Chapter III: Part 3

"I only know my cousins and one or two others, their friends."

"What do they look like?"

"Like girls! Don't you know how girls look?"

"Not city girls."

"They are pretty, most of them, and they dress older than you and have a _manner;_ they always know how to reply and they are not awkward and too shy; they know how to address people, and introduce people, and sometimes to entertain them, they seem to know what to talk about, and they are bright and wide-awake. They play and sing and study the languages and mathematics. The girls I know are all little ladies."

Marjorie was silent; her cheeks were burning and her eyes downcast. She never could be like that; she never could be a "little lady," if a little lady meant all those unattainable things.

"Do they talk differently from us--from country girls?" she asked after a long pause.

"Yes, I think they do. Mira Crane--I'll tell you how the country girls talk--says 'we am,' and 'fust rate,' and she speaks rudely and abruptly and doesn't look directly at a person when she speaks, she says 'good morning' and 'yes' and 'no' without 'sir' or 'ma'am' or the person's name, and answers 'I'm very well' without adding 'thank you.'"

"Yes," said Marjorie, taking mental note of each expression.

"And Josie Grey--you see I've been studying the difference in the girls since I came home--"

Had he been studying _her_?

"Is there so much difference?" she asked a little proudly.

"Yes. The difference struck me. It is not city or country that makes the difference, it is the _homes_ and the _schools_ and every educating influence. Josie Grey has all sorts of exclamations like some old grandmother, and she says 'I tell you,' and 'I declare,' and she hunches all up when she sits or puts her feet out into the middle of the room."

"Yes," said Marjorie, again, intently.

"And Nettie Trevor colors and stammers and talks as if she were afraid of you. My little ladies see so many people that they become accustomed to forgetting themselves and thinking of others. They see people to admire and imitate, too."

"So do I," said Marjorie, spiritedly. "I see Miss Prudence and I see Mrs. Proudfit, our new minister's wife, and I see--several other people."

"I suppose I notice these things more than some boys would. When I left home gentleness was a new language to me; I had never heard it spoken excepting away from home. I was surprised at first that a master could command with gentleness and that those under authority could obey with gentleness."

Marjorie listened with awe; this was not like Hollis; her old Hollis was gone, a new, wise Hollis had come instead. She sighed a little for the old Hollis who was not quite so wise.

"I soon found how much I lacked. I set myself to reading and studying. From the first of October all through the winter I attend evening school and I have subscribed to the Mercantile Library and have my choice among thousands of books. Uncle Jack says I shall be a literary business man."

A "literary business man" sounded very grand to Marjorie. Would she stay home and be ignorant and never be or do anything? At that instant a resolve was born in her heart; the resolve to become a scholar and a lady. But she did not speak, if possible she became more quiet. Hollis should not be ashamed of being her friend.

"Mousie! Why don't you talk to me?" he asked, at last.

"Which of your cousins do you like best?"

"Helen," he said unhesitatingly.

"How old is she?" she asked with a sinking at her heart.

"Seventeen. _She's_ a lady, so gentle and bright, she never rustles or makes a noise, she never says anything to hurt any one's feelings: and how she plays and sings. She never once laughed at me, she helps me in everything; she wanted me to go to evening school and she told me about the Mercantile Library. She's a Christian, too. She teaches in a mission school and goes around among poor people with Aunt Helen. She paints and draws and can walk six miles a day. I go everywhere with her, to lectures and concerts and to church and Sunday school."

How Marjorie's eyes brightened! She had found her ideal; she would give herself no rest until she had become like Helen Rheid. But Helen Rheid had everything to push her on, every one to help her. For the first time in her life Marjorie was disheartened. But, with a reassuring conviction, flashed the thought--there were years before _she_ would be seventeen.

"Wouldn't you like to see her, Mousie?"

"Indeed, I would," said Marjorie, enthusiastically.

"I brought her photograph to mother--how she looked at me when 'marm' slipped out one day. The boys always used to say 'Marm,'" he said laughing.

Marjorie remembered that she had been taught to say "grandmarm," but as she grew older she had softened it to "grandma."

"I'll bring you her photograph when I come to-morrow to say good-bye. Now, tell me what you've been looking sad about."

Is it possible that she was forgetting?

"Oh, perhaps you can help me!"

"Help you! Of course I will."

"How did you know I was troubled?" she asked seriously, looking up into his eyes.

"Have I eyes?" he answered as seriously. "Father happened to think that mother had an errand for him to do on this road, so I jumped off and ran after you."

