THE MASTER’S
VIOLIN

BY

MYRTLE REED

Author of

“Lavender and Old Lace”
“Old Rose and Silver”
“A Spinner in the Sun”
“Flower of the Dusk”
Etc.

New York

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers

Copyright, 1904
BY
MYRTLE REED

• A Weaver of Dreams
• Old Rose and Silver
• Lavender and Old Lace
• The Master’s Violin
• Love Letters of a Musician
• The Spinster Book
• The Shadow of Victory

• Sonnets to a Lover
• Master of the Vineyard
• Flower of the Dusk
• At the Sign of the Jack-O’Lantern
• A Spinner in the Sun
• Later Love Letters of a Musician
• Love Affairs of Literary Men

This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London

Contents

I

The Master Plays

The fire blazed newly from its embers and set strange shadows to dancing upon the polished floor. Now and then, there was a gleam from some dark mahogany surface and an answering flash from a bit of old silver in the cabinet. April, warm with May’s promise, came in through the open window, laden with the wholesome fragrance of growing things, and yet, because an old lady loved it, there was a fire upon the hearth and no other light in the room.

She sat in her easy chair, sheltered from possible draughts, and watched it, seemingly unmindful of her three companions. Tints of amethyst and sapphire appeared in the haze from the backlog and were lost a moment later in the dominant flame. In that last hour of glorious life, the tree was giving back its memories—blue skies, grey days just tinged with gold, lost rainbows, and flashes of sun.

Friendly ghosts of times far past were conjured back in shadows—outspread wings, low-lying clouds, and long nights that ended in dawn. Swift flights of birds and wandering craft of thistledown were mirrored for an instant upon the shining floor, and then forgotten, because of falling leaves.

Lines of transfiguring light changed the snowy softness of Miss Field’s hair to silver, and gave to her hands the delicacy of carved ivory. A tiny foot peeped out from beneath her gown, clad in its embroidered silk stocking and high-heeled slipper, so brave in its trappings of silver buckles that she might have been eighteen instead of seventy-five.

Upon her face the light lay longest; perhaps with an answering love. The years had been kind to her—had given her only enough bitterness to make her realise the sweetness, and from the threads that Life had placed in her hands at the beginning, had taught her how to weave the blessed fabric of Content.

“Aunt Peace,” asked the girl, softly, “have you forgotten that we have company?”

Dispelled by the voice, the gracious phantoms of Memory vanished. There was a little silence, then the old lady smiled. “No, dearie,” she said, “indeed I haven’t. It is too rare a blessing for me to forget.”

“Please don’t call us ‘company,’” put in the other woman, quickly, “because we’re not.”

“‘Company,’” observed the young man on the opposite side of the hearth, “is extremely good under the circumstances. Somebody nearly breaks down your front door on a rainy afternoon, and when you rush out to save the place from ruin, you discover two dripping tramps on your steps. Stranded on an island in the road is a waggon containing their trunks, from which place of refuge they recently swam to your door. ‘How do you do, Aunt Peace?’ says mother; ‘we’ve come to live with you from this time on to the finish.’ On behalf of this committee, ladies, I thank you, from my heart, for calling us ‘company.’”

Laughing, he rose and made an exaggerated courtesy. “Lynn! Lynn!” expostulated his mother. “Is it possible that after all my explanations you don’t understand? Why, I wrote more than two weeks ago, asking her to let us know if she didn’t want us. Silence always gives consent, and so we came.”

“Yes, we came all right,” continued the boy, cheerfully, “and, as everybody knows, we’re here now, but isn’t it just like a woman? Upon my word, I think they’re queer—the whole tribe.”

“Having thus spoken,” remarked the girl, “you might tell us how a man would have managed it.”

“Very easily. A man would have called in his stenographer—no, he wouldn’t, either, because it was a personal letter. He would have made an excavation into his desk and found the proper stationery, and would have put in a new pen. ‘My dear Aunt Peace,’ he would have said, ‘you mustn’t think I’ve forgotten you because I haven’t written for such a long time. If I had written every time I had wanted to, or had thought of you, actually, you’d have been bored to death with me. I have a kid who thinks he is going to be a fiddler, and we have decided to come and live with you while he finds out, as we understand that Herr Franz Kaufmann, who is not unknown to fame, lives in your village. Will you please let us know? If you can’t take us, or don’t want to, here’s a postage stamp, and no hard feelings on either side.’”

“Just what I said,” explained Mrs. Irving, “though my language wasn’t quite like yours.”

The old lady smiled again. “My dears,” she began, “let us cease this unprofitable discussion. It is all because we are so far out of the beaten track that we seldom go to the post-office. I am sure the letter is there now.”

“I will get it to-morrow,” replied Lynn, “which is kind of me, considering that my remarks have just been alluded to as ‘unprofitable.’”

“You can’t expect everybody to think as much of what you say as you do,” suggested Iris, with a trace of sarcasm.

“Score one for you, Miss Temple. I shall now retire into my shell.” So saying, he turned to the fire, and his face became thoughtful again.

The three women looked at him from widely differing points of view. The girl, concealed in the shadow, took maidenly account of his tall, well-knit figure, his dark eyes, his sensitive mouth, and his firm, finely modelled chin. From a half-defined impulse of coquetry, she was glad of the mood which had led her to put on her most becoming gown early in the afternoon. The situation was interesting—there was a vague hint of a challenge of some kind.

Aunt Peace, so long accustomed to quiet ways, had at first felt the two an intrusion into her well-ordered home, though at the same time her hospitable instincts reproached her bitterly. He was of her blood and her line, yet in some way he seemed like an alien suddenly claiming kinship. A span of fifty years and more stretched between them, and across it, they contemplated each other, both wondering. For his part he regarded her as one might a cameo of fine workmanship or an old miniature. She was so passionless, so virginal, so far removed from all save the gentlest emotions, that he saw her only as one who stood apart.

The smile still lingered upon her lips and the firelight made shadows beneath her serene eyes. Had they asked her for her thoughts she could have phrased only one. Deep down in her heart she wondered whether anything on earth had ever been so joyously young as Lynn.

His mother, too, was watching him, as always when she thought herself unobserved. In spite of his stalwart manhood, to her he was still a child. Forgiving all things, dreaming all things, hoping all things with the boundless faith of maternity, she loved him, through the child that he was, for the man that he might be—loved him, through the man that he was, for the child that he had been.

The fire had died down, and Iris, leaning forward, laid a bit of pine upon the dull glow in the midst of the ashes. It caught quickly, and once again the magical light filled the room.

“Sing something, dear,” said Aunt Peace, drowsily, and Iris made a little murmur of dissent.

“Do you sing, Miss Temple?” asked Irving, politely.

“No,” she answered, “and what’s more, I know I don’t, but Aunt Peace likes to hear me.”

“We’d like to hear you, too,” said Mrs. Irving, so gently that no one could have refused.

Much embarrassed, she went to the piano, which stood in the next room, just beyond the arch, and struck a few chords. The instrument was old and worn, but still sweet, and, fearful at first, but gaining confidence as she went on, Iris sang an old-fashioned song.

Her voice was contralto; deep, vibrant, and full, but untrained. Still, there were evidences of study and of work along right lines. Before she had finished, Irving was beside her, resting his elbow upon the piano.

“Who taught you?” he asked, when the last note died away.

“Herr Kaufmann,” she replied, diffidently.

“I thought he was a violin teacher.”

“He is.”

“Then how can he teach singing?”

“He doesn’t.”

Irving went no farther, and Miss Temple, realising that she had been rude, hastened to atone. “I mean by that,” she explained, “that he doesn’t teach anyone but me. I had a few lessons a long time ago, from a lady who spent the Summer here, and he has been helping me ever since. That is all. He says it doesn’t matter whether people have voices or not—if they have hearts, he can make them sing.”

“You play, don’t you?”

“Yes—a little. I play accompaniments for him sometimes.”

“Then you’ll play with me, won’t you?”

“Perhaps.”

“When—to-morrow?”

“I’ll see,” laughed Iris. “You should be a lawyer instead of a violinist. You make me feel as if I were on the witness stand.”

“My father was a lawyer; I suppose I inherit it.” Iris had a question upon her lips, but checked it.

“He is dead,” the young man went on, as though in answer to it. “He died when I was about five years old, and I remember him scarcely at all.”

“I don’t remember either father or mother,” she said. “I had a very unhappy childhood, and things that happened then make me shudder even now. Just at the time it was hardest—when I couldn’t possibly have borne any more—Aunt Peace discovered me. She adopted me, and I’ve been happy ever since, except for all the misery I can’t forget.”

“She’s not really your aunt, then?”

“No. Legally, I am her daughter, but she wouldn’t want me to call her ‘mother,’ even if I could.”

The talk in the other room had become merely monosyllables, with bits of understanding silence between. Iris went back, and Mrs. Irving thanked her prettily for the song.

“Thank you for listening,” she returned.

“Come, Aunt Peace, you’re nodding.”

“So I was, dearie. Is it late?”

“It’s almost ten.”

In her stately fashion, Miss Field bade her guests good night. Iris lit a candle and followed her up the broad, winding stairway. It made a charming picture—the old lady in her trailing gown, the light throwing her white hair into bold relief, and the girl behind her, smiling back over the banister, and waving her hand in farewell.

In Lynn’s fond sight, his mother was very lovely as she sat there, with the firelight shining upon her face. He liked the way her dark hair grew about her low forehead, her fair, smooth skin, and the mysterious depths of her eyes. Ever since he could remember, she had worn a black gown, with soft folds of white at the throat and wrists.

“It’s time to go out for our walk now,” he said.

“Not to-night, son. I’m tired.”

“That doesn’t make any difference; you must have exercise.”

“I’ve had some, and besides, it’s wet.”

Lynn was already out of hearing, in search of her wraps. He put on her rubbers, paying no heed to her protests, and almost before she knew it, she was out in the April night, woman-like, finding a certain pleasure in his quiet mastery.

The storm was over and the hidden moon silvered the edges of the clouds. Here and there a timid planet looked out from behind its friendly curtain, but only the pole star kept its beacon steadily burning. The air was sweet with the freshness of the rain, and belated drops, falling from the trees, made a faint patter upon the ground.

Down the long elm-bordered path they went, the boy eager to explore the unfamiliar place; the mother, harked back to her girlhood, thrilled with both pleasure and pain.

Happy are they who leave the scenes of early youth to the ministry of Time. Going back, one finds the river a little brook, the long stretch of woodland only a grove in the midst of a clearing, and the upland pastures, that once seemed mountains, are naught but stony, barren fields.

As they stood upon the bridge, looking down into the rushing waters, Margaret remembered the lost majesty of that narrow stream, and sighed. The child who had played so often upon its banks had grown to a woman, rich with Life’s deepest experiences, but the brook was still the same. Through endless years it must be the same, drawing its waters from unseen sources, while generation after generation withered away, like the flowers that bloomed upon its grassy borders while the years were young.

Lynn broke rudely into her thoughts. “I wish I’d known you when you were a kid, mother,” he said.

“Why?”

“Oh, I think I’d have liked to play with you. We could have made some jolly mud pies.”

“We did, but you were three, and I was twenty-five. Much ashamed, too, I remember, when your father caught me doing it.”

“Am I like him?”

He had asked the question many times and her answer was always the same. “Yes, very much like him. He was a good man, Lynn.”

“Do I look like him?”

“Yes, all but your eyes.”

“When you lived here, did you know Herr Kaufmann?”

“By sight, yes.” He was looking straight at her, but she had turned her face away, forgetting the darkness. “We used to see him passing in the street,” she went on, in a different tone. “He was a student and never seemed to know many people. He would not remember me.”

“Then there’s no use of my telling him who I am?”

“Not the least.”

“Maybe he won’t take me.”

“Yes, he will,” she answered, though her heart suddenly misgave her. “He must—there is no other way.”

“Will you go with me?”

“No, indeed; you must go alone. I shall not appear at all.”

“Why, mother?”

“Because.” It was her woman’s reason, which he had learned to accept as final. Beyond that there was no appeal.

East Lancaster lay on one side of the brook and West Lancaster on the other. The two settlements were quite distinct, though they had a common bond of interest in the post-office, which was harmoniously situated near the border line. East Lancaster was the home of the aristocracy. Here were old Colonial mansions in which, through their descendants, the builders still lived. The set traditions of a bygone century held full sway in the place, but, though circumscribed by conditions, the upper circle proudly considered itself complete.

West Lancaster was on a hill, and a steep one at that. Hardy German immigrants had settled there, much to the disgust of East Lancaster, holding itself sternly aloof year after year. It was not considered “good form” to allude to the dwellers upon the hill, save in low tones and with lifted brows, yet there were not wanting certain good Samaritans who sent warm clothing and discarded playthings, after nightfall and by stealth, to the little Teutons who lived so near them.

Hemmed in by the everlasting hills, estranged from its neighbour, and barely upon speaking terms with other towns, East Lancaster let the world go on by. Two trains a day rushed through the station, for the main line of the railroad, receiving no encouragement from East Lancaster, had laid its tracks elsewhere. It was still spoken of as “the time when, if you will remember, my dear, they endeavoured to ruin our property with dirt and noise.”

“Her clothes are like her name,” remarked Lynn.

“Whose clothes?” asked Mrs. Irving, taken out of her reverie.

“That girl’s. She had on a green dress, and some yellow velvet in her hair. Her eyes are purple.”

“Violet, you mean, dear. Did you notice that?”

“Of course—don’t I notice everything? Come, mother; I’ll race you to the top of the hill.”

Once again her objections were of no avail. Together they ran, laughing, up the winding road that led to the summit, stopping very soon, however, and going on at a more moderate pace.

The street was narrow, and the houses on either side were close together. Each had its tiny patch of ground in front, laid out in flower-beds bordered with whitewashed stones, in true German fashion. There were no street lamps, for West Lancaster also resented all modern innovations, but in the Spring night one could see dimly.

Lanterns flitted here and there, like fireflies starred against the dark. Margaret protested that she was tired, but Lynn put his arm around her and hurried her on. Never before had she set foot upon the soil of West Lancaster, but she had full knowledge of the way.

The brow of the hill was close at hand, and she caught her breath in sudden fear. Lynn, in the midst of a graphic recital of some boyish prank, took no note of her agitation. He did not even know that they had come to the end of their journey, until a man tiptoed toward them, his finger upon his lips.

“Hush!” he breathed. “The Master plays.”

At the very top of the hill, almost at the brink of the precipice, was a house so small that it seemed more like a box than a dwelling. In the street were a dozen people, both men and women, standing in stolid patience. The little house was dark, but a window was open, and from within, muted almost to a whisper, came the voice of a violin.

For an hour or more they stood there, listening. By insensible degrees the music grew in volume, filled with breadth and splendour, yet with a lyric undertone. Sounding chords, caught from distant silences, one by one were woven in. Songs that had an epic grasp; question, prayer, and heartbreak; all the pain and beauty of the world were part of it, and yet there was something more.

To Lynn’s trained ear, it was an improvisation by a master hand. He was lost in admiration of the superb technique, the delicate phrasing, and the wonderful quality of the tone. To the woman beside him, shaken from head to foot by unutterable emotion, it was Life itself, bare, exquisitely alive, tuned to the breaking point—a human thing, made of tears and laughter, of ecstasy, tenderness, and black despair, lying on the Master’s breast and answering to his touch.

The shallows touch the pebbles, and behold, there is a little song. The deeps are stirred to their foundations, and, long afterward, there is a single vast strophe, majestic and immortal, which takes its place by right in the symphony of pain. To Margaret, standing there with her senses swaying, all her possibilities of feeling were merged into one unspeakable hurt.

“Take me away;” she whispered, “I can bear no more!”

But Lynn did not hear. He was simply and solely the musician, his body tense, his head bent forward and a little to one side, nodding in emphasis or approval.

She slipped her arm through his and, trembling, waited as best she might for the end. It came at last and the little group near them took up its separate ways. Someone put down the window and closed the shutters. The Master knew quite well that some of his neighbours had been listening, but it pleased him to ignore the tribute. No one dared to speak to him about his playing.

“Mother! Mother!” said Lynn, tenderly, “I’ve been selfish, and I’ve kept you too long!”

“No,” she answered, but her lips were cold and her voice was not the same. They went downhill together, and she leaned heavily upon his supporting arm. He was humming, under his breath, bits of the improvisation, and did not speak again until they were at home.

The fire was out, but Iris had left two lighted candles on a table in the hall. “A fine violin,” he said; “by far the finest I have ever heard.”

“Yes,” she returned, “a Cremona—that is, I think it must be, from its tone.”

“Possibly. Good night, and pleasant dreams.”

They parted at the head of the stairs, and down on the landing the tall clock chimed twelve. Margaret lay for a long time with her eyes closed, but none the less awake. Toward dawn, the ghostly fingers of her dreams tapped questioningly at the Master’s door, but without disturbing his sleep.

II

“Mine Cremona”

Lynn went up the hill with a long, swinging stride. The morning was in his heart and it seemed good to be alive. His blood fairly sang in his pulses, and his cheery whistle was as natural and unconscious as the call of the robin in the maple thicket beyond.

