In a Mysterious Way

RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE

Leaving Mary Cody to watch over the house, Mrs. O'Neil, the instant dinner was over, threw something over her head and hurried to the post-office.

Mrs. Ray met her at the door. "What is it?" was her greeting; "I know it's come out about the case-knives! Hasn't it?"

"You'll never guess what they are," said Mrs. O'Neil, entering the house and closing the door behind her. "Mrs. Ray, they're swindlers!"

"I knew it; I knew it all the time. How did you find it out?"

Mrs. O'Neil told her.

"Give me the paper."

The paper was unfolded, but as she unfolded it Mrs. Dunstall and Pinkie came running in one way, and Mrs. Wiley rushed panting up the other steps.

"Have you heard?" Mrs. Dunstall cried.

"Heard! I've heard it a dozen ways." Mrs. Ray was devouring the article as she spoke. "Sit down," she said briefly, without looking around.

"They can't be arrested till Saturday," Mrs. O'Neil said. "There isn't a mite of doubt but what it's them, but Mr. Pollock told Jack that the law is that he must give them notice, and then he must let them go before he can arrest them."

"Why, I never heard the equal," exclaimed Mrs. Wiley. "I didn't know that you must let anybody who'd done anything go, ever! What will Uncle Purchase say to that!"

"Well, if that isn't the greatest I ever heard, either," said Mrs. Ray, never ceasing to read; "that's a funny law. If the United States Government run its business that way, every one would be skipping out with the stamps."

"And Mr. Pollock said," broke in Mrs. O'Neil, "that no matter how big swindlers they were, we couldn't arrest them until some one whom they'd swindled swore to the fact."

"Well, why don't you swear, then?" interrupted Mrs. Ray still reading.

"Because Mr. Pollock says they haven't actually swindled us, till they really leave without paying, you see," explained Mrs. O'Neil.

"Lands!" commented Pinkie.

"Which means," said Mrs. Ray, always reading, "that the law is that you mustn't try to catch 'em until after you let 'em go."

"Seems so," said Mrs. O'Neil.

"I never hear the beat!" exclaimed Mrs. Ray. "Why, this paper says they'd been jumping their board all summer!"

"All summer?" said Pinkie.

"Well, I always knew they were no good," said Mrs. Ray, still reading; "they never got any letters. They come to the post-office sometimes to try to give themselves a reputation, but they didn't fool me, for they never got any letters. I don't misjudge folks if they don't get many, and if they cancel up good it says just as much for their characters as if they got a lot—maybe more, for a lot of letters may be just duns—but when there's no income and no outgo, better look out, I say. Yes, indeed. Do they owe you much, Nellie?"

"About thirty-five dollars," said Mrs. O'Neil; "but oh, dear! Why, they've made fudge and worn my shawls and roasted chestnuts—"

"Nellie, Nellie," it was a strange voice at the kitchen door. Everybody looked up to see Mrs. Kendal, almost purple from rapid walking. "I've just heard! Lucia Cosby ran down to tell me. We've got a Foxtown Signal that's got some more about them in. I run right over to bring it to you. I was sure I'd find you here. That's why the old lady always wore her rubbers—her shoes were clean wore through with walking, skipping out, all the time."

Mrs. Kendal sank on a seat, and the Foxtown Signal was spread out upon the table with the other paper.

"I thought that was a funny story about the trunks," said Mrs. Wiley.

"They've worn the same clothes for three weeks, to my certain knowledge," said Mrs. O'Neil, "and not so much as an extra hairpin!"

"And they haven't any toilet things except a hair-brush that isn't good enough to throw at a cat, and a mirror that's broken," interposed Mrs. Ray; "you said so, Nellie, and I saw it, too."

"A broken mirror's bad luck," said Mrs. Wiley; "I hope you'll see that it's bad luck for you too, Nellie. Your husband's too soft-hearted to keep a hotel as we always tell every one who goes there to board."

"Well, he isn't soft-hearted this time," said his wife; "he's mad enough to-day, and he says he'll pay for his own ticket to Geneseo to bear witness against them."

Just here Mrs. Wellston, who lived in the first house over the hill from the schoolhouse, came rushing in.

"Oh, I just heard!" she panted, "they left a lot of bills at King's and at Race's Corners, where my sister Molly lives, they left a board-bill of eighteen dollars! They're known all over!"

"What do you think of that?" Mrs. Ray said, turning to Mrs. O'Neil.

Mrs. O'Neil gasped.

"The man who told Jack told Nathan and Lizzie that the old woman's husband died in the penitentiary," she said. "That's a nice kind of people to have around your house."

Mrs. Wiley gasped this time. Mrs. O'Neil gasped again.

"Jack said we must tell you all the first thing for fear she'd try to borrow money of some one. I told him he was foolish, because if they borrowed money of any one then they could pay us."

"He was only joking," said Mrs. Ray; "if they paid you, you wouldn't really take the money, for you'd know that they must have gotten it from some of us."

"On the contrary, you ought to have taken it, I think," said Mrs. Dunstall solemnly, "and then returned it to whoever give it to them."

Lottie Ann and Uncle Purchase now arrived to add to the festivity of the occasion.

"I guess nobody need worry over that pair's paying anybody any money they get their hands on," observed Mrs. Ray, fetching a chair for Uncle Purchase. "What are you going to do about it, when they come down and want to go out to walk next time, Nellie? Give 'em your shawls the same as usual, I suppose."

"Why, we've got to let 'em go or they can't skip and make themselves liable to arrest, of course, but the old lady said she could surely get money by to-morrow, and Jack has hired a boy to hang around the house and if they go out, track them."

"My sakes, ain't it interesting?" said Mrs. Dunstall. "And to think that they're up there this minute and have no idea of it all."

"I dare say they have been laughing at you all the time they were off chestnutting our chestnuts," said Mrs. Wiley. "My husband says if they'd sold all they've picked up, they could have paid their board honestly."

"But they weren't honest, you see," said Mrs. Ray; "honest people all get letters, or anyhow they buy postal cards of the Falls. And you ought to have taken my word for it when I suspected them, Nellie; those case-knives ought to have set you on to them."

"Well, well, and us seeing them walking all around for a fortnight," said Mrs. Dunstall; "and we so innocent, and they swindlers, and you boarding them for nothing,—dear, dear!"

