 CHAPTER XIII. There ought to be. Glide Douglas stood at the door of the tenement house, which was Susie Miller's home, awaiting admission. She had called before, several times, but had failed to meet any of the family. During the day Susie was at the factory, so indeed was her mother much of the time, and as Glide's calls had to be made in the daytime, she knew nothing as yet of Susie's home life. But on this day she expected to gain admittance. A guest was in the home that even the factory respected. Mrs. Miller had not been at work for several days, and on this morning Susie's loom was silent, and word went quietly among the workers near it that Susie Miller's little sister was dying. It will be an awful blow to Susie. The homely red-haired girl who worked next to her said, her usually harsh voice, soft with sympathy. It is that little curly-haired young one that she is so proud of, a cute little thing, I'm awful sorry for her. It's hard on Susie, volunteered an older girl, but after all, it's the best thing that could happen to the young one probably. That house is just running over full of children, and the Millers are as poor as poverty. What chance is there for any of them? Why isn't it better for them to die and be out of it all before they understand what a mean place this world is? This phase of the subject was freely discussed, the weight of testimony being on the side of sticking it out and seeing what would come of it. Something might happen. Meantime Glide heard by accident of the child's illness, and was waiting at the door. Some what frightened it is true, serious illness in any form was new to her, and of death she knew nothing, but of course she ought to call. Susie opened the door to her, the girl's eyes were red with weeping, and she burst into tears again at the sight of her teacher. She said it was true she supposed, Nanny was going to die. The doctor hadn't been there since yesterday, but he said then he couldn't do anything, and Ma said she knew that the baby was worse. A strange revelation was that home to Glide Douglas, the way to the little bedroom where the child lay, led through the main living-room of the family. Sometime during the morning there had been an attempt at breakfast. The odor of fried pork was distinctly in the air, and the soiled dishes and pork-grinds still lay about on the bare table that had been pushed into one corner. The coal in the cook's stove had burdened itself to a red glow, and the room was stifling. Huddled into corners in various stages of dishevelment, curiosity, and terror, were gathered the little millers of all ages. There was very little furniture in the room, and the carpet that covered part of the floor was so worn that unwary feet must constantly have been tripped by it. Within the bedroom, which to Glide's horror was absolutely dark, save for the light that filtered in from the large room, tokens of poverty were still more marked. The bed on which the child lay gasping for breath seemed to the eyes of the horror-stricken girl but a bundle of rags. But the mother had as intense a look of agony on her haggard face as ever mother wore, and her voice, as she bent over her dying baby, was tenderness in itself. Clearly here was love, struggling with ignorance and poverty. Mother, said Susie, here is Miss Douglas come to see if there is anything she can do, my teacher you know at the mission. Mrs. Miller gave her one quick glance and nod, then turned her eyes back to the child as she said, it's too late Susie to do anything. Oh, my baby, my baby, what shall I do? The old cry rung from a mother's heart in the midst of the awfully incongruous surroundings. Poor Glide had never in her life felt so utterly powerless. She made an effort in search of what seemed to her the first necessity. Achy not to have air? She said. She breathes so hard it is dreadfully warm and close here. The mother turned heavy eyes on her inquiringly. Where would I get it? She asked. I couldn't have the outside door open. The young ones would get their deaths and it would be bad for her. The doctor said we mustn't let no wind blow on her. And we can't get the windows up. They are nailed in and pasted up. We had to to keep from freezing. The child died of course. How could it do otherwise? Then began another phase of Glide's education in watching the preparations for the funeral. They chose, at much inconvenience to themselves and against the judgment of the physician, to wait until Sunday for the service. It seems as if I must, the mother said. Sunday is the only day that poor folks have time even to cry. Her neighbors from the other tenement houses gathered after factory hours and cleaned and made that living room habitable. Then they spared each a chair or two from their meagre stores until there were seats for all. Meanwhile the wardrobe, not only of the mother and Susie, but of all the little ones, was a source of no small anxiety. Taint decent not to have a bit of black about them somewheres. So the mother argued. Poor little wretches. They all loved her dearly, and they was as quiet as mice that day she was so bad. Get a black ribbon for them, do. I'll make it up somehow and a few bits of black ribbon can't cost much. It was then Glide learned that while the very wealthy and aristocratic will sometimes ignore altogether the custom of wearing black, and the moderately poor and respectable can often be easily persuaded to follow such example, those in abject poverty who have not yet discovered the latest fashions cling to their black dresses and ribbons and veils as tokens of love for their dead. The same thought appeared in other ways. Glide was indefatigable during those two intervening days. She secured warm flannels for the living children, and in several cases the much needed shoes. She discovered in somebody's storeroom a half worn overcoat for the little boy. She brought a warm flannel sack for the mother. She furnished from Mrs. Edmunds' kitchen nourishing food for the half-starved family. But it was when, on the morning of the funeral, she had brought a wreath of choice flowers tied with white satin ribbon that the young ladies of the Church Bible class had sent to lay on the little coffin, that the poor mother broke into tears and exclamations of gratitude. Flowers in March on her baby's coffin and tied with soft white satin ribbon in unstinted quantities seemed to mean more to her than clothing and food. She cried again when Mrs. McPherson, in whose attic the little overcoat had been found, sent her carriage for the mother and the half-drunken father and all the little millers to crowd into and ride to the grave. Here, too, was what she seemed to consider a love token to the waxen-faced baby who was riding in state in front of them. Other discoveries glide made. During those three days, when the millers by reason of their bereavement came into prominence among their neighbors, it was Bill Sieber, the worse than worthless fellow against whom she had exhausted her ingenuity in warning Susie, who was on the alert day and night to serve them all. It was he who looked after certain homely details for the heavy-eyed mother. It was he who watched over the irresponsible father to see that he did not drink enough to disgrace his dead child. It was he who superintended the arrangement of the chairs on the day of the funeral, and who moved the heavier pieces of furniture out of the way, and received and seated the neighbors as they filed in, and placed Susie beside her mother in the carriage and tucked all the little millers swiftly and quietly into place. Alert, thoughtful, eager to serve, certainly a mine of strength was Bill Sieber during those trying days. Glide could see how, in a sense, Susie was not only grateful to him, but proud of him. Perhaps his virtues showed in stronger light because of the utter absence of young men of a higher grade. In vain did Glide, when she awakened to the importance of such influences, try to secure some of the young men from the mission to attend the miller baby's funeral. A few of them were engaged in Christian work elsewhere at that hour, but the majority needed it for rest, for dinner, for whatever they chose to do, and could not be made to see the importance of sacrificing their own ease and inclination for even a single Sunday. So impressed did Glide become, with the power of these minor matters, that, failing in others, she hinted her desire to her brother-in-law, and was sorry afterwards that she did so. For he came and walked decorously beside Marjorie Edmonds to and from the little factory cemetery where these people buried their dead. Glide was beginning to feel, rather than see, reasons why this should not have been. All things considered, the trouble that came to the miller family was an education in several ways to this young Christian worker, an education that troubled her. She told over some of her thoughts to Marjorie as they sat together in the latter's parlour one afternoon. There are so many puzzling things about it all, Marjorie. One doesn't know what to try to do. Take those millers, for instance. They are representative of quite a large class. Poor, much poorer than they need be on account of whiskey. It is dreadful to think how many of these factory people drink up their earnings, yet see how they have managed. They had no bread in the house yesterday and no credit with which to get it. But they had to have black dresses and a bit of crepe on their bonnets and all that sort of thing. Isn't it sad, Marjorie, to think of their poor, hard-earned money being spent in that way? If they could have taken it beforehand and bought flannels for the baby and good milk for her to drink and a decent bed for her to sleep on, it would have saved her life, perhaps. But saved it to what? I am so distressed when I think of it all that it seems as though it would break my heart. See how they go on for generations. No improvement. I presume Mrs. Miller's mother was such another as she, and I am afraid Susie will be much the same. Why, Mrs. Miller simply does not know how to make her room clean. While, as for bread, she would have to buy the miserable stuff they get at the bakery in any case because she has not the least idea how to make it. She doesn't know what to do with the meat she buys in order to get any nourishment from it. Why, she doesn't even know how to manage her coal-fire. And as for making a home for those children, oh, dear, what chance is there that she will ever know any of these things? How is she to learn? No homes worthy of the name are open to her. She represents at least a dozen other families right around her who are not one whit better off than she. Yet they managed to dress themselves in a way to look very bright and stylish. Interrupted Marjorie. The younger ones I mean. Your Susie, for instance, I could but notice her when she came out in her new winter hat. It was quite in the style as to shape, and had fully as many flowers as the fashionable people wear. I know it, and that illustrates what I am talking about. They have no sense of the relative value of things, or rather, values have changed places. They must have new bonnets and dresses made in the prevailing style, even though the children go shoeless, and all of them without proper underwear. Susie spends her wages largely on herself and thinks that she must do so, and her mother sympathizes with her. There's another thing about Susie that perplexes me. You remember I told you how distressed I was at her being