The German housewives left their work and came out to see him pass, for strangers in West Lancaster were so infrequent as to cause extended comment, and he left behind him a trail of sharp glances and nodding heads. The entire hill was instantly alive with gossip which buzzed back and forth like a hive of liberated bees. It was a sturdy dame near the summit who quelled it, for the time being.

“So,” she said to her next-door neighbour, “I was right. He will be going to the Master’s.”

The word went quickly down the line, and after various speculations regarding his possible errand, the neglected household tasks were taken up and the hill was quiet again, except for the rosy-cheeked children who played stolidly in their bits of dooryards.

Lynn easily recognised the house, though he had seen it but dimly the night before. It was two stories in height, but very small, and, in some occult way, reminded one of a bird-house. It was perched almost upon the ledge, and its western windows overlooked the valley, filled with tossing willow plumes, the winding river, half asleep in its mantle of grey and silver, and the range of blue hills beyond.

It was the only house upon the hill which boasted two front entrances. Through the shining windows of the lower story, on a level with the street, he saw violins in all stages of making, but otherwise, the room was empty. So he climbed the short flight of steps and rang the bell.

The wire was slack and rusty, but after two or three trials a mournful clang came from the depths of the interior. At last the door was opened, cautiously, by a woman whose flushed face and red, wrinkled fingers betrayed her recent occupation.

“I beg your pardon,” said Irving, making his best bow. “Is Herr Kaufmann at home?”

“Not yet,” she replied, “he will have gone for his walk. You will be coming in?”

She asked the question as though she feared an affirmative answer. “If I may, please,” he returned, carefully wiping his feet upon the mat. “Do you expect him soon?”

“Yes.” She ushered him into the front room and pointed to a chair. “You will please excuse me,” she said.

“Certainly! Do not let me detain you.”

Left to himself, he looked about the room with amused curiosity. The furnishings were a queer combination of primitive American ideas and modern German fancies, overlaid with a feminine love of superfluous ornament. The Teutonic fondness for colour ran riot in everything, and purples, reds, and yellows were closely intermingled. The exquisite neatness of the place was its redeeming feature.

Apparently, there were two other rooms on the same floor—a combined kitchen and dining-room was just back of the parlour, and a smaller room opened off of it. Lynn was meditating upon Herr Kaufmann’s household arrangements, when a wonderful object upon the table in the corner attracted his attention, and he went over to examine it.

Obviously, it had once been a section of clay drainage pipe, but in its sublimated estate it was far removed from common uses. It had been smeared with putty, and, while plastic, ornamented with hinges, nails, keys, clock wheels, curtain rings, and various other things not usually associated with drainage pipes. When dry, it had been given further distinction by two or three coats of gold paint.

A wire hair-pin, placed conspicuously near the top of it, was rendered so ridiculous by the gilding that Lynn laughed aloud. Then, influenced by the sound of the scrubbing-brush close at hand, he endeavoured to cover it with a cough. He was too late, however, for, almost immediately, his hostess appeared in the doorway.

“Mine crazy jug,” she said, with gratified pride beaming from every feature.

“I was just looking at it,” responded Lynn. “It is marvellous. Did you make it yourself?”

“Yes, I make him mineself,” she said, and then retreated, blushing with innocent pleasure.

Not knowing what else to do, he went back to his chair and sat down again, carefully avoiding the purple tidy embroidered with pink roses. Outside, the street was deserted. He wondered what type of a man it was who could live in the same house with a “crazy jug” and play as Herr Kaufmann played, only last night. Then he reflected that the room had been dark, and smiled at his foolish fancy.

A square piano took up one whole side of the room, and there were two violins upon it. Unthinkingly, Lynn investigated. The first one was a good instrument of modern make, and the other—he caught his breath as he took it out of its case. The thin, fine shell was the beautiful body of a Cremona, enshrining a Cremona’s still more beautiful soul.

He touched it reverently, though his hands trembled and his face was aglow. He snapped a string with his finger and the violin answered with a deep, resonant tone, but before the sound had died away, there was an exclamation of horror in his ears and a firm grip upon his arm.

“Mine brudder’s Cremona!” cried the woman, her eyes flashing lightnings of anger. “You will at once put him down!”

“I beg a thousand pardons! I did not realise—I did not mean—I did not understand——” He went on with confused explanations and apologies which availed him nothing. He stood before her, convicted and shamed, as one who had profaned the household god.

Wiping her hands upon her apron, she went to her work-box, took out her knitting, and sat down between Lynn and the piano. The chair was hard and uncompromising, with an upright back, but she disdained even that support and sat proudly erect.

There was no sound save the click of the needles, and she kept her eyes fixed upon her work. After an awkward silence, Lynn made one or two tentative efforts toward conversation, but each opening proved fruitless, and at length he seriously meditated flight.

The approach to the door was covered, but there were plenty of windows, and it would be an easy drop to the ground. He smiled as he saw himself, mentally, achieving escape in this manner and running all the way home.

“I wonder,” he mused, “where in the dickens ‘mine brudder’ is!”

The face of the woman before him was still flushed and the movement of the needles betrayed her excitement. He noted that she wore no wedding ring and surmised that she was a little older than his mother. Her features were hard, and her thin, straight hair was brushed tightly back and fastened in a little knot at the back of her head. It was not unlike a door knob, and he began to wonder what would happen if he should turn it.

His irrepressible spirits bubbled over and he coughed violently into his handkerchief, feeling himself closely scrutinised meanwhile. The situation was relieved by the sound of footsteps and the vigorous slam of the lower door.

Still keeping the piano, with its precious burden, within range of her vision, Fräulein Kaufmann moved toward the door. “Franz! Franz!” she called. “Come here!”

“One minute!” The voice was deep and musical and had a certain lyric quality. When he came up, there was a conversation in indignant German which was brief but sufficient.

“I can see,” said Lynn to himself, “that I am not to study with Herr Kaufmann.”

Just then he came in, gave Lynn a quick, suspicious glance, took up the Cremona, and strode out. He was gone so long that Lynn decided to retreat in good order. He picked up his hat and was half way out of his chair when he heard footsteps and waited.

“Now,” said the Master, “you would like to speak with me?”

He was of medium height, had keen, dark eyes, bushy brows, ruddy cheeks, and a mass of grey hair which he occasionally shook back like a mane. He had the typical hands of the violinist.

“Yes,” answered Lynn, “I want to study with you.”

“Study what?” Herr Kaufmann’s tone was somewhat brusque. “Manners?”

“The violin,” explained Irving, flushing.

“So? You make violins?”

“No—I want to play.”

“Oh,” said the other, looking at him sharply, “it is to play! Well, I can teach you nothing.”

He rose, as though to intimate that the interview was at an end, but Lynn was not so easily turned aside. “Herr Kaufmann,” he began, “I have come hundreds of miles to study with you. We have broken up our home and have come to live in East Lancaster for that one purpose.”

“I am flattered,” observed the Master, dryly. “May I ask how you have heard of me so far away as many hundred miles?”

“Why, everybody knows of you! When I was a little child, I can remember my mother telling me that some day I should study with the great Herr Kaufmann. It is the dream of her life and of mine.”

“A bad dream,” remarked the violinist, succinctly. “May I ask your mother’s name?”

“Mrs. Irving—Margaret Irving.”

“Margaret,” repeated the old man in a different tone. “Margaret.”

There was a long silence, then the boy began once more. “You’ll take me, won’t you?”

For an instant the Master seemed on the point of yielding, unconditionally, then he came to himself with a start. “One moment,” he said, clearing his throat. “Why did you lift up mine Cremona?”

The piercing eyes were upon him and Lynn’s colour mounted to his temples, but he met the gaze honestly. “I scarcely know why,” he answered. “I was here alone, I had been waiting a long time, and it has always been natural for me to look at violins. I think we all do things for which we can give no reason. I certainly had no intention of harming it, nor of offending anybody. I am very sorry.”

“Well,” sighed the Master, “I should not have left it out. Strangers seldom come here, but I, too, was to blame. Fredrika takes it to herself; she thinks that she should have left her scrubbing and sat with you, but of that I am not so sure. It is mine Cremona,” he went on, bitterly, “nobody touches it but mineself.”

His distress was very real, and, for the first time, Irving felt a throb of sympathy. However unreasonable it might be, however weak and childish, he saw that he had unwittingly touched a tender place. All the love of the hale old heart was centred upon the violin, wooden, inanimate—but no. Nothing can be inanimate, which is sweetheart and child in one.

“Herr Kaufmann,” said Lynn, “believe me, if any act of mine could wipe away my touch, I should do it here and now. As it is, I can only ask your pardon.”

“We will no longer speak of it,” returned the Master, with quiet dignity. “We will attempt to forget.”

He went to the window and stood with his back to Irving for a long time. “What could I have done?” thought Lynn. “I only picked it up and laid it down again—I surely did not harm it.”

He was too young to see that it was the significance, rather than the touch; that the old man felt as a lover might who saw his beloved in the arms of another. The bloom was gone from the fruit, the fragrance from the rose. For twenty-five years and more, the Cremona had been sacredly kept.

The Master’s thoughts had leaped that quarter-century at a single bound. Again he stood in the woods beyond East Lancaster, while the sky was dark with threatening clouds and the dead leaves scurried in fright before the north wind. Beside him stood a girl of twenty, her face white and her sweet mouth quivering.

“You must take it,” she was saying. “It is mine to do with as I please, and no one will ever know. If anyone asks, I can fix it someway. It is part of myself that I give you, so that in all the years, you will not forget me. When you touch it, it will be as though you took my hand in yours. When it sings to you, it will be my voice saying: ‘I love you!’ And in it you will find all the sweetness of this one short year. All the pain will be blotted out and only the joy will be left—the joy that we can never know!”

Her voice broke in a sob, then the picture faded in a mist of blinding tears. Dull thunders boomed afar, and he felt her lips crushed for an instant against his own. When clear sight came back, the storm was raging, and he was alone.

Irving waited impatiently, for he was restless and longed to get away, but he dared not speak. At last the old man turned away from the window, his face haggard and grey.

“You will take me?” asked Lynn, with a note of pleading in his question.

“Yes,” sighed the Master, “I take you. Tuesdays and Fridays at ten. Bring your violin and what music you have. We will see what you have done and what you can do. Good-bye.”

He did not seem to see Lynn’s offered hand, and the boy went out, sorely troubled by something which seemed just outside his comprehension. He walked for an hour in the woods before going home, and in answer to questions merely said that he had been obliged to wait for some time, but that everything was satisfactorily arranged.

“Isn’t he an old dear?” asked Iris.

“I don’t know,” answered Lynn. “Is he?”

III

The Gift of Peace

The mistress of the mansion was giving her orders for the day. From the farthest nooks and corners of the attic, where fragrant herbs swayed back and forth in ghostly fashion, to the tiled kitchen, where burnished copper saucepans literally shone, Miss Field kept in daily touch with her housekeeping.

The old Colonial house was her pride and her delight. It was by far the oldest in that part of the country, and held an exalted position among its neighbours on that account, though the owner, not having spent her entire life in East Lancaster, was considered somewhat “new.” To be truly aristocratic, at least three generations of one’s forbears must have lived in the same dwelling.

In the hall hung the old family portraits. Gentlemen and gentlewomen, long since gathered to their fathers, had looked down from their gilded frames upon many a strange scene. Baby footsteps had faltered on the stairs, and wide childish eyes had looked up in awe to this stately company. Older children had wondered at the patches and the powdered hair, the velvet knickerbockers and ruffled sleeves. Awkward schoolboys had boasted to their mates that the jewelled sword, which hung at the side of a young officer in the uniform of the Colonies, had been presented by General Washington himself, in recognition of conspicuous bravery upon the field. Lovers had led their sweethearts along the hall at twilight, to whisper that their portraits, too, should some day hang there, side by side. Soldiers of Fortune who had found their leader fickle had taken fresh courage from the set lips of the gallant gentlemen in the great hall. Women whose hearts were breaking had looked up to the painted and powdered dames along the winding stairway, and learned, through some subtle freemasonry of sex, that only the lowborn cry out when hurt. Faint, wailing voices of new-born babes had reached the listening ears of the portraits by night and by day. Coffin after coffin had gone out of the wide door, flower-hidden, and step after step had died away forever, leaving only an echo behind. And yet the men and women of the line of Field looked out from their gilded frames, high-spirited, courageous, and serene, with here and there the hint of a smile.

Far up the stairs and beyond the turn hung the last portrait: Aunt Peace, in the bloom of her mature beauty, painted soon after she had taken possession of the house. The dark hair was parted over the low brow and puffed slightly over the tiny ears. The flowered gown was cut modestly away at the throat, showing a shoulder line that had been famous in three counties when she was the belle of the countryside. For the rest, she was much the same. Let the artist make the brown hair snowy white, change the girlish bloom to the tint of a faded pink rose, draw around the eyes and the mouth a few tiny time-tracks, which, after all, were but the footprints of smiles, sadden the trustful eyes a bit, and cover the frivolous gown with black brocade,—then the mistress of the mansion, who moved so gaily through the house, would inevitably startle you as you came upon her at the turn of the stairs, having believed, all the time, that she was somewhere else.

At the moment, she was in the garden, with Mrs. Irving and “the children,” as she called Iris and Lynn. “Now, my talented nephew-once-removed,” she was saying, in her high, sweet voice, “will you kindly take the spade and dig until you can dig no more? I am well aware that it is like hitching Pegasus to the plough, but I have grown tired of waiting for my intermittent gardener, and there is a new theory to the effect that all service is beautiful.”

“So it is,” laughed Lynn, turning the earth awkwardly. “I know what you’re thinking of, mother, but it isn’t going to hurt my hands.”

“You shall have a flower-bed for your reward,” Aunt Peace went on. “I will take the front yard myself, and the beds here shall be equally divided among you three. You may plant in them what you please and each shall attend to his own.”

“I speak for vegetables,” said Lynn.

“How characteristic,” murmured Iris, with a sidelong glance at him which sent the blood to his face. “What shall you plant, Mrs. Irving?”

“Roses, heartsease, and verbenas,” she replied, “and as many other things as I can get in without crowding. I may change my mind about the others, but I shall have those three. What are you going to have?”

“Violets and mignonette, nothing more. I love the sweet, modest ones the best.”

“Cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, melons, peas, asparagus,” put in Lynn, “and what else?”

“Nothing else, my son,” answered Margaret, “unless you rent a vacant acre or two. The seeds are small, but the plants have been known to spread.”

“I’ll have one plant of each kind, then, for I must assuredly have variety. It’s said to be ‘the spice of life’ and that’s what we’re all looking for. Besides, judging from the various scornful remarks which have been thought, if not actually made, the rest of you don’t care for vegetables. Anyhow, you sha’n’t have any—except Aunt Peace.”

“Over here now, please, Lynn,” said Miss Field. “When you get that done, I’ll tell you what to do next. Come, Margaret, it’s a little chilly here, and I don’t want you to take cold.”

For a few moments there was quiet in the garden. A flock of pigeons hovered about Iris, taking grain from her outstretched hand, and cooing soft murmurs of content. The white dove was perched upon her shoulder, not at all disturbed by her various excursions to the source of supply. Lynn worked steadily, seemingly unconscious of the girl’s scrutiny.

Finally, she spoke. “I don’t want any of your old vegetables,” she said.

“How fortunate!”

“You may not have any at all—I don’t believe the seeds will come up.”

“Perhaps not—it’s quite in the nature of things.”

The pouter pigeon, brave in his iridescent waistcoat, perched upon her other shoulder, and Lynn straightened himself to look at her. From the first evening she had puzzled him.

Her face was nearly always pale, but to-day she had a pretty colour in her cheeks and her deep, violet eyes were aglow with innocent mischief. There was a dewy sweetness about her red lips, and Lynn noted that the sheen on the pigeon’s breast was like the gleam from her blue-black hair, where the sun shone upon it. She had a great mass of it, which she wore coiled on top of her small, well-shaped head. It was perfectly smooth, its riotous waves kept well in check, except at the blue-veined temples, where little ringlets clustered, unrebuked.

“You should be practising,” said Iris, irrelevantly.

“So should you.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not going to play with you any more.”

“Why, Iris?”

“Oh,” she returned, with a little shrug of her shoulders, which frightened away both pigeons, “you didn’t like the way I played your last accompaniment, and so I’ve stopped for good.”

Lynn thought it only a repetition of what she had said when he criticised her, and passed it over in silence.

“I’ve already done an hour,” he said, “and I’ll have time for another before lunch. I can get in the other two before dark, and then I’m going for a walk. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”

“You haven’t asked me properly,” she objected.

Irving bowed and, in set, gallant phrases, asked Miss Temple for “the pleasure of her company.”

“I’m sorry,” she answered, “but I’m obliged to refuse. I’m going to make some little cakes for tea—the kind you like.”

“Bother the cakes!”

“Then,” laughed Iris, “if you want me as much as that, I’ll go. It’s my Christian duty.”

From the very beginning, Aunt Peace had taught Iris the principles of dainty housewifery. Cleanliness came first—an exquisite cleanliness which was not merely a lack of dust and dirt, but a positive quality. When the old lady’s keen eyes, reinforced by her strongest glasses, were unable to discern so much as a finger mark upon anything, Iris knew that it was clean, and not before.

