to tumble over one another in her mind,—or thoughts did.

"What answer are you going to give me?" he asked again, more gravely.

"You know, Mr. Dillwyn," said Lois stammeringly, "I never thought,—I never knew before,—I never had any notion, that—that—that you thought so."—

"Thought so?—about what?"

"About me."

"I have thought so about you for a great while."

Silence again. The horses, being by this time pretty well exercised, needed no restraining, and walked for their own pleasure. Everything with Lois seemed to be in a whirl.

"And now it becomes necessary to know what you think about me," Mr.
Dillwyn went on, after that pause.

"I am very glad—" Lois said tremulously.

"Of what?"

"That you are a Christian."

"Yes, but," said he, half laughing, "that is not the immediate matter in hand. What do you think of me in my proposed character as having the ownership and the care of you?"

"I have never thought of you so," Lois managed to get out. The words were rather faint, heard, however, as Mr. Dillwyn's hand came just then adjusting and tucking in her fur robes, and his face was thereby near hers.

"And now you do think of me so?—What do you say to me?"

She could not say anything. Never in her life had Lois been at a loss and wrecked in all self-management before.

"You know, it is necessary to say something, that I may know where I stand. I must either stay or go. Will you send me away? or keep me 'for good,' as the children say?"

The tone was not without a touch of grave anxiety now, and impatient earnestness, which Lois heard well enough and would have answered; but it seemed as if her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. Mr. Dillwyn waited now for her to speak, keeping the horses at a walk, and bending down a little to hear what she would say. One sleigh passed them, then another. It became intolerable to Lois.

"I do not want to send you away," she managed finally to say, trembling.

The words, however, were clear and slow-spoken, and Mr. Dillwyn asked no more then. He drove on, and attended to his driving, even went fast; and Lois hardly knew how houses and rocks and vehicles flew past them, till the reins were drawn at Mrs. Wishart's door. Philip whistled; a groom presently appeared from the house and took the horses, and he lifted Lois out. As they were going up the steps he asked softly,

"Is that all you are going to say to me?"

"Isn't it enough for to-night?" Lois returned.

"I see you think so," he said, half laughing. "I don't; but, however—Are you going to be alone to-morrow morning, or will you take another sleigh ride with me?"

"Mrs. Wishart and Madge are going to Mme. Cisco's matinée."

"At what o'clock?"

"They will leave here at half-past ten."

"Then I will be here before eleven."

The door opened, and with a grip of her hand he turned away.

CHAPTER XLVII.

PLANS.

Lois went along the hall in that condition of the nerves in which the feet seem to walk without stepping on anything. She queried what time it could be; was the evening half gone? or had they possibly not done tea yet? Then the parlour door opened.

"Lois!—is that you? Come along; you are just in time; we are at tea.
Hurry, now!"

Lois went to her room, wishing that she could any way escape going to the table; she felt as if her friend and her sister would read the news in her face immediately, and hear it in her voice as soon as she spoke. There was no help for it; she hastened down, and presently perceived to her wonderment that her friends were absolutely without suspicion. She kept as quiet as possible, and found, happily, that she was very hungry. Mrs. Wishart and Madge were busy in talk.

"You remember Mr. Caruthers, Lois?" said the former;—"Tom Caruthers, who used to be here so often?"

"Certainly."

"Did you hear he had made a great match?"

"I heard he was going to be married. I heard that a great while ago."

"Yes, he has made a very great match. It has been delayed by the death of her mother; they had to wait. He was married a few months ago, in Florence. They had a splendid wedding."

"What makes what you call a 'great match'?" Madge asked.

"Money,—and family."

"I understand money," Madge went on; "but what do you mean by 'family,'
Mrs. Wishart?"

"My dear, if you lived in the world, you would know. It means name, and position, and standing. I suppose at Shampuashuh you are all alike—one is as good as another."

"Indeed," said Madge, "you are much mistaken, Mrs. Wishart. We think one is much better than another."

"Do you? Ah well,—then you know what I mean, my dear. I suppose the world is really very much alike in all places; it is only the names of things that vary."

"In Shampuashuh," Madge went on, "we mean by a good family, a houseful of honest and religious people."

"Yes, Madge," said Lois, looking up, "we mean a little more than that. We mean a family that has been honest and religious, and educated too, for a long while—for generations. We mean as much as that, when we speak of a good family."

"That's different," said Mrs. Wishart shortly.

"Different from what you mean?"

"Different from what is meant here, when we use the term."

"You don't mean anything honest and religious?" said Madge.

"O, honest! My dear, everybody is honest, or supposed to be; but we do not mean religious."

"Not religious, and only supposed to be honest!" echoed Madge.

"Yes," said Mrs. Wishart. "It isn't that. It has nothing to do with that. When people have been in society, and held high positions for generation after generation, it is a good family. The individuals need not be all good."

"Oh—!" said Madge.

"No. I know families among the very best in the State, that have been wicked enough; but though they have been wicked, that did not hinder their being gentlemen."

"Oh—!" said Madge again. "I begin to comprehend."

"There is too much made of money now-a-days," Mrs. Wishart went on serenely; "and there is no denying that money buys position. I do not call a good family one that was not a good family a hundred years ago; but everybody is not so particular. Not here. They are more particular in Philadelphia. In New York, any nobody who has money can push himself forward."

"What sort of family is Mr. Dillwyn's?"

"O, good, of course. Not wealthy, till lately. They have been poor, ever since I knew the family; until the sister married Chauncey Burrage, and Philip came into his property."

"The Caruthers are rich, aren't they?"

"Yes."

"And now the young one has made a great match? Is she handsome?"

"I never heard so. But she is rolling in money."

"What else is she?" inquired Madge dryly.

"She is a Dulcimer."

"That tells me nothing," said Madge. "By the way you speak it, the word seems to have a good deal of meaning for you."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Wishart. "She is one of the Philadelphia
Dulcimers. It is an old family, and they have always been wealthy."

"How happy the gentleman must be!"

"I hope so," said Mrs. Wishart gravely. "You used to know Tom quite well, Lois. What did you think of him?"

"I liked him," said Lois. "Very pleasant and amiable, and always gentlemanly. But I did not think he had much character."

Mrs. Wishart was satisfied; for Lois's tone was as disengaged as anything could possibly be.

Lois could not bring herself to say anything to Madge that night about the turn in her fortunes. Her own thoughts were in too much agitation, and only by slow degrees resolving themselves into settled conclusions. Or rather, for the conclusions were not doubtful, settling into such quiet that she could look at conclusions. And Lois began to be afraid to do even that, and tried to turn her eyes away, and thought of the hour of half-past ten next morning with trembling and heart-beating.

It came with tremendous swiftness, too. However, she excused herself from going to the matinée, though with difficulty. Mrs. Wishart was sure she ought to go; and Madge tried persuasion and raillery. Lois watched her get ready, and at last contentedly saw the two drive off. That was good. She wanted no discussion with them before she had seen Mr. Dillwyn again; and now the coast was clear. But then Lois retreated to her own room up-stairs to wait; she could not stay in the drawing-room, to be found there. She would have so much time for preparation as his ring at the door and his name being brought up-stairs would give her. Preparation for what? When the summons came, Lois went down feeling that she had not a bit of preparation.

