 Section 20 of Uncollected Short Stories of LM Montgomery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Uncollected Short Stories of LM Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Ted's Double, A Christmas Folly. When Morris Stanley came east and Ted Stanley met him at the gate, both boys looked at each other for a moment in a somewhat bewildered way. If you're not me myself, you must be my cousin Morris from the wild and woolly west at Ted, with a hearty handshake. Welcome to Chestnut Hill, old fellow. When I first got a glimpse of you, said Morris, with a smile, I thought I had come on ahead of myself and got here first. In fact, the resemblance between the two boys was wonderful. They were the same in age, height, and general build. Their features were similar and both had curly reddish hair, clear blue-gray eyes, and a healthy coloring. To be sure, when they were together, a close observer could easily have detected some difference. Morris had a graver, more thoughtful expression, and had rottling Ted. It was quieter in his manner, although as fond of fun and jokes as a boy could be. This was his first visit east, and the first occasion of his meeting with a host of uncles and aunts, cousins, and second cousins. Morris had never spent so delightful a vacation. The prairie farm where he had lived all his life was so big a one, and surrounded by so many, still bigger ones, that neighbors were few and far away. So Morris reveled in his host of eastern cousins and the comradeship he had always craved. One day, when he had been at Chestnut Hill about six weeks, he found Ted rummaging over a huge pile of books in his den. Said den being a corner of the big garret where Ted kept all his household gods, and sojourned on rainy days. Both boys were very fond of the den. It was such a jolly old place, as untidy as they pleased, where nobody ever disturbed them or their traps up under the eaves, with one small window looking out over the uplands of Chestnut Hill. But this particular day was a sunny one, and the sight of unstutious Ted up to his ears in books in the middle of vacation was one for which Morris was unprepared. As something serious happened, he queried solemnly. You'd think so to look at me, wouldn't you Grinted? Well, something serious has happened, to be sure, but it has nothing to do with my present uncanny fit of bookishness. It simply occurred to me that the space taken up in this corner by all these books, woo, aren't they dusty? Shade of Mary Jane would be much better filled by my collection of bird sex, so I'm patiently weeding them out. All that I shall need for college in the fall must be left, and the rest I shall dump into the rag-room. You're a lucky chap, Ted, said Morris with a sigh. Because I'm going to college, queried Ted, blowing the dust from a venerable Julius Caesar. Well, it is jolly. Wish you could come, too. I think there's no chance of it. Morris shook his head. Not a shadow of it. No use in talking about it, Ted. It only makes me grumb. In the brief silence that followed, Ted sorted out some ill-used English classics, and Morris ruminated it gloomily. To go to college was his greatest desire, but he knew it could not be granted. The crops had failed for three years on the prairie farm. Morris knew that when he went home in the fall, he was to take a position as clerk in one of the big department stores in the nearest city. And he hated the prospect sturdily, even while he congratulated himself on being able to get it, and so lighten his father's burden somewhat. What is the serious thing that has happened, he asked at last, recalling that part of Ted's speech? I had a letter from great Aunt Deborah inviting me to tea with her at her residence in Rexford on Christmas Day. I don't see anything dreadful than that. Enviable blindness, you don't know great Aunt Deborah. I'd rather be invited to supper with the king of the Cannibal Islands. Besides, Christmas morning is the day of the ice hockey game at Moreland, and I've been looking forward to it for weeks. Well, don't go to your great Aunt Deborah's, then, suggested Morris. My son, you do not appear to realize that great Aunt Deborah's invitations are like under royalties. They are commands and must be obeyed under penalty of her eternal displeasure. But don't say you're great Aunt Deborah in a tone which implies that I have a monopoly in great aunts. She is your great aunt as well as mine. Mistress Deborah's family is. How is it that I've never seen her, then, as Morris? I thought I'd met all my relatives to the third and fourth generations of late. There is a bit of family history involved in the answer to that. Great Aunt Deborah knows you are here, but she doesn't like you because you are the son of your father. Did you ever hear Uncle Chester speak of his Aunt Deborah? Not that I remember. Well, when your father and mine were boys, your father was great Aunt Deborah's favorite nephew. She was always very eccentric, Father says, but Uncle Chester got along with her beautifully. When he intended to make him her heir, she's worth a pot of money, you know. Well, when your father married, it made her very angry. She wanted him to marry someone else, the daughter of the man she had once expected to marry herself, I believe. They had a bitter quarrel and it ended in great Aunt Deborah forbidding your father ever to speak to her or cross her threshold again. He took her at her word. Father says that is really what she has never forgiven him for and went out west. She had never allowed his name to be spoken in her hearing since. Very vindictive lady, our great Aunt Deborah. She's always been rather fond of me. Father says it is because I'm so like what your father was. When we met, she used to pat me on the head and give me peppermints. I haven't seen her for two years. She'll think I've grown a bit. Christmas happens to be her birthday too. I shall have to go, of course. Father insists on it and I shall miss the hockey game. Ted fired a harmless Virgil across the den and scowled. At the same moment, he saw himself and Morris reflect it in the long cracked mirror which hung at the other end of the garret. Christopher Columbus, he said. Morris Stanley, harken unto me and lend me your ears. If you have a proper cousinly regard for me, I shall be able to eat my cake and have it too. I shall go to the game at Moorland and you shall go to tea with great Aunt Deborah at Rexford. But she hasn't invited me and doesn't want me, objective Morris. Morris, my friend, you are singularly lacking in quickness of comprehension. You will go, not as Morris Stanley, but as Theodore Stanley, to it myself. Great Aunt Deborah will never know the difference. No more will anybody else. I always knew we didn't look so much alike for nothing. Morris stared and then went off in a shot of laughter. But Ted, oh, I really can't do that. I'd be discovered and besides, no, you wouldn't. Now don't refuse to help a fellow out, Morris. I'd do as much for you. You don't care about the game and I do and no harm can be done. At first Morris protested, but Ted eagerly overruled all his objections and in the end he consented. The spice of mischief in the plan commended it to him. Besides, he was conscious of a curiosity to see great Aunt Deborah. I'll go, he said, but if great Aunt Deborah discovers that I'm a rank imposter and takes some fearful and summary vengeance, I trust you to break the news gently to my parents. On Saturday afternoon Morris and Ted both set off. At the crossroads they parted and Ted trudged down the hills to Moreland. Well, Morris steadily footed his way to Rexford. He did not feel altogether comfortable, but it was too late to back out now. Mrs. Deborah Stanley lived in an old-fashioned but picturesque house on the outskirts of Rexford. Morris admired the beautiful grounds as he walked up the serpentine drive under the chestnuts. He felt rather nervous, but his love of mischief bubbled up within him and primed him for the ordeal. It also lend an added sparkle to his eyes as he went up to the steps. Great Aunt Deborah met him at the door. I'm glad to see you, Theodore, she said, with a kindly handshake. And I'm glad to see you, Aunt Deborah, said Morris sincerely enough and to wish you many happy returns of the day. The appearance of his great aunt was a surprise to Morris, who had somehow imbobbed from Ted an impression very different from the reality. True, she said, as Ted had warned him, eyes like a hawk so keen and piercing that Morris trembled for the success of his ruse. But they were dark handsom eyes as well. She was richly dressed and had a great deal of snow-white hair, arranged in puffs so carefully as to be token that great Aunt Deborah had a pet vanity yet. Altogether Morris liked her looks, as he would have said. He was taken into a big gloomy room full of quaint old furniture. Near they talked for an hour. Morris talked well, even under the handicap of talking as if he were Ted. He was not free from an unpleasant dread that he might inadvertently say something that would give him away. And several of great Aunt Deborah's questions were rather hard to answer. As he told Ted afterwards, I had to take some liberties with your imagination. But on the whole he got on very cleverly, although he felt the reverse of comfortable. If only great Aunt Deborah were not so kind, if she had been cranky and crotchety as he had expected, the joke would have had a much better flavor. His bad quarter of an hour came after tea when great Aunt Deborah said abruptly, You have a cousin staying with you, I hear. Chester Stanley's son, what sort of boy is he? Morris blushed so hotly that he felt thankful to the gloom. He's always rather a jolly chap, he answered confused, a good deal like me, they say. You are very like what his father was at your age, at great Aunt Deborah, half sharply, half tenderly. He was my favorite nephew until he disobeyed me. Well, Theodore, I'm glad to have seen you this afternoon. You have improved a great deal. As for this cousin of yours, what does he intend to make of himself? Is he clever? Does he intend to go to college? I can hardly say, Stammered Morris. Don't think he's going to college. He would like to, but, well, I don't think he is going. Can't afford it, I suppose. Chester Stanley is poor as a great Aunt Deborah, with a certain jarring note of satisfaction in her voice. But this is not to my purpose. It is of yourself, I wish to speak Theodore. I have something to give you. She went to an old desk in the corner and took out two cases. One brand new, the other somewhat old-fashioned. Sitting down by Morris, she said, I am going to give you this in remembrance of your visit and my birthday. It is very good of you to give up your other plans and spend the afternoon with me. After this you must come oftener. Here is your present Theodore. It was a beautiful gold watch with Ted's monogram on the back. Morris took it foolishly. The floors ever did open to swallow up boys he wished the one he was on would do so then. Thank you, Aunt Deborah, he stammered. But great Aunt Deborah did not notice his embarrassment. She was fumbling with a stiff catch of the other case, which, on being open, revealed another watch, a very elaborate, although old-fashioned design and ornamentation. This watch, she said, I had made twenty years ago for your Uncle Chester. When he disregarded my wishes, I did not give it to him. It is as good as ever for all practical purposes. Take it to your cousin Morris Stanley with his great Aunt Deborah's love. She held it out to Morris, but instead of taking it, he stood up