Chapter VII: Part 7

"I thought about Peter in prison; I thought about everything I could think of. I could hear the clock strike and that would help me bear it, I should know when night came and when morning came. The cows would suffer, too, unless father had thrown down hay enough for them; and the fires would go out, and what would father and mother think when they came home to-morrow? Would I frighten them by screaming and pounding? Would I add to my cold, and have quinsy sore throat again? Would I faint away and never 'come to'? When I wrote 'adventure' upstairs by the master's fire I did not mean a dreadful thing like this! Staying alone all night was nothing compared to this. I had never been through anything compared to this. I tried to comfort myself by thinking that I might be lost or locked up in a worse place; it was not so damp or cold as it might have been, and there was really nothing to be afraid of. I had nothing to do and I was in the dark. I began to think of all the stories I knew about people who had been imprisoned and what they had done. I couldn't write a Pilgrim's Progress, I couldn't even make a few rhymes, it was too lonesome; I couldn't sing, my voice stopped in my throat. I thought about somebody who was in a dark, solitary prison, and he had one pin that he used to throw about and lose and then crawl around and find it in the dark and then lose it again and crawl around again and find it. I had prowled around enough for the steps; that amusement had lost its attraction for me. And then the clock struck. I counted eleven, but had I missed one stroke? Or counted too many? It was not nine when I lighted that candle. Well, that gave me something to reason about, and something new to look forward to. How many things could I do in an hour? How many could I count? How many Bible verses could I repeat? Suppose I began with A and repeated all I could think of, and then went on to B. 'Ask, and ye shall receive.' How I did ask God to let me out in some way, to bring somebody to help me? To _send_ somebody. Would not Captain Rheid come back again? Would not Morris change his mind and come home to dinner? or at night? And would Mr. Holmes certainly go to hear that lecture? Wasn't there anybody to come? I thought about you and how sorry you would be, and, I must confess it, I did think that I would have something to write to you and Hollis about. (Please let him see this letter; I don't want to write all this over again.)

"So I shivered and huddled myself up in a heap and tried to comfort myself and amuse myself as best I could. I said all the Bible verses I could think, and then I went back to my apples and brought the basket with me to the stairs. I would not eat one potato or turnip until the apples had given out. You think I can laugh now; so could you, after you had got out. But the clock didn't strike, and nobody came, and I was sure it must be nearly morning I was so faint with hunger and so dizzy from want of sleep. And then it occurred to me to stumble up the stairs and try to burst the door open! That lock was loose, it turned very easily! In an instant I was up the stairs and trying the door. And, lo, and behold, it opened easily, it was not locked at all! I had only imagined I heard the click of the lock. And I was free, and the sun was shining, and I was neither hungry nor dizzy.

"I don't know whether I laughed or cried or mingled both in a state of ecstasy. But I was too much shaken to go on with my letter, I had to find a story book and a piece of apple pie to quiet my nerves. The fires were not out and the clock had only struck ten. But when you ask me how long I stayed in that cellar I shall tell you one hundred years! Now, isn't that adventure enough for the first volume?

"Vol. II. Evening. I waited and waited downstairs for somebody to come, but nobody came except Josie Grey's brother, to say that her mother was taken ill suddenly and Josie could not come. I suppose Mr. Holmes expected her to come and so he has gone to Middlefield, and Morris thought so, too; and so I am left out in the cold, or rather in by the fire. Mr. Holmes' chamber is the snuggest room in the house, so full of books that you can't be lonely in it, and then the fire on the hearth is company. It began to snow before sun down and now the wind howls and the snow seems to rush about as if it were in a fury. You ask what I have read this winter. Books that you will not like: Thomson's 'Seasons,' Cowper's 'Task,' Pollok's 'Course of Time,' Milton's 'Paradise Regained,' Strickland's 'Queens of England,' 'Nelson on Infidelity,' 'Lady Huntington and her Friends,' 'Lady of the Lake,' several of the 'Bridgewater Treatises,' Paley's 'Natural Theology,' 'Trench on Miracles,' several dozens of the best story books I could find to make sandwiches with the others, somebody's 'Travels in Iceland,' and somebody's 'Winter in Russia,' and 'Rasselas,' and 'Boswell's Johnson,' and I cannot remember others at this moment. Morris says I do not think anything dry, but go right through everything. Because I have the master to help me, and I did give 'Paradise Lost' up in despair. Mother says I shall never make three quilts for you if I read so much, but I do get on with the patch work and she already has one quilt joined, and Mrs. Rheid is coming to help her quilt it next week. There is a pile of blocks on the master's desk now and I intend to sit here in his arm chair and sew until I am sleepy. I wonder if you will do as much for me when my Prince comes. Mine is to be as handsome as Hollis, as good as Morris, as learned as the master, and as devoted as your splendid Will. And if I cannot find all these in one I will--make patch work for other brides and live alone with Miss Prudence. And I'll begin now to make the patch work. Oh, dear, I wish you and Miss Prudence were here. Hark! there's somebody pounding on the outside kitchen door! Shall I go down or let them pound? I don't believe it is Robin Hood or any of his merry men, do you? I'll screw my courage up and go.