"Well," said Mrs. Ray, "here's your paper, Nellie; what will happen next, I wonder?"

"Yes, I do, too," said Pinkie.

"You'd better all come down about five, and see if they did go out," said Mrs. O'Neil, with the air of extending an invitation to a party. "Why, that old lady told me that she'd been to the Boston Academy of Music."

"Boston!" said Mrs. Dunstall with a sniff; "they never saw Boston. Not those two. Not much."

"Oh, but they have," said Mrs. O'Neil; "I know that they have, for I've been there myself, and we talked about it."

"Well, I guess Boston has its crooks as well as other places," said Mrs. Ray, pacifically; "I guess if we can harbor swindlers and not know it, Boston can, too."

"I wouldn't believe it," Mrs. O'Neil said again. "But these papers make me have to; you see, there's the names, and Hannah Adele, and no paper would dare to print that if it wasn't true."

"True! Of course it's true," said Mrs. Ray; "I never would be surprised over anything anybody 'd do that would wear brown laces in black shoes and go in out of the rain at a strange house at midnight."

"Did she have brown laces in black shoes?" asked Lottie Ann, in a tone penetrated with horror.

"She did, and what's more, she pinned herself together. I see the pins sticking out of her, time and again, when she come in to stand around and wait for mail like a honest person would. No man is ever going to marry a girl who bristles with pins like that,—it'll be a job I wouldn't like myself to be the sheriff and have to arrest her. He'd better look sharp where he lays his hand on that girl, I tell you."

"Will she really be arrested?" Lottie Ann cried.

"Why, I should hope so," said her mother.

"As a law-abiding citizen yourself, who may take boarders some day, you wouldn't wish her not to be, would you?" said Mrs. Ray.

"I don't know," said Lottie Ann; "it seems to me very—very terrible to think that two women should go to jail."

"But they haven't any money, and they're swindlers," said Mrs. Dunstall; "they belong in jail. That's why we have jails."

"If they'd had money, they'd have received at least two or three letters," said Mrs. Ray. "If people have any money at all, there's always some one who wants to keep posted as to their health. Yes, indeed. No, they haven't any money. People that have money and never get up till noon is generally buying tea and matches, at any rate, but they didn't even do that. No, they ain't got any money."

"I couldn't believe it myself at first," repeated Nellie O'Neil; "and they certainly ate like people that aren't holding anything back. Two helps of everything, and didn't she go and take half a loaf of gingerbread up-stairs yesterday afternoon? As cool as a cucumber."

"They were both cool as cucumbers," said Mrs. Ray; "that's why they borrowed your shawls all the time, I guess. Cooler than cucumbers they would have been without them, I reckon."

"Jack went up and gave the old lady warning right after dinner," said Mrs. O'Neil. "He only stopped to just get a bite first."

"Well, I hope he didn't get a bite last, too," said Mrs. Ray, tucking in the ends of her shawl. "That pair was too comfortable with you to want to be warned to leave. Making fudge, indeed! I'm surprised at you, Nellie; I'd no more think of letting my boarders make fudge than I would of keeping them for nothing. You and Jack don't belong in the hotel business. You can't possibly make boarding people pay, unless you make them pay for their board."

"No, you can't," said Pinkie.

"Josiah was driving down to North Ledge yesterday, and he saw them getting over a fence in that direction," said Mrs. Wiley, rising. "He said they seemed to be learning the country by all means, fair or foul."

"Well, I don't want to seem unfriendly," said Mrs. Ray; "but I guess you'll all have to go. I found some ants in my grocery business this morning for the first time, and while I'm give to understand it's the regular thing in most grocery businesses, no ant need flatter himself that it is in mine. I'm going to clean out the whole of the three shelves this afternoon and sprinkle borax everywhere where it can't taste. So I must have this room. I'll be down to-night after mail, Nellie; good-by."

Thereupon they all departed.

IN THE HOUR OF NEED

In the meantime Alva, left alone in her room, felt troubled, vastly troubled, by the sorrow and shame gathering so close to her. The emotions of those near by affect one keenly attuned, in a degree that the less sensitive would hardly believe possible.

She went and locked the door after Lassie left, and going to a chair that happened to stand close to the bureau, sat down there, leaned her face on her hand and thought earnestly of the whole matter.

"Why must I trouble so?" she said to herself, presently; "no one else does," and then she smiled sadly. "It is because I have set my face in that direction," she said; "I have vowed myself to service, just as he has vowed himself, for the love of God and God in humanity."

A light tap on her own door sounded, and she started, crying "Come in," quite forgetting that the door was locked.

Some one tried the door and then Alva sprang up and unfastened it. It opened, and Miss Lathbun stood there in the crack.

"May I come in for a few minutes?" she asked, pale and with frightened eyes.

"Yes, come in," Alva said quickly; "come in and sit down." She drew a chair near to the one that she had been occupying.

"I have come to you on a—" began the girl, "on a—on a—" she stammered and stopped.

"You are in trouble," Alva said gently; "tell me all about it."

"I am going to tell you; I have come on purpose to tell you. You were so kind and friendly the other day, and I—I—wasn't truthful; I didn't tell you everything."

Alva rested her face on her hand again and looked straight at her. "Then tell me everything now," she said.

Miss Lathbun returned her look. "Mr. O'Neil has just been up to tell Mother that we must pay our bill here, or leave," she said. "Mother is desperate. She doesn't know what to do, and I don't know what to do. I told you so little of the whole story. The truth is that he is actually driving Mother and me into poverty. The truth is that I don't know whether he ever really has thought of marrying me. Mother never has believed that he has. She doesn't think that he would put us to such straits if he was honest. Of course she doesn't know about his watching nights. I can't tell her. She'd go mad."

Alva contemplated her quietly. "But you love him?" she said.

Miss Lathbun's eyes filled with tears. "I do love him, and I believe that he loves me."

"You feel sure of it, don't you?"

The girl looked at her earnestly. "Doesn't one always know?" she asked.

Alva smiled a little. "One ought to," she assented; "well, then, how can he bear to make your life so miserable?"

