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Without a Home

by Edward Payson Roe · English · Gutenberg #5433 · 994,654 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Without a Home

Author: Edward Payson Roe


        
Release date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #5433]
                Most recently updated: September 8, 2012

Language: English

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WITHOUT A HOME

E. P. ROE


ILLUSTRATED






PREFACE

Just ten years ago I took my first hesitating and dubious steps
toward authorship. My reception on the part of the public has been
so much kinder than I expected, and the audience that has listened
to my stories with each successive autumn has been so steadfast and
loyal, that I can scarcely be blamed for entertaining a warm and
growing regard for these unseen, unknown friends. Toward indifferent
strangers we maintain a natural reticence, but as acquaintance
ripens into friendship there is a mutual impulse toward an exchange
of confidences. In the many kind letters received I have gratefully
recognized this impulse in my readers, and am tempted by their
interest to be a little garrulous concerning my literary life, the
causes which led to it, and the methods of my work. Those who are
indifferent can easily skip these preliminary pages, and those who
are learning to care a little for the personality of him who has
come to them so often with the kindling of the autumn fires may
find some satisfaction in learning why he comes, and the motive,
the spirit with which, in a sense, he ventures to be present at
their hearths.

One of the advantages of authorship is criticism; and I have never
had reason to complain of its absence. My only regret is that I
have not been able to make better use of it. I admit that both the
praise and blame have been rather bewildering, but this confusion
is undoubtedly due to a lack of the critical faculty. With one acute
gentleman, however, who remarked that it "was difficult to account
for the popularity of Mr. Roe's books," I am in hearty accord. I
fully share in his surprise and perplexity. It may be that we at
last have an instance of an effect without a cause.

Ten years ago I had never written a line of a story, and had
scarcely entertained the thought of constructing one. The burning
of Chicago impressed me powerfully, and obedient to an impulse I
spent several days among its smoking ruins. As a result, my first
novel, "Barriers Burned Away," gradually took possession of my mind.
I did not manufacture the story at all, for it grew as naturally
as do the plants--weeds, some may suggest--on my farm.  In the
intervals of a busy and practical life, and also when I ought to
have been sleeping, my imagination, unspurred, and almost undirected,
spun the warp and woof of the tale, and wove them together. At first
I supposed it would be but a brief story, which might speedily find
its way into my own waste-basket, and I was on the point of burning
it more than once. One wintry afternoon I read the few chapters then
written to a friend in whose literary taste I had much confidence,
and had her verdict been adverse they probably would have perished
as surely as a callow germ exposed to the bitter storm then raging
without. I am not sure, however, but that the impulse to write would
have carried me forward, and that I would have found ample return
for all the labor in the free play of my fancy, even though editors
and publishers scoffed at the result.

On a subsequent winter afternoon the incipient story passed through
another peril. In the office of "The New York Evangelist" I read
the first eight chapters of my blotted manuscript to Dr.  Field
and his associate editor, Mr. J. H. Dey. This fragment was all that
then existed, and as I stumbled through my rather blind chirography
I often looked askance at the glowing grate, fearing lest my friends
in kindness would suggest that I should drop the crude production
on the coals, where it could do neither me nor any one else further
harm, and then go out into the world once more clothed in my right
mind. A heavy responsibility rests on the gentlemen named, for they
asked me to leave the manuscript for serial issue. From that hour
I suppose I should date the beginning of my life of authorship.
The story grew from eight into fifty-two chapters, and ran just
one year in the paper, my manuscript often being ready but a few
pages in advance of publication. I wrote no outline for my guidance;
I merely let the characters do as they pleased, and work out their
own destiny. I had no preparation for my work beyond a careful
study of the topography of Chicago and the incidents of the fire.
For nearly a year my chief recreation was to dwell apart among the
shadows created by my fancy, and I wrote when and where I could--on
steamboats and railroad cars, as well as in my study. In spite of
my fears the serial found readers, and at last I obtained a publisher.
When the book appeared I suppose I looked upon it much as a young
father looks upon his first child. His interest in it is intense,
but he knows well that its future is very doubtful.

It appears to me, however, that the true impulse toward authorship
does not arise from a desire to please any one, but rather from a
strong consciousness of something definite to say, whether people
will listen or not. I can honestly assert that I have never
manufactured a novel, and should I do so I am sure it would be
so wooden and lifeless that no one would read it. My stories have
come with scarcely any volition on my part, and their characters
control me. If I should move them about like images they would be
but images. In every book they often acted in a manner just the
opposite from that which I had planned. Moreover, there are unwritten
stories in my mind, the characters of which are becoming almost
as real as the people I meet daily. While composing narratives I
forget everything and live in an ideal world, which nevertheless
is real for the time. The fortunes of the characters affect me
deeply, and I truly believe that only as I feel strongly will the
reader be interested. A book, like a bullet, can go only as far as
the projecting force carries it.

The final tests of all literary and art work are an intelligent
public and time. We may hope, dream, and claim what we please,
but these two tribunals will settle all values; therefore the only
thing for an author or artist to do is to express his own individuality
clearly and honestly, and submit patiently and deferentially to
these tests. In nature the lichen has its place as truly as the
oak.

I will say but a few words in regard to the story contained in this
volume. It was announced two years ago, but I found that I could
not complete it satisfactorily. In its present form it has been
almost wholly recast, and much broadened in its scope. It touches
upon several modern and very difficult problems. I have not in the
remotest degree attempted to solve them, but rather have sought
to direct attention to them. In our society public opinion is
exceedingly powerful. It is the torrent that sweeps away obstructing
evils. The cleansing tide is composed originally of many rills and
streamlets, and it is my hope that this volume may add a little to
that which at last is irresistible.

I can say with sincerity that I have made my studies carefully and
patiently, and when dealing with practical phases of city life I
have evolved very little from my own inner consciousness. I have
visited scores of typical tenements; I have sat day after day on the
bench with the police judges, and have visited the station-houses
repeatedly. There are few large retail shops that I have not
entered many times, and I have conversed with both the employers
and employes. It is a shameful fact that, in the face of a plain
statute forbidding the barbarous regulation, saleswomen are still
compelled to stand continuously in many of the stores.  On the
intensely hot day when our murdered President was brought from
Washington to the sea-side, I found many girls standing wearily
and uselessly because of this inhuman rule. There was no provision
for their occasional rest. Not for a thousand dollars would I have
incurred the risk and torture of standing through that sultry day.
There are plenty of shops in the city which are now managed on
the principles of humanity, and such patronage should be given to
these and withdrawn from the others as would teach the proprietors
that women are entitled to a little of the consideration that is so
justly associated with the work of the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals. Mr. Bergh deserves praise for protecting
even a cat from cruelty; but all the cats in the city unitedly
could not suffer as much as the slight growing girl who must stand
during a long hot day. I trust the reader will note carefully the
Appendix at the close of this book.

It will soon be discovered that the modern opium or morphia habit
has a large place in this volume. While I have tried to avoid the
style of a medical treatise, which would be in poor taste in a work
of fiction, I have carefully consulted the best medical works and
authorities on the subject, and I have conversed with many opium
slaves in all stages of the habit. I am sure I am right in fearing
that in the morphia hunger and consumption one of the greatest
evils of the future is looming darkly above the horizon of society.
Warnings against this poison of body and soul cannot be too solemn
or too strong.

So many have aided me in the collection of my material that any
mention of names may appear almost invidious; but as the reader
will naturally think that the varied phases of the opium habit are
remote from my experience, I will say that I have been guided in
my words by trustworthy physicians like Drs. E. P. Fowler, of New
York; Louis Seaman, chief of staff at the Charity Hospital; Wm.
H.  Vail, and many others. I have also read such parts of my MS.
as touched on this subject to Dr. H. K. Kane, the author of two
works on the morphia habit.

This novel appeared as a serial in the "Congregationalist" of Boston,
and my acknowledgments are due to the editors and publishers of
this journal for their confidence in taking the story before it
was written and for their uniform courtesy.

I can truly say that I have bestowed more labor on this book than
upon any which have preceded it; for the favor accorded me by the
public imposes the strongest obligation to be conscientious in my
work.




CONTENTS

I. ONE GIRL'S IDEAL OF LIFE

II. WEAKNESS

III. CONFIDENTIAL

IV. "PITILESS WAVES"

V. THE RUDIMENTS OF A MAN

VI. ROGER DISCOVERS A NEW TYPE

VII. COMPARISONS

VIII. CHANGES

IX. NEITHER BOY NOR MAN

X. A COUNCIL

XI. A SHADOW

XII. VIEWLESS FETTERS

XIII. A SCENE BENEATH THE HEMLOCKS

XIV. THE OLD MANSION

XV. "WELCOME HOME"

XVI. BELLE AND MILDRED

XVII. BELLE LAUNCHES HERSELF

XVIII. "I BELIEVE IN YOU"

XIX. BELLE JARS THE "SYSTEM"

XX. SEVERAL QUIET FORCES AT WORK

XXI. "HE'S A MAN"

XXII. SKILLED LABOR

XXIII. THE OLD ASTRONOMER

XXIV. ROGER REAPPEARS

XXV. THE DARK SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS

XXVI. WAXING AND WANING MANHOOD

XXVII. A SLAVE

XXVIII. NEW YORK'S HUMANITY

XXIX. THE BEATITUDES OF OPIUM

XXX. THE SECRET VICE REVEALED

XXXI. AN OPIUM MANIAC'S CHRISTMAS

XXXII. A BLACK CONSPIRACY

XXXIII. MILDRED IN A PRISON CELL

XXXIV. "A WISE JUDGE"

XXXV. "I AM SO PERPLEXED"

XXXVI. A WOMAN'S HEART

XXXVII. STRONG TEMPTATION

XXXVIII. NO "DARK CORNERS"

XXXIX. "HOME, SWEET HOME"

XL. NEIGHBORS

XLI. GLINTS OF SUNSHINE

XLII. HOPES GIVEN AND SLAIN

XLIII. WAS BELLE MURDERED

XLIV. THE FINAL CONSOLATIONS OF OPIUM

XLV. MOTHER AND SON

XLVI. A FATAL ERROR

XLVII. LIGHT AT EVENTIDE

XLVIII. "GOOD ANGEL OF GOD"

XLIX. HOME

APPENDIX




WITHOUT A HOME




CHAPTER I

ONE GIRL'S IDEAL OF LIFE


It was an attractive picture that Martin Jocelyn looked upon
through the open doorway of his parlor. His lively daughter Belle
had invited half a score of her schoolmates to spend the evening,
and a few privileged brothers had been permitted to come also. The
young people were naturally selecting those dances which had some
of the characteristics of a romp, for they were at an age when
motion means enjoyment.

Miss Belle, eager and mettlesome, stood waiting for music that
could scarcely be lighter or more devoid of moral quality than her
own immature heart. Life, at that time, had for her but one great
desideratum--fun; and with her especial favorites about her, with
a careful selection of "nice brothers," canvassed with many pros
and cons over neglected French exercises, she had the promise
of plenty of it for a long evening, and her dark eyes glowed and
cheeks flamed at the prospect. Impatiently tapping the floor with
her foot, she looked toward her sister, who was seated at the piano.

Mildred Jocelyn knew that all were waiting for her; she instinctively
felt the impatience she did not see, and yet could not resist
listening to some honeyed nonsense that her "friend" was saying.
Ostensibly, Vinton Arnold was at her side to turn the leaves of
the music, but in reality to feast his eyes on beauty which daily
bound him in stronger chains of fascination. Her head drooped under
his words, but only as the flowers bend under the dew and rain that
give them life. His passing compliment was a trifle, but it seemed
like the delicate touch to which the subtle electric current
responds. From a credulous, joyous heart a crimson tide welled up
into her face and neck; she could not repress a smile, though she
bowed her head in girlish shame to hide it. Then, as if the light,
gay music before her had become the natural expression of her mood,
she struck into it with a brilliancy and life that gave even Belle
content.

Arnold saw the pleasure his remark had given, and surmised the
reason why the effect was so much greater than the apparent cause.
For a moment an answering glow lighted up his pale face, and then,
as if remembering something, he sighed deeply; but in the merry
life which now filled the apartments a sigh stood little chance of
recognition.

The sigh of the master of the house, however, was so deep and his
face so clouded with care and anxiety as he turned from it all,
that his wife, who at that moment met him, was compelled to note
that something was amiss.

"Martin, what is it?" she asked.

He looked for a moment into her troubled blue eyes, and noted how
fair, delicate, and girlish she still appeared in her evening dress.
He knew also that the delicacy and refinement of feature were but
the reflex of her nature, and, for the first time in his life, he
wished that she were a strong, coarse woman.

"No matter, Fanny, to-night. See that the youngsters have a good
time," and he passed hastily out.

"He's worrying about those stupid business matters again," she
said, and the thought seemed to give much relief.

Business matters were masculine, and she was essentially feminine.
Her world was as far removed from finance as her laces from the
iron in which her husband dealt.

A little boy of four years of age and a little girl of six, whose
tiny form was draped in such gossamer-like fabrics that she seemed
more fairy-like than human, were pulling at her dress, eager to enter
the mirth-resounding parlors, but afraid to leave her sheltering
wing. Mrs. Jocelyn watched the scene from the doorway, where her
husband had stood, without his sigh. Her motherly heart sympathized
with Belle's abounding life and fun, and her maternal pride
was assured by the budding promise of a beauty which would shine
pre-eminent when the school-girl should become a belle in very
truth.

But her eyes rested on Mildred with wistful tenderness. Her own
experience enabled her to interpret her daughter's manner, and to
understand the ebb and flow of feeling whose cause, as yet, was
scarcely recognized by the young girl.

The geniality of Mrs. Jocelyn's smile might well assure Vinton
Arnold that she welcomed his presence at her daughter's side, and
yet, for some reason, the frank, cordial greeting in the lady's
eyes and manner made him sigh again. He evidently harbored a memory
or a thought that did not accord with the scene or the occasion.
Whatever it was it did not prevent him from enjoying to the utmost
the pleasure he ever found in the presence of Mildred.  In contrast
with Belle she had her mother's fairness and delicacy of feature,
and her blue eyes were not designed to express the exultation
and pride of one of society's flattered favorites.  Indeed it was
already evident that a glance from Arnold was worth more than the
world's homage. And yet it was comically pathetic--as it ever is--to
see how the girl tried to hide the "abundance of her heart."

"Millie is myself right over again," thought Mrs. Jocelyn; "hardly
in society before in a fair way to be out of it. Beaux in general
have few attractions for her. Belle, however, will lead the young
men a chase. If I'm any judge, Mr. Arnold's symptoms are becoming
serious. He's just the one of all the world for Millie, and could
give her the home which her style of beauty requires--a home in
which not a common or coarse thing would be visible, but all as
dainty as herself. How I would like to furnish her house! But Martin
always thinks he's so poor."

Mrs. Jocelyn soon left the parlor to complete her arrangements for
an elegant little supper, and she complacently felt that, whatever
might be the tribulations of the great iron firm down town, her small
domain was serene with present happiness and bright with promise.

While the vigorous appetites of the growing boys and girls were
disposing of the supper, Arnold and Mildred rather neglected their
plates, finding ambrosia in each other's eyes, words, and even
intonations. Now that they had the deserted parlor to themselves,
Mildred seemed under less constraint.

"It was very nice of you," she said, "to come and help me entertain
Belle's friends, especially when they are all so young."

"Yes," he replied. "I am a happy monument of self-sacrifice."

"But not a brazen one," she added quickly.

"No, nor a bronze one, either," he said, and a sudden gloom gathered
in his large dark eyes.

She had always admired the pallor of his face. "It set off his
superb brown eyes and heavy mustache so finely," she was accustomed
to say. But this evening for some reason she wished that there was
a little more bronze on his cheek and decision in his manner. His
aristocratic pallor was a trifle too great, and he seemed a little
frail to satisfy even her ideal of manhood.

She said, in gentle solicitude, "You do not look well this spring.
I fear you are not very strong."

He glanced at her quickly, but in her kindly blue eyes and in every
line of her lovely face he saw only friendly regard--perhaps more,
for her features were not designed for disguises. After a moment
he replied, with a quiet bitterness which both pained and mystified
her:

"You are right. I am not strong."

"But summer is near," she resumed earnestly. "You will soon go to
the country, and will bring back this fall bronze in plenty, and
the strength of bronze. Mother says we shall go to Saratoga. That
is one of your favorite haunts, I believe, so I shall have the
pleasure, perhaps, of drinking 'your very good health' some bright
morning before breakfast. Which is your favorite spring?"

"I do not know. I will decide after I have learned your choice."

"That's an amiable weakness. I think I shall like Saratoga. The
great hotels contain all one wishes for amusement. Then everything
about town is so nice, pretty, and sociable. The shops, also,
are fine. Too often we have spent our summers in places that were
a trifle dreary. Mountains oppress me with a sense of littleness,
and their wildness frightens me. The ocean is worse still. The
moment I am alone with it, such a lonely, desolate feeling creeps
over me--oh, I can't tell you! I fear you think I am silly and
frivolous. You think I ought to be inspired by the shaggy mountains
and wild waves and all that. Well, you may think so--I won't
tell fibs. I don't think mother is frivolous, and she feels as I
do. We are from the South, and like things that are warm, bright,
and sociable. The ocean always seemed to me so large and cold and
pitiless--to care so little for those in its power."

"In that respect it's like the world, or rather the people in it--"

"Oh, no, no!" she interrupted eagerly; "it is to the world of
people I am glad to escape from these solitudes of nature. As I
said, the latter, with their vastness, power, and, worse than all,
their indifference, oppress me, and make me shiver with a vague
dread. I once saw a ship beaten to pieces by the waves in a storm.
It was on the coast near where we were spending the summer. Some
of the people on the vessel were drowned, and their cries ring in
my ears to this day. Oh, it was piteous to see them reaching out
their hands, but the great merciless waves would not stop a moment,
even when a little time would have given the lifeboats a chance to
save the poor creatures. The breakers just struck and pounded the
ship until it broke into pieces, and then tossed the lifeless body
and broken wood on the shore as if one were of no more value than
the other. I can't think of it without shuddering, and I've hated
the sea ever since, and never wish to go near it again."

"You have unconsciously described this Christian city," said Arnold,
with a short laugh.

"What a cynic you are to-night! You condemn all the world, and
find fault even with yourself--a rare thing in cynics, I imagine.
As a rule they are right, and the universe wrong."

"I have not found any fault with you," he said, in a tone that caused
her long eyelashes to veil the pleasure she could not wholly conceal.

"I hope the self-constraint imposed by your courtesy is not
too severe for comfort. I also understand the little fiction of
excepting present company. But I cannot help remembering that I am
a wee bit of the world and very worldly; that is, I am very fond
of the world and all its pretty follies. I like nice people much
better than savage mountains and heartless waves."

"And yet you are not what I should call a society girl, Miss Millie."

"I'm glad you think so. I've no wish to win that character.
Fashionable society seems to me like the sea, as restless and
unreasoning, always on the go, and yet never going anywhere. I know
lots of girls who go here and there and do this and that with the
monotony with which the waves roll in and out. Half the time they
act contrary to their wishes and feelings, but they imagine it the
thing to do, and they do it till they are tired and bored half to
death."

"What, then, is your ideal of life?"

Her head drooped a little lower, and the tell-tale color would come
as she replied hesitatingly, and with a slight deprecatory laugh:

"Well, I can't say I've thought it out very definitely. Plenty of
real friends seem to me better than the world's stare, even though
there's a trace of admiration in it Then, again, you men so monopolize
the world that there is not much left for us poor women to do; but
I have imagined that to create a lovely home, and to gather in it
all the beauty within one's reach, and just the people one best liked,
would be a very congenial life-work for some women. That is what
mother is doing for us, and she seems very happy and contented--much
more so than those ladies who seek their pleasures beyond their
homes. You see I use my eyes, Mr.  Arnold, even if I am not antiquated
enough to be wise."

His look had grown so wistful and intent that she could not meet
it, but averted her face as she spoke. Suddenly he sprang up, and
took her hand with a pressure all too strong for the "friend" she
called him, as he said:

"Miss Millie, you are one of a thousand. Good-night."

For a few moments she sat where he left her. What did he mean?
Had she revealed her heart too plainly? His manner surely had been
unmistakable, and no woman could have doubted the language of his
eyes.

"But some constraint," she sighed, "ties his tongue."

