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Eunice

by Margaret M. Robertson · English · Gutenberg #38196 · 355,200 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Eunice

Author: Margaret M. Robertson


        
Release date: December 3, 2011 [eBook #38196]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38196

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUNICE ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Eunice
By Margaret Murray Robertson
Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London.
This edition dated 1890.

Eunice, by Margaret Murray Robertson.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
EUNICE, BY MARGARET MURRAY ROBERTSON.

CHAPTER ONE.

GOING HOME.

One fair morning, a good many years ago, a number of schoolgirls were
waiting at a little wayside station on the banks of the Connecticut
River.  They had crossed the river in a ferry-boat and were waiting for
more of their number who were coming after them.

They were waiting patiently enough.  It was a good place in which to
wait, for the scene around them was very lovely.  They were standing at
the foot of Mount Tom, glorious in the morning sunshine, and looking
over on the shadows which still lingered on the face of Mount Holyoke.

From the far north flows the Connecticut River broadening on its way, as
Green Mountain and White send down on either hand, from melting
snow-drifts and hidden springs, their tribute to its waters.  Through
forests and broken hill country, through meadows, sometimes broad and
sometimes narrow, past town and village and lonely farmhouse, it flows
before it makes a bend to pass between Mounts Tom and Holyoke, but in
all its course it flows through no fairer landscape than that which
spreads itself around the base of these two historic mountains.

Over all the land lay the promise of spring in the glory of cloudless
sunshine.  Only the promise as yet.  The mountains were still bare and
brown, with patches of snow lingering in hollow and crevice; and the
great elms that were everywhere--in the village streets, along the roads
that wound between the hills, and around the white farmhouses--showed no
tinge of green as yet, but their brown buds were ready and waiting to
burst; the meadows were growing green and the catkins were large and
full on the willows by the brooks that hastened through them to the
river.  There was a soft tinge, half green, half golden, on earlier
trees growing in sheltered places; and the promise of the spring was
everywhere--more joyfully welcomed after a long winter than spring in
the full glory of leaf and blossom.

They were thinking and speaking of other things--these waiting
schoolgirls.  Some of them walked about, softly speaking last words to
each other, and some of them were watching the coming of the boat over
the swollen waters of the river.  But the beauty around them, the
sweetness of the spring morning, the restful quiet on mountain and
valley, were present with them all.

"Nellie Austin," said a voice from the group that watched the boat, "do
you see?  Your `Faithful' is coming after all."

"My Faithful!"--and a young girl sprang forward as the boat touched the
bank.

A slender girl, very plainly dressed, stepped out first--a girl with
grave dark eyes and a firm mouth, which yet trembled a little as she
answered her companion's greeting.

"Faithful! my Faithful! you are coming home with me after all?"

"No, dear; I am going home to my Eunice.  I thought I had better."

"Have you heard again?  Is she not well?"

"I have not heard again; but she is not very well, I am afraid.  I must
go and see."

"But you will come back again?  You will never, never think of not
coming back!"

"Oh, yes, I hope so!  I think so--unless she is really sick."

"Oh, she is not so very sick, or you would have heard!  What should I
ever do without you?  Now you must sit with me as far as I go.  Here are
the cars!"

There was no time to lose.  The "cars" had come which were to carry the
schoolgirls home for a fortnight's rest and holiday.  From the windows a
good many people looked out with interest on the group of girls, and one
said to his friend--

"They are from the seminary over the river yonder.  We saw it as we came
on."

"Schoolgirls?  No; they don't look like schoolgirls.  The greater part
of them must be out of their teens, I should say."

"Possibly, but all the same they are schoolgirls, though there may be a
teacher or two among them."

"Well, friend, after all that you have been telling me about your
wonderful common school system, I should have supposed that the
education of these sedate young persons might have been finished before
the age of twenty."

"Oh, I have no doubt that these young persons have had the benefit of
common school and high school too, before they aspired to a place in the
seminary over yonder; and the chances are that some of them since then
have earned, either with hands or head, the means to carry them further
on; and for these there can be no better place than the plain brick
seminary on the other side of the river!"

"Well," said his friend, "I can only repeat what I have said to you more
than once already--you are a curious people in some ways--with your boys
who are men, and your prim grave-faced young women who are schoolgirls.
I should like to put a question or two to some of them, if I might."

His friend shook his head.

"You may have a chance to do so before you leave the country, but not
to-day, I think.  You have no grown-up schoolgirls in _Old_ England?
Out of _New_ England I don't suppose we have so very many even in this
country; and there are probably more in the seminary over there than in
schools generally among us.  It was built by special means for a special
purpose.  A woman built it--a woman who never owned a dollar that she
had not first earned--a great and good woman.  She gave herself, body,
soul, and spirit, to the work of helping her countrywomen--her sisters,
she called them all--who were hungering and thirsting, as she herself in
her youth had hungered and thirsted, for knowledge."

"With a view to making learned ladies of them all?"

"Learned ladies?  Well, yes, perhaps--as a means to an end.  You may
think it strange, as others have thought; but this woman really believed
His word who said, `Ye are not your own.  Ye are bought with a price.'
`None of us liveth to himself.'"

"In a way, we all believe them, I suppose."

"Yes, in a way.  Well, she believed them in another way.  She believed
them and lived them all her life long.  Learned ladies!  Yes; but the
keynote of all her teaching was this: `Not your own, but His who bought
you.  His for service or for suffering, for watching or warfare, for
life or death.'"

"Well?" said his friend, as the speaker paused.

"Well, she is dead, and `her works do follow her.'"

There was no time for more.  The train stopped, and several of the
"schoolgirls" rose to leave.  The travellers heard one "Good-bye"
spoken.

"Oh, if you would come with me even yet, dear Faithful!"

"Another time I hope to go with you; but not this time."

"Well, good-bye, my Faithful, good-bye.  No, I am not going to cry, but
I _will_ kiss you, whatever any one may think about it."

And then the speaker was gone.  No one saw her companion's face for some
time after that.  Nor did she see the receding mountains on which she
seemed to be gazing.  Her eyes were dim with tears which must not be
allowed to fall.

"Fidelia Marsh," said her companion at last, "what are you thinking
about?  Not little Nellie Austin all this time, surely?"

The young girl turned round.  "I was trying to think how it would seem
if I were never to see her or any of you all again;" and then she turned
her face to the window, and sat silent till her turn had come to say
"Good-bye."

"Yes, this is my stopping-place."

She smiled and nodded to those who were not within reach of her hand,
and seemed to be cheerful enough in her good-bye, but she did not linger
near the window when she reached the platform, as Nellie Austin and her
friend had done.

It was a dreary little station, standing at the foot of a broken stony
slope, with only one unfurnished house in sight.  One lank official
moved about at his leisure, and one embryo trader hastened to display
his boxes of lozenges, and his basket of unwholesome peanuts and last
year's apples.  There were doubtless prosperous villages along the wide
road that crossed the railway, and pleasant farmhouses amid the high
pastures and moist meadow lands hid away among the hills beyond; but the
dingy house and the dull little station were all that could be seen from
the windows of the cars, and Fidelia's companions said to one another
that the place looked forlorn.

"And poor dear Fidelia!  Does she not look forlorn as well?"

They had time to watch her as she went to claim her trunk, and they saw
her shake hands with the leisurely official, who was evidently an
acquaintance.  But when she turned at last to the window she did not
look "forlorn."  A beautiful face looked up from under a big bonnet--a
rarely beautiful face, delicate yet strong.  There were slight hollows
and a darkened shade beneath the lovely grey eyes set wide apart under a
low broad forehead, and the pale rose-tint on her cheeks might have been
deeper with advantage.  The look of delicacy was due to the hard work
she had been doing, but the strength was real, and she would last
through harder work than ever she was likely to have at school.

Forlorn?  No.  Her face was radiant!  The solemn-looking station-master
had wrought the change.

"Well, Fidelia, you've got home, haven't you?  Folks don't expect you,
do they?"

"I didn't write that I was coming.  I was not sure till the last minute.
Are they all well about here?"

"Yes, I guess so.  Eunice is well, any way.  She was to meeting Sunday;
and seems to me Lucinda said she was at the sewing-circle at the
doctor's the other day.  She'll be glad to see _you_, sick or well."

"I'm glad and thankful that she is well," said Fidelia softly.  "I must
say good-bye to the girls."

She turned quickly towards the faces at the windows.

"Have you heard good news, Fidelia?" called some one.

There was no time for words, but the joy on the girl's upturned face was
better than any last words could have been, even though her lips
trembled and her eyes were dim with tears.

And then the train swept on among the hills, and she who had been called
"Faithful" turned her face toward her home, to get the first glimpse of
the work which awaited her there.  Not the work which she had been
planning for herself during the last year, but her work all the same--
the work which God had appointed her to do.

Declining the station-master's invitation to "go in and see Lucinda and
wait for a chance to ride home," she went on her way with a cheerful
heart.  She followed the wide road, leading westward, only a little way.
Then she went in at an open gate, and across a stony pasture, till she
came to a narrow road leading at first through a thicket of spruce and
cedar, where it was necessary carefully to pick her steps over the wet
moss and stones, and over the network of brown roots which the spring
freshets had laid bare.  After a while the road began to ascend, and
then the cedars and spruces were left behind, and birch and poplar and
dogwood, but chiefly great maple trees, with branches high above all the
rest, covered the hillside.  It was up hill and down again all the way
after that till the journey was done.

But she did not mind the hills or the roughness of the way.  The fresh
air and the free movement were delightful to her in her new freedom, and
everything about her seemed beautiful.  She caught sight of many a green
thing growing among the dead leaves; and more than once she paused and
stopped as if she would have liked to pick them.  But her hands were
full, and the nearer she drew to her home the more eager she grew to
reach it.  "I'll come again," she murmured.  "Oh, I am so glad that
Eunice is well!"

She reached the top of a hill steeper and higher than the rest, at a
point from which could be seen a few miles of the railway, passing along
the valley.  Her thoughts came back to her companions, and she sighed,
and all at once began to feel tired; and then she sat down to rest, and,
as she rested, she took a book from the bag which she had been carrying
in her hand.

"I am so glad that Eunice is well," she said to herself as she turned
over the leaves.  "She was at meeting, he said, and at the
sewing-circle.  Well, I am glad I came home all the same.  And I can do
something at `The Evidences' while I am here."

She glanced on a page or two, and in her interest in them she might have
forgotten her haste, and lingered, had not the sound of approaching
wheels disturbed the silence a little.  She rose in time to see the
leisurely approach of an old grey horse and an old-fashioned
weather-stained chaise.  They were familiar objects to her, and some of
the pleasantest associations of her life were connected with them; but
her heart beat hard and her face grew pale as she watched their slow
approach.

"Dr Everett," said she, "are you going to see Eunice?"

"Is it you, Fidelia?  Are you just come home?  No, I am not going to see
Eunice.  Is she not well?  She'll be glad to see _you_, sick or well,"
added the doctor, as her other friend had done.

He was out of the chaise by this time, and offering his hand to help her
over the crooked fence.  But, instead of taking it, she gave one glance
in the kind good face, and laid her own down on the rough bark of the
cedar rail and burst out crying.

"It was full time for you to come home, I think, if that is the best
greeting you have to give your friends.  You've been overdoing, and have
got nervous, I guess," said the doctor, moving aside first one rail and
then another from the fence, to make it easier for her to get over.

"Oh, no, Dr Everett, it is not that!  Nervous indeed!  I don't know
what it means.  Only I'm so glad to get home, and--so glad that Eunice
is well--"

If she had said another word she must have cried again.

"Well, never mind.  Get into the chaise, and I'll drive you home; and
then I'll see about Eunice and you too."

It was ridiculous, Fidelia told herself.  It had never happened in all
her life before.  But it was more than she could do for awhile to
command her voice or stop her tears.  The doctor made himself busy with
the harness for a little, and, having left his whip behind him, he cut a
switch from a hickory-tree beside the road; and by the time he was ready
to get into the chaise Fidelia was herself again.

"Have you been having a good time?" asked the doctor presently.

"Yes, indeed!  I have enjoyed every minute of it.  And I have been
perfectly well, Dr Everett.  I have never lost one recitation."

"I suppose you have been at the head of the class and have got the
medal."

Fidelia laughed.  "I'm not the best scholar by a good many.  But I have
got on pretty well."

"Well, you have got up a step, I hear."

"I have been taking some of the studies of the second year.  My Latin
helped me on, and--other things.  And--I mean to graduate next year."

"Do in two years what other girls are expected to do in three or four,
and injure your health for life doing it?  That would be a poor kind of
wisdom, little girl."

"Oh, I haven't been doing too much, and I don't mean to!  But you know,
two years means more to Eunice and me than it does to most people.  Oh,
it will be all easy enough!  I was well prepared.  You see Eunice knew
just what was needed."

"Yes, and Eunice is a good teacher."

"Isn't she?" said Fidelia eagerly.  "I haven't seen one yet to compare
with her.  Oh, if Eunice had only had my chance!"

"Softly, little girl!  Your chance, indeed!  Dear Eunice is far beyond
all that sort of thing.  She has had better teaching."

"Yes; but Eunice would have liked it.  You know she was at the seminary
one of its first years.  And she would have gone on.  She told me the
last night I was at home that it was years before she could quite give
up the hope of going there again.  And I don't see why she shouldn't.
She is not thirty-two years old yet; and it was not just for young girls
that the seminary was built; and--"

"My dear, Eunice has got past the need of all that.  It would be like
sending you and Susie back again to the old red schoolhouse, to send
Eunice there."

The doctor had cut his hickory stick, but he had not used it, and old
Grey had been moving on but slowly.  There was still a long hill to
climb before they reached the spot where Fidelia could catch a first
glimpse of home.  Old Grey moved slowly still, but neither of them spoke
another word till he stood still at the door.

It was a low wooden house, which had once been painted brown; but the
weather-stains on the walls, and the green moss and the lichens on the
roof, made its only colouring now.  It had wide eaves, and many
small-paned windows, and a broad porch before the door.  A wild vine
covered the porch and one of the windows, and the buds were beginning to
show green upon it.  The house stood in a large garden, which might be a
pretty garden in the summer-time, but nothing had been done to it yet.
The sunshine was on it, however, and it was beautiful in Fidelia's eyes.
She had lived in this old brown house more than half of the eighteen
years of her life; she had been faithfully cared for and dearly loved;
and there were tears in her eyes, though her face was bright, as she
went in at the door.

"You are coming in, Dr Everett?" said she.

"Yes, I am coming in.  Do you suppose Eunice has a glass of buttermilk
for me this morning?"

"If she has not, she has got cream for you, I am quite sure," said she,
laughing.

Then they went in, and, finding no one, they went through the house to
the garden beyond, where a woman with a large white sun-bonnet on her
head was stooping over some budding thing at her feet.  She raised
herself up in a little, and came towards them, closely examining
something which she held in her hand.  So she did not see them till she
came near the door where they stood.  As she glanced up and saw them a
shadow seemed to pass over her face.  The doctor saw it; but Fidelia
only saw the smile that chased it away.

"My little girl!" said Eunice softly.

Fidelia hid her face on her sister's shoulder, and no word was spoken
for a minute or two.  Then they went into the house, and Fidelia said,
with a little laugh,--

"I got homesick at the last minute, dear, and so I came home."

"All right, dear.  If you could spare the time, it was right to come.  I
am very glad."

The doctor got his buttermilk and cream as well, but he sat still,
seeming in no hurry to go away.  He listened, and put in a word now and
then, but listened chiefly.  He lost no tone or movement of either; and
when Fidelia went, at her sister's bidding, to take off her bonnet and
shawl, he rose and took the elder sister's hand, putting his finger on
her pulse.

"Are you as well as usual these days, Eunice?" said he.

For an instant she seemed to shrink away from him, and would not meet
his eye.  Then she said, speaking very slowly and gently,--

"I cannot say that I am quite as well as usual.  I meant to see you in a
day or two.  Now I will wait a little longer."

"Had you better wait?"

"Yes, I think so.  I am not going to spoil Fidelia's pleasure, now that
she is at home for a few days, and I will wait.  It won't really make
any difference."

"Eunice," said the doctor gravely, "are you afraid of--anything?"

A sudden wave of colour made her face for the moment beautiful.  Tears
came into her eyes, but she smiled as she said,--

"No, not afraid; I hope I should not be afraid even if I should be going
to suffer all that I saw her suffer."

"Eunice, why have you not told me before?  It was hardly friendly to be
silent with any such thought in your mind."

"Well, it is as I said.  A little sooner or later could make no
difference."

"And because you did not like to make your friends unhappy you ran this
risk."

The doctor was standing with his face to the door at which Fidelia at
the moment entered, and his tone changed.

"Well, to-morrow you must send your little girl down to see my little
girls, unless they should hear of her home-coming, and be up here this
afternoon.  No; they shall not come, nor any one else.  You shall have
this day to yourselves.  And mind one thing--there must be no
school-books about during vacation time.  Miss Eunice, I will trust to
you to see to that."

And then he went away.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE SISTERS.

"Are you really well, Eunice?  You don't look very well," said Fidelia,
kneeling down beside her sister, and looking wistfully into her face.
"Are you sure that you are well?"

"I am pretty well, dear.  I have been about all the winter pretty much
as usual.  Who has been telling that I have not been well?"

"No one has written, in so many words, that you were sick.  But you
don't seem to have been about among the neighbours as much as usual, and
you have given up your class in the Sunday school."

"Yes, I gave it up for a while, but I have taken it again.  I thought I
had better give it up in the beginning of the winter, as I could not be
quite regular, because of the bad roads.  And Mr Fuller--the new
teacher--could take it as well as not.  He was glad to take it; and he
is a born teacher.  He has done good work among the boys on Sundays and
week-days too.  But he has gone away, and I have my class again.  Was it
because you thought I was sick that you came home, dear?"

"Well, I wanted to be sure about you.  And I got homesick when I saw the
other girls going.  I am glad I came: I can help in the garden."

"Yes; and ten days in the garden will do more good to your summer work
than ten days at your books could do.  I am very glad you have come
home."

"I only brought one book.  I must take a little time for it.  Now I will
get dinner if you will tell me what to do.  I am hungry."

"Of course you are.  And I can scarcely wait to hear all you have to
tell me."

She did not need to wait.  Fidelia laid the table, talking all the time
as she went from pantry to cupboard; and Eunice listened as she prepared
the dinner with her own hands--as she did every day, for there was no
"help" in the house.  It was a very simple meal, and it was spread in
the room in which it was prepared.

It was the winter kitchen and the summer dining-room--a beautiful room,
perfect in neatness and simplicity, and in the tasteful arrangement of
its old-fashioned furniture.  There was a "secretary" of dark wood,
which might have "come over in the _Mayflower_" between the windows,
with a bookcase above it; there were a tall clock and two carved
armchairs, a chintz-covered sofa which looked new beside the rest of the
things, and a rocking-chair or two.  There were pretty muslin curtains
on the windows, and pictures on the walls; and except for the stove that
stood against the chimney-place one might easily have mistaken the room,
and called it the parlour, for there was no trace of kitchen utensil or
kitchen soil to be seen.  The utensils were all in the "sink room" which
opened near the back door, and the soil was nowhere.

All the house was beautiful in its perfect neatness.  Everything in it
was old, and some of the things were ancient, and had a history.  A
story could be told of oak chest and bookcase and bureau.  Some
association, sad or sweet, clung to every old-fashioned ornament and to
every picture on the wall.

"I don't believe there is so pleasant a house in all the state as this
is," said Fidelia gravely.

Her sister smiled.  "You have not seen many of the houses in the state,"
said she.

"But I have seen several.  And I think I know."

They had the long afternoon to themselves.  The elder sister had
something to tell about the quiet winter days, many of which she had
spent alone.  She said nothing of loneliness, however; she called it
restful quiet.  She had had visitors enough, and every one had been
mindful and kind, from Judge Leonard, who had sent his sleigh to take
her to church on stormy Sundays, to Jabez Ainsworth, who had shovelled
her paths and fed her hens and cow all the winter, and left her nothing
troublesome or toilsome to do.  She told of the work which had occupied
her, the books she had read, and the letters she had received and
written, and enlarged on several items of neighbourhood news which she
had only had time to mention in her letter.

Then Fidelia had her turn: nothing that she could tell could fail to
interest her sister as to the months in which they had been separated.
Her studies, her friends, her room-mate, little Nellie Austin, the
youngest pupil in the school; the teachers, the school routine,
household affairs--all were full of interest to Eunice, who had been a
pupil herself long ago; but she listened in silence to it all.  Even
when Fidelia began to plan a new life for them when her school days
should be over, and she ready for work, she only said "Yes" and "No,"
and "We must wait and see."  Fidelia was too eager in her speech and in
her plans to notice the silence at the moment, but she remembered it
afterwards.

