Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

I have called it monotonous; yet there was a curious variety in monotony, such as no other book has brought to the author's attention. The same mail gave the pleasant word of some distinguished writer who was so kind as to encourage a beginner in his own art, or so much kinder as gently and intelligently to point out her defects; and beneath this welcome note lay the sharp rebuke of some obscure parishioner who found the Temple of Zion menaced to its foundation by my little story. Hunters of heresy and of autograph pursued their game side by side. Here, some man of affairs writes to say (it seemed incredible, but it used to happen) that the book has given him his first intelligent respect for religious faith. There, a poor colored girl, inmate of a charitable institution, where she has figured as in deed and truth the black sheep, sends her pathetic tribute:

"If heaven is like _that_, I want to go, and I mean to."

To-day I am berated by the lady who is offended with the manner of my doctrine. I am called hard names in no soft language, and advised to pray heaven for forgiveness for the harm I am doing by this ungodly book.

To-morrow I receive a widower's letter, of twenty-six pages, rose-tinted and perfumed. He relates his personal history. He encloses the photographs of his dead wife, his living children, and himself. He adds the particulars of his income, which, I am given to understand, is large. He adds--but I turn to the next.

This correspondent, like scores upon scores of others, will be told instanter if I am a spiritualist. On this vital point he demands my confession or my life.

The next desires to be informed how much of the story is autobiography, and requires the regiment and company in which my brother served.

And now I am haughtily taken to task by some unknown nature for allowing my heroine to be too much attached to her brother. I am told that this is impious; that only our Maker should receive such adoring affection as poor Mary offered to dead Roy.

Having recovered from this inconceivable slap in the face, I go bravely on. I open the covers of a pamphlet as green as Erin, entitled, "Antidote to the Gates Ajar;" consider myself as the poisoner of the innocent and reverent mind, and learn what I may from this lesson in toxicology.

There was always a certain share of abuse in these outpourings from strangers; it was relatively small, but it was enough to save my spirits, by the humor of it, or they would have been crushed with the weight of the great majority.

I remember the editor of a large Western paper, who enclosed a clipping from his last review for my perusal. It treated, not of "The Gates Ajar" just then, but of a magazine story in "Harper's," the "Century," or wherever. The story was told in the first person fictitious, and began after this fashion:

"I am an old maid of fifty-six, and have spent most of my life in boarding-houses." (The writer was, be it said, at that time, scarcely twenty-two.)

"Miss Phelps says of herself," observed this oracle, "that she is fifty-six years old; and we think she is old enough to know better than to write such a story as this."

At a summer place where I was in the early fervors of the art of making a home, a citizen was once introduced to me at his own request. I have forgotten his name, but remember having been told that he was "prominent." He was big, red, and loud, and he planted himself with the air of a man about to demolish his deadliest foe.

"So you are Miss Phelps. Well, I've wanted to meet you. I read a piece you wrote in a magazine. It was about Our Town. It did not please Me."

I bowed with the interrogatory air which seemed to be expected of me. Being just then very much in love with that very lovable place, I was puzzled with this accusation, and quite unable to recall, out of the warm flattery which I had heaped upon the town in cool print, any visible cause of offence.

"You said," pursued my accuser, angrily, "that we had odors here. You said Our Town smelled of fish. Now, you know, _we_ get so used to these smells _we like 'em!_ It gave great offence to the community, madam. And I really thought at one time--feelin' ran so high--I thought it would kill the sale of your book!"

From that day to this I do not believe the idea has visited the brain of this estimable person that a book could circulate in any other spot upon the map than within his native town. This delicious bit of provincialism served to make life worth living for many a long day.

There was fun enough in this sort of thing to "keep one up," so that one could return bravely to the chief end of existence; for this seemed for many years to be nothing less, and little else, than the exercise of those faculties called forth by the wails of the bereaved. From every corner of the civilized globe, and in its differing languages, they came to me--entreaties, outpourings, cries of agony, mutterings of despair, breathings of the gentle hope by which despair may be superseded; appeals for help which only the Almighty could have given; demands for light which only eternity can supply.

A man's grief, when he chooses to confide it to a woman, is not an easy matter to deal with. Its dignity and its pathos are never to be forgotten. How to meet it, Heaven only teaches; and how far Heaven taught that awed and humbled girl I shall never know.

But the women--oh, the poor women! I felt less afraid to answer them. Their misery seemed to cry in my arms like a child who must be comforted. I wrote to them--I wrote without wisdom or caution or skill; only with the power of being sorry for them, and the wish to say so; and if I said the right thing or the wrong one, whether I comforted or wearied, strengthened or weakened, that, too, I shall not know.

Sometimes, in recent years, a letter comes or a voice speaks: "Do you remember--so many years ago--when I was in great trouble? You wrote to me." And I am half ashamed that I had forgotten. But I bless her because _she_ remembers.

