VII—A GOOD WIFE AND A GALLANT SHIP

I

Why is a good wife like a gallant ship? This is not a riddle; it is a sincere and earnest inquiry. An ancient philosopher in the East and a modern poet in the West have both remarked upon the resemblance between the two. Solomon spent nearly half his life thinking about ships. He was the only Jewish king who felt much enthusiasm for maritime affairs. Solomon reminds me of Peter the Great. Those who have perused Waliszewski's biography of that monarch are scarcely likely to forget the passage in which the historian describes the finding, by the boy Peter, of the broken boat. It was only an old, half-rotten wooden skiff, thrown to the scrap-heap with some useless lumber in the little village of Ismailof; but, captivating the boy's fancy, and stirring his imagination, he could not take his eyes from it. It changed the whole current of his life. He is destined to rule over a great continental people who have no access to the sea. Yet, from that day, he dreams of nothing but brave ships and romantic voyages. He comes to England to learn shipbuilding. He returns to Russia and builds useless navies. He claps his hands in delirious ecstasy as he launches his huge toys on his inland lakes. He is like a caged eagle; the passion of the infinite throbs in his veins, yet he is cribbed, cabined, and confined in this cruel way!

Solomon was in a very similar case. He ruled over a people who regarded the sea with distrust and disdain. Yet he himself heard in his soul the challenging call of the mighty waters. The ships! The ships that bring the food! The merchant ships! The ships that lie becalmed in the oily seas of the tropics; the ships that get caught in the ice-pack at the poles; the ships that fight their way doggedly through howling gales and icy blizzards round the cape! Those stately ships, with their dizzy masts and shapely bows, captivated his imagination; and when he desired to speak of the virtuous and faithful housewife in terms of superlative appreciation, the only image that seemed worthy of her was the gallant ship riding at anchor in the bay. 'Who can find a virtuous woman?' he asks, 'for her price is far above rubies. She is like the merchant ships; she bringeth her food from afar.'

II

So much for the Eastern philosopher; now for the Western bard! Longfellow likens a good wife to a gallant ship; and, in order that we may see how much alike the two are, he places them side by side. He describes the old shipbuilder who has resolved to build one more ship, his last and his best. He comes down to the yards, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, carrying the model in his hand. He approaches his assistant, shows him the model, and confides to him his dream. The younger man, a stalwart and fiery youth, has a dream of his own. He aspires to marry his master's daughter. The two are engrossed in conversation, the elder man depicting to the younger the stately ship that is to be. He will build a vessel that shall laugh at all disaster, and with wave and whirlwind wrestle. And he concludes his eager communication by promising that 'the day that giveth her to the sea shall give my daughter unto thee.' The younger man starts at the radiant prospect.

And so on. All through the poem, right up to the wedding on the ship's deck on the day of her launching, Longfellow draws the analogy between the shapely vessel, the bride of the ocean, and the fair maiden, the bride of the proud young builder.

'She is like the merchant ships!' says the ancient Eastern sage.

'Like a beauteous barge was she!' exclaims the Western poet.

It is difficult to resist the testimony of two such witnesses.

III

Neither the good wife nor the gallant ship need resent the analogy. If the good wife does not like being compared to a ship, let her sit down for five minutes and think, and it will occur to her that, of all our ingenious inventions and bewildering contrivances, a ship is the only one that has a divine origin and a divine authority. The ark was the first ship; and its plans and specifications were divinely dictated. Moreover, it is obvious that, since the Lord God divided His world into islands and continents, with vast expanses of ocean rolling between, and commanded that all those scattered territories should be peopled and developed, He contemplated the existence of the ships. The ships were part of the original programme. The ships were to be the instruments of those distributive and mediative ministries on which the history of the world was to be based.

Or, if instead of thinking abstract thoughts, the good wife prefers to read, let her reach down Rudyard Kipling's ballad of the Big Steamers.

