Roland Graeme:
KNIGHT

A Novel of Our Time

BY AGNES MAULE MACHAR

AUTHOR OF "STORIES OF NEW FRANCE," "MARJORIE'S CANADIAN WINTER," ETC.

"To Ride Abroad, Redressing Human Wrongs"

MONTREAL
WM. DRYSDALE & COMPANY

Entered according to Act of Parliament, in the year of Our Lord, One
Thousand, Eight Hundred and Ninety-Two, by W. Drysdale
& Co., in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture at
Ottawa.

TO
Lyman Abbott, D.D.,
ONE OF THE FIRST VOICES IN AMERICA TO ENFORCE THE RELATION OF
CHRISTIANITY TO THE LABOR PROBLEM, THESE PAGES ARE
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.

"The highest truth the wise man sees he will fearlessly utter; knowing that, let what may come of it, he is thus playing his right part in the world; knowing that, if he can effect the change he aims at—well: if not—well also; though not so well."

Herbert Spencer.

CONTENTS.

[CHAPTER I. Roland's Three Visits]
[CHAPTER II. A Twilight Reverie]
[CHAPTER III. An Unexpected Interruption]
[CHAPTER IV. A Consultation]
[CHAPTER V. A Family Party]
[CHAPTER VI. Looking Backward]
[CHAPTER VII. A Midnight Meeting]
[CHAPTER VIII. Nora's Dream]
[CHAPTER IX. In the Hospital]
[CHAPTER X. A Fireside Talk]
[CHAPTER XI. Thorns and Roses]
[CHAPTER XII. Table-Talk]
[CHAPTER XIII. Pippa Passes]
[CHAPTER XIV. A Reporter at Church]
[CHAPTER XV. Helping Hands]
[CHAPTER XVI. A Luncheon-Party]
[CHAPTER XVII. A Christmas Entertainment]
[CHAPTER XVIII. Afternoon Visitors]
[CHAPTER XIX. "Modern Miracles"]
[CHAPTER XX. Breakers Ahead]
[CHAPTER XXI. Work and Wages]
[CHAPTER XXII. Nora's Strategy]
[CHAPTER XXIII. Unexpected Denouements]
[CHAPTER XXIV. A Revelation]
[CHAPTER XXV. Bewilderment]
[CHAPTER XXVI. An Empty Place]
[CHAPTER XXVII. A Thunder-Bolt]
[CHAPTER XXVIII. Conscience Stricken]
[CHAPTER XXIX. Reconciliation]
[CHAPTER XXX. An Easter Morning]
[CHAPTER XXXI. An Unexpected Proposal]
[CHAPTER XXXII. A Narrow Escape]
[CHAPTER XXXIII. In Arcady]
[CHAPTER XXXIV. Looking Forward]
[Recent Canadian Literature]

ROLAND GRAEME, KNIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

ROLAND'S THREE VISITS.

The Reverend Cecil Chillingworth sat in his quiet study, absorbed in the preparation of his next Sunday evening's discourse. It was to be one of those powerful pulpit "efforts"—so comprehensive in its grasp, so catholic in its spirit, so suggestive in its teachings—for which Mr. Chillingworth, to quote the Minton Minerva, "was deservedly famous." In fact, this "fame" of his sat already like "black care" on his shoulders; or, as the Minton Minerva might have said, had it only known the secret, like a jockey determined on all occasions to whip and spur him up to his own record. The strongest forces are often those of which the subject of them is least conscious, and, though Mr. Chillingworth would not have admitted it to himself, he stood in mortal dread of "falling off" in his reputation as a preacher. Should that happen, he would feel—or so he would have put it to himself—that his "usefulness was gone," a reason that would have justified to him every possible effort to avert the calamity.

He was now hard at work, with the critical presence of the reporter of the Minerva painfully before his mind, as he racked his brain for new and original thoughts, fresh illustrations, apt and terse expressions, with an eager anxiety that often threatened to put too great a strain on even his fine and well-balanced physique. There were indeed already, in his inward experience, some unwelcome tokens of overstrain in a growing nervous irritability, and a miserable day, now and then, in which all the brightness of life, and faith, and hope seemed to disappear before the deadly touch of nervous prostration.

It was not wonderful, then, if on the days which he set apart more especially for preparation for the pulpit, Mr. Chillingworth was peculiarly impatient of interruption. It was not consistent with his principles absolutely to deny himself, on these days, to all who sought him; but he always yielded under protest, with the impatient sense of injury which is often caused by the inconvenient pressure of our ideals on our preferences. The subject of the particular sermon on which he was at this time engaged was, the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice demanded by the religion of Christ. He was in the full flow of clear and elevated thought, and was just elaborating what he thought a specially apt illustration, with the enthusiasm of an artist.

A knock at his study door suddenly awoke him from his preoccupation; his brow involuntarily contracted, as, without looking up, he uttered a reluctant "Come in!"

A trim maid-servant entered and handed him a card. On it was inscribed, in clear and decided, though small characters, the name, Roland Graeme.

"Roland Graeme!" he mentally re-echoed. "I don't know the name—and yet it seems familiar." Then a ready misgiving crossed his mind, and, turning to the waiting maid, he asked, "Does he seem to be a book-canvasser?"

"No, sir, I don't just think he is," she replied, somewhat doubtfully; then in a tone of more satisfied decision she added, "any way, he hain't got any books with him now, as far as I can see."

"Well, say I'll be down presently," said the clergyman, with a sigh of forced resignation, dipping his pen into the ink to finish the interrupted sentence, in which he spent some minutes, with a half-conscious determination to have at least the satisfaction of keeping the unwelcome visitor waiting. The plan did not work well, so far as he was concerned. He wrote a few words, read them over, thought them tame and feeble, drew his pen through them, and then, as the dull winter day was fast fading, he thought he might as well go down at once; first putting some fresh coal on his grate, so that, when he returned, he might find the bright glowing fire which his soul loved, for its suggestiveness as well as its comfort, in a twilight meditation. It is curious on what trivial things great issues do often depend. That little delay of five minutes, as it turned out, was the means of changing the whole course of Mr. Chillingworth's life, as well as that of some other persons with whom this story is concerned.

Down-stairs, in the handsomely furnished parlor, whose somewhat prim arrangement betokened the absence of any feminine occupancy, the clergyman found his visitor, a young man of more than middle height and noticeable figure, with a broad fair brow and wavy chestnut hair, candid blue-gray eyes, somewhat dreamy in expression, yet full of earnestness and hope, and lighted with a smile of peculiar sweetness as he rose at Mr. Chillingworth's entrance. That gentleman's manner, however, retained an expression of protest, and he remained standing, without any invitation to his visitor to resume his seat. If he did not say—"To what am I indebted for the honor of this visit?"—it was so clearly written on every line of his face, that the young man was constrained to begin in a tone of apology:

"I trust, sir, you will pardon the seeming intrusion of a stranger on your valuable time. May I ask you to grant me the favor of a brief conference on an important subject?" inquired the visitor, with a gentle courtesy of manner that impressed Mr. Chillingworth in spite of himself. "As a Christian minister, you——"

"As a Christian minister, sir, my time is much engaged. I must ask you to state the object of your visit as briefly as possible. Just at present, I am specially occupied with important work."

"I shall be as brief as possible," the young man replied. "I think you will recognize my object also as important. May I ask you to be kind enough to look at this prospectus?"

Mr. Chillingworth's high, arched forehead assumed a more and more clouded aspect. He made an impatient gesture as he said:

"I am afraid you really must excuse me! I cannot undertake to examine a long prospectus. Time is precious, and my own work is too exacting in its claims."

"That is what brings me here," the young man replied, still with a cheerful, undaunted look. "It is, I think, in line with your work, the importance of which I fully recognize. This is the prospectus of a paper which I propose to issue in the interest of our common humanity. It is designed to promote the brotherhood of man, to secure a better feeling between class and class, employer and employed,—a fairer scale of wages and hours for the operative, fuller coöperation between employer and employés and mutual consideration for each other's interests; in short, to propagate that spirit of Christian socialism which the minister of Christ——"

But here the clergyman's ill-controlled impatience broke its bounds. Preoccupied as he was, he had caught little more than the last words.

"I can have nothing to do with any socialistic schemes," he exclaimed. "There is far too much mischievous nonsense afloat!—simply producing discontent with existing conditions, and with the differences which, in Providence, have always existed. I must really decline any further conversation on this subject," and, with unmistakable suggestiveness, Mr. Chillingworth placed his hand on the half-open door.

A faintly perceptible shade of vexation seemed just to flit across the bright serenity of the young man's frank, open face. He saw very well that persistence would do no good, and yielded to the force of circumstances with the best grace he could muster.

"Good afternoon, then, sir," he said, in a tone that, if not quite so cheery, was as amiable as ever. "I am sorry I cannot enlist your sympathy in our undertaking, as I should like to have all Christian ministers with us. I shall send you a specimen copy of the paper, and hope you will kindly read it."

"Good afternoon," the minister reiterated curtly, showing his visitor to the door with very scant courtesy.

Just as the door was about to close behind him, an unexpected interruption occurred, in the shape of an apparition of a character very unusual at Mr. Chillingworth's door. It was a little girl, who looked about eight or nine years old, but might have been older, quaintly wrapped in a shawl that had once been handsome, while a little fur-trimmed hood that was quite too small for her framed a mass of dark tangled curls, out of which large, lustrous gray eyes, strikingly beautiful in form and color, looked up from under their long dark eyelashes, with a soft, grave, appealing gaze. Her shabby, old-fashioned garb gave her, at first sight, the appearance of an ordinary vagrant child; but there was nothing sordid about the little creature. Her childish beauty, indeed, caught Roland Graeme, whose heart was always open to such spells, with an irresistible fascination.

The little girl looked eagerly up at the two men; then, seeming to divine which was the object of her quest, she said timidly, yet with a refinement of tone and accent somewhat out of keeping with her poverty-stricken aspect:

"Please, minister, my mother is very ill, and she wants——"

"I never give anything to begging children," interrupted Mr. Chillingworth, more sternly than he was himself aware of; for his irritation with his previous visitor preoccupied him so much that he heard and saw the child vaguely, without taking in the sense of her words, or according her any more consideration, than, to his mind, was ordinarily deserved by the nuisances he indiscriminately classed as "juvenile mendicants." "If your mother wants anything, she can come herself," he added, from behind the resolutely closing door. He was not an unfeeling man, but he never knew what to do with children, and had grown hardened by the sight of misery that he could not prevent;—the words he used being a well-worn formula, the crystallized result of many vexatious impositions. He had only, to "save his precious time," delivered himself over to a set of rules, and in so far, cramped and limited the flow of human sympathy.

