 section 26 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. Uncollected short stories of L. M. Montgomery by Lucy Maud Montgomery. The Bittness in the Cup. Part one. A mild wind was blowing up from the southwest over the ribbon of resinous furs in the valley. The low-lying wheat fields and the long slopes of aftermath were the lush growth of the clover rivaled the luxuriance of June. From all it brushed in its unfettered sweep it filched somewhat of odour. From the furs the tang of the balsam. From the field borders the warm breath of smoke-blue asters in sun-de-grasses. And from the berry orchard the aroma of ripening fruit and the pungency of the mint that grew thickly around the roots of the old cherry trees. All these it garnered to itself and poured, as if from an unseen flaggen of delight, around the tiny old woman who sat among the grasses where the lane curved down the slope by the beach-grove. She drunk in the autumn-old rot as she knitted, and basked in the sunshine that mellowed on the slope around her. It pleased her to sit there in the day's maturity, under a sky that was curdled over with films of white cloud, and it placently, while she watched the wind lifting the ferns in the shadows of the birches, and combing the long grasses on the slope. She seldom looked at her knitting. Her tiny hands worked ceaselessly, but her large and unsunken blue eyes kept on the landscape a watch that missed little. From the stir and flicker of the sapling leaves at her side, to the cloud shadows broadening and vanishing on the faraway level fields to the south, or the occasional wayfarers along the Rutherglen main road that ran, straight as a die, to the west, until it dipped suddenly into the curve of the fur valley. Say, for the little old woman with the eager eyes, not a living creature could be seen near or far. From the berry's homestead, that had topped the birch hill for three generations, to the opal-tinted horizons of the south and west, and the gleam of the ocean north and east, the whole world seemed half-fallen for the time being into a pleasant, untroubled dream. To Mrs. Berry, or Aunt Nan, as everybody in Rutherglen, related or unrelated affectionately called her, the afternoon was as a cup of delight held to her lips. She drank it in unsatantly, thinking aloud, meanwhile, as was her habit. Isn't it good to be alive? I want to live as long as there's afternoons like this. Sakes alive, what smells? Seems to me the very air is dripping with them. There's the mint and the did-foe. Haven't I always loved the did-foe? It reminds me of when I was a girl, and the first mark and I used to go walking in the lane back of home, where the furs grew so thick. That was forty years ago, I must be getting an old woman. How still them furs in the hollow look, as if they were talking to the sky. And what a blither is over the hills! Strange how it always fades before you get to it, the way with most things I expect. I feel as if I was drinking the sunshine in and storing it up in my heart to last me through the winter. I'm so happy. It doesn't seem to me that I'd have a thing changed if I could. I've had sorrow enough in my life, but it's put behind now, and lived over like those furrows the second mark plowed in the lane last spring. They looked ugly for a time, but now they're all picked out with asters in golden rod. It's a dear way nature has, and I just love living. She dropped her knitting for a minute, and softly leaned her with a pink cheek against the creamy satin of the white birch bowl behind her. As she watched the Rutherglen Road, a girl came out from the purple shadow of the furs that overhung it. Aunt Nan recognized her with a smile of delight. That's Louis Wilbur. I don't know as there's another soul in the world I'd want to see just now, but I do want to see her. She fits into an afternoon like this, instead of spoiling it as most folks would do. I hope she's coming here. If she passes our gate, I believe I'll just run down and lay violent hands on her. Aunt Nan was spared of this exertion, for when Louis Wilbur came to the white gate at the end of the very lane, she turned in under the big willows. She walked with the elastic step of healthy youth, and there was a faint yet rich bloom on her face, born of her windy walk up from the valley. Although she was not beautiful in any strictly defined sense of the word, she possessed a certain charm and distinction of appearance that always left beholders with a pleasurable sense of satisfaction, and that softly rounded go-hood of hers with all its strongly felt potentialities. Those who knew Louis Wilbur best felt, without perhaps realizing it, that her greatest charm was the aura of possibility surrounding her, the power of future development that was in her. She was one to whom maturity would bring her best, and you felt instinctively that such maturity could be nothing less than beautiful when the crescent of her rich nature should have rounded out into completeness. Whatever life might bring to this girl, and it must bring much, if not of action yet of feeling in heart growth, it could not crush her. Its gifts, whether of sorrow or joy, could only tend still further to ripen and enrich the woman's soul that looked wistfully, yet unshrinkingly, out of her level-geezing eyes. For the rest, she was simply the happy, wholesome girl she seemed, fully dowered with youth's soft curves and virginal bloom, with a dimple or two lurking about her mouth, and a saving dandelion of humour in her frank smile. As she came up the grassy slope, Aunt Nan held out her hand, and Louis took it in her smooth, firmly moulded one, looking down at the little woman affectionately. "'I thought you'd come,' said Aunt Nan. "'You belong to the afternoon so it brought you. Things that belong together always come together. What a lot of trouble that would save some folks if only they believed it. I was afraid you were going on to the shore, and if you had passed our gate, you'd have seen a sight now. Nothing less than old Aunt Nan, careening down the lane at full speed to catch you. Truth is, Louis, I was dying for someone to unload all the thoughts I've been gathering out of the afternoon on. "'I did start for the shore,' said Louis. When school came out, I thought of the water purring around the rocks in this offshore wind, and it was too much for me. Although I should have gone straight home and done some sewing, but I couldn't sew on a day like this. There's something in the atmosphere that gets into my blood like wine and makes a sort of glory in my soul, and my fingers would twitch and I would sew a crooked seam. So I said, hey-ho for the rocks and the offshore wind, but I thought I'd give you a call in passing and bring you up the last magazine.' Aunt Nan reached out for it greedily. "'Is the story finished, Louis?' "'Yes, and you are right. She didn't forgive him. It spoiled the story for me.' "'I knew she wouldn't,' said Aunt Nan triumphantly. "'That's what made the story seem so real to me all along. That girl was so human, one kind of human, of course. There are other kinds. Now, you'd have forgiven him.' Louis smiled introspectively. "'Yes, I think so. If it had been a matter of principle, I don't suppose I could, but it dealt only with emotions juggled by fate, and I could. Yes, I could have forgiven him, if I had loved him as she pretended to.' "'She didn't pretend,' said Aunt Nancy quickly. "'She did love him, but it wasn't her nature to be forgiving poor thing. Don't I know. I was just like her forty years ago. That's why I understood her so well. I knew she wouldn't forgive him. I wouldn't have then. I couldn't. I could and would now, but it took me sixty years to learn how. That's where you have the advantage of me, Louis. You begin where I leave off. It doesn't seem quite fair, does it? It cost me something years ago. But it can't all go for nothing. Do you know?' Aunt Nan dropped her knitting and leaned back against the birch with her eyes on the western sky. I think that's about the best argument for immortality I know of, leaving out the Bible, of course, for it's no use hurling the Bible at folks who say they don't believe in it, like old Luke Bowes at the Cove. I've read somewhere that nothing is ever wasted. You understand what I mean, I guess. You're up in them scientific things, I ain't. Now, take a woman like me, who starts out in life, with a very strong tang of temper, and a lot of intolerance in any