Further Chronicles of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery ~ Full Audiobook
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FURTHER CHRONICLES OF AVONLEE by Lucy Maud Montgomery CHAPTER I. ANT CYNTHIA'S PERSIAN CAT, PART I. Max always blesses the animal when it is referred to, and I don't deny that things have worked together for good, after all. But when I think of the anguish of mind which Ismay and I underwent on account of that abominable cat, it is not a blessing that arises uppermost in my thoughts.

i never was fond of cats although i admit they are well enough in their place and i can worry along comfortably with a nice matronly old tabby who can take care of herself and be of some use in the world as for ismay she hates cats and always did but aunt cynthia who adored them never could bring herself to understand that any one could possibly dislike them she firmly believed that ismay and i really liked cats deep down in our hearts

but that owing to some perverse twist in our moral natures we would not own up to it but wilfully persisted in declaring we didn't of all cats i loathed that white persian cat of aunt cynthia's and indeed as we always suspected and finally proved aunt herself looked upon the creature with more pride than affection she would have taken ten times the comfort in a good common puss that she did in that spoiled beauty

but a persian cat with a recorded pedigree and a marked value of one hundred dollars tickled aunt cynthia's pride in possession to such an extent that she deluded herself into believing that the animal was really the apple of her eye it had been presented to her when a kitten by a missionary nephew who had brought it all the way home from persia and for the next three years aunt cynthia's household existed to wait on that cat hand and foot

it was snow-white with a bluish-gray spot on the tip of its tail and it was blue-eyed and deaf and delicate aunt cynthia was always worrying lest it should take cold and die ismay and i used to wish that it would we were so tired of hearing about it and its whims but we did not say so to aunt cynthia she would probably never have spoken to us again and there was no wisdom in offending aunt cynthia

when you have an unencumbered aunt with a fat bank account it is just as well to keep on good terms with her if you can besides we really liked aunt cynthia very much at times aunt cynthia was one of those rather exasperating people who nag and find fault with you until you think you are justified in hating them and who then turn around and do something so really nice and kind for you that you feel as if you were compelled to love them dutifully instead

so we listened meekly when she discoursed on fatima the cat's name was fatima and if it was wicked of us to wish for the latter's decease we were well punished for it later on one day in november aunt cynthia came sailing out to spencervale she really came in a phaeton drawn by a fat gray pony but somehow aunt cynthia always gave you the impression of a full-rigged ship coming gallantly on before a favorable wind

that was a jonaday for us all through everything had gone wrong ismay had spilled grease on her velvet coat and the fit of the new blouse i was making was hopelessly askew and the kitchen stove smoked and the bread was sour

Moreover, Hulda Jane Keeson, our tried and trusty old family nurse and cook and general boss, had what she called the reallogy in her shoulder, and, though Hulda Jane is as good an old creature as ever lived, when she has the reallogy other people who are in the house want to get out of it, and if they can't, feel about as comfortable as St. Lawrence on his gridiron.

and on top of this came aunt cynthia's call and request dear me said aunt cynthia sniffing don't i smell smoke you girls must manage your range very badly mine never smokes but it is no more than one might expect when two girls try to keep house without a man about the place we get along very well without a man about the place i said loftily max hadn't been in for four whole days and though nobody wanted to see him particularly i couldn't help wondering why

"'Men are nuisances.' "'I dare say you would like to pretend you think so,' said Aunt Cynthia, aggravatingly. "'But no woman ever does really think so, you know. I imagine that pretty Anne Shirley, who was visiting Ella Kimball, doesn't. I saw her and Dr. Irving out walking this afternoon, looking very well satisfied with themselves. If you dilly-dally much longer, Sue, you will let Max slip through your fingers yet.'

That was a tactful thing to say to me, who had refused Max serving so often that I had lost count. I was furious, and so I smiled most sweetly on my maddening aunt. Dear aunt, how amusing of you, I said smoothly. You talk as if I wanted Max. So you do, said Aunt Cynthia. If so, why should I have refused him time and again, I asked smilingly. Right well Aunt Cynthia knew I had. Max always told her.

"'Goodness alone knows why,' said Aunt Cynthia. "'But you may do it once too often and find yourself taken at your word. There is something very fascinating about this Anne Shirley.' "'Indeed there is,' I assented. "'She has the loveliest eyes I ever saw. She would be just the wife for Max, and I hope he will marry her.' "'Hm,' said Aunt Cynthia. "'Well, I wouldn't entice you into telling any more fibs. And I didn't drive out here to-day in all this wind to talk sense into you concerning Max.'

"'I'm going to Halifax for two months, and I want you to take charge of Fatima for me while I'm away.' "'Fatima!' I exclaimed. "'Yes. I don't dare to trust her with the servants. Mind you, always warm her milk before you give it her, and don't on any account let her run out of doors.' I looked at Ismay, and Ismay looked at me. We knew we were in for it. To refuse would mortally offend Aunt Cynthia.'

besides if i betrayed any unwillingness aunt cynthia would be sure to put it down to grumpiness over what she had said about max and rub it in for years but i ventured to ask what if anything happens to her while you are away it is to prevent that that i am leaving her with you said aunt cynthia you simply must not let anything happen to her it will do you good to have a little responsibility and you will have a chance to find out what an adorable creature fatima really is

"'Well, that is all settled. I'll send Fatima out to-morrow.' "'You can take care of that horrid Fatima beast yourself,' said Ismay when the door closed behind Aunt Cynthia. "'I won't touch her with yardstick. You had no business to say we'd take her.' "'Did I say we would take her?' I demanded crossly. "'Aunt Cynthia took our consent for granted. And you know as well as I do we couldn't have refused. So what is the use of being grouchy?'

"'If anything happens to her, Aunt Cynthia will hold us responsible,' said Ismay darkly. "'Do you think Aunt Shirley is really engaged to Gilbert Blythe?' I asked curiously. "'I've heard that she was,' said Ismay absently. "'Does she eat anything but milk? Will it do to give her mice?' "'Oh, I guess so. But do you think Max has really fallen in love with her?' "'I dare say. What a relief it will be for you if he has.'

oh of course i said frostily anne shirley or anne anybody else is perfectly welcome to max if she wants him i certainly do not ismay meade if that stove doesn't stop smoking i shall fly into bits this is a detestable day i hate that creature

"'Oh, you shouldn't talk like that when you don't even know her,' protested Ismay. "'Everyone says Anne Shirley is lovely. I was talking about Fatima,' I cried in a rage. "'Oh,' said Ismay. "'Ismay is stupid at times. I thought the way she said oh was inexcusably stupid.' Fatima arrived the next day. Max brought her out in a covered basket lined with padded crimson satin.

max likes cats and aunt cynthia he explained how we were to treat fatima and when ismay had gone out of the room ismay always went out of the room when she knew i particularly wanted her to remain he proposed to me again of course i said no as usual but i was rather pleased max had been proposing to me about every two months for two years sometimes as in this case he went three months and then i always wondered why

i concluded that he could not be really interested in anne shirley and i was relieved i didn't want to marry max but it was pleasant and convenient to have him around and we would miss him dreadfully if any other girl snapped him up he was so useful and always willing to do anything for us nail a shingle on the roof drive us to town put down carpets in short a very present help in all our troubles so i just beamed on him when i said no

Max began counting on his fingers. When he got as far as eight, he shook his head and began over again. What is it? I asked.

"'I'm trying to count up how many times I have proposed to you,' he said. "'But I can't remember whether I asked you to marry me that day we dug up the garden or not. If I did, it makes—' "'No, you didn't,' I interrupted. "'Well, that makes it eleven,' said Max reflectively. "'Pretty near the limit, isn't it? My manly pride will not allow me to propose to the same girl more than twelve times. So the next time will be the last, Sue, darling.' "'Oh,' I said a trifle flatly.

I forgot to resent his calling me darling. I wondered if things wouldn't be rather dull when Max gave up proposing to me. It was the only excitement I had. But of course it would be best, and he couldn't go on at it forever. So, by the way of gracefully dismissing the subject, I asked him what Miss Shirley was like. Very sweet girl, said Max. You know I always admired those gray-eyed girls with that splendid tish and hair. I am dark with brown eyes. Just then I detested Max.

I got up and said that I was going to get some milk for Fatima. I found Ismay in a rage in the kitchen. She had been up in the garret, and a mouse had run across her foot. Mice always get on Ismay's nerves. We need a cat badly enough, she fumed, but not a useless pampered thing like Fatima. That garret is literally swarming with mice. You'll not catch me going up there again.

fatima did not prove such a nuisance as we feared huldah jane liked her and ismay in spite of her declaration that she would have nothing to do with her looked after her comfort scrupulously she even used to get up in the middle of the night and go out and see if fatima was warm max came in every day and being around gave us good advice

then one day about three weeks after aunt cynthia's departure fatima disappeared just simply disappeared as if she had been dissolved into thin air we left her one afternoon curled up asleep in her basket by the fire under huldah jane's eye when we went out to make a call when we came home fatima was gone

huldah jane wept and was as one whom the gods had made mad she vowed that she had never let fatima out of her sight the whole time save once for three minutes when she ran up to the garret for some summer savory when she came back the kitchen door had blown open and fatima had vanished ismay and i were frantic we ran about the garden and through the outhouses and the woods behind the house like wild creatures calling fatima but in vain

then ismay sat down on the front doorsteps and cried she has got out and she'll catch her death of cold and aunt cynthia will never forgive us i'm going for max i declared so i did through the spruce woods and over the field as fast as my feet could carry me thanking my stars that there was a max to go to in such a predicament

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So download the Instacart app, shop flyers, and never miss a deal on one of your favorites. Plus, get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Section 2 of Further Chronicles of Avonlea This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Further Chronicles of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 1 Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat Part 2

max came over and we had another search but without result days passed but we did not find fatima i would certainly have gone crazy had it not been for max he was worth his weight in gold during the awful week that followed

we did not dare advertise lest aunt cynthia should see it but we inquired far and wide for a white persian cat with a blue spot on its tail and offered a reward for it but nobody had seen it although people kept coming to the house night and day with every kind of cat in a basket wanting to know if it was the one we had lost we shall never see fatima again i said hopelessly to max and ismay one afternoon

i had just turned away an old woman with a big yellow tommy which she insisted must be ours cause it came to our place ma'am a yowling fearful ma'am and it didn't belong to nobody not down grafton way ma'am i'm afraid you won't said max she must have perished from exposure long ere this aunt cynthia will never forgive us said ismay dismally i had a presentiment of trouble the moment that cat came to this house

we had never heard of this presentiment before but ismay is good at having presentiments after things happen what shall we do i demanded helplessly max can't you find some way out of this scrape for us advertise in the charlottetown papers for a white persian cat suggested max some one may have one for sale if so you must buy it and palm it off on your good aunt asphatima she's very short-sighted so it will be quite possible

but fatima has a blue spot on her tail i said you must advertise for a cat with a blue spot on its tail said max it will cost a pretty penny said ismay dolefully fatima was valued at one hundred dollars we must take the money we have been saving for our new furs i said sorrowfully there is no other way out of it

it will cost us a good deal more if we lose aunt cynthia's favor she is quite capable of believing that we have made away with fatima deliberately and with malice aforethought so we advertised max went to town and had the notice inserted in the most important daily we asked any one who had a white persian cat with a blue spot on the tip of its tail to dispose of to communicate with m i care of the enterprise

We really did not have much hope that anything would come of it, so we were surprised and delighted over the letter Max brought home from town four days later. It was a typewritten screed from Halifax, stating that the writer had for sale a white Persian cat, answering to our description. The price was a hundred and ten dollars, and if M.I. cared to go to Halifax and inspect the animal, it would be found at 110 Hollis Street, by inquiring for Persian.

"'Temper your joy, my friends,' said Ismay gloomily. "'The cat may not suit. The blue spot may be too big or too small, or not in the right place. I consistently refuse to believe that any good thing can come out of this deplorable affair. Just at this moment there was a knock at the door, and I hurried out. The postmaster's boy was there with a telegram. I tore it open, glanced at it, and dashed back into the room. "'What is it now?' cried Ismay, beholding my face.'

i held out the telegram it was from aunt cynthia she had wired us to send fatima to halifax by express immediately for the first time max did not seem ready to rush into the breach with a suggestion it was i who spoke first

max i said imploringly you'll see us through this won't you neither ismay nor i can rush off to halifax at once you must go to-morrow morning go right to one hundred and ten holla street and ask for persian if the cat looks enough like fatima buy it and take it to aunt cynthia

if it doesn't but it must you'll go won't you that depends said max i stared at him this was so unlike max you are sending me on a nasty errand he said coolly how do i know that aunt cynthia will be deceived after all even if she be short-sighted buying a cat in a joke is a huge risk and if she should see through the scheme i shall be in a pretty mess

no max i said on the verge of tears of course said max looking meditatively into the fire if i were really one of the family or had any reasonable prospect of being so i would not mind so much

it would be all in the day's work then but as it is ismay got up and went out of the room oh max please i said will you marry me sue demanded max sternly if you will agree i'll go to halifax and beard the lion in his den unflinchingly if necessary i will take a black street cat to aunt cynthia and swear that it is fatima

"'I'll get you out of the scrape. If I have to prove that you never had Fatima, that she is safe in your possession at the present time, and that there never was such an animal as Fatima anyhow. I'll do anything, say anything, but it must be for my future wife.' "'Will nothing else content you?' I said helplessly. "'Nothing.' I thought hard. Of course Max was acting abominably, but—but he really was a dear fellow, and this was the twelfth time, and there was Anne Shirley.'

i knew in my secret soul that life would be a dreadful dismal thing if max were not around somewhere besides i would have married him long ago had not aunt cynthia thrown us so pointedly at each other's heads ever since he came to spencervale very well i said crossly max left for halifax in the morning next day we got a wire saying it was all right the evening of the following day he was back in spencervale ismay and i put him in a chair and glared at him impatiently

Max began to laugh and laughed until he turned blue. "'I am glad it is so amusing,' said Ismay severely. "'If Sue and I could see the joke, it might be more so.' "'Dear little girls, have patience with me,' implored Max. "'If you knew what it cost me to keep a straight face in Halifax, you would forgive me for breaking out now. We forgive you, but for pity's sake, tell us all about it.' "'Well, as soon as I arrived in Halifax, I hurried to 110 Hollis Street.'

"'But see here. Didn't you tell me your aunt's address was 10 Pleasant Street? So it is. "'Tisn't. You look at the address on a telegram next time you get one. She went a week ago to visit another friend who lives at 110 Hollis. "'Max! It's a fact. I rang the bell, and I was just going to ask the maid for Persian when your Aunt Cynthia herself came through the hall and pounced on me.'

"'Max,' she said. "'Have you brought Fatima?' "'No,' I answered, trying to adjust my wits to this new development as she towed me into the library. "'No, I—I just came to Halifax on a little matter of business.' "'Dear me,' said Aunt Cynthia crossly, "'I don't know what those girls mean. I wired them to send Fatima at once, and she has not come, and I am expecting a call every minute from someone who wants to buy her.' "'Oh,' I murmured, mining deeper every minute.'

yes went on your aunt there is an advertisement in the charlottetown enterprise for a persian cat and i answered it fatima is really quite a charge you know and so apt to die and be a dead loss did your aunt mean a pun girls and so although i am considerably attached to her i have decided to part with her by this time i had got my second wind and i promptly decided that a judicious mixture of the truth was the thing to be told

well of all the curious coincidences i exclaimed why miss ridley it was i who advertised for a persian cat on sue's behalf she and ismay have decided that they want a cat like fatima for themselves you should have seen how she beamed she said she knew you always really liked cats only you would never own up to it

We clinched the dicker then and there. I passed her over your hundred and ten dollars. She took the money without turning a hair, and now you are the joint owners of Fatima. Good luck to your bargain. Mean old thing, sniffed Ismay. She meant Aunt Cynthia, and remembering our shabby furs, I didn't disagree with her. But there is no Fatima, I said dubiously. How shall we account for her when Aunt Cynthia comes home?

"'Well, your aunt isn't coming home for a month yet. When she comes you will have to tell her that the cat is lost, but you needn't say when it happened. As for the rest, Fatima is your property now, so Aunt Cynthia can't grumble. But she will have a poorer opinion than ever of your fitness to run a house alone. When Max left I went to the window to watch him down the path. He was really a handsome fellow, and I was proud of him. At the gate he turned to wave me good-bye, and, as he did, he glanced upward.'

"'Even at that distance I saw the look of amazement on his face. "'Then he came, bolting back. "'Ismay, the house is on fire!' I shrieked as I flew to the door. "'Sue!' cried Max. "'I saw Fatima or her ghost at the garret window a moment ago.' "'Nonsense!' I cried. "'But Ismay was already halfway up the stairs and we followed. "'Straight to the garret we rushed. "'There sat Fatima, sleek and complacent, sunning herself in the window.'

Max laughed until the rafters rang. "'She can't have been up here all this time,' I protested, half tearfully. "'We would have heard her meowing.' "'But you didn't,' said Max. "'She would have died of the cold,' declared Ismay. "'But she hasn't,' said Max. "'Or starved,' I cried. "'The place is alive with mice,' said Max. "'No, girls, there is no doubt the cat has been here the whole fortnight. "'She must have followed Hulda Jane up here, unobserved that day.'

it is a wonder you didn't hear her crying if she did cry but perhaps she didn't and of course you sleep downstairs to think you never thought of looking for her here it has cost us over a hundred dollars said ismay with a malevolent glance at the sleek fatima it has cost me more than that i said as i turned to the stairway max held me back for an instant while ismay and fatima patted down do you think it has cost too much sue he whispered

I looked at him sideways. He was really a dear. Niceness fairly exhaled from him. No, I said, but when we are married you will have to take care of Fatima. I won't. Dear Fatima, said Max gratefully.

CHAPTER II. THE MATERIALIZING OF CECIL. PART I. It had never worried me in the least that I wasn't married, although everybody in Avonlea pitied old maids. But it did worry me, and I frankly confess it, that I had never had a chance to be. Even Nancy, my old nurse and servant, knew that, and pitied me for it. Nancy is an old maid herself, but she has had two proposals—one

she did not accept either of them because one was a widower with seven children and the other a very shiftless good-for-nothing fellow but if anybody twitted nancy on her single condition she could point triumphantly to those two as evidence that she could and she would if i had not lived all my life in avonlea i might have had the benefit of the doubt but i had and everybody knew everything about me or thought they did

I had really often wondered why nobody had ever fallen in love with me. I was not at all homely. Indeed, years ago George Adoniram Maybrick had written a poem addressed to me, in which he praised my beauty quite extravagantly. But that didn't mean anything, because George Adoniram wrote poetry to all the good-looking girls, and never went with anybody but Flora King, who was cross-eyed and red-haired, but it proves that it was not my appearance that put me out of the running.

neither was it the fact that i wrote poetry myself although not of george adoniram's kind because nobody ever knew that when i felt it coming on i shut myself up in my room and wrote it out in a little blank book i kept locked up it is nearly full now because i have been writing poetry all my life it is the only thing i have ever been able to keep a secret from nancy nancy in any case has not a very high opinion of my ability to take care of myself

but i tremble to imagine what she would think if she ever found out about that little book i am convinced she would send for the doctor post-haste and insist on mustard plasters while waiting for him nevertheless i kept on at it and what with my flowers and my cats and my magazines and my little book i was really very happy and contented but it did sting that adela gilbert across the road who has a drunken husband should pity poor charlotte because nobody had ever wanted her

poor charlotte indeed if i had thrown myself at a man's head the way adela gilbert did but there i must refrain from such thoughts i must not be uncharitable the sewing circle met at mary gillespie's on my fortieth birthday

i have given up talking about my birthdays although that little scheme is not much good in avonlea where everybody knows your age or if they make a mistake it is never on the side of youth but nancy who grew accustomed to celebrating my birthdays when i was a little girl never gets over the habit and i don't try to cure her because after all it's nice to have someone make a fuss over you

she brought me up my breakfast before i got up out of bed a concession to my laziness that nancy would scorn to make on any other day of the year she had cooked everything i liked best and had decorated the tray with roses from the garden and ferns from the woods behind the house i enjoyed every bit of that breakfast and then i got up and dressed putting on my second-best muslin gown

I would have put on my really best if I had not had the fear of Nancy before my eyes, but I knew she would never condone that, even on a birthday. I watered my flowers and fed my cats, and then I locked myself up and wrote a poem on June. I had given up writing birthday odes after I was thirty. In the afternoon I went to the sewing circle. When I was ready for it I looked in my glass and wondered if I could really be forty.

i was quite sure i didn't look it my hair was brown and wavy my cheeks were pink and the lines could hardly be seen at all though possibly that was because of the dim light i always have my mirror hung in the darkest corner of my room nancy cannot imagine why i know the lines are there of course but when they don't show very plain i forget that they are there we had a large sewing circle young and old alike attending

I really cannot say I ever enjoyed the meetings, at least not up to that time, although I went religiously because I thought it my duty to go. The married women talked so much of their husbands and children, and of course I had to be quiet on those topics, and the young girls talked in corner groups about their bows and stopped it when I joined them as if they felt surer than an old maid who had never had a bow couldn't understand at all.

as for the other old maids they talked gossip about every one and i did not like that either i knew the minute my back was turned they would fasten into me and hint that i used hair-dye and declare it was perfectly ridiculous for a woman of fifty to wear a pink muslin dress with lace trimmed frills there was a full attendance that day for we were getting ready for a sale of fancy work in aid of parsonage repairs the young girls were merrier and noisier than usual

wilhelmina mercer was there and she kept them going the mercers were quite new to avonlea having come here only two months previously i was sitting by the window and wilhelmina mercer maggie henderson suzette cross and georgie hall were in a little group just before me i wasn't listening to their chatter at all but presently georgie exclaimed teasingly miss charlotte is laughing at us i suppose she thinks we are awfully silly to be talking about beaux

the truth was that i was simply smiling over some very pretty thoughts that had come to me about the roses which were climbing over mary gillespie's sill i meant to inscribe them in the little blank book when i went home georgie's speech brought me back to harsh realities with a jolt it hurt me as such speeches always did didn't you ever have a beau miss holmes said wilhelmina laughingly just as it happened a silence had fallen over the room for a moment and everybody in it heard wilhelmina's question

i really do not know what got into me and possessed me i have never been able to account for what i said and did because i am naturally a truthful person and hate all deceit it seemed to me that i could simply not say no to wilhelmina before that whole roomful of women it was too humiliating i suppose that all the prickles and stings and slurs i had endured for fifteen years on account of never having had a lover

had what the doctor calls a cumulative effect and came to a head then and there yes i had one once my dear i said calmly for once in my life i made a sensation every woman in that room stopped sewing and stared at me most of them i saw didn't believe me but wilhelmina did her pretty face lighted up with interest oh won't you tell us about him miss holmes she coaxed and why didn't you marry him

"'That is right, Miss Mercer,' said Josephine Cameron with a nasty little laugh. "'Make her tell. We're all interested. It's news to us that Charlotte ever had a beau.' "'If Josephine had not said that, I might not have gone on. But she did say it, and moreover I caught Mary Gillespie and Adela Gilbert exchanging significant smiles. That settled it and made me quite reckless. "'In for a penny, in for a pound,' thought I, and I said with a pensive smile,

"'Nobody here knew anything about him, and it was all long, long ago.' "'What was his name?' asked Wilhelmina. "'Cecil Fenwick,' I answered promptly. "'Cecil had always been my favorite name for a man. "'It figured quite frequently in the blank book. "'As for the Fenwick part of it, I had a bit of newspaper in my hand, "'measuring a hem, with Try Fenwick's Porous Plasters printed across it, "'and I simply joined the two in sudden and irrevocable matrimony.'

where did you meet him asked georgie i hastily reviewed my past there was only one place to locate cecil fenwick the only time i had ever been far enough away from avonlea in my life was when i was eighteen and had gone to visit an aunt in new brunswick in blakely new brunswick i said almost believing that i had when i saw how they all took it in unsuspectingly i was just eighteen and he was twenty-three what did he look like suzette wanted to know

Oh, he was very handsome. I proceeded glibly to sketch my ideal. To tell the dreadful truth I was enjoying myself. I could see respect dawning in these girls' eyes, and I knew that I had forever thrown off my reproach. Henceforth I should be a woman with a romantic past, faithful to the one love of her life, a very, very different thing from an old maid who had never had a lover. He was tall and dark, with lovely curly black hair and brilliant piercing eyes.

he had a splendid chin and a fine nose and the most fascinating smile what was he asked maggie a young lawyer i said my choice of profession decided by an enlarged crayon portrait of mary gillespie's deceased brother on an easel before me he had been a lawyer why didn't you marry him demanded

"'We quarreled,' I answered sadly. "'A terribly bitter quarrel. Oh, we were both so young and so foolish. It was my fault. I vexed Cecil by flirting with another man. Wasn't I coming on? And he was jealous and angry. He went out west and never came back. I have never seen him since, and I do not even know if he is alive. But I could never care for any other man.'

"'Oh, how interesting!' sighed Wilhelmina. "'I do so love sad love-stories. But perhaps he will come back some day yet, Miss Holmes.' "'Oh, no, never now,' I said, shaking my head. "'He has forgotten all about me, I dare say. Or if he hasn't, he has never forgiven me. Mary Gillespie's Susan Jane announced tea at this moment, and I was thankful, for my imagination was giving out, and I didn't know what question those girls would ask next.'

but I felt already a change in the mental atmosphere surrounding me, and all through supper I was thrilled with the secret exultation. Repentant? Ashamed? Not a bit of it. I'd have done the same thing over again, and all I felt sorry for was that I hadn't done it long ago. When I got home that night, Nancy looked at me wonderingly and said, "'You look like a girl tonight, Miss Charlotte.'

I feel like one, I said laughing, and I ran to my room and did what I had never done before, wrote a second poem in the same day. I had to have some outlet for my feelings. I called it In Summer Days of Long Ago, and I worked Mary Gillespie's roses and Cecil Fenwick's eyes into it and made it so sad and reminiscent and minor music-y that I felt perfectly happy. End of section 3

You're listening to Classic Audiobook Collection. Give us five stars and share with a friend who likes free audiobooks as much as we do. Now back to the show. Section 4 of Further Chronicles of Avonlea. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Further Chronicles of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Chapter 2. The Materializing of Cecil, Part 2.

For the next two months all went well and merrily. Nobody ever said anything more to me about Cecil Fenwick, but the girls all chattered freely to me of their little love affairs, and I became a sort of general confidant for them. It just warmed up the cockles of my heart, and I began to enjoy the sewing circle famously. I got a lot of pretty new dresses and the dearest hat, and I went everywhere I was asked and had a good time.

But there is one thing you can be perfectly sure of. If you do wrong, you are going to be punished for it sometime, somehow, and somewhere. My punishment was delayed for two months, and then it descended on my head, and I was crushed to the very dust. Another new family besides the Mercers had come to Avonlea in the spring, the Maxwells. There were just Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell. They were a middle-aged couple and very well off.

mr maxwell had brought the lumber mills and they lived up at the old spencer place which had always been the place of avonlea they lived quietly and mrs maxwell hardly ever went anywhere because she was delicate she was out when i called and i was out when she returned my call so that i had never met her

it was the sewing circle day again at sarah gardner's this time i was late everybody else was there when i arrived and the minute i entered the room i knew something had happened although i couldn't imagine what everybody looked at me in the strangest way of course wilhelmina mercer was the first to set her tongue going oh miss holmes have you seen him yet she exclaimed seen whom i said non-excitedly getting out my thimble and patterns

"'Why, Cecil Fenwick. He's here in Avonlea visiting his sister, Mrs. Maxwell.' I suppose I did then what they expected me to do. I dropped everything I held, and Josephine Cameron said afterwards that Charlotte Holmes would never be paler when she was in her coffin. If they had just known why I turned so pale. "'It's impossible,' I said blankly. "'It's really true,' said Wilhelmina, delighted at this development, as she supposed it, of my romance.'

i was up to see mrs maxwell last night and i met him it can't be the same cecil fenwick i said faintly because i had to say something

"'Oh, yes, it is. He belongs in Blakely, New Brunswick, and he's a lawyer, and he's been out west twenty-two years. He's, oh, so handsome, and just as you described him, except that his hair is quite gray. He has never married. I asked Mrs. Maxwell, "'So you see he's never forgotten you, Miss Holmes, and, oh, I believe everything is going to come out all right.' I couldn't exactly share her cheerful belief. Everything seemed to me to be coming out most horribly wrong."

i was so mixed up i didn't know what to do or say i felt as if i were in a bad dream it must be a dream there couldn't really be a cecil fenwick my feelings were simply indescribable fortunately everyone put my agitation down to quite a different cause and then they very kindly left me alone to recover myself i shall never forget that awful afternoon right after tea i excused myself and went home as fast as i could

there i shut myself up in my room but not to write poetry in my blank book no indeed i felt in no poetical mood i tried to look the facts squarely in the face there was a cecil fenwick extraordinary as the coincidence was and he was here in avonlea all my friends and foes believed that he was the estranged lover of my youth if he stayed long in avonlea one of two things was bound to happen

He would hear the story I had told about him and deny it, and I would be held up to shame and derision for the rest of my natural life, or else he would simply go away in ignorance and everybody would suppose he had forgotten me and would pity me maddeningly. The latter possibility was bad enough, but it wasn't to be compared to the former, and oh how I prayed—yes, I did pray about it—that he would go right away. But Providence had other views for me."

cecil fenwick didn't go away he stayed right on in avonlea and the maxwells blossomed out socially in his honor and tried to give him a good time mrs maxwell gave a party for him i got a card but you may be very sure i didn't go although nancy thought i was crazy not to then every one else gave parties in honor of mr fenwick and i was invited and never went

wilhelmina mercer came and pleaded and scolded and told me if i avoided mr fenwick like that he would think i still cherished bitterness against him and he wouldn't make any advances towards a reconciliation wilhelmina means well but she hasn't got a great deal of sense cecil fenwick seemed to be a great favorite with everybody young and old he was very rich too and wilhelmina declared that half the girls were after him

"'If it wasn't for you, Miss Holmes, I believe I'd have a try for him myself, in spite of his gray hair and quick temper. For Mrs. Maxwell says he has a pretty quick temper, but it's all over in a minute,' said Wilhelmina, half in jest and wholly in earnest. "'As for me, I gave up going out at all, even to church. I fretted and pined and lost my appetite and never wrote a line in my blank book. Nancy was half frantic and insisted on dosing me with her favorite patent pills.'

"'I took them meekly, because it is a waste of time and energy to oppose Nancy. But of course they didn't do me any good. My trouble was too deep-seated for pills to cure. If ever a woman was punished for telling a lie, I was that woman. I stopped my subscription to the Weekly Advocate because it still carried that wretched, porous plaster advertisement, and I couldn't bear to see it. If it hadn't been for that, I would never have thought of Fenwick for a name, and all this trouble would have been averted.'

"'One evening, when I was moping in my room, Nancy came up. "'There's a gentleman in the parlor asking for you, Miss Charlotte.' "'My heart gave just one horrible bounce. "'What sort of a gentleman, Nancy?' I faltered. "'I think it's that Fenwick man that there's been such a time about,' said Nancy, "'who didn't know anything about my imaginary escapades, "'and he looks to be mad clean through about something, "'for such a scowl I never seen.'