At first, the little untrained child had bitterly rebelled, but Miss Field’s patience was without limit and at last Iris attained the required degree of proficiency. She had done her sampler, like the Colonial maids before her, made her white, sweet loaves, her fragrant brown ones, put up her countless pots of clear, rich preserves, made amber and crimson jellies, huge jars of spiced fruits, and brewed ten different kinds of home-made wine. Then, and not till then, Iris got the womanly idea which was beneath it all. Perception came slowly, but at length she found herself in a beautiful comradeship with Aunt Peace. For sheer love of the daintiness of it, Iris beat the yolks of eggs in a white bowl and the whites in a blue one. She took pleasure out of various fine textures and feathery masses, sang as she shaped small pats of unsalted butter, tying them up in clover blossoms, and laughed at the little packets of seeds Dame Nature sends with her parcels.

“See,” said Iris, one morning, as she cut a juicy muskmelon and took out the seeds, “this means that if you like it well enough to work and wait, you can have lots, lots more.”

Miss Field smiled, and a soft pink colour came into her fine, high-bred face. For one, at least, she had opened the way to the Fortunate Isles, where one’s daily work is one’s daily happiness, and nothing is so poor as to be without its own appealing beauty.

As time went on, Iris found deep and satisfying pleasure in the countless little things that were done each day. She piled the clean linen in orderly rows upon the shelves, delighting in the unnameable freshness made by wind and sun; sniffed appreciatively at the cedar chest which stood in a recess of the upper hall, and climbed many a chair to fasten bunches of fragrant herbs, gathered with her own hands, to the rafters in the attic.

She washed the fine old china, rubbed the mahogany till she could see her face in it, and kept the silver shining. “A gentlewoman,” Aunt Peace had said, “will always be independent of her servants, and there are certain things no gentlewoman will trust her servants to do.”

Upon this foundation, Aunt Peace had reared the beautiful superstructure of her life. Her hands were capable and strong, yet soft and white. As we learn to love the things we take care of, so every household possession became dear to her, and repaid her for her labours an hundred-fold.

To be sure of doing the very best for her adopted daughter, Miss Field had, for many years, kept house without a servant. Now, at seventy-five, she had grudgingly admitted one maid into her sanctum, but some of the work still fell to Iris, and no one ever doubted for an instant that the head of the household vigilantly guarded her own rights.

For a long time Iris had known how useless it was—that there had never been a moment when the old lady could not have had a retinue of servants at her command, but had it been useless after all? Remembering the child she had been, Iris could not but see the immeasurable advance the woman had made.

“Someday, my child,” Aunt Peace had said, “when your adopted mother is laid away with her ancestors in the churchyard, you will bless me for what I have done. You will see that wherever you happen to be, in whatever station of life God may be pleased to place you after I am gone, you have one thing which cannot be taken away from you—the power to make for yourself a home. You will be sure of your comfort independently, and you will never be at the mercy of the ignorant and the untrained. In more than one sense,” went on Miss Field, smiling, “you will have the gift of Peace.”

In the house, in her favourite chair by the fire, the old lady was saying much the same thing to Margaret Irving. It was apropos of a book written by a member of the shrieking sisterhood, which had sorely stirred East Lancaster, set as it was in quiet ways that were centuries old.

“I have no patience with such foolishness,” Aunt Peace observed. “Since Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, women have been home-makers and men have been home-builders. All the work in the world is directly and immediately undertaken for the maintenance and betterment of the home. A woman who has no love for it is unsexed. God probably knew how He wanted it—at least we may be pardoned for supposing that He did. It is absolutely—but I would better stop, my dear. I fear I shall soon be saying something unladylike.”

Margaret laughed—a low, musical laugh with a girlish note in it. For a long time she had not been so happy as she was to-day.

“To quote a famous historian,” she replied, “a book like that ‘carries within itself the germs of its decay.’ You need have no fear, Aunt Peace; the home will stand. This single house, this beautiful old home of yours, has lasted two centuries, hasn’t it, just as it is?”

“Yes,” sighed the other, after a pause, “they built well in those days.”

The charm of the room was upon them both. Through the open door they could see the long line of portraits in the hall, and the house seemed peopled with friendly ghosts, whose memories and loves still lived. Because she had recently come from a city apartment, Margaret looked down the spacious vista, ending at a long mirror, with an ever-increasing sense of delight.

“My dear,” said Miss Field, “I have always felt that this house should have come to you.”

“I have never felt so,” answered Margaret. “I have never for a moment begrudged it to you. You know my father died suddenly, and his will, made long before I was born, had not been changed. So what was more natural than for my mother to have the house during her lifetime, with the provision that it should revert to his favourite sister afterward, if she still lived?”

“I have cheated you by living, Margaret, and your mother was cut off in her prime. She was a hard woman.”

“Yes,” sighed Margaret, “she was. But I think she meant to be kind.”

“I knew her very little; in fact, the only chance that I ever had to get acquainted with her was when I came here for a short visit just after you were married. The house had been closed for a long time. She took you away with her, and when she came back she was alone. Then she wrote to me, asking me to share her loneliness for a time, and I consented.”

The way was open for confidences, but Margaret made none, and Aunt Peace respected her for it.

“We never knew each other very well, did we?” asked the old lady, in a tone that indicated no need of an answer. “I remember that when I was here I yearned over you just as I did over Iris several years later. I wanted to give to you out of my abundance; to make you happy and comfortable.”

“Dear Aunt Peace,” said Margaret, softly, “you are doing it now, when perhaps I need it even more than I did then. All your life you have been making people happy and comfortable.”

“I hope so—it is what I have tried to do. By the way, when I am through with it, this house goes to you, then to Lynn and his children after him.”

“Thank you.” For an instant Margaret’s pulses throbbed with the joy of possession, then the blood retreated from her heart in shame.

“I have made ample provision for Iris,” Miss Field went on. “She is my own dear daughter, but she is not of our line.”

At this moment, Iris came around the house, laughing and screaming, with Lynn in full pursuit. Mrs. Irving went to the window and came back with an amused light in her eyes.

“What is the matter?” asked Aunt Peace.

“Lynn is chasing her. He had something in his fingers that looked like an angle-worm.”

“No doubt. Iris is afraid of worms.”

“I’ll go out and speak to him.”

“No—let them fight it out. We are never young but once, and Youth asks no greater privilege than to fight its own battles. It is mistaken kindness to shield—it weakens one in the years to come.”

“Youth,” repeated Margaret. “The most beautiful gift of the gods, which we never appreciate until it is gone forever.”

“I have kept mine,” said Aunt Peace. “I have deliberately forgotten all the unpleasant things and remembered the others. When a little pleasure has flashed for a moment against the dark, I have made that jewel mine. I have hundreds of them, from the time my baby fingers clasped my first rose, to the night you and Lynn came to bring more sunshine into my old life. I call it my Necklace of Perfect Joy. When the world goes wrong, I have only to close my eyes and remember all the links in my chain, set with gems, some large and some small, but all beautiful with the beauty which never fades. It is all I can take with me when I go. My material possessions must stay behind, but my Necklace of Perfect Joy will bring me happiness to the end, when I put it on, to be nevermore unclasped.”

“Aunt Peace,” asked Margaret, after an understanding silence, “why did you never marry?”

Miss Field leaned forward and methodically stirred the fire. “I may be wrong,” she said, “but I have always felt that it was indelicate to allow one’s self to care for a gentleman.”

IV

Social Position

On Wednesday, the dullest person might have felt that there was something in the air. The old house, already exquisitely clean, received further polishing without protest. Savoury odours came from the kitchen, and Iris rubbed the tall silver candlesticks until they shone like new.

“What is it?” asked Lynn. “Are we going to have a party and am I invited?”

“It is Wednesday,” explained Iris.

“Well, what of it?”

“Doctor Brinkerhoff comes to see Aunt Peace every Wednesday evening.”

“Who is Doctor Brinkerhoff?”

“The family physician of East Lancaster.”

“He wasn’t here last Wednesday.”

“That was because you and your mother had just come. Aunt Peace sent him a note, saying that her attention was for the moment occupied by other guests from out of town. It was the first Wednesday evening he has missed for more than ten years.”

“Oh,” said Lynn. “Are they going to be married?”

“Aunt Peace wouldn’t marry anybody. She receives Doctor Brinkerhoff because she is sorry for him.

“He has no social position,” Iris continued, feeling the unspoken question. “He is not of our class and he used to live in West Lancaster, but Aunt Peace says that any gentleman who is received by a lady in her bedroom may also be received in her parlour. Another lady, who thinks as Aunt Peace does, entertains him on Saturday evenings.”

Iris sat there demurely, her rosy lips primly pursed, and vigorously rubbed the tall candlestick. Lynn fairly choked with laughter. “Oh,” he cried, “you funny little thing!”

“I am not a little thing and I am not funny. I consider you very impertinent.”

“What is ‘social position’?” asked Irving, instantly sobering. “How do we get it?”

“It is born with us,” answered Iris, dipping her flannel cloth in ammonia, “and we have to live up to it. If we have low tastes, we lose it, and it never comes back.”

“Wonder if I have it,” mused Lynn.

“Of course,” Iris assured him. “You are a grand-nephew of Aunt Peace, but not so nearly related as I, because I am her legal daughter. I was born of poor but honest parents,” she went on, having evidently absorbed the phrase from her school Reader, “so I was respectable, even at the beginning. When Aunt Peace took me, I got social position, and if I am always a lady, I will keep it. Otherwise not.”

The girl was very lovely as she leaned back in the quaint old chair to rest for a moment. She was still regarding the candlestick attentively and did not look at Lynn. “It is strange to me,” she said, “that coming from the city, as you do, you should not know about such things.” Here she sent him the quickest possible glance from a pair of inscrutable eyes, and he began to wonder if she were not merely amusing herself. He was tempted to kiss her, but wisely refrained.

“Iris,” called Aunt Peace, from the doorway, “will you wash the Royal Worcester plate? And Lynn, it is time you were practising.”

Lynn worked hard until the bell rang for luncheon. When he went down, he found the others already at the table. “We did not wait for you,” Aunt Peace explained, “because we were in a hurry. Immediately after luncheon, on Wednesdays, I take my nap. I sleep from two to three. Will you please see that the house is quiet?”

She spoke to Margaret, but she looked at Lynn. “Which means,” said he, “that those who are studying the violin will kindly not practise until after three o’clock, and that it would be considered a kindness if they would not walk much in the house, their feet being heavy.”

“Lynn,” said the old lady, irrelevantly, “you are extremely intelligent. I expect great things of you.”

That weekly hour of luxury was the only relaxation in Miss Field’s busy, happy life. Breakfast at seven and bed at ten—this was the ironclad rule of the house. Ever since she came to East Lancaster, Iris had kept solemn guard over the front door on Wednesdays, from two to three. Rash visitors never reached the bell, but were met, on the doorstep, by a little maid whose tiny finger rested upon her lip. “Hush,” she would say, “Aunt Peace is asleep!” Interruptions were infrequent, however, for East Lancaster knew Miss Field’s habits—and respected them.

“Good-bye, my dears,” she said, as she paused at the foot of the winding stairs, “I leave you for a far country, where, perhaps, I shall meet some of my old friends. I shall visit strange lands and have many new experiences, some of which will doubtless be impossible and grotesque. I shall be gone but one short hour, and when I return I shall have much to tell you.”

“She dreams,” explained Iris, in a low voice, as the mistress of the mansion smiled back at them over the railing, “and when she wakes she always tells me.”

Lynn went out for a long tramp, after vainly endeavouring to persuade his mother or Iris to accompany him. “I’m walked enough at night as it is,” said Mrs. Irving, and the girl excused herself on account of her household duties.

He clattered down the steps, banged the gate, and went whistling down the elm-bordered path. The mother listened, fondly, till the cheery notes died away in the distance. “Bless his heart,” she said to herself, “how fine and strong he is and how much I love him!”

The house seemed to wait while its guardian spirit slept. Left to herself, Margaret paced to and fro; down the long hall, then back, through the parlour and library, and so on, restlessly, until she reflected that she might possibly disturb Aunt Peace.

A love-lorn robin, in the overhanging boughs of the maple at the gate, was unsuccessfully courting a disdainful lady who sat on the topmost twig and paid no attention to him. From the distant orchard came the breath of apple blooms, and a single bluebird winged his solitary way across the fields, his colour gleaming brightly for an instant against the silvery clouds. Beautiful as it was, Margaret sighed, and her face lost its serenity.

A bit of verse sang itself through her memory again and again.

“Who wins his love shall lose her,
Who loses her shall gain,
For still the spirit wooes her,
A soul without a stain,
And memory still pursues her
With longings not in vain.

“In dreams she grows not older
The lands of Dream among;
Though all the world wax colder,
Though all the songs be sung,
In dreams doth he behold her—
Still fair and kind and young.”

“Dreams,” she murmured, “empty dreams, while your soul starves.”

Iris tiptoed in with her sewing and sat down. Margaret felt her presence in the room, but did not turn away from the window. Iris was one of those rare people with whom one could be silent and not feel that the proprieties had been injured.

Deep down in her heart, Margaret had stored away all the bitterness of her life—that single drop which is well enough when left by itself, because it is of a different specific gravity. When the cup is stirred, the lees taint the whole, and it takes time for the readjustment. Were it not for the merciful readjustment, this grey old world of ours would be too dark to live in.

At length she turned and looked at the little seamstress, who sat bolt upright, as she had been taught, in the carved mahogany chair. She noted the long lashes that swept the tinted cheek, the masses of blue-black hair over the low, white brow, the tender wistfulness in the lines of the mouth, the dimpled hands, and the rounded arm—so evidently made for all the sweet uses of love that Margaret’s heart contracted in sudden pain.

“Iris,” she said, in a tone that startled the girl, “when the right man comes, and you know absolutely in your own heart that he is the right man, go with him, whether he be prince or beggar. If unhappiness comes to you, take it bravely, as a gentlewoman should, but never, for your own sake, allow yourself to regret your faith in him. If you love him and he loves you, there are no barriers between you—they are nothing but cobwebs. Sweep them aside with a single stroke of magnificent daring, and go. Social position counts for nothing, other people’s opinions count for nothing; it is between your heart and his, and in that sanctuary no one else has a right to intrude. If he has only a crust to give you, share it with him, but do not let anyone persuade you into a lifetime of heart-hunger—it is too hard to bear!”

The girl’s deep eyes were fixed upon her, childish, appealing, and yet with evident understanding. Margaret’s face was full of tender pity—was this butterfly, too, destined to be broken on the wheel?

Iris felt the sudden passion of the other, saw traces of suffering in the dark eyes, the set lips, and even in the slender hands that hovered whitely over the black gown. “Thank you, Mrs. Irving,” she said, quietly, “I understand.”

The minutes ticked by, and no other word was spoken. At half-past three, precisely, Aunt Peace came back. She had on her best gown—a soft, heavy black silk, simply made. At the neck and wrists were bits of rare old lace, and her one jewel, an emerald of great beauty and value, gleamed at her throat. She wore no rings except the worn band of gold that had been her mother’s wedding ring.

“What did you dream?” asked Iris.

“Nothing, dearie,” she laughed. “I have never slept so soundly before. Our guests have put a charm upon the house.”

From the embroidered work-bag that dangled at her side, she took out the thread lace she was making, and began to count her stitches.

“I think I’ll get my sewing, too,” said Margaret. “I feel like a drone in this hive of industry.”

“One, two, three, chain,” said Aunt Peace. “Iris, do you think the cakes are as good as they were last time?”

“I think they’re even better.”

“Did you take out the oldest port?”

“Yes, the very oldest.”

“I trust he was not hurt,” Aunt Peace went on, “because last week I asked him not to come. The common people sometimes feel those things more keenly than aristocrats, who are accustomed to the disturbance of guests.”

“Of course, he would be disappointed,” said Iris, with a little smile, “but he would understand—I’m sure he would.”

When Margaret came back she had a white, fluffy garment over her arm. “Who would have thought,” she cried, gaily, “that I should ever have the time to make myself a petticoat by hand! The atmosphere of East Lancaster has wrought a wondrous change in me.”

“Iris,” said Miss Field, “let me see your stitches.”

The girl held up her petticoat—a dainty garment of finest cambric, lace-trimmed and exquisitely made, and the old lady examined it critically. “It is not what I could do at your age,” she continued, “but it will answer very well.”

Lynn came in noisily, remembering only at the threshold that one did not whistle in East Lancaster houses. “I had a fine tramp,” he said, “all over West Lancaster and through the woods on both sides of it. I had some flowers for all of you, but I laid them down on a stone and forgot to go back after them. Aunt Peace, you’re looking fine since you had your nap. Still working at that petticoat, mother?”

“We’re all making petticoats,” answered Margaret. “Even Aunt Peace is knitting lace for one and Iris has hers almost done.”

“Let me see it,” said Lynn. He reached over and took it out of the girl’s lap while she was threading her needle. Much to his surprise, it was immediately snatched away from him. Iris paused only long enough to administer a sounding box to the offender’s ear, then marched out of the room with her head high and her work under her arm.

