 CHAPTER XIII. From the dinner table nearly all of the guests launched into the back parlor and disposed of themselves in various attitudes indicating listness weariness. One, bolder than the rest, admitted that she did not know what to do with herself on Sundays. She did wish there was some public place to go to that wasn't wicked, with a little deprecating laugh over this last. In summer she was nearly always at some seaside resort and of course everybody went to the beach, but Papa had a notion that it wasn't quite the thing to take Sunday walks in the city. She was sure she could never see why. There was but faint response to these murmurings, most of the guests seeming really too bored to attempt reply. Mrs. Solomon Smith had followed us with alacrity when we proposed taking seats in the parlor, but I fancy her idea of a family gathering in a Sabbath twilight was different from this. She looked around her doubtfully, as little ripples of talk started from one group and another, all frivolous, aimless, and some of it lacking in the spirit of charity. Those who had been to church seemed valuable only over certain elegant toilets, generally in disapproval of the taste displayed in color or design. Wasn't there any sermon? questioned Mrs. Smith at last, breaking in upon Effie Van Horn's adjective abounding description of Mrs. Germaine Terry's new suit, so ridiculously gay for a widow of less than a year. Mrs. Effie had chosen a sanctuary at a greater distance from the rest of us, and so was reporting for the benefit of her friends. A sermon, she said, startled and thrown off her course of trifle. Why, of course, there is always a sermon on Sabbath morning, unfortunately. I'm sure I wish there were not. I think a choral service once in a while would be a great improvement on the dry sermon. They are always so lengthy. At least Dr. Doralyn's are. I timed him this morning, and he preached exactly thirty-eight minutes and a half. Don't you think that is entirely too long for a sermon? She did not address Mrs. Smith but Erskine. Depends entirely on the matter of the sermon, he answered her with a somewhat embarrassed laugh. Miss Effie's silliness seemed to be especially trying to him that evening, but she was one of those persons who failed to discover that they are annoying people. Do you think so? She said with delicious childishness. Now I think all sermons are equally dull and stupid, whoever heard of a minister selecting an interesting theme to preach about. Mrs. Smith turned kind eyes to the silly girl. Didn't you ever hear a sermon about heaven, my dear? She said sympathetically, and don't you think the story of the beautiful city where there is no night any more and no trouble and no tears and no saying goodbye and no dying is just as interesting as it can be? Miss Effie toyed with the ribbons of her sash and blushed a little, as she said. Oh, well, heaven is nice enough to think about, I suppose, for those who like to. I never tried it much. I like this world too well to care to change. I am not one of your croakers always crying out against the world as an awful place. That's the reason I don't like sermons. They always make out that the world is a snare and a delusion, and I think it is a perfectly lovely place. The kind old eyes still beamed, and her voice was bright. I think so too, and I've lived here a good many more years than you have and shed a good many tears too. But I like the world. I think Jesus liked it very much. He came to redeem it, you see, so it must be beautiful to him. But then we can't always stay here, and our friends don't stay. One by one they go off to that other country. I've got more there than here, and much as I like the world, my heart gets all in a flutter when I think of going up to my other home. I could but notice Erskine. He stood near Mrs. Smith, his eyes on the carpet, his hands toying with his watch chain. But every feature of the expressive face spoke of a roused heart or conscience. I could not be sure which. As for Miss Effie, she shivered visibly. Oh, dear! She said, how perfectly doleful we are getting, talking about dying when we are all so young and ought to be as happy as birds. The night before a wedding, too. It is a bad omen. Lita, do play something lively and cheer us up? During this conversation Lita had been seated at the piano, Irving bending over her, and the two were trying snatches of song. Sacred song, they called it, out of courtesy for the day. But to my ears, and I feel sure to Mrs. Smith's, it really sounded, some of it, more like dancing tunes than anything sacred. At Effie's appeal she laughingly played a few gay strains which moved one of the gentlemen to join her with a whistling accompaniment, and Miss Effie declared that she could not keep her feet still. After that the talk drifted into even more frivolous channels than before, as if Satan, alarmed at this little rift in the cloud of worldliness in which he was enveloping us all, had redoubled his efforts to arrest anything like serious thought. Laura looked imploringly at me and murmured her desire to escape. Over Mrs. Solomon, I suppose, thought of her cold room, and leaned her weary old head back in her easy chair and closed her eyes. I think she went back to the little brown house in the hollow, and rested her hand on Solomon's chair, and listened to the music of his voice. Watching my nephew as he hovered around the maiden of his choice, I wondered whether, when her head was grey and her face wrinkled like Mrs. Solomon's smiths, there would be that fellowship between them, that oneness of thought and plan and purpose that brightened the little brown house at the hollow. The wonderment saddened me somewhat. There were times when these two young things seemed to me to be building their future on a very sandy foundation. The talk flowed on, the dividing line between Sabbath fitness and positive, undisguised worldliness growing dimmer and dimmer. Among other things, projects for the evening were discussed. There was a concert, but it was too far downtown, and required too much dressing for people who were to attend a wedding the next day. So Miss Effie said. The statement roused Mrs. Smith and opened her eyes. A concert? She repeated in a bewildered way, as if imagining that she might be dreaming. Why, isn't it Sunday yet? Unfortunately it is, said Miss Effie, tartly. If it were not, there would be ever so many nice things to do. But did they really have concerts on Sunday nights? The dear puzzled old lady wanted to know. Of course! Miss Effie felt herself compelled to reply since the question was directed to her, and no one volunteered an answer in her place. Why should they not? What more appropriate way of spending Sunday evening than in singing sacred music? And do they have praying? queried Mrs. Smith, which questioned not only convulsed Miss Effie but several others of her stamp, and led us cheeks crimsoned with shame over her aunt's ignorance. For almost the first time since we had been guests in the house, I gave attention to Harris Smith. He frowned so distinctly on the rudeness of the young ladies and made so prompt an answer. No Aunt Maria, they don't have praying, and their so-called sacred music is nothing that you would recognize by that name. What is about as sacred is that which my sister Lita is giving you at this moment. What they do have is a great deal of dressing and talking and flirting, why a regular Monday night performance with the same sacred attached to it to catch the young and foolish. Like yourself, for instance, retorted Miss Effie, who was at all times divided between her desire to receive the exclusive attentions of Harris and to attach young Erskine to her train. I believe you are a frequent attendant. Do you come in the list of those recently caught? By no means. With a very low bow of mock deference. I was referring to the lambs of the flock. It is well understood that I am nothing but a goat, never made any pretense of being anything else, and therefore belonged to the devil without being caught. He did not have to waste any special effort over me. Harris, said his mother reprovingly, you are growing irreverent. Whereupon Harris laughed immoderately, his face had heretofore been grave enough. Upon my word, mother, he said when he could speak, it is the first time I ever heard anybody accused of irreverence towards his satanic majesty. His mother chose to ignore this, but said, What is the matter with you young people tonight? There seems to be an element of discord. I never knew you all to get on so unamiably together. There has been an element of discord introduced into this house, muttered the little bride, in what was certainly a very loud undertone. I am glad that I am not to breathe the same atmosphere much longer. Irving, you are very good. I don't know how you endure her at all. Irving laughed pleasantly, and made some gallant remark about his being able to endure anything just now. There was not enough, in all the old ants which all the country towns in the world could produce, to affect his happiness. Then Mrs. Smith suddenly sat upright in her chair, and, at this inopportune moment, addressed the bride-elect. Elizabeth, give us some good old-fashioned hymn tunes, won't you, and set all these young folks to singing? I'd like to hear them sing, Thus far the Lord hath led me on, or something sweet and tender like that. Come now, just to please your old auntie. Aunt Elizabeth had a naughty frown on her pretty face, and whirled herself away from the piano with the pettish remark that she had never learned to play Psalms. She didn't consider a piano suited to them any way. Now it's so chanced, whether from thoughtlessness, or because they supposed that a young lady from the country could not be a proficient at the piano, my Laura had not been asked to play. It also chanced that she was by far the most skillful performer in the house. We recognized quite early in her life that she had marked musical talent, and we had cultivated it as thoroughly as we could. As for her voice it was simply remarkable. Irving must have remembered it as a boy, but he had not mentioned music to her since we came. And Irving, naturally enough, had but little thought but for his bride. I suppose Laura had been a trifle peaked, as girls will be, by the utter indifference of her new acquaintances, and lately had kept perversely in the background whenever there was a call for music. Indignation over