An Independent Daughter

ILLUSTRATIONS. — CHAPTER I. COLLEGE-MATES.

11

Persis Holmes was walking slowly down the street. The summer breeze swept her college gown around her in swirling lines, and ruffled her hair so that once or twice she put up her hand to tuck back the straying locks under her “mortar board.” She was coming from one of the dormitories, and her goal was the gray building farther down the street. She had not yet reached the long walk which led the way, between pleasant stretches of green sward, up to the door of the principal college building, when she heard some one running behind her. “Stop, Persis,” a voice called.

Persis paused and waited for a little dumpling of a girl who came up nearly out of breath. “I thought I’d never catch you,” she panted. “You look just 12like a poster girl, Perse, with those spiral folds wrapping around you. I want to know if you’ve heard from Annis.”

Persis looked down smilingly at Patty Peters’s little roly-poly figure. Persis was not much over medium height, but she quite towered above Patty. “I did have a letter this very morning,” she replied. “It was written from Heidelberg, and the boys had been there.”

“Tell me what she said.” And Patty gave a little skip in order to keep up with her friend’s longer pace.

Persis took a letter from one of her note-books. “We’ll go to the reading-room, and I can tell you.”

Patty agreed, and, swinging open the heavy door at the entrance of the building, Persis led the way, and the two girls settled themselves in a corner for a whispered conference.

They were laughing heartily when they were joined by Nettie Greene. “What are you two chuckling over?” she asked.

“Why, Persis has just been reading a letter from Annis,” Patty replied. “Tell her, Persis.”

“Why, it is only a story about one of our college boys; the captain of a foot-ball team he is. You know how the students in Heidelberg think they display their prowess by slashing each other, and duelling, and all that foolishness. Well, Harvey Dana is there studying, and one day, as he was walking down the street, two German students stepped up, and one of them struck him square in the face. You can imagine Harvey’s rage. He just drew off and 13gave the fellow a blow, and a twist that sent him rolling over and over in the gutter. Then he squared on the second one, and for a moment the volumes of German and English words of wrath made the place tremble, but the first fellow picked himself up, and they all looked at each other, and then the Germans broke out into a roar of laughter, and apologized, asking to shake hands, and wanting Harvey to take a glass of beer with them. They just wanted to test him.”

“Well, they found out the stuff of which he is made,” said Nettie. “Of course, Annis is having a lovely time, but you must miss her very much, Persis.”

“I do miss her. Yes, she is having the treat of her life, and the voyage did her good. Annis is not very strong,—that is, she has not the endurance that I have, and Mrs. Brown thought a year of Europe would do more for her than this last year of college.”

“How do you like living in the Boarding Hall?” asked Nettie. “You had such a pleasant home with the Browns; it seemed too bad that you had to give it up just at the last.”

“So much the better that I did not have to give it up before. I don’t mind the experience. I’m rather fond of new experiences. I am finding out a lot about human nature, and the truth of the saying, that you don’t know people till you come to live with them, is daily becoming more and more borne in upon me. The girls here are truly a motley crew.”

“I know,” returned Nettie. “I tried it last year, 14you know. The first and second year Margaret and I were together, but this last year mamma thought I might be trusted to behave myself outside of college walls, and so I’ve had rather a freer time. I must say I don’t like being hedged in by rules and regulations.”

“I don’t mind those much,” replied Persis, “but I must confess I don’t like to be quite so close to some of my neighbors. There is one girl who is the most pervasive person I ever saw. She slams her door so that it shakes the building every time she goes in or out her room; her tread upon the stairs is like an elephant’s, and she screams through the halls like a fish-woman. I can’t imagine what sort of a home she has lived in, and yet she is supposed to belong to nice people.”

Nettie smiled. “Like a girl who has been boarding where I do,” she remarked. “She makes her boast that she can be ready for breakfast three minutes after the bell rings, and that she never gets up till she hears it. I told her I hoped she didn’t do it often, for if cleanliness were next to godliness she must be miles away from the latter. It was very rude of me to say so, but she provoked me to it.”

Persis laughed. “How did the three-minute maid like that?”

“She was furious, naturally, but I noticed after that she was much later in coming down to breakfast. She is horrid anyhow. So very ill-bred, and the most vulgarly exacting creature you ever saw. She pays less board than any of us, and seems to 15think our dear, kind Mrs. Scott keeps boarders simply because it is a privilege to have such young persons under her roof. I can’t bear the idea of demanding more than you pay for, and I wish you could see this fussy and fastidious young woman. Such actions as hers prove her no Christian, if they do not prove that she is underbred.” And Nettie sniffed contemptuously.

“Mothers are very right when they tell us that they are judged by our actions,” put in Patty. “I always get my idea of a girl’s home from the way she behaves away from it, and perhaps it is not always fair to her mother.”

“Let’s adjourn to my room,” Persis proposed, bouncing up. “I only came over to hunt up a reference, and then I’ll be ready to go back. Mell sent me a big box of home-made caramels to-day, and they’re fine.”

“Where is the girl who could withstand such a treat?” replied Nettie. “I’m ready to sample them. What do you hear from home, Perse? All well?”

“All are well. Grandmother has had a cold, but she is better. Father is busy on his new book. Lisa and mamma are absorbed in wedding-clothes. Mell has been sulking for some time past, and sent me the caramels as a peace-offering.”

Nettie looked up inquiringly.

Persis laughed. “Oh, it’s nothing, only Aunt Esther invited me to spend a part of the summer holidays with her. She has a project for a trip in which I am included. Mell has always felt that, in some 16way, she had a pre-empted right on Aunt Esther, and she didn’t relish being set aside on this occasion. It’s mean of me to tell it, but you know her so well.” Persis was always contrite when she came suddenly to a realizing sense of having said more than was necessary. She turned to the bookcases, wishing she could hold herself in check more readily.

But these, her special friends, did not censure her, for they knew the Holmes girls of old. Nettie Greene and her sisters, in particular, had been the playmates of Persis and her sisters ever since they could toddle, and Nettie was fonder of Persis than of Lisa and Mellicent. Lisa, the eldest, was soon to marry a young naval officer. Mellicent, the youngest, had just finished her studies at Miss Adams’s school, and did not care to undertake a higher course. She was fond of admiration and pleasure, and, being an exceedingly pretty girl, was likely to have both. She had sweet, affectionate, appealing ways, generous she was, and devoted to the friends who professed a fondness for her, or who admired her, but she was quite ready to turn from them at a word of dispraise, or at the slightest appearance of lack of admiration. Of the three Holmes girls, she was, so far as mere external beauty went, perhaps the most attractive. Lisa, in her way, was quite as handsome, and possessed of a really finer character. She was, however, imperious and haughty, and needed the discipline of sorrow to develop her. Persis, the middle one, had her faults. She was quick-tempered, decided in her opinions, and rather too ready to express 17them, but she was forgiving and sympathetic, selfsacrificing and loyal to the last degree, ready for self-reproach when she realized that she was at fault, and willing to admit her error. She was at this time slightly above medium height, with an erect carriage which made her look taller. Her intelligent speaking countenance reflected every emotion, and her earnest gray eyes spoke of truth and sincerity. She did not look at all like her sisters, and although the mere casual observer was ordinarily attracted to the other two, Persis’s friends perceived a beauty which mere outline of feature was not required to express.

Having sought out her reference, Persis closed the book she was consulting and put it carefully back on the shelf. She loved all books too well to treat any one of them carelessly. “Come girls,” she said, and the three took their way towards a tall brick building about a block farther up the street, known as the Boarding Hall. Patty Peters was Persis’s next-door neighbor on her right; on the left was the room of “the girl with the elephantine tread,” as Persis called her.

The girls made themselves comfortable in Persis’s pretty room. Here her originality and individuality showed themselves very plainly.

Nettie, nibbling at the caramels, looked around and said, “Perse, you always do have such a way of making places cosey. There is nothing bleak and bare about this room, and yet it is cool and refreshing. I believe if you were in an Esquimaux hut you’d find a way to make it look bright and cheerful.”

18“I should try,” returned Persis. “I believe in being bright and cheery, and in doing all one can to make the rest of the world feel so; and Patty feels the same way.” Persis cast an affectionate glance towards her little neighbor. “Patty is a cure for the blues any day,” she continued. “She is naturally a bit of sunshine. As for myself, I decided long ago that I could be either gloomy, miserable, and burdensome, or cheerful, happy, and helpful, just as I cultivated a contented spirit. It is mainly a matter of cultivation. I used to think it was much more interesting and romantic to be repining, and to bemoan the weariness of existence and the joylessness of the world, but I’ve found out since I came to college that the persons who are always sighing, and fancying trouble at every turn, are not the ones who succeed or who help to raise the world to a better condition; therefore my motto is, ‘unwavering cheerfulness.’”

“But one can’t wear butterfly wings all the time,” Nettie made reply.

“No. I don’t mean that one needs to be frivolous and unsympathetic. I think it requires a lot of strength and determination to be cheerful all the time, but it helps more than anything. Why, the girls who come in here ready to flop on some one, and get into perfect panics over supposed future miseries, quite wear me out. There is one in particular who is a perfect ‘old man of the sea:’ she hangs around your neck, and you have to carry her everywhere.”

Nettie was thoughtful. “I don’t believe I ever 19thought of my blues hindering other persons’ lives,” she remarked after a pause.

“But they do,” replied Persis, earnestly. “Don’t you see that if some one has to carry her own real burdens and others’ real burdens, if you add to them yours which are only possible, you are giving them an extra weight?”

“I’ll be cheerful, Perse, from this out. I know now what our old nurse meant when she used to say, ‘He that seeks trouble it is a pity he should miss it,’ and ‘Worry is a worse dog than Want.’ I know mother tells me I help her the most when I don’t worry.”

“That is true,” returned Persis. “I believe we could all give more help to those we love by looking on the bright side for them and with them. It takes all the heart out of those who are trying to have every sort of possible misery suggested.”

“Let’s make a compact and call ourselves ‘The Cheerful Three,’” Patty proposed.

“Good! we will,” cried the other two.

“Then we will be helpers and not hinderers,” Patty continued.

“True enough, Miss Patty-Cake. Goodness! what’s that?” And Nettie gave a start.

The others laughed. “It’s only ‘My Lady Slam-bang,’” Persis told her friend.

“How can you stand it? I never heard such a noise. And what a voice! Was she brought up in the backwoods? Has she no consideration for others?”

“I think, very little of anything but thoughtlessness. 20And as to her rearing, I think she must have lived in a saw-mill, where there are no doors, or in a restaurant, where the doors swing both ways,” returned Persis.

“Or else in a tent,” put in Patty. “I’m afraid, come to think of it, that the Cheerful Three are disposed to be critical.”

“All girls are,” asserted Nettie, helping herself to a particularly toothsome caramel. “Do you know, to change the subject, that you girls must promise to come and spend next Saturday night with me?”

“Three in a bed!” exclaimed Persis, aghast.

“No, there need be but one doubling up. The three-minute maid is going to leave us; her room is next to mine, so I have spoken for it; for the new boarder will not come till Monday.”

“I hope the room will be well cleaned,” observed Persis.

“It will be. I’ll see that the windows are left open so as to rid the place of any lingering odor of scented soap or cheap perfume, for I know your aversion to them, Perse. Anyhow, I think we’ll put Patty in there, and you can bunk in with me; I promise you no ‘German cologne’ nor ‘Cashmere bouquet’ is to be found in my apartment.”

“Then we’ll come; at least, I will. How about you, Patsy?”

“Oh, I’ll be glad to join you. What’s the special frolic, Nettie?”

“I can’t tell you. I promised not to. By the way, Persis, do you hear from Basil Phillips often? Why 21didn’t he take up his studies here instead of going abroad? He could have taken a post-graduate course.”

“Oh, he wanted to study at the Beaux Arts. He is going to be an architect, you know,” replied Persis, passing over the first part of the question.

“Has Annis seen him?”

“Oh, yes.” Persis did not pursue the subject, but exclaimed, “I do believe it’s something to do with the college boys.”

“What is?” asked Patty.

“Why, Nettie’s wanting us on Saturday.”

“I’ll not tell,” cried she. “You can’t make me.”

“We don’t want to know. Do we, Patty?”

“Of course not; we’d much rather be surprised.”

“Oh, of course,” returned Nettie. “All the same, you are wild with curiosity.”

The other two protested, and, to show their indifference, began to discuss college topics.

Persis was an ambitious, good student, and was taking her four years’ course in three years. The departure of Annis Brown for Europe lost Persis her special chum, for her cousin Annis was her bosom friend, and she missed her sadly. However, she perhaps devoted herself all the more assiduously to her work, and looked eagerly forward to the next summer when she should be a full-fledged graduate, and could take up life seriously.

“Dear me! Persis, do put those caramels away,” Nettie exclaimed at last. “I have made a perfect gourmand of myself, and I am so thirsty.”

“Oh, are you? I can offer you a real home-made 22beverage,” replied Persis, going to a little cupboard. “Grandma knows I am fond of raspberry vinegar, and she made a fine lot of it last summer. It is such a quenchative, as we say at home.”

“You all do have the most original sayings,” Nettie observed. “I remember how puzzled I was when I was a little girl, and was once spending the day with you; for when luncheon was announced, you said, ‘I must go and brush my rabbit before I go down.’”

“What did she mean?” inquired Patty, looking puzzled.

“She meant brush her hair, a hare being called a rabbit.”

Patty gave a groan, but Persis now had ready her glasses of the cool, ruby-colored draught, and offered it to her guests.

“How delicious it looks! and it tastes so, too.” And Nettie sipped, with an air of satisfaction, from the thin tumbler Persis handed her.

But she had hardly more than tasted its contents before she sprang to her feet, crying, “What is that?” for something fell heavily against the door, and the other two girls jumped up.

Persis stood a moment, and then cautiously turned the knob. There was a push, a sound of scurrying feet, and into the room fell a nondescript figure, constructed out of pillows, and wearing a man’s clothes.

“It’s some of Bessie Taylor’s nonsense,” began Persis. But she stopped short as she perceived a movement on the part of the figure lying prostrate on the floor.

23“Oh, there is something alive! Oh, girls, suppose it should be a mouse,” cried Nettie, jumping up on a chair.

“A mouse! Who’s afraid of a mouse?” returned Persis, scornfully. “Don’t be a goose, Nettie. I think mice are dears, myself.” And she proceeded to examine the pinned-up coat-sleeve, which appeared to be animated by something inside it, and, as the pins were withdrawn, out scampered a little black kitten.

“Oh, the poor little thing!” cried Patty, trying to catch the small, frightened creature, which took refuge under the bed.

“It’s the cook’s pet,” Persis told them. “We must take her up to the kitchen.”

“Up!” said Nettie, descending from her perch on the chair.

“Yes. You forget the dining-room and kitchen are on the top floor.”

“To be sure. I had forgotten. Now, what can we do to pay back those girls?”

“We’ll carry Mr. Man to Bessie’s door,” Persis decided, after a moment’s reflection. “He shall carry this sphinx-like riddle: ‘From what was cast down one may be set up. From what was a terror, produce a delight. Who finds, keeps.’ I’ll put a box of caramels ’way down among the pillows, and they’ll wonder and wonder what the mystery is.”

“What made you think of that?” questioned Patty.

“Reading about Samson, I suppose,” rejoined Persis, crowding her box down as far as she could into the coat-sleeve. “Come, help me carry Mr. Man back 24again.” The girls started, but before they had gone far they saw the matron at the other end of the corridor. If Mrs. Nevins happened not to be in an amiable mood, there might be a lecture in store for them; so the girls scampered back, dragging their burden with them. But, watching for a second opportunity, they found the coast clear, and bore out the figure with the riddle written on a piece of paper, conspicuously pinned to his coat. They stood it up against Bessie’s door, and tiptoed back to Persis’s room.

A little scream half an hour later told them the manikin had been discovered, and they chuckled over their secret.

“I think it is a pretty, amiable, nice way to pay them back,” Nettie declared. “But Perse, you always were given to doing nice things.”

Persis laughed. “Except when I stirred up our club at home by refusing to abide by their rules.”

“That was a nice thing in reality.”

“Yes, in the end; but what a hubbub it created!” And Persis smiled at the recollection.

As Nettie parted from her two friends she heard a great chattering in Bessie’s room, and knew that a bevy of girls was there, puzzling over Persis’s riddle. High above the others came shrilly the voice of My Lady Slam-bang. Nettie caught a perfect torrent of slang, and once a piercing whistle.

“What a boisterous hoyden of a girl! She’d tone herself down if she knew the impression she makes,” thought Nettie.

CHAPTER II. A SERENADE.

The Cheerful Three met in Nettie’s room the next Saturday evening. The house where she boarded stood several squares beyond the college and nearer the suburbs.

“I’ve brought some XXX sugar,” Persis announced, “and we can make some candy. Patty has nuts and two or three kinds of extracts, and—oh, yes, I have eggs, so we can proceed to make ever so many kinds.”

“Good,” cried Nettie. “You’ve solved a difficulty for me, girls. But we must have some chocolate, too. Who’ll run out with me to get some? The shops are still open, and we can get anything we want.”

Both girls signified their willingness to visit the shops, and all three started forth.

“If we had a brother or a cousin or some reliable masculine escort, we’d go down to market and buy some taffy,” Patty remarked. “You know its quite a frolic, and nowhere do they have such a Saturday 26night market as here. In fact, I believe there are few such markets anywhere. Did you ever go down on Christmas-eve? It is a real carnival on the street where the market is, and it is getting livelier every year. But, of course, you have always been at home for the holidays.”

“No, not always. The first year I was here the family were all abroad,” rejoined Persis. “And grandma and I spent the winter at Mrs. Brown’s. You remember she took a house here.”

“To be sure, I had forgotten. And the Phillips boys came that first holiday. Oh, yes, and that friend of yours, Mr. Danforth.” And Nettie gave Patty a little knowing look which Persis did not see.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Nettie, suddenly, after they had returned from their shopping expedition. “I don’t know what to make the candy in. I hate to bother Mrs. Scott to loan me anything.”

“Take that big flower-pot,—the yellow one over there,” Persis suggested. “It will make an excellent bowl.”

“Sure enough; and let me see—we’ll just use sheets of white paper to spread the candies on. I’ll have to light my lamp, for I want to melt the chocolate over the gas. How will I do it?”

“Can’t you set your hot-water kettle on the little gas-stove, or whatever it is, and put the chocolate in that mug? It will fit in the top of the kettle, won’t it?” Persis was always ready with expedients.

“That will do exactly. Now we’re all right.”

For an hour or two the girls chattered away, stirring, 27tasting, and patting into shape their confections until they were tired out.

“Goodness, Nettie,” exclaimed Persis, viewing their work. “I don’t see why we made such a lot. We’ll never get all this stuff eaten up before it gets stale.”

“What a remark to make in a community that boasts of four hundred girls, each possessing her own special sweet tooth!” rejoined Nettie.

“Oh, well, if you are going to scatter them broadcast, all right,” Persis returned, sitting on the floor and hugging her knees. “What are you doing now?” For Nettie was packing away an assortment of the candies in little boxes which she had fished out from the lower part of her washstand.

“Oh, I’m just disposing of these,” replied Nettie, nonchalantly. “What time is it, girls?”

Patty glanced at the small clock ticking away on the dressing-table. “Ten o’clock! who would believe it! I’m going to bed. You know I was always a regular sleepy-head. Mother says that’s why I’m such a roly-poly. I sleep so soundly.”

“Do you sleep soundly?” And Nettie smiled.

“Yes.”

“Then leave your door open. Perse and I may want to call you if we are ill from overeating.”

Patty laughed, and the girls proceeded to prepare for bed. They were a long time about it, however, and it was nearly eleven before their heads were on their pillows.

It seemed to Persis that she had only travelled half-way to Slumberland, and sweet sounds were 28already weaving themselves into her dreams, when she was awakened by a whisper from Nettie.

“Listen, Persis.”

“Hm?” said Persis, drowsily, for she could not detach the music from her consciousness.

Nettie gave her a little shake. “Come, get up,” she said.

“What for?”

“We must waken Patty.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you hear? Why, we are being serenaded.”

At this, Persis sat bolt upright, and realized that “Nellie was a lady,” was being sung by a quartette of manly young voices just below the window.

“Oh, how lovely!” she whispered. “Oh, Nettie, did you know about it? I never heard a real serenade. Isn’t it romantic to be wakened this way? Who are they?”

“Some of the University boys. They asked me if you girls could manage to spend a night with me, for they wanted to serenade us, and they didn’t dare to go to the boarding hall of your college.”

“Of course it wouldn’t do. But isn’t it fine? I’ll go give Patty a shake; nothing short of a downright yell will waken her, unless I do.” And Persis slipped out of bed and ran to the other room.

Sleepy Patty at first only grunted, but at last she was made to realize what was going on. Then the girls threw something around their shoulders and stole to the windows in order to catch more of the melody. The moon was shining brightly, and they 29could very plainly see the dark figures in the little garden below.

“That is Walter Dixon with the banjo, and Rob Maxfield with the guitar; and I don’t know who has the mandolin. Joe Chapman is singing tenor, and Matt Ward bass, but I don’t know the baritone. I wonder who he is.” Nettie was peeping stealthily through the shutters.

“They seem to be strong on the Nellie songs,” said Persis. “They are starting up ‘The Quilting Party.’ What are you going to do, Nettie?”

“I’m going to let down these boxes of candy to them. See I’ve tied them to a string, kite-tail fashion. I think they deserve some sort of recognition.”

Carefully, very carefully, the girls secreted themselves behind the curtains and dropped the long string over the window-sill. There was a cessation in the music, and then the girls’ college yell, followed by that of the boys’ own college, quite startled the neighborhood by the vigor with which they were given.

One more parting song was given, and then the boys departed, the tinkling of the mandolin and guitar being heard more and more faintly as they took their way down the street.

“Oh, it was just lovely,” sighed Persis. “I had visions of the Alhambra, and of Spanish cavaliers, and all sorts of things. I think the boys were just dear to think of it, and I’ll tell Walter so the next time I see him.”

“I wonder if they ever serenade Connie,” observed Nettie, as they crept back to bed.

30“I don’t know, but I should suppose they would. Connie has grown to be the nicest sort of a girl. I always did like her, although her family did not attract me.”

“Oh, well, they are simply no relation at all to her. They are simply the children of her father’s wife, so we can overlook their untutored ways,” returned Nettie. “Mrs. Dixon is just as fond of Connie as she can be. I wish she and Walter would marry. Do you think they will?”

“I don’t know. I hardly think so. They are more like brother and sister. I’m going to spend a day or two with them next week. You know the Cooking Club meets there, and we are going to give the boys a supper, some of Walter’s friends, and one or two of the boys from home.”

“Who?” asked Nettie, wickedly.

“Oh, only Mr. Dan and Porter Phillips. They are coming on to be here at class-day, too. You know Mrs. Phillips is still abroad, and Porter is at our house.”

“You don’t call Mr. Danforth a boy, do you?”

“No, not exactly; but we have known him so long, we always class him in with home folks.”

The next Saturday found a merry party of young people in Mrs. Dixon’s roomy kitchen, baking and stewing, and stirring and tasting.

“Aren’t we lucky in having such a cool evening?” said Connie, who, with a white apron before her, was carefully compounding the dressing for a salad.

“Cool! Do you call this cool?” exclaimed Patty 31Peters, who was lifting something from the oven, her round red cheeks glowing from the proximity to the fire.

“Not inside that oven, of course.”

“No, nor within a mile of it.”

“What’s that? It smells so good,” observed Porter Phillips, sniffing at the contents of the pan Patty was turning around.

“It is Patty-cake, Patty-cake, baker’s man, of course,” averred Walter Dixon, who, with a blue-and-white checked apron tied around his waist, was executing high kicks.

“Oh, now, come off. Have we got to have much of that sort of thing?” Porter said, in a disgusted tone.

“Of course you have, wherever Walter is,” put in Connie. “Which of you boys is going to grind the coffee? You’re here to help, remember. No work, no eat.”

“Didn’t I turn that ice-cream freezer till I nearly had vertigo?” returned Walter. “You ought to let me off, Con, and give these other fellows a chance.”

“For shame, lazy-bones. You are host here, and ought to set them a good example. Never mind, Mr. Danforth has come to the rescue.”

“You’d better let Mr. Dan make the coffee,” Persis suggested. “He can make the finest you ever tasted.”

“No, he mustn’t be allowed to make it. The men are only to do the work that requires muscle. We furnish the brains,” replied Connie, saucily. “My, 32what a noise! with a coffee-mill and an egg-beater going at the same time. Here, Walter, taste this dressing. Does it need more vinegar?”

“No, not a bit. You fellows over there picking out crab meat, are you most through? The lady over here says she is in a devilish humor, and wants you to hurry up.”

“Oh, Walter!” cried Persis. “I said nothing of the kind. I said I was ready for the crab meat.”

“Well, aren’t you going to devil them, and aren’t you in the humor for it?”

“Don’t explain, don’t explain, that only makes it worse. I wish I had a pump handy, so as to give you a sousing.”

“Souse? did I hear correctly? Are we going to have pigs’ feet? You didn’t mention it before.”

“Hush, at once. You are too silly to live,” cried Persis, peremptorily. “Go get that crab meat from those boys before you say another word.”

Walter only grinned and went off, returning with the dish. “Do you know why I always insist upon having sausage on my birthday?” he asked.

“No, silly. I’ve no time to guess your idiotic conundrums.”

“I’ll give you a hint. I was born on the second of February.”

“I don’t care when you were born, and if you don’t behave yourself better I’ll wish you never had been born. Take your fingers out of that dish. Who wants to know your conundrums?”

“You do. You know you do. See what a sweet, 33forgiving spirit I have, for I will tell you, for all your harshness towards me. I insist upon having sausage because my birthday comes on ground-hog day.”

“Mr. Dan! Mr. Dan!” Persis called. “I wish you would come and sit on Walter; he is getting worse and worse.”

“Is that slang, or do you mean literally, Miss Persis?” asked Mr. Dan, approaching.

“I mean both, if it requires the two constructions to keep him quiet.”

“Persis is most wofully wanting in appreciation,” Walter complained. “I had another first-class conundrum to spring on her, and now I am squelched.”

“Keep it till supper time,” Mr. Danforth advised.

“As a favor,” interposed Persis.

“Are you going to have favors? I didn’t know that?”

“We are going to have sense.”

“What kind?”

“What kind? Why, common sense. You, perhaps would best not appear,” retorted Persis, filling her shells carefully with the mixture she had prepared.

“Oh, I didn’t know but what you meant sweet scents; little bottles of cologne at each place, or something of that kind.”

Persis made no reply, but stalked to the range to place therein her devilled crabs, Patty having removed her pans.

“There!” she said; “my contribution will soon be ready. How are you coming on Con?”

34“Finely. My salad is a thing of beauty. Wilson Vane says he thinks he can eat it all, but I have my doubts. We will cook the lobster Newburg on the chafing dish, of course. Now, let me see. Nettie Greene made angel cake this morning, and Bessie Taylor has chocolate cake and maccaroons. Nina Barker made Maryland biscuits and jellied chicken, and there are three kinds of sandwiches, besides salted almonds and bread and pickles. So, I think we’ll do very well. What are those boys up to?”

“They’re finishing the crab-claws.”

“Boys!” called Connie. “Wilson, you and Porter stop that; you won’t have any appetite for your supper.”

“Won’t we? I’ve an appetite I wouldn’t take fifty dollars for. I’ve been saving it up for a week, and the family thought I was going into a decline. I promise, though, that I’ll not take off the edge of it.” And Wilson threw down the claw he had been cracking and came over to where Persis and Connie sat perched on the window-sill.

“What a fellow Mr. Dan is,” he said. “He’s helping everybody, and seems to know just what to do. Generally I feel like a fish out of water, in a kitchen, although this affair is great fun, but Mr. Dan takes hold like an old hand.”

“He has always been a home boy,” replied Persis. “His mother was a widow and an invalid. Mr. Dan was her only child, and did so much for her. Her loss, however, was a terrible blow to him.”

35“I can imagine it. Strange, for all his domestic ways, he’s as mannish a fellow as ever I saw.”

“Yes, he is.” Persis spoke a little wistfully. “He has more noble qualities than any man I ever met,” she then said, steadily.

Wilson looked at Connie and smiled. Persis knew perfectly well what they were thinking. “That is no reason why I shouldn’t give him his due,” she told herself. Then she continued, “He is just as thoughtful a friend as he was a son. He is a great tower of strength, and has been an immense help to Porter and Basil.”

“Yes, I believe that. I used to think Port was a little shaky in some directions.”

“He’s not perfect,” Persis acknowledged, regretfully, “but he has the making of a fine man in him if he’s not spoiled by flattery and success.”

“Well, I’m half starved. When do we start in?” asked Wilson.

“As soon as my crabs are browned. Are they done, Connie? Then we are ready. Come, boys, help us to carry in the dishes. I hope your labors have given you appetites.”

“Don’t fear,” they cried, scrambling from their different corners, and from the door-steps, where most of them had congregated.

“Fall in line,” called Walter. “I’ll carry the crabs.”

“Better let Mr. Dan have the coffee-pot,” said Porter, “he’s the steadiest. Give me that dish of salad. I’ll try not to stump my toe, and spoil this 36fine structure. My, but it’s jolly-looking—all those little tricks around it. I’m tempted to snake one of those fat olives.”

“Don’t you do it, for your life,” Connie commanded. “You shall have all you want at the table.” And Porter refrained.

Connie had clever fingers, and had painted pretty cards, which Persis’s wit had helped out by apt and sly hits which the inscriptions contained.

“We ought to have put you in a dish, Con,” said Walter, pausing between satisfying bits of lobster.

“Why?” she asked, innocently.

“Because a Stew-art thou.”

“He’s off,” cried Porter.

Walter smiled complacently. “Oh, Con doesn’t mind. She’s used to my little spicings, and couldn’t enjoy a meal without, could you, Con? Here’s the next. You all needn’t listen if you don’t want to. I’ll get it off for Con’s benefit.” And Connie nodded to him indulgently. “Why do we know that Adam was a gambler? This is as new and fresh——”

“As you are,” interrupted Porter.

“Oh, eat your supper,” responded Walter. “Say, Con, have you guessed it?”

“No; I’m thinking of gambling on the green, and that sort of thing.”

“No, no; ’way off. Give it up? Because, when he came from the garden of Eden, he left a Par-a-dise behind him.”

“Now, that isn’t so bad,” interposed Porter, grandly. “We’ll admit that, Walt. You are improving.”

37“Hear the infant. One would think him a Senior at least. You’re just barely out of the Fresh class yourself, remember. Look here, fellows, we haven’t said a word about the ‘wittles.’ Aren’t they first-class?”

“By the way they are disappearing I should judge we thought so,” replied Wilson. “Nothing less than speeches, toasts drunk in silence and standing, will express our appreciation. I say we don’t stop to air our opinions now, but wait till the festive board is cleared. We don’t have to wash the dishes, do we?”

“No,” Mrs. Dixon, who chaperoned the party, told them. “It seemed to me that getting the supper was quite enough for these girls, and I have provided dish-washers. So you will be free to follow your own sweet fancies after supper. Boys, you know you must vote on the bestowing of the prize.”

“Prize! What prize?”

“Why,” Persis informed them, “we always give a prize to the one who has shown the most culinary skill on such occasions.”

“But isn’t it largely a question of taste,” Mr. Danforth remarked. “If I like chicken-salad better than devilled crabs, I should naturally vote for the salad.”

“Oh, but you see what a fine, impartial, and discriminating sense it requires. It is not a question of what you like, but what shows the best cooking,” Mrs. Dixon explained.

“We’re in for it!” cried Wilson, in mock despair. “Think of it, fellows. The fate of eight fair damsels 38hanging upon our votes. It is enough to make a man commit suicide.”

“You don’t vote for the damsels. You are to consider them only negative conditions. The dishes themselves, as proud personalities, are to be passed upon.”

“Bread, and pickles, and everything?”

“Yes, except the butter; that is not home-made.”

“By the way, who made the bread? It is uncommonly good,” observed Mr. Danforth.

“Don’t tell, girls. As many articles as possible shall go on their own merits,” said Persis. “Then no partiality will be shown them on account of the makers. I don’t believe any of the boys know who is the bread-maker.”

“I believe you made it,” Mr. Danforth remarked, in an undertone, to Persis at his side. But she only laughed merrily, and refused to tell. And, lo! when the votes were counted, bread came first, and pickles second.

“Aren’t we out of it nicely?” cried Wilson. “No one can accuse us of partiality.”

“Except those whose dishes you do know,” replied Patty, demurely. “For example, you saw me make the chicken-patties.”

“And didn’t vote for them! Done for! What an ostrich I am! I forgot entirely that the not voting for specials gave us away.”

“But who is the bread-winner?” inquired Mr. Danforth. “I am really anxious to know.”

“Who but Patty herself,” Connie announced.

39“Bless you, Patty dear. I’m proud of you,” Persis laughed, gleefully, and cast a mocking glance at Mr. Danforth, who returned it with one of discomfiture.

“I was sure it was you,” he said, in a low tone.

However, no one grudged little Patty her prize,—a pretty lace-pin, the head of which represented a tiny broiling-iron.

“There ought to be a second prize for the pickles,” declared Walter. “I constitute myself a committee of one to provide it in behalf of the guests. Here, Con.” And, taking out his own scarf-pin, he tossed it across the table.

“But, Walter, I made the pickles,” Connie informed him, in a surprised tone.

“I know it,” he replied, calmly, helping himself to an olive.

A little flush mounted to Connie’s cheek, and she laughed somewhat nervously as she said, “Thank you, kind sir.”

Walter nodded in reply, and then called, “Speech! speech! Here’s to the prize-winners, may they never fail to rise to an emergency, and may they never get in a pickle.”

“Can’t you respond to the honor shown you, Patty? Say something, just a few words,” whispered Persis; but Patty was dumb, and looked confusedly at her plate.

“Oh, Persis, I can’t,” she whispered back.

“Answer for her,” said Persis, turning quickly to Mr. Dan, who arose and made a speech which won 40great applause, not only for the speaker, but for the blushing Patty, who, hearing her accomplishments so eulogized, felt that after Mr. Dan’s recommendations she might receive a proposal from any one of the young men before her.

“Now, my sweet pickle, to you,” said Walter, waving his cup towards Connie.

“Oh, Walter!” protested she.

“You’ve got to. We’re not going to do the toasting and the speechifying too for you girls. You’ve got a chance to talk without interruption, so go ’long and do it.”

Connie paused in embarrassment before she began in a little prim way, but catching a sight of Walter’s face, and seeing that the girls looked disappointed, she launched forth into a perfect torrent of fun and nonsense, so that she sat down amid shouts of mirth and was applauded to the echo.

Connie’s effort set the ball rolling, and the fun grew fast and furious till Mrs. Dixon asked them if they realized that they had been three hours at the table.

“It has been a great success,” the boys assured the young cooks.

“My only regret is that you didn’t make the bread,” were Mr. Danforth’s parting words to Persis, as, after an hour on the cool porch, the guests departed.

“Well, I can make bread, if it gives you any consolation to know it,” Persis replied, “But I cannot guarantee that it is as good as Patty’s.”

41“Will you make some for me some day?”

“Perhaps. Just now I’ve enough to do in getting ready for class-day. I can’t think about bread nor anything except mental food.”

The boys went off singing, and the June night, with its warmth, its sweetness, its thrill, typified the gladness of their youth.

CHAPTER III. FAREWELL, ALMA MATER.

With the question of themes, examinations, and other college matters to fill her mind, Persis had little time for frivolities for the next ten days. Wilson Vane, Porter Phillips, and Mr. Danforth had returned the day after the supper, and the girls were preparing to break up their college associations when once the more important matters connected with their studies were done with.

“I hate to disarrange my pretty room,” said Persis, as she began to unpin the sketches adorning her walls. “Thank you, Patty! you’re always on hand to help. I’ll do the same for you when you’re ready to begin the work of tearing up.” And she handed her neighbor a picture to place in a safe spot. “Dear me, how much stuff one does accumulate in a year!” she went on to say, as she stepped down from her chair and looked around her at the dismantled apartment. “I cannot possibly get all this into my trunks, and I’ll have to box a great deal of it.”

“My books are packed,” Patty said, “but I shall 43have to get your help about my pictures. I’m such a ‘little runt,’ as my old mammy used to call me, that I can’t reach anywhere scarcely. Persis, I’ve been thinking about the supper.”

“Have you? What about it?”

“Don’t you think it was queer for Walter to give Connie that pin before all of us?”

“Why, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of it. It’s just like Walter; he’s so impulsive. Why, did it strike you as being queer?”

“No-o, not till I heard some of the other girls talking about it. They thought it was not very good taste, since the supper was given in the Dixons’ own house.”

“Well, if it had been a prearranged thing, I suppose it wouldn’t have been, but it was simply a generous impulse. I could see the motive, and it made me think twice as much of Walter. He couldn’t bear to have Con left out, and I think it was very nice of him to do just what he did.”

“That’s a much better and kinder way to look at it, and I’ll tell the girls so. Here comes Nettie; let us hear her side.”

“The Cheerful Three are on hand,” cried Persis from her high stand on the dressing-table. “I’ll say how do you do, Nettie, when I’ve unpinned this drapery. There it comes. Now these fans and these peacock feathers. Who says they’re unlucky? They never brought me any ill-fortune. There! My, how blank it looks! Throw some of that trash on the floor, Nettie, and find a place to sit down. I have scarcely seen you for a week.”

44“No; nobody has seen anybody, we’ve all been so busy. However, I have been a little gay in some of my doings.”

“What doings?”

“I went down the bay on a revenue cutter with some friends, and had a jolly time at a funny little fishing-shore up one of the creeks. I wish you had gone, Perse. Why didn’t you both go? Connie said you were asked.”

“So we were, but we had a lot of other things to do and had to decline. Tell us about it, Nettie.”

“There’s not much to tell, except that it was such a queer place, and they served supper, deliciously cooked, on long pine tables out under the trees, where we could throw our fish bones and chicken bones out on the grass, where they were immediately snapped up by a parcel of strange-looking dogs which sat around and waited for them. It was rather a novel sort of experience, and one which you, especially, would have enjoyed.”

“Who all went?”

“The Dixons, including Connie, of course, Rob Maxfield, and some others I didn’t know. Connie kept wishing for you.”

Persis and Patty glanced at each other, and then Patty put her question about the pin.

“Why, I don’t think it was anything at all out of the way,” Nettie told them. “Girls are such hateful things sometimes. I don’t believe one of the boys thought twice about it. I wish girls were not so petty.” Netty looked quite provoked.

45“Girls are small,” Persis admitted. “They see some little insignificant thing, and they pick at it and pick at it till they have made a big hole in some one’s character, and then they say, ‘Oh, see that careless person. Why doesn’t she mend it?’”

Patty laughed. “That is just it. Why, those girls have talked and talked and buzzed and buzzed about poor Connie till you’d think she had done something dreadful.”

“So, she has gotten into a pickle after all.”

“Yes, in a way; but she doesn’t know it, and she must not.”

“Of course she mustn’t. Who would be so mean as to tell her?”

“Some girls would like nothing better. I believe I know some who can’t be anything else but mean.”

