Chapter VI: Part 6

“Pshaw! don't be foolish!” she exclaimed thanklessly. “Followed by father in a light gig, drawn by a spirited horse. Overtakes lovers--demands his daughter--young man respectfully declines to give her up. Old gentleman prepares to come and take her. Is about to descend from gig when steamroller whistles, spirited horse begins to prance, he is obliged to keep tight hold of reins----”

“Very good!” I put in approvingly. “Stern parent threatens direst vengeance, horse cavorts alarmingly, parent rages unavailingly, resolute lover pushes throttle wide open with one hand and retains firm grip upon the helm with the other.”

“While the devoted loveress, with her own dainty hands, shovels in coal and encourages him to stand firm----”

“By the way, that reminds me of something,” I interrupted and, getting off my elevated seat, I bent down and opened the furnace-door; “I rather think I should have given Antaeus his supper before now.”

In truth, I had neglected the fire altogether too long. I hastily threw in more coal, but it was already too late to avert the consequences of my forgetfulness. The pressure of steam was diminishing and continued to diminish in spite of all my efforts to prevent it. Back fell the indicator upon the dial, and more and more slowly worked the machinery as the power behind it became less and less.

“We shall not reach the top of the hill at the present rate,” remarked my companion. “The vital spark appears to be in danger of extinction, so to speak.”

“In very great danger,” I sorrowfully assented as, with one last feeble effort, Antaeus wearily gave up the struggle.

“Nor is that the worst of it,” I added, filled with a sudden apprehension.

“What do you mean?” she asked, disquieted by my manner, though not yet divining the inevitable outcome of the existing state of affairs.

“You had better descend to _terra firma_ unless you want to go back down hill faster than you came up,” I replied significantly.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, comprehending the danger.

“Yes; the attraction of gravitation is going to take us back a deal faster than Antaeus ever traveled before. Shall I help you out?”

“Can't you put on the brakes?”

“There are none; the builders of this machine did not foresee such a contingency as this. It was not to be supposed that Antaeus ever would fall into the unskillful hands of a bungling, blundering amateur,” said I, calling up hard names for myself from out of the depths of my humiliation.

“Don't reproach yourself,” she begged; “it is I who am to be blamed.”

“Shall I not help you out before it is too late?” I interposed, as Antaeus began to gather way.

“What are you going to do,” she demanded.

“Oh, I shall stick to the ship,” I answered grimly.

“But you will get hurt if you do,” she objected.

“Antaeus will get hurt if I don't. Come!”

“No; I shall stay on board, too,” she declared heroically. “Now don't try and persuade me to desert, for I shall not do it. Can't I be of some use?”

Seeing that she was firm in her resolve to stand by me, I gratefully accepted her offer of assistance, which indeed, was of considerable value. It was important that I should keep a firm hold upon the steering wheel, to prevent the craft from yawing, and, unless I were to be continually screwing my head about in a very painful position, I could not very well see the road over which we were traveling. From a position between the coal-boxes behind me--now the front of the conveyance--she could keep a look-out and pass the word to me when it became necessary to correct the deviations in our course. Without her help, it is more than probable that I should have run Antaeus ignominiottsly, perhaps disastrously, into a ditch before reaching the foot of the incline. Even as it was, I had my hands full.

During the ride, which certainly was one of the most disquieting, mentally and physically, that I ever have taken, we said very little to each other. I gripped the wheel, and she grasped the iron sides of the coal-bunkers, between which she stood, opening her lips only to call, “right! left!” or “steady!” as I had hastily instructed her to do for my guidance in steering. So we rumbled and rattled and jolted on down the hill, at continually increasing speed, until at length we reached the base, and I drew a deep breath of relief at knowing that the worst was over.

Arrived upon a level, our momentum gradually expended itself. From an estimated ten-mile rate--which had seemed terrific--we slowed to a five, to a three, to a one, to a snail's pace, and then something occurred which, although not threatening any danger to us personally, filled our minds with the liveliest anxiety for the safety of others. Antaeus came to a stand-still just across the railway track.

“Well?” said my passenger, inquiringly.

“Well,” I returned, blankly, as I pulled my watch from my pocket, “this is--interesting, to say the least.”

“Are there--how about trains?” she queried anxiously.

During the jolting of our forced--and forcible--descent our lantern had gone out; but there was an electric lamp near, and by its light I managed to read the hour upon my watch-dial.

“There is a train leaving the city at ten, due here at ten-seventeen; it now lacks five minutes of that. I must go to the station and report that the way is blocked. I am sorry to leave you--or would you prefer going while I wait here?”

“I think it will be better for you to go.”

“Very well, then; I'll not be long.”

This promise of mine was ill-advised. I hurried up the track to the station, only to find it locked and deserted. It was not the principal station of the town, being one of the half-dozen smaller ones strung at short intervals along the line. In all probability it would not be opened until a few minutes before train-time. As I knew the outcoming train would stop at that station, and thus give me a chance to warn the engineer of the obstruction ahead, I did not feel particularly alarmed at not finding the agent at once. Still I was conscious of some nervous uneasiness while awaiting his arrival.

At last he came leisurely across the street, jingling his keys as he walked. As soon as he stepped foot upon the platform I went to 'him and began to tell my story. I had not proceeded far with it ere he interrupted me with a startled ejaculation.

