John Marvel, Assistant

by Thomas Nelson Page

The preacher she plainly respected most highly, yet her account of his appearance was too humorous to admit a serious feeling for him, even though she had gotten him called to be one of Dr. Capon's assistants.

What had happened was that the girl, who had only "lain in the lilies and fed on the roses of life," had suddenly been dropped in an out-of-the-way corner in a country neighborhood in an old State, where there were neither lilies nor roses of the metaphorical kind, though a sufficiency of the real and natural kind, with which nature in compensatory mood atones to those who have of the metaphorical sort but thistles and brambles and flinty soil.

When she first landed there, after the very first excitement of being thrown into a wholly new situation, among strangers whom, though her relatives, she had always regarded much as she had regarded geographical places in distant lands, was over, she found herself, as it were, at a loss for occupation. Everything was so quiet and calm. She felt lost and somewhat bored. But after a little time she found occupation in small things, as on looking closely she discovered beauties in Nature which her first glance had failed to catch. The people appeared so novel, so simple, so wholly different from all whom she had known; the excitements and amusements and interests of her life in the city, or at summer watering-places, or in travelling, were not only unknown to them—as unknown as if they were in another planet, but were matters of absolute indifference. Their interest was in their neighbors, in the small happenings about them; and occurrences an hundred miles away were as distant to them as though they had taken place in another era. Among the few notabilities in this rural community was a young clergyman whom she always heard spoken of with respect—as much respect, indeed, as if he had been a bishop. What "Mr. Marvel thought" and what he said was referred to, or was quoted as something to be considered—so much so that she had insensibly formed a picture in her own mind of a quite remarkable looking and impressive person. When, at last, she met John Marvel, what was her amusement to discover, in place of her young Antinous, a stout, strapping young fellow, with rather bristly hair, very near-sighted and awkward, and exceedingly shy, a person as far from a man of the world as a stout, country-bred cart-horse would be from a sleek trick-pony. His timidity in her presence caused her endless amusement, and for lack of some better diversion and partly to scandalize her staid kinswomen, she set herself to tease him in every way that her fertile brain could devise.

Visiting the young clergyman at the time was a friend who came much nearer being in appearance what Eleanor had imagined John Marvel to be: a dark, slender young man with a classical face, but that its lines were stronger and more deeply graven, and unforgettable eyes. He had just come to visit Mr. Marvel and to get a needed rest, John Marvel said. He had been a worker among the poor, and his views were so different from any that Eleanor Leigh had ever heard as to appear almost shocking. He was an educated man, yet he had lived and worked as an artisan. He was a gentleman, yet he denounced vehemently the conditions which produced the upper class. But an even greater surprise awaited her when he announced that he was a Jew.

When John Marvel brought his friend to see Miss Eleanor Leigh, the first impression that she received was one of pleasure. He was so striking and unusual looking—with deep, burning eyes under dark brows. Then she was not sure that she liked him, she even thought she was sensible of a sort of repulsion. She had a feeling as if he were weighing her in his mind and, not approving of her, treated her at times with indifference, at times with a certain disdain. She was conscious of an antagonism as Wolffert showed scorn of conditions and things which she had been brought up to believe almost as much a necessary part of life as air and light. She promptly began to argue with him, but when she found that he usually had the best of the argument, she became more careful how she opened herself to his attack. He aroused in her the feeling of opposition. His scorn of the money-making spirit of the day led her to defend what she secretly held in contempt. And once when he had been inveighing against commercialism that set up Gods of Brass to worship, and declared that it was the old story of Nebuchadnezzar over again—and was the fore-runner to brotherhood with the beasts of the field, she wheeled on him, declaring that it was "only people who had no power to make money who held such views."

"Do you think that I could not make money if I wished to do so?" said Wolffert quietly, with an amused light in his eyes as they rested on her with an expression which was certainly not hostile; for her eagerness had brought warm blood to her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling with the glow of contention.

"Yes, if you were able you would be as rich as a Jew."

A yet more amused look came into Wolffert's eyes.

"Are all Jews rich?" he asked.

"Yes—all who are capable—you know they are."