Philip was standing in the middle of the floor, waiting for her; and the apparition that greeted him was so unexpected that he stood still, feasting his eyes with it. He had always seen Lois calm, collected, moving and speaking with frank independence, although with perfect modesty. Now?—how was it? Eyes cast down, colour coming and going; a look and manner, not of shyness, for she came straight to him, but of the most lovely maidenly consciousness; of all things, that which a lover would most wish to see. Yet she came straight to him, and as he met her and held out his hand, she put hers in it.

"What are you going to say to me this morning, Lois?" he said softly; for the pure dignity of the girl was a thing to fill him with reverence as well as with delight, and her hand seemed to him something sacred.

Her colour stirred again, but the lowered eyelids were lifted up, and the eyes met his with a most blessed smile in them.

"I am very happy, Mr. Dillwyn," she said.

Everybody knows how words fail upon occasion; and on this occasion the silence lasted some considerable time. And then Philip put Lois into one of the big easy-chairs, and went down on one knee at her feet, holding her hand. Lois tried to collect her spirits to make remonstrance.

"O, Mr. Dillwyn, do not stay there!" she begged.

"Why not? It becomes me."

"I do not think it becomes you at all," said Lois, laughing a little nervously,—"and I am sure it does not become me."

"Mistaken on both points! It becomes me well, and I think it does not become you ill," said he, kissing the hand he held. And then, bending forward to carry his kiss from the hand to the cheek,—"O my darling, how long I have waited for this!"

"Long?" said Lois, in surprise. How pretty the incredulity was on her innocent face.

"Very long!—while you thought I was liking somebody else. There has never been any change in me, Lois. I have been patiently and impatiently waiting for you this great while. You will not think it unreasonable, if that fact makes me intolerant of any more waiting, will you?"

"Don't keep that position!" said Lois earnestly.

"It is the position I mean to keep all the rest of my life!"

But that set Lois to laughing, a little nervously no doubt, yet so merrily that Philip could not but join in.

"Do I not owe everything to you?" he went on presently, with tender seriousness. "You first set me upon thinking. Do you recollect your earliest talk to me here in this room once, a good while ago, about being satisfied?"

"Yes," said Lois, suddenly opening her eyes.

"That was the beginning. You said it to me more with your looks than with your words; for I saw that, somehow, you were in the secret, and had yourself what you offered to me. That I could not forget. I had never seen anybody 'satisfied' before."

"You know what it means now?" she said softly.

"To-day?— I do!"

"No, no; I do not mean to-day. You know what I mean!" she said, with beautiful blushes.

"I know. Yes, and I have it, Lois. But you have a great deal to teach me yet."

"O no!" she said most unaffectedly. "It is you who will have to teach me."

"What?"

"Everything."

"How soon may I begin?"

"How soon?"

"Yes. You do not think Mrs. Wishart's house is the best place, or her company the best assistance for that, do you?"

"Ah, please get up!" said Lois.

But he laughed at her.

"You make me so ashamed!"

"You do not look it in the least. Shall I tell you my plans?"

"Plans!" said Lois.

"Or will you tell me your plans?"

"Ah, you are laughing at me! What do you mean?"

"You were confiding to me your plans of a little while ago; Esterbrooke, and school, and all the rest of it. My darling!—that's all nowhere."

"But,"—said Lois timidly.

"Well?"

"That is all gone, of course. But—"

"You will let me say what you shall do?"

"I suppose you will."

"Your hand is in all my plans, from henceforth, to turn them and twist them what way you like. But now let me tell you my present plans. We will be married, as soon as you can accustom your self to the idea. Hush!—wait. You shall have time to think about it. Then, as early as spring winds will let us, we will cross to England."

"England?" cried Lois.

"Wait, and hear me out. There we will look about us a while and get
such things as you may want for travelling, which one can get better in
England than anywhere else. Then we will go over the Channel and see
Paris, and perhaps supplement purchases there. So work our way—"

"Always making purchases?" said Lois, laughing, though she caught her breath too, and her colour was growing high.

"Certainly, making purchases. So work our way along, and get to
Switzerland early in June—say by the end of the first week."

"Switzerland!"

"Don't you want to see Switzerland?"

"But it is not the question, what I might like to see."

"With me it is."

"As for that, I have an untirable appetite for seeing things. But—but," and her voice lowered, "I can be quite happy enough on this side."

"Not if I can make you happier on the other."

"But that depends. I should not be happy unless I was quite sure it was right, and the best thing to do; and it looks to me like a piece of self-indulgence. We have so much already."

The gentle manner of this scruple and frank admission touched Mr.
Dillwyn exceedingly.

"I think it is right," he said. "Do you remember my telling you once about my old house at home?"

"Yes, a little."

"I think I never told you much; but now you will care to hear. It is a good way from this place, in Foster county, and not very far from a busy little manufacturing town; but it stands alone in the country, in the midst of fields and woods that I used to love very much when I was a boy. The place never came into my possession till about seven or eight years ago; and for much longer than that it has been neglected and left without any sort of care. But the house is large and old-fashioned, and can be made very pretty; and the grounds, as I think, leave nothing to be desired, in their natural capabilities. However, all is in disorder, and needs a good deal of work done up on it; which must be done before you take possession. This work will require some months. Where can we be better, meanwhile, than in Switzerland?"

"Can the work be done without you?"

"Yes."

He waited a bit. The new things at work in Lois's mind made the new expression of manner and feature a most delicious study to him. She had a little difficulty in speaking, and he was still and watched her.

"I am afraid to talk about it," she said at length,

"Why?"

"I should like it so much!"—

"Therefore you doubt?"

"Yes. I am afraid of listening just to my own pleasure."

"You shall not," said he, laughing. "Listen to mine. I want to see your eyes open at the Jung Frau, and Mont Blanc."

"My eyes open easily at anything," said Lois, yielding to the laugh;—"they are such ignorant eyes."

"Very wise eyes, on the contrary! for they know a thing when they see it."

"But they have seen so little," said Lois, finding it impossible to get back to a serious demeanour.

"That sole defect in your character, I propose to cure."

"Ah, do not praise me!"

"Why not? I used to rejoice in the remembrance that you were not an angel but human. Do you know the old lines?—

'A creature not too bright and good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.'

Only 'wiles' you never descend to; 'blame' is not to be thought of; if you forbid praise, what is left to me but the rest of it?"

And truly, what with laughter and some other emotions, tears were not far from Lois's eyes; and how could the kisses be wanting?

"I never heard you talk so before!" she managed to say.

"I have only begun."

"Please come back to order, and sobriety."

"Sobriety is not in order, as your want of it shows."

"Then come back to Switzerland."

"Ah!—I want you to go up the AEggischhorn, and to stand on the Görner
Grät, and to cross a pass or two; and I want you to see the flowers."

"Are there so many?"

"More than on a western prairie in spring. Most people travel in Switzerland later in the season, and so miss the flowers. You must not miss them."

"What flowers are they?"