“Well, let’s whistle them down the wind. We don’t care about them, do we?” And Persis smiled on her friends.

“Not a whit. We had a glorious time, didn’t we?”

“We did, indeed,” Patty agreed. “No hatred or uncharitableness to make bitter sauce for our supper.”

“Some of the girls are inclined to scorn our cooking club,” Nettie told them. “They think it is beneath college-bred girls to give their attention ‘to such debasing things as appealing to the senses,’ they say.”

“That’s all nonsense,” declared Persis, emphatically. “I believe in doing well whatever one has to 46do, and I’ll venture to say half, at least, of the girls in this college will undertake to be house-keepers without a qualm of conscience as to whether they are capable of making a real home. They’ll think that they are superior beings so far as brains go. That’s all right enough. Women do need to fit themselves to be true companions to their husbands, but a knowledge of all the books in the world isn’t going to satisfy a man if he is in need of a good dinner.”

“Hear! hear!” cried Nettie.

“You know the old saying that the way to a man’s heart is——”

“Never mind, don’t finish; it is too gross a suggestion to be uttered within these hallowed walls.”

“I’ll spare you, then; but I will say that the art of cookery is not to be despised, and if it were meant that we should live on sawdust, why in the world were so many dainty and delicious articles of food created? I don’t believe in this lofty scorn of good housewifery. I think the woman who makes the inmates of her home comfortable, and thinks up dainty meals for them is much more to be commended than one who spends her time over her own purely selfish employments.”

“One needn’t go to extremes in either direction,” interposed Nettie.

“That’s just it; we do go to extremes, we women. I’ve always maintained, and still do, that the more a woman has cultivated her mind the better judgment she ought to have in all directions,” put in Patty.

“That’s the truth, too,” replied Nettie. “And if 47ever I am a home-maker, I hope I’ll make a real home, neglecting neither the moral, mental, nor physical side of it.”

“There, now, we’ve settled it,” laughed Patty. “Let’s change the subject. What a fine-looking fellow Porter Phillips is getting to be. I hadn’t seen him for a long time. He’s better looking than his brother, isn’t he?”

“He’s not half so good-looking,” returned Persis.

“Why, Perse, do you really think so?” asked Nettie.

“I don’t mean handsome. I mean he is a better fellow, and his face shows it. I don’t mean that Porter is bad, for he isn’t. He is just a little vain, and selfish, and thoughtless, and Basil is just the opposite.” Persis’s eyes were very bright.

“You are always such a stanch defender, Perse,” returned Nettie. “And how about Mr. Dan? I heard you sounding his trumpet the other day.”

“Mr. Dan is a good fellow, too, but——”

“But what?”

“Oh, nothing. We’re very good friends, but——”

“‘But,’ again.”

“Oh, well, don’t let’s compare them. They are very different. What do you think of Wilson Vane, Patty?”

And now it was Patty’s turn to look confused, as she answered, “I think he seems a very pleasant person.”

“What a tall, spidery fellow he is,” said Nettie. “But I like him. He’s not so silly as his sister.”

48“No; he is quite sensible in most directions. To be sure, he has his little foibles and fopperies that make him seem foolish, but I think he’s outgrowing them. He is something of an Anglomaniac, and while the craze lasts is likely to be laughed at; but no doubt he’ll get more wisdom with age. Patty dear,” turning suddenly to her plump little friend, “you’d be just the nice, sensible body for him. You’d be the making of him.”

“Oh, Persis!” And Patty blushed a vivid crimson.

“You needn’t ‘Oh, Persis!’ me. He was mightily taken with you, any one could see, and the bread was the finishing stroke.”

“I’d like to know what Mr. Dan meant by asking you if you’d make bread for him some day,” put in Nettie.

“Did you hear that?” Persis asked, with a little embarrassment. “Oh, that was just a bit of fun. For a sensible man Mr. Dan can be very trifling at times.”

Nettie kept her own counsel, but she was not surprised on class-day to see Persis examining with a pleased face the cards in two baskets of flowers, one of gorgeous red Jacqueminots and mignonette; the other pure white Niphetos roses.

“York and Lancaster,” cried Nettie. “Who sent them, Perse?”

“Mr. Dan and Basil. Wasn’t it sweet of Basil to remember, when he was away over in Paris?”

“And his are——?”

49“The white ones. Oh, Nettie, there they are,—mamma and papa, and the girls, and—oh, Nettie—grandma, and—no, it can’t be; yes, it is—Basil. Oh, when did he come?” And the newly made graduate hurried down to meet her friends, who with smiling faces were waiting for her.

“I was so afraid you wouldn’t get here,” cried Persis. “How lovely to think you could all come.”

“We barely managed it,” Professor Holmes told her. “My freedom came last night when our exercises were over, so we concluded to wait and all come together.”

The tall young man standing by Lisa’s side held out his hand. “Haven’t you a word for a returned voyager?” he asked, smiling.

Persis looked up with glowing face. “Oh, Basil!” she exclaimed; “I never dreamed of seeing you. A word for you? I have about a hundred thousand as soon as I get a chance to pour them forth.”

“Shall we retire and afford you the opportunity?” asked Lisa.

Persis blushed and stammered, and then recovered herself. “You mean girl,” she cried. “Of course, I want every one of you, and I have as many words for each one, only Basil has been away the longest. Did I conduct myself with credit? What did you think of my theme, papa? Oh, Lisa, I have a million things to ask you, but I must go now and speak to the professors. I see two or three hovering around on the outskirts, as it were. Oh, there come Mr. 50Dan and Porter. Just think what a centre of interest I am to-day. Never mind, Lisa, your turn comes next.” And with a gay nod she turned to greet the young men who were making their way towards her.

Porter hurried forward and grasped both of her hands. “Hallo, Perse!” he said. “Awfully glad you came out so well. How you must have worked to manage it in three years. You don’t look any the worse for it. Does she, Mr. Dan? I thought these last two weeks might knock you up.”

Mr. Dan was looking at Persis critically. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe it has hurt her. She’s a little thinner, perhaps. My congratulations are ready for you, Miss Persis.”

Persis expressed her thanks, and then, remembering suddenly that here was the giver of the red roses, she added, “And the lovely roses, Mr. Dan. Thank you so much for them.” She had not forgotten Basil’s offering, but that recognition was to be contained in the hundred thousand words.

“I suppose to-day represents the summit of your ambition,” Mr. Danforth remarked.

“No,” replied the young graduate, “the goal always recedes as we approach it, and I am sighing for new worlds to conquer. Now I am longing to go abroad.”

A shade of disappointment passed over the young man’s face, but before he could say anything, Persis, who was on the lookout for friends, exclaimed, “Oh, there are the Dixons. Come, let us go and find 51them; they’ll never discover us in this crowd.” And they proceeded to where this last group was standing. More congratulations, and the exuberant enthusiasm of her young friends was very sweet to Persis.

“We’re like a snowball,” she said, laughingly, to Connie. “Every time we make a turn we gather an accretion of some kind.”

“Persis would say ‘accretion,’” cried Walter. “She must appear erudite upon such an occasion.”

“Never mind,” returned Connie. “Persis is all right.”

“What’s the matter with Persis? She’s all——” began Walter.

“Never mind,” Persis interrupted him. “This is not an election. I see Aunt Esther and Uncle Wickes over there. The world and his grandmother seem to be here to-day. At least, my world. I wonder who the distinguished-looking old somebody is with Aunt Esther.”

The stranger proved to be nothing less than, as Persis said, “a sure-enough admiral,” whose first visit to the college this was.

Persis felt quite grand as she piloted him around, and half wished that all her classmates knew what an honorable guest they had.

“You have a great many friends here,” the old man said, as Persis nodded right and left.

“Yes,” she replied; “but most of those in the crowd here are only acquaintances. My own, own people are standing over there by the door.”

52“Suppose we sit down here, and you tell me about them,” the admiral suggested.

Persis, nothing loath, agreed.

“The two very pretty girls, are they your sisters?” asked the admiral.

“Yes: the darker one is Lisa. She is to be married in a couple of weeks to—— Oh, perhaps you know her betrothed: he is in the navy,—Lieutenant Griffith—Richard Griffith.”

The old man knitted his brows thoughtfully, and then seemed to remember. “Yes, yes,” he nodded. “I know him. A nice fellow. So, that’s his sweetheart. She’s very handsome.”

“Yes, isn’t she? And the other one,” Persis went on, “the fair one, is Mellicent. She looks lovely to-day, doesn’t she?”

The admiral smiled at the unaffected expression of admiration. “She does, indeed,” he answered. Then he looked at Persis critically.

She laughed. “You are wondering why I am so different from them. Their coloring is quite unlike, but their features are like, and mine are totally different I am the middle one, but I’m quite used to being the ugly duckling,” she added, archly, “and I don’t mind it in the least.”

The admiral smiled again, thinking how very attractive was the speaking face under her college cap. “Your costume is very becoming,” he assured her, “but you do not resemble your sisters.”

“Now, let me tell you who the others are. The tall man with the little bald spot on top of his head 53is my father, and the old lady by his side, the one with white hair, is my grandmother, and my mother stands next to her. The tallest of those young men is Basil Phillips, the one with the smooth face; he always reminds me of an old colonial picture. The one with the budding moustache is his brother, Porter. They are my father’s wards. The one talking to grandmother is Mr. Danforth, a journalist. He used to be our tutor. We have known him since we were children. The other young man is Walter Dixon, and the girl with him is Constance Steuart, and that is Mrs. Dixon talking to mamma. Aunt Esther Wickes and the captain you know.”

“And I do not doubt but that you are very happy to-day.” The admiral looked down on the eager young face, as if he envied this fresh, enthusiastic spirit.

“Yes; my only regret is that my cousin, Annis Brown, is not here. We have been chums for so long, and expected, in our early school-days, to be graduated the same year, but I found I could get through my course a year earlier, and Annis, somehow, did not seem to be very strong, so she left college, and has been abroad with her mother for some months.”

“And what are you going to do with all this learning?” asked the admiral.

“I? Oh, I have several schemes. I used to think I should like to try journalism, but I don’t know. I want to go abroad for a while, and then I shall make something my special work.”

54“You will not be a new woman, I hope.”

“In the ordinary sense, no; but I will be an independent woman, and try to live the life for which I am best suited.”

“I am old-fashioned, I suppose,” returned the admiral. “You will pardon me if I say that I think home is a woman’s true kingdom.”

“We are old-fashioned, too,” replied Persis. “I have not been brought up to ignore any of the purely domestic acquirements. I can cook almost anything, and I enjoy doing it. I went through a real siege of learning to sew, and if I find I am to make a home, I hope I shall do it the more intelligently because of my studies. I don’t despise small duties, nor do I undervalue the real, true, beautiful home, such as my mother has made for her husband and children. But I will not accept such a life unless I can honestly believe it to be for my truest happiness and my best development.”

The old man looked a little disapprovingly at the eager girl. “My dear child,” he said, “don’t be too independent We men need the home-makers.”

“I do believe a happy marriage is the best life, and the one that brings the best development,” returned Persis. “But, missing the requisites for a happy marriage, isn’t it much better to live a useful, single life, contributing to universal good, than to pass your days in repining over an unwise choice, and regretting a mistake made in a frivolous, unthinking way?”

“Yes, yes. I believe you are right. There would 55be fewer unhappy men and women, if more girls thought as soberly as you do.”

Persis laughed. “Sober! I’m not usually called sober.” And, indeed, her laughing face bespoke anything but seriousness just at that moment.

“Will you present me to your parents?” asked the admiral.

Persis willingly complied, and they joined the little company of her friends.

She soon found herself standing with Basil somewhat apart from the others. “It is so nice to see you again, Basil,” she said. “And, oh, the roses were so sweet. I am going to put one away and keep it forever in memory of my class-day. Now tell me about Annis.”

“Annis is fine,” returned he, heartily. “We had great times over there, Persis. I wish you had been with us.”

“I wish so, too; but I couldn’t be there and here, too. And now I have it in anticipation. Do you know I always tell myself that, when I have not been to some special place, or have not seen a thing that others are talking about, I say, There is one more enthusiasm I have not outlived.”

“You dear, cheerful soul,” replied Basil. “You’re like bottled-up sunshine.”

Persis ignored the remark except by the happiness in her eyes. “Tell me some more. Is Annis coming back in time for the wedding? It is two weeks off. Basil, it was so dear of you to come home for this.”

56“Well, I was coming for the wedding anyhow, and I thought I might as well stretch the time that little.”

“Are you going back?”

“Perhaps so. I have not decided. Mother would like to stay over, and Porter is so safe with you all. I wish, if I do go, that you could take your trip then, Perse. You could join mother, and have a fine time travelling about.”

Persis’s eyes took on a wistful look. “I should like to, but when I go it will be for study, I think. Not this year, though, Basil. You know Lisa is so soon to be married that I should not want to go and leave my dear people, when I’ve been away three years at college. Think of it, Basil, four years since you designed the Greek dress for me, when I was graduated from Miss Adams’s school.”

For answer, Basil took a little note-book from his pocket, and showed Persis a small photograph. It was herself in the pretty classic dress.

“Oh,” cried she. “Have you that still? I remember when Walter came over with his kodak. And you’ve kept that all this time.”

Basil made no answer, but looked from the picture to the girl before him. “You’re like wine, Persis,” he said. “You improve with age.”

Persis made a profound courtesy. “I’m not used to compliments from you,” she declared. “This comes of your living among Frenchmen. You’ll have to scold me a little before I can really believe you are home again.”

57And then there was a stir in the company, leave-takings, and plans made for future meetings. The crowd began to grow less, and soon the doors of the college hall closed after Persis.

She looked back with a little sigh as she walked down the path. Then she waved her hand to the gray walls. “Good-bye, Alma Mater,” she said.

Mellicent looked over her shoulder at her. “Why, Persis actually has tears in her eyes,” she remarked.

CHAPTER IV. LISA’S WEDDING-DAY.

The sweet, perfume-laden air of June swept through Lisa’s room, where she and Persis were busily engaged in packing away various small articles. These were Lisa’s treasures, each suggesting some period of her girlhood, and seeming alive with memories which more than once brought the tears to the eyes of herself and her sister.

“Oh, Lisa! Lisa!” Persis exclaimed, in a burst of emotion. “It will never be the same again. Girlhood will be gone for you in a few days. We shall never be together in just the same way again.”

The bright drops stood on Lisa’s lashes. “Don’t, Persis, don’t. It isn’t like you to see the shadowy side.”

“I know it.” And, remembering the Cheerful Three, she gulped down a sob. “But then I don’t have sisters getting married every day,” she said, in excuse.

“I should hope not,” returned Lisa. And that 59turned the balance, so that instead of crying they both laughed.

A moment after, Mellicent came running up the steps. “Another express package, Lisa. Hurry and open it.” And in the presence of this new excitement, the little pile of mementos on the bed was swept into a box and thrust aside to make room for this last addition to the wedding-presents.

The three girls stood with their heads together to catch a sight of the gift, which proved to be a fine piece of cut glass.

“That makes three bowls,” Mellicent announced. “How will you ever manage to carry so many breakables over the face of the earth, Lisa?”

“I shall not try to. I’ll leave them here, and if we ever do settle down in one place we can have them.”

At this moment there came to their hearing a little bustle of excitement in the hall below, and a voice was heard saying, “Where is she? Where is she?” Then came hurried footsteps up the stairs and along the entry.

Persis sprang to her feet and flew to the door. “It’s Annis!” she cried. “Oh, Annis, you darling!” And the two girls threw themselves into each other’s arms.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” cried Lisa. “Let’s look at you, Annis. Now Persis will perhaps be comforted for my loss, over which she has been mourning.”

“Oh, yes. You mustn’t forget to pay your respects 60to Lisa. She is the most important person in the family just now. Think of it, a bride in the house! We haven’t had one since our dolls were married.”

Annis embraced her other two cousins with a little less effusion, but it was evident that they were glad to see her.

“Let’s see how you look, Annis,” Mellicent said. “We want to observe your Paris style.”

“You won’t see much, I am afraid. This costume is quite English, you know. Do I look like a travelled lady?”

“You look fine.” Persis held her off at arm’s length and took in the details of the quiet, tailormade gown, the sweet little face, with its touch of sunburn, under the sailor hat, the soft blue eyes full of affection, and she flung her arms again around her cousin. “Oh, Annis, you don’t know how glad I am to have you again,” she repeated. “Aren’t you glad to be back? Come, tell me all about everything, and then we’ll talk about the great event.”

“Let’s talk about the wedding first. The account of my travels will keep.”

“And the wedding will not? Well, there is some truth in that. And you’ll want to see the presents,—a hundred and nine so far.”

“And mine will make a hundred and ten.”

“Put it down, Mell,” cried Lisa. “A hundred and ten. I’m crazy to see it, Annis.”

“Well, you shall as soon as our trunks come. It’s nothing very magnificent, but I think you will like it.”

61“It’s just like Christmas-time, isn’t it? Only the presents all come for me, and I don’t have to hang up my stocking.”

“Do tell me all about the plans,” Annis entreated. “You see I haven’t heard anything, for I’ve not had letters for two or three weeks.”

“Well it’s to be a real out and out high noon, bridesmaid affair. Lisa is nothing if not stylish, you know. A breakfast afterwards here at home,” Persis informed her. “I, of course, am to be best girl; then the bridesmaids are to be you and Mell, Mr. Griffith’s sister and Margaret Greene, Nellie Hall and Kitty Carew.”

“And the ushers?”

“Why, they are—let me see—Basil and Porter, Walter Dixon and Ned Carew; think of poor Ned’s being called upon for such a service. Then, there are two friends of Mr. Griffith’s.”

“Persis will not call him Richard,” Lisa complained.

“I simply cannot,” declared Persis. “I should be sure to forget and call him Dicky-bird some day, and disgrace myself. I’ll wait till he is actually my brother-in-law. Oh, dear, fancy a brother-in-law.”

“He’s a dear,” interposed Mellicent. “I just love him, Annis.”

“Well, you see, I don’t know him so well as the others do, for I’ve been at college most of the time that the rest have been making his acquaintance,” Persis explained.

“Oh, yes, and college; there’s all that to talk 62about, Persis. How is it Mr. Dan is not one of the ushers?”

“He was to have been, but I don’t think he could stand the strain upon his feelings.”

“Now, Persis,” Lisa cried, reprovingly. “You know better than to say such a thing.”

“I couldn’t have known better, or I should not have said it,” returned Persis, laughing. “Oh, Annis, you know that Audrey Vane is married, and she has gone to Ireland—or is it Spain?—to hunt up the grave of her ancestor, King Milesius.”

“Now, Persis,” came a second reproachful voice. This time it was Mellicent’s. “You know it is no such thing.”

“Annis, your coming has just sent Persis off on her high horse,” Lisa remarked. “She hasn’t been so wicked since she came home from college.”

“It’s nervous excitement,” Persis excused herself by saying. “I’m not responsible for what I say, or do, at this present time. Pardon me, Pigeon, if I show any seeming disrespect to her highness, Lady Audrey Vane—I mean Lady O’Flannigan.”

“It isn’t O’Flannigan,” Mellicent corrected. “You always say that, and it’s Mallory.”

“Well, I knew there was a distinctly Hibernian flavor about it.” And Persis flashed a mischievous look at her sister.

“Come, Annis, let’s go see the presents. Come, girls, we’ve not made our manners to Mrs. Brown.” And the three followed the speaker down-stairs.

A week later there came a fair day, for the dawn of 63which Persis had been watching since the first peep of the earliest robin. Fresh and sweet came the morning air through her vine-hung window, and as rosy clouds sent their flushes up the sky, and she saw that the day promised to be all that could be desired, she went to Lisa’s door and tapped softly. To Lisa’s “Come in,” Persis responded by flying to her as she sat up in bed. It was to each of them almost the most solemn moment in the day as they sat clasped in each other’s arms, not saying a word.

It was Persis who broke the silence by saying, “Oh, Lisa, I’m so glad we don’t quarrel as dreadfully as we used to.”

“So am I,” returned Lisa. “I wonder what made us such scratch-cats.”

“Too much Ego.” Persis contributed this with a wise look on her face, at which Lisa laughed.

“Well,” she responded. “This is the one day in all my life in which I suppose I may be considered to have the right to give my Ego full rein.”

“So you may. Oh, Lisa, have you noticed what an exquisite morning it is? I was so afraid it was going to be very warm, and I don’t think it will be. Are you very nervous?”

“No, I think not very. I do feel queer when I remember that after to-day I shall never be Lisa Holmes again.”

“How many times have you written ‘Mrs. Richard Griffith’ on slips of paper which no one would see?” asked Persis, laughing.

Lisa blushed, but laughed, too. “What do you 64know about such things, miss? You, who have never been in love?”

And it was Persis’s turn to blush. “That’s turning the tables nicely,” she answered, merrily. “I don’t know a thing from experience, only from being a looker-on. I may have rummaged your scrapbasket some time.”

“I don’t believe it. You don’t do such mean, sneaky things.”

“Thank you, ma’am. See, Lisa, it is broad daylight. I am going to get up, for there is a deal to do before you can be ready to walk up the middle aisle. How gorgeous it will be to see so many uniforms and pretty summer gowns. I think June is surely the month for weddings.”

“Shall I have the pleasure of attending yours next year, Miss Holmes?”

“Oh, I shall be Miss Holmes after to-day, sure enough. No, madam. No wedding for me this year, I fell up the steps yesterday. Lisa, did you ever see any one look lovelier than Mellicent in her bridesmaid frock? She will make a sensation to-day among the naval officers.”

“Yes. I want to have you both down to the ball at Annapolis, if we ever are stationed there.”

“How fine! But, indeed, we must dress, Lisa.” And Persis slipped out of bed and ran to her own room.

The presence of a lot of young people took away from the seriousness which might have been felt at the breakfast-table. Annis Brown, Basil and Porter 65Phillips were present, and the chatter went on in the liveliest manner. Porter usually had a fund of anecdotes and jokes, and was really quite a brilliant talker. Basil, though usually quiet, had a keen appreciation of humor, and when he did say anything funny it was extremely droll, consequently even Grandmother Estabrook laughed till the tears came to her eyes.

“We cannot spend any more time in giving ourselves over to this unseemly mirth,” declared Persis. “We’ve got to dress the bride and each other, and see that mamma’s hair is arranged just right, and that grandma carries out her reputation for dignified elegance.”

“She never fails to,” put in Basil, who was a stanch champion of Mrs. Estabrook’s.

“Of course. We know that, but the eyes of the American navy are upon us to-day, and we want to put on some extra touches so as to impress the guests with a due sense of our importance. There’s Richard. I did call him Richard that time. Did you notice?” And Persis turned to Lisa. But Lisa’s eyes were for the young naval officer who appeared at the door with his sister, a girl about seventeen.

“Marjorie couldn’t wait,” Richard informed them. “She said you expected her to dress here, and she charged all the bell-boys in the hotel to call her at six o’clock. So here she is.” Lieutenant Griffith was a pleasant-looking fellow, not specially handsome, “a real thoroughbred,” Porter called him. 66His manner was charming and his voice rarely well modulated. He was desperately proud of having won Lisa, whose beauty he was never tired of gazing upon.

“I’m only afraid he will spoil our girl,” Mrs. Holmes had said to her mother. “She is already too imperious.”

“I always felt that Mr. Danforth would have suited her better in many ways,” Mrs. Estabrook confessed; “that she would have developed into a finer woman through his influence; but we can be thankful that Richard is such a dear, good, sweet-tempered fellow, and Lisa has chosen more wisely than we at one time imagined she might.”

From breakfast-time on the bustle grew greater. One after another of the relatives arrived; belated presents appeared; the bridesmaids fluttered up- and down-stairs; Porter and Basil rushed in and out to see after certain forgotten matters, and all went merry as the traditional marriage-bell.

Porter was bent upon carrying out one or two practical jokes which he had planned for the occasion. In vain Lisa had said, with her haughtiest air, that it was ill-bred and vulgar to do such things. In vain Persis had declared insistently that it was coarse and unkind. Porter was bent upon his scheme, and the girls had determined to outwit him. They said nothing, but it was a prearranged plan that Lisa’s baggage should be sent out of the house several days before she left it a bride. Consequently the conspicuously placed trunks upon 67which Porter had determined to paste enormous red paper hearts, were simply dummies, and to thwart the too zealous well-wishers in the matter of rice and old shoes was the next puzzle.

At last the bells rang out high noon, and as the last echo died away the six bridesmaids appeared at the chancel of the beautiful old church, and walking down the aisle met the bride, who wore the conventional white satin, her veil being rare old lace, a family heirloom. Persis, in white, was the maid of honor; Mellicent and Marjorie Griffith came next in costumes of faint gauzy pink; then Annis and Margaret Greene in pale buff, and lastly Nellie Hall and Kitty Carew in delicate green. All the bridesmaids wore picturesque hats, and were truly lovely.

Persis, all excitement, felt perhaps as keenly as did her sister, since she was of a more emotional temperament. It was with difficulty that she could keep back the tears, especially as, walking down the aisle, she saw her mother’s lips trembling, and caught sight of her grandmother’s downcast eyes.

“Oh, I shall never, never marry,” she told the girls, as she found herself in the carriage being whirled back to the house. “It is too dreadfully solemn a thing.”

But half an hour later it did not seem so dreadful as she stood watching with Basil the wedding-guests who filled the room.

“See how devoted Dr. Wheeler is to Mellicent,” she whispered. “Isn’t he handsome? They make a fine-looking pair. Don’t you think so?”

68“Yes, but I don’t want Mellicent to fell in love with him.”

“Why? Do you want her yourself?” asked Persis, flippantly.

“No-o.” Basil spoke as if giving the subject a little thought. “I don’t believe I do.”

Persis laughed. “I really believe you are considering the matter.”

“No; I was thinking of some one else.”

“Oh.” Persis followed his glance, and saw that it sought out Porter, who, though devoting himself to a pretty girl, cast dour looks once in a while in Mellicent’s direction. “Is that it?” she cried, with sudden enlightenment.

“What?”

“Why, Porter. I never dreamed of it. He’s too young to think of such things; so is Mellicent, for that matter. She is scarcely seventeen, and he is only a boy.”

“A pretty big one.”

“Yes, but I don’t believe it is a real feeling. He’ll get over it, Basil. Men always do.”

“Do they? How do you know so much?”

“That is what every one asks me when I offer my nuggets of wisdom. I do know cousin Ambrose Peyton didn’t, to be sure, but he’s the exception that proves the rule. Oh, Basil, don’t let Porter go to the railroad station. We don’t want him to badger that long-suffering bride and groom.”

“How can we keep him?”

“Mellicent can, maybe.”

69“I don’t doubt it. What a wise head! but we’ll have to give her a word on the subject. Hallo! There’s Mr. Dan.”

“I didn’t see him at church.”

“I did.”

“Did you? Oh, but you had a fine chance to see every one.”

“Shall I tell him where you are?”

Persis glanced up at her companion to see if she could discover any underlying motive in his question, but Basil looked down at her with serene eyes.

“Yes, go tell him, if you want to,” she said, a trifle impatiently. And Basil went. A moment later Persis saw him at Annis’s side, while Mr. Danforth stood before her. For some reason a spirit of coquetry totally foreign to her took possession of the girl, and she looked up with a glance which set the young man’s pulses beating.

“Why did you refuse to help us out with what Porter calls ‘the ushing’?” she asked.

“I wasn’t sure of being able to keep an engagement of that kind, and I know what a nuisance it is to have plans disarranged at the very last moment.”

“You always are so very thoughtful.” Persis looked down at her roses.

“I have hardly seen you since your return from college. Haven’t you a lot to tell me?”

“I have, indeed, and I have a lot to ask.”

“Your position as editor of the children’s department is still waiting for you.”

70“Not waiting. Miss Bond does very well, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, quite well.”

“Then I think she would best keep the position a while longer. By refusing to take her place I shall be doing an act of mercy in more than one direction.”

“But not in all.”

“Why?”

The young man was silent a moment. “Not in mine,” he said at last.

Persis flushed, and turned abruptly. “Oh, Lisa has gone up to change her dress,” she exclaimed, glad of an excuse to escape. “I must go to her, Mr. Dan.” And she fled to her sister, whom she found bidding her mother a tearful farewell.

“Oh, mother dear, don’t cry,” said Persis. “You know there is so much sunshine, Lisa will have rainbows before her eyes all the way if she weeps in this way, and the landscape will look as if it had been painted by a rank impressionist. Mrs. Griffith, we have managed beautifully. Wild horses can’t drag Porter to the station, and everything else is smooth sailing.”

“Mrs. Griffith! How funny it sounds. I am Mrs. Griffith, but just the same, dear, dear people, I am always your Lisa,” the bride said, with a little catch in her voice. Then with one more close embrace she left her mother and ran to the steps.

“Where’s your bouquet? You must throw it,” cried a dozen voices.

Persis ran back for it, and Lisa gave it a toss.

71“Look at the hands stretched out for it,” laughed Persis. “What a comment upon the desire for a speedy marriage. Oh, see who has it!” Annis had caught it and had given a swift little glance at Basil, who stood by her side.

Then came a shower of rice, and, as the newly married pair started off, a dozen old shoes went flying after them, a particularly disreputable one lodging on top of the carriage, which fast elicited a mocking cheer from the boys.

Fifteen minutes later, however, Mellicent announced, triumphantly, “You needn’t be so jubilant, Porter, Lisa outwitted you. There was another carriage waiting for them around the corner, they just transferred themselves into that, and Lisa’s baggage was sent by express a week ago.”

“I vow!” cried Porter, looking so crestfallen that a burst of laughter went up from all present.

It was evening before the last guest had departed, but the sunshine had gone out of her day long ere this for Persis. “Oh Lisa! Lisa!” she sighed, as she sought her sister’s empty room, and perhaps the tears which rose to her eyes were not altogether on Lisa’s account.

CHAPTER V. RUFFLED FEATHERS.

“Now, Melly, how can I help it?” Persis was saying a few mornings after the wedding. “You know perfectly well I didn’t fish for an invitation. I don’t do such things. And I suppose the reason Aunt Esther asked me was because you and Lisa have both had such famous trips. Just think, you have been to Europe and to Egypt, and Lisa to California and Japan, as well, while I had to stay at home and delve at my studies.”

“Well, you can go anywhere you want to now,” returned Mellicent. “I’m sure you have money enough. No one ever left me ten thousand dollars as Cousin Ambrose Peyton did you, and I have no husband to buy me pretty things as Lisa has. I’m sure I’m much the worst off.” Mellicent was nothing if not a martyr on all available opportunities, and she spoke plaintively.

“You know I would willingly share half my income with you, if grandma had not said that she 73could do ever so much more now that there was only one of us to buy extras for.”

Still Mellicent’s air of injured innocence remained, and Persis, looking at the stubborn set of her chin, was suddenly exasperated into saying, bluntly, “Well, I can’t help it if Aunt Esther does want me. I know very well why she’s not so fond of you nowadays.”

Mellicent’s blue eyes took on a coldly defiant look. “Go on, I’d like to know why.”

“Oh, Mell! I ought not to have said it, maybe,” Persis began, contritely. “But I do know it is because you haven’t been quite truthful with Aunt Esther, and she does hate insincerity and deceit.”

“It isn’t true.” Mellicent began to sob. “Call me anything you want. I’m always misunderstood and abused. I think you might have stood up for me to Aunt Esther, and have shown some sisterly feeling, instead of listening to such tales.” And with a handkerchief to her eyes she left the room.

Persis stood looking after her. “Oh dear!” she sighed, after a moment. “Perhaps I should not have said it, and I couldn’t tell her that Aunt Esther never said a word to me about it, but that it was Lisa who told me. Yet, after all, it is true, and I should be a poor sister if I didn’t try to help Mell to mend her faults. Maybe, though, I didn’t go about it the right way,” both of which conclusions were right.

Mellicent could not bear to be blamed. She would twist and turn any accusation so that it might rebound upon the accuser, and never could she recognize as a friend one who showed her a fault. Whether 74she really believed herself incapable of doing wrong, or whether she thought that by persistent contradiction she could persuade away a fact, she was a most slippery person to deal with when it came to the question of a misdeed. First; denial came promptly; next came an air of injured innocence, and even in the face of proof positive she took refuge behind such a martyr-like expression that Persis often felt condemned at pressing the matter, and dropped the subject, all the time chafing under the implied charge of persecution and ill-temper, which Mellicent’s manner conveyed. Such a course, however, was not in the long run to win Mellicent much respect, and she was fast winning from certain persons a contempt which could never be felt towards her elder sisters.

As a little child Mellicent had been the favorite of her Aunt Esther Wickes, her pretty appealing ways having gained her this preference; but as she grew older, and her character developing showed vanity, affectation, and a certain vacillation of principle. Persis’s frank, unaffected manner and her strict integrity won her the first place in Aunt Esther’s respect and regard, a fact which aroused Mellicent’s easily awakened envy, and she accused Persis of robbing her of her rights.

Poor Persis felt quite like a culprit before Mellicent’s attack, but had no final way of establishing her innocence beyond saying, “Why, Mell, I haven’t done a thing but be myself.” That was just it. Each had been herself, and Persis’s self had proved 75a more acceptable fact than Mellicent’s; a fact that no amount of persistent protest could deny; a fact that was visible under every cloak of pretence.

The elder sister stood looking after the younger as she went out of the room. “Dear me,” she said, “I wonder why here at home I must rub some one the wrong way. It used to be Lisa, and now it is Mellicent. I get along beautifully everywhere else, and am never considered unamiable. I see I will have to do as I used, and go talk it over with grandmother.”

It seemed to Persis that she detected a growing feebleness in her beloved grandmother, a transparency of the fair pure skin which betokened a nearer approach to spirituality, but the smile with which she greeted her favorite granddaughter had nothing of pain in it.

“Oh, grandsie dear,” said this middle one, bending to kiss her, “here comes the same old sixpence. You’d suppose that three years of college would have taught me to unravel my difficulties without any one’s help, but as soon as I get home again I find myself lapsing into the old ways.”

“Dear child, I’m glad of it. It makes you seem less grown up. I cannot quite get used to your being a woman.”

“I can’t myself, I think I’ll be a long time getting to the real grown-up point. Sometimes I actually feel as if I should like to play with my dolls. I do like to dress them, even yet, and there are some other infantile delights which still appeal to me strongly.”

76“Such as——?”

“Scraping the preserving kettle and eating cake dough.”

“Truly infantile. Anything else?”

“Yes: I like to make faces at myself in the glass. I can get into shrieks of laughter, when I am entirely alone, at some of my contortions.”

“You are a child, Persis.”

“I said so. But now, grandsie dear, tell me what is your full and unbiassed opinion of Mellicent.”

“Mellicent?” Grandmother looked astonished.

“Yes. Do you all spoil her, or is she a little fraud who gulls everybody, or what?”

Mrs. Estabrook looked sober. “My dear, that is a serious question.”

“I know it.” And then Persis told her late experience.

“I’ve been afraid for some time that Mellicent was not developing the nobler side of her nature,” was the remark Mrs. Estabrook made when Persis had finished. “She has been so delicate that your father and mother have considered her health before anything else. I hope when she is really a woman, and her health is established, that she will be stronger morally. Her great trouble is that she wants to be considered first with every one, just as she is so considered at home.”

“The everlasting Ego again,” returned Persis, laughing.

“Yes, and she does not realize that her very self-adoration, her love of admiration and attention, are 77winning her just the opposite from what she most ardently desires.”

“She poses for an angel, and cannot fly.”

“Something like that. She longs to be beloved as one who possesses the highest qualities, and the qualities are missing.”

“Emerson goes into all that so well in his ‘Spiritual Laws,’ although, in a nutshell, what he says is, ‘A man passes for what he is worth.’”

“Yes; but Persis dear, don’t grow exacting and critical to such a degree as to see faults before virtues. Mellicent has many virtues.”

“I know, grandma, and I wouldn’t confess to any other human being that she hadn’t them all.”

“Very good, then. She is so young. Let us try to help her by example, by a steadfast upholding of principle, rather than by hammering at her.”

Persis flashed out a smile. “That’s my way, isn’t it? Thank you for the us you so deftly inserted into that remark. I am a sad hammerer, I’m afraid. Now grandma, I do feel very bad about Aunt Esther’s disaffection, and yet, after all, I think the sole reason she invites me on this trip is because I’ve had fewer opportunities for travel than Lisa and Mellicent.”

“I’ve no doubt that is so.”

“But, nevertheless, I’d like to make it up to Mell in some way. Do you know of any place where she would specially like to go for a couple of weeks? And could you—would you go with her?”

Mrs. Estabrook gave the question a moment’s thought, then she replied, “I think Mellicent has a 78great longing to go to Narragansett Pier, for she has said so many times.”

“Well, grandma dear, that much is settled. Now the other.”

“About my going with her? Why, yes, I could, but I don’t believe it would be the cheapest trip in the world.”

“You would want to stop at a nice hotel, and I mean you shall.”

“You mean.”

“Yes, ma’am, if you please. I shall settle all the bills. You see,” she went on, eagerly, “this invitation from Aunt Esther will save me ever so much, and I have a little reserve fund, you know.”

“That you are saving towards a trip to Europe.”

“Never mind Europe; it won’t sink, like the lost Atlantis.”

“And how about the new furnishings for your room.”

“My room has served me as it is for many years; I think I shall still manage to be comfortable in it. Now, don’t say a word, grandma. I know you think it is an extravagant scheme, and want to tell me that I am not at all thrifty to lavish my money on a trip like that; but please, ma’am, let me humor myself this time. It is purely a selfish wish, for I couldn’t enjoy my own trip if I knew Mell were not having a good time; besides, it will do you both good. They say the Narragansett air is delicious, and you both need a change. Say that you’ll do me the favor to smile on my plan.”

79“Well, dear, since you put it that way.”

“And I want Mellicent to think it is just one of the regular summer plans and no special treat. I don’t want to be mentioned in the matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need a little wholesome discipline myself. I might be top-lofty, and I need some meekness in my composition. Don’t I, truly, grandma?”

“A little, perhaps, at times.”

“If there is anything I hate, too, it is to see a person make a parade of any little generous act, assuming an attitude before the world as if he would say, ‘Now, everybody look at me. I’ve just been real liberal, and I want all the credit for it I can get.’ It disposes one to think such acts are rare on the part of that special individual.”

Mrs. Estabrook smiled. “There is another thing which I quite as much dislike, and that is a lack of recognition of that same generous act by the person who is the recipient. Now, I think it would be only gracious and right for Mellicent to be able to say, ‘This outing was given me by the generosity of my sister.’ A person has no right to accept a thing of that kind without giving due recognition for it. For my own part, I think I should be rather ashamed to accept a thing I could not tell about.”

“Nevertheless, I’m obstinate enough to want my way this time. Perhaps some time you might tell her, after the summer is over. Will you let it be that way?”

“Yes, if you so desire it.”

80“Thank you. You’re a darling. One thing more. I wish to give and transfer, without reservation, the amount I intend to be spent into your hands, and you can find out if Mell would rather spend more of it on purple and fine linen, or whether she would rather go with what she would ordinarily have, and let the rest be spent in extending your stay. That’s all, I believe.”

“And quite enough.”

“Now, do you mean I am a bore?”

“What about that wholesome humility?”