The more she thought it over, however--and what young girl does
not live over such interviews a hundred times--the more convinced
she became that her favorite among the many who sought her favor
gave as much to her as she to him; and she was shrewd enough
to understand that the nearer two people exchange evenly in these
matters the better it is for both. Her last thought that night was,
"To make a home for him would be happiness indeed. How much life
promises me!"




CHAPTER II

WEAKNESS


Vinton Arnold's walk down Fifth Avenue was so rapid as to indicate
strong perturbation. At last he entered a large house of square,
heavy architecture, a creation evidently of solid wealth in the
earlier days of the thoroughfare's history. There was something
in his step as he crossed the marble hall to the hat-rack and then
went up the stairway that caused his mother to pass quickly from
her sitting-room that she might intercept him. After a moment's
scrutiny she said, in a low, hard tone:

"You have spent the evening with Miss Jocelyn again."

He made no reply.

"Are you a man of honor?"

His pallid face crimsoned instantly, and his hands clenched with
repressed feeling, but he still remained silent. Neither did he
appear to have the power to meet his mother's cold, penetrating
glance.

"It would seem," she resumed, in the same quiet, incisive tone,
"that my former suggestions have been unheeded. I fear that I must
speak more plainly. You will please come with me for a few moments."

With evident reluctance he followed her to a small apartment, furnished
richly, but with the taste and elegance of a past generation. He had
become very pale again, but his face wore the impress of pain and
irresolution rather than of sullen defiance or of manly independence.
The hardness of the gold that had been accumulating in the family
for generations had seemingly permeated the mother's heart, for the
expression of her son's face softened neither her tone nor manner.
And yet not for a moment could she be made to think of herself
as cruel, or even stern. She was simply firm and sensible in the
performance of her duty. She was but maintaining the traditional
policy of the family, and was conscious that society would thoroughly
approve of her course.  Chief of all, she sincerely believed that
she was promoting her son's welfare, but she had not Mrs. Jocelyn's
gentle ways of manifesting solicitude.

After a moment of oppressive silence, she began:

"Perhaps I can best present this issue in its true light by again
asking, Are you a man of honor?"

"Is it dishonorable," answered her son irritably, "to love a pure,
good girl?"

"No," said his mother, in the same quiet, measured voice; "but it
may be very great folly and a useless waste. It is dishonorable,
however, to inspire false hopes in a girl's heart, no matter who
she is. It is weak and dishonorable to hover around a pretty face
like a poor moth that singes its wings."

In sudden, passionate appeal, he exclaimed, "If I can win Miss
Jocelyn, why cannot I marry her? She is as good as she is beautiful.
If you knew her as I do you would be proud to call her your daughter.
They live very prettily, even elegantly--"

By a simple, deprecatory gesture Mrs. Arnold made her son feel that
it was useless to add another word.

"Vinton," she said, "a little reason in these matters is better
than an indefinite amount of sentimental nonsense. You are now
old enough to be swayed by reason, and not to fume and fret after
the impossible like a child. Neither your father nor I have acted
hastily in this matter. It was a great trial to discover that
you had allowed your fancy to become entangled below the circle
in which it is your privilege to move, and I am thankful that my
other children have been more considerate. In a quiet, unobtrusive
way we have taken pains to learn all about the Jocelyns. They are
comparative strangers in the city. Mr. Jocelyn is merely a junior
partner in a large iron firm, and from all your father says I fear
he has lived too elegantly for his means. That matter will soon
be tested, however, for his firm is in trouble and will probably
have to suspend. With your health, and in the face of the fierce
competition in this city, are you able to marry and support a
penniless girl? If, on the contrary, you propose to support a wife
on the property that now belongs to your father and myself, our
wishes should have some weight. I tell you frankly that our means,
though large, are not sufficient to make you all independent and
maintain the style to which you have been accustomed. With your
frail health and need of exemption from care and toil, you must
marry wealth. Your father is well satisfied that whoever allies
himself to this Jocelyn family may soon have them all on his hands
to support. We decline the risk of burdening ourselves with these
unknown, uncongenial people. Is there anything unreasonable in that?
Because you are fascinated by a pretty face, of which there are
thousands in this city, must we be forced into intimate associations
with people that are wholly distasteful to us? This would be a
poor return for having shielded you so carefully through years of
ill health and feebleness."

The young man's head drooped lower and lower as his mother spoke,
and his whole air was one of utter despondency. She waited for his
reply, but for a few moments he did not speak. Suddenly he looked
up, with a reckless, characteristic laugh, and said:

"The Spartans were right in destroying the feeble children. Since
I am under such obligations, I cannot resist your logic, and I
admit that it would be poor taste on my part to ask you to support
for me a wife not of your choosing."

"'Good taste' at least should have prevented such a remark. You can
choose for yourself from a score of fine girls of your own station
in rank and wealth."

"Pardon me, but I would rather not inflict my weakness on any of
the score."

"But you would inflict it on one weak in social position and without
any means of support."

"She is the one girl that I have met with who seemed both gentle
and strong, and whose tastes harmonize with my own. But you don't
know her, and never will. You have only learned external facts about
the Jocelyns, and out of your prejudices have created a family of
underbred people that does not exist. Their crime of comparative
poverty I cannot dispute. I have not made the prudential inquiries
which you and father have gone into so carefully. But your logic
is inexorable. As you suggest, I could not earn enough myself to
provide a wife with hairpins. The slight considerations of happiness,
and the fact that Miss Jocelyn might aid me in becoming something
more than a shadow among men, are not to be urged against the solid
reasons you have named."

"Young people always give a tragic aspect to these crude passing
fancies. I have known 'blighted happiness' to bud and blossom again
so often that you must pardon me if I act rather on the ground of
experience and good sense. An unsuitable alliance may bring brief
gratification and pleasure, but never happiness, never lasting and
solid content."

"Well, mother, I am not strong enough to argue with you, either in
the abstract or as to these 'wise saws' which so mangle my wretched
self," and with the air of one exhausted and defeated he languidly
went to his room.

Mrs. Arnold frowned as she muttered, "He makes no promise to cease
visiting the girl." After a moment she added, even more bitterly,
"I doubt whether he could keep such a promise; therefore my will
must supply his lack of decision;" and she certainly appeared
capable of making good this deficiency in several human atoms.

If she could have imparted some of her firmness and resolution to
Martin Jocelyn, they would have been among the most useful gifts
a man ever received. As the stanchness of a ship is tested by the
storm, so a crisis in his experience was approaching which would
test his courage, his fortitude, and the general soundness of his
manhood. Alas! the test would find him wanting. That night, for the
first time in his life, he came home with a step a trifle unsteady.
Innocent Mrs. Jocelyn did not note that anything was amiss. She
was busy putting her home into its usual pretty order after the
breezy, gusty evening always occasioned by one of Belle's informal
companies. She observed that her husband had recovered more than
his wonted cheerfulness, and seemed indeed as gay as Belle herself.
Lounging on a sofa, he laughed at his wife and petted her more
than usual, assuring her that her step was as light, and that she
still looked as young and pretty as any of the girls who had tripped
through the parlors that evening.

The trusting, happy wife grew so rosy with pleasure, and her tread
was so elastic from maternal pride and exultation at the prospects
of her daughters, that his compliments seemed scarcely exaggerated.

"Never fear, Nan," he said, in a gush of feeling; "I'll take care
of you whatever happens," and the glad smile she turned upon him
proved that she doubted his words no more than her own existence.

They were eminently proper words for a husband to address to his
wife, but the circumstances under which they were uttered made
them maudlin sentiment rather than a manly pledge. As spoken, they
were so ominous that the loving woman might well have trembled and
lost her girlish flush. But even through the lurid hopes and vague
prospects created by dangerous stimulants, Mr. Jocelyn saw, dimly,
the spectre of coming trouble, and he added:

"But, Nan, we must economize--we really must."

"Foolish man!" laughed his wife; "always preaching economy, but
never practicing it."

"Would to God I had millions to lavish on you!" he exclaimed, with
tears of mawkish feeling and honest affection mingled as they never
should in a true man's eyes.

"Lavish your love, Martin," replied the wife, "and I'll be content."

That night she laid her head upon her pillow without misgiving.

Mrs. Jocelyn was the daughter of a Southern planter, and in her
early home had been accustomed to a condition of chronic financial
embarrassment and easy-going, careless abundance. The war had swept
away her father and brothers with the last remnant of the mortgaged
property.

Young Jocelyn's antecedents had been somewhat similar, and they
had married much as the birds pair, without knowing very definitely
where or how the home nest would be constructed. He, however,
had secured a good education, and was endowed with fair business
capacities. He was thus enabled for a brief time before the war
to provide a comfortable support in a Southern city for his wife
and little daughter Mildred, and the fact that he was a gentleman
by birth and breeding gave him better social advantages than mere
wealth could have obtained. At the beginning of the struggle he was
given a commission in the Confederate army, but with the exception
of a few slight scratches and many hardships escaped unharmed. After
the conflict was over, the ex-officer came to the North, against
which he had so bravely and zealously fought, and was pleased to
find that there was no prejudice worth naming against him on this
account. His good record enabled him to obtain a position in a large
iron warehouse, and in consideration of his ability to control a
certain amount of Southern trade he was eventually given an interest
in the business. This apparent advancement induced him to believe
that he might safely rent, in one of the many cross-streets up town,
the pretty home in which we find him. The fact that their expenses
had always a little more than kept pace with their income did not
trouble Mrs. Jocelyn, for she had been accustomed to an annual
deficit from childhood. Some way had always been provided, and
she had a sort of blind faith that some way always would be. Mr.
Jocelyn also had fallen into rather soldier-like ways, and after
being so free with Confederate scrip, with difficulty learned the
value of paper money of a different color.

Moreover, in addition to a certain lack of foresight and frugal
prudence, bred by army life and Southern open-heartedness, he
cherished a secret habit which rendered a wise, steadily maintained
policy of thrift wellnigh impossible. About two years before the
opening of our story he had been the victim of a painful disease,
the evil effects of which did not speedily pass away. For several
weeks of this period, to quiet the pain, he was given morphia powders;
their effects were so agreeable that they were not discontinued
after the physician ceased to prescribe them. The subtle stimulant
not only banished the lingering traces of suffering, but enabled
him to resume the routine of business with comparative ease much
sooner than he had expected. Thus he gradually drifted into the
habitual use of morphia, taking it as a panacea for every ill. Had
he a toothache, a rheumatic or neuralgic twinge, the drug quieted
the pain. Was he despondent from any cause, or annoyed by some
untoward event, a small white powder soon brought hopefulness
and serenity. When emergencies occurred which promised to tax his
mental and physical powers, opium appeared to give a clearness and
elasticity of mind and a bodily vigor that was almost magical, and
he availed himself of the deceptive potency more and more often.

The morbid craving which the drug inevitably engenders at last
demanded a daily supply. For months he employed it in moderate
quantities, using it as thousands do quinine, wine, or other
stimulants, without giving much thought to the matter, sincerely
intending, however, to shake off the habit as soon as he felt a
little stronger and was more free from business cares. Still, as the
employment of the stimulant grew into a habit, he became somewhat
ashamed of it, and maintained his indulgence with increasing
secrecy--a characteristic rarely absent from this vice.

Thus it can be understood that his mind had ceased to possess
the natural poise which would enable him to manage his affairs in
accordance with some wisely matured system of expenditure. In times
of depression he would demand the most rigid economy, and again he
would seem careless and indifferent and preoccupied. This financial
vacillation was precisely what his wife had been accustomed to in
her early home, and she thoughtlessly took her way without much
regard to it. He also had little power of saying No to his gentle
wife, and an appealing look from her blue eyes would settle every
question of economy the wrong way. Next year they would be more
prudent; at present, however, there were some things that it would
be very nice to have or to do.

But, alas, Mrs. Jocelyn had decided that, for Mildred's sake, the
coming summer must be spent at Saratoga. In vain her husband had
told her that he did not see how it was possible. She would reply,

"Now, Martin, be reasonable. You know Mr. Arnold spends his summers
there. Would you spoil Millie's chances of making one of the best
matches in the city?"

He would shrug his shoulders and wonder where the money was to
come from. Meanwhile he knew that his partners were anxious. They
had been strong, and had endured the evil times for years without
wavering, but now were compelled to obtain a credit more and more
extended, in the hope of tiding themselves over the long period of
depression.

This increasing business stagnation occasioned a deepening anxiety
to her husband and a larger resort to his sustaining stimulant.
While he had no sense of danger worth naming, he grew somewhat
worried by his dependence on the drug, and it was his honest purpose
to gradually abandon it as soon as the financial pressure lifted
and he could breathe freely in the safety of renewed commercial
prosperity. Thus the weeks and months slipped by, finding him more
completely involved in the films of an evil web, and more intent
than ever upon hiding the fact from every one, especially his wife
and children.

He had returned on the evening of Belle's company, with fears for
the worst. The scene in his pretty and happy home, in contrast with
the bitter experiences that might be near at hand, so oppressed
him with foreboding and trouble that he went out and weakly sought
temporary respite and courage in a larger amount of morphia than
he had ever yet taken.

While off his guard from the resulting exaltation, he met a business
acquaintance and was led by him to indulge in wine also, with the
results already narrated.




CHAPTER III

CONFIDENTIAL


Martin Jocelyn awoke with a shiver. He did not remember that he
had been dreaming, but a dull pain in his head and a foreboding
of heart had at last so asserted themselves as to banish the
unconsciousness of sleep. His prospects had even a more sombre hue
than the cold gray of the morning. All the false prismatic colors
of the previous evening had faded, and no serene, steady light had
taken their place. The forced elation was followed--as is ever the
case--by a deeper despondency. The face of his sleeping wife was so
peaceful, so expressive of her utter unconsciousness of impending
disaster, that he could not endure its sight. He felt himself to
be in no condition to meet her waking eyes and explain the cause
of his fears. A sense of shame that he had been so weak the evening
before also oppressed him, and he yielded to the impulse to gain
a day before meeting her trusting or questioning gaze. Something
might occur which would give a better aspect to his affairs, and
at any rate, if the worst must come, he could explain with better
grace in the evening than in his present wretched mood, that would
prove too sharp a contrast with his recent gayety.

He therefore dressed silently and hastily, and left a note saying
that a business engagement required his early departure. "She will
have at least one more serene day before the storm," he muttered.

"Now wasn't that kind and thoughtful of papa to let us all sleep
late after the company!" said Mrs. Jocelyn to Mildred. "He went
away, too, without his breakfast," and in her gentle solicitude
she scarcely ate any herself.

But weakly hiding trouble for a day was not kindness. The wife and
daughter, who should have helped to take in sail in preparation
for the threatened storm, were left unconscious of its approach.
They might have noticed that Mr. Jocelyn had been more than usually
anxious throughout the spring, but they knew so little of business
and its risks, that they did not realize their danger.  "Men always
worry about their affairs," said Mrs. Jocelyn. "It's a way they
have."

Mr. Arnold's visits and manner were much more congenial topics,
and as a result of the entire confidence existing between mother
and daughter, they dwelt at length on these subjects.

"Mamma," said Mildred, "you must not breathe of it to a soul--not
even to papa yet. It would hurt me cruelly to have it known that I
think so much of one who has not spoken plainly--that is, in words.
I should be blind indeed if I did not understand the language of
his eyes, his tones, and manner. And yet, and yet--mamma, it isn't
wrong for me to love--to think so much of him before he speaks, is
it? Dearly as I--well, not for the world would I seem or even be
more forward than a girl should. I fear his people are too proud
and rich to recognize us; and--and--he says so little about them.
I can never talk to him or any one without making many references
to you and papa. I have thought that he even avoided speaking of
his family."

"We have not yet been made acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Arnold,"
said Mrs. Jocelyn meditatively. "It is true we attend the same
church, and it was there that Vinton saw you, and was led to seek
an introduction. I'm sure we have not angled for him in any indelicate
way. You met him in the mission school and in other ways, as did
the other young ladies of the church. He seemed to single you out,
and asked permission to call. He has been very gentlemanly, but
you equally have been the self-respecting lady. I do not think you
have once overstepped the line of a proper reserve. It isn't your
nature to do such a thing, if I do say it.  She is a silly girl
who ever does, for men don't like it, and I don't blame them. Your
father was a great hunter in the South, Millie, and he has often
said since that I was the shyest game he ever followed. But," she
added, with a low, sweet laugh, "how I did want to be caught! I can
see now," she continued, with a dreamy look back into the past,
"that it was just the way to be caught, for if I had turned in
pursuit of him he would have run away in good earnest. There are
some girls who have set their caps for your handsome Mr. Arnold
who don't know this. I am glad to say, however, that you take the
course you do, not because you know better, but because you ARE
better--because you have not lost in city life the shy, pure nature
of the wild flowers that were your early playmates. Vinton Arnold
is the man to discover and appreciate this truth, and you have
lost nothing by compelling him to seek you in your own home, or by
being so reserved when abroad."

While her mother's words greatly reassured Mildred, her fair face
still retained its look of anxious perplexity.

"I have rarely met Mrs. Arnold and her daughters," she said; "but
even in a passing moment, it seemed as if they tried to inform me
by their manner that I did not belong to their world. Perhaps they
were only oblivious--I don't know."

"I think that is all," said Mrs. Jocelyn musingly. "We have attended
their church only since we came up town. They sit on the further
side, in a very expensive pew, while papa thinks we can afford
only a side seat near the door. It is evident that they are proud
people, but in the matter of birth and good breeding, my dear, I am
sure we are their equals. Even when poorer than we are now we were
welcomed to the best society of the South. Have no fears, darling.
When they come to know YOU they will be as proud of you as I am."

"Oh, mother, what a sweet prophetess you are! The life you suggest
is so beautiful, and I do not think I could live without beauty.
He is so handsome and refined, and his taste is so perfect that
every association he awakens is refined and high-toned. It seems
as if my--as if he might take out of my future all that is hard
and coarse--all that I shrink from even in thought. But, mamma, I
wish he were a wee bit stronger. His hands are almost as white and
small as mine; and then sometimes he is so very pale."

"Well, Millie, we can't have everything. City life and luxury are
hard on young men. It would be better for them if they tramped the
woods more with a gun, as your father did. There was a time when
papa could walk his thirty miles a day and ride fifty. But manly
qualities may be those of the mind as well as of muscle. I gather
from what Mr. Arnold says that his health never has been very good;
but you are the one of all the world to pet him, and take care
of him. Most of the fashionable girls of his set would want to
go here and there all the time, and would wear him out with their
restlessness. You would be happier at home."

"Indeed I would, mamma. Home, and heaven, are words that to me are
near akin."

"I'm glad you are in such a fair way to win the home, but not
heaven I trust for a long time yet. Let us think of the home first.
While I would not for the world wish you to do a thing which the
strictest womanly delicacy did not permit, there are some things
which we can do that are very proper indeed. Mr.  Arnold has an eye
for beauty as well as yourself, and he is accustomed to see ladies
well dressed. He noticed your toilet last night as well as your
face, and his big brown eyes informed me that he thought it very
pretty. I intend that you shall appear as well as the best of them
at Saratoga, and what we cannot afford in expensive fabrics we must
make up in skill and taste. Luckily, men don't know much about the
cost of material. They see the general effect only. A lady is to
them a finished picture, and they never think of inventorying the
frame, canvas, and colors as a woman does. For quarter of the money
I'll make you appear better than his sisters. So get your things,
and we'll begin shopping at once, for such nice work requires time."

They were soon in the temples of fashion on Broadway, bent upon
carrying out their guileless conspiracy. Nevertheless their seemingly
innocent and harmless action was wretched folly. They did not know
that it raised one more barrier between them and all they sought
and hoped, for they were spending the little money that might save
them from sudden and utter poverty.




CHAPTER IV

"PITILESS WAVES"


A deeper shadow than that of the night fell upon Mildred Jocelyn's
home after the return of her father. Feeling that there should be
no more blind drifting toward he knew not what, he had employed
all the means within his power to inform himself of the firm's
prospects, and learned that there was almost a certainty of speedy
failure. He was so depressed and gloomy when he sat down to dinner
that his wife had not the heart to tell him of her schemes to secure
his daughter's happiness, or of the gossamer-like fabrics she had
bought, out of which she hoped to construct a web that would more
surely entangle Mr. Arnold. Even her sanguine spirit was chilled
and filled with misgivings by her husband's manner.  Mildred, too,
was speedily made to feel that only a very serious cause could
banish her father's wonted good-humor and render him so silent.
Belle and the little ones maintained the light talk which usually
enlivened the meal, but a sad constraint rested on the others. At
last Mr. Jocelyn said, abruptly, "Fanny, I wish to see you alone,"
and she followed him to their room with a face that grew pale with
a vague dread. What could have happened?