"'Tell him I'll be down directly, Nancy,' I said quite calmly. As soon as Nancy had clumped downstairs, I again put on my lace fichu and put two hankies in my belt, for I thought I'd probably need more than one. Then I hunted up an old advocate for proof, and I went down to the parlor. I know exactly how a criminal feels going to execution, and I've been opposed to capital punishment ever since.'

i opened the parlor door and went in carefully closing it behind me for nancy has a deplorable habit of listening in the hall then my legs gave out completely and i couldn't have walked another step to save my life i just stood there my hand on the knob trembling like a leaf a man was standing by the south window looking out he wheeled around as i went in and as nancy said he had a scowl on and looked angry clear through

he was very handsome and his gray hair gave him such a distinguished look i recalled this afterward but just at that moment you may be quite sure i wasn't thinking about it at all then all at once a strange thing happened the scowl went right out of his face and the anger out of his eyes he looked astonished and then foolish i saw the color creeping up into his cheeks as for me i stood there staring at him not able to say a single word

"'Miss Holmes, I presume,' he said at last, in a deep, thrilling voice. "'I—I—oh, confound it! I have called. I heard some foolish stories, and I came here in a rage. I've been a fool. I know now they weren't true. Just excuse me, and I'll go away and kick myself.' "'No,' I said, finding my voice with a gasp. "'You mustn't go until you've heard the truth. It's dreadful enough, but not as dreadful as you might otherwise think.'

those those stories i have a confession to make i did tell them but i didn't know there was such a person as cecil fenwick in existence he looked puzzled as well he might then he smiled took my hand and led me away from the door to the knob of which i was still holding with all my might to the sofa let's sit down and talk it over comfy he said i just confessed the whole shameful business it was terribly humiliating but it served me right

I told him how people were always twitting me for never having had a beau, and how I had told them I had, and then I showed him the porous plaster advertisement. He heard me right through without a word. Then he threw back his big curly gray head and laughed. "'This clears up a great many mysterious hints I have been receiving ever since I came to Avonlea,' he said. "'And finally a Mrs. Gilbert came to my sister this afternoon with a long farrago of nonsense about the love affair I had once had with some Charlotte Holmes here.'

she declared you had told her about it yourself i confess i flamed up i'm a peppery chap and i thought-i thought oh confound it it might as well out i thought you were some lank old maid who was amusing herself telling ridiculous stories about me when you came into the room i knew that whoever was to blame you were not

"'But I was,' I said ruefully. "'It wasn't right of me to tell such a story, and it was very silly, too. But who would ever have supposed that there could be a real Cecil Fenwick who had lived in Blakely? I had never heard of such a coincidence.' "'It's more than a coincidence,' said Mr. Fenwick decidedly. "'It's predestination, that is what it is. And now let's forget it and talk of something else.'

we talked of something else or at least mr fenwick did for i was too ashamed to say much so long that nancy got restive and clumped through the hall every five minutes but mr fenwick never took the hint when he finally went away he asked if he might come again it's time we made up that old quarrel you know he said laughing and i an old maid of forty caught myself blushing like a girl but i felt like a girl for it was such a relief to have that explanation all over

i couldn't even feel angry with adela gilbert she was always a mischief-maker and when a woman is born that way she is more to be pitied than blamed i wrote a poem in the blank book before i went to sleep i hadn't written anything for a month and it was lovely to be at it once more mr fenwick did come again the very next evening but one and he came so often after that that even nancy got resigned to him one day i had to tell her something i shrank from doing it for i feared it would make her feel badly

oh i've been expecting to hear it she said grimly i felt the minute that man came into the house he brought trouble with him well miss charlotte i wish you happiness i don't know how the climate of california will agree with me but i suppose i'll have to put up with it but nancy i said i can't expect you to go away out there with me it's too much to ask of you

"'And where else would I be going?' demanded Nancy in genuine astonishment. "'How, under the canopy, could you keep house without me? I'm not going to trust you to the mercies of a yellow Chinese with a pigtail. Where you go, I go, Miss Charlotte, and there's the end of it. I was very glad, for I hated to think of parting with Nancy even to go with Cecil. As for the blank book, I haven't told my husband about it yet, but I mean to some day. And I've subscribed to the Weekly Advocate again." End of section 4

CHAPTER III. HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. PART I.

rachel made a protesting movement with her large white shapely hands hands which are so different from the thin dark twisted ones folded on the table opposite her the difference was not caused by hard work or the lack of it rachel had worked hard all her life it was a difference inherent in temperament

the spencers no matter what they did or how hard they labored all had plump smooth white hands with firm supple fingers the chiswicks even those who toiled not neither did they spin had hard knotted twisted ones moreover the contrast went deeper than externals and twined itself within the innermost fibers of life and thought and action

i don't see why we must invite aunt jane said rachel with as much impatience as her soft throaty voice could express aunt jane doesn't like me and i don't like aunt jane i'm not sure i don't see why you don't like her said mrs spencer it's ungrateful of you she has always been very kind to you

"'She has always been very kind with one hand,' smiled Rachel. "'I remember the first time I ever saw Aunt Jane. "'I was six years old. "'She held out to me a small velvet pincushion with beads on it, "'and then, because I did not, in my shyness, "'thank her quite as promptly as I should have done, "'she wrapped my head with her bethimbled finger "'to teach me better manners. "'It hurt horribly. "'I've always had a tender head.'

and that has been aunt jane's way ever since when i grew too big for the thimble treatment she used her tongue instead and that hurt worse and you know mother how she used to talk about my engagement she is able to spoil the whole atmosphere if she happens to come in a bad humor i don't want her

she must be invited people would talk so if she wasn't i don't see why they should she's only my great-aunt by marriage i wouldn't mind in the least if people did talk they'll talk anyway you know that mother oh we must have her said mrs spencer with the indifferent finality that marked all her words and decisions a finality against which it was seldom of any avail to struggle

people who knew rarely attempted it strangers occasionally did misled by the deceit of appearances isabella spencer was a wisp of a woman with a pale pretty face uncertainly colored long-lashed grayish eyes and great masses of dull soft silky brown hair she had delicate aquiline features and a small babyish red mouth she looked as if a breath would sway her

the truth was that a tornado would hardly have caused her to swerve an inch from her chosen path for a moment rachel looked rebellious then she yielded as she generally did in all differences of opinion with her mother it was not worth while to quarrel over the comparatively unimportant matter of aunt jane's invitation a quarrel might be inevitable later on rachel wanted to save all her resources for that

she gave her shoulders a shrug and wrote aunt jane's name down on the wedding list in her large somewhat untidy handwriting a handwriting which always seemed to irritate her mother rachel could never understand this irritation she could never guess that it was because her writing looked so much like that in a certain packet of faded letters which mrs spencer kept at the bottom of an old horsehair trunk in her bedroom

they were postmarked from seaports all over the world mrs spencer never read them or looked at them but she remembered every dash and curve of the handwriting isabella spencer had overcome many things in her life by the sheer force and persistency of her will but she could not get the better of heredity rachel was her father's daughter at all points and isabella spencer escaped hating her for it only by loving her the more fiercely because of it

even so there were many times when she had to avert her eyes from rachel's face because of the pang of the more subtle remembrances and never since her child was born could isabella spencer bear to gaze on that child's face in sleep rachel was to be married to frank bell in a fortnight's time mrs spencer was pleased with the match she was very fond of frank and his farm was so near to her own that she would not lose rachel altogether

rachel fondly believed that her mother would not lose her at all but isabella spencer wiser by olden experience knew what her daughter's marriage must mean to her and steeled her heart to bear it with what fortitude she might they were in the sitting-room deciding on the wedding guests and other details the september sunshine was coming in through the waving boughs of the apple-tree that grew close up to the low window

the glints wavered over rachel's face as white as a wood-lily with only a faint dream of rose in the cheeks she wore her sleek golden hair in a quaint arch around it her forehead was very broad and white she was fresh and young and hopeful the mother's heart contracted in a spasm of pain as she looked at her

how like the girl was to to to the spencers those easy curving outlines those large mirthful blue eyes that finely moulded chin isabella spencer shut her lips firmly and crushed down some unbidden unwelcome memories there will be about sixty guests all told she said as if she were thinking of nothing else we must move the furniture out of this room and set the supper-table here the dining-room is too small

we must borrow mrs bell's forks and spoons she offered to lend them i'd never have been willing to ask her the damask tablecloths with the ribbon patterned must be bleached to-morrow nobody else in avonlea has such tablecloths and we'll put the little dining-room table on the hall landing upstairs for the presents rachel was not thinking about the presents or the housewifely details of the wedding

Her breath was coming quicker, and the faint blush on her smooth cheeks had deepened to crimson. She knew that a critical moment was approaching. With a steady hand she wrote the last name on her list and drew a line under it. "'Well, have you finished?' asked her mother impatiently. "'Hand it here and let me look it over to make sure that you haven't left anybody out that should be in.' Rachel passed the paper across the table in silence. The room seemed to her to have grown very still."

she could hear the flies buzzing on the panes the soft purr of the wind about the low eaves and through the apple-boughs the jerky beating of her own heart she felt frightened and nervous but resolute mrs spencer glanced down the list murmuring the names aloud and nodding approval at each but when she came to the last name she did not utter it she cast a black glance at rachel and a spark leaped up in the depths of the pale eyes

on her face were anger amazement incredulity the last predominating the final name on the list of wedding guests was the name of david spencer david spencer lived alone in a little cottage down at the cove he was a combination of sailor and fisherman he was also isabella spencer's husband and rachel's father rachel spencer have you taken leave of your senses what do you mean by such nonsense as this

"'I simply mean that I am going to invite my father to my wedding,' answered Rachel quietly. "'Not in my house,' cried Mrs. Spencer, her lips as white as if her fiery tone had scathed them. Rachel leaned forward, folded her large, capable hands deliberately on the table, and gazed unflinchingly into her mother's bitter face. Her fright and nervousness were gone. Now that the conflict was actually on, she found herself rather enjoying it.

she wondered a little at herself and thought that she must be wicked she was not given to self-analysis or she might have concluded that it was the sudden assertion of her own personality so long dominated by her mother's which she was finding so agreeable then there will be no wedding mother she said frank and i will simply go to the manse be married and go home if i cannot invite my father to see me married no one else shall be invited

her lips narrowed tightly for the first time in her life isabella spencer saw a reflection of herself looking back at her from her daughter's face a strange indefinable resemblance that was more of soul and spirit than of flesh and blood in spite of her anger her heart thrilled to it as never before she realized that this girl was her own and her husband's child a living bond between them wherein their conflicting natures mingled and were reconciled

she realized too that rachel so long sweetly meek and obedient meant to have her own way in this case and would have it i must say that i can't see why you are so set on having your father see you married she said with a bitter sneer he has never remembered that he is your father he cares nothing about you never did rachel took no notice of this taunt

it had no power to hurt her its venom being neutralized by a secret knowledge of her own in which her mother had no share either i shall invite my father to my wedding or i shall not have a wedding she repeated steadily adopting her mother's own effective tactics of repetition undistracted by argument invite him then snapped mrs spencer with the ungraceful anger of a woman long accustomed to having her own way compelled for once to yield

It'll be like chips and porridge anyhow, neither good nor harm. He won't come. Rachel made no response. Now that the battle was over and the victory won, she found herself tremulously on the verge of tears. She rose quickly and went upstairs to her own room, a dim little place shadowed by the white birches growing thickly outside, a virginal room where everything bespoke the maiden. She lay down on the blue-and-white patchwork quilt on her bed and cried softly and bitterly.

her heart at this crisis in her life yearned for her father who was almost a stranger to her she knew that her mother had probably spoken the truth when she said that he would not come rachel felt that her marriage vows would be lacking in some indefinable sacredness if her father were not by to hear them spoken twenty-five years before this david spencer and isabella chiswick had been married

spiteful people said there could be no doubt that isabella had married david for love since he had neither lands nor money to tempt her into a match of bargain and sale david was a handsome fellow with the blood of a seafaring race in his veins he had been a sailor like his father and grandfather before him but when he married isabella she induced him to give up the sea and settle down with her on a snug farm her father had left her isabella liked farming and loved her fertile acres and opulent orchard

she abhorred the sea and all that pertained to it less from any dread of its dangers than from an inbred conviction that sailors were low in the social scale a species of necessary vagabonds in her eyes there was a tint of disgrace in such a calling david must be transformed into a respectable home-abiding tiller of broad lands

for five years all went well enough if at times david's longing for the sea troubled him he stifled it and listened not to its luring voice he and isabella were very happy the only drawback to their happiness lay in the regrettable fact that they were childless then in the sixth year came a crisis and a change captain barrett an old crony of david's wanted him to go with him on a voyage as mate

at the suggestion all david's long repressed craving for the wide blue wastes of the ocean and the wind whistling through the spars with the salt foam in his breath broke forth with a passion all the more intense for that very repression he must go on that voyage with james barrett he must that over he would be contented again but go he must his soul struggled within him like a fettered thing

isabella opposed the scheme vehemently and unwisely with mordant sarcasm and unjust reproaches the latent obstinacy of david's character came to the support of his longing a longing which isabella with five generations of land-loving ancestry behind her could not understand at all he was determined to go and he told isabella so

"'I'm sick of plowing and milking cows,' he said hotly. "'You mean that you are sick of a respectable life?' sneered Isabella. "'Perhaps,' said David, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. "'Anyway, I'm going. If you go on this voyage, David Spencer, you need never come back here,' said Isabella resolutely. David had gone. He did not believe that she meant it. Isabella believed that he did not care whether she meant it or not.

David Spencer left behind him a woman, calm outwardly, inwardly a seething volcano of anger, wounded pride, and thwarted will. He found precisely the same woman when he came home, tanned, joyous, tamed for a while of his wanderlust, ready, with something of real affection, to go back to the farm fields and the stockyard. Isabella met him at the door, smileless, cold eyes, set-lipped.

What do you want here? she said, in the tone she was accustomed to use to tramps and Syrian peddlers. Want? David's surprise left him at a loss for words. Want? Why, I want my wife. I've come home. This is not your home. I'm no wife of yours. You made your choice when you went away, Isabella had replied. Then she had gone in, shut the door, and locked it in his face. David had stood there for a few minutes like a man stunned.

then he had turned and walked away up the lane under the birches he said nothing then or at any other time from that day no reference to his wife or her concerns ever crossed his lips he went directly to the harbor and shipped with captain barrett for another voyage when he came back from that in a month's time he bought a small house and had it hauled to the cove a lonely inlet from which no other human habitation was visible

between his sea voyages he lived there the life of a recluse fishing and playing his violin were his only employments he went nowhere and encouraged no visitors isabella spencer also had adopted the tactics of silence when the scandalized chiswick's aunt jane at their head tried to patch up the matter with argument and entreaty isabella met them stonily seeming not to hear what they said and making no response she worsted them totally

As Aunt Jane said in disgust, what can you do with a woman who won't even talk? Five months after David Spencer had been turned from his wife's door, Rachel was born. Perhaps if David had come to them then, with due penitence and humility, Isabella's heart, softened by the pain and joy of her long and ardently desired motherhood, might have cast out the rankling venom of resentment that had poisoned it and taken him back into it.

but david had not come he gave no sign of knowing or caring that his once longed-for child had been born when isabella was able to be about again her pale face was harder than ever and had there been about her any one discerning enough to notice it there was a subtle change in her bearing and manner a certain nervous expectancy a fluttering restlessness was gone isabella had ceased to hope secretly that her husband would yet come back

she had in her secret soul thought he would and she had meant to forgive him when she had humbled him sufficiently and when he had abased himself as she considered he should but now she knew that he did not mean to sue for her forgiveness and the hate that sprang out of her old love was a rank and speedy and persistent growth rachel from her earliest recollection had been vaguely conscious of a difference between her own life and the lives of her playmates for a long time it puzzled her childish brain

Finally, she reasoned it out that the difference consisted in the fact that they had fathers and she, Rachel Spencer, had none, not even in the graveyard as Carrie Bell and Lillian Bolter had. Why was this? Rachel went straight to her mother, put one little dimpled hand on Isabella Spencer's knee, looked up with great searching blue eyes, and said gravely, "'Mother, why haven't I got a father like the other little girls?'

"'Isabella Spencer laid aside her work, "'took the seven-year-old child on her lap, "'and told her the whole story "'in a few direct and bitter words "'that imprinted themselves indelibly "'on Rachel's remembrance. "'She understood clearly and hopelessly "'that she could never have a father, "'that in this respect "'she must always be unlike other people. "'Your father cares nothing for you,' "'said Isabella Spencer in conclusion. "'He never did care. "'You must never speak of him to anybody again.'

Rachel slipped silently from her mother's knee and ran out to the springtime garden with a full heart. There she cried passionately over her mother's last words. It seemed to her a terrible thing that her father should not love her, and a cruel thing that she must never talk of him. Oddly enough, Rachel's sympathies were all with her father, in as far as she could understand the old quarrel. She did not dream of disobeying her mother, and she did not disobey her.

never again did the child speak of her father but isabella had not forbidden her to think of him and thenceforth rachel thought of him constantly so constantly that in some strange way he seemed to become an unguessed part of her inner life the unseen ever-present companion in all her experiences she was an imaginative child and in fancy she made the acquaintance of her father

She had never seen him, but he was more real to her than most of the people she had seen. He played and talked with her as her mother never did. He walked with her in the orchard and field and garden. He sat by her pillow in the twilight. To him she whispered secrets she told none other. Once her mother asked her impatiently why she talked so much to herself. I'm not talking to myself. I'm talking to a very dear friend of mine, Rachel answered gravely.

"'Silly child!' laughed her mother, half tolerantly, half disapprovingly. Two years later something wonderful had happened to Rachel. One summer afternoon she had gone to the harbor with several of her little playmates. Such a jaunt was a rare treat to the child, for Isabella Spencer seldom allowed her to go from home with anybody but herself, and Isabella was not an entertaining companion. Rachel never particularly enjoyed a nouting with her mother.'

the children wandered far along the shore at last they came to a place that rachel had never seen before it was a shallow cove where the waters purred on the yellow sands beyond it the sea was laughing and flashing and preening and alluring like a beautiful coquettish woman outside the wind was boisterous and rollicking here it was reverent and gentle

A white boat was hauled up on the skids, and there was a queer little house close down to the sands, like a big shell tossed up by the waves. Rachel looked on it with all secret delight. She, too, loved the lonely places of sea and shore, as her father had done. She wanted to linger a while in this dear spot and revel in it. "'I'm tired, girls,' she announced. "'I'm going to stay here and rest for a spell. I don't want to go to Gull Point. You go on yourselves. I'll wait for you here.'

"'All alone?' asked Carrie Bell, wonderingly. "'I'm not so afraid of being alone as some people are,' said Rachel with dignity. The other girls went on, leaving Rachel sitting on the skids in the shadow of the big white boat. She sat there for a time, dreaming happily, with her blue eyes on the far, pearly horizon, and her golden head leaning against the boat." End of Section 5 Section 6 of Further Chronicles of Avonlea

III. HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. II.

rachel was quite sure that she had never seen him before yet those eyes seemed to her to have a strangely familiar look she liked him she felt no shyness nor timidity such as usually afflicted her in the presence of strangers he was a tall stout man dressed in rough fishing suit and wearing an oilskin cap on his head his hair was very thick and curly and fair his cheeks were tanned and red his teeth when he smiled were very even and white

"'Rachel thought he must be quite old, because there was a good deal of gray mixed with his fair hair. "'Are you watching for the mermaids?' he said. "'Rachel nodded gravely. From anyone else she would have scrupulously hidden such a thought. "'Yes, I am,' she said. "'Mother says there is no such thing as a mermaid, but I like to think there is. "'Have you ever seen one?' The big man sat down on a bleached log of driftwood and smiled at her.'

no i'm sorry to say that i haven't but i have seen many other very wonderful things i might tell you about some of them if you would come over here and sit by me rachel went unhesitatingly when she reached him he pulled her down on his knee and she liked it what a nice little craft you are he said do you suppose now that you could give me a kiss as a rule rachel hated kissing she could seldom be prevailed upon to kiss even her uncles

who knew it and liked to tease her for kisses until they aggravated her so terribly that she told them she couldn't bear men. But now she promptly put her arms about this strange man's neck and gave him a hearty smack. "'I like you,' she said frankly. She felt his arms tighten suddenly about her. The blue eyes looking into hers grew misty and very tender. Then, all at once, Rachel knew who he was. He was her father.'

she did not say anything but she laid her curly head down on his shoulder and felt a great happiness as of one who had come into some longed-for haven if david spencer realized that she understood he said nothing instead he began to tell her fascinating stories of far lands he had visited and strange things he had seen rachel listened entranced as if she were hearkening to a fairy tale

Yes, he was just as she had dreamed him. She had always been sure he could tell beautiful stories. "'Come up to the house and I'll show you some very pretty things,' he said finally. Then followed a wonderful hour. The little low-ceilinged room, with its square window into which he took her, was filled with the flotsam and jetsam of his roving life, things beautiful and odd and strange beyond all telling."

the things that pleased rachel most were two huge shells on the chimney-piece pale pink shells with big crimson and purple spots oh i didn't know there could be such pretty things in the world she exclaimed if you would like began the big man then he paused for a moment i'll show you something prettier still rachel felt vaguely that he meant to say something else when he began but she forgot to wonder what it was when she saw what he brought out of a little corner cupboard

It was a teapot of some fine, glistening purpleware, coiled over by golden dragons with gilded claws and scales. The lid looked like a beautiful golden flower, and the handle was a coil of a dragon's tail. Rachel sat and looked at it, rapt-eyed. "'That's the only thing of any value I have in the world. Now,' he said. Rachel knew there was something very sad in his eyes and voice. She longed to kiss him again and comfort him.

but suddenly he began to laugh and then he rummaged out some goodies for her to eat sweetmeats more delicious than she had ever imagined while she nibbled them he took down an old violin and played music that made her want to dance and sing rachel was perfectly happy she wished she might stay forever in that low dim room with all its treasures i see your little friends coming around the point he said finally i suppose you must go put the rest of the goodies in your pocket

he took her up in his arms and held her tightly against his breast for a single moment she felt him kissing her hair there run along little girl good-bye he said gently why don't you ask me to come and see you again cried rachel half in tears i'm coming anyhow if you can come come he said if you don't come i shall know it is because you can't and that is much to know i am very very very glad little woman that you have come once

rachel was sitting demurely on the skids when her companions came back they had not seen her leaving the house and she said not a word to them of her experiences she only smiled mysteriously when they asked her if she had not been lonesome that night for the first time she mentioned her father's name in her prayers

she never forgot to do so afterwards she always said bless mother and father with an instinctive pause between the two names a pause which indicated new realization of the tragedy which had sundered them and the tone in which she said father was softer and more tender than the one which voiced mother rachel never visited the cove again

isabella spencer discovered that the children had been there and although she knew nothing of rachel's interview with her father she told the child that she must never again go to that part of the shore rachel shed many a bitter tear in secret over this command but she obeyed it thenceforth there had been no communication between her and her father save the unworded messages of soul to soul across whatever may divide them

david spencer's invitation to his daughter's wedding was sent with the others and the remaining days of rachel's maidenhood slipped away in a whirl of preparation and excitement in which her mother revelled but which was distasteful to the girl the wedding-day came at last breaking softly and fairly over the great sea in a sheen of silver and pearl and rose a september day as mild and beautiful as june the ceremony was to be performed at eight o'clock in the evening

at seven rachel stood in her room fully dressed and alone she had no bridesmaid and she had asked her cousins to leave her to herself in this last solemn hour of girlhood she looked very fair and sweet in the sunset light that showered through the birches her wedding-gown was a fine sheer organdy simply and daintily made in the loose waves of her bright hair she wore her bridegroom's flowers roses as white as a virgin's dream

She was very happy, but her happiness was faintly threaded with a sorrow inseparable from all change. Presently her mother came in, carrying a small basket. Here is something for you, Rachel. One of the boys from the harbor brought it up. He was bound to give it into your own hands. Said that was his orders. I just took it and sent him to the right about. Told him I'd give it to you at once, and that that was all that was necessary. She spoke coldly.

She knew quite well who had sent the basket, and she resented it. But her resentment was not quite strong enough to overcome her curiosity. She stood silently by while Rachel unpacked the basket. Rachel's hands trembled as she took off the cover. Two huge, pink-spotted shells came first. How well she remembered them! Beneath them, carefully wrapped up in a square of foreign-looking, strangely-scented silk, was the dragon teapot.

she held it in her hands and gazed at it with tears gathering thickly in her eyes your father sent that said isabella spencer with an odd sound in her voice i remember it well it was among the things i packed up and sent after him his father had brought it home from china fifty years ago and he prized it beyond anything they used to say it was worth a lot of money mother please leave me alone for a little while said rachel imploringly

she had caught sight of a little note at the bottom of the basket and she felt that she could not read it under her mother's eyes mrs spencer went out with unaccustomed acquiescence and rachel went quickly to the window where she read her letter by the fading gleams of twilight it was very brief and the writing was that of a man who holds a pen but seldom my dear little girl it ran i'm sorry i can't go to your wedding it was like you to ask me for i know it was your doing

i wish i could see you married but i can't go to the house i was turned out of i hope you will be very happy i am sending you the shells and teapot you liked so much do you remember that day we had such a good time i would like to have seen you again before you were married but it can't be your loving father david spencer

rachel resolutely blinked away the tears that filled her eyes a fierce desire for her father sprang up in her heart an insistent hunger that would not be denied she must see her father she must have his blessing on her new life a sudden determination took possession of her whole being a determination to sweep aside all conventionalities and objections as if they had not been it was now almost dark the guests would not be coming for half an hour yet

it was only fifteen minutes walk over the hill to the cove hastily rachel shrouded herself in her new raincoat and drew a dark protecting hood over her gay head she opened the door and slipped noiselessly downstairs mrs spencer and her assistants were all busy in the back part of the house in a moment rachel was out in the dewy garden she would go straight over the fields nobody would see her

it was quite dark when she reached the cove in the crystal cup of the sky over her the stars were blinking flying flakes of foam were scurrying over the sand like elfin things a soft little wind was crooning about the eaves of the little grey house where david spencer was sitting alone in the twilight his violin on his knee he had been trying to play but could not his heart yearned after his daughter yes and after a long-estranged bride of his youth

his love of the sea was sated forever his love for wife and child still cried for its own under all his old anger and stubbornness the door opened suddenly and the very rachel of whom he was dreaming came suddenly in flinging off her wraps and standing forth in her young beauty and bridal adornments a splendid creature almost lighting up the gloom with her radiance father she cried brokenly and her father's eager arms closed around her

Back in the house she had left, the guests were coming to the wedding. There were jests and laughter and friendly greeting. The bridegroom came, too, a slim, dark-eyed lad who tiptoed bashfully upstairs to the spare room, from which he presently emerged to confront Mrs. Spencer on the landing. "'I want to see Rachel before we go down,' he said, blushing. Mrs. Spencer deposited a wedding present of linen on the table, which was already laden with gifts,

opening the door of rachel's room and called her there was no reply the room was dark and still in sudden alarm isabella spencer snatched the lamp from the hall table and held it up the little white room was empty no blushing white-clad bride tenanted it but david spencer's letter was lying on the stand she caught it up and read it rachel is gone she gasped a flash of intuition had revealed to her where and why the girl had gone

"'Gone?' echoed Frank, his face blanching. His pallid dismay recalled Mrs. Spencer to herself. She gave a bitter, ugly little laugh. "'Oh, you needn't look so scared, Frank. She hasn't run away from you. Hush, come in here, shut the door. Nobody must know of this. Nice gossip it would make. That little fool has gone to the cove to see her—her father. I know she has. It's just like what she would do.'

he sent her those presents look and this letter read it she has gone to coatesham to come and see her married she was crazy about it and the minister is here and it is half-past seven she'll ruin her dress and shoes in the dust and dew and what if someone has seen her was there ever such a little fool frank's presence of mind had returned to him he knew all about rachel and her father she had told him everything

i'll go after her he said gently get me my hat and coat i'll slip down the back stairs and over to the cove you must get out of the pantry window then said mrs spencer firmly mingling comedy and tragedy after her characteristic fashion the kitchen is full of women i won't have this known and talked about if it can possibly be helped the bridegroom wise beyond his years in the knowledge that it was well to yield to women in little things

crawled immediately out of the pantry window and darted through the birchwood mrs spencer had stood quakingly on guard until he had disappeared so rachel had gone to her father like had broken the fetters of years and fled to like it isn't much use fighting against nature i guess she thought grimly i'm beat he must have thought something of her after all when he sent her that teapot and letter

and what does he mean about the day they had such a good time well it just means she's been to see him before some time i suppose and kept me in ignorance of it all mrs spencer shut down the pantry window with a vicious thud if only she'll come quietly back with frank in time to prevent gossip i'll forgive her she said as she turned to the kitchen rachel was sitting on her father's knee with both her white arms around his neck when frank came in

She sprang up, her face flushed and appealing, her eyes bright and dewy with tears. Frank thought he had never seen her look so lovely. "'Oh, Frank, is it very late?' "'Oh, are you angry?' she exclaimed timidly. "'No, no, dear, of course I'm not angry. But don't you think you'd better come back now? It's nearly eight, and everybody is waiting. I've been trying to coax father to come up and see me married,' said Rachel. "'Help me, Frank!'

you'd better come sir said frank heartily i'd like it as much as rachel would david spencer shook his head stubbornly no i can't go to that house i was locked out of it never mind me i've had my happiness in this half-hour with my little girl i'd like to see her married but it isn't to be

Yes, it is to be. It shall be, said Rachel resolutely. You shall see me married. Frank, I'm going to be married here in my father's house. That is the right place for a girl to be married. Go back and tell the guests so and bring them all down. Frank looked rather dismayed. David Spencer said deprecatingly, Little girl, don't you think it would be...

i'm going to have my own way in this said rachel with a sort of tender finality go frank i'll obey you all my life after but you must do this for me try to understand she added beseechingly oh i understand frank reassured her besides i think you are right but i was thinking of your mother she won't come then you tell her that if she doesn't come i shan't be married at all said rachel

she was betraying unsuspected ability to manage people she knew that ultimatum would urge frank to his best endeavors frank much to mrs spencer's dismay marched boldly in at the front door upon his return she pounced on him and whisked him out of sight into the supper room where's rachel what made you come that way everybody saw you

"'It makes no difference. They will all have to know anyway. Rachel says she is going to be married from her father's house, or not at all. I've come back to tell you so.' Isabella's face turned crimson. "'Rachel has gone crazy. I wash my hands of this affair. Do as you please. Take the guests, the supper, too, if you can carry it.' "'We'll all come back here for supper,' said Frank, ignoring the sarcasm. "'Come, Mrs. Spencer, let's make the best of it.'

do you suppose that i am going to david spencer's house said isabella spencer violently oh you must come mrs spencer cried poor frank desperately he began to fear that he would lose his bride past all finding in this maze of triple stubbornness rachel says she won't be married at all if you don't go too think what a talk it will make you know she will keep her word

isabella spencer knew it amid all the conflict of anger and revolt in her soul was a strong desire not to make a worse scandal than must of necessity be made the desire subdued and tamed her as nothing else could have done i will go since i have to she said icily what can't be cured must be endured go and tell them

five minutes later the sixty wedding guests were all walking over the fields to the cove with the minister and the bridegroom in the front of the procession they were too amazed even to talk about the strange happening isabella spencer walked behind fiercely alone they all crowded into the little room of the house at the cove and a solemn hush fell over it broken only by the purr of the sea-wind around it and the croon of the waves on the shore

david spencer gave his daughter away but when the ceremony was concluded isabella was the first to take the girl in her arms she clasped her and kissed her with tears streaming down her pale face all her nature melted in a mother's tenderness rachel rachel my child i hope and pray that you may be happy she said brokenly

in the surge of the sudden merry crowd of well-wishers around the bride and groom isabella was pushed back into a shadowy corner behind a heap of sails and ropes looking up she found herself crushed against david spencer for the first time in twenty years the eyes of husband and wife met a strange thrill shot to isabella's heart she felt herself trembling

isabella it was david's voice in her ear a voice full of tenderness and pleading the voice of the young wooer of her girlhood is it too late to ask you to forgive me i've been a stubborn fool but there hasn't been an hour in all these years that i haven't thought about you and our baby and longed for you isabella spencer had hated this man yet her hate had been but a parasite growth on a nobler stem with no abiding roots of his own

it withered under his words and lo there was the old love fair and strong and beautiful as ever oh david i was all to blame she murmured brokenly further words were lost on her husband's lips when the hubbub of handshaking and congratulating had subsided isabella spencer stepped out before the company she looked almost girlish and bridal herself with her flushed cheeks and bright eyes

let's go back now and have supper and be sensible she said crisply rachel your father is coming too he is coming to stay with a defiant glance around the circle come everybody they went back with laughter and raillery over the quiet autumn fields faintly silvered now by the moon that was rising over the hills the young bride and groom lagged behind they were very happy but they were not so happy after all as the old bride and groom who walked swiftly in front

isabella's hand was in her husband's and sometimes she could not see the moonlit hills for a mist of glorified tears david she whispered as he helped her over the fence how can you ever forgive me there's nothing to forgive he said we're only just married who ever heard of a bridegroom talking of forgiveness everything is beginning over new for us my girl and of section six section seven of further chronicles of avonlea this is a

all the recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit the dot org further chronicles of avonlea chapter four jane's baby part one miss rosetta ellis with her front hair in curl-papers and her back hair bound with a checked apron was out in her breezy side yard under the firs shaking her parlor rugs when mr nathan patterson drove in

Miss Rosetta had seen him coming down the long red hill, but she had not supposed he would be calling at that time of the morning, so she had not run. Miss Rosetta always ran if anybody called and her front hair was in curl-papers, and, though the errand of the said caller might be life or death, he or she had to wait until Miss Rosetta had taken her hair out. Everybody in Avonlea knew this, because everybody in Avonlea knew everything about everybody else.

but mr patterson had wheeled into the lane so quickly and unexpectedly that miss rosetta had had no time to run so twitching off the checked apron she stood her ground as calmly as might be under the disagreeable consciousness of curl-papers good morning miss ellis said mr patterson so somberly that miss rosetta instantly felt that he was the bearer of bad news usually mr patterson's face was as broad and beaming as a harvest moon

now his expression was very melancholy and his voice positively sepulchre good morning returned miss rosetta crisply and cheerfully she at any rate would not go into eclipse until she knew the reason therefor it is a fine day

"'A very fine day,' assented Mr. Patterson solemnly. "'I have just come from the Wheeler place, Miss Ellis, and I regret to say—' "'Charlotte is sick,' cried Miss Rosetta rapidly. "'Charlotte has got another spell with her heart. I knew it. I've been expecting to hear it. Any woman that drives about the country as much as she does is liable to heart disease at any moment.'

i never go outside of my gate but i meet her gadding off somewhere goodness knows who looks after her place i shouldn't like to trust as much to a hired man as she does well it is very kind of you mr patterson to put yourself out to the extent of calling to tell me that charlotte is sick

but i don't really see why you should take so much trouble i really don't it doesn't matter to me whether charlotte is sick or whether she isn't you know that perfectly well mr patterson if anybody does when charlotte went and got married on the sly to that good-for-nothing jacob wheeler

"'Mrs. Wheeler is quite well,' interrupted Mr. Patterson desperately. "'Quite well. Nothing at all the matter with her, in fact. I only—' "'Then what do you mean by coming here and telling me she wasn't, and frightening me half to death?' demanded Miss Rosetta indignantly. "'My own heart isn't very strong. It runs in our family, and my doctor warned me to avoid all shocks and excitement. I don't want to be excited, Mr. Patterson. I won't be excited, not even if Charlotte has had another spell.'

"'It's perfectly useless for you to try to excite me, Mr. Patterson.' "'Bless the woman, I'm not trying to excite anybody,' declared Mr. Patterson in exasperation. "'I merely called to tell you—' "'To tell me what?' said Miss Rosetta. "'How much longer do you mean to keep me in suspense, Mr. Patterson? No doubt you have an abundance of spare time, but I have not. That your sister, Mrs. Wheeler, has had a letter from a cousin of yours, and she's in Charlottetown. Mrs. Roberts, I think her name is.'

jane roberts broke in mrs rosetta jane ellis she was before she was married what was she writing to charlotte about not that i want to know of course i'm not interested in charlotte's correspondence goodness knows but if jane had anything particular to write about she should have written to me

i am the oldest charlotte had no business to get a letter from jane roberts without consulting me it's just like her underhanded ways she got married the same way never said a word to me about it but just sneaked off with that unprincipled jacob wheeler

mrs roberts is very ill i understand persisted mr patterson nobly reserved to do what he had come to do dying in fact and jane ill jane dying exclaimed miss rosetta why she was the healthiest girl i ever knew but then i've never seen her nor heard from her since she got married fifteen years ago i dare say her husband was a brute and neglected her and she's pined away by slow degrees

i've no faith in husbands look at charlotte everybody knows how jacob wheeler used her to be sure she deserved it but mrs roberts's husband is dead said mr patterson died about two months ago i understand and she has a little baby six months old and she thought perhaps mrs wheeler would take it for old times sake

"'Did Charlotte ask you to call and tell me this?' demanded Miss Rosetta eagerly. "'No. She just told me what was in the letter. She didn't mention you, but I thought perhaps you ought to be told.' "'I knew it,' said Miss Rosetta in a tone of bitter assurance. "'I could have told you so. Charlotte wouldn't even let me know that Jane was ill. Charlotte would be afraid I would want to get the baby, seeing that Jane and I were such intimate friends long ago.'

and who has a better right to it than me i should like to know ain't i the oldest and haven't i had experience in bringing up babies charlotte needn't think she is going to run the affairs of our family just because she haven't to get married jacob wheeler i must be going said mr patterson gathering up his reins thankfully i am much obliged to you for coming to tell me about jane said miss rosetta even though you have wasted a lot of precious time getting it out if it hadn't been for you i suppose i should never have known it at all

as it is i shall start for town just as soon as i can get ready you'll have to hurry if you want to get ahead of mrs wheeler advised mr patterson she's packing her trunk and going on the morning train

"'I'll pack up a lease and go on the afternoon train,' retorted Miss Rosetta triumphantly. "'I'll show Charlotte she isn't running the Ellis Affairs. She married out of them into the Wheelers. She can attend to them. Jacob Wheeler was the most—' But Mr. Patterson had driven away. He felt that he had done his duty in the face of fearful odds, and he did not want to hear anything more about Jacob Wheeler. Rosetta Ellis and Charlotte Wheeler had not exchanged a word for ten years.

before that time they had been devoted to each other living together in the little ellis college on the white sands road as they had done ever since their parents death the trouble began when jacob wheeler had commenced to pay attention to charlotte the younger and prettier of two women who had both ceased to be either very young or very pretty rosetta had been bitterly opposed to the match from the first she vowed she had no use for jacob wheeler

they were not lacking malicious people to hint that this was because the aforesaid jacob wheeler had selected the wrong sister upon whom to bestow his affections be that as it might miss rosettis certainly continued to render the course of jacob wheeler's true love exceedingly rough and tumultuous the end of it was that charlotte had gone quietly away one morning and married jacob wheeler without miss rosettis knowing anything about it

miss rosetta had never forgiven her for it and charlotte had never forgiven the things rosetta had said to her when she and jacob returned to the ellis college since then the sisters had been avowed and open foes the only difference being that miss rosetta aired her grievances publicly in season and out of season while charlotte was never heard to mention rosetta's name even the death of jacob wheeler five years after the marriage had not healed the breach

miss rosetta took out her curl-papers packed her valise and caught the afternoon train for charlottetown as she had threatened all the way there she sat rigidly upright in her seat and held imaginary dialogues with charlotte in her mind running something like this on her part

"'No, Charlotte Wheeler, you are not going to have Jane's baby, and you're very much mistaken if you think so.' "'Oh, all right, we'll see. You don't know anything about babies, even if you are married.' "'I do. Didn't I take William Ellis's baby when his wife died?' "'Tell me that, Charlotte Wheeler. And didn't the little thing thrive with me and grow strong and healthy?' "'Yes, even you have to admit that it did, Charlotte Wheeler. And yet you have the presumption to think that you ought to have Jane's baby.'