But when I think of the hundreds--it came into the thousands, I believe--of such letters received, and how large a proportion of them were answered, my heart sinks. How is it possible that one should not have done more harm than good by that unguided sympathy? If I could not leave the open question to the Wisdom that protects and overrules well-meaning ignorance, I should be afraid to think of it. For many years I was snowed under by those mourners' letters. In truth, they have not ceased entirely yet, though of course their visits are now irregular.

I am so often asked if I still believe the views of another life set forth in "The Gates Ajar" that I am glad to use this opportunity to answer the question; though, indeed, I have been led to do so, to a certain extent, in another place, and may, perhaps, be pardoned for repeating words in which the question first and most naturally answered itself:

"Those appeals of the mourning, black of edge and blurred with tears, were a mass high beneath the hand and heavy to the heart. These letters had the terrible and unanswerable power of all great, natural voices; and the chiefest of these are love and grief. Year upon year the recipient has sat dumb before these signs of human misery and hope. They have rolled upon the shore of life, a billow of solemn inspiration. I have called them a human argument for faith in the future life, and see no reason for amending the term."

But why dwell on the little book, which was only the trembling organ-pipe through which the music thrilled? Its faults have long since ceased to trouble, and its friends to elate me. Sometimes one seems to one's self to be the least or last agency in the universe responsible for such a work. What was the book? Only an outcry of nature--and nature answered it. That was all. And nature is of God, and is mighty before Him.

Do I believe in the "middle march" of life, as the girl did in the morning, before the battle of the day?

For nature's sake--which is for God's sake--I cannot hesitate.

Useless suffering is the worst of all kinds of waste. Unless He created this world from sheer extravagance in the infliction of purposeless pain, there must be another life to justify, to heal, to comfort, to offer happiness, to develop holiness. If there be another world, and such a one, it will be no theologic drama, but a sensible, wholesome scene. The largest and the strongest elements of this experimental life will survive its weakest and smallest. Love is "the greatest thing in the world," and love "will claim its own" at last.

The affection which is true enough to live forever, need have no fear that the life to come will thwart it. The grief that goes to the grave unhealed, may put its trust in unimagined joy to be. The patient, the uncomplaining, the unselfish mourner, biding his time and bearing his lot, giving more comfort than he gets, and with beautiful wilfulness believing in the intended kindness of an apparently harsh force which he cannot understand, may come to perceive, even here, that infinite power and mercy are one; and, I solemnly believe, is sure to do so in the life beyond, where "God keeps a niche in heaven to hold our idols."

FOUR-LEAF CLOVER.

BY ELLA HIGGINSON.

I know a place where the sun is like gold,
And the cherry blooms burst with snow;
And down underneath is the loveliest nook,
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith,
And one is for love, you know;
And God put another one in for luck--
If you search, you will find where they grow.

But you must have hope, and you must have faith;
You must love and be strong--and so--
If you work, if you wait, you will find the place
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

A LEAP IN THE DARK

BY JAMES T. MCKAY,

Author of "Stella Grayland," "Larcone's Little Chap," and other stories.

The Windhams and Mandisons were old neighbors, and Phil Windham had always been very much at home among the Mandisons, and especially with Mary, the oldest daughter, who was like a wise, kind sister to him. Now his own house began to break up--his brothers went West; his sisters married; his father, who was a chemist and inventor, was killed one day by an explosion. In these trying times the Mandison household was his chief resource, and Mary most of all.

Then the Mandisons moved away. That seemed to Windham like the end of things. He was awfully lonely, and thought a great deal about Mary in the months that followed, but was not quite sure of himself; though he was certain there was no one else he liked and admired half so much. But in the following winter he went to spend the holidays with the Mandisons, and when he came away he and Mary were engaged.

The next summer the Mandisons took a cottage at the shore, and Windham went to spend some weeks with them. Idly busy and calmly happy in the pleasant company of Mary and all the friendly house, the sunny days slipped by till one came that disturbed his dream. An aunt of Mary's arrived with her husband, Dr. Saxon, and his niece, Agnes Maine. At the first glance Miss Maine challenged Windham's attention. She was a tall and striking person, with a keen glance that he felt took his measure at the first look. She piqued his curiosity, and interested him more and more.

One day he saw her and Mary together, and caught himself comparing them, not in Mary's favor. Panic seized him, and he turned his back on Miss Maine and devoted himself to Mary. Miss Maine went to stay with some neighbors, the Colemans. One night she was caught at the Mandisons by a storm. Mary asked Windham to entertain her, and he went and asked her to play chess. She declined coldly, and Windham turned away with such a look that Mary wondered what Agnes could have said so unkind. And the next day Miss Maine spoke so gently to him that it warmed him all through. Still he persistently avoided her.

The Colemans got up a play in the attic of their large old house. On the night of the performance the place was crowded. The first two acts went off smoothly.