Mrs. Solomon Smith's treatment, however, called her promptly to the front. Mrs. Smith, I will play and sing the hymn you want," she said decisively, and moved to the vacated music stool. Erskine sprang forward to attend her, which items seemed to annoy poor little Effie and take from her every remnant of good breeding. Her really pretty face was spoiled by a sneer as she murmured to Harris, now we'll see what musical prodigies the country can produce. There was not time for more before Laura's voice filled the room. Thus far the Lord hath led me o'er my days. Were I not her mother, I might be tempted to a description of the tenderness and pathos and power with which she rendered that grand old hymn. The first line hushed the chattering groups into astonished silence. In the second verse Erskine joined her, a rich, full bass, which of course added to the charm. It was not strange that other voices than Mrs. Smith's clamored for more when the music ceased, but Laura turned decisively away from the piano. I sang it for Auntie Smith, she said coldly. I keep my voice for her and a few of my special friends. But Mrs. Solomon Smith had a word for her. Laura, my dear, you will not refuse to sing the gospel for anyone's asking. Maybe it is the Lord Jesus himself asking you to witness for him. I make no doubt that he gave you your voice for that very purpose, and yours too, young man. This last to Erskine, who answered only by a grave bow, while Laura, with subdued face, turned back to the piano. One and another and another favourite were called for, Mrs. Jonas Smith graciously adding her voice to the appeals. A musical genius right in her home was something to be proud over. I fancy Mrs. Jonas gave some regretful sighs to the thought that it was Sabbath evening, and none of her friends who had musical daughters or nieces or guests would be likely to see her triumph. Mrs. Solomon Smith, who, without knowing that Laura's voice was very unusual, has known for years that she greatly enjoyed it, drew out from the storehouse of her memory old, long cherished hymns, and sat back with closed eyes and enjoyed her Sabbath at last. Among other sweet quaint ones that filled the gay parlor that evening was what few people sing now. Jesus died on Calvary's mountain long time ago. Now he calls me to confess him before I go. My past life of all. He saved from sin, I should be the most ungrateful nut to own him. I wonder, said Mrs. Smith, breaking the hush that for a moment filled the room at the close of this verse, I do wonder now if there's any of the folks in this room that he is calling to confess him for things he did for a long ago, and they don't want to do it. Seems to me as if there might be one or two. How I wish you could all make up your minds to own him as your best friend, the lover of your souls. I have rarely seen such silence as there was in the room then. We could fairly hear the heartbeats, even the pretty Leda, after the first startle look to see what Irving would think and what others of her fashionable friends thought, but the anxious look fade out somewhat from her face and leave an almost wistful expression in its place. But it was the young man, Erskine, who broke the silence. I'm one. He said, in a voice that, though husky, was strong. He did save my vile and hateful life years ago, lifted me up from the depths, and I promised then to confess him always and everywhere, and I have shamefully broken the pledge, until now hardly anyone recognizes me as one who ever belonged to him. I feel as though he had justly cast me off. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, sayeth the Lord. It was Mrs. Smith's clear, quiet voice that broke in upon the almost painful hush following this sentence. She trusted her voice to no words of hers, but poured like a healing balm upon a wound the gracious message of the Lord himself. I thought then, as I have often thought before and since, that he stayed always very near to Mrs. Smith and verified to her the promise, thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, this is the way, walk ye in it. If we had stayed in there three minutes more we should have had a prayer meeting and an anxious seat. This is what the silly Effie said as a summons to the dining-room for a cup of coffee broken upon the scene. That same silly little voice said an hour later, Don't you think Mr. Erskine has gone for his horses? He has the most elegant pair and a perfect gem of a carriage. I suppose he will not be so wicked as to go anywhere but to church after his curious speech to-night, but I do hope he will ask me to go along. I would be willing to be good all the evening if I could have a ride after those horses. They only came last evening. He came back with his handsome carriage and came into the parlor, but he walked straight to Mrs. Solomon Smith's side with this petition. Mrs. Smith, will you let me take you to a church where I think you will like to go to-night? I have a pair of very gentle horses and a close carriage. And she rode away with him. The idea! said Miss Effie, referring not to the choice of a companion but to the episode in the parlor. Who knew that Erskine was such an eccentric being? For the matter of that we are all church members, I suppose. I am sure I am, but I do dislike scenes. CHAPTER XIV It was very late that night before the house settled into quiet. The temptation was evidently strong upon our hostess to do a hundred little preparatory things in view of the next day's entertainment. It really seems as though I could not take time to sleep tonight. She said to me with a nervous laugh. There are so many responsibilities resting upon me and so many last things to do. Monday is a very trying day for a wedding. Someway Sunday makes an awkward break in all the preparations. She certainly rested very little that night. The various bridesmaids were also in a flutter of preparation. They discussed, in not very low tones, the last changes in the arrangements of flowers and other bridal decorations, examined their gloves and laces, and I am inclined to think Effie Van Horn even went so far as to slip into her little white robe once more to be sure that it was absolutely perfect. Laura turned in her bed and groaned and patted her pillow and wished they would all try sleeping for a while and give her a chance. At last they did seem to conclude to leave the excitements until Monday and quiet settled down upon us. I hardly know how long it lasted, certainly not more than an hour or two, when the slamming of doors and the hurrying of feet commenced again. Oh, dear! Laura said sleepily. It can't be possible that it is morning. Mama, don't you get people up so early and make such a commotion when my wedding day comes? Then she opened her eyes wide. That is Auntie Smith's voice, she said. Quiet and clear it came up to us, a tone of decision and command. Sarah, stop crying and shut the door. That is the very worst thing you can do for her. Run down and hurry up the hot water and send me some vinegar. Has Jonas gone himself for the doctor? Something has happened, we both said at once, and in a moment we were dressing. Something had happened indeed, the nervous irritability of the fair young bride-elect, which had so grown upon her for the last day or two as to be noticed by all the guests, proved to be something more than excitement. After an hour of restless sleep she had awakened in a burning fever, and was already talking so incoherently that it was impossible to determine whether she knew in the least who she was or what she wanted, then began a scene of unparalleled confusion. The violent ringing of bells, the distracted hurrying to and fro of many feet, the calls for this and that and the other possible remedy, the frantic appeals of her mother to each new frightened guest who appeared as to whether it could be possible that Lida was dangerously sick, all combined to bewilder most of us too hopelessly to be of any use. It was here that Mrs. Solomon Smith's strong common sense and rigid self-control rose to meet the emergency and served us well. She took command in the sick room herself, gently and firmly held her ground against those who were eagerly crowding around the bed, called Laura to help her with the pillows which poor Lida was tossing wildly about, gave me a bottle with the brief command, about ten drops of that into a half glass of water and handed to me quick, and peremptorily ordered the frightened mother away from the room until she could come quietly. I have rarely seen a woman so completely unnerved as was Mrs. Jonas Smith. I suppose she had taken but little rest during the preceding two or three weeks, and her nervous system was greatly wrought upon by the weight of care added to the weight of pain which her mother heart felt in parting from her darling. She was very fond of Irving, very proud of him, and seemed in every way to approve of the marriage. And yet, of course, it was a hard thing to think of her one little pretty daughter going out from her old home never again to be in it a girl as she had been here too for. My heart went out in sympathy for the poor mother, but she certainly was a worse than useless person in this emergency. It seemed impossible for her to get control of herself. She wrung her hands in helpless terror. One moment was sure that Lida was dying right there before her eyes, and nothing being done, and the next called on us fiercely to agree with her that it was nothing in the world but a severe headache, and Maria was making a great fuss about nothing. It transpired that Mrs. Solomon Smith, in groping her way downstairs in search of a glass of water, had heard Lida's groans and gone to her relief, while her worn-out mother, having but just gone to sleep, slept on, unheeding. What a day was that! I find that when I want an illustration of confusion and dismay and general bewilderment, my thoughts go back to that trying time. After what seemed like hours of waiting, the frightened father arrived with the family physician. He was one of those grave, reticent doctors, who waste as few words and give as little information as possible. But that little, in his case, was to be trusted. So when I heard his verdict, given after a close and careful examination, this is a sudden and severe attack of the fever which prevails in the southern portion of the city. My heart sank within me, for I had heard only the day before that the fever was increasing in violence. I