BOOK - CONTENTS

CONTENTS

I. Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat
II. The Materializing of Cecil
III. Her Father's Daughter
IV. Jane's Baby
V. The Dream-Child
VI. The Brother Who Failed
VII. The Return of Hester
VIII. The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily
IX. Sara's Way
X. The Son of His Mother
XI. The Education of Betty
XII. In Her Selfless Mood
XIII. The Conscience Case of David Bell
XIV. Only a Common Fellow
XV. Tannis of the Flats



FURTHER CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA

I. AUNT CYNTHIA'S PERSIAN CAT

I. AUNT CYNTHIA'S PERSIAN CAT

Max always blesses the animal when it is referred to; and I don't
deny that things have worked together for good after all. But
when I think of the anguish of mind which Ismay and I underwent
on account of that abominable cat, it is not a blessing that
arises uppermost in my thoughts.

I never was fond of cats, although I admit they are well enough
in their place, and I can worry along comfortably with a nice,
matronly old tabby who can take care of herself and be of some
use in the world. As for Ismay, she hates cats and always did.

But Aunt Cynthia, who adored them, never could bring herself to
understand that any one could possibly dislike them. She firmly
believed that Ismay and I really liked cats deep down in our
hearts, but that, owing to some perverse twist in our moral
natures, we would not own up to it, but willfully persisted in
declaring we didn't.

Of all cats I loathed that white Persian cat of Aunt Cynthia's.
And, indeed, as we always suspected and finally proved, Aunt
herself looked upon the creature with more pride than affection.
She would have taken ten times the comfort in a good, common puss
that she did in that spoiled beauty. But a Persian cat with a
recorded pedigree and a market value of one hundred dollars
tickled Aunt Cynthia's pride of possession to such an extent that
she deluded herself into believing that the animal was really the
apple of her eye.

It had been presented to her when a kitten by a missionary nephew
who had brought it all the way home from Persia; and for the next
three years Aunt Cynthia's household existed to wait on that cat,
hand and foot. It was snow-white, with a bluish-gray spot on the
tip of its tail; and it was blue-eyed and deaf and delicate.
Aunt Cynthia was always worrying lest it should take cold and
die. Ismay and I used to wish that it would--we were so tired of
hearing about it and its whims. But we did not say so to Aunt
Cynthia. She would probably never have spoken to us again and
there was no wisdom in offending Aunt Cynthia. When you have an
unencumbered aunt, with a fat bank account, it is just as well to
keep on good terms with her, if you can. Besides, we really
liked Aunt Cynthia very much--at times. Aunt Cynthia was one of
those rather exasperating people who nag at and find fault with
you until you think you are justified in hating them, and who
then turn round and do something so really nice and kind for you
that you feel as if you were compelled to love them dutifully
instead.

So we listened meekly when she discoursed on Fatima--the cat's
name was Fatima--and, if it was wicked of us to wish for the
latter's decease, we were well punished for it later on.

One day, in November, Aunt Cynthia came sailing out to
Spencervale. She really came in a phaeton, drawn by a fat gray
pony, but somehow Aunt Cynthia always gave you the impression of
a full rigged ship coming gallantly on before a favorable wind.

That was a Jonah day for us all through. Everything had gone
wrong. Ismay had spilled grease on her velvet coat, and the fit
of the new blouse I was making was hopelessly askew, and the
kitchen stove smoked and the bread was sour. Moreover, Huldah
Jane Keyson, our tried and trusty old family nurse and cook and
general "boss," had what she called the "realagy" in her
shoulder; and, though Huldah Jane is as good an old creature as
ever lived, when she has the "realagy" other people who are in
the house want to get out of it and, if they can't, feel about as
comfortable as St. Lawrence on his gridiron.

And on top of this came Aunt Cynthia's call and request.

"Dear me," said Aunt Cynthia, sniffing, "don't I smell smoke?
You girls must manage your range very badly. Mine never smokes.
But it is no more than one might expect when two girls try to
keep house without a man about the place."

"We get along very well without a man about the place," I said
loftily. Max hadn't been in for four whole days and, though
nobody wanted to see him particularly, I couldn't help wondering
why. "Men are nuisances."

"I dare say you would like to pretend you think so," said Aunt
Cynthia, aggravatingly. "But no woman ever does really think so,
you know. I imagine that pretty Anne Shirley, who is visiting
Ella Kimball, doesn't. I saw her and Dr. Irving out walking this
afternoon, looking very well satisfied with themselves. If you
dilly-dally much longer, Sue, you will let Max slip through your
fingers yet."

That was a tactful thing to say to ME, who had refused Max Irving
so often that I had lost count. I was furious, and so I smiled
most sweetly on my maddening aunt.

"Dear Aunt, how amusing of you," I said, smoothly. "You talk as
if I wanted Max."

"So you do," said Aunt Cynthia.

"If so, why should I have refused him time and again?" I asked,
smilingly. Right well Aunt Cynthia knew I had. Max always told
her.

"Goodness alone knows why," said Aunt Cynthia, "but you may do it
once too often and find yourself taken at your word. There is
something very fascinating about this Anne Shirley."

"Indeed there is," I assented. "She has the loveliest eyes I
ever saw. She would be just the wife for Max, and I hope he will
marry her."

"Humph," said Aunt Cynthia. "Well, I won't entice you into
telling any more fibs. And I didn't drive out here to-day in all
this wind to talk sense into you concerning Max. I'm going to
Halifax for two months and I want you to take charge of Fatima
for me, while I am away."

"Fatima!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. I don't dare to trust her with the servants. Mind you
always warm her milk before you give it to her, and don't on any
account let her run out of doors."

I looked at Ismay and Ismay looked at me. We knew we were in for
it. To refuse would mortally offend Aunt Cynthia. Besides, if I
betrayed any unwillingness, Aunt Cynthia would be sure to put it
down to grumpiness over what she had said about Max, and rub it
in for years. But I ventured to ask, "What if anything happens
to her while you are away?"

"It is to prevent that, I'm leaving her with you," said Aunt
Cynthia. "You simply must not let anything happen to her. It
will do you good to have a little responsibility. And you will
have a chance to find out what an adorable creature Fatima really
is. Well, that is all settled. I'll send Fatima out to-morrow."

"You can take care of that horrid Fatima beast yourself," said
Ismay, when the door closed behind Aunt Cynthia. "I won't touch
her with a yard-stick. You had no business to say we'd take
her."

"Did I say we would take her?" I demanded, crossly. "Aunt
Cynthia took our consent for granted. And you know, as well as I
do, we couldn't have refused. So what is the use of being
grouchy?"

"If anything happens to her Aunt Cynthia will hold us
responsible," said Ismay darkly.

"Do you think Anne Shirley is really engaged to Gilbert Blythe?"
I asked curiously.

"I've heard that she was," said Ismay, absently. "Does she eat
anything but milk? Will it do to give her mice?"

"Oh, I guess so. But do you think Max has really fallen in love
with her?"

"I dare say. What a relief it will be for you if he has."

"Oh, of course," I said, frostily. "Anne Shirley or Anne Anybody
Else, is perfectly welcome to Max if she wants him. _I_
certainly do not. Ismay Meade, if that stove doesn't stop
smoking I shall fly into bits. This is a detestable day. I hate
that creature!"

"Oh, you shouldn't talk like that, when you don't even know her,"
protested Ismay. "Every one says Anne Shirley is lovely--"

"I was talking about Fatima," I cried in a rage.

"Oh!" said Ismay.

Ismay is stupid at times. I thought the way she said "Oh" was
inexcusably stupid.

Fatima arrived the next day. Max brought her out in a covered
basket, lined with padded crimson satin. Max likes cats and Aunt
Cynthia. He explained how we were to treat Fatima and when Ismay
had gone out of the room--Ismay always went out of the room when
she knew I particularly wanted her to remain--he proposed to me
again. Of course I said no, as usual, but I was rather pleased.
Max had been proposing to me about every two months for two
years. Sometimes, as in this case, he went three months, and
then I always wondered why. I concluded that he could not be
really interested in Anne Shirley, and I was relieved. I didn't
want to marry Max but it was pleasant and convenient to have him
around, and we would miss him dreadfully if any other girl
snapped him up. He was so useful and always willing to do
anything for us--nail a shingle on the roof, drive us to town,
put down carpets--in short, a very present help in all our
troubles.

So I just beamed on him when I said no. Max began counting on
his fingers. When he got as far as eight he shook his head and
began over again.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I'm trying to count up how many times I have proposed to you,"
he said. "But I can't remember whether I asked you to marry me
that day we dug up the garden or not. If I did it makes--"

"No, you didn't," I interrupted.

"Well, that makes it eleven," said Max reflectively. "Pretty
near the limit, isn't it? My manly pride will not allow me to
propose to the same girl more than twelve times. So the next
time will be the last, Sue darling."

"Oh," I said, a trifle flatly. I forgot to resent his calling me
darling. I wondered if things wouldn't be rather dull when Max
gave up proposing to me. It was the only excitement I had. But
of course it would be best--and he couldn't go on at it forever,
so, by the way of gracefully dismissing the subject, I asked him
what Miss Shirley was like.

"Very sweet girl," said Max. "You know I always admired those
gray-eyed girls with that splendid Titian hair."

I am dark, with brown eyes. Just then I detested Max. I got up
and said I was going to get some milk for Fatima.

I found Ismay in a rage in the kitchen. She had been up in the
garret, and a mouse had run across her foot. Mice always get on
Ismay's nerves.

"We need a cat badly enough," she fumed, "but not a useless,
pampered thing, like Fatima. That garret is literally swarming
with mice. You'll not catch me going up there again."

Fatima did not prove such a nuisance as we had feared. Huldah
Jane liked her, and Ismay, in spite of her declaration that she
would have nothing to do with her, looked after her comfort
scrupulously. She even used to get up in the middle of the night
and go out to see if Fatima was warm. Max came in every day and,
being around, gave us good advice.

Then one day, about three weeks after Aunt Cynthia's departure,
Fatima disappeared--just simply disappeared as if she had been
dissolved into thin air. We left her one afternoon, curled up
asleep in her basket by the fire, under Huldah Jane's eye, while
we went out to make a call. When we came home Fatima was gone.

Huldah Jane wept and was as one whom the gods had made mad. She
vowed that she had never let Fatima out of her sight the whole
time, save once for three minutes when she ran up to the garret
for some summer savory. When she came back the kitchen door had
blown open and Fatima had vanished.

Ismay and I were frantic. We ran about the garden and through
the out-houses, and the woods behind the house, like wild
creatures, calling Fatima, but in vain. Then Ismay sat down on
the front doorsteps and cried.

"She has got out and she'll catch her death of cold and Aunt
Cynthia will never forgive us."

"I'm going for Max," I declared. So I did, through the spruce
woods and over the field as fast as my feet could carry me,
thanking my stars that there was a Max to go to in such a
predicament.

Max came over and we had another search, but without result.
Days passed, but we did not find Fatima. I would certainly have
gone crazy had it not been for Max. He was worth his weight in
gold during the awful week that followed. We did not dare
advertise, lest Aunt Cynthia should see it; but we inquired far
and wide for a white Persian cat with a blue spot on its tail,
and offered a reward for it; but nobody had seen it, although
people kept coming to the house, night and day, with every kind
of a cat in baskets, wanting to know if it was the one we had
lost.

"We shall never see Fatima again," I said hopelessly to Max and
Ismay one afternoon. I had just turned away an old woman with a
big, yellow tommy which she insisted must be ours--"cause it kem
to our place, mem, a-yowling fearful, mem, and it don't belong to
nobody not down Grafton way, mem."

"I'm afraid you won't," said Max. "She must have perished from
exposure long ere this."

"Aunt Cynthia will never forgive us," said Ismay, dismally. "I
had a presentiment of trouble the moment that cat came to this
house."

We had never heard of this presentiment before, but Ismay is good
at having presentiments--after things happen.

"What shall we do?" I demanded, helplessly. "Max, can't you find
some way out of this scrape for us?"

"Advertise in the Charlottetown papers for a white Persian cat,"
suggested Max. "Some one may have one for sale. If so, you must
buy it, and palm it off on your good Aunt as Fatima. She's very
short-sighted, so it will be quite possible."

"But Fatima has a blue spot on her tail," I said.

"You must advertise for a cat with a blue spot on its tail," said
Max.

"It will cost a pretty penny," said Ismay dolefully. "Fatima was
valued at one hundred dollars."

"We must take the money we have been saving for our new furs," I
said sorrowfully. "There is no other way out of it. It will
cost us a good deal more if we lose Aunt Cynthia's favor. She is
quite capable of believing that we have made away with Fatima
deliberately and with malice aforethought."

So we advertised. Max went to town and had the notice inserted
in the most important daily. We asked any one who had a white
Persian cat, with a blue spot on the tip of its tail, to dispose
of, to communicate with M. I., care of the _Enterprise_.

We really did not have much hope that anything would come of it,
so we were surprised and delighted over the letter Max brought
home from town four days later. It was a type-written screed
from Halifax stating that the writer had for sale a white Persian
cat answering to our description. The price was a hundred and
ten dollars, and, if M. I. cared to go to Halifax and inspect the
animal, it would be found at 110 Hollis Street, by inquiring for
"Persian."

"Temper your joy, my friends," said Ismay, gloomily. "The cat
may not suit. The blue spot may be too big or too small or not
in the right place. I consistently refuse to believe that any
good thing can come out of this deplorable affair."

Just at this moment there was a knock at the door and I hurried
out. The postmaster's boy was there with a telegram. I tore it
open, glanced at it, and dashed back into the room.

"What is it now?" cried Ismay, beholding my face.

I held out the telegram. It was from Aunt Cynthia. She had
wired us to send Fatima to Halifax by express immediately.

For the first time Max did not seem ready to rush into the breach
with a suggestion. It was I who spoke first.

"Max," I said, imploringly, "you'll see us through this, won't
you? Neither Ismay nor I can rush off to Halifax at once. You
must go to-morrow morning. Go right to 110 Hollis Street and ask
for 'Persian.' If the cat looks enough like Fatima, buy it and
take it to Aunt Cynthia. If it doesn't--but it must! You'll go,
won't you?"

"That depends," said Max.

I stared at him. This was so unlike Max.

"You are sending me on a nasty errand," he said, coolly. "How do
I know that Aunt Cynthia will be deceived after all, even if she
be short-sighted. Buying a cat in a joke is a huge risk. And if
she should see through the scheme I shall be in a pretty mess."

"Oh, Max," I said, on the verge of tears.

"Of course," said Max, looking meditatively into the fire, "if I
were really one of the family, or had any reasonable prospect of
being so, I would not mind so much. It would be all in the day's
work then. But as it is--"

Ismay got up and went out of the room.

"Oh, Max, please," I said.

"Will you marry me, Sue?" demanded Max sternly. "If you will
agree, I'll go to Halifax and beard the lion in his den
unflinchingly. If necessary, I will take a black street cat to
Aunt Cynthia, and swear that it is Fatima. I'll get you out of
the scrape, if I have to prove that you never had Fatima, that
she is safe in your possession at the present time, and that
there never was such an animal as Fatima anyhow. I'll do
anything, say anything--but it must be for my future wife."

"Will nothing else content you?" I said helplessly.

"Nothing."

I thought hard. Of course Max was acting abominably--but--but--
he was really a dear fellow--and this was the twelfth time--and
there was Anne Shirley! I knew in my secret soul that life would
be a dreadfully dismal thing if Max were not around somewhere.
Besides, I would have married him long ago had not Aunt Cynthia
thrown us so pointedly at each other's heads ever since he came
to Spencervale.

"Very well," I said crossly.

Max left for Halifax in the morning. Next day we got a wire
saying it was all right. The evening of the following day he was
back in Spencervale. Ismay and I put him in a chair and glared
at him impatiently.

Max began to laugh and laughed until he turned blue.

"I am glad it is so amusing," said Ismay severely. "If Sue and I
could see the joke it might be more so."

"Dear little girls, have patience with me," implored Max. "If
you knew what it cost me to keep a straight face in Halifax you
would forgive me for breaking out now."

"We forgive you--but for pity's sake tell us all about it," I
cried.

"Well, as soon as I arrived in Halifax I hurried to 110 Hollis
Street, but--see here! Didn't you tell me your Aunt's address
was 10 Pleasant Street?"

"So it is."

"'T isn't. You look at the address on a telegram next time you
get one. She went a week ago to visit another friend who lives
at 110 Hollis."

"Max!"

