← catalogue

Roland Graeme: Knight. A Novel of Our Time

by Agnes Maule Machar · English · Gutenberg #36243 · 497,043 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Roland Graeme: Knight. A Novel of Our Time
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Roland Graeme: Knight. A Novel of Our Time

Author: Agnes Maule Machar


        
Release date: May 28, 2011 [eBook #36243]
                Most recently updated: December 17, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36243

Credits: Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROLAND GRAEME: KNIGHT. A NOVEL OF OUR TIME ***




ROLAND GRAEME:
KNIGHT

A Novel of Our Time

by

AGNES MAULE MACHAR

Author of "Stories of New France," "Marjorie's Canadian Winter," etc.


    "_To Ride Abroad, Redressing Human Wrongs_"







Montreal
Wm. Drysdale & Company

Entered according to Act of Parliament, in the year of Our Lord, One
Thousand, Eight Hundred and Ninety-Two, by W. Drysdale
& Co., in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture at
Ottawa.




TO
Lyman Abbott, D.D.,
ONE OF THE FIRST VOICES IN AMERICA TO ENFORCE THE RELATION OF
CHRISTIANITY TO THE LABOR PROBLEM, THESE PAGES ARE
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.


     "The highest truth the wise man sees he will fearlessly utter;
     knowing that, let what may come of it, he is thus playing his
     right part in the world; knowing that, if he can effect the
     change he aims at--well: if not--well also; though not so
     well."

     HERBERT SPENCER.




CONTENTS.


        I. ROLAND'S THREE VISITS

       II. A TWILIGHT REVERIE

      III. AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION

       IV. A CONSULTATION

        V. A FAMILY PARTY

       VI. LOOKING BACKWARD

      VII. A MIDNIGHT MEETING

     VIII. NORA'S DREAM

       IX. IN THE HOSPITAL

        X. A FIRESIDE TALK

       XI. THORNS AND ROSES

      XII. TABLE-TALK

     XIII. PIPPA PASSES

      XIV. A REPORTER AT CHURCH

       XV. HELPING HANDS

      XVI. A LUNCHEON-PARTY

     XVII. A CHRISTMAS ENTERTAINMENT

    XVIII. AFTERNOON VISITORS

      XIX. "MODERN MIRACLES"

       XX. BREAKERS AHEAD

      XXI. WORK AND WAGES

     XXII. NORA'S STRATEGY

    XXIII. UNEXPECTED DENOUEMENTS

     XXIV. A REVELATION

      XXV. BEWILDERMENT

     XXVI. AN EMPTY PLACE

    XXVII. A THUNDER-BOLT

   XXVIII. CONSCIENCE STRICKEN

     XXIX. RECONCILIATION

      XXX. AN EASTER MORNING

     XXXI. AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL

    XXXII. A NARROW ESCAPE

   XXXIII. IN ARCADY

    XXXIV. LOOKING FORWARD




ROLAND GRAEME, KNIGHT.




CHAPTER I.

ROLAND'S THREE VISITS.


The Reverend Cecil Chillingworth sat in his quiet study, absorbed in the
preparation of his next Sunday evening's discourse. It was to be one of
those powerful pulpit "efforts"--so comprehensive in its grasp, so
catholic in its spirit, so suggestive in its teachings--for which Mr.
Chillingworth, to quote the Minton _Minerva_, "was deservedly famous."
In fact, this "fame" of his sat already like "black care" on his
shoulders; or, as the Minton _Minerva_ might have said, had it only
known the secret, like a jockey determined on all occasions to whip and
spur him up to his own record. The strongest forces are often those of
which the subject of them is least conscious, and, though Mr.
Chillingworth would not have admitted it to himself, he stood in mortal
dread of "falling off" in his reputation as a preacher. Should that
happen, he would feel--or so he would have put it to himself--that his
"usefulness was gone," a reason that would have justified to him every
possible effort to avert the calamity.

He was now hard at work, with the critical presence of the reporter of
the _Minerva_ painfully before his mind, as he racked his brain for new
and original thoughts, fresh illustrations, apt and terse expressions,
with an eager anxiety that often threatened to put too great a strain on
even his fine and well-balanced _physique_. There were indeed already,
in his inward experience, some unwelcome tokens of overstrain in a
growing nervous irritability, and a miserable day, now and then, in
which all the brightness of life, and faith, and hope seemed to
disappear before the deadly touch of nervous prostration.

It was not wonderful, then, if on the days which he set apart more
especially for preparation for the pulpit, Mr. Chillingworth was
peculiarly impatient of interruption. It was not consistent with his
principles absolutely to deny himself, on these days, to all who sought
him; but he always yielded under protest, with the impatient sense of
injury which is often caused by the inconvenient pressure of our ideals
on our preferences. The subject of the particular sermon on which he was
at this time engaged was, the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice
demanded by the religion of Christ. He was in the full flow of clear and
elevated thought, and was just elaborating what he thought a specially
apt illustration, with the enthusiasm of an artist.

A knock at his study door suddenly awoke him from his preoccupation; his
brow involuntarily contracted, as, without looking up, he uttered a
reluctant "Come in!"

A trim maid-servant entered and handed him a card. On it was inscribed,
in clear and decided, though small characters, the name, _Roland
Graeme_.

"Roland Graeme!" he mentally re-echoed. "I don't know the name--and yet
it seems familiar." Then a ready misgiving crossed his mind, and,
turning to the waiting maid, he asked, "Does he seem to be a
book-canvasser?"

"No, sir, I don't just think he is," she replied, somewhat doubtfully;
then in a tone of more satisfied decision she added, "any way, he hain't
got any books with him _now_, as far as I can see."

"Well, say I'll be down presently," said the clergyman, with a sigh of
forced resignation, dipping his pen into the ink to finish the
interrupted sentence, in which he spent some minutes, with a
half-conscious determination to have at least the satisfaction of
keeping the unwelcome visitor waiting. The plan did not work well, so
far as he was concerned. He wrote a few words, read them over, thought
them tame and feeble, drew his pen through them, and then, as the dull
winter day was fast fading, he thought he might as well go down at once;
first putting some fresh coal on his grate, so that, when he returned,
he might find the bright glowing fire which his soul loved, for its
suggestiveness as well as its comfort, in a twilight meditation. It is
curious on what trivial things great issues do often depend. That little
delay of five minutes, as it turned out, was the means of changing the
whole course of Mr. Chillingworth's life, as well as that of some other
persons with whom this story is concerned.

Down-stairs, in the handsomely furnished parlor, whose somewhat prim
arrangement betokened the absence of any feminine occupancy, the
clergyman found his visitor, a young man of more than middle height and
noticeable figure, with a broad fair brow and wavy chestnut hair, candid
blue-gray eyes, somewhat dreamy in expression, yet full of earnestness
and hope, and lighted with a smile of peculiar sweetness as he rose at
Mr. Chillingworth's entrance. That gentleman's manner, however, retained
an expression of protest, and he remained standing, without any
invitation to his visitor to resume his seat. If he did not say--"To
what am I indebted for the honor of this visit?"--it was so clearly
written on every line of his face, that the young man was constrained to
begin in a tone of apology:

"I trust, sir, you will pardon the seeming intrusion of a stranger on
your valuable time. May I ask you to grant me the favor of a brief
conference on an important subject?" inquired the visitor, with a gentle
courtesy of manner that impressed Mr. Chillingworth in spite of himself.
"As a Christian minister, you----"

"As a Christian minister, sir, my time is much engaged. I must ask you
to state the object of your visit as briefly as possible. Just at
present, I am specially occupied with important work."

"I shall be as brief as possible," the young man replied. "I think you
will recognize my object also as important. May I ask you to be kind
enough to look at this prospectus?"

Mr. Chillingworth's high, arched forehead assumed a more and more
clouded aspect. He made an impatient gesture as he said:

"I am afraid you really must excuse me! I cannot undertake to examine a
long prospectus. Time is precious, and my own work is too exacting in
its claims."

"That is what brings me here," the young man replied, still with a
cheerful, undaunted look. "It is, I think, in line with your work, the
importance of which I fully recognize. This is the prospectus of a paper
which I propose to issue in the interest of our common humanity. It is
designed to promote the brotherhood of man, to secure a better feeling
between class and class, employer and employed,--a fairer scale of wages
and hours for the operative, fuller coöperation between employer and
_employés_ and mutual consideration for each other's interests; in
short, to propagate that spirit of Christian socialism which the
minister of Christ----"

But here the clergyman's ill-controlled impatience broke its bounds.
Preoccupied as he was, he had caught little more than the last words.

"I can have nothing to do with any socialistic schemes," he exclaimed.
"There is far too much mischievous nonsense afloat!--simply producing
discontent with existing conditions, and with the differences which, in
Providence, have always existed. I must really decline any further
conversation on this subject," and, with unmistakable suggestiveness,
Mr. Chillingworth placed his hand on the half-open door.

A faintly perceptible shade of vexation seemed just to flit across the
bright serenity of the young man's frank, open face. He saw very well
that persistence would do no good, and yielded to the force of
circumstances with the best grace he could muster.

"Good afternoon, then, sir," he said, in a tone that, if not quite so
cheery, was as amiable as ever. "I am sorry I cannot enlist your
sympathy in our undertaking, as I should like to have all Christian
ministers with us. I shall send you a specimen copy of the paper, and
hope you will kindly read it."

"Good afternoon," the minister reiterated curtly, showing his visitor to
the door with very scant courtesy.

Just as the door was about to close behind him, an unexpected
interruption occurred, in the shape of an apparition of a character very
unusual at Mr. Chillingworth's door. It was a little girl, who looked
about eight or nine years old, but might have been older, quaintly
wrapped in a shawl that had once been handsome, while a little
fur-trimmed hood that was quite too small for her framed a mass of dark
tangled curls, out of which large, lustrous gray eyes, strikingly
beautiful in form and color, looked up from under their long dark
eyelashes, with a soft, grave, appealing gaze. Her shabby, old-fashioned
garb gave her, at first sight, the appearance of an ordinary vagrant
child; but there was nothing sordid about the little creature. Her
childish beauty, indeed, caught Roland Graeme, whose heart was always
open to such spells, with an irresistible fascination.

The little girl looked eagerly up at the two men; then, seeming to
divine which was the object of her quest, she said timidly, yet with a
refinement of tone and accent somewhat out of keeping with her
poverty-stricken aspect:

"Please, minister, my mother is very ill, and she wants----"

"I never give anything to begging children," interrupted Mr.
Chillingworth, more sternly than he was himself aware of; for his
irritation with his previous visitor preoccupied him so much that he
heard and saw the child vaguely, without taking in the sense of her
words, or according her any more consideration, than, to his mind, was
ordinarily deserved by the nuisances he indiscriminately classed as
"juvenile mendicants." "If your mother wants anything, she can come
herself," he added, from behind the resolutely closing door. He was not
an unfeeling man, but he never knew what to do with children, and had
grown hardened by the sight of misery that he could not prevent;--the
words he used being a well-worn formula, the crystallized result of many
vexatious impositions. He had only, to "save his precious time,"
delivered himself over to a set of rules, and in so far, cramped and
limited the flow of human sympathy.

Roland, left on the door-steps with the little morsel of womanhood,
looked down at her, while she looked up at him with the keenly
scrutinizing glance, which, in some children as in animals, seems to
have been developed by force of circumstances. In the mutual glance,
brief and inquiring as it was, a certain sympathy seemed to establish
itself between the young man and the child. He noted, with an eye always
minutely observant of human faces, the grieved, discouraged look which
the child's flexible mouth had assumed at the unexpected rebuff. But she
only said, in an explanatory tone, as if answering an unspoken inquiry,

"Mother's too sick to come; she's _awful_ sick!"

"What's your name, my child, and where do you live?" asked Roland
Graeme, who could no more divest himself of the quick sympathy that was
always catching hold of other people's lives, than he could of the
winning candor of his blue-gray eyes.

"Miss Travers!"--was the unexpected reply to his first question, given
with a certain quaint dignity that touched Roland's sense of humor. "We
live way up there," pointing in the direction of a long street that ran
from the neighboring corner toward the outskirts of the city.

"And what ails your mother, and why did she send you here?" he
continued.

"She said I was to come to this house," pointing to the number above the
door, "and to say that she wanted to see _him_ very particularly," said
the child, evidently repeating her message, word for word, "and she's
very sick and can't eat bread, and there's nothing else in the house!"
she added, in a tone in which perplexity and resignation were strangely
mingled.

The young man sighed heavily. Here was another atom, added to that pile
of human misery which had begun to weigh upon his spirit like a
nightmare. But he replied in the same cheery tone he had used to the
minister:

"Well, I'm going that way, and if you'll wait a minute or two for me at
a house I have to stop at, I'll go with you to see your mother, and
perhaps I can help her a little." And, taking the little one's hand, the
two passed on in the fast gathering dusk. The child, who had acquiesced
with a look of real satisfaction, trotted on beside him, occasionally
looking up, to study the face of her new friend and to return his smile,
while doing her best to keep up with the unconsciously rapid pace which
had grown habitual with him.

He drew up suddenly before a modest abode, the door-plate of which bore
the inscription, "Rev. John Alden." The door was opened by a bright
fair-haired boy, to whom Roland's heart went out at once--for he loved
boys, as much as some people detest them, and that is saying a good
deal. This boy was evidently accustomed to all sorts of visitors, and
did not even look surprised at Roland's odd little companion. Yes, his
father was at home. Would they walk in? He seemed to know just what to
do with the little girl, whom he carefully lifted to a chair in the
hall, while he courteously ushered the young man into a parlor whose
comfortable confusion and open piano, littered with music and books,
indicated as much life and occupancy as the precise and frigid order of
Mr. Chillingworth's reception-room betokened the reverse. A merry tumult
of children's voices and laughter came through open doors, seriously
diverting Roland's attention from the business part of his mission.

A quick decided step soon sounded in the hall, and, with a kindly word
to the child as he passed, Mr. Alden entered. He was a man of rather
less than medium height, and rather more than middle-age, strongly
built, alert, with a large head, broad forehead and bright gray eyes, in
which kindliness and humor often seemed to contend for the mastery. His
cordial greeting led Roland to feel him a friend at once, while his keen
observant glance took in every point of his visitor's appearance, and
read his character with a correctness that would have amazed him, could
he have known it.

"Sit down, sir, sit down! No intrusion in the world. I am always glad to
see young men, and to do anything I can to serve them."

It may be remarked in passing that Mr. Alden's congregation usually
contained more young men than any other in Minton. Perhaps this remark
partly explained it.

Roland had soon unfolded his errand, less systematically and more
discursively than he had done to Mr. Chillingworth. Mr. Alden listened
attentively, read the prospectus with his head bent toward his visitor,
and one arm resting on the back of his chair; then folded it up, and
handed it back to him, with a twinkle of both sympathy and fun in his
kindly eyes.

"Well, my dear fellow, I heartily sympathize with your object. I don't
know that I can give you much help other than sympathy; but whatever I
can do to promote your aims, I shall do with pleasure. Anything that can
promote the true brotherhood of man must always enlist the sympathy of a
minister of Christ."

"I wish all ministers felt as you do, sir," replied Roland, thinking of
his last visit.

"Well, you see, I fear some of us have to be converted yet--to that
doctrine, anyhow. As for me, I've had special advantages. My mother was
a Scotch lassie, and used to rock my cradle to Burns' grand song,"--and
the minister hummed the chorus:--

    "For a' that and a' that,
      It's comin' yet, for a' that
    That man to man, the warld o'er,
      Shall brithers be, for a' that!"

"My parents were both Scotch," said Roland, with quick pleasure. "But I
suppose you guessed that from my name."

"Yes, a good old Border name it is! I dip into Sir Walter and the Border
ballads now and then, and I think we've made some progress toward Burns'
idea since those days! Well, I believe that time is coming, but it won't
be in your day or mine; and only one thing will bring it about--the
growth of the _brother-love_. I preach, that in my way, and I bid you
God-speed if you preach it in yours. Send along your paper! We've got
enough and to spare already, but I couldn't shut my door against one
started on that platform. And if I conscientiously can, I will recommend
it to others, and give you any other help you may need. Only, my dear
fellow, don't be disappointed if you don't accomplish all you hope for.
Many of us are apt to think at twenty-five, that if 'the world is out of
joint,' we, in particular, were 'born to set it right.' I know I did,
and though I have not done a hundredth part of what I hoped to do, I
probably shouldn't have done that percentage, if I had not started with
great expectations. Only don't be discouraged, if they are not all
realized! Now--is this little girl with you?" he added, glancing out
into the hall where another girl, somewhat older than the boy who had
opened the door, was filling the child's hands with cake and fruit.

Roland, suddenly recollecting the child, told all he knew about her,
while Mr. Alden listened with evident sympathy and interest.

"Ah! Another of the sad cases of hidden misery that one is constantly
stumbling on," he said, his voice and eye grown soft with compassion.
"That child doesn't look like one accustomed to beg. If the poor woman
wants a minister, why shouldn't I go with you? I am at your service."

"If it's quite convenient," said Roland, "it would be very kind if you
would."

"Oh, as for that, ministers and doctors mustn't stand too much on
convenience. I've learned a good many lessons from my medical friend
Blanchard. We both own the same Master, and I've no more right to be
careful of my convenience than he has. Well, my dear, come away!"

For, as he talked in his rapid energetic manner, he had been as rapidly
donning overcoat and gloves, and, hat in one hand, now extended the
other to the little girl.

"That's right, Gracie, wrap her well up! Tell Mother that I'll be back
as soon as I can, but you needn't keep tea waiting for me, if you are
all too hungry. Now then, you can shut the door."

Roland courteously raised his hat to the young girl, as she stood
looking after them with a smile very like her father's, while her long,
wavy, golden hair was rippled by the cold December wind. He felt a
wistful regret at leaving the warm, homelike atmosphere behind, when the
door at last closed upon them.

Mr. Alden drew a few more particulars from the child as they hastened
on. Her mother had been ill a good many days, she couldn't tell how
many. No, there had not been any doctor to see her. Mother said she
hadn't money enough. They had bread, but no tea, and mother could take
nothing but tea!

Mr. Alden darted into a little grocery and came out carrying two small
brown parcels. Frequent practice had made him equal to all such
emergencies. They had gone a good way past the better class of houses,
into a region of unpromising and dingy tenements--a region long ago
deserted by all who could afford to leave it. At last the child stopped
at an entry door.

"It's here--up-stairs," she said, looking up at her companions. They
went up a rickety stair, black with years of unwashed footmarks, and
followed the child into the room. She entered; but they stood still on
the threshold, while Roland's brow contracted as if with a sharp
sensation of physical pain.

It was a wretched little room, bare beyond anything Roland had ever seen
in Minton. There was no table, only one dilapidated chair and a low
wooden stool. On a shake-down on the floor lay the slender form of a
young woman, nearly covered by an old shawl which did not quite conceal
her poor and shabby attire. There was scarcely any fire in the rusty
little stove. On an old trunk near the window were an evidently
much-used box of water-colors, a few brushes, and a card or two, with
flower designs painted sketchily, yet with some spirit;--objects so much
out of keeping with the rest of the apartment that they at once
attracted the eye. The young woman, who eagerly pushed the shawl aside
and looked up the moment the door opened, was evidently very ill indeed.
Her face was slightly flushed, though the room was far from warm, and
her labored breathing told Mr. Alden's experienced ear that it was a
severe case of bronchitis.

The little girl ran up to her mother at once, throwing her arms around
her neck with a passionate clasp. Then in answer to the eager inquiring
eyes that met hers, she explained:

"Here's a minister, Mammy! _That_ one wouldn't come--but _he_ did! So
now you'll be better--won't you?"

As the mother remained for a moment in the child's close embrace,
Roland, absorbed as he was in the distressing scene, could not help
thinking that it was very evident whence the latter had derived her
unusual type of beauty. The mother had the same dark rings of clustering
curls--tangled now with the restless tossing of illness; the same large
liquid eyes of dark gray, under long, dark lashes; the same exquisite
curves of mouth and chin, even though suffering--physical and
mental--had dimmed a beauty that must once have been bewitching. But the
eyes had a restless, pining look; and now, all at once, the fevered
flush ebbed away, leaving her deadly pale, while she seemed to struggle
for breath, unable to speak.

Mr. Alden rushed to her assistance, and raised her a little, with
difficulty detaching the clinging arms of the child; then, glancing
around the room, his quick eye fell on a small flask that stood in a
corner cupboard, otherwise empty enough. He motioned to Roland, who
followed his glance, and brought him the flask. Mr. Alden seized a cup
that stood near containing a little water, and, pouring into it some of
the spirits that the flask contained, put it to her lips. She drank it
down eagerly, and then lay back on the pillow, in a sort of exhausted
stupor.

"She must have medical attendance at once," said Mr. Alden. "She is
dying from neglect and exhaustion. I suppose you don't know any doctor
near?"

"No," said Roland, "I am a stranger here as yet."

"Then I must go for my friend, Blanchard. Or stay--it won't do to leave
this poor woman alone with that child! She might have died just now. And
you'll make better time than I should. I'm sure you won't think it too
much trouble to take a note to Doctor Blanchard, and to pilot him here."