Windham had been helping to shift the scenes, and was standing alone, looking over the animated spectacle as the audience chatted and laughed. Something in the play had made him think of Agnes Maine, though she was not in the cast, and he had not seen her. Suddenly, without any notice of her approach, she stood close to him, looking in his face. Her face was paler than usual, and her eyes had a startling light in them. She said only half a dozen low words, but they made him turn ghastly white. What she said was:

"The house is on fire down-stairs."

He stood looking at her an instant, long enough to reflect that any alarm would result in piling those gay people in an awful mass at the foot of the one steep and fragile stairway. The stage entrance was little better than an enclosed ladder, and not to be thought of.

"Go and stand at the head of the stairs," he said to her.

The bell rang for the curtain to rise, but he slipped back behind it, and it did not go up. Instead, Jeffrey Coleman appeared before it, bowing and smiling with exaggeration, and announced that the continuation of the performance had been arranged as a surprise below-stairs, and would be found even more exciting and interesting than the part already given. The audience were requested to go below quickly, but at the same time were cautioned against crowding, as the stair was rather steep and temporary. As they did not start at once, he came off the stage and led the way, going on down the stairs, and calling gayly to the rest to follow.

Windham had got to the stairhead by this time. Agnes Maine stood there, on one side, looking calm and contained, and he took up his position on the other, and followed the cue given by young Coleman. He began to call out, extolling the absorbing and thrilling character of the performance down-stairs, with the extravagant epithets of the circus posters, laughing all the while. He urged them on when they lingered, and restrained them when they came too fast, addressing one and another with jocularity, laying his hands on some and pushing them on with assumed playfulness, keeping up the fire of raillery with desperate resistance. When screams were heard now and then from below, he made it appear to be only excited feminine merriment, directing attention to it, and calling out to those yet to come:

"You hear them? Oh, yes; you'll scream, too, when you see it!"

All the time, though his faculties were sufficiently strained by the effort he was making, he was watching Agnes Maine, who stood opposite, doing nothing, but looking her calm, pale self, and now and then smiling slightly at his extravagant humor. And he thought admiringly that her simple quiet did more to keep up the illusion than all his labored and violent simulation.

It seemed as if there never would be an end to the stream of leisurely people who answered his banter with laugh and joke. But finally the last of them were fairly on the stair, and he turned to Agnes Maine with a suddenly transformed face.

"Now--be quick!" he called.

But she gave a low cry, looking away toward the farther end, where she caught sight of a young couple still lingering. She ran toward them, calling to them to hurry, and as they did not understand, she took hold of the girl, and made her run. Windham had followed her, and the four came together to the stairhead, but there they stopped, and the young girl broke into wild screams. The foot of the stairway was wrapped in smoke and flames.

There was an observatory upon the house, into which Windham had once gone with Jeffrey Coleman, and he turned to it now, and made the three go up before him. He stopped and cut away a rope that held some of the hangings, and took it up with him. Miss Maine was standing with her arm about Fanny Lee, whom she had quieted.

"Had she better go first?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Miss Maine answered.

He fastened the rope about the girl, assured her they would let her down safely, and between them they persuaded her, shrinkingly, to let herself be swung over, and lowered to the ground. In this Miss Maine gave more help than young Pritchard, who shook and chattered so much as to be of little use. And as soon as the girl was down and Windham turned toward Miss Maine, Pritchard took a turn of the rope around the railing, with a hasty knot, went over, and slid down it, out of sight. But before he reached the ground, the rope broke loose, and slipped out of Windham's grasp as he tried to catch it.

A cry came up from below. Windham turned toward Miss Maine, and they looked at one another, but said nothing. She was very pale and still. Windham glanced down and around; the fire was already following them up the tower. He made her come to the other side, where the balcony overhung the ridge of the sloping roof, got over the railing, and helped her to do the same, and to seat herself on the narrow ledge outside, holding on by the bars with her arms behind her. He let himself down by his hands till within two or three feet of the roof, and dropped safely upon it. Then he stood up, facing her just below, braced himself with one foot on each side of the ridge, and told her to loosen her hold and let herself fall forward. She did so, and he caught her in his arms as she fell.

It was a struggle for a minute to keep his balance; and whether in the involuntary stress of the effort, or by an instinctive impulse, conscious or otherwise, he clasped her close for a moment, till her face touched his own. Then he put her down, and they sat on the ridge near each other, flushed, and short of breath. Below, on the lawn, a throng of people looked up at them, some motionless, some gesticulating, and some shouting in dumb show, their voices drowned in the fierce roar and crackling that raged beneath the roof and shut in the two above it in a kind of visible privacy. They were still a while; then Agnes asked: "Can we do anything more?"

"No," he answered, "nothing but wait."

Both saw that men were running for ladders and ropes. Presently he asked quietly:

"Why did you come to me?"

She looked up at him for a moment, then answered:

"I suppose I thought you would know what to do."

"Thank you," he said, in a grave, low voice.