amount of self-will and power of keeping grudges, not to mention a heap of other faults. Well, she lives seventy or eighty years, maybe, and it takes her all that time to learn how to control her temper and be forgiving and tolerant, then she dies. If there ain't any future life, all that knowledge and self-control that took so long to gain goes for nothing. Is clean wasted, as you might say. Now, that ain't nature's way. There is another life where it will be all made use of. I don't mean to talk you to death, Lewis. I'm going to stop now and let you have a chance. I love to hear you, Aunt Nan. Asheret Lewis, there is nobody down in the valley like you. I'd feel like a little fool if I talked to any of them about the things I discuss with you. I know, said Aunt Nan comfortably. You and I always did understand each other, Lewis. From the very first time that your mother brought you up here to see me, you were a might of a child, with such big, serious eyes and long, nutty brown curls, and a habit of saying all of a sudden such queer, deep down sort of things. Your mother was real worried about you. She thought you was odd, but I guess I always understood you. You always felt real comfortable with me, didn't you? And you've been in my heart ever since you held up your face to be kissed, out there in the garden, and told me you knew you were a very naughty girl, but you never could do wrong in a garden, because the flowers were the eyes of angels watching you. Lewis laughed. I've a bit of the same old feeling still when I walk in a garden. Let us go and see yours, Aunt Nan. Your asters must be out now. Mine got all rusted. You're going to stay here and have tea with me, Lewis. Don't say you ain't now. The rocks and the offshore wind began, Lewis, with her twinkle and her dimple, but Aunt Nan interrupted her. The rocks will keep and other winds will blow. You must stay, Lewis. I'm all alone. The second mark went to the backlands, stumping off to dinner. Took a snack with him and said he'd be too busy to come home to tea. So you stay, and I'll give you some fruitcake. Aunt Nan had a whimsical way of referring to her only son as the second mark. Her husband, who had died thirty years before, was the first mark. How is Mark now? asked Lewis as they walked up the slope towards the garden. None too well, though he won't give in that he isn't as perk as usual, man-like. He mobs a bit when he thinks I'm not watching. I'll warrant you he is lying on his back among the ferns more than half the time in them backlands today instead of stumping. I told him he wasn't fit to do stumping yet a while, but he's the first mark over again, though he would with a whistle. That grip pulls the body down terrible, but I've got Mark hoaxed up to take a little trip next week, and I'm in hopes he'll set him up in good shape again. He's going to Queen's Lear tomorrow for Exhibition Week, and longer if he'll listen to me, but he won't. Such a boy for home as he is. And he is such a dear good boy, Lewis. I've never had a might of worry over him since he was born. We've just been real chums, he and I, as he says himself. Of course. I know it can't go on forever so. Mark will marry some day, and then I'll have to share him with his wife. But I'll be willing and glad to, for I know Mark won't choose unworthily, and whoever he brings to the hill will get a whole hearted welcome from me. Lewis made no reply, but her face flushed a little. Aunt Nan looked at her shrewdly out of the corner of her eye, and was not displeased at what she saw. The sweet old soul had her own harmless wilds, and she had, for some time, been on the lookout for a chance of indirectly assuring Lewis, that when Mark brought her to the hill farm, she would welcome her, even more warmly, as a daughter-in-law, then as friend. I'd have given a good deal once upon a time, for the first Mark's mother, to have intimated as much to me, she thought. Lewis knows what store I've always set by the second Mark, and she might feel a bit anxious as to how I take his making up to her, as he is doing plain as the nose on your face. Now she knows, I guess, and everything is real nice and comfortable. Aunt Nan's garden had a local fame in Rutherglen. It was on the southern slope, a pool of sunshine on fine days, and the haunt of mingled fragrance and cool shadows in dull hours, hedged in east and west by the apple and cherry orchards, and flowers bloomed there from the waking April days to mid-November. Aunt Nan had away with flowers, the Rutherglen people said. Just at this time her heart was wrapped up in her astors, a broad scarf of which ran across the garden from the clumps of tiger lilies at the gate, to the all-stone bench under the lilac bushes at the further end. They justified her pride, and Lewis bent over them, her face alight with rapture. This astrovid is a springtime poem that sang itself in your heart last May, and is now taking outward shape like this, she said to Aunt Nan. You will always say the right thing, Lewis, that thought was in my mind, but I never could have put it into words so well. After a moment's silence, Aunt Nan burst out again anxiously. Lewis, are you altogether satisfied with your life here in Rutherglen? It's narrow, I suppose, and you are so clever. It seems to me as if you must feel at times as if you wanted to get away to a wider world where you'd have more chance. Don't you get tired teaching school day after day? Don't you get discontented at times? No, said Lewis thoughtfully. At least not now. Life here isn't narrow, Aunt Nan. We make our own lives, don't you think, wherever we are? They are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not to what we get out. Life seems to me very rich and full right here in Rutherglen, and I am content, Aunt Nan. Oh, richly content. Aunt Nan smiled happily. She knew that Lewis had had more restless ambitions once. She also thought she knew deep down in her wise old soul what had tranquilised the girl's nature. Yes, she repeated softly, more to herself than Lewis. Life is rich and full here, everywhere, if only we learn how to open our hearts to its richness and fullness. Some shut their hearts against it, not knowing and reaching out after things that are far away. I used to, once, but this is one of the things I've learned. It's taken me a good while, as I've said, but some don't ever learn it. They roamed about the little sun-flooded domain for some time, talking of the flowers and of the harmless gossip of the valley in which Aunt Nan always took an eager interest. When tea time came, Aunt Nan went in to get it, while Lewis sat on the broad white stone, flanked by hollyhock bids, that served as a front doorstep to the big farmhouse and looked with dreamy eyes out over the fur valley and the farmland slopes. The wind was blowing less strongly, and the afternoon was steeped in colour and langa. The air was a thrill with the pipings of myrit crickets, glad the little pensioners of the summer hills. And through all the soft mingled notes and the purring of the winds and treetops came the insistent murmurous croon of the Atlantic, where it lapped below the northeastern fields with the fringes of ragged furs. How beautiful the world is! Set the girl half-aloud. And how beautiful life is! It seems like a cup of glory held to my lips. But there must be some bitterness in it. This can't last forever. I wonder when mine will come. How soon I shall taste it. Oh, she shivered a little. There is sorrow in an afternoon like this, perfect as it is. It is too perfect. We know it can't last. It has the pain of finality. Louis, come to tea! called Aunt Nan blightly. Louis's passing shadow vanished as she ran lightly in. Aunt Nan had brought out the promised fruitcake and many other delicacies, but the table was spread after their homely fashion in the kitchen. A big bright room whose eastern and western windows caught all the sunshine and hill winds of the summer. The window by which the table stood looked out on the birch grove which now, in the western sun, was a tremulous splendour with a sea of undergrowth wavered into golden green billows by the passing zephyr breaths that came and went among the trees. While they ate and chattered, Aunt Nan coaxed Louis to come and stay with her while the second mark was away, and Louis finally consented, pretending to be bribed there too by the promise of a whole fruitcake and unlimited cherry preserves. Won't we have a time, though? said