Roland willingly assented. Mr. Alden tore a leaf out of his note-book,
on which he hastily wrote a few lines, addressed it to his friend, and
handed it to Roland, who hurried off at his customary "railroad pace,"
leaving Mr. Alden in charge of the scarcely conscious patient and the
frightened child.




CHAPTER II.

A TWILIGHT REVERIE.


After his unceremonious dismissal of his unwelcome visitors, Mr.
Chillingworth betook himself once more to the quiet sanctum into which
no profane foot ever intruded. The fire was blazing brightly now,
lighting up, with its warm glow, the stately ordered rows of books that
lined the walls, and the two or three fine engravings which Mr.
Chillingworth's fastidious taste had selected to relieve their monotony.
A charming etching of Holman Hunt's picture, "The Hireling Shepherd,"
opposite the fireplace, came out distinct in the warm light that just
touched another of the "Light of the World," by the same painter, above
the mantel. Mr. Chillingworth threw himself luxuriously into his
easy-chair by the fire, to enjoy this twilight hour of meditation, when,
the dull winter day shut out, his thoughts could roam freely in that
realm of religious speculation which was most congenial to his mind. He
wanted to complete the particular train of thought which had been
flowing so successfully when he had been interrupted by Roland Graeme.
He took the unfinished page that he had been writing, and held it in the
glow of the firelight, so that he might read again the last completed
sentences, and so recall the thoughts with which he had intended to
follow them. The subject of the sermon was, the opposition of the
religion of Christ to the easy-going, selfish materialism of the age.
And the last sentences he had written ran thus:--

     "Men often labor under the delusion that Christianity is an
     easy religion. Its Founder taught another lesson. The palm is
     to be won, only in the blood and dust of the battle; the battle
     with sin, with the world, aye, hardest of all, with _self_! The
     warp and woof of the 'white raiment' are the incarnadined hues
     of self-denial and self-sacrifice, which, collected and fused
     by the prismatic power of love, blend in the dazzling purity of
     light itself."

Mr. Chillingworth did not feel quite satisfied with this illustration,
though he had been delighted with it while in the glow of composition.
Now it seemed to him a trifle confused, and he tried to think it
out--for of all things he disliked mere vague and glittering rhetoric in
pulpit oratory. But, somehow, his mind refused to stick to the point,
and insisted in slipping off perpetually into the reverie which the
dreamy influences of twilight and firelight are so apt to foster. There
was nothing uncomfortable or self-reproachful in his reflection. No
thought of the earnest young man he had repulsed, or of the child to
whom he had refused to listen, troubled him in the least. Mr.
Chillingworth was a conscientious man, and he had not done anything
contrary to his own sense of right. He was simply protecting himself
from the profitless invasion of time dedicated to important work, by
matters that lay outside of his sphere. This, at least, is how he would
have put it, had any one ventured to argue the point with the dignified
Mr. Chillingworth.

But his mind this evening seemed caught by some hidden link of
association, operating sub-consciously as such things often do, and was
thereby carried off to scenes and events long left behind. Mr.
Chillingworth did not often indulge in retrospection. When one gives
one's self up to its influence, one cannot select at will. Pleasant
recollections are interwoven with painful ones, which have a way of
pouncing unawares on the unwary dreamer. And men whose lives are filled
to overflowing with present engrossing interests, do not usually give
much play to the power of painful memories. Still, whatever it might be
that had stirred the vision, he was haunted to-night by a picture that
stood, as real as the engravings opposite him, before that "inward eye"
which is not always

    "... the _bliss_ of solitude."

The picture was one of an old-fashioned English garden, sweet with pinks
and lavender, bright with early roses and laburnum, framed in by walls
clustered over with masses of glossy ivy, by stately old cedars, and,
beyond these, by blue, wooded hills, soft-tinted in the dreamy hue of an
English June. And the centre of the vision he saw might have served as
an illustration for Tennyson's "Gardener's Daughter":

    "But the full day dwelt on her brows and sunned
    Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom,
    And doubled his own warmth against her lips,
    And on the bounteous wave of such a breast
    As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade,
    She stood, a sight to make an old man young."

For a few minutes, Mr. Chillingworth closed his eyes and yielded himself
without stint to the overpowering reminiscences of days that could never
be entirely effaced, not even by the remembrance of succeeding
bitterness. Sweet voice, sweet eyes, sweet lips! how sweet you were! And
why, ah why, should all that sweetness have been swallowed up in a
horror of great darkness? Cruel fate! No, he did not believe in fate.
Was it then one of those mysterious providences which seemed so often to
mar human lives, or had he, himself, been to blame? He supposed he had.
The temptation of a mere outward beauty had been too strong for him, who
should have been proof against it. Well, that old folly was all past,
long ago! All trace of it seemed to have vanished from his life. Old
wounds were healed. Why should he let them smart again? Fruitless
regrets for the past were contrary to his principles. So, to fight off
the troublesome recollection, he rose and went to an open parlor-organ
that stood near his study-table, his one special recreation and delight.
And, taking up a score of the "Messiah" that lay open upon it, he struck
a few opening chords, and, in a fine tenor voice, began the recitative
"Comfort ye, Comfort ye my People."

But the music could not soothe him to-night as it usually did. The
restless mood was too strong, and presently he rose abruptly, as a
sudden thought occurred to him. He had promised to drop in, very soon,
at Dr. Blanchard's, to talk with Miss Blanchard about the proposed
rendering of this oratorio for the benefit of his projected new church,
in which he wished to enlist her coöperation as a vocalist. This was the
hour at which he was most likely to find her at home, the hour at which
Mrs. Blanchard usually dispensed afternoon tea, a ceremony of which he
thoroughly approved. The pleasant cosy drawing-room, with Miss
Blanchard's graceful figure as a centre-piece, seemed, just then,
infinitely more attractive than even the tranquil study with its glowing
fire and the prospect of a summons, erelong, to a solitary tea-table.
For Mr. Chillingworth was a comparatively young man still, and,
notwithstanding a certain fastidious exclusiveness, his social instincts
were by no means weak. He gave himself a little inward pinch as he
thought of some sentences of Thomas à Kempis that he had read that
morning; but, as he said to himself, he had a good reason for breaking
through his ordinary rule of shutting himself up on the last days of the
week, and he was no ascetic, nor meant to be! So, after telling the trim
maid that she need not bring up his evening meal till his return, he
took what had of late been his frequent way to Dr. Blanchard's
hospitable home.

In the bright, daintily furnished drawing-room he sought, there were at
that moment assembled three or four persons who were, as it happened,
discussing him, and perhaps, like "superior" people in general, he would
have been a little surprised at the freedom of some of their remarks.
These people were: Mrs. Blanchard, arrayed in one of the first
"tea-gowns" that had ever been seen in Minton, whose delicate green set
off the warm tints of her hair and complexion; Miss Blanchard, whose
quiet afternoon dress, soft and close fitting, contrasted with the more
pretentious attire of her sister-in-law, and showed a fine figure to
perfection; and two afternoon visitors, who were evidently very much at
home. One of these was a young lady, with fair fluffy hair and very
fashionable dress, of a peculiarly fresh and delicate prettiness, and a
manner that every one called very "taking." The other was a slender,
undersized young man, fairly good-looking, with regular features, dark
hair and eyes, and an expression of nothing in particular save
satisfaction with himself, his surroundings, and his carefully faultless
attire. Two children completed the party; a tiny girl in a mass of white
embroidery, playing with a pet terrier on the hearth-rug, and a small
boy with an aureole of reddish curls, who sat on Miss Blanchard's knee,
thoughtfully gazing into the fire.

"Oh!" exclaimed the fair young lady, as she handed her empty cup to the
young man who was waiting for it. "_Did_ you hear, Nora, about my
cousin, Janie Spencer?"

"What about her, Kitty? Is _she_ engaged, too?"

"Oh, dear no! nothing, so common! Something _you'll_ say is a great deal
better! In fact, I call it grand, heroic! Don't you know she's actually
made up her mind to be a nurse, and she's gone to the Saint Barnabas
hospital for training!"

"Has she, really?" exclaimed Miss Blanchard, with great interest, her
cheek flushing a little, and her dark-blue eyes lighting up. "Well,
that's good!"

"I knew you would say that," said Kitty, complacently, rejoicing in the
effect of her bit of news. "And, do you know, she tells me it was all
through Mr. Chillingworth's lovely sermons about self-sacrifice,
and--giving up, don't you know. They made her feel so selfish, and as if
she had no object in life but enjoying herself, and so, she said, she
couldn't rest in her mind till she set to work to do something for other
people. And then, she said, they had girls enough at home without her,
and she was tired of doing nothing in particular, and she always did
have a fancy for nursing. Now, you must be sure and tell Mr.
Chillingworth all about it, the first time you see him."

"Why not tell him yourself, Kitty?" was the laughing reply. "You see him
oftener than I do."

"Oh, I never can talk to him about such serious things! He looks as if
he didn't expect it, or as if it was a sort of liberty; and then he
seems to think I'm making fun of him, and I never feel sure that _he_
isn't making fun of _me_."

"Well, I shouldn't say that Mr. Chillingworth was overburdened with
'fun,'" said the young man, smiling at Kitty. "He wouldn't make his
fortune as a humorist; his views of life are too serious, and it seems
he is making other people's views serious, too."

"A good thing, too, if he were to do a little for you in that way," she
replied.

"Yes, I'm sadly aware that I am far behind you in that respect, Miss
Farrell," he retorted, with mock gravity.

"Don't be impertinent, Mr. Pomeroy!" replied the young lady.

Here a diversion was made by the curly-haired Eddie, from his post on
Miss Blanchard's lap. His long and serious contemplation of the fire
ended with a sigh, and the subject of it came out in the remark:

"I like the Crusaders a great deal better than the Giant-killers,
Auntie! Don't you think they were the best?"

"I don't know, Eddie," replied Miss Blanchard, truthfully. "I never
thought about it, I am afraid."

"Well, think! Auntie, _think_!" persisted the child, hugging her neck
very tightly, while the others laughed.

"I think some of the Crusaders _were_ Giant-killers, Eddie," said the
young man, not sorry to air his historical knowledge. "Saladin gets the
credit of being a pretty fairish giant, doesn't he, Miss Blanchard? or
so I think my school-books used to say. By the way, wouldn't
Chillingworth have made a first-class Crusader, a Crusader _chaplain_,
you know?"

"Why, it was only the other Sunday he was telling us what mistaken views
the Crusaders had, and how they often left real duties for visionary
enterprises. See how well I have remembered _that_!" exclaimed Kitty.

"I doubt if _he_ would have seen it, _then_," replied Mr. Pomeroy,
chuckling over a happy thought.

"Oh, Nora, are you going to help in the oratorio, the 'Messiah,' you
know? Mr. Chillingworth is taking such an interest in it! All we girls
in the choir are to sing in the choruses. Hasn't he asked you?"

"Yes," said Nora, quietly.

"Why, he's been here three times within the last fort-night," said Mrs.
Blanchard; "he's just set on getting Nora to sing; and she's got some
sort of idea in her head about it, I don't know what. There's another
ring, Nora; look if there's any tea left, there's a dear!"




CHAPTER III.

AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION.


As Nora rose, and set down Eddie, a leisurely masculine tread sounded in
the hall. When the door opened and revealed Mr. Chillingworth's tall
figure, young Pomeroy turned to Miss Farrell, theatrically whispering:

"Speak of angels and you hear the rustle of their wings!"

"Good evening, Mr. Chillingworth," said Mrs. Blanchard, effusively;
"here are these young people all talking about you."

"I hope they haven't found anything very bad to say," said Mr.
Chillingworth, smiling graciously, as he greeted the party, yet unable
to conceal altogether the sensitiveness to being "talked about," natural
to most reserved and dignified people.

"No! I should hope not!" replied his hostess. "Do you think they would
dare to say anything bad of you here? On the contrary, Miss Farrell has
just been telling us how her cousin, Janie Spencer, has been led, by
your preaching, to make up her mind to be a hospital nurse. I think it's
splendid of her!"

"Yes, it's very fine," replied Mr. Chillingworth. "I am glad she has
decided so. Her mother spoke to me of it some time ago, and I begged her
to say nothing to dissuade her, but to leave her to follow, unbiased,
her own convictions of duty. She has set a noble example."

"Well, I should think you would feel yourself rewarded," Mrs. Blanchard
said, as she poured out a cup of tea, and handed it to her dignified
guest; while Miss Farrell exclaimed:

"I hope you don't expect us all to follow it, Mr. Chillingworth, and go
to be hospital nurses right away!"

"Not in the least," he replied, his dark eyes glancing up at the young
lady from under his strongly marked eyebrows. "I don't think that is
likely to be your vocation, Miss Kitty, at any rate. But there are other
ways of doing good. Life is, indeed, full of opportunities. The pity is,
we let so many of them slip," he added, rather sententiously.

"It would be a pity to let this one slip," remarked Mr. Pomeroy, handing
the clergyman a plate of macaroons, and helping himself at the same
time. "Miss Blanchard, I believe you made these macaroons. They are
first-class."

The young man rather resented the clergyman's intrusion, as he
considered it. He preferred to have both young ladies to himself, just
then.

"The macaroons are excellent," said Mr. Chillingworth, "but I want you
to do something better than that for me. I hope you have been trying
over those choruses, and the air I wanted you to take as a solo."

Miss Blanchard's bright look clouded a little, and her broad white brow
contracted slightly with an expression of perplexity.

"I have tried them," she said; "but I haven't quite made up my mind
about the choruses. I don't altogether like the idea of it yet! And I am
quite sure that my voice isn't equal to a solo of that kind, in such
circumstances."

"Well, you will try it for me, _now_, at least?" he said.

Nora Blanchard was not given to affectations of any kind, so she rose
and complied, quite simply, at once. The clergyman could not but feel
that she was right after all, in her estimate of her voice. Her
rendering of the air "He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd," was very
rich and sweet, for a drawing-room, but lacked the power and compass
sufficient to fill a concert hall. At his request, she went on with one
or two of the choruses, in which he and Miss Farrell joined her; the
three voices blending very harmoniously in the grand music. Mr.
Chillingworth noticed a new arrangement of the hymn, "Lead, Kindly
Light," on the piano, and asked Miss Blanchard to sing that to him,
which she did with great feeling and expression. As the closing lines
came out in solemn hopefulness--

    "And, with the morn, those angel-faces smile
    Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile--"

the clergyman's gaze, as the observant Mr. Pomeroy noticed, grew
strangely dreamy, as if he were absorbed by the influences of the song.
He seemed to be seeing some inward vision, with pain in it as well as
pleasure; and on the cessation of the music, he started as if awakened
from a spell. Just then, the door opened, and a maid looked in to know
if Mrs. Blanchard could tell when the doctor would be home.

"No, I'm sure I don't know," was the reply. "I thought he was back in
the surgery by this time. Is it any one in a hurry?"

"Yes, it's a young gentleman wid a note, as wants him right off," said
the girl, a new servant, unaccustomed as yet to the exigencies of a
doctor's household.

"Oh," said Miss Blanchard, rising hastily from the piano, "I suppose
it's some one from Mr. Easton's, for the medicine that Will told me
about. I was to see him and give him a particular message. Excuse me,
Mr. Chillingworth, I won't be long."

The clergyman seemed still preoccupied, and did not join in the talk of
the others while she was gone. In a few minutes she returned, her cheek
glowing and her eye bright with some new interest.

"What's the matter, Nora?" said Mrs. Blanchard, looking at her with some
surprise.

"Oh," she replied, hurriedly, "it's a messenger from Mr. Alden, wanting
Will at once, for a very sad case--a poor young woman who seems dying of
bronchitis and exhaustion. And she has no one with her but a child. I
think I must go myself, for I know quite well what to do. I didn't nurse
Auntie through bronchitis last winter for nothing! I can take some
fluid-beef and make her a little beef-tea, at any rate. And I know where
there is some of the medicine Will prescribed for Auntie."

"Oh, dear! I _wish_ you weren't _quite_ so philanthropic. I don't like
to let you go, but--I suppose you must, now you've taken up the idea.
And if Mr. Alden knows about it, it must be all right. Will can go as
soon as he's had dinner, and bring you back. I'll keep some dinner for
you. I hope it isn't far, though."

"Oh, no, not very," replied Miss Blanchard. "I'm sorry to seem rude in
leaving you all," she added, smiling, "but you see, if one doesn't go
out to be a nurse, one must not let slip the opportunities Mr.
Chillingworth was talking of just now."

"Certainly! It is most praiseworthy," said that gentleman, "and if
you'll allow me, I shall be most happy to be your escort."

Mr. Pomeroy had come forward at the same moment with a similar request.
But Miss Blanchard courteously declined both, saying that Mr. Alden's
messenger would be escort enough.

"And I shall leave the address, as well as I can, on the surgery-slate,"
she added, "and Will can drive down when he's ready. I've no doubt the
poor thing needs nourishment more than medicine. Of course I'll take
some spirits with me, too," she added. "I believe it was that saved
Auntie, little as she likes to admit it."

"Well, don't go taking bronchitis yourself," said her sister-in-law.
"Mind you wrap up well, for it's raw and cold, as Mr. Pomeroy says."

"Oh, yes, don't be afraid!" said Nora brightly, as, with many regrets on
the part of her friends, she left the pleasant, luxurious apartment.

"I believe," said Mrs. Blanchard, as the door closed after her and
Eddie, who went to see her off, "that Nora wouldn't feel at home here,
without some sick people to visit and look after. You see she always
goes about everywhere with Aunt Margaret, in Rockland. Aunt Margaret's a
regular Sister of Mercy, without a uniform, and Nora has always taken to
going with her quite naturally. You know, Rockland's such a quiet little
place, that there's hardly anything else to do in winter. That's one
reason why I wanted Nora to spend the winter with us, for once, and see
something different. She has been with Aunt Margaret so long that she
has taken up all her ideas and ways."

"Then, Aunt Margaret must be a darling," said the enthusiastic Kitty,
"for I am sure Nora is, if there ever was one! She and Janie Spencer are
the best girls I know."

"It's nice to be one of Miss Farrell's friends," said Mr. Pomeroy. "I
hope you do as well by me when I'm not there."

"_You_, indeed!" laughed Kitty, though she colored a little, or so
thought Mr. Chillingworth, whose critical eye rested admiringly on the
charming _piquante_ face with its delicate bloom, and the very fair
hair, "thrown up" by an artistic Gainsborough hat of dark-blue velvet,
with a long drooping feather. He was rather disconcerted by Miss
Blanchard's sudden departure;--still there was no denying that Miss
Kitty Farrell made a very charming picture, and, as Mr. Chillingworth
was fond of saying to himself, "beauty has its uses."

"Well, they're gone!" announced Eddie, coming in presently.

"_They_--who?" asked his mother.

"Why, Aunt Nora, and the--man," said Eddie, slowly. He was going to say
"the gentleman," but as he always heard his father talk of "men," he was
trying to imitate him.

"Oh! the man Mr. Alden sent, I suppose. I hope he's all right," she
added, a little uneasily. "But, of course he came for Doctor Blanchard
himself," she continued, reassured.

"Oh, he's a real nice man!" said Eddie. "_I_ like him. He talked to me
while Auntie was getting the things ready. I hope he'll come here
again!"

"Eddie is always taking such funny fancies!" said Mrs. Blanchard. "I'll
have to ask Nora about this unknown cavalier."

Mr. Chillingworth's brow contracted--he scarcely knew why. He was sorry,
now, that he had not more strongly pressed his escort on Miss Blanchard.
He did not like the idea of her traversing the streets after dark,
attended by an unknown "man" who had made himself so agreeable to Eddie.
But it couldn't be helped now.

It was strange, after all, how much of the life and charm seemed to have
gone out of the little party with Nora's departure--for she was not a
great talker herself. Meantime she was on her way to her unknown
patient, while her guide carried her basket, and, so far as he could,
answered her questions about the poor woman in whom her interest had
been so suddenly awakened.




CHAPTER IV.

A CONSULTATION.


When Roland Graeme's inquiry regarding the time of the doctor's return
was answered by the entrance of a tall and graceful young lady, he
naturally supposed her to be the doctor's wife. He met her with his
usual frank and ready courtesy, addressing her as "Mrs. Blanchard, I
presume?"--apologizing for the trouble he had given her, and describing
briefly, but graphically, the condition of the patient on whose behalf
he had come, as Mr. Alden's messenger.

Miss Blanchard, on her side, was surprised at encountering, in Roland
Graeme's unusual type of face and expression, with the clear, candid,
gray-blue eyes, so different an individual from the one she had expected
to find waiting in the surgery. She expressed no surprise, however, but
quietly corrected his mistake in addressing her, and, after listening
attentively to his statement, added, after a moment or two of thought:

"As we don't know just when my brother will be in, I think I had better
go with you myself, in the meantime; not that I pretend to any medical
skill, but I have nursed a relative through an attack of bronchitis, and
could take some things with me that I know would do her good."