The white girl clasped her delicate hands tightly in her thin black merino lap. "I don't know," she said, in a voice almost like a wail; "but oh, we have been very miserable! We have such little income and it comes through the lawyer. He sent the lawyer to Seattle on business in July, and Mamma and I haven't had any money since. We have gone from place to place—we have almost fled from place to place; our trunks are held for bills; we are penniless, winter is coming, and—oh, I don't know what to do; I don't know what to do!" She bit her lip so as not to cry, but her pale face worked pitifully.

Alva looked at her in a curiously speculative but not at all heartless way. "Isn't it strange," she murmured, "that the resolution that drives one man to any heights will drive another of the same calibre to any depths?" She rose and went to her table. "Tell me," she said, taking a framed picture from before the mirror, "is he really like this? You said so before. Say it again."

Miss Lathbun took the picture in her two hands. "Oh, yes, yes!" she said, eagerly; "it is the same. They are just the same."

"What did you say his name was?" Alva asked, taking the picture from her and restoring it to its place.

Miss Lathbun told her: "Lisle C. Bayard."

Alva sat down again, and rested her chin on her hand as before. "I wonder how I can really help you. I am trying to be big enough to see."

Miss Lathbun's lips parted slightly; she looked at her breathlessly, and held her peace.

"Even if you were lying to me still," Alva said presently, "I should want just as much to help you. If you cheated me and laughed at me afterwards, I should still want to help you. If you are an adventuress and I succored you, what would count to me would be that I tried to do right."

She spoke in a strange, meditative manner; Miss Lathbun continued to watch her, always white, and whiter.

"I cannot see why you and your mother came into my life," Alva went on; "but you have come, and I have been interested in you. Our paths seemed ready to diverge and yet just now they join again. Do you know, that a week or so ago I knelt in a church and took two vows; one was to accept without murmur whatever life might bring because for the moment I was so superlatively blessed; the other was to never again pass any trouble by carelessly. No matter what is brought to me, I must deal with it as earnestly and justly as I know how,—as I shall try to deal with you."

She got up, took a key from the pocket of a coat hanging on a hook near by, unlocked her trunk, opened a purse therein, and extracted some bills.

The girl watched her like one fascinated.

Alva came to her side and put the roll in her hands and closed her fingers over it. "It will settle everything," she said; "there, take it, go. Be honest again. Surprise every one. God be with you."

Hannah Adele looked down at her hand as if in a dream. "I was going to ask you for a little money," she faltered; "but this—this—"

"I know," said Alva, "I knew when you came in. Now, please don't say any more. Go back to your mother and tell her. I shall not say one word about it, you can depend upon me."

The girl rose in a blind, stupid kind of way and left the room. When she was gone, Alva went to the window for a minute and looked out. The glisten of coming cold was in the air. The thistles were loosing their down and it floated on the wind like ethereal snow. She stood there for a long time. "Something is to be," she murmured, "I feel it coming. What is it?"

Then she went to her table, picked up a pen and wrote:

Lisle C. Bayard,

Dear Sir:—I am acting under an impulse which I cannot overcome. It may be only a folly, but it is too strong within me to be resisted.

You may or may not know two ladies of the name of Lathbun; you may or may not be interested in them; but if by any chance you are interested in them, you ought to know that both have been threatened with terrible trouble. If the story which I have been told be really true it ought to make you not sorry, but very glad, to learn that in their hour of stress they found a friend.

Yours very truly ...

and she signed her full name.

After that she wrote another letter, with full particulars of the story. And when that letter, too, was finished, she slipped on her wraps and walked up the cinder-path to the post-office.

She found Mrs. Ray just in the fevered finale of her chase after ants.

"Put the letters on the counter," said the postmistress; "I'm standing on the post-box, and the Republican party is getting one good, useful deed to its credit this term, anyhow. I tried a soap box and bu'st through, and I haven't had a worse shock since I stepped down the wrong side of the step-ladder last spring, when I was kalsomining for Mrs. Clinch. But the post-box is as steady as the Bank of England and I feel as if for this one occasion, at least, my grocery business was coming out on top. Well, has anything new come up down your way since noon? Haven't paid their bill yet, have they?"

"I think they'll pay it," said Alva, smiling.

"Pay it! Those two? Well, not much! You're from the city and don't get a chance to judge character like I do, but I tell you every one that is honest has got to have a change of undershirts, at least. I've heard of people as turned them hind side before one week, and inside out the next, but they washed 'em the week after that, if they had any reputations at all to keep up."

"Do you want to bet with me as to Mrs. Lathbun's paying her bill, Mrs. Ray?" Alva asked.

Mrs. Ray turned and looked sharply down from her government perch. "My goodness me," she said, "you surely ain't been fool enough to lend her money, have you?"

Alva was too startled to collect herself.

"Well, you deserve to lose it then," said Mrs. Ray, climbing down abruptly; "see here, it isn't any of my business, but I'm going to make it my business and tell you the plain truth, and if you take offence I'll have done my duty, anyhow. Now you listen to me and bear in mind that I'm twice your age and have got all the experience of a postmistress and a farmer, and a sexton and a grocery business and a married woman and a widow and a stepmother; if you've lent money to the Lathbuns you're going to lose it, for they're just what the paper said—they're a foxy pair and no mistake, and furthermore, with all the money you're spending on that house, you'd better be keeping your eyes open, mark my words."

"IF YOU'VE LENT MONEY TO THE LATHBUNS YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE IT."

"Why, Mrs. Ray, what makes you say that?"

"Because I've got eyes of my own," said Mrs. Ray; "and I've been married too. I've been married and I walked to the Lower Falls beforehand, too. I saw 'em come up the road the first day, and I saw 'em going down it to-day. I'd send her packing, if I was you."

Alva laughed ringingly. "Oh, Mrs. Ray," she exclaimed; "I'm not going to marry that man, and besides, let me tell you something else; I haven't lent any money to the Lathbuns."

Mrs. Ray stared fixedly into her face for a long minute, then she said abruptly: "You tell Nellie not to send up for mail to-night. I'll bring the letters down. I'll be out filin' my bond, and I can just as well bring 'em down. It won't do any good your coming for 'em, because the post-office will be closed and me gone, so you couldn't get 'em if you did come."

Alva smiled. "We'll wait at the house," she said, laying her hand on the door-knob.

Mrs. Ray watched her take her departure.