suddenly with a very grave-determined face. I can't take that watch, Aunt Deborah, he said quietly. I'm not Ted. I am Morris. Ted wanted to go to the game at Morland today, so I agreed to come here in his place. I thought it was a good joke at the time. I see now that it was a dishonorable trick. I'm very sorry for it, Aunt Deborah. So you ought to be, Aunt Deborah, spoke sharply. At first she had looked amazed, then angry. But now her keen old eyes were twinkling. I suppose you thought it was smart to play a trick on an old woman. Oh, no, said Morris quickly. I never thought of it in that way, so I did think it a joke. Please forgive me, and don't blame Ted. It was mostly my fault. You and Ted are a pair of graceless scamps, Aunt Deborah, severely. I ought to be very angry with you both. I feel sure Ted put you up to this, but I shall have to forgive you both, I suppose. And you are Chester Stanley's son. You look like him. Well, go home. Take your watches and be off. Tell Ted he is to come here next Saturday afternoon and get his golden. As for you, well, if you care to come back any time, I will be glad to see you, Morris. I'm an old crank, but even cranks can be amiable at times. Now go. Morris went. He felt rather bewildered. When he got home, he told Ted the whole story. Jerusalem, said the latter, won't great Aunt Deborah give me a calming down when she sees me. I suppose I deserve it. She treated you pretty white anyhow, and those watches are dandies. It is the most astonishing thing that she wasn't furious at you when you blurted out that confession. Are you going to see her again? Of course I am. I like great Aunt Deborah, said Morris. He did go, not once only, but often. There was no denying that somehow or other Morris had found his way to great Aunt Deborah's heart. And when he went back west, the departmental clerkship had vanished forever from his horizon. He was to go to college in the fall. Great Aunt Deborah had said so, and her will was law. Great Aunt Deborah's a brick, said Ted when they parted. I repent in sackcloth and ashes of anything I ever said to the contrary. Goodbye till next month, old chap. Won't we waken the old university up, though? End of Section 20 Section 21 of Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Barry Howarth, Brisbane, Australia Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery By Lucy Maud Montgomery Section 21 Brenton Kennedy's Monument First published in American Agriculturalist January 24th, 1903 I must put up a monument to him, said Josephine firmly. I don't know yet just how I'm going to manage it, but it must be done. Josephine's sallow little face took on an expression of determination and her thin, faded lips settled into a yet harder line. She looked out from her doorway over the beds of striped ribbon grass and rich crimson peonies under the lush clover fields and the pond and the pasture below them to the burying ground on the sunrise slope of the hill beyond. All of my family are buried there and there's a real good handsome white marble headstone to every one of them. Brenton isn't there, but a monument he shall have just the same. Abner Dolman nodded, not knowing just what to say. Secretly he thought it a piece of folly on Josephine Kennedy's part, but he knew it would not do to say so. What good is a monument going to do Brenton Kennedy when he's buried thousands of miles away? I don't know where she's going to get the money to put it up with, he said to himself as he went away around the curve of the birch trees that hemmed the little brown house in. Josephine did not know either. It was a problem, but a problem that must be solved. She had been thinking it over for weeks, ever since the news had come that Brenton had died in the Klondike. Brenton had been Josephine's brother, but she seemed more like his mother than his sister. She had been twenty years old when Brenton was born and her mother died. Josephine had brought him up. Their father had died ten years later and Josephine and Brenton lived alone together. Josephine had a very little money coming in every year from a small investment of her father's. It was enough to live on if she practised the most pinching economy. Josephine did not mind that. She was used to it. But when Brenton grew up she knew he must go away. There was nothing for him to do in Springvale. Brenton was a good boy, honest and steady. Josephine did not allow herself to worry when she had to let him go. She thought Brenton would come out all right. They had a few plans for the future when Brenton should have made enough money to come home and buy a farm in Springvale. The Morrison Farm, if possible. Josephine had always thought the old Morrison homestead the most beautiful place on earth. And I shall go and keep house for you till you get married, she told him. And then I'll just want a corner for myself and a bit of garden. Only you must marry a nice girl, Brenton. Brenton went to the Klondike. Six months later Josephine got a brief letter from a stranger telling her of his death from pneumonia. She grieved so over it that her neighbours thought she would fret herself to death. Abner Dolman declared that it was only the hope of holding up a monument to Brenton that kept her alive at all. Josephine was very determined. It would take time, but she must earn the money somehow. She knew just the kind of monument she wanted. Nothing second rate would do. She must have the best. She had picked it out from Mr. Purdy's designs already. It would cost $90, but Mr. Purdy told her he could make it $80 for her. She picked berries all that summer as long as they lasted and took them over to sell at the summer hotel in the mountain. She put her pride under her feet and did day's work for her neighbours. She took in washing for the men who were building the factories at Springvale Centre. When the winter came she knit socks and stockings and sold them. But as she was not strong her hard work told on her and sometimes she was afraid that she would not live long enough to put up Brenton's monument. And if I don't do it it'll never be done, she moaned. It about kills me to think of it. It took Josephine two years to earn the $80. When she added the last one to the little hoard in her shell box there were tears of thankfulness in her eyes. I'll go over to the centre tomorrow and order it from Mr. Purdy, she said exultantly. I shall have the verse mother-like so much on it. A sleep in Jesus far from thee Thy kindred and their graves may be But thine is still a blessed sleep From which none ever wakes to weep. If he was with his own it wouldn't seem so hard but at least he shall have his monument among them. She went up to see Emma Chase that evening and found her crying. This was not unusual, for Emma Chase often cried. She had had a good deal of trouble. Her only daughter, Emmy, had hip trouble. Emmy was twelve years old and had been a cripple for a long time. She was lying on the sofa looking wistfully at her mother. What is the matter? asked Josephine. It's Emmy, sold Emma. My nephew was here to see us yesterday. He's a medical student in the big hospital at Chirlitsville, you know. He said he believes they have a new doctor there who could cure Emmy. There is a new way they found out if I could afford it. But it would take about a hundred dollars, Jim said. I can't get it any more than a thousand. I haven't more than ten saved up. It seems awful hard if Emmy can't be cured just because we're so poor. Emma Chase would not have complained to anyone who was well off. She was very proud and afraid that they would think she was trying to get them to help her. But Josephine was poor like herself and Emma did not mind confiding in her. She did not know about Josephine's monument hoard. Josephine did not answer at once. Her little face grew pinched and gray in the sunset light. She bent down and broke off one of the daylilies that grew by the hall door. The fragrance reminded her of Brenton. He had always liked daylilies. She felt too miserable to speak and Emma thought her unsympathetic. She dried her eyes with a little dignity and began to speak of other things. Josephine said she had come up to get a slip of Emma's white pergolanium and Emma cut it for her. She went away as soon as she could and when she got home she sat down on her sagging doorstep in the sweet windless summer dusk and cried, I don't know how I can do it. She sobbed. But I must. It would be sinful not to. The living ought to come before the dead. I suppose Brenton will understand all about that. It's some comfort to think that but I feel as if my heart would break. The next day Josephine took the money out of the inlaid shellbox and went with it to Emma Chase. It's for Emmy, she said. With your ten it will make ninety and I guess you can manage ten more some way. But you can't afford it I'm sure. Faulted Emma. And I don't know when I could ever pay you back. I can spare it as well as not to Josephine firmly and I don't expect you to pay me back. It's my gift to Emmy. After she had prevailed on Emma to take the money Josephine went to the Springvale Commons and picked blueberries all day. She cried bitterly while she picked them. I shall have to begin all over again. She said dreamily. And I don't feel able somehow. But I'm glad I gave it to Emmy. I ain't a bit sorry for that even if Brenton never gets his monument. When Emmy Chase came home from the hospital she was cured. To be sure she had to lie on the sofa most of her time still and was not allowed to walk much for a long time. But the doctors said that with care she would eventually become quite well and strong. When Josephine went up to see her Emma Chase cried again with joy and gratitude. I don't know how I can ever thank you Josephine. She said. Josephine's care-worn face looked brighter. After all, she thought, I guess a living flesh-and-blood girl saved from helpless suffering is a good deal better monument than one of white marble. A week later when Josephine reached home one evening after she had been to the hotel with her berries she saw an express wagon under the birches. A couple of big trunks were in it. Josephine recognised Hosea Atkinson's rig. Hosea usually hauled the luggage of the hotel guests to and fro from the station. Josephine thought he was likely on his way to the station now to catch the night express. She wondered what he had called for. As she opened her sagging little gate and hurried up the path Hosea came around the hall to the front door. Here she is! he shouted to someone behind him. The next moment Hosea was pushed out of sight and another man stepped out. He was tall and bronzed with a soft brown beard and a pleasant face. Josephine did not think she had ever seen him before yet there was something about him that seemed curiously familiar. He held out his arms to her. Josie! Then Josephine knew him. Brenton! she gasped and her face became as white as the day lilies. She would have fallen if he had not caught her. I scared you, he said penitently. Hosea told me you thought I was dead. I thought you'd been more careful. There, there, it's all right, Josie. Josephine was crying and laughing together. Her first audible words were oh Brenton, you won't need a monument now. Brenton threw back his head and laughed heartily. Not much I don't. Never felt less in need of one. But I must pay off Hosea and get my trunks in before I can begin to talk. While he was out, Josephine found her way into the house. As yet, she was dazed. She heard Brenton's shouts of laughter out in the lane as he and Hosea dragged the trunks in. Just fancy if I'd had that monument up, she