After a little the tower blazed out above them, and they moved along the ridge till stopped by a chimney, against which he made her lean. Then they sat still again. The flames rose above the eaves on one side, and flared higher and hotter. Soon they grew scorching, and Agnes said, with quickened breathing:

"We couldn't stay here long."

He looked at her, and the side of her face toward the fire glowed bright red. He took off his coat, moved close to her, and held it up between their faces and the flames; and they sat together so, breathing audibly, but not speaking, till the head of a ladder rose suddenly above the eaves, and a minute later the head and shoulders of Jeffrey Coleman. He flung a rope to Windham, who in another minute had let Miss Maine slip down by it to the ladder; then, throwing a noose of it over the chimney, he slid down himself to the eaves, and so to the ground.

Miss Maine stood waiting for him, pale and trembling now, but said nothing. Mary Mandison was with her; she had made no scene, and made none now.

But there were sharper eyes than Mary's. That night, as Windham strolled on the lawn alone, Dr. Saxon confronted him, grimly puffing at his pipe. Then he said:

"I thought you were an honest fellow."

Windham leaned against a tree.

"I want to be," he said feebly.

"Then you'll have to look sharp," the doctor retorted. "You'd better go fishing with me up-country in the morning."

He went, Mary making him promise to return in time for an excursion to Blackberry Island which he had helped her plan. He got back the night before; and in the morning the party set out, some going round the shore by stage, and some in the boat down the bay.

Miss Maine went with those in the boat, and Windham went with Mary in the stage. Both on the way and after their arrival, he stayed by her, and did all he could to be useful and amusing.

They lunched on a grassy bank, in the shade of a cliff, by a tumbling brook that streamed down from the rocks. By and by Mary remarked that she would like to see where the little torrent came from, and Windham said he would try and find out for her. He scrambled up, and soon passed out of sight among the bowlders. He found some tough climbing, but kept on, and after a while traced the stream to a clear pool where a spring bubbled out of a rock wall in a cave-like chamber near the top.

As he reached its edge, he caught sight of the reflection in the pool of a woman's white dress; and, glancing up, saw Agnes Maine standing a little above him, on a sort of natural pedestal, in a rude niche at one side. She looked so like a statue that she smiled slightly at the confused thought of it which she saw for an instant in his face, but she turned grave then as their eyes met for a moment in a look of intimate recognition. Then he turned his away, with a sudden terror at himself, and leaned back against the wall, white in the face.

She stepped down and passed by him. He half put out his hand to stop her, but drew it back, and she partly turned at the gesture, but went on out of his sight.

He stood there for some time; then climbed down the rocks again, shaping his features into a careless form as he went, and came back to Mary with a forced smile on his face. But he forgot what he had gone for, and looked confused when Mary asked him if he had found it. And she commented:

"Why, Philip, what has happened? You look as if you had seen a ghost."

"I have," he answered.

Mary asked no more, except by her look. Some one came and proposed a sail, and Windham eagerly agreed, and went out in the boat with Mary and others.

They sailed down the bay. On the return the wind died away, and when they got back, the stage had gone with more than half the party, and Agnes Maine was not among those who were waiting. They came on board, and the boat headed away for home.

After landing they had to walk across some fields. When near the house, Mary missed something, and Windham went back for it. He had to cross the road, and as he came near it the stage passed along, with its merry company laughing and singing. They did not notice him among the trees, but he distinctly saw all who were in the open vehicle, and Miss Maine was not among them.

She had climbed up the cliff by a gradual, roundabout path; and after Windham saw her, she had wandered on, lost herself for a while, and got back after both stage and boat had left, each party supposing she had gone with the other.

Windham found a row-boat and started back. He knew nothing about boats; but the bay was very smooth, it was yet early, and he got across in due time. As he neared the island he saw her, in her white dress, standing on the bluff, and looking out toward him.

Off the shore, rocks and bowlders stood thickly out of the water, and Windham threaded his way in among them, thinking nothing of those underneath. The skiff was little better than an egg-shell, being built of half-inch cedar; and before he knew what had happened, the point of a sunken rock had cut through the bows, and the boat was filling with water. With a landsman's instinct, he stood up on a thwart; the boat tipped over and went from under him. In the effort to right it, he made a thrust downward with one of the oars, but found no bottom; and the next minute Agnes saw him clinging to the side of a steep rock, with only his head and shoulders out of water.

She did not cry out; but after he had struggled vainly to get up the rock, and found no other support for foot or hand than the one projection just above him, by which he held, he looked toward her as he clung there out of breath, and saw her eagerly watching him from the water's edge. And her voice showed the stress of her feeling, though it was quite clear when she called:

"Can't you climb up?"

"No, there is nothing to hold by."

"Can you swim?"

"No."

She looked all about, then back to him. There was no one in sight; the island was out of the lines of communication, and a point just north of them shut off the open water. But she saw that the reef to which Windham clung trended in to the shore a little way off, and she called:

"I think I can get out to you--keep hold till I come."