"No, you ran after your mother's errand," she answered, jealously.

"Well, then, I found you, my precise little maiden, and now you must tell me what you were crying about."

"Not spilt milk, but only a broken milk pitcher! _Do_ you think you can find me a yellow pitcher, with yellow figures--a man, or a lion, or something, a hundred or two hundred years old?"

"In New York? I'm rather doubtful. Oh, I know--mother has some old ware, it belonged to her grandmother, perhaps I can beg a piece of it for you. Will it do if it isn't a pitcher?"

"I'd rather have a pitcher, a yellow pitcher. The one I broke belongs to a friend of Miss Prudence."

"Prudence! Is she a Puritan maiden?" he asked.

Marjorie felt very ignorant, she colored and was silent. She supposed Helen Rheid would know what a Puritan maiden was.

"I won't tease you," he said penitently. "I'll find you something to make the loss good, perhaps I'll find something she'll like a great deal better."

"Mr. Onderdonk has a plate that came from Holland, it's over two hundred years old he told Miss Prudence; oh, if you _could_ get that!" cried Marjorie, clasping her hands in her eagerness.

"Mr. Onderdonk? Oh, the shoemaker, near the schoolhouse. Well, Mousie, you shall have some old thing if I have to go back a century to get it. Helen will be interested to know all about it; I've told her about you."

"There's nothing to tell about me," returned Marjorie.

"Then I must have imagined it; you used to be such a cunning little thing."

"_Used to be!_" repeated sensitive Marjorie, to herself. She was sure Hollis was disappointed in her. And she thought he was so tall and wise and handsome and grand! She could never be disappointed in him.

How surprised she would have been had she known that Helen's eyes had filled with tears when Hollis told her how his little friend had risen all alone in that full church! Helen thought she could never be like Marjorie.

"I wish you had a picture of how you used to look for me to show Helen."

Not how she looked to-day! Her lips quivered and she kept her eyes on her dusty shoes.

"I suppose you want the pitcher immediately."

Two years ago Hollis would have said "right away."

After that Marjorie never forgot to say "immediately."

"Yes, I would," she said, slowly. "I've hidden the pieces away and nobody knows it is broken."

"That isn't like you," Hollis returned, disappointedly.

"Oh, I didn't do it to deceive; I couldn't. I didn't want her to be sorry about it until I could see what I could do to replace it"

"That sounds better."

Marjorie felt very much as if he had been finding fault with her.

"Will you have to pay for it?"

"Not if mother gives it to me, but perhaps I shall exact some return from you."

She met his grave eyes fully before she spoke. "Well, I'll give you all I can earn. I have only seventy-three cents; father gives me one tenth of the eggs for hunting them and feeding the chickens, and I take them to the store. That's the only way I can earn money," she said in her sweet half-abashed voice.

A picture of Helen taking eggs to "the store" flashed upon Hollis' vision; he smiled and looked down upon his little companion with benignant eyes.

"I could give you all I have and send you the rest. Couldn't I?" she asked.

"Yes, that would do. But you must let me set my own price," he returned in a business like tone.

"Oh I will. I'd do anything to get Miss Prudence a pitcher," she said eagerly.

The faded muslin brushed against him; and how odd and old-fashioned her hat was! He would not have cared to go on a picnic with Marjorie in this attire; suppose he had taken her into the crowd of girls among which his cousin Helen was so noticeable last week, how they would have looked at her! They would think he had found her at some mission school. Was her father so poor, or was this old dress and broad hat her mother's taste? Anyway, there was a guileless and bright face underneath the flapping hat and her voice was as sweet as Helen's even it there was such an old-fashioned tone about it. One word seemed to sum up her dress and herself--old-fashioned. She talked like some little old grandmother. She was more than quaint--she was antiquated. That is, she was antiquated beside Helen. But she did not seem out of place here in the country; he was thinking of her on a city pavement, in a city parlor, or among a group of fluttering, prettily dressed city girls, with their modulated voices, animated gestures and laughing, bright replies. There was light and fire about them and Marjorie was such a demure little mouse.

"Don't fret about it any more," he said, kindly, with his grown-up air, patting her shoulder with a light, caressing touch. "I will take it into my hands and you need not think of it again."

"Oh, thank you! thank you!" she cried, her eyes brimming over.

It was the old Hollis, after all; he could do anything and everything she wanted.

Forgetting her shyness, after that home-like touch upon her shoulder, she chatted all the way home. And he did not once think that she was a quiet little mouse.

