 CHAPTER XVIII Meditations That Meant Something In due course of time we were in a sort of quiet bustle in the Smith household, not by any means such a state of excitement as there was before sickness came into our midst, yet we were getting ready for the wedding. Lita was still in becoming wrappers and spent most of her time on the couch or in the easiest chair, and yet we were all decided that the marriage ceremony should take place. There were several good reasons for this. In the first place Irving had received intimation that business reasons would soon take himself for several weeks, and in family conclave we had each declared that nothing could be better for Lita than to accompany him. Besides Mrs. Solomon was growing restive. She had never been so long away from Solomon since their fortunes were joined, and bravely as she had borne it, it was plain to us all that now she was homesick. As for the little bride, she was sure of one thing, that Aunt Maria must be present at her wedding. So, as I said, the bustle of preparation was upon us. All the details were as unlike as possible those others when she had been almost a wife. The ceremony was to take place in the little sitting-room upstairs, and the bride was to be dressed in a white cashmere wrapper instead of the white silk with lace overdress that lay in the drawer. The physician had given it as his decided opinion that there should be an interval of several weeks between the marriage and the departure from home in order to allow our invalid time to recover from the first excitement before the fatigues of travel should be upon her, and on being consulted in regard to her dress had given this brief and peremptory direction. Put her into the garment in which she can lie down the quickest and be the most comfortable after the minister has done his part. By no means excite and exhaust her with fussy toilet. We prepared to obey his instructions literally. The only guests to be admitted were Erskine and Earl Webster. The latter had been a frequent caller since the day he had discovered Mrs. Solomon Smith in the store. Instead of all the pretty bridesmaids who had so distractedly flown away when trouble came, Laura was to do duty with Erskine as a helper. Therefore the circle of preparations was, of course, wonderfully narrowed. Yet we contrived to get up a good degree of excitement. How was anyone to avoid a certain amount of excitement in connection with that old story which is yet always so new? It was on a bright winter afternoon when every detail was complete, and we had only to wait with what quietness we could for twelve o'clock of the next morning, that Mrs. Solomon summoned me as her attendant on an excursion. Earl Webster wanted to go with me, and kind of thought I better have him along to tend to things, she explained, but I couldn't bring my mind to it. Men is dreadful convenient sometimes, and then again they are really in the way. And to frustrate you, you know, and make you believe that you want green when you was sure half an hour beforehand, and will be sure forever afterwards that you didn't want green at all but red. I always thought there was just about one man in life that I could stand when I went to buy anything, and that was Solomon. It's been a good thing for me that I had him and nobody else. You see, we began by understanding each other. Solomon, I say to him, don't you think that this is the thing to do? And Solomon he looks it all over, and maybe he says, well, no, Maria, I can't say I see it in that light at all. I think so and so would be enough sight the best. Well, if it's about the farm or the stock, or anything that he has a better right to know about than me, I think it over, and like enough I see at once that I was an old dunce, and I don't mind saying so out and out. But then again, just as likely as not, I think just exactly what I did before, and then I say, go ahead, Solomon, I don't agree with you a mite, but that's for you to settle. But mind you, if it is about the house, or the garden, or the hens, or my clothes, or the part of Solomon's clothes that I manage, he is just as quick as I, and maybe a trifle quicker, to tell me to go ahead. So that I don't have to wear the thing, he will say to me, with one of them grave smiles of his, if it happens to be a dress or a bunnet that we are discussing, why, it's all right. And Solomon ain't one of them mean kind of folks that is always puckering up their mouths and saying, I told you so. I don't believe he would say that, whatever I did. And that's the way we manage. To my notion it is the only way for two folks who have brains to be of one mind. Take notes, Laura, I said, laughing, for Laura was looking at her with so intent a face that I was curious to know how the quaint old lady's notions impressed her. She flushed deeply and turned away, making no answer. Among other matters that were going on during this unexpectedly long visit to the city, my daughter Laura was being educated to certain views and positions that I felt sure would tell in marked ways for her future. When we were fairly in the street, Mrs. Smith trotted along with brisk step and valuable tongue. I'm going after Elizabeth's wedding present, she said, and I don't believe you can guess what it is to be. I could not indeed, and as it had been the subject of Laura's curious surmiseings, of course I was interested. I fancied that it would be something useful and not very costly, for a wise economy governed all her personal expenses, and I did not believe she would feel justified in setting the young couple a lavish example. Still, she was evidently impressed with the importance of her intended purchase. I've laid awake nights thinking about it, she admitted, a bright flush of excitement on her dear old face. At first I couldn't see my way clear at all, and it bothered me that I couldn't. And then, when light began to dawn as to how it could be managed, why I begun to bother my brains for fear that I had been too set in my way, and one time I give it all up, but it wouldn't stay give up. I'd no sooner get it fixed and settle down on something else when it would come trotting back to me as though it wasn't fixed at all. Right in the middle of the night, too, it would come and stand by my bed and wake me up all of a sudden, out of a sound sleep, and say, here I am now, and I insist on being thought about. You just wake up, old woman, and tend to me. I declare I've been almost beat out with it some nights. This was so funny a way of putting the story of my own trials by sleeplessness and perplexing thought that I'm afraid my laugh was more merry than sympathetic, but I questioned with renewed interest as to what the troublesome object was. Well, I'll just tell you, said Mrs. Smith, lowering her voice as one about to make a confidential communication. It's a horse and wagon. Now, do you think I am an old goose? Amazement almost took from me the power of answering. Yes, she said nodding her head and growing more satisfied, evidently, with her decision every moment. I've been all over it fifty times. You can't think of an objection that I haven't urged with all my might just to see what the other side could say. I always do argue a thing out. Solomon ain't no hand to argue out loud. He just sets down a few square sentences and lets it go. But I don't, and I've learned to argue to myself. Especially if it is a thing that I want to do pretty bad. I make the other side of me take hold well, and I have a tough time before I get the consent of myself to do it. Expense, dear me, yes, I've considered over every peck of oats that horse of theirs will ever eat. I've figured them up a hundred times if I have once, and a hundred ways for the matter of that. They never seemed willing to come out twice alike. And I suppose I've wrote a choir of paper about it to Solomon. But you see, it is just like this. Anybody can see that that child is going to need a good deal of petting and taking care of for some time to come. She needs to get out in the fresh air every day and stay out a good while. Now, how is she going to do it in this tucked up city, where everything is a whirl and a jam? And there's such an awful noise that you don't hardly know what your name is half the time. There's nice pleasant places, parks and quiet roads, and little patches that look almost like the country, if you can only get to them. But as for racketing along in the street cars to them, I'd about as soon she would stay at home. What she needs is a horse and wagon. And there's the getting to church. I'd like to have the child begin right, and I think she's disposed to. But how is she, in her weak state, going to get to the church where she'll think she ought to go unless she rides on them commandment-breaking cars? To be sure, there is the church nearby, but you can't expect full-grown wings on a young bird. I shouldn't expect her to see her duty clear to that, with nobody to help her. