How gloomy the day was! Raw and chill, and yet not cold enough to brace the nerves. The gate stood ajar. Missy pushed through it, and walked down the path. Some straw littered the piazza steps; an empty paper box lay on the grass. The windows were all closed. Only the dog, still chained to his kennel, howled her a dismal welcome. He was to go, probably, to some new home that day. Well, Missy thought bitterly, he will at least have novelty to divert him.
She didn't go on the piazza; she remembered, with a sense of shame, the last time she had crossed that threshold, saying it should be the last time. What a tempest of jealousy and anger had been in her heart! Oh, the folly of it (not to say the sin of it). How she had been conquered by those two women (not to say the enemy of souls). She could see it all so clearly now. Every word and look and gesture of Mr. Andrews took a different meaning, now she was in her senses. That dinner had been his last hope, his last attempt to conciliate her. She had repulsed him more sharply than ever that night, stung as she was by the insults of her two rivals. After that, he had made his plans to go away and end the matter. Miss Flora might thank her for "dear Europe," this time.
But poor little Jay, what had he to thank her for? Ah! that gave her heart a pinch to think of. Poor little Jay might set down as the sum of his gratitude to her, a miserable youth, a mercenary rule at home, deceit and worldliness, low aims, and selfishness, that would drive him shelterless into the world to find his pleasure there. For Missy never doubted that Flora would gain her end. She knew Mr. Andrews was not clever enough to stand out very long. "He's just the sort of man," she said to herself, "to be married by somebody who is persistent. He doesn't know women well enough to stand out against them. He will give in for the children's sake, he won't care for his own. And he will spend a life of homeless wretchedness, silent and stolid, protecting the woman who is cheating him, laboring for the children who will disappoint him. Ah! my little Jay, forgive me," she cried, stooping and picking up a broken whip of his that lay in the grass beside the path.
Everybody makes mistakes, but it isn't often given to any one to make such a wholesale one as this. We must be charitable to Missy if she was bitter and gloomy that dark morning. She wandered about the paths for a little while longer, then, picking a few artemesias that grew close up by the house, she turned to go away. At the gate she met a boy with a yellow envelope in his hand. He was just going to her house, he explained, presenting the envelope. It was a telegram, and Missy opened it hastily.
"It is all right," she said, giving him the money, and putting the paper in her pocket. We are apt to be very selfish when we are miserable, and Missy's first thought on reading the message was a selfish one. The message was from her brother. He had just landed, and would be at home that evening. She did not think of the joy it would be to her mother, of the joy it might have been to her; she only thought, "Thank Heaven, this will give me something else to think of for a little while." She was quite bent upon curing herself, even at this early date; but with the supreme selfishness of great disappointment, she thought of nothing but as it influenced her trouble.
CHAPTER XXV.
AMICE ASCENDE SUPERIUS.
St. John's coming did not prove much help to her. It separated her from her mother, and gave her a more lonely feeling even than before. She was further off than ever from sympathy with them. She was smarting over the loss of what they were giving up. Their lives looked heavenward, hers, she did not disguise it from herself, looked, earthward, and earthward only. Their exalted faith had upon her simply the effect of depressing her own. She had a supreme estimate of common sense. She quite made it her rule of life just now. Whatever was opposed to it, she was ready to condemn; and, it must be admitted, there was a good deal in the lives of St. John and his mother that did not bear its stamp. Tried by its standard alone, in fact, it would have been difficult to find two people who were wasting their time more utterly. This Missy was not backward in saying to herself, and in suggesting to them, as far as she dared. That was not very far, for there was something about St. John that prevented people from taking liberties with him. His reality, sincerity, and simplicity of aim commanded the respect that his humility never claimed. No one felt it possible to remonstrate with him, however much inclined to blame. Dignity would have been his last aspiration, rather his abhorrence; but his self-less-ness answered pretty much the same purpose. The thing we are most apt to resent in others is personal claim to—anything. When a man claims nothing, and has given himself away, we can't quarrel with him, however poor a bargain we may consider he has made. Neither was it possible to pity St. John, or to feel contempt for him. The natural force of his character forbade that, and (those who sympathized with him would say) the grandeur of his purpose.