"Vol. III. Next Day. I won't keep you in suspense, you dear, sympathetic Linnet. I went down with some inward quaking but much outward boldness as the pounding increased, and did not even ask 'Who's there?' before I opened the door. But I _was_ relieved to find Morris, covered with snow, looking like a storm king. He said he had heard through Frank Grey that Josie couldn't come and he would not let me stay alone in a storm. I was so glad, if I had been you I should have danced around him, but as it was I and not you I only said how glad I was, and made him a cup of steaming coffee and gave him a piece of mince pie for being so good. To-day it snows harder than ever, so that we do not expect father and mother; and Mr. Holmes has not come out in the storm, because Morris saw him and told him that he was on the way home. Not a sleigh has passed, we have not seen a single human being to-day. I could not have got out to the stable, and I don't know what the cows and hens would have done without Morris. He has thrown down more hay for the cows, and put corn where the hens may find it for to-morrow, in case he cannot get out to them. The storm has not lessened in any degree; I never knew anything like it, but I am not the 'oldest inhabitant.' Wouldn't I have been dreary here alone?

"This does seem to be a kind of adventure, but nothing happens. Father is not strong enough to face any kind of a storm, and I am sure they will not attempt to start. Morris says we are playing at housekeeping and he helps me do everything, and when I sit down to sew on your patch work he reads to me. I let him read this letter to you, forgetting what I had said about my Prince, but he only laughed and said he was glad that he was _good_ enough for me, even if he were not handsome enough, or learned enough, or devoted enough, and said he would become devoted forthwith, but he could not ever expect to attain to the rest. He teases me and says that I meant that the others were not good enough. He has had a letter from Will promising to take him before the mast next voyage and he is hilarious over it. His mother tries to be satisfied, but she is afraid of the water. When so many that we know have lost father or brother or husband on the sea it does seem strange that we can so fearlessly send another out. Mrs. Rheid told me about a sea captain that she met when she was on a voyage with Captain Rheid. He had been given up for lost when he was young and when he came back he found his wife married to another man, but she gave up the second husband and went back to the first. She was dead when Mrs. Rheid met him; she said he was a very sad man. His ship was wrecked on some coast, I've forgotten where, and he was made to work in a mine until he was rescued. I think I would have remained dead to her if she had forgotten me like that. But isn't this a long letter? Morris has made me promise to write regularly to him; I told him he had never given me a Holland plate two hundred years old, but he says he will go to Holland and buy me one and that is better.

"I am glad Hollis wrote such a long letter to his mother if he could not come home. I wish he would write to her oftener; I do not think she is quite satisfied to have him write to me instead. I will write to him to-morrow, but I haven't anything to say, I have told you everything. O, Linnet, how happy I shall be when your school days are over. Miss Prudence shall have the next letter; I have something to ask her, as usual.

"The end of my story in three volumes isn't very startling. But this snow-storm is. If we hadn't everything under cover we would have to do without some things.

"Yours,

"MARJORIE"

XIII.

A WEDDING DAY.

"A world-without-end bargain."--_Shakespeare._

A young girl stood in the doorway, shading her eyes with her hand as she gazed down the dusty road; she was not tall or slight, but a plump, well-proportioned little creature, with frank, steadfast eyes, a low, smooth forehead with brown hair rippling away from it, a thoughtful mouth that matched well with the eyes; an energetic maiden, despite the air of study that somehow surrounded her; you were sure her voice would be sweet, and as sure that it would be sprightly, and you were equally sure that a wealth of strength was hidden behind the sweetness. She was only eighteen, eighteen to-day, but during the last two years she had rapidly developed into womanhood. The master told Miss Prudence this morning that she was trustworthy and guileless, and as sweet and bright as she was good; still, he believed, as of old, that she did not quite know how to take her own part; but, as a woman, with a man to fight for her, what need had she of fighting? He would not have been at all surprised had he known that she had chosen, that morning, a motto, not only for her new year, but, as she told Morris, for her lifetime: "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." And he had said: "May I fight for you, too, Marjorie?" But she had only laughed and answered: "We don't live in the time of the Crusades."

Although it was Linnet's wedding day Marjorie, the bridesmaid, was attired in a gingham, a pretty pink and white French gingham; but there were white roses at her throat and one nestled in her hair. The roses were the gift of the groomsman, Hollis, and she had fastened them in under the protest of Morris' eyes. Will and Linnet had both desired Hollis to "stand up" with Marjorie; the bridesmaid had been very shy about it, at first; Hollis was almost a stranger, she had seen him but once since she was fourteen, and their letters were becoming more and more distant. He was not as shy as Marjorie, but he was not easy and at home with her, and never once dared to address the maiden who had so suddenly sprung into a lovely woman with the old names, Mousie, or Goosie. Indeed, he had nearly forgotten them, he could more readily have said: "Miss Marjorie."