The next morning Fidelia was awakened by a kiss from the smiling lips of
her sister.

"Breakfast is ready," said she.

"You don't say so?  And I meant to be up to get the breakfast myself?"

"You did better to sleep on."

"I woke at five; and, oh, it did seem so good to shut my eyes with no
dread of the bell, and so I went to sleep again!"

Eunice went out and in while her sister dressed; and the talk flowed on
till breakfast was over and all the things put away.  Eunice listened to
it all with mingled feelings, rejoicing in her sister's eager interest
and in her success, but at the same time missing something for which she
had longed and prayed, and for which she was telling herself that she
must wait patiently a while.

Then Fidelia went out to the garden to see what was to be done there.
She walked up and down the broad path, considering ways and means of
planning how the very most could be accomplished during the fortnight of
her stay.

"It will take most of my time; but I am glad I came, and I shan't
oversleep another day.  For, whatever Eunice may say, she is not
strong."

The garden could not be neglected.  Half their living came from the
garden and the adjoining fields, where their pretty brown cow was
patiently searching among the last year's tufts of grass for some
sweeter morsel.  The pretty creature came to the fence to be petted and
praised, and her mistress did not disappoint her.

"How much do you suppose your cow understands of all you're sayin' to
her?" said a voice at her elbow.

Fidelia started.

"Oh, she understands!  Good morning, Jabez;" and she held out her hand
to a tall loose-jointed lad, with a sunburnt, boyish, but very pleasant
face, who had come up the hill from the meadow unseen by her.

"You look _well_," said he, after a moment's examination of her face.

"Thank you," said Fidelia, laughing.

"I mean, you don't look sick," said he.

"Why should I?  What have _you_ been doing this winter?"

"I have been at school.  We had a new teacher--a chap from Amherst--one
who has to teach and pay his own way.  Yes, I got along pretty well--
studied hard, if you can believe it."

"Well, what have you done?"

"_Oh_, a little Latin and history of the United States!  I could pass on
that _now_, I guess.  And I've got through the first three books of
Euclid, and in Algebra I got through quadratic equations."

She had spoken in a cool, indifferent way, but his eyes sparkled as he
looked up.

"Well done, Jabez!  I am glad.  I must examine you some day."

"Come on!" cried Jabez, throwing down the hoe he had been carrying.
"I'm ready.  Examine all you want to."

"Oh, I don't mean just this minute, but some time before I go!  How is
your grandmother these days?"

"She's pretty well.  And that makes me think that I promised her to help
churn; I'll have to be going.  I came up to talk a little to Miss Eunice
and you about the garden.  I don't suppose she'll do much in it this
year, since you won't be here."

"I shall help to make it while I am at home, if the weather will let me.
But your help will be needed after.  Come and speak to my sister."

They went into the house, and found Eunice preparing to make the bread
which she had mixed early in the morning.  Fidelia set the rocking-chair
for her sister, and took the making of the bread into her own hands.

"About the garden, Miss Eunice?  What are you going to do about it?"
said Jabez.

"I shall want some help, I suppose--a good deal of help.  Can I depend
on you, Jabez?"

"Well, I've been talking a little with grandpa about what I want to do
this summer.  He wants me to work along with Mr Grimes for a spell.
You know, Fidelia, Grimes has got grandpa's farm on shares this year,
and he would like to hire me."

"Well, and why not?"

"I can do better--that's about it."

"And what do you wish to do?"

"Well, that's just what I want to talk about."

"I shall be glad to have your help when you can be spared," said Eunice.

Jabez seemed to have a difficulty in sitting quietly in his chair.  He
fidgeted about, and let his hoe fall, and then picked it up and carried
it out into the porch; then laid his cap on the floor, and straightened
himself up, and said gravely,--

"Look here, Miss Eunice, I guess it won't hurt anybody just to have a
little talk about it.  I want you to let me have your garden this
summer--on shares if you say so; but I'd rather pay rent for it."

"Why, Jabez, you surprise me!" said Eunice gently.

Fidelia laughed.

"Go on, Jabez.  Tell us all about it."

"Well, I will.  In the first place, I want to show grandpa that I _can_
do something; and, in the second place, I want to make some money this
summer.  I think I see my way clear to do both, if things happen right."

"And what do you want money for?" asked Fidelia.

"Oh, well, I guess 'most everybody wants money!  But look here now.  I
have not told grandpa yet--it wouldn't help me with him, but I'd as lief
tell _you_ two as not.  Supposin' we have Mr Fuller here again next
winter, I'm willing to go to school here, and do chores for Miss Eunice
and at grandpa's next winter, as I have this winter.  But if he doesn't
come here, I'm going to Scranton Academy.  And if I _do_ go, I expect
I'll have to help pay my own way."

Fidelia nodded and smiled.

"But your grandfather?  You must consult him, Jabez," said Miss Eunice,
gravely.

"I mean to--after a spell.  But it isn't best to worry him with too many
new ideas at once.  Now see here, Miss Eunice--this is the whole
concern.  There was a lot of city company in our town last summer, and
the cry among them was for fresh fruit and garden sass.  There's going
to be more of them here this summer, down the street in the hotel, and
over at the Corners, and all around.  This part of the state's got to be
quite popular with city folks, and I should like to have the chance to
supply them early."

"But do you know anything about a garden?" asked Fidelia, greatly
interested.

"Well, yes.  Grandpa has kept me pretty close to work in ours.  I've
been down to the judge's some, too; and Sandy Scott, his gardener, has
given me a good many hints, and has promised to see to my work a little.
I am not afraid, not a mite.  And if you'll let me have your garden,
grandpa'll let me have his, I guess; and between the two I can make
something, I know."

"I should have to think about it first, Jabez."

"Oh, yes.  I am not in a hurry for a day or two."

"And I shouldn't like to do anything that your grandfather might object
to.  I should have to talk with him about it."

"And what about your grandmother's churn in the meantime?"  Fidelia
added.

"That's so!  I'd 'most forgot it.  I must hurry up.  Here's the doctor!"

Fidelia was gently patting the loaf she had just put into the pan as the
doctor came in.

"Good morning, Miss Eunice!  Fidelia, _that_ is after all the true
woman's work.  `Loaf-maker'--or is it loaf-giver?--is the true
derivation of `lady,' they say.  But I hope you have nearly done.  Her
mother could not spare Susie to come up this morning, so I promised I
would send you down."

"I should like to go, but--"

"Cannot you spare her, Miss Eunice?  You can walk, Fidelia, you know,
and when I come back from the Corners I'll bring your sister down with
me, if she will let me; and Susie shall drive you both home in the
evening."

When the doctor had driven off, Jabez once more looked in at the door.

"There is no particular hurry, Miss Eunice.  Only I've had my hot-beds
all agoing three weeks ago, and I'd like to know as soon as ever you've
made up your mind."

"To-morrow, perhaps, I'll let you know about it," said Miss Eunice.

When her sister had gone, Eunice moved about the house, giving a touch
here and another there, till her bread was ready for the oven; and then
she set the front door wide open and sat down in the porch, for the day
was as bright and warmer than yesterday had been.  She had much to think
about.  It did not take her long to decide that Jabez should have the
garden, if his grandfather did not object.  She had not strength for the
garden now, and Fidelia would have a better visit.  How bright and eager
the child was, and how much she had accomplished!

"I knew she would do well; and I must not be discouraged, though she has
not yet caught the spirit of the place.  She has been so intent on her
work, that she has given herself no time to think of higher things.  But
His time will come.  `One thing have I desired of the Lord' for my
darling, and He will grant it, _that_ I know, whether I shall see it in
this world, or wait till we meet in the next, where her mother and mine
await us both."

She closed her eyes, and sat motionless till the sound of wheels reached
her ears.

"The doctor!  I will not go down with him, and I hope he will be willing
to wait till Fidelia goes before he speaks.  I will go out to the gate,
and he may not come in to-day."

She rose and stood waiting for him at the gate.

"Well, Miss Eunice, what do you think about going down with me?  Do you
feel like it?"

Eunice smiled, and shook her head.

"I think not, doctor.  My bread is not all baked yet."

"What is this I hear about the garden?  Are you going to let Jabez have
it, as he wishes it so much?"

"Hadn't I better, doctor?  Without Fidelia it would be too much for me,
I am afraid.  I could work in it a little for exercise, even if Jabez
had it."

"Yes, I see.  I should not wonder," said the doctor; but his eyes were
turned to the clouds that hung over the distant mountains, and he was
thinking not at all of Jabez and the garden.  His face was very grave.

"What a good face it is!" thought Eunice, as she watched it--"a true
friend's face!"

It was a good face, strong and kindly--a face to inspire confidence.  It
was brown and weather-beaten, and showed many wrinkles, and the soft
waving hair above it was as white as snow.  But it was not an old face.
The eyes were soft and bright, and the smile that came and went so
readily upon it gave it a look of youth.  Eunice could not remember the
time when he had not been good and kind to her, and she loved him
dearly.  But she was a little afraid of him to-day.  In a little, his
eyes returned to her, standing at the gate.

"Miss Eunice, what am I thinking about?  You must not stand there in the
wind.  I will go in with you.  I am not in haste to-day.  What is this I
hear about your garden?"

But Eunice knew that it was not of Jabez or the garden he was thinking,
as he followed her into the house.  She went out of the room, and
returned with a glass of milk on a tray, and her hand trembled as she
set it down.

It was of Jabez and the garden that they spoke first, however.  Eunice
told all that he had said, and the good reason he had for wishing to
make money during the summer.

"And he'll do it too--school and college and all--I should not wonder!"
said the doctor.  "There seems to be a terrible hunger for knowledge
among our young people these days.  I am not sure that I like it.  I am
afraid of it."

"Oh, doctor, you do not mean that?" said Eunice.

"In a way I do.  Knowledge!  No, I don't object to the knowledge.  But I
have a great respect for many of the tanned faces about us, and for the
hands that have been hardened by the plough and the axe.  `The profit of
the earth is for all.  The king himself is served by the field.'  And I
have no respect at all for those lads who take to their books and to a
profession because it seems a step upward, or because such a life seems
to promise an easier time.  I don't like to see our farmers' boys
turning their backs on the fields their fathers have tilled."

"But there are more boys than there are farms, I doubt," said Eunice,
with a smile.

"Yes, that is so.  But there are farms enough in the country for them
all.  And there is no one to take the deacon's farm but Jabez.  However,
we may hope that `the profit of the earth' will seem more to him after
he has sowed and reaped for his own benefit."

"I think Jabez would make a scholar.  It is in him to succeed."

"Possibly.  Oh, yes, he is a smart boy!  If he has got the notion, he'll
go ahead with it.  He's not a bad boy either, though the grandfather has
had--or rather has dreaded--trouble with him!"

And so they talked on for a while about the garden and other things,
till the doctor rose as if to go away; and then he said, speaking very
gently, just what Eunice had all along known that he came to say--"Do
you think you had better wait any longer, Eunice?"

"I suppose it will make me no worse to know just how it is," she said
faintly.

"It will be far better to know all that can be known.  I cannot but
think you may be dreading what will never come to you.  You have had a
lonesome winter.  And you have had a hard life, dear."  Eunice smiled,
but shook her head.  "I don't think I have been very lonesome.  And I
have not had a hard life--taking it all together.  Think how happy my
life was till I was twenty!"

"Yes, dear, I know.  And since then it has been more than happy.  It has
been a blessed life of help to others.  But it has been a hard life too,
in one way.  Let us see now how it is with you."

"But first let me say one word," said Eunice, laying her hand on the
doctor's arm.  "I don't think I am afraid.  I think I am willing that it
shall be as God wills.  But it may be long; and I will not, while I can
help it, have my Fidelia know what is before me.  And, doctor, I shall
need your silence and your help--"

"To deceive her?"

The doctor sat down again and covered his eyes with his hand for a
moment.

"To deceive her," repeated he, "and to break her heart afterwards with
unavailing regret?"

"Oh, she will have to know after a while, but--not as long as we can
keep it from her!"  There was silence for a minute or two.  "Well, we
will wait and see.  I will not speak to her till you shall give me leave
to do so."

Then there were a few grave questions, and a few quiet replies; and then
the doctor said,--

"Take courage, Eunice!  I would say to almost any one else, `There is no
cause for anxiety.'  But having known so well the last years of your
grandmother's life, I can hardly say you have nothing to fear from the
disease that was fatal to her; but I do say that, as far as I can judge
from your present condition, you may reasonably hope for a good many
years of comfortable health.  You should have spoken to me sooner, and
spared yourself a time of anxiety."

He did not see the look of relief on which he had counted--at least he
did not see it for a moment.

"Thank you, Dr Everett," she said at last.  "And now nothing need be
said to Fidelia."

"Why do you fear for Fidelia?  Your sister is braver and stronger than
you think."

"Oh, I think she is brave and strong!  It is not that.  But I want her
to have two or three untroubled years before the work of her life
begins; and then--"

"And what is the work of her life to be?  Is she to choose it for
herself, or is it to be chosen for her, as your work has been?  Eunice,
don't you think you may be too tender with your sister?  Don't you think
that the Lord has her and her life in His keeping, and that you need not
take that burden on you?"

Eunice smiled.  "We are bidden to `bear one another's burdens,' you
know."

"Yes; and we are told that `every one shall bear his own burden.'  You
cannot shield your sister from all the troubles of life, and it is not
well that she should be so shielded.  However, all this will keep for
another time; and I am more than thankful that there is nothing
specially painful to tell her now."  And then he asked--"Will you come
down with me, as I promised the girls you should?"

"Not to-day, I think.  I will rest, and be ready for Fidelia."

She was very tired, the doctor knew by the wavering colour on her cheek;
and he shrank from the thought of telling her something which he wished
no one but himself to tell.  Afterwards, when he had spoken, he said to
himself that he need not have been so much afraid.

"Eunice, I heard from my brother Justin lately.  He is coming home.  He
is on his way.  He may be here any day."

"Is he coming home at last?  I am glad--for you especially.  All his
friends will be glad to see him again."

She spoke quietly and cordially, just as any of his friends might have
spoken.  Then there were a few more words, and then he went away.

Eunice waited till she heard the latch of the gate fall, and waited
still till the sounds of his wheels died away in the distance.  Then she
rose and took her last loaves from the oven, and carried them away to
their own place.  Then she went slowly upstairs and laid herself down on
her bed to rest.  And there Fidelia found her sleeping, with the traces
of tears on her face, but with God's own peace resting upon it also.

CHAPTER THREE.

EUNICE.

Eunice Marsh might well say that the first seventeen years of her life
had been happy years.  Her father, a man useful and much beloved, had
during that time been minister of the only church in Hopeville, a town
in the southern part of the state.  She had lost her mother when she was
a little child, but her loss had been well supplied by the love and care
of her mother's mother, with whom she had lived, in the house that was
now her home, till the time of her father's second marriage.

Her new mother did not love her own little daughter, when she came, more
dearly than she loved Eunice, and so the happy years moved on to a
sorrowful ending.  Suddenly, in the midst of happiness and usefulness,
with no warning which those who loved him could understand, the minister
died.  Then Eunice returned to her grandparents home on the hill, and
her stepmother, with her little daughter, came there also, to stay for a
little while; and they never went away again.

It was not a very large house, and the old people were far from being
rich, but they offered the widow a home while she needed one.  She did
not need it long.  She never quite recovered from the shock of her
husband's death, and she died within the year, leaving her little girl
to her sister Eunice, "to love and care for always--to be her very own."

"And, dear, I am not afraid to leave my little darling with you," said
the dying mother with a smile.

After a while happy days came again to Eunice.  Why should she not be
happy?  Those who had gone from her had only "gone before," and those
who remained were very dear; and life was before her--a mystery!--but a
mystery of gladness and blessing, as she believed.

Dr Everett had been the minister's classmate in college, and his
life-long friend; and when the minister died, he became the guardian and
the life-long friend of his daughters.  In his house they found a second
home, and from him Eunice had the counsel and the guidance which in
their old age, and with their failing powers, her grandparents could no
longer give her.

Strong, eager, ambitious, it would have pleased the girl well to be
allowed to choose her own lot and work, and to make her own way in the
world.  But she was dutiful, and she loved her little sister dearly, and
so she was willing to be restrained and guided, and to give herself to
work which seemed at first very humble work, which almost any one might
do, but which was God-given work--a blessing to others and to herself,
as time went on.

Happy?  Looking back over those first years, Eunice told herself that no
one could have been happier than she was then.  Yes, and afterwards
also.  For that which made much of the happiness was not taken from her
at a single blow, nor was she called upon to choose between her duty and
her happiness all at once.  She knew there was no choice for her.

When Justin Everett, the doctor's youngest brother--and, like him, a
physician--saw his way open to go West to an uncle, to establish himself
with him in his profession, Eunice might have gone with him as his wife,
if circumstances at home had been different.  But it was impossible.
There was no choice to be made, and nothing to be said.

Her grandfather had been stricken helpless, with little hope of ever
being otherwise than helpless.  Over her grandmother, younger than him
by many years, hung an awful dread.  She too must die, but she might be
years in dying.  Some one would have to watch by her dying bed, as she
in her youth had watched by the dying bed of her own mother, till the
slow months wore on to years, before her tired eyes closed at last in
painless rest.

No one needed to say to Eunice that she could not leave her grandmother
to be cared for by others while she went away to find her own happiness.
She never even paused to consider the matter.  It was impossible.  Her
lover thought quite otherwise, and pleaded with her with words which
made her glad, and which hurt her sorely, but which did not move her
from her purpose.  Over one thing only she hesitated.  Should she give
him back his word before he went away?

"No," said Dr Everett; "you are both young.  Wait."

And so she waited, and was not unhappy.  No woman can be unhappy whose
life is lived not to herself but to others.  Her service was truly
willing service, and was its own reward.  She had cares many and heavy,
weary nights and anxious days, but she had kind friends who took care
for her and helped her; and her cares, and labours, and daily
self-denials, and the hourly sight of her grandmother's faith and
patience, and of her joyful release at last, did for heart and soul more
than many prosperous years of untroubled happiness could have done.

The long suffering came to an end at last.  Her grandmother died, and
Eunice was left so spent with doing and watching, and so glad for the
blessed release of her whom she loved so well, that she hardly seemed to
feel the pain of the bitter blow that smote her afterwards--at least
that was what her friends whispered among themselves.  Even Dr Everett
took comfort in the thought that she might have outgrown her girlish
fancy during these long years that had changed her into a woman.  But
Dr Everett did not know then that the news of his brother's engagement
and approaching marriage had come to her two days before it had reached
him, and that during these two days no one but her paralytic grandfather
had seen her face and heard her voice.  Even the child Fidelia had been
sent away "for a change," as she had more than once been sent away
during the last months of the grandmother's life; and Eunice's battle
with herself--if there was a battle--had been fought alone.

But, whichever way it was, it was not a matter about which many words
could be spoken.  She made no moan and she claimed no sympathy.  She was
"just as usual," as far as he could tell, Dr Everett said, in answer to
his wife's questions when he returned from his first visit to the house
after the news had been received.  Even to her old friend she had made
neither complaint nor confession; but he knew that she suffered, though
she kept silence.

"It will make it easier for Eunice in one way," the neighbours said to
one another.  "Eunice could hardly have gone away while her grandfather
lived, and this has made the path of duty plain before her."

But whether "the path of duty" was rough or smooth to the weary feet of
Eunice no one ever knew from her lips.  She was not unhappy, that was
certain.  She had the daily and hourly care of her grandfather to fill
her thoughts and occupy her hands, and when he died she had an easier
time and could rest.  And she had Fidelia.

She had an easier life; but she could not sit idle at home, or go
elsewhere for change or pleasure, as others might who had not their
daily bread to earn.  The means which her grandparents had provided for
their old age had been nearly spent during their long illness.  There
was the house and garden and a field or two, and that was almost all;
and Eunice chose to stay at home and make the best of them, rather than
do any of the things which her friends were so ready to advise, and
which she might have done.  She might have nursed the sick, or taught a
school, or worked with her capable hands or her clear head in one of the
many ways open to New England girls; but she would not be separated from
her sister, and she chose to stay at home.

"I will stay for awhile at least," she said to Dr Everett when he spoke
to her about her plans, and hinted that a change might be desirable for
various reasons.  "There is no hurry about it, I think; and just for the
present I would rather stay at home."

And the time had never come for her to go elsewhere, or to change her
manner of life in any way, and it had lately been gradually revealing
itself to her that the time could never come.  She was beginning to say
to herself: "That which I greatly feared has come upon me."

