FLINT

His Faults, His Friendships

and His Fortunes

BY

MAUD WILDER GOODWIN

AUTHOR OF "THE HEAD OF A HUNDRED," "WHITE

APRONS," "THE COLONIAL CAVALIER," ETC.

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1897

Published, 1897,

By Little, Brown, and Company.

University Press:

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

Dedicated to Miriam

[Pg vii]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

[Pg 1]

Flint:

His Faults, His Friendships, and
His Fortunes

CHAPTER I

THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS

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We are a house-party.

To be sure we find pinned to our cushions on Saturday nights a grayish slip of paper, uncertain of size and ragged of edge, stating with characteristic New England brevity and conciseness the amount of our indebtedness to our hostess; but what of that? The guests in those stately villas whose lights twinkle at us on clear evenings from the point along the coast, have [Pg 2] their scores to settle likewise, and though the account is rendered less regularly, it is settled less easily and for my part, I prefer our Nepaug plan.

We are congenial.

I don't know why we should be, except that no one expects it of us. We have no tie, sacred or secular, to bind our hearts in Christian love. We have in fact few points in common, save good birth, good breeding, and the ability to pay our board-bills as they fall due; but nevertheless we coalesce admirably.

We are Bohemian.

That is, our souls are above the standards of fashion, and our incomes below them, and of such is the kingdom of Bohemia. A life near to Nature's heart, at eight dollars a week, appeals to us all alike.

We are cross.

Yes, there is no denying it. Not one of us has escaped the irritation of temper naturally resulting from ten days experience of the fog which has been clinging with suffocating affection to earth and sea, putting an end to outdoor sport and indoor comfort, taking the curl out of hair, the starch out of dresses, the sweetness out of dispositions, and hanging like a pall over all efforts at jollity.

Irritation shows itself differently in each individual of our community. As is the temperament, so is the temper.

[Pg 3]

Master Jimmy Anstice, aged twelve, spends his time in beating a tattoo on the sofa-legs with the backs of his heels. His father says: "Stop that!" at regular intervals with much sharpness of manner; but lacks the persistent vitality to enforce his command.

My nephew, Ben Bradford, permanently a resident of Oldburyport, and temporarily of Cambridge, sits in a grandfather's chair in the corner, "Civil Government" in his lap, and "Good-Bye, Sweetheart," in his hand. Even this profound work cannot wholly absorb his attention; for he fidgets, and looks up every few minutes as if he expected the sunshine to walk in, and feared that he might miss its first appearance.

I, for occupation, have betaken myself to writing in this diary, having caught myself cheating at solitaire,—a deed I scorn when I am at my best.

Doctor Cricket, his hands nervously clasped behind him, has been walking up and down the room, now overlooking my game and remonstrating against the liberties I was taking with the cards (as if I had not a right to cheat myself if I like!) and then flying off to peer through his gold-bowed spectacles at the hygrometer, which will not budge, though he thrusts out his chin-whisker at it for the fortieth time.

[Pg 4]

"The weather is in a nasty, chilly sweat," he says grumpily; "if it were my patient, I would roll it in a blanket, and put it to bed with ten grains of quinine."

"Not being your patient, and not being dosed with quinine, it may be better to-morrow," Ben retorts saucily.

Ordinarily, the Doctor takes Ben's sallies with good-humored contempt. To-day, he is in other mood. He smiles—always a bad sign with him, as the natural expression of his truly benignant mood is a fierce little terrier-like frown.

"My poor boy!" he says sympathetically. "The brain is going fast, I observe. Steep a love-story, and apply it over the affected part!"

I see Ben wrestling with a retort; but before he has it to his mind, something happens. The door opens and a girl enters. Ben's face lights up. The sunshine has come.

There is something more than a suggestion of sunshine about Winifred Anstice, even to those of us who are neither of the age nor the sex to fall under the glamour of sentimental illusions. I have often speculated on the precise nature of her charm, without being able to satisfy myself. She is not so extraordinarily pretty, though her hair ripples away from her forehead after the American classic fashion, to which style also [Pg 5] belongs the little nose, straight in itself, but set on at an angle from the brow, which, to my thinking, forms a pleasing variation from the heavier, antique type. The classic repose is wholly lacking. The eyes are arch, bright, and a little daring; the mouth always on the verge of laughter, which is not quite agreeable, for sometimes when there is no visible cause for amusement, it gives one an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps he is being laughed at unbeknown, and a person need not be very stingy not to relish a joke at his expense.

Perhaps this sounds as if Winifred were hard, which she is not, and unsympathetic, which she never could be; but it is not that at all. It comes, I think, of a kind of bubbling over of the fun and spirits which belong to perfect physical condition and which few girls have nowadays. I suppose I ought not to wonder if a little of this vigor clings to her manner, making it not hoidenish exactly, but different from the manner of Beacon Street girls, who, after all said and done, have certainly the best breeding of any girls the world over. Ben doesn't admire Boston young ladies; but then he hates girls who are what he calls "stiff," as much as I dislike those whom he commends as "easy." Of course he gets on admirably with Winifred, who accepts his adoration as a matter of course, and rewards him with [Pg 6] a semi-occasional smile, or a friendly note in her voice.

After all, Winifred's chief charm lies in her voice. For myself, I confess to a peculiar sensitiveness in the matter of voices,—an unfortunate peculiarity for one condemned to spend her life in a sea-board town of the United States. Like Ulysses, I have endured greatly, have suffered greatly; but when this girl speaks, I am repaid. I often lose the sense of what she is saying, in the pure physical pleasure of listening to her speech. It has in it a suggestion of joy, and little delicate trills of hidden laughter which, after all, is not laughter, but rather the mingling of a reminiscence and an anticipation of mirth. I cannot conceive where she picked up such a voice, any more than where she came by that carriage of the head, and that manner, gracious, yet imperative like a young queen's. Professor Anstice is a worthy man and a learned scholar; but the grand air is not acquired from books.

"How glum you all look!" Winifred exclaims, as she looks in upon us.

At his daughter's entrance, the face of Professor Anstice relaxes by a wrinkle or two; but he answers her words as academically as though she had been one of his class in English.

"Glum is hardly the word, my dear; it conveys the impression of unamiability."

[Pg 7]

"Precisely," persists Mistress Winifred, not to be put down, "that is just the idea you all convey to me."

"Why shouldn't we be unamiable," answers Ben, eager to get into the conversation, "when there is nothing to amuse us, and you go off upstairs to write letters?"

"You should follow my example, and do something. When I went upstairs Miss Standish was in a terrible temper, scowling at the ace of spades as if it were her natural enemy; but since she has taken to writing in that little green diary that she never will let me peep into, she has a positively beatified, not to say sanctified, expression. And there is Ellen Davitt hard at work too, and as cheerful as a squirrel—just listen to her!"

With this the girl stands still, and we listen. The waitress in the next room, apparently in the blithest of spirits, is setting the tea-table to the accompaniment of her favorite tune, sung in a high, sharp, nasal voice, and emphasized by the slapping down of plates.

"Tell me one thing—tell me trooly;

Tell me why you scorn me so.

Tell me why, when asked the question,

You will always answer 'No'—

No, sir! No, sir! No-o-o, sir—No!"

The voice is lost in the pantry. Smiles dawn upon all our faces.

[Pg 8]

"A beautiful illustration of the power of imagination!" says Dr. Cricket. "Ellen is contentedly doing the housework because she fancies herself an heiress haughtily repulsing a host of suitors. It is the same spirit which keeps the poet cheerful in his garret, or a young Napoleon in his cellar, where he dines on a crust and fancies himself an emperor."

"Steep an illustration and apply it over the affected part!" drawls Ben.

The Doctor prepares to be angry; but Winifred, scenting the battle and eager to keep the peace, claps her hands and cries out, "Excellent!" with that pretty enthusiasm which makes the author of a remark feel that there must have been more in his observation than he himself had discovered.

"There, Ben, if you are wise you will act on this clever suggestion of Dr. Cricket's, and travel off to the land of fancy, where you can make the weather to suit yourself, where fogs never fall, and fish always bite, and sails always fill with breezes from the right quarter, and whiff about at a convenient moment when you want to come home—oh, I say!" she adds with a joyful upward inflection, "there's the sun, and I am going for the mail."

"I'll go with you," volunteers Master Ben.

"Thank you, but Mr. Marsden said that I might drive his colt in the sulky."

[Pg 9]

"Not the colt!" we all cry in chorus.

"The colt," she answers with decision.

"Not in the sulky?"

"Yes, in the sulky."

"Surely, Professor Anstice—" I begin; but before I have time for more, Winifred is out of the room, and reappears, after ten minutes, strangely transformed by her short corduroy skirt and gaiters, her cap and gauntleted gloves, to a Lady Gay Spanker. I do not like to see her so; but then I am fifty years old, and I live in Massachusetts. Perhaps my aversion to the sporting proclivities of the modern woman is only an inheritance of the prejudices of my ancestors, who thought all worldly amusements sinful, and worst of all in a woman. Even the Mayflower saints and heroes had their cast-iron limitations, and we can't escape from them, try as we will. We may throw over creed and catechism; but inherited instinct remains. The shadow of Plymouth Rock is over us all.

Just here I look up to see Winifred spin along the road before the house, seated in a yellow-wheeled sulky, behind the most unmanageable colt on this side of the Mississippi, as I verily believe. Of course Mr. Marsden is very glad to have the breaking process taken off his hands; but if I were Professor Anstice I don't think I should like to have my daughter take [Pg 10] up the profession of a jockey. I must admit, however, that she looks well in that tight-fitting jacket, with the bit of scarlet at her throat, and her hair rippling up over the edges of her gray cap.

I wonder why I chronicle all this small beer about Winifred Anstice and old Marsden's colt. I suppose because nothing really worth noting has occurred, and it is not for nothing that a diary is called a commonplace book. I find that if I wait for clever thoughts and important events, my journal shows portentous gaps at the end of the week, and I promised myself that I would write something in it every day while I was at Nepaug. For my part, I enjoy the old-fashioned diary,—a sort of almanac, confessional, receipt-book, and daily paper rolled together; so I will just go on in my humdrum way. As it is only for myself, I need not fear to be as garrulous and egotistical as I please. Besides, a journal is such a good escape-valve for one's feelings! Having written them out, one is so much less impelled to confide them, and confidences are generally a mistake—yes, I am sure of it. They only intensify feelings, and at my age that is not desirable. At twenty, we put spurs into our emotions. At fifty, we put poultices onto them.

[Pg 11]

CHAPTER II

MINGLED YARN

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The road from the station at South East to Nepaug Beach was long and dusty, tedious enough to the traveller at any time, but especially on this July afternoon when the sun beat down pitilessly upon its arid stretches, and the dust, stirred by passing wheels, rose in choking masses.

Jonathan Flint, however, surveyed the uninteresting length of highway with grim satisfaction. It was the inaccessibility and general lack of popular attractions which had led him to select Nepaug as a summering place. Mosquitoes and sand-fleas abounded; but one need not say "good-morning" to mosquitoes and sand-fleas, it is true. The fare at the inn was poor; but one was spared that exchange of inanities which makes the average hotel appear a kindergarten for a lunatic asylum; and, finally, the tediousness of the journey was a safeguard [Pg 12] against the far greater tedium resulting from the companionship of "nauseous intruders," striding in white duck, or simpering under rose-lined parasols.

The horse which was drawing the ramshackle carryall in which Flint sat, toiled on with sweating haunches, switching his tail, impatient of the flies, and now and then shaking his head deprecatingly, as if in remonstrance against the fate which destined him to work so hard for the benefit of a lazy human being reclining at ease behind him.

Flint was, indeed, the image of slothful content, as he sat silent by the side of old Marsden, who drove like a woman, with a rein in each hand, twitching them uselessly from time to time, and clucking like a hen to urge on his horse when the sand grew unusually deep and discouraging.

Ignoring his companion, or dreading perhaps to let loose the floods of his garrulity by making any gap in the dam of silence, Flint sat idly inspecting his fishing-tackle, shutting it up, then drawing it out, and finally topping it with the last, light, slender tip, quivering like the outmost delicate twig of an aspen as he shook it over the side of the carryall. In fancy, he saw it bending beneath the weight of a black bass such as haunted the translucent depths of a fresh[Pg 13] water pond a mile or two away. In fancy, he could feel the twitch at the end of the line, then the run, then the steady pull, growing weaker and weaker as the strength of the fish was exhausted. Suddenly into the idler's lotus-eating Paradise came a rushing sound. A sharp swerve of the horse was followed by an exasperating crackle, and, lo! the beloved fishing-rod was broken,—yes, broken, and that delicate, quivering, responsive, tapering end lay trailing in the dust which whirled in eddies around a flying vehicle.

Flint saw flashing past him a racing sulky drawn by a half-tamed colt, and driven by a girl—if indeed it was a girl and not, as he was at first inclined to think, a boy in petticoats.

The young woman took the situation jauntily. She reined in the colt, adjusted her jockey-cap, and pulled her dog-skin gauntlets further over her sleeves.

"I beg your pardon," she called out as Flint's wagon overtook her. "I'm awfully sorry to have broken your rod; but I saw that we had room to pass, and I didn't see the pole hanging out. It never occurred to me," she added with a dimpling smile, "that any one would be fishing on the Nepaug road."

Flint had labored hard to subdue the outburst of profanity which was the first impulse of the [Pg 14] natural man, and had almost achieved a passing civility, but the smile and the jest put his good resolutions to flight. The milk of human kindness curdled within him.

"You could hardly," he answered, raising his hat, "have been more surprised than I was to see a horse-race."

A trace of resentment lingered in his tone. The mirth died out of the girl's eyes. She returned his bow quietly, leaned forward and touched the colt with the tassel of her whip. The creature reared and plunged.

"Great Heavens!" exclaimed Flint, preparing to jump out and go to her assistance.

"Let her alone!" said Marsden, with unmoved calmness, shifting the tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other. "That girl don't need no guardeen. She's been a-drivin' raound here all summer, and I reckon she knows more about managin' that there colt'n you do. It's my colt, and I wouldn't let her drive it ef she didn't."

"I hope to thunder you won't again, at least while I'm about, unless you intend to pay for damage to life and property," Flint answered testily.

By this time colt and driver had been whirled away in a cloud, Elijah-like.

"Nice kind of a girl that!" said Flint to [Pg 15] himself with savage, solitaire sarcasm. He felt that he had appeared like a fool; and it must be a generous soul which can forgive one who has been both cause and witness of such humiliation. To conquer his irritation, Flint proceeded to take his injured rod to pieces, and repack it gloomily in its bag of green felt. When he looked up again, all petty annoyances faded out of his mind, for there ahead of him, behind the little patch of pines, lay the great cool, cobalt stretch of ocean, unfathomably deep, unutterably blue.

The young man felt a vague awe and exaltation tugging at his heart. But the only outward expression they gained was a throwing back of the head, and a deep indrawing of the breath, followed by the quite uninspired exclamation, "Holloa, there's the ocean!"

"Why shouldn't it be there?" inquired the practical Marsden. "You didn't think it had got up and moved inland after you left, did you?"

"Well, I didn't know," Flint answered carelessly. "I've seen it come in a good two hundred feet while I was here, and I couldn't tell how far it might have been carried, allowing for its swelling emotions over my departure. But I'm glad to see it at the old stand still; and there's the pond too, and the cross-roads and the [Pg 16] Nepaug Inn. I declare, Marsden, it is like its owner,—grows better looking as it gets old and gray."

Marsden's face assumed that grim New England smile which gives notice that a compliment has been received and its contents noted, but that the recipient does not commit himself to undue satisfaction therein.

"Yes," he responded, "the old inn weathers the winters down here pretty middlin' well; but it's gettin' kind o' broken down, and its doors creak in a storm like bones that's got the rheumatiz. I wish I could afford to give it a coat o' paint."

"Ah!" said Flint, with a shrug, "I hope, for my part, you never can! I can see it now as it would be if you had your way—spick and span in odious, glaring freshness, insulting the gray old ocean. The only respectable buildings in America are those which the owner is too poor to improve."

Marsden turned sulky. He did not more than half understand Flint's remarks; but he had a dim impression that he was being lectured, and he did not enjoy it; few of us do.

Flint, however, was wholly unconscious of having given offence. It would have been difficult to make him understand what there was objectionable in his remark, and indeed the [Pg 17] offence lay more in the tone than in the words. Flint's sympathies were imperfect, and he had no gift for discerning the sensitiveness which lay outside his sphere of vision. To all that came within that rather limited range, he was kind and considerate; beyond, he saw nothing and therefore felt nothing.

Yet he himself was keenly sensitive, especially to anything approaching ridicule. He had not yet forgiven his parents, for instance, for naming him Jonathan Edwards. He was perpetually alive to the absurdity of the contrast.

"What if the great Jonathan was an ancestor! Why flaunt one's degeneracy in the face of the public?" As soon as he arrived at years of discretion, he had proceeded to drop the Jonathan from his name; but it was continually cropping up in unexpected places to annoy him. The very trunk strapped onto the back of the carryall, that sole-leather trunk which had travelled with him ever since he started off as a freshman for the university, was marked, in odiously prominent letters, "Jonathan Edwards Flint."

It provoked him now as he reflected that that female Jehu must have seen it as she drove by. Perhaps that accounted for the suspicion of a smile on her face. He didn't care a fig what she thought, and he longed to tell her so.

[Pg 18]

The most tedious road has an ending, and the Nepaug highway was no exception, except that instead of a dignified and impressive ending, it only narrowed to a grass-grown track, and finally pulled up in the backyard of the Nepaug Inn. The inn had stood in this same spot since the days of Washington, and there was a tradition that he had spent a night beneath its roof, though it puzzled even legend-mongers to invent an errand which could have taken him there, unless he was seized with a sudden desire for salt-water bathing, and even then it must have been of a peculiar kind, for the inn stood far back from the ocean, at the head of a salt-water pond, shadeless and low-banked, a mere inlet of the sea.

This pond, however, was the great attraction of Nepaug to Flint, for in one of its coves lay an ungainly boat of which he was the happy owner. She was a bargain, and, like most bargains, had proved a dear purchase. True, the hull had cost only five dollars and the sails ten; but she yawed so badly that a new rudder had become a necessity, and that article, being imported, cost almost more than hull and sails together. When all was done, however, and a new coat of paint applied, Flint vowed she was worth any sixty-dollar boat on the pond. Once afloat in "The Aquidneck" (for so Flint had [Pg 19] christened her, finding her a veritable "isle of peace" to his tired nerves) he seemed to become a boy again. The Jonathan in him got the upper hand. All the super-subtleties of self-analysis which in other conditions paralyzed his will, and congealed his manner, gave place here to the genial glow of careless happiness.

It was his fate to be dominated alternately through life by the differing strains in his blood: one, flowing through the veins of the old Puritans, chilled by the creed of Calvin; the other, of a more expansive strain perpetually mocking the strenuousness of its companion mood. Flint's friends were wont to say, "Flint will do something some day." His enemies, or rather his indifferents, scoffingly asked, "What has Flint ever done anyway?" Flint himself would have answered, "Nothing, my friends, less than nothing; but more than you, because he is aware that he has done nothing."

The morning after Flint's arrival at Nepaug broke clear and cloudless, yet he was in no haste to be up and actively enjoying it. Instead, he lay a-bed, taking an indolent satisfaction in the thought that no bustling duty beckoned him, and amusing himself by a leisurely survey of the various corners of his bed-room.

It was scarcely eight feet in height, and the heavy, whitewashed beams made it look still [Pg 20] lower. In the narrow space between the ceiling and wainscot, the wall was covered with an old-fashioned paper, florid of design, and musty of odor. On the mantel-shelf stood two brass candle-sticks with snuffer and extinguisher. As Flint stared idly at them, wondering what varied scenes their candles had shone upon, his eyes were drawn above them to a picture which, once having seen, he wondered that he could ever have overlooked so long. It was a portrait of great beauty. He propped himself on his elbows to study it more closely.

"It looks like a Copley," he said to himself, "or perhaps a Gilbert Stuart. How the devil could such a picture get here, and how could I have failed to see it last year? I must have it—of course I must! It is absurd that it should be wasted here! I wonder if Marsden knows anything of its value?"

Here Flint fell back upon his pillow and found, to his disgust, that his metaphysical conscience was already at work on the problem of the equity of a bargain in which the seller is ignorant of facts known to the buyer, and whether the buyer is in honor bound not to take advantage of his professional training.

The picture which had given rise to this long and complicated train of thought was the portrait of a young woman in Quaker dress, her [Pg 21] hair rolled back above a low and subtle brow, her lace kerchief demurely folded over a white neck. Her head was bent a little to one side, and rested upon her hand. At her breast sparkled a ruby,—a spot of rich, luminous flame.

"That is odd," thought Flint. "I fancied Quakers never wore jewels—conscientiously opposed to them, and all that sort of thing. Perhaps this damsel was a renegade from the faith, or perhaps this was some heirloom,—a protest against the colorless limitations of the creed. Queer thing the human soul. Can't be formulated, not even to ourselves. Sometimes I've seen people show more of their real selves to utter strangers at odd moments than their nearest and dearest get at in a life-time."