Roland, left on the door-steps with the little morsel of womanhood, looked down at her, while she looked up at him with the keenly scrutinizing glance, which, in some children as in animals, seems to have been developed by force of circumstances. In the mutual glance, brief and inquiring as it was, a certain sympathy seemed to establish itself between the young man and the child. He noted, with an eye always minutely observant of human faces, the grieved, discouraged look which the child's flexible mouth had assumed at the unexpected rebuff. But she only said, in an explanatory tone, as if answering an unspoken inquiry,

"Mother's too sick to come; she's awful sick!"

"What's your name, my child, and where do you live?" asked Roland Graeme, who could no more divest himself of the quick sympathy that was always catching hold of other people's lives, than he could of the winning candor of his blue-gray eyes.

"Miss Travers!"—was the unexpected reply to his first question, given with a certain quaint dignity that touched Roland's sense of humor. "We live way up there," pointing in the direction of a long street that ran from the neighboring corner toward the outskirts of the city.

"And what ails your mother, and why did she send you here?" he continued.

"She said I was to come to this house," pointing to the number above the door, "and to say that she wanted to see him very particularly," said the child, evidently repeating her message, word for word, "and she's very sick and can't eat bread, and there's nothing else in the house!" she added, in a tone in which perplexity and resignation were strangely mingled.

The young man sighed heavily. Here was another atom, added to that pile of human misery which had begun to weigh upon his spirit like a nightmare. But he replied in the same cheery tone he had used to the minister:

"Well, I'm going that way, and if you'll wait a minute or two for me at a house I have to stop at, I'll go with you to see your mother, and perhaps I can help her a little." And, taking the little one's hand, the two passed on in the fast gathering dusk. The child, who had acquiesced with a look of real satisfaction, trotted on beside him, occasionally looking up, to study the face of her new friend and to return his smile, while doing her best to keep up with the unconsciously rapid pace which had grown habitual with him.

He drew up suddenly before a modest abode, the door-plate of which bore the inscription, "Rev. John Alden." The door was opened by a bright fair-haired boy, to whom Roland's heart went out at once—for he loved boys, as much as some people detest them, and that is saying a good deal. This boy was evidently accustomed to all sorts of visitors, and did not even look surprised at Roland's odd little companion. Yes, his father was at home. Would they walk in? He seemed to know just what to do with the little girl, whom he carefully lifted to a chair in the hall, while he courteously ushered the young man into a parlor whose comfortable confusion and open piano, littered with music and books, indicated as much life and occupancy as the precise and frigid order of Mr. Chillingworth's reception-room betokened the reverse. A merry tumult of children's voices and laughter came through open doors, seriously diverting Roland's attention from the business part of his mission.

A quick decided step soon sounded in the hall, and, with a kindly word to the child as he passed, Mr. Alden entered. He was a man of rather less than medium height, and rather more than middle-age, strongly built, alert, with a large head, broad forehead and bright gray eyes, in which kindliness and humor often seemed to contend for the mastery. His cordial greeting led Roland to feel him a friend at once, while his keen observant glance took in every point of his visitor's appearance, and read his character with a correctness that would have amazed him, could he have known it.

"Sit down, sir, sit down! No intrusion in the world. I am always glad to see young men, and to do anything I can to serve them."

It may be remarked in passing that Mr. Alden's congregation usually contained more young men than any other in Minton. Perhaps this remark partly explained it.

Roland had soon unfolded his errand, less systematically and more discursively than he had done to Mr. Chillingworth. Mr. Alden listened attentively, read the prospectus with his head bent toward his visitor, and one arm resting on the back of his chair; then folded it up, and handed it back to him, with a twinkle of both sympathy and fun in his kindly eyes.

"Well, my dear fellow, I heartily sympathize with your object. I don't know that I can give you much help other than sympathy; but whatever I can do to promote your aims, I shall do with pleasure. Anything that can promote the true brotherhood of man must always enlist the sympathy of a minister of Christ."

"I wish all ministers felt as you do, sir," replied Roland, thinking of his last visit.

"Well, you see, I fear some of us have to be converted yet—to that doctrine, anyhow. As for me, I've had special advantages. My mother was a Scotch lassie, and used to rock my cradle to Burns' grand song,"—and the minister hummed the chorus:—

"For a' that and a' that,
It's comin' yet, for a' that
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brithers be, for a' that!"

"My parents were both Scotch," said Roland, with quick pleasure. "But I suppose you guessed that from my name."

"Yes, a good old Border name it is! I dip into Sir Walter and the Border ballads now and then, and I think we've made some progress toward Burns' idea since those days! Well, I believe that time is coming, but it won't be in your day or mine; and only one thing will bring it about—the growth of the brother-love. I preach, that in my way, and I bid you God-speed if you preach it in yours. Send along your paper! We've got enough and to spare already, but I couldn't shut my door against one started on that platform. And if I conscientiously can, I will recommend it to others, and give you any other help you may need. Only, my dear fellow, don't be disappointed if you don't accomplish all you hope for. Many of us are apt to think at twenty-five, that if 'the world is out of joint,' we, in particular, were 'born to set it right.' I know I did, and though I have not done a hundredth part of what I hoped to do, I probably shouldn't have done that percentage, if I had not started with great expectations. Only don't be discouraged, if they are not all realized! Now—is this little girl with you?" he added, glancing out into the hall where another girl, somewhat older than the boy who had opened the door, was filling the child's hands with cake and fruit.

Roland, suddenly recollecting the child, told all he knew about her, while Mr. Alden listened with evident sympathy and interest.

"Ah! Another of the sad cases of hidden misery that one is constantly stumbling on," he said, his voice and eye grown soft with compassion. "That child doesn't look like one accustomed to beg. If the poor woman wants a minister, why shouldn't I go with you? I am at your service."

"If it's quite convenient," said Roland, "it would be very kind if you would."

"Oh, as for that, ministers and doctors mustn't stand too much on convenience. I've learned a good many lessons from my medical friend Blanchard. We both own the same Master, and I've no more right to be careful of my convenience than he has. Well, my dear, come away!"

For, as he talked in his rapid energetic manner, he had been as rapidly donning overcoat and gloves, and, hat in one hand, now extended the other to the little girl.

"That's right, Gracie, wrap her well up! Tell Mother that I'll be back as soon as I can, but you needn't keep tea waiting for me, if you are all too hungry. Now then, you can shut the door."

Roland courteously raised his hat to the young girl, as she stood looking after them with a smile very like her father's, while her long, wavy, golden hair was rippled by the cold December wind. He felt a wistful regret at leaving the warm, homelike atmosphere behind, when the door at last closed upon them.

Mr. Alden drew a few more particulars from the child as they hastened on. Her mother had been ill a good many days, she couldn't tell how many. No, there had not been any doctor to see her. Mother said she hadn't money enough. They had bread, but no tea, and mother could take nothing but tea!

Mr. Alden darted into a little grocery and came out carrying two small brown parcels. Frequent practice had made him equal to all such emergencies. They had gone a good way past the better class of houses, into a region of unpromising and dingy tenements—a region long ago deserted by all who could afford to leave it. At last the child stopped at an entry door.

"It's here—up-stairs," she said, looking up at her companions. They went up a rickety stair, black with years of unwashed footmarks, and followed the child into the room. She entered; but they stood still on the threshold, while Roland's brow contracted as if with a sharp sensation of physical pain.

It was a wretched little room, bare beyond anything Roland had ever seen in Minton. There was no table, only one dilapidated chair and a low wooden stool. On a shake-down on the floor lay the slender form of a young woman, nearly covered by an old shawl which did not quite conceal her poor and shabby attire. There was scarcely any fire in the rusty little stove. On an old trunk near the window were an evidently much-used box of water-colors, a few brushes, and a card or two, with flower designs painted sketchily, yet with some spirit;—objects so much out of keeping with the rest of the apartment that they at once attracted the eye. The young woman, who eagerly pushed the shawl aside and looked up the moment the door opened, was evidently very ill indeed. Her face was slightly flushed, though the room was far from warm, and her labored breathing told Mr. Alden's experienced ear that it was a severe case of bronchitis.

The little girl ran up to her mother at once, throwing her arms around her neck with a passionate clasp. Then in answer to the eager inquiring eyes that met hers, she explained:

"Here's a minister, Mammy! That one wouldn't come—but he did! So now you'll be better—won't you?"

As the mother remained for a moment in the child's close embrace, Roland, absorbed as he was in the distressing scene, could not help thinking that it was very evident whence the latter had derived her unusual type of beauty. The mother had the same dark rings of clustering curls—tangled now with the restless tossing of illness; the same large liquid eyes of dark gray, under long, dark lashes; the same exquisite curves of mouth and chin, even though suffering—physical and mental—had dimmed a beauty that must once have been bewitching. But the eyes had a restless, pining look; and now, all at once, the fevered flush ebbed away, leaving her deadly pale, while she seemed to struggle for breath, unable to speak.

Mr. Alden rushed to her assistance, and raised her a little, with difficulty detaching the clinging arms of the child; then, glancing around the room, his quick eye fell on a small flask that stood in a corner cupboard, otherwise empty enough. He motioned to Roland, who followed his glance, and brought him the flask. Mr. Alden seized a cup that stood near containing a little water, and, pouring into it some of the spirits that the flask contained, put it to her lips. She drank it down eagerly, and then lay back on the pillow, in a sort of exhausted stupor.

"She must have medical attendance at once," said Mr. Alden. "She is dying from neglect and exhaustion. I suppose you don't know any doctor near?"

"No," said Roland, "I am a stranger here as yet."

"Then I must go for my friend, Blanchard. Or stay—it won't do to leave this poor woman alone with that child! She might have died just now. And you'll make better time than I should. I'm sure you won't think it too much trouble to take a note to Doctor Blanchard, and to pilot him here."

Roland willingly assented. Mr. Alden tore a leaf out of his note-book, on which he hastily wrote a few lines, addressed it to his friend, and handed it to Roland, who hurried off at his customary "railroad pace," leaving Mr. Alden in charge of the scarcely conscious patient and the frightened child.

CHAPTER II.

A TWILIGHT REVERIE.