Roland thanked her warmly, regarding her more attentively than he had
done while absorbed in stating his errand. He could not help noticing
the earnest and sympathetic expression of the dark-blue eyes, the fair
forehead with its natural curve of dark-brown hair, untortured by
"crimps," and the sweetness of the smile that seemed just to hover about
the flexible mouth, as she--half-apologetically--made the unexpected
offer. She was gone in a moment, and then his attention was monopolized
by Eddie, who, with childish curiosity had followed his "Auntie," and
with whom he had a delightful talk while awaiting the return of the
doctor's volunteered substitute. For, to Roland Graeme, children were
always delightful, doubtless because of the childlike element in his own
nature.

But Miss Blanchard soon returned, ready for her expedition, with a small
basket on her arm, of which Roland speedily relieved her, as they passed
on through the now lighted streets, full of work-people returning from
their daily toil. Roland, with the old-fashioned courtesy in which he
had been trained, offered the young lady his arm--an offer which she
courteously declined, with a touch of somewhat stately dignity. It was
clear, indeed, that the firm elastic step needed no support. They walked
on rapidly, Miss Blanchard asking more questions about their patient
than Roland could answer, only explaining briefly that he and Mr. Alden
had found her out, accidentally, through the child's appeal.

"Is it not sad," she said, taking a long breath, "how many such cases
there must be around us that we never know? It puzzles me often to
understand how such things can be."

"It's positively maddening, sometimes!" said Roland, irrepressibly
breaking into the subject that was generally nearest his heart;
"especially when one sees the cool, selfish indifference, with which so
many people actually shut their eyes to these things; how they even
help, so far as they are able, to crush their fellows down and to keep
them down!"

"Why, how?--who would do that?" she asked.

"Employers are doing it all the time, and the rich employers are the
worst. I suppose that is one reason why they _are_ rich! But if they did
not generally keep their rates of payment down to the minimum they can
get men and women to take, there could not be such hard, grinding
poverty. The truth is, a large proportion of our laboring classes are
always living next door to starvation, and if sickness or want of work
comes, it is next door no longer!"

"That seems very strange to me," said Miss Blanchard, thoughtfully. "I
have lived all my life in Rockland, a quiet little place among the
hills;--where everybody knows everybody else, and where our one or two
employers think it their duty to know all the circumstances of all their
workers, and are always ready to help them on, and to tide them over a
difficulty."

"Yes, that's beautiful!" said Roland. "I know there are such noble
exceptions--and they are especially likely to occur in small places,
where the fierce tide of competition for wealth and luxury isn't so
irresistible, and people seem to have some humanity left! Here, in
Minton, where I haven't been so very long, I know numbers of cases where
people are living on what I call starvation wages--especially women. You
see, operatives are so apt to leave everything to selfish managers,
whose main object is to please the firm, and these managers are often
guilty of positive inhumanity. There now," he said, as they passed a
large building gleaming with long rows of lighted windows, from whose
entrance a stream of young women was pouring forth; "there's a place
where too many things are done, contrary to all sound principles of
justice and humanity. The operatives are made simply working-machines,
obliged to work more hours than any young woman should be allowed to do;
miserably paid, and exposed to petty tyrannies enough to take out of
their life any little comfort they might have in it."

"Whose place is it?" she asked.

"Pomeroy & Company's silk and woolen mills."

"Why, I know young Mr. Pomeroy very well!" exclaimed Miss Blanchard;
"and his mother, Mrs. Pomeroy, is a very good woman! I'm sure they can't
know about such things!"

"They probably then don't try to know," he replied. "That's the great
trouble. The heads of such places are so fully occupied with the
business part of their concerns, that they have no time to think of the
people by whom the business is made."

As they passed the building, they came up with two of the girls who were
standing engrossed in earnest conversation.

"Don't go, Nelly!" they heard one say to the other. "It won't come to no
good, any way, and Jim would be that vexed, if he knew!"

"Oh, I guess he'd live to get over it," laughed the other. "Don't _you_
bother about it, Liz!" And she turned toward them, as they passed, a
pretty, pert face, beneath a mass of elaborately frizzed hair, and a
very tawdry hat.

"Those poor girls!" Miss Blanchard remarked, as soon as they were out of
hearing. "How little real interest or pleasure there must be in their
lives! How it makes one wish that we, who have so many pleasant things
in ours, could do something to brighten theirs!"

"Yes, indeed," replied Roland. "I've often thought about that, and
people do try more than they did--in that way. But so long as the work
hours are so protracted and so exhausting, you can't make life much
brighter for them, do what you will. It's one of my ambitions to do
something toward securing shorter hours all round. I believe every one
would gain by it in the end."

"Yes, I suppose it is pretty hard to have such a long day of steady work
at one thing--especially for girls. I am afraid I shouldn't like to have
to do it," said Miss Blanchard, with a sigh.

"But, then, it doesn't do to judge altogether by the outside," rejoined
her companion, in a more cheery tone. "I suppose, after all, 'Ilka blade
o' grass has its ain drap o' dew.' The greater wickedness is," he added,
"when heartless fools try to squeeze the one 'drap o' dew' out of it!
But here's our destination."

They found Mr. Alden seated on the one broken chair, near the miserable
pallet. The child lay curled up beside her mother, fast asleep. The
invalid seemed somewhat revived, and able to talk a little. She fixed
her eyes on Miss Blanchard, as she entered, with a strange, wild, almost
hunted expression, which rather startled her visitor. Miss Blanchard's
gentle, kindly greeting, with Mr. Alden's introduction, seemed to
reassure her a little, however, and she swallowed a portion of the
soothing medicine that Miss Blanchard had brought for relieving her
harassing cough. Then the young lady produced a tiny spirit-lamp from
her basket, and soon had prepared a little cup of hot beef-tea, doing it
all with a quick and ready lightness that showed her to be quite at home
in work of this kind. Mr. Alden and Roland felt themselves to be
supernumeraries at once. The latter, indeed, after offering the young
lady some scarcely needed assistance in her arrangements, began to think
that it was time for him to retire, when a step was heard on the stairs,
and a young girl entered, carrying a cup of tea. She hesitated a moment
in surprise at the unexpected sight of the strangers, dimly seen by the
light of the one poor lamp. Miss Blanchard thought she recognized the
pale, eager face of the girl who had begged "Nelly" "not to go," as they
had passed the two standing under the lamp-post. She was sure of it,
when the girl approached the invalid, scarcely looking at the visitors,
and said, in the same deaf penetrating tone:

"Well, Mrs. Travers, how do you feel yourself to-night?"

"A little better now, thank you, Lizzie, but I have been so ill to-day!
I thought I was dying a while ago, and Cissy went out and brought back
this gentleman, and he has been so kind!"

She spoke in a soft musical English voice, decidedly the voice of a
lady, Mr. Alden thought. Then turning to him, she said, with some
energy:

"This is my best friend! She has been so good to me--sat up with me at
night after working all day! I'd have been dead before now, if it hadn't
been for her."

Miss Blanchard, as she bent over the patient, with a cup of beef-tea
which she was administering by teaspoonfuls, looked up at the new-comer,
with a light of softened admiration in her expressive eyes, which
recalled to Roland Graeme, as he chanced to catch it, the memory of his
enjoyment of the Sistine Madonna, at Dresden, on a brief visit he had
made to Europe. He had not thought of calling Miss Blanchard beautiful,
nor did he now; still there was something, either in feature, or
expression, or both, that reminded him of the most beautiful and
spiritual of Raffaelle's Madonnas. He looked at the poor working-girl,
however, with scarcely less of admiration in his honest eyes--little as
there was of beauty in the pale, thin face, without any advantage of
dress to make up for the defects of contour and coloring.

The invalid, with the wilfulness of illness, insisted on putting aside
the broth for the cup of tea that Lizzie had brought her.

"You see, she's used to it," Lizzie said, apologetically. "I always
bring her a cup of tea and a bit of toast before I take my own supper,
and she likes it."

"Well," said Mr. Alden, "I ought to be going home, if I can't do
anything more here; but I don't like leaving you alone till your brother
comes, Miss Blanchard. Perhaps this good friend of Mrs. Travers wouldn't
mind coming back when she has had her supper, and staying with you till
your brother comes, or I return, which I shall do, in any case."

"I am going to stay here all night, Mr. Alden," said Miss Blanchard,
decidedly.--"I shall be only too glad to relieve you," she said to
Lizzie, who was looking at her in surprise. "It's too much for you, when
you can't rest in the daytime, as I can easily do; and I don't mind
being alone, Mr. Alden! However, if you will be more satisfied----"

"Indeed, miss," Lizzie eagerly interposed, "I'll be back in ten minutes,
and stay with you as long as you like. It's so good of you to say you'll
stay all night! I don't mind it generally, but to-night I am dead
tired."

And she looked it.

Mr. Alden insisted on Roland's going home with him to tea, as he was so
far from his own quarters; and, as soon as Lizzie had returned, they
took their departure. Miss Blanchard begged that Mr. Alden would not
return that evening, as her brother would soon be there to give her all
necessary directions, and Mr. Alden could see him later as to what it
would be best to do for the patient. She bade Roland, also, a cordial
good-night, which he as cordially returned; thinking, with some regret,
how little likely it was that he should have any opportunity of
improving an acquaintance which, brief as it had been, had already
strongly interested him.

"Miss Blanchard is one of my special admirations," said Mr. Alden,
smiling, as they walked on together. "She's an uncommon type, and has
been brought up in a very different atmosphere from Minton society. A
quiet, refined country home, time and training for thought and study,
good literature to grow up among, a wide-minded, philosophical father of
the old school, and an aunt with the soul of a saint and the active
benevolence of a Sister of Charity; it is no wonder that Nora Blanchard
is a sort of _rara avis_ among girls."

"You believe in heredity then, sir, and in environment?" said Roland.

The clergyman looked at him keenly, but with a genial smile.
"Certainly," he said; "I believe in both, but I believe also in
something else, that is not either; and in this lies the difference
between my philosophy and that of the people who are so bent on making
_automata_ of us all. They always seem to me to give, in their own
persons, a most apt illustration of the lines,

    "'Unless above himself he can
    Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!'"

"Yes," replied Roland, "I believe we were meant to aspire. '_Excelsior_'
seems the motto of the universe."

"And a good motto, too! But here we are." And stopping at his own door,
he admitted Roland and himself with his latch-key.




CHAPTER V.

A FAMILY PARTY.


The light and warmth of Mr. Alden's hospitable home, with the rippling
laughter of children's merry voices, seemed to Roland in delightful
contrast with the raw, cold December evening without, as well as with
the depressing influence of the miserable apartment they had just left.
The father's return was greeted with joyous shouts from the little ones,
and Roland was speedily included in the warm welcome. A bounteously
spread tea-table, with its pretty pot of ferns in the centre, was
awaiting Mr. Alden's arrival, and looked inviting enough to a young man
who had been out in the chill air during most of the afternoon. The
happy children's faces, the delicate and sweet-looking little mother,
the freedom and unaffected gladness of the family life, strongly
impressed Roland, and vividly recalled the associations of his own
childhood. Grace, the helpful, eldest daughter, had, Roland thought, the
sweetest, purest, sunniest face he had ever seen. The clear, frank eyes,
with the light of a happy heart sparkling through their peaceful blue,
the smile so sweet and sincere, the sunny, golden hair, and silvery,
gleeful laugh, so childlike in its ring, fascinated him like a spell. No
wonder, he thought, that the shadows cleared from Mr. Alden's thoughtful
brow as soon as he crossed his own threshold. Yet, much of the family
sunshine there was a reflection from Mr. Alden's own spirit. And,
however the shadows of the world without might sometimes weigh on his
own heart, he never allowed them to sadden his children, if he could
help it. He was fond of exhorting his people to keep their children's
childhood as happy as they could, without letting them grow selfish and
heartless. And he would often quote Victor Hugo's expressive lines:

    "Grief is a fruit God will not let grow
    On boughs too feeble to sustain its weight."

"Cultivate sympathy in your children," he would say, "but not so as to
burden them prematurely"; and what he preached he practised. Meal-times
were, for the children's sake, always bright and cheerful. Mr. Alden had
the precious gift of humor, and it served him in good stead to balance a
nature acutely sensitive to the pain, the ills and the discords of human
life. He seldom failed to catch and bring home some little quaint or
amusing experience, which, told as he could tell it, would provoke the
good-natured laughter in which he believed, as one of the safety-valves
of our nature. Frank, his eldest boy, Roland's first acquaintance in the
family, inherited his father's tendency to see the humorous side of
things, without, as yet, his counterbalancing depth of feeling; and so
it often happened that the father and son together would set the little
ones in a small uproar of laughter, which Mrs. Alden's love of propriety
would often constrain her to try to keep in some sort of check. But it
was no wonder that these children enjoyed their father's presence at
meals, and missed it when he was absent.

After tea, the whole party adjourned to the parlor, which was purposely
kept not too fine for the frequent incursions of the children. The
younger ones rapidly improved their acquaintance with Roland, gathering
close about him, reciting to him some of their pet rhymes, and examining
him as to his acquaintance with their favorite stories. Fortunately he
had read Grimm and Hans Andersen, and knew most of the stories that they
had heard, over and over, from their father and Grace, who had caught up
his knack of telling a story so as to be an acceptable substitute when
"father" was too busy. Roland and they were _en rapport_ at once on the
strength of his familiar acquaintance with "The Little Match Girl," "The
Snow Maiden," "The Ugly Duckling," and "Prudent Elsie."

"Grace may be sorry they ever heard that," declared Frank, "for now she
hears nothing but 'Prudent Elsie!' whenever she calls them back to put
on their mufflers or overshoes."

"Oh, I don't mind!" said Grace, laughing. "I think "Prudent Elsie" a
very nice name, isn't it, father, dear?"

Her father drew her close to him as she sat on the arm of his chair,
with one hand resting caressingly on his shoulder.

"'Simple Susan' would suit you better, my dear; but 'what's in a name?'"
he said, looking smilingly up into her bright face. "'A rose by any
other name would smell as sweet!'"

"Come now, John," interposed Mrs. Alden, looking up from the little sock
she was busily knitting; "I can't have you passing on to your daughter
any of your old fine speeches to me."

"Infringing on your copyright, little mother?" he playfully returned,
glancing fondly at the wife, who, Roland thought, must at Grace's age
have looked a good deal like what _she_ did, now.

Half an hour passed so quickly that Roland scarcely realized it. He was
just beginning to fear that he might be inflicting his presence too long
on the family circle, when Mr. Alden said:

"Now, Gracie, go to the piano! and you, youngsters, get your hymn-books.
Mr. Graeme will excuse us, I know, if we go on with our little evening
service." Then turning to Roland, he added: "We always have it at this
hour, before the children grow sleepy."

Grace sat down at the piano, and in a clear young voice led the little
choir, who had clustered around her, each eager to take part in the
singing. Mr. Alden followed the hymn with a brief reading, and very
simple prayer; and then the younger portion of the family said
"Good-night," in due form. Roland, to whom these simple vespers had
brought back vivid recollections from his own childhood, now thought it
was time for him, also, to say "good-night" and take his departure.

"I will walk part of your way with you," said Mr. Alden. "I want to see
Blanchard about what it is best to do for that poor young woman. He will
be back by this time, I think. I hope he will advise her going to the
hospital, where she will have proper care. She seems to have no one
belonging to her but that poor child."

They walked together to Dr. Blanchard's, which was not very far from
Roland's own quarters. Before they parted, Mr. Alden took down the young
man's address. Then, holding his hand kindly, he said, "I should be glad
to have you for a member of a certain little society for social reform,
that I have lately started on a broadly Christian basis."

Roland hesitated a little. "I mustn't allow you to misconceive my
position," he said. "I am not what _you_ would call a Christian; that
is, I cannot at present see my way to accept what is called orthodox
Christianity."

"Never mind that just now," said Mr. Alden. "And don't suppose that I
can't appreciate honest difficulties of belief. But this society of mine
is purposely made wider than Church lines. It is meant to include any
one who loves the Christian ideal, and is willing to promote the
practical influence of the Christian spirit in this selfish world. From
what I have seen of you, I think you are one of that number."

The tone was kind, sympathetic, appreciative--something between that of
a father and of an elder brother. Roland's responsive heart was touched.

"If you will take me in on that understanding, you can count on my
willing service!" he said.

And with a cordial leave taking, they parted, Mr Alden taking his way to
Dr Blanchard's house, Roland walking off to his lodging at his usual
rapid pace. He had hours of work before him, and must be at it. When he
reached the house in which he boarded, he let himself in with his
latch-key, and bounded lightly up the stairs to his own apartment. It
was not a large room, and certainly not luxurious, and its confusion of
books and papers would have been the despair of any tidy housekeeper.
Books, pamphlets, newspapers, were piled on shelves, tables and chairs,
in a manner that to any eye but Roland's would have seemed hopeless
confusion. Volumes of philosophy and poetry, ancient and modern, were
scattered among piles of blue-books and reports of all kinds. On his
writing-table, amidst loose sheets of manuscript and newspaper
clippings, lay a well worn Bible, Thoreau's "Walden," Carlyle's "Sartor
Resartus," Whittier's and Browning's poems, Emerson's Essays, and Henry
George's "Progress and Poverty." Evidently the occupant of the room had
somewhat varied tastes. And, while Roland is industriously looking over
his clippings, sorting his manuscripts, and making a fair copy of his
rough draft of a leader for the first number of _The Brotherhood_, let
us take a retrospective glance over the history of the young man
himself.




CHAPTER VI.

LOOKING BACKWARD.


Roland Graeme was, by birth, a Canadian. His father had been a Scottish
clergyman who had emigrated to Canada in early life; a man of poetical
and dreamy temperament, of large and loving nature, which yet, by force
of education and habit, had been somehow forced into the compress of an
intricate and somewhat narrow creed; or at least had been led, like many
others, by an intense veneration for ancient authority, to submit
without chafing even to some articles against which his heart and moral
intelligence would have strongly protested had he allowed them any voice
in the matter. As it was, he worked on tranquilly, scorning worldly
delights and living laborious days, troubling himself little about
formal theology, and seeking to inspire his flock to love and practice
the Christian graces, "against which there is no law." In temporal
matters, he was as unpractical as he was unworldly, and, but for his
wife's calm, judicious judgment and practical common-sense, would have
been in perpetual financial straits. She, poor woman, had found it,
indeed, no easy task to steer the family bark clear of the rocks on
which the good minister's easy-going benevolence and trustful generosity
were continually on the verge of wrecking it.

Roland was this good man's only son, and on him his father had
concentrated all the ideality of his nature. Living in a remote country
place, where no good grammar school was easily accessible, he had
himself prepared his boy for college. Roland had absorbed eagerly all
that his father had to teach him, of classic lore, of poetry, of nature,
as well as the rudimentary, informal theology, that was, so to speak,
filtered through the spectroscope of a mind which unconsciously rejected
all that was harsh and narrow, allowing free passage only to what was
akin to his own loving spirit. Under such paternal influences,
intensified by his mother's strong religious nature, Roland had grown up
with his whole being inspired and colored by the great principles of
Christianity. The teachings of Christ himself, household words from his
earliest infancy, had taken a firm hold of his plastic young soul.
Principles of action seemed to him matters of course, which, as he too
often afterward found, were, to the average Christian people with whom
he came in contact, as an unknown tongue. Till he left his home, the boy
supposed all the nominal Christian world to be only an extension of the
little circle in his childhood's abode, and his fervid nature looked
forward to something like a repetition of his father's life under new
circumstances, possibly, with wider scope and under more congenial and
hopeful surroundings.

But, when he went to college, his sanguine nature was painfully
disenchanted by his first dip into the cold, commonplace reality. Many
of his comrades seemed to him little better than baptized heathen. He
saw things done, heard things said every day, by people who would have
been indignant had any one denied them the name of Christian, that
seemed to him in direct opposition to the spirit and teachings of the
Master they professed to own. Many, even of the religious students he
met, repelled him. Their religion for the most part seemed so shallow
and conventional, their creed so hard and narrow, their ideals so
worldly, that their conversation jarred and revolted him. He sought some
refuge from his perplexities in writing to his mother, who sensibly
reminded him that as he had had special privileges, he must not expect
the same degree of religious culture from lads brought up under very
different influences; that his own duty was, to hold fast by the truth
he knew, and, in so far as he could by his example and influence, help
others to see it, too. So the boy staunchly adhered to his principles,
and was thought "an odd sort of fellow," but "with no harm in him," who
could always be depended upon for a good turn, though a sort of "crank"
on certain points, especially as regarded poetry and religion. He found
no difficulty, with his natural talent and thorough preparation, in
taking a high place in his classes, though his love of literature and
general knowledge, combined with a natural dreaminess, kept him from
taking the highest honors of his course. This was, perhaps, a slight
disappointment to the good father, who cherished for his bright,
enthusiastic boy, ambitions he had never entertained for himself. But,
just at the close of Roland's undergraduate course, when he was already
looking forward to beginning his theological studies, his father
suddenly died.