This disjointed philosophy beguiled so much time, that Flint was late to breakfast. His fellow-boarders, a pedler and a fisherman, had gone about their business, and he sat down alone at the oilcloth-covered table, and twirled the pewter caster while he waited for his egg to be boiled. It was one of his beliefs that a merciful Heaven had granted eggs and oranges to earth for the benefit of fastidious travellers who could wreak their appetites in comparative security, especially if they did their own cracking and peeling. At length the breakfast [Pg 22] appeared, and with it the innkeeper, who sat down opposite Flint.

He had many weighty questions to put.

Should oakum or putty be used in the seams of "The Aquidneck"?

Should he pack the dinner-basket with beef or ham sandwiches?

Would Flint take lines for fishing, or a net for crabbing?

When all these were settled, Flint's thoughts drifted back to the portrait in the bed-room overhead. He began his questioning somewhat warily. "I suppose you've lived in this house for some time?"

"Wall, ever since I wuz born."

"And your father before you?"

"Yes, and my gran'father before him, and hisn fust."

"Ah, I see—an old homestead; and that portrait in my room is the wife of 'hisn'?"

"Not exactly—we never had no womenfolks in our family ez looked like that—stronger built is ourn, with more backbone, and none of that lackadaisical look raound the eyes."

"Pre-cisely," answered Flint. "And how does it happen that this lackadaisical-eyed portrait has hung so long without getting packed off to the garret?"

"Wall, you see," began Marsden, slowly and [Pg 23] with evident relish, "thet's quite a story about thet theer."

"Yes?" said Flint, with a rising inflection which invited further confidence.

"Yes, indeed," answered Marsden, expanding still further and stroking his chin-whisker as he proceeded. "You see 't wuz this way—Captain Wagstaff—he wuz the portrait's uncle—wall, he wuz in command of a fleet that lay in the harbor up yonder, in the Revolutionary War. When he wuz ashore, he spent most of his time to this haouse; and when his sister down to Philadelphy died, leavin' this daughter and no one to take care on her, he brought her on here to live with him. He'd been brought up a Quaker,—'Friend,' he called it,—though he did fight for his country, and right enough, sez I. Wall, this girl,—Ruth, her name wuz,—she came here and stopped awhile; and then there wuz a fight off the shore between the Captain's ship and a British cruiser. The cruiser wuz run down and sunk; but one of the officers they picked up waounded and brought ashore, to this house, and Miss Ruth she set to work takin' care on him.

"Wall, what with cossettin' of him, and all sorts of philanderin', she got kinder soft on him, and one day, fust any one knowed, she'd jest run off with him."

"And what did the Captain say to that?" [Pg 24] asked Flint, more interested than he was wont to be in Marsden's narratives.

"The Captain? Oh, they say he took on about it like thunder, and swore he'd never forgive her. But Ruth, she sent him her marriage lines, and wrote him what a good husband she'd got; and after the war wuz over, she kep' a-beggin' the Captain to come over and live with them. He wouldn't go; and I don't know ez I blame him any. Europe is so fur off, and such a wicked place—seems onsafer ez you get old. New England's the best place in the world to die in, and so he thought.

"Howsumever, she kep' a-sendin' him money and things; and one day ther came this here box—I've often heard my gran'mother tell how she looked on when 't wuz opened, and this picter turned out. Gran'ma wuz only a little thing, and she didn't know what to make of it all; for the Cap'n, he cried like a baby when he seen it. He had it taken up right away to his room (thet's whar you're a-sleepin') and hung over the mantel jest whar he could see it from his bed. Thar it stayed ez long ez he stayed on airth, and when he lay a-dyin',—He died, you know, in that very bed you're a-sleepin' in—only o' course the mattress is new—the old one wuz a feather-bed. My gran'mother wuz with him at the end, and she said he stretched out his arms to the pictur, [Pg 25] same ez ef 't ed been his niece herself; and he sort o' cried out, 'God bless you, Ruth! I wish I'd 'a' understood you better!' Wuzn't that a queer thing for him to say when he wuz a-dyin'?"

"Poor Ruth!" murmured Flint, with that placid, mild melancholy born of a sad story heard under comfortable circumstances. His fancy travelled back to the damsel in her Quaker dress, and he fell to wondering if the garb had been donned, with innocent hypocrisy, to please her old uncle, or if she always wore it in her faraway new home.

When he had got so far in his musings, his host recalled him to the present by continuing, "I dunno ez we've a very good claim to the pictur; but there ain't no heirs turned up, so ez the Cap'n wuz a little behind in his board bills, we sort o' kep' it."

Flint sat drumming with his fingers on the table, while his host still maundered on after the fashion of old age, which has so few topics that it cannot drop them with the light touch-and-go of youth.

Flint had already firmly determined that he would be the possessor of that portrait; but he was too shrewd to make any further advances now.

Instead, he turned again to the subject of "The Aquidneck," and, rising, made his way to the porch, where he almost walked over a speckled [Pg 26] hen so nearly a match for the floor that his near-sighted eyes failed to perceive her, paying as little heed to her clucking and fluttering as he bestowed upon the smiles of a girl who stood in the doorway and moved, with conspicuous civility as he passed. He stalked around to the corner of the porch where stood his long boots, for which he exchanged his low ties of russet leather, and, picking up fishing-tackle and crabbing nets, started off at a brisk pace for the shore of the pond, leaving Marsden to follow with the pail of dinner.

When all these were stowed away in the locker of "The Aquidneck," together with a straw-covered flask and a volume of Omar Khayyam, Flint bade a cheerful good-bye to Marsden, who stood rolling up his shirt-sleeves, and giving copious advice. The amateur skipper cast off from the little dock, lowered the centreboard, and stretched himself lazily in the stern, with one hand on the tiller. Peace was in his heart, and a pipe in his mouth—what could man ask more of the gods?

The white sails of "The Aquidneck" fluttered in the light breeze as if tremulous with the ecstasy of motion. The sea, beyond the low grass-covered sand-bar which enclosed the pond, lay bright and smooth to southward, its surface dotted with craft of various sizes. Here skimmed [Pg 27] a white-winged schooner; there panted and puffed a tug absurdly inadequate to its tow of low-lying coal-barges. Far on the horizon, a swelling island raised its bulk, purple as Capri, against the golden haze.

Flint might have been a better sailor had he not been so good a swimmer; but, having no fear of the consequences of a sudden bath, he took all risks, sailed into the very apple of the eye of the wind, and habitually fastened his sheet,—a practice strongly reprehended by old Marsden.

"There's a new boat on the pond," said Flint to himself, as a cat-rigged craft, white-hulled with a band of olive, shot out from behind a point of rock. "Her lines are rather good. A good sailor aboard too, I should say, for she runs free and yet steady. I'd like to try a race with the chap some day; maybe it would be hardly fair if he's a new comer, for I know the pond like—Damn it! what's that?"

That was a sunken rock which Flint, in his self-satisfied musings, had failed to keep a lookout for. It had struck "The Aquidneck" full (or vice versa, which amounts to the same thing); and here was a pretty pickle. Navigation is like flirtation: all goes smoothly till the shock comes, and then everything capsizes, with no chance for explanation.

"The Aquidneck" began to fill, and then to [Pg 28] sink so rapidly that Flint, not caring to risk entanglement in the sheets, thought it prudent to jump overboard, and struck out lustily for the shore. Fortunately for Flint, the shore was near and the water shallow. Unfortunately, the shore was at the end further from the inn, his clothes were soaking, and his tobacco and whiskey flask in the locker, already under water in the midst of mud and eel-grass.

Determined to make the best of a bad situation, Flint swam ashore, calmly disposed his coat and knickerbockers over the bayberry bushes, and seated himself, in his dripping under-garments, to dry in the sun to consider his next move.

"Certainly things couldn't be much nastier," he grumbled. "Yes, they could too," he added, as he heard a female voice calling from beyond the screen of bayberry bushes.

"Boat ahoy! What's the matter?"

Flint's first impulse was to hide; but fearing the voice and its owner might come ashore to investigate the extent of the calamity, he hastily donned his outer clothing and emerged, like a dripping seal, from his retreat. "All right!" he called out.

"All wrong! I should say," the voice replied; and in an instant he knew it for the voice which had called to him from the sulky on the previous afternoon.

[Pg 29]

"That girl is a hoodoo!" he muttered.

"Can I do anything for you?" inquired the voice, with that super-solemnity which results from the effort to conceal amusement,—a solemnity doubly insulting to its object, implying at once his absurdity and his vanity.

"Thank you!" answered Flint, stiffly; "if you will be kind enough to send some one over to give me a lift, I will be greatly obliged."

"Why not get in with us? Luff her in, Jim!" With this the girl and her companion, a boy of twelve years old, bare of leg and freckled of face, brought the boat around, and Flint climbed aboard with rather a bad grace.

To tell the truth, he was in a fit of the sulks. I admit that the sulks are not heroic; but Homer permitted them to Achilles, and why should I conceal the fact, unpleasing though it be, about my lesser hero.

Doubtless his ancestor, Jonathan Edwards, would have felt a like discomposure, had his pulpit given way under him in the presence of his congregation; and even that other fiery orator, Patrick The Great, might have lost his balance had his new peach-colored coat split up the back, when he was hurling death and destruction upon tyrants and pleading for liberty or death. To be ridiculous with equanimity is the crowning achievement of philosophy.

[Pg 30]

The boy addressed as "Jim" stared at Flint with open-mouthed enjoyment.

"You didn't fetch where you meant to, did you?"

"Hush, Jim!"

"Why, Fred, what am I saying wrong now? You're always hushing me up. I didn't mean to guy him, but he did look so jolly glum."

Seeing that intervention was vain in this quarter, his sister essayed a change of topic, and, womanlike, rushed on to the one she had most steadfastly promised herself to avoid.

"Were you fishing when the accident happened?" She stopped and colored nervously.

"No," observed Flint, dryly. (His remarks were the only dry things about him.) "My fishing-rod happened to be broken. It is of no consequence however," he hastened to add, seeing her blush deepen painfully. "The fish about here are not gamey enough to make fishing an exciting sport. Do you find it so?"

"I never fish."

"Ah, I am surprised."

"I hate to see the poor things suffer—"

"You are too tender-hearted?"

"Say rather too weak-nerved—I should not care if every fish in the sea died a violent death after prolonged suffering, provided I was not obliged to watch the process."

[Pg 31]

Flint smiled.

"But don't you know these cold-blooded creatures can't be made to suffer? I dare say the keenest enjoyment a fish ever feels is when his nervous system is gently stimulated by a hook in his mouth."

"Perhaps—I don't know—I tell you it is no question of sympathy. It is simply physical repulsion; and then I loathe the soft slipperiness of the bait."

"That's so," put in the boy at the tiller. "Fred groans every time I put a worm on the hook, and squeals when the fish flop round in the bottom of the boat, especially if they come anywhere near her skirts."

"Fred," repeated Flint to himself, "I might have known she would have a boy's name—" Aloud, he said: "I suppose, Master Jim, you have found all the best fishing-grounds in the pond."

Jim softened visibly at this tribute to his skill.

"Well, I know one good one over at Brightman's, and I'll show it to you to-morrow, if you like."

His sister shot a warning glance from under her level eyebrows.

"Don't make plans too far ahead, Jim. Sufficient unto the day, you remember—and unless this gentleman gets dry and warm soon, I am [Pg 32] afraid he will spend some days to come under the doctor's care. Haven't you some brandy or whiskey?" she asked, turning more fully toward Flint, and noticing for the first time that his lips were blue and his teeth chattering in spite of his efforts at unconcerned conversation.

"Yes," he answered; "a flask full of excellent old whiskey—over there," and he pointed disconsolately to the line of green water where the tell-tale fluttered above the wrecks of "The Aquidneck."

The young lady knit her brows in puzzled thought, "What is in our locker, Jim?"

"Bread and butter, cocoanut balls and ginger-ale."

"Get out the ginger-ale."

"But it is your luncheon," deprecated Flint.

"No, it isn't—it is your medicine. Try it."

Flint pressed the iron spring, and poured down the spluttering liquid, striving to conceal his wry face.

"Bully, ain't it?" exclaimed Jim, not without a tinge of regret for lost joys in his tone.

"Excellent!" returned Flint, perjuring himself like a gentleman.

"It is better than nothing," Miss Fred answered judicially. "I will send Jim up to the inn with some brandy; Marsden's stuff is rank poison. I had some once this summer when [Pg 33] I was ill, and straightway sent off to town for a private supply. If you feel able to exercise, I should advise you to let us put you off at this point, and make a run across country to Marsden's."

"I don't know how to thank you," Flint murmured as Jimmy pulled the row-boat up, and the young man prepared to climb in after him.

"There is no occasion for thanks. But if you insist on a debit and credit account, please charge it off against the ruin of your fishing-rod."

"I am humiliated."

"You?"

"Yes; I must have been a model of incivility."

"No; it was I who was in fault, rushing about the country like a jockey riding down everything in sight."

"Who except a fool would have had a fishing-rod trailing half-way across the road?"

"Look here," grumbled Jim, "I can't hold this dory bumping against the side of the boat forever—"

"Don't be impertinent, Jim. Besides apologies never last long. It is only explanations which take time—"

Flint jumped from the gunwale of the sail-boat into the dory, and took the oars. As he headed for shore, he turned his eyes once more to the sail-boat, and the glimpse that he had of [Pg 34] its skipper he carried for long after—the vision of her standing there in the stern, against the stretch of blue water, her soft handkerchief of some red stuff knotted about her throat above the gray jacket, her felt hat thrust up in front above the waves of her hair, and her eyes smiling with frank mirthfulness.

[Pg 35]

CHAPTER III

OLD FRIENDS

[Go to Table of Contents]

Flint was glad enough on reaching the inn to creep into bed. In spite of his cross-country run he was chilled through. Little shivers ran down his back, and his hands and feet seemed separated by spaces of numbness from the warmth of his body. The brandy arrived, and he swallowed some eagerly; but it had little effect on his chilly apathy. The dinner-bell clanged below. Flint heard it, but he paid no heed to the summons. He had forgotten what it was to desire food. A blur before his eyes, and an iron band about his head, occupied his attention to the exclusion of the outside world.

By three o'clock the headache-fiend had entered into full possession, had perched itself in the centre of consciousness, and seemed to [Pg 36] Flint's excited nerves to be working its octopus claws in and out among the folds of his brain.

Waves of pain vibrated outward to his ears and eyes. He watched the shade against the blindless window flap to and fro. Each streak of light admitted, struck the sufferer like a blow. He got up, went to the washbasin and sopped a towel, which he bound about his head and lay down again—no relief. He could endure it no longer. He dropped his boots one after the other on the floor, till at length Marsden heard the signal of distress, came lumbering up the stairs, and thumped upon his door.

Flint bade him come in and state in the fewest possible words whether there was any doctor within reach.

"There was."

"How long would it take to fetch him?"

"About half an hour."

"Let it be done."

Again Flint sank into a sort of stupor, from which he was awakened by a knock, and the entrance of a nervous, little wiry gentleman whose clothes of rusty black had the effect of having been purchased in a fit of absence of mind.

The sufferer roused himself as the physician came in.

"The doctor?"

[Pg 37]

"Yes."

"My name is Flint, and I sent for you to give me a dose of morphine."

"My name, sir, is Cricket, and I'm damned if I do any such thing."

"Why did they send for you then?"

"They sent for me to see what I thought you needed—not to take your orders for a drug. I am not an apothecary."

"More's the pity!" returned Flint, flouncing across to the inner side of the bed, and turning his back unceremoniously upon his visitor.

Dr. Cricket received this demonstration with unconcern. He took out his thermometer and shook it against his wrist. Then resting one knee on the bed he thrust the thermometer into his recalcitrant patient's mouth, saying: "Don't crunch on it, unless you want your mouth full of glass, and your belly full of mercury. Now for the pulse. Ah! too fast—I expected as much."

He took out the thermometer and held it to the light. "Over one hundred—see here, young man, it's well you sent for me when you did."

"I wish I hadn't."

"So do I, from a professional point of view. Nothing so good for doctors' business as delay in sending for us. As it is, I fear I can't conscientiously [Pg 38] make more than two calls, or keep you in bed after to-morrow."

"But what are you going to do for this accursed pain in the head?"

"Oh, that's of no consequence—only a symptom. It's the fever that worries me."

"Oh, it is—is it? Well, it is the pain that worries me, and if you don't do something about it, I'll fire your old bottles out of the window."

"Very good. Then I will send back to Mrs. White's for more bottles and a straight-jacket to boot—"

"So you live at Mrs. White's, do you?"

"No, sir, I do not live anywhere in summer—I board."

The doctor chuckled over his little joke as genially as if it had never seen the light before; but humor does not appeal to a man with a headache, and antique humor least of all.

"That's where Miss Fred and that freckled-faced brother of hers stay—isn't it?" Flint continued.

"Ah, do you know the Anstices?"

"Not I—that is, I never saw the young woman till yesterday; but to the best of my belief she is not human at all, only an evil genius of the region who goes about with incantations which cause fishing-rods to break at the end, and boats to run onto rocks."

[Pg 39]

"So—ho! You were the skipper of 'The Aquidneck,' were you? Well, well! no wonder you're laid up with a chill. We nearly burst our blood-vessels, laughing over Miss Fred's account of you, rising up like a ghost out of the eel-grass, and the topmast of your boat sticking up out of the water like a dead man's finger."

Dr. Cricket's little black eyes twinkled with enjoyment as he recalled the scene. The misguided man fancied he was helping to take his patient's thoughts off himself, and, having measured out his powders and potions, he took his departure, leaving Flint inwardly raging.

To be made the butt of a boarding-house table! Really it was too much; and this girl, of whom he had begun to think rather well—this girl doubtless mimicked his disconsolate tones and his chattering teeth, and made all manner of fun of his sorry plight.

Folk with a headache see life quite out of focus; and at the moment it really would have been a comfort to Flint to know that this mocking maid had been drowned, or struck by lightning, or in any fashion disabled from repeating the story of his discomfiture. He writhed and twisted, and at last fell asleep, still alternately vowing never to forgive, and never to give her another thought.

[Pg 40]

In the morning when he woke, free from pain and, except for a certain languor, quite himself again, he wondered at his childishness of the night before, though in spite of reason a certain sub-conscious resentment lingered still.

At seven o'clock Matilda Marsden knocked at his door and gave warning that the breakfast-hour drew near.

"I say," he called in response, "will you please send some one with a pitcher of hot water? I'll have my breakfast in bed."

Flint knew perfectly well that she would bring the water herself; but it was necessary to keep up the fiction of intermediate agency in deference to her position.

From October until June she was "Miss Marsden," in a shop of a small New England town; and when from June to October she condescended to become plain "Tilly," and to lend her assistance to her parents at the Nepaug Inn, she made it distinctly understood that she did so without prejudice to her social claims.

She waited at the table to be sure; but she shaded her manner with nice precision to meet the condition of the guest she served. To the timid pedler, she was encouraging; to the encroaching commercial traveller, she was haughty, and to Flint gently and insinuatingly sympathetic.

Flint, on his part, treated her with the deference [Pg 41] which he accorded to all women; but it never occurred to him to consider her as an individual at all. To him she was simply an agency for procuring food and towels; and when she lingered on the stairs, or at the doorway, making little efforts at conversation, he cut her ruthlessly short.

The result of this mingling of courtesy and neglect was of course that the girl fell promptly and deeply in love with the young man, cut out from the current magazines every picture which bore the slightest resemblance to his features, and went about sighing sighs and dreaming dreams, in a fashion at once pathetic and ridiculous. Flint, meanwhile, always obtuse on the side of sympathy, went his way wholly oblivious of her state of mind. How should he know that his rolls were hotter and his coffee stronger than those of his fellow-boarders, or that to him alone was accorded the friendly advice as to the comparative merits of "Injun pudd'n" and huckleberry pie, which constituted the staple of desserts at the inn?

This morning, as usual, he was wholly unconscious of the effort to beautify the tray set down outside his door. It meant nothing to him, that the pitcher holding the hot water was of red and yellow majolica, that the coarse napkin was embroidered with a wreath of impossible [Pg 42] roses, and the coffee-cup bore the legend "Think of me" in gilt lettering. In fact the only thing which attracted his attention at all was a pile of letters on the tray. He glanced hastily over the envelopes, swallowed his breakfast, and returned to closer inspection of the correspondence. The first letter which he opened was written by the editor of an English "Quarterly," informing him that his recent critique on Balzac had found favor in high places, and that the "Quarterly" would like to engage a series.

Flint tried not to seem, even to himself, as pleased as he felt.

The next note was of a different tone, a grieved rejoinder from a young author whose book had been reviewed by Flint with more light than sweetness. Less stoical to reproaches than to compliment, Flint kicked vigorously at the bedclothes, as though they had been the offending note-writer.

"Great Heavens!" he growled. "Does the man think his budding genius must be fed on sugar-plums? What I said about him and his book was either true or false; and here he spends his whole sheet prating about 'sensitive feelings,' as if they had anything to do with the matter."

Oh, imperfect sympathies! How large a part you play in the unhappiness of the world!

[Pg 43]

The third envelope on the tray was yellow, and contained a large, careless scrawl on a half-sheet of business paper; but it seemed to afford Flint unalloyed delight.

"Brady coming to-day!" he almost shouted aloud. "That is what I call jolly. I would like to see forty Dr. Crickets keep me in bed."