“Great Scott! The White Mountain express!”

“What? What do you mean?” I gasped,

“New train--put on yesterday--passes here on the way in at ten-ten, and it's more than that now!” he exclaimed in staccato, as he hastily unlocked the station door, and, putting in his hand, seized a red lantern that had been sitting ready lighted on the floor within.

He did not waste any more time with me, but rushed along to the end of the platform, and then began to run with all his might down the track. I succeeded in following him at not too great a distance, although I was turning sick and giddy with all sorts of horrible apprehensions. Visions of a frightful wreck photographed themselves on my brain, the shrieks of the dying sounded prophetically in my ears, and in the midst of it all I was selfishly deploring the fact that I should be called on to pay the damages--at least to Antaeus--and wondering if I could contrive to get a hardware discount off the market price of steam-rollers.

The crossing was still hidden from us around a curve when a shrill whistling broke upon my startled ears.

“T-o-o-t!--t-o-o-t! Toot! toot!”

The agent uttered an explosive invocation to the Deity, and added in tones of despair:

“We're too late; she's onto us!”

Still we staggered mechanically forward, until suddenly, with a cry of warning, the agent sprang aside, and the express went thundering by.

“See here, young man,” my companion exclaimed angrily, “if this is a put-up job----”

“But it is not!” I interposed with indignant protest. “I don't understand it any better than you do. Certainly I left Ant--the roller sprawled across both tracks.”

“Well, I guess it ain't there now,” dryly remarked the agent, watching the rear lights of the fast-receding train, until they were swallowed up in the glare of the “local's” head-light. “I must run back,” he added, recalled to a sense of his duties. “You take this lantern and go and see if the outward track is clear. Stand between the rails and swing the lantern if it ain't. I'll tell the engineer to go slow and be on the lookout.”

In another minute I was at the crossing. I looked up and down the street for Antaeus, but neither he nor the young lady were to be seen. If that Hercules of a locomotive actually had lifted him into the air and carried him off his absence could not have been more conspicuous. But naturally such a feat>could not have been accomplished, nor had it been attempted.

The real explanation of the mysterious disappearance was this. During my absence the fire under the boiler had been getting up, until finally enough steam had made to start the machinery and so the roller had been enabled to roll itself away out of danger.

I was about to start toward town, under the supposition that Antaeus had taken that direction, when I chanced to recollect that with the levers as I had left them he naturally must go just the opposite way--that is, retrace the course over which he had lately come. Accordingly I set out on the run toward the hill. Near the foot of it I found him, diagonaled off the road-side with his nose against a tree, loudly hissing in impotent rage at the unwelcome bar to his progress.

I jumped into the engineer's place, reversed the machinery, and without very much trouble succeeded in getting him back into the road and started on the homeward way. I was putting to myself an uneasy question as to the whereabouts of my passenger, when, to my relief, I heard her voice close at hand.

“Is it all right?” she inquired anxiously; “I feared it was going to blow up or something, it made such a horribly distressing noise.”

“That very noise was a guarantee that he was _not_ going to blow up,” I replied, bringing Antaeus to a stop. “He was merely getting rid of superfluous steam through the safety-.valve. I am very glad to find you again. Will you ride? I think we shall get on smoothly this time.”

Rather hesitatingly she allowed me to help her in. Then, after taking the precaution to add some fuel to the fire, and to inspect the steam and water indicators by the light of my borrowed red lantern, I opened the throttle and started on again.

“Did the train frighten you?” I bethought myself to ask, presently.

“Oh, don't speak of it,” she returned with a shudder; “I heard it coming from two or three miles away, and when it got nearer and nearer and you did not return I was almost frantic. But I couldn't do anything. I don't think it was more than a quarter of a mile distant, with the light gleaming along the rails and making it seem even nearer, when the roller began to move--but, oh, how slowly! I thought I should--well, if my hair hasn't turned gray from that scare it never will do so until the natural time for it comes, I am sure.”

“Well, the old fellow got off in time, evidently.”

“Yes; but with hardly a second to spare. He hadn't cleared the rails of the other track when the train passed. It was a frightfully narrow margin.”

“You were not on board all this while, I hope.”

“Oh, no; that would have been too foolhardy. But when I saw it was making off I didn't want it--I mean _him_--to go careering and cavorting about the country alone, so I climbed up and tried to take command. You showed me how to use the reversing-lever, and it all seemed easy when you were here, but when I was alone I didn't dare touch it for fear something disastrous would happen. All I ventured to do was to take the wheel and keep, him in the road--or rather try to do so, for I didn't succeed very well. My strength was not equal to it. He swerved a little and then got to going more and more on the bias, until at last, despite all I could do to the contrary, he ran off against a tree and was obliged to stop. Soon afterward that hissing noise began, and, fearing an explosion, I ran and got behind the wall on the other side of the street, and then--then you came. I don't think I ever was more rejoiced to see anybody in all my life.”

I resisted a temptation to make a speech, which, however much in earnest I was, might have sounded silly, and contented myself with remarking that I was glad to have arrived in such good time, and I turned my attention to the taking of her--and Antaeus--safe home.