All the long suffering through which she had seen her grandmother pass
seemed to lie like a thick darkness upon her.  Even before the departure
of her sister for school she had felt or imagined symptoms, which she
thought she could not mistake, of the terrible disease which had
appeared at intervals in some member of her mother's family for several
generations; and there is no wonder that for a time her courage, and
even her faith, failed her.

She was wrong to conceal her fears from Dr Everett.  But she said to
herself: "He cannot help me.  If I am mistaken--if I am only nervous and
over-anxious, it will pass away in time, with suffering to no one but
myself.  If the danger is real, nothing--no one can help me, not even my
dear old friend."

Even more than she dreaded the long suffering she dreaded the
helplessness and weariness of illness, and the dependence upon others
which it must involve.  She shrank morbidly from the thought of becoming
a centre of painful interest to her friends and to the neighbourhood;
and she resolved to say nothing either of her suffering or her fears
while concealment was possible.  So, during the first months of winter,
making an excuse of the cold, she stayed at home, and, when chance
visitors came to her, exhausted herself with efforts to seem well and
cheerful in their presence, and bore the long suffering of suspense
alone.

Alone?  Well, she thought so for a time.  She wrote herself down as "a
woman desolate and forsaken," and it went ill with her--but only for a
time.  Even in her darkest moments she had never quite forgotten the
refuge to which she might betake herself, and she found it at last.

After a time light broke through the darkness, and she caught a
glimpse--not of the way--but of His face whose hand was leading her.
The way mattered little.  He knew every step of it, and its ending and
the rest to which it led, and why should she fear?

It cannot be said that she no longer shrank from the thought of the
long, slow suffering that might be before her; but she could after this
leave it all with Him "who loved her and gave Himself for her," and who
would give her strength to bear His will.

When the sharpest winter weather was over, and the days began to grow
long, she fell into her old cheerful ways again.  She busied herself
with her housework and her needlework, and went to church and to the
sewing-circle, as the man at the station had said.  She saw her friends
more frequently; and the neighbours, seeing the sweet content on her
face, "guessed likely that she was having a good time all by herself up
there on the hill."  And so she was; and neither friend nor neighbour
imagined that she had anything to conceal.  Nor did Dr Everett himself,
until the day when he met Fidelia, and brought her home.  Then he lost
no time in finding out all there was to know.

That morning, as he went slowly down the hill to his home, he more than
once repeated to himself the words he had spoken to Eunice,--

"I see no special cause for anxiety,"--but each time he added
gravely--"as yet."  And then he lost himself in musing on the terrible
mystery of inherited disease and suffering, and only came back to Eunice
again when he caught sight of the bright face of Fidelia standing at his
own gate.

"Poor soul!  Poor Eunice!  So good and wise and lovely!  What a fate is
to be feared for her!  And yet I am not sure that her strong and
beautiful sister is so happy as she."

And Eunice was smiling a little over the words which the doctor had
tried to make so hopeful, scarcely taking from them the comfort which he
meant her to take.

"No anxiety!" repeated she.  "Well, it is quite true.  Why should I be
anxious?  It will be all right.  I am glad he came, and that the visit
is well over."

And then she put away the last of her warm white loaves, and went slowly
upstairs to rest for awhile.

When Fidelia came home in the afternoon she found her sister sleeping,
and she saw something which she had rarely seen before--the traces of
tears upon her cheeks.  But as she stood looking down upon her--even
before her eyes opened--a smile came to her lips.

"Well," she said softly, as Fidelia stooped to kiss her, "have you had a
good time?"

"Don't you feel well, Eunice?"

"Just as usual.  Why have you come home so early?"

"It is not so very early.  We had tea sooner than usual, because--Lie
still awhile, and I will make your tea."

"I must have slept long, if it is time for tea.  Oh, yes, I feel quite
well!  You must tell me all about your visit when I come down."

Fidelia went to the window, and as she rolled up the blind and let the
light of the sunset into the room, she said, without looking round,--

"Eunice, who do you think has come to Dr Everett's?  His brother
Justin."

"Has he come already?  The doctor told me this morning that he expected
him, but he did not say when."

She came forward to the glass and began to arrange her hair, which had
fallen down, with the full light of the evening sunshine on her face.
Fidelia made herself busy about the room for a minute, and then, turning
to the window, stood regarding her sister.

Eunice was just as usual, except for the traces of tears upon her
cheeks; and Fidelia was not even sure of the tears now.

"And did you see him?  Has he changed much?  Do you like him?" asked
Eunice, busy still with her hair.

"Yes, I saw him.  Changed?  I can't say.  I don't remember him.  No;
upon the whole, I don't think I shall like him much."

Eunice turned and looked at her, smiling.

"Oh, you'll like him!  I am not afraid of that."

"Eunice, did you know that Justin Everett was coming home?"

"His brother told me this, morning.  Of course I knew that he would come
some time.  I shall be glad to see him."

"Will she be glad?"  Fidelia was saying to herself, while she made ready
her sister's tea.  "Will she truly be glad?  Has she forgiven him, or
has she forgotten him?  I would give a great deal to know her thoughts
this minute.  Oh, I hope I shall be with her when he comes to see her
first!"

A single word had done this--her sister's name, spoken by Mrs Everett,
when her husband told her that his brother was coming home.  They did
not know that she heard it.  She was greatly startled and a little
angry, though she could not have told why.  In that friendly
neighbourhood she could hardly have lived so many years without hearing
some hint of the trial through which her sister had passed in her youth;
and imagination came to the help of memory, and made her more angry
still.  She would not have remained to give the new-comer welcome if he
had not taken them all by surprise.  She only saw him at the tea-table,
where he sat, grave and almost silent, scarcely raising his eyes from
his plate.  She had not lingered a moment after the tea was over.

She was present at the first meeting between Eunice and Justin Everett,
as she had hoped she would be, but it did not tell her much.  It took
place in unfortunate circumstances.  He came up next morning, and,
finding no one in the house, passed through into the garden, where he
found Deacon Ainsworth and his grandson Jabez discussing with the
sisters the important question, "Should Jabez have the garden?"

Jabez had intimated to his grandfather that Miss Eunice would like to
see him about business if he could "step up" there some morning pretty
soon; and the deacon had lost no time, and Jabez "had thought best to
happen along so as to see the thing through," as he told Fidelia in
confidence.  They had "talked the matter over" in the house without his
help; now they were talking it over with it in the garden.  In the house
the deacon had got so far as to acknowledge that he saw no vital
objection to Miss Eunice letting her garden to his grandson.  In the
garden he was not so certain.  It would need steadiness and
perseverance, and these Jabez might fail in, even with himself to keep
the boy up to the mark.

"And if he should fail in doing well by you, Miss Eunice, I should
rather feel as if you'd expect me to make it good to you.  And I don't
know but I should feel as if I ought;" and so on.  And then Dr Justin
appeared.

The greetings all round were pleasant and cordial; and then it was
supposed by Fidelia that the deacon would go away.  But he had known
Justin Everett all his life, or at least his "youthful years," as he
said, and never doubted that it was his duty and his privilege to give
him welcome in his neighbour's house as if it had been his own.  So he
rather took matters into his own hand, and "led the meeting," as Jabez
afterwards said.  Fidelia was indignant.  Eunice was not indignant.  She
was in her heart grateful to the good deacon for "assisting" at the
occasion, though she might not have been quite pleased with his motives.

"I kind o' wanted to know how it was going to be with Eunice, so I
stayed," he told his wife afterwards; but he owned that he didn't know
much about it after all.  "If it had been the old doctor himself, I
don't know how she could have talked any other way to him.  Friendly?
Oh, yes, she was friendly and cool, but not too cool nor too friendly!
Be you certain that Justin Everett's wife is dead, Asubah?"

"Well, I declare for it!  How you talk!" exclaimed Mrs Ainsworth.  "As
if you don't know as well as I do that she's been dead these two years
and more!  I hope to mercy you didn't go to saying anything of that kind
up there.  I _should_ like to see Fidelia Marsh's eyes if she heard any
such insinuations about her sister."

But the deacon, though he had taken the lead in the conversation, said
nothing indiscreet to Fidelia or any one else, and he rose to go at
last, but not until Dr Everett came to take his brother away to see a
patient.

Jabez in the meantime had, by an effective movement on the onion-bed,
taken formal possession of the garden.  He did not see, or he did not
seem to see, his grandfather set out for home, and continued his work
then and afterwards to such good purpose, that he had so strengthened
his position as to leave nothing more to be said or done when in a few
days his grandfather "stepped up" again, to talk the matter over.
Fidelia was for many reasons glad that it was in his hands, but she
could not reconcile herself to the deacon for having so utterly spoiled
to them all the first visit of Dr Justin.

And she was not at home when Dr Justin made his second visit, and his
last at that time.  One night she came home from a long walk with her
friend, Susie, to find her sister, as she almost always found her in the
twilight, resting on the sofa, and this time again she thought there
were traces of tears on her cheeks.  After a little she was not so sure
about the tears, but she was sure of the peaceful brightness of her
sister's smile of welcome, and of the sweet words with which she greeted
her.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A VISIT.

"A good place to rest in," Fidelia Marsh was saying to herself, as she
passed with her friend Nellie Austin under the great elms whose boughs
met over the one long street which makes the larger part of the inland
town of Eastwood.  "A good place to rest in," she repeated, when the
chaise drew up before the door of the large house which was her friend's
home.

The house was one of the great square homesteads, built in the early
days of the Commonwealth, and it stood in the morning sunshine just
beyond the flickering shadows of the elm-trees in the street.  It stood
at a point where two ways met; and the south door opened on the wide
road that led away to the hilly country beyond, and there were great
elms there, too, to cast their shadows over porch and doorway when the
room grew hot.  A wonderful old grape-vine covered the porch, and there
were lilac and locust-trees and rose-bushes by the white fence which
enclosed a smooth green yard on three sides of the house.  Beyond was a
garden with fruit-trees and tall hollyhocks and great bunches of phlox,
and a row of bee-hives facing the south; and that was all that Fidelia
saw before she passed into the porch, to meet a kindly welcome.

Only at the last moment had she accepted her friend's oft-repeated
invitation to visit her in her home, and she had accepted for the same
reason which had made her refuse it before.  It was for the sake of
Eunice.  Fidelia had done well at the seminary during the summer term as
far as study was concerned.  She had done "splendidly," her classmates
declared with admiring exaggeration; but all the same, she was beginning
to think she had done foolishly--to say no worse.

She had undertaken too much for her summer's work, and had been allowed
to go on with it as perhaps no other girl there would have been allowed.
Study seemed so easy to her, she was so ready and strong and cheerful,
and altogether so sensible, that she had been left to pursue her own way
with less close oversight as to health and strength than was usual at
the seminary, and she had not proved herself worthy of being trusted in
that direction.  She had not needed to relight her lamp when the house
was at last silent, nor to study by moonlight, but she had often stolen
hours from her morning slumbers, and had carried her book to her walks
and into her hours of recreation, and even into the morning and evening
"half-hour" which is supposed by all concerned to be given to higher
things.

Of course she had overdone it, and had failed at last.  Or she thought
she had failed, because she had at last done wearily and with an effort
what she might have done easily and with secret triumph if she had been
strong and well, "with all her wits about her."  She had not failed in
the opinion of her classmates, or even of her teachers.  She had at
examinations done as well as the rest--better than most; but she had
taken little pleasure in her success, and she was afraid of what Eunice
might think of it all.

For of course Eunice must hear all there was to tell.  She could keep
nothing back from Eunice, even if she would; and in her heart she knew
that her sister's thought would be, that she had missed more than she
had gained by her over-eagerness to succeed.  And, looking at her pale
cheeks and her big eyes in the glass, she determined at least to spare
her sister the pain of seeing her till she had rested awhile, and looked
like herself again.  So she had at the last moment written to Eunice,
and had made Nellie Austin happy by coming home with her.

She was heartily welcomed by all in the house, and not as a stranger.
For Dr Austin had known her father and mother long ago, and Dr Everett
was also a friend of his.

It was a good house in which to rest--cool and quiet and well-regulated,
stirred only by the mild excitement which the comings and goings of
Nellie's three young brothers made.

But though Fidelia rested she was hardly content.  She was not at peace
with herself nor at ease in her pleasant surroundings.  Nellie had many
friends to see after her long absence, and went here and there as happy
as a bird, but, cautioned by her father, she did not urge her friend to
go with her, and for the first few days left her much to herself.  Dr
Austin watched Fidelia quietly during this time, wondering a little
where the charm was which had caught the heart of his volatile little
daughter.  This pale listless girl was little like the bright scholar
who had carried all before her in her classes, and whose kindness and
cheerfulness had been a help and refuge for the homesick and the easily
discouraged among them.  But he waited patiently.  She had been doing
too much, and needed rest and quiet and fresh air.  If her lassitude
continued many days longer, then, he told his wife, he would have
something to say to her.

In the meantime Fidelia, half conscious of their observation of her and
of their disappointment in her, was much ashamed of herself and anything
but happy, and wished with all her heart that she had gone straight home
to Eunice.

"At home, with something to do, I should never have been so stupid.
To-morrow I will find some work.  It is because, for the first time in
my life, I have nothing to do that I feel so good-for-nothing."

"Suppose you go a-fishing with the boys to-morrow.  They will like to
have you go, and it will do you good," said a cheerful voice behind her,
when she had got thus far.

Fidelia rose from the doorstep, and faced the speaker.  It was cousin
Abby Chase, who had come into the porch, and seated herself in a low
chair with a bowl of raisins in her hand.

"I was just wishing for something to do; let me help you," said Fidelia.

"Well, if you would like to, I shall be glad of your help."

She took off her own spotless apron and gave it to Fidelia, and soon
returned with another.  Cousin Abby was a distant relation of the Austin
family, who had come to live in the house in the young days of the
doctor's mother, first as help and then as housekeeper, and always as
valued friend.  She was an old woman now, and blest with a wisdom which
does not always come with years.  She was willing to place herself
aside, and to acknowledge that the work which she had done so long could
be done better by others now.

If it had cost her anything to give up the work and the responsibilities
which had filled her life for so many years, no one knew it from any
word of hers.  She was sweet-tempered and intelligent.  She had always
"loved good reading," as she said, and within certain limits she was
well read.  In the course of many Sunday afternoons she had read--a
chapter or two at a time--the books of such of the grand old Puritans as
found a place in the doctor's library.  The "Missionary Herald" and "The
Puritan" were always sent first to cousin Abby's room, and there were
few of the questions, sectional or doctrinal, discussed in the one, and
few of the missionaries or mission-fields presented in the other, during
the last twenty years, with which she was not familiar.  In the
labourers in more than one mission-field she took personal interest, and
gave good help to them in many ways.  Her Christian influence was felt
in the family, and extended beyond it.  There was no one in the town of
Eastwood who held a higher place in the general esteem or who deserved
it more than did cousin Abby Chase.

"We are expecting company," said cousin Abby; "and Mattie had a bigger
wash than ordinary, and so I thought I'd better set to and make some
cake and things to-day, to help along."

"Company?" said Fidelia, her face betraying her doubt as to the pleasure
of the prospect.

"Yes.  We generally do have considerable company, summers, though we
have been alone for a spell lately.  We don't trouble about company
much.  They take us as they find us mostly; but just to-day they are
Boston folks that are coming, and I wish we had known it sooner.  Mrs
Austin had a little rather be prepared for such folks."

"You must let me help you," said Fidelia.  "I don't know much about such
things--except just plain cooking; but I can do as you tell me."

And so she did, to good purpose.

"You take hold as if you knew how," said Miss Abby admiringly.

They had a long busy morning together in the front kitchen, and amidst
the beating of eggs and the rolling of paste much pleasant talk went on
between them.  It was almost as good for Fidelia as a talk with Eunice
would have been.  When, later, Dr Austin passed through the room, he
stopped a moment to shake his head at the array of good things which
greeted both nose and eyes.

"They look good, don't they?" said Fidelia.

"Y-es," said the doctor, with a shrug.  "The question is, are they
wholesome?"

"Oh, yes; they are the best of their kind!  If they are used in
moderation, they won't hurt anybody," said cousin Abby.  "Miss Fidelia
must be a good scholar if she studies as well as she works."

"Do you?" said the doctor.  "Well, never mind.  The work has done you
good; and I hope Abby will take you in hand and find you more to do
another day."

The work had really done Fidelia good.  She folded her apron, and turned
to her favourite seat in the south porch with a lighter heart than she
had had for a long time.  But her spirits fell again as she reached the
door.

"The company" had arrived--"and a great deal of it," Fidelia thought, at
the first glimpse of the flowing garments of a group of ladies who had
just alighted from a carriage, and were lingering on the lawn.  She
glanced down at her faded alpaca, which had been her second-best dress
during the whole of the school year, and wished herself at home.

She was hot and tired after her work; and when she heard Nellie Austin's
voice calling her name, she made haste to get upstairs before she should
be seen.  But she could not resist the temptation to turn into cousin
Abby's room, from the window of which she could get another glimpse of
the strangers.

They were not all strangers.  By the side of one of the ladies, carrying
her parasol and shawl, walked Dr Justin Everett.  But it was a
different Dr Justin from him who had sat constrained and silent at his
brother's table that first night, and who had responded so gravely the
next day to Deacon Ainsworth's untimely congratulations and questions.
His high head was bowed as he listened, and he responded with smiles to
his companion.

Then Nellie's voice was heard again, calling,--"Faithful, my Faithful,
where are you?" and what Fidelia would have liked to do would have been
to hide in cousin Abby's closet, or to run down the back stairs and take
refuge in the kitchen again.  She did not do either.  She laid herself
down on cousin Abby's sofa, and shaded her face with a big feather fan
that lay at hand.  Nellie entered the room on tiptoe.

"Are you asleep, Fie?  Are you sick?" said she softly.

"I am neither the one nor the other, though I might have dropped off in
a minute or two if you had not come in to disturb me.  Have you been in
the front kitchen?  Have you seen the nice things that cousin Abby and I
have been making?  I am a little hot and tired, that's all."

"Tired!  I should think so!  I am ashamed that I was not here to help
you.  You ought to rest; but it is nearly dinner-time.  And, oh,
Fidelia, I wish you would put on your white dress!"

"My white dress, indeed!  That would be striking twelve o'clock too
early in the day, my dear.  I must save my white gown for Sunday.  Yes,
I know you want to show your friend at her best.  It's very good of you.
But I shall do you more credit in my every-day wear.  And, after all,
don't you think my gown looks as well as yours?"

"But they have seen me before; and, besides, I'm nobody."

Fidelia laughed.

"Well, I don't feel as if I was anybody in particular.  No, dear, I'm
not cross.  I am going to be as entertaining as possible, and do you
credit.  And, besides, there's the dinner-bell.  It is too late now to
think of changing anything."

A pleasant surprise awaited her, and she found it easy not to be cross.
Not only Dr Justin was there, but Dr Everett himself, returning home
with his brother from the first brief holiday they had enjoyed together
for many a year.  She came into the dining-room with him, and sat beside
him, and feared no stranger of them all.

"Tell me about my Eunice," she said softly, as the talk flowed on around
them.

"Eunice is all right.  I am not sure that I shall be justified in saying
the same to her about you.  Are you well, child?"

"As well as well can be.  Yes, I got thin and pale; but so did a good
many others.  It is a way they have over there, towards the end of the
year.  I came here to freshen myself up a little before showing myself
to Eunice.  When are you going home, Dr Everett?"

"I am going to-morrow.  No, you cannot go with me.  I am going round by
W--, and shall not see home for two days yet."

"Oh, dear, I am sorry--that I can't go with you, I mean!  It would be a
good excuse to get away--to go with you.  I promised to stay ten days,
but I am getting homesick."

"You had better keep your promise.  Your sister has company just now,
and does not need you."

"Yes, I know; but that is one reason why I should be at home.  Eunice
must have too much to do."

"No, she has not.  It is Ruby Stone who is doing now.  Don't worry about
Eunice.  She is in good hands.  Mrs Stone loved your sister before you
were born; Eunice is all right."

There was nothing more to be said, but Fidelia was by no means sure that
she would not shorten her visit; and her next thought was that she need
not see much of the visitors while she stayed.  But she did see a good
deal of them.

That night it rained.  There could be no wandering under the elms by
moonlight.  It grew dark early, and chilly, and a fire of dry wood was
made in the sitting-room, partly for the warmth and partly for
brightness.  The elder people gathered round it, and a great deal of
pleasant talk went on among them.