"'Yes, it is presumption, Charlotte Wheeler. And when William Ellis got married again and took the baby, didn't the child cling to me and cry as if I was its real mother? You know it did, Charlotte Wheeler. I'm going to get and keep Jane's baby in spite of you, Charlotte Wheeler, and I'd like to see you try to prevent me. You that went and got married and never so much as let your own sister know of it. If I had got married in such a fashion, Charlotte Wheeler, I'd be ashamed to look anybody in the face for the rest of my natural life.'

miss rosetta was so interested in thus laying down the law to charlotte and in planning out the future life of jane's baby that she didn't find the journey to charlottetown so long or tedious as might have been expected considering her haste she soon found her way to the house where her cousin lived there to her dismay and real sorrow she learned that mrs roberts had died at four o'clock that afternoon

she seemed dreadful anxious to live until she heard from some of her folks out in avonlea said the woman who gave miss rosetta the information she had written to them about her little girl she was my sister-in-law and she lived with me ever since her husband died i've done my best for her but i've a big family of my own and i can't see how i'm to keep the child poor jane looked and longed for some one to come from avonlea but she couldn't hold out a patient suffering creature she was

"'I'm her cousin,' said Miss Rosetta, wiping her eyes, "'and I have come for the baby. I'll take it home with me after the funeral, and if you please, Mrs. Gordon, let me see it right away, so it can get accustomed to me. Poor Jane! I wish I could have got here in time to see her. She and I were such friends long ago. We were far more intimate and confidential than ever her and Charlotte was. Charlotte knows that, too.'

the vim with which miss rosetta snapped this out rather amazed mrs gordon who couldn't understand it at all but she took miss rosetta upstairs to the room where the baby was sleeping oh the little darling cried miss rosetta all her old madishness and oddity falling away from her like a garment and all her innate and denied motherhood shining out in her face like a transforming illumination oh the sweet dear pretty little thing

the baby was a darling a six months old beauty with little golden ringlets curling and glistening all over its tiny head as miss rosetta hung over it it opened its eyes and then held out its tiny hands to her with a gurgle of confidence oh you sweetest said miss rosetta rapturously gathering it up in her arms you belong to me darling never never to that underhanded charlotte

"'What is its name, Mrs. Gordon?' "'It wasn't named,' said Mrs. Gordon. "'Guess you'll have to name it yourself, Miss Ellis.' "'Camilla Jane,' said Miss Rosetta, without a moment's hesitation. "'Jane after its mother, of course, and I have always thought Camilla the prettiest name in the world. Charlotte would be sure to give it some perfectly heathenish name. I wouldn't put it past her calling the poor, innocent Mahitabal.' Miss Rosetta decided to stay in Charlottetown until after the funeral."

that night she lay with the baby on her arm listening with joy to its soft little breathing she did not sleep or wish to sleep her waking fancies were more alluring than any visions of dreamland moreover she gave a spice to them by occasionally snapping some vicious sentences out loud at charlotte

miss rosetta fully expected charlotte along on the following morning and girded herself for the fray but no charlotte appeared night came no charlotte another morning and no charlotte miss rosetta was hopelessly puzzled what had happened dear dear had charlotte taken a bad heart spell on hearing that she rosetta had stolen a march on her to charlottetown

It was quite likely. You never knew what to expect of a woman who had married Jacob Wheeler.

the truth was that the very evening miss rosetta had left avonlea mrs jacob wheeler's hired man had broken his leg and had had to be conveyed to his distant home on a feather bed in an express wagon mrs wheeler could not leave home until she had obtained another hired man consequently it was the evening after the funeral when mrs wheeler whisked up the steps of the gordon house and met miss rosetta coming out with a big white bundle in her arms

The eyes of the two women met defiantly. Miss Rosetta's face wore an air of triumph, chastened by a remembrance of the funeral that afternoon. Mrs. Wheeler's face, except for eyes, was as expressionless as it usually was. Unlike the tall, fair, fat Miss Rosetta, Mrs. Wheeler was small and dark and thin, with an eager, careworn face. How is Jane? she said abruptly, breaking the silence of ten years in saying it.

jane is dead and buried poor thing said miss rosetta calmly i am taking her baby little camilla jane home with me the baby belongs to me cried mrs wheeler passionately jane wrote to me about her jane meant that i should have her i've come for her you'll go back without her then said miss rosetta serene in the possession that is nine points of the law

"'The child is mine, and she is going to stay mine.' "'You can make up your mind to that, Charlotte Wheeler. A woman who eloped to get married isn't fit to be trusted with a baby anyhow. Jacob Wheeler—' But Mrs. Wheeler had rushed past into the house. Miss Rosetta composedly stepped into the cab and drove to the station. She fairly bridled with triumph, and underneath the triumph ran a queer undercurrent of satisfaction over the fact that Charlotte had spoken to her at last.'

miss rosetta would not look at this satisfaction or give it a name but it was there miss rosetta arrived safely back in avonlea with camilla jane and within ten hours everybody in the settlement knew the whole story and every woman who could stand on her feet had been up to the ellis cottage to see the baby mrs wheeler arrived home twenty-four hours later and silently betook herself to her farm

when her avonlea neighbors sympathized with her in her disappointment she said nothing but looked all the more darkly determined also a week later mr william j blair the carmody storekeeper had an odd tale to tell mrs wheeler had come to the store and bought a lot of fine flannel and muslin and valenciennes now what in the name of time did mrs wheeler want with such stuff mr william j blair couldn't make head or tail of it and it worried him

mr blair was accustomed to know what everybody bought anything for that such a mystery quite upset him miss rosetta had exulted in the possession of little camilla jane for a month and had been so happy that she had almost given up in vain against charlotte her conversations instead of tending always to jacob wheeler ran now to camilla janeward and this folks thought was an improvement

one afternoon miss rosetta leaving camilla jane snugly sleeping in her cradle in the kitchen had slipped down to the bottom of the garden to pick her currants the house was hidden from her sight by the copse of cherry trees but she had left the kitchen window open so that she could hear the baby if it awakened and cried miss rosetta sang happily as she picked her currants for the first time since charlotte had married jacob wheeler miss rosetta felt really happy

so happy that there was no room in her heart for bitterness in fancy she looked forward to the coming years and saw camilla jane growing up into girlhood fair and lovable she'll be a beauty reflected miss rosetta complacently jane was a handsome girl she shall always be dressed as nice as i can manage it

"'And I'll get her an organ and have her take painting and music lessons. "'Parties, too. "'I'll give her a real coming-out party when she's eighteen "'and the very prettiest dress that's to be had. "'Dear me, I can hardly wait for her to grow up, "'though she's sweet enough now to make one wish she could stay a baby forever.' "'When Miss Rosetta returned to the kitchen, her eyes fell on an empty cradle. "'Camilla Jane was gone.'

Miss Rosetta promptly screamed. She understood at a glance what had happened. Six-months-old babies do not get out of their cradles and disappear through closed doorways without any assistance. "'Charlotte has been here,' gasped Miss Rosetta. "'Charlotte has stolen Camilla Jane. I might have expected it. I might have known when I heard that story about her buying muslin and flannel. It's just like Charlotte to do such an underhand trick.'

but i'll go after her i'll show her she'll find out she has got rosetta ellis to deal with and no wheeler like a frantic creature and wholly forgetting that her hair was up in curl-papers miss rosetta hurried up the hill and down the shore road to the wheeler farm a place she had never visited in her life before

the wind was off shore and only broke the bay's surface into long silvery ripples and sent sheeny shadows flying out across it from every point and headland like transparent wings the little gray house so close to the purring waves that in storms their spray splashed over its very doorstep seemed deserted miss rosetta pounded lustily on the front door this producing no result she marched around to the back door and knocked no answer

Miss Rosetta tried the door. It was locked. Guilty conscious, sniffed Miss Rosetta, while I shall stay here until I see that perfidious Charlotte, if I have to camp in the yard all night. Miss Rosetta was quite capable of doing this, but she was spared the necessity. Walking boldly up to the kitchen window and peering through it, she felt her heart swell with anger as she beheld Charlotte sitting calmly by the table with Camilla Jane on her knee.

beside her was a befrilled and bemuzlaned cradle and on a chair lay the garments in which miss rosetta had dressed the baby it was clad in an entirely new outfit and seemed quite at home with its new possessor it was laughing and cooing and making little dabs at her with its dimpled hands

"'Charlotte Wheeler,' cried Miss Rosetta, wrapping sharply on the windowpane. "'I've come for that child. Bring her out to me at once. At once, I say. How dare you come to my house and steal a baby? You're no better than a common burglar. Give me Camilla Jane, I say.' Charlotte came over to the window with the baby in her arms and Triumph glittering in her eyes. "'There is no such child as Camilla Jane here,' she said. "'This is Barbara Jane. She belongs to me.'

with that mrs wheeler pulled down the shade miss rosetta had to go home there was nothing else for her to do on her way she met mr patterson and told him in full the story of her wrongs it was all over avonlea by night and created quite a sensation avonlea had not had such a toothsome bit of gossip for a long time

mrs wheeler exulted in the possession of barbara jane for six weeks during which miss rosetta broke her heart with loneliness and longing and meditated futile plots for the recovery of the baby it was hopeless to think of stealing it back or she would have tried to the hired man at the wheeler place reported that mrs wheeler never left it night or day for a single moment she even carried it with her when she went to milk the cows

but my turn will come said miss rosetta grimly camilla jane is mine and if she was called barbara for a century it wouldn't alter that fact barbara indeed why not have called her methuselah and have done with it one afternoon in october when miss rosetta was picking her apples and thinking drearily about lost camilla jane a woman came running breathlessly down the hill and into the yard

Miss Rosetta gave an exclamation of amazement and dropped her basket of apples. Of all incredible things, the woman was Charlotte, Charlotte who had never set foot on the grounds of the Ellis Cottage since her marriage ten years ago. Charlotte, bareheaded, wild-eyed, distraught, wringing her hands and sobbing. Miss Rosetta flew to meet her. You've scalded Camilla Jane to death, she exclaimed. I always knew you would, always expected it.

"'Oh, for heaven's sake, come quick, Rosetta,' gasped Charlotte. "'Barbara Jane is in convulsions, and I don't know what to do. The hired man has gone for the doctor. You were the nearest, so I came to you. Jenny White was there when they came on, so I left her and ran. "'Oh, Rosetta, come, come, if you have a spark of humanity in you. You know what to do for convulsions. You saved the Ellis baby when it had them.'

oh come and save barbara jane you mean camilla jane i presume said miss rosetta firmly in spite of her agitation for a second charlotte wheeler hesitated then she said passionately yes yes camilla jane any name you like only come miss rosetta went and not a moment too soon either the doctor lived eight miles away and the baby was very bad the two women and jennie white worked over her for hours

it was not until dark when the baby was sleeping soundly and the doctor had gone after telling miss rosetta that she had saved the child's life that a realization of the situation came home to them well said miss rosetta dropping into an arm-chair with a long sigh of weariness i guess you'll admit now charlotte wheeler that you are hardly a fit person to have charge of a baby even if you had to go and steal it from me

"'I should think your conscience would reproach you. "'That is, if any woman who would marry Jacob Wheeler "'in such an underhanded fashion has a—' "'I—I wanted the baby,' sobbed Charlotte, tremulously. "'I was so lonely here. "'I didn't think it was any harm to take her, "'because Jane gave her to me in her letter. "'But you have saved her life, Rosetta, and you—' "'You can have her back, although it will break my heart to give her up. "'But, oh, Rosetta, won't you let me come and see her sometimes?'

I love her so, and I can't bear to get her up entirely. Charlotte, said Miss Rosetta firmly, the most sensible thing for you to do is to just come back with the baby. You are worried to death trying to run this farm with the debt Jacob Wheeler left on it for you. Sell it and come home with me, and we'll both have the baby then. Oh, Rosetta, I'd love to, faltered Charlotte. I've wanted to be good friends with you again so much, but I thought you were so hard and bitter you'd never make up.

"'Maybe I've talked too much,' conceded Miss Rosetta, "'but you ought to know me well enough to know I didn't mean a word of it. It was your never saying anything, no matter what I said, that riled me up so bad. Let bygones be bygones, and come home, Charlotte.' "'I will,' said Charlotte resolutely, wiping away her tears. "'I'm sick of living here and putting up with hired men. I'll be real glad to go home, Rosetta, and that's the truth.'

i've had a hard enough time i s'pose you'll say i deserved it but i was fond of jacob and of course of course why shouldn't you be said miss rosetta briskly i'm sure jacob wheeler was a good enough soul if he was a little slack twisted i'd like to hear anybody say a word against him in my presence look at that blessed child charlotte isn't she the sweetest thing

I'm desperate glad you are coming back home, Charlotte. I've never been able to put up a decent mess of mustard pickles since you went away, and you were always such a hand with them. We'll be real snug and cozy again, you and me and little Camilla Barbara Jane.

V. THE DREAM CHILD PART I A man's heart, aye, and a woman's too, should be light in the spring. The spirit of resurrection is broad, calling the life of the world out of its wintry grave, knocking with radiant fingers at the gates of its tomb. It stirs in human hearts and makes them glad with the old primal gladness they felt in childhood.

it quickens human souls and brings them if they so will so close to god that they may clasp hands with him it is a time of wonder and renewed life and a great outward and inward rapture as of a young angel softly clapping his hands for creation's joy at least so it should be and so it always had been with me until the spring when the dream-child first came into our lives

That year I hated the spring, I who had always loved it so. As a boy I had loved it, and as man. All the happiness that had ever been mine, and it was much, had come to blossom in the springtime. It was in the spring that Josephine and I had first loved each other, or at least had first come into the full knowledge that we loved.

i think that we must have loved each other all our lives and that each succeeding spring was a word in the revelation of that love not to be understood until in the fullness of time the whole sentence was written out in that most beautiful of all beautiful springs how beautiful it was and how beautiful she was i suppose every lover thinks that of his lass otherwise he is a poor sort of lover

But it was not only my eyes of love that made my dear lovely. She was slim and lith as a young, white-stemmed birch tree, her hair was like a soft, dusky cloud, and her eyes were as blue as Avonlea Harbor on a fair twilight, when all the sky is a-bloom over it.

she had dark lashes and a little red mouth that quivered when she was very sad or very happy or when she loved very much quivered like a crimson rose too rudely shaken by the wind at such times what was a man to do save kiss it the next spring we were married and i brought her home to my old gray homestead on the gray old harbor shore a lonely place for a young bride said avonlea people

nay it was not so she was happy here even in my absences she loved the great restless harbour and the vast misty sea beyond she loved the tides keeping their world-old tryst with the shore and the gulls and the croon of the waves and the call of the winds in the fir-woods at noon and even

she loved the moonrises and the sunsets and the clear calm nights when the stars seemed to have fallen into the water and to be a little dizzy from such a fall she loved these things even as i did no she was never lonely here then the third spring came and our boy was born we thought we had been happy before now we knew that we had only dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness and had awakened to this exquisite reality

We thought we had loved each other before. Now, as I looked into my wife's pale face, blanched with its baptism of pain, and met the uplifted gaze of her blue eyes, aglow with the holy passion of motherhood, I knew we had only imagined what love might be. The imagination had been sweet, as the thought of the rose is sweet before the bud is open, but as the rose to the thought, so was love to the imagination of it.

"'All my thoughts are poetry since baby came,' my wife said once rapturously. "'Our boy lived for twenty months. He was a sturdy, toddling rogue, so full of life and laughter and mischief that, when he died one day after the illness of an hour, it seemed a most absurd thing that he should be dead, a thing I could have laughed at until belief forced itself into my soul like a burning, searing iron.'

i think i grieved over my little son's death as deeply and sincerely as ever man did or could but the heart of the father is not as the heart of the mother time brought no healing to josephine she fretted and pined her cheeks lost their pretty oval and her mouth grew pale and drooping i hoped that spring might work its miracle upon her

when the buds swelled and the old earth grew green in the sun and the gulls came back to the gray harbor whose very grayness grew golden and mellow i thought i should see her smile again but when the spring came came the dream child and the fear that was to be my companion at bed and board from sunsetting to sunsetting one night i awakened from sleep realizing in the moment of wakening that i was alone

I listened to hear whether my wife were moving about the house. I heard nothing but the little splash of waves on the shore below and the low moan of the distant ocean. I rose and searched the house. She was not in it. I did not know where to seek her, but at a venture I started along the shore. It was pale, fainting moonlight. The harbor looked like a phantom harbor, and the night was as still and cold and calm as the face of a dead man.

at last i saw my wife coming to me along the shore when i saw her i knew what i had feared and how great my fear had been as she drew near i saw that she had been crying her face was stained with tears and her dark hair hung loose over her shoulders in little glossy ringlets like a child's she seemed to be very tired and at intervals she wrung her small hands together

she showed no surprise when she met me but only held out her hands to me as if glad to see me i followed him but i could not overtake him she said with a sob i did my best i hurried so but he was always a little way ahead and then i lost him and so i came back but i did my best indeed i did and oh i am so tired josie dearest what do you mean and where have you been i said drawing her close to me

"'Why did you go out so alone in the night?' She looked at me wonderingly. "'How could I help it, David? He called me. I had to go.' "'Who called you?' "'The child,' she answered in a whisper. "'Our child, David, our pretty boy.' I awakened in the darkness and heard him calling to me down on the shore. Such a sad little wailing cry, David, as if he were cold and lonely and wanted his mother. I hurried out to him, but I could not find him.

i could only hear the call and i followed it on and on far down the shore oh i tried so hard to overtake it but i could not once i saw a little white hand beckoning to me far ahead in the moonlight but still i could not go fast enough and then the cry ceased and i was there all alone on that terrible cold gray shore i was so tired and i came home but i wish i could have found him perhaps he does not know that i tried to

perhaps he thinks his mother never listened to his call oh i would not have him think that you have had a bad dream dear i said i tried to say it naturally but it is hard for a man to speak naturally when he feels a mortal dread striking into his very vitals with its deadly chill

"'It was no dream,' she answered reproachfully. "'I tell you I heard him calling me, me his mother. What could I do but go to him? You cannot understand, you are only his father. It was not you who gave him birth. It was not you who paid the price of his dear life in pain. He would not call to you. He wanted his mother. I got her back to the house and to her bed, whither she went obediently enough, and soon fell into the sleep of exhaustion.'

but there was no more sleep for me that night i kept a grim vigil with dread when i had married josephine one of those officious relatives that are apt to buzz about a man's marriage told me that her grandmother had been insane all the latter part of her life she had grieved over the death of a favorite child until she lost her mind

and as the first indication of it she had sought by nights a white dream-child which always called her so she said and led her afar with a little pale beckoning hand i had smiled at the story then what had that grim old bygone to do with springtime and love and josephine but it came back to me now hand in hand with my fear was this fate coming on my dear wife it was too horrible for belief

She was so young, so fair, so sweet, this girl-wife of mine. It had been only a bad dream, with a frightened, bewildered wakening. So I tried to comfort myself. When she awakened in the morning, she did not speak of what had happened, and I did not dare to. She seemed more cheerful that day than she had been, and went about her household duties briskly and skillfully. My fear lifted. I was sure now that she had only dreamed.

and i was confirmed in my hopeful belief when two nights had passed away uneventfully then on the third night the dream child called to her again i wakened from a troubled doze to find her dressing herself with feverish haste he is calling me she cried oh don't you hear him can't you hear him listen listen the little lonely cry yes yes my precious mother is coming wait for me mother is coming to her pretty boy i caught her hand and let her lead me where she would

hand in hand we followed the dream child down the harbor shore in that ghostly clouded moonlight ever she said the little cry sounded before her she entreated the dream child to wait for her she cried and implored and uttered tender mother talk but at last she ceased to hear the cry and then weeping wearied she let me lead her home again what a horror brooded over that spring that so beautiful spring

it was a time of wonder and marvel of the soft touch of silver rain on greening fields of the incredible delicacy of young leaves of blossom on the land and blossom in the sunset the whole world bloomed in a flush and tremor of maiden loveliness instinct with all the evasive fleeting charm of spring and girlhood and young morning and almost every night of this wonderful time the dream-child called his mother and we roved the gray shore in quest of him

in the day she was herself but when the night fell she was restless and uneasy until she heard the call then follow it she would even through storm and darkness it was then she said that the cry sounded loudest and nearest as if her pretty boy were frightened by the tempest

what wild terrible rovings we had she straining forward eager to overtake the dream child i sick at heart following guiding protecting as best i could then afterwards leading her gently home heart-broken because she could not reach the child i bore my burden in secret determining that gossip should not busy itself with my wife's condition so long as i could keep it from becoming known

we had no near relatives none with any right to share any trouble and whoso accepteth human love must bind it to his soul with pain i thought however that i should have medical advice and i took our old doctor into my confidence he looked grave when he heard my story i did not like his expression nor his few guarded remarks he said he thought human aid would avail little she might come all right in time humor her as far as possible watch over her protect her

He needed not to tell me that. The spring went out and the summer came in, and the horror deepened and darkened. I knew that suspicions were being whispered from lip to lip. We had been seen on our nightly quests. Men and women began to look at us pityingly when we went abroad.

for more information or to volunteer please visit the box dot org further chronicles of avonlea chapter v the dream child part two one day on a dull drowsy afternoon the dream child called i knew then that the end was near the end had been near in the old grandmother's case sixty years before when the dream child called in the day

the doctor looked graver than ever when i told him and said that the time had come when i must have help in my task i could not watch by day and night unless i had assistance i would break down i did not think that i should love is stronger than that and on one thing i was determined they should never take my wife from me no restraint sterner than a husband's loving hand should ever be put upon her my pretty piteous darling i never spoke of the dream child to her

the doctor advised against it it would he said only serve to deepen the delusion when he hinted at an asylum i gave him a look that would have been a fierce word for another man he never spoke of it again one night in august there was a dull murky sunset after a dead breathless day of heat with not a wind stirring the sea was not as blue as the sea should be but pink all pink a ghastly staring painted pink

i lingered in the harbor shore below the house until dark the evening bells were ringing faintly and mournfully in a church across the harbor behind me in the kitchen i heard my wife singing sometimes now her spirits were fitfully high and then she would sing the old songs of her girlhood but even in her singing was something strange as if a wailing unearthly cry rang through it nothing about her was sadder than that strange singing

When I went back to the house, the rain was beginning to fall, but there was no wind or sound in the air, only that dismal stillness as if the world were holding its breath in expectation of a calamity. Josie was standing by the window, looking out and listening. I tried to induce her to go to bed, but she only shook her head. I might fall asleep and not hear him when he called, she said. I am always afraid to sleep now, for fear he should call and his mother fail to hear him.

knowing it was of no use to entreat i sat down by the table and tried to read three hours passed on when the clock struck midnight she started up with the wild light in her sunken blue eyes he is calling she cried calling out there in the storm yes yes sweet i am coming she opened the door and fled down the path to the shore

I snatched a lantern from the wall, lighted it, and followed. It was the blackest night I was ever out in, dark with the very darkness of death. The rain fell thickly and heavily. I overtook Josie, caught her hand, and stumbled along in her wake, for she went with the speed and recklessness of a distraught woman. We moved in the little flitting circle of light shed by the lantern. All around us and above us was a horrible, voiceless darkness, and

held as it were at bay by the friendly light if i could only overtake him once moaned josie if i could just kiss him once and hold him close against my aching heart this pain that never leaves me would leave me then oh my pretty boy wait for mother i am coming to you listen david he cries he cries so pitifully listen can't you hear it

I did hear it. Clear and distinct, out of the deadly still darkness before us came a faint wailing cry. What was it? Was I too going mad, or was there something out there, something that cried and moaned, longing for human love, yet ever retreating from human footsteps? I am not a superstitious man, but my nerve had been shaken by my long trial, and I was weaker than I thought.

terror took possession of me terror unnameable i trembled in every limb clammy perspiration oozed from my forehead i was possessed by a wild impulse to turn and flee anywhere away from that unearthly cry but josephine's cold hand gripped mine firmly and led me on the strange cry still rang in my ears

but it did not recede it sounded clearer and stronger it was a wail but a loud insistent wail it was nearer nearer it was in the darkness just beyond us then we came to it a little dory had been beached on the pebbles and left there by the receding tide

there was a child in it a boy of perhaps two years old who crouched in the bottom of the dory in water to his waist his big blue eyes wild and wide with terror his face white and tear-stained he wailed again when he saw us and held out his little hands my horror fell away from me like a discarded garment this child was living how he had come there once and why i did not know and in my state of mind did not question

it was no cry of parted spirit i had heard that was enough for me oh the poor darling cried my wife she stooped over the dory and lifted the baby in her arms his long fair curls fell on her shoulder she hid her face against his and wrapped her shawl around him let me carry him dear i said he is very wet and too heavy for you

"'No, no, I must carry him. My arms have been so empty. They are full now. Oh, David, the pain at my heart has gone. He has come to me to take the place of my own. God has sent him to me out of the sea. He is wet and cold and tired. Hush, sweet one, we will go home.' Silently I followed her home. The wind was rising, coming in sudden angry gusts. The storm was at hand, but we reached shelter before it broke.'

just as i shut our door behind us it smote the house with the roar of a baffled beast i thanked god that we were not out in it following the dream child you are very wet josie i said go and put on dry clothes at once the child must be looked to first she said firmly see how chilled and exhausted he is the pretty dear light a fire quickly david while i get dry things for him i let her have her way

she brought out the clothes our own child had worn and dressed the waif in them rubbing his chilled limbs brushing his wet hair laughing over him mothering him she seemed like her old self for my own part i was bewildered all the questions i had not asked before came crowding to my mind now whose child was this whence had he come what was the meaning of it all he was a pretty baby fair and plump and rosy

when he was dried and fed he fell asleep in josie's arms she hung over him in a passion of delight it was with difficulty i persuaded her to leave him long enough to change her wet clothes she never asked whose he might be or from where he might have come he had been sent to her from the sea the dream child had led her to him that was what she believed and i dared not throw any doubt on that belief

she slept that night with the baby on her arm and in her sleep her face was the face of a girl in her youth untroubled and unworn i expected that the morrow would bring some one seeking the baby i had come to the conclusion that he must belong to the cove across the harbor where the fishing hamlet was and all day while josie laughed and played with him i waited and listened for the footsteps of those who would come seeking him

but they did not come day after day passed and still they did not come i was in a maze of perplexity what should i do i shrank from the thought of the boy being taken away from us since we had found him the dream child had never called my wife seemed to have turned back from the dark borderland where her feet had strayed to walk again with me in our own homely paths day and night she was her old bright self happy and serene in the new motherhood that had come to her

the only thing strange in her was her calm acceptance of the event she never wondered who or whose the child might be never seemed to fear that he would be taken from her and she gave him our dream child's name at last when a full week had passed i went in my bewilderment to our old doctor a most extraordinary thing he said thoughtfully the child as you say must belong to the spruce cove people

yet it is an almost unbelievable thing that there has been no search or inquiry after him probably there is some simple explanation of the mystery however i advise you to go over to the cove and inquire when you find the parents or guardian of the child ask them to allow you to keep it for a time it may prove your wife's salvation i have known such cases evidently on that night the crisis of her mental disorder was reached

a little thing might have sufficed to turn her feet either way back to reason and sanity or into deeper darkness it is my belief that the former has occurred and that if she is left in an undisturbed possession of this child for a time she will recover completely i drove around the harbor that day with a lighter heart than i had ever hoped to possess again when i reached spruce cove the first person i met was old abel blair

I asked him if any child were missing from the cove or along shore. He looked at me in surprise, shook his head, and said he had not heard of any. I told him as much of the tale as was necessary, leaving him to think that my wife and I had found the dory and its small passenger during an ordinary walk along the shore. A green dory! he exclaimed. Ben Forbes's old green dory has been missing for a week, but it was so rotten and leaky he didn't bother looking for it.

"'But this child, sir, it beats me. What might he be like?' I described the child as closely as possible. "'That fits little Harry Martin to a hair,' said old Abel perplexedly. "'But, sir, it can't be. Or if it is, there's been foul work somewhere. James Martin's wife died last winter, sir, and he died the next month. They left a baby and not much else. There weren't nobody to take the child but Jim's half-sister, Maggie Fleming.'

she lived here at the cove and i'm sorry to say sir she hadn't too good a name she didn't want to be bothered with the baby and folks say she neglected him scandalous well last spring she began talking of going away to the states she said a friend of hers had got her a good place in boston and she was going to go and take little harry

we supposed it was all right last saturday she went sir she was going to walk to the station and the last seen of her she was trudging along the road carrying the baby it hasn't been thought of since but sir do you suppose that she set that innocent child adrift in that old leaky dory to send him to his death i knew maggie was no better than she should be but i can't believe she was as bad as that you must come over with me and see if you can identify the child i said

if he is harry martin i shall keep him my wife has been very lonely since our baby died and she has taken a fancy to this little chap when we reached my home old abel recognized the child as harry martin he is with us still his baby hands led my dear wife back to health and happiness

Other children have come to us. She loves them all dearly. But the boy who bears her dead son's name is to her, I, and to me, as dear as if she had given him birth. He came from the sea, and at his coming the ghostly dream-child fled, never more to lure my wife away from me with its exciting cry. Therefore I look upon him and love him as my firstborn. End of section 10

CHAPTER VI. THE BROTHER WHO FAILED. PART I. The Monroe family were holding a Christmas reunion at the old Prince Edward Island homestead at White Sands.

it was the first time they had all been together under one roof since the death of their mother thirty years before the idea of this christmas reunion had originated with edith monroe the preceding spring during her tedious convalescence from a bad attack of pneumonia among strangers in an american city where she had not been able to fill her concert engagements and had more spare time in which to feel the tug of old ties and the homesick longing for her own people than she had had for years

as a result when she recovered she wrote to her second brother james monroe who lived on the homestead and the consequence was this gathering of the monroes under the old roof-tree ralph monroe for once laid aside the cares of his railroads and the deceitfulness of his millions in toronto and took the long-promised long-deferred trip to the homeland malcolm monroe journeyed from the far western university of which he was president

edith came flushed with the triumph of her latest and most successful concert tour mrs woodburn who had been margaret monroe came from the nova scotia town where she lived a happy busy life as the wife of a rising young lawyer james prosperous and hardy greeted them warmly at the old homestead whose fertile acres had well repaid his skilful management

they were a merry party casting aside their cares and years and harking back to joyous boyhood and girlhood once more james had a family of rosy lads and lasses margaret brought her two blue-eyed little girls ralph's dark clever-looking son accompanied him and malcolm brought his a young man with a resolute face in which there was less of boyishness than in his father's and the eyes of a keen perhaps hard bargainer

the two cousins were the same age to a day and it was a family joke among the munroes that the stork must have mixed the babies since ralph's son was like malcolm in face and brain while malcolm's boy was a second edition of his uncle ralph to crown all aunt isabel came too a talkative clever shrewd old lady as young at eighty-five as she had been at thirty thinking the munro stock the best in the world and beamingly proud of her nephews and nieces

who had gone out from this humble little farm to destinies of such brilliance and influence in the world beyond i have forgotten robert robert monroe was apt to be forgotten although he was the oldest of the family white sands people in naming over the various members of the monroe family would add and robert in a tone of surprise over the remembrance of his existence

he lived on a poor sandy little farm down by the shore but he had come up to james's place on the evening when the guests arrived they had all greeted him warmly and joyously and then did not think about him again in their laughter and conversation robert sat back in a corner and listened with a smile but he never spoke afterwards he had slipped noiselessly away and gone home and nobody noticed his going they were all gaily busy recalling what had happened in the old times and telling what had happened in the new

Edith recounted the success of her concert tours. Malcolm expatiated proudly on his plans for developing his beloved college. Ralph described the country through which his new railroad ran, and the difficulties he had had to overcome in connection with it. James, aside, discussed his orchard and his crops with Margaret, who had not been long enough away from the farm to lose touch with its interests.

aunt isabel knitted and smiled complacently on all talking now with one now with the other secretly proud of herself that she an old woman of eighty-five who had seldom been out of white sands in her life could discuss high finance with ralph and higher education with malcolm and hold her own with james in an argument on drainage

the white-sand school-teacher and arch-eyed red-mouthed bit of a girl abel from avonlea who boarded with the james monroes amused herself with the boys all were enjoying themselves hugely so it is not to be wondered that they did not miss robert who had gone home early because his old housekeeper was nervous if left alone at night

He came again the next afternoon. From James in the barnyard he learned that Malcolm and Ralph had driven to the harbor, that Margaret and Mrs. James had gone to call on friends in Avonlea, and that Edith was walking somewhere in the woods on the hill. There was nobody in the house except Aunt Isabel and the teacher. "'You'd better wait and stay the evening,' said James, indifferently. "'They'll all be back soon.' Robert went across the yard and sat down on the rustic bench in the angle of the front porch."

it was a fine december evening as mild as autumn there had been no snow and the long fields sloping down from the homestead were brown and mellow a weird dreamy stillness had fallen upon the purple earth the windless woods the rain of the valleys the sere meadows nature seemed to have folded satisfied hands to rest knowing that her long wintry slumber was coming upon her

out to sea a dull red sunset faded out into somber clouds and the ceaseless voice of many waters came up from the tawny shore robert rested his chin on his hands and looked across the vales and hills where the feathery gray of leafless hardwoods was mingled with the sturdy unfailing green of the cone-bearers

he was a tall bent man with thin gray hair a lined face and deeply set gentle brown eyes the eyes of one who looking through pain sees rapture beyond he felt very happy he loved his family clannishly and he was rejoiced that they were all again near to him he was proud of their success and fame he was glad that james had prospered so well of late years there was no canker of envy or discontent in his soul

He heard absently indistinct voices at the open hall window above the porch, where Aunt Isabel was talking to Kathleen Bell. Presently Aunt Isabel moved nearer to the window, and her words came down to Robert with startling clearness. "'Yes, I can assure you, Miss Bell, that I'm real proud of my nephews and nieces. They're a smart family. They've almost all done well, and they hadn't any of them much to begin with. Ralph had absolutely nothing, and to-day he is a millionaire.'

their father met with so many losses that with his ill health and the bank failing that he couldn't help them any but they've all succeeded except poor robert and i must admit that he's a total failure oh no no said the little teacher deprecatingly a total failure aunt isabel repeated her words emphatically she was not going to be contradicted by anybody least of all abel from avonlea

he has been a failure since the time he was born he is the first monroe to disgrace the old stock that way i'm sure his brothers and sisters must be dreadfully ashamed of him he has lived sixty years and he hasn't done a thing worth while he can't even make his farm pay if he's kept out of debt it's as much as he's ever managed to do

"'Some men can't even do that,' murmured the little school-teacher. She was really so much in awe of this imperious, clever old Aunt Isabel that it was positive heroism on her part to venture even this faint protest. "'More is expected of a Monroe,' said Aunt Isabel majestically. "'Robert Monroe is a failure, and that is the only name for him.' Robert Monroe stood up below the window in a dizzy, uncertain fashion. Aunt Isabel had been speaking of him.'

