Which I gaze on so fondly to-day'"—
Mr. Denner's rendering of charms was very elaborate. But while he was still lingering on the last word, disappointment overtook him.
Coming arm in arm down the road were two small figures. Mr. Denner's sight was not what it once was; he fumbled in the breast of his bottle-green overcoat for his glasses, as a suspicion of the truth dawned upon him.
His song died upon his lips, and he turned irresolutely, as though to fly, but it was too late; he had recognized at the same moment Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth Woodhouse. By no possibility could he say which he had seen first.
He advanced to meet them, but the spring had gone from his tread and the light from his eye; he was thrown back upon his perplexities. The sisters, still arm in arm, made a demure little bow, and stopped to say "Good-morning," but Mr. Denner was evidently depressed and absent-minded.
"I wonder what's the matter with William Denner, sister?" Miss Ruth said, when they were out of hearing.
"Perhaps he's troubled about his housekeeping," answered Miss Deborah. "I should think he might be, I must say. That Mary of his does keep him looking so! And I have no doubt she is wasteful; a woman who is economical with her needle and thread is pretty apt not to be saving in other things."
"What a pity he hasn't a wife!" commented Miss Ruth. "Adele Dale says he's never been in love. She says that that affair with Gertrude Drayton was a sort of inoculation, and he's been perfectly healthy ever since."
"Very coarse in dear Adele to speak in that way," said Miss Deborah sharply. "I suppose he never has gotten over Gertrude's loss. Yet, if his sister-in-law had to die, it is a pity it wasn't a little sooner. He was too old when she died to think of marriage."
"But, dear Deborah, he is not quite too old even yet, if he found a person of proper age. Not too young, and, of course, not too old."
Miss Deborah did not reply immediately. "Well, I don't know; perhaps not," she conceded. "I do like a man to be of an age to know his own mind. That is why I am so surprised at Adele Dale's anxiety to bring about a match between young Forsythe and Lois, they are neither of them old enough to know their own minds. And it is scarcely delicate in Adele, I must say."
"He's a very superior young man," objected Miss Ruth.
"Yes," Miss Deborah acknowledged; "and yet"—she hesitated a little—"I think he has not quite the—the modesty one expects in a young person."
"Yes, but think how he has seen the world, sister!" cried Miss Ruth. "You cannot expect him to be just like other young people."
"True," said Miss Deborah, nodding her head; "and yet"—it was evident from her persistence that Miss Deborah had a grievance of some kind—"yet he seems to have more than a proper conceit. I heard him talk about whist, one evening at the rectory; he said something about a person,—a Pole, I believe,—and his rules in regard to 'signaling.' I asked him if he played," Miss Deborah continued, her hands showing a little angry nervousness; "and he said, 'Oh, yes, I learned to play one winter in Florida!' Learned to play in a winter, indeed! To achieve whist"—Miss Deborah held her head very straight—"to achieve whist is the work of a lifetime! I've no patience with a young person who says a thing like that."
Miss Ruth was silenced for a moment; she had no excuse to offer.
"Adele Dale says the Forsythes are coming back in April," she said, at last.
"Yes, I know it," answered Miss Deborah. "I suppose it will all be arranged then. I asked Adele if Lois was engaged to him;—she said, 'Not formally.' But I've no doubt there's an understanding."
Miss Deborah was so sure of this that she had even mentioned it casually to Gifford, of course under the same seal of confidence with which it had been told her.
It was quite true that Dick and his mother were to return to Ashurst. After storming out of the rectory library the night of the Misses Woodhouse's dinner party, Dick had had a period of hatred of everything connected with Ashurst; but that did not last more than a month, and was followed by an imploring letter to Lois. Her answer brought the anger back again, and then its reaction of love; this see-saw was kept up, until his last letter had announced that he and his mother were coming to take the house they had had before, and spend the summer.
"We will come early," he wrote. "I cannot stay away. I have made mother promise to open the house in April, so in a month more I shall see you. I had an awful time to get her to come; she hates the country except in summer, but at last she said she would. She knows why I want to come, and she would be so happy if"—and then the letter trailed off into a wail of disappointment and love.
Impatient and worried, Lois threw the pages into the fire, and had a malicious satisfaction in watching the elaborate crest curl and blacken on the red coals. "I wish he'd stay away," she said; "he bothers me to death. I hate him! What a silly letter!"
It was so silly, she found herself smiling, in spite of her annoyance. Now, to feel amusement at one's lover is almost as fatal as to be bored by him. But poor Dick had no one to tell him this, and had poured out his heart on paper, in spite of some difficulty in spelling, and could not guess that he was laughed at for his pains.
Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth were rewarded for their walk into Ashurst by a letter from Gifford, which made them quite forget Mr. Denner's looks, and Mrs. Dale's bad taste in being a matchmaker.
He would be at home for one day the next week; business had called him from Lockhaven, and on his way back he would stay a night in Ashurst. The little ladies were flurried with happiness. Miss Deborah prepared more dainties than even Gifford's healthy appetite could possibly consume, and Miss Ruth hung her last painting of apple-blossoms in his bedroom, and let her rose jar stand uncovered on his dressing-table for two days before his arrival. When he came, they hovered about him with small caresses and little chirps of affection, as though they would express all the love of the months in which they had not seen him.
Gifford had thought he would go to the rectory in the evening, and somehow the companionship of his aunts while there had not occupied his imagination; but it would have been cruel to leave them at home, so after tea, having tasted every one of Miss Deborah's dishes, he begged them to come with him to see Dr. Howe. They were glad to go anywhere if only with him, and each took an arm, and bore him triumphantly to the rectory.
"Bless my soul," said Dr. Howe, looking at them over his glasses, as they came into the library, "it is good to see you again, young man! How did you leave Helen?" He pushed his chair back from the fire, and let his newspapers rustle to the floor, as he rose. Max came and sniffed about Gifford's knees, and wagged his tail, hoping to be petted. Lois was the only one whose greeting was constrained, and Gifford's gladness withered under the indifference in her eyes.
"She doesn't care," he thought while he was answering Dr. Howe, and rubbing Max's ears with his left hand. "Helen may be right about Forsythe, but she doesn't care for me, either."
"Sit here, dear Giff," said Miss Ruth, motioning him to a chair at her side.
"There's a draught there, dear Ruth," cried Miss Deborah anxiously. "Come nearer the fire, Gifford." But Gifford only smiled good-naturedly, and leaned his elbow on the mantel, grasping his coat collar with one hand, and listening to Dr. Howe's questions about his niece.
"She's very well," he answered, "and the happiest woman I ever saw. Those two people were made for each other, doctor."
"Well, now, see here, young man," said the rector, who could not help patronizing Gifford, "you'll disturb that happiness if you get into religious discussions with Helen. Women don't understand that sort of thing; young women, I mean," he added, turning to Miss Deborah, and then suddenly looking confused.
Gifford raised his eyebrows. "Oh, well, Helen will reason, you know; she is not the woman to take a creed for granted."
"She must," the rector said, with a chuckle, "if she's a Presbyterian. She'll get into deep water if she goes to discussing predestination and original sin, and all that sort of thing."
"Oh," said Gifford lightly, "of course she does not discuss those things. I don't think that sort of theological rubbish had to be swept out of her mind before the really earnest questions of life presented themselves. Helen is singularly free from the trammels of tradition—for a woman."
