John Ward, Preacher

Why the Misses Woodhouse, and Mr. Dale, and Mr. Denner should go to the rectory for their Saturday night games of whist was never very clear to any of them. The rector did not understand the game, he said, and it was perhaps to learn that he watched every play so closely. Lois, of course, had no part in it, for Mrs. Dale was always ready to take a hand, if one of the usual four failed. Mrs. Dale was too impatient to play whist from choice, but she enjoyed the consciousness of doing a favor.

Lois's only occupation was to be useful. Ashurst was strangely behind the times in thinking that it was a privilege, as it ought to be a pleasure, for young people to wait upon their elders and betters.

True, Mr. Denner, with old-fashioned politeness, always offered his services when Lois went for the wine and cake at close of the rubber; but the little gentleman would have been conscious of distinct surprise had she accepted them, for Lois, in his eyes, was still a little girl. This was perhaps because Mr. Denner, at sixty-two, did not realize that he had ceased to be, as he would have expressed it, "a gentleman in middle life." He had no landmarks of great emotions to show him how far the sleepy years had carried him from his youth; and life in Ashurst was very placid. There were no cases to try; property rarely went out of families which had held it when Mr. Denner's father wrote their wills and drew up their deeds in the same brick office which his son occupied now, and it was a point of decency and honor that wills should not be disputed.

Yet Mr. Denner felt that his life was full of occupation. He had his practicing in the dim organ-loft of St. Michael's and All Angels; and every day when dinner was over, his little nephew slipped from his chair, and stood with his hands behind him to recite his rego regere; then there were always his flies and rods to keep in order against the season when he and the rector started on long fishing tramps; and in the evenings, when Willie had gone to bed, and his cook was reading "The Death Beds of Eminent Saints" by the kitchen fire, Mr. Denner worked out chess problems by himself in his library, or read Cavendish and thought of next Saturday; and besides all this, he went once a week to Mercer, and sat waiting for clients in a dark back office, while he studied his weekly paper.

But though there seemed plenty to do, sometimes Mr. Denner would sigh, and say to himself that it was somewhat lonely, and Mary was certainly severe. He supposed that was because she had no mistress to keep an eye on her.

These weekly games of whist were a great pleasure to him. The library at the rectory was cheerful, and there was a feeling of importance in playing a game at which the rector and Mrs. Dale only looked on. It was understood that the gentlemen might smoke, though the formality of asking permission of the ladies, and being urged by them, always took place. Mr. Denner's weekly remark to the Misses Woodhouse in this connection, as he stood ready to strike a match on the hearth of the big fireplace, was well known. "When ladies," he would say, bowing to each sister in turn, with his little heels close together and his toes turned well out,—"when ladies are so charitable to our vices, we will not reform, lest we lose the pleasure of being forgiven." Mr. Denner smoked a cigar, but Mr. Dale always drew from his pocket a quaint silver pipe, very long and slender, and with an odd suggestion of its owner about it; for he was tall and frail, and his thin white hair, combed back from his mild face, had a silvery gleam in the lamplight. Often the pipe would be between the pages of a book, from the leaves of which Lois would have to shake the loose ashes before putting it back in his pocket.

The whist party sat in high-backed chairs about a square mahogany table, whose shining top betokened much muscle on the part of Sally. At each corner was a candle in a tall silver candlestick, because Miss Deborah objected to a shadow on the board, which would have been cast by a hanging lamp. The August night was hot, and doors and windows were open for any breath of air that might be stirring in the dark garden. Max had retreated to the empty fireplace, finding the bricks cooler than the carpeted floor. All was very still, save when the emphatic sweep of a trump card made the candle flames flicker. But the deals were a diversion. Then the rector, who had tiptoed about, to look over the shoulder of each player, might say, "You didn't answer Miss Ruth's call, Denner;" or, "Bless my soul, Dale, what made you play a ten-spot on that second hand round? You ought not to send a boy to take a trick, sir!"

It was in one of these pauses that Mrs. Dale, drawing a shining knitting-needle out of her work, said, "I suppose you got my message this morning, brother, that Arabella Forsythe didn't feel well enough to come to-night? I told her she should have Henry's place, but she said she wasn't equal to the excitement." Mrs. Dale gave a careful laugh; she did not wish to make Mrs. Forsythe absurd in the eyes of one person present.

"You offered her my place, my dear?" Mr. Dale asked, turning his blue eyes upon her. "I didn't know that, but it was quite right."

"Of course it was," replied Mrs. Dale decidedly, while the rector said, "Yes, young Forsythe said you sent him to say so."

Mrs. Dale glanced at Lois, sitting in one of the deep window-seats, reading, with the lamplight shining on her pretty face.

"I asked him to come," continued the rector, "but he said he must not leave his mother; she was not feeling well."

"Quite right, very proper," murmured the rest of the party; but Mrs. Dale added, "As there's no conversation, I'm afraid it would have been very stupid; I guess he knew that. And I certainly should not have allowed Henry to give up his seat to him." As she said this, she looked at Mr. Denner, who felt, under that clear, relentless eye, his would have been the seat vacated, if Dick Forsythe had come. Mr. Denner sighed; he had no one to protect him, as Dale had.

"I wonder," said Miss Deborah, who was sorting her cards, and putting all the trumps at the right side, "what decided Mr. Forsythe to spend the summer here? I understood that his mother took the house in Ashurst just because he was going to be abroad."

Mrs. Dale nodded her head until her glasses glistened, and looked at Lois, but the girl's eyes were fastened upon her book.

"I think," remarked Mr. Dale, hesitating, and then glancing at his wife, "he is rather a changeable young man. He has one view in the morning, and another in the afternoon."

"Don't be so foolish, Henry," said his wife sharply. "I hope there's nothing wrong in the young man finding his own country more attractive than Europe? To change his mind in that way is very sensible." But this was in a hushed voice, for Mr. Denner had led, and the room was silent again.

At the next deal, Miss Deborah looked sympathetically at Mr. Dale. "I think he is changeable," she said; "his own mother told me that she was constantly afraid he'd marry some unsuitable young woman, and the only safety was that he would see a new one before it became too serious. She said it really told upon her health. Dear me, I should think it might."