said hysterically. When they were alone, Brenton sketched his experiences briefly. When I got to Dawson City, I had hard luck at first, Josie. I was too late. There were hundreds there next door to starvation. After a pretty rough time, I fell in with a party that were going prospecting or way up north, clear of even the fringes of civilization. They were all desperate like myself. I went too. I wrote you before I started, but the letter must have gone astray. All the adventures I went through would fill a book. There wasn't no way of writing to you. We had hard times, but we struck luck at last. And just as soon as I could, I started for home. I haven't made a fortune, Josie, but I've got enough to buy the Morrison farm. It's for sale, too, Hosea tells me. To think I didn't know you at first, said Josephine breathlessly. It's that big beard of yours. But how did that story of your death come? Well, I can't be sure, because I never knew it had come until I got home. But I guess it was this way. When I left Dawson, there was a man named Burton Kennedy there, sick with pneumonia. He didn't seem to have any friends to speak of. I left Dawson pretty quiet, and suddenly he must have died, and they mixed him up with me. Jerusalem, you should have seen the folks at the station stare at me. They thought I was a ghost shore, but here I am alive and well, and we are going to have a good time, Josie. Amy Chase is cured, and your home, cried Josephine with a long breath. I'm the happiest woman in the world, and I'm so thankful that I was prevented from putting up that monument. It would have been a dreadful bad omen. End of section 21. Recording by Barry Howarth, Brisbane, Australia. Section 22 of Uncollected Short Stories of Ella Montgomery. This is a LibriVax recording. All LibriVax recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVax.org. Recording by Jamie Church. Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery. By Lucy Mod Montgomery. A patent medicine testimonial. The Overreaching of Uncle Abimelech. You might as well try to move the rock into Braulter as an attempt to change Uncle Abimelech's mind when it is once made up, said Murray Gloomily. Murray is like dear old dad. He gets discouraged rather easily. Now, I'm not like that. I'm more like mother's folks. As Uncle Abimelech has never failed to tell me when I've annoyed him, I'm all foster. Uncle Abimelech doesn't like the fosters, but I'm glad I take after them. If I had folded my hands and sat down meekly when Uncle Abimelech made known his good will and pleasure regarding Murray and me after father's death, Murray would never have got to college. Nor I either, for that matter. Only I wouldn't have minded that very much. I just wanted to go to college because Murray did. I couldn't be separated from him. We were twins and had always been together. As for Uncle Abimelech's mind, I knew that he never had been known to change it. But as he himself was fond of saying, there has to be a first time for everything, and I had determined that this was to be the first time for him. I hadn't any idea how I was going to bring it about, but it just had to be done, and I'm not all foster for nothing. I knew I would have to depend on my own thinkers. Murray is clever at books and dissecting dead things, but he couldn't help me out in this, even if he hadn't settled beforehand that there was no use in opposing Uncle Abimelech. I'm going up to the Garrett to think this out, Murray," I said solemnly. Don't let anybody disturb me, and if Uncle Abimelech comes over, don't tell him where I am. If I don't come down in time to get tea, get it yourself. I shall not leave the Garrett until I have thought of some way to change Uncle Abimelech's mind. Then you'll be a prisoner there for the term of your natural life, dear sis," said Murray skeptically. You're a clever girl, Prue, and you've got enough decision for two, but you'll never get the better of Uncle Abimelech. We'll see," I said resolutely, and up to the Garrett I went. I shut the door and bolted it good and fast to make sure. Then I piled some cushions in the window seat, for one might as well be comfortable when one is thinking as not, and went over the whole ground from the beginning. Outside the wind was thrashing the broad leafy top of the maple, whose tallest twigs reached to the funny and gray eaves of our old house. One roly-poly little sparrow blew or flew to the sill and sat there for a minute, looking at me with knowing eyes. Down below I could see Murray in a corner of the yard, pottering over a sick duck. He had set its broken leg and was nursing it back to health. Anyone except Uncle Abimelech could see that Murray was simply born to be a doctor, and that it was flying in the face of Providence to think of making him anything else. From the Garrett windows I could see all over the farm, for the house is on the hill end of it. I could see all the dear old fields and the spring meadow and the beech woods in the southwest corner, and beyond the orchard were the two gray barns, and down below at the right-hand corner was the garden with all my sweet peas fluttering over the fences and trellises like a horde of butterflies. It was a dear old place and both Murray and I loved every stick and stone on it, but there was no reason why we should go on living there when Murray didn't like farming and it wasn't our own anyhow. It all belonged to Uncle Abimelech. Father and Murray and I had always lived here together. Father's health broke down during his college course. That was one reason why Uncle Abimelech was set against Murray going to college, although Murray is as chubby and sturdy a fellow as you could wish to see. Anybody with foster in him would be that. To go back to Father, the doctors told him that his only chance of recovering his strength was an open-air life. So Father rented one of Uncle Abimelech's farms, and there he lived for the rest of his days. He did not get strong again until it was too late for college and he was a square peg in a round hole all his life as he used to tell us. Mother died before we could remember, so Murray and Dad and I were everything to each other. We were very happy too, although we were bossed by Uncle Abimelech more or less, but he meant it well and Father didn't mind. Then Father died. Oh, that was a dreadful time. I hurried over it in my thinking out. Of course, when Murray and I came to look our position squarely in the face, we found that we were dependent on Uncle Abimelech for everything, even the roof over our heads. We were literally as poor as church mice and even poorer, for at least they get churches rent-free. Murray's heart was set on going to college and studying medicine. He asked Uncle Abimelech to lend him enough money to get a start with, and then he could work his own way along and pay back the loan in due time. Uncle Abimelech is rich, and Murray and I are his nearest relatives, but he simply wouldn't listen to Murray's plan. I put my foot firmly down on such nonsense, he said, and you know that when I put my foot down, something squashes. It was not that Uncle Abimelech was miserly or that he grudged us assistance. Not at all. He was ready to deal generously by us, but it must be in his own way. His way was this. Murray and I were to stay on the farm, and when Murray was twenty-one, Uncle Abimelech said he would deed the farm to him, make him a present of it out and out. It's a good farm, Murray, he said. Your father never made more than a bear living out of it because he wasn't strong enough to work it properly. That's what he got out of a college course, by the way, but you are strong enough and ambitious enough to do well. But Murray couldn't be a farmer. That was all there was to it. I told Uncle Abimelech so firmly, and I talked to him for days about it, but Uncle Abimelech never wavered. He sat and listened to me with a quizzical smile on that handsome, clean-shaven, ruddy old face of his with its cut granite features, and in the end he said, you ought to be the one to go to college if either of you did, Prue. You would make a capital lawyer if I believed in the higher education of women, but I don't. Murray can take or leave the farm as he chooses. If he prefers the latter alternative, well and good, but he gets no help from me. You're a foolish little girl, Prue, to back him up in this nonsense of his. It makes me angry to be called a little girl when I put up my hair a year ago and Uncle Abimelech knows it. I gave up arguing with him. I knew it was no use anyway. I thought it all over in the garret, but no way out of the dilemma could I see. I had eaten up all the apples I had brought with me and I felt flabby and disconsolate. The sight of Uncle Abimelech stocking up the lane as erect and lordly as usual served to deepen my gloom. I picked up the paper my apples had been wrapped in and looked it over gloomily. Then I saw something and Uncle Abimelech was delivered into my hand. The whole plan of campaign unrolled itself before me and I fairly laughed in glee, looking out of the garret window right down on the little bald spot on the top of Uncle Abimelech's head as he stood laying down the law to Murray about something. When Uncle Abimelech had gone, I went down to Murray. Buddy, I said, I've thought of a plan. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but you are to consent to it without knowing. I think it will quench Uncle Abimelech, but you must have perfect confidence in me. You must back me up no matter what I do and let me have my own way in it all. All right, sis, said Murray. That isn't solemn enough, I protested. I'm serious. Promise solemnly. I promise solemnly. Cross my heart, said Murray, looking like an owl. Very well. Remember that your role is to lie low and say nothing like Brer Rabbit. Allaway's anodyne liniment is pretty good stuff, isn't it, Murray? It cured your sprain after you had tried everything else, didn't it? Yes, but I don't see the connection. It isn't necessary that you should. Well, what with your sprain and my rheumatics, I think I can manage it. Look here, Prue, are you sure that long brooding over our troubles up in the garret hasn't turned your brain? My brain is all right. Now leave me, Minion. There is that which I would do. Murray grinned and went. I wrote a letter, took it down to the office and mailed it. For a week there was nothing more to do. There is just one trait of Uncle Abimelech's disposition more marked than his fondness for having his own way and that one thing is family pride. The Melvils are a very old family. The name dates back to the Norman Conquest when a certain Roger de Melville, who was an ancestor of ours, went over to England with William the Conqueror. I don't think the Melvils ever did anything worth recording in history since. To be sure, as far back as we can trace, none of them has ever done anything bad either. They have been honest, respectable folks and I think that is something worth being proud of. But Uncle Abimelech pinned his family pride to Roger de Melville. He had the Melville coat of arms and our family tree made out by an eminent genealogist framed and hung up in his library and he would not have done anything that would not have chimed in with that coat of arms and a conquering ancestor for the world. At the end of the week I got an answer to my letter. It was what I wanted. I wrote again and sent to parcel. In three weeks time the storm burst. One day I saw Uncle Abimelech striding up the lane. He had a big newspaper clutched in his hand. I turned to Murray who was pouring over a book of anatomy in the corner. Murray, Uncle