followed the doctor into the hall, intent on learning his exact opinion. It was given me with all due gravity and reticence, rather it was drawn from him by careful cross-questioning. It is impossible to tell, madame, at this early stage of the disease how it will progress or terminate. Yes, the fever is certainly not abating in violence, and the number of cases is on the increase. The suddenness of the attack is a feature of the disease. You are right, madame, it is never so sudden as it appears to unprofessional eyes, being preceded by hours, sometimes by days, of great nervous excitement. It is true that this case has commenced in an unusually violent form, and there are indications of great cerebral excitement. It is undoubtedly a contagious fever, and it is important to expose as few persons as possible. Oh yes, any person who has been near enough to the patient to get her breath is more or less liable to the disease. Still, it is frequently the case that also exposed escape. It is owing entirely to the condition of the system. I always have grave fears, madame, as to the result of such a fever, especially when, as in this case, the patient has a singularly delicate physical organization. On the whole, I turned from him with a heavy heart. I certainly had nothing very cheering to communicate to the mother, and there was in my heart a sharp pain on my own account. Had not my Laura already been several times near enough to the patient to get her breath? Only we settled down to something like the system which prevails in a family of means when sickness becomes a recognized fact. Yet it was in many respects the most trying day of all that we endured during this period of suffering. There were such sharp and trying contrasts. All over the house were hints, more or less apparent, of the expected festivity. revealed glimpses of soft, fleecy drapery, slippers, gloves, laces, flowers, perfumes. The large dining-room showed in the grey dawn of the early morning preparations for special festival. The long table was extended, while closets left open in haste showed rows of silver and china waiting to adorn it. In one closet the bridal cake had been set, already garnished with its wreaths of green, and beside it stood a half empty mustard jar which had been seized upon to minister to the poor little sufferer upstairs, and then set down again in haste as a more urgent call came. This was a fair sample of the incongruous confusion that prevailed throughout the usually well-ordered house. The guests were simply panic-stricken. The story of possible contagion had spread in the unaccountable manner in which such stories always do, and the young ladies of the party were literally tossing their wedding finery into trunks and distracting the already bewildered servants with urgent calls for carriages to be summoned at once, that they might catch early trains. There is no need for us to hasten, I said to Laura, and I'm afraid my tone was a regretful one as I said, you have already been exposed, my dear, if there is any danger. She turned upon me eyes that were almost fierce. Mama, she said, I would not go away now if I thought I should take the fever in the next hour and could save myself by going. I think it is despicable to be in such a panic. Yesterday they were so fond of Lita that they hung around her from morning to night. Today they think only of their precious selves. An indignant girl, indignant in a righteous cause, is almost a pretty sight. I did not have it in my heart to scold her for her vehement words. There was little time for mere talk. We dropped into grooves of labour before that day was done. Suddenly people were arriving from the more remote suburbs of the city, guests of the house for the day, their wedding paraphernalia following hard after in express wagons. These all had to be met, and explanations made, and exclamations of dismay and condolence listened to, and hurried returns arranged for, to say nothing of lunches that in common decency must be prepared for some. Laura stepped into this distracting gap as readily as though she had been hostess and manager-in-chief of a household for years. She seemed to know by instinct just whose name to take up to Mrs. Smith, with special messages or offers of aid, and who on no account to allow to penetrate beyond the decorum of the parlours. Seeing the need for a head below stairs, I took upon myself the humble office of directing the servants as to lunches, breakfasts, and the like, trying to see that in their bewilderment they did not attempt two things at once and accomplish neither. As for Mrs. Solomon Smith, no professional nurse could have slipped into office with the ease and speed that she established herself in the sick room. How many times during that first day did we have occasion to be grateful for her presence there? The poor, frightened mother did not gain better control of herself as the hours passed and it became evident that Litas was undoubtedly a sick room, and there were days and nights of intense anxiety to follow. She seemed simply overwhelmed. With all her planning and preparing, the thought of sickness had not once been entertained. Now that the actual fact glared upon her and brought in its train that awful other thought of possible death, a funeral instead of a bridle, she was utterly crushed, good for nothing at Litas' bedside, she could not keep from moaning and ringing her hands. I have not said a word about my poor boy Irving. How can I put on paper the record of his distress, the photograph of his utterly miserable face? He hovered outside the stricken chamber like a shadow. The doctor, after having the state of the case explained to him, shook his head gravely over the question of admitting Irving. Counseled waiting for a day at least, until they should see how the disease was going to develop. It might be of the utmost importance to keep him away from the room. In any case it was needless exposure to probable danger. We did not tell Irving that last. The poor fellow would have rushed in, in spite of us then, to show his contempt of all possible danger as connected with himself. Wait for a day at least, the doctor had said, and he said it as if he did not know that under some circumstances a day is an eternity. Before the close of this day Irving had expected to have had his wife by his side forever, until death do us part. I thought of the sentence that had floated up to me amid the laughter of the marriage rehearsal. Was it possible that the dread shadow was gliding between them even then, and none of us had recognized it? Before the first day was done Irving had gone back to something of his old boyish manner with his auntie, turning to me instinctively for comfort as a boy would to his mother. During the intervening five years we had grown apart as mother and son seldom do, but amid all the trouble it gave me a little thrill of joy to note that the first touch of sorrow brought him back to me. It is not my purpose to detail all the miseries of the days that followed. I could not if I would. Of course we calmed down from the first panic and recognized the inevitable as people always do, but still it was a strangely disorganized household. It was a strange thing for me to note how few friends the Smiths had in their trouble. Acquaintances in abundance, a perfect deluge of cards showered down upon them that first week. Many came in person expressing sympathy, sincere expressions and as kindly put as they knew how, and yet the very dress in which they came, so bright and gay and suggestive of the society engagements they were even then on their way to meet, left the impression of something incongruous about it all. Among the hundreds there was hardly one that the mother upstairs cared to hear about, and not one that she expressed a desire to see. This mother the doctor had taken in hand with a sort of stern courtesy, had informed her that she was a fit subject for the fever, would be almost certain to have it if she spent much time in the sick room, that she could do no good there, she was not calm enough. Indeed her presence was a positive injury to her daughter. After that we did what we could to keep her from Leda's room. Of course she came and went, sometimes a hundred times in a day, so it seemed to us. But it was true that she was too painfully nervous to be trusted to do much for poor Leda, who did not recognize her half the time, and therefore did not mourn her absence. Such being the state of things, Laura and I, the acquaintances of the day, slipped into our places in the household, and did not as much as mention to each other the idea of going home. You are so good, would the poor mother say to Laura, as she came quietly to her side, with a message from some caller requiring attention. You are so good to see all these people and dispose of them. I cannot meet them, not one of them. Only think under what circumstances I expected to meet them all, when they came to congratulate my darling, and now she is—and the voice would falter and drop into sobs. Laura was good. I have rarely seen a girl of nineteen show so much tact and wisdom and quiet tenderness. Mrs. Solomon Smith was a perfect tower of strength. Everyone from the doctor down deferred to her. She was really the very perfection of a nurse—quiet, calm, cheerful, quick of movement, catching at a flash the meaning of the patient and the direction of the doctor, firm as a granite boulder when the question at issue was recognized as important, yielding to the last degree when it was only a difference of opinion. The doctor even took time to compliment her one morning as he waited in the hall for admission. You have a remarkable nurse in there. She has a faculty which not one nurse in a hundred possesses. That of being able to do as she is told. I have often observed that people who can do as they are told are the very ones capable of telling others. It was true. Mrs. Smith differed from him quite often. Her notions some of them were old-fashioned and his were new. I could see it in her eyes that she did not quite approve. Nevertheless she swerved not one hair's breadth from his directions. She recognized his responsibility and his right to lead, and like a soldier under orders she obeyed. The summer guests had all departed. Of Irving's special friends who had come from a distance to attend his wedding, only Erskine remained in the city. He called daily, sometimes twice a day, but Irving shrank