Judith stood in her night-dress and bare feet on the rug of rag-carpet before her bed; she was afraid; she was afraid because of Miss Marion’s story; would she go to sleep, and wake up, and wish she had a key in her door?

After another hesitating moment she decided to go down stairs to Aunt Affy’s bed-room and linger around, hoping Aunt Affy would ask her to sleep just one night in that cunning room in that old-fashioned, tall-posted bed, with ever so many small pillows, and that red and green quilt of patch-work baskets with handles.

Slipping on the blue wool shoes her mother knitted, she went softly down stairs to the entry bedroom. Aunt Rody’s door, for a wonder, was shut; that was one danger past, for if Aunt Rody heard one foot-fall, without inquiring into it she would certainly send her back to bed. If she were dying of a broken heart Aunt Rody would never know or care. But she did not think it was because she would never care to tell Aunt Rody about her broken heart.

Aunt Affy’s door, like the gates of Heaven, was wide open; by the light of a small lamp she was reading her “chapters” in the Bible.

One of Judith’s names for Aunt Affy’s Bible was “My Chapters.”

“Come in, dear,” welcomed the angel within the gates of Heaven. On the threshold stood the white-robed figure, with her long hair braided loosely and ending in one curl.

“Just a minute,” pleaded the rather tearful voice; “shall I disturb your chapters?”

“No, indeed, you are a part of them, as your mother was before you,” said Aunt Affy, shoving her gold-rimmed spectacles into their case.

These gold-rimmed spectacles were her last birthday present from Cephas.

Judith thought it was funny, but very lovely for such old people to have birthday presents. Aunt Affy was so choice of these spectacles that she kept them to read the Bible with.

“I wanted to come a little while,” said Judith, perching herself on the side of the high bed, her blue-slippered feet not touching the carpet.

“I wish you had a sister,” began Aunt Affy in the tone that ran on a long while. “You must have some one to grow up with. You have never had any one to grow up with.”

“I have Nettie, and Jean, and Miss Marion, and Mr. Roger, and everybody else, and you and my cousin Don.”

“And we are all growing up together,” laughed Aunt Affy with her soft laugh. “When I was a little girl I had my sister Becky. The other sisters were all grown up. Eight sisters we were. But some were married. Father would have us all home on Christmas Days. Such a merry houseful. Cephas was like the brother we never had. He came a boy to work for father, just as Joe works for him. Becky and Cephas and I were always growing up together. Becky was the friskiest thing, always getting into scrapes and out of them. Rody used to be hard on us, we thought then; but I’ve no doubt we were wilful and disobedient, and gave her heaps of trouble. She always worked hard; she always would.”

“Why?” asked Judith, with thoughtful questioning.

“Because it is her nature to put her shoulder to the wheel. She pushes other peoples’ shoulders away. She does not know how to be helped—not even by the Lord himself. She married off her sisters, she said, and then all she wanted was to settle down to work and to peace and quietness. She likes to see people at church; but it frets her wonderfully to have people come here. If it hadn’t been for that I should have brought your dear mother back here years ago to stay, but Rody wouldn’t hear of it. She can’t bear to have her ways interfered with. She wouldn’t sleep one wink to-night if she thought that pile of papers on the round table wasn’t just as she put it. And it would give her a fever for me to sleep in her bed.”

“But it wouldn’t you,” interrupted Judith, eagerly.

“Oh, not a bit. Still I never try it. I like my own bed, and own side of the bed. But I was telling you about Becky; she used to sleep with me, and no one has since.”

Judith’s heart sank. The room up stairs grew desolate and afraid and homesick.

“Cephas always liked Becky; they used to do their lessons together, and when he went to town to learn his trade he asked her to be his wife as soon as he could build a house to put her in. Father gave Becky twenty acres on her twentieth birthday, and Cephas was to build the house.”

“He wasn’t bald and white-whiskered then.”

“Well, I think not. He was the handsomest young man in the country, and the best. And a master workman, too.

“Then father died; he had been queer some time. Rody broke off a match for him; the old minister’s sister, a widow, a good and lovely woman, and he had mourned years for mother, and Becky and I were glad to have him comforted; but Rody would not give up her place to any stepmother, trust her for that; and she broke it off somehow, and the widow married a minister, and father grew queer and then died.

“Rody had something to repent of, if she only thought of it; only she never does think. She worked on Becky’s feelings about Cephas, but Becky held on, and wouldn’t give him up; so she and I together, when Rody wasn’t looking on, made her wedding things, such piles. I enjoyed it as if it were to be my own house-keeping; I loved them both so, and Rody worked hard and was dreadfully cross to us all; and the cellar for the new house was dug, and Becky was as happy as a queen. How she sang about the house. Cephas had a shop of his own in town by this time, and journeymen and apprentices; he was a rusher; he expected to drive in every day. He wanted a house in town, but Becky loved the old place and she was always delicate, and he couldn’t bear to cross her. And, then, it’s a sad story for young people, but you must know there’s sadness in the world as well as joy—she died suddenly with fever. I watched her night and day. And Rody. She was a ministering angel. She died in Rody’s arms. Rody had been like a mother to her. Her things, ‘our things’ she used to say, were all packed away. Cephas failed in business—I think he didn’t care much whether he failed or not, and came back to the farm. Flowers and weeds began to grow in the cellar of Becky’s house; it’s only a big green hole now. Cephas wanted me to use her things; he said Becky would like it, and I knew she would. He comforted me and I comforted him. Rody didn’t like that, and sent him away. We comfort each other now, and always will. Rody can’t hinder everything. Why, child, don’t have such big eyes over my story. Becky has been happy all these blessed years, and Cephas and I talk over old times and look forward to new times; and, we would like to build a house over Becky’s cellar if Rody didn’t fume so.

