Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Papa’s Own Girl;
A Novel.

By MARIE HOWLAND.

——“Wisdom is humanity;

And they who want it, wise as they may seem,

And confident in their own sight and strength,

Reach not the scope they aim at.”

—W. S. Landor.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT,

No. 27 CLINTON PLACE.

BOSTON: LEE & SHEPARD.

1874.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by

MARIE HOWLAND,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

[All rights reserved.]

Electrotyped and printed by

The Excelsior Printing Company,

81, 83, & 85 Centre St., N. Y.

CONTENTS.

PAPA’S OWN GIRL.

CHAPTER I.
AN OLD LETTER.

* * * * I was seven years old when they came—those mysterious little red-faced sisters, which the day before were nowhere in the universe, and the next had sprung up before my bewildered young eyes, full dressed in long white gowns, and looking every way as exactly alike as did the objects I used to see double by “crossing my eyes” as we called it; a habit that brought me many a reprimand.

We lived then, as you know, in L——, Massachusetts, and I looked upon the advent of the little creatures on that fine September morning as the most wonderful stroke of fortune; but I remember that my mother, lying very pale and still among her pillows, watched my delight with sad eyes, and then turned her face wearily to the wall. Aunt Patty, the dear old Goody, long since sleeping in the village churchyard, entered kindly into my childish enthusiasm, turning up the skirts of the white dresses, and then unfolding a mass of soft flannel, finally exposed the velvety little feet, whose pink toes moved incessantly, as if enamored of the air. I very soon grew so boisterous in my delight that I had to be sent ignominiously from the room. I went immediately in search of my brother Dan, a handsome, rough fellow, whom I found in the kitchen busily employed with his fishing tackle; for the unusual excitement in the house afforded him an opportunity to sly off to the river, where mother had forbidden him to go on pain of severe penalties. I began eagerly imparting the news.

“O, pshaw! I know all about it,” interrupted Dan. The statement surprised me, but I accepted it as pure truth, as I generally did all that he said. He was some years older than I, and I considered him a superior being—at least everywhere except in school; there, even a partial sister’s eyes had to see that he was a dunce; though a good-natured one, and a great favorite. He was indefatigable in “coasting” the girls and the little boys in winter, and he had a rough humor that pleased them all. I remember that, at the beginning of one of our winter terms, the master had offered a prize to the one who should leave off at the head of the spelling class the greatest number of times. On the last day of school I received the prize, flushed with proud delight, standing at the head of the long line of pupils. Dan was at the very foot, as usual, and the teacher took occasion to reprove him for his bad lessons and his want of ambition in trying for the prize.

“Why, I almost got it,” said Dan.

“Almost!” echoed the teacher angrily; for we all knew that Dan had not left off at the head a single day.

“Yes, sir. I should have had it if you had only made this end the head.” A burst of laughter from the teacher and all the pupils followed this view of the case, and the echoes, more and more subdued, continued when we were dismissed to our seats, I hugging the precious prize, which was a red morocco bound copy of The Vicar of Wakefield, and Dan chuckling over the success of his humor. He had consoled and vindicated all the orthographical blockheads, and he was happy. But I am letting my pen run wild, as I like to do when answering your letters.

While I stood watching Dan’s manœuvres with his wiggling angle-worms and hooks and sinkers, I asked him if he did not think that the twins were perfectly lovely.

“No, I don’t,” he replied, impatiently. “I was going to have two months of fun before school commenced, and now I shan’t have any. I shall have to run everywhere for them nasty twins; and then the crackers I shall have to pound! Mother didn’t have half milk enough for Arthur, and it would take a whole cow for these. Girls, too, both of them!” he added, with great contempt. Here, in fact, was the sore point with Dan. While the baby Arthur lived, he was very fond of him, in his way, and would probably have been gracious over the advent of a new brother; possibly would have pardoned our mother in time for presenting us one baby of either sex; but two at a time, and both girls at that! This was too much for Dan’s patience, or for his confidence in the discretion of mothers. I was surprised at his cool prediction about the supply of milk, but I deferred to his superior experience and years. He gave me another piece of recondite information just as he started for the river, threatening to kill my pet kitten if I dared to even hint where he had gone. This information was that these particular babies would be “awful cross patches; girls always were.”

In time I myself grew to qualify my ecstasy over the double blessing; for they certainly proved “awful cross patches,” and the sacrifices I was obliged to make to them as a child, only a child I think could fully appreciate. * * * *

Do you remember the skeleton in the garret—the memento mori of our play-house banquets? * * * *

C. F.

“C. F.” is my old friend Clara Forest, and I am one of the characters, but it does not matter which one. I shall not appear again in the first person after I have described my first acquaintance with her. It is a long time since I determined to weave the events of her life into a story, and coming across this old letter the other day turned the balance of motives for and against the effort, and I set myself deliberately to work collecting and arranging materials; for this novel is by no means a structure evolved from the depths of my own consciousness. The groundwork is a simple narration of fact, and even the superstructure is real to a great extent.

In my early days, Clara was my heroine, my princess, but I worshipped her silently, and she never took any special notice of me until years after our first meeting.

I saw her first in a village graveyard one Sunday, between the morning and afternoon services. That was the cheerful spot where the congregations of the different churches walked during the noon recess, discussed funereal subjects, and ate “sweet cake,” to use the New England term of that time. Clara was accompanied by her Sunday-school teacher, named Buzzell—a grim and forbidding woman, I thought. Everybody called her “Miss Buzzell,” though she was a widow; but at that time, among the rural people of New England, it was very common to call married ladies Miss; unmarried ones received no title at all. Clara on this day wore a broad-brimmed white straw hat, with wide rose-colored streamers, a white dress and embroidered tunic of the same, and bronzed gaiters, or boots, as we now call them. She was a solid little girl, with a face round and very freckled, a broad, full brow, full pouting rosy lips, radiant blue-grey eyes, with thick, long lashes, and a nose that was pretty, though a little after the rétroussé order.

I shall never forget my first sensation. It was a feeling of regret that I had no freckles; for as soon as my eyes rested upon her, there came into my heart a deep desire to be just like her in every particular. Hundreds of times have I recalled her as she appeared to me that day; and I still believe that, upon some secret principle of æsthetics, notwithstanding the general prejudice against freckles, these added to the piquancy of her beauty. As she grew up few called her handsome, except those who could perceive the rich emotional nature that seemed to radiate through every gesture and movement of her supple form, and especially through her bright eyes, whose lids had sometimes a slight quiver or shake from any sudden excitation. This was something instantaneous as to time, and difficult to describe, but it added an extraordinary charm to her soulful beauty. There was always about her an atmosphere of fragrant health, which charmed you like the odors and zephyrs of spring-time. The freckles which, as a child, I had so envied her, disappeared entirely when she reached the nubile age.

On this Sunday in the graveyard I “tagged” after Clara everywhere she went, fascinated by her fresh, full life, and by her exquisite dress; but I could find no way to speak to her, because of her awe-inspiring companion, though I was often so near to her that her long hat ribbons swept my cheek. After a while my ignorance of churchyard etiquette came to my aid; for, finding the distance between me and this divine vision increasing, I made a short cut over some intervening graves. Miss Buzzell turned her awful eyes upon me. I simply noticed that there were many wrinkles converging about her mouth, and that her breath was redolent of cloves. In a deep, slow, admonitory voice, she said, “Child! you should never step on a grave!” It was like a cold leech dropped suddenly upon the warm, sensitive flesh. I could do nothing but hang my head in humiliation. Clara, childlike and human, sympathized with my distress, and told me sweetly that my pantalette was coming down. It was at the time when girls, in that part of the country at least, wore this nondescript article fastened on with the garter, falling down to the foot, and about three inches below the dress, where it ended with tucks and a wide hem. Some of us were so extravagant as to add an edging, which we used to knit of spool cotton. I stooped down to arrange the rebel pantalette, but when I had finished, Clara was some graves away from me, and the church bells were calling back the scattered congregations.

CHAPTER II.
THE SKELETON IN THE GARRET.

One beautiful May morning, not long after I first met Clara, I was sent to Dr. Forest’s with a basket of eggs. As I opened the little gate leading through the shrubbery and little lawn to the front door, I perceived Clara standing on the wide upper step, with a watering-pot in her hand. She was dressed in white, as usual, and was sprinkling some flowers that grew in a large vase that stood on a pedestal by the steps. She greeted me pleasantly, and led me into the kitchen, where Dinah, the fat black servant, relieved my basket of its contents. Mrs. Forest, a tall, sweet-looking, pale lady, in a white apron, was engaged in making a vast quantity of little cakes, which Clara told me were macaroons for her party—a great event which was to take place that afternoon. I had heard of it, but did not expect an invitation, because I lived quite out of the village, and knew Clara but very slightly. Seeing all these delightful preparations, caused me to break the tenth commandment in my heart, but I was glad that Clara was so happy; and I lingered in that pleasant kitchen as long as I could, consistently with any degree of propriety. The twins, now some five years old, were the most prominent object in the Forest household, if not in the whole village. At that moment Dinah was picking over raisins, and they kept near her, devouring all she would give them, and when their importunities failed they watched their chances, and every now and then succeeded in grabbing a handful, when they would disappear, and remain very quiet for a few minutes. Sometimes Dinah would be quick enough to seize the little depredatory hand and rob it of its booty. When she failed, she “clar’d to God” there wouldn’t be a raisin left for Miss Clara’s party cake.

The doctor’s family were from the South, where Dinah had formerly been a slave, though her condition was little better than slavery after the advent of those imps of twins. The good-natured old servant had loved the other children very sincerely, and she tried hard to take these also into her capacious heart, but she never fully succeeded. There was a feud between her and them, born of their persistent delight in tormenting her. “Hatching mischief,” she said, was their sole occupation during their waking hours, and their tricks were told by Dinah to other servants until the whole village laughed over them.

After amusing the twins awhile I rose to go, following Clara back through the dining-room to the front door. In the hall she showed me a long table filled with toy china sets for the amusement, she said, of the “little girls,” Dr. Buzby cards and other games for the older. I could not repress exclamations of delight at the prospect of so much bliss; but when I informed her that I had never been invited to a party in my life, I had not the remotest intention of “fishing” for an invitation to hers.

“You never have been at a party!” she exclaimed, quite amazed; and looking at me from head to foot, her heart seemed to be touched at the extent and depth of my deprivation. Just then Mrs. Forest came into the dining-room, and Clara said, “Mamma, I should like to invite one other girl to my party, if you are willing. I mean this one.” “Certainly, my dear, if you wish it,” was the pleasant reply, and thereupon, thanking Clara as well as I could, I left the house, filled with a greater happiness than I had ever known.

On reaching home I readily gained permission to attend Clara’s reception, but the question of dress was a serious one, for I well knew how finely her friends would be arrayed; still I managed as best I could, and three o’clock in the afternoon found me timidly pulling the door-bell at Dr. Forest’s. Some other girls arrived before Clara had disposed of my hat and little cape. We were first ushered into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Forest was sewing. She did not rise, but smiled upon us, and addressed to each a few pleasant words.

We soon grew impatient of sitting prim and “behaving” in the sitting-room, and were greatly relieved when we found ourselves playing games among the fragrant lilacs and syringas of the garden. Then followed a game with the innocuous Dr. Buzby cards then in vogue. Clara, more beautiful than ever, I thought, explained the principles of the game to me, in a charming, dogmatic manner. I was the only one ignorant on the subject, and this, with my very plain dress, caused one of the guests to eye me insolently and ask me if I lived in the woods. Clara instantly, and in no measured terms, rebuked her guest’s impoliteness, which had the effect to send her off pouting among the lilacs. I remember this because it shows the superior nature of Clara Forest in the most unquestionable way. Children may learn the form of politeness, but the spirit of it is almost invariably absent, and must be from the very nature of human development. Man is first the brute, then the civilizee, and lastly the philosopher; and the child, in its unfolding, exemplifies these phases just as society does. That Clara was exceptionally fine in her nature I knew well even then, but I was ignorant of the cause until long after.

We were much disturbed in our game of Dr. Buzby by Leila and Linnie, the ubiquitous twins, who vexed and annoyed us in the thousand ways that little ones have at their command. Finally, to escape from the twins, Clara led us upstairs, through the doctor’s study, into his bedroom, and closed the door. This was a plain little room, having a stand, with several books, at the head of the bed, and over it the doctor’s night-bell. Clara strictly enjoined us to not so much as touch a single article in her father’s rooms, on penalty of being instantly obliged, all of us, to quit our retreat. During our game of cards, Abbie Kendrick asked Clara why this room was called the doctor’s exclusively.

“Why, because he sleeps here, to be sure,” answered Clara, with a slight hauteur, as if unwilling to discuss family matters with her guests. She was a very dignified child, this idol of mine—“proud” was the term girls generally applied to her.

“But does not your mamma sleep here too?” asked Abbie, bold enough to pursue the subject.

“Certainly not,” replied Clara. “Papa and mamma do not think it proper to sleep together.”