He had grown very tall; he was the handsomest among the brothers, with an air of refinement and courtesy that somewhat perplexed them and set him apart from them. Marjorie still prayed for him every day, that is, for the Hollis she knew, but this Hollis came to her to-day a stranger; her school-boy friend was a dream, the friend she had written to so long was only her ideal, and this tall man, with the golden-red moustache, dark, soft eyes and deep voice, was a fascinating stranger from the outside world. She could never write to him again; she would never have the courage.

And his heart quickened in its beating as he stood beside the white-robed figure and looked down into the familiar, strange face, and he wondered how his last letter could have been so jaunty and off-hand. How could he ever write "Dear Marjorie" again, with this face in his memory? She was as much a lady as Helen had been, he would be proud to take her among his friends and say: "This is my old school friend."

But he was busy bringing chairs across the field at this moment and Marjorie stood alone in the doorway looking down the dusty road. This doorway was a fitting frame for such a rustic picture as a girl in a gingham dress, and the small house itself a fitting background.

The house was a story and a half, with a low, projecting roof, a small entry in the centre, and square, low-studded rooms on both sides, a kitchen and woodshed stretched out from the back and a small barn stood in the rear; the house was dazzling in the sun, with its fresh coat of white paint, and the green blinds gave a cooling effect to the whole; the door yard was simply a carpet of green with lilac bushes in one corner and a tall pine standing near the gate; the fence rivalled the house in its glossy whiteness, and even the barn in the rear had a new coat of brown to boast of. Every room inside the small house was in perfect order, every room was furnished with comfort and good taste, but plainly as it became the house of the captain of the barque _Linnet_ to be. It was all ready for housekeeping, but, instead of taking instant possession, at the last moment Linnet had decided to go with her husband to Genoa.

"It is nonsense," Captain Rheid growled, "when the house is all ready." But Will's mother pleaded for him and gained an ungracious consent.

"You never run around after me so," he said.

"Go to sea to-day and see what I will do," she answered, and he kissed her for the first time in so many years that she blushed like a girl and hurried away to see if the tea-kettle were boiling.

Linnet's mother was disappointed, for she wanted to see Linnet begin her pretty housekeeping; but Marjorie declared that it was as it should be and quite according to the Old Testament law of the husband cheering up his wife.

But Marjorie did not stay very long to make a picture of herself, she ran back to see if Morris had counted right in setting the plates on the long dining table that was covered with a heavy cloth of grandma's own making. There was a silk quilt of grandma's making on the bed in the "spare room" beside. As soon as the ceremony was performed she had run away with "the boys" to prepare the surprise for Linnet, a lunch in her own house. The turkeys and tongue and ham had been cooked at Mrs. Rheid's, and Linnet had seen only the cake and biscuits prepared at home, the fruit had come with Hollis from New York at Miss Prudence's order, and the flowers had arrived this morning by train from Portland. Cake and sandwiches, lemonade and coffee, would do very well, Linnet said, who had no thought of feasting, and the dining room at home was the only banqueting hall she had permitted herself to dream of.

Marjorie counted the chairs as Hollis brought them across the field from home, and then her eyes filled as he drew from his pocket, to show her, the deed of the house and ten acres of land, the wedding present from his father to the bride.

"Oh, he's too good," she cried. "Linnet will break down, I know she will."

"I asked him if he would be as good to my wife," answered Hollis, "and he said he would, if I would please him as well as Will had done."

"There's only one Linnet," said Marjorie.

"But bride's have sisters," said Morris. "Marjorie, where shall I put all this jelly? And I haven't missed one plate with a bouquet, have I? Now count everybody up again and see if we are all right."

"Marjorie and I," began Hollis, audaciously, pushing a chair into its place.

"Two," counted Morris, but his blue eyes flashed and his lip trembled.

"And Will and Linnet, four," began Marjorie, in needless haste, and father and mother, six, and Will's father and mother, eight, and the minister and his wife, ten, and Herbert and his wife, twelve, and Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence, fourteen, and Sam and Harold, sixteen, and Morris, seventeen. That is all. Oh, and grandfather and grandmother, nineteen."

"Seventeen plates! You and I are to be waiters, Marjorie," said Morris.

"I'll be a waiter, too," said Hollis. "That will be best fun of all. I'm glad you didn't hire anybody, Marjorie."

"I wouldn't; I wanted to be primitive and do it all ourselves; I knew Morris would be grand help, but I was not so sure of you."

"Are you sure of me, now?" he laughed, like the old Hollis who used to go to school.

After that Marjorie would not have been surprised if he had called her "Mousie."

"Morris, what do you want to be a sailor for?" inquired Hollis, arranging the white rose in his button-hole anew.

"To sail," answered Morris seriously. "What do you want to be a salesman for?"

"To sell," said Hollis, as seriously, "Marjorie, what do you want to be yourself for?"

"To help you to be yourself," she answered promptly, and flew to the front door where there was a sound of shouting and laughter. They were all there, every one of the little home-made company; and the waiters ushered them into the kitchen, where the feast was spread, with great ceremony.