"A very great many kinds. I remember the gentians, and the forget-me-nots; but the profusion is wonderful, and exceedingly rich. They grow just at the edge of the snow, some of them. Then we will linger a while at Zermatt and Chamounix, and a mountain pension here and there, and so slowly work our way over into Italy. It will be too late for Rome; but we will go, if you like it, to Venice; and then, as the heats grow greater, get back into the Tyrol."

"O, Mrs. Barclay had beautiful views from the Tyrol; a few, but very beautiful."

"How do you like my programme?"

"You have not mentioned glaciers."

"Are you' interested in glaciers?"

"Very much."

"You shall see as much of them as you can see safely from terra firma."

"Are they so dangerous?"

"Sometimes."

"But you have crossed them, have you not?"

"Times enough to make me scruple about your doing it."

"I am very sure-footed."

He kissed her hand, and inquired again what she thought of his programme.

"There is no fault to be found with the programme. But—"

"If I add to it the crossing of a glacier?"

"No, no," said Lois, laughing; "do you think I am so insatiable? But—"

"Would you like it all, my darling?"

"Like it? Don't speak of liking," she said, with a quick breath of excitement. "But—"

"Well? But—what?"

"We are not going to live to ourselves?" She said it a little anxiously and eagerly, almost pleadingly.

"I do not mean it," he answered her, with a smile. "But as to this journey my mind is entirely clear. It will take but a few months. And while we are wandering over the mountains, you and I will take our Bibles and study them and our work together. We can study where we stop to rest and where we stop to eat; I know by experience what good times and places those are for other reading; and they cannot be so good for any as for this."

"Oh! how good!" said Lois, giving a little delighted and grateful pressure to the hand in which her own still lay.

"You agree to my plans, then?"

"I agree to—part. What is that?"—for a slight noise was heard in the hall.—"O Philip, get up!—get up!—there is somebody coming!"

Mr. Dillwyn rose now, being bidden on this wise, and stood confronting the doorway, in which presently appeared his sister, Mrs. Burrage. He stood quiet and calm to meet her; while Lois, hidden by the back of the great easy-chair, had a moment to collect herself. He shielded her as much as he could. A swift review of the situation made him resolve for the present to "play dark." He could not trust his sister, that if the truth of the case were suddenly made known to her, she would not by her speech, or manner, or by her silence maybe, do something that would hurt Lois. He would not risk it. Give her time, and she would fit herself to her circumstances gracefully enough, he knew; and Lois need never be told what had been her sister-in-law's first view of them. So he stood, with an unconcerned face, watching Mrs. Burrage come down the room. And she, it may be said, came slowly, watching him.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

I have never described Mr. Dillwyn; and if I try to do it now, I am aware that words will give to nobody else the image of him. He was not a beauty, like Tom Caruthers; some people declared him not handsome at all, yet they were in a minority. Certainly his features were not according to classical rule, and criticism might find something to say to every one of them; if I except the shape and air of the face and head, the set of the latter, and the rich hair; which, very dark in colour, massed itself thick and high on the top of the head, and clung in close thick locks at the sides. The head sat nobly upon the shoulders, and correspondent therewith was the frank and manly expression of the face. I think irregular features sometimes make a better whole than regular ones. Philip's eyes were not remarkable, unless for their honest and spirited outlook; his nose was neither Roman nor Grecian, and his mouth was rather large; however, it was somewhat concealed by the long soft moustache, which he wore after the fashion of some Continentals (N. B., not like the French emperor), carefully dressed and with points turning up; and the mouth itself was both manly and pleasant. Altogether, the people who denied Mr. Dillwyn the praise of beauty, never questioned that he was very fine-looking. His sister was excessively proud of him, and, naturally thought that nothing less than the best of everything—more especially of womankind—was good enough for him. She was thinking this now, as she came down the room, and looking jealously to see signs of what she dreaded, an entanglement that would preclude for ever his having the best. Do not let us judge her hardly. What sister is not critical of her brother's choice of a wife? If, indeed, she be willing that he should have a wife at all. Mrs. Burrage watched for signs, but saw nothing. Philip stood there, calmly smiling at her, not at all flustered by her appearance. Lois saw his coolness too, and envied it; feeling that as a man, and as a man of the world, he had greatly the advantage of her. She was nervous, and felt flushed. However, there is a power of will in some women which can do a great deal, and Lois was determined that Mr. Dillwyn should not be ashamed of her. By the time it was needful for her to rise she did rise, and faced her visitor with a very quiet and perfectly composed manner. Only, if anything, it was a trifle too quiet; but her manner was other wise quite faultless.

"Philip!—" said Mrs. Burrage, advancing—"Good morning—Miss Lothrop.
Philip, what are you doing here?"

"I believe you asked me that question once on a former occasion. Then, I think, I had been making toast. Now, I have been telling Miss Lothrop my plans for the summer, since she was so good as to listen."

"Plans?" repeated Mrs. Burrage. "What plans?" She looked doubtfully from one to the other of the faces before her. "Does he tell you his plans, Miss Lothrop?"

"Won't you sit down, Mrs. Burrage?" said Lois. "I am always interested when anybody speaks of Switzerland."

"Switzerland!" cried the lady, sinking into a chair, and her eyes going to her brother again. "You are not talking of Switzerland for next summer?"

"Where can one be better in summer?"

"But you have been there ever so many times!"

"By which I know how good it will be to go again."

"I thought you would spend the summer with me!"

"Where?" he asked, with a smile.

"Philip, I wish you would dress your hair like other people."

"It defies dressing, sister," he said, passing his hand over the thick mass.

"No, no, I mean your moustache. When you smile, it gives you a demoniac expression, which drives me out of all patience. Miss Lothrop, would he not look a great deal better if he would cut off those Hungarian twists, and wear his upper lip like a Christian?"

This was a trial! Lois gave one glance at the moustache in question, a glance compounded of mingled horror and amusement, and flushed all over. Philip saw the glance and commanded his features only by a strong exertion of will, remaining, however, to all seeming as impassive as a judge.

"You don't think so?" said Mrs. Burrage. "Philip, why are you not at that picture sale this minute, with me?"

"Why are you not there, let me ask, this minute without me?"

"Because I wanted you to tell me if I should buy in that Murillo."

"I can tell you as well here as there. What do you want to buy it for?"

"What a question! Why, they say it is a genuine Murillo, and no doubt about it; and I have just one place on the wall in my second drawing-room, where something is wanting; there is one place not filled up, and it looks badly."

"And the Murillo is to fill up the vacant space?"

"Yes. If you say it is worth it."

"Worth what?"

"The money. Five hundred. But I dare say they would take four, and perhaps three. It is a real Murillo, they say. Everybody says."

"Jessie, I think it would be extravagance."

"Extravagance! Five hundred dollars for a Murillo! Why, everybody says it is no price at all."

"Not for the Murillo; but for a wall panel, I think it is. What do you say, Miss Lothrop, to panelling a room at five hundred dollars the panel?"

"Miss Lothrop's experience in panels would hardly qualify her to answer you," Mrs. Burrage said, with a polite covert sneer.