“It is needed this moment. You needn’t answer my question. I’m going to hunt up Annis. Doesn’t she look sweet and pretty these days?”

“She does, truly. Where are you off to?”

“A game of golf, I think.”

“Isn’t it too warm for exercise?”

“Oh, we can sit down between strokes if we choose.”

“Is Mellicent going?”

“I don’t know. I suppose she is preparing her garments for the stake, or is reading ‘Joan of Arc,’ maybe, or Fox’s ‘Book of Martyrs.’”

“Now, Persis.”

“That wasn’t nice of me, was it? Can’t help it, grandma; I’se drefful wicked sometimes.”

“If Mellicent isn’t going out, send her to me.”

“And you’ll sweeten her misery by giving her our scheme to turn over in her mind. That’s good of you. I go much more serenely now I know that she will not be weaving the sacrificial robes. There! 81don’t say anything more. I repent. I shall be covered with dust, and will probably sit in it before long.” And Persis fled. She gave Mellicent her grandmother’s message, after finding out that golf was not included in her sister’s plans for the afternoon, and then she went out to find Basil and Porter Phillips, with Annis, waiting for her on the porch, and they all started for the golf links together.

“Some day,” Persis said, as she switched a pebble with her stick, “some day I hope so to focus my mind that I shall be able to avoid all angles.”

“What does that remarkably deep and occult observation mean?” asked Basil, who was walking beside her.

“It means that although angles may be necessary in the structure of human existence, nevertheless there is no reason why one should be forever bruising one’s self by running against them.”

“Somewhat more lucid, but still veiled in semiobscurity.”

“In other words, you’d like to know what has been ruffling my feathers.”

“That’s it.”

“The general contemplation of problems in general and my own life problem in particular. What’s the reason, Basil, to come down to plain hard sense, what is the reason that one may live for years with certain persons and be considered amiable and sweet-tempered, and suddenly a change of base discovers him or her to be as full of angles as a polygon?”

“‘A prophet is not without honor save in his own 82country and among his own kin,’” quoted Basil, sententiously.

“That’s not it, altogether.”

“No; but who is it says that two human beings are like globes which can touch only in one point, and while these remain in contact all other points remain inert?”

“Very true, to a certain limit; but when even a sphere is covered with sharp protuberances there is no telling where the opposite one may be touched.”

“What in the world is all that metaphysical talk about?” asked Porter, turning around. “Come down out of the clouds, you two. Say, Perse, why didn’t Mellicent come?”

“She had other fish to fry, she informed me. She was going to talk to grandma about a proposed trip to Narragansett.”

“Narragansett!”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Humph!” Porter gave his golf stick a thwack against an unoffending stone by the way.

“You do not approve, fair sir.”

“I approve right enough, but I thought we were all going on that trip through Virginia. It would have been lots more fun than playing the society act at a fashionable watering-place.”

“For you, maybe; but, as I heard a woman say once, ‘Some’s ideas differs.’”

“I believe, after all,” Porter remarked, “I don’t care to play golf to-day. Don’t let us go to the links; suppose we go to the cricket club instead, 83and have a game of tennis. We can get rackets there.”

“I’d rather play with my own,” Persis said.

“That’s mean of you, Porter, to want to desert us,” interposed Basil. “We started out for golf.”

“I’ve a right to change my mind,” Porter retorted. “You all can go golfing if you like. I’m going to the club.”

“Never mind then,” Annis’s gentle voice broke in. “Let’s all go to the club. We’ll see lots of the girls there, Persis, and it will be fun to talk to them, even if we don’t play. The boys can do as they choose, and we can come home together when we are ready.”

Persis agreed, and they turned towards the pretty little club-house nestled in among the trees. It was a favorite resort for the young people of the neighborhood, and generally showed groups of pretty girls in their outing dresses or little parties of young men in their flannels. To-day there was quite a merry company gathered, and the girls were soon the centre of a jolly crowd. Several of their old school-fellows and the college-mates of Porter and Basil collected in one corner of the porch, and the youthful spirits made the most of the occasion, the place ringing with their merriment.

It was innocent fun, and Persis thoroughly enjoyed it. She had been so long under a certain restraint at college that this entire freedom was very acceptable.

“You’re not a bit spoiled, Persis, by being a college graduate,” said Kitty Carew. “I thought you’d 84be too much of a bluestocking ever to glance at the club or its frivolous members.”

“I enjoy frivole,” returned Persis. “I believe I enjoy it more than ever after so much digging. It doesn’t make boys feel themselves too superior to have fun when they go to college, and I don’t see why it should make girls feel so.”

“And now, what do you intend to do?” Kitty asked.

“Enjoy myself for a season, and then, like the traditional bee, ‘I’ll be busy, too.’”

“‘For Satan finds some mischief still,’” Porter quoted; “and there’ll be the mischief to pay if we don’t all get home. There’s a thunder-storm ‘bruisin,’ as Patrick says.” And the company scattered at sight of the threatening clouds.

CHAPTER VI. DEAR DELIGHTS.

The prospect of her much-coveted trip, and a little flattery from one of her admiring friends, had so far restored Mellicent’s good-humor that by the next day she was all smiles, and Persis felt that she might follow her own plans without the marring element of envy.

When the time came for them to be starting away in opposite directions, the two sisters parted with the best sort of feeling. Mellicent was beaming. She had a pretty new travelling costume, and a trunk full of such dainty frocks as girls love; she was going to Narragansett, and she had nothing more to wish. Persis, too, felt very complacent. She was never very fond of display, but in her well-fitting blue serge, her sailor hat, neat gloves and shoes, she had an air of elegance which rather outdid Mellicent, who inclined towards showiness, and was often a trifle overdressed.

Persis, too, had not a desire beyond that which the summer promised to fulfil. Mrs. Brown and Annis, 86Mrs. Phillips and her two sons were her travelling companions. At Baltimore they were to be joined by Mrs. Dixon, her son Walter, and Connie Steuart, and at Washington Mrs. Wickes would welcome them, Captain Wickes being now stationed at this latter place.

“After all the scatterations, what fun for us all to be together again,” said Persis. “I wish Lisa and Richard were here. You see,” turning to Basil, “I am cultivating the habit of speaking of him as a sister should.”

“Where are the doves?” asked Connie. “Have they finished their wedding-journey?”

“Oh, yes; they are in Brooklyn now. Mamma and papa are going to see them soon. They are quite old married folks, and are talking of the most prosaic sorts of things. Won’t Aunt Esther have a big houseful to-night? It is what she most enjoys, however, and that roomy old place of hers over in Georgetown is just fine.”

Washington was looking its fairest, for the June roses still held their own, although it was the last of the month, and the many pretty houses with their green and flowery accompaniments seemed a very agreeable sight after the staring rows of hideous little brick houses which filled the Monumental City.

“How I do wish Baltimore could add more grace to her other virtues,” Mrs. Dixon said, looking around. “I love the city so dearly, and yet I never saw a place where brick walls so crowded one, even to the very outskirts. So much open country in 87every direction and scarce a bit of green before the houses to relieve the eye. Philadelphia does much better with her western section and her many pretty suburban places, and New York does not show more monotony in her rows of brown-stone fronts. However, I suppose we cannot have everything. We surely have a great deal.”

“Indeed, you have,” Mrs. Phillips agreed, heartily; “but I, too, have often wondered why there is such an unpleasant sameness in the streets of Baltimore, and why the houses, if they must be nearly all alike, are not at least set back so that a variety in gardens might relieve the lines of red brick. But here we are.”

In a pleasant old-timey house surrounded by a garden they found Mrs. Wickes expecting them. “The neighbors will think you have suddenly opened a boarding-house,” were Persis’s first words. “These boys insist upon going to a hotel, Aunt Esther.”

“They’ll do nothing of the kind,” declared Mrs. Wickes, extending a cordial hand to her friends. “Come in, every one of you. I have had your rooms all prepared, and there’s not a sign of a reason why any one should leave me—unless he prefers to,” she added, with a bright glance at the three young men.

This was quite enough, and not another word was said about going to a hotel.

“Now, what is your plan of operation?” Mrs. Dixon asked. “We hear, Esther, that you have laid out a delightful trip for us, and so we rely entirely on your generalship.”

88“The trip I had planned awaits your endorsement, of course,” Mrs. Wickes returned. “I will give you it in outline, if you choose to consider yourselves ‘personally conducted’ by me. I thought we would start by taking the steamer down the Potomac to Norfolk, see that quaint old place, and then go to Virginia Beach for a few days; returning, take the boat up the James River to Richmond, then cut across the country to the Natural Bridge. There we can settle ourselves and take driving trips to the many different springs within comfortable distance. After we have wearied of that we can make our way home by way of Shenandoah Valley, stopping at Luray if we choose, and will, I think, have made a very pleasant circuit.”

“Fine!” exclaimed every one.

“Just where I’ve always longed to go,” announced Persis.

“Nothing could be jollier,” the boys declared.

“But how about that sight of the Great Falls of the Potomac? Does that come in on the trip?” asked Porter.

“Great Falls of the Potomac?” echoed Mrs. Phillips. “I never even heard of them.”

“No, I suppose not,” replied Mrs. Wickes. “If they were in Europe all the guide-books would mention them as one of the wonderful sights of the continent, or if they were even in the region of our Yankee neighbors, they would not be left unsung. But they are certainly worth seeing. However, they do not lie on the route of our journey, but are only 89fourteen miles above us here on the river, and we can drive there any day when we get back, if you can wait, Porter. I am short one hand, and my household arrangements are not quite so complete as they will be later.”

“And we pounced down upon you in this way!” exclaimed Mrs. Phillips.

“That does not make the slightest difference. It is only that my butler can more easily be pressed into doing duty as one of our coachmen a little later. I always prefer to have him drive a second carriage instead of depending upon a strange man. Pardon my discussing my domestic affairs, but you are all such old friends, and I wanted Porter to know why I postpone the expedition. I think I must tell you, however, of the absurd trick my house-maid had played upon her, and which accounts for her absence. She came to me in great distress yesterday, saying, ‘Mis’ Wickes, I got word that my sister’s ve’y low, ma’am, an’ I is ’bleedged to go home fo’ a few days.’ I knew refusal meant simply that Eliza would take French leave, so I gave her the permission. This morning my cook told me that it was all a scheme to get Eliza home; that her mother wanted her, and had bidden her sister to go lie down in the cellar. ‘Aun’ Philly say Rosy kyarnt be much lower’n dat,’ said Sophy, ‘an’ she ain’t tellin’ no lie to ‘Liza, for Rosy sutt’nly are ve’y low.’ ‘Why didn’t you tell Eliza before she went?’ I asked. ‘I aint heerd it mahse’f twel to-day,’ Sophy said. ‘’Liza tol’ me dis mawnin’.’ ‘You saw Eliza this 90morning. Why didn’t she come back to her work when she found out the trick?’ ‘’Liza say you done tell her she kin stay away a few days,’ was the reply. Such are the ideas of service which prevail about here among the colored people.”

They all laughed, and the company broke up into little groups, the elder ladies finding comfortable chairs in one corner of the wide porch, where they could drink in sweet odors of roses and honeysuckle, and the young folks flocking together.

Persis and Annis had long been devoted friends. There was a little jealousy in Persis’s composition, and she liked to have Annis all to herself. She had for a little time suspected that Annis liked Basil more than she cared to suppose, but this idea had vanished altogether, and she was learning to conquer the impulse which led her to be exacting, and was trying to see that real love would cause her to desire her friend’s happiness at any cost. More and more was Persis learning this. So when Annis said she should enjoy a little walk, Persis saw her wander off with Basil, and turned to join the others. “You come too,” said Basil; but Persis shook her head, for Annis did not second the invitation. Walter and Porter were both given over to fun, and in a few moments Connie and Persis were laughing at their nonsense, and were surprised when Basil and Annis returned, so short a time had they been away.

“Come, Persis,” said Basil; “Annis and I are no help to each other. I want you to tell me about such a fine old place up beyond here.”

91“Oh, I know where you mean. It is the old Tudor place, of course.” Persis arose and joined Basil. “Aren’t you coming, too?” she asked Annis, who lingered.

“No, I have seen it. I’ll stay.” And Persis took her turn.

“It is a beautiful old place,” she agreed with Basil. “It was built about the time that Mount Vernon was.”

“I should like to own just such a spot. When are we going to start on our trip, Persis? I want to see something of Washington. There have been some good buildings put up since I was here.”

“Yes; and we ought to go to Mount Vernon. Annis has never been there, but we can do all that when we get back. I think Aunt Esther would rather we’d start on our longer trip first, and I, for one, should like to consider her convenience.”

“You are given to considering the convenience of every one, aren’t you, Persis?”

“I? No, I don’t believe I do always. I’m very likely to look to my own. Isn’t this a contradictory old town: decayed elegance, tumble-down poverty, pretentious newness, and solid comfort all combined, one next door to the other, as like as not. See, Basil! I know you’ll like that place.”

“Yes, I do. That’s another thing: you always know just what I’m going to like.”

“It seems to me that you’re very appreciative of my good qualities this evening.”

“I have always been, I think; and since we are together again after so long a separation, they strike 92me more forcibly than ever. Tell me, Persis, what about Mr. Dan?”

“What about him? Why, I don’t know. What should there be about him?”

“I didn’t know but that he was to be everlastingly about you?”

“Oh, Basil, don’t you, like so many others, get that notion. I never have had, and never will have, any but a real good, comfortable, all-around feeling of comradeship for Mr. Dan.”

“Humph!”

“Don’t be humphing at me. It is true. Cross my heart.”

Basil walked along, absently striking at a little stick with the switch he carried. “I’m glad I asked,” he said presently.

“I am, too. I’ve been thinking for some time that you were carrying about with you some such idea. Here we are at the top of the hill. I wish it were light enough for us to see the beautiful view of the river from the college grounds. We could walk over that way, but I’m afraid it is too dark. Shall we go back?”

“As you say.”

“I think it hardly seems quite fair to leave the others very long, and it is scarce light enough to see any more architecture to-night. Basil, we will see some ideal old places in Virginia. You’ll just love them.”

“Yes, I expect to. I think we are going to have a fine time for the next few weeks, don’t you?”

93“Don’t I?” There was a ring of utter gladness in Persis’s voice. “It is an Elysian dream, Basil.”

“Seems pretty much that way to me. I could ask nothing better than just such a trip in just such company.”

Persis flashed him an answering smile. “What a bright face she has, and how pretty she looks to-night!” thought Basil.

Annis seemed very quiet that evening, Persis thought, and after a while the latter managed to get close to her friend and slip an arm around her. “Tired, Annis?” she whispered.

“A little.”

“We won’t sit up late. I hope Aunt Esther has put us in a room together.”

“Very likely she has arranged to have me room with mamma.”

“And put Connie with me? I’d so much rather it would be you, dear. I’m going to ask.”

A little later Persis followed her aunt into the house, and upon coming out again she nodded to Annis. “It’s all right,” she told her. “There are nine of us; the three boys bunk in one big room together, Connie is to have a cot in the little dressing-room off Mrs. Dixon’s room, Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Brown each has a room to herself, and we go shares. Aunt Esther always does just the right thing.”

“These are fine large rooms, aren’t they?” Annis observed, when they had reached their quarters.

“Yes, it is a nice, old-fashioned, roomy house, and 94I like it. Don’t you remember, Annis, how we discussed the old and the new when you were looking for a house? Doesn’t that seem ages ago?”

“It does, indeed. I don’t believe I was ever so happy.”

“Why, dearie, aren’t you happy now?” Persis put her arms around the slender figure, and looked down anxiously with eyes full of love.

Annis gave a little sigh. “Yes, I am sometimes, and I could be under some circumstances, but as one grows up there are so many unexpected experiences coming to one. It scares me sometimes to look ahead.”

“Well, there is only pleasure to look forward to just now. Don’t you think so?”

“Oh, yes, I do, indeed.”

“Then don’t get vaporish, dear little cuzzy-wuzzy. It’s a beautiful world. We ought to, we must, be happy.” Persis could see no possibility of any other condition on this night.

But Annis did not respond as her cousin felt that she ought, and after they were in bed Persis turned the matter over in her mind as she lay quietly by Annis’s side. Then she said, suddenly, “Annis, did you see any one in Europe that you liked immensely, more than—more than you ever did?”

Annis was silent for a moment, then she said, hesitatingly, “Yes, I did.” And having confessed this much, nothing further could be had from her that night.

Persis, however, in silent sympathy, slipped an 95arm over and felt for Annis’s hand, which she held closely till both were asleep.

“Six young persons start on a trip with four chaperons, how many does each one have? That is a question in mental arithmetic which will take all our spare time while we are away to solve.” Persis gave utterance to this as they were seating themselves on the deck of the steamer, the boys having brought them chairs, placing them where they could be the most comfortable.

“Nonsense,” replied Mrs. Wickes. “It is easy enough to solve that. Each takes her proper charge. Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Dixon, and I take a girl apiece, leaving the boys to their respective mothers.”

“That gives my mother more than her share,” Walter put in. “I should say that the fairest plan would be to leave me out. I don’t mind; I always was ready to give up to others. Or else each chaperon could give two-thirds of her time to each one, and the remaining one-third of the time we could go scot free.”

“Either would be much more to your liking, I’ve no doubt; but you will have to walk a chalk line, I tell you, sir,” returned his mother.

As Walter did precisely as he pleased, and managed to convince his mother that whatever he did was all right, this was an idle threat, and amused every one.

Annis and Porter had never been on the best of terms, at least they were not congenial, and consequently Persis usually felt that she must not couple 96them together, and often allowed herself to be paired off with Porter when another arrangement would have suited her better. Since her questioning of Annis she had felt a new jealousy for her cousin, and wondered more than once who it could be who had won her heart. Once she asked Basil, “Did you see any one specially attentive to Annis while she was abroad?”

Basil considered for a moment. “No-o, I can’t say that I did. I believe there were two or three fellows who hung around the party, but I never noticed any one specially gone on her. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I just wondered.”

“Harvey Dana used to be with us more than any one; but then you know I was only with the crowd a comparatively short time, and there might have been all sorts of goings on which I didn’t see.”

“True,” agreed Persis. “Well, whoever does fall in love with Annis will get a treasure.”

“Yes, she’s a mighty nice girl. Hasn’t quite as much go as you have, Persis.”

“But she is a dear, and is twice as sweet-tempered as I am,” interrupted Persis, eagerly; “and she is as true as steel.”

“No one contradicts you, you fierce little body. You always amuse me, Perse, when you bristle up that way, like a hen when a hawk is after her chickens.”

“Do I bristle up? Well, I can’t help it, I love my friends so hard, Basil. Love isn’t worth anything unless it is given unstintedly, it seems to me. 97I believe I care more for my friends than they do for me.”

Basil gave her a slow side glance. “Exceptions prove the rule,” he said, enigmatically. They were leaning over the side of the boat watching the light dancing on the waves. The stars were out, and the night was still and calm. Neither seemed to be in a very talkative mood, but yet Persis felt strangely peaceful and happy. Anything, everything worth living for seemed possible, and yet, and yet, ambition was slowly fading away at the approach of another mysterious presence.

She gave a long sigh just as Porter sauntered up and said, “What are you two mooning about off here? You’re as silent as two clams.”

“It is so delightfully serene under this sky,” Persis replied.

“And I disturb the serenity. I’ll go back.”

“No.” She laid a detaining hand on his arm. “We’ll all go together in a moment. What are they all doing?”

“Oh, the chaperons are reminiscing. And Walt and Connie are chaffing and frivoling, as ‘’tis their nature to.’”

“Why don’t you frivol likewise?”

“I can’t go off by myself and poke my own ribs and cackle, can I?”

“No, you poor, neglected creature, you can’t. We’ll all have to hang together. Come.”

Just such little situations were all that marred the trip. Connie and Walter seemed daily to show a 98more decided preference for each other’s society, so the other four young people were apt to make up a party to drive or walk together.

Of all places, Persis declared herself the most entirely pleased with the Natural Bridge. “It is the most satisfying place I ever saw,” she declared. “It does not disappoint one a bit. It’s just as big and just as wonderful as I imagined it would be.”

They had arrived late in the afternoon, and Persis could hardly wait to see the great arch. Basil had quietly made a few inquiries, and gravely piloted her down a piece of road quite near the hotel.

“Is it far?” asked she.

“No; quite near.”

“Which direction shall I look?”

“Come here.” Basil stepped to the side of the road on which they were walking and held aside the bushes. “I want to show you something, Perse,” he said. “Give me your hand. There, look over.”

“Oh!” cried she, in amazement; “we’re on it! Oh, Basil, why didn’t you tell me? I never dreamed of it. Isn’t it strange? Why, it looks just like any old road till you look over.”

“That’s just what it does. I wanted to surprise you, Persis.”

“Well, you succeeded. Can we go down under it?”

“Yes, we will after supper. I believe there is a special party here, which gives a definite occasion for lighting it up, and we’ll have a fine show.”

True enough, it was weirdly and bewilderingly 99grand, and thrilled them to look up from below at the huge chasm with its noble span.

“That is what I call a bridge of size,” remarked Walter to Connie.

She laughed, and Porter groaned. “Even here we have to listen to such things from you, Walter.”

“I feel as if I were in a queer sort of a dream,” Persis whispered. “As we came down that dim woodsy path lighted by torches, I was more and more assured that I was living in a fairy story. Oh, see, they are sending off fire-works! How mysterious it makes everything seem! Oh, I’d like to stay here always.”

“Wait till the daylight comes. You may be disenchanted,” her aunt suggested.

But Persis was not disappointed even then, and from the moment that she sprang out of bed to see the mists rolling from the peaks about her, till the sun dipped behind them that evening, she was in a state of exaltation that surprised most of the others. “It has been such a reverential day,” she said to Basil that night.

He nodded. Basil always understood.

CHAPTER VII. A SUMMER SHOWER.

“Isn’t it fun to dash off this way!” Connie was wont to exclaim, as day after day driving trips were planned. “I believe, after all, we have lost something by the invention of steam. The good old way of coaching it must have been very satisfactory.”

“I’d like you to try it for a year,” Walter replied. “You’d be glad enough to go back to Pullman cars and rapid service.”

“I suppose I should, having once had it, but I do think this leisurely way of travel is fine. We see so much, and are so independent, without the bother of time-tables or trunk checks.”

They were on their way to one of the many springs which are so plentiful in that part of the country. Basil, Walter, Mrs. Dixon, Connie, and Persis were in one three-seated carriage, the remainder of the party occupying another. They were wont to change about on every trip, “So as not to be clannish,” Mrs. Wickes said, and the plan worked 101very well. If the distance to be covered were great, and there were no hostelries along the way, luncheon was provided, and was eaten along the road-side. And so long as they reached comfortable lodgings by night it was all that was asked. A little luggage was carried in case they elected to remain two or three days at some specially attractive spot. And thus, with care thrown to the winds, the days were slipping along in an ideally happy manner.

“No matter where we go, I’m always glad to get back to the Bridge,” Persis declared over and over again. The place never lost its fascination for her, and in after years she looked back upon the time spent there as one of her happiest memories. There were days when the driving trips were set aside, and those who did not care to spend their time on the porches of the old inn could wander at will over the mountain-paths; and this, too, was a delight.

“At last the time has come for folding our tents,” Mrs. Wickes announced one morning at breakfast. “I suppose you young people never would be ready to go back, but as I have left behind a long-suffering and patient husband, I shall have to return to Washington. You all, however, do not need to go just because I do, much as I want you.”

“As if we would desert our general,” cried the boys. “No, we must see that beautiful Shenandoah Valley and those wonderful caves. Give us your orders.”

“Suppose, then, we spend one more day here, and then go right through to Luray.”

102“The fiat has gone forth. One more day of respite. Who will, may follow my example. I am going to spend that one day above, about, and below the bridge,” announced Persis.

“Above, around, about, athwart,” Walter repeated; “sounds like a list of prepositions.”

“No matter what it sounds like, I’m off. I’ll pack my trunk after dinner. I can’t miss these morning sights.” And Persis sprang off the porch and was proceeding towards a little nook in among the bushes, where she loved “to sit and hold her breath,” as she said.

This morning Basil joined her before she reached the spot. “The grass is damp, don’t go there yet,” he warned her. “Let’s keep to the road for a while.”

“I just hate to think of leaving, don’t you, Basil.”

“Why, I’m about ready for a change of base. I think we’ve seen all there is to see.”

“We never could see all there is to see, for every day is different. How beautiful it must be in the winter and at early spring. I’d like to see the place under all aspects.”

“You are the most enthusiastic visitor the bridge has ever had, I believe.”

“I wonder if I am. Ever since I was a little child and used to pore over those old volumes of Harper’s Magazine that are in our library I have longed for just this trip. You remember Porte Crayon’s ‘Virginia Illustrated,’ don’t you? Well, that I used to read and re-read, and now I have realized my dream of going over the same ground.”

103“So, you’ve had your heart’s desire.”

“Yes, and the beauty of it is that I’m not in the least disappointed.”

“Don’t you want to take one more horseback ride this afternoon?”

“Oh, yes, I should love to.”

“Just you and I will go. Will Mrs. Wickes object?”

“Aunt Esther? No, I think not. Who could be a safer companion than my brother Basil?”

Basil frowned slightly, but he made no comment. And no objection being made by Mrs. Wickes, the two started off down the mountain-road, Persis’s bright face glowing with happiness under her ridinghat, her neat habit showing off her pretty figure to advantage. She looked back and waved her hand as she rode away.

“How well Perse looks on horseback,” Walter remarked. “I wish you liked to ride, Connie.”

“I wish I did, but I don’t. Persis rides just as she does everything, as well as possible. She never lets anything down her; whatever she undertakes she goes into heart and soul. Now, I’m not that way. I feel timid and doubtful over most things which I undertake. I’m scared to death on a horse. I might ride on a pillion, if you choose to take me behind you in that fashion.”

Walter laughed. “I don’t choose. We’ll take a walk instead. What’s become of Annis?”

“She said she was going to pack her trunk, and Porter has gone down to the junction on the stage.”

104“Oh, all right. The mater is giving herself up to a nap, and told me to see after you. She’s afraid you might fall off the bridge. So we seem to be left to follow our noses.”

“Will you follow mine, or shall I follow yours?”

“You shall walk by the side of mine.”

“Don’t let’s pursue the subject, we might say something silly. Suppose we talk sense for a change.” And the two started forth and were soon out of sight.

“What have you decided to do with yourself next winter?” Persis was asking Basil at the same moment.

“I’ve about concluded to settle down somewhere. Where would you advise a fellow to live?”

“Right here.”

“Nonsense! How many houses should I be likely to plan in a year?”

“You might plan a great many. You’d have plenty of time for it.”

“You’re right; but who would want to build them?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. I didn’t agree to inform you on that point. I’m not at all practical on this occasion. I can’t think of anything but sky and trees and summer weather; weeds by the wayside and flowers in the fields. Don’t let us take thought for the morrow.”

“But summer will not last always.”

“No, there’s the pity of it. Yet I want to enjoy it, and be as care-free as I can, during this outing. 105Don’t talk about planning houses and suggesting bricks and mortar, or even fat bank accounts.”

“All right; we’ll wait till the summer-time has gone and we’re home again. I was going to ask what are your plans, Persis?”

“I don’t know. I’ll sit down some day after we are all at home again, and I’ll think very hard over the problem of life; then you shall know the result.”

“If I am there; and if I’m not, you can write to me about it.”

“If you’re not there? Why, where will you be?”

“I thought you didn’t want me to think about it.”

“I don’t; but I suppose all women are contradictory, and since you have started the train of thought I must needs follow it out; and then——”

“And then—— Go on.”

“I don’t like the idea of your being in some too distant place where a body can never get a chance to mend your gloves, or sew up a rip in the lining of your overcoat.”

“Persis!”

“Is that spoken in a tone of reproach, mockery, or appeal?”

“It is a combination of so many emotions, I’d better not attempt to describe them.”

“Well, that, too, can be ‘another story.’ Now let us settle your settlement.”

“I had thought of Washington as a desirable place for a young and ambitious architect.”

“Yes, Washington will do finely. Let’s call it Washington, and be done with it.”

106“You’re not particular, after all.”

“Oh, yes; only I don’t want you to be beyond the possibility of occasional reach.”

“Persis!”

“There is that same ‘Persis!’ I shall be so curious about her presently that I shall repent my decision to let explanations go till another time.”

“Shall I explain?”

Persis shot him a glance. Basil had an earnest face, but just now it was more than usually so, and his companion, seeing it, felt close to a confession. Truly, women are contradictory. She gave a little nervous laugh, and, touching her horse lightly, she briskly cantered down the road.

Basil was not long in overtaking her.

“‘Seeing riding’s a joy for me, I ride,’” she quoted. “I want to ride fast. I want just this day of sweetness to linger. No past, no future. Will any one hear me, Basil, if I sing or shout?”

“I shall.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t mind. I can’t express the voice of my mountain spirit in ordinary speech.”

“Then don’t try.” Basil felt that somehow a golden moment had slipped him. The elusiveness of Persis’s mood had piqued him a little.

“Oh, you dry old body, why don’t you, too, feel the strange music of the Pan pipes and the songs of the wood-nymphs on every side?”

“Because something else speaks to me so loudly that I can hear nothing else.”

Persis gave him a second quick look, and again 107touched up her horse. “Then I’ll go off yonder and answer the forest voices, and you needn’t come; you can just watch me from afar. Oh, no, I can’t go, either. We’re coming to a little town, and I must be on my good behavior. Oh, Basil, see! there are beehives in that garden. Do you believe we could get some bread and honey if we turned up that lane and asked at that house? I’m half starved. This mountain air gives one sixteen appetites a day.”

“I confess to a similar experience. We’ll try for the bread and honey.”

They rode towards the house and accosted a little tow-headed child who stood among the flaming rows of zinnias.

“Have you any honey?” Persis asked.

The little girl ran swiftly to the house, and came back with a motherly looking woman, who smilingly granted the request made her, sending out by a colored boy a plate of biscuits, a dish of honey, and glasses, herself bringing a pitcher of milk.

“This mountain air does make us so hungry,” Persis explained, as she took the biscuit Basil had spread for her.

“Won’t you alight and come in?” asked the woman. “It is kind of unhandy eating perched up there.”

“Oh, no; I like it,” Persis returned. “What good biscuits! and such delicious milk!”

“Can’t I get you something else?” the woman asked, hospitably,—“a piece of cold chicken or ham?”

108“Oh, no; this is just what we want.”

“You all are not from anywhere around here, are you?” was the next question addressed to Persis.

“No; we are stopping over at the Bridge, and are only out for a ride. We’ve never been in this direction before. That’s quite a little town beyond here, I should judge.”

“Yes, it’s right smart of a place; but mighty few strangers come to it, being off the line of the railroad.”

“Oh, I see.”

Persis instinctively felt that it would not do to offer pay to this kindly woman who proffered her food so promptly and plentifully, but she saw that Basil closed the fingers of the child’s little fat hand over a coin, and noticed that the colored boy grinned from ear to ear as he bowed and scraped; so she knew the kindness was not unrecognized.

“It looks like we’d have a thunder-gust,” said their entertainer, as they turned to go. “You’d better wait till it’s over.”

“Oh!” Persis looked at the clouds rolling up from the horizon. “Do you think it is near?”

“I can’t say. One doesn’t know; up here in the mountains these summer showers come up very quickly sometimes.”

“I think if we ride fast we can get back,” Basil assured her; and with a nod and a pleasant good-bye, they started at a smart pace up the road.

“We didn’t get to the village after all, and I 109wanted to see it,” Persis said, regretfully. “It is truly a land flowing with milk and honey.”

“Yet you would not make it a land of promise,” Basil remarked, under his breath.

Persis did not reply, for just then a flash of lightning startled her, and the big drops began to patter down. They were scarce a mile beyond the house where they had stopped, when the storm broke in all its fury.

“There, ahead,” Basil cried. “There is some sort of a little house in the woods.” And they turned their horses towards it, going at full gallop.

A rude school-house with a rough porch in front it proved to be, but it was a shelter for them and even for their horses.

“We’d better get as far in as possible,” Basil said, lifting Persis from her saddle. “Are you very wet?”

“Scarcely any, worth mentioning. My habit is quite heavy, you know, and we really only had a fair sprinkle. But, dear me, how it is coming down now!”

“Well, we’re in luck to come upon this place. Of course, we could have gone back to that house, but we should have been drenched getting there.”

“At any rate, we’re not hungry; and if the storm does not keep up too long we can get back before dark, can’t we?”

“I think so. The roads will be muddy, but that will be all. There’s not much danger on horseback even if there should be washouts.”

110“We’ll hope there’ll not be——” A terrific crash of thunder interrupted her, and Persis started. Basil took her hand in a protecting clasp. “I’m not afraid,” she whispered; “only, it is awe-inspiring.”

The storm was at its worst now. The two standing under the old porch said very little. Once there came a rivening bolt which shattered a tree in the forest beyond, and the rain fell in torrents; but the shelter was secure, and no leaks of any account gave them discomfort. A second terrific roar made Persis cower closer to her companion. He looked down at her with a gently assuring smile, but said nothing except, “We’re safe, Persis.”

“Yes, I know; only, it’s startling,” she answered.

At last the mutterings of thunder became fainter and fainter. Away off the rolling clouds displayed zigzag streaks incessantly, but above them there was a rift in the gray.

“We’ll get pretty wet as it is,” Basil remarked. “Shall we wait a little, Persis? the trees drip so; if we were in an open road it wouldn’t matter much.”

“I think we’d better not wait long, for it will soon be dark, and that will be worse than a wetting.”

It was rather precarious riding, after all. Little purling brooks had become swift torrents, which the horses breasted bravely, but which gave Persis cold shivers to cross; and once she had to draw her feet up on the saddle, so near did the water come to the horse’s head. The sun was setting in a gorgeous 111sky and a half-moon was faintly struggling through broken masses of clouds when the two finally reached the inn, and found an anxious company on the outlook for them.

Persis noticed that Annis looked particularly pale and wistful. “Did you think we were drowned?” she asked. “Why, Annis dear, one would think you were the one worst scared. Was the storm very sharp here?”

Annis turned away abruptly, murmuring something about a headache, and Persis followed her up the stairs to their rooms; but Annis shut her door, and Persis stood longingly outside before she concluded not to disturb her. “She must have a bad headache, poor dear, and now that she knows we are safe she has gone to lie down,” she told herself.

The next evening found them at Luray, looking across the mountains, over which the moon shone softly. One day there was given to the caves, which Persis declared roused her wonder less than the bridge. “They make me feel my insignificance, I must confess,” she told her aunt. “And when I consider that it took hundreds of years to form an inch of those giant stalactites and stalagmites, I feel that I could comprehend a little better that man ‘cometh up like a flower.’ It is all so weird and wonderful that I cannot talk much about it, Aunt Esther. Basil would tell me I don’t have to,” she added, smiling.

“We American women do talk too much, I suspect,” Mrs. Wickes replied. “We are a restless set, 112and like to hear ourselves chatter, whether we say anything worth hearing or not.”

“Perhaps I would do well to cultivate that golden silence which grandma used to talk to me so much about.” And Persis smiled, remembering some episodes of her earlier girlhood. “I wonder what sort of an experience it would take to develop taciturnity in me.”

“Nothing less than solitary confinement,” avowed Porter, at her elbow.

“Now, Porter, that is mean of you,” Persis answered. “I’ll remember that the next time you are moping by yourself and wishing for a little friendly notice. Then I’ll treat you with spurn.”

“I take it all back,” Porter responded. “I was just chaffing. Honest, Perse.”

“All right, we’ll see. Oh, dear! I’m beginning to realize that our trip is about over.”

“What are you going to do next?” Porter inquired. “Have you heard from the family?”

“Yes; a budget came for me this morning. Grandma and Mell have left the Pier and have joined mamma and papa at some little unhay-feverish place up near the White Mountains.”

“I suppose Mellicent had a fine time.”

“She did, indeed, and mourns that she does not possess a cottage at Narragansett. Mamma says I may either join them or go with Mrs. Brown and Annis.”

“And which shall you do?”

“I haven’t decided. I shall stay a few days with 113Aunt Esther. You know we haven’t quite come to the end of our junketing. There are plans to be made all around.”

“Yes, so my mother says. We, too, have to settle the rest of our summer’s campaign. There, the others are ready to start. The train must be coming.”

CHAPTER VIII. A COMING SHADOW.

“August in Washington is not the most exhilarating season,” Basil remarked, after a return from an exhaustive and exhausting study of the city’s architecture. “Still, I am vastly inclined towards the place, and have actually been looking at offices, Persis.”

“That is attending to business with a vengeance,” she replied. She was sitting in the cool drawingroom, drumming softly on the piano when Basil came in. She stopped the little waltz which lightly tinkled from the keys, and looked up. “Wasn’t it awfully hot and discouraging over in town?” she asked.

“Not so very. There are so many open squares, and cross angles and trees, that except where the sun shines on the asphalt it isn’t oppressive. It is deliciously cool in here, and that dim blue frock of yours makes you look as if you didn’t know what it was to be warm.”

“Do you like this? I made it myself, and it 115cost five cents a yard, a mid-summer bargain. I believe I have a genius for being poor.”

“Or, at least, for making the most out of very little. Where are the others?”

“Scattered around in various cool spots. Walter, Connie, Porter, and Mrs. Dixon are on the back porch; Annis—ah! here she is. Come in, ‘my dearest, dear little heart,’” for Annis stood hesitatingly in the door-way. “Oh, do you want me? I forgot all about that pattern I promised to hunt up. I’ll do it now.”

“And I must go and find mother,” said Basil.

Persis put her arm around Annis as they passed up the wide stairway. “This hot weather completely wilts you, doesn’t it, Annis?” she said. “You were never buxom, but now you look really droopy. I don’t believe, as I come to think of it, that you looked much better even when we were in the mountains, for, although you never were a rattle-pate, you have been quieter and less merry than usual.” They had reached the door of their room, and Persis took Annis’s face between her hands, gently kissing her. “Darling,” she went on to say, “you are troubled about something. Tell me what it is. Can I do anything?”

Annis dropped her eyes. “You could,” she made answer, “but I wouldn’t have you for a million worlds.”

Persis drew back and looked at her. “Why, Annis, aren’t you ashamed not to let me? You know I’d do anything—anything at all, even to the 116giving to you the half of my kingdom,” she concluded, with a smile.

“I know it.”

“You don’t love me, then.”

“Oh, Persis, I do, I do! I’m a wretched, weak, silly girl. I’ve no force of character at all, and you are so strong. Oh, Persis, I do love you! Don’t let that come.”

“What?” Persis cuddled the smaller girl’s head against her shoulder.

“Why, anything—any cloud.”

“I’ve thought some days that there was a little cloud.” Persis spoke slowly. “Once or twice, Annis, you were so offish. I didn’t understand it. It was so very unlike you.”

“I know I’m horrid, I know I am; but I’ve not been happy.”

“I could see that. Is it—is it because of that—that unknown you met in Europe?” The question came in a whisper. Annis lifted her head and looked half startled. The color rushed up to her cheeks, and she broke away from her cousin with a little gesture of protest, which Persis interpreted as meaning to do away with the subject.

“We won’t talk about it then.” She attempted to change the subject by saying, “But I wish you’d let me do that, whatever it is.”