The visitors--besides the two doctors--were Mr and Mrs Abner Kent,
their daughter Ella, and their niece Miss Avery.  They were from Boston,
and belonged to one of the "first families" of that chief city.  They
were rich--so rich that, like the king and preacher, they might have
possessed themselves of "whatsoever their eyes desired."  They had done
something in that direction, their neighbours were inclined to think,
for they had travelled much on both sides of the sea, and had brought
home many of the rare and beautiful things which only much money can
buy.  Miss Kent was tall and dark, with a good face; Miss Avery was
beautiful--small and fair, with shining curls, and pretty, coaxing ways;
but Fidelia liked Miss Kent's face best.

By-and-by several friends of the Austins came--the Rev Mr Porson and
his daughters, whom Fidelia had seen before, and others whom she had not
seen.  From the corner where she sat in the shadow she watched them all
with great interest.  She was listening to the talk that was going on
between Dr Everett and the minister, but she lost nothing of all that
was passing before her eyes, and all the time she was having her own
thoughts about these people.

They were not just like Halsey folks, among whom she and Eunice had
passed all their lives.  It had been said of the town of Halsey that
there were more good people in it, in proportion to its population, than
in any other town in the county--perhaps even in the state; and Fidelia
was of course bound to believe it.  But though the Halsey people might
be very good, they lacked something, Fidelia acknowledged, which these
people had.

She thought of her friends at home, and tried to imagine one and another
of them--Deacon Ainsworth and his wife, and Miss Green and her uncle the
squire, sitting in the midst of these people.  Eunice, with her plain
dress and her plain ways, would have small chance of being understood or
appreciated among them.

But Fidelia pulled herself up mentally when she had got thus far.
Eunice, indeed!  In all that was worth knowing or being, which of these
ladies could compare with Eunice?

And yet it must make a difference to live such a life as most of these
people lived--a life without hard work or pressing care, with time to
enjoy reading, and study, and travel, with a chance to enjoy the sight
of all that is grand and beautiful in nature and art.  Even Eunice,
good, and sweet, and superior to most people as she was--even Eunice
would have been a little different in such a life.

Standing at the other end of the living room, smiling down upon Miss
Avery, who had touched his arm to attract his attention, stood Dr
Justin Everett.  Miss Avery had a request to make, it seemed, and when
he shook his head, seeming to refuse it, she clasped her pretty hands,
and urged it eagerly.  Whether her request was ultimately to be granted
or not, did not appear.  In the meantime they seated themselves in the
window-seat, a little withdrawn from the rest, evidently content.

Fidelia could not withdraw her attention from them.  She watched them
with a feeling in which was both anger and pain rising in her heart.
"Eunice," she thought--"would Eunice care?" and she hated herself for
thinking it, and put up her hands to hide the angry colour that she felt
rising to her cheeks.

"Miss Faithful," said a voice near her, "cousin Abby says you want to go
fishing with us to-morrow.  Do you?"

"Yes, indeed I do," said Fidelia, rising and turning to the boy who had
spoken.

"You have got a new name, my dear," said Dr Everett, who had been
watching her face unseen--"a new name and a good one."

Fidelia nodded.

"Amos wants to see you, if you do," said the boy.  "He is in cousin
Abby's room.  Can you catch fish?"

"I have done so, but I cannot boast of much skill," said Fidelia.  "I
would like to try.  Let us go and see Amos."

So they went together to cousin Abby's room.  It did not take long to
make all necessary arrangements.  The chief thing was, that an early
start should be made, and also that a good lunch should be put up.
Fidelia laughed at the idea of her being too tired to follow the brook--
to its source even, if that should be necessary; and she quite won the
hearts of the three boys by her delight at the prospect of the day's
pleasure.

"Nellie ought to go," said Amos.  "She would like to go, I'm sure, but
she can't leave her company.  They might go too, I suppose; but I guess
city girls wouldn't care about fishing."

"I think it will be better for us to go by ourselves to-morrow," said
Fidelia.  "It doesn't do for too many people to go fishing together."

"And girls especially.  They will talk," said Amos.

Fidelia laughed.  "I won't talk.  You'll see how quiet I can be."

CHAPTER FIVE.

A DAY'S FISHING.

An early start to Smellie's Brook was accomplished, and in circumstances
even more favourable than had been anticipated.  Dr Everett had risen
early and breakfasted with the fishing party, and he volunteered to
drive as many as could "pile in" to the double buggy to the nearest
point on Smellie's Hill that could be reached on wheels.  The elder boys
were inclined to refuse the offer; but the doctor said,--

"The fields are wet with dew, and the lunch-basket is heavy; and you
must consider that you have a lady with you."

"Well, I guess we'd better go in the buggy a part of the way," said
Amos, the leader, after awhile.

The dewy fields would not have been agreeable to walk in, but they were
beautiful to see, and so were the woods, into which after awhile the
narrow road took them.  The boys' eyes were quick to see and their ears
to hear, and the sights and sounds of the early morning were not lost
upon them.  Fidelia was silent, but her spirits rose as she listened to
the talk between the doctor and the boys; and she laughed as merrily as
any of them before they reached Smellie's Hill.

"If you don't feel as if you were going to have a good time, Fidelia,
you can drive back again with me, and let the boys go on alone," said
Dr Everett, as he stopped at the steepest part of the hill to let the
boys alight.

"Go back with you!  No, indeed!  I _am_ going to have a good time.  I
feel better already."

"You look better.  I am glad you came.  And look here, little girl,
don't you worry about Eunice.  Don't you know that nothing in the world
can hurt Eunice?  If there is any room for anxiety between you, it is
Eunice who might worry about you.  But she doesn't, and need not, I
hope.  At any rate all is well with Eunice."

A shadow fell on Fidelia's face, and her eyes drooped beneath the
doctor's glance.

"Yes; she tells me she is pretty well now, but--"

The colour which the morning air had brought to her cheeks deepened as
she looked up and met the doctor's eye, but she said no more, nor did
he.  They had by this time reached Smellie's Hill, and the doctor was
going no further.

"If I had had time to think about things, I believe I should have taken
the day and gone with you to the brook," said he, as the boys were
taking basket and rods from the buggy.

"Oh, couldn't you possibly come?" said Fidelia eagerly; and the boys
joined their entreaties to hers.  It was not to be thought of, however,
for he "was due elsewhere."  They watched him as he drove down the hill,
and he would have smiled if he had heard all that was said of him before
they took up their baskets and rods again.

Then they turned and took the path through Smellie's pasture that leads
to the woods and the rocky ledge beyond; and when they came within sound
of the murmur of the brook, they hastened their steps.

"Fall and spring it is like a river, though it doesn't look much now,"
said Amos, as they came in sight of it.

It did not "look much" truly.  A brooklet winding its way among rocks
and stones, over which one might leap or even step at most places, but
with here and there a pool which looked dark and deep enough to be the
hiding-place of many a speckled beauty.  And they had good proof of this
before the day was done.

It was a good day for Fidelia; in the success and in the enjoyment she
had a full share, though she acknowledged to herself that she did not
deserve either.  As the time went on she became more and more ashamed of
the morbid feelings which had made her so eager to get away from the
house and from all who were in it.

What was the matter with her?  Was she envious of those other girls, who
led such easy lives and had so many advantages?  Could it be that she
was so utterly ungrateful as to forget how full of good things her life
had been made by the sister who had had so little in her own life but
labour and care for others, yet who had accepted her lot, not with
submission merely, but with sweet content and cheerfulness?  Was it for
Eunice she was jealous?  Remembering the sudden indignation which had
seized her at the first glimpse she had got of Dr Justin, smiling down
on the pretty upturned face of Miss Avery, she could not deny it.  Even
now she grew angry as she thought about it.

Would Eunice have been angry if she had seen them?  Had she suffered
very much in giving up her happy prospects long ago?  And afterwards,
when she knew that another had taken the place in Justin Everett's home
which ought to have been hers, had she suffered?  Had she forgiven him,
or had she forgotten him?  They seemed to be friends now--she knew that
from her sister's letters: would they ever be more than friends?  That
would be the right ending, Fidelia thought, but the thought did not give
her unmixed pleasure.

"I should lose Eunice," she said to herself; "and I am not sure that I
like her Dr Justin very well."  And then she laughed--"I am getting on
pretty fast, I think.  Well, I can wait.  Eunice will tell me at the
right time if there be anything to tell.  I won't worry about her.  Dr
Everett is right.  Nothing in the world can hurt Eunice much.  I only
wish that I were like her."

Did she really wish it?  She was not sure, and she was not ready to
consider the question at that moment.

All these thoughts had been passing through her mind as she followed
Amos along the margin of the brook; and when they stopped at Big Rock to
arrange where each one was to go, not one was more eager and pleased
with the prospects of the day than she.

The sky became overcast, which was a matter of rejoicing; the same could
not be said of the threatening rain.  But not enough fell to do any
harm, and for fishing the day was pronounced perfect.  When there are
four rods, and only one basket for the fish, even moderate success tells
quickly; and before Franky "guessed it was most time for lunch," there
was a good show of trout.

It was decided that, to save time, they should not make a fire and feed
upon the fish, but content themselves with what was to be found in
cousin Abby's basket, which they might very well do.  But they forgot
about saving time, for they fell into a real boys' talk,--about hunting
and fishing and adventures of all kinds, which made them forget how time
was passing, and then they found that Franky had fallen asleep with his
head on Fidelia's lap.

"I think we must let him have his sleep out," said Fidelia; "you
remember, cousin Abby said we must be careful not to let him get too
tired.  You two go away to your fishing, and when Franky wakes we will
follow you up the brook."

"But it is too bad you should lose your sport," said Ned.

"He won't sleep long.  And, see, I have a book."

So the boys set off, and Fidelia had a quiet two hours with her book,--
which ought to have been Butler's "Analogy," considering her next year's
work at the seminary, but which was "Astoria"--much more appropriate for
the time and place.  Franky woke rested and much the better for his nap,
but indignant at being allowed to lose so much time.  But he forgot his
vexation in the pleasure of listening to a story Fidelia told, and which
lasted till they came in sight of Amos, happy and successful as ever,
but a little tired also.  So they sat down to rest and enjoy another
lunch, and to talk about things in general.

Fidelia knew how to talk to boys.  She knew every tree in the woods, and
the note of every bird which chirped among the branches.  She knew
something about most plants that grew in field or wood, so there was no
danger of falling out of talk.  The boys were interested in what they
heard, and each had something to tell.  By-and-by Franky said--

"How many brothers have you, Miss Faithful?"

"Not one!  I never had a brother."

"Well, they would have had good times, if you had."

Fidelia laughed--"I am not so sure.  I have one sister."

"Yes, I know--Miss Eunice," said Amos.

"Yes, my Eunice.  She is all I have got, and she is better to me than
two or three brothers."

"Yes, I know," said Amos, nodding his head; "I heard Dr Everett talking
about her with father.  Oh, no, it wasn't doctor's talk; only how good
she is, and how much she thinks of you!"

"Why do they call you Faithful?" asked Ned.

"No one calls me that but Nellie, and you must ask her why."

"I suppose it is because you never shirk," said Amos.

Fidelia looked grave.

"I don't deserve it for that reason," said she.

"You know Jabez Ainsworth, don't you?" said Amos.

"Oh, yes; I have always known him!  We are good friends."

"He is a smart boy, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is smart, and good, though he gets into trouble now and then.
He is seventeen."

She told them an amusing story or two about Jabez--about adventures
which he had had and trouble into which he had fallen when he was a
little fellow, because of a determination to get his own way.  She ended
with an account of his last venture in taking Eunice's garden for the
summer, so as to make some money, because he "was bound to put himself
through college, and _be_ somebody."

Amos listened in silence.

"Do you suppose he'll do it?" said Ned.

"I think so.  Oh, yes, he is sure to succeed!  His grandfather will help
him, perhaps, when he sees that he is determined to be educated.  But,
whether he helps him or not, Jabez is bound to succeed."

"I wonder if the hardest things aren't the easiest after all!" said
Amos.  "I mean, that we don't always care much about what we can get
without much trouble."

"He means, _he_ don't care about going to college," said Ned; "but
father means he shall."

"Oh, yes, I suppose I shall go!  But I'd a good deal rather go West to
Uncle John's great farm."

"You can do both," said Fidelia.

"It takes five years to get through Amherst College."

"Well, you can spare them.  You are young.  How old are you?"

"I was fifteen in May."

"Only fifteen!  I thought you were older than that."

Amos looked pleased.

"How nearly are you ready for college?"

"I might go this fall; but father thinks I had better wait a year.  I
don't care."

"I think so too--if you don't care.  Next year Jabez may go too.  I only
wish he had your chance--and yet I am not sure.  He may do all the
better for having to work his way through.  But for one to have your
chance, and not to care for it, that I cannot understand!" added Fidelia
gravely.

"My father is not a rich man," said Amos.

"No--not as Mr Kent is rich.  But an education such as he is able and
willing to give his boys will be worth more--if they take the good of
it--than all Mr Kent's money would be.  You don't realise, your
privileges, young man."

She said a good deal more than that.  Amos had heard much of it before,
but somehow it sounded differently repeated by this girl with laughing
lips and shining eyes, and with now and then a touch of only
half-conscious scorn for the eyes that would not see and the hands that
did not care to seize the chances for which others were eager to strive.
Amos had not much to say as they rose and turned homewards.

By-and-by they stopped to rest, leaning for a little on the crooked
fence on the brow of the hill, from which more than one tree-shaded town
could be seen, and many cultivated fields and rough pastures, and broken
stretches of woodland, with the light of a wonderful sunset lying on
them all.  It was a fair scene, suggestive of peace and plenty and
contentment; and, looking on it, Fidelia lifted up her voice and sang--

"My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty--Of thee I sing!" and
so on to the end.  Amos looked up amazed, and at the second verse struck
in a true boy's second.  So did Ned; and even Franky, climbing up to the
top rail of the fence, tuned his shrill pipe with the rest.

Of course they sang "My Country" to the tune which belongs to it--a tune
which with these words, and with other words, has stirred and thrilled
patriotic breasts on both sides of the sea for many a year and day.
Fidelia and the Austin boys called it "America," but on the other side
of the sea it is called "God save the Queen."  They sang it there on the
hill-top, with all their hearts.  Then they sang "The Star-spangled
Banner" and "Hail!  Columbia!" as they took their way through field and
wood; and more besides, till tired old ladies, rocking themselves in
their chairs and taking their rest at open doors caught the sound and
smiled; and boys and girls, milking their cows in pasture corners,
paused in their work to listen.

Tired?  That was the very last thing they were thinking of as they
passed the south porch, on their way to the kitchen with their fish.
Fidelia nodded and smiled to the party sitting there, waiting to be
called to tea, but passed on to the kitchen with the boys, where the
fish was displayed to the admiring eyes of cousin Abby and the doctor.

"And so Miss Fidelia did not scare away the fishes, as girls generally
do?" said cousin Abby.

"I guess she didn't.  I tell you, she knows how!" said Ned.

"She's first-rate," said Frank.

Fidelia laughed--"I have had a good time.  I should like to go again
some day."

"And why should you not?  And Nellie shall go next time.  I don't
believe she has had so good a time at home," said the doctor, as his
daughter came in.

"Oh, yes, I have had a pretty good time!  But I should like to go
fishing with the boys and Fidelia next time.  You feel better, don't
you, Fie?" said Nellie, as they went upstairs together; and her friend
assured her that the day's tramp with the boys had done her good.

On the bed, as smooth as cousin Abby's skill in ironing could make it,
and adorned with here and there a knot of ribbon which Fidelia had not
put on, lay the white dress which was "to be kept for Sunday."

"I thought I had better have it all ready," said Nellie hurriedly, "as I
thought you might be late.  We are going to have company this evening--
just the Newtons, and Conways, and a few others.  Mother thought she
would like Mrs Kent and the girls to see some of our friends, and this
was the best night for them to come.  I am sorry it happened so, for you
must be tired--though you don't look tired."

"I am not a bit tired.  And don't look so troubled, child.  Oh, yes,
I'll wear the white gown--red ribbons and all!  I'll do my best to do
you credit."

"How you talk, Fidelia!  But I do want you to look nice.  Father says--"

But what her father said Fidelia was not to hear.  A knock came to the
door, and cousin Abby entered with a tray.

"Doctor said Miss Fidelia had better have her tea up here, and rest a
spell till the company come.  She mustn't get too tired, you know," said
the old lady, smiling.

"Well, there!  I might have had the sense to think of that myself, and
saved you the trouble," said the delighted Nellie.

Fidelia said nothing, but she cleared a place on the table for the tray,
and thanked the old lady with a kiss.

"If you should drop asleep for half an hour it wouldn't hurt you any,"
said Cousin Abby as she closed the door.

And, in the midst of her questioning as to why these people should be so
kind to her, Fidelia did fall asleep, and woke only when, an hour later,
Nellie returned ready dressed and eager to help her--

"You look quite nice!" was all Nellie allowed herself to say to her
friend as they went downstairs together.  "Now they'll see for
themselves whether she is beautiful or not," she was saying to herself;
but she knew it would not be wise to say it to Fidelia.

Of course Miss Austin had to be ready to receive their friends; and
Fidelia fortunately found Amos entertaining the minister with an account
of the day's sport and the pleasures of a day among the hills.

"Here is Miss Fidelia.  She knows all about it," said the boy; and they
had a pleasant half-hour together.

Nellie's triumph began when Judge Newton asked her whether the tall girl
standing talking to the minister was the beautiful Miss Avery they had
heard so much about.  More than one asked the same question.

"Oh, no," said Nellie demurely, "that is only my room-mate, Fidelia
Marsh!  Wait till you see Miss Avery."

And she had another little triumph when, drawn towards the piano by the
exquisite touch of Miss Kent, Fidelia almost unconsciously put out her
hand to turn the page of the difficult music she was playing, and kept
on turning it to the end.  It was the look of surprise which passed
between Miss Kent and her cousin that delighted Fidelia's friend.

"You play, do you not?" said Miss Kent, rising.

"Not as you play.  Oh, please don't go yet!" said Fidelia earnestly.

"Sing something, Ella," said her cousin.  "Sing this"--laying a song
open before her.  "No, Miss Marsh.  I will turn the music.  You must
only enjoy it."

And Fidelia did enjoy it, as she had seldom enjoyed music before;
growing pale and red by turns, as the thrilling voice rose and fell.
For the moment the enjoyment was perfect.  When it ceased, Fidelia would
have slipped quietly out of the room.  Miss Kent rose.

"You sing, I am sure, Miss Marsh?"

"No," said Fidelia gravely; "I do not sing."

"Fidelia!" exclaimed Nellie.

"No," repeated Fidelia; "I don't sing.  I have only just found it out."

"And what is this Amos has been telling us about your starting the
echoes among the hills on your way home to-night?" said Dr Everett, who
had drawn near.

"_I_ think you can sing," said Amos.  "Oh, yes, I can sing to please
Amos!" said Fidelia, trying to speak lightly, but troubled under the
eyes of those who had gathered round the piano, and more troubled still
by the rush of her own vexed thoughts.

"Is it envy?" she was saying to herself.  "Is it pride and jealousy and
discontent?  Am I going to disappoint Eunice, after all?  Oh, I am not
good!"

She did not know who proposed it, or how it happened, but in a little
Miss Kent seated herself at the piano again, and the young people
gathered round her, "to sing something they all could sing,"--a much
more enjoyable affair to most uneducated singers than just to sit and
listen to fine music.  Of course they began with "The Star-spangled
Banner;" and if Fidelia's voice did not ring out quite as it had rung
out to please the boys among the hills, it still caused the Boston
cousins to exchange surprised glances, thus giving the watchful Nellie
another moment of delight.  They did not sing long, however; and when
Miss Kent rose again, Fidelia moved away to the other end of the room,
believing that the pleasure of the evening was over for her.

But it was not.  She found herself in a little listening with much
interest to the minister and the judge as they discussed a question
which had come up before the last ministerial association of the county,
and thinking it would be something to tell Eunice about when she went
home.  In the midst of it a voice said,--

"Miss Fidelia, I have a message for you from your sister."

"From Eunice?"--and she turned to see Dr Justin Everett standing beside
her.

"Yes.  I went to Halsey with my brother this morning, and have only just
returned.  We called to see your sister on our way."

"She is well?"

"That is part of the message she sent to you.  She says you are not to
hurry home, as my brother seemed to think you meant to do.  You are to
stay and have a good time.  She does not need you in the least.  No;
that is not part of her message.  But she is going with Mrs Stone to
pay a visit of a week over in Northwood, and you are to stay here till
that is over.  She will write fully to-morrow."

"I am glad she is strong enough even to think of a visit to Northwood."

"Yes; and Mrs Stone will take excellent care of her.  The change will
do her good.  And your change will do you good also."