The ships, then, represent the indispensabilities of life, the things without which we cannot live. I am writing here in Australia. And even here in Australia, with our immense open spaces, spaces in which we can grow almost anything, how dependent we are upon the coming of the ships! We need the ships; ships to bring us our supplies from the great looms and factories of the old world; ships to take the produce of our boundless plains to the congested populations of the other hemisphere; ships to bring the letters for which our hearts are hungry, and to take the letters for which distant friends are waiting. Even here in Australia the ships are the light of our eyes and the breath of our nostrils. Even here in Australia, the good wife, when she spreads her table in the morning, brings her food from afar. For none of these dainties that tempt my appetite and nourish my frame are native foods. They were not here until the ships began to come. The wheat is not indigenous; the meat is not native meat. The corn and the cattle and the coffee came to Australia on the ships. And, but for the ships, we ourselves could never have been here. Let a man register a vow that he will not eat, drink, wear or use anything that has—in a remote or in an immediate sense—been upon a ship; and he will be reduced to abject wretchedness in no time. God has built His world in such a way that the ship is the foundation of everything.

The Great Weaver stands continually at His loom working out an intricate and beautiful pattern. The nations are the threads that run up and down, up and down, not far apart, yet never meeting. The gallant ship is the shuttle, the busy shuttle, that flies to and fro, to and fro, weaving them all into one compact and wonderful whole. The web depends entirely on the shuttle; the world depends entirely on the ships.

IV

I never see a great ship come into port at the end of a long voyage without feeling a sense of admiration, amounting almost to awe, at the masterly achievement. To say nothing of the perils to which she has been exposed at sea, it seems an amazing thing that, after having been for months on the trackless waters, she can pick up the heads as easily as though she had been following a well-blazed trail. There is a famous story on record in the Memoirs of Captain Basil Hall. It tells how the erudite commander once brought his vessel round Cape Horn on a voyage from San Blas to Rio de Janeiro. Without any other observations than those of the sun and moon, he laid his vessel, in a thick fog, outside what he believed to be the entrance to the harbor. The fog cleared, and the land slowly loomed up through it—the first that had been seen for more than three months. It was Rio! The sailors were electrified at the accuracy of their commander's calculations, and, rushing to the bridge, greeted him, by way of congratulation, with three ringing cheers! I suppose no man ever watched a brave ship drop anchor in the bay at the end of her voyage without some such feeling as this. And certainly no man ever looked into the face of his bride on his wedding day without being conscious of some such emotion. 'She is like the merchant ship; she bringeth her food from afar.' It seems so wonderful to the bridegroom that she should have reached his side in safety. The chances against her safe arrival were a million to one. She is the daughter of a thousand generations. For countless centuries her ancestors were fighting men. If, in that long chain of warring progenitors, only one had fallen before he mated, she could never have been born. Time after time, in those rude days, the earth was desolated by war, pestilence, and famine; yet the line of genealogy that led to her remained unbroken! More than once whole nations were depopulated by the plague. But still her ancestry was unaffected. The providence that guards the good ship on the seething waters, bringing it safely through storm and tempest to its desired haven, watched over her as she floated down the restless ages to her husband's side. She was like the ark, upborne by the very waters that destroyed everything beside; or, to return to Solomon's simile, 'she is like the merchant ships; she bringeth her food from afar.' Her safe arrival seems a miracle, and a golden miracle at that. It seems to her husband that, threatened by such perils as she has braved, only an escort of angels could have brought her safely to his side. And he bows his head in wondering gratitude.