Annis shook her head decidedly, and Persis turned the topic by announcing, “To-morrow we go to the Great Falls. Oh, Annis, you will like it, I know. The only reason I don’t want to go is that I don’t 117want it over, for that means a breaking up of the party. I suppose the next day there will be the beginning of the separation, for the Dixons will go then. To think we have been on the go for over eight weeks, and now the summer is nearly over. Has your mother decided yet where you will spend the rest of it? I wish you’d go to New England with me.”

“Mamma thinks she doesn’t care for New England this year, and so we shall very likely go to the Water Gap for two or three weeks in September.”

“And then go back home and take your house again? I wonder if Mrs. Phillips will stay in the city with Porter, or come here to Washington with Basil.”

“Mamma thinks she will not take the house for another year. The tenants want to keep it,” Annis replied. Then, after a pause, she asked, “Has Basil decided to settle here?”

“I think so.” Persis spoke unconcernedly. “Oh, don’t you hope it will be clear to-morrow?” she added. “I went once to the Falls when it rained all day, and it was so drippy, and the rocks were so slippery.”

Persis’s hopes were realized, for it proved to be a fine day, a shower having cooled the air and laid the dust. As the horses trotted up the Conduit Road, over Cabin John Bridge, and on up the river road, the occupants of the three carriages caught glimpses of the blue Potomac between the trees, and the opposite shores of Virginia.

118Mr. Danforth had promised to join this expedition, and was on hand the evening before they were to start. He was always an addition to a travelling party, and, as a good driver, good athlete, good comrade, was always greeted with a warm welcome. All the boys liked him, and on this occasion he was in the best of spirits.

Arrived at the old hotel by the side of the road, the party proceeded across the canal lock to the rocks.

“Such a way,” exclaimed Connie, “I never saw! Is it the best they can do? The idea of having to scramble across boards and over beams! and, oh, dear! have we got to cross that dreadful shaky little bridge? I can never do it in the world.” And, indeed, it did seem to be a venturesome undertaking, so much so that Mrs. Phillips could not be persuaded to try it, and Mrs. Brown, having gone a few steps, turned back, and no amount of coaxing could induce her to make a second attempt.

“But, mother, it is perfectly safe,” Basil assured her. “It is too bad to have come this far and not to go over to where you can get a view.”

But Mrs. Phillips flatly refused to budge, and the others went on their way. The boys made nothing of it; Annis turned very pale as Basil guided her over; Connie pranced, and protested with little shrieks that she never in the world could venture, even with Walter to go with her. “It swings and teeters so!” she exclaimed. “I am more afraid with the two of us on it than if I were alone, and yet I can’t go by myself.”

119“You act just like a skittish horse,” Walter told her. “To be sure, it does sway, but it is perfectly safe.” And at last, with Walter holding her hand, she managed to get on the other side. “Oh, dear!” she sighed, as she reached solid earth; “I feel like a mouse in a trap, for we’ve got to go back the same way, and I dread it so.”

Mr. Danforth and Porter piloted the older ladies, but Persis persisted in making the journey alone. “I can do it better,” she told them.

“You always are brave.” Basil spoke in an aside to her. “I never knew you yet to be wanting in courage, either moral or physical.”

“I’ve not had many tests as yet,” she answered; “and this surely cannot be dangerous, or so many persons would not use it.”

The scramble to the top of the rocks did not seem difficult, and here the view of the falls was obtained.

“Well, it is fine,” Mrs. Dixon declared, as she looked at the eager rushing flood tossing over the rocks. “It is really grand. We’ll sit here and enjoy it, and you young folks can scramble about all you please.”

Naturally that was exactly what the young folks wanted to do, and one after another went farther and farther, fascinated by the invitation which the rocks offered for such explorations.

“I’ve come to the end of my limit at last,” Persis announced, having left Annis a few feet away. Connie, still farther behind, had begun to retrace 120her steps. The boys were not satisfied, however, and were leaping from one jutting rock to another.

“Here, Annis, give me your hand,” said Persis; “I’m sure you can make one more jump. This is a nice flat rock, there is plenty of room for both of us on it.” And she turned to lend her aid.

At that moment a shout from Mr. Danforth was heard. “Look out, there, Basil! I wouldn’t try that. It looks treacherous.” But he was too late, Basil had made the leap; and as Annis and Persis, clinging together, turned their eyes in Basil’s direction they saw him slip and fall. Sucked in by a swift eddy, he was being borne on down towards the rapid, relentless current.

Mr. Danforth did not lose an instant. Calling to Porter to follow, he made a short cut along the rocks nearer shore, having taken in at a glance the possibility of Basil’s being swept that way, on account of there being a divergence in the flood at that point.

Persis gave one smothered, horror-stricken cry, and clutched Annis fiercely, who uttered a shrill scream of terror. “Oh, Persis! Persis!” Annis cried; “can we do nothing? Oh! must he be killed? I cannot stand it, I cannot! I wish I might go, too; I cannot live if he is gone. Oh, Persis! oh, what shall I do? Oh, Basil! Basil! I would die for you. Oh, save him! save him!” The words came brokenly from the girl’s very heart, and for one second Persis’s hold on her lessened, then she gathered her closer to her.

121“Hush, Annis, hush,” she besought her. “All we can do is to pray God to spare him.” And with quivering lips and quickly beating hearts, they stood for what seemed an eternity waiting the result.

Mr. Danforth had thrown himself flat across one of the large rocks, bidding Porter to hold him fast, and as Basil, still clutching feebly at the slippery, elusive crags, reached him, he was caught in the strong arms, which managed to draw him out of danger. Battered and bruised, he was but living.

“Is he safe? Is he badly hurt?” Persis’s voice came, sharp with anxiety.

“He’ll be all right, I think,” came back Mr. Danforth’s reassurance. “I wish we had a drop of brandy.”

“I’ll go get some; I’ll be back in a minute.” She knew on these excursions her Aunt Esther always carried a little flask in her bag, in case of emergency, and she sprang from rock to rock, never thinking of fear or anything but Basil. Once or twice in her haste she fell, but she scrambled up again and went on to the top of the rocks. “Give me the brandy, quick, quick!” she cried, as she came in sight of the figures sitting together.

Mrs. Wickes started to her feet. “What is the matter? Who needs it?” she asked, sharply.

“Basil.” The reply came breathlessly. “I can’t stop. Oh, quick! Walter is coming, he’ll tell you.” For Walter had followed, thinking to overtake Persis in her flight, but she encountered him half-way down the bluff.

122“Give it to me,” he cried. “I can get back quicker.” And Persis relinquished the little flask.

Walter’s long legs and sure footing took him swiftly to where Porter and Mr. Danforth were with Basil. By degrees they managed to get the unconscious form to a place of more security, and by degrees they managed to restore consciousness. Other visitors to the place gathered with ready offers of help, and difficult and toilsome as the trip was to the hotel, it was at last accomplished.

“It was a close shave,” some one told them. “A young fellow was drowned here last year through just such an accident.”

A doctor who was at hand pronounced no bones broken, and no internal injuries so far as could be discovered. “He must be kept very quiet,” he advised. “I don’t see how he got off so well as this. A little more and it would have been impossible.”

It was a very solemn and subdued party that travelled slowly back to town. Mrs. Wickes hastened on ahead, and by the time they were able to get Basil to the house all was ready for him.

“Oh, Mr. Dan,” said Persis, with such a ghastly face as was only matched by Annis, “if it hadn’t been for you we should not have Basil.”

Annis’s lips quivered as she, too, gave her praise for courage and promptness.

“It was lucky we were all close together,” Mr. Danforth said. “I could not have managed alone. It was the knowledge that Porter was behind me and Walter behind him that made it possible.”

123Poor Mrs. Phillips was completely overcome by the catastrophe, as she realized how perilously near grief and loss had been.

By night Basil was pronounced safe, although he was feverish, and was aching from head to foot.

“He needs quiet and care, and will come out all right,” the doctor assured them. “He has a good constitution, and no bad habits to stand in nature’s way, I judge. A clean, wholesome life is a great safeguard in accident cases,” he added.

“Then Basil has the best of chances,” Mr. Danforth certified. “I’ve known him from boyhood, and his record will bear any sort of a search-light thrown on it.”

“And so the end of the lovely summer has been disaster,” Persis said to her cousin. “How dreadful to think that in the twinkling of an eye such things can come!”

Annis was more than usually subdued. Persis alone knew her secret, and she had feared to be left alone with the older and stronger girl, but when night came, here they were together, and Persis had no word of reproach for her.

But outwardly calm as she was, Persis’s brain was in a whirl. The discovery of what Annis felt was a revelation to her. She did not suspect it. The hint about the somebody abroad had completely misled her. And now that the assurance of Basil’s safety was theirs, this must be met and settled. Happiness for herself at the cost of misery for Annis, that was what it meant; and yet—and yet. “I know which 124of us Basil cares for,” Persis told herself, “and he is not a flirt; he is not one who makes love to every girl he meets. I’m sure of that.”

She sat so long at the window in the dimly lighted room that after a time Annis said, timidly, “Persis, aren’t you coming to bed?”

“After a while,” was the answer. “I have so much to think about, Annis.”

The little figure in the bed sat up and held out two supplicating hands. “Oh, Persis! Persis!” came the cry. “Why did you ever want me for a friend? I have brought you only misery.”

“Hush!” Persis’s voice was sharp and peremptory. Then she left her place by the window and went over to the bedside. “I wanted you because I loved you,” she said. “I can’t talk it all out now. I will after a while.”

“But he—he loves you.”

“Does he? He has never told me so. There, I said I was not ready to talk.” And she resumed her seat by the window.

The great thing that she could do for her cousin. This was it,—she could give up Basil. A great thing. How great a thing was it? What did it mean to her? Care for him herself? Of course she did. She always had cared. She knew that now. It had been a natural growth, not a sudden fancy. And Basil, he had been more than once on the verge of a confession. She knew that. If she had only let him tell her that day of their mountain ride in the storm, then it would all have been settled, and her 125duty would be to him, to him alone, but now——Oh, but Annis had deceived her by saying she cared for some one in Europe. No, she didn’t say that. She said she saw some one in Europe for whom she cared. So she did. She saw Basil, and poor, little, unhappy Annis would have gone through life without ever yielding up her secret, but for that dreadful, sudden horror which wrenched it from her.

But Basil doesn’t care for her, Persis next told herself, but might he not if he could be made to believe that she, herself, regarded him only as a good comrade, as a dear counsellor, an old crony, or anything of the kind? Annis, with no one but her mother, a delicate woman who might leave her desolate in a few short years, and she, Persis, so rich in affection, father, mother, sisters, grandmother. Why, she was selfish, of course she was. She would give Annis a chance, at least she could do that, and then, if after that it so happened that Basil persisted in caring for the wrong girl, why, she couldn’t help it.

So she settled it, not without a last struggle, but, as Basil had only that day told her, Persis was always brave. She went to where Annis lay watching her. There was something motherly in the way she leaned over her friend. “Annis,” she began, “nothing must come between us. You must think of me as Basil’s sister, not as anything else. Tell me, dear, has he—did you think, in those days at Paris, that he cared for you? Don’t lock away in your heart anything which will help us to understand.”

126“Oh, Persis, how strong you are! I think no girl ever had so loyal a friend.”

“Oh, yes,” the reply came, a little sadly. “Girls, real true, loving, womanly girls, are always loyal. I know they say that you can trust your friends in all affairs save those of love, but I think even there girls can be honest to each other. Tell me all about yourself and Basil. I know he has always liked you and admired you.”

“Yes. I think we have always liked each other, and I used to think, at first, that you and Mr. Dan were fond of each other, so I didn’t try not to care.”

“And in Paris?”

“And there I saw him constantly. He was very good to mamma and me, and went everywhere with us. Mamma used to say it was because we were old friends, and because he felt as if he had a sort of claim on us, since I was your cousin; but—but I hoped it was because he really liked me. Don’t think he ever said sentimental things to me, he never did, but I—perhaps I imagined when he sent me flowers that they meant more. I suppose it was because I wanted to think it was so. But after we came back, and I saw him with you, I felt that all his attentions were because I was your dearest friend; that he liked to be with me because I could talk about you. Not being able to get pudding, he took pie,” she concluded, with a little attempt at jocularity.

“And you have been miserable over it. It is dreadful. But Annis dear, when he finds poor pudding 127isn’t good for him, and, besides, that it is not attainable, he will conclude that never was anything quite so absolutely satisfactory as good pie.”

“Oh, Persis! No, no! I won’t have you talk so. I believe you are going to do a dreadful thing.”

“How, dreadful?”

“Why you’ll ruin his life for the sake of my foolish, foolish fancy.”

“Ruin his life? not a bit of it. His little preference for me is only a flash in the pan.” Persis spoke lightly. She wondered as she did so, if she were sure that what she said was true. “Now, dear heart,” she continued, “don’t be miserable, I’m going to make a business of persuading your mother that no place in the world will suit you so well as Deal Beach, where the Phillipses are going, and that the Water Gap is horrid, and so you see propinquity may do a great deal. Will you try and be happy for me?”

“I will. Oh, Persis, I was so afraid you did really care. What a friend you are! But promise me, if, after all, you discover that no one but you can make him happy, that you will try to be fonder of him.”

Persis shook her head. “I can’t make any such promise; besides, that is a contingency we don’t have to contemplate just now. He is not going to have the chance to consider me for a moment. It is out of the question, as he will soon find out. It is the kindest way all around.”

She was very brave, there is not a doubt of it, yet it was she who lay wide awake till the gray 128dawn came stealing into the room, and it was her heart, which, brave as it was, felt a very sorrowful ache as she lay quietly by the side of fair little Annis, to whom hope brought happier dreams than had visited her pillow for many a night.

CHAPTER IX. YOUR GOOD COMRADE.

Basil continued to improve, but only his mother and brother were allowed to see him for the next day or two. The Dixons took their departure the evening following the accident, and Mr. Danforth went at the same time.

The next morning Persis found her way out of a certain difficulty which had presented itself to her. The doctor advised as speedy a removal as possible of the patient to the sea-shore, and to the same place Persis persuaded Mrs. Brown it would be best to take Annis.

“She didn’t improve in the mountains,” said the artful Persis. “And I think, Mrs. Brown, that it will be so pleasant for you all to be together. Annis doesn’t make friends at once, you know, and it will be so nice for her to have the boys as company.” So Mrs. Brown had yielded, and that much was settled.

Mrs. Wickes would not allow her remaining guests to shorten their stay by one day. She had long 130wanted a visit from Mrs. Brown and Annis, and declared that now she had them, she meant to keep them. The Phillips family were old friends, and their stay was quite as hospitably insisted upon. Mrs. Wickes was one of the few house-keepers who did not impress her guests with a sense of their presence being an added care. There was no attempt at over-entertainment, yet everything in the most unobtrusive way was provided to add to the comfort of those in the house. At the same time there was no striving at effect visible, neither did there appear an oppressive anxiety. Captain Wickes, whole-souled, hearty, and kind, was the essence of hospitality, and gave his guests to feel that it was a privilege to receive them under his roof, consequently Basil could not have been more fortunately situated.

Persis had expected to remain till the others were ready to go. She rather dreaded seeing Basil. She felt that a sight of him, as one rescued from death, would appeal to deepest emotions; that she would find it difficult to keep back words which might mean too much, and she wished for an escape, which fortunately just then came.

“Too bad,” she said one morning, after having looked through her mail; “I shall have to go home at once. Papa must have some papers from his desk, and needs them right away; so, as I am the only one within a respectable distance, I am delegated to get them and send them or take them on. I shall have to get ready and go off to-day, Aunt Esther.”

131“Oh, my dear girl, I hate to have you go off alone,” said her aunt. “Must you really go?”

“Yes; papa is very anxious to have the papers by a certain date, and has sent me the key of the desk. You know old Prue keeps the house open, and I’ll be very comfortable there over night. I’ll only stop long enough to see to the matter and to repack my trunk, and then go right on.” She was rather glad that, after all, fate had taken certain things out of her hands. She could not see Basil if she wanted to, and no one could question her excuse for taking a sudden departure.

Just before she was ready to leave her room she gave Annis a little note, saying, “I have written this for you to give to Basil. I’ve sent him a message by Mrs. Phillips besides.” Annis’s blue eyes were full of tears. She had an uneasy feeling that Persis was giving up more than she would admit. “Read the note,” her cousin said, gently. And Annis read,—

“Dear Basil,—The doctor has made a cast-iron rule that no one is to be permitted to see you, so I must say good-bye by other means than a hand-shake. Perhaps the hand-shake would be too vigorous, after all, for I am so thankful you still have a hand and are going to get well soon. Good-bye, dear old fellow; make haste and get strong, so that when I see you I shall behold your hearty self. You’ll be glad to know that Annis and her mother are going to the shore, too. I know when you can begin to potter about on the sands you will see that 132Annis has a good time. She is sort of doncie, I think, and needs chirking up; so I hope you’ll do each other lots of good for your own sakes and that of your old crony.

Annis slipped the note back into the envelope. “Persis,” she said, “I’m not going to the shore. I’ve thought it over, and I will not.”

“You will.” Persis spoke determinedly. She took Annis by the shoulders. “Promise you will, if you want me to go away satisfied; promise me.”

“I promise. Oh, Persis, I couldn’t believe you really wanted me to.”

For answer she was kissed and held in a close embrace. Her cousin felt that the strength of her renunciation was in this parting. Strange, she was not more jealous of Basil than of Annis, and into her devotion to the latter had come an element which increased its fervor. “Annis, Annis,” she said brokenly, “if you don’t keep on loving me I can’t stand it.”

“Oh, my dear, my darling, no one but mamma ever was to me what you are,” whispered Annis. “You are worth the whole world to me.” And Persis went away satisfied.

Nevertheless, when the excitement of these last days was over, and when she was by herself on the train which was bearing her swiftly away from those who had been her daily companions for all these weeks, she felt a sinking at heart, a sense of desolation 133began to creep over her. She winked away tears that would rise to her eyes and set herself to force other thoughts than those which would fill her mind, do what she would. “All these years I’ve been away from my dear home people, and almost as soon as I was back I traipsed off. I ought to be ashamed not to be gladder that I’m going to them now. I must think about them. They must come first.” But, for all, the unquiet spirit would not down. As fate would have it, there had come to her a second source of trouble and regret in a letter which that morning’s mail had brought her from Mr. Danforth.

She had rather snubbed Mr. Dan of late until his effort in Basil’s behalf had brought from her an effusiveness born of gratitude, and this was the result. He had waited till she had finished her college course, till she had completed this coveted trip, and now had asked her to marry him.

“Oh, what a contrary world!” sighed poor Persis. “How easily it might be settled if I had only a reasonable, manageable heart! Dear, good Mr. Dan, I like him so well, and he saved Basil’s life; that alone ought to compel my deepest feeling towards him; but I cannot, I cannot pretend to more than I do feel. I should be so pleased to admit him to any other relation but that of lover and husband. If I only could fall in love with him, or if he and Annis had fancied each other; dear, oh, dear! either would be so satisfactory to everybody; but it isn’t that way a bit. It is the horrid contradictory thing that’s sure to happen. Annis is just that quiet, still kind 134of a person who feels deeply. She never could get over this, never, and she is not the one to turn to something else and fill her life with it, as I believe I can do—as I must do. It will be a tug for me, but I never was downed, and I won’t let myself be now. Bless my dear old Basil! If he were a little less dear, how glad I should be; but Annis will suit him far better than I could. No one could doubt it for a moment.” With such thoughts did Persis fill her mind during her trip home.

She never remembered being in her native city at this season, and it seemed very desolate and lonely,—houses closed, heavy shutters barring windows, streets dusty and deserted. In her own neighborhood, to be sure, it was not so, for the pleasant grounds around each house and the wide porches were an invitation to remain at home, which many families accepted rather than to be crowded into close quarters at some watering-place.

Finding the front door closed, but the library windows leading on a porch open, Persis entered by the latter means, and passed through the house to the kitchen, where old Prue was, with a protector in the person of her grandson, a lad nearly grown.

The old colored woman was stirring up biscuits, and lifted her floury hands in surprise as Persis entered, exclaiming, “Law, Miss Persy, hit ain’t yuh! I ‘clar I thought yuh was a ha’nt comin’ in so suddint. What in the worl’ fetched yuh home, honey?”

“Why, nothing very dreadful,” laughed Persis. 135“I have come from Aunt Esther’s, and am going to join the family up in the mountains. Can you give me some supper? And—yes, I’ll sleep in mamma’s room, it will be cooler there. I have to hunt up some papers in the library to-night. What time is it, anyhow?”

“Hit’s arter six. Me an’ Mose was gwine ter hev a bite when I bakes dese biscuits, but I reckon yuh want sumpin’ better’n biscuits an’ bacon.”

“No, I don’t, unless it is a glass of milk.”

“Dey plenty ‘serbs, honey, I done put up whilst yo’ mah been away,—blackbe’ies an’ cu’ants an’ raspbe’ies.”

“Well, I’ll have some blackberry-jam, or no—I have some fine peaches with me, and Aunt Esther has stowed a lot of cakes in my bag. I think she had an idea the city would be a desert waste, and that I should find it hard to get food. I’ll go put on a cooler frock, Aunt Prue, and I’ll be ready by the time the biscuits are.” Having finished her solitary supper, for which, after all, the traveller did not feel much appetite, she gave orders for breakfast, and then went to look up the papers she was to find. “I shall take a train for New York about noon,” she told Aunt Prue, “for I want to get the Sound boat. My trunk will be here presently. Let it be taken up-stairs; I want to repack it in the morning.”

She turned to the library. It was still quite light. “I shall have plenty of time to get the papers before dark,” she said to herself, “and I’d better be sure of them to-night. Let me see, in a tin box in one of 136the drawers of the desk.” She fitted the key which her father had sent her, and found no trouble in gaining access to the desk. She opened one or two compartments, and finally came upon one which held two long, narrow boxes and a number of packets of papers. A little padlock was attached to each box.

“Oh, yes. Papa told me I should find a bunch of keys in the small drawer to the left.” After fumbling around a little, she came across the bunch, and, trying one or two of the keys, found one which opened the larger of the two boxes which she had taken out.

“How much shorter the evenings are! It is nearly dark. I’ll take these to the window,” she soliloquized. This she did and began to examine the papers. “A deed from H. B. Holmes. That isn’t it. Old bills, no.” Suddenly she started and hastily picked up the next paper she saw. She bent over it eagerly, fear, dread, a dozen different emotions, causing her to tremble. On the back of the envelope which she held to the light she read, “The adoption papers of Anne Maitland, now known as Persis E. Holmes;” then followed the date, nearly a year after Persis herself was born.

She bent over it eagerly.

“What does it mean? What does it mean?” she whispered, with cold lips. She flung the paper from her as if it had been some pestilential thing, and sank down on the floor, covering her face with her hands. She felt numb, terror-stricken, and dared not move. The light faded, the room grew dimmer and dimmer, the evening breeze sprang up and 137drifted the scent of petunias and the strange sweet odor of opening moon-flowers into the room.

“I must have become suddenly crazy,” said the girl at last as she rose to her feet. “What a trick for the twilight to play me.” She felt weak, and her knees trembled as she crossed the room to make a light. Twice, three times she essayed to pick up the paper which she had flung from her. The tin box still rested upon the window-sill. As she took it up to replace the other papers which she had taken from it, Persis saw at the very bottom a little package tied with a white ribbon. She took the box over to the light, and lifted out the small bundle. On it she read, “One of little Persis’s curls cut from her head when she died.” The year only was given; it was the same as that on the larger packet which Persis had flung from her. “I was a year old then,” she murmured. She opened the paper; a shining bit of golden hair fell in a little spiral heap on the table. Persis laughed hysterically. “My hair is black. It was always black. I have always been told that it was never any other color. And this—whose is this?” She went over and picked up the paper which had fallen from the envelope. “I have a right to read this, I surely have,” she whispered. And she unfolded it. All she could learn was that a certain Anne Maitland was legally adopted by H. B. Holmes, and that she was henceforth to be called Persis Estabrook Holmes. How long she sat puzzling over it Persis did not know. She would not read anything more. This concerned herself, and 138her father had given her free access to it. Herself! She gave a little shudder. Was she—this Anne Maitland? Why, she must be! The child with the golden hair was dead—was dead. This was why she was so unlike her sisters. She dropped into a chair, and great sobs shook her. Few tears came to her eyes, only those dreadful racking gasps convulsed the form that cowered there in the silent room.

“Oh, it is too cruel, too cruel!” she moaned. “They never meant me to know. I can see it all now. The little baby Persis with the golden hair like Mellicent’s died, and I was chosen to take her place. If I had only been told at the first, I could have borne it, but to know it now! Oh, it is terrible, terrible! How could they deceive me! I remember, now, that mamma has often told me that I was not named till I was over a year old. It is only too true that I am Anne Maitland. Why,”—Persis sat up straight again,—“they have even let me join a patriotic society, and have let me claim the same ancestors as Mellicent and Lisa. Perhaps they knew I had a right to them; perhaps I am a relative; but who? who?” She struck her hands helplessly together and turned her head from side to side as one in delirium. “I cannot stand it. I cannot bear to live a lie, and all of them, even grandma—no, no,”—she drew her breath with a little hissing sound,—“no, she isn’t mine. Not even grandma is mine. I have nobody in the world!”

After a while she became calmer. She picked up 139the papers one by one, and restored them to their place in the box. Her fingers shook as she gathered up the little coil of fair hair in the palm of her hand, and tied the paper in which she replaced it with the bit of white ribbon. She locked the box and put it back where she had found it. Then she proceeded to hunt for the paper which Mr. Holmes wanted, finding it without difficulty in the second box. She laid it aside, and then sat down again. She heard Mose come through the hall to close the shutters. He stood irresolutely on the threshold.

“Shall I shut up the house now, Miss Persis?” he asked.

The girl started, and gathered up her keys and papers hastily. “Yes; I will go up-stairs,” she replied. She dreaded to have any one see her; and, passing by the room which had been prepared for her, she took refuge in her own bedchamber.

There stood her familiar belongings, among them the old writing-desk which her cousin,—“not her cousin,” came the thought,—Mr. Ambrose Peyton, had given her; and this brought another subject to be considered. He had believed her to be the actual granddaughter of his beloved Persis, and in consequence had left her this desk and contents,—those contents which turned out to be the little fortune of ten thousand dollars. She had no right to that now, even though she had been made Mrs. Estabrook’s namesake. No, no; it had all been fraud. Yet, how could they, how could they, those dear, honorable guardians of her youth, how could they permit it?

140“Of course,” Persis reflected, “they argued that I was really legally their daughter; that I was in reality the representative of the little Persis who was born to them. And they love me, they do, they do,” she murmured. “They have been as if I were really their very own, and I have never known the difference. And grandma has loved me best of all. She must have known, of course she must; and if she countenanced it, why, it must be right. And yet—oh, I cannot stand it! I cannot!”

She opened her desk and sat down to write, first to Mr. Danforth,—that was an easy task now,—then to—no, not to Basil, but to Annis, and, last, to those still so dear, so very dear.

“My beloved ones,” she wrote to those whom she had called her parents, “I have learned what you never intended I should know. I opened the box by mistake. I cannot understand all the mystery, but this much is plain to me, that I am not your child. For all your kind care, your loving care, of me I am very grateful; but I cannot yet come to you, knowing that I am not your very own. I could not bear to see your other”—this was scratched out and “own” substituted—“daughters possessing a claim on you which is not mine by inheritance. Some day, perhaps, when I have come to be calmer and can get used to the thought, I may be willing to take my place again in the family—if you will allow me—with all those whom I so dearly, oh, so dearly, love. Never doubt this for a minute, that I love you; I love you all. Please see that the ten thousand 141dollars from Mr. Ambrose Peyton go to the real claimant. I cannot feel that I have a right to it. Some time I may see you again. I am going to make my own living. I can do it; do not be afraid for me, and do not blame me. I shall suffer less by doing this way.

“Although I have no real right to the name, I must for the last time sign myself,

This letter, blistered by hot tears and written in an irregular manner, unlike the writer’s usual neat style, was enclosed with the paper desired by Mr. Holmes. Persis next set to work to gather together certain of her possessions. “They will not grudge me anything, I know. They would have me take all, but I shall only carry away what I am likely to need.” She therefore packed two trunks,—one with winter clothing, the other with the plainer attire belonging to her summer wardrobe. She selected a few of her favorite books, some little trifles which held an association very dear to her, the photographs of the family and her dearest friends. She gathered together all Basil’s letters, meaning to burn them. For a moment she held them lovingly in her hand. Such pleasant letters they were, telling of boyish experiences, of life at college and in Paris, and of days of travel. Persis took out one or two from their envelopes and glanced over them wistfully; then she made a package of them, sealed them up closely, 142and left them in her desk with sundry other packets, leaving a note of request that they should be left so until she should come to claim them, or, if that never happened, to burn them when it was certain that she would “no longer care for earthly matters.”

There was a little touch of tragical display in some of the things which she did that an older woman would not have included in such a leavetaking; but Persis was young, she was emotional, and her bravery approached heroics at times.

She was conscious of the “chir-chir” of the insects in the trees outside, of that faint odor of the moon-flowers, accompaniments to that August night which always brought it back to her in after years.

It was nearly daylight when she had at last finished her work, and she threw herself across the bed without undressing, worn out, but tingling with nervous thrills which did not permit her to sleep except fitfully.

CHAPTER X. UNTO THE HILLS.

A tap on the door aroused the sleeper, and she sprang up hastily to see the anxious face of old Prue. “Law, honey,” she exclaimed, “I sutt’nly was skeered. Huccome yuh ain’t sleep down in yo’ ma’s room? All higglety-pigglety up hyar. An’ yuh ain’t sleep on dat baid ’thout no kivers, is yuh?”

Persis tried to smile, but it was a poor attempt; the increasing pain which her brave heart felt had come with sharper force with the day. “I had so much to do,” she faltered. “I just threw myself down here when I had finished.”

Aunt Prue sniffed disapprovingly. “That ain’t no way o’ doin’,” she declared. “Yuh look lak yuh been drawed th’ough a knot-hole. Po’ chile! yuh sholy is plum wo’ out. Come down an’ git a good cup o’ coffee. I done fix yuh up a good breakfus’. Is yuh ready soon?”

Persis looked at her dishevelled attire. Her usually dainty habits asserted themselves, however miserable she might be. “I’ll take my bath first. 144I’ll not be long,” she replied. She felt feverish and thirsty, but breakfast was not a pleasing prospect, and to Aunt Prue’s dissatisfaction she only nibbled at the chicken and waffles.

“Yuh sholy is plum wo’ out,” repeated the old woman. “Yuh ain’t gwine ter do no trab’lin’ dis day, chile, not if I kin he’p hit. Yuh is white as a ghos’, an’ yo’ eyes is all holler in yo’ face. Yuh ain’t fittin’ fo’ no trab’lin.”

“I must go, I must. Oh, Prue!” For a moment the impulse came to confide in the old woman, who had so long been a faithful servitor in the family. No doubt she could tell her all she wanted to know, but a shrinking from discussing the subject at all forbade her to unburden her heart, and she sipped her coffee slowly, wishing that Aunt Prue would not be quite so solicitous. She was nervous and weary, but still was unshaken in her purpose.

The expressman came for her trunk, and the moment arrived when the break must come. She went from room to room, feeling strangely weak, but she did not falter in her decision. It seemed to her that Mrs. Estabrook’s room was the hardest to leave. A dozen little familiar objects reminded her so acutely of the dear old lady’s presence. The comfortable chair by the sunny window; the little work-table; the row of books on the shelf above; the footstool; the clock and the old-fashioned ornaments on the mantel, all seemed to bring the owner vividly before her. There had always been a peculiar bond between Persis and Mrs. Estabrook, which made them 145closer in their confidences and sympathies than is usual between persons of such a disparity of age. “How sorry she must always have been for me,” Persis thought, “for not even papa and mamma seemed to care so much for me. Lisa was always her mother’s favorite, and Mellicent her father’s. Of course, I could not be the same to them, but they tried, they did try to love me, yet how could they?” She sighed, and then two tears splashed on the chintz cover of grandma’s easy-chair, as the girl bent over and kissed it.

At the last moment she threw her arms around old Prue with a clinging touch, at which the old woman wondered. “Oh, dear old Prue,” she said, “don’t forget me.”

“Law, chile, you sutt’nly is quare. I ain’t gwine fo’get yuh in two or free weeks. I ain’t got such a terr’ble good remember; ‘taint so good as hit used to be, but it’ll las’ dat long, honey.” And she chuckled at the idea. Yet she felt very anxious about the girl. “She in fo’ a spell o’ sickness, dat I know,” said Prue, as she watched Persis go down the street.

It was not northward that Persis turned her face, however, for she took a train which bore her back over the ground she had but lately left. She showed almost the craftiness of one insane in the way she arranged her plans, for she had consulted maps and time-tables, and had selected as her destination a little town in an unfrequented part of Virginia. From thence she had determined to make her way to the village near which she and Basil had been overtaken 146by the storm. Her yearning was for the mountains. “If I can find peace anywhere, it will be there,” she said to herself, sighing wearily, as she laid her head back against the cushions of the car.

She was tired out mind and body, but the wearisome round of thought kept up its treadmill, and she could not rid herself of going over and over the same ground. To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow it would be the same. She could see no respite ahead.

She thought of all her wise philosophies, of how loftily she had maintained that an exterior cheerfulness was always possible for those who would but think so. “The Cheerful Three!” What a different being it was who had been one of them; and, yes, it was a very different being; that was Persis Holmes, this was Anne Maitland.

The place of her destination was not reached till about nine o’clock. Persis had not realized that it would be so late, and that she did not know whether or not she could find accommodations in the town; but she plucked up heart, and consulted the conductor.

“Can you tell me if there is a safe place to stop at the next station?” she asked him,—“for a lady, I mean.”

“Why, yes, I reckon there is. There’s the Mansion House. Ladies most always go there. It’s all right.”

“Can I find my way easily?”

The conductor reflected. “Well, I can’t tell you 147just how to get there; but there’ll be some one from the house down at the station, I reckon.”

Persis thanked him; and when the train drew up at her stopping-place she stepped out and looked around. A building bearing the name “City Hotel” stood across the street, but that Persis knew was not where she had been directed to go.

The train thundered on, and she was left almost alone on the platform, in the dim light of a kerosene lamp which hung by the door of the little waitingroom. A couple of men standing by looked at her curiously. One of them stepped up to her. “Were you expecting some one to meet you?” he asked, respectfully.

“No,” replied the traveller; “I want to go to the Mansion House. Is there any one from there meeting this train?”

“Why, there doesn’t happen to be for this train. They don’t always come. Bill!” raising his voice; “none of Clark’s folks around, are there?”

“No; John came down, but he didn’t stay.”

Persis looked distressed.

The man called Bill came forward.

“Mr. Haines will go up with you,” said the first speaker. “He’ll see you get there all right. He’s our policeman.”

So, under the escort of the village policeman Persis was piloted across the street, up a bit of road, and down a long lane, at the end of which an old-fashioned stuccoed house stood. Mr. Haines swung his lantern cheerfully and warned Persis of mud-puddles 148and rocks in the way. He ushered her into the house without ceremony, and went to hunt up the host, who presently appeared. The policeman evidently departed as soon as his business was finished, for Persis did not see him again.

“Can you give me a room?” asked the newly arrived guest.

“I reckon we can, if you all don’t mind the first floor.”

Persis did not mind anything of that kind. The hobgoblins which terrorized her were not such as a strange room in a strange house could furnish.

The man disappeared, and soon returned, bringing fresh towels hung over his arm and a slip of paper in his hand. “I ain’t got a register handy,” he remarked. “Just put your name here.”

Persis was startled for a moment. She had not thought of being obliged to decide so quickly as to which of her names she would bear; but she did not hesitate long, and “Anne Maitland” was written on the slip which the man left lying on the table, while he requested Persis to follow him.

She was shown into a lofty, old-fashioned room, which was furnished comfortably enough, but which seemed close and stuffy.

The man filled the pitcher, brought matches, and hung the towels on the rack, being evidently used to performing any office which came his way.

“Shall you all want breakfast?” he asked, pausing at the door.

“Yes,” was the reply.

149“What time?”

“About eight o’clock.”

“All right; she’ll see that you have it. If I ain’t around just go hunt her up.”

Who this mysterious she might be, Persis did not inquire, but she was given an opportunity to find out the next morning. She was too utterly exhausted not to sleep, despite the rather too hard bed and too soft pillows; and although she was early awakened by the tramp of feet overhead and by the running down the uncovered stairs of several persons, she did not get up till the sun was high.

She left her room, to find no one in sight, and she proceeded to examine her surroundings. The house was an old country mansion set in the midst of a garden. The mountains—once more the mountains—rose up on every side, but at this hour covered with the mist which obscured their peaks.

After standing on the porch a few minutes, Persis went to hunt up her hostess, whom she found in a back room.

“He said you’d be along about eight,” was her greeting, given with a smile. “I reckon you all are hungry as a hunter. Like corn-cakes? I’m just stirring up some. Just go in and set down,” opening a door leading to another room, “and I’ll have your breakfast right in. Si! Si! you Si! bring me in some wood.”

A little woolly-headed darky popped up from some dark corner and scuttled out. He was the only servant Persis saw while she was in the house. When 150the breakfast was ready,—fried fish, crisp bacon and fresh eggs, fried potatoes, butter, bread, and corn-cakes,—Persis was able to eat more than at first she thought possible, although her hostess protested that she didn’t eat more than a bird, and was evidently disappointed that her efforts were not more substantially appreciated.

Persis asked about the little village nestled in the mountains, where she had determined to go.

“Black Rock? Why, yes; it’s about eight or ten miles, I reckon,” the woman informed her.

“Can I get any one to take me over there, me and my trunks?”

“How many trunks?”

“Two.”

“Hm! I reckon you must be the new school-teacher,” thought the mistress of the Mansion House. “I heard they were going to have a strange teacher there this year,” she remarked, irrelevantly, as it seemed to Persis. “I reckon some of the folks in town can take you. Want to go to-day?”

“I think I should like to.”

“Si! Si!” called the woman; “you go tell Marster Torm to come in.”

The small darky departed, and Persis returned to her room.

Later in the day she was jogging along a country road towards the little village of Black Rock, her trunks piled up behind her in the wagon, and herself seated by the side of a lazy-looking, good-natured countryman, who drove a pair of dun mules, 151and only now and then, to his companion’s relief, made any remark.

Persis had clung persistently to the one idea of reaching this place. For some reason it seemed to offer her the surest haven. If she could only be received under the roof of the kind woman at whose gate she and Basil had stopped—was it less than two weeks ago? Was it not years? she thought.

“Do you know the house to which I want to go?” she said to the man who accompanied her. “It is the last house in the village before you reach the school-house.”

“T’other end?”

“Yes, I think so; on the road to—to the Natural Bridge.”

The man nodded. “I know,—Jim Temple’s.”

He had concluded that Persis was the new teacher, and began to make a few remarks about the school, which were not interrupted. Indeed, Persis was scarcely listening to what he said. She was looking closely at the little village through which they were passing. Suppose this Mrs. Temple should absolutely refuse to take her in. What then? “She must! She must!” The girl had so persistently decided this, that now that the possibility of a refusal met her she was anxious and worried.