"It has done me good already."

Then he gave her another message from his niece, Susie Everett, and told
her several items of Halsey news; and then some one came to interrupt
their talk; and then the evening went on as all such evenings do, until
the guests rose to go away.  And Fidelia was saying to herself, while
she listened to Nellie's remarks on things in general, that Eunice and
Dr Justin were good friends again, and she was not sure whether she was
glad or sorry that it should be so.

CHAPTER SIX.

DISCONTENT.

In looking back on it afterwards, and in talking it all over with her
sister, Fidelia could hardly decide whether she had had more pain or
pleasure in the week which followed.  It was a time she did not like to
think about.  There had been no real cause for pain, she acknowledged.
She had acknowledged as much as that at the time, and she had known that
she ought to be ashamed of herself.

That she--Fidelia Marsh--should have a single uncomfortable moment over
a faded dress, or the appearance of a last summer's bonnet, was
humiliating--she who had never cared about her clothes!  She had never
thought much about her clothes in any way.  Eunice had always done that
for her, as she had done other things.  At home she had thought herself
as well dressed as her neighbours.  At the seminary there had been no
time to think about dress; and there had been other faded alpacas there
as well as hers.  Why should she think about her clothes now?  She was
ashamed of herself.  But it was not clothes altogether.  She did not
"fit in" among these people.  They were different from her--or, rather,
she was different from them.

Everybody was pleasant and kind.  Miss Avery even, whom she liked least,
was especially friendly--she seemed to seek her out always.  She sat
with her on the lawn in the morning, and in the evenings brought a stool
and sat at her feet, while they listened to Miss Kent's music.  They
walked and talked together; and why should she not like Miss Avery, who
seemed to like her and to wish to be with her?  Why should she shrink
from her questions about Eunice and their home life, and their
friendship with the Everetts, and answer them briefly, and go over all
that had been spoken between them in her own thoughts afterwards, in
fear of having said something that she ought not to have said?

She liked Miss Kent, though she was a grave and silent person who did
not seem to have much to say to any one.  They had their love of music
in common, and Fidelia was grateful for Miss Kent's quietly given hints
on that subject, and profited by them.  She was at her ease with her,
but she was not at ease with Miss Avery.

"And why not?" asked Nellie Austin, to whom she one day made the
admission.  "I'm sure she seems to think everything that is good about
you.  To-night, when you were sitting together, before the lamps were
brought in, Mrs Kent said what friends you seemed to be; and Dr Justin
said what a picture you made, sitting there in the fire-light."

"Yes, I guess so!  The picture of a hen and a humming-bird!" said
Fidelia, laughing.  "If he saw anything but Miss Avery and a feather
duster it is a wonder.  I have no doubt Miss Avery realised how pretty
the picture was, as well as he.  No, I am not cross nor sarcastic
either, and I am willing to act as a set-off to her now and then, if it
is to do her any good.  But I can't just say I like quite so much of
that kind of thing."

"Fidelia," said Nellie gravely, "we shall have to let you go fishing
again with the boys."

"Yes, let us go.  Is it too late to make a plan for to-morrow?  We
should have to make an early start."

"It is too late to plan for to-morrow.  Amos has gone to bed.  And,
besides, we couldn't go to-morrow; we are going to Colonel Green's.  And
the day after to-morrow we are all going to the Summit; and those who
like can go by the way of Smellie's Brook, and go to the Summit by the
other path."

"Well, I will go with the boys, and you had better come with us.  That
was the most delightful day I have had in Eastwood--the day I had with
Amos and his brothers at the brook."

"Thank you, for myself and all the rest.  Faithful, what is the matter
with you these days?" said Nellie, laying her hand gently on her
friend's hair, "There is something the matter, is there not, dear?"

"There must be, if you say so; but I can't tell you what it is.  I must
be `gettin' kind o' nervous,' as Deacon Ainsworth says of his wife.
It's queer, isn't it?  I, who never knew there were nerves, until I
learned it out of a school-book!  I guess I want Eunice.  She'll set me
all right.  I never had any bad feelings yet that she couldn't deliver
me from, in one way or another.  Oh, yes; I shall be all right as soon
as I see my Eunice!"

But she was not quite sure of it, even when she said it.

The next day, instead of going with the rest to pay a visit to friends
in a neighbouring town, Fidelia chose to stay at home and help cousin
Abby with her preparations for the expedition to the Summit, as the
highest hill in the neighbourhood was called, and had a better time than
if she had gone with the rest.  She enjoyed helping Miss Abby, and she
enjoyed her talk while the work went on.  For Miss Abby Chase saw
clearly--had all her life seen clearly--many things which eyes intent
only on personal interests might easily have overlooked.  Her talk did
not flow on in "a straight stream," so as to become wearisome; but now
and then a remark was made, or a word of advice given, or a bit of
personal experience told, of which Fidelia made a note, saying to
herself: "I must remember to tell Eunice that.  How Eunice would like to
hear cousin Abby talk!"

They had not, for various reasons, been ready to begin "in the cool of
the morning," as was Miss Abby's custom when there was anything special
to do.  The day was warm, and, though the work was pleasant work, it was
hard work too in a way.  But no feeling of weariness could interfere
with the satisfaction with which they viewed results.  The success was
complete.

"They will spoil a good housekeeper if they make a schoolmistress of
you!"--as Fidelia stood folding her apron, and regarding with admiring
eyes a big chicken-pie which Mattie had just brought in from the oven.
"But I don't suppose you'd care about spending your life as a
housekeeper, when you might have higher work to do."

"Higher work?  Yes, I suppose so.  Teaching is either the highest work,
or it is drudgery.  I suppose it depends upon the teacher," said Fidelia
gravely.  "But any sort of work is good if it is needed, and if it is
well done--as we have done our work to-day," added she, smiling.

"Yes; and it is something to do well the humblest work, when others are
helped by it to do the highest.  And then the Lord doesn't always see
`high' and `low' just as we do.  And those who just help other folks'
works, and come into other folks' lives, without having much of a life
of their very own, may have a good time too--yes, and a good reward."

"Yes," said Fidelia, thinking of her sister.  "Miss Abby, don't you go
visiting sometimes?  Won't you come to our house and see my sister?  She
would like to have you, and I am sure you would like each other."

"I should be pleased to visit you and your sister.  Yes, I should like
her.  I like what I have heard about her.  I saw her once--she visited
here a long time ago."

"Did she?  I don't think I ever knew it.  Was she a little girl?  Was it
with our father that she came?"

"No; she was a grown woman--a sweet and beautiful young woman.  She
stayed two or three days.  There was company in the house, and I
remember they all went one day to the Summit.  It was with Dr Justin
Everett that she came."

"Ah!" said Fidelia, sitting suddenly down on the window-seat.

They had come into Miss Abby's room by this time, and the old lady was
resting in the rocking-chair while Fidelia lingered, going on with their
talk.

"It was just about the time when her grandmother grew worse.  No, I
didn't see much of her; I had more to do in those days.  I saw her, but
we did not speak together, and I have nothing special to tell you about
her, dear, only that I saw her when she came.  I have often thought of
her since."

Fidelia sat still, with her chin on her hand and her eyes fixed on the
far-away hills; and Miss Abby could not but see the change that had
passed over her face.  But she did not speak.

The old trouble about Eunice was stirring at her heart.  Eunice had
always helped others; she had only come in for "a part in other folks'
lives," as Miss Abby had said.  Had Eunice "had a good time and a good
reward?"  She had been at least content during the last few years.  Was
she content still?  Was she grieving over the past, or was she wishing
for that which could never be hers?--"for that which is really not worth
having or grieving for, if she only knew it!" thought Fidelia, with an
angry flush rising to her cheeks, as the thought of Miss Avery, and the
interest which Dr Justin seemed to take in her, came to her mind.

"She doesn't care.  I don't think she would care; but, oh, I wish I were
quite sure!  Surely the Lord would never let that trouble come into her
life again, after all she has done and suffered."

She sat long with her eyes fixed on the hills beyond the river, on which
the glory of the sunset lay; and when at last she turned to meet the
grave looks of Miss Abby, she started and grew red, with a feeling that
the old lady must know her thoughts.  But Miss Abby only said,--

"Think of it!  I had forgotten all about the eggs.  I must go down
again."  And when she had gone out and shut the door, she opened it
again to say,--"You had better stay right here in my room, hadn't you,
and rest?  There will be some noise in the other part of the house when
they all get home.  I may go over to see Sally Hanson a minute; I have
something to take to her.  But I guess you had better stay here."

Whether she went to see Sally Hanson or not, she stayed away a good
while, and it was growing dark when she returned.  Fidelia still sat
with her cheek on her hand, and her eyes on the hills, hardly seen now
in the gathering gloom.

"Well, dear, are you rested?  You have been having a quiet time, haven't
you?"

"Oh, yes!  I was not tired--only lazy.  I suppose I ought to go and
brush my hair and change my dress before they all come home.  I wonder
if I need go down at all?  They will be tired enough not to wish to see
any one."

"Well, yes, I'd go down a spell, if I were you, for the sake of being
friendly."

"Do you suppose I should be missed?" said Fidelia, with a laugh which
did not sound so pleasantly to the old lady as Fidelia's laugh usually
did.

"You don't feel very well to-night, do you, dear?  I guess you are
over-tired, though you don't know it.  Or is there anything else the
matter with you, Miss Fidelia?"

"If there is I don't know, or at least I can't talk about it."

She rose and approached Miss Abby as she spoke, conscious that her words
might sound strange; but turned to the window again, and stood looking
out into the gloom, and there was silence for a time.  Then Miss Abby
said gently,--

"But you know just where to carry your trouble, dear.  Whatever it may
be, it isn't beyond help, is it?  How can it be to a Christian?"

Fidelia made no answer to this.

"Have you been living up to your privileges over there in the seminary,
dear?  I have always heard that it was a good place in which to grow in
knowledge and in grace.  You haven't been so much taken up with your
books as to neglect better things, have you?  Fidelia, are you a
Christian?"

There was a moment's silence before Fidelia answered.

"I once thought I was a Christian.  Now I do not know--I am not sure."

"And so you got kind of down and discouraged, and no wonder, dear."

Fidelia had to resist a strong impulse to rush away, when Miss Abby rose
and came to the window.

"But you needn't be discouraged.  If you are not sure of your hope, you
must just let it go, and come again to Him who is our only hope, and it
will be all right with you.  If you have fallen back, it must be because
you have failed to ask His help, or your heart has been after other
things.  But you haven't done anything, or neglected anything that He
will not be glad to forgive if you'll tell Him of it, dear.  You needn't
be a mite discouraged.  I'd be glad to help you if I could," said Miss
Abby, laying her hand gently on that of the girl.  "I'm an old woman
now, and I've seen a good many things in my time, and I have suffered
some, too, but not any more than I'm glad to look back upon now.
Anyhow, it never pays to get discouraged."

"Discouraged!" thought Fidelia.  "Why, I think I am wrong all through.
I am not sure that even Eunice can set me right now."  Aloud she
said--"No; it does no good to be discouraged."

Then they heard the south gate open, and knew that the young people had
returned; and, before Fidelia had time to escape, Nellie was calling her
name on the stairs, and there was no time for more.

Of course they went downstairs together, and heard all about the visit,
and whom they had seen, and what they had said and heard and done, and
how sorry every one was that Miss Marsh had not gone with them.  And no
one would have suspected that Miss Marsh was "discouraged," or even
tired, so interested was she in it all.  Indeed, she seemed to have more
to say than usual, and even became boastful, as Nellie declared, when
allusion was made to the preparations for next day's expedition to the
Summit.

Miss Avery was even more demonstrative in her friendliness than usual
that night; and as she was so much fatigued that she found it necessary
to recline on the sofa, she would have Fidelia bring a low seat and sit
beside her, saying she had seen enough of all the rest for one day.
Fidelia sat down willingly enough, but she would not give up her hand to
be caressed, as Miss Avery desired; she was busy covering a ball for
Franky; and in a little she found it necessary to go nearer the light,
but not before Miss Avery had whispered a few words in her ear.

"What a good woman your sister must be!  How lovely she must have been
when she was young!  Dr Justin Everett thinks her nearly perfect."

She had no time to say more.  Fidelia rose suddenly, and, without a
glance toward her, walked across the room; and Dr Justin, coming in
with letters in his hand, alone saw the paleness of her face and the
anger in her eyes.  Miss Avery rose from the sofa, and in her pretty
eager way came forward to claim her letters.

"Now, Dr Justin, there must be one at least for me!  Do say you have
got one for me this time," said she, clasping her hands imploringly.

The doctor laid the letters on the table without a word.  It was Nellie
who distributed them, and the last one was for Fidelia.

"Now you will be happy!  It is from your sister," said she.

There were letters for several of the others; and in the interest of
receiving and opening them, Fidelia was allowed to slip out of the room
unnoticed, and only returned in time to say good-night.

"And it must be `good-bye' too, I am afraid, as I must go home to-morrow
morning.  Eunice wants me.  No; she is not sick, but she wants me.  I
have told Mrs Austin all about it, and she says I ought to go.  Amos
has promised to take me to the depot in the morning."

"But our trip to the Summit?"

"You must stay for that!"

"One day can make no difference!"

Fidelia was sorry to miss the day's pleasure, but a day would make much
difference.  The letter had been delayed one day already, and her sister
had several reasons for wishing her to come home at once.

"But your packing!  You will have to be up all night.  You must let me
help you, Miss Marsh!  Now say you will," pleaded Miss Avery with pretty
beseeching gestures.

Fidelia laughed.

"My packing!  It is all done already, thank you.  You will see the last
of me to-night."

It was not quite the last to several of the party.  The departure was
not so early but that all the family were down, and even Miss Avery had
a chance to say good-bye again from the window, as Fidelia and Amos
drove off.  She proposed that they should wait a little, that she might
drive with them, but this was not to be thought of.

"Dr Justin wanted to drive you down, but I said I had promised," said
Amos gravely; "you don't care, do you?"

"I should have been very sorry if you had forgotten your promise or
broken your word.  I would not have cared to trouble Dr Justin
Everett."

"Oh, it wouldn't have troubled him any!  He'd as lief come with you as
not, I guess.  If any one had come, it ought to have been Nellie; but I
told her I had something to tell you, and she was very good about it.
As for Miss Avery, I guess she didn't care much about going.  You like
Miss Avery pretty well, don't you?"

"Oh, yes!  Not as I like Nellie, you know.  But Miss Avery has been--
very--"

"Kind and condescending!" said Amos, as Fidelia paused for a word.

They both laughed a little, but nothing more was said about Miss Avery.
A good deal was said about things in general, but not a word which
Nellie and all the rest of them might not have heard; and Fidelia began
to think she had misunderstood the boy as to his having something to say
to her.  But when the horse had been securely fastened at a safe
distance from the track, they turned to walk up and down the platform.
During the few minutes that remained, Amos said,--

"I am going to tell father that I am going to college this fall or next,
just as he thinks best."

"Yes, of course," said Fidelia.  "Well?"

"That is all; and it isn't `of course' by a good deal.  I had about made
up my mind for something else.  I was going West, to see how it looked
out there, any way."

"Not without your father's knowledge?"

"No--I don't know as I should have gone with his knowledge and consent.
But he'd have let me go, I guess, if I had kept at him, even if he had
hated to."

Fidelia shook her head.

"That is not the kind of talk I should expect to hear from you, Amos,
with such a father as you have."  Amos hung his head, but said,--"Well,
I've changed my mind.  I am going to college, and I am going to do my
best.  Yes; it is partly to please father, and partly because I see
things a little differently.  Do you remember what you said to me that
day on the hill?"

"I am afraid I talked a good deal that day.  I don't think I remember
anything particular."

"It was about the honour of having a part in the highest work of all,
and about the duty of preparing one's self to do it in the best way.  I
am going to have a try for it, any way," said Amos, with a break in his
voice.

Fidelia put out her hand and touched his, but she did not speak for a
full minute.  She was thinking,--"A word of mine!  That can't be--
discontented, worldly-minded girl that I have proved myself to be!  I am
not worthy."  Aloud she said,--"I am glad, Amos.  Tell me more."

"It was only a word you said, but it set me thinking; though I don't see
why it should, for mother, and cousin Abby, and even Nellie, have said
about the same to me often.  I suppose it was because it seemed new as
you said it; and I had got kind of used to cousin Abby's good advice,
and even to mother's.  But I made up my mind that I would see the thing
through this time, and decide one way or another.  What Dr Justin said
helped me some.  I mean to try and be a good man--a servant of God,"
added the boy, speaking with difficulty.

"Amos," said Fidelia, "do you mean that you have become a Christian?"

"I mean that I wish to be a Christian, and to have a part in the very
highest work, if the Lord will have me for His servant."

"_If_, Amos?  There is no `if' on the Lord's side."

Then she paused, telling herself that she too had desired to have a
share in the highest work, and asking herself whether she had not drawn
back.  She did not know.  She only knew that she was all wrong, and that
she too must begin again.

"I, too, shall have to decide once for all.  Oh, I must!"

There was no time for more, for the shriek of the engine was heard in
the distance.

"Amos, I am so glad!  And I am glad you have told me.  I wish I knew
just the right thing to say to you.  I can only say I am glad.  I wish
you could come and talk with my Eunice.  Oh, dear--just as if you hadn't
your father and mother, and cousin Abby!  But my first thought is always
of my Eunice," added Fidelia, with an uncertain smile.  "Good-bye, dear
Amos.  Everybody in your home has been so good to me; and I am glad for
them all.  They will be very happy."

There was not time for another word.  As Amos turned from the window as
the train moved on, he stumbled on some one--or, rather, some one
stumbled on him--and he had no idea who it was till a voice called
out,--

"Just in time, Amos!  A miss is as good as a mile;" and he ran forward
in time to catch a glimpse of Dr Justin Everett on the platform of the
cars as the train moved on.

Fidelia had not seen the approach of Dr Justin; and it was a surprise,
to say the least, when he entered the car, and, bidding her "Good
morning," took his seat beside her, as if that had been the most natural
thing in the world to do.

"I did not know you thought of going to Halsey this morning.  What about
the Summit?" said Fidelia.

"It looks ungrateful to leave them, does it not?  But it could not be
helped; I did not know till late last night that I was expected
elsewhere this morning.  And I am at least no more to blame than you
are."

Fidelia made no answer to that.  They could see the Summit as they
turned a curve among the hills.

"It looks pleasant up there!" said she.

"Yes, with the morning sunshine on it."

"I am sorry it happened that I could not go up with Nellie and the rest.
I should have enjoyed it, and it would have been something always to
remember."

"Yes, it would have been something to remember," said Dr Justin.

The sound of his voice had quite changed, and the look on his face also,
Fidelia thought, as she glanced up at him.

"Have you ever been at the Summit?" said she; and then she remembered.

"Yes.  Once I was on the Summit," he answered gravely; and he did not
remove his eyes from the mountain while it was in sight, nor did a word
pass between them for some time after that.  It was Dr Justin who spoke
first, and his first words were about her friend Amos.

"I should like to take him West with me; and your friend Jabez Ainsworth
as well.  They are bound to go there first or last."

"Oh, but you must not think of such a thing!  His father would not like
it.  Amos is going to please his father now, he says, and go to college.
Don't speak of his going West, please."

"Well, no; not just at present; but when these boys are `thoroughly
furnished,' as there is good hope they may be in time, the great West is
the place for them, and for many more of their sort.  They are needed
there now, and will be needed still more in the future."

"I like Amos.  He will do his part well wherever he is," said Fidelia.

"Yes, I am sure he will."

"And Jabez, too, in a different way.  Jabez and I have always been good
friends."

"Yes, I know.  You have helped them both."

"I have helped Jabez with his arithmetic and grammar, and with good
advice, too, sometimes," added she, laughing; "but as for Amos, if I
have ever helped him, it has been without knowing it."

"That is the best kind of help to give, I think," said Dr Justin,
smiling.

The Austin family was a safe subject to discuss, and they held to it for
awhile.  Fidelia told about her good fortune in having Nellie for her
room-mate at the seminary, and of the many pleasant things they had
enjoyed together during the year.  When she thought about it afterwards,
she wondered at the ease with which she had talked with him, and hoped
she had not talked too much.

As they drew near to the last stopping-place before reaching Halsey, Dr
Justin stooped to lift his handbag, saying,--

"My brother is waiting for me here, I think.  We are going to M--to see
a patient of his, about whom he is anxious.  Have you a message to send
to any one in Eastwood: I go back there to-night."

"I shall send a message to-morrow by mail, I thank you," said Fidelia a
little stiffly.  She was indignant with herself in feeling a little
disappointed that he was not going on to Halsey.