It was a terrible blow to the lad, in more ways than one. His father had
been so much to him, a centre of such passionate love and reverence,
that life did not seem the same to him now that his father was no longer
there to guide and advise his still immature mind, and to sympathize
with his enthusiasms and aspirations. Moreover, this sad event seriously
affected his own prospects. He could no longer, for the present at
least, continue his professional studies. He must "buckle to" the task
of providing for his mother and two younger sisters, whom it was
necessary for him, in great measure, to support and educate. Teaching
was the work readiest to hand, and he soon secured a fairly remunerative
position, entailing, however, work which absorbed the greater portion of
his time and strength. He toiled on, steadily, faithfully; finding, as
time passed, much satisfaction in knowing that he was so well fulfilling
the responsibilities bequeathed to him by his father. He still read
omnivorously, seizing eagerly every fresh vein of thought, or view of
life and nature that came in his way. Of course, modern science threw
over him the glamour of its fascination, and he rapidly assimilated its
leading facts and theories, with an avidity characteristic of his active
and unresting mind, while, after the manner of young men, he did not
always stop to discriminate between fact and theory. Nor did he always
discern just whither the theory was leading him.

As he had by no means given up the hope of eventually prosecuting his
theological studies, he began, as he could spare the time from his daily
duties and the more secular reading that so fascinated him, to take up
some of the old text-books which had been in his father's library. One
of these was the intricate and elaborate compendium of doctrine which
formed the standard creed of the ministry of his Church--an able
synopsis of a certain rigid, scholastic, one-sided theology, having, for
most thoughtful minds nowadays, the great fault that it attempts to
compress into a series of logical propositions, mysteries far
transcending human thought, and never thrown into this dogmatic form by
the original teachers of Christianity. He found there, not only
statements that seemed to conflict with the teachings of science, but
also declarations concerning the deepest mysteries of Divine purpose,
against which his heart and his sense of justice alike rose in
passionate revolt, and which he could never have dreamed it possible to
conjure out of the love-lighted pages of his New Testament. Was this, he
thought, what his father had believed? Looking back on all he had ever
heard from that father, he could not think so. At all events, he knew
that _he_ could never believe it or profess to do so. His mother could
give him little help in his perplexities. She had never troubled herself
about abstruse theological questions. Her Bible was enough for her, and
she did not think his father had felt himself bound to believe
everything the theologians taught. Yet there was confronting him, this
long series of definite propositions, subscription to which was the only
entrance-gate to the ministry of the Church which was so dear to his
imagination through a thousand traditions and tender associations. He
felt that, for him, that gate was firmly barred.

But this was by no means all. The questioning and disintegrating
process, once begun, did not stop here. The mystery of life and being
seemed to have opened an abyss before him which he now seemed unable to
bridge by the old simple faith that had hitherto been enough for him.
Sceptical friends, by plausible arguments, increased this difficulty,
and the attacks on the Divine origin of Christianity, which were
constantly coming in his way, found a ready entrance into his perplexed
mind, unarmed to repel them. A "horror of great darkness" seemed to have
swallowed up the very foundations of his faith. Life and death--the
present and the future--seemed shrouded in the cloud of unfathomable
mystery which his baffled vision vainly strove to penetrate. Much
thought about it became too heavy a burden to bear; and he practically
gave up the struggle for light, making up his mind, for the present, to
follow the one compass in his possession--the Christian ideal and
conscience that had been developed and educated with his own growth,
till it had become an inseparable part of his moral being. He was at
least happy in having his life founded on this rock, even though his
eyes might be for a time blinded as to the true source of his strength.

Some busy years had passed, lighted at least by the consciousness of
practical duty honestly followed and of being the trusted prop and
consolation of his mother's life; while for his sisters he did his best
to secure as careful an education as had been bestowed on him. The
interest that he had felt compelled to withdraw from speculative
thought, he had thrown, all the more strongly, into some of the great
practical questions of the day, unconscious that much of his early faith
still survived in the enthusiasm with which he caught at every new plan
or measure for lightening the load of the more burdened portion of
humanity. Altruistic by inherited temperament, the "enthusiasm of
humanity" gradually possessed him like a passion. It seemed as if the
wrongs and woe of oppressed multitudes lay like an actual weight on his
heart. He devoured the works of Henry George, as they came out, till
these "Problems" absorbed his own mind, and the remedies proposed by
George and others seemed to bring up the vision of a fair Utopia which
might become the noble aim of a modern crusade. To devote himself and
his life in some way to such an object, seemed to him the aim most
worthy to set before himself. But, of course, his first duty was to
provide for his mother and sisters.

An unexpected event, however, set him free from this obligation in a
very agreeable way. The elder of his two sisters had been gradually and
imperceptibly developing into a very charming and attractive young
woman; and, much to Roland's surprise, he one day discovered in a
wealthy young friend of his own a prospective brother-in-law, who was
generously ready to provide a home for the mother of the bride he was
eager to claim. And as his younger sister was almost ready for her own
chosen vocation of teaching, Roland could now begin to think of a career
for himself.

One of his most promising and congenial classmates at college, with whom
he had always kept up a steady correspondence, had, some years before,
gone to the United States, to engage in journalistic work, and had
become the editor of the Minton _Minerva_. He had frequently urged
Roland to join him there, setting before him the inducements of a wider
sphere and a more active and busy life. Roland had always had strong
republican sentiments and sympathies, and humanitarian instincts were
still stronger in him than were local or traditional attachments and
associations. There was the attraction, too, of possibly helping on a
great "movement" in which he thoroughly believed, and then there was the
fascination of new scenes and surroundings to one whose life for years
had been so monotonous. He stuck to his post, however, till he had saved
enough to supply his own simple needs for a year or two, and then set
off on a rapid trip to those portions of the Old World which, from his
childhood, he had most longed to see.

There, besides the old quaint cities and ruins, around which a thousand
literary and historical associations clustered like the ivy which
clothed them, and the glorious mountain scenery of which as a boy he had
so often dreamed, he had found in his wanderings another subject of deep
interest. This was the condition of those "forgotten millions," of which
he had read so much of late. Here, as in other cases, he found all his
conceptions fall far short of what he actually beheld--men, women and
children, pent up in rank and wretched slums, fighting with gaunt famine
for a miserable existence. He saw them, at early morning, searching
heaps of rubbish for a few crusts, only too eagerly devoured. He saw
young girls, forced to still more revolting means of procuring daily
bread--means that dragged them rapidly down to worse than physical
death. He saw young children, with haggard unchildlike faces, and most
unchildlike sharpness and callous greed, born of the premature "struggle
for existence" that was written on their pinched young features. He saw
human beings who had not, literally, "where to lay their heads," glad to
throw themselves down on the damp grass of city parks, yet driven from
thence, and from every other resting-place, by the relentless order to
"move on!" He knew that, of these multitudes, fighting hand to hand with
starvation, many could not, by any effort, secure remunerative work. For
these, there seemed nothing but despair and death, on an earth which
could no longer make good for them the promise--"In the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread." For them there was neither work nor bread.
The sights he then saw burned themselves into his heart and brain
forever. And, side by side with all this misery, he saw gorgeous
displays of wealth and luxury, such as he had scarcely thought possible,
outside of the "Arabian Nights;" evidences of idle _abandon_ to
voluptuous pleasure--of unblushing and reckless extravagance--until he
wondered how it could be that a just and over-ruling Providence should
not interfere; how it was that the earth did not open to swallow up
these selfish cumberers of the ground. It was the old problem which
perplexed the righteous soul of Job in the dawn of history--which has
perplexed many a moralist and driven to despair many a bewildered
enthusiast in all the ages. But if anything had been needed to intensify
in him the "enthusiasm of humanity," the passion for reform; to grave on
his heart the resolve to "open his mouth for the dumb, in the cause of
all such as are left desolate," it was what he then saw of that
hopeless, inarticulate hardship and misery, which rarely finds
expression in speeches or pamphlets, but sometimes does find it, at
last, in strikes and catastrophes! A little, too, he saw, of _that_
underlying social dynamite, and felt to his heart's core the gravity of
the situation.

It was, therefore, with no room in his mind for trifling, and little for
selfish aims, that Roland Graeme returned from abroad to take up the
work of his life. He first, of course, paid a brief visit to his mother
and sisters, to satisfy himself as to their happiness and comfort; and
then, with his few belongings--chiefly books--he betook himself to his
friend at Minton. Dick Burnett received him cordially, and at once gave
him some light work, in the way of reporting and editorial writing,
which would at least keep his purse moderately supplied, while he was
also studying law in a lawyer's office, with the view of eventually
entering that profession. To him, among other things, fell the work of
reporting sermons for the _Minerva_, a task for which, of course, he was
well fitted by his early training; and this was the reason why, for some
months past, Mr. Chillingworth had wondered at the skill and accuracy
with which his sermons had been synopsized for the benefit of the
readers of the _Minerva_. In fact, he sometimes could not help admitting
to himself, that, in clearness of thought and felicitous condensation,
the abstract was almost an improvement on the sermon. Had he been aware
that Roland Graeme was his unknown reporter, he would doubtless have
been more affable in his greeting on the occasion of the young man's
visit.

Minton was largely a manufacturing town, and Roland soon found that
there were many wrongs around him calling for redress. His
investigations speedily brought him into contact with leaders of the
"Knights of Labor," and sympathy with their aims very soon led him to
enroll himself in their ranks. He could not, indeed, remain a member
after he should become a legal practitioner, as the rules of the order
do not admit lawyers; but he could and would work with heart and soul
for its objects, both in the ranks and outside them. He found the
leaders cordially grateful for his aid and counsel, and in the sympathy
and coöperation of some of the more intelligent workingmen he found much
of the pleasure and stimulus of his new life. Of course, his efforts on
their behalf sometimes evoked, from the "party of the other part,"
sentiments of a very different character; but Roland was happily so
constituted as to care little for that; and, so long as he could carry a
point for the benefit of his friends, the _employés_, he could bear hard
names with great equanimity. So absorbed was he, indeed, in his ideals
and enthusiasms, that the "personal equation" had become very
insignificant.

He found, however, that, in order to rouse the public mind on certain
points, he wanted an opportunity for stronger expression than he could
venture to use in his editorials in the _Minerva_, which, of course
would not risk irretrievably offending its wealthy patrons. The editor,
who was in part proprietor, was by no means uninterested in the "labor
question," and was quite willing to go as far as he thought "safe" in
its interests. But Roland wanted more liberty of speech for the burning
thoughts that filled his breast; and the idea gradually took shape, in
the course of their discussions in the _sanctum_, of issuing a small
weekly journal to be devoted entirely to the object nearest to Roland's
heart, his friend the editor being willing to afford all the facilities
of the printing-office to the new journal, and even to bear part of the
expense, which was also to be shared by an eccentric old Scotchman who
boarded in the same house with Roland, and with whom he had struck up an
odd sort of friendship.

Roland was determined to call his paper _The Brotherhood_, so that it
would bear in its very title the imprint of the truth which his
Christian training had interwoven with every fibre of his being, and
which, he also expressed in the motto, "_All ye are brethren_." In the
simplicity of his heart, Roland imagined that every Christian minister
must be as profoundly impressed with this great truth as he himself was,
and that he could count on the warm sympathy which they, at least, would
accord to his paper--intended, as the prospectus stated, "to bring this
fundamental principle and its corollary, the Golden Rule, to bear on all
social questions," including business arrangements and the relations of
employer and employed. So obvious an application of practical
Christianity must, he thought, enlist the cordial coöperation of those
whose vocation was to teach it.

As we have seen, however, he sometimes found himself disappointed in
this very natural expectation.




CHAPTER VII.

A MIDNIGHT MEETING.


Roland was writing busily on, scarcely conscious of the lateness of the
hour, absorbed in the pleasant task of pouring out on paper without
restraint the passionate pleas and arguments with which his mind was
filled, when he was roused by a rather peremptory knock at his door,
immediately followed by the apparition of a rugged old face with gray
shaggy locks and beard, surmounted by a picturesque red _toque_.

"Weel, lad, hard at work? Have ye got yer firebrands all ready for the
wee foxes' tails, that ye're gaun to send in amang the Philistines'
corn? There's a bit o' yer' 'modern interpretation' for ye!" The voice
was deep and guttural, and the accent a broad Doric.

"I hope you don't mean to compare me with that grim practical joker!"
said Roland, pleasantly. "I'm sure I don't want to do anything
destructive. My line is all _con_structive."

"Aye, that's weel enough! But sometimes the t'ane can't be done without
the t'ither. And ye'll soon be gettin' credit for that 'ither, or my
name's no' Sandy Dunlop!"

"Sandy Dunlop," as he called himself, and as his friends called him, did
not always indulge in broad Scotch; that, in his own estimation, would
have been "throwing pearls before swine." He reserved it for his moments
of expansion, for the seasons of unrestrained talk with the few in whose
company he did expand; especially when, like Roland, they were of
Scottish lineage, and could appreciate the beloved old Doric, his
affection for which was one of the soft spots in a somewhat hard and
caustic nature. Doubtless this point of sympathy was one of the
attractions that drew him to Roland. But "Sandy Dunlop" was a shrewd
judge of character.

Roland willingly threw down his pen, and settled himself back in his
chair, for one of the rambling talks which offered a little recreation
to his rather high-strung temperament.

"D'ye ken?" pursued the old man, "yon was a grand, simple kind o' way
they used to have o' settlin' their disputes! nane o' yer vile newspaper
calumniations or underhan' plottin's, but just a good honest tussle, and
done wi' it."

"But you don't suppose I'm going to calumniate anybody, I hope!" said
Roland, opening his eyes.

"_You_, laddie, deed na'! Weel I ken that," replied the old man, with a
sort of chuckling grunt. "It's just some o' thae poleetical articles
I've been readin', till I'm sick o' it all! When will ye get yer
_Brotherhood_ ideas into party politics? Tell me that, lad, if ye can!"

Roland smiled and sighed.

"Aye, aye! the warld'll tak' a wheen o' makin' over yet, an' it'll no be
you nor me that'll do it. However, ye might read me some o' yer
screeds," he added, looking at the young man with much the same air of
grim patronage with which a sagacious old mastiff might regard a
well-meaning but rash young terrier, attempting impossibilities.

As he spoke, the door below closed with a bang, and a snatch of an
operatic air, hummed _sotto voce_, was borne to their ears, as rapid
footsteps sounded lightly on the stairs.

"Here's that harum-scarum callant," said Mr. Dunlop, looking somewhat
glum. A light tap at the door was scarcely answered by Roland's "Come
in," when it was followed by the entrance of a young man of blonde
complexion and rather slight figure, dressed much more fashionably than
Roland. His blue eyes, fair hair, and Teutonic accent plainly bespoke
his origin, and his greeting showed him to be on the most unceremonious
terms with Roland, as he jauntily entered, nodding familiarly to the old
Scot.

"A midnight meeting in the interests of the _Brotherhood_!" he
exclaimed, theatrically, glancing at the sheets of manuscripts on
Roland's desk, and at the expectant attitude of the old Scotchman. "I
may come in for the rehearsal, too, _nicht wahr_?"

"Yes, if you will be quiet, and listen, and not interrupt too much,"
returned Roland.

"Quiet? Ah yes!--I will listen to the words of wisdom." And, throwing
down his hat, he seated himself on one corner of Roland's writing-table,
looking down at him with smiling expectancy. Mr. Dunlop, with both hands
resting on the table before him, listened with head bent forward, and
keen attention in his shrewd, observant eyes.

Roland read with rapid utterance, but feeling intonation, one sheet
after another; first the leading article, setting forth the scope and
objects of the paper, then one or two minor ones, touching on matters of
detail. Mr. Dunlop occasionally interposed a criticism or a suggestion,
which Roland noted for consideration, while the fair-haired young Teuton
fired off a stray shot, now and then, at Roland's sometimes too florid
periods, which the latter took good-humoredly--sensible that there was
some ground for the strictures.

"He lets himself be run away with sometimes," said this critic, turning
to Dunlop. "Keep cool, _mein lieber_, keep cool! Keep thy head and
bridle-hand!"

"All very fine, Waldberg," said Roland. "See you practice what you
preach. Of course, these last are only rough drafts. The first article I
went over carefully with Burnett, and he thinks it will do well enough
now, though I think that little modification of yours, Mr. Dunlop, is a
decided improvement."

"Aye, lad--ye maun be canny! Nae guid in runnin' yer heid against stone
walls, for _they_ tak' nae ill frae it, an' yer heid does. Now,
guid-night to ye baith, an' remember it's time ye were in yer beds."

Waldberg threw himself into the chair the old man had left.

"Well, how did you find your parsons?" he asked. "Did they hail you as a
brother, and promise to read and support the _Brotherhood_?"

Roland smiled somewhat grimly. "One of them did, at any rate--at least
he promised to read it; and some of the others promised to give the
subject their best consideration."

"Well, you did better than I expected," the young man replied, "but this
one who promised to read it--this wonderful man--he wasn't the Reverend
Cecil Chillingworth? I'd bet my head against that!"

"Why, what do _you_ know about it?" asked Roland, in surprise.

"Oh, I've been having a sort of musical evening with him!" returned
Waldberg, smiling. "I went in to make some arrangements about the
practice for his oratorio--he's going to have the "Messiah" given for
the benefit of his church, you know, and I'm to be accompanist, of
course. So he got me to go over some of the tenor airs with him on his
parlor-organ, while he sang them. He has really a good voice, and he is
enthusiastic in music, if he is not in social reform."

"But how do you know about that last?" inquired Roland, who found it
difficult to imagine Mr. Chillingworth talking freely to Waldberg. And
what had become of the "important work" that prevented his having a few
minutes to bestow on _him_, and on these grave questions?

"Oh, very easily, indeed. He began to talk about some of the passages we
were going over, for my benefit, of course. And we were discussing the
question of a soprano for the air 'Come Unto Him, All Ye That Labor And
Are Heavy-laden,' for which he said he specially wanted an effective
rendering. He grew quite eloquent; I think he must have been rehearsing
a bit of his Sunday sermon. He said the world was 'laboring and
heavy-laden,' (thought I, '_That's_ true enough') and 'that it was
because men would not take upon them the right yoke. There was no end of
nostrums, nowadays,' he said, (and I felt quite sure he was thinking of
you and the _Brotherhood_,) 'but the only radical cure was the
self-surrender of each individual heart to the yoke which is easy and
the burden which is light.' There, you see how well I've got my lesson
off by heart! You are welcome to that, for your report of his next
sermon, in advance. It'll be there, sure enough!"

Roland could not help smiling at Waldberg's close imitation of Mr.
Chillingworth's measured and impressive manner. But he sighed the next
moment, a little impatient sigh, as he broke forth:

"That's the stereotyped way they all talk. But, how much
'self-surrender' does he get from his own 'prominent man,' Mr. Pomeroy,
for instance? _He_ could make a good many people's yoke easier and their
burdens lighter if he chose! When men like that show the cure, we'll
begin to believe in it. Yet he listens to Mr. Chillingworth, Sunday
after Sunday, and I don't suppose he ever hears a word to wake him up to
the fact that he's actually a murderer, in 'wearing out human creatures'
lives.' But, in the name of all that's honest, Waldberg, how can you go
through such a thing as the 'Messiah' with a man like Mr. Chillingworth,
when you know you don't believe either in the theme or the treatment of
it."

"Ah, but then, you don't understand Art, _mein Roland_; dramatically,
you see, I can feel the very spirit of the music; as for the words, what
matters? I rather suspect Mr. Chillingworth has a pretty good idea that
I don't believe very much, and no doubt he thinks he is doing a good
work in giving me some light, as we go along."

"Well, of course, you don't sing, only accompany," said Roland,
meditatively.

"Oh, that's nothing," said Waldberg, coolly. "Professionals simply go in
for art in all these things. I know one of the soloists, at any rate,
that I am getting for him, believes even less than I do--an atheist out
and out."

"Well, I know _I_ could not stand up and sing parts of that oratorio,
knowing how other people believe it," said Roland, "and I'm no atheist."

"No," said the other, "that's just where your scruple comes in. If you
an were atheist, you wouldn't think it mattered much what you sang, so
long as the music was good. As for the girls who sing the choruses, I
don't think they know half the time what they're singing."

Roland thought of his father's old-fashioned veneration for the sacred
words, and wondered how he would have borne what seemed to his own
fastidious taste a profanation of them, even while he maintained his own
negative position.

"There will be some pretty good voices in the choruses," continued
Waldberg, critically. "Miss Farrell's is sweet and clear like a bell,
though it is not very strong--wants compass. And another young lady I
had the honor of accompanying at Miss Farrell's last _soirée
musi-cale_--Miss Blanchard--has a very good voice too, plenty of feeling
and expression, as far as she goes, and wonderfully distinct
enunciation."

Roland had begun to listen with more interest. It was curious, as he had
noticed before, that you no sooner met persons for the first time, than
you were almost sure to hear of them very soon again.

Waldberg went on, not expecting a reply, simply talking because he liked
it.

"Mr. Chillingworth hopes to get her into the choruses. He was quite set
on putting her in for a solo, but she declined, and I think she's right.
She could never fill a hall, but Chillingworth, _entre nous_, seems to
admire her immensely."

"I have seen her," said Roland, carelessly. "She has a fine face,
whatever her voice may be." And the Madonna-like vision rose again
before him.

"Yes, she has a noble air, 'presence,' as you say, but she can't compare
with Miss Farrell for looks. _She_ is an exquisite creature, _herrlich
schöne_ she looked that evening."

"Take care of yourself, Waldberg," said Roland, looking up with a smile,
at his animated face. "She is not fair for _you_."

