Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
A NEW
ARISTOCRACY.
BY
“BIRCH ARNOLD,”
Author of “Until the Daybreak.”
BARTLETT PUBLISHING COMPANY.
New York: 30 and 32 West Thirteenth St.
Detroit, Mich.: 44 West Larned St.
1891.
COPYRIGHT BY AUTHOR.
Electrotyped and printed by
THE PUBLISHERS’ PRINTING COMPANY
30 & 32 WEST 13TH STREET
NEW YORK
“Talk about questions of the day. There is but one question and that is the Gospel. It can and will correct everything that needs correction.... My only hope for the world is in bringing the human mind into contact with Divine Revelation.
“Wm. E. Gladstone.”
INTRODUCTION.
“Write ye for art,” the critics cry,
“And give your best endeavor,
That down the aisles of length’ning time
Your fame may speed forever!”
“Write ye for truth,” my heart replies,
“And prove that generous giving,
May help some blinded eyes to find
The noblest way of living.”
The simple story, plainly told,
May bear its own conviction,
And words alive with buoyant hope
May supersede their diction.
Give me the horny-handed clasp
Of some good honest neighbor,
Who finds within the words I speak
A strength for earnest labor.
Give me the lifted, grateful smile
Of some poor fainting woman,
Who knows that I regard her soul
As something dear and human.
Give me the fervent, heartfelt prayer
Of just the toiling masses;
To be remembered with their love
Your boasted art surpasses.
And this be mine, whate’er the fault
Of manner, not of matter,
Along the rocky ways of life
Some living truths to scatter.
Birch Arnold.
A NEW ARISTOCRACY.
CHAPTER I.
Mr. Murchison was dead. The villagers announced the fact to each other with bated breath as they gazed with reverent awe at the crape on the door.
“Poor man,” they sighed, vaguely sympathetic; “it’s well enough with him now, but there’s the children.”
“Ay, there’s the children,” more than one responded feelingly.
Mr. Murchison had been the rector of the small parish of Barnley, distant perhaps a hundred miles from the city of C——, the great commercial center of the West, and having attended faithfully to his duties for a series of years, had been stricken at last with the dread pangs of consumption. Two years of painful waiting had passed away, and now the release had come. Devout, patient, and faithful, who could doubt that it was well with him?
“God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” tremblingly spoke the clergyman who had been summoned to conduct the burial service. “Surely He will so influence the hearts of His people that these bereft ones, these fatherless and motherless children, shall not suffer from contact with the cold and bitter side of life.”
Comforting words truly; words that fell, as rain falls on parched fields, upon the benumbed senses of those who wept for their dead; words that touched the hearts of the little band of parishioners, and made each one wonder for the time being what he could do for them; words that resulted in offerings of flowers and fruit for one week and—so soon do good impulses die—in comment and unsought advice for another.
It was a well-known fact that aside from his library and household belongings Mr. Murchison had left nothing. A student and a biblist of rare discernment, he was happiest when deep in abstruse research, and many a dollar of his meagre salary had gone for volumes whose undoubted antiquity might help him to the completion of some vexed problem. Sometimes, looking up from his treatise or his sermon, he would glance at Margaret, his eldest daughter and careful housekeeper for the last five lonely years of his life, and think painfully of the time, the dread sometime, that was sure to leave his darlings unprotected. He wished, good man, that he might have money; not that he coveted the dross of earth, but that it might be the Lord’s will to shield his loved ones from contact with bleak and bitter poverty. Many a prayer was rounded with that earnest supplication, to which he supplemented, always in complete resignation, “Thy will, not mine, be done.” But he never saw the earthly realization of his hopes. He always grew poorer; his clothing just a trifle shabbier, the table a little plainer, and Margaret daily more and more put to her wit’s ends in the difficult problem of making something out of nothing. But who shall say the faith of a life-time met with no recompense? Who can declare, with certainty, the blinded eyes saw not afterward with clearer vision that he had left each of his darlings God’s highest riches, a brave human intelligence?
Margaret Murchison, the eldest of the three children, was too strongly built, physically and mentally, to be beautiful. It is indisputably true that where nature puts strength she also puts hard lines, and every feature of Margaret’s face bespoke the positive nature; quick to comprehend and fearless to execute. Yet hers was by no means a masculine or an ugly face. Though strongly marked, there was still an indefinable attraction in the warm depths of her blue eyes and the smile of her mobile and sympathetic mouth. She was, withal, strangely wholesome to look upon; one of those rare beings, as it came afterward to be said of her, whose faces rest you as calm waters and green fields rest eyes that are blinded with the dust and turmoil of the city’s streets. In figure she was tall, with that breadth of shoulder and hip which indicates endurance, free and graceful in her movements, apt in her utterances, and unusually keen in her intuitions. At the time of her father’s death she was twenty-four years of age, thoughtful even beyond her years. Hers had been a hard school. Poverty prematurely sharpens wits and generates ambition, and ever since her earliest recollection she had witnessed the daily pinchings and privations of stern necessity. Questioning often with wondering eyes and grave thought, she had early learned to strive against this oppressor of her household; but the best of effort had only kept the lean wolf of hunger from the door. The father, wedded to abstruse speculation and erudite research, had not that talent for money-getting which is expected of the “working parsons” of country villages; and though the mother had been possessed of uncommon tact, meagreness in every detail of Margaret’s physical growth had always confronted her. Not so intellectually, however. The bond of sympathy between parents and children had always been strong, and in the communion of thought the barren home life was lifted into realms of peace and plenty. Nobody remembered how Margaret learned to read. The faculty seemed to come with her growth, like her teeth, and almost as soon as she had mastered the rudiments of reading, her father delighted to feed the grave little head with as much of the mental pabulum upon which he feasted as the infantile brain could digest. Her capacity proved something like that of the sponge, growing receptive in proportion as it was fed, and when at eighteen she was vouchsafed a year of school life at a church institution, she astonished both faculty and pupils by disclosing such an odd mixture of knowledge as no other pupil had ever brought to the school. Latin and Greek were far more familiar to her than fractions, and the geography of the Holy Land an open page beside the study of her own state and its form of government. Her aptitude for language was wonderful, and her ability for philosophical reasoning much beyond her years. She achieved marvels of learning in the one short year, only at its expiration to be called away by the sad announcement of her mother’s mortal sickness. She reached home in time to comfort the anxious heart with the promise to keep always a home for the loved ones left behind. For five years she had faithfully fulfilled this promise, and now death had come again to take her last and only support. In the moment of her bereavement she did not realize how largely she had been not only self-dependent, but had been the mainstay of the little household. Love makes even the strongest natures yield to its silken leading-strings, and the tie between father and daughter had been no common one. But it was she who had been the prop that upheld the fabric of his life in these weary later years. It was on her brave heart he had leaned more and more; but she had no thought of what she had given. She had received, ah! who shall count the memories and pledges that loyal love has in its keeping?
But the prosaic side of life confronted Margaret one morning a week after she had laid her dead away, and roused her from the apathy of grief that follows even the wildest tempest of tears.
“Not even time to mourn,” she said wearily. “Death comes; but life goes on, and it must be fed and comforted. I must work to drive the cobwebs from my brain and this strange inertia from my limbs. Something to do, some duty that must not be evaded, will heal and strengthen anew.”
These reflections had been induced by a visit Margaret had just received from one of the vestrymen of the church at Barnley, who had called with words of condolence and inquiry. He desired to know, if it was not impertinent, what course Miss Murchison had decided upon relative to her future and her family.