"Well, good-bye.  We ought to be friends, you and I, and we shall be
friends in time."  And then he was gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

HOME AGAIN.

Fidelia did not have to take her homeward way through fields and woods
this time.  Jabez was waiting with his grandfather's "team," which was
more than capable of taking her and all her belongings.

"All well, Jabez?" said Fidelia, as she caught sight of his smiling
sunburnt face.

"Oh, yes, pretty much as usual!  Miss Eunice is first-rate;" and with
this satisfactory though rather indefinite assurance Fidelia had to
content herself till all things were safely bestowed in the wagon, and
they were on their way home.  Then she did not need to ask questions.
Jabez had the faculty of putting a good deal of information into a few
words; and as she listened, Fidelia got a summary of all that had been
said and done--or at least attempted--in town-meeting, church-meeting,
and even in school meeting, with personal and domestic items of the
neighbours thrown in here and there as he went on.  He had an interested
and appreciative listener, and he knew it and did his best to be at the
same time comprehensive and brief.

"And the garden, Jabez?  I hope that has been a success," said Fidelia
at last.

"Well, yes--pretty middling;" and then a brief but clear and
satisfactory statement of the sowing and planting, the transplanting,
watering, and hoeing which had followed; of what the bugs and worms had
taken, and what had come to maturity; of how all had in general been
disposed of, and the net results in dollars and cents.

It was not a large sum, but it was the first money that Jabez had ever
earned--that is, it was the first he had earned for himself, though he
had done a good many fair days' work for his grandfather.  He had all he
needed as to food, clothes, and schooling.  He had been as well off as
most boys in the state; and the boys in the state where Jabez lived were
bound to believe that nowhere in the world were the boys better off than
they were.  But Jabez had never before owned a tenth of the money which
by cents and dimes he had been accumulating through the summer; and his
dollars meant more to him by a great deal than his first ten thousand--
should he ever possess such a sum--could possibly do.

"It isn't so much, but it is a beginning.  I tell you, Fidelia, it feels
good to be earning money for yourself--to be independent and to kind o'
see your way clear.  If I were to set out for it, I could be a rich man
before I died."

"Would it pay, do you suppose?" said Fidelia gravely.

"Well, judging by the pains folks take to get rich, it ought to pay.
There would have to be a good many other things along with it to make it
amount to--well, to satisfaction."

Fidelia laughed, partly at his way of expressing himself, and partly at
the extreme gravity of his countenance.

"I expect more from you, Jabez, than just to die a rich man.  Many can
do as much as that."

"Oh, well, I say before I die; but I mean a good while before, so that I
should have the benefit a spell!  I say I _could_ do it."

"I hope you haven't let your lettuce and cucumbers put your Nepos and
Euclid out of your head.  If I were you, I would make up my mind to be a
learned man rather than a rich man, though, as you remarked, there would
have to be something else along, to make even that amount to
satisfaction."

"And better be a wise man than either one or the other.  That would be
about the right thing to end off with, wouldn't it?" said Jabez, looking
up with a smile.  "But about Nepos--I've tackled him; and I find him
pretty tough.  As for Euclid--I've walked through the first four books
without a hitch.  I've had considerable satisfaction out of him.  Give
me any proposition you like--well, some time, as we've got almost home.
And I've never asked you a word about what _you_ have been doing.  I
have thought about you often enough."

"That may wait too; I haven't done very much."

"But if Miss Eunice keep so pretty well, you're going back again, aren't
you?"

Fidelia turned on him a startled look.  She had been at ease of late
with regard to her sister, partly because she had been much occupied,
and partly because of the cheerful tone of her sister's letters.
Jabez's words were spoken just as they had reached the top of the hill,
where, on her last return home, she had caught sight of Dr Everett; and
a sudden pang of the fear that had seized her then came back upon her
now.  She forgot to answer the lad's question, and took little heed of
all that he was saying as they went down the hill.

But when they turned the little curve which the road made round a
projecting rock, and came in sight of the house, her heart leaped up
with a sense of relief, and a rush of happy tears came to her eyes.  For
at the gate, serene and smiling, stood Eunice, waiting.  The light which
fell on the expressive face came trembling through the boughs of the elm
which waved and murmured above.  But Fidelia only saw the face.
Afterwards it all came back to her--the vine and the pale blossoms that
lingered, and the flickering shadows never to be forgotten; but it was
her sister's face that she saw first.

She might have been more beautiful in her youth which was past, but now
she was more than beautiful.  The "afterwards" had come--of the
chastening, "not joyous, but grievous," which she had endured in her
youth; and the "peaceable fruits" of the promise were appearing.  Very
fragile she looked, but cheerful and bright.

"To think that I ever should have been afraid for my Eunice!" said
Fidelia with a sob, before her foot touched the ground.

"Well, dear, safe home!" was her sister's gentle greeting.

"Home at last!"  Fidelia answered.

Few words were spoken, either of welcome or rejoicing.  Few were needed.
It was not the way of either of them to say out easily all that was in
her heart; and in a little they were sitting as quietly as they sat that
last day, when Dr Everett brought Fidelia home.  It was spring-time
then; and now the summer was nearly over--the summer which had done
something for Eunice, as her sister clearly saw, but which, even to
herself, she could not name.

She was not so much stronger as Fidelia had hoped to find her.  There
was the same paleness, with the same quick flush coming and going on her
cheek when anything moved her, beautiful but sad to see.  She had been
peaceful then, even cheerful, but there had been some tokens that the
peace had been striven for, and had come slowly, perhaps to go away
again.  Now it was assured.  And Fidelia said again to herself, "How
could I have been afraid?"

As Eunice went on to tell how, after all, Mrs Stone had decided not to
delay her departure after the day appointed, Fidelia was recalling with
sorrowful amazement her troubled thoughts about Dr Justin and Miss
Avery, and her doubts as to how Eunice might feel when she came to know.
Neither the one nor the other, nor both together, could harm her, nor
even trouble her peace.  "Nor any one or anything else in the world,"
she added in her heart.

"I think I am a little glad that Mrs Stone went, after all," Eunice was
saying, when Fidelia came back to the present again.  "I am glad to have
you to myself a little while: you must have a great deal to tell me
after so long a time, and we won't hurry over it.  It is good to have
you at home again."

"It is good to be at home, though they were all very good to me in
Eastwood."

"You are not looking very rosy even yet," said Eunice gravely.

"Oh, I am perfectly well; and so I was when I went there, only I was
tired.  Yes, I liked every one of them.  They were all very good to me."

"And the visitors?"

"I liked them pretty well.  I envied them a little, I am afraid.  It was
silly of me, wasn't it, and wicked?  But I have got over it, and I don't
suppose I shall ever be exposed to the same temptation again--I mean, I
have seen the last, of them, I guess--of Miss Avery at any rate.  I am
glad too that Mrs Stone went away for awhile, though I would like to
see her.  What is she like?"

"She is good, and sensible, and strong.  Some people might think her
hard at first not knowing her well--but she is not hard.  She has been
in some hard spots since she used to take care of me as a baby, and she
might have grown hard and sour also, if it had not been, as she says,
`for the grace of God.'  But, hard or not, I love her dearly.  She suits
me."

"You must have been glad to see her again."

"Yes; when she came I was glad.  I was not altogether glad at the
thought of her coming.  I suppose I was afraid a little of the old times
coming back too clearly, and that I might be troubled and unsettled by
the sight of her.  But it has not been so--far otherwise," added Eunice
with a smile.

A momentary shadow had passed over her face, but Fidelia forgot it in
seeing the brightness that followed it; and she sat thinking about it in
silence, till the gate opened, and Susie Everett came in.  But as they
sat the next morning in the back porch, looking out on the large garden,
the subject of Mrs Stone's relations to them was renewed.

"I don't suppose that Ruby will be away long, and before she comes I
want you to understand how it is with her, and just what she would like
to do.  Of course you are going back to the seminary next year?"

"Of course I would like to go, if ways and means will permit I would
like to graduate with my class."

"I am afraid you have worked too hard, dear."

"No, not too hard; but I don't think I worked in the best way.  I should
do differently next year.  At least I should try."

"Tell me about it, dear."

Fidelia sat silent a minute or two, then she said:--

"Some time I will tell you about it--not to-day.  But about `ways and
means.'  Perhaps I had better teach this year, as I meant to do at
first."

But Eunice had a plan to unfold, by which, should Fidelia approve, all
would be made easy for them both.  Mrs Stone wished to stay in Halsey
for a time.  The place was more like home than any other place could
ever be to her, and she would like to share the home of the sisters for
a time.

"Would you like it, Eunice?" asked Fidelia a little anxiously.

"Yes; for some reasons I would like it.  Mrs Stone is kind and good,
and she does not seem like a stranger to me, though she has been away so
many years.  She is capable too, and I am not so strong as I used to
be."

"But you are well, Eunice?  You are not afraid any more--of--"

Fidelia could not utter the word which rose to her lips--a word which,
indeed, had never been uttered between them.

"Yes, I am well--for me.  No, I am not afraid any more.  But, dear, I
own to have been lonesome last winter, and a little downhearted
sometimes."

"I ought to have been at home."

"No, dear.  It was all right; and it is best that you should go again
next year for various reasons, rather than to wait.  And, besides--"

Then Eunice went on to explain that, though not a rich woman, Mrs Stone
had enough for her own wants, and more.  She had no near ties of
kindred, and no special work in the world to look forward to, and work
she could find in Halsey more easily than anywhere else.

"And, dear, if I had been asked to plan for my own comfort, and for a
chance to make going away again easy for you at the same time, I could
not have asked for anything more suitable than this.  The obligation and
the comfort will be mutual.  Yes, I like the plan."

"Would it be for always, Eunice?"

Eunice smiled and shook her head.

"Dear, I don't much believe in making plans for always.  `Short views'
are best, you know.  We might try it for a year, and then decide."

"Eunice, if I liked to take it, I might have the school at the Corners
this winter; and I could be at home."

"Yes; and that would be pleasant all round, if it were necessary.  But I
think it would be wiser for you to go back to the seminary this winter."

Fidelia did not answer immediately.  Indeed, she rose and went the
length of the garden, and stood looking over the fields to the river and
the hills, and she was saying some hard things to herself as she stood
there.  In a little she turned and came slowly back again.

"Well, dear, what do you say?" said Eunice gently.

"I say that the plan is good, if you like it.  It is I who am all wrong.
It is hateful in me, I know, but, Eunice, I could not have any one come
between you and me.  Not _any one_, Eunice."

"But, my darling," cried Eunice, laughing a little, and stretching out
her hands, "that could never be!  Why, you are all I have got!"

Fidelia sat down on the step, and laid her face for a minute on her
sister's lap.

"I never knew till lately that I had an envious and jealous
disposition," said she in a little.

"But you need not be jealous of Ruby Stone, or of any one else, as far
as I am concerned, dear.  I am almost sorry now, that she did not stay
another day, so that you might have seen her.  Oh, you will like her, I
am sure!--she is so sincere and simple, and so much in earnest."

A great deal more was said about their plans, and about Mrs Stone, but
not a word about Dr Justin Everett.

It was good to be at home again.  A great many people, young and old,
came to see Fidelia within the next three days.  In the meantime Mrs
Stone returned, and all necessary arrangements for the year were made
between her and the sisters.  Mrs Stone would have liked to rent the
place or to buy it; but it was not to be thought of that the sisters
should give up their home altogether, and so their plans were made for
the year only.

Mrs Stone was a small dark-eyed woman, thin and brown, with deeper
wrinkles between her eyes than her forty years should have shown.  When
she sat with her eyes cast down on her work, and her lips firmly shut,
one who did not know her well might be excused for saying that she
looked "hard."  But when she looked up, and spoke, or smiled, her face
changed.  She had a good and pleasant face, with some signs of trouble
upon it.

Her married life had been a time of discipline to her, she owned to
Eunice, when they first met, and to her she spoke of the troubles of the
time; but she spoke to no one else of it.  She was capable and active,
and did what was to be done in the house with such evident pleasure and
success that the housekeeping gradually fell into her hands, and Fidelia
had more liberty than ever she had at home before.  And she made a good
use of her liberty.  She had preparations for next year to make, and
friends to visit, and began to feel more light-hearted--more like
herself--than she had done for a good while.

There was much going on to make the time pass pleasantly.  Nellie Austin
and her brother Amos were visiting the Everetts; and in whatever was
planned for their pleasure and the pleasure of the household Fidelia had
a share.  There were fishing parties and berrying expeditions; and they
went sometimes to the woods, or to visit some mountain or waterfall, or
chasm among the hills.

Dr Everett himself, when one of his rare days of leisure came, liked
nothing better than to go with the young folks; and it was a day to be
marked with a white stone when he could make one of the party.  Dr
Justin had more leisure, and could go oftener.  Dr Everett was as merry
and as eager for adventures as any of them.  Dr Justin was quiet, and
took the place of a looker-on rather than a sharer in the amusements of
the young people.  Privately some of them were inclined to think him
something of a tyrant, for he kept them in order, and did not hesitate
to assume and exercise authority when occasion called for it, nor to
reprove--and that with sufficient emphasis--any of them who through
thoughtlessness or selfishness interfered with the pleasure of the rest.
But this did not often happen, and he was a favourite among them all.

Fidelia came to like Dr Justin better than at Eastwood she would have
supposed possible.  She went very often with the rest of the young
people, and no one of them all enjoyed the delights of woods and fields
and mountains more than she.  Nellie Austin declared that she hardly
recognised in her the dull, determined student of the first part of the
year.  She was light-hearted and happy; and she told Nellie, and herself
as well, that she had good cause.

Eunice was well, and every day made it more clear to them that they had
made no mistake in deciding to share their home with Mrs Stone.  And
then she was going back to the seminary and her beloved studies again.

Yes, Eunice was very well--"for her," Fidelia sometimes added with a
sigh, which meant that Eunice might never be altogether well and strong
again.  But she was happy--there could be no doubt about that.  Dr
Justin came sometimes as a visitor to the house, quiet and grave there
as elsewhere; and his quietness and gravity was the reason that Fidelia
liked him better than she had liked him at Eastwood, she told herself.
Nothing could be more evident than that he exerted no disturbing
influence on Eunice.  They were friendly--they were even confidential,
Fidelia sometimes thought.  But she never spoke of Dr Justin to her
sister, except as his name came in the account which Eunice always liked
to hear of the expeditions in which she could take no part; and she day
by day grew less afraid lest her sister might have something to tell her
of him that she would not like to hear.

But she liked Mr Justin, she owned to herself; and after awhile she
began to see that, though he had less to say to her than to Nellie and
the rest, he was not less mindful of her than of them--that though he
amused himself with them, and submitted to be teased by them, and even
condescended to tease them in return, he had only grave respectful words
for her, and indeed carried himself towards her as though he thought she
might not care for friendly advances on his part; but he was always
careful for her safety and comfort, and one day he told her why.

"I promised your sister that I would take care of you," said he one day,
when he found it necessary to insist on helping her, as well as the
others, over some difficulty in the way.

"Eunice?" said Fidelia, startled.  "Eunice knows that I am quite able to
take care of myself."

"But I thought you had been taken care of all your life?" said Dr
Justin as she slowly followed the others up the steep ascent.

"By my Eunice!  Yes."

It would not have been easy for either of them to say much of Eunice, so
they were silent as they went slowly on.

This was one of the marked days of that happy time to them all.  The
young people had made their arrangements for a blackberrying excursion;
but when it proved that Dr Everett had a day of leisure, and could go
with them, it was proposed that the blackberries should be left for
another day, and that they should all go to the Peak to see the view.
The young Austins were still there, and all the Everetts were to go
except the mother.  Jabez and young Mr Fuller, who had been teacher of
last winter's school, and a few others, made up the party.  To climb
"the Peak" was a thing to be done at least once or twice in the lifetime
of every dweller in Halsey, and it was worth the trouble it cost.

At the last moment Mrs Stone declared her intention of joining the
party--"just to see how it would seem to be there again;" and Deacon
Ainsworth for a minute or two entertained the idea of going also, but
thought better of it.  He had serious doubts as to the moral effect of
so much tramping up hill and down again, just to look at things, in a
world where there is so much work that needed to be done.  Blackberrying
parties and fishing expeditions he could understand; but to give so much
time to pleasure which generally turned out to be hard work that did not
pay, was a doubtful matter to him.

All this was said to Jabez, who would have done better, he declared, to
stick to the work he had undertaken.  It would pay better.

"Well, but I don't seem to have anything that needs to be done just
to-day, grandpa.  And it will pay to go there.  Oh, yes, it will pay to
go up there with the two doctors!  They'll have something to say about a
good many things we'll see up there--botany, geology, mineralogy, and
all the rest of it.  Why, you would enjoy it, grandpa!  If it wasn't for
your rheumatism, I'd say, `Go.'  I expect to have a real good time."

So did they all.  They made an early start, driving as far as horses
could be taken; then, taking an irregular course northwards along the
western side of the mountain, they gradually reached a point from which
could be seen the commencement of the two mountain ranges which extend
through two neighbouring states.  It was early still, and here they were
to rest for awhile.  The real climbing of the day was still before them.
The view which they had come to see, was the view eastward from the
Peak--the view of a long reach of the river, and the valley and the
cultivated hill country beyond.  Here they sat in the shadow of a great
rock, looking northwards to the mountains.

There was little variety in the view--only a wide stretch of broken hill
country, with the grey rock showing through in wide irregular patches,
and along the dry water-courses--all changing into a haze of smoky blue
in the distance, where the mountains seemed to touch the sky.  Dr
Justin and a friend, who in their boyish days had been often at the
Peak, and through all the hills within sight of it, pointed out to each
other, the position of their old familiar haunts--the best trout stream,
Silver Lake, the Glen and the Gorge, and by the help of a field-glass
tried to point them out to the others.  They could see gleams of blue
water here and there between the nearer hills; and higher up, a tinge of
bright colour where the early frost had already been, but almost
everywhere the summer green prevailed.  It was a scene strange and
beautiful; and to those who looked upon it for the first time, the charm
and interest lay in its wide extent and in the utter silence and
solitude resting upon it.  There were farms and cottage homes, and even
towns and mills and churches, scattered out of sight among the hills;
workers and pleasure-seekers--the busy and idle--were going to and fro
among them; but the only signs of human life or labour which came up to
those who were gazing down on the wide expanse were the shriek of the
locomotive and the wisp of vaunting vapour which for a moment lingered
on its track.

Mrs Stone sat a little withdrawn from the rest, looking northward also,
with a strange fixed look on her face--the look which made people who
did not know her very well say she was hard.  She shook her head,
smiling a little, when Fidelia asked her if she would not like to look
at the mountains through the glass.

"Well, no, I don't seem to care much about it.  I didn't come to see
anything in particular.  I wanted to see how it would seem to be up here
again--that is all."

"And how does it seem?" asked Dr Justin, who had drawn near with his
glass in his hand.

"Well, I don't know as I could tell you.  I am not sorry I came.  I
guess I have thought about this place as often as about any other place
in the state in the last ten years.  No; I am not sorry I came.  I don't
know as I'm sorry I came last time.  It is all right, I expect."

"Tell us about last time," said Fidelia softly.

"Some time I'll tell you, maybe.  I guess I shall need all my breath
before I get up the Peak.  I am not so spry as I was last time I came."

"I'll help you up," said Fidelia.

"Oh, I guess I shan't need any help!  I'll start now, and take it
slowly.  I don't suppose I shall miss the way."

"I will go with you," said Fidelia.

Dr Justin looked as if he would like to go too, but he did not.  He
shut the glass with a snap, and turned to the group still standing on
the edge of the rock looking northwards; and the two set off together.

They went on slowly and silently till they came to a point where the
path they had followed became two paths, the one going up the steep side
of the mountain, the other holding northward along the ledge.

"Now I ought to know which path to take, but I don't feel sure about
this," said Mrs Stone meditatively.  "They say the longest way round is
the nearest way home; and according to that we should hold on round the
ledge.  The path will take us somewhere."

But it did not seem to do so, for in a little they came up against a
steep rock, and Mrs Stone owned herself at a loss and out of breath.
Fidelia proposed that she should sit down and rest, while she went alone
in search of the path.

"No; we'll keep together.  I don't suppose we can be lost; at any rate
two people are not so lost as one alone would be.  We'll keep together."

They must have turned themselves round in some way, for they could not
find the point where they had left the ascending path.  By-and-by they
came to a shelving rock where the bushes had been recently pressed down;
some broken branches, still unwithered, lay near.

"This must be the near way that Jabez and the boys took," said Fidelia,
"We ought to be able to find our way now."