"It's a fact. I rang the bell, and was just going to ask the
maid for 'Persian' when your Aunt Cynthia herself came through
the hall and pounced on me."

"'Max,' she said, 'have you brought Fatima?'

"'No,' I answered, trying to adjust my wits to this new
development as she towed me into the library. 'No, I--I--just
came to Halifax on a little matter of business.'

"'Dear me,' said Aunt Cynthia, crossly, 'I don't know what those
girls mean. I wired them to send Fatima at once. And she has
not come yet and I am expecting a call every minute from some one
who wants to buy her.'

"'Oh!' I murmured, mining deeper every minute.

"'Yes,' went on your aunt, 'there is an advertisement in the
Charlottetown _Enterprise_ for a Persian cat, and I answered it.
Fatima is really quite a charge, you know--and so apt to die and
be a dead loss,'--did your aunt mean a pun, girls?--'and so,
although I am considerably attached to her, I have decided to
part with her.'

"By this time I had got my second wind, and I promptly decided
that a judicious mixture of the truth was the thing required.

"'Well, of all the curious coincidences,' I exclaimed. 'Why,
Miss Ridley, it was I who advertised for a Persian cat--on Sue's
behalf. She and Ismay have decided that they want a cat like
Fatima for themselves.'

"You should have seen how she beamed. She said she knew you
always really liked cats, only you would never own up to it. We
clinched the dicker then and there. I passed her over your
hundred and ten dollars--she took the money without turning a
hair--and now you are the joint owners of Fatima. Good luck to
your bargain!"

"Mean old thing," sniffed Ismay. She meant Aunt Cynthia, and,
remembering our shabby furs, I didn't disagree with her.

"But there is no Fatima," I said, dubiously. "How shall we
account for her when Aunt Cynthia comes home?"

"Well, your aunt isn't coming home for a month yet. When she
comes you will have to tell her that the cat--is lost--but you
needn't say WHEN it happened. As for the rest, Fatima is your
property now, so Aunt Cynthia can't grumble. But she will have a
poorer opinion than ever of your fitness to run a house alone."

When Max left I went to the window to watch him down the path.
He was really a handsome fellow, and I was proud of him. At the
gate he turned to wave me good-by, and, as he did, he glanced
upward. Even at that distance I saw the look of amazement on his
face. Then he came bolting back.

"Ismay, the house is on fire!" I shrieked, as I flew to the door.

"Sue," cried Max, "I saw Fatima, or her ghost, at the garret
window a moment ago!"

"Nonsense!" I cried. But Ismay was already half way up the
stairs and we followed. Straight to the garret we rushed. There
sat Fatima, sleek and complacent, sunning herself in the window.

Max laughed until the rafters rang.

"She can't have been up here all this time," I protested, half
tearfully. "We would have heard her meowing."

"But you didn't," said Max.

"She would have died of the cold," declared Ismay.

"But she hasn't," said Max.

"Or starved," I cried.

"The place is alive with mice," said Max. "No, girls, there is
no doubt the cat has been here the whole fortnight. She must
have followed Huldah Jane up here, unobserved, that day. It's a
wonder you didn't hear her crying--if she did cry. But perhaps
she didn't, and, of course, you sleep downstairs. To think you
never thought of looking here for her!"

"It has cost us over a hundred dollars," said Ismay, with a
malevolent glance at the sleek Fatima.

"It has cost me more than that," I said, as I turned to the
stairway.

Max held me back for an instant, while Ismay and Fatima pattered
down.

"Do you think it has cost too much, Sue?" he whispered.

I looked at him sideways. He was really a dear. Niceness fairly
exhaled from him.

"No-o-o," I said, "but when we are married you will have to take
care of Fatima, _I_ won't."

"Dear Fatima," said Max gratefully.

II.

II. THE MATERALIZING OF CECIL

It had never worried me in the least that I wasn't married,
although everybody in Avonlea pitied old maids; but it DID worry
me, and I frankly confess it, that I had never had a chance to
be. Even Nancy, my old nurse and servant, knew that, and pitied
me for it. Nancy is an old maid herself, but she has had two
proposals. She did not accept either of them because one was a
widower with seven children, and the other a very shiftless,
good-for-nothing fellow; but, if anybody twitted Nancy on her
single condition, she could point triumphantly to those two as
evidence that "she could an she would." If I had not lived all
my life in Avonlea I might have had the benefit of the doubt; but
I had, and everybody knew everything about me--or thought they
did.

I had really often wondered why nobody had ever fallen in love
with me. I was not at all homely; indeed, years ago, George
Adoniram Maybrick had written a poem addressed to me, in which he
praised my beauty quite extravagantly; that didn't mean anything
because George Adoniram wrote poetry to all the good-looking
girls and never went with anybody but Flora King, who was
cross-eyed and red-haired, but it proves that it was not my
appearance that put me out of the running. Neither was it the
fact that I wrote poetry myself--although not of George
Adoniram's kind--because nobody ever knew that. When I felt it
coming on I shut myself up in my room and wrote it out in a
little blank book I kept locked up. It is nearly full now,
because I have been writing poetry all my life. It is the only
thing I have ever been able to keep a secret from Nancy. Nancy,
in any case, has not a very high opinion of my ability to take
care of myself; but I tremble to imagine what she would think if
she ever found out about that little book. I am convinced she
would send for the doctor post-haste and insist on mustard
plasters while waiting for him.

Nevertheless, I kept on at it, and what with my flowers and my
cats and my magazines and my little book, I was really very happy
and contented. But it DID sting that Adella Gilbert, across the
road, who has a drunken husband, should pity "poor Charlotte"
because nobody had ever wanted her. Poor Charlotte indeed! If I
had thrown myself at a man's head the way Adella Gilbert did at--
but there, there, I must refrain from such thoughts. I must not
be uncharitable.

The Sewing Circle met at Mary Gillespie's on my fortieth
birthday. I have given up talking about my birthdays, although
that little scheme is not much good in Avonlea where everybody
knows your age--or if they make a mistake it is never on the side
of youth. But Nancy, who grew accustomed to celebrating my
birthdays when I was a little girl, never gets over the habit,
and I don't try to cure her, because, after all, it's nice to
have some one make a fuss over you. She brought me up my
breakfast before I got up out of bed--a concession to my laziness
that Nancy would scorn to make on any other day of the year. She
had cooked everything I like best, and had decorated the tray
with roses from the garden and ferns from the woods behind the
house. I enjoyed every bit of that breakfast, and then I got up
and dressed, putting on my second best muslin gown. I would have
put on my really best if I had not had the fear of Nancy before
my eyes; but I knew she would never condone THAT, even on a
birthday. I watered my flowers and fed my cats, and then I
locked myself up and wrote a poem on June. I had given up
writing birthday odes after I was thirty.

In the afternoon I went to the Sewing Circle. When I was ready
for it I looked in my glass and wondered if I could really be
forty. I was quite sure I didn't look it. My hair was brown and
wavy, my cheeks were pink, and the lines could hardly be seen at
all, though possibly that was because of the dim light. I always
have my mirror hung in the darkest corner of my room. Nancy
cannot imagine why. I know the lines are there, of course; but
when they don't show very plain I forget that they are there.

We had a large Sewing Circle, young and old alike attending. I
really cannot say I ever enjoyed the meetings--at least not up to
that time--although I went religiously because I thought it my
duty to go. The married women talked so much of their husbands
and children, and of course I had to be quiet on those topics;
and the young girls talked in corner groups about their beaux,
and stopped it when I joined them, as if they felt sure that an
old maid who had never had a beau couldn't understand at all. As
for the other old maids, they talked gossip about every one, and
I did not like that either. I knew the minute my back was turned
they would fasten into me and hint that I used hair-dye and
declare it was perfectly ridiculous for a woman of FIFTY to wear
a pink muslin dress with lace-trimmed frills.

There was a full attendance that day, for we were getting ready
for a sale of fancy work in aid of parsonage repairs. The young
girls were merrier and noisier than usual. Wilhelmina Mercer was
there, and she kept them going. The Mercers were quite new to
Avonlea, having come here only two months previously.

I was sitting by the window and Wilhelmina Mercer, Maggie
Henderson, Susette Cross and Georgie Hall were in a little group
just before me. I wasn't listening to their chatter at all, but
presently Georgie exclaimed teasingly:

"Miss Charlotte is laughing at us. I suppose she thinks we are
awfully silly to be talking about beaux."

The truth was that I was simply smiling over some very pretty
thoughts that had come to me about the roses which were climbing
over Mary Gillespie's sill. I meant to inscribe them in the
little blank book when I went home. Georgie's speech brought me
back to harsh realities with a jolt. It hurt me, as such
speeches always did.

"Didn't you ever have a beau, Miss Holmes?" said Wilhelmina
laughingly.

Just as it happened, a silence had fallen over the room for a
moment, and everybody in it heard Wilhelmina's question.

I really do not know what got into me and possessed me. I have
never been able to account for what I said and did, because I am
naturally a truthful person and hate all deceit. It seemed to me
that I simply could not say "No" to Wilhelmina before that whole
roomful of women. It was TOO humiliating. I suppose all the
prickles and stings and slurs I had endured for fifteen years on
account of never having had a lover had what the new doctor calls
"a cumulative effect" and came to a head then and there.

"Yes, I had one once, my dear," I said calmly.

For once in my life I made a sensation. Every woman in that room
stopped sewing and stared at me. Most of them, I saw, didn't
believe me, but Wilhelmina did. Her pretty face lighted up with
interest.

"Oh, won't you tell us about him, Miss Holmes?" she coaxed, "and
why didn't you marry him?"

"That is right, Miss Mercer," said Josephine Cameron, with a
nasty little laugh. "Make her tell. We're all interested. It's
news to us that Charlotte ever had a beau."

If Josephine had not said that, I might not have gone on. But
she did say it, and, moreover, I caught Mary Gillespie and Adella
Gilbert exchanging significant smiles. That settled it, and made
me quite reckless. "In for a penny, in for a pound," thought I,
and I said with a pensive smile:

"Nobody here knew anything about him, and it was all long, long
ago."

"What was his name?" asked Wilhelmina.

"Cecil Fenwick," I answered promptly. Cecil had always been my
favorite name for a man; it figured quite frequently in the blank
book. As for the Fenwick part of it, I had a bit of newspaper in
my hand, measuring a hem, with "Try Fenwick's Porous Plasters"
printed across it, and I simply joined the two in sudden and
irrevocable matrimony.

"Where did you meet him?" asked Georgie.

I hastily reviewed my past. There was only one place to locate
Cecil Fenwick. The only time I had ever been far enough away
from Avonlea in my life was when I was eighteen and had gone to
visit an aunt in New Brunswick.

"In Blakely, New Brunswick," I said, almost believing that I had
when I saw how they all took it in unsuspectingly. "I was just
eighteen and he was twenty-three."

"What did he look like?" Susette wanted to know.

"Oh, he was very handsome." I proceeded glibly to sketch my
ideal. To tell the dreadful truth, I was enjoying myself; I
could see respect dawning in those girls' eyes, and I knew that I
had forever thrown off my reproach. Henceforth I should be a
woman with a romantic past, faithful to the one love of her
life--a very, very different thing from an old maid who had never
had a lover.

"He was tall and dark, with lovely, curly black hair and
brilliant, piercing eyes. He had a splendid chin, and a fine
nose, and the most fascinating smile!"

"What was he?" asked Maggie.

"A young lawyer," I said, my choice of profession decided by an
enlarged crayon portrait of Mary Gillespie's deceased brother on
an easel before me. He had been a lawyer.

"Why didn't you marry him?" demanded Susette.

"We quarreled," I answered sadly. "A terribly bitter quarrel.
Oh, we were both so young and so foolish. It was my fault. I
vexed Cecil by flirting with another man"--wasn't I coming on!--
"and he was jealous and angry. He went out West and never came
back. I have never seen him since, and I do not even know if he
is alive. But--but--I could never care for any other man."

"Oh, how interesting!" sighed Wilhelmina. "I do so love sad love
stories. But perhaps he will come back some day yet, Miss
Holmes."

"Oh, no, never now," I said, shaking my head. "He has forgotten
all about me, I dare say. Or if he hasn't, he has never forgiven
me."

Mary Gillespie's Susan Jane announced tea at this moment, and I
was thankful, for my imagination was giving out, and I didn't
know what question those girls would ask next. But I felt
already a change in the mental atmosphere surrounding me, and all
through supper I was thrilled with a secret exultation.
Repentant? Ashamed? Not a bit of it! I'd have done the same
thing over again, and all I felt sorry for was that I hadn't done
it long ago.

When I got home that night Nancy looked at me wonderingly, and
said:

"You look like a girl to-night, Miss Charlotte."

"I feel like one," I said laughing; and I ran to my room and did
what I had never done before--wrote a second poem in the same
day. I had to have some outlet for my feelings. I called it "In
Summer Days of Long Ago," and I worked Mary Gillespie's roses and
Cecil Fenwick's eyes into it, and made it so sad and reminiscent
and minor-musicky that I felt perfectly happy.

For the next two months all went well and merrily. Nobody ever
said anything more to me about Cecil Fenwick, but the girls all
chattered freely to me of their little love affairs, and I became
a sort of general confidant for them. It just warmed up the
cockles of my heart, and I began to enjoy the Sewing Circle
famously. I got a lot of pretty new dresses and the dearest hat,
and I went everywhere I was asked and had a good time.

But there is one thing you can be perfectly sure of. If you do
wrong you are going to be punished for it sometime, somehow and
somewhere. My punishment was delayed for two months, and then it
descended on my head and I was crushed to the very dust.

Another new family besides the Mercers had come to Avonlea in the
spring--the Maxwells. There were just Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell; they
were a middle-aged couple and very well off. Mr. Maxwell had
bought the lumber mills, and they lived up at the old Spencer
place which had always been "the" place of Avonlea. They lived
quietly, and Mrs. Maxwell hardly ever went anywhere because she
was delicate. She was out when I called and I was out when she
returned my call, so that I had never met her.

It was the Sewing Circle day again--at Sarah Gardiner's this
time. I was late; everybody else was there when I arrived, and
the minute I entered the room I knew something had happened,
although I couldn't imagine what. Everybody looked at me in the
strangest way. Of course, Wilhelmina Mercer was the first to set
her tongue going.

"Oh, Miss Holmes, have you seen him yet?" she exclaimed.

"Seen whom?" I said non-excitedly, getting out my thimble and
patterns.

"Why, Cecil Fenwick. He's here--in Avonlea--visiting his sister,
Mrs. Maxwell."

I suppose I did what they expected me to do. I dropped
everything I held, and Josephine Cameron said afterwards that
Charlotte Holmes would never be paler when she was in her coffin.
If they had just known why I turned so pale!

"It's impossible!" I said blankly.

"It's really true," said Wilhelmina, delighted at this
development, as she supposed it, of my romance. "I was up to see
Mrs. Maxwell last night, and I met him."

"It--can't be--the same--Cecil Fenwick," I said faintly, because
I had to say something.

"Oh, yes, it is. He belongs in Blakely, New Brunswick, and he's
a lawyer, and he's been out West twenty-two years. He's oh! so
handsome, and just as you described him, except that his hair is
quite gray. He has never married--I asked Mrs. Maxwell--so you
see he has never forgotten you, Miss Holmes. And, oh, I believe
everything is going to come out all right."

I couldn't exactly share her cheerful belief. Everything seemed
to me to be coming out most horribly wrong. I was so mixed up I
didn't know what to do or say. I felt as if I were in a bad
dream--it MUST be a dream--there couldn't really be a Cecil
Fenwick! My feelings were simply indescribable. Fortunately
every one put my agitation down to quite a different cause, and
they very kindly left me alone to recover myself. I shall never
forget that awful afternoon. Right after tea I excused myself
and went home as fast as I could go. There I shut myself up in
my room, but NOT to write poetry in my blank book. No, indeed!
I felt in no poetical mood.

I tried to look the facts squarely in the face. There was a
Cecil Fenwick, extraordinary as the coincidence was, and he was
here in Avonlea. All my friends--and foes--believed that he was
the estranged lover of my youth. If he stayed long in Avonlea,
one of two things was bound to happen. He would hear the story I
had told about him and deny it, and I would be held up to shame
and derision for the rest of my natural life; or else he would
simply go away in ignorance, and everybody would suppose he had
forgotten me and would pity me maddeningly. The latter
possibility was bad enough, but it wasn't to be compared to the
former; and oh, how I prayed--yes, I DID pray about it--that he
would go right away. But Providence had other views for me.