If Linnet had not been somebody's wife she would have danced around and clapped her hands with delight; as it was she nearly forgot her dignity, and exclaimed with surprise and pleasure sufficient to satisfy those who were in the secret of the feast.

Linnet was in her gray travelling suit, but the dash of crimson this time was in both cheeks; there was a haziness in her eyes that subdued the brightness of her face and touched them all. The bridegroom was handsome and proud, his own merry self, not a trifle abashed before them all on his wedding day, everything that he said seemed to be thought worth laughing at, and there was not a shadow on any face, except the flitting of a shadow ever and anon across Morris Kemlo's blue eyes.

The feast was ended, prayer offered by the pastor and the new home dedicated to him who is the Father in every home where his children dwell, and then kisses and congratulations and thanks mingled with the tears that the mothers must need shed out of their joy and natural regret. The mothers were both exultantly proud and sure that _her_ child would not be the one to make the other unhappy. The carriages rolled away, Will and Linnet to take the train to Portland, for if the wind were fair the _Linnet_ would sail the next day for New York and thence to Genoa. Linnet had promised to bring Marjorie some of the plastering of the chamber in which Christopher Columbus was born, and if they went down to Naples she would surely climb Mt. Vesuvius and bring her a branch of mulberry.

The mothers remained to wash the dishes and pack things away, to lock up the house, and brush the last flake of dust from any of Linnet's new possessions; Captain Rheid called to Hollis and asked him to walk over the farm with him and see where everything was planted. Hollis was to remain over night, but Morris was to take a late train to join the _Linnet's_ crew, it being his first voyage as second mate.

The mothers took off their kitchen aprons, washed their hands at Linnet's new sink, and gave Morris the key of the front door to hang up in an out-of-the-way corner of the wood shed.

"It may better be here," said Mrs. Rheid, "and then any of us can get in at any time to see how things are without troubling anybody to find the key. The captain will see that every door and window is safe and as we have the silver I don't believe anybody will think of troubling the house."

"Oh, dear no," replied Mrs. West. "I always leave my clothes out on the line and we never think of locking a door at night."

"Our kitchen windows look over this way and I shall always be looking over. Now come home with me and see that quilt I haven't got finished yet for them. I told your husband to come to our house for you, for you would surely be there. I suppose Marjorie and Morris will walk back; we wouldn't have minded it, either, on our eighteenth birthday."

"Come, Marjorie, come see where I hang the key," said Morris.

Marjorie followed him down the kitchen steps, across the shed to a corner at the farther end; he found a nail and slipped it on and then asked her to reach it.

Even standing on tip toe her upstretched hand could not touch it.

"See how I put the key of my heart out of your reach," he said, seriously.

"And see how I stretch after it," she returned, demurely.

"I will come with you and reach it for you."

"How can you when you are demolishing plaster in Christopher Columbus' house or falling into the crater of Mt. Vesuvius? I may want to come here that very day."

"True; I will put it lower for you. Shall I put it under this stone so that you will have to stoop for it?"

"Mrs. Rheid said hang it over the window, that has been its place for generations. They lived here when they were first married, before they built their own house; the house doesn't look like it, does it? It is all made over new. I am glad he gave it to Will."

"He can build a house for Hollis," said he, watching her as he spoke.

"Let me see you put the key there," she returned, unconcernedly.

He hung the key on the nail over the small window and inquired if it were done to her satisfaction.

"Yes," she said. "I wonder how Linnet feels about going away from us all so far."

"She is with her husband," answered Morris. "Aren't you woman enough to understand that?"

"Possibly I am as much of a woman as you are."

"You are years ahead of me; a girl at eighteen is a woman; but a boy at eighteen is a boy. Will you tell me something out here among the wood? This wood pile that the old captain sawed and split ten years ago shall be our witness. Why do you suppose he gets up in winter before daylight and splits wood--when he has a pile that was piled up twenty years ago?"

"That is a question worthy the time and place and the wood pile shall be our witness."

"Oh, that isn't the question," he returned with some embarrassment, stooping to pick up a chip and toss it from him as he lifted himself. "Marjorie, _do_ you like Hollis better than you like me?"

"You are only a boy, you know," she answered, roguishly.

"I know it; but do you like me better than Hollis?"

His eyes were on the chips at his feet, Marjorie's serious eyes were upon him.

"It doesn't matter; suppose I don't know; as the question never occurred to me before I shall have to consider."

"Marjorie, you are cruel," he exclaimed raising his eyes with a flash in them; he was "only a boy" but his lips were as white as a man's would have been.

"I am sorry; I didn't know you were in such earnest," she said, penitently. "I like Hollis, of course, I cannot remember when I did not like him, but I am not acquainted with him."

"Are you acquainted with me?" he asked in a tone that held a shade of relief.

"Oh, you!" she laughed lightly, "I know what you think before you can speak your thought."

"Then you know what I am thinking now."

"Not all of it," she returned, but she colored, notwithstanding, and stepped backward toward the kitchen.