But they did not find it after several attempts.  Mrs Stone was firm in
refusing to let Fidelia separate from her.

"Two are better than one," said she.

At last they came to a point where they got a glimpse of the valley
lying west of the mountain.  The land-marks were familiar, only it
seemed as though north and south had changed places, Mrs Stone said.
Another attempt brought them back to the place where they had found the
broken branches, and they had fancied themselves going in the other
direction.

"Well, there!  I guess we'd better sit down till some one comes to find
us.  Not that we are lost.  I never heard yet of any one being lost on
Shattuck Peak for more than an hour or two.  Why didn't I think of it
before, dear?  Are you too hungry and tired to sing, Fidelia?  I
shouldn't wonder if they were beginning to worry about us up there.
They'll be listening."

Fidelia clambered a little higher, and sang "The Star-spangled Banner,"
smiling a little at the thought of the time when she sang it with the
boys on Eastwood Hill.  She wondered that she had not thought of lifting
up her voice sooner.

But nothing came of it.  Fidelia amused herself gathering some late
flowers, and in searching about for other wild wood treasures, and then
she sang again, and listened for an answering voice; but she listened in
vain.

"I expect we _are_ lost for the time being," said Mrs Stone composedly.
"We'd as well make the best of it, and see what we can do to pass the
time.  I wish I had brought my knitting.  They'll miss us pretty soon,
and come to find us."

"Tell me about the last time you were on the mountain," said Fidelia.

"To pass the time?  Well, that may do as well as anything.  But it isn't
much of a story, and what is of it is not very pleasant to tell or to
hear."

The telling of that story involved the telling of much more; but there
was time enough, before an answer came to Fidelia's next song, for all
Mrs Stone had to tell.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

MRS STONE.

Mrs Stone did not tell her story straight on as she sat waiting there
on the mountain side, but with many a break and pause, and with now and
then an exclamation of wonder or indignation at her own foolishness, or
the foolishness of some one else.  But she told it quietly--making no
moan for herself, though the troubles of her life had been neither light
nor few.

"Yes, I have had a share of trouble, but no more than my share; and,
take it altogether, I have had considerable enjoyment, too.  There was
Eunice--I could never tell the comfort I took with her when she was a
little child.  I was only a child myself--little more than twelve or
thirteen years old--when my sister Myra let me go to take care of Eunice
for a spell, when she came home, a motherless baby, to live with her
grandmother Peabody on the hill.  Her grandmother was a busy woman in
those days, with many duties at home and elsewhere; and Eunice was a
healthy, happy little creature; and after awhile she was mostly left to
me night and day for years; and I did my very best for her, and we were
very happy together till your father married again and took her home.

"I ought by rights to have gone with her, as they all wanted to have me;
but sister Myra was married by this time, and lived on father's old
place, and she wanted me to come and make my home with her, as I had a
good right to do, seeing the farm was as much mine as hers, by our
father's will.  So I tried it a spell.  She had two babies by this time,
and I was good with babies, and could have helped her, and been
contented after awhile.

"But Ezra Stone, Myra's husband, wasn't--well, he was peculiar.  He was
close--he came from a stingy family, and I don't suppose he was more to
blame for his stinginess than other folks are for being extravagant--he
inherited it.  Well, he thought I wasn't needed there: he thought his
wife hadn't any too much to do with her babies, and her cows, and her
housework--no more than other folks had, he said; and he said I might do
better for myself some where else.  And he kept at it in his worrying
way, till he rather wore us out at last.  And so, when Squire Peabody
came over one day to say that his wife was sick and much in need of
help, Myra said I had better go.  I'd have a better time than I'd ever
be likely to have in her house; and maybe after awhile I might be able
to help her and the children more than I could now.  So I went, and I
stayed there till--well, till I was married."

There was a long pause here, and Mrs Stone spoke very softly when she
went on again.

"I didn't see so much of Myra after that, as I ought to have done.  I
used to see her Sundays at meetings, and we met at some of the
neighbours' houses sometimes; but I did not go often to her house.  I
knew she wasn't very happy.  She was different from her husband.  She
had a big heart and a free hand, and hated his small ways.  She was
nervous too, and high strung; and when she had anything on her mind, it
had to come out when occasion called for it.  Yes, she could say hard
things!

"But what she said touched her husband just as the water in the brook
touches the stones in its bed.  It never moved him; and she wore herself
out at last.  She had held out through a good deal for the sake of her
boys; and when she gave up at last, the end was pretty near.  I was with
her the last few weeks.  She hadn't strength to say much, but it
was--`My boys, Ruby!  Keep them in mind and help them all you can,'
whenever we were alone together.

"I think if she had asked me to come and take care of them, and make my
home with them, I must have done it.  But she didn't.  Ezra's mother was
living there then, and his sister Susan, and I wasn't needed.  But I did
pity those pretty slender boys, and the baby between them all.  But I
couldn't do anything about it, and I didn't see much of them for a good
while.

"Well, next June I got a letter, which I knew was from Ezra before I
opened it; and I said to myself, `He wants me to sell out my share of
the farm, or maybe sign off altogether for the benefit of Myra's boys.
I have been expecting it all along, and I shan't do it.'

"But I was mistaken.  That hadn't come yet.  It was a queer composition,
that letter.  It was to tell me that there was going to be a picnic at
the Peak for two or three of the Sunday schools in the neighbourhood;
and two of his boys were to be there, and wouldn't I go and see them?
There might be a good many easier ways to see them, I thought, than to
go up the mountain to do it.  However, some of the neighbours were
going, so I said I would go."

There was another pause here.

"I was in some trouble about that time myself.  I never said anything to
anybody, and I don't suppose anybody suspected it.  I had lost my sister
lately, and that might well account for having less to say than usual.
But I had lost another friend--one that would have been more than a
friend if he had lived.  We were not to say engaged.  We hadn't even
kept company much; but when Jim Sedley died down there at Lowell it went
hard with me, and for awhile the world seemed to have come to an end for
me.

"But I went to the picnic with the rest, and I saw the boys and had a
little talk with them, just long enough to find out that they missed
their mother dreadfully, and that they were much in need of a mother's
care; and my heart ached for the little fellows; and, when they were
called away to join in some play with the rest, I slipped off into the
woods, so as to get away from the talk, and to think it all over by
myself.  But thinking didn't help me much.  There was one thing I could
do.  I could marry Ezra Stone, and so try to be a mother to them; and as
the thought was in my mind I heard Ezra's voice close to me.  I would
have hid myself or run away if I could have done it, for I was afraid
that I would do or say something that I would be sorry for all my life.
But I couldn't get away; and there was Ezra saying how glad he was to
see me, and that he had come to the Peak on purpose, and a lot more of
the same kind.

"I was thinking about it all as I sat down there this morning," said
Mrs Stone after a little pause.  "A hundred times in the days that
followed I asked myself whether I could believe that the Lord was taking
care of me that day, according to His promise.  It was a great while
before I could see it so.  But I expect He was, though I never should
have married Ezra Stone if I hadn't gone up the Peak that day.  At least
I don't believe I should.

"He didn't begin about that, but about business.  His sister Susan was
going to be married to Nathan Pease, whose farm joined father's old
place; and he wanted to buy it, and would I be willing to sell my half
of it?  I never had calculated much on anything which was likely to come
to me from the place; but Myra had always advised me to hold on to my
share, and so I said I should have to think about it before I could say
whether I would sell or not.

"There is no call to tell you all his talk.  He didn't seem to care
about the place since Myra had gone, he said; and there did not seem to
be much chance for him and his boys at the East.  What he wanted to do
was to take what he had and go West with them.  There was the best of
land to be had there cheap, and no such hard work needed, and a better
climate.  He knew just the place he could have out there in Wisconsin,
and with a little money he could do well for his boys and himself; and
he ended by asking if I would go West with him and help him do for
Myra's boys?

"He knew pretty well what my opinion of him was.  I didn't need to say
anything about that.  My sister hadn't been much more than six months in
her grave, and I didn't waste words upon him.  But all the time it was
borne in upon me that it had got to be, and that it would come to that
at last.

"`It isn't so much a wife that I want as a mother for Myra's children,'
he said; `and I hope, when you come to think of it, you'll see it your
duty to come West with them.  If you change your mind, you can let me
know.'

"`It isn't very likely,' said I; but all the time I felt that I would be
as likely to go as not.  I told him I would talk over business matters
with Squire Peabody, and that I would sign any papers the squire told me
to sign, when the right time came; but I let him understand that I meant
to have the full value of my share.  It would, I thought, be as safe for
Myra's boys in my hands as in his, though I didn't just say that to him.

"Well, he went away, and I sat there thinking it all over, just on the
spot where I sat to-day when you and the other girls were looking
through Dr Justin's spy-glass; and I told myself that I hadn't much of
anything to look forward to, and that, after all, I might as well do one
thing as another.  Life didn't seem worth much to me, but I might make
my life worth something to Myra's boys.  There is always duty left when
hope is gone, and if I owed duty to any one, surely it was to my
sister's children--so I reasoned.  I would wait and see.

"Well, the children came back, and had something more to eat, and sang
some hymns, and then it was time to go.  The boys kept close to me as we
all went down to the place where the trains were waiting; and the poor
little fellows cried, and did seem so forlorn when they went away, that
I just couldn't get them out of my thoughts for a long time.

"I didn't think the sale of the farm would come off for awhile, but I
was mistaken.  Ezra came over to see the squire one day in October, and
they talked it over, and matters were settled, and papers signed, and my
share of the price of the land made over to me; and Ezra was to go away
at the end of the month.  The boys were to be left till spring, till he
could make some kind of a home for them, and he said he depended more on
me than on any one else to see that they were well done by till then:
`For they are more and nearer to you than to any one else except
myself,' he said.

"`It is not likely that I can do much for them while they are in your
mother's keeping,' I said.

"`Oh, mother thinks everything of you!' he said, with a foolish laugh;
`and you've got your share all right.  Squire Peabody has seen to that.'

"That was the first winter that Mrs Peabody's health began to fail.  It
wasn't long before your father died, and the squire took her South for
the winter, and the house was left to my care; and they said, if I
liked, I might have one or two of Myra's children to keep me company.
So I went over and got Jim, the eldest, so as to give him a chance at
our winter school, and the baby, as everybody called him, though he was
nearly four years old.

"You've heard me tell about my Davie before.  I needn't say much about
him.  The very first feeling of rest and comfort that had come to me,
after months of lonesome pain, came the first time he fell asleep in my
arms, with his little chapped hand upon my cheek: it was like the coming
back of the time when I had baby Eunice to care for; but it was
different; too, in some ways.  Jim was as good and as bright a boy as
need be, and we had a happy winter together.

"Well, in the spring the squire and his wife came home, and she seemed
better.  They hadn't been home long when a letter came from Ezra, saying
he wanted the boys to be sent out to him.  He couldn't, without
considerable loss of time, go for them, but there were chances every day
of people coming West, who would look after them all they needed.  A
chance of any one willing to trouble himself with the care of four boys,
one of them little more than a baby, wasn't likely to come very soon,
and the summer was over before we heard again; and all that time Jim and
Davie had stayed on with me.  Then there came another letter, saying
that the boys were to be sent on alone.  Nothing would be likely to
happen to them, as they needn't change cars more than once before they
reached Chicago, and he would meet them there.

"Then I wrote, saying the rest of them might go so, and I would keep
Davie for some better chance; or, if his father said so, I would keep
him altogether, and do for him till he was old enough to do for himself.
Well, quicker than ever an answer came before, a letter came, saying
`No!'--Davie must come with the rest.  He saw his way clear to do well
by all his boys.  Farming was a better thing out West than in New
England.  He wanted all his boys.

"Afterwards I thought of two or three ways I might have taken to keep
the child with me, but nobody encouraged me much to undertake it; and I
saw no better way at the time than just to go with them myself a part of
the way, especially as a gentleman, who had to do with western
railroads, offered me a free ticket to Chicago and back.  The squire and
Mrs Peabody said all they could to put me off the notion.

"`Ruby,' said she, `if you go, you'll marry Ezra Stone.'

"`That's his idea, anyway,' said the squire; `and Ruby, don't you do
it.'

"`I know Ezra Stone,' said I, thinking all the time that what they said
might be true.  And so it was.

"Ezra met us at Chicago; and as soon as I saw his face I felt sick at
the thought of letting Myra's children go off with him alone.  `What
kind of a woman will he put over them?' said I to myself.

"Well, you know all about it.  I did marry him, right there in Chicago.
He didn't say much.  Nothing he could have said would have had much
influence with me one way or another.  But I saw Myra's eyes looking at
me every time that Jim or the baby smiled at me, and I couldn't let them
all go away alone to I didn't know who or what.  No, he didn't say much;
and afterwards he rather twitted me with being ready the minute I was
asked.  I don't suppose I should have done any different if I had known
just all that was before me.  I wasn't a free agent in the matter.

"Yes--oh, yes!--I laid the matter before the Lord, or I thought I did.
I knew that I wasn't going to have any easy time, and that it wasn't my
own pleasure I was seeking; and that made me feel as though I was just
trying to do my duty, and that the Lord would see me through.  Yes, I
was self-willed about it.  I was faithless, I suppose, and afraid just
to leave the boys in God's hands.  Oh, yes, He did see me through; and
more than made up for the trouble I had to endure, and I wouldn't have
anything different from all that He sent me!  But I am making a long
story, and there isn't really much to tell.

"The next three years was just a dead level.  Nothing happened but just
summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest.  But such harvests!  Full
and rich beyond any experience we had ever had of harvests.  High prices
were given too, and much money must have come in.  But with that part of
it the boys and I had nothing to do.  There was nothing but hard work,
early and late, to show as far as we were concerned.

"I did my best for them.  I kept them at their books, Sundays and rainy
days, and winter evenings; and they were smart boys and learnt well.
They were good boys and pleasant-natured, taking after their mother, and
I took comfort with them in many ways.  They were good boys to work too.
There wasn't a lazy bone in one of them; and, while they did the work
that was expected of them, everything went well between them and their
father.  He let them pretty much alone at other times.  His heart was
set on just one thing, and that was making money, and the more he got
the more he wanted.  He didn't spare himself, and he didn't spare any
one else, if the chance to make a dollar came along.

"Jim was doing the work of a man before he was fifteen; and every year
brought more to be done, for more land was taken up as fast as it could
be paid for.  Ezra did have wonderful success.  After the narrow stony
fields of the old place, it was a sight to see the scores of acres of
wheat growing so full and strong.  It was threshed right there on the
ground, and sometimes it was sold there; and if he had only been content
with moderate success, he might have been living now, and well-to-do.

"I blame myself when I think of those times--the times that came after
the first three years.  I think maybe, if I had done differently, things
might have turned out differently for us all.  In this third spring my
Eunice was born--my only baby, and while she stayed with us she made the
world a better place for us all.  The boys did think everything of her,
and her father too.  But she died of croup.  If we had had a doctor near
us, or if I had known better how to deal with it, she might have lived,
I thought, and that made it very hard to bear.  Ezra felt so about it
too, and we had a dark winter.

"But spring came, and the work had to be done.  We couldn't get all the
help we wanted; and from daylight till dark Jim and his brothers had to
be in the fields.  Even little Davie had his share to do; and, though
they were not inclined to shirk their work, it was hard for them, and
they did sometimes complain.  I complained for them, but I might just as
well have held my tongue, and I did after awhile.  They grew fast.  Jim
was as tall as his father when he was sixteen, and if he had had any
chance he would have been a strong man in a few years.  But he was slim
and stooping, and had little flesh on his bones, and I worried about him
a good deal; and one day I asked his father how many acres of wheat he
supposed it would take to pay for the life and health of a boy like Jim.

"`He's _my_ boy,' said he, `and not yours, and it ain't worth while for
you to make the calculation.  I know all about it.'

"`He is my boy more than yours,' said I, `if love means anything.  I
can't make you answer me, but some time pretty soon you'll have to
answer his Maker and yours, and you'd best reckon up in time, for as
sure as you go on as you are going now, you'll have to bury him; and
that's my last word.'

"He gave an angry laugh at that, and said my last words came pretty
often; but I saw him looking curiously at Jim that night, and I guess
he'd have let him take it easier for a spell if Jim had known how to
take it easy.  But there was just so much to do, and he kept on along
with the rest.  It was Asher, the second one, who gave out first.

"Once or twice he had complained to me that he had dizzy turns, when he
kind of lost himself, and I had doctored him a little, not thinking him
very sick, till one day they brought him home from the field insensible;
and, if he ever knew any of us again, he could never tell us so, and he
died in just a week after he was brought home.  Yes, we had a doctor.
Jim went twenty miles for one without asking any one's leave.  He came
twice, but he couldn't help him.  All the time he was sick I never spoke
a word to his father about him unless he first spoke to me, till one
day, when he came in from his work, he found his boy lying still and
white, with his hands clasped on his breast, dressed ready for the
grave.

"`He'll never be tired any more,' I said.

"He turned and went out without a word; and Asher's name was never
spoken between us for years after that.

"It was different with Jim.  He kept on till the winter he was eighteen;
and I shall always be glad to remember how easy and pleasant his last
days were made to him.  It was a mild winter, and he kept about doing
something or other most of the time.  His father, let him do pretty much
as he liked, and went on hoping that the spring would make him all right
again.  He even talked of sending him back to the old place for a change
when the summer came; and Jim used to listen, and sometimes said what he
would do when he got there.  But he knew better.  He knew he was dying,
and he was not afraid.  But he had something he wanted to do before he
could be quite willing to go.

"One day, after he had been sitting beside me quietly thinking for
awhile, he said--`It's hard on father.'

"`Has anything happened to the fall wheat, or to any of the horses?
What is it that is hard on him?' said I.

"He shook his head, turning to me with a strange grieved look in his
eyes.

"`It is hard that he should have to lose another of his boys,' said he.

"`He should have taken better care of them, and he might have kept
them,' said I.

"`Mother,' said Jim, `I think _you_ are hard on father sometimes.'

"`Am I?  Oh, well, I guess nothing that I'm likely to say or do will
ever hurt him much!'  But I knew he was right in a way.

"`Mother, come in here.  I want you to lie down on the bed, and I will
sit beside you.  You are all tired out.  And I have got something that I
want to tell you.'

"What came into my mind when I turned and looked at him was a kind of
wonder what the world would be like to me when he had gone out of it;
but what I said was--`I don't feel more tired than common.  You lie down
on the bed, and I'll get Davie's jacket and mend it while we have a
little talk.'  So I got the jacket and held it, though I couldn't put a
stitch in.  My hands shook so that I couldn't thread my needle.  Jim
took and threaded it for me.  And then he lay still, with a look of
trouble on his face that made me say at last,--

"`I think I know what you are going to say, Jim.  It will be a dreadful
trouble to me and your father; but you oughtn't to be troubled about it,
Jim.  You are going to a better place: you are not afraid, Jim?'

"`No, dear mother, not for myself--nor for you.  You'll get over it
after awhile, and you'll come too--you and the boys.  But, mother, I
want father to come too.'

"I hadn't a word to say.  I must have been a wicked woman.  For half a
minute it seemed to me that heaven itself would be spoiled if Ezra Stone
were there.

"`And you must help him, mother,' said Jim.

"`I haven't helped him much lately about anything,' I said.

"`No; I think you're a little hard on father, mother;' and then he
turned on his pillow and put his two arms round my neck, and drew my
face down to his.  His words hurt me dreadfully.

"`The Lord Himself will have to take hold to change him,' I said.

"`Yes, of course, mother; and you'll help him.'

"He didn't say any more; and in awhile he fell asleep, and neither of us
stirred till I heard his father's step on the floor.  I did not stir
then, though it had been our way all those years to keep out of his
sight any special sign of affection between us.

"He came in and stood a spell looking at us, I suppose; and then he went
out, knowing for certain the thing which in his heart he had been
dreading all along, for he must have seen the signs of death on his
boy's face that day.

"Jim lived full three weeks after that, and he was a very happy boy.
His fear of his father had all gone.  Jim showed how glad he was every
time he came into the room; and he would smile, and hold his hand, and
speak softly to him, words which the rest of us could not hear, till he
could stand it no longer.  Then Ezra would rise and go out alone.  He
never came to me for comfort, and, if he had, I had none to give.

"Just once I heard Jim say, `You will, won't you, father?  God will help
you, and--mother.'

"His father groaned, and with good reason, for God seemed far away from
him, and he could not count much on help from me.

"Well, Jim died in his sleep, and we buried him near the other two; and
it was very quiet in the house for a spell, and then everything fell
into place again, and all went on as before, as far as those looking on
could see."

CHAPTER NINE.

MRS STONE.