This piece of information surprised us greatly, but we all accepted the fact as showing the immeasurable aristocratic superiority of the Dr. and Mrs. Forest over all the married people we knew. I remember we all approved the system, agreeing that it was quite proper for girls to sleep together, and for no others. How wise we were then! Some of us have slightly modified our views on the subject since we played that game of cards in the doctor’s room; but we had very fixed and positive opinions then—all except Clara, who listened silently. We decided that if we ever married, which, of course, we never would, we should have two bedrooms, and never, never allow our husbands to enter ours, unless he were a physician and we happened to be ill!

When the Dr. Buzby cards ceased to amuse us, Clara produced her piece de resistence, which was her play-house in the garret, somewhat neglected now, for she was approaching the outposts of young ladyhood. This garret was the one place where the sacrilegious twins had not penetrated. It was the sanctuary in which she had been in the habit of taking refuge when hard pressed by the merciless tyrants, to whom she had always been a patient nurse and victim, for her mother was in delicate health, and Dinah was almost exclusively occupied with the housekeeping. To this sanctuary Clara had removed her broken-nosed dolls, smeared and torn books, and the wrecks generally that she had snatched from time to time from the grip of the vandals.

We approached this large old garret, under the gable roof, by a rickety flight of stairs, and on reaching the landing a hideous spectacle curdled my young blood and riveted my scared, fascinated eyes. It was a grinning skeleton, suspended to the rafter by a cord and a ring attached to the top of the skull. The other girls being already initiated, laughed my terrors to scorn, while one bold miss of ten, Clara’s most intimate friend, Louise Kendrick, went straight up to the horror, made faces at it, and then deliberately set it spinning! I shall never forget the sinking, sickening sensation at my heart as the eyeless sockets and hideous teeth glared through the dim light at me with every revolution. Clara, seeing how frightened I was, hastened to reassure me by saying, as she placed her arm around me—

“It isn’t anything but the bones, you know. We all look like that under our flesh.” Comforting thought! It required a long time for me to control myself so that I could enter into the doll-dressing with spirit; and every now and then, as we cut, and planned, and sewed, especially as the light grew dimmer, I turned my head over my shoulder, gingerly, just enough to make sure that the “thing” was not striding toward me. Right glad was I when we were called down to our weak tea, and over the honey and hot biscuits I forgot for the time the agony of fear I had endured. That night, however, the skeleton was “after me” all the time; and my ineffectual struggles to get my long yellow hair out of its bony hands woke me many times with agonizing cries. And all this because my young imagination had been poisoned by ghost stories—the ghost always being represented by a skeleton partially covered with white drapery. I believe now in the “inquisition of science”;—that one of its most sacred functions is to seize and punish any person found guilty of entertaining the sensitive, unformed brain of the child with the horrors of the grave, of death, of hell, or any of the unverifiable hypotheses of theology and superstition, born of the general ignorance incident to the childhood of the human race.

CHAPTER III.
DR. FOREST AT HOME.

The doctor was about forty years old, but his hair was beginning to turn gray and his fine head was a little bald upon the top. He was about the medium height, muscular, with handsome broad shoulders, and very slightly inclined to stoutness. He had fine grey eyes, which he was in the habit of half closing when anything puzzled him. It was an exceedingly benevolent and expressive face, which won utter confidence at the first glance. He wore light, steel-bowed spectacles, which he never removed, apparently, from one year’s end to another. In repose, his mouth had an expression of severity; and when studying, he had a curious habit of protruding his under-lip; but the moment he spoke this mouth became handsome, expressing the large-heartedness and the ready humor that made him a favorite with all who knew him.

About the old house of the doctor, there was a quaint and dignified air, given by the books and numerous pictures, most of them quite old, and by the heavy antique furniture, relict of a former generation. It was not the air of wealth exactly, yet no one could suspect, from the general appearance of things, that there was a chronic scarcity of money in the family, and that the gentle Mrs. Forest had such sore difficulty in making ends meet. This, too, when the doctor was the best physician for miles around, and quantities of money were due him in all directions. The truth was, he could not collect what was due him. Unless absolutely driven to the wall, he could not ask any of his patients for money; and when they wished to return equivalents for his services, in the shape of corn, and apples, and potatoes, he said not a word until the cellar became so full that Dinah rebelled. In the spring, when seed potatoes gave out at planting time, every farmer knew where to make up his deficit; though in such cases he never thought of paying the good doctor money for them, but promised to return them at harvest time, not being particular at all to consider that a bushel now was worth five or ten in the autumn. Still, the doctor did not complain, being gentle to a fault, though he took note of all things. As to his children, he confessed frankly that he did not know how to bring them up, and when he was in doubt about any matter of discipline, he generally let them have their own way. An incident will illustrate his method: the large room where Mrs. Forest and the twins slept was directly beside the doctor’s, and as they did not like the darkness a lamp was always kept burning there. One night when the doctor, having been up all the previous night, had gone to bed early, he was prevented from sleeping by a tin-whistle in the mouth of Leila. He called out to her to stop, as he wished to go to sleep. Presently there came to the doctor’s ears a faint little “toot! toot!” from the whistle. Linnie tried hard to hush her sister, and reminded her of the voice from the next room. “Oh, its only papa!” said Leila impatiently; which, the doctor hearing, caused him to investigate the motive of the child’s remark, and philosophizing upon the subject, he went to sleep finally to the accompaniment of the “toot! toot! toot!” which Leila kept up until she was tired of it.

Mrs. Buzzell, Clara’s Sunday-school teacher, and an old friend of Mrs. Forest, had a very tender spot in her heart for the doctor, whom she regarded, and rightly too, as one of the best physicians in the world. No one understood her internal perturbations as he did, and she took all the medicines he prescribed with a faith that was somewhat remarkable, considering that she had been under his treatment for twelve years and more, and still required his services more than ever. Probably her sublime faith was based on the conviction of the awful things that would have happened but for his medicines. She lived a lonely life by herself, and was very fond of spending an afternoon at the doctor’s house, and having long conversations on nothing in particular with Mrs. Forest. Her visits were sometimes almost an infliction to Mrs. Forest, who had a strong housewifely pride in nice teas, which the chronic scarcity of money, before mentioned, rendered difficult to attain in many instances. To be sure there was always bacon and a barrel of fine hominy in the kitchen, which sufficed for Dinah’s southern tastes, and the family could always fall back upon these if necessary, and the latter at least was never absent from the family breakfast; but they could hardly serve a respectable tea-table where cake and creamy hot biscuits were a sine qua non according to all good housekeepers.

On one occasion, just before breakfast, Mrs. Buzzell sent a note to her friend expressing her intention to spend the afternoon with her, “if agreeable.” Now it just was not “agreeable,” for the commissariat was at a low ebb—lower, indeed, than it had ever been; but Mrs. Forest, of course, sent back a polite answer expressing delight at the prospect of the visit, not even dreaming, probably, of the conventional fib that her answer contained.

While she was writing the reply for the messenger to take back to Mrs. Buzzell, Dinah’s soul was being tried unusually in the kitchen by the conduct of the twins, which reached a climax when one of them actually threw a kitten into Aunt Dinah’s boiling hominy kettle. She was long-suffering, though her threats were severe and frequent; but this time her patience gave way entirely, and taking off a colossal carpet-slipper she spanked the offending twin right soundly. Mild Mrs. Forest hearing the uproar from the kitchen, sent Dan to bring the children to her room. Both were howling at the top of their voices, for one never cried without the other joining in on principle. Then she went down to the kitchen and reproved Dinah for taking the discipline of the children into her own hands. Dinah was too exasperated to be reasoned with. She burst out—

“I bars eberyting wid dem chil’en, missus; but I clar to God, I won’t hab dem kittens in de hominy pot!”

To the outside world, the Forest family was a model of domestic felicity, and not without cause as family life goes; but Mrs. Forest was very far from a happy woman. This was due partly to her delicate health, which gave her a disposition to “borrow trouble,” and to look too much beyond the grave for the happiness a stronger and more philosophical nature would have created out of her really fortunate environment. At times, she still suffered from the loss of the baby Arthur, though he had been dead some eight years. The doctor could hardly understand this as a normal expression, and she often accused him of a lack of sympathy. He himself submitted calmly always to the inevitable, learned the lesson that any misfortune afforded, applied it practically to his daily life, and in no other way remembered a suffering that was in the past. His wife, he said, had a passion for the “luxury of woe,” and this was a diseased condition. Dan gave her a world of trouble. She had made an idol of him from his birth, and it was indeed hard to feel that her deep love for him was not sufficient to cure him of a single one of his bad habits. Years of the most loving effort to make him take off his hat on entering the house, had been unavailing; and he still tramped through her tidy house with dirty shoes every day of his life, and though nearly fourteen years of age, it is questionable whether he had abandoned the charming habit of coming down stairs astride the baluster. He teased the twins, worried Clara whenever an opportunity offered, went and came without asking permission of his mother, and at table he was distressingly awkward. On this particular morning the doctor said to him, a little after sitting down to the breakfast-table and while he was serving the hominy—

“Now Dan, my boy, I’ve been cheated out of my morning sleep by the hubbub in the house, and my nerves are irritated; so you’ll save them a shock and much oblige me if you will give me warning when you are going to upset your glass, or wipe your knife off the table with your sleeve.”

Dan had more affection for his father than for any other being in the world. He hung his head, but answered good-naturedly, “I’m not going to do either this morning, sir.” During this reply he was vigorously mixing a piece of very hard butter in the hominy which his father had just put into his plate, and the result was the landing of his plate, bottom upwards, on the floor by the way of his legs. Mrs. Forest uttered an exclamation of despair; but Clara quietly rose, removed the debris, and brought Dan another plate. This time, Dan was really distressed, and his mortification was increased by the doctor’s laughing.

“Never mind, my son,” he said, putting his right hand kindly on Dan’s shoulder. “This time it was more my fault than yours. I made you nervous by my criticism.” The idea of Dan’s being nervous was an exquisite compliment from its perfect novelty. The doctor saw that the boy for once was greatly ashamed, and so he immediately changed the subject to Leila, who sat in her high chair on Dan’s right. “So Miss Mischief,” he said, “you set out to cook a kitten in the hominy this morning did you, eh? I’m very glad you failed, and I advise you to not try it again.”

“I sall took ee titten to-maw-yer, I sall.”

“You will cook the kitten to-morrow, will you?” he said, repressing a disposition to laugh. “Look here, Leila, if you try that again I hope you’ll get a much larger dose of Dinah’s slipper, and you shall not have a kiss from papa, nor come to the table with him for a whole week.”

“Poor kitty! her toes ache so,” said Linnie, who spoke quite plainly compared with her sister, and whose heart also was more tender. The doctor praised Linnie’s sympathy with the kitten, and while reading Leila a little lecture on cruelty, the bell rang, and he was called off to see a patient.

During the day Mrs. Forest consulted Clara on the subject of the afternoon tea, for she was sorely perplexed and mortified, as she said, because there was nothing in the house.

“Why, mamma, I don’t see why you should bother yourself. We have nice, fresh, Graham bread, some delicious cheese, any quantity of fruit, and Dinah can make some hominy. Mrs. Buzzell don’t ever taste hominy, and she’ll be delighted with it, I know. Papa would find such food excellent; and I am sure what is good enough for papa is good enough for anybody in this world.”

“Yes, my child, it is good enough, no doubt; but it is such an odd jumble. Who ever heard of such a tea? You know Mrs. Buzzell’s appetite is fastidious, and I like to have something savory for her. Of course the doctor’s credit is good at the grocer’s, and everywhere, for that matter, but I have never used it, and never intended to; but I think I shall have to make an exception to-day. We must have some butter and some sugar.”

“Now, mamma, you know Mrs. Buzzell is always complaining about her digestion. On principle, you should never give her anything but simple food—just like this tea we are going to have; and I wouldn’t put the cheese on the table either. It may destroy the effect of papa’s medicines,” added Clara, laughing.

Mrs. Forest descanted with much bitterness upon the laxity of the doctor in collecting the money due him. “Well, my child,” she said, after a pause, “I must trust to Providence.” This intention she always expressed after dwelling upon the doctor’s bad management and the exhausted state of the larder; but she evidently thought there was great virtue in such trust, as if Providence ought to be highly complimented by her confidence. This consultation took place in the kitchen pantry, and was finally ended by the entrance of Dinah with a slop-pail from the upper regions, at the same time that a country wagon drove around to the kitchen door.

CHAPTER IV.
ONE OF DR. FOREST’S PATIENTS.

The doctor used to say that “Trust in Providence and keep your powder dry” was a good injunction, but would be better reversed; and whatever he believed, Clara subscribed to as if by instinct. So when her mother, in the kitchen pantry, expressed her determination to trust to Providence, Clara received it with a little scowl of impatience.