"Fanny," he said sadly, "our firm is in trouble. I have hoped and
have tried to believe that we should pull through, but now that
I have looked at the matter squarely I see no chance for us, and
from the words and bearing of my partners I imagine they have about
given up hope themselves."

"Oh, come, Martin, look on the bright side. You always take such
gloomy views of things. They'll pull through, never fear; and if
they don't, you will soon obtain a better position. A man of your
ability should be at the head of a firm. YOU would make money, no
matter what the times were."

"Unfortunately, Fanny, your sanguine hopes and absurd opinion of
my abilities do not change in the least the hard facts in the case.
If the firm fails, I am out of employment, and hundreds of as
good--yes, better men than I, are looking vainly for almost any
kind of work. The thought that we have laid up nothing in all these
years cuts me to the very quick. One thing is now certain.  Not a
dollar must be spent, hereafter, except for food, and that of the
least costly kind, until I see our way more clearly."

"Can't we go to Saratoga?" faltered Mrs. Jocelyn.

"Certainly not. If all were well I should have had to borrow money
and anticipate my income in order to spend even a few weeks there,
unless you went to a cheap boarding-house. If things turn out
as I fear, I could not borrow a dollar. I scarcely see how we are
to live anywhere, much less at a Saratoga hotel. Fanny, can't you
understand my situation? Suppose my income stops, how much ahead
have we to live upon?" Mrs. Jocelyn sank into a chair and sobbed,
"Oh that I had known this before! See there!"

The bed was covered with dress goods and the airy nothings that
enhance a girl's beauty. The husband understood their meaning too
well, and he muttered something like an oath. At last he said, in
a hard tone, "Well, after buying all this frippery, how much money
have you left?"

"Oh, Martin," sobbed his wife, "don't speak to me in that tone.
Indeed I did not know we were in real danger. You seemed in such
good spirits last evening, and Mr. Arnold showed so much feeling
for Millie, that my heart has been as light as a feather all day.
I wouldn't have bought these things if I had only known--if I had
realized it all."

Mr. Jocelyn now uttered an unmistakable anathema on his folly.

"The money you had this morning is gone, then?"

"Yes."

"How much has been charged?"

"Don't ask me."

He was so angry--with himself more than his wife--and so cast down
that he could not trust himself to speak again. With a gesture,
more expressive than any words, he turned on his heel and left the
room and the house. For hours he walked the streets in the wretched
turmoil of a sensitive, yet weak nature. He was not one who could
calmly meet an emergency and manfully do his best, suffering
patiently meanwhile the ills that could not be averted.  He could
lead a cavalry charge into any kind of danger, but he could not
stand still under fire. The temptation to repeat his folly of the
previous evening was very strong, but it had cost him so dearly
that he swore a great oath that at least he would not touch liquor
again; but he could not refrain from lifting himself in some degree
out of his deep dejection, by a recourse to the stimulant upon which
he had so long been dependent. At last, jaded and sober indeed,
he returned to a home whose very beauty and comfort now became the
chief means of his torture.

In the meantime Mildred and her mother sat by the pretty fabrics
that had the bright hues of their morning hopes, and they looked
at each other with tears and dismay. If the silk and lawn should
turn into crape, it would seem so in accordance with their feelings
as scarcely to excite surprise. Each queried vainly, "What now will
be the future?" The golden prospect of the day had become dark and
chaotic, and in strong reaction a vague sense of impending disaster
so oppressed them that they scarcely spoke.  Deep in Mildred's heart,
however, born of woman's trust, was the sustaining hope that her
friend, Vinton Arnold, would be true to her whatever might happen.
Poor Mrs. Jocelyn's best hope was, that the financial storm would
blow over without fulfilling their fears. She had often known her
father to be half desperate, and then there was patched up some
kind of arrangement which enabled them to go on again in their old
way. Still, even with her unbusiness-like habits of thought and
meagre knowledge of the world, she could not see how they could
maintain themselves if her husband's income should suddenly cease,
and he be unable to find a like position.

She longed for his return, but when he came he gave her no comfort.

"Don't speak to me," he said; "I can tell you nothing that you do
not already know. The events of the next few weeks will make all
plain enough."

The logic of events did convince even Mrs. Jocelyn that making no
provision for a "rainy day" is sad policy. The storm did not blow
over, although it blew steadily and strongly. The firm soon failed,
but Mr. Jocelyn received a small sum out of the assets, which
prevented immediate want. Mildred's course promised to justify
Arnold's belief that she could be strong as well as gentle, for
she insisted that every article obtained on credit should be taken
back to the shops. Her mother shrank from the task, so she went
herself and plainly stated their circumstances.  It was a bitter
experience for the poor child--far more painful than she had
anticipated. She could not believe that the affable people who waited
on her so smilingly a few days before would appear so different;
but even those who were most inclined to be harsh, and to feel
aggrieved at their small loss in cutting the material returned,
were softened as she said, gently and almost humbly:

"Since we could not pay for it we felt that it would be more honorable
to bring it back in as good condition as when received." In every
instance, however, in which the goods had been paid for, she found
that she could effect no exchange for the money, except at such
reduced rates that she might as well give them away.

Even Mrs. Jocelyn saw the need of immediate changes. One of their
two servants was dismissed. Belle pouted over the rigid economy,
now enforced all too late. Mildred cried over it in secret, but
made heroic efforts to be cheerful in the presence of her father
and mother; but each day, with a deeper chill at heart, she asked
herself a thousand times, "Why does not Mr. Arnold come to see me?"

Vinton Arnold was in even greater distress. He had to endure not
only the pain of a repressed affection, but also a galling and
humiliating sense of unmanly weakness. He, of course, learned of the
failure, and his father soon after took pains to say significantly
that one of the members of the iron firm had told him that Mr.
Jocelyn had nothing to fall back upon. Therefore Arnold knew that
the girl he loved must be in sore trouble. And yet, how could he
go to her? What could he say or do that would not make him appear
contemptible in her eyes? But to remain away in her hour of
misfortune seemed such a manifestation of heartless indifference,
such a mean example of the world's tendency to pass by on the other
side, that he grew haggard and ghost-like in his self-reproach and
self-contempt. At last his parents began to insist that his health
required a change of air, and suggested a mountain resort or a trip
abroad, and he was conscious of no power to resist the quiet will
with which any plan decided upon would be carried out. He felt
that he must see Mildred once more, although what he would say to
her he could not tell. While there had been no conscious and definite
purpose on the part of his parents, they nevertheless had trained
him to helplessness in mind and body. His will was as relaxed as
his muscles. Instead of wise, patient effort to develop a feeble
constitution and to educate his mind by systematic courses of study,
he had been treated as an exotic all his days. And yet it had been
care without tenderness, or much manifestation of affection. Hot a
thing had been done to develop self-respect or self-reliance. Even
more than most girls, he was made to feel himself dependent on
his parents. He had studied but little; he had read much, but in
a desultory way. Of business and of men's prompt, keen ways he was
lamentably ignorant for one of his years, and the consciousness of
this made him shrink from the companionship of his own sex, and
begat a reticence whose chief cause was timidity. His parents' wealth
had been nothing but a curse, and they would learn eventually that
while they could shield his person from the roughnesses of the world
they could not protect his mind and heart from those experiences
which ever demand manly strength and principle. As a result of
their costly system, there were few more pitiable objects in the
city than Vinton Arnold as he stole under the cover of night to
visit the girl who was hoping--though more faintly after every day
of waiting--that she might find in him sustaining strength and love
in her misfortunes.

But when she saw his white, haggard face and nervous, timid manner,
she was almost shocked, and exclaimed, with impulsive sympathy,
"Mr. Arnold, you have been ill. I have done you wrong."

He did not quite understand her, and was indiscreet enough to
repeat, "You have done me wrong, Miss Millie?"

"Pardon me. Perhaps you do not know that we are in deep trouble.
My father's firm has failed, and we shall have to give up our home.
Indeed, I hardly know what we shall do. When in trouble, one's
thoughts naturally turn to one's friends. I thought perhaps you
would come to see me," and two tears that she could not repress in
her eyes.

"Oh, that I were a man!" groaned Arnold, mentally, and never had
human cruelty inflicted a keener pang than did Mildred's sorrowful
face and the gentle reproach implied in her words.

"I--I have been ill," he said hesitatingly. "Miss Millie," he added
impulsively, "you can never know how deeply I feel for you."

She lifted her eyes questioningly to his face, and its expression
was again unmistakable. For a moment she lost control of her
overburdened heart, and bowing her face in her hands gave way to
the strong tide of her feelings. "Oh!" she sobbed, "I have been
so anxious and fearful about the future. People have come here out
of curiosity, and others have acted as if they did not care what
became of us, if they only obtained the money we owed them. I did
not think that those who were so smiling and friendly a short time
since could be so harsh and indifferent. A thousand times I have
thought of that poor ship that I saw the waves beat to pieces, and
it has seemed as if it might be our fate. I suppose I am morbid,
and that some way will be provided, but SOME way is not A way."

Instead of coming to her side and promising all that his heart
prompted, the miserable constraint of his position led him to turn
from grief that he was no longer able to witness. He went to the
window, and, bowing his head against the sash, looked out into the
darkness.

She regarded him with wonder as she slowly wiped her eyes.

"Mr. Arnold," she faltered, "I hope you will forgive me for my
weakness, and also for inflicting our troubles on you."

He turned and came slowly toward her. She saw that he trembled and
almost tottered as he walked, and that his face had become ashen.
The hand he gave her seemed like ice to her warm, throbbing
palm.  But never could she forget his expression--the blending of
self-contempt, pitiable weakness, and dejection.

"Miss Mildred," he said slowly, "there is no use in disguises. We
had better both recognize the truth at once. At least it will be
better for you, for then you may find a friend more worthy of the
name. Can you not see what I am--a broken reed? The vine could
better sustain a falling tree than I the one I loved, even though,
like the vine, my heart clung to that one as its sole support.
You suffer; I am in torment. You are sad; I despair. You associate
strength and help with manhood, and you are right. You do not know
that the weakest thing in the world is a weak, helpless man. I am
only strong to suffer. I can do nothing; I am nothing. It would be
impossible for me to explain how helpless and dependent I am--you
could not understand it. My whole heart went out to you, for
you seemed both gentle and strong. The hope would grow in my soul
that you might be merciful to me when you came to know me as I am.
Good-by, Millie Jocelyn. You will find a friend strong and helpful
as well as kind. As for me, my best hope is to die." He bowed his
head upon the hand he did not venture to kiss, and then almost fled
from the house.

Mildred was too much overcome by surprise and feeling to make any
attempt to detain him. He had virtually acknowledged his love for
her, but never in her wildest fancy had she imagined so dreary and
sad a revelation.

Mrs. Jocelyn, perplexed by Mr. Arnold's abrupt departure, came in
hastily, and Mildred told her, with many tears, all that had been
said. Even her mother's gentle nature could not prevent harsh
condemnation of the young man.

"So he could do nothing better than get up this little melodrama,
and then hasten back to his elegant home," she said, with a darkening
frown.

Mildred shook her head and said, musingly, "I understand him better
than you do, mamma, and I pity him from the depths of my heart."

"I think it's all plain enough," said Mrs. Jocelyn, in a tone that
was hard and unnatural in her. "His rich parents tell him that he
must not think of marrying a poor girl, and he is the most dutiful
of sons."

"You did not hear his words, mamma--you did not see him. Oh, if he
should die! He looked like death itself," and she gave way to such
an agony of grief that her mother was alarmed on her behalf, and
wept, entreated, and soothed by turns until at last the poor child
crept away with throbbing temples to a long night of pain and
sleeplessness. The wound was one that she must hide in her own
heart; her pallor and languor for several days proved how deep it
had been.

But the truth that he loved her--the belief that he could never give
to another what he had given to her--had a secret and sustaining
power. Hope is a hardy plant in the hearts of the young. Though the
future was dark, it still had its possibilities of good. Womanlike,
she thought more of his trouble than of her own, and that which most
depressed her was the fear that his health might give way utterly.
"I can bear anything better than his death," she said to herself
a thousand times.

She made no tragic promises of constancy, nor did she indulge in
very much sentimental dreaming. She simply recognized the truth that
she loved him--that her whole woman's heart yearned in tenderness
over him as one that was crippled and helpless. She saw that he
was unable to stand alone and act for himself, and with a sensitive
pride all her own she shrank from even the thought of forcing
herself on the proud, rich family that had forbidden the alliance.
Moreover, she was a good-hearted, Christian girl, and perceived
clearly that it was no time for her to mope of droop.  Even on the
miserable day which followed the interview that so sorely wounded
her, she made pathetic attempts to be cheerful and helpful, and as
time passed she rallied slowly into strength and patience.

The father's apparent efforts to keep up under his misfortune were
also a great incentive to earnest effort on her part. More than
once she said in substance to her mother, "Papa is so often hopeful,
serene, and even cheerful, that we ought to try and show a like
spirit. Even when despondency does master him, and he becomes sad
and irritable, he makes so brave an effort that he soon overcomes
his wretched mood and quietly looks on the brighter side. We ought
to follow his example." It would have been infinitely better had
he followed theirs, and found in prayer, faith, and manly courage
the serenity and fortitude that were but the brief, deceptive, and
dangerous effects of a fatal poison.

It was decided that the family should spend the summer at some quiet
farmhouse where the board would be very inexpensive, and that Mr.
Jocelyn, in the meantime, should remain in the city in order to
avail himself of any opening that he might discover.

After a day or two of search in the country, he found a place that
he thought would answer, and the family prepared as quickly as
possible for what seemed to them like a journey to Siberia.

Mildred's farewell to her own private apartment was full of touching
pathos. This room was the outward expression not merely of a refined
taste, but of some of the deepest feelings and characteristics
of her nature. In its furniture and adornment it was as dainty as
her own delicate beauty. She had been allowed to fit it up as she
wished, and had lavished upon it the greater part of her spending
money. She had also bestowed upon it much thought, and the skilful
work of her own hands had eked out to a marvellous extent the
limited sums that her father had been able to give her.  The result
was a prettiness and light, airy grace which did not suggest the
resting-place of an ordinary flesh-and-blood girl, but of one in
whom the spiritual and the love of the beautiful were the ruling
forces of life.

It is surprising how character impresses itself on one's surroundings.
Mrs. Arnold's elegant home was a correct expression of herself.
Stately, formal, slightly rigid, decidedly cold, it suggested to
the visitor that he would receive the courtesy to which his social
position entitled him, and nothing more. It was the result of
an exact and logical mind, and could no more unbend into a little
comfortable disorder than the lady herself. She bestowed upon
its costly appointments the scrupulous care which she gave to her
children, and her manner was much the same in each instance. She
was justly called a strong character, but she made herself felt
after the fashion of an artist with his hammer and chisel. Carved
work is cold and rigid at best.

Mildred had not as yet impressed people as a strong character. On
the contrary, she had seemed peculiarly gentle and yielding.  Vinton
Arnold, however, in his deep need had instinctively half guessed
the truth, for her influence was like that of a warm day in spring,
undemonstrative, not self-asserting, but most powerful.  The
tongue-tied could speak in her presence; the diffident found in
her a kindly sympathy which gave confidence; men were peculiarly
drawn toward her because she was so essentially womanly without
being silly. Although as sprightly and fond of fun as most young
girls of her age, they recognized that she was perfectly truthful
and loyal to all that men--even bad men--most honor in a woman.
They always had a good time in her society, and yet felt the better
and purer for it. Life blossomed and grew bright about her from
some innate influence that she exerted unconsciously.  After all
there was no mystery about it. She had her faults like others, but
at heart she was genuinely good and unselfish. The gentle mother
had taught her woman's best graces of speech and manner; nature
had endowed her with beauty, and to that the world always renders
homage.

There are thousands of very pretty girls who have no love for beauty
save their own, which they do their best to spoil by self-homage.
To Mildred, on the contrary, the beautiful was as essential as
her daily food, and she excelled in all the dainty handicrafts by
which women can make a home attractive. Therefore her own little
sanctum had developed like an exquisite flower, and had become, as
we have said, an expression of herself. An auctioneer, in dismantling
her apartment, would not have found much more to sell than if he had
pulled a rose to pieces, but left intact it was as full of beauty
and fragrance as the flower itself. And yet her own hands must destroy
it, and in a brief time she must exchange its airy loveliness for
a bare room in a farmhouse. After that the future was as vague
as it was clouded.  The pretty trifles were taken down and packed
away, with tears, as if she were laying them in graves.




CHAPTER V

THE RUDIMENTS OF A MAN


"Mother, I hain't no unison with it at all," said Farmer Atwood,
leaning on the breakfast table and holding aloft a knife and
fork--formidable implements in his hands, but now unemployed through
perturbation of mind. "I hain't no unison with it--this havin'
fine city folk right in the family. 'Twill be pretty nigh as bad
as visiting one's rich relations. I had a week of that once, but,
thank the Lord, I hain't been so afflicted since. I've seen 'em
up at the hotel and riding by too often not to know 'em. They are
half conceit and half fine feathers, and that doesn't leave many
qualities as are suited to a farmhouse. Roger and me will have to
be--what was it that lecturin' professor called it--'deodorized'
every mornin' after feedin' and cleanin' the critters. We'll
have to put on our go-to-meetin's, instead of sittin' down in our
shirt-sleeves comfortable like. I hain't no unison with it, and
it's been a-growing on me ever since that city chap persuaded you
into being cook and chambermaid for his family." And Farmer Atwood's
knife and fork came down into the dish of ham with an onslaught
that would have appalled a Jew.

"The governor is right, mother," said the young man referred to as
Roger. "We shall all be in strait-jackets for the summer."

The speaker could not have been much more than twenty years old,
although in form he appeared a full-grown man. As he stood wiping
his hands on a towel that hung in a corner of the large kitchen,
which, except on state occasions, also served as dining and
sitting-room, it might be noted that he was above medium height,
broad-shouldered, and strongly built. When he crossed the room his
coarse working dress could not disguise the fact that he had a fine
figure and an easy bearing of the rustic, rough-and-ready style.
He had been out in the tall, dew-drenched grass, and therefore had
tucked the lower part of his trousers in his boot tops, and, like
his father, dispensed with his coat in the warm June morning. As he
drew a chair noisily across the floor and sat down at the table, it
was evident that he had a good though undeveloped face. His upper
lip was deeply shadowed by a coming event, to which he looked
forward with no little pride, and his well-tanned cheeks could not
hide a faint glow of youthful color.  One felt at a glance that
his varying expressions could scarcely fail to reveal all that
the young man was now or could ever become, for his face suggested
a nature peculiarly frank and rather matter-of-fact, or at least
unawakened. The traits of careless good-nature and self-confidence
were now most apparent.  He had always been regarded as a clever
boy at home, and his rustic gallantry was well received by the
farmers' daughters in the neighborhood. What better proofs that
he was about right could a young fellow ask? He was on such good
terms with himself and the world that even the event which his
father so deprecated did not much disturb his easy-going assurance.
He doubted, in his thoughts, whether the city girls would "turn up
their noses" at him, and if they did, they might, for all that he
cared, for there were plenty of rural beauties with whom he could
console himself.  But, like his father, he felt that the careless
undress and freedom of their farm life would be criticised by the
new-comers.  He proposed, however, to make as little change as
possible in his habits and dress, and to teach the Jocelyns that
country people had "as good a right to their ways as city people
to theirs." Therefore the threatened invasion did not in the least
prevent him from making havoc in the substantial breakfast that
Mrs. Atwood and her daughter Susan put on the table in a haphazard
manner, taking it from the adjacent stove as fast as it was ready.
A stolid-looking hired man sat opposite to Roger, and shovelled in
his food with his knife, with a monotonous assiduity that suggested
a laborer filling a coal-bin. He seemed oblivious to everything
save the breakfast, and with the exception of heaping his plate
from time to time he was ignored by the family.

The men-folk were quite well along with their meal before Mrs.
Atwood and Susan, flushed with their labors about the stove, were
ready to sit down. They were accustomed to hear the farmer grumble,
and, having carried their point, were in no haste to reply or to
fight over a battle that had been won already. Roger led to a slight
resumption of hostilities, however, by a disposition--well-nigh
universal in brothers--to tease.