“I have made no decision as yet,” answered Margaret wearily; “I have been too absorbed in other things. Why do you ask, Mr. Dempster?”
“Well—ahem!—my wife and I had a talk about your—your prospects, and we thought that if—if—that is, we would like to help you, seein’ as you’re one of our pastor’s family.”
“You are very kind,” said Margaret gently.
“Well, you see,” began Mr. Dempster hurriedly, “we’ve always kind o’ liked your folks, and my wife and I was sayin’ that seein’ as you’d be pretty likely to have a hard time, we’d like to help you out a bit. Now, there’s Elsie: she’s young, you know, and real bright and smart, and we thought maybe you’d be willin’ we should take her and bring her up. She’d have a fust-rate home, you know.”
“Mr. Dempster,” said Margaret, ignoring the half-boastful tone in which the last assertion had been made, “do you think I could give away one of these children over whom I’ve watched for five years, and whom I promised never to leave as long as they needed a home? No, sir. My life has been hard, as you say; it may be harder yet; but as long as I have life and health I shall keep my promise. Besides, you forget that Elsie has not yet finished school.”
“I know; but they was a-talkin’ it over in the vestry last evenin’, and they said they didn’t see as you could afford to keep the children in school any more, as your father’s salary is, of course, discontinued. You see, it takes money for clothes and incidentals.”
“I am fully aware of that fact, but I have strong hands and a stout heart; because we are poor and cast down now, I see no reason why we should always be so. Do you, Mr. Dempster?”
“No, no, of course not,” hastily assented Mr. Dempster.
“Is it the opinion of the vestry that Elsie and Gilbert need no further education?”
“Oh, no. They was only a-sayin’, as they was talkin’ about ways and means, that if you couldn’t take care of ’em we—that’s Mr. Dodd and me—would take ’em off your hands.”
“I’ve no doubt that you meant kindly; but I intend to teach them to take care of themselves, and there is no care equal to that. The parish of Barnley has been very kind; but I assure you, sir, there is no happiness like being independent, and that, with God’s help, I mean to teach my brother and sister to be.”
“Then you mean to say you refuse our offers of help, Miss Murchison?” said Mr. Dempster, bristling a little.
“Not at all. Indeed, I shall be glad of any assistance you can give me in the way of work. You know before my father’s health failed I used to make your wife’s dresses. I’m a little out of practice now, but I think I could soon get back the old deftness.”
“Why—yes—but Mrs. Dempster sends to C—— now for her work. She says she gets better styles, and takin’ all things into consideration, it don’t cost such a dreadful sight more.”
Margaret smiled involuntarily. She knew how the Dempsters, from greatest to least, counted the cost of everything, and she knew the offer to take Elsie—dear, sunny-hearted Elsie—off her hands had not been so much a question of philanthropy as gain. Could she so have disposed her heart as to give Elsie away, the bare thought of the drudgery which would have been her portion as maid-of-all-work in that household would have been sufficient to deter her.
“Well, I must be goin’,” said Mr. Dempster as Margaret remained silent. “You know they’ve hired a new parson and he will be here this week,” he added from the doorway.
“So soon!” exclaimed Margaret with a start. “And—and—you will want the parsonage right away?”
“Well, there ain’t no particular hurry, I suppose; but the folks thought it best to give you a week’s notice to quit,” and having delivered this parting shot, Mr. Dempster said “good-day” hastily and walked out of the gate.
So soon! so soon! to leave the dear home that spoke so tenderly of those who had gone away! To leave the cozy corner where stood her mother’s armchair, as it had stood for years, often bringing its memories of the sweet face and gentle hands which had presided over the hearthstone so long ago. To leave the sacred room where stood her father’s desk, from which not a paper had been removed since the nerveless hand had dropped the pen in the midst of a sentence of his last sermon; the room where stood his well-filled book-cases and his shabby furniture, and go—where—oh, where? asked Margaret’s heart in utter anguish. She grew suddenly weak with the rush of memory and regret, and slipped down upon the floor in an abandon of grief.
The outer door swept open and a young girl, entering hastily, cried sharply as she knelt beside the prostrate form: “O Meg! dear, brave Meg! what has happened?”
“Nothing, Elsie dear. I have only been bewildered of late, and had forgotten that this is no longer home.”
“Must we leave soon?”
“Within a week.”
“It is sudden; but I knew it must come sooner or later. I am not sorry, either, Meg; for we will go out into the world to work for each other and make a new home.”
Meg shook her head. “You are brave, Elsie, with the ignorance of youth. You do not know what gulfs lie between your hope and its accomplishment. While I——”
“You, Meg,” interrupted Elsie, “are wearied with the weight of your burdens, and I must take them off your shoulders and rest you good and long.”
“Oh, confident youth! What a sweet comfort this little rose is to me,” and Margaret took the bright face between her hands and kissed it fondly. It was a rose indeed that Margaret raised to her lips. Brilliant with the rich coloring of the brunette, lit up by a pair of dark velvety eyes, a full, red-lipped, delicately-curved mouth, and framed in a mass of black, lustrous, curling hair, Elsie’s face was undeniably beautiful. Somewhat petite in form, she was the embodiment of grace in every movement. Naturally hopeful and sweet-tempered, she had been all her life a source of comfort to Margaret. If she felt that she had greater patience, she found encouragement in Elsie’s greater hopefulness. If she felt in herself greater power to conquer adverse circumstances, she relied equally upon Elsie’s faculty of throwing the best light upon everything, and taking trouble as little to heart as possible. Unlike, yet like. Margaret’s strength was born of conviction and experience, and duty, her imperial mistress, held her firmly to her course. Elsie’s courage and cheerfulness were as inherent a part of herself as her rippling black hair or her daintily-fashioned foot, and love was the governing impulse of her life. She would do for love’s sake what no amount of cogent reasoning could convince her ought to be done for duty’s. She “hated the name of duty,” she had been heard to declare with an imperious stamp of her little foot.
“If one was good, because love prompted her to do all these nice things for other people, wasn’t that enough? And as for ‘doing good to those who despitefully use you,’ she believed the Lord wasn’t very angry if you only just didn’t do them any harm! And she felt sure that He would forgive her if she couldn’t and wouldn’t like the Dempsters.”
All this had happened long ago, and now it came back to them as Meg told Elsie of Mr. Dempster’s offer.
“The old—gentleman!” exclaimed Elsie as Margaret glanced up apprehensively. “I was only going to say ‘heathen,’ anyway,” she added mischievously. “Do you think it is my duty, Meg, to accept the offer, and learn under their guidance to be a meek and quiet Christian?”
“My poor Elsie, you will never be a meek Christian, I am sure. Let us hope Mr. Dempster meant well, and so forget all about it.”
“With all my heart, since I am not going to him. So long as my dear old Meg commands I obey. He needn’t have troubled himself about the school, for I don’t intend to go back.”
“Indeed you must. I shall write to Dr. Ely to-day and ask a place for you and Gilbert. You know what our prospects are, dear, that it must be head and hands for each of us, and it behooves us to put as much into our heads as time and circumstance will allow.”
“And you, dear?” asked Elsie wistfully.
“I shall find something for my hands to do. They are good strong hands, and they must put bread into that little mouth.”
“What can your hands find to do here? There is nothing better than sewing or dish-washing. You are fitted for better work.”