so much on the street evenings? But there is excuse even for that. Think of their one room Marjorie with not a decent chair in it, with the father forever puffing away at an old pipe when he is at home, with children of all ages forever underfoot not only, but quarreling and crying and shouting, with one stuffy little lamp that smokes as constantly as the master of the house does. Add to all this the perpetual smell of the last pork and onions that were fried, mingled with bad whiskey, and what sort of a place is it for a girl like Susie to invite a friend into. She cannot even ask Bill Sieber to come in and take a seat, for the chances are that there will not be a whole chair to give him. What is she to do? How shall she be taught that she must not put on her pretty bonnet and her stylish-looking coat and parade up and down the nice gaily-lighted streets where the well-dressed people walk? I confess to you, Marjorie, that the whole problem is such a hopeless tangle to me that I am lost in it. There ought to be a room, a home, where girls like Susie could come with their work and their books and their friends and have comfortable sittings and pleasant surroundings and learn how people live. I do not mean young women's Christian associations, nor clubs, nor guilds, nor anything of that sort. Those are blessed, of course, but they are on a large scale. Who is it that says they are homes spelled with a capital H? That expresses it. There ought to be little homes scattered about where those young people could drop in and feel that they belonged and could make cups of tea or plain little stews occasionally for their friends. They ought to be shown how to do all these things, not by classes, not in large numbers, but by the half-dozen, or sometimes by only two. I can invite them to my mother's parlour, you think, and so I can and do, and you invite them here. I have by no means forgotten all the delightful things you and your mother have done and are doing for my girls, but I am talking about something else now. I don't want them always to have to come ever so far away from their homes and the streets where they live, for their happy times, the home ought to go down to them and make a centre for them to gather in and get ideas. A college settlement, for instance, suggested Marjorie. Yes, or no, not quite that, either. That is too large. It has a secretary and a board and is managed. Don't you know what I mean? If I had a home of my very own, here a soft flush suffused itself over her earnest face, and could put it where I liked, I should like to go right down among them and have a large, cheery, homely sitting-room, that on certain evenings, for instance, should belong to Susie Miller to manage as she would, and between times I should like to show her how to manage. She laughed a little over this and added, you think me an idiot and perhaps I am, but there are certain experiments that I should like to try. Whether or not Susie Miller is being educated, Glyde Douglas certainly is. This was Mrs. Edmonds's remark after Glyde had left them. She had sat apart a silent, amused listener to the girl's eager outburst. Marjorie gave a detailed account of the conversation in her letter to Mr. Maxwell, and closed with the following. In short, when a certain Paul Burwell gets ready to set up his home, may I be near enough to observe its workings, for little Mrs. Paul, that is to be, is certainly getting ready to undertake some astonishing experiments. Oh, but she is delicious, such a rest from all the other girls, and it is such a comfort to me to think that the young man is evidently ready to meet her more than half-way. She does not suspect that I know it, but the mouse gets some of her most startling ideas from him, just as I have no doubt that he gets some of his sweetest ones from her. Indeed, Leonard, I believe they will be a couple after my own heart. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 June Visitors June came early that year, or at least it seemed so to the busy ones, and with June history prepared apparently to repeat itself. That is, Mr. Leonard Maxwell was coming, as he had won June before, to take possession of Mrs. Edmunds's second-floor front room and spend the summer. He had been disappointed in his plan for enjoying the holidays with them, imperative duty having called him elsewhere, but now he was arranging for a quiet vacation to be spent in preparing his writings for the press, and where could a better abiding place be found than Mrs. Edmunds's home? Mother and daughter seemed to be looking forward to the close of the college year with equal satisfaction. The mother, it is true, would not have liked to confess what hope she had hidden in that coming summer. She was not, as she had said, a scheming mother, nor had she, in the vulgar sense of the phrase, the slightest desire to marry off her daughter Marjorie. Yet perhaps the strongest wish of her heart for this beloved daughter was to see her before she died, the happy wife of Mr. Maxwell. On the surface all the people connected with this history were moving on in the even tenor of their ways. Yet there had been changes, notably in Jack Taylor, for instance. No class of people who had ever thought of him before had difficulty in discovering this change. Jack slouched and shambled along the streets no more. Instead of the uncertain, vacillating gate that had been his for years, his step was alert, and his whole manner suggested energy. He whistled in these days as he passed saloons and rejoiced in every fiber of his being because he had not the slightest inclination to enter one of them. He had steady employment now, at good wages, and worked hard every day, and was piling up quite a little sum at the Savings Bank. He attended the evening school that had been started in connection with the Carnell Street Mission, and was making fair progress in the art of reading, writing, and kindred elementary studies. He wore respectable clothing and clean linen, and conducted himself everywhere in a manly way. These were the observable changes. Great as they were, Jack knew of another far more astonishing to him. Locked into his room at night after the day's work was done, and every morning before the day's work commenced, Jack bent his knees and held communion with God. Is there anything more wonderful than that in human history? Not only men of great intellect, but men with such minds and opportunities and wasted energies, as Jack Taylor represents, may at will hold audience with the infinite God, commune with him as long as they will, and live in the daily increasing strength which such communion bestows. Yet Jack knew of something more wonderful still. Not alone, when locked into his room, did he hold communion with the infinite one. But that one actually walked beside him, shielding, guiding, foreseeing, and planning for him. Jack had a simply unanswerable argument with which to prove the truth of this. That argument was his life, what he had been without God, what he was, having permitted him to take control. Jack felt that only those who wished and intended to doubt could get away from this argument. From the night when Glyde Douglas had made her earnest appeal to him not to disappoint the Lord Jesus Christ, a new life had begun in him. Not only new ambitions and hopes, but new strength with which to reach after them. Jack did not understand it fully, who pretends to, but he understood at last the human side and the infinite Lord attended to the rest. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. Jack Taylor was doing his will as well and as fast as he understood it, and no talkative infidel, however ingenious, could have moved his feet from the firm foundation whereon he knew they had been placed. Jack took part nowadays in the mission prayer meeting, being always in his seat even before the hour for opening. No, not in his seat, either, but at the door, watching out, darting down on occasion to the sidewalk or around the corner to the alley hard by, to put an eager hand on some poor fellow's shoulder and speak his word of invitation. Oh, the best of them could not work down in that vicinity equal to Jack. Jack Taylor has been converted, said his old time friend Joe Barry, but though not long before he had chuckled at the idea, he spoke the words now with an entirely grave face and respectful manner. It is a dead sure thing, he said, taint like mine. It's queer, too, what a difference it makes. Mother ought to have had Jack for her son instead of me. The curious regret closed with a grave sigh. But be sure Jack Taylor had not forgotten his old friend. He was watching out for him. Following that long, confidential talk between Mrs. Edmonds and her daughter had been some anxious days during which Marjorie went over and over again the details of that interview, her face burning afresh every time she thought of the possibility of her name having been on the tongues of the gossips. It will be remembered, however, that she had felt sure at the moment that her mother's words were born of motherly anxiety and over solicitude. This idea gained in strength. It seemed quite natural when she remembered her mother's recently acquired knowledge of the world's wickedness through putting forth her strength to help some of its victims. But despite its naturalist in the mother's thoughts, of course it was preposterous. They had no enemies, and it would require an enemy to couple her name even with an impropriety. As for Ralph Bramlett's own words, that had startled her so much, due consideration must be made for them also. They were utterly unpremeditated, and he had failed in his excitement and pain to realize how they would sound to her. Evidently for the moment he had forgotten her presence and simply thought aloud. It was only too apparent that he did not love the wife of his choice as he ought. This was terrible, certainly. Yet by so much more did he need help. The hasty conclusion she had reached, that she was not the one to help him, was next taken up and studied carefully. She was by no means sure that this was true. Had not Ralph sought her almost by instinct, one might say, when he was in bitter trouble? What her mother felt concerning him must really be taken with allowance, because poor Mama had never been able to think of Ralph in an entirely unprejudiced way, and had never understood him. Still, of course, she must be careful not to worry her in any way. The final conclusion she reached was, that she would be entirely frank with Ralph. She would say to him at the first opportunity, that they should always be glad to see him at their home, but that for the sake of idle, gossiping tongues, he must not come to them without his wife. Also, she would so order her trips to and from the city, as to leave no possible chance for him to join her, and she would make her visits to Estelle in the mornings. All these resolutions she had carefully acted upon. Ralph, being duly warned, had taken offence, as might have been foreseen, and for a time did not come at all. But that mood had not lasted. Perhaps he could have told better than anyone else what influence he brought to bear upon his wife, but certain it is that they together spent many evenings with Mrs. Edmonds and Marjorie. No reasonable fault could be found with this, although Mrs. Edmonds realized what Marjorie did not, that it required much diplomacy on her part to keep the conversation general. Neither had the morning visits been entirely as were intended. To