from him. He seemed to shudder at the thought of meeting anyone who had been close to him in his happiness. Not the least of my duties was the trying to keep Irving from utter despair. It was very hard for him, as he said, to know nothing except what was doled out to him at intervals from the sick room. It is different with you, Auntie, he said pitifully. You can go in and out and see her constantly. You know just how she looks and just what she says, and you can bathe her head and do for her, and I have to stay outside and just wait. Poor boy! is there any harder lot in life than to stay outside and wait? CHAPTER XV We feared, we hoped, we trembled. There came a morning when anxiety and suspense reached their climax. Linda was in that dangerous state in which she recognized us all, knew in a puzzled, excitable way that much time had passed, that she was very sick, that people were alarmed about her, and worse than all she was fearfully alarmed about herself. Her lucid moments were few, for she immediately puzzled and frightened herself back into delirium. The doctor took no pains to conceal his anxiety. For hours he watched over her, applying quieting remedies with no apparent effect, her excitement seeming to increase every moment. At last he turned from her as if in despair. If she cannot in some way be quieted and put to sleep, he said, addressing her father, who had followed him from the room, she cannot live but a few hours, her strength is not equal to this terrible strain. Terrible words these, when the skillful doctor admitted by them that his resources were exhausted. We were all in the room, or in the hall, near at hand, Irving, looking haggard enough to have been the patient himself, hovered in the background, the doctor having nervously ordered him to keep out of sight. It seemed to me strange and unnatural that Lita did not ask for Irving, did not mention him in any way, and yet she remembered at intervals about her past, for she had said to me but an hour before, I was to have been married, I wasn't was I, why was it changed, was I too sick, oh dear I'm very sick, I'm going to die, I know I'm going to die. This sentence she repeated again and again each time her voice growing louder until it became a wild and fearful cry. Then for a time she would be utterly lost to us in the ravings of delirium. This in turn would be followed by a sort of stupor, and then another partially lucid interval. But it was painfully noticeable that she grew momentarily weaker. It was in one of the wildest of these paroxysms that the doctor had turned away with his despairing sentence. I do not see that I can do anything more for her. Indeed, the climax of her excitement seemed to have arrived. She tossed from side to side, and wailed her fearful cry, I am going to die, and I'm afraid, oh, I'm afraid. Until her mother lost for a few blessed moments, her agony in unconsciousness and was carried from the room. I could almost have wished that the same relief might have come to Irving. His face was so drawn with pain and misery that I felt my heart groaning for him. Still the agonized cries went on, and still the doctor bent over her, murmuring soothingly, No one shall hurt you, you are not going to die, nothing shall harm you. He might as well have talked to the wind that was roaring fiercely outside. She gave as little heed. In the hall, a short time before, the doctor had asked, turning fiercely to Mrs. Smith, whom he had called out to consult, What has started her in this way? Surely we have no fanatic among us who has been cruel enough to try to talk religion to her. His finely cut lip curving into almost a sneer as he spoke the word. Mrs. Smith made very quiet answer. I've only talked to the Lord about the poor lamb, not at all to her. I felt that she had not sense enough now to think about it, but he can think for her. The stern-eyed doctor regarded her with a puzzled air, as if she were a creature from another world, speaking a different language from any with which he was familiar, then turned and went back to his patient without further questioning. Elizabeth, said the firm, quiet voice of her aunt, breaking in upon the dread wail of the child, a quiet voice yet strong enough to rise above the shrill cry which Lita was making, Elizabeth, I want you to be still and listen to me. I've got something to tell you, and if you'll be real still, I'll tell it. The fevered face turned toward her, and the bloodshot eyes were riveted for a moment upon her. The very name Elizabeth, a name which she never heard from other lips, seemed to arrest her attention, and the quiet, kind old eyes bent on her held her gaze. Are you God? She said in an ostrich and whisper. Not a muscle of her aunt's face changed, her eyes lost none of their calm. No, she said, as if answering the most natural question in the world, but I'm his messenger. He has sent a word to you that he wants you to think about. Did he say I was going to die? Nothing more pitifully eager than her tone can be imagined. No, he said, I have loved her with an everlasting love. Tell her this, thy maker is thy husband, thy husband Elizabeth, think of it. You have thought what that word means. I daresay you have thought about it a great deal, and he sent it to you on purpose so you would understand. There came into the child's eyes that retrospective look which shows us that a mind is sweeping back over its past. Doubtless she had dwelt on that word husband with tender anticipation. She was so nearly a wife that the word had become very sweet to her. She had looked forward to saying in fond, proud tones, my husband. The wild light began to die out of her eyes, which were still fixed upon her aunt, who had risen and was bending over her, holding her hand, and passing a soft, light touch over her forehead, as she said, over and over again, in those low, firm tones which conveyed a sense of strength. He says he has loved you with an everlasting love. He says I am to say to you that thy maker is thy husband. She was certainly listening, and the doctor, watching her with keen, professional eye, telegraphed with significant gesture that her pulse was lessening. Presently she spoke in a perfectly natural tone. But Aunt Maria, I haven't loved him. I haven't done anything for him. The doctor's start of surprise to hear the low-keyed, natural voice was so instantly followed by a frown at his own folly and a startled glance toward Mrs. Smith, lest she too should break the soothing spell, that we realized more fully still the importance of the calm. Nothing could have been quieter or more prompt than her aunt's voice. Yes, he knows all about that, my lamb. Still he sends the message. He wants you to love him, wants you to begin now. But I have wasted my life. Yes, maybe so. He knows he is your maker, you know, and now he bids me say that he will be your husband. Don't you think he can forgive anything after that? His love is everlasting. He wants yours now, not yesterday's, but today's. Aunt Maria, am I going to die? The doctor gave an emphatic start this time and tried vigorously to arrest Mrs. Smith's attention, while he shook his head earnestly. She did not for a moment remove her eyes from Lita's face, nor for a moment hesitate with her answer. I don't know, my lamb, he knows all about it. He didn't send you any word about that, only the other. I have loved her with an everlasting love. And then that other, thy maker is thy husband. What he wants to know is, if you will love him and take him for your husband. How much did the fever wasted mind understand of the solemn and tender message? Who can tell? We waited breathlessly, the doctor curiously. His professional anxiety was giving weight to professional curiosity to see how this new form of treatment would work. Two other physicians, also eminent, who had been called in counsel and been unable to appear until now, tiptoed into the room and waited, and were evidently curious, and the quiet old voice went on repeating its tender message over and over and over, and then the tender inquiry. Elizabeth, he wants to know if you will take him for your husband now. Yes, came in low yet perfectly distinct tones from the fever-parched lips. Not a note of the controlled voice changed as the dear old lady instantly answered. Then tell him so, my lamb, just shut your eyes and speak to him. He can hear you now, if you speak ever so low. If you only think it in your heart, he will hear you. He hears you now, but he will like the word direct from you. Back and forth went the soothing hand, making its slow, regular passes. Again and again the firm voice repeated the message, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Slowly those restless, wide-open eyes that had been wide-open all through the long night and all through the long day thus far lost their distressed look. The lids drooped lower and lower, the two small wasted hands were clasped as a child's might have been, who was saying, Now I lay me down to sleep. The lips moved, but no sound from them was heard this side of heaven. We stood in perfect hush around that bed, nothing to break it save that steady voice falling lower and lower, making no pause between the sentences or repeated sentence, before she simply said those sublime words. And at last it became apparent to us all that, for the first time in two weeks, the child was sleeping a quiet, natural sleep, or else it was the sleep that knows no waking here. Weeks afterwards we called that day the climax, but we did not know it at the time. We hovered with Lita apparently on the very confines of another world. Not that there had not been a decided change, the fever had spent its force. The trouble was, all that it seemed to have left behind was a small pale wreck without power to rally its scattered forces and creep back into life again. Day after day she lay there like a snow wreath, too weak to speak, too weak to move so much as her small wasted hands, just strength enough to turn her eyes from one side to another and smile. But it was a blessed relief that she smiled. The look of terror which had blanched her face during those memorable and fearful hours was gone. She was evidently at rest. Whether it was that she was now too weak, too nearly slipped out of life to be other than at rest, we did not know. We feared and we hoped and we trembled. It is a kind of deathbed repentance, said Mrs. Solomon Smith to me, wiping her tired eyes during one of those brief