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that she ought to have a horse and wagon of her own. Well, then I talked with Jonas, and he was just as taken with the notion as he could be. Said he'd have got her one long ago if he could have afforded the money to buy it. Things don't look about the house as though he couldn't afford whatever he pleased, do they? But then, appearances is deceitful. He ain't forehanded at all. He talked real confidential with me about the note and the interest not being paid up and all. He seemed to feel bad, and I think he did. He has some queer notions, seems to think the living-in style and all that is necessary to his business. Maybe it is. I'm only an old woman, but I don't believe it all the same, and I advised him to pay up his debts and let the looks go. I don't think he paid much attention to me. He was thinking about the horse and wagon. Well, he said he had a friend who had a stable on his place, and all the conveniences for keeping a horse, and didn't keep any, and had a boy who could be hired for a trifle to take care of the horse and harness it when it was wanted, and he wouldn't be charged barn-rent because he had done the man of kindness now and then in a business way, and he would be glad to pay for it this way. It sounds queer to hear folks talk about paying for kindnesses, don't it? But Jonas means all right, and the long and short of it is, my mind is made up. Erskine and Earl Webster have both been on the lookout for me about a horse, and Erskine told me last night that he thought he had just the thing. So now I'm after the wagon this very afternoon. I didn't mean to put it off so long, but them two was hard to suit with a horse, and I knew a wagon could be bought in a hurry. But are you going to get both horse and wagon? I said, appalled before such lavish gifts, and wondering much whether she had any idea of the prices of these articles. No, she said briskly. The wagon is to be my present, but I've just been managing the business about getting a horse. That's Solomon's present. He sets a good deal of store by Elizabeth. She's his only brother's child, you know. Solomon is a master hand to come to conclusions. You know I told you what great long letters I wrote to him, going over all the arguments, and being about as much on one side as Tother? Well, this is every blessed word he wrote to me about it. He never writes long letters. Solomon thinks things, but he says he ain't good at getting them on to paper. Says he, Maria, pierce to me you're a little mixed. If Elizabeth needs a horse for her health, and if it will help keep her out of the way of temptation to doing wrong, and if Jonas and the young man are willing to have the expense of taking care of it, I should think the whole thing was in a nutshell, and there wasn't no more use in talking. And then he went on telling me about the school, and the new books in the library, and the present to the minister, and not another word about a horse or wagon. Did you ever see a straighter road to a conclusion than that? And her sweet old face beamed with her pride in Solomon. Nevertheless, she proceeded to tell me what a careful and intelligent estimate she had made of the expense of keeping a horse with stable rent and attendance counted out, and of the heavy expensive car tickets to balance the other, and made it clear, at least to her own mind, that in the end the thing was an economy. Borrowing a stable and another man's boy won't always last, she said, with a little sniff of her practical nose. Kindnesses that are being given as pay ain't of much account, and can't be depended on. But then, who knows what may happen? Maybe Elizabeth will get strong, so she won't need a horse, and then they can sell him for a penny. Or maybe the young man will prosper, and can afford to build a barn, and take time to look after his own horse. Or maybe the horse will die, and so won't need to be looked after. What's the use of going ahead and borrowing trouble about it? I'm going to buy my wagon this very day, and here is one of the places Earl told me to come to. Whereupon she halted before a six-story building, large enough to contain wagons for the million, and boldly pushed her way into the elegant wear-room, lined on every side with carriages, large and small, gold-mounted and plush-lined, as well as some of the plainer sort. Many misgivings beset me. What sort of a wagon did the dear old lady think her pretty city flower would ride in? I recalled the plain, old-fashioned, two-seated spring wagon in which Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Smith had rode to church ever since I had known them. Long ago all the paint had been washed from it. The wheels were large and clumsy, the box was high, and the whole appearance ungainly. Yet I knew that Mrs. Smith was attached to it, and considered it comfortable and quite good enough. Did some such idea present itself to her as a part of Lita's outfit? Why had she not allowed Erskine or Earl Webster, or even Laura, to accompany her that they might have tempered her enthusiasm with their educated judgment? For myself I felt powerless in her hands, being always aware that my influence over her was as nothing compared with Laura's. There was one relieving thought, however, to my anxieties. The character of the establishment in which we were rendered it all but impossible that we should find other than the most unexceptionable outfits. It would probably end in utter dismay on the benevolent old lady's part. I was sure she had no relative ideas of the prices of the wagons of which she so gaily talked. There were so many, and such beauties, on exhibition, that while we waited for a disengaged pilot, we wandered different ways, gazing with admiring eyes. Presently, one who proved to be a proprietor, came first to me, and looking around for Mrs. Solomon she was nowhere to be seen. So explaining that I was merely accompanying another, I still ventured to inquire the price of the little buggy before which I stood. One of the plainest in the great room, and one which I even doubted whether Irving and Leda would feel that they could climb into. Yet I groaned inwardly over the announcement that, that was a second hand affair, and could be sold for two hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars! I was almost certain that Mrs. Solomon expected to get the desire of her heart for about fifty. And surely that would be a liberal wedding gift from her, if she could but content herself with a lace collar, or a diamond ring, or a set of handkerchiefs, as others did. While we waited, she came toward me, walking rapidly, her face unusually flushed. Well, I declare, she said, dropping into a vacant chair and ignoring the gentlemen. I've had such a turn, I'm just about beat. Did you notice that horse and wagon standing down by that south door? I hadn't noticed it. Well, now before we go, I want you just to walk down that way and look at him. Such a fiery fellow I haven't seen since Solomon had a cult twenty years ago that came near breaking our necks. There he stands, right in the room. For pity's sake, says I to myself, if that ain't the quearest thing to let a horse come into a room like this, what in the world do they do that for? There seemed to be kind of a road there, though, and I thought it was the place where the horses were led in to draw out the wagons. But to stand there, without being tied, seemed to me a most dreadful dangerous thing. Oh, you never see a horse look more as if he would like to eat everybody up than that one does. I walked off a little away from him, thinks I to myself, if he took a notion to kick, and he looks as if he would like nothing better, he could reach me with them heels of his. Well, I turned to look at something else, and when I looked back again, don't you believe a woman stood as close to that horse as you are to me, with her back to him at that? My heart flew right into my mouth. I expected to see her kicked to death every second. It took me more than a minute, I do believe, to pluck up courage to step back and try to warn her quietly like to move on, so as not to scare that horse. It just seemed to me that I couldn't take a step, and I don't believe I should till this time, if I hadn't just happened to think, what if worse came to worst, and there was an accident? How ashamed Solomon would be of me! Then I went back, and after all that, don't you believe that horse was made of wood? I never heard anyone give a more hearty or delighted laugh than did the gentleman who was politely awaiting our wishes. So our trademark frightened you, he said, stepping towards Mrs. Smith. That is a compliment to his naturalness, but he ought to know better than that, the scamp. However, you are not the only one who has been cheated. The children invariably run from him, and occasionally we catch the ladies. Mrs. Smith had already recovered from the first effects of her fright, and her eyes had assumed that thoughtful, far away expression, which told those familiar with her that there was some curious association of ideas working in her mind. Did you ever read Pilgrim's Progress? She asked, apparently observing the gentleman for the first time, and addressing him suddenly. I thought of it the moment I found out that that horse was made of wood. What a time poor fearful had over them lions, and they was nothing but stone. That made me think of the verse that the slothful man says when he wants an excuse for not doing his duty. There's a lion in the way, he cries, you know. I wonder if half our crosses are made of wood. What do you think, sir? If we should step boldly up to them and try to do our best, do you suppose a good many of them would be as harmless as your horse? CHAPTER XIX If the wooden horse in question had suddenly been endowed with life and kicked with real earnestness, I am not sure that the face of the gentleman before us could have expressed greater astonishment. It was evidently a new experience to be faced with a direct question as to Pilgrim's Progress and personal crosses. I'm afraid I'm not posted, he said, with an embarrassed laugh. Oh, but I suppose you are posted as to your own crosses? With a keen, questioning look out of her gray eyes. Still, I suppose people's ideas of crosses might differ. For instance, what is yours? Well, she said meditatively, my crosses are apt to be when I want to do something that the Lord thinks I better not. I'm dreadful strong-willed naturally, and he has to pull me up pretty strict sometimes to keep me from running all awry. The gentleman laughed, yet his face flushed, and it was evident that he both understood and appropriated the definition of crosses. Then we gave ourselves to the business of the hour. We were still standing before the very plain, second-hand buggy. But when Mrs. Smith signified her readiness to look at wagons, she turned away from that one without a second glance. That doesn't look the least bit like it, she remarked confidently. There's no use in wasting time on it. The gentleman laughed pleasantly. He seemed to have discovered that he had an original character to deal with who was worth studying. He remarked that if he only had a photograph of the sort of wagon she wanted, he presumed he could suit her in a much shorter time. But she paid no other attention to this broad hint that she should particularize than to remark that she would pick it out pretty soon, than he could see the real thing which was always better than a picture. She must have spent those wakeful hours of night to good purpose, for she marched down that long, long room, gazing with keen eyes on either side of her, rejecting some with a glance as too large, others as fussy, and others still as not looking a bit like the one she meant. She asked the price of none of them. Suddenly she came to a full stop before a little gem of a faton. What a beauty it was! Low, light, delicately finished, upholstered in a lovely soft grey, which had that singular pinky tint that reminds one of a summer sunset. Nothing in all that establishment was better suited to