After his unceremonious dismissal of his unwelcome visitors, Mr. Chillingworth betook himself once more to the quiet sanctum into which no profane foot ever intruded. The fire was blazing brightly now, lighting up, with its warm glow, the stately ordered rows of books that lined the walls, and the two or three fine engravings which Mr. Chillingworth's fastidious taste had selected to relieve their monotony. A charming etching of Holman Hunt's picture, "The Hireling Shepherd," opposite the fireplace, came out distinct in the warm light that just touched another of the "Light of the World," by the same painter, above the mantel. Mr. Chillingworth threw himself luxuriously into his easy-chair by the fire, to enjoy this twilight hour of meditation, when, the dull winter day shut out, his thoughts could roam freely in that realm of religious speculation which was most congenial to his mind. He wanted to complete the particular train of thought which had been flowing so successfully when he had been interrupted by Roland Graeme. He took the unfinished page that he had been writing, and held it in the glow of the firelight, so that he might read again the last completed sentences, and so recall the thoughts with which he had intended to follow them. The subject of the sermon was, the opposition of the religion of Christ to the easy-going, selfish materialism of the age. And the last sentences he had written ran thus:—

"Men often labor under the delusion that Christianity is an easy religion. Its Founder taught another lesson. The palm is to be won, only in the blood and dust of the battle; the battle with sin, with the world, aye, hardest of all, with self! The warp and woof of the 'white raiment' are the incarnadined hues of self-denial and self-sacrifice, which, collected and fused by the prismatic power of love, blend in the dazzling purity of light itself."

Mr. Chillingworth did not feel quite satisfied with this illustration, though he had been delighted with it while in the glow of composition. Now it seemed to him a trifle confused, and he tried to think it out—for of all things he disliked mere vague and glittering rhetoric in pulpit oratory. But, somehow, his mind refused to stick to the point, and insisted in slipping off perpetually into the reverie which the dreamy influences of twilight and firelight are so apt to foster. There was nothing uncomfortable or self-reproachful in his reflection. No thought of the earnest young man he had repulsed, or of the child to whom he had refused to listen, troubled him in the least. Mr. Chillingworth was a conscientious man, and he had not done anything contrary to his own sense of right. He was simply protecting himself from the profitless invasion of time dedicated to important work, by matters that lay outside of his sphere. This, at least, is how he would have put it, had any one ventured to argue the point with the dignified Mr. Chillingworth.

But his mind this evening seemed caught by some hidden link of association, operating sub-consciously as such things often do, and was thereby carried off to scenes and events long left behind. Mr. Chillingworth did not often indulge in retrospection. When one gives one's self up to its influence, one cannot select at will. Pleasant recollections are interwoven with painful ones, which have a way of pouncing unawares on the unwary dreamer. And men whose lives are filled to overflowing with present engrossing interests, do not usually give much play to the power of painful memories. Still, whatever it might be that had stirred the vision, he was haunted to-night by a picture that stood, as real as the engravings opposite him, before that "inward eye" which is not always

"... the bliss of solitude."

The picture was one of an old-fashioned English garden, sweet with pinks and lavender, bright with early roses and laburnum, framed in by walls clustered over with masses of glossy ivy, by stately old cedars, and, beyond these, by blue, wooded hills, soft-tinted in the dreamy hue of an English June. And the centre of the vision he saw might have served as an illustration for Tennyson's "Gardener's Daughter":

"But the full day dwelt on her brows and sunned
Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom,
And doubled his own warmth against her lips,
And on the bounteous wave of such a breast
As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade,
She stood, a sight to make an old man young."

For a few minutes, Mr. Chillingworth closed his eyes and yielded himself without stint to the overpowering reminiscences of days that could never be entirely effaced, not even by the remembrance of succeeding bitterness. Sweet voice, sweet eyes, sweet lips! how sweet you were! And why, ah why, should all that sweetness have been swallowed up in a horror of great darkness? Cruel fate! No, he did not believe in fate. Was it then one of those mysterious providences which seemed so often to mar human lives, or had he, himself, been to blame? He supposed he had. The temptation of a mere outward beauty had been too strong for him, who should have been proof against it. Well, that old folly was all past, long ago! All trace of it seemed to have vanished from his life. Old wounds were healed. Why should he let them smart again? Fruitless regrets for the past were contrary to his principles. So, to fight off the troublesome recollection, he rose and went to an open parlor-organ that stood near his study-table, his one special recreation and delight. And, taking up a score of the "Messiah" that lay open upon it, he struck a few opening chords, and, in a fine tenor voice, began the recitative "Comfort ye, Comfort ye my People."

But the music could not soothe him to-night as it usually did. The restless mood was too strong, and presently he rose abruptly, as a sudden thought occurred to him. He had promised to drop in, very soon, at Dr. Blanchard's, to talk with Miss Blanchard about the proposed rendering of this oratorio for the benefit of his projected new church, in which he wished to enlist her coöperation as a vocalist. This was the hour at which he was most likely to find her at home, the hour at which Mrs. Blanchard usually dispensed afternoon tea, a ceremony of which he thoroughly approved. The pleasant cosy drawing-room, with Miss Blanchard's graceful figure as a centre-piece, seemed, just then, infinitely more attractive than even the tranquil study with its glowing fire and the prospect of a summons, erelong, to a solitary tea-table. For Mr. Chillingworth was a comparatively young man still, and, notwithstanding a certain fastidious exclusiveness, his social instincts were by no means weak. He gave himself a little inward pinch as he thought of some sentences of Thomas à Kempis that he had read that morning; but, as he said to himself, he had a good reason for breaking through his ordinary rule of shutting himself up on the last days of the week, and he was no ascetic, nor meant to be! So, after telling the trim maid that she need not bring up his evening meal till his return, he took what had of late been his frequent way to Dr. Blanchard's hospitable home.

In the bright, daintily furnished drawing-room he sought, there were at that moment assembled three or four persons who were, as it happened, discussing him, and perhaps, like "superior" people in general, he would have been a little surprised at the freedom of some of their remarks. These people were: Mrs. Blanchard, arrayed in one of the first "tea-gowns" that had ever been seen in Minton, whose delicate green set off the warm tints of her hair and complexion; Miss Blanchard, whose quiet afternoon dress, soft and close fitting, contrasted with the more pretentious attire of her sister-in-law, and showed a fine figure to perfection; and two afternoon visitors, who were evidently very much at home. One of these was a young lady, with fair fluffy hair and very fashionable dress, of a peculiarly fresh and delicate prettiness, and a manner that every one called very "taking." The other was a slender, undersized young man, fairly good-looking, with regular features, dark hair and eyes, and an expression of nothing in particular save satisfaction with himself, his surroundings, and his carefully faultless attire. Two children completed the party; a tiny girl in a mass of white embroidery, playing with a pet terrier on the hearth-rug, and a small boy with an aureole of reddish curls, who sat on Miss Blanchard's knee, thoughtfully gazing into the fire.

"Oh!" exclaimed the fair young lady, as she handed her empty cup to the young man who was waiting for it. "Did you hear, Nora, about my cousin, Janie Spencer?"

"What about her, Kitty? Is she engaged, too?"

"Oh, dear no! nothing, so common! Something you'll say is a great deal better! In fact, I call it grand, heroic! Don't you know she's actually made up her mind to be a nurse, and she's gone to the Saint Barnabas hospital for training!"

"Has she, really?" exclaimed Miss Blanchard, with great interest, her cheek flushing a little, and her dark-blue eyes lighting up. "Well, that's good!"

"I knew you would say that," said Kitty, complacently, rejoicing in the effect of her bit of news. "And, do you know, she tells me it was all through Mr. Chillingworth's lovely sermons about self-sacrifice, and—giving up, don't you know. They made her feel so selfish, and as if she had no object in life but enjoying herself, and so, she said, she couldn't rest in her mind till she set to work to do something for other people. And then, she said, they had girls enough at home without her, and she was tired of doing nothing in particular, and she always did have a fancy for nursing. Now, you must be sure and tell Mr. Chillingworth all about it, the first time you see him."

"Why not tell him yourself, Kitty?" was the laughing reply. "You see him oftener than I do."

"Oh, I never can talk to him about such serious things! He looks as if he didn't expect it, or as if it was a sort of liberty; and then he seems to think I'm making fun of him, and I never feel sure that he isn't making fun of me."

"Well, I shouldn't say that Mr. Chillingworth was overburdened with 'fun,'" said the young man, smiling at Kitty. "He wouldn't make his fortune as a humorist; his views of life are too serious, and it seems he is making other people's views serious, too."

"A good thing, too, if he were to do a little for you in that way," she replied.

"Yes, I'm sadly aware that I am far behind you in that respect, Miss Farrell," he retorted, with mock gravity.

"Don't be impertinent, Mr. Pomeroy!" replied the young lady.

Here a diversion was made by the curly-haired Eddie, from his post on Miss Blanchard's lap. His long and serious contemplation of the fire ended with a sigh, and the subject of it came out in the remark:

"I like the Crusaders a great deal better than the Giant-killers, Auntie! Don't you think they were the best?"

"I don't know, Eddie," replied Miss Blanchard, truthfully. "I never thought about it, I am afraid."

"Well, think! Auntie, think!" persisted the child, hugging her neck very tightly, while the others laughed.

"I think some of the Crusaders were Giant-killers, Eddie," said the young man, not sorry to air his historical knowledge. "Saladin gets the credit of being a pretty fairish giant, doesn't he, Miss Blanchard? or so I think my school-books used to say. By the way, wouldn't Chillingworth have made a first-class Crusader, a Crusader chaplain, you know?"

"Why, it was only the other Sunday he was telling us what mistaken views the Crusaders had, and how they often left real duties for visionary enterprises. See how well I have remembered that!" exclaimed Kitty.

"I doubt if he would have seen it, then," replied Mr. Pomeroy, chuckling over a happy thought.

"Oh, Nora, are you going to help in the oratorio, the 'Messiah,' you know? Mr. Chillingworth is taking such an interest in it! All we girls in the choir are to sing in the choruses. Hasn't he asked you?"

"Yes," said Nora, quietly.

"Why, he's been here three times within the last fort-night," said Mrs. Blanchard; "he's just set on getting Nora to sing; and she's got some sort of idea in her head about it, I don't know what. There's another ring, Nora; look if there's any tea left, there's a dear!"

CHAPTER III.

AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION.

As Nora rose, and set down Eddie, a leisurely masculine tread sounded in the hall. When the door opened and revealed Mr. Chillingworth's tall figure, young Pomeroy turned to Miss Farrell, theatrically whispering:

"Speak of angels and you hear the rustle of their wings!"

"Good evening, Mr. Chillingworth," said Mrs. Blanchard, effusively; "here are these young people all talking about you."