The same little child came shyly out. “Hallo, sissy, anybody about?” asked the man, who pulled up his mules before the gate.

And again, as before, the kind-looking woman appeared. 152Persis had been helped down from her high seat, and stood eagerly waiting. She held out her two hands as the child’s mother approached.

“Oh, Mrs. Temple,” she said, “can you take me in? Oh, please!”

The woman looked at her in surprise. Then her face cleared. “Oh, you’re the new teacher. Why, yes, of course. The teacher most always boards here, if she doesn’t happen to live near. Come right in.”

Persis hesitated; she could live under no more false pretences, she thought. “I’m not the new teacher,” she replied; “but if you have room for me, let me stay at least a little while.” Then, seeing hesitation visible on Mrs. Temple’s face, she added, “Please do. I do not know where else to go.”

“Poor child!” from the motherliness of her nature Mrs. Temple spoke out. “I don’t reckon he’ll mind. You all can leave the trunks, John.”

The big man was lifting down the luggage, which he set on the porch; and after accepting what Persis considered a very modest trifle for his services, he drove off and left a lonely girl to take up a strange new life.

“I made sure you all were the teacher,” Mrs. Temple began as they went inside. “She sent word to the trustees that she was sick, and mightn’t be able to begin next Monday.” The thought that here was a possible opening came like an inspiration to Persis.

“Oh, then, if she doesn’t come, do you think they 153would take me till she is well? I have been to college. I could take an examination if necessary.”

“Well, now, perhaps you could, then. I know the trustees were mighty put out. They were talking it over day before yesterday. The one who had it last year got married this summer, and they thought some one who didn’t live in the neighborhood could discipline the scholars better. She knew everybody, and they thought she was partial, and I reckon maybe she was. She certainly had her own kin to teach, and she wasn’t going to get into hot water with their fathers and mothers, her own cousins. Where have I seen you before? Your face certainly does look mighty familiar.”

Persis flushed up. She was too truthful to evade the question. “I stopped here on horseback one day, and you gave me and my companion some biscuits and honey.”

“Why, to be sure; I remember. I wondered if you got caught in that storm. Did you get cold? You look like you had been sick.”

“We found shelter under the school-house porch, and did not get very wet. I know, Mrs. Temple,” she went on, “that my coming seems strange to you, and I cannot tell you a great deal about myself. I have had a great sorrow since I was here. My name is Anne Maitland. I have been well educated, and am able and willing to support myself. I had a little money, but I gave it up, because I found out I was not the person for whom it was intended. Is that enough for you to know? I wish I could tell 154you more. I don’t want you to think I am an adventuress.”

“Bless your heart, child, no one would ever think such a thing. I can see you look pale, as if you had been ill. That’s why I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“No, I’m not ill, only tired, very tired; and oh, trouble that comes so suddenly is very hard to bear.”

“Poor dear, poor dear; there, never mind, you’re safe. I’m not going to turn out a homeless girl while I’ve a place for her. Now, miss, come up and take off your hat, and get the dust off. Here, Mattie, take this lady, Miss Maitland, up to the spare room, and tell Columbus to get some fresh water for her.”

With a sudden impulse Persis turned and held out her hands, her eyes dim with tears. “Thank you! how good you are!” she murmured. “I knew you were the one to whom I could come. I have felt it all along.”

“Indeed, did you? I declare. You remembered me? I didn’t know you came a-purpose. I thought it was because they told you the teacher boarded here always, and you thought we took regular boarders.”

“No, no; it was because I remembered you.”

A pleased smile gave Mrs. Temple’s face a kindlier expression than even before. “I declare,” she repeated. “I’m sure I’m glad you feel so. Hurry up, Mattie. Did you find Columbus?”

The aforesaid Columbus, a very black, lank, barefooted 155darky boy, appeared. As soon as his eyes fell on Persis an eager and pleased look came into them. His mistress laughed softly, as he whispered something to her. “Go ’long Columbus, you’re clean daft. Hurry now, and get the young lady some fresh water.” And Persis, preceded by the little Mattie, and followed by the eager-eyed boy, was ushered into a big upper room, the dormer windows of which showed deep recesses in the walls which sloped in a long slant from the peaked roof.

As the door closed behind her, Persis gave a sigh of relief. A sure refuge, this she believed it to be. These were good, kind people, plain and homely, but full of generous hospitality and a sweet charity, and she sank on her knees at the window where the last sunbeams were shining. Before her rose, peak after peak, the steadfast mountains, in all their solemn, tranquil majesty, and there came to the weary girl in her sorrow a verse which she had often heard her grandmother repeat,—“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”

CHAPTER XI. THE NEW TEACHER.

Persis had acted impulsively. Had she been too prompt in her decision? she asked herself that night, as she lay in her big four-posted bed. The mountains had already begun to show their influence upon her. She had always been a decided sort of person, who acted promptly, and without a dependence upon the opinions of others. She was too sore and hurt at first to consider whether her action would bring sorrow to any one, but she had told herself that no other course was possible. The right of it was a question which she allowed her own share in the matter alone to determine. For the present she could see only the fact that she had been led to believe what was not strictly true, and the truth, as she perceived it, made it impossible for her to live any longer in the old relation till she should have adjusted herself to present conditions. There returned to her a hundred incidents which her fancy imbued with a deeper meaning than she had recognized in them before. Every little possible indifference 157she magnified; each word of censure returned doubly charged with bitterness, and yet the longing for mother and home increased day by day.

Mr. Temple listened rather dubiously to his wife’s account of the stranger within their gates. “You don’t know anything about her, Martha,” he said. “I certainly don’t approve of taking in a stranger that way. Where did she come from? Who sent her here?”

“She came herself,” Mrs. Temple replied. And then she recounted what Persis had said.

“Humph!” Mr. Temple ejaculated. “She got around you that way, did she?”

“Oh, but Jim, any one can see that she is a lady, and I believe that nice-looking young man who stopped here with her that day is at the bottom of all her trouble,” Mrs. Temple said, emphatically. “Perhaps she’s had a falling out with him, or perhaps he’s some way mixed up with her business affairs. There are queer things like that always happening. Maybe she had to give up her fortune or marry him, and she’s taken this way so as not to be persecuted.”

“That’s just like a woman. She always scents a love affair,” returned Mr. Temple.

“Well, you’ll see.” Mrs. Temple maintained her belief.

“All right,” Mr. Temple rejoined. “The next time any of us goes over to the Bridge we’ll inquire if a Miss Maitland stopped there, and if anybody knows anything about her. Meanwhile, I suppose 158it won’t hurt for her to stop here till the teacher comes, anyhow; but I wash my hands of any mess you get into. If you find yourself getting into trouble, you’ll have to make your own way out of it. You always were too soft, Martha.” This last was said with a smile. Mr. Temple would not, for the world, have had his wife any less tender-hearted, and he himself was very much interested in the new arrival.

Mrs. Temple took advantage of the smile, and followed it up with, “Jim, won’t you see the trustees and find out about that Miss Collins? If she doesn’t come, it’ll be like a providence for Miss Maitland to be right on hand.”

“Humph! Yes, I’ll see, but I reckon it won’t do any good,” mentally determining that it should, and feeling rather important over being able to solve the difficulty of providing a substitute for the delinquent Miss Collins.

He came in with a beaming smile on Sunday evening and looked over knowingly at his wife. “Well, Martha,” he said, “Miss Collins ain’t coming, after all. Some of the trustees went up to Staunton to see about her, and the truth of the matter is, she’s been trying to get out of coming here, because she found she could get a school nearer home.”

“Why didn’t she say so?” exclaimed Mrs. Temple.

“Oh, she thought she’d play sick, and slip out of it that way. Made it easier, she thought.”

“Well, have they got another teacher?” Mrs. Temple asked, eagerly.

159“No, not exactly. They said if Miss Maitland could give satisfactory references, and could show her certificate, and all that, they’d try her, if she wanted to apply.” He looked over to where Persis was sitting.

“But I can’t,” she made answer. “I cannot show any certificate or diploma. All I can do is to take an examination.” Persis looked distressed.

“Pshaw! that’s too bad,” returned Mr. Temple. But, seeing the look on her face, he added, “Maybe we can fix it up somehow. Suppose you go up to the village with me to-morrow and see the trustees. Perhaps if you talk it over you can make out to get the school.”

“Oh, you are very kind. I will go, gladly.”

“The only one you’re likely to have any trouble with is Dr. Rivers,” Mr. Temple informed her. “He’s a great stickler on education, and if you can contrive to convince him that you know a heap, he’ll give in. We are to meet at his house.”

“And Mr. Boone is the next fussiest,” Mrs. Temple told her. “If you can manage those two you are all right.”

Both these good friends looked the girl over critically as she appeared to take her drive with Mr. Temple the next day. She had given some care to her toilet. “I will try to look my best,” she said to herself; “then, perhaps, they will take it for granted that I am what I appear to be, even if I cannot carry my family tree under my arm.” Her gloves and shoes were faultless; her gown a well-fitting one of 160handsome material, but made simply; her hat matched it; and, surveying herself in the glass, Persis felt the first pleasurable excitement she had known since she left home. She was going, perhaps, to solve the difficulty of earning her bread.

“My! but you all look nice!” Mrs. Temple observed, approvingly; and Persis smiled, gratified by the hearty praise.

It was something of an ordeal, after all. These men, in their rough clothes, were gentlemen, however, men who read much, and whose old libraries, descending from father to son, showed that more than one generation had been inclined towards literary tastes. They represented the most important men of the neighborhood and of the village, and were authorities upon all momentous questions concerning the dwellers therein.

Dr. Rivers seemed to be specially formidable. He questioned and cross-questioned, and at last launched out into a hot argument on some point to the modern acceptation of which Persis held. The doctor waxed more and more ferocious, and as the two kept up a brisk passage-at-arms, the remaining three trustees lapsed into silence and listened with attention. At last Persis made a specially good point. She was thoroughly at home with her subject, and her college training stood her in good stead, even though she could show no diploma. She was not to be won over to the doctor’s way of thinking, and was so spirited in her defence that the listeners smiled more than once.

161At last the young applicant was surprised to see the doctor throw himself back in his chair and laugh heartily. “Well, Miss Maitland,” he said, “I haven’t enjoyed such a tilt since I can’t tell you when. I don’t know but that you have the best of me. What do you think, gentlemen?”

“That Miss Maitland has proved herself no mean opponent,” said Mr. Boone. “She certainly gave a Roland for your Oliver, doctor. I should like, if you have no objection, to ask Miss Maitland to show her qualifications in mathematics.”

“A written examination, do you propose?”

“Do you agree, Miss Maitland?”

“Readily. I am quite at your service.”

The four men put their heads together, and from the doctor’s book-shelves selected one or two old books, from which problems were chosen for Persis to solve. Here, too, she acquitted herself well, and the trustees withdrew to the porch for a conference, while Persis was left to await her fate.

Dr. Rivers was spokesman on their return to the office where the interview had taken place. “In view of the lateness of the season, Miss Maitland,” he said, “we are willing to waive the question of any other reference than that which Mr. Temple personally offers. He declares himself entirely willing to stand responsible for you.”

Persis looked up at Mr. Temple with a gratified smile. He had not told her that he would do this, and she had not expected it. He looked slightly 162embarrassed, but bowed gravely to Dr. Rivers as he made this announcement.

“And we think it but fair,” the doctor continued, “to add that the examination to which you have been subjected was not an ordinary one, but of a much higher standard than that usually required. You have our hearty congratulations for having passed it successfully. All that remains is the question of discipline; we hope you will be able to maintain good order. The children you are to teach, with one or two exceptions, are not of the better class, and what we really need is a teacher who has tact rather than a profound knowledge of the classics.”

“I think I can manage them,” replied Persis. “I will do my best.”

“I believe that,” returned the doctor, kindly. “Now, my dear young lady, we feel ourselves responsible for you to the community, and at the same time you are under our protection. I trust in any difficulty that you will feel yourself free to consult any one of us. Personally I can say that I shall be happy at any time to place myself at your service.”

“Professionally?” put in Mr. Boone, facetiously.

The doctor waived aside such an imputation. “Far from it. Marshall, my dear sir, Miss Maitland, I trust, understands.”

“Oh, I do, and I thank you very much, and all of you.” And Persis turned, making a pretty little gesture, which included the five men.

163“And I shall also be delighted,” the doctor continued, with a twinkle in his eye, “at any time to discuss such questions as we have had under consideration this morning.”

Persis laughed. The old man was really delightful, and she promised him that she would take advantage of any such opportunity afforded her.

“You will be ready to begin to-morrow?” was the final question, which was answered in the affirmative, and the newly appointed teacher went off, feeling very well satisfied with her success.

She had, indeed, done a better morning’s work than she realized; for as an entire stranger, dropped suddenly in their midst, surrounded by mystery, she had been approached with caution and reserve; but her lack of self-consciousness, her gentle dignity, and evident sincerity won her the recognition she deserved.

Mr. Temple was scarcely less pleased. “Well, you couldn’t have done better if you’d known them for years, and had studied the doctor’s blind side,” he told her. “Dr. Rivers is right strong in his prejudices, but if he is once convinced he is like flint. You’ve got about the best backer you could find in this neighborhood. He prides himself upon being able to read character, and I’ll warrant you’ll find you’ve won a pretty favorable opinion. I never saw him more gracious.”

“I am so glad,” rejoined Persis; “and, oh, Mr. Temple, I want to thank you for standing by me. It is so very, very kind, so good of you to believe so 164entirely in an absolute stranger, and to answer for me. I can never forget it.”

The truth was that the chivalric spirit of these Virginia gentlemen had been deeply stirred; that she was worthy was almost of less account than that she was a woman, young, unprotected, and trustful, who had appeared suddenly among them desiring to win her way honestly. Not one of these men who did not immediately place his own daughter in such a position; and not only were their hospitable instincts aroused, but those which should belong to the disinterested chivalry which asks no questions beyond that which is answered by “a maiden in distress.”

And therefore the following morning Persis started out to take up these new duties. In one week what changes! and what wind of good fortune it was that blew her this way!

She approached the weather-beaten little old school-house with varied emotions, the past and the future curiously mingled,—curiosity, a little dread, a deal of confident belief in her being able to fulfil the calling of a successful school-mistress, and, lastly, that strange tumult at heart, born of the fact that here she and Basil had stood on that day which she could now never forget. On the porch, over whose floors the feet of shy little urchins were now treading, she had spent an hour with Basil—with Basil; and if she had permitted it——No. She gave her head a little shake, and smiled down at the small Mattie who was to be her companion to and from school.

165The little country children stared hard at the new teacher, at her neat, pretty frock, at the golden-rod in her belt, and the day went fairly well.

“Blessed be work!” Persis said to herself, as, tired, but more glad of spirit than she had hoped to be, she took her way home.

She threw herself heart and soul into her labors. Persis never did anything by halves. It was all or nothing. Renunciation could not be made in part any more than could acceptance of a duty be made in a faint-spirited way. Connie spoke truly when she said that whatever Persis did she did well.

At first the excitement and newness of the position prevented monotony, but as the weeks wore on and the cold weather approached, there were many nights when the weary teacher went heart-sick and homesick to bed. The little elegancies and luxuries of life were missing here, and although kindness prevailed, nothing could make up for mother-love and the comradeship of life-long friends. The only link which existed between herself and the old home was the newspaper which came regularly, and to which Persis had subscribed. “I can keep up with them in that way,” she told herself, “and if anything dreadful happens, I shall know it, and then——” What she might do in such an event she did not dare to ask. The sharp, sharp pain was giving way to a dull ache, and the quiet of the mountains was beginning to pervade her spirit. The children at school were commencing to show timid expressions of affection towards their new teacher. Autumn 166flowers and bright leaves were laid upon her desk, rosy apples and little hoards of nuts were awkwardly offered, and one day a little bit of a tot, who was deeply in love with his teacher, appeared hugging a wee tortoise-shell kitten.

“We’ve got three more at home,” he piped up, as he came running in, “and mother said I might give you this one.” He had lugged the small creature all the way from where he lived, a distance of three or four miles.

Persis snuggled her face against kitty’s little furry coat, and was as pleased as a child at the gift. She knew Mrs. Temple was too kindly disposed to all creatures to object to another member being brought into her household, for tame chickens, ducks, and turkeys were wont to wander into her kitchen, and cats galore roamed at will about the premises.

The kitten behaved very discreetly during school hours, and was given a sumptuous luncheon. Persis carried it home in her arms. Something of her very own to love. She inwardly thanked the small scholar over and over again, for the little kitten became a great comfort, watched for her return from school each day, and lay in her lap, or on her writing-table, at night.

Poor Persis had few letters to write these days, for she had resolved to correspond with no one for the present, and but for magazines, with which she provided herself, would have had many dreary evenings.

The mountains in autumn. She had told Basil that 167she would like to see them at all seasons. And what a constant source of pleasure they were, gorgeous in their coloring on clear days, or wrapped in the soft purple haze which the season brought!

“You all seem like you had been raised in the mountains, you’re that fond of them,” Mrs. Temple said to her one Sunday as they were on their way home from church.

“I am fond of them,” Persis replied. “I love them dearly. There is something so peaceful about their silent, immovable peaks, and yet they are never surrounded by just the same conditions. They do not change themselves, yet they appear to. I think help does come from them,” she added, half to herself.

“I’ve often thought that,” was the unexpected response. This plain, motherly, domestic Mrs. Temple was wonderfully sympathetic. Her intuitions were very quick, and more often than Persis knew she felt a responsiveness to the girl’s remarks.

Little Mattie adored “Miss Anne,” but the village girls looked upon her with a reserved admiration. They didn’t understand her, and that she held aloof from social gatherings was attributed to her being either “stuck up,” or, as some maliciously averred, she was “probably afraid to associate with people who might find her out,” for she gave no confidences. Golden silence had, at last, come to form a large part of Persis’s code.

CHAPTER XII. NEW FRIENDS.

Meantime, how fared it with those whom Persis had left behind?

The incoherent letter which had been mailed on the day of the girl’s departure from home reached its destination about the time she herself arrived at Black Rock.

Mr. Holmes, seeing that the paper sent was the proper one, did not at first perceive the enclosure, and remarked, “Persis has sent the paper all right.”

“Did she say she would go with the Browns?” asked Mrs. Holmes.

“Perhaps there is a note inside the envelope. Look and see, my dear.” And Mr. Holmes, deep in the perusal of a business letter, passed the envelope over to his wife, who shook from it Persis’s poor little note.

She read it over twice before she could take in any part of its meaning. Then she gave a little cry. “Oh, Horace!” she exclaimed; “read this. This is 169terrible! Oh, the poor, poor child! What shall we do?”

Mr. Holmes dropped his letter and hastily scanned Persis’s note. “I can’t make it out,” he said, looking puzzled.

“Why, don’t you see? Don’t you understand what she has discovered? Oh, Horace! where has she gone? What will become of her? Those papers in the other box!—you have not forgotten what they are?”

Mr. Holmes nodded thoughtfully. He was beginning to take in the situation. “But surely, surely——” he began. “Why, Mary, that was so long ago—why, she cannot mean——Yes, I agree with you; it is terrible. I must go on at once and stop her.”

“Where will you go?”

Mr. Holmes looked bewildered. “Why, my dear, there will be no trouble. Do you think she can have disappeared without a trace? Those things don’t happen, except in books.” He was trying to reassure his wife, but he was heavy at heart.

At this moment Mrs. Estabrook entered with a letter in her hand. “I’ve just heard from Esther,” she informed them. “She says Persis has left her and had decided to join us. She should be here to-day, shouldn’t she?”

“Oh, mother! mother!” cried Mrs. Holmes; “read this. Isn’t it terrible? Who could have dreamed that such a result would come from what was a real kindness?”

170“I don’t understand,” replied Mrs. Estabrook, looking up from the note after reading it. “Does she mean—can she really have left her home and have gone away among strangers?”

“Oh, I wonder if she has?” returned Mrs. Holmes.

“Surely not!” Mrs. Estabrook said. “She is probably with Annis and her mother.”

“Where are they?” asked Mrs. Holmes.

“Oh, yes; I believe Esther wrote that they were still with her. The Dixons, then—somewhere with friends.”

“I shall go and find out,” Mr. Holmes said, resolutely.

“But, Horace, your hay-fever. You can send a despatch.”

But he shook his head. “It would only be wasting time if she has gone off alone.”

“Then let me go. I’ll get some one to help me find her,—Mr. Danforth or Dr. Dixon.”

Still Mr. Holmes was determined. “No; we can both go, if you wish. I must see just what the papers are to which she alluded. I have almost forgotten even the name.”

“Anne Maitland,” Mrs. Holmes replied, in a whisper.

He nodded in reply; and the first train to be had bore them towards home.

Old Prue greeted them with, “How Miss Persy?”

“Oh, Prue! that is what we want to know,” answered Mrs. Holmes. “Tell us just what she said and did.”

171“I ‘low she in fo’ a spell o’ sickness,” replied Prue. “She look lak a po’ little white ghos’, an’ she gimme good-bye lak she know she ain’t gwine see me no mo’.”

“Oh, Horace! then she has gone—gone, who can tell where? Oh, my poor little girl! How could she! how could she!”

Mr. Holmes had gone directly to the desk and had taken out the larger box. “These are what she has found, Mary,” he said. “Do you wonder that she felt as she did?”

“No, no; but if she had only trusted us; if she had only not been so impetuous!”

“Don’t blame her.” Mr. Holmes spoke unsteadily. “She thought we had not trusted her; that we had deceived her. I can understand how it hurt her proud, young spirit.”

“Yes, I know. Oh, my poor little girl! Oh, Horace, I must see her! We must find her. I want her in my arms again.” Mrs. Holmes was crying hopelessly.

“Don’t, Mary, don’t. We know Persis too well to believe she will do anything radically wrong. She has acted hastily under the pressure of a terrible grief, but she will do nothing to be ashamed of.”

“But if she is ill among strangers,—if she should die,” Mrs. Holmes sobbed.

Mr. Holmes compressed his lips. It was a hard thought that such was a possibility, but he would not yield to it. “I do not believe it,” he said, firmly.

Knowing her fondness for the Bridge, a despatch 172was sent there, but, as might be supposed, the answer gave no clue to her wherabouts. All search, all inquiry, seemed to end where it began. Persis had left home, presumably to go to New York. Not a trace of her could be found after that.

“She means to stay,” Mrs. Holmes decided, after searching Persis’s rooms and finding what remained of her possessions. “She has provided for the winter.”

Their search was not over when the first message came from Persis:

“My dear People,—I am well, and am making my own living honorably. Do not worry about me, and do not try to find me. I do not forget you one moment, but I cannot bear the thought of what a different life I should have to face if I were to come to you. If I can learn not to shrink from it, I will see you, even though it can never, never be the same again.

This the girl had managed to give to some one on the train which she took one Saturday for the purpose of making a little tour of investigation to one or two of the nearest towns. She was restless, and had always greatly liked to visit new places. It suddenly occurred to her that here would be an opportunity of sending a message without disclosing her identity to the village people at Black Rock, 173and she wrote the little note, placed a stamp upon it, and slipped it in her pocket.

“Are you going through to Washington?” she asked a lady in the seat ahead of her. A reply in the affirmative decided the questioner, who took out her letter. “Would you be kind enough to mail this for me at the station when you arrive? I should like it to go from Washington. I would be so very much obliged if you send it.”

Thinking that she meant to insure a speedier delivery of the letter, the lady very readily promised. And thus it reached her home, and brought a subdued pleasure.

“She is safe, as you said,” Mrs. Holmes told her husband. “We shall have to let time work out the result, I am afraid.”

“Considering her point of view, she is doing what might be expected of one of her temperament,” returned Mr. Holmes. “All we can do is to wait events, my dear.”

Mellicent wept bitterly on hearing what had happened, and became suddenly aware that she had not appreciated Persis. Her grandmother had divulged Persis’s secret, thinking the time had come for it, and Mellicent knew that to Persis was due her trip to Narragansett Pier.

Lisa, too, was crushed when she heard of the trouble. “Dear, loving Persis,” she said to her husband. “No one did appreciate her when she was at home. Now that she is gone, we are all discovering what a generous, unselfish girl she was. Oh, if we 174could only see her again, she should know how much we love her.”

But the mountains around about Persis kept their secret well, and in time the family at home came to accept her absence as a fact which, however it might be deplored, must nevertheless be borne with resignation. There was no less desire to discover her whereabouts, but the effort to do so became less active.

It was hard to explain matters, and only to intimate friends was an attempt made to do so. To mere acquaintances it was easy to say, “Persis is trying her wings. She wants to know how it feels to be absolutely independent.”

“I should think you would want her at home,” one friend said to Mrs. Holmes. “Now that your eldest daughter is married, and Persis has finished her college course, how could you let her leave you?”

“I do want her,” Mrs. Holmes replied, quietly, “but I also want what is best for Persis.” And there was no more said on the subject.

Annis could not disabuse her mind of a feeling of guiltiness towards her cousin, although the little hasty note which reached her assured her that no one was accountable for her going away. “I do not know whether, after all, I am your cousin or not,” Persis had written. “Grandma can tell you, but oh, Annis dear, try to love me anyhow.”

“As if I should not,” Annis said to Basil. “As if there were ever any one so well worth loving.”

175Basil was silent. He felt so, too. Of all her friends, he seemed best able to grasp the situation. “She wants to be let alone,” he said after a while. “She will come back when she is ready. I am not afraid but that she will.” It was he who first suggested that she might have gone to the Bridge, and when all search seemed fruitless, he maintained his opinion that they would soon hear from her, or that she might return any day.

Mr. Danforth, too, felt the loss of his friend deeply, but Persis’s answer to his letter had made him understand that only as a friend did she consider him. Moreover, her independence in deciding so summarily to leave home rather disappointed him. He was one of the men who prefer the part of the oak, and would have all women accept the character of the vine, and he thought Persis might have asked for advice before acting so hastily. Persis would have been surprised if she had known that it was he, and not Basil, who spent the winter in Washington, for, having had an offer which promised well for his journalistic career, his work took him to the capital, and fortunately he was removed from associations which would have proved very unhappy ones for him.

But there were many who mourned her in the little circle of her long-known and intimate friends.

Persis was far from knowing what a very lovable person she was, and how much she was missed.

“It is strange,” Mellicent said, plaintively, “that every one is so devoted to Persis. I believe the boys have all been more or less in love with her.”

176“Why, Mellicent, what makes you say so?” said her mother.

“Well, I am sure of it. When I speak of her to Mr. Dan, he immediately looks as if I had told him he were going to be hung, and Basil scowls and bites his lips, as if he would like to say something but didn’t dare, while Porter mourns openly, and Walter Dixon says she is the finest girl in the land, and if he had a sister he should want her to be just like Persis.”

Mrs. Holmes sighed, and Mellicent began to look very “teary ’round the lashes.” She had many weeps over Persis’s absence. She, too, felt with Annis that she had somehow pushed her off. It looked as if this absent member of the family might expect a very great spoiling if ever she did return.

But as yet she had no such intention. It was a very alien sort of life for her, yet not one from which she shrank. A city girl, bred in a home of comfort and even of luxury, to be suddenly transported to this wild neighborhood, one would suppose would fret greatly against conditions which robbed her of her ordinary comforts, but she took the walk to school ’mid cold and wet. She gave out her best to the eager little pupils, and returned home to her room up under the eaves to pass the evening in study, or, taking her work, would spend it with the family in the sitting-room.

There were three younger children besides Mattie, and at first it was hard for the new inmate of the household to become used to their noise and chatter, 177but she had the blessed quality of adaptability, and managed to fit in comfortably.

“Miss Anne and Dr. Rivers are great friends, I tell you,” Mr. Temple would remark, jocularly. “If he were a widower, I’d think he had an eye on her.”

“Now, Jim, you know the doctor is old enough to be Miss Anne’s father,” Mrs. Temple would reply, and her husband would laugh at her earnest tone.

It was, nevertheless, a fact that the doctor had taken a great fancy to the new teacher, and no one dared to say a word in her disfavor before him. Mrs. Rivers, too, shared her husband’s opinion, and it became a weekly habit for Persis to spend Sunday with this kind couple. Mrs. Rivers, it must be admitted, was the more curious of the two regarding the girl’s history, and often said, “I wish, doctor, that Miss Anne would tell us more about herself.”

“She’ll tell when she gets ready,” would be the reply. “Don’t go badgering her, mother; it is a sore subject with her, and it isn’t kind to be curious about it.”

Yet Persis was on the point of revealing her story more than once, and often caught herself, in a burst of confidence, referring to scenes and persons at home. Therefore the doctor, who had travelled more than his neighbors, came to a pretty shrewd conclusion as to where she belonged; but he was too honorable to make any use of his conjecture, and never hinted at knowing more than Persis actually told him.

There was one person who from the first had 178given the stranger a dog-like devotion, and this was the colored boy, Columbus, a great, lanky, overgrown fellow, with the simplicity of a little child and the tastes of a girl. He loved nothing so well as a doll which he could dress up, and could pretend to be a person of importance. Were there a marriage in the village, the doll wore bridal array, and for the nonce became the interesting bride; were there a funeral, the doll appeared in deep mourning. Did a stranger attend the church, Columbus went home with the cut of her gown distinctly pictured on his mind, and at the next opportunity she was reproduced in miniature. To give him a few scraps of silk or velvet was to win his heart, and Persis was his ideal of all that was stylish and lovely.

“I always said Columbus ought to have been a girl,” Mrs. Temple would say. “We took him to the county fair once, and all he did was to sit and look at the people’s clothes. He would sneak off any time I would let him for the sake of getting at his box of pieces.”

Yet Columbus was a well-trained servant, for Mrs. Temple was a notable house-keeper, and the boy was a model waiter, and was handy in many directions. His privilege of privileges was to be allowed to bring his doll and his box of pieces in the evening and sit with the family in one corner of the room. He had a really wonderful gift of imitation, and the costumes he evolved from his little store of goods were actually astonishing.

The first time Persis saw herself reproduced she 179was quite taken aback. The cut of her gown, the blazer jacket, shirt-waist, and even the smart collar and tie, were exact, while the doll’s hat was a marvel of art. That such a taste should be developed in a poor little ignorant colored boy seemed a strange freak, but one which amused Persis, and she fostered it by many a gift of dress-stuff, and won an almost adoring worship from Columbus by promising to send away for a fine new doll for him.

The boy could whistle like a bird, and on the long, dark evenings which November brought never failed to go up the road to meet Persis and follow her home from school, his sweet, piercing whistle always announcing his approach. No matter what he was doing, whether forbidden or not, nothing stood in the way of his seeing that she reached home in safety.

“But, Columbus, you mustn’t leave your work,” Persis expostulated.

“I ain’t gwine let nothin’ tech you alls, Miss Anne,” he would say. “I jes’ ’bleedged an’ compelled to come. I couldn’t he’p it, nohow.”

If anything detained her in the school-house, he would wait outside till she should be ready, and then trot along a couple of yards behind her, carrying her lunch basket. It must be confessed that his presence did rob the long, lonely walk of its terrors, and his came to be an accepted office at last.

Persis’s little kitten was another source of pleasure and amusement. She named it Comfort; and on long winter evenings, when the wind howled through 180the pines and swept across the mountain fastnesses, the little creature did indeed bring her mistress solace as she sat by her fire which crackled away in the wood-stove. What pictures arose before the tired girl at such times those about her little knew; and sometimes the hot tears would fall on Comfort’s sleek coat, till she, roused from her doze, would climb up on her mistress’s shoulder, and with her small red tongue would strive to give furtive little licks to the girl’s cheek, as if she would show her the affection she craved. And then Persis would bury her face in the soft fur, and tell the unconscious little animal the secrets she dared not divulge to any other. And so November went by, and the time neared Christmas. How Persis dreaded that day to come! She had managed to send off a little package from the nearest town, to which she rode with Mr. and Mrs. Temple to make a few Christmas purchases. There was no express office in the village.

“I wonder why I am so persistent in not letting them know where I am?” on her return she asked herself. “It is that dreadful feeling that comes up whenever I think of seeing any of them. Mine and not mine. No, no; I must stand exile till I can feel more reconciled to the change.” And she gave a deep sigh. “‘An exile from home, pleasures dazzle in vain,’” she quoted. “Christmas-eve, and here I am.” Then her lip trembled, and she sank down on her knees, sobbing, “Oh, mother, father, I want you so! I want you so!”

CHAPTER XIII. THE CHRISTMAS-TREE.

Winter in the mountains! When Persis awoke on Christmas-morning she looked out upon a white world, and the feathery flakes were still drifting down. “How beautiful!” she exclaimed.

But just then came the soft clamor of small hands patting on her door; and little voices cried, “Merry Christmas, Miss Anne! Hurry down and see our Christmas-tree.”

Then came Columbus’s mellow, “Chris’mus gif, Miss Anne! Is yo’ fiah bu’nin’ all right? Hyah’s yo’ hot watah.”

“The fire is fine,” Persis answered. “I’ll be down directly. Merry Christmas, little folks!”

The children danced around outside her door until she opened it, and then she saw Columbus sitting on the top step with the baby, wrapped in a blanket, in his arms, while the others were battering their heels against the floor.

“Here she is!” came a chorus. And, attended by these satellites, Persis descended the stairs.

182The little pile of gifts by her plate seemed very paltry compared with her usual fine array; but she was grateful for these, for she had expected not so much as a penny’s worth. These were only trifles, but they expressed much,—the white aprons from Mrs. Temple, the carefully hemmed handkerchief from little Mattie, the balsam pillow from one of her older pupils, and last, but not least, a remarkable necktie over which poor Columbus had toiled, and for which he had reserved his choicest piece of satin. This brought the tears to her eyes.

But the rapture with which Columbus received his new doll, with her chestnut locks and blue eyes, showed him to be quite the happiest person in the house; and he went off to the kitchen holding his treasure gingerly, but with his big adoring eyes so fixed upon it that it was as much as he could do to walk straight.

“Don’t you look so much at that doll that you can’t bake any cakes for us, Columbus,” called Mrs. Temple after him. “You’d better get that griddle going pretty quick, or we’ll keep that doll in here.”

That was sufficient warning for Columbus. “‘Deed an’ ‘deed, Miss Marth’, I ain’t gwine cas’ my eyes to’ds her twel de cakes is bake,” he replied, fervently; and the promptness with which he supplied the table bore out his resolution.

“You have made Columbus more your slave than ever,” Mrs. Temple said, laughing. “I’m afraid he will have eyes for nothing but the doll to-day.” But a few decided conditions established only spurred 183Columbus up to do his work properly, and the way he flew around proved that happiness is a great promoter of industry.

About noon Dr. Rivers’s sleigh came dashing up to the door, and the doctor, well muffled up, came stamping in. The snow had ceased to fall, but not before it had made good sleighing. “I’ve come to carry off Miss Anne,” he announced to Mrs. Temple.

“Indeed, then, doctor, you’ll not. She’s going to eat Christmas-dinner with us. Have I been fattening up my biggest turkey for you all to come and carry off my only guest? You can’t do it. Here she is. Let her speak for herself. Miss Anne, are you going to desert us to-day?”

“Why, no. Who says so?”

“The doctor.”

Persis turned inquiringly to where the doctor stood slapping his big fur mittens together.

“You see, Miss Anne, our boy is home from college. You haven’t met him, and we want a sort of jollification for him. Some of the young folks will be in this evening, and my wife sent word that you must come and stay all night. It’s holiday-time, you know.”

“Oh, but doctor, I can’t, I’m afraid. You see, I have fixed up a Christmas-tree for the school children. Some of them, poor little souls, never saw one. These mountaineers, many of them, never make any account of Christmas, if they ever even heard of it. Of course, I can’t do much, but I have some little bags of candies and some cheap toys for them. I’m 184afraid, however, that the snow will keep some of them away.”

“Don’t you believe it,” the doctor replied. “They’ll come, every mother’s son of them.” He looked at her sharply, and then he added, “Miss Anne, do you know you’re the first teacher who ever thought of doing such a thing for that school. Heretofore the teachers have seemed to be more eager for a holiday than the scholars, and have turned the key in the door of the school-house as early as the law allowed, and shut out any thought of it till they had to return.”

Persis smiled. “Then I’m glad I’ve established a precedent; but you see, doctor, I couldn’t disappoint them.”

“I do, indeed, see. Will you let me come?”

“It is a trustee’s privilege, I believe, to visit the school whenever he may wish,” returned Persis, demurely.

“Then I’ll stop by, and take you up there, and you can go home with me after your performance is over. What time shall you begin?”

“At two o’clock; but I shall go over as soon as we have finished dinner.”

“Then I’m afraid I shall not be able to do more than be on hand at the last minute.”

“Columbus can drive her and Mattie up there,” Mrs. Temple spoke up.

“Oh, but Mrs. Temple, that will interfere with his work. He will not be through with his dishes,” Persis expostulated.

“Never mind. I’ve got old Ginny in the kitchen 185to-day. Columbus can be spared as well as not.” And to Columbus’s great joy, it was so arranged, and the little festival at the school-house was made ready for its guests.

It was cold as Greenland, but Persis found a huge fire already blazing in the stove. Some one had seen to it that the teacher should not be nipped by Jack Frost. The oldest of the boys were expectantly waiting outside when the sleigh, driven by Columbus, came up.

“Miss Anne! Miss Anne!” they shouted. “Here she is! Help her out, Josh. Come in, Miss Anne. Merry Christmas, miss! Here, Columbus, fetch along that fur robe.”

“No, no!” Persis remonstrated. “Put that over the horse; he’ll freeze to death in that little cold shed. Make him good and comfortable, Columbus. I shouldn’t be happy, boys, if I knew a horse was shivering outside here. My, what a roaring fire! Why, Josh, what is that?”

“It’s a pair of kind of fur shoes to put on over your others on cold days, and when you all go out sleigh-riding, Miss Anne.”

“And you made them for me? Why, how clever you are! Aren’t they warm? They are like moccasins, only warmer. Here, Columbus, put them on for me. Why, they are fine. How did you know what size to make them? Thank you very much, Josh. I never had a Christmas-gift like this before.”

Josh, in clumsy expression of delight, shuffled from one foot to the other, the other boys looking 186on enviously. Persis’s heart warmed towards these uncouth sons of still more uncouth mountaineers, so grateful for the little grace and love she had given them.

“Come, boys, let’s get up the greens,” she said. “There, see how pretty we can make it. That bunch of red berries in the pitcher on my desk. Doesn’t the tree stand nice and straight? We’ll have to hurry to get it ready; the bags first; now the strings of pop-corn. Can you fasten on the candles? Not too close together. There, we have it.” And ordering, encouraging, appreciating the work, Persis was the controlling spirit.

The boys gazed in open-eyed admiration. The last candle was hardly made secure before the jingle of bells and the stamping of feet announced the approach of the partakers in the festivities, and, what with parents and children, Persis thought she could hardly find room for them, but at last she managed.

There was not much time to be wasted in exercises. Only a Christmas carol or two; the story of the first Christmas told in the simplest way, another carol, and then the tree was lighted and the gifts were distributed.

Such eager children, such wonder and delight, gave Persis a thrill of something between pleasure and pity. “Oh! oh!” came in subdued exclamations, and on every one of the rough faces of men gathered in the corners was a pleased smile.