Lita's refined taste than the faton. Very few, I was sure, of the simpler ones represented more money. Yet it was not showy, only tasteful. Of course I was aware that exceedingly well-made tasteful things are more expensive the more quiet they are, but did Mrs. Smith know it? The proprietor was evidently astonished at her choice. He waited before her in respectful silence, while the keen-eyed old lady walked around it, felt of the cushions, examined the lining, asked sharp questions about the springs and the axles, and in various other ways evinced her knowledge of carriages. Her questions were answered, but no additional information was vouch-saved. She was evidently being studied. What is the very best you could do for me if I was to count you out the money for this in clean new bills? The gentleman looked at her, looked through her, apparently, while she steadily returned his gaze with those penetrative gray eyes of hers. Meantime I had, with a sinking heart, discovered a card hanging in an obscure corner at the back, marked six hundred dollars. What would Mrs. Solomon think of that? Meantime she waited for her answer. Five hundred dollars, he said at last, forcing out the words with an explosive sound as if they almost hurt him. I remembered afterwards that the wonder as to whether he had found one of his crosses in leaving off that other hundred occurred to me. But I had not much time for moralizing. I'll take it, said Mrs. Smith in a composed tone as she dropped into a chair, took out her old-fashioned well-filled pocket-book, and began to look over her papers. In undoubted and undisguised astonishment the owner of the carriage watched her. I was hardly less astonished. I promised you clean bills, she said, glancing up. But I reckon you'll have to go to the bank for that. I forgot he told me I mustn't carry so much money around the streets. I don't see why, though. People wouldn't be likely to bother an old woman. I've got a paper here that he said would do just as well as money. It was curious to me to note the change on the face of the man before us. The surprised and interested look faded rapidly. In its place came one of suspicion, an air that said almost as plainly as words could have done. Oh, ho, my pious old lady, that's your dodge, is it? I'm acquainted with it, but you almost deceived me with your gray eyes. Then she passed him up the check, another lightning-like change of the expressive face. It was a bank check and bore the name and firm of Earl Webster. This is as good as the cleanest bills you could bring, he said, with great hardiness, and immediately the minor arrangements connected with the sale were entered into. Checks is interesting things, said Mrs. Solomon with a satisfied air. She still occupied the seat into which she had dropped when she made her decision, and her mind, though alert enough for the business at hand, was still wandering off into other channels of thought. I could see it in her eyes. I never had much to do with them, she continued. It didn't seem to me that a piece of paper could be as good as the money. A promise to pay, Earl said it was. But they don't know me nor Solomon, I told him. As I, if they knew Solomon, I could understand how a promise to pay would be all right, for everybody believes Solomon. I'll fix it, says he. They know me where you are going. And he got out his bank book and wrote this paper. And the first thing you say when you look at it is, it's as good as the gold. Ain't that interesting now? Makes me think right away of my master. As I get up to the gates of heaven, the angels don't know me, never heard of me most likely. But I hand them my cheque signed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Ha! says the angel. I know him. And the gates swing open. I tell you what it is, sir. We want to look out for it, that we have a right to use his name, don't we? The gentleman was visibly embarrassed, and at the same time singularly moved. He drew out his handkerchief suddenly and coughed and made vigorous use of it about his face for a moment, and said in an apologetic aside to me, I had a good old mother once. I hope you've made sure of living with her by and by. It was Mrs. Smith who spoke the words in a quiet matter of fact, indeed I might say business-like tone. Then she gave herself fully to the business of managing in the best manner about the homecoming of her carriage, looked after her receipt, and attended to all the details in a thoroughly business way. It was evident that the man's respect for her increased every moment. As for me, I went home a good deal bewildered. Solomon Smith's bank account must be much larger than people in his vicinity had ever imagined. I hinted of the feeling to his wife, and she answered me with a satisfied air to the effect that, being content with spring wagons in a place where a spring wagon would do just as well as any, had put them in a way to give a comfortable little carriage now and then to folks who needed, which was a way of disposing of the entire subject of giving and receiving that it struck me would be more novel than agreeable to many. What a nice little wedding it was, not of the common sort at all, not in the least like the one that Laura and I had come to attend. In fact I think all the details might have been said to be unique. Nothing of the sadness which usually hovers in the background of marriages where one party is an invalid was apparent. As a rule in such cases the shadow of an approaching separation that shall last as long as life is upon the company. With us the shadow had been and was lifted. Lita was steadily progressing toward renewed health. Indeed she had almost no drawbacks from the first. Even the sense of parting from the old ties, the going out from the childhood home which had been strung on the mother at least before, had lost its sting. They had so nearly parted from her for the grave that to be making preparations for her to go to the sunny Southland for a few weeks and to look forward to her speedy return in health had in it nothing but joy. So we were very joyful at the wedding, an exceedingly subdued joy however, each member of the company was on the alert to do and say that which would least fatigue and excite the bride. Truth to tell, however, she appeared the quietest and calmest of the group. Her face pale it is true, but wonderfully reposeful, her eyes bright but with a steady rather than a fitful joy. There had been no rehearsals of the ceremony, though the position of each participant was as unlike as possible to the usual one. When she pronounced at last the irrevocable I do was as calm and self-controlled as though it was merely an outward form of what had been done long ago. It was Irving's face that paled and his form that trembled as the minister spoke those solemn words until death do you part. Death had so nearly parted them, he had hardly yet stepped shivering leaf from the brink of the chasm. Still he controlled himself and gave a swift anxious look down at the wife whose hand he clasped. Excitement would tell heavily on her strength. She smiled back a reassuring answer, but his whole mind was presently absorbed in getting her comfortably settled on her sofa and the bright-hued silk afghan thrown over her. Then lying there like a princess with a delicate pink beginning to flush her cheeks, we came up one by one and kissed her. Bless the child, said Auntie Smith, bustling about. She is getting red cheeks now, a little bit too red. We better slip away and leave her and her husband to a little quiet. Then her cheeks flamed. It was the first time she had heard the new name. The feast was spread in an adjoining room, the doctor forbidding the invalid to descend the stairs, and even according a reluctant consent to her joining us with the coffee and cream. This too was utterly unlike the regulation wedding fair, a substantial midday meal with plenty of wedding cake and ices, to be sure, but by no means confined to these ephemeral dishes. Lita's doctor had become something more than a professional friend. We had seen so much of him, and he had been so constant and persistent in his efforts, even after his hopes of saving his patient were feigned, that every member of the family had come to look on him as a friend. The frail little patient had evidently won a large place in his heart. He watched over her with almost fatherly care, and became peremptory, even savage, toward those who seemed to him to plan anything contrary to her best interests. There is just about as much strength there as there is in a cobweb. He said sharply to Irving, It is spunk, not strength, that keeps her up. Young man, you must remember that, and look out for her with the greatest care. Spunk will do a good deal, but somebody has to be behind it that has common sense to see that it isn't carried too far. Whereupon Lida laughed. She had lost all fear of the grave and reticent doctor. Truth to tell, he had laid aside much of his professional reticence, though he was still grave enough. The doctor doesn't give me credit for a bit of common sense, Irving, she said gaily, only spunk. You needn't put the only before that word, he said quickly. If it had not been for that, you would have slipped away from us, sure. Then a sweet gravity, as new as it was fascinating, came into Lida's face as she gently shook her head. It was not that which brought me back to life, doctor. No, said the doctor, that's true, it was good nursing. Your aunt here is to have credit, if you succeed in being a credit to us. I've seen a good deal of nursing in my day, but I must say this went a little ahead. I tell you what it is, madame, if you want to stay in the city I can keep you employed without the slightest trouble. Young man, you have her to thank for your bride to-day. Irving turned an eager, grateful face toward Mrs. Smith, but she was looking at Lida and the two exchanged fond smiles that said how well they understood each other and how far from the truth the doctor was. I guess we all did the best we could, the old lady said, fixing earnest eyes on his face. But the fact is, there was a greater than even you in that sick room, doctor. The Lord touched her with his hand of power, as surely as he ever touched Simon's mother-in-law that time when Simon had the sense to go to prayer meeting and bring Jesus home with him, instead of moping at home because his folks was sick. Everybody laughed, the doctor with the rest, but his sharp eyes had a sarcastic gleam in them as he said, That is a very