Dinah came into the drawing-room a few minutes later, and Mrs. Forest and Clara followed her back to the kitchen. The wagon which had just driven away contained some grateful patient of the doctor. He had left with Dinah a half dozen nicely-dressed spring chickens, some golden balls of fragrant butter, and two boxes of fresh honey in the comb. Mrs. Forest looked silently at her daughter, every feature expressing, “You see I trusted in Providence.” Clara laughed pleasantly, repressing the temptation to remind her mother that the wagon must have been on its way with the welcome treasures long before that decision to trust in Providence was made; but she only said, “Now you can give Mrs. Buzzell a nice attack of indigestion. O mamma! your desire to give her something ‘savory,’ as you said, is only a deep-laid scheme to increase papa’s practice. I see it all now. Mrs. Buzzell is one of his few patients who pay promptly!”

“Why! what levity!” exclaimed Mrs. Forest, who, now that her anxiety about a respectable tea was removed, felt at peace with the world, and her sense of the fitness of things was answered.

Mrs. Buzzell came in good season. She was a prim lady of sixty or more, dressed in a neat black grenadine dress, open to a point from the throat. This open space was filled in with spotless illusion lace, fastened with a little jet brooch. Her white hair was beautifully rolled in three puffs on either side of her head, and surmounted by a white cap with a border or frill, and lavender-colored strings. She was a very active, industrious person, though a sufferer from her ailments. During the afternoon she spoke of her digestion several times. On these occasions Clara made a knowing, mischievous sign to her mother, who was dignifiedly oblivious, apparently, to what her saucy daughter was thinking.

Clara set the tea-table herself with her mother’s choice old china, which seemed to feel its rare importance only when arranged upon a snowy cloth. After all Mrs. Forest’s anxiety, the tea was as delightfully respectable as her heart could wish. The twins, however, set up in their high chairs, detracted a good deal from the solemnity of the occasion, for their behavior, always especially bad when “company” was present, was sufficient to make Mrs. Buzzell’s cap-border stand up in consternation. They kicked the under side of the table with the toes of their little shoes, setting the cups dancing in their saucers, whenever the supply of honey gave out and was not instantly renewed, or when reproved by their gentle mother for the quantity of cake they thought proper to discuss. Whenever their conduct became unbearable, a kind of semi-yell from Dan distracted their attention for a few moments, enabling the ladies to continue their mild comments upon the diseases incident to children, and the superior taste of the new milliner’s bonnets and caps.

Clara silently watched and anticipated the wants of the twins, wearing a weary, responsible look, for they weighed upon her young life like the world upon the shoulders of Atlas. Since they were babies, creeping about, putting everything animate or inanimate into their mouths, and calling every man papa who approached them, Clara had gradually assumed more and more the care of them, being stronger in mind and body than her mother. Her method of managing these irrepressibles, was very reprehensible in one respect, but she had been led into it by the necessity of some method, and the impossibility of moving the rebellious little tyrants by any reasonable means. She had taken advantage of their passion for doing anything they were forbidden to do, even though that in itself were disagreeable to them. For example, after tea the great desideratum was to get the twins upstairs to bed, for there was little possibility of quiet conversation where they were. The doctor had just come in, and was very contentedly sipping his rather insipid tea, and gathering up what remained of the eatables, to the accompaniment of a somewhat detailed account of Mrs. Buzzell’s “wretched digestion.”

“Now, Linnie,” said Clara, “you wish to stay down and play, don’t you? but Clara is going upstairs.” It was never necessary to address but one at a time, for whatever one decided to do was certain to be immediately repeated by the other. By the time she had reached the stairs, Linnie dropped her toys and started, Leila following closely, both determined to perish rather than stay down-stairs, as they supposed they were expected to do. Once arrived in the sleeping chamber, similar manœuvres inveigled the twins into bed, and when they were finally sleeping, Clara went down to the sitting-room. The doctor noticed her weary look, and said, “My child, you have too much responsibility. Papa must try to send you away to school. I have been thinking of your method in managing those children. Surely you do not think you are right in controlling them by such motives?”

“I suppose not, papa,” answered Clara, who had sat down on a stool at her father’s side, and was “resting,” as she used to call it, in the magnetic caresses of his hand upon her brown hair; “but it saves time.”

“Ah! my daughter. How many follies are committed under that plea! See what you do by this course. In the first place, you cultivate obstinacy in the little ones, which is bad enough, and then you dull the fine edge of your conscience by doing what your better sense condemns, I am sure.”

“She is not so much to be blamed,” said Mrs. Forest. “It is one of Dan’s tricks. She learned it from him.”

“What does papa’s girl think of that as an excuse?” he asked, studying her fine face.

“I don’t think it excuses me, papa. I know it does not.”

“You are right. Dan should learn of you, not you of him, in matters of conscience. I only wish he had your conscientiousness, and your love of books, too. I never see him reading. I wonder where the young rat is to-night.” Clara knew pretty well where Dan was, but for his sake she kept silent. She was always merciful to his delinquencies; probably from the fear that she did not love him as she believed a sister should love her brother. No two children could well be more unlike; and for years he had bullied her unmercifully, though he would not permit others to do so, and his tough little fist was ready to the head of any urchin in school or in the street, who dared to show the least disrespect for his sister. He monopolized that matter himself, and carried teazing to cruel extremes. She was easily irritated by him, especially in her earlier years, and whenever he saw her becoming angry, it was a constant practice of his to seize both her hands and hold them as in a vise, mocking her impotent rage until it grew to murder in her heart. This was a persecution so often repeated that it had completely destroyed all her natural tenderness for him, which the sensitive child reproached herself for, and sought to atone by treating him with great kindness.

Ah! what a nursery of crooked, abnormal motives the family often is! How many really deep wrongs are done to impressible children, to which the parents are utterly blind, because so ignorant of the laws of mental development. When Clara’s troubles with Dan were unendurable, she had sometimes gone to her mother. Once she did so, bursting out with, “I wish I could kill him.” The mother was horrified; but, alas! only at the language; not seeing beneath the surface what madness had been induced in the child’s heart, nor inferring a necessary and adequate cause. She only reproved Clara for such “dreadful words,” and sent for Dan. “My son, why do you teaze your sister so? Do you not know it is very wicked, and that if you are wicked you will never go to Heaven?” In truth, she was utterly incapable of comprehending the difficulty between the children, and as Dan was on his good behavior when his father was present, and as all the family tacitly agreed to never trouble the doctor unnecessarily, knowing that he ought to rest during the short time his practice left him free, he never knew of this peculiar trial of Clara’s until long after.

When Mrs. Forest would remind Dan of his danger of losing Heaven, she naturally thought that it should have great weight with him; though if she could have read his thoughts, she would have quickly seen her mistake. Heaven, to Dan, meant a country

“Where congregations ne’er break up,

And Sabbaths never end;”

and though he thought such a dull place might do for girls and for people like the widow Buzzell, he knew perfectly well that it was no place for a live boy, who liked fishing and setting snares in the woods much better than any congregation he could imagine.

But to go back to the family circle. When the doctor wondered where the “young rat” was, Clara kept silent. Mrs. Buzzell hazarded the suggestion that he might be off with those low Dykes—the Dykes being a family whom nobody visited, and who were generally set down as “no better than they should be.” This was precisely where Dan was at that moment, and the attraction was possibly Susie Dykes, though he took no particular notice of any one but Jim Dykes, who possessed a pair of old battered foils, and with them gave the delighted Dan several desultory lessons in the art of fencing. Jim being a great swaggerer, and a little older than Dan, was mighty in his eyes; especially when he discoursed on the “guards” and “passes,” his hat cocked over his left eye, his legs straddled, and an unmanageable end of tobacco in his mouth.

“It is strange,” said Mrs. Forest, “what Dan finds so agreeable in that family. I am sure I could not endure the house. Mrs. Dykes is a slattern, and her children have no sort of bringing up, as I am told.”

“Why,” said the doctor, “I don’t see but Susie is a very nice girl. She behaves very well indeed—totally unlike that uncouth brother of hers. I like the pretty way she does her hair.”

“For my part, I distrust girls or women who please only men,” said Mrs. Buzzell. “I’ve heard several men praise her looks.”

“I’m inclined to think that her charm is not so much in her looks as in her good nature. She always smiles as if she were happy. The signs of happiness rest one so;”—and the doctor sighed.

“Men,” said Mrs. Forest, who seldom generalized, “are unsatisfied unless women are always gay and smiling; but how can we be? Household cares so drag us down, and the care of children, especially two at a time, is too much for any one.”

“Yet children used to be considered a blessing,” remarked the doctor, and added humorously, “but I can see how any woman might be blest to death by a too frequent repetition of this doubling extravagance of your sex.”

Mrs. Forest was always annoyed at this suggestion, which the doctor often teazed his wife with, just to see the expression of impatient credulity on her face. She pretended not to notice it this time, but answered, a little spiritedly, “So they are a blessing, of course. I do not mean to deny that, but one may have many trials about them. I’m sure I have my share with Dan. He is almost sixteen, and yet I am quite sure he prefers to be ragged and dirty to looking like a gentleman’s son. It does annoy me so to think I have no influence over him in this matter.”

“I think, mamma,” said Clara, raising her head from her father’s knee, “that Susie Dykes will have more influence in that matter than you have. He made a famous toilet to-day before going out. You should see his room. It looks like an old cockatoo cage after the bird has been bathing—only cockatoos can’t leave their towels and stockings scattered over the floor.”

“Did he really change his stockings?” asked Mrs. Forest in amazement. “Then there’s something wrong. It must be the first time in his life he ever did such a thing of his own accord!”

When Mrs. Buzzell rose to go the doctor rose also, and, as usual, gallantly accompanied her. The conversation on the way was a little tiresome to the doctor, but his heart was far too kind to permit him to show it, for he knew that he was much esteemed by this patient, and he pitied her lonely life. In answer to her complaints about her digestion he said, “And you ate honey and hot bread to-night. You should have eaten only a crust of bread, and chewed it well.”

“Oh dear, no—that is, I am never troubled about what I eat at your house. I can digest anything perfectly well there; but everything disagrees with me at home. I have told you that often, doctor,” she added, as if pained that he should not remember.

“Pardon me, I did not forget; but I thought I must take that with a certain margin, as I am compelled to do much that my women patients tell me; but I see I must make you an exception, and the result is that my treatment can do you no good. You need more excitement—a larger life. While you live such a lonely way, medicines are of little use. You see the doctor is a humbug, more or less, and must be until he can prescribe changes in the social conditions as well as of diet and climate. Anyway considered, doctoring with drugs is more the business of the charlatan than of the true scientist. The longer I live the more I see the folly of patching up the stomach and the liver when the true disease is in the soul.”

“Soul! why, doctor, I was afraid you did not believe in the soul.”

“But I do, only you Christians and spiritualists, so called, have such a beastly material conception of soul that you can scarcely understand the scientific faith. Be sure that I believe in the immortality of soul, but I know that structure corresponds to function; that is the first law of nature. Now the soul, as you conceive it, is not a spiritual conception, but some kind of organization—a ghost, in short, having functions, but the Devil himself cannot define its structure.”

“Well, I am not a scientific person, doctor, so I will not pretend I know much; but I think I know that the only way to be happy is to keep as near to Christ as we can.” After quite a long pause, during which doctor and patient reached the little veranda porch of Mrs. Buzzell’s home, she added, “Shall I keep on taking that cardiac mixture, or would you recommend something else?”

“Nothing else,” he said, holding her hand a moment, “only a good-night kiss from your doctor.” This he added gravely, and then pressed his grizzly moustache lightly first upon one and then the other of his patient’s faded cheeks. The prescription was quite new, though the doctor had often kissed her forehead after sitting by her bed, talking to her while holding her hand.

“Is this a general treatment?” asked Mrs. Buzzell good-humoredly; “or am I an exception?”

“This is a special treatment, because specially indicated,” he said. “You are thoroughly womanly in your nature, and you really need the magnetism of affection. You suffer more from your secluded life than most people would. Good-night; I will call soon,” and with that he left her. To the ordinary observer Mrs. Buzzell passed as a formal prude, cold and unattractive, but in reality, there was in her heart, an under-current of refined sensibility. To be sure it would not have been safe or prudent, at least, for any other man to attempt to kiss her cheek as the doctor had done, but she knew there was no guile in his heart, and she justly held his kindness and his deep sympathy with her as a most precious treasure. Coarse men are wont to scoff at the attraction women find in ministers and physicians, especially women whose social conditions are unfortunate; but the solution is very simple: physicians, at least, generally know more of human nature than other men do. This is true, of course, only of those of the nobler moral type. No others win the confidence of refined women, though their vanity may blind them to the wide difference there is between ordinary and extraordinary confidence, for every physician, if not every priest, receives a certain amount of confidence from the nature of his office. The physician of the high type to which Dr. Forest belongs, knows to a certainty the amount of mutual sympathy existing between their women patients and their husbands, when, as is often the case, there is no verbal confession of grievances; and even when, if such grievances exist, there is special care taken to conceal them. The kind-hearted and high-minded physician, especially if he be a man of the world, as all great physicians have invariably been, is the priestly confessor among Protestants. He no more thinks of betraying the confidences of his patients than the Catholic priest does those of the confessional. He is not restrained from a feeling of honor—there is no restraint in the case, for there is not the slightest temptation to talk of such confidences. It is not in that way that the physician regards them. He has received them by the thousand, and they excite no wonder in his mind; besides, who could understand them as he does? He receives them seriously enough, for whatever the cause, suffering is positive and demands his sympathy, and the true physician accords it as by instinct. To the vulgar, causes seem often very amusing. To the physician, he who “dies of a rose in aromatic pain,” is none the less dead than if hit by a cannon-ball.