"Marjorie," he caught her hand and held it, "I am going away and I want to tell you something. I am going far away this time, and I must tell you. Do you remember the day I came? You were such a little thing, you stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes, with your sleeves rolled back and a big apron up to your neck, and you stopped in your work and looked at me and your eyes were so soft and sorry. And I have loved you better than anybody every day since. Every day I have thought: 'I will study like Marjorie. I will be good like Marjorie. I will help everybody like Marjorie.'"

She looked up into his eyes, her own filled with tears.

"I am so glad I have helped you so."

"And will you help me further by saying that you like me better than Hollis."

"Oh, I do, you know I do," she cried, impulsively. "I am not acquainted with him, and I know every thought you think."

"Now I am satisfied," he cried, exultantly, taking both her hands in his and kissing her lips. "I am not afraid to go away now."

"Marjorie,"--the kitchen door was opened suddenly,--"I'm going to take your mother home with me. Is the key in the right place."

"Everything is all right, Mrs. Rheid," replied Morris. "You bolt that door and we will go out this way."

The door was closed as suddenly and the boy and girl stood silent, looking at each other.

"Your Morris Kemlo is a fine young man," observed Mrs. Rheid as she pushed the bolt into its place.

"He is a heartease to his mother," replied Mrs. West, who was sometimes poetical.

"Does Marjorie like him pretty well?"

"Why, yes, we all do. He is like our own flesh and blood. But why did you ask?"

"Oh, nothing. I just thought of it."

"I thought you meant something, but you couldn't when you know how Hollis has been writing to her these four years."

"Oh!" ejaculated Hollis' mother.

She did not make plans for her children as the other mother did.

The two old ladies crossed the field toward the substantial white farmhouse that overlooked the little cottage, and the children, whose birthday it was, walked hand in hand through the yard to the footpath along the road.

"Must you keep on writing to Hollis?" he asked.

"I suppose so. Why not? It is my turn to write now."

"That's all nonsense."

"What is? Writing in one's turn?"

"I don't see why you need write at all."

"Don't you remember I promised before you came?"

"But I've come now," he replied in a tone intended to be very convincing.

"His mother would miss it, if I didn't write; she thinks she can't write letters. And I like his letters," she added frankly.

"I suppose you do. I suppose you like them better than mine," with an assertion hardly a question in his voice.

"They are so different. His life is so different from yours. But he is shy, as shy as a girl, and does not tell me all the things you do. Your letters are more interesting, but _he_ is more interesting--as a study. You are a lesson that I have learned, but I have scarcely begun to learn him."

"That is very cold blooded when you are talking about human beings."

"My brain was talking then."

"Suppose you let your heart speak."

"My heart hasn't anything to say; it is not developed yet."

"I don't believe it," he answered angrily.

"Then you must find it out for yourself. Morris, I don't want to be _in love_ with anybody, if that's what you mean. I love you dearly, but I am not in love with you or with anybody."

"You don't know the difference," he said quickly.

"How do you know the difference? Did you learn it before I was born?"

"I love my mother, but I am in love with you; that's the difference."

"Then I don't know the difference--and I do. I love my dear father and Mr. Holmes and you,--not all alike, but I need you all at different times--"

"And Hollis," he persisted.

"I do not know him," she insisted. "I have nothing to say about that. Morris, I want to go with Miss Prudence and study; I don't want to be a housekeeper and have a husband, like Linnet! I have so much to learn; I am eager for everything. You see you _are_ older than I am."

"Yes," he said, disappointedly, "you are only a little girl yet. Or you are growing up to be a Woman's Rights Woman, and to think a 'career' is better than a home and a man who is no better than other men to love you and protect you and provide for you."

"You know that is not true," she answered quietly; "but I have been looking forward so long to going to school."

"And living with Miss Prudence and becoming like her!"

"Don't you want me to be like her?"

"No," he burst out. "I want you to be like Linnet, and to think that little house and house-keeping, and a good husband, good enough for you. What is the good of studying if it doesn't make you more a perfect woman? What is the good of anything a girl does if it doesn't help her to be a woman?"

"Miss Prudence is a perfect woman."

Marjorie's tone was quiet and reasonable, but there was a fire in her eyes that shone only when she was angry.

"She would be more perfect if she stayed at home in Maple Street and made a home for somebody than she is now, going hither and thither finding people to be kind to and to help. She is too restless and she is not satisfied. Look at Linnet; she is happier to-day with her husband that reads only the newspapers, the nautical books, and his Bible, than Miss Prudence with all her lectures and concerts and buying books and knowing literary people! She couldn't make a Miss Prudence out of Linnet, but she will make a Miss Prudence twice over out of you."

"Linnet is happy because she loves Will, and she doesn't care for books and people, as we do; but we haven't any Will, poor Miss Prudence and poor Marjorie, we have to substitute people and books."

"You might have, both of you!" he went on, excitedly; "but you want something better, both of you,--_higher_, I suppose you think! There's Mr. Holmes eating his heart out with being only a friend to Miss Prudence, and you want me to go poking along and spoiling my life as he does, because you like books and study better!"