Mrs. Dale tossed her head, and her knitting-needles clicked viciously; then she told Lois that this was the rubber, and she had better see to the tray. The young girl must have heard every word they said, though she had not lifted her bright eyes from her book, but she did not seem disturbed by the charge of fickleness on the part of Mr. Forsythe. He had not confided to her his reasons for not going abroad; all she knew was that the summer was the merriest one she had ever spent. "I feel so young," little Lois said; and indeed she had caught a certain careless gayety from her almost daily companion, which did not belong to Ashurst. But she gave no thought to his reason for staying, though her father and Mrs. Dale did, and with great satisfaction.

"What do you hear from Helen, brother?" Mrs. Dale asked, as Lois rose to do her bidding. Mrs. Dale was determined to leave the subject of Dick Forsythe, "for Henry has so little sense," she thought, "there is no knowing what he'll say next, or Deborah Woodhouse either. But then, one couldn't expect anything else of her."

"Ah,—she's all right," said Dr. Howe, frowning at Miss Ruth's hand, and then glancing at Mr. Dale's, and thrusting out his lower lip, while his bushy eyebrows gathered in a frown.

"What is Ward?" asked Mr. Dale, sorting his cards. "Old or new school?"

"I'm sure I don't know the difference," said Dr. Howe; "he's a blue Presbyterian, though, through and through. He didn't have much to say for himself, but what he did say made me believe he was consistent; he doesn't stop short where his creed ceases to be agreeable, and you know that is unusual."

"Well," remarked the older man, "he might be consistent and belong to either school. I am told the difference consists merely in the fact that the old school have cold roast beef on the Sabbath, and the new school have hot roast beef on Sunday. But doubtless both unite on hell for other sects."

The rector's quick laugh was silenced by the game, but at the next pause he hastened to tell them what John Ward had said of slavery. "Fancy such a speech!" he cried, his face growing red at the remembrance. "Under the circumstances, I couldn't tell him what I thought of him; but I had my opinion. I wonder," he went on, rattling a bunch of keys in his pocket, "what would be the attitude of a mind like his in politics? Conservative to the most ridiculous degree, I imagine. Of course, to a certain extent, it is proper to be conservative. I am conservative myself; I don't like to see the younger generation rushing into things because they are new, like Gifford,—calling himself a Democrat. I beg your pardon, Miss Deborah, for finding fault with the boy."

"Ah, doctor, ladies don't understand politics," answered Miss Deborah politely.

"But really," said the rector, "for a boy whose father died for the Union, it's absurd, you know, perfectly absurd. But Ward! one can't imagine that he would ever change in anything, and that sort of conservatism can be carried too far."

"Well, now," said Mr. Denner, "I should say, I should be inclined to think, it would be just the opposite, quite—quite the contrary. From what you say, doctor, it seems to me more likely that he might be an anarchist, as it were. Yes, not at all a conservative."

"How so?" asked the rector. "A man who would say such a thing as that the Bible, his interpretation of it, was to decide all questions of duty (a pretty dangerous thing that, for a man must have inclinations of his own, which would be sure to color his interpretation! What?), and who would bring all his actions down to its literal teachings without regard to more modern needs? No, Denner; you are wrong there."

"Not altogether," Mr. Dale demurred in his gentle voice. "Ward would believe in a party only so long as it agreed with his conscience, I should suppose, and his conscience might make him—anything. And certainly the Bible test would not leave him content with democracy, doctor. Communism is literal Christianity. I can fancy he would leave any party, if he thought its teachings were not supported by the Bible. But I scarcely know him; my opinion is very superficial."

"Why do you express it, then?" said Mrs. Dale. "Don't you see Deborah has led? You are keeping the whole table waiting!"

They began to play. Mr. Denner, who was facing the open door, could see the square hall, and the white stair-rail across the first landing, where with the moon and stars about its face, the clock stood; it was just five minutes to nine. This made the lawyer nervous; he played a low trump, in spite of the rector's mutter of, "Look out, Denner!" and thus lost the trick, which meant the rubber, so he threw down his cards in despair. He had scarcely finished explaining that he meant to play the king, but threw the knave by mistake, when Lois entered, followed by Sally with the big tray, which always carried exactly the same things: a little fat decanter, with a silver collar jingling about its neck, marked, Sherry, '39; a plate of ratifia cakes, and another of plum-cake for the rector's especial delectation; and a silver wire basket full of home-made candy for Mr. Dale, who had two weaknesses, candy and novels. Of late Mrs. Dale had ceased to inveigh against these tastes, feeling that it was hopeless to look for reformation in a man nearly seventy years old. "It is bad manners," she said, "to do foolish things if they make you conspicuous. But then! it is easier to change a man's creed than his manners."

The candles stood in a gleaming row on the mantelpiece, where Lois had placed them to make room for the tray on the whist-table; for it was useless to think of putting anything on the rector's writing-table, with its litter of church papers, and sporting journals, and numbers of Bell's "Life," besides unanswered letters. The ladies, still sitting in the high-backed chairs, spread white doilies over their laps, and then took their small glasses of wine and delicate little cakes, but the gentlemen ate and drank standing, and they all discussed the last game very earnestly. Only Lois, waiting by the tray, ready to hand the cake, was silent. It was a peculiarity of Ashurst that even after childhood had passed young people were still expected to be seen, and not heard; so her silence would only have been thought decorous, had any one noticed it. By and by, when she saw she was not needed, she slipped out to the front porch, and sat down on the steps. Max followed her, and thrust his cold nose under her hand.

She propped her chin upon her little fist, and began to think of what had been said of Ashurst's visitors. With a thrill of subtile satisfaction, she remembered how pleased Mrs. Forsythe always was to see her. "She won't have any anxiety this summer which will injure her health!" And then she tried to disguise her thought by saying to herself that there were no girls in Ashurst who were not "suitable."

"Good-evening," some one said gayly. It was Mr. Forsythe, who had come so quietly along the path, dark with its arching laburnums and syringas, she had not heard him.

"Oh," she said, with a little start of surprise, "I did not know we were to see you to-night. Is your mother"—

"I'm like the man in the Bible," he interrupted, laughing. "He said he wouldn't, then he did!" He had followed her to the library, and stood, smiling, with a hand on each side of the doorway. "I started for a walk, doctor, and somehow I found myself here. No cake, thank you,—yes, I guess I'll have some sherry. Oh, the whist is over. Who is to be congratulated, Mrs. Dale? For my part, I never could understand the fascination of the game. Euchre is heavy enough for me. May I have some of Mr. Dale's candy, Miss Lois?"