"Sue," he said, "will soon be wanting to get some feathers like those
of the fine birds that will light in our door-yard this evening."

"That's it," snarled the farmer; "what little you make will soon
be on your backs or streamin' away in ribbons."

"Well," said Mrs. Atwood, a little sharply, "it's quite proper that
we should have something on our backs, and if we earn the money
to put it there ourselves, I don't see why you should complain; as
for ribbons, Sue has as good right to 'em as Roger to a span-new
buggy that ain't good for anything but taking girls out in."

"What made you have the seat so narrow, Roger?" asked Sue; "you
couldn't squeeze three people in to save your life."

"I'm content with one girl at a time," replied Roger, with a
complacent shrug.

"And the same girl only one time, too, from what I hear. You've
taken out all there are in Forestville haven't you?"

"Haven't got quite around yet. And then some prudent mothers do
think the seat a trifle narrow, and the ones I'd like to take out
most can't go. But there's plenty that can."

"And one is as good as another," added his sister, maliciously,
"If she will only talk nonsense, and let you hold her from falling
out when you whisk over the thank-e-ma'ams."

"I didn't have to go from home to learn that most girls talk
nonsense," laughed Roger. "By the way, how did you learn about the
thank-e-ma'ams? I didn't teach you."

"No, indeed! Sisters may fall out for all that brothers care."

"That depends on whose sisters they are," said Roger, rising. "I
now perceive that mine has been well taken care of."

"You think other young men have your pert ways," retorted Sue,
reddening. "My friends have manners."

"Oh, I see. They let you fall out, and then politely pick you up."

"Come, you are both in danger of falling out now," said the mother
reprovingly.

Roger went off whistling to his work, and the hired man lumbered
after him.

"Father," said Mrs. Atwood, "who'll go down to the river for the
trunks?"

"Well, I s'pose I'll have to," grumbled Mr. Atwood. "Roger don't
want to, and Jotham can do more work in the cornfield than me."

"I'm glad you're so sensible. Riding down to the river and back
will be a good bit easier than hoeing corn all day. The stage will
be along about five, I guess, and I'll get supper for 'em in the
sittin'-room, so you can eat in your shirt-sleeves, if that'll
quiet your mind."

With the aspect of a November day Mr. Atwood got out the great
farm-wagon and jogged down to the landing on the Hudson, which was
so distant as to insure his absence for several hours.

It was a busy day for Mrs. Atwood and Susan. Fresh bread and cake
were to be baked, and the rooms "tidied up" once more. A pitcher
that had lost its handle was filled with old-fashioned roses that
persisted in blooming in a grass-choked flower-bed. This was placed
in the room designed for Mrs. Jocelyn and the children, while the
one flower vase, left unbroken from the days of Roger's boyish
carelessness, adorned the smaller apartment that Mildred and Belle
were to occupy, and this was about the only element of elegance or
beauty that Susan was able to impart part to the bare little room.
Even to the country girl, to whom the term "decorative art" was but
a vague phrase, the place seemed meagre and hard in its outlines,
and she instinctively felt that it would appear far more so to its
occupants.

"But it's the best we can afford," she sighed; "and at the prices
they'll pay us they shouldn't complain."

Still the day was full of pleasurable excitement and anticipation
to the young girl. She was aware that her mother's tasks and her
own would be greatly increased, but on the other hand the monotony
of the farm-house life would be broken, and in the more distant
future she saw a vista of new gowns, a jaunty winter hat with a
feather, and other like conditions of unalloyed happiness. Susan
had dwelt thus far in one of life's secluded valleys, and if she
lost much because her horizon was narrow she was shielded from
far more. Her fresh, full face had a certain pleasant, wholesome
aspect, like the fields about her home in June, as she bustled
about, preparing for the "city folks" whom her father so dreaded.

Roger's buggy was not yet paid for. It was the one great extravagance
that Mr. Atwood had permitted for many a year. As usual, his wife
had led him into it, he growling and protesting, but unable to resist
her peculiar persistency. Roger was approaching man's estate, and
something must be done to signalize so momentous an event. A light
buggy was the goal of ambition to the young men in the vicinity,
and Roger felt that he could never be a man without one. He also
recognized it as the best means of securing a wife to his mind,
for courting on a moonlit, shadowy road was far more satisfactory
than in the bosom of the young woman's family. Not that he was bent
on matrimony, but rather on several years of agreeable preparation
for it, proposing to make tentative acquaintances, both numerous
and miscellaneous.

In his impatience to secure this four-wheeled compendium of happiness
he had mortgaged his future, and had promised his father to plant
and cultivate larger areas. The shrewd farmer therefore had no
prospect of being out of pocket, for the young man was keeping his
word. The acres of the cornfield were nearly double those of the
previous year, and on them Roger spent the long hot day in vigorous
labor in preference to the easy task of going to the river for the
luggage. Dusty and weary, but in excellent spirits over the large
space that he and the hired man had "hilled up," he went whistling
home through the long shadows of the June evening. The farm wagon
stood in the door-yard piled with trunks.  The front entrance of
the house--rarely used by the family--was open, and as he came up
the lane a young girl emerged from it, and leaned for a few moments
against the outer pillar of the little porch, unconscious of the
picture she made. A climbing rose was in bloom just over her head,
and her cheeks, flushed with heat and fatigue, vied with them
in color. She had exchanged her travelling-dress for one of light
muslin, and entwined in her hair a few buds from the bush that
covered the porch. If Roger was not gifted with a vivid imagination
he nevertheless saw things very accurately, and before he reached
the head of the lane admitted to himself that the old "front steps"
had never been so graced before. He had seen many a rustic beauty
standing there when his sister had company, but the city girl
impressed him with a difference which he then could not understand.
He was inclined to resent this undefined superiority, and he muttered,
"Father's right. They are birds of too fine a feather for our nest."

He had to pass near her in order to reach the kitchen door, or else
make a detour which his pride would not permit. Indeed, the youth
plodded leisurely along with his hoe on his shoulder, and scrupled
not to scrutinize the vision on the porch with the most matter-of-fact
minuteness.

"What makes her so 'down in the mouth'?" he queried. "She doesn't
fancy us barbarians, I suppose, and Forestville to her is a howling
wilderness. Like enough she'll take me for an Indian."

Mildred's eyes were fixed on a great shaggy mountain in the west,
that was all the more dark and forbidding in its own deep shadow.
She did not see it, however, for her mind was dwelling on gloomier
shadows than the mountain cast.

As he passed he caught her attention, and stepping toward him a
little impatiently, she said,

"I suppose you belong to the premises?"

He made an awkward attempt at a bow, and said stiffly, "I'm one of
the Atwood chattels."

The answer was not such as she expected, and she gave him a
scrutinizing glance. "Surely, if I have ever seen a laborer, he's
one," she thought, as with woman's quickness she inventoried his
coarse, weather-stained straw hat, blue cotton shirt crossed by
suspenders mended with strings, shapeless trousers, once black,
but now of the color of the dusty cornfield, and shoes such as she
had never seen on the avenue. Even if Roger's face had not been
discolored by perspiration and browned by exposure, its contrast
with the visage that memory kept before her but too constantly
would not have been pleasing. Nothing in his appearance deterred
her from saying briefly, "I wish you would bring those trunks to
our rooms. We have already waited for them some little time, and
Mr. Atwood said that his man would attend to them when he came home
from his work."

"That's all right, but I'm not his man, and with another stiff bow
he passed on.

"Roger," called Mrs. Atwood from the kitchen door, "where's Jotham?"

"Bringing home the cows."

"The ladies want their trunks," continued his mother, in a sharp,
worried tone. "I wish you men-folks would see to 'em right away.
Why couldn't you quit work a little earlier to-night?"

Roger made no reply, but proceeded deliberately to help himself to
a wash-basin and water.

"Look here, Roger," said his mother, in a tone she seldom used,
"if those trunks are not where they belong in ten minutes, Susan
and I'll take 'em up ourselves."

"That would be a pretty story to go out," added his sister.  "Little
use your buggy would be to you then, for no nice girl would ride
with you."

"Come, come, what's the use of such a bother!" said the young man
irritably. "Mother knows that I'd carry the trunks up on Bald-Top
before I'd let her touch them. That's the way it will always be
with these city people, I suppose. Everybody must jump and run the
moment they speak. Father's right, and we'll have to give up our
old free-and-easy life and become porters and waiting-maids."

"I've heard enough of that talk," said Mrs. Atwood emphatically.
"Your father's been like a drizzling northeaster all day. Now I
give you men-folks fair warning. If you want any supper you must
wake up and give me something better than grumbling. I'm too hot
and tired now to argue over something that's been settled once for
all."

The "warning" had the desired effect, for Mrs. Atwood was the
recognized head of the commissary department, and, as such, could
touch the secret springs of motives that are rarely resisted.

The open kitchen windows were so near that Mildred could not help
overhearing this family jar, and it added greatly to her depression.
She felt that they had not only lost their own home, but were also
banishing the home feeling from another family. She did but scant
justice to Mrs. Atwood's abundant supper, and went to her room at
last with that most disagreeable of all impressions--the sense of
being an intruder.

The tired children were soon at rest, for their time of sleepless
trouble was far distant. Belle's pretty head drooped also with the
roses over the porch as the late twilight deepened. To her and the
little people the day had been rich in novelty, and the country was
a wonderland of many and varied delights. In the eyes of children
the Garden of Eden survives from age to age. Alas! the tendency to
leave it survives also, and to those who remain, regions of beauty
and mystery too often become angular farms and acres.

Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred still more clearly illustrated the truth
that the same world wears a different aspect as the conditions of
life vary. They were going out into the wilderness. The river was
a shining pathway, whose beauty was a mockery, for it led away from
all that they loved best. The farmhouse was a place of exile, and
its occupants a strange, uncouth people with whom they felt that
they would have nothing in common. Mrs. Jocelyn merely looked forward
to weeks of weary waiting until she could again join her husband,
to whom in his despondency her heart clung with a remorseful
tenderness. She now almost wished that they had lived on bread and
water, and so had provided against this evil day of long separation
and dreary uncertainty. Now that she could no longer rest in her
old belief that there would be "some way" of tiding over every
financial crisis, she became a prey to forebodings equally vague
that there might be no way. That HER HUSBAND could spend day after
day seeking employment, offering, too, to take positions far inferior
to the one he had lost, was a truth that at first bewildered and
then disheartened her beyond measure. She felt that they must,
indeed, have fallen on evil times when his services went a-begging.

To Mildred the present was dark, and the future most unpromising;
but deep in her heart nestled the sustaining thought that she was
not unloved, not forgotten. The will of others, not his own, kept
her lover from her side. His weaknesses were of a nature that
awakened her pity rather than contempt. If he had been a Hercules
physically and a Bacon intellectually, but conceited, domineering,
untruthful, and of the male flirt genus--from such weaknesses she
would have shrunk with intense repugnance. Her friends thought
her peculiarly gentle in disposition. They did not know--and she
herself might rarely recognize the truth--that she was also very
strong; her strength on its human side consisted in a simple,
unswerving fidelity to her womanly nature and sense of right; on
the Divine side, God's word was to her a verity. She daily said "Our
Father" as a little child. Has the world yet discovered a purer or
loftier philosophy?




CHAPTER VI

ROGER DISCOVERS A NEW TYPE


Young Atwood rose with a very definite purpose on the following
morning. For his mother's sake he would be civil to their boarders,
but nothing more. He would learn just what they had a right to
expect in view of their business relations, and having performed
all that was "nominated in the bond," would treat them with such
an off-hand independence that they would soon become aware that he,
Roger Atwood, was an entity that could exist without their admiring
approval. He meant that they should learn that the country was
quite as large as the city, and that the rural peculiarities of
Forestville were as legitimate as those which he associated with
them, and especially with the young lady who had mistaken him for
the hired man. Therefore after his morning work in the barnyard
he stalked to the house with the same manner and toilet as on the
previous day.

But there were no haughty citizens to be toned down. They were all
sleeping late from the fatigues of their journey, and Mrs. Atwood
said she would give the "men-folks their breakfast at the usual
hour, because a hungry man and a cross bear were nigh of kin."

The meal at first was a comparatively silent one, but Roger noted
with a contemptuous glance that his sister's hair was arranged more
neatly than he had seen it since the previous Sunday, and that her
calico dress, collar, and cuffs were scrupulously clean.

"Expecting company?" he asked maliciously.

She understood him and flushed resentfully. "If you wish to go
around looking like a scarecrow, that's no reason why I should,"
she said. "The corn is too large for the crows to pull now, so if
I were you I would touch myself up a little. I don't wonder that
Miss Jocelyn mistook you for Jotham."

"It's well," retorted Roger, with some irritation, "that your
Miss Jocelyn has no grown brothers here, or you would come down
to breakfast in kid gloves. I suppose, however, that they have
insisted on a tidy and respectful waitress. Will you please inform
me, mother, what my regulation costume must be when my services
are required? Jotham and I should have a suit of livery, with two
more brass buttons on my coat to show that I belong to the family."

"I think that a little more of the manner and appearance of a
gentleman would show your relationship better than any amount of
brass," remarked his mother quietly.

Roger was almost through his breakfast, and so, at no great loss,
could assume the injured part. Therefore with a dignity that was
somewhat in marked contrast with his rather unkempt appearance he
rose and stalked off to the cornfield again.

"Umph," remarked Mr. Atwood sententiously, as he rose and followed
his son. This apparently vague utterance had for his wife a definite
and extended meaning. She looked annoyed and flurried, and was in
no mood for the labors of preparing a second breakfast.

"The men-folks had better not roil me up too much," she said to
her daughter. "If your father had said No! out and out, I wouldn't
have brought strangers into his home. But he kinder wanted me
to have their money without the bother of having them around. Now
one thing is settled--he must either help me make it pleasant for
these people, or else tell them to leave this very day."

"And how about Roger?" asked Susan, still under the influence of
pique.

"Oh, Roger is young and foolish. He's a-growing yet," and the
mother's severe aspect relaxed. He was her only boy.

Mr. Atwood, brought face to face with the alternative presented
by his practical wife, succumbed with tolerable grace. In truth,
having had his grumble out, he was not so very averse to the
arrangement. He was much like old Gruff, their watch-dog, that was
a redoubtable growler, but had never been known to bite any one.
He therefore installed himself as his wife's out-of-door ally and
assistant commissary, proposing also to take the boarders out to
drive if they would pay enough to make it worth the while. As for
Roger, he resolved to remain a farmer and revolve in his old orbit.

Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred were listless and depressed, and time hung
heavily on their hands. They were in that condition of waiting and
uncertainty which renders cheerful or systematic occupation wellnigh
impossible. They daily hoped that a letter would come assuring them
that Mr. Jocelyn had secured a position that would change all their
future for the better, but the letters received recorded futile
efforts only, and often despondency; but occasionally there would
come a letter full of vague, sanguine hopes that first produced
elation and then perplexity that nothing came of them. His wife
found his dejection contagious. If she had been with him she would
have made strenuous efforts to cheer and inspirit, but without
an unselfish woman's strongest motive for action she brooded and
drooped. Belle's irrepressible vivacity and the children's wild
delight over the wonders of the fields and farmyard jarred upon
her sore heart painfully. She patiently tried to take care of them,
but in thought and feeling she could not enter into their life as
had been her custom. Belle was too young and giddy for responsibility,
and Mildred had many a weary chase after the little explorers. In
spite of his clearly defined policy of indifference, Roger found
himself watching her on such occasions with a growing interest. It
was evident to him that she did not in the slightest degree resent
his daily declaration of independence; indeed, he saw that she
scarcely gave him any thoughts whatever--that he was to her no more
than heavy-footed Jotham.

"She does not even consider me worth snubbing," he thought, with
much dissatisfaction, about a week subsequent to their arrival.

In vain, after the labors of the day, he dressed in his best
suit and sported a flaming necktie; in vain he dashed away in his
buggy, and, a little later, dashed by again with a rural belle at
his side. He found himself unable to impress the city girl as he
desired, or to awaken in her a sense of his importance. And yet he
already began to feel, in a vague way, that she was not so distant
TO him, as distant FROM him.

Belle soon formed his acquaintance, asking innumerable questions
and not a few favors, and she found him more good-natured than she
had been led to expect. At last, to her great delight, he took her
with him in his wagon to the post-office. The lively girl interested
and amused him, but he felt himself immeasurably older than she.
With a tendency common to very young men, he was more interested
in the elder sister, who in character and the maturity that comes
from experience was certainly far beyond him. Belle he understood,
but Mildred was a mystery, and she had also the advantage of being
a very beautiful one.

As time passed and no definite assurances came from her father,
the young girl was conscious of a growing dissatisfaction with the
idle, weary waiting to which she and her mother were condemned.  She
felt that it might have been better for them all to have remained
in the city, in spite of the summer heat, than thus to be separated.
She believed that she might have found something to do which would
have aided in their support, and she understood more clearly than
her mother that their slender means were diminishing fast. That
she could do anything at a country farmhouse to assist her father
seemed very doubtful, but she felt the necessity of employment
more strongly each day, not only for the sake of the money it might
bring, but also as an antidote to a growing tendency to brood over
her deep disappointment. She soon began to recognize that such
self-indulgence would unfit her for a struggle that might be extended
and severe, and was not long in coming to the conclusion that she
must make the best of her life as it was and would be. Days and
weeks had slipped by and had seen her looking regretfully back at
the past, which was receding like the shores of a loved country to
an exile. Since the prospect of returning to it was so slight, it
would be best to turn her thoughts and such faint hope as she could
cherish toward the vague and unpromising future. At any rate she
must so occupy herself as to have no time for morbid self-communings.

Her first resource was the homely life and interests of those
with whom she dwelt. Thus far she had regarded them as uncongenial
strangers, and had contented herself with mere politeness toward
them. In her sad preoccupation she had taken little note of their
characters or domestic life, and her mother had kept herself even
more secluded. Indeed the poor lady felt that it was hardly right
to smile in view of her husband's absence and misfortune, and she
often chided Belle for her levity; but Belle's life was like an
over-full fountain in spring-time, and could not be repressed.

In her deep abstraction Mildred had seen, but had scarcely noted,
certain changes in the farmhouse that would have interested and
pleased her had her mind been at rest. Almost unconsciously she had
revealed her love of that which is pretty and inviting; therefore
Susan, not content with being neat, was inclined to brighten
her costume by an occasional ribbon, and to suggest comparisons
between her fresh and youthful bloom and an opening flower that she
would fasten in her hair as the summer day declined. So far from
resenting this imitation of her own habits and tastes, Mildred at
last recognized the young girl's awakening perceptions of womanly
grace with much satisfaction. Even poor Mrs. Atwood exhibited a
tendency to emerge from her chronic and rather forlorn condition
of household drudge. For years she had known and thought of little
else save sordid work, early and late.  The income from the small
farm permitted no extra help except on rare occasions, and then was
obtained under protest from her husband, who parted with a dollar
as he would with a refractory tooth. His strong and persistent will
had impressed itself on his family, and their home life had been
meagre and uninviting; the freedom and ease that he and Roger
were so loath to lose, consisting chiefly in careless dress and a
disregard of the little refinements and courtesies of life.

It was with some self-reproach that Mildred admitted that for
nearly a month she had practically ignored these people, and that
she was becoming selfish in her trouble; and yet, not so much from
a sense of duty, as from a kindling zest in life, she began to take
an interest in them and their ways. She was still far too young
for her spirit to lose its spring, even under a continuous weight
of misfortune. Her nature was not morbid, but sunny and wholesome,
and when with the children and Belle unexpected smiles would brighten
her face like glints of sunshine here and there on a cloudy day.
Deep as had been her wounds, she found that there were moments when
she half forgot their pain, and an instinct of self-preservation
taught her that it would be best to forget them as far as possible.

When the thought of trying to refine the somewhat rude household
in which she dwelt occurred to her, she discovered that the work
was already well begun, for the chief condition of success was
present--the disposition to do as she would like. The Atwoods soon
surmised that the family was in trouble of some kind, and were able
to distinguish between pride of caste and a sorrowful preoccupation.
It was scarcely in Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred's nature to speak otherwise
than gently and kindly, and so without trying they disarmed their
hosts and won their sympathy.  Notwithstanding their dejection and
lassitude, they maintained the habits of their lives, and unwittingly
gave Mrs. Atwood and her daughter a vague impression that neatness,
attractiveness, and order were as essential as good morals.