When you see two men walking in the street, and another in front of them trips and falls on the pavement, watch the effect of the accident on the two men. If one guffaws with amusement, and the other rushes to the victim, helps him up with grave ceremony and sympathetic words, you may draw this conclusion: the first is an ignoramus, and very likely an American; the other is a physician or a Frenchman; for as a rule the French are incapable of seeing anything comical in an incident fraught with danger to a fellow-mortal. Not that American men are less generous and kind-hearted than other people, but they are ashamed of the imputation of effeminacy, and consider it laudable to conceal the signs of delicate sensibility.

Mrs. Buzzell could not probably have explained exactly what it was in the character of Dr. Forest that made him seem so unlike all other men. She would have naturally called it religion, only the doctor was most unquestionably different, in his views of social morality and “saving grace,” from all the devout people she had ever known. She thought herself a very strict believer in orthodox dogmas, but in truth she would herself have rejected any “scheme of salvation” that was not some way capable of including him. Perhaps she could not see clearly how, so she prayed for him constantly, and believed that God would never suffer such purity of heart, and such devotion to everything good and true, to go unrewarded. It was clearly “unreasonable.” She could understand, she thought, how good works might not count much in themselves, but motives could never go for naught; and the doctor’s motives were so nobly superior that they must come by the grace of God. So on that rock she rested her fears for the doctor’s salvation.

CHAPTER V.
THE TATTOOING.

Two years are passed, and nothing that very specially affects the doctor’s family has happened. The twins go to school, quarrel with each other, as sisters generally do, but they give Aunt Dinah less trouble. They have grown far too considerate to attempt flavoring the hominy with live kitten, an event which, for a very long time, she constantly feared would be repeated. They are “as like as two peas,” according to most people outside of the family, though in fact, with the exception of their size and dress, they do not much resemble each other. Leila is a natural egotist, and has everything pretty much her own way, for Linnie has no rights which her more positive sister is inclined to respect. Linnie, who is much more generous and affectionate than Leila, protests loudly against the tyranny of her sister, “yells,” as Leila poetically calls weeping, but in the end invariably yields.

Dan is about seventeen, and with Clara attends the village high-school. His educational progress is of the same order as that which distinguished him in the old district-school spelling class, where the head was at the wrong end of the room! To his loving mother he is a vexation of spirit, though he is less awkward at table, and he has learned to take off his hat, and with great effort, and for a short time, to behave “like a gentleman’s son,” as she says. Still he finds Jim Dykes as irresistible as ever, for the two are now endeared by one or two desperate encounters, wherein the “science” acquired from his worthy teacher had enabled Dan to prove himself master. He was much prouder of this than he would have been of any honor at the disposal of the high-school, for the great bully, Jim Dykes, treated him with distinguished respect.

One evening, when Mrs. Forest was sitting up for him, as she always did, he came in very late. She reproved him for passing his time in low company, whereupon he stoutly defended the whole Dykes family on general principles. This he had never done before. She was seriously concerned, and when she spoke of Susie Dykes, he answered insolently and went upstairs in a huff. When the doctor entered, a little later, his wife appeared at the head of the stairs, and asked him to come up to Dan’s room, whither she had followed him, as she had often done, to offer silent prayers at his bedside, when distrusting all mortal power to guide him safely through the temptations of youth. He was sleeping, as she expected; but she had been diverted from her pious purpose by a sight that turned all her maternal solicitude into indignation and refined disgust. The doctor followed Mrs. Forest into the boy’s room, where he lay asleep, as stalwart and beautiful in form as any rustic Adonis could well be. He had thrown the covering partially off, for it was warm, and one of his incurable habits was to sleep entirely nude. This the doctor said he had inherited from his old Saxon ancestry, who always slept in that way.

The cause of his mother’s perturbation was soon perceived by the doctor. This was a fresh tattooing on his left arm, extending quite from the elbow to the wrist. It was abominably but clearly done, in blue and scarlet, the design being two hearts spitted with a dart, between the names Dan Forest and Susan Dykes.

“The young donkey!” said the doctor, laughing; and on the way down-stairs he added, “This young America is too fast for you, is he not, Fannie?”

“I must say you take it very coolly, doctor. Such a shocking thing! To think of his disfiguring himself for life in that way.” Mrs. Forest looked in despair.

“My dear, there’s nothing to be done. You must accept the inevitable. What astonishes me is the precocity of the rascal. See! nothing has ever given that boy any enthusiasm in life. In school he’s a perfect laggard, and though now past sixteen, cannot write a decent letter. He has idled away his time, with no real interest in anything. Now, here is born in him suddenly a new life, and it so charms him that he disfigures himself for life, as you say, in order to immortalize the sentiment, not questioning for a moment that Susan Dykes will remain so long as he lives the same divinity in his eyes that she now seems. If we could only utilize such forces when they appear! but under our present subversive social system, they are as unmanageable as the unloosed affrites of the Arabian Nights.”

Mrs. Forest looked bewildered. The doctor went on:

“Suppose this girl had been in Dan’s class and superior to him intellectually (as she is in fact), and he had to recite every day with her eyes upon him. Don’t you see what a spur it would be to his learning his lessons? The strongest motive would be to distinguish himself, and so win her admiration. Well, Dan is your idol, Fannie. I confess I know nothing about him, nor how to help him; but for Clara I am decided. She’s a child after my own heart, and, by Heaven! she shall have a chance. She shall not be sacrificed for want of anything in my power to do for her. She must go to school, Fannie. In a month the fall term commences at Stonybrook College. There are no decent schools for girls, but that I believe is about the best we have. Can you get her ready, do you think?”

Mrs. Forest was amazed at this sudden decision, and she answered despondently, “What am I to do without Clara? she is so much help to me.”

“I know; but we must not spoil the girl’s future. This is the beginning of the age of strong women, and Clara is a natural student; besides she has a noble head everyway. Time was when piano-playing, a little monochromatic daubing, and an infinitesimal amount of book lore, sufficed for a girl. That time is past. I want Clara to develop her forces all she possibly can under the present social conditions. She must be strong and self-supporting.”

“Why! don’t you expect her to marry?”

“No; that is, I don’t care. I’d as soon she would not. As things go, sensible, educated, and self-poised women are better single than married, even to the best class of men. About every man is conscious that he’s a tyrant; but slaves make tyrants. If there were no slaves there would be no tyrants, but a great republic of equals.”

“Why, doctor! Have I not always been a good wife to you?” and the tears came to her eyes.

This was so unexpected, that the doctor felt inclined to laugh. He had been looking into vacancy as he talked, not dreaming that he was uttering words that could by any possibility be turned into any personal application. He had forgotten for a moment the fact that Mrs. Forest was like many women, who never fail to see a personal reflection in any comment upon woman’s culture or condition, or upon anything unusual in household management. Sometimes, for example, the bread bought at the baker’s would prove unusually chippy and innutritious, but never could the doctor remark the fact without hurting his wife’s feelings, as if she had personally made the bread and staked her reputation upon its giving perfect satisfaction. The doctor knew well this weakness, but had forgotten it for a moment. Had he been looking at her while he talked, he would have tempered his voice or words probably.

“A good wife, dear! of course you have,” he said, caressing her, “though I have not quite forgiven you for doubling my responsibilities.”

This was the doctor’s one marital teaze, which was so comically effective that he could not resist repeating it, occasionally, to hear her defend herself with the ingenuous concern of one-half conscious of being in the wrong, yet not knowing how. When this subject was exhausted, and Mrs. Forest’s temporary grief also, the subject of sending Clara to school was resumed. Mrs. Forest asked how it could be accomplished. “It will cost so much,” she said.

“Why, I am as rich as a Jew, Fannie,” he replied. “Old Kendrick actually paid me to-day all his long standing bill. You know I’ve just got him through a horrid case of peritonitis,” he added, with an inward chuckle, seeing that he had spoken ambiguously, and knowing that certain people are always anxious to know the name of a disease, which generally satisfies their curiosity in proportion to the incomprehensibility of the term—“a serious case of peritonitis, and feeling very comfortable to-day, but that his life was still in my hands, he had an access of gratitude, and promised to pay me every cent as soon as he got out of the house. I joked him and declared that my only sure way to get my fees was to dispatch him speedily, which I seriously thought I would do on reflection, as the settlement would be certain then. That joke did the business; for he made me ring for the servant, whom he ordered to bring him his writing materials, and then and there he made out a cheque for the amount.”

“But, dear, you should first have a nice whole suit of clothes yourself,” said Mrs. Forest.

“Oh no; I’ll get on well enough. I should feel too much like a swell in a whole new suit.” In truth, the good doctor had not experienced that luxury for years, and his appearance was not a great many removes from the condition known as “seedy;” but thanks to Mrs. Buzzell’s devotion, he was always kept supplied with elegant linen and hand-knit stockings for summer and winter, which he always wore long and gartered above the knee. In gloves he was somewhat extravagant, for he held that a physician’s hands should be preserved sensitive and fine to the touch; especially when he filled the office of surgeon as well as physician, as most country doctors do.

Dr. Forest’s medicaments in all ordinary cases were of the most simple kind, and his rival, Dr. Delano, and even old Dr. Gallup, were in much better repute at the druggists than he was, for his heart was always with the poor, and to these he generally furnished most of the medicines himself. He understood well the weakness of uncultivated people, shown nowhere more signally than in their faith in the potency of mysterious drugs; and when he called for “two glasses, two-thirds filled with fresh water,” he did it with an assumption of certainty that convinced his patient that life or death might be in those words, “two-thirds;” and when he emptied a harmless powder, perhaps of magnesia or carbonate of soda, into one and stirred it carefully, and then some other equally innocuous substance into the other glass, stirring each alternately, it was with an air that said plainly, “Beware how you trifle with the time and the manner of taking these!”

Though it can by no means be proved that the popular and almost adored Dr. Forest gave bread pills and innocuous medicines generally, yet it is exceedingly probable that he did, and his marvelous success goes far by way of corroboration. Apparently, he knew just what to do in all cases. Water he insisted upon so mercilessly that his patients became regularly habituated to taking a warm bath while they waited for his visit. To the questions of the better educated of his patients he used to say, “Lord bless you, how do I know? Do you think medicine a science whose every problem can be worked out by a formula like those of algebra or geometry? We knew precious little of the absolute value of medicines when all that is incontrovertible is admitted and all the rest rejected. One thing is certain, there is nowhere on this two-cent planet at present the conditions for perfect health, because there are nowhere the conditions for perfect happiness. Bless your heart! instead of being decrepit and played out at seventy or eighty years, we ought to be teaching boys how to turn double-back somersaults, or making sonnets to fresh and beautiful women who are great-grandmothers. Life, as we know it now, is but a miserable travesty of the real destiny of our race when we become integrally developed, and have brought the planet thoroughly under our united control. If a physician is up with the science of his time and a true man, about all he can say honestly is: keep your lungs, skin, liver, and kidneys in working order, lead an active, temperate life, possess your soul in quiet, and send for the doctor when you know you haven’t done these and want to shove the responsibility off upon him.”

He was severe to many of his patients, but so popular that he had to manœuvre shrewdly to give the young Dr. Delano a chance to establish himself. Among the poor, the old, and especially the forlorn, like poor Mrs. Buzzell, he made his longest visits; and where he knew that love and sympathy were “indicated,” he gave them freely, as in the case of this lonely woman. He often caressed her thin hand after counting her pulse, held his cool, soft, magnetic hand long upon her forehead; sometimes closing her eyes thus while he talked gayly, told her comical anecdotes in his life, which made her laugh, and so stimulated some laggard function into working order.

CHAPTER VI.
CLARA AT STONYBROOK COLLEGE.

“Stonybrook College” would have been more appropriately, as well as more modestly, termed Stonybrook School at the time Clara entered it, for it was hardly more than a high-school for girls, though it stood well among institutions for the education of young ladies at a time when the equal education of the sexes was deemed an utopian idea among most people. It ranks much higher now that preparatory schools of a nobler order have furnished a more advanced class of students, and so more truly deserves the name, college. It stands upon the summit of a grand swell of land overlooking a large provincial city. The grounds are beautifully wooded, and laid out in handsome lawns, gardens, and groves. It boasts a really promising botanical garden, and the practical instruction of the young ladies in botany has always been well and systematically conducted. Clara, after a short time, took the first place in the botanical class, and in most of her studies.

There was one thing about this school which rendered it unpopular among the superficial of society, who desire only that their daughters shall secure the honor of graduating, quite independent of the fact of the amount of culture that such honor should presuppose. Very many students who entered Stonybrook College never graduated, and there was for a long time a severe struggle between the president and certain of the board of directors on the question of lowering the standard required for graduation. The latter argued that the first requisite was to make the school popular; while the former, a really learned and progressive spirit, maintained that popularity secured by lowering the grade of requirements would simply result in a primary school, by whatever high-sounding name it might be called, and that this was not the object of the founder, and moreover was the sure method to destroy the nobler popularity that should be aimed at. The president and his friends finally carried the day, and it was this fact that determined Dr. Forest to choose this institution for his favorite child. She had now been a student there two years.