She ran along the beach, but not all the way. As soon as she was opposite a part of the reef that seemed accessible, she walked straight into the water, and made her way through it, though it was two or three feet deep near the rocks. He saw her clamber upon them and start toward him, springing from one to another, wading across submerged places, climbing around or over the higher points. And even there, in his desperate plight, as he watched her coming steadily toward him, her eyes fixed on the difficult path, and her skirt instinctively gathered a little in one hand, the sight of her fearless grace thrilled through him, and filled him with despairing admiration.

She came presently to the edge of a wider gap with clear water beneath, and paused for an instant. Windham called out:

"Don't jump; you'll be lost!"

She looked at him a moment, studied the rocks again, stepped back, then forward quickly, and sprang across. She slipped and fell, but got to her feet again, and came on as before. She went out of Windham's sight, but in another minute he heard a rustle above him, looked up, and saw her standing very near the edge, and looking down at him, panting a little, but otherwise calm.

"Don't stand there; you will fall!" he called to her.

She kneeled down and tried to reach over, but could not. She raised herself again, and looked all around anxiously, but saw no one; she had not seen any one since she left him hours before on the cliff. She looked down at him and asked:

"Can you hold on long?"

"No," he answered, "not very long."

She moved back and lay down on the rock, with her face over the edge. It was wet and slippery, and inclined forward, so that she had to brace herself with one hand by a projection just below the brink. Lying so, she could reach down very near him.

"Take hold of my hand," she said.

He raised one arm with an effort, so that she caught him by the wrist, and his fingers closed about hers. She tried to pull him up slowly, but he felt that it was hopeless, and would only result in drawing her off the rock; so he settled back as before. He noticed that she had given him her left hand, and saw that there was another reason besides the necessity of bracing herself with her right. Her wrist was cut and bleeding.

"Oh, you are hurt!" he exclaimed.

"Never mind," she replied; "that is nothing."

He looked up in her face with passionate regret. Her lips were parted, and her breathing came quick and deep. He felt in her wrist the hot blood with which all her pulses throbbed, and it went through him as though one current flowed in their veins. Her eyes looked full into his, and did not turn away till the lashes trembled over them suddenly, and tears gushed out upon her face. An agony of yearning took hold of Windham and wrung his heart.

"Agnes, do you know?" he asked.

And she answered, "Yes."

When she could see him again, drops stood out on his forehead, and his eyes looked up at her with a despairing tenderness. Her lips closed, and her features settled into a look of answering resolve.

"You must not give up," she urged. "Don't let go of my hand."

"Oh, I must!" he answered. "You couldn't hold me; I should only draw you down."

She neither looked away nor made any reply.

"It would do no good," he went on. "I should only drown you too."

"I don't care," she answered. "I will not let you go."

"Oh, Agnes!" he responded, the faintness of exhaustion creeping over him, and mingling with a sharp but sweet despair.

Mary was standing at the door when the stage arrived, and she saw that Agnes was not there. She took one of her brothers who was a good boatman, and started back at once. When their boat rounded the point of the island she was on the lookout, and was the first to see the two they came to succor none too soon. And before they saw her she caught sight, with terrible clearness, of the look in the two faces that were bent upon one another. It was she who supported Windham until Agnes could be taken off, and preparations made for getting him on board; but she turned her eyes away, and did not speak to him.

On the way back she hardly noticed the dreary and draggled pair, who had little to say for themselves. Many things that had puzzled and troubled her ranged themselves in a dreadful sequence and order now in her unsuspicious mind. On their arrival she made some arrangements for their comfort, quietly; then went to her room, and did not come down again.

Windham left early in the morning, went straight back to Dr. Saxon, and told him the whole story.

"I hardly know whether I'm a villain or not," Windham concluded.

"You might as well be," the doctor growled. "You've been a consummate fool, and one does about as much harm as the other. Go home now and stay there; and don't do anything more, for heaven's sake, until you hear from me."

Windham went home, and was very miserable, as may be supposed. Hearing nothing for some time, he could not bear it, and wrote to Mary that he honored and admired her, and thought everything of her that he ever had or could. In a week he got this reply:

"Mary Mandison has received Philip Windham's letter, and can only reply that there is nothing to be said."

This stung him more deeply than silence, and he wrote that he was going to see her on a certain day, and begged her not to deny him. He went at the time, and she saw him, simply sitting still, and hearing what he had to say. He hardly knew what to say then, but vowed and protested, and finally complained of her coldness and cruelty. She replied that she was not cold or cruel, but only, as she had told him, there was nothing to be said. In the end he found this was true, and rushed away in despair.

Mary had seemed calm; but when her mother came in that afternoon and looked for her, she found her in her room, lying on her face.

When she knew who it was, she raised herself silently, looked in her mother's face a moment, put her arms about her neck, and hid her hot, dry eyes there as she used to do when a child.