“I hope I am; but it does not follow that I must refuse to do what I can find to do, because I cannot find what I want. If nothing better offers I shall even try the dish-washing.”
“O Meg! I couldn’t bear to see you so lowered.”
“You misuse the word, Elsie. I should feel that I lowered myself more in refusing the work at hand, in the vain hope of finding something pleasing and genteel. Dear little girl, your solemn old Meg wants to disclose to you the prosaic rule by which she means to measure her life. It will seem dry and hard to you in your youth and bloom; but you must learn some time, and if the bitter tonic is taken early nothing seems quite so bitter afterward. Shall I tell you?”
“Y-yes,” answered Elsie hesitatingly, “only—only——”
“I know. You dislike even to be told that life is uncompromising. Well, then, we’ll say no more about it. I see I cannot learn for you.”
“It is not that,” exclaimed Elsie. “I am only just beginning to see how you had to forego your youth and bloom to learn for all of us. Tell me all about it, and teach me to be your helper. I am such a lover of pleasure, I never can be strong like you. Tell me how you learned it, Meg.”
“I did not learn to be less than happy. I only learned to do well what lay nearest me, and in that there is happiness. There is the whole dread secret, Rosebud, and if you want me to be epigrammatic and terse here is the formula: Aim high; mind is the greatest of God’s forces. Be honest; a clean conscience is the best bed-fellow at night. Do cheerfully what lies nearest you; fortune surprises the faithful.”
“Diogenes in petticoats!” exclaimed Elsie, all her cheerfulness returning. “Make a dictionary, Meg, on the plan that A stands for Apple, and Gilbert and I will not need to go to school.”
“No, I’ve tried philosophy enough on you; you laugh at it.”
“Not for worlds! Trust me, Meg, to learn it all somewhere on the road to threescore and ten. It is a ‘sair’ lesson for one of my temperament; but if it ‘maun be’ it ‘maun be.’”
“I hope your prosy Meg may live long enough to see you safely conning it; for I feel as if I were born to keep your wings from singeing.”
“What a heroine you are, Margaret Murchison! I am fain to fall at your feet and worship you.”
“That would be foolish. Wait to see at least how I bear the burden and heat of the day. You may have to reverse your opinion.”
“Never! Even if you sit with idle hands the rest of your days. But to go back to our muttons. What are we to do?”
“Write to Dr. Ely,” answered Meg, rising to her feet. “Bring me my writing-desk, Elsie.”
“On one condition,” said Elsie, placing a hand on either side of Meg’s face and looking pleadingly up into her eyes: “write please for Gilbert. Let me stay with you.”
“No, Elsie. Education will be worth everything to you. You cannot be successful without it.”
“Then teach me yourself. Dr. Ely said you had a wonderful mind.”
“Good friable soil for seed; nothing more. I have but a handful of knowledge and that would soon be exhausted. I cannot consent to your leaving school.”
“I’ll not leave—I’ll never go back,” said stubborn Elsie. “Don’t look so reproachful! This much I am decided upon: while you drudge I drudge, so that’s said, and I isn’t a-gwine to unsaid it, nuther,” she added roguishly, imitating the negro dialect and attitude.
“Obstinate little girl! I perceive I must bring my desk myself.”
“No, no, Meg,” and Elsie sprang to the door. “Only promise!”
“It is your good I seek, child.”
“I know it; but let me be unselfish this once. It may be my only chance of redemption.”
“You shall have your way,” said Margaret with eyes suffused with tears.
“Dear, good Meg,” exclaimed impulsive Elsie, throwing her arms round her sister’s neck. “We’ll cling together. You shall be the oak to hold me up, and I’ll be the ivy to keep you warm—and green!”
CHAPTER II.
“Meg, I’ve an idea!” exclaimed Elsie several mornings later, as Margaret returned from an unsuccessful search for a house, as well as work at the hands of Mrs. Dempster and several other ladies of the parish.
“I’m glad to hear it. Ideas are good things to have,” said Margaret, wearily dropping into a chair.
“Of course you haven’t found work, or anything else but advice, have you? Well, this is my idea: let us go away from Barnley.”
“O Elsie!”
“I know it’s hard; but we’ll starve on advice. It’s cheaper than beefsteak, of course; but it is somewhat weakening after one has breakfasted, dined, and supped on it. Let’s go away and dig for a living. See what I found this morning,” and Elsie drew from her pocket a newspaper clipping of late date, and read aloud an advertisement:
“For Rent: A small house at Idlewild, with three acres of ground well supplied with small fruits. Only thirty minutes’ ride on dummy to city market. Rent cheap, or will sell at reasonable price. Call at Harris & Smith’s, cor. Vine and Tenth Sts., C——.”
“Meg, let’s go and see it.”
“Why, Elsie, child, how is it possible?”
“This way. Maybe I’m visionary, but I’ve an idea that we can make enough money out of the place to pay the rent and keep us. See here: ‘only thirty minutes’ ride on dummy to city market.’ Now, three acres of ground, if good for anything, ought to raise potatoes.”
“Admitted. Go on with your proposition.”
“Potatoes with salt constitute a very fair living for a hungry man; without salt they keep starve to death away—ergo, let’s plant potatoes! To be serious—I’ve thought of this. It is now February, and we’ll need to make haste. We’ve raised our own potatoes in the parsonage garden for years, and good ones, too. Why not raise double the quantity somewhere else and sell the surplus? The small fruits advertised may be worth cultivating, too. You are a splendid amateur gardener—everybody says so; and there’s Gilbert—to be sure, only a boy; but a boy is good for some things sometimes—and I consider myself capable of being taught. Now, I’ve sketched the outlines of Eutopia, and you must fill in the shading.”
“Outlines are easily drawn; the skill lies in the filling in.”
“Therefore I left it for you. I feel as if we might dig our living out of the soil easier than out of the oftentimes ungracious favor of humanity. Suppose we look this place up to-morrow?”
“I cannot see my way clear yet. Where is all the money to come from to start us in this venture? It takes money for spades, you know.”
“I realize it. Can’t we sell something?”
“What—our old clothes?”
“To the rag-man perhaps. Seriously, have we nothing of value we can spare?”
“I can think of nothing.”
“I can. O Meg, the hardest part of my suggestion is yet to come. Dr. Ely said when I named some of the books in poor father’s library that they were of undoubted value, as many were out of print. He spoke especially of the two Caxton copies, Plantin’s ‘Biblia Polyglotta,’ and Sparks’ ‘Life of Washington.’ Dear Meg, the question is: Shall we keep our treasures and starve, or in letting them go find a chance of outgrowing our poverty? I am tired of this grinding life that takes the color out of your cheeks and puts wrinkles where dimples ought to be. Much as I love the dear old books, I love hope for you and for all of us better. O Meg! it is no sacrilege to say that if our father could speak to us he would tell us to sell them. The heritage is precious; how precious to us few can guess. But, my sweet sister, your hopes and happiness are dearer to him, I know. Don’t sob so, Meg; you will break my heart. Forgive me for suggesting it. It really seems best.”
“I know it, Rosebud,” said Margaret after a long silence. “I must think about it. I cannot decide yet.”