It was June, and a Thursday afternoon holiday. Through the groves and lawns the young girls promenaded in twos and threes, conversing with that enthusiasm about nothing which none but girls are capable of. When deeply enough penetrating into the grove to be out of sight of any “stray teacher,” as they would somewhat disrespectfully say, they often familiarly twined their arms about each others’ slender waists, and so continued their walks, joining other groups from time to time. Their conversation was of that lofty and learned order which girls from twelve to seventeen, in female colleges, naturally assume. It may not be amiss to take up a little time with a sample:

Nettie.—“Still two whole months before vacation! I declare, I shall die before the time comes.”

Hattie.—“I don’t think it seems so long. I do wish, Nettie, you had taken geometry this term. You’ve no idea how nice it is.”

Nettie.—“Thank you. Algebra is quite enough to drive me distracted. You are one of the strong-minded, you know. You just cram a few of your sines and cosines into my head, along with the surds and reciprocals already there, if you want to see a raving, incomprehensible ‘idgeot,’ as you call it.”

Hattie.—“I never pronounced it so in my life. You are the one to mispronounce words, and to make mistakes too. Why, you’ve just been talking of sines and cosines of geometry. Those are terms of trigonometry. Don’t you know it?”

Nettie.—“No; and what is more, I don’t care. If I had my way, I’d just burn all the algebras in the college.”

Carrie.—“I’m glad you haven’t your way, then. I think algebra perfectly splendid.”

Hattie.—“I like algebra too, but geometry is more interesting. I think it perfectly lovely.”

Nettie.—“I don’t believe either of you. Mathematics are a horrid bore anyway.”

Hattie.—“Mathematics are! O shade of Goold Brown!”

Nettie.—“Well, that ought to be correct. You wouldn’t say the ‘scissors is,’ would you?”

Hattie.—“I would if I wanted to, carissima mia.”

Carrie.—“You never call me Carissima, Hattie.”

Hattie.—“You see, you are Carrie in the positive, not cara, so you can’t be carissima in the superlative. Why don’t you laugh at my pun, you owls?”

Nettie.—“You don’t give time enough. I was just bringing my powerful mind to a focus on the punning point when you interrupted.”

Carrie.—“I was thinking of the dear, kind, old Signore Pozzese.”

Hattie.—“Mercy! Spare the adjectives. I had no idea you were so in love with that precious Italian professor; but you need not set your cap for him. He has no eyes but for one, and that is Signorina Clara. Everybody can see he’s lost his heart to her.”

Carrie.—“I can’t endure that Clara Forest. She puts on such airs of dignity and general superiority. Why, here she comes! I hope she didn’t hear me.”

Clara approached, reading aloud, but in a low monotone, from a little book. She did not notice the trio until close upon them. They greeted her kindly; and Carrie, who a moment before could not “endure” her, was specially sweet in her manner. But we should not be too severe upon Carrie’s hypocrisy. Most of us have been guilty of the same inconsistency in one or another form. These were all nice girls, aye, and bright girls too, naturally, despite their opinions upon algebra and geometry. When we consider the paucity of conditions for high culture that young women may command, we should wonder, not that they are so frivolous, but that they so often rise above the petty ambitions of fashionable life.

Clara passed on, after a few pleasant words, and sat down in a quiet nook to finish her book. It was the Jaques of George Sand; and as she read on she was deeply moved by the masterly rendering of the hopeless passion of the hero, and especially by his heroic sacrifice to his wife. Being thoroughly absorbed by her reflections and emotions, she did not hear the light step of Miss Marston, her favorite teacher, who came and sat down beside her.

“My dear, what have you been reading?” she asked. Clara handed her the book frankly, knowing well it would not be approved, for George Sand was one of the tabooed authors in Stonybrook.

“I am grieved to find you reading such books, Miss Forest,” said the teacher, looking very gravely at the pupil. Miss Marston’s home was in a town near Oakdale, and she had known Dr. Forest by reputation quite well. She knew of his omnivorous literary tastes, and was wondering if his daughter had not possibly inherited them.

Clara answered, looking straight in Miss Marston’s clear brown eyes, “I am sorry you are grieved—very sorry; but I cannot see why such a book as this should be classed with those unfit to be read.” And she blushed deeply, as girls will from a thousand different emotions.

“See how you blush while you say it,” said Miss Marston, in a tone of real severity.

“I blush at everything,” replied Clara, angry at the weakness; “but I would not say what I do not think—most certainly I would not to you.”

“Where did you obtain this book?”

“One of the students lent it to me.”

“Which one?”

“I must not say, because she asked me to not tell, and I promised. I wish I had not, for I do not like to confess this promise to you.” Clara was sorely troubled. She knew this teacher had a real affection for her, as, indeed, all her teachers had, for she was frank and straightforward always, never shirked any task, and was the life of all recitations in which she took part. She asked questions and explanations innumerable, and would never quit studying any difficult point until she had thoroughly mastered it. Such pupils are ever the delight and the support of the faithful teacher; and no matter whether personally sympathetic, or charming in other ways, they are sure to be honored and treated with great consideration by any teacher worthy of the name. There is no surer test of a teacher’s utter incapacity than that his favorites are the pretty, wheedling shirks of the classroom.

Miss Marston was silent for a little time after Clara’s expression of regret, and then she said kindly, “That is well said, Clara. Of course, you must keep your promise; but do you not see that you were wrong to borrow a book which your fellow-student was ashamed to have known she possessed?”

“I cannot say she was ashamed of having this book. I feel certain that if she had read it as carefully as I have, she would not have made the request. I could never be ashamed to own such a book as this.”

“That is no argument. You are too young and inexperienced to judge of books, and when your teachers forbid the reading of certain kinds of literature, it is because they know that their influence is baneful. Remember the old adage, ‘Touch pitch and be defiled.’”

“But I am sure this is not pitch,” Clara answered, spiritedly; “and I do not think there is so much wisdom in that old saying—or at least it is often misapplied. My mother used to make a great effort to keep Dan and me from playing with certain children; but my father always declared that we ought to play with poor, neglected children, who sought our society; because, as he said, if our manners were more gentle than theirs, the result would be a culture to them which we had no right to withhold. When my mother quoted this adage, he used to say, ‘Pitch will not stick to ice,’ meaning that the badness of these children would not hurt us if we loved the good and the beautiful, and sought it everywhere, as he had taught us to do.”

“Then you wish me to understand, I presume, that you set your judgment against mine, and will read pernicious books if it pleases you to do so?”

Clara looked hurt by this, and her faith in Miss Marston received a shock. Why could not this good, wise teacher understand at once, without so many words? By yielding graciously, Clara was sure of caressing words and the old mutual trust. She was tempted to do so, because her love of approval by those she admired was a strong passion. While different motives struggled for control, she remembered certain words of Dr. Forest, in his last conversation with her, in his study, the evening before she left, when he had held her on his knees and talked to her very seriously upon many matters, some of which he had never broached before. “Be magnanimous always to those who fail,” he had said; but Clara had never dreamed that one of her teachers would be “weighed in the balance and found wanting.” She had at the time thought only of her class-mates, who might fail in many ways. So when she spoke, as she did after a little pause, she had determined to rise or fall in her teacher’s estimation, as she must, by the expression only of the best and most honest sentiments of her heart.

“You have been so good to me, Miss Marston,” she said, and her words came with some difficulty—“you must know I am anxious to keep your good opinion of me; but I must be true to myself, and I will. I cannot think nor feel that this book is not good and moral. It has wakened my best feelings. In the story the wife, Fernande, ceases to love her husband, and loves some one else. The reader must feel the deepest sympathy for poor Jaques, who dies that he may not stand in the way of his wife’s happiness. I constantly felt, as I read, that if I were Fernande, I would torture myself sooner than let myself grow cold to such a grand, noble creature as Jaques. I am perfectly sure, if I were ever in a like position, I should be much more careful to take the wisest course from having read this book.”

“You are very different from other girls, Clara. It will not make you vain to tell you that you are eminently superior to most of them; but I fear you lack respect for your elders. You are self-willed; but I know you wish to do right. We will say no more about it;” and she took the young girl’s hand in both hers and caressed it softly. Love always won Clara. She was a creature of tender emotions; to see Miss Marston yielding touched her profoundly, and she said quickly, her eyes full of tears, “I must do just right about this, or I shall be horridly unhappy. You have known papa many years, and he spoke of you in the highest praise; but I have found you nobler and better than even he could tell me. You know he is what they call a liberal—a ‘free-thinker,’ as some say—and he is so just and noble in all his words and acts that I believe he must be right in his principles, though mamma does not think so. I know that you too are a ‘liberal’”—Miss Marston started—“O, I know. I have often heard you talking to other teachers, and I notice you take the very views that my father does of many things. Now, I will tell you what I will do. Will you promise me one little thing without asking what it is?”

“That, I should say, is something for me to do instead of you.”

“Well, it is preliminary to what I am to do.”

“I never do that, Clara—well, yes, I promise you, provided always it is not something absolutely absurd. What do you wish?”

“You said you had not read Jaques. I want you to read it carefully, just as I have done, and then if, in your judgment, it is a bad book for me to have read, I promise while I remain here to read nothing without your permission.”

Miss Marston crammed the brochure into her dress pocket, saying, “I like your trust in me, but you will be disappointed. I shall be forced to condemn, I know; but I will be fair; and now please to be careful how you call me a liberal. It is a very equivocal compliment for a lady.”

“Are not angels liberals?” asked Clara, smiling, the little wrinkles gathering about her pretty eyes as she spoke.

“I am not acquainted with the private opinions of that fraternity,” said Miss Marston, wondering what next.

“Because if you are, I always call you a liberal.” Miss Marston smiled, kissed Clara’s cheek, and walked on. She was a good little woman, who had drank rather deeply at the bitter fountains of life. She was in a safe haven now, and being a studious and conscientious teacher, did her work nobly and well.

CHAPTER VII.
DAN’S BUSINESS OPERATIONS.

Oakdale some years ago was a very old-fashioned village, built around the traditional “common,” facing which were two taverns, one called the “Rising Sun,” several country stores, a printing-office, many residences, more or less elegant, and the Congregationalist church. The Methodist was on a side street, and the Universalist, which had once occupied a position on the common itself, had been moved off to satisfy the tastes, and possibly the prejudices, of the citizens; for the Universalist was not the popular church of Oakdale, though its preachers generally “drew” well, the doctor said, among the floating population, and those who stubbornly refused to identify themselves with any sect whatever. Dr. Forest went sometimes to this unpopular church, but Mrs. Forest was a staunch member of the Congregationalist—the only one having any pretence to respectability in her eyes. In time Oakdale changed wonderfully, and some two years after Clara’s entrance into Stonybrook College, it had become quite a manufacturing centre, for the railroad had brought new vitality into the old-fashioned town. It was now a city; boasted two rival newspapers, three paved thoroughfares, and several nice brick sidewalks. The doctor’s business shared the common prosperity. Mrs. Forest delighted her soul in the multiplying cares incident upon the gratification in some degree of her social ambition. The twins were quite large girls, attending school in the village. Leila, who boasted that she was the elder, as she was by an hour or so, led her sister by the nose, figuratively speaking, being pretty and selfish, and therefore a tyrant. These precious sisters quarreled from their cradle up; yet they were attached to each other by a bond, not so palpable but hardly less effective, than that uniting the famous Siamese brothers, for they pined if separated for a single day; though their reunion was often followed by a disagreement that ended in fiery recrimination, if not in uprooted curls. Oh, those twins! Nature had somehow so exhausted herself in producing their bodies that there was no force left for their souls, which Dinah “clar’d to God” were wholly wanting. This was not true of Linnie, at least, for she was generally sweet in her temper, as well as kind and obliging, when in her best moods.

The Dykes family had broken up—gone no one knew or cared whither, all except Susie, who was left to shift for herself in the old house that had been their home. Here the doctor found her one day, weeping for her good-for-nothing brother, who, if report said truly, had good reasons for not appearing in Oakdale. The doctor at once cheered her heart by bidding her stop crying, and trust him as her friend. His kindness drew from her the fact, that Mrs. Dykes was only her step-mother, and Jim no relation whatever. Her father, a wretched victim of intemperance, had been dead for years, and poor Susie’s condition was forlorn in the extreme; and yet, for some reason which she did not explain, she seemed exceedingly loth to quit the place and go with the doctor to his home. He finally prevailed, however, and Mrs. Forest, who was first shocked at the doctor’s step—he “would do such strange things”—soon found Susie very useful, and the temporary asylum, that the doctor had asked his wife to extend to the girl, grew finally permanent. To Susie it was a new and better world; and as she loved Dan with all her lonely little heart, she served his family with devotion. Everything belonging to him was sacred in her eyes.