"Oh, I am not selfish, like that!" retorted the other, but with a
heightened color. "I can admire, where I can do no more; and Miss
Farrell likes me to find her fair, if I mistake not."

"Oh, I suppose she can flirt!" replied Graeme. "Most of the young ladies
here seem to be able to do that. Only 'beware,' she may be 'fooling
thee.'"

"Thou art growing cynical, _mein Roland_! Thou thinkest too much! I
shall bid thee good-night. _Schlafe wohl!_"

"_Du auch!_" returned Roland, who liked to keep up with Waldberg the
German colloquialisms he had learned abroad. "Poor fellow," he said to
himself, as he listened to the retreating footsteps, "I am afraid she
_is_ 'fooling' him." He had heard a great deal, of late, about Miss
Farrell, who was one of "Herr Waldberg's" most promising pupils as a
pianist, and from whom Roland believed that the young man was taking
lessons of a more dangerous kind. However, after all, it was no business
of his, and Waldberg ought to be able to take care of himself.

But he pondered a little over what seemed to him the strangeness of Mr.
Chillingworth's finding it so easy to spend an hour or two enjoyably,
talking music with a completely irreligious young man like Waldberg,
while he could not spare _him_ a few minutes for the discussion of
matters which affected the well-being, higher and lower, of so many
thousands, and which concerned the practical diffusion of principles of
action which he had supposed must be at least as dear to the clergyman
as they were to himself. Roland did not yet know how easily some men can
absorb themselves in beautiful ideals and vague generalities, till the
practical side of life, with its tiresome details and rude collisions,
becomes for them almost non-existent.

And so Mr. Chillingworth "admired Miss Blanchard immensely"! Roland felt
interest enough in the young lady to wish her a better fate than a man
whom he had begun mentally to sum up as "an egoistic iceberg." However,
his business in life was not to settle the destinies of either Mr.
Chillingworth or Miss Blanchard, or even of Miss Farrell and Hermann
Waldberg. So he presently forgot them all in finishing the article in
which he had been interrupted, and then went to bed to sleep that sleep
of the laborer, which is "sweet" only when neither brain nor muscles
have been overstrained to exhaustion.




CHAPTER VIII.

NORA'S DREAM.


Mr. Alden found that Dr. Blanchard quite agreed with him as to the
importance of getting their patient removed to the hospital. The doctor
thought that her case was by no means hopeless, provided she could be
supplied with the constant care and nourishment she so urgently needed,
and this could scarcely be secured for her except in the hospital. Dr.
Blanchard, who had all the ready, practical kindness which usually marks
members of the medical profession, added to that of a naturally kind
heart, willingly undertook to make the arrangements for the invalid's
removal.

Miss Blanchard returned next morning with an encouraging report. The
care and nourishing food given frequently during the night had produced
a decided improvement; and though the disease was deeply seated, and the
patient was reduced to extreme weakness, she had youth and strong
vitality on her side, notwithstanding all the privations and misery she
had evidently endured. From Lizzie Mason, who had sat with her for an
hour or two of her vigil, Nora had heard, while the patient lay
unconscious in a heavy slumber, some details about her past life which
had gone to her heart, and had made her realize, with a sickening
sensation, something of that struggle for life which a poor friendless
woman, cast adrift in a busy world, must often endure.

Miss Blanchard felt herself strongly drawn toward the pale, wistful
young girl, who had been so ready to sacrifice her own sorely-needed
rest in order to care for the invalid, and had drawn from her many
particulars of her hard-working life. It was a simple story, told in a
very matter-of-fact, uncomplaining way; but involuntary tears of
indignant sympathy started to the listener's thoughtful eyes at the
unconscious revelation of hard, unremitting, monotonous toil for eleven,
twelve, and sometimes thirteen hours a day, as the pressure of work
required, and that under conditions unhealthy enough to depress the most
vigorous young life.

"But cannot you find something better than that?" Nora asked; "some
healthier as well as pleasanter work? Would it not be better to take to
domestic service? Every one says it is so difficult to find girls
qualified to do it faithfully and well, and I am sure you would do both.
You know there is nothing in serving others to lower any right
self-respect," she added, quietly; "and who it was who said that He came
not to be ministered to but to minister."

"Yes," said Lizzie, "I heard Mr. Alden preach beautifully about that! I
often go to his church, Sunday evenings, for it's the nearest, and he
speaks so plain-like, I do admire to hear him. But it's not _that_
indeed, miss! I'd love, myself, to be in a good, quiet house, where one
could sit down when one was tired, and not have to go out in the dark,
all sorts of mornings, and have to be on the go all day! But, you see,
if I live at home I can give mother my board, an' that's such a help to
her. An' if I was in a place, I'd have to wear good clothes, an' that
would eat up all my earnin's, an' mother needs all I can do to help her
and the children. An' then my brother Jim's a little wild, and if I'm at
home, I can look after him a bit."

Nora, interested in getting for herself a definite idea of this girl's
daily life, drew her out a little more about this brother, the eldest of
the family. He worked in the mill, too, and would be a great help to the
family if it were not for his unsteadiness, which had run away with a
good deal of his earnings, and he had once or twice been on the point of
being discharged.

"He has never been the same boy," Lizzie said, sadly, "since he has
taken up with Nelly Grove."

"That was the girl you were talking to this evening when I passed you,
was it not?" asked Miss Blanchard.

"Yes, that was Nelly. She's not a bad-hearted little thing, but she's
awful flighty and fond of pleasure. She's an orphan, too, an' her
friends live in the country, so she hasn't any one to look after her
here. I think she'd be good enough to Jim, if she was let alone, but
there's a gentleman"--and Lizzie lowered her voice still further--"as
turns her head with compliments an' attentions, an' it makes Jim so
jealous that he just goes off on a tear, whenever he finds out about it,
unless I can manage to coax him and stop him."

"I see," said Miss Blanchard, thoughtfully; "but what a shame it is!"
And so, by force of cruel fate, as it seemed, this girl was as truly
chained by invisible fetters to her daily toil among those relentless
wheels and pulleys, as if she were a galley-slave. The plantation
slaves, on the whole, were not so badly off. They had their regular
hours of toil, but their hours of relaxation were free from care, and
full of fun and frolic, and--which was another great relief--they had
frequent change of labor. Roland Graeme's words occurred to her mind
with a new force and significance. But how was it? Did not the Heavenly
Father in whom she had been taught to believe, care for the sparrows,
and did He not much more care for helpless girls? Was His care not for
Lizzie as well as for her, in her pleasant, protected life? It was too
deep a problem, and she remembered a saying of Goethe, which she had
lately read that "Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe,
but to find out what he has to do, and then to do that." And if she
could hereafter do anything to help her less favored sisters, she then
and there registered an unspoken vow that she would do what she could.

The following being as mild a day as was likely to occur that season,
Dr. Blanchard recommended that Mrs. Travers should be at once removed to
the St. Barnabas Hospital. But it was a task of some difficulty to gain
her consent. She seemed to cling tenaciously to the privacy of her
wretched little room, and to shrink nervously from the idea of a common
hospital ward. She so clearly bore the impress of refinement and
culture, that Nora felt as if it were inflicting an indignity on her to
ask her to endure the trial; and she offered to bear, herself, the
expense of a private room for a month, if the patient would consent to
the removal. But what then was to be done with the little girl? She
could not go to the hospital, and there seemed to be no room for her in
Lizzie's overcrowded home.

"I'll take her in," said Mr. Alden, with his good-humored smile, as they
were consulting over the difficulties in the way. But Nora demurred. He
had enough of his own, and she did not want to put one more care on Mrs.
Alden or Gracie. She took her sister-in-law aside for consultation, and
presently returned triumphant. "Sophy says I may have her here," she
said to her brother. "She's such a dear little grave creature, I don't
think she'll give any trouble, and she will help to amuse Eddie and
Daisy. They are almost too much for nurse, now baby's growing so
lively."

"Trust Nora for finding the bright side of everything," said Dr.
Blanchard, laughing. "She's a born optimist."

"Indeed, I thought I was growing pessimistic last night," said Nora.
"It's horrible to find out, really, how so many people have to live!"
she added, looking at Mr. Alden, with a perplexed look in her eyes, and
a shadow over her usually bright face.

"And you've had no rest yet!" interposed her brother. "You must go and
lie down at once. I'll see the poor woman transferred to her new
quarters as safely as may be, and bring the child here; and you can go
to see the mother another time."

Nora went to her dainty, quiet room--such a contrast to the one in which
she had spent the night!--and, lying down on the soft luxurious bed, she
tried to close her tired eyes in sleep; but it was rather a failure. A
healthy young _physique_, accustomed to sleep only at regular hours,
does not readily adapt itself to irregular rest; and heart and brain
were still too much excited to encourage sleep. The aspect of the
miserable little room seemed photographed on her inner sight; the
oppressed breathing of the invalid, the sad glimpses into other people's
lives, haunted her whenever she closed her eyes. As she lay there on her
soft couch in the daintily-appointed room, with the pretty things about
her with which girls like to surround themselves, and the light softly
shaded to make an artificial twilight, visions rose before her of
droning wheels and flashing shuttles, of long arrays of frames, such as
she had seen in the factory some time before; and the thought of the
girls with feelings and nerves like her own, tending, through so many
weary hours, these senseless and relentless machines, oppressed her
quick sensibilities like a nightmare. Then, when at last she fell into a
brief, troubled slumber, she dreamed that she was following some one
through mile after mile of endless corridors, all lined with that
inexorable, never-ceasing machinery, tended by armies of pale, slender
girls, many of them children. And whenever she desired to sit down to
rest, her conductor kept beckoning her onward, and she seemed compelled
to follow, on--on--would it never end! And as her companion looked round
impatiently to urge her advance, she saw for the first time that it was
the young man who had been her guide and escort the preceding evening.
And, just then, Eddie, stealing on tip-toe into the room to see if
"Auntie were awake yet," dispersed the illusion, and she awoke to a glad
consciousness of liberty and restfulness, yet with a strange sense of
latent pain behind it.

Nora lay still a little longer, thinking with some interest of the
curious way in which the sights and sounds of waking hours interweave
themselves into new and absurd combinations, when the guiding will is
for the time off duty. She was naturally introspective, and had a
special turn for psychological studies, in which her brother's line of
thought harmonized with her own. But suddenly she was startled by sounds
that stole into the quietude--sounds of a child's unrestrained, sobbing
grief, intermingled with unsuccessful attempts at consolation.




CHAPTER IX.

IN THE HOSPITAL.


"Why, Eddie, is that Daisy crying? What is the matter?" she asked,
starting up.

"Oh, it's the new little girl that's come," replied Eddie, with cheerful
unconcern. "And she won't stop crying. I've showed her Tatters and my
Noah's Ark and the gray kitten; and 'tisn't any use--she's such a
silly!"

"Oh! dear!" exclaimed Nora. "I must go down at once." And, hurriedly
re-arranging her hair and dress, she ran down-stairs, followed by Eddie.

On the rug outside the drawing-room door crouched the little girl,
shaken by a storm of passionate sobs. She had borne the separation from
her weak and passive mother, with a quiet resignation mainly produced by
the doctor's assurance that if she were good and did not worry her
mother, who was going where she would be made better, she should soon
see her again. The grave quietude which the child had maintained with a
great effort had not given way, until Dr. Blanchard, in haste to reach
an urgent "case," had put her inside his own door in charge of a
servant. Then, the strangeness of everything about her, and the blank
loneliness of the situation, from _her_ point of view, had apparently so
oppressed her, that the unnatural composure gave way before a tornado of
passionate abandonment. Mrs. Blanchard was out, but the nurse had tried
her best to console and divert her, and so had Eddie and Daisy; but so
far without avail. Nora could hardly help smiling, as she remembered her
programme for the children's relation to each other, and saw how it had
been reversed.

The plump little Daisy stood over her, looking concerned, but holding
out her gray kitten as if it were the olive-branch of peace, while the
neglected inhabitants of Noah's Ark lay in picturesque confusion in the
background.

When Miss Blanchard appeared, however, matters changed a little, as she
bent over the sobbing child with loving words and gestures, pushed aside
the old hood and shawl, and smoothed the tangled mass of dark, curly
hair, till the sobs grew fainter and the child allowed herself to be
raised from the floor. Under the uncouth disguise of her outer raiment,
now removed, she wore a neatly-made, though faded, print frock; which,
though evidently outgrown, was whole and clean; and, for the first time,
Miss Blanchard realized her unusual beauty of face and form, with the
pleasure of one keenly sensitive to beauty of all kinds.

She had heard from Lizzie that "Cissy" was passionately fond of music,
and the happy thought occurred to her of taking her into the
drawing-room, and playing to her some sweet and simple melodies that
were favorites of her own. The experiment succeeded beyond her hopes.
The child listened like one entranced. Her large, soft, lustrous eyes
dilated, and her whole face seemed lighted with a new expression, as she
followed with evident appreciation every change of the music. It was as
if the delight of listening absorbed her whole being. Then, as Nora
began to sing to her, her delight seemed to increase. A dawning smile
relaxed the sad curves of her lips, a dewy moisture suffused the lovely
dark-gray eyes. It was clear, Miss Blanchard thought, that she had
discovered here a musical soul.

"Does your mother sing to you sometimes?" she asked.

"Not much," said the child. "She likes _me_ to sing to her, best."

"Sing to me now, then," replied Nora.

But the child was too shy. That evening, however, when she was alone
with the other children in the nursery, Nora heard her trying to hum
over the airs of the songs she had sung to her, with wonderful accuracy
and sweetness of tone. This discovery set her castle-building at once.
There was no knowing what musical talent this little one might develop!
And if she could aid her to develop it, she would thus help one girl, at
least, out of the weary monotony of poorly paid and unremitting toil.

The following day was Sunday, and Nora had a headache, as was hardly
surprising, after her unusual fatigue and excitement, so that it was
only on the day following, that she and the little Cecilia, for whom
some garments had meantime been remodelled out of old ones of Mrs.
Blanchard's, were set down by the doctor at the door of the hospital.

It was a new experience for her, and she walked with some nervous dread
along the whitewashed corridors, oppressed by the feeling that behind
those white walls were being fought, unseen, many battles between
disease and death on the one hand, and medical care and skill on the
other. As she passed on, guided by the porter, she could catch glimpses,
through partially open doors, of wards filled with "heavy cases"--every
bed, apparently, tenanted; of others where convalescents were sitting
among neat beds with snowy coverlets--pictures and plants giving an air
of comfort to the place. At the end of a long passage, she found herself
in a cheerful little room, with an open fire burning brightly in the
grate, and her old acquaintance, Miss Spencer, Kitty Farrell's cousin,
in her pretty nurse's uniform, sitting beside the bed on which lay the
invalid she had come to see. The latter looked pale and weak, indeed,
but seemed so different in her new surroundings and fresh white
draperies, that Miss Blanchard would scarcely have recognized her. The
little Cecilia threw herself upon her mother in a close, clinging
embrace, which the nurse presently loosened gently, lifting her to a
seat on the bed, where she could look at her mother without tiring her.
The latter was evidently very weak, and scarcely cared to talk; but she
looked gratefully, if shyly, at Miss Blanchard, and then lay with her
beautiful dark-gray eyes, so like the child's, and half-screened by the
long dark lashes, fixed on the little one beside her. The dusky hair
that lay in a mass about her pale face, on the white pillow, seemed to
make it paler by comparison, but also made her look even younger than
Miss Blanchard had supposed her. The latter purposely made her visit
very brief, but suggested that she and Miss Spencer should leave the
mother and child alone, with the almost unnecessary caution "not to
talk," to which neither seemed disposed. Miss Spencer led the way to the
little sitting-room used by the nurses, which was then empty.

"How nice and neat it all is!" said Nora, as they sat down, her eyes
coming back from their survey to rest admiringly on the serene, happy
face of the young nurse. Janet or "Janie" Spencer, as her friends called
her, had interested her very much in their occasional meetings. There
was something about her, not easy to define, which attracted most
people. She was a rather large, well-developed young woman, with her
cousin Kitty's fairness of coloring, but not Kitty's exquisite delicacy
of complexion and moulding. An expression of kindly good sense and
good-humored benevolence seemed to shine in her clear eyes and to hover
about the curves of her red lips; her calm, even manner was soothing in
itself, and in her fresh picturesque uniform, Nora thought she looked
like an impersonation of the divine art of healing.

"Well, how do you like your work?" asked Nora, eagerly.

"'_Like_' isn't the word!" was the reply. "It's intensely interesting.
You get so absorbed in the interest of it that you never take time to
think whether you like it or not! Of course, there are things you can't
like in themselves, but you forget that, when you know that you are
doing what is of real consequence. And then I think I always was cut out
for a nurse. Ever since I was a child, I liked nothing so well as caring
for sick people."

"We all thought it was very lovely of you to make up your mind to do it,
though."

"Well, I simply couldn't go on as I was. You know there were some things
I could never forget----"

Nora touched caressingly the soft hand that looked so strong and
helpful, with all its softness. She had heard of the young lover whose
sudden death had altered Janie Spencer's life. Presently she went on:

"That ordinary, humdrum, easy existence--so many of us girls at home,
and no interests but calls and parties and novels and fancy-work--it
seemed just trifling away life; and I thought if ever I could save any
one who was ill as _he_ was, how sweet it would be!--almost as if I did
it for him!"

"Then it wasn't Mr. Chillingworth's preaching, after all," said Nora,
vaguely disappointed.

"Oh, I think that did decide me," she said. "It was one of his strongest
sermons, I think, and it came just when I was feeling so sick of doing
nothing in particular. He was speaking, you know, of the beauty of the
Christian ideal of living for the good of others; and he gave as an
example, the life of a hospital nurse, and how happy she might always be
in realizing the truth of the words, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it to one
or the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.' I think it was _that_
that decided me."

"But now," said Miss Spencer, after a short silence, "I suppose you
don't know much about this poor young woman?"

"No," said Nora; "but I'm sure she has a history."

"So am I! One or two things she said made me suspect a romance of some
kind. I notice that her wedding ring is very massive, and she has a
habit of fingering it in a caressing sort of way."

"Poor thing! I suppose she's a widow."

"She wouldn't say, and I couldn't press her. It seemed to pain her to
talk about it. My impression is that she is _not_; but of course that is
merely an impression."

"The child is passionately fond of music," said Nora. "I shouldn't
wonder if she turned out to be a musical genius."

"Possibly, then, her father may have been one of those professionals who
seem so lax in their matrimonial ideas, and desert their wives so
easily.--At least, I've heard of such cases," she added. "I suppose the
'artistic temperament' as they call it, has a tendency to forsake
ordinary lines."

"It's queer," said Nora, thoughtfully. "One would think music should
always be an elevating influence."

"I'm sure it is, at its best," said Janet. "But it has another side,
like most things."

"Oh dear!" said Nora, "this is a very puzzling world. Well, it's nice to
be you, and to have found out just the work you are fitted for, and how
you can best help other people."

And this thought clung to her as she walked home with the still silent
Cecilia, through the damp, foggy December afternoon, the child bravely
keeping down her strong inclination to cry, lest she should forfeit the
privilege of going again. The world seemed, to Nora's imagination, to
have taken the dull, cheerless aspect of the day, seen from the under
side, from which she had lately been looking at it. And it seemed to her
that they alone could be counted happy who knew how to lighten a little
the cheerlessness and gloom. If she only knew _how_!




CHAPTER X.

A FIRESIDE TALK.


The fog and moisture had turned to snow, and the cold grayness of the
early winter dusk emphasized the cheeriness that lighted up Mrs.
Blanchard's drawing-room with its warm glow. Nora was practising,
perseveringly, the choruses that were to be sung that evening at the
first general practice for the oratorio, whither Mr. Chillingworth was
to escort her, after dinner, to which he had been invited. Mrs.
Blanchard reclined luxuriously in an easy-chair in front of the fire,
half-lulled to sleep by the combined influence of the heat and the
music, undisturbed by the prattle of the children, who, in the absence
of visitors, were in full possession. Cecilia held "Tatters," the pet
terrier, cuddled close to her with one hand, while with the other she
helped Eddie and Daisy to set up the animals from their Noah's Ark, in a
"'nagery percession" between two lines of stiff, conical trees taken
from Eddie's "village," and supposed to represent an "avenue," with
occasional little painted wooden houses behind it. As several of the
animals had lost some of their legs, the setting up was a task of some
difficulty, and presented some curious situations, the maimed wolf
having to lean for support against his neighbor the lamb, while a hen
that had lost one of her stout pedestals had to be similarly propped up
against a fox of equal size. The long procession having been finally
completed, Nora was called to come and admire.

"See, Auntie, it isn't a Noah's Ark percession," said Eddie, "it's a
'nagery percession. And those ar'n't Noah and his sons either. They're
Barnum and the keepers."

"Oh, young America!" said Nora, laughing, in a semi-soliloquy. "You must
remodel everything, even Noah's Ark."

"Well, Noah's Ark was a sort of 'nagery," replied Eddie, answering the
tone rather than the words, "and I guess Noah was about as clever as Mr.
Barnum."

Nora walked back to the piano, concealing an irresistible laugh. After
all, she thought, children had to interpret those old stories of the
past through present-day experiences--but her own childish conceptions
had never been quite so realistic.