Cecil Fenwick didn't go away. He stayed right on in Avonlea, and
the Maxwells blossomed out socially in his honor and tried to
give him a good time. Mrs. Maxwell gave a party for him. I got
a card--but you may be very sure I didn't go, although Nancy
thought I was crazy not to. Then every one else gave parties in
honor of Mr. Fenwick and I was invited and never went.
Wilhelmina Mercer came and pleaded and scolded and told me if I
avoided Mr. Fenwick like that he would think I still cherished
bitterness against him, and he wouldn't make any advances towards
a reconciliation. Wilhelmina means well, but she hasn't a great
deal of sense.

Cecil Fenwick seemed to be a great favorite with everybody, young
and old. He was very rich, too, and Wilhelmina declared that
half the girls were after him.

"If it wasn't for you, Miss Holmes, I believe I'd have a try for
him myself, in spite of his gray hair and quick temper--for Mrs.
Maxwell says he has a pretty quick temper, but it's all over in a
minute," said Wilhelmina, half in jest and wholly in earnest.

As for me, I gave up going out at all, even to church. I fretted
and pined and lost my appetite and never wrote a line in my blank
book. Nancy was half frantic and insisted on dosing me with her
favorite patent pills. I took them meekly, because it is a waste
of time and energy to oppose Nancy, but, of course, they didn't
do me any good. My trouble was too deep-seated for pills to
cure. If ever a woman was punished for telling a lie I was that
woman. I stopped my subscription to the _Weekly Advocate_
because it still carried that wretched porous plaster
advertisement, and I couldn't bear to see it. If it hadn't been
for that I would never have thought of Fenwick for a name, and
all this trouble would have been averted.

One evening, when I was moping in my room, Nancy came up.

"There's a gentleman in the parlor asking for you, Miss
Charlotte."

My heart gave just one horrible bounce.

"What--sort of a gentleman, Nancy?" I faltered.

"I think it's that Fenwick man that there's been such a time
about," said Nancy, who didn't know anything about my imaginary
escapades, "and he looks to be mad clean through about something,
for such a scowl I never seen."

"Tell him I'll be down directly, Nancy," I said quite calmly.

As soon as Nancy had clumped downstairs again I put on my lace
fichu and put two hankies in my belt, for I thought I'd probably
need more than one. Then I hunted up an old _Advocate_ for
proof, and down I went to the parlor. I know exactly how a
criminal feels going to execution, and I've been opposed to
capital punishment ever since.

I opened the parlor door and went in, carefully closing it behind
me, for Nancy has a deplorable habit of listening in the hall.
Then my legs gave out completely, and I couldn't have walked
another step to save my life. I just stood there, my hand on the
knob, trembling like a leaf.

A man was standing by the south window looking out; he wheeled
around as I went in, and, as Nancy said, he had a scowl on and
looked angry clear through. He was very handsome, and his gray
hair gave him such a distinguished look. I recalled this
afterward, but just at the moment you may be quite sure I wasn't
thinking about it at all.

Then all at once a strange thing happened. The scowl went right
off his face and the anger out of his eyes. He looked
astonished, and then foolish. I saw the color creeping up into
his cheeks. As for me, I still stood there staring at him, not
able to say a single word.

"Miss Holmes, I presume," he said at last, in a deep, thrilling
voice. "I--I--oh, confound it! I have called--I heard some
foolish stories and I came here in a rage. I've been a fool--I
know now they weren't true. Just excuse me and I'll go away and
kick myself."

"No," I said, finding my voice with a gasp, "you mustn't go until
you've heard the truth. It's dreadful enough, but not as
dreadful as you might otherwise think. Those--those stories--I
have a confession to make. I did tell them, but I didn't know
there was such a person as Cecil Fenwick in existence."

He looked puzzled, as well he might. Then he smiled, took my
hand and led me away from the door--to the knob of which I was
still holding with all my might--to the sofa.

"Let's sit down and talk it over 'comfy,'" he said.

I just confessed the whole shameful business. It was terribly
humiliating, but it served me right. I told him how people were
always twitting me for never having had a beau, and how I had
told them I had; and then I showed him the porous plaster
advertisement.

He heard me right through without a word, and then he threw back
his big, curly, gray head and laughed.

"This clears up a great many mysterious hints I've been receiving
ever since I came to Avonlea," he said, "and finally a Mrs.
Gilbert came to my sister this afternoon with a long farrago of
nonsense about the love affair I had once had with some Charlotte
Holmes here. She declared you had told her about it yourself. I
confess I flamed up. I'm a peppery chap, and I thought--I
thought--oh, confound it, it might as well out: I thought you
were some lank old maid who was amusing herself telling
ridiculous stories about me. When you came into the room I knew
that, whoever was to blame, you were not."

"But I was," I said ruefully. "It wasn't right of me to tell
such a story--and it was very silly, too. But who would ever
have supposed that there could be real Cecil Fenwick who had
lived in Blakely? I never heard of such a coincidence."

"It's more than a coincidence," said Mr. Fenwick decidedly.
"It's predestination; that is what it is. And now let's forget
it and talk of something else."

We talked of something else--or at least Mr. Fenwick did, for I
was too ashamed to say much--so long that Nancy got restive and
clumped through the hall every five minutes; but Mr. Fenwick
never took the hint. When he finally went away he asked if he
might come again.

"It's time we made up that old quarrel, you know," he said,
laughing.

And I, an old maid of forty, caught myself blushing like a girl.
But I felt like a girl, for it was such a relief to have that
explanation all over. I couldn't even feel angry with Adella
Gilbert. She was always a mischief maker, and when a woman is
born that way she is more to be pitied than blamed. I wrote a
poem in the blank book before I went to sleep; I hadn't written
anything for a month, and it was lovely to be at it once more.

Mr. Fenwick did come again--the very next evening, but one. And
he came so often after that that even Nancy got resigned to him.
One day I had to tell her something. I shrank from doing it, for
I feared it would make her feel badly.

"Oh, I've been expecting to hear it," she said grimly. "I felt
the minute that man came into the house he brought trouble with
him. Well, Miss Charlotte, I wish you happiness. I don't know
how the climate of California will agree with me, but I suppose
I'll have to put up with it."

"But, Nancy," I said, "I can't expect you to go away out there
with me. It's too much to ask of you."

"And where else would I be going?" demanded Nancy in genuine
astonishment. "How under the canopy could you keep house without
me? I'm not going to trust you to the mercies of a yellow Chinee
with a pig-tail. Where you go I go, Miss Charlotte, and there's
an end of it."

I was very glad, for I hated to think of parting with Nancy even
to go with Cecil. As for the blank book, I haven't told my
husband about it yet, but I mean to some day. And I've
subscribed for the _Weekly Advocate_ again.

III.

III. HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER

"We must invite your Aunt Jane, of course," said Mrs. Spencer.

Rachel made a protesting movement with her large, white, shapely
hands--hands which were so different from the thin, dark, twisted
ones folded on the table opposite her. The difference was not
caused by hard work or the lack of it; Rachel had worked hard all
her life. It was a difference inherent in temperament. The
Spencers, no matter what they did, or how hard they labored, all
had plump, smooth, white hands, with firm, supple fingers; the
Chiswicks, even those who toiled not, neither did they spin, had
hard, knotted, twisted ones. Moreover, the contrast went deeper
than externals, and twined itself with the innermost fibers of
life, and thought, and action.

"I don't see why we must invite Aunt Jane," said Rachel, with as
much impatience as her soft, throaty voice could express. "Aunt
Jane doesn't like me, and I don't like Aunt Jane."

"I'm sure I don't see why you don't like her," said Mrs. Spencer.
"It's ungrateful of you. She has always been very kind to you."

"She has always been very kind with one hand," smiled Rachel. "I
remember the first time I ever saw Aunt Jane. I was six years
old. She held out to me a small velvet pincushion with beads on
it. And then, because I did not, in my shyness, thank her quite
as promptly as I should have done, she rapped my head with her
bethimbled finger to 'teach me better manners.' It hurt
horribly--I've always had a tender head. And that has been Aunt
Jane's way ever since. When I grew too big for the thimble
treatment she used her tongue instead--and that hurt worse. And
you know, mother, how she used to talk about my engagement. She
is able to spoil the whole atmosphere if she happens to come in a
bad humor. I don't want her."

"She must be invited. People would talk so if she wasn't."

"I don't see why they should. She's only my great-aunt by
marriage. I wouldn't mind in the least if people did talk.
They'll talk anyway--you know that, mother."

"Oh, we must have her," said Mrs. Spencer, with the indifferent
finality that marked all her words and decisions--a finality
against which it was seldom of any avail to struggle. People,
who knew, rarely attempted it; strangers occasionally did, misled
by the deceit of appearances.

Isabella Spencer was a wisp of a woman, with a pale, pretty face,
uncertainly-colored, long-lashed grayish eyes, and great masses
of dull, soft, silky brown hair. She had delicate aquiline
features and a small, babyish red mouth. She looked as if a
breath would sway her. The truth was that a tornado would hardly
have caused her to swerve an inch from her chosen path.

For a moment Rachel looked rebellious; then she yielded, as she
generally did in all differences of opinion with her mother. It
was not worth while to quarrel over the comparatively unimportant
matter of Aunt Jane's invitation. A quarrel might be inevitable
later on; Rachel wanted to save all her resources for that. She
gave her shoulders a shrug, and wrote Aunt Jane's name down on
the wedding list in her large, somewhat untidy handwriting--a
handwriting which always seemed to irritate her mother. Rachel
never could understand this irritation. She could never guess
that it was because her writing looked so much like that in a
certain packet of faded letters which Mrs. Spencer kept at the
bottom of an old horsehair trunk in her bedroom. They were
postmarked from seaports all over the world. Mrs. Spencer never
read them or looked at them; but she remembered every dash and
curve of the handwriting.

Isabella Spencer had overcome many things in her life by the
sheer force and persistency of her will. But she could not get
the better of heredity. Rachel was her father's daughter at all
points, and Isabella Spencer escaped hating her for it only by
loving her the more fiercely because of it. Even so, there were
many times when she had to avert her eyes from Rachel's face
because of the pang of the more subtle remembrances; and never,
since her child was born, could Isabella Spencer bear to gaze on
that child's face in sleep.

Rachel was to be married to Frank Bell in a fortnight's time.
Mrs. Spencer was pleased with the match. She was very fond of
Frank, and his farm was so near to her own that she would not
lose Rachel altogether. Rachel fondly believed that her mother
would not lose her at all; but Isabella Spencer, wiser by olden
experience, knew what her daughter's marriage must mean to her,
and steeled her heart to bear it with what fortitude she might.

They were in the sitting-room, deciding on the wedding guests and
other details. The September sunshine was coming in through the
waving boughs of the apple tree that grew close up to the low
window. The glints wavered over Rachel's face, as white as a
wood lily, with only a faint dream of rose in the cheeks. She
wore her sleek, golden hair in a quaint arch around it. Her
forehead was very broad and white. She was fresh and young and
hopeful. The mother's heart contracted in a spasm of pain as she
looked at her. How like the girl was to--to--to the Spencers!
Those easy, curving outlines, those large, mirthful blue eyes,
that finely molded chin! Isabella Spencer shut her lips firmly
and crushed down some unbidden, unwelcome memories.

"There will be about sixty guests, all told," she said, as if she
were thinking of nothing else. "We must move the furniture out
of this room and set the supper-table here. The dining-room is
too small. We must borrow Mrs. Bell's forks and spoons. She
offered to lend them. I'd never have been willing to ask her.
The damask table cloths with the ribbon pattern must be bleached
to-morrow. Nobody else in Avonlea has such tablecloths. And
we'll put the little dining-room table on the hall landing,
upstairs, for the presents."

Rachel was not thinking about the presents, or the housewifely
details of the wedding. Her breath was coming quicker, and the
faint blush on her smooth cheeks had deepened to crimson. She
knew that a critical moment was approaching. With a steady hand
she wrote the last name on her list and drew a line under it.

"Well, have you finished?" asked her mother impatiently. "Hand
it here and let me look over it to make sure that you haven't
left anybody out that should be in."

Rachel passed the paper across the table in silence. The room
seemed to her to have grown very still. She could hear the flies
buzzing on the panes, the soft purr of the wind about the low
eaves and through the apple boughs, the jerky beating of her own
heart. She felt frightened and nervous, but resolute.

Mrs. Spencer glanced down the list, murmuring the names aloud and
nodding approval at each. But when she came to the last name, she
did not utter it. She cast a black glance at Rachel, and a spark
leaped up in the depths of the pale eyes. On her face were
anger, amazement, incredulity, the last predominating.

The final name on the list of wedding guests was the name of
David Spencer. David Spencer lived alone in a little cottage
down at the Cove. He was a combination of sailor and fisherman.
He was also Isabella Spencer's husband and Rachel's father.

"Rachel Spencer, have you taken leave of your senses? What do
you mean by such nonsense as this?"

"I simply mean that I am going to invite my father to my
wedding," answered Rachel quietly.

"Not in my house," cried Mrs. Spencer, her lips as white as if
her fiery tone had scathed them.

Rachel leaned forward, folded her large, capable hands
deliberately on the table, and gazed unflinchingly into her
mother's bitter face. Her fright and nervousness were gone. Now
that the conflict was actually on she found herself rather
enjoying it. She wondered a little at herself, and thought that
she must be wicked. She was not given to self-analysis, or she
might have concluded that it was the sudden assertion of her own
personality, so long dominated by her mother's, which she was
finding so agreeable.

"Then there will be no wedding, mother," she said. "Frank and I
will simply go to the manse, be married, and go home. If I
cannot invite my father to see me married, no one else shall be
invited."

Her lips narrowed tightly. For the first time in her life
Isabella Spencer saw a reflection of herself looking back at her
from her daughter's face--a strange, indefinable resemblance that
was more of soul and spirit than of flesh and blood. In spite of
her anger her heart thrilled to it. As never before, she
realized that this girl was her own and her husband's child, a
living bond between them wherein their conflicting natures
mingled and were reconciled. She realized too, that Rachel, so
long sweetly meek and obedient, meant to have her own way in this
case--and would have it.

"I must say that I can't see why you are so set on having your
father see you married," she said with a bitter sneer. "HE has
never remembered that he is your father. He cares nothing about
you--never did care."

Rachel took no notice of this taunt. It had no power to hurt
her, its venom being neutralized by a secret knowledge of her own
in which her mother had no share.

"Either I shall invite my father to my wedding, or I shall not
have a wedding," she repeated steadily, adopting her mother's own
effective tactics of repetition undistracted by argument.

"Invite him then," snapped Mrs. Spencer, with the ungraceful
anger of a woman, long accustomed to having her own way,
compelled for once to yield. "It'll be like chips in porridge
anyhow--neither good nor harm. He won't come."

Rachel made no response. Now that the battle was over, and the
victory won, she found herself tremulously on the verge of tears.
She rose quickly and went upstairs to her own room, a dim little
place shadowed by the white birches growing thickly outside--a
virginal room, where everything bespoke the maiden. She lay down
on the blue and white patchwork quilt on her bed, and cried
softly and bitterly.

Her heart, at this crisis in her life, yearned for her father,
who was almost a stranger to her. She knew that her mother had
probably spoken the truth when she said that he would not come.
Rachel felt that her marriage vows would be lacking in some
indefinable sacredness if her father were not by to hear them
spoken.

Twenty-five years before this, David Spencer and Isabella
Chiswick had been married. Spiteful people said there could be
no doubt that Isabella had married David for love, since he had
neither lands nor money to tempt her into a match of bargain and
sale. David was a handsome fellow, with the blood of a seafaring
race in his veins.

He had been a sailor, like his father and grandfather before him;
but, when he married Isabella, she induced him to give up the sea
and settle down with her on a snug farm her father had left her.
Isabella liked farming, and loved her fertile acres and opulent
orchards. She abhorred the sea and all that pertained to it,
less from any dread of its dangers than from an inbred conviction
that sailors were "low" in the social scale--a species of
necessary vagabonds. In her eyes there was a taint of disgrace
in such a calling. David must be transformed into a respectable,
home-abiding tiller of broad lands.

For five years all went well enough. If, at times, David's
longing for the sea troubled him, he stifled it, and listened not
to its luring voice. He and Isabella were very happy; the only
drawback to their happiness lay in the regretted fact that they
were childless.