He, Robert, was a failure, a disgrace to his blood, of whom his nearest and dearest were ashamed. Yes, it was true, he had never realized it before. He had known he could never win power or accumulate riches, but he had not thought that mattered much. Now, through Aunt Isabel's scornful eyes, he saw himself as the world saw him, as his brothers and sisters must see him.

there lay the sting what the world thought of him did not matter but that his own should think him a failure and disgrace was agony he moaned as he started to walk across the yard only anxious to hide his pain and shame away from all human sight and in his eyes was the look of a gentle animal which had been stricken by a cruel and unexpected blow

Edith Monroe, who, unaware of Robert's proximity, had been standing on the other side of the porch, saw that look as he hurried past her unseeing. A moment before her dark eyes had been flashing with anger at Aunt Isabel's words. Now the anger was drowned in a sudden rush of tears. She took a quick step after Robert, but checked the impulse. Not then, and not by her alone, could that deadly hurt be healed. Nay, more, Robert must never suspect that she knew of any hurt.

she stood and watched him through her tears as he went away across the low-lying fields to hide his broken heart under his own humble roof she yearned to hurry after him and comfort him but she knew that comfort was not what robert needed now justice and justice only could pluck out the sting which otherwise must rankle to the death ralph and malcolm were driving into the yard edith went over to them boys she said resolutely i want to have a talk with you

the christmas dinner at the old homestead was a merry one mrs james spread a feast that was fit for the halls of lucullus laughter jest and repartee flew from lip to lip nobody appeared to notice that robert ate little said nothing and sat with his form shrinking in his shabby best suit his gray head bent even lower than usual as if desirous of avoiding all observation

When the others spoke to him, he answered deprecatingly, and shrank still further into himself. CHAPTER VI. THE BROTHER WHO FAILED. PART II.

Finally, all had eaten all they could, and the remainder of the plum pudding was carried out. Robert gave a low sigh of relief. It was almost over. Soon he would be able to escape and hide himself in his shame away from the mirthful eyes of these men and women who had earned the right to laugh at the world in which their success gave them power and influence. He—he only was a failure. He wondered impatiently why Mrs. James did not rise.

mrs james merely leaned comfortably back in her chair with the righteous expression of one who has done her duty by her fellow-creature's palates and looked at malcolm malcolm rose in his place silence fell on the company everybody looked suddenly alert and expectant except robert he still sat with bowed head wrapped in his own bitterness i've been told that i must lead off said malcolm because i am supposed to possess the gift of gab

but if i do i am not going to use it for any rhetorical effect to-day simple earnest words must express the deepest feelings of the heart in doing justice to its own brothers and sisters we meet to-day under our own roof-tree surrounded by the benedictions of past years perhaps invisible guests are here the spirits of those who founded this home and whose work on earth has been long finished it is not amiss to hope that this is so and our family circle made indeed complete

to each one of us who are here in visible bodily presence some measure of success has fallen but only one of us has been supremely successful in the only things that really count the things that count for eternity as well as time sympathy and unselfishness and self-sacrifice i shall tell you my own story for the benefit of those who have not heard it when i was a lad of sixteen i started to work out my own education

some of you will remember that old mr william blair of avonlea offered me a place in his store for the summer at wages which would go far towards paying my expenses at the country academy the next winter i went to work eager and hopeful all summer i tried to do my faithful best for my employer in september the blow fell a sum of money was missing from mr blair's till i was suspected and discharged in disgrace

"'All my neighbors believed me guilty. "'Even some of my own family looked upon me with suspicion. "'Nor could I blame them, for the circumstantial evidence was strongly against me. "'Ralph and James looked ashamed. "'Edith and Margaret, who had not been born at the time referred to, "'lifted their faces innocently. "'Robert did not move or glance up. "'He hardly seemed to be listening. "'I was crushed in an agony of shame and despair,' continued Malcolm. "'I believed my career was ruined.'

I was bent on casting all my ambitions behind me and going west to some place where nobody knew me or my disgrace. But there was one person who believed in my innocence, who said to me, You shall not give up. You shall not behave as if you were guilty. You are innocent, and in time your innocence will be proved. Meanwhile, show yourself a man. You have nearly enough to pay your way next winter at the academy."

i have a little i can give to help you out don't give in never give in when you have done no wrong i listened and took his advice i went to the academy my story was there as soon as i was and i found myself sneered at and shunned many a time i would have given up in despair had it not been for the encouragement of my counselor he furnished the backbone for me i was determined that his belief in me should be justified i studied hard and came out at the head of my class

then there seemed to be no chance of my earning any more money that summer but a farmer at newbridge who cared nothing about the character of his help if he could get the work out of them offered to hire me the prospect was distasteful but urged by the man who believed in me i took the place and endured the hardships another winter of lonely work passed the academy i won the ferrell scholarship that last year it was offered and that meant an arts course for me

i went to redmond college my story was not openly known there but something of it got abroad enough to taint my life there also with its suspicion but the year i graduated mr blair's nephew who as you know was the real culprit confessed his guilt and i was cleared before the world

"'Since then my career has been what is called a brilliant one. But—' Malcolm turned and laid his hand on Robert's thin shoulder. "'All of my success I owe to my brother Robert. It is his success, not mine, and here today, since we have agreed to say what is too often left to be said over a coffin-lid, I thank him for all he did for me, and tell him that there is nothing I am more proud of and thankful for than such a brother.'

robert had looked up at last amazed bewildered incredulous his face crimsoned as malcolm sat down but now ralph was getting up i am no orator as malcolm is he quoted gaily but i've got a story to tell too which only one of you knows

"'Forty years ago, when I started in life as a businessman, money wasn't so plentiful with me as it may be today, and I needed it badly. A chance came my way to make a pile of it. It wasn't a clean chance, it was a dirty chance. It looked square on the surface, but underneath it meant trickery and roguery. I hadn't enough perception to see that, though. I was fool enough to think it was all right.'

i told robert what i meant to do and robert saw clear through the outward sham to the real hideous thing underneath he showed me what it meant and he gave me a preachment about few monroe traditions of truth and honor i saw what i had been about to do as he saw it as all good men and true must see it and i vowed then and there that i'd never go into anything that i wasn't sure was fair and square and clean through and through

"'I've kept that vow. I am a rich man, and not a dollar of my money is tainted money. But I didn't make it. Robert really made every cent of my money. If it hadn't been for him, I'd have been a poor man to-day, or behind prison bars, as are the other men who went into that deal when I backed out. I've got a son here. I hope he'll be as clever as his Uncle Malcolm, but I hope still more earnestly that he'll be as good and honorable a man as his Uncle Robert.'

by this time robert's head was bent again and his face buried in his hands my turn next said james i haven't much to say only this after mother died i took typhoid fever here i was with no one to wait on me robert came and nursed me he was the most faithful tender gentle nurse ever a man had the doctor said robert saved my life i don't suppose any of the rest of us here can say we have saved a life

edith wiped away her tears and sprang up impulsively years ago she said there was a poor ambitious girl who had a voice she wanted a musical education and her only apparent chance of obtaining it was to get a teacher's certificate and earn money enough to have her voice trained she studied hard but her brains in mathematics at least weren't as good as her voice and the time was short

she failed she was lost in disappointment and despair for that was the last year in which it was possible to obtain a teacher's certificate without attending queen's academy and she could not afford that then her oldest brother came to her and told her he could spare enough money to send her to the conservatory of music in halifax for a year he made her take it she never knew till long afterwards that he had sold the beautiful horse which he loved like a human creature to get the money

she went to the halifax conservatory she won a musical scholarship she has had a happy life and a successful career and she owes it all to her brother robert but edith could go no further her voice failed her and she sat down in tears margaret did not try to stand up i was only five when my mother died she sobbed robert was both father and mother to me never had child or girl so wise and loving a guardian as he was to me i have never forgotten the lessons he taught me

whatever there is of good in my life or character i owe to him i was often headstrong and willful but he never lost patience with me i owe everything to robert suddenly the little teacher rose with wet eyes and crimson cheeks i have something to say too she said resolutely you have spoken for yourselves i speak for the people of white sands there is a man in this settlement whom everybody loves i shall tell you some of the things he has done

Last fall, in an October storm, the harbor lighthouse flew a flag of distress. Only one man was brave enough to face the danger of sailing to the lighthouse to find out what the trouble was. That was Robert Monroe. He found the keeper alone with a broken leg, and he sailed back and made, yes, made the unwilling and terrified doctor go with him to the lighthouse. I saw him when he told the doctor he must go, and I tell you that no man living could have sat his will against Robert Monroe's at that moment.

Four years ago, old Sarah Cooper was to be taken to the poorhouse. She was broken-hearted. One man took the poor, bedridden, fretful old creature into his home, paid for medical attendance, and waited on her himself, when his housekeeper couldn't endure her temptrums and temper. Sarah Cooper died two years afterwards, and her last breath was a benediction on Robert Monroe, the best man God ever made.

Eight years ago Jack Blewett wanted a place. Nobody would hire him because his father was in the penitentiary, and some people thought Jack ought to be there too. Robert Monroe hired him, and helped him, and kept him straight, and got him started right, and Jack Blewett is a hard-working, respected young man today, with every prospect of a useful and honorable life. There is hardly a man, woman, or child in White Sands who doesn't owe something to Robert Monroe. As Kathleen Bell sat down, Malcolm sprang up and held out his hands.

every one of us stand up and sing auld lang syne he cried everybody stood up and joined hands but one did not sing robert monroe stood erect with a great radiance on his face and in his eyes his reproach had been taken away he was crowned among his kindred with the beauty and blessing of sacred yesterdays when the singing ceased malcolm's stern-faced son reached over and shook robert's hands uncle rob he said heartily i hope that when i'm sixty i'll be as successful a man as you

I guess, said Aunt Isabel, aside to the little schoolteacher, as she wiped the tears from her keen old eyes, that there's a kind of failure that's the best success.

CHAPTER VII. THE RETURN OF HESTER, PART I. Just at dusk that evening I had gone upstairs and put on my muslin gown. I had been busy all day attending to the strawberry preserves, for Mary Sloane could not be trusted with that, and I was a little tired, and thought it was hardly worth while to change my dress, especially since there was nobody to see or care since Hester was gone. Mary Sloane did not count. But I did it because Hester would have cared if she had been here,

she always liked to see me neat and dainty so although i was tired and sick at heart i put on my pale blue muslin and dressed my hair at first i did my hair up in a way i had always liked but had seldom worn because hester had disapproved of it it became me but i suddenly felt as if it were disloyal to her so i took the puffs down again and arranged my hair in the plain old-fashioned way she had liked

my hair though it had a good many gray threads in it was thick and long and brown still but that did not matter nothing mattered since hester was dead and i had sent hugh blair away for the second time the newbridge people all wondered why i had not put on mourning for hester i did not tell them it was because hester had asked me not to

Hester had never approved of mourning. She said that if the heart did not mourn, crape would not mend matters, and if it did, there was no need of the external trappings of woe. She told me calmly, the night before she died, to go on wearing my pretty dresses, just as I had always worn them, and to make no difference in my outward life because of her going. "'I know there will be a difference in your inward life,' she said wistfully."

Oh, there was, but sometimes I wondered uneasily, feeling almost conscious-stricken, whether it were wholly because Hester had left me, whether it were not partly because, for a second time, I had shut the door of my heart in the face of love at her bidding. When I had dressed, I went downstairs to the front door, and sat on the sandstone steps under the arch of the Virginia Creeper. I was all alone, for Mary Sloane had gone to Avonlea.

it was a beautiful night the full moon was just rising over the wooded hills and her light fell through the poplars into the garden before me through an open corner on the western side i saw the sky all silvery blue in the after-light the garden was very beautiful just then for it was the time of the roses and hours were all out so many of them great pink and red and white and yellow roses

hester had loved roses and could never have enough of them her favorite bush was growing by the steps all gloried over with blossoms white with pale pink hearts i gathered a cluster and pinned it loosely on my breast but my eyes filled as i did so i felt so very very desolate i was all alone and it was bitter the roses as much as i loved them could not give me sufficient companionship i wanted the clasp of a human hand and the love-light in human eyes

and then i fell to thinking of hugh though i tried not to i had always lived alone with hester i did not remember our parents who died in my babyhood hester was fifteen years older than i and she had always seemed more like a mother than a sister she had been very good to me and had never denied me anything i wanted save the one thing that mattered

i was twenty-five before i ever had a lover this was not i think because i was more unattractive than the other women the merediths had always been the big family of newbridge the rest of the people looked up to us because we were the granddaughters of old squire meredith the newbridge young men would have thought it no use to try to woo a meredith i had not a great deal of family pride as perhaps i should be ashamed to confess

I found our exalted position very lonely, and cared more for the simple joys of friendship and companionship which other girls had. But Hester possessed it in a double measure. She never allowed me to associate on the level of equality with the young people of Newbridge. We must be very nice, and kind, and affable to them—noblesse oblige, as it were—but we must never forget that we were Merediths.

When I was twenty-five, Hugh Blair came to Newbridge, having bought a farm near the village. He was a stranger from Lower Carmody, and so was not imbued with any preconceptions of Meredith's superiority. In his eyes I was just a girl like others, a girl to be wooed and won by any man of clean life and honest heart. I met him at a little Sunday-school picnic over at Avonlea, which I attended because of my class. I thought him very handsome and manly.

he talked to me a great deal and at last he drove me home the next sunday evening he walked up from church with me hester was away or of course this would never have happened she had gone for a month's visit to distant friends in that month i lived a lifetime hugh blair courted me as the other girls in newbridge were courted he took me out driving and came to see me in the evenings which be spent for the most part in the garden

i did not like the stately gloom and formality of our old meredith parlor and hugh never seemed to feel at ease there his broad shoulders and hearty laughter were oddly out of place among our faded old-maidish furnishings mary sloane was very much pleased at hugh's visit she had always resented the fact that i had never had a beau seeming to think it reflected some slight or disparagement upon me she did all she could to encourage him

but when hester returned and found out about hugh she was very angry and grieved which hurt me far more she told me that i had forgotten myself and that hugh's visits must cease i had never been afraid of hester before but i was afraid of her then i yielded perhaps it was very weak of me but then i was always weak i think that was why hugh's strength had appealed so to me

i needed love and protection hester strong and self-sufficient had never felt such a need she could not understand oh how contemptuous she was i told hugh timidly that hester did not approve of our friendship and that it must end he took it quietly enough and went away i thought he did not care much and the thought selfishly made my own heartache worse

i was very unhappy for a long time but i tried not to let hester see it and i don't think she did she was not very discerning in some things after a time i got over it that is the heartache ceased to ache all the time but things were never quite the same again life always seemed rather dreary and empty in spite of hester and my roses and my sunday school i supposed that hugh blair would find him a wife elsewhere but he did not

the years went by and we never met although i saw him often at church at such times hester always watched me very closely but there was no need of her to do so hugh made no attempt to meet me or speak with me and i would not have permitted it if he had but my heart always yearned after him i was selfishly glad he had not married because if he had i could not have thought and dreamed of him it would have been wrong

Perhaps as it was, it was foolish, but it seemed to me that I must have something, if only foolish dreams, to fill my life. At first there was only pain in the thought of him, but afterwards a faint, misty pleasure crept in, like a mirage from a land of lost delight.

CHAPTER VII. THE RETURN OF HESTER. PART II. TEN YEARS SLIPPED AWAY THUS. AND THEN HESTER DIED. HER ILLNESS WAS SUDDEN AND SHORT, BUT BEFORE SHE DIED SHE ASKED ME TO PROMISE THAT I WOULD NEVER MARRY HUGH BLAIR. SHE HAD NOT MENTIONED HIS NAME FOR YEARS. I THOUGHT SHE HAD FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT HIM. "'Oh, dear sister, is there any need of such a promise?' I asked, weeping. "'Hugh Blair does not want to marry me now. He never will again.'

"'He has never married. He has not forgotten you,' she said fiercely. "'I could not rest in my grave if I thought you would disgrace your family by marrying beneath you. Promise me, Margaret.' I promised. I would have promised anything in my power to make her dying pillow easier. Besides, what did it matter? I was sure that Hugh would never think of me again.'

she smiled when she heard me and pressed my hand good little sister that is right you are always a good girl margaret good and obedient though a little sentimental and foolish in some ways you are like our mother she was always weak and loving i took after the merediths she did indeed even in her coffin her dark handsome features preserved their expression of pride and determination

Somehow, that last look of her dead face remained in my memory, blotting out the real affection and gentleness which her living face had almost always shown me. This distressed me, but I could not help it. I wished to think of her as kind and loving, but I could only remember the pride and coldness with which she had crushed out my new-born happiness. Yet I felt no anger or resentment towards her for what she had done. I knew she had meant it for the best—my best. It was only that she was mistaken.

and then a month after she had died hugh blair came to me and asked me to be his wife he said he had always loved me and could never love any other woman all my old love for him reawakened i wanted to say yes to feel his strong arms about me and the warmth of his love enfolding and guarding me in my weakness i yearned for his strength but there was my promise to hester that promise give by her death-bed

i could not break it and i told him so it was the hardest thing i had ever done he did not go away quietly this time he pleaded and reasoned and reproached every word of his hurt me like a knife-thrust but i could not break my promise to the dead if hester had been living i would have braved her wrath and her estrangement and gone to him but she was dead and i could not do it finally he went away in grief and anger

That was three weeks ago, and now I sat alone in the moonlit rose garden and wept for him. But after a time my tears dried, and a very strange feeling came over me. I felt calm and happy, as if some wonderful love and tenderness were very near me. And now comes the strange part of my story, the part which will not, I suppose, be believed. If it were not for one thing, I should hardly believe it myself. I should feel tempted to think that I had dreamed it.

but because of that one thing i know it was real the night was very calm and still not a breath of wind stirred the moonshine was the brightest i had ever seen in the middle of the garden where the shadow of the poplars did not fall it was almost as bright as day one could have read fine print there was still a little rose glow in the west and over the airy boughs of the tall poplars one or two large bright stars were shining

The air was sweet with a hush of dreams, and the world was so lovely that I held my breath over its beauty. Then all at once, down at the far end of the garden, I saw a woman walking. I thought at first that it must be Mary Sloane, but as she crossed a moonlit path, I saw that it was not our old servant's stout, homely figure. This woman was tall and erect. Although no suspicion of the truth came to me, something about her reminded me of Hester.

even so had hester liked to wander about the garden in the twilight i had seen her thus a thousand times i wondered who the woman could be some neighbor of course but what a strange way for her to come she walked up the garden slowly in the poplar shade now and then she stooped as if to caress a flower but she plucked none half-way up she came out into the moonlight and walked across the plot of grass in the center of the garden

My heart gave a great throb, and I stood up. She was quite near to me now, and I saw that it was Hester.

i can hardly say just what my feelings were at this moment i know that i was not surprised i was frightened and yet i was not frightened something in me shrank back in a sickening terror but i the real i was not frightened i knew that this was my sister and that there could be no reason why i should be frightened of her because she loved me still as she had always done

Further than this, I was not conscious of any coherent thought, either of wonder or attempted reasoning. Hester paused when she came to within a few steps of me. In the moonlight I saw her face quite plainly. It wore an expression I had never before seen on it, a humble, wistful, tender look. Often in life Hester had looked lovingly, even tenderly, upon me, but always, as it were, through a mask of pride and sternness.

this was gone now and i felt nearer to her than ever before i knew suddenly that she understood me and then the half-conscious awe and terror some part of me had felt vanished and i only realized that hester was here and that there was no terrible gulf of change between us hester beckoned to me and said come

I stood up and followed her out of the garden. We walked side by side down our lane, under the willows and out into the road, which lay long and still in that bright, calm moonshine. I felt as if I were in a dream, moving at the bidding of a will not my own, which I could not have disputed even if I had wished to do so. But I did not wish it. I had only the feeling of a strange, boundless content. We went down the road between the growths of young fir that bordered it.

i smelled their balsam as we passed and noticed how clearly and darkly their pointed tops came out against the sky i heard the tread of my own feet on little twigs and plants in our way and the trail of my dress over the grass but hester moved noiselessly then we went through the avenue that stretch of road under the apple trees that anne shirley over at avonlea calls the white way of delight

it was almost dark here and yet i could see hester's face just as plainly as if the moon were shining on it and whenever i looked at her she was always looking at me with that strangely gentle smile on her lips just as we passed out of the avenue james trent overtook us driving it seems to me that our feelings at a given moment are seldom what we would expect them to be i simply felt annoyed that james trent the most notorious gossip in newbridge should have seen me walking with hester

in a flash i anticipated all the annoyance of it he would talk of the matter far and wide but james trent merely nodded and called out howdy miss margaret taking a moonlight stroll by yourself lovely night ain't it just then his horse swerved as if startled and broke into a gallop they whirled around the curve of the road in an instant i felt relieved but puzzled james trent had not seen hester down over the hill was hugh blair's place

when we came to it hester turned in at the gate then for the first time i understood why she had come back and a blinding flash of joy broke over my soul i stopped and looked at her her deep eyes gazed into mine but she did not speak we went on hugh's house lay before us in the moonlight grown over by a tangle of vines his garden was on our right a quaint spot full of old-fashioned flowers growing in a sort of disorderly sweetness

I trod on a bed of mint, and the spice of it floated up to me like the incense of some strange, sacred, solemn ceremonial. I felt unspeakably happy and blessed. When we came to the door, Hester said, "'Knock, Margaret.' I rapped gently. In a moment Hugh opened it. Then that happened by which, in after days, I was to know that this strange thing was no dream or fancy of mine. Hugh looked not at me, but past me.

Hester, he exclaimed, with human fear and horror in his voice. He leaned against the doorpost, the big strong fellow trembling from head to foot. I have learned, said Hester, that nothing matters in all God's universe except love. There is no pride where I have been, and no false ideals. Hugh and I looked into each other's eyes, wondering, and then we knew that we were alone. End of section 14

CHAPTER VIII. THE LITTLE BROWN BOOK OF MISS EMILY. PART I.

the first summer mr irving and miss lavendar diana and i could never call her anything else even after she was married were at echo lodge after their marriage both diana and i spent a great deal of time with them we became acquainted with many of the grafton people whom we had not known before and among others the family of mr mac leath we often went up to the leaths in the evening to play croquet milly and margaret leath were very nice girls and the boys were nice too

Indeed, we liked everyone in the family except poor old Miss Emily Leith. We tried hard enough to like her, because she seemed to like Diana and me very much, and always wanted to sit with us and talk to us when we would much rather have been somewhere else. We often felt a good deal of impatience at these times, but I am very glad to think now that we never showed it.

In a way, we felt sorry for Miss Emily. She was Mr. Leith's old maid sister, and she was not of much importance in the household. But though we felt sorry for her, we couldn't like her. She really was fussy and meddlesome. She liked to poke a finger into everyone's pie, and she was not at all tactful. Then, too, she had a sarcastic tongue and seemed to feel bitter towards all the young folks and their love affairs. Diana and I thought this was because she had never had a lover of her own.

somehow it seemed impossible to think of lovers in connection with miss emily she was short and stout and pudgy with a face so round and fat and red that it seemed quite featureless and her hair was scanty and gray she walked with a waddle just like mrs rachel lynde and she was always rather short of breath

it was hard to believe miss emily had ever been young yet old mr murray who lived next door to the leiths not only expected us to believe it but assured us that she had been very pretty that at least is impossible said diana to me and then one day miss emily died i'm afraid no one was very sorry it seems to me a most dreadful thing to go out of the world and leave not one person behind you to be sorry because you have gone

Miss Emily was dead and buried before Diana and I heard of it at all. The first I knew of it was when I came home from Orchard Slope one day and found a queer, shabby little black horsehair trunk, all studded with brass nails, on the floor of my room at Green Gables. Marilla told me that Jack Leith had brought it over and said that it had belonged to Miss Emily and that, when she was dying, she asked them to send it to me. But what is in it? And what am I to do with it? I asked in bewilderment.

"'There was nothing said about what you were to do with it. Jack said they didn't know what was in it, and hadn't looked into it, seeing that it was your property. It seems a rather queer proceeding, but you're always getting mixed up in queer proceedings, Anne. As for what is in it, the easiest way to find out, I reckon, is to open it and see. The key is tied to it. Jack said Miss Emily said she wanted you to have it, because she loved you and saw her lost youth in you.'

i guess she was a bit delirious at the last and wondered a good deal she said she wanted you to understand her i ran over to orchard slope and asked diana to come over and examine the trunk with me i hadn't received any instructions about keeping its contents secret and i knew miss emily wouldn't mind diana knowing about them whatever they were it was a cool gray afternoon and we got back to green gables just as the rain was beginning to fall

When we went up to my room, the wind was rising and whistling through the boughs of the big old snow queen outside of my window. Diana was excited, and I really believe a little bit frightened. We opened the old trunk. It was very small, and there was nothing in it but a big cardboard box. The box was tied up and the knots sealed with wax. We lifted it out and untied it. I touched Diana's fingers as we did it, and both of us exclaimed at once, "'How cold your hand is!'

in the box was a quaint pretty old-fashioned gown not at all faded made of blue muslin with a little darker blue flower in it under we found a sash a yellowed feather fan and an envelope full of withered flowers at the bottom of the box was a little brown book it was small and thin like a girl's exercise book with leaves that had once been blue and pink but were now quite faded and stained in places

on the fly leaf was written in a very delicate hand emily margaret leath and the same writing covered the first few pages of the book the rest were not written on at all we sat there on the floor diana and i and read the little book together while the rain thudded against the window panes june nineteenth eighteen

I came today to spend a while with Aunt Margaret in Charlottetown. It is so pretty here where she lives, and ever so much nicer than on the farm at home. I have no cows to milk here or pigs to feed. Aunt Margaret has given me such a lovely blue muslin dress, and I am to have it made to wear at a garden party out at Brighton next week. I never had a muslin dress before, nothing but ugly prints and dark woolens. I wish we were rich like Aunt Margaret.

aunt margaret laughed when i said this and declared she would give all her wealth for my youth and beauty and light-heartedness i am only eighteen and i know i am very merry but i wonder if i am really pretty it seems to me that i am when i look in aunt margaret's beautiful mirrors they make me look very different from the old cracked one in my room at home which always twisted my face and turned me green but aunt margaret spoiled her compliment by telling me i look exactly as she did at my age

If I thought I'd ever look as Aunt Margaret does now, I don't know what I'd do. She is so fat and red. June 29 Last week I went to the garden party and I met a young man called Paul Osborne. He is a young artist from Montreal who is boarding over at Hoppock. He is the handsomest man I have ever seen, very tall and slender, with dreamy dark eyes and a pale clever face. June 29

i have not been able to keep from thinking about him ever since and to-day he came over here and asked if he could paint me i felt very much flattered and so pleased when aunt margaret gave him permission he says he wants to paint me as spring standing under the poplars where a fine rain of sunshine falls through i am to wear my blue muslin gown and a wreath of flowers on my hair he says i have such beautiful hair he has never seen any of such a real pale gold

Somehow it seems even prettier than ever to me since he praised it. I had a letter from home to-day. Ma says the blue hen stole her nest and came off with fourteen chicks, and that Pa has sold the little spotted calf. Somehow these things don't interest me like they once did.

Further Chronicles of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery Chapter 8 The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily Part 2 July 9 The picture is coming on very well, Mr. Osborne says. I know he is making me look far too pretty in it, although he persists in saying he can't do me justice. He is going to send it to some great exhibition when finished, but he says he will make a little water-color copy for me.

he comes every day to paint and we talk a great deal and he reads me lovely things out of his books i don't understand them all but i try to and he explains them so nicely and is so patient with my stupidity and he says any one with my eyes and hair and coloring does not need to be clever he says i have the sweetest merriest laugh in the world but i will not write down all the compliments he has paid me i dare say he does not mean them all

in the evening we stroll among the spruces or sit on the bench under the acacia tree sometimes we don't talk at all but i never find the time long indeed the minutes just seem to fly and then the moon will come up round and red over the harbor and mr osborne will sigh and say he supposes it is time for him to go july twenty fourth i am so happy i am frightened at my happiness oh i don't think life could ever be so beautiful for me as it is

paul loves me he told me so to-night as we walked by the harbor and watched the sunset and he asked me to be his wife i have cared for him ever since i met him but i am afraid i am not clever and well educated enough for a wife for paul because of course i am only an ignorant little country girl and have lived all my life on a farm

Why, my hands are quite rough yet from the work I've done. But Paul just laughed when I said so, and took my hands and kissed them. Then he looked into my eyes and laughed again, because I couldn't hide from him how much I loved him. We are to be married next spring, and Paul says he will take me to Europe. That will be very nice, but nothing matters so long as I am with him. Paul's people are very wealthy, and his mother and sisters are very fashionable.

I am frightened of them, but I did not tell Paul so because I think it would hurt him, and oh, I wouldn't do that for the world. There is nothing I wouldn't suffer if it would do him any good. I never thought anyone could feel so. I used to think if I loved anybody I would want him to do everything for me and wait on me as if I were a princess, but that is not the way at all. Love makes you very humble, and you want to do everything yourself for the one you love. August 10th

Paul went home today. Oh, it is so terrible. I don't know how I can bear to live even for a little while without him. But this is silly of me, because I know he has to go and he will write often and come to me often. But still it is so lonesome. I didn't cry when he left me because I wanted him to remember me smiling in the way he liked best. But I have been crying ever since and I can't stop, no matter how hard I try. We have had such a beautiful fortnight."

every day seemed dearer and happier than the last and now it is ended and i feel as if it could never be the same again oh i am very foolish but i love him so dearly and if i were to lose his love i know i would die august seventeen i think my heart is dead but no it can't be for it aches too much paul's mother came here to see me to-day she was not angry or disagreeable i wouldn't have been so frightened of her if she had been

as it was i felt that i couldn't say a word she is very beautiful and stately and wonderful with a low cold voice and proud dark eyes her face is like paul's but without the lovableness of his she talked to me for a long time and she said terrible things terrible because i knew they were all true i seemed to see everything through her eyes she said that paul was infatuated with my youth and beauty but that it would not last and what else had i to give him

She said Paul must marry a woman of his own class, who could do honor to his fame and position. She said that he was very talented and had a great career before him, but that if he married me it would ruin his life. I saw it all, just as she explained it out, and I told her at last that I would not marry Paul and she might tell him so. But she smiled and said I must tell him myself because he would not believe anyone else. I could have begged her to spare me that, but I knew it would be of no use.

i do not think she has any pity or mercy for anyone besides what she said was quite true when she thanked me for being so reasonable i told her i was not doing it to please her but for paul's sake because i would not spoil his life and that i would always hate her she smiled again and went away oh how can i bear it i did not know anyone could suffer like this august

I have done it. I wrote to Paul today. I knew I must tell him by letter, because I could never make him believe it face to face. I was afraid I could not even do it by letter. I suppose a clever woman easily could, but I am so stupid. I wrote a great many letters and tore them up, because I felt sure they wouldn't convince Paul. At last I got one that I thought would do. I knew I must make it seem as if I were very frivolous and heartless, or he would never believe.

I spelled some of the words wrong and put in some mistakes of grammar on purpose. I told him I had just been flirting with him and that I had another fellow at home I liked better. I said fellow because I knew it would disgust him. I said that it was only because he was rich that I was tempted to marry him. I thought my heart would break while I was writing those dreadful falsehoods, but it was for his sake because I must not spoil his life. His mother told me I would be a millstone around his neck.

"'I love Paul so much that I would do anything rather than be that. It would be easy to die for him, but I don't see how I can go on living. I think my letter will convince Paul. I suppose it convinced Paul because there was no further entry in the little brown book. When we had finished it the tears were running down both our faces. "'Oh, poor dear Miss Emily!' sobbed Diana. "'I'm so sorry I ever thought her funny and meddlesome!'

she was good and strong and brave i said i could never have been as unselfish as she was i thought of whittier's lines the outward wayward life we see the hidden springs we may not know at the back of the little brown book we found a faded water-colour sketch of a young girl such a slim pretty little thing with big blue eyes and lovely long rippling gold hair paul osborne's name was written in faded ink across the corner

We put everything back in the box. Then we sat for a long time by my window in silence, and thought of many things, until the rainy twilight came down and blotted out the world.

further chronicles of avonlea chapter nine sarah's way part i the warm june sunshine was coming down through the trees white with the virginal bloom of apple-blossoms and through the shining panes making a tremulous mosaic upon mrs eben andrews spotless kitchen floor

through the open door a wind fragrant from long wanderings over orchards and clover meadows drifted in and from the window mrs eben and her guest could look down over a long misty valley sloping to a sparkling sea mrs jonas andrews was spending the afternoon with her sister-in-law she was a big sonsy woman with full-blown peony cheeks and large dreamy brown eyes when she had been a slim pink-and-white girl those eyes had been very romantic

now they were so out of keeping with the rest of her appearance as to be ludicrous mrs evan sitting at the other end of the small tea-table that was drawn up against the window was a thin little woman with a very sharp nose and light faded blue eyes she looked like a woman whose opinions were always very decided and warranted to wear

"'How does Sarah like teaching at Newbridge?' asked Mrs. Jonas, helping herself a second time to Mrs. Evans' matchless black-fruit cake, and thereby bestowing a subtle compliment which Mrs. Evans did not fail to appreciate. "'Well, I guess she likes it pretty well. Better than down at White Sands, anyway,' answered Mrs. Evans. "'Yes, I may say it suits her. Of course, it's a long walk there and back.'

i think it would have been wiser for her to keep on boarding at morrison's as she did all winter but sarah is bound to be home all she can and i must say the walk seems to agree with her i was down to see jonas's aunt at newbridge last night said mrs jonas and she said she'd heard that sarah had made up her mind to take lige baxter at last and that they were to be married in the fall

"'She asked me if it was true, and I said I didn't know, but I hoped her mercy it was. "'Now, is it, Louisa?' "'Not a word of it,' said Mrs. Ebbin sorrowfully. "'Sarah hasn't any more notion of taking Lodge than she ever had. "'I'm sure it's not my fault. I've talked and argued till I'm tired. "'I declare to you, Amelia, I am terribly disappointed. "'I'd set my heart on Sarah's marrying Lodge, and now to think she won't!'

"'She is a very foolish girl,' said Mrs. Jonas judiciously. "'If Lodge Baxter isn't good enough for her, who is? And he's so well off,' said Mrs. Eben, "'and does such a good business, and is well spoken of by every one. And that lovely new house of his at Newbridge, with bay windows and hardwood floors. I've dreamed and dreamed of seeing Sarah there as mistress.'

"'Maybe you'll see her there yet,' said Mrs. Jonas, who always took a hopeful view of everything, even of Sarah's contrariness. But she felt discouraged, too. Well, she had done her best. If Lodge Baxter's broth was spoiled, it was not for lack of cooks. Every Andrews in Avonlea had been trying for two years to bring about a match between him and Sarah, and Mrs. Jonas had borne her part valiantly. Mrs. Evans' despondent reply was cut short by the appearance of Sarah herself.'

the girl stood for a moment in the doorway and looked with a faintly amused air at her aunts she knew quite well that they had been discussing her for mrs jonas who carried her conscience in her face looked guilty and mrs eben had not been able wholly to banish her aggrieved expression sara put away her books kissed mrs jonas's rosy cheek and sat down at the table

"'Mrs. Eben brought her some fresh tea, some hot rolls, and a little jelly-pot of the apricot preserves Sarah liked, and she cut some more fruit-cake for her in moist, plummy slices. She might be out of patience with Sarah's contrariness, but she spoiled and petted her for all that, for the girl was the very core of her childless heart.'