“This is her ring that I wear—this plain gold, the only ring I ever had; she put it on my finger and asked me to be good to Cephas. He wouldn’t take it back. But isn’t it your bed-time, Deary?”

“I wish I might brush your hair,” said Judith, slipping off the high bed.

But a door creaked, was flung wide open; a night-capped head appeared in the opposite doorway.

“You up, Judith Grey Mackenzie. Go right up to bed this minute. It’s just like you, and it’s more like Affy. No wonder I couldn’t sleep with voices in the house at this unearthly hour. There! It’s striking nine o’clock. Affy, you go to bed.”

Aunt Affy laughed softly as the creaking door was closed again.

“I am not grown up either, you see. Perhaps I shall grow up with you. She wouldn’t let me mix the bread to-night, and she never lets me take the butter out of the churn. And when we go to town shopping she always carries the money.”

Judith laughed a doleful little laugh, and went bravely up stairs to her turning-point.

It was moonlight, but she must light the candle for company; she would keep it burning all night, or as long as it would burn, if she dared.

She would scratch the match where she liked; Aunt Rody had no right to order her about so; she did not belong to Aunt Rody. She wished Aunt Affy would let her go to live always at the Parsonage.

Perhaps Cousin Don would if she wrote and told him all about Aunt Rody.

One night last week Aunt Rody had put her head in at the door and found her scratching a match on the bureau along the crack on its upper edge; she often did it; but Aunt Rody gave a scream and seized her by the arm and said angrily; “Judith Grey Mackenzie, don’t you do that again; I’ll whip you as sure as you live if I ever see you do it again. You might set the house on fire. Suppose a spark should fall into the upper drawer.”

But a spark never had. The upper drawer was shut tight; Aunt Rody had no right to catch her by the arm like that. And whip her! She wouldn’t dare. She would go to the parsonage and stay until Cousin Don came after her.

She was old enough to scratch a match where she liked.

With a sudden indignant stroke she drew the match under the top edge of the bureau: a snap and a flash.

“There,” she said aloud, triumphantly.

She lighted the candle and dropped the burnt match in the tin pail that served as slop jar.

It was very quiet down stairs; Joe had gone to bed, Uncle Cephas had not come home from the session meeting at the parsonage; she wished he would come.

Then, the tiniest curl of smoke caught her eye—out of the top drawer; no, that was tight shut; the curl grew and grew; it came from the crack under the top edge of the bureau.

Paralyzed with terror she stood and looked. It was smoke. And it grew and grew. Should she run down and tell Aunt Affy? But Aunt Rody would hear and come, too. Might she call Joe? But he might tell Aunt Rody the next day; he looked cross at her at supper time because she said she would not read aloud to him all the evening. If Uncle Cephas would only come. But he always stayed late at session meeting—there it was, slowly, so slowly curling up.

It was real smoke, and there had to be fire to make smoke. The bureau would burn first and then—after a long time she remembered that water would put out fire; what a goose she was to stand there and see the smoke grow.

She poured water into the wash-bowl, soaked the wash-cloth, and ran it carefully all along the crack.

There, it was out. Nothing to be frightened about. But she would never do it again. Aunt Rody did not know about that.

Sitting down on the foot of the bed opposite the bureau, she leaned over the red rail that formed the foot-board and watched and waited. Of course the fire was out. Yes—no—yes, there it was again—the curl of smoke; the water had done no good; the fire was too deep in for water to get through the crack; the spark had fallen away down in.

In despair she burst into tears; but the tears kept her eyes from watching the smoke; she brushed her eyes clear and looked; it was there, and it grew and grew, not dense, not black, but real smoke, and it kept coming and coming.

“O Father in Heaven,” she cried aloud, “please stop it; please stop it. I don’t know what to do.”

Still the smoke was there. Did God see it? Didn’t he care? Would he not answer because she had been so disobedient and because she had hated Aunt Rody?

“I will be good after this,” she sobbed. “I don’t want to be hateful. I will give up my will to Aunt Rody when she is right.” It was fainter; no, there it was again. Would the fire never go out?

Aunt Rody knew best. Perhaps Aunt Rody knew best about other things. Perhaps she was a Christian, a real disciple, only a very queer one.

Now it was so faint, so faint she could not see it at all. It was not because the tears were in her eyes; it was gone. It was gone. She felt all along the crack with her finger. It was not hot. And the smoke was gone. The fire was out; it was all burned out inside that crack.