Dr. Rivers, by the door, took it all in, and as the hearty voices shouted, “Hark the herald angels sing,” 187he made his way towards the teacher standing in among the wreaths of green.

Every one knew Dr. Rivers. He had watched by many a sick bed, eased many a pain for those present, and when he spoke they all listened. It was only a Christmas greeting he gave them, the desire to do so born of Persis’s little effort, but it warmed the hearts of all of them, and they went off, having gone a step nearer to a knowledge of what Christmas might mean.

Persis had worn her prettiest frock, partly because of the doctor’s coming jollification, and partly because she felt it would give pleasure to her pupils. She had a bunch of red berries in her belt, and a few were tucked in her black hair. The doctor thought he had never seen her look so well. She was lifted out of herself. The doing for others had, for the time being, made her own troubles take a place in the background. “She’s a dear, good girl, whatever any one says,” thought the doctor.

“What a judicial expression,” she interrupted his cogitations by saying, as she noticed his steadfast regard of her. “I’m afraid you’re very critical, doctor, and haven’t quite approved of my little parade.”

“My dear girl,”—the doctor pronounced it “gyurl,”—“I never approved more heartily of anything in my life. I wish a dozen more I could mention had been here.”

“I am so glad you do feel so, and I thank you so much for your little address. It was just what was needed for a climax. This has really made me have 188a very happy day, and I dreaded it more than I can tell you.”

“The Christmas spirit,” said the doctor, slowly, “is not that which gives what is not of ourselves.”

Persis looked up. She had not heard the doctor say such a thing before. He was wont to show rather a mocking, sarcastic side.

“That is what grandma says,” replied she, forgetting where she was. Then she bit her lip, and flushed up. She went on hurriedly. “I know what you mean, doctor. We must give of ourselves or else it is not a gift. Do you know, I have had two or three presents to-day which have touched me to the very heart? They represent loving sacrifice, and mean more than dozens of elegant presents I have had bestowed upon me in times gone by.” And then she told him of the fur shoes and the necktie. “Josh is one of my very best scholars,” she went on to say. “He has a very receptive mind, and is so deeply and tenderly interested in animals. I try to make my boys, and girls, too, develop a care for dumb creatures. I found Josh one day with a little bird whose leg was broken. He had splinted it nicely and took the little thing home, where it got entirely well. I have great hopes for Josh, and my children here are teaching me true values,” she concluded, soberly. They had been standing in the empty school-house, but Persis was soon snuggled down under the robes in the doctor’s sleigh, and they were driving at a spanking pace towards the village.

189“We must get up a sleighing party while my boy is here,” said the doctor. “I speak for your being one of it, Miss Anne. You’ve no excuse now that there is no school to use up your vitality. We have not insisted before on your joining our frolics in the village, because you did have that excuse.” The doctor was always head and front in any social event. Any sort of festivity without his presence would have seemed lacking its principal guest.

“I think I can promise to be one of a sleighing party,” replied Persis, “if I can depend upon you and Mrs. Rivers for my companions.”

“Now, is that flattery, or a distinct desire for our company?” asked the doctor.

“It is the latter.”

“I know one or two boys who will jump at the chance of escorting you. Indeed, I had thought my son might be the accepted swain on that occasion.”

“But I haven’t seen him,” laughed Persis. “And even as it is, I am willing to give his parents the preference.”

“Wait till you do see him. I’ll not make any promise till then.” The doctor was very proud of this big son, the child of his old age; for Dr. Rivers had not married young, and the two fair daughters born to him had died in early youth. It was ten years later that a boy made glad the hearts of the desolate couple, and he was their idol.

A tall, handsome fellow was this Pendleton Rivers, who ran down the steps as Persis and the doctor stopped before the gate. He had been very eager 190to see this new teacher, around whom a halo of mystery and romance clung, and he was disposed to be very attentive to her.

It had grown quite dark by this time, and he could not very well see the girl, hooded, veiled, and generally bundled up from the cold; but once she had laid aside her wraps, and stood with her cheeks rosy from the frosty air, she looked very like the old Persis, and Pen regarded her admiringly, at the same time feeling that her face was a familiar one. “Where have I seen the girl before?” he asked himself.

A little later on Persis herself felt a fear of recognition. “I never thought to ask which is your college, Mr. Rivers?” she said. “I suppose, of course, it is the University of Virginia or William and Mary?”

“No; I am a Johns Hopkins man. This is my junior year.”

And Persis felt her hands grow cold. A classmate of Walter Dixon’s, of Rob Maxfield’s, and half a dozen boys that she knew. And she quickly changed the subject to matters relating strictly to Virginia soil.

But after supper came another season of anxiety. It was before guests had arrived, and while the doctor and his son were talking over college affairs. As boys will do, Pen was recounting his little escapades. The doctor was enjoying his boy’s visit hugely, Persis could see. He rubbed his hands as Pen told of a recent exploit. “That reminds me of my old days in Baltimore, when Walt Dixon and I were chums. Have you come across him, by the way?”

191“Who, the doctor? Why, yes; his son turns out to be a college-mate of mine, and we never knew it till this year. Dr. Dixon is fine—fine as silk, and Walter is a chip of the old block. They say he’s engaged to that Miss Steuart who lives at the Dixon’s. Dr. Dixon is her guardian, or something.”

Persis clasped her hands nervously. “What a small world, after all! Connie and Walter! to hear of them in this out-of-the-way place!” She leaned forward with parted lips.

“Nice girl, is she?” queried the doctor.

“Yes, a real jolly girl. Not exactly pretty, but just the jolliest sort, kind and thoughtful, and bright as a button. I believe the Dixons like her immensely. I was there a few nights ago. There was a Miss Peters there, from Virginia originally, and a Mr. Phillips, a young student from the Quaker City.”

The blood surged up into Persis’s face, and then left it pale as a ghost’s. The doctor was watching her, but she was not aware of it. “What Peters family is that?” he asked. “Any kin of old Tom’s?”

“I don’t know, sir. I think the same family, probably. I liked young Phillips. He told me he spent some time at the Bridge last summer, and praised it quite enough to suit even a Virginian.”

Poor Persis! a small world, after all, it was, indeed. Questions which she dared not utter crowded to her lips, but she overcame the temptation to ask what she so desired, and changed her seat from the chair by the table to a low stool near the open fire, where, 192screening her face with her hand, she listened for what might come next.

“I’d like to have the Dixons down here. Pity you hadn’t found them out sooner. I had lost track of them entirely for the past few years. I’m glad you’ve come across them.”

“You see, Walter and I are in different departments,” Pen explained. “He is studying electrical engineering, and I’m in the classical course, so we didn’t happen to meet till the latter part of last year, and then I somehow didn’t associate the name with your chum. This year, however, we’ve often met in the gym, and one day found out that our fathers were old friends; since then we’ve been very chummy. You never met Mrs. Dixon, did you, mother?” turning to Mrs. Rivers.

“No; but I have met the doctor. Did you say that the son was down this way last summer?”

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, he was; but I spoke of young Phillips. There was quite a party of them making a trip through Virginia, and from what they said they must have had a jolly good time.”

“Too bad, too bad,” the doctor repeated. “To think they were within such a short distance, and we didn’t know it.” His hospitable instincts were quite outraged. “Well, well, we’ll not let them go to a hotel next time, will we Becky?”

“Indeed, we will not; but Miss Anne must think us very rude, doctor, to be talking about people she never heard of. Here we’ve brought her and made 193her sit in a corner to listen to this boy’s talk. Come, Miss Anne, we want to hear about that frolic at the school-house. Doctor, tell us about it; Miss Anne is too modest to praise it properly.”

The doctor launched out into a humorous account, and Persis added some funny descriptions of her company; of how one of the children had never seen a Christmas-tree, and set up a scream when the first candle was lighted, thinking the tree was on fire. And so the talk went on till a smart rapping came at the door, and a dozen young people flocked in.

Persis had nimble fingers for dance music, and had hoped to fill the office of musician; but she had only played two or three tunes when there arrived an old darky fiddler, and so there was no escape for the “teacher,” who soon found herself floating off in a dreamy waltz, which the old man played with an ecstatic throwing back of his head and a gentle pat of his long, flat foot.

Pen Rivers found his partner so good a dancer that he claimed her again and again; and she, who had always enjoyed nothing more, gave herself up to the pleasure, although, had she known of certain developments which would result, she would have been less ready to dance with Pen Rivers.

CHAPTER XIV. A SLEIGHING PARTY.

It was after midnight when the guests departed, and, since Mrs. Rivers had matters to see to in the dining-room, and Pen had escorted home one of the beauless damsels, Persis was left alone with the doctor.

“We are those ‘who tread alone a banquet-hall deserted,’ aren’t we, doctor?” said the girl, who stood with one slender foot resting on the brass fender. “By the way, why didn’t you ask me to dance with you?”

“Because I thought you had a better match in Pen. The young scamp dances well, doesn’t he?”

“He does, indeed.”

“And so do you, I heard more than one say. You’re not a novice in that accomplishment.”

“No, and I am very fond of it. The mere pleasure of the motion, the rhythm, fascinates me, and I believe I used to enjoy dancing with the girls quite as much as I did going to the assembly in——” She paused, and the doctor supplied the word,—the name of her native city.

195Persis started. “Oh, doctor!” she exclaimed; “what—how——”

“How did I know? There, my child, I don’t believe you have done anything so dreadful that you need look so scared. It is your secret just as much as it ever was. I have gathered my knowledge from what you have said at different times. A doctor has cause for the exercise of his perceptive faculties, and you have, perhaps, said more to me than you realize. Now, don’t tell me a word if you don’t want to. I saw this evening that you were very visibly moved by Pen’s talk, and I inferred that you were more than ordinarily interested in the persons of whom he spoke.”

“Yes; I know them, every one. I wish I could tell you.”

“I do not ask you to. I have thought sometimes that you ought to provide some one with the address of your friends in case of serious illness, or such trouble; but I have trusted you entirely from the first, and you know I have no wish to force your confidence.”

“Yes, I do know, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you have been so kind and considerate. I had no right to expect it.”

“Not ordinarily, perhaps; but every honest, well-intentioned person has a right to expect the recognition due him or her; and you have done nothing to win other than the entire respect of us all since you have been here.”

“Thank you. I think, doctor, in the presence of 196such trust in me, that I may have been wrong not to tell you more about myself. Until just before I came here I believed myself to be the own daughter of those who had taught me to call them parents. I suddenly discovered that I was an adopted child, and the name by which you know me is the one which was first mine.”

“You were legally adopted?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have a legal right to the name given you at adoption; it is, in fact, your rightful one.”

“But I cannot bear to use it. You do not know, doctor, what a dreadful, dreadful revelation it was to me. I came upon the knowledge suddenly, without warning.”

“You are sure of what you say?”

“I saw the written proof, the adoption papers, and I left home.”

“Without your parents’ knowledge or consent?”

“Yes; I could not bear the thought of seeing them, knowing they were not my real parents. Oh, doctor, I cannot bear the thought, even now.”

“And they do not know where you are?”

“No; I have let them hear from me twice. They know I am well and that I am self-supporting. I am of age, you know, and should not be dependent.”

“Do you think it was quite just to them, after their loving care of you, to leave them in that way? They must have loved you greatly to make you feel so strongly in the matter. If you never knew the difference between them and your own parents, their 197devotion to you must have been marked, and they must be greatly distressed at your leaving them.”

“I don’t know; I don’t know. I was too sore and hurt to think of anything but myself, I am afraid. You think I was very wrong, doctor?”

“I think you have made an error of judgment, and that it would have been better to have had a fair and clear explanation of the whole affair.”

“But nothing could have altered my position. Nothing could make them really my very own, nor change me to their flesh and blood, and—and I dread so to learn my own parentage. It is that which haunts me, which makes me fear to know more.”

“Maitland is a good name,” said the doctor, thoughtfully; “and although I cannot entirely approve of what you have done, Miss Anne, I can see, for one of your temperament, wherein the provocation lay; and since you say they know you are safe, I think they will by this time have come to understand how very strong was the feeling which prompted you to flee from their protection. I will keep your secret, my child, and we will not refer to it unless you wish. One word more. Were you their only child?”

“No, they have two other daughters.”

“And you have never known any difference?”

“Scarcely any. They are both very beautiful girls, while I, you know, am not. I used to be a little unhappy because of it, and used to think mamma preferred the elder sister and papa the 198younger because of their beauty, but perhaps I was over-sensitive.”

The doctor smiled. There was such an entire lack of self-consciousness in the speech, and yet, thought he, she is such a charming girl; to be sure she has not a Grecian nose, and her mouth is a trifle too small, but she is pretty, very pretty, and, what is more, she has that irresistible quality of attracting persons which is worth more than beauty.

Persis watched him wistfully. “You don’t mind my not telling you my other name? And you will still be my friend? I do need friends very much.”

“Of course I will be your friend, even if you are a runaway, and I don’t care a picayune about the other name.”

“Don’t suppose for a moment, doctor, that I don’t realize how much love and care has been lavished upon me, or that I don’t appreciate that I might, if left to the lot to which I was born, have now been—Heaven knows where or what. It is that which nearly kills me. I might have been a beggar, a criminal, or—who can tell?”

“You are morbid about it, Miss Anne. I doubt if you would, even under the different environments which you imagine, have become anything very dreadful, and, as it is, I think you were probably the child of friends or perhaps relatives.”

“Oh, do you think so?”

“It seems probable. If your adopted parents had been without children, they might have taken you 199from some institution; but with one daughter already they were scarcely likely to do that.”

“Oh, thank you for saying so.”

“I cannot help wishing that your people could know where you are. I think you wrong them and yourself by this secrecy.”

“I will let them know, when I can bring myself to the point. I am trying very hard to do it. I had not thought it would be so long, but it is a hard, hard struggle. I think this day has helped me, doctor; my dreadful self, which has been staring me in the face these months past, has not seemed quite so important. I am trying to think more of helping others and less of pleasing myself.”

The doctor cleared his throat and turned away. The brave look in the girl’s eyes, which, too, had a pathetic expression, moved him, and he was glad when a step on the porch announced Pen’s return.

The good old man gave the girl’s shoulder an affectionate little pat. “Never mind, child,” he said, reassuringly. “You are safe, and so is your secret; no one but ourselves shall catch an inkling of it.”

Having unburdened herself thus far, Persis felt a great sense of relief. She was no longer sailing under false colors, so far as the doctor was concerned, and he had promised to stand her friend. The next day she wrote out Mr. Holmes’s address, and, enclosing it in an envelope, she gave it to the doctor. “I have taken your advice,” she told him. “If anything happens to me, you will find the address of my adopted father in this envelope.”

200“That’s right,” replied the doctor. “That makes me feel easier. We don’t want to lose our teacher, yet I wish you would go a little further and write them more fully.”

But Persis shook her head. “Not yet. I can’t just yet. I think I am getting more used to the thought each day, but I can’t bring myself to more quite now.”

“Well, well, I won’t press it. Let’s talk about that sleighing party. Are you still determined to go with the old folks?”

“Yes, I should prefer it.”

“Then Pen shall go, too, and we’ll make a compromise by taking the double sleigh. Becky and I will settle ourselves comfortably in the back seat, and Pen shall drive, with you on the front seat.”

“Doctor, you are very good,” returned Persis. “Indeed, as I think of it, there are a great many good people in the world.”

“Because I want you to ride on the front seat?” laughed the doctor.

“Yes,” returned the girl, gravely. “Not every father would encourage it, not knowing any more about me than you do.”

“Nonsense,” was the reply. “I know you are a very charming young woman, but I told you I trusted you entirely. Besides, we agreed not to mention that subject again.”

But alas! the doctor’s arrangements for the sleighing party did not meet with favor in all directions. More than one girl in the village had her 201eye upon the young collegian. In consequence, there were several indignant maidens who aired their views to each other, and to certain swains who thought that Pen Rivers was “getting touched up with city airs.”

“They are mighty exclusive, aren’t they?” said Sid Southall to her younger sister, Virgie. “There was a time when I was quite good enough for Pen Rivers to go sleighing with, but this city girl seems to run the whole Rivers family. Who is she, anyhow?” Sidney felt that she had more than one grievance against Persis, for not only had there been a childish affair between herself and Pendleton, but Sidney had hoped to get the school this year. She therefore regarded the new teacher with jealous eyes.

Sid Southall was thought to be quite the prettiest girl in the village, and was rather spoiled in consequence. She had not dreamed that the school would be refused her if she wanted it; but Dr. Rivers had his own views concerning Sidney’s qualifications, and had set his face against any such proposition. He knew perfectly well, too, what sort of a dance Sidney was likely to lead Pen, if she were given the opportunity, and he knew that a pretty girl was something it was hard for Pen to withstand. So the astute old doctor chuckled to himself after he had told his son what was expected of him. “You see, Pen,” said the father, “Miss Maitland is our guest, and of course it would not do for you to invite another girl.”

202“Of course not, sir; I know that,” Pen had replied, readily enough.

“She’s the nicest girl I’ve seen for many a day,” continued the doctor.

“And from what Dr. Dixon tells me, you ought to be an authority on that point,” returned Pen, slyly.

“Look here, sir! tell Walt Dixon he always did talk too much. What’s he been saying to you?”

“He simply asked me if I liked the society of young ladies; and when I owned to such a weakness, he remarked that, considering whose son I was, he thought I came honestly by my taste in that direction.”

“Well, sir, suppose he did; it is nothing to be ashamed of. I’ll venture to say I’m a better man to-day by reason of the girls I knew when I was your age.”

“I never for one moment, sir, felt the smallest desire to hide my face on account of my inheritance in that or any other direction; and if the companions I choose make me as good a man as my father, I shall be mighty well satisfied with myself.”

The doctor gave a queer twist of a smile, but he was pleased at the pride his boy took in him, although his only answer was, “Then we’ll consider that our sleighing party is all arranged.”

“So far as I am concerned, yes, sir. I shall be delighted to be paired off with Miss Maitland. By the way, dad, has any one seen about our having music at the Inn? And how about supper?”

203“That’s all settled. I sent word to the colonel yesterday. We’ll have our supper and you’ll have your dance all right. The colonel won’t be there himself, but he’ll arrange it for us.”

And therefore, an evening or two later, a dozen sleighs dashed out of the village towards the Bridge. It was bright moonlight; the snow was crisp and well packed, and Persis, cuddled down under a pile of buffalo-robes, her fur shoes on her feet, and hot bricks in the sleigh as additional warmth, felt something of her old love of fun returning, and made herself very entertaining. Persis at her best was no mean companion, and the doctor thought he had never heard her laugh so merrily. “I never thought to ask where we are going,” she said.

“There is only one place to go,” replied Pendleton, “and that is the Bridge. It will be a fine sight to-night. We are to have supper at the old Inn and have a dance.”

“The Inn?” Persis echoed.

“Yes. Has no one driven you over there? I say, father, that’s too bad. Here Miss Maitland has been within ten miles of the bridge all this time, and no one has taken the trouble to show it to her.”

“I have seen it,” replied Persis, faintly. “I was there one summer.”

“Oh, that’s all right, then; but I really believe it is finer in winter.”

“Can we see it plainly from the road?”

“In this moonlight, yes. There is just one point where it stands out finely.”

204The merriment was hard to force for a while after this. The Inn! How many associations it brought up! Suppose some one should recognize her there. She gave a little shiver, which Pen attributed to the cold. Attention to the comfort of a lady under his charge had been taught him from the time he could walk. Gallantry of the real old-fashioned sort was made his by precept and example, and he tucked the robes closer around the girl by his side, and asked, solicitously, if she were comfortable.

“I couldn’t be more so,” she replied, determined to shake off the chilling fear which had taken possession of her. “With only the tip of my nose visible, and in this nest of furs, I couldn’t be cold.”

“There, we can see the bridge,” Pen announced, and Persis looked. It was beautiful, like, yet unlike, the place as she remembered it, and she was thankful for the snowy wreathing which took away the too familiar look. She breathed a sigh of relief as she gazed around at the landscape wearing its winter face. “It is very beautiful,” she said, quietly. “I think I never saw so beautiful a sight. It is worth a much colder ride than this.”

The absence of the genial colonel was a second source of congratulation to the girl, who had dreaded to see the kind old host, for he would be sure to recognize her; and therefore, with no haunting fears, she resolved to throw care to the winds, and to enjoy herself, and show her appreciation to those good friends who so desired her pleasure.

Pen Rivers found Persis too good a dancer not to 205lead her out oftener than Sid Southall thought necessary; and Persis, finding that Pendleton’s step matched hers so well, and that the doctor and Mrs. Rivers were evidently pleased that she should dance often with their boy, consented to be his partner as often as he desired.

But at the last she insisted on the doctor’s dancing the Virginia reel with her, but he laughingly protested. “I know you were a dancer in your college days; wasn’t he, Mrs. Rivers?” persisted the girl.

“I should think so.”

“So were you, mother,” put in Pen. “Haven’t I heard how you captured father’s heart at the White Sulphur, and how you wore—what was it? Come, come, you must dance. Will you compel a lady to ask you twice, father? Where is your gallantry?” And thus beset, the doctor laughingly gave his arm to Persis, while Pen bowed low before his mother.

After a bountiful supper of chicken, waffles, ham, biscuits, sandwiches, salads, cake, and coffee, the sleighs were brought out and the return journey was begun, every one being in the best of spirits.

During a lull in the gay talk, in which Persis managed to do her part, Pen started up a college song, and the girl beside him could not resist joining in. Then, as they struck into some old ballads, the doctor’s bass was heard, and they kept up the music for the greater part of the remaining way home.

“Where did you learn all the college songs, Miss Maitland?” asked Pen.

206“I have had a number of college friends,” she replied. “Do you belong to the Glee Club, Mr. Rivers?”

“No, but I go out with the boys serenading once in a while. The last time that we serenaded the girls was in the summer. I didn’t know the girls, but it was all the same. What was that girl’s name where we went? Black? White? No, Greene; that was it. Hetty—no; that’s the rich woman. Nettie; that’s it,—Nettie Greene.”

Persis, under her buffalo-robes, smiled. Pen Rivers had been one of the boys who serenaded “The Cheerful Three.”

CHAPTER XV. PITFALLS.

The Christmas holidays were soon over, and Persis again took up the routine of her daily life. The early breakfast, the walk to school, the busy hours following, and the walk home again; a little rest, an early supper, an hour with the family, and then the seclusion of her own room, this was the round.

Columbus’s new doll in her various characters was one of the amusements which the teacher really enjoyed. On the day after her return from her Christmas visit at Dr. Rivers’s, she found Columbus in a corner of the kitchen. The doll, in a frock which was an exact imitation of Persis’s Christmas attire, stood in front of a tiny cedar-tree, which Columbus had decked with bright bits of paper; arrayed in the foreground was a company of clothespins representing the school children. The doll was holding a Christmas festival. It was all such a funny little burlesque that the looker-on laughed heartily, and Columbus seemed rather abashed by her amusement.

208“Never mind, Columbus,” she said. “I know you didn’t mean to make fun of me.”

“‘Deed an’ ‘deed, Miss Anne, I ain’t mek no fun. I jes’ think dat fessible were gran’, an’ I laks to hev it ober uvery day.” He had caught the tune of the Christmas hymn, although he garbled the words in a most absurd way, and as Persis passed out of the room she heard him strike up, “Hark! the hurry angey sing.”

“We’ve had the Christmas entertainment over every day,” Mrs. Temple told her, “and I wish you could hear Columbus’s attempt at repeating the doctor’s speech. It’s the funniest performance you ever heard.” And Persis agreed with her when later she had an opportunity of hearing it.

The teacher’s hold upon her pupils she had considered to be very sure, but after Christmas there seemed to creep into the school a discordant element. For some time it was too subtle to be directly traced. The very pupils who were supposed to be the most rebellious were her firm supporters. These were the big, rough boys who had not heretofore learned to be law-abiding citizens either at home or elsewhere, but this new teacher had been the first to open their eyes to certain facts which had never before appeared clearly to their dim perceptions. She told them about the boys she had known; of what was considered honor among them. She appealed to the best within them, and from first to last they adored her. The leaven which was at work in raising a spirit of discord was, therefore, not started by the 209boys, and Persis, all unsuspicious, did not know that the sleighing party was the indirect cause of this new element of rebellion, and that the head rebel was Virgie Southall. The first inkling the teacher had of what was going on came during one recess, when, having gone to a window to raise it, she heard a voice on the porch say, “And she’s not who she says she is, anyhow. My sister says she is passing herself off for somebody else. Some one told her so; and I’d like to see me mind her. Dick says he wouldn’t, and that she’s no right to come down here among respectable people and palm herself off for quality.”

Persis started back, her cheeks flaming. Were they perhaps talking of her—of her? She went back to her desk and leaned her head on her hand. The noon recess was longer than usual that day. From this time out on the side of the girls in the school there was visible defiance. The eldest girl there was the daughter of a blacksmith, whose shop stood half a mile or so beyond the school-house. Josephine Flint was a pretty creature with big black eyes and a quantity of tawny hair. She was ambitious and had a bright mind, but one or two hints as to her abominable taste in dress had not been taken in good part, and she was ready to join forces with Virgie; and the two made themselves disagreeable in the thousand ways which girls of that age find it possible to do. Sly little pin-pricks were their thrusts, but harder to deal with than open defiance. The little girls in some cases took their 210cue from the older ones, and from having a well-organized, perfectly controlled school, a certain sort of disorder began to prevail. Lessons were slighted, insolent bearing became common. But the teacher set herself doggedly to work to fathom the cause of it and to find the remedy. Fortunately the boys stood by her, and the little girls did not all of them forget the Christmas-tree.

It is a great pity that girls can be so sly and mean; that they are willing to wreak out their petty spite by a refinement of torture which boys would not know how to use. So Persis reflected as she watched her scholars carefully, and one day, having caught Josephine in an act of open defiance to the rules, she kept her in after school.

A sullen fire shone in the offender’s eyes, as she was requested to keep her place. She did not dare to disobey; there were too many boys around who would not fail to uphold the teacher, and who would not stand a moment upon running after the delinquent and bringing her back if she attempted to run away. So she sat still, determining that she would get the best of it in the end. Except for the tick-tick of the little clock on the shelf, the school-house was very quiet after all had tramped out leaving the two together. The days had almost reached their limit of being shorter than the nights, and Persis looked back, reflecting that nearly three months had passed since the Christmas-tree stood in its place.

She felt sorry for the girl before her, and wondered how she could reach her as she sat there 211stolid and sullen. “Josephine,” said the teacher after awhile, “will you tell me why you object to obeying the rules? You used to find no difficulty in doing it. What has happened since Christmas?”

The girl remained obstinately silent.

“Grandma used to say that the surest way to reach people was to love away their faults,” Persis said to herself, and she arose and went towards the refractory scholar, putting a kind arm around her. “Josey,” she said, “we are in this world to help each other. You are the oldest girl in the school. I need your help just as much as you do mine. I haven’t a hard feeling against any one of my pupils, and I do want to love them and do my very best for them. Will you tell me if you have any grievance? I think if I could see your side of the question we might come to understand each other better. I am talking as woman to woman. You are old enough not to be treated as a naughty child.”

Josephine shot a swift look at her. She saw only anxious solicitude in the face at her side, but she was not prepared to give in. She was eager to learn, but she was resolved not to be coerced in any direction. It was a question of conduct, not of lessons.

Seeing no sign of relenting, Persis returned to her seat, saying, “When you are ready to speak, Josephine, I am ready to hear any excuse you may have to offer for infringing the rules.”

She had hardly reached her desk when she heard a movement. Josephine had arisen and was fleeing down the room. She caught her shawl and hat from 212a nail by the door, and, before her teacher could overtake her, had flung open the door and was gone like a flash.

For a moment Persis was too greatly astonished to be angry, and then she felt incensed as well as piqued by such a proceeding, but, seeing nothing to be done, she went to the door, where Columbus was waiting to be told to close the shutters. Mattie had gone on ahead with some of the other children.

The next morning Josephine was present as usual, a triumphant smile on her face, and before the day was over the offence of the previous afternoon had been repeated, and a second time the girl was detained, this being Friday afternoon.

“I must keep my temper, and I must deal gently with her,” said poor Persis to herself. But all the patient teacher’s talk proved of no avail, and, during her period of “dealing” with the culprit there was an alert, watchful look on her face which Persis could not understand, and yet the scholar made no attempt to break from her durance vile.

The afternoon was waning, but neither teacher nor pupil would give in. After a time was heard some one fastening the shutters, and then came a rap on the door. “Columbus thinks it is high time for me to go home,” thought Persis. “I shall have to have another seance on Monday I am afraid. Come in,” she said, as a second rap was heard.

The door opened and there entered, not Columbus, but Dick Southall. “Come, Joe,” he said. The girl arose to her feet with a glance at Persis.

213“Sit down,” ordered the teacher. Josephine hesitated.

“If you will wait on the porch for a few minutes, Mr. Southall,” Persis said, quietly, “Josephine will be ready.”

“I don’t propose to wait,” he replied, coolly. “You shall not keep her here one minute.”

“Who questions my right?”

“I do. You’ve no business here, anyway, with your shamming. I don’t intend my sister, nor this young lady either, shall obey you. Perhaps you don’t think I know about you, and perhaps you don’t know that you were seen at the Bridge last summer passing yourself off under a different name. If the trustees knew that, where would you be?”

Persis paled, but she stood her ground. “Dr. Rivers knows my history,” she said, coolly. “He is at liberty to give the trustees any information he may see fit.”

The young man looked taken aback.

“I am responsible only to the trustees,” Persis went on, following up her advantage, “and I intend to have my rules obeyed while I am in this school. Josephine must remain till I give her permission to go.”

But Josephine had already possessed herself of her hat and shawl, and at a given signal from her confederate she darted out, the young man following, shutting the door and locking it behind him, while Persis was left alone in the closed school-house.

She waited a few moments and then she tried the 214door, but it was fast, and so were the shutters, which fastened on the outside, after a primitive fashion. She knocked loudly on the door, and called, “Columbus! Columbus! open the door!” But there was no response. Where was her faithful henchman?

She was furiously angry. “The idea of such insolence!” she exclaimed. “We will see whether the trustees have any control over such things. That dreadful, impertinent Dick Southall shall pay for this.”

She listened eagerly for a sound of some one outside, but there was nothing to be heard but the March wind in the trees. It was not very cold, and there was a pile of fire-wood in the box. Persis put a stick into the stove, and then opened a window so as to ventilate the room through the chinks in the shutters. She did not for an instant think that she would have to pass the night there. Columbus would return, or, when it was found that she did not come, some one would hunt her up. Yet who could imagine that she was locked in the school-house. Slowly the hours wore away, and there came no hope of release. Then the prisoner grew hungry, and hunted around for scraps of food in her lunch basket. She found the few bits left from her always bountiful noon-day meal. She ate the scraps eagerly, with an apple which one of the children had brought her. She had no light save that of the fire, which gave little enough, since it was in a close wood-stove which smoked badly if its door were left open. At last she drew two benches together and laid upon them the sheepskin which was spread under her 215desk. It was one which Mr. Temple’s thoughtfulness had provided. Then making a pillow of some papers and rolling herself up in her coat, she lay down to get what rest she could.

She was aroused by a pounding on the door. It was so dark in the room that at first she thought it was the middle of the night, but a faint streak of light shining under the door told her that it was brighter outside. “Who is there?” she asked, going closer to the door.

A deep voice replied by asking, “Are you there, Miss Maitland?”

“Yes. Who is it?”

“Jake Flint.”

“I have no key. You will have to unbar the shutters from the outside.”

There was heard the slipping of a wooden bar, and then the early dawn was let into the room through the gray square at the side, and Persis opened the window. “Mr. Flint,” she said, “is it you?”

“Yes. This is a pretty bad business, Miss Maitland. Are you able to climb out?”

“Yes; I will get a chair.”

“Give me your hand. There, miss, are you all right? Here, my wife sent this. I hope it isn’t altogether cold.” And going to his mud-splashed buggy, he produced a little basket. “Not a word, please, miss, till you have taken this.” He poured out from a flask some strong coffee and gave it to her. She drank it thirstily. A sandwich was next offered, which was accepted, and eaten hungrily.

216“I believe I was faint,” Persis said, smiling. “There, I feel much better.”

“Will you get in, then, and let me take you to our house?”

“Oh, not to Mr. Temple’s?”

The man looked troubled. He began to busy himself in something about the harness. “If you wouldn’t mind going home with me, miss, I’d like you all to see Joe before school takes in on Monday, and if you wouldn’t mind doing me the favor, miss.”

“Why, yes, I will go.” Persis hesitated a little. “But please tell me how you knew I was in the school-house.”

Mr. Flint had settled himself by her side and was turning his horse up the road. “I knew because Joe told me after I brought her home from driving off with that scoundrel.”

“Who? Dick Southall?”

“Yes!” The irate father broke out into a fierce expletive. “He was trying to get my girl to run away with him, and I caught them. He marry her, indeed! a girl of mine! I don’t care if my mother and father were ‘po’ white trash,’ as he calls em, Dick Southall’s not good enough for a girl of mine. I’d like to know how he’d take care of her; and, what’s more, he’s already promised a girl up near Charlottesville to marry her; and I’ll have no such double-dyed rascals hanging around my house.”

“Oh, poor Josey!”

The man turned quickly around. “You say that, Miss Maitland, after the way she’s behaved! Oh, 217I knowed all about it! She told me herself. I’d ought to have dragged her over to the school-house by the hair of her head and made her get down on her knees to you, but her mother felt sorry for her, she cried so.”

“Oh, but Mr. Flint, she is so young; and I’ve no doubt but that she is really sorry. I don’t suppose for a moment she thought I’d be kept shut up there. She knows Columbus always comes for me.”

“Well, to do her justice, she didn’t, not till it was too late to do any good. That evil scamp told her as a good joke that he’d locked the door and had thrown away the key. I’d like to horsewhip him.”

“Oh, no, please, Mr. Flint. Don’t you see that the less noise over it the better for Josey and me, and for all of us?”

“And after all you’ve done for that school. Why, Miss Maitland, I could ha’ cried about it, I could. When I see those little chaps singing that Christmas hymn, and knowed what that there Christmas-tree meant to some of ’em, I felt—I dunno’ how I felt. And Josey, she was so pleased with her lessons, and the way you all helped her. She’s our youngest, and we ain’t been able to do much for the others; but she’s keen as a razor to learn, and I mean her to be eddycated, even if I warn’t. I’ve worked hard, and I will work hard to keep her going. Why, I could ha’ cried to think how Josey set her face agen’ you all, after all you’ve done for her, and I feel like I couldn’t face my neighbors if they knowed about her doin’s. They all set such sto’ by you, and 218we alls done the same.” The man was so really distressed that Persis was touched.

“Well, Mr. Flint,” she replied, “let us be thankful that it isn’t too late to save Josey from a greater heartache than she has given us. I confess that I have had trouble of late with several of the girls, but I did, and I still do, want to help them in every way.”

“That’s what my wife said. She begged and pled that I’d go get you all, and let us talk it over without no publicity.”

“Sometimes great good comes out of great evil,” returned Persis, slowly. “Perhaps, Mr. Flint, it required this to show Josey that Dick Southall was not what she thought him to be, and it may be the turning-point for her. We must forgive her. She requires a great deal of sympathy, I think.”

The man was silent. There was a grim look on his face which spoke nothing of forgiveness. Persis saw it, and was troubled for his daughter. “You will forgive her, won’t you?” she said.

“I might for her disobedience to me, but not to you.”

“Oh!” Persis exclaimed. “Are you going to punish me, too?”

“God forbid!”

“But you will, if you do that. For my sake, Mr. Flint, please.”

The man looked at her eager face, pale from fatigue and anxiety. “She don’t deserve it,” he broke out. “Why, when I look at you all, I’d like to thrash her within an inch of her life.”

219“But she is my pupil, and if you make her hard and sullen it will be much harder for me.”

“Well, we’ll see how she behaves. I’m not goin’ to have no foolishness. She’s got to eat humble-pie.”

It was growing lighter, and they were close to the blacksmith’s house, from the chimney of which smoke was rising.

“Mrs. Flint said she’d have breakfast ready,” said the man. “I reckon you all can eat a little.”

“I don’t know. I know I wanted that coffee you were so kind as to bring. Shall I go right in, Mr. Flint?”

“Yes. I reckon you’ll find her in the kitchen.” Persis wasn’t quite sure whether Mrs. Flint or Josey was meant, but she lifted the latch of the door and went in.

A woman with sad eyes, a thin face, and scant hair came forward. “Oh, miss, I’m so glad you come!” she exclaimed. “He’s terrible down on Joe.”

“We’ll have to see that he isn’t too hard,” replied Persis.

Mrs. Flint dropped into a chair and began crying. “He said so; he said you’d forgive her, po’ gyurl! He said you all were so good you’d do it. But I didn’t see how you could.”

At that moment Mr. Flint entered, and his wife sprang to her feet and began nervously to set the breakfast on the table.

“Where’s Joe?” asked the father.

“She’s up-stairs yet,” returned his wife, meekly. 220“You said she wasn’t to come down, daddy, and she ain’t.”

“Then let her stay there,” said the man. “Come, miss, won’t you jine us in our meal o’ wittles?”

“I don’t reckon we’ve got nothin’ you all can eat, but maybe you can make out,” Mrs. Flint said, deprecatingly.

“Your coffee was so refreshing, and I did need it so much,” Persis told her. “And down this way you do have such good egg-pone. Yes, thank you, I’m very fond of chicken.” And in spite of the coarse table-ware and the fact that Mr. Flint drank copiously from his huge saucer, and used his knife and fork indiscriminately, Persis made a good breakfast and actually enjoyed it.

CHAPTER XVI. THE HOUSE OF THE BLACKSMITH.

It went to the heart of the teacher to see how proudly, yet how kindly, these mountaineers offered their hospitality. Evidently the best the house afforded had been set before her, and the guest did all within her power to show appreciation.

“Josey, she’s our youngest,” Mrs. Flint told her. “The other gyurls are all married, and the boys are working away from home; but we all has always set great sto’ by Joe; we sort o’ favored her, bein’ young an’ ambitious.”

“She is a very bright scholar,” Persis told them; “and there is no reason why she should not do you credit. May I see her?” she asked, as they rose from the table.

Mrs. Flint looked at her husband. “Shall the teacher go up?” She put the question timidly.

“Why, if she don’t mind——” he began, awkwardly.

“Oh, no, I don’t mind. I think, if you don’t object, that it would be easier to see her alone,” put in Persis.

222“Poor little, rebellious, ungoverned girl!” she said to herself, as she mounted the steep stairs to the room above.

Mrs. Flint knocked at the door. “Joe!” she called. “Joe!”

There was no answer, and she turned the knob. Then she beckoned to Persis, who went in, and the mother withdrew. The furniture of the room was very plain and meagre. Across the bed was thrown the figure of the girl.

Persis laid her hand softly on the mass of red-gold hair. “Josey,” she said, “poor little Josey, won’t you speak to me?”

The girl lifted her head and showed her eyes swollen with weeping.

“I’m so sorry for you,” whispered Persis. “I have had trouble too. Won’t you tell me all about it?”

“Don’t! don’t!” cried the girl; “don’t talk to me that way. I ain’t worth your wipin’ your shoes on.” She hid her face in the bedclothes again.