“Well, of all things,” said Lynn, ruefully. “Why wouldn’t she let me look at her petticoat?”

“Because,” answered Aunt Peace, severely, “Iris has been brought up like a lady! Gentlemen did not expect to see ladies’ petticoats when I was young!”

“Oh,” said Lynn, “I see.” His mouth twitched and he glanced sideways at his mother. She was bending over her work, and her lips did not move, but he could see that her eyes smiled.

At exactly half-past seven, the expected guest was ushered into the parlour. “Good evening, Doctor,” said Miss Field, in her stately way; “I assure you this is quite a pleasure.” She presented him to Mrs. Irving and Lynn, and motioned him to an easy-chair.

He was tall, straight, and seventy; almost painfully neat, and evidently a gentleman of the old school.

“I trust you are well, madam?”

“I am always well,” returned Aunt Peace. “If all the other old ladies in East Lancaster were as well as I, you would soon be obliged to take down your sign and seek another location.”

The others took but small part in the conversation, which was never lively, and which, indeed, might have been stilted by the presence of strangers. It was the commonplace talk of little things, which distinguishes the country town, and it lasted for half an hour. As the clock chimed eight, Miss Field smiled at him significantly.

“Shall we play chess?” she asked.

“If the others will excuse us, I shall be charmed,” he responded.

Soon they were deep in their game. Margaret went after a book she had been reading, and the young people went to the library, where they could talk undisturbed.

They played three games. Miss Field won the first and third, her antagonist contenting himself with the second. It had always been so, and for ten years she had taken a childish delight in her skill. “My dear Doctor,” she often said, “it takes a woman of brains to play chess.”

“It does, indeed,” he invariably answered, with an air of gallantry. Once he had been indiscreet and had won all three games, but that was in the beginning and it had never happened since.

When the clock struck ten, he looked at his heavy, old-fashioned silver watch with apparent surprise. “I had no idea it was so late,” he said. “I must be going!”

“Pray wait a moment, Doctor. Let me offer you some refreshment before you begin that long walk. Iris?”

“Yes, Aunt Peace.” The girl knew very well what was expected of her, and dimples came and went around the corners of her mouth.

“Those little cakes that we had for tea—perhaps there may be one or two left, and is there not a little wine?”

“I’ll see.”

Smiling at the pretty comedy, she went out into the kitchen, where Doctor Brinkerhoff’s favourite cakes, freshly made, had been carefully put away. Only one of them had been touched, and that merely to make sure of the quality.

With the Royal Worcester plate, generously piled with cakes, a tray of glasses, and a decanter of Miss Field’s famous port, she went back into the parlour.

“This is very charming,” said the Doctor. He had made the same speech once a week for ten years. Aunt Peace filled the glasses, and when all had been served, she looked at him with a rare smile upon her beautiful old face.

Then the brim of his glass touched hers with the clear ring of crystal. “To your good health, madam!”

“And to your prosperity,” she returned. The old toast still served.

“And now, my dear Miss Iris,” he said, “may we not hope for a song?”

“Which one?”

“‘Annie Laurie,’ if you please.”

She sang the old ballad with a wealth of feeling in her deep voice, and even Lynn, who was listening critically, was forced to admit that she did it well.

At eleven, the guest went away, his hostess cordially inviting him to come again.

“What a charming man,” said Margaret.

“An old brick,” added Lynn, with more force than elegance.

“Yes,” replied Aunt Peace, concealing a yawn behind her fan, “it is a thousand pities that he has no social position.”

V

The Light of Dreams

“

How do you get on with the Master?” asked Iris.

“After a fashion,” answered Irving; “but I do not get on with Fräulein Fredrika at all. She despises me.”

“She does not like many people.”

“So it would seem. I have been unfortunate from the first, though I was careful to admire ‘mine crazy jug.’”

“It is the apple of her eye,” laughed Iris, “it means to her just what his Cremona means to him.”

“It is a wonderful creation, and I told her so, but where in the dickens did she get the idea?”

“Don’t ask me. Did you happen to notice anything else?”

“No—only the violin. Sometimes I take my lesson in the parlour, sometimes in the shop downstairs, or even in Herr Kaufmann’s bedroom, which opens off of it. When I come, he stops whatever he happens to be doing, sits down, and proceeds with my education.”

“On the floor,” said Iris reminiscently, “she has a gold jar which contains cat tails and grasses. It is Herr Kaufmann’s silk hat, which he used to have when he played in the famous orchestra, with the brim cut off and plenty of gold paint put on. The gilded potato-masher, with blue roses on it, which swings from the hanging lamp, was done by your humble servant. She has loved me ever since.”

“Iris!” exclaimed Lynn, reproachfully. “How could you!”

“How could I what?”

“Paint anything so outrageous as that?”

“My dear boy,” said Miss Temple, patronisingly, with her pretty head a little to one side, “you are young in the ways of the world. I was not achieving a work of art; I was merely giving pleasure to the Fräulein. Much trouble would be saved if people who undertake to give pleasure would consult the wishes of the recipient in preference to their own. Tastes differ, as even you may have observed. Personally, I have no use for a gilded potato-masher—I couldn’t even live in the same house with one,—but I was pleasing her, not myself.”

“I wonder what I could do that would please her,” said Lynn, half to himself.

“Make her something out of nothing,” suggested Iris. “She would like that better than anything else. She has a wall basket made of a fish broiler, a chair that was once a barrel, a dresser which has been evolved from a packing box, a sofa that was primarily a cot, and a match box made from a tin cup covered with silk and gilded on the inside, not to mention heaps of other things.”

“Then what is left for me? The desirable things seem to have been used up.”

“Wait,” said Iris, “and I’ll show you.” She ran off gaily, humming a little song under her breath, and came back presently with a clothes-pin, a sheet of orange-coloured tissue paper, an old black ostrich feather, and her paints.

“What in the world—” began Lynn.

“Don’t be impatient, please. Make the clothes-pin gold, with a black head, and then I’ll show you what to do next.”

“Aren’t you going to help me?”

“Only with my valuable advice—it is your gift, you know.”

Awkwardly, Lynn gilded the clothes-pin and suspended it from the back of a chair to dry. “I hope she’ll like it,” he said. “She pointed to me once and said something in German to her brother. I didn’t understand, but I remembered the words, and when I got home I looked them up in my dictionary. As nearly as I could get it, she had characterised me as ‘a big, lumbering calf.’”

“Discerning woman,” commented Iris. “Now, take this sheet of tissue paper and squeeze it up into a little ball, then straighten it out and do it again. When it’s all soft and crinkly, I’ll tell you what to do next.”

“There,” exclaimed Lynn, finally, “if it’s squeezed up any more it will break.”

“Now paint the head of the clothes-pin and make some straight black lines on the middle of it, cross ways.”

“Will you please tell me what I’m making?”

“Wait and see!”

Obeying instructions, he fastened the paper tightly in the fork of the clothes-pin, and spread it out on either side. The corners were cut and pulled into the semblance of wings, and black circles were painted here and there. Iris herself added the finishing touch—two bits of the ostrich feather glued to the top of the head for antennæ.

“Oh,” cried Lynn, in pleased surprise, “a butterfly!”

“How hideous!” said Margaret, pausing in the doorway. “I trust it’s not meant for me.”

“It’s for the Fräulein,” answered Iris, gathering up her paints and sweeping aside the litter. “Lynn has made it all by himself.”

“I wonder how he stands it,” mused Irving, critically inspecting the butterfly.

“I asked him once,” said Iris, “if he liked all the queer things in his house, and he shrugged his shoulders. ‘What good is mine art to me,’ he asked, ‘if it makes me so I cannot live with mine sister? Fredrika likes the gay colours, such as one sees in the fields, but they hurt mine eyes. Still because the tidies and the crazy jug swear to me, it is no reason for me to hurt mine sister’s feelings. We have a large house. Fredrika has the upstairs and I have the downstairs. When I can no longer stand the bright lights, I can turn mine back and look out of the window, or I can go down in the shop with mine violins. Down there I see no colours and I can put mine feet on all chairs.’”

Lynn laughed, but Margaret, who was listening intently, only smiled sadly.

That afternoon, when the boy went up the hill, with the butterfly dangling from his hand by a string, he was greeted with childish cries of delight on either side. Hoping for equal success at the Master’s, he rang the bell, and the Fräulein came to the door. When she saw who it was, her face instantly became hard and forbidding.

“Mine brudder is not home,” she said, frostily.

“I know,” answered Lynn, with a winning smile, “but I came to see you. See, I made this for you.”

Wonder and delight were in her eyes as she took it from his outstretched hand. “For me?”

“Yes, all for you. I made it.”

“You make this for me by yourself alone?”

“No, Miss Temple helped me.”

“Miss Temple,” repeated the Fräulein, “she is most kind. And you likewise,” she hastened to add. “It will be of a niceness if Miss Temple and you shall come to mine house to tea to-morrow evening.”

“I’ll ask her,” he returned, “and thank you very much.” Thus Lynn made his peace with Fräulein Fredrika.

Laughing like two irresponsible children, they went up the hill together at the appointed time. Lynn’s arms were full of wild crab-apple blooms, which he had taken a long walk to find, and Iris had two little pots of preserves as her contribution to the feast.

Their host and hostess were waiting for them at the door. Fräulein Fredrika was very elegant in her best gown, and her sharp eyes were kind. The Master was clad in rusty black, which bore marks of frequent sponging and occasional pressing. “It is most kind,” he said, bowing gallantly to Iris; “and you, young man, I am glad to see you, as always.”

Iris found a stone jar for the apple blossoms and brought them in. The Master’s fine old face beamed as he drew a long breath of pink and white sweetness. “It is like magic,” he said. “I think inside of every tree there must be some beautiful young lady, such as we read about in the old books—a young lady something like Miss Iris. All Winter, when it is cold, she sleeps in her soft bed, made from the silk lining of the bark. Then one day the sun shines warm and the robin sings to her and wakes her. ‘What,’ says she, ‘is it so soon Spring? I must get to work right away at mine apple blossoms.’

“Then she stoops down for some sand and some dirt. In her hands she moulds it—so—reaching out for some rain to keep it together. Then she says one charm. With a forked stick she packs it into every little place inside that apple tree and sprinkles some more of it over the outside.

“‘Now,’ says she, ‘we must wait, for I have done mine work well. It is for the sun and the wind and the rain to finish.’ So the rain makes all very wet, and the wind blows and the sun shines, and presently the sand and dirt that she has put in is changed to sap that is so glad it runs like one squirrel all over the inside of the tree and tries to sing like one bird.

“‘So,’ says this young lady, ‘it is as I thought.’ Then she says one more charm, and when the sun comes up in the morning, it sees that the branches are all covered with buds and leaves. The young lady and the moon work one little while at it in the evening, and the next morning, there is—this!”

The Master buried his face in the fragrant blooms. “It is a most wonderful sweetness,” he went on. “It is wind and grass and sun, and the souls of all the apple blossoms that are dead.”

“Franz,” called Fräulein Fredrika, “you will bring them out to tea, yes?”

As the entertainment progressed, Lynn’s admiration of Iris increased. She seemed equally at home in Miss Field’s stately mansion and in the tiny bird-house on the brink of a precipice, where everything appeared to be made out of something else. She was in high spirits and kept them all laughing. Yet, in spite of her merry chatter, there was an undertone of tender wistfulness that set his heart to beating.

The Master, too, was at his best. Usually, he was reserved and quiet, but to-night the barriers were down. He told them stories of his student days in Germany, wonderful adventures by land and sea, and conjured up glimpses of the kings and queens of the Old World. “Life,” he sighed, “is very strange. One begins within an hour’s walk of the Imperial Palace, where sometimes one may see the Kaiser and the Kaiserin, and one ends—here!”

“Wherever one may be, that is the best place,” said the Fräulein. “The dear God knows. Yet sometimes I, too, must think of mine Germany and wish for it.”

“Fredrika!” cried the Master, “are you not happy here?”

“Indeed, yes, Franz, always.” Her harsh voice was softened and her piercing eyes were misty. One saw that, however carefully hidden, there was great love between these two.

Iris helped the Fräulein with the dishes, in spite of her protests. “One does not ask one’s guests to help with the work,” she said.

“But just suppose,” answered Iris, laughing, “that one’s guests have washed dishes hundreds of times at home!”

In the parlour, meanwhile, the Master talked to Lynn. He told him of great violinists he had heard and of famous old violins he had seen—but there was never a word about the Cremona.

“Mine friend, the Doctor,” said the Master, “do you perchance know him?”

“Yes,” answered Lynn, “I have that pleasure. He’s all right, isn’t he?”

“So he thinks,” returned the Master, missing the point of the phrase. “In an argument, one can never convince him. He thinks it is for me to go out on one grand tour and give many concerts and secure much fame, but why should I go, I ask him, when I am happy here? So many people know what should make one happy a thousand times better than the happy one knows. Life,” he said again, “is very strange.”

It was a long time before he spoke again. “I have had mine fame,” he said. “I have played to great houses both here and abroad, and women have thrown red roses at me and mine violin. There has been much in the papers, and I have had many large sums, which, of course, I have always given to the poor. One should use one’s art to do good with and not to become rich. I have mine house, mine clothes, all that is good for me to eat, mine sister and mine—” he hesitated for an instant, and Lynn knew he was thinking of the Cremona. “Mine violins,” he concluded, “mine little shop where I make them, and best of all, mine dreams.”

Iris came back and Fräulein Fredrika followed her. “If you will give me all the little shells,” she was saying, “I will stick them together with glue and make mineself one little house to sit on the parlour table. It will be most kind.” Her voice was caressing and her face fairly shone with joy.

“I will light the lamp,” she went on. “It is dark here now.” Suiting the action to the word, she pulled down the lamp that hung by heavy chains in the centre of the room, and the gilded potato-masher swung back and forth violently.

“No, no, Fredrika,” said the Master. “It is not a necessity to light the lamp.”

“Herr Irving,” she began, “would you not like the lamp to see by?”

“Not at all,” answered Lynn. “I like the twilight best.”

“Come, Fräulein,” said Iris, “sit over here by me. Did I tell you how you could make a little clothes-brush out of braided rope and a bit of blue ribbon?”

“No,” returned the Fräulein, excitedly, “you did not. It will be most kind if you will do it now.”

The women talked in low tones and the others were silent without listening. The street was in shadow, and here and there lanterns flashed in the dark. Down in the valley, velvety night was laid over the river and the willows that grew along its margin, but the last light lingered on the blue hills above, and a single star had set its exquisite lamp to gleaming against the afterglow.

The wings of darkness hovered over the little house, and yet no word was spoken. It was an intimate hush, such as sometimes falls between lovers, who have no need of speech. Lynn and Iris looked forward to the future, with the limitless hope of Youth, while the others brooded over a past which had brought each of them a generous measure of joy and pain.

The full moon came out from behind the clouds and flooded the valley with silver light. “Oh,” cried Iris, “how glorious it is!”

“Yes,” said the Master, “it is the light of dreams. All the ugliness is hidden, as in life, when one can dream. Only the beauty is left. Wait, I will play it to you.”

He went downstairs for his violin and Lynn moved closer to Iris. Fräulein Fredrika retreated into the shadow at the farthest corner of the room.

Presently the Master returned, snapping and tightening the strings. It was not the Cremona, but the other. He sat down by the window and the moonlight touched his face caressingly. He was grey with his fifty years and more, but as he sat there, his massive head thrown back and his hair silvered, he seemed very near to the Gates of Youth.

In a moment, he was lost to his surroundings. He tapped the bow on the sill, as an orchestra leader taps for attention, straightened himself, smiled, and began.

It was a rippling, laughing melody, played on muted strings, full of unexpected harmonies, and quaintly phrased. In a moment, they caught the witchery of it, and the meaning. It was Titania and her fairies, suddenly transported half-way around the world.

Mystery and magic were in the theme. Moonbeams shimmered through it, elves played here and there, and shining waters sang through Summer silences. All at once there was a pause, then, sonorous, deep, and splendid, came another harmony, which in impassioned beauty voiced the ministry of pain.

As before, Lynn saw chiefly the technique. Never for a moment did he forget the instrument. Iris was trembling, for she well knew those high and lonely places of the spirit, within the borders of Gethsemane.

The Master put down the violin and sighed. “Come,” faltered Iris, “it is late and we must go.”

He did not hear, and it was Fräulein Fredrika who went to the door with them. “Franz is thinking,” she whispered. “He is often like that. He will be most sorry when he learns that you have gone.”

“This way,” said Iris, when they reached the street. They went to the brow of the cliff and looked once more across the shadowed valley to the luminous ranges of the everlasting hills. She turned away at last, thrilled to the depths of her soul. “Come,” she whispered, “we must go back.”

They walked softly, as though they feared to disturb someone in the little house, but there was no sound from within nor any light save at the window, where the light of dreams streamed over the Master’s face and made it young.

VI

A Letter

Roses rioted through East Lancaster and made the gardens glorious with bloom. The year was at its bridal and every chalice was filled with fragrant incense. Bees, powdered with pollen, hummed slowly back and forth, and the soft whir of unnumbered gossamer wings came in drowsy melody from the distant clover fields.