the equal surprise of the guest and the wife, Ralph adopted the fashion of appearing suddenly at any hour of the morning. It was always business connected with the firm, that had either detained him in town or brought him back unexpectedly. But evidently Mrs. Bramlett knew no better than Marjorie what the distillery could have to do with their end of the town. On the whole, imperceptibly upon Marjorie's part, June found Ralph Bramlett and herself upon nearly the same footing that had been interrupted by that confidential talk. Not quite, for Ralph attempted no more private interviews in which to talk wildly of his troubles and draw out her sympathy. On the contrary, he carefully avoided any personal references, and was entirely silent as to his business. Marjorie, much as she hated it, could not but hope that some arrangement had been made which was more satisfactory in a money-point of view. Certainly the Bramlitz seemed to have tidied over their anxieties in that line. Estelle exhibited proudly some costly gift from Ralph at almost every visit of Marjorie's. The time for the seal furs upon which he had set her heart early in the winter had, of course, gone by. But a costly lace-trimmed garment had taken their place, and the anniversary of their engagement was remembered by a handsome pin with a diamond center. Marjorie was genuinely glad over these. They not only implied prosperity, but she believed something better, that Ralph was ashamed and amazed because he had allowed himself to grow cold toward his wife, to blame her too severely perhaps for trifling faults. He was trying to atone for the injustice that his thoughts had done her, and took this graceful and expressive way. She could not but hope, as she studied the signs, that Ralph was gaining ground in many ways. His silence to her, even when he had occasional opportunity to speak a word in private, augured well. She, even as the days passed, conceived the idea that he was planning a happy surprise for his friends. He had spoken gloomily once of some business ventures which had not proved a success. Perhaps he had been happily disappointed in them, and now saw and was arranging a way to escape from the position that he had admitted he hated. If only that escape could be brought about, she felt that her hopes for his assured future would be great. It seemed to her a perfectly evident thing that his association with the liquor trade was what was holding him back from church work and from Christian usefulness generally. The hopeful calm into which he had fallen, while she waited, was broken in upon in an unexpected manner. The surprise began with a call from Mrs. Bramlett, not Estelle, but Ralph's mother. Marjorie, as she sat opposite the little old woman with her worn face and anxious eyes, found herself wondering, while she kept up the common places of conversation, what could possibly be the object of the call. Years before, in the days when she was so young and ignorant, that to run in to see Ralph about some matter was as natural to her as to call upon a girlfriend, she had known his mother fairly well. But after she attained to young ladyhood and propriety, and dropped entirely her visits to Ralph, her acquaintance with his mother had also dropped. Mrs. Bramlett was a woman who went to church as often as she could, and who went almost nowhere else. To make a formal or even an informal call was an act entirely outside of her life. Old Mrs. Bramlett, did you say, Jenny? Marjorie had questioned the little maid. Do you mean Ralph Bramlett's mother? Then she cannot want to see me. Are you sure she did not say Mrs. Edmonds? Jenny was very sure she did not. She hadn't said either Mrs. or Miss. She said she wanted Marjorie Edmonds. So Marjorie commented on the lovely spring they had had and the warm summer that was prophesied, and waited for some errand to develop itself. Suddenly, without responding to a suggestion as to the beauty of the day, Mrs. Bramlett began. I suppose you are rather surprised to see me, Marjorie. Perhaps I ought to say Miss Marjorie, but I knew you so well when you were a young thing that it doesn't come natural. I may as well tell you right away what I've come for. I'm not good at going around a thing. I've sat at home and thought about it just as long as I could, and it came over me this afternoon that I could come up here and see if you wouldn't be willing to help me. I want you to talk to our Hannah. I know she is a good bit older than you, but that doesn't make any difference. If there is a living mortal who has any influence over Hannah, it is you. She has always set more store by you than she has by anybody else, and I don't know another person to go to. Ralph is so out with her that he won't speak to her at all, and I don't know as I blame him altogether, either. A brother, you know, always wants to see his sister do just right. And if she doesn't, why? Here Marjorie interrupted in amazed anxiety. But, dear Mrs. Bramlett, what is the matter? I thought Hannah always did just right. Oh, dear, no! Hannah is human like the rest of us. Not but that she is a good girl. She has been as faithful to her father and me as any girl could be, and a good sister to Ralph, too. She has helped him lots of times in his younger days, in ways that he don't know anything about, besides a good many that he does know. But you know how the talk is going, Marjorie, you must have heard about Hannah and that Jack Taylor. They say he has been converted and is behaving first rate. And sometimes I can't help wishing he had died after that and gone to heaven instead of staying here to make all this trouble. Why, they've been telling around that she was going to marry him. And that wasn't bad enough, but they have been saying real downright low things, Marjorie, about my Hannah. Think of it. A Bramlett getting mixed up with such talk is that. Not that there's a word of truth in what they say, of course. All that honest people can say of Hannah is that she has been dreadful silly in letting him take after her as she has. She had good motives, and I always knew she had. Still, it isn't the way to do in this wicked world, and I told her so. But Hannah is that said in her way sometimes, for all she seems so quiet, that it didn't do any good. Now she is the victim of sinful tongues. I didn't know we had an enemy in the world. But it does seem as though some enemy must have got up these last stories anyhow. Haven't you heard anything, Marjorie? No, Marjorie had not. At least, nothing that she had heeded. A long time ago, when she first came home, she had heard of some silly rumours that were afloat. But she had not given them a second thought, beyond a feeling of indignation that a Christian girl could not try to help one in need without being the victim of idle tongues. But she had heard nothing of late, and had forgotten all about it. Does Hannah know what is being said of her? She asked. Oh, yes! the mother said with a sigh. She knows well enough. I've talked to her by the hour. But it didn't do any good. It made her kind of mad. And when Abramlick gets his spunk up there's no end to the things he will do just to show his independence. Hannah won't give up teaching Jack Taylor. She's got him in her arithmetic class down at the mission. And she won't stop his walking home with her and standing at the gate awhile to talk. He tells her all about his affairs, acts as though she was his grandmother, and she seems to have some such notion herself. Ralph's wife hears all the stories. It does beat all what that woman hears. Seems as if folks must run to her with the news as quick as they happen, or sometimes before they happen. But it doesn't seem as though people would tell her about her husband's own sister, does it? CHAPTER XV. Schemes At this point Marjorie was called from the room for a moment, giving Mrs. Bramlitt time to reflect on what she had been saying. She looked up at Marjorie on her return, with a timid, half-questioning glance, as she said. It seems kind of queer to you, I suppose, to hear me going on as I have about my own flesh and blood. But I've sat there alone and thought about it so long that it seemed to me I should go crazy unless I talked it over with somebody. And I haven't anybody to go to. Mr. Bramlitt is so poorly now that I can't say a word to him. I wouldn't have him know for anything that Hannah is being talked about. It would break his heart. She is the only daughter you know, and he has always set such store by her. That is one of my troubles, for fear someone will think at his duty to get off a long story to him. Hannah doesn't have any kind of a notion what it would be to her father to go through such a thing about her. It's queer that children never seem to know what they are to their parents. To hear her talk sometimes you would think she believed there was no one in the world cared for her. And there's her father just bound up in her. She's having a real hard time. Ralph is so out with her that he won't speak to her at all. I tell him that is a dreadful way for brothers and sisters to be. But there he's a Bramlitt too. You see, Estelle has said so much, and in such a way, that Hannah got all rod up. And I suppose she's said some pretty sharp things back. And Estelle ran right to Ralph with them, and he says Hannah has insulted his wife. You can't blame a man for standing up for his wife, can you? I wouldn't give much for one who didn't stick to her through thick and thin. Though, of course, Hannah didn't mean anything like an insult. Poor Mrs. Bramlitt, in her earnest desire to be true to all the members of her family, was being continually switched off on side tracks. And so, Marjorie, I just made up my mind this afternoon that I would come up and tell you the whole story, and ask if you wouldn't send for Hannah, or come over and see her and have a talk with her. I am sure you can influence her if anybody can, if she would just give up going with Jack Taylor, or letting him run after her, if she wouldn't have anything to do with him at all for a spell, why the stories would die out, and nobody be hurt. They haven't got anything to grow on, you know, nothing but made-up stories, but she keeps them afloat all the time by the way she does. She's got a notion, you see, that people feel above Jack Taylor and won't have anything to do with him, and that if she drops him he will be discouraged and go back into bad ways. I tell her, even if he does, she isn't bound to ruin herself and him, too, in order to try to help him. But you can't convince her, at least I can't. She thinks that Estelle has turned Ralph and everybody else against her, and that she must do her duty in spite of them. It is all duty-margery. Anyway, she thinks it is. She believes she is a kind of martyr, you know. It's my belief that some folks like to be martyrs if it isn't too hard work. It gives dignity and importance to what they are doing to feel that they are suffering because of it in some way or another. Still, Hannah was never one to turn back. I don't believe she would if the old days were back again, and she was on her way to the stake. And I believe in her and have no kind of doubt but that she helps the fellow in a hundred ways. But you don't think it is right for her to go on like this now, do you? No, said Marjorie, distressed into an emphatic answer. It isn't right for a girl to peril her own name, of course, and bring trouble upon others by her good works. But this is also new and strange to