Lois looked up, with a little toss of her head, but Gifford did not even notice her, nor realize how closely she was following his words.
"John Ward, though," Gifford went on, "is the most perfect Presbyterian I can imagine. He is logical to the bitter end, which is unusual, I fancy. I asked him his opinion concerning a certain man, a fellow named Davis,—perhaps Helen wrote of his death—I asked Ward what he thought of his chances for salvation; he acknowledged, sadly enough, that he thought he was damned. He didn't use that word, I believe," the young man added, smiling, "but it amounted to the same thing."
There was an outcry from his auditors. "Abominable!" said Dr. Howe, bringing his fist heavily down on the table. "I shouldn't have thought that of Ward,—outrageous!"
Gifford looked surprised. "What a cruel man!" Lois cried; while Miss Deborah said suddenly,—
"Giff, dear, have those flannels of yours worn well?" But Gifford apparently did not hear her.
"Why, doctor," he remonstrated, "you misunderstand Ward. And he is not cruel, Lois; he is the gentlest soul I ever knew. But he is logical, he is consistent; he simply expresses Presbyterianism with utter truth, without shrinking from its conclusions."
"Oh, he may be consistent," the rector acknowledged, with easy transition to good-nature, "but that doesn't alter the fact that he's a fool to say such things. Let him believe them, if he wants to, but for Heaven's sake let him keep silent! He can hold his tongue and yet not be a Universalist. Medio tutissimus ibis, you know. It will be sure to offend the parish, if he consigns people to the lower regions in such a free way."
"There is no danger of that," Gifford said; "I doubt if he could say anything on the subject of hell too tough for the spiritual digestion of his flock. They are as sincere in their belief as he is, though they haven't his gentleness; in fact, they have his logic without his light; there is very little of the refinement of religion in Lockhaven."
"What a place to live!" Lois cried. "Doesn't Helen hate it? Of course she would never say so to us, but she must! Everybody seems so dreadfully disagreeable; and there is really no one Helen could know."
"Why, Helen knows them all," answered Gifford in his slow way, looking down at the girl's impulsive face.
"Lois," said her father, "you are too emphatic in your way of speaking; be more mild. I don't like gush."
"Lois punctuates with exclamation points," Gifford explained good-naturedly, meaning to take the sting out of Dr. Howe's reproof, but hurting her instead.
"But, bless my soul," said the rector, "what does Helen say to this sort of talk?"
"I don't think she says anything, at least to him;" Gifford answered. "It is so unimportant to Helen, she is so perfectly satisfied with Ward, his opinions are of no consequence. She did fire up, though, about Davis," and then he told the story of Elder Dean and Helen's angry protest.
Dr. Howe listened, first with grave disapproval, and then with positive irritation.
"Dean," Gifford concluded, "has taken it very much to heart; he told me—he's a client of mine, a stupid idiot, who never reasoned a thing out in his life—he told me that 'not to believe in eternal damnation was to take a short cut to atheism.' He also confided to me that 'a church which could permit such a falling from the faith was in a diseased condition.' I don't believe that opinion has reached Ward, however. It would take more grit than Dean possesses to dare to find fault with John Ward's wife to her husband."
"What folly!" cried the rector, his face flushed with annoyance. "What possessed Helen to say such a thing! She ought to have had more sense. Mark my words, that speech of hers will make trouble for Ward. I don't understand how Helen could be so foolish; she was brought up just as Lois was, yet, thank Heaven, her head isn't full of whims about reforming a community. What in the world made her express such an opinion if she had it, and what made her have it?"
Dr. Howe had risen, and walked impatiently up and down the room, and now stood in front of Gifford, with a forefinger raised to emphasize his words. "There is something so absurd, so unpleasant, in a young woman's meddling with things which don't belong to her, in seeing a little mind struggle with ideas. Better a thousand times settle down to look after her household, and cook her husband's dinner, and be a good child."
Lois laughed nervously. "She has a cook," she said.
"Don't be pert, Lois, for Heaven's sake," answered her father, though Miss Deborah had added,—
"Gifford says dear Helen is a very good housekeeper."
"Pray," continued the rector, "what business is it of hers what people believe, or what she believes herself, for that matter, provided she's a good girl, and does her duty in that station of life where it has pleased God to put her,—as the wife of a Presbyterian minister? 'Stead of that she tries to grapple with theological questions, and gets into hot water with the parish. 'Pon my word, I thought better of the child! I'll write and tell her what I think of it." (And so he did, the very next day. But his wrath had expended itself in words, and his letter showed no more of his indignation than the powdery ashes which fell out of it showed the flame of the cigar he was smoking when he wrote it.) "And as for Ward himself," the rector went on, "I don't know what to think of him. Did you know he had given up his salary? Said 'Helen had enough for them to live on,' and added that they had no right to any more money than was necessary for their comfort; anything more than that belonged to the Lord's poor. Bless my soul, the clergyman comes under that head, to my mind. Yes, sir, he's willing to live on his wife! I declare, the fellow's a—a—well, I don't know any word for him!"
There was a chorus of astonishment from the ladies.
"'Christian' would be a pretty good word," said Gifford slowly. "Isn't he following Christ's example rather more literally than most of us?"
"But to live on his wife!" cried Dr. Howe.
"I don't believe," Gifford responded, smiling, "that that would distress John Ward at all."
"Apparently not," said the rector significantly.
"He loves her too much," Gifford went on, "to think of himself apart from her; don't you see? They are one; what difference does it make about the money?"
"Could you do it?" asked Dr. Howe.
"Well, no," Gifford said, shrugging his shoulders; "but then, I'm not John Ward."
"Thank Heaven!" said the rector devoutly.
"But it is a mistake, all the same," Gifford went on; "it is unbusiness-like, to say nothing of being bad for his people to have the burden of support lifted from them; it pauperizes them spiritually."
After the relief of this outburst against John Ward, Dr. Howe felt the inevitable irritation at his hearers. "Well, I only mention this," he said, "because, since he is so strange, it won't do, Gifford, for you to abet Helen in this ridiculous skepticism of hers. If Ward agreed with her, it would be all right, but so long as he does not, it will make trouble between them, and a woman cannot quarrel with an obstinate and bigoted man with impunity. And you have no business to have doubts yourself, sir."
The two sisters were much impressed with what the rector said. "I must really caution Giff," said Miss Deborah to Lois, "not to encourage dear Helen in thinking about things; it's very unfeminine to think, and Gifford is so clever, he doesn't stop to remember she's but a woman. And he is greatly attached to her; dear me, he has never forgotten what might have been,"—this in almost a whisper.
Both the sisters talked of Dr. Howe's anger as they went home.
"He's right," said Miss Deborah, who had dropped her nephew's arm, so that she might be more cautious about the mud, and who lifted her skirt on each side, as though she was about to make a curtsy,—"he's right: a woman ought to think just as her husband does; it is quite wrong in dear Helen not to, and it will bring unhappiness. Indeed, it is a lesson to all of us," she added.
Respect was an instinct with Gifford, and he did not stop to think that it was a lesson by which Miss Deborah would have no opportunity to profit.
But he was not listening closely to the chatter of the little ladies; he was thinking of Lois's indifference. "She even looked bored, once," he thought; "but that does not necessarily mean that she cares for Forsythe. I will trust her. She may never love me, but she will never care for him."