V

We owe everything to the ships. All our food comes from afar. Yes, all of it, including food for thought. The school, the college, the university; they all resemble the virtuous housewife spreading her table. They bring food from afar. Only this afternoon I was shown over Dennington College. The Principal, Miss Gertrude Milman, B.A., took me into a class-room in which a geography lesson was in progress. The teacher was giving her pupils food from afar. Hardy adventurers and patient explorers sailed across unknown seas, charted unknown lands, and returned with the priceless results of their hazardous investigations. And those results, brought home by the ships, were being dispensed in the class-room at Dennington College. Miss Milman herself teaches philosophy. But she owes it all to the ships. Far away over the sea, Plato and Aristotle and Socrates wrestled with the problems of the universe in the old days; and far away over the sea Kant and Hegel and Bergson pondered those same problems in a later time; and the ships have brought us the wealthy fruitage of their profound cogitations. 'And here,' Miss Milman told me, 'the girls assemble in the morning for the scripture lesson.' I do not know exactly how that half-hour is spent; but I am certain that, even then, Miss Milman sets before her pupils food from afar. The Bible itself has come to us across the ocean. The world is only rolling into light because the ships, with their white sails, have dotted every sea. 'The prayers you offer,' says J. M. Neale, 'the prayers you offer, the hymns you sing, the books of devotion you use, how far, far hence in time, how far, far hence in distance, do their sources lie? Perhaps from some quaint mediæval German house, with its surrounding fields and lanes and gardens buried deep in snow, you get a prayer which we use at Christmastide. Perhaps from the dog days of an Andalusian Convent, with its orange trees and its pomegranates and its fountains, you get such music as that lovely introit, "Like as the hart desireth after the waterbrooks." Perhaps from the tomb of a martyr you get such a hymn as "O God, Thy soldiers' crown and guard." Prayers, music, hymns; they are all the same. They come from afar, from afar. I left Dennington College feeling that, after all, Miss Milman is very much like Solomon's housewife; she is entirely dependent on the ships; she bringeth her food from afar.

VI

Now that I come to look a little more closely at the comely features of this virtuous woman—the woman who is like the merchant ships—I fancy that I recognize her. For she is none other than the Bride, the Lamb's wife. When the Church spreads her white cloth, and sets her wondrous table, she invariably decks it with food from afar. Listen as she invites you to partake of her heavenly fare!

'The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.'

And listen again:

'The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee and be thankful.'

Food from afar! Food from afar! She is like the merchant ships; she bringeth her food from afar! Such viands can have been procured from no earthy source. This Bread was made from wheat that grew in no earthly field; this Wine was pressed from clusters that hung on no earthly vine. The happy guests who sit at the Church's table find that, as they partake of her sacred hospitalities, there is ministered to them a comfort that wipes all tears from all faces, a hope that transfigures with strange radiance every unborn day, and a peace that passeth all understanding. They know, as they taste this delectable fare, that such fruits grew in no earthly garden. And then, with faces that shine like the faces of the angels, they remember at whose table they are seated, and they say one to another, 'She is like the merchant ships; she bringeth her food from afar.' And that golden testimony is true.

PART II

I—ODD VOLUMES

We have had a kind of wedding in my study this morning. The bride arrived by post. It happened in this wise. Twenty years ago I attended an auction sale at Mosgiel. A valuable library was under the hammer and the chance was too good to be missed. The books were all tied up in bundles and laid out on tables. I took a note of the numbers of those lots that contained works that I wanted. When, on the arrival of the carrier's cart, I proudly inspected my purchases, I found among them an odd volume. It was the first part of Foster's Life and Correspondence. The book was bound up with a number of others, and I could not buy them without becoming responsible for it. My first inclination was to throw it away; and the temptation recurred when I left Mosgiel for Hobart, and again when I left Hobart for Armadale. Of what use was an odd volume? In packing up at Hobart I actually tossed it to the heap of rubbish that was to be left behind; but an aching void in the last case led to its ultimate rescue. This is the first part of our little romance.

Last week I was visiting a country minister. In the ordinary course of things, I glanced over his book-shelves. I was just turning away, when, among some dusty volumes away on the topmost shelf, my eye caught the words Foster's Life and Correspondence. It, too, was an odd volume. On hearing of my own experience, the good man urged me to transfer the volume to my portmanteau and say no more about it. It was, he said, of no use to him.

'But, my dear fellow,' I replied, 'I might just as well say that mine is of no use to me. We must leave the matter in the meantime. It is so long since I looked at the volume on my shelves that I cannot be sure that they are companions. They may be duplicates. Yours, I see, is Volume Two. If, on my return, I find that mine is Volume One, we will come to some arrangement. If not, neither of us can help the other.'