me, Mrs. Bramlett. I cannot imagine the gossips saying anything but the mirrors twaddle about Hannah. That's about what she thinks, said Mrs. Bramlett, nodding her head zagely. She says Estelle imagines two-thirds of it, but I told her that Ralph had spoken plainly enough for her to know better than that. Still, she believes that Estelle has prejudiced Ralph. Will you come over and talk with her, Marjorie, and tell her what she ought to do, and get her to promise to do it? It does seem as though I couldn't stand much more of this. Ralph and his wife not speaking to her and staying away from our house for fear they will meet her, and saying she has disgraced them and all that kind of thing, and Hannah feeling like death a good deal of the time, but going straight on doing her duty, and her father breaking down right before our eyes. We have trouble enough coming to us without making any of it ourselves. Here the poor mother hid her face in her handkerchief, and let the tears that had been forcing themselves upon her have free course for a minute or two. While Marjorie, with all her heart on the alert, hastened to assure her that she would certainly have a talk with Hannah at the first opportunity, and that she would meantime take pains to inform herself as to the exact nature of the reports. Then she made haste to prepare for her guest a cup of tea, talking cheerly the while about commonplace matters, and making every effort to draw her thoughts for a time from her burdens. Just as her last drop of tea was drained, Mrs. Edmonds appeared at the gate in the little pony-fayton that she used on her errands of mercy, and Marjorie, mindful of the long, warm walk to the farm, proposed driving her guest home. But she would have none of it. Oh, no! she said, shaking her gray head and rising. I mustn't do that. It would never do for me to go back in state. Hannah would know right away where I had been, and then she would suspect something. I wouldn't have her know for the farm that I had been here talking with you about her. It would just upset the whole thing. She is so wrought up that she can't listen to anything I say anymore, and she would be sure to think I had prejudiced you. I want you to talk to her just as though you had heard the story from the Gossips themselves, and don't mention Estelle nor Ralph if you can help it. Oh, I can walk home. I had an errand at the store that I had to see to myself. They didn't know I was coming any farther, and I don't mean they shall know I did. I feel quite jerked up. It does beat all how you manage to comfort a body. I always knew you were to be depended upon Marjorie, and I used to think in the old times, well, dear me, never mind. There was a heightened color on Marjorie's face as she turned back from the gate with her mother, having said good-bye to their guest. They both knew what Mrs. Bramlett used to think. Perhaps Marjorie had never had a duty to perform more disagreeable to her than this which had been thrust upon her. She had always an instinctive aversion to interfering with other people's affairs, especially the affairs of one whom she knew so little as she felt that she did Hannah Bramlett. But it was I who set her to work, mother, she said, with a little self-conscious laugh. I suppose there is a sort of poetic justice in my having to interfere with it now. Poor Hannah, it seems such a pity that she need be disturbed when her protégé is doing so well, and when I presume she can help him in many ways as no other person can. It is a pity that she isn't sixty years old, or else that she hasn't common sense, said Mrs. Edmonds dryly. For Mrs. Edmonds, estimable and sweet-spirited woman as she generally was, could not be depended upon for a perfectly unbiased judgment where any of the Bramlett name were concerned. Nevertheless, she discussed with Marjorie ways of managing the proposed interview. The first suggestion was that Hannah should be called upon informally, and that, as opportunity offered, the delicate subject should be broached and frankly discussed. But Marjorie was opposed to this. She wanted Hannah to come to her. I can manage the detail so much better, mother, she said, without fear of interruption at the most inopportune moment. Besides, if I should become really unendurable Hannah could leave me at any moment and go home, whereas if I were her guest I should have to be endured to the end. Half a dozen ways of securing a visit from Hannah Bramlett that would look sufficiently unpremeditated and friendly were discussed and abandoned. It was wonderful to see what a difficult thing, even so simple a matter as that became, when one had a special end in view. One proposition from Marjorie was to give the boys of Hannah's mission class, including Jack Taylor himself, a treat, have ice cream and cake in the evening, accompanied with music and games, and ask Hannah to come in the afternoon and help to prepare for them. Would she be so distressed by our talk, do you think, as to spoil the evening for her? It is not as if it were something new. Her mother says she understands it fully, that she has talked to her by the hour. Poor creature, I do not wonder that she is obstinate after being talked to by the hour about anything. What I am to do is simply to use my influence to help her to see things in the right light. And by way of doing so, interrupted Marjorie's mother, invite her to spend the evening at your house with Jack Taylor, and walk home with him two miles afterwards. I am afraid, daughter, that Mrs. Bramlett would not commend your judgment. How would it do to ask Hannah to come and help prepare the work for the sewing classes? There is an enormous quantity of it to be made ready before Thursday, and she is probably an expert in that kind of work. The very thing, said Marjorie gleefully. Why did you not mention that sewing basket before? I'll have her stay to tea, and we'll get up the nicest little supper, and smooth over all the trying things I shall have to say to her with it. I believe we can make it a pleasant afternoon for the poor girl. She must be desperately lonely. I have been thinking of her all the morning, and I do not know of any persons of her age who would be in the least congenial with her. Perhaps she has been willing to give Jack Taylor so much of her time because she did not know what to do with herself. Oh, mother, there are so many things to be done in this world. Somebody ought to be interested for the people who haven't resources within themselves. I wonder if it is I. The scheme of the sewing basket worked well. Hannah Bramlett, who would perhaps have felt suspicious of almost any other form of invitation, was more gratified than she cared to own over being the one chosen to assist Marjorie. And Mrs. Bramlett not only made no objection to the plan, but assisted her daughter to make ready for the afternoon's outing with an alacrity which in itself would have been suspicious had Hannah not been too busy to notice it. Mrs. Edmonds, having assisted in sorting the various kinds of work, and offered what advice was needed when everything was arranged, left the two young women to themselves. Marjorie saw her depart with a great shrinking of heart. She dreaded the ordeal before her more even than she had at first. True to her promise to Mrs. Bramlett, she had instituted careful inquiries to learn the extent of the gossip, with the result that she stood appalled before its magnitude. It was not that any respectable person seemed to credit the stories, unless one accepts those vicious creatures who lay claim to respectability, yet who shake their ugly heads and affirm that they, do not know, there must be some fire where there is so much smoke. And one added that those old girls who had lived such circumspect lives up to a certain date were often queer. Marjorie blazed with indignation over it all, and spoke keen, cutting words in Hannah's vindication. But she came home sore-hearted, with the conviction upon her that even good work, such work as angels might rejoice over, must be done carefully in this sinful world. She shrank from beginning the conversation with Hannah and talked common places until she was ashamed of herself. At last she made the effort. I want to ask you about your protégé, Jack Taylor. Is the progress that he is making in every way satisfactory? You need not call him my protégé, said Hannah, with a good-natured laugh. It would be more appropriate to say that he is Glide Douglas's. She accomplished more for him in a half-hour's talk than I succeeded in doing in all the winter. I don't know how to talk religion to people, Marjorie. I wish I did. There ought to be a school for teaching folks what to say about such things, though I don't know, but Glide would have to be appointed a teacher, the youngest one among us. This last with an amused little laugh. But to get into a discussion upon methods of teaching theology was not what Marjorie desired. She repeated in another form her question about Jack. Yes, said Hannah unsuspiciously. Jack is doing very well. He is dull in arithmetic, poor fellow, but who would expect him to be anything else? I was dull enough, I remember. Perhaps that is why I seem to succeed pretty well in teaching him. I remember perfectly how out of patience my teachers used to get with me, and so I tried to have patience at least. There has been a great change in Jack. I often wish that some boasting infidel could have been well acquainted with his life up to a few months ago, and watched the change. Among Ralph's books there is one called Evidences of Christianity. Jack would make a good volume of that kind, I think. Yes, said Marjorie, with ready sympathy. No one can doubt the change in Jack. I like to hear him pray in the prayer meeting. He is so simple and quaint in his language, and so manifestly asks for what he wants and nothing else. But Hannah, will you forgive me if I say something now that may hurt your feelings? Do you not think that he is far enough advanced for you to safely drop him in a sense? I do not, of course, mean that you would lose your interest in him, but could he not do without so much of your time and attention? She felt that she was bungling wretchedly. There was an instantaneous change in Hannah's manner, and her face suggested the bramlet obstinacy of which Marjorie had heard all her life. Why should I not give my time as well as to leave the work for others? Was the cold response? He needs a great deal of somebody's time in order to make up for the years that he has lost. Clearly, circumlocution was not going to serve here. There must be plain speaking. I know, Marjorie said gently, and you naturally feel that you can be more helpful to him than others could. But Hannah, there are reasons why it should be some other's time than yours. Don't you know there are, dear friend? I suppose you have heard some of the foolish gossip that is afloat. It is utterly without foundation, of course, as all your friends know. Still, isn't it wise to silence wicked tongues when we can as well as not? Wouldn't it be better for you, and for Jack himself, to say nothing of all your family, if you should transfer him to some other class and give up any special attention to him for a time at least? No, said Hannah passionately. It wouldn't be any such thing, not as I look at it. It would be simply a confession that I had been doing something of which I was ashamed, and it is the only work I ever did in my life that I am proud of. I have neither said nor done anything for Jack Taylor that might not have been said and done before all the world, if that was the common-sense way of trying to help people. I know about the stories you may be sure. My precious sister-in-law takes care that I shall miss nothing from them. I know more, I think, than has been said. Estelle has a way of hearing more than was said when she feels like it. But the stories haven't influenced me one bit, Marjorie, and I am disappointed to find that you considered it necessary to send for me to come up here in order to tell me that I ought to give up the only bit of real work that I ever did in my life. I've got used to hearing other people talk like fools, but I must say I didn't expect it of you. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of Overruled by Pansy Now Hannah, said Marjorie in a kind, quiet voice. That isn't the way to talk, dear friend. You shouldn't receive a word of friendly warning from a Christian sister in any such spirit. Do you think you should? Hannah basted fiercely for a few minutes without speaking, then she laid down her work and looked her mentor squarely in the face. Marjorie Edmonds, she said with a kind of suppressed fierceness, do you mean to tell me that you, you of all persons in the world, counsel me to give up my work for Jack Taylor because of the lies that some malicious tongues have chosen to tell? Yes, said Marjorie firmly. I do. Not because I do not believe with all my heart both in you and in Jack Taylor, but because I know it to be a very wicked world, more wicked I have discovered of late than I had imagined it could be, and because you and I must take care of our influence. In our working orders we find no planer directions than that. Think how many girls in the mission you lose your influence over if you allow acts of yours that could be avoided to furnish food for gossiping tongues. Then why don't you follow your own advice? The words seemed to force themselves from Hannah's lips almost without her consent. Marjorie regarded her with grave surprise. I do not understand you. She said, a tinge of coldness in her tone. In what way does it seem to you that I am not doing so? Why, of course you know. I wonder if it is possible that you don't know what the gossips are saying about you. The blood mounted in rich waves to Marjorie's temples, but she kept her voice quiet. What do you mean, Hannah? Speak plainly, please. I wish I hadn't spoken at all, said Hannah, conscience smitten over the look on the girl's face. Perhaps you don't know a thing about it, and I thought you did and gloried in the way you were taking it, going straight on doing what was right and letting folks talk. Hannah, I shall have to ask you, if you are my friend, to tell me just what you mean. This is all new to me. I wish I had been dumb before I began to say anything about it, said poor Hannah. Why, it is just this. It is pretty near as hard for me as it is for you. It is about Ralph, you know. They say, the gossips do, that you and he are too intimate. Part of what they say has some truth in it, that he used to think the world of you before he was married and never got over it. But they say you never did either, and that you too are keeping company as well as you can, since there is a wife in the way. And because the woman always gets the most blamed when people gossip, they say that the way you treat Estelle is shameful, and they wonder she doesn't go insane. And, well, a lot of stuff that it is a disgrace to repeat, and that I don't think deserves a second thought. She had turned her face away from Marjorie and was basting rapidly. Had she been watching her, she would have seen the blood reseed, and the girl's face grow very pale. With a great effort Marjorie held her voice to something like naturalness while she questioned further. Hannah, nothing but the story in its completeness can satisfy me now. Who says these things? Where have you heard them? To what extent are they talked? That I am sure I don't know, said Hannah, nervously basting a sleeve to its lining upside down. The first I heard of it, to pay any attention to it, was one evening when Jack Taylor came to me feeling dreadfully because he had got into a quarrel with a worthless fellow on the wharf and knocked him down. That was after he was converted and had given up such doings. I insisted upon knowing what was the cause of the quarrel so that I could decide how much provocation Jack had had, and I discovered that the fellow had insulted you and Ralph, and because you were my friend and Ralph my brother, Jack thought he ought to take up cudgels in your defence. At least he was roused to such a pitch of anger by what was said that he went to fighting before he knew what he was about. I questioned Jack so closely that it began to open my eyes to the kind of talk that was going on, and I followed it up a little. I made Susie Miller tell me what some of the factory girls were saying, and I found out that Bill Sieber had had a pitch battle with another loafer for the same reason. That was to please Susie because she did not like Glide Douglas's brother-in-law to be insulted. They are faithful to their friends, those factory people, in the ways that they understand best. That is about all there is of it, Marjorie. I've heard enough sins to let me understand that it was general talk among the class of people who depend upon such talk for their daily food, and I supposed that, of course, you and Ralph knew what was being said and treated it with the disdain which it deserved. Ralph generally knows what is going on. As I said when I began, I just gloried in the way you took it. It seemed to me the only sensible way. But, of course, I was a good deal hurt to think that he should pitch into me as he did. The only thing I could think of was that it was Estelle's influence because she didn't like anything about me and never did. But when you began to criticize too, that seemed almost too much to bear. I wonder if it can be possible that Ralph doesn't know either what is being said. You may be sure, said Marjorie, that your brother has not a thought of such a thing, regard for his wife, to say nothing of justice to me, would have compelled him to take notice of it if he had. I confess that I am overwhelmed. I knew it was a wicked world, but I certainly did not know that there was anyone who would dare to couple my name with that of a married man. From that point on the two young women seemed to change places. From being on the defensive Hannah turned exhorter and would be comforter, reiterating her earnest belief that dignified silence and a steady continuance of the same line of conduct was the best way to meet such attacks. She affirmed that any other way was equivalent to a confession of wrongdoing. She declared more than once that she wished she had been deaf and dumb for a year rather than to have brought such a look of misery to the face of her friend. Certainly she exerted herself to her utmost to make Marjorie's pain less bitter. But viewed from that woman's standpoint the afternoon was a wretched failure. It seemed to stretch its length along interminably. She put away with dignity after a little all personal questions and assayed to hold the interest to the aprons and dresses and sacks that were being prepared for the sewing class. But she felt all the time an almost overpowering desire to get away to her own room and look this intolerable humiliation in the face and decide what she should do with it. Jack Taylor and even Bill Sieber resorting to hand-to-hand fights in her defense. Mrs. Edmonds performed her part of the afternoon's program to perfection. Nothing could have been daintier or more home-like in appearance than that tea table, and more toothsome vians had probably never been spread before Hannah Bramlett, who was a stranger to the finer details of the culinary art. Yet even this was a failure. Hannah, who was grieved for Marjorie and angry with herself, tried in vain to talk common places with Mrs. Edmonds. She was, at all times, tempted to be silent before a third person and inclined to be half-afraid of Mrs. Edmonds. As for Marjorie, she seemed to have to struggle with herself in order to utter even the few sentences that she did. And her mother, much bewildered, tugged at her end of the burden as best she could, and found herself wishing once more, as she had a hundred times before, that Marjorie had never met a person who bore the name of Bramlett. The family seemed destined to bring trouble of some sort upon her. What is it, dear? she asked, as soon as the door had closed upon Hannah's departing footsteps. Was it all so much of a failure that you cannot rally from the disappointment? It is too much to expect of a Bramlett, I suppose, that she should have sense enough to accept adverse criticism kindly. Do not be hard on poor Hannah, Marjorie said, trying to smile. She bore the criticism quite as well as could have been expected under the circumstances. I do not think any good results will follow, however. Hannah has what I suppose is a false idea of the way in which gossip that has no foundation in truth should be treated. But one can respect her for being willing to move bravely forward in the line of what she thinks is duty, despite wicked tongues. And then, to Marjorie's intense relief, a woman belonging to her mother's Bible class came to claim her confidential attention, and the girl was able to escape to her own room, where she locked and bolted herself in, and began to walk up and down her room like a caged creature, doing what Marjorie Edmonds had not done three times in her life, ringing her hands in a kind of passion of despairing indignation. I am sure there are pure-hearted girls by the score who can understand just how terrible it was to her to think of her name being bandied about the streets, not only by the thoughtless and careless, but by the course and law. Perhaps the deepest sting in this experience came to her through the thought that she was, in part at least, to blame. Had not her mother warned her, and had not she found again and again that her mother's intuitions were to be trusted, that her mother's estimate of the world was truer than her own? And yet she had been so wise in her own conceit, so sure that in this particular case it was not wisdom but anxiety which had dictated the warning that she had allowed it to slip from her almost unheeded and gone on in much the same way as before. Now how was she to live through the humiliation of it all? Hannah's straightforward course, mistaken though it might be considered, was worthy of all praise as compared with hers. Hannah had had an object in view, and had accomplished it. Jack had steadily improved under her tutelage, and she was able to see each day some definite result of her efforts. But, so Marjorie sternly told herself, her own plans from the first had been ill-formed and vague. She wanted to influence Ralph and Estelle for good, true. But could anything be more vague than that word, good? What had she hoped to do after all? What had she aimed at? And even in the most general sense, what had she accomplished? Worse than nothing. Estelle barely tolerated her, perhaps because she was compelled to. Here this self-accusing spirit felt her cheeks burn with shame. There came to her such a feeling of certainty that Ralph had known all along of the infamous talk, and instead of making an effort to shield her, had gone loftily on doing as he pleased. It was like him indeed, this imagining