Except Mrs. Dale, the little party of older people seemed stunned by the quick way in which he talked. His airy manner and flimsy wit impressed them with a sense of his knowledge of life. He represented the world to them, the World with a capital W, and they were all more or less conscious of a certain awe in his presence. His utter disregard of the little observances and forms which were expected from Ashurst young people gave them a series of shocks, that were rather pleasant than otherwise.

Mr. Dale looked confused, and handed him the candy with such nervous haste, some of it fell to the floor, which gave the young man a chance for his frequent light laugh. Miss Deborah began in an agitated way to pick up the crumbs of cake from her lap, and ask her sister if she did not think Sarah had come for them. Mr. Denner stopped talking about a new sort of fly for trout, and said he thought—yes, he really thought, he had better be going, but he waited to listen with open-mouthed admiration to the ease with which the young fellow talked.

Mr. Forsythe's conversation was directed to Mrs. Dale, but it was for Lois; nor did he seem aware of the silence which fell on the rest of the company. Mrs. Dale enjoyed it. She answered by nods, and small chuckles of approval, and frequent glances about at the others, as much as to say, "Do you hear that? Isn't that bright?" and a certain air of proprietorship, which meant that she thoroughly approved of Mr. Forsythe, and regarded him as her own discovery.

"This is the time we miss Gifford," said Miss Deborah, who had gone out into the hall to put on her overshoes. "He was such a useful child." Lois came to help her, for Mr. Denner was far too timid to offer assistance, and the rector too stout, and Mr. Dale too absent-minded. As for Mr. Forsythe, he did not notice how Miss Deborah was occupied, until Lois had joined her; and then his offer was not accepted, for Miss Deborah felt shy about putting out her foot in its black kid slipper, tied about the ankle with a black ribbon, in the presence of this young man, who was, she was sure, very genteel.

Mr. Forsythe's call was necessarily a short one, for, charming as he was, Ashurst custom would not have permitted him to stay when the party had broken up. However, he meant to walk along with the Dales, and hear her aunt talk about Lois.

The Misses Woodhouse's maid was waiting for them, her lantern swinging in her hand. Mr. Denner had secretly hoped for a chance of "seeing them home," but dared not offer his unnecessary services in Sarah's presence.

Dr. Howe and his daughter went as far as the gate with their guests, and then stood watching them down the lane, until a turn in the road hid the glimmer of the lantern and the dark figures beside it.

"Bless my soul!" said the rector, as they turned to go back to the house. "This gayety has made me almost forget my sermon. I must not put it off so, next week."

This remark of Dr. Howe's was almost as regular as the whist party itself.

Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth trotted behind Sarah, whose determined stride kept them a little ahead of the others; Dick Forsythe had joined Mrs. Dale at once, so Mr. Dale and Mr. Denner walked together. They were only far enough behind to have the zest one feels in talking about his neighbors when there is danger of being overheard.

"He is a very fine conversationalist," said Mr. Denner, nodding his head in Dick's direction; "he talks very well."

"He talks a great deal," observed Mr. Dale.

"He seems to feel," Mr. Denner continued, "no—ah, if I can so express it—timidity."

"None," responded Mr. Dale.

"And I judge he has seen a great deal of the world," said Mr. Denner; "yet he appears to be satisfied with Ashurst, and I have sometimes thought, Henry, that Ashurst is not, as it were, gay." As he said this, a certain jauntiness came into his step, as though he did not include himself among those who were not "gay." "Yet he seems to be content. I've known him come down to the church when Lois was singing, and sit a whole hour, apparently meditating. He is no doubt a very thoughtful young man."

"Bah!" answered Mr. Dale, "he comes to hear Lois sing."

Mr. Denner gave a little start. "Oh," he said—"ah—I had not thought of that." But when he left Mr. Dale, and slipped into the shadows of the Lombardy poplars on either side of his white gate-posts, Mr. Denner thought much of it,—more with a sort of envy of Mr. Forsythe's future than of Lois. "He will marry, some time (perhaps little Lois), and then he will have a comfortable home."

Mr. Denner sat down on the steps outside of his big white front door, which had a brass knocker and knob that Mary had polished until the paint had worn away around them. Mr. Denner's house was of rough brick, laid with great waste of mortar, so that it looked as though covered with many small white seams. Some ivy grew about the western windows of the library, but on the north and east sides it had stretched across the closed white shutters, for these rooms had scarcely been entered since little Willie Denner's mother died, five years ago. She had kept house for her brother-in-law, and had brought some brightness into his life; but since her death, his one servant had had matters in her own hands, and the house grew more lonely and cheerless each year. Mr. Denner's office was in his garden, and was of brick, like his house, but nearer the road, and without the softening touch of ivy; it was damp and mildewed, and one felt instinctively that the ancient law books must have a film of mould on their battered covers.

The lawyer's little face had a pinched, wistful look; the curls of his brown wig were hidden by a tall beaver hat, with the old bell crown and straight brim; it was rarely smooth, except on Sundays, when Mary brushed it before he went to church. He took it off now, and passed his hand thoughtfully over his high, mild forehead, and sighed; then he looked through one of the narrow windows on either side of the front door, where the leaded glass was cut into crescents and circles, and fastened with small brass rosettes; he could see the lamp Mary had left for him, burning dimly on the hall table, under a dark portrait of some Denner, long since dead. But he still sat upon what he called his "doorstones;" the August starlight, and the Lombardy poplars stirring in the soft wind, and the cricket chirping in the grass, offered more companionship, he thought, than he would find in his dark, silent library.

The little gentleman's mind wandered off to the different homes he knew; they were so pleasant and cheerful. There was always something bright about the rectory, and how small and cosy Henry Dale's study was. And how pretty the Woodhouse girls' parlor looked! Mr. Denner was as slow to recognize the fact that Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth were no longer young as they were themselves. Just now he thought only of the home-life in their old house, and the comfort, and the peace. What quiet, pleasant voices the sisters had, and how well Miss Deborah managed, and how delightfully Miss Ruth painted! How different his own life would have been if Gertrude Drayton—Ah, well! The little gentleman sighed again, and then, drawing his big key from his pocket, let himself into the silent hall, and crept quietly up-stairs.