"Miss Lothrop has experience in some other things," Philip returned immoveably. But the appeal put Lois in great embarrassment.

"What is the picture?" she asked, as the best way out of it.

"It's a St. Sebastian," Mrs. Burrage answered shortly.

"Do you know the story?" asked Philip. "He was an officer in the household of the Roman emperor, Diocletian; a Christian; and discovered to be a Christian by his bold and faithful daring in the cause of truth. Diocletian ordered him to be bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows, and that the inscription over his head should state that there was no fault found in him but only that he was a Christian. This picture my sister wants to buy, shows him stripped and bound to the tree, and the executioner's work going on. Arrows are piercing him in various places; and the saint's face is raised to heaven with the look upon it of struggling pain and triumphing faith together. You can see that the struggle is sharp, and that only strength which is not his own enables him to hold out; but you see that he will hold out, and the martyr's palm of victory is even already waving before him."

Lois's eyes eagerly looked into those of the speaker while he went on; then they fell silently. Mrs. Burrage grew impatient.

"You tell it with a certain goût," she said. "It's a horrid story!"

"O, it's a beautiful story!" said Lois, suddenly looking up.

"If you like horrors," said the lady, shrugging her shoulders. "But I believe you are one of that kind yourself, are you not?"

"Liking horrors?" said Lois, in astonishment.

"No, no, of course! not that. But I mean, you are one of that saint's spiritual relations. Are you not? You would rather be shot than live easy?"

Philip bit his lip; but Lois answered with the most delicious simplicity,—

"If living easy implied living unfaithful, I hope I would rather be shot." Her eyes looked, as she spoke, straight and quietly into those of her visitor.

"And I hope I would," added Philip.

"You?" said his sister, turning sharp upon him. "Everybody knows you would!"

"But everybody does not know yet that I am a fellow-servant of that Sebastian of long ago; and that to me now, faithful and unfaithful mean the same that they meant to him. Not faithfulness to man, but faithfulness to God—or unfaithfulness."

"Philip!—"

"And as faithfulness is a word of large comprehension, it takes in also the use of money," Mr. Dillwyn went on smiling; "and so, Jessie, I think, you see, with my new views of things, that five hundred dollars is too much for a panel."

"Or for a picture, I suppose!" said Mrs. Burrage, with dry concentrated expression.

"Depends. Decidedly too much for a picture not meant to be looked at?"

"Why shouldn't it be looked at?"

"People will not look much at what they cannot understand."

"Why shouldn't they understand it?"

"It is a representation of giving up all for Christ, and of faithfulness unto death. What do the crowds who fill your second drawing-room know about such experience?"

Mrs. Burrage had put the foregoing questions dryly and shortly, examining her brother while he spoke, with intent, searching eyes. She had risen once as if to go, and now sat down again. Lois thought she even turned pale.

"Philip!—I never heard you talk so before. What do you mean?"

"Merely to let you know that I am a Christian. It is time."

"You were always a Christian!"

"In name. Now it is reality."

"You don't mean that you—you!—have become one of those fanatics?"

"What fanatics?"

"Those people who give up everything for religion, and are insane upon the subject."

"You could not have described it better, than in the first half of your speech. I have given up everything for religion. That is, I have given myself and all I have to Christ and his service; and whatever I do henceforth, I do only in that character and in that interest. But as to sanity,"—he smiled again,—"I think I was never sane until now."

Mrs. Burrage had risen for the second time, and her brother was now standing opposite to her; and if she had been proud of him a little while before, it was Lois's turn now. The calm, clear frankness and nobleness of his face and bearing made her heart fairly swell with its gladness and admiration; but it filled the other woman's heart with a different feeling.

"And this is you, Philip Dillwyn!" she said bitterly. "And I know you; what you have said you will stand to. Such a man as you! lost to the world!"

"Why lost to the world, Mrs. Burrage?" said Lois gently. She had risen too. The other lady faced her.

"Without more knowledge of what the world is, I could hardly explain to you," she said, with cool rudeness; the sort of insolence that a fine lady can use upon occasion when it suits her. Philip's face flushed, but he would not make the rudeness more palpable by seeming to notice it.

"I hope it is the other way," he said. "I have been an idle man all my life hitherto, and have done nothing except for myself. Nobody could be of less use to the world."

"And what are you going to do now?"

"I cannot tell. I shall find out. I am going to study the question."

"And is Miss Lothrop your teacher?"

The civil sneer was too apparent again, but it did not call up a flush this time. Philip was too angry. It was Lois that answered, and pleasantly,—

"She does not even wish to be that."

"Haven't you taught him already?" asked the lady, with prompt inquisition.

"Yes," said Philip.

Lois did colour now; she could not deny the fact, nor even declare that it had been an unintentional fact; but her colour was very pretty, and so was the sort of deprecating way in which she looked at her future sister-in-law. Not disarmed, Mrs. Burrage went on.

"It is a dangerous office to take, my dear, for we women never can keep it. We may think we stand on an eminence of wisdom one day; and the next we find we have to come down to a very lowly place, and sit at somebody else's feet, and receive our orders. I find it rather hard sometimes. Well, Philip,—will you go on with the lesson I suppose I have interrupted? or will you have the complaisance to go with me to see about the Murillo?"

"I will certainly stay."

"Rather hard upon me, after promising me last night you would go."

"I made no such promise."

"Indeed you did, begging your pardon. Last night, when you came home with the horses, I told you of the sale, and asked you if you would go and see that I did not get cheated."

"I have no recollection of it."

"And you said you would with pleasure."

"That is no longer possible, Jessie. And the sale would be over before we could get to it," he added, looking at his watch.

"Shall I leave you here, then?" said the lady, with a mingling of disagreeable feelings which found indescribable expression.

"If Miss Lothrop will let me be left. You forget, it depends upon her permission."

"Miss Lothrop," said the lady, offering her hand to Lois with formal politeness, "I do not ask you the question, for my brother all his life has never been refused anything he chose to demand. Pardon me my want of attention; he is responsible for it, having upset all my ideas with his strange announcements. Good-bye!"

Lois curtseyed silently. In all this dialogue, the contrast had been striking between the two ladies; for the advantage of manner had been on the side, not of the experienced woman of the world, but of the younger and simpler and country-bred little Shampuashuh woman. It comes to this; that the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians gives one the very soul and essence of what in the world is called good breeding; the kernel and thing itself; while what is for the most part known in society is the empty shell, simulating and counterfeiting it only. Therefore he in whose heart that thirteenth chapter is a living truth, will never be ill-bred; and if he possesses besides a sensitive and refined nature, and is free of self-consciousness, and has some common sense to boot, he has all the make-up of the veriest high-breeding. Nothing could seem more unruffled, because nothing could be more unruffled, than Lois during this whole interview; she was even a little sorry for Mrs. Burrage, knowing that the lady would be very sorry herself afterwards for what she had done; and Lois meant to bury it in perfect oblivion. So her demeanour was free, simple, dignified, most graceful; and Philip was penetrated with delight and shame at once. He went with his sister to put her in her carriage, which was done with scarce any words on either part; and then returned to the room where he had left Lois. She was still standing beside her chair, having in truth her thoughts too busy to remember to sit down. Philip's action was to come straight to her and fold his arms round her. They were arms of caressing and protection at once; Lois felt both the caressing and the protecting clasp, as something her life had never known before; and a thrill went through her of happiness that was almost mingled with awe.