"I hope they haven't found anything very bad to say," said Mr. Chillingworth, smiling graciously, as he greeted the party, yet unable to conceal altogether the sensitiveness to being "talked about," natural to most reserved and dignified people.

"No! I should hope not!" replied his hostess. "Do you think they would dare to say anything bad of you here? On the contrary, Miss Farrell has just been telling us how her cousin, Janie Spencer, has been led, by your preaching, to make up her mind to be a hospital nurse. I think it's splendid of her!"

"Yes, it's very fine," replied Mr. Chillingworth. "I am glad she has decided so. Her mother spoke to me of it some time ago, and I begged her to say nothing to dissuade her, but to leave her to follow, unbiased, her own convictions of duty. She has set a noble example."

"Well, I should think you would feel yourself rewarded," Mrs. Blanchard said, as she poured out a cup of tea, and handed it to her dignified guest; while Miss Farrell exclaimed:

"I hope you don't expect us all to follow it, Mr. Chillingworth, and go to be hospital nurses right away!"

"Not in the least," he replied, his dark eyes glancing up at the young lady from under his strongly marked eyebrows. "I don't think that is likely to be your vocation, Miss Kitty, at any rate. But there are other ways of doing good. Life is, indeed, full of opportunities. The pity is, we let so many of them slip," he added, rather sententiously.

"It would be a pity to let this one slip," remarked Mr. Pomeroy, handing the clergyman a plate of macaroons, and helping himself at the same time. "Miss Blanchard, I believe you made these macaroons. They are first-class."

The young man rather resented the clergyman's intrusion, as he considered it. He preferred to have both young ladies to himself, just then.

"The macaroons are excellent," said Mr. Chillingworth, "but I want you to do something better than that for me. I hope you have been trying over those choruses, and the air I wanted you to take as a solo."

Miss Blanchard's bright look clouded a little, and her broad white brow contracted slightly with an expression of perplexity.

"I have tried them," she said; "but I haven't quite made up my mind about the choruses. I don't altogether like the idea of it yet! And I am quite sure that my voice isn't equal to a solo of that kind, in such circumstances."

"Well, you will try it for me, now, at least?" he said.

Nora Blanchard was not given to affectations of any kind, so she rose and complied, quite simply, at once. The clergyman could not but feel that she was right after all, in her estimate of her voice. Her rendering of the air "He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd," was very rich and sweet, for a drawing-room, but lacked the power and compass sufficient to fill a concert hall. At his request, she went on with one or two of the choruses, in which he and Miss Farrell joined her; the three voices blending very harmoniously in the grand music. Mr. Chillingworth noticed a new arrangement of the hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," on the piano, and asked Miss Blanchard to sing that to him, which she did with great feeling and expression. As the closing lines came out in solemn hopefulness—

"And, with the morn, those angel-faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile—"

the clergyman's gaze, as the observant Mr. Pomeroy noticed, grew strangely dreamy, as if he were absorbed by the influences of the song. He seemed to be seeing some inward vision, with pain in it as well as pleasure; and on the cessation of the music, he started as if awakened from a spell. Just then, the door opened, and a maid looked in to know if Mrs. Blanchard could tell when the doctor would be home.

"No, I'm sure I don't know," was the reply. "I thought he was back in the surgery by this time. Is it any one in a hurry?"

"Yes, it's a young gentleman wid a note, as wants him right off," said the girl, a new servant, unaccustomed as yet to the exigencies of a doctor's household.

"Oh," said Miss Blanchard, rising hastily from the piano, "I suppose it's some one from Mr. Easton's, for the medicine that Will told me about. I was to see him and give him a particular message. Excuse me, Mr. Chillingworth, I won't be long."

The clergyman seemed still preoccupied, and did not join in the talk of the others while she was gone. In a few minutes she returned, her cheek glowing and her eye bright with some new interest.

"What's the matter, Nora?" said Mrs. Blanchard, looking at her with some surprise.

"Oh," she replied, hurriedly, "it's a messenger from Mr. Alden, wanting Will at once, for a very sad case—a poor young woman who seems dying of bronchitis and exhaustion. And she has no one with her but a child. I think I must go myself, for I know quite well what to do. I didn't nurse Auntie through bronchitis last winter for nothing! I can take some fluid-beef and make her a little beef-tea, at any rate. And I know where there is some of the medicine Will prescribed for Auntie."

"Oh, dear! I wish you weren't quite so philanthropic. I don't like to let you go, but—I suppose you must, now you've taken up the idea. And if Mr. Alden knows about it, it must be all right. Will can go as soon as he's had dinner, and bring you back. I'll keep some dinner for you. I hope it isn't far, though."

"Oh, no, not very," replied Miss Blanchard. "I'm sorry to seem rude in leaving you all," she added, smiling, "but you see, if one doesn't go out to be a nurse, one must not let slip the opportunities Mr. Chillingworth was talking of just now."

"Certainly! It is most praiseworthy," said that gentleman, "and if you'll allow me, I shall be most happy to be your escort."

Mr. Pomeroy had come forward at the same moment with a similar request. But Miss Blanchard courteously declined both, saying that Mr. Alden's messenger would be escort enough.

"And I shall leave the address, as well as I can, on the surgery-slate," she added, "and Will can drive down when he's ready. I've no doubt the poor thing needs nourishment more than medicine. Of course I'll take some spirits with me, too," she added. "I believe it was that saved Auntie, little as she likes to admit it."

"Well, don't go taking bronchitis yourself," said her sister-in-law. "Mind you wrap up well, for it's raw and cold, as Mr. Pomeroy says."

"Oh, yes, don't be afraid!" said Nora brightly, as, with many regrets on the part of her friends, she left the pleasant, luxurious apartment.

"I believe," said Mrs. Blanchard, as the door closed after her and Eddie, who went to see her off, "that Nora wouldn't feel at home here, without some sick people to visit and look after. You see she always goes about everywhere with Aunt Margaret, in Rockland. Aunt Margaret's a regular Sister of Mercy, without a uniform, and Nora has always taken to going with her quite naturally. You know, Rockland's such a quiet little place, that there's hardly anything else to do in winter. That's one reason why I wanted Nora to spend the winter with us, for once, and see something different. She has been with Aunt Margaret so long that she has taken up all her ideas and ways."

"Then, Aunt Margaret must be a darling," said the enthusiastic Kitty, "for I am sure Nora is, if there ever was one! She and Janie Spencer are the best girls I know."

"It's nice to be one of Miss Farrell's friends," said Mr. Pomeroy. "I hope you do as well by me when I'm not there."

"You, indeed!" laughed Kitty, though she colored a little, or so thought Mr. Chillingworth, whose critical eye rested admiringly on the charming piquante face with its delicate bloom, and the very fair hair, "thrown up" by an artistic Gainsborough hat of dark-blue velvet, with a long drooping feather. He was rather disconcerted by Miss Blanchard's sudden departure;—still there was no denying that Miss Kitty Farrell made a very charming picture, and, as Mr. Chillingworth was fond of saying to himself, "beauty has its uses."

"Well, they're gone!" announced Eddie, coming in presently.

"They—who?" asked his mother.

"Why, Aunt Nora, and the—man," said Eddie, slowly. He was going to say "the gentleman," but as he always heard his father talk of "men," he was trying to imitate him.

"Oh! the man Mr. Alden sent, I suppose. I hope he's all right," she added, a little uneasily. "But, of course he came for Doctor Blanchard himself," she continued, reassured.

"Oh, he's a real nice man!" said Eddie. "I like him. He talked to me while Auntie was getting the things ready. I hope he'll come here again!"

"Eddie is always taking such funny fancies!" said Mrs. Blanchard. "I'll have to ask Nora about this unknown cavalier."

Mr. Chillingworth's brow contracted—he scarcely knew why. He was sorry, now, that he had not more strongly pressed his escort on Miss Blanchard. He did not like the idea of her traversing the streets after dark, attended by an unknown "man" who had made himself so agreeable to Eddie. But it couldn't be helped now.

It was strange, after all, how much of the life and charm seemed to have gone out of the little party with Nora's departure—for she was not a great talker herself. Meantime she was on her way to her unknown patient, while her guide carried her basket, and, so far as he could, answered her questions about the poor woman in whom her interest had been so suddenly awakened.

CHAPTER IV.

A CONSULTATION.

When Roland Graeme's inquiry regarding the time of the doctor's return was answered by the entrance of a tall and graceful young lady, he naturally supposed her to be the doctor's wife. He met her with his usual frank and ready courtesy, addressing her as "Mrs. Blanchard, I presume?"—apologizing for the trouble he had given her, and describing briefly, but graphically, the condition of the patient on whose behalf he had come, as Mr. Alden's messenger.

Miss Blanchard, on her side, was surprised at encountering, in Roland Graeme's unusual type of face and expression, with the clear, candid, gray-blue eyes, so different an individual from the one she had expected to find waiting in the surgery. She expressed no surprise, however, but quietly corrected his mistake in addressing her, and, after listening attentively to his statement, added, after a moment or two of thought:

"As we don't know just when my brother will be in, I think I had better go with you myself, in the meantime; not that I pretend to any medical skill, but I have nursed a relative through an attack of bronchitis, and could take some things with me that I know would do her good."

Roland thanked her warmly, regarding her more attentively than he had done while absorbed in stating his errand. He could not help noticing the earnest and sympathetic expression of the dark-blue eyes, the fair forehead with its natural curve of dark-brown hair, untortured by "crimps," and the sweetness of the smile that seemed just to hover about the flexible mouth, as she—half-apologetically—made the unexpected offer. She was gone in a moment, and then his attention was monopolized by Eddie, who, with childish curiosity had followed his "Auntie," and with whom he had a delightful talk while awaiting the return of the doctor's volunteered substitute. For, to Roland Graeme, children were always delightful, doubtless because of the childlike element in his own nature.

But Miss Blanchard soon returned, ready for her expedition, with a small basket on her arm, of which Roland speedily relieved her, as they passed on through the now lighted streets, full of work-people returning from their daily toil. Roland, with the old-fashioned courtesy in which he had been trained, offered the young lady his arm—an offer which she courteously declined, with a touch of somewhat stately dignity. It was clear, indeed, that the firm elastic step needed no support. They walked on rapidly, Miss Blanchard asking more questions about their patient than Roland could answer, only explaining briefly that he and Mr. Alden had found her out, accidentally, through the child's appeal.

"Is it not sad," she said, taking a long breath, "how many such cases there must be around us that we never know? It puzzles me often to understand how such things can be."

"It's positively maddening, sometimes!" said Roland, irrepressibly breaking into the subject that was generally nearest his heart; "especially when one sees the cool, selfish indifference, with which so many people actually shut their eyes to these things; how they even help, so far as they are able, to crush their fellows down and to keep them down!"