At first Roger had dressed more roughly than ever, in order to
assert his right to his old ways, but as Mildred did not protest
even by a glance, he next took pains to show her that he had "good
clothes" if he chose to wear them. This fact she also accepted without
the faintest interest, and so at last he was rather nonplussed.
He was not accustomed to being politely ignored, and since he felt
a growing interest in this new type of girl, he had an increasing
desire to make her aware of his existence. "Hang it all," he would
mutter, "I'm no more to her than Jotham and the other farm animals.
What can a fellow do to make her look at him as if she saw him?
She's very kind and polite and all that; she'd as soon hurt the
brindle cow as me, but this fact is not very flattering. However,
I'll find you out, my lady, and you too shall learn that the one
whom you now regard as an object merely has a will and a way of
his own."

Therefore it may be guessed that in Roger Mildred might discover
more docility and plastic readiness than she desired. Only old Mr.
Atwood and Jotham seemed incorrigible material; but she did not
despair even of them, and resolved to set about reclaiming this
family from barbarism at once.




CHAPTER VII

COMPARISONS


"Mrs. Atwood," said Mildred one Saturday evening, "I'll go with you
to church to-morrow if you'll let me. Belle has been once, and it
will be my turn to-morrow."

"Oh, certainly, miss; you will go with Roger in the buggy, I s'pose,
like Miss Belle."

"If you please, I'd rather go with you."

"Really, miss, the roads have been muddy of late, and the wagon
isn't very nice."

"I would rather go with you," pleaded Mildred, with an appeal in
her blue eyes that few resisted.

"Father," said Mrs. Atwood, as soon as her husband came in, "Miss
Jocelyn wishes to go with us to meeting to-morrow. Can't you or
Roger tidy up the wagon a bit? 'Tain't fit for her to ride in."

"There'tis again--more time spent in fixing up and fussing than
in looking after the main chance. You are all gettin' too fine for
plain farmin' people."

"I don't see why plain farming people need enjoy mud more'n other
folks. You ought to be ashamed to ask your wife and daughter to
ride in such a wagon."

"I don't know why I should be more ashamed to-morrow than on any
other Sunday, and you was never ashamed before. Your boarders don't
seem inclined to take any rides and pay for them, so I don't see
why I should fix up any more'n usual. Anyhow, it's too late now;
Jotham's gone home, I'm too tired, and Roger's dressed to go out.
Why can't she go with Roger?"

"She says she'd rather go with us, and if you men-folk let her
ride in that wagon I hope the minister will give you a scorching
sermon"--and she turned toward her son, who, dressed in his rural
finery, was finishing an early supper, To her surprise he, from
whom she expected no aid, gave her a significant nod and put his
finger on his lips. He had already decided upon one bold stratagem,
in the hope of opening Mildred's eyes, and if this failed his
mother's words suggested another line of policy.

"Sue," he said, with affected carelessness, "I may bring Amelia
Stone to spend part of the evening with you."

"Amelia Stone isn't my style, if the young men do say she's the
prettiest girl in town."

"If you don't treat her well she'll think you're jealous," said
Roger, and with this artful stroke he departed to carry out his
experiment. "I'll teach my city lady that I'm not a clodhopper that
other girls won't look at," he thought as he drove away.

Everything went according to his mind, for Amelia broke an engagement
in order to come with him, and was very friendly. The young fellow
thought that Mildred must see that he was not a person to be politely
ignored when so handsome a girl was flattering in her favors.
Susan would not be thought jealous for the world, and so was rather
effusive over Miss Stone. She also imbibed the idea that it might
be a good chance to make Mildred aware that they knew some nice,
stylish people; therefore, as the rural beauty mounted the steps of
the porch she introduced her to Mildred and Belle. Roger meanwhile
stood near, and critically compared the two, girls. They certainly
represented two very different types, and he might have brought a
score of his acquaintances that would have been more to Mildred's
taste than the florid beauty whose confidence was boldness, and
who had inventoried her own pronounced charms more often than had
any of her admirers. One girl was a lily, with a character like
a delicate, elusive fragrance; the other, a tulip, very striking,
especially at a distance. The one no more asserted herself than did
the summer evening; the manner of the other the same as button-holed
all present, and demanded attention. Her restless black eyes openly
sought admiration, and would speedily sparkle with anger and malice
should their request be unrewarded. Roger was quick enough to feel
Mildred's superiority, although he could scarcely account for it,
and he soon experienced so strong a revulsion of feeling toward
his unconscious ally that he would have taken her home again with
a sense of relief.

"If Miss Jocelyn thinks that's the style of girl that takes with
me, I might as well have remained a scarecrow. Amelia Stone seems
loud as a brass band beside her," and his gallantries perceptibly
diminished.

True to her nature, Amelia assumed toward him what she imagined
were very pretty airs of proprietorship. Eoger knew well that her
manner would have been the same toward the youth with whom, from
a sudden caprice, she had broken her engagement for the evening.
Her habitual coquetry nevertheless unwittingly carried out his
original programme with a success that made him grind his teeth
with rage, for he supposed that Mildred would gain the idea that
they were congenial spirits drawn together by strong affinities.

And she, half divining his vexation, shrewdly increased it by
pretending to associate him with the transparent coquette, while
at the same time manifesting disapproval of her by a fine reserve.
Amelia felt herself scanned quietly, coldly, and half curiously,
as if she belonged to some strange and hitherto unknown type, and
her vivacious egotism began to fail her. She was much relieved
therefore when Mildred excused herself and went to her room,
for careless, light-hearted, and somewhat giddy Belle imposed no
restraint. Roger, however, did not recover himself, for he saw that
he had made a false step in his effort to win recognition from
Mildred, and he waited impatiently until his companion should suggest
returning. This she soon did, and they rode toward her home with
a mutual sense of dissatisfaction. At last Amelia broke out, "I
think she's absurdly proud!"

"Who?" Eoger asked demurely.

"You know who well enough. I thank my stars we have no city folks
putting on airs around our house. I suppose you think her perfection.
You looked as if you did."

"I'm not acquainted with her," he said quietly.

"Not acquainted! Darsn't you speak to her high mightiness then?"

"Oh, yes, I can speak to her when there is occasion, but that does
not make one acquainted. I don't understand her."

"I do, perfectly. She thinks herself a wonderful deal better than
you or me."

"Perhaps she is," he admitted.

"Well! that's a nice speech to make to ME! I was a fool to break
my engagement and go with you."

"All right," responded Eoger, with satirical good-nature, as he
assisted her to alight; "we'll both know better next time."

She would not speak to Mm again, but he escorted her to her door,
and bowed in parting with mocking politeness. Instead of inviting
him in, as was her custom, she closed the door with a sharpness
that spoke volumes.

"I don't believe Miss Jocelyn ever banged a door like that in her
life," he muttered with a smile as he hastened homeward.

Hearing unusual sounds in the farmyard before retiring, Mildred
peeped out from under her curtain. The moonlight revealed that
Roger was washing the wagon with a vigor that made her laugh, and
she thought, "After what I have seen this evening, I think I can
civilize him."




CHAPTER VIII

CHANGES


Bent upon carrying out her project of introducing among the Atwoods
a more gracious and genial family life, and lured by the fresh
coolness of the summer morning, Mildred left her room earlier than
usual. Mrs. Atwood, whose one indulgence was a longer sleep on
the day of rest, came down not very long after and began bustling
about the kitchen. Hitherto their meals had been served to the
Jocelyns in the sitting-room, the farmer and his family eating
as before in the kitchen. Mildred felt that they had no right to
impose this extra labor on Mrs. Atwood, especially on the Sabbath,
and she also thought it would do her mother good to be roused from
the listless apathy into which she was sinking. These were her
chief motives, but she knew that at no other place could people be
taught the refinements of life more effectually than at the table,
and it was her plan to bring about the changes she desired, without
appearing to be the conscious cause.

"Mrs. Atwood," she said, "why can we not all take our breakfast
together in the sitting-room this morning? I have noticed that
your hired man is absent on Sundays"--her zeal for reform would
not induce her to sit down with Jotham--"and I can see no reason
why you should have the task to-day of preparing two meals. Of
course, if this is not agreeable to you let there be no change,
but do not put yourself to the extra trouble on our account."

"Well, now, miss, you are very kind, and to tell you the truth, I
was thinking of this very thing, but we don't wish to intrude."

"Intrude, Mrs. Atwood!" exclaimed Mildred, assuming surprise. "I
don't understand you, and shall now feel hurt if we do not take
our meals together to-day."

"It's very good of you to think of us, and Susan and me will have
a more restful day."

Mildred gave her one of her rare smiles, which Mrs. Atwood said
"lighted up the old kitchen like a ray of sunshine," and then went
to prepare her mother and sister for the change. Belle was pleased,
as she ever was with novelty.

"Millie," she cried, "you shall sit next to that great animal,
Jotham, and if you don't take care he'll eat you unawares."

"Jotham is not here to-day, and I'll have him fed in the kitchen
hereafter."

"Have you become mistress of the farmhouse? Has Roger made proposals?
Won't it be fun to hear Mr. Atwood grumble! There is nothing I enjoy
more than to hear him grumble and old Gruff growl.  They must be
chips off the same block."

Mrs. Jocelyn shrank from seeing and speaking to any one, bat was
much too unselfish to impose extra tasks on Mrs. Atwood.

Susan soon came down to assist her mother, and was delighted at the
prospect of taking her meals in the sitting-room, feeling that it
was a decided social promotion. Moreover, like all young girls,
she longed for companionship, and believed that Mildred would now
be more approachable.

By and by Roger came from the barnyard in his working-clothes, and
seeing no preparations for breakfast in the kitchen, exclaimed:

"So we heathen must sit down to the second table to-day."

"Yes, if you wish. Susan and me are going to take our breakfast in
the sitting-room with Mrs. Jocelyn and her family."

"Am I not invited?" he asked a little anxiously.

"There's no need of any invitation. You have as much right there
as I have, only I would not come in looking like that."

"They won't like it--this new arrangement."

"It seems to me that you have grown very considerate of what they
like," put in Susan.

"Miss Jocelyn proposed it herself," Mrs. Atwood said, "and if you
and father would fix up a little and come in quietly and naturally
it would save a deal of trouble. If I can't get a little rest on
Sunday I'll wear out."

Roger waited to hear no more, and went hastily to his room.

Mr. Atwood was more intractable. He distinguished the Sabbath from
the rest of the week, by making the most of his larger leisure to
grumble.

"I'm in no state to sit down with those people," he growled, after
the change and the reasons for it had been explained to him.

"I'm glad you feel so," his wife replied; "but your old clothes
have not yet grown fast to you; you can soon fix yourself up, and
you might as well dress before breakfast as after it."

He was perverse, however, and would make no greater concession to
the unwelcome innovation than to put on his coat. Mildred smiled
mentally when she saw him lowering at the head of the table, but an
icicle could no more continue freezing in the sun than he maintain
his surly mood before her genial, quiet greeting. It suggested
courtesy so irresistibly, and yet so unobtrusively, that he already
repented his lack of it. Still, not for the world would he have
made any one aware of his compunctions. Mrs. Atwood and Susan had
their doubts about Roger, fearing that he would rebel absolutely
and compel a return to their former habits. They were all scarcely
seated, however, before he appeared, a little flushed from his
hasty toilet and the thought of meeting one who had been cold and
disapproving toward the belle of Forestville, but Mildred said
"good-morning" so affably and naturally that he was made quite at
ease, and Mrs. Jocelyn, who had seemed unapproachable, smiled upon
him so kindly that he was inclined to believe her almost as pretty
as her daughter. As for Belle and the children, he already felt
well acquainted with them. Mrs. Atwood and Susan looked at each
other significantly, for Roger was dressed in his best and disposed
to do his best. Mildred saw the glance, and felt that the young
fellow deserved some reward, so she began talking to him in such
a matter-of-course way that before he was aware he was responding
with a freedom that surprised all the family, and none more than
himself. Mildred was compelled to admit that the "young barbarian,"
as she had characterized him in her thoughts, possessed, in the item
of intelligence, much good raw material. He not only had ideas,
but also the power of expressing them, with freshness and vivacity.
She did not give herself sufficient credit for the effects that
pleased her, or understand that it was her good breeding and good
will that banished his tongue-tied embarrassment. The most powerful
influences are usually the most subtle, and Roger found, as had
Vinton Arnold and others, that for some cause Mildred evoked the
best there was in him.

Poor Mrs. Jocelyn did not have very much to say. Her depression
was too deep to be thrown off appreciably, but she replied to Mrs.
Atwood's remarks with her wonted gentleness. Belle's spirits soon
passed all bounds, and one of her wild sallies provoked a grim
smile from even Mr. Atwood, and she exulted over the fact all day.
In brief, the ice seemed quite broken between the family and the
"boarders."

The old farmer could scarcely believe his eyes when he went out
to harness the horses to the three-seated wagon, for it was neat
and clean, with buffalo robes spread over the seats. "Well," he
ejaculated, "what's a-coming over this here family, anyway? I'm
about all that's left of the old rusty times, and rusty enough I
feel, with everybody and everything so fixed up. I s'pose I'll have
to stand it Sundays, and the day'll be harder to git through than
ever. To-morrow I'll be back in the kitchen again, and can eat my
victuals without Miss Jocelyn looking on and saying to herself,
'He ain't nice; he don't look pretty'; and then a-showin' me by the
most delicate little ways how I ought to perform. She's got Roger
under her thumb or he wouldn't have cleaned up this wagon in the
middle of the night, for all I know, but I'm too old and set to be
made over by a girl."

Thus grumbling and mumbling to himself, Mr. Atwood prepared to take
his family to the white, tree-shadowed meeting-house, at which he
seldom failed to appear, for the not very devotional reason that
it helped him to get through the day. Like the crab-apple tree in
the orchard, he was a child of the soil, and savored too much of
his source.

Roger was of finer metal, and while possessing his father's shrewdness,
hard common-sense and disposition to hit the world between the eyes
if it displeased him, his nature was ready at slight incentive,
to throw off all coarseness and vulgarity. The greater number of
forceful American citizens are recruited from the ranks of just
such young men--strong, comparatively poor, somewhat rude in mind
and person at the start, but of such good material that they are
capable of a fine finish.

Roger had grown naturally, and healthily, thus far. He had surpassed
the average boy on the play-ground, and had fallen slightly below
him in the school-house, but more from indifference and self-assurance
than lack of ability. Even his father's narrow thrift could not
complain of his work when he would work, but while a little fellow
he was inclined to independence, and persisted in having a goodly
share of his time for the boyish sports in their season, and for
all the books of travel and adventure he could lay his hands upon.
In spite of scoldings and whippings he had sturdily held his own,
and at last his father had discovered that Roger could be led much
better than driven, and that by getting him interested, and by
making little agreements, like that concerning the buggy, the best
of the bargain could always be obtained, for the youth would then
work with a will and carry out his verbal contracts in a large,
good-natured way.  Therefore Mildred's belief that he was good raw
material for her humanizing little experiment had a better foundation
than she knew. Indeed, without in the least intending it, she might
awaken a spirit that would assert itself in ways as yet undreamed
of by either of them. The causes which start men upon their careers
are often seemingly the most slight and causal. Mildred meant nothing
more than to find a brief and kindly-natured pastime in softening
the hard lives and in rounding the sharp angles of the Atwood
family, and Roger merely came in for his share of her attention.
Flesh and spirit, however, are not wood and stone, and she might
learn in deep surprise that her light aesthetic touches, while
producing pleasing changes in externals, had also awakened some
of the profoundest motives and forces that give shape and color to
life.

In smiling ignorance of such possibilities, she said to him as
she came out on the porch dressed for church, "You have given your
mother and me also a pleasant surprise, and we shall enjoy our ride
to church far more, not only because the wagon is nice and clean,
but also because of your thoughtfulness of our pleasure.  The wagon
looked so inviting from our windows that I have induced my mother
to go, and to take the children. I think they will keep still. We
will sit near the door, and I can take them out if they get tired."

Her words were very simple, but she spoke them with a quiet grace
all her own, while pulling her glove over a hand that seemed too
small and white for any of the severer tasks of life. As she stood
there in her pretty summer costume, a delicate bloom in her cheeks
relieving the transparent fairness of her complexion, she seemed to
him, as Amelia Stone had said, perfect indeed--and the young girl
could not suppress a smile at the almost boyish frankness of his
admiration.

"You gave me a pleasant surprise, also," he said, flushing deeply.

"I?" with a questioning glance.

"Yes. You have brought about a pleasant change, and made breakfast
something more than eating. You have made me feel that I might be
less nigh of kin to Jotham than I feared."

"I shall imitate your frankness," she replied, laughing; "you are
not near so nigh of kin to him as I feared."

"I have not forgotten that you thought me identical with him," he
could not forbear saying.

"I did not mean to hurt your feelings," she answered, with deepening
color.

"Oh, you were not to blame in the least," he said good-naturedly.
"I deserved it."

"You must remember, too," she continued, deprecatingly, "that
I am a city girl, and not acquainted with country ways, and so
have charity." Then she added earnestly, "We do not want to put a
constraint on your family life, or make home seem less homelike to
you all."

Mrs. Jocelyn with Belle and the children were descending the stairs.
"I misunderstood you, Miss Jocelyn," said Roger, with a penitent
look, and he hastily strode away.

"I've disarmed him," thought Mildred, with a half smile. She had,
a little too completely.

Belle claimed her old place with Roger, and their light wagon was
soon lost in the windings of the road.

"Millie," whispered Belle, as the former joined her at church, "what
could you have said to Roger to make him effervesce so remarkably?
I had to remind him that it was Sunday half a dozen times."

"What a great boy he is!" answered Mildred.

"The idea of my teaching him sobriety seemed to amuse him amazingly."

"And no wonder. You are both giddy children."

"Until to-day, when you have turned his head, he has been very aged
in manner. Please let him alone hereafter; he is my property."

"Keep him wholly," and the amused look did not pass from Mildred's
face until service began.

Dinner was even a greater success than breakfast. Mrs. Jocelyn had
become better acquainted with Mrs. Atwood during the drive, and they
were beginning to exchange housekeeping opinions with considerable
freedom, each feeling that she could learn from the other. Fearing
justly that a long period of poverty might be before them, Mrs.
Jocelyn was awakening to the need of acquiring some of Mrs. Atwood's
power of making a little go a great way, and the thought of thus
becoming able to do something to assist her absent husband gave
her more animation than she had yet shown in her exile. Mildred
ventured to fill her vase with some hardy flowers that persisted
in blooming under neglect, and to place it on the table, and she
was greatly amused to see its effect on Roger and Mr. Atwood. The
latter stared at it and then at his wife.

"Will any one take some of the flowers?" he asked at last, in
ponderous pleasantry.

"I think we all had better take some, father," said Roger. "I would
not have believed that so little a thing could have made so great
a difference."

"Well, what is the difference?"

"I don't know as I can express it, but it suggests that a great
deal might be enjoyed that one could not put in his mouth or his
pocket."

"Mr. Roger," cried Belle, "you are coming on famously. I didn't
know that you were inclined, hitherto, to put everything you liked
in your mouth or pocket. What escapes some people may have had."

"I never said I liked you," retorted the youth, with a touch of the
broad repartee with which he was accustomed to hold his own among
the girls in the country.

"No, but if I saw that you liked some one else I might be alarmed"--and
she looked mischievously toward Mildred.

For reasons inexplicable to himself, he fell into a sudden confusion
at this sally.

With a warning glance at the incorrigible Belle, whose vital
elements were frolic and nonsense, Mildred began talking to Mr.
Atwood about the great hotel a few miles distant.

"Would you like to go there?" asked Roger after a little.

"No," she said; "I have not the slightest wish to go there." Indeed
there was nothing that she shrank from more than the chance of
meeting those who had known her in the city.

Later in the day Susan said to her mother, with much satisfaction,
"She's not stuck up at all, and we might have found it out before.
I can't go back to the kitchen and live in our old haphazard way.
I can see now that it wasn't nice at all."

"We'll see," said the politic Mrs. Atwood. "We mustn't drive father
too fast."

Roger felt that at last he was getting acquainted, and he looked
forward to the long summer evening with much hope. But nothing
happened as he expected, for Mildred was silent and preoccupied
at supper, and Mrs. Jocelyn appeared to have relapsed into her old
depression.