Sarah Andrews was not, strictly speaking, pretty, but there was that about her which made people look at her twice. She was very dark, with a rich, dusky sort of darkness, her deep eyes were velvety brown, and her lips and cheeks were crimson.

She ate her rolls and preserves with a healthy appetite, sharpened by her long walk from Newbridge, and told amusing little stories of her day's work that made the two older women shake with laughter, and exchanged shy glances of pride over her cleverness. When tea was over she poured the remaining contents of the cream-jug into a saucer. "'I must feed my pussy,' she said as she left the room. "'That girl beats me,' said Mrs. Eben with a sigh of perplexity.

"'You know that black cat we've had for two years? "'Eben and I have always made a lot of him, but Sarah seemed to have a dislike to him. "'Never a peaceful nap under the stove could he have when Sarah was home. "'Out he must go. "'Well, a little spell ago he got his leg broke accidentally, and we thought he'd have to be killed, "'but Sarah wouldn't hear of it. "'She got splints and set his leg just as knacky and bandaged it up, "'and she has tended him like a sick baby ever since.'

he's just about well now and he lives in clover that cat does it's just her way there's them sick chickens she's been doctoring for a week giving them pills and things and she thinks more of that wretched-looking calf that got poisoned with paris green than of all the other stock on the place as the summer wore away mrs eben tried to reconcile herself to the destruction of her air castles but she scolded sarah considerably

sarah why don't you like lige i'm sure he is a model young man i don't like model young men answered sarah impatiently and i really think i hate lige baxter he has always been held up to me as such a paragon i'm tired of hearing about all his perfections i know them all off by heart he doesn't drink he doesn't smoke he doesn't steal he doesn't tell fibs he never loses his temper he doesn't swear and he goes to church regularly

such a faultless creature as that would certainly get on my nerves no no you'll have to pick out another mistress for your new house at the bridge aunt louisa when the apple-trees that had been pink and white in june were russet and bronze in october mrs eben had a quilting the quilt was of the rising star pattern which was considered in avonlea to be very handsome

mrs eben had intended it for part of sarah's setting out and while she sewed the red and white diamonds together she had regaled her fancy by imagining she saw it spread out on the spare room bed of the house at newbridge with herself laying her bonnet and shawl on it when she went to see sarah those bright visions had faded with the apple blossoms and mrs eben hardly had the heart to finish the quilt at all the quilting came off on saturday afternoon when sarah could be home from school

all mrs eben's particular friends were ranged around the quilt and tongues and fingers flew sara flitted about helping her aunt with the supper preparations she was in the room getting the custard dishes out of the cupboard when mrs george pye arrived mrs george had a genius for being late

she was later than usual to-day and she looked excited every woman around the rising star felt that mrs george had some news worth listening to and there was an expectant silence while she pulled out her chair and settled herself at the quilt she was a tall thin woman with a long pale face and liquid green eyes as she looked around the circle she had the air of a cat daintily licking its chops over some tidbit i suppose she said that you have heard the news

she knew perfectly well that they had not every other woman at the frame stopped quilting mrs evan came to the door with a pan of puffy smoking-hot soda biscuits in her hand sara stopped counting the custard dishes and turned her ripely colored face over her shoulder even the black cat at her feet ceased preening his fur mrs george felt that the undivided attention of her audience was hers

"'Baxter brothers have failed,' she said, her green eyes shooting out flashes of light. "'Failed disgracefully!' She paused for a moment, but since her hearers were as yet speechless from surprise, she went on. "'George came home from Newbridge just before I left with the news. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I should have thought that firm was as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. But they're ruined, absolutely ruined. Louisa, dear, can you find me a good needle?'

Louisa Deer had set her biscuits down with a sharp thud, reckless of results. A sharp metallic tinkle sounded at the closet where Sarah had struck the edge of her tray against a shelf. The sound seemed to loosen the paralyzed tongues, and everybody began talking and exclaiming at once. Clear and shrill above the confusion rose Mrs. George Pye's voice.

CHAPTER IX. SARAH'S WAY, PART II.

everything will have to go peter baxter's farm and lige's grand new house mrs peter won't carry her head so high after this i'll be bound george saw lige at the bridge and he said he looked dreadful cut up and ashamed who or what's to blame for the failure asked mrs rachel lynne sharply she did not like mrs george

there are a dozen different stories on the go was the reply as far as george could make out peter baxter has been speculating with other folks money and this is the result everybody always suspected that peter was crooked but you'd have thought lige would have kept him straight he had always such a reputation for saintliness i don't suppose lige knew anything about it said mrs rachel indignantly

well he'd ought to then if he isn't a knave he's a fool said mrs harmon andrews who had formerly been among his warmest partisans he should have kept watch on peter and found out how the business was being run well sarah you were the level-headedest of us all i'll admit that now a nice mess it would be if you were married or engaged to lige and him left without a cent even if he can clear his character

there is a good deal of talk about peter and swindling and a lawsuit said mrs george pye quilting industriously most of the newbridge folks think it's all peter's fault and that lige isn't to blame but you can't tell i dare say lige is as deep in the mire as peter he was always a little too good to be wholesome i thought there was a clink of glass at the cupboard as sarah set the tray down

She came forward and stood behind Mrs. Rachel Lynn's chair, resting her shapely hands on that lady's broad shoulders. Her face was very pale, but her flashing eyes sought and faced defiantly Mrs. George Pye's cat-like orbs. Her voice quivered with passion and contempt. "'You'll all have a fling at Lige Baxter, now that he's down. You couldn't say enough of his praise once. I'll not stand by and hear it hinted that Lige Baxter is a swindler.'

You all know perfectly well that Lodge is as honest as the day, if he is so unfortunate as to have an unprincipled brother. You, Mrs. Pye, know it better than anyone, yet you come here and run him down the minute he's in trouble. If there's another word said here against Lodge Baxter, I'll leave the room and the house till you're gone, every one of you. She flashed a glance around the quilt that cowed the gossips. Even Mrs. George Pye's eyes flickered and waned and quailed.

nothing more was said until sara had picked up her glasses and marched from the room even then they dared not speak above a whisper mrs pye alone smarting from snub ventured to ejaculate pity save us as sara slammed the door for the next fortnight gossip and rumor held high carnival in avonlea newbridge and mrs eben grew to dread the sight of a visitor

"'They're bound to talk about the Baxter failure and criticize Lige,' she deplored to Mrs. Jonas, "'and it riles Sarah up so terrible. She used to declare that she hated Lige, and now she won't listen to a word against him. Not that I say any myself. I'm sorry for him, and I believe he's done his best, but I can't stop other people from talking.' One evening Harmon Andrews came in with a fresh budget of news."

"'The Baxter business is pretty near wound up at last,' he said, as he lighted his pipe. "'Peter has got his lawsuit settled and he has hushed up the talk about swindling somehow. Trust him for slipping out of a scrape, clean and clever. He doesn't seem to worry any, but Lodge looks like a walking skeleton. Some folks pity him, but I say he should have kept the run of things better and not have trusted everything to Peter. I hear he's going out west in the spring to take up land in Alberta and try his hand at farming.'

"'Best thing he can do, I guess. Folks hereabout have had enough of the Baxter breed. Newbridge will be well rid of them.' Sarah, who had been sitting in the dark corner by the stove, suddenly stood up, letting the black cat slip from her lap to the floor. Mrs. Ebbin glanced at her apprehensively, for she was afraid the girl was going to break out in a tirade against the complacent Harmon. But Sarah only walked fiercely out of the kitchen, with a sound as if she were struggling for breath.

In the hall she snatched a scarf from the wall, flung open the front door, and rushed down the lane in the chill, pure air of the autumn twilight. Her heart was throbbing with the pity she always felt for bruised and baited creatures. On and on she went heedlessly, intent only on walking away her pain, over gray brooding fields and winding slopes, and along the skirts of ruinous dusky pine woods, curtained with fine-spun purple gloom.

her dress brushed against the brittle grasses and sear ferns and the moist night wind loosed from wild places far away blew her hair about her face at last she came to a little rustic gate leading into a shadowy wood lane the gate was bound with willow wishes and as sarah fumbled vainly at them with her chilled hands a man's firm step came up behind her and lige baxter's hand closed over hers oh lige she said with something like a sob

he opened the gate and drew her through she left her hand in his as they walked through the lane where lissome boughs of young saplings flicked against their heads and the air was wildly sweet with the woodsy odors it's a long while since i've seen you lige sara said at last

lige looked wistfully down at her through the gloom yes it seems very long to me sara but i didn't think you'd care to see me after what you said last spring and you know things have been going against me people have said hard things i've been unfortunate sara and may be too easy-going but i've been honest don't believe folks if they tell you i wasn't indeed i never did not for a minute fired sara i'm glad of that

i'm going away later on i felt bad enough when you refused to marry me sarah but it's well that you didn't i'm man enough to be thankful my troubles don't fall on you sarah stopped and turned to him beyond the lane opened into a field and a clear lake of crocus sky cast a dim light into the shadow where they stood above it was a new moon like a gleaming silver scimitar sarah saw it was over her left shoulder and she saw elijah's face above her tender and troubled

"Lige," she said softly, "do you love me still?" "You know I do," said Lige sadly. That was all Sarah wanted. With a quick movement she nestled into his arms and laid her warm, tear-wet cheek against his cold one. When the amazing rumor that Sarah was going to marry Lige Baxter and go out west with him circulated through the Andrews clan, hands were lifted and heads were shaken. Mrs. Jonas puffed and panted up the hill to learn if it were true.

she found mrs eben stitching for dear life on an irish chain quilt while sarah was sewing the diamonds on another rising star with a martyr-like expression on her face sarah hated patchwork above everything else but mrs eben was mistress up to a certain point you'll have to make that quilt sarah andrews if you're going to live out on those prairies you'll need piles of quilts and you shall have them if i sew my fingers to the bone but you'll have to help make them and sarah had to

"'When Mrs. Jonas came, Mrs. Ebbin sent Sarah off to the post-office to get her out of the way. "'I suppose it's true this time?' said Mrs. Jonas. "'Yes, indeed,' said Mrs. Ebbin briskly. "'Sarah is set on it. There is no use trying to move her, you know that, so I've just concluded to make the best of it. "'I'm no turncoat. Lodge Baxter is Lodge Baxter still, neither more nor less. "'I've always said he's a fine young man, and I say so still.'

after all he and sarah won't be any poorer than eben and i were when we started out mrs jonas heaved a sigh of relief i'm real glad you take that view of it louisa i'm not displeased either although mrs harmon would take my head off if she heard me say so i always liked lige but i must say i'm amazed too after the way sarah used to rail at him

Well, we might have expected it, said Mrs. Ebb and Sagely. It was always Sarah's way. When any creature got sick or unfortunate, she seemed to take it right into her heart. So you may say Lodge Baxter's failure was a success after all.

10. The Son of His Mother, Part 1 Thyra Carew was waiting for Chester to come home. She sat by the west window of the kitchen, looking out into the gathering of the shadows with the expectant immobility that characterized her. She never twitched or fidgeted. Into whatever she did she put the whole force of her nature. If it was sitting still, she sat still.

a stone image would be twitchedly beside thyra said mrs cynthia white her neighbor across the lane it gets on my nerves the way she sits at that window sometimes with no more motion than a statue and her great eyes burning down the lane when i read the commandment thou shalt have no other gods before me i declare i always think of thyra she worships that son of hers far ahead of her creator she'll be punished for it yet

mrs white was watching thyra now knitting furiously as she watched in order to lose no time thyra's hands were folded idly in her lap she had not moved a muscle since she sat down mrs white complained it gave her the weeps it doesn't seem natural to see a woman sit so still she said sometimes the thought comes to me what if she's had a stroke like her old uncle horatio and is sitting there stone dead

the evening was cold and autumnal there was a fiery red spot out at sea where the sun had set and above it over a chill clear saffron sky were reefs of purple-black clouds the river below the keru homestead was livid beyond it the sea was dark and brooding it was an evening to make most people shiver and forebode an early winter but thyra loved it as she loved all stern harshly beautiful things

she would not light a lamp because it would blot out the savage grandeur of sea and sky it was better to wait in the darkness until chester came home he was late to-night she thought he had been detained over time at the harbor but she was not anxious he would come straight home to her as soon as his business was completed of that she felt sure her thoughts went out along the bleak harbor road to meet him she could see him plainly coming with his free stride through the sandy hollows and over the windy hills

in the harsh cold light of that forbidding sunset strong and handsome in his comely youth with her own deeply cleft chin and his father's dark gray straightforward eyes no other woman in avonlea had a son like hers her only one in his brief absences she yearned after him with a maternal passion that had in it something of physical pain so intense was it she thought of cynthia white knitting across the road with contemptuous pity

that woman had no son nothing but pale-faced girls thyra had never wanted a daughter but she pitied and despised all sunless women chester's dog whined suddenly and piercingly on the doorstep outside he was tired of the cold stone and wanted his warm corner behind the stove thyra smiled grimly when she heard him she had no intention of letting him in

she said she had always disliked dogs but the truth although she would not glance at it was that she hated the animal because chester loved him she could not share his love with even a dumb brute she loved no living creature in the world but her son and fiercely demanded a light concentrated affection from him hence it pleased her to hear his dog whine it was now quite dark the stars had begun to shine out over the shorn harvest fields and chester had not come

across the lane cynthia white had pulled down her blind in despair about watching thyra and had lighted a lamp lively shadows of little girl shapes passed and repassed on the pale oblong of light they made thyra conscious of her exceeding loneliness she had just decided that she would walk down the lane and wait for chester on the bridge when a thunderous knock came at the east kitchen door she recognized august vorst's knock and lighted a lamp in no great haste for she did not like him

he was a gossip and thyra hated gossip in man or woman but august was privileged she carried the lamp in her hand when she went to the door and its upward striking light gave her face a ghastly appearance she did not mean to ask august in but he pushed past her cheerfully not waiting to be invited he was a midget of a man lame of foot and hunched of back with a white boyish face despite his middle age and deep-set malicious black eyes

he pulled a crumpled newspaper from a pocket and handed it to thyra he was the unofficial mail-carrier of avonlea most of the people gave him a trifle for bringing their letters and papers from the office he earned small sums in various other ways and so contrived to keep the life in his stunted body there was always venom in august's gossip it was said that he made more mischief in avonlea in a day than was made otherwise in a year but people tolerated him by reason of his infirmity

to be sure it was the tolerance they gave to inferior creatures and august felt this perhaps it accounted for a good deal of his malignity he hated most those who were kindest to him and of these thyra carew above all he hated chester too as he hated strong shapely creatures his time had come at last to wound them both and his exultation shone through his crooked body and pinched features like an illuminating lamp

thyra perceived it and vaguely felt something antagonistic in it she pointed to the rocking-chair as she might have pointed out a mat to a dog august crawled into it and smiled he was going to make her writhe presently this woman who looked down upon him as some venomous creeping thing she disdained to crush with her foot did you see anything of chester on the road asked thyra giving august the very opening he desired

He went to the harbor after tea to see Joe Raymond about the loan of his boat. But it's the time he should be back. I can't think what keeps the boy. Just what keeps most men leaving out creatures like me at some time or other in their lives. A girl, a pretty girl, Thyra. It pleases me to look at her. Even a hunchback can use his eyes, eh? Oh, she's a rare one. "'What is the man talking about?' said Thyra wonderingly.

damaris garland to be sure chester's down at tom blair's now talking to her and looking more than his tongue says too of that you may be sure well well we were all young once thyra all young once even crooked little august vorst eh now what do you mean said thyra she had sat down in a chair before him with her hands folded in her lap her face always pale had not changed but her lips were curiously white

august vorst saw this and it pleased him also her eyes were worth looking at if you like to hurt people and that was the only pleasure august took in life he would drink this delightful cup of revenge for her long years of disdainful kindness ah he would drink it slowly to prolong its sweetness sip by sip he rubbed his long thin white hands together sip by sip tasting each mouthful hey now you know well enough thyra

I know nothing of what you would be at, August Forst. You speak of my son and Damaris. What was the name? Damaris Garland, as if they were something to each other. I ask you what you mean by it.

tut tut thyra nothing very terrible there's no need to look like that about it young men will be young men to the end of time and there's no harm in chester's liking to look at a lass say now or in talking to her either the little baggage with the red lips of hers she and chester will make a pretty pair he's not so ill-looking for a man

"'I am not a very patient woman, August,' said Thyra coldly. "'I have asked you what you mean, and I want a straight answer. Is Chester down at Tom Blair's while I have been sitting here alone waiting for him?' August nodded. He saw that it would not be wise to trifle longer with Thyra. That he is. I was there before I came here. He and Damaris were sitting in a corner by themselves, and very well satisfied they seemed to be with each other.'

"'Tut, tut, Thyra, don't take the news so. I thought you knew. It's no secret that Chester has been going after Damaris ever since she came here. But what then? You can't tie him to your apron strings forever, woman. He'll be finding a mate for himself, as he should. Seeing that he's straight and well-shaped, no doubt Damaris will look with favor on him. Old Martha Blair declares the girl loves him better than her eyes.' Thyra made a sound like a strangled moan in the middle of August's speech.

She heard the rest of it immovably. When it came to an end, she stood and looked down upon him in a way that silenced him. "'You've told the news that you came to tell, and gloated over it, and now get you gone,' she said slowly. "'Now, Thyra,' he began, but she interrupted him threateningly. "'Get you gone, I say, and you need not bring my mail here any longer. I want no more of your misshapen body and lying tongue.'

August went, but at the door he turned for a parting stab. "'My tongue is not a lying one, Mrs. Carew. I've told you the truth, as all Avonlea knows it. Chester is mad about Damaris Garland. It's no wonder I thought you knew what all the settlement can see. But you're such a jealous, odd body. I suppose the boy hid it from you for fear you'd go into a tantrum. As for me, I'll not forget that you've turned me from your door, because I chanced to bring you news you'd no fancy for.' Thyra did not answer him.

When the door closed behind him, she locked it and blew out the light. Then she threw herself face downward on the sofa and burst into wild tears. Her very soul ached. She wept as tempestuously and unreasoningly as youth weeps, although she was not young. It seemed as if she was afraid to stop weeping, lest she should go mad thinking. But after a time, tears failed her, and she began bitterly to go over, word by word, what August Force had said.

that her son should ever cast eyes of love on any girl was not something thyra had ever thought about she would not believe it possible that he should love anyone but herself who loved him so much and now the possibility invaded her mind as subtly and coldly and remorselessly as a sea-fog stealing landward

chester had been born to her at an age when most women are letting their children slip from them into the world with some natural tears and heartaches but content to let them go after enjoying their sweetest years thyra's late-come motherhood was all the more intense and passionate because of its very lateness she had been very ill when her son was born and had lain helpless for long weeks during which other women had tended her baby for her she had never been able to forgive them for this

her husband had died before Chester was a year old. She had laid their son in his dying arms and received him back again with a last benediction. To Thyra, that moment had something of a sacrament in it. It was as if the child had been doubly given to her, with a right to him solely that nothing could take away or transcend. Marrying! She had never thought of it in connection with him. He did not come of a marrying race.

his father had been sixty when he had married her thyra lincoln likewise well on in life few of the lincolns or carews had married young many not at all and to her chester was her baby still he belonged solely to her and now another woman had dared to look upon him with the eyes of love damaris garland thyra now remembered seeing her she was a newcomer in avonlea having come to live with her uncle and aunt after the death of her mother

thyra had met her on the bridge one day a month previously yes a man might think she was pretty a low-browed girl with a wave of reddish-gold hair and crimson lips blossoming out against the strange milk whiteness of her skin her eyes too thyra recalled them hazel intent deep and laughter brimmed the girl had gone past her with a smile that brought out many dimples

there was a certain insolent quality in her beauty as if it flaunted itself somewhat too defiantly in the beholder's eye thyra had turned and looked after the lithe young creature wondering who she might be

and to-night while she his mother waited for him in the darkness and loneliness he was down at blair's talking to this girl he loved her and it was past doubt that she loved him the thought was more bitter than death to thyra that she should dare her anger was all against the girl she had laid a snare to get chester and he like a fool was entangled in it thinking man fashion only of her great eyes and red lips thyra thought savagely of damaris beauty

she shall not have him she said with slow emphasis i will never give him up to any other woman and least of all to her she would leave me no place in his heart at all me his mother who almost died to give him life he belongs to me let her look for the son of some other woman some woman who has many sons she shall not have my only one she got up wrapped a shawl about her head and went out into the darkly golden evening

the clouds had cleared away and the moon was shining the air was chill with a bell-like clearness the alders by the river rustled eerily as she walked by them and out upon the bridge here she paced up and down peering with troubled eyes along the road beyond or leaning over the rail looking at the sparkling silver ribbon of moonlight that garlanded the waters late travelers passed her and wondered at her presence and mien karl white saw her and he told his wife about her when he got home

striding to and fro over the bridge like mad at first i thought it was old crazy may blair what do you suppose she was doing down there at this hour of the night waiting for chess no doubt said cynthia he ain't home yet likely he's snug at blair's i do wonder if thyra suspicions that he goes after damaris i've never dared to hint it to her she'd be as liable to fly at me tooth and claw as not

well she picks out a precious queer night for moon-gazing said carl who was a jolly soul and took life as he found it it's bitter cold there'll be a hard frost it's a pity she can't get it grained into her that the boy is grown up and must have his fling like the other lads she'll go out of her mind yet like her old grandmother lincoln if she doesn't ease up i've a notion to go down to the bridge and reason a bit with her

indeed you'll do no such thing cried cynthia thyra carew is best left alone if she is in a tantrum she's like no other woman in avonlea or out of it i'd as soon meddle with a tiger as her if she's rampaging about chester i don't envy damaris garland her life if she goes in there thyra'd soon strangle her than not i guess

you women are all terrible hard on thyra said carl good-naturedly he had been in love with thyra himself long ago and he still liked her in a friendly fashion he always stood up for her when the avonlea women ran her down he felt troubled about her all night recalling her as she paced the bridge he wished he had gone back in spite of cynthia when chester came home he met his mother on the bridge

in the faint yet penetrating moonlight they looked curiously alike but chester had the milder face he was very handsome even in the seething of her pain and jealousy thyra yearned over his beauty she would have liked to put up her hands and caress his face but her voice was very hard when she asked him where he had been so late i called in at tom blair's on my way home from the harbor he answered trying to walk on but she held him back by his arm

did you go there to see damaris she demanded fiercely chester was uncomfortable much as he loved his mother he felt and always had felt an awe of her and an impatient dislike of her dramatic ways of speaking and acting he reflected resentfully that no other young man in avonlea who had been paying a friendly call would be met by his mother at midnight and held up in such a tragic fashion to account for himself

he tried vainly to loosen her hold upon his arm but he understood quite well that he must give her an answer being strictly straightforward by nature and upbringing he told the truth albeit with more anger in his tone than he had ever shown to his mother before yes he said shortly thyra released his arm and struck her hands together with a sharp cry there was a savage note in it she could have slain damaris garland at that moment

"'Don't go on so, mother,' said Chester impatiently. "'Come in out of the cold. It isn't fit for you to be here. Who has been tampering with you? What if I did go to see Damaris?' "'Oh, oh, oh!' cried Thyra. "'I was waiting for you, alone, and you were thinking only of her.' "'Chester, answer me. Do you love her?' The blood rolled rapidly over the boy's face. He muttered something and tried to pass on, but she caught him again. He forced himself to speak gently.'

"'What if I do, mother? It wouldn't be such a dreadful thing, would it?' "'And me? And me?' cried Thyra. "'What am I to you, then?' "'You are my mother. I wouldn't love you any the less because I cared for another, too.' "'I won't have you love another,' she cried. "'I want all your love, all. What's that baby face to you compared to your mother? I have the best right to you. I won't give you up.'

chester realized that there was no arguing with such a mood he walked on resolved to set the matter aside until she might be more reasonable but thyra would not have it so she followed on after him under the alders that crowded over the lane promise me that you'll not go there again she entreated promise me that you'll give her up i can't promise such a thing he cried angrily his anger hurt her worse than a blow but she did not flinch you're not engaged to her she cried out

now mother be quiet all the settlement will hear you why do you object to damaris you don't know how sweet she is when you know her-i will never know her cried thyra furiously and she shall not have you she shall not

he made no answer she suddenly broke into tears and loud sobs touched with remorse he stopped and put his arms about her mother mother don't i can't bear to see you cry so but indeed you are unreasonable didn't you ever think the time would come when i would want to marry like other men

"'No, no, and I will not have it. I cannot bear it, Chester. You must promise not to go to see her again. I won't go into the house this night until you do. I'll sit out here in the bitter cold until you promise to put her out of your thoughts.' "'That's beyond my power, mother.' "'Oh, mother, you're making it so hard for me. Come in, come in. You're shivering with cold now. You'll be sick.' "'Not a step will I stir till you promise.'

"'Say you won't go to see that girl any more, and there's nothing I won't do for you. But if you put her before me, I'll not go in. I never will go in.'" CHAPTER X. THE SON OF HIS MOTHER PART II.

with most women this would have been an empty threat but it was not so with thyra and chester knew it he knew she would keep her word and he feared more than that in this frenzy of hers what might she do she came of a strange breed as had been said disapprovingly when luke carew married her there was a strain of insanity in the lincolns a lincoln woman had drowned herself once chester thought of the river and grew sick with fright

for a moment even his passion for damaris weakened before the older tile mother calm yourself oh surely there's no need of all this let us wait until to-morrow and talk it over then i'll hear all you have to say come in dear thyra loosened her arms from about him and stepped back into a moonlit space looking at him tragically she extended her arms and spoke slowly and solemnly chester choose between us

if you choose her i shall go from you to-night and you will never see me again mother choose she reiterated fiercely he felt her long ascendancy its influence was not to be shaken off in a moment in all his life he had never disobeyed her besides with it all he loved her more deeply and understandingly than most sons love their mothers he realized that since she would have it so his choice was already made or rather that he had no choice

"'Have your way,' he said sullenly. She ran to him and caught him to her heart. In the reaction of her feelings she was half laughing, half crying. All was well again, all would be well, she never doubted this, for she knew he would keep his ungracious promise sacredly. "'Oh, my son, my son,' she murmured, "'you'd have sent me to my death if you had chosen otherwise. But you are mine again.' She did not heed that he was sullen, that he resented her injustice with all her own intensity."

she did not heed his silence as they went into the house together strangely enough she slept well and soundly that night not until many days had passed did she understand that though chester might keep his promise in the letter it was beyond his power to keep it in the spirit she had taken him from damaris garland but she had not won him back to herself he could never be wholly her son again there was a barrier between them which not all her passionate love could break down

"'Chester was gravely kind to her, for it was not in his nature to remain sullen long, or visit his own unhappiness upon another's head. Besides, he understood her exacting affection, even in its injustice, and it has been well said that to understand is to forgive. But he avoided her, and she knew it. The flame of her anger burned bitterly towards Damaris. "'He thinks of her all the time,' she moaned to herself,

he'll come to hate me yet i fear because it's i who made him give her up but i'd rather even that than share him with another woman oh my son my son she knew that damaris was suffering too the girl's wan face told that when she met her but this pleased thyra it eased the ache in her bitter heart to know that pain was gnawing at damaris's also

chester was absent from home very often now he spent much of his spare time at the harbor consorting with joe raymond and others of that ilk who were but sorry associates for him avonlea people thought in late november he and joe started for a trip down the coast in the latter's boat thyra protested against it but chester laughed at her alarm

thyra saw him go with a heart sick from fear she hated the sea and was afraid of it at any time but most of all in this treacherous month with its sullen wild gales chester had been fond of the sea from boyhood she had always tried to stifle this fondness and break off his associations with the harbor fishermen who liked to lure the high-spirited boy out with them on fishing expeditions but her power over him was gone now

after chester's departure she was restless and miserable wandering from window to window to scan the dour unsmiling sky carl white dropping in to pay a call was alarmed when he heard that chester had gone with joe and had not tact enough to conceal his alarm from thyra tisn't safe this time of year he said folks expect no better from that reckless harum-scarum joe raymond he'll drown himself some day there's nothing surer

this mad freak of starting off down the shore in november is just of a piece with his usual performances but you shouldn't have let chester go thyra i couldn't prevent him say what i could he would go he laughed when i spoke of danger oh he's changed from what he was i know who has wrought the change and i hate her for it

Carl shrugged his fat shoulders. He knew quite well that Thyra was at the bottom of the sudden coldness between Chester Carew and Damaris Garland, about which Avonlea gossip was busying itself. He pitied Thyra, too. She had aged rapidly the past month. "'You're too hard on Chester, Thyra. He's out of leading-strings now, or should be. You must just let me take an old friend's privilege and tell you that you're taking the wrong way with him. You're too jealous and exacting, Thyra.'

"'You don't know anything about it. You have never had a son,' said Thyra, cruelly enough, for she knew that Carl's sonlessness was a rankling thorn in his mind. "'You don't know what it is to pour out your love on one human being and have it flung back in your face.' Carl could not cope with Thyra's moods. He had never understood her, even in his youth. Now he went home, still shrugging his shoulders and thinking that it was a good thing Thyra had not looked on him with favor in the old days."

cynthia was much easier to get along with more than thyra looked anxiously to see in sky that night in avonlea damaris garland listened to the smothered roar of the atlantic in the murky northeast with a prescience of coming disaster friendly longshoremen shook their heads and said that ches and joe would better have kept to good dry land

it's sorry work joking with a november gale said abel blair he was an old man and in his life had seen some sad things along the shore thyra could not sleep that night when the gale came shrieking up the river and struck the house she got out of bed and dressed herself the wind screamed like a ravening beast at her window

all night she wandered to and fro in the house going from room to room now wringing her hands with loud outcries now praying below her breath with white lips now listening in dumb misery to the fury of the storm the wind raged all the next day but spent itself in the following night and the second morning was calm and fair the eastern sky was a great arc of crystal smitten through with auroral crimsonings

thyra looking from her kitchen window saw a group of men on the bridge they were talking to carl white with looks and gestures directed towards the carew house she went out and downed them none of these who saw her white rigid face that day ever forgot the sight you have news for me she said they looked at each other each man mutely imploring his neighbour to speak you need not fear to tell me said thyra calmly i know what you have come to say my son is drowned

we don't know that mrs carew said abel blair quickly we haven't got the worst to tell you there's hope yet but joe raymond's boat was found last night stranded bottom up on the blue point sand shore forty miles down the coast don't look like that thyra said carl white pityingly they may have escaped they may have been picked up

thyra looked at him with dull eyes you know they have not not one of you has any hope i have no son the sea has taken him from me my bonnie baby she turned and went back to her desolate home none dared to follow her carl white went home and sent his wife over to her cynthia found thyra sitting in her accustomed chair her hands lay palms upward on her lap

her eyes were dry and burning she met cynthia's compassionate look with a fearful smile long ago cynthia white she said slowly you were vexed with me one day and you told me that god would punish me yet because i made an idol of my son and set it up in his place do you remember your word was a true one god saw that i loved chester too much and he meant to take him from me

i thwarted one way when i made him give up damaris but one can't fight against the almighty it was decreed that i must lose him if not in one way then in another he has been taken from me utterly i shall not even have his grave to tend cynthia as near to a madwoman as anything you ever saw with her awful eyes cynthia told karl afterwards but she did not say so there

although she was a shallow commonplace soul she had her share of womanly sympathy and her own life had not been free from suffering it taught her the right thing to do now she sat down by the stricken creature and put her arms about her while she gathered the cold hands in her own warm clasp

the tears filled her big blue eyes and her voice trembled as she said thyra i'm sorry for you i-i lost a child once my little first-born and chester was a dear good lad for a moment thyra strained her small tense body away from cynthia's embrace then she shuddered and cried out the tears came and she wept her agony out on the other woman's breast

As the ill news spread, other Avonlea women kept dropping in all through the day to condole with Thyra. Many of them came in real sympathy, but some out of mere curiosity to see how she took it. Thyra knew this, but she did not resent it, as she once would have done. She listened very quietly to all the halting efforts at consolation, and the little platitudes with which they strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.

When darkness came, Cynthia said she must go home, but would send one of her girls over for the night. "'You won't feel like staying alone,' she said. Thyra looked up steadily. "'No, but I want you to send for Damaris Garland.' "'Damaris Garland?' Cynthia repeated the name, as if disbelieving her own ears. There never was any knowing what whim Thyra might take, but Cynthia had not expected this."

"'Yes. Tell her I want her. Tell her she must come. She must hate me bitterly, but I am punished enough to satisfy even her hate. Tell her to come to me for Chester's sake.' Cynthia did as she was bid, but she sent her daughter, Jeanette, for Damaris. Then she waited. No matter what duties were calling for her at home, she must see the interview between Thyra and Damaris. Her curiosity would be the last thing to fail Cynthia White.'

she had done very well all day but it would be asking too much of her to expect that she would consider the meeting of these two women sacred from her eyes she half believed that damaris would refuse to come but damaris came jeanette brought her in amid the fiery glow of a november sunset thyra stood up and for a moment they looked at each other

the insolence of damaris beauty was gone her eyes were dull and heavy with weeping her lips were pale and her face had lost its laughter and dimples only her hair escaping from the shawl she had cast around it gushed forth in warm splendor in the sunset light and framed her wan face like the ariole of a madonna

thyra looked upon her with a shock of remorse this was not the radiant creature she had met on the bridge that summer afternoon this-this was her work she held out her arms oh damaris forgive me we both loved him that must be a bond between us for life damaris came forward and threw her arms about the older woman lifting her face as their lips met even cynthia white realized that she had no business there

she vented the irritation of her embarrassment on the innocent jeanette come away she whispered crossly can't you see we're not wanted here she drew jeanette out leaving thyra rocking damaris in her arms and crooning over her like a mother over her child when december had grown old damaris was still with thyra it was understood that she was to remain there for the winter at least thyra could not bear to be out of her sight

they talked constantly about chester thyra confessed all her anger and hatred damaris had forgiven her but thyra could never forgive herself she was greatly changed and had grown very gentle and tender she even sent for august vorst and begged him to pardon her for the way she had spoken to him winter came late that year and the season was a very open one

There was no snow on the ground, and a month after Joe Raymond's boat had been cast up on the Blue Point Sandshore, Thyra, wandering about in her garden, found some pansies blooming under their tangled leaves. She was picking them for Damaris when she heard a buggy rumble over the bridge and drive up the white lane, hidden from her sight by the alders and firs. A few minutes later Carl and Cynthia came hastily across their yard under the huge balm of Gled's.

"'Carl's face was flushed, and his big body quivered with excitement. "'Cynthia ran behind him, with tears rolling down her face. "'Thyra felt herself growing sick with fear. "'Had anything happened to Damaris? "'A glimpse of the girl sewing by an upper window of the house reassured her. "'Oh, Thyra! Thyra!' gasped Cynthia. "'Can you stand some good news, Thyra?' asked Carl, in a trembling voice. "'Very, very good news?' "'Thyra looked wildly from one to the other.'