Brady and Flint had been college friends in the old days, at Harvard, and after that for years had drifted apart. Flint betaking himself to a German university, and Brady to a business career in Bison, a flourishing town of the great Northwest, wherein he too had flourished mightily, and whence he sent imploring messages to Flint, begging him not to waste his life in the effete civilization of New York, but to come out and get a view of real folks in the fresh new world of the West.

To these messages Flint had replied with more candor than courtesy, that the only fault he had to find with New York was its lack of civilization, that he was saving every nickel in hopes of getting away from it to eastward, and that if he were condemned to spend his life in Bison, or any other prairie town, he would make short work of matters with a derringer.

This slight difference of opinion had not at all interfered with the attachment of the two; and few things would have roused Flint to such enthusiasm [Pg 44] as this expectation of a fortnight—a leisurely, gossiping, garrulous, quarrelsome fortnight—with his old friend. The prospect of the visit was a better tonic than any contained in the little doctor's black-box. Indeed it drove all thoughts of doctors and their medicines so completely out of his head that he was quite surprised when, having dressed and descended to the ground-floor, he saw Dr. Cricket standing at the foot of the stairs, wiping the perspiration off his forehead with a large silk handkerchief.

The Doctor looked fiercely at him from under his shaggy eyebrows.

"Is this Mr. Flint?" he asked, as if unable to believe the testimony of his eyes.

"It is," Flint answered with unconcern.

"Why did you get up?"

"Because I formed the habit in my youth."

"Didn't I tell you to lie in bed till I came?"

"I don't remember."

The Doctor quivered with rage.

"I am an old man, sir," he said, "and I've walked a mile in the heat of this devilish sun, and all for a patient who is determined to kill himself, and such a fool that it doesn't matter much whether he does or not."

Flint smiled.

"Every man, you know, must be either a fool or a physician when he reaches maturity. Some [Pg 45] may be both. However, since you were kind enough to come to my assistance last night, I cannot be induced to quarrel with you this morning, and you ought to be the last man to find fault with me for feeling the benefit of your medicine sooner than you expected."

Dr. Cricket was as easy to be placated as to be stirred to anger; and when Flint urged him to come into the stuffy little office and partake of a lemonade with the addition of a stronger fluid from a bottle in Flint's room, he forgot his wrath or drowned it in the cooling drink, and at length parted in kindliness, only bidding his patient wear cabbage-leaves in his hat, and be sure to take wraps in case of a change in the weather, not forgetting to put on his "gums" if he walked on the wet beach.

When he had gone, Flint found the Doctor's gold-bowed spectacles in a chair. "Brady and I will walk up with them this evening," he said to himself. "Perhaps I was not as civil to the old gentleman as I might have been."

When Marsden learned that Flint was planning an expedition to South East, he suggested that he would "take it kindly" if Flint could make it convenient to bring down a few packages of groceries, as some of the store supplies had run out, and the relays were not expected until the next day.

[Pg 46]

Flint reproached himself for weakness in complying, and growled still further when he saw the length of the list which Marsden handed to him as he took his seat in the carryall.

"What a cursed fool I am," he muttered as he drove off, "to hire this man's beast for the privilege of doing his errands!"

The three-o'clock train puffed into the station at South East nearly an hour behind time. The period of waiting in the intense mid-day heat had not improved Flint's temper. For all his hearty greeting to Brady, he could not shake off a sense of irritation, intensified by the fact that he had no one on whom to wreak it.

Brady's trunk was strapped onto the carryall, the various bottles, jugs, and packages which Flint, with such unusual urbanity, had consented to bring down to the Beach for Marsden, were stowed away under the seat, and nothing remained but the mail. To get this Flint drew up at the post-office. The postmaster was a grouty old store-keeper who, through political influence, retained his position in spite of the efforts of the town's-folk to oust him. This afternoon a line of wagons stood at the door, and a line of men stood at the little window within. Seeing his own name in the list of those for whom there were letters, Flint waited for the window to open, and took his place in the line. [Pg 47] When he reached the window, he asked for his letter.

"No letter for you," growled the postmaster.

Flint stepped out of line and consulted the list. There was no mistake. Again he presented himself before the window.

"What cher want?"

"My letter."

"Ain't no letter, I told cher."

"Perhaps you will be kind enough to look at the list."

The postman, in the worst of humors, went to a drawer of his desk, and, after much hunting about and turning over of parcels, he found a letter which he threw out at Flint without a remark. Flint took it also in silence, turned away and resumed his place at the end of the line. Again he returned to his old post before the little window. This time the postman grew purple with rage.

"Get out o' this you! What cher want now?"

"I simply wish," answered Flint, in his low, clear, gentlemanly voice, "to tell you that you have behaved like an insolent blackguard, and deserve to be removed from office."

Flint's words were the signal for a storm of applause from the loiterers, and he walked out a hero. He was in a more amiable frame of mind [Pg 48] when he climbed into the carryall. The old horse, feeling his head turned homeward, needed less urging than usual, and the young men lolled back, talking busily of old times and new.

Brady was a typical business-man of the West,—cheerful, practical, a bit boastful, square-shouldered, clear-eyed and ruddy-faced, confident of himself, proud of his surroundings, sure that there were no problems of earth or Heaven with which America in general, and Philip Brady in particular, were not fitted to cope.

Before he had uttered a dozen sentences, Flint began to realize how far apart they had drifted in the ten years since they had met. He experienced a vaguely hopeless sense of complexity in the presence of his friend's bustling frankness. He felt almost a hypocrite, and yet it seemed to him that any attempt at self-revelation would be useless, because the relative value, the chiaro-oscuro of life, was so different to each. He took refuge, as we all do under such circumstances, in objectivity—asked heartily for the health of each member of Brady's family, listened with polite interest to the statistics of the growth of Bison, and then began to wonder what he should talk about next. As he cast his eye downward, a very practical subject suggested itself, for he saw with dismay that the cork was [Pg 49] out of the molasses jug, from which the sticky fluid had already oozed forth, and was rapidly spreading itself over the floor of the carryall.

"This is what comes of being obliging. Just look at this mess! What in time are we going to do about it, Brady?"

Brady, being a man of action, wasted no energy in discussion. He jumped to the ground, pulled out first his overcoat and gripsack, fortunately unharmed, then the paper parcels of oatmeal and hominy, sticky and dripping. Swiftly corking the jug, he lifted it out of the carryall, together with the oilcloth strip, and deftly stood both against a fence by the roadside. Flint watched him with admiration. He felt himself supremely helpless in the presence of the direful calamity. How was he ever to get these bundles into condition to be put back into the wagon? How cleanse the oilcloth and the fatal jug?

No house was in sight.

Flint stood gloomily gazing down at his boots covered with the oozy brown fluid. "Jupiter aid us!" he exclaimed; and as if in answer to his call, "a daughter of the gods, divinely tall," rose on their sight, coming towards them from over the ridge of the hill. She came on swiftly, yet without hurry. She walked (a process little understood by the feminine half of the world, hampered as they are by their stays and ten [Pg 50] penny heels). This woman neither hobbled, nor waddled, nor tripped. With the leg swinging out from the hip (no awkward knee-movement, yet no stride), she swept down the hill as serenely as though she were indeed a messenger sent by Jupiter to their assistance. Beside her trotted a large dog who now and again excursionized in search of tempting adventure, but as constantly returned to rub his head lovingly against his mistress's skirt, and lick her hand, as if to assure her that, in spite of his wandering propensities, his heart remained faithful.

"The hoodoo!" muttered Flint.

"What a pretty girl!" exclaimed Brady.

The object of these widely differing criticisms moved steadily nearer. She wore a white gown. A basket was on her arm, and her wide-brimmed straw hat was pulled low over her eyes to shield them from the sun. She was close upon the scene of accident before she discerned it. Catching at the same moment a look of annoyance on Flint's face, she swerved a little, as if with intent to pass by, like the priest and the Levite, on the other side; then, reassured by Brady's look of half-comic despair, she set down her basket and paused.

"You have met with an accident, I see," she observed, as casually as though she had never before heard of any catastrophe in connection [Pg 51] with Flint. "The molasses worked, I suppose. It will, sometimes, if it is not tightly corked. It was stupid in the grocer not to warn you."

"It is kind of you," said Brady, "to lay the accusation of stupidity so far off; but, wherever it lies, the results are the same, and we are in a bad way."

"What can we find to wipe these things off with?" the good Samaritan asked, making common cause in the misfortune.

"Nothing," answered Flint, with extravagant gloom, striving as he spoke to cleanse his shoes by rubbing them against the grass-grown bank.

The girl put her finger to her lips,—a characteristic gesture when she was puzzled. Then, unfastening her basket with sudden energy, she exclaimed: "Why won't this do? Here is some sea-moss which I was taking to an old woman who lives a little further down the road. She makes some stuff which she calls farina out of it, and grieves bitterly that she is no longer young and spry enough to gather it for herself along the shore. My basket is full of this moss, and if we could wet it in the brook down yonder, we might sponge off the things with it, and then dry them with big leaves, backed up by those newspapers which I see you have in your parcel of mail."

"What a clever notion!" Brady said, as he [Pg 52] plunged down to the brook, and came up again with the dripping moss. He and the Samaritan scrubbed merrily away, while Flint stood by with an uncomfortable sense that he was out of it all, and that no one but himself knew or cared.

When comparative cleanliness was restored, and the bundles returned to the bottom of the wagon, the girl scrambled down to the brook, and, pushing back her wide cuffs, knelt by the water, where she washed the traces of sticky substance from her long slender fingers.

"You have relieved us from a very awkward situation," said Flint, as she rose; "but your basket of moss is spoiled and your long walk rendered futile. Surely you will permit us at least to drive you home."

"Thank you, no. Mrs. Davitt will like to talk a while, and to know that I have not forgotten her and her farina. So I will bid you 'good afternoon.'"

"That is the most charming girl I ever met," observed Brady, as he stood watching her disappear around the turn of the road.

"Did you ever meet one who was not?" asked Flint.

"The way she took hold was magnificent," continued Brady, unmoved by his companion's raillery. "And then when it was all over she was so unself-conscious; and the best of all was [Pg 53] her politeness in never laughing at us, for really, you know, we must have looked rather ridiculous, standing gawking there like two escaped imbeciles."

This allusion irritated Flint, as he remembered the last two occasions, when she had borne herself less seriously. The recollection colored his first remark, after they had clambered into the carryall, and persuaded Dobbin to resume his leisurely trot.

"I am afraid myself, inconsistent as it seems, I should have liked her better if she had not taken hold in such a capable, mannish fashion. There is a certain appealing dependence which is rather becoming to a woman—to my thinking, that is—it is an old-fashioned notion, I admit."

"Well, I must say I don't think an attitude of appealing dependence would have been very serviceable to us to-day; and as an habitual state of mind, while it may be very attractive, it seems to imply having some one at hand to appealingly depend upon. Our sex must have reciprocal duties; but I don't notice that you have offered yourself as a support for any of these clinging natures."

"Nevertheless," answered Flint, "if I ever did fall in love, it would be with a woman of the clinging kind. But don't let us get to talking [Pg 54] like a couple of sentimental schoolgirls! Here we are, anyway, at the last turn of the road, and there is Nepaug Beach. How does it strike you?"

"It reminds me," said Brady, smiling, "of the Walrus and the Carpenter:—

"'They wept like anything to see

Such quantities of sand.

If this were only cleared away

They said it would be grand.'"

"Brady, you are a sentimentalist! You sigh for brooks and willows and, for all I know, people."

"Flint, you are a misanthrope! You have searched out this God-forsaken stretch of sand just for the purpose of getting away from your kind. Now I have hunted you to your lair, and I propose to stay with you for a fortnight; but I am not to be dragooned into saying that I think your resort is a scene of beauty, for I don't; but that is a jolly, old, gray, tumbled-down building over there—a barn, I suppose."

"No, sir; that is the Nepaug Inn. As it has neither porters, waiters, nor electric bells, you are expected to shoulder your own luggage and march upstairs—second room to the right. Whoa, there!" he called out to the old horse a full minute after the animal had come to a dead halt in front of the inn door. The noise, how [Pg 55] ever, served its purpose in bringing Marsden to the door, and loading the old inn-keeper with imprecations for their unlucky experience with the molasses, Flint left him to struggle with the contents of the wagon, while he himself escorted Brady up the narrow, sagging stairs, and ensconced him in a room next his own,—a room whose windows looked out like his over the purple stretch of ocean, now opalescent with reflection of the clouds.

"Where do you take your bath?" Brady asked, looking round somewhat helplessly.

"In there, you land-lubber!" answered Flint, pointing out to sea; "isn't the tub big enough?"

Brady laughed, a hearty, boyish, infectious laugh. "All right," he said, "only it seems rather odd to come East for pioneering. Did you know, by the way, that I am to be in New York this winter?"

"No!"

"Yes. Our house is just establishing a branch office there, and I am to be at the head of it."

Flint chuckled.

"Bison establishing a branch office in New York! The humor of the thing delights me."

"I don't see anything so very funny about it," answered Brady, rather testily; "but I have no stomach for a quarrel till I have had some [Pg 56] supper—unless you sup out there," he added with a lordly wave of his hand towards the ocean in imitation of Flint's gesture. "I hope, at any rate, our evening meal is not to be of farina. The associations might be a little too strong even for my appetite."

[Pg 57]

CHAPTER IV

THE DAVITTS

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After taking leave of Flint and his companion in misfortune, Winifred quickened her pace. The lengthening shadows warned her that if she intended to return to the White House before supper was over, she had no time to lose.

"Come, Paddy!" she said, laying her hand with a light, caressing gesture on the shaggy red-brown head of the Irish setter, which had kept closer guard than ever since the meeting with the strangers in the road,—"come, Paddy! we must make a sprint for it."

The dog, glad enough to be allowed the luxury of a gallop, set off pell-mell, and Winifred followed at a gait which soon brought her, flushed and out of breath, before the unpainted house where the Davitt family made their abode. It was not characterized by great order or tidiness. Clothes-lines, hung with underwear of various shapes and sizes, decorated the side-yard, and proclaimed Mrs. Davitt's calling. A whole section [Pg 58] of the front fence had taken itself off. The gate swung aimlessly on one rusty hinge, and a brood of chickens wandered at will over the unmown grass before the house: yet the place was not wholly unattractive, for it bore evidences of human love and happiness; and, after all, these are the objects for which the most orderly and elegant mansions exist, if indeed they are so fortunate as to attain them. These are the essence of a home.

An old dory filled with geranium and nasturtium brightened the centre of the yard. Beneath the wide spreading maples, which lent their unbought adornment to the shabby old house, hung a child's swing, and near by stood a rickety express-cart, to which an unlucky goat was tethered by a multi-colored harness made of rope, tape, and bits of calico. The driver of this equipage, a tow-headed lad of some five years old, stood with his thumb in his mouth, gazing with open-eyed amazement at the young lady who thought it worth while to walk so fast.

"Good afternoon, John!" said Winifred, when she had regained her breath. "Is your mother at home?"

The practice of answering questions is an acquired habit, and comes only after long acquaintance with society. Children left in a state of nature rarely think it necessary or even safe [Pg 59] to commit themselves so far. John Davitt only pulled his thumb out of his mouth, poked his pink toes deeper into the grass, and gave a hitch at the single suspender supporting the ragged knickerbockers which formed two-thirds of his costume.

"Oh!" continued the visitor, not in the least disconcerted by the lack of response to her advances, "you don't want to leave your goat long enough to go and ask about your mother, do you? Well, I should not like to be asked to leave my colt if I were driving. People should do their own errands, I think, and not be bothering other folks with their business. You will not be afraid of my dog if I leave him here while I go into the house, will you?"

"Whath hith name?" asked John, discovering for the first time that he had a tongue and knew its use.

"Paddy," answered the visitor.

"I uthed to have a brother Paddy. He died."

"Then you must make friends with the dog for his sake. Would you like to see how my Paddy can chase a stone?" With this Winifred picked up a large pebble, and threw it far down the road. Paddy, with a bark of animated enjoyment, made after it, with wagging tail and ears laid back against his head. John laughed [Pg 60] loud, wrinkled up his little pug nose and showed his white teeth.

"Now when he brings it back, you throw it again, and I will go in and try to find your mother; I think I see her now," she added, as she turned the angle of the house and caught a glimpse of Mrs. Davitt, seated in the wooden rocking-chair beside the kitchen-table, paring potatoes.

To the casual glance she was only a homely old Irish woman who might have been the original of "The shape which shape had none." The only semblance of waist was the line drawn by her gingham apron-string. Her form bulged where it should have been straight, and was straight where it should have curved. Her face, however, had a gentle motherliness, and still bore traces of the comeliness which had marked it a quarter of a century earlier, when, as Bridget O'Hara, she had set sail from "the owld counthry" to try her fortune in the new.

After a few months' experience of city life over here, she had drifted to South East, where she found employment in a thread factory which stood on the bank of the tiniest stream that ever, outside of England, called itself a river. Its current ran swiftly, however; its mimic falls were forced into the service of trade; and the wheels of the thread factory whirred busily, except when [Pg 61] bad times brought wheels and bobbins to a standstill.

For three years after her arrival in South East, Bridget O'Hara stood beside her wheel, and fed her bobbin faithfully. Her blue Irish eyes were bright in those days, and her cheeks red as the roses of County Meath, where the thatched homestead of the O'Haras lifted its humble head. More than one of the men working in the factory took notice of the blue eyes and the red cheeks, and would have been glad to secure their owner for a wife; but she was not for any of them. Before she had been in the village six months, she had given her faithful heart to Michael Davitt, the young New England fisherman whose boat lay below the bridge which she crossed every morning on her way to her work in the factory. Many a time on bright spring mornings she loitered on the bridge, leaning over its wooden railing to watch Michael as he washed out his boat, and made ready for the day's sail. Sometimes the talk grew so absorbing that the factory bell sounded out its last warning call before Bridget could tear herself away, and afterward, through the long day, shut up among the whirring wheels, in the dust and heat of the big dreary room, she kept the vision of the white flapping sail, and of Michael Davitt standing by the tiller of the boat under the bridge.

[Pg 62]

At last the fisherman asked her to marry him, and she accepted him joyously, undismayed by the diminutive proportions of their united incomes.

"Sure, Mike dear," Bridget had declared cheerfully, "what's enough for wan will be enough for two, and you'll never feel the bit I'll be afther atin'."

This specious theory of political economy has beguiled into matrimony many a young couple who fail to take account of the important difference that what is enough for two may not be enough for three, and still less for three times three. So it fell out with the Davitts. For the first year of their married life, Bridget went on working in the factory, and kept her tiny tenement tidy, and Michael mended nets on the doorstep, and sold fish in summer, and loafed in the winter in contented assurance that life would continue to treat him well. But the next year opened less prosperously. Bridget was compelled to give up her work in the factory, and when, in the middle of a particularly rigorous winter, a baby was born to the house of Davitt, the outlook would have appeared discouraging to any one less optimistic than Bridget. But she found much cause for satisfaction in the thought that the baby had come at this particular time, when Michael could be at home to help take [Pg 63] care of the house; and above all in the reflection that the baby was a boy, "who'd not be thrubblin' any wan long, for before we know it, Mike, me jewel, he'll be lookin' afther you and me."

Part of her self-congratulation had justified itself, for the baby Leonard had grown up into one of those helpful, "handy" lads who sometimes are sent to be the salvation of impecunious households. At an incredibly early age, he began to feel the responsibilities of the family on his manly little shoulders, and as the procession of small Davitts entered the world, he took each one under his protecting care. Dennis, Ellen, Maggie, Tommy, Katie, and John had found their way into the family circle, and no one hinted that there was not place and porridge for the last as well as the first.

As the years went on, Michael Davitt lost whatever alertness of temperament he might once have possessed. New England seems to endow some of her children with such a surplus of energy, that she is compelled to subtract a corresponding amount from the share of others. Michael Davitt was one of the others. His experiences as a fisherman had persuaded him that it was useless to put forth effort, unless he had wind and tide in his favor. Consequently, his life was spent in waiting for encouragement from the forces of nature,—encouragement which [Pg 64] never came; so that at last he gave up the struggle, and sat by the chimney-corner all winter, as contentedly as he sat on the stern of his boat all summer, ready to move if circumstances favored, but serene under all conditions. His silence was as marked as his serenity. On occasions, he could be moved to smiles, but seldom to speech. He sat quiet and unmoved amid the family hubbub, his long limbs twisted together, his arms folded above his somewhat hollow chest, and his protruding tusks of teeth firmly fastened over his nether lip, as if constraining it to silence.

Tommy might lift off the cover of the beehive, and rush into the house shrieking with wrath and terror over the result; Maggie might upset the milk, and John drag the kitten about the room by its tail,—no matter! the father of the family continued to sit unmoved as Brahma. But when Leonard entered the door, some appearance of life began to show itself in Michael. He untwisted his legs, moved a little to make room on the settle, and even went so far as to make an entering wedge of conversation with a "Well, Leon!"

Leonard Davitt was a boy to warm any father's heart,—stout and strong, hearty and frank, cheerful as the day was long, with the smile and jest of his race ready for any chance [Pg 65] comer. This light-heartedness had made him a favorite not only in his own family, but among all the youth and maidens who dwelt in the outlying farmhouses around South East; but of late an unaccountable change had come over the lad. This merry, careless happiness had deserted him. He had taken to going about with hair unbrushed, and a "dejected 'havior of his visage."