My Mosgiel purchase turned out to be the first volume. I posted my friend a copy of Bleak House, which, as I happened to know, he had never read, and he forwarded the Foster by return of post. And this morning I took the odd volume from the lumber on the top shelf, introduced it to its mate, and now the two stand proudly side by side among my biographies. They make a handsome pair: no bride and bridegroom could look more perfectly matched. I do not suppose that they had ever met before; but that circumstance in itself presents no lawful impediment to their being united in a lifelong partnership.

The mating of books is a very mechanical affair. At a big publishing house you may see two huge cases side by side, just as they have come from the printer's. The one is packed with copies of Volume One; the other contains copies of Volume Two. An assistant, asked by a customer for a copy of the complete work, takes a book from the one box and a book from the other; claps them together with a bang; and they are mated for all time to come. There is no question of selection, and no question of consent. There is no 'Wilt thou have...' and no 'I will.' The volume in the top right-hand corner of the one box is unable to steal a shy and furtive glance at the book lying in a corresponding position in the other box. His destined partner may be a little plumper or a little thinner than himself; she may be neatly attired in a pretty cover that sets off her charms to perfection, or she may be dressed in an ill-fitting wrapper that is smudged or torn; he cannot tell. He can only wait, and she can only wait, until they are unceremoniously snatched from their respective corners, banged together, and thus, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, made partners in a bond that is indissoluble. There is no question of sexual selection such as Darwin, Wallace, and the great biologists like to portray. The books in the one box do not strut and parade and show off their beauties in order to win the admiration of the books in the other box. That may be because they are conscious that they are all so much alike; they feel that there is little to pick and choose between them; or, on the other hand, it may be because they suspect that the books in the other box are all much of a muchness, and that it matters very little which bride each bridegroom has. But, whatever the reason, there it is! There is no element of selection such as we find in the fields and the forests; there is no lovemaking and courtship such as we mortals know; the volumes are arbitrarily paired off, and the thing is done.

And, strangely enough, they appear to belong to each other from that very moment. One would feel that he was conniving at a kind of literary adultery if he were to take the second volume of this set and the second volume of that set and deliberately transpose them. I call the earth and the heavens to witness that, in my procedure this morning, I have been guilty of no such enormity. We are living in a rough world. With some books, as with some people, things go hardly. In the course of years a volume may be cruelly deserted by its companion; or its partner may come to an untimely end. The law of the land provides that in such sad cases, a second marriage is no shame. One does not like to think of my first volume of Foster spending all its days among the lumber on my top shelf, and of my friend's second volume spending all its days in the dust and neglect of his top shelf. I do not often take my stand on my ministerial dignity; but I maintain that, being a minister, I have at least as good a right as any publisher's assistant to take those two sad and lonely volumes—the one from my top shelf in the city, and the other from my friend's top shelf in the country—and to unite them in the holy bond of matrimony. And as they stand before me side by side—never to perch upon a top shelf any more—I feel that I have done myself, my friend and them good service by having taken pity on their loneliness and launched them on a united career of happiness and usefulness. As things stood, neither was of any use to anybody; their union has made it possible for each to fulfill its destiny.

Let it be distinctly understood that I am not writing of single volumes. A single volume is not an odd volume. As I sit here at my desk and survey my shelves, I see at a glance that many of the books are complete in one volume. It would be the height of absurdity for me to take one such book, say Pilgrim's Progress, and another such book, say Pickwick Papers, and declare them Volumes One and Two for the mere sake of pairing them off. Neither the publisher's assistant nor the minister is vested with authority to mate the books after so arbitrary a fashion. The Pilgrim's Progress is a single volume, and the Pickwick Papers is a single volume; and it is better for them to do the work that they were sent into the world to do as single volumes, rather than to enter into an alliance that will make them each ridiculous and stultify them both. I am not arguing for the celibacy of the clergy or for the celibacy of the laity; how could I consistently adopt such a line of reasoning immediately after having celebrated the marriage of the Fosters? I am simply telling all the single volumes in my study—who are looking a little downcast and unhappy now that the excitement of the wedding is past—that single volumes are not odd volumes. It is very nice, of course, to be happily mated; but it is quite possible for a solitary life to be a very useful one. Robert Louis Stevenson would have gone further. In his Virginibus Puerisque he as good as says that no man can be a hero after he is married. The fact that he has a home of his own, and is surrounded by love and tenderness and thoughtful care, militates against the culture of the sterner virtues. 'If comfortable,' Stevenson says, 'marriage is not heroic. It inevitably narrows and damps the spirit of generous men. In marriage a man becomes stark and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being. The air of the fireside withers up all the fine wildings of the husband's heart. He is so comfortable and happy that he begins to prefer comfort and happiness to anything else on earth, his wife included. Yesterday he would have shared his last shilling; to-day his first duty is to his family,' and is fulfilled in large measure by laying down vintages and husbanding the health of an invaluable parent. Twenty years ago this man was equally capable of crime or heroism; now he is fit for neither. His soul is asleep, and you may speak without restraint; for you will not waken him.

