For the Cause

by Stanley John Weyman

Granny looked surprised, and Dorothy laughed as brightly as if there were not and never had been in the world such a thing as a tear. For the Archdeacon rarely made a joke, even a little one. Jokes cannot be made upon system, and Archdeacon Holden had found system so good a thing that any pursuit which did not admit of it was apt to be out of favor with him. He was gifted with great powers of organization, and these he had used well, and found sufficient, so that by their means, without being a great preacher or a small controversialist, without inventing a new doctrine, or reviving an old argument, he had risen to preferment. He was little more than thirty when he was presented to the living of Stirhampton; and though the parish was overpopulated and under-churched, he reduced it in ten years to such a condition that it ranked as a model and its rector as a great man, often consulted by the heads of the Church upon parochial matters. Moreover, men talked of him as of one likely to rise higher.

In person he was a tall, well-favored man, in the prime of life, with hair just beginning to be flecked with gray. He had nothing of the ascetic in his appearance, though his manners were cold and reserved; but he was liberal, and had good nature and good temper, as well as good parts. These qualities, however, the strict formality of his habits, and his rigid adherence to rule, hid in a great measure from all who were not well acquainted with the man.

To Dorothy he had been almost a father; and would perhaps have come to be looked upon entirely in that light, but that he was betrayed from time to time by little things. For instance, what do fathers--ordinary allowance-making, bill-paying fathers--know of their girl's dresses? The smallest chit in the nursery will tell you, nothing. And Carrie and Edie are so persuaded of this that they will flaunt their new seal-skins--which have not been paid for, and are absurdly inconsistent with papa's allowance--under his very nose, without the slightest tremor; and Flo will wear three new dresses in a quarter with as little chance of being prematurely found out in her extravagance, as if they were three new pairs of mittens. But in this respect the Archdeacon was not Dorothy's father. For not only did he observe during the few days which followed his scolding that she had not forgotten it; that she went sadly--or seemed to go sadly--about the house, and shunned his visitors with a pensive air, leaving Mr. Maddy, who was over fifty, and had seven children, to pour out his own tea. Not only did he note this, but when Dorothy appeared at breakfast upon the fourth morning with a demure face and downcast eyes, he marked the novelty of her quaker-like gray dress, with its plain collar and cuffs, as quickly as did Granny.

"That is very becoming, Dorothy," he remarked, pleasantly. He wished to be upon the old footing with her. To tell you the truth, he was tired of that going sadly. The house seemed as soberly dull as when she was away. And of late he had come to think it was rather a dull house. She had been away a good deal.

"Becoming!" cried Dolly, to his surprise, in a piteous voice. "And I had thought that this would do."

"Would do, my dear? What do you mean? So it does. It seems to me to do excellently." He was slightly taken aback.

"But I thought you said it was becoming?" she cried, querulously. "You did, too. I heard it quite plainly."

"Well, my dear, and what more would you wish me to say? It is--it is very becoming."

He tried to speak in a tone at once critical and archidiaconal, such a tone as the palæontologist adopts when he admires a bone of the pliocene mammoth in the case of a rival collector, or as paterfamilias uses when praising--to order--his girl's bonnets. He did not altogether succeed. The ribs of that primitive animal, though they have pretty curves enough, do not preen themselves before a mirror with a little fluttering blush, and bright backward glances, and quick-straying dainty fingers adjusting here and defining there; nor do they form together a picture such as none but paterfamilias himself--no locum tenens, for instance--can look on with a perfectly even pulse-beat. The Archdeacon felt that his tone was not quite the tone he had, so to speak, commissioned, and swallowed half a cup of hot coffee at a gulp.

"Oh, dear!" he cried, hastily.