The noisy mirth of his little brothers and sisters irritated him, and their noisier quarrels exasperated him. He kept away from them as much as he could, and when he was not off in his boat, he sat on the fence under the maples as taciturn as Michael himself. The children wondered at him, and gradually began to draw away at his approach, instead of rushing toward him as of old. Maggie, who was fifteen now, and worked in the factory, suspected the cause of his trouble, and once ventured to rally him on "the girl that was so cool she'd give a man the mitten in summer;" but her pleasantry was ill-received. Leonard scowled at her, and stalked away muttering to himself.

His mother saw him from her window, and she too knew what was the trouble with her boy; but she only dropped a few tears among the potato-parings, and resolved to make griddle-cakes for supper,—as though Leonard were still [Pg 66] a child whose heart could be cheered through his stomach. As Mrs. Davitt laid down her knife to wipe her eyes, she heard the barking of a dog, and then a rapid double knock on the half-open kitchen-door.

"Come in, Miss," she said, rising and wiping her hands on her gingham apron. "Come in and take the rocker. Don't be standin' when sittin' down is chape enough, even for the poor. It's yourself hezn't forgot me, nor me bit o' farina."

"No, indeed, Mrs. Davitt, I did not forget you: but you won't get your farina after all; for I met some poor men in distress, and I handed over all the sea-moss to them."

"Poor craytyurs! Wuz they that hungry they could ate it raw?"

"Hardly," answered Winifred, smiling at her remembrance of the peculiarly well-fed looking recipients of her bounty, "they were not hungry at all; but they had come to grief with a molasses jug. The carriage and everything in it was sticky, and I don't know what they would have done to get it clean without your moss; but you shall surely have some more to-morrow, and now tell me how you are feeling."

"Is it meself? Thank ye kindly, me dear. I'm jest accordin' to the common, save where I'm worse; me legs ache me nights, and I fale [Pg 67] the washin' in me back some days; but if me moind wuz right, it's little I'd moind the thrubble in me bones."

"Why, what is wrong, Mrs. Davitt?" Winifred asked with sympathy in her voice. "The children all look well. John's cheeks are red as apples, and Katie is as round as a butter-ball."

"Oh, the childers is all right," answered Mrs. Davitt, with an air of mystery, but evidently not unwilling to be pressed further as to the source of her trouble.

"Surely it is not your husband? He looked better than usual this morning when he came around to the White House, and he had as fine a catch of fish as I have seen this summer."

"Yea, himself's all right."

"Then it must be Leonard; but I am sure he is a boy of whom any mother might be proud."

"Proud? Yea, but many's the proud heart is the sore heart."

"Tell me all about it," said her young visitor, laying her delicate hand on the red fingers which still clasped the bone-handled steel knife. Mrs. Davitt looked down for a moment in silence, playing with the bent joint of her stiff third finger, then she broke out with a fierceness in curious contrast to her usual gentle speech.

"It's that Tilly Marsden. Bad luck to her [Pg 68] for a bowld hussy! She's put the insult on Leonard."

"The insult?"

"Yea, 'tis the same as an insult for all the neighbors to take notice of, whin a gurrl ez hez been kapin' company with a man fur goin' on two years, walks by him now with her nose in the air, lek wan wuz too good to be shpakin' with the praste himself."

"Don't be too hard on Tilly, Mrs. Davitt," remonstrated Winifred, soothingly. "Perhaps she is fond of Leonard still, but does not want him to feel too sure of her. I dare say you were a little like that yourself, when you were a girl."

"Thrue fer ye, me dear!" Mrs. Davitt answered, with that delightful Irish readiness to be diverted from her woes to a more cheerful frame of mind. "Thrue fer ye! I'd never let Michael be sayin' me heart wuz caught before ever he'd shpread the net."

"Then, depend upon it, Tilly feels the same."

"Mebbe it's the thruth you're afther findin' out; but I misthrust, and it's meself will never fergive her if she breaks the heart of the best by in the counthry."

The possibility was too much for the sorrowful mother. She threw her apron over her head, and abandoned herself once more to despair, swaying to and fro disconsolately in the black [Pg 69] wooden chair from the back of which the gilt had been half rubbed away by quarter of a century of rocking.

"Do you think it could possibly do any good for me to talk with Leonard?" Winifred ventured, quite dubious in her own mind of the wisdom of the proceeding.

"Ow, if yez would, 'twould like be the savin' o' the by. He'll not bear any of us to shpake wid him at all at all."

"Very well then, I will try to get him to talk about it. Only don't be disappointed if I do not succeed! The chances are that he will not listen to me."

"Not listen to yoursilf, is it!" cried Mrs. Davitt, once more transported to the heights of hope. "Sure, the saints in Hiven would lay down their harps to hear your swate vice. Yes, and aven to look at ye, as ye shtand there, in that white dhress, jist like what wan o' thimsilves 'ud be wearin'! How becomin' ye are to your clothes!"

Winifred smiled at the subtle flattery; but before she could muster an appropriate acknowledgment, she caught sight of Leonard loitering at the gate.

"There is Leon now; I will ask him to walk part way home with me. It is growing dark, and you know," she added, laughing, "how timid I am!"

[Pg 70]

Mrs. Davitt smiled in answer to the laugh, for Winifred's daring was the talk of the countryside. She dried her eyes, and peered over her spectacles at her visitor as she picked her way among the chickens, feathered and human, who thronged about the doorstep, to the spot where Leonard stood, listlessly hanging over the gate gazing idly up and down the road.

Mrs. Davitt's heart beat anxiously as she marked the girl stop to speak to him, and when at last she saw him turn and walk beside her up the road, followed suspiciously by Paddy with the basket in his mouth, she burst out into a tearful torrent of joy and thanksgiving.

[Pg 71]

CHAPTER V

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THE OLD SHOP

The sun was already low in the west, when Flint and Brady, having supped heartily on boiled lobster and corn bread, lighted their pipes and strolled toward the door of the tiny shop which leaned up against the inn as if for support. A bird, looking down upon it in his flight, might have mistaken it for some great mud-turtle, so close did it sprawl along the ground.

For some years it had served as a turkey-house on the farm; but as Marsden had begun to discover possibilities of profit in a shop which should both draw custom to the inn, and find customers in the chance guests of the tavern, he had turned his attention to the work of transforming the poultry-house into a village store, and had been surprised to find how well it adapted itself to its new purpose. True, the beams ran across only a few inches above Marsden's head; but that was rather an advantage than otherwise, [Pg 72] for they thus made an excellent substitute for counters, and the wares were well displayed and within easy reach. Along one beam hung a row of boots of every style and size,—from giant rubbers, reaching to the thighs, in which the Nepaug farmers went wading for seaweed fertilizer, to the clumsy baby shoes, jauntily set off with a scarlet tassel at the top, in that pathetic effort of the poor to express in their children's dress the poetry so scantily supplied in their own lives. Another beam was hung with wooden pails, and a third gleamed with the reflections of bright-new tinware.

On the shelves opposite the door lay bright hued calicoes flanked by jars of peppermint candies, some of which were rendered doubly irresistible to youthful customers by being cut in heart-shape and decorated with sentimental mottoes chiefly in verse.

Marsden fitted his shop so well, that he seemed little more than an animated bundle of secondhand goods. His cowhide boots were the fellows of those that dangled from the fourth beam. His gayly checked flannel shirt harmonized delightfully with the carriage robes in the corner, and the soft brown-felt hat toned æsthetically with the plug tobacco in the case behind him.

When Flint and Brady looked in at the door, a girl was standing at the counter, turning over [Pg 73] the pile of calicoes. She had brought with her a pailful of blueberries which she evidently wished to barter for a remnant of the prints. She showed much disappointment when Marsden declined to trade except upon a cash basis.

"What might this be wuth?" she asked at length, pointing to a red and white calico on the second shelf. Marsden, Yankee-like, answered her question by another. "What'll ye give fur it? It's the end of the piece, and I dunno but I'd as lives you'd hev it ez anybody."

"Wall," answered the girl, cautiously, "I wouldn't give no more'n six cents a yard for it."

"Take it along," said Marsden, wrapping it, as he spoke, in coarse brown paper. As he handed it to her he said: "I wuz goin' to offer it to you for five cent."

The girl's face fell.

"You see," whispered Flint to Brady, "there never was a woman who could really enjoy anything unless she thought she had paid less than it was worth. It is my own belief that Eve bought the apple from the Serpent as a bargain, and that Satan assured her that he would not have sold it to Adam at double the price."

As the maiden withdrew, a buggy rattled up to the door of the little shop. In the broad strip of light formed by the lamp opposite the door, the creaking vehicle stopped short. A [Pg 74] dumpy female in a nondescript black garment took the reins, while her male companion descended heavily, putting both feet upon the step, and cautiously lowering himself to the ground close beside the spot where Flint and Brady stood. Once assured that he had reached the ground in safety, he proceeded to take off his wrinkled duster, fold it tenderly, and lay it on the seat, from beneath which he pulled out a bulky bundle, securely tied up in bed-ticking.

Flint watched the rustic with idle curiosity, as the old man entered the store and deposited his bundle on the counter. Marsden sat on a chair with no back, nursing his knee and assuming indifference to the entrance of the new-comer.

"Be thar any market naow for quilts, or be thar?" asked the old farmer, somewhat anxiously, while untying the knots of his parcel.

"I dunno ez thar be, and I dunno ez thar be," Marsden answered.

Both parties seemed to understand each other perfectly. They approached as warily as two foxes. When the roll was finally spread out on the counter, the dim lamplight flickered over a patchwork quilt of the familiar log-cabin pattern, gay with colors as varied as those of Joseph's coat.

"What cher s'pose yer could give fur this?" [Pg 75] the new-comer asked with a relapse into unwary eagerness, and an irrepressible pride in this evidence of the household industry of his women folk.

"Dunno, I'm sure," said Marsden, slowly, shifting his quid of tobacco and spitting meditatively on the floor. "Shop-keepin' 's all a resk anyhow. I'll give yer seventy-five cents for it though, jest for a gamble; but nobody has much use for quilts in this weather, except to hide their heads under from the skeeters."

"Truth will out," whispered Flint. "Marsden always declares that mosquitoes are unknown at Nepaug."

The owner of the quilt shook his head dubiously.

"Couldn't you go a dollar on it?" he queried. "It took my wife a month to make it, sewin' evenin's."

"Did—did it?"

"Yaas, 'n' it's made out of pieces of the children's clothes, and some on 'em 's dead—and associations ought to caount for somethin'."

"Will it last?" questioned the cautious Marsden, twitching it this way and that, and testing the material with his thumb-nail, which he kept long and sharp apparently for the purpose of detecting flaws in dry-goods.

"Wall," assumed the other, somewhat nettled [Pg 76] by the purchaser's skepticism, "I reckon it'll last ez long ez a dollar will."

"Mebbe," said Marsden, quite impressed by the logic of this last statement. "Anyhaow I'll give you ninety cents, and that's my last figger."

The man glanced furtively over his shoulder at the female in the buggy, who sat twitching the reins impatiently, then he hitched up closer to Marsden and held out a dime.

"Take it," he whispered, "'n' give me the greenback. I promised I wouldn't let it go fur less'n a dollar, 'n' I dassent."

The two men winked at each other like brothers in the freemasonry of married life, and the knight of the duster disappeared in the gathering dusk. His departure emptied the little shop, and Flint and Brady entered and seated themselves on a couple of kegs on opposite sides of the door.

"Ef it's all the same, gentlemen," drawled Marsden. "I'd recommend you to take another seat with yore pipes, fur one of them kags is filled with ile, and the other with gun-paowder."

Brady jumped up in haste, and felt of his coat-tails as though they might even then be on fire.

Even Flint moved with greater alacrity than usual, quite concurring in the wisdom of seeking [Pg 77] another seat, especially as the new one brought him opposite the low doorway, through which he could see the sky, and watch the night drawing in over bay and cove.

On the fence-rail opposite, a flock of turkeys had composed themselves to sleep. The crickets in the corn-field were tuning their wings for their habitual evening concert. The night-moth flapped heavily against the small, square window-pane.

It was a scene bare but tranquil; and Flint was possessed by its dreary charm. The dim quiet of the twilight suited him; and it struck him jarringly, like a false note in an orchestra, when there fell on his ear a high, shrill voice, exclaiming,—

"Pa, ma wants to know if the yeast-cakes have come."

Tilly Marsden gave a little start of surprise, as she came down the steps from the house-door, at the sight of Flint and Brady, who rose at her entrance, and removed their pipes from their mouths.

"Enter woman—exit comfort," thought Flint.

"I hope you're better, Mr. Flint," said Tilly, edging a little nearer him while her father searched among the blue boxes for the desired yeast-cakes.

"Thanks."

[Pg 78]

"Wasn't the sun awful hot up to town?"

"Quite so."

"But you didn't get sun-struck?"

"No."

"I'm awful glad. I says to ma this morning, 'I do hope,' says I, 'Mr. Flint has taken Pa's big white umbrella lined with green. You know his head is so weak.'"

Flint felt Brady's amused glance upon him. "Thank you," he answered stiffly, "my head is quite well again. Come, Brady," he added, turning to his friend, "if you are ready, we'll get our stroll before we turn in."

"Here, Tilly," said Marsden, at the same time, "here's the yeast-cake; but I don't see what ma wants with it, fur I gev her two this arfternoon."

Tilly blushed, and looked furtively toward the doorway where the young men stood. The girl had a kind of flimsy prettiness which suggested a cotillon favor. Her hair was fluffy, and coquettishly knotted at the back with blue ribbon. Her freshly ironed white dress set off her hourglass figure, and the fingers on which she was continually twisting the rings were white and slender. Her lips were set in a somewhat simpering smile, and her voice was soft with a view to effect. Brady watched her artless artfulness with some amusement. When they had gone [Pg 79] out, he hinted something to Flint in regard to the conquest he appeared to have made; but found him so loftily unconscious that his jest fell flat, and he dropped the subject to take up a more serious theme as they strolled along the road, and at length seated themselves where the turkeys had made their roost, on the gray rail-fence in the moonlight.

"I wonder, Flint," said Brady, "if we shall be able to take up our old association where we dropped it."

"Of course not," Flint answered, "don't imagine it for a moment!"

"I don't see why we should not."

"You don't?"

"No, I do not."

"Well, that fact alone is enough to show the gap between us. I can see it plainly enough. You have spent these last ten years in active, quick decisions, accumulating energy, push, drive—what you call hustling; while I have been trying to see into things a little, trying to find out what is worth hustling for—whether anything is. Now do you suppose that two people with such opposite training are going to fit together like a cup and ball, as they used to do when they were chums in college, and had had no training at all?"

"I don't know," said Brady, more dubiously. [Pg 80] Then he went on, with the air of one who is not to be balked in speaking his mind, "I am not quite sure that I think your training has improved you."

"Very likely not," said Flint, imperturbably puffing away at his pipe.

"I suppose," continued Brady, "that it is very cultivating, and philosophical, and up-to-date to lie back like that, and let your soul expand, to wonder whether anything is worth while, and smile at the struggle of the dull people around you who are foolish enough to believe that something is worth while; but I'll be hanged if I like it. I would rather be the lowest of the warm-blooded animals than the highest of the cold-blooded. I beg your pardon," he added a little lamely, "I did not mean to put it quite so strong as that."

"You have made a very clear statement, my dear fellow. Don't weaken it by apologies. What you say of me is as true as gospel—truer perhaps. The only mistake you make is in ascribing to training what is really to be attributed to temperament. What is bred in the bone, you know— But never mind, I detest talking of myself. Now you have had experiences worth talking of; let us hear some of your doings out West, there!"

Long and late that night the two friends sat together. Now that the first strangeness had [Pg 81] worn off, and with it the consciousness of the divergence of the roads which they had travelled since the old days, Flint began to find his liking springing up as strong as ever, only the liking was of a different kind. It was after midnight when he came into the house, and betook himself to his own room. As he was pulling off his coat, he suddenly remembered his unopened letter. He smiled grimly, as it recalled the scene at the post-office, the glowering official, and the grinning bystanders. He was still smiling as he took the candle from the mantel-shelf and set it on the bureau, to which he drew up his one rickety chair. He sat down and scrutinized the letter again, and more closely.

The envelope was a large, square one, with the editorial address of the "Transcontinental Magazine" in the left-hand corner. The writing was in the large, loose scrawl of Brooke, the junior editor. He wrote in haste as usual. All at the office was going well, new subscriptions were coming in fast, and if Flint would keep away long enough, the success of the "Transcontinental" would be secure. The letter which he enclosed had been opened by mistake, being apparently a business communication with no other address than "To the Editor;" but finding it personal in character, he forwarded it unread, and remained as always, Flint's faithful friend, C. Brooke.

[Pg 82]

The enclosed letter to which Brooke alluded presented a curious contrast to his own. The handwriting was firm, but delicate—distinctively feminine.

"I want to thank you," so the letter began, "not only for accepting my verses on 'A Thimble,' but also for the words of encouragement with which you accompany the acceptance. You say that you are especially glad to print the verses because they suggest a return to the type of womanhood of an earlier day, for which you retain an old-fashioned admiration. Now, I scarcely know whether my verses are very deceitful, or whether it is the realest and truest side of my nature which finds expression when I take my pen in hand.

"I wonder if a bit of autobiography would bore you. I should feel that it would most men; but I think of you as a genial, elderly gentleman with a face like Thackeray's, and with a broad human interest in all phases of life."

Flint grinned. "So much," he said to himself, "for the intuitions of woman." Yet he felt a trifle vexed at being set down as elderly, and secretly elated at the allusion to Thackeray,—as if a wide mouth, a turned-up nose, and eye-glasses carried with them fee-simple to "Henry Esmond" and the "Newcomes."

"I am twenty-two years old!" the letter went [Pg 83] on. "As a young girl I knew nothing of city life. My father owned a sheep ranch in the Northwest, and there I grew up, roaming about as freely as the sheep themselves. I learned to ride and to shoot. Until I was a woman grown, I never took a needle in my hand. Perhaps it may seem strange to you, but out of this aloofness from feminine pursuits there grew up within me a sort of reverence for the feminine ideal. I felt a vague awe, such as I imagine strikes a man at sight of a rose-lined parasol, or a thimble laid on a pile of stitchery. It is this sense of the poetry of women's occupation which must give what little value they possess to my verses; and perhaps you will not care for any more now that you know they are no part of the real me, but only an ideal."

The letter was signed "Amy Bell," and the only address given, a New York post-office box.

"A pretty name," said Flint to himself, as he studied it, "a very pretty name!" Then he fell to musing on how this girl must look; and he found himself making a likeness from the picture over the mantel, only he would have the face a trifle rounder, with a dimple in either cheek, and a hint more of tenderness in that firm under-lip, whose smile savored of delicate irony. His thoughts unconsciously reverted to the reflections of the morning, as he looked at the portrait.

[Pg 84]

"How shy we all are of self-revelation!" he murmured, as he folded the letter slowly, and slid it into his vest-pocket; "and then, when we have gone about for years hedging ourselves in with barriers of ice, suddenly some emotion thaws them, and out flow all the tides of feeling which we have been damming up so long." Flint's musings ended in a determination to answer this letter, and to answer it now while the genial mood was on him. The writer had taken pains to give little clue to her identity. Well, he would answer her from behind the same veil of impersonality. She need never know how widely she had missed her guess in her picture of him. She might keep her poor little illusions—yes, "elderly gentleman" and all. He would speak to her, as one soul might speak to another, unhampered by all the trammels of outward circumstance. It was his to offer help, sympathy, encouragement, and he dispensed it in no stinted measure.

As he drew pen and paper towards him, there swept over him a sense of the oneness of humanity, and a vision of what the world might be, if man were tenderer, and woman held the wider vision. Such a training as hers, he wrote to Amy Bell, might give her something of both, might grant her a standpoint from which she could see clearer than most women, just because [Pg 85] she saw life in larger outlines, undimmed by detail,—a life as different from that of the average woman as the sweep of the garments of the Greek caryatides from the fussy, beruffled gowns of the nineteenth-century women. The question, the vital pressing question in her case, was how she would use this freedom. Should it slip into the hardness of the new woman, on the one hand, or, on the other, allow itself to be fettered to the dulness of every-day decorum, her opportunity would be lost; but if she could hold the delicate equilibrium where she stood,—self-poised, and yet swaying to the influences which must work on every soul for its highest development, plastic yet firm,—then he believed, firmly believed, that there might lie in her a power for which the world would be the better and the richer.

"There!" said he, as he blotted and sealed the letter. "That, I should say, is as prosy and didactic as a discourse of my venerated ancestor. I wonder if the tendency to sermonize runs in the blood. I dare say if I had the good fortune to have any religious convictions, I should dogmatize over them in the pulpit, and pound the cushions as vigorously as any itinerant evangelist. Well, well! heredity is a queer thing. We think we get away from it, but it is always cropping up in unexpected places. Our ancestors [Pg 86] are like atra cura, and ride behind every man's saddle."

The clock struck three as he finished his musings. He pushed away his chair, and set back the lamp on the mantel. The light, flaring a little in the draught from the open window, lent a startling look of life to the portrait above it. Flint seemed almost to hear the voice of the dying sea-captain whispering: "God bless you, Ruth—I wish I had understood you better!"