And Aunt Rody need never know. And she would never, never, never disobey Aunt Rody again. Her mother had always told her she loved her own will too much; she would never love it so much again; she would say—what would she say? She knelt on the strip of rag-carpet where she had seen the girl kneel in her “picture” and repeated softly, through fast falling tears: “Our Father, who art in Heaven; Hallowed be thy name; Thy Kingdom come: Thy will be done; that was it; Thy will be done, Thy will be done,” she repeated joyfully over and over. “Make me love Thy will best. Make my will a good will, a sweet will, an obedient will.”

She did not know then that it was her turning point. The next day she loved to obey Aunt Rody. Aunt Rody did not ask her to do one disagreeable thing; and it was the queerest thing, Aunt Rody said, when she asked if she might sweep the sitting-room, “That’s a good girl.”

She did not tell any one about her fright over the match excepting John Kenney, Miss Marion’s brother, and Jean Draper. He had come to the parsonage for vacation. He was a big, handsome boy, as manly as the minister himself, and as gentle as a girl; one afternoon, when she and Jean Draper went off on a long stroll with him, and they began to tell stories of adventure of what they had read, or of what happened to them, she told her story about how the smoke got in a crack.

She only said she liked Aunt Rody better after that. She could not tell about her prayer. But John would have understood, she was sure.

He always looked as though he understood everything you meant, but did not know how to say.

XIX. A MORNING WITH A SURPRISE.

The years went on in quiet Bensalem and brought Judith to her eighteenth birthday; the summers and winters came and went, and the girl grew. The parsonage was “home,” and the farmhouse was “Aunt Affy’s,” as it had been ever since she could remember. One July morning, in this nineteenth year of Judith’s story, something besides the new morning was given to Marion. The parsonage under the housekeeping of the two, the woman and the girl, was a dainty, restful, and inspiring home to its three home-keepers, the minister, his sister, and Judith Mackenzie.

The relationship among the three was as simple and natural as though Judith had been born one of the sisters in that old house, with the three windows in the roof that she had made a picture of for her mother.

This July morning, an hour before dinner-time, Marion sat near the kitchen table shelling peas; she had sent Judith back to the story she was writing, and refused Roger’s help when he put his head in at the window to say that shelling peas always meant two people and a bit of confidence.

“Miss Marion,” called a voice from the kitchen-porch; “I am not fit to come in, I’m just out of the hay field. I’ve got a letter for you that’s been laid over, and a burning shame it is; and it is the second time it has happened. To excuse himself he said your box was full and this slipped out or was set aside. I gave the Bensalem postmaster a round scolding, and told him the parsonage mail was always important, and if it happened again I’d go straight to Washington and report him to Uncle Sam,” chuckled the old man to whom a letter was about the smallest thing in life.

“Uncle Cephas,” welcomed Marion, cordially, “thank you for the scolding and the letter.”

“I mustn’t come in; I brought the minister a load of hay. Don’t call him, I’ll find him. Your letter looks rather foreign.”

“Yes,” she said, trembling almost visibly after a glance at the post mark.

“Double postage too,” he said curiously.

“Yes,” she said again.

“Judith had a foreign letter last night, too.”

“Oh, yes, I see all her foreign letters,” she replied with an effort.

“I must go; don’t work too hard. So you like to be your own mistress and your own maid; no help at all this summer?”

“No; and once Judith and I did the washing; it was the best fun we ever had.”

“Our folks say you think you own Judith; but I guess you have as good a right to her as anybody. You and her Cousin Don; you do the most for her.”

He nodded, wiped his forehead with his soiled handkerchief, pushed down his tattered straw hat and went down the steps with a careful tread. Uncle Cephas was an old man—his age had come upon him suddenly. Marion watched him as he walked away; it was easier to look at the load of hay, the hayfield beyond the parsonage garden, easier to look at anything, and think of anything excepting that foreign letter. Why should Don write to her? He had not written for five long years, not once since that letter about Judith from Genoa. Was it because she had—refused him?

During all these years it never once entered her thoughts that she had refused him.

He did ask her to become his wife—if that were asking. And she had refused, if that were refusing.

“Can you have dinner in half an hour?” Roger asked, coming to the open window near the sink. “I only this minute remembered that I promised King to drive over this afternoon to talk his parish difficulties over with him. His housekeeper has gone, did I tell you? He’s keeping house by himself—has been trying it a month, or I’d take you and Judith for the drive; he would not relish your seeing his house-keeping. Don’t hurry too much; give me a cold dinner with a cup of coffee.”

“I’ll ring the bell in half an hour; Judith will help me,” she replied, hearing the sound of her own voice with every word she spoke.

The words she was speaking did not touch her own life—nothing was in her life but that letter in her hand; she had as much of it as she could bear just now, she thought she would hide it away and never open it. It was another thing to die and be buried.

Judith came and began to set the dinner table and to tell her the last pretty thing Nettie Evans said—Marion moved absently about the kitchen; the letter was pushed down in her dress pocket.