I could not get to sleep after going to bed that night. The evening's experience of itself was hardly a soporific, but there was yet another matter to occupy my thoughts and prevent my sleeping. Should I venture at the next favorable opportunity to put a certain question to a certain person? If I did so what answer should I receive? I hoped and I feared and I doubted concerning the sentiments of the said certain person toward my unworthy self. I revolved the thing in my mind until there seemed to be little else there but revolution. Progress in any direction, certainly there was none. My body was hardly less restless than my mind.

At three o'clock it flashed across me like a revelation, that I was hungry. I had eaten a light supper hours ago, and now my stomach was eloquent with emptiness; while the blood which should be doing good service there was pulsing madly about in my brain to no purpose. I went down stairs and inspected the contents of the ice-chest. Roast pork and brown bread make rather a hearty late supper, but breakfast time was so near I thought I would risk them--and a good deal of them.

Returning to my room, I set a lamp upon a stand at the head of the bed and, taking the first book that came to hand--it chanced to be an Italian grammar--I began to read. I had gone as far in the introduction as “CC like t-ch in hatchet,” when I grew drowsy. I laid down the book, my eyelids drooped, and there is good circumstantial evidence that a moment later I fell asleep, lying on my back with the upper half of my body bent into the form of a bow.

My slumbers were visited by a dream--a nightmare, composed, I estimate, of cold roast pork and brown bread, uncomfortable bodily position, the memory of certain occurrences in my past history, and an event to be described later. In this dream Antaeus figured largely. He seemed to come rolling across the bed, and me, until he had stopped upon my chest and stomach.

“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm. “Do you know you are crushing me? Get away!”

“I dare say I am. I _weigh_ fifteen tons,” Antaeus replied, heavily jocose. “I say,” he continued with a burst of anger, “you are an honorable, high-minded sort of person, you are. What do you mean by treating me so? Have you forgotten our compact? I have given you every chance man could ask for with _her_; what have you done for me in return? Nothing. Even worse than nothing. To faithlessness you have added treachery. Not content with deceiving me, you have sought to destroy me. I suppose you hoped to see my _débris_ strewn along the iron way.”

I was conscience-stricken by his accusations; but I could refute a part of them. “Oh, no! oh, no!” I protested, “it was an accident, I assure you. So far from desiring such a thing, I declare that I cannot even imagine your being reduced to _débris_. I----”

“Bah!” roared Antaeus, and in his rage he began to belch forth smoke--smoke so thick and black that I thought I should be stifled by it. In another moment I awoke gasping.

One feature of my dream was a reality--the smoke. The room was filled with it, and there were flames beside. As nearly as I can guess, the situation on which I opened my eyes had been thus brought about. While I slept the wind had risen and, pushing inward the shade at the open window, had pressed it against the small, unstable stand until the latter had been tipped over, bringing the lighted lamp to the floor. The muslin curtains had caught fire; from them the straw matting, kerosene-soaked, had flamed up, so that now a pretty lively blaze was in progress.

I sprang off the bed, made a snatch at some of my clothes, and got out of the room as soon as possible. After I had helped save everything portable, that could be saved without risk to life, I went and stood before the house in the cool air of the early dawn and watched the struggle between flames and flood. In the midst of my perturbation I noticed something that struck me as being worthy of remark. I had left Antaeus at the edge of the roadway before our gate; now the fire-engine, Electra, had been drawn up beside him. He was maintaining strict silence, but I hoped he was being well entertained, for Electra kept up an incessant buzzing--woman like, quite willing to do all of the talking. At any rate my share of our compact was now fulfilled; Antaeus and I were quits.

In the later morning I saw the young lady. My misfortunes called forth from her expressions of sincerest pity; indeed, she bitterly reproached herself for having been the direct cause of them. When I described my narrow escape from death by suffocation, she grew so pale that I thought she must feel considerable interest in me, although I immediately reflected that it could not be very pleasant to have one's next-door neighbor roasted alive.

By-and-by I told her of my two dreams, and of the way in which I finally kept faith with Antaeus.

“It is a shame that you had to burn up your house to do it,” she commented, “when a brush-heap might have answered the purpose quite as well.”

I thought--or I hoped--that the time had come for making a decisive move with some chance of its being effective. I furtively possessed myself of her hand.

“I should not regret the house so much,” said I, “if I might hope you would deign to extend to me the favor with which Electra has made Antaeus happy.”

This was bunglingly put, but she understood me well enough, although she murmured in reply:

“You have it already; we are--acquainted. Surely you don't want--anything--more.”

But she did not withdraw her hand.

I have just heard that the town fathers contemplate purchasing Antaeus and giving him a permanent residence “within our borders.” If this report be true, I shall use all my influence--from motives of gratitude--to have him lodged beside the engine-house, so that he may be near his bewitching Electra.

WHICH MISS CHARTERIS? By C. G. Rogers

AVING completed his breakfast, Mr. Percy Darley seated himself in a n easy-chair, facing the cheerful grate-fire of ruddy anthracite, placed his toes upon the fender, and relapsed into a thoughtful contemplation of Leonard's letter.

“You had best come, my dear boy,” said the letter. “It is a sleepy little town--one of those idyllic Acadian places of which you used to rave when you were tired of the city and fretful at her ways. We can smoke our pipes and chat over the old days, before a fire in my big, old-fashioned grate. There is a noble stretch of clear ice here now. Our little river is frozen over, solid and safe, and the darkest prospects do not foreshadow another fall of snow for a fortnight. The sleighing is superb; and, as Madeline Bridges says, 'the nights are splendid.' Pack up your traps and come.”