Upon his exalted mood the morning voice of a barnyard cock broke mockingly.

"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "what a fool I am!—and at my age, too. I am ashamed. And, by the way, we never took back Dr. Beetle's—no—Dr. Cricket's spectacles. Well-to-morrow will answer as well."

[Pg 87]

CHAPTER VI

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH

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A holiday, for some reason or other, is always longer than other days, even for people like me who live a life of ease and comparative idleness, and who can make every day a holiday by abstaining from unnecessary and self-imposed work. It certainly is curious that this morning we rose an hour later, by way of compliment to our ancestors, who doubtless rose several hours earlier than usual on the day we celebrate, and certainly did a hard day's work.

After breakfast Mr. Anstice read the Declaration of Independence aloud, signatures and all. Then Jimmy recited part of a highly patriotic address, beginning, "Give up the Union? Never!" He worked his arm in the gestures with all the grace and agility of a pump-handle. His voice, to be sure, came out very strong on the prepositions and conjunctions, and sank to a whisper on the explosive climaxes; but [Pg 88] we all voted it a masterpiece of elocution, and his father really thought so. When these exercises were over, Dr. Cricket and I played a game of chess, in which he insisted that I should take the part of the British, while he represented the Americans.

In spite of a severe struggle with my patriotic emotions, I felt compelled to do justice to the side thus thrust upon me, and I conducted my campaign with such vigor, that it was Washington who was compelled to hand over his sword to Cornwallis, and I swept the last American pawn triumphantly off the board as the dinner-bell rang.

The afternoon rather dragged. I came to the conclusion that the secret of the length of a holiday lies in the severity of the effort to enjoy one's self. At our age the truest happiness lies in absorption in work,—a kind of active and bustling Nirvana. Having come to this conclusion, I pulled out the golf-stockings I am knitting for Ben, and fell to work, with the result that it was tea-time before I knew it.

Winifred made quite a diversion by coming down dressed as Columbia, in a white muslin with blue sashes and a big bunch of red roses. She had made a helmet of card-board and covered it with gold paper. In one hand she held a long lance of the same shiny stuff, and in the [Pg 89] other a big flag. We all laughed and sang and shouted, and had a fine old-fashioned, emotional Fourth. It did me good.

After tea, I had a surprise in a call from Cousin John's son. In fact, the call was a surprise on both sides. This is how it came about. The day before yesterday, Dr. Cricket, who is a good creature, though self-opinionated and always differing from me, was called to see a patient over at the inn; and yesterday, making his second call, he left his gold-bowed glasses, and spent the afternoon bewailing his loss, for he fancied they had slipped out of his pocket when he sat down on the beach to rest. The patient, who is a young man (of some pretensions to gentility, I understand, although a New Yorker), discovered them in the office (otherwise bar-room) of the inn, and walked over to bring them this evening. With him was Philip Brady, whom I have not seen these ten years; but I should have known him in a moment from his likeness to Cousin John. He is a fine young man, and does credit to the family. I think Winifred will like him.

Dr. Cricket was on the porch when they came; and when he saw the glasses, he was ready to fall upon the young men's necks while they were yet a long way off. He really was quite ridiculous with his "Bless my soul!" "Very kind [Pg 90] upon my honor!" "Now Richard is himself again!" and I don't know what more, hopping about meanwhile like the cricket, who was no doubt his ancestor in pre-historic times, and pulling up chairs for men twenty years younger than himself. I have no patience with too much vivacity in middle-aged people; when we turn fifty, dignity is all we have left, and we'd better make the most of it.

When the Doctor had thanked his visitors five times over for what was really a small matter for two able-bodied young men, he insisted on their sitting down, and turned round to me,—I hate being dragged into a situation,—"Miss Standish," said he, "I want you to know Mr. um—ah—Flint, I believe? and his friend, Mr. um—ah—What is the name, may I ask?"

"I can tell you," said I, coming forward and really looking up for the first time (for I am trying to train myself not to stare and peer as some of my age do when their sight is failing)—"I can tell you and save your visitor the trouble. His name is Philip Brady, and his father is my cousin."

Dr. Cricket looked thoroughly taken aback. This I rather enjoyed, for he is always prying into affairs and saying, "I rather suspect so and so," with his nose held out as if he got at his intuitions by the sense of smell.

[Pg 91]

"You don't say so," was all he could get out this time; and meanwhile Philip called out, in his hearty voice, "Holloa, Cousin Susan!" and kissed me a little louder than I liked; but that is the difference between Bison and Boston. Perhaps I am hard to suit, for his companion's manner seemed to me as much too repressed as Philip's was too exuberant. He had the air of holding his mental hands behind him and warning off social intruders with a "Let us not enter upon too familiar a basis of mutual acquaintance," and yet he was not brought up on Beacon Street, and I was, which makes it all the worse. He is a handsome man,—that is, his features are regular, his teeth are fine, and the little tuft of white hair above the temple gives a marked air of distinction. Altogether, he has a peculiarly well-groomed effect; but his face is like a mask,—one does not get any inkling of what is going on behind it. The eye-glasses too seem to take all expression out of the eyes, and leave them mere inquisitors for discovering the sentiments revealed by those who don't wear similar shields. I notice the same thing about Dr. Cricket. I can always get the best of him in argument unless he has his spectacles on. Then I become confused, forget my point, and the Doctor comes off triumphant.

Of course, when the Doctor urged the young [Pg 92] men to stay, they sat down, and Philip began at once to ask about the people in Oldburyport, whom he remembered very well, except their names. Everything was pleasant until Jimmy Anstice came along, as he always does when not especially wanted, and began to tease about having the fire-works set off. Nothing could be allowed to go on until they were brought out. If he had been my child, he should have been soundly punished and sent to bed for whining and pulling at his father's coat-tails; but Mr. Anstice is amiable to the verge of inanity where Jimmy is concerned, and after saying, "My dear!" and "Yes, in a minute," he allowed himself to be fairly pulled out of his chair and into the house, from which he shortly emerged with Jimmy, bearing between them an oblong pine box filled with packages of every shape and size, and smelling objectionably of gunpowder.

Of course this put an end to all rational conversation. Philip jumped up to inspect the crackers and pin-wheels. To my surprise, Mr. Flint showed no annoyance, but began to poke about among the Roman candles and rockets, as if he rather liked it. Jimmy has taken a great fancy to him, it seems. I must admit that it is in a man's favor to be liked by boys and dogs. So they drove stakes into the grass, and set up inclined planes for the rockets; and, when it grew dark [Pg 93] enough, Jimmy set off his first pin-wheel, amid a chorus of shouts of that artificially enthusiastic sort common among older people at a junior entertainment.

The shouts brought Winifred out to the porch. She had taken off her helmet, for which I was sorry, as it was very becoming. I introduced Philip, who said, with a smile, that he thought they had met before; but Winifred did not seem to remember it. Now, if Winifred has a failing, it is thinking she knows just how everything ought to be done; and after fidgeting about in her chair for a minute or two, she called out: "Why don't you set the rocket against that stone?" and down she ran to arrange it herself.

The rocket did go better in her way, but she was not satisfied even then. She must show them how to hold the Roman candles, which was very imprudent with the loose sleeves of her muslin dress. Mr. Flint called out: "Hold it out away from you! Further away!" but instead of paying any heed, she held it straight up in the air. She had forgotten herself entirely; and we were all watching the little fountain of fire sending out its red, white, and blue colored balls when, all of a sudden, I saw a line of fire creeping up Winifred's sleeve. She threw away the candle, which lay sputtering on the ground; but that line of fire on her arm seemed to grow and [Pg 94] grow, and I watched it in helpless agitation. I suppose the thing was over in two minutes, though they seemed hours to me. The instant Flint saw the accident, he stripped off his coat, and, rushing up to Winifred, bound it tightly about her. Dr. Cricket brought out his bandages and liniments, and the arm was bound up and in a sling before the girl really knew what had happened.

She was quite bewildered, and looked about like a little child, from one to the other. Then she turned to Mr. Flint, with a smile which seemed to me not so very far from tears, and said:—

"This time, it was your turn."

"This time, it was my fault."

"Your fault?"

"Yes; it was stupid, my letting you hold it so. I knew it was dangerous."

Winifred shook her head, in a wilful little way of hers which always reminds me of a Shetland pony.

"Pardon me, but I think I should have done it whether you had let me or not. I should have had to pay pretty dearly for my venture though, if you had not been so quick, and as for the poor coat—" Here she picked it up from the floor where it had fallen. "What a pity it should have a hole right in front!—but Miss Standish [Pg 95] will make it as good as new, though. You never saw any one who can darn like Miss Standish" (which is quite true).

"Papa," she added, turning to her father, who had been utterly unnerved by the accident, and was now walking up and down with a vain pretence of calmness. "Papa, you can lend Mr. Flint a coat for to-night, can't you?"

"Oh, certainly, certainly! what will he have—a dressing-gown or a Tuxedo?"

"Thank you," said Flint, with gravity; "but, if the etiquette of Nepaug will not be violated by a shirt-sleeve costume, I can go as I am, though indeed I do not like giving Miss Standish so much trouble, and the coat is a veteran anyway, only promoted to the Nepaug station after long service elsewhere."

"Veterans always command my respect," I answered, "and deserve at least repairs at the hands of their country."

"All very fine," said Dr. Cricket; "but I advise you to wear your coat home to-night, even if you send it back to-morrow. It is easier to mend coats than constitutions."

"And cheaper," I suggested.

"I'll tell you," Winifred broke in, seeing Dr. Cricket glowering at me. "He shall neither risk a cold by going home in this night air without his coat, nor tear the sleeves out of papa's, [Pg 96] which would surely be half-a-dozen sizes too small. He shall wear my golf cape. Go up to my closet and get it, Jimmy!—the blue one lined with red."

Jimmy, who having once been relieved of anxiety as to his sister's life, had spent his time in maligning her as the cause of stopping his fire-works exhibition, turned somewhat sulkily to obey her command; as he went he fired a parting shot: "This is what comes of girls meddling with things they don't understand."

"James!"

When Mr. Anstice says "James," he is not to be trifled with; and his son ventured no further remarks, only emphasized his feelings by a vicious stamp on each separate stair as he ascended. While he was prosecuting his search for the cloak, his sister sat in the big chair by the fireside, her head thrown back a little against the angle formed by the back and the side, which curves out like a great ear. I saw Philip and Mr. Flint looking at her as the firelight climbed over her dress and touched her cheek, and I wondered what they thought of her.

To me, her face is one of the most interesting I have ever seen. It evades description, and yet I feel tempted to try to describe it again and again, and to analyze its charms for myself. It is full of distinction, though the only really beautiful [Pg 97] feature in it is the brow, broad and low, from which her hair rolls back in that long, full sweep. About her lips, there is the fulness that Leonardo gave his Mona Lisa, and the lips have the same subtle curves, with a smile whose meaning is often of dubious interpretation, and tempts the eyes of her companion to return to them again and again to confirm his last impression.

As for her character, I do not yet feel sure of it, though I have known her for years. Dr. Cricket says he understands her perfectly. Pshaw!

Ben says he and she agree in everything. Poor boy! The fact is, that the girl has one of those curious natures, absolutely unmoved and unmovable at the centre, but on the surface reflecting every one and everything that comes in her way.

Many men have loved her. I don't think she has ever cared for any one. The Mona Lisa smile comes over her lips when I question her about this one or that.

"Tell me now," I said the other day, "did you never love any one?"

"Yes, and I do now."

"Excellent. At last we shall have confidences."

"And you like confidences?"

[Pg 98]

"I do—but no diversions—who is the youth?"

"I did not say it was a youth."

"Well, it is not a dotard, I trust; but who is the man?"

"I did not say it was a man."

"But you said—"

"I said I loved somebody, and that somebody is you, dear Miss Standish. Indeed I do, and I am ready to fight a duel, if necessary, with Dr. Cricket to prove that my affection is deeper and loftier, and generally better worth having, than his."

What can one do with a girl like that, who winds up with a little mocking laugh and goes off whistling?

I wish she would not whistle. It is one of those mannish tricks of hers which give a wrong impression. Her father ought to stop it; but he is so fond of the girl, and thinks her so altogether perfect and beyond cavil, that he lets everything go. She needs to have some one stronger than herself come into her life. I wonder if he ever will.

It took Jimmy Anstice a long while to find that cloak. When he returned with it, he was still sulky.

"I don't see why I should have to go on Fred's errands, when she spoiled my fire-works."

[Pg 99]

"Ah!" said Flint, "it was a pity about those fire-works. Suppose you bring them down to the inn to-morrow night, and we will set them off there."

Jimmy brightened up; but his sister rather resented the suggestion. "You need not be afraid to do it here," she said; "I promise not to interfere again."

Mr. Flint ought to have said something civil; but he only turned to Jimmy and proposed that they go out and gather up the rockets before the dampness spoiled the powder.

"Here, are you going without the cloak after all?"

"Oh, thank you!" answered Flint, with sufficient graciousness, as he took it from Professor Anstice's hand.

To reach the door, he passed near Winifred's chair. As he did so he bent over and spoke to her. I could not hear what he said; but I saw an angry color come into her cheeks, and she answered:—

"Yes, as you say, we seem fated to bring each other ill luck. Let us hope we shall not meet often."

I never heard Winifred make so rude a speech before. But, to my surprise, it seemed to develop an unsuspected amiability in Mr. Flint.

"That might be the worst luck of all," he [Pg 100] answered, still in that provoking half-tone of his, and, waiting no answer, he followed Jimmy out of doors. It seemed to me that Philip Brady would have liked to take advantage of the general stir to get in a word with Winifred; but I saw that the girl was really suffering with the burn on her arm, so I told him, without ceremony, that it was time he went home.

Dr. Cricket, who seems to feel personally responsible for these young men, evidently thought my behavior ungracious and inhospitable. To make amends, he followed Philip to the door, and called out after him and Mr. Flint:—

"Oh, by the way, we're going up to Flying Point for a clam-bake some evening this week. Would you care to go too?"

"By all means, if you will be good enough to take us into the party," Philip answered heartily. If his friend said anything, it was lost in the fog which was rolling in thick from the ocean.

I never take prejudices; but I often have an instinct about people before I know them, and this instinct tells me that I am not going to like this Mr. Flint. He is so self-sufficient,—not conceited, but completely satisfied with his own judgments. When he asks any one's opinion, he does it as if it were a mere matter of curiosity how such a person might feel, not with any idea [Pg 101] of being influenced. I can stand this from a person with strong convictions; but this young man seems to have none. He actually smiled when I quoted Dr. Channing.

"Perhaps you never heard of him," I said, a little irritated by that supercilious smile of his.

"Oh, yes," he answered; "but he was at such pains to set himself up in opposition to my ancestors, that family pride compels me to resent it, though my personal prejudices may be in his favor."

I cannot abide such trifling. It seems to make it ridiculous in any one to be in earnest.

P. S.—Dr. Cricket asked me to-day if I would marry him. I told him he was an old fool; but I could not make him believe it.

[Pg 102]

CHAPTER VII

ON THE BEACH

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The next morning dawned cloudless. Nature, radiant in her bountiful splendor, seemed to give herself to man, who, in response, thrilled with something of the primal impulse which stirred his pulses in the golden days before he had separated himself from the beneficent currents of the Earth Mother's vitality to shut himself up within brick walls with artificial heat, artificial light, and artificial stimulants.

On such a day, it is good to be alive. Flint felt the sunshine in his blood as he stepped out into the fresh, open air. For a while he hesitated as to the use to which he should put the morning in order to secure the utmost of its bounty. Then he bethought him of his duty in returning the blue golf cape which he reproached himself as an idiot for having taken. Brady had gone crabbing with Marsden, so Flint could not delegate the duty to him, as he had intended. [Pg 103] Accordingly, slinging the wrap over his shoulder, in the middle of the morning, he started on the path which ran along among the scrub-oak and blueberry patches, to lose itself on the curving stretch of beach which lay between the inn and Captain's Point, where stood the Whites' house known in the region of Nepaug as "The White-House."

The Point stretched along at the mouth of the little harbor, one side thrust boldly out cliffwise into the ocean, the other sliding by soft degrees to the margin of the salt-water lagoon. On the crest of the cliff, and commanding a fine view of both sea and shore, rose the White-House, originally owned and built by a sea-captain who could not live without the sea, even when he had ceased to live on it. For years the Captain took his daily walk on the little platform railed in from the slanting roof, and scanned the horizon with his glass, taking note of every sail, till at length he walked and gazed no more, and his grave was made in the little hollow that dips behind the house. The places which had known him knew him no more, and the house was let to strangers.

The Point, however, retained his name; and the white railing around the Captain's walk gleamed in the sunlight from the crest of the cliff as bright as when he leaned upon it to sweep the face of the waters with his glass.

[Pg 104]

Flint did the Captain the honor to bestow a passing thought on him this morning, to be vaguely sorry for him, and to reflect that it was really a fine thing to be above ground when the sun was shining like this. To be sure, life had its vexations; but they were so brief, and there was so much time in which to be dead!

Flint had not gone many paces along the beach before he saw Jimmy Anstice digging clams out on the oozy flats left bare by the receding tides, his knickerbockers rolled well up on his legs, and a great pail set on the mud beside him.

The boy's hat was pushed far back on his head, and the sun fell full on his face. Even at this distance, the resemblance to his sister was so marked as to be almost comical. The eyes were the same. The nose, with its unmistakable upward turn, a burlesque on the short, straight one which lent piquancy to Winifred's face. The soft, subtle curve of her cheek developed in Jimmy to a hardened rotundity inevitably suggesting the desire to pinch it, which one feels toward the tomato pin-cushions on exhibition at church fairs.

Nevertheless, despite freckles bestowed by nature, and grime artificially acquired, Jimmy Anstice was a well-looking lad, and added a distinct note of human interest to the barren [Pg 105] flats, as he stood, spade in hand, staring at Flint.

"Come out here!" he called.

"No, thank you," answered Flint. "Not with my boots on. What are you about? Clamming, I suppose."

"Oh, no—fishing!" answered Jimmy, with fine sarcasm. "Come and help me pull in the mackerel, can't you?" Then he turned his back and began his digging once more. At the same moment Flint caught a glimpse of a red hat against a seaweed covered rock. Obeying an impulse which was rather a surprise to himself, he directed his course toward it. He found, as he surmised, that it belonged to Winifred Anstice, who sat reading, comfortably ensconced with her back against the low sandbank, and her feet stretched out in front of her. She looked up at Flint's approach, but made no change in her attitude as he came and stood over her. He found it a little harder than he had expected to make a conversational beginning. After a second's hesitation he asked:

"How is the wrist?"

"Better, thanks! but still in close confinement," Winifred answered, throwing back her shawl and revealing the bandaged arm.

"You had a narrow escape."

"Very."

[Pg 106]

"I hope you have not felt the need of the cape you were kind enough to lend me. I was just on my way to carry it home."

"And, having found the owner, you need not pursue your journey any further."

Flint felt inwardly chagrined. This, then, was her interpretation of his stopping to speak to her,—that he might be rid of his trouble.

"Thank you," he said stiffly; "but unless you need it, I prefer to take it back to the house."

"Very well," said his companion, "as you please." Then, moved evidently by a prick of conscience, "Perhaps you will rest awhile before climbing the hill."

As she spoke, she moved a little that he might share the shadow of the bank.

"Don't move on my account," Flint said.

"Oh," answered Winifred, smiling, "I owe you a decent civility, since you saved my life last night."

"Don't mention it. Actions should be judged by what they cost, not what they come to; and mine cost nothing but the hole in my coat, which I don't doubt is already better than repaired under Miss Standish's skilful handiwork, so pray dismiss the subject from your thoughts. There are few, I fancy, who find it so hard as you to accept anything at the hand of another. It vexes you not to be the one always to give aid [Pg 107] and comfort. If I knew you better, I might venture to hint that it smacks of spiritual pride."

"You generalize widely after an acquaintance of four days."

"One sees character more clearly sometimes by the flashlight of a first meeting, than when the perception is blurred by more frequent opportunities."

Again the smile, inscrutable and mocking; the eyes looked into his with a gay defiance.

"Perhaps you will be good enough to give me the benefit of these first impressions of my character. They are as comprehensive, no doubt, as those of the British traveller in America. Tell on, as the children say."

"Pardon me, I have said too much already, under the circumstances. Praise would be impertinence, and criticism insolence."

"You shall have absolution in advance. Begin then!" she added, with a little nod of command. "What is the most striking trait of my character on first acquaintance?"

"Well, if you will have it, I should say it was a restlessness which you probably call energy; but it is a different thing. Energy is absorbed in the object which it seeks to attain. Restlessness is absorbed in the attaining."

"Hm! what next?"

"Next? Next, comes a quality almost invariably [Pg 108] allied to such restlessness as yours,—ambition. You may have all sorts of fine theories about equality and that kind of thing; but you want power—power over the lives with which you come in contact—power for good of course; but it must be yours and wielded by you. It is not enough that things should get along somehow. They must go right in your way."

Winifred laughed.

"Ah! you say that because I wanted to show you how to set off a rocket last night."

"I should say you showed us quite satisfactorily how not to set off a rocket last night."

"Don't let us revert to that episode, about which we shall probably not agree. But go on. Let me hear more of your impressions. They are quite diverting."