Late that night those two were alone together in the same place, and, before they parted, the mother said:

"You were always my brave child, and you are going to be my brave Mary still."

And Mary answered with a low cry:

"Yes--yes; but not now--not now!"

For a good while Windham felt the sensation of having run headlong upon a blank wall and been flung back and crippled. But the feeling wore itself out as the months passed.

It was nearly a year before he heard from Dr. Saxon, and he had given up looking for anything from him, when he received a cold note, inviting him to call at the doctor's home, if he chose, at a certain date and hour. At the time set he went to the city, and rang the doctor's bell as the hour was striking.

He was shown into the library, and when the door closed behind him, he fell back against it. Dr. Saxon was not the only person in the room; at the farther end sat Agnes Maine. She knew nothing of his coming; and when she glanced round and saw him, she stood up and faced him, with her hands crossed before her, her breathing quickened, and her face flushed blood-red.

The old doctor leaned back and looked from one to the other, studying them openly and keenly. When he was satisfied, he ordered Windham to take a chair near the window and told Agnes she might go out. She faced him a moment; then went away with her straight, proud carriage. The doctor finished something he was at, then got his pipe and filled and lighted it, backed up against the chimney-piece, and stood eying Windham with something more than his usual scowl.

"Well, young man," he asked, finally, "what did you come here for?"

"I came here because you asked me to."

"No, sir; you didn't," the old man retorted. "I said you might come if you liked."

Windham stood up, trembling, and replied with suppressed passion:

"I came on your invitation. I did not come to be insulted."

"Tut, tut," the doctor rejoined. "You needn't be so hoity-toity; you haven't much occasion; sit down. Have you been making any more of your 'mistakes,' as you call them?"

Windham answered emphatically: "No!"

"Are you going to?" the doctor continued.

"No, sir; I am not," Windham replied, with angry decision.

"Well, I wouldn't; you've done enough," the doctor commented roughly. "You call it a mistake, but I call it blind stupidity, worse than many crimes. Mary is worth three of Agnes, to begin with; but it would be just as bad if she were a doll or a dolt. Any fellow out of swaddling-clothes, who has brains in his body, and isn't made of wood, ought to know that passion is as hard a fact as hunger, and no more to be left out of account. You were bound to know the chances were that it would have to be reckoned with, first or last, and you deliberately took the risk of wrecking two women's lives. I don't say anything about your own; you richly deserve all you got, and all that's coming to you. If law could be made to conform to abstract justice, it would rank your offence worse than many for which men pay behind bars."

He went out abruptly, and after a few minutes returned with Agnes, who came in lingering, and apparently unwilling.

"Here, Agnes, I am going out," he said. "I've been giving this young man my opinion of him, and haven't any more time to waste. You can tell him what you think of him, and send him off."

He went out, and banged the door after him. Agnes leaned against it, and stood there downcast and perfectly still. Windham sat sunk together, as the doctor had left him, waiting for her to speak. But she did not, and after a while he got up and stood by the high desk, looking at her. Finally he spoke low:

"Are you going to scold me, too? Mary has discarded me, and your uncle says I am a miserable sinner, and ought to be in the penitentiary. I don't deny it; but if I went there it would be for your sake. Do you condemn me, too? Have you no mercy for me?"

A flush spread slowly over her pale face. Then she replied softly:

"No, I have no right. I am no better than you."

Two or three hours later Dr. Saxon sat at his desk, when Agnes entered and came silently and stood beside him. He did not look up, but asked quietly:

"Well, have you packed him off?"

"No," she answered under her breath; "you know I haven't."

He smiled up at her. This gruff old man had a rare smile on occasion for those he liked. And he said:

"Well, he isn't the worst they make; he's got spirit, and he can take a drubbing, too, when it's deserved. I tried him pretty well. Didn't I fire into him, though, hot shot!" He fairly grinned at the recollection. "I had to, you know, to keep myself in countenance. I suppose I said rather more than I meant--but don't you tell him so."

She smiled. "I have told him so already; I told him you didn't mean a word you said."

"You presumptuous baggage!" The doctor scowled now. "Then you told him a tremendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he'll get his deserts yet, if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true enough, anyway"--he smiled broadly again--"I told him Mary was worth half a dozen of you."

Agnes turned grave, and put down her head so that she hid her face.

"So she is," she answered. "Oh, I'm very sorry--and ashamed!"

"Well, well," the old doctor responded soberly, stroking her cheek, "it is a pity; but I suppose it can't be helped. Mary's made of good stuff, and will pull through. It wouldn't do her any good if three lives were spoiled instead of one. It's lucky she found out before it was too late."

THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN IN CONGRESS

_The following article is made up almost entirely of new matter. It includes six hitherto unpublished letters, all of them of importance in illustrating Lincoln's political methods and his views on public questions from 1843 to 1848, and an excellent report of a speech delivered in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1848, hitherto unknown to Lincoln's biographers, discovered in course of a search instituted by this Magazine through the files of the Boston and Worcester newspapers of September, 1848. The article also comprises various reminiscences of Lincoln in the period covered, gathered especially for this Magazine from associates of his who are still living._

For eight successive years Lincoln had been a member of the General Assembly of Illinois. It was quite long enough, in his judgment. He wanted something better. In 1842 he declined re-nomination, and became a candidate for Congress. He did not wait to be asked, nor did he leave his case in the hands of his friends. He frankly announced his desire, and managed his own canvass. There was no reason, in Lincoln's opinion, for concealing political ambition. He recognized, at the same time, the legitimacy of the ambition of his friends, and entertained no suspicion or rancor if they contested places with him.

"Do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?" he wrote his friend Herndon once, when the latter was complaining that the older men did not help him on. "The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it."

Lincoln had something more to do, however, in 1842, than simply to announce himself in the innocent manner of earlier politics. The convention system introduced into Illinois in 1835 by the Democrats had been zealously opposed by all good Whigs, Lincoln included, until constant defeat taught them that to resist organization by an every-man-for-himself policy was hopeless and wasteful, and that if they would succeed they must meet organization with organization. In 1841 a Whig State convention had been called to nominate candidates for the offices of governor and lieutenant-governor; and now, in March, 1843, a Whig meeting was held again at Springfield, at which the party's platform was laid, and a committee, of which Lincoln was a member, was appointed to prepare an "Address to the People of Illinois." In this address the convention system was earnestly defended. Against this rapid adoption of the abominated system many of the Whigs protested, and Lincoln found himself supporting before his constituents the tactics he had once warmly opposed. In a letter to his friend John Bennett of Petersburg, written in March, 1843, and now for the first time published[1], he said:

[Footnote 1: The term "unpublished" is employed in this series of articles to cover documents that have never been published in any authoritative or permanent way. Most of the documents so designated have never, so far as we know, been published at all; but a few have been printed in local newspapers, though so long ago, and under such circumstances, as to be practically unpublished now.]

"Your letter of this day was handed me by Mr. Miles. It is too late now to effect the object you desire. On yesterday morning the most of the Whig members from this district got together and agreed to hold the convention at Tremont, in Tazewell County. I am sorry to hear that any of the Whigs of your county, or of any county, should longer be against conventions.

"On last Wednesday evening a meeting of all the Whigs then here from all parts of the State was held, and the question of the propriety of conventions was brought up and fully discussed, and at the end of the discussion a resolution recommending the system of conventions to all the Whigs of the State was unanimously adopted. Other resolutions also were passed, all of which will appear in the next 'Journal.' The meeting also appointed a committee to draft an address to the people of the State, which address will also appear in the next 'Journal.' In it you will find a brief argument in favor of conventions, and, although I wrote it myself, I _will_ say to you that it is conclusive upon the point, and cannot be reasonably answered.

"The right way for you to do is to hold your meeting and appoint delegates anyhow, and if there be any who will not take part, let it be so.

"The matter will work so well this time that even they who now oppose will come in next time. The convention is to be held at Tremont on the fifth of April; and, according to the rule we have adopted, your county is to have two delegates--being double the number of your representation.

"If there be any good Whig who is disposed still to stick out against conventions, get him, at least, to read the argument in their favor in the 'Address.'"[2]

[Footnote 2: The original of this letter is owned by E.R. Oeltjen of Petersburg, Illinois.]

The "brief argument" which Lincoln thought so conclusive, "if he did write it himself," justified his good opinion. After its circulation there were few found to "stick out against conventions." The Whigs of the various counties in the Congressional district met as they had been ordered to do, and chose delegates. John J. Hardin of Jacksonville, Edward D. Baker and Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, were the three candidates for whom these delegates were instructed.

To Lincoln's keen disappointment, the delegation from Sangamon County was instructed for Baker. A variety of social and personal influences, besides Baker's popularity, worked against Lincoln. "It would astonish, if not amuse, the older citizens," wrote Lincoln to a friend, "to learn that I (a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat-boat at ten dollars per month) have been put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction." He was not only accused of being an aristocrat, he was called "a deist." He had fought, or been about to fight, a duel. His wife's relations were Episcopalian and Presbyterian. He and she attended a Presbyterian church. These influences alone could not be said to have defeated him, he wrote, but "they levied a tax of considerable per cent. upon my strength."

The meeting that named Baker as its choice for Congress appointed Lincoln one of the delegates to the convention. "In getting Baker the nomination," Lincoln wrote to Speed, "I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made a grooms-man to a man that has cut him out, and is marrying his own dear 'gal.'" From the first, however, he stood bravely by Baker. "I feel myself bound not to hinder him in any way from getting the nomination; I should despise myself were I to attempt it," he wrote certain of his constituents who were anxious that he should attempt to secure the nomination in spite of his instructions. It was soon evident to both Lincoln and Baker that John J. Hardin was probably the strongest candidate in the district, and so it proved when the convention met in May, 1843, at Pekin.