Then, in the sixth year, came a crisis and a change. Captain
Barrett, an old crony of David's, wanted him to go with him on a
voyage as mate. At the suggestion all David's long-repressed
craving for the wide blue wastes of the ocean, and the wind
whistling through the spars with the salt foam in its breath,
broke forth with a passion all the more intense for that very
repression. He must go on that voyage with James Barrett--he
MUST! That over, he would be contented again; but go he must.
His soul struggled within him like a fettered thing.

Isabella opposed the scheme vehemently and unwisely, with mordant
sarcasm and unjust reproaches. The latent obstinacy of David's
character came to the support of his longing--a longing which
Isabella, with five generations of land-loving ancestry behind
her, could not understand at all.

He was determined to go, and he told Isabella so.

"I'm sick of plowing and milking cows," he said hotly.

"You mean that you are sick of a respectable life," sneered
Isabella.

"Perhaps," said David, with a contemptuous shrug of his
shoulders. "Anyway, I'm going."

"If you go on this voyage, David Spencer, you need never come
back here," said Isabella resolutely.

David had gone; he did not believe that she meant it. Isabella
believed that he did not care whether she meant it or not. David
Spencer left behind him a woman, calm outwardly, inwardly a
seething volcano of anger, wounded pride, and thwarted will.

He found precisely the same woman when he came home, tanned,
joyous, tamed for a while of his _wanderlust_, ready, with
something of real affection, to go back to the farm fields and
the stock-yard.

Isabella met him at the door, smileless, cold-eyed, set-lipped.

"What do you want here?" she said, in the tone she was accustomed
to use to tramps and Syrian peddlers.

"Want!" David's surprise left him at a loss for words. "Want!
Why, I--I--want my wife. I've come home."

"This is not your home. I'm no wife of yours. You made your
choice when you went away," Isabella had replied. Then she had
gone in, shut the door, and locked it in his face.

David had stood there for a few minutes like a man stunned. Then
he had turned and walked away up the lane under the birches. He
said nothing--then or at any other time. From that day no
reference to his wife or her concerns ever crossed his lips.

He went directly to the harbor, and shipped with Captain Barrett
for another voyage. When he came back from that in a month's
time, he bought a small house and had it hauled to the "Cove," a
lonely inlet from which no other human habitation was visible.
Between his sea voyages he lived there the life of a recluse;
fishing and playing his violin were his only employments. He
went nowhere and encouraged no visitors.

Isabella Spencer also had adopted the tactics of silence. When
the scandalized Chiswicks, Aunt Jane at their head, tried to
patch up the matter with argument and entreaty, Isabella met them
stonily, seeming not to hear what they said, and making no
response. She worsted them totally. As Aunt Jane said in
disgust, "What can you do with a woman who won't even TALK?"

Five months after David Spencer had been turned from his wife's
door, Rachel was born. Perhaps, if David had come to them then,
with due penitence and humility, Isabella's heart, softened by
the pain and joy of her long and ardently desired motherhood
might have cast out the rankling venom of resentment that had
poisoned it and taken him back into it. But David had not come;
he gave no sign of knowing or caring that his once longed-for
child had been born.

When Isabella was able to be about again, her pale face was
harder than ever; and, had there been about her any one
discerning enough to notice it, there was a subtle change in her
bearing and manner. A certain nervous expectancy, a fluttering
restlessness was gone. Isabella had ceased to hope secretly that
her husband would yet come back. She had in her secret soul
thought he would; and she had meant to forgive him when she had
humbled him sufficiently, and when he had abased himself as she
considered he should. But now she knew that he did not mean to
sue for her forgiveness; and the hate that sprang out of her old
love was a rank and speedy and persistent growth.

Rachel, from her earliest recollection, had been vaguely
conscious of a difference between her own life and the lives of
her playmates. For a long time it puzzled her childish brain.
Finally, she reasoned it out that the difference consisted in the
fact that they had fathers and she, Rachel Spencer, had none--not
even in the graveyard, as Carrie Bell and Lilian Boulter had.
Why was this? Rachel went straight to her mother, put one little
dimpled hand on Isabella Spencer's knee, looked up with great
searching blue eyes, and said gravely,

"Mother, why haven't I got a father like the other little girls?"

Isabella Spencer laid aside her work, took the seven year old
child on her lap, and told her the whole story in a few direct
and bitter words that imprinted themselves indelibly on Rachel's
remembrance. She understood clearly and hopelessly that she
could never have a father--that, in this respect, she must always
be unlike other people.

"Your father cares nothing for you," said Isabella Spencer in
conclusion. "He never did care. You must never speak of him to
anybody again."

Rachel slipped silently from her mother's knee and ran out to the
Springtime garden with a full heart. There she cried
passionately over her mother's last words. It seemed to her a
terrible thing that her father should not love her, and a cruel
thing that she must never talk of him.

Oddly enough, Rachel's sympathies were all with her father, in as
far as she could understand the old quarrel. She did not dream
of disobeying her mother and she did not disobey her. Never
again did the child speak of her father; but Isabella had not
forbidden her to think of him, and thenceforth Rachel thought of
him constantly--so constantly that, in some strange way, he
seemed to become an unguessed-of part of her inner life--the
unseen, ever-present companion in all her experiences.

She was an imaginative child, and in fancy she made the
acquaintance of her father. She had never seen him, but he was
more real to her than most of the people she had seen. He played
and talked with her as her mother never did; he walked with her
in the orchard and field and garden; he sat by her pillow in the
twilight; to him she whispered secrets she told to none other.

Once her mother asked her impatiently why she talked so much to
herself.

"I am not talking to myself. I am talking to a very dear friend
of mine," Rachel answered gravely.

"Silly child," laughed her mother, half tolerantly, half
disapprovingly.

Two years later something wonderful had happened to Rachel. One
summer afternoon she had gone to the harbor with several of her
little playmates. Such a jaunt was a rare treat to the child,
for Isabella Spencer seldom allowed her to go from home with
anybody but herself. And Isabella was not an entertaining
companion. Rachel never particularly enjoyed an outing with her
mother.

The children wandered far along the shore; at last they came to a
place that Rachel had never seen before. It was a shallow cove
where the waters purred on the yellow sands. Beyond it, the sea
was laughing and flashing and preening and alluring, like a
beautiful, coquettish woman. Outside, the wind was boisterous
and rollicking; here, it was reverent and gentle. A white boat
was hauled up on the skids, and there was a queer little house
close down to the sands, like a big shell tossed up by the waves.
Rachel looked on it all with secret delight; she, too, loved the
lonely places of sea and shore, as her father had done. She
wanted to linger awhile in this dear spot and revel in it.

"I'm tired, girls," she announced. "I'm going to stay here and
rest for a spell. I don't want to go to Gull Point. You go on
yourselves; I'll wait for you here."

"All alone?" asked Carrie Bell, wonderingly.

"I'm not so afraid of being alone as some people are," said
Rachel, with dignity.

The other girls went on, leaving Rachel sitting on the skids, in
the shadow of the big white boat. She sat there for a time
dreaming happily, with her blue eyes on the far, pearly horizon,
and her golden head leaning against the boat.

Suddenly she heard a step behind her. When she turned her head a
man was standing beside her, looking down at her with big, merry,
blue eyes. Rachel was quite sure that she had never seen him
before; yet those eyes seemed to her to have a strangely familiar
look. She liked him. She felt no shyness nor timidity, such as
usually afflicted her in the presence of strangers.

He was a tall, stout man, dressed in a rough fishing suit, and
wearing an oilskin cap on his head. His hair was very thick and
curly and fair; his cheeks were tanned and red; his teeth, when
he smiled, were very even and white. Rachel thought he must be
quite old, because there was a good deal of gray mixed with his
fair hair.

"Are you watching for the mermaids?" he said.

Rachel nodded gravely. From any one else she would have
scrupulously hidden such a thought.

"Yes, I am," she said. "Mother says there is no such thing as a
mermaid, but I like to think there is. Have you ever seen one?"

The big man sat down on a bleached log of driftwood and smiled at
her.

"No, I'm sorry to say that I haven't. But I have seen many other
very wonderful things. I might tell you about some of them, if
you would come over here and sit by me."

Rachel went unhesitatingly. When she reached him he pulled her
down on his knee, and she liked it.

"What a nice little craft you are," he said. "Do you suppose,
now, that you could give me a kiss?"

As a rule, Rachel hated kissing. She could seldom be prevailed
upon to kiss even her uncles--who knew it and liked to tease her
for kisses until they aggravated her so terribly that she told
them she couldn't bear men. But now she promptly put her arms
about this strange man's neck and gave him a hearty smack.

"I like you," she said frankly.

She felt his arms tighten suddenly about her. The blue eyes
looking into hers grew misty and very tender. Then, all at once,
Rachel knew who he was. He was her father. She did not say
anything, but she laid her curly head down on his shoulder and
felt a great happiness, as of one who had come into some
longed-for haven.

If David Spencer realized that she understood he said nothing.
Instead, he began to tell her fascinating stories of far lands he
had visited, and strange things he had seen. Rachel listened
entranced, as if she were hearkening to a fairy tale. Yes, he
was just as she had dreamed him. She had always been sure he
could tell beautiful stories.

"Come up to the house and I'll show you some pretty things," he
said finally.

Then followed a wonderful hour. The little low-ceilinged room,
with its square window, into which he took her, was filled with
the flotsam and jetsam of his roving life--things beautiful and
odd and strange beyond all telling. The things that pleased
Rachel most were two huge shells on the chimney piece--pale
pink shells with big crimson and purple spots.

"Oh, I didn't know there could be such pretty things in the
world," she exclaimed.

"If you would like," began the big man; then he paused for a
moment. "I'll show you something prettier still."

Rachel felt vaguely that he meant to say something else when he
began; but she forgot to wonder what it was when she saw what he
brought out of a little corner cupboard. It was a teapot of some
fine, glistening purple ware, coiled over by golden dragons with
gilded claws and scales. The lid looked like a beautiful golden
flower and the handle was a coil of a dragon's tail. Rachel sat
and looked at it rapt-eyed.

"That's the only thing of any value I have in the world--now," he
said.

Rachel knew there was something very sad in his eyes and voice.
She longed to kiss him again and comfort him. But suddenly he
began to laugh, and then he rummaged out some goodies for her to
eat, sweetmeats more delicious than she had ever imagined. While
she nibbled them he took down an old violin and played music that
made her want to dance and sing. Rachel was perfectly happy.
She wished she might stay forever in that low, dim room with all
its treasures.

"I see your little friends coming around the point," he said,
finally. "I suppose you must go. Put the rest of the goodies in
your pocket."

He took her up in his arms and held her tightly against his
breast for a single moment. She felt him kissing her hair.

"There, run along, little girl. Good-by," he said gently.

"Why don't you ask me to come and see you again?" cried Rachel,
half in tears. "I'm coming ANYHOW."

"If you can come, COME," he said. "If you don't come, I shall
know it is because you can't--and that is much to know. I'm
very, very, VERY glad, little woman, that you have come once."

Rachel was sitting demurely on the skids when her companions came
back. They had not seen her leaving the house, and she said not
a word to them of her experiences. She only smiled mysteriously
when they asked her if she had been lonesome.

That night, for the first time, she mentioned her father's name
in her prayers. She never forgot to do so afterwards. She
always said, "bless mother--and father," with an instinctive
pause between the two names--a pause which indicated new
realization of the tragedy which had sundered them. And the tone
in which she said "father" was softer and more tender than the
one which voiced "mother."

Rachel never visited the Cove again. Isabella Spencer discovered
that the children had been there, and, although she knew nothing
of Rachel's interview with her father, she told the child that
she must never again go to that part of the shore.

Rachel shed many a bitter tear in secret over this command; but
she obeyed it. Thenceforth there had been no communication
between her and her father, save the unworded messages of soul to
soul across whatever may divide them.

David Spencer's invitation to his daughter's wedding was sent
with the others, and the remaining days of Rachel's maidenhood
slipped away in a whirl of preparation and excitement in which
her mother reveled, but which was distasteful to the girl.

The wedding day came at last, breaking softly and fairly over the
great sea in a sheen of silver and pearl and rose, a September
day, as mild and beautiful as June.

The ceremony was to be performed at eight o'clock in the evening.
At seven Rachel stood in her room, fully dressed and alone. She
had no bridesmaid, and she had asked her cousins to leave her to
herself in this last solemn hour of girlhood. She looked very
fair and sweet in the sunset-light that showered through the
birches. Her wedding gown was a fine, sheer organdie, simply and
daintily made. In the loose waves of her bright hair she wore
her bridegroom's flowers, roses as white as a virgin's dream.
She was very happy; but her happiness was faintly threaded with
the sorrow inseparable from all change.

Presently her mother came in, carrying a small basket.

"Here is something for you, Rachel. One of the boys from the
harbor brought it up. He was bound to give it into your own
hands--said that was his orders. I just took it and sent him to
the right-about--told him I'd give it to you at once, and that
that was all that was necessary."

She spoke coldly. She knew quite well who had sent the basket,
and she resented it; but her resentment was not quite strong
enough to overcome her curiosity. She stood silently by while
Rachel unpacked the basket.

Rachel's hands trembled as she took off the cover. Two huge
pink-spotted shells came first. How well she remembered them!
Beneath them, carefully wrapped up in a square of foreign-looking,
strangely scented silk, was the dragon teapot. She held it in her
hands and gazed at it with tears gathering thickly in her eyes.

"Your father sent that," said Isabella Spencer with an odd sound
in her voice. "I remember it well. It was among the things I
packed up and sent after him. His father had brought it home
from China fifty years ago, and he prized it beyond anything.
They used to say it was worth a lot of money."

"Mother, please leave me alone for a little while," said Rachel,
imploringly. She had caught sight of a little note at the bottom
of the basket, and she felt that she could not read it under her
mother's eyes.

Mrs. Spencer went out with unaccustomed acquiescence, and Rachel
went quickly to the window, where she read her letter by the
fading gleams of twilight. It was very brief, and the writing
was that of a man who holds a pen but seldom.

"My dear little girl," it ran, "I'm sorry I can't go to your
wedding. It was like you to ask me--for I know it was your
doing. I wish I could see you married, but I can't go to the
house I was turned out of. I hope you will be very happy. I
am sending you the shells and teapot you liked so much. Do
you remember that day we had such a good time? I would liked
to have seen you again before you were married, but it can't
be.

"Your loving father,
"DAVID SPENCER."

Rachel resolutely blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. A
fierce desire for her father sprang up in her heart--an insistent
hunger that would not be denied. She MUST see her father; she
MUST have his blessing on her new life. A sudden determination
took possession of her whole being--a determination to sweep
aside all conventionalities and objections as if they had not
been.

It was now almost dark. The guests would not be coming for half
an hour yet. It was only fifteen minutes' walk over the hill to
the Cove. Hastily Rachel shrouded herself in her new raincoat,
and drew a dark, protecting hood over her gay head. She opened
the door and slipped noiselessly downstairs. Mrs. Spencer and
her assistants were all busy in the back part of the house. In a
moment Rachel was out in the dewy garden. She would go straight
over the fields. Nobody would see her.

It was quite dark when she reached the Cove. In the crystal cup
of the sky over her the stars were blinking. Flying flakes of
foam were scurrying over the sand like elfin things. A soft
little wind was crooning about the eaves of the little gray house
where David Spencer was sitting, alone in the twilight, his
violin on his knee. He had been trying to play, but could not.
His heart yearned after his daughter--yes, and after a
long-estranged bride of his youth. His love of the sea was sated
forever; his love for wife and child still cried for its own
under all his old anger and stubbornness.

The door opened suddenly and the very Rachel of whom he was
dreaming came suddenly in, flinging off her wraps and standing
forth in her young beauty and bridal adornments, a splendid
creature, almost lighting up the gloom with her radiance.

"Father," she cried, brokenly, and her father's eager arms closed
around her.

Back in the house she had left, the guests were coming to the
wedding. There were jests and laughter and friendly greeting.
The bridegroom came, too, a slim, dark-eyed lad who tiptoed
bashfully upstairs to the spare room, from which he presently
emerged to confront Mrs. Spencer on the landing.

"I want to see Rachel before we go down," he said, blushing.

Mrs. Spencer deposited a wedding present of linen on the table
which was already laden with gifts, opening the door of Rachel's
room, and called her. There was no reply; the room was dark and
still. In sudden alarm, Isabella Spencer snatched the lamp from
the hall table and held it up. The little white room was empty.
No blushing, white-clad bride tenanted it. But David Spencer's
letter was lying on the stand. She caught it up and read it.