"No more. I dare not presume further upon my advance absolution. Rather let me ask you to return candor for candor, and give me your impressions of me and my character, or lack of it."

"I have formed none."

"Is that quite true?"

"No," said Winifred, looking up, "it is not true at all. I formed impressions within the first ten minutes after I had seen you, only I called them, more modestly, prejudices."

"Prejudices? They were unfavorable then. Good! Let us have them!" and Flint settled [Pg 109] himself more comfortably, bracing his head against his clasped hands; and, leaning back against the bank of sand, he sat watching the little tufts of coarse grass springing up close beside him. Still Winifred was silent. At last Flint began himself:—

"You thought me rude and churlish, I suppose?"

"I certainly did not think you were Bayard and Sidney rolled together; but I admit you had some provocation," she answered lightly, "at least in our first meeting. When I demolished your new fishing-rod, I think you might have accepted my apologies more gracefully; and I think you need not have been so particularly uncivil when Jimmy and I tried to come to your assistance on the pond. I have not yet recovered from the reproof conveyed on that occasion by your manner, which plainly indicated that, in your opinion, it would have been more tactful for us to sail by, and ignore your disaster, or treat it as an episode which did not call for explanation or remark. I should have felt duly humiliated, no doubt; but I have become hardened to rebuffs, since I have been at Nepaug, for I meet with many, as I go about like a beggar from door to door in South East."

"Distributing tracts?" Flint asked, with eyebrows raised a little.

[Pg 110]

"No."

"Collecting statistics, perhaps?"

"Not at all; my errand is neither philanthropic nor scientific."

"Private and personal, that is, and not to be farther pursued by impertinent inquiry?"

"Oh, I have no objection to telling you, since you are not a native. I am searching for my great-great-grandmother."

Flint looked at his companion uneasily. She smiled.

"No, I have not lost my senses. Such as they are, I have them all. I do not expect to find this ancestress of mine in the flesh, nor sitting in any one of the splint rockers behind the checkered window-panes of the old South East houses. It is only her portrait for which I am searching as for hid treasure."

"Ah!"

"Yes, her portrait. I feel certain it is hidden away somewhere in South East."

"How very odd!"

"Odd? Not at all, as you will say when you come to hear the story of the original. But perhaps it would bore you to listen?"

"Go on; I am all attention."

"Well, to begin with, my great-great-grandmother was a very pretty girl."

"I can believe it."

[Pg 111]

Winifred looked quickly round, but her companion's eyes were fixed upon the horizon with an abstracted gaze which lent an air of impersonality to his words. So she began again:

"Yes, she was a young Quakeress, born, I believe, in Philadelphia; but her father and mother died, and she came to South East, to live with her uncle, when she was about eighteen. The story of her girlhood is rather vague; but somehow she fell in love with an English officer, and made a runaway match which turned out better than such affairs usually do; for his relatives received her favorably, and she made her home with them at Temple Court in Yorkshire—doesn't that sound like a book? Well, her uncle died, and she never came back to this country; but her grandson came in the early part of the century, and, following the traditions of his race, fell in love with an American girl. They were married and settled in Massachusetts. But once, when they were visiting at the old home, my grandmother saw a portrait of her husband's grandmother hanging in the great hall at Temple Court. She was fascinated by its beauty; and when she heard the story of the runaway bride, who was an American like herself, she determined to have a copy of the portrait, and talked of engaging one of the London artists to make it for her. An old servant [Pg 112] told my grandfather that he remembered seeing another, painted at the same time and sent over to this uncle in America. The man was sure that the address of the uncle was South East. Many a time I have heard my grandmother tell the story, which so fired my youthful fancy that I dreamed of it for years, and at last I persuaded papa to come down here this summer, and let me hunt for the picture. But I am tiring you, I am afraid."

Flint pulled his hat lower over his eyes.

"Pray go on; I am immensely interested."

"Thank you. Well, the desire for the recovery of the portrait is no longer a sentiment with me,—it is a passion. My daily occupation now is driving about and asking for a drink of water, or inquiring about early vegetables, chickens, goslings,—anything which will afford a plausible excuse for penetrating into the dark halls or stuffy fore-rooms. Of course I rule out the modern houses. I have even tried the tavern here at the beach; but the only decorations of the walls were 'Wide Awake' and 'Fast Asleep,' and other chromos of the same pronounced and distressing variety."

Flint took off his eye-glasses, and began to wipe them tenderly with his delicate handkerchief.

"Perhaps," he began, when he was interrupted [Pg 113] by a wild whoop just above. It was from Jimmy Anstice, who shared the delusion, common to his age and sex, that nothing is so amusing as a sudden and unexpected noise.

"Oh, Jimmy!" his sister exclaimed.

"Oh, Jimmy!" mocked the boy. "I am glad to find that you are alive. I've been watching you two these ten minutes, and you've sat as still as if Mrs. Jarley hadn't wound you up yet."

"She hasn't," said Winifred, somewhat inconsequently. "Have you finished digging your clams? What time is it?"

"I've dug all the clams I'm going to; don't intend to get all the food for the boarding-house," answered Jimmy, somewhat sulkily, leaving Flint to answer the last question.

"It is ten minutes after twelve," he said, looking at his watch.

"Dear me!" ejaculated Winifred, "I had no idea it was so late. I promised Dr. Cricket to play chess with him at twelve."

She rose as she spoke, and stretched out her hand for the golf cape; but Flint kept it quietly, and started on by her side.

"Are you going all the way to the house?" Jimmy asked.

"If your sister permits."

"Oh, then, you might as well take the other handle of this basket."

[Pg 114]

"Jimmy!" exclaimed Winifred, "I'm ashamed of you."

"Well, you needn't be. You'd better be ashamed of yourself, saying one thing to a fellow's face, and another behind his back. Sitting there for an hour talking with Mr. Flint, as if he were your best friend, when only last night you said—"

"Jim, how near the shore should you say that sloop lay?" Flint inquired in even tones.

"'T ain't a sloop at all; it's a schooner," returned Jim, contemptuously.

"Why, to be sure, so it is. How stupid in me! I suppose all my nautical learning went down in 'The Aquidneck.' By the way, Mr. Brady and I are talking of going up to the wreck soon to try what can be got out of her by diving. Wouldn't you like to go along?"

"Wouldn't I!" responded Jimmy, con brio. "Don't you forget it!"

His sister gave a dubious glance over the boy's head at Flint; but he only smiled in return. This smile so transformed his face that the girl beside him fell secretly to wondering whether her instinct of character-reading, upon which she prided herself, had not played her false in the case of this man, and whether she might not be called upon for a complete reversal of judgment,—so apt we are to mistake the momentary mood for the index of character.

[Pg 115]

They walked on in silence along the margin of the bank, Flint with the cape thrown over one arm, while he and Jimmy carried the basket, heavy with clams, between them. The blue water shoaled into emerald at their feet; a single white gull soared and swooped above their heads. The long sunburned grasses swayed in the summer wind, and the clouds floated tranquilly over all.

How tiny the three human figures seemed in the wide setting of earth, sea, and sky!

As they passed the bluff on the other side of the cove from Captain's Hill, Jimmy suddenly dropped his side of the basket of clams. "Hi!" he exclaimed. "Why can't we go up into the light-house, now Mr. Flint is with us?"

"Not to-day," answered his sister, repressively. "Mr. Flint may have other engagements, and then, you know, Dr. Cricket is waiting for his game of chess."

"As for me," said Flint, "I was never more at leisure; and as for your appointment with the Doctor, I advise you to adopt my motto: 'Better never than late.'"

Winifred hesitated.

"Oh, come on!" persisted her small brother. "Don't be a chump, Fred. You never used to be."

"Lead on," answered his sister; "rather than be considered anything so ignominious, I would [Pg 116] scale more alarming heights than those of the light-house, though I confess its winding staircase is not without its perils."

The path to the light-house led through a patch of bayberry bushes. Winifred stooped, as she passed, and gathered a handful, which she crushed in both hands, taking in a deep breath of their spicy aroma.

"Are they so good?" Flint asked, smiling at her childish enjoyment.

"Try and see!" she answered, holding them out to him in the cup of her joined hands.

Flint bent his face over them for an instant. Then Winifred suddenly dropped her hands and shook the fragrant leaves to the four winds. Flint smiled again, for her gesture said as plainly as words: "Here I am being friendly with this man, to whom I intended to be as frigid as an iceberg."

Flint responded as if she had spoken.

"Do you never forgive?" he asked.

"No," answered Winifred, impetuously. "I never forgive; but I have a horrid facility for forgetting."

"Cherish it!" exclaimed her companion. "It is the foundation of many of the Christian graces."

As they drew nearer the light-house, they felt the salt sea-wind strong in their faces. The [Pg 117] bluff was so gale-swept that the trees, few, small, and scrubby, had caught a slant to westward, and the scanty vegetation clung timidly to the ground, like some tiny state whose existence depends upon its humility. From the edge of the bluff rose the light-house,—a round stone building, dazzling in its coat of whitewash. Far up in the air its plate-glass windows gleamed in the morning sun.

The keeper was standing in the open door, and cheerfully consented to show the visitors over the premises. Loneliness is a great promoter of hospitality.

As they peeped into the tiny kitchen, with its shining brasses and its white deal floor, Winifred exclaimed at the exquisite neatness of the housekeeping.

"It is a man's, you see," Flint commented with pride. "No doubt we shall drive you from the domestic field yet."

"I should think the position of light-house-keeper would suit you excellently," Winifred replied, oblivious of the slant at her sex. "Your desire for solitude would surely find its full satisfaction here."

"There might be much worse occupations certainly," Flint began; but he saw that Winifred's attention had been diverted by the keeper, who had already begun to mount the stairs, talking, [Pg 118] as he moved, with a fluency which denoted a long restrained flow of sociability. Winifred was glad to be saved the trouble of replying, for the unceasing climbing put her out of breath, and she felt that she might have been dizzy, but for the railing under her left hand.

At last they arrived in the little room with its giant reflectors of silvered copper, and its great lamp set on a circular table. Outside, ran a narrow balcony with iron railing. Winifred stepped out onto the ledge, clinging nervously to Jimmy, who professed a great desire to sit on the railing. The wind here was so strong that it gave one a feeling that the building was swaying, though it stood firm as a cliff of granite.

Flint leaned over the railing. "See!" he said, "there is a great white gull which has beaten itself to death against the light, and fallen there, close to that fringy line of mottled seaweed on the beach."

"Don't!" exclaimed Winifred, turning pale, and leaning further back against the light-house wall.

Flint saw in an instant that she was feeling dizzy, but thought it best for her to ignore the fact.

"Come," he said, "we must be going down now, unless Dr. Cricket is to lose his game entirely. You go first, Jim! I will come next."

[Pg 119]

Jimmy started down, whooping as he went, for the pleasure of hearing his voice echo and re-echo from the bare walls.

Flint glanced somewhat anxiously at Winifred. He saw her put her foot upon the first stair and then draw back. At the same instant he caught the cause of her terror. Her bandaged wrist prevented her grasping the balustrade, or getting any better support than the smooth wall to which to cling.

"Put your hand on my shoulder, and count the steps aloud as you go." He spoke like one who does not question obedience; and, somewhat to her own surprise, Winifred found herself meekly doing as she was bid.

The last part of his advice was even better than the first, for it occupied her mind, and also gave her the encouragement of feeling that at each step she had lessened the distance between her and terra firma by one.

Flint felt the hand upon his shoulder tremble like a leaf; but he never turned his head, only moved steadily onward and downward, with a regularity and solidity which soon told upon Winifred's nervous dizziness.

When she reached the ground, and stood once more in the sunlight of the open doorway, she looked at him with a little tremulous smile. "A hundred and seventeen!" she exclaimed. "I [Pg 120] am sure I shall never forget how many steps there are leading to the Bug Light."

"What a fool you are, Fred!" Jimmy remarked, with family frankness.

"I am," admitted Winifred. "No one knows it better than I, except, perhaps, Mr. Flint."

"I know nothing of the kind," her companion answered with unwonted cordiality. "Any one may be subject to a fit of dizziness, and to be minus an arm under such circumstances makes the situation really uncomfortable. We must try it again some day, to give you an opportunity to prove to yourself that it was only an affair of the moment."

"Dear me!" thought Winifred to herself, "why can't he always be nice like that! He seems to be a queer kind of stratified rock; you never know what you are going to strike next."

Aloud, she said, "I fancy, Jim, it must be past the White-House dinner hour, and papa has grown worried and sent out scouts to look for you and me. See, here is Ben Bradford!"

Looking down the road, Flint saw approaching them a tall, long-legged youth whom he dimly remembered among the group on the porch of the White-House the night before. His hair was parted in the middle, and thickly pomaded to restrain its natural inclination towards curling. His ears were large, and set on at right angles to [Pg 121] his face. His nose was Roman, and its prominence had rendered it peculiarly sensitive to sunburn. His manners were too frank to be polished. As he joined them now, he succeeded in making it evident at once that Flint's further presence was entirely superfluous. This juvenile candor would have had no effect, had not Winifred supplemented it by saying:—

"Mr. Bradford will take charge of me and my cape, Mr. Flint; I really cannot consent to trouble you further."

Her manner was equivalent to a dismissal. Flint handed over the cape, as she bade him, to young Bradford's eager grasp, bowed, and turned his steps homeward. As he strolled along, he felt a curiously sudden change of mood, from the elation of the morning to a depression half physical, half mental.

"I wonder," he said to himself, "if this is not another phase of my inheritance from Dr. Jonathan. I remember the old gentleman used to complain that his constitution was an unhappy one from birth, attended with 'flaccid solids, sizy and scarce fluids, and a low tide of spirits.' The description amused me in my youth; but I begin to have an uncomfortably sympathetic sense of his state of mind and body. I wonder, by the way, what he would have done about that portrait. I never heard that he or any other [Pg 122] Puritan gave away his property to any extent; and this portrait I regard as virtually mine. To be sure, I have not paid for it; but I had fully determined to purchase it, and—Yes, to all intents and purposes, it belongs to me. Now, to be expected to give it up, just because I happen to hear of some one else who wants it too, is asking a little too much. If I had avoided the girl, as I intended, I should never have heard of her search for her beloved great-grandmother. No, my mind is made up; I shall keep that picture—of course I shall. I am glad I put it into the closet before Brady came.

[Pg 123]

CHAPTER VIII

THE MARY ANN

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The weather of the morning, with its golden clearness, was too beautiful to last. By noon the gold had paled. The high wind which had prevailed earlier in the day subsided; but the swelling waves, which broke with thud after thud upon the shelving beach, gave evidence of a gale still whirling somewhere off the coast. The clear-cut lines of the distant cliffs faded to dim, quiet masses. Far out on the horizon rose a line of phantom hills,—a line which, as night drew in, moved slowly shoreward, rising as it came, shutting out sail after sail, point after point, till at last it met the land and shut out the sea itself. There is something weird and uncanny about the approach of a fog, stealing thus unperceived out of the heart of sunshine and blue weather. It has in it a hint of death.

Flint felt the weight of it. His mind was shut in upon its own resources, and did not find them [Pg 124] altogether satisfactory. Brady added little to the gayety of nations. He came in from his day on the water sunburned, tired, and as nearly cross as it lay in his genial disposition to be. He swallowed his supper, and made haste to stow himself away in bed, leaving Flint to choose between a conversation with Marsden and the self-communion which was his least congenial occupation.

For an hour or so, he loitered in the little shop, listening idly to the yarns which Marsden rolled as sweet morsels under his tongue: of the whale which the fishermen had caught off the beach, a sea-monster of untold length, breadth, and thickness, which had been sold for a thousand dollars; of the marvellous experiences of his father, as captain of a trading-vessel in the "East Injies;" and finally of the fire-ship which he himself had seen hanging between sea and sky, out yonder between the island and the mainland.

"You say you saw it yourself?" Flint asked, partly from listless curiosity, and partly with an eye to the society of psychical research.

"True as yo' 're a settin' thar. 'Twas one night nigh onto fifteen years ago,—good deal such a night as this heer. The old cow wuz sick that night, and as I wuz out to the barn, puttin' hot cloths on her till past midnight. Ez I wuz comin' into the house, I looked out, and [Pg 125] there, jest where the mist was breakin' away, hung a ship, lookin' like a light under a cloud."

"Did you call any one?" queried Flint.

"Call any one? Lord! I was too scared to move hand or foot; I jest stood gapin' at her till she faded clean out o' sight."

"Mirage, I suppose," Flint murmured to himself, "unless the old fellow is lying out and out, which is not likely." Then, aloud, as he rose, stretching himself lazily, "If you ever see the fire-ship again, while I am here, let me know. I have always wanted to see a wreck, and a phantom wreck is better than none."

"Don't go to talkin' too much about it," said Marsden, mysteriously. "They say it brings bad luck."

"Apparently it brings bad luck for anybody but you to do the talking. Well, I think I will leave you before I am tempted to a loquaciousness which might bring down a curse on the house of Marsden."

Smiling to himself over the old man's superstition, Flint climbed the stairs to his own room, as softly as possible, lest Brady's wrath at being waked descend upon him. Having closed his door cautiously, he sat down by the open window, enjoying the soothing dampness of the fog as it came rolling in laden with the pungent fragrance of the salt marshes.

[Pg 126]

He sat a long while in the darkness. Even the Bug Light, which shone on ordinary nights from the tip end of Bluff Point, this evening formed only a paler shade in the universal grayness.

His thoughts turned to the scene of the morning. He remembered the wide-stretching purple of the sea, the yellow shell-strewn sand, the patch of coarse grass on the bank against which Winifred Anstice leaned. He remembered to have noted how perfectly her dun-colored dress had harmonized with the environment, so much so, that, but for the patch of red in her hat, he might have passed her as a part of the inanimate nature of the beach. He remembered, too, the touch of her hand on his shoulder there in the light-house, and the sound of her voice as she counted the steps, "One—two—three—four." Then he fell to thinking more closely than he had yet done of the girl herself,—that curious blending of subtlety and simplicity, of reserve and frankness; he had never seen anything quite like it. What a queer coincidence that she should be a descendant of this Ruth, in the room behind him! Now she spoke of it, there was a suggestion of resemblance, faint, but haunting. This must have been the secret of his desire to study her face again, and yet again, that day on the pond, to determine the source of the sense [Pg 127] of familiarity which even their first meeting had given him.

How charming her frankness about the portrait had been! Ah, there the recollection ceased to be altogether agreeable! He twisted a little in his chair, and screwed the end of his moustache into his mouth, as he recalled his own lack of response when the portrait was mentioned. Had he been deceitful? No, certainly not that, for he had conveyed no false impression by word or gesture. Disingenuous? Perhaps, but after all he was in nowise pledged to equal frankness, because his companion chose to be confidential. Suppose, though, Winifred Anstice should come to the inn; should hear from old Marsden of the portrait; should learn that it was hanging in his room, and he had made no sign!

The train of thought was perplexing, and not altogether pleasing. Flint was not sorry to have it interrupted by a call upon his attention in the appearance of two figures below, looming dim and ghostlike in the fog. Just beneath his window, they paused in their walk, and their voices came up to him first indistinctly, then with more and more clearness. The tones Flint recognized at once as belonging to Tilly Marsden and to Leonard Davitt, the young fisherman whose scarlet shirt was often to be seen on the clamming [Pg 128] grounds, and whose rich baritone voice came ringing over the pond as he sat in his boat hauling in his nets.

To-night, it was subdued, and at first scarcely rose above a murmur; at length Flint caught the words:—

"I shall never ask you again."

"I hope to goodness you won't!" answered the shriller tones of the innkeeper's daughter.

"That isn't a very nice way to speak, Tilly."

"Well, it's my way, and my name isn't 'Tilly;' it is Matilda Marsden, and very polite folks call me 'Miss.'"

"Some day you'll find out that it isn't the politest folks that's the trustiest, or sticks to you the faithfullest. Don't you remember two years ago, Tilly, when I was going to the Banks, how you kissed me good-bye, and how you promised—"

"Never mind what I promised. I was only a child anyway."

"Well, you didn't think so then, and neither did I. Mebbe, the time will come when you'll think you acted wiser then, than you're a-doin' now."

"Oh, you needn't take the trouble to warn me, Mr. Leonard, about my being foolish to give you up. You're not the only man in the world."

"Oh, yes," responded Leonard, nettled at last, [Pg 129] "I knew very well that was the trouble; and I know who the other man is; and all I can say is—"

"Hush," cried Tilly, with a little turning of her head, and quickly laying her hand on Leonard's arm. "Don't you say another word, Leonard Davitt, if you ever want me to speak to you again."

At this, Flint's conscience got the better of him, and he rose and closed the window noisily enough to startle the speakers below, as he perceived with some amusement.

"What a little minx that girl is!" he said to himself as he turned to light the lamps. "I have half a mind to devote myself to convincing Leonard that she would make his life miserable if she married him, and that he is worth ten of her; but I don't suppose he could be made to believe either. Men are such fools when they are in love! By Jove! that portrait is like Miss Anstice!"

This last ejaculation escaped him as he held the lamp above the mantel where all his books were piled in heterogeneous confusion. One by one he scanned their covers, with the half intention of the idler who reads for pure diversion, and at length he drew out a volume of Dumas. He set his lamp—a large one with double burners—on the table by the window; [Pg 130] and tilting his chair on the back legs, resting his shoulders against the wall, he plunged into the mysteries of "The Forty-Five."