It has frequently been charged that in this Pekin convention, Hardin, Baker, and Lincoln agreed to take in turn the three next nominations to Congress, thus establishing a species of rotation in office. This charge cannot be sustained. What occurred at the Pekin convention has been written out for this magazine by one of the only two surviving delegates, the Hon. J.M. Ruggles of Havana, Illinois.

"When the convention assembled," writes Mr. Ruggles, "Baker was there with his friend and champion delegate, Abraham Lincoln. The ayes and noes had been taken, and there were fifteen votes apiece, and one in doubt that had not arrived. That was myself. I was known to be a warm friend of Baker, representing people who were partial to Hardin. As soon as I arrived Baker hurried to me, saying: 'How is it? It all depends on you.' On being told that notwithstanding my partiality for him, the people I represented expected me to vote for Hardin, and that I would have to do so, Baker at once replied: 'You are right--there is no other way.' The convention was organized, and I was elected secretary. Baker immediately arose, and made a most thrilling address, thoroughly arousing the sympathies of the convention, and ended by declining his candidacy. Hardin was nominated by acclamation; and then came the episode.

"Immediately after the nomination, Mr. Lincoln walked across the room to my table, and asked if I would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the next term. On being answered in the affirmative, he said: 'You prepare the resolution, I will support it, and I think we can pass it.' The resolution created a profound sensation, especially with the friends of Hardin. After an excited and angry discussion, the resolution passed by a majority of one."

Lincoln supported Hardin as energetically as he had Baker. In a letter[3] to the former, hitherto unpublished, written on May 11th, just after the convention, he says:

"Butler informs me that he received a letter from you in which
you expressed some doubt as to whether the Whigs of Sangamon
will support you cordially. You may at once dismiss all fears on
that subject. We have already resolved to make a particular
effort to give you the very largest majority possible in our
county. From this no Whig of the county dissents. We have many
objects for doing it. We make it a matter of honor and pride to
do it; we do it because we love the Whig cause; we do it because
we like you personally; and, last, we wish to convince you that
we do not bear that hatred to Morgan County that you people have
seemed so long to imagine. You will see by the 'Journal' of this
week that we propose, upon pain of losing a barbecue, to give
you twice as great a majority in this county as you shall
receive in your own. I got up the proposal.

"Who of the five appointed is to write the district address? I
did the labor of writing one address this year, and got thunder
for my reward. Nothing new here.

Yours as ever,

"A. LINCOLN."

"P.S. I wish you would measure one of the largest of those
swords we took to Alton, and write me the length of it, from tip
of the point to tip of the hilt, in feet and inches. I have a
dispute about the length[4].

A. L."

[Footnote 3: The originals of both the letters on this page addressed by Lincoln to Hardin are owned by the daughter of General Hardin, Mrs. Ellen Hardin Walworth of New York City.]

[Footnote 4: The swords referred to in this postscript are those used in the Shields-Lincoln duel. See MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for April, 1896.]

LINCOLN WORKS FOR THE NOMINATION IN 1846.

Hardin was elected, and in 1844 Baker was nominated and elected. Lincoln had accepted his defeat by Hardin manfully. He had secured the nomination for Baker in 1844. He felt that his duty toward his friends was discharged, and that the nomination in 1846 belonged to him. Through the terms of both Hardin and Baker, he worked persistently and carefully to insure his own nomination. With infinite pains-taking he informed himself about the temper of every individual whom he knew or of whom he heard. In an amusing letter to Hardin, hitherto unpublished, written in May, 1844, while the latter was in Congress, he tells him of one disgruntled constituent who must be pacified, giving him, at the same time, a hint as to the temper of the "Locofocos."

"Knowing that you have correspondents enough, I have forborne to
trouble you heretofore," he writes; "and I now only do so to get
you to set a matter right which has got wrong with one of our
best friends. It is old Uncle Thomas Campbell of Spring Creek
(Berlin P.O.). He has received several documents from you, and
he says they are old newspapers and old documents, having no
sort of interest in them. He is, therefore, getting a strong
impression that you treat him with disrespect. This, I know, is
a mistaken impression, and you must correct it. The way, I leave
to yourself. Robert W. Canfield says he would like to have a
document or two from you.

"The Locos here are in considerable trouble about Van Buren's
letter on Texas, and the Virginia electors. They are growing
sick of the tariff question, and consequently are much
confounded at Van Buren's cutting them off from the new Texas
question. Nearly half the leaders swear they won't stand it. Of
those are Ford, T. Campbell, Ewing, Calhoun, and others. They
don't exactly say they won't go for Van Buren, but they say he
will not be the candidate, and that _they_ are for Texas
anyhow.

"As ever yours,

"A. LINCOLN."