Abimelech is coming. There is going to be a battle royale between us. Allow me to remind you of your promise. To lie low and say nothing? That's the cue, isn't it, sis? Unless Uncle Abimelech appeals to you. In that case you are to back me up. Then Uncle Abimelech stalked in. He was purple with rage. Old Roger de Melville himself never could have looked fiercer. I did feel a quake or two, but I faced Uncle Abimelech undauntedly. No use in having your name on the roll of battle abbey because you can't stand your ground. Prudence, what does this mean? Thundered Uncle Abimelech as he flung the newspaper down on the table. Murray got up and peered over. Then he whistled. He started to say something, but remembered just in time and stopped. But he did give me a black look. Murray has a sneaking pride of name too, although he won't own up to it and laughs at Uncle Abimelech. Then he began to laugh. We did look so funny, Murray and I, in that advertisement. It took up the whole page. At the top were our photos, half life-size, and underneath our names and addresses printed out in full. Below was the letter I had written to the Allaway Anodyne liniment folks. It was a floored testimonial to the virtues of their liniment. I said that I had cured Murray's sprain after all other remedies had failed, and that, when I had been left a partial wreck from a very bad attack of rheumatic fever, the only thing that restored my joints and muscles to working order was Allaway's anodyne liniment and so on. It was all true enough, although I dare say old Aunt Sarah from the Hollows rubbing had as much to do with the cures as the liniment. But that is neither here nor there. What does this mean, Prudence? said Uncle Abimelech again. He was quivering with wrath, but I was as cool as a cucumber, and Murray stood like a graven image. Why that, Uncle Abimelech, I said calmly. Well, it just means one of my ways of making money. That liniment company pays for those testimonials and photos, you know. They gave me fifty dollars for the privilege of publishing them. Fifty dollars will pay for books and tuition for Murray and me, at Kentville Academy next winter. And Mrs. Treadgold is kind enough to say she will board me for what help I can give her around the house and wait for Murray's until he can earn it by teaching. I rattled all of this off glibly before Uncle Abimelech could get in a word. It's disgraceful, he stormed. Disgraceful. Think of Sir Roger de Melville and a patent medicine advertisement. Murray Melville, what were you about, Sir, to let your sister disgrace herself in her family name by such an outrageous transaction? I quaked a bit. If Murray should fail me, but Murray was true blue. I gave Prue a free hand, Sir. It's an honest business transaction enough. And the family name alone won't send us to college, you know, Sir. Uncle Abimelech glared at us. This must be put an end to, he said. This advertisement must not appear again. I won't have it. But I've signed a contract that is to run for six months, I said sturdily, and I have others in view. You remember the herb cure you recommended one spring? And then it did me so much good. I'm negotiating with the makers of that and the girl's mad, said Uncle Abimelech, stark, staring mad. Oh, no, I'm not Uncle Abimelech. I'm merely a pretty good businesswoman. You won't help Murray to go to college, so I must. This is the only way I have, and I'm going to see it through. After Uncle Abimelech had gone, still in a towering rage, Murray were monstrated. But I reminded him of his promise, and he had to succumb. Next day, Uncle Abimelech returned, a subdued and chastened Uncle Abimelech. See here, Peru, he said sternly. This thing must be stopped. I say it must. I am not going to have the name of Melville dragged all over the country in a patent medicine advertisement. You've played your game and won it. Take what comfort you can out of the confession. If you will agree to cancel this notorious contract of yours, I'll settle it with the company. And I'll put Murray through college, and you too if you want to go. Something will have to be done with you that certain. Is this satisfactory? Perfectly, I said promptly. If you will add there too your promise that you will forget and forgive Uncle Abimelech, there are to be no hard feelings. Uncle Abimelech shrugged his shoulders, in for a penny, in for a pound. He said, very well, Peru, we wipe off all scores and begin afresh. But there must be no more such doings. You've worked your little scheme through. Trust a foster for that. But in future you've got to remember that in law you're a Melville, whatever you are in fact. I nodded dutifully. I'll remember Uncle Abimelech, I promised. After everything had been arranged and Uncle Abimelech had gone, I looked at Murray. Well, I said. Murray twinkled. You've accomplished the impossible, sis. But as Uncle Abimelech intimated, don't you try it again. This is the end of Section 22. Recording by Jamie Church. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Noons. Uncollected short stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Uncle Dick's Little Girl. Uncle Dick reached up to the apple tree above him and pulled a long, sinuous bow, picked out with delicate rose-hearted bloom down to him with a caressing motion. Through the little gap thus made in the big pyramid of Blossom was seen a faraway glimpse of the harbour on the western side of the Four Winds Peninsula. The sun had lately set and the harbour was like a great ruby cup filled with fire and glamour. On the other side of the orchard, long fields, fresh with the tinting of early spring, sloped down to the shore of the open Atlantic, long and white, where a calm ocean slept bluely and sighed in its sleep with the murmur that rings forever in the ears of those whose good fortune it is to have been born within sound of it. Back landward were the wooded pine hills, where the twilight was already hanging thickly and would presently overflow and trickle down on the lowland homesteads and orchards of Four Winds. But the harbour glow would linger long and it was always a sight worth seeing when the great stars came out in the clear-swept arch of sky above it, like jewels in some huge overturned crystal-flagon of night. When these blossoms have given place to fruit I'll have my little girl with me again, said Uncle Dick tenderly. He looked through the boughs to the harbour and his gentle brown eyes filled with the light that was not of the sunset or the lustrous water. The smile that came to the sensitive lips, veiled in the sweep of a silken, silver-sprinkled brown beard, told that Uncle Dick's thought was a very pleasant one. Two of his listeners smiled at each other. The tolerant, significant smile which expresses our slightly amused recognition of some harmless fallacy in our friends. Do you really expect that she'll come back to Four Winds after all these years, Uncle Dick? Not her such a great lady now, said Martin Baker. Perhaps thinking it wise to soften any blow the near future might have in store for this Uncle Dick. Whom everybody in Four Winds loved, even those who, safe in their hard shell of protective common sense, laughed in a not-on-kindly fashion at his dreamy fancies and odd ways. Uncle Dick released the apple-bow and it swung back to its place with a gush of perfume that flooded the cool air like a wave. I know she will come, he said calmly. Bertha Lawrence never forgot or broke a promise in her life. The years will have made no difference in her in that, at least. Even so, said Christopher Merriam. Ain't you afraid that she won't be happy or contented here, Uncle Dick? Seven years makes a good deal of difference in folks, especially seven such years as she has spent living with rich people and traveling abroad and all that. Uncle Dick looked at the last speaker tolerantly. A humorous sparkle replaced the musing light in his eyes and a smile was half quizzical. I don't think you need to be worrying over that, Christopher. I'm not. None of you really know my little girl, although she lived among you fourteen years. He spoke in a tone of quiet confidence. Merriam and Martin, after a few more casual remarks, strolled away and Uncle Dick was left with Philip Armory, the young minister of Four Winds Church, whose mans was just across the road from Uncle Dick's place and who had fallen into the habit of straying over often to talk with this high-sold, simple-minded old man with the eternal youth in his eyes and heart. Mr. Armory was sitting on the stone wall under the huge apple tree. When the other men had gone, his blue eyes met Uncle Dick's brown ones with quiet comprehension. They're laughing at me those two, said Uncle Dick with a smile. They're thinking now and most likely saying, What a fool that old Dick Romney is over his little girl. She'll never come back. But I don't blame them. They just don't know her, that's all. They just don't know her. He came over and leaned against the mossy stones. The twilight was thick about them now and the apple blossoms were dizzily sweet in the dew. I don't know her either, said Philip Armory gently. But I think she will come back to you. Uncle Dick nodded. Folks think I'm foolish because I talk so much about my little girl. I don't talk half as much about hers, I think. I'm thinking of her always. I have been ever since she went away seven years ago. She's been in my heart all the time and I've been in hers, don't I know. What doesn't matter that she doesn't write very often or speak of coming back when she does write. I know she'll come. She'll keep her promise and keep it gladly, too. If I didn't know that, I wouldn't want her to keep it at all. How was it she came to leave you? asked Armory. I don't think I've ever heard the rites of the story. I had a sister once, said Uncle Dick gently. She was beautiful and good. She married a fine fellow, too. But he took her away from us. He died soon after Bertha was born. And my sister came home here and died also of grief. She gave her baby to me with her latest breath. That can't never be undone. Bertha was her mother's gift to me. To me. There's nobody has a right before that. But her father's will had left her under the guardianship of his own people. They wanted to take her away at once, but I pleaded hard for her to leave her with me until she was fourteen. Then they took her away. It most broke her little heart. When she went away, she took my hand in both of hers and away she had. And she looked up at me with her whole lovely pure soul shining out of her great eyes. And she said, Uncle Dick, as soon as I am twenty-one, I'll come back to you. I've never seen her since. They won't even let her write me off in. But I am content. Bertha will be twenty-one in September. And she will come to me then. Perhaps a shade of doubt showed itself on the younger man's face. Uncle Dick detected it and laughed in his low, gentle fashion. You don't feel so sure. You've heard of her cleverness and her beauty and what they call her social triumphs? Yes, yes, but you'll see. They'll all see. As Philip Armory walked home through the purple, softly scented dusk, he recalled all he had heard of Bertha Lawrence. The thought of her had been curiously interwoven with his life and dreams since he had come to Four Winds a year ago. He believed in her, but not quite with Uncle Dick's entire faith. She would come back, but would she be soul-free? Would the life here satisfy her now? Between the child of fourteen, knowing no home save Uncle Dick's great old cottage, and the woman of twenty-one, who had spent her seven formative years