In a few minutes he was absorbed, as only Dumas has power to absorb his readers. The man of action in that great romancer exercised a sort of hypnotic power over Flint. The robust virility passed into the sinew of his soul. The romance possessed him utterly, and left him without even the power to criticise. It was he himself who stood in Queen Catherine's box, and watched the spouting of Salcide's blood, as he was drawn by the horses in the arena beneath. He sat secreted beside Chicot in the great arm-chair in the King's bed-room. He took part in the serenade beneath the balcony of the mysterious lady in the Rue des Augustines. He joined the hunting of the wolf in Navarre; and finally he had plunged into the fight between the French and Flemings, with such intensity of reality that it scarcely surprised him to hear the booming of a gun.

"It is those rascally Flemings!" he thought for a moment. "Up and at them, Joyeuse!" Then suddenly he rubbed his head like one striving to recall wandering wits. His chair came down with a crash. He took out his watch. It marked three. Again the gun! He threw up the window. The fog was breaking [Pg 131] fast, and lights were visible too far out for the the land, too near for a vessel at sea; unless, Great Heavens! it was, it must be, a ship grounded off the Point. For an instant, the thought of Marsden's fire-ship flashed across his mind; but his head was too clear to be fooled in such fashion.

Banging on Brady's door, he shouted:

"A wreck off the Point! I'm going down to the shore!"

"Hold on! Wait for me, can't you?" called Brady, still half asleep.

"No; there's no time to lose. I may be of use. Come on as fast as you can!"

As Flint rushed downstairs, he met Marsden coming out of his room, lantern in hand. The old man's face was ashen gray, and his fingers fumbled at the buttons of his coat.

"Did you hear it?" he said in a trembling, shaken voice. "It's the gun of a ship in distress. Many's the time I've laid awake a-listenin' for it when the wind was wild and the sea lashin' up over the rocks; and now it's come on a night as ca'm as a prayer-meetin'. I told you no good would come of our talk this evenin'."

"Is there any life-saving station near?" Flint asked, as they stumbled along the road in the dark.

[Pg 132]

"No, not near as you might say. Ten miles away is as bad as a hundred."

Once out of doors, they started on a run down the road which led to the shore. The booming of the gun grew louder in their ears; and dimly through the mist they caught sight of a vessel lying keeled over on her side well in shore. Flint was conscious of a not wholly unpleasing excitement as he watched her. As yet his mind had found no room for thoughts of individual suffering. It was a wreck, and he had always wished to see a wreck.

The thoughts passing through his mind did not delay his footsteps, and he made such good speed that, half way to the shore, he had left Marsden far behind, and struggled on alone through the last few rods of heavy sand.

When he reached the beach, several people were gathered there already: Ben Bradford and Dr. Cricket, with that dishevelled air which always marks a midnight alarm; Michael and Leonard Davitt, who slept in their fisherman's hut by the pond, in order to get an early morning start, and were therefore first at the scene of excitement.

Michael felt all the importance of his position as first witness, and with unusual loquacity was giving an account of the catastrophe to the group around.

[Pg 133]

"I can't nohow account for it," he said; "that captain must be an escaped idjit to go on a lee-shore a night like this."

"Had the fog lifted when she struck?" queried Marsden.

"Well, it was jest a-waverin', breakin' up like, and then shuttin' down agin. The idjit must er thought he was off the Bug Light, where the water's deep right up close in; but why should he a-thought so?—that's the question."

"Well, it is a question that can wait, I should think," said Brady, who had come up panting from his run. "The most important question is, what are you going to do about it? There's not much danger, I suppose, as long as the night is as calm as this; though there's such a ground swell on it looks as if there must have been a big storm at sea. See how she pounds on the reef out there! She is likely to go to pieces before many hours, I should say, and if a wind springs up, as it's pretty sure to do with morning, it would be an ugly lookout."

"Is there a life-boat anywhere?" asked Flint.

"Yes," said Leonard, somewhat scornfully, "in the pond." (He pronounced it pawnd.)

"They must have boats on the ship," said Marsden; "seems to me I see 'em launchin' one now." At this the men on shore huddled [Pg 134] closer together, as though four could see farther than one.

Yes, there was no doubt of it. The misty dawn showed forms standing on the slanting deck of the ship, and a boat hoisted, held out, and then dropped into the waves, which were already rising with the rising wind.

"They'd best make haste," muttered Michael, uneasily; "if the sea gets up, they'll go down."

It seemed an age to the little waiting group before the boat put off from the ship. The wind had begun to blow in cold and strong. Flint buttoned his coat tight to his chin, and still he shivered. On the little boat came, now dipping almost out of sight in the hollow of the big green waves, now rising like a cork upon their crest.

"Hurrah!" cried Brady, "they're almost in."

"Hm!" said Michael, "not yet, by a long sight! The danger comes when they git into the breakers."

Flint was enough of a sailor to know that the fisherman spoke truth. A little later, he saw the white, combing foam break over the boat. He drew his breath quicker, and caught his under-lip between his teeth.

"There's four men in her," said Marsden, making a telescope of his closed hands.

[Pg 135]

"Five," said Leonard,—"five, and one of 'em is a woman!"

Flint unbuttoned his coat and threw it off.

"What are you about?" asked Brady. "You'll get your death of cold."

Flint made no answer, but, stooping, unfastened his boots, and kicked them off. Rapidly as he undressed, he was too slow; for, as the boat reached the tenth breaker, a great wave struck her a little on the side, and over she went, spilling out her contents as heedlessly as though they had been iron or lead in place of flesh and blood. In an instant, Flint was in the surf, and striking out for the spot where he had seen a woman's shawl.

"Curse it!" cried Leonard, "why can't I swim, and me a sailor!"

"I'd orter a-learned yer, Leon, and thet's a fact. Look at him! He's got her. He's a pullin' of her in. Make a line, men! Make a line! Quick as thunder, and the last man grab 'em when they come within reach!"

In answer to Michael's words, the men hastily formed in line, and moved out till Brady stood chest-deep in water. It was a wise precaution, for Flint, though a good swimmer, found his task too hard for him. He felt like a man in a nightmare with a weight of lead upon his chest; and arms that must move, and could not move, and yet must again.

[Pg 136]

Dimly, a sense of possible escape for himself came over him. Why should two drown in place of one? He had but to let go this weight and strike out. Why not?

Why not indeed? This man held to no altruistic creed. His doctrines, had he expounded them quite coolly, would have claimed that self-preservation was the first law of Nature, and that Nature was the best guide. But now, with no time for reason, by the flashlight of instinct, intuition, inheritance,—call it what you will,—he found himself absolutely physically unable to let his load slip. With this stranger he would live or die, most likely die!

With the last thought, he felt a numbness creep over him. The limbs refused to obey the will. The will itself was paralyzed. Blank darkness fell around; the end had come.

He awoke to consciousness with a painful gasp, to find himself stretched out on the sand, and to hear Dr. Cricket's voice sounding far away, saying: "He'll be all right soon. Keep on working his arms, Ben! Here comes Marsden with the brandy and warm blankets." Then followed a vague sensation of swallowing fire, and a blissful warmth creeping along his veins as though Nature had taken him to her heart once more.

Languidly, he unclosed his eyes. What did it all mean: the waves roaring close at hand; the [Pg 137] driftwood fire burning hard by; the circle of anxious faces? Through his dim senses ran the lines long familiar, never till now fully realized:

"The tall masts flickered as they lay afloat

The crowds, the temples wavered, and the shore."

What made everything wobble about like that? Was he dying? What had brought him here, anyhow? Then, with a rush, it all came back. Raising himself on one elbow, he looked about inquiringly. "Where is she?" he asked, and fell back exhausted by the effort of speech.

"Here and safe," answered a woman's voice which he recognized as that of Winifred Anstice. "The captain and crew are saved too."

"Could they all swim?" Flint questioned feebly.

"Hold your tongue!" cried Dr. Cricket, with more good sense than good manners. "Your business now is to save your strength. Leave questions for later in the day. If that coffee is done, Ben, pass it round. We will all have a pull at it."

The commonplace of the daily routine is a blessed relief after the overstrained excitement of a great catastrophe. We eat and drink, and life seems real once more. Even Dr. Cricket was drawn for a moment from his patient's side to the circle gathered about Ben Bradford, who [Pg 138] stood with the steaming coffee-pot in one hand, and a tin dipper in the other. Nectar and ambrosia, served from jewelled plate, could not have offered more temptation to the appetite of the weary group. Flint, lying a little apart, was conscious that Leonard Davitt was standing beside him, staring down into his face. As the young fisherman turned away, Flint heard him say, below his breath: "Damn him!"

[Pg 139]

CHAPTER IX

NORA COSTELLO

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The evening following the wreck of "The Mary Ann" found the friends in council, who included most of the summer population of Nepaug, gathered around the White-House hearth, on which blazed a hospitable fire, doubly cheering in its radiant contrast to the gathering darkness without. The wind, which had risen to half a gale, rattled at the window panes and roared down the chimney. The sound of the booming surf, as the great waves hurled themselves against the dunes, made itself heard, even through the heavy pine doors and shutters. The foam, which yesterday curved in lines of delicate spray below the headland, was now lashed into a lather of white terror. Above it through the twilight rose, dim and ghostlike, the masts of the wrecked vessel.

The dreariness outside lent an added charm to the snug and cheerful cosiness within the [Pg 140] little parlor, the inmates of which drew closer than usual, as they talked in somewhat subdued voices.

Jimmy Anstice lay on his back upon the hearth-rug, his head pillowed upon Paddy, and his knees braced one on top of the other. Ben Bradford sat on a chair tipped back against the wall, with his thumbs thrust through the armholes of his corduroy vest. Winifred lounged upon the haircloth sofa with one foot surreptitiously tucked under her. Every one's attitude suggested a degree of comfort rare in society. A wonderful sense of intimacy is imparted by perils undergone together, or profound experiences shared. They seem to sweep away, as with a whirlwind breath, that thick veil of convention and commonplace which shroud many acquaintances from beginning to end. At these times the real nature has shown itself, as it does only in the great crises of life; and, once revealed, it can never wholly conceal itself again.

At the White-House that evening, the wreck was discussed over and over from every point of view. Each person wished to describe the moment when he awoke to the apprehension of the calamity,—what he said and did, thought and planned. Such conversations lead one to believe that the chief pleasure of the resurrection [Pg 141] will lie in the comparison of post-mortem experiences on first awakening.

Dr. Cricket said that when he first heard the booming of guns, half-asleep as he was, he dreamed that the statue of William Penn was falling off the dome of the Philadelphia city hall.

Miss Standisth said that she was broad awake; but had happened not to catch any sound till she heard the commotion of people moving about downstairs. This she took to mean that breakfast-time had arrived, and that this was destined to be another dark day like the freak of nature famous in the colonial annals.

"I heard Fred call out—" Jimmy Anstice began; but his sister interrupted, "Please, Jimmy, leave me out. You know Papa forbade you to talk about me in company."

"My dear," remonstrated her father, mildly, "don't speak so abruptly to your little brother."

Thus, in one shape and another, every one said his say.

Flint alone, of the entire group, was silent, almost surly. He submitted without comment to being ensconced in the great chintz-covered chair. He even swallowed, under protest, the various pills and potions which Dr. Cricket presented to him at intervals; but the most adroit questioning on the part of Miss Standish failed to elicit any information as to his sensations [Pg 142] or emotions, past or present. Brady, who understood his friend better than all the rest, strove to shelter him by talking longer and laughing louder than usual; but this Miss Standish resented as much as Flint's silence, and set it down to flippancy. Her ethical training impelled her to strive to improve the occasion to these young people. She shook her gray curls, and cleared her throat several times before her conversational opening arrived.

"I hope, Mr. Flint," she said at last, "that you feel as strongly as that poor girl upstairs, the mercy of the divine Providence which brought you to the rescue at that critical moment, and enabled you to save a life."

Something in Miss Standish's tone irritated Flint.

"If, for 'divine Providence,' you will substitute 'lucky accident,' I will agree to it as heartily as either you or she. If you persist in dragging in Providence, I must really beg leave to inquire where Providence was when the ship struck."

The silence which reigned in the room was like the space cleared for a sparring-match. The old combative instinct of the primitive man arises in the most civilized, and makes him delight in a fight. Brady looked amused; Winifred a little apprehensive; Mr. Anstice preserved [Pg 143] a dignified neutrality; and Miss Standish fumbled with her cameo brooch, and smoothed the folds of her skirt, as if to make sure that all was in order before entering upon a possibly ruffling contest.

"I suppose—" she began; but old Marsden, who sat on the other side of the fire, and who was no respecter of persons, broke in: "I've heerd a deal about how you all felt, and what you all thought; but what I'd like to know is what really happened. The men at the inn wont talk without their captain gives them leave; and Dr. Cricket has got him and his sister shut up in their rooms, to git over the shawk. Now perhaps the Doctor can tell us how it wuz thet thet air ship went aground on a sandy coast, in a ca'm night like the last."

"Captain Costello says it was the light in the tavern-window which he mistook for the Bug Light off the point; but how could that have been, when it was past two o'clock, and I'll answer for it that no one at Nepaug was ever found awake after nine?"

Dr. Cricket questioned with the inflection of a man who neither expects nor desires an answer. Indeed, he had only paused for breath, when Flint, from his easy chair on the other side of the fireplace, broke in:—

"So I am to blame for the whole thing."

"You!"

[Pg 144]

"You don't say so!"

"Was the light yours?"

"What on earth were you doing at that hour?"

"Not quite so many questions at once, friends, if you please. My brain is still a little waterlogged, and my thoughts work slowly. I only remember sitting down about ten o'clock to read a novel, and the first thing that roused me was the gun, which for the moment I took for the attack of the enemy of whom I was reading. I rushed out, half expecting to find the tavern surrounded, and to have to risk my life in its defence, and instead—"

"Instead," put in Winifred Anstice, very quietly, "you risked your life to save some one else,—Nora Costello, the Captain's sister, spent the whole morning in tears, because Dr. Cricket would not let her leave her room to go and tell you how grateful she was."

"Hysterical, I suppose," said Flint.

Winifred, who had opened her lips to say something more, shut them closely again, and sat back with the air of a person determined to have no further share in the conversation.

Dr. Cricket hastened to occupy the floor. "A charming girl—upon my word, a charming girl—if she is a Hallelujah lassie."

"A what?" ejaculated Brady.

[Pg 145]

"A Hallelujah lassie—Feminine of Salvation Soldier, don't you know! Why, she had one of the coal-scuttle bonnets hanging by its draggled strings round her neck when Flint pulled her in, and a number of 'The War Cry' was in the pocket of her dress, when we stripped it off."

"Oh," said Brady, with a touch of disappointment in his tone, "I took her for a different sort of a person; she looked quite the lady."

"So she is, young man," answered Dr. Cricket, with his fierce little frown. "There is no doubt of that. She told me her story this morning. I wanted her to rest; but the poor thing was so nervous I thought it would hurt her less to talk than to keep still."

Flint smiled sardonically. The Doctor's little foible of curiosity had not escaped his observant eye.

"You would have done much better to shut her up; but what did she say?" queried Miss Standish.

Flint smiled again. But the Doctor began briskly:—

"Why, it seems that the Costellos are the children of a Scotch minister; though, from his name, I should guess that he had a drop more or less of Irish blood in his veins, and their looks show it too. They were brought up in a manse on one of those brown and bare Scotch moors. [Pg 146] The boy was to be educated for the church, like his father; but when he was seventeen, he grew restive under the strictness of his training, turned wild, and ran away. For ten years they had no word of him. The father reproached himself for having been too hard on the boy; and he never stopped loving and praying for him. On his death-bed, he charged Nora—that's the girl's name you know—to sell all the things in the manse, and start out into the world to find her brother, and never to give up the search as long as she lived."

"That is always the way," said Flint, with a shrug: "the reward of virtue is to be appointed trustee of vice—no assets—assume all the liabilities."

"Hm! wide, of the mark this time, Mr. Flint. The very day after her father's death, Nora Costello received a letter from her brother, saying that he was ashamed to come home without first securing forgiveness, and asking his sister to intercede for him, and to meet him in London with the news of his pardon."

"Exactly," resumed Flint with irritating calmness. "Prodigal son sends postal card stating that he is prepared to receive overtures looking to a resumption of family relations. No questions asked."

"He has not seen Captain Costello, has he, [Pg 147] Dr. Cricket? or he would be more sparing of his jibes."

"Never mind, Miss Winifred, Mr. Flint is ashamed of having played the humanitarian this morning, so he is trying to atone by double cynicism this evening; but don't let him interrupt my story again, under pain of being sent back to the tavern, instead of taken care of in Mrs. White's best bed-room, under the charge of the best doctor (though I do say it) in Philadelphia.

"Well, as I was about to say, Nora Costello came up to London; and there she found her brother, a brown and bearded man in command of a schooner, 'The Mary Ann,' plying between New York and Nova Scotia. He had been looking forward joyfully to his homecoming; but when he learned of his father's death, he was all broken up, and talked about its being a judgment of God on himself."

"Rather severe on his father," grumbled Flint; but no one heeded him, and the Doctor continued:—

"Costello felt so awfully cut up, that one night he came near drowning himself; and after that his sister did not dare leave him alone, but went about everywhere with him; and one night they came upon a Salvation Army meeting, with drums and torches and things, in the [Pg 148] streets of the East End. General Booth was there; and, my soul! to hear that girl talk, you would think he was the archangel Gabriel, with the sword of the Lord in his hand."

"It was Michael who carried the sword," came from Flint's corner, exasperating even Brady beyond endurance.

"Come, Flint, you're too bad. Hold your tongue, can't you, and let the rest of us hear the story! That girl is a trump."

"You 're right, sir," echoed the Doctor, cordially, "a trump she was, and her brother too, for that matter. General Booth preached that day, as it happened, about remnants, and argued how a man might make the most of the remnants of a life, as well as of a meal, even if the best part was gone. Well, the talk sort of heartened up Angus Costello; and, after the meeting, he and his sister went up to the General, and Nora asked to be taken into the Army. She went in as a private; and when Angus came back to Nova Scotia, Nora came with him, and was assigned to duty, first in Montreal, and then in New York. She has risen already to be an officer, and, I judge, a valuable one. She was off this month on sick-leave for her brother's ship, taking a vacation from overwork, I suspect."

"What is her work?" asked Brady, leaning forward with his square chin propped on his [Pg 149] hands, which, in their turn, were supported by his knees,—an attitude to which he was prone when self-forgetful.

"Her work? Oh, I don't know! Everything I suppose. Taking care of sick people in tenements, talking, and singing, and selling copies of the 'War Cry,' in offices and liquor-saloons."

Brady frowned. "I don't like it," he said. "She's too pretty, with those little curly rings of hair round her pale face, and with those big blue eyes. Why don't they send some old maid on such errands?"

"Because they want to sell their papers," answered Miss Standish, dryly.

The talk around the fire had gone on so eagerly that the attention of the group was utterly absorbed; and every one started as if an apparition had appeared in their midst, when a slim figure in a dark dress, against which her face looked doubly white, glided noiselessly into the room. With eyes fixed in almost trance-like far-sightedness, she moved towards Brady, and laid her hand upon his sleeve.

"My brother," she said, "it is you have risked your life to save mine. God gave you back both. What will you be doing with your share?"

"I—I—I'm awfully sorry, don't you know!" stammered Brady, terribly embarrassed; "but it wasn't I who did it."

[Pg 150]

"Here is the man, Miss Costello, to whom you owe your life," said the Doctor, who dearly loved a "situation," turning as he spoke, with a little flourish, to the place where Flint had stood; but that gentleman had taken advantage of the mistake to bolt into the bed-room behind him. He would have bolted into the pond, rather than submit to be thanked publicly in this fashion.

"He's gone!" exclaimed Dr. Cricket, in disappointment.

"Ah!" said Nora Costello, with a quick, sympathetic smile, "it's verra natural. He did not wish to be thanked. Perhaps he is right. After all, it is to the good God himsel' that our thanks are owing."

She knelt on the rug, as simply as she would have taken an offered chair, and spoke to some invisible presence, as naturally as she would have spoken to any of those in the room. Brady was shocked at first, at the conversational tone. It was so realistic that he opened his eyes, half expecting to see the Someone—the Something—so evidently apparent to the girl herself.

Having once opened his eyes, he forgot to close them again. The actual so pursued him, that he ceased to seek the spiritual presence. The firelight, playing over the girl's face, threw strange lights, and shadows half unearthly. She [Pg 151] seemed a spirit, of whom no ordinary restraints of the familiar social life were to be expected.

When her prayer was finished, she rose as simply as she had knelt, though now two large tears stood on the long fringe of her eyes.

"Good-night, friends!" she said with a confiding glance around. "I think I shall be able to get the sleep now. God bless you all!"

When she was gone, the hush was unbroken for several minutes. At last Winifred spoke.

"I don't know how the rest of you feel, but somehow I have a sensation of being a lay figure in the shop-window of life, and having all of a sudden seen a real woman go by."

"Jove! what eyes she has!" said Brady, continuing thoughts of his own, rather than answering Winifred's speech.

"Really," said Ben Bradford, "it wasn't unpleasant at all."