In his references to women, Stevenson does not speak quite so confidently. 'It is true,' he says, 'that some of the merriest and most genuine of women are old maids, and that those old maids, and wives who are unhappily married, have often most of the motherly touch. And this would seem to show, even for women, the same narrowing influence in comfortable married life.' Yet, on the other hand, he feels that marriage affects a woman differently. It makes greater demands upon her. The very comfort which is the husband's peril is largely the fruit of her thoughtfulness, her industry and her unselfishness. With wifehood, too, comes motherhood; and motherhood, side by side with felicities that only mothers know, inflicts a ceaseless discipline of suffering and self-denial. 'For women,' Stevenson admits, 'there is less danger. Marriage is of so much use to a woman, opens out so much more in life, and puts her in the way of so much freedom and usefulness that, whether she marry ill or well, she can hardly miss the benefit.' And he sums up by advising you, 'If you wish the pick of men and women, take a good bachelor and a good wife.' Since, however, if all women became good wives, all men could not remain good bachelors, it is obvious that Stevenson is crying for the moon. But he has said enough to dispel the gloomy and downcast looks that disfigured the countenances of all my single volumes immediately after the wedding. Single volumes are certainly not odd volumes; they are complete in themselves; and we are all very glad of them.

But there are odd volumes. Charles Wagner says that 'in certain shelters for old people, where husbands and wives may pass a tranquil old age together, a very expressive term is used to designate one who is left alone. The bereft solitary is called an odd volume. How appropriate—like a book astray from its companion tome! Odd volumes indeed, those who have hitherto been one of two inseparables! They celebrated their silver and golden weddings, and suddenly find themselves desolate. They seem like guests left behind at the end of the feast or the play; the lights are out, the curtain is down; they wander about in the emptiness like souls in torment, possessed with the idea of continually searching for something they have lost. They hardly refrain from asking "Have you seen my husband?" "Where shall I find my wife?" Odd volumes, these!' And you may find them in palaces as well as in almshouses. Did we not all hear the cry that rang through the halls of Windsor on the day on which the Prince Consort passed away? 'I have no one now to call me "Victoria"!' And there are others. They knew no golden wedding, no silver wedding, no wedding at all; and yet felt themselves mated. Some, like Evangeline and Gabriel—and like my two Fosters—are separated by distance and ignorance of each other's whereabouts. Some, like Drumsheugh and Marget Howe, are separated by the iron hand of circumstance; some are kept apart by cruel misunderstandings and mistaken judgments; and some—

The purest spirit that ever walked this earth of ours was—I say it reverently—an odd volume. I do not mean that He was a single volume: I mean far more than that. He felt that He was not single: He was not complete in Himself. In some wonderful and mystical way, Deity and Humanity were odd volumes; volumes that were intended to supplement and complete each other; volumes that had become alienated and torn asunder. The amazing thing about the Scriptures is that, in both Testaments, they employ the very phraseology of mating and marriage. The quest that led to the Cross is the quest of the lover for His betrothed; and the consummation of all things is to be a marriage supper—the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. And it may be that, in the larger, the lesser is included. It may be that when Deity and Humanity, so long estranged, are at length perfectly united, other odd volumes will find their mates and the isolations of this life be swallowed up in the glad reunions of the life everlasting.