intervals in which she was off duty. I've always been mortal afraid of them, and I am now. Poor little Dove, she ought to have been gotten to the Ark long ago. Do you think she is going to die? Laura asked the question in an ostrich and whisper. She thought so herself, or perhaps it might be put, she feared so. But no one, since the change, had put it into words. I don't know, child. In a tired, half-hopeless voice, there is so little of her left to die. It seems as if it would be so easy, so much easier just to shut her eyes and not open them again, that I feel kind of astonished every time I see them open. She thinks herself that she is going to die. Continued Mrs. Smith, she told me so last night, in the night. But she is very quiet and peaceful. Oh, quiet as a lamb! She spoke about getting married, and said she thought she was going to be the bride of Christ. I wouldn't let her talk, the doctor said I mustn't. But I was sorry afterwards. She wanted to. She had sweet things to tell me, she said. Poor lamb! Generally Mrs. Smith was cheerful. It was only occasionally, in the privacy of my room, that she allowed herself to sigh. But I saw that she had very little hope of Leda. Sometimes it seemed to us that this lull was almost harder to bear than the excitement of constant suffering and constant attempts to do for our sick one had been. There seemed nothing to do now but to wait. What the doctor thought he kept to himself. He came and went twice, three times, occasionally four times, during the day and night. But apparently doing as little for her as the rest of us, just watching and waiting. I began to grow very anxious for Irving. His business furlough had been extended, his place temporarily supplied in fact. It was found that even governments had hearts, and there was nothing for him but to bear from hour to hour that fearful strain. It was telling on him like a fit of sickness. He had grown almost as thin as Leda. His face was quite as colorless, and now that the strange calm had come to hers was far more haggard. Antismith thought much of him, made many journeys from the chamber of watching on his account, always appeared to him with a pleasant face and an earnest, Keep up a good heart, my boy, the Lord reigns, and he loves the child better than you do, and you know how much that means. You may be sure he will do his best for her. She was left much alone with her patient. It was the doctor's command that the weakened brain should not be disturbed by different faces about her, and as the mother's strength had almost entirely given out since the first strain had been removed, and she had dropped into the role of an invalid, it had been decreed that she must not exert herself for Leda at all. So it fell to me to relieve Mrs. Solomon in her ministrations, and we too took sole charge. Laura would have liked to establish herself there, but this I preemptorily refused. The child had cares enough all around the disorganized household without becoming nurse. I hardly know when it was that the doctor's daily deliverances began to change slightly. I think it was Irving who first said to me, with lips so white that I remember I thought him fainting, that he believed the doctor was a little less hopeless. After that I watched more closely, and gradually began to detect what seemed to me hopeful signs. These I communicated to Irving, feeling that he needed them to help him keep his reason. Little by little the story grew until we were almost prepared one morning for Leda's own words, as her aunt bent over her. Auntie, I'm not to go to heaven yet, after all. I've been afraid to get well, for fear I should lose this, this sweet something I don't know the name of it. But Jesus told me last night, in the night, that he was going to take care of me down here awhile, that he could do it just as easily here as in heaven, and I suppose he can. It was that very morning that the doctor stopped in the hall, held out his hand to Irving, and said, with the nearest approach to emotion that I had ever seen in him, I congratulate you young man, I believe good nursing has saved her, that aunt of hers is certainly a remarkable woman. Then we had another form of excitement for a few minutes, and the doctor another patient. Irving fainted quite away, and the grim doctor, gone back into the very depths of his grimness, worked over him in silence for several minutes. From that time we got on steadily, not rapidly it is true, but from day to day the gain was apparent. Before the week had closed it became evident that the frail girl who had so nearly crossed the dividing line between us and that other world was coming back to the things of this life. She asked for Irving one morning, before the hour that the doctor allowed him to make his daily call, showed great satisfaction in his visit, and regret over his speedy departure. He came to me with a radiant face. It is Lita herself, auntie! He said eagerly, for weeks she has seemed to me as an angel who was just waiting for wings to float away out of sight, but this morning she is almost herself. After that the improvement was noticeably rapid. Irving visited her oftener and remained longer, and gradually it grew to be a thing for him to spend nearly half the day by her side. Long talks they had together, broken frequently by admonitions from her watchful nurse, to talk no more until she had slept, or eaten, or taken her drops. She was a sweet, quiet patient, ready to obey with a smile, not in the least impatient over the long waiting for strength, totally unlike her former self, although Irving joyously declared that she grew daily more like the Lita whom he had known. I am not like her, she said with a quiet, confident smile, looking full into his eyes. I am not a bit like her Irving in ever so many things. When I get well you will find me changed. Whether he understood her or not I did not know at the time, but auntie Smith understood there was a satisfied look in her tired old eyes. It is a genuine thing, she said to me afterwards, I am a faithless old body, I didn't seem to believe that the Lord could accept her on her sick bed, or could tell any better than I whether she really meant it or not. So he let her get well to prove to me that he can take care of his own living or dying. She means it all through. It was impossible not to see the change. It so puzzled and troubled her mother that she felt sure Lita was not so well as we thought and worried herself into many a sick headache over the fear that her darling was going to slip away from her after all. There was another whom it puzzled, and that was Laura. She did not say much, but I could see her watching with curious eyes the settled calm of Lita's face, so unlike the restless flutter of her life here too far. The sweetness that grew with returning strength, the gentle effort to give as little trouble as possible, the unselfish thoughtfulness for others. Mama, she said to me one day as we came together from Lita's room, it is almost as if she had died and come to life again. She has, I told her, and I quoted the familiar verse about being made alive in Christ. But Laura shook her head. I cannot understand such sudden changes, Mama, and besides I don't expect them to last, wait until society gets hold of her again. And I wondered when my poor Laura would understand. CHAPTER XVI If you like pretty home scenes, a glance into one of the upper rooms of Mrs. Jonas Smith's house that winter evening would have given you pleasure. It was Lita's own pet room, a sort of sitting-room for mother and daughter and any specially favored guest, but called by courtesy Lita's. She was the central figure in it on the evening in question. Her plush-covered couch was drawn up before the grate, and herself in delicate blue wrapper with soft laces at throat and wrists, looked in the play of the firelight like some fair bud plucked from the greenhouse to blossom in midwinter. Lita was certainly very pretty, prettier in her simple blue wrapper and quiet face than she had ever been before. Irving occupied a chair placed in just the right position for watching the varying expressions of her face. Her mother, but a few degrees farther removed from invalidism, luxuriated in the large, bold-fashioned easy chair, a footstool at her feet, her salts and her fan and other graceful appliances of convalescence, on a little table at her side. Laura was in trim evening costume, her careful toilet telling as plainly as any other little thing that the cloud of care and anxiety had lifted, and there was time to arrange her hair in crimps once more, and wear something besides the plainest of darkest dresses and linen collars. She was toying also with bright-colored wools, amid which the lights and shadows from the fire played hide-and-seek in fantastic manner. Perhaps after all the central figure of our family group was the great rocking chair in which rested the trim form and strong, plain face of Mrs. Solomon Smith. Her knitting lay idly in her lap, for Mrs. Smith was tired. She had been out all the afternoon, intent on her own plans, asking no escort through the great city from any one. Indeed there had seemed to be no one to escort her. She did not deem it wise to have both of us away from the frail invalid. Laura still occupied her position as self-appointed hostess, and had innumerable collars to entertain, and Irving had returned to his post, and was laboring hard to atone for lost time, as well as in token of gratitude for unparalleled past kindnesses. There had been talk of sending for Erskine to accompany Mrs. Smith on her tour of observation, but she had scorned the idea. I shouldn't know what to do with a boy at my heels, she said earnestly. My boys were all girls you know, and I never was used to anybody but Solomon. You needn't be afraid of my getting lost, I don't believe I could get lost if I should try. I always bring up all right. She carried her point, and went off in triumph on the streetcar, her only companion, the greenish umbrella which did duty as a cane. She had been gone for hours, and Laura was in a flutter to hear some of her experiences. Auntie always sees things, she said to Leda. She goes everywhere with her eyes open wide, and if you had been the same route a hundred times it makes no difference. She sees a hundred things that you never thought of. Two doors opened from the room in which we were sitting. Solomon was Leda's own, adorned with all the hundred little prettinesses