amid all that wealth and culture can give, what unbridgeable gulf might not yawn? I hope there is no disappointment in store for Uncle Dick, thought Armory tenderly. I have never met a pure, sweeter soul. As the summer waned, Uncle Dick talked less about his little girl than was his want. His Four Winds neighbors said that he was growing doubtful himself, but Philip Armory knew better. He knew how Uncle Dick was counting the slow passing days, and his heart was troubled with the fear that there was some sorrow in store for the sweet old man. She will not come, or coming will be changed, was his unuttered doubt. But Uncle Dick remained untroubled. His eyes were always tranquil and happy when he spoke of her, as he often did to Philip. Miriam was here today, Mr. Armory? He said he suppose I'd soon be fixing up the house and getting ready for Bertha. I said no. She would find it as she left it, and it would satisfy her. The Four Winds folks laugh at me, and I laugh at them. I know her. They don't, you see. That makes all the difference. A great, although quiet change had come over Uncle Dick in those purple-hearted days of the late summer. He went about humming scraps of old-time songs. His step was lighter, his deep, kindly voice had a new and richer note of tenderness. He liked to linger in his orchard at twilight and dream of his little girl. Armory, who often walked there with him, forebore by word or motion to interrupt his charmed reveries, he walked beside him, suiting his younger, stronger step to the old man's. Sometimes Uncle Dick padded his friend's arm and laughed softly. The nuisance the old man is, isn't he? He asked whimsically. Old dreamer, but you don't know my little girl, Mr. Armory. I hope you will know her, he said again, not as her fashionable world knows her, nor yet as these well-meaning, stupid Four Winds folks know her, but as I know her, in all of her beautiful woman's soul and her noble, loyal little heart. She will be worth knowing. Her mother was a queen among women. One evening Uncle Dick came to meet Armory with an almost boyish lightness of step. In his eyes was a glow and brightness. He held a letter in his hand. Rit on her twenty-first birthday, he exclaimed, she will be here in a week's time. God bless her. On a September day, when Four Winds in its ripely tinted breath and length lay basking in the mellow autumn sunshine that spilled over the brim of the valley through the grim old pines down to the harbour, cupped in its harvest-golden hills, Bertha Lawrence came home. All Four Winds knew it by night. Philip Armory did not make his customary evening call on Uncle Dick. For one thing he feared to intrude on the sacredness of this reunion. For another he was still troubled by the thought that he might see something besides gladness in his old friend's eyes. Some perplexed shade of bout or fear, some token that his dream lacked perfect fulfilment. But when he went over the next evening, he understood that his fear had been needless. Uncle Dick had been right. He and only he had thoroughly known his little girl. They were in the orchard, those two, among the bronzing leaves and hanging boughs bent earthward by their mellow burden. They came to meet him slowly through a long avenue of fruition with an arch of primrose sky at its seaward end. Uncle Dick's face was an open book written over with unmarred triumph and happiness. Armory was quick to see that there was no shadow in the old man's eyes and equally quick to realise that, as far as the girl had aside was concerned, there never would be. Bertha Lawrence had come to her own. She was very lovely. Lovelier than even rumour had painted her. This tall, graceful girl with the dark, finely poised head and the clear, untroubled grey eyes. Apart from her loveliness, she had the distinctive charm, feminised and subtleised that Armory had come to associate with Uncle Dick. She held out her hand with a gesture of fine frank friendship. This is my little girl, said Uncle Dick proudly. You have justified his faith in you, said Armory to her with a smile. Anyone in whom Uncle Dick believed would do that, she answered, his faith is of that rare kind which carries its own fulfilment. She turned and held out her hands to Uncle Dick with a sudden, girlish delight that broke through her womanly calm like a gleam of sunlight rippling over a placid sea. Oh, how happy I am, she said. Everything here is so dear and you, Uncle Dick, are the dearest of all. Uncle Dick took her hand softly in his own. My little girl, he murmured tenderly. Armory turned away his head as if from some glimpse of soul communion too holy to be desecrated by stranger eyes. But on his face was the light of someone who sees a great glory widening and deepening down the vista of his future. And of Uncle Dick's little girl. Recording by Tom Noons. Section 24 of Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Aretha Smith. Halifax, Nova Scotia. Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Section 24. A Pioneer Wooing. Donald Frazier, sitting by the low four-pained window of his new house, was playing old Scotch airs on his fiddle to beguile and dull time away on a cold winter afternoon more than a hundred years ago. The place was a remote settlement in a nascent Canadian province where the settlers were engaged in the arduous task of carving out homes for themselves in the wilderness. Donald's new house had only four small rooms but it was considered quite a pretentious edifice in those primitive days. Before it, the cleared fields of his farm sloped down to the ice-bound bay. Behind it, great wood stretched inland intersected here and there by trails and wood roads. In the winter the ice was the great highway of traffic and people from far and wide passed Donald's door, often calling to warm themselves before his fire to change news of the various scattered settlements. This day was bitter cold and a storm threatened. Few travelers were abroad and Donald had no collars. He felt lonely and got his fiddle down for company. It was too early yet to go across the bay to Sherman's. Donald smiled to himself as he played Annie Laurie and thought of Nancy Sherman more beautiful than the heroine and her face it is the fares that air the sun shone on, hummed the young Scotch-Canadian softly. The Frasiers were one of the best families in the little colony which was as yet so thinly populated that everybody in it knew everybody else. Alexander Frasier, Donald's father, had been one of the earliest immigrants from Scotland. He was a man liked and respected by all and had taken a prominent part in shaping the affairs of the colony. From him, Donald, his first-born, inherited his broad shoulders, sandy hair, deep-set grey eyes and resolute jaw. But it was from his Irish mother that Donald got the qualities which made him a favorite with all who knew him. The merry curve of his mobile mouth, the twinkle in his grey eyes, the gay smile, the flashing wit, the visible good comradeship that distinguished him from the more reserved, pure-bred Scotch folk, even the faint suggestion of Brogue in his ringing tones all contributed to form a personality which was destined to stamp its influence on those rude early days. Many a blue-eyed Scotch and English lassie would have been glad and willing to listen had Donald Frasier come a wooing, and many a girlish heart of a hundred years ago at his step or voice. But Donald cared only for one whom many others wooed likewise. He was not openly favored above his rivals. He did not know whether Nancy Sherman cared for him or not, but he knew that if she would not come to be the mistress of his new house, none other ever should. So he dreamed of her as he drew the bow or the strings and filled the low room with the sweetness of old lowland ballads, the frenzy of highland reels and straff space, and the rollicking abandon of Irish jigs. When he played the last, the Irish fun in his nature overflowed him, drowning out the Scottish romance, and he wished that somebody would drop in and crack a joke with him. When he left the north window, which he liked best because it looked out over the bay to Sherman's, and went to the south one looking out over a dreary expanse of stumps and half-cleared land, he saw a sleigh emerge from the woods. He knew the driver at a glance and rushing to the door through it open with hearty hospitality. Anyone would have been welcome, but this visitor was Neil Campbell who was Donald's special crony, friends they had always been and friends they were yet and they were also rivals. People had expected to see their friendship blotted out by their rivalry, but it had stood the test. Each loved Nancy Sherman and each knew that the other knew it. Each was determined to win her and neither would have hesitated over any ruse that would give him the advantage. But no ill-feeling found place between them, and when Neil came from Burwick he always called to see Donald before he crossed the bay and sometimes so free from bitterness was their rivalry he even took Donald over. He got out at the door and shook Donald's proffered hand hardly. Then he tied his rest of young mayor to a post through the buffalo robe over her and followed Donald to the kitchen. Neither in appearance nor character was there the slightest resemblance between the two men. In point of looks Neil Campbell could not for an instant compare with Donald Frazier. He was smaller and slider and intensely blue eyes the vivid blue of the St. Lawrence water on a windy autumn day when the sun breaks out after a storm. In parentage he was pure Highland with all the Highlanders mystic poetic temperament. He was not so wildly popular as the gay and dashing Donald and he was not a favorite with women, but his few friends loved him rarely and it was said by some that if a woman once loved him and dare all things to win him. Neil threw himself down by the roaring fire with a sigh of satisfaction. It was ten miles from Burwick to the bay shore and though a lover thought little of that when his last waited for him at the end, a blazing backlog and a taste of good scotch whiskey were not to be despised at the halfway station. It's cold the day, he said briefly. You'll be going over the bay I'm thinking, said Donald good humorately. A slight tinge of color showed itself on Campbell's dark face. While he bore Donald no grudge for their rivalry he could not refer to it in the unreserved way of his friend. To him, Donald's offhand way of looking at the situation savored of greater confidence than he possessed and this stung him. He only nodded in reply to Donald's remark. The latter had meanwhile been rummaging in his untidy bachelor cupboard and now he emerged with a bottle of whiskey and a couple of tumblers. This was a matter of course a hundred years ago. A woman might offer her woman friends a cup of hot tea but a man treated his collars to a taste of the best whiskey obtainable. If he failed to do so he was looked upon as seriously lacking in what were then considered the most rudimentary elements of hospitality. You'll look cold said Donald. Set nearer to the fireman and let this put a bit of warmth in your veins. You'll need it before you get over the bay. It's bitter cold on the ice today. Now for the Burke news. Has Jean McClain made up with her man yet? And is it true that Sandy McDonald is to Marry Kate Ferguson? It will be a match now. Sure and with her red hair Sandy will not be like to lose his bride past finding. Burke was Donald's boyhood home and Neil had plenty of news for him concerning friends and kin. At first he talked little and cautiously as was