CHAPTER XIV.
The feeling in Lockhaven about Helen Ward's unbelief was not confined to Elder Dean; for every one who knew Mrs. Davis knew what the preacher's wife thought of Tom's salvation, and judged her accordingly. As for the widow herself, the hope Helen had given her quite died out under the fostering care of Elder Dean. She grew more bitter than ever, and refused even to speak on the subject.
"No, ma'am," she said wearily, when Helen went to see her after the funeral,—"no, ma'am, 'tain't no use to talk. Elder Dean's been here, and I know there ain't no good hopin'. Even the preacher don't say there's any good hopin'. What you said was a comfort, ma'am, but 'twasn't true. 'Twasn't religion. It's in the Bible that there's a hell, and there's no use sayin' there isn't; sayin' there isn't won't keep us from it, Elder Dean says, and I guess he's about right. I'm sure I'm much obliged to you, ma'am; but I'm a Christian woman myself, and I can't deny religion."
There was no use arguing; custom and a smattering of logic settled her convictions, and no reasoning could move her dreary hopelessness.
Helen told John of it, her head resting on his breast, and comforted by his mere presence. "I know you believe in hell," she ended, "but, oh, John, it is so horrible!"
He stroked her hair softly. "I am afraid, dearest," he said, "Mrs. Davis is right. I am afraid there is no possibility of hope. The soul that sinneth, it shall die, and shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
Helen sprang to her feet. "Oh," she cried passionately,—"that is just it,—He does do right! Why, if I thought God capable of sending Tom to hell, I should hate Him." John tried to speak, but she interrupted him. "We will never talk of this again, never! Believe what you will, dearest,—it does not matter,—but don't speak of it to me, if you love me. I cannot bear it, John. Promise me."
"Oh, Helen," he said, with tender reproach, "would you have me conceal my deepest life from you? It would seem like living apart, if there were one subject on which we dared not touch. Just let me show you the truth and justice of all this; let me tell you how the scheme of salvation makes the mystery of sin and punishment clear and right."
"No," she said, the flush of pain dying out of her face, but her eyes still shining with unshed tears,—"no, I cannot talk of it. I should be wicked if I could believe it; it would make me wicked. Don't ever speak to me of it, John."
She came and put her arms around him, and kissed his forehead gently; and then she left him to struggle with his conscience, and to ask himself whether his delay had caused this feeling of abhorrence, or whether the waiting had been wise and should be prolonged.
But Helen's words to Mrs. Davis were repeated, and ran from mouth to mouth, with the strangest additions and alterations. Mrs. Ward had said that there was no hell, and no heaven, and no God. What wonder, then, with such a leaven of wickedness at work in the church, Elder Dean grew alarmed, and in the bosom of his own family expressed his opinion of Mrs. Ward, and at prayer-meeting prayed fervently for unbelievers, even though she was not there to profit by it. Once, while saying that the preacher's wife was sowing tares among the wheat, he met with an astonishing rebuff. Alfaretta dared tell her father that he ought to be ashamed of himself to talk that way about a saint and an angel, if ever there was one.
Mr. Dean was staggered; a female, a young female, and his daughter, to dare to say such a thing to him! He opened his mouth several times before he was able to speak.
Alfaretta was at home for her evening out, and her young man was with her, anxious for the clock to point to nine, that he might "see her home." They had intended to leave the elder's early, and wander off for a walk by the river, but prayers were delayed a little, and after that Alfaretta had to listen to the good advice given every week; so Thaddeus lost all hope of the river-walk, and only watched for nine o'clock, when he knew she must start. But in this, too, he was doomed to disappointment, for the outburst which so stunned the elder detained Alfaretta until after ten, thereby causing Helen no little anxiety about her prompt and pretty maid.
The elder had closed his admonitions by warning his daughter not to be listening to any teachings of the preacher's wife, for she was a backslider, and she had fallen from grace. "In the first place," said the elder, laying down the law with uplifted hand, "she's a Episcopalian,—I heard her say that herself, when she first come here; and her letter of dismissal was from a church with some Popish name,—St. Robert or Stephen,—I don't just remember. I've seen one of those churches. Thank the Lord, there isn't one in Lockhaven. They have candles burnin', and a big brass cross. Rags of Popery,—they all belong to the Scarlet Woman, I tell you! But she's a backslider even from that, fer they have some truth; she's a child of the Evil One, with her unbelief!"
This was more than Alfaretta could bear. "Indeed, pa," she cried, "you don't know how good she is, or you wouldn't be sayin' that! Look how she's slaved this winter fer the families that 'a' been in trouble, havin' no work!"
"'Tain't what she's done, Alfaretta," said her father solemnly; "works without faith is of no avail. What says the Scripture? 'A man is justified by faith' (by faith, Alfaretta!) 'without the deeds of the law.' And what says the confession?"
Alfaretta, by force of habit, began to stumble through the answer: "'We cannot by our best works merit pardon of sin, or eternal life at the hand—at the hand—of God, by reason of'"—Here her memory failed her.
"Well," her father said impatiently, "can't you remember the rest? 'Works done by unregenerate men are sinful, and cannot please God,' you know. Go on."
But Alfaretta could not go on, and the elder would not betray his own lack of memory by attempting to quote.
"So you see," he continued, "it isn't any use to talk of how good and kind she is, or what she does; it is what she believes that will settle her eternal salvation."
But Alfaretta was unconvinced. "Well, sir," she said stubbornly, "it don't seem to me that way, fer she's the best woman, except mother, I ever saw. I reckon if anybody goes to heaven, she will; don't you, Thaddeus?"
Thaddeus was tilting back in his chair, his curly black head against the whitewashed wall, and thus suddenly and embarrassingly appealed to—for he was divided between a desire to win the approval of the elder and to show his devotion to Alfaretta—he brought his chair down with a clatter of all four legs on the floor, and looked first at the father and then at the daughter, but did not speak.
"Don't you, Thaddeus?" repeated Alfaretta severely, for the elder was dumb with astonishment.
"Well," said Thaddeus, struggling for some opinion which should please both,—"well, I do suppose we can hope for the best; that isn't against the catechism."
But the elder did not notice his feeble compromise, while Alfaretta only gave him a quick, contemptuous look, for her father, opening and shutting his mouth slowly for a moment, began to say,—
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a child that's ungrateful for the best of teaching and sound doctrine! Many's the time," said the elder, lifting his eyes and hands,—"many's the time I've showed her the truth; many's the time I've explained how every other sort of religion is all wrong, and is of its father the Devil! And I've brought her up faithful to the catechism and the confession, yet now the child would instruct the parent! This comes," he cried, becoming very angry, and beating his hand so violently upon the table that the family Bible fell with a crash to the floor, from which Thaddeus lifted it,—"this comes from your settin' in the seat of the scornful, and bein' in the kitchen of an unbeliever! You'll leave her; do you hear me, Alfaretta? You'll leave her this day month. I'll perform my duty to my child's soul, even if Brother Ward's wife has to do her own cooking. Yes, and I'll do my duty to Brother Ward, too, though I used to think him a pious young man. I'll tell him he has got to convert that woman's soul She's a corrupter of youth, she's a teacher of false doctrines,—her tellin' Mrs. Davis there wasn't any hell!—she's a—a Episcopalian, so she is! She'll experience a change of heart, or the Session will take this matter in hand."