As Margaret spoke she raised Elsie’s tearful face and kissed it tenderly. It was more difficult for Margaret to give up the books than Elsie had dreamed. They were not to her, as to Margaret, the great mine of wealth from which she had drawn the intellectual riches that were already hers, and from which she had hoped to glean a far greater abundance. Dear as they were for the associations’ sake, many of them having been successively her grandfather’s and father’s, and hallowed as they were by the thought of the dear eyes which had once delighted in their pages, this relinquishment of her ambitions seemed the most cruel hurt of all. She knew that Elsie’s suggestion was practicable; that it opened a way out of their present difficulties; but it was the slipping of the cable that bound her to the old life which, despite its hardships, had seemed so idyllic in its visions and mental attainments. If she gave up her books, what could she hope for beyond the barren drudgery of mere existence? With her books she could revel in an ideal world where the hard facts of her daily struggles could not intrude. They were indeed a heaven of remembrance and a heaven of hope to her. Where, oh, where else could she find the oasis of rest, the one little gleam of personal happiness which she had hoped might be allowed her? And yet duty, even from the mouth of Elsie, whom she had hitherto regarded as a mere child, said all too plainly that the cherished books must go. There seemed to be no other solution of the vexed question of subsistence. It was a very pale face that Margaret raised to Elsie’s anxious glance several moments later; but it was determined and calm.
“You are right, Elsie; you excel me in practicability even now. I will write at once to Dr. Ely.”
“Meg, I was cruel to you.”
“As facts are sometimes cruel. Now let us catalogue the books, that Dr. Ely may judge of them. Not another tear, Rosebud, but forward.”
A reassuring smile and a fond kiss calmed the rising storm of regret in Elsie’s heart. With protean quickness the smile so natural to her face came back, and hastily mounting the small step-ladder, she took down the books and gave title, name of author, and date of issue to Margaret to jot down. There were perhaps some eight hundred books, of which only a small portion would in these days of reprints possess an unusual interest for the bibliophilist. Among the latter were: Smellie’s “Philosophy;” Plantin’s “Biblia Polyglotta” in eight folio volumes, published in the sixteenth century; Dunton’s “Life and Errors,” 1659–1733; Caxton’s books, mostly translations from the French; Nicholl’s “Literary Anecdotes;” Sotheby’s “Handwriting of Melancthon and Luther;” Davy’s “System of Divinity,” twenty-six volumes; Dolby’s “Shakespearean Dictionary;” Ainsworth’s “Historical Novels;” Hone’s “Early Life and Conversion;” Timperly’s “Encyclopedia of Literary Anecdote;” “The Bay Psalm Book;” Adelung’s “Historical Sketch of Sanscrit Literature,” translated by Talboys; Krummacher’s “Elisha.” Aside from these somewhat rare books, the library took a wide range in history, poetry, fiction, and travels. Margaret could scarcely repress the desire to cry out once more against the sacrilege. Here was information for a life-time; here forgetfulness of the past, elysium for the future! Why must this grief be superadded to all she had borne? But with heroic effort she choked back the tears and went calmly on with her work. By the time she had finished the list and written a letter to Dr. Ely, of the Episcopal school at A——, she had put aside regret and was once more ready to look facts squarely in the face. “The first step that costs” had been taken, and never afterward to Margaret did any sorrow seem like the wrench of this one. It was with alacrity, amounting almost to cheerfulness, that she went about her task of packing the household goods, and though sometimes tears would for a moment dim her eyes and tender memories paralyze her hands, yet the serene conviction that her decision had been wisely taken seemed to hover like a nimbus of light above the sadness of the slowly-moving hours.
One morning as Margaret, with her brown locks shrouded in a wide-frilled sweeping cap, her dress hidden by a high-necked calico apron of nondescript make, stood upon a step-ladder, engaged in removing the dimity curtains from the sitting-room windows, a peremptory knock at the open door behind her caused her to turn so suddenly that the ladder tipped and threw her, with unexpected suddenness, into the arms of a dignified gentleman who stood upon the threshold. Quickly disengaging herself, she exclaimed with a laugh:
“My greeting is unusually fervent, Dr. Ely; but you perceive that circumstances——”
“Were too many for you,” he interrupted; as Margaret paused for breath. “I hope you were not hurt?”
“Not in the least; but a trifle confused. Will you walk in and be seated? I did not look for a personal answer to my letter, otherwise I should have deferred my packing.”
“I decided to come only at the last moment, and so could not write you. I am not at all sorry that I surprised you; in fact, I found it rather pleasant.”
Margaret glanced up apprehensively, a new wonder growing in her eyes, which the doctor was quick to note and interpret. “I felt that it would be much easier to adjust the prices of the books and come to a satisfactory arrangement of matters through a personal interview. Therefore I am here.”
“And quite welcome; but you must pardon the incoherent state of things.”
“With all my heart, so long as you remain rational. And now I wish you would tell me what you propose doing.”
“I? Working for a living.”
“At what?”
“Anything I can find. Just now Elsie has me under control. She is bent on making a market gardener of me. Please look at this advertisement. We have already made appointment to visit the place, and if satisfactory and the books are disposed of, to take immediate possession. What do you think of the plan?”
“H-m. It might be good, but how about the children’s education?”
“That was what worried me greatly at first; but both of them say so long as I work for a living they shall help too. We have decided to give an hour each evening, after it is too dark to work, to a little home culture. After all, it is the practical application of knowledge that makes one educated.”
“Quite true, Miss Margaret,” answered the doctor as he gravely regarded her. “Give me a few more details of your plan, and let me see how practicable it is.”
As Margaret proceeded with an animated recital of the schemes which she and Elsie had lain awake nights to concoct, Dr. Ely sat so intently watching her that she flushed and grew uneasy under his scrutiny. He, however, was not aware of it; for his mind was borne in upon itself, and he was tracing step by step the years of his life that had brought him to this present moment. He was a dignified man nearing the forties, with a grave manner that was often thought austere, but which was only the outward covering of a nature too keenly sympathetic and appreciative to risk the disapproval of an obtuse world. Like all delicate and sensitive things in nature, he wrapped himself in a husk, and only those who penetrated the outward covering knew how beautiful was the inner temple of his soul, how genial its warmth, and how playful the fancy that tended the altar of his imaginings. His sudden encounter with Margaret this morning had brought to the surface a slight hint of its existence, but the quick wonder of her eyes had sent it again into hiding. He had been for some ten years the president of the school at A——, and stood entirely alone in the world. For twenty years he had cherished the memory of a fair girl wife who had been companion and helpmeet but three short months, when death claimed her. In her grave he had thought to bury love, and live henceforth a solitary worker, with no dreams to entice again beyond the prosaic outlines of his daily duties. But Margaret Murchison’s year at the school had affected him strangely. He had watched the girl’s development with uncommon interest; had been touched more than once by the clearness and unusual candor of her nature, and grew to have a profound admiration for the strength and purpose which upheld her. When she had been so suddenly called home by her mother’s death, he had missed her more than he liked to own even to himself. Despite the disparity in their years, he felt that hers was a nature to draw from its obscurity all that was highest of attainment in his own. He was but too conscious that, struggle as he might, he somehow fell short of his desires. His most earnest efforts seemed to fall half-heartedly upon those around him. The fault must be his; the long loneliness of his life—with neither father, mother, sister, brother, wife, to share a single aspiration or make vivid a single heart-glow—had unwittingly isolated him from mankind. When the light of this love fully dawned upon him, his soul felt the glow of a new purpose, and it became to him the symbol of a wider sympathy and charity, because of which Divinity long ago found need to send a sign to all mankind. His school was not slow to feel the change, and when the time became ripe for him to speak, he felt that he was no longer offering Margaret, in all her freshness, the remnant of a heart and life, but the first fruits of a living soul. He hastened to Barnley, strong in his purpose to lift her at once from the toil and privation of poverty. He had watched her career as best he could, in the occasional letters received from her father, who never failed to comment upon her strength and growth of character, and his love had grown with the subtileness of fancy until he had never stopped to consider the effect it might have upon Margaret. Surely to be sheltered and loved—ah! how he would prove his love to her—ought to be reason enough for any woman so bereft and friendless. So he had reasoned until he caught the apprehensive glance of Margaret’s eyes, and then he knew that his dream had not been hers, and that love with her would not be made at once answerable even to the most passionate appeals. All these musings ran swiftly through his mind, the while his intent glance remained upon Margaret’s face, unconsciously drinking in its variable play of expression. At last she ceased her recital, and said in a slightly constrained voice: “I think I have told you all our plans for the present, Dr. Ely.”