his want, while Donald bantered and joked, but presently the whiskey which neither spared began to tell on the different temperaments. Donald's volatile spirits evaporated and the scotch element of his nature came uppermost. He grew cautious and watchful, topped less, but made shrewder attacks. The Highlander, on the contrary, lost his reserve and became more and more confidential. At last after being shrewdly manipulated by Donald Neil Campbell confessed that he meant to put his fate to the test that very night. He was going over the bay to ask Nancy Sherman to marry him. If she consented, then Donald and the rest should see a wedding such as the colony had never yet seen. Donald rose abruptly and went to the window leaving Neil to sip his grog and gaze smilingly into the fire with the air of a man very well satisfied with himself. As for Donald, he was for the moment nonplussed. This was worse than he had expected. He had never dreamed that Neil would dare bring matters to a crisis yet. But there was no time to be lost if he meant to get ahead of his rival. In his heart Donald hoped that Nancy Sherman cared for him. What else could those modestly bestowed favors and shy looks such as she gave to no other mean? Yet he might be mistaken. She might like Neil best after all and whether or not the first man there stood the better chance. Donald knew very well that Nancy's father favored Neil Campbell as being the richer man in world of goods. If Neil asked Nancy to marry him when he, Donald had not yet spoken, would have the most to say in the matter and Nancy would never dream of disputing her father's command. Donald looked far out over the bay and realized that his chance of winning Nancy depended on his crossing that white expanse before Neil did. How could it be managed? A twinkle came into Donald's eye. All was fair in love and war and Nancy was well worth the trial. He went back to the table and sat down. Have some more, man. Have some more, he said persuasively. To keep the life in you and the teeth of that wind. Help yourself. There's plenty of more where that came from. Is it going over the bay the night that yourself will be doing? Ask Neil as he obeyed. Donald shook his head. I had thought of it, he owned. But it looks a wee like a storm and my sleigh is at the blacksmith's to be shod. If I went it must be on Black Dan's back and he'd like a canter over the ice in a snow storm as little as I. His own fire side is by far the best place for a man to be tonight, Campbell. Neil nodded drowsily. His potations after his long cold drive were beginning to have their effect. Donald, with laughter in his deep-set eyes, watched his friend and persuaded him again and again to have yet another tasting. When Neil's head at last fell heavily on his arm Donald arose with the smile of a man who was one in an adultful game. Neil Campbell was sound asleep and would remain so for some time. How long was the question? It might be for hours and it might be for only a few minutes but half an hour's start would be enough. For the rest of Neil's life he would have no time to pretend on Nancy but there was no time to lose. Donald flung on his stoat home-spun overcoat, pulled his fur cap warmly over his ears and wrapped a knitted muffler of hand-spun yarn around his neck. Then he caught his mitts and riding whip from the nail over the fireplace and strode to the door with a parting glance at the reclining figure of his left softly. As for the waking, Tobi betwixt you and me. With an amused smile he untied Neil's horse, climbed into Neil's sleigh and tucked Neil's buffalo robe comfortably around him. When he wakes, Black Dan will carry him as well as he would have carried me, thought the schemer. But if the snow comes after sunset, its little will see of either over by the bay tonight. But Bess, old girl, do your baniest. There's more than you know hangs on your speed. If the Campbell awakes too soon Black Dan could show you a pair of clean heels for all of your good start. On, my girl! Brown Bess, one of the best mares in the county, sprang forward over the ice like a deer. The sun was nearing its setting, the gleaming white expanse of the bay gemmed here and there glided purple islets, and rimmed in by dark violet coasts, glittered like the breast of a fair woman decked with jewels. Above the curdled gray rolls of cloud flushed faintly pink, but the north and east were gray with the presage of night and storm. Donald thought of none of these things, nor of the rare spiritual beauty of the wastes about him. As he urged Brown now, and then a glance behind to see if Black Dan were yet following he thought of only what he should say to Nancy Sherman, and of what her answer would be. The Shermans were a family of United Empire loyalists who had come to Canada at the close of the American War of Independence. They had never spoke of their former fortunes, but it was the general opinion that they had once been wealthy. However, that might be they were poor enough now, and it was even a harder struggle for them than it was for the Scotch immigrants who had already obtained a footing on the Canadian soil. Elias Sherman was a genial friendly soul, and his wife was a pale, proud woman who had once been beautiful and was dignified and gracious yet. When they came to the Little Maritime Colony, they brought two children with them. These two children, Nancy and Betty, grew up amid many hardships and frustrations. But as they blossomed out into young womanhood, they were widely feigned for their beauty, and lovers from the best and wealthiest of the colonial families came awo-ing to the little cottage on the bay shore, and thought themselves richly repaid if they want a smile or kind glance from the beautiful Sherman girls. Beautiful and stately they were indeed with a grace and charm of manner that triumphed over and rough surroundings. A hundred years ago, Nancy and Betty Sherman, now sleeping forgotten in mossy grass-grown graves, on a hill that slopes down to the moaning St. Lawrence Gulf, had the pick of five counties to their hands. Not one of the blue-eyed, fresh-faced Scotch and English lassies the jeans and capes and marigolds could for a moment compare with them. They were envied bitterly enough, no doubt, when caused many a long-forgotten heartache, yet the fault was not theirs. They made no effort to win or retain the homage offered to them. The boldest lover never boasted of favors received. A kindly word or gracious smile was all that any ever one, and was esteemed enough. Even Donald Frazier could but own to himself that Nancy was as likely to say no as yes. She had said it calmly and sweetly to better men. Well, he would face the question bravely, and if he were refused Neil will have the last laugh on me then. Sure, and he's sleeping well, and the snows coming soon there'll be a body swirl on the bay ear-long. I hope no harm will come to that lad if he starts to cross. When he wakes he'll be in such a fine highland temper that he'll never stop to think of danger. Well, best my girl, here we are at last. Now Donald Frazier, pluck up heart and play the man. Remember you're a Scotchman, with a dash of old Ireland to boot, and never flinch because a slip of a last looks scornful at you out of the bonious dark blue eyes on earth. In spite of his bold words, however, Donald's heart was thumping furiously when he drove into the farmyard. Nancy was there, milking a cow by the stable door, but she stood up when she saw him coming. Grasping her pale with one hand and holding the other out to him in a gracious, untroubled way that she was noted, hallowed by the sunset light that was flinging its rosy splendors over all the wide white wastes around them. The girl was so beautiful that Donald's courage failed him almost completely. Was it not the wildest presumption to hope that this exquisite creature could care for him, or would come to be the mistress of his little house, she who was fit for her king's halls? In all the humility of a true lover he stood before her, and Nancy, looking into his bonny face, understood with woman's instinct why he had come. A color and light that was not of the sunset crept into her face and eyes. She did not withdraw her hand from his grasp, but she turned her face aside and bent her head. Donald knew that he must make the most of this unexpected chance. He might not see Nancy alone again before Neil came, clasping both of his hands over the slender one he held, he said breathlessly. Nan, lass, I love you. You might think tis a hasty wooing, but that's a story I can tell you later, maybe. I know well I'm not worthy of you, but if true love can make a man worthy there'd be none before me. Will you have me, Nan? Nancy's head in its crimson shawl drooped lower still. At home at Donald endured in agony of suspense, then he heard her answer. Oh, such a low, sweet answer. And he knew that she was one. The snow was beginning to fall when they walked together to the house. Donald looked over the bay, misty white in the gathering gloom and laughed light heartily. I must tell you that story, my lass, he said catching Nancy's look of wonder. And you'll see what a trick I played on my best friend to win you. And tell it he did with such inimitable drullery as such emphasized brogue that Nancy could but laugh as heartily as she did. She was not proof against the humor of the situation, even amid the sweeter romance of it. When morning broke the storm was over, and Donald knew that vengeance must be on his track, not wishing to make the Sherman house the scene of a quarrel. He resolved to get away before Neil came, and he persuaded Nancy to drive with him to the county town some ten miles away for a cali. As he brought Neil's sleigh up to the door, he saw a black speck far out on the bay and laughed. Black Dan goes well, but he'll not be quick enough, he said as he helped Nancy in. Half an hour later, Neil Campbell with a blackly brow in a fire in his blue eyes that was woe to see, dismounted from his smoking horse at the Sherman's door and strode into the kitchen. Had Donald Frazier been there, a comedy might shortly have been turned into a tragedy, for there was blood fury in Campbell's heart and eyes, but the wily rival was far away and the kitchen was empty. Neil stood and shaved at the door until Mrs. Sherman came down the rude stairs from the loft above. At the sight of Campbell, she started in surprise, for though many a war came to her house, they did not usually come so early in the day, but she came forward to meet him in a gracious manner. Good morning, Mr. Campbell, it is a fair day after the storm, but a cold. Come nearer to the fire. Neil felt his blind fury ebbing away before this woman of the queen-like presence and pale sorrowful face, so little in keeping with the rude low room. Mrs. Sherman always imposed a sense of deference upon the person to whom she spoke. Neil could not bring himself to demand of her where Donald Frazier or Nancy was, yet he must say something. Where is Betty the morning? He asked, trying to speak calmly, although his voice shook. On being told that she had gone to the well for a pail of water, he went out, vowing that he would discover her from the whereabouts of his false friend. Betty Sherman saw him coming across the snow and stood up directly behind the well with a smile on her face. Her lips parted, and her breath fluttered over them quickly. She put up her slender brown hands and nervously caught the crimson fringes of her knitted shawl together under her chin, while into her eyes leapt a strange light of fear and passion in some undefined emotion that