comfortable kind of faith, hold on to it by all means. At the same time I wouldn't have given a row of pins for Mrs. Irving Leonard's life if you hadn't hung over her for about twenty-four hours without giving yourself time to eat or asleep or even think. You're mistaken there, she said triumphantly. I thought all the time and prayed every minute. I don't suppose the Lord had that child out of his thoughts once during that day and night. I didn't give him a chance. This sentence seemed to amuse the doctor again. He laughed outright, but added immediately, Well, all I can say is, the Lord chose excellent help to carry out his designs. Of course he did. Why shouldn't he when he knows all about the ends as well as the beginnings of things? That's the reason he chose you. Don't you suppose he knew what he was about when he gave you your education and set you to doctoring the people and gave you a special talent for studying out what to do? I don't think he ever makes a mistake with his means any more than he did when he was on earth. Only wouldn't it have been a queer thing if the lump of clay that he put on the eyes of that blind man had started up and said, Ah ha, see what I can do. I gave that blind man his sight. I tell you what it is, the lumps of clay that he uses nowadays to help have got tongues and are everlastingly taking the praise to themselves. That's one of the marks of his great patience that he bears it so well. But I don't want to be one of them, doctor. I did the best I could, because I loved the child, and because my feet and hands and brain belong to him anyhow, and I'm bound to do the best I can with his tools wherever he sends me to work. But as for claiming the honour, why, dear me, I wouldn't dare to do it. It's honour enough for a lifetime to be used. Sometimes, doctor, I'm dreadful afraid that you don't know anything about the joy of being used by him. It was an aside sentence intended only for the doctor's ears. Standing near him as I was, I heard it, and saw the sudden flush that mounted to his forehead, and noted the sudden huskiness of his voice as he said, I wish I did, madame, I wish I did. Mama, said Laura, as we packed one of the southern bound trunks together late that evening. She is certainly very different. Before she was so excited and nervous that it was almost impossible to do anything to please her. But she has been just as sweet as a snow drop all through this trying time. There is a great difference, but, oh, dear me, I know it won't last. It really seemed as though Laura was waiting with a sort of feverish anxiety for Lita to make a failure of it in order that she might be justified in remaining as she was. It was evident that Mrs. Smith had the same thought. She turned from the closet where she was folding clothes for the trunk and looked with those grave eyes of hers full at Laura, who seemed to have forgotten that she was in the room. Child, she said, the utmost earnestness in voice and manner. Whether that poor little girl downstairs makes out to live the sort of life you think she ought to or not. Don't you think Jesus Christ lived it? Now there is one thing I want to know. Did he ever say to you, take Lita Smith for your pattern? And if she fails, you are justified. End of chapter 19. CHAPTER 20. CHAPTER 20. Mrs. Solomon Smith, you've helped along in this night's work. Our next excitement was of a totally different character. It came to us in the night, the third after the marriage. We had lingered another day at Lita's earnest petition to enjoy a ride in the new carriage with the new iron-gray pony, which, though a wicked-looking little fellow, was said to be a model of gentleness, sagacity, and speed, and which, during the two days of our acquaintance, sustained his reputation. What Mrs. Jonas Smith thought of the munificent present to her daughter, she seemed unable to put into words, but whatever attention she could think of to lavish on her sister-in-law was promptly bestowed. As for Lita, her old auntie had come to love her so dearly that kisses and smiles were payment enough. She is a grand diamond in the rough. Did Irving say, in a burst of confidence, to Laura and me, Laura, I don't wonder that your eyes glowed at my misunderstanding of her. It is positively an astonishment that you didn't cut my acquaintance entirely. But how was I to know that she was such a splendid woman? True enough, said Laura, speaking with animation, how should you know? You seemed to have but one way of judging her, and that was by the cut of her cloak and the shape of her hat. I don't altogether like Irving, Mama. This, of course, after he was gone. He is so sort of flippant in his manner about everything. He was quite indurable while Lita was sick, but now that his anxiety is over, he seems to have room for nothing but nonsense and flattery. I'll tell you what it is, Mama. If Irving doesn't take care, Lita will get away ahead of him. He needs the shadow of a tremendous trouble of some sort in the background to keep him in anything like a dignified state of mind. I hardly knew whether to be annoyed or to laugh over this absurd estimate of a youthful man by a very youthful woman. Still, there was food for thought in her words. If Irving really does need a continuous background of shadows in order to bring him home at last, be sure his Lord knows it. Some people will not answer Christ's call, daughter, unless he makes the path on which they persist in treading full of thorns. I spoke with unwanted gravity, for something in her face just then led me to wonder with sudden pain whether my Laura would continue to move along the broad highway until she was driven out of it by thorns. I think she caught my meaning, for she turned away hastily and said in a tone that was almost petulant, I could never be driven into religion mama and I doubt whether Irving could. Was there defiance in the words? The house settled early into quiet that night. We were to leave the following day, not early, as we must of necessity have done if we made the trip in one day. Mr. Jonas Smith was called by business to a town located on our route, nearly half way, and would be detained there at a hotel overnight, and the whole family urged that, instead of planning for a four o'clock train, we should go at noon with the gentleman and remain overnight at the hotel. The decision was left to Mrs. Solomon, and I fancy more for the purpose of spending a quiet hour with her brother-in-law to say to him a few words as opportunity offered than for any fear of early rising, she agreed to the hotel plan. It must have been some time after midnight that we in our room were awakened by peculiar sounds in the hall. I think we had been all more or less inclined to wakefulness, and to listening for unusual sounds since the midnight alarm when Lita was taken sick. So I roused without difficulty, and immediately arose to investigate. Laura, there was someone groaning downstairs, a man's voice. I think Mr. Smith or Irving must be ill. I'm going down to sea as soon as I can. Don't, Mama, said Laura, springing up on the instant. Let me go! And she began rapid dressing. Meantime the strange sounds mingled with something very like groans continued. Mr. Smith was, as usual, in advance of us. Her room door opened at this point, and her voice was heard in the hall. Not a loud voice, Mrs. Smith's tones were emphatic, clear cut, readily understood, but never loud. Who's sick? Is that you, Jonas? What is the matter? Then Mr. Smith's voice. Don't for heaven's sake let Sarah hear or Lita. Is the child's door shut? And yet I shall have to call Irving. Oh, God, help me! Laura and I paused in our hurried toilets and looked at each other with blanched faces. Some dreadful accident must have happened. Harris had been driving gay horses over which his mother had worried more than once in the past week. Perhaps he had been brought home all mangled and bleeding, and the father was trying to shield the half-sick wife and frail daughter from the news as long as was possible. We can help, Mama, said Laura. He needn't call Irving. Then we hurried again. Mrs. Solomon Smith, with one brief quickly suppressed exclamation, had taken in the situation whatever it was and gone quietly downstairs. A moment more and Laura opened our door and stepped into the hall. Then I heard Mr. Smith's voice again. Oh, Maria, for heaven's sake, don't let any of them come. It is awfully enough just with us. Go back! It was Mrs. Solomon's quiet, strong voice of command to Laura, and the child, her face deathly pale, came back to me. I don't know! She said, in answer to my questioning look, I can't see him, only a glimpse. He seems lifeless. It is Harris. They are carrying him into the back parlor. He must be dead, and that is why they need no more help. Auntie Smith had hold of his feet. Oh, Mama, Mama! And she burst into a perfect passion of weeping. Certainly Mrs. Smith had done well in trying to shield my child from any more unnerving sights and sounds, and I blessed those two downstairs for their thoughtfulness as I bent over Laura. I coaxed her back to bed presently, half dressed as she was. It might be only a faint I told her, doubtless was. Mr. Smith was terribly alarmed, of course, yet remembered the importance of keeping exciting news from Leda or his wife, and had probably reasoned that the safest way was to keep the upper hall perfectly quiet. I listened, meantime, for sounds below, which should indicate that the doctor was being summoned, or those other terrible helpers, if indeed the young man should be passed a physician's care. But the utmost silence prevailed. I could almost have imagined the whole thing a dream, but for remembering how wide awake and strong-nerved Mrs. Smith's voice had sounded. It might have been ten minutes, or it might have been half an hour afterwards, I could not judge of the time, it seemed so long, that a low tap came at our door, and I, answering it, admitted Mrs. Solomon. Her face was very pale but quiet, though her eyes gleamed with a light that seemed something more than sorrow. Have you had a great scare here? She questioned. I don't wonder. I've been shaken as I never was before. Is the child asleep? With a glance towards Laura. Auntie, is he dead? Asked Laura, suddenly turning, and fixing wide-opened, frightened eyes on her. I saw him, I caught a glimpse of him, it was Harris. Is he dead? Mrs. Smith turned towards her those grave eyes, full now with solemn meaning, and said slowly, Yes child, he is, dead drunk. Drunk! I repeated in dismay and a sort of terror the very outspokenness of the word, seeming to make it more terrible. For the moment to have one lying drunk in the house seemed infinitely worse than to say he is intoxicated. Drunk! Repeated Laura with a peculiar emphasis. I had never heard the word or the tone from her lips before. Yes, said Mrs. Solomon. Dead drunk. He knows just as little this minute about what is going on as his body will know when it is laid in the grave, and it is an awful sight. I never saw it like before, and I pray God I may never have to see it again. Oh, Solomon has often told me that I ought to go down on my knees and thank the Lord that ours were all girls and kept safe from the worst temptations, but I never felt like it until this minute. Think what it was for that father to help drag him in like a beast over the elegant carpet, all mud and filth he was just from the gutter. Oh, dear! And the poor shocked old lady buried her face in her hands. Is this a new shock to the father? I asked after a few moments of troubled silence. Mrs. Smith shook her head. I guess not. I guess he has had a good many just such times as this. But he promised you see, and had reformed, so his father thought, and so poor Sarah thinks. And Jonas, he shrinks awfully from the mother knowing about it. But she will have to know how can such things be kept from mothers. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Ain't that trouble now? If that boy downstairs was mine, what would I do? Do you suppose I could bear it? I can never forget the drawn look as of pain on the old lady's face as she waited almost appealingly for my answer. My dear friend, I said gently, he is not yours, remember? The Lord gave you dear children who were at all times a comfort. So he did, so he did. And then he took them to his palace before me so that I would have nothing to do but to hurry on after them as fast as I could. That is what I have always thought. But tonight I have been thinking that maybe I haven't understood the Lord. Maybe he gave me good, quiet Christian girls so that I would have time to help the mothers with boys, with boys who go astray. And then maybe when he saw that I did not understand and would keep spending my time on my girls that didn't really need it, he just took them into his own keeping. And even then I was stupidly hurried along, the uppermost thought being that I was getting old and that time was passing and Solomon and I would soon be home with the children. Oh, Auntie Smith, I'm sure you have spent your whole life ever since I've known you in trying to help other people. This reproachful protest came from the bed. No, I haven't, child. I've done a little at it now and then when anybody stumbled right before my face and eyes and I had to see them. But that's very different from going around looking after them. Even when the Lord set them right before me, I couldn't seem to see more than one at once. Here I've been in this house for weeks and weeks and I don't know as I've thought three times about that boy downstairs. How shall I ever know what I might have said or done for him that would have helped him? I tell you when I see him lying there like a beast instead of like a man made in the image of God says I to myself, Mrs. Solomon Smith, you've helped along in this night's work just as like as not. There's always more ways than one of helping. You've managed to give Satan a lift by just folding your hands and thanking the Lord you hadn't any boys and made not the least move to keep this one out of the devil's clutches just because he didn't happen to belong to you. It's my opinion that there's about as much mischief done in this world by folding our hands and thanking the Lord that our folks are not like other folks as there is any other way. It was a strange time for a lecture on the universal brotherhood of the race or on the solemnity of human responsibility and consequent accountability to God. Yet certainly I had never heard my old friend speak with such solemnity nor seem so moved. I tell you, she said with energy as she rose up to go we are all asleep. Everybody is asleep. It is high time we woke up and went to work. Mama said Laura as the door closed after her. If she is asleep, what do you suppose can be said of all the rest of the world? Silence for a moment and then this. Mama, do you suppose, according to Auntie Smith, that I also am to blame for this trouble? For instance, I could have prevented this evening's work, I suppose. Harris asked me to ride with him, but I felt so utterly unequal to the undertaking that I declined. Am I to blame for tonight? I was prompt with my answer. No, daughter, no, that is the mistake which young people are apt to make. To ride with a young man of an evening may or may not be a wise thing to do. In this case, I am decidedly of the opinion that you did right. But if it is all that a young girl can do towards holding a young man back from ruin, it amounts to very little indeed. To have been able to have exerted such a Christian influence over Harris, as would have led him possibly to the strong one for strength, might indeed have been his salvation. You know, dear, you did not try that. She turned from me with manifest impatience. Mama, you and Antismith think that there is nothing worth doing for people unless you can talk religion to them. What are those poor mortals to do who have none to talk about? I don't think you mean just that, Laura. Neither of us believe that merely talking religion to people will do much good. But I confess that I do not see how, unless one lives religion, she is going to be able to help another to the only foundation that is absolutely safe to build upon. Soon after that we settled into quiet and tried with what skill we could to forget the scenes of the hour and gather a little strength from what night there was left. Both of us, I think, were troubled with visions of the sleeping son and the waking father below stairs. We saw nothing of Harris the next morning, heard nothing of him. The father appeared much as usual, a trifle graver perhaps, but I could not be sure, and from the smiling face of the mother I fancied that the family disgrace had been hidden from her, though much I marveled as to how mother eyes could be deceived. Amid hearty goodbyes and almost oppressive attentions, we left at last the house which we had entered as strangers. Especially interesting to me was Laura's parting with the child wife. My daughter was never given to tears, but her eyes were dim when she turned away from Leda, and after a half hour of utter silence on her part I heard only this. Mama, fancy my loving the little thing and hating to leave her. I never supposed that I could. Our journey was comparatively uneventful, only comparatively, however, and that word, I imagine, would not apply could we look into the future. There were quiet words dropped that day by our alert old friend, that I doubt not will bear fruit such as she will meet again in her father's house. I think I have represented her to you as one strangely on the watch for opportunities, singularly ready with just the right word that it seemed wisest to speak. But on this day, after her solemn declaration of the night before that everybody was asleep, it was more distinctly noticeable than ever that she was intent upon her master's business. Never obtrusive, almost never seeming to offend, being rarely repulsed, yet definitely slipping in her quiet, telling words where they must have been the least expected. In fact, I think she, more than any woman I ever knew, united those two peculiar characteristics of successful work, wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. Mr. Smith proved a very careful and courteous attendant, almost too careful indeed. He fairly oppressed us with attentions, opening and closing our windows, arranging our blinds, folding and refolding our wraps, buying the daily papers and offering us some of every dainty that passed through the train, popcorn and fashion books included. There seemed all the afternoon a nervous unrest about the man. I could not help thinking that he was trying to get rid of his own sorrowful thoughts by inventing wants for us that he might busy himself in supplying. Arrived at our stopping place for the night, we were packed into a carriage and taken wither he would, having all resigned ourselves to the feeling, which, however much of a veteran in travelling she may be, is always a luxury to a woman, that we were being taken care of and need not think anything about routes or stopping places or luggage. The hotel was one of the princely sort, Mr. Jonas Smith being evidently one who never economized in travelling, and by seven o'clock we were divested of travel stains and seated at a cozy round table in the elegant dining-room with well-trained waiters standing obsequiously by, ready to serve us with whatever we might select from the Bill of Fair. It was here that occurred the next startling episode of what had, in the last few weeks, become an eventful life. End of Chapter 20 Chapter 21 of Mrs. Solomon Smith looking on by pansy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 21 Principles is inconvenient things. I'll own that. And what will you have, Maria? Mr. Smith was saying, as Laura and I having stated our preference, he waited for his sister-in-law. But Maria was engaged in an earnest and, to judge by her eyes, startled Perusel of the Bill of Fair. Jonas, look there! She said at last, laying the paper before him and pointing with her finger to the headlines, which indicated that choice winds in every variety would be served to order. Yes, he said in low tone. Of course, they all do that. What shall I order for you? Jonas, you don't mean that? They don't all have them. In this great city there must surely be one temperance place where a body can eat and sleep without straining his conscience. The tone was low, almost pleading. Still, I think the nearest waiter caught it, and there was an amused smile on his face while he waited. Probably Jonas saw this. He answered hurriedly, There is no time to discuss such matters now, Maria. Don't you see we are already the subject of remark? Let me send your order. It is growing late. I am to meet my committee at eight o'clock. Then I must just go hungry, that's all. She spoke in a positive voice, yet one couldn't call it obstinate. There was two mournful atone in it, as if she were fully conscious of all the perplexities and annoyances that the question at issue