Marjorie laughed; the fire in Morris' blue eyes was something to see, and the tears in his voice would have overcome her had she not laughed instead. And he was going far away, too.

"Morris, I didn't know you were quite such a volcano. I don't believe Mr. Holmes stays here and _pokes_ because of Miss Prudence. I know he is melancholy, sometimes, but he writes so much and thinks so much he can't be light-hearted like young things like us. And who does as much good as Miss Prudence? Isn't she another mother to Linnet and me? And if she doesn't find somebody to love as Linnet does Will, I don't see how she can help it."

"It isn't in her heart or she would have found somebody; it is what is in peoples' hearts that makes the difference! But when they keep the brain at work and forget they have any heart, as you two do--"

"It isn't Miss Prudence's brain that does her beautiful work. You ought to read some of the letters that she lets me read, and then you would see how much heart she has!"

"And you want to be just like her," he sighed, but the sigh was almost a groan.

Certainly, in some experiences he had outstripped Marjorie.

"Yes, I want to be like her," she answered deliberately.

"And study and go around and do good and never be married?" he questioned.

"I don't see the need of deciding that question to-day."

"I suppose not. You will when Hollis Rheid asks you to."

"Morris, you are not like yourself to-day, you are quarrelling with me, and we never quarrelled before."

"Because you are so unreasonable; you will not answer me anything."

"I have answered you truly; I have no other answer to give."

"Will you think and answer me when I come home?"

"I have answered you now."

"Perhaps you will have another answer then."

"Well, if I have I will give it to you. Are you satisfied?"

"No," he said; but he turned her face up to his and looked down into her innocent earnest eyes.

"You are a goosie, as Linnet says; you will never grow up, little Marjorie."

"Then, if I am only eight, you must not talk to me as if I were eighty."

"Or eighteen," he said. "How far on the voyage of life do you suppose Linnet and Captain Will are."

"Not far enough on to quarrel, I hope."

"They will never be far enough for that, Will is too generous and Linnet will never find anything to differ about; do you know, Marjorie, that girl has no idea how Will loves her?"

Marjorie stopped and faced him with the utmost gravity.

"Do you know, Morris, that man has no idea how Linnet loves him?"

And then the two burst into a laugh that restored them both to the perfect understanding of themselves and each other and all the world. And after an early supper he shook hands with them all--excepting "Mother West," whom he kissed, and Marjorie, whom he asked to walk as far as "Linnet's" with him on his way to the train--and before ten o'clock was on board the _Linnet_, and congratulating again the bridegroom, who was still radiant, and the bride, who was not looking in the least bit homesick.

"Will," said Linnet with the weight of tone of one giving announcement to a mighty truth, "I wouldn't be any one beside myself for _anything_."

"And I wouldn't have you any one beside yourself for _anything_," he laughed, in the big, explosive voice that charmed Linnet every time afresh.

XIV.

A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK.

"Life's great results are something slow."--Howells.

Morris had said good-bye with a look that brought sorrow enough in Marjorie's eyes to satisfy him--almost, and had walked rapidly on, not once turning to discover if Marjorie were standing still or moving toward home; Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence had promised to start out to meet her, so that her walk homeward in the starlight would not be lonely.

But they were not in sight yet to Marjorie's vision, and she stood leaning over the gate looking at the windows with their white shades dropped and already feeling that the little, new home was solitary. She did not turn until a footstep paused behind her; she was so lost in dreams of Linnet and Morris that she had not noticed the brisk, hurried tread. The white rose had fallen from her hair and the one at her throat had lost several petals; in her hand was a bunch of daisies that Morris had picked along the way and laughingly asked her to try the childish trick of finding out if he loved her, and she had said she was afraid the daisies were too wise and would not ask them.

"Haven't you been home all this time?" asked Hollis, startling her out of her dream.

"Oh, yes, and come back again."

"Do you find the cottage so charming?"

"I find it charming, but I could have waited another day to come and see it. I came to walk part of the way with Morris."

She colored, because when she was embarrassed she colored at everything, and could not think of another word to say.

Among those who understood him, rather, among those he understood, Hollis was a ready talker; but, seemingly, he too could not think of another word to say.

Marjorie picked her daisies to pieces and they went on in the narrow foot path, as she and Morris had done in the afternoon; Hollis walking on the grass and giving her the path as her other companion had done. She could think of everything to say to Morris, and Morris could think of everything to say to her; but Morris was only a boy, and this tall stranger was a gentleman, a gentleman whom she had never seen before.

"If it were good sleighing I might take you on my sled," he remarked, when all the daisies were pulled to pieces.

"Is Flyaway in existence still?" she asked brightly, relieved that she might speak at last.

"'Stowed away,' as father says, in the barn, somewhere. Mr. Holmes is not as strict as he used to be, is he?"

"No, he never was after that. I think he needed to give a lesson to himself."

"He looks haggard and old."

"I suppose he is old; I don't know how old he is, over forty."