The invitation was an alluring one, thought Darley. His head ached, and his heart was sick of the everlasting round of parties and calls and suppers. What a vision of beatific rest that idea of a chat over old times! Ah, dear old times of childhood and youth, when our tears are as ephemeral as our spendthrift dimes!

There seemed to be only one rational preclusion--to wit, Miss Charteris. Not that he thought Miss Charteris would personally object to his absence, but, rather, that _he_ had an objection to leaving Miss Charteris. Miss Charteris was an heiress, and a handsome woman; to be brief, Miss Charteris being rich, and our friend Darley having the millstone of debt about his neck, he had determined, if possible, to wed her. If he went away, however, at this period of his acquaintance, when the heiress and he were becoming fast friends, some one else would doubtless step into the easy shoes of attention.

So Darley went down into the city and telegraphed his friend Leonard that he would be in Dutton on the evening train. He thought he should like to see Miss Charteris, however, before going. He walked back slowly along a particularly favorite drive of hers, and presently met this young lady with her stylish little turn-out, looking very radiant and happy on this bright winter morning.

There was some one with her--a fact Darley noticed with no great feeling of pleasure. It was not a strange thing; but, following the course of things as they had been for the past few weeks, it should have been Darley himself. This morning it was a sallow, dark young man whom Darley did not remember having seen before.

Darley explained that he was about to leave town for a few weeks, as soon as Miss Charteris had drawn up alongside the pavement to wish him goodmorning. Then she introduced him to her companion. “A very old friend--Mr. Severance--just arrived from Australia.”

“Dear old Dutton!” said Miss Charteris, looking reminiscent. “You must not break any trusting hearts down there, Mr. Darley; for the Dutton maids are not only lovely, but proverbially trusting.”

“You know Dutton, then?” Darley answered, surprised.

“Oh, yes! I have a very dear aunt in Dutton--oh, but you will see! I spent some of my happiest days there. So did you, I think, Lawrence.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Severance reflectively, “days almost as happy as the present day. Don't you think, Mr. Darley, that a man's best years cluster round the age of ten?”

Darley could not help agreeing to this. All men, provided their youth has been happy, think so. Darley said good-by, and walked on.

Who was this fellow Severance? _She_ called him Lawrence--_Lawrence_, by Jove! There was something in it--rather old schoolmates, too, they had been, and what might they not be now? It was more pique than disappointment which caused Darley to wish momentarily that he was not scheduled for Dutton. However, he must stand the hazard of the die.

His things were soon packed; he also supplied himself with a box of the cigars Leonard and he used to love in “the days that are no more,” and a copy of “Outing.” And ten hours later the train, with a jovial roar, ran into the little town, where the lights gleamed cozily against the snowy background, and the sleigh-bells seemed to bid him a merry, musical welcome.

A short, erect, trimly built man with a finely chiseled face and a brown skin that seemed to breathe of pine woods and great wide, sunlit rivers grasped Darley's hand as he stepped to the platform.

“Well, old man!” exclaimed the brown man, cheerily. “Awfully glad you've come! Come this way! Here we are, Joseph! Step in!”

“By Jove! it _is_ wintry here, isn't it?” said Darley, as he slid under the buffalo robes. “What a peerless night!”

After supper the two men made themselves thoroughly comfortable in great leather chairs before Leonard's promised fire, and smoked and chatted.

“You look just the same, old boy,” said Leonard, scanning Darley carefully. “But the hair is a little thin in front there, and I think I see the growing spot of baldness, as Ike Marvel has it. Did you ever read that great book of his, 'A Bachelor's Reveries?' No? Well, you should. I find it sweetest company. Yes, you are the same old sobersides--a great deal deeper than you look, as the little boy said when he fell into the well. And not married yet, eh?”

“Who, the little boy?”

“No; you, you rogue! I should have thought you would have gone off long ago.”

“Why?”

“A hard question to answer. Are we not always in a condition of mild wonder that our friends have not gone over to the married ranks, when we ourselves have not? However, from floating gossip--that tongue's flotsam--I have heard that you meditate going over.”

“Eh?” said Darley, pricking up his ears.

“Why,” answered Leonard, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, “Beau Brummel cannot pay court to a beauty without the world knowing it! I, even I, have heard of Miss Bella Charteris. She is not the sort of girl, if I may make so bold, that I would have imagined you pinning yourself to. I should have thought some quiet, sober, angelic little woman like----”

“Like who?”

“Well, I was going to say like her sister,” said Leonard softly, bending his head over his pipe as he slowly refilled it. “But you do not know her sister, I think.”

“Why, I did not even know Miss Charteris had a sister!” exclaimed Dar-ley in amazement.

“No? Why, Miss Florence Charteris lives here--in Dutton!”

“Miss Charteris mentioned an aunt, and hinted at some one else whom she said I would see, now that I think of it.”

“Irony, I suppose,” said Leonard quietly, smiling a queer little smile. “Yes, Miss Charteris the second lives in Dutton: a quaint, gray little life, good, patient, and God-like. She is the sweet angel of Dutton. But tell me, Percy, are you in love with your Miss Charteris?”

“I am afraid she is not my Miss Charteris,” said Darley, smiling. “And to be candid with you, Jack, I am not in love with her--for which, perhaps, I should be thankful. However, if Miss Charteris _does_ accept me, which I think is highly improbable, I shall marry her for money.”