set in motion, and would feign have shrunk from it if she could. I'm dreadful sorry, Jonas. If I dreamed of such a thing, I wouldn't have come this way. I don't like to put folks in unpleasant places, and make talk and all that, not a bit. But as for eating my supper, or sleeping under a roof where they sell rum, or giving a scent of my money toward helping it along, I can't do it. By this time the waiter was smiling broadly behind the napkin with which he vainly tried to hide his mouth. Mr. Jonas Smith was growing visibly annoyed. Don't be absurd, he said in a quick, irritable undertone. We must have supper at once. Tea and toast, waiter, in addition to my other orders, and be quick about it. Not for me, Jonas. There was quietness in Mrs. Smith's voice, but there was also firmness. Not a mouthful for me at this table. You don't understand. I can't do anything of that kind. It simply ain't right. None of Solomon's money must go toward helping the curse along in any way, shape, or manner. We promised that to the Lord long ago, and a promise to him ain't to be broken for convenience, you know. I can go hungry, but I can't eat the bread of sin. What ridiculous nonsense! Mr. Smith was unaffectedly angry now. Just as if eating your supper at this table either helped or hindered the cause. I'll tell you what, Maria, fanaticism does more to hinder than any other single thing. Maybe so, said Mrs. Smith quietly. Jonas, what would you give to see Harris just such a fanatic as I be? The father's face paled instantly, yet what were we to do? Here we sat, waiting for our ordered dinner, and one of our party refusing to touch it. He turned toward us an appealing look, and I assayed to help. I should certainly much prefer a temperance house. Can we not go quietly to one? And leave the supper we have ordered uneaten and unpaid for? There was something very like a sneer in his voice, yet he was so tired that I could excuse it. Mrs. Smith saved me the trouble of answering. No, we wouldn't leave it unpaid for. We've made him trouble in ignorance, and we'll pay him for it. That's principle. But they'll know just why we can't eat our suppers here. That's principle, too. Mr. Smith looked as though, if it were, he hated principle, and would have nothing to do with it. But, after another moment or two of hesitation, he rose abruptly, made his way to the cashier's desk, held a hurried conversation with him, during which time certain bills exchanged hands, then he came back to us, and it was with haste and gloom that we retreated from the elegant hotel. A somewhat silent party rode through the streets of the city in search of a temperance house. Mr. Jonas Smith did not condescend to sit inside, but slammed the door on us, as if we were all equally in disgrace, and took a seat with the driver. The ride was not a long one, but the change, both in location and appearance, was marked when we again alighted before a hotel. Perhaps you are accustomed to being a martyr to your temperance principles, and know all about the stuffy hall, and small, not over-clean, not well-kept rooms, all smelling more or less of food that had been cooked some time, into which we were presently ushered. I hope you like it. Mr. Smith said to his sister-in-law, with meek voice and savage eyes. He was speaking of the room to which the slovenly and somewhat surly waiter had brought us, the main one, by no means immense in size, and the one opening from it, not larger than the clothes presses of his own house. The furniture was plain even to shabbiness, the carpet, that large-figured abomination in red and green, altogether, though the bedding was clean and the necessaries to comfort were there, the air of cheapness which pervaded everything evidently tried Mr. Smith's aesthetic taste to the utmost. It will do, Mrs. Solomon said decisively, in answer to his insinuation. It ain't so grand by considerable as the one we left. I suppose these folks can't afford to be grand. They don't get any help from Rom. And I don't suppose they have any too much custom, either. Folks don't go out of their way maybe to find a temperance house. It is a good deal easier to go to the glittering places and ask no questions for conscience's sake. Principles is inconvenient things, I alone that. Solomon and I have been bothered with ours a great many times. Well, said Mr. Smith, everyone to his own taste. I'm glad you like it. They say there will be some sort of a supper served for you soon. As for me, I must go without supper tonight and hurry right back to my appointment. It was his parting thrust, and we were alone. But auntie, said Laura, as she poured water from the broken-nosed pitcher and exclaimed over its smallness and yellowness and brokenness. Is there any principle involved in having things look like this? Temperance people need not necessarily be stuffy and dusty and shabby. If they want custom, why don't they keep such a house as people will patronize? Sometimes there's a good deal of principle in that very thing, child. A man has got to have the money to make a house elegant in the first place and keep it so afterwards, and often he's got to earn the money before he can have it, and if his principles won't let him earn it by selling rum, which I have heard is altogether the quickest and easiest way. And if you and I ain't got principles enough to stand his broken-nosed pitchers and cracked-looking glasses so as to help him earn money for better things, why, he won't be likely to get on very fast. I like nice things, child, but I like clean consciences better. I'm sorry for Jonas, his principles ain't skin deep anyhow, and his conscience is tough, and his stomach is tender, and he'll likely have a hard time of it here. I'm sorry for all of us for having made an uncomfortable time all round. It is the most uncomfortable time I ever remember to have had in my life, and I'd have given my best Alderney cow to get out of it. But I was in, and I didn't know no way out. As true as you live, I didn't. I'm an old goose, maybe, an opinionated old foolish thing, but I couldn't know more set there and drink that tea out of a china cup and stir it with a silver spoon, and think of that boy of Jonas's lying dead drunk in his father's parlour only last night, and me a-sitting one side of him and his father the other a-growning out in agony every few minutes, and me helping to pay for the rum that went to make him so, then I could fly up through that chimney-hole this minute. I couldn't do it. She looked worn and haggard with the weight of her trouble, and with the trouble which she had made for others, which last, at all times, harder for Mrs. Smith than anything that she had to bear for herself. I could feel that as she turned away from Laura's unanswering eyes and side heavily. She was thinking what a blessed haven of rest that little house in the hollow would be to her with Solomon at the hearth side. I did not know what to think of Laura. For the first time since we left home she seemed to have deserted her old friend. Her eyes flashed their vexation, and she shut her lips tightly as though she had just enough self-control left to resolve to keep silence. One might have supposed that her whole heart was set in favour of the liquor traffic instead of having been all her life an earnest temperance worker. I felt very much puzzled. I could not think that the luxuries of life had suddenly grown so important to her that she could not dispense with them for one night. For, like most sensible girls raised in comfortable and harmonising surroundings, she had not given them such a high place that she could not cheerfully and even gleefully share the annoyances and discomforts of travel or of anything that disturbed the usual routine. All together the rest of our journey was not pleasant. The breakfast did well enough. The steak was somewhat tough to be sure and the coffee slightly muddy, but if everything had not been made so uncomfortable by Mr. Smith's sarcasms and Laura's silence we should have gotten along nicely. As it was I was glad certainly to bid the gentleman goodbye, and Mrs. Smith curled herself into a seat in the car with a long-drawn sigh of relief after his somewhat stiff goodbye to her. Fancy a man saying goodbye stiffly to a woman who had been what she had in his household for weary days and nights week after week, simply because by her conscientious scruples she disturbed the luxury of one night's rest, I felt angry with him and provoked with Laura and left her much to herself. As our train rolled into the familiar depot and Mrs. Smith peering from the window caught a glimpse of the high old-fashioned wagon, plentifully besprinkled with mud, and of Solomon in his much too long grey coat standing beside it watching eagerly the moving car windows, I shall never forget the radiant face that turned to me, nor the triumphant voice that said, There he is, the best sight that my old eyes have seen in a year. It seems most a year, don't it? I declare for it. I hope it won't be made my duty to trot around this world any more without Solomon. I don't like it. I laughed, but Laura was persistently cold and silent. The child had never tried me so much in all her life put together, as she had during this journey. I think I showed a little of this feeling as we talked over, with her father and Mary, the episode of the hotel, for Laura, without being directly censured, arose to the defensive. I don't care, Mama. I still think it was very silly and selfish in Mrs. Solomon, and I shall always think so. The idea that her money was helping along the sale of liquor, just because she was stopping at a hotel and paying for just what she consumed and nothing more. What did she do with the liquor? She might as well refuse to stop in the world any longer, because there are rum selling and Sabbath breaking, and I don't know what not. So long as she doesn't do it and can't keep others from doing it, what is it to her? Now Laura was not usually so illogical as that. In fact, her father had often playfully told her that he ought to educate her for the bar. She would make her mark as a lawyer. And I was more surprised than I can tell you. Her reasoning seemed too absurd even to require an answer. So absurd indeed that Mary laughed, as she said pleasantly. Why, Laura, you are on exactly the opposite side from what I would have expected. And besides have certainly forgotten how to argue. Of course, it really is countenancing the sale of liquor in hotels to patronize them. In fact, it apparently