When at last she could bear the suspense no longer, she asked Judith to boil the eggs, and to bring the rice pudding from the cellar, and went up stairs to her own chamber and shut the door. If she did not have to bear this—if only it had not come to disturb her peace—she was satisfied without it. It was a long letter; it was full of something, her heart was beating so fast and choking her that she read sentence after sentence without gathering any thought or incident; it was words, words, words.

“I expect to sail for home next month; I am tired of being a stranger and a foreigner. You have never written to me beyond those two words; but I know what you have been to my Cousin Judith. I think I have grown old since you saw me; life has grown old if I have not. I know from the letters of Roger and Judith that you are just the same. Unless you are just the same I would not care to see you again. Your old friend, Don.”

She opened a drawer and laid the letter away; she would understand the rest of it when she was not in such a tumult. Did Roger know he was coming home? Judith had not told her. Had he told no one but herself? Did he expect her to tell the others? She had to take her eyes and burning cheeks down stairs, but she did not have to speak of her letter yet. And, after all, there was nothing in it to speak of. It was a letter not worth the writing.

The girl in the blue gingham, with the yellow waves of hair dropping to her waist in one long braid, was giving the last touches to the dinner table set for three; the roses in the centre of the table were from Aunt Affy’s garden.

“They are talking still—Uncle Cephas and Roger. They will never get through; they begin in the middle every time. I have been so interested that I forgot to boil the eggs. There are chops down cellar; shall I broil them? I always think of Don when I broil chops. I broiled chops for him that last time I saw him. Do you know I believe he is coming home soon? He thinks he will surprise me; but I have guessed it all summer.”

“Yes; get the chops,” replied Marion.

“And you listen there at the window,” laughed Judith; “Uncle Cephas is touching on marriage now. He told Roger he did a wrong thing when he married Jean Draper to a man who is not a Christian; she is only nineteen and does not know better, he said. Roger has been trying to argue himself right; but I don’t know how Roger could help that, do you?”

“No; Roger couldn’t help it; David Prince comes to church regularly and Roger admires him; Jean’s father and mother were willing; I think Uncle Cephas takes too much upon himself. Roger believes David Prince is a Christian and doesn’t know it. Roger knows it; and Jean does. But Roger never minds Uncle Cephas.”

Uncle Cephas was speaking with low intensity; standing at the window Marion listened: at first indignant, then she became interested. Roger would miss his appointment; perhaps he was so amused with the old man that he had forgotten his drive to Meadow Centre.

“You see, dominie, in marriage there’s a heap to look at besides young folks choosing each other, even more than parents being willing; parents may be mistaken—there’s the command that comes straight and strong. I am as interested in the marriage question as I am in all the other things that concerns the life of the church and the community; I’ve had years enough to study it theoretically,” he went on, with his deep laugh.

“Which command are you bringing down upon my head now?” inquired the minister, in a tone of good fellowship.

“Is it the dominie that asks which? You who should have all the commands, and promises, and threatenings at your tongue’s end—”

“My tongue would have no end then,” replied Roger.

“And the geography and history of the scriptures, too. I didn’t use to believe in studying the geography of the Bible until that man came from Antioch, and now I know Damascus and the land of the Chaldees, and Tyre and Sidon all by heart. Of course you know better than I do that command Joshua gave the people, and I verily believe it was more for the women than the men, as I told Affy in talking over Jean Draper’s case; women are naturally religious creatures, bless ’em.”

Judith and the chops were over the fire; Marion stood at the open window; Judith listened, and burnt her chops.

“Why, you remember,” Uncle Cephas ran on in the familiar voice with which he talked about his cattle and his crops, “that he told the people the nations should be snares and traps, and scourges in your sides and thorns in your eyes until they perished from off the good land, and the reason was, or would be, that they made marriages with them.”

“Yes, certainly,” interjected Roger impatiently.

“But that isn’t all; don’t say ‘certainly’ in such a matter of fact way; it was something else; it was making marriages ‘with the remnant,’ those that remain among you, not the round-about nations, but the among-you nations, and there’s where the danger is, I tell the young folks; young folks never know their dangers; it is the believers that don’t believe the folks that come to church and don’t confess Christ, that is the hindrance, and the ones that bring punishment of scourges and snares and traps and thorns; it is like the half of a truth that is the worst of a lie. David Prince comes regularly and listens to the truth, and if I do say it to your face, you put it powerful; and he goes away and by his actions confesses that he doesn’t believe a word you say. I labored with Jean Draper, but she only cried, like the dear girl she is, and said she couldn’t give him up; not if the whole session said so.”

“She came to me,” answered Roger, in his quietest tones, “and I told her to hold on to him and I would marry them if the session tore me to pieces.”

“I believe you would,” laughed Uncle Cephas. “Well, I’ve washed my hands. I didn’t expect to hinder anything. I suppose I can trust my minister if he hasn’t come to his gray hairs. I thought that hay was the first fruits and I’d bring it. You see Bensalem is as dear to me as the land of Israel to old Joshua and Samuel. The Lord’s eyes are always upon it, and it flows with milk and other good things. No offence, I hope,” he added in his sweet, old, slow voice.

Roger hurried into the house, and hustled Judith and her chops to the dinner table.