himself superior to public opinion, whenever it suited his passing fancy not to notice it. For the first time since his marriage she led a feeling of burning indignation against this selfish man take possession of her heart. Before that it had been so full of pity for him, in view of the mistakes he was making, that there had been room for no other feeling. Now she let it have full sway. Indignation and a sense of self-injury may, under some circumstances, be a good teacher. At this time it enabled Marjorie to get her mother's view of Ralph Bramlett, and to realize, as she certainly had never done before, what an embodiment of selfishness he was. It enabled her also to realize what is perhaps one of the most important lessons that the young people of today have to learn, namely that the views of good mothers are at all times worthy of careful consideration, and perhaps nine times out of ten are correct. Among other questions claiming consideration was that trying one as to whether her mother must be told of the extent to which Gossip was now meddling with them. If not, how was her anxiety to be satisfied as to the outcome of the afternoon's effort? Fortunately other interests came in to help her in this. The late train brought Mr. Maxwell three days earlier than he could reasonably have been expected. He was with them at breakfast the next morning, and Mrs. Edmonds, in the relief at seeing him, forgot Hannah Bramlett. It will be remembered that this good woman was indulging in certain strong hopes as to the outcome of this summer's companionship. It is true she had felt at her duty to write a very discouraging letter about them, but she too had done some reconsidering. The reply to that very letter had helped her. Do not be troubled as to myself, Mr. Maxwell wrote. I am entering into this effort with eyes very wide open, and if I fail I have certainly been duly warned. Above all, do not disturb Marjorie's peace by any confession of my feeling toward her. If I may have no other place I certainly want to be to her as a brother, and I would not by any means have her startled into fear of me. Let the summer take care of itself. I confess I look forward to it with eagerness. A reasonable person might have been satisfied with the greeting that Marjorie gave their guest. She was openly and heartily glad to see him, and within twenty-four hours of his arrival their companionship was established on the old basis. Perhaps it might be said that the intimacy was greater than ever before. Marjorie, who had found it impossible to put away from her mind Hannah and Hannah's information, found herself on that first evening making a confidant of Mr. Maxwell, so far at least as to let him see how sorely she was being tried. He entered with even more heartiness into her feeling than she had expected. Indeed, she will probably never know how he longed to visit some swift and confined punishment on the creatures who had dared to toss her name carelessly among them. For her sake he controlled himself, and tried, after the first outburst of indignation, to treat the matter lightly. People must talk, you know, he said. I remember I used to think that they were especially given to talk in this part of the world, and they naturally liked to choose the choicest possible victims. Suppose we turn our thoughts into a new channel, compel them, as it were, to talk about our two selves. I propose, with your permission, to be so constantly your companion for the summer that it will not be possible for even their ingenious tongues to separate our names. Marjorie laughed, though her eyes shone suspiciously. She thought she recognized the delicate chivalry that was ready to sacrifice its own convenience to her welfare. But that would be only exchanging one of the victims, she said, mindful for a single instant of another warning of her mother's. It would relieve poor Ralph, it is true, but what of the substitute? The substitute enters into the snare with wide open eyes, he said cheerily. In fact, that is a wrong figure. It is we who are preparing the snare for the unwary tongues of gossips, don't you see? I think I shall rather enjoy the situation. It was such a hearty and apparently heart-free response that Marjorie was immediately relieved and reflected gleefully that in this one thing her mother was undoubtedly mistaken. Leonard Maxwell, who had loved and petted a sister once, and lost her, had adopted her in the vacant place, and jubilantly did she receive him. No brother, she believed, could have been more appreciated. Certainly none could have been more unselfish. CHAPTER XVII. A crisis. Mrs. Estelle Bramlett was moving with an air of uncontrollable restlessness about her pretty parlor. Although it was not the time of day for such employment, and she had no duster in hand, yet there was an apparent attempt to put things in order. She took up and laid down again various books and papers on the reading-table, brushed away with her hand an imaginary fleck of dust, then suddenly turning began to walk up and down the room, with those restless hands tightly grasped as if in an effort to control them. Occasionally, although quite alone, she broke into snatches of talk, as though arguing with someone and being responded to in such a manner as to increase her indignation. Then she would recollect herself and, breaking off in the middle of a word, move swiftly over to her mantle and rearrange the elegant trifles thereon, as though all her thought was centered upon them, only to replace them in a very few seconds as they were before. Clearly the poor lady had been terribly moved. Perhaps in reviewing all the days of her not-very-happy existence she could not have found a harder one than this. It was all the harder to endure because, in some respects at least, her life had been pleasanter of late. For several months her husband had seemed less moody and disturbed. Certainly his monetary troubles, whatever had caused them, appeared to be over. He had proved this in numberless, extremely pleasant ways. Elegant and expensive trifles that she had admired but never expected to possess had been lavished upon her to such an extent that—and this constituted a large share of her enjoyment in them—she had had something new to show Marjorie Edmonds nearly every time she called. That young woman continued to be the wife's special thorn, although there had been improvement there also. Her husband did not now spend hours alone with Marjorie, as she had been sure that he did on two or three occasions, and as her intense jealousy had caused her to imagine that he did many times when such was not the case. He was punctilious now in his determination to have his wife with him whenever he called at the Edmonds' home, but he was willing, nay anxious, to call there whenever the slightest pretext for doing so could be invented, and he was not ready to call anywhere else. It was rarely indeed that she could prevail upon him to spend an evening with her at her old home. He frankly admitted that he considered such evenings hopelessly stupid. Her sister Fanny was always entertaining some special guest in the front parlor, and Glide could talk of nothing but her mission scholars or some such invigorating topic. When, in a fit of indignation, she had one day accused him of caring to see nobody but Marjorie Edmonds, he had been equally frank, assuring her that Marjorie was the only lady of his acquaintance worth talking to, so that these were all old grievances and could not account for Estelle's miserable day. It had begun, as she angrily told herself that most of her misery did begin, with either Hannah Bramlett or Marjorie Edmonds, this time it was Hannah. Mrs. Swanson, her swede washer-woman, had called upon her that morning on what she believed to be an errand of justice. Mrs. Swanson was no gossip, as she took pains to explain. She had heard a great deal as she went from house to house, which, as a rule, went in at one ear and out at the other. But on the day previous she had heard so cruel a story connecting itself with the name of Hannah Bramlett, and had heard it from so many different tongues, that she had made up her mind to come with it to Mrs. Bramlett, to see if the master, as she called the husband, could not do something with the talkers. The story had been cruel indeed, worse than Estelle had before imagined. Being compelled to wait until her husband should return at night before she could do anything definite, directly the door had closed upon Mrs. Swanson. She had relieved her nerves by seizing her hat and walking with much more rapid steps than usual out to the Bramlett farm, arriving there warm and almost breathless to find the elder Mrs. Bramlett sitting drearily in a kitchen chair with one corner of her apron doing duty every few minutes to wipe away a tear that would steal down her cheek, and Hannah dashing about among the dishes in a way that be tokened strong excitement. What is the matter? asked Mrs. Estelle, arrested by the tears. Her mother-in-law rarely made such exhibition. Where is Father Bramlett? He isn't worse, is he? He is in bed, said his wife, shaking her head drearily. He is clear-tuckered out this morning in no wonder. He has had a stroke that I just expect he will never get up from. A stroke, said Mrs. Estelle, startled. You don't mean of paralysis? No, said Hannah, of tongues. That is worse. I wish I had had a stroke of something, murmured the mother. Before I let that meddling gossiping Mr. Sharp up to see him, I might have known something would come of it. Oh! said Mrs. Estelle. She thought she comprehended. I don't think I would worry about that. For my part I believe it is just as well. Somebody would have told him sooner or later. You can't keep a father in ignorance of his daughter's doings, even if it were wise to do so. It doesn't happen to be his daughter that is troubling him, said Hannah, with a sort of grim triumph. It is something of vastly more importance. But I suppose you know all about it and have this long time. It is only his father and mother and sister who must be kept in ignorance until they hear things from strangers. Estelle's face was pailing under the possibilities that this language suggested. What are you talking about? She asked sharply. Can't you speak plain English when you have anything to say? Hannah, said her mother, putting down her apron and speaking in a tone of grave rebuke. Why do you talk as though you believed it? There isn't a word of truth in it, not a word. I never thought so for a moment. What I am worried over is that your father, being weak and feeble, cannot rise above it and had a sleepless night over it, and sleepless nights are dangerous things for a man in his condition. Estelle, in her excitement, and in her fear of she knew not what, fairly stamped her foot as she said. What are you talking about? It seems strange that you must wait to have an argument before you tell me what has happened. Nothing has happened except some more talk, said the mother with dignity. Under her daughter-in-law's disrespect she was overcoming her tears. I let Mr. Sharp in last night to see father. He was so anxious to have a talk with him, and father had been so kind of quiet and lonesome all day, I thought it would do him good. Ralph hasn't been to see him for three days, and I knew he was grieving over it and needed heartening up. But I made a dreadful mistake. What did he do but go to work and tell him a lot of stuff that I suppose you have heard, although not a