"That was the poorest summer I ever had as to health.  Jim's sickness
had run me down, and then I missed him dreadfully, but what really ailed
me was a heavy heart.  I had lost my hope.  I had been a Christian for a
good many years, or thought I had.  I had joined the Church when I was
young, and had tried to live up to my profession, as far as I knew how.
I had enjoyed religion in a way, and got real help in trouble from my
Saviour.  But that seemed all gone.  I didn't enjoy it that summer, and
hadn't for a great while.

"I had thought all along that I was doing the best I could, and that I
did well to be angry with my husband's ways and to hate them.  But Jim
had left it to me to help his father; and how was I to help him, when I
hated not only his ways but himself, as I began to fear?  I hated his
greed, and his love of money, and his hardness, which had killed his
boys; and I couldn't separate the man from his sins, and yet I knew I
ought.  I was all wrong for awhile, and I knew it, but I didn't know how
to put myself right.

"Time went on, and a little help came to me after awhile in a way I
never would have thought of.  It was one Sunday.  They had all gone to
meeting, and I was alone in the house; and I got my courage up to look
over Jim's box and the few things that were his very own.  Among them I
found a little book, such as you've seen, that has a Bible verse for
every day of the year, and after each verse a few words to explain it,
or to send it home to the heart, and maybe a verse of a hymn after that.
I knew it the minute I saw it.  It was one Myra had had when she was a
girl.  It lay on her bureau always, and she read in it every night.

"She had given it to Jim.  Their two names stood together on the first
page, and Jim had kept it safe all this time, as I believe, for my help.
For when I turned over the leaves, after awhile I found the text for
that day, and it was this: `Fear not, daughter of Zion.  Behold, thy
King cometh unto thee!  He is just, and having salvation.'  And then,
among the words that came after to enforce the Scripture were these:
`However strong thine inward enemies, thy corruptions, fear not and be
not discouraged.  Thy King is bound by His office, by His love, and by
His promises, to help thee with strength to overcome.'

"They do not sound much as I say them to you, do they?--but to me they
seemed to come like a voice from heaven.  I had nothing to say for
myself.  I had been all wrong for a great while.  And I knew I could do
nothing now to put myself right.  But, according to this, the King
Himself was `bound to help me with strength to overcome.'  So I
said--`I'll just let go, and see what He'll do about it.  He may guide
me where He will.'  For I had lost my way; and if ever a poor soul knew
herself to be `helpless, and blind, and naked,' I did that day.

"I had a long spell of sickness after that I was run down, and needed
rest rather than medicine, the doctor said, and I was left pretty much
to myself; and, as we had good help at that time, my sickness didn't
make much difference in the house.  Mind and body were better for the
rest, and I rose in a month or two a happier, and, I hope, a better
woman than I was when I lay down.  I could not speak about myself or my
feelings easily to anybody, and I couldn't say a word to Ezra.  But I
think he saw the difference.  There never was a day after that, that I
did not try to say something pleasant to him; and he got none of the
sharp answers of which he used to be afraid.

"Things went on pretty much in the old way for a year or two, but better
in some respects.  We had a new house built, and everything more
comfortable about us.  A good many people had come to the
neighbourhood--well-to-do people; and Ezra had pride enough to wish to
`keep up with the times,' as he said.  We had a school too within a
reasonable distance, and meetings almost every Sunday; and there was
some talk of having a meeting-house built: and, to my surprise, Ezra was
the one to offer a lot of land to build it on.

"There was talk of a railroad coming our way, which would bring markets
nearer, and increase the value of property; and all this did not make
him less eager about making money, but more so.  I _did_ try to get on
better terms with him these days, and I could see that anything I said
had more influence with him, though he would not own it in words.  My
pride was broken as far as he was concerned; the hard feeling against
him had gone out of my heart.  I could pray for him, and hope for him,
and I had peace in my own soul, which made all the difference.  The boys
were good boys too, and had an easier time than their brothers had had,
and were growing up like other folks' children--manly little fellows,
afraid of nothing--and I did not fret about them as I had done about the
others.  We might have gone on like this for years if something had not
happened."

Mrs Stone paused, and leaned back against the rock with her face turned
away for a little while.  Then she said--

"It did seem even to me, for a while, that the Lord was dealing hardly
by Ezra, and that his heart was hardening rather than softening under
the hand that was laid upon him.  The harvest time had come again, and
there had been more than the usual trouble about getting men to help
with it.  The boys had been kept steadily at work, but made no
complaint; and their father, as the hired men declared, had done the
work of two.  He was the first up in the morning and the last to go to
rest at night, and sometimes even had his food carried to the field to
him, rather than lose the time coming to the house.  So one morning it
gave me quite a start to see him coming toward the house about ten
o'clock, and I laid down my work and waited till he came in; and,
whatever I forget before I die, I shall never forget the look on his
face as he came near.  I saw that he staggered as he walked, and that
his right arm hung helpless by his side.

"`What is it?'  I cried out, running toward him, He put out his left
hand as if to keep me off, and I saw that he moved his lips as though he
were speaking, but he uttered no sound.

"`You are hurt!'  I said; and I took his arm, and he stumbled into the
house, and fell across the bed in a dead faint.  We did what we could
for him--Prissy and I--and in the midst of our trouble I heard steps and
voices coming towards the house; and, for the first time, the thought
that something worse might have happened came to me.  I turned round and
saw the two hired men bringing something in on a board.  My Davie!  I
had no power to cry out when I saw him--bruised, broken, and bleeding to
death!  I had just sense enough left to make them carry him into another
room, so that the eyes of his father might not fall on him when they
opened; and so they laid him down.

"`It'll only hurt him to try to do anything for him, Mrs Stone,' said
one of the men, with a break in his voice.  `Speak to him.  He has got
something he wants to tell you.  All he has said since it happened
is--"I must tell mother."'

"So I knelt down beside him, and put a little water on his face, and
rubbed his hands, and whispered--`Davie dear, tell mother.'

"And then he opened his eyes and said faintly,--`It doesn't hurt much;
and, mother dear, father wasn't to blame.'

"`And you're not afraid, my Davie?'  I asked; and he said--

"`No, I needn't be, need I, mother?  Jim's gone there, and baby--and
Jesus died.  Pray, mother!'

"And so I did, a few broken words; and then he died with a smile on his
face, which hadn't left it when we covered it for the last time."

The pause was longer this time.  Fidelia rose and moved away, and stood
looking over to the hills on the other side of the valley for a little
while, and when she came back Mrs Stone's face was quite calm, though
there were traces of tears upon it.

"It wasn't till after some time that I heard just how it happened.  The
boy whose business it was to drive the team of the reaping machine
hadn't come, and Davie was only too proud and happy to be just in his
place.  His father had been loth to let him try at first, but he
consented, and all went well for a while.  But the horses were young,
and took fright--at what no one knew--and they ran away, with my Davie
sitting where he never ought to have been.  His father met them at a
corner of the fence which they had tried to get over, and by sheer
strength held them there till the man came to take the child from the
wreck.  Ezra never knew that he was hurt till he tried to lift his boy.
He knew Davie was in a bad case, even before the men got him out from
the ruins of the machine.  But he did not think he was going to die till
they laid him down on an armful of the fallen wheat; and then he came
home, and the men followed with the poor little boy.

"Well, we had a sad time after that.  The harvest was long over before
my husband was able to go to the fields again.  Besides his broken arm
he was hurt inwardly, and his nerves gave way.  It was weeks before he
could look out on the sunshiny fields without a shudder.  But he
gradually got better after awhile.  The harvest didn't suffer.  The men
worked well, and the neighbours helped, and it was all saved and well
sold, and a great deal of money--or what seemed a great deal to me--came
in for it, and passed through my hands.  It was the first time I had
ever had a chance to know anything about Ezra's money matters; but he
was glad of my help now, and didn't resent my having to do with it, as I
was afraid he might.  But he saw that the money didn't mean all to me
that it meant to him: it wasn't much to me just then, for my boy's death
had been a hard blow to me.  I was worn out with Ezra too.  A man just
well enough to be able to be about, and too sick to do as he has been
used to, is a dead weight on a woman's hands, I can tell you.

"I did the best I could for him, and was not so impatient with his
fancies, or with the fretfulness and fault-finding that filled the days
for a while; for by this time I had come to see some things differently.
I had come over some rough places, but the Lord had been leading me,
and I didn't rebel under Davie's loss as I had when we lost the others.
I didn't make much headway with my husband.  It was only once in a great
while that I could say or do anything to please him, but I laid it to
his state of mind and body; and I took some comfort, in knowing that he
was a little less miserable when I was by than when I was away.

"Dan wasn't just like the other boys.  He wasn't so bright, for one
thing.  He was the least like his mother of any of them.  He was shy,
and hadn't as much to say for himself as Jim had had; but he helped his
father a good deal at this time.  He took notice of all that was done or
that needed to be done on the place, and coaxed his father out to see to
things which he couldn't do himself.  And this took the poor man's
thoughts off from himself, and did him good in other ways.

"He had been much hurt, and he knew that he would never be the same man
again; and for a while--and that was the worst time of all--he couldn't
but feel that he might be going to die, and he knew he wasn't ready.  I
knew what his thoughts were, only by words muttered when he thought I
was asleep, or out of the way.  I read to him, and I prayed for him
every hour of the day; but I hadn't the faculty of speech on the subject
nearest my heart.  When I did say a word he never answered me, and there
was no one else to say much to him.

"Early in the fall he had a letter from John Martin, who had been a
neighbour when he lived at the old place.  He wanted Ezra to come home
and visit him.  He had heard of his troubles and his poor health, and he
said how good it would be for him to come home, and see his old friends
and relations again.  Of course I was included in the invitation, and
Dan; and, after a little, Ezra said, if I wanted to go he would go too.
But I did not think that would be the best thing to do.  We had pretty
good help as long as there was any one to do the planning; and I made
Ezra see that, though he might be spared for a while, it would be better
for me to stay at home while he was away; and he made up his mind to
take Dan and go, for a month or two at least.

"As for me, I felt as if the rest and quiet I should have at home all
alone would do me more good than anything else.  But afterwards I was
sorry enough that I had not gone with them, though it might not have
made any difference in the end.

"Well, they went, and had a good time, and started for home--and you
know the rest.  They got safely enough to within fifty miles of home,
and then an accident happened to the cars.  Many were hurt, and among
them was Dan; and I only just got where he was in time to see him alive;
and we brought him home in his coffin, and laid him down with the rest.
And again did it seem even to me as if the Lord was hard on Ezra, taking
his last child in that terrible way.

"Well, I never could tell you just how we got through the next year.
Angry and rebellious!  That tells all that could be told of Ezra Stone
for that year.  He stuck closer than ever, if that could be, to his farm
work; and, though he could not do so much with his own hands, his eye
was never off the work that was going on, and the crops were as good as
ever.  He boasted a little about his crops, and the prices he got; but
he did not take the comfort of his success as he had done in former
years.  He did not say it to me, but I am sure he said to himself many a
time--`What does it all amount to?'  It did not seem to make much
difference--the adding of a thousand, or maybe two, to the dollars he
had already, since there were none to come after him.

"Well, his health failed again that winter, and he was in the house a
good deal of his time.  I made it my whole business to see to him, and
to make the time pass as easily as might be.  I read the papers to him--
he had always liked that--and after a while I read other things; and
once a day, and sometimes twice, I read the Bible to him.  I had
promised Jim I would do that whenever I could, and I guess he had
promised Jim to let me; and sometimes he took pleasure in it; and I have
thought since, if I had been different--if I could have showed him the
longing I had to do him good, if I could have spoken to him oftener of
the Saviour and His love, that which I had longed for and prayed for all
these years since Jim died might have come sooner.  It came at last.

"`Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven!'  The Lord Himself said that.  And it
was just that which happened to my husband.  The man who for so many
years had seemed to me to have the hardest heart and the narrowest mind
that mortal could have, was just made over anew.  He became a little
child.  There is no other way of putting it.  He was gentle and
teachable--yes, and lovable; and that last year with him seemed to more
than make up to us both for all the suffering of our married life.  Yes,
I did come to love my husband; and, what seemed stranger to me, he came
to love me those last years, and if I had been different he might have
loved me from the first.  My mistake was--but there, I do not need to
tell you that, seeing I have told you so much--more than I have ever
told even Eunice, I declare.  And you needn't be too sorry for me."

There had been tears in Fidelia's eyes many times while the story went
on, and there were tears still as she stooped to kiss her.

"I am more glad for you than sorry.  It all ended well, Aunt Ruby."

"Yes; as well as well could be for them, and well for me too.  I don't
feel as if I ever could be faithless or afraid again--but there's no
telling.  And now, dear, had you not better sing something again?  It
seems as though they must have missed us before now; and some of them
will likely be looking for us."

So Fidelia kissed her old friend again; and, going a short distance up
the steep side of the mountain, she placed herself on a high rock near
the ascending path, and sung with a voice both strong and clear:--

  "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
  Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!"

till she came to the last line, which she repeated over and over:--

"I'll never--no, never--no, never forsake!"  Before she had ended a hand
was laid on hers, and she turned to see the moved face of Dr Justin.
"Faithful," he said--"Faithful!"  He was pale, and his lips trembled,
and so did the hand that touched hers.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Fidelia; and then she drew back a little,
startled by his pale face, and added--"Were you afraid about us?  Did
you think we might be lost?"

"Not afraid--there was no danger of your being lost very long," said Dr
Justin, pulling himself together and trying to speak quietly.  "You have
not been afraid?"

"No; and I think I could have found my way to the Peak; but Mrs Stone
would not let us separate, and she grew very tired.  So we sat down and
waited, and I have been singing every now and then, hoping that some one
might hear.  Mrs Stone is a few steps below us."

He took her hand to help her down from the rock, and held it firmly till
they came to the place where Mrs Stone was waiting.  She greeted him
joyfully.

"Well, there!  I _am_ glad to see you, Dr Justin.  Who would have
thought that we two were not able to take care of ourselves?"

"And I am afraid we have spoiled the pleasure of all the rest," said
Fidelia.  "Are they all scattered over the mountain looking for us?  I
am ashamed of myself."

"No; only Jabez and I were despatched in search of you.  And you have
not been missed long.  In going up the mountain the company got
separated into different parties, and you were not missed till all came
together at the top.  Then Jabez and I undertook to find you."

"And have you been searching long?"

"No, not long--though it seemed long.  Are you too tired to go up the
Peak?  Because if you are we can send Jabez up to say so."

"Tired?  No.  But is there time?  I should hate to have to go home and
own that I had not been up the mountain after all," said Mrs Stone.  "I
do hate to be beat when I set out for anything."

"There is plenty of time, and they will all be disappointed if you do
not go.  I must signal to Jabez first, however.  He must be somewhere
within sight or hearing, I should think."

So he was, and came rushing down through bushes and over rocks and
stones, at a headlong pace.

"Well, I declare!  I knew pretty likely somebody would get into a scrape
in the course of the day.  But I didn't think of its being either of
you."

"You were to make us your special care, you remember, Jabez," said Mrs
Stone.

"Yes, you promised Eunice," said Fidelia, laughing.  "What became of
you?  Did you think about us at all?"

"Why, yes!  I thought about you more than once.  But there were other
folks missing too, and I expected you'd all turn up together," said
Jabez, giving a glance toward Dr Justin.

"If we are going up the Peak, the sooner we start the better," said Dr
Justin.

"Well, yes; but Dr Everett told me that if I came across the strayed
ones, I must give them this the first thing," said Jabez, presenting a
little basket to Mrs Stone.  "He said you'd got to eat something before
you start, and take plenty of time.  It takes Dr Everett himself to
think of everything."

"Which cannot be said of all the doctors," said Dr Justin, laughing.
"So you must sit down and enjoy your lunch before you go farther;" and
he unfolded a snowy napkin and presented a sandwich to each.

They were soon on their way, however.  Jabez privately promised Fidelia
that he would take her to the Peak by a short cut, which was also a
little the steepest, he acknowledged.  So they set off together, and Dr
Justin, with Mrs Stone, followed a more circuitous path.

But the shortest way proved the longest this time also, for Mrs Stone
had time to tell Dr Everett and the girls the history of the morning,
and their wanderings here and there in search of the path, before
Fidelia, panting and breathless after her scramble over rocks and
through thickets of bramble and berry bushes of various sorts, made her
appearance.

It was not so late as they supposed.  The lunch was the first thing to
be considered, and this was done thoroughly by all.

Then, when that was over, they had the measure of enjoyment which is
usually to be had on such occasions.  They went here and there
separately or in groups, and examined, and wondered, and wished, and,
above all, determined and declared that it would not be long before they
came up there again.  They stayed a little longer than was quite wise,
perhaps, to watch the lengthening of the western shadows, and the bright
reflections which a wonderful sunset sent over to the eastern hills.
And then it was full time to go home.

Dr Everett undertook the marshalling of the company, and this time he
arranged that they should divide into parties of three or four, each
member of a party being responsible for the safe home-getting and
general well-being of each in that party, and of no one else.

"And as Mrs Stone and Fidelia seem to be the difficult case this time,
we must see to them especially.  So, Dr Justin, you take charge of Mrs
Stone and one of the little girls, with Susie to help you, and I will
take the other little girl with Fidelia, Nellie Austin being my helper.
Yes, that is quite the best way to arrange," said he, nodding to his
brother, who did not seem so sure of it.

They got safely to the foot of the mountain, and safely home--tired
enough, but cheerful, already eagerly discussing what was to be done on
the doctor's next day of leisure, which, however, was not likely to come
very soon.

CHAPTER TEN.

A BAD DREAM.

"Eunice," said Mrs Stone, "there is something I want to say to you,
only I am afraid you won't like it."

"Even if I shouldn't like it, I don't know that that would be a good
reason why you shouldn't say it," responded Eunice, with a smile.

They were sitting together in the front porch, into which the sun was
shining brightly; and in September days, when the afternoons are
shortening, the sunshine is welcome among these hills, for warmth as
well as brightness.  They had been sitting there for an hour or two,
sometimes exchanging a word about their work, or their neighbours, or
the passers-by, but on the whole inclined to silence.  Eunice had a book
on her lap, and her sewing also, but they had both been neglected for a
while.  Mrs Stone was knitting steadily on, as if there were nothing
more interesting to her at the moment than her monotonous work.

Fidelia had gone with the Everett children and their mother, and several
other young people, on the long-talked-of blackberrying expedition,
which had been delayed so often for one reason and another that the
chances were against success, as far as the fruit was concerned.  There
had been some discussion as to the wisdom of calling it a nutting
expedition instead, though it was early yet to think of getting nuts.
But it did not really matter about either the one or the other.  The
chances were they would find that which they were seeking, though they
should get neither nuts nor berries.

The young people had gone in Deacon Ainsworth's hay-cart, seated on a
pile of fragrant hay, and with Jabez in charge of the oxen.  Mrs Stone
had been invited to go with them, but she had declined.

"Mother is coming in the chaise, and Uncle Justin," said Susie Everett.
"Mother was afraid of the hay-cart.  If you can drive, you might go with
mother, Mrs Stone.  Uncle Justin wouldn't mind going in the cart, I am
sure."

"No, I don't much believe he would, under the circumstances," Mrs Stone
had answered; but she still declined.  The invitation had been renewed
when the chaise passed half-an-hour afterwards, but had been again
declined.

"I should have liked to go, just to know how it would seem to be there
again," said she.  But she had a stronger reason for staying than for
going.  She had something to say to Eunice which it would be as well to
say when Fidelia was not within call.

"Well?" said Eunice, after a pause.

"Well; it isn't so much that I am afraid you won't like it, as that I
shall hurt you."

"But if it is to do me good, I shall not mind the hurt after a little."

"But then I should feel dreadfully if you were to turn round and tell me
I'd better mind my own business."

"A good deal of my business is yours now, Ruby," said Eunice, smiling
still, but with a slow rising of colour to her cheeks.

"Well, I don't know, certainly, that you will think this is; but I know
that I mean you nothing but good, and her too."

"Fidelia!  Say what you have to say, Ruby."

"Well, I will.  Hasn't it ever come into your mind that Justin Everett
was letting his thoughts turn towards Fidelia?"

"Justin Everett!--Fidelia!"

There was not another word spoken for a good many minutes.  Eunice sat
with her eyes cast down and with her colour coming and going; and Mrs
Stone, seemingly intent on her knitting, noted every change on the
beautiful face.  But she waited for Eunice to speak first, and in a
little she did so quietly enough.

"I cannot say that I have never thought such a thing possible; but I
have never seen any reason to make me think that it had happened.  Have
you, Ruby?"

"Well, if anybody--say Mrs Holt or Mrs Ainsworth--were to come and
te

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