Leonard shook his head. “I thought that was the way the wind lay,” he said sagaciously. “Don't do it,” he added tersely, after a pause. “Take an old fool's advice--don't do it. I think you would only live to regret having sold yourself into bondage. That is what it would amount to in your case. You are not built upon rough enough lines, I know, not to care at having your poverty sneered at and constantly thrown in your face. It is a puzzle to me how any man with any sense of independence and honor can sell himself, as some men do; and it is beyond my understanding how _you_, with your fine feelings and high ideal of manhood, ever thought of such a thing.”

This was certainly rubbing it in, Dar-ley thought. But, then, Leonard was such an exceptionally odd fellow, with his one-man-in-a-million code of chivalry and his ethical eccentricities. Still, Darley shrunk at the castigation, because he knew that the feelings that prompted it were sincere.

“But I am terribly in debt, Jack,” he said, almost deprecatingly. “What is there left for me to do?”

“What is there left? The opportunity to fight it out!” retorted Leonard. “Retrench. In a year, or two at most, unless you are _hopelessly_ insolvent, if you live without the profitless pleasures that have brought you to this pass, you can come out triumphantly independent.”

Darley shook his head. “I am afraid I could not stand the strain, Jack,” he answered, almost sadly. “A fellow of your caliber might. How is it, by the way, that you yourself are still in single harness?”

Leonard was silent, gazing in the coals with almost a melancholy air.

“Perhaps I should not say so,” he said at last, “yet you have been so frank with me; but I do not like the subject when applied to myself. However, there is but one answer, which is embodied in that one word that hangs like a pall before the eyes of the young literary aspirant--_refused_. I shall always be single, Darley. Always the same old solitary sixpence, with my rods and guns and dogs and books. Not bad companions, all of them, when used well--faithful, too. Eh, Rosy?”

The beautiful hound addressed raised her head and looked pathetically at her master, rubbing her nose in a sympathetic way against his leg.

Darley felt deeply interested. “What was the trouble, old fellow?” he ventured.

“The whole story is contained in that one word--refused. I never cared for but one woman; and _she_ did not care for me--at least, not enough to marry. Which was, after all, the most natural thing in the world, I suppose. I could not blame her, could I, since I would only marry for love myself? It is not much of a story, is it?”

“On the contrary, I think there is a great deal in it!” answered Darley, warmly. “I think I see that you loved this woman as only men with hearts like yours can love--once and for all.”

“Loved her? My love has no past participle, Darley! I shall always love her! I shall always think her the sweetest woman in the world, and the best! There is no other like her--God bless her! But you are sleepy, old fellow; and even Rosy is yawning and thinks it is time all decent people went to bed. Let us have one of the old-time horns, one of those old camp-fire nips--and then to bed. To-morrow you shall see our little town. By the way, did you bring your skates?”

“Skates! I haven't seen one for five years.”

“Never mind. I have a dozen pairs, and I dare say we can fit you. Do you curl? No? Well, you shall learn. We have the finest rink within a hundred miles. Here's your room, old fellow! Good-night, and rosy dreams and slumbers bright, as Sir Walter says.”

The days passed happily for Darley. The ice was perfect; and though he had not skated for years, his old power over the art came swiftly back. The river was one glaring, narrow, indefinite sheet of incomparable ice. Then there was the curling-rink, of which Leonard was an ardent devotee. It is a quiet, satisfying sport, this “roaring” game, and has peculiar charms for the man who has turned forty. The snow-bird shooting was good, too, out in the broad white fields beyond the town. And one glittering night the pair drove out into the country, and went on a hunt after some depredatory foxes with some farmers. They did not get the foxes; but they had a jolly supper at the farm-house, and an eight-hand reel in the kitchen, which Darley thoroughly enjoyed--more, he affirmed to his black-eyed partner, than any ball in the city he had ever attended.

One morning, Leonard having some business to detain him, Darley went off alone for the customary spin down the river. Skating out of the town and away past the white fields and the farmhouses, he presently espied a small feminine figure ahead of him, gliding quietly along. Suddenly the figure tripped and fell. One skate had come off and flew out to the center of the ice.

Darley sped to the rescue. The little figure in gray made a futile attempt to rise.

“Are you hurt?” exclaimed the rescuer as he wheeled to a short stop.

The lady looked up, and Darley saw the likeness in an instant. It was the other Miss Charteris--not at all like his acquaintance of the city. A rather pale, patient little face, with quiet gray eyes set far apart; a plain face, Darley said to himself. But on second thought he decided that it was not.

“I am afraid I have hurt my ankle,” said this little woman in answer to Darley's inquiry. “I tried to stand up, but I got a twinge that told me something was wrong.”

“Let me help you. Which foot is it?”

“This one,” indicating the foot minus the skate.

Darley lifted her up. “Now you keep the injured member off the ice,” he said, “and I will skate you to shore.”

“It was all my fault,” said the patient, as Darley knelt down and removed the remaining skate. “I would put on these old-fashioned things just because the blades are splendid.”

Darley secured the refractory skate and removed his own. Then he asked how the ankle felt.

Miss Charteris attempted to stand upon both feet, but sat down upon the bank instantly.