II—O'ER CRAG AND TORRENT

I

Lexie Drummond had a place of her own in the hearts of the Mosgiel people. To begin with, she was lonely; and lonely folk have a remarkable way of exacting secret homage. Lexie worked at a loom in the woollen factory, and lived by herself in one of the factory cottages near by. I wish you could have seen it. The door invariably stood open, even when Lexie was away at her work. Everything was faultlessly natty and clean. An enormous tabby cat, 'Matey,' purred on the mat, while a golden canary sang bravely from his cage in the creeper just outside the door. Lexie had a trim little garden, in which she grew lavender and mignonette, roses and carnations. Lexie's white carnations always took the prize at our local Flower Show. Lexie mothered Mosgiel. If anybody was in trouble, she would be sure to drop in; and, in cases of serious sickness, she would often stay the night. Some people would deny that Lexie was beautiful; yet she had a loveliness peculiar to herself. She was tall, finely-built, and wonderfully strong. When Roger Gunton, the heaviest man on the plain, was seized with sudden illness, and his body was racked with excruciating pain, Lexie alone could turn him from side to side, and he would allow nobody else to touch him. If her face lacked the vivacity and sparkle of more voluptuous beauties, it possessed, nevertheless, a quiet gravity, a serious winsomeness, that rendered it extremely attractive. The furrows in her face, and the strands of grey in her hair, made her look older than she really was. Everybody knew Lexie's age; her name was a perpetual reminder of the number of her years. For, in an unguarded moment, she had once revealed the circumstance that she was born on the day on which the Princess of Wales—afterwards Queen Alexandra—was married, and she was named after the royal bride. Mosgiel never forgot personal details of that kind. In addition to all this, Mosgiel vaguely suspected that Lexie carried a secret in her breast. She came to Mosgiel only a few years before I did; and everybody felt that her previous history was involved in tantalizing mystery.

II

It was Friday night. In the dining-room at the Mosgiel manse we were enjoying a quiet evening by the fire. I was lounging in an armchair with a novel. I could afford to be restful, for, that week, I had but one sermon to prepare. On the approaching Sunday, the anniversary of the Sunday school was to be celebrated; in the morning John Broadbanks and I were exchanging pulpits in honor of the occasion; and, availing myself of a minister's immemorial prerogative, I had decided to preach an old sermon at Silverstream. All at once we were startled by the ringing of the front door bell. It was the Sunday school superintendent.

'We are in an awful hole,' he exclaimed, after having discussed the weather, the health of our respective families, and a few other inevitable preliminaries. 'Lexie Drummond has been taken ill, and the doctor won't hear of her leaving the house for a week or two. She has been preparing the children for their part-songs, and has the whole programme at her fingers' ends; I don't know how on earth we are going to manage without her.'

I promised to run down and see Lexie about it first thing in the morning; and did so. Lexie was confined to her bed, and old Janet Davidson was nursing her. 'Matey' was curled up close to his mistress's feet, while the canary was singing blithely from his cage near the open window. I saw at a glance that Lexie had been crying, and I attributed her grief to anxiety and disappointment in connection with the anniversary. She quickly undeceived me.

'You'll never notice that I'm not there,' she said, with a watery smile. 'The children know their parts thoroughly, and Bella Christie, who has been helping me, is as familiar with the program as I am.'

I assured her that we should miss her sadly; but expressed my relief that everything had been so well arranged.

'And now, Lexie,' I said, as I took her hand in parting, 'you must worry no more about it; we will do our very best to make it pass off well.'

'Oh,' she replied, quickly, recognizing in my words a reference to her tell-tale eyes, 'it wasn't the anniversary that I was worrying about; indeed, it was silly of me to cry at all!' And, to show how extremely silly it was, she broke, with womanish perversity, into a fresh outburst of tears.

'She has something she wants to tell you,' Janet interposed, 'but she doesn't like to.'

Lexie pretended to look vexed at the old lady's garrulity; but I fancied that I detected, behind the frown, a look of real relief.