"I'm glad she's give up the man so pleasant," she said; "and she's give up the money just as pleasant. Poor thing! She thought she was smart enough to keep me from seeing how she meant it. As if any one from a city could fool me!"

DOUBTS

Alva was sitting in her room, her hands clasped behind her head in her favorite thinking attitude when Lassie returned from her walk to the Lower Falls. The face of the older friend wore its habitual look of far-away absorption as the young girl entered, but the look was almost rivalled by Lassie's own look—for Lassie had returned from the Lower Falls with what was to be her own private and personal absorption forever after.

"Had you a pleasant time?" Alva asked.

"Oh, it was beautiful!" the young girl exclaimed, "we had such fun, too," she stopped, and hesitated; then something in the other's face made her ask: "Are they gone?"

Alva shook her head. "No, dear, they've received their warning, but they've not gone."

"Oh," said Lassie, relieved, "then they won't be in jail this night, anyway."

"No, nor any other night," Alva said, quietly; "I shall not let those women suffer shame and humiliation when a little money can prevent it."

"You are going to pay their bills!"

"No, but I am going to help them pay them."

"You are going to give them money?"

"I have given it."

Lassie stood still in surprise, and yet, even surprised as she was, there was a perfunctory aspect which had not been present in the morning.

"And I have written a little letter to the hero of Miss Lathbun's romance, too."

Lassie came close. "Alva!" she asked, "then you really believe that there is such a man?"

Alva put out her hand and pulled the girl down upon her lap. "I do believe it," she said. "I may be deceived in some ways, but the man is real, I know. As I said before, one cannot invent that kind of character."

"And you wrote him? What did you say?"

"Only a few simple words. I felt that it was the right thing to do; I did it for the same reason that I do all things. Out of the might of my love. If you ever come to love as I do, you'll understand how wide and deep one's interest in all love can become—yes, in all love and in all things."

Lassie leaned her cheek upon her friend's hair for a moment and did not speak.

"I know what you're thinking," Alva went on then (but she did not know, really). "But do you know what I have been thinking? I have been wondering. Surely no two people could seem further out of my realm than these two forlorn women, but I always said there must be a reason and a strong one, or else they would not interest me so, and now you see what it was. They were brought to me to succor, and that is almost the greatest joy that I know now."

Lassie felt real life slipping from her, just as it always did when Alva talked. She was silent and thoughtful, even her new sensation in abeyance for the minute. Love was drawing back a step and letting Mercy have its hour.

"But if they deserved punishment?" she asked finally, in a timid voice.

"Perhaps they do deserve it, but not at my hands. If I, feeling as I do, suffered them to go down yet deeper into the pit, I should do a cruel wrong. I can't do such a wrong, I must do right in so far as I know how,—and it's their good luck to have met me just now." She smiled.

"Alva," said Lassie, kissing her, "that's a very new view to me. The evil-doers deserve to be punished, but others ought to be doing good; so on account of those others and on their account mainly we are taught forgiveness of sins;" she laughed softly.

Alva opened her eyes. "What a forward leap your intellect has taken this afternoon," she commented. "I never dreamed that Ronald was such a Jesuit. Come now, jump up, we must go down to supper."

"But you'll just tell me what Mrs. Ray said when she saw the paper."

"My dear, I really haven't asked."

"Oh, dear; then perhaps she took it calmly! Have you seen her since?"

"Yes, she took this afternoon to clean ants out of the government precincts. She seemed calm to me."

"Goodness! Then I'm glad that I went."

Alva laughed a little. For some odd reason the laugh caused Lassie to blush deeply, although the laugh was absolutely innocent of innuendo.

Down-stairs, Ingram awaited them. At the other small table Mrs. Lathbun and her daughter sat as placidly as ever. The long table was full as usual, but there was a keen subtlety of interest abroad which rendered the conversation there fitful and jerky in the extreme. The mother and daughter began to feel uneasy, and before Mary Cody had placed the soup for the later comers, they rose and went quietly up-stairs.

"Do you know what they said when Mr. O'Neil gave them warning?" Lassie asked, when the others had also left the room.

"They said they'd pay the money just as soon as a letter could get to Cromwell and back," Alva replied. "They had been waiting for their own lawyer to return from day to day, but if it came to the question of real necessity they could get money from some one else."

The squeak of the outside door was heard; it was Mrs. Ray, and the next second she was in their midst.

"Good evening," she said briskly.

At the sound of her voice Mrs. O'Neil hurried in from the kitchen and Mary Cody followed her as far as the door and stood there, spellbound with eager interest.

Mrs. Ray was out of breath and had her shawl over her head and her bond under her arm. "I just run down before the mail to get Jack to sign this and find out if anything more 's come up. Sammy Adams was in to see me about five, and he's scared white over their being swindlers. He says to think of them swindling around his house all that night long! He's afraid to stay in his house now, and he's afraid to leave it. He was running to the window to look out that way all the time. I'm afraid Sammy's getting mooney. There were days when Mr. Ray used to be always looking out the window. Those were always his mooney days."

"Nothing new 's come up," said Mrs. O'Neil; "the old lady took her two cups of coffee same as usual, didn't she, Mary?"

"She took three to-night," said Mary Cody.

"Loading up to skip," said Mrs. Ray, significantly; "well, Nellie, where's your husband? He's got to sign this before I can go back. The United States Government won't trust me after seventeen years without my bondsmen are still willing to support their view."

"Jack's in the bar," said his wife; "I'll go and fetch him."

"Do sit down, Mrs. Ray," Alva begged. Ingram jumped up and drew out a chair. Mrs. Ray seated herself.

"Are they up-stairs, Mary?" she asked.

"Yes, went right up after supper," said Mary Cody.

"I thought they looked troubled," said Lassie.

"Well, they did post a letter, after all," said Mrs. Ray, turning to Alva. "I never malign any one, so I wanted to tell you that. They didn't come in and lay it on the counter, like honest people, but they put it in that box that the United States Government requires me to keep nailed up outside and unlock and peek into twice every day of the year around. Theirs was the first letter any one ever put in, I guess, because although folks feel I'm honest enough to be postmistress, they don't think I'm silly enough to look in that box twice a day, just because I said I would on my oath. The boys put June-bugs and garter-snakes in to try if I do; but I always find 'em before they've quit being lively."