"That _is_ antiquated. You will be forty yourself, if you live long enough."

"Twenty-two years," she answered seriously; "that is time enough to do a good many things in."

"I intend to do a good many things," he answered with a proud humility in his voice that struck Marjorie.

"What--for example?"

"Travel, for one thing, make money, for another."

"What do you want money for?" she questioned.

"What does any man want it for? I want it to give me influence, and I want a luxurious old age."

"That doesn't strike me as being the highest motives."

"Probably not, but perhaps the highest motives, as you call them, do not rule my life."

And she had been praying for him so long.

"Your mother seems to be a happy woman," was her reply, coming out of a thought that she did not speak.

"She is," he said, emphatically. "I wish poor old father were as happy."

"Do you find many happy people?" she asked.

"I find you and my mother," he returned smiling.

"And yourself?"

"Not always. I am happy enough today. Not as jubilant as old Will, though. Will has a prize."

"To be sure he has," said Marjorie.

"What are you going to do next?"

"Go to that pleasant home in Maple Street with Miss Prudence and go to school." She was jubilant, too, today, or she would have been if Morris had not gone away with such a look in his eyes.

"You ought to be graduated by this time, you are old enough. Helen was not as old as you."

"But I haven't been at school at all, yet," she hastened to say. "And Helen was so bright."

"Aren't you bright?" he asked, laughing.

"Mr. Holmes doesn't tell me that I am."

"What will your mother do?"

"Oh, dear," she sighed, "that is what I ask myself every day. But she insists that I shall go, Linnet has had her 'chance' she says, and now it is my turn. Miss Prudence is always finding somebody that needs a home, and she has found a girl to help mother, a girl about my age, that hasn't any friends, so it isn't the work that will trouble me; it is leaving mother without any daughter at all."

"She is willing to let Linnet go, she ought to be as willing to let you."

"Oh, she is, and father is, too. I know I don't deserve such good times, but I do want to go. I love Miss Prudence as much as I do mother, I believe, and I am only forty miles from home. Mr. Holmes is about leaving, too. How father will miss _him_! And Morris gone! Mother sighs over the changes and then says changes must needs come if boys and girls will grow up."

"Where is Mr. Holmes going?"

"To California. The doctor says he must go somewhere to cure his cough. And he says he will rest and write another book. Have you read his book?"

"No, it is too dry for me."

"We don't think it is dry; Morris and I know it by heart."

"That is because you know the author."

"Perhaps it is. The book is everything but a story book. Miss Prudence has a copy in Turkey morocco. Do you see many people that write books?"

"No," he said, smiling at her simplicity. "New York isn't full of them."

"Miss Prudence sees them," replied Marjorie with dignity.

"She is a bird of their feather. I do not fly, I walk on the ground--with my eyes on it, perhaps."

"Like the man with the muck rake," said Marjorie, quoting from her old love, _Pilgrims Progress_, "don't you know there was a crown held above his head, and his eyes were on the ground and he could not see it."

"No, I do not know it, but I perceive that you are talking an allegory at me."

"Not at you, _to_ you," she corrected.

"You write very short letters to me, nowadays."

"Your letters are not suggestive enough," she said, archly.

"Like my conversation. As poor a talker as I am, I am a better talker than writer. And you--you write a dozen times better than you talk."

"I'm sorry I'm so unentertaining to-night. When Linnet writes she says: "'I wish I could _talk_ to you,' and when I talk I think: 'I wish I could write it all to you.'"

"As some one said of some one who could write better than he talked, 'He has plenty of bank notes, but he carries no small change, in his pocket.'"

"It is so apt to be too small," she answered, somewhat severely.

"I see you are above talking the nonsense that some girls talk. What do you do to get rested from your thoughts?"

How Marjorie laughed!

"Hollis, do talk to me instead of writing. And I'll write to you instead of talking."

"That is, you wish me near to you and yourself far away from me. That is the only way that we can satisfy each other. Isn't that Miss Prudence coming?"

"And the master. They did not know I would have an escort home. But do come all the way, father will like to hear you talk about the places you have visited."

"I travel, I don't visit places. I expect to go to London and Paris by and by. Our buyer has been getting married and that doesn't please the firm; he wanted to take his wife with him, but they vetoed that. They say a married man will not attend strictly to business; see what a premium is paid to bachelorhood. I shall understand laces well enough soon: I can pick a piece of imitation out of a hundred real pieces now. Did Linnet like the handkerchief and scarf?"

"You should have seen her! Hasn't she spoken of them?"

"No, she was too full of other things."

"Marriage isn't all in getting ready, to Linnet," said Marjorie, seriously, "I found her crying one day because she was so happy and didn't deserve to be."

"Will is a good fellow," said Hollis. "I wish I were half as good. But I am so contradictory, so unsatisfied and so unsatisfying. I understand myself better than I want to, and yet I do not understand myself at all."

"That is because you are _growing_," said Marjorie, with her wise air. "I haven't settled down into a real Marjorie yet. I shouldn't know my own picture unless I painted it myself."