“It _does_ hurt,” she said, as if unwilling to admit the painful fact. She looked at Darley almost appealingly, then about her. The nearest house was a quarter of a mile away. Finally she looked back at Darley, with an expression that seemed to say, What are we going to do now, I wonder?

Darley made up his mind quickly. He always did when a woman was in the question. “You can't walk,” he said; “I shall have to carry you.”

Miss Charteris' pale cheeks assumed a rapid flush. “I can walk,” she said, hastily.

“Very well,” said Darley, gently. “Take my arm.”

A few painful steps proved to Miss Charteris that she _could_ walk, at the expense of excruciating agony. So, being a sensible little soul, she stopped.

“You see, it is impossible,” said her knight. “You will have to let me carry you, Miss Charteris. I beg your pardon for not introducing myself. I am Mr. Percy Darley, a guest at Mr. John Leonard's.”

“I knew you were Mr. Darley, but I don't see how you knew that I was Miss Charteris,” said that young lady, looking surprised, and quite forgetting her ankle.

“I have the pleasure of knowing your sister, and I recognized the likeness,” answered Darley, truthfully. “Now, will you allow me? Or I am afraid I shall have to take the law into my own hands.”

“I am not the law,” retorted Miss Charteris, attempting to proceed.

“The very reason that I should become the law,” answered Darley, laughing.

“I think I can _hop_,” said the girl, desperately. She did so for a few yards, and then came to a last halt. Hopping through deep snow proved rather heavy exercise.

“I am afraid you will have to carry me,” she said in a tone of surrender.

Darley picked her up. She was no weight, this little gray thing, and Darley was an athletic young man. Despite the snow, it did not take him long to reach the farm-house.

The farmer's wife was a kind soul, and knew Miss Charteris. She also knew a sprain, she said, when she saw one; and Miss Charteris' ankle was sprained. So, while the injured member was being attended to by the deft hand of the farmer's wife, Darley posted off to the town for Miss Charteris' aunt's sleigh, the farmer being absent with his own.

Darley secured the sleigh, drove back to the farm-house, and his charge, her ankle warmly and carefully wrapped up, was placed in the cutter and driven home. The family doctor had already arrived, and Darley took his leave.

“May I call and see how you are get-ing on?” he ventured as he said good-by.

“I shall be happy if you will,” said Miss Charteris. But the gray eyes seemed to say to Darley, Could you think of not doing so?

“I am afraid you are in love, or on the way,” said this young man to himself as he walked briskly to his friend's house. “In love, young fellow, and with a real woman, not a woman of the world, but a genuine sweet woman, one worth the loving.”

He related the story as simply as he could to Leonard, and the latter listened quietly. But Darley did not observe the odd look in his friend's eyes during the narration, nor did he guess that Leonard was saying to himself, Ah! my young friend, and have you, too, fallen at the first shaft?

“Shall we go round to the rink?” suggested Leonard the following evening, after dinner, as they sat over their pipes.

“I think I will stroll round and see how Miss Charteris is,” said Darley, smoking furiously. “I will call in at the rink afterward, eh?”

“Very well, old fellow,” was all Leonard said.

Darley found Miss Charteris' ankle improved. The doctor had pronounced it a severe sprain, had prescribed some wonderful liniment, and had alleviated the pain.

“But I shall not be able to be out again for three weeks,” said the invalid, plaintively, on the occasion of a second visit of anxious inquiry. “It is too bad; for I think open-air skating the most exhilarating of all sport! It always seems to lift me up.”

“It didn't seem to lift you up yesterday,” suggested Darley.

“No, indeed. I have thought since that I should be very grateful to you, because, if you had not happened along, I am sure I don't know what I should have done.”

“Don't talk like that, please,” said Darley, gravely. It is wonderful the aversion a young man has to being thanked in a case of this sort--at least, his profession of dislike. “I cannot tell you how unfortunate I regard the doctor's mandate,” said Darley after one of those awkward pauses between two young people who fancy, on a short acquaintance, that they have a tender regard for each other. “On your own account, of course, because I can understand how you feel over losing such a chance as the present ice affords; but chiefly, I am selfish enough to say, on my own behalf, because by the time you are able to skate again, even if the ice is still good, my visit will have come to an end; and I had been hoping, presumptuously enough, I know, to see you often.”

“Will it be really imperative for you to return so soon?” said Miss Charteris, working rapidly at the woolen hood on which she was engaged.

“I am afraid so,” answered Darley, with something very like a sigh. “I could not infringe on too much of Leonard's time----”

“Ah! it is not the city which calls, then?”

“No, it is not the city,” answered Darley, laughing, and being angrily conscious that he was flushing. “But Jack is such a dear good fellow, that I know he would not dream of sending me away.”

Miss Charteris' eyes were on her work, and she plied her fingers rapidly.

“Do you know Leonard very well, Miss Charteris?” continued Darley, as the girl did not venture a remark.

“Oh, yes!” The tone might have suggested that Miss Charteris was agitated; but Darley went on, radiant and sublimely ignorant.

“He is a grand fellow--the one man in the world that I would fall down and worship! I think Shakespeare must have had him in his vaticinal eye when he put those perfect words, that immortal eulogy, in the mouth of Antony: 'His life was gentle; and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, '_this_ was a man!'”

The maid came in and asked if she should light the lamps.

“Not just yet. I prefer this twilight. Do you, Mr. Darley?”