"What did you do with the letter?" Mary Cody asked.

"Do with it! Don't I have to put any letter into the next mail and lock the bag, no matter what my feelings are? Yes, indeed."

"Where was it addressed?" asked Ingram, leaning back and putting his hands in his pockets.

"That I can't tell you," said Mrs. Ray; "my oath keeps my mouth closed on all business connected with the United States Mail, but I'll tell you what I did do. I copied the address off, and then I looked through the little book of post-office regulations and I couldn't find one word to prevent my bringing you a copy, so here it is."

She opened her hand as she spoke and showed a piece of paper. Lassie, who was nearest her, took it eagerly.

"Oh!" she exclaimed disappointedly, "this is the letter that she told Mr. O'Neil she'd write. It's to their lawyer. It isn't anything new."

"Well, give it back to me so I can tear it up," said Mrs. Ray; "I meant to tear it up, anyway. But where is Mr. O'Neil? I want to get my bond filed. By the way," she said, turning to Ingram, "you owe me two cents."

"Two cents!"

"Yes; the stamp come off of one of your letters, and I put on a new one. I've saved the other for you. It was a letter addressed to New York. You'll have to buy some glue if you're ever meaning to get your money's worth out of that stamp. I licked it good, but it won't stick. Too many been at it before you and me, I guess. That's the way with most stamps that won't stick, I always think."

"Here's the two cents," said Ingram.

"Thank you very much. Well, every one in town is wondering what the lawyer will answer them. He's a real man, for Nathan says he got beat for the Legislature once. But will he send them any money? That's the question!"

"What do you think?" asked Ingram.

"I can't have any opinion. Any one who's had anything to do with the Government closes my lips as a servant to the United States. It was very hard for me to give up having opinions when I first came into politics, but I'm so used to it now that I wouldn't feel easy if I could speak freely any more."

"But if you weren't postmistress what would you think?" Ingram queried.

"Wouldn't think anything; I'd know they'd skip! They'll skip to-night; mark my words."

"Oh, but they won't," said Alva, smiling; "they'll pay their bill—wait and see."

"Yes, I will wait and see," said Mrs. Ray, darkly. "I'll wait a long while and see very little. Yes, indeed. What sticks in my mind is poor Sammy Adams. He says he's afraid to sleep alone in his house, and he's too afraid of dogs and cats to have any to watch. He's going to put two hens in his kitchen to-night and roll a sofa against the front door. He says he knows every time the hens stir he'll go most out of his senses. Sammy says he wasn't meant to live alone."

"What did you say to that?"

"Said it didn't look to me as if he was meant to live with hens, neither. But where is your husband, Nellie?" (Mrs. O'Neil had just re-entered the room). "I've got to get hold of him. I'm in a awful hurry to get home. There's the mail, and I've got Sally Catt's dress to finish, too."

"He'll be in in just a minute," said Mrs. O'Neil; "did Sally decide to line it, after all?"

"No, she didn't decide to line it; but she decided to have me line it, which is more to my point. I'm sure I'm glad not to be Joey Beall and have to adapt myself to Sally; but then, if folks are still calling a fellow Joey after he's forty, I don't know that it matters much who marries him, and Sally hasn't changed her mind as to liking the house on the hill since he moved it up on the hill to please her."

"I'm sorry for Joey," said Mrs. O'Neil, warmly.

"Well, I'm not," said Mrs. Ray. "I'm not sorry for any one who's a fool. Speaking of fools, if they don't pay to-morrow, how much longer are you intending to keep them for nothing? I'd just like to know that."

"They can't get an answer to the letter before to-morrow night."

"Huh! So you're going to feed them all day to-morrow, too! Well, I don't know how you and Jack keep clothes on your backs the way you go on. I never saw people like you two. If I ever want to live free, I know where to come."

"Indeed you do, Mrs. Ray," said Mrs. O'Neil, her bright eyes filling suddenly; "indeed you do. You come right down here any day you want to, and you can stay here till you die. You know I've told you that a thousand times."

"You're easy," said Mrs. Ray, drawing herself up with great dignity. "I just believe you mean it, too, Nellie, and I just suppose if I was to come and borrow a hundred dollars without witnesses, Jack would be plenty idiot enough to give it to me, too."

"Well, I should hope so," said his wife; "who'd he trust sooner?"

Mrs. Ray looked around the table. "And it's this sort of people that those two up-stairs are cheating," she said; "well, it's a queer world. But if I ain't signed and witnessed and back up at my house before long, the United States Government will likely go swearing out something against me; where is your husband, Nellie?"

"He said he'd be right in. Mary Cody, you go and tell him to hurry."

Mary Cody disappeared obediently.

"Joey Beall says you won't have her, long," said Mrs. Ray, significantly; "he saw her and Edward Griggs climbing down the bank Sunday. He saw you two walking to the Lower Falls, too," she added, turning suddenly on Ingram and Lassie.

The inference fell like a sledge-hammer. Alva started violently, and looked from one confused face to the other.

But before any one could say anything Mr. O'Neil walked into the room.

"Well, there you are at last," said Mrs. Ray. "I am glad to see you! Here I sit, filing away at my bond and can't make any headway because you're the first to sign."

"It's hard to get away from the bar to-night," said Mr. O'Neil, bringing pen and ink. "They're betting I never see my money."

"We'll never see it in the world, Jack," said his wife; "everybody says so."

"Except me," interposed Alva, her eyes on Lassie.

"And you haven't had any experience with swindlers," said Mrs. Ray; "that's easy seen. You ain't any more fit to be trusted with a pair of sharpers than Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil, or poor Sammy Adams alone in his house to-night, relying on hens in the hour of need."

"Perhaps not," Alva said sighing. She was deeply shaken by the new conception of what was transpiring around her, in the discovery of how much might go on without her ever noticing. Lassie in love with Ingram! And the girl was not even out yet! What would her mother say!

"There, there's my name for another year for you, Mrs. Ray," said Jack O'Neil, pushing the bond towards its owner.

"And remember, Mrs. Ray," added his wife, laughing, "remember, if you ever want a place to live or to borrow any money, you come straight here."

"I'll remember," said Mrs. Ray, rising and adjusting her shawl. "Well, it's back to duty and the mail-bag, now. So good night."