“I believe I’ll take you this afternoon, Judith; it’s time you began your vacation; all the other boarding-schools closed long ago. You will see the desolation of the Meadow Centre parsonage and offer your services on the spot. King can’t get a housekeeper to suit him since Mrs. Foster left. You will suit him exactly; perhaps he likes burnt chops.”

After the little bustle subsided, Marion asked: “Roger, why didn’t you tell him about Ruth of Moab—Judith and I are just reading Ruth, who married one of the chosen people, and, if Samuel wrote the story, he made the sweetest love-story that ever was written—and she was one in the direct line of the ancestry of Christ.”

“Because that would have been in confirmation of his point,” said Roger, breaking an egg carefully.

“I don’t see how,” replied Marion.

Judith listened; Roger never talked for the sake of argument; he pondered before he spoke again.

“She deliberately chose the God of Israel to be her God, giving herself to His worship and His people; Naomi had taught her; Naomi was a missionary—love of her mother-in-law was not all that decided her to leave her gods and her native land.”

“I thought it was because she loved Naomi,” said Judith, “and that was so lovely.”

“But Naomi’s son married her first,” argued Marion; “he had no right to do that.”

“Perhaps he was punished for it; perhaps both sons were punished for it; who knows?”

“But you do not think Jean has done wrong,” said Judith, sympathetically; “it will break her heart if she ever reasons herself into believing she has disobeyed.”

“Well, no,” replied Roger, dryly; “especially as David expects to confess his faith at the next communion. He would not do it before for fear that he would do it to please Jean. He did not dare tell her. He has told no one but myself.”

“Then, Roger, why didn’t you tell Uncle Cephas?” asked Judith, in astonishment.

“I thought he might as well learn that, even in Bensalem, there are some people he may misjudge. He knows Bensalem by head, once in a while, better than he knows it by heart.”

“Did you say you would take Judith to Meadow Centre,” Marion asked, bringing herself back from over the sea.

“Did I, Judith?”

“No, you said you believed you would take me,” said Judith, mischievously.

“I believe it still.”

“Would you like to go?” inquired Marion.

“I would not like to interfere with any of Roger’s beliefs.”

“Then be ready in ten minutes, or you will. I fed Daisy and she has had to eat in a hurry like her master.”

“But, Marion, I shall leave you with the dishes, and supper—”

“She couldn’t be left in better company,” Roger insisted; “don’t stop to change your dress; put on your big hat and we’ll be off.”

“Marion, do you want to be left alone?”

“More than anything else in the world,” said Marion, sincerely.

XX. JUDITH’S AFTERNOON.

“I suppose King will ask me to exchange with him Sunday,” remarked Roger, putting the reins into Judith’s ready hands, after turning out of the parsonage lane. “Which sermon shall I take?”

“The cubit one,” was her unhesitating reply; “it has been in my mind to ask you to preach that again for me.”

“But you will not hear it.”

“Unless you take me with you,” she suggested with a merry laugh.

Roger believed that Judith Grey Mackenzie was the merriest maiden in Bensalem.

“I would if I were going to dine at the parsonage, but there’s no housekeeper there, more’s the pity, I shall take dinner and supper with one of the deacons, and drive home in the moonlight. You would like that.”

“All but the deacon.”

“And you wouldn’t endure the deacon for the sake of the cubit sermon.”

“Indeed, I wouldn’t. What would they think of me?”

“That you are a very nice little girl.”

“I’m too big a girl, that’s the worst of it.”

“That’s the best of it—for me.”

“I don’t know whether I’m glad of it or not,” she said, as frankly as if speaking to Marion. “The only trouble I have in the world is that I’m growing up away from being your little girl.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said with playful threatening.

“I don’t dare.”

“As if you could, Lady-Bug.”

“Oh, how that brings back dear old Don. It is the last name he ever called me—outside of a letter. Don’t you believe that he’s coming home soon?”

“I know it.”

“Do you know how soon?”

“That is his secret.”

“Oh,” drawing a long breath, “I’m too glad. But I don’t want to go to the city and keep house for him, and go to college and have every advantage, as he says I must do. I’ve had every advantage; you and Marion have been my ‘liberal education.’ Nothing will ever take me away from Marion.”

“Or your brother Roger.”

“Oh, you two are one. I always mean you both.”

“But hasn’t your Cousin Don the best right to you? Isn’t he your guardian or something?”

“He is my everything—beside you and Marion and Aunt Affy.”

“Then he must do as he thinks best.”

“Am I not to be consulted? I belong to myself first of all.”

“You will be much consulted, no doubt.”

“Then I hope I shall not have to do anything I don’t want to. I’m afraid Don will be like a stranger. I was only a little girl when he went away. I do not feel at home with him, only with the thought of him.”

“With your thought of him?”

“And my thought may be very far wrong. O, Roger, do you believe it is?” bringing her earnest face within range of his too sympathetic eyes.

“Tell me what is your thought of him,” he said, gently, taking the reins from her hands. “You see you cannot talk and drive, too. Daisy was walking into a fence.”

She gave up the reins without any consciousness of the action; she was looking at her Cousin Don’s face as she had told a “picture” of it to her mother.