“Very much--for itself. It is very satisfying and soothing, and always seems to me like a benediction. But it is very bad for your eyes, and very soon I shall be only able to half see your face.”

“Which will be very good for _your_ eyes. Well, I have done work for today.” Miss Charteris laid the hood away, which Darley had been regarding curiously, and folded her hands in her lap. The action and the moment made Darley think of the “Angelus;” the “Angelus” made him think that it was getting late, and that made him think that it was time to go. The lamps, he said, had come round, and----

“No, sit down, unless you really want to go,” said Miss Charteris. She was remarkably frank, this young lady. “The lamps have not come round; and, on the contrary, I think that my disinclination for them should be taken as proof that I do not think it is time for you to go. Besides, the days are cruelly short now.”

“I find them so,” answered Darley, softly. “Leonard is making everything so comfortable for me that I do not know what I shall feel like when the curtain has rung down. It will seem like awaking suddenly from dreamland to cold earth again. I am sure I shall feel like one of those mountains falling into the sea of dullness that Poe describes: 'Mountains toppling evermore into seas without a shore.'”

“You seem a great admirer of Mr. Leonard,” ventured Miss Charteris. There was just the slightest suspicion of jealousy in her tone, which Darley did not notice. Was it because he had inadvertently attributed his loneliness at leaving to his friend's kindness, and not paid her that little tribute of homage which women love? But who knoweth the heart of woman? Darley longed to tell her why he should feel lonely when he came to say good-by; but he did not wish to garnish such a declaration with quotations from poets. Let a man speak from the inspiration of the moment when he tells his love, or hints at it.

“Admirer!” he echoed, in reply to Miss Charteris' remark. “It is more than that. Just think! We were inseparable for years. I wish we had remained so. No one who knows Jack Leonard as I have known him could help thinking him a perfect man, noble and generous, as he is!”

“We are one in that opinion,” answered Miss Charteris, quietly. “And, next to esteeming a noble man, I can esteem his friend who can speak so unselfishly and sincerely of him, as you have done.”

Darley felt touched--not so much at the words, but at the way in which they were spoken, gently, deeply, as if breathing of sincereness. But he did not distinguish anything beyond that in the grave eulogy to Leonard and himself.

At length the lights _had_ to be brought in, and Darley rose to go.

“You said you felt it unfortunate that I should be unable to skate, because you had been hoping to see me often,” said Miss Charteris. She was conscious of a slight flush, but she went bravely on. In certain circumstances a woman _has_ to be what prudes call bold. “Did you mean it?”

“How could you doubt that I meant it? I certainly did mean it.” Darley was a little confused by this frankness. All true women must be coquettes in some degree, was Darley's creed. But Miss Charteris was hardly a coquette even in a slight degree, he thought. It was not frivolousness that prompted her to speak in this way.

“Because, if you meant it,” continued this charming young person, “I shall be glad if you will come and see me as often as you like, if you will not find it dull.”

Miss Spooner, Miss Charteris' aunt, came in at this moment and spoiled the eloquent look of reproach that Darley gave her niece.

“Did you ever see such a girl!” exclaimed Miss Spooner in her high but pleasant voice. Miss Spooner's speech was emphatic, and endowed with realism. Darley felt like saying that he never had, indeed. “_I_ never did! Going into mourning, I believe, because she can't go out and break another ankle! You wouldn't catch _me_ on that ice! I saw it to-day from the bridge--horrible, shiny, treacherous stuff! Not going already, Mr. Darley? Better stop to tea.”

Darley said he could not stop to tea _that evening_; which meant that he could some other evening, of course, and would be unspeakably happy to do so. All of which Miss Spooner understood; and so she extended her hospitality to him for the next evening.

*****

“Do you know, Percy, I believe you are going to marry Miss Charteris,” said Leonard, quietly, one evening. “_Our_ Miss Charteris, I mean.”

“What makes you say so?”

“I believe you are in love with her; in fact, I know you are. And I hope you will. Nothing could make me happier.” Darley looked the satisfaction he could not speak at this little speech.

“I am in love with her. But I am not good enough for her,” he said, humbly. “I have been a worthless beggar all these years----”

“You can prove your worth,” said Leonard, warmly. “And you _must_, if you marry Florence Charteris. I know you are not worthless; but you must let the good come to the surface.”

“I shall work,” answered Darley, earnestly. “I begin to feel now the approving glow that comes to a man when he anticipates marrying a woman he loves. But why should I anticipate? I have not the slightest reason to believe that Miss Charteris cares a jot for me!”

“Is that true, Percy?” questioned Leonard, sharply.

Darley did not know whether it was true or not. He did not like to be sanguine, he said. No; he had no reason to think Miss Charteris cared whether he went back to town to-morrow. Not an item of which Leonard believed.

“I hope earnestly you will win her,” he said again. “But you will have to retrench. Florence Charteris is as poor as a church mouse.”

“I am heartily glad of it,” said Darley, warmly. “I shall be the man I have never yet been if I win her.”

“Well, you will win her,” said Leonard. “I feel it in my bones.”