"My darling!"—said Philip—"will you hold me responsible? Will you charge it all upon me?—and let me make it good as best I can?"

"O Philip, there is nothing to charge!" said Lois, lifting her flushed face, "fair as the moon," to meet his anxious eyes. "Do not think of it again. It is perfectly natural, from her point of view. You know, you are very much Somebody; and I—am Nobody."

The remainder of the interview may be left unreported.

It lasted till the two ladies returned from the matinée. Mrs. Wishart immediately retained Mr. Dillwyn for luncheon, and the two girls went up-stairs together.

"How long has that man been here?" was Madge's disrespectful inquiry.

"I don't know."

"What did he come for?"

"I suppose—to see me."

"To see you! Did he come to take you sleigh-riding again?"

"He said nothing about sleigh-riding."

"The snow is all slush down in the city. What did he want to see you for, then?" said Madge, turning round upon her sister, while at the same time she was endeavouring to extricate her head from her bonnet, which was caught upon a pin.

"He had something to say to me," Lois answered, trembling with an odd sort of excitement.

"What?—Lois, not that?" cried Madge, stopping with her bonnet only half off her head. But Lois nodded; and Madge dropped herself into the nearest chair, making no further effort as regarded the bonnet.

"Lois!—What did you say to him?"

"What could I say to him?"

"Why, two or three things, I should think. If it was I, I should think so."

"There can be but one answer to such a question. It must be yes or no."

"I am sure that's two to choose from. Have you gone and said yes to that man?"

"Don't you like him?" said Lois, with a furtive smile, glancing up at her sister now from under lowered eyelids.

"Like him! I never saw the man yet, that I liked as well as my liberty."

"Liberty!"

"Yes. Have you forgotten already what that means? O Lois! have you said yes to that man? Why, I am always afraid of him, every time I see him."

"Afraid of him?"

"Yes. I get over it after he has been in the room a while; but the next time I see him it comes back. O Lois! are you going to let him have you?"

"Madge, you are talking most dreadful nonsense. You never were afraid of anybody in your life; and of him least of all."

"Fact, though," said Madge, beginning at her bonnet again. "It's the way his head is set on his shoulders, I suppose. If I had known what was happening, while I was listening to Mme. Cisco's screeching!"—

"You couldn't have helped it."

"And now, now, actually you belong to somebody else! Lois, when are you going to be married?"

"I don't know."

"Not for a great while? Not soon, at any rate?"

"I don't know. Mr. Dillwyn wishes—"

"And are you going to do everything he wishes?"

"As far as I can," said Lois, with again a rosy smile and glance.

"There's the call to luncheon!" said Madge. "People must eat, if they're ever so happy or ever so unhappy. It is one of the disgusting things about human nature. I just wish he wasn't going to be here. Well—come along!"

Madge went ahead till she reached the drawing-room door; there she suddenly paused, waved herself to one side, and let Lois go in before her. Lois was promptly wrapped in Mrs. Wishart's arms, and had to endure a most warm and heartfelt embracing and congratulating. The lady was delighted. Meanwhile Madge found herself shaking hands with Philip.

"You know all about it?" he said, looking hard at her, and holding her hand fast.

"If you mean what Lois has told me—"

"Are not you going to wish me joy?"

"There is no occasion—for anybody who has got Lois," said Madge. And then she choked, pulled her hand away, and broke down. And when Lois got free from Mrs. Wishart, she saw Madge sitting with her head in her hands, and Mr. Dillwyn bending over her. Lois came swiftly behind and put both arms softly around her sister.

"It's no use!" said Madge, sobbing and yet defiant. "He has got you, and I haven't got you any longer. Let me alone—I am not going to be a fool, but to be asked to wish him joy is too much." And she broke away and ran off.

Lois could have followed her with all her heart; but she had herself habitually under better control than Madge, and knew with fine instinct what was due to others. Her eyes glistened; nevertheless her bearing was quiet and undisturbed; and a second time to-day Mr. Dillwyn was charmed with the grace of her manner. I must add that Madge presently made her appearance again, and was soon as gay as usual; her lucubrations even going so far before the end of luncheon as to wonder where Lois would hold her wedding. Will she fetch all the folks down here? thought Madge. Or will everybody go to Shampuashuh?

With the decision, however, the reader need not be troubled.

CHAPTER XLIX.

ON THE PASS.

Only one incident more need be told. It is the last point in my story.

The intermediate days and months must be passed over, and we skip the interval to the summer and June. It is now the middle of June. Mr. Dillwyn's programme had been successfully carried out; and, after an easy and most festive journey from England, through France, he and Lois had come by gentle stages to Switzerland. A festive journey, yes; but the expression regards the mental progress rather than the apparent. Mr. Dillwyn, being an old traveller, took things with the calm habit of use and wont; and Lois, new as all was to her, made no more fussy demonstration than he did. All the more delicious to him, and satisfactory, were the sparkles in her eyes and the flushes on her cheeks, which constantly witnessed to her pure delight or interest in something. All the more happily he felt the grasp of her hand sometimes when she did not speak; or listened to the low accents of rapture when she saw something that deserved them; or to her merry soft laugh at something that touched her sense of fun. For he found Lois had a great sense of fun. She was altogether of the most buoyant, happy, and enjoying nature possible. No one could be a better traveller. She ignored discomforts (truly there had not been much in that line), and she laughed at disappointments; and travellers must meet disappointments now and then. So Mr. Dillwyn had found the journey giving him all he had promised himself; and to Lois it gave—well Lois's dreams had never promised her the quarter.

So it had come to be the middle of June, and they were in Switzerland. And this day, the sixteenth, found them in a little wayside inn near the top of a pass, snowed up. So far they had come, the last mile or two through a heavy storm; and then the snow clouds had descended so low and so thick, and gave forth their treasures of snow-flakes so confusedly and incessantly, that going on was not to be thought of. They were sheltered in the little inn; and that is nearly all you could say of it, for the accommodations were of the smallest and simplest. Travellers were not apt to stop at that little hostelry for more than a passing refreshment; and even so, it was too early in the season for many travellers to be expected. So there were Philip and his wife now, making the best of things. Mr. Dillwyn was coaxing the little fire to burn, which had been hastily made on their arrival; but Lois sat at one of the windows looking out, and every now and then proclaiming her enjoyment by the tone in which some innocent remark came from her lips.

"It is raining now, Philip."

"What do you see in the rain?"

"Nothing whatever, at this minute; but a little while ago there was a kind of drawing aside of the thick curtain of falling snow, and I had a view of some terribly grand rocks, and one glimpse of a most wonderful distance."

"Vague distance?" said Philip, laughing. "That sounds like looking off into space."

"Well, it was. Like chaos, and order struggling out of its awful beginnings."

"Don't unpractically catch cold, while you are studying natural developement."