which a girl of taste and means likes to gather around her. The door was ajar, and revealed glimpses of blue and white carpeting, and furniture done in blue and white panels, blue silk and white lace curtains at the windows, a very bower of beauty. The other door opened into the guest chamber, which was a counterpart of Laura's and my beautiful room, across the hall, save that it was furnished in even more excellent shades and tints, so Laura thought, and this room was now the private property of Mrs. Solomon Smith. On the very first night that she had consented to leave her charge in experienced hands, and take an entire night's rest, Mrs. Jonas Smith had called Laura and said, My dear, will you see that Ant's room is in perfect order? Have the heat turned on, and the gas lighted, and everything. I leave it to you to see that she is entirely comfortable. You know which her room is? The one that opens to the left out of Leda's sitting room. I have had her trunk brought there. She will naturally like to be near to Leda, and Leda will like to have her, so I took the liberty of changing her room. It was a liberty which Laura certainly was very willing to pardon, and this was all that had been said about Antie Smith's room. I do not know that Mrs. Jonas Smith understands to this day that we knew anything about the fireless attic chamber. We had arrived at the time when the whole house delighted to do honour to the country relative. It was tardy hospitality, but we took the hint from the dear old lady's own large heart and never mentioned the attic chamber again. The only comment that Mrs. Solomon made when Laura escorted her to her new room was to gaze about her with astonished eyes and say, Dearie me, I wouldn't mind having Solomon see this room. Laura said there was a little sigh at the close of the sentence. I doubt whether any of us realized what a trial it was to the loyal old heart to lie down in the midst of all this grandeur and think of Solomon in his loneliness. Come, Antie, Laura said, after a little impatient waiting for the clicking needles to commence. Laura knew that when Mrs. Smith knitted her tongue was apt to keep time with her fingers. Aren't you rested enough to tell us about your afternoon? No wants to hear of your adventure. Then lead us voice. Oh, Ant Maria, I have been waiting these two hours to hear all about it. It is so long since I have been in the street, you know. Bless your heart, said Mrs. Solomon. Nothing happened to me that would be worth your listening to, I daresay. I went and I came, and I got along all right, though I must say there was more people going the same way, and the opposite way too for that matter, than was at all convenient. I couldn't help wishing that they had all stayed at home just for one afternoon and given me a chance. Still, I'm back and no bones broke, which, considering what I have been through, is something wonderful. You ought to have waited until Saturday, and then I could have taken care of you. This from Irving, spoken in tones of genuine anxiety. He had adopted the country and with all his heart and soul. Oh, no! She said briskly, taking up her knitting. I got along first rate. I didn't need a bit more care than I had. Folks was real kind, considering what a hurry they was in. I never see the beat of city people for hurrying. And the women are as bad as the men, I do say. One might have thought that every mortal woman I met today had left a baby at home tied in the high chair, and a mince pie burning up in the oven, by the way they crowded and pushed and elbowed themselves along to get into places first. I thought that when I got into the streetcar there would be less of a crowd. But dear me, that was worse than anywhere else. Why, there wasn't even standing-room left in one car, and yet the people kept pouring in, and the conductor would call up, pass up to the front there, please. When we was standing as close as pickles in a jar. I can't make out where all the folks was going to. I asked a girl if there was any great meeting or anything special going on, but she was deaf I guess. She just tossed up her head and made no answer. I believe that at that moment Mrs. Jonas Smith rejoiced in the invalidism that had kept her from attending her sister-in-law. She was a wonderful nurse, and they owed her an everlasting debt of gratitude. But if I am not greatly mistaken, the stylish matron did not wish to pay it by accompanying her downtown. Did you have to stand in the streetcar, Auntie? Laura asked. For a spell I did, child, most of us had to. There was two or three ladies on each side who had fixed themselves up in such a way that they couldn't even get close to each other without danger of crushing something, so they just spread themselves out and took up pretty near all the room there was. And the gentleman that was with them took the rest. I felt sorry for their manners, for I was the only old one among them, and while I didn't grudge them the seats, it looked kind of mean in them to sit still and see me stand. I suppose I might have pushed in, but I thought I wouldn't. I had my revenge, though. The people kept crowding in and claiming the seats till they was crushed up about as close as they could stand it. I stood there, bobbing around. First I would land on one side, right in the lap of one of the fine ladies, and I wouldn't know more than ask her to excuse me and get my bunnets straightened out a little. Then there would come a dreadful jolt, and I would bob over to the other side. I stepped right on a fine young gentleman's toe once. I felt most dreadful sorry for him. I know it must have hurt, for he had a little mincing boot on, too short and too narrow at the toes. They hurt anyhow. I know they did. And when my foot came down hard on them it must have been awful. I didn't blame him for looking savage at me and not saying a word when I asked his pardon. At last a pretty child got in. She wasn't more than seventeen or eighteen, and she looked a little like you, Elizabeth. I noticed her particular on that account. She had more roses in her cheeks, to be sure, than you have just now, looked about as you will next summer when you and Irving come out to the hollow and drink new milk and hunt for fresh eggs. Then there came roses into Lita's cheeks, and she laughed a happy little laugh. As for Irving, he both smiled and shuddered. He had so recently slipped from under the awful shadow that he still rejoiced with trembling. Well, she seated herself, with a good deal of pains, into the speck of a place which they made for her. She had a good many ruffles and puckers to look after, and her great first sack was quite a spell getting tucked into place. But by and by she got fixed, and had time to look about her. Just then the car gave one of them horrid jolts that feel as though they had driven over one end of a blacksmith's shop, and broke the irons all to smash. And I like to have tumbled down quite. I most couldn't get my breath. It took me so by surprise, and them straps that they hang on to was so high above me that I couldn't but just get hold of the tip end. For the land's sake, says I, I wish somebody would stop this thing for me and let me get out. I shall be all black and blue. Well, my pretty little lady hopped up in a twinkling, and her eyes blazed about as yours do sometimes, Laura, and says she, Madame, take my seat, please. I do not mind standing in the least, and I am younger than you. Of course I told her no, and I said I couldn't take her seat away, and all that, but she just pushed me with them gentle little hands of hers. I wasn't hard to push. You see, the thing joggled so that I couldn't stand steady, and I would push one way about as easy as the other. Before I knew it, another bounce landed me right in the seat. Well, if you'll believe it, there was no less than three of them gentlemen sprang to their feet, and began a coaxing of her to take their seat. They knew her, too. They called her Miss Something or Other, and they was very much in earnest. But that little thing straightened herself up, and stood as still in that tipsy car as if she had been on solid ground, and got hold of the strap somehow. I don't know how. I'm sure she was a little thing, but the strap seemed to kind of reach down for her to take hold of, and says she, No, I thank you, gentlemen. I am quite able to stand, much better able than the old lady was. Then they glowered at me as if I was to blame. But I don't see how I could help their setting there and not thinking of offering me a seat any more than if they had been posts. I never see gentlemen more beat than they was. One of them took it so hard that he wouldn't set down again at all. So I had plenty of room. It was the one with the tight boots, too, and I wanted to ask him how his foot felt now, but I thought I better not. Our pretty little Lita laughed so heartily over the story that it set her to coughing, and Mrs. Solomon laid down her knitting in haste and returned to her duties as nurse. I better keep my old tongue still, she said in a tone of self-reproach when quiet had been restored. Laura there always sets me going with her questions, and I forget where I am. Solomon is such a master hand to listen that he has about spoiled me. I talk right on like a mill stream once I start. Then did Lita protest with all her little strength against the still tongue. She wanted to hear every bit about the afternoon. It was such fun, and if Aunt Maria would go on, she would promise not to laugh anymore and not cough another speck. Why, there's nothing in life to go on about, child, said Mrs. Solomon, leaning forward to see to narrow her gray stocking. I didn't have no adventures to speak of. I saw a great many wonderful sights, to be sure, but I suppose you've seen them a hundred times. I wasted a good deal of time trying to make up my mind to cross the streets. The way them women did rush along right into the horse's jaws scared me most out of my senses. I couldn't have done it if I hadn't got across till this time. Solomon is always so careful in driving across a street, looking right and left first to see that there is no child nor woman crossing. I thought about it while I stood there. Thanks I to myself, it's a good thing Solomon ain't here with Old Nan. He wouldn't get across the streets at all, for there's a woman and a child all the time. Forty of them for that matter. I'm beat yet to know where they could all be going to. I got