She went out and Ingram felt an intolerable longing to avoid Alva's eyes until she should have had a little time to think. Lassie shared the feeling; she, too, was greatly upset by Mrs. Ray's loquacity.

"Let us go out and walk until it's time to get the letters," the man suggested to the girl. His tone was curiously imperative, and she welcomed its command and jumped up quickly to fetch her wraps.

"Ronald," Alva said, gently, then, "she's very young."

He met her eyes squarely. "I know," he said; "but I'm not." She said no other word, but sat silent until they were gone. Mr. O'Neil returned to the bar at once, and in a minute—when Alva was alone—his wife came and sat opposite her. Alva was supporting her chin on her hands, trying to disentangle three urgent trains of thought.

"I'll be so glad when they're gone," Mrs. O'Neil said, with a sigh. "They've worn on me terribly, and now that I know what they are, it's awful. There's no possible chance of their being straight any more. They wear their heels off on the outside, and Mary Cody says Edward Griggs worked in a shoe store once, and knows for a fact that that's the sign of dishonesty."

"But have you ever seen their shoes?" Alva asked, with a slight smile.

"Why, I haven't put anything into the oven without having to take their heels out first, since they came."

"I'd forgotten." Alva sighed.

Mrs. O'Neil glanced at her quickly.

"You musn't take them so much to heart," she said, gently. "They could be good if they wanted to."

"It isn't them, altogether," the other replied. Mrs. O'Neil looked at her in a sort of blind sympathy. She thought that the youth and sweetness of the young girl was what weighed so heavily on the young woman opposite. "But men will be men," she reflected, and tried to think of something to say, and couldn't.

The evening freight went roaring by.

"Why, I thought it went up before," Alva said.

"I did, too, but that must have been the wrecking-train; there must be a wreck on the road."

"Let's go out on the bridge!" Alva suggested. "I feel choked; I want fresh air, and there is a moon."

"Shall I go with you?"

"Yes, do."

"I'll tell Mary Cody."

While Mrs. O'Neil went for a shawl and to tell Mary Cody, Alva sought her big cape. Then they went out together into the frost, for the frost was sharp in the air.

"The woods will soon end being beautiful," the little woman said.

Alva walked swiftly on and made no reply. In less than five minutes they stood out over the gorge and looked down on its matchless glory of silver illuminating blackest shadow.

"I hope that the dam won't spoil all this," the girl said suddenly.

"You like to look at it, don't you?" Mrs. O'Neil said softly.

"Living here on its banks, as you do, I don't believe you can appreciate it!" Alva exclaimed. "Can it possibly mean to any one what it does to me, I wonder."

"I think it's pretty and I love so to look at it," said Mrs. O'Neil in gentlest sympathy.

Alva caught her hand and pressed it hard in both her own. "Do you know, Mrs. O'Neil, if I were very happy I should love best to be happy here, and if more sorrow were to be, I would choose to have that here, too. I am so close to God when I live in His country."

She took the warm hand that she held and pressed it close against her heart.

"I wish that every one was so good as you are," Mrs. O'Neil said, impulsively.

"Every one is better than we give them credit for being."

"Even those two?"

"Yes, even those two."

"I can't quite believe that," said the little woman.

"Wait and you'll see."

Then they stood quiet, until a cold wind, coming down the gorge, smote them bitterly.

"We must go in," Alva said, regretfully; "the wind comes so strongly here."

They turned and were only a few steps on their way when Alva stopped suddenly.

"Do you believe in signs?" she asked.

"Why—I don't know."

Alva put both hands up to her head. "That cold wind was a sign," she said, her voice trembling. "Oh, I feel so strangely. Something strong and fearful is sweeping into my life to-night."

In her heart she hoped that it was only the shock of learning that Lassie loved.

But in her soul she knew that it must be something else. The long strain of the waiting days had worn anxiety to its sharpest edge. When Truth mercifully veils itself, Time—the softener—wears the veil thin until at last, when we have gained strength enough to bear, we have learned to know.

SHIFTING SUNSHINE AND CLOUDS

Ingram and Lassie went out but not on the bridge; they did not even turn their heads that way.

"Alva says that she can see the gorge even when it's pitch-dark," Lassie said. "She says she shall see it plainly to the end of her life, wherever she may be in the world." She felt quite safe now that they were alone; she didn't even mind that embarrassing speech of Mrs. Ray's.

"Yes," said Ingram; they went calmly and happily up the road. He didn't mind the speech either, now.

"Alva and I never walk this way," Lassie said after a minute. "We always walk the other, except just a little bit to the post-office, of course."

"Yes," said the man again, and they went on, up the hill.

The peculiar charm of the ordinary mode of falling in love is that it is so simple; it requires so little effort, so to speak. If it was harder work, it might produce bigger results—results nearer the millennium than those we are now getting. Perhaps, however, the results are a lesson to be learned, and we are still so deep in the primer of that learning, that love remains the cheapest, easiest, and most common of all its tasks.

Ingram thought Lassie's remarks fascinating, and she thought his two "Yes's" both clever and original. They were each thoroughly satisfied with one another, and were deeply interested each minute. Ingram had never tramped along a country road in starlight with this pretty young girl before, and Lassie had never walked anywhere, with any man, in all her life. It was not perhaps remarkable that what had happened was happening. Not at all.

"How fast the time has gone," Lassie said, as they mounted the Wiley hill; "to think that I have been here over a week!"

"And to think of all that has happened," said Ingram.

"I know; isn't it strange?"

"I shall be awfully lonesome after you go."

This sounded so mournful and pathetic that it brought a lump into her throat and she could not speak for a minute.

"Alva will go, too," Ingram went on, presently.

"But she'll come back."

"Let us hope so."

They walked over the Wiley hill.

"Poor Mrs. Lathbun and her daughter won't go chestnutting any more after to-morrow," Lassie said, after they passed under the heavy shadows cast by Mrs. Wiley's huge trees. "I think that we ought to go back now, the mail will be in."

They turned around to walk back and enjoyed every step of the way. There is really nothing that lights up a lack of conversation like being in love.

As they passed the post-office they saw Mrs. Ray standing on the porch, tucked up in her shawl.