“June,” sang Iris to herself, “June—Oh June, sweet June!”

She was getting ready for her daily trip to the post-office. Once in a great while there would be a letter there for Aunt Peace or Mrs. Irving. Lynn also had an intermittent correspondent or two, but the errand usually proved fruitless. Still, since Mrs. Irving’s letter had lain nearly two weeks in Miss Field’s box, uncalled for, it had been a point of honour with Iris to see that such a thing did not happen again.

Books and papers were supplied in abundance by the local circulating library, and the high bookcases at Miss Field’s were well filled with standard literature. Iris read everything she could lay her hands upon. Mere print exercised a certain fascination over her mind, and she had conscientiously finished every book that she had begun. Those early years, after all, are the most important. The old books are the best, and how few of us “have the time” to read them!

Ten years of browsing in a well equipped library will do much for anyone, and Iris had made the most of her opportunities. This girl of twenty, hemmed about by the narrow standards of East Lancaster, had a broad outlook upon life, a large view, that would have done credit to a woman of twice her age. From the beginning, the people of the books had been real to her, and she had filled the old house with the fairy figures of romance.

Of the things that make for happiness, the love of books comes first. No matter how the world may have used us, sure solace lies there. The weary, toilsome day drags to its disheartening close, and both love and friendship have proved powerless to appreciate or understand, but in the quiet corner consolation can always be found. A single shelf, perhaps, suffices for one’s few treasures, but who shall say it is not enough?

A book, unlike any other friend, will wait, not only upon the hour, but upon the mood. It asks nothing and gives much, when one comes in the right way. The volumes stand in serried ranks at attention, listening eagerly, one may fancy, for the command.

Is your world a small one, made unendurable by a thousand petty cares? Are the heart and soul of you cast down by bitter disappointment? Would you leave it all, if only for an hour, and come back with a new point of view? Then open the covers of a book.

With this gentle comrade, you may journey to the very end of the world and even to the beginning of civilisation. There is no land which you may not visit, from Arctic snows to the loftiest peaks of southern mountains. Gallant gentlemen will go with you and tell you how to appreciate what you see. Further still, there are excursions into the boundless regions of imagination, where the light of dreams has laid its surpassing beauty over all.

Would you wander in company with soldiers of Fortune, and share their wonderful adventures? Would you live in the time of the Crusades and undertake a pilgrimage in the name of the Cross? Would you smell the smoke of battle, hear the ring of steel, the rattle of musketry, and see the colours break into deathly beauty well in advance of the charge? Would you have for your friends a great company of noble men and women who have wrought and suffered and triumphed in the end? Would you find new courage, stronger faith, and serene hope? Then open the covers of a book, and presto—change!

“Iris,” called Aunt Peace, “you’re surely not going without your hat?”

“Of course not.” The colour that came and went in her damask cheeks was very like that in her pink dimity gown. She put on her white hat, the brim drooping beneath its burden of pink roses, and drew her gloves reluctantly over her dimpled hands.

“Iris, dear, your sunshade!”

“Yes, Aunt Peace.” She came back, a little unwillingly, but tan was a personal disgrace in East Lancaster.

Ready at last, she tripped down the path and closed the gate carefully. Mrs. Irving waved a friendly hand at her from the upper window. “Bring me a letter!” she called.

“I’ll try to,” answered Iris, “but I can’t promise.”

She lifted her gown a little, to keep it clear of burr and brier, and one saw the smooth, black silk stocking, chastely embroidered at the ankle, as one suspected, by the hand of the wearer, and the dainty, high-heeled shoes. The sunshade waved back and forth coquettishly. It seemed to be an airy ornament, rather than an article of utility.

Half-way down the street, she met Doctor Brinkerhoff. “Good morning, little lady,” he said, with a smile.

“Good morning, sir,” replied Iris, with a quaint courtesy. “I trust you are well?”

“My health is uniformly good,” he returned, primly. “You must remember that I have my own drugs and potions always at hand.” He made careful inquiries as to the physical and mental well-being of each member of the family, sent kindly salutations to all, made a low bow to Iris, and went on.

“A very pleasant gentleman,” she said to herself. “What a pity that he has no social position!”

She loitered at the bridge, hanging over the railing, and looked down into the sunny depths of the little stream. All through the sweet Summer, the brook sang cheerily, by night and by day. It began in a cool, crystal pool, far up among the hills, and wandered over mossy reaches and pebbly ways, singing meanwhile of all the fragrant woodland through which it came. Hidden springs in subterranean caverns, caught by the laughing melody, went out to meet it and then followed, as the children followed the Pied Piper of old. Great with its gathered waters, it still sang as it rippled onward to its destiny, dreaming, perchance, of the time when its liquid music, lost at last, should be merged into the vast symphony of the sea.

Lynn came down the hill, swinging his violin case, and Iris, a little consciously, went on to the post-office.

Standing on tiptoe, she peered into the letter box, and then her heart gave a little leap, for there were two, yes three letters there.

“Wait a moment,” called the grizzled veteran who served as postmaster. “I’ve finally got something fer ye! Here! Miss Peace Field, Mrs. Margaret Irving, and Miss Iris Temple.”

“Oh-h!” whispered Iris, in awe, “a letter for me?”

“’Tain’t fer nobody else, I reckon,” laughed the old man. “Anyhow, it’s got your name on it.”

She went out, half dazed. In all her life she had had but three letters; two from her mother, which she still kept, and one from Santa Claus. The good saint had left his communication in the little maid’s stocking one Christmas eve, and it was more than a year before Iris observed that Aunt Peace and Santa Claus wrote precisely the same hand.

“For me,” she said to herself, “all for me!”

It never entered her pretty head to open it. The handwriting was unfamiliar and the post-mark was blurred, but it seemed to have come from the next town. The whole thing was very disturbing, but Aunt Peace would know.

Then Iris stopped suddenly in the path. It might be wicked, but, after all, why should Aunt Peace know? Why not have just one little secret, all to herself? The daring of it almost took her breath away, but in that single, dramatic instant, she decided.

No one was in sight, and Iris, in the shadow of a maple, tucked the letter safely away in her stocking, fancying she heard it rustle as she walked.

In her brief experience of life there had seldom been so long a day. The hours stretched on interminably, and she was never alone. She did not forget the letter for a moment, and when she had once become accustomed to the wonder of it, she was conscious of a growing, very feminine curiosity.

A little after ten, when she had dutifully kissed Aunt Peace good night, she stood alone in her room with her heart wildly beating. The door was locked and there was not even the sound of a footstep. Surely, she might read it now!

By the flickering light of her candle, she cut it at the end with the scissors, drew out the letter, and unfolded it with trembling hands.

“Iris, Daughter of the Marshes,” it began, “how shall I tell you of your loveliness? You are straight and slender as the rushes, dainty as a moonbeam, and sweet as a rose of June. Your dimpled hands make me think of white flowers, and the flush on your cheeks is like that on the petals of the first anemone.

“Midnight itself sleeps in your hair, fragrant as the Summer dusk, and your laughing lips have the colour of a scarlet geranium, but your eyes, my dear one, how shall I write to you of your eyes? They have the beauty of calm, wide waters, when sunset has given them that wonderful blue; they are eyes a man might look into during his last hour in the world, and think his whole life well spent because of them.

“Do you think me bold—your unknown lover? I am bold because my heart makes me so, and because there is no other way. I dare not ask for an answer, nor tell you my name, but if you are displeased, I am sure I have a way of finding it out. Perhaps you wonder where I have seen you, so I will tell you this. I have seen you, more than once, going to the post-office in East Lancaster, and, no matter how, I have learned your name.

“Some day, perhaps, I shall see you face to face. Some day you may give me your gracious permission to tell you all that is in my heart. Until then, remember that I am your knight, that you are my lady, and that I love you, Iris, love you!”

Her eyes were as luminous as the stars that shone upon the breast of night. If the heavens had suddenly opened, she could not have been more surprised. Her first love letter! At a single bound she had gained her place beside those fair ladies of romance, who peopled her maiden dreams. From to-night, she stood apart; no longer a child, but a woman worshipped afar, by some gallant lover who feared to sign his name.

She put out the candle, for the moonlight filled the room, and pattered across the polished floor, in her bare feet, to her little white bed, the letter in her hand.

“Rose bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst.”

The hours went by and still Iris was awake, the mute paper crushed close against her breast. “I wonder,” she murmured, her crimson face hidden in the pillow, “I wonder who he can be!”

VII

Friends

The Doctor’s modest establishment consisted of two rooms over the post-office. Here his shingle swung idly in the Summer breeze or resisted the onslaughts of the Winter storms. The infrequent patient seldom met anyone else in the office, but in case there should be two at once, a dusty chair had been placed in the hall.

Both rooms were kept scrupulously clean by the wife of the postmaster, who lived on the same floor, but the bottles ranged in orderly rows upon the shelves were left severely alone, because the ministering influence lived in hourly dread of poison.

Here the family physician of East Lancaster lived out his monotonous existence. When he had first taken up his abode there, he had set up his household gods upon the hill, in company with his countrymen. He soon found, however, that his practice was confined to the hill, and that, for all he might know to the contrary, East Lancaster was unaware of his existence.

It was the postmaster who first set him right. “If you’re a-layin’ out to heal them as has the money to pay for it,” he had said, “you’ll have to move. This yere brook, what seems so innocent-like, is the chalk mark that partitions the sheep off from the goats. You’ll find it so in every place. Sometimes it’s water, sometimes it’s a car track, and sometimes a deepo, but it’s always there, though more ’n likely there ain’t no real line exceptin’ the one what’s drawn in folks’ fool heads. I reckon, bein’ as you’re a doctor, you’re familiar with that line down the middle of human’s brains. Well, this yere brook is practically the same thing, considerin’ East and West Lancaster for a minute as brains, the which is a high compliment to both.”

So, at the earliest possible moment, the Doctor had cast in his fortunes with the “quality.” East Lancaster affected refined astonishment at first, but when the resident physician, who had long enjoyed the deep respect of the community, had been gathered to his fathers, Doctor Brinkerhoff became the last resort. His skill was universally admitted, but no one went to his office, for fear of meeting undesirable strangers. It was thought to be in better taste to pay the double fee and have the Doctor call, even for such slight ailments as boils and cut fingers.

The man was mentally broad enough to be amused at the eccentricities of East Lancaster, though his keen old eyes did not fail to discern that he was merely tolerated where he had hoped to find friends. Within the narrow confines of his establishment, he cultivated a serene and comfortable philosophy. To suit himself to his environment when that environment was out of his power to change, to seek for the good in everything and resolutely refuse to be affected by the bad, to believe steadfastly in the law of Compensation—this was Doctor Brinkerhoff’s creed.

On Wednesday and Saturday evenings, he was received as an equal by two of the aristocratic families. On Sunday mornings, he never failed to attend church. Before the last notes of the bell died away, he was always in his place. After the service, he hurried away, making courtly acknowledgments on every side to the formal greetings.

Sunday afternoons, precisely at half-past four, he went up the hill to Herr Kaufmann’s and spent the evening. This weekly visit was the leaven of Fräulein Fredrika’s humdrum life. There was a sort of romance about it which glorified the commonplace and she looked forward to it with repressed excitement. Poor Fräulein Fredrika! Perhaps she, too, had her dreams.

In many respects the two men were kindred. Their conversations were frequently perfunctory, but lacked no whit of sustaining grace for that. Talk, after all, is pathetically cheap. Where one cannot understand without words, no amount of explanation will make things clear. Across impassable deeps, like lofty peaks of widely parted ranges, soul greets soul. Separated forever by the limitations of our clay, we live and die absolutely alone. Even Love, the magician, who for dazzling moments gives new sight and boundless revelation, cannot always work his charm. A third of our lives is spent in sleep, and who shall say what proportion of the rest is endured in planetary isolation?

June came through the open windows of the house upon the brink of the cliff and the Master dozed in his chair. The height was glaring, because there were no trees. The spirit of German progress had cut down every one of the lofty pines and maples, save at the edges of the settlement, where primeval woods, sloping down to the valley, still flourished.

Fräulein Fredrika sat with her face resolutely turned to the west. It was Sunday and almost half-past four, but she would not look for the expected guest. She preferred to concentrate her mind upon something else, and when the rusty bell-wire creaked, experience all the emotion of a delightful surprise.

At the appointed hour, he came, and the colour of dead rose petals bloomed on the Fräulein’s withered face. “Herr Doctor,” she said, “it is most kind. Mine brudder will be pleased.”

“Wake up!” cried the Doctor, with a hearty laugh, as he strode into the room. “You can’t sleep all the time!”

“So,” said the Master, with an understanding smile, as he straightened himself and rubbed his eyes, “it is you!”

Fräulein Fredrika sat in the corner and watched the two whom she loved best in all the world. No one was so wise as her Franz, unless it might be the Herr Doctor, to whom all the mysteries of life and death were as an open book.

“To me,” said the Doctor, once, “much has been given to see. My Father has graciously allowed me to help Him. I am first to welcome the soul that arrives from Him, and I am last to say farewell to those He takes back. What wonder if, now and then, I presume to send Him a message of my faith and my belief?”

The Master’s idea of satisfying companionship was not a flow of uninterrupted talk, marred by much levity. He merely asked that his friend should be near at hand, that he might communicate with him when he chose. When he had a thought which seemed worthy of dignified inspection, he would offer it, but not before.

On this particular afternoon, Lynn was exceedingly restless. Like many other men, to whom the thing is impossible, he vaguely feared feminisation. The variety of soft influences continually about him had a subtle, enervating effect.

Iris was reading, his mother was writing letters, and Aunt Peace was endeavouring to entertain him with reminiscences of her early youth. When life lies fair in the distance, with the rosy hues of anticipation transfiguring its rugged steeps and yawning chasms, we are young, though our years may number threescore and ten. On that first day when we look back, either happily or with remorse, to the stony ways over which we have travelled, losing concern for that part of the journey which is yet to come, we have grown old.

“That is very interesting,” said Lynn, when Aunt Peace had finished her description of the first school she attended. “I think I’ll go out for a walk now, if you don’t mind. Will you tell mother, please, when she comes down?”

He went off at a rapid pace and made a long, circling tour of East Lancaster, ending at the bridge, where he, too, leaned over and looked into the sunny depths of the stream. Doctor Brinkerhoff’s sign, waving in the wind, gave him an idea. Accidentally, he had hit upon his need; he hungered for the companionship of his kind.

But Doctor Brinkerhoff was not at home, and the deserted corridors echoed strangely beneath his tread. He walked the length of the long hall a few times, because there seemed nothing else to do, and the Doctor’s cat, locked in the office, mewed piteously.

“Poor pussy!” said Lynn, consolingly, “I wish I could let you out, but I can’t.”

Up the hill he went, his nameless irritation already sensibly decreased. After all, it was good to be alive—to breathe the free air, feel the warm sun upon his cheek and the springy turf beneath his feet.

“Someone is coming,” announced Fräulein Fredrika. “I think it will be the Herr Irving.”

“Herr Irving,” repeated the Master. “Mine pupil? It is not the day for his lesson.”

“Perhaps someone is ill,” suggested the Doctor.

But, as it happened, Lynn had no errand save that of pure friendliness. His buoyant spirits immediately gave a freshness to the time-worn themes of conversation, and they talked until sunset.

“It is good to have friends,” observed the Master. “In one’s wide acquaintance every person has his own place. You lose one friend, perhaps, and you think, ‘Well, I can get along without him,’ but it is not so. We have as many sides as we know people, and each acquaintance sees a different one, which is often only a reflection of himself.

“This afternoon, we have been speaking of Truth, and how it is that things entirely opposite each other can both be true. The Herr Doctor says it is because Truth has many sides, but I say no. Truth is one clear white light and we are sun-glasses with many corners. Prisms, I think you say. If the light strikes a sharp edge, it breaks into many colours. To one of us everything will be purple, to another red, and to yet one more it will be all blue. If we have many edges, we see many colours. It is only the person who is in tune, who lets the light pass with no interruption, who sees all things in one harmony, and Truth as it is.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “that is all very true. When we oppose our personal opinion to the thing as it is, and have our minds set upon what should be, according to our ideas, it makes an edge. I think it is the finest art of living to see things as they are and make the best of them. There is so little that we can change! If the colours break over us, it is the fault of our sharp edges and not of the light.”

“We are getting very serious,” observed Lynn. “For my part, I take each day just as it comes.”

“One day,” repeated the Master. “How many possible things there are in it! What was it the poet said of Herr Columbus? Yes, I have it now. ‘One day with life and hope and heart is time enough to find a world.’”

“That is the beauty of it,” put in the Doctor. “One day is surely enough. An old lady who had fallen and hurt herself badly said to me once: ‘Doctor, how long must I lie here?’ ‘Have patience, my dear madam,’ said I. ‘You have only one day at a time to live. Get all the content you can out of it, and let the rest wait, like a bud, till the sun of to-morrow shows you the rose.’”

“Did she get well?” asked Lynn.

“Of course—why not?”

“His sick ones always get well,” said Fräulein Fredrika, timidly. “Mine brudder’s friend possesses great skill.”

She was laying the table for the simple Sunday night tea, and Lynn said that he must go.