"Rachel is gone," she gasped. A flash of intuition had revealed
to her where and why the girl had gone.

"Gone!" echoed Frank, his face blanching. His pallid dismay
recalled Mrs. Spencer to herself. She gave a bitter, ugly
little laugh.

"Oh, you needn't look so scared, Frank. She hasn't run away from
you. Hush; come in here--shut the door. Nobody must know of
this. Nice gossip it would make! That little fool has gone to
the Cove to see her--her father. I know she has. It's just like
what she would do. He sent her those presents--look--and this
letter. Read it. She has gone to coax him to come and see her
married. She was crazy about it. And the minister is here and
it is half-past seven. She'll ruin her dress and shoes in the
dust and dew. And what if some one has seen her! Was there ever
such a little fool?"

Frank's presence of mind had returned to him. He knew all about
Rachel and her father. She had told him everything.

"I'll go after her," he said gently. "Get me my hat and coat.
I'll slip down the back stairs and over to the Cove."

"You must get out of the pantry window, then," said Mrs. Spencer
firmly, mingling comedy and tragedy after her characteristic
fashion. "The kitchen is full of women. I won't have this known
and talked about if it can possibly be helped."

The bridegroom, wise beyond his years in the knowledge that it
was well to yield to women in little things, crawled obediently
out of the pantry window and darted through the birch wood. Mrs.
Spencer had stood quakingly on guard until he had disappeared.

So Rachel had gone to her father! Like had broken the fetters of
years and fled to like.

"It isn't much use fighting against nature, I guess," she thought
grimly. "I'm beat. He must have thought something of her, after
all, when he sent her that teapot and letter. And what does he
mean about the 'day they had such a good time'? Well, it just
means that she's been to see him before, sometime, I suppose, and
kept me in ignorance of it all."

Mrs. Spencer shut down the pantry window with a vicious thud.

"If only she'll come quietly back with Frank in time to prevent
gossip I'll forgive her," she said, as she turned to the kitchen.

Rachel was sitting on her father's knee, with both her white arms
around his neck, when Frank came in. She sprang up, her face
flushed and appealing, her eyes bright and dewy with tears.
Frank thought he had never seen her look so lovely.

"Oh, Frank, is it very late? Oh, are you angry?" she exclaimed
timidly.

"No, no, dear. Of course I'm not angry. But don't you think
you'd better come back now? It's nearly eight and everybody is
waiting."

"I've been trying to coax father to come up and see me married,"
said Rachel. "Help me, Frank."

"You'd better come, sir," said Frank, heartily, "I'd like it as
much as Rachel would."

David Spencer shook his head stubbornly.

"No, I can't go to that house. I was locked out of it. Never
mind me. I've had my happiness in this half hour with my little
girl. I'd like to see her married, but it isn't to be."

"Yes, it is to be--it shall be," said Rachel resolutely. "You
SHALL see me married. Frank, I'm going to be married here in my
father's house! That is the right place for a girl to be
married. Go back and tell the guests so, and bring them all
down."

Frank looked rather dismayed. David Spencer said deprecatingly:
"Little girl, don't you think it would be--"

"I'm going to have my own way in this," said Rachel, with a sort
of tender finality. "Go, Frank. I'll obey you all my life
after, but you must do this for me. Try to understand," she
added beseechingly.

"Oh, I understand," Frank reassured her. "Besides, I think you
are right. But I was thinking of your mother. She won't come."

"Then you tell her that if she doesn't come I shan't be married
at all," said Rachel. She was betraying unsuspected ability to
manage people. She knew that ultimatum would urge Frank to his
best endeavors.

Frank, much to Mrs. Spencer's dismay, marched boldly in at the
front door upon his return. She pounced on him and whisked him
out of sight into the supper room.

"Where's Rachel? What made you come that way? Everybody saw
you!"

"It makes no difference. They will all have to know, anyway.
Rachel says she is going to be married from her father's house,
or not at all. I've come back to tell you so."

Isabella's face turned crimson.

"Rachel has gone crazy. I wash my hands of this affair. Do as
you please. Take the guests--the supper, too, if you can carry
it."

"We'll all come back here for supper," said Frank, ignoring the
sarcasm. "Come, Mrs. Spencer, let's make the best of it."

"Do you suppose that _I_ am going to David Spencer's house?" said
Isabella Spencer violently.

"Oh you MUST come, Mrs. Spencer," cried poor Frank desperately.
He began to fear that he would lose his bride past all finding in
this maze of triple stubbornness. "Rachel says she won't be
married at all if you don't go, too. Think what a talk it will
make. You know she will keep her word."

Isabella Spencer knew it. Amid all the conflict of anger and
revolt in her soul was a strong desire not to make a worse
scandal than must of necessity be made. The desire subdued and
tamed her, as nothing else could have done.

"I will go, since I have to," she said icily. "What can't be
cured must be endured. Go and tell them."

Five minutes later the sixty wedding guests were all walking over
the fields to the Cove, with the minister and the bridegroom in
the front of the procession. They were too amazed even to talk
about the strange happening. Isabella Spencer walked behind,
fiercely alone.

They all crowded into the little room of the house at the Cove,
and a solemn hush fell over it, broken only by the purr of the
sea-wind around it and the croon of the waves on the shore.
David Spencer gave his daughter away; but, when the ceremony was
concluded, Isabella was the first to take the girl in her arms.
She clasped her and kissed her, with tears streaming down her
pale face, all her nature melted in a mother's tenderness.

"Rachel! Rachel! My child, I hope and pray that you may be
happy," she said brokenly.

In the surge of the suddenly merry crowd of well-wishers around
the bride and groom, Isabella was pushed back into a shadowy
corner behind a heap of sails and ropes. Looking up, she found
herself crushed against David Spencer. For the first time in
twenty years the eyes of husband and wife met. A strange thrill
shot to Isabella's heart; she felt herself trembling.

"Isabella." It was David's voice in her ear--a voice full of
tenderness and pleading--the voice of the young wooer of her
girlhood--"Is it too late to ask you to forgive me? I've been a
stubborn fool--but there hasn't been an hour in all these years
that I haven't thought about you and our baby and longed for
you."

Isabella Spencer had hated this man; yet her hate had been but a
parasite growth on a nobler stem, with no abiding roots of its
own. It withered under his words, and lo, there was the old
love, fair and strong and beautiful as ever.

"Oh--David--I--was--all--to--blame," she murmured
brokenly.

Further words were lost on her husband's lips.

When the hubbub of handshaking and congratulating had subsided,
Isabella Spencer stepped out before the company. She looked
almost girlish and bridal herself, with her flushed cheeks and
bright eyes.

"Let's go back now and have supper, and be sensible," she said
crisply. "Rachel, your father is coming, too. He is coming to
STAY,"--with a defiant glance around the circle. "Come,
everybody."

They went back with laughter and raillery over the quiet autumn
fields, faintly silvered now by the moon that was rising over the
hills. The young bride and groom lagged behind; they were very
happy, but they were not so happy, after all, as the old bride
and groom who walked swiftly in front. Isabella's hand was in
her husband's and sometimes she could not see the moonlit hills
for a mist of glorified tears.

"David," she whispered, as he helped her over the fence, "how can
you ever forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive," he said. "We're only just married.
Who ever heard of a bridegroom talking of forgiveness?
Everything is beginning over new for us, my girl."

IV. JANE'S BABY

IV. JANE'S BABY

Miss Rosetta Ellis, with her front hair in curl-papers, and her
back hair bound with a checked apron, was out in her breezy side
yard under the firs, shaking her parlor rugs, when Mr. Nathan
Patterson drove in. Miss Rosetta had seen him coming down the
long red hill, but she had not supposed he would be calling at
that time of the morning. So she had not run. Miss Rosetta
always ran if anybody called and her front hair was in
curl-papers; and, though the errand of the said caller might be
life or death, he or she had to wait until Miss Rosetta had taken
her hair out. Everybody in Avonlea knew this, because everybody
in Avonlea knew everything about everybody else.

But Mr. Patterson had wheeled into the lane so quickly and
unexpectedly that Miss Rosetta had had no time to run; so,
twitching off the checked apron, she stood her ground as calmly
as might be under the disagreeable consciousness of curl-papers.

"Good morning, Miss Ellis," said Mr. Patterson, so somberly that
Miss Rosetta instantly felt that he was the bearer of bad news.
Usually Mr. Patterson's face was as broad and beaming as a
harvest moon. Now his expression was very melancholy and his
voice positively sepulchral.

"Good morning," returned Miss Rosetta, crisply and cheerfully.
She, at any rate, would not go into eclipse until she knew the
reason therefor. "It is a fine day."

"A very fine day," assented Mr. Patterson, solemnly. "I have
just come from the Wheeler place, Miss Ellis, and I regret to
say--"

"Charlotte is sick!" cried Miss Rosetta, rapidly. "Charlotte has
got another spell with her heart! I knew it! I've been
expecting to hear it! Any woman that drives about the country as
much as she does is liable to heart disease at any moment. _I_
never go outside of my gate but I meet her gadding off somewhere.
Goodness knows who looks after her place. I shouldn't like to
trust as much to a hired man as she does. Well, it is very kind
of you, Mr. Patterson, to put yourself out to the extent of
calling to tell me that Charlotte is sick, but I don't really see
why you should take so much trouble--I really don't. It doesn't
matter to me whether Charlotte is sick or whether she isn't. YOU
know that perfectly well, Mr. Patterson, if anybody does. When
Charlotte went and got married, on the sly, to that good-for-nothing
Jacob Wheeler--"

"Mrs. Wheeler is quite well," interrupted Mr. Patterson
desperately. "Quite well. Nothing at all the matter with her,
in fact. I only--"

"Then what do you mean by coming here and telling me she wasn't,
and frightening me half to death?" demanded Miss Rosetta,
indignantly. "My own heart isn't very strong--it runs in our
family--and my doctor warned me to avoid all shocks and
excitement. I don't want to be excited, Mr. Patterson. I won't
be excited, not even if Charlotte has another spell. It's
perfectly useless for you to try to excite me, Mr. Patterson."

"Bless the woman, I'm not trying to excite anybody!" declared Mr.
Patterson in exasperation. "I merely called to tell you--"

"To tell me WHAT?" said Miss Rosetta. "How much longer do you
mean to keep me in suspense, Mr. Patterson. No doubt you have
abundance of spare time, but--I--have NOT."

"--that your sister, Mrs. Wheeler, has had a letter from a cousin
of yours, and she's in Charlottetown. Mrs. Roberts, I think her
name is--"

"Jane Roberts," broke in Miss Rosetta. "Jane Ellis she was,
before she was married. What was she writing to Charlotte about?
Not that I want to know, of course. I'm not interested in
Charlotte's correspondence, goodness knows. But if Jane had
anything in particular to write about she should have written to
ME. I am the oldest. Charlotte had no business to get a letter
from Jane Roberts without consulting me. It's just like her
underhanded ways. She got married the same way. Never said a
word to me about it, but just sneaked off with that unprincipled
Jacob Wheeler--"

"Mrs. Roberts is very ill. I understand," persisted Mr.
Patterson, nobly resolved to do what he had come to do, "dying,
in fact, and--"

"Jane ill! Jane dying!" exclaimed Miss Rosetta. "Why, she was
the healthiest girl I ever knew! But then I've never seen her,
nor heard from her, since she got married fifteen years ago. I
dare say her husband was a brute and neglected her, and she's
pined away by slow degrees. I've no faith in husbands. Look at
Charlotte! Everybody knows how Jacob Wheeler used her. To be
sure, she deserved it, but--"

"Mrs. Roberts' husband is dead," said Mr. Patterson. "Died about
two months ago, I understand, and she has a little baby six
months old, and she thought perhaps Mrs. Wheeler would take it
for old times' sake--"

"Did Charlotte ask you to call and tell me this?" demanded Miss
Rosetta eagerly.

"No; she just told me what was in the letter. She didn't mention
you; but I thought, perhaps, you ought to be told--"

"I knew it," said Miss Rosetta in a tone of bitter assurance. "I
could have told you so. Charlotte wouldn't even let me know that
Jane was ill. Charlotte would be afraid I would want to get the
baby, seeing that Jane and I were such intimate friends long ago.
And who has a better right to it than me, I should like to know?
Ain't I the oldest? And haven't I had experience in bringing up
babies? Charlotte needn't think she is going to run the affairs
of our family just because she happened to get married. Jacob
Wheeler--"

"I must be going," said Mr. Patterson, gathering up his reins
thankfully.

"I am much obliged to you for coming to tell me about Jane," said
Miss Rosetta, "even though you have wasted a lot of precious time
getting it out. If it hadn't been for you I suppose I should
never have known it at all. As it is, I shall start for town
just as soon as I can get ready."

"You'll have to hurry if you want to get ahead of Mrs. Wheeler,"
advised Mr. Patterson. "She's packing her trunk and going on
the morning train."

"I'll pack a valise and go on the afternoon train," retorted Miss
Rosetta triumphantly. "I'll show Charlotte she isn't running the
Ellis affairs. She married out of them into the Wheelers. She
can attend to them. Jacob Wheeler was the most--"

But Mr. Patterson had driven away. He felt that he had done his
duty in the face of fearful odds, and he did not want to hear
anything more about Jacob Wheeler.

Rosetta Ellis and Charlotte Wheeler had not exchanged a word for
ten years. Before that time they had been devoted to each other,
living together in the little Ellis cottage on the White Sands
road, as they had done ever since their parents' death. The
trouble began when Jacob Wheeler had commenced to pay attention
to Charlotte, the younger and prettier of two women who had both
ceased to be either very young or very pretty. Rosetta had been
bitterly opposed to the match from the first. She vowed she had
no use for Jacob Wheeler. There were not lacking malicious
people to hint that this was because the aforesaid Jacob Wheeler
had selected the wrong sister upon whom to bestow his affections.
Be that as it might, Miss Rosetta certainly continued to render
the course of Jacob Wheeler's true love exceedingly rough and
tumultuous. The end of it was that Charlotte had gone quietly
away one morning and married Jacob Wheeler without Miss Rosetta's
knowing anything about it. Miss Rosetta had never forgiven her
for it, and Charlotte had never forgiven the things Rosetta had
said to her when she and Jacob returned to the Ellis cottage.
Since then the sisters had been avowed and open foes, the only
difference being that Miss Rosetta aired her grievances publicly,
in season and out of season, while Charlotte was never heard to
mention Rosetta's name. Even the death of Jacob Wheeler, five
years after the marriage, had not healed the breach.

Miss Rosetta took out her curl-papers, packed her valise, and
caught the late afternoon train for Charlottetown, as she had
threatened. All the way there she sat rigidly upright in her
seat and held imaginary dialogues with Charlotte in her mind,
running something like this on her part:--

"No, Charlotte Wheeler, you are not going to have Jane's baby,
and you're very much mistaken if you think so. Oh, all
right--we'll see! You don't know anything about babies, even if
you are married. I do. Didn't I take William Ellis's baby, when
his wife died? Tell me that, Charlotte Wheeler! And didn't the
little thing thrive with me, and grow strong and healthy? Yes,
even you have to admit that it did, Charlotte Wheeler. And yet
you have the presumption to think that you ought to have Jane's
baby! Yes, it is presumption, Charlotte Wheeler. And when
William Ellis got married again, and took the baby, didn't the
child cling to me and cry as if I was its real mother? You know
it did, Charlotte Wheeler. I'm going to get and keep Jane's baby
in spite of you, Charlotte Wheeler, and I'd like to see you try
to prevent me--you that went and got married and never so much as
let your own sister know of it! If I had got married in such a
fashion, Charlotte Wheeler, I'd be ashamed to look anybody in the
face for the rest of my natural life!"

Miss Rosetta was so interested in thus laying down the law to
Charlotte, and in planning out the future life of Jane's baby,
that she didn't find the journey to Charlottetown so long or
tedious as might have been expected, considering her haste. She
soon found her way to the house where her cousin lived. There,
to her dismay and real sorrow, she learned that Mrs. Roberts had
died at four o'clock that afternoon.

"She seemed dreadful anxious to live until she heard from some of
her folks out in Avonlea," said the woman who gave Miss Rosetta
the information. "She had written to them about her little girl.
She was my sister-in-law, and she lived with me ever since her
husband died. I've done my best for her; but I've a big family
of my own and I can't see how I'm to keep the child. Poor Jane
looked and longed for some one to come from Avonlea, but she
couldn't hold out. A patient, suffering creature she was!"