"Why, how?—who would do that?" she asked.

"Employers are doing it all the time, and the rich employers are the worst. I suppose that is one reason why they are rich! But if they did not generally keep their rates of payment down to the minimum they can get men and women to take, there could not be such hard, grinding poverty. The truth is, a large proportion of our laboring classes are always living next door to starvation, and if sickness or want of work comes, it is next door no longer!"

"That seems very strange to me," said Miss Blanchard, thoughtfully. "I have lived all my life in Rockland, a quiet little place among the hills;—where everybody knows everybody else, and where our one or two employers think it their duty to know all the circumstances of all their workers, and are always ready to help them on, and to tide them over a difficulty."

"Yes, that's beautiful!" said Roland. "I know there are such noble exceptions—and they are especially likely to occur in small places, where the fierce tide of competition for wealth and luxury isn't so irresistible, and people seem to have some humanity left! Here, in Minton, where I haven't been so very long, I know numbers of cases where people are living on what I call starvation wages—especially women. You see, operatives are so apt to leave everything to selfish managers, whose main object is to please the firm, and these managers are often guilty of positive inhumanity. There now," he said, as they passed a large building gleaming with long rows of lighted windows, from whose entrance a stream of young women was pouring forth; "there's a place where too many things are done, contrary to all sound principles of justice and humanity. The operatives are made simply working-machines, obliged to work more hours than any young woman should be allowed to do; miserably paid, and exposed to petty tyrannies enough to take out of their life any little comfort they might have in it."

"Whose place is it?" she asked.

"Pomeroy & Company's silk and woolen mills."

"Why, I know young Mr. Pomeroy very well!" exclaimed Miss Blanchard; "and his mother, Mrs. Pomeroy, is a very good woman! I'm sure they can't know about such things!"

"They probably then don't try to know," he replied. "That's the great trouble. The heads of such places are so fully occupied with the business part of their concerns, that they have no time to think of the people by whom the business is made."

As they passed the building, they came up with two of the girls who were standing engrossed in earnest conversation.

"Don't go, Nelly!" they heard one say to the other. "It won't come to no good, any way, and Jim would be that vexed, if he knew!"

"Oh, I guess he'd live to get over it," laughed the other. "Don't you bother about it, Liz!" And she turned toward them, as they passed, a pretty, pert face, beneath a mass of elaborately frizzed hair, and a very tawdry hat.

"Those poor girls!" Miss Blanchard remarked, as soon as they were out of hearing. "How little real interest or pleasure there must be in their lives! How it makes one wish that we, who have so many pleasant things in ours, could do something to brighten theirs!"

"Yes, indeed," replied Roland. "I've often thought about that, and people do try more than they did—in that way. But so long as the work hours are so protracted and so exhausting, you can't make life much brighter for them, do what you will. It's one of my ambitions to do something toward securing shorter hours all round. I believe every one would gain by it in the end."

"Yes, I suppose it is pretty hard to have such a long day of steady work at one thing—especially for girls. I am afraid I shouldn't like to have to do it," said Miss Blanchard, with a sigh.

"But, then, it doesn't do to judge altogether by the outside," rejoined her companion, in a more cheery tone. "I suppose, after all, 'Ilka blade o' grass has its ain drap o' dew.' The greater wickedness is," he added, "when heartless fools try to squeeze the one 'drap o' dew' out of it! But here's our destination."

They found Mr. Alden seated on the one broken chair, near the miserable pallet. The child lay curled up beside her mother, fast asleep. The invalid seemed somewhat revived, and able to talk a little. She fixed her eyes on Miss Blanchard, as she entered, with a strange, wild, almost hunted expression, which rather startled her visitor. Miss Blanchard's gentle, kindly greeting, with Mr. Alden's introduction, seemed to reassure her a little, however, and she swallowed a portion of the soothing medicine that Miss Blanchard had brought for relieving her harassing cough. Then the young lady produced a tiny spirit-lamp from her basket, and soon had prepared a little cup of hot beef-tea, doing it all with a quick and ready lightness that showed her to be quite at home in work of this kind. Mr. Alden and Roland felt themselves to be supernumeraries at once. The latter, indeed, after offering the young lady some scarcely needed assistance in her arrangements, began to think that it was time for him to retire, when a step was heard on the stairs, and a young girl entered, carrying a cup of tea. She hesitated a moment in surprise at the unexpected sight of the strangers, dimly seen by the light of the one poor lamp. Miss Blanchard thought she recognized the pale, eager face of the girl who had begged "Nelly" "not to go," as they had passed the two standing under the lamp-post. She was sure of it, when the girl approached the invalid, scarcely looking at the visitors, and said, in the same deaf penetrating tone:

"Well, Mrs. Travers, how do you feel yourself to-night?"

"A little better now, thank you, Lizzie, but I have been so ill to-day! I thought I was dying a while ago, and Cissy went out and brought back this gentleman, and he has been so kind!"

She spoke in a soft musical English voice, decidedly the voice of a lady, Mr. Alden thought. Then turning to him, she said, with some energy:

"This is my best friend! She has been so good to me—sat up with me at night after working all day! I'd have been dead before now, if it hadn't been for her."

Miss Blanchard, as she bent over the patient, with a cup of beef-tea which she was administering by teaspoonfuls, looked up at the new-comer, with a light of softened admiration in her expressive eyes, which recalled to Roland Graeme, as he chanced to catch it, the memory of his enjoyment of the Sistine Madonna, at Dresden, on a brief visit he had made to Europe. He had not thought of calling Miss Blanchard beautiful, nor did he now; still there was something, either in feature, or expression, or both, that reminded him of the most beautiful and spiritual of Raffaelle's Madonnas. He looked at the poor working-girl, however, with scarcely less of admiration in his honest eyes—little as there was of beauty in the pale, thin face, without any advantage of dress to make up for the defects of contour and coloring.

The invalid, with the wilfulness of illness, insisted on putting aside the broth for the cup of tea that Lizzie had brought her.

"You see, she's used to it," Lizzie said, apologetically. "I always bring her a cup of tea and a bit of toast before I take my own supper, and she likes it."

"Well," said Mr. Alden, "I ought to be going home, if I can't do anything more here; but I don't like leaving you alone till your brother comes, Miss Blanchard. Perhaps this good friend of Mrs. Travers wouldn't mind coming back when she has had her supper, and staying with you till your brother comes, or I return, which I shall do, in any case."

"I am going to stay here all night, Mr. Alden," said Miss Blanchard, decidedly.—"I shall be only too glad to relieve you," she said to Lizzie, who was looking at her in surprise. "It's too much for you, when you can't rest in the daytime, as I can easily do; and I don't mind being alone, Mr. Alden! However, if you will be more satisfied——"

"Indeed, miss," Lizzie eagerly interposed, "I'll be back in ten minutes, and stay with you as long as you like. It's so good of you to say you'll stay all night! I don't mind it generally, but to-night I am dead tired."

And she looked it.

Mr. Alden insisted on Roland's going home with him to tea, as he was so far from his own quarters; and, as soon as Lizzie had returned, they took their departure. Miss Blanchard begged that Mr. Alden would not return that evening, as her brother would soon be there to give her all necessary directions, and Mr. Alden could see him later as to what it would be best to do for the patient. She bade Roland, also, a cordial good-night, which he as cordially returned; thinking, with some regret, how little likely it was that he should have any opportunity of improving an acquaintance which, brief as it had been, had already strongly interested him.

"Miss Blanchard is one of my special admirations," said Mr. Alden, smiling, as they walked on together. "She's an uncommon type, and has been brought up in a very different atmosphere from Minton society. A quiet, refined country home, time and training for thought and study, good literature to grow up among, a wide-minded, philosophical father of the old school, and an aunt with the soul of a saint and the active benevolence of a Sister of Charity; it is no wonder that Nora Blanchard is a sort of rara avis among girls."

"You believe in heredity then, sir, and in environment?" said Roland.

The clergyman looked at him keenly, but with a genial smile. "Certainly," he said; "I believe in both, but I believe also in something else, that is not either; and in this lies the difference between my philosophy and that of the people who are so bent on making automata of us all. They always seem to me to give, in their own persons, a most apt illustration of the lines,

"'Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!'"

"Yes," replied Roland, "I believe we were meant to aspire. 'Excelsior' seems the motto of the universe."

"And a good motto, too! But here we are." And stopping at his own door, he admitted Roland and himself with his latch-key.

CHAPTER V.

A FAMILY PARTY.

The light and warmth of Mr. Alden's hospitable home, with the rippling laughter of children's merry voices, seemed to Roland in delightful contrast with the raw, cold December evening without, as well as with the depressing influence of the miserable apartment they had just left. The father's return was greeted with joyous shouts from the little ones, and Roland was speedily included in the warm welcome. A bounteously spread tea-table, with its pretty pot of ferns in the centre, was awaiting Mr. Alden's arrival, and looked inviting enough to a young man who had been out in the chill air during most of the afternoon. The happy children's faces, the delicate and sweet-looking little mother, the freedom and unaffected gladness of the family life, strongly impressed Roland, and vividly recalled the associations of his own childhood. Grace, the helpful, eldest daughter, had, Roland thought, the sweetest, purest, sunniest face he had ever seen. The clear, frank eyes, with the light of a happy heart sparkling through their peaceful blue, the smile so sweet and sincere, the sunny, golden hair, and silvery, gleeful laugh, so childlike in its ring, fascinated him like a spell. No wonder, he thought, that the shadows cleared from Mr. Alden's thoughtful brow as soon as he crossed his own threshold. Yet, much of the family sunshine there was a reflection from Mr. Alden's own spirit. And, however the shadows of the world without might sometimes weigh on his own heart, he never allowed them to sadden his children, if he could help it. He was fond of exhorting his people to keep their children's childhood as happy as they could, without letting them grow selfish and heartless. And he would often quote Victor Hugo's expressive lines:

"Grief is a fruit God will not let grow
On boughs too feeble to sustain its weight."

"Cultivate sympathy in your children," he would say, "but not so as to burden them prematurely"; and what he preached he practised. Meal-times were, for the children's sake, always bright and cheerful. Mr. Alden had the precious gift of humor, and it served him in good stead to balance a nature acutely sensitive to the pain, the ills and the discords of human life. He seldom failed to catch and bring home some little quaint or amusing experience, which, told as he could tell it, would provoke the good-natured laughter in which he believed, as one of the safety-valves of our nature. Frank, his eldest boy, Roland's first acquaintance in the family, inherited his father's tendency to see the humorous side of things, without, as yet, his counterbalancing depth of feeling; and so it often happened that the father and son together would set the little ones in a small uproar of laughter, which Mrs. Alden's love of propriety would often constrain her to try to keep in some sort of check. But it was no wonder that these children enjoyed their father's presence at meals, and missed it when he was absent.