Aunt Nan as jubilantly as a girl. We'll talk and read and talk and make taffy. Your being here will give me a good excuse to be as silly and frivolous as I want to be, and don't dare to be, mostly because an old woman of sixty is expected to be dignified and sensible. When you get to be sixty, Louis, you'll know how it is. A faint shadow passed over the girl's laughing face. Oh, Aunt Nan, she said slowly. It oars me to look forward so far. Think, think, if I live to be sixty, how much I must have learnt and felt and suffered by then? Aunt Nan patted her shoulder. Don't think of that, my dear. Think of how much you'll have enjoyed in one out of the years behind you by then. The time seems very short to me looking back, but at your age it used to oppress me when I thought of it just as it did you this minute. I believe that young folks are often really ever so much more serious and thoughtful than old people, for all it's generally supposed to be the other way. We old folks don't need to think much. We've lived our lives for good or ill, and we're free. But you young folks, well, I don't wonder that you feel sober by spells. There, I've preached enough. Give the cat the rest of the cream. He looks as if that was the highest good in life to him at present. After tea, Louis suggested that it was time for her to go home, but Aunt Nan had a plan of her own. It's early yet, she said. Would you think it too much trouble to take a walk to the backlands and give the second mark a message for me? It's real important, and I clean forgot to tell him when he left. I want him to bring me some crottle. I must die those mad rags of mine tomorrow, and there's not a scrap in the house. Of course," she added diplomatically, detecting the hint of reluctance in the girl's eyes. If it is too much bother, I can go myself. Oh, no," said Louis quickly. I'll go for you, of course. I will enjoy the walk. Take the round basket and tell him to bring it full. Just keep an eye on him and see that he gets it good. You needn't hurry. Them backlands must be lovely today. I'd like to have gone myself. Only, I feel a bit tired. Without the excuse of the errand, Louis would not have gone. A subtle Aunt Nan very well knew when she cast about for some pretext and hit upon the crottle. She watched the girl out of sight with a smile of satisfaction on her face. There, I've done them both a good turn. And I will die those rags tomorrow, though there isn't any rush, just to save my conscience. Mark needs a bit of help now and then, for Louis doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve, and she's getting shy and distant with him. A very good sign, but he mayn't have gumption enough to know it. How I do love that girl! It's been the wish of my heart for years and years to see her Mark's wife, ever since I knew her. I guess, though I didn't dare to really expect it until late years, there might so many things have happened to prevent it. It seems too good to be true. When you've set your heart on a thing for years, it always does seem kind of impossible that it should really come to pass. See here, aunt Nan, you've got to break yourself right away of this ridiculous habit of thinking out loud. There's a hired boy coming next week, and if you don't want your secrets published to the forewinds of heaven in Ruthiglain, you must learn to keep them from the birds of the air. That's all. In spite of her touch of embarrassment, Louis was unfaithfully glad that aunt Nan had sent her to Mark. She did not mind owning to herself that she wanted to see him, for she was singularly free from even the harmless self-deception that most girls practice. Moreover, the walk to the backlands was a beautiful one, and enjoyable at any time, even if the one man out of all the world were not waiting at the end of it. Louis knew every step of it, for in old school days she and Mark had traversed it times out of mind. They had been devoted chums as they had been proud to boast, with an open, wholehearted comradeship that found and took all that was best in those glad young days. What a tomboy I was, thought Louis with a smile, and what good times we did have. Every nook and cranny of this walk seems filled with the memory of those frolics. There was the Maple Lane first, leading from the yard to the pasturelands, where they had always found the earliest violets, lurking dimly sweet in the sunned corners of the snake-fints that ran along under the trees. At its further end was the big birch by the gate, where Mark had once cut their names. They were plainly visible, yet although grown unshapely and ragged, and Louis stopped to touch them caressingly. Mark cut them as high as he could reach, and I had to stand on tiptoe to touch them then, she murmured with a smile. Beyond the lane, a long emerald reach of three fields sloped up to the girdle of woods. All of the same size and shape, and now a luxuriant sweet of clover aftermath. Straight through the middle of them ran a road, and down this road, Louis and Mark had once been warned to run frantic races when they came out of the woods on the crest of the slope. Who'd get to the big birch first? Mark would say, and then they would hurl themselves down the path. Louis with her brown curls streaming in the wind, and Mark with his fists clenched and his brow knotted into a frown as he ran. The honors fell evenly between them, for Louis was a good runner, and often as not, flung herself against the big birch first. She thought of those glorious runs as she walked sedatedly up the slope, and remembered that she had won the last race they had ever had together down the three fields. It was just such a day as today, and the sun was shining fan-like in just the same fashion down on the harbour. I remember noticing it as I ran. She put up her hand and felt a tiny scar high on her forehead and concealed by a curl of her chestnut hair. When she had reached the birch, a good three yards ahead of Mark, she had tripped over one of its roots and fallen, striking her head on a stone. A bad cut was the result, and she could yet see Mark's pale face and lips as he helped her home down the maple lane, with the blood running into her eyes and blinding her. The cut had not proved serious and had soon healed, but Mark could never be persuaded to race her down the three fields again. On the crest of the slope, the path broadened out into a wood road, striking right into the heart of the forest. She and Mark had had their play-house just inside the gate, in the cool gloom of a thick fur coppers. She turned aside to visit it now, as she always did when she went to the backlands. A charm unnameable brooded about the old place for her, and she gave herself up to it for a time as she sat on the big white boulder that at once served them as a table. It was long since they had outgrown their play-place, but traces of their occupancy were still plainly visible. The little circle of trees had trim scarred trunks, where Mark had hacked off their lower bows with his hatchet. Rotting boards that had served for shelves and seats were scattered around, and here and there the sunlight glinted on a fragment of glass or china, which had once adorned Lewis's house-wifely cupboard. She stooped and dislodged one from the porous mould of the forest floor, and smiled as she recognised one of the rarest treasures of their old bric-a-brac, a bit broken from the edge of one of Aunt Nan's dinner-plates, and called the ivy-piece, because it was adorned with a spray of yellow and red ivy. They had been intensely proud of it, and it had shared the place of honour on their parlor shelf with a broken glass bangle from an old vase which possessed the power of refracting wonderful rainbow tints. The fairy-glass they had called it, not understanding or knowing anything about prisms. Lewis looked around for it, but could not find it. Perhaps the fairies have carried it back to fairyland again, she said with a smile. They had believed so wholeheartedly in fairies and cobalts and wood elves. At first, when they set up their housekeeping among the furs, Lewis had been very frightened of the long, dim road that wound away into the eerily whispering woods. She would never go far along it, preferring to keep to the sunny fields where no wood elves could lurk. Mark had always assured her that the wood elves were kindly disposed folk, and would not harm them, but Lewis doubted. They might be, but you couldn't be sure of it. She remembered