It did not take Gifford Woodhouse very long to get settled in Lockhaven. His office and bedroom constituted his household, and Miss Deborah never knew that her bags of lavender were not even taken out of the trunk, and that the hard-featured Irishwoman who "came in by the day" never saw the paper of directions, written, that she might be able to read it easily, in Miss Deborah's small, neat hand.

But Miss Deborah was right in thinking Helen would look after his comfort, and Gifford soon felt that his real "home" in Lockhaven was at the parsonage, though he had not time to drop in half as often as the master and mistress urged him to do.

He did not tell Helen of that talk with Lois, which had brought a soberer look to his face than she had ever seen there. But she had noticed it, and wondered at it, and she felt his reserve, too, in speaking of her cousin; she even asked herself if he could have cared for Lois? But the thought was too absurd. "Probably they've quarreled again," she said regretfully, she never had been able to understand her cousin's impatience with him.

Perhaps Gifford thought that she had an intuitive knowledge of the ache there was in his heart when she talked of Lois, for he was comforted in a vague way by the sympathetic look which was always on Helen's face when she spoke to any one who seemed troubled. So he was glad to come to the parsonage as often as he could, and hear the Ashurst news, and have a cup of tea with the preacher and his wife.

John and Helen often walked home with him, though his rooms were quite at the other end of the town, near the river and the mills; and one night, as they stood on the shaking bridge, and looked down at the brown water rushing and plunging against the rotten wooden piers, Helen began to ask him about Mr. Forsythe.

"Tell me about him," she said. "You have seen him since he left college. I only just remember him in Ashurst, though I recall Mrs. Forsythe perfectly: a tall, sick-looking lady, with an amiably melancholy face, and three puffs of hair on each side of it."

"Except that the puffs are white now, she is just the same," Gifford answered. "As for her son, I don't know anything about him. I believe we were not very good friends when we were boys, but now—well, he has the manners of a gentleman."

"Doesn't that go without saying?" said Helen, laughing. "From the letters I've had, I fancy he is a good deal at the rectory."

"Yes," Gifford admitted. "But he is one of those people who make you feel that though they may have good manners, their grandfathers did not, don't you know?"

"But what difference does that make," John asked, "if he is a good man?"

"Oh, of course, no difference," Gifford replied with an impatient laugh.

"But what is the attraction in Ashurst, Giff?" Helen said. "How can he stay there all summer? I should not think he could leave his business."

"Oh, he is rich."

"Why, you don't like him!" said Helen, surprised at his tone.

"I don't know anything about the fellow," the young man answered. "I haven't seen enough of him to have an opinion one way or the other. Judging from aunt Ruth's letters, though, I should say Lois liked him, so I don't think he will be anxious for my approval, or anybody else's."

Helen looked at him with sudden questioning in her eyes, but they had reached his house, and John began to speak to him of his plans and of Lockhaven.

"I'm afraid you will have only too much to do," he said. "There is a great deal of quarreling among the mill-owners, and constant disagreements between the hands."

"Well," Gifford answered, smiling, and straightening his broad shoulders, "if there is work to do, I am glad I am here to do it. But I'm not hopeless for the life it indicates, when you say there's much to be done. The struggle for personal rights and advantages is really, you know, the desire for the best, and a factor in civilization. A generation or two hence, the children of these pushing, aggressive fathers will be fine men."

John shook his head sadly. "Ah, but the present evil?"

But Gifford answered cheerfully, "Oh, well, the present evil is one stage of development; to live up to the best one knows is morality, and the preservation of self is the best some of these people know; we can only wait hopefully for the future."

"Morality is not enough," John said gently. "Morality never saved a soul, Mr. Woodhouse."

But Helen laughed gayly: "John, dear, Gifford doesn't understand your awful Presbyterian doctrines, and there is no use trying to convert him."

Gifford smiled, and owned good-naturedly that he was a heathen. "But I think," he said, "the thing which keeps the town back most is liquor."

"It is, indeed," John answered, eagerly. "If it could be banished!"

"High license is the only practical remedy," said Gifford, his face full of interest; but John's fell.

"No, no, not that; no compromise with sin will help us. I would have it impossible to find a drop of liquor in Lockhaven."

"What would you do in case of sickness?" Gifford asked curiously.

"I wouldn't have it used."

"Oh, John, dear," Helen protested, "don't you think that's rather extreme? You know it's life or death sometimes: a stimulant has to be used, or a person would die. Suppose I had to have it?"

His face flushed painfully. "Death is better than sin," he said slowly and gently; "and you, if you——I don't know, Helen; no one knows his weakness until temptation comes." His tone was so full of trouble, Gifford, feeling the sudden tenderness of his own strength, said good-naturedly, "What do you think of us poor fellows who confess to a glass of claret at dinner?"

"And what must he have thought of the dinner-table at the rectory?" Helen added.

"I don't think I noticed it," John said simply. "You were there."

"There, Helen, that's enough to make you sign the pledge!" said Gifford.

He watched them walking down the street, under the arching ailantus, their footsteps muffled by the carpet of the fallen blossoms; and there was a thoughtful look on his face when he went into his office, and, lighting his lamp, sat down to look over some papers. "How is that going to come out?" he said to himself. "Neither of those people will amend an opinion, and Ward is not the man to be satisfied if his wife holds a belief he thinks wrong." But researches into the case of McHenry v. Coggswell put things so impractical as religious beliefs out of his mind.

As for John and Helen, they walked toward the parsonage, and Gifford, and his future, and his views of high license were forgotten, as well as the sudden pain with which John had heard his wife's careless words about his "awful doctrines."

"It is very pleasant to see him so often," John said, "but how good it is to have you all to myself!"

Helen gave him a swift, glad look; then their talk drifted into those sweet remembrances which happy husbands and wives know by heart: what he thought when he first saw her, how she wondered if he would speak to her. "And oh, Helen," he said, "I recollect the dress you wore,—how soft and silky it was, but it never rustled, or gleamed; it rested my eyes just to look at it."

A little figure was coming towards them down the deserted street, with a jug clasped in two small grimy hands.

"Preacher!" cried a childish voice eagerly, "good-evenin', preacher."

John stopped and bent down to see who it was, for a tangle of yellow hair almost hid the little face.