He did not like "quiet" people; perhaps because his own spirit was so quiet that it required some effort for him to be noisy. Hollis admired most characteristics unlike his own; he did not know, but he _felt_ that Marjorie was very much like himself. She was more like him than he was like her. They were two people who would be very apt to be drawn together under all circumstances, but without special and peculiar training could never satisfy each other. This was true of them even now, and, if possible with the enlarged vision of experience, became truer as they grew older. If they kept together they might grow together; but, the question is, whether of themselves they would ever have been drawn very close together. They were close enough together now, as Marjorie chatted and Hollis listened; he had many questions to ask about the boys and girls of the village and Marjorie had many stories to relate.

"So George Harris and Nell True are really married!" he said. "So young, too!"

"Yes, mother did not like it. She said they were too young. He always liked her best at school, you know. And when she joined the Church she was so anxious for him to join, too, and she wrote him a note about it and he answered it and they kept on writing and then they were married."

"Did he join the Church?" asked Hollis,

"He hasn't yet."

"It is easier for girls to be good than for boys," rejoined Hollis in an argumentative tone,

"Is it? I don't see how."

"Of course you don't. We are in the world where the temptations are; what temptations do _you_ have?"

"I have enough. But I don't want to go out in the world where more temptations are. Don't you know--" She colored and stopped,

"Know what?"

"About Christ praying that his disciples might be kept from the evil that was in the world, not that they might be taken out of the world. They have _got_ to be in the world."

"Yes."

"And," she added sagely, "anybody can be good where no temptations are."

"Is that why girls are good?"

"I don't think girls are good."

"The girls I know are."

"You know city girls," she said archly. "We country girls have the world in our own hearts."

There was nothing of "the world" in the sweet face that he looked down into, nothing of the world in the frank, true voice. He had been wronging her; how much there was in her, this wise, old, sweet little Marjorie!

"Have you forgotten your errand?" she asked, after a moment.

"No, it is at Mr. Howard's, the house beyond yours."

"I'm glad you had the errand."

"So am I. I should have gone home and not known anything about you."

"And I should have stayed tangled in the black berry vines ever so long," she laughed.

"You haven't told me why you were there."

"Because I was silly," she said emphatically.

"Do silly people always hide in blackberry vines?" he questioned, laughing.

"Silly people like me," she said.

At that moment they stopped in front of the gate of Marjorie's home; through the lilac-bushes--the old fence was overgrown with lilacs--Hollis discerned some bright thing glimmering on the piazza. The bright thing possessed a quick step and a laugh, for it floated towards them and when it appeared at the gate Hollis found that it was only Linnet.

There was nothing of the mouse about Linnet.

"Why, Marjie, mother said you might stay till dark."

Linnet was seventeen, but she was not too grown up for "mother said" to be often on her lips.

"I didn't want to," said Marjorie. "Good-bye, Hollis. I'm going to hunt eggs."

"I'd go with you, it's rare fun to hunt eggs, only I haven't seen Linnet--yet."

"And you must see Linnet--yet," laughed Linnet, "Hollis, what a big boy you've grown to be!" she exclaimed regarding him critically; the new suit, the black onyx watch-chain, the blonde moustache, the full height, and last of all the friendly brown eyes with the merry light in them.

"What a big girl you've grown to be, Linnet," he retorted surveying her critically and admiringly.

There was fun and fire and changing lights, sauciness and defiance, with a pretty little air of deference, about Linnet. She was not unlike his city girl friends; even her dress was more modern and tasteful than Marjorie's.

"Marjorie is so little and doesn't care," she often pleaded with their mother when there was not money enough for both. And Marjorie looked on and held her peace.

Self-sacrifice was an instinct with Marjorie.

"I am older and must have the first chance," Linnet said.

So Marjorie held back and let Linnet have the chances.

Linnet was to have the "first chance" at going to school in September. Marjorie stayed one moment looking at the two as they talked, proud of Linnet and thinking that Hollis must think she, at least, was something like his cousin Helen, and then she hurried away hoping to return with her basket of eggs before Hollis was gone. Hollis was almost like some one in a story-book to her. I doubt if she ever saw any one as other people saw them; she always saw so much. She needed only an initial; it was easy enough to fill out the word. She hurried across the yard, opened the large barn-yard gate, skipped across the barn-yard, and with a little leap was in the barn floor. Last night she had forgotten to look in the mow; she would find a double quantity hidden away there to-night. She wondered if old Queen Bess were still persisting in sitting on nothing in the mow's far dark corner; tossing away her hindering hat and catching up an old basket, she ran lightly up the ladder to the mow. She never remembered that she ran up the ladder.