Dan, meanwhile, had disappeared some weeks from the paternal roof, having given notice to his mother of his intention to leave a few days before that event. Still she did not believe he could do such a thing, and when it occurred, she was sorely troubled, though he was, as he said, old enough to take care of himself. She had long since been compelled to abandon her cherished hopes for her first-born. He could not apply himself in school, and always laid the blame of his low grade upon the teacher, or upon some circumstance for which he, Dan, was wholly irresponsible. In the art of excuses he was perfect, and had been from his earliest years. These he gave in a glib, ready manner, looking up with frank eyes that never failed to deceive a stranger. He had as many projects as there were days in the year. At one time he would be a jeweler, and the doctor secured him a position where he might learn the trade. This he gave up in a week, and so with many other schemes, until his father was utterly discouraged; but he never uttered a word of blame, knowing well that Dan could no more change his nature than could the leopard his spots. When he left home, therefore, the doctor comforted his wife, assuring her that it was a good thing for Dan to strike out for himself, and that he was sure to return some day when she least expected it; and so he did—horror of horrors! He turned up one day on a peddler’s cart, and entering the house in his usual unceremonious way, solicited patronage for his unconscionably varied wares. Mrs. Forest came near fainting, but Dan greatly enjoyed horrifying her. He was not so satisfied with the effect upon the doctor, who said kindly, “My son, I would rather see you an honest peddler than a dishonest statesman.” These words rang in Dan’s ears. It seemed, then, that he could satisfy his father’s hopes for him by peddling Yankee notions and tin kettles! Nothing that had ever happened to Dan had really touched his self-conceit like this. He made no answer but a low whistle.

It was a quaint picture, there in the large old sitting-room. The doctor sat by the grate smoking his little Gambier clay pipe, with a goose’s wing-bone for a stem. Dan, rosy with health and strength, and long riding in the open air, whip in hand, his pantaloons inside his bootlegs, and Mrs. Forest hanging upon his muscular arm, a little pained that her son seemed so indifferent to her tenderness—a tenderness so great that she had not even noticed yet the disposition of the legs of his trowsers! He got away from his mother’s caresses as soon as he could without positive rudeness, for well he knew that there was “metal more attractive” in the house somewhere; having kept up a correspondence with Susie as well as was practicable with his being constantly moving from town to town. His mother would have something brought in for him to eat;—no, he would go into the kitchen and have Dinah give him something. He would much prefer that. Mrs. Forest did not once think of Susie, or perhaps she would have followed him. Certainly she would, had she known that Dinah was making an elaborate search for eggs in the barn. So Dan found Susie alone, and the meeting was very demonstrative, on his side at least. He held her pressed like a vise in his strong arms, making her both happy and wretched at once—happy at the rude proofs of his affection, and wretched lest her love for him should be discovered. Hearing steps he released her, and said he had come for something to eat. Susie, too full of joy at meeting the one being in the world who loved her, to know what she was about, brought Dan a plate of soda-biscuits, and then stopped to look at him. He crunched two or three between his strong white teeth, interspersing the operation with more kisses, and then Dinah was observed approaching the house. Susie disappeared into the pantry, conscious of the tell-tale blushes flushing her whole face.

“Lor bress you honey, I’se glad to see ye. I knowed ye hadn’t runned away.”

“You knew I’d turn up like a bad penny, Dinah. So I have, but I’m off again directly. I say, Susie,” he called, “if I’ve to eat any more of these crackers, do bring me some coffee, or a ramrod, or something to help get them down.”

“Lor sakes! Massa Dan, who gived ye such trash?” and bustling about she made him sit down, while she placed before him every delicacy she could lay her hands on. Susie, meanwhile, went on with her work quite unconscious of his presence, Dinah thought; but Mrs. Forest, coming in soon after, did not fail to notice the flush on Susie’s face, and to attribute it to Dan’s presence; so when he would not bring his peddler’s cart around to the barn, out of sight of prying eyes, nor stay even an hour longer, she did not press him much. Clearly he was better away, now that Susie Dykes was a fixture in the family, but she insisted upon his giving her a private interview after the doctor had been called away to his patients. She talked to him of religion, of duty, urged him to give up this peddling as unworthy of his talents, and above all things to avoid low connections. Not one word did she utter directly of that which lay nearest her heart, though Dan knew well what she meant by low connections. In brief, he was bored by his mother’s “preaching,” though he listened passively enough, but felt infinitely relieved when he mounted his cart and drove off, covertly throwing a kiss to Susie, who was watching him by the curtain edge of an upper window.

In fact, Dan had never led so free and easy a life before, and his adventures furnished matter to delight Susie’s heart; for under an assumed name he wrote her very constantly for a long time. After a while he gave up peddling, and became a brakeman on a railroad. This for a time filled his ambition, like a goblet, to the brim. But his income was decidedly small, and would never permit him to put enough by to marry Susie and run away with her, a feat he had long desired to accomplish. Clearly New England was a slow place for making money, when a fellow had nothing to commence on. If he only had this something to start with, he would succeed in any kind of mercantile operation. He had a talent for business. He had proved it by a successful enterprise when he was ten years old. This enterprise was the buying of some young ducks with money that the doctor had given him. They grew and flourished on corn and other food that cost Dan nothing, and when they were ready for market, he sold them to his mother at a high price, and ate them himself! This operation had often been quoted by the doctor to dampen Dan’s ardor when he wanted money to commence business for himself. The doctor knew the volatile nature of his boy, and that he would not succeed unless conditions were about as favorable as in the duck enterprise. Still the good doctor had done much for Dan, being willing to buy him all the experience he could possibly afford, and he regretted that this was so little; but he must, as he told Dan, look out for his girls; boys could rough it, and learn prudence and forecast by experience. This was on the occasion of Dan’s next visit home, when he was wild with the desire to set up a livery stable, with the secret idea of finally doing a “big thing” in fast horses. This part, however, he concealed. The doctor having been able to put by a little sum for his “girls” during the past few years, was almost persuaded to yield and start Dan in his new business scheme; but this time Mrs. Forest’s entreaties and tears prevailed, at least for the time; not that she believed wholly that Dan would fail, but keeping a stable was such a disreputable thing in her eyes. It was so closely and inevitably connected with drinking and fast young men, both of which, to her horror, she had found that he had a taste for, though not as yet developed to any alarming extent.

When, therefore, the doctor got ready to give his final answer, Dan was disposed to be quite saucy. He told his father that “other fellows” were not expected to get a start in the world without help, and that if Clara had wanted such assistance it would be forthcoming.

“Well, Dan,” replied the doctor, rising and falling softly on his heels, as he stood with his back to the fire, in his little study, “I think you may be right. If Clara wanted to go into the horse business on graduating from Stonybrook, I think I should lay no straw in her way. By Jove! I think she’d succeed, though.”

“Succeed!” Dan echoed, in contempt. This irritated the doctor a little.

“Yes, sir, succeed. I think she would. She has ten times the brains of any young fellow I know. Women are going into business now-a-days, and considering their want of business experience, their success is marvelous. I can’t say I’d prefer the horse business for Clara, but I hope to Heaven she will take up with something beside matrimony. Girls have a poor show as things are, and a father feels bound to look out for them first.”

“I don’t see it”—answered Dan, somewhat irreverently—“I think girls have a much better show than we have;” and he sat down, with the back of a chair between his legs, and went on: “I don’t see anything much easier than to sit in the parlor, drumming on the piano until the richest fellow comes along, then nab him.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Dr. Forest. “You envy them that fate, do you? How would you like some rich woman to offer to give you her name, and to keep you during good behavior; that is, as long as you remained devoted to her, faithful, and the rest? What would you say to such an offer?”

Dan laughed aloud at the picture, but said, with some laudable confusion, “If you want my honest opinion, sir, I shouldn’t like to swear. I could stand the test.”

This answer took the doctor unawares, and he lost his gravity at once. Besides, being a true believer in the absolute equal rights of all human beings, the case had not seemed half so shocking as he would have it appear to Dan. His conscience accused him, and he said, smiling, “Well, my boy, I like your frankness. I heard a witty woman say once that if men, with their present moral standard, were suddenly to be transformed into women, they would all be on the town in a week. The fact is, neither sex should be kept by the other. Independence, honest self-support, by honest, productive industry, is the thing for women as well as men;” and as the doctor turned to empty his pipe into the grate, he asked Dan how much money he wanted to establish his livery business. Dan explained, with minute detail, just how matters stood, how fortunate the opening, how little the investment required, how certain the success. The doctor promised the funds, confessing at the same time that he had little faith, but that he could not endure that his son should think his father lacking in the desire to help him. “I much prefer you should think me a fool, my boy, than that you should believe me cold-blooded and calculating in my dealings with any one.”

Now the thing was done, the doctor had to meet his wife and try to convince her, what he did not believe himself, that he had acted wisely. He failed miserably, and she wore an injured, martyr air for days, not at all comforted by his justification, which was the old saw, “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.” Dan would not be persuaded to change his mind and enter some other business. He talked of horses till she was glad to drop the subject; and in three months had lost everything. The doctor paid his debts, but said not one word of reproach, and Dan went back to the railroad, fully persuaded that he would have made money enough could he only have had more to throw away.

CHAPTER VIII.
PHILOSOPHY VANQUISHED.

One night, some months before Clara’s final return from Stonybrook, the doctor returned home weary and “cross,” as he said. To the twins this used to mean that he was not in the humor to enjoy their clambering over him; but they felt themselves young ladies now, and “cross” meant that the doctor hoped they had done their piano practising during the day. Their torturing the piano was something endless and excruciating, but the doctor bore all domestic annoyances with the kind, long-suffering spirit that characterized the good family man—the great man, indeed—that he really was.

Women are beginning to see the folly of allowing their “lords” to write the biographies of great men, and are gradually taking the task upon themselves. When they do their full share of this work, there will be found in history many pigmies that would have swelled to colossi under the pens of their own sex; for their claims to the honor of greatness as moral forces will be judged by the way they treat women, specially and generally. A man may be great in a particular sense, if he is nothing but a military or political leader, or profound as a scientist; but he can never be great integrally as a man, if he lacks tenderness, justice, or faith in humanity. Men who are very tender as lovers, and deeply sensitive to the influence of women, usually have the reputation among brutal men of being “hen-pecked”—a word never found in the vocabulary of refined people.

On this occasion, as the doctor’s family sat down to tea, Mrs. Forest enquired after the health of Mrs. Buzzell, whom the doctor had been visiting regularly for many days. She was more comfortable, the doctor said.

“I don’t think,” remarked Mrs. Forest, “that her illness would endure so long if Dr. Delano attended her.”

“Oh, ho! A reflection upon my professional skill,” said the doctor, wiping the creamy tea from his grizzly moustache; but he added, laughing, “If there is anything Mrs. Buzzell enjoys, it is a good long serious illness.”

“That is because you pet her so. I think she is a ridiculous old thing.”

“That is not kind, Fannie. I don’t see how you can speak so of a good old friend like that. We ought never to forget that she is somewhat enfeebled by age, and really has no one to care for her.”

“I don’t see that that is any reason why you should make a martyr of yourself.”

“Oh, I do not. It is pleasant to me to see her faded eyes light up when I enter the room. I know I am the medium of a great consolation to her; and giving happiness should make us happy always.”

“Really! You are quite tender to your interesting patient.”

“Fannie, you disgust me,” he said, setting his cup down emphatically. “If this infernal world chooses to be cruel and mean, to laugh at those who are pining for sympathy and love—you ought to be capable of better sentiments.” The doctor added a more vehement word.

“What! profanity? You do pain me so by your violent way of speaking,” complained the doctor’s wife.

“There!” said Leila, “papa is really getting cross;” and lancing a confident saucy look at her father, whose crossness had no terrors for her, she seized her gentler-willed sister and waltzed her out of the room to the accompaniment of “Good riddance, you sauce-box,” from the doctor, and a stately rebuke from Mrs. Forest. When they were alone, Mrs. Forest repeated in other words her last remark to the doctor, who answered—

“Yes, I know I am always giving you pain when I remind you of your want of sympathy except for those who are a part of you. One’s children are not all the world, and to love only them is narrow and selfish. Suffering, wherever we find it, has claims upon us.”

“Charity begins at home,” said Mrs. Forest, sententiously.

“Yes; begins, but it should not end there. I have been wondering every day why you do not go and see Mrs. Buzzell, knowing how lonely she is, with no society but that of her old servant.” Now Mrs. Forest was indeed intending to go and sit awhile with her old friend, and carry her some dainties; but she did not feel in a gracious mood, and would not confess it. She said rather, “She has too much of your society to miss mine, I think.”

This was exasperating. The doctor rose, and Mrs. Forest touched the spring of the table-bell. “Somehow you will forever dance in a pint-pot; you cannot see anything in a broad light,” he said, “and Leila is going to be just like you. She requires nice dresses, a little music, a little flattery, a good deal of sentimental, unchristlike piety, and her cup runneth over. A grand life, a grand emotion, will never come to her. It would burst her like a soap-bubble, as it would you, to do anything not set down as proper by your set.”