to the very thickest of it at one place. I knew half an hour before that I must get across somehow soon, but I kept walking along and thinking that there wasn't a good place. And the next place was worse, and every step I took, the thing got thicker, and so I turned round and went back a little, and it was thicker there than it was anywhere else. And says I at last, well now Maria, what's the use? You've got to get across, take your life in your hand and go. You'll be took care of if it's your duty to cross. And if it isn't, you hadn't ought to be took care of. So I started. I hadn't taken two steps when I was sorry. I tried to jump back, but I found it looked worse behind me than it did ahead. There was a horse with his mouth open right at my bonnet, ready to swallow it without paying any attention to the head in it. And exactly before me was a couple of them pying the ground and tossing their heads and just aching to step on me. I could see it in their eyes. For the land's sake says I, what'll I do? Just then there stepped up one of them blue-coated gentlemen with gilt buttons, a fine-looking man he was, and tall enough for me not to feel afraid of anything you'd think, and says he, walk right across, madame, I'll see you safely over. Well I made another dash, and sure enough he came alongside of me. But dear me, he couldn't be both sides at once, and that road seemed to stretch itself out like a piece of India rubber. Seems to me it is a mile across. I was most awful scared. I tried to dodge back again, but it wasn't no use. By that time the opening through which I had come had closed up, so there wasn't a sign of it to be seen. At that minute another blue-coated gilt-buttoned man, taller and straighter if anything, and with a bigger stick than the first, came to the other side of me and marched along holding up his club to them horses, and they just stepped back respectful as if they knew they had found their master now, and wouldn't be allowed to bite any heads off. And I walked along right through the jam as nice as you please. I don't know how it was done. There wasn't any place to cross, just a jam of men and women and wagons and horses, and more are coming as far as you could see from both ways. But I got across. It's a broad road, sure enough, I said to the policemen. And they all look as though they was hurrying to destruction. I hope the feet of every one of them are really and truly in the narrow way, and that they'll all get safe home at last. I couldn't help saying it, you see. It seemed such a kind of solemn picture of our lives, all rushing and pushing along, not taking time to stop and think whether they are going the right way or not. How many of them will get home do you suppose? I asked the policemen, and he answered me quick and pleasantly. Oh, they'll come out right. We have just such a crush as this every day and rarely an accident. Yes, says I, but I was wondering about the other home. How many of them will get home to heaven? Then he looked at me for a minute and says he. That's a hard question, ma'am. I can't tell. I hope you'll be there, says I. But all he said to that was, thank you, spoken real gentle, and then he went to help some other sacred body across. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking On by Pansy This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 17. Says I, young man, you are right, I am a relation. It makes a great difference if you see things with your own eyes, said Mrs. Smith, letting her knitting fall idly in her lap and giving herself up to contemplation. Laura looked up curiously. The observation was suggestive to her of all sorts of quaint ideas in her old friend's mind. What did you see, Auntie? She asked at last, having waited as long as her impatience would allow. Why, I was thinking about that great big store. I had heard about them. Jesse, she tried to make me understand. They keep everything, Auntie, she would say, everything you can think of. But I didn't understand. Well, says I, so does Job Turner. I was down at the corners the other day, and I couldn't help noticing what a sight of things he had. Bars of soap enough to wash the whole town you'd think, and spools of thread, all colors and all numbers, and calicoes, a splendid stock, and alpacas, and all that kind of goods. And then on the other side you could get molasses and herring and eggs and everything you wanted. He keeps everything I can think of and a great many things that I can't think of. Jesse, she laughed and said it was different from that. But she left off trying to make me understand. I thought of it today, and says I to myself, no wonder she stopped telling me about it. She saw that I was such an old goose that I couldn't understand. When I got into that great big store, near where I had such a time crossing the street, I was so astonished for a minute that I couldn't think of a thing I came for. I just stood around there and stared. A whole village full of Job Turner's stores might have been packed in there, and you wouldn't have known it by the space they took up. Another city, that's what it was, and enough site cleaner and quieter than the one I had just left. For the land's sake, I said at last to a clerk who came up to me and bowed politely and asked me what I wanted. If you had street cars in here, I think it would be a great deal nicer than the city outside. He laughed and didn't seem to object to my admiring it. He said he had thought himself that sedan-chairs would be an improvement. I knew all about them, read about their having them at the centennial, and I really think they would be nice in that store. I wonder they don't have them. Did you go all around and see the pretty things? Lita asked, with the eagerness of one to whom the outside world had been shut away for a long time. Go around, I guess I did. I believe I must have gone into every nook and corner of that store. I rode on the elevator. That's a nice invention. I've read about them, too, and never could quite understand how they were. But I had it all explained to me today, and it was a real pleasure to sit there on a cushioned seat and go slipping softly and swiftly up in the air. I thought it would be a skittish kind of feeling, but it ain't a mite. I wonder if flying will be a little bit like this, I said to the young man who went up with me. I don't know as I was exactly saying it to him either. I was kind of thinking out loud, but he thought I asked him a question. Ma'am, he said, kind of astonished, and then I thought I ought to explain. I was wondering, I said, if flying through the sky in the clouds would be anything like this. You know we can't seem to think how we are going to get our bodies up to heaven. I can think of my soul being there, but I've been puzzled often, wondering about my old lumbering body, how it was going to get through the clouds and all and get up there. But maybe it will be just as easy when we come to see it and feel it as this going up is, holding ourselves still and being lifted without any power of our own. I suppose that is it, and I'm glad I'm having a ride in an elevator because it somehow makes me remember there are ways of getting me up without any of my help. It seems that just common ropes and wheels can do it, so when I get my father's hand on the ropes that he means to use, I guess I needn't worry. Well, that young man made a queer answer. He laughed at first as though it struck him as something funny. Then his face got dark and sort of fierce looking, and he said if he was only sure of his soul getting through all right, he wouldn't take time to worry about his miserable body. It might go to the dogs for all he should care. It wasn't nothing but a trouble to him anyhow. Then I looked at him close, and I saw that he looked sick and miserable and had a hollow cough. It was plain enough that his body wasn't going to trouble him long. I spoke real gentle. I felt so sorry for the poor fellow says I if I was you, I wouldn't worry a mite about either of them. They're just as safe in your father's hands as that little bit of a bundle is in yours and worth a hundred times more to him than all the velvets and jewels in this store. He paid a big price for them, and it's more than likely he'll take care of them. The thing for you to decide is whether you want him to. We had got out of the elevator by that time and was walking down one of the elegant rooms. He looked about as gloomy as ever and gave me a real troubled sigh as he said, Oh, well, there's no use worrying if a fellow is to be saved. He will be. And if not, he can't help himself, says I. The first part of that is as true as the last part is foolish. You might as well say if a fellow is to eat his dinner, he will. And if he isn't, he can't help himself. Now it is true enough, of course, that if he is to eat his dinner, he will eat it. Nobody disputes that. But if you fix up a nice dinner for him and he sets down before it and shuts his mouth tight and glowers at it and refuses to swallow a crumb, you would be one of the first to say that he wouldn't get any dinner and it was his own fault. Your heavenly father has spread the table for you, young man, and now it is your business to say whether you will eat the bread of life or push it away and go hungry. Well, I hadn't a chance for another word. He sat me down before the thing I had asked to see and said a word to the clerk to wait on me, and then he bowed to me and smiled and said in a low voice, Thank you. And away he went coughing poor fellow. I hope he won't insist on going hungry. The tears had gathered in Lita's eyes, but her face was smiling and Maria, she said, How did you learn to be different from other people about these things? Different child. Why, how I didn't have a good many of the advantages of other people when I was young. I suppose that makes a great difference. Oh, but I mean different in your talk about heaven and, well, about religion. It seems so easy to you. Nearly all other people whom I have ever heard talk of these things seem to me to drag them in as though they thought they ought to say them, but they didn't quite know how and dreaded it awfully. Well, said Mrs. Solomon thoughtfully, seeming her stocking. I don't know, child. I've heard folks talk that way myself. I never could understand it. I've puzzled over it a good deal because I found them very folks could be glib enough about other things. Sometimes I've thought that the Bible explained