the day she had first conquered her fears, and allowed Mark to lead her through the road, with her timid little hut beating to her fingertips in his sturdy clasp. They saw no wood elves in how glad she had been when they came out into the backlands that seemed like an enchanted world of sunshine and dreams, shut round by the girdling beaches. The return trip had not been half so bad, and Lewis had never been afraid of the forest again. Soon she and Mark had explored every cranny of it. They had thought it a vast place, although it was really only a few acres in extent. One day the frolics and make-believes came suddenly to an end. A childless aunt of Lewis's had come to Ruthiglen for a visit. When she left, she took the girl with her to her home in a small college town, far enough away to shut her out from the Ruthiglen life completely. She had not even seen Mark to say goodbye to him, for he had been away from home when she had gone up to the hill farm to tell him the news of her sudden departure. She remembered the ache in her heart and the choking in her throat as she went down the hill again. To go away without seeing Mark had seemed to her like a tragedy. It was the first time the world's pain had touched her. In the six years that followed, Mark had been almost forgotten. They had never met, for the only time Lewis had revisited Ruthiglen, Mark had been away at college. It was not until they were men and women grown that she came home to stay, and she had met her old playmate again. Their meeting was a surprise and a disappointment to both. Each had been unconsciously expecting to find the unchanged comrade of years ago. Lewis had looked for a lanky, sunburned lad, and found a stalwart broad-shouldered six feet of a young manhood. Mark had looked for a demure little maid, and found a gracious young woman who seemed as a stranger to him. It was long before the chill of change wore off. They could laugh at it now, having found each other again in a comradeship that added the charm of the past to the rich fullness of the present and the promise of the future. But during that first year of her return when Lewis was teaching in the valley school, and Mark was fitting himself back into the farm life after his two years at the Queensley Academy, there had been between them a strangerhood that was almost resentful. Lewis knew that Mark was working in the triangle between the woods, and the newly cleared outfield, and she went down that way under the caressing shadows of the beaches to surprise him. She saw him before he saw her, for he was lying lazily on his back in a little grassy hollow with his hands clasped under his head and his eyes fixed on the sky. She permitted herself the treat of looking at him for a space with her heart in her eyes, and her breath half gone from her in the sweetness of the moment. Then her expression changed to mischief, and she threw at him the fur-cone that lay ready to her hand in an angle of the fence. Her aim was good, and the missile struck him squarely on the forehead. He was on his feet in an instant, looking about him. When he caught sight of her, his face lightened, and he came quickly over the hillocks in hollows of fern that lay between them. Lewis hastened to lift her basket and explain her errand. Aunt Nan wants crottles, sir, and she wants it good. You'll please to remember. She sent me to tell you so. You, the poor hard-working boy who was too busy to come home to tea. Mark laughed and tossed his tumbled black hair from his forehead. Really, I haven't been idle all the afternoon, Lewis, but a man wasn't meant to work on a day like this. It harks back to Eden, to the untroubled days before the fall. So I coiled myself up among the ferns to daydream a bit. You don't feel very well yet, I'm afraid, said Lewis anxiously. Mark smiled in a tolerant fashion. That's mother's story. How you women do like to coddle folks. Grip pulls a fellow down a bit, I suppose, but I'm all right. Look at this muscle, and this. No one valid's arm that. Madam, has mother been telling you that she's badgered me into going to Queen's Leia for a week? I don't want to go. Don't need to go. But these mothers must be humoured. I'm glad you came back for the crottle. It just needed you to round out the day. His pleasure in her coming was frank and open. Possibly a little too frank and open. Lewis, with her steady gift of seeing things as they are, recognised this. She knew quite well that, as yet, Mark's feeling for her did not possess the depth and intensity of hers for him, but she hoped that in time it would, and she calmly acknowledged this hope to herself, with no false shame over it. For the rest, she hid her love from all eyes but her own, and waited in her womanly armour for the man she loved to find it out when his own led him to seek it. Mark clove the fibres of a tough old beach stump with his axe, and left it there while he took the basket and set off in search of the lichens Aunt Nan required. By the time they found enough of them, the sun was setting and all the woods were brimmed with fleeting ruby splendour. They had come in their wanderings to the fairies pool, as they had named it in the good old days when a belief in fairies was a vital article in their creed. It was a mysterious saucer of water, rimmed around with ferns and shadowed with slender young birches. It was fed by no visible spring, and yet never dried up. Do you remember the time we discovered this? asked Mark. Talk about ocean, surprise, wonder, delight, silent upon a peak in Dorian. I shall never forget your eyes, Lewis, when we pushed through that birch coppice there, and came so suddenly upon it. I felt all the rapture of a great discoverer, said Lewis, bending down to dabble her fingers in the unruffled water. Do you remember the day we quarrelled, and you pushed me right into the pool? And then fished you out in agonies of remorse? How wet you were, Lewis, and how angry, so angry that you would not speak to me, although you had to let me help you up on the fence out there in the sun to dry. Oh, I shall never forget it! cried Lewis, with a ringing peel of laughter. I can see myself, a forlorn dripping might on that great high fence, trying to be dignified and feeling so furious and drabbled, and you sprawled out in the grass below me, looking up imploringly and trying your best to appease me. You even offered to loan me your jackknife for a whole day if I would speak. And you wouldn't. And when you did get a little dry, you wouldn't let me help you down, but slid off yourself, and stalked home with that brown head of yours in the air, myself following behind like a whipped dog. And I wouldn't stop at your place, although Aunt Nan came out to us with slices of bread and plum jam, but I went straight home to the valley, where I cried and would not be comforted, because I hadn't forgiven you. Your face, as you stood peering after me from the fur lane when I had forbidden you to follow me any further, haunted me tragically all night. And the next morning I was down in the valley before you were up, waiting for you at your gate, with a jackknife and a brand new nicely peeled willow switch, and a blown crow's egg you had always coveted, and when you came out, you poked all your treasures over the gate, and the eggshell fell down and was broken. And I said, There now, clumsy, and heaven opened before me, and I kissed you through the bars of the gate, didn't I? There was a teasing twinkle in Mark's dark blue eyes. Lewis flushed rosely and turned from the pool. We were delightful little idiots, Mark. Come, it is time to be going back. It will soon be dark. They wandered homeward through the lanes, swinging the basket between them. At the kitchen door they found Aunt Nan straining her eyes in the fading light over the last pages of the magazine's story. Her cheeks were flushed with the excitement of it. She wanted Lewis to come in, but the latter refused. She must go home, she said, and Mark insisted on going with her, although she protested. I'm too big to be turned back at the furlough now, he said masterfully. Come along, Lewis, no worries. He topped her hand in his arm and marched her off, Aunt Nan looking after them, with an inward delight that almost seemed to irradiate her physically in the gloom. They walked slowly to make the most of the beautiful evening. At the gate of the Wilbur homestead in the valley, they lingered to watch the moon rise over the shore