But the intent eyes never left her face as the doctor asked wistfully: “Are you sure you’ve strength for so much?”
“I have faith that it will be given me.”
“Yes, yes, it will,” he replied fervently, as he roused himself with an effort. “And now let us take a look at the books.”
He followed Margaret into the study and stood long in silent contemplation before the shelves. He was evidently making a careful computation of the value of the books. “How much money will you need for this undertaking?” he asked, suddenly turning to Margaret.
“I have very little idea. I can scarcely tell until we have seen the place.”
“Ah, yes, I had forgotten. Of course you are not sure of anything as yet. When did you say you had appointed an interview with the agent?”
“We had expected to go this afternoon, if we had a satisfactory letter from you in time. If not, the interview was to be postponed until to-morrow.”
“And you have not had that satisfactory letter yet. Well, you shall have it now. The books are even more valuable than I thought. They number, I think you said, some eight hundred volumes. Now, I wish to propose a plan of my own. Suppose I advance you the sum of four hundred dollars on the books to begin with, allowing you to select such as in your home culture club you will doubtless need, and reserve the balance—I will not place an exact price on them now—to be drawn upon in case of further demand for money. Then, when you have made your fortune, you are to have the books back at the price I paid for them.”
The doctor waited some time for Margaret’s answer; but she stood with head slightly averted and was silent. At last he could wait no longer, but bending forward, glanced down at her face. Tears stood on the long lashes and trembled on her cheeks. “Margaret,” he cried sharply, “what have I said that is wrong?”
“Nothing!” she exclaimed, suddenly extending both hands to him. “Your goodness is so unexpected that I am not strong enough for it.”
He caught her hands in his own as he said impulsively: “Listen, Margaret. It is not goodness—it is rather pure selfishness. I came here this morning intent on offering you not the worth of the books, but something I was foolish enough to fancy of more value—myself. No, don’t start; but hear me out. Manlike, I fancied that I had but to speak and you would let me take you away from all the toil and privation; but now I know you——”
Margaret gently drew her hands away, and interrupted him: “I never dreamed of such a thing. It is impossible.”
“If I loved you, Margaret, had loved you for years—don’t look so incredulous—ever since you were a school-girl, and had waited patiently until the time was right, hoping that my love might win its response even as the flowers respond to the warmth and light of the sun—if I offered all this and a life-long devotion, would it then be impossible?”
Margaret glanced up wonderingly, appealingly, into the eager face above her.
“It is all so strange, so confusing; but I cannot—it would indeed be impossible; for—forgive me, I do not want to hurt you—I do not love you, Dr. Ely, and I——”
“Say no more,” he said gently, “I knew it even before I spoke; but I am glad you understand me. I have been a lonely man all my life, and you can perhaps imagine how, even old as I am, I find delight in the companionship of one who is quick to understand and appreciate all that interests me. I love you, dear child, with the one love of my life; but I shall never again obtrude it upon you. I must, however, claim one favor. I am willing to sink all that I had hoped to the calm basis of friendship; do not deny me that. Let me help you, even as I had meant to before I spoke, and I promise faithfully never to claim anything more at your hands than the just consideration of one friend for another. You stand alone and inexperienced—put aside what has passed and let my age and experience help you.”
Margaret, watching him as he spoke, could not fail to be touched by the sincerity and unselfishness of his words. For reply she placed her hand in his and said softly, “I will.”
“One word more. If the time ever comes—mind, I do not expect it, I do not even beg it—but if the time does come when your heart can respond fully to the love that shall be yours as long as life lasts, you have only to say ‘come,’ and I will obey you though it be to the uttermost parts of the earth. May I ask this too?”
“It is not much to promise,” said Margaret gently, “but it may be too much to hope for. I have never had time for anything but immediate duties, and I am afraid I shall never find time for anything else. I have always felt that I belonged to these children. If, however—and I can discern but the faintest hope—if such a time should come, you may be sure that the word will not be uttered half-heartedly.”
A blush stole up to Margaret’s cheek as she spoke, making her whole face glow and soften with an unwonted beauty that the doctor’s observant eyes did not fail to note. They were suspiciously misty as he raised her hand to his lips and said fervently:
“Amen. Now let’s to business.”
CHAPTER III.
“Oh, I think it is delightful,” exclaimed Elsie as she, Margaret, and Dr. Ely stopped in the late glow of the afternoon sun before the gate of the place at Idlewild. “Such a charming tangle of briers to get scratched on while hunting for very stray berries.”
“There is something to be done here before one could hope for returns,” assented the doctor. “But let us explore the house, and see whether it is possible to exist in it.”
The house, by courtesy a cottage, had four rooms, so called. Elsie suggested boxes as a better name, but found consolation in the fact that four rooms for three people left a breathing-room that each could occupy in turn. The rooms were black with smoke and slippery with filth, and even Margaret felt something very like despair as she exclaimed piteously: “The muscle and soap it will take to cleanse it.”
“Is it habitable otherwise?” asked the doctor as he rattled windows, examined hinges and locks, and poked into chimneys and cupboards. “Fairly good. Whitewash, paint, soap, and muscle, and you won’t know it, Miss Margaret. Now let us see what the garden is like. Wants underdraining badly. Soil clayey and cold, but admirably situated for outlet of drain. A few muck-heaps and this garden will blossom like the rose.”
“But you frighten me,” exclaimed Margaret aghast. “I haven’t the slightest idea how to drain it, and I am sure it will cost more than we can afford.”
“We are only examining possibilities. ‘Small fruits,’ a dozen ragged currant bushes, some straggling strawberry vines, grapes that have run riot, and a ‘delightful tangle,’ as Elsie says, of raspberry bushes. Common, too—no, Gregg if I am not mistaken. Ah! that is better. ‘Three acres of land’—not more than two and one-half that can yield anything. Now, Miss Margaret, if you and Elsie are ready we’ll interview the agent.”
“The place will not pay for the outlay upon it, I am afraid,” said Margaret despondently, as they went out of the gate.
“Not this season, certainly; but we can tell better when we have seen the agent and found out what we can do with him.”
“Well, if you had not insisted on coming with us I should have turned back in dismay. Somehow, when I can see a way through I am ready enough to act; but I become frightened when the wall is so high I cannot see over.”
“That is natural enough. Very few women have the courage to scale precipices; but those who undertake the problem of self-support must encounter all of a man’s difficulties. We are a chivalrous people here in America, but that chivalry usually consists in giving a woman a fair field and no quarter. If you seek to be one with us in opportunities, you must be one with us in conditions.”
“If I might always be sure of such fair consideration I shall not complain. A woman, however, cannot insure her own incompetency against the greed of those who are chivalrous enough to take advantage of it. She must always be more or less a victim.”