"There was a wreck," she called; "the mail's late."

"All right!" Ingram called in response.

Mrs. Ray watched them vanish out of the light cast by her open door, and then turned, went inside, and shut it. "I like that young man," she said to herself; "he's got a good face. I wish we were as sure of getting the dam as he is of getting that girl. We need the dam full as much as he thinks he needs her. It'll bring men and lots of money to this section, and this section needs men and money. All we've got around here is women and land, and women and land can't get very far without men and money. It's about time we was getting some show at prosperity. I do wonder how Sammy's getting along with his hens!"

Arrived at the hotel, Ingram bade Lassie good night and she went up-stairs, one trembling tumult of tangling sentiments as to the conversation now to ensue.

Alva's room was dark, but when Lassie whispered her name at the door, the answer came quickly.

"Is that you, dear? come to me. Lassie, how I have wanted you!"

Lassie crossed to the bed, from whence the voice came. She thought she knew why she was wanted, but she only said: "What is it, dear?"

"I am in the grip of an awful fear."

The girl stood still, much startled.

"Alva! What do you mean? What has happened?"

"I don't know. I went out on the bridge for a minute after you left, and it came blowing down the gorge—a wind of horrid presentiment; oh, I am beside myself, I don't know what to do. There is no mail to-night—" she stopped, and Lassie felt that she was weeping. Finally she added: "I ought to have stayed there at the hospital. I should not have obeyed his wishes or what the surgeon said. I ought to have obeyed my own heart. I ought to have stayed with him!"

The young girl was frightened, silent.

Finally she managed to stammer:

"But you said that he was not conscious—that it was not possible for you to stay there—that no purpose could be served. Oh, what do you fear? What do you think may have happened?"

Alva controlled herself and drew Lassie down beside her upon the bed. "Dear, I don't know; but I do know that I shall go away to-morrow!"

"To-morrow!"

"I shall, dear. I must see him; I have telegraphed—" Again tears choked her.

"You think something has happened?" Lassie faltered.

"Yes, something warns me. It has come over me heavily to-night. I must go and face it. What is the reason of my love, if it seems to fail him when the strain comes. It shall not fail. They shall not trick me into failing. Perhaps they are trying to spare me or shield me, but I'll go to receive the blow. An instant swept him out of his life-work—I saw his spirit of resignation—I will be resigned, too—"

Lassie felt the bed shaken by the fierceness of sobs. She was dumb, not knowing what to say. The orbit of Alva's love was so infinitely greater than that of her own, that the feebler suffered eclipse in that hour. She saw herself and Ingram completely swept aside, and was not even conscious of the fact.

"It is my heart that suffers," Alva pressed on after a minute, "only my heart, Lassie; my soul is strong, very strong. There is nothing else for my spirit to learn, but half of my being still suffers; it cannot remember every second how it was when I knelt beside him and he told me in whispers that he was content and that if I loved him I also would be content. I have tried to be content, I have been content until to-day—until to-night. But now, as I lay here in the dark, it seemed as if content had fled not only me but the whole universe. I feel as if content had ceased to exist. Rebellion is in the air. In some strange way I'm sure that he has abjured resignation and renunciation; I feel that he is in the throes of something—he is suffering, suffering agony; and I want to be with him. I must be with him! I shall leave to-morrow!"

Lassie trembled; she had never seen any one like this before.

"When do you want me to go, Alva," she whispered, presently.

"Could you go to-morrow at four, and I will take the train the opposite way at eight?"

"I'll be ready; don't mind about me a bit, dear."

"We must go. Oh, listen to that wind coming down the gorge; doesn't it sound as if some spirit were in travail? So sad, so melancholy! Something tremendous is taking place, and I am far from him while he endures."

The wind was surely rising, and its moan shook the window sash.

"I'm going mad," Alva exclaimed, springing from the bed; "why did I leave him? No matter what they said, I should have stayed there. My place was there. Oh, I have been cast in so many moulds these last years; I have taken so many prizes, only to find them dust in my hands; and now God will not—must not take this one from me! I have learned the folly of the material, I have bent my head beneath the yoke enough to be spared another lash of the goad. I pray—oh, I pray—that this cup may pass me by."

Lassie sat still, now quite terrified.

Alva paced up and down the little room. "I have been dragged—or I have managed to drag myself—up one step above the ordinary. I had accepted the loneliness that comes when one gets where no one else stands. I learned not to expect companionship. But we are not the less lonely because we go our way alone,—we are not the less lonely. And that same rule holds all through. Lassie, I tell you, that one does not crave companionship the less because one chooses to marry a dying man; one does not crave caresses the less when one loves as I do." She wrung her hands miserably. "I'm weak—weak—weak! This is the test and I am failing. I, who have worked so far, am being carried down—down—down—now—to-night. Oh, the struggle, the tragedy, the lesson! Life's lessons are always so terrible." Then, her emotions seeming for the moment to exhaust all her strength, she came back to the bed, and said, with some approach to calmness:

"Perhaps it is that I preached too much to you, dear, or was too sure of myself. Perhaps my joy was a selfish joy, or perhaps I did wrong in planning to leave my parents, even for a little while. Just in proportion as one rises, so do the subtlety of their problems increase. To love a man whose life was too big for any one to share unless she could give herself wholly—that was hard but I learned that lesson; I would have given my life wholly. Then to have my duty chain me away from him—that was terrible but I accepted that, too. Then to have him struck down—I thought that that was the worst of all, but something held me up through that. But—but," she broke out in a wail of absolute, heartbroken desolation, "but if he is going to leave me before we—" and there she stopped short, shivered violently, and became stilly rigid.

Lassie dared to put her arms about her.

"Why do you think such dreadful things? You don't know that anything has happened."

Alva drew a long, sharp breath. "But I do know it," she said; "something has happened. You will see in the morning. Oh, I would have given up my life while he was giving up his, and minded it so little; but to have to give him up! What shall I do? I wanted those weeks, even if they shrank to days—to hours. It seemed to me that we had earned the right to a little, so little, happiness. The memories would have given me strength to bear the hereafter. If I could only be a soul, and a brave one, like him,—but to-night I am all heart, all quivering fear." She paused to control her voice again.

