XX.

OLD CHESTER liked Roger Carey and approved of him; although, indeed, one involved the other, for Old Chester never did anything so ill judged as to like where it could not approve. But even though Roger had won regard, his departure had not been entirely a regret. After all, a love affair is a pretty thing to watch; but there are other matters in the world, and those who are not lovers, only commonplace folk, must keep their feet upon the earth.

Miss Susan Carr said she should be glad when Lyssie could put her mind on her choir-practicing again; Dr. Lavendar felt that one or two families in the upper village needed visiting; and as for Mrs. Drayton-but Mrs. Drayton's opinion can easily be taken for granted. She did, however, confide to her stepdaughter that things had been very much upset by the engagement.

"I have been much shaken by it, much shaken," she said. "Of course, I have not had, have not expected, my usual comforts; but then I've been glad to contribute my discomfort to Lyssie's happiness. It is a little bitter to think that a poor, miserable, useless invalid like me has nothing to give except discomfort."

"At least, your contribution has been unstinted," Cecil said sweetly; but her face was dull, and she turned away from her stepmother, feeling for once no desire to torment her.

restless; she came

gone. Cecil was very down to see Lyssie for the mere occupation of moving about.

"Oh, how glad I am to get rid of him!" she thought once or twice. To have company at such a crisis as had come into her life might well seem intolerable. It was no wonder that she drew a deep breath and said, "Thank Heaven, he's gone!" and braced herself for the struggle which was at hand. Yet she was restless. "One is always restless when one's company goes," she explained to herself. Perhaps it was because with the departure of her guest departed also those commonplaces which pad the sharpnesses of life to us all. The necessary smile, the formal gayety, the mere requisites of eating and drinking, cover decently many things, among the rest that naked and primal passion which underlies existence; a passion which, smouldering long, had sprung into flame in that talk between the husband and wife, the passion of self-preservation, with its terror and bitterness and horrible intensity! Cecil may have missed the comfort of the commonplace, or she may have missed the man, with his daily impetuous revolt of indifference, followed by the flattery of his daily subjugation. But she did not stop to analyze her state of mind; in fact, in those next few terrible days — days of discussion, of incrimination, of violent disagreement about Molly on the part of the husband and wife she forgot every

had felt the vague and restless discomfort of missing Roger Carey,- of missing a man whom she had known but a little while, a man who was her sister's lover!

There was, however, nothing apparent in the relations of Mr. and Mrs. Shore which could start a ripple of excitement in Old Chester. They met once a day at the dinner table, with Molly sitting chattering between them; themselves quite silent to each other. This gave no particular ground for comment; the maids only said, "She's got the sulks again," and Philip's man remarked that he was "a fool not to settle her."

Of course, alone, they did talk, these two. Neither spared any truth to the other. It is only when they are husband and wife that two human souls can achieve absolute cruelty.

Until they were able to agree upon something, it was obviously best to keep up appearances; and so Philip and Cecil saw each other at dinner every night, and listened to Molly, and talked to her, and despised each other. For, oddly enough, now that Philip had put his desire into words, his feeling for his wife dropped to a lower plane. He recognized this, but said to himself that it was because of what she revealed of herself in these terrible interviews; the subtilty of his meeting her upon the lower ground of self-interest escaped him.

Each was fighting for the possession of the child. Philip stood by his first opinion, that Molly should spend half of the year with each of them; Cecil violently refused to listen to such a proposition and there the matter stood, while the long, still August days gave place to the yellow haze of September.

Meantime, the excitement about Lyssie having subsided, life in Old Chester slipped back into its ordinary channels of sleepy self-satisfaction. Even at the rectory the tension had relaxed a little. Mr. Joseph was still uncertain about Mr. Pendleton's will; to be sure, he might

have found out, but the idea of going to the probate court to make the necessary examination offended him. Dr. Lavendar, aware that at least the momentous question had not been asked, was very conciliatory, and full of conversation about Miss Susan Carr. Mr. Joseph accepted the friendliness, and, when he came home on Saturdays, walked in the garden at sunset and looked at the hollyhocks, just as usual; but his kind heart knew its own bitterness. Yet with the bitterness was a strange, new happiness, for with opposition his mild regard for Mrs. Pendleton had begun to glow and deepen; and faintly, like the thrill of spring in November sunshine, the ardors of youth and love began to stir in his blood. He thought of his weekly visit. to Old Chester with a perceptible heartbeat; and when he walked home with her from the choir-practicing, there was a haze before his eyes that hid the wrinkles about her temples, the sharp lines around her tight little mouth, the shrewdness of her light eyes; he saw again the plump girl, silly and silent, who, twenty years before, blushing and giggling, slid into an engagement and out of it without a quicker heart-beat or falling tear.

"Old Chester," said Mr. Joseph, upon one of these occasions, as they paced along together in the pleasant September dusk, "is very fortunate to have such an addition to its social circle this winter as you will be, ma'am. We are somewhat narrow, I fear, and need widening."

"Exactly!" Mrs. Pendleton agreed. "I assure you, I feel it a privilege to return to Old Chester from the less agreeable, if more worldly life of Mercer," Mr. Lavendar continued.

poet says, is ever young, ever young; and I think he adds, fresh. Of that, however, I am not certain.”

But Mrs. Pendleton preferred to talk about Mercer rather than about Mr. Lavendar's heart. "I suppose (not that I am inquisitive; I have no curiosity, but I'm so impulsive that I speak just what comes into my mind), — I suppose your income must be quite large, for you to live in Mercer?"