"Why, it is Molly," he said, in his pleasant voice. "Where have you been, my child? Oh, yes, I see,—for dad's beer?"

Molly was smiling at him, proud to be noticed. "Yes, preacher," she answered, wagging her head. "Good-night, preacher." But they had gone only a few steps when there was a wail. Turning her head to watch him out of sight, Molly had tripped, and now all that was left of the beer was a yellow scum of froth on the dry ground. The jug was unbroken, but the child could find no comfort in that.

"I've spilt dad's beer," she said, sobbing, and sinking down in a forlorn heap on the ground.

John knelt beside her, and tried to comfort her. "Never mind; we'll go and tell dad it was an accident."

But Molly only shook her head. "No," she said, catching her breath, as she tried to speak, "'t won't do no good. He'll beat me. He's getting over a drunk, so he wanted his beer, and he'll lick me."

John looked down sadly at the child for a moment. "I will take you home, Helen, and then I will go back with Molly."

"Oh," Helen answered quickly, "let me go with you?"

"No," John replied, "no, dear. You heard what Molly said? I—I cannot bear that your eyes should see—what must be seen in Tom Davis's house to-night. We will go to the parsonage now, and then Molly and I will tell dad about the beer." He lifted the child gently in his arms, and stooped again for the pitcher. "Come, Helen," he said, and they went towards the parsonage. Helen entered reluctantly, but without a protest, and then stood watching them down the street. The little yellow head had fallen on John's shoulder, and Molly was almost asleep.

Tom Davis's house was one of a row near the river. They had been built on piles, so as to be out of the way of the spring "rise," but the jar and shock of the great cakes of ice floating under them when the river opened up had given them an unsteady look, and they leaned and stumbled so that the stained plastering had broken on the walls, and there were large cracks by the window frames. The broken steps of Molly's home led up to a partly open door. One panel had been crushed in in a fight, and the knob was gone, and the door-posts were dirty and greasy. The narrow windows were without shutters, and only a dingy green paper shade hid the room within.

Molly opened her sleepy eyes long enough to say, "Don't let dad lick me!"

"No, little Molly," John said, as he went into the small entry, and knocked at the inner door. "Don't be afraid."

"Come in," a woman's voice answered.

Mrs. Davis was sitting by the fireless stove, on which she had placed her small lamp, and she was trying by its feeble light to do some mending. Her face had that indifference to its own hopelessness which forbids all hope for it. She looked up as they entered.

"Oh, it's the preacher," she said, with a flickering smile about her fretful lips; and she rose, brushing some lifeless strands of hair behind her ears, and pulling down her sleeves, which were rolled above her thin elbows.

"Molly has had an accident, Mrs. Davis," John explained, putting the child gently down, and steadying her on her uncertain little feet, until her eyes were fairly opened. "So I came home with her to say how it happened."

"She spilt the beer, I reckon," said Mrs. Davis, glancing at the empty jug John had put on the table. "Well, 't ain't no great loss. He's asleep, and won't know nothing about it. He'll have forgot he sent her by mornin'." She jerked her head towards one side of the room, where her husband was lying upon the floor. "Go get the preacher a chair, Molly. Not that one; it's got a leg broke. Oh, you needn't speak low," she added, as John thanked the child softly; "he won't hear nothing before to-morrow."

The lumberman lay in the sodden sleep with which he ended a spree. He had rolled up his coat for a pillow, and had thrown one arm across his purple, bloated face. Only the weak, helpless, open mouth could be seen. His muscular hands were relaxed, and the whole prostrate figure was pathetic in its unconsciousness of will and grotesque unhumanness. Fate had been too strong for Tom Davis. His birth and all the circumstances of his useless life had brought him with resistless certainty to this level, and his progress in the future could only be an ever-hastening plunge downward.

But the preacher did not consider fate when he turned and looked at the drunken man. A stern look crept over the face which had smiled at Molly but a moment before.

"This is the third time," he said, "that this has happened since Tom came and told me he would try to keep sober. I had hoped the Spirit of God had touched him."

"I know," the woman answered, turning the coat she was mending, and moving the lamp a little to get a better light; "and it's awful hard on me, so it is; that's where all our money goes. I can't get shoes for the children's feet, let alone a decent rag to put on my back to wear of a Sabbath, and come to church. It's hard on me, now, I tell you, Mr. Ward."

"It is harder on him," John replied. "Think of his immortal soul. Oh, Mrs. Davis, do you point out to him the future he is preparing for himself?"

"Yes," she said, "I'm tellin' him he'll go to hell all the time; but it don't do no good. Tom's afraid of hell, though; it's the only thing as ever did keep him straight. After one o' them sermons of yours, I've known him swear off as long as two months. I ain't been to church this long time, till last Sabbath; and I was hopin' I'd hear one of that kind, all about hell, Mr. Ward, so I could tell Tom, but you didn't preach that way. Not but what it was good, though," she added, with an evident wish to be polite.

John's face suddenly flushed. "I—I know I did not, but the love of God must constrain us, Mrs. Davis, as well as the fear of hell."

Mrs. Davis sighed. Tom's spiritual condition, which had roused a momentary interest, was forgotten in the thought of her own misery. "Well, it's awful hard on me," she repeated with a little tremor in her weak chin.

John looked at her with infinite pity in his eyes. "Yes," he said, "hard on you, because of the eternal suffering which may come to your husband. Nothing can be more frightful than to think of such a thing for one we love. Let us try to save him; pray always, pray without ceasing for his immortal soul, that he may not slight the day of salvation, and repent when it is too late to find the mercy of God. Oh, the horror of knowing that the day of grace has gone forever! 'For my spirit shall not always strive with man.'"

He went over to the drunken man, and, kneeling down beside him, took one of the helpless hands in his. Mrs. Davis put down her sewing, and watched him.

Perhaps the preacher prayed, as he knelt there, though she could not hear him; but when he rose and said good-night, she could see his sad eyes full of trouble which she could not understand, a pity beyond her comprehension.

Molly came sidling up to her protector, as he stood a moment in the doorway, and, taking his hand in hers, stroked it softly.

"I love you, preacher," she said, "'cause you're good."