middows. Mrs. Wilbur, a vulgar, good-natured soul, so unlike Lewis as to make the relationship between them seem like a huge joke on nature's part, watched them from the sitting-room window, turning up a corner of the white blind with a stealthy hand. In her own way she was as anxious for the match as Aunt Nan herself, and also took her own ways of furthering it, ways that sometimes seemed in a fair way to defeat their object for Lewis. Burning with stifled shame over her mother's effusiveness, always retreated further into herself on such occasions, and opposed to Mark's frank advances, a seemingly impossible wall of reserve and aloofness. Something of this had at last filtered into Mrs. Wilbur's obtuse brain, and she forbore to go to the door and call Lewis to bring Mark in as she would have dearly liked to do. The two at the gate were not talking in any lever-like fashion as she supposed and hoped. In truth they were talking but little in any fashion, each being content to linger speechless in the glamour of the night. Once a girl went loiteringly by, half pausing at the gate as if ready to join them with any encouragement there too. Mark quickly interposed himself between her and Lewis, giving her only the briefest of greetings, and after a moment's hesitation the girl tossed her head and walked on. Lewis looked after her pityingly even. While she glowed with her pleasure in his care of herself, she knew why he did not wish her to talk with Alicia Craig. His standard of womanly purity was so high that even a shadow on a girl's fair fame bared her in his estimation from his womankind. Sometimes Lewis thought Mark almost too severe in his opinions and the unflinching way he carried them out. Don't you think you are a little hard on Alicia, Mark? She asked gently. No, he said bluntly. She's got herself talked about, and I won't have her talking to you, Lewis. Perhaps I am hard, but I can't help it. I don't want you even to speak to any woman whose whole life isn't as clear as day. She is a blot on womanhood. Mother has grained that into me from babyhood. There's nothing on earth I reverence more than a good woman. Nothing I despise more than a bad one. After a brief silence Lewis said she must go in and passed through the gate. Across it she held her hand to Mark. Good night, Mark. I hope you'll have a pleasant visit in Queenslia. I'm glad you're going to stay with the mother while I'm away. He said, taking her hand. You'll be such company for her, and the dear woman will be delighted to have somebody to discuss all her deep thoughts with. She's often known so, I think. Lewis lay awake late that night, thinking of many things and tasting her happiness. Mark, too, kept his vigil on the hill, thinking of Lewis, her strong sweet womanliness, and her satisfying comradeship. He wondered if she cared for him. He thought not, being man-blind, but he resolved that he would make her care in time. He fell asleep at last with the thought of her hovering over him like a benediction. In the morning he went to Queenslia. End of Section 26. Section 27 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. Uncollected Short Stories of L. M. Montgomery. By Lucy Maud Montgomery. The Bittiness in the Cup. Part II Queenslia is a quaint old town, harking back to early colonial days, and wrapped in its ancient atmosphere as some fine old dame in garments fashioned like those of her youth. Here and there it sprouts out into modernity, but at its heart it is still unspoilt and is full of curious relics and gert about with various legends of the past. Once it was a mere frontier station on the fringe of the wilderness, and those were the days when Indians made life interesting for the settlers. Then it grew to be a bone of contention between British and French, being occupied now by the one and now by the other, emerging from each occupation with some fresh scar of battling nations branded on it. It has in its park a martelotower, autographed all over by tourists, a dismantled old French fort on the hills beyond the town, and several antiquated cannon in its public square. It has other historic spots also, which may be hunted out by the curious, and none is so quaint and delightful as the old St. Paul's Cemetery at the very core of the town, with streets of fashionable residences on two sides, the courthouse on the third, and the opera house on the fourth. Every citizen of Queensland feels a thrill of possessive pride in the old cemetery, for if he is of any pretensions at all, he has an ancestor buried there with a queer, crooked brown slab at his head, or else sprawled protectively over the grave on which all the main facts of his history are recorded. The graveyard is very full and very bowery, for it is surrounded and intersected by rows of willows in chestnuts beneath which the old sleepers must lie very dreamlessly, for ever crooned to by the winds and leaves over them. Mark knew Queensland better than most of those who lived in it, for he had explored it very thoroughly in the two years he had spent at its academy. He was well acquainted among its people, and might reasonably expect a pleasant social time during his visit when his old friends should have found out that he was in town. He put up at a quiet hotel a block away from the cemetery, and spent the first day strolling about the quaint streets of the old town. At night he was rather at a loss for what to do with himself. Then, catching sight of a huge poster on the building opposite his hotel, he decided that he would go to the opera house. A travelling company was filling a three weeks engagement in Queensland. It was only a third-rate one, but Mark did not know this, being very unsophisticated in regard to theatrical affairs. He had never seen a play or opera in his life, Queensland not having possessed an opera house in his time. He bought his ticket and went to his seat in the parquet, where he amused himself watching the house through the opera glasses he had borrowed from an acquaintance at the hotel. The house was full for it was the first night the new company had played. There was a fair sprinkling of women in evening dress, with jewels glittering on their white necks and fluffy swans-downs slipping from their gleaming shoulders, and Mark, who was a beauty worshipper like his mother, albeit quite unconscious of it, feasted his eyes on their loveliness. There was a stir and rustle all over the building, an atmosphere of mingled perfumes, a murmur of voices and low laughter. Once he thought of Lewis Wilbur, but the idea of her had nothing in common with the scene around him, and he put it away from him with an undefined feeling of preserving something sacred from contamination. The curtain went up, and the stage was filled with cross-girls. Mark did not fancy their appearance greatly. He thought them loud and tawdry, and even his untrained eye could see that their makeup was atrocious, but he liked their singing and dancing, which was really very good for such a company. Afterwards, when Beatrice Lyle came on, he forgot about them, and about everybody else. She came forward to the footlights amid rounds of applause, for she had been in Queensland before, and was popular with theatre-goers, more it might be for her childish prettiness and coquettish charm of manner than for her talent, though she acted respectably and sang well. Mark Berry caught his breath at sight of her. Something swept into his heart and brain that changed life for him in the twinkling of an eye, although at the time he was conscious of nothing, save a wild, sweet inrush of undreamed of emotion and deeps that stirred at the sight of Beatrice Lyle's face as they had stirred at nothing in life before. She looked so beautiful, so innocent, so appealing. Her lovely face was as tender-lipped and expressive as a child's. Her eyes were dark and soft, and it might be added, very well managed, although Mark knew nothing of that. He saw and heard no more of the opera than her part. The ballet sang and danced and kicked, the comedians sprinkled jokes and local hits lavishly, the handsome tenor warbled and rolled his eyes, all in vain as far as Mark Berry was concerned. To him there was only one person on the stage, the girl with the child's face and the great laughter brimmed eyes. Newspaper critics went to their offices after the opera and wrote that Beatrice Lyle was in excellent form that night. This meant that her part in the opera suited her, and that she was feeling