The Ancient Law

by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

"Well, he seems to be a respectable enough person," admitted Beverly, in his gracious manner, "but, of course, if he were to become offensively presuming it would be a very simple matter to drop him a hint."

"It reminds me of a case I read of in the newspaper a few weeks ago," said Mrs. Brooke, "where a family in Roanoke took a stranger to board with them and shortly afterward were all poisoned by a powder in the soup. No, they weren't all poisoned," she corrected herself thoughtfully, "for I am positive now that the boarder was the only one who died. It was the cook who put the poison into the soup and the boarder who ate all of it. I remember the Coroner remarked at the inquest that he had saved the lives of the entire family."

"All the same I hope Mr. Smith won't eat all the soup," observed Emily.

"It terrifies me at times," murmured Amelia, "to think of the awful power that we place so carelessly in the hands of cooks."

"In that case, my dear, it might be quite a safeguard always to have a boarder at the table," suggested Beverly, with his undaunted optimism.

"But surely, Amelia," laughed Emily, "you can't suppose that after she has lived in the family for seventy years, Aunt Mehitable would yield at last to a passing temptation to destroy us?"

"I imagine the poor boarder suspected nothing while he ate his soup," returned Mrs. Brooke. "No, I repeat that in cases like that no one is safe, and the only sensible attitude is to be prepared for anything."

"Well, if I'm to be poisoned, I think I'd prefer to take it without preparation," rejoined Emily. "There is Mr. Smith now in the hall, so we may as well send Malviny to bring in breakfast."

When Ordway entered an instant later with his hearty greeting, even Mrs. Brooke unbent a trifle from her rigid melancholy and joined affably in the conversation. By a curious emotional paradox she was able to enjoy him only as an affliction; and his presence in the house had served as an excuse for a continuous parade of martyrdom. From the hour of his arrival, she had been perfectly convinced not only that he interfered with her customary peace of mind, but that he prevented her as surely from receiving her supply of hot water upon rising and her ordinary amount of food at dinner.

But as the days went by he fell so easily into his place in the family circle that they forgot at last to remark either his presence or his personal peculiarities. After dinner he would play his game of dominoes with Beverly in the breezy hall, until the sunlight began to slant across the cedars, when he would go out into the garden and weed the overgrown rows. Emily had seen him but seldom alone during the first few weeks of his stay, though she had found a peculiar pleasure in rendering him the small domestic services of which he was quite unconscious. How should he imagine that it was her hand that arranged the flowers upon his bureau, that placed his favourite chair near the window, and that smoothed the old-fashioned dimity coverlet upon his bed. Still less would he have suspected that the elaborate rag carpet upon his floor was one which she had contributed to his comfort from her own room. Had he known these things he would probably have been melancholy enough to have proved congenial company even to Mrs. Brooke, though, in reality, there was, perhaps, nothing he could have offered Emily which would have exceeded the pleasure she now found in these simple services. Ignorant as she was in all worldly matters, in grasping this essential truth, she had stumbled unawares upon the pure philosophy of love—whose satisfaction lies, after all, not in possession, but in surrender.