At this terrible threat, even Alfaretta was speechless, and her mother put two shaking hands on her arm, and whispered, "Oh, Retta, I wouldn't say no more; it makes your pa angry."
"Yes," continued the elder violently, "that woman is the Jonah of the church, and she's got to be dealt with; to save her soul, she's got to be disciplined, for the sake of every one that heard her false and lying tongue. I'll have her brought before the Session and showed the truth, and she shall be saved. Tom Davis not in hell, indeed!"
Mr. Dean stopped for breath. Alfaretta's courage came back with a rush.
"Listen to me," cried the young woman, stamping her foot with excitement, for she was as angry as the elder himself,—"listen to me! How can you say such things about her? A saint and angel, if ever there was one. The Lord don't send no one to hell, let alone such as her. An' any way, I'd rather go to the bad place with her than stay with all the golden harps and crowns in the best sort of a heaven with them as would keep her out, so I would!"
Here Alfaretta broke down, and began to cry. Thaddeus could not stand that; he edged up to her, murmuring, "I wouldn't cry, Retta,—I wouldn't cry."
But she only gave the shoulder he touched a vicious shake, and cried harder than ever, saying, "No—I—I bet you wouldn't—you'd never—care."
But Alfaretta's defense changed Mr. Dean's anger at the snub he received from the preacher's wife into real alarm for his child's spiritual welfare. A daughter of his to say the Lord did not send souls to hell!
"Alfaretta," he said, with solemn slowness, "you'd better get your bunnet and go home. I'll see Mr. Ward about this; his wife's done harm enough. You've got to leave her,—I mean it. I won't see her send my child to hell before my very eyes."
"Oh, pa," Alfaretta entreated, choking and sobbing, and brushing her tears away with the back of her hand, "don't,—don't say nothin' to Mr. Ward, nor take me away. 'Twasn't her made me say those things; it was just my own self. Don't take me away."
"Did she ever say anything to you about the Lord not sendin' people to hell?" asked her father.
"Oh," said Alfaretta, growing more and more frightened, "'tain't what she talks about; it's her bein' so good, an'"—
"Did she ever," interrupted the elder, with slow emphasis, standing over her, and shaking his stubby forefinger at her,—"did she ever say the Lord didn't send Tom Davis to hell, to you?"
Alfaretta cowered in her chair, and Thaddeus began to whimper for sympathy. "I don't know," she answered desperately,—"I don't know anything, except she's good."
"Listen to me," said Mr. Dean, in his harsh, monotonous voice: "did Mrs. Ward ever say anything to you about hell, or the Lord's not sendin' people there? Answer me that."
Then the loving little servant-maid, truthful as the blood of Scotch ancestors and a Presbyterian training could make her, faced what she knew would bring remorse, and, for all she could tell, unpardonable sin upon her soul, and said boldly, "No, she never did. She never said one single blessed word to me about hell."
The wind seemed suddenly to leave the elder's sails, but the collapse was only for a moment; even Alfaretta's offering of her first lie upon the altar of her devotion to her mistress was not to save her.
"Well," he said, opening his mouth slowly and looking about with great dignity, "if she hasn't said it to you, she has to other people, I'll be bound. Fer she said it to Mrs. Davis, and"—the elder inflated his chest, and held his head high—"and me. It is my duty as elder to take notice of it, fer her own soul's sake, and to open her husband's eyes, if he's been too blind to see it. Yes, the Session should deal with her. Prayers ain't no good fer such as her," he said, becoming excited. "Ain't she heard my prayers most all winter, till she give up comin' to prayer-meetin', preferrin' to stay outside,
An' I've exhorted; but"—the elder raised his eyes piously to heaven—"Paul may plant and Apollos may water, but it don't do no good."
Alfaretta knew her father's iron will too well to attempt any further protests. She wiped her eyes, and, while she put on a hat adorned with an aggressive white feather, she bade the family good-night in an unsteady voice. Thaddeus, anxious only to escape notice, sidled towards the door, and stood waiting for her, with a deprecating look on his round face.
In spite, however, of the elder's indignation and his really genuine alarm about the influences which surrounded his child, he had a prudent afterthought in the matter of her leaving the service of Mrs. Ward. It was difficult to get anything in Lockhaven for a young woman to do, and times were hard that year.
"You—ah—you needn't give notice to-night, Alfaretta," he said. "I'll speak to the preacher about it, myself. But mind you have as little to say to her as you can, and may the Lord protect you!"
But the elder's plans for cautioning his pastor were doomed to disappointment. He was a prisoner with lumbago for the next fortnight, and even the most sincere interest in some one else's spiritual welfare cannot tempt a man out of the house when he is bent almost double with lumbago. Nor, when John came to see him, could he begin such a conversation as he had planned, for his neck was too stiff to allow him to raise his head and look in Mr. Ward's face. When he recovered, he was delayed still another week, because the preacher had gone away to General Assembly.
But Alfaretta was far too miserable to find in her father's command "not to give notice to-night" any ray of comfort. She choked down her tears as best she might, and started for the parsonage.
Thaddeus had almost to run to keep up with her, such was her troubled and impatient haste, and she scarcely noticed him, though he tramped through the mud to show his contrition, instead of taking his place by her side on the board walk.
It is curious to see how a simple soul inflicts useless punishment upon itself, when the person it has offended refuses to retaliate. Had Alfaretta scolded, Thaddeus would not have walked in the mud.
Her silence was most depressing.
"Retta," he ventured timidly, "don't be mad with me,—now don't."
He came a little nearer, and essayed to put an arm about her waist, a privilege often accorded him on such an occasion. But now she flounced away from him and said sharply, "You needn't be comin' round me, Mr. Thaddeus Green. Anybody that thinks my Mrs. Ward isn't goin' to heaven had just better keep off from me, fer I'm goin' with her, wherever that is; and I suppose, if you think that of me, you'd better not associate with me."
"I didn't say you was goin'," protested Thaddeus tearfully, but she interrupted him with asperity.
"Don't I tell you I'm bound to go where she goes? And if you're so fearful of souls bein' lost, I wonder you don't put all your money in the missionary-box, instead of buying them new boots."
Perhaps it was the thought of the new boots, but Thaddeus stepped on the board walk, and this time, unreproved, slipped his arm about Alfaretta's waist.
"Oh, now Retta," he said, "I didn't mean any harm. I only didn't want the elder thinkin' I wasn't sound, for he'd be sayin' we shouldn't keep company, an' that's all I joined the church for last spring."
"Well, then," said Alfaretta, willing to be reconciled if it brought any comfort, "you do think Mrs. Ward will go to heaven?"
"Yes," Thaddeus answered with great confidence, and added in a burst of gallantry, "She'll have to, Retta, if she goes along with you, for you'll go there sure!"
CHAPTER XV.
Mrs. Forsythe did not come to Ashurst until the middle of April, and then she came alone. Dick had been detained, she said, and would come in a week or two. So Lois breathed freely, though she knew it was only a respite, and made the most of her freedom to go and see his mother.
She was very fond of the invalid, who always seemed to her, in her glowing, rosy health, like an exquisite bit of porcelain, she was so fine and dainty, with soft white hair curling around her gentle and melancholy face. Mrs. Forsythe dressed in delicate grays and lavenders, and her fingers were covered with rings, and generally held some filmy fancy-work. Her invalidism had only given her an air of interesting fragility, which made Lois long to put her strong young arms about her, to shield her lest any wind might blow too roughly upon her.