"I'm her cousin," said Miss Rosetta, wiping her eyes, "and I have
come for the baby. I'll take it home with me after the funeral;
and, if you please, Mrs. Gordon, let me see it right away, so it
can get accustomed to me. Poor Jane! I wish I could have got
here in time to see her, she and I were such friends long ago.
We were far more intimate and confidential than ever her and
Charlotte was. Charlotte knows that, too!"

The vim with which Miss Rosetta snapped this out rather amazed
Mrs. Gordon, who couldn't understand it at all. But she took
Miss Rosetta upstairs to the room where the baby was sleeping.

"Oh, the little darling," cried Miss Rosetta, all her old
maidishness and oddity falling away from her like a garment, and
all her innate and denied motherhood shining out in her face like
a transforming illumination. "Oh, the sweet, dear, pretty little
thing!"

The baby was a darling--a six-months' old beauty with little
golden ringlets curling and glistening all over its tiny head.
As Miss Rosetta hung over it, it opened its eyes and then held
out its tiny hands to her with a gurgle of confidence.

"Oh, you sweetest!" said Miss Rosetta rapturously, gathering it
up in her arms. "You belong to me, darling--never, never, to
that under-handed Charlotte! What is its name, Mrs. Gordon?"

"It wasn't named," said Mrs. Gordon. "Guess you'll have to name
it yourself, Miss Ellis."

"Camilla Jane," said Miss Rosetta without a moment's hesitation.
"Jane after its mother, of course; and I have always thought
Camilla the prettiest name in the world. Charlotte would be sure
to give it some perfectly heathenish name. I wouldn't put it
past her calling the poor innocent Mehitable."

Miss Rosetta decided to stay in Charlottetown until after the
funeral. That night she lay with the baby on her arm, listening
with joy to its soft little breathing. She did not sleep or wish
to sleep. Her waking fancies were more alluring than any visions
of dreamland. Moreover, she gave a spice to them by occasionally
snapping some vicious sentences out loud at Charlotte.

Miss Rosetta fully expected Charlotte along on the following
morning and girded herself for the fray; but no Charlotte
appeared. Night came; no Charlotte. Another morning and no
Charlotte. Miss Rosetta was hopelessly puzzled. What had
happened? Dear, dear, had Charlotte taken a bad heart spell, on
hearing that she, Rosetta, had stolen a march on her to
Charlottetown? It was quite likely. You never knew what to
expect of a woman who had married Jacob Wheeler!

The truth was, that the very evening Miss Rosetta had left
Avonlea Mrs. Jacob Wheeler's hired man had broken his leg and
had had to be conveyed to his distant home on a feather bed in an
express wagon. Mrs. Wheeler could not leave home until she had
obtained another hired man. Consequently, it was the evening
after the funeral when Mrs. Wheeler whisked up the steps of the
Gordon house and met Miss Rosetta coming out with a big white
bundle in her arms.

The eyes of the two women met defiantly. Miss Rosetta's face
wore an air of triumph, chastened by a remembrance of the funeral
that afternoon. Mrs. Wheeler's face, except for eyes, was as
expressionless as it usually was. Unlike the tall, fair, fat
Miss Rosetta, Mrs. Wheeler was small and dark and thin, with an
eager, careworn face.

"How is Jane?" she said abruptly, breaking the silence of ten
years in saying it.

"Jane is dead and buried, poor thing," said Miss Rosetta calmly.
"I am taking her baby, little Camilla Jane, home with me."

"The baby belongs to me," cried Mrs. Wheeler passionately. "Jane
wrote to me about her. Jane meant that I should have her. I've
come for her."

"You'll go back without her then," said Miss Rosetta, serene in
the possession that is nine points of the law. "The child is
mine, and she is going to stay mine. You can make up your mind
to that, Charlotte Wheeler. A woman who eloped to get married
isn't fit to be trusted with a baby, anyhow. Jacob Wheeler--"

But Mrs. Wheeler had rushed past into the house. Miss Rosetta
composedly stepped into the cab and drove to the station. She
fairly bridled with triumph; and underneath the triumph ran a
queer undercurrent of satisfaction over the fact that Charlotte
had spoken to her at last. Miss Rosetta would not look at this
satisfaction, or give it a name, but it was there.

Miss Rosetta arrived safely back in Avonlea with Camilla Jane and
within ten hours everybody in the settlement knew the whole
story, and every woman who could stand on her feet had been up to
the Ellis cottage to see the baby. Mrs. Wheeler arrived home
twenty-four hours later, and silently betook herself to her farm.
When her Avonlea neighbors sympathized with her in her
disappointment, she said nothing, but looked all the more darkly
determined. Also, a week later, Mr. William J. Blair, the
Carmody storekeeper, had an odd tale to tell. Mrs. Wheeler had
come to the store and bought a lot of fine flannel and muslin and
valenciennes. Now, what in the name of time, did Mrs. Wheeler
want with such stuff? Mr. William J. Blair couldn't make head or
tail of it, and it worried him. Mr. Blair was so accustomed to
know what everybody bought anything for that such a mystery quite
upset him.


Miss Rosetta had exulted in the possession of little Camilla Jane
for a month, and had been so happy that she had almost given up
inveighing against Charlotte. Her conversations, instead of
tending always to Jacob Wheeler, now ran Camilla Janeward; and
this, folks thought, was an improvement.

One afternoon, Miss Rosetta, leaving Camilla Jane snugly sleeping
in her cradle in the kitchen, had slipped down to the bottom of
the garden to pick her currants. The house was hidden from her
sight by the copse of cherry trees, but she had left the kitchen
window open, so that she could hear the baby if it awakened and
cried. Miss Rosetta sang happily as she picked her currants.
For the first time since Charlotte had married Jacob Wheeler Miss
Rosetta felt really happy--so happy that at there was no room in
her heart for bitterness. In fancy she looked forward to the
coming years, and saw Camilla Jane growing up into girlhood, fair
and lovable.

"She'll be a beauty," reflected Miss Rosetta complacently. "Jane
was a handsome girl. She shall always be dressed as nice as I
can manage it, and I'll get her an organ, and have her take
painting and music lessons. Parties, too! I'll give her a real
coming-out party when she's eighteen and the very prettiest dress
that's to be had. Dear me, I can hardly wait for her to grow up,
though she's sweet enough now to make one wish she could stay a
baby forever."

When Miss Rosetta returned to the kitchen, her eyes fell on an
empty cradle. Camilla Jane was gone!

Miss Rosetta promptly screamed. She understood at a glance what
had happened. Six months' old babies do not get out of their
cradles and disappear through closed doors without any
assistance.

"Charlotte has been here," gasped Miss Rosetta. "Charlotte has
stolen Camilla Jane! I might have expected it. I might have
known when I heard that story about her buying muslin and
flannel. It's just like Charlotte to do such an underhand trick.
But I'll go after her! I'll show her! She'll find out she has
got Rosetta Ellis to deal with and no Wheeler!"

Like a frantic creature and wholly forgetting that her hair was
in curl-papers, Miss Rosetta hurried up the hill and down the
shore road to the Wheeler Farm--a place she had never visited in
her life before.

The wind was off-shore and only broke the bay's surface into long
silvery ripples, and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it
from every point and headland, like transparent wings.

The little gray house, so close to the purring waves that in
storms their spray splashed over its very doorstep, seemed
deserted. Miss Rosetta pounded lustily on the front door. This
producing no result, she marched around to the back door and
knocked. No answer. Miss Rosetta tried the door. It was
locked.

"Guilty conscience," sniffed Miss Rosetta. "Well, I shall stay
here until I see that perfidious Charlotte, if I have to camp in
the yard all night."

Miss Rosetta was quite capable of doing this, but she was spared
the necessity; walking boldly up to the kitchen window, and
peering through it, she felt her heart swell with anger as she
beheld Charlotte sitting calmly by the table with Camilla Jane on
her knee. Beside her was a befrilled and bemuslined cradle, and
on a chair lay the garments in which Miss Rosetta had dressed the
baby. It was clad in an entirely new outfit, and seemed quite at
home with its new possessor. It was laughing and cooing, and
making little dabs at her with its dimpled hands.

"Charlotte Wheeler," cried Miss Rosetta, rapping sharply on the
window-pane. "I've come for that child! Bring her out to me at
once--at once, I say! How dare you come to my house and steal a
baby? You're no better than a common burglar. Give me Camilla
Jane, I say!"

Charlotte came over to the window with the baby in her arms and
triumph glittering in her eyes.

"There is no such child as Camilla Jane here," she said. "This
is Barbara Jane. She belongs to me."

With that Mrs. Wheeler pulled down the shade.

Miss Rosetta had to go home. There was nothing else for her to
do. On her way she met Mr. Patterson and told him in full the
story of her wrongs. It was all over Avonlea by night, and
created quite a sensation. Avonlea had not had such a toothsome
bit of gossip for a long time.

Mrs. Wheeler exulted in the possession of Barbara Jane for six
weeks, during which Miss Rosetta broke her heart with loneliness
and longing, and meditated futile plots for the recovery of the
baby. It was hopeless to think of stealing it back or she would
have tried to. The hired man at the Wheeler place reported that
Mrs. Wheeler never left it night or day for a single moment. She
even carried it with her when she went to milk the cows.

"But my turn will come," said Miss Rosetta grimly. "Camilla Jane
is mine, and if she was called Barbara for a century it wouldn't
alter that fact! Barbara, indeed! Why not have called her
Methusaleh and have done with it?"

One afternoon in October, when Miss Rosetta was picking her
apples and thinking drearily about lost Camilla Jane, a woman
came running breathlessly down the hill and into the yard. Miss
Rosetta gave an exclamation of amazement and dropped her basket
of apples. Of all incredible things! The woman was Charlotte--
Charlotte who had never set foot on the grounds of the Ellis
cottage since her marriage ten years ago, Charlotte, bare-headed,
wild-eyed, distraught, wringing her hands and sobbing.

Miss Rosetta flew to meet her.

"You've scalded Camilla Jane to death!" she exclaimed. "I always
knew you would--always expected it!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, come quick, Rosetta!" gasped Charlotte.
"Barbara Jane is in convulsions and I don't know what to do. The
hired man has gone for the doctor. You were the nearest, so I
came to you. Jenny White was there when they came on, so I left
her and ran. Oh, Rosetta, come, come, if you have a spark of
humanity in you! You know what to do for convulsions--you
saved the Ellis baby when it had them. Oh, come and save Barbara
Jane!"

"You mean Camilla Jane, I presume?" said Miss Rosetta firmly, in
spite of her agitation.

For a second Charlotte Wheeler hesitated. Then she said
passionately: "Yes, yes, Camilla Jane--any name you like! Only
come."

Miss Rosetta went, and not a moment too soon, either. The doctor
lived eight miles away and the baby was very bad. The two women
and Jenny White worked over her for hours. It was not until
dark, when the baby was sleeping soundly and the doctor had gone,
after telling Miss Rosetta that she had saved the child's life,
that a realization of the situation came home to them.

"Well," said Miss Rosetta, dropping into an armchair with a long
sigh of weariness, "I guess you'll admit now, Charlotte Wheeler,
that you are hardly a fit person to have charge of a baby, even
if you had to go and steal it from me. I should think your
conscience would reproach you--that is, if any woman who would
marry Jacob Wheeler in such an underhanded fashion has a--"

"I--I wanted the baby," sobbed Charlotte, tremulously. "I was so
lonely here. I didn't think it was any harm to take her, because
Jane gave her to me in her letter. But you have saved her life,
Rosetta, and you--you can have her back, although it will break
my heart to give her up. But, oh, Rosetta, won't you let me come
and see her sometimes? I love her so I can't bear to give her up
entirely."

"Charlotte," said Miss Rosetta firmly, "the most sensible thing
for you to do is just to come back with the baby. You are
worried to death trying to run this farm with the debt Jacob
Wheeler left on it for you. Sell it, and come home with me. And
we'll both have the baby then."

"Oh, Rosetta, I'd love to," faltered Charlotte. "I've--I've
wanted to be good friends with you again so much. But I thought
you were so hard and bitter you'd never make up."

"Maybe I've talked too much," conceded Miss Rosetta, "but you
ought to know me well enough to know I didn't mean a word of it.
It was your never saying anything, no matter what I said, that
riled me up so bad. Let bygones be bygones, and come home,
Charlotte."

"I will," said Charlotte resolutely, wiping away her tears. "I'm
sick of living here and putting up with hired men. I'll be real
glad to go home, Rosetta, and that's the truth. I've had a hard
enough time. I s'pose you'll say I deserved it; but I was fond
of Jacob, and--"

"Of course, of course. Why shouldn't you be?" said Miss Rosetta
briskly. "I'm sure Jacob Wheeler was a good enough soul, if he
was a little slack-twisted. I'd like to hear anybody say a word
against him in my presence. Look at that blessed child,
Charlotte. Isn't she the sweetest thing? I'm desperate glad you
are coming back home, Charlotte. I've never been able to put up
a decent mess of mustard pickles since you went away, and you
were always such a hand with them! We'll be real snug and cozy
again--you and me and little Camilla Barbara Jane."

V. THE DREAM-CHILD

V. THE DREAM-CHILD

A man's heart--aye, and a woman's, too--should be light in the
spring. The spirit of resurrection is abroad, calling the life
of the world out of its wintry grave, knocking with radiant
fingers at the gates of its tomb. It stirs in human hearts, and
makes them glad with the old primal gladness they felt in
childhood. It quickens human souls, and brings them, if so they
will, so close to God that they may clasp hands with Him. It is
a time of wonder and renewed life, and a great outward and inward
rapture, as of a young angel softly clapping his hands for
creation's joy. At least, so it should be; and so it always had
been with me until the spring when the dream-child first came
into our lives.

That year I hated the spring--I, who had always loved it so. As
boy I had loved it, and as man. All the happiness that had ever
been mine, and it was much, had come to blossom in the
springtime. It was in the spring that Josephine and I had first
loved each other, or, at least, had first come into the full
knowledge that we loved. I think that we must have loved each
other all our lives, and that each succeeding spring was a word
in the revelation of that love, not to be understood until, in
the fullness of time, the whole sentence was written out in that
most beautiful of all beautiful springs.

How beautiful it was! And how beautiful she was! I suppose
every lover thinks that of his lass; otherwise he is a poor sort
of lover. But it was not only my eyes of love that made my dear
lovely. She was slim and lithe as a young, white-stemmed birch
tree; her hair was like a soft, dusky cloud; and her eyes were as
blue as Avonlea harbor on a fair twilight, when all the sky is
abloom over it. She had dark lashes, and a little red mouth that
quivered when she was very sad or very happy, or when she loved
very much--quivered like a crimson rose too rudely shaken by
the wind. At such times what was a man to do save kiss it?

The next spring we were married, and I brought her home to my
gray old homestead on the gray old harbor shore. A lonely place
for a young bride, said Avonlea people. Nay, it was not so. She
was happy here, even in my absences. She loved the great,
restless harbor and the vast, misty sea beyond; she loved the
tides, keeping their world-old tryst with the shore, and the
gulls, and the croon of the waves, and the call of the winds in
the fir woods at noon and even; she loved the moonrises and the
sunsets, and the clear, calm nights when the stars seemed to have
fallen into the water and to be a little dizzy from such a fall.
She loved these things, even as I did. No, she was never lonely
here then.

The third spring came, and our boy was born. We thought we had
been happy before; now we knew that we had only dreamed a
pleasant dream of happiness, and had awakened to this exquisite
reality. We thought we had loved each other before; now, as I
looked into my wife's pale face, blanched with its baptism of
pain, and met the uplifted gaze of her blue eyes, aglow with the
holy passion of motherhood, I knew we had only imagined what love
might be. The imagination had been sweet, as the thought of the
rose is sweet before the bud is open; but as the rose to the
thought, so was love to the imagination of it.

"All my thoughts are poetry since baby came," my wife said once,
rapturously.

Our boy lived for twenty months. He was a sturdy, toddling
rogue, so full of life and laughter and mischief that, when he
died, one day, after the illness of an hour, it seemed a most
absurd thing that he should be dead--a thing I could have
laughed at, until belief forced itself into my soul like a
burning, searing iron.

I think I grieved over my little son's death as deeply and
sincerely as ever man did, or could. But the heart of the father
is not as the heart of the mother. Time brought no healing to
Josephine; she fretted and pined; her cheeks lost their pretty
oval, and her red mouth grew pale and drooping.