"We are two rather dangerous people, aren't we?" laughed Hollis. "We will steer clear of each other, as Will would say, until we can come to an understanding."

"Unless we can help each other," Marjorie answered. "But I don't believe you need to be pulled apart, but only to be let alone to grow--that is, if the germ is perfect."

"A perfect germ!" he repeated. Hollis liked to talk about himself to any one who would help him to self-analysis.

But the slowly moving figures were approaching, the black figure with bent shoulders and a slouched hat, the tall slight figure at his side in light gray with a shawl of white wool across her shoulders and drawn up over her hair, the fleecy whiteness softening the lines of a face that were already softened.

"O, Prudence, how far ahead we are of those two," exclaimed the school-master, "and they are wiser than we, perhaps, because they do not know so much."

"They do not know so much of each other, surely," she replied with a low laugh. That very day Mr. Holmes had quoted to her, giving it a personal application: "What she suffered she shook off in the sunshine."

He had been arguing within himself all day whether or not to destroy that letter in his pocket or to show it to her. Would it give her something else to shake off in the sunshine?

Hollis was wondering if this Marjorie, with her sweet, bright face, her graceful step and air of ladyhood, with modest and quick replies, not at all intruding herself, but giving herself, unconsciously, could be the same half-bashful little girl that he had walked with on a country road four years before; the little girl who fell so far behind his ideal, the little girl so different from city girls; and now, who among his small circle of girlhood at home could surpass her? And she was dressed so plainly, and there were marks of toil upon her fingers, and even freckles hidden beneath the fresh bloom of her cheek! She would hunt eggs tomorrow and milk the cows, she might not only weed in the garden, but when the potatoes were dug she might pick them up, and even assist her father in assorting them. Had he not said that Marjorie was his "boy" as well as her mother's girl? Had she not taken the place of Morris in all things that a girl could, and had she not taken his place with the master and gone on with Virgil where Morris left off?

"Marjorie, I don't see the _need_ of your going to school?" he was saying when they joined the others.

"Hollis, you are right," repeated the master, emphatically, "that is only a whim, but she will graduate the first year, so it doesn't matter."

"You see he is proud of his work," said Marjorie, "he will not give any school the credit of me."

"I will give you into Miss Prudence's keeping for a term of years, to round you off, to make you more of a woman and less of a student--like herself."

Marjorie's eyes kindled, "I wish Morris might hear that! He has been scolding me,--but that would satisfy him."

After several moments of light talk, if the master ever could be said to encourage light talk, he touched Miss Prudence, detaining her with him, and Marjorie and Hollis walked on together.

Marjorie and Hollis were not silent, nor altogether grave, for now and then her laugh would ripple forth and he would join, with a ringing, boyish laugh that made her forget that he had grown up since that day he brought her the plate.

But the two behind them were altogether grave; Miss Prudence was speaking, for Mr. Holmes had asked her what kind of a day she had had.

"To-morrow is to be one of our anniversaries, you know," she replied; "twenty-four years ago--to-morrow--was to have been to me what to-day is to Linnet. I wonder if I _were_ as light hearted as Linnet."

"You were as blithe a maiden as ever trod on air," he returned smiling sadly. "Don't I remember how you used to chase me around that old garden. When we go back let us try another chase, shall we?"

"We will let Marjorie run and imagine it is I."

"Prudence, if I regain my strength out there, I am coming home to tell you something, may I?"

"I want you to regain your strength, but I am trembling when I think of anything to be told. Is it anything--about--"

"Jerome? Yes, it is about him and about my self. It is about our last interview when we spoke of you. Do you still believe that he is living?"

"Yes, we are living, why should he not be alive?"

"Do yon know how old he would be?"

"He was just twenty years older than I."

"Then he must be sixty-four. That is not young, Prudence, and he had grown old when I said goodbye to him on the steamer--no, it was not a steamer, he avoided the publicity, he went in a merchant ship, there was not even one passenger beside himself. He had a fine constitution and he knew how to take care of himself; it was the--worry that made him look old. He was very warm-hearted and lovable."

"Yes," escaped Miss Prudence's lips.

"But he was weak and lead astray--it seems strange that your silver wedding day might be almost at hand, and that tall boy and girl in front of you my brother's children to call me Uncle John."

"John," she sobbed, catching her breath.

"Poor child! Now I've brought the tears. I was determined to get that dead look out of your eyes that was beginning to come to-night. It shall go away to-night and you shall not awake with it in the morning. Do you know what you want? Do you want to tell me what you pray about on your wedding day?"

"Yes, and you can pray with me to-morrow. I always ask repentance and remission of sins for him and for myself that I may see him once more and make him believe that I have forgiven him."

"Did you ever wish that you had been his wife and might have shared his exile?"

"Not at first; I was too indignant; I did not forgive him, at first; but since I have wished it; I know he has needed me."

"But he threw you off."

"No, he would not let me share his disgrace."

"He did not love you well enough to keep the disgrace from you, it seems," said John Holmes, bitterly.