Her interest in him touched him very much. "No, ma'am, no; not large, but sufficient; and we expect it to be greatly augmented when my brother's book is published."

Mr. Lavendar's heart was beating tumultuously; a declaration trembled upon his lips, but the curb of honor held it back. He must know about that will first. With admirable self-restraint he tried to talk of less personal things, the choir, the weather, the difference of the seasons now and in his youth; and that led Mrs. Pendleton to remark that she and Susy Carr were soon coming to Mercer to do some autumn shopping. “Wednesday a week we are coming," she said; and Mr. Joseph asked eagerly if he might have the honor of waiting upon them in town, and escorting them to the shops. Mrs. Pendleton consented, with a neat smile, and he left her, determined to learn at once whether he were "free" to address her "For I may have a chance in Mercer," he thought, palpitating.

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This visit to Mercer had been arranged nearly a month before, when Susan Carr, in one of those moments of rash good nature common to us all, had promised to "shop" with Mrs. Pendleton. When the day of fulfillment came, Miss Susan was as miserable as we all are when our amiable weaknesses come home to roost. The night before the fatal Wednesday she looked hopefully at a threatening sky; but the morning was full of placid sunshine, and she sighed, and said to herself, "Well, Susan

Carr, it's your own fault!" which comforted her as much as such statements do. She thought of all the things to be done upon the farm; all the things she might do about the house; nay, even the books she would read, the letters she would write, if only she could stay at home. For there is perhaps no moment when we so much appreciate our homes as the moment of departure from them upon some rashly accepted invitation.

Miss Susan put on a short, stout skirt, for she could not endure the thought of any clothing of hers touching those nasty streets; and her oldest bonnet, because the stage ride was dusty; and her waterproof cloak, for fear it might rain. Then she took down from the top shelf in the spare-room wardrobe a large bag with "Susy" worked on one side in brown and yellow worsteds: this was to be filled with the commissions with which she had taken kindly pains to burden herself. "Can I do any shopping for you in Mercer?" she had asked everybody; and the result was that when she climbed into the coach with Mrs. Pendleton, she was naming over on her fingers a dozen errands for other people.

"Lilac ribbons for Fanny Drayton's wrapper; patterns of red flannel for the Sewing Society; six silk handkerchiefs for Jane Temple's Mr. Dove - I think I must write the others down,” said Miss

66

Susan, or else I'll forget 'em."

"Exactly," Mrs. Pendleton agreed.

Mrs. Pendleton looked very pretty: her bonnet had fine hemstitched lawn strings that looked like a clergyman's bands; her hair, with its sleek waves, came down in loops upon her pink cheeks; her round, fresh face was rounder and fresher for the spreading black veil that seemed to take up a great deal of room; a stiff fold even touched Miss Susan's cheek now and then, or fell forward in a wiry shade across the little window of the coach. Mrs. Pendleton took very good care of her crape; she had been heard to say that she had never let a tear fall

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Exactly, my grief. And there is so much to see to, for everything must be consistent. You must n't have a blackbordered handkerchief when you take off your veil; and it's the same with gloves,

they must be stitched with white. I think, in such a matter, one should strive to be consistent, but it's very puzzling."

Miss Susan said she supposed so.

"Oh, dear me, yes; and I've had so much experience in it! I was in lilacs for my dear mother when my dear father died, and of course I went at once into crape; and I'd hardly gotten into half again when aunt Betty went, and that set me back with jets, no crape. I was married when I'd just begun to wear black and white, and had put my note paper into a narrow edge, just for an aunt, you know, and then my dear, dear husband!

-

Miss Carr looked sympathetic.

"Of course," Mrs. Pendleton ended, drying her eyes on a handkerchief still in grief, "then I was in black all through; I did n't wear a white collar for three months; even my petticoats were black lawn, I do assure you."

Miss Susan murmured something appropriate, and sighed. Susan Carr had lived too long and had too many griefs not to know that grief, that most precious possession, subsides; not to know that there is a pathetic instant when the mourner recognizes that life still holds some interest for him; that the world is still beautiful, though but a year ago

It is

it but the blackness of darkness! an instant of terror, of remorse, and of fearful joy. Susan Carr knew this; and she looked at the widow with that pity for the little creature's littleness which only large and tender souls can feel, for this strange moment had come very soon to Mrs. Pendleton.

It was a pleasant September day: there was a scent of wood smoke in the still air; in the fields along the turnpike road the corn had been cut, and stood upon the yellowing stubble in great tufted shocks which rustled if a rabbit went springing past, or a faint wind stirred the dry, sword-like leaves; the brook, which kept in friendly fashion close to the road, had dwindled in its shallow bed, and left bare the flat, worn stones which a month before had been covered with the dash and foam of hurrying water; the woods were yellowing a little, and a soft haze hung all across the smiling valley.

The stage jogged along in a cloud of dust, or rumbled under covered bridges, where, from between the dry, creaking planks, lines of dust sifted down upon the sunny water below, and from the openings in the roofs streaks of powdery sunshine fell like bars across the gloom, making the horses swerve a little to avoid them. As they pulled up the hills, Jonas pounded with the butt end of his whip on the wide tire, to keep time to a monotonous, jolting song:

"So there, now, Sally,

I kiss ye once again;
So there, now, Sally,

Don't kiss no other men!'"

Mrs. Pendleton chattered steadily. Miss Susan, her color deepening and her eyes downcast, thought of her last ride in the coach with her impatient and ardent lover. At least, she thought of it until she fell asleep. Occasionally her head nodded forward; but Mrs. Pendleton's remarks rarely needed more elaborate

answers.