I hoped that spring might work its miracle upon her. When the
buds swelled, and the old earth grew green in the sun, and the
gulls came back to the gray harbor, whose very grayness grew
golden and mellow, I thought I should see her smile again. But,
when the spring came, came the dream-child, and the fear that was
to be my companion, at bed and board, from sunsetting to
sunsetting.

One night I awakened from sleep, realizing in the moment of
awakening that I was alone. I listened to hear whether my wife
were moving about the house. I heard nothing but the little
splash of waves on the shore below and the low moan of the
distant ocean.

I rose and searched the house. She was not in it. I did not
know where to seek her; but, at a venture, I started along the
shore.

It was pale, fainting moonlight. The harbor looked like a
phantom harbor, and the night was as still and cold and calm as
the face of a dead man. At last I saw my wife coming to me along
the shore. When I saw her, I knew what I had feared and how
great my fear had been.

As she drew near, I saw that she had been crying; her face was
stained with tears, and her dark hair hung loose over her
shoulders in little, glossy ringlets like a child's. She seemed
to be very tired, and at intervals she wrung her small hands
together.

She showed no surprise when she met me, but only held out her
hands to me as if glad to see me.

"I followed him--but I could not overtake him," she said with a
sob. "I did my best--I hurried so; but he was always a little
way ahead. And then I lost him--and so I came back. But I did
my best--indeed I did. And oh, I am so tired!"

"Josie, dearest, what do you mean, and where have you been?" I
said, drawing her close to me. "Why did you go out so--alone in
the night?"

She looked at me wonderingly.

"How could I help it, David? He called me. I had to go."

"WHO called you?"

"The child," she answered in a whisper. "Our child, David--our
pretty boy. I awakened in the darkness and heard him calling to
me down on the shore. Such a sad, little wailing cry, David, as
if he were cold and lonely and wanted his mother. I hurried out
to him, but I could not find him. I could only hear the call,
and I followed it on and on, far down the shore. Oh, I tried so
hard to overtake it, but I could not. Once I saw a little white
hand beckoning to me far ahead in the moonlight. But still I
could not go fast enough. And then the cry ceased, and I was
there all alone on that terrible, cold, gray shore. I was so
tired and I came home. But I wish I could have found him.
Perhaps he does not know that I tried to. Perhaps he thinks his
mother never listened to his call. Oh, I would not have him
think that."

"You have had a bad dream, dear," I said. I tried to say it
naturally; but it is hard for a man to speak naturally when he
feels a mortal dread striking into his very vitals with its
deadly chill.

"It was no dream," she answered reproachfully. "I tell you I
heard him calling me--me, his mother. What could I do but go to
him? You cannot understand--you are only his father. It was not
you who gave him birth. It was not you who paid the price of his
dear life in pain. He would not call to you--he wanted his
mother."

I got her back to the house and to her bed, whither she went
obediently enough, and soon fell into the sleep of exhaustion.
But there was no more sleep for me that night. I kept a grim
vigil with dread.

When I had married Josephine, one of those officious relatives
that are apt to buzz about a man's marriage told me that her
grandmother had been insane all the latter part of her life. She
had grieved over the death of a favorite child until she lost her
mind, and, as the first indication of it, she had sought by
nights a white dream-child which always called her, so she said,
and led her afar with a little, pale, beckoning hand.

I had smiled at the story then. What had that grim old bygone to
do with springtime and love and Josephine? But it came back to
me now, hand in hand with my fear. Was this fate coming on my
dear wife? It was too horrible for belief. She was so young, so
fair, so sweet, this girl-wife of mine. It had been only a bad
dream, with a frightened, bewildered waking. So I tried to
comfort myself.

When she awakened in the morning she did not speak of what had
happened and I did not dare to. She seemed more cheerful that
day than she had been, and went about her household duties
briskly and skillfully. My fear lifted. I was sure now that she
had only dreamed. And I was confirmed in my hopeful belief when
two nights had passed away uneventfully.

Then, on the third night, he dream-child called to her again. I
wakened from a troubled doze to find her dressing herself with
feverish haste.

"He is calling me," she cried. "Oh, don't you hear him? Can't
you hear him? Listen--listen--the little, lonely cry! Yes, yes,
my precious, mother is coming. Wait for me. Mother is coming to
her pretty boy!"

I caught her hand and let her lead me where she would. Hand in
hand we followed the dream-child down the harbor shore in that
ghostly, clouded moonlight. Ever, she said, the little cry
sounded before her. She entreated the dream-child to wait for
her; she cried and implored and uttered tender mother-talk. But,
at last, she ceased to hear the cry; and then, weeping, wearied,
she let me lead her home again.

What a horror brooded over that spring--that so beautiful spring!
It was a time of wonder and marvel; of the soft touch of silver
rain on greening fields; of the incredible delicacy of young
leaves; of blossom on the land and blossom in the sunset. The
whole world bloomed in a flush and tremor of maiden loveliness,
instinct with all the evasive, fleeting charm of spring and
girlhood and young morning. And almost every night of this
wonderful time the dream-child called his mother, and we roved
the gray shore in quest of him.

In the day she was herself; but, when the night fell, she was
restless and uneasy until she heard the call. Then follow it she
would, even through storm and darkness. It was then, she said,
that the cry sounded loudest and nearest, as if her pretty boy
were frightened by the tempest. What wild, terrible rovings we
had, she straining forward, eager to overtake the dream-child; I,
sick at heart, following, guiding, protecting, as best I could;
then afterwards leading her gently home, heart-broken because she
could not reach the child.

I bore my burden in secret, determining that gossip should not
busy itself with my wife's condition so long as I could keep it
from becoming known. We had no near relatives--none with any
right to share any trouble--and whoso accepteth human love must
bind it to his soul with pain.

I thought, however, that I should have medical advice, and I took
our old doctor into my confidence. He looked grave when he heard
my story. I did not like his expression nor his few guarded
remarks. He said he thought human aid would avail little; she
might come all right in time; humor her, as far as possible,
watch over her, protect her. He needed not to tell me THAT.

The spring went out and summer came in--and the horror deepened
and darkened. I knew that suspicions were being whispered from
lip to lip. We had been seen on our nightly quests. Men and
women began to look at us pityingly when we went abroad.

One day, on a dull, drowsy afternoon, the dream-child called. I
knew then that the end was near; the end had been near in the old
grandmother's case sixty years before when the dream-child called
in the day. The doctor looked graver than ever when I told him,
and said that the time had come when I must have help in my task.
I could not watch by day and night. Unless I had assistance I
would break down.

I did not think that I should. Love is stronger than that. And
on one thing I was determined--they should never take my wife
from me. No restraint sterner than a husband's loving hand
should ever be put upon her, my pretty, piteous darling.

I never spoke of the dream-child to her. The doctor advised
against it. It would, he said, only serve to deepen the
delusion. When he hinted at an asylum I gave him a look that
would have been a fierce word for another man. He never spoke of
it again.

One night in August there was a dull, murky sunset after a dead,
breathless day of heat, with not a wind stirring. The sea was
not blue as a sea should be, but pink--all pink--a ghastly,
staring, painted pink. I lingered on the harbor shore below the
house until dark. The evening bells were ringing faintly and
mournfully in a church across the harbor. Behind me, in the
kitchen, I heard my wife singing. Sometimes now her spirits were
fitfully high, and then she would sing the old songs of her
girlhood. But even in her singing was something strange, as if a
wailing, unearthly cry rang through it. Nothing about her was
sadder than that strange singing.

When I went back to the house the rain was beginning to fall; but
there was no wind or sound in the air--only that dismal
stillness, as if the world were holding its breath in expectation
of a calamity.

Josie was standing by the window, looking out and listening. I
tried to induce her to go to bed, but she only shook her head.

"I might fall asleep and not hear him when he called," she said.
"I am always afraid to sleep now, for fear he should call and his
mother fail to hear him."

Knowing it was of no use to entreat, I sat down by the table and
tried to read. Three hours passed on. When the clock struck
midnight she started up, with the wild light in her sunken blue
eyes.

"He is calling," she cried, "calling out there in the storm.
Yes, yes, sweet, I am coming!"

She opened the door and fled down the path to the shore. I
snatched a lantern from the wall, lighted it, and followed. It
was the blackest night I was ever out in, dark with the very
darkness of death. The rain fell thickly and heavily. I
overtook Josie, caught her hand, and stumbled along in her wake,
for she went with the speed and recklessness of a distraught
woman. We moved in the little flitting circle of light shed by
the lantern. All around us and above us was a horrible,
voiceless darkness, held, as it were, at bay by the friendly
light.

"If I could only overtake him once," moaned Josie. "If I could
just kiss him once, and hold him close against my aching heart.
This pain, that never leaves me, would leave me than. Oh, my
pretty boy, wait for mother! I am coming to you. Listen, David;
he cries--he cries so pitifully; listen! Can't you hear it?"

I DID hear it! Clear and distinct, out of the deadly still
darkness before us, came a faint, wailing cry. What was it? Was
I, too, going mad, or WAS there something out there--something
that cried and moaned--longing for human love, yet ever
retreating from human footsteps? I am not a superstitious man;
but my nerve had been shaken by my long trial, and I was weaker
than I thought. Terror took possession of me--terror unnameable.
I trembled in every limb; clammy perspiration oozed from my
forehead; I was possessed by a wild impulse to turn and flee--
anywhere, away from that unearthly cry. But Josephine's cold
hand gripped mine firmly, and led me on. That strange cry still
rang in my ears. But it did not recede; it sounded clearer and
stronger; it was a wail; but a loud, insistent wail; it was
nearer--nearer; it was in the darkness just beyond us.

Then we came to it; a little dory had been beached on the pebbles
and left there by the receding tide. There was a child in it--a
boy, of perhaps two years old, who crouched in the bottom of the
dory in water to his waist, his big, blue eyes wild and wide with
terror, his face white and tear-stained. He wailed again when he
saw us, and held out his little hands.

My horror fell away from me like a discarded garment. THIS child
was living. How he had come there, whence and why, I did not
know and, in my state of mind, did not question. It was no cry
of parted spirit I had heard--that was enough for me.

"Oh, the poor darling!" cried my wife.

She stooped over the dory and lifted the baby in her arms. His
long, fair curls fell on her shoulder; she laid her face against
his and wrapped her shawl around him.

"Let me carry him, dear," I said. "He is very wet, and too heavy
for you."

"No, no, I must carry him. My arms have been so empty--they are
full now. Oh, David, the pain at my heart has gone. He has come
to me to take the place of my own. God has sent him to me out of
the sea. He is wet and cold and tired. Hush, sweet one, we will
go home."

Silently I followed her home. The wind was rising, coming in
sudden, angry gusts; the storm was at hand, but we reached
shelter before it broke. Just as I shut our door behind us it
smote the house with the roar of a baffled beast. I thanked God
that we were not out in it, following the dream-child.

"You are very wet, Josie," I said. "Go and put on dry clothes at
once."

"The child must be looked to first," she said firmly. "See how
chilled and exhausted he is, the pretty dear. Light a fire
quickly, David, while I get dry things for him."

I let her have her way. She brought out the clothes our own
child had worn and dressed the waif in them, rubbing his chilled
limbs, brushing his wet hair, laughing over him, mothering him.
She seemed like her old self.

For my own part, I was bewildered. All the questions I had not
asked before came crowding to my mind how. Whose child was this?
Whence had he come? What was the meaning of it all?

He was a pretty baby, fair and plump and rosy. When he was dried
and fed, he fell asleep in Josie's arms. She hung over him in a
passion of delight. It was with difficulty I persuaded her to
leave him long enough to change her wet clothes. She never asked
whose he might be or from where he might have come. He had been
sent to her from the sea; the dream-child had led her to him;
that was what she believed, and I dared not throw any doubt on
that belief. She slept that night with the baby on her arm, and
in her sleep her face was the face of a girl in her youth,
untroubled and unworn.

I expected that the morrow would bring some one seeking the baby.
I had come to the conclusion that he must belong to the "Cove"
across the harbor, where the fishing hamlet was; and all day,
while Josie laughed and played with him, I waited and listened
for the footsteps of those who would come seeking him. But they
did not come. Day after day passed, and still they did not come.

I was in a maze of perplexity. What should I do? I shrank from
the thought of the boy being taken away from us. Since we had
found him the dream-child had never called. My wife seemed to
have turned back from the dark borderland, where her feet had
strayed to walk again with me in our own homely paths. Day and
night she was her old, bright self, happy and serene in the new
motherhood that had come to her. The only thing strange in her
was her calm acceptance of the event. She never wondered who or
whose the child might be--never seemed to fear that he would be
taken from her; and she gave him our dream-child's name.

At last, when a full week had passed, I went, in my bewilderment,
to our old doctor.

"A most extraordinary thing," he said thoughtfully. "The child,
as you say, must belong to the Spruce Cove people. Yet it is an
almost unbelievable thing that there has been no search or
inquiry after him. Probably there is some simple explanation of
the mystery, however. I advise you to go over to the Cove and
inquire. When you find the parents or guardians of the child,
ask them to allow you to keep it for a time. It may prove your
wife's salvation. I have known such cases. Evidently on that
night the crisis of her mental disorder was reached. A little
thing might have sufficed to turn her feet either way--back to
reason and sanity, or into deeper darkness. It is my belief that
the former has occurred, and that, if she is left in undisturbed
possession of this child for a time, she will recover
completely."

I drove around the harbor that day with a lighter heart than I
had hoped ever to possess again. When I reached Spruce Cove the
first person I met was old Abel Blair. I asked him if any child
were missing from the Cove or along shore. He looked at me in
surprise, shook his head, and said he had not heard of any. I
told him as much of the tale as was necessary, leaving him to
think that my wife and I had found the dory and its small
passenger during an ordinary walk along the shore.

"A green dory!" he exclaimed. "Ben Forbes' old green dory has
been missing for a week, but it was so rotten and leaky he didn't
bother looking for it. But this child, sir--it beats me. What
might he be like?"

I described the child as closely as possible.

"That fits little Harry Martin to a hair," said old Abel,
perplexedly, "but, sir, it can't be. Or, if it is, there's been
foul work somewhere. James Martin's wife died last winter, sir,
and he died the next month. They left a baby and not much else.
There weren't nobody to take the child but Jim's half-sister,
Maggie Fleming. She lived here at the Cove, and, I'm sorry to
say, sir, she hadn't too good a name. She didn't want to be
bothered with the baby, and folks say she neglected him
scandalous. Well, last spring she begun talking of going away to
the States. She said a friend of hers had got her a good place
in Boston, and she was going to go and take little Harry. We
supposed it was all right. Last Saturday she went, sir. She was
going to walk to the station, and the last seen of her she was
trudging along the road, carrying the baby. It hasn't been
thought of since. But, sir, d'ye suppose she set that innocent
child adrift in that old leaky dory to send him to his death? I
knew Maggie was no better than she should be, but I can't believe
she was as bad as that."

"You must come over with me and see if you can identify the
child," I said. "If he is Harry Martin I shall keep him. My
wife has been very lonely since our baby died, and she has taken
a fancy to this little chap."

When we reached my home old Abel recognized the child as Harry
Martin.

He is with us still. His baby hands led my dear wife back to
health and happiness. Other children have come to us, she loves
them all dearly; but the boy who bears her dead son's name is to
her--aye, and to me--as dear as if she had given him birth. He
came from the sea, and at his coming the ghostly dream-child
fled, nevermore to lure my wife away from me with its exciting
cry. Therefore I look upon him and love him as my first-born.

VI.

VI. THE BROTHER WHO FAILED

The Monroe family were holding a Christmas reunion at the old
Prince Edward Island homestead at White Sands. It was the first
time they had all been together under one roof since the death of
their mother, thirty years before. The idea of this Christmas
reunion had originated with Edith Monroe the preceding spring,
during her tedious convalescence from a bad attack of pneumonia
among strangers in an American city, where she had not been able
to fill her concert engagements, and had more spare time in which
to feel the tug of old ties and the homesick longing for her own
people than she had had for years. As a result, when she
recovered, she wrote to her second brother, James Monroe, who
lived on the homestead; and the consequence was this gathering of
the Monroes under the old roof-tree. Ralph Monroe for once laid
aside the cares of his railroads, and the deceitfulness of his
millions, in Toronto and took the long-promised, long-deferred
trip to the homeland. Malcolm Monroe journeyed from the far
western university of which he was president. Edith came,
flushed with the triumph of her latest and most successful
concert tour. Mrs. Woodburn, who had been Margaret Monroe, came
from the Nova Scotia town where she lived a busy, happy life as
the wife of a rising young lawyer. James, prosperous and hearty,
greeted them warmly at the old homestead whose fertile acres had
well repaid his skillful management.