in a mood to do it justice. She had some talent, although nothing of genius, and a personality that went far to enhance it. She sang and sparkled through the four acts with an enchanting vein of sadness underlying every look and gesture, and her audience cheered her to the echo. Mark alone sat silent and tense. When the curtain fell on the last act, he breathed heavily once or twice, like a man newly aroused from sleep, and went out with unseeing eyes, staring over the heads of the crowd. At the door the man who had loaned him the opera glasses joined him. What did you think of Lyle? He asked carelessly, as they went down the street. Clever little monkey, isn't she? She's the salvation of that company. They would play to empty seats without her. She always takes well in Queensland. She's worth looking at, and her voice will do. Mark flinched. This man's light comment was sacrilege. It was as if Cle reviled divinity. He could not sleep that night, but tossed restlessly. Once he thought of Louise Wilbur. She seemed to him now as a tale that is told. He could not believe that it was so brief a space of time since he had stood in the Ruther Glen moonlight with her, and wondered if she cared for him. He believed now that she did not, and he was glad. The next day he was restless and unhappy. He did not care to hunt out old friends. His one wish was to kill time in some speedy way until night came, when he might expect to see her again. In the afternoon he went to the old Saint Paul graveyard. It had been his favourite haunt in his academy years when a passion for solitude came over him, and he went to it now because he thought he would be alone there, and in its green unworldliness he might think and dream of her undisturbed. On entering it he was vexed to see a woman sitting on a slab at the further end, but the great solemn place was big enough for both, and he turned away to a remote corner, where a seventeen-year-old middy who was wounded to the death in a sea-fight over a hundred years ago was buried. There was no one else in the graveyard, and so thick were the willows around its railing that even the murmur of the streets beyond was dulled. He could think of her here, could give himself up to dreaming about her. By the middy's lichened slab he found a woman's chattelain purse, a small dainty affair of steel beads lying amid the long grasses. There was nothing in it save some small coins and a broken pearl-pin. As he searched it for some mark of ownership he became aware that the woman at the other end of the cemetery was walking among the graves, looking about her, searchingly. No doubt this pretty trifle was hers, and she had just discovered its loss. He went quickly down the long leafy arcade towards her. At the sound of his coming she turned and looked up expectantly. He stood before her, mute and worshipful, forgetting all else in his delight and surprise. It was she, his sweet lady, yet not the Beatrice Lyle of the Footlights, not the flushed radiant creature half spirit half flame he had last seen her. This girl was small and slender, like a woodflower, in her soft trailing grey dress. Beneath the shadow of her large hat her face was white and spiritual. The eyes he had thought dark were limpid grey with dilating startled pupils. The soft rings of her golden hair clung about her face, and her mouth was curved as sweetly as a baby's, with a wistful droop at its corners. How beautiful and tired she looked, with pathetic purple shadows under those lovely wide open eyes! It did not seem strange that he should meet her here in this fashion. It would only have seemed strange now if they had not met. The nearest moment elapsed before she spoke, yet to Mark it seemed as if he had lived through a lifetime of emotion in that space. She exclaimed in a bell-like voice, You have found my purse, I am so glad, I feared that I had lost it. She held out her hand, and Mark gave it to her in silence. He had never been awkward or abashed in a woman's presence before. Now he could not find a word to say. His face, however, had he but known it, was expressive enough to atone for lack of words. Beatrice Lyle dropped her eyes to hide the amused comprehension in them. She knew quite well what that blush and hesitation meant. She had seen that same look of admiration on many men's faces before. But there was something else in Mark's to which she was not accustomed. Reverence mingled with the passion of his eyes as if he looked at something holy, an attenderness of which he knew little, spoke to her from his rapt gaze. This is a lovely old spot, is it not? She said, as she fastened the purse to her belt. I come here every afternoon when there is no matinee. It rests me. I saw you at the opera house last night, said Mark, irrelevantly. She smiled openly this time. He was really delightful. This handsome boy to whom concealment seemed a thing impossible and alien. Her smile was elfin and bewitching. In Mark's eyes it humanised her. She was now a girl to be wooed and won, as other girls. Yes, she said, questioningly. Oh no, I don't think you did. You saw the Beatrice Lyle of the Footlights. I am not she. I am quite different. Oh, I am not the same person at all. I have two existences, you see. This is the one I like best. No doubt she meant it at the moment, or thought she did. And, moreover, she had an instinct for saying the right thing to the right person. The truth was that, before Mark's appearance, she had been feeling bored and had just made up her mind to go when she missed her purse. Now she thought it might be worthwhile to linger a little. If you belong to Queens, Lyle, you must know this old graveyard well. She went on. I wish you would tell me about it. There must be some interesting graves here. Explain them to me. Tell me their stories. Come. She made a pretty gesture, half invitation, half command, and moved away over the grasses. Mark followed, wondering if his good fortune could be real. I'm not a Queens, Lyle man, he said. But I've been here often, and I know the place pretty well. I have always loved it. I'm glad you like it too. Together they rambled up and down the leafy arcades, pausing frequently to look at some especially notable monument. Beatrice read the epitaphs aloud in her silver voice, and sometimes they laughed softly over a quaint phrase or expression. She liked the soldier's grave's best, she said, and knelt by the little midi's grave and touched her lips to the mossy stone. But by the grave of a lad scarce out of boyhood, who had fallen in a duel of three generations ago, fought on the square of ground at the north side of the cemetery, over the smiles of a fair lady of old Queenslia, she dropped the red rose from her belt. For love's sweet sake, she quoted softly, he died for love, you know, so I'll give him my red, red rose. When she grew tired, they sat down on a freestone slab, beneath which an awful time pompous dignitary of state slept humbly. She told Mark much about herself, guessing that that was what he most wanted to hear. She hated the stage, she said. The life was hard, and sometimes she was so tired. Her time with the company she was now in expired with the Queenslia engagement, and she did not intend to remain longer with them. I don't like them, she said, patting the tips of her grey-loved fingers together with the gesture he was to learn was a favourite one with her. And they don't like me either. Of course, the star is not often loved. One has to pay a penalty for the privilege of twinkling, you see. No, I shall try for another company. There is nothing else for me to do. But it is very hard. There is no glamour on the wrong side of the footlights. When they left the graveyard, she bade Mark goodbye at the gate. But, but, you are going to let me see you again? He asked imploringly. She looked at him with an expression he thought adorable. It was quizzical and sweet and provoking. She patted her fingertips together. Why, anyone can see me, who wishes? She said with laughter, threading her tones. You must have your ticket, of course. They won't let you in without. You know I don't mean that, he said. And besides, didn't you tell me back there that the Beatrice Lyle of the Footlights wasn't you? It is you I want to see. She laughed again. So he could be apt enough, too. This broad-shouldered young fellow, when he found his tongue. She liked him. She threw a relenting glance back into the green domains behind them. I am in St. Paul