"'There's but one thing you would dare call good news to me,' she cried. "'Is it about—about—' "'Chester! Yes, it's about Chester. Thyra, he is alive, he's safe, he and Joe, both of them, thank God. Cynthia, catch her!' "'No, I'm not going to faint,' said Thyra, steadying herself by Cynthia's shoulder. "'My son, alive! How did you hear? How did it happen? Where has he been?'

i heard it down at the harbor thyra mike mccready's vessel the nora lee was just in from the magdalens ches and joe got capsized the night of the storm but they hung on to their boat somehow and at daybreak they were picked up by the nora lee bound for quebec but she was damaged by the storm and blown clear out of her course had to put into the magdalens for repairs and has been there ever since the cable to the islands was out of order and no vessels call there this time of year for mails

"'If it hadn't been an extra open season, the Noralee wouldn't have gotten away, but would have had to stay there till spring. You never saw such rejoicing as there was this morning at the harbor when the Noralee came in, flying flags at the masthead. "'And Chester, where is he?' demanded Thyra. Carl and Cynthia looked at each other. "'Well, Thyra,' said the latter, "'the fact is he's over there in our yard this blessed minute.'

karl brought him home from the harbor but i wouldn't let him come over until we had prepared you for it he's waiting for you there thyra made a quick step in the direction of the gate then she turned with a little of the glow dying out of her face no there's one has a better right to go to him first i can atone to him thank god i can atone to him

She went into the house and called Damaris. As the girl came down the stairs, Thyra held out her hands with a wonderful light of joy and renunciation on her face. Damaris, she said, Chester has come back to us. The sea has given him back to us. He is over at Carl White's house. Go to him, my daughter, and bring him to me. End of section 20. Section 21 of Further Chronicles of Alan Lee

CHAPTER XI. THE EDUCATION OF BETTY. PART I. When Sarah Curry married Jack Churchill I was broken-hearted, or believed myself to be so, which in a boy of twenty-two amounts to pretty much the same thing.

not that i took the world into my confidence that was never the douglas way and i held myself in honor bound to live up to the family traditions i thought then that nobody but sarah knew but i dare say now that jack knew it also for i don't think sarah could have helped telling him if he did know however he did not let me see that he did and never insulted me by any implied sympathy on the contrary he asked me to be his best man jack was always a thoroughbred

i was best man jack and i had always been bosom friends and although i had lost my sweetheart i did not intend to lose my friend into the bargain sarah had made a wise choice for jack was twice the man i was he had to work for his living which perhaps accounts for it so i danced at sarah's wedding as if my heart were as light as my heels

but after she and jack had settled down at glenby i closed the maples and went abroad being as i have hinted one of those unfortunate mortals who need consult nothing but their own whims in the matter of time and money i stayed away for ten years during which the maples was given over to moths and rust while i enjoyed life elsewhere i did enjoy it hugely but always under protest for i felt that a broken-hearted man ought not to enjoy himself as i did

it jarred on my sense of fitness and i tried to moderate my zest and think more of the past than i did it was no use the present insisted on being intrusive and pleasant as for the future well there was no future then jack churchill poor fellow died a year after his death i went home and again asked sarah to marry me as in duty bound

sarah again declined alleging that her heart was buried in jack's grave or words to that effect i found that it did not much matter of course at thirty-two one does not take these things to heart as at twenty-two i had enough to occupy me in getting the maples into working order and beginning to educate betty betty was sarah's ten-year-old daughter and she had been thoroughly spoiled

that is to say she had been allowed her own way in everything and having inherited her father's outdoor tastes had simply run wild she was a thorough tomboy a thin scrawny little thing with a trace of sarah's beauty betty took after her father's dark tall race and on the occasion of my first introduction to her seemed to be all legs and neck there were points about her though which i considered promising

she had fine almond-shaped hazel eyes the smallest and most shapely hands and feet i ever saw and two enormous braids of thick nut-brown hair for jack's sake i decided to bring his daughter up properly sarah couldn't do it and didn't try i saw that if somebody didn't take betty in hand wisely and firmly she would certainly be ruined

there seemed to be nobody except myself at all interested in the matter so i determined to see what an old bachelor could do as regards bringing up a girl in the way she should go i might have been her father as it was her father had been my best friend who had a better right to watch over his daughter i determined to be a father to betty and do all for her that the most devoted parent could do it was self-evidently my duty

i told sarah i was going to take betty in hand sarah sighed one of the plaintive little sighs which i had once thought so charming but now to my surprise found faintly irritating and said that she would be very much obliged if i would i feel that i am not able to cope with the problem of betty's education stephen she admitted betty is a strange child all churchill her poor father indulged her in everything and she has a will of her own i assure you

i have really no control over her whatever she does as she pleases and is ruining her complexion by running and galloping out of doors the whole time not that she had much complexion to start with the churchills never had you know sara cast a complacent glance at her delicately tinted reflection in the mirror i tried to make betty wear a sunbonnet this summer but i might as well have talked to the wind

A vision of Betty in a sun bonnet presented itself to my mind, and afforded me so much amusement that I was grateful to Sarah for having furnished it. I rewarded her with a compliment. It is to be regretted that Betty has not inherited her mother's charming color, I said, but we must do the best we can for her under her limitations. She may have improved vastly by the time she has grown up.

and at least we must make a lady of her she is a most alarming tomboy at present but there is good material to work upon there must be in the churchill and curry blend but even the best material may be spoiled by unwise handling i think i can promise you that i will not spoil it

i feel that betty is my vocation and i shall set myself up as a rival of wordsworth's nature of whose methods i have always had a decided distrust in spite of his insidious verses sarah did not understand me in the least but then she did not pretend to i confide betty's education entirely to you stephen she said with another plaintive sigh i feel sure i could not put it into better hands

you have always been a person who could be thoroughly depended upon well that was something by way of regard for a life-long devotion i felt that i was satisfied with my position as unofficial adviser-in-chief to sarah and self-appointed guardian of betty i also felt that for the furtherance of the cause i had taken to heart it was a good thing that sarah had again refused to marry me

i had a sixth sense which informed me that a staid old family friend might succeed with betty where a step-father would have signally failed betty's loyalty to her father's memory was passionate and vehement she would view his supplanter with resentment and distrust but his old familiar comrade was a person to be taken to her heart fortunately for the success of my enterprise betty liked me she told me this with the same engaging candor she would have used in informing me that she hated me

if she had happened to take a bias in that direction saying frankly you are one of the very nicest old folks i know stephen yes you are a ripping good fellow this made my task comparatively easy one i sometimes shudder to think what it might have been if betty had not thought i was a ripping good fellow i should have stuck to it because that is my way but betty would have made my life a misery to me she had startling capacities for tormenting people when she chose to exert them

i certainly should not have liked to be numbered among betty's foes i rode over to glenby the next morning after my paternal interview with sarah intending to have a frank talk with betty and lay the foundations of a good understanding on both sides betty was a sharp child with a disconcerting knack of seeing straight through grindstones she would certainly perceive and probably resent any underhanded management i thought it best to tell her plainly that i was going to look after her

when however i encountered betty tearing madly down the beach avenue with a couple of dogs her loosened hair streaming behind her like a banner of independence and had lifted her hatless and breathless up before me on my mare i found that sarah had saved me the trouble of an explanation mother says you are going to take charge of my education stephen said betty as soon as she could speak i'm glad because i think that for an old person you have a good deal of sense

"'I suppose my education has to be seen to, some time or other, and I'd rather you do it than anybody else I know.' "'Thank you, Betty,' I said gravely. "'I hope I shall deserve your good opinion of my sense. I shall expect you to do as I tell you, and be guided by my advice in everything.' "'Yes, I will,' said Betty, "'because I'm sure you won't tell me to do anything I'd really hate to do. You won't shut me up in a room and make me sew, will you? Because I won't do it.' I assured her I would not."

"'Nor send me to a boarding school,' pursued Betty. "'Mother's always threatening to send me to one. I suppose she would have done it before this, only she knew I'd run away. "'You won't send me to a boarding school, will you, Stephen, because I won't go.' "'No,' I said obligingly, "'I won't. I should never dream of cooping a wild little thing like you up in a boarding school. You'd fret your heart out like a caged skylark.'

"'I know you and I are going to get along together splendidly, Stephen,' said Betty, rubbing her brown cheek chummily against my shoulder. "'You are so good at understanding. Very few people are. Even Dad, darling, didn't understand. He let me do just as I wanted to, just because I wanted to, not because he really understood that I couldn't be tame and play with dolls. I hate dolls. Real live babies are jolly, but dogs and horses are ever so much nicer than dolls.'

but you must have lessons betty i shall select your teachers and superintend your studies and i shall expect you to do me credit along that line as well as along all others i'll try honest and true stephen declared betty and she kept her word at first i looked upon betty's education as a duty in a very short time it became a pleasure the deepest and most abiding interest of my life

as i had premised betty was good material and responded to my training with gratifying plasticity day by day week by week month by month her character and temperament unfolded naturally under my watchful eye it was like beholding the gradual development of some rare flower in one's garden a little checking and pruning here a careful training of shoot and tendril there and lo the reward of grace and symmetry

betty grew up as i would have wished jack churchill's girl to grow spirited and proud with the fine spirit and gracious pride of pure womanhood loyal and loving with the loyalty and love of a frank and unspoiled nature true to her heart's core hating falsehood and sham as crystal clear a mirror of maidenhood as ever man looked into and saw himself reflected back in such a halo as made him ashamed of not being more worthy of it

betty was kind enough to say that i had taught her everything she knew but what had she not taught me if there were a debt between us it was on my side sarah was fairly well satisfied it was not my fault that betty was not better looking she said i had certainly done everything for her mind and character that could be done sarah's manner implied that these unimportant details did not count for much balanced against the lack of a pink and white skin and dimpled elbows

but she was generous enough not to blame me when betty is twenty-five i said patiently i had grown used to speaking patiently to sara she will be a magnificent woman far handsomer than you ever were sara in your pinkest and whitest prime where are your eyes my dear lady that you can't see the promise of loveliness in betty betty is seventeen and she is as lanky and brown as she ever was sighed sara

"'When I was seventeen, I was the belle of the county, and it had five proposals. I don't believe the thought of a lover has ever entered Betty's head.' "'I hope not,' I said shortly. Somehow I did not like the suggestion. "'Betty is a child yet. For pity's sake, Sarah, don't go putting nonsensical ideas into her head.' "'I'm afraid I can't,' mourned Sarah, as if it were something to be regretted. "'You have filled it too full of books and things like that.'

i've every confidence in your judgment stephen and really you've done wonders with betty but don't you think you've made her rather too clever men don't like women who are too clever her poor father now he always said that a woman who liked books better than bows was an unnatural creature i didn't believe jack had ever said anything so foolish sarah imagined things but i resented the aspersion of blue stalkiness cast on betty

"'When the time comes for Betty to be interested in bows,' I said severely, "'she will probably give them all due attention. Just at present her head is a great deal better filled with books than with silly, premature fancies and sentimentalities. I'm a critical old fellow, but I'm satisfied with Betty, Sarah, perfectly satisfied.' Sarah sighed. "'Oh, I dare say she is all right, Stephen, and I'm really grateful to you. I'm sure I could have done nothing at all with her.'

it's not your fault of course but i can't help wishing she were a little more like other girls i galloped away from glenby in a rage what a blessing sarah had not married me in my absurd youth she would have driven me wild with her size and her obtuseness and her everlasting pink and whiteness

but there there there gently she was a sweet good-hearted little woman she had made jack happy and she had contrived heaven only knew how to bring a rare creature like betty into the world for that much might be forgiven her by the time i reached the maples and had flung myself down in an old kinky comfortable chair in my library i had forgiven her and was even paying her the compliment of thinking seriously over what she had said

was betty really unlike other girls that is to say unlike them in any respect wherein she should resemble them i did not wish this although i was a crusty old bachelor i approved of girls holding them the sweetest things the good god has made i wanted betty to have her full complement of girlhood in all its best and highest manifestation was there anything lacking

i observed betty very closely during the next week or so riding over to glenby every day and riding back at night meditating upon my observations eventually i concluded to do what i had never thought myself in the least likely to do i would send betty to a boarding school for a year it was necessary that she should learn how to live with other girls i went over to glenby the next day and found betty under the beeches on the lawn just back from a canter

she was sitting on the dappled mare i had given her on her last birthday and was laughing at the antics of her rejoicing dogs around her i looked at her with much pleasure it gladdened me to see how much nay how totally a child she still was despite her churchill height her hair under her velvet cap still hung over her shoulders in the same thick plaits her face had the firm leanness of early youth but its curves were very fine and delicate

The brown skin that worried Sarah so was flushed through with dusky color from her gallop. Her long, dark eyes were filled with the beautiful unconsciousness of childhood. More than all, the soul in her was still the soul of a child. I found myself wishing that it could always remain so. But I knew it could not. The woman must blossom out some day. It was my duty to see that the flower fulfilled the promise of the bud.

when i told betty that she must go away to a school for a year she shrugged frowned and consented betty had learned that she must consent to what i decreed even when my decrees were opposed to her likings as she had once fondly believed they never would be but betty had acquired confidence in me to the beautiful extent of acquiescing in everything i commanded

"'I'll go, of course, since you wish it, Stephen,' she said. "'But why do you want me to go? You must have a reason. You always have a reason for anything you do. What is it?' "'That is for you to find out, Betty,' I said. "'By the time you come back you will have discovered it, I think. If not, it will have proved itself a good reason and shall be forgotten.' When Betty went away I bade her good-bye without burdening her with any useless words of advice."

"'Write to me every week, and remember that you are Betty Churchill,' I said. Betty was standing on the steps, above, among her dogs. She came down a step and put her arms about my neck. "'I'll remember that you are my friend, and that I must live up to you,' she said. "'Good-bye, Stephen.' She kissed me two or three times, good hearty smacks—did not I say she was still a child?—and stood waving her hand to me as I rode away."

i looked back at the end of the avenue and saw her standing there short-skirted and hatless fronting the lowering sun with those fearless eyes of hers so i looked my last on the child betty that was a lonely year my occupation was gone and i began to fear that i had outlived my usefulness life seemed flat stale and unprofitable betty's weekly letters were all that lent it any savor they were spicy and piquant enough

Betty was discovered to have unsuspected talents in the epistolary line. At first she was dolefully homesick, and begged me to let her come home. When I refused—it was amazingly hard to refuse—she sulked through three letters, then cheered up and began to enjoy herself. But it was nearly the end of the year when she wrote, I found out why you sent me here, Stephen, and I'm glad you did. End of section 21

CHAPTER XI. THE EDUCATION OF BETTY. PART II. I had to be away from home on unavoidable business the day that Betty returned to Glenby. But the next afternoon I went over.

i found betty out and sarah in the latter was beaming betty was so much improved she declared delightedly i would hardly know the dear child this alarmed me terribly what on earth had they done to betty i found that she had gone up to the pine land for a walk and thither i betook myself speedily when i saw her coming down a long golden-brown alley i stepped behind a tree to watch her i wished to see her myself unseen

as she drew near i gazed at her with pride and admiration and amazement and under it all a strange dreadful heart-sinking which i could not understand and which i had never in all my life experienced before no not even when sarah had refused me betty was a woman not by virtue of the simple white dress that clung to her tall slender figure revealing lines of exquisite grace and litheness

not by virtue of the glossy masses of dark brown hair heaped high on her head and held there in wonderful shining coils not by virtue of added softness of curve and daintiness of outline not because of all these but because of the dream and wonder and seeking in her eyes she was a woman looking all unconscious of her quest for love the understanding of the change in her came home to me with a shock that must have left me i think something white about the lips

i was glad she was what i had wished her to become but i wanted the child betty back this womanly betty seemed far away from me i stepped out into the path and she saw me with a brightening of her whole face she did not rush forward and fling herself into my arms as she would have done a year ago but she came towards me swiftly holding out her hand

i had thought her slightly pale when i had first seen her but now i concluded that i had been mistaken for there was a wonderful sunrise of color in her face i took her hand there were no kisses this time welcome home betty i said oh stephen it is so good to be back she breathed her eyes shining she did not say it was good to see me again as i had hoped she would do indeed after the first minute of greeting she seemed a trifle cool and distant

we walked for an hour in the pine-wood and talked betty was brilliant witty self-possessed altogether charming i thought her perfect and yet my heart ached what a glorious young thing she was in that splendid youth of hers what a prize for some lucky man confound the obtrusive thought no doubt we should soon be overrun at glenby with lovers i should stumble over some forlorn youth at every step

well what of it betty would marry of course it would be my duty to see that she got a good husband worthy of her as men go i thought i preferred the old duty of superintending her studies but there it was all the same thing merely a post-graduate course in applied knowledge

when she began to learn life's greatest lesson of love i the tried and true old family friend and mentor must be on hand to see that the teacher was what i would have him to be even as i had formally selected her instructor in french and botany then and not until then would betty's education be complete i rode home very soberly when i reached the maples i did what i had not done for years looked critically at myself in the mirror

the realization that i had grown older came home to me with a new and unpleasant force there were marked lines on my lean face and silver glints in the dark hair over my temples when betty was ten she had thought me an old person now at eighteen she probably thought me a veritable ancient of days pshaw what did it matter and yet i thought of her as i had seen her standing under the pines and something cold and painful laid its hand on my heart

My premonitions as to lovers proved correct. Glenby was soon infested with them. Heaven knows where they all came from. I had not supposed there was a quarter as many young men in the whole county, but there they were. Sarah was in the seventh heaven of delight. Was not Betty at last a belle? As for the proposals, well, Betty never counted her scalps in public, but every once in a while a visiting youth dropped out and was seen no more at Glenby.

one could guess what that meant betty apparently enjoyed all this i grieve to say that she was a bit of a coquette i tried to cure her of this serious defect but for once i found that i had undertaken something i could not accomplish in vain i lectured betty only laughed in vain i gravely rebuked betty only flirted more vivaciously than before men might come and men might go but betty went on forever

i endured this sort of thing for a year and then i decided that it was time to interfere seriously i must find a husband for betty my fatherly duty would not be fulfilled until i had nor indeed my duty to society she was not a safe person to have running at large none of the men who haunted glenby was good enough for her i decided that my nephew frank would do very well he was a capital young fellow handsome clean-souled and whole-hearted

from a worldly point of view he was what sarah would have termed an excellent match he had money social standing and a rising reputation as a clever young lawyer yes he should have betty confound him they had never met i set the wheels going at once the sooner all the fuss was over the better i hated fuss and there was bound to be a good deal of it but i went about the business like an accomplished matchmaker

I invited Frank to visit the Maples, and before he came I talked much, but not too much, of him to Betty, mingling judicious praise and still more judicious blame together. Women never like a paragon. Betty heard me with more gravity than she usually accorded to my dissertations on young men. She even condescended to ask several questions about him. This I thought a good sign.

to frank i had said not a word about betty when he came to the maples i took him over to glenby and coming upon betty wandering about amid the beaches in the sunset i introduced him without any warning he would have been more than mortal if he had not fallen in love with her on the spot it was not in the heart of man to resist her that dainty alluring bit of womanhood

she was all in white with flowers in her hair and for a moment i could have murdered frank or any other man who dared to commit the sacrilege of loving her then i pulled myself together and left them alone i might have gone in and talked to sarah two old folks gently reviewing their youth while the young folks courted outside but i did not

I prowled about the pinewood and tried to forget how blithe and handsome that curly-headed boy Frank was, and what a flash had sprung into his eyes when he had seen Betty. Well, what of it? Was not that what I had brought him there for? And was I not pleased at the success of my scheme? Certainly I was. Delighted! Next day Frank went to Glenby without even making the poor pretense of asking me to accompany him.

i spent the time of his absence overseeing the construction of a new greenhouse i was having built i was conscientious in my supervision but i felt no interest in it the place was intended for roses and roses made me think of the pale yellow ones betty had worn at her breast one evening the week before

when all lovers being unaccountably absent we had wandered together under the pines and talked as in the old days before her young womanhood and my gray hairs had risen up to divide us she had dropped a rose on the brown floor and i had sneaked back after i had left her at the house to get it before i went home i had it now in my pocket-book confound it mightn't a future uncle cherish a family affection for his prospective niece

frank's wooing seemed to prosper the other young sparks who had haunted glenby faded away after his advent betty treated him with most encouraging sweetness sarah smiled on him i stood in the background like a benevolent god of the machine and flattered myself that i pulled the strings at the end of a month something went wrong frank came home from glenby one day in the dumps and moped for two whole days

i rode down myself on the third i had not gone much to glenby that month but if there were trouble bettyward it was my duty to make smooth the rough places as usual i found betty in the pineland i thought she looked rather pale and dull fretting about frank no doubt she brightened up when she saw me evidently expecting that i had come to straighten matters out but she pretended to be haughty and indifferent

i am glad you haven't forgotten us altogether stephen she said coolly you haven't been down for a week i'm flattered that you noticed it i said sitting down on a fallen tree and looking up at her as she stood tall and lithe against an old pine with her eyes averted i shouldn't have supposed you'd want an old fogey like myself poking about and spoiling the idyllic movements of love's young dream

why do you always speak of yourself as old said betty crossly ignoring my reference to frank because i am old my dear witness these gray hairs i pushed up my hat to show them the more recklessly betty barely glanced at them

you have just enough to give you a distinguished look she said and you are only forty a man is in his prime at forty he never has any sense until he is forty and sometimes he doesn't seem to have any even then she concluded impertinently my heart beat did betty suspect was that last sentence meant to inform me that she was aware of my secret folly and laughed at it i came over here to see what has gone wrong between you and frank i said gravely

betty bit her lips nothing she said betty i said reproachfully i brought you up or endeavored to bring you up to speak the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth don't tell me i have failed i'll give you another chance have you quarreled with frank no said the maddening betty he quarreled with me he went away in a temper and i do not care if he never comes back

I shook my head. "'This won't do, Betty. As your old family friend, I still claim the right to scold you until you have a husband to do the scolding. You mustn't torment Frank. He is too fine a fellow. You must marry him, Betty.' "'Must I?' said Betty, a dusky red flaming out on her cheek. She turned her eyes on me in a most disconcerting fashion. "'Do you wish me to marry Frank, Stephen?'

betty had a wretched habit of emphasizing pronouns in a fashion calculated to rattle anybody yes i do wish it because i think it will be the best for you i replied without looking at her you must marry some time betty and frank is the only man i know to whom i could trust you as your guardian i have an interest in seeing you well and wisely settled for life

"'You have always taken my advice and obeyed my wishes. And you've always found my way the best, in the long run, haven't you, Betty? You won't prove rebellious now, I'm sure. You know quite well that I am advising you for your own good. Frank is a splendid young fellow, who loves you with all his heart. Marry him, Betty. Mind, I don't command. I have no right to do that, and you are too old to be ordered about if I had. But I wish and advise it. Isn't that enough, Betty?'

i had been looking away from her all the time i was talking gazing determinedly down a sunlit vista of pines every word i said seemed to tear my heart and come from my lips stained with life-blood yes betty should marry frank but good god what would become of me betty left her station under the pine tree and walked around me until she got right in front of my face

i couldn't help looking at her for if i moved my eyes she moved too there was nothing meek or submissive about her her head was held high her eyes were blazing and her cheeks were crimson but her words were meek enough i will marry frank if you wish it stephen she said you are my friend i have never crossed your wishes and as you say i have never regretted being guided by them i will do exactly as you wish in this case also i promise you that

but in so solemn a question i must be very certain what you do wish there must be no doubt in my mind or heart look me squarely in the eyes stephen as you haven't done once to-day no nor once since i came home from school and so looking tell me that you wish me to marry frank douglas and i will do it do you stephen i had to look her in the eyes since nothing else would do her

and as i did so all the might of manhood in me rose up in hot revolt against the lie i would have to tell her that unfaltering impelling gaze of hers drew the truth from my lips in spite of myself

"No, I don't wish you to marry Frank Douglas, a thousand times no," I said passionately. "I don't wish you to marry any man on earth but myself. I love you, I love you, Betty. You are dearer to me than life, dearer to me than my own happiness. It was your happiness I thought of, and so I asked you to marry Frank because I believed he would make you a happy woman. That is all." Betty's defiance went from her like a flame blown out. She turned away and drooped her proud head.

"'It could not have made me a happy woman to marry one man, loving another,' she said in a whisper. I got up and went over to her. "'Betty, whom do you love?' I asked, also in a whisper. "'You,' she murmured meekly. "'Oh, so meekly, my proud little girl. "'Betty,' I said brokenly, "'I'm old, too old for you. I'm more than twenty years your senior. I'm—' "'Oh!' Betty wheeled around on me and stamped her foot.'

"'Don't mention your age to me again. I don't care if you're old as Methuselah. But I am not going to coax you to marry me, sir. If you won't, I'll never marry anybody. I'll live and die an old maid. You can please yourself, of course.' She turned away, half laughing, half crying. But I caught her in my arms and crushed her sweet lips against mine. "'Betty, I'm the happiest man in the world, and I was the most miserable when I came here.'

"'You deserve to be,' said Betty cruelly. "'I'm glad you were. Any man as stupid as you deserves to be unhappy. What do you think I felt like, loving you with all my heart, and seeing you simply throwing me at another man's head? Why, I've always loved you, Stephen, but I didn't know it until I went to that detestable school. Then I found out, and I thought that was why you had sent me. But when I came home, you almost broke my heart.'

"'That was why I flirted so with all those poor nice boys. I wanted to hurt you, but I never thought I succeeded. You just went on being fatherly. Then, when you brought Frank here, I almost gave up hope, and I tried to make up my mind to marry him. I should have done it if you had insisted. But I had to have one more try for happiness first. I had just one little hope to inspire me with sufficient boldness.'

"'I saw you that night when you came back here and picked up my rose. I'd come back myself to be alone and unhappy. It is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened, that you should love me,' I said. "'It's not. I couldn't help it,' said Betty, nestling her brown head on my shoulder. "'You taught me everything else, Stephen, so nobody but you could teach me how to love. You've made a thorough thing of educating me. When will you marry me, Betty?' I asked."

as soon as i can fully forgive you for trying to make me marry somebody else said betty it was rather hard lines on frank when you came to think of it but such is the selfishness of human nature that we didn't think much about frank the young fellow behaved like the douglas he was went a little white about the lips when i told him wished me all happiness and went quietly away gentleman unafraid

He has since married, and is, I understand, very happy. Not as happy as I am, of course. That is impossible, because there is only one Betty in the world, and she is my wife.

further chronicles of avonlea by lucy maude montgomery chapter twelve in her selfless mood part one the raw wind of an early may evening was puffing in and out the curtains of the room where naomi holland lay dying the air was moist and chill but the sick woman would not have the window closed i can't get my breath if you shut everything up so tight she said whatever comes i ain't going to be smothered to death caroline holland

outside of the windows grew a cherry tree powdered with moist buds with the promise of blossoms she would not live to see between its boughs she saw a crystal cup of sky over hills that were growing dim and purple the outside air was full of sweet wholesome springtime sounds that drifted in fitfully there were voices and whistles in the barnyard and now and then faint laughter a bird alighted for a moment on a cherry bough and twittered restlessly

naomi knew that white mists were hovering in the silent hollows that the maple at the gate wore a misty blossom red and that violet stars were shining bluely on the brooklands the room was a small plain one the floor was bare save for a couple of braided rugs the plaster discolored the walls dingy and glaring there had never been much beauty in naomi holland's environment and now that she was dying there was even less

at the open window a boy of about ten years was leaning out over the sill and whistling he was tall for his age and beautiful the hair a rich auburn with a glistening curl in it skin very white and warm-tinted eyes small and of a greenish blue with dilated pupils and long lashes he had a weak chin and a full sullen mouth

the bed was in the corner farthest from the window on it the sick woman in spite of the pain that was her portion continually was lying as quiet and motionless as she had done ever since she had lain down upon it for the last time

Naomi Holland never complained. When the agony was at its worst, she shut her teeth more firmly over her bloodless lip, and her great black eyes glared at the blank wall before in a way that gave her attendants what they called the creeps. But no word or moan escaped her. Between the paroxysms she kept up her keen interest in the life that went on about her. Nothing escaped her sharp, alert eyes and ears.

this evening she lay spent on the crumpled pillows she had had a bad spell in the afternoon and it had left her very weak in the dim light her extremely long face looked corpse-like already her black hair lay in a heavy braid over the pillow and down the counterpane it was all that was left of her beauty and she took a fierce joy in it those long glistening sinuous tresses must be combed and braided every day no matter what came

a girl of fourteen was curled up on a chair at the head of the bed with her head resting on the pillow the boy at the window was her half-brother but between christopher holland and eunice carr not the slightest resemblance existed presently the sibilant silence was broken by a low half-strangled sob the sick woman who had been watching a white evening star through the cherry boughs turned impatiently at the sound

i wish you'd get over that eunice she said sharply i don't want any one crying over me until i'm dead and then you'll have plenty else to do most likely if it wasn't for christopher i wouldn't be anyways unwilling to die when one has had such a life as i've had there isn't much in death to be afraid of only a body would like to go right off and not die by inches like this tain't fair

she snapped out the last sentence as if addressing some unseen tyrannical presence her voice at least had not weakened but was as clear and incisive as ever the boy at the window stopped whistling and the girl silently wiped her eyes on her faded gingham apron naomi drew her own hair over her lips and kissed it

you'll never have hair like that eunice she said it does seem most too pretty to bury doesn't it mind you see that it is fixed nice when i'm laid out comb it right up on my head and braid it there

a sound such as might be rung from a suffering animal came from the girl but at the same moment the door opened and a woman entered chris she said sharply you get right off for the cows you lazy little scamp you knew right well you had to go for them and here you've been idling and me looking high and low for you make haste now it's ridiculous late the boy pulled in his head and scowled at his aunt but he dared not disobey and went out slowly with a sulky manner

his aunt subdued a movement that might have developed into a sound box on his ears with a rather frightened glance at the bed naomi holland was spent in dying but her temper was still a thing to hold in dread and her sister-in-law did not choose to rouse it by slapping christopher to her and her co-nurse the spasms of rage which the sick woman sometimes had seemed to partake of the nature of devil possession

The last one, only three days before, had been provoked by Christopher's complaint of some real or fancied ill-treatment from his aunt, and the latter had no mind to bring on another. She went over to the bed and straightened the clothes. Sarah and I are going out to milk, Naomi. Eunice will stay with you. She can run for us if you feel another spell coming on.

naomi holland looked up at her sister-in-law with something like malicious enjoyment i ain't going to have any more spells caroline ann i'm going to die to-night but you needn't hurry milking for that at all i'll take my time she liked to see the alarm that came over the other woman's face it was richly worth while to scare caroline holland like that are you feeling worse naomi asked the latter shakily if you are i'll send for charles to go to the doctor

no you won't what good can the doctor do i don't want either his or charles's permission to die you can go and milk at your ease i won't die till you're done i won't deprive you of the pleasure of seeing me mrs holland shut her lips and went out of the room with a martyr-like expression in some ways naomi holland was not an exacting patient but she took her satisfaction out in the biting malicious speeches she never failed to make

even on her death-bed her hostility to her sister-in-law had defined vent outside at the steps sarah spencer was waiting with the milk pails over her arm sarah spencer had no fixed abiding-place but was always to be found where illness was her experience and an utter lack of nerves made her a good nurse she was a tall homely woman with iron-gray hair and a lined face

Beside her, the trim little Caroline Anne, with her light step and round, apple-red face, looked almost girlish. The two women walked to the barnyard, discussing Naomi in undertones as they went. The house they had left behind grew very still. In Naomi Holland's room, the shadows were gathering. Eunice timidly bent over her mother. "'Ma, do you want the light lit?'

"'No, I'm watching that star just below the big cherry bough. I'll see it set behind the hill. I've seen it there off and on for twelve years, and now I'm taking a good-bye look at it. I want you to keep still, too. I've got a few things to think over, and I don't want to be disturbed.' The girl lifted herself about noiselessly and locked her hands over the bedpost. Then she laid her face down on them, biting at them silently until the marks of her teeth showed white against their red roughness.

naomi holland did not notice her she was looking steadfastly at the great pearl-like sparkle in the faint-hued sky when it finally disappeared from her vision she struck her long thin hands together twice and a terrible expression came over her face for a moment but when she spoke her voice was quite calm

"'You can light the candle now, Eunice. Put it up on the shelf here where it won't shine in my eyes, and then sit down on the foot of the bed where I can see you. I've got something to say to you.' Eunice obeyed her noiselessly. As the pallid light shot up, it revealed the child plainly. She was thin and ill-formed, one shoulder being slightly higher than the other. She was dark, like her mother, but her features were irregular, and her hair fell in straggling dim locks about her face.'

her eyes were a dark brown and over one was the slanting red scar of a birthmark naomi holland looked at her with the contempt she had never made any pretense of concealing the girl was bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh but she had never loved her all the mother-love in her had been lavished on her son

when eunice had placed the candle on the shelf and drawn down the ugly blue paper blinds shutting out the strips of violet sky where a score of glimmering points were now visible she sat down on the foot of the bed facing her mother the door is shut is it eunice eunice nodded because i don't want caroline or any one else peeking and harking to what i've got to say she's out milking now and i must make the most of the chance eunice i'm going to die and ma

there now no taking on you knew it had to come some time soon i haven't the strength to talk much so i want you just to be quiet and listen i ain't feeling any pain now so i can think and talk pretty clear are you listening eunice yes ma mind you are it's about christopher it hasn't been out of my mind since i laid down here i've fought for a year to live on his account and it ain't any use

i must just die and leave him and i don't know what he'll do it's dreadful to think of she paused and struck her shrunken hand sharply against the table if he was bigger and could look out for himself it wouldn't be so bad but he is only a little fellow and caroline hates him you'll both have to live with her until you're grown up she'll put on him and abuse him he's like his father in some ways he's got a temper and he is stubborn he'll never get on with caroline

now eunice i'm going to get you to promise to take my place with christopher when i'm dead as far as you can you've got to it's your duty but i want you to promise i will ma whispered the girl solemnly

you haven't much force you never had if you was smart you could do a lot for him but you'll have to do your best i want you to promise me faithfully that you'll stand by him and protect him that you won't let people impose on him that you'll never desert him as long as he needs you no matter what comes eunice promise me this in her excitement the sick woman raised herself up in the bed and clutched the girl's thin arm her eyes were blazing and two scarlet spots glowed in her thin cheeks

eunice's face was white and tense she clasped her hands as one in prayer mother i promise it naomi relaxed her grip on the girl's arm and sank back exhausted on the pillow a death-like look came over her face as the excitement faded my mind is easier now

"'But if I could, only have lived another year or two. And I hate Carolyn, hate her. Eunice, don't you ever let her abuse my boy. If she did, or you neglected him, I'd come back from my grave to you. As for the property, things will be pretty straight. I've seen to that. There'll be no squabbling in doing Christopher out of his rights. He's to have the farm as soon as he's old enough to work it, and he's to provide for you. And, Eunice, remember what you've promised.'

outside in the thickly gathering dust caroline holland and sarah spencer were at the dairy straining the milk into creamers for which christopher was sullenly pumping water the house was far from the road up to which a long red lane led across the field was the old holland homestead where caroline lived her unmarried sister-in-law electa holland kept house for her while she waited on naomi

it was her night to go home and sleep but naomi's words haunted her although she believed they were born of pure cantankerousness you'd better go in and look at her sarah she said as she rinsed out the pails if you think i'd better stay here to-night i will if the woman was like anybody else a body would know what to do but if she thought she could scare us by saying she was going to die she'd say it when sarah went in the sick-room was very quiet

in her opinion naomi was no worse than usual and she told caroline so but the latter felt vaguely uneasy and concluded to stay naomi was as cool and defiant as customary she made them bring christopher in to say good-night and had him lifted up on the bed to kiss her then she held him back and looked at him admiringly at the bright curls and rosy cheeks and round fern limbs the boy was uncomfortable under her gaze and squirmed hastily down

Her eyes followed him greedily as he went out. When the door closed behind him, she groaned. Sarah Spencer was startled. She had never heard Naomi Holland groan since she had come to wait on her. "'Are you feeling any worse, Naomi? Is the pain coming back?' "'No. Go and tell Carolyn to give Christopher some of that great jelly on his bread before he goes to bed. She'll find it in the cupboard under the stairs.' Presently the house grew very still. Carolyn had dropped asleep on the sitting-room lounge across the hall.