Cecilia followed her to the piano, and stood by her in her usual
attitude of absorbed attention, while Miss Blanchard went through the
passage, "He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd." Neither heard the
doorbell ring, and Mr. Chillingworth had quietly opened the door some
time before his presence was noticed.

"Thank you," he said, advancing, with a smile, "I wanted to hear that to
the end before you knew you had an audience of even one--though I should
say _two_," he added, glancing at the child, whom in her altered dress
and surroundings, he did not in the least recognize.

"_I_ was listening, too," said Mrs. Blanchard, rousing herself to greet
him, and continuing to her sister-in-law: "Oh, you needn't laugh, Nora,
I could hear the music quite well, if my eyes were shut. There's nothing
that soothes one so."

"Yes, I know you find it soothing, Sophy, dear," replied Nora, demurely,
while Mr. Chillingworth discreetly held his peace. Meantime Cecilia had
stolen away, back to the other children, whom the nurse had come to
summon to tea. She recognized the clergyman at once, and she
instinctively shrank from another encounter with him.

"You have a visitor there, I see," remarked Mr. Chillingworth, as the
children disappeared. "What a pretty child she is! She has such lovely
eyes. Who is she? Somehow her face seems familiar to me, or else she is
like some one I know."

"Oh, I don't think you can have seen her before," said Nora. "She's the
child of a poor young woman Will sent to the hospital--the young woman
he was sent for to go to see that evening, you know."

"Oh, the one to whom you went to act the Good Samaritan? I meant to ask
you how you found her."

"She was very ill indeed," replied Miss Blanchard, gravely; then turning
fully round, she looked up at him and exclaimed: "Oh, Mr. Chillingworth,
I never could have imagined any one living in such a wretched place!
Scarcely any furniture, and the poor thing lying on such a miserable bed
on the floor! And she seemed so refined and pretty! It is horrible to
think that such things can be!"

Mr. Chillingworth half closed his eyes for a moment, as if to shut out
the picture she conjured up. Such scenes always jarred terribly on his
æsthetic sense, and on principle, he avoided them as much as possible.
They always upset him so, and he could do so little to help!

"Yes, my dear Miss Blanchard, this fleeting life of ours has many
mysteries about it, sad and strange enough, but we should only be making
ourselves perpetually miserable, if we were always looking at them and
trying to solve them. And then you must remember that things often look
worse, when we see them from the outside. Human nature has a wonderful
way of adapting itself to circumstances, and this life is only a
fleeting one, you know. The great thing is--to lead the sufferers to
look beyond!"

"Yes, I know," said Nora, somewhat impatiently. "But then, I do think it
would be better, for _us_ as well as for them, if we were to try to make
it better for them now! That was what the Good Samaritan did--you spoke
of just now, wasn't it, when the priest and the Levite passed by on the
other side?"

"Undoubtedly, as you say, that _is_ best for us, as it is for them," he
replied. "Yes, the life for others is the true life.

    "'The quality of mercy is not strained,
    It blesses him that gives and him that takes.'"

Mr. Chillingworth always rendered the quotation so as to convey the
impression that the "giver" was a good deal more to be considered than
the "taker."

"Well, Nora did her duty as a Good Samaritan," interposed Mrs.
Blanchard, tired of being left out of the conversation. "She stayed in
that wretched room all night, and sat up with the poor woman. I only
wonder she didn't catch something dreadful, herself."

"Is it possible!" the clergyman exclaimed. "But that seems too great a
sacrifice on your part. Was there no one else at hand?"

"Yes," said Nora, with a touch of satire in her tone. "There was a poor
girl, a mill hand, who had been working all day, and sitting up at night
with this poor sick woman. I thought that _was_ too great a sacrifice!"

Mr. Chillingworth's dark eyes lighted up. "Ah," he said, "such scenes
transfigure the dark places of life, do they not?"

Nora sighed--a little impatient sigh. She could not, it seemed, convey
to the mind of any one else the intolerance she felt of a social state
in which such hard conditions of life could prevail, for any portion of
humanity. Every one about her seemed to acquiesce resignedly in the
inevitable.

"And so you have added to your kindness, that of taking in the poor
woman's child?" he continued.

"Yes," again interposed Mrs. Blanchard. "There seemed to be no one else
to take care of her, so Nora begged to be allowed to take her in, and
you know we are all her abject slaves!"

Nora laughed. "I'd like to see you an abject slave to any one," she
said.

"Indeed, I feel abject enough just now," she replied, yawning slightly.
"Mr. Chillingworth, how many visits do you think Nora and I paid this
afternoon?"

"I shouldn't venture to guess," he said, smiling.

"Fifteen! not one less. Haven't I a right to feel tired after such a
day's work? Just think of all the talking I've done."

"But then several of the people weren't at home, so we only had to leave
the cards and come away," explained the severely truthful Nora.

"Well, eight visits, with all the talking that means, is a very good
afternoon's work."

And having successfully diverted the conversation from such unpleasant
topics, Mrs. Blanchard kept up a little skirmishing small-talk till
dinner was announced.

Kitty Farrell came in to join them after dinner, as had been arranged.
She was looking particularly bright and pretty in her soft white wraps.
She had brought her father's neat little brougham, in which they drove
down to the hall, where the practice would be held.

"I suppose you're both going to Mrs. Pomeroy's dinner-party, on Saturday
evening?" said Mr. Chillingworth, on the way.

"I am," Nora replied, "and it is scarcely necessary to ask if Miss
Farrell is."

"Indeed, I don't see any reason for taking it for granted," said Kitty,
coquettishly; "but if you really want to know, I believe we're all
going. It will be quite large for a dinner-party; so, Nora, mind you are
to look your best!"

Just as they got out of the brougham, and stood full in the light of the
lamp at the entrance, a young man, passing hurriedly, looked up and took
a rapid survey of the trio. Nora caught the glance, and recognized the
young man who had walked with her through the lamp-lighted streets a few
evenings before. She was sorry that she had not had time to show that
she recognized him, for he had interested her almost as much as the new
trains of thought he had started.

The practice went on very much as all practices do. The choruses had to
be gone over again and again, till the time and harmony were, in the
conductor's estimation at least, approximately correct. Nora could not
help wishing that some other words could have been used for the
practice, than those carrying such sacred meanings and associations. She
began to see why her Aunt Margaret did not care for oratorios, when she
noticed some of the girls tittering over mistakes in the rendering of
some of the most solemn and touching passages. Mr. Chillingworth watched
it all carefully from the artistic point of view--which, for the time at
least, he seemed to have disassociated from the religious. At last it
was over, for that evening, and Kitty and Nora were resuming their
wraps, while Mr. Chillingworth was holding an animated talk with the
conductor and the accompanist, Herr Waldberg, on points connected with
the rendering of some of the passages. Waldberg, his handsome face
lighted up with the glow and sparkle of musical enthusiasm, came up with
Mr. Chillingworth, and, courteously bowing to the young ladies,
exchanged a few words with Kitty in an undertone. She lingered a moment,
as Nora waited for her at the entrance.

"I needn't take you and Mr. Chillingworth out of your way to walk round
with me," she said. "You know I didn't order the carriage to come back,
as I didn't know just when it would be over, and father does not like to
have the horses standing at night. But Mr. Waldberg has kindly offered
to see me home, so you won't have to come all that way round, and it's
snowing quite fast, isn't it?"

Nora felt vaguely dissatisfied, she hardly knew why, at the proposed
arrangement. But of course she could offer no objection, and Mr.
Chillingworth was by no means sorry to be permitted to walk home with
Miss Blanchard, _tête-à-tête_. They were both enthusiasts in music, and
could talk about it, the oratorio and its rendering, with more freedom
from distraction than when Kitty, with her butterfly nature was at hand,
ready at any moment to strike off on some other tack. And again, as they
walked on, Nora observed that her unknown friend passed them at a rapid
pace, but this time he was going the same way, and she did not know
whether he observed her or not.




CHAPTER XI.

THORNS AND ROSES.


"What are you going to wear to-night, Nora?" asked Mrs. Blanchard, as
the two still lingered in company over the breakfast-table, which the
busy doctor had, as usual, quitted before them. This was always the most
important question in Mrs. Blanchard's mind, when they were going to any
entertainment.

"I suppose my black velvet will do, won't it?" said Nora, looking up
from the newspaper in which she was, at the moment, reading a paragraph
describing the miseries of poor sewing-women, and the pittance for which
they are often compelled to give their long hours of toil.

"Well, I suppose so," said her sister-in-law, discontentedly, "though
that black velvet certainly does seem too old for you. Why not wear that
pretty _écru_ and black lace costume?"

"But then," objected Nora, "I wore it at Mrs. Farrell's musical-party,
and I don't want to wear it quite so soon again. Besides, this won't be
a very big party."

"Not big, certainly, but awfully swell. Mrs. Pomeroy's dinner-parties
always are. Just wait till you see! However, your black velvet does look
quite elegant, and that old lace of Aunt Margaret's and her pearl cross
look just lovely with it! They suit you, somehow; so perhaps you
couldn't do better. But I wish you would get a new dress;
crushed-strawberry satin would be so becoming, and you'll want it, for
you will be going out a good deal this winter."

"No," said Nora, "I couldn't think of getting anything more now; I have
all I really need, and it seems horrible to think of getting more than
one needs, when some people have to live like this!" and she read aloud
the paragraph that had caught her eye.

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Blanchard, "I wish you weren't always seeing such
things. There always was and there always will be misery in the world,
but what good does it do any one to make yourself miserable about it?
And if you get a new dress made, doesn't that help somebody?"

Nora was always perplexed when other people's notions of political
economy were arrayed on the side of selfish expenditure. Was the world
built up on _selfishness_ after all? If so, where was the place of
self-sacrifice? But it did not seem as if it "helped people" very much
"to wear out their lives" in return for the barest subsistence.

That afternoon, she took little Cecilia on a second visit to her mother.
It was very cold, and the snow lay white on the hard, frozen streets;
but Nora, well wrapped in her furs, felt the cold, keen air as
exhilarating as a tonic, as they walked briskly on to the hospital, the
child also wrapped warmly in the mufflings that Nora's care had
provided. She had begun to be a little more communicative, but was
evidently a fitful, uncertain child; in general reserved and quiet,
though subject to fits of extreme excitability, in which it seemed as if
nothing but music could soothe her. Both Dr. Blanchard and Nora had been
studying her with much interest, the doctor declaring that under-feeding
and a life of unnatural confinement and solitude must be responsible for
many of her peculiarities. At the hospital, Miss Blanchard found Mrs.
Travers getting on favorably. She showed more pleasure at seeing her
child than on the previous occasion, and, in reply to Nora's inquiries,
expressed herself as very comfortable there. "It would be strange if I
were not," she added, "every one is so kind, Miss Spencer especially.
She couldn't be kinder, if I were her sister."

And again Miss Blanchard was struck with her unusual refinement of tone
and manner as well as of language. But she seemed rather shy and ill at
ease, Nora thought, and she was about to turn aside to look up at Miss
Spencer, when a gentle knock sounded, and Lizzie Mason entered. The
invalid was evidently genuinely glad to see her, and held her hand, as
if she could not let it go. Nora, as she watched them for a few moments,
was pained to see that Lizzie looked as if she had been crying, and
seemed particularly sad and depressed.

"I did not think of seeing you here," said Nora; "I thought you were
engaged at this hour."

"It's Saturday, you know, miss. There's always a sort of a half-holiday
on Saturday."

"Well, you look as if you needed a little fresh air," replied Nora,
gently. "I'm afraid you have had some trouble."

Her kind voice and gentle words seemed too much for poor Lizzie. She
bent down her head, as she sat by the bed, holding the invalid's hand,
and sobbed quietly.

By degrees, Nora drew from her the cause of her grief. "Jim" had been
going on badly, had been off on another "tear," incited thereto by
jealousy of Nelly's flightiness, and of her mysterious admirer. He had
been "run in" for drinking and disorderly conduct, and Lizzie had had to
take most of the money she had been saving up for warm winter clothing,
in order to pay his fine.

"Oh, Lizzie, why did you do that?" asked Miss Blanchard.

"Indeed, miss, how could I let Jim go to jail, and have mother fretting
to break her heart? I'd rather starve!"

And Nora knew, in her heart, that the girl could not have done
otherwise.

But that was not all. The manager had threatened to dismiss "Jim" unless
he should behave better, and meantime had put him at lower work for
lower wages.

"Perhaps I might ask young Mr. Pomeroy to speak a good word for him,"
Nora said. "I know him very well."

"Oh, no, miss, don't!" cried Lizzie, nervously; "it wouldn't do no good!
The manager does as he thinks best, and they never interfere with him.
Why, he cut down nearly all the girls' wages lately, and they knew they
durstn't say a word! He'd discharge the first one that did! An' all that
makes it so much harder now to get on."

Nora did all she could to console the poor girl, talked of "trust" and
"patience," till the words, coming from one in her position, to one in
Lizzie's, seemed almost to die on her tongue, and she wondered they were
not thrown back in her face.

But Lizzie had learned her lesson of "patience" better, and when Mrs.
Travers said, rather bitterly, "Ah, yes, it's a poor world for us poor
women," Lizzie only said, wiping away her tears:

"Oh, well, we must make the best of it! Tain't no good frettin'!"

Nora offered, rather hesitatingly, to go to see Lizzie next afternoon,
if she liked, and the offer was gratefully accepted.

"And maybe you could say a good word to Jim; he'll be at home then, and
though I never can get Jim to go to church, I guess he would listen to
you!--and p'raps Nelly might be there, too. I do wish you could get to
know Nelly! She'd mind what you would say, a sight better than anything
I can tell her."

Nora walked silently homeward, with a new sorrowful image before her. As
she dressed for the dinner-party, the pale tear-stained face seemed
still before her, and she was calculating how much it would cost to buy
a good warm winter jacket for the half-clad girl.

Little Cecilia had begged to be allowed to help her to dress, and
eagerly did all she was permitted to do, admiring with silent intentness
the rich soft folds of the velvet that showed to such advantage the
straight, graceful, rounded figure, and the white neck and arms that
gleamed out of the fine old lace; and, what seemed to the child the most
beautiful of all, the cross of pure, translucent pearls which so fitly
adorned the white throat above the square-cut corsage. This old pearl
cross, Aunt Margaret's parting gift, and a prized relic of her long-past
girlhood, was Nora's favorite ornament. Its form was symbolical of a
thousand tender, sacred associations, and the purity of the pearls
seemed emblematic of a higher purity, divine and human. She liked to
wear it as a reminder to herself of many things that she desired never
to forget, even in the gladdest and most festive moment. And to-night it
seemed connected in her thoughts with Lizzie's pale pathetic face, and
her life of perpetual self-sacrifice.

"Well, you look very nice!" said Mrs. Blanchard, approvingly, as she
came in to make an inspection--"only you're pale--you want some roses."

And as she spoke, she produced a lovely cluster of pink and blush roses,
which she fastened on the creamy lace of Nora's corsage; while deftly
twisting an opening bud among her silky coils of hair, to Cecilia's
manifest delight.

"There," she said, "that lights it up a good deal!" and she walked back,
casting critical glances at the general effect. "The severe style does
suit you--that can't be denied!" she added.

"Oh, what lovely roses!" exclaimed Nora, bending her graceful head, to
inhale their delicate fragrance. "It was so good of you to get them for
me!"

"Well, I didn't get them, to tell the truth! I meant to get some,
though; but this morning I got a little box from Mr. Chillingworth, with
a note, begging that you and I would oblige him by wearing the contents.
See, here are mine," pointing to a cluster of tea-roses on her own blue
satin. "So you see I kept them for a surprise, sort of _coup de grâce_;
now, I think that was quite a clever idea."

"But ought I really to wear them?" asked Nora, doubtfully. The "roses"
had come to her face, now, as well as her dress, giving just the one
touch which her sister-in-law had thought she lacked.

"Why, of course you can," replied Mrs. Blanchard, quickly. "Just as well
as I can wear mine! It was so nice of the dear man to think of us
_both_!"

"It was _very_ kind, and there's nothing I like so well as roses," said
Nora, again breathing in their fragrance; "and these made me think so
much of summer and Rockland."

But it is doubtful whether it would have given her so much pleasure to
wear them, in her present mood, had she known just what they cost!




CHAPTER XII.

TABLE-TALK.


When the little party reached Mrs. Pomeroy's sumptuous drawing-room--a
blaze of light and color--most of the guests had already arrived. Mr.
Pomeroy, a large, important looking man, who seemed to be on excellent
terms with himself and with the world in general, greeted them with a
rather pompous cordiality, and then retired to the background to
continue his conversation with an old gentleman of somewhat grim and
shaggy aspect, whose old-fashioned frock-coat contrasted somewhat oddly
with his host's expansive shirt-front and irreproachable dress-suit.
Mrs. Pomeroy was a rather small, dark-eyed woman, with a good deal of
character and energy in her face, and a dress of sober richness, almost
suggestive of Quakerism in its hue. Miss Pomeroy, rather tall, and dark,
and good-looking, though with a slight hardness and discontent about the
curves of her face, was engaged in an animated conversation with Mr.
Chillingworth. Kitty Farrell--looking exquisite and radiant in some
diaphanous, pink, silky texture, was appropriated, of course, by young
Pomeroy. Her father, with a thin careworn face, quick and restless in
his movements, was talking with Mr. Pomeroy and the old gentleman, while
Mrs. Farrell, fair, languid, and most tastefully attired, reclined on a
sofa beside Mrs. Pomeroy. There were some other people, including a
banker and his wife--a Mr. and Mrs. Cheever, accompanied by a Miss
Harley, an English lady with an English complexion and roundness of
figure, who was paying them a visit, and on whose account, mainly, the
party was given. Nora was speedily introduced to a young man who arrived
almost simultaneously with themselves--fresh and good-looking, with
dark-brown hair and full moustache, which parted in a frequent smile
over very white teeth. He was introduced as "Mr. Archer," and Nora was
trying to make up her mind whether she liked his face or not, when
dinner was announced, and her new acquaintance offered his arm.

The dinner-table seemed like a miniature garden of exquisite flowers,
amid which gleamed the silver, crystal, and costly Haviland china--a
recent acquisition. Mr. Pomeroy was a man who always liked to be sure
that he had "the best" of everything, and who regarded it as a duty to
gratify his desire to the utmost. As Nora sat down and involuntarily
took in the impression of beauty, brilliancy and costliness afforded by
the whole, her thoughts went back once more to poor Lizzie's struggling
life, with its sordid surroundings, and the winter jacket she couldn't
buy. But Mr. Archer's amusing flow of talk, and the interest of finding
out the ideas and tastes of a new acquaintance, soon diverted her
thoughts. Mr. Chillingworth, who had taken in his hostess, was seated on
her other side, and claimed a large share of her attention. A certain
Mr. Wharton, of literary proclivities, and the old gentleman aforesaid,
were nearly opposite.

"So good of you to come this evening," said Mrs. Pomeroy. "We shouldn't
have fixed on Saturday, but it seemed the only evening we could have
Miss Harley, who will be here only for a few days. But we thought you
wouldn't mind, for once."

"Oh, I happened to be pretty well up with my work this week; so I could
allow myself the pleasure, with a clear conscience," replied the
clergyman.

The talk drifted about in the usual inconsequential manner of
dinner-parties. The courses, _entrées, et cætera_, were many and
elaborate, and were evidently thoroughly appreciated, by the gentlemen,
at least. Mr. Archer smilingly noticed that Miss Blanchard declined
wine, as indeed did the hostess, also, who had pronounced views on the
subject of total abstinence, it appeared, although yielding to her
husband's wish to have wine at his table. Mrs Pomeroy was indeed a
"prominent worker," as the _Minerva_ would have put it, on various
philanthropic and mission boards So she hastened to reinforce Miss
Blanchard in a playful skirmish as to the merits of total abstinence
societies and of Prohibition, of which she was a strenuous advocate. Mr
Pomeroy presently, however, shut off the discussion by telling his
friends that they had better enjoy their champagne while they could, as
Mrs Pomeroy was determined to take it from them altogether, and there
was no knowing how soon she might succeed. And then he struck at once
into a fresh subject.

"By the way, Wharton, that was a capital letter of yours in the
_Minerva_ the other day, on that last book of Henry George's."

"Glad you thought so," replied Mr Wharton, complacently. "I thought the
_Minerva_ was growing quite too enthusiastic over it, so I just touched
them up a little on the subject."

"And you did to some purpose," said his host. "That was a good point you
made, anyway--when you showed up the fallacy of that absurd assertion
that the poor are growing poorer. I haven't read the book myself, but if
that's how he talks, I should say it's great stuff!"

"Oh, that point's the thing!" rejoined Mr Wharton, pleased to dilate a
little on a favorite subject. "If you grant him that, you have to grant
him a great deal more. But of course it's absurd."

"Well," said Mr. Archer, his moustache parting over his white teeth,
with his cynical smile--"I suppose we don't any of us live just as our
ancestors did in Queen Elizabeth's time. I doubt if her majesty ever saw
such a charmingly arranged dinner-table in her life!" Here he bowed
toward the hostess. "But I happened to see something of the tenements of
New York lately, in connection with a case which involved the
proprietorship of some of them. I really think I'd rather have the
Elizabethan style, so far as the laborer is concerned. But of course,
all laborers don't live in rooms that would hardly be fit for a
dog-kennel."