“So long as she remains incompetent. Experience, however, is the great moulder in her case as well as that of her brother. She demonstrates her capacity in proportion as she learns the same hard lessons. One of the first of these lessons is not to ask any more of the world because of her sex. When women cease clamoring for a man’s rights and a woman’s pre-eminence at one and the same time, then will the dogged opposition of those to whom she appeals be less noticeable.”
“Yet it is quite natural for the weak to ask a little extra standing-room of their more fortunate brothers.”
“It is one thing to ask by virtue of a common sympathy, and another to demand as a right. Mankind is a good deal like the pig that Paddy tried to drive to market. ‘Shure if ye iver git ’im there, ye must head ’im t’other way.’ It might be well to try the scheme on the agent of this place.”
As Margaret glanced up and caught the humorous twinkle of the doctor’s eyes, she said quietly: “I leave the settlement of the matter in your hands, while I watch your effort in getting the pig to market. I shall have need to learn all I can.”
Mr. Smith, of the real estate firm of Harris & Smith, was a portly, self-satisfied man, who regarded the applicants for the little place at Idlewild with a somewhat lofty stare over the rim of his gold eye-glasses. It was quite evident from his manner that so small a transaction as this was not considered worth any extra amount of civility. But the pompous manner neither abashed nor diverted Dr. Ely from his purpose. With a man’s decision and firmness he stated his wishes, met objections, overcame difficulties, and obtained satisfactory results, with such facility that Margaret felt herself well-nigh overwhelmed in the dismal swamp of her own incapacity.
When the contract for the specific performance of each had been duly drawn and signed, and Dr. Ely, Margaret, and Elsie had once more regained the sidewalk, the doctor asked: “Well, Miss Margaret, did I get my pig to market?”
“As I should never have dared to do.”
“I knew it,” and the doctor’s face grew suddenly grave. “It is a big undertaking for a slender untried woman.”
“No,” said Margaret gently, “not when I have such an adviser.”
“Well, I intend to see you safely settled before I leave. There is a great deal in getting started right.”
“I haven’t a demur to make—not even an expostulation as to the trouble you are making yourself. The time to assert my independence will be when I am monarch of all I survey.”
“You’ll have nothing to do now for three years to come but develop your skill as a gardener. I fancy you will not find altogether easy work or satisfactory returns.”
“I do not expect to. I have my apprenticeship yet to learn; but it seems to promise more than any other available thing. Besides, I shall count even mistakes as so much marketable goods in the future, if I am only wise enough to profit by them.”
“He is wise indeed who always succeeds in doing it.”
The doctor at once set himself to supervising the laying in of the drain, the painting and papering of the little house, and the trimming and pruning of the tangle of vines and bushes in the garden. With the aid of Gilbert, a bright lad of sixteen, the untidy place soon came to assume an air of neatness and thrift which at once impressed Mr. Smith with the idea that his tenants were people on whom it might be worth while to expend a little civility.
It was the first of March, raw, cold, and inhospitable, when, with their household belongings, the little party was set down at the door of the new home. It was late in the afternoon and all were cold, tired, and somewhat dispirited. Even the doctor’s equanimity was beginning to give way before the settled obstinacy of a refractory stove-pipe, when a brisk knock at the door of the sitting-room interrupted operations for a moment. Margaret opened the door, to be greeted with the cheery voice of a little black-eyed woman who stepped in without waiting for an invitation. “Good-efening to you all,” she cried. “I am Lizzette Minaud. I lif ze next door, and I haf prepared ze souper for you. Do not say ‘Non!’ I take it so amiss. You look so blue, so tired, so ready to cry, pauvre child,” and she laid her hand warmly upon Margaret’s arm as she spoke.
“You are very kind, but——” and Margaret glanced apprehensively at the doctor.
“Oh, your—your—ze gentilhomme will go, I am sure. I haf known how ze tired comes in mofing, and you sall work so mooch ze better when you haf supped. I keep you only so long as you sall need ze rest and refreshment.”
“A thousand thanks,” said the doctor heartily. “To be sure we will go. Gilbert, you and I can have a good deal more patience with this unruly stove-pipe after we have partaken of this lady’s supper, eh?”
“I can’t answer for you, sir, but I know I am hungry as a wolf.”
“So mooch ze better. Hunger ees ze sauce piquante to black bread.”
“Did you ever feed a boy?” interposed Elsie, glancing roguishly at Gilbert. “If not, I warn you beforehand.”
“Non, non. I do not need ze warning. Lizzette Minaud’s table ees nefer empty.”
“We are taxing your kindness, I fear,” said Margaret, as they prepared for the visit.
“Non, eet ees ze plaisir. I—I like your face,” and the impulsive little woman again grasped Margaret’s hand. “We must be friends, and friends take no thought of ze trouble of serving each ozair.”
“You have given the true meaning of friendship,” replied Margaret earnestly.
Lizzette Minaud’s house was a “box” indeed, not even as large as the one which seemed so small to Margaret and Elsie; but it was a marvel of neatness and taste. The oak floor of the salon, as in grandiose style Lizzette designated her sitting-room, was like a mirror in its capacity to reflect objects, and nearly as dangerous to walk upon. Here and there bright-colored rugs, knit by the expert fingers of the mistress, lay before couch, stove, and tables. The walls were a delicate cream tint, with dado and frieze composed of crimson, brown, and golden maple leaves delicately veined and shaded, each one the particular work of Lizzette. In response to the delighted exclamation of her visitors, she explained in perfect frankness that having little money and some skill, she had determined to decorate her home—bought with the savings of years—in as tasteful a design as she could achieve. She was rewarded with gratifying success, for the grouping of the leaves was so artistic and the coloring so perfect that nature seemed to be rivalled in the reproduction.
“You are an artist!” enthusiastically exclaimed Margaret.
“Non, non—only a Frenchwoman and a cook,” she answered with a characteristic shrug. “I haf all my life been cook for ze great families. In France first, in America many year since. I marry twelve year since, and my husband he go away when my Antoine but two year old. He ees here in zis room, and he will be so charmed to meet you.” As she finished speaking, she turned toward a little alcove and presented to view, what at first seemed a little child propped up on a couch. A second look, and it was at once discovered that the child was a hunch-backed lad of some ten years, with dwarfed and misshapen limbs that refused to support him. With that appealing gaze so often noted in the suffering and unfortunate, his dark eyes looked out from beneath a brow broad, smooth, and white. Rings of jet-black curls, a straight, delicate nose, and a mouth with lips thin and bloodless and downward curved, completed the cast of his features. But it would be impossible to reproduce in words the innate beauty of the smile that lit up his face or the sublimity of spirit which looked out of the dark eyes. Impulsive Elsie was on her knees beside him in a moment.
“You dear angel!” she exclaimed, picking up one of the thin, white hands and kissing it. “I shall love you, I know.”
“Everybody does. Everybody is so good,” said the lad simply. “You are good to come. I wanted to see you.”
“Eet ees true,” said Lizzette, “he would not rest until I had tried to make ze welcome. He ees sometimes lonesome when I go about ze work, but he ees always patient and always so kind. He ees un grand scholair, too. See, he read zis,” and Lizzette held up in triumph a well-thumbed copy of Shakespeare. “It is ze Anglais. He learn so fast, and he read Santine et Racine très bien. I go to school to mon enfant soon,” and the little mother patted the boy’s pale cheek in an effusion of pride and fondness. The lad glanced up lovingly and said quickly:
“Non, non. Ma mère has quicker eyes and more wisdom than Antoine. Is the supper ready? I am very hungry and want my wheel chair.”