"But, Alva, let me give you back your own speeches in comfort. How often you've told me how only his soul counted, and how that was yours for eternity, and how, because of that, you found yourself equal to all things. And you've told me, too, dear, how his renunciation, how his exchange of power, strength and life for weakness and death—and all without a murmur—made you quite confident that you would never fail, either."

"Yes," Alva murmured, "yes, I remember, but—"

"And you said that the way that he ignored his poor, crushed body and looked straight towards another future life of fresh labor made you full of courage, too. You remember."

"Yes, yes, I remember." Then she tried to dry her eyes. "I won't admit that the world has a right to shudder, and yet I am shuddering myself," she said, sadly. "I must learn to be braver. I can't fight down foreboding, but I must be braver. But, dear, I do so love him—I have so wanted him—he is so dear to me. I have so lived upon the picture of our hours together. That little house across the river is full of him for me. I saw him in it well and strong of spirit, fighting against the desecration of the gorge, and showing me how I might help on the work when he was gone. I meant to give him the joy of one more crusade, and one more victory to his credit. He would have known how to act, even if his only sympathizers were the poor and those yet to be born. He understood the claims of the poor and the unborn; he gave his life for them."

Lassie enfolded her in her tender arms; the little star was in eclipse, yet even in eclipse it was gathering power on high. Alva leaned her cheek against the head on her shoulder.

"How I suffer," she murmured. "Lassie, I feel that I have entered into a maelstrom—a whirlwind. I seem to hear a dirge in that wind outside. I must go to-morrow—we must go to-morrow."

"Yes, we'll go," said Lassie, soothingly.

"It is my heart, just my heart. It is so hard to strike an even balance between the heart and the soul. My poor, thin, trembling flesh has ruled to-night, truly."

"Let me sleep with you," Lassie pleaded; "let me hold you fast and love you dearly."

Alva smiled in the dark. "Come, then," she said; "I fancy that I shall sleep if my hand clasps yours—and if I know that we leave to-morrow."

Later, after Lassie had slept thus for some hours, she was awakened by Alva's rising and going to the window.

"What is it, dear, you are not faint?"

Alva turned, the pale, early sunrise illuminated her face.

"Some riddle has been solved somewhere, dear," she said; "I'm quite calm now. The struggle for him as well as for me is over."

"Then come back and sleep with my arms tight round your neck," said the friend, stretching forth her arms.

Alva came back like an obedient child, crept in close beside her, and in a few minutes was sleeping as a child sleeps.

Later, when the real morning came and the real, enduring wakefulness with it, it was Alva who roused first again, and, sitting up in bed, put back her hair with both hands and smiled into her friend's eyes.

"You're all right, now?" Lassie said, joyfully.

"Very right, dear; the crisis is over. Forget last night. I shall never be like that again."

Lassie turned her face towards the window; looking out from where she lay she could see the valley one burst of flame, its wave of color sweeping off afar and the hoar frost sparkling over all the glory. "I feel as if I never had seen anything so beautiful in all my life before," the girl exclaimed; "I don't know what it makes me think of, but it is as if my soul were growing, I am so happy to see you happy again."

Alva sat there with the white coverlet heaped about her and smiled. "Thank you, dear," she said, with simplicity. "I am happy, and last night and this morning have caused both our souls to grow."

"It's too beautiful!" the girl said, after a long pause; "the valley is more beautiful than I ever realized before."

Presently Alva left the bed and went to close the window. "There's a mist lying low in the valley," she said then; "it lies there like an emblem of peace. Omens are curious. That cold, sad wind last night had its message, and the morning mist has another. I know that some change is at hand, but I know that whatever it is its burden is good. I feel equal to anything this morning. I feel as if God had come to me in the night and told me that he was charging Himself with my care."

Lassie looked at her with freshly awakened anxiety.

"Oh, don't look at me that way," she begged; "that is the very hardest of all—to have those to whom you talk regard you as if you were mad."

"But you astonish me so. Last night you were so frightened."

"Last night some struggle was on, my dear; this morning it is settled." She stopped and spoke very slowly. "I think, perhaps, that he knows now that he can never come to the house," she said, and although her lips quivered slightly her voice was clear and composed.

"Alva," Lassie cried, in sudden horror, "you think that he is dead—that is what you think."

As soon as the words had passed her lips, she was frightened at her own temerity; but Alva, whose back was towards her, now turned towards her smiling.

"He is not dead," she said; "he was thinking of me all last night and this morning. He is not dead. That I know."

"How can you be sure?"

"When people love as we do, they can be very sure. I was awfully shaken last night, Lassie; I confess it. Something big, that we shall know all about later, hung in the balance and I trembled. But it's settled now."

There came a tap at the door just then, announcing Mary Cody with their hot water.

"They're still asleep," she said in a whisper; "if the letter from the lawyer don't come in this morning's mail, Mr. O'Neil is going to eject them. Only think!"

Naturally this remark gave quite a new turn to the conversation.

"Unless they pay, you know," Alva reminded Mary Cody.

"How do you eject people?" Lassie asked, rejoicing in the cheerfulness of the commonplace. "If he puts them out the front door and they just walk around and come into the kitchen, what can any one do?"

"I don't know," said Mary Cody, apparently thunderstruck at the mental vision of the O'Neil House besieged by Mrs. and Miss Lathbun, trying to get in again. "I don't know what we could do. There's seven doors to this house."

"Will Mr. O'Neil pull them out, or push them out?" Lassie asked further; "or will he just drive them out?"

"I don't know," said Mary Cody; "everybody in town'll be up at the post-office waiting to see if the letter from the lawyer comes, I expect. If it doesn't come, Mr. O'Neil is going to Ledge Centre and get a warrant."

"Oh, dear," said Lassie.

"You won't get any mail this morning," said Mary Cody; "there's a wreck on the road. Two coal trucks and a car of cabbages. There'll be no eastern mail till noon."

Then Mary Cody went away again.

"Isn't it strange that all this should happen just during the little time that we're here?" Lassie said; "it's made it very exciting."

Alva went on brushing her hair.

Lassie looked at her then, and saw that she bore many traces of her violent emotion of the night before.

"You won't try to go to-day, will you?" she said, suddenly.

"Oh, yes, I shall go." Then she turned and looked straight into the girl's eyes. "I must go," she said; "something has happened."