every day at this hour, she said. It is a large place, and I don't suppose they would let me lock the gates on other people, even if I wanted to. And, if they did, you could scramble over the railing, I think. She was gone then. And Mark, his face alight, went back to the cemetery and to the grave with the red rose. He would not have disturbed it for words, but he knelt down and kissed it. And one full red petal that had fallen from its overripe heart he carried away with him, fast shut in his hand like a precious treasure. He went to a florist and ordered yellow roses to be sent to Miss Lyle at her hotel. She had told him she loved yellow roses. She wore them on the stage that night. And Mark felt that his day's cup of happiness was full. After that, they met every afternoon in Old St. Paul's. Mark lived only for those hours. His friends in Queensland saw little of him. Every meeting deepened his passionate love for her. She was never in the same mood twice. One day she would be a very sprite of mischief. Mocking and elusive, who laughed at him until his heart ate for love of her. Another day would find her as frank and gay as a child, bubbling over with careless enjoyment and pleased outspokenly with everything around her. Again she would be wistful and quiet, given over to dreamy words and ways and pathetic little looks, a mood in keeping with the solitude of their tristing place. Only at such times did Mark talk to her of Ruthaglen and his mother. One day she seemed unusually quiet and shadowy, as they sat side by side on the old dignitary's tombstone. Her face was very white, and the violet shadows under her eyes were deeper than usual. She was so tired, she said, with a little break in her voice. Sometimes it seemed to her that she would never get rested again. I envy the sleepers in this silent land, she said wistfully. I would like to lie down here and sleep further. Sometimes I am afraid I shall break down. All together, and if I do, she paused and shivered a little. The life you live is too hard for you, said Mark, hotly. You are not fit it for it. You are an utter alien to it. You should be queen in a home of your own, safely shut up in the heart of some man who will love and cherish you to the end of life. Beatrice smiled sadly. There is no such man, she said. At least in my profession we don't meet such men. There is one, said Mark, steadily. He put his arm about her, reverently. One Beatrice, who loves you with all his heart and soul, will you come to me, dearest? I am not worthy of you, I know. But if love can make up, oh, let me take you away forever from this false life of yours. I can make you happy if you will come, dear. She let him draw her head down on his shoulder. She had been waiting to hear the words he had just spoken. Perhaps she loved him somewhat, too, as much as her tired, shop-worn little heart could love. She turned her flower-like face up to him. Kiss me, dear, she murmured softly. To Mark, as his lips met hers, all heaven seemed opened. She was his, his own, forever, his pure, sweet lady of the sorrowful eyes, eyes that it must henceforth be his dear privilege to brim with the light of happiness. His voice was a mere husky whisper, as he said. Beatrice, Beatrice, I thank God for you. To Aunt Nan and Lewis, the fortnight of Mark's absence had slipped by pleasantly. They were glad he was staying so long. They told each other with harmless hypocrisy. Aunt Nan thought he might have written, but she supposed he was rollicking about Queen's Leia with his old friends, and didn't realise how the days were passing. For the rest, she and Lewis gave themselves over to having a good time, and were like two school-children together. In the morning Lewis went down to the valley to her school, but in the evening she came back, and the two women talked and read together, or sat in the garden and dreamed, the one the dreams of age, the other of youth. Lewis had a sacred sense of happiness in being in Mark's home. It seemed to bring them nearer together in a sweet, inexplicable way. In every room there was something that spoke of him. She liked to loiter in the little place he called his den, an odd, cornery little room close under the eaves, looking out into the emerald gloom of the birch wood, where he kept his books and pictures and his souvenirs of boyhood and college life. In the cabinet of geological specimens she found the lost fairy-glass. Afterwards she could never think of the hours she had spent there without bitterness. She knew then how they must have passed with him. There is nothing in some sorrows so terrible as their power of staining the leaves of our past. They will not leave us even our memories untainted. When Mark came back to Rutherglen, he felt as if he were returning to a life lived centuries ago. Yet he came back to it gladly, for he and Beatrice had made their plans, and the Rutherglen life was henceforth to be lived with her. Everything in his past seemed remote and far away, for the spell of his enchantment was still strong upon him. Louis Wilbur was a memory, a woman he had known in that other life. This attitude coloured his greeting of her, although he was unconscious of it. Louis, with her quick intuition, felt it. He had walked in on them unexpectedly, in the dreamy stillness of the afternoon, and she had coloured over cheek and brow at the suddenness of it. He did not even notice her blush and reserve. He was absent-minded, and Aunt Nan rallied him on it. She said she supposed he would find them very dull and contrived after Queensland, but he would get used to that in time. The sweet old soul was overjoyed to have him home again, and fussed about him as over a petted child. Louis went home with a heart ache for which, her native sense of humour coming to her aid, she ridiculed herself. She had not expected him to catch her in his arms and kiss her as he had his mother had she. What was the matter then? This too much romantic daydreaming. I must be more common sensible in future, she said, trying to smile at herself. In school the next morning one of her pupils, who lived on the other side of the Berry Hill, gave her a crumbled envelope addressed in a faltering angular hand. It was from Aunt Nan, and was written with an unfaigned disregard of capitals and punctuation. Indeed, the spelling itself was not impeachable. Aunt Nan was not conscious of these defects when she had written shakily on the cheap, blue-lined sheet of paper. Dear Louis, I want you to come up the hill after school. Please, you must be sure to come. Something dreadful has happened. I don't know what to do, Louis. Aunt Nan, P.S., don't forget to come. There were some spots on the page that looked like tear-blisters. The note unsettled Louis for the day. Her thoughts instantly flew to Mark. It must be something connected with him. Was he really ill? That languor before the Queenslander visit. Was it the indication of some serious trouble and not the mere effect of his attack of influenza? Perhaps he had found that out in Queenslander. That would account for his abstraction of the night before. The day seemed to her as if it would never end. Her work perplexed and worried her. When school was out, at last she hurried up the hill. When she went in, Aunt Nan was sitting by the low-west window of the kitchen. Her erect little body was bowed and limp. Her delicate old face discoloured, and her eyes swollen. Oh, Aunt Nan, what is it? exclaimed Louis, taking her hands. Is, is Mark ill? No. Aunt Nan's voice was hoarse and gasping from her sobbing. No, it isn't that. I had to be the one to tell you, Louis. I couldn't let anyone else do it. Oh, Louis, Mark is going to be married to a girl he met in Queenslander, an actress. He told me all about it last night. He, he was dreadful hurt because I told him I'd never forgive him or her. It's just killed me. Oh, Louis, what am I to do? Louis, with her chestnut head against the frame of the window, on whose broad sill she had seated herself, looked out through the birches to the curve of the lane. It was less than three minutes since she had come around that curve, a happy hearted girl, with only a vague fear to trouble her. She wondered dimly if all this wreck and ruin and desolation of life could have come in three minutes. Her face was white to the lips, but no expression appeared on it. It was as calm as a marble mask. She lifted the spray of golden rod she had gathered on her uphill road, and tapped her chin