The mother turned to get it, but Gilbert was before her, and gently lifting the lad into it, he started it toward the little kitchen where stood the supper-table.
“Ma mère is a famous cook,” said the lad with a bright smile. “She makes appetite when it has forgotten to grow.”
“So he say,” said Lizzette with a shrug. “I only follow ze way of my art.”
The doctor, who had long been silent, glanced up as they seated themselves at the table, and asked: “Do you indeed think cookery an art?”
“Oui, oui, sir. Ze grand art, sir. Ze grain of ze man ees as ze food he eat; if it be coarse, he coarse too. Strong, may be, but not ze fine gentilhomme who eferywhere see ze leetle beauties of life, and so rest you wiz ze gracefulness of his way.”
“Perhaps you are right, madam,” said the doctor gravely, “although I confess I had never looked at it in that light.”
“Eet ees like ze art of ozair sings. Ze leetle touch zat makes ze picture, and as Antoine say, ze poetry of Shakespeare. Will it please you to speak ze grace?”
Lizzette’s supper-table was a sight to tempt less weary and hungry wayfarers than our dispirited quartette. It was simplicity itself, the principal dish being a salad so crisp in its delicate ravigote of finely-flavored herbs that Elsie declared it “a mortgage on the summer, since it had stolen all its sweetest flavors.”
Lobster rissoles, a mushroom omelette, with cold bread, a soupçon of preserved plums, black coffee, and tea served from the depths of a Japanese cosey, completed the menu.
“The salad, Miss Elsie, ees made of ze weeds of ze wayside,” said Lizzette. “Vous Anglais despise ze sings ze French live by. I make zis salad of ze herb you call dandelion; I find it growing eferywhere. I mix it wiz ze cressom—you call it water-cress—growing by ze brooks, toss it up wiz ze ravigote of tarragon, chervil et bumet, and behold you have, as you say, ‘ze summer in mortgage to ze winter.’”
“Count me a pupil to the economy of these versatile French,” exclaimed Elsie rapturously. “I know now what I was born for. Madam Minaud shall make an artist of me. I am positively inspired with ambition.”
“Or Madam Minaud’s supper,” observed Gilbert.
“We Americans long ago accepted the gospel of plain ‘boiled and fried,’ and your dispensation is only just beginning to be felt among those who have lived abroad. It is certainly a much-needed lesson,” said the doctor as he complacently accepted Lizzette’s offer of a second omelette.
“Ze French nevaire trow away like ze Anglais. Zey save ze leetle sings, and so zey grow reech where ze Anglais—il a de quoi vivre mais bien maigrement.”
“Our lines have fallen in pleasant places,” cried Elsie enthusiastically. “Antoine shall teach me French, and Madam Minaud shall bestow upon me the art of converting wayside weeds into meat and drink for the fleshly tabernacle.”
“You are making the bargain all for yourself, Elsie. What compensation do you propose in return?” asked Margaret with an amused glance at the girl’s flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.
“Compensation?” exclaimed Antoine quickly. “Everything! herself, love—ah, we shall be more than paid. I shall have the companion I have longed for, and ma mère will see the rose come back to my cheeks and be glad. Is it not so?” and the child’s hand sought Elsie’s as it rested on the back of his chair.
“Yes, yes,” said Elsie eagerly. “You shall have all the comfort I can give you, dear child.”
As she spoke she pushed back the jetty curls and left the warm touch of her lips upon the lad’s white forehead. In an instant the thin arms were around her neck, and he cried excitedly: “I love you so, and I shall never be unhappy again.”
Grave Dr. Ely turned away from this scene with quivering lip, and his voice was not altogether steady as he said: “Well, Gilbert, that stove-pipe does not look half so formidable as it did before Madam Minaud’s delicious supper.”
“Indeed, no, sir. I feel like a Hercules.”
“All right. Let us see how soon we can slay the giant disorder. In view of the circumstances, madam will excuse a hasty departure.”
“Certainment. Work ees master in our leetle world.”
“Work and love, ma mère,” exclaimed Antoine.
“Antoine is right,” said Margaret. “These are the soul and body of existence; to toil is the Divine command—to love the Divine purpose.”
“We must perforce obey the command,” exclaimed Elsie, patting Antoine’s cheek. “The purpose we will leave to its own solution.”
“I’ve already solved it,” answered Antoine with a ripple of laughter that brought a happy light to Lizzette’s eyes as she answered the “good-nights” of the little party.
CHAPTER IV.
It did not take long to settle the little four-roomed house, for Dr. Ely proved himself an every-day worker. The week that had passed since he had left his school had been full of business. The purpose which he saw in Margaret and Elsie had awakened a new interest in his life, and to see that their feet were firmly fixed in the way they had marked out for themselves seemed to him the task, as well as the pleasure, of an elder brother. Looking upon life as the vast field from which should spring all that is highest of development and achievement in humanity, he was touched with the hope of being a factor in the ambitious purposes of these inexperienced and well-nigh friendless girls. He believed fully in allowing to each individual soul the opportunities for measuring its own power, and while a certain sense of loss came upon him when he realized that the expectation of taking Margaret into his own life could not be fulfilled, he felt ennobled and strengthened by the desire to be one with her in her efforts of self-advancement. “Not now, not now; but some time, perhaps,” he said to his heart, and during his week of early and late work not one word or look of his had disturbed the serenity of Margaret’s mind. He had been solely and simply the elder brother on whose experience and friendly aid she could rely. Now, however, the little home was in order; the tiny sitting-room with its painted and polished floor, its bright rugs, its gayly-cushioned Boston rockers, its hassocks that served the double duty of seats and boot-boxes, and last, but not least, its revolving book-case with the few of the well-known volumes which Margaret had selected from her father’s library and which Dr. Ely had supplemented with some contributions of his own. These were principally works on art and the intellect, by Ruskin, Hammerton, and others, and a few books of poetry by Dante Rossetti, Keats, Tennyson, and a superb édition de luxe of “Aurora Leigh.” They were all seated in this room surveying its finishing touches the evening previous to Dr. Ely’s departure for A—.
“Well, it is pleasant,” he exclaimed. “I shall carry its memory with me when I go, and in imagination behold you seated every evening around the open stove, feasting on the contents of this handy little book-case. I shall remember how white the curtains are, how dainty the table scarfs and the head-rests of the chairs, and how really fine those oleographs and photogravures on the wall appear in the glow of the fire-light, and I shall fancy you are all taking on flesh and good spirits under the inspiration of Elsie’s cooking.”
“You are very kind not to insinuate one word about dyspepsia,” answered Elsie demurely. “But I am really enthusiastic over my promised lessons in that grand art, as madam so grandiloquently calls it. You know some people are born great, and I really feel that I am destined to achieve my highest expression in an apostleship to the pots and pans of the kitchen. Like the starveling poet of the story-books, I shall doubtless astonish the world when the flame of my soul has burst into a dish fit to set before a king.”
“You are somewhat mixed as to metaphor,” exclaimed Margaret with a laugh.
“Well, I hope to mix more than metaphors by-and-by. But tell me, Dr. Ely, are you conscious of either an aching void or an aching fulness, whichever dyspepsia happens to be, since you sat under my dispensation?”