So the days went round; and each one found Darley at Miss Spooner's. Even little Dutton had begun to watch with interest the outcome of this quiet wooing of the little lady whom all the town loved. The evolutions of acquaintance had merged rapidly into the sweeter plane of an almost wordless courtship; but as yet Darley had not ventured to speak He felt fearful lest his dream should be dispelled; and yet, though he was not a vain man, he felt that this lovable little woman cared for him. He could not go back to town and leave his love unspoken, however; because if he had done so this little story would not have been written. And at length came the day when he felt that his visit had been prolonged beyond the limits that even close friendship allows.

“I am going away to-morrow,” he said on this eventful afternoon. It was just such an afternoon as that first one which he had spent there. It was growing dusk; and through the window they could see the red lights of home, those terrestrial apostles of Hesperus, punctuating the white landscape.

“I am going away to-morrow,” repeated Darley. Miss Charteris said nothing, but gazed out of the window.

“Why don't you say something?” he burst out. “Have you nothing to say?”

“What should I say? Do you want me to say good-by? Is it such a sweet word, then, that you are anxious that I should say it now?”

Darley knelt beside the little dusky figure in the rocker. How sweet it is to have the woman you love speak to you like this, and to hear her voice tremble, and to feel that she cares for you!

“No, I don't want you to say good-by,” he said, very gently. “I want you to tell me not to go. Can't you see that the thought of leaving you has been like the thought of eternal darkness to me? I love you, and I want you for my own, always, that I may never know the bitterness of good-by!” Miss Charteris turned her head, and Darley saw that the gray eyes he loved so well were wet. She put out one little white hand till it rested on his.

“Stay!” she whispered.

After a while, when the lamps--those horribly real and unromantic things--were brought in, they talked of other matters. But both seemed very happy, and ready to talk of anything. Even the mysterious hood, which was now completed, came in for a share of attention, and the inquisitive Darley learned that it was for a “poor old soul,” as Miss Charteris expressed it, who lived in a wretched little shanty with a worthless grandson, at the other end of the town. By-and-by Miss Charteris said:

“I have some news for you. Bella was married yesterday. Can you guess to whom?”

“No, I cannot,” answered Darley, almost breathlessly. Bella was the Miss Charteris of the city. He did not know whether to feel glad or indifferent, but he was free of the gentlest touch of spleen. A woman will be conscious of a twinge of pique when she hears that a man with whom she has had some little love affair has married some one else. But Darley was not conscious of any such sensation.

“It was very quiet,” continued Miss Charteris. “At least, I gather so from the paper which tells me of it. Bella never writes me, and not even on this occasion has she done so. However, she is now Mrs. Lawrence Severance.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Darley in a superior tone, which testified that he knew something about it. Then he mentioned having met Severance. He had not said anything of the occurrence before, not caring for Miss Charteris of the city as a subject of conversation with her sister, for reasons best known to himself.

“There is quite a little story about it, you know,” continued Miss Florence. “Lawrence, you know, and Bella have been lovers ever since they were so high, and Bella was Aunt Mary Spooner's favorite. When Aunt Mary died she left a great deal of money for Bella when she should come of age, stipulating, however, that Bella should have only a certain allowance till she was beyond a marriageable age.”

“And, pray, what age is that?” asked Darley, laughing.

“I should not have cared to ask Aunt Mary that question. The reason was that Lawrence was the son of an old sweetheart of Aunt Mary's, who had jilted her without any mercy; and so the sins of the father were visited upon the head of the son. 'Marry Lawrence, my dear,' says Aunt Mary, 'if you like, but you don't have my money. Florence shall have it the day you marry Lawrence Severance.'”

Darley started as if stung. “Eh?” he exclaimed, “I don't understand!”

“Then listen. 'Oh, ho!' quoth Lawrence, when he grew up and understood the story. 'So that is the way of love, is it? Well, there are more fortunes than Aunt Mary's in the world.' And away went Lawrence, nothing daunted, to win--what I hear he has won--double the fortune that Bella, in marrying him, hands over to me.”

“Then you mean to say that this--money comes to you; that you are a rich woman, in fact?” Darley's tone was almost bitten.

“Yes!” answered Miss Florence, gleefully, and clapping her little hands. “Aren't you glad?”

“Glad? I hate it!”

“Hate it?”

“Yes, hate it! I was glorying in the fact that if I won you I would marry a poor woman. Now--” Darley did not finish his sentence.

“You must not talk like that,” said Miss Florence with some asperity. “It is very wrong, and it hurts me, although I know I should be pleased. But I know you love me for all that. Money is a very good thing--God's gift in the hands of those who use it well. There is a great deal of good that we can do with Aunt Mary's money. She was very good herself to the poor, despite her unnatural dislike for Lawrence Severance; and I should like her to know that her mantle had fallen on worthy shoulders. You and I shall use this money to a great purpose.”

“But you don't know what a happy thing it has been to me, this thought of winning you and proving my love by earnest work!”

“And need that resolve be dissipated?” said Miss Florence, gravely. “You shall do that. There is a great deal of work to be done.”

*****

Leonard met Darley on his return, and drew him into the light.

“I have won her, Jack!” said the younger man, grasping his friend's hand. “The sweetest and the noblest woman God ever made!”

“I see it in your face,” said Leonard, huskily. Even Darley could not fail to notice the change in his friend's voice. “What is the matter, old man?” he exclaimed. “You----”

“Nothing, nothing, my boy,” Leonard answered quickly. “But promise me one thing: that you will make her a noble husband, always--always!”

Then Darley understood.