Nora's thoughts went off to the wretched apartment in which she had so
lately spent the night, but she was too shy to join in a general
conversation. Her brother, however, remarked tersely, that he saw some
wretched enough kennels, even in Minton, and that, "if some quarters of
the city were not soon looked after, they would be hearing of an
outbreak of typhoid fever or diphtheria, the first thing."

"Oh, Doctor!" exclaimed Mrs. Farrell, in alarm. "You don't say so. I do
hope it _will_ be looked after soon!"

Mrs. Pomeroy, however, remarked that, for her part, she thought the poor
people seemed very happy and comfortable, so far as she came in contact
with them, in connection with the Clothing Club.

Mr. Archer smiled again. "By the way, Mr. Pomeroy," he remarked, "have
you seen the new paper?"

"What new paper?" inquired the host.

"_The Brotherhood_, the new champion of the oppressed and down-trodden
workmen! I tell you, you manufacturers will have to look out. You'll be
brought to book for all your iniquities."

"Yes, I believe I did see a wretched little sheet of that name
somewhere, started by some crank. But of course, I haven't time to look
at such things."

"Ah," said Mr. Chillingworth, "I suppose that is the paper a young man
came to canvass me for! I don't know whether he wanted me to take it or
to write for it. But I see he has sent it to me."

"Oh, _both_, Mr. Chillingworth!" retorted Mr. Archer, smiling with mock
persuasiveness. "The editor of it, Mr. Roland Graeme, is well known to
me; in fact, I have the honor of having him at present in my office, and
I can answer for him that he would be delighted to accept any
contributions from your pen."

"Or from mine, say," remarked Mr. Wharton.

"I'm not so sure about _you_! You are too much on the philosophical
tack! You wouldn't have enough sympathy. _The Brotherhood_, you know, is
founded on the idea of Christian fellow-feeling."

"Thanks, very much, for your good opinion!" retorted the other.

"I've heard a good deal about that fellow, Roland Graeme," remarked Mr.
Pomeroy, in his tone of bland patronage. "I should say he hadn't enough
to do! He's been aiding and abetting the 'Knights of Labor,' in every
way he can; in fact, they say he's one, himself: and they're troublesome
enough, without having better educated people, who ought to know better,
putting their oars in!"

"'Knights,' indeed!" echoed Mrs. Pomeroy, sarcastically, "Precious
_knights_!"

"Why, they actually had the cheek to come and interview _me_, lately,"
said Mr. Pomeroy. "They had a whole list of grievances that they wanted
remedied. Willett wouldn't have anything to say to them, so they came on
to me. And I believe this Roland Graeme was at the bottom of it."

"Well, he isn't half a bad fellow," said Mr. Archer, "but he's awfully
soft in some ways. A child could get round him, quicker indeed than a
grown-up person," he added, half to himself. "But what did you do? Did
you grant their requests?"

"Not I! There were far too many. They wanted shorter hours, and bigger
pay, and half-holidays, and all the rest of it. Oh, by the way, there
_was_ one thing, Willett had been negligent about, some shafting that
had been left uncovered; I had that inquired into and put right."

"Then the interview wasn't absolutely without results," remarked the
elderly gentleman in the frock-coat, joining in the discussion for the
first time, and speaking in a deep, guttural, Scotch voice and accent.

"Oh, I've no doubt we'd have put that all right in due time, without
their interference," said the host, somewhat superciliously.

"Aye! After an accident, and an inquest, and a suit for damages,"
returned the Scotchman, with a dry smile and twinkle of the eye.

"Come! come! Mr. Dunlop, you have a rather bad opinion of us, I know;
but for our own sakes, you know, we want to have everything right about
the mills. And as for all these other things--why, if we went to
pampering and coddling those people to that extent, they would think so
much of themselves, that by and by they wouldn't want to work at all.
Why now, if we were to do as they ask, increase their pay and shorten
their hours, how could we compete with firms that went in the old way?
The thing is preposterous. As it is, those people who get their pay
regularly and have no care, are better off, this minute, if they only
knew it, than we who have all the care and responsibility, that they
know nothing about. Let me help you to a bit of partridge; you'll find
it just right, I think."

"And would you be caring to exchange with one of them?" persisted Mr.
Dunlop, as he accepted the slice of partridge.

"Why, no, of course, it wouldn't suit me any more than my work would
suit them."

"That's a very fallacious test of yours, Mr. Dunlop," interposed the
sagacious Mr. Wharton. "As Mr. Pomeroy says, what would suit one
wouldn't suit another. And then, the environment we are accustomed to
counts for something. Our friend here, accustomed to his charming
surroundings, as a matter of course, could not lose them without real
deprivation. But a man unused to them would find them only a burden.
Depend upon it, things in this world find their own level after all."

"Of course they do," rejoined Mr. Pomeroy; "as for all this talk about
'Fraternity and Equality,' the stuff such people as this Graeme are so
fond of spouting--poisonous trash!--it's simply making people
discontented with the inevitable conditions of life, and doing them no
possible good. It's so much rank poison, morally speaking, is it not,
Mr. Chillingworth?"

The clergyman had been listening silently, but he now readily responded.
"Oh, there is no doubt in my mind that all the evils complained of--and
no doubt there are some hardships--can be remedied in only one way, in
the spread of the Christian spirit of love and service which must
eventually prevail over selfish and partial views."

"And that would probably have been your verdict, in the last generation,
as against abolitionists like Garrison and Phillips and Whittier, would
it not?" remarked Mr. Archer, in his even, cool, slightly satirical
tones. "Slavery would die out gradually, as the Christian spirit spread
among the planters. But then, the question would have been, again, Who
should _begin_? Slave-holder number one wouldn't want to begin till
slave-holder number two did; so it would be difficult to see how the
reformation would get started."

"Come now, Philip!" said Mrs. Pomeroy. The young man was a distant
relation of hers, and took liberties accordingly. "You don't mean to put
us all on a level with slave-holders, surely! This is a free country, I
should hope; and no one is called on to do more for his _employés_ than
he conveniently can."

"Ah, now, my dear cousin, that's a delightful sort of philosophy! Do you
know, I've sometimes found it inconvenient to pay my clerks, when I had
been going in heavily for opera-tickets--I'm glad to think I'm not
called on to do more than I conveniently can."

Philip Archer could always turn the most serious argument into a joke
when he pleased--and he always pleased at a certain point--but Mr.
Wharton was not going to let him off so easily.

"Of course you were not serious in that analogy of yours," he said.
"There can be no parallel between a distinct wrong to humanity, and
purely relative matters like wages and hours."

"And are ye sure ye have a clear comprehension of what _are_ the
_rights_ of humanity?" struck in the deep Scotch voice. Mr. Dunlop had
finished his partridge, and, having laid down his knife and fork, seemed
ready to begin hostilities in earnest.

"I tell ye what it is," he went on, without waiting for a reply, "it
would pay all you capitalists and employers just to take a look into
things a little, to see what your men are doing and thinking--what the
'Knights' and 'Unions' are after--and consider if ye couldn't arrive at
some rational understanding. There's nothing would propitiate them
quicker than that. This thing's going to grow! It's young yet, and only
totters on its feet; but by and by it will be as we say in Scotland,
'neither to haud nor to bind!' Awhile ago, ye were speaking of
'Fraternity and Equality,' Mr. Pomeroy. There was a third thing that
went wi' them in the old days, that ye didna' mention! We're supposed to
have got _Liberty_, and it's bound to work out its own salvation. I tell
ye there's a big, silent army, marshalling without fife or drum, and if
ye persist in ignoring it, as the grandees of France did before _their_
Revolution, _ye'll_ maybe have a revolution, too. What if the men were
growing nae poorer? They see you all growing richer, the style of living
rising on all hands. Can they be o' the same stock with you, and no want
to rise too? And then wi' your 'protection' an' your 'combines,' ye're
loading them down wi' a greater weight o' taxation than it took to make
your ancestors rise and fight, shoulder to shoulder, for their
independence! But ye won't see it! It's been aye the way, 'Whom the gods
would destroy they first make mad'!"

"Why, Mr. Dunlop, I had no idea you were such a pessimist! You must have
been taking an extra dose of Carlyle!" said Mr. Pomeroy, evidently
trying to smooth out a frown, and retain his usual bland exterior.

"Aye! I've read my 'French Revolution' to some purpose, an' human
nature's the same in all places and ages," was the grim reply.

"And what would you have us poor blinded creatures do?" inquired his
host; "take all our men into partnership? A nice muddle they'd soon make
of it!"

Miss Harley had been listening with deep interest to the little
skirmish, her cheek flushing slightly, and her clear eyes shining with
some vivid emotion. Now she spoke, with a soft clearness of tone that
seemed to give every word additional weight.

"I think," she said, "that we, in England, have got so much accustomed
now to the word _coöperation_, that it begins to sound quite natural to
us. Mr. Ruskin, of course, did a great deal to drive it into us, and a
good many others have caught it up. And I can tell you something of the
success of one experiment. My father had extensive works in Wiltshire.
He had been reading Ruskin's _Fors Clavigera_, mainly on social matters,
you know, and, being a Quaker, and having strict ideas as to duty, he
began to think he wasn't using his men quite fairly. He knew, too, that
there were some socialists among them, trying to breed mischief, and he
thought he would try an experiment. So he invited a large number of the
more intelligent of the men to meet him and hear his report of the state
of the business. He laid it all before them, in the most precise and
business-like way, explained the assets and debts--cost of working,
annual proceeds, and all. He tried to give them an idea of the risks
run, the capital needed, the fluctuations of trade, and so on, and then
he told them that he would give to each man who proved his steadiness,
and who chose to accept it, instead of wages, a certain share in the
profits, graduated according to the value of his work. Of course it was
only the picked men who accepted. The more shiftless and less
intelligent preferred to take their ordinary wage, which was always a
generous one, thinking 'a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush'.
But the others made, my father used to say, 'capital partners'--they
took such an interest in the business, were constantly suggesting little
improvements and ways of saving waste, and were always on the lookout
for all carelessness or 'scamped work' among the other men. And when a
tight time came, they were able to convince the others that if they were
kept on at all, it must be at a reduction. 'You see _we_ can't afford
more,' I've heard one man say to another, going home from work. And when
there were 'strikes' and failures all around, his business continued to
live on, like an organic creature, as he used to say, drawing itself in
or letting itself out according to circumstances. And sometimes the
generosity of the men in a slack time used to bring tears to his eyes,
as he would tell us about it with pleasure and pride."

Every one had listened with interest to the pleasant little episode. Mr.
Chillingworth's dark eyes had lighted up with enthusiasm.

"Ah, that was beautiful, indeed!" he said, with a warmer spontaneity
than usual. "Thank you, indeed, Miss Harley, for telling us about it.
That is how things should stand between master and men. We have some
noble men in the old land yet!"

"Now, Mr. Chillingworth," broke in his hostess, "you're not going to go
back on _us_, surely!"

"By no means! but you must pardon an Englishman his pride in the old
stock."

"I should quite imagine," remarked Mr. Pomeroy, "that in such an old
country as England, so conservative in all social matters, and so
tenacious of vested rights, such a plan of coöperation would answer very
well. But it would be quite a different thing, in a more democratic
community, to let workmen get in any degree a hand on the reins.
Business is too complex here--financiering too delicate. It would be
like letting a bull into a china shop."

A lady has one great advantage in an argument, that she cannot be
abruptly choked off, especially by her host, no matter how distasteful
her arguments may be. Perhaps Miss Harley was conscious of this
advantage, for she forthwith proceeded to describe, at some length, a
most successful profit-sharing enterprise which her father had taken her
to see, at Guise, in French Flanders; a great foundry which owed its
prosperity, mainly, to the zeal, and enterprise of Monsieur Godin, a
disciple of Fourrier's, who had consecrated his life to elevate the
condition of workingmen. The capital, she said, was gradually being
transferred to the workmen, who already owned more than half a million
dollars worth of stock; and the success, so far, was most encouraging.
She then described enthusiastically the great _Familistère_, or
residence establishment, begun by Godin about 1859--the large
quadrangular buildings with courts covered in with glass, the
coöperative shops and schools, the arrangements even for coöperative
char-women, till it seemed as if she were quoting from some dreamer's
Utopian fable. Mr. Archer took a mischievous delight in drawing her out
on the subject, as Mr. Pomeroy subsided into silent endurance till, at
length, to the host's evident relief, the ladies rose to leave the
table, when he quickly switched the conversation off on a political
track.




CHAPTER XIII.

PIPPA PASSES.


When the ladies adjourned to the drawing-room, which was so littered
with costly knick-knacks that, as Nora afterwards averred, "it looked
like a bazaar," that young lady gravitated by a natural attraction to
Miss Harley's side, eager to ask her more questions about matters which
had begun to interest her deeply. From Flanders, their talk soon drifted
onwards to Germany and Italy. Nora, strange to say, had never yet been
abroad, and cherished a most fresh and unsophisticated interest about
those far countries which she had as yet seen only in books, pictures
and dreams. Then they went on to talk of art; and, as a book of
illustrations of Italian art lay conveniently at hand, they looked over
a number of the engravings of old pictures together. They were lingering
over the tragic face of Beatrice Cenci, with the mystic sorrow-laden
eyes, which so attract and haunt the beholder; and Miss Harley was
giving Nora an outline of her story, as you hear it in Rome, when the
door opened, and Mr. Chillingworth entered, speedily finding his way to
Miss Blanchard's side.

"I got tired of the politics in there," he said, smiling slightly, "so I
thought I would set a good example. Ah! you're looking at the Cenci.
What a tragedy lies sealed up in those dark eyes! What a type of the
thousand tragedies that lie sealed up in many a ruin of those terrible
old days!"

"And do you think we have no tragedies about us now?" asked Miss Harley,
looking up at the tall figure above her.

"Oh yes, undoubtedly! But not so many, or so grim, I hope! And then, you
know, we don't see present things quite so effectively, or in such good
perspective as we do the past! We need a little distance, you see, in
order to take things in as a whole."

"I suppose you are right, artistically speaking," replied Miss Harley,
doubtfully. "But for myself, I must say, the sorrows of the real people
about me always interest me more than the most romantic stories of the
past."

"Now, don't try to persuade me that you are quite such a realist, Miss
Harley, when you have shown what an idealist you are on social topics.
What a noble man that father of yours must have been! I should like to
know more of him. But come, Miss Blanchard, I see you are trying to make
up your mind whether you're on Miss Harley's side or mine, and I don't
want you to give judgment against me! Suppose you give us a little
music, you and Miss Farrell. Can't we have a few airs from the
_Messiah_, now? It would be such a good finish to the week's work--just
what I need to put me in tune for to-morrow's duty!"

Nora colored a little at his thought-reading, but at once rose to comply
with the request, which Miss Harley warmly endorsed. She had heard of
Miss Blanchard's singing, and would be charmed to hear it for herself.
There was a parlor-organ in a corner of the large room, in addition to
the piano, and as they all agreed that this accompaniment would be much
the more suitable for the music, Mr. Chillingworth gave his services as
accompanist, playing with great taste and feeling. Nora sang the air,
"He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd," and the other "He Was
Despised and Rejected," with clear sweetness and pathetic expression,
while a subdued stillness gradually stole over the little group of
talkers at the other end of the room. Then, to check the little buzz of
admiring comment, she insisted on Kitty's following at once with the
air, "Come Unto Him All Ye That Are Weary and Heavy Laden:" Mr.
Chillingworth took his turn in rendering, "Every Valley Shall Be
Exalted," playing the beautiful undulating accompaniment for himself.
Miss Pomeroy wanted to hear some of the choruses they had been
practising, and they were just trying the angel's song, "Peace on Earth
and Good Will to Men," when the other gentlemen entered the room.

The old gentleman, whose appearance and words had interested Nora a good
deal, did not appear with the others, and she presently asked Mr.
Archer, who came up to join her at the piano, what had become of him,
and who and what he was.

"Oh, Dunlop always likes to slip away early," he said. "He's a queer old
party! He's made a good deal of money in one way or other, so he's
considered worth cultivating, and he knows it. He lives very quietly,
they say; he's been a widower for years. He goes across the sea now and
then, but always comes back 'to look after things.' He's got some ideas
of his own, too, and he seems to take a great interest in this new paper
of Graeme's--that 'crank' they were talking about. Now, I hope, since I
have so amiably gratified your curiosity, you will gratify me by a song.
I could catch distant echoes, tantalizingly remote, and now I want to
hear the reality."

But Nora would sing only in the chorus they were just about to begin.
She would not sing songs after the oratorio music.

When the chorus was over, Mrs. Pomeroy suggested that Mr. Chillingworth
should give them a short poetical reading before the party broke up. "I
know," she said, "that you'll give us something very nice, to dream on.
Suppose you give us something from Browning. I just love to hear you
read him! Clara, dear, won't you bring Mr. Chillingworth a volume of
Browning?"

Miss Pomeroy, who belonged to a "Browning Club," speedily produced a
volume which she knew contained a favorite reading of Mr.
Chillingworth's. That gentleman seated himself where the soft light of a
silver reading-lamp could fall most pleasantly on the book, while the
rest of the company disposed themselves in various attitudes of
luxurious repose, as people are apt to do after a sumptuous repast.
Young Pomeroy threw himself on a sofa beside Kitty, where he could make
whispered comments _ad libitum_. Nora found a place near Miss Harley,
while Mr. Wharton lay back in an easy-chair with an expression of
complaisant and critical expectancy.

It was the beautiful opening of the poem "Pippa Passes," that Mr.
Chillingworth read, in a voice of musical quality and with a finished
elocution, for he had paid special attention to that art. Perhaps it
might have been objected that the reading suggested too much of the
artist, and too little of the man. But Nora listened with keen and
absorbed pleasure, as, through the music of the poet's lines and the
reader's voice, one scene after another rose before her "inward eye."
The glorious Italian morning just breaking over a sleeping country; the
sunrise reddening, flickering, then "pure gold overflowing the world";
the little mill girl springing up, eager to lose not one minute of the
long, lovely day, appealing to it, with its "long, blue solemn hours,
serenely flowing" to "treat her well," and not spoil her one precious
holiday by such gloom or showers as would not mar the pleasure of people
richer in holidays and joys--the haughty beauty, the happy bride and
groom, the boy and his mother, or Monsignore, in his dead brother's
palace, the grandees of her little world:

    "But Pippa--just one such mischance would spoil
    Her day that lightens the next twelve months' toil
    At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil!"

Nora's thoughts went back with a bound to poor Lizzie Mason, her sad,
tired face and shabby dress, and wondered if such thoughts and fancies
ever flitted vaguely through her brain on a holiday. But the little girl
is dreaming now of what or whom she shall please to be to-day:

    "To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk,
    The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk:
    But, this one day, I have leave to go,
    And to play out my fancy's fullest games."

Ah, poor Lizzie! far too heavily weighed down by serious and pressing
cares, to have any wish to "play out fancy's games!" She glanced at Mrs.
Pomeroy, who sat with clasped hands and attitude all attent, and at Miss
Pomeroy, reclining with her cheek resting on her hand and an unusually
softened expression in the lines of the somewhat hard face. She wondered
if it occurred to them, how many _real_ dramas might be going on about
them, as worthy of their sympathy as this one, idealized by the power of
the poet. She began to think how it would be, if she were, there and
then, to go to Mr. Pomeroy with a petition to restore to his toiling
maidens their full measure of wages. Strange that people should feel so
much more for a girl in a book, than for the real flesh-and-blood ones,
in daily life! But Mr. Pomeroy had apparently gone to sleep, and his son
was whispering to Kitty, instead of listening. Ah, what was that? Was
not this Kitty--to the life!

                      "For are not such
    Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature,
    As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature?
    A soft and easy life these ladies lead:
    Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed."

Was that how their protected happy life looked to those who saw them _de
bas en haut_? Was it any wonder that girls like Nelly were pert and
discontented? With such thoughts drifting through her mind, she
listened, swayed by the magic power of poetry over the souls that are
open to its charm, to Pippa's pathetic yearning for the love which,
after all, is the blessing of blessings--the warm, cherishing love of
the brooding bird, the love of the mother for the child, ending in the
cry,

                            "If I only knew
    What was my mother's face--my father's, too!"

But what are these lines that follow? Nora listens with caught breath to
the passage which closes the reading, given in Mr. Chillingworth's most
impressive manner.

    "Nay, if you come to that, best love of all
    Is God's; then why not have God's love befall
    Myself as, in the palace by the Dome,
    Monsignor?--who to-night will bless the home
    Of his dead brother; and God bless in turn
    That heart which beats, those eyes which mildly burn
    With love for all men! I, to-night at least,
    Would be that holy and beloved priest.

    "Now wait!--even I already seem to share
    In God's love; what does New-year's hymn declare?
    What other meaning do these verses bear?

    "All service ranks the same with God:
    If now, as formerly he trod
    Paradise, his presence fills
    Our earth, each only as God wills
    Can work--God's puppets, best and worst,
    Are we; there is no last nor first.

    "Say not 'a small event.' Why 'small'?
    Costs it more pain that this, ye call
    A 'great event,' should come to pass,
    Than that? Untwine me from the mass
    Of deeds which make up life, one deed
    Power shall fall short in or exceed!"