"I am perfectly warm. I think it is great fun to be kept here over night. Such a nice little place as it is, and such a nice little hostess. Do you notice how neat everything is? O Philip!—here is somebody else coming!"

"Coming to the inn?"

"Yes. O, I'm afraid so. Here's one of these original little carriages crawling along, and it has stopped, and the people are getting out. Poor storm-stayed people, like ourselves."

"They will come to a fire, which we didn't," said Philip, leaving his post now and placing himself at the back of Lois's chair, where he too could see what was going on in front of the house. A queer little vehicle had certainly stopped there, and somebody very much muffled had got out, and was now helping a second person to alight, which second person must be a woman; and she was followed by another woman, who alighted with less difficulty and less attention, though she had two or three things to carry.

"I pity women who travel in the Alps with their maids!" said Mr.
Dillwyn.

"Philip, that first one, the gentleman, had a little bit—just a little bit—the air of your friend, Mr. Caruthers. He was so muffled up, one could not tell what he was like; but somehow he reminded me of Mr. Caruthers."

"I thought Tom was your friend?"

"Friend? No. He was an acquain'tance; he was never my friend, I think."

"Then his name raises no tender associations in your mind?"

"Why, no!" said Lois, with a gay little laugh. "No, indeed. But I liked him very well at one time; and I—think—he liked me."

"Poor Tom!"

"Why do you say that?" Lois asked merrily. "He is not poor; he has married a Dulcimer. I never can hear her name without thinking of Nebuchadnezzar's image! He has forgotten me long ago."

"I see you have forgotten him," said Dillwyn, bending down till his face was very near Lois's.

"How should I not? But I did like him at one time, quite well. I suppose I was flattered by his attentions, which I think were rather marked. And you know, at that time I did not know you."

Lois's voice fell a little; the last sentence being given with a delicate, sweet reserve, which spoke much more than effusion. Philip's answer was mute.

"Besides," said Lois, "he is a sort of man that I never could have liked beyond a certain point. He is a weak character; do you know it, Philip?"

"I know it. I observe, that is the last fault women will forgive in a man."

"Why should they?" said Lois. "What have you, where you have not strength? It is impossible to love where you cannot respect. Or if you love, it is a poor contemptible sort of love."

Philip laughed; and just then the door opened, and the hostess of the inn appeared on the threshhold, with other figures looming dimly behind her. She came in apologizing. More storm-bound travellers had arrived—there was no other room with a fire ready—would monsieur and madame be so gracious and allow the strangers to come in and get warm and dry by their fire? Almost before she had finished her speech the two men had sprung towards each other, and "Tom!"—"Philip DilIwyn!"—had been cried in different tones of surprised greeting.

"Where did you come from?" said Tom, shaking his friend's hand. "What a chance! Here is my wife. Arabella, this is Mr. Dillwyn, whose name you have heard often enough. At the top of this pass!—"

The lady thus addressed came in behind Tom, throwing off her wrappings, and throwing each, or dropping it as it was taken off, into the hands of her attendant who followed her. She appeared now to be a slim person, of medium height, dressed very handsomely, with an insignificant face, and a quantity of light hair disposed in a mysterious manner to look like a wig. That is, it looked like nothing natural, and yet could not be resolved by the curious eye into bands or braids or any defined form of fashionable art or artifice. The face looked fretted, and returned Mr. Dillwyn's salutation discontentedly. Tom's eye meanwhile had wandered, with an unmistakeable air of apprehension, towards the fourth member of the party; and Lois came forward now, giving him a frank greeting, and holding out her hand. Tom bowed very low over it, without saying one word; and Philip noted that his eye shunned Lois's face, and that his own face was all shadowed when he raised it. Mr. Dillwyn put himself in between.

"May I present my wife, Mrs. Caruthers?"

Mrs. Caruthers gave Lois a look, swift and dissatisfied, and turned to the fire, shivering.

"Have we got to stay here?" she asked querulously.

"We couldn't go on, you know," said Tom. "We may be glad of any sort of a shelter. I am afraid we are interfering with your comfort, Philip; but really, we couldn't help it. The storm's awful outside. Mrs. Caruthers was sure we should be overtaken by an avalanche; and then she was certain there must be a crevasse somewhere. I wonder if one can get anything to eat in this place?"

"Make yourself easy; they have promised us dinner, and you shall share with us. What the dinner will be, I cannot say; but we shall not starve; and you see what a fire I have coaxed up for you. Take this chair, Mrs. Caruthers."

The lady sat down and hovered over the fire; and Tom restlessly bustled in and out. Mr. DilIwyn tended the fire, and Lois kept a little in the background. Till, after an uncomfortable interval, the hostess came in, bringing the very simple fare, which was all she had to set before them. Brown bread, and cheese, and coffee, and a common sort of red wine; with a bit of cold salted meat, the precise antecedents of which it was not so easy to divine. The lady by the fire looked on disdainfully, and Tom hastened to supplement things from their own stores. Cold game, white bread, and better wine were produced from somewhere, with hard-boiled eggs and even some fruit. Mrs. Caruthers sat by the fire and looked on; while Tom brought these articles, one after another, and Lois arranged the table. Philip watched her covertly; admired her lithe figure in its neat mountain dress, which he thought became her charmingly; admired the quiet, delicate tact of her whole manner and bearing; the grace with which she acted and spoke, as well as the pretty deftness of her ministrations about the table. She was taking the part of hostess, and doing it with simple dignity; and he was very sorry for Tom. Tom, he observed, would not see her when he could help it. But they had to all gather round the table together and face each other generally.

"This is improper luxury for the mountains," Dillwyn said.

"Mrs. Caruthers thinks it best to be always provided for occasions.
These small houses, you know, they can't give you any but small fare."

"Small fare is good for you!"

"Good for you," said Tom,—"all right; but my—Arabella cannot eat things if they are too small. That cheese, now!—"

"It is quite passable."

"Where are you going, Philip?"

"Bound for the AEggischhorn, in the first place."

"You are never going up?"

"Why not?" Lois asked, with her bright smile. Tom glanced at her from under his brows, and grew as dark as a thundercloud. She was ministering to Tom's wife in the prettiest way; not assuming anything, and yet acting in a certain sort as mistress of ceremonies. And Mrs. Caruthers was coming out of her apathy every now and then, and looking at her in a curious attentive way. I dare say it struck Tom hard. For he could not but see that to all her natural sweetness Lois had added now a full measure of the ease and grace which come from the habit of society, and which Lois herself had once admired in the ladies of his family. "Ay, even they wouldn't say she was nobody now!" he said to himself bitterly. And Philip, he saw, was so accustomed to this fact, that he took it as a matter of course.

"Where are you going after the AEggischhorn?" he went on, to say something.

"We mean to work our way, by degrees, to Zermatt."

"We are going to Zermatt," Mrs. Caruthers put in blandly. "We might travel in company."

"Can you walk?" asked Philip, smiling.

"Walk!"

"Yes. We do it on foot."

"What for? Pray, pardon me! But are you serious?"

"I am in earnest, if that is what you mean. We do not look upon it in a serious light. It's rather a jollification."