“I haven’t had such an appetite in years. I don’t in the least question your genius for cookery, and when you have learned to make something out of nothing with a ravishing French name and taste, you can count on achieving a world-wide fame.”
“Fame? a bauble! I look only to the expression of my art,” and Elsie rolled up her eyes and shrugged her shapely shoulders with an abandon of French mannerism that was as startling as it was amusing. Something in Margaret’s apprehensive glance caught the doctor’s quick eye. What wonderful fire and keenness lay in the little girl’s mobile face. Ah, well, Margaret was right; there was work for her here. With an abruptness that seemed almost harsh he spoke:
“He ‘jests at scars that never felt a wound.’ Art, Miss Elsie, in its entirety is deep, and high, and long, and men have sought it, and with palsied finger on the pulse of time have died unanswered.”
The laughing eyes of Elsie grew suddenly grave. “Dear me, one can’t be enthusiastic nowadays without finding a wet blanket thrown over her at the first step. Nevertheless I don’t intend to wear cap and spectacles until long after my humble divinity has crowned me mistress. My ambition is such a simple one—just to tickle the palates of my little world. Now, doctor, don’t discourage me.”
“Not for the world. Epicurus, if he were here, would doubtless pronounce a benediction on your ambition, and I am not sure that your purpose does not already deserve a laurel leaf, for it has been more than once reiterated that the crying need of the day is good cookery.”
“Thanks. I am glad that my mission has the support of the public mind, or palate. Either will do, I suppose. But how is it with you, Meg? I haven’t heard you declare as yet for any reform.”
“I am not so sure of my mission as you are of yours, nor so confident of being born to greatness.”
“That’s bad. One surely ought to believe in herself if she expects to get on. Perhaps the doctor can help your indecision.”
There was a mischievous twinkle in Elsie’s eyes that was not lost on the doctor, but with the utmost gravity he replied: “Well, yes, I think I can. It will be a mission worth while to learn the problem of self-support and self-education under adverse circumstances. It will need something more than enthusiasm.”
“A patience and a finesse of which I am not sure I am master. I am only mutely feeling my way now. Indeed, the doctor has lifted so much responsibility from my shoulders in this new venture that I hardly know what I can do.”
“You will know when the opportunity comes to act. Just now you needed the little friendly direction I am very glad I was able to offer. There are times when even the strongest are not wholly self-reliant.”
Tears stood in Margaret’s eyes as she answered: “How unblessed is he who can make no claim on loyal friendship. May I always prove myself worthy of it.”
“We’ll not question that now, nor in the future,” said the doctor, a glow of light in his eyes that watching Elsie did not fail to note. “Now, tell me your plan for making use of this mine,” he added, touching the book-case at his right hand.
“I’ve been thinking we must get at the nuggets with as little delay as possible, for we haven’t time to bore through worthless drifts of scoria, even though at the bottom may be a mine of wealth. We must make practical and immediate use of what we learn.”
“True,” interposed the doctor as Margaret looked up interrogatively. “I am deeply interested.”
“This, then, is what I’ve been thinking: every thought of other minds from which we can draw sustenance must be drained of its nutriment before we seek another, and that thought must be made to bear relatively upon our own. In other words, it must father a new growth in our own minds, for in that way only can education have any practical bearing upon life and action.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed the doctor warmly. “Go on, please.”
Margaret’s cheek flushed as she complied. “It is my purpose, then, in this home symposium to bring no thought that we cannot healthfully digest. Occult research is only for the man of leisure. This is the first principle that shall govern our intellectual feast. The second shall be the democracy of our purpose, or, in other words, the hand-to-hand start we shall make in our race for knowledge. No one shall be debarred because he has not learned the alphabet of reason; we will give him the chance to learn it. The third requirement will be only good moral character,” and Margaret finished with a laugh.
“Regardless of social position, remember, doctor,” exclaimed Elsie. “In short, Margaret has sketched the outlines of a new aristocracy, wherein moral worth and purpose count first, with brain and healthy digestion a good second, and where wealth doesn’t stand any show at all.”
“You forget that is the goal toward which the first two tend,” said Margaret eagerly. “An aristocracy founded on those principles could not be an insecure one—could it, doctor?”
“It is admirable as a dream, and as a dream impracticable, I fear.”
“By no means,” said Elsie as she noticed the shadow that crossed Margaret’s face at the doctor’s words. “You forget that it concerns only three people. We shall reform the world chiefly by beginning to reform ourselves. Nothing could so suit our Eutopian ideas as to call it ‘A New Aristocracy.’”
“An aristocracy of potato diggers!” exclaimed Gilbert, looking up from his book.
“Exactly. We have a right to a kingdom of our own within these walls. Our fame and our pride need not go beyond them.”
“Safe enough on that score,” said Gilbert ironically.
“Well,” said the doctor merrily, “I shall count myself one of the aristocrats even when miles away.”
“But I haven’t told you all my plan yet,” said Margaret. “It concerns this very potato-digging that to Gilbert seems so incongruous with our high purposes. On the principle that everything we have is the product of the earth, there is nothing out of proportion in even potato diggers striving for the highest development, and as our impressions all come to us from our contact with every-day things, we shall find an astonishing philosophy grow out of potato-digging if we look for it. In my endeavors to carry out the behests underlying the propagation of plants, I expect to find questions that will lead me into as yet unexplored paths, and I shall endeavor to treasure up these questions and their answers if they can be found. I shall exact the same process of reasoning from all the members of our circle, and shall expect every evening to be regaled by Elsie with a philosophical monologue on the amount of nutriment there is in an egg or the exhilaration to be derived from the dish-pan.”
“Then you will be disappointed. My ideas are not perennial; but if I chance to evolve some flavor that a Frenchman would doubtless call ‘heavenly,’ you may look for a harangue.”
“A practical school of philosophy it seems to shadow forth; but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, you know,” said the doctor with a smile.
“I don’t underrate the difficulties in the way; but I think we three ought to be able to do something with ourselves on that basis,” said Margaret.
“Certainly,” replied the doctor. “And I shall endeavor to remodel my own work from the same standpoint. I have been a dreamer and an enthusiast, and it has remained for an untried girl to show the practical application of my dreams. I shall go home a wiser man.”
“You frighten me, doctor, with the seriousness of that statement. It is all untried as yet,” exclaimed Margaret in evident distress.
“True; but I can see its first steps. After these the way may open wider and clearer. It is certainly worth trying.”
With this indorsement Margaret felt satisfied, and there was color in her cheeks and brilliancy in her eyes as she and the doctor talked long and animatedly until late in the evening. Gilbert had stolen away to bed and Elsie was deep in a novel of Antoine’s.
“I shall have to shake myself well together when I get home,” said the doctor, when they discovered the lateness of the hour. “I’ve been living a new life and the old one will seem strange.”
It was hard for Margaret to acknowledge even to herself after the doctor’s departure that she felt lonely and uneasy; but somehow she missed the careful forethought that had been as new as it had been unexpected. It was a strange experience in her barren life, and scold herself as she might, she could not find it unpleasant. But for the present she would not, she might not indulge in dreams. A work that might stretch into years lay before her. That done—well, how strong is faith? A new beauty, however, stole into her face; its somewhat stern lines relaxed, and tender, almost pathetic, little curves grew about the corners of the firmly-set lips. It was quite apparent to those who knew her that the calm reliance of her nature had been disturbed by something strange and sweet, yet not even Elsie guessed its full meaning.