They were a merry party, casting aside their cares and years, and
harking back to joyous boyhood and girlhood once more. James had
a family of rosy lads and lasses; Margaret brought her two
blue-eyed little girls; Ralph's dark, clever-looking son
accompanied him, and Malcolm brought his, a young man with a
resolute face, in which there was less of boyishness than in his
father's, and the eyes of a keen, perhaps a hard bargainer. The
two cousins were the same age to a day, and it was a family joke
among the Monroes that the stork must have mixed the babies,
since Ralph's son was like Malcolm in face and brain, while
Malcolm's boy was a second edition of his uncle Ralph.

To crown all, Aunt Isabel came, too--a talkative, clever, shrewd
old lady, as young at eighty-five as she had been at thirty,
thinking the Monroe stock the best in the world, and beamingly
proud of her nephews and nieces, who had gone out from this
humble, little farm to destinies of such brilliance and influence
in the world beyond.

I have forgotten Robert. Robert Monroe was apt to be forgotten.
Although he was the oldest of the family, White Sands people, in
naming over the various members of the Monroe family, would add,
"and Robert," in a tone of surprise over the remembrance of his
existence.

He lived on a poor, sandy little farm down by the shore, but he
had come up to James' place on the evening when the guests
arrived; they had all greeted him warmly and joyously, and then
did not think about him again in their laughter and conversation.
Robert sat back in a corner and listened with a smile, but he
never spoke. Afterwards he had slipped noiselessly away and gone
home, and nobody noticed his going. They were all gayly busy
recalling what had happened in the old times and telling what had
happened in the new.

Edith recounted the successes of her concert tours; Malcolm
expatiated proudly on his plans for developing his beloved
college; Ralph described the country through which his new
railroad ran, and the difficulties he had had to overcome in
connection with it. James, aside, discussed his orchard and his
crops with Margaret, who had not been long enough away from the
farm to lose touch with its interests. Aunt Isabel knitted and
smiled complacently on all, talking now with one, now with the
other, secretly quite proud of herself that she, an old woman of
eighty-five, who had seldom been out of White Sands in her life,
could discuss high finance with Ralph, and higher education with
Malcolm, and hold her own with James in an argument on drainage.

The White Sands school teacher, an arch-eyed, red-mouthed bit a
girl--a Bell from Avonlea--who boarded with the James Monroes,
amused herself with the boys. All were enjoying themselves
hugely, so it is not to be wondered at that they did not miss
Robert, who had gone home early because his old housekeeper was
nervous if left alone at night.

He came again the next afternoon. From James, in the barnyard,
he learned that Malcolm and Ralph had driven to the harbor, that
Margaret and Mrs. James had gone to call on friends in Avonlea,
and that Edith was walking somewhere in the woods on the hill.
There was nobody in the house except Aunt Isabel and the teacher.

"You'd better wait and stay the evening," said James,
indifferently. "They'll all be back soon."

Robert went across the yard and sat down on the rustic bench in
the angle of the front porch. It was a fine December evening, as
mild as autumn; there had been no snow, and the long fields,
sloping down from the homestead, were brown and mellow. A weird,
dreamy stillness had fallen upon the purple earth, the windless
woods, the rain of the valleys, the sere meadows. Nature seemed
to have folded satisfied hands to rest, knowing that her long,
wintry slumber was coming upon her. Out to sea, a dull, red
sunset faded out into somber clouds, and the ceaseless voice of
many waters came up from the tawny shore.

Robert rested his chin on his hand and looked across the vales
and hills, where the feathery gray of leafless hardwoods was
mingled with the sturdy, unfailing green of the conebearers. He
was a tall, bent man, with thin, gray hair, a lined face, and
deeply-set, gentle brown eyes--the eyes of one who, looking
through pain, sees rapture beyond.

He felt very happy. He loved his family clannishly, and he was
rejoiced that they were all again near to him. He was proud of
their success and fame. He was glad that James had prospered so
well of late years. There was no canker of envy or discontent in
his soul.

He heard absently indistinct voices at the open hall window above
the porch, where Aunt Isabel was talking to Kathleen Bell.
Presently Aunt Isabel moved nearer to the window, and her words
came down to Robert with startling clearness.

"Yes, I can assure you, Miss Bell, that I'm real proud of my
nephews and nieces. They're a smart family. They've almost all
done well, and they hadn't any of them much to begin with. Ralph
had absolutely nothing and to-day he is a millionaire. Their
father met with so many losses, what with his ill-health and the
bank failing, that he couldn't help them any. But they've all
succeeded, except poor Robert--and I must admit that he's a total
failure."

"Oh, no, no," said the little teacher deprecatingly.

"A total failure!" Aunt Isabel repeated her words emphatically.
She was not going to be contradicted by anybody, least of all a
Bell from Avonlea. "He has been a failure since the time he was
born. He is the first Monroe to disgrace the old stock that way.
I'm sure his brothers and sisters must be dreadfully ashamed of
him. He has lived sixty years and he hasn't done a thing worth
while. He can't even make his farm pay. If he's kept out of
debt it's as much as he's ever managed to do."

"Some men can't even do that," murmured the little school
teacher. She was really so much in awe of this imperious, clever
old Aunt Isabel that it was positive heroism on her part to
venture even this faint protest.

"More is expected of a Monroe," said Aunt Isabel majestically.
"Robert Monroe is a failure, and that is the only name for him."

Robert Monroe stood up below the window in a dizzy, uncertain
fashion. Aunt Isabel had been speaking of him! He, Robert, was
a failure, a disgrace to his blood, of whom his nearest and
dearest were ashamed! Yes, it was true; he had never realized it
before; he had known that he could never win power or accumulate
riches, but he had not thought that mattered much. Now, through
Aunt Isabel's scornful eyes, he saw himself as the world saw
him--as his brothers and sisters must see him. THERE lay the
sting. What the world thought of him did not matter; but that
his own should think him a failure and disgrace was agony. He
moaned as he started to walk across the yard, only anxious to
hide his pain and shame away from all human sight, and in his
eyes was the look of a gentle animal which had been stricken by a
cruel and unexpected blow.

Edith Monroe, who, unaware of Robert's proximity, had been
standing on the other side of the porch, saw that look, as he
hurried past her, unseeing. A moment before her dark eyes had
been flashing with anger at Aunt Isabel's words; now the anger
was drowned in a sudden rush of tears.

She took a quick step after Robert, but checked the impulse. Not
then--and not by her alone--could that deadly hurt be healed.
Nay, more, Robert must never suspect that she knew of any hurt.
She stood and watched him through her tears as he went away
across the low-lying shore fields to hide his broken heart under
his own humble roof. She yearned to hurry after him and comfort
him, but she knew that comfort was not what Robert needed now.
Justice, and justice only, could pluck out the sting, which
otherwise must rankle to the death.

Ralph and Malcolm were driving into the yard. Edith went over to
them.

"Boys," she said resolutely, "I want to have a talk with you."


The Christmas dinner at the old homestead was a merry one. Mrs.
James spread a feast that was fit for the halls of Lucullus.
Laughter, jest, and repartee flew from lip to lip. Nobody
appeared to notice that Robert ate little, said nothing, and sat
with his form shrinking in his shabby "best" suit, his gray head
bent even lower than usual, as if desirous of avoiding all
observation. When the others spoke to him he answered
deprecatingly, and shrank still further into himself.

Finally all had eaten all they could, and the remainder of the
plum pudding was carried out. Robert gave a low sigh of relief.
It was almost over. Soon he would be able to escape and hide
himself and his shame away from the mirthful eyes of these men
and women who had earned the right to laugh at the world in which
their success gave them power and influence. He--he--only--was
a failure.

He wondered impatiently why Mrs. James did not rise. Mrs. James
merely leaned comfortably back in her chair, with the righteous
expression of one who has done her duty by her fellow creatures'
palates, and looked at Malcolm.

Malcolm rose in his place. Silence fell on the company;
everybody looked suddenly alert and expectant, except Robert. He
still sat with bowed head, wrapped in his own bitterness.

"I have been told that I must lead off," said Malcolm, "because I
am supposed to possess the gift of gab. But, if I do, I am not
going to use it for any rhetorical effect to-day. Simple,
earnest words must express the deepest feelings of the heart in
doing justice to its own. Brothers and sisters, we meet to-day
under our own roof-tree, surrounded by the benedictions of the
past years. Perhaps invisible guests are here--the spirits of
those who founded this home and whose work on earth has long been
finished. It is not amiss to hope that this is so and our family
circle made indeed complete. To each one of us who are here in
visible bodily presence some measure of success has fallen; but
only one of us has been supremely successful in the only things
that really count--the things that count for eternity as well as
time--sympathy and unselfishness and self-sacrifice.

"I shall tell you my own story for the benefit of those who have
not heard it. When I was a lad of sixteen I started to work out
my own education. Some of you will remember that old Mr. Blair
of Avonlea offered me a place in his store for the summer, at
wages which would go far towards paying my expenses at the
country academy the next winter. I went to work, eager and
hopeful. All summer I tried to do my faithful best for my
employer. In September the blow fell. A sum of money was
missing from Mr. Blair's till. I was suspected and discharged in
disgrace. All my neighbors believed me guilty; even some of my
own family looked upon me with suspicion--nor could I blame them,
for the circumstantial evidence was strongly against me."

Ralph and James looked ashamed; Edith and Margaret, who had not
been born at the time referred to, lifted their faces innocently.
Robert did not move or glance up. He hardly seemed to be
listening.

"I was crushed in an agony of shame and despair," continued
Malcolm. "I believed my career was ruined. I was bent on
casting all my ambitions behind me, and going west to some place
where nobody knew me or my disgrace. But there was one person
who believed in my innocence, who said to me, 'You shall not give
up--you shall not behave as if you were guilty. You are
innocent, and in time your innocence will be proved. Meanwhile
show yourself a man. You have nearly enough to pay your way next
winter at the Academy. I have a little I can give to help you
out. Don't give in--never give in when you have done no wrong.'

"I listened and took his advice. I went to the Academy. My
story was there as soon as I was, and I found myself sneered at
and shunned. Many a time I would have given up in despair, had
it not been for the encouragement of my counselor. He furnished
the backbone for me. I was determined that his belief in me
should be justified. I studied hard and came out at the head of
my class. Then there seemed to be no chance of my earning any
more money that summer. But a farmer at Newbridge, who cared
nothing about the character of his help, if he could get the work
out of them, offered to hire me. The prospect was distasteful
but, urged by the man who believed in me, I took the place and
endured the hardships. Another winter of lonely work passed at
the Academy. I won the Farrell Scholarship the last year it was
offered, and that meant an Arts course for me. I went to Redmond
College. My story was not openly known there, but something of
it got abroad, enough to taint my life there also with its
suspicion. But the year I graduated, Mr. Blair's nephew, who, as
you know, was the real culprit, confessed his guilt, and I was
cleared before the world. Since then my career has been what is
called a brilliant one. But"--Malcolm turned and laid his hand
on Robert's thin shoulder--"all of my success I owe to my brother
Robert. It is his success--not mine--and here to-day, since we
have agreed to say what is too often left to be said over a
coffin lid, I thank him for all he did for me, and tell him that
there is nothing I am more proud of and thankful for than such a
brother."

Robert had looked up at last, amazed, bewildered, incredulous.
His face crimsoned as Malcolm sat down. But now Ralph was
getting up.

"I am no orator as Malcolm is," he quoted gayly, "but I've got a
story to tell, too, which only one of you knows. Forty years
ago, when I started in life as a business man, money wasn't so
plentiful with me as it may be to-day. And I needed it badly. A
chance came my way to make a pile of it. It wasn't a clean
chance. It was a dirty chance. It looked square on the surface;
but, underneath, it meant trickery and roguery. I hadn't enough
perception to see that, though--I was fool enough to think it was
all right. I told Robert what I meant to do. And Robert saw
clear through the outward sham to the real, hideous thing
underneath. He showed me what it meant and he gave me a
preachment about a few Monroe Traditions of truth and honor. I
saw what I had been about to do as he saw it--as all good men and
true must see it. And I vowed then and there that I'd never go
into anything that I wasn't sure was fair and square and clean
through and through. I've kept that vow. I am a rich man, and
not a dollar of my money is 'tainted' money. But I didn't make
it. Robert really made every cent of my money. If it hadn't
been for him I'd have been a poor man to-day, or behind prison
bars, as are the other men who went into that deal when I backed
out. I've got a son here. I hope he'll be as clever as his
Uncle Malcolm; but I hope, still more earnestly, that he'll be as
good and honorable a man as his Uncle Robert."

By this time Robert's head was bent again, and his face buried in
his hands.

"My turn next," said James. "I haven't much to say--only this.
After mother died I took typhoid fever. Here I was with no one
to wait on me. Robert came and nursed me. He was the most
faithful, tender, gentle nurse ever a man had. The doctor said
Robert saved my life. I don't suppose any of the rest of us here
can say we have saved a life."

Edith wiped away her tears and sprang up impulsively.

"Years ago," she said, "there was a poor, ambitious girl who had
a voice. She wanted a musical education and her only apparent
chance of obtaining it was to get a teacher's certificate and
earn money enough to have her voice trained. She studied hard,
but her brains, in mathematics at least, weren't as good as her
voice, and the time was short. She failed. She was lost in
disappointment and despair, for that was the last year in which
it was possible to obtain a teacher's certificate without
attending Queen's Academy, and she could not afford that. Then
her oldest brother came to her and told her he could spare enough
money to send her to the conservatory of music in Halifax for a
year. He made her take it. She never knew till long afterwards
that he had sold the beautiful horse which he loved like a human
creature, to get the money. She went to the Halifax
conservatory. She won a musical scholarship. She has had a
happy life and a successful career. And she owes it all to her
brother Robert--"

But Edith could go no further. Her voice failed her and she sat
down in tears. Margaret did not try to stand up.

"I was only five when my mother died," she sobbed. "Robert was
both father and mother to me. Never had child or girl so wise
and loving a guardian as he was to me. I have never forgotten
the lessons he taught me. Whatever there is of good in my life
or character I owe to him. I was often headstrong and willful,
but he never lost patience with me. I owe everything to Robert."

Suddenly the little teacher rose with wet eyes and crimson
cheeks.

"I have something to say, too," she said resolutely. "You have
spoken for yourselves. I speak for the people of White Sands.
There is a man in this settlement whom everybody loves. I shall
tell you some of the things he has done."

"Last fall, in an October storm, the harbor lighthouse flew a
flag of distress. Only one man was brave enough to face the
danger of sailing to the lighthouse to find out what the trouble
was. That was Robert Monroe. He found the keeper alone with a
broken leg; and he sailed back and made--yes, MADE the
unwilling and terrified doctor go with him to the lighthouse. I
saw him when he told the doctor he must go; and I tell you that
no man living could have set his will against Robert Monroe's at
that moment.

"Four years ago old Sarah Cooper was to be taken to the
poorhouse. She was broken-hearted. One man took the poor,
bed-ridden, fretful old creature into his home, paid for medical
attendance, and waited on her himself, when his housekeeper
couldn't endure her tantrums and temper. Sarah Cooper died two
years afterwards, and her latest breath was a benediction on
Robert Monroe--the best man God ever made.

"Eight years ago Jack Blewitt wanted a place. Nobody would hire
him, because his father was in the penitentiary, and some people
thought Jack ought to be there, too. Robert Monroe hired
him--and helped him, and kept him straight, and got him started
right--and Jack Blewitt is a hard-working, respected young man
to-day, with every prospect of a useful and honorable life.
There is hardly a man, woman, or child in White Sands who doesn't
owe something to Robert Monroe!"

As Kathleen Bell sat down, Malcolm sprang up and held out his
hands.

"Every one of us stand up and sing Auld Lang Syne," he cried.

Everybody stood up and joined hands, but one did not sing.
Robert Monroe stood erect, with a great radiance on his face and
in his eyes. His reproach had been taken away; he was crowned
among his kindred with the beauty and blessing of sacred
yesterdays.

When the singing ceased Malcolm's stern-faced son reached over
and shook Robert's hands.

"Uncle Rob," he said heartily, "I hope that when I'm sixty I'll
be as successful a man as you."


"I guess," said Aunt Isabel, aside to the little school teacher,
as she wiped the tears from her keen old eyes, "that there's a
kind of failure that's the best success."