“I should like to know some of your women who see things in a broad light. Who are they?”

“Well,” said the doctor, after a pause, “it is no use to cite examples. Most of them have someway outraged Mrs. Grundy, and you would not believe in them.”

“Yes; I suppose, in order to see things in a broad light,” said Mrs. Forest, contemptuously pronouncing the words, “one must become disreputable. Thank you; I prefer a good reputation, and what you are pleased to call a pint-pot dance.”

“By ——,” exclaimed the doctor, excitedly, “I do believe the first condition for the development of broad sympathies for humanity in a woman’s heart is the loss of respectability as defined by hypocrites and prudes.” Mrs. Forest looked horrified; but the entrance of Susie to remove the tea-things in answer to the bell, prevented her reply. As Susie went on with her work noiselessly, avoiding the slightest clatter of cups and spoons, the doctor continued, watching her movements as he spoke: “We should cultivate a feeling of unity with all nature, of which we are a part. That will force us out of our narrow lives, and make happiness possible to us only when all around us are happy. The inculcation of this sentiment of unity is so important, that we cannot overestimate it, for it will lead to grand association schemes for the amelioration of mankind. There are people in this town to-day, who labor hard from year to year, and yet want the conditions for a decent life; children who never have the chance of seeing a fine picture, or wearing a pretty suit of clothes.”

“I know that is very sad, but your free-thinkers do nothing for them. It is the ladies of our church who carry food and clothing to the children of the poor.” Mrs. Forest, as she said this, noticed something in her husband’s face which made her add, “You know, my dear, I always except you.”

“Why,” said the doctor, “here are the Unitarians, all free-thinkers, according to your creed, for they do not accept your orthodox scheme of salvation; but you can’t deny they do more for the poor than all the orthodox in the country. Take the firm of Ely & Gerrish, one a Unitarian and the other a Deist, as they call him; they have built a magnificent home for their workmen, whereby they are provided with many of the luxuries of wealth, and at about the cost of ordinary lodgings. How much nobler it is to help people to independence than to inculcate the spirit of begging, by your small charities!”

“We can’t all build workingmen’s homes, like Ely & Gerrish,” said Mrs. Forest, “but that should not hinder us from doing what we can.”

“I admit the worthiness of your motives, and the temporary good you do; but it is none the less true that it degrades the being to be the recipient of charity. No; charity don’t work, as a social system. The poor-house don’t work. The orphan asylum don’t work. Now, to one who has the scientific method in his examination of social problems, the moment a system don’t work, he knows it is wrong. Then the first duty is to discover why it don’t, and substitute a better.”

“All of which is very easy—in words,” said Mrs. Forest.

“In words!” echoed the doctor. “Why, we are doing it literally every day. Take the steam-engine and the telegraph. When the necessity arose for more rapid transportation, we tried awhile to breed faster and stronger horses, make better wagons and roads, but we found that did not work, and so we substituted the steam-car and the railroad; so with the postal system, the telegraph and the steam printing-press.”

Mrs. Forest saw that the doctor held a strong position logically, so she waived the question by giving some final orders to Susie about work for the next morning, and then dismissed her summarily. When she was gone the doctor said, “Do you think you are as kind to that poor child as you ought to be?”

“Dear me! what next?” answered Mrs. Forest, with a sigh. “Yes, I think I am. I give her time to sew for herself, and she has a good home. I must say she behaves remarkably well, considering her bringing up.”

“I am greatly interested in her,” the doctor said. “I wish Clara was here. That’s a girl after my own heart, you know. Clara has the true democratic—that is, the true human spirit. She would pity this lonely Susie, and help her to have some object in life.”

“Object in life! Why, what better object can she have than to behave herself, and be happy by doing her duty?” Mrs. Forest, with her “little hoard of maxims,” was armed at all points. It was as hard to grapple with her as with a porcupine. She was so utterly different from the doctor in her way of looking at things, that it is hard to do her justice. The doctor’s radical ideas had always alarmed her, and it had troubled her exceedingly to find that Clara delighted in just those radical notions that were her horror. It was clear, too, that Clara wrote her mother from duty—short, dutiful, correct, and very commonplace notes. To her father she scrawled long, rapid, charmingly frank and interesting letters, signing herself always “Papa’s Own Girl.” To her mother she invariably subscribed herself, “Your affectionate daughter,” which indeed Mrs. Forest considered in rather more ladylike taste, but she was a little jealous all the same.

When Mrs. Forest gave her opinion, in such a decided manner, about Susie’s duty, the doctor paused awhile and filled his pipe in an absent kind of way, holding his box of tobacco with some difficulty, so as to not disturb “Hommie,” the cat, who would jump upon his knee whenever he sat down. Mrs. Forest was never troubled with such familiarity on the part of Hommie, so named by the twins in honor of his perilous adventure in the hominy pot when a kitten. “Doing one’s duty,” the doctor said, “is not all there is of life. This Susie must feel the need of friends sadly. I wish you would take more interest in her, Fannie—talk to her and gain her sympathy.”

“I don’t care to talk to her much, and she don’t care to hear me.”

“That is because you talk to her about saving her soul—a subject about which she knows just as much as you do. Of course, it must bore her. Talk to her of herself; get her to read, and to take interest in some subject.”

“She’s not very intellectual,” replied Mrs. Forest, laconically.

“What!” said the doctor. “Why, she’s as bright as a dollar. See what a fine head she has!”

“Very likely. I don’t believe in heads, as you do. Some of the most stupid people I know are all head.”

“Ah! quality as well as quantity must be considered. In this case the quality is good.”

“I have not much hope for her. To be sure she goes to church, but I think it may be from the fear of displeasing me if she stays at home.”

“I am sorry she goes at all from that motive,” said the doctor.

“When Dan is here, she stays at home evenings, and I notice how she looks at him. When he is not here she often goes out in the evening. I’m sure I don’t know where she goes nor what she does.”

“Well, don’t be meanly suspicious. I know the girl’s heart is right. What can you expect? You treat her like a menial, and she feels it. She does your bidding because it means her daily bread, and because she has lost her heart to Dan. Poor little thing! That’s the saddest of all. She’s happy if she can only look at him; but otherwise finding no companions, no sympathy here, of course she seeks the few acquaintances she has outside, in the hope of answering this need—a need as imperative as that for food or air. You will some time find that it is a misfortune that you cannot take her into your heart and help her more. Let her think that Dan is the only creature that cares for her, and she will come to depend too much upon his regard, which I doubt not is already on the wane.”

“Yes; I think he would like to erase that abominable tattooing. Silly boy!”

“I’m not sure but that is the evidence of the best impulse that ever swayed him.”

“Mercy! doctor, how can you talk so? How would you like your only son to marry such a person?”

“He might do worse,” answered the doctor, decidedly.

This was too much for Mrs. Forest’s patience—too much for adequate expression in decorous words; so she folded her sewing, and left the doctor to the cat and his pipe.

CHAPTER IX.
THE LION’S DEN.

Susie Dykes was a little woman even among the rather diminutive. She had pretty soft grey eyes, a slender, well-shaped waist, and a wealth of light yellow hair. The pretty and simple way she arranged it the doctor had often noticed. She combed it straight back, twisted a part of it into a heavy coil, which she passed over the top of her round head, carrying the end back, and braiding it in with the rest to form a knot, fastened low with a comb. It was a very pretty, Quakerish coiffure, but very becoming. Considering the low family from which she came, the quiet and even distinguished air about her was marvelous. Mrs. Forest could not understand it, and so she refused to admit its existence. The doctor always spoke to Susie with great gentleness; but as the twins snubbed her, and his wife’s dignified coldness oppressed her heavily, he forbore to be as familiarly kind with her as he wished, lest the contrast should make her dislike his wife and daughters. But he went as far as he thought prudent. Once he told her that her ears were as pretty as Clara’s; a compliment that little Susie never ceased to be proud of. Lately, by the doctor’s influence, Mrs. Buzzell, now recovered from her illness, had become quite interested in Susie, and had helped her about her wardrobe, which showed want of means, though not of mending, for Susie was naturally neat about everything. Mrs. Forest gave her due credit for this, knowing that the instruction that she must have received from Mrs. Dykes was none of the best.

Poor Susie’s child-life had been a sad one, like the lives of the children of the poor generally; and she was happier now than she had ever been, despite the cold, unsympathetic relation she bore to Mrs. Forest, whom she longed to love like a daughter; for whatever belonged to Dan, was precious in her eyes. She was naturally very bright, as the doctor said, but what little education she had received in a neighboring district school had been painfully gained through the persecutions of more fortunate school-mates, who, with the savage cruelty of children, made sport of her poverty, not knowing what they did.

It is a folly, doubtless, to dress up little children like popinjays, that they may outshine their companions, and thus cultivate their own vanity at the expense of nobler feelings; but certainly it is a vital wrong to send a child among his fellows in a mean and untidy attire. For not having the philosophy of maturer years to support him against the ridicule he excites, he is either humiliated and degraded by it, or else moved to revenge or hate; and these feelings, if long entertained, crush out the finer possibilities of his nature, and so in both cases he is robbed and wronged. The ridicule and persecution that Susie had endured had the usual effect upon the sensitive of her sex. She was humiliated, and answered only with tears. She had never dreamed that she had elements of real loveliness in mind and person, and when Dan first began to notice her—he a proud, handsome fellow, belonging to the best of Oakdale’s choice society—she was transported with joyful gratitude, and would have laid down her life for him without counting it much of a sacrifice.

When Dan failed in his livery-stable enterprise, he went back to the railroad, and soon rose to the position of conductor, where he seemed really to have found his level. He liked the position, gave good satisfaction to the company, and received a very fair salary for his work. Susie, meanwhile, loved him more and more, and longed for, yet dreaded, his bearish caresses. The opportunity to see her alone did not occur often, for he was home only on Sundays, and then she went to church with Mrs. Forest. This annoyed Dan; and the obstacles in the way of passing an hour alone with Susie were many, and almost insurmountable. The twins, either one or both, had still the most remarkable talent for being just where they were not wanted. He used to send them away from the garden or orchard when he chanced to find Susie there; but they were apt to tell of this, which troubled Susie, and so he desisted. The last time he had tried to get rid of Leila, endeavoring to show her that she ought to go and practice her piano studies, he received the pert answer, “Thank you; I don’t play secular music on Sunday.” Dan answered with a long crescendo whistle, and abandoned tactics in Leila’s case. But fate sometimes gave him a few minutes with Susie. On one occasion she had gone at Dinah’s request to bring pears from the orchard—Dinah having very possibly an ulterior motive, for Dan had been very gracious to the old servant lately. He followed Susie after a few minutes—a very few—leisurely smoking a cigar.

As a specimen of a fine animal, Dan was certainly handsome; and this is hardly doing him justice, for it must be admitted that very good women—aye, and very superior women—have adored just such fine animals. There must be some justification, which severe moralists cannot comprehend, for action and reaction are equal. Dan was tall, his back finely curved, broad shoulders, and his head was right regally poised thereon. He had bright dark eyes, curly brown hair, a light, youthful moustache and slight side-whiskers, and what would be called a fine mouth, though not of the nobler type to which Clara’s belonged. Hers might be termed sensuous, his sensual; yet perhaps the term is too severe. It was pleasant to look at Dan’s mouth when he talked, and it must be confessed that his kisses were found distractingly sweet to some others beside little Susie.

On entering the part of the orchard where Susie was, he leaned against the trunk of an old fruit-tree and called her to him.

“I must not stay long,” she said, looking up lovingly into his face, as she stood before him. “Dinah will be waiting for these;” and she blushed and dropped her pretty eyes among the fruit.

“Let her wait,” he said. “You don’t mind keeping me waiting, I notice;” and throwing away his cigar, he drew her into his arms and kissed her rosy lips again and again, holding her like a vise. Susie wished to remain there forever, though she kept denying him her lips, and hiding her face on his breast. That was at least one feeling; another was a strong impulse to run away, but she dared not show this for fear of displeasing him. When, therefore, Leila came running down the path bareheaded, her hair streaming out on the wind, it was a relief to Susie, though an exasperation to Dan.