with it as if her thoughts were far away. Her immobility angered Aunt Nan, whose nerves were wrought up to an irritable pitch by her suffering. You don't seem to mind it much, Louis, she said resentfully. I thought you'd feel it worse than I did, after Mark going with you for nearly a year and everybody saying, Aunt Nan! Louis's eyes flashed around to meet the older women's. For only a moment they looked at each other so. But Aunt Nan never, then or at any other time, said another word on this aspect of the affair to Louis. She had seen straight down into another woman's tortured soul, sounding such deeps of agony in her gaze as she realised it should be sacred from such profanation. Oh, I'm sorry I said that, Louis. She faltered feebly, pressing her hands together. Don't mind me, I'm just half crazy, that's all. I could turn on my best friend like a savage beast. My boy has been stolen from me. Oh, I hate her, Louis, I hate her. Oh, you don't know her, yet? Said Louis, trying amid all the flood of misery that was rising in her own soul to comfort Mark's mother. She may be very sweet and lovable. She must be, or Mark wouldn't have loved her. I don't care how sweet she is, said Aunt Nan fiercely. I told Mark so. He painted her as an angel. Louis, she's an actress. Many good and lovely women are actresses, said Louis Dully. Oh, I know that. I'm not so narrow and begotten as to think that a woman can't be good just because she acts for her living. It ain't that. It's just because she must be different from us. She can't have anything in common with us. You know she can't. What will our lives here be to her after she gets tired of it? If I thought it was best for Mark, I'd try to reconcile myself to it, even if it broke my heart. But it isn't. It isn't. Mark'll live to be sorry for it, and he'll bring her here, here where I've dreamed of seeing—Louis, what can I do? She worked again bitterly, with the terrible helpless tears of old age. Louis set her own agony resolutely under her feet, understanding that she must help Aunt Nan to drain her cup of bitterness before she might have even the rueful comfort of putting her own to her lips. All the sweet strength of her womanhood rose to her aid. She gathered Aunt Nan's hands tenderly in her own firm grasp, and said gently, Just what you told me you would do when Mark brought his wife home to you, open your heart to her, and welcome her as a daughter. Oh, Louis, when I said that, I meant—I didn't mean— You meant just what you said, dear, said Louis hurriedly. Mark is going to bring her home now. Give her the welcome he looks to you for. It will be best. Indeed, it will. And everything may be much better than you expect. You may learn to love her very dearly. I don't want to love her. That's the trouble. I suppose I am a wicked old woman. When you were here that afternoon before Mark went to Queen's Lear, do you mind my telling you that I had lived long enough to learn how to keep my temper and be tolerant of other folks's whimsies? Well, it has all fallen from me now, just when I most need it. I'm in a temper to my heart's core, Louis, and I feel as bitter and resentful as I ever did in my life. Oh, I know you're right, and I'll have to come to it, but I can't until the bitterness wears away a little. Indeed, I can't. When is Mark to be married? asked Louis after a silence. She could have laughed scornfully to hear herself asking the question so calmly. Aunt Nan made a restless movement. I don't know quite. This girl, Beatrice Lyall, her name is. Well, her engagement with the company she's in is out in a week's time, and Mark wants me to invite her here for a visit. She hasn't got any folks of her own, and she's tired and run down, Mark says. Then, when she has got well rested, they're to be married. Oh, and to think I almost made Mark go to Queen's Lear. You're not going yet, Louis? I must. I have some schoolwork to do this evening, and mother may need me. She was afraid that Mark might come in, being unaware that he was away at the shore. Besides, she knew she must soon be alone or her pain would break bounds in spite of her pride. Perhaps Aunt Nan understood this, for she made no further protest. She followed Louis to the door with a working face. You've helped me some, Louis. I'll try to do as you say. But, oh, things can never be the same again. She stood on the sun-hot door-stone, amid the undaunted cohorts of the Holy Hawks, and watched Louis out of sight down the lane. The girl knew it, and walked erectly with unfaltering step. She's proud, muttered Aunt Nan. Too proud to let on she cares, even to me. But if ever I saw a broken heart looking out of a woman's eyes, then it looked out of Louis Wilbur's tonight. I'm glad that I told her not someone else. It came easier from me. Her pride will help her through some. And she's young. But I'm old, old, and there's nothing left in life. Oh, Mark, Mark! She sat down on the doorstep and wept bitterly. Mark found her there, huddled up and spent when he came home. His face darkened with pain, but he lifted her up very tenderly and carried her in. She put up her hand and touched his brown cheek softly. Mark, I—I oughtened to have said those things to you last night about your girl, nor about Louis, neither. You can ask Miss Lyle to visit here, and I'll try to do my part. Mark kissed her. Thank you, little mother. I felt sure you would come to see it so. You are sure to love Beatrice when you know her. As for Louis Wilbur, she never cared for me. I've always known that, even when I was inclined to hope she might learn to in time. Aunt Nan's dark eyes looked up at him through the dusk, as she wondered how men could be so blind. The evening before she had wildly reproached him with trifling with Louis Wilbur, making her love him and then casting her aside. She repented this now. She felt that it was unjust to Louis, and she hastened to unsay her words. No, Louis doesn't care. I thought maybe she did, but I was mistaken. I've just been an old fool believing things because I wanted to believe them. She was here to-night, and when I told her I could see she didn't care a bit. She was as unconcerned and interested as you please. Aunt Nan uttered this lie calmly. It did not disturb her conscience in the least. On the contrary, she exalted in it. She felt that she owed it to Louis. Mark ought to have been glad to hear her statement. He told himself that he was, but his voice was hardly cordial as he answered. I'm glad of that, mother. I was quite sure it couldn't be as you feared. Louis is a grand woman, and I prize her friendship very dearly. But we couldn't fall in love with each other just because you wanted to, you see. I shall look to Louis to be one of Beatrice's best friends. You'll look for what you'll never see then. Aunt Nan muttered under her breath as he went out. There's a limit to anybody's goodness, even Louis Wilbur's. She'll never like your wife, and she won't pretend to. She's got that much human nature in her, at least. But I'm glad I lied to Mark about her not caring. Yes, I am. If I was in her place, I'd want the same done for me. She began to cry again, but not wishing Mark to see her. She crept forlornly off to her room. I've lost everything. She moaned to herself in the darkness that was fragrant with the mint of perfume blowing in through the open window. Even my home will never be the same to me again with that interloper here. Oh, I oughtn't to call her that, Mark's girl. It's wicked and heartless of me. Louis Wilbur had gone home through the ripened splendour of the afternoon, her heart sick within her. She would not go by the lane through the furs, although it was much shorter. She could not have borne that. It was the way she and Mark had always taken. She chose the main road instead, although with the instinct of a hunted animal, she shrank from the possible meetings with neighbours. She felt as if the whole story of her wasted love and smarting pride must be blazoned on her face for every curious eye to read. She thought of the days to come with shrinking. How could she live through them? When she reached home, she hurried to her own room, thankful to get to it unseen. She locked the door and threw herself face downward on the bed, envying aunt Nan her relief of tears. Louis could not cry, her eyes burned, her throat throbbed chokingly, but no tears came. This is the bitterness in my cup, she thought dully. It has come very soon. Oh, Mark! She put her hand