"Unpleasant!" exclaimed his aunt. "Well, I should say not, unless heaven is unpleasant, and angels, and the Judgment Day, which I daresay it will be for you, Ben Bradford, unless you mend your ways. Good-night! I'm going up to see that the child has a hot-water bag to her feet, and a mustard plaster on her chest. The Salvation Army needs an efficient ambulance corps."

"Hm!" said Dr. Cricket, as Miss Standish [Pg 152] disappeared. "Mary may have chosen the better part; but I pity the household that's all Marys. Give me a Martha in mine every time!

"That reminds me," he added briskly, "that I must look after my patient, and not let him pitch himself into that bed, which has not been aired for a week; and nobody in this house knows the difference between damp sheets and dry ones. Do you know, Mr. Brady," he continued, as he rose from his chair with a little rheumatic hitch, "I have taken a great shine to that queer friend of yours. I don't know how it is, but I suspect it is because he is such a contrast to most folks. It's a comfort to meet a man who keeps his best foot back."

"Oh, Flint is a brick!" said Brady, with enthusiasm. "I have known him to do the nicest things. There was a fellow once in college—he was rather pushing socially, and nobody liked him—but he was 'a dig,'" and he got sick from studying too much. None of the rest of us ever fell ill of that trouble; but he did, and he was so poor he didn't want to let any one know about it, for fear he would be obliged to send for a doctor. It was found out though; and one day a doctor and nurse turned up at the fellow's room,—said they'd been asked not to say who sent them; but they stayed and pulled him through. He never knew who his benefactor [Pg 153] was; but I did, and you may judge of my surprise, when the fellow got about, to see Flint cut him on the street.

"'What in thunder did you do that for?' I asked, for I was dumfounded to see him do it.

"'Because the fellow is a cad, and would be taking all sorts of advantages. Better ignore the acquaintance at the start.'

"'Then why did you do what you did for him?'

"'I don't know, I'm sure!' Flint answered.

"That's just the sort of fellow Flint is. He may seem crusty, but in any emergency he is a man to tie to."

"If life were a series of emergencies," said Winifred, reflectively, "Mr. Flint would be invaluable; but in every-day existence, one does not quite know what to do with him."

"I can put up with a great deal," said Ben Bradford, "from a chap like that, who shows real sand and pluck when a crisis comes. I mean to tell Mr. Flint to-morrow that I think he's a daisy, and go down on my marrow bones for the things I have thought and said about him before."

"I wouldn't, if I were you, Ben," observed Winifred, with an amused smile; "for I doubt if Mr. Flint has ever had the dimmest idea that you have not been thinking well of him all along."

[Pg 154]

CHAPTER X

FLYING POINT

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Far up the pond, at no great distance from the spot where "The Aquidneck" had met her untimely and ignominious end, Flying Point thrust out its tongue of land into the rippling water, which stole in and out between its tiny coves so gently that scarcely a murmur could be heard, except when a northeaster lashed the pond into a mimic sea; and then the teapot tempest was so outdone by the giant waves outside the bar, that it passed unnoticed, like the fury of a child beside the rage of a grown man.

The Point took its name from the flights of ducks which passed over it in vast numbers in the spring and autumn, their dark, irregular squadrons black against the intense blue of sea and sky. Its low bluff of gleaming sand was crowned by a grove of tall pines, through which purled a tiny brook perpetually prattling to the sea of its little inland life. Below the bank, stretched out a rod or more of level beach [Pg 155] where fires might be lighted and cloths spread by those who wished to return to the gypsy habits of their forebears and sit down as Nature's guests, to simple fare of their own cooking and serving.

A midsummer pilgrimage to Flying Point was a regular feature of the season with the dwellers at the White-House; and it was a point of honor for the old-timers to declare that last year's expedition was in every way more successful than that of the present season. Newcomers endured this superiority in silence, consoled by the prospect of enjoying the same triumph themselves next summer.

Several times the date of this year's expedition had been set, and as often changed. The last date had been fixed for the eighth of July; but the excitement of the wreck, and the reaction of lassitude which followed that catastrophe, put to flight, for a time, all thoughts of amusement, and a fortnight elapsed without an apparent ripple on the calm of existence at Nepaug.

On the second day after the wreck, Angus Costello and his sister took their departure for New York,—he to collect the insurance on the ill-fated "Mary Ann," she to report again for duty in the Army. With the going of the Costellos, quiet settled down once more; but the dwellers on the Point found themselves impatient [Pg 156] of the very repose for which they had sought Nepaug. Rest had turned to inanimation, quiet to dulness, peace to stagnation.

Flint, usually unaffected by environment, found himself incapable of any intellectual or physical exertion. He could not work. He could not even loaf alone. Brady was an indifferent companion, subject to fits of absence of mind,—more unsocial than absence of body.

There was only one resource left; the young men betook themselves to the White-House. Life there could not be wholly dull, while a perpetual sparring match was going on between Miss Standish and Dr. Cricket, while Professor Anstice smoked his pipe serenely on the corner of the piazza, and Ben Bradford openly adored Winifred, heedless of outside observation or amusement.

Ben himself was an endless source of entertainment to Flint, so vividly did his demeanor recall the rapidly receding days of his own youth, when he too had felt the constraint which is born of the assurance that all the world is fixing its gaze upon us and our actions.

Ben never dreamed that he could be taken humorously. He regarded himself with a deep seriousness, and planned innocent little hypocrisies with a view to their effect on the public. He was anxious to be supposed to handle a large [Pg 157] correspondence, and took pains to sort his mail in public, fingering a number of letters in his leather case with a reflective air, as if he were considering what replies they demanded, although their worn envelopes revealed them to the most casual observation as at least a fortnight old.

He had the sensitiveness of youth, and spent much useless effort in the endeavor to discover what people meant by their words and deeds; when, nine times out of ten, they meant nothing at all, but were only striving to fill up the gaps of life with idle observations or diversions. He himself was fond of side remarks, intended to be satirical, but falling rather flat, if dragged out into the prosaic light of general conversation, as sometimes happened when Miss Standish caught a word or two and exclaimed aloud: "What was that, Ben? Won't you give us all the benefit of that last observation?"

Ben loved his aunt; but he did not like her.

She interfered sadly with his pose as a man of the world, by relating anecdotes of his infancy, and stating the precise number of years which had elapsed since the occurrence.

On the occasion of one of the daily visits of Flint and Brady, they were made aware of unmistakable signs of a domestic unpleasantness. They were no sooner seated, than Ben picked up [Pg 158] again the grievance which their arrival had compelled him to drop.

"You have told that story four times already this summer, Aunt Susan," he remarked truculently; "and I don't think it is of great interest to the public at any time to know that I took a bite out of each one of the Thanksgiving pies when I was five years old."

"I have not told it before, and you were six when it happened, which was fourteen years ago next November," Miss Standish answered.

Winifred Anstice, foreseeing a battle, made haste to the rescue. She called out from her hammock:—

"When are we going to Flying Point? I think we all need change of air for our—ahem!—nerves."

Woe to the person who undertakes to divert the lightning from meeting thunder-clouds; unless he be well insulated, he is sure to fall victim to his own well meant efforts.

"Winifred, my dear," sniffed Miss Standish, "you may remember that it was only this morning when I asked when we were going to Flying Point that you answered, 'Never, I hope—I detest picnics.'"

"Did I?" laughed Winifred; "well, it's true, and I cannot deny it."

"I must agree with you there," said Ben. "A [Pg 159] picnic is an occasion when all the food is picked and all the china nicked."

"A picnic," said Winifred, "is a place where you can accumulate an indigestion without incurring an obligation. In this, it is an advance upon a tea-party."

"Picnicking with people you know is a bore, Picnicking with people you don't know is a feat of endurance," echoed Flint.

"Professionally, I am in favor of them," threw in Dr. Cricket. "I often feel like saying, with the old Roman, 'This day's work shall breed prescriptions.'"

"Oh, come now!" said Brady, "you're all trying to be clever. This is only talk. I think a picnic is great fun, especially a tea-picnic, where you boil coffee, and light a camp-fire, and perch about on the rocks over the water. You would appreciate that last privilege, if you lived out on the prairies, where there is no water, and the rocks are all imported."

"Bully for you!" shouted Jimmy Anstice, who had been sitting by with his hands clasped over the knees of his stockings to conceal the holes from his sister's observant eye, but none the less eagerly following the conversation. "You're a peach; and why can't we go to-night?"

"That boy is all right," said Brady, smiling. [Pg 160] "He knows enough to take the current when it serves. Off with you, Jim, while the tide is out, and dig your basket of clams! Come on, Flint, and we will join them at the Point! How will you go, and when?"

"I think we'd better go up in the Whites' sail-boat. There'll be room for one of you," said Miss Standish, looking meaningly at her nephew, for she had not yet forgiven Flint's indifference.

"That's good," Flint said cheerfully. "You take Brady. He's better ballast; and I'll row up in my dory."

"A good excuse for coming late and leaving early," said Winifred, mockingly.

Flint bowed and smiled imperturbably, without troubling himself to offer a contradiction.

Miss Standish swept past him with her Plymouth Rock manner. "I will go and look after the supper," she remarked, and added, as she reached the door, "however much people may sniff, there's nobody, so far as I know, who is superior to food."

Nepaug picnic suppers had been reduced to scientific principles under Miss Standish's rule. There was a picnic coffee-pot and a picnic-dipper, a set of wooden plates and a pile of Japanese paper napkins. All these went into one basket, together with cups and glasses and knives [Pg 161] and forks. Another, still more capacious, held the sandwiches and biscuit, the cake and coffee, the pepper and salt, beside the jar of orange marmalade, and the pies surreptitiously borrowed from the pantry, where they were reposing upon the larder shelf, tranquilly awaiting the morrow's dessert. Everything was neatly stowed away,—no crowding, no crumbling. Miss Standish was willing to take any amount of trouble; all she asked was to be appreciated.

Flint certainly did not appreciate her. Her particularity he found "fussiness," her energy annoyed him, and her well-meant interest in others appeared to him insufferable busy-bodyism. More than once that afternoon he remembered her with a sense of irritation. "A confounded old maid," he called her to himself as he pushed off his dory from the beach below the inn.

But no matter how irritable the frame of mind in which he started, he could not help being soothed by the tranquillity of the scene around him as he went on. The west was one sheet of orange. The brilliancy of the sunset had faded to a tenderer tone. The spikes of the pointed firs on the mainland stood dark against it. Over in the east, the moon was rising, pale and spectral, with all her ribs showing like a skeleton leaf. Jupiter shone out more clearly as the darkness [Pg 162] deepened and the shadows fell more heavily along the strip of shore.

"The gray sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon, large and low,"

Flint quoted to himself. "What is it that comes next? Something about

"'A mile of warm sea-scented beach.'

Must have been curiously like this. Where is Flying Point anyhow? Oh, yes; there's the camp-fire."

"Here comes Flint," cried Brady, as he heard the grating of the prow of the dory on the gravel.

"I should think it was time," grumbled Miss Standish, who had been making great sacrifices to keep the coffee hot. For some inscrutable reason, all the people with whom Flint came in contact felt impelled to do their best for him, let their opinion of him be what it would.

"Well, we thought you must be lost!" called Brady from the height of the rocks. "We have all had supper; but we have kept some for you."

"Thanks," answered Flint, from below, "I am sorry you had the trouble, for I took mine at the tavern before I started."

This was more than the descendant of Miles [Pg 163] Standish could bear. With a bang, she emptied the coffee-pot and knocked out the grounds, as her ancestor had shaken the arrows out of the snake-skin to replace them with bullets. Henceforth, she was implacable; and yet Flint never dreamed that he had given offence. Imperfect sympathies again!

Winifred Anstice, whose misfortune it was to be peculiarly sensitive to disturbances in the atmosphere, jumped up from under the pine where she had been sitting with Brady. "Come," she said, "let's all sit down around the fire. I want Leonard to recite for us. Will you, Leon?"

Flattered, yet embarrassed, the young fisherman rose from his occupation of tying up the baskets, and drew nearer. As he stood in front of the fire, Flint looked at him with a thrill of æsthetic admiration. His red shirt, open at the throat, showed a splendid chest and a neck on which his head was firmly and strongly poised. His hair, curling tightly, revealed the well-shaped outline of the skull, and the profile was classic in its regularity. "And that little fool doesn't know enough to fall in love with him!" thought Flint.

"What'll you have, Miss Fred?" asked Leonard.

"Whatever you like."

"Wal, then, ef you'd jes ez lief, I'll say [Pg 164] 'Marmion.' I was learned it at school." Throwing off his cap and striking a dramatic pose, he began:—

"The Douglas round him drew his cloak."

It is marvellous, the power of strong feeling to communicate itself through all barriers. True emotion is the X-ray which can penetrate all matter,—yes, and all spirit too.

The hackneyed words burned again with the freshness of their primal enthusiasm. Again Douglas spurned, and Marmion flung him back scorn for scorn. It was not acting. Leonard Davitt could never have thrown fire into a rôle which did not appeal to him; but this lived. He put his soul into it, and he drew out the soul from his audience.

"I must go now," he said, when he had finished, having ducked his head shyly in response to the applause, and picked up his cap. "I'm goin' off at sunrise."

"Where are you going, Leon?" queried Winifred Anstice, coming up to him where he stood not far off from the spot where Flint, in dead shadow, leaned against the trunk of a giant pine.

"Goin' off bars-fishin' for a week with the men from the Pint," Leonard answered, and then added in a lower tone, "you won't forget your promise, Miss Fred."

[Pg 165]

"No, I will not forget; but you must try not to cherish hard feeling."

"Oh, I don't say it's his fault. Mebbe it's hers."

"Perhaps it's nobody's, and perhaps there's no harm done after all,—at any rate, none that can't be undone."

"Yes, there is," Leonard answered gloomily. "The past can't never come back, and things won't never be the same."

"Oh, cheer up!" Winifred answered more hopefully. "Your going away is the best thing under the circumstances, and I'll do what I can for you; but I wish it were anything else."

"Thank you, marm, and good-bye!" With another shy duck, Leonard let himself down over the rocks and sculled out into the strip of rippling moonlight which stretched across the bay.

The moonlight fell also upon Winifred Anstice's face as she stood looking after him, and showed a pathetic little quiver about the mouth. An instant later, she dashed the back of her hand across her eyes, and exclaimed, half aloud, "It's too bad; I've no patience with him."

"What a clear night it is!" said Flint, stepping out from the shadows.

Winifred started a little. "I thought you were sitting by the fire," she said rather abruptly.

"Indeed," Flint answered. It was one of [Pg 166] his peculiarities never to be drawn on to the explanations to which most people are driven by the mere necessity of saying something. After all, he had as good a right to the place where he was as Miss Anstice herself. Miss Anstice perhaps was thinking the same thought, for she made no response, only stood twisting and untwisting a bit of lawn handkerchief which bade fair to be worn out before it reached home. At length, with the air of one nerving herself to a difficult task, she turned about and faced Flint. Lifting her clear gray eyes full to his, she began hesitatingly:—

"Mr. Flint."

"Yes, Miss Anstice."

"Will you do me a favor?"

"Assuredly."

"No, not an 'assuredly' favor, but a real favor."

"If I can."

"Will you do it blindly?"

"No, I will do it with my eyes open."

"You cannot."

"Try me!"

The girl shifted her eyes from his face to the path of moon beams in which Leonard's boat floated far off like a dark speck against the ripples of light. When she went on, it was in a lower tone, with a note in her voice which Flint had never heard there before,—the note of appeal.

[Pg 167]

"I am going to ask you a very strange thing," she said; "I would not ask it if I could see any other way."

"Surely, Miss Anstice, you cannot doubt my willingness to oblige you in any way. You have only to command me."

"But it is not to oblige me. It is—oh, dear! I can't explain, but I want you to go away."

Flint rose instantly.

"No, no, not away from this spot, but from Nepaug. That's it," she went on insistently; "I want you to leave Nepaug."

Flint stared at her for a moment, as if in doubt whether to question her sanity or her seriousness. The latter he could not doubt, as he looked at her eager attitude, her hands tightly interlaced, her head bent a little forward, and a spot of deep red sharply outlined on either cheek. Suddenly the meaning of her conversation with Leonard flashed across his mind; but it brought only further puzzlement. He motioned Winifred to sit down upon the great tree which lay its length on the earth, overthrown by the last storm, and with stones and upturned dirt still clinging to its branching roots.

"Are you sure," he said gravely, as he took a seat beside her,—"are you sure that you are doing right to keep me in the dark?"

"I think so; I hope so."

[Pg 168]

"Of course I know you would not ask such a thing if there were not something serious back of it all; and since it so nearly concerns me, it seems to me I have a right to know it."

Dead silence reigned for some minutes. Then Winifred said, speaking low and hurriedly:

"Yes, you are right; I ought to tell you,—I know I ought; but it is so hard. Why isn't it Mr. Brady! He would understand."

"Perhaps if you would explain," Flint began with unusual patience.

"Well, then, it is about Tilly Marsden, who has been engaged these two years to Leonard Davitt; and now she refuses to marry him, and he thinks it is because she is in love with someone else. Surely you understand now."

"No, upon my soul, I don't. You can't mean that the little shop-girl—the maid-of-all-work at the inn—is—thinks she is in love with—"

"With you; exactly."

"But I have hardly spoken to her."

The silence which followed implied that the situation was none the less likely on that account. The implication tinged Flint's manner with irritation.

"I suppose I am very dull; but I confess I don't understand these people."

"Have you ever tried to understand them?" returned Winifred, with a sudden outburst of [Pg 169] the indignation which had long been gathering in her heart against the man before her.

"Haven't you always thought of them only as they ministered to your comfort, like the other farm animals? Is it really anything to you that this narrow-minded girl has conceived a very silly, but none the less unhappy, sentiment for you?"

"I—" began Flint, but the flood would have its way.

"Oh, yes, it annoys you, I dare say. You feel your dignity a little touched by it; but does it move your pity, your chivalry? If it does—Oh, go away!"

Flint would have given much to feel a fever heat of anger, to flame out against the audacity of the girl with an indignation overtopping her own; but he only felt himself growing more cold and rigid. He told himself that she had misunderstood him hopelessly, utterly. There was a certain aggrieved satisfaction in the thought. He had risen, and stood leaning against a tree. Winifred wondered at her own courage, as she saw him standing there stiff and haughty.

"I shall go, of course," he said at length. "My absence seems to be the only sure method of producing universal content. But let me ask you one question before I go. Do you consider me to blame in this unlucky business?"

[Pg 170]

Winifred parried the question by another.

"Why should I tell you, when you don't care in the least what I think?"

"If I did not, I should not ask you, and I think I have a right to demand an answer."

"I can hardly answer you fairly. Is ice to blame for being ice and not sun? We cannot say. We only know that we are chilled. I always have the feeling that with those you consider your equals, you might be genial and responsive; but the joys and sorrows of the great world of uninteresting, commonplace people about you have no power to touch your sympathies. Of course, in a way, it is not your fault that you never noticed Tilly Marsden's manner—"

"I am not a cad who goes about investigating the sentiments of—of women like that. But you have your impressions of my character fully formed, and I shall not be guilty of the folly of trying to change them. To-morrow, I shall relieve Nepaug of my objectionable presence, and, I hope, you will cease to fear me as a disturbing element when I am far away at my office-desk."

"You are going back to New York?" echoed Winifred, uncertainly, realizing all of a sudden what it was that she was sending him away from, and to what she was consigning him.

[Pg 171]

"Yes, of course," Flint answered a little impatiently.

"I am sorry," the girl began lamely. It was just dawning upon her that it was not so easy to control the destinies of other people, as she had fancied.

"Oh, that is all right!" her companion responded more cheerfully; "New York in summer is not half so bad as you people who never stay there probably imagine."

"I don't know," said Winifred; "to me it seems dreadful to be shut up inside brick walls, or walking on hot paving-stones, when one might be sitting under green trees, or by rolling waves, breathing in the fresh country air. But I suppose I feel so because while I was growing up I never lived in a large city."

"Indeed! How was that? I should think your father's profession would have kept him in the city."

"Oh, it does now, of course; but for years after my mother's death he was so broken down that he could not bear to mix with people at all, and he chose to bury himself out on a Western ranch, and there I grew up with no more training than the little Indian girls who used to come to the house with beads and things to sell. It was a queer life for a girl; but it was great sport."

[Pg 172]

Winifred had almost forgotten her companion for the moment in her thoughts of the past; but as he rubbed his hand across his forehead in the effort to recall something, she mistook the gesture for a sign of weariness, and reproached herself for her egotistical garrulity.

"I do wish," she said hastily, "that there were some way out of this unlucky matter,—some way which would not send you back so unseasonably."

"Never mind that," Flint answered; "my vacation was almost at an end, anyway. I am really needed now at the office of the 'Trans-Continental.'"

"The 'Trans-Continental'?" echoed Winifred. "Do you work on that magazine?"

"Yes, I do a little writing for it occasionally."

"Then perhaps you know the editor—the chief editor, I mean."

"Yes, he is a friend of mine."

"I envy you the privilege of calling such a man your friend. Oh, you may smile if you choose, but perhaps, after all, you do not know him as well as I do. I have never seen him, I don't even know his name, and yet I have a clear picture of him in my mind. And he has been so kind—so good to me. His letters have helped me more than he will ever know." [Pg 173] Here a sudden thought seemed to strike the girl, and she lifted beseeching eyes to his face.