“No, no,” objected the Master, “you must stay.”

“It would be of a niceness,” the Fräulein assured him, very politely.

“We should enjoy it,” said the Doctor.

“You are all very kind,” returned Lynn, “but they will look for me at home, and I must not disappoint them.”

“Then,” continued the Doctor, “may I not hope that you will play for me before you go?”

“Certainly, if I have Herr Kaufmann’s permission, and if I may borrow one of his violins.”

“Of a surety.” The Master clattered down the uncarpeted stairs and returned with an instrument of his own make. Without accompaniment, Lynn played, and the Doctor nodded his enthusiastic approval. Herr Kaufmann looked out of the window and paid not the slightest attention to the performance.

“Very fine,” said the Doctor. “We have enjoyed it.”

“I am glad,” replied Lynn, modestly. Then, flushed with the praise, and his own pleasure in his achievement, he turned to the Master. “How am I getting on?” he asked, anxiously. “Don’t you think I am improving?”

“Yes,” returned the Master, dryly; “by next week you will be one Paganini.”

Stung by the sarcasm, Lynn went home, and after tea the group resolved itself into its original elements. Herr Kaufmann and the Doctor sat in their respective easy-chairs, conversing with each other by means of silences, with here and there a word of comment, and Fräulein Fredrika was in the corner, silent, too, and yet overcome with admiration.

“That boy,” said the Doctor, at length, “he has genius.”

The crescent moon gleamed faintly against the sunset, and a wayworn robin, with slow-beating wings, circled toward his nest in one of the maples on the other side of the valley. The fragrant dusk sheltered the little house, which all day had borne the heat of the sun.

“Possibly,” said the Master, “but no heart, no feeling. He is all technique.”

There was another long pause. “His mother,” observed the Doctor, “do you know her?”

“No. I meet no women but mine sister.”

“She is a lovely lady.”

“So?”

It was evident that the Master had no interest in Margaret Irving, but the Doctor still brooded upon the vision. She was different from anyone else in East Lancaster, and he admired her very much.

“That boy,” said the Doctor, again, “he has her eyes.”

“Whose?”

“His mother’s.”

“So?”

The interval lengthened into an hour, and presently the kitchen clock struck ten. “I shall go now,” remarked the Doctor, rising.

“Not yet,” said the Master. “Come!”

They went downstairs together, into the shop. It had happened before, though rarely, and the Doctor suspected that he was about to receive the greatest possible kindness from his friend’s hands. Herr Kaufmann disappeared into his bedroom and was gone a long time.

The room was dark, and the Doctor did not dare to move for fear of stepping upon some of the wood destined for violins. A cricket in the corner sang cheerily and ceased suddenly in the middle of a chirp when the Master came back with a lighted candle.

“One moment, Herr Doctor.”

He whisked off again and presently returned, holding under his arm something that was wrapped in many pieces of ragged silk. One by one these were removed, and at last the treasure was revealed.

He held it off at arm’s length, where the light might shine upon its beauty, and well out of reach of a random touch. The Doctor said the expected thing, but it fell upon deaf ears. The Master’s fine face was alight with more than earthly joy, and he stroked the brown breasts lovingly.

“Mine Cremona!” he breathed. “Mine—all mine!”

VIII

A Bit of Human Driftwood

“

Present company excepted,” remarked Lynn, “this village is full of fossils.”

“At what age does one get to be a ‘fossil,’” asked Aunt Peace, her eyes twinkling. “Seventy-five?”

“That isn’t fair,” Lynn answered, resentfully. “You’re younger than any of us, Aunt Peace,—you’re seventy-five years young.”

“So I am,” she responded, good humouredly. She was upon excellent terms with this tall, straight young fellow who had brought new life into her household. A March wind, suddenly sweeping through her rooms, would have had much the same effect.

“Am I a fossil?” asked Margaret, who had overheard the conversation.

“You’re nothing but a kid, mother. You’ve never grown up. I can do what I please with you.” He picked her up, bodily, and carried her, flushed and protesting, to her favourite chair, and dumped her into it. “Aunt Peace, is there any place in the house where you might care to go?”

“Thank you, no. I’ll stay where I am, if I may. I’m very comfortable.”

Lynn paced back and forth with a heavy tread which resounded upon the polished floor. Iris happened to be passing the door and looked in, anxiously, for signs of damage.

“Iris,” laughed Miss Field, “what a little old maid you are! You remind me of that story we read together.”

“Which story, Aunt Peace?”

“The one in which the over-neat woman married a careless man to reform him. She used to follow him around with a brush and dustpan and sweep up after him.”

“That would make him nice and comfortable,” observed Lynn. “What became of the man?”

“He was sent to the asylum.”

“And the woman?” asked Margaret.

“She died of a broken heart.”

“I think I’d be in the asylum too,” said Lynn. “I do not desire to be swept up after.”

“Nobody desires to sweep up after you,” retorted Iris, “but it has to be done. Otherwise the house would be uninhabitable.”

“East Lancaster,” continued Lynn, irrelevantly, “is the abode of mummies and fossils. The city seal is a broom—at least it should be. I was never in such a clean place in my life. The exhibits themselves look as though they’d been freshly dusted. Dirt is wholesome—didn’t you ever hear that? How the population has lived to its present advanced age, is beyond me.”

“We have never really lived,” returned Iris, with a touch of sarcasm, “until recently. Before you came, we existed. Now East Lancaster lives.”

“Who’s the pious party in brown silk with the irregular dome on her roof?” asked Lynn.

“The minister’s second wife,” answered Aunt Peace, instantly gathering a personality from the brief description.

“So, as Herr Kaufmann says. Might one inquire about the jewel she wears?”

“It’s just a pin,” said Iris.

“It looks more like a glass case. In someway, it reminds me of a museum.”

“It has some of her first husband’s hair in it,” explained Iris.

“Jerusalem!” cried Lynn. “That’s the limit! Fancy the feelings of the happy bridegroom whose wife wears a jewel made out of her first husband’s fur! Not for me! When I take the fatal step, it won’t be a widow.”

“That,” remarked Margaret, calmly, “is as it may be. We have the reputation of being a bad lot.”

Lynn flushed, patted his mother’s hand awkwardly, and hastily beat a retreat. They heard him in the room overhead, walking back and forth, and practising feverishly.

“Margaret,” asked Miss Field, suddenly, “what are you going to make of that boy?”

“A good man first,” she answered. “After that, what God pleases.”

By a swift change, the conversation had become serious, and, always quick at perceiving hidden currents, Iris felt herself in the way. Making an excuse, she left them.

For some time each was occupied with her own thoughts. “Margaret,” said Miss Field, again, then hesitated.

“Yes, Aunt Peace—what is it?”

“My little girl. I have been thinking—after I am gone, you know.”

“Don’t talk so, dear Aunt Peace. We shall have you with us for a long time yet.”

“I hope so,” returned the old lady, brightly, “but I am not endowed with immortality—at least not here,—and I have already lived more than my allotted threescore and ten. My problem is not a new one—I have had it on my mind for years,—and when you came I thought that perhaps you had come to help me solve it.”

“And so I have, if I can.”

“My little girl,” said Aunt Peace,—and the words were a caress,—“she has given to me infinitely more than I have given to her. I have never ceased to bless the day I found her.”

Between these two there were no questions, save the ordinary, meaningless ones which make so large a part of conversation. The deeps were silently passed by; only the shallows were touched.

“You have the right to know,” Miss Field continued. “Iris is twenty now, or possibly twenty-one. She has never known when her birthday came, and so we celebrate it on the anniversary of the day I found her.

“I was driving through the country, fifteen or twenty miles from East Lancaster. I—I was with Doctor Brinkerhoff,” she went on, unwillingly. “He had asked me to go and see a patient of his, in whom, from what he had told me, I had learned to take great interest. Doctor Brinkerhoff,” she said, sturdily, “is a gentleman, though he has no social position.”

“Yes,” replied Margaret, seeing that an answer was expected, “he is a charming gentleman.”

“It was a warm Summer day, and on our way back we came upon a dozen or more ragged children, playing in the road. They refused to let us pass, and we could not run over them. A dilapidated farmhouse stood close by, but no one was in sight.

“‘Please hold the lines,’ said the Doctor. ‘I will get out and lead the horse past this most unnecessary obstruction.’ When he got out, the children began to throw stones at the horse. It was a young animal, and it started so violently that I was almost thrown from my seat. One child, a girl of ten, climbed into the buggy and shrieked to the rest: ‘I’ll hold the lines—get more stones!’

“I was frightened and furiously angry, but I could do nothing, for I had only one hand free. I tried to make the child sit down, and she struck at me. Her torn sleeve fell back, and I saw that her arm was bruised, as if with heavy blows.

“Meanwhile the Doctor had led the horse a little way ahead, and had come back. The whole tribe was behind us, yelling like wild Indians, and we were in the midst of a rain of stones. Doctor Brinkerhoff got in and started the horse at full speed.

“‘We’ll put her down,’ he said, ‘a little farther on. She can walk back.’

“She was quiet, and her head was down, but I had one look from her eyes that haunts me yet. She hated everybody—you could see that,—and yet there was a sort of dumb helplessness about it that made my heart ache.

“She got out, obediently, when we told her to, and stood by the roadside, watching us. ‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘that child is not like the others, and she has been badly used. I want her—I want to take her home with me.’

“‘Bless your kind heart, dear lady,’ he replied, laughing, and we were almost at home before I convinced him that I was in earnest. He would not let me go there again, but the very next day, he went, late in the afternoon, and brought her to me after dark, so that no one might see. East Lancaster has always made the most of every morsel of gossip.

“The poor little soul was hungry, frightened, and oh, so dirty! I gave her a bath, cut off her hair, which was matted close to her head, fed her, and put her into a clean bed. The bruises on her body would have brought tears from a stone. I sat by her until she was asleep, and then went down to interview the Doctor, who was reading in the library.

“He said that the people who had her were more than glad to get rid of her, and hoped that they might never see her again. Nothing had been paid toward her support for a long time, and they considered themselves victimised.

“Of course I put detectives at work upon the case and soon found out all there was to know. She was the daughter of a play-actress, whose stage name was Iris Temple. Her husband deserted her a few months after their marriage, and when the child was born, she was absolutely destitute. Finally, she found work, but she could not take the child with her, and so Iris does not remember her mother at all. For six years she paid these people a small sum for the care of the child, then remittances ceased, and abuse began. We learned that she had died in a hospital, but there was no trace of the father.

“There was no one to dispute my title, so I at once made it legal. Shortly afterward, she had a long, terrible fever, and oh, Margaret, the things that poor child said in her delirium! Doctor Brinkerhoff was here night and day, and his skill saved her, but when she came out of it she was a pitiful little ghost. Mercifully, she had forgotten a great deal, but even now some of the horror comes back to her occasionally. She knows everything, except that her mother was a play-actress. I would not want her to know that.

“For a while,” Aunt Peace went on, “we both had a very hard time. She was actually depraved. But I believed in the good that was hidden in her somewhere—there is good in all of us if we can only find it,—and little by little she learned to love me. Through it all, I had Doctor Brinkerhoff’s sympathetic assistance. He came every week, advised me, counselled with me, helped me, and even faced the gossips. All that East Lancaster knows is the simple fact that I found a child who attracted me, discovered that her parents were dead, and adopted her. There was a great deal of excitement at first, but it died down. Most things die down, my dear, if we give them time.”

“Dear Aunt Peace,” said Margaret, softly, “you found a bit of human driftwood, and with your love and your patience made it into a beautiful woman.”

The old face softened, and the serene eyes grew dim. “Whenever I think that my life has been in vain; when it seems empty, purposeless, and bare, I look at my little girl, remember what she was, and find content. I think that a great deal will be forgiven me, because I have done well with her.”

“I am so glad you told me,” continued Margaret, after a little.

“Her future has sorely troubled me. Of course I can make her comfortable, but money is not everything. I dread to have her go away from East Lancaster, and yet——”

“She never need go,” interrupted Margaret. “If, as you say, the house comes to me, there is no reason why she should. I would be so glad to have her with me!”

“Thank you, my dear! It was what I wanted, but I did not like to ask. Now my mind will be at rest.”

“It is little enough to do for you, leaving her out of the question. She might be a great deal less lovely than she is, and yet it would be a pleasure to do it for you.”

“She will repay you, I am sure,” said Aunt Peace. “Of course Lynn will marry sometime,”—here the mother’s heart stopped beating for an instant and went on unevenly,—“so you will be left alone. You cannot expect to keep him in a place like East Lancaster. He is—how old?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Then, in a few years more, he will leave you.” Aunt Peace was merely meditating aloud as she looked out of the window, and had no idea that she was hurting her listener. “Perhaps, after all, Iris will be my best bequest to you.”

“Iris may marry,” suggested Mrs. Irving, trying to smile.

“Iris,” repeated Aunt Peace, “no indeed! I have made her an old-fashioned spinster like myself. She has never thought of such things, and never will!”

(At the moment, Miss Temple was reading an anonymous letter, much worn, but, though walls have ears, they are happily blind, and Aunt Peace did not realise that she was nowhere near the mark.)

“Marriage is a negative relation,” continued Miss Field, with an air of knowledge. “People undertake it from an unpardonable individual curiosity. They see it all around them, and yet they rush in, blindly trusting that their own venture will turn out differently from every other. Someone once said that it was like a crowded church—those outside were endeavouring to get in, and those inside were making violent efforts to get out. Personally, I have had the better part of it. I have my home, my independence, and I have brought up a child. Moreover, I have not been annoyed with a husband.”

“Suppose one falls in love,” said Margaret, timidly.

“Love!” exclaimed Aunt Peace. “Stuff and nonsense!” She rose majestically, and went out with her head high and the step of a grenadier.

Left to herself, Margaret mentally reviewed their conversation, passing resolutely over the hurt that Aunt Peace had unconsciously made in her heart. Never before had it occurred to her that Lynn might marry. “He can’t,” she whispered; “why, he’s nothing but a child.”

She turned her thoughts to Iris and Aunt Peace. The homeless little savage had grown into a charming woman, under the patient care of the only mother she had ever known. If Aunt Peace should die—and if Lynn should marry,—she did not phrase the thought, but she was very conscious of its existence,—she and Iris might make a little home for themselves in the old house. Two men, even the best of friends, can never make a home, but two women, on speaking terms, may do so.

“If Lynn should marry!” Insistently, the torment of it returned. If he should fall in love, who was she to put a barrier in his path? His mother, whose heart had been hungry all these years, should she keep him back by so much as a word? Then, all at once, she knew that it was her own warped life which demanded it by way of compensation.

“No,” she breathed, with her lips white, “I will never stand in his way. Because I have suffered, he shall not.” Then she laughed hysterically. “How ridiculous I am!” she said to herself. “Why, he is nothing but a child!”

The mood passed, and the woman’s soul began to dwell upon its precious memories. Mnemosyne, that guardian angel, forever separates the wheat from the chaff, the joy from the pain. At the touch of her hallowed fingers, the heartache takes on a certain calmness, which is none the less beautiful because it is wholly made of tears.

Lynn’s violin was silent now, and softly, from the back of the house, the girl’s full contralto swelled into a song.

“The hours I spent with thee, Dear Heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me;
I count them over, every one apart—
My rosary! My rosary!”

Iris sang because she was happy, but, none the less, the deep, vibrant voice had an undertone of sadness—a world-old sorrow which, by right of inheritance, was hers.

Margaret’s thoughts went back to her own girlhood, when she was no older than the unseen singer. Love’s cup had been at her lips, then, and had been dashed away by a relentless hand.

“O memories that bless and burn!
O barren pain and bitter loss!
I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross—Sweetheart! To kiss the cross!”

“‘To kiss the cross,’” muttered Margaret, then the tears came in a blinding flood. “Mother! Mother!” she sobbed. “How could you!”

Insensibly, something was changed, and, for the first time, the woman who had gone to her grave unforgiven, seemed not entirely beyond the reach of pardon.

IX

Rosemary and Mignonette

“

Sweet Lady of my Dreams, it cannot be that you are displeased. If you were, I should know, but do not ask me how!

“Day by day, my eyes long for the sight of you; night by night my heart remembers you, for that inner vision does not vanish with the sun. You have unconsciously given me a priceless gift, for wherever I may go, I take you with me—all the grace of you, all the beauty, and all the softness. I have only to close my eyes and then I see.

“But do not think I keep your image always before me, for it is not so. In the work-a-day world, you have no place. You belong, rather, to those fair lands of fancy which lie just beyond the borders of this world and are, or so I think, very near the gleaming gates of Heaven.

“I am not always at work, but sometimes, even when I am, you come tripping before my eyes, so dainty, so wholly exquisite, that I forget what I am doing, and then I must put you aside. But when the day is done, and the light of it shows only through the pinholes pricked in the curtain of night, then I can think of you, as radiant, as beautiful, and as far above me as those very stars.

“All unknowingly, you are the light of my day. Whatever darkness might surround me, your eyes would make it noon. However steep and thorny my path, your hand in mine would make it a sunny meadow, swept by shadowy wings, where the white and crimson clover bloomed all day.