Sarah Spencer nodded over her knitting by the table in the sick room. She had told Eunice to go to bed, but the child refused. She still sat huddled up on the foot of the bed, watching her mother's face intently. Naomi appeared to sleep. The candle burned long, and the wick was crowned by a little cap of fiery red that seemed to watch Eunice like some impish goblin. The wavering light cast grotesque shadows of Sarah Spencer's head on the wall.

the thin curtains at the window wavered to and fro as if shaken by ghostly hands at midnight naomi holland opened her eyes the child she had never loved was the only one to go with her to the brink of the unseen eunice remember it was the faintest whisper the soul passing over the threshold of another life strained back to its only earthly tie a quiver passed over the long pallid face

a horrible scream rang through the silent house sarah spencer sprang out of her doze in consternation and gazed blankly at the shrieking child caroline came hurrying in with distended eyes on the bed naomi holland lay dead in the room where she had died naomi holland lay in her coffin it was dim and hushed but in the rest of the house the preparations for the funeral were being hurried on through it all eunice moved calm and silent

Since her one wild spasm of screaming by her mother's deathbed, she had shed no tear, given no sign of grief. Perhaps, as her mother had said, she had no time. There was Christopher to be looked after. The boy's grief was stormy and uncontrolled. He had cried until he was utterly exhausted. It was Eunice who soothed him, coaxed him to eat, kept him constantly by her. At night she took him to her own room and watched over him while he slept.

when the funeral was over the household furniture was packed away or sold the house was locked up and the farm rented there was nowhere for the children to go save to their uncles caroline holland did not want them but having to take them she grimly made up her mind to do what she considered her duty by them she had five children of her own and between them and christopher a standing feud had existed from the time he could walk

She had never liked Naomi. Few people did. Benjamin Holland had not married until late in life, and his wife had declared war on his family at sight. She was a stranger in Avonlea, a widow with a three-year-old child. She made few friends, as some people always asserted that she was not in her right mind. Within a year of her second marriage Christopher was born, and from the hour of his birth his mother had worshipped him blindly. He was her only solace.

for him she toiled and pinched and saved benjamin holland had not been four-handed when she married him but when he died six years after his marriage he was a well-to-do man naomi made no pretense of mourning for him it was an open secret that they had quarreled like the proverbial cat and dog charles holland and his wife had naturally sided with benjamin and naomi fought her battle single-handed after her husband's death she managed to farm alone and made it pay

when the mysterious malady which was to end her life first seized on her she fought against it with all the strength and stubbornness of her strong and stubborn nature her will won for an added year of life and then she had to yield she tasted all the bitterness of death the day on which she lay down on her bed and saw her enemy come in to rule her house

but caroline holland was not a bad or unkind woman true she did not love naomi or her children but the woman was dying and must be looked after for the sake of common humanity caroline thought she had done well by her sister-in-law when the red clay was heaped over naomi's grave in the avonlea burying-ground caroline took eunice and christopher home with her christopher did not want to go it was eunice who reconciled him he clung to her with an exacting affection born of loneliness and grief

in the days that followed caroline holland was obliged to confess to herself that there would have been no doing anything with christopher had it not been for eunice the boy was sullen and obstinate but his sister had an unfailing influence over him in charles holland's household no one was allowed to eat the bread of idleness his own children were all girls and christopher came in handy as a chore-boy he was made to do work perhaps too hard

but eunice helped him and did half his work for him when nobody knew when he quarreled with his cousin she took his part whenever possible she took on herself the blame and punishment of his misdeeds electa holland was charles's unmarried sister she had kept house for benjamin until he married then naomi had bundled her out electa had never forgiven her for it her hatred passed on to naomi's children in a hundred petty ways she revenged herself on them

For herself, Eunice bore it patiently, but it was a different matter when it touched Christopher. Once Electa boxed Christopher's ears. Eunice, who was knitting by the table, stood up. A resemblance to her mother, never before visible, came out on her face like a brand. She lifted her hand and slapped Electa's cheek deliberately twice, leaving a dull red mark where she struck.

if you ever strike my brother again she said slowly and vindictively i will slap your face every time you do you have no right to touch him my patience what a fury said electa naomi holland'll never be dead as long as you're alive she told charles of the affair and eunice was severely punished but electa never interfered with christopher again all the discordant elements in the holland household could not prevent the children from growing up

it was a consummation which the harassed caroline devoutly wished when christopher holland was seventeen he was a man grown a big strapping fellow his childish beauty had coarsened but he was thought handsome by many he took charge of his mother's farm then and the brother and sister began their life new together in the long unoccupied house there were few regrets on either side when they left charles holland's roof in her secret heart eunice felt an unspeakable relief

christopher had been hard to manage as his uncle said in the last year he was getting into the habit of keeping late hours in doubtful company this always provoked an explosion of wrath from charles holland and the conflicts between him and his nephew were frequent and bitter for four years after their return home eunice had a hard and anxious life christopher was idle and dissipated most people regarded him as a worthless fellow and his uncle washed his hands of him utterly

only eunice never failed him she never reproached or railed she worked like a slave to keep things together eventually her patience prevailed christopher to a great extent reformed and worked harder he was never unkind to eunice even in his rages it was not in him to appreciate or return her devotion but his tolerant acceptance of it was her solace

when eunice was twenty-eight edward bell wanted to marry her he was a plain middle-aged widower with four children but as caroline did not fail to remind her eunice herself was not for every market and the former did her best to make the match she might have succeeded had it not been for christopher

when he in spite of caroline's skilful management got an inkling of what was going on he flew into a true holland rage if eunice married and left him he would sell the farm and go to the devil by way of the klondike he could not and would not do without her no arrangement suggested by caroline availed to pacify him and in the end eunice refused to marry edward bell she could not leave christopher she said simply and in this she stood rock firm caroline could not budge her an inch

"'You're a fool, Eunice,' she said, when she was obliged to give up in despair. "'It's not likely you'll ever have another chance. As for Chris, in a year or two he'll be marrying himself, and where will you be then? You'll find your nose nicely out of joint when he brings a wife in here.' The shaft went home. Eunice's lips turned white, but she said, faintly, "'The house is big enough for both of us, if he does.'

Carolyn sniffed. Maybe so. You'll find out. However, there's no use talking. You're as set as your mother was, and nothing would ever budge her an inch. I only hope you won't be sorry for it.

chapter twelve in her selfless mood part two when three more years had passed christopher began to court victoria pye the affair went on for some time before either eunice or the hollands got wind of it when they did there was an explosion between the hollands and the pyes root and branch existed a feud that dated back for three generations

that the original cause of the quarrel was totally forgotten did not matter it was a matter of family pride that a holland should have no dealings with a pie when christopher flew so openly in the face of this cherished hatred there could be nothing less than consternation charles holland broke through his determination to have nothing to do with christopher to remonstrate caroline went to eunice in as much of a splutter as if christopher had been her own brother

eunice did not care a row of pins for the holland pie feud victoria was to her what any other girl upon whom christopher cast eyes of love would have been a supplanter for the first time in her life she was torn with passionate jealousy existence became a nightmare to her urged on by caroline and her own pain she ventured to remonstrate with christopher also

she had expected a burst of rage but he was surprisingly good-natured he seemed even amused what have you got against victoria he asked tolerantly eunice had no answer ready it was true that nothing could be said against the girl she felt hopeless and baffled christopher laughed at her silence i guess you're a little jealous he said you must have expected i would get married some time this house is big enough for us all

you'd better look at the matter sensibly eunice don't let charles and caroline put nonsense into your head a man must marry to please himself christopher was out late that night eunice waited up for him as she always did it was a chilly spring evening reminding her of the night her mother had died the kitchen was in spotless order and she sat down on a stiff back chair by the window to wait for her brother she did not want a light the moonlight fell in with faint illumination

outside the wind was blowing over a bed of new sprung mint in the garden and it was suggestively fragrant it was a very old-fashioned garden full of perennials naomi holland had planted long ago eunice always kept it primly neat she had been working in it that day and felt tired she was all alone in the house and the loneliness filled her with a faint dread she had tried all that day to reconcile herself to christopher's marriage and had partially succeeded

she told herself that she could still watch over him and care for his comfort she would even try to love victoria after all it might be pleasant to have another woman in the house so sitting there she fed her hungry soul with these husks of comfort when she heard christopher's steps she moved about quickly to get a light he frowned when he saw her he had always resented her sitting up for him he sat down by the stove and took off his boots while eunice got a lunch for him

after he had eaten it in silence he made no move to go to bed a chill premonitory fear crept over eunice it did not surprise her at all when christopher finally said abruptly eunice i've got a notion to get married this spring eunice clasped her hands together under the table it was what she had been expecting she said so in a monotonous voice

"'We must make some arrangement for—for you, Eunice,' Christopher went on, in a hurried, hesitant way, keeping his eyes riveted doggedly on his plate. "'Victoria doesn't exactly like—' "'Well, she thinks it's better for young married folks to begin life by themselves, and I guess she's about right. You wouldn't find it comfortable, anyhow, having to step back to second place after being mistress here so long.' Eunice tried to speak, but only an indistinct murmur came from her bloodless lips.

The sound made Christopher look up. Something in her face irritated him. He pushed back his chair impatiently. "'Now, Eunice, don't go taking on. It won't be any use. Look at this business in a sensible way. I'm fond of you and all that, but a man is bound to consider his wife first. I'll provide for you comfortably. Do you mean to say that your wife is going to turn me out?' Eunice gasped rather than spoke the words. Christopher drew his reddish brows together.

i just mean that victoria says she won't marry me if she has to live with you she's afraid of you i told her you wouldn't interfere with her but she wasn't satisfied it's your own fault eunice you've always been so queer and close that people think you're an awful crank victoria's young and lively and you and she wouldn't get on at all there isn't any question of turning you out i'll build a little house for you somewhere and you'll be a great deal better off there than you would be here so don't make a fuss

eunice did not look as if she were going to make a fuss she sat as if turned to stone her hands lying palm upward in her lap christopher got up hugely relieved that the dreaded explanation was over guess i'll go to bed you'd better have gone long ago it's all nonsense this waiting up for me when he had gone eunice drew a long sobbing breath and looked about her like a dazed soul all the sorrow of her life was as nothing to the desolation that assailed her now

she rose and with uncertain footsteps passed out through the hall and into the room where her mother died she had always kept it locked and undisturbed it was arranged just as naomi holland had left it eunice tottered to the bed and sat down on it she recalled the promise she had made to her mother in that very room was the power to keep it to be wrested from her was she to be driven from her home and parted from the only creature she had on earth to love

and would christopher allow it after all her sacrifices for him ay that he would he cared more for that black-eyed waxen-faced girl at the old pie-place than for his own kin eunice put her hands over her dry burning eyes and groaned aloud caroline holland had her hour of triumph over eunice when she heard it all to one of her nature there was no pleasure so sweet as that of saying i told you so having said it however she offered eunice a home

"'Alecta Holland was dead, and Eunice might fill her place very acceptably if she would. "'You can't go off and live by yourself,' Caroline had told her. "'It's all nonsense to talk of such a thing. We will give you a home if Christopher is going to turn you out. You were always a fool, Eunice, to pet and pamper him as you've done. This is the thanks you get for it. Turned out like a dog for his fine wife's whim. I only wish your mother was alive. It was probably the first time Caroline had ever wished this.'

she had flown at christopher like a fury about the matter and had been rudely insulted for her pains christopher had told her to mind her own business when caroline cooled down she made some arrangements with him to all of which eunice listlessly assented she did not care what became of her when christopher holland brought victoria as mistress to the house where his mother had toiled and suffered and ruled with her rod of iron eunice was gone

In Charles Holland's household she took electus place, an unpaid upper servant. Charles and Carolyn were kind enough to her, and there was plenty to do. For five years her dull, colorless life went on, during which time she never crossed the threshold of the house where Victoria Holland ruled, with a sway as absolute as Naomi's had been. Carolyn's curiosity led her, after her first anger had cooled, to make occasional calls.

the observations of which she faithfully reported to eunice the latter never betrayed any interest in them save once this was when caroline came home full of the news that victoria had had the room where naomi died opened up and showily furnished as a parlor then eunice's sallow face crimsoned and her eyes flashed over the desecration but no word of comment or complaint ever crossed her lips she knew as every one else knew that the glamour soon went from christopher holland's married life

the marriage proved an unhappy one not unnaturally although unjustly eunice blamed victoria for this and hated her more than ever for it christopher seldom came to charles's house possibly he felt ashamed he had grown into a morose silent man at home and abroad it was said that he had gone back to his old drinking habits one fall victoria holland went to town to visit her married sister she took their only child with her

in her absence christopher kept house for himself it was a fall long remembered in avonlea with the dropping of the leaves and the shortening of the dreary days the shadow of a fear fell over the land charles holland brought the fateful news home one night there's smallpox in charlottetown five or six cases came in one of the vessels there was a concert and a sailor from one of the ships was there and took sick the next day this was alarming enough

charlottetown was not so very far away and considerable traffic went on between it and the north shore districts when caroline recounted the concert story to christopher the next morning his ruddy face turned quite pale he opened his lips as if to speak then closed them again they were sitting in the kitchen caroline had run over to return some tea she had borrowed and incidentally to see what she could of victoria's housekeeping in her absence

Her eyes had been busy while her tongue ran on, so she did not notice the man's pallor and silence. "'How long does it take for smallpox to develop after one has been exposed to it?' he asked abruptly, when Carolyn rose to go. "'Ten to fourteen days, I calculate,' was her answer. "'I must see about having the girls vaccinated right off. It'll likely spread. When do you expect Victoria home?' "'When she's ready to come, whenever that will be,' was the gruff response."

a week later caroline said to eunice whatever's got christopher he hasn't been out anywhere for ages just hangs round home the whole time it's something new for him i suppose the place is so quiet now madam victoria's away that he can find some rest for his soul i believe i'll run over after milking and see how he's getting on you might as well come too eunice eunice shook her head she had all her mother's obstinacy and darkened victoria's door she would not

She went on patiently, darning socks, sitting at the west window, which was her favorite position, perhaps because she could look from it across the sloping field and past the crescent curve of Maple Grove to her lost home. After milking, Carolyn threw a shawl over her head and ran across the field. The house looked lonely and deserted. As she fumbled at the latch of the gate, the kitchen door opened, and Christopher Holland appeared on the threshold. "'Don't come any farther,' he called."

caroline fell back in blank astonishment was this some more of victoria's work i ain't an agent for the small-pox she called back viciously christopher did not heed her will you go home and ask uncle if he'll go or send for dr spencer he's the small-pox doctor i'm sick caroline felt a thrill of dismay and fear she faltered a few steps backward sick what's the matter with you

i was in charlottetown that night and went to the concert that sailor sat right beside me i thought at the time he looked sick it was just twelve days ago i felt bad all day yesterday and to-day send for the doctor don't come near the house or let anyone else come near he went in and shut the door caroline stood for a few moments in an almost ludicrous panic then she turned and ran as if for her life across the field eunice saw her coming and met her at the door

mercy on us gasped caroline christopher's sick and he thinks he's got the small-pox where's charles eunice tottered back against the door her hand went up to her side in a way that had been getting very common with her of late even in the midst of her excitement caroline noticed it eunice what makes you do that every time anything startles you is it anything about your heart

i don't know a little pain its gone now did you say that christopher has the smallpox well he says so himself and it's more than likely considering the circumstances i declare i never got such a turn in my life it's a dreadful thing i must find charles at once there'll be a hundred things to do

eunice hardly heard her her mind was centered upon one idea christopher was ill alone she must go to him it did not matter what his disease was when caroline came in from her breathless expedition to the barn she found eunice standing by the table with her hat and shawl on tying up a parcel eunice where on earth are you going

over home said eunice if christopher is going to be ill he must be nursed and i'm the one to do it he ought to be seen to right away eunice carr have you gone clean out of your senses it's the smallpox the smallpox if he's got it he'll have to be taken to the smallpox hospital in town you shan't stir a step to go to that house i will

eunice faced her excited aunt quietly the odd resemblance to her mother which only came out in moments of great tension was plainly visible he shan't go to the hospital they never get proper attention there you needn't try to stop me it won't put you or your family in any danger caroline fell helplessly into a chair she felt that it would be of no use to argue with a woman so determined she wished charles was there but charles had already gone post-haste for the doctor

with a firm step eunice went across the field footpath she had not trodden for so long she felt no fear rather a sort of elation christopher needed her once more the interloper who had come between them was not there as she walked through the frosty twilight she thought of the promise made to naomi holland years ago christopher saw her coming and waved her back don't come any nearer eunice didn't caroline tell you i'm taking small pops eunice did not pause

she went boldly through the yard and up the porch steps he retreated before her and held the door eunice you're crazy girl go home before it's too late eunice pushed open the door resolutely and went in it's too late now i'm here and i mean to stay and nurse you if it's the smallpox you've got maybe it's not just now when a person has a finger ache he thinks it's smallpox

anyhow whatever it is you ought to be in bed and looked after you'll catch cold let me get a light and have a look at you christopher had sunk into a chair his natural selfishness reasserted itself and he made no further effort to dissuade eunice she got a lamp and set it on the table by him while she scrutinized his face closely you look feverish what do you feel like when did you take sick yesterday afternoon i have chills and hot spells and pains in my back

eunice do you think it's really smallpox and will i die he caught her hands and looked imploringly up at her as a child might have done eunice felt a wave of love and tenderness sweep warmly over her starved heart don't worry lots of people recover from smallpox if they're properly nursed and you'll be that for i'll see to it charles has gone for the doctor and will know when he comes you must go straight to bed she took off her hat and shawl and hung them up

she felt as much at home as if she had never been away she had got back to her kingdom and there was none to dispute it with her when dr spencer and old giles blewett who had had smallpox in his youth came two hours later they found eunice in serene charge the house was in order and reeking of disinfectants

victoria's fine furniture and fixings were being bundled out of the parlor there was no bedroom downstairs and if christopher was going to be ill he must be installed there the doctor looked grave i don't like it he said but i'm not quite sure yet if it is smallpox the eruptions will probably be out by morning i must admit he has most of the symptoms will you have him taken to the hospital no said eunice decisively i'll nurse him myself

i'm not afraid and i'm well and strong very well you've been vaccinated lately yes well nothing more can be done at present you may as well lie down for a while and save your strength but eunice could not do that there was too much to attend to she went out to the hall and threw up the window down below at a safe distance charles holland was waiting the cold wind blew up to eunice the odor of the disinfectants with which he had steeped himself

what does the doctor say he shouted he thinks it's the smallpox have you sent word to victoria yes jim blewitt drove into town and told her she'll stay with her sister till it is over of course it's the best thing for her to do she's terribly frightened eunice's lip curled contemptuously to her a wife who could desert her husband no matter what disease he had was an incomprehensible creature

but it was better so she would have christopher all to herself the night was long and wearisome but the morning came all too soon for the dread certainty it brought the doctor pronounced the case smallpops eunice had hoped against hope but now knowing the worst she was very calm and resolute by noon the fateful yellow flag was flying over the house and all arrangements had been made caroline was to do the necessary cooking and charles was to bring the food and leave it in the yard

old giles blewett was to come every day and attend to the stock as well as help eunice with the sick man and the long hard fight with death began it was a hard fight indeed christopher holland in the clutches of the loathsome disease was an object from which his nearest and dearest might have been pardoned for shrinking but eunice never faltered she never left her post sometimes she dozed in a chair by the bed but she never lay down

her endurance was something wonderful her patience and tenderness almost superhuman to and fro she went in noiseless ministry as the long dreadful days wore away with a quiet smile on her lips and in her dark sorrowful eyes the rapt look of a pictured saint in some dim cathedral niche for her there was no world outside the bare room where lay the repulsive object she loved one day the doctor looked very grave

he had grown well hardened to pitiful scenes in his lifetime but he shrunk from telling eunice that her brother could not live he had never seen such devotion as hers it seemed brutal to tell her that it had all been in vain but eunice had seen it for herself she took it very calmly the doctor thought and she had her reward at last such as it was she thought it amply sufficient one night christopher holland opened his swollen eyes as she bent over him

they were alone in the old house it was raining outside and the drops rattled noisily on the panes christopher smiled at his sister with parched lips and put out a feeble hand toward her eunice he said faintly you've been the best sister ever a man had i haven't treated you right but you've stood by me to the last tell victoria tell her to be good to you

his voice died away into an inarticulate murmur eunice carr was alone with her dead they buried christopher holland in haste and privacy the next day the doctor disinfected the house and eunice was to stay there alone until it might be safe to make other arrangements she had not shed a tear the doctor thought she was a rather odd person but he had a great admiration for her he told her she was the best nurse he had ever seen to eunice praise or blame mattered nothing

something in her life had snapped some vital interest had departed she wondered how she could live through the dreary coming years late that night she went into the room where her mother and brother had died the window was open and the cold pure air was grateful to her after the drug-laden atmosphere she had breathed so long she knelt down by the stripped bed mother she said aloud i have kept my promise

When she tried to rise long after, she staggered and fell across the bed, with her hand pressed on her heart. Old Giles Blewett found her there in the morning. There was a smile on her face. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.

CHAPTER XIII. THE CONSCIENCE CASE OF DAVID BELL. PART I.

there sis that's the last chore on my list bob's milking nothing more for me to do but put on my white collar for meeting avonlea is more lively since the evangelist came ain't it though molly bell nodded she was curling her hair before the tiny mirror that hung on the whitewashed wall and distorted her round pink-and-white face into a grotesque caricature

"'Wonder who'll stand up to-night,' said Eben, reflectively, sitting down on the edge of the wood-box. "'There ain't many sinners left in Avonlea, only a few hardened chaps like myself.' "'You shouldn't talk like that,' said Molly, rebukingly. "'What if father heard you?' "'Father wouldn't hear me if I shouted it in his ear,' returned Eben. "'He goes around these days like a man in a dream, and a mighty bad dream at that. "'Father has always been a good man. What's the matter with him?'

"'I don't know,' said Molly, dropping her voice. "'Mother is dreadfully worried over him. And everybody is talking, Eb. It just makes me squirm. Flora Jane Fletcher asked me last night why father never testified, and him one of the elders. She said the minister was perplexed about it. I felt my face getting red.' "'Why didn't you tell her it was no business of hers?' said Eben angrily. "'Old Flora Jane had better mind her own business.'

But all the folks are talking about it, Eb, and Mother is fretting her heart out over it. Father has never acted like himself since these meetings began. He just goes there night after night and sits like a mummy with his head down. And almost everybody else in Avonlea has testified. Oh, no, there's lots haven't, said Eben. Matthew Cuthbert never has, nor Uncle Elisha, nor any of the whites.

but everybody knows they don't believe in getting up and testifying so nobody wonders when they don't besides mollie laughed matthew could never get a word out in public if he did believe in it he'd be too shy

"'But,' she added with a sigh, "'it isn't that way with father. He believes in testimony, so people wonder why he doesn't get up. Why, even old Josiah Sloan gets up every night.' "'With his whiskers sticking out every which way, and his hair ditto,' interjected the graceless Eben. "'When the minister calls for testimonials, and all the folks look at our pew, I feel ready to sink through the floor for shame,' sighed Molly. "'If father would get up just once!'

Miriam Bell entered the kitchen. She was ready for the meeting, to which Major Spencer was to take her. She was a tall, pale girl with a serious face and dark, thoughtful eyes, totally unlike Molly. She had come under conviction during the meetings and had stood up for prayer and testimony several times. The evangelist thought her very spiritual. She heard Molly's concluding sentence and spoke reprovingly. "'You shouldn't criticize your father, Molly. It isn't for you to judge him.'

evan had hastily slipped out he was afraid miriam would begin talking religion to him if he stayed he had with difficulty escaped from an exhortation by robert in the cow-stable there was no peace in avonlea for the unregenerate he reflected robert and miriam had both come out and mollie was hovering on the brink dad and i are the black sheep of the family he said with a laugh for which he at once felt guilty

eben had been brought up with a strict reverence for all religious matters on the surface he might sometimes laugh at them but the deeps troubled him whenever he did so indoors miriam touched her younger sister's shoulder and looked at her affectionately won't you decide to-night mollie she asked in a voice tremulous with emotion mollie crimsoned and turned her face away uncomfortably she did not know what answer to make and was glad that a jingle of bells outside saved her the necessity of replying

there's your beau miriam she said as she dashed into the sitting-room soon after eben brought the family pung and his chubby red mare to the door for mollie he had not as yet attained to the dignity of a cutter of his own that was for his elder brother robert who presently came out in his new fur coat and drove dashingly away with bells and glitter thinks he's the people remarked eben with a fraternal grin

the rich winter twilight was purpling over the white world as they drove down the lane under the overarching wild cherries that glittered with jemmy hoar-frost the snow creaked and crisped under the runners a shrill wind was keening in the leafless dogwoods over the trees the sky was a dome of silver with a lucent star or two on the slope of the west earth stars gleamed warmly out here and there where homesteads were tucked snugly away in their orchards or groves of birch

"'The church will be jammed to-night,' said Eben. "'It's so fine that folks will come from far and near. Guess it'll be exciting.' "'If only Father would testify,' sighed Molly, from the bottom of the pun, where she was snuggled amid furs and straw. "'Miriam can say what she likes, but I do feels as if we were all disgraced. It sends a creep all over me to hear Mr. Bentley say, "'Now, isn't there one more to say a word for Jesus, and look right over at Father?'

Eben flicked his mare with his whip, and she broke into a trot. The silence was filled with a faint, fairy-like medley from far down the road, where a punful of young folks from White Sands were singing hymns on their way to meeting. "'Look here, Molly,' said Eben awkwardly at last. "'Are you going to stand up for prayers tonight?' "'I—I can't as long as Father acts this way,' answered Molly in a choked voice. "'I—I want to, Eben, and Mary and Bob want me to, but I can't.'

i do hope that the evangelist won't come and talk to me special to-night i always feels as if i was being pulled in two different ways when he does back in the kitchen at home mrs bell was waiting for her husband to bring the horse to the door she was a slight dark-eyed little woman with thin vivid red cheeks from out of the swathings in which she had wrapped her bonnet her face gleamed sad and troubled now and then she sighed heavily

the cat came to her from under the stove languidly stretching himself and yawning until all the red cavern of his mouth and throat was revealed at the moment he had an uncanny resemblance to elder joseph blewitt of white sands roaring joe the irreverent boys called him when he grew excited and shouted mrs bell saw it and then reproached herself for the sacrilege but it's no wonder i've wicked thoughts she said wearily i'm that worried i ain't rightly myself

if he would only tell me what the trouble is maybe i could help him at any rate i'd know it hurts me so to see him going about day after day with his head hanging and that look on his face as if he had something fearful on his conscience him that never harmed a living soul and then the way he groans and mutters in his sleep he has always lived a just upright life he hasn't no right to go on like this disgracing his family

mrs bell's angry sob was cut short by the sleigh at the door her husband poked in his busy iron-gray head and said now mother he helped her into the sleigh tucked the rugs warmly around her and put a hot brick at her feet his solicitude hurt her it was all for her material comfort it did not matter to him what mental agony she must suffer over his strange attitude for the first time in their married life mary bell felt resentment against her husband

they drove along in silence past the snow-powdered hedges of spruce and under the arches of the forest roadways they were late and a great stillness was over all the land david bell never spoke all his usual cheerful talkativeness had disappeared since the revival meetings had begun in avonlea from the first he had gone about as a man over whom some strange doom is impending seemingly oblivious to all that might be said or thought of him in his own family or in the church

mary bell thought she would go out of her mind if her husband continued to act in this way her reflections were bitter and rebellious as they sped along through the glittering night of the winter's prime i don't get one bit of good out of the meetings she thought resentfully there ain't any peace or joy for me not even in testifying myself when david sits there like a stick or stone

if he'd been opposed to the revivalists coming here like old uncle jerry or if he didn't believe in public testimony i wouldn't mind i'd understand but as it is i feel dreadful humiliated revival meetings had never been held in avonlea before uncle jerry mcpherson who was the supreme local authority in church matters taking precedence of even the minister had been uncompromisingly opposed to them

he was a stern deeply religious scotsman with a horror of the emotional form of religion as long as uncle jerry's spare ascetic form and deeply graved square-jawed face filled his accustomed corner by the northwest corner of avonlea church no revivalist might venture therein although the majority of the congregation including the minister would have welcomed one warmly but now uncle jerry was sleeping peacefully under the tangled grasses and white snows of the burying ground

and if dead people ever do turn in their graves uncle jerry might well have turned in his when the revivalists came to avonlea church and there followed the emotional services public testimonies and religious excitement which the old man's sturdy soul had always abhorred avonlea was a good field for an evangelist the rev jeffrey mountain who came to assist the avonlea minister in revivifying the dry bones thereof knew this and reveled in the knowledge

it was not often that such a virgin parish could be found nowadays with scores of impressionable unspoiled souls on which fervid oratory could play skilfully as a master on a mighty organ until every note in them thrilled to life and utterance the rev jeffrey mountain was a good man of the earth earthy to be sure but with an unquestionable sincerity of belief and purpose which went far to counterbalance the sensationalism of some of his methods

he was large and handsome with a marvellously sweet and winning voice a voice that could melt into irresistible tenderness or swell into sonorous appeal and condemnation or ring like a trumpet calling to battle his frequent grammatical errors and lapses into vulgarity counted for nothing against its charm and the most commonplace words in the world could have borrowed much of the power of real oratory from its magic

he knew its value and used it effectively perhaps even ostentatiously geoffrey mountain's religion and methods like the man himself were showy but of their kind sincere and though the good he accomplished might not be unmixed it was a quantity to be reckoned with and of section twenty five

CHAPTER XIII. THE CONSCIOUS CASE OF DAVID BELL. PART II. So the Reverend Geoffrey Mountain came to Avonlea, conquering and to conquer.

night after night the church was crowded with eager listeners who hung breathlessly on his words and wept and thrilled and exulted as he willed into many young souls his appeals and warnings burned their way and each night they rose for prayer in response to his invitation older christians too took on a new lease of intensity and even the unregenerate and the scoffers found a certain fascination in the meetings

Threading through it all, for old and young, converted and unconverted, was an unacknowledged feeling for religious dissipation. Avonlea was a quiet place, and revival meetings were lively. When David and Mary Bell reached the church, the services had begun, and they heard the refrain of a Hallelujah hymn as they were crossing Harmon Andrews's field. David Bell left his wife at the platform and drove to the horse-shed. Mrs. Bell unwound the scarf from her bonnet and shook the frost crystals from it.

in the porch flora jane fletcher and her sister mrs harmon andrews were talking in low whispers presently flora jane put out her lank cashmere-gloved hand and plucked mrs bell's shawl mary is the elder going to testify to-night she asked in a shrill whisper mrs bell winced she would have given much to be able to answer yes but she had to say stiffly i don't know flora jane lifted her chin

well mrs bell i only asked because every one thinks it is strange he doesn't and an elder of all people it looks as if he didn't think himself a christian you know of course we all know better but it looks that way if i was you i'd tell him folks was talking about it mr bentley says it is hindering the full success of the meetings

mrs bell turned on her tormentor in swift anger she might resent her husband's strange behavior herself but nobody else should dare to criticize him to her

i don't think you need to worry yourself about the elder flora jane she said bitingly maybe tisn't the best christians that do the most talking about it always i guess as far as living up to his professions goes the elder will compare pretty favorably with levi bolter who gets up and testifies every night and cheats the very eye-teeth out of people in the daytime levi bolter was a middle-aged widower with a large family who was supposed to have cast a matrimonial eye flora janeward

the use of his name was an effective thrust on mrs bell's part and silenced flora jane too angry for speech she seized her sister's arm and hurried her into church but her victory could not remove from mary bell's soul the sting implanted there by flora jane's words when her husband came up to the platform she put her hand on his snowy arm appealingly

"'Oh, David, won't you get up to-night? I do feel so dreadful bad. Folks are talking so. I just feel humiliated.' David Bell hung his head like a shamed schoolboy. "'I can't marry,' he said huskily. "'Taint no use to pester me.' "'You don't care for my feelings,' said his wife bitterly. "'And Molly won't come out because you're acting so. You're keeping her back from salvation. And you're hindering the success of the revival. Mr. Bentley says so.'

DAVID BELL GROANED. THIS SIGN OF SUFFERING RUNG FROM HIS WIFE'S HEART. WITH QUICK CONTRITION, SHE WHISPERED, THERE, NEVER MIND, DAVID. I OUGHTN'T HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU SO. YOU KNOW YOUR DUTY BEST. LET'S GO IN. WAIT, HIS VOICE WAS IMPLORING. MARY, IS IT TRUE THAT MOLLY WON'T COME OUT BECAUSE OF ME? AM I STANDING IN MY CHILD'S LIGHT? I DON'T KNOW. I GUESS NOT. MOLLY'S JUST A FOOLISH YOUNG GIRL YET. NEVER MIND. COME IN.

He followed her dejectedly in and up the aisle to their pew in the center of the church. The building was warm and crowded. The pastor was reading the Bible lesson for the evening. In the choir behind him, David Bell saw Molly's girlish face tinged with a troubled seriousness. His own wind-ready face and bushy gray eyebrows worked convulsively with his inward throes. A sigh that was almost a groan burst from him. "'I'll have to do it,' he said to himself in agony."

When several more hymns had been sung and late arrivals began to pack the aisles, the evangelist rose. His style for the evening was the tender, the pleading, the solemn. He modulated his tones to marvelous sweetness and sent them thrillingly over the breathless pews, entangling the hearts and souls of his listeners in a mesh of subtle emotion. Many of the women began to cry softly. Fervent amens broke from some of the members.

when the evangelist sat down after a closing appeal which in its way was a masterpiece an audible sigh of relieved tension passed like a wave over the audience after prayer the pastor made the usual request that if any of those present wished to come out on the side of christ they would signify the wish by rising for a moment in their places after a brief interval a pale boy under the gallery rose followed by an old man at the top of the church

a frightened sweet-faced child of twelve got tremblingly upon her feet and a dramatic thrill passed over the congregation when her mother suddenly stood up beside her the evangelist thank god was hearty and insistent david bell looked almost imploringly at mollie but she kept her seat with downcast eyes over in the big square stone pew he saw eben bending forward with his elbows on his knees gazing frowningly at the floor

i'm a stumbling-block to them both he thought bitterly a hymn was sung and a prayer offered for those under conviction then testimonies were called for the evangelists asked for them in tones which made it seem a personal request to every one in that building many testimonies followed each infused with the personality of the giver most of them were brief and stereotyped

finally a pause ensued the evangelist swept the pews with his kindling eyes and exclaimed appealingly has every christian in this church to-night spoken a word for his master there were many who had not testified but every eye in the building followed the pastor's accusing glance to the bell pew molly crimsoned with shame mrs bell cowered visibly although everybody looked thus at david bell nobody now expected him to testify

when he rose to his feet a murmur of surprise passed over the audience followed by a silence so complete as to be terrible to david bell it seemed to possess the awe of final judgment twice he opened his lips and tried vainly to speak the third time he succeeded but his voice sounded strangely in his own ears he gripped the back of the pew before him with his knotty hands and fixed his eyes unseeingly on the christian endeavor pledge that hung over the heads of the choir

"'Brethren and sisters,' he said hoarsely, "'before I can say a word of Christian testimony here tonight, I've got something to confess. It's been lying hard and heavy on my conscience ever since these meetings began. As long as I kept silence about it, I couldn't get up and bear witness for Christ. Many of you have expected me to do it. Maybe I've been a stumbling block to some of you. This season of revival has brought no blessing to me because of my sin, which I repented of but tried to conceal.'

there has been a spiritual darkness over me friends and neighbors i have always been held by you as an honest man it was the shame of having you know i was not which has kept me back from open confession and testimony just before these meetings commenced i came home from town one night and found that somebody had passed a counterfeit ten-dollar bill on me

Then Satan entered into me and possessed me. When Mrs. Rachel Lind come next day collecting for foreign missions, I gave her that ten-dollar bill. She never knowed the difference and sent it away with the rest, but I knew I'd done a mean and sinful thing. I couldn't drive it out of my thoughts. A few days afterwards I went down to Mrs. Rachel's and give her ten good dollars for the fund. I told her I had come to the conclusion that I ought to give more than ten dollars out of my abundance to the Lord.