Mrs. Forsythe accepted her devotion with complacency. She had never had this adoring tenderness from her son, who had heard her remark that she was at the gates of death too often to live in a state of anxiety; but to Lois her gentle resignation and heavenly anticipations were most impressive. The girl's affection almost reconciled the elder lady to having been made to come to Ashurst while the snow still lingered in sheltered spots, and before the crocuses had lighted their golden censers in her garden; for Lois went to see her every day, and though she could not always escape without a meaning look from the invalid, or a sigh for Dick's future, she thoroughly enjoyed her visits. It was charming to sit in the dusk, before the dancing flames of an apple-wood fire, the air fragrant with the hyacinths and jonquils of the window garden, and listen to tales of Mrs. Forsythe's youth.
Lois had never heard such stories. Mrs. Dale would have said it was not proper for young girls to know of love affairs, and it is presumable that the Misses Woodhouse never had any to relate; so this was Lois's first and only chance, and she would sit, clasping her knees with her hands, listening with wide, frank eyes, and cheeks flushed by the fire and the tale.
"But then, my poor health," Mrs. Forsythe ended with a sigh, one evening, just before it was time for Lois to go; "of course it interfered very much."
"Why, were you ill then," Lois said, "when you used to dance all night?"
"Oh, dear me, yes," answered the other shaking her head, "I have been a sufferer all my life, a great sufferer. Well, it cannot last much longer; this poor body is almost worn out."
"Oh, don't say it!" Lois cried, and kissed the white soft hand with its shining rings, in all the tenderness of her young heart.
All this endeared the girl very much, and more than once Mrs. Forsythe wrote of her sweetness and goodness to her son. Miss Deborah, or Miss Ruth, or even Mrs. Dale, would have been careful in using the name of any young woman in writing to a gentleman, but Mrs. Forsythe had not been born in Ashurst.
However, Dick still lingered, and Lois rejoiced, and even her anticipation of the evil time to come, when he should arrive and end her peaceful days, could not check her present contentment. It was almost May, and that subtile, inexplainable joy of the springtime made it a gladness even to be alive. Lois rambled about, hunting for the first green spears of that great army of flowers which would soon storm the garden, and carrying any treasure she might find to Mrs. Forsythe's sick-room. The meadows were spongy with small springs, bubbling up under the faintly green grass. The daffadown-dillies showed bursting yellow buds, and the pallid, frightened-looking violets brought all their mystery of unfolding life to the girl's happy eyes.
One Saturday morning, while she was looking for the bunch of grape hyacinths which came up each year, beside the stone bench, she was especially light-hearted. Word had come from Helen that the long-promised visit should be made the first week in June. "It can only be for a week, you know," Helen wrote, "because I cannot be away from John longer than that, and I must be back for our first anniversary, too."
More than this, Mrs. Forsythe had sighed, and told her that poor dear Dick's business seemed to detain him; it was such a shame! And perhaps he could not get to Ashurst for a fortnight. So Lois Howe was a very happy and contented girl, standing under the soft blue of the April sky, and watching her flock of white pigeons wheeling and circling about the gable of the red barn, while the little stream, which had gained a stronger voice since the spring rains, babbled vociferously at her side. The long, transparent stems of the flowers broke crisply between her fingers, as she heard her name called.
Mr. Denner, with his fishing-basket slung under one arm and his rod across his shoulder, was regarding her through a gap in the hedge.
"A lovely day!" said the little gentleman, his brown eyes twinkling with a pleasant smile.
"Indeed it is, sir," Lois answered; "and look at the flowers I've found!"
She tipped the basket of scented grass on her arm that he might see them. Mr. Denner had stopped to ask if Mrs. Forsythe would be present at the whist party that night, and was rather relieved to learn that she was not able to come; he had lost his hand the week before, because she had arrived with the Dales. Then he inquired about her son's arrival, and went away thinking what a simple matter a love affair was to some people. Lois and that young man! Why, things were really arranged for them; they had almost no responsibility in the matter; their engagement settled itself, as it were.
He walked abstractedly towards his house, wrestling with the old puzzle. Nothing helped him, or threw light on his uncertainty; he was tired of juggling with fate, and was growing desperate.
"I wish they would settle it between themselves," he murmured, with a wistful wrinkle on his forehead. Suddenly a thought struck him; there was certainly one way out of his difficulties: he could ask advice. He could lay the whole matter frankly before some dispassionate person, whose judgment should determine his course. Why had he not thought of it before! Mr. Denner's face brightened; he walked gayly along, and began to hum to himself:—
But near, near, near me,
How fondly wouldst thou cheer me"—
Here he stopped abruptly. Whom should he ask? He went carefully through his list of friends, as he trudged along the muddy road.
Not Dr. Howe: he did not take a serious enough view of such things; Mr. Denner recalled that scene in his office, and his little face burned. Then, there was Mrs. Dale: she was a woman, and of course she would know the real merit of each of the sisters. Stay: Mrs. Dale did not always seem in sympathy with the Misses Woodhouse; he had even heard her say things which were not, perhaps, perfectly courteous; that the sisters had been able to defend themselves, Mr. Denner overlooked. Colonel Drayton: well, a man with the gout is not the confidant for a lover. He was beginning to look depressed again, when the light came. Henry Dale! No one could be better.
Mr. Denner awaited the evening with impatience. He would walk home with the Dales, he thought, and then he and Henry could talk it all over, down in the study.
He was glad when the cool spring night began to close, full of that indefinable fragrance of fresh earth and growing things, and before it was time to start he cheered himself by a little music. He went into the dreary, unused parlor, and pulling up the green Venetian blinds, which rattled like castanets, he pushed back the ivy-fastened shutters, and sat down by the open window; then, with his chin resting upon his fiddle, and one foot in its drab gaiter swinging across his knee, he played mournfully and shrilly in the twilight, until it was time to start.
He saw the Misses Woodhouse trotting toward the rectory, with Sarah walking in a stately way behind them, swinging her unlighted lantern, and cautioning them not to step in the mud. But he made no effort to join them; it was happiness enough to contemplate the approaching solution of his difficulties, and say to himself triumphantly, "This time to-morrow!" and he began joyously to play, "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," rendering carefully all the quavers in that quavering air.
Mr. Denner's meditations made him late at the rectory, and he felt Mrs. Dale look sternly at him; so he made haste to deal, sitting well forward in his chair, under which he tucked his little feet, and putting down each card with nervous care. His large cuffs almost hid his small, thin hands, and now and then he paused to rub his thumb and forefinger together, that the cards might not stick.
But Mr. Denner did not play well that night; Miss Deborah looked at him with mild reproach, and was almost angry when he answered her with an absent smile.
The evening seemed very long to Mr. Denner, and even when the party had said "Good-night" Mr. Dale was slow about getting off; he put his wife into the carriage, and then stopped to ask Dr. Howe if he had the first edition of "Japhet in Search of a Father"?
"In search of a father!" Mr. Denner thought, as he stood waiting by the steps,—"how can he be interested in that?"
At last the front door closed, and Mr. Dale and Mr. Denner walked silently down the lane in the starlight, the lawyer's little heart beating so with excitement, that he had a suffocated feeling, and once or twice put his hand to his throat, as though to loosen his muffler.