“He is so fine, so unselfish, so true, so considerate, a refuge from everything that troubles me, a part of my mother to me—I have saved all his letters, they are my chief treasures. If I should be disappointed in him the sun would drop out of the sky.”

“Poor little girl,” thought the man beside her, tenderly. “Suppose you are disappointed in me,” he asked, lightly; “have you ever thought about that?”

“No. I cannot even think that,” she said, impulsively.

“Because you have not placed me on any such pedestal?”

“Perhaps so,” she laughed.

“Is that the reason?”

“No, for when I was a little girl I placed my Cousin Don and his friend Roger on the same pedestal. You haven’t tumbled off yet, and I’ve been with you ever since.”

“Judith, I do not like that,” he answered, seriously; “you shouldn’t look at people like that.”

“I don’t. At people. But I do at you, and Don, and Marion, and Aunt Affy and Ruskin and George Macdonald and Miss Mulock and Tennyson and—”

“Then I will not be frightened if we are all there. If one of us fail, you will have all the others to keep the sun in your sky.”

“Now, give me back the reins, because I have told you.”

He laid the reins in her hand, asking what she had been doing with herself all the morning.

“Writing a story.”

“O, Judith, not another one,” he exclaimed in pretended dismay.

“I had to. It was burning in my bones. Don’t you know I got five dollars for the last one?”

“Can nothing but a five-dollar bill quench the burning in your bones?”

“Oh, yes; the burning is quenched by writing it. I am quenched now for quite a while.”

“What was your inspiration this time?”

“Something you said Sunday evening.”

“Tell me.”

“I will read it to you in your earliest leisure.”

“Do you intend to keep this thing up and be a dreadful literary creature?”

“Only as long as the burning lasts.”

“But while you muse the fire burns; you must give up musing.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, troubled.

“No, dear. Give everything that is in you. That is what it is in you for.”

“I know that,” she answered, confidently. “In almost all your sermons I find a thought to make a story of.”

“You illustrate me. I am the author; you are the artist.”

“Then how can I go away and keep house for Don?”

“You mercenary creature, you want to make money out of me.”

“When I was a little girl and thought of writing stories I wanted to earn money; now I only think of the joy of writing things down.”

“That is creating—like the joy of the Lord. May it last forever—like his joy.”

Judith was silent from sheer happiness. Her work was so little, but so dear: Roger and Marion always understood; she was no more shy with them about her stories than about her thoughts; she gave herself to them utterly, as she had given herself to her mother.

The parsonage at Meadow Centre was in Meadow Centre; it was not in a village, or a ville; it was not in any place, but its own place, where it stood; the church was the nearest building, the post-office was two miles distant; there were farm-houses scattered about for miles; the most distant parishioner lived three miles from the church.

The parsonage, built of wood and stone, a story and a half, with the trumpet vine climbing luxuriously to its low roof, had passed its birthday of three-score years and ten. It was old, and it looked as if it felt old.

The gate was swung wide open, the path leading to the closed front door was weed-grown, the flower beds on each side of the path were a mass of wild, bright bloom.

“How pretty! How like a picture!” exclaimed Judith, in admiration; “there’s a grape-vine running up an apple tree, and there’s the old oaken bucket. What a pity for no one to live here.”

“Somebody stays here,” said Roger.

“Is it the parsonage? How can they neglect it so?”

“Whoa, Daisy. The farmers are all busy. King should learn to use a scythe, and a lawn-mower; he’s a born hermit. If he wanted to he could find a housekeeper; he forgets he hasn’t any.”

“But there’s no one at home.”

“Oh, yes, he’s at home. He’s expecting me. The study is in the rear; he lives in that.”

“But where is his sunshine?”

“He finds that. He’s the best man to find sunshine I know. He is the sunshine himself.”

The “sunshine” came around the corner of the house, a long linen duster crowned with a soft gray felt hat; beneath the hat a tawny beard, and the bluest eyes shining through a tangle of eyebrows.

“I had given you up.”

“Never give me up,” said Roger in a sunshiny voice. “I’m always on hand, when I am not on foot. Miss Mackenzie, Mr. King. But, excuse me, you have seen each other in Bensalem.”

“I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Mackenzie; I hope she has not forgotten me.”

“Judith never forgets. Will you let her go around and browse while we have our drive? Judith, you don’t mind staying alone?”

“It is not a very nice place for a lady to stay in,” the bachelor housekeeper hastened to say; “I fear I forget when sweeping-day comes, and I always forget to wash the dishes.”

“Judith will do that for you. Don’t forget, Judith,” he warned.

“The woman who comes once a week is ill, and has not been here for two weeks; I am really ashamed to have Miss Judith come into the house.”

“She isn’t ashamed, she likes it. Give her your hand, Dick, and help her out; I must hold Daisy.”

Judith stepped down and stood beside the linen duster and gray hat, fervently wishing she had stayed at home.

“Roger, how long will you be gone?” she inquired, faint-heartedly.

“Till supper-time—we have business on hand—if you don’t have supper ready for us I’ll lose you on the way home.”