“Come, come, that is not the way to talk. I, too, have known bitter sorrow. I know how you must be suffering. I think, perhaps, I understand better than any one else could. Won’t you tell me?” She put her arm about the prostrate figure, and the girl sprang up.

“Oh, Miss Anne,” she cried, “how can you do it when I’ve been so bad? I didn’t mean to get you shut up. I wonder you don’t hate me. How can you help it?”

Across the bed was thrown the figure of the girl.

223“I don’t hate you at all. You know I said we could help each other, if we would.”

“Yes, I know, I know. I wanted to give in then, but—but——”

“But what?”

“They wouldn’t let me. I’d promised I wouldn’t.”

“Who are they?”

“Sid and Virgie Southall—and—and Dick.” This last in a whisper.

“And did you care so much to please them?”

“I did, but I hate ’em now, all of ’em. I know now that they look down on me, and that they just flattered me up so’s to get me to be on their side. Daddy said I shouldn’t go with Dick, and that made me fierce to go, and he said I shouldn’t marry him, and I said I would. I didn’t really, ’deed, Miss Anne, I didn’t really care so much, but daddy was so terrible set against it, and it made me keen the other way. It was because he was so down on Dick that I took up for him. He said he was a wu’thless, lazy, fool man, and I stood out he wasn’t.”

“And is he?” Persis put the question gently.

“He’s lazy, and I reckon he’s pretty much of a fool, but I liked him to like me.”

“You were flattered because he did. I see. But, dear child, you would be very miserable married to him. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes’m. I know he’d boss me. He always tried to. I’d a given him up long ago if daddy hadn’t been so cantankerous, and so set against me.”

“But Josey, your father loves you dearly.”

224“He doesn’t.”

“He does. He is heart-broken over all this. He may not take the wisest way of showing it, but he said as much to me.”

“Oh, Miss Anne!”

“Yes, I can assure you he has, Josey dear. You could make your father and mother so proud of you. Why, you might teach school yourself some day, and think how pleased that would make them. They have worked so hard, and your mother has really needed your help. Instead of asking it, she has done all the work, and let you go to school.”

“I know.”

“Then you will study hard after this?”

“You ain’t goin’ to let me go back to school?” Josey cried, in astonishment.

“Why not?”

“After the way I have acted?”

“No one knows but ourselves and Dick Southall. I think your father will settle him.” Persis remembered the grim look on the man’s face.

“Oh, Miss Anne!” Josephine fell on her knees by her teacher’s side and humbly kissed her hand.

“There! Why, Josey, don’t.” Persis really felt embarrassed. “I am as anxious as possible to have you come back, and help me get the school into its former good order.”

“The Southalls can’t abide you, and they’ll do all they can to kick up a fuss with the rest of the scholars.”

“Then we must do our very best to prevent it. I 225do not see why they dislike me so much. I know Miss Sidney did want the school, but that doesn’t seem enough to warrant such enmity.”

“Oh, don’t you know why it is? You won’t mind, Miss Anne, if I tell you? Sid Southall thinks you cut her out with Mr. Pen Rivers.”

“Why, I never heard of such an idea!” Persis spoke her surprise.

“It’s at the bottom of all of it. It’s why Dick was agen’ you.”

“Against, you mean.”

“Yes, ma’am, against you. And why Virgie set us all to actin’ so, and why Sid tried to get up some sort of tales about you.”

Persis looked very thoughtful. Looking back, she remembered things which bore out Josephine’s statements. “Well, never mind all that,” she said after a pause, and with a return of dignity. “Can you tell me how it happened that no one came from Mr. Temple’s to look me up?”

Josey hung her head. “Dick met Mattie and told her you wouldn’t be home last night.”

“I suppose they thought that I had gone to Dr. Rivers’s.”

“That’s what he meant them to think.”

The two were silent a few moments, then Josey asked, “Is father very angry, Miss Anne?”

“I’m afraid he is.”

“Will he thrash me?”

“Why, goodness! I hope not.” The idea gave Persis a shock.

226“Yes, he will. I’m so afraid, I’m so afraid.” Josey hid her face in Persis’s skirts.

“Why, you poor child, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t——” She was going to say, “he couldn’t do such a degrading thing,” but she remembered that Mr. Flint had expressed his opinion. However, she was determined that his daughter should be spared such a degradation.

“Josey,” she said, “I shall ask him to forgive you. I think if you go and tell him that you are sorry; that you and I have settled it, and that you are to come back to school and be my best helper, that it will be all right.”

“Will you go with me?”

“Why, certainly. Come, let us have it over with.” And, holding Josey’s hand, she led her to her father’s presence, and took the initiative by saying, “Mr. Flint, Josey has something to tell you.”

“I’m sorry, daddy, I am sorry,” repeated the girl, in a voice full of tears.

The father scowled. “I reckon you’ll be sorrier yet,” he remarked.

“Mr. Flint,” said Persis, her cheeks burning, “I know Josey has done wrong, but she has confessed it, and what more can she do? She is nearly a woman, and she is aware that she fully deserves your anger. You say you want her to be a lady. You want her to live so you can be proud of her. You can’t beat a girl into being a lady. Gentlemen don’t strike women.”

The man quailed before Persis’s scornful tone. 227He meant to do right, but he knew no other punishment than that which brute force could bestow. “Miss Maitland,” he answered, “that’s a hard word for you to say, but I see, Miss, what you mean. I reckon I ain’t always took the right way.”

“My grandmother used to say that love is the best master. Josey says you do not love her, and she believes it.”

“Don’t love my child! Why, Joe!”

“Oh daddy, do you?” the girl asked, eagerly.

“I’ll knock down any fellow that says I don’t.”

“Oh, then——” Josey ran forward and hid her face in her father’s rough sleeve.

“Then it’s forgive and forget all around,” Persis interposed. “If you don’t forgive Josey, Mr. Flint, I can’t forgive you.”

“For what, miss?” he asked.

“For rousing me up at four o’clock and making me drink cold coffee.” And the words relieved the strain, for Mr. Flint smiled, and his hand sought the rough tawny head of his daughter.

“Come, Joe,” he said, “you ain’t had no breakfast; and I must drive Miss Maitland home.” And then Persis knew that she had gained her point.

“You’ll be sure to be on hand early Monday morning,” Persis whispered as she bade Josey good-bye. “I shall depend on you, you know.”

Josey nodded.

Mrs. Flint’s worn face was lighted up by a smile. “Oh, Miss Maitland,” she said, bashfully, “I wish I could say what I feel, but, indeed, ma’am, I’ll 228never forget you all, never. It’s not likely you’ll ever want to come to our poor place again, but, indeed, I’d be so proud to see you.”

“Why, of course I’ll come. And may I have some more of that good egg-pone the next time?”

Mrs. Flint smiled delightedly at the gracious tactful acceptance of her invitation.

“What do you suppose Dick Southall did with the school-house key?” Persis asked Mr. Flint as they drove off.

“I’ll be dog-goned if I know. I’ll run back and ask Joe.” He left Persis half-way down the lane, and came back with the information that Dick had thrown away the key. “It’s pretty big, and I reckon we kin find it; and if we can’t, I can easy make another. If I put my shoulder agen’ the door I reckon it won’t stay shut long; but I thought I’d better not bust it in this morning.”

The “bustin’-in” process was not found necessary, for the key was discovered a short distance from the porch, in among a clump of weeds; and the teacher went in to gather up certain books and other of her belongings, and then she was taken on to Mr. Temple’s, although she expostulated, and declared herself perfectly able to walk.

“Remember, Mr. Flint,” she said at parting, “no one is to know anything about this matter. I think the trustees would best not know of it at present. It is an affair between ourselves.”

“Joe don’t deserve that you all should screen her,” he replied; “but I’m glad enough not to say 229nothin’ about it, though all the same I mean to take it out of Dick Southall’s hide.”

Just how he fulfilled his threat Persis at that time did not learn, although she heard that Dick Southall had left the neighborhood, and eventually it was told her that he had married the girl near Charlottesville. Virgie brought the news to school and announced it with an air of triumph in the presence of Josey and Persis. The former looked at her teacher, and gave a little laugh in which there was neither malice nor chagrin. Joe had learned several things by that time.

Persis felt quite weak and exhausted when she reached home after the strain upon her which the last twenty-four hours had brought, and she was glad that it was Saturday and that she had no special duties to perform.

“You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw you driving up with Jake Flint this early in the morning,” said Mrs. Temple. “How in the world did you happen to come with him? I thought you were at Dr. Rivers’s.”

“No; I went to the Flints’,” returned Persis, coolly.

Mrs. Temple stared. “You went there! Well, if that don’t beat me out. I shouldn’t think they were your kind of people. Not that Jake Flint isn’t a good, honest man, and his wife a hard-working, nice, good woman, but they come of a real common family, not the kind you’re used to associating with.” Mrs. Temple had a great deal of pride in Miss Anne.

230“I judge they are not the most cultured persons in the world,” returned Persis; “but a teacher has certain duties to perform, and Josey needed me.”

“Josey, yes, she’s a pretty thing; and I’ve seen her look quite the lady, and Dick Southall thinks so. His family are dead set against it.”

“No more than hers.”

“The Southalls are ’way above the Flints.”

“In point of family, perhaps; in point of morals, I doubt it. Josey is worth a dozen of Dick Southall.”

“I reckon you’re right, but ’tisn’t every one that thinks so down this way.”

“No; money counts for the most in some places, family in others; morals come first in very few, I often think.” And Persis went up to her room thinking that she could boast of neither family nor money, “and sometimes I doubt about the morals,” she sighed. “Sometimes I think that, after all, I may have done very wrong to leave home, and yet—I believe I am doing a little good, and am learning that to merge the Ego into universal good is to gain a power that will live through the ages. What is it Emerson says?—

I mean to do all I can to make a fine woman out of Josey. Heigho! I’m glad there is no school to-day, and that my only duty is to darn my stockings. Atlas must have grown very weary of carrying the world on his shoulders.”

231Virgie Southall was surprised and provoked on Monday morning to find that her strongest ally had deserted to the enemy. She cared nothing whatever for Josey, and would have scorned her as a sister-in-law, but as a means to an end she was worth cultivating. However, Josey withstood all overtures, and acted so decorously and sedately that even the boys opened their eyes, and Joshua Harman, who at one time had secretly admired the blacksmith’s daughter, began to return to his allegiance.

Persis resolved to make more of a companion of Josey. She loaned her books and magazines, gave her hints about her dress and her deportment, showed her that simplicity need not express either poverty or inelegance, and that cheap, flimsy materials elaborately trimmed display a vulgar ostentation which stamps the wearer as possessing an uncultivated taste. The country girls, unfortunately, were most of them inclined towards flashiness, and adorned their cheap, badly cut garments with coarse trimmings which only added to their lack of grace. “If you want to look like a lady,” Persis told Josey, “you must dress quietly. Only wealthy persons can afford startling costumes. If you have any money to spend, put it all in the best material you can buy, and never mind the garnishing. Let your frocks fit well, and you will look all right.”

Josey did at first secretly rebel, but even though she could not always perceive it, she made up her mind that what her teacher said was bound to be right, and she expanded like a flower under the 232warmth of a woman’s loving influence, so that even the trustees noticed her improvement in every direction.

More than once Persis went to the Flints’ and spent a Saturday. Sometimes the big, rough sons, or the hard-working married daughters would come shyly in, having walked a long distance to get a sight of Josey’s teacher, who was so wonderful. By degrees the school slipped back to its former record for orderliness, the only really rebellious spirit being Virginia Southall, who maintained a scornful mien.

There were some minor offences committed,—as in what school are there not?—but on the whole Persis felt quite proud of her little flock.

“I always meant to be a journalist or a writer,” she told herself, “and yet here I am, a country school-teacher, in a mountain district at that, and miles removed from a city. It might be a worse lot,” she concluded.

Yet ever that underlying longing for home existed, and she knew that sooner or later she must yield to its controlling force. Once she read in her home paper that Professor Holmes was ill with the grippe, and she could scarcely restrain the impulse to fly. “But who will take my place here?” she said to herself. “I owe a duty in this spot. I have chosen it deliberately.” And she stayed, watching eagerly for the news which announced Mr. Holmes’s recovery. Several times she saw Mellicent’s name mentioned among the society items, and one day she came across a little piece of news which interested her greatly: 233“The engagement of Miss Patty Peters, of Washington, to Mr. Wilson Vane, of this city, is announced.”

“I knew that would come,” exclaimed Persis. But it had the effect of making her absent and dreamy for the rest of the day; it brought back so vividly all the dear old times, the old friends. Patty, cheerful little Patty. “What a mockery for me to have joined the Cheerful Three!” sighed Persis. “There is more than time stretched between me and my old friends. It can never, never be the same again.”

CHAPTER XVII. “JES’ MISS ANNE.”

Columbus was sitting out in the wood-shed one morning late in March. He was absorbed in picking over a pan of chicken feathers, from which he had selected such as he thought might be suitable to adorn a new hat for his doll. “Your doll ought to have an Easter bonnet,” Persis had told him.

“What are Eastah, Miss Anne?” Columbus asked, and “Miss Anne” explained, as best she could, concluding with the remark, “In the city, where I used to live, Columbus, everybody likes to dress up in something new for Easter.”

“I wisht I could see ’em, Miss Anne.”

“Perhaps you can some day, when you have grown to be a man, and have become a famous dress-maker, with an establishment like Worth’s or Redfern’s.”

Columbus grinned. It was a favorite joke with him and Miss Anne. He was thinking of Easter now. “An’ I gwine git Miss Anne some Eastah aigs lak she done tell me ‘bout; I cyarnt git none o’ dem little mek-believe rabbits what she say dey has, too; 235but I gwine git her rabbit-foot fo’ good luck. Lef’ han’ hin’ foot o’ a rabbit cotched in a grabeyard in de dark ob de moon. Dat what ole Han’bal say. Ole Unc’ Han’bal say dat, an’ I mek up mah min’ Miss Anne ’bleedged ter hev one. I thes knows she are. Dey ain’t all de bestes’ frien’s to’ds Miss Anne ‘roun’ hyar, dat dey ain’t; an’ I ‘low I ain’t gwine let her git inter no kin’ o’ trouble ef I kin he’p it, ’deedy I ain’t.” Thus Columbus soliloquized over his pan of feathers.

He picked out a particularly long, prancing cock’s feather, and held it out at arm’s length. “Dat thes what I lookin’ fo’,” he exclaimed, “an’ I cyarnt do no better’n dat ef I tries all day. I has my eye on dat fedder befo’ dish yer ole rooster git he neck twis’. I been watchin’ dis long, droopy fedder dis many a day. I knowed ole rooster gwine drap hit some time or nur’r, or essen I gwine fin’ hit in de pan whilst he a-bilin’ in de pot. Lemme see, dat all? Who dat a-comin’ lickety-split up de lane? My lan’!”

Columbus dropped his pan and fled with long, springing leaps towards the road. Two horses were dashing furiously up the lane. They were harnessed to a buggy, in which sat Persis, vainly tugging at the lines. It was Dr. Rivers’s vehicle. He was that day trying a pair of new horses, and was bringing Persis home behind them. Getting out to open a gate, he had left her to hold the lines. The horses had taken fright at a white chicken which suddenly started up in the road, and now the pair were running away.

Columbus took in the situation at a glance. He 236did not hesitate a moment. If the horses should swerve ever so little, it would, perhaps, mean death to his adored Miss Anne, and he ran full tilt towards them. The terrified creatures came on faster and faster. The boy made a grasp at one of the check-reins and seized it, but he was dragged forward, stumbling, falling, but still holding on. At last, with this weight tugging at his bit, the horse stopped, and the other, prancing, trembling, tossing his head, also came to a stand-still just before the last gate-way was reached, but not before poor Columbus had been dragged along, had received more than one blow from the sharp hoofs, and now lay on the ground, stunned, bleeding, but still holding the rein.

By this time Dr. Rivers came up. “Miss Anne, are you all right?” he asked, anxiously. “Thank God, you did not try to jump.”

“Oh, never mind me, doctor; see to poor Columbus. Oh, don’t tell me he is killed!” And Persis looked, shuddering, at the limp figure which the doctor dragged from under the wheels.

“Poor fellow, I’m afraid he is done for,” he said.

“Oh, no, no,” cried Persis, beginning to climb out of the buggy.

“Wait,” the doctor advised. “I must fasten these horses. There, now, you may get out, Miss Anne. That is the last of this team for any one. I fancy these blacks have run away before, or they wouldn’t have shied at a chicken. A horse that has once run away is never safe.”

237Persis was leaning over the unconscious form of the poor boy. “Oh, doctor, he has saved my life, and has given his own.” And the tears rained down her cheeks.

By this time Mrs. Temple, Aunt Ginny, and others had gathered around, and Columbus was gently lifted and carried to the house.

The doctor shook his head gravely, as he made a careful examination. “I’m afraid he can’t live long. He may linger awhile, but there is not much chance of ultimate recovery. All we can do is to make him as easy as possible, after I have dressed his hurts; that one on his head is pretty bad.”

Persis was kneeling by the boy’s side. One of his hands still held the feather which he had borne to the scene of the accident, and which clung to the flesh where it was cut through.

He opened his eyes after a while. “Miss Anne,” he said, faintly.

“I’m here, Columbus.”

“Yuh ain’t killed?”

“No, I am not even hurt.”

“Den, I done hit.”

“Yes, you saved me. If the horses had reached the gate-posts, the chances are that I should have been flung out. Oh, Columbus!”

The doctor shook his head at her. “He must be kept perfectly quiet. It is his only chance. We’ll do our best for him, but even if he should live he would probably be a cripple. I think partial paralysis is likely to ensue, so he would be useless.”

238“Not useless, with such a brave soul,” whispered Persis.

“Aunt Ginny is a good nurse,” the doctor went on. “You’d better let her take charge of him, and go lie down. Your nerves are pretty well shaken. I’ll give you a composing draught.”

But Persis could not be satisfied to give Columbus up entirely to his old grandmother’s care, and spent many an hour by his side in the next few days; and, strange to say, Columbus did seem to get better.

“His internal injuries were not so great as I at first thought them,” the doctor told them.

After a while the boy began to hobble about on crutches, still very weak and hollow-eyed, but patient and uncomplaining. Miss Anne, his beloved doll, and his box of pieces seemed to be sufficient to fill him with content.

Persis robbed one of her own hats that the doll should have a marvellous Easter bonnet. “After all,” she sighed, “it would have been an easy solution of many difficulties if I had gone out of the world,” but she reproached herself the next moment. “While I can be useful I have no right to say such a thing.”

Easter was coming very near, and Columbus had not given up his idea of getting Miss Anne a rabbit’s foot. There was something connected with its supposed mysterious influence which somehow in his simple mind seemed to make it an appropriate Easter offering. He had strange ideas concerning the year’s spring festival. If Easter-eggs and rabbits, why not a rabbit’s foot? And so he laboriously set forth to hobble 239off to a cabin in the woods where lived an old colored man who had promised to secure him the luckiest kind of a voodoo charm in the shape of a rabbit’s foot, in return for the boy’s long-hoarded store of pennies, and Columbus returned with it in his pocket. He felt weak and exhausted after his unusual effort, and a few days after was “down sick” Aunt Ginny told them.

The old woman’s little cabin stood not far from the house. It was a remarkable-looking place inside, with the queerest jumble of things on the mantel and other shelves. It had always had a fascination for Persis, who thought the nodding mandarin figures of coarse plaster, the cheap glass-ware, the skins and stuffed birds, the big black fireplace with its crane and its baking kettle, all made it as grotesque an apartment as she had ever seen.

“Columbus he plum sick agin,” Aunt Ginny brought word to the house.

“What seems to be the matter?” asked Mrs. Temple.

“He got a misery in he haid, an’ he say he th’oat feel mighty quare. I ast him do he want nothin’, an’ he say ‘jes’ Miss Anne.’”

“I’ll go see him right after breakfast,” Persis decided promptly. And this she did.

The boy’s eyes were very bright and his speech hoarse and thick, but he smiled a welcome. “Miss Anne,” he said, huskily, “when dat Eastah?”

“Day after to-morrow, Columbus.”

“I feels lak I ain’t gwine ter see hit.”

240“Oh, yes, you will. Why, Columbus, you were so near to dying a while ago, and see how you came through it.”

He shook his head.

“His throat seems to hurt him. Have you looked at it?” Persis asked Aunt Ginny.

“No, I ain’t ‘zackly look. I give him a winegar goggle dis mawnin’.”

“I think the doctor ought to see him,” Persis remarked. “I’ll go after him. I promised to go there to-day anyhow.”

Columbus turned his big mournful eyes on her. “Is you cornin’ back befo’ dat Eastah?” he asked.

“I think so, but I am not sure.”

“Den, granny, please ma’am, jes’ put yo’ han’ un’neat’ my pillow, an’ get me out dat little passel yuh fin’ dere.”

Granny obeyed, and Columbus took it in his hand. “I ain’t got de aigs what I was a gwine ter git, but I has a rabbit-foot fo’ yuh, Miss Anne; hit lucky, an’ I done got hit fo’ yuh.”

Persis recoiled. She could not bear to touch the uncanny thing, but she saw the eager look in the boy’s, face and she accepted the gift with all the grace she could summon.

“Hit boun’ter bring yuh luck; hit de mos’ luck’es’ kin’,” continued Columbus; “an’ yo en’mies ain’t gwine ter do yuh no mo’ ha’m.”

“Dat so,” chimed in Aunt Ginny. “Whar you git hit at, ’Lumbus?”

“Ole Unc’ Han’bal’s.”

241“Yuh ain’t been dar?”

“Why, Columbus, that’s ’way off in the woods two miles, isn’t it? and through the swamp and all. How could you manage it?” exclaimed Persis.

“I ain’t thinkin’ ‘bout de furness ob hit,” said Aunt Ginny. “What I thinkin’ is dat uvery blessed one o’ Unc’ Han’bal’s gran’chilluns is got de diphthery. Dat what I a-thinkin’. Yuh ain’t oughter be hyar, Miss Anne. Dat what got ’Lumbus. I ’bleedged ter go tell Miss Marthy; she set out ter come hyar torreckly.”

“Go tell her, and I’ll stay here. I’d better not go back to the house myself till I’ve seen the doctor. Bring my hat and coat and my gloves, Aunt Ginny.”

Aunt Ginny made her exit, and Persis remained.

“I knowed I ain’t gwine see dat Eastah,” whispered Columbus, still more huskily. “Miss Anne, ef I dies, will yuh dress my doll in her mo’nin’?”

“Why,—oh, Columbus, don’t think of such things.”

“Please, Miss Anne?”

“Yes, yes; I will.”

“An’ will yuh tek her an’ tek keer o’ her twel de day I’se bu’ied, an’ den dress her in her white frock an’ let her be bu’ied with me?”

“Oh, yes, certainly; but please don’t talk so, Columbus. You’ll get well—you must.”

“I wisht you’d put on her new frock an’ dat pretty hat an’ set her hyar on de baid, please, ma’am.” And Persis obeyed, feeling strangely apprehensive. She had just finished tying the hat on the doll’s head, when Aunt Ginny returned.

242“I’ll go right off,” Persis said. “Columbus, I’m going to send the doctor here to make you well; and we’ll have a nice Easter, I’m sure. I’ll come back as soon as I can. Did you tell Mrs. Temple, Aunt Ginny?”

“Yass, miss; an’ she say huccome yuh don’t come back, she know why.”

“Very well. Good-bye, Columbus.” And she was soon on her way down the road towards the village. She found the doctor in his office, and told her errand.

“Humph!” he said; “and you’ve been there exposing yourself to the contagion. You’d better not go back to Mrs. Temple and those children.”

Persis looked distressed.

“You just stay here,” added the doctor. “The mischief’s done, I suppose; but there are no children in this house, and here you stay, miss. Let me see,—you have holiday to-day.”

“Yes; it is Good-Friday.”

“So much the better. If you were to take diphtheria it wouldn’t do to carry it to your scholars.”

“Indeed, no; but I hope I’m safe.”

“I’ll try to keep you so, but you’re in just the state to take it.”

“Now, doctor, why try to scare me?”

“I’m not; I’m simply showing you that you must take care of yourself. You’re not given to doing it, and you’re run down and peaked-looking. You’ve had too much of a strain lately. You need a tonic.”

“Oh, I’m always rather less hearty in the spring.”

243“Yes, yes, no doubt; but I know you’ve had a dozen things to pull you down lately,—nursing that nigger boy and fussing over that girl of Flint’s, besides the nervous shocks you have had.”

“Doctor, it’s no use trying to keep secrets from you. I believe you have second sight, or are the seventh son of a seventh son, or something of that kind.”

“I’m not a blind idiot. I know that two and two make four.”

“Where did you find the two twos?”

“You mean in that Flint affair? Well, one of the school children whom I was attending told me how Joe Flint had acted, and also how she believed Virginia Southall had put her up to it. You must remember that a patient has a good chance to dispense gossip. And then Dick Southall called on me to give him a little attention, which it was quite evident he needed. Young men don’t fall out of their buggies and get quite that kind of marks on them. Patient number three tells me that Miss Anne actually goes and takes tea at the Flints’, and that Joe fairly worships the ground she walks on. You see, my multiplication table doesn’t have to be carried on very far.”

Persis smiled, “I think perhaps I’d better give you the inside facts, and let you scold me.” And she told him of her night in the school-house, of the events which led to it, and its sequel, sparing Josephine as much as she could.

But the doctor did no scolding. He fumbled 244around in his medicine closet, and made no remark for some minutes. “Here,” he said at last, pouring something out in a glass, “take this, and go up-stairs and tell Mrs. Rivers that I say to see that you have some good chicken broth for dinner, and that your room is dry and warm, and that you don’t sit in draughts.”

“And you won’t let me go back to poor Columbus.”

“I see myself!”

“Then I will try to submit gracefully. Oh, I forgot, I’m proof against all evil.” And she produced her rabbit’s foot. “I forgot to tell you, or did I say? that Columbus had been to Uncle Hannibal’s, where they have three cases of diphtheria, and that he got the rabbit’s foot from there.”

The doctor held out his hand for Columbus’s gift and, opening the door of the stove, he threw it inside. “That’s the best thing to do with that,” he remarked.

“Thank you,” returned Persis. “I hated to touch it. I am too fond of little Molly Cotton-tails to want their poor little feet as charms.”

“No, you don’t need them,” returned the doctor, picking up his hat.

His report of Columbus’s case was not encouraging. “The boy has been in a pretty bad way all along,” he said. “He couldn’t have stood any disease, and I’m afraid he’ll not pull through; but we’ll make a fight for it.”

The tears came to Persis’s eyes. “And all for me,” she murmured. “Doctor, it is a dreadful responsibility, 245this of our duty towards our neighbor. I’ve done so little for that poor boy, and he sacrificed his life for me. I can’t get him out of my mind.”

“You’d better,” replied the doctor. “See here, Miss Anne, you’ve got a way of taking things too much to heart. You must get over it.”

“I can’t, and I do not know that I want to.”

The doctor gave her a glance which expressed several things,—disapproval that she made light of her own dangers; approval that she was willing to bear others’ burdens. “I never had but one crow to pick with you,” he said.

“And that is——?”

“That you don’t let those good people at home know where you are.” And he left the room.

This was on Saturday. On Easter morning Persis was standing on the porch in the spring sunshine, just after the doctor had driven off, when a little scrap of a darky came up the steps.

“Dis Miss Anne?” he asked.

“Yes; did you want to see me?”

“Aun’ Ginny she say ’Lumbus mighty bad.”

“Oh, poor boy!”

“An’ is de doctah gwine let you come see ’im?”

“Why?”

“Kase he keep a-sayin, ‘I wants Miss Anne. Jes’ Miss Anne,’ Aun’ Ginny say.”

“Tell her I’ll come.”

The small bow-legged specimen of humanity soberly dropped an old-fashioned bow, pulling at the 246tuft of wool on his expansive forehead as he did so, and then he turned and went up the road.

Persis entered the house and sought Mrs. Rivers. “What shall I do?” she said. “That poor boy is begging for me. And oh, Mrs. Rivers, he did not regard his danger, but flung himself before those horses to save me. Can I let him lie there longing to see me, and not go to him? I don’t believe I’m in any greater danger than at first, and I was with him then, you know.”

Mrs. Rivers looked thoughtful. “I’m afraid to advise. I know what the doctor would say.”

“What?”

“Don’t go”

“‘Greater love hath no man than this,’ and it is Easter-day. Mrs. Rivers, I must. Don’t say a word. I take my life in my hands, perhaps, but, after all, what is it?”

“Don’t stay long, and come right back. I’ll see that you are provided with the necessary safeguards. You’d better have this bottle of camphor, and—well, Miss Anne, I know how you feel, and I think I should do just as you are doing if I were in your place.”

“Thank you. I’ll do my best.” And in a few moments she was on her way. The light of the Easter promise hung over the land. The spring was near at hand, yet Persis felt conscious, even then, of a chilliness and of a tightness about her throat.

She came in sight of Aunt Ginny’s cabin; a flood of sunlight struck its whitewashed walls. “What a 247glorious Easter-day!” thought the girl. Just then the door of the little dwelling opened, and she met the doctor face to face. His face was very grave. “How is he?” inquired Persis. “Oh, doctor, he asked for me, and I could not deny a poor dying boy on Easter-day. I could not.” She paused. “May I go in, please, and see him, just one minute?”

The doctor shook his head. “Columbus knows better than we do the meaning of Easter,” he answered, gently. “Come home with me, Miss Anne.”

CHAPTER XVIII. A DREAM FULFILLED.

“Miss Anne, you have a chill,” exclaimed, the doctor, as he bundled his charge into the buggy. “You ought to have stayed at home, close in-doors.”

“On this beautiful day? Why, doctor, I must go to church. I wouldn’t miss it for anything, especially now. Poor—no, happy Columbus! Such an innocent, simple, loving soul! Oh, doctor, I promised to do one thing for him. You will let me do it?”

“What is it?” And Persis told him what Columbus had requested concerning his doll.

“I’ll see to it,” the doctor assured her. “You must not go near there.”

“Not even to the funeral?”

“No. I’m going to take you home and put you to bed. You’re shaking yet.”

“It is only a nervous chill, I know. I was so startled, so shocked.”

“How does your throat feel?”

“My throat? Why, a little stiff. I think that, too, comes from nervousness.”

249The doctor hurried her into his office and examined her pulse, her throat. “To bed with you,” he ordered. “I’ve been afraid of it.” And sure enough, before night Persis was in a raging fever, and the white patches on her throat had spread alarmingly.

Night and day she was watched over by the doctor and his wife, who gave her unremitting care. “I was afraid of it from the first,” the doctor told Mrs. Rivers. “The boy Columbus was a very bad case, and Miss Anne was just in a condition to contract any disease.”

It was noised throughout the neighborhood that Miss Maitland was dangerously ill. The children gathered in the school-house one morning, but there was no teacher. Mr. Boone drove up about half an hour after the usual time for opening. “I’m sorry to be obliged to announce that there is no one to take charge of the school,” he said. “Your teacher is very ill. We are not at all inclined to close the school, and will try and have a substitute in a day or two.”

Across the school-room the eyes of Joshua Harman and Josephine Flint met. Josh arose, flushing to the roots of his hair, but there was always a dogged persistence about the boy which prevented his allowing anything to stand in the way of duty. He saw a chance to help Miss Anne. “If you don’t object, sir, and the scholars are willing,” he began, “I’ll do my best to keep them together. I reckon the boys will stand by me. I cyarnt be so sure of the gyurls. Josey Flint’s ahead of the rest; if she’ll 250take the gyurls, I’ll do my best with the boys.” And Josh sat down.

“I don’t see but that you have suggested an admirable plan,” Mr. Boone assured him. “You two are the oldest, as well as the most advanced pupils, I think I have heard Miss Maitland say, and you know her methods. Yes, I think that is a very good plan, and we’ll be much obliged to you if you can carry it out. If you have the slightest trouble, report to the doctor or me.” And Mr. Boone mounted his horse and drove off well pleased.

Then Josh addressed himself to the school. Rather an uncouth sort of a speech it was, but it meant, “We’ll stand by Miss Anne shoulder to shoulder, and even if we can’t make much headway we won’t slide back.”

Virginia Southall gathered up her books and departed. “She did not mean to be under Joe Flint,” she announced.

“So much the better for me,” Josey thought. And therefore, each helping the other, Josh and Joe started in.

Meantime, Persis lived in a strange, unreal world. She felt herself floating off, with the buoyancy of a spirit untramelled by fleshly conditions, as she had often before dreamed herself doing, out of the window, over the tops of trees, out—out above the earth, yet all that time something was clutching at her throat. What was it? Then again Columbus was calling her to come; he wanted her. “Jes’ Miss Anne, jes’ Miss Anne.” She heard it over and over 251again, and they would not let her go. And, last of all, she thought she was at home again, and that her mother bent over her and called her “darling daughter.” This dream lasted the longest, for whenever she opened her eyes she saw her mother before her.

And one day she became aware that it was no dream, but that her mother was really there by her side. Then it came to her that she had been dreaming many strange things: that she had gone from home, and had been through many queer experiences; but that thought, too, vanished into the unreal world, and nothing seemed an absolute truth but that her mother was there by her side.

“Mamma,” she said, weakly.

“Yes, my darling.”

“It is you? I’m not dreaming?”

“It is I, dear.”

“I dreamed you were not my mother; wasn’t it queer?”

“Very queer. Don’t talk, darling. Take this. There, now shut your eyes.”

“Mamma.”

“Yes, dearest.”

“Please hold my hand; I want to be sure I’m not dreaming.” And she fell asleep with her mother’s hand clasping hers. For there had come a time when Persis’s recovery looked very dubious to Dr. Rivers, and he had gone to his desk and had taken from it the envelope the sick girl had given him. “If ever there was to come a time for using this, it 252is here,” he said, and before long a message flashed over the wires, a message which brought Mrs. Holmes post-haste to the patient’s bedside. It was a struggle, for Persis was very near the dark river, but the doctor never left her till he had overcome the disease, and then followed a low fever, which, after all traces of diphtheria had gone, threatened to sap the patient’s remaining strength. But the unflagging devotion of those about her brought the invalid up out of the valley of the shadow of death, and it was with a leap of thankfulness at her heart that Mrs. Holmes at last saw that she was conscious and in a more natural state, very weak, but better.

“I am sure she is better,” she said, anxiously scanning the doctor’s face.

He felt her pulse, took her temperature, and smiled. “Yes, she shows the most favorable signs I have seen yet. I think we may hope, Mrs. Holmes.” That was the day on which Persis first recognized her mother. The next time she awoke her mind seemed still clearer.

“Mamma,” was the word which first sprang to her lips.

“Yes, my dearest one.”

“It is really you?”

“Yes, really your own mother.”

“But that dream, mamma; it was so very vivid. I seem to have been a long time somewhere else, where I was not myself but some other person, and I wasn’t your daughter. I am your daughter; tell me so, mamma.”

253“Yes, my very own dear, darling daughter.”

“You are not saying that because I am so weak?”

“No, dear; you are my very own.”

Just then the doctor came in, and Persis turned a startled look on him. She clutched her mother’s hand nervously. “Mamma,” she whispered, “he is one of the persons in the dream. Why isn’t Dr. Armstrong here?”

“He couldn’t be, dear.”

“Oh, yes; and he has sent this doctor instead. But why does he look so natural, so very familiar? I haven’t just dreamed about him.”

“There, dear, don’t bother about it. It is all right, all right,” her mother said, soothingly.

“And you won’t go and leave me?”

“No; I’ll stay right here.”

“But this is a strange room, mamma. Am I in a hospital?”

“No; in the house of a friend, Persis, a very dear friend.”

“Why, you said Persis. I thought my name was—— What was my name?”

“Never mind; don’t try to think of anything but that you are my dear, dear daughter. You must try to keep quiet, my child.”

The doctor ordered a quieting medicine, and for the time being the patient was soothed. But as strength returned the old questions arose, and one day it all came back to her, and she turned on her pillow and wept softly.

Her mother found her thus, the tears trickling 254through her wasted fingers. “My precious child, what is it?” she asked. “Are you in pain?”

“No; but oh, mamma, even if you are not my own mother, it isn’t so hard as I thought it would be; and I can’t, I can’t have you leave me.”

“Why, my dearest, I have no idea of leaving you. What is it that is not so hard?”

“The seeing you.”

“And why should it be?”

“Because, oh, mamma, you know I am not really yours. I remember now how I found the papers, and it hurt me so. Oh, I have been so wretched, so wretched! I couldn’t, I couldn’t reconcile myself to it. I said, ‘I won’t! I won’t have it!’ And then I went away. I remember it all now.”

“But my dearest girl, I told you that you were my own, my very own. Don’t you remember that?”

“Yes; but I know you only said it because I was so sick and weak, and you didn’t want to agitate me.”

“But I tell you so again.”

Persis tried hard to rise, but fell back on her pillow, too weak to make the exertion. “You’re doing it again! you’re doing it again!” she cried, the tears coursing down her cheeks.

“Hush, my precious one; try and be quiet, and I will tell you all about it. You must not be so disturbed, it is not good for you. Listen, dear: you found a paper in a box and you thought it related to yourself. Why did you think so?”

“Because it was signed H. B. Holmes, and because 255I found the little golden curl of the baby that died, and I knew it must have belonged to the real Persis. She had hair like Mellicent’s.”

“But she was not the real Persis.”

“Oh, no, no! You are not trying to deceive me? No, no! I cannot bear it.”

“My darling, I wouldn’t deceive you for my right hand. Your father and I never had an adopted daughter. The only Persis we ever called daughter was our very own child, a little baby with black hair like my mother’s, our own dear little baby, who now that she is grown insists upon calling herself by another name.”

“Oh, mamma! mamma!”

“Yes, dear, you are Persis Holmes. It has always been your name since you had a name at all.”

“And Anne Maitland?”

“Anne Maitland was a little baby girl who died when she was not two years old. Can you remember anything about your Uncle Will’s wife, Persis? She married a second time after Uncle Will died. She lives in Italy. Helen Foscari is her name.”

“Yes; but I never remember seeing her.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do. Her maiden name was Helen Bancroft. She had a sister who married a man by the name of Maitland, a very cruel, bad man, who deserted his wife. On her death-bed Mrs. Maitland gave her baby to her sister Helen, who legally adopted her; and because the child had been called Anne, after Mr. Maitland’s mother, Helen 256determined that she would change the name. She was very fond of your grandmother, so she asked if she might name the little one after her, for she said, ‘I never want the child in any way to be reminded of her father or his family.’ You may remember having been told that for a long time you were not given a name. Your father wanted you called Mary, after me; your Aunt Esther was very anxious that you should be her namesake; and I wanted to name you Persis, after your grandmother; so when there was no longer any little Persis, Aunt Esther and your father compromised, and agreed that you should be named as I so greatly desired you should be. The adoption papers for little Anne were made out legally, and, unfortunately, instead of Helen’s signing her full name she simply signed H. B. Holmes. Your father’s initials are the same, and you made a very natural mistake, although if you had examined closely you would have seen a difference in the signatures, although they do closely resemble each other. Moreover, if you had read all the papers you would have learned the truth. The little baby did not live long, but Helen loved her devotedly; and after your uncle’s death, when she went abroad, she left the box containing the papers and the lock of hair in your father’s charge, and they have been in his desk ever since.”