Mr. Dale, still absorbed in his first edition, took swinging strides, the tails of his brown cloth overcoat flapping and twisting about his long, thin legs. Mr. Denner had now and then almost to break into a trot to keep up with him.
Mr. Dale walked with his hands clasped behind him, and his stick under his arm; his soft felt hat was pulled down over his eyes, so that his keeping the path was more by chance than sight. He stopped once to pluck a sprig from the hawthorn hedge, to put between his lips. This gave Mr. Denner breath, and a chance to speak.
"I think I will walk home with you, Henry," he said. "I want to have a talk with you."
His heart thumped as he said that; he felt he had committed himself.
"Well, now, that's very pleasant," responded Mr. Dale. "I was just thinking I should be alone half the way home."
"But you would not be alone when you got there," Mr. Denner said meditatively; "now, with me it is different."
"Oh, quite different,—quite different."
"Yes," proceeded the other, "I have very little companionship. I go home and sit in my library all by myself. Sometimes, I get up and wander about the house, with only my cigar for company."
"I suppose," said Mr. Dale, "that you can smoke wherever you want, in your house? I often think of your loneliness; coming and going just as you please, quite independently."
Mr. Denner gave him a sudden questioning look, and then appeared to reproach himself for having misunderstood his friend.
"Yes, just so,—just so. I knew you would appreciate it; but you can never know from experience, Henry, how a man feels left quite to himself. You do not think of the independence; it is the loneliness. You cannot know that."
"No," murmured Mr. Dale, "perhaps not, but I can imagine it."
When they reached the iron gate of Dale house, they followed the trim path across the lawn to the north side of the house, where it ended in a little walk, three bricks wide, laid end to end, and so damp with perpetual shade, they were slippery with green mould, and had tufts of moss between them.
Mr. Dale's study was in a sort of half basement one went down two steps to reach the doorway, and the windows, set in thick stone walls and almost hidden in a tangle of wistaria, were just above the level of the path.
The two old men entered, Mr. Dale bending his tall white head a little; and while the lawyer unwound a long blue muffler from about his throat, the host lighted a lamp, and, getting down on his knees, blew the dim embers in the rusty grate into a flickering blaze. Then he pulled a blackened crane from the jamb, and hung on it a dinted brass kettle, so that he might add some hot water to Mr. Denner's gin and sugar, and also make himself a cup of tea. That done, he took off his overcoat, throwing it across the mahogany arm of the horse-hair sofa, which was piled with books and pamphlets, and whitened here and there with ashes from his silver pipe; then he knotted the cord of his flowered dressing-gown about his waist, spread his red silk handkerchief over his thin locks, and, placing his feet comfortably upon the high fender, was ready for conversation.
Mr. Denner, meanwhile, without waiting for the formality of an invitation, went at once to a small corner closet, and brought out a flat, dark bottle and an old silver cup. He poured the contents of the bottle into the cup, added some sugar, and lastly, with a sparing hand, the hot water, stirring it round and round with the one teaspoon which they shared between them.
Mr. Dale had produced a battered caddy, and soon the fumes of gin and tea mingled amicably together.
"If I could always have such evenings as this," Mr. Denner thought, sipping the hot gin and water, and crossing his legs comfortably, "I should not have to think of—something different."
"Your wife would appreciate what I meant about loneliness," he said, going back to what was uppermost in his mind. "A house without a mistress at its head, Henry, is—ah—not what it should be."
The remark needed no reply; and Mr. Dale leaned back in his leather chair, dreamily watching the blue smoke from his slender pipe drift level for a moment, and then, on an unfelt draught, draw up the chimney.
Mr. Denner, resting his mug on one knee, began to stir the fire gently. "Yes, Henry," he continued, "I feel it more and more as I grow older. I really need—ah—brightness and comfort in my house. Yes, I need it. And even if I were not interested, as it were, myself, I don't know but what my duty to Willie should make me—ah—think of it."
Mr. Dale was gazing at the fire. "Think of what?" he said.
Mr. Denner became very much embarrassed. "Why, what I was just observing, just speaking of,—the need of comfort—in my house—and my life, I might say. Less loneliness for me, Henry, and, in fact, a—person—a—a female—you understand."
Mr. Dale looked at him.
"In fact, as I might say, a wife, Henry."
Mr. Dale was at last aroused; with his pipe between his lips, he clutched the lion's-heads on the arms of his chair, and sat looking at Mr. Denner in such horrified astonishment, that the little gentleman stumbled over any words, simply for the relief of speaking.
"Yes," he said, "just so, Henry, just so. I have been thinking of it lately, perhaps for the last year; yes—I have been thinking of it."
Mr. Dale, still looking at him, made an inarticulate noise in his throat.
Mr. Denner's face began to show a faint dull red to his temples. "Ah—yes—I—I have thought of it, as it were."
"Denner," said Mr. Dale solemnly, "you're a fool."
"If you mean my age, Henry," cried the other, his whole face a dusky crimson, that sent the tears stinging into his little brown eyes, "I cannot say I think your—surprise—is—ah—justified. It is not as though there was anything unsuitable—she—they—are quite my age. And for Willie's sake, I doubt if it is not a—a duty. And I am only sixty-one and a half, Henry. You did not remember, perhaps, that I was so much younger than you?"
Mr. Dale pulled off his red handkerchief, and wiped his forehead; after which he said quite violently, "The devil!"
"Oh," remonstrated Mr. Denner, balancing his mug on his knee, and lifting his hands deprecatingly, "not such words, Henry,—not such words; we are speaking of ladies, Henry."
Mr. Dale was silent.
"You have no idea," the other continued, "in your comfortable house, with a good wife, who makes you perfectly happy, how lonely a man is who lives as I do; and I can tell you, the older he grows, the more he feels it. So really, age is a reason for considering it."
"I was not thinking of age," said Mr. Dale feebly.
"Well, then," replied the other triumphantly, "age is the only objection that could be urged. A man is happier and better for female influence; and the dinners I have are really not—not what they should be, Henry. That would all be changed, if I had a—ah—wife."
"Denner," said his friend, "there are circumstances where a dinner of herbs is more to be desired than a stalled ox, you will remember."
"That is just how I feel," said the other eagerly, and too much interested in his own anxieties to see Mr. Dale's point. "Mary is not altogether amiable."
Again Mr. Dale was silent.
"I knew you would see the—the—desirability of it," the lawyer continued, the flush of embarrassment fading away, "and so I decided to ask your advice. I thought that, not only from your own—ah—heart, but from the novels and tales you read, you would be able to advise me in any matter of esteem."
Mr. Dale groaned, and shook his head from side to side.
"But, good Lord, Denner, books are one thing, life's another. You can't live in a book, man."
"Just so," said Mr. Denner, "just so; but I only want the benefit of your experience in reading these tales of—ah—romance. You see, here is my trouble, Henry,—I cannot make up my mind."
"To do it?" cried Mr. Dale, with animation.
But Mr. Denner interrupted him with a polite gesture. "No, I shall certainly do it, I did not mean to mislead you. I shall certainly do it, but I cannot make up my mind which."
"Which?" said Mr. Dale vaguely.