“There’s bread in the house, and butter and milk and eggs—but the dishes—,” excused the embarrassed housekeeper.

“Trust a girl to wash dishes. Will you wear that duster?”

“I have a coat under it. Wait until I show Miss Judith in; my study is the only fit place.”

“Show her the kitchen, there’s where you need a visitor.”

“The front door is locked,” apologized Mr. King. “I am sorry to take you to the back hall door.”

Judith’s courtesy and kindliness failed her; Roger deserved a scolding for bringing her to such a forlorn place; what could she do with herself two or three hours?

The doorway into which she was shown led into a narrow carpeted hall; the study door stood open; books in book-cases, on the floor, on a table, books and dust, a coat on a chair; the light from two windows streamed in.

“If you care for books you will find something to do—the latest magazines are somewhere. My housekeeper had to leave suddenly, and to get another has been impossible. I wish I might make you comfortable. I’d like to put Kenney under the pump for bringing you. Would you rather I would take you to a neighbor?” he asked, brightening.

“Oh, no; I like it—I shall like it,—here, in a few minutes,” she said with fervent kindliness.

“Don’t get us any supper; Mr. Kenney was only joking,” he added as he disappeared.

It was rather a cruel kind of a joke, she thought, as Daisy sped down the road; she would run away and walk home, seven miles, if she dared. But Roger would be hurt; he had brought her for the drive, and had no idea of the dismalness of the desolate old place.

She threw off hat and gloves, and braced herself for action of some kind. Roger would expect supper. It was not difficult to find the kitchen; there was no fire, a fire could hardly be expected; there appeared to be nothing in the room but piles and piles of dirty dishes. There were kindlings in a basket near the stove, and wood in the box behind the stove; there was a sink and a pump; with fire and water she could wash dishes.

If Marion had only come, too, what fun it would have been. It would be rather desolate fun all alone.

She discovered soap in a dish on the sink, and towels, clean towels, hanging on a heavy cord behind the stove. The room, like the study, was flooded with the afternoon sunshine. And there were pictures out of the window; she had never yet found a window that did not frame a picture. She could not be lonely with pictures and sunshine.

In five minutes the wood fire was crackling; the sunshine and the fire were two companions she loved, and then, Marion often laughed at her enthusiasm for washing dishes. For once in her life, she would tell Marion, she had dishes enough to wash.

If she might only heat the oven and make biscuits. That would be a surprise. With a feeling that she was intruding she opened a closet door; a loaf of bread, a plate of butter, a paper of soda crackers, a small basket of eggs, a tin quart of milk, a bag of salt was the quick inventory she made—then she found a bag of flour on the floor, a basket of potatoes, a ham from which slices had been cut, and a jug of molasses. Hot biscuits, ham and eggs, coffee, there must be coffee; what a splendid supper she might have. There were no remains of a dinner; perhaps he had forgotten to get any dinner, or he might have been invited out; he should have one supper—if there were only time.

Roger told her once that she had the feet and fingers of a fairy; she said to herself that she needed them that afternoon.

At that very moment when feet and fingers were busy in his kitchen, how her young enthusiasm would have been kindled could she have heard the story he was telling Roger.

“It has been a tug for me, something to go through with. You do not know unless you have had something of the sort happen to you. It may end in my going away. She is everything to be desired, and more than I deserve. A splendid looking girl, a college graduate, just the wife for a minister, keen as a flash, quick at repartee, as spicy as a magazine article, born to command, a perfect lady, with a winning manner, and I can’t love her if it kills me. I’ve been down on my knees begging the Lord to make me love her: and she is no more to me than a picture, or a statue, or a character in a book. It unmans me to feel how her heart has gone out to me. She is as brave about it as she can be.”

“How, in the name of wonder, do you know it then?” asked Roger, in astonishment.

“I know it because I cannot help knowing it. If you do not know how I know it I cannot tell you. Her mother knows it, and how she watches me. They say Frederick Robertson married in a like way; he was afraid he had been dishonorable. But this is none of my doing.”

“I can believe that, old fellow.”

“What am I to do?”

“Steer clear of her.”

“All my steering will not keep me clear of her. We are constantly brought together.”

“Introduce me. You will be nowhere.”

Richard King would not laugh; the very telling his trouble appeared treason in his eyes.

“I know what is the matter,” ejaculated Roger, suddenly. “You have seen some other woman, or you would succumb.”

“I have seen several other women,” he said, thinking only of one,—the girl with a blind mother in Bensalem.

“Don’t let it drive you away from your work.”

“I think she may go away. I think her mother will send her away. I think I would rather face the cannon’s mouth than be left alone half an hour with that old lady.”

“Does she blame you?”

“Not if she has the common sense I think she has. I am the last man for a girl to fall in love with,” he added, ruefully.

“Don’t count too much on that,” advised Roger, gravely.

At six o’clock Daisy was driven around to the stable to be fed; Judith was taking her molasses cake from the oven and heeded neither voices nor footsteps.

“I told you so,” cried Roger, delighted, coming to the kitchen doorway. “See here, King, and look here, and smell here.”

“Well, I think so,” exclaimed the bachelor housekeeper in dismay and delight.