"It is far the pleasantest way, Mrs. Caruthers," Lois added.

"But do you travel without any baggage?"

"Not quite," said Lois demurely. "We generally send that on ahead, except what will go in small satchels slung over the shoulder."

"And take what you can find at the little inns?"

"O yes; and fare very well."

"I like to be comfortable!" sighed the other lady. "Try that wine, and see how much better it is."

"Thank you, no; I prefer the coffee."

"No use to ask her to take wine," growled Tom. "I know she won't. She never would. She has principles. Offer it to Mr. Dillwyn."

"You do me the honour to suppose me without principles," said Philip dryly.

"I don't suppose you hold her principles," said Tom, indicating Lois rather awkwardly by the pronoun rather than in any more definite way. "You never used."

"Quite true; I never used. But I do it now."

"Do you mean that you have given up drinking wine?"

"I have given it up?" said Philip, smiling at Tom's air, which was almost of consternation.

"Because she don't like it?"

"I hope I would give up a greater thing than that, if she did not like it," said Philip gravely. "This seems to me not a great thing. But the reason you suppose is not my reason."

"If the reason isn't a secret, I wish you'd mention it; Mrs. Caruthers will be asking me in private, by and by; and I do not like her to ask me questions I cannot answer."

"My reason is,—I think it does more harm than good."

"Wine?"

"Wine, and its congeners."

"Take a cup of coffee, Mr. Caruthers," said Lois; "and confess it will do instead of the other thing."

Tom accepted the coffee; I don't think he could have rejected anything she held out to him; but he remarked grumly to Philip, as he took it,—

"It is easy to see where you got your principles!"

"Less easy than you think," Philip answered. "I got them from no living man or woman, though I grant you, Lois showed me the way to them. I got them from the Bible, old friend."

Tom glared at the speaker.

"Have you given up your cigars too?"

Mr. Dillwyn laughed out, and Lois said somewhat exultantly,

"Yes, Mr. Caruthers."

"I am sure I wish you would too!" said Tom's wife deploringly to her husband. "I think if anything's horrid, it's the after smell of tobacco."

"But the first taste of it is all the comfort a fellow gets in this world," said Tom.

"No fellow ought to say that," his friend returned.

"The Bible!" Tom repeated, as if it were a hard pill to swallow.
"Philip Dillwyn quoting that old authority!"

"Perhaps I ought to go a little further, and say, Tom, that my quoting it is not a matter of form. I have taken service in the Christian army, since I saw you the last time. Now tell me how you and Mrs. Caruthers come to be at the top of this pass in a snow-storm on the sixteenth of June?"

"Fate!" said Tom.

"We did not expect to have a snow-storm, Mr. Dillwyn," Mrs. Caruthers added.

"But you might," said Philip. "There have been snow-storms everywhere in Switzerland this year."

"Well," said Tom, "we did not come for pleasure, anyhow. Never should dream of it, until a month later. But Mrs. Caruthers got word that a special friend of hers would be at Zermatt by a certain day, and begged to meet her; and stay was uncertain; and so we took what was said to be the shortest way from where the letter found us. And here we are."

"How is the coffee, Mr. Caruthers?" Lois asked pleasantly. Tom looked into the depths of his coffee cup, as if it were an abstraction, and then answered, that it was the best coffee he had ever had in Switzerland; and upon that he turned determinately to Mr. Dillwyn and began to talk of other things, unconnected with Switzerland or the present time. Lois was fain to entertain Tom's wife. The two women had little in common; nevertheless Mrs. Caruthers gradually warmed under the influence that shone upon her; thawed out, and began even to enjoy herself. Tom saw it all, without once turning his face that way; and he was fool enough to fancy that he was the only one. But Philip saw it too, as it were without looking; and delighted himself all the while in the gracious sweetness, and the tender tact, and the simple dignity of unconsciousness, with which Lois attended to everybody, ministered to everybody, and finally smoothed down even poor Mrs. Caruthers' ruffled plumes under her sympathizing and kindly touch.

"How soon will you be at Zermatt?" the latter asked. "I wish we could travel together! When do you expect to get there?"

"O, I do not know. We are going first, you know, to the AEggischhorn. We go where we like, and stay as long as we like; and we never know beforehand how it will be."

"But so early!—"

"Mr. Dillwyn wanted me to see the flowers. And the snow views are grand too; I am very glad not to miss them. Just before you came, I had one. The clouds swept apart for a moment, and gave me a wonderful sight of a gorge, the wildest possible, and tremendous rocks, half revealed, and a chaos of cloud and storm."

"Do you like that?"

"I like it all," said Lois, smiling. And the other woman looked, with a fascinated, uncomprehending air, at the beauty of that smile.

"But why do you walk?"

"O, that's half the fun," cried Lois. "We gain so a whole world of things that other people miss. And the walking itself is delightful."

"I wonder if I could walk?" said Mrs. Caruthers enviously. "How far can you go in a day? You must make very slow progress?"

"Not very. Now I am getting in training, we can do twenty or thirty miles a day with ease."

"Twenty or thirty miles!" Mrs. Caruthers as nearly screamed as politeness would let her do.

"We do it easily, beginning the day early."

"How early? What do you call early?"

"About four or five o'clock."

Mrs. Caruthers looked now as if she were staring at a prodigy.

"Start at four o'clock! Where do you get breakfast? Don't you have breakfast? Will the people give you breakfast so early? Why, they would have to be up by two."

Tom was listening now. He could not help it.

"O, we have breakfast," Lois said. "We carry it with us, and we stop at some nice place and take rest on the rocks, or on a soft carpet of moss, when we have walked an hour or two. Mr. Dillwyn carries our breakfast in a little knapsack."

"Is it nice?" enquired the lady, with such an expression of doubt and scruple that the risible nerves of the others could not stand it, and there was a general burst of laughter.

"Come and try once," said Lois, "and you will see."

"If you do not like such fare," Philip went on, "you can almost always stop at a house and get breakfast."

"I could not eat dry food," said the lady; "and you do not drink wine.
What do you drink? Water?"

"Sometimes. Generally we manage to get milk. It is fresh and excellent."

"And without cups and saucers?" said the astonished lady. Lois's "ripple of laughter" sounded again softly.

"Not quite without cups; I am afraid we really do without saucers. We have an unlimited tablecloth, you know, of lichen and moss."

"And you really enjoy it?"

But here Lois shook her head. "There are no words to tell how much."

Mrs. Caruthers sighed. If she had spoken out her thoughts, it was too plain to Lois, she would have said, "I do not enjoy anything."

"How long are you thinking to stay on this side of the water?" Tom asked his friend now.

"Several months yet, I hope. I want to push on into Tyrol. We are not in a hurry. The old house at home is getting put into order, and till it is ready for habitation we can be nowhere better than here."

"The old house? your house, do you mean? the old house at Battersby?"

"Yes."

"You are not going there? for the winter at least?"

"Yes, we propose that. Why?"

"It is I that should ask 'why.' What on earth should you go to live there for?"

"It is a nice country, a very good house, and a place I am fond of, and
I think Lois will like."

"But out of the world!"