"Yes," answered the little gentleman, "which. Of course you know that I refer to the Misses Woodhouse. You must have noticed my attentions of late, for I have shown a great deal of attention to both; it has been very marked. Yet, Henry, I cannot tell which (both are such estimable persons) which I—should—ah—prefer. And knowing your experience, a married man yourself, and your reading on such subjects,—novels are mostly based upon esteem,—I felt sure you could advise me."
A droll look came into Mr. Dale's face, but he did not speak.
Feeling that he had made a clean breast of it, and that the responsibility of choice was shifted to his friend's shoulders, the lawyer, taking a last draught from the silver mug, and setting it down empty on the table, leaned comfortably back in his chair to await the decision.
There was a long silence; once Mr. Denner broke it by saying, "Of course, Henry, you see the importance of careful judgment," and then they were still again.
At last, Mr. Dale, with a long sigh, straightened up in his chair. He lifted his white fluted china tea-cup, which had queer little chintz-like bunches of flowers over it and a worn gilt handle, and took a pinch of tea from the caddy; then, pouring some boiling water over it, he set it on the hob to steep.
"Denner," he said slowly, "which advice do you want? Whether to do it at all, or which lady to choose?"
"Which lady, of course," answered Mr. Denner promptly. "There can be but one opinion as to the first question."
"Ah," responded Mr. Dale; then, a moment afterwards, he added, "Well"—
Mr. Denner looked at his friend, with eyes shining with excitement. "It is very important to me, Henry," he said, with a faltering voice. "You will keep that in mind, I am sure. They are both so admirable, and yet—there must be some choice. Miss Deborah's housekeeping—you know there's no such cooking in Ashurst; and she's very economical. But then, Miss Ruth is artistic, and"—here a fine wavering blush crept over his little face—"she is—ah—pretty, Henry. And the money is equally divided," he added, with a visible effort to return to practical things.
"I know. Yes, it's very puzzling. On the whole, Denner, I do not see how I can advise you."
Mr. Denner seemed to suffer a collapse.
"Why, Henry," he quavered, "you must have an opinion?"
"No," Mr. Dale answered thoughtfully, "I cannot say that I have. Now, I put it to you, Denner: how could I decide on the relative merits of Miss Ruth and Miss Deborah, seeing that I have no affection, only respect, for either of them? Affection! that ought to be your guide. Which do you have most affection for?"
"Why, really"—said Mr. Denner, "really"—and he stopped to think, looking hard at the seal ring on his left hand—"I am afraid it is just the same, if you call it affection. You see that doesn't help us."
He had identified Mr. Dale's interest with his own anxiety, and looked wistfully at the older man, who seemed sunk in thought and quite forgetful of his presence. Mr. Denner put one hand to his lips and gave a little cough. Then he said:—
"One would think there would be a rule about such things, some acknowledged method; a proverb, for instance; it would simplify matters very much."
"True," said Mr. Dale.
"Yes," Mr. Denner added, "you would think in such a general thing as marriage there would be. Complications like this must constantly arise. What if Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth had another sister? Just see how confused a man might be. Yes, one would suppose the wisdom of experience would take the form of an axiom. But it hasn't."
He sighed deeply, and rose, for it was late, and the little fire had burned out.
Mr. Dale bent forward, with his elbows on his lean knees, and gently knocked the ashes from his silver pipe. Then he got up, and, standing with his back to the cold grate, and the tails of his flowered dressing-gown under each arm in a comfortable way, he looked at the lawyer, with his head a little on one side, as though he were about to speak. Mr. Denner noticed it.
"Ah, you cannot make any suggestion, Henry?"
"Well," said Mr. Dale, "it seems to me I had a thought—a sort of a proverb, you might say—but it slips my memory."
Mr. Denner, with his overcoat half on, stood quite still, and trembled.
"It is something about how to make up your mind," Mr. Dale continued, very slowly; "let me see."
"How to make up your mind?" cried Mr. Denner. "That's just the thing! I'm sure, that's just the thing! And we cannot but have the greatest confidence in proverbs. They are so eminently trustworthy. They are the concentrated wisdom—of—of the ages, as it were. Yes, I should be quite willing to decide the matter by a proverb."
He looked at Mr. Dale eagerly, but this especial piece of wisdom still eluded the older man.
"It begins," said Mr. Dale, hesitating, and fixing his eyes upon the ceiling,—"it begins—let me see. 'When in doubt'—ah"—
"What is it?" gasped Mr. Denner. "That has a familiar sound, but I cannot seem to finish it. When in doubt, what?"
"Well," answered his friend ruefully, "it is not quite—it does not exactly apply. I am afraid it won't; help us out. You know the rest. It is merely—'take the trick'!"
CHAPTER XVI.
The morning after John Ward's return from his two weeks' absence at General Assembly, he found it hard to settle down to work. Not that there was very much to talk about, for daily letters had told of daily doings, but to be with Helen again was an absorbing joy. She followed him about as he put his papers away, and he, in turn, came out into the garden to watch her while she showed Alfaretta where to plant some flower seeds.
"Come over here," Helen said, "and see these violets under the big elm! I have been so in hopes they would blossom in time to welcome you. Let's pick some for the study."
They pushed the shining, wet leaves aside, and found the flowers, and then John watched his wife put them in a shallow dish on his table.
"It is weak in me to come in here," Helen said, smiling. "I know you ought to work, yet here I sit."
"This is Thursday," he answered, "and I wrote my sermon on the train yesterday, so after I have copied the reports I can afford to be lazy. I cannot bear to have you out of my sight!" He drew her brown head down on his shoulder, and stroked her face softly. "When I'm away from you, Helen, I seem only half alive."
"And in three weeks I have to go to Ashurst," she said ruefully. "It is too bad I couldn't have gone while you were at General Assembly, but it wouldn't have been right for us both to be away from the parsonage at once."
"No. Well, we have the three weeks yet. Yes, I must send you away, and get at the reports. How you brighten this room, Helen! I think it must be the sunshine that seems caught in your hair. It gleams like bronze oak-leaves in October."
"Love has done wonderful things for your eyes, John," she said, smiling, as she left him.
She put on her heavy gloves and brought her trowel from under the front porch, and she and the maid began to dig up the fresh, damp earth on the sunny side of the house.
"We'll have some sweet-peas here, Alfaretta," she said cheerily, "and I think it would be nice to let the nasturtiums run over that log, don't you? And you must plant these morning-glory seeds around the kitchen windows." Suddenly she noticed that Alfaretta, instead of listening, was gazing down the road, and her round freckled face flushing hotly.
"He sha'n't come in," she muttered,—"he sha'n't come in!" and dropping the hammer, and the box of tacks, and the big ball of twine, she hurried to the gate, her rough hands clinched into two sturdy fists.
Helen looked towards the road, and saw Mr. Dean come stiffly up to the gate, for lumbago was not altogether a memory. Alfaretta reached it as he did, and as she stooped to lean her elbows on its top bar she slipped the latch inside.
"Alfaretta," said her father pompously, "open the gate, if you please." As he spoke, he rapped upon it with his heavy stick, and the little latch clattered and shook.
"Were you coming to see me, pa?" the girl asked nervously. "I—I'm busy this morning. It's my night out, so I'll see you this evenin'."
"Yes, I'll see you," returned Mr. Dean significantly, "but not now. I didn't come to see you now; I'm here to see the preacher, Alfaretta. Come, don't keep me out here in the sun," he added impatiently, shaking the gate again.