“You give me life. You make the birds sing more sweetly for me; you make the roses more fragrant, the moonlight more like pearl. You have glorified the commonplace affairs of the day with your enchantment; you have put the joy of the gods into the heart of a man.

“Do you wonder that, loving you like this, I do not make myself known? Sweetheart, it is because I fear. Already I have more than I deserve because you are not displeased with me, and since I wrote last I have made progress. Would it surprise you very much if I told you I knew where you lived?

“I fancy I see you now, with the scarlet signals flaming on your cheeks, but, Iris, I shall never intrude. It is for you to say whether I shall love you in silence and afar, or face to face, as I dream that some day I may.

“I want you, dear—I want you with all my heart. Of all the women in the world, you are the one God meant for me. Otherwise, why have I been so strangely led to you?

“Since the first day I saw you, I have knelt at your feet. Not for one moment have I forgotten you, so flower-like, so womanly, so dear. So will it always be, whether I live or die. Even to my grave, I shall take the memory of you.

“To-night my memories are few, but my dreams—they are so many that I could not begin to tell you all. But one of them you must know—that some day you will let me tell you how much I love you, and promise me that I may shield you all the rest of your life.

“The wind should never make you cold, the sun should never shine too fiercely upon you, the storm should never beat against you, if I had my way.

“Iris, may I come? Will you let me teach you to care? So sure am I of my love that I ask only for the chance to make you believe.

“Put a flower on your gate-post when the moon rises to-night, if you are willing that I should come. Two flowers, if you are willing that I should come sometime, but not now. Then, when your name-flower embroiders the marshes, you will know who loves you—who worships you—who offers you his all.”

That night, when the moon swung high in the heavens, Iris tiptoed out into the garden, with the letter—sentient, alive, and human—crushed close against her heart. So conscious was she of its presence that she felt it blazoned upon her breast for all the world to read.

Dew made the grass damp, but Iris did not care. Threads of silver light picked out a dainty tracery, and here and there set a dew-drop to gleaming like a diamond among unnumbered pearls. Drowsy chirps came from the maples above her, where the little birds slept in their swaying nests and dreamed of wild flights at dawn. A great white moth brushed against her face, as softly as thistledown, and she laughed, because it was so like a kiss.

Down toward her corner of the garden she went, her dimity skirts daintily uplifted. The moonlight touched a cobweb woven across the rose-bush, and made a rainbow of it.

“A little lost rainbow,” thought Iris, “out alone in the night, like me!”

She stooped and gathered a sprig of mignonette, then a bit of rosemary from Mrs. Irving’s garden. “She won’t care,” said Iris, to herself; “she used to love somebody, long ago.”

She bound the two together with a blade of grass, and put the merest kiss between them, then impulsively wiped it away. But, after all, some trace of it must linger, and Iris did not intend to give too much, so she threw it aside, as it happened, into Lynn’s garden. Then she gathered another sprig of mignonette, another leaf of rosemary, bound them together, and held them very far away, out of reach of temptation.

Back toward the gate she went, her heart wildly beating against the imprisoned letter. She hesitated a moment in the shadow of the house. The great white moth had followed her and again touched her face caressingly. Suppose someone should see!

But there was no one in sight. “Anyhow,” thought Iris, “if one wishes to come out for a moment in the evening, to walk as far as the gate, it is all right. If there should be rosemary and mignonette on the gate-post in the morning, someone who was up very early might take it away before anybody had seen it. There would be no harm in leaving it there overnight, even though it isn’t quite orderly.”

She went bravely toward the gate, and the moonbeams made an aureole about her hair. The light of dreams, shining through the mist, transfigured her with silver sheen. The earth was exquisitely still, and the sound of her little feet upon the gravelled path echoed and re-echoed strangely.

Timidly, Iris put the rosemary and mignonette, bound together by a single blade of grass, first upon one gate-post and then upon the other. “Such a little bit!” she mused. “One couldn’t call it a flower!” Yes, mignonette was a flower, but rosemary? Surely, no!

She walked backward, slowly, toward the house, and to her conscious eyes, the tell-tale message dominated the landscape. The moonlight fairly made it shine. Almost at the steps, Iris was seized with panic. Then her light feet twinkled down the path, and frightened, trembling, and ashamed, she thrust the nosegay into the open throat of her gown.

“Oh,” murmured Iris, as she went hastily into the house, “what could I have been thinking of!”

But across the street, in the darkness of the shrubbery, Someone smiled.

X

In the Garden

“

To-night,” said Aunt Peace, “we will sit in the garden.”

It was Wednesday, and the rites in the house were somewhat relaxed, though Iris, from force of habit, polished the tall silver candlesticks until they shone like new. Miss Field herself made a pan of little cakes, sprinkled them with powdered sugar, and put them away. She was never lovelier than when at her dainty tasks in her spotless kitchen. By some alchemy of the spirit, she made the homely duties of the day into pleasures—simple ones, perhaps, but none the less genuine.

No one alluded to the fact that Doctor Brinkerhoff was coming. “Of course,” as Iris said to Lynn, “we don’t know that he is, but since he’s missed only one Wednesday in ten years, we may be pardoned for expecting him.”

“One might think so,” agreed Lynn, laughing. He took keen delight in the regular Wednesday evening comedy.

“We make the little cakes for tea,” continued Iris, her eyes dancing.

“But we never have ’em for tea,” Lynn objected, “and I wish you’d quit talking about ’em. It disturbs my peace of mind.”

“Pig!” exclaimed Iris. They were alone, and her face was dangerously near his. Her rosy lips were twitching in a most provoking way, and, immediately, there were Consequences.

She left the print of four firm fingers upon Lynn’s cheek, and he rubbed the injured place ruefully. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t kiss you,” he said.

“If you haven’t learned yet, I’ll slap you again.”

“No, you won’t; I’ll hold your hands next time.”

“There isn’t going to be any ‘next time.’ The idea!”

“Iris! Please don’t go away! Wait a minute—I want to talk to you.”

“It’s too bad it’s so one-sided,” remarked Iris, with a sidelong glance.

“Look here!”

“Well, I’m looking, but so much green—the grass—and the shrubbery, you know—and all—it’s hard on my eyes.”

“We’re cousins, aren’t we?”

Iris sat down on the bench beside him, evidently struck by a new idea. “I hadn’t thought of it,” she said conversationally. “Are we?”

“I think we are. Mother is Aunt Peace’s nephew, isn’t she?”

“Not that anybody knows of. A lady nephew is called a niece in East Lancaster.”

“Oh, well,” replied Lynn, colouring, “you know what I mean. Mother is Aunt Peace’s niece, isn’t she?”

“I hear so. A gentleman for whom I have much respect assures me of it.” The wicked light in her eyes belied her words, and Lynn wished that he had kissed her twice while he had the opportunity.

“It’s the truth,” he said. “And mother’s my mother.”

“Really?”

“So that makes me Aunt Peace’s nephew.”

“Grand-nephew,” corrected Iris, with double meaning.

“Thank you for the compliment. Perhaps I’m a nephew-once-removed.”

“I haven’t seen any signs of removal,” observed Iris, “but I’d love to.”

“Don’t be so frivolous! If I am Aunt Peace’s nephew, what relation am I to her daughter?”

“Legal daughter,” Iris suggested.

“Legal daughter is just as good as any other kind of a daughter. That makes me your cousin.”

“Legal cousin,” explained Iris, “but not moral.”

“It’s all the same, even in East Lancaster. I’m your legal cousin-once-removed.”

“Grand-legal-cousin-once-removed,” repeated Iris, parrot-like, with her eyes fixed upon a distant robin.

“That’s just the same as a plain cousin.”

“You’re plain enough to be a plain cousin,” she observed, and the colour deepened upon Lynn’s handsome face.

“So I’m going to kiss you again.”

“You’re not,” she said, with an air of finality. She flew into the house and took refuge beside Mrs. Irving.

“Mother,” cried Lynn, closely following, “isn’t Iris my cousin?”

“No, dear; she’s no relation at all.”

“So now!” exclaimed Iris, in triumph. “Grand-legal-cousin-once-removed, you will please make your escape immediately.”

“Little witch!” thought Lynn, as he went upstairs; “I’ll see that she doesn’t slap me next time.”

“Iris,” said Mrs. Irving, suddenly, “you are very beautiful.”

“Am I, really?” For a moment the girl’s deep eyes were filled with wonder, and then she smiled. “It is because you love me,” she said, dropping a tiny kiss upon Margaret’s white forehead; “and because I love you, I think you are beautiful, too.”

Alone in her room, Iris studied herself in her small mirror. It was just large enough to see one’s face in, for Aunt Peace did not believe in cultivating vanity—in others. In her own room was a long pier-glass, where a certain young person stole brief glimpses of herself.

“I’ll go in there,” she thought. “Aunt Peace is in the kitchen, and no one will know.”

She left the door open, that she might hear approaching footsteps, and was presently lost in contemplation. She turned her head this way and that, taking pleasure in the gleam of light upon the shining coils of her hair, and in the rosy tint of her cheeks. Just above the corner of her mouth, there was the merest dimple.

Iris smiled, and then poked an inquiring finger into it. “I didn’t know I had that,” she said to herself, in surprise. “I wonder why I couldn’t have a glass like this in my room? There’s one in the attic—I know there is,—and oh, how lovely it would be!”

“It’s where I kissed you,” said Lynn, from the doorway. “If you’ll keep still, I’ll make another one for you on the other side. You didn’t have that dimple yesterday.”

“Mr. Irving,” replied Iris, with icy calmness, “you will kindly let me pass.”

He stepped aside, half afraid of her in this new mood, and she went down the hall to her own room. She shut the door with unmistakable firmness, and Lynn sighed. “Happy mirror!” he thought. “She’s the prettiest thing that ever looked into it.”

But was she, after all? Since the great mirror came over-seas, as part of the marriage portion of a bride, many young eyes had sought its shining surface and lingered upon the vision of their own loveliness. Many a woman, day by day, had watched herself grow old, and the mirror had seen tears because of it. The portraits in the hall and the old mirror had shared many a secret together. Happily, neither could betray the other’s confidence.

Iris, meanwhile, was finding such satisfaction as she might in the smaller glass, and meditating upon the desirability of the one in the attic. “I’ll ask Aunt Peace,” she thought, and knew, instantly, that she wouldn’t ask Aunt Peace for worlds.

“I’m vain,” she said to herself, reprovingly; “I’m a vain little thing, and I won’t look in the mirror any more, so there!”

She reviewed her humdrum round of daily duties with increasing pity for herself. Then, she had had only the books and the people who moved across their eloquent pages, but now? Surely, Cupid had come to East Lancaster.

Just think! Two letters, not so very far apart, from someone who worshipped her at a distance and was afraid to sign his name! And this very day, not more than an hour ago, she had been kissed. No man had ever kissed Iris before, not even a grand-legal-cousin-once-removed. Still, she rather wished it hadn’t happened, for she felt different, someway. It would have been better if the writer of the letters had done it. A romance like this set her far above the commonplace—she felt very much older than Lynn, and was inclined to patronise him. He was nothing but a boy, who chased one around the garden with worms and put grasshoppers in one’s hat. Yet one could pardon those things, when one was so undeniably popular.

After tea, they sat in the shadowy coolness of the parlour, waiting. The very air was expectant. Aunt Peace was beautiful in shimmering white, with the emerald gleaming at her throat. Mrs. Irving, as always, wore a black gown, and Iris had donned her best lavender muslin, in honour of the occasion.

“Why can’t we go outside?” asked Margaret.

“We can, my dear,” returned Aunt Peace, “but I was taught that it was better to wait in the house until after calling hours. Of course, there are few visitors in East Lancaster, but even on a desert island one must observe the proprieties, and a lady will always receive her guests in the house.”

While she was speaking, Doctor Brinkerhoff opened the gate. Miss Field affected not to see him, and waited until the maid ushered him in. “Good evening, Doctor,” she said, “I assure you this is quite a pleasure.”

His manner toward the others was gentle, and even courtly, but he distinguished Miss Field by elaborate deference. If he disagreed with her, it was with evident respect for her opinion, and upon all disputed points he seemed eager to be convinced.

“Shall we not go into the garden?” asked Aunt Peace, addressing them all. “We were just upon the point of going, Doctor, when you came.”

She led the way, with the Doctor beside her, attentive, gallant, and considerate. Margaret came next, with Miss Field’s white shawl. Behind were Lynn and Iris, laughing like children at some secret joke. By a strange coincidence, five chairs were arranged in a sociable group under the tall pine in a corner of the garden.

“Yes,” Miss Field was saying, “I think East Lancaster is most beautiful at this time of year. I have not travelled much, but I have seen pictures, and I am content with my own little corner of the world.”

“And yet, madam,” returned the Doctor, “you would so much enjoy travelling. It is too bad that you cannot go abroad.”

“Perhaps I may. I have not thought of it, but as you speak of it, it seems to me that it might be very pleasant to go.”

“Aunt Peace!” exclaimed Mrs. Irving. “What are you thinking of!”

“Not of my seventy-five years, my dear; you may be sure of that.”

“Why shouldn’t she go?” asked Lynn. “Aunt Peace could go anywhere and come back safely. Everybody she met would fall in love with her, and see that she was comfortable.”

“Quite right!” said the Doctor, with evident sincerity.

“Flatterers!” she laughed. “Fie upon you!” But there was a note of happy youthfulness in the voice, and they knew that she was pleased.

“If you go, madam,” the Doctor continued, “it will be my pleasure to give you letters to friends of mine in Germany.”

“Thank you,” she returned, with a stately inclination of her head. “It would be very kind.”

“And,” he went on, “I have many books which would be of service to you. Shall I bring some of them, the next time I come?”

“I would not trouble you, Doctor, but sometime, if you happened to be passing.”

“Yes,” he answered, “when I happen to be passing. I shall not forget.”

“They might be interesting, if not of actual service. I am familiar with much that has been written of foreign lands. We have Marco Polo’s Adventures in our library.”

The Doctor coughed into his handkerchief. “The world has changed, dear madam, since Marco Polo travelled.”

“Yes,” she sighed, “it is always changing, and we older ones are left far behind.”

“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Lynn. “I’ll tell you what, Aunt Peace, you’re well up at the head of the procession. You’re no farther behind than the drum-major is.”

“The drum-major, my dear? I do not understand. Is he a military gentleman?”

“He’s the boss of the whole shooting match,” explained Lynn, inelegantly. “He wears a bear-skin bonnet and tickles the music out of the band. If it weren’t for him, the whole show would go up in smoke.”

“Lynn!” said Margaret, reprovingly. “What language! Aunt Peace cannot understand you!”

“I’ll bet on Aunt Peace,” remarked Lynn, sagely.

“I fear I am not quite abreast of the times,” said the old lady. “Do you think, Doctor, that the world grows better, or worse?”

“Better, madam, steadily better. I can see it every day.”

“It is well for one to think so,” observed Margaret, “whatever the facts may be.”

Midsummer and moonlight made enchantment in the garden. Merlin himself could have done no more. The house, half hidden in the shadow, stood waiting, as it had done for two centuries, while those who belonged under its roof made holiday outside. Most of them had gone forever, and only their portraits were left, but, replete with memories both happy and sad, the house could not be said to be alone.

The tall pine threw its gloom far beyond them, and the moonlight touched Aunt Peace caressingly. Her silvered hair gleamed with unearthly beauty and her serene eyes gave sweet significance to her name. All those she cared for were about her—daughter and friends.

“Nights like this,” said the Doctor, dreamily, “make one think of the old fairy tales. Elves and witches are not impossible, when the moon shines like this.”

Lynn looked across the garden to the rose-bush, where a cobweb, dew-impearled, had captured a bit of wandering rainbow. “They are far from impossible,” he answered. “I think they were here only the other night, for in the morning, when I went out to look at my vegetables, I found something queer among the leaves.”

“Something queer, my dear?” asked Aunt Peace, with interest. “What was it?”

“A leaf of rosemary and a sprig of mignonette, tied round with a blade of grass and wet with dew.”

“How strange,” said Margaret. “How could it have happened?”

“Rosemary,” said Aunt Peace, “that means remembrance, and the mignonette means the hope of love. A very pretty message for a fairy to leave among your vegetables.”

“Very pretty,” repeated the Doctor, nodding appreciation.

Iris feared they heard the loud beating of her heart. “What do you think?” asked Lynn, turning to her. “Was it a fairy?”

“Of course,” she returned, with assumed indifference. “Who else?”

There was silence then, and in the house the clock struck ten. They heard it plainly, and the Doctor, with a start of recollection, took out his huge silver watch.

“I had no idea it was so late,” he said. “I must go.”

“One moment, Doctor,” began Miss Field, putting out a restraining hand. “Let me offer you some refreshment before you start upon that long walk. Iris?”

“Yes, Aunt Peace.”

“Those little cakes that we had for tea—there may be one or two left—and is there not a little wine?”

“I’ll see.”

Lynn followed her, and presently they came back, with the Royal Worcester plate piled generously with cakes, and a decanter of the port that was famous throughout East Lancaster.

With a smile upon her lips, the old lady leaned forward, into the moonlight, glass in hand. The brim of another touched it and the clear ring of crystal seemed carried afar into the night.

“To your good health, madam.”

“And to your prosperity.”