Instead of going out in his buggy to spend the evening with one
of his many favorites, as had been his custom, he took a book and
sat down under a tree near the porch, so that he might join Mildred
if she gave him any encouragement to do so. Belle found him taciturn
and far removed from his gay mood of the morning, and so at last
left him in peace.

Sue was entertaining a rural admirer in the parlor, which was rarely
used except on such momentous occasions, and all was propitious for
a quiet talk with the object of his kindling interest. His heart
beat quickly as he saw her appear on the porch with her hat and
shawl, but instead of noticing him she went rapidly by with bowed
head and climbed an eminence near the house, from which there was
an extended view to the southward. He felt, as well as saw, that
she wished to be alone, that he was not in her thoughts, that she
was still as distant from him as he had ever imagined her to be. The
shadows deepened, the evening grew dusky, the stars came out, and
yet she did not return. For a long time he could see her outline
as she sat on the hill top, and then it faded. He knew she was
in trouble, and found a vague pleasure in watching with her, in
remaining within call should she be frightened, knowing, however,
that there was little danger of this in quiet Forestville. Still,
the illusion that he was in some sense her protector pleased him
in his sentimental mood, and in after years he often recalled this
first faint foreshadowing of his lot.

Could he have seen the poor girl, when at last, conscious of
solitude and darkness, she gave way to the passionate grief that,
for her mother's sake, she had so long repressed, he would have
felt that she was distant indeed--far removed by experiences of
which he as yet knew nothing. She had been gazing southward, toward
the city in which her father was vainly seeking a foothold on the
steep incline up which the unfortunate must struggle, and in fancy
she saw him lonely, dejected, and deprived of the family life of
which he was so fond. Her sympathy for him was as deep as her strong
affection. But in spite of her will her thoughts would recur to
the beautiful dream which had been shattered in that distant city.
Not a word had she heard from Arnold since leaving it, and her
heart so misgave her concerning the future that she threw herself
on the sod, sobbing bitterly, and almost wishing that she were
beneath it and at rest. In the deep abstraction of her grief she
had scarcely noted the lapse of time, nor where she was, and the
moon had risen when she again glided by Roger, her step and bearing
suggesting lassitude and dejection.

Soon after he entered the sitting-room, where he found his mother
with a troubled look on her face. "Roger," she said, "I feel sorry
for these people. When I went upstairs a while ago I heard Mrs.
Jocelyn crying in her room, and coming down with the lamp I met the
young lady on the stairs, and her eyes were very red. It's certain
they are in deep trouble. What can it be? It's queer Mr.  Jocelyn
doesn't come to see them. I hope they are all right."

"Mother," he burst out impetuously, "they are all right--she is,
anyway," and he went abruptly to his room.

"Well," remarked the bewildered woman sententiously, "there never
were such goings on in the old house before."

An event momentous to her had indeed taken place--Roger's boyish
days were over.




CHAPTER IX

NEITHER BOY NOR MAN


The two following weeks passed uneventfully at the farmhouse, but
silent forces were at work that were as quiet and effective as those
of Nature, who makes her vital changes without ever being observed
in the act. In respect to the domestic arrangements Mrs.  Atwood
effected a sensible compromise. She gave the men-folk an early
breakfast in the kitchen, so that they might go to their work
as usual, and her boarders were thus not compelled to rise at
an unaccustomed hour. She and Susan afterward sat down with them,
and Mr. Atwood and Roger joined them at dinner and supper. On the
Monday following the scenes described in the last chapter, Mildred
and Mrs. Jocelyn were listless and unable to recover even the
semblance of cheerfulness, for a letter from Mr. Jocelyn informed
them that he was making very little headway, and that some agencies
which he accepted yielded but a scanty income. Mildred chafed more
bitterly than ever over her position of idle waiting, and even grew
irritable under it. More than once Roger heard her speak to Belle
and the children with a sharpness and impatience which proved
her not angelic. This did not greatly disturb him, for he neither
"wanted to be an angel" nor wished to have much to do with
uncomfortable perfection. A human, spirited girl was quite to his
taste, and he was quick-witted enough to see that unrest and anxiety
were the causes of her temper. Poor Mrs. Jocelyn was too gentle for
irritation, and only grew more despondent than ever at hope deferred.

"Millie," she said, "I have dreadful forebodings, and can never
forgive myself that I did not think night and day how to save instead
of how to spend. What should we do if we had no money at all?"

"Belle and I must go to work," said Mildred, with a resolute face,
"and it's a shame we are not at work now."

"What can you do when your father can do so little?"

"Other poor people live; so can we. I can't stand this wretched
waiting and separation much longer," and she wrote as much to her
father. In the hope of obtaining a response favorable to her wishes
she became more cheerful. Every day increased her resolution to
put an end to their suspense, and to accept their lot with such
fortitude as they could command.

One morning she found Mr. and Mrs. Atwood preparing to go to the
nearest market town with butter, eggs, and other farm produce.
She readily obtained permission to accompany them, and made some
mysterious purchases. From this time onward Roger observed that
she was much in her room, and that she went out more for exercise
than from the motive of getting through with the weary, idle hours.
For some reason she also gained such an influence over thoughtless
Belle that the latter took tolerably good care of little Fred
and Minnie, as the children were familiarly called.  While she
maintained toward him her polite and friendly manner, he saw that
he was forgotten, and that it had not entered her mind that he
could ever do anything for her or be anything more to her than at
the present time. But every hour she gained a stronger hold upon
his sympathy, and occasionally, when she thought herself unobserved,
he saw a troubled and almost fearful look come into her eyes, as if
something were present to her imagination that inspired the strongest
dread. At such times he was mastered by impulses of self-sacrifice
that would have seemed very absurd if put into plain words. He
kept his thoughts, however, to himself, and with an instinctive
reticence sought to disguise even from his mother the feelings that
were so new, and so full of delicious pain. That he was becoming
quite different from the careless, self-satisfied young fellow that
he had been hitherto was apparent to all, and after his outburst
on Sunday evening his mother half guessed the cause. But he misled
her to some extent, and Susan altogether, by saying, "I've had a
falling-out with Amelia Stone."

"Well, she's the last girl in the world that I'd mope about if I
were a man," was his sister's emphatic reply.

"You're not a man; besides I'm not moping. I'm only cutting my
wisdom teeth. I want to do something in the world, and I'm thinking
about it."

"He's a-growing," said his mother with a smile, and on this theory
she usually explained all of her son's vagaries.

He still further misled his unsophisticated sister by making no
special effort to seek Mildred's society. After one or two rather
futile attempts he saw that he would alienate the sad-hearted
girl by obtrusive advances, and he contented himself by trying
to understand her, in the hope that at some future time he might
learn to approach her more acceptably. The thought that she would
soon leave the farmhouse depressed him greatly. She had suggested
to him a new and wholly different life from that which he had led
hitherto, and he felt within himself no power or inclination to
go on with his old ways. These thoughts he also brooded over in
silence, and let himself drift in a current which seemed irresistible.

During this period he was under the influence of neither apathy nor
dejection. On the contrary, his mind was surging with half-formed
plans, crude purposes, and ambitious dreams. His horizon lifted
from the farm and Forestville until there seemed space for a notable
career. His soul kindled at the thought of winning a position that
would raise him to Mildred's side. So far from fearing to burn his
ships, and strike out unsupported, the impulse grew strong to make
the attempt at any cost. He was sure that his father would not
listen to the project, and that he would be wholly unaided, but
riot many days passed before the thought of such obstacles ceased
to influence him. "I'll take my way through the world, and cut
my own swath," he muttered a hundred times as he swung the scythe
under the July sun.

Moreover, he had a growing belief in his power to climb the heights
of success. His favorite books of travel and adventure that he had
devoured in boyhood made almost anything seem possible, and the
various biographies that the village library furnished revealed
grand careers in the face of enormous obstacles. His mind was awaking
like a young giant eager for achievement. Even after the toil of
long, hot days he took up his old school-books in the solitude of
his room, and found that he could review them with the ease with
which he would read a story.  "I've got some brains as well as
muscle," he would mutter, exultantly. "The time shall come when
Mildred Jocelyn won't mistake me for Jotham."

Poor Mr. Atwood would have been in consternation had he known
what was passing in his son's mind; and Mildred even less pleased,
for after all it was she who had inspired the thoughts which were
transforming him from a simple country youth into an ambitious,
venturesome man.

He knew of but one way to please her, but he made the most of
that, and worked quietly but assiduously whenever he could without
exciting his father's opposition. After the day's tasks were over
the time was his own. He began by cutting all the weeds and grass
in the door-yard and around the house. Palings that had disappeared
from the fence were replaced, and all were whitewashed.

Mrs. Atwood and Susan were greatly pleased at the changes, but thought
it politic not to say much about them; one evening, however, his
father began to banter him, remarking that Roger must be intending
to "bring home a wife some fine morning." The young fellow reddened
resentfully, and brusquely retorted that they "had lived in their
old slovenly way long enough. People might well think they were
going to the bad." This practical view somewhat reconciled his
father to the new ideas, and suggested that Roger was not so daft
as he feared. A little time after he was led to believe his son to
be shrewder than himself. Needing some money, he took a note to the
bank with much misgiving, but was agreeably surprised when one of
the officers said affably, "I think we can accommodate you, Mr.
Atwood. I was by your place the other day, and it is so improved
that I scarcely knew it. Thrift and credit go together."

But Mildred doubted whether thrift and policy were the only motives
which had led to Roger's unwonted action, and believed rather that
he had awakened to a perception of the value and attractiveness
of those things which hitherto he had not appreciated. This, in a
sense, was already true, but had she known to what extent she was
in his thoughts she would not have smiled so complacently when,
on the Saturday morning after the completion of his other labors,
she noted that the weed-choked flower-borders along the walk had
been cleaned and neatly rounded up, and the walk itself put in
perfect order. "The flower-beds remind me of himself," she thought,
as from time to time she glanced at them through her open window.
"They contain a good deal of vacant space, and suggest what might
be there rather than what is. Would to heaven, though, that Mr.
Arnold had more of his muscle and decision. If Vinton were only
different, how different all the future might be! But I fear,
I fear. We have not enough money to last all summer if we remain
here, and father writes so discouragingly. Thank God, I'm no longer
idle, whether anything comes of my work or not," and the delicate
piece of fancy work grew rapidly in her deft hands.

Toward evening she started out for a walk, but uttered an exclamation
of surprise as she saw the flower-borders were bright with verbenas,
heliotrope, geraniums, and other bedding plants.  Roger's buggy
stood near, containing two large empty boxes, and he was just raking
the beds smooth once more in order to finish his task.

"Why, Mr. Atwood!" she cried, "it has long seemed to me that a good
fairy was at work around the house, but this is a master-stroke."

"If you are pleased I am well repaid," he replied, the color
deepening on his sunburned cheeks.

"If I am pleased?" she repeated in surprise, and with a faint
answering color. "Why, all will be pleased, especially your mother
and Susan."

"No doubt, but I thought these would look more like what you have
been accustomed to."

"Really, Mr. Atwood, I hope you have not put yourself to all this
trouble on my account."

"I have not put myself to any trouble. But you are in trouble, Miss
Jocelyn, and perhaps these flowers may enliven you a little."

"I did not expect such kindness, such thoughtfulness. I do not see
that I am entitled to so much consideration," she said hesitatingly,
at the same time fixing on him a penetrating glance.

Although he was much embarrassed, his clear black eyes met hers
without wavering, and he asked, after a moment: "Could you not
accept it if it were given freely?"

"I scarcely understand you," she replied in some perplexity.

"Nor do I understand you, Miss Jocelyn. I wish I did, for then I
might do more for you."

"No, Mr. Atwood," she answered gravely, "you do not understand me.
Experience has made me immeasurably older than you are."

"Very possibly," he admitted, with a short, embarrassed laugh. "My
former self-assurance and complacency are all gone."

"Self-reliance and self-restraint are better than self-assurance,"
she remarked with a smile.

"Miss Jocelyn," he began, with something like impetuosity, "I would
give all the world if I could become your friend. You could do so
much for me."

"Mr. Atwood," said Mildred, with a laugh that was mixed with
annoyance, "you are imposed upon by your fancy, and are imagining
absurd things, I fear. But you are good-hearted and I shall be a
little frank with you. We are in trouble. Business reverses have
overtaken my father, and we are poor, and may be much poorer. I may
be a working-woman the rest of my days; so, for Heaven's sake, do
not make a heroine out of me. That would be too cruel a satire on
my prosaic lot."

"You do not understand me at all, and perhaps I scarcely understand
myself. If you think my head is filled with sentimental nonsense,
time will prove you mistaken. I have a will of my own, I can assure
you, and a way of seeing what is to be seen. I have seen a great
deal since I've known you. A new and larger world has been revealed
to me, and I mean to do something in it worthy of a man. I can
never go on with my old life, and I will not," he continued, almost
passionately. "I was an animal. I was a conceited fool. I'm very
crude and unformed now, and may seem to you very ridiculous; but
crudity is not absurdity, undeveloped strength is not weakness. An
awakening mind may be very awkward, but give me time and you will
not be ashamed of my friendship."

He had ceased leaning against a tree that grew near the roadway,
and at some distance from the house. In his strong feeling he forgot
his embarrassment, and assumed an attitude so full of unconscious
power that he inspired a dawning of respect; for, while he seemed
a little beside himself, there was a method in his madness which
suggested that she, as well as the young man, might eventually discover
that he was not of common clay and predestined to be commonplace.
But she said, in all sincerity, "Mr. Atwood, I'm sure I wish you
twice the success you crave in life, and I've no reason to think
you overrate your power to achieve it; but you greatly overrate me.
It would be no condescension on my part to give you my friendship;
and no doubt if you attain much of the success you covet you will
be ready enough to forget my existence.  What induces you to think
that a simple girl like me can help you?  It seems to me that you
are vague and visionary, which perhaps is natural, since you say
you are just awaking," she concluded, with a little smiling sarcasm.

"You are unjust both to yourself and to me," he replied firmly,
"and I think I can prove it. If I shall ever have any power in
the world it will be in seeing clearly what is before me. I have
seldom been away from this country town, and yet as soon as I saw
you with a mind free from prejudice I recognized your superiority.
I brought the belle of Forestville and placed her by your side,
and I could think of nothing but brazen instruments until I left
her loudness at her father's door. I would not go near her again if
there were not another woman in the world. I saw at a glance that
she was earthenware beside you."

Mildred now could not forbear laughing openly. "If you lose your
illusions so rapidly," she said, "my turn will come soon, and I
shall be china beside some fine specimen of majolica."

"You may laugh at me, but you will one day find I am sincere, and
not altogether a fool."

"Oh, I'm ready to admit that, even now. But you are altogether
mistaken in thinking I can help you. Indeed I scarcely see how I
can help myself. It is a very poor proof of your keen discernment
to associate me with your kindling ambition."

"Then why had you the power to kindle it? Why do I think my best
thoughts in your presence? Why do I speak to you now as I never
dreamed I could speak? You are giving purpose and direction to my
life, whether you wish it or not, whether you care or not. You may
always be indifferent to the fact, still it was your hand that wakened
me. I admit I'm rather dazed as yet. You may think I'm talking to
you with the frankness--perhaps the rashness--of a boy, since you
are 'immeasurably older,' but the time is not very distant when I
shall take my course with the strength and resolution of a man."

"I should be sorry to be the very innocent cause of leading you
into thorny paths. I truly think you will find more happiness here
in your quiet country life."

His only answer was an impatient gesture.

"Perhaps," she resumed, "if you knew more of the world you would
fear it more. I'm sure I fear it, and with good reason."

"I do not fear the world at all," he replied. "I would fear to lose
your esteem and respect far more, and, distant as you are from me,
I shall yet win them both."

"Mr. Atwood, I suppose I have as much vanity as most girls, but
you make me blush. You are indeed dazed, for you appear to take me
for a melodramatic heroine."

"Pardon me, I do not. I've been to the theatre occasionally, but
you are not at all theatrical. You are not like the heroines of
the novels I've read, and I suppose I've read too many of them."

"I fear you have," she remarked dryly. "Pray, then, What am I like?"

"And I may seem to you a hero of the dime style; but wait, don't
decide yet. What are you like? You are gentle, like your mother.
You are exceedingly fond of all that's pretty and refined, so much
so that you tried to introduce a little grace into our meagre,
angular farmhouse life--"

"Thanks for your aid," interrupted Mildred, laughing. "I must admit
that you have good eyes."

"You shrink," he resumed, "from all that's ugly, vulgar, or coarse
in life. You are an unhappy exile in our plain home."

"All which goes to prove what an ordinary and unheroic nature I have.
You will soar far beyond me, Mr. Atwood, for you have portrayed a
very weak character--one that is in love with the niceties of life,
with mere prettiness."

"You are still laughing at me, but I'm in earnest; and if you mean
what, you say, you understand yourself less than you do me. Why
will you not go to the hotel occasionally? Because with all your
gentleness you are too proud to run the slightest risk of patronage
and pity from those who knew you in your more fortunate days. Why
do you remain in your little hot room so much of the time? I don't
know; but if you will permit a guess, you are working. Every day
you grow less content to sit still in helpless weakness. You are
far braver than I, for I do not fear the world in the least; but,
no matter how much you feared it, you would do your best to the last,
and never yield to anything in it that was low, base, or mean. Oh,
you are very gentle, very delicate, and you will be misunderstood;
but you have the strongest strength there is--a kind of strength
that will carry you through everything, though it cost you dear."

"And what may that be?" she asked, looking at him now in genuine
wonder.

"I can't explain exactly what I mean. It is something I've seen
in mother, plain and simple as she is. It's a kind of enduring
steadfastness; it's a patient faithfulness. I should know just where
to find mother, and just what to expect from her, under all possible
circumstances. I should never expect to see you very different from
what you are, no matter what happened. You often have the same look
or expression that she has; and it means to me that you would do
the best you could, although discouraged and almost hopeless. Very
few soldiers will fight when they know the battle is going against
them. You would, as long as you could move a finger."

"Mr. Atwood, what has put all this into your head? This seems very
strange language from you."

"It is not so strange as it seems. It comes from the gift on which
I base my hope of success in life. I see clearly and vividly what
is before me, and draw my conclusions. If I see the antlers of a
stag above some bushes, it is not necessary to see the whole animal
to know he is there, and what kind of a creature he is. I'm not a
scholar, Miss Jocelyn, but you must not think I do not know anything
because I work in the corn or the hayfield all day. We have long
winters up here, and I've studied some and read a great deal more.
There are but few books in the village library that I have not
read more or less thoroughly, and some of them many times. Because
I was a careless, conceited fellow a few weeks since, it does not
follow that I'm an ignoramus."

Mildred was decidedly puzzled. She could not account for the change
in him; and she did not like to think of that to which his words
and feelings pointed. He asked for friendship, but she strongly
doubted whether such a placid regard would long satisfy him. Her
chief impulse was to escape, for the bare thought of words of love
from him or any one except Vinton Arnold was intensely repugnant.
As she glanced around, seeking in what direction she might take
her flight, she saw a gentleman coming rapidly toward the house.
After a second's hesitation she rushed toward him, crying, "Papa,
papa, you are welcome!"




CHAPTER X

A COUNCIL


Roger saw Miss Jocelyn rush into the arms of a tall, florid gentleman,
whose dark eyes grew moist at the almost passionate warmth of his
daughter's greeting. To Mildred her father's unexpected coming was
thrice welcome, for in addition to her peculiarly strong affection
for him, his presence ended an interview not at all agreeable, and
promised relief from further unwelcome attentions on the part of
Roger. Almost in the moment of meeting, she resolved to persuade
him that his family would be happier with him in the city. This
had been her feeling from the first, but now she was wholly bent on
leaving the farm-house; for with her larger experience and womanly
intuition she read in Roger's frank and still half-boyish face the
foreshadowing of an unwelcome regard which she understood better
than he did.

While his manner for a few weeks past, and especially his words
during their recent interview, made it clear that he was not the
rough, awkward rustic she had first imagined him to be, he still
seemed very crude and angular. In spite of her love for Vinton Arnold,
which had not abated in the least, he had ceased to be her ideal
man. Nevertheless, his refined elegance, his quiet self-restraint,
his knowledge of the niceties and proprieties of the world to which
she felt she belonged by right, did combine to produce an ideal
in her mind of which she was but half conscious, and beside which
Roger appeared in a repulsive light. She shrank with instinctive
distaste from his very strength and vehemence, and feared that she
would never be safe from interviews like the one just described,
and from awkward, half-concealed gallantries.  Even the flowers
he had set out became odious, for they represented a sentiment the
very thought of which inspired aversion.