John's face brightened with a sudden smile; the love of little children was a great joy to him, and the touch of these small hands gave him the indefinable comfort of hope. God, who had made the sweetness of childhood, would be merciful to his own children. He would give them time, He would not withdraw the day of grace; surely Tom Davis's soul would yet be saved. There was a subtle thought below this of hope that for Helen, too, the day of grace might be prolonged, but he did not realize this himself; he did not know that he feared for one moment that she might not soon accept the truth. He was confident, he thought, of her, and yet more confident of the constraining power of the truth itself.

He looked down at Molly, and put his hand gently on her yellow head. "Be a good girl, my little Molly;" then, with a quiet blessing upon the dreary home, he turned away.

But what Mrs. Davis had said of going to church to hear a sermon on hell, and her evident disappointment, did not leave his mind. He walked slowly towards the parsonage, his head bent and his hands clasped behind him, and a questioning anxiety in his face. "I will use every chance to speak of the certain punishment of the wicked when I visit my people," he said, "but not in the pulpit. Not where Helen would hear it—yet. In her frame of mind, treating the whole question somewhat lightly, not realizing its awful importance, it would be productive of no good. I will try, little by little, to show her what to believe, and turn her thoughts to truth. For the present that is enough, that is wisest." And then his heart went back to her, and how happy they were. He stopped a moment, looking up at the stars, and saying, with a breathless awe in his voice, "My God, how good Thou art, how happy I am!"

The little stir which the arrival of the Forsythes made in Ashurst was delightful.

"Of course," as Mrs. Dale said, "Arabella Forsythe had not been born there, and could not be expected to be just like Ashurst people; but it was something to have a new person to talk to, even if you had to talk about medicines most of the time."

Lois Howe enjoyed it, for there were very few young people in Ashurst that summer; the two Drayton girls had gone away to visit a married brother, and there were no young men now Gifford had gone. So it was pleasant to have a person of her own age to talk to, and sometimes to walk with, though the rector never felt quite sure what his sister would say to that. However, Mrs. Dale had nothing to say; she shut her eyes to any impropriety, and even remarked severely to Miss Deborah Woodhouse that those old-fashioned ideas of a girl's being always under her mother's eye, were prim and old maidish; "and beside, Lois's mother is dead," she added, with a sort of triumph in her voice.

As for Lois, she almost forgot that she had thought Ashurst lonely when Helen had gone, and Gifford; for of course, in so small a place, every one counted. She had wondered, sometimes, before the Forsythes came, with a self-consciousness which was a new experience, if any one thought she missed Gifford. But her anxiety was groundless,—Ashurst imagination never rose to any such height; and certainly, if the letters the young man wrote to her could have been seen, such a thought would not have been suggested. They were pleasant and friendly; very short, and not very frequent; mostly of Helen and what she did; there was almost nothing of himself, and the past, at least as far as a certain night in June was concerned, was never mentioned. At first this was a relief to Lois, but by and by came a feeling too negative to be called pique, or even mortification at having been forgotten; it was rather an intangible soreness in her memory of him.

"It is just as Miss Deborah says," she said to herself: "young men always forget those things. And it is better that they do. Gifford never thinks of what he said to me, and I'm sure I'm glad he doesn't—but still!" And then that absurd suggestion of Miss Deborah's about Helen would creep into her mind; she might banish it, because it was silly and impossible, yet she did not utterly forget it. However, she really thought very little about it; the presence of Mrs. Forsythe and her son gave her plenty of occupation. There was the round of teas and dinners which Ashurst felt it incumbent to give to a new arrival, and Lois was to have two new gowns in consequence of so much gayety.

She spent a good deal of time with Mrs. Forsythe, for the elder lady needed her, she said. It was not altogether the companionship which fascinated Lois: the sunny drawing-room of the house the Forsythes had hired was filled with dainty things, and light, graceful furniture, and many harmlessly silly novels; there was a general air about it of belonging to a life she had never seen which made it a pleasure to come into it. The parlors in Ashurst had such heavy, serious chairs and tables, she said to herself, and the pictures were all so dark and ugly, and she was so tired of the carpets.

So she was very glad when Mrs. Forsythe begged her to come and read aloud, or fix her flowers, or even stroke her soft white hair when she had a headache. "Dick may be at home, my dear," Mrs. Forsythe would say in her deprecating voice, "but you won't mind him?" And soon Lois did not mind him at all.

At first she was very shy in the presence of this light-hearted young fellow, whose indifference to Ashurst opinion was very impressive; but by and by that wore off, and Mrs. Forsythe's drawing-room echoed with their young laughter. Lois began to feel with Dick the freedom and friendliness which had once been only for Gifford. "Why couldn't Giff have been like this?" she thought; yet she did not say that she and Mr. Forsythe were like "brother and sister," for she was always conscious of a possibility in their friendship; but it was enough that Mr. Forsythe was very interesting, and that that summer, life was very delightful.

After all, love is frequently a matter of propinquity.

Dick found himself going often to the rectory, and Lois fell into the habit of making her plans with the reservation, "In case Mr. Forsythe calls;" and it generally happened that he did call. "Mother sends her love, and will Miss Lois come and read to her a little while this afternoon, if she is not too busy?" or, "Mother returns this dish, and begs me to thank you for the jelly, and to tell Jean how good it was."

It was easy for Dick to manufacture errands like these. Dr. Howe began to think young Forsythe spent the greater part of his time at the rectory. But this did not trouble him at all; in fact it was a satisfaction that this lively young man liked the rectory so much. Dr. Howe did not go very far into the future in his thoughts; he was distinctly flattered in the present. Of course, if anything came of it (for the rector was not entirely unworldly), why, it would be all for the best. So he was quite patient if Lois was not on hand to hunt up a book for him or to fetch his slippers, and he fell into the habit of spending much time in Mr. Denner's office, looking over the "Field" and talking of their next hunting trip. He was not even irritated when, one morning, wishing to read a letter to his daughter, he had gone all over the house looking for her, and then had caught a glimpse of her through the trees, down in the sunny garden, with Dick Forsythe. "I'll just let that letter wait," he said, and went and stretched himself comfortably on the slippery, leather-covered sofa in the shaded library, with a paper in his hand and a satisfied smile on his lips.