“Table set, too,” declared Roger, stepping into the tiny dining-room. “No table-cloth; how is that, Judith?”

“I couldn’t look around for things,” said Judith, flushing; “I was afraid every minute of intruding. I haven’t looked into places any more than I could help.”

“Miss Judith, I am ashamed—”

“You are grateful, you lucky dog,” interrupted Roger. “We are as hungry as tramps, Judith; our host stopped at the store and bought sugar cakes and cheese to treat us on, not knowing the feast he was bringing his guest home to.”

Biscuits, molasses cake, ham and eggs and coffee.

Judith’s eyes were demure and satisfied; she had never had such a good time in her life.

“I can get you a table-cloth if it will not be too much trouble to reset the table,” proposed the host as unembarrassed as his visitors could desire.

“Please don’t,” said Judith, “unless for your own convenience.”

“I acknowledge I haven’t seen a table-cloth on my own table since I have been my own housekeeper: but we must have napkins. I cannot do without napkins unless I am camping out.”

Judith was placed at the head of the table, she accepted the position as naturally as she did at the Bensalem parsonage when she was left to be the lady of the house; she poured the delicious coffee, ate her biscuits with a perfect relish, and listened to story, repartee, experiences, plans for work with an appreciation that added zest to the conversation.

“Well, Judith, what do you think of your afternoon?” inquired Roger, when Daisy was trotting the second mile toward home.

“I never had anything like it. I didn’t mind washing the supper dishes with you looking on; but I did mind having him in the kitchen.”

“He couldn’t stay out; it was nuts for him. He’s a first-rate camper, but housekeeping is one too many for him. He is one too many for himself. He wishes to be near the church, so he will not try to find board anywhere.”

“Hasn’t he a sister, or cousin, or somebody?”

“He hasn’t anybody. He wants to bring a family to the parsonage—he might have had one for the summer if he had known he would lose his housekeeper in time. He will make a break and do something. What do you think of him?”

“If I hadn’t seen that dreadful study, and that kitchen—”

“Did you go up stairs?”

“Why, no. Did you think I would do that? I felt myself an intruder every minute. You didn’t think I would do that, Roger.”

“Well, no; now I come to think of it.”

“If I had met him away—but he is so much a part of that kitchen and study, that I’m afraid I shall not be fair to him. At first he was nothing but big, to me; big and ashamed; then nothing but red beard and eyebrows, and then eyes; his voice is as big as he is. I liked his sermon that other time you exchanged; he is a man in earnest.”

“A man burning with enthusiasm! He came to Meadow Centre—his parish covers three miles in two directions,—only because he was needed there. He refused twice the salary, a pitiful little salary it is, that he might try to bring that church back,—to keep it from being swallowed up; his father was born there—he has a love for the church and people; we passed a deserted church on the way here, a mile ahead of us; Meadow Centre will be another deserted church before many years—there are deserted farms in this neighborhood.”

“But the people will find a church somewhere.”

“There’s a new church where we went this afternoon; it is taking his people, his grandfather’s people.”

“I should think it would. The church is out of repair—there’s nothing pretty about it. I don’t believe he can keep the people together.”

“Then he will help them scatter. He will do something for them. He wanted this experience, and he could afford to take it.”

“Did you promise to exchange Sunday?”

“Yes. I will drive home after evening service. He will stay over night with us. I wish we might keep him a week. He took me to see a place for a new church. He is a born organizer—”

“Outside of the kitchen,” laughed Judith.

“I wish he had a wife,” said Roger.

“Not for such a reason—to keep house for him,” replied Judith, in a flash of indignation.

“His grandfather and father were born in Scotland—on his mother’s side he has Scotch grit. He’ll pull himself through, but it’s rather tough on him. He makes me feel like a pampered baby. He worked his way through college; he has fed on thistles and he shows it. I wish I had,” said Roger devoutly.

“Is it too late?” asked Judith teasingly.

“I feel so small beside him,” Roger went on discontentedly; “he is the biggest and best fellow I know.”

“Roger, Roger, you tell me not to seek hard things for myself.”

Roger lapsed into silence. Judith wondered if she might not put her afternoon into her next story. Sometime what a pretty book she would make out of her short stories. She would call it: “A Child’s Outlook.” But that would be too grown up for children. Her stories were for children, as well as about children. Marion had planned a summer of writing for her; she had the “plots” for five stories in her head; she had told them all to Marion as she used to tell her mother pictures; they were, all of them, founded on her own childish experiences; her childhood had been full of things—Marion said her own childhood had not been so full. Every day when she was a child had been a story. Telling her mother pictures had helped make her stories. She used to tell her mother stories about herself.

“You are too young to look back to your childhood,” Roger had once told her; “that comes with age.”

“Mother made it so real—she impressed me with its happenings. She made things happen, I understand now, because she was going away so soon. She used to say, ‘I want you to look back and remember this.’ And I read aloud to her the journal she asked me to keep the last three years—I draw upon that now.”

A summer of stories. She laughed aloud in her joy. She wished she might take her book of stories to Heaven to show to her mother.

XXI. MARION’S AFTERNOON.