strobe to conquer the other two. As far as feature and bearing went, Nancy and Betty Sherman looked marvelously alike, yet so different were they in colouring, and more than all in expression that they were scarcely held to resemble each other, the hair that lay in skeins of silken fairness on Nancy's white forehead rippled off from Betty's in locks as richly brown as October nuts. The misty purple of Nan's eyes was so dark and deep in Betty's, as to be almost black, and while Nancy was oftener pale than not, a dusky red always glowed in Betty's cheeks and deepened to scarlet in the curves of a very sweet, very scornful mouth. As for their expression Nancy's was always gracious and charming while Betty's was mocking and maddening. Though Betty had many lovers they were afraid of her. Her tongue was a sharp and unsparing one, and she satirized them to their faces woe be tied to the rash youth with a squint or a stutter who came porting Betty Sherman. And even those who had no defective person or manner fared little better. Yet come they did for there was that about the girl that held a man though she treated him as the dust under her feet. When Neil Campbell had first come to the cottage on the bay shore it had been Betty whom he came to see. In those days he had thought nan by far the last Bonnie. But Betty always cruel to her suitors was doubly so to Neil. She mimicked his Highland accent mocked at his Highland ways and laughed at his shyness as Highland pride. Neil, believing his suit was hopeless left the scornful May to her own devices and was gradually drawn into the train of Nancy's lovers soon to become the most devoted of them. Thence forth Betty had treated him with an unvarying indifference although generally she was as merciless to Nancy's lovers as to her own. Neil felt that his humiliation would be doubly bitter from Betty's probable railing but it is passionate anger an anger that quite over mastered the sting of baffled love he did not care what she might say. Good morning Mr. Campbell said Betty's silver as he came up to her. It's earlier broad you are and on Black Dan no less was I mistaken in thinking that Donald Frazier said that his favourite horse should never be backed by any man but him but doubtless a fair exchange is no robbery and brown best goes well and fleetly. Where is Donald Frazier? said Neil thickly. It is him I am seeking and it is him I will be finding. Where is he Betty Sherman? Donald Frazier is far enough away by this said Betty lightly he is a prudent fellow that Donald and has some quickness of wit under that sandy thatch of his he came here last night at sunset with a horse and a sleigh not his own or lately gotten and he asked Nan in the stable yard to marry him. Did a man ask me to marry him while I was at the cow's side with my milking pail in my hand tis a cold answer he'd get for his pains but Nan was ever fond of Donald and tis kindly she must have answered him for they sat late together last night and twas a bony story that Nan wakened me to hear when she came to bed the story of a bra lover who let his secret out when the whiskey was abewn the wit and then fell asleep while his rival was away to woo and win his lass did you ever hear a like story Mr. Campbell? Neil clenched his fists oh yes he said fiercely it is laughing at me over the country side that Donald Frazier will be doing in telling that story but when I meet him it is not laughing he will be doing oh no there will be another story to tell what will you do to him cried Betty in alarm don't mellow with the man now what a state to be in because a slip of a good looking lass prefers sandy hair and grey eyes to highland black and blue you have not the spirit of a rend Neil Campbell were I you I would show Donald Frazier that I could woo and win a maid as speedily as any lowlander of them all that would I there's many a girl would say yes gladly for your asking I know one myself as Bonnie as Nan if folks say true who would think herself a proud and happy woman if you looked kindly on her and would love you as well as Nan loves her Donald I in ten times better Betty's face went crimson and her eyes faltered down to the pale at her feet and who may it be Betty asked Neil after a brief silence Betty did not answer in words she came a step near and put one hand on Neil's shoulder with her head still drooping but looking up at him with her eyes and an expression half defiant half yielding wholly captivating that answered as plainly as words Neil took the two cold hands in his if this be so last he said gently what did you mock at me so when I came first what simpletons men are potted Betty why it was cause I liked you best to be sure then she suddenly sprang away from him with flushing cheeks and clouded eyes oh what must you think of me she cried bold unmaidingly that is what you will call me and truly but when I saw you coming and I'd loved you for so long what thought I to lose all for want of one little bold word it was hard to speak but I have spoken it and now you will despise me she clasped her hands and stood meekly before him with her face hanging on her breast Neil came nearer and drew her into his arms thank you for that word he said simply Betty it was you that I liked best at first and if you will marry me it is a good husband I will try to make you and a proud and happy man I'll be Betty looked up at him with eyes where tenderness and mischief were mingled then maybe Donald Frazier will not do so much laughing after all she said look you Neil lead me to manage this when Nan comes back I'll say to her Nan is Donald so very sure that Neil Campbell said your name when he told of his errand does the mistake your lowlander has made sister and then I will tell her how you came this morning and asked me to marry you though it was I that did the asking was it not but I'll not tell her that end of section 24 section 25 of uncollected short stories of L. M. Montgomery this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Rita Smith Halifax, Nova Scotia uncollected short stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery section 25 the minister's daughter Walter Armstrong found himself belated at Twilight near the little Westlands church he had missed his way and did not know the road back to the hotel there was a light in the church and a few horses were tied to the fence he stood his wheel up against the building and went in it was a young people's meeting about a score of young men and women were assembled in the center pews of the badly lighted room Armstrong's entrance caused a little stir some looked around at him wonderingly the leader of the meeting a young girl with a sweet frightened face grew palpably nervous and made several mistakes in the verses she was reading she went where the organ stood Armstrong dropped into a seat back among the shadows the people present were all strangers to him with the exception of a young man who supplied the summer hotel at the beach with Garden Truck whom Armstrong knew by sight three seats ahead of him with her head bowed devotely on the hard rim of the pew before her was a young girl in a white dress she had magnificent hair of a warm chestnut with a glistening ripple in it Armstrong had a decided weakness for chestnut hair began to wonder if her face were pretty enough to match it he was afraid to see it lest it should not be while the aforesaid young man led in prayer Armstrong mentally fashioned out the face she ought to have if nature had been true to the eternal fitness of things very dark blue eyes straight nose fairly large mouth skin with color coming and going faintly that is how it ought to be but won't I've been tricked before like that she's fatally short to have sharp cheekbones and a muddy complexion wish she'd turn around she did not turn around but when the prayer was over she arose and went up the aisle to the dim little corner where the organ stood as she sat the lamp light fell over her face and Armstrong started after all it did match it was the very face he had pictured only it was the face of a saint whereas Armstrong being of the world, worldly had given it a different expression he watched her as she sang he had seen a great many beautiful women but never one so lovely as this girl when the hem was ended he had forgotten all about the road back to his hotel he was wondering how he could get an introduction to her when the meeting was over he found that some were going to stay for choir practice he went up the aisle to the man he knew Ross Nelson by name and asked him the nearest way back to the hotel he was looking at the girl at the organ all the time and did not hear a word of Nelson's reply who's that girl he asked with a nod of his head in her direction that why she's Miss Hastings our minister's daughter said Nelson in a surprise tone as if he thought everybody ought to know her introduce me will you said Armstrong Cooley and Nelson told him dopefully over the ceremony of introduction was performed in an awkward stilted style and Armstrong bowed gravely Sylvia Hastings blushed the warm inroads of color over her soft round cheeks were very becoming and Armstrong always declared he lost his heart to her in that very instant but he had to subside into the background almost immediately for choir practice begun and lasted for an hour he waited doggedly through it and when it was over asked Miss Hastings to walk home with her Sylvia was too shy to refuse even if she had wished she had never had such a request before Nelson who had paired off with the meeting leader and the other couples looked curiously after them as they crossed the moonlight space it seemed to them nothing short of sacrilege that a man in a bicycle suit should walk home with the minister's daughter Armstrong had no idea how far it was to the Westlands mints but he hoped it was miles as a matter of fact it was a good long walk Sylvia could hardly be induced to talk at all at first when she did it was about the prayer meeting and she asked him timidly if he were interested in the Christian endeavor movement he shamelessly avowed that he was and floundered helplessly through the deep waters of a discussion upon methods of work into which she inveigled him he betrayed his ignorance speedily and Sylvia's eyes gleamed with mischief in the moonlight Armstrong began to suspect that she was having a little innocent fun at his expense and he wisely refused to discuss the subject further when they reached the mints he reluctantly surrendered her hembook and asked if he might call Sylvia blushed again and hesitated she knew very little about young men almost the only ones she had ever met bearing the Westlands lads were the pale faced abstracted supplies who occasionally preached for her father and visited the mints they talked to her when they noticed her at all about missions in the Christian endeavor movements and other church matters this young man was very different she had found him delightful but she was afraid her father would not approve of him there was about him a distinct atmosphere of vanity fair of which the good Westlands minister had a holy horror Sylvia did not know what answer to make I would like to see you she said at last but I'm not sure that father and mother would they I don't think they like anybody but ministers Armstrong laughed I'm sorry that I'm not a minister then and I'm afraid I couldn't successfully disguise myself as one but after all it is your opinion that chiefly matters to me do you restrict your circle of friendship to ministers I think it's restricted for me said Sylvia naively some of them are very nice and