“Well,” said Mrs. Perkenpine, “I was told that if I didn’t cook I’d be bounced. It isn’t my individdlety to cook for outsiders, but it isn’t my individdlety to be bounced, nuther, so I cooked. Is that bein’ a hermick?”
“You have it,” cried Mr. Archibald, “you’ve not only found out what you are, but what you have to be. Your knowledge of yourself is perfect. And now,” he continued, “isn’t there somebody who can tell us a story? When we are sitting around a camp-fire, there is nothing better than stories. Bishop, I dare say you have heard a good many in the course of your life. Don’t you feel like giving us one?”
“I think,” said Corona, “that by the aid of stories it is possible to get a very good idea of ourselves. For instance, if some one were to tell a good historical story, and any one of us should find himself or herself greatly interested in it, then that person might discover, on subsequent reflection, some phase of his or her intellect which he or she might not have before noticed. On the other hand, if it should be a love story, and some of us could not bear to hear it, then we might also find out something about ourselves of which we had been ignorant. But I really think that, before making any tests of this sort, we should continue the discussion of what is at present the main object of our lives—self-knowledge and self-assertion. In other words, the emancipation of the individual. As I have said before, and as we all know, there never was a better opportunity offered a group of people of mature minds to subject themselves, free of outside influences, to a thorough mental inquisition, and then to exhibit the results of their self-examinations to appreciative companions. This last is very important. If we do not announce to others what we are, it is of scarcely any use to be anything. I mean this, of course, in a limited sense.”
“Harriet,” said Mr. Archibald, abruptly, “do you remember where I left my pipe? I do not like this cigar.”
“On the shelf by the door of the cabin,” she replied. “I saw it as I came out.”
Her husband immediately rose and left the fire. Corona paused in her discourse to wait until Mr. Archibald came back; but then, as if she did not wish to lose the floor, she turned towards the bishop, who sat at a little distance from her, and addressed herself to him, with the idea of making some collateral remarks on what she had already said, in order to fill up the time until Mr. Archibald should return.
Mrs. Archibald thought that her husband had been a little uncivil; but almost immediately after he had gone, she, too, jumped up, and, without making any excuse whatever, hurried after him.
The reason for this sudden movement was that Mrs. Archibald had seen some one approaching from the direction of Camp Roy. She instantly recognized this person as Arthur Raybold, and felt sure that, unwilling to stay longer by himself, he was coming to the camp-fire, and if her husband should see him, she knew there would be trouble. What sort of trouble or how far it might extend she did not try to imagine.
“Hector,” she said, as soon as she was near enough for him to hear her, “don’t go after the pipe; let us take a moonlight walk along the shore. I believe it is full moon to-night, and we have not had a walk of that sort for ever so long.”
“Very good,” said her husband, turning to her. “I shall be delighted. I don’t care for the pipe, and the cigar would have been good enough if it had not been for the sermon. That would spoil any pleasure. I can’t stand that young woman, Harriet; I positively cannot.”