After tea, the whole party adjourned to the parlor, which was purposely kept not too fine for the frequent incursions of the children. The younger ones rapidly improved their acquaintance with Roland, gathering close about him, reciting to him some of their pet rhymes, and examining him as to his acquaintance with their favorite stories. Fortunately he had read Grimm and Hans Andersen, and knew most of the stories that they had heard, over and over, from their father and Grace, who had caught up his knack of telling a story so as to be an acceptable substitute when "father" was too busy. Roland and they were en rapport at once on the strength of his familiar acquaintance with "The Little Match Girl," "The Snow Maiden," "The Ugly Duckling," and "Prudent Elsie."

"Grace may be sorry they ever heard that," declared Frank, "for now she hears nothing but 'Prudent Elsie!' whenever she calls them back to put on their mufflers or overshoes."

"Oh, I don't mind!" said Grace, laughing. "I think "Prudent Elsie" a very nice name, isn't it, father, dear?"

Her father drew her close to him as she sat on the arm of his chair, with one hand resting caressingly on his shoulder.

"'Simple Susan' would suit you better, my dear; but 'what's in a name?'" he said, looking smilingly up into her bright face. "'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!'"

"Come now, John," interposed Mrs. Alden, looking up from the little sock she was busily knitting; "I can't have you passing on to your daughter any of your old fine speeches to me."

"Infringing on your copyright, little mother?" he playfully returned, glancing fondly at the wife, who, Roland thought, must at Grace's age have looked a good deal like what she did, now.

Half an hour passed so quickly that Roland scarcely realized it. He was just beginning to fear that he might be inflicting his presence too long on the family circle, when Mr. Alden said:

"Now, Gracie, go to the piano! and you, youngsters, get your hymn-books. Mr. Graeme will excuse us, I know, if we go on with our little evening service." Then turning to Roland, he added: "We always have it at this hour, before the children grow sleepy."

Grace sat down at the piano, and in a clear young voice led the little choir, who had clustered around her, each eager to take part in the singing. Mr. Alden followed the hymn with a brief reading, and very simple prayer; and then the younger portion of the family said "Good-night," in due form. Roland, to whom these simple vespers had brought back vivid recollections from his own childhood, now thought it was time for him, also, to say "good-night" and take his departure.

"I will walk part of your way with you," said Mr. Alden. "I want to see Blanchard about what it is best to do for that poor young woman. He will be back by this time, I think. I hope he will advise her going to the hospital, where she will have proper care. She seems to have no one belonging to her but that poor child."

They walked together to Dr. Blanchard's, which was not very far from Roland's own quarters. Before they parted, Mr. Alden took down the young man's address. Then, holding his hand kindly, he said, "I should be glad to have you for a member of a certain little society for social reform, that I have lately started on a broadly Christian basis."

Roland hesitated a little. "I mustn't allow you to misconceive my position," he said. "I am not what you would call a Christian; that is, I cannot at present see my way to accept what is called orthodox Christianity."

"Never mind that just now," said Mr. Alden. "And don't suppose that I can't appreciate honest difficulties of belief. But this society of mine is purposely made wider than Church lines. It is meant to include any one who loves the Christian ideal, and is willing to promote the practical influence of the Christian spirit in this selfish world. From what I have seen of you, I think you are one of that number."

The tone was kind, sympathetic, appreciative—something between that of a father and of an elder brother. Roland's responsive heart was touched.

"If you will take me in on that understanding, you can count on my willing service!" he said.

And with a cordial leave taking, they parted, Mr Alden taking his way to Dr Blanchard's house, Roland walking off to his lodging at his usual rapid pace. He had hours of work before him, and must be at it. When he reached the house in which he boarded, he let himself in with his latch-key, and bounded lightly up the stairs to his own apartment. It was not a large room, and certainly not luxurious, and its confusion of books and papers would have been the despair of any tidy housekeeper. Books, pamphlets, newspapers, were piled on shelves, tables and chairs, in a manner that to any eye but Roland's would have seemed hopeless confusion. Volumes of philosophy and poetry, ancient and modern, were scattered among piles of blue-books and reports of all kinds. On his writing-table, amidst loose sheets of manuscript and newspaper clippings, lay a well worn Bible, Thoreau's "Walden," Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus," Whittier's and Browning's poems, Emerson's Essays, and Henry George's "Progress and Poverty." Evidently the occupant of the room had somewhat varied tastes. And, while Roland is industriously looking over his clippings, sorting his manuscripts, and making a fair copy of his rough draft of a leader for the first number of The Brotherhood, let us take a retrospective glance over the history of the young man himself.

CHAPTER VI.

LOOKING BACKWARD.

Roland Graeme was, by birth, a Canadian. His father had been a Scottish clergyman who had emigrated to Canada in early life; a man of poetical and dreamy temperament, of large and loving nature, which yet, by force of education and habit, had been somehow forced into the compress of an intricate and somewhat narrow creed; or at least had been led, like many others, by an intense veneration for ancient authority, to submit without chafing even to some articles against which his heart and moral intelligence would have strongly protested had he allowed them any voice in the matter. As it was, he worked on tranquilly, scorning worldly delights and living laborious days, troubling himself little about formal theology, and seeking to inspire his flock to love and practice the Christian graces, "against which there is no law." In temporal matters, he was as unpractical as he was unworldly, and, but for his wife's calm, judicious judgment and practical common-sense, would have been in perpetual financial straits. She, poor woman, had found it, indeed, no easy task to steer the family bark clear of the rocks on which the good minister's easy-going benevolence and trustful generosity were continually on the verge of wrecking it.

Roland was this good man's only son, and on him his father had concentrated all the ideality of his nature. Living in a remote country place, where no good grammar school was easily accessible, he had himself prepared his boy for college. Roland had absorbed eagerly all that his father had to teach him, of classic lore, of poetry, of nature, as well as the rudimentary, informal theology, that was, so to speak, filtered through the spectroscope of a mind which unconsciously rejected all that was harsh and narrow, allowing free passage only to what was akin to his own loving spirit. Under such paternal influences, intensified by his mother's strong religious nature, Roland had grown up with his whole being inspired and colored by the great principles of Christianity. The teachings of Christ himself, household words from his earliest infancy, had taken a firm hold of his plastic young soul. Principles of action seemed to him matters of course, which, as he too often afterward found, were, to the average Christian people with whom he came in contact, as an unknown tongue. Till he left his home, the boy supposed all the nominal Christian world to be only an extension of the little circle in his childhood's abode, and his fervid nature looked forward to something like a repetition of his father's life under new circumstances, possibly, with wider scope and under more congenial and hopeful surroundings.

But, when he went to college, his sanguine nature was painfully disenchanted by his first dip into the cold, commonplace reality. Many of his comrades seemed to him little better than baptized heathen. He saw things done, heard things said every day, by people who would have been indignant had any one denied them the name of Christian, that seemed to him in direct opposition to the spirit and teachings of the Master they professed to own. Many, even of the religious students he met, repelled him. Their religion for the most part seemed so shallow and conventional, their creed so hard and narrow, their ideals so worldly, that their conversation jarred and revolted him. He sought some refuge from his perplexities in writing to his mother, who sensibly reminded him that as he had had special privileges, he must not expect the same degree of religious culture from lads brought up under very different influences; that his own duty was, to hold fast by the truth he knew, and, in so far as he could by his example and influence, help others to see it, too. So the boy staunchly adhered to his principles, and was thought "an odd sort of fellow," but "with no harm in him," who could always be depended upon for a good turn, though a sort of "crank" on certain points, especially as regarded poetry and religion. He found no difficulty, with his natural talent and thorough preparation, in taking a high place in his classes, though his love of literature and general knowledge, combined with a natural dreaminess, kept him from taking the highest honors of his course. This was, perhaps, a slight disappointment to the good father, who cherished for his bright, enthusiastic boy, ambitions he had never entertained for himself. But, just at the close of Roland's undergraduate course, when he was already looking forward to beginning his theological studies, his father suddenly died.

It was a terrible blow to the lad, in more ways than one. His father had been so much to him, a centre of such passionate love and reverence, that life did not seem the same to him now that his father was no longer there to guide and advise his still immature mind, and to sympathize with his enthusiasms and aspirations. Moreover, this sad event seriously affected his own prospects. He could no longer, for the present at least, continue his professional studies. He must "buckle to" the task of providing for his mother and two younger sisters, whom it was necessary for him, in great measure, to support and educate. Teaching was the work readiest to hand, and he soon secured a fairly remunerative position, entailing, however, work which absorbed the greater portion of his time and strength. He toiled on, steadily, faithfully; finding, as time passed, much satisfaction in knowing that he was so well fulfilling the responsibilities bequeathed to him by his father. He still read omnivorously, seizing eagerly every fresh vein of thought, or view of life and nature that came in his way. Of course, modern science threw over him the glamour of its fascination, and he rapidly assimilated its leading facts and theories, with an avidity characteristic of his active and unresting mind, while, after the manner of young men, he did not always stop to discriminate between fact and theory. Nor did he always discern just whither the theory was leading him.

As he had by no means given up the hope of eventually prosecuting his theological studies, he began, as he could spare the time from his daily duties and the more secular reading that so fascinated him, to take up some of the old text-books which had been in his father's library. One of these was the intricate and elaborate compendium of doctrine which formed the standard creed of the ministry of his Church—an able synopsis of a certain rigid, scholastic, one-sided theology, having, for most thoughtful minds nowadays, the great fault that it attempts to compress into a series of logical propositions, mysteries far transcending human thought, and never thrown into this dogmatic form by the original teachers of Christianity. He found there, not only statements that seemed to conflict with the teachings of science, but also declarations concerning the deepest mysteries of Divine purpose, against which his heart and his sense of justice alike rose in passionate revolt, and which he could never have dreamed it possible to conjure out of the love-lighted pages of his New Testament. Was this, he thought, what his father had believed? Looking back on all he had ever heard from that father, he could not think so. At all events, he knew that he could never believe it or profess to do so. His mother could give him little help in his perplexities. She had never troubled herself about abstruse theological questions. Her Bible was enough for her, and she did not think his father had felt himself bound to believe everything the theologians taught. Yet there was confronting him, this long series of definite propositions, subscription to which was the only entrance-gate to the ministry of the Church which was so dear to his imagination through a thousand traditions and tender associations. He felt that, for him, that gate was firmly barred.