breath of it has come to us, but you seem to hear all the stories that are going. About Ralph running the liquor store at Marston Place that all the fuss has been made about. People have got it around, it seems, that Ralph is at the head of the business, and Clark and the other man who run it are only hired by him. They say he is there every day, and two or three times a day, and that the lease for the building is signed by him, and that the men have to report to him every month and get their wages, and he pockets the earnings. All stuff, the whole of it. Between eight o'clock last night and this morning, I suppose I told father a hundred times that I wondered at him for having the patience to listen to such an out-and-out folly. But you see, he is feeble, a great deal feebler than anybody except me senses, and he couldn't get away from it. I don't believe he slept an hour all night. He would just lie there and think, and every once in a while he would give a groan softly like, as though he was afraid of disturbing me, and say, my son a rum-seller, my one boy, that I thought I brought up to hate it, and fight against it and vote against it. Oh God, forgive me! I must have failed in my duty awfully, or such a curse would not have fallen upon me. How can I go and meet my maker and tell him that the boy he gave me to take care of for him is getting his living by ruining lives? It would have made a stone cry just to hear him. Mrs. Bramlett's apron was needed again before her sentence was completed. With the last word she retired entirely behind it and cried softly. The poor little woman never did anything in a loud, fierce way. But Mrs. Estelle was angry. I should not have cried, she burst forth fiercely. I should have been indignant. I should have ordered a man from the house who talked about my son in that way. I never heard anything like it, coming into his own home and slandering him violently before his father and mother, and they merely crying over it. The man shall be arrested for slander and tried and punished. I don't care if he is seventy years old. If he were seven hundred it should not save him. Hannah, I should think you at least, might have had spirit enough to stand up for your brother and tell that creature what you thought of him. It was Hannah's opportunity. Could she be expected to do other than use it? Oh no, she said. I believed every word he uttered, of course. And just as soon as I get the work done, I'm going to rush down to Ralph's office and tell him he is a disgrace to the family, and he ought to be ashamed of himself. That is the way to manage gossip, don't you know it? I understand your insinuations, said Mrs. Estelle, with great dignity, and consider them beneath my notice. Of course, this is a very different matter. In your case you provoke the stories by your daily doings, while as regards your brother, there is not the shadow of a foundation for them to work upon. Well, mother, I might as well go home if there is nothing I can do. I am sorry, Father Bramlett allowed himself to be disturbed by a false and foolish story. One would suppose him to be too old a man to be so easily deceived. And not daining to take further notice of Hannah, she turned and swept from the room. She deceived them both by her sudden calmness. She did not deceive herself. Never in her life had her passionate nature been in such a whirl of excitement. Was it anger, or pain, or fear, or a mixture of all three? Was she angry with the repeaters of the story, or with the foundation on which it rested? What did she fear in regard to her husband? Not certainly that he was, in so many words, a rum-seller, but she did not allow her swiftly flying thoughts to formulate themselves in distinct phrases. Yet despite her trying to push them aside, there came to her reminders of facts which she had not understood. Her husband's sudden apparent prosperity where before he had been on the eve of disgrace. He had brought her one evening, with a triumphant smile, receipts for every one of those bills about which she had haunted him, saying that he presumed she would like to keep them among her treasures. He had responded promptly and freely to her calls for money for household or personal expenses. He had been lavish of his gifts to a degree that she had never noticed before. She had believed him to have speculated with some of his salary and to have apparently failed, and then to have met with sudden success. But was this the explanation? More strange than this experience had been the lately acquired habit of coming home to luncheon, or of darting in perhaps at ten or eleven o'clock for something forgotten, and explaining that business had detained him in town until that hour. What business? When she had questioned, it had always been matters connected with the firm in which she could have no interest. Was it certain that she had no interest in them? Oh, she had no fear, of course, of anything like what those bramelettes had allowed that odious old man to pour into their ears. But was it possible that he might have permitted himself for a large increase of salary to take the general supervision of the retail liquor store which was so hated in that part of the town? Perhaps some member of the firm was conducting the business and paying her husband to oversee it for him. Could this be possible? She did not, as has been said, put the thought into definite form before her. She simply pushed its shadow from her and hated it, and grew more angry every moment over its bare possibility. Was Estelle Bramlett then such a fierce and consistent temperance advocate that she shrank thus from the smell of its contact? One must move carefully here and try to do her justice. She hated the liquor traffic, certainly, all respectable people belonging to her world did. Like her husband, she had been brought up among the temperance fanatics. Then did she hate the distillery? Well, that was different. It was wholesale. And anyway, Ralph was but its bookkeeper. Books had to be kept. She would have preferred, certainly she would much have preferred, that he should be a lawyer, for instance. But would she have preferred him to keep books at the shoe factory for eight hundred dollars a year, rather than for the distillery for fifteen hundred a year? No, distinctly she would not. They could not live on eight hundred a year. What was the use of considering it? But a retail liquor store sat down in their midst, a store that her friend Mrs. Hemingway hated with all her righteous soul, a store that Mrs. Gordon Potter unhesitatingly called a rum saloon. Mrs. Edson declined to call upon the wife of the man employed there, because she would not have the wife of a rum seller on her calling list. Ah, all this was distinctly another matter. Mrs. Ralph Bramlett knew that in the circle in which she chiefly moved, to be the wife of a rum seller meant social ostracism. To be connected, however remotely, with the retail liquor trade, meant a distinct drop from unquestioned respectability to the ranks of those who were talked about. Mrs. Bramlett could not endure it. Hannah Bramlett had been a sufficiently bitter cup for her to drain. If Ralph had been inveigled into a closer connection with this business, had dared to enter it without consulting her, without even allowing her to know it, she simply would not tolerate it. Nothing should tempt her to do so. Ralph Bramlett should see that even a wife would not endure everything. In this mood she went home, and in this mood she remained during the long hours of that trying day. Nay, her indignation increased, as Glide came in the course of the afternoon, frightened and anxious. Glide had heard the story, heard other forms of it, some of them more trying than the first. What did Estelle think could have started such reports? Did she think Ralph could have said anything to lead people to suppose such an absurdity? Did she not think he ought at once to be told, in order to take measures to have the people understand that there was absolutely no foundation for the stories? Estelle did not choose to say what she thought beyond the fact that she evidently had occasion to be ashamed of all her relatives, since they were so ready to listen to lies. She hurried Glide away more disturbed than when she came in, told her to rush over to her dear friend Marjorie, and publish all the gossip she had heard against her brother-in-law, and be sure to let that immaculate Mr. Maxwell hear every word. In this mood, growing stronger with its nursing, she met her husband when he came home late, and tired, and harassed by a burden that he was carrying quite alone. CHAPTER XVIII. REVOLATIONS Does anyone need to be told how Ralph Bramlett was received? There had been stormy periods in his married life before, certainly none stormier than this. Estelle waited not even for her husband to make ready for dinner. She followed him to his dressing-room, and while he tried to wash from his hands the soil which had accumulated that day, some of its soil that no soap could cleanse away, she burst out upon him, not with questions, not even with a hint that she had no faith in the stories, but with as complete a tirade against his axe as though every syllable of the gossip had been proved. Had she not been too much occupied with herself, she would have noted that he grew deathly pale, but he did not in any other way make known that he heard her. He went on washing those hands that were well-shaped and had always been a comfort to him with punctilious care. That, and his silence, exasperated his wife still more. It is like you, she said, to insult me by this silence and unconcern. Do not pretend that you have no regard for what people say about you. I know better. You would give all you are worth to stand well in the eyes of Marjorie Edmonds, even if you care for no one else. Then he spoke. It is not necessary to drag her name into this remarkable scene, I should think. Perhaps he could not have said anything that would have added greater fuel to the flame. Oh, no! his wife said. Of course not! Her name even must be shielded from anything disagreeable, while I, your wife, must endure everything. You would better think of your own name since you care nothing for mine. Have you not a word to say for yourself? What foundation is there for these infamous stories? You have been doing something to set tongues afloat. I have felt that for some time, but the hour has come when I demand to know what. I will not be kept on surmises any longer. You seem to me to be well posted, he said very quietly. I am sure you have been pouring out information ever since I entered the house. What other particulars are there that you desire to know? I desire to know the truth and not to be insulted with sarcasms. What have you been doing in an underhanded way to start these reports concerning you? Have you condescended to be the tool of those rum-makers to the extent that you are looking after their retail trade? If I had supposed that my recent gifts, of which I have been so proud, came from such a source, I would have thrown them in their faces rather than ever worn or shown them. Ralph Bramlett straightened himself up at last and gave over trying to cleanse his hands. There were ink stains on them still. But he turned and gave his wife his full attention and spoke in the low tone that meant with him suppressed wrath. You shall have every possible particular, Mrs. Bramlett. Had I known that you were suffering in that direction, I would have