That was a lie. Mrs. Lynde thought I was a generous man, and I felt ashamed to look her in the face. But I'd done what I could to right the wrong, and I thought it would be all right. But it wasn't. I've never known a minute's peace of mind or conscience since. I tried to cheat the Lord, and then tried to patch it up by doing something that redounded to my worldly credit. When these meetings begun, and everybody expected me to testify, I couldn't do it.

it would have seemed like blasphemy and i couldn't endure the thought of telling what i'd done either i argued it all out a thousand times that i hadn't done any real harm after all but it was no use i've been so wrapped up in my own brooding and misery that i didn't realize i was inflicting suffering on those dear to me by my conduct and maybe holding some of them back from the paths of salvation

but my eyes have been opened this to-night and the lord has given me strength to confess my sin and glorify his holy name the broken tones ceased and david bell sat down wiping the great drops of perspiration from his brow to a man of his training and cast of thought no ordeal could be more terrible than that through which he had just passed but underneath the turmoil of his emotion he felt a great calm and peace threaded with the exultation of a hard-won spiritual victory

over the church was a solemn hush. The evangelist's "Amen" was not spoken with his usual unctuous fervor, but very gently and reverently. In spite of his coarse fiber, he could appreciate the nobility behind such a confession as this, and the deeps of stern suffering it sounded. Before the last prayer the pastor paused and looked around. "Is there yet one," he asked gently, "who wishes to be especially remembered in our concluding prayer?"

For a moment nobody moved. Then Molly Bell stood up in the choir seat, and down by the stove, Eben, his flushed, boyish face held high, rose sturdily to his feet in the midst of his companions. "'Thank God,' whispered Mary Bell. "'Amen,' said her husband, huskily. "'Let us pray,' said Mr. Bentley." End of section 26 Section 27 of Further Chronicles of Avonlea

XIV. ONLY A COMMON FELLOW. PART I. On my dearie's wedding morning I wakened early and went to her room. Long and long ago she had made me promise that I would be the one to wake her on the morning of her wedding day.

you were the first to take me in your arms when i came into the world aunt rachel she had said and i want you to be the first to greet me on that wonderful day but that was long ago and now my heart foreboded that there would be no need of wakening her and there was not she was lying there awake very quiet with her hand under her cheek and her big blue eyes fixed on the window

through which a pale dull light was creeping in a joyless light it was and enough to make a body shiver i felt more like weeping than rejoicing and my heart took to aching when i saw her there so white and patient more like a girl who was waiting for a winding-sheet than for a bridal veil but she smiled brave-like when i sat down on her bed and took her hand

you look as if you haven't slept all night dearie i said i didn't not a great deal she answered me but the night didn't seem long no it seemed too short i was thinking of a great many things what time is it aunt rachel five o'clock then in six hours more she suddenly sat up in her bed her great thick rope of brown hair falling over her white shoulders and flung her arms about me and burst into tears on my old breast

i petted and soothed her and said not a word and after a while she stopped crying but she still sat with her head so that i couldn't see her face we didn't think it would be like this once did we aunt rachel she said very softly it shouldn't be like this now i said i had to say it i never could hide the thought of that marriage and i couldn't pretend to

"'It was all her stepmother's doings. Right well I knew that. My dearie would never have taken Mark Foster else. "'Don't let us talk of that,' she said, soft and beseeching, just the same way she used to speak when she was a baby child and wanted to coax me into something. "'Let's talk about the old days and him. I don't see much use in talking of him when you're going to marry Mark Foster today,' I said. But she put her hand on my mouth.

it's for the last time aunt rachel after to-day i can never talk of him or even think of him it's four years since he went away do you remember how he looked aunt rachel i mind well enough i reckon i said kind of curt like and i did owen blair hadn't a face the body could forget that long face of his with its clean color and its eyes made to look love into a woman's

when i thought of mark foster's sallow skin and lank jaws i felt sick like not that mark was ugly he was just a common-looking fellow he was so handsome wasn't he aunt rachel my dearie went on in that patient voice of hers

so tall and strong and handsome i wish we hadn't parted in anger it was so foolish of us to quarrel but it would have been all right if he had lived to come back i know it would have been all right i know he didn't carry any bitterness against me to his death i thought once aunt rachel that i would go through life true to him and then over on the other side i'd beat him just as before all his and only his but it isn't to be

thanks to your step-ma's wheedling and mark foster's scheming said i no mark didn't scheme she said patiently don't be unjust to mark aunt rachel he has been very good and kind he's as stupid as an owlet and as stubborn as solomon's mule i said for i would say it he's just a common fellow and yet he thinks he's good enough for my beauty

"'Don't talk about Mark,' she pleaded again. "'I mean to be a good, faithful wife to him. But I'm my own woman yet—yet—for just a few more sweet hours, and I want to give them to him. The last hours of my maidenhood—they must belong to him.' So she talked of him—me sitting there and holding her, with her lovely hair hanging down over my arm, and my heart aching so for her that it hurt bitter."

she didn't feel as bad as i did because she'd made up her mind what to do and was resigned she was going to marry mark foster but her heart was in france in that grave nobody knew of where the huns had buried owen blair if they had buried him at all and she went over all they had been to each other since they were mites of babies going to school together and meaning even then to be married when they grew up

and the first words of love he'd said to her and what she'd dreamed and hoped for the only thing she didn't bring up was the time he thrashed mark foster for bringing her apples she never mentioned mark's name it was all owen owen and how he looked and what might have been if he hadn't gone off to the awful war and got shot and there was me holding her and listening to it all and her step-ma sleeping sound and triumphant in the next room

When she had talked it all out, she lay down on her pillow again. I got up and went downstairs to light the fire. I felt terrible old and tired. My feet seemed to drag, and the tears kept coming to my eyes, though I tried to keep them away, for well I knew it was a bad omen to be weeping on a wedding day. Before long Isabella Clark came down, bright and pleased-looking enough she was,

"'I'd never liked Isabella from the day Philippa's father brought her here, and I liked her less than ever this morning. She was one of your deep, sly women, always smiling smooth and scheming underneath it. I'll say it for her, though. She had been good to Philippa, but it was her doings that my dearie was to marry Mark Foster that day. "'Up betimes, Rachel,' she said, smiling and speaking me fair, as she always did, and hating me in her heart, as I well knew.'

"'That is right, for we'll have plenty to do to-day. A wedding makes lots of work.' "'Not this sort of a wedding,' I said, sour-like. "'I don't call it a wedding when two people get married and sneak off as if they were ashamed of it, as well they might be in this case.' "'It was Philippa's own wish that all should be very quiet,' said Isabella, smooth as cream. "'You know I'd have given her a big wedding if she'd wanted it.'

oh it's better quiet i said the fewer to see philippa marry a man like mark foster the better mark foster is a good man rachel no good man would be content to buy a girl as he's bought philippa i said determined to give it to her he's a common fellow not fit for my dearie to wipe her feet on

"'It's well that her mother didn't live to see this day, but this day would never have come if she'd lived. "'I dare say Philippa's mother would have remembered that Mark Foster is very well off, quite as readily as worse people,' said Isabella, a little spitefully. "'I liked her better when she was spiteful than when she was smooth. I didn't feel so scared of her then. "'The marriage was to be at eleven o'clock, and at nine I went up to help Philippa dress. "'She was no fussy bride, caring much what she looked like.'

if owen had been the bridegroom it would have been different nothing would have pleased her then but now it was only just that will do very well aunt rachel without even glancing at it still nothing could prevent her from looking lovely when she was dressed my dearie would have been a beauty in a beggar-maid's rags in her white dress and veils she was as fair as a queen and she was as good as she was pretty it was the right sort of goodness too

with just enough spice of original sin in it to keep it from spoiling by reason of over-sweetness then she sent me out i want to be alone my last hour she said kiss me aunt rachel mother rachel when i'd gone down crying like the old fool i was i heard a rap at the door my first thought was to go out and send isabella to it for i supposed it was mark foster come ahead of time and small stomach i had for seeing him

i fall trembling even yet when i think what if i had sent isabella to that door but i did go and opened it defiant like kind of hoping it was mark foster to see the tears on my face i opened it and staggered back like i'd got a blow end of section twenty seven

CHAPTER XIV ONLY A COMMON FELLOW PART II

"'Owen! Lord, have mercy on us, Owen!' I said, just like that, going cold all over, for it's the truth that I thought it was his spirit come back to forbid that unholy marriage. But he sprang right in and caught my wrinkled old hands in a grasp that was of flesh and blood. "'Aunt Rachel, I'm not too late,' he said, savage-like. "'Tell me I'm in time.'

i looked up at him standing over me there tall and handsome no change in him except he was so brown and had a little white scar on his forehead and though i couldn't understand at all being all bewildered like i felt a great deep thankfulness no you're not too late i said thank god said he under his breath and then he pulled me into the parlor and shut the door

they told me at the station that philippa was to be married to mark foster to-day i couldn't believe it but i came here as fast as horseflesh could bring me aunt rachel it can't be true she can't care for mark foster even if she had forgotten me

it's true enough that she is to marry mark i said half laughing half crying but she doesn't care for him every beat of her heart is for you it's all her step-ma's doings mark has got a mortgage on the place and he told isabella clark that if philippa would marry him he'd burn the mortgage and if she wouldn't he'd foreclose

"'Filippa is sacrificing herself to save her stepma for her dead father's sake. "'It's all your fault,' I cried, getting over my bewilderment. "'We thought you were dead. Why didn't you come home when you were alive? Why didn't you write?' "'I did write after I got out of the hospital several times,' he said. "'And never a word in answer, Aunt Rachel. What was I to think when Philippa wouldn't answer my letters?'

"'She never got one,' I cried. "'She wept her sweet eyes out over you. Somebody must have got those letters. And I knew then, and I know now, though never a shadow of proof have I, that Isabella Clark had got them and kept them. That woman would stick at nothing.' "'Well, we'll sift that matter over some other time,' said Owen impatiently. "'There are other things to think of now. I must see Philippa.'

"'I'll manage it for you,' I said eagerly. But just as I spoke the door opened and Isabella and Mark came in. Never shall I forget the look on Isabella's face. I almost felt sorry for her. She turned sickly yellow and her eyes went wild. They were looking at the downfall of all her hopes and schemes. I didn't look at Mark Foster at first, and when I did there wasn't anything to see.'

his face was just as sallow and wooden as ever he looked undersized and common beside owen nobody'd ever have picked him out for a bridegroom owen spoke first i want to see philippa he said as if it were but yesterday that he had gone away all isabella's smoothness and policy had dropped away from her and the real woman stood there plodding and unscrupulous as i'd always known her

"'You can't see her,' she said, desperate-like. "'She doesn't want to see you. You went and left her and never wrote, and she knew you weren't worth fretting over, and she has learned to care for a better man.' "'I did write, and I think you know that better than most folks,' said Owen, trying hard to speak quiet. "'As for the rest, I'm not going to discuss it with you. When I hear from Philippa's own lips that she cares for another man, I'll believe it, and not before.'

"'You'll never hear it from her lips,' said I. Isabella gave me a venomous look. "'You'll not see Philippa until she is a better man's wife,' she said stubbornly. "'And I order you to leave my house, Owen Blair.' "'No!' It was Mark Foster who spoke. He hadn't said a word, but he came forward now and stood before Owen. Such a difference as there was between them! But he looked Owen right in the face, quiet-like, and Owen glared back in fury.'

"'Will it satisfy you, Owen, if Philippa comes down here and chooses between us?' "'Yes, it will,' said Owen. Mark Foster turned to me. "'Go and bring her down,' said he. Isabella, judging Philippa by herself, gave a little moan of despair, and Owen, blinded by love and hope, thought his cause was won. But I knew my dearie too well to be glad, and Mark Foster did too, and I hated him for it. I went up to my dearie's room, all pale and shaking.'

When I went in, she came to meet me like a girl going to meet death. "'Is it time?' she said, with her hands locked tight together. I said not a word, hoping that the unlooked-for sight of Owen would break down her resolution. I just held out my hand to her and led her downstairs. She clung to me, and her hands were as cold as snow. When I opened the parlor door, I stood back and pushed her in before me.

she just cried owen and shook so that i put my arms about her to steady her owen made a step towards her his face and eyes all aflame with his love and longing but mark barred his way wait till she has made her choice he said and then he turned to philippa i couldn't see my dearie's face but i could see mark's and there wasn't a spark of feeling in it behind it was isabella's all pinched and gray

philippa said mark owen blair has come back he says he has never forgotten you and that he wrote to you several times i have told him that you have promised me but i leave you freedom of choice which of us will you marry philippa my dearie stood straight up and the trembling left her she stepped back and i could see her face white as the dead but calm and resolved i have promised to marry you mark and i will keep my word she said

The color came back to Isabella Clark's face, but Mark's did not change. "'Philippa,' said Owen, and the pain in his voice made my old heart ache bitterer than ever. "'Have you ceased to love me?' My dearie would have been more than human if she could have resisted the pleading in his tone. She said no word, but just looked at him for a moment. We all saw the look. Her whole soul, full of love for Owen, showed out in it. Then she turned and stood by Mark."

Owen never said a word. He went as white as death and started for the door. But again Mark Foster put himself in the way. "'Wait,' he said. "'She has made her choice, as I knew she would, but I have yet to make mine. And I choose to marry no woman whose love belongs to another man. Philippa, I thought Owen Blair was dead, and I believed that when you were my wife I could win your love. But I love you too well to make you miserable. Go to the man you love. You are free.'

"'And what is to become of me?' wailed Isabella. "'Oh, you! I had forgotten about you,' said Mark, kind of weary-like. He took a paper from his pocket and dropped it in the grate. "'There is the mortgage. That is all you care about, I think. Good morning.' He went out. He was only a common fellow, but somehow, just then, he looked every inch the gentleman. I would have gone after him and said something, but the look on his face—no, it was no time for my foolish old words.'

"'Filippa was crying with her head on Owen's shoulder. "'Isabella Clark waited to see the mortgage burned up, "'and then she came to me in the hall, all smooth and smiling again. "'Really, it's all very romantic, isn't it? "'I suppose it's better as it is, all things considered. "'Mark behaved splendidly, didn't he? "'Not many men would have done as he did.'

For once in my life I agreed with Isabella, but I felt like having a good cry over it, and I had it. I was glad for my dearies' sake and Owen's, but Mark Foster had paid the price of their joy, and I knew it had beggared him of happiness for life.

chapter fifteen tannis of the flats part one few people in avonlea could understand why eleanor blair had never married she had been one of the most beautiful girls in our part of the island and as a woman of fifty she was still very attractive in her youth she had had ever so many beaux as we of our generation well remembered

but after her return from visiting her brother tom in the canadian northwest more than twenty-five years ago she had seemed to withdraw within herself keeping all men at a safe though friendly distance she had been a gay laughing girl when she went out west she came back quiet and serious with a shadowed look in her eyes which time could not quite succeed in blotting out

eleanor had never talked much about her visit except to describe the scenery and the life which in that day was rough indeed not even to me who had grown up next door to her and who had always seemed more like a sister than a friend did she speak of other than the merest commonplaces

but when tom blair made a flying trip back home some ten years later there were one or two of us to whom he related the story of jerome carey a story revealing only too well the reason for eleanor's sad eyes and utter indifference to masculine attentions

i can recall almost his exact words and the inflections of his voice and i remember too that it seemed to me a far cry from the tranquil pleasant scene before us on that lovely summer day to the elemental life of the flats the flats was a forlorn little trading station fifteen miles up the river from prince albert with a scanty population of half-breeds and three white women

when jerome carey was sent to take charge of the telegraph office there he cursed his fate in the picturesque language permissible in the far northwest not that carey was a profane man even as men go in the west he was an english gentleman and he kept both his life and his vocabulary pretty clean but the flats

outside of the ragged cluster of log shacks which comprised the settlement there was always a shifting fringe of tepees where the indians who drifted down from the reservation camped with their dogs and squaws and papooses there are standpoints from which indians are interesting but they cannot be said to offer congenial social attractions for three weeks after carey went to the flats he was lonelier than he had ever imagined it possible to be even in the great lone land

if it had not been for teaching paul dumont the telegraphic code carey believed he would have been driven to suicide in self-defense the telegraphic importance of the flats consisted in the fact that it was the starting point of three telegraph lines to remote trading posts up north not many messages came therefrom but the few that did come generally amounted to something worth while days and even weeks would pass without a single one being clicked to the flats

carrie was debarred from talking over the wires to the prince albert man for the reason that they were on officially bad terms he blamed the latter for his transfer to the flats carrie slept in a loft over the office and got his meals at joe esquint's across the street joe esquint's wife was a good cook as cooks go among the breeds and carrie soon became a great pet of hers carrie had a habit of becoming a pet with women he had the way that has to be born in a man and can never be acquired

besides he was as handsome as clean-cut features deep-set dark blue eyes fair curls and six feet of muscle could make him mrs joe esquint thought that his mustache was the most wonderfully beautiful thing in its line that she had ever seen fortunately mrs joe was so old and fat and ugly that even the malicious and inveterate gossip of skulking breeds and indians squatting over tepee fires could not hint at anything questionable in the relations between her and carrie

but it was a different matter with tanis dumont tanis came home from the academy at prince albert early in july when carey had been at the flats a month and had exhausted all the few novelties of his position paul dumont had already become so expert at the code that his mistakes no longer afforded carey any fun and the latter was getting desperate

he had serious intentions of throwing up the business altogether and betaking himself to an alberta ranch where at least one would have the excitement of roping horses when he saw tanis dumont he thought he would hang on a while longer anyway tanis was the daughter of old august dumont who kept the one small store at the flats lived in the one frame house that the place boasted and was reputed to be worth an amount of money which in half-breed eyes was a colossal fortune

old august was black and ugly and notoriously bad-tempered but tanis was a beauty tanis's great-grandmother had been a cree squaw who married a french trapper the son of this union became in due time the father of august dumont august married a woman whose mother was a french half-breed and whose father was a pure-bred highland scotchman

the result of this atrocious mixture was its justification tanis of the flats who looked as if all the blood of all the howards might be running in her veins but after all the dominant current in those same veins was from the race of plain and prairie

The practiced eye detected it in the slender stateliness of carriage, in the graceful yet voluptuous curves of the lithe body, in the smallness and delicacy of hand and foot, in the purple sheen on straight falling masses of blue-black hair, and more than all else in the long dark eye, full and soft, yet alight with a slumbering fire.

france too was responsible for somewhat in tanis it gave her a light step in place of the stealthy half-breed shuffle it arched her red upper lip into a more tremulous bow it lent a note of laughter to her voice and a springier wit to her tongue as for her red-headed scotch grandfather he had bequeathed her a somewhat whiter skin and rootier bloom than is usually found in the breeds old august was mightily proud of tanis

he sent her to school for four years in prince albert bound that his girls should have the best a high school course and considerable mingling in the social life of the town for old august was a man to be conciliated by astute politicians since he controlled some two or three hundred half-breed votes sent tannis home to the flats with a very thin but very deceptive veneer of culture and civilization overlying the primitive passions and ideas of her nature

carey saw only the beauty and the veneer he made the mistake of thinking that tannis was what she seemed to be a fairly well-educated up-to-date young woman with whom a friendly flirtation was just what it was with white womankind the pleasant amusement of an hour or season it was a mistake a very big mistake

Tannis understood something of piano-playing, something less of grammar and Latin, and something still less of social prevarications. But she understood absolutely nothing of flirtation. You can never get an Indian to see the sense of platonics. Carrie found the flats quite tolerable after the homecoming of Tannis. He soon fell into the habit of dropping into the Dumont house to spend the evening talking with Tannis in the parlor, which apartment was amazingly well done for a place like the flats—

Tannis had not studied Prince Albert parlors for years for nothing, or playing violin and piano duets with her. When music and conversation palled, they went for long gallops over the prairies together. Tannis rode to perfection, and managed her bad-tempered brood of a pony with a skill and grace that made Carrie applaud her. She was glorious on horseback.

Sometimes he grew tired of the prairies, and then he and Tannis paddled themselves over the river in Nitchie Joe's dugout, and landed on the old trail that struck straight into the wooded belt of the Saskatchewan Valley, leading north to trading posts on the frontier of civilization. There they rambled under huge pines, hoary with the age of centuries, and Carrie talked to Tannis about England and quoted poetry to her.

Tannis liked poetry. She had studied it at school and understood it fairly well. But once she told Carrie that she thought it a long, roundabout way of saying what you could say just as well in about a dozen plain words. Carrie laughed. He liked to evoke those little speeches of hers. They sounded very clever, dropping from such arched, ripely tinted lips. If you had told Carrie that he was playing with fire, he would have laughed at you.

in the first place he was not in the slightest degree in love with tanis he merely admired and liked her in the second place it never occurred to him that tanis might be in love with him why he had never attempted any love-making with her and above all he was obsessed with that aforesaid fatal idea that tanis was like the women he had associated with all his life in reality as well as in appearance he did not know enough of the racial characteristics to understand

but if carey thought his relationship with tannis was that of friendship merely he was the only one at the flats who did think so all the half-breeds and quarter-breeds and any fractional breeds there believed that he meant to marry tannis there would have been nothing surprising to them in that they did not know that carey's second cousin was a baronet and they would not have understood that it need make any difference if they had

they thought that rich old august's heiress who had been to school for four years in prince albert was a catch for anybody old august himself shrugged his shoulders over it and was well pleased enough an englishman was a prize by way of a husband for a half-breed girl even if he were only a telegraph operator young paul dumont worshipped carrie and the half scotch mother who might have understood was dead

in all the flats there were but two people who disapproved of the match they thought an assured thing one of these was the little priest father gabriel he liked tanis and he liked carrie but he shook his head dubiously when he heard the gossip of the shacks and teepees religions might mingle but the different bloods ah it was not the right thing tanis was a good girl and a beautiful one but she was no fit mate for the fair thoroughbred englishman

father gabriel wished fervently that jerome carey might soon be transferred elsewhere he even went to prince albert and did a little wire-pulling on his own account but nothing came of it he was on the wrong side of politics the other malcontent was lazare a lazy besotted french half-breed who was after his fashion in love with tanis he could never have got her and knew it

old august and young paul would have incontinently riddled him with bullets had he ventured near the house as a suitor but he hated carrie none the less and watched for a chance to do him an ill turn there is no worse enemy in all the world than a half-breed your true indian is bad enough but his deluded descendant is ten times worse as for tannis she loved carrie with all her heart and that was all there was to it

if eleanor blair had never gone to prince albert there is no knowing what might have happened after all carrie so powerful and propinquity might even have ended by learning to love tanis and marrying her to his own worldly undoing but eleanor did go to prince albert and her going ended all things for tanis of the flats carrie met her one evening in september when he had ridden into town to attend a dance leaving paul dumont in charge of the telegraph office

eleanor had just arrived in prince albert on a visit to tom to which she had been looking forward during the five years since he had married and moved out west from avonlea as i have already said she was very beautiful at that time and carrie fell in love with her at the first moment of their meeting during the next three weeks he went to town nine times and called at the dumonts only once

there were no more rides and walks with tanis this was not intentional neglect on his part he had simply forgotten all about her the breed surmised a lover's quarrel but tanis understood there was another woman back there in town it would be quite impossible to put on paper any adequate idea of her emotions at this stage one night she followed carrie when he went to prince albert riding out of earshot behind him on her plains pony but keeping him in sight

lazarre in a fit of jealousy had followed tannis spying on her until she started back to the flats after that he watched both carrie and tannis incessantly and months later had told tom all he had learned through his low sneaking tannis trailed carrie to the blair house on the bluffs above the town and saw him tie his horse at the gate and enter

She, too, tied her pony to a poplar, lower down, and then crept stealthily through the willows at the side of the house until she was close to the windows. Through one of them she could see Carrie and Eleanor. The half-breed girl crouched down in the shadow and glared at her rival. She saw the pretty, fair-tinted face, the fluffy coronal of golden hair, the blue, laughing eyes of the woman whom Jerome Carrie loved, and she realized very plainly that there was nothing left to hope for.

she tanis of the flats could never compete with that other it was well to know so much at least after a time she crept softly away loosed her pony and lashed him mercilessly with her whip through the streets of the town and out the long dusty river trail a man turned and looked after her as she tore past a brightly lighted store on water street

that was tanis of the flats he said to a companion she was in town last winter going to school a beauty and a bit of the devil like all those breed girls what in thunder is she riding like that for one day a fortnight later carrie went over the river alone for a ramble up the northern trail and an undisturbed dream of eleanor when he came back tanis was standing at the canoe landing under a pine tree in a rain of finely sifted sunlight

She was waiting for him, and she said, without any preface, "'Mr. Carey, why do you never come to see me now?' Carey flushed like any girl. Her tone and look made him feel very uncomfortable. He remembered self-reproachfully that he must have seemed very neglectful, and he stammered something about having been busy. "'Not very busy,' said Tannis with her terrible directness. "'It is not that. It is because you are going to Prince Albert to see a white woman.'

CHAPTER XV. TANNIS OF THE FLATS, PART II. Even in his embarrassment, Carey noted that this was the first time he had ever heard Tannis use the expression, "'a white woman,'

or any other that would indicate her sense of a difference between herself and the dominant race he understood at the same moment that this girl was not to be trifled with that she would have the truth out of him first or last but he felt indescribably foolish i suppose so he answered lamely and what about me asked tanis

when you come to think of it this was an embarrassing question especially for carrie who had believed that tanis understood the game and played it for its own sake as he did i don't understand you tanis he said hurriedly you have made me love you said tanis the words sound flat enough on paper they did not sound flat to tom as repleted by lazarre and they sounded anything but flat to carrie hurled at him as they were by a woman trembling with all the passions of her savage ancestry

"'Tannis had justified her criticism of poetry. "'She had said her half-dozen words, instinct, with all the despair and pain and wild appeal "'that all the poetry in the world had ever expressed. "'They made Carrie feel like a scoundrel. "'All at once he realized how impossible it would be to explain matters to Tannis, "'and that he would make a still bigger fool of himself if he tried.'

"'I am very sorry,' he stammered, like a whipped schoolboy. "'It is no matter,' interrupted Tannis violently. "'What difference does it make about me, a half-breed girl? We breed girls are only born to amuse the white men.' "'That is so, is it not? Then, when they are tired of us, they push us aside and go back to their own kind. Oh, it is very well, but I will not forget—my father and brother will not forget. They will make you sorry to some purpose.'

she turned and stalked away to her canoe he waited under the pines until she crossed the river then he too went miserably home what a mess he had contrived to make of things poor tanis how handsome she had looked in her fury and how much like a squaw the racial marks always come out plainly under the stress of emotion as tom noted later

her threat did not disturb him if young paul and old auguste made things unpleasant for him he thought himself more than a match for them it was the thought of the suffering he had brought upon tanis that worried him he had not to be sure been a villain but he had been a fool and that is almost as bad under some circumstances the dumonts however did not trouble him

After all, Tanis's four years in Prince Albert had not been altogether wasted. She knew that white girls did not mix their male relatives up in a vendetta when a man ceased calling on them, and she had nothing else to complain of that can be put into words. After some reflection she concluded to hold her tongue. She even laughed when old Auguste asked her what was up between her and her fellow, and she said she had grown tired of him.

"'Old Auguste shrugged his shoulders resignedly. "'It was just as well, maybe. "'Those English sons-in-law sometimes gave themselves too many airs. "'So Carrie rode often to town and Tannis bided her time "'and plotted futile schemes of revenge, "'and Lazar Merrimy scowled and got drunk, "'and life went on at the flats as usual, "'until the last week in October, "'when a big wind and rainstorm swept over the Northland.'

it was a bad night the wires were down between the flats and prince albert and all communication with the outside world was cut off over at joe esquint's the breeds were having a carouse in honor of joe's birthday paul dumont had gone over and carrie was alone in the office smoking lazily and dreaming of eleanor suddenly above the plash of rains and the whistle of winds he heard outcries in the street running to the door he was met by mrs joe esquint who grasped him breathlessly

Mr. Carey, come quick! Lazar, he killed Paul! They fight! Carey, with a smothered oath, rushed across the street. He had been afraid of something of the sort, and had advised Paul not to go, for those half-breed carouses almost always ended in a free fight. He burst into the kitchen at Joe Esquint's to find a circle of mute spectators ranged around the room, and Paul and Lazar in a clinch in the center. Carey was relieved to find it was only an affair of fists.

he promptly hurtled himself at the combatants and dragged paul away while mrs joe esquint joe himself being dead drunk in a corner flung her fat arms about lazarre and held him back stop this said carrie sternly let me get at him foamed paul he insulted my sister he said that you-let me get him

he could not writhe free from carrie's iron grip lazarre with a snarl like a wolf sent mrs joe spinning and rushed at paul carrie struck out as best he could and lazarre went reeling back against the table it went over with a crash and the light went out mrs joe's shrieks might have brought the roof down in the confusion that ensued two pistol shots rang out sharply

There was a cry, a groan, a fall, then a rush for the door. When Mrs. Joe Esquint's sister-in-law, Marie, dashed in with another lamp, Mrs. Joe was still shrieking, Paul Dumont was leaning sickly against the wall with a dangling arm, and Carrie lay face downward on the floor with blood trickling from under him. Marie Esquint was a woman of nerve. She told Mrs. Joe to shut up, and she turned Carrie over. He was conscious but seemed dazed and could not help himself.

marie put a coat under his head told paul to lie down on the bench ordered mrs joe to get a bed ready and went for the doctor it happened that there was a doctor at the flats that night a prince albert man who had been up at the reservation fixing up some sick indians and had been storm-stayed at old august's on his way back marie soon returned with the doctor old august and tanis carrie was carried in and laid on mrs esquint's bed

The doctor made a brief examination while Mrs. Joe sat on the floor and howled at the top of her lungs. Then he shook his head. Shot in the back, he said briefly. How long? asked Carrie, understanding. Perhaps till morning, answered the doctor. Mrs. Joe gave a louder howl than ever at this, and Tannis came and stood by the bed. The doctor, knowing that he could do nothing for Carrie, hurried into the kitchen to attend to Paul, who had a badly shattered arm, and Marie went with him.

"'Carrie looked stupidly at Tannis. "'Send for her,' he said. "'Tannis smiled cruelly. "'There is no way. The wires are down, and there is no man at the flats who will go to town tonight,' she answered. "'My God, I must see her before I die,' burst out Carrie pleadingly. "'Where is Father Gabriel? He will go.' "'The priest went to town last night and has not come back,' said Tannis. "'Carrie groaned and shut his eyes.'

If Father Gabriel was away, there was indeed no one to go. Old August and the doctor could not leave Paul, and he knew very well that no breed of them all at the flats would not turn out on such a night, even if they were not, one and all, mortally scared of being mixed up in the law and justice that would be sure to follow the affair. He must die without seeing Eleanor.

Tannis looked inscrutably down on the pale face on Mrs. Joe Esquint's dirty pillows. Her immobile features gave no sign of the conflict raging within her. After a short space she turned and went out, shutting the door softly on the wounded man and Mrs. Joe, whose howls had now simmered down to whines. In the next room Paul was crying out with pain as the doctor worked on his arm, but Tannis did not go to him.

instead she slipped out and hurried down the stormy street to old august's stable five minutes later she was galloping down the black wind-lashed river trail on her way to town to bring eleanor blair to her lover's death-bed i hold that no woman ever did anything more unselfish than this deed of tanis's for the sake of love she put under her feet the jealousy and hatred that had clamored at her heart

she held not only revenge but the dearer joy of watching by carrie to the last in the hollow of her hand and she cast both away that the man she loved might draw his dying breath somewhat easier in a white woman the deed would have been merely commendable in tanis of the flats with her ancestry and tradition it was lofty self-sacrifice it was eight o'clock when tanis left the flats it was ten when she drew bridle before the house on the bluff

"'Eleanor was regaling Tom and his wife with avonly gossip when the maid came to the door. "'Please, um, there's a breed girl out on the veranda, and she's asking for Miss Blair.' "'Eleanor went out wonderingly, followed by Tom. "'Tannis, whip in hand, stood by the open door, with the stormy night behind her, "'and the warm ruby light of the hall lamps showering over her white face, "'and the long rope of drenched hair that fell from her bare head. "'She looked wild enough.'

"'Jerome Carey was shot in a quarrel at Joe Esquint's tonight,' she said. "'He is dying. He wants you. I have come for you.' "'Eleanor gave a little cry and steadied herself on Tom's shoulder.'

"'Tom said he knew he made some exclamation of horror. "'He had never approved of Carrie's attentions to Eleanor, "'but such news was enough to shock anybody. "'He was determined, however, that Eleanor should not go out in such a night "'and to such a scene, and told Tannis so in no uncertain terms. "'I came through the storm,' said Tannis contemptuously. "'Cannot she do as much for him as I can?'

the good old island blood in eleanor's veins showed to some purpose yes she answered firmly no tom don't object i must go get my horse and your own ten minutes later three riders galloped down the bluff road and took the river trail fortunately the wind was at their backs and the worst of the storm was over still it was a wild black ride enough tom rode cursing softly under his breath

he did not like the whole thing carrie done to death in some low half-breed shack this handsome sullen girl coming as his messenger this nightmare ride through wind and rain it all savored too much of melodrama even for the northland where people still did things in a primitive way he heartily wished eleanor had never left avonlea

It was past twelve when they reached the flats. Tannis was the only one who seemed to be able to think coherently. It was she who told Tom where to take the horses, and then led Eleanor to the room where Carrie was dying. The doctor was sitting by the bedside, and Mrs. Joe was curled up in a corner, sniffling to herself. Tannis took her by the shoulder and turned her, none too gently, out of the room. The doctor, understanding, left at once.

as tana shut the door she saw eleanor sink on her knees by the bed and carrie's trembling hand go out to her head tana sat down on the floor outside of the door and wrapped herself up in a shawl marie esquint had dropped in that attitude she looked exactly like a squaw and all comers and goers even old auguste who was hunting for her thought she was one and left her undisturbed she watched there until dawn came whitely up over the prairies and jerome carrie died

she knew when it happened by eleanor's cry tannis sprang up and rushed in she was too late even for a parting look the girl took carrie's hand in hers and turned to the weeping eleanor with a cold dignity now go she said you had him in life to the very last he is mine now there must be some arrangements made faltered eleanor

my father and brother will make all arrangements as you call them said tanis steadily he had no near relatives in the world none at all in canada he told me so you may send out a protestant minister from town if you like but he will be buried here at the flats and his grave will be mine all mine go and eleanor reluctant sorrowful yet swayed by a will and an emotion stronger than her own went slowly out leaving tanis of the flats alone with her dead

End of section 30

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