some of them are dreadfully stupid I'm going to come over and see you declared Armstrong boldly that is if you don't actually forbid me Sylvia went in feeling as if she had done something very wicked and very delightful she thought about Armstrong all the time her father was having family prayers and by this she knew that she must be a very sinful girl also she dreamed of him that night Armstrong had to go all the way back to the church for his bicycle and trust to luck to find his way home he hummed there is only one girl in the world for me on the road back until it suddenly struck him that it was too frivolous to be taken in connection with the minister's daughter so we changed it to oh promise me that suited better and lasted until he got back to his hotel he called at the west lands mans the very next night and thereby created a commotion in that placid domain while Sylvia talked to him in the parlor the reverend Elisha Hastings and his wife held a council of two in the study if this creature came to see Sylvia what was to be done with him the thing was preposterous Sylvia's natural destiny was a minister there was even one particular minister in distant prospect already at all events she must not be allowed to form a friendship with a world of young man who rode a bicycle on Sunday there one white you lamb must be preserved from such contamination the next time Armstrong called the reverend Elisha Hastings himself went into a little rose scented parlor with Sylvia Armstrong knew he was being weighed in the balance and he tried to be very careful he flattered himself that he succeeded but he underrated the minister's powers of discernment once he unconsciously spoke of being within an ace of something whereby Sylvia's father knew that he played the cards another seemingly innocent remark confirmed his theater going propensities moreover the reverend Elisha suspected that a man with such a pair of legs must be addicted to dancing and he used slang which was next door to swearing Sylvia blessed her innocent heart never guessed all her father discovered but she knew by the set of his back when he went out of the room that Armstrong had been found wanting and it depressed her greatly she didn't think she ought to like him so well under the circumstances but how was she going to help it at the end of a fortnight during which Armstrong had haunted the westlands mints had been devoted to the westlands prayer meeting and had sat to vote me through four of the westlands sermons the reverend Elisha and his meek saintly little wife told Sylvia that the young man's visits must cease Sylvia cried her stirring grey eyes half out that night but she never dreamed of disobeying her parents she told Armstrong simply as they walked home from prayer meeting the next night that he must not call upon her again they reached the garden gate as she said it and Armstrong gave a gasp he knew that Sylvia's father and mother disapproved of him but he had flattered himself that he could overcome their prejudices true he did not know much about the telegu mission and was not in sympathy with revivals but he held to the reverence for sacred things that had been inculcated to him in childhood and he had a natural inclination to all that was good and true also he had a five figure income and he did not believe that even an unworldly country clergyman and his wife could be altogether blind to the advantages it was in his power to offer Sylvia he could see the minister through the study window reading calmly and unconsciously by the table it would have given Armstrong exquisite pleasure just then to have thrown at him one of the big white stones that bordered the garden path Sylvia he said desperately I can't stay away I shall have to come to Westlands Mans as long as you are here I love you Sylvia dropped her hembook it was the first time anybody had ever said those three wonderful words to her although to be sure there was a certain pale young student destined to the foreign mission field whom her father liked and whom she herself reverenced because he was so consecrated and earnest minded who had shown by his actions that he wanted to say them if he could ever summon up enough courage but Armstrong came out with them plainly in the moonlit landscape world around Sylvia oh you mustn't she faltered why not he demanded masterfully don't you love me Sylvia he put his arm around her and drew her to him she was shaken like a rose in the wind she must not let him oh she must not let him he put his arm around her don't you Sylvia he insisted what Sylvia would have said or if she could have said anything will never be known for just at that moment the hall door opened and Mrs. Hastings looked out Sylvia wrenched herself free and ran up the path hoping guiltily that her mother had not seen them the door closed behind her and Armstrong was left outside he stooped and groped until he found Sylvia's hymnbook then he went moodily home and slept with it under his pillow if he slept at all that evening he went unblushingly to the mantis and asked for the minister himself he laid before him a cool formal proposal for his daughter's hand he stated his social standing and prospects he gave city references and he wound up with the amount of his income he thought it all good ammunition especially the last but it was nothing better than blank cartridges as far as the Reverend Elisha Hastings was concerned the good Westlands minister was no hypocrite a millionaire would not have been a welcome suitor for Sylvia if the faintest taint of worldliness the impecunious missionary elect would have stood a far better chance he told Armstrong plainly that he could not give his consent and to this he adhered Armstrong exhausted his powers of persuasion and argument fruitlessly he left the mantis a defeated man in a most atrocious temper he had not even seen Sylvia he wondered savagely if they had locked her up when he got back to the hotel he wrote her a letter it was just such a letter as a desperate lover would write and had he but known it Sylvia almost broke her heart over it but when her cool calmly worded little note written at her father's command came to him he concluded in despair that there was no hope for him Sylvia wrote that she was very very sorry but he must not try to see her or write to her again her father and mother knew best and she must obey them he must go away and not think about her anymore she would always be his friend and she was his truly Sylvia Hastings if Armstrong had thought that Sylvia really loved him he would have carried her off from the mantis by main force rather than give her up but he reflected gloomily care for him when she would dismiss him with a note like that there was no use in his making a fool of himself any longer he would go home and become a wise man therefore he packed up and went back to the city after Armstrong's departure Westlands Mantz became once more the abode of peace outwardly at all events the minister and his wife congratulated themselves on an inverted danger of a revolutionary elect an invitation to visit them Sylvia felt unhappy and was unhappier still because she was sure it was wicked to feel so she lost her appetite and her interest in Christian endeavour work in short she moped and the Reverend Elisha Hastings and his wife thought she was run down and got iron pills for her one afternoon about two months after Armstrong's waterloo a telegram came to the mantz Sylvia was alone her father and mother being away telegrams were rarities and Sylvia turned pale when she saw that this was for her it read 148 Sherburn Avenue, Trenton Walter Armstrong dying wishes to see you come at once Irene Glover the brutal thing and rung her hands what was she to do her father and mother would not be back before night and she had never been to the city alone in her life like an inspiration in fact I believe Sylvia thinks it was one came the thought of Aunt Lydia Lennox Aunt Lydia wasn't aunt by marriage only and the Reverend Elisha Hastings did not approve of her she was of the world, worldly she was almost a stranger to Sylvia nevertheless the latter determined to go to her five minutes later Westlands people were amazed and scandalized to see their minister's daughter running breathlessly up the station road with her hat on crooked her jacket fronts flying and a satchel in her hand it was a mile to the station and Sylvia barely caught the train in two hours she was in Trenton and ten minutes later a cab set her down at Mrs. Lennox door that good lady was not a little astonished when her disheveled niece burst in upon her why Sylvia Hastings what on earth is the matter Sylvia dropped into a chair and somehow sobbed out her story or at least enough of it to enlighten Aunt Lydia Mrs. Lennox gasped Walter Armstrong I knew he was very sick it's pneumonia I believe but I didn't know you knew him of course I'll take you to him poor kitten he lives with his sister Mrs. Glover but you must have some tea first I couldn't eat a mouthful protested Sylvia oh don't let us lose any time Aunt Lydia Walter is dying and I must see him first oh indeed I must Mrs. Lennox yielded not ready and took Sylvia to a house whose magnificence would have frightened her had she been in her normal state of mind Mrs. Glover greeted Sylvia with a secret amazement she had known and wondered at Walter's infatuation for some girl up the country but she wondered no longer any man might be excused for going mad over a face like that I'm so glad you have come Miss Hastings Walter is longing to see you yes he is very low poor boy the doctor gave him up this morning but I can't lose all hope yet the disease itself is killed but he is so very weak and he doesn't seem as if he wanted to get better Armstrong turned his head eagerly on the pillow as the three women entered I thought you would come he said feebly Sylvia went down on her knees by the bed and caught his hand oh Walter I love you I love you and you must not die or I shall die too Armstrong smiled in a species of rapture and the two older women went to the window and studied the street when the doctor came that evening he found much an improvement in his patient that his hopes went up with a rush everybody concerned was happy but Sylvia had begun to wonder what her father would say when he landed from a cab at Mrs. Lennox's store the next morning she turned very white just lead him to me my dear said Aunt Lydia comfortingly I'll make him listen to reason I thought you would come he said feebly and she did but how she did remains a mystery to this day the Reverend Elijah Hastings never told anyone not even his wife what his sister-in-law said to him during that memorable interview and the good lady herself never went into details but such a time as I had to bring that man to his senses she said confidentially to a sympathetic friend just think my dear here was a young man the very finest fellow you could find if you went out to search of good family and worth half a million and that infactuated man wouldn't give Sylvia to him because he was worldly and unregenerate he did give in at last however the child's engagement is permitted under protest I mean to keep her with me for a good deal of the time before her marriage it will be pleasanter for Walter Sylvia was married in the fall and the Reverend Elijah Hastings performed the ceremony with more resignation than he had expected in his secret heart he still preferred the missionary but he had the grace not to say so and Sylvia was so radiantly happy that he admitted that it was doubtless ordered for the best after all end of section 25