Persis’s eyes were fastened on her mother’s face as though she would never remove her gaze.

“We had almost forgotten about them,” continued Mrs. Holmes, “until your discovery brought the old 257story to mind, and so, dear child, you see how very easy it is to make a mistake, even with the proof of what we call ‘black and white.’”

Persis drew her mother’s hand towards her, and laid her cheek upon it. She could scarcely realize yet that all these months had not been a dream, but she felt that one great and good blessing was hers, that her mother, her own mother, was by her side, and she sighed. “Oh, I am so thankful, so thankful.” She lay very still, only now and then pressing the dear hand closer. After a time she looked at her mother wistfully and said, “Dear mamma, did you feel very bad when your naughty child ran away?”

“How could I help it, darling? And yet I knew my child so well that I could understand how she, of all my daughters, would be likely to suffer the most at such a discovery as she believed she had made.”

“I ought not to have taken so much for granted, but it seemed so very, very plain. Why had I never heard about the little baby that died?”

“Because, dear, we have not spoken much of your uncle’s wife, she lived so far away, and I suppose we felt a little disapproval of her second marriage, and a coolness seemed to arise after it took place. We have not seen her for nearly twenty years.”

“I see. Everything seemed to conspire to make me take the wrong view.”

“Yes, it does seem as if it did.”

258“Oh, mamma dear, think of how much there is for me to know. You will not leave me?”

“I shall not go till you are able to go with me.”

“But my school.”

“Never mind the school. The doctor will not consent to any such labors on the part of his patient for many weeks, I am sure, and then the school session will be over.”

Dr. Rivers came in soon after this. “Well, Miss Anne,” he said, cheerfully, “how goes it to-day?”

“But I’m not Miss Anne any more,” she said, smiling.

“You will be to me, to the end of the chapter.”

“Very well, I don’t care. I am quite willing to be called anything as long as I know——Has mamma told you, doctor, what a strange mistake I made?”

“Yes, I was told long ago.”

“Nobody seems to scold me very much, yet I think I deserve it.” And the tears began to flow again.

“I think your punishment was inflicted by yourself, and that it has been quite severe enough,” Mrs. Holmes remarked.

“But I had no right to punish you, only I thought—I didn’t believe you could care so very, very much, for I thought only an own mother could, and I didn’t dream I was making my own dear ones feel unhappy over me.”

“Or you wouldn’t have done it, of course. It’s as clear as mud,” said the doctor, laughing. “But 259you’ve had excitement enough for one day. Will you let this precious mother out of your sight long enough to give her a chance for a breath of fresh air?”

“Oh, yes.”

“But you’d rather not, I’ll venture to say.”

“No matter what I’d rather. Take her right along before I get so silly as to object.”

After this Persis recovered rapidly. There was so much that she was eager to learn, that when she was able to be propped up in bed she asked so many questions that her mother declared it kept her busy from morning till night answering them.

“Tell me about Annis,” was one of the first requests.

Mrs. Holmes looked grave. “Annis has had a sad time,” she replied. “She has met with a great loss.”

“Oh, mamma, not her mother!”

“Yes, dear.”

“Oh, my poor, poor little Annis? Where is she?”

“With your Aunt Esther. Mrs. Brown died in Washington last October, and Aunt Esther has kept Annis with her ever since. Excepting our family, Aunt Esther is, you know, about her nearest relative.”

“And I was away when the poor darling needed me most. Oh, mamma, how many dreadful things happen to make one reproach one’s self! How does Annis bear it?”

260“She is, of course, almost heart-broken, but I think she is becoming calmer now. Mr. Danforth seems to be a great comfort to her.”

“Mr. Dan?” Persis’s eyes opened wide.

“Yes.” And Mrs. Holmes told of the young man’s work in Washington. “He is very kind-hearted, and at the time of Mrs. Brown’s death did everything in his power. I hardly know how Aunt Esther could have managed without him, for the captain was laid up with rheumatism, and Mr. Danforth relieved them of all trouble in the matter. His having lost his own mother so recently has made him feel a very keen sympathy for Annis. They are each comparatively alone in the world, and that is a great bond between them.”

Persis looked very grave and thoughtful. “Mamma,” she said, “where is Basil? Is he in Washington, too?”

“No; didn’t I tell you that he went abroad again, soon after his accident? The doctor thought the voyage would do him good, and Basil is such an earnest fellow, his friends all advised him not to settle down to business for another year, and his mother insisted that he should travel, since he had seen very little of any of the noted places, except Paris. And so now he is hunting up the best examples of architecture, and I dare say it is much better for his profession that he is doing just what he is. Porter and his mother have lived in Mrs. Brown’s house all winter. It is Annis’s house now, of course.”

261“Yes; doesn’t it seem strange? I wonder——” Persis paused.

“What, dear?”

“Nothing much. I was wondering about Mr. Dan, that is all. It seems strange that I never thought of his liking Annis, but they would suit each other perfectly. Mr. Dan is so strong and reliable and likes to take responsibilities, while Annis is dependent and needs some one on whom she can lean. I think Mr. Dan always hoped I’d outgrow my independent ideas, and come to accept him as my oracle.”

Mrs. Holmes smiled. “I knew he was fond of you, Persis; he told your father so.”

“Then it is not such a secret. Yes, he was too fond of me, and I was sorry. He is such a good man, such a fine character, yet I couldn’t like him just in that way. I hope he has recovered from his fancy.”

“I think he has. He is not the man to let such a thing overwhelm him; and from all I hear he is likely to be consoled.”

Persis smiled. All the snarls were beginning to unravel. How she should like to see Annis, and hear about all her experiences!

It was very delightful to receive letters from all the dear people. Grandma wrote such a long, loving epistle, and then came one from Mr. Holmes. After this the missives poured in very fast. Mellicent, Annis, every one, wrote.

“What is that letter, mamma?” asked Persis, the 262first day she was able to be up and dressed, for her mother’s eyes looked very “weepy,” as the children used to say, over a letter she had been reading.

“It is a letter from grandma, dear.”

“And why, mamma? Has anything happened?” Persis looked nervous and anxious.

“Nothing but what we are glad to hear. Think of it, Persis. I am grandma now, and grandma is great-grandmother. Lisa has a little son.”

“Oh, mamma, has she, really? And you are not with her!”

“No, but grandma is, and Mellicent is keeping house for them all. I did not tell you, for fear you would grow impatient, but Lisa came home before I left.”

“Oh, I shall be glad to be at home again, mamma; and yet—and yet, isn’t it strange? I feel very sorry to leave this place. Did you ever see such dear, good people as Dr. and Mrs. Rivers? And the Temples, too, are so kind.”

“They have been friends, indeed. We owe them a great debt of gratitude, which we shall never be able to repay. But for them I should have lost my precious child, I am afraid.”

“Oh, mamma, it is dreadful, dreadful to think what one mistake can do! I think I shall bear the marks of it to my dying day. But maybe—I do think it has done me some good.”

“My dear one, I think it has, sad as it has been for us all. Sorrow is a wonderful friend, if we could but learn to think so.”

263Persis nodded thoughtfully. She looked very pale and thin, and her eyes were big and shadowy. She was very unlike the rosy girl who had so blithely started away for her summer outing.

“Mamma,” she said, after a moment’s silence, “I don’t believe I shall ever be quite the same again; but one thing I do know, I shall never, never want to leave you and papa and grandma again.”

CHAPTER XIX. LEAVE-TAKINGS.

There was a crowd of eager little faces to be seen in the old school-house one morning in the latter part of May. It had been nearly two months since Miss Anne had been obliged to forsake her flock, and now she was coming to see them.

Joshua and Josey had kept steadily on with the work, and, although there was some disaffection on the part of the scholars, the school for the most part did the self-instituted teachers credit. Josh tackled the mathematics; Joe gave herself over to interesting the little ones and in trying to foster a love of reading in the older children. Persis’s magazines and books had been the rounds, and showed hard wear, but they had done a good work. Dr. Rivers’s watchful eye saw the earnest effort given by the two young teachers, and he had his own views, which he meant should be carried out, although, as yet, he was not ready to make them known even to Persis.

On this bright May morning, when everything was 265throbbing with new life, when, Persis thought, the world never looked fairer, she stepped once more on the porch, her mother and the doctor having driven some distance farther.

There was a little buzz among the children inside the school-house. “Here she comes! here she comes!” was whispered; and presently, still pale and thin, but looking smiling and happy, “Miss Anne” appeared.

“I have only come to say good-bye,” she told them.

“Ah-h!” came a disappointed chorus.

“But,” she continued, “I want to sit here and hear just what you can all do, and how you have come on since I last saw you. I want to see all the blots on the copy-books. I want to know if Johnny Fairbanks can work an example in long division without making a mistake, and if Susie Hart knows her multiplication table, and all that.”

For an hour she sat there absorbed in the work, and when the wheels of Dr. Rivers’s carriage were heard returning, she arose and looked around lovingly upon the children. “I want my dear mother to see you,” she told them. “Perhaps some of you have heard that my name is not Anne Maitland, but Persis Holmes, and that I believed myself to be an adopted child. It is a story you all may hear remarked upon, so I want to tell you myself all about it.”

“But we want to call you Miss Anne,” piped up one little voice.

“Well, you may. Miss Anne I will be to you 266all, if you prefer it. I shall never forget you, and I hope I shall see you often again.” Then she gave them some words of loving encouragement which really came from her heart; and, seeing her mother had arrived, she brought her in and presented her to the scholars; then came the word for recess, and the scholars trooped out, only Josh and Josey staying behind. “And these are my right-hand helpers,” Persis told her mother. She had an intuitive feeling that one day they would conclude to go through life as mutual helpers, for she noted how Josh followed Joe as she moved about, and how Joe’s face lighted up when Josh spoke to her. “If I can ever help you in any way, I hope you will let me know. I owe you a debt, remember,” she said to them.

“Oh, Miss Anne,” protested Joe, “never say that! I do want to study and learn more, but I shall miss you so. I shall miss you so much! No other teacher will be the same.”

“Write, and tell me all your difficulties,” Persis encouraged her by saying. “And Joe dear, we’ll try and see what can be done about a better education.”

“And Josh, he wants so much to be a doctor,” replied Joe, with a pretty blush.

“He does? Well, now, that, too, will have to be looked into.” As indeed it was; and if any one chooses to look far enough ahead she may be able to see the fulfilment of Josh’s hopes in Dr. Rivers’s present interest in him, and her prophetic eye may further see the old doctor’s young assistant riding 267about the country, dreaming of the day when a new sign, bearing the name “Dr. Joshua Harman,” shall hang under the old one on which “Dr. Rivers” stands dimly forth. She can fancy, too, if she wishes, how pretty Josephine looks as she rides around by the side of her husband, the young doctor. But all this is too far ahead for any one to picture very clearly just now.

There were other good-byes to be made,—a last visit to the blacksmith’s, and a day or two with the Temples, where Persis gathered up her belongings and, with many regrets that she must leave her pet, took her kitten to Mrs. Rivers, who was devoted to cats and who promised to care for the little creature.

“I shall be glad enough to have her,” she said, “for it will be like a link to you, Miss Anne dear.”

“Yes,” put in the doctor, “the cat will be well spoiled, I can promise you.”

“Now, doctor, you know well enough you’ll be the first one to spoil her,” Mrs. Rivers predicted, as the doctor slyly offered a bit of chicken to Mistress Comfort, who took advantage of this attention to jump up on the giver’s shoulder.

“I was going to say,” continued the doctor, turning to Persis, “that Mrs. Rivers and I were talking it over this morning, and if you think you’d like to try again to be an adopted daughter, why we would not object to playing the part of the adopted parents.”

“Now, doctor,” Persis protested, “there is a small arrow hidden in that seemingly polite speech; nevertheless, 268I shall not allow it to hurt me, but will consider how very flattering the offer is. Oh, you dear people!” she added; “it goes hard to leave you, even when I am going to my very own.”

“I wish that boy of ours were in your city,” the doctor remarked.

“Perhaps he will decide to settle there, and then, sir, what a chance we will have to pay off old scores,” responded Persis. “By the way, doctor, there is one thing I should like to do, and that is, I want to place a little stone over poor Columbus’s grave. I have ordered it, and will you see that it is put up properly?”

“I will, indeed.”

“And tell me, was the doll buried with him?”

“Yes.” The doctor did not say that with his own hands he had arrayed the beloved doll in her white frock, and had at the last moment laid her by Columbus’s side. There was nothing irreverent in the act, but he had thought best not to create comment among the colored people, who had strange superstitious ideas, and so no one but the doctor knew when it was done, and none saw it. “Let me see,” observed the doctor, “I seem to have been given several grave responsibilities. I am to make a doctor of Joshua Harman, a lady of Joe Flint, a model institution of the district school, and what else?—oh, yes, a perfectly contented cat out of a spoiled kitten. Don’t you think, Miss Anne, I’m rather too old to take on so many burdens?”

“Not a bit of it,” returned Persis, sturdily. “It 269will do you good, and you’ll delight in doing it. Oh, doctor, I found out long ago that you are a great fraud in some directions. You pretend to be a lazy, cynical, blasé old martinet, and there’s not a word of truth in it. You can’t scare me again.”

“Did I ever scare you?”

“Yes, on that day when I came for my examination.”

The doctor laughed. “You took up the cudgels with a pretty good grip for a scared girl.”

“Well, I knew it was no use to do anything else, and I’ve not often shrunk from doing a thing, no matter how much it frightened me.”

Mrs. Holmes laughed. “Yes, I can vouch for that. You used to be terribly afraid of dogs when you were a tot, but you always stood perfectly still if you saw one coming, a block away, and would say, in a very loud voice, ‘Go ’way, dog.’”

“Well, Miss Anne,” said the doctor, rising, “if you want to have a last glimpse of the bridge, we’d better go there to-day.”

“Mamma,” Persis said, as they were starting out for their drive, “isn’t it strange how often our idle wishes come true? I said to Basil that I should like to see the bridge at all seasons, and so I shall have.” Her eyes took on a far-away look as she let them rest on the beautiful gray-green landscape. “The tender grace of a day that is dead,” she murmured to herself, and then she nestled close to her mother, saying, “Oh, mamsie, dearest mamsie, once in a while it comes over me that I lost you and 270have found you again. That ought to make up for everything, shouldn’t it?”

“And does it?”

“Yes, I think it does.” The reply was given slowly, but with conviction. “See, there!” she presently exclaimed, with animation; “there, mamma, is the bridge; but you must go on it and look down, and under it to look up, before you can have a real idea of its grandeur.”

And this was the last outing before the final one, which meant farewell to the village of Black Rock.

“You’re not to desert us entirely, remember,” were the doctor’s parting words. “We want you as often as you will come. I suppose I shall need some looking after in fulfilling all those offices you have left for me. You’ll have to come and prod me up, or I may fail in my duty.”

“I’m not afraid,” returned Persis. “Nevertheless, I shall want to come. Oh, doctor, I am sorry to leave you all.” A grinding of wheels, a puffing of steam, and the train moved, bearing away Persis Holmes, and leaving behind all that pertained to Anne Maitland.

“Shall we stop in Washington and make a call on Aunt Esther?” asked Mrs. Holmes.

“If you really want to, mamma, but——”

“But what, dear? Would you rather go right through?”

“Oh, mamma, I would. Now that I am fairly on the way, it seems as if I could not wait, and yet I long to see Annis.”

271“I think, perhaps, after all, you would better not. It would be a trial to meet Annis, and I doubt if you are strong enough. So we will go straight on, if you can stand the continuous ride.”

“Oh, I can, since we have taken a sleeper. We shall get there—when, mamma?”

“In the morning, about eleven o’clock.” And at the appointed hour they arrived.

“Do they expect us?” asked Persis.

“Yes; the doctor sent a despatch to your father. Why, Persis dear, you are trembling all over. There, dear! This trip has been too much for you, I’m afraid. You were not strong enough to stand it.”

The train had stopped, and Persis had risen to her feet. The passengers were crowding out into the big station. “Don’t hurry, dear,” cautioned Mrs. Holmes. But Persis had given a little cry, and made a step forward, to be caught in the arms of her father.

Nearly every one had left the car, and the girl stood for a moment with her head hidden on her father’s shoulder. “Oh, papa! oh, papa!” she said, brokenly. “It is so good—so good to see you again!”

“I was afraid you hadn’t come,” he said.

“I didn’t want Persis to be pushed and jostled in the crowd. She isn’t very strong, as you can see,” Mrs. Holmes replied.

Mr. Holmes scanned his daughter with concern. He had never seen her so pale and thin. “Come, now, let us get ourselves out of this gloomy station,” he urged. “Come, daughter.”

272“Oh, papa,” again exclaimed Persis, “I love to hear you say that.”

He smiled. “Well, you poor little runaway, I’ll say it as often as you like. There, now, this is the carriage I ordered. Get in, Mary. Get in, daughter. Now home.”

The door of the carriage snapped together, and in another moment Persis was being whirled up the familiar streets towards her home.

“How lovely and dear it all looks!” she sighed. “Oh, there are some new houses, and oh, who are the people in Mr. Todd’s house? The wistaria is in bloom. How full it is this year! Oh, mamma, papa, we’re home!”

The door stood wide open. A girlish form appeared. Mellicent came running down the walk, to be clasped in her sister’s arms. “Oh, Persis, Persis! Oh, you poor darling! How queer to see you so thin! Can I help you? Let me take that bag. Don’t carry anything. Can you walk?”

“Can I walk? Why, of course,” Persis laughs. “I am not quite such an invalid; am I, mamma? Oh, Mellie dear, it is really you. Let me look at you. How lovely it is to see you!”

At the door stood Mrs. Estabrook, holding out eager, trembling hands. She ran down the steps and folded Persis to her heart.

“Oh, grandma! dear, dear grandma!”

“My dear one, we have you once more.”

“Let us have a chance,” came a voice from the hall-way, and there stood Lisa, looking very lovely, 273with a new and tender light in her face, as she held out her baby towards her sister. “See him, Persis. Isn’t he a darling? Go to auntie, my precious!”

“Oh, may I take him?” cried Persis. “Isn’t he dear? Oh, you cunning thing! And you are really my nephew! Oh, Lisa, how queer to think of it!”

“Yes, isn’t it? And he’s used to being quite the most important person in the house, so you mustn’t put his nose out of joint. But oh, Perse, you do look as if you had been ill. You mustn’t hold the baby too long. I’ll take my son, if you please. Aunt Prue is waiting to speak to you.”

“Fo’ de Lawd, Miss Persy, I sholy is glad to see yuh. I nuver ‘spected to see yuh no mo’. Law, honey, ain’t yuh white? An’ dem big eyes looks lak gre’t big owl-eyes. Praise de Lawd, yuh’s home agin! Yaas, honey, I’se tollable, thank yuh.”

“Come, child, you look fagged out. I think, Mary, she’d better go lie down after her journey,” said grandmother.

“I think so too,” agreed Mrs. Holmes.

“Oh, please, don’t send me off by myself,” begged Persis. “Let me go in the sitting-room and lie on the lounge, where I can see you all. It has been so long, you know, and I have had so many weary hours alone.”

“Poor child!” said grandmother; “you have suffered so much. Yes, we’ll all go up in the sitting-room. It is time for baby’s nap; but Lisa can come 274after she has put him to sleep. Aren’t you hungry, dear? Hadn’t you better let Prue get you a little lunch?”

The tears sprang to Persis’s eyes. “Oh,” she said, “the prodigal’s return is surely made a season of rejoicing.”

“Bring out the best robe and put it on her,” cried Mellicent. “There, my first effort in the direction of dress-making is for you. I’ve made you a wrapper all myself. Don’t you want to put it on?”

“Oh, Melly, how good of you! Now, there. Yes, it fits beautifully, or will when I’ve a little more flesh on my bones. Now, just let me lie still and look at you all.”

The scent of the wistaria came in through the window; the drowsy hum of the bees among the blossoms, the sweet, perfume-laden air soothed and refreshed her, and at last one after another stole out of the room that she might sleep.

“How frail and ill she still looks!” Mrs. Estabrook said to her daughter, seeing the dark shadows under the eyes where the long black lashes rested. “I was shocked at her appearance.”

“She has been at death’s door,” returned Mrs. Holmes. “I felt at one time that she was lost to us indeed. It makes reproach and censure fade very far into the background when one finds a loved one hovering so very near the border-land, and you do not know how the poor child has suffered mentally. Yet she did a noble work, and has made very close friends. Even had what she believed to be true 275actually happened, she would never have let it spoil her character.”

“I am sure of that,” replied Mrs. Estabrook.

“Whatever error was hers she has atoned for it. She has gone through more than any of us realized, and has had a bitter cup to drink.”

“Dear girl! dear girl!” murmured grandmother, resolving that nothing but love and sympathy should meet the return of the wanderer.

Once in a while a little troubled sigh came from the sleeper, and her forehead contracted as if in pain, but at last she stirred, and smiled to see her grandmother sitting close by her. “Dearest grandsie,” she said, “I still have bad dreams, and I was so glad to wake up and see you. Oh, grandma, how glad I am to get home again! I don’t deserve to be loved, but please do love me.”

“Love you, darling! You never were more beloved. We have missed you sorely, dear, and your old granny more than any of the others. Now, don’t you want to see your room? We have given Lisa and the baby the spare room on this floor, and the little room next it. So your old quarters are waiting for you. Richard will come for his family in a few days, and take them back to Brooklyn. He is a nice fellow, Persis, and we have grown very fond of him.”

Persis followed her grandmother and Mellicent, who joined them, to her old room. Grandma opened the door, and the room’s returned occupant gave an exclamation of pleasure. The new furnishings 276which she had so desired were there: a pretty brass and enamel bedstead, new curtains, a comfortable, soft lounge, a long cheval glass, a beautiful old-fashioned dressing-table, and handsome Oriental rugs, all had been added. The old desk, beautifully polished, stood in its accustomed place near the window.

“Oh, grandma! oh, Mellicent!” exclaimed Persis. “What a lovely surprise! Who did it?”

“All of us,” Mellicent told her. “The table is from grandma, the glass and lounge from papa and mamma, the rugs from Richard and Lisa, and the curtains from your baby sister.”

“And all those pretty toilet furnishings?”

“Oh, Annis contributed those, and oh, I forgot, that rocking-chair is from Aunt Esther.”

“How dear, how lovely of you all! Was ever girl so blest! And to think that Richard, too, should join in; he is a real brother, isn’t he? I am even better off than I used to be, and I once thought——” her lip trembled.

“Never mind, dear child.” Grandmother’s arms were around her. “Let all that go with the rest of the bad dreams. We are once more together, a united circle.”

CHAPTER XX. AT LAST.

The Cheerful Three were sitting in Persis’s room. One by one had the old friends been admitted to see the convalescent, who as yet could not stand much excitement.

“And so, Miss Patty,” she was saying, “I was right, and you did like Wilson. I am heartily glad we are to have you for a neighbor; and when is the wedding to be?”

“Not till fall,” returned Patty. “Oh, Persis, it is very nice to have you back again. What a romantic time you must have had!”

Persis looked grave, she could not yet, without shrinking, look back upon the ordeal through which she had passed.

“And were you always cheerful, Persis?” asked Nettie, slyly.

“Indeed, I was not, although I tried to be. What presumptuous creatures we are when we first flaunt our wings in the sunshine, and how we talk of high-flying, and scorn those poor maimed creatures who 278crawl. Yet, I still maintain that a certain amount of cheerfulness is possible under most conditions, and when those nearest and dearest are close to us, well, and in no dire need or disgrace, nothing else seems of much account.”

“How queer that you should have been teaching in Pen Rivers’s country. You met him, didn’t you?” Nettie said.

“Yes, and he is a nice boy; but his parents are nicer, I think. No one could have been kinder than they were to me.”

“Did you meet any nice girls?” asked Patty.

“Not very many,” Persis returned, with a thoughtful smile. “There were not more than a dozen girls in the village.”

“Well, I hope they behaved with more grace than some girls I met once in a country community where I visited,” Nettie remarked. “They made a rule never to present any of the young men of the neighborhood to a girl visiting there. Of course, sometimes they couldn’t help it, but they never asked them to call, or in any way tried to secure attention for the girls who came as strangers.”

“Now, Nettie, that’s hard to believe. Where would you find girls so ill-bred and selfish? Surely not in a Christian country,” Patty responded.

Nettie laughed. “If I mentioned the locality you wouldn’t believe it.”

“It must be in the vicinity of Hong Kong, or somewhere around Bagdad,” returned Patty, “for it certainly does seem hard to believe that girls anywhere 279in an enlightened land could so far transgress the first law of Christianity.”

“Which is, do as you would have done to you,” interposed Persis, “and that gives us to understand what Patty would like. However, I think in almost every community there are one or two such girls. I have come across a few,” remembering Sid Southall.

“I’m glad you didn’t say you had met many,” returned Patty. “I wonder what those same girls would think if the tables were turned when they went visiting.”

“They would be indignant, of course. I was so surprised, girls, when Mr. Rivers spoke of the Dixons,” Persis said. “Do tell me, is it really true that Walter and Connie are engaged? I imagined last summer that it would be so.”

“Oh, yes, they really are, and as happy as can be,” Nettie replied.

“And your sister Margaret is married. Dear, dear, how all the girls are leaving me to pine on the stem.”

“Oh, Perse, it isn’t time for you to talk that way. Any girl with your attractions,” protested Patty.

“I think it would be too bad for Persis to marry,” put in Nettie. “She has so much ability, and could make a name for herself.”

“Without changing it, eh? Well, I don’t know. So far, all I have done is to succeed in teaching a district school seven months out of the year.”

“And all I’ve done is to go and fall in love, and 280promise to be married. That’s what my college education has done for me,” said Patty.

“Never mind, Patsy dear,” replied Persis, patting the plump little hand on which Wilson’s ring shone. “I’ll tell you what I think. A woman’s best, purest, and highest ambition is that which is exercised in the making of a home. It will require all the knowledge she can acquire in any direction if she can fill her place as wife and mother wisely and nobly. If she is self-seeking, or if she desires self-gratification, pleasure, and admiration more than her best development, she would best not marry, for she will not do her duty. There is little room for Ego in a woman’s kingdom. I beg your pardon, girls, for delivering a lecture. I’ve been a school-marm, remember.”

“It sounds like old times; go on,” said Patty.

“That’s one side of it, but a woman may do her duty, and fail of success because she has married a selfish, domineering man, or a weak, silly one. Give us a lecture on that, Miss School-marm,” put in Nettie.

“Oh, I’m speaking of ideal marriages, I suppose. I think a happy marriage brings the most complete life. Yes, it is a thousand times better to remain single than to marry a man you cannot respect, who wins your contempt because he is a petty tyrant, or whom you despise because he is a cringing slave, without principle or backbone. If you don’t meet a man whom you know will make you a better, as well as a happier woman, you would much better 281go unmated. A very noble, beautiful, independent and happy life can be lived by the unmarried woman who has some definite aim, who doesn’t care one whit whether she is called an old maid or not, and who can scatter her fine experiences broadcast for the benefit of her poor, married sisters who have never had the chance of stepping outside a given circle.”

Nettie laughed, and Patty looked very thoughtful.

“You have scared Patty to death,” said the former. “I believe this minute she is contemplating sending back Wilson’s ring. If you do, Miss Patty, I’ll send you back to Washington to-morrow.”

“I was contemplating nothing of the kind,” she replied. “I was only thinking of what a responsibility I am going to take, and hoping I should be all that Persis said.”

“Her words of wisdom fell on good ground, it seems. Dear old Perse, it is good to have you with us again, even when you do say such solemn things. It takes me back to college when we used to settle the affairs of the nation. Ah, me! those were good old times. Now tell us your plans. You’ll not go away again, I hope.”

“Not unless I go with my parents. There is some talk of papa’s taking another trip to Greece and Egypt; and since his eyes have been troubling him, I could help him in his work. I think I should find it very fascinating. There is talk of taking some queer sort of a villa in one of the isles of Greece.”

“‘The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!’” quoted Nettie.

282“Yes, that very romantic locality; and there we may remain a year or two.”

“And you would really like it!”

“Yes, immensely, for we could all go. Grandma, and all of us.”

“Lisa, and the baby?”

“Well, no, they would have to stay this side the Atlantic, I suppose. Still, this is all very vague at present. Just now the family seem to consider that my whole duty consists in absorbing everything nourishing that any one of them happens to suggest. Here comes some one now, and I’ll venture to say it is Mell, with broth or jelly or milk, or something. Do stay girls, and let me take it by proxy.” For the girls had risen to take their leave.

“Thank you, no; we ought to have gone long ago,” they replied. “We have overstayed our time as it is, but we were so glad to see you again, Persis. Take the broth, or whatever it is, so as to get strong soon. Good-bye.”

The footsteps Persis had heard on the stair halted at the top of the first flight, but in a little while were heard coming nearer; then there was a gentle tap at the door, and in a moment a little figure in deep mourning had entered the room.

“Annis!” cried Persis; “oh, Annis!” And, at the flood of memories which overcame them both, they rushed together and burst into tears.

“Oh, Persis! Persis! my poor darling Persis! I have wanted you so,” murmured Annis. “It 283seemed as if I had lost everything; as if you, too, I should never see again.”

“Oh, Annis, I know! I know! I wish I could tell you how I feel about it,—about everything.” And the two girls in each other’s arms stood silent for some moments.

It was Annis who finally lifted her head from her cousin’s shoulder and looked searchingly in her face. “Dear,” she said, “I forgot that you are not strong. Come sit down, and let me look at you. Why, Persis, how ill you must have been to still look so!”

“Now, Annis,” she replied, “that is discouraging. I was flattering myself that I was beginning to look quite well. You should have seen me six weeks ago.”

“It is not only that you are thinner, but you are somehow different.”

“How, different?”

“You have a new look in your eyes. I think it is because you went away a girl and have come back a woman.”

“Perhaps that is it. Take my lovely, big comfortable chair, Annis, and I will lie on the lounge. Am I not fine with all these new things?”

“Yes; I heard of them. To think, Persis, you have been home two weeks, and I have just seen you. I could not come before; there were some matters I had to attend to.”

For the rest of the morning the two girls sat and talked over the many things that had happened since they parted, and at last Annis said, “Persis 284dear, there is one thing I want you to know. From the moment you went away I realized what a weak, disloyal creature I had been—you know—about Basil. I made up my mind right then that it was a foolish, foolish fancy, for I saw at once not only that he cared for you,—oh, Persis, you do not know how much!—but that it was unwomanly and altogether dishonorable for me to think of him for one moment. You know, he went abroad only a few weeks after you left us. He wrote to me when dear mamma was gone, and I answered. It was not hard then; nothing was hard compared to the one great trouble that swallowed up everything else. And now I think it seems—I cannot understand why I ever cared for—there is—some one else.”

Persis held out her hand and took Annis’s in a close clasp. “I know, dear,” she said; “it is Mr. Dan.”

Annis looked down; then she lifted her head proudly. “Yes, it is. Oh, Persis, you cannot imagine what a help and comfort, what a rock of refuge, he has been to me. It seems now as if we had always belonged to each other. I know he cared for you. I used only to think of him as your lover. I feel proud that he was; I don’t know why it has never troubled me to know it. I think, perhaps, it is this: that if after being fond of you he could turn to me, that he pays me the highest compliment he could. Perhaps it seems very soon for me to feel so, but it isn’t because I forget dear mamma. I was so lonely, so lonely! and he, too, is all alone, and that 285is why, out of the whole world, it seems as if we ought to have chosen each other. You don’t know how good and thoughtful he is.”

“Don’t I know? Why, Annis, if I had searched the world over, I could not have chosen better for you. I do like him so much, I always have; and now, why, Annis, it is just like a story-book: all the tangles are straightened out. Oh, my dear, I wasn’t sure; but now I am very, very happy.”

“And Basil,” Annis continued. “Persis, you must, must care for him. Why, Mr. Dan says he can see now how much you have always been to each other, and how Basil has felt all along. He wonders that we were all so blind. Persis, you must, must care. Don’t say that, after all, you are indifferent.”

“I’m like the tar-baby, ‘I keep on a-sayin’ nuffin’,’” laughed Persis. “It would be perfectly nonsensical for me to give up all my ideas of living a life of single-blessedness, instead, as Walter very elegantly expressed it, instead of one of ‘double-cussedness.’ It would be so commonplace, so conventional for us all to marry. Just think of it! not one of us started up the ladder of fame. It is not at all according to my notion of what ought to be.”

Nevertheless, there came a day, not long after, when Persis had to decide the question. It was a soft June morning. She was lying on the sitting-room lounge, in her pretty pale-blue wrapper which Mellicent had made her. She was half asleep, and scarcely heard some one who came softly in, but, opening her eyes, she saw Basil bending over her. 286She had not believed that she would be so unutterably glad to see him; but before she could say a word he had dropped on his knees beside her, and had gathered her hands in his.

“Oh, Persis, my poor, dear little Persis!” he began, brokenly. “No, no, don’t get up; let me stay here and tell you something. I took the first steamer I could catch after the news came that you were home again. The vessel got in this morning. I have just seen your grandmother, and she told me I should find you here. Persis, tell me, why did you go to that little village? Was it because we were there together? You knew that day what I wanted to say. You knew I cared. Why did you put me off? You were such a witch. Why did I let you elude me? My dear, my dear, don’t you know you are a part of my life? No, I shall not let you escape me again.”

The same old spirit of mischief took possession of Persis. “Basil, that is taking a mean advantage of me. You know I can’t run away this time.”

“I know it. I don’t mean to have you. I could not stand it to lose you a second time. Why, Persis, I have kept you in my heart of hearts for years, ever since I first knew you. My love has grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength. If you had——” His voice faltered, and he buried his face in the pillows.

“Don’t, Basil, don’t. Why, Basil,” Persis murmured, “I never dreamed you cared like that.”

He had dropped on his knees beside her, and had gathered her hands in his.

287He lifted his head. “No, I never was the stormy kind; but if I had lost you, Persis,—now that I know how near you were to another world, for you are so white and frail-looking, I can realize it,—it seems as if I could not bear the thought of what might have been. I should have gone through life maimed and halting. I thought at one time that you were fond of Mr. Dan, and how miserable I was!”

“Oh, Basil, Basil, I never dreamed you were. I was jealous, too.”

“Then you cared, you cared.”

“Of course I care. Didn’t you know it? I, too, have always cared, always. Let me stand up, Basil, so you can see I am not such an invalid as you think. There, do I look so very ill? I am well, and I am getting stronger every day.”

For answer he clasped her in his arms, and she whispered, “I know now, Basil, that part of my misery was giving you up. I didn’t tell myself so, but it was, it was.”

“But, my darling, you didn’t have to. Nothing would have made any difference.”

“I thought I had to, and that was just as bad; but I know now, if at any time I had seen you for one minute, that I never, never could have done it. As soon as I saw you just now I knew it. But, Basil, there is one thing I don’t see how I can bring myself to do.”

“And that is——?”

“Change my name again. It is too much to expect of any girl.” And she looked up with laughing eyes.

288He smiled in his old way. “You won’t have to. I’ll only build an addition to it.”

“There spoke the architect.”

“And you can call yourself Mrs. Holmes Phillips.”

“With a hyphen?”

“I will even submit to the hyphen if it will make you happy.”

“But, Basil, I could never, never go away from home, even so far as Washington, to live.”

“You shall not. I have resolved to settle right here, where all my friends are.”

“And it will be years—years before I could make up my mind to leave home at all.”

“Even if we could live next door, or across the street, or if I were to build a house on the first vacant lot nearest?”

“Well, perhaps; but it is a very open question, and needn’t be mentioned at all for centuries.”

“And to think,” Persis said to her grandmother as they sat in the twilight,—“to think that all my sufferings were useless. I needn’t have made one sacrifice.”

“Were they useless?” replied Mrs. Estabrook. “I doubt it. All sorrow is for our advantage, dear child. We need the strength, the knowledge of spiritual laws, which it gives us.”

“Yes, I suppose we do need a sort of moral gymnastics to keep us from being weak and flabby.”

“That sounds more like my old Persis than anything I have heard for a year.”

“It is because I am so entirely, deliciously happy. Grandma, did you know all along about Basil?”

289“Yes, I believe I did.”

“Do you think I am a silly, sentimental goose?”

“Why, my blessed child, no, a thousand times no. And your father and mother will be more than content. There is no one who is so like a son to them, whom they love more. Basil has the first place among the boys, and he is very, very dear to me.”

“I am so glad. Isn’t it strange that each should have had such a narrow escape? But it has brought us very close together.”

“It is the sorrowful things which do.”

“Yes, I know. It is the same with Annis and Mr. Dan. If I had not gone away, I do not believe that it would ever have been just like this for them, or for me, either.”

“Grief is, after all, a friend.”

“Yes, I begin to understand that; and, grandma, I believe, because of it, Basil and I will be able to be truer and finer and stronger. I could not—I always said I could not—marry a man who did not respond to the best within me.”

There was a sound of welcoming laughter in the hall below, and Mellicent came flying up the steps. “Come, Perse; Mr. Dan has come, and Lisa has had a despatch saying Richard will be here directly. Isn’t it fine? Three arrivals in one day! And oh, Perse! Basil——” She paused, and looked from her sister to her grandmother. “Why,” she went on, “I believe I have guessed something. Papa and Basil have been talking in the library for an hour, and papa 290has come out looking as happy as a lord, and he actually had his arm around Basil. Papa! So, miss, I verily believe—yes, I am confident, from your modest, drooping eye—that you have something to do with it. Yes, you. Tell me, am I good at guessing?”

“Yes, most sapient maiden,” returned her sister, “you are.”

“Good! Dear old Baz! Why, he’s like a brother already. The blessed old fellow, I shall go hug him if he’ll let me.” And she was off like a flash.

“One of the good things which has come from sorrow is that Mellicent is improving,” Mrs. Estabrook said. “Nothing has ever stirred her up and caused her to forget herself like this year’s trouble.”

“Here we all are,” cried Lisa, as Persis approached. “Come, speak to Richard, Perse. He’s consumed with longing to see you. There, Mr. Dan, you’ve made a long enough speech.”

Persis looked around from one to the other. All her best beloved ones were gathered about her. The first faint color appeared in her cheeks; her eyes shone. “Why, you look quite like yourself,” said Richard. “I expected to see a poor, puny invalid.”

“Happiness is a great healer,” replied Persis, “and I am very happy.”

“I think it is about as beaming a crowd as I’ve seen in a long time,” returned Richard. “Each seems to have some especial inward satisfaction, which is visibly apparent in a protracted and expansive smile. There must be some reason for it. Which of you men is open to congratulations?”

291“Mr. Dan,” cried Persis.

“Basil,” cried Annis. And every one laughed.

“Never mind, Melly, your time will come,” Richard said, teasingly. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Mellicent made a saucy reply, and the party separated.

In a few moments Annis and Mr. Danforth had wandered to the porch; Persis and Basil walked up and down the garden with Mrs. Estabrook; Mr. and Mrs. Holmes sat listening to Lisa singing up-stairs a gentle lullaby; at the gate stood Mellicent, an expectant look on her face.