As time wore on from Sunday to Sunday—for Susie counted time only by the slow recurrence of these days—she began to be troubled a little about Dan’s regard for her. To be sure, he always told her he loved her dearly, and that she was “sweeter than a rose;” but he seemed to talk less of their future, and his new life out in the world had changed his manner to her, which was not so respectful as in the olden time. Ah! the olden time, when Susie had been so ashamed of Jim and his ways, so impatient of her rude surroundings, until Dan appeared and gladdened all her life as the sunshine gladdens the little wayside flower. She had never been troubled about his demonstrations then, and she passed in retrospection the old days when the boyish lover had scarcely dared to press her hand. She recalled continually one particular evening when he had found her alone—the first and last time they had ever been alone for a whole evening. That was the time when he gave her his first kiss—a quick little touch on the cheek, not like the burning kisses he insisted upon now. Where had he learned so much about love-making? He knew little enough about it then, when, blushing even like herself, he had made her promise to be his forever, and sealed the betrothal by that indelible record upon his arm. Clearly there was a change in Dan, but Susie’s heart refused to recognize it as a vital change. It was, indeed, the same old drama, played over and over again since the world began—the woman at home, dependent, busied with her little routine of duties, cherishing and nursing her one tender romance; the man mixing with the broader world, yielding to its varied attractions, taking and giving love, or the mockery of love, wherever he can find it, and so daily unfitting himself more and more for the rôle in which the home-keeping woman has cast him. Susie waited and trusted, but life during the week was very dull; the few acquaintances of her former life attracted her less and less, and she ceased altogether to visit them. This time happened to be a season of revivals, and Oakdale received a large influx of the “spirit.” The twins became “serious,” much to the joy of Mrs. Forest and—it must be confessed—the disgust of the doctor, who entertained very phrenological views upon the subject of sudden changes of nature. But under the influence of this seriousness, Leila, who had the most serious attack, became suddenly gracious to Susie, and would insist upon her being saved also; so she dragged her to prayer-meetings in season and out of season, the latter being on Sunday evenings, when Dan was at home. Dan could scarcely believe his senses when he found that there was in this world anything that could charm Susie away from him, even for an hour; so she had the satisfaction of witnessing another revival, that of Dan’s flickering affection for his first love. He did, indeed, seem to treat her with more softness, though he distrusted the value of her piety, since it caused her to hold more strict views on the propriety of vehement kisses. The twins, after a few months, lost their passion for prayer-meetings entirely, but Susie kept right on, with that sincerity and singleness of heart that characterized all that she did. She had found sympathy among certain people of the church, though of rather a stiff and at-arms-length kind; but in her own sincere devotion, and in the reading of religious books, she found much consolation. Not that she could understand them or criticise them; but when she came to anything that breathed the loving spirit of Christ, it sank into her lonely heart, and blessed her with something like peace.

One perfect moonlit evening, about a year after the events just narrated, and only a few months before Clara’s final return from Stonybrook College, Susie, returning home from some evening “meeting,” unexpectedly met Dan. He drew her hand caressingly over his arm, saying, as he turned to walk home with her, “Susie does not care for me any more.”

“O, Dan!” she exclaimed, in an imploring tone, for her little heart was full of its best emotions, and this want of faith in her love pained her.

“Fact. She has become a saint, and so cares nothing for my kisses.”

“O, you wrong Susie, Dan. She does love you dearly.”

“I know. She says she prays for me, and I don’t believe in prayers. Kisses are ‘indicated,’ as doctors say, in my case.”

“You do wrong to speak so, Dan. Surely it is good to pray when one is lonely and sad. I try to be good, but I am not, very. I fear I shall never go to Heaven.” Dan, for reply, gave his crescendo whistle, and then said, stopping short in the bright moonlight, and looking down into her face, “The idea of a good child like you troubling your little head about Heaven. The domestic economy of that institution must be very shiftlessly managed if such as you are not in great demand.”

“O, you must not talk so, Dan! I do so wish you could see religion as it really is.”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Dan. “If I must be a spoon, I prefer to be made so by a live woman, not a morbid longing to twang a golden harp.”

“Your father does not talk like that,” replied Susie, who was always timid before Dan’s outbursts of humor, but the belief that she was in the right made her bold. “I know he will not go to church, but he is so good! and he never says anything against others going, if they find spiritual food in what he says are dry husks to him.”

“He’s a fine old chap, no mistake about that, and he forgets more every day than most people ever know; but he’s soft in spots. If I had only known him when he was a young man, I should have helped him to cut his eye-teeth.”

“Ah!” said Susie, “what you call his ‘soft spots’ are his noblest qualities. What can be more benevolent and sweet than his treatment of poor old Mrs. Buzzell?”

“Is that a conundrum?” Dan asked, in his rollicking way.

“He is so good!” said Susie, taking no notice of Dan’s levity; “and I often think if he would join the church it would influence you——”

“No, it wouldn’t,” interrupted Dan. “I’m only sensitive to your influence. You could do anything with me if you loved me as you once did.” They had just entered the gate and stopped a moment under the lilacs by the path. Susie looked up into Dan’s face and said, with a voice that trembled, “It is cruel for you to doubt me. I have not changed, unless”—“to love you more,” she would have said, but her words were checked by the depth of her emotion.

“You do not show it, then.”

“O Dan! I pray for you always. I think of you every moment. How can I prove it better?” she asked, with despairing tenderness.

“O, much better you can prove it, Susie;” and under the fragrant lilacs, under the dear, bright stars, a thought blacker than mortal night entered Dan’s heart.

“How do I know you pray for me?” he asked, caressing her hand very softly. “I do not hear you. Come to my room and pray for me there, and I shall believe you.”

“Do you really wish me to?” she asked, with a look that would have softened any heart but that of this sleek young tiger, whose white teeth glistened in the moonlight.

“I will,” she said simply, mentally reproaching herself for a momentary suspicion that had entered her mind.

When Susie entered Dan’s room on her pious mission, he at once closed the door and locked it. Susie protested earnestly, but the only reply it elicited was a long-continued fit of subdued laughter which Dan indulged himself in, tilting back his chair and holding his fingers interlaced at the back of his head. Then he insisted upon a kiss as a preliminary.

“No, no,” cried Susie. “Open the door and let me go. O Dan, you were not serious, after all. I wish I had not believed you;” and the poor girl covered her face and sobbed.

“Serious? Never was so serious in my life, as I can prove to you; but what is the use of praying for me if my heart is not in the right mood, and nothing can do that but a kiss, though a hundred would make it surer. How Susie must love me. She cries because I ask for one.” * * * *

Susie never prayed for Dan that night. Her prayers were all for herself. Alas! that they should have availed so little!

CHAPTER X.
CLARA’S RETURN—THE DRAMA IN THE DOCTOR’S STUDY.

The early days of September had come, and the day of Clara’s return. Dinah had scoured every pot and pan until they shone like mirrors, cooked the cakes and “lollypops” generally that Clara had liked so well as a child, for she was still a child in Dinah’s thought, which took no note of the changes that four years must bring to a young lady. She longed for Clara’s final homecoming, for between the twins and her there had always been a kind of feud, and they were, according to her, “no comfort to the house;” and though she liked Susie very much, there was nothing in the world so bright and lovely in her eyes as “Miss Clary.”

All was joy and bustle in the doctor’s house. The “fatted calf,” figuratively speaking, was ready, and the best chamber, newly fitted up for Clara, had received the addition of another bed, for Miss Marston was coming with her, at the cordial invitation of the doctor and Mrs. Forest. They wished to express their gratitude for her kindness to their child during her term at Stonybrook, and as Miss Marston had considerable curiosity to see the eccentric Dr. Forest, it was very pleasant to accept the invitation. The friendship between her and Clara had begun early after their meeting, and had soon ripened into a more tender regard and confidence than either women or men often inspire in each other. The result of Clara’s tactics regarding Jaques had even added to this mutual esteem, for Miss Marston frankly confessed that the motive of the book was noble, and though she thought it too emotional for young girls as a rule, admitted that it would do no harm to Clara, because she was disposed to be a “philosopher and an observer,” as she said. After this, Clara’s reading was never criticised. She was allowed full range in the college library, and certain of the alcoves, seldom visited except by one or two of the teachers, were familiar to her. She had graduated with the first honors, and there were not a few tears of real regret when she bade her school friends good-bye.

Clara had been home only once during her long absence, and the meeting with the dear ones at home was a great joy. Miss Marston was introduced, and then came the embraces: first the mother’s, then the twins, who were astonished into silence by the queenly carriage and address of Clara. Dr. Forest stood talking with Miss Marston, waiting his turn, and having no eyes but for his daughter. She came presently, and Miss Marston politely moved away. “The sweetest last!” whispered Clara, as her father pressed her to his heart, answering only, “Papa’s own girl.” Here fat old Dinah was descried in the dining-room, wiping her grinning face with her apron. At a gesture from Clara she came to the drawing-room door, and Clara submitted to be hugged, and kissed, and “bressed,” and cried over till she cried anew herself. Miss Marston looked a little surprised at this familiarity with a negro servant, until she recalled the fact that the doctor’s family had lived many years in the South, where, there being never a possible question of equality before the late civil war, the negro was often petted even like much-loved brutes.

That evening there was a grand reception in the doctor’s old-fashioned house, in honor of Clara’s return. Dan came in after all the friends had arrived, and for a time he saw no one but Clara, who advanced to meet him, offering him her hand affectionately, but instead of taking it, he grabbed the whole stately person of his sister and gave her a most bearish hugging and kissing, which embarrassed her somewhat, perhaps, because she knew Dr. Delano’s eyes were upon her. She had just left his side, and the few minutes conversation with him had given her a taste of feminine power. She had seen in every look, and word, and movement, that she impressed him deeply. After escaping from Dan’s grip, she glanced back to Dr. Delano. His eyes were averted. Was it from disgust at Dan’s rough way of meeting her, or from delicacy? At all events he seemed to have dropped her out of his thoughts, and was apparently greatly absorbed in conversation with Leila, and as he talked he occasionally twisted the long ends of a fine dark moustache. He was a rather distinguished looking man, perhaps a little too self-conscious, and old in Leila’s eyes, though in the prime of life, being not much over thirty.

Before Dan would let Clara go, he said, glancing at the piano, where a quiet, graceful lady was just sitting down to play, “That washed-out virgin is your divinity, Miss Marston, I presume.”

“Hush! brother. You will never speak so of her when she has once deigned to notice you. No one escapes the magic of her style, I assure you.”

“I wouldn’t give a sixpence for one woman’s judgment of another, sis; but I’ll try on the magic as soon as you like. See! there’s my bête noir making dead for me;” and leaving his sister to entertain Mrs. Buzzell, he just nodded to her and went to Susie, who was sitting quite alone in the corner of the room, pretending to be interested in an album of photographs. He greeted her with a pleasant word, and her sense of being neglected vanished instantly. Ah! is it counted a blessing to love like this poor child? Sentimental or emotional people never count themselves happy except when floundering in some sea of passionate madness. Do they not deceive themselves as to the nature of happiness? Is it well for any human soul to so depend upon another for every thrill of pleasure; aye, to have the very literal beating of the heart, in its normal way, dependent upon the smiles, the tender words, of any single creature among all the good and beautiful beings that the world contains? Be it wise or foolish, it is the fate of many people to love in just this mad way; though it excites the contempt of those who can regulate the play of their emotions as easily as we do the movement of a clock by raising or lowering the pendulum.

Susie kept on turning the leaves of Clara’s album, though listening intently to every syllable her lover uttered. Stopping longer over one, he noticed it. “Clara’s tenth wonder, eh?” he said. “How do you like it?”

“I think it very beautiful; don’t you?”

“Bosh! she has no color, no life,” he answered, glancing toward the original. “Why, you are a thousand times prettier, Susie.” This made the little heart very happy indeed; and she looked up into Dan’s face with a loving, trusting pride, that touched him for a moment; the next, he was forced to give his attention to Miss Marston, whose fine voice swelled through the room in the brindisi of La Traviata, the one bit of Italian music that Dan happened to know well, and as he listened, he was entranced. The voice seemed to upbear him as on wings. How passionately the pale little woman sung. Could such a voice belong to the commonplace lady he had thought Miss Marston to be? A few minutes later, when he was presented to her, and her little white hand lay in his for a moment, he longed to kiss it; and was consciously awkward as he spoke the words of greeting. Miss Marston knew how to put him at his ease at once, he never suspecting that she was exercising a common art among certain refined people of society. She made him thoroughly satisfied with the way he had deported himself, and he left her with a sense of delight, as if he had covered himself with glory. He returned to her as soon as he could, and scarcely noticed Susie for the rest of the evening. Susie waited until sure that Dan had no thought of returning to talk with her any more, and when she could no longer control her emotion from the company, she crept away to her room, and cried bitterly, while the sound of music and joyous laughter from below fell like mockery upon her lonely heart.

Dan’s infatuation for Miss Marston was sudden and irresistible, and soon became evident to everybody. To Clara it was an evidence of appreciation which she had thought him incapable of; and having no knowledge of his relation to Susie, she was delighted, though in her eyes Miss Marston was too good for Dan, and that he might win her seemed an absurdity. She thought, however, with the faith in love that all women cherish, that his admiration would have a softening and refining influence, which in this case was much needed. Miss Marston was very gracious. She sang for him whenever he asked her, and without the least effort charmed him in every way. When he made her a compliment, instead of saying that she hated flattery, as most country girls have the bad manners to do, she smiled and thanked him. In truth, her whole air and manner was a revelation of womanhood to Dan. He received her gracious politeness as a sign of preference, and before a week had passed, Susie was a millstone about his neck. She, meanwhile, half dazed with the knowledge of Dan’s disaffection, and the fate worse than death that hung over her, went about the house, pale, silent, brooding over the thought of death as the only possible escape for such as she. Mrs. Forest was quite touched by her sad face, treated her more kindly than usual, and even seemed disposed to talk to her. She asked her one day why she never went to see her friends, as she used to do.