"Only out of your world," his friend returned, with a smile.

"Why should you go out of our world? it is the world."

"For what good properties?"

"And it has always been your world," Tom went on, disregarding this question.

"I told you, I am changed."

"But does becoming a Christian change a man, Mr. Dillwyn?" Mrs.
Caruthers asked.

"So the Bible says."

"I never saw much difference. I thought we were all Christians."

"If you were to live a while in the house with that lady," said Tom darkly, "you'd find your mistake. What in all the world do you expect to do up there at Battersby?" he went on, turning to his friend.

"Live," said Philip. "In your world you only drag along existence. And we expect to work, which you never do. There is no real living without working, man. Try it, Tom."

"Cannot you work, as you call it, in town?"

"We want more free play, and more time, than town life allows one."

"Besides, the country is so much pleasanter," Lois added.

"But such a neighbourhood! you don't know the neighbourhood—but you do, Philip. You have no society, and Battersby is nothing but a manufacturing place—"

"Battersby is three and a half miles off; too far for its noise or its smoke to reach us; and we can get society, as much as we want, and what we want; and in such a place there is always a great deal that might be done."

The talk went on for some time; Mrs. Caruthers seeming amazed and mystified, Tom dissatisfied and critical. At last, being informed that their own quarters were ready, the later comers withdrew, after agreeing that they would all sup together.

"Tom," said Mrs. Caruthers presently, "whom did Mr. Dillwyn marry?"

"Whom did he marry?"

"Yes. Who was she before she married?"

"I always heard she was nobody," Tom answered, with something between a grunt and a groan.

"Nobody! But that's nonsense. I haven't seen a woman with more style in a great while."

"Style!" echoed Tom, and his word would have had a sharp addition if he had not been speaking to his wife; but Tom was before all things a gentleman. As it was, his tone would have done honour to a grisly bear somewhat out of temper.

"Yes," repeated Mrs. Caruthers. "You may not know it, Tom, being a man; but I know what I am saying; and I tell you Mrs. Dillwyn has very distinguished manners. I hope we may see a good deal of them."

Meanwhile Lois was standing still where they had left her, in front of the fire; looking down meditatively into it. Her face was grave, and her abstraction for some minutes deep. I suppose her New England reserve was struggling with her individual frankness of nature, for she said no word, and Mr. Dillwyn, who was watching her, also stood silent. At last frankness, or affection, got the better of reserve; and, with a slow, gentle motion she turned to him, laying one hand on his shoulder, and sinking her face upon his breast.

"Lois! what is it?" he asked, folding his arms about her.

"Philip, it smites me!"

"What, my darling?" he said, almost startled. And then she lifted up her face and looked at him.

"To know myself so happy, and to see them so unhappy. Philip, they are not happy,—neither one of them!"

"I am afraid it is true. And we can do nothing to help them."

"No, I see that too."

Lois said it with a sigh, and was silent again. Philip did not choose to push the subject further, uncertain how far her perceptions went, and not wishing to give them any assistance. Lois stood silent and pondering, still within his arms, and he waited and watched her. At last she began again.

"We cannot do them any good. But I feel as if I should like to spend my life in making people happy."

"How many people?" said her husband fondly, with a kiss or two which explained his meaning. Lois laughed out.

"Philip, I do not make you happy."

"You come very near it."

"But I mean— Your happiness has something better to rest on. I should like to spend my life bringing happiness to the people who know nothing about being happy."

"Do it, sweetheart!" said he, straining her a little closer. "And let me help."

"Let you help!—when you would have to do almost the whole. But, to be sure, money is not all; and money alone will not do it, in most cases. Philip, I will tell you where I should like to begin."

"Where? I will begin there also."

"With Mrs. Barclay."

"Mrs. Barclay!" There came a sudden light into Philip's eyes.

"Do you know, she is not a happy woman?"

"I know it."

"And she seems very much alone in the world."

"She is alone in the world."

"And she has been so good to us! She has done a great deal for Madge and me."

"She has done as much for me."

"I don't know about that. I do not see how she could. In a way, I owe her almost everything. Philip, you would never have married the woman I was three years ago."

"Don't take your oath upon that," he said lightly.

"But you would not, and you ought not."

"There is a counterpart to that. I am sure you would not have married the man I was three years ago."

At that Lois laid down her face again for a moment on his breast.

"I had a pretty hard quarter of an hour in a sleigh with you once!" she said.

Philip's answer was again wordless.

"But about Mrs. Barclay?" said Lois, recovering herself.

"Are you one of the few women who can keep to the point?" said he, laughing.

"What can we do for her?"

"What would you like to do for her?"

"Oh— Make her happy!"

"And to that end—?"

Lois lifted her face and looked into Mr. Dillwyn's as if she would search out something there. The frank nobleness which belonged to it was encouraging, and yet she did not speak.

"Shall we ask her to make her home with us?"

"O Philip!" said Lois, with her face all illuminated,—"would you like it?"

"I owe her much more than you do. And, love, I like what you like."

"Would she come?"

"If she could resist you and me together, she would be harder than I think her."

"I love her very much," said Lois thoughtfully, "and I think she loves me. And if she will come—I am almost sure we can make her happy."

"We will try, darling."

"And these other people—we need not meet them at Zermatt, need we?"

"We will find it not convenient."

Neither at Zermatt nor anywhere else in Switzerland did the friends again join company. Afterwards, when both parties had returned to their own country, it was impossible but that encounters should now and then take place. But whenever and wherever they happened, Tom made them as short as his wife would let him. And as long as he lives, he will never see Mrs. Philip Dillwyn without a clouding of his face and a very evident discomposure of his gay and not specially profound nature. It has tenacity somewhere, and has received at least one thing which it will never lose.

THE END

PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH

Typographical errors silently corrected:

Chapter 5: =but you see the month= replaced by =but you see, the month=

Chapter 8: =a Father unto you= replaced by =a father unto you=

Chapter 10: =want to know did you= replaced by =want to know, did you=

Chapter 11: =you see it if off= replaced by =you see, it is off=

Chapter 18: =vier augen= replaced by =vier Augen=

Chapter 20: =will come of it!'= replaced by =will come of it!=

Chapter 21: =bon goût= replaced by =bon goût=

Chapter 21: =children!= replaced by =children!"=

Chapter 22: =Aubigne= replaced by =Aubigné=

Chapter 30: =heavy eyelids."= replaced by =heavy eyelids.=

Chapter 34: =compliment, said= replaced by =compliment," said=

Chapter 35: =chapter of Matthew.= replaced by =chapter of Matthew."=

Chapter 39: =come hear and rest= replaced by =comes here and rest=

Chapter 42: =mankind is man,'" my dear; "and= replaced by =mankind is man,' my dear; and=

Chapter 44: =your hare'= replaced by =your hare.'=

Chapter 47: =not become me.= replaced by =not become me."=

Chapter 47: =might like to see.= replaced by =might like to see."=

Chapter 48: =certain gout= replaced by =certain goût=

Chapter 48: =use of money,= replaced by =use of money,"=

Chapter 48: =and so, Jessie= replaced by ="and so, Jessie=