'Some other time,' she said. 'Good-bye, I shall think of you all to-morrow!' Janet opened the door and I left her.

III

The anniversary passed off happily; Lexie was soon herself again; and, a fortnight later, I saw her in her old place at church. We knew that she would insist on taking her class in the afternoon; so, to save her the long walk home, we took her to the manse to dinner.

'Several of the teachers have been telling me of the address that you gave on the evening of the Sunday school anniversary,' she said, on our way to the manse. 'I wish you would let me see the manuscript.'

'I can do better than that,' I replied. 'The address was printed in yesterday's Taieri Advocate. I have several copies to spare if you care to have one.'

On arrival at the manse she insisted on going round the garden and admiring the flowers before composing herself on the sofa in the dining-room. I gave her the paper I had promised her, and hurried away to prepare for dinner. When I returned a few minutes later the paper was lying on the floor beside her, and she was crying as if her heart would break. By a supreme effort she regained her self-possession, promised to explain in the afternoon, and, in obedience to the summons, took her place at table.

During dinner I mentally reviewed the address which had so strangely reopened the fountains of her grief. It was the address which, under the title 'The Little Palace Beautiful,' appears in The Golden Milestone. It begins: 'There are only four children in the wide, wide world, and each of us is the parent of at least one of them.' The first of the four is The Little Child that Never Was. 'He is,' the address says, 'an exquisitely beautiful child. He is the child of all lonely men and lonely women, the child of their dreams and their fancies, the child that will never be born. He is the son of the solitary.' And the address goes on to quote from Ada Cambridge's Virgin Martyrs:

As the address came back to me, I began to understand. I remembered what the gossips said about the mystery in Lexie's life. What was it, I wondered, that she meant to tell me after dinner?

IV

'You don't know me!' she cried passionately, when, once more, we found ourselves alone together. 'You treat me as if I were a good woman; you let me work at the church, and you bring me into your home; but you don't know me; really, really, you don't! I have committed a great sin, a very great sin; and I am suffering for it; and others are suffering for it.' She paused, as if wondering how to begin her story, and then started afresh.

'I was brought up in the country,' she said, 'not far from Hokitui. My parents both died when I was a little girl; my guardians followed them a few years ago; so that now I am quite alone. At school I became very fond of Davie Bannerman, and he made no secret of his partiality for me. He used to bring me something—an apple or a cake or a picture or some sweets—every day. When I was nineteen we became engaged and were both very happy about it. Everybody in the Hokitui district loved Davie; he was handsome and good-natured; I used to think his laugh the grandest music I had ever heard. But I was proud, terribly proud. And, being proud, I was selfish. And, being selfish, I was jealous. Davie was good to everybody; yet I could not bear to see him paying attention to anybody but myself. He was a member of the Hokitui church, and used to spend a good deal of time there. I had no interest in such things in those days, and I was angry with him for neglecting me. But most of all was I jealous of Sadie McKay. Sadie was his cousin; she was one of the church girls; and I hated to think, when he was not with me, that he was with her. Davie always took my scoldings merrily, and quickly coaxed me into a better mind. And I dare say that all would have gone well but for the accident that spoiled everything.

'Sadie was riding in from the farm one morning when, on the outskirts of Hokitui, she met a traction engine. Her horse bolted, and was soon out of control. As luck would have it, Davie was standing at a shop door near the township corner, and saw the horse galloping madly towards him. He rushed into the road and managed to check the animal before Sadie was thrown; but, in doing so, he was hurled to the ground, and the horse trod on his right arm, crushing it. He lay in the hospital for nearly two months; but I never went near him. When he left the hospital he wrote to me. It was a pitiful scrawl, written with his left hand; his right was amputated. "I have had a heavy loss," he said, "and I do not know how I can manage without my arm; but now I must suffer a still heavier loss, and I do not know how I can live without you. But it would not be right for me to burden you, and you must find somebody else, Lexie, who can care for you better than I can." I returned the engagement ring, and that was the end of it. If he had lost his arm in any other way I could have endured life-long poverty with him; but to have lost his arm for Sadie!' She paused and seemed to be looking out of the window, but I knew that her story was not finished.