But this was by no means all. The questioning and disintegrating process, once begun, did not stop here. The mystery of life and being seemed to have opened an abyss before him which he now seemed unable to bridge by the old simple faith that had hitherto been enough for him. Sceptical friends, by plausible arguments, increased this difficulty, and the attacks on the Divine origin of Christianity, which were constantly coming in his way, found a ready entrance into his perplexed mind, unarmed to repel them. A "horror of great darkness" seemed to have swallowed up the very foundations of his faith. Life and death—the present and the future—seemed shrouded in the cloud of unfathomable mystery which his baffled vision vainly strove to penetrate. Much thought about it became too heavy a burden to bear; and he practically gave up the struggle for light, making up his mind, for the present, to follow the one compass in his possession—the Christian ideal and conscience that had been developed and educated with his own growth, till it had become an inseparable part of his moral being. He was at least happy in having his life founded on this rock, even though his eyes might be for a time blinded as to the true source of his strength.

Some busy years had passed, lighted at least by the consciousness of practical duty honestly followed and of being the trusted prop and consolation of his mother's life; while for his sisters he did his best to secure as careful an education as had been bestowed on him. The interest that he had felt compelled to withdraw from speculative thought, he had thrown, all the more strongly, into some of the great practical questions of the day, unconscious that much of his early faith still survived in the enthusiasm with which he caught at every new plan or measure for lightening the load of the more burdened portion of humanity. Altruistic by inherited temperament, the "enthusiasm of humanity" gradually possessed him like a passion. It seemed as if the wrongs and woe of oppressed multitudes lay like an actual weight on his heart. He devoured the works of Henry George, as they came out, till these "Problems" absorbed his own mind, and the remedies proposed by George and others seemed to bring up the vision of a fair Utopia which might become the noble aim of a modern crusade. To devote himself and his life in some way to such an object, seemed to him the aim most worthy to set before himself. But, of course, his first duty was to provide for his mother and sisters.

An unexpected event, however, set him free from this obligation in a very agreeable way. The elder of his two sisters had been gradually and imperceptibly developing into a very charming and attractive young woman; and, much to Roland's surprise, he one day discovered in a wealthy young friend of his own a prospective brother-in-law, who was generously ready to provide a home for the mother of the bride he was eager to claim. And as his younger sister was almost ready for her own chosen vocation of teaching, Roland could now begin to think of a career for himself.

One of his most promising and congenial classmates at college, with whom he had always kept up a steady correspondence, had, some years before, gone to the United States, to engage in journalistic work, and had become the editor of the Minton Minerva. He had frequently urged Roland to join him there, setting before him the inducements of a wider sphere and a more active and busy life. Roland had always had strong republican sentiments and sympathies, and humanitarian instincts were still stronger in him than were local or traditional attachments and associations. There was the attraction, too, of possibly helping on a great "movement" in which he thoroughly believed, and then there was the fascination of new scenes and surroundings to one whose life for years had been so monotonous. He stuck to his post, however, till he had saved enough to supply his own simple needs for a year or two, and then set off on a rapid trip to those portions of the Old World which, from his childhood, he had most longed to see.

There, besides the old quaint cities and ruins, around which a thousand literary and historical associations clustered like the ivy which clothed them, and the glorious mountain scenery of which as a boy he had so often dreamed, he had found in his wanderings another subject of deep interest. This was the condition of those "forgotten millions," of which he had read so much of late. Here, as in other cases, he found all his conceptions fall far short of what he actually beheld—men, women and children, pent up in rank and wretched slums, fighting with gaunt famine for a miserable existence. He saw them, at early morning, searching heaps of rubbish for a few crusts, only too eagerly devoured. He saw young girls, forced to still more revolting means of procuring daily bread—means that dragged them rapidly down to worse than physical death. He saw young children, with haggard unchildlike faces, and most unchildlike sharpness and callous greed, born of the premature "struggle for existence" that was written on their pinched young features. He saw human beings who had not, literally, "where to lay their heads," glad to throw themselves down on the damp grass of city parks, yet driven from thence, and from every other resting-place, by the relentless order to "move on!" He knew that, of these multitudes, fighting hand to hand with starvation, many could not, by any effort, secure remunerative work. For these, there seemed nothing but despair and death, on an earth which could no longer make good for them the promise—"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." For them there was neither work nor bread. The sights he then saw burned themselves into his heart and brain forever. And, side by side with all this misery, he saw gorgeous displays of wealth and luxury, such as he had scarcely thought possible, outside of the "Arabian Nights;" evidences of idle abandon to voluptuous pleasure—of unblushing and reckless extravagance—until he wondered how it could be that a just and over-ruling Providence should not interfere; how it was that the earth did not open to swallow up these selfish cumberers of the ground. It was the old problem which perplexed the righteous soul of Job in the dawn of history—which has perplexed many a moralist and driven to despair many a bewildered enthusiast in all the ages. But if anything had been needed to intensify in him the "enthusiasm of humanity," the passion for reform; to grave on his heart the resolve to "open his mouth for the dumb, in the cause of all such as are left desolate," it was what he then saw of that hopeless, inarticulate hardship and misery, which rarely finds expression in speeches or pamphlets, but sometimes does find it, at last, in strikes and catastrophes! A little, too, he saw, of that underlying social dynamite, and felt to his heart's core the gravity of the situation.

It was, therefore, with no room in his mind for trifling, and little for selfish aims, that Roland Graeme returned from abroad to take up the work of his life. He first, of course, paid a brief visit to his mother and sisters, to satisfy himself as to their happiness and comfort; and then, with his few belongings—chiefly books—he betook himself to his friend at Minton. Dick Burnett received him cordially, and at once gave him some light work, in the way of reporting and editorial writing, which would at least keep his purse moderately supplied, while he was also studying law in a lawyer's office, with the view of eventually entering that profession. To him, among other things, fell the work of reporting sermons for the Minerva, a task for which, of course, he was well fitted by his early training; and this was the reason why, for some months past, Mr. Chillingworth had wondered at the skill and accuracy with which his sermons had been synopsized for the benefit of the readers of the Minerva. In fact, he sometimes could not help admitting to himself, that, in clearness of thought and felicitous condensation, the abstract was almost an improvement on the sermon. Had he been aware that Roland Graeme was his unknown reporter, he would doubtless have been more affable in his greeting on the occasion of the young man's visit.

Minton was largely a manufacturing town, and Roland soon found that there were many wrongs around him calling for redress. His investigations speedily brought him into contact with leaders of the "Knights of Labor," and sympathy with their aims very soon led him to enroll himself in their ranks. He could not, indeed, remain a member after he should become a legal practitioner, as the rules of the order do not admit lawyers; but he could and would work with heart and soul for its objects, both in the ranks and outside them. He found the leaders cordially grateful for his aid and counsel, and in the sympathy and coöperation of some of the more intelligent workingmen he found much of the pleasure and stimulus of his new life. Of course, his efforts on their behalf sometimes evoked, from the "party of the other part," sentiments of a very different character; but Roland was happily so constituted as to care little for that; and, so long as he could carry a point for the benefit of his friends, the employés, he could bear hard names with great equanimity. So absorbed was he, indeed, in his ideals and enthusiasms, that the "personal equation" had become very insignificant.

He found, however, that, in order to rouse the public mind on certain points, he wanted an opportunity for stronger expression than he could venture to use in his editorials in the Minerva, which, of course would not risk irretrievably offending its wealthy patrons. The editor, who was in part proprietor, was by no means uninterested in the "labor question," and was quite willing to go as far as he thought "safe" in its interests. But Roland wanted more liberty of speech for the burning thoughts that filled his breast; and the idea gradually took shape, in the course of their discussions in the sanctum, of issuing a small weekly journal to be devoted entirely to the object nearest to Roland's heart, his friend the editor being willing to afford all the facilities of the printing-office to the new journal, and even to bear part of the expense, which was also to be shared by an eccentric old Scotchman who boarded in the same house with Roland, and with whom he had struck up an odd sort of friendship.

Roland was determined to call his paper The Brotherhood, so that it would bear in its very title the imprint of the truth which his Christian training had interwoven with every fibre of his being, and which, he also expressed in the motto, "All ye are brethren." In the simplicity of his heart, Roland imagined that every Christian minister must be as profoundly impressed with this great truth as he himself was, and that he could count on the warm sympathy which they, at least, would accord to his paper—intended, as the prospectus stated, "to bring this fundamental principle and its corollary, the Golden Rule, to bear on all social questions," including business arrangements and the relations of employer and employed. So obvious an application of practical Christianity must, he thought, enlist the cordial coöperation of those whose vocation was to teach it.

As we have seen, however, he sometimes found himself disappointed in this very natural expectation.

CHAPTER VII.

A MIDNIGHT MEETING.

Roland was writing busily on, scarcely conscious of the lateness of the hour, absorbed in the pleasant task of pouring out on paper without restraint the passionate pleas and arguments with which his mind was filled, when he was roused by a rather peremptory knock at his door, immediately followed by the apparition of a rugged old face with gray shaggy locks and beard, surmounted by a picturesque red toque.

"Weel, lad, hard at work? Have ye got yer firebrands all ready for the wee foxes' tails, that ye're gaun to send in amang the Philistines' corn? There's a bit o' yer' 'modern interpretation' for ye!" The voice was deep and guttural, and the accent a broad Doric.

"I hope you don't mean to compare me with that grim practical joker!" said Roland, pleasantly. "I'm sure I don't want to do anything destructive. My line is all constructive."

"Aye, that's weel enough! But sometimes the t'ane can't be done without the t'ither. And ye'll soon be gettin' credit for that 'ither, or my name's no' Sandy Dunlop!"

"Sandy Dunlop," as he called himself, and as his friends called him, did not always indulge in broad Scotch; that, in his own estimation, would have been "throwing pearls before swine." He reserved it for his moments of expansion, for the seasons of unrestrained talk with the few in whose company he did expand; especially when, like Roland, they were of Scottish lineage, and could appreciate the beloved old Doric, his affection for which was one of the soft spots in a somewhat hard and caustic nature. Doubtless this point of sympathy was one of the attractions that drew him to Roland. But "Sandy Dunlop" was a shrewd judge of character.

Roland willingly threw down his pen, and settled himself back in his chair, for one of the rambling talks which offered a little recreation to his rather high-strung temperament.