“This has been very charming,” said the Doctor, as he brushed away the crumbs, “and now, my dear Miss Iris, may we not hope for a song?”

“Which one?”

“‘Annie Laurie,’ if you please.”

Iris went in, and Margaret made a move to follow her. “Don’t go, mother,” said Lynn, “let’s stay here.”

“I’m afraid Aunt Peace will take cold.”

“No, dearie, I have my shawl. Let me be young again, just for to-night, with no fear of draughts or colds. Midsummer has never hurt anyone, and, as Doctor Brinkerhoff says, the good fairies are abroad to-night.”

The old-fashioned ballad took on new beauty and meaning. Mellowed by the distance, the girl’s deep contralto was surpassingly tender and sweet. When she came out, the others were silent, with the spell of her song still upon them.

“A good voice,” said Lynn, half to himself. “She should study.”

“Iris has had lessons,” returned Aunt Peace, with gentle dignity, “and her voice pleases her friends. What is there beyond that?”

“Fame,” said Lynn.

“Fame is the love of the many,” Aunt Peace rejoined, “and counts for no more than the love of the few. The great ones have said it was barren, and my little girl will be better off here.”

As she spoke, she put her arm around Iris, and they went to the house together. At the steps, there was a pause, and Doctor Brinkerhoff said good night.

“It has been perfect,” said Miss Field, as she gave him her hand. “If this were to be my last night on earth, I could not ask for more—my beautiful garden, with the moonlight shining upon it, music, and my best friends.”

The Doctor was touched, and bent low over her hand, pressing it ever so lightly with his lips. “I thank you, dear madam,” he answered, gently, “for the happiest evening I have ever spent.”

“Come again, then,” she said, graciously, with a happy little laugh. “The years stretch fair before us, when one is but seventy-five!”

That night, just at the turn of dawn, Margaret was awakened by a hot hand upon her face. “Dearie,” said Aunt Peace, weakly, “will you come? I’m almost burning up with fever.”

XI

“Sunset and Evening Star”

Doctor Brinkerhoff came in the morning, but afterward, when Margaret questioned him, he shook his head sadly. “I will do the best I can,” he said, “and none of us can do more.” He went down the path, bent and old. He seemed to have aged since the previous night.

On Friday, Lynn went to Herr Kaufmann’s as usual, but he played carelessly. “Young man,” said the Master, “why is it that you study the violin?”

“Why?” repeated Lynn. “Well, why not?”

“It is all the same,” returned the Master, frankly. “I can teach you nothing. You have the technique and the good wrist, you read quickly, but you play like one parrot. When I say ‘fortissimo,’ you play fortissimo; when I say ‘allegro,’ you play allegro. You are one obedient pupil,” he continued, making no effort to conceal his scorn.

“What else should I be?” asked Lynn.

“Do not misunderstand,” said the Master, more kindly. “You can play the music as it is written. If that satisfies you, well and good, but the great ones have something more. They make the music to talk from one to another, but you express nothing. It is a possibility that you have nothing to express.”

Lynn walked back and forth with his hands behind his back, vaguely troubled.

“One moment,” the Master went on, “have you ever felt sorry?”

“Sorry for what?”

“Anything.”

“Of course—I am often sorry.”

“Well,” sighed the Master, instantly comprehending, “you are young, and it may yet come, but the sorrows of youth are more sharp than those of age, and there is not much chance. The violin is the most noble of instruments. It is for those who have been sorry to play to those who are. You have nothing to give, but it is one pity to lose your fine technique. Since you wish to amuse, change your instrument, and study the banjo, or perhaps the concertina.”

Lynn understood no more than if Herr Kaufmann had spoken in a foreign tongue. “I may have to stop for a little while,” he said, “for my aunt is ill, and I can’t practise.”

“Practise here,” returned the Master, indifferently. “Fredrika will not care. Or go to the office of mine friend, the Herr Doctor. He will not mind. A fine gentleman, but he has no ear, no taste. Until you acquire the concertina, you may keep on with the violin.”

“My mother,” began Lynn. “She wants me to be an artist.”

“An artist!” repeated the Master, with a bitter laugh. “Your mother—” here he paused and looked keenly into Lynn’s eyes. Something was stirred; some far-off memory. “She believes in you, is it not so?”

“Yes, she does—she has always believed in me.”

“Well,” said the Master, with an indefinable shrug, “we must not disappoint her. You work on like one faithful parrot, and I continue with your instruction. It is good that mothers are so easy to please.”

“Herr Kaufmann,” pleaded the boy, “tell me. Shall I ever be an artist?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“When?”

“When the river flows up hill and the sun rises in the west.”

Suddenly, Lynn’s face turned white. “I will!” he cried, passionately; “I will! I will be an artist! I tell you, I will!”

“Perhaps,” returned the Master. He was apparently unmoved, but afterward, when Lynn had gone, he regretted his harshness. “I may be mistaken,” he admitted to himself, grudgingly. “There may be something in the boy, after all. He is young yet, and his mother, she believes in him. Well, we shall see!”

Lynn went home by a long, circuitous route. Far beyond East Lancaster was a stretch of woodland which he had not as yet explored. Herr Kaufmann’s words still rang in his ears, and for the first time he doubted himself. He sat down on a rock to think it over. “He said I had the technique,” mused Lynn, “but why should I feel sorry?”

After long study, he concluded that the Master was eccentric, as genius is popularly supposed to be, and determined to think no more of it. Still, it was not so easily put wholly aside. “You play like one parrot,”—that single sentence, like a barbed shaft, had pierced the armour of his self-esteem.

He went on through the woods, and stopped at a pile of rocks near a spring. It might have been an altar erected to the deity of the wood, but for one symbol. On the topmost stone was chiselled a cross.

“Wonder who did it,” said Lynn, to himself, “and what for.” He found some wild berries, made a cup of leaves, and filled it with the fragrant fruit, planning to take it to Aunt Peace.

But when he reached home Aunt Peace was far beyond the thought of berries. She was delirious, and her ravings were pitiful. Iris was as white as a ghost, and Margaret was sorely troubled.

“Lynn,” she said, “don’t go away. I need you. Where have you been?”

“To my lesson, and then for a walk. Herr Kaufmann says I may practise there sometimes. He also suggested Doctor Brinkerhoff’s.”

“That was kind, and I am sure the Doctor will be willing. How does he think you are getting along?”

She asked the question idly, and scarcely expected an answer, but Lynn turned his face away and refused to meet her eyes. “Not very well,” he said, in a low tone.

“Why not, dear? You practise enough, don’t you?”

“Yes, I think so. He says I have the technique and the good wrist, but I play like a parrot, and can only amuse. He told me to take up the concertina.”

Margaret smiled. “That is his way. Just go on, dear, and do the very best you can.”

“But I don’t want to disappoint you, mother—I want to be an artist.”

“Lynn, dear, you will never disappoint me. You have been a comfort to me since the day you were born. What should I have done without you in all these years that I have been alone!”

She drew his tall head down and kissed him, but Lynn, boy-like, evaded the sentiment and turned it into a joke. “That’s very Irish, mother—‘what would you have done without me in all the time you’ve been alone?’ How is the invalid?”

“The fever is high,” sighed Margaret, “and Doctor Brinkerhoff looks very grave.”

“I hope she isn’t going to die,” said Lynn, conventionally. “Can I do anything?”

“No, nothing but wait. Sometimes I think that waiting is the very hardest thing in the world.”

That day was like the others. Weeks went by, and still Aunt Peace fought gallantly with her enemy. Doctor Brinkerhoff took up his abode in the great spare chamber and was absent from the house only when there was urgent need of his services elsewhere. He even gave up his Sunday afternoons at Herr Kaufmann’s, and Fräulein Fredrika was secretly distressed.

“Fredrika,” said the Master, gently, “the suffering ones have need of our friend. We must not be selfish.”

“Our friend possesses great skill,” replied the Fräulein, with quiet dignity. “Do you think he will forget us, Franz?”

“Forget us? No! Fear not, Fredrika; it is only little loves and little friendships that forget. One does not need those ties which can be broken. The Herr Doctor himself has said that, and of a surety, he knows. Let us be patient and wait.”

“To wait,” repeated Fredrika; “one finds it difficult, is it not so?”

“Yes,” smiled the Master, “but when one has learned to wait patiently, one has learned to live.”

Meanwhile, Aunt Peace grew steadily weaker, and the strain was beginning to tell upon all. Doctor Brinkerhoff had lost his youth—he was an old man. Margaret, painfully anxious, found relief from heartache only in unremitting toil. Iris ate very little, slept scarcely at all, and crept about the house like the ghost of her former self. Lynn alone maintained his cheerfulness.

“Iris,” said Aunt Peace, one day, “come here.”

“I’m here,” said the girl, kneeling beside the bed, and putting her cold hand upon the other’s burning cheek, “what can I do?”

“Nothing, dearie. I could get well, I think, were it not for my terrible dreams.”

Iris shuddered, and yet was thankful because Aunt Peace could call her delirium “dreams.”

“Lately,” continued Aunt Peace, “I have been afraid that I am not going to get well.”

“Don’t!” cried Iris, sharply, turning her face away.

“Dearie, dearie,” said the other, caressingly, “be my brave girl, and let me talk to you. When the dreams come back, I shall not know you, but now I do. I am stronger to-day, and we are alone, are we not? Where are the others?”

“The Doctor has gone to see someone who is very ill. Lynn has taken Mrs. Irving out for a walk.”

“I am glad,” said Aunt Peace, tenderly. “Margaret has been very good to me. You have all been good to me.”

Iris stroked the flushed face softly with her cool hand. In her eyes were love and longing, and a foreshadowed loneliness.

“Dearie,” Aunt Peace continued, “listen while I have the strength to speak. All the papers are in a tin box, in the trunk in the attic. There you will find everything that is known of your father and mother. I do not anticipate any need of the information, but it is well that you should know where to find it.

“I have left the house to Margaret,” she went on, with difficulty, “for it was rightfully hers, and after her it goes to Lynn, but there is a distinct understanding that it shall be your home while you live, if you choose to claim it. Margaret has promised me to keep you with her. When Lynn marries, as some day he will, you will be left alone. You and Margaret can make a home together.”

The girl’s face was hidden in her hands, and her shoulders shook with sobs.

“Don’t, dearie,” pleaded Aunt Peace, gently; “be my brave girl. Look up at me and smile. Don’t, dearie—please don’t!

“I have left you enough to make you comfortable,” she went on, after a little, “but not enough to be a care to you, nor to make you the prey of fortune hunters. It is, I think, securely invested, and you will have the income while you live. Some few keepsakes are yours, also—they are written down in”—here she hesitated—“in a paper Doctor Brinkerhoff has. He has been very good to us, dearie. He is almost your foster-father, for he was with me when I found you. He is a gentleman,” she said, with something of her old spirit, “though he has no social position.”

“Social position is not much, Aunt Peace, beside the things that really count, do you think it is?”

“I hardly know, dearie, but I have changed my mind about a great many things since I have lain here. I was never ill before—in all my seventy-five years, I have never been ill more than a day at a time, and it seems very hard.”

“It is hard, Aunt Peace, but we hope you will soon be well.”

“No, dearie,” she answered, “I’m afraid not. But do not let us borrow trouble, and let me tell you something to remember. When you have the heartache, dearie,”—here the old eyes looked trustfully into the younger ones,—“don’t forget that you made me happy. You have filled my days with sunshine, and, more than anything else, you have kept me young. I know you thought me harsh at first, but now, I am sure you understand. You have been my own dear daughter, Iris. If you had been my own flesh and blood, you could not have been more to me than you have.”

Margaret came in, and Iris went away, sobbing bitterly. Aunt Peace sighed heavily. Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes burned like stars.

“I’m afraid you’ve tired yourself,” said Margaret, softly. “Was I gone too long?”

“No, indeed! Iris has been with me, and I am better to-day.”

“Try to sleep,” said Margaret, soothingly.

Obediently, Aunt Peace closed her eyes, but presently she sat up. “I’m so warm,” she said, fretfully. “Where is Doctor Brinkerhoff?”

“He has not come yet, but I think he will be here soon.”

“Margaret?”

“Yes, Aunt Peace.”

“Will you write off the recipe for those little cakes for him? He may be able to find someone to make them for him, though of course they will not be the same.”

“Yes, I will.”

“It’s in my book. They are called ‘Doctor Brinkerhoff’s cakes.’ You will not forget?”

“No, I won’t forget. Can’t you sleep now?”

“I’ll try.”

Presently, the deep regular breathing told that she was asleep. Iris came back with her eyes swollen and Margaret took her out into the hall. They sat there for a long time, hand in hand, waiting, but no sound came from the other room.

“I cannot bear it,” moaned Iris, her mouth quivering. “I cannot bear to have Aunt Peace die.”

“Life has many meanings,” said Margaret, “but it is what we make it, after all. The pendulum swings from daylight to darkness, from sun to storm, but the balance is always true.”

Iris leaned against her, insensibly comforted.

“She would be the first to tell you not to grieve,” Margaret went on, though her voice faltered, “and still, we need sorrow as the world needs night. We cannot always live in the sun. We can take what comes to us bravely, as gentlewomen should, but we must take it, dear—there is no other way.”

Long afterward, Iris remembered the look on Margaret’s face as she said it, but the tears blinded her just then.

Doctor Brinkerhoff came back at twilight, anxious and worn, yet eager to do his share. Through the night he watched with her, alert, capable, and unselfish, putting aside his personal grief for the sake of the others.

In the last days, those two had grown very near together. When the dreams came, he held her in his arms until the tempest passed, and afterwards, soothed her to sleep.

“Doctor,” she said one day, “I have been thinking a great deal while I have lain here. I seem never to have had the time before. I think it is well, at the end, to have a little space of calm, for one sees so much more clearly.”

“You have always seen clearly, dear lady,” said the Doctor, very gently.

“Not always,” she answered, shaking her head. “I can see many a mistake now. The fogs have sometimes gathered thick about me, but now they have lifted forever. We are but ships on the sea of life,” she went on. “My course has lain through calm waters, for the most part, with the skies blue and fair above me. I have been sheltered, and I can see now that it might have made me stronger and better to face some of the storms. Still, my Captain knows, and now, when I can hear the breakers booming on the reef where I am to strike my colours, I am not afraid.”

The end came on Sunday, just at sunset, while the bells were tolling for the vesper service. The crescent moon rocked idly in the west, and a star glimmered faintly above it.

“Sunset and evening star,” she repeated, softly. “And one clear call for me. Will you say the rest of it?”

Choking, Doctor Brinkerhoff went on with the poem until he reached the last verse, when he could speak no more.

“For though from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to meet my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.”

She finished it, then turned to him with her face illumined. “It is beautiful,” she said, “is it not, my friend?”

Twilight came, and Margaret found them there when she went in with a lighted candle. The Doctor sat at the side of the bed, very stiff and straight, with the tears streaming over his wrinkled face. On his shoulder, like a tired child, lay Aunt Peace, who had put on, at last, her Necklace of Perfect Joy.

XII

The False Line

Up in the darkened chamber where Aunt Peace lay, Iris stood face to face with the greatest sorrow of her life. Was this, then, the end? Was there nothing more? Cold as snow, unpitying as marble, Death mocked Iris as she stood there, mutely questioning. Timidly she touched the waxen cheek. The crimson fires burned there no more—the fever was gone.

Through the house resounded the steady tread of muffled feet. Of all the horrors of Death, the worst is that seemingly endless procession who come to offer “sympathy,” to ask if there is anything they can do. Mere acquaintances, privileged only by a casual nod, break down all barriers when the Conqueror comes. Is it that idle curiosity which occasionally dominates the best of us, or is it Life, triumphant for the moment, looking forward fearfully to its inevitable end?

Some “friend of the family,” high in its confidence, assumes the responsibility at such times. Chance callers are rewarded with grisly details and grewsome descriptions of the soul struggling to free itself from its bonds. We are told how the others “took it,” when at last the sail was spread for the voyage over the uncharted sea.

In the hall, straight as a soldier under orders, stood Doctor Brinkerhoff. “No, madam,” he would say, “there is nothing you can do. The arrangements are made. I will tell Mrs. Irving and Miss Temple that you called. Yes, we were expecting it. She died peacefully; there was no pain. To-morrow at four.”

And then again: “Thank you, there is nothing you can do, but it is kind of you to offer. The ladies will be grateful for your sympathy. Who shall I say called?”

“Iris,” pleaded Margaret, “come away.”

The girl started. “I can’t,” she answered, dully.

“You must come, dear—come into my room.”

Unwillingly, Iris suffered herself to be led away. It is only the surface emotion which is relieved by tears. Within the prison-house of the soul, when Grief, clad in grey garments, enters silently and prepares to remain, there is no weeping. One hides it, as the Spartan covered the bleeding wound in his breast.

“Dear,” said Margaret, “my heart aches for you.”

“She was all I had,” whispered Iris.

“But not all you have. Lynn and I, and Doctor Brinkerhoff—surely we are something.”

“Did you ever care?” asked Iris, her despairing eyes fixed upon Margaret.

The older woman shrank from the question. She was tempted to dissemble, but one tells the truth in the presence of Death.