A coquette can soon destroy the strong instinct of sacredness and
exclusiveness with which an unperverted girl guards her heart from
all save the one who seems to have the divine right and unexplained
power to pass all barriers. Even while fancy free, unwelcome advances
are resented almost as wrongs and intrusions by the natural woman;
but after a real, or even an ideal image has taken possession of
the heart and imagination, repugnance is often the sole reward of
other unfortunate suitors, and this dislike usually will be felt
and manifested in a proportion corresponding with the obtrusiveness
of the attentions, their sincerity, and the want of tact with which
they are offered.

To that degree, therefore, that Roger was in earnest, Mildred
shrank from him, and she feared that he would not--indeed, from
his antecedents could not--know how to hide his emotions. His words
had so startled her that, in her surprise and annoyance, she imagined
him in a condition of semi-ambitious and semi-amative ebullition,
and she dreaded to think what strange irruptions might ensue.
It would have been the impulse of many to make the immature youth
a source of transient amusement, but with a sensitive delicacy
she shrank from him altogether, and wished to get away as soon as
possible. Pressing upon her was the sad, practical question of a
thwarted and impoverished life--impoverished to her in the dreariest
sense--and it was intolerable that one who seemed so remote from
her sphere should come and ask that, from her bruised and empty
heart, she should give all sorts of melodramatic sentiment in
response to his crude, ambitious impulses, which were yet as blind
as the mythical god himself.

Had she seen that Roger meant friendship only when he asked for
friendship, she would not have been so prejudiced against him;
but the fact that this "great boy" was half consciously extending
his hand for a gift which now she could not bestow on the best
and greatest, since it was gone from her beyond recall, appeared
grotesque, and such a disagreeable outcome of her changed fortunes
that she was almost tempted to hate him. There are some questions
on which women scarcely reason--they only feel intensely.

Mildred, therefore, was heartily glad that Roger did not wait to
be introduced to her father, and that he kept himself aloof from
the reunited family during the evening. She also was pleased that
they were not joined by the Atwoods at the supper-table. That this
considerate delicacy was due to the "young barbarian's" suggestion
she did not dream, but gave good-hearted but not very sensitive
Mrs. Atwood all the credit. As for poor Roger, his quick insight,
his power to guess something of people's thoughts and feelings from
the expression of their faces, brought but little present comfort
or promise for the future.

"I made a bad impression at the start," he muttered, "and it will
be long before she loses it, if she ever does. She shrinks from me
as from something coarse and rough. She feels that I don't belong
to her world at all. In fact, her father's fine bearing, his erect,
elegant carriage make me feel as if I were but a country lout
in very truth." The reception given to Mr. Jocelyn satisfied Mrs.
Atwood thoroughly that his prolonged absence did not result from
any alienation from his family. They overwhelmed him with caresses,
and either Fred or Minnie could scarcely be kept out of his arms
a moment.

"Fanny," he said to his wife, "I almost made a vow that I would
not come here until I had secured a position that would give you
all the comforts of life, if not at once its luxuries; but such
positions are occupied, and when one becomes vacant they are filled
by relatives of the firm, or by those who have stronger claims
than I can present. Still my friends are working for me, and I have
the prospect of employment where the compensation will be small at
first, but if I can draw a considerable Southern trade it will be
increased rapidly."

And yet he sighed while revealing this hopeful outlook, and Mildred
noticed that he sighed more than once during the evening, in spite
of the torrent of affectionate welcome which almost swept him away.

After Belle and the younger children were sleeping, the husband and
wife with Mildred talked late over their prospects. Mr.  Jocelyn
suggested that they should remain in the country, and even that
they should rent a small cottage in Forestville or elsewhere, but
his gentle wife soon proved that on some occasions she could be
decided.

"No, Martin," she said, with the quiet emphasis which reveals a
purpose not to be combated, "one thing is settled--there must be
no more separation. I have suffered too much during these last few
weeks ever to listen again to such an arrangement. Now that you
are with us once more, I learn that the ache in my heart was caused
not so much by losses and the prospect of poverty as by loneliness
and the feeling that you were left to struggle by yourself. It's
my place to be with you, and I am willing to live anywhere and in
any way. I can see that I might have aided you in providing against
this evil time, but it seems now that I thought only of what we
wanted for each day as it came, and the trouble was that we all got
just what we wanted. Here is the result. Oh, I've thought it over
through long sleepless nights till my heart ached with a pain that
I hope none of you will ever know. But to sit idly here and wait
while you are trying to retrieve my folly is a greater punishment
than I can endure. Give me something to do which will be of help to
you, and I will do it gladly, even though it be in two attic rooms."

"Mamma's right," added Mildred earnestly. "Papa, you must find a
place for us in New York--a place within our means. Let us begin
life right this time, and I believe God will bless and prosper
us.  It won't be many days before Belle and I will find something
to do."

Mr. Jocelyn sighed more deeply than ever, and, indeed, appeared
so overcome for a few moments that he could not speak. At last
he faltered, "I have all of a Southern man's pride, and it's more
bitter than death to me that my wife and daughters must work for
their bread."

"Papa," exclaimed Mildred, "would it not be infinitely more bitter
to us all to eat the bread of charity? I shall pretend to no unnatural
heroism, nor say I like toil and poverty. On the contrary, I think
I shrink from such things more than most girls do. But I don't
propose to sit down and wring my hands. I can put them to a better
use. We must just put away all talk of pride and sentiment, and
remember only our poverty and self-respect. As Christian and sensible
people we are bound to accept of our life and make the best of it.
You and mother both know how much this change has cost me," she
concluded, with a few half-stifled sobs, "and if I am willing to
enter on a cheerful, patient effort to make the best of life as it
is, I think all the rest might, too.  If we give way to despondency
we are lost. Let us be together again, and pull together as one."

"The idea of Nan and the children coming back to the city in August!"
said Mr. Jocelyn dejectedly. "You don't either of you realize what
you are talking about. We should have to go into a tenement-house."

"Martin, I do realize it," replied his wife earnestly. "The country
is doing me no good--indeed I'm failing in health. Nothing does
us good when we are unhappy and anxious. Find me two rooms in a
tenement-house if we cannot afford more, and let us be together as
soon as possible."

"Well," said Mr. Jocelyn, after a long breath, "with such a wife
and such children to work for a man ought to be able to do great
things; but it's much the same as it was in the army--if one lost
his place in the ranks he was hustled about in everybody's way,
and if weak and disabled he was left to his fate. The world goes
right on and over you if you don't stand aside. I know you've
suffered, Nan, and you know that if I had my wish you would never
have a care or a pain; but God knows I suffered too. After you all
were gone and my duties to my former partners ceased, I began to
learn from experience how difficult it is in these cursed times to
get a foothold, and I became almost sleepless from anxiety. Then
set in that villanous neuralgia, which always strikes a man when
he's down,' and for a week or more it seemed that I should almost
lose my reason.

"Oh, Martin, Martin!" his wife exclaimed reproachfully, "and you
did not let us know!"

"Why should I? It would only have added to your burden, and would
not have helped me. I was glad you knew nothing about it."

"This is another proof that we must be together," said his wife,
her eyes filling with tears. "How did you come to get better?"

"Oh, the doctor gave me something that made me sleep, and I seldom
have neuralgia now."

"Come, papa," cried Mildred, as she put her arms around his neck
and leaned her face against his, "there are thousands worse off
than we are, and thousands more have retrieved far worse disasters.
Now take courage; we'll all stand by you, and we'll all help you.
We will one day have a prettier home than ever, and it will be
all our own, so that no one can drive us from it;" and with hope
springing up in her heart she tried to inspire hope and courage in
theirs.

"Oh, Millie," he said, taking her on his lap, "when you coax and
pet one you are irresistible. We WILL begin again, and win back
all and more than we have lost."

Then, partly to amuse her father and mother, but more for the
purpose of hastening their departure, Mildred told them of Roger's
peculiar mood, and her conscience smote her a little as she
caricatured rather than characterized the youth. Mrs. Jocelyn, in
her kindliness, took his part, and said, "Millie, you are satirical
and unjust I'm sure he's a well-meaning young man."

"The dear little mother!" cried Mildred, laughing; "when she can't
think of anything else good to say of a person, she assures us
that he is 'well-meaning.' Life may bring me many misfortunes, but
I shall never marry what mamma calls 'a well-meaning man.'"

"But, Millie, I'm sure he's been very good and kind to us all, and
he's kind to his mother and sister, and he seems steady--"

"Well, mamma, admitting it all, what follows?" asked Mildred.

"It follows that we had better go away," said Mrs. Jocelyn, with
her low, sweet laugh, that had been rarely heard of late; "but I
don't like you to be unjust to the young fellow. After all, he's
not so very much to blame, Millie," she added, with a little nod.
"If I were he I fear I might be in the same fix."

"Oh, papa, now we must go; for if mamma's sympathies are once
aroused in behalf of this 'steady, well-meaning young man'--there!
I will talk no more nonsense to-night, although I often find
nonsense a sort of life preserver that keeps me from sinking. I
admit, mamma, that I have been unjust to Mr. Atwood. He's far more
clever than I ever imagined him to be, but he's so different"--she
finished the sentence with a little repellent gesture that her
mother well understood.

They were all comforted, and far more hopeful from their frank
interchange of thought and feeling, and both father and mother
breathed a fervent "God bless you, Millie," as they separated, long
past midnight.

"God will bless us," said the young girl, "if we will just simply
try to do what is right and best every day. The blessing will come
on doing, not waiting."

She had not been in her room very long before hearing the crunching
of gravel under the wheels of Roger's buggy. With a smile she
thought, "He must have found a more sympathizing ear and heart than
mine to have remained out so late."




CHAPTER XI

A SHADOW


"Mrs. Atwood," said Mildred the next morning, "I want to thank
you for your kindness in giving us our supper alone with papa the
first evening of his arrival; but you need not put yourself to any
extra trouble to-day."

"Roger is the one to thank," replied Mrs. Atwood. "He's grown so
different, so considerate like, that I scarcely know him any more
than I do the old place he's so fixed up. He says he's going to
paint the house after the summer work slacks off. I don't see what's
come over him, but I like the change very much."

Mildred flushed slightly, but said, with some constraint, "Please
thank him then from papa and mamma, but do not let us make you
further trouble. We shall all return to the city soon, and then
you will have easier times every way."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Miss Jocelyn, for we shall miss you all
very much. You've done us good in more ways than one."

Roger did not appear at breakfast. "A young horse strayed from the
pasture, and Roger is out looking for him," his mother explained
when Mrs. Jocelyn asked after him.

Although not a member of any church, Mr. Jocelyn had great respect
for his wife and daughter's faith, and accompanied them to service
that morning very readily. Roger appeared in time to take Belle,
as usual, but she found him so taciturn and preoccupied that she
whispered to Mildred, "You've spoiled him for me. He sits staring
like an owl in the sunlight, and seeing just about as much. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself to make him so glum. I intend to
have a dozen beaux, and to keep them all jolly."

Mildred was obliged to admit to herself that the young fellow was
very undemonstrative at dinner, and that he did not exhibit the
rusticity that she half hoped to see. She gained the impression
that he was observing her father very closely, and that no remark of
his escaped him. "He has the eyes of a lynx," she thought, with a
frown. Still, apart from a certain annoyance at his deep interest in
her and all relating to her, she was rather pleased at the impression
which such a man as her father must make on one so unsophisticated.
Mr. Jocelyn was a finished man of the world, and his large experience
left its impress on all that he said and did.  Although a little
courtly in manner, he was so kindly and frank in nature that
his superiority was not at all oppressive, and with true Southern
bonhomie he made the farmer's family quite at ease, leading them
to speak freely of their rural affairs. Susan soon lost all sense
of restraint and began to banter her brother.

"You must have had a very affecting time in making up with Amelia
Stone to have stayed out so late," she remarked sotto voce.

"I've not seen Amelia Stone since the evening she was here," he
answered dryly.

"Indeed! what other charmer then tied you to her apron-strings so
tightly? You are very fickle."

"Now you've hit it," he answered, with a slight flush. "I was so
undecided that I drove by every door, and was not tied at all."

Belle "made eyes" at Mildred, as much as to say, "It's you who are
distracting him."

"Next time," Sue continued, "I think it would be well to make up
your mind before Sunday morning."

"My mind is made up," replied Roger--Belle looked at Mildred with
an expression of horror, to her intense annoyance--"I shall trouble
no one," he added, quietly.

Belle now gave such a great sigh of relief that he turned upon her
too swift a glance to leave time for disguise. He smiled a little
bitterly, and then began talking in an off-hand way to Mr. Jocelyn
about the hotel a few miles distant, saying that it had filled
up very rapidly of late. As they rose from the table he remarked,
hesitatingly, "My horse and wagon are at your service this afternoon
or evening if you would like to take a drive."

Mr. Jocelyn was about to accept, but Mildred trod significantly on
his foot. Therefore he thanked Roger cordially, and said he would
spend a quiet day with his family.

"I don't wish to be under the slightest obligations to him,"
explained Mildred when they were alone; "and Belle," she warned,
"you must stop your nonsense at once. I won't endure another trace
of it."

"Oh, indeed! I didn't know you were so touchy about him," cried
the girl. "Is it for his sake or your own that you are so careful?
You're stupid not to let him amuse you, since you've spoiled him
for me."

Her sister made no reply, but gave the giddy child a glance that
quieted her at once. When Mildred was aroused her power over others
was difficult to explain, for, gentle as she was, her will at times
seemed irresistible.

Roger did not need to be told in so many words that his overtures
of "friendship" had been practically declined. Her tones, her
polite but distant manner revealed the truth clearly. He was sorely
wounded, but, so far from being disheartened, his purpose to win
her recognition was only intensified.

"I can at least compel her respect and prove myself her equal," he
thought, and instead of lounging or sleeping away the afternoon, as
had been his custom, he took a book and read steadily for several
hours. At last he left his room to aid his father in the evening
labors of the farm-yard, and in doing so would have to pass near
Mr. Jocelyn, who, with his family, was seated under a wide-spreading
tree. The gentleman evidently was in a very genial mood; he was
caressing his children, flattering his wife and Mildred, and rallying
Belle after her own frolicsome humor. Roger thought, as he looked
at them a few moments through the kitchen window, that he had
never seen a happier family, and with a sigh wished that it was his
privilege to join them without being thought an intruder. Mildred's
reserve, however, formed an impassable barrier, and he was hastening
by with downcast eyes, when, to his surprise and the young girl's
evident astonishment, Mr. Jocelyn arose and said, "Ah, Mr. Atwood,
we're glad to see you. Won't you join our little party? I want
to thank you again for offering me your horse and carriage, but
I assure you that a quiet hour like this with one's family after
long separation is happiness enough. Still, as a Southern man, I
appreciate courtesy, and am always ready to respond to it in like
spirit. Moreover, it gives me peculiar pleasure to see a Northern
man developing traits which, if they were general, would make the
two great sections of our land one in truth as well as in name."

Roger gave Mildred a quick, questioning glance, and saw that she
was regarding her father with much perplexity.

"Mr. Jocelyn," he said quietly, "the little courtesy of which you
speak has cost me nothing, and if it had it would not be worth the
words you bestow upon it."

"I do not think of the act itself so much as the spirit, the
disposition it indicates," resumed Mr. Jocelyn in a manner that was
courtly and pronounced, but otherwise natural and quiet enough. "I
do not judge superficially, but look past apparent trifles to the
character they suggest. Moreover, my wife informs me that you have
been very polite to her, and very kind to Belle and the children,
whom you have often taken out to drive without any compensation
whatever. Since you will not make a business matter of such
things, I wish to repay you in the coin which gentleman can always
receive--that of friendly acknowledgments."

"Then please consider me amply repaid," and with a smile and a bow
he was about to retire.

"Do not hasten away, sir," Mr. Jocelyn began again. "On this, day of
rest your duties cannot be pressing. I want to assure you further
of the pleasure I have in finding a young man who, so far from being
rendered callous and material by hard and rather homely work, is
alive to all refining influences. The changes in this place for
the better since I was here, and those pretty flowers yonder, all
prove that you have an eye for the beautiful as well as the practical.
My daughter Mildred also informs me that you are cherishing hopes
and ambitions that will eventually enlarge your sphere of life and
take you out into the great world."

Hitherto Roger's eyes had been fixed keenly and unwaveringly on
Mr. Jocelyn's urbane countenance, as if he would detect the cause
of such unlooked-for words, but at the mention of Mildred's name
his brow and even neck was suffused. "She must have spoken of me
kindly," he thought, "or her father would not be so friendly." But
when a swift glance around revealed that Mrs. Jocelyn was looking
at her husband in perplexity, that Mildred was not even trying to
conceal her vexation and amazement, and that Belle had stuffed her
handkerchief into her mouth to prevent laughter, a spark of anger
glittered in his eyes. His first thought was that Mr. Jocelyn was
indulging in unexpected irony at his expense, and the ready youth
whose social habits had inured him to much chaffing was able to
reply, although a little stiffly and awkwardly, "I suppose most
young men have ambitious hopes of doing something in the world, and
yet that does not prevent mine from seeming absurd. At any rate,
it's clear that I had better reveal them hereafter by deeds rather
than words," and with a very slight bow he strode away, but not so
quickly that he failed to hear Mildred's voice in the exclamation,
"Oh, papa! how could you?" and then followed a paroxysm of laughter
from Belle.

Roger was deeply incensed, for he believed that Mr. Jocelyn and
Belle were deliberately ridiculing him. That Mildred had repeated
his conversation was evident, but her manner showed that she did
not expect his words to be used against him so openly, and that she
had no part in the cruel sport. The worst he could charge against
her was exclusive pride; and he did Mrs. Jocelyn the justice to
see that she was pained by the whole affair. His face grew rigid
as he finished his work and he muttered, "They shall see that my
pride is equal to theirs: I won't go out of my way a hair-breadth
for them," and he walked in to supper as if he were at home and had
an absolute right to be there. He had been at the table but a few
moments, however, before the aspect of the Jocelyn family began to
puzzle him exceedingly. Belle appeared as if she had been crying;
Mrs. Jocelyn looked perplexed and worried, and in Mildred's eyes
there were anxiety and trouble. Mr. Jocelyn had not lost his serenity
in the least, but his aspect now was grave, and his manner more
courtly than ever. He did not seem inclined to say very much,
however, and had an abstracted, dreamy look as if his thoughts
were far away. When he did speak, Roger thought that Mildred looked
apprehensive, as if fearing that he might again say something
embarrassing, but his words were quiet and measured, betraying no
excitement. The expression of his face, however, seemed unnatural
to Roger's close yet furtive scrutiny. An hour before his eyes had
been bright and dilated, and his countenance full of animation; now
all the light and cheerfulness were fading, and the man seemed to
grow older and graver by moments. Was the dusky pallor stealing
across his features caused by the shadows of evening? Roger thought
not, but a resentful glance from Mildred warned him to curb his
curiosity.

He was curious, but not in a vulgar or prying way, and his anger was
all gone. He was sure that something was amiss with Mr.  Jocelyn,
and that his family also was disturbed and anxious. There had been
none of the incoherency and excitement of a man who had drank too
much, but only a slight exaggeration of the genial traits manifested
at the dinner-table followed by a quietude and abstraction that were
not natural. Mental aberrations, even though slight and temporary,
are instinctively felt by those who are sound and normal in mind.
Still Roger would have charged Mr.  Jocelyn's words and manner to
the peculiarities of a stranger, had not his family been perplexed
and troubled also. "There's something wrong about him," he said
to himself as he rose from the table; "he lacks balance, or he's
not well. I half believe that the time will come when that young
girl will be the stay and support of the whole family. You cannot
prevent my friendliness, Miss Jocelyn, any more than you can stop
the sun from shining, and some day it will melt all your reserve
and coldness." He took his volume of history out on the sward near
the porch, resolving to see the end of the domestic drama. His
mother had told him during the day that their "boarders" would soon
depart. He had made no response whatever, but his sinking spirits
revealed to him that in some way his life had become involved with
that of the girl now so distant and repellent.