it when it said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. At least I find when I've been thinking about a thing until I'm all full of it, I kind of want to speak to somebody. But then I'm a talkative old body, always was. Solomon is to blame for some of that. He thinks a great deal more than he talks, and he is amazing fond of hearing me talk. Over this last explanation, we all laughed, albeit I think not one of her audience, but would have been willing to testify that Solomon showed excellent sense. Mrs. Smith's thoughts had already gone back to the scenes at the store. I met one chap, she said, who wanted to bit like my nice young man that went up the elevator with me. He was one of your giggly kind. Now a giggly girl is bad enough, but a boy who laughs at nothing all the time is about as small a specimen as you can find, I think. It is just wonderful to me to think how the Lord has patience with them all. It would be so easy for him just to stoop down and wipe them out. But then there would be the soul. Dear me, what a pity we can't always remember that. Now I come to think of it. I've been going on in my mind about that silly little chap as though he hadn't any soul, and it does seem as though his must have been a small one. I wanted to look at some lace. I kind of wanted a little bit of the real stuff. When I was a young girl, I knew a woman who had worked in lace factories. She understood all about the different kinds, and she could do it beautifully. All the fine ladies were after her to mend their laces. I always did like lace, and I asked her a thousand and one questions and got to be pretty wise about it. I could tell the real from the imitation away across a church and can yet. Well, my chap undertook to have some fun over me. He saw I was old-fashioned, of course, and kind of queer-looking by the side of all the fine ladies. I didn't blame him for that. I got a glimpse of myself in one of them big glasses, and either I or the rest of the women must have looked funny to him, for we wasn't a mite alike. But then he'd needn't have supposed that because I didn't have on a pleated dress and a hundred yards of lace puckered around it, that I didn't know lace when I saw it. Oh, yes, Grandma, says he, I've got just the lace you want, a very choice pattern. Is it for yourself, Grandma? I believe it made me rather cross to have him call me Grandma. I ought to have been glad instead that he was no grandson of mine. I answered him kind of short. It is for myself until I give it to somebody else, I said. Just so, he said, and he was ahead of me in good nature. Well, now, Grandma, here's the very thing, cheap as dirt and an elegant width. And he showed me a lot, of course, cotton lace. I told you I wanted the real, says I. Real, says he, pretending to be astonished. Why, I assure you, every thread of that is real, as much so as any we've got in the store. Says I, I don't doubt it, real cotton, every thread of it. Well, he bothered me in that kind of way for quite a spell, showing me cotton laces of half a dozen kinds and imitation laces, calling this machine made stuff real Valencian and this cotton imitation real Spanish lace until I got out of all sort of patients with him. And says I, at last, look here, young man, you must get a most enormous salary in this store. But I shouldn't think the biggest salary they could offer would pay you for lying at the rate you have to me. Says I, do you know you have told ten lies in the last five minutes? I looked right at him and the fellow blushed a little and the clerks standing near, who had been laughing in their sleeves at me all the time, was just as ready to laugh at him a little. These everlasting gigglers are never particular on which side they laugh. And in about a minute I felt kind of sorry for him. So I spoke a little more softly. Says I, I don't bear you no ill will, but for your own sake, if I was you, I would get out of this habit of telling lies. Now I knew real lace of almost every kind you can think of long before you was born, and it is real lace and no other that I'm after, and if you've got any I'd like to see it. Well, all of a sudden the giggling stopped, the idle clerks turned to their counters, and my young man had a very red face and began to fumble among the boxes. Pretty soon I understood it. There come a new voice on the scene. Wilkins, says he, what does the lady want? It wasn't exactly a stern voice, not cross, you know, but grave, and with a kind of power in it. If I'd been the clerk I wouldn't have liked to go contrary to a man with such a voice as that. He asked the question right over, Wilkins, what does the lady want? In exactly the same kind of a voice, looking right at the clerk, whose face by this time was as red as Laura's worsted's, and then I turned and looked at the man. For the land's sake, says I, and then he looked at me and his face lighted up as if I had been an old friend, and he held out his hand and shook mine just as if I was his aunt this minute, and he was glad of it. Laura and Mrs. Leonard, I wonder if you remember my telling you about a Sunday school convention where I went and took my niece Jesse and a nice young man who sat near us and told me things and seated us often and was around a good deal after that. Well, don't you believe this was the very young man? Here he was, one of the partners in that great big store. After that it was plain sailing for me. He just took charge of me himself. I got my lace and everything else I wanted, and then he took me all around and showed me everything. I couldn't begin to tell you in a week all I saw. But, dear me, I suppose you have been there dozens of times. One thing, though, I must tell you about. It is very queer to me that I never heard of it before, never read a thing about it. You understand it, Irving, I suppose? Why, them great brass pipes that go a wandering all over that store, as large a round as my arm. I saw them before Mr. Webster came up. In fact, I saw them the minute I went into the store, and I'd been watching and kind of puzzling over them all the time. I'd see the clerks put money in a little box and chuck it up through one of them brass pipes, a way it would go out of sight, as if a spirit took hold of it the minute it came near the brass. And by and by it would come back again and have just the right change in it for someone who stood waiting. Says I to myself, what kind of witch work is this? Where does the thing go to, and who gets it, and what does it all anyway? Well, when Mr. Webster began to show me around, I asked him the first thing. What are all them brass pipes for, and what makes them little boxes they put in fly away and come back again? Ah, says he, let me take you to the fountain-head and show you about it. So we went upstairs, a way up to the center of the building, and there, in a little kind of a round office, sat a dozen clerks or more, and those great pipes that wandered over that building and struck off in every direction came all together up here, and those little boxes with money and accounts in were continually shooting out in front of those clerks, and they would take them about as quick as lightning, and look at the account and make the change and shoot them back. I never see anything like that in all my life. I just stood still and thought. It made me feel kind of queer. I couldn't say a word. What it is, Mr. Webster asked me after he had waited a spell, and I suppose he thought I ought to speak. Why, says I? It comes over me all of a sudden and almost takes my breath away. It makes me think of answering prayer. They are sending up their prayers from all over the store down there, and they come up to this center and get attended to at once, and the answer goes back in all them different directions. Well, he understands things. He is one of the men that flashes at what you mean, even if you're as awkward as a post in telling it, and says he, I see, that is a fact. But then it takes a dozen clerks to attend to these pipes up here. The figure isn't quite perfect, is it? Only a dozen, says I, for all them pipes that travel all over this big store, and these are only young, foolish girls to do it. And yet we feel sometimes as though the Lord couldn't possibly attend to all our prayers at once. Then he laughed again and says he, I see. That must be Earl Webster. It was Mr. Jonas Smith who made this interrogatory remark. He had come in during the talk, and was listening with as much eagerness as any of us. Yes, his sister-in-law explained, it was Earl Webster. He had a good many questions to ask me. She continued, how long I had been here, and where I was stopping, and when I told him I come on to attend my niece's wedding, he looked so kind of surprised, or queer or something, that I said, and I don't know what made me, it isn't Jesse, it's another niece. Then he laughed outright, and said he knew it wasn't Jesse, and then he said he had heard from her lately, and she said I was here, and he had been trying to get a hold of my address. And well, he kind of got himself mixed up so, that at last, to get it straight, he had to tell me that I must get ready to go to Jesse's wedding in the spring. And there the sly little puss is going to marry him, and she never once hinted to me who it was. Going to marry Earl Webster. There was no mistaking the astonishment in Mr. Jonas Smith's voice. Well, Maria, you are to be congratulated, I declare. He is one of the finest young men in the city, one of the first in every way. Yes, said Mrs. Solomon, in quiet satisfaction. I know he is as good as gold. I told him about that poor young fellow with the cough, and he was interested at once. He had me walk down the store and point him out, and said he would have a talk with him. He is a new clerk it seems. One of the giggling clerks stood near where he had seated me while he went to attend to some business, and says he, I guess our grandmother has come, or our old aunt or somebody. Do you see how we are being escorted through the store and shown the lions? Then the other said something I was glad to hear. Cha, says he, it may be his washerwoman. Webster is the queerest rich man there is on the face of the earth. Well, I thought I would help them along, and I turned around with that. Says I, young man, you are right. I am a relation. I'm more than his aunt or his grandmother. We both belong to the royal family, and we are brother and sister to the king. End of chapter 17