The garden was ablaze with color, and full of all sorts of delicious scents and sounds. The gay old-fashioned flowers poured a flood of blossoms through all the borders: hollyhocks stood like rockets against the sky; sweet-peas and scarlet runners scrambled over the box hedges and about the rose-bushes; mallows and sweet-williams, asters and zinias and phlox, crowded close together with a riotous richness of tint; scarlet and yellow nasturtiums streamed over the ground like molten sunshine; and, sparkling and glinting through the air, butterflies chased up and down like blossoms that had escaped from their stems.

Lois had come out to pick some flowers for the numerous vases and bowls which it was her delight to keep filled all summer long. She was bareheaded, and the wind had rumpled the curls around her forehead; the front of her light blue dress—she wore light blue in a manner which might have been called daring had it implied the slightest thought—was caught up to hold her lapful of flowers; a sheaf of roses rested on her shoulder, and some feathery vines trailed almost to the ground, while in her left hand, their stems taller than her own head, were two stately sunflowers, which were to brighten the hall.

Mr. Forsythe caught sight of her as he closed the gate, and hurried down the path to help her carry her fragrant load. He had, as usual, a message to deliver. "Mother sends her love, Miss Lois, and says she isn't well enough to go and drive this afternoon; but she'll be glad to go to-morrow, if you'll take her?"

"Oh, yes, indeed!" Lois cried, in her impetuous voice. "But I'm sorry she's ill to-day."

Dick gave the slightest possible shrug of his square shoulders. "Oh, I guess she's all right," he said. "It amuses her. But won't you give me some flowers to take home to her?"

Of course Lois was delighted to do it, but Dick insisted that she should first put those she had already gathered in water, and then get some fresh ones for his mother. "You see I'm very particular that she should have the best;" then they both laughed. Now mutual laughter at small jokes brings about a very friendly feeling.

They went up to the side porch, where it was shady, and Lois and Sally brought out all the vases and dishes which could be made to hold flowers, and put them in a row on the top step. Then Dick brought a big pitcher of fresh, cold water from the spring, and Lois went for the garden scissors to clip off the long stems; and at last they were ready to go to work, the sweet confusion of flowers on the steps between them, and Max sitting gravely at Lois's elbow as chaperon.

The rector heard their voices and the frequent shouts of laughter, and began to think he must bestir himself; Mr. Forsythe should see that Ashurst young women were under the constant over-sight of their parents; but he yawned once or twice, and thought how comfortable the cool leather of the lounge was, and had another little doze before he went out to the porch with the open letter in his hand.

Dick had his hat full of white, and pink, and wine-colored hollyhocks, which he had stripped from their stems, and was about to put in a shallow dish, so he did not rise, but said "Hello!" in answer to the rector's "Good-morning," and smiled brightly up at him. It was the charm of this smile which made the older people in Ashurst forget that he treated them with very little reverence.

"Lois," her father said, "I have a letter from Helen; do you want to send any message when I answer it? Mr. Forsythe will excuse you if you read it."

"Why, of course," Dick replied. "I feel almost as though I knew Mrs. Ward, Miss Lois has talked so much about her."

"How funny to hear her called 'Mrs. Ward!'" Lois said, taking the letter from her father's hand.

"I should think she'd hate Lockhaven," Dick went on. "I was there once for a day or two. It is a poor little place; lots of poverty among the hands. And it is awfully unpleasant to see that sort of thing. I've heard fellows say they enjoyed a good dinner more if they saw some poor beggar going without. Now, I don't feel that way. I don't like to see such things; they distress me, and I don't forget them."

Lois, reading Helen's letter, which was full of grief for the helpless trouble she saw in Lockhaven, thought that Mr. Forsythe had a very tender heart. Helen was questioning the meaning of the suffering about her; already the problem as old as life itself confronted her, and she asked, Why?

Dr. Howe had noticed this tendency in some of her later letters, and scarcely knew whether to be annoyed or amused by it. "Now what in the world," he said, as Lois handed back the letter,—"what in the world does the child mean by asking me if I don't think—stay, where is that sentence?" The rector fumbled for his glasses, and, with his lower lip thrust out, and his gray eyebrows gathered into a frown, glanced up and down the pages. "Ah, yes, here: 'Do you not think,' she says, 'that the presence in the world of suffering which cannot produce character, irresponsible suffering, so to speak, makes it hard to believe in the personal care of God?' It's perfect nonsense for Helen to talk in that way! What does she know about 'character' and 'irresponsible suffering'? I shall tell her to mend her husband's stockings, and not bother her little head with theological questions that are too big for her."

"Yes, sir," Lois answered, carefully snipping off the thorns on the stem of a rose before she plunged it down into the water in the big punch-bowl; "but people cannot help just wondering sometimes."

"Now, Lois, don't you begin to talk that way," the rector cried impatiently; "one in a family is enough!"

"Well," said Dick Forsythe gayly, "what's the good of bothering about things you can't understand?"

"Exactly," the rector answered. "Be good! if we occupy our minds with conduct, we won't have room for speculation, which never made a soul better or happier, anyhow. Yes, it's all nonsense, and I shall tell Helen so; there is too much tendency among young people to talk about things they don't understand, and it results in a superficial, skin-deep sort of skepticism that I despise! Besides," he added, laughing and knocking his glasses off, "what is the good of having a minister for a husband? She ought to ask him her theological questions."

"Well, now, you know, father," Lois said, "Helen isn't the sort of woman to be content just to step into the print her husband's foot has made. She'll choose what she thinks is solid ground for herself. And she isn't superficial."

"Oh, no, of course not," the rector began, relenting. "I didn't mean to be hard on the child. But she mustn't be foolish. I don't want her to make herself unhappy by getting unsettled in her belief, and that is what this sort of questioning results in. But I didn't come out to scold Helen; it just occurred to me that it might be a good thing to send her that twenty-five dollars I meant to give to domestic missions, and let her use it for some of her poor people. What?"

"Oh, yes, do!" Lois replied.

"Let me send twenty-five dollars, too!" Dick cried, whipping out a check-book.

Dr. Howe protested, but Mr. Forsythe insisted that it was a great pleasure. "Don't you see," he explained, smiling, "if Mrs. Ward will spend some money for me, it will make my conscience easy for a month; for, to tell you the truth, doctor, I don't think about poor people any more than I can help; it's too unpleasant. I'm afraid I'm very selfish."