He did not turn many leaves, but he sat with the book in his lap
until long after nightfall. The domestic drama apparently had a very
prosaic ending. Mr. Jocelyn and his family returned for a time to
their seats under the trees, but all except the little children
were apparently under some constraint. The latter soon grew sleepy,
and Mrs. Jocelyn took them in to bed. Belle was not long in following
them, darting an ireful glance at Roger in passing, to which he
responded by a rather mocking smile. "We were having a lovely time
till you came, you old marplot," she muttered under her breath.

Mr. Jocelyn grew more and more quiet until his head sank on
his breast, and it was with difficulty that Mildred aroused him
sufficiently to urge his retiring. At last he took his daughter's
arm and entered the house as if in a dream. The young girl's face
was downcast and averted. As they passed between the youth and the
still glowing west they cast a faint shadow upon him. Though by
no means imaginative, he noted the shadow and thought about it. It
seemed that it still rested on him after they were gone, and that
it might never pass away. His was not a dreamy, fanciful nature,
that could create a score of improbable contingencies, but his
shrewd, strong sense was quick to recognize traces of weakness and
untrustworthiness in those he met, and the impression grew upon him
that Mr. Jocelyn was not a well-balanced man. "If he fails her, I
will not," he murmured. Then with a short laugh he continued, "How
is it that I am ready to admit such a far-reaching claim from one
who repels and dislikes me? I don't know, and I don't care. She
has waked me up; she has the power of calling into action every
faculty I have. Already, I scarcely know myself. I never lived
before, and I feel that I can become a man--perhaps a great man--if
I follow this impulse, and I shall follow it."

Soon all were sleeping, and mother and daughter were alone.

"Mamma," said Mildred, in a low, troubled tone, "it seemed to me
that papa acted very strangely this afternoon and evening. Can he
be well?"

"Oh, Millie," cried the loving, anxious wife, "I fear he is not
well at all; and no wonder, when we think of the long strain he has
been under. Haven't you noticed that his appetite is very poor?
to-night he scarcely ate a mouthful. He has just been trying to keep
up ever since he came, and this afternoon he made unusual effort;
reaction of course followed, and at last he was so weary and troubled
that he could not hide his feelings from us."

"I suppose you take the right view," said Mildred hesitatingly,
"but papa has not seemed the same this afternoon as at other times
when tired and worried. His gayety was a little extravagant, and
so it might naturally be if it were forced. But I can't understand
his speaking to young Mr. Atwood as he did. Papa never showed such
a lack of tact or delicacy before. I would not dare tell him things
if he spoke of them afterward so inopportunely. I felt as if I
could sink into the ground. And when Belle--who can't help seeing
everything in a ridiculous light--began to laugh he turned and spoke
to her as he has never spoken to any of us before, And yet he did
not seem angry, but his gravity was more oppressive than any amount
of natural anger."

"Well, Millie, your father is very kind-hearted, and, like all
Southern men, very sensitive to kindness and courtesy. I suppose he
thought that you and Belle had not treated Roger well, and that he
ought to make amends. The real explanation is that he is overstrained
and unhappy, and so cannot act like himself."

"I do hope he is not going to be ill," faltered Mildred. "Such a
strange lethargy came over him after you left us. Oh, the day is
ending horribly, and it leaves a weight of foreboding on my mind.
I wish we could get away tomorrow, for I feel that Roger Atwood
is watching us, and that nothing escapes him. I know that papa's
manner seemed strange to him as well as to us, and I almost hate
him for his obtrusive and prying interest. Why can't he see that
he's nothing to us, nor we to him, and let us alone?"

She often recalled these words in after years.

The wife went to her room and found that her husband was sleeping
quietly. Returning, she said, more cheerily, "I think papa will be
like himself after a good night's sleep, and there's every promise
now that he'll get it; so don't look on the dark side, Millie, nor
worry about that young man. He don't mean to be obtrusive, and I must
say that I think he behaves very well considering. With troubles
like ours, why think of such a transient annoyance? If I only knew
just how I could help your father I would not think about much
else."

It would have been well indeed if she could have known, for she
would have taken from his pocketbook a small syringe and a bottle
of Magendie's solution of morphia; she would have entreated him
upon her knees, she would have bound him by the strongest oaths to
die rather than to use it again. The secret of all that was peculiar
and unnatural in his conduct can be explained by the fact that
early in the afternoon he went apart for a moment, and with a little
innocent-looking instrument injected into his arm the amount of
the fatal drug which he believed he could enjoy without betraying
himself.




CHAPTER XII

VIEWLESS FETTERS


Although Mr. Jocelyn had retired so early and slept heavily until
an hour that at the farmhouse was late, the reader knows that
his sleep was not the natural repose which brings freshness and
elasticity. His wife and Mildred, however, did not know this, and
his languor, continued drowsiness, and depression, which even much
effort could not disguise, confirmed their dread of an impending
illness. He saw their anxiety, and took advantage of their fears
to hide his weakness.

"Yes," he sighed, in response to their gentle solicitude as he pushed
away his almost untasted breakfast, "I suppose my health has been
impaired by worry of mind and the heat in town. I'm better, though,
than I have been. I don't see how you are going to endure the city."

They both assured him, however, that they would not even consider
any other arrangement except that already agreed upon, and urged
that he should return to town that very day, his wife adding that
just as soon as he had secured rooms within their means she would
join him and prepare them for the family.

"Oh, Nan," he again said dejectedly, "it's a cruel fate which
compels me to take you to a tenement-house in August."

"It would be far more cruel to leave me here," his wife answered
earnestly. "I could be happy anywhere if you were your old natural
self once more. Millie and I can both see that struggling alone
and brooding by yourself over your troubles is not good for you,"
and her gentle but determined purpose carried the day.

Mr. Jocelyn was then directed to a somewhat distant field, where
he found Roger, who readily agreed to take him to the steamboat
landing in the afternoon. Lifting his eyes from his work a few
moments afterward, the young man saw that his visitor, instead of
returning to the house, had sat down under a clump of trees and
had buried his face in his hands.

"There's a screw loose about that man," he muttered. "He's too uneven.
Yesterday at dinner he was the most perfect gentleman ever I saw;
in the afternoon he had a fit of pompous hilarity and condescension;
then came abstraction, as if his mind had stepped out for a time;
and now, after twelve hours of sleep, instead of feeling like
a lark, he looks as though he might attend his own funeral before
night, and walks as if his feet were lead. He mopes there under
the trees when he has but a few more hours with his family. If I
had such a wife and such a daughter as he has, I'd cut a swath for
them, no matter what stood in the way."

But Roger's censure was slight compared with that which Mr.  Jocelyn
visited upon himself; and in order to understand his feelings and
conduct, it will be necessary to relate some experiences which
occurred after the departure of his family to the country. Throughout
the entire winter he had been under a severe strain of business
anxiety, and then had come the culminating scenes of failure,
loss of income, and enforced and unhappy separation. His natural
depression had been so increased by the meagre prospect of finding
employment which would yield his family an adequate support, that
even his increased and more frequent indulgence in his morphia
powders failed to give sufficient hopefulness and courage, while at
the same time they began to produce some serious disorders in his
system. There is a class of diseases which rarely fails to attack
one whose system is reduced and enfeebled, and neuralgia began
to bind across his forehead a daily pressure of pain that at last
became intolerable.  Ordinary remedies not giving speedy relief,
his physician injected into his arm a few drops of the solution
of morphia. Thus far he had never used the drug in solution
hypodermically, and he was much surprised by the agreeable effects
of a very much smaller quantity than he had been accustomed to
use on any one occasion, and his morphia hunger--already firmly
established--immediately suggested that the little syringe might
become a far more potent agent than the powders. Therefore he
induced the physician to give him an order for the instrument, and
to explain more fully the methods of its use, saying that attacks
of neuralgia were generally rather obstinate in his case, and that
he had neither the time nor the means to seek his services very
often.

The physician's few words of warning made but slight impression
upon the infatuated man at the time. Mr. Jocelyn remembered only
that he had an intolerable pain in his head and a heavy weight upon
his heart. Many a time during the long civil war he had smilingly
led charges wherein the chances of death were greater than those
of life, but neither then nor since had he ever displayed any great
aptitude for quiet endurance and self-control.  Now every day was
precious, and he felt he could not give himself up to pain and
patient waiting until the disease could be conquered in a slow,
legitimate way, when by a wound no more than a pin-prick he could
obtain courage, happiness, and prospects illimitable.

Having obtained the syringe and a vial of the solution of morphia,
he injected into his arm a much larger quantity than the physician
would have dreamed of employing. Not only did the unendurable
anguish pass away within a few brief moments, but the world was
transfigured; life's grim outlook became full of the richest promise,
and discouragement and dread vanished utterly. So far from fearing
that he could not provide for his family, he was sure that he
could win for them abundance and luxury. A dozen avenues to fortune
opened before him, and he felt that his only task was to choose,
believing that in some indefinite yet easily discerned way he
would achieve more than falls to the lot of most men to accomplish.
Instead of a long, sleepless night like those which had preceded,
his waking dreams ended in quiet and equally pleasant visions--then
oblivion, which did not pass away until the morning sun was shining.
But with the new day came a new access of pain and gloom, and the
aid of the magic little instrument was invoked once more. Again
within a few moments the potent drug produced a tranquil elysium
and a transformed world of grand possibilities. With a vigor which
seemed boundless, and hopes which repeated disappointments could
not dampen, he continued his quest for employment until in the
declining day his spirits and energy ebbed as strangely as they had
risen in the morning, and after another night of dreams and stupor
he awoke in torture. The powerful stimulant enabled him to repeat
the experiences of the previous day, and for two or three weeks
he lived in the fatal but fascinating opium paradise, gradually
increasing the amount of morphia that his system, dulled by habit,
demanded. In the meantime, by the lavish use of quinine he gradually
banished his neuralgia with its attendant pain.

It is well known to those familiar with the character of opium that
its effects are greatly enhanced at first by any decided change in
the method of its use; also that its most powerful and immediate
influences can be produced solely by the hypodermic needle, since
by means of it the stimulant is introduced at once into the system.
When taken in powders, the glow, the serenity, and exaltation come
on more slowly, and more gradually pass away, causing alternations
of mood far less noticeable than those produced by immediate
injection of the poison. Therefore it was not at all strange that
Mr. Jocelyn's family should remain in complete ignorance of the
habit which was enslaving him, or that his behavior failed to excite
the faintest suspicion of the threatening influences at work. There
is no vice so secret as that of the opium slave's, none that is in
its earlier stages more easily and generally concealed from those
who are nearest and dearest. The changes produced in Mr. Jocelyn
were very gradual, and seeing him daily even his loving wife did
not note them.

During the period of unnatural exaltation that has been described
he had accepted agencies which promised thousands if he could sell
millions of dollars' worth of goods, and after the subtle morphia
had infused itself through his system nothing seemed easier; but
dreams are not realities, and after grand hopes unfulfilled, and
futile efforts, he would sink into a despondency from which nothing
could lift him save the little syringe that he carried hidden next
to his heart. As its magic never failed him, he went on for a time,
blind to the consequences. At last he began to grow more alarmed
than ever before at the ascendency of the drug and his dependence
upon it, but when he tried to discontinue its use he found that he
had been living so long under the influence of a powerful stimulant
that without it he sank like a stone. Then came the usual compromise
of all weak souls--he would gradually decrease the amount and then
the frequency of its use; but, as is generally the case, he put off
the beginning of sturdy self-denial until the morrow, and almost
every day he poisoned his system with that which also poisoned and
demoralized his soul. He dimly saw his danger, but did not realize
it. With the fatuity of all self-indulgent natures he thought the
day would come when, with better prospects and health renewed, he
would throw away the spell which bound him and become a free man,
but day after day passed and he did not; his appetite began to
flag and his energy also; he would sit dreaming for hours when he
might have been at work. At best his agencies would give him but a
scanty revenue, although pushed with extraordinary skill and vigor.
As it was, they yielded him little more than personal support, and
he began to entertain the hope that if he could only obtain regular
employment he could then resume his old regular habits. Therefore
he had agreed to accept a position which was little more than
a foothold, and yet if he would go to work with a determined and
patient industry he might, by means of it, win more than he had
lost.

Could he do this? The Sunday he had just spent with his family had
awakened him as never before to a sense of his bondage. Even with
the society of those he loved to enliven and sustain he had felt
that he could not get through the day without the help of the
stimulant upon which he had grown so dependent. While at church
it was not the clergyman's voice he heard, but a low yet imperious
and incessant cry for opium. As he rode home, smiling upon his wife
and children, and looking at the beautiful and diversified country,
between them and the landscape he ever saw a little brass instrument
gauged at four or five times the amount that the physician had
at first inserted in his arm. At the dinner table he had spoken
courteously and well on many subjects, and yet ever uppermost in
his mind was one constant thought--opium. The little diabolical
thing itself seemed alive in his pocket, and made its faint yet
potent solicitation against his heart. At last he had muttered, "I
will just take a little of the cursed stuff, and then I must begin
to break myself in dead earnest."

The reader knows what followed. Moreover, he was led to fear that
the alternations of mood caused by injections of morphia would be
so great that they could not fail to excite remark. Although the
new day brought every motive which can influence a man, Mr.  Jocelyn
found the path to freedom so steep and difficult that the ascent
seemed well-nigh impossible. His muscles were relaxed, his whole
frame so weary and limp that he even dreaded the effort required
to return to the house where his family was waiting for him. But
the physical oppression was nothing to that which weighed upon his
mind. The sense of misery and discouragement was paralyzing, and
he was fairly appalled by his lack of energy. And yet he felt his
need of power and resolution as keenly as he realized his feebleness.
He knew that he had appeared unnatural to his wife and children,
and that while they now ascribed his behavior to the long strain
he had been under, their loving and charitable blindness could not
last if he often exhibited before them such variable moods and
conditions. Therefore he felt that he must overcome the habit before
they were together permanently, for to permit them to discover his
vile weakness in this time of their great need would be a mortal
wound to his pride. All his manhood revolted at the bare thought.
Their trust, their love, their dependence and unrepining courage
in meeting poverty and privation with him imposed the strongest
and most sacred of obligations, and his high sense of honor--which
hitherto had been his religion--made failure to meet these
obligations the most awful disaster that could overwhelm him. The
means of escaping from his wretchedness and dejection--from the
horrible lassitude of body and soul--could be grasped in a moment,
and the temptation to use them and become within a few minutes
a strong, sanguine, courageous man was almost irresistible; but
he knew well that such an abrupt change from the heavy, dull-eyed
condition in which they had seen him at the breakfast table could
not fail to arouse suspicion; and should they once discern his
crime--for crime he now regarded it--he feared his self-respect
would be so destroyed that he would never have the pride and strength
for the struggle now clearly foreseen; therefore, with the instinct
of self-preservation, and from the impulse of all his native and
long-fostered Southern pride, he resolved that they must never know
his degradation. He must rally his shattered forces, spend the few
hours before his departure with his family in a way to lull all
fears and surmises; then when away by himself he would tug at his
chain until he broke it. Summoning the whole strength of his will
he returned to the house, and succeeded fairly well.

Could he break his chain? The coming pages of this book will reveal
his struggle and its termination. Alas! it is no fancy sketch, but
a record of human experience that is becoming sadly frequent. The
hunger for opium had grown upon Mr. Jocelyn by its almost constant
use for nearly two years. During weeks of pain he had almost
lived upon the drug, saturating his system with it. It had come to
him like an angel of light, lifting him on buoyant pinions out of
suffering and despondency, but the light was fading from the wings
and brow of this strong spirit, and it was already seen to be an
angel of darkness.

At this time Mr. Jocelyn might have escaped from his thraldom, but
would he? The world is full of people who are proud and self-respecting
in the extreme, who are honorable and virtuous, good and kindly
at heart, but whose wills are nerveless, though they may go safely
through life without suspecting the truth; but if they fall under
the influence of an evil habit--if they pass under this mightiest
and darkest of all spells, opium hunger--they may learn their
weakness in despair.

Mr. Jocelyn, however, had no thought of despair; he was only
surprised, humiliated, and somewhat alarmed; he was satisfied that
he must drift no longer, and in perfect sincerity resolved to make
the most of his brief separation from his family, hoping that with
a physician's advice he could speedily overcome his morbid craving
and distressing need. He left the farmhouse with the resolution that
he would never touch the drug again, believing that before a week
expired the horrible depression, both mental and physical, would
so far pass away as to excite no further suspicion.

For an hour he rode at Roger's side, rigid, taciturn, and pale; for
except when heated by exercise his wonted ruddy color was passing
away from the effects of the poison. Roger drove around to the
large hotel, which was not much out of their way, and said, "Mr.
Jocelyn, will you please take the lines a few moments? I have an
errand here, but it won't keep me long."

Having transacted his business he stood in the office door watching
a young man who sauntered toward him. The stranger was almost as
tall as himself, but much slighter. While his carriage was easy
and graceful, it was marked by an air of lassitude and weariness,
and his step lacked firmness. A heavy mustache relieved his face
from effeminacy, but his large, dark eyes were dull and apathetic.
Suddenly they lighted up with recognition; he hesitated, and then
hastily advanced toward Mr. Jocelyn, but his steps were speedily
checked, for the moment the gentleman recognized him he bowed very
coldly and turned haughtily away. The young man flushed deeply,
stood still a moment in irresolution, and then with a swift glance
into Roger's interested face turned and quickly disappeared. Before
Roger could resume his place in the wagon the proprietor of the
hotel came out and called him back; something had been forgotten.

This interruption was fatal to Mr. Jocelyn's good resolutions.  Vinton
Arnold, who had won his daughter's affection, but who seemingly had
not the manhood to be faithful in her adversity, was the one whom
he had repulsed, and the thought of his wealth and luxury, while
he was on his way to seek a home in a tenement for his beautiful
child, so maddened him that he drove recklessly to an adjacent
shed, which shielded him from observation, snatched out his fatal
syringe, and in a moment the poison was diffusing itself through
all his system. He had returned again before Roger, who had been
detained some moments, reappeared, but now his heavy eyes were
bright and fiery, and his tongue unloosed.

"Did you see that young man to whom I refused to speak?" he asked
as they drove away.

"Yes."

"Well, he's a white-livered scoundrel. He's a type of your
Northern gentlemen. A Southern man would starve rather than act so
pusillanimously. Of course I'm not going to talk of family secrets,
or say anything not befitting a high-toned gentleman, but I taught
that snob how a man of honor regards his cowardice and cold-bloodedness.
He was one of our fair-weather friends, who promptly disappeared
when the sky clouded. Here he is, dawdling around a high-priced
hotel, while I'm on my way to seek rooms in a tenement for those
to whom he is not worthy to speak; but the time shall come, and
speedily, too, when even on the base plane of money--the sole claim
of his proud family for consideration--we shall meet him and scorn
him as his superiors. I have plans, business prospects--" and he
launched forth into such a vague, wild statement of his projects
that Eoger looked at him in silent amazement, half doubting his
sanity.

In his haste Mr. Jocelyn had not carefully gauged his syringe, and
the over-amount of morphia thrown into his system so stimulated him
that his words appeared exceedingly irrational to the young man,
whose judgment was based on unusual shrewdness and common-sense. He
was greatly puzzled by the sudden change in his companion. It was
evident that he had not been drinking, for his breath was untainted
and his utterance was natural. But his face was flushed, and he
seemed possessed by a strange, unbalanced mental exaltation which
led him to speak as no sensible man ought in any circumstances,
and certainly not to a stranger. Roger therefore interrupted him
saying, "I shall respect your confidence, Mr. Jocelyn, and will
never repeat what you have said.  Please let me suggest, however,
that it would be wise not to speak so frankly to others, since they
might take advantage of you."

"Please let me assure YOU," resumed Mr. Jocelyn, with the most
impressive dignity, "that I am a man of the world, and that I have
seen a great deal of the world. I can read men as you would read
a book. If you were not trustworthy I should know it at a glance.
Did you not see how I treated that young jackanapes? His wealth and
elegance did not impose upon me in the least. You are trustworthy.
You have a large, aspiring mind, and yet you know your station; you
would not dream of presuming. What does it signify that we are poor
for the moment? True Southern blood is in our veins, and I have a
dozen plans for securing large wealth.  When that day comes I shall
remember those who basely turned their backs on us in our brief
obscurity;" and thus he rambled on, while Roger listened coldly
and in silence.

"There is method is his madness," he said to himself; "he is not
so daft but that he hints broadly I must keep my station and not be
'presuming.' His proud daughter hints as much still more plainly.
Well, we'l

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