And so poor Pippa passes on, consoled for the wearisome silk-winding,
the scant food, scant raiment, scant human love.

                                    "Oh yes--
    I will pass each, and see their happiness,
    And envy none--being just as great, no doubt,
    _Useful to men, and dear to God, as they!_"

Yes, that was the best thing after all. Surely poor self-denying Lizzie
had this best blessing of loving service. Nora scarcely heard the
finishing lines of the passage, so engrossed was she with that thought.
Mr. Chillingworth closed the volume, and a chorus of thanks and
admiration followed.

It was Nora's first introduction to Pippa. She was familiar with most of
the poets of the century--Tennyson, Whittier, Wordsworth, Longfellow;
but with Browning she had scarcely got beyond the outer husk which
repels so many, and really knew only one or two of his minor Lyrics. But
the new, strenuous, heart-searching note took her captive. And often as
she afterwards read the poem, she never did so without seeming to see
the pathetic picture of Lizzie Mason, side by side with the little
dreaming Italian silk-winder.

After the guests took leave, Kitty asked her if she would not come to
church with her on the following evening, to hear Mr. Chillingworth
preach, as she was occasionally in the habit of doing--Mr. Alden's
church being the one her brother regularly attended. Nora willingly
promised, and a little meaning smile passed between Kitty and her
_fiancé_, as well-informed people now considered Harold Pomeroy to be.




CHAPTER XIV.

A REPORTER AT CHURCH.


The Blanchards were an old Puritan family, and Dr. Blanchard, who
inherited a good deal of the Puritan steadiness of temperament, held
staunchly by the old ways, notwithstanding the fact of his having
married an Episcopalian wife. Mrs. Blanchard's family were parishioners
of Mr. Chillingworth, she herself having married shortly after he had
entered on his present charge, and he had always been treated as a
friend and welcome guest. But Mr. Alden had been Dr. Blanchard's
minister since he had first come to Minton. He had owed much, as a young
physician, to Mr. Alden's kind brotherly counsels and warm Christian
influence; and his preaching just suited men like the doctor, to whom
plain, downright, unpretentious, practical teaching was most acceptable.

Nobody ever heard Mr. Alden dealing with any abstract "plans" or
"systems," or with purely commercial considerations of future "rewards
and punishments"; or with a so-called "salvation," uncomprehended as to
its real nature, to be procured by a certain vague assent to an equally
uncomprehended formula. He gave his people, not scholastic theology, but
_religion_, as he found it in the Bible, warm, concrete, throbbing with
the human heart. He showed them the Infinite as he saw Him in every page
of his Bible, but especially in the Man of Nazareth; not as the cold,
stern Law-giver, ready to make His creatures suffer for even
intellectual shortcomings and mistakes, but as the infinitely
loving--infinitely righteous Father, seeking to raise all His children
to their highest possibilities; while, at the same time, he laid down
the irreversible laws of spiritual and moral life and health, with the
faithful candor of a true physician. And he was perpetually seeking,
first to call out in the hearts of his people a grateful and loving
response to that Infinite Love, so divine yet so human; and, next, to
show how the truth of that response lay in real turning from sin, a
willing and faithful obedience to the voice of God in duty, in every
relation of life, and that duty nothing less than that of "loving our
neighbor as ourselves." No one ever left his church without feeling more
strongly impressed with some point of his duty to his brother
man--without having had another lesson in the truth that "love is the
fulfilling of the law." Some critics, especially clerical ones, who
missed a certain familiar terminology, and a well-worn conventional way
of putting things, shook their heads over what seemed to them
"superficial" and "latitudinarian," but Mr. Alden only smiled quietly to
himself. He knew that he was not superficial; that what he taught people
went to the very root of the matter; that, if he sought to be "broad as
God's love," he sought also to show, in its divine distinctness, the
sharp line of demarcation between good and evil, love and selfishness.
And he knew that, in the real and quickened life of many, his ministry
was not without its fruit.

But Roland Graeme, with the best will in the world, could not find much
material for a striking "report," as he sat next morning, note-book in
hand, anxious to do Mr. Alden some justice in the _Minerva_. There were
no high imaginative flights, like those in which Mr. Chillingworth
indulged; though now and then there would be a burst of real eloquence,
struck out of the tense emotion of a tender heart, yet almost impossible
to summarize in a sentence. All Roland could do was to give the outline
of the clear, practical teaching addressed to the heart and conscience,
the appeals to do battle with the demon of selfishness, the close
analysis of the base substratum of so many current usages and maxims,
and the condemnation of them by a simple comparison of them with the
teachings and example of Christ.

Miss Blanchard's quick eye soon noticed the young man, though he sat at
some distance on the opposite side of the church. She recognized, at
once, the slightly upward poise of the head, the clear candid eyes, the
earnest, kindling look, as the preacher warmed to his subject. She
observed, also, his pencil and note-book, and wondered if he were taking
notes for his own benefit. For no one ever thought of "reporters" in Mr.
Alden's church. Once Roland's eye caught the graceful figure and
_spirituelle_ face that he had by no means forgotten, and saw by its
expression, that he too was recognized. Nora fancied that his glance
wandered frequently, from the preacher to the sweet childlike face of
Grace Alden, sitting with a troop of little ones in the minister's pew
near the pulpit. She did not wonder at it, for she, herself, loved to
look at Gracie, of whom she had grown very fond. There was in her fair
face, such a heavenly purity, combined with a sunny brightness, of which
the golden wavy hair seemed the natural outward expression, that she
attracted Nora's eyes as if by a magnetic influence. And Nora knew, too,
that the outward beauty was only a symbol of the genuine goodness and
sweetness of a nature of rare gentleness and purity. Kitty was as fair
in all external points--more exquisite and finished indeed; but her face
could never "hold" Nora as did that of this child of sixteen.

As Miss Blanchard passed out, Grace pressed up to her as she usually
did, for the affectionate greeting they always exchanged.

"Father wants you to come, to-morrow evening, to a private meeting of
the 'Helping Hands,'" she said. "He's going to make arrangements for a
Christmas festival. He wants you on the programme for a song or two, and
you are to come to tea, of course, he says."

"You can depend on my coming, then," was Nora's ready reply. Few people
lingered when Mr. Alden said "Come!"

That afternoon, Nora prepared for a visit to Lizzie Mason, with a little
nervous trepidation. She had been accustomed from childhood to visiting
among her poor friends in Rockland, and loved to do it. But, much as she
was interested in Lizzie, she felt shy about going in among a set of
strange faces, and into such a home as she could but dimly picture, with
the formidable figure of "Jim" in it, too, as a subject for her
exhortations. However, the thing must be done, and she braced herself to
do it, accordingly.

It was not so hard, after all as she found when she reached the poor
street, with the dingy unattractive houses, and stopped at the door to
which Roland Graeme had guided her. Lizzie was on the lookout for her,
and showed her into a little family sitting-room, where everything was
poor and shabby enough, but yet clean and tidy. No one was there but
"Jim," a rather good-looking young fellow, with a somewhat sullen brow
and weak mouth and chin, who sat reading a newspaper, quite unconscious
of the various little wiles whereby Lizzie had managed to detain him
indoors till her expected visitor should arrive. He rose and saluted
Miss Blanchard awkwardly, with evident surprise at her appearance, and
then retreated into the background, where he could look at her at
leisure without being observed. The children were out at Sunday-school,
Lizzie explained, "and mother had gone in to see a neighbor." She
herself looked rather better and much brighter than she had done the day
before.

"After you were gone, yesterday afternoon," she said, "the nurse came
in, and thought I wanted a tonic, so she went and got me one from the
dispensary, and I declare I feel quite set up by it already; and she
talked a good deal to us, too. My! it was just beautiful! it brightened
me up ever so much to see her and you!"

Of course, thought Nora, the poor girl needed a tonic; she wondered she
had not thought of it. Certainly Janie Spencer _was_ cut out for a
nurse. But it was not the tonic alone which had done Lizzie good; the
kind sympathy and cheering talk had been quite as effectual.

Nora tried to draw "Jim" out a little, but it was hard work. He replied
by monosyllables, chiefly negatives. He didn't care for reading; he
didn't go to church, he didn't think it would do him any good if he did.
As for approaching the special subject of Lizzie's dread, it would, of
course, have been impossible without something to lead up to it. Nora
was rather relieved when the door opened, and Nelly stepped in, very
much "got up" for a Sunday walk, and looking prettier and more pert than
ever. She was really a good deal taken aback at seeing Miss Blanchard
seated there, but she nodded familiarly, and answered in a tone meant to
assert the dignity and independence of one who felt herself "as good as
anybody."

Nora did her best to try to get at the girl's real self--talked to her
patiently and gently, overlooking the pertness that offended her
fastidious sense of the fitness of things. At last she asked her if she
ever went to church with her friend Lizzie.

"No," said Nelly, "I guess I've got enough of big stuffy rooms full of
people, all the week! I want some gayer kind of a picnic than that!"

Jim laughed, and even Lizzie smiled a little. They evidently thought
this a clever speech of Nelly's. Nora made no reply, indeed she was at a
loss what to say; and presently Nelly rose, remarking that she must go
on for her walk, as the afternoon was nearly over. Jim, of course,
accompanied her. Nora could not help thinking of the tender-hearted,
dreamy Pippa of the poem; and wondered what could be done with such a
hard and frivolous specimen as this. Yet, had she only known it, her
grace and gentleness and culture had had their effect on this girl,
under all her _insouciance_; had set her vaguely longing for something
that as yet she only dimly felt, something better and nobler than
anything she yet knew. We are not, as a rule, ready to show outwardly
when our self-satisfaction has been upset, and more than half of the
elevating influences of life arise out of mere contact of the higher
with the lower; far more out of what we _are_, than out of what we say.

Nora remained a little longer with Lizzie, gently trying to raise her
mind to the ideal that had so cheered herself in thinking about the poor
overweighted life. The girl did, evidently, lay hold of it to some
extent. She had that in her already, which prepared her for it, even if
she could not yet comprehend the words in which the poet had put the
truth, that:

    "All service ranks the same with God."

But the anxious, loving little heart could at least grasp and hold
something of the "best love of all."

After waiting to see and greet the mother--a tired-looking woman,
prematurely broken down by ceaseless toil, Nora bade Lizzie good-by,
putting into her hand Ruskin's touching little "Story of Ida," of which
she herself was very fond, and which she thought Lizzie might be able to
appreciate. Later, she was thankful that she had followed the impulse to
do it--one of those instincts that are quicker and often truer than
reason.

Mr. Chillingworth's evening sermon was the one on which he was wont to
"lay himself out." Strangers often came to hear it, and it was
frequently reported. Roland Graeme was there as usual, as reporter; and
Miss Blanchard again, from her seat in the gallery, caught a glimpse of
the young man scribbling away in his note-book. It was odd, she thought,
how often he had seemed to cross her path since their accidental
meeting. The sermon was one of Mr. Chillingworth's most eloquent ones,
full of grand ideals, with no lack of fine and forcible expressions;
here and there, Roland thought, somewhat too rhetorical for a thoroughly
cultivated taste. There were touches in which Nora could recognize
traces of the Browning reading, the evening before, for Mr.
Chillingworth could hardly refrain from bringing into his sermons
anything which had strongly impressed him. But, however fine Mr.
Chillingworth's ideals might be, there was always a gap between these
and the realities of common life, which he seemed unable to fill up.
Their uplifting influence did not, in general, last longer than the
concluding words, except in the case of the few who could supply what he
failed to give them. In that of most of his audience, there was a period
of transient exaltation, followed by a collapse of the artificial wings,
and a sudden descent to the commonplace flats of average life and
feeling. Neither did his hearers, in general, connect these ideals with
the humble details of daily life; especially as his presentation of good
and evil was often drawn with such melodramatic intensity of light and
shade, that his hearers failed utterly to connect either with
themselves. It never occurred to Mr. Pomeroy, for instance, that the
"self-surrender" so glowingly advocated implied that he should devote
time, thought and sacrifice to the interests of his work-people. To Mrs.
Pomeroy the idea meant only increased devotion and generosity to her
favorite "missionary enterprise." It never occurred to her that it might
mean, also, a loving, motherly interest in the many comparatively
friendless girls, whose toil was helping to gather in for her the wealth
she had to bestow, but for which _she_ "neither toiled nor spun." As for
young Pomeroy, he never once even thought of any reason why he should
ever put himself out for anybody. Miss Pomeroy was perhaps beginning to
think a little, though she was naturally neither responsive nor
expansive; but it was not Mr. Chillingworth who had made her begin.

_As_ the seat occupied by the Pomeroy family was not far from that
occupied by the Farrells, Harold Pomeroy joined Nora and Kitty _as_ they
moved out. When they reached the foot of the stair, they encountered, in
the full light of the vestibule, Roland Graeme, coming from the opposite
side. Not being of the order of girls who can carelessly pass, without
sign of recognition, a person with whom they have conversed, because
they may not have been formally introduced, or because he or she may not
be in "their set," Nora was glad of the opportunity of giving him a
courteous salutation, and a pleasant "Good-evening," which was as
courteously returned.

"Why, how on earth did you come to know that fellow?" exclaimed young
Pomeroy in surprise, after Roland had passed on.

"Why should there be anything surprising in it?" returned Nora, rather
stiffly. She cordially detested Mr. Pomeroy's "airs."

"Only I shouldn't have supposed you were likely to have met Graeme," he
said, in a somewhat apologetic tone.

"Is that Roland Graeme!" she exclaimed, too much surprised to think of
anything else for a moment. Kitty laughed heartily.

"So Nora, you didn't even know who it was that you were bowing to? That
_is_ funny!"

"No, I didn't know his name, certainly, but I know _him_. That was the
young man who escorted me to see the sick woman I went to help that
evening, don't you remember? I had a good deal of talk with him on the
way, and I liked him very much. So that is the Roland Graeme they were
talking about last night. Well, I don't think he's a 'crank' in the
least."

"Oh, even a crank can be sensible sometimes, you know," said young
Pomeroy. "But I hope he isn't going to make a disciple of you."

"I shall certainly read _The Brotherhood_ now," replied Nora,
maliciously. "I believe there's a copy in my brother's surgery."

"And I certainly shall _not_" returned the young man, as he and Kitty
bade her good-night at Dr. Blanchard's door.




CHAPTER XV.

HELPING HANDS.


When Miss Blanchard reached Mr. Alden's house the next evening, she met
with the usual warm welcome from the whole family,--Grace as usual
constituting herself her special attendant, and claiming a song from her
friend before tea.

"For we shan't have any time, you know, after, on account of the
meeting," she said, coaxingly.

But just as they were looking over the music, and deciding what song it
should be, the door opened to admit Mr. Alden's cheery presence. And
with him came in, to Nora's amused surprise, Mr. Roland Graeme.

"I met Mr. Graeme down town," Mr. Alden explained, "and we got so
interested in the things we were talking about, that he walked nearly
all the way up with me before we knew it, so I wouldn't let him go back.
I told him he must come in and have tea with us, as I want him to come
to our meeting. So now, my dear Miss Blanchard, please go on. I'm glad I
came just in time. You know my favorites--give me one of them, please."

And he threw himself back in his easy chair, his face lighted up with
its most genial smile. Miss Blanchard thought for a minute or two; then,
with a significant smile, both at him and at Roland Graeme, she took a
well-worn song that lay at hand, and sang with great spirit, "A Man's a
Man for a' That." Mr. Alden listened with evident delight, his deep bass
occasionally breaking into the chorus, till, when the last verse was
reached, he turned to Roland:

"Come Mr. Graeme, I know you can join in that song. Gracie, let us all
give that last verse in a ringing chorus." And they did--the four voices
blending in very pleasant unison in the words:

    "For a' that and a' that;
    It's coming, yet, for a' that;
    That man to man, the warld o'er,
    Shall brothers be for a' that!"

"Now, Miss Blanchard, I presume you gave us that as a delicate
compliment to my likings and to my young friend's new venture--_The
Brotherhood_!" Nora smiled and bowed. "But of course that song doesn't
do your singing justice, for any tyro like me can sing it, in a way, if
he only has the heart. Now, I want you to give us my favorite love-song,
"Robin Adair," my mother's old-time lullaby. _That_ does bring out her
voice," he added, turning to Roland.

"It's a song I'm very fond of," Roland replied.

Nora sang the old, tender, Scotch love-song with a simple pathos that
suited it as well as did her fine contralto. Roland, who like most
emotional people, was exceedingly sensitive to the power of music, felt
it float through his whole being--soothing the nervous system which had
been on the strain all day, and taking him, for a moment, into that
world of romance among whose bowery walks it is so pleasant, for even
the most practical-minded, occasionally to wander. But the dream of
romance was abruptly ended by the summons to tea. And Nora could not
help noticing, all through that meal, how Roland's eyes followed every
motion of Grace Alden with a quite unconscious devotion. It recalled to
her Tennyson's line:

    "And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung."

But Grace, she was sure, would never be the "shallow-hearted cousin Amy"
in any event. Was she too much of a child, still, to be touched by this
unspoken, though evident admiration on the part of a young man so
attractive as Roland Graeme? Nora could not, at any rate, detect, in the
frank ingenuous face, any trace of consciousness. And the father and
mother seemed equally unconscious; which was scarcely to be wondered at,
for they regarded Grace, at sixteen, as only a child still. Fathers and
mothers are often the last to see that the nestlings are fledged.

Nora, as most people will have discerned, was a rather romantic young
woman, and it did not take many minutes for this little possible romance
to flash through her brain. Roland sat near her at tea, and his first
remark was, naturally, an interested inquiry for the poor invalid to
whom he had guided her.

"And how is the little girl getting on?" asked Mr. Alden, when Nora had
given her report of the mother.

"Oh, she seems tolerably contented, now," was the reply. "But she is a
strange child--rather; very variable in her moods, though very
concentrated and self-contained. Under all her quietness, she seems
nervous and excitable, with a passionate and self-willed nature--I can
see very well--though her very shyness seems to keep it down."

"I have no doubt her mother must have a history," said Mr. Alden,
thoughtfully. "I wish we could know what it is."

"Cecilia has a wonderfully good ear," Nora went on, "and a perfect
passion for music. I shouldn't wonder if she were to turn out a
_prima-donna_ yet."

"And so you have taken charge of the child, yourself," said Roland, his
eye lighting up with ready sympathy. "That was truly kind!"

The words were said with so much feeling, that Nora felt slightly
embarrassed, but turned the matter off by declaring that,
notwithstanding her peculiarities, she was a very interesting child, and
they were all growing quite fond of her. She would be sorry when her
mother could claim her again.

"Gracie must go and bring her here, some day soon. It would do her good
to be with these noisy youngsters for a while," said Mr. Alden.

"She's a remarkably refined child," said Nora. "Her mother must have
kept her very much to herself."

"Well, we mustn't lose sight of her. There's no knowing what may be made
of her yet." And then Mr. Alden turned to Roland, and they resumed the
discussion they had begun before. It was on some rather abstruse
questions as to the relations of capital and labor; but Nora--with her
intelligence on such matters quickened by the argument she had so
recently heard--listened with attention enough to grasp, at least, the
general position involved. Mr. Alden had taken a great interest in the
enthusiastic and generous young reformer, and was genuinely anxious to
keep him, if he could, from rushing into extreme or ill-considered
views, however plausible they might at first sight appear. And though he
had not the advantage of Roland's special reading on these subjects, his
sound, common-sense experience and insight into human nature gave him a
quick perception of the fallacy of any extreme position, such as Roland,
in his inexperienced enthusiasm, was often too ready to embrace.

"The 'Knights' want me to give them a lecture by and by. I'm thinking of
taking up the subject of 'Modern Miracles,'" said Roland, with a smile.

"Meaning, I suppose, the wonders science is perpetually astonishing us
with?"

"Yes, especially as an agency at work in consolidating the human race
into one organism; having common interests and common dangers, so that a
famine in one quarter of the globe means scarcity in another. I don't
want to take up the labor question directly, just now; I should get the
name of an 'incendiary' or an 'agitator' at once, and I don't want to
make the men any more discontented than they are. It's the employers we
want to get at. But such a subject as the 'Miracles of Science' would
afford plenty of opportunity for pointing out the benefits of
coöperation, as being necessary for guiding these tremendous new forces
for the good, not the ill, of humanity."

"Will any one besides 'Knights of Labor' be allowed to go?" asked Nora.

Mr. Alden looked at her with one of his broad, genial smiles. "Are _you_
taking an interest in such matters, then?" he asked.

"I have been, lately," Nora said. "The subject seems to be 'in the air.'
Everything I've heard or read lately seems to bring it up. And I know so
little about it, really, that I want to learn."

"--The best possible frame of mind for getting wisdom," replied Mr.
Alden. "I wish my people would only come to church in it! Well, I hope
Mr. Graeme is not going to shut the public out; and then you and I can
go together to hear him."

Roland's face had again lighted up with pleasure. "I believe it's to be
an open meeting," he said. "Of course there's no reason for excluding
the public, and I think they want to make a little by it. I'll ask
'Brother' Dunning, and let you know."

"You all call each other 'Brother,' in the

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/36243