This was said with such a good-natured look, Dr. Howe could only smile indulgently. "Ah, well, you're young, and I'm sure your twenty-five dollars for Helen's poor people will cover a multitude of sins. I fancy you are not quite so bad as you would have us believe."

Lois watched him draw his check, and was divided between admiration and an undefined dissatisfaction with herself for feeling admiration for what really meant so little.

"Thank you very much," the rector said heartily.

"Oh, you're welcome, I'm sure," answered the other.

Dr. Howe folded the check away in a battered leather pocket-book, shiny on the sides and ragged about the corners, and overflowing with odds and ends of memoranda and newspaper clippings; a row of fish-hooks was fastened into the flap, and he stopped to adjust these before he went into the house to answer Helen's letter.

He snubbed her good-naturedly, telling her not to worry about things too great for her, but beneath his consciousness there lurked a little discomfort, or even irritation. Duties which seem dead and buried, and forgotten, are avenged by the sting of memory. In the rector's days at the theological school, he had himself known those doubts which may lead to despair, or to a wider and unflinching gaze into the mysteries of light. But Archibald Howe reached neither one condition nor the other. He questioned many things; he even knew the heartache which the very fear of losing faith gives. But the way was too hard, and the toil and anguish of the soul too great; he turned back into the familiar paths of the religion he knew and loved; and doubt grew vague, not in assured belief, but in the plain duties of life. After a little while, he almost forgot that he ever had doubted. Only now and then, when some questioning soul came to him, would he realize that he could not help it by his own experience, only by a formula,—a text-book spirituality; then he would remember, and promise himself that the day should come when he would face uncertainty and know what he believed. But it was continually eluding him, and being put off; he could not bear to run the risk of disturbing the faith of others; life was too full; he had not the time for study and research,—and perhaps it would all end in deeper darkness. Better be content with what light he had. So duty was neglected, and his easy, tranquil life flowed on.

Writing his careless rebuke to Helen brought this past unpleasantly before his mind; he was glad when he had sanded his paper and thrust the folded letter into its envelope, and could forget once more.

Dick Forsythe had prolonged his call by being very careful what flowers were picked for his mother, and he and Lois wandered over the whole garden, searching for the most perfect roses, before he acknowledged that he was content. When they parted at the iron gate, he was more in love than ever, and Lois walked back to the rectory, thinking with a vague dissatisfaction how much she would miss the Forsythes when they left Ashurst.

But Mr. Forsythe's was not the sort of love which demanded solitude or silence, so that when he saw Mr. Dale coming from Mr. Denner's little law office, he made haste to join him. Conversation of any sort, and with any person, was a necessity to this young man, and Mr. Dale was better than no one.

"I've just been to the rectory," he said, as he reached the older man's side.

"I suppose so," Mr. Dale answered shortly. Perhaps he was the only person in Ashurst who was not blinded by the glamour of that World which Mr. Forsythe represented, and who realized the nature of the young man himself. Dick's superficiality was a constant irritation to Mr. Dale, who missed in him that deference for the opinions of older people which has its roots in the past, in the training of fathers and mothers in courtesy and gentleness, and which blossoms in perfection in the third or fourth generation.

There was nothing in his voice to encourage Dick to talk about Lois Howe, so he wisely turned the conversation, but wished he had a more congenial companion. Mr. Dale walked with hands behind him and shoulders bent forward; his wide-brimmed felt hat was pulled down over his long soft locks of white hair, and hid the expression of his face.

So Dick rattled on in his light, happy voice, talking of everything or nothing, as his hearer might happen to consider it, until suddenly Mr. Dale's attention was caught: Dick began to speak of John Ward. "I thought I'd seen him," he was saying. "The name was familiar, and then when Miss Lois described his looks, and told me where he studied for the ministry, I felt sure of it. If it is the same man, he must be a queer fellow."

"Why?" asked Mr. Dale. He did not know John Ward very well, and had no particular feeling about him one way or the other; but people interested Mr. Dale, and he had meant some time to study this man with the same impersonal and kindly curiosity with which he would have examined a new bug in his collection.

"Because, if he's the man I think he is,—and I guess there is no doubt about it—thin, dark, and abstracted-looking, named Ward, and studying at the Western Theological Seminary that year,—I saw him do a thing—well, I never knew any other man who would have done it!"

"What was it, sir?" said Mr. Dale, turning his mild blue eyes upon the young man, and regarding him with an unusual amount of interest.

Dick laughed. "Why," he answered, "I saw that man,—there were a lot of us fellows standing on the steps of one of the hotels; it was the busiest street and the busiest time of the day, and there was a woman coming along, drunk as a lord. Jove! you ought to have seen her walk! She couldn't walk,—that was about the truth of it; and she had a miserable yelling brat in her arms. It seemed as though she'd fall half a dozen times. Well, while we were standing there, I saw that man coming down the street. I didn't know him then,—somebody told me his name, afterwards. I give you my word, sir, when he saw that woman, he stood still one minute, as though he was thunderstruck by the sight of her,—not hesitating, you know, but just amazed to see a woman looking like that,—and then he went right up to her, and took that dirty, screeching child out of her arms; and then, I'm damned if he didn't give her his arm and walk down the street with her!"

Mr. Dale felt the shock of it. "Ah!" he said, with a quick indrawn breath.

"Yes," continued Dick, who enjoyed telling a good story, "he walked down that crowded street with that drunken, painted creature on his arm. I suppose he thought she'd fall, and hurt herself and the child. Naturally everybody looked at him, but I don't believe he even saw them. We stood there and watched them out of sight—and—but of course you know how fellows talk! Though so long as he was a minister"—Dick grinned significantly, and looked at Mr. Dale for an answer; but there was none.

Suddenly the old man stood still and gravely lifted his hat: "He's a good man," he said, and then trudged on again, with his head bent and his hands clasped behind him.

Mr. Forsythe looked at him, and whistled. "Jove!" he exclaimed, "it doesn't strike you as it did Dr. Howe. I told him, and he said, 'Bless my soul, hadn't the man sense enough to call a policeman?'"

But Mr. Dale had nothing more to say. The picture of John Ward, walking through the crowded street with the woman who was a sinner upheld by his strong and tender arm, was not forgotten; and when Dick had left him, and he had lighted his slender silver pipe in the quiet of his basement study, he said again, "He's a good man."