accepts the popular argument that first-class hotels cannot be kept without the sale of liquor. And so we submit to having liquor pay half of our first classness. Doesn't it, Papa? Looks like it, said her father sipping his coffee and evidently enjoying the argument of his daughters too much to care to cut it short by helping them. But Laura was excited. Well, they can't, she said sharply, ignoring her father's remark. Look at the condition of the temperance hotels. First class indeed. I wish you could have been with us last night. Even the soaps were third class, and the thin coating of silver all worn from the spoons. And, Papa, you couldn't cut the steak with a sharp knife even. But what does that prove? persisted Mary. Save that it is a humiliating truth that we are allowing the poor fellows who drink liquor to pay part of our bills. I should think that that was helping along the liquor traffic with a vengeance. And I should think that if it was really so, we could better get along with third class soaps, or take our own, and even eat tough steak once in a while, or else patronize temperance houses so exclusively and at such good prices that they can soon afford another state of things. Does Malcolm stop at temperance houses whenever he goes? Was Laura's apparently irrelevant reply? And Mary, with a slightly heightened color, answered, laughing, that she presumed not. She imagined that he had never given the matter any thought. But she would write to him about it immediately, and give him anti-Smith's views. And she believed in his temperance principles so thoroughly that she thought him willing to give up toilet soap and tender steak altogether, if necessary. And that was one of the advantages in having anti-Smith's conscience in the world. It roused other peoples. But Laura persisted that she thought anti-Smith's conscience altogether too tender in some directions, and that she had shown herself to be obstinate and selfish. Well, I think so, Mama. She said, with a defiant little flash in her bright eyes, as she caught my reproving look. She doesn't care for little daintinesses herself, isn't, in fact, accustomed to them as we are, and as her brother-in-law is. And so, of course, there was nothing special for her to give up. She cares for just one person in this world, and that is her Solomon. And so long as her conscience doesn't touch him in any way, nor waste his money, she is willing to ride into all sorts of discomforts and take other people with her without caring how hard it presses them. I should like to see a question of conscience come up that would affect Solomon's welfare in any way. I think she would discover that she is selfish in her crosses, and that in reality she doesn't know much about them. I couldn't understand Laura. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks burning, and her lips were quivering. She was evidently strongly wrought upon, and had apparently gone over entirely to the enemy's side. Mary looked at her wonderingly. One would think you were an antitemperance partisan, she said, instead of being your grandfather's pet scholar in no-license arguments. Laura, I believe you have cut the fever from Lita and are out of your head. This last with a half laugh. But Laura did not smile. I am just as strong a temperance woman as ever I was, she said firmly, and I am as strong as anybody ought to be. I simply tried to keep common sense on my side. And I say it is the man who sells the liquor and the man who drinks it who are to blame, and no others. All these side issues, wandering around to see if our consciences are mixed up with it because we eat steak and sleep on beds in hotels, is all nonsense. It is just being fanatical. I believe that the people who trouble themselves about other people's consciences in this way are just the ones who will strain at a gnat and swallow a camel if the camel takes the shape that they would like to swallow, and Mrs. Smith will do it just as quickly as any of them. Whereupon she abruptly left the breakfast table. All day, pressed upon by many cares and responsibilities growing out of my long absence from home, there came this undertone of anxiety. What can have so disturbed and altered Laura? That evening, when we were alone together, my husband answered the question with a single sentence. Has Laura told you how Norman has at last invested his surplus funds? No, we have been so excited with weddings and sickness and traveling that we have had no opportunity to speak of business together. How has he? My tone was somewhat indifferent. What did I care really how Norman Eastlake had invested his surplus funds? He had money enough, too much. Indeed, I had often believed that he would be more of a man if he had less. In hotel stock, said my husband significantly, and then I understood Laura. Norman Eastlake was my daughter Laura's intended husband. You can readily see how her father's announcement enlightened me. In a moment I saw it all, the poor child's sensitive attempt to think that what her friend did must be right, though at variance with all her previous views and teachings, and her determination to sustain him and argue him out of the inconsistency. I could understand how Mrs. Smith's extreme action had wrought upon her nerves with its irritating question as to why that ignorant old woman should be able to reach conclusions of right and wrong that Norman, with all his culture and logical education, had failed to see. Of course he was right, and Mrs. Solomon wrong. It should be so. As soon as I understood my poor child I was sorry for her, though I cannot say that I was greatly astonished at Norman's course. The truth is that, could I have had things just as I would, Norman Eastlake was not the man whom I should have chosen for my son-in-law. I had never meant that he should occupy such a position. It had been a boy and girl friendship not so very strongly marked. They liked to walk from school together and were rivals in rhetoric and algebra, friendly rivals always. I thought that their interest in each other was nothing more than the natural result of belonging to the same classes and being interested in the same pursuits. When Norman went to college I had been foolish enough to consent carelessly to their interchange of friendly letters. Her father had shook his head and asked me if I thought it wise. But I had only laughed and assured him that Laura was just a gay child and would correspond with him as joyously and as innocently as she would with her brother if she had one. And I remember that I added that Norman was a sentimental boy who thought it would be a fine thing to get letters regularly from a pretty girl. It would give him a sense of manliness which secretly I thought he needed. So the years passed on, and before I fully realized that Laura had forever laid aside her doll and romped with her kitten no more, she came to me one day with glowing cheeks and speaking eyes and a letter to show me, a special letter. She had always showed them to me, and they had been gay and careless enough. But this one was written after Laura had been spending a month with an aunt in the same town where Norman was at school, and behold they were engaged. Norman had taken everything in his free and easy fashion. They will be expecting it, he had said to Laura. Of course your father and mother knew the end of all these things. They have as good as given their consent already. We'd need not trouble to be very formal. Had we? Yes, I thought it all over afterwards, many a time afterwards. Norman was right. We had allowed things to drift exactly as though we had expected they would go down just the channel that they had. And yet I never expected it, never meant it, would have given much, very much, to have taken it all back. I had simply made the mistake that I think many mothers are making now, that of calling two young things children, and letting them play on together long after the childishness had been in a sense laid aside, and they were playing at man and woman without recognizing it as play. Well, what objection had we to Norman Eastlake? We asked each other the question, her father and I, he looking with troubled face into the coals, staring straight before him all that hour, and never by word or look, hinting to me, that hateful I told you so. Yet do you think I forgot that he had? Oh, there were many objections. Norman was of good family? Yes. Was he a good-hearted, well-intentioned fellow? Yes. Was he a fair scholar, and would be likely to succeed fairly well in his profession? Yes. Was he rich? Yes. Unhesitatingly I answered all these questions to my heart in the affirmative, and yet I did not want him for Laura's husband. Well, did I want anybody? No, I didn't. I recognized that as in part the trouble. Laura was a child yet, ought to have been. I resented her being defrauded of her fresh young girlhood, and being pushed thus early into the responsibilities of life. Why couldn't they at least have been content to remain boy and girl friends for a few years? Why must Norman suddenly go to imagining himself a man? Norman is a Christian? asked Laura's father at last, hesitatingly with a curious upward inflection in his voice. I answered the questioning sentence with another. Is he? Why, Mary, you know he has been a professor of religion ever since he was a little fellow. I know it. I said, and if Laura had heard me, I suppose she would have resented the dreariness of my tone. But therein lay one of my troubles. Norman was by no means the sort of Christian that I thought he ought to be. He was simply a free-hearted, good-natured, easy-going, social young fellow, lacking I believed in moral backbone. I had never seen him tried, to be sure. His tastes did not run in the line of dissipation. His friends did not happen to be of the stamp that led him astray, and his reputation was therefore exceptionally good. I believe in that word, therefore, I have put the hint of how the matter stood in my own mind. I had not unwavering confidence in Norman's self. His virtues seem to have happened around him, creatures of circumstance, rather than of choice based on conviction. I remember as long ago as when he united with the church, in company with a large number of young people, just after a period of special religious interest, it seemed to me rather that he came because all the boys in his set were coming, than because he had taken firm foothold on the rock. I had all along felt that little undertone of distrust, not of his good intentions, but