'A few months later I took a situation in Ashburton. There I met, at a party, a young Englishman—Horace Latchford—who took a fancy to me. He was visiting New Zealand for the sake of his health. He told me that he owned a large estate in Devonshire, and would make me a perfect queen. During his stay—a period of about four months—life was one long frolic. Six months later he sent for me to go to him; and I went. But my eyes were soon opened. There was no estate in Devonshire; Horace was often intoxicated when he came to see me; and, instead of getting married, I returned to New Zealand in disgust. I came to Mosgiel, partly because I knew that I could get good work in the factory, and partly because I knew that nobody here would know me. Since I returned from England, ten years ago, I have only met one person who knew me in the old days at Hokitui. I was spending a holiday at Moeraki, and she was staying at the same boarding-house. I did not tell her that I had settled at Mosgiel; but she told me that none of the Bannermans were now living at Hokitui. Davie, she said, was the first to leave. He went to one of the cities to learn a profession that did not imperatively demand the use of two hands.' She paused again, and I waited.

'When I came to Mosgiel,' she went on, 'I got in the way of coming to the church. I became deeply impressed, and you received me into membership. And, every day since, as I have done little things, and taken little duties, in connection with the work, I have come to understand Davie as I never understood him in the old days. I hated his fondness for the church. And, every day now, my sin seems to be more and more terrible. Just lately it has been with me night and day. And when I read your address my punishment seemed greater than I could bear. I have prayed thousands of times that the dreadful tangle might be unravelled. I have not prayed selfishly; I could be perfectly contented if only I knew that Davie is happy, and that his faith in God and womanhood has not been shaken by my wickedness. We sang Lead, Kindly Light in church this morning. Do you think that God really guides us? Does He put us right even when we have done wrong? Will He straighten things out? I would give anything to be quite sure! I seem to be in a maze, and can find no way out of it!'

V

It seemed an infinite relief to Lexie to have told me her story. She was much more often at the manse after that; a new bond seemed to have sprung up between us. I fancied that there came into Lexie's face a deeper peace and a greater content. The peace was, however, rudely broken. About two years after Lexie had unburdened her soul to me, I opened the paper one morning and confronted a startling announcement. The personal paragraphs contained the statement that 'Mr. David Bannerman, the brilliant Auckland solicitor, has been appointed Lecturer in Common Law at the Otago University.' There followed a brief outline of the new professor's career which left no shadow of doubt as to his identity. I particularly noticed that there was no reference to his marriage. What, if anything, was to be done? The Otago University was in Dunedin, only ten miles from Mosgiel. Ought I to allow these two people to drift on, perhaps for years, eating their hearts out within a few miles of each other? Was it not due to Davie that he should know that Lexie was at Mosgiel? He might desire to seek her; or he might desire to avoid her; in either case the information would be of value. I stated the position in this way to Lexie, but she would not hear of my taking any action. After a while, however, she agreed to my writing, telling the professor-elect that I knew of her whereabouts. I added that she was universally loved and honored for her fine work in the church and in the district. I enclosed a copy of 'The Little Palace Beautiful,' and mentioned the fact that I had once caught her weeping bitterly as she read it. It took four days for a mail from Mosgiel to reach Auckland. After a long talk with Lexie, I posted my letter on a Sunday evening. On Friday afternoon I received a reply-paid telegram: 'Wire lady's address immediately.'

The new professor was married three months after entering upon the duties of his chair at the University; and, when I last saw her, Lexie was enthroned in the center of a charming little circle. I received a letter from her yesterday—the letter that suggested this record. She tells me, with pardonable pride, that her eldest boy has matriculated and also joined the church.

'I am getting to be an old woman now,' she says, 'and I spend a lot of time in looking backward. Isn't it wonderful? It all came right after all! But for the accident, Davie would never have been a professor; and, if we had been married in the old days, I should only have been a drag and a hindrance. As it is, we have passed o'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent; but the Kindly Light that I once doubted has led us all the way!'