"I guess he's too busy to see you this morning,—he's awful busy."
"I guess he's not too busy to see me," said the elder.
Alfaretta's face was white now, but she still stood barring the gateway. "Well, you can't see him, anyhow;" her voice had begun to tremble, and Mrs. Ward, who had joined them, said, with a surprised look,—
"Why, what do you mean, Alfaretta? Of course Mr. Ward will see your father. I hope your lumbago is better, Elder Dean?"
Mr. Dean did not notice her question. "Certainly he will see me. Come, now, open the gate; be spry."
"You can't see him!" cried Alfaretta, bursting into tears. "I say he won't see you, so there!"
Her mistress looked at her in astonishment, but her father put his big hand over the gate, and, wrenching the little latch open, strode up to the front door of the parsonage.
Helen and her maid looked at each other; Alfaretta's face working convulsively to keep back the tears, and her mistress's eyes full of disapproval.
"Why did you say that, Alfaretta?" she said. "It was not true; you knew Mr. Ward could see your father." Then she turned back to her planting.
Alfaretta followed her, and, kneeling down by the border, began to grub at the intruding blades of grass, stopping to put her hand up to her eyes once in a while, which made her face singularly streaked and muddy.
"What is the matter, Alfaretta?" Helen asked, at last, coldly. She did not mean to be unkind, but she was troubled at the girl's untruthfulness.
Alfaretta wailed.
"Tell me," Helen said, putting her hand lightly on her shoulder. "Are you crying because you said what was not true?"
"'T ain't that!" sobbed Alfaretta.
"I wish, then, you would either stop, or go into the house." Helen's voice was stern, and Alfaretta looked at her with reproachful eyes; then covering her face with her hands, she rocked backwards and forwards, and wept without restraint.
"I'm afraid—I'm afraid he's going to take me away from here!"
"Take you away?" Helen said, surprised. "Why? Is the work too hard?"
"No—no ma'am," Alfaretta answered, choking.
"I'll go and see him at once," Helen said.
"Oh, no!" Alfaretta cried, catching her mistress's skirt with grimy hands, "don't go; 't won't do any good."
"Don't be foolish," Helen remonstrated, smiling; "of course I must speak to him. If your father thinks there is too much work, he must tell me, and I will arrange it differently."
She stooped, and took the hem of her cambric gown from between the girl's fingers, and then went quickly into the house.
She rapped lightly at the study door. "John, I must come in a moment, please."
She heard a chair pushed back, and John's footstep upon the floor. He opened the door, and stood looking at her with strange, unseeing eyes.
"Go away, Helen," he said hoarsely, without waiting for her to speak, for she was dumb with astonishment at his face,—"go away, my darling."
He put out one hand as if to push her back, and closed the door, and she heard the bolt pushed. She stood a moment staring at the blank of the locked door. What could it mean? Alfaretta's misery and morals were forgotten; something troubled John,—she had no thought for anything else. She turned away as though in a dream, and began absently to take off her garden hat. John was in some distress. She went up-stairs to her bedroom, and tried to keep busy with sewing until she could go to him, but she was almost unconscious of what she did. How long, how very long, the morning was!
John had looked up from his writing to see Mr. Dean standing in the doorway.
"Good-morning," he said cordially, as he rose to give his hand to his elder. "I am glad to see you. How have things gone since I have been away?"
But Mr. Dean seemed to have nothing special to report, and let the preacher tell him of General Assembly, while, embarrassed and very uncomfortable, he sat twisting his hat round and round in his big, rough hands.
A bar of sunshine from the south window crept across the floor, and touched the low dish of violets on the table, and then John's face, making a sudden golden glint in his gentle dark eyes.
"Mr. Ward," the elder said, at last, opening his mouth once or twice before he began to speak, "I have a distress on my mind. I think the Spirit of the Lord's driven me to tell you of it."
"Are you in any trouble, my friend?" The tired look which had fallen upon John's face as he put down his pen was gone in a moment. "I am glad, then, I was not away any longer. I trust sickness has not come to your family?"
"No, sir," answered the other solemnly, "not sickness of body. What does the Good Book say to the Christian? 'He shall give his angels charge over thee.' No, I'm mercifully preserved from sickness; for, as for me and my house, we serve the Lord. My lumbago was bad while you was away; but it's better, I'm thankful to say. Sickness of the soul, Mr. Ward,—that is what is truly awful."
"I hope you are not feeling the power of Satan in doubts?" John said anxiously. "Such sickness of the soul is indeed worse than any which can come to the body."
"No," replied the elder, "no, my feet are fixed. I know whom I have believed. I have entered into the hidden things of God. I am not afraid of doubt, ever. Yet what a fearful thing doubt is, Brother Ward!"
"It is, indeed," John replied humbly. "Through the mercy of God, I have never known its temptation. He has kept me from ever questioning truth."
"What a terrible thing it would be," said Mr. Dean, beginning to forget his awkwardness, "if doubt was to grow up in any heart, or in any family, or in any church! I've sometimes wondered if, of late, you had given us enough sound doctrine in the pulpit, sir? The milk of the Word we can get out of the Bible for ourselves, but doctrines, they ain't to be found in Holy Writ as they'd ought to be preached."
John looked troubled. He knew the rebuke was merited. "I have feared my sermons were, as you say, scarcely doctrinal enough. Yet I have instructed you these six years in points of faith, and I felt it was perhaps wiser to turn more to the tenderness of God as it is in Christ. And I cannot agree with you that the doctrines are not in the Bible, Mr. Dean."
"Well," the elder admitted, "of course. But not so he that runs may read, or that the wayfaring man will not err therein. There is some folks as would take 'God is love' out of the Good Book, and forget 'Our God is a consuming fire.'"
John bent his head on his hand for a moment, and drove his mind back to his old arguments for silence. Neither of the men spoke for a little while, and then John said, still without raising his head:—
"Do you feel that this—neglect of mine has been of injury to any soul? It is your duty to tell me."
It was here that Helen's knock came, and when John had taken his seat again he looked his accuser straight in the eyes.
"Do you?" he said.
"Sir," answered the elder, "I can't say. I ain't heard that it has—and yet—I'm fearful. Yet I didn't come to reproach you for that. You have your reasons for doing as you did, no doubt. But what I did come to do, preacher, was to warn you that there was a creepin' evil in the church; and we need strong doctrine now, if we ain't before. And I came the quicker to tell you, sir, because it's fastened on my own household. Yes, on my own child!"
"Your own child?" John said. "You have nothing to fear for Alfaretta; she is a very good, steady girl."
"She's good enough and she's steady enough," returned Mr. Dean, shaking his head; "and oh, Mr. Ward, when she joined the church, two years ago, there wasn't anybody (joinin' on profession) better grounded in the faith than she was. She knew her catechism through and through, and she never asked a question or had a doubt about it in her life. But now,—now it's different!"
"Do you mean," John asked, "that her faith is shaken,—that she has doubts? Such times are apt to come to very young Christians, though they are conscious of no insincerity, and the doubts are but superficial. Has she such doubts?"
"She has, sir, she has," cried the elder, "and it breaks my heart to see my child given over to the Evil One!"
"No, no," John said tenderly; "if she is one of the elect,—and we have reason to hope she is,—she will persevere. Remember, for your comfort, the perseverance of the saints. But how has this come about? Is it through any influence?"