of the soil on which they were growing. He had been a boy who was easily persuaded to go sleigh-riding or rowing, as the case might be, on prayer-meeting evening, if the other boys were going, and almost equally easily persuaded that it was not just the thing to do, if enough of the others thought not, which little illustration just served to show his moral power. Imagine such a one the husband of my Laura, with her quick, keen insight into all questions, mental or moral. I had small comfort in thinking that she would lead him, for I believed that, like all weak natures, his was also an obstinate one. It could take a position and maintain it stoutly against reason and common sense, if the motive for doing so was sufficiently inviting. Besides, I felt confident that Laura was not a woman to lead her husband and live a happy life. She was too strong-willed for that, in the better sense of that word. I felt sure that, in order to respect him, she must look up to him and believe in his superior strength. Then how in the name of wonder was she to be happy with the man of her choice? Over this problem, her father and I grieved much, after we settled to the mournful truth that she was unquestionably a woman at heart, and that he was unquestionably the man of her choice. At last it became apparent to us that it was to be done by shutting her eyes and assuring herself that the strength was there, and that she might lean on it. I hoped that she mercifully did not know her eyes were shut. If she could always live in a state of real blindness as to Norman's character, provided my estimate of it were correct, she might be a comparatively happy woman. But there had, in the past year, been several little episodes like this hotel affair which had told me only too clearly that Laura sometimes saw painful things even with closed eyes. The temperance question had been one on which I believed that Norman stood more squarely than on any other, for the reason that his father had been a pioneer in that direction in the dark days of the struggle, and Norman had admired his father. Yet it will explain to you how little real confidence I had in the young man, that after the first start of surprise I asked my husband simply who it was who had succeeded in persuading Norman that very safe investments were made in hotel stock, and that morally it was all right. After all, I don't think I have made this matter very plain. You see, you don't know Norman Eastlake. If you did, you would understand. There was really no ground for complaint. Look at him outwardly, from any standpoint that you chose, he was unexceptionable, and I was not sure any of the time but that the boy was a Christian, only a limping sort of one if he chanced among cripples, and Laura was not even that. We could not appeal to her need for a higher type of Christian manhood, we could not appeal to anything, and when we hesitated and urged there was nothing to argue that could be put into words, save that she and he too, for the matter of that, were so very young. We shall be growing older every day, she said gravely. People grow old fast enough, and Mama I know you don't like Norman, that is you don't like him well enough to marry him, that is plain I have seen it this long time. But there is this to be said about it, I do, and I'm the one you know. What could we answer? So for more than a year it had been an understood thing in our family that Laura was the promised wife of Norman Eastlake. He was an orphan, and was most unnecessarily wealthy. There were always surplus funds coming in to torment him as to investment, and it was probably to escape the bore of looking any further that he had become half-owner in one of the princely hotels in the city where he was studying his profession. Laura's father had heard of it through his lawyer, who had been engaged in the legal part of the business, but directly he mentioned it, I knew that Laura had heard it from Norman and accepted it as the thing to do, or else Norman wouldn't have done it. Because of the example of Christian life thus kept before her, I had been surprised that Laura had espoused Mrs. Smith's peculiar views on many subjects so heartily. My conclusion had been that she believed the difference in them to be largely one of development, and that Norman would grow into what was now Mrs. Smith's daily life. This being the case, it was not difficult to understand what a shock the hotel enterprise had been to her. This was not development, surely. He had been pronounced enough on the entire temperance question when she saw him last, not exactly this phase of it, to be sure, and I believed that this would always be the difference between Laura's mind and Norman's East Lakes. Questions parallel to those already settled would by her be accepted as matters of course, while Norman would have to argue himself in or out of each new development, and would be likely to decide negatively about one and affirmatively about the other of two phases which to Laura appeared as one and the same. I plainly saw that the problem which she had now set herself was to convince her heart and her conscience that in this new departure Norman was right and Mrs. Smith absurdly wrong. I knew it was not yet settled because her irritation still continued in full force. She argued at length with Mary that our dear old lady might be very good, but she was narrow-minded. Of course she was, why should she not be? All her life experiences had tended to make her so. Also this wise woman of nineteen was convinced that the woman of sixty-five did not understand herself. She had never been tried in a direction that would press home. Her children's graves, I ventured to hint, and the foolish child who knew nothing about a mother's heart said, yes, but that was long ago, and she had been so busy about her energetic life that she really had not time to miss them much, and she did not believe anyway that they had ever been to her what some daughters were to mothers. She had given all her heart to Solomon and had none left for others, and certainly for twenty years at least she had not a ripple of personal trouble to disturb her. No wonder she was able to settle questions of conscience for all creation. I gave over trying to argue with Laura what was the use. Nevertheless it was she who, one evening, after Norman, in a new dressing gown of most becoming pattern and gray slippers, the gift of a sister of one of his college friends, had launched among us for two or three days, made a proposition that surprised me. Mama, I want Norman to make the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Suppose we go over there this evening for an hour. They are original characters, Norman, you will enjoy studying them. And Norman gracefully declared that he could not conceive of himself as enjoying anything better than he did that easy chair with his feet on the hearth rug, and that delightful open great fire to stare at, to say nothing of his companions. At the same time he was ready to attend us to the ends of the earth if such was our pleasure. Mary was at this time much absorbed in a missionary entertainment that was being got up by the young lady's band of our church, she being president of said band. On the evening in question there was a committee meeting and rehearsal at the other end of the town, and her father had attended her thither and was to await her pleasure. Therefore I was thrown upon Laura and Norman for the evening. At least Laura chose to so consider me, not being willing that her mother should sit alone while she entertained her guest in the parlor. It was one of the pretty little ways in which my younger daughter differed from many young ladies of the present day. I glanced up surprised at her suggestion. She had not been to call on Mrs. Smith since our return home nearly six weeks before, and though of course we had long since dropped all discussion in regard to the matter, I was aware that she had not grown reconciled to the old lady's tacit condemnation of Norman's course. I remember I wondered whether she had in mind an argument on the subject of temperance and temperance work and temperance fanaticism to be held in my neighbor's kitchen in the course of which the neighbor should find herself silenced and convinced by the brilliant logic of the young man. Whatever motive provoked the suggestion I was glad to receive it, for I knew her absence and coldness had sadly hurt the heart of her true old friend who loved her dearly, and with alacrity I laid aside my sowing, assuring Norman that we had a special treat in store for him if he really did not remember Solomon Smith and his wife. I remember them perfectly. He said in his culture drawl which was growing upon him and which I used to wonder that Laura, with her quick ways and her clear cut tones, could endure. I remember the queer old wagon in which they rode to town on market days and Sundays. It used to be associated in my juvenile mind with stories of the Ark, and I was always contriving how to stow away the animals. I remember I decided that old Solomon himself would do for an ape, but I could never be sure whether I would have the old lady a species of monkey, or whether she belonged to the cat kind. She had a curious way of climbing over the wheel that suggested the feline tribe to me. I hope he had not expected Laura to laugh, if he had he was disappointed. They could not have been very old at that time. Was her soul comment? Oh, they were, I assure you. They were always old. As long ago as I can remember, they were quoted from, as we quote the wise sayings of the oldest inhabitants. Mrs. Leonard, there is no reason why my knowledge of them should not be fresh and vivid. In the letters which I have been receiving from a certain person this winter, at least every third sentence began thus, anti-Smith says. It took me weeks to determine where she had found a new aunt. Naturally I did not associate her with the days of Solomon. When light finally dawned upon me, I spent some anxious moments in wondering whether Laura also said Uncle Solomon, and whether I should be expected to learn such a formidable name. Laura was all grave, and the flush on her cheeks plainly showed me that she was tried by all this banter. I think, Norman, she said with dignity, that the utmost tax your nerves will receive in that direction will be to say Mr. Smith. There was a somewhat marked emphasis on the Mr., where at Norman laughed, and then we three proceeded to the little brown house in the hollow.