"D'ye ken?" pursued the old man, "yon was a grand, simple kind o' way they used to have o' settlin' their disputes! nane o' yer vile newspaper calumniations or underhan' plottin's, but just a good honest tussle, and done wi' it."

"But you don't suppose I'm going to calumniate anybody, I hope!" said Roland, opening his eyes.

"You, laddie, deed na'! Weel I ken that," replied the old man, with a sort of chuckling grunt. "It's just some o' thae poleetical articles I've been readin', till I'm sick o' it all! When will ye get yer Brotherhood ideas into party politics? Tell me that, lad, if ye can!"

Roland smiled and sighed.

"Aye, aye! the warld'll tak' a wheen o' makin' over yet, an' it'll no be you nor me that'll do it. However, ye might read me some o' yer screeds," he added, looking at the young man with much the same air of grim patronage with which a sagacious old mastiff might regard a well-meaning but rash young terrier, attempting impossibilities.

As he spoke, the door below closed with a bang, and a snatch of an operatic air, hummed sotto voce, was borne to their ears, as rapid footsteps sounded lightly on the stairs.

"Here's that harum-scarum callant," said Mr. Dunlop, looking somewhat glum. A light tap at the door was scarcely answered by Roland's "Come in," when it was followed by the entrance of a young man of blonde complexion and rather slight figure, dressed much more fashionably than Roland. His blue eyes, fair hair, and Teutonic accent plainly bespoke his origin, and his greeting showed him to be on the most unceremonious terms with Roland, as he jauntily entered, nodding familiarly to the old Scot.

"A midnight meeting in the interests of the Brotherhood!" he exclaimed, theatrically, glancing at the sheets of manuscripts on Roland's desk, and at the expectant attitude of the old Scotchman. "I may come in for the rehearsal, too, nicht wahr?"

"Yes, if you will be quiet, and listen, and not interrupt too much," returned Roland.

"Quiet? Ah yes!—I will listen to the words of wisdom." And, throwing down his hat, he seated himself on one corner of Roland's writing-table, looking down at him with smiling expectancy. Mr. Dunlop, with both hands resting on the table before him, listened with head bent forward, and keen attention in his shrewd, observant eyes.

Roland read with rapid utterance, but feeling intonation, one sheet after another; first the leading article, setting forth the scope and objects of the paper, then one or two minor ones, touching on matters of detail. Mr. Dunlop occasionally interposed a criticism or a suggestion, which Roland noted for consideration, while the fair-haired young Teuton fired off a stray shot, now and then, at Roland's sometimes too florid periods, which the latter took good-humoredly—sensible that there was some ground for the strictures.

"He lets himself be run away with sometimes," said this critic, turning to Dunlop. "Keep cool, mein lieber, keep cool! Keep thy head and bridle-hand!"

"All very fine, Waldberg," said Roland. "See you practice what you preach. Of course, these last are only rough drafts. The first article I went over carefully with Burnett, and he thinks it will do well enough now, though I think that little modification of yours, Mr. Dunlop, is a decided improvement."

"Aye, lad—ye maun be canny! Nae guid in runnin' yer heid against stone walls, for they tak' nae ill frae it, an' yer heid does. Now, guid-night to ye baith, an' remember it's time ye were in yer beds."

Waldberg threw himself into the chair the old man had left.

"Well, how did you find your parsons?" he asked. "Did they hail you as a brother, and promise to read and support the Brotherhood?"

Roland smiled somewhat grimly. "One of them did, at any rate—at least he promised to read it; and some of the others promised to give the subject their best consideration."

"Well, you did better than I expected," the young man replied, "but this one who promised to read it—this wonderful man—he wasn't the Reverend Cecil Chillingworth? I'd bet my head against that!"

"Why, what do you know about it?" asked Roland, in surprise.

"Oh, I've been having a sort of musical evening with him!" returned Waldberg, smiling. "I went in to make some arrangements about the practice for his oratorio—he's going to have the "Messiah" given for the benefit of his church, you know, and I'm to be accompanist, of course. So he got me to go over some of the tenor airs with him on his parlor-organ, while he sang them. He has really a good voice, and he is enthusiastic in music, if he is not in social reform."

"But how do you know about that last?" inquired Roland, who found it difficult to imagine Mr. Chillingworth talking freely to Waldberg. And what had become of the "important work" that prevented his having a few minutes to bestow on him, and on these grave questions?

"Oh, very easily, indeed. He began to talk about some of the passages we were going over, for my benefit, of course. And we were discussing the question of a soprano for the air 'Come Unto Him, All Ye That Labor And Are Heavy-laden,' for which he said he specially wanted an effective rendering. He grew quite eloquent; I think he must have been rehearsing a bit of his Sunday sermon. He said the world was 'laboring and heavy-laden,' (thought I, 'That's true enough') and 'that it was because men would not take upon them the right yoke. There was no end of nostrums, nowadays,' he said, (and I felt quite sure he was thinking of you and the Brotherhood,) 'but the only radical cure was the self-surrender of each individual heart to the yoke which is easy and the burden which is light.' There, you see how well I've got my lesson off by heart! You are welcome to that, for your report of his next sermon, in advance. It'll be there, sure enough!"

Roland could not help smiling at Waldberg's close imitation of Mr. Chillingworth's measured and impressive manner. But he sighed the next moment, a little impatient sigh, as he broke forth:

"That's the stereotyped way they all talk. But, how much 'self-surrender' does he get from his own 'prominent man,' Mr. Pomeroy, for instance? He could make a good many people's yoke easier and their burdens lighter if he chose! When men like that show the cure, we'll begin to believe in it. Yet he listens to Mr. Chillingworth, Sunday after Sunday, and I don't suppose he ever hears a word to wake him up to the fact that he's actually a murderer, in 'wearing out human creatures' lives.' But, in the name of all that's honest, Waldberg, how can you go through such a thing as the 'Messiah' with a man like Mr. Chillingworth, when you know you don't believe either in the theme or the treatment of it."

"Ah, but then, you don't understand Art, mein Roland; dramatically, you see, I can feel the very spirit of the music; as for the words, what matters? I rather suspect Mr. Chillingworth has a pretty good idea that I don't believe very much, and no doubt he thinks he is doing a good work in giving me some light, as we go along."

"Well, of course, you don't sing, only accompany," said Roland, meditatively.

"Oh, that's nothing," said Waldberg, coolly. "Professionals simply go in for art in all these things. I know one of the soloists, at any rate, that I am getting for him, believes even less than I do—an atheist out and out."

"Well, I know I could not stand up and sing parts of that oratorio, knowing how other people believe it," said Roland, "and I'm no atheist."

"No," said the other, "that's just where your scruple comes in. If you an were atheist, you wouldn't think it mattered much what you sang, so long as the music was good. As for the girls who sing the choruses, I don't think they know half the time what they're singing."

Roland thought of his father's old-fashioned veneration for the sacred words, and wondered how he would have borne what seemed to his own fastidious taste a profanation of them, even while he maintained his own negative position.

"There will be some pretty good voices in the choruses," continued Waldberg, critically. "Miss Farrell's is sweet and clear like a bell, though it is not very strong—wants compass. And another young lady I had the honor of accompanying at Miss Farrell's last soirée musi-cale—Miss Blanchard—has a very good voice too, plenty of feeling and expression, as far as she goes, and wonderfully distinct enunciation."

Roland had begun to listen with more interest. It was curious, as he had noticed before, that you no sooner met persons for the first time, than you were almost sure to hear of them very soon again.

Waldberg went on, not expecting a reply, simply talking because he liked it.

"Mr. Chillingworth hopes to get her into the choruses. He was quite set on putting her in for a solo, but she declined, and I think she's right. She could never fill a hall, but Chillingworth, entre nous, seems to admire her immensely."

"I have seen her," said Roland, carelessly. "She has a fine face, whatever her voice may be." And the Madonna-like vision rose again before him.

"Yes, she has a noble air, 'presence,' as you say, but she can't compare with Miss Farrell for looks. She is an exquisite creature, herrlich schöne she looked that evening."

"Take care of yourself, Waldberg," said Roland, looking up with a smile, at his animated face. "She is not fair for you."

"Oh, I am not selfish, like that!" retorted the other, but with a heightened color. "I can admire, where I can do no more; and Miss Farrell likes me to find her fair, if I mistake not."

"Oh, I suppose she can flirt!" replied Graeme. "Most of the young ladies here seem to be able to do that. Only 'beware,' she may be 'fooling thee.'"

"Thou art growing cynical, mein Roland! Thou thinkest too much! I shall bid thee good-night. Schlafe wohl!"

"Du auch!" returned Roland, who liked to keep up with Waldberg the German colloquialisms he had learned abroad. "Poor fellow," he said to himself, as he listened to the retreating footsteps, "I am afraid she is 'fooling' him." He had heard a great deal, of late, about Miss Farrell, who was one of "Herr Waldberg's" most promising pupils as a pianist, and from whom Roland believed that the young man was taking lessons of a more dangerous kind. However, after all, it was no business of his, and Waldberg ought to be able to take care of himself.

But he pondered a little over what seemed to him the strangeness of Mr. Chillingworth's finding it so easy to spend an hour or two enjoyably, talking music with a completely irreligious young man like Waldberg, while he could not spare him a few minutes for the discussion of matters which affected the well-being, higher and lower, of so many thousands, and which concerned the practical diffusion of principles of action which he had supposed must be at least as dear to the clergyman as they were to himself. Roland did not yet know how easily some men can absorb themselves in beautiful ideals and vague generalities, till the practical side of life, with its tiresome details and rude collisions, becomes for them almost non-existent.

And so Mr. Chillingworth "admired Miss Blanchard immensely"! Roland felt interest enough in the young lady to wish her a better fate than a man whom he had begun mentally to sum up as "an egoistic iceberg." However, his business in life was not to settle the destinies of either Mr. Chillingworth or Miss Blanchard, or even of Miss Farrell and Hermann Waldberg. So he presently forgot them all in finishing the article in which he had been interrupted, and then went to bed to sleep that sleep of the laborer, which is "sweet" only when neither brain nor muscles have been overstrained to exhaustion.

CHAPTER VIII.

NORA'S DREAM.

Mr. Alden found that Dr. Blanchard quite agreed with him as to the importance of getting their patient removed to the hospital. The doctor thought that her case was by no means hopeless, provided she could be supplied with the constant care and nourishment she so urgently needed, and this could scarcely be secured for her except in the hospital. Dr. Blanchard, who had all the ready, practical kindness which usually marks members of the medical profession, added to that of a naturally kind heart, willingly undertook to make the arrangements for the invalid's removal.