relieved your anxiety before. The Gossips have been unusually successful this time. They have verged very near the truth. A few points only need correction. Instead of being an agent for the firm which I represent, I have the honor to be the principal in this matter. I have rented the corner store that has roused your wrath, and the men in charge are my clerks. I have found the business much more lucrative than that of bookkeeping, and the luxuries in which I have freely indulged you for the last few months are excellent proofs of the same. Is that sufficiently full information, or would you like to know something more? If so, do not hesitate to question me. I shall have pleasure in giving you every possible advantage over others in the amount of knowledge which you possess. He could not surely have understood how cruel was the information he was pouring out, else he would have chosen a less dangerous time and a less insulting manner for his communication. In truth, he was himself so much under excitement that it was questionable if he realized the force of his words. But it is also true that he did not understand the extent to which his wife was prejudiced against the retail liquor traffic. It is to be feared that he did not give her credit for strong principles in any direction, and the social degradation of such a business, as it would affect her, was something that he had not as yet thought of. She had borne the salary paid by the distillery not only with equanimity, but to his certain knowledge had indignantly repelled Marjorie Edmonds' hints of available openings where the salary was not so large. Perhaps he could not be expected to realize what a difference the management of a liquor saloon would make in her estimation. He was not left long in doubt. Estelle, whose very vestige of self-control had departed from her long before his studiedly polite sentences were concluded, burst upon him with a fury that for the moment half frightened him. She poured the vials of her wrath and contempt upon him in language such as he could not have imagined from her lips. She called him by every name suggesting hypocrisy that her imagination could frame, and her anger, instead of expending itself in this outburst, seemed to rise as she talked. Her words were checked at last only by a realization of the fact that her husband had turned from her and hurried out of the room, nor was she greatly astonished when, a few minutes later, she heard the front door close with a bang. Lena came to the door soon afterwards to say that dinner was waiting on the table, and Mr. Bramlett had gone out again without eating a mouthful. Some impulse had prompted Estelle to rush to the door and lock it the moment she found herself alone. Therefore, she was safe from Lena's intrusion. She had just presence of mind enough and sufficient command over her voice to call out to Lena that Mr. Bramlett had been unexpectedly summoned downtown, and that they would wait dinner until his return. Then she gave herself up utterly to her misery. The patient Lena carefully removed and set to keep warm the dishes prepared for dinner, and settled herself to await further orders. An hour passed, and the master of the house did not return. Mrs. Bramlett came downstairs in the course of time, and explained to Lena that she was afraid Mr. Bramlett would be detained beyond any reasonable hour for dinner. It was not worthwhile to keep the hot dishes waiting much longer. Probably he would take only a glass of milk and some biscuits when he returned. For herself she did not care to eat dinner alone. She would wait for him. But if he did not come in another half hour Lena might clear away the dinner and consider herself dismissed for the night. Then she came back to the parlor and began her aimless fidget about the table and mantel that has been already described. With every passing moment her anxiety and indignation grew apace. Anxiety to know how it would all end, indignation against her husband for adding yet this strain to her horrible day. It was no wonder that he ran away, she told herself with a bitterly curling lip. If he should want to hide himself so completely that he could never be found, it would not be in the least strange, after having brought such insufferable disgrace upon them all, and been all but the murderer of his own father. She had not spared him this thrust also in her ungovernable excitement. Perhaps she had even dwelt upon it because she could see that he winced under the words as nothing that she had said before had made him. She was by no means through, she assured herself. If Ralph thought to treat her as though she were a naughty child and stay away until she had recovered from her first excitement in the expectation of being received afterwards as though nothing had happened, he would find himself utterly mistaken. She had not the slightest idea of enduring such a humiliation as he had planned for her. He must get out of that disgraceful business tomorrow, so utterly that it could at once be said, and with truth, that he had nothing whatever to do with it. Nothing less than that would satisfy her. If he did not, she did not finish her thought. At the moment she heard voices, familiar voices, chatting and laughing. They were on the piazza now. She heard a merry sentence of Mr. Maxwell's as they waited for the bell to be answered. Of all horrible times, for a call from Marjorie Edmonds, this seemed to the half-distracted wife the worst. She would not see them. She would send word that she was not at home. No, that would not do. The parlor was brightly lighted and could be distinctly seen from the piazza. Well, then, she was engaged, very especially engaged, and could see no one. But she must have been observed from the windows, standing in the middle of the room, doing nothing. Besides, it was too late. Lena was already at the door. She must see them. They came in gaily with cheerful greetings. Evidently they had heard nothing. They ran in quite often these two by way of helping to carry out their compact. It was all important for watching eyes and gossiping tongues to know that they were on extremely friendly terms with the dwellers in this house. As often as possible they chose an hour when the master of the house would not be at home. But on this evening Marjorie had an errand with Estelle. They had come late so as to be able to make their stay short but friendly. The errand accomplished, Marjorie lingered, she hardly knew why. What could have happened to Estelle? She had never seen her in quite such a mood. She talked and laughed nervously, giving slight, apparently frightened, starts at every sound outside. She seemed not to know, some of the time, what she was saying. Could she be on the eve of a serious illness? If she was quite alone, ought they to leave her? Suddenly her anxiety was broken in upon in the most startling manner. There was a curious fumbling at the night latch, as though one not acquainted with it was trying to enter. Then the master of the house shambled into the hall, into the parlor. His face red, his eyes bleared, his whole appearance as unlike Ralph Bramlett as could be conceived. Hello, Maj. You here? He shouted. And he's with you, of course. Say, why don't you two get married? You might as well. You've been long enough about it. There's nothing like married happiness, I tell you. What are you doing here anyhow, you old smooth-faced hypocrite? You're a hypocrite. Do you know that? If it hadn't been for you, Marjorie and I would have been all right. I want you to get out of my house. Do you hear? Up to this moment the three listeners had stood transfixed with horror. The two women with almost equally blanched faces and strained eyes. Marjorie was the first to speak. He is insane! she whispered. Estelle, dear, do not go near him. Oh, Mr. Maxwell! Do not be frightened, said Mr. Maxwell, recovering speech. It is not insanity. Mrs. Bramlett, let me manage this. Come, sir, you are not in a condition to appear before ladies. Let me help you to your room. There was a moment's struggle, a half-insane yell from the master of the house, a determined grip from the hand of his guest, and the other yielded, and allowed himself to be led muttering away. Your master has taken ill. Marjorie heard Mr. Maxwell explaining to the frightened Lena. Show me the way to his room, and then get me a pitcher of ice water. No, we shall not need a physician at present, my good girl. I know just what to do for him. It is a sudden attack that will soon pass. He is intoxicated! said his wife, her lips as white as snow. Marjorie gave a low wail, as though it was she who had been stricken, and dropped back among the cushions, powerless for a moment to move or speak. Had the playmate of her childhood come to this? To one of her belief and environment, death itself was as nothing compared with such sorrow as this. She sat up for a moment and looked pitifully at a still. She knew not a single word to say to her. It was no time for pity, for sympathy even. She could not wonder that the wife stood as she had when her husband had been taken from the room, with her eyes fixed as if fascinated with it, on that closed door. To intrude a word upon her would have been to Marjorie horrible. After what seemed to her hours, but was in reality only a few minutes, Mr. Maxwell came downstairs. I have got him to bed, he said to Estelle. He is entirely quiet now, sleeping indeed, and you need be under no apprehension in regard to him. At the same time, if you would like me to remain part of the night, I will— she interrupted him. I would not. I have not the least desire for your presence. I know quite well what I shall do. The remainder of the night will be just long enough for me to make what preparations I must, and with the first streak of dawn I will go to my father's house that I was a fool ever to leave. Thank heaven I have friends who can take care of me. I do not need you. Marjorie started up and came to her side. Oh, Estelle, dear! she said tenderly. Don't speak such words. You do not know what you are saying. Estelle turned upon her fiercely. Do I not indeed? You would counsel me, I suppose, to stay beside a drunken husband. You would do it, perhaps? It is a pity you do not have the chance. For myself, no power on earth would make me so disgrace myself. I have borne enough. Mrs. Bramlett, said Mr. Maxwell, answering the mute appeal in Marjorie's eyes, we cannot wonder at your excitement and—and pain. But let me remind you that your husband is not a drunkard. He is probably not in the habit of using stimulants, and has been overcome in an unexpected way. It may be by some accident. Oh, yes! interrupted Marjorie eagerly. He must be the victim of some plot. I have read of such things. I tell you, said Estelle, stamping her foot, I want nothing from you, neither sympathy nor explanation. I want you to go and let me alone. Do you think I do not know that if it had not been for you, my husband would never have so disgraced himself, would never have made my life miserable? You have intended from the very first to ruin my home. I wish you joy of having accomplished it. Mrs. Bramlett. Interposed Mr. Maxwell in his sternest tones. We are certainly willing to hope now that you do not know what you are saying. I will take Miss Edmunds away at once, because I do not choose to hear her further insulted. In your saner moments, you will doubtless wish to apologize for words that you of course know to be false. End of chapter 18