An hour later--Linnet knew that it was an hour later--Marjorie found herself moving slowly towards the kitchen door. She wanted to see her mother. Lifting the latch she staggered in.

She was greeted with a scream from Linnet and with a terrified exclamation from her mother.

"Marjorie, what _is_ the matter?" cried her mother catching her in her arms.

"Nothing," said Marjorie, wondering.

"Nothing! You are purple as a ghost!" exclaimed Linnet, "and there's a lump on your forehead as big as an egg."

"Is there?" asked Marjorie, in a trembling voice.

"Did you fall? Where did you fall?" asked her mother shaking her gently. "Can't you speak, child?"

"I--didn't--fall," muttered Marjorie, slowly.

"Yes, you did," said Linnet. "You went after eggs."

"Eggs," repeated Marjorie in a bewildered voice.

"Linnet, help me quick to get her on to the sitting-room lounge! Then get pillows and a comforter, and then run for your father to go for the doctor."

"There's nothing the matter," persisted the child, smiling weakly. "I can walk, mother. Nothing hurts me."

"Doesn't your head ache?" asked Linnet, guiding her steps as her head rested against her mother's breast.

"No."

"Don't you ache _anywhere?_" questioned her mother, as they led her to the lounge.

"No, ma'am. Why should I? I didn't fall."

Linnet brought the pillow and comforter, and then ran out through the back yard calling, "Father! Father!"

Down the road Hollis heard the agonized cry, and turning hastened back to the house.

"Oh, go for the doctor quick!" cried Linnet, catching him by the arm; "something dreadful has happened to Marjorie, and she doesn't know what it is."

"Is there a horse in the stable?"

"Oh, no, I forgot. And mother forgot Father has gone to town."

"I'll get a horse then--somewhere on the road--don't be so frightened. Dr. Peck will be here in twenty minutes after I find him."

Linnet flew back to satisfy her mother that the doctor had been sent for, and found Marjorie reiterating to her mother's repeated inquiries:

"I don't ache anywhere; I'm not hurt at all."

"Where were you, child."

"I wasn't--anywhere," she was about to say, then smiled, for she knew she must have been somewhere.

"What happened after you said good-bye to Hollis?" questioned Linnet, falling on her knees beside her little sister, and almost taking her into her arms.

"Nothing."

"Oh, dear, you're crazy!" sobbed Linnet.

Marjorie smiled faintly and lifted her hand to stroke Linnet's cheeks.

"I won't hurt _you_," she comforted tenderly.

"I know what I'll do!" exclaimed Mrs. West suddenly and emphatically, "I can put hot water on that bump; I've heard that's good."

Marjorie closed her eyes and lay still; she was tired of talking about something that had not happened at all. She remembered afterward that the doctor came and opened a vein in her arm, and that he kept the blood flowing until she answered "Yes, sir," to his question, "Does your head hurt you _now_?" She remembered all their faces--how Linnet cried and sobbed, how Hollis whispered, "I'll get a pitcher, Mousie, if I have to go to China for it," and how her father knelt by the lounge when he came home and learned that it had happened and was all over, how he knelt and thanked God for giving her back to them all out of her great danger. That night her mother sat by her bedside all night long, and she remembered saying to her:

"If I had been killed, I should have waked up in Heaven without knowing that I had died. It would have been like going to Heaven without dying."

V.

TWO PROMISES.

"He who promiseth runs in debt."

Hollis held a mysterious looking package in his hand when he came in the next day; it was neatly done up in light tissue paper and tied with yellow cord. It looked round and flat, not one bit like a pitcher, unless some pitchers a hundred years ago _were_ flat.

Marjorie lay in delicious repose upon the parlor sofa, with the green blinds half closed, the drowsiness and fragrance of clover in the air soothed her, rather, quieted her, for she was not given to nervousness; a feeling of safety enwrapped her, she was _here_ and not very much hurt, and she was loved and petted to her heart's content. And that is saying a great deal for Marjorie, for _her_ heart's content was a very large content. Linnet came in softly once in a while to look at her with anxious eyes and to ask, "How do you feel now?" Her mother wandered in and out as if she could rest in nothing but in looking at her, and her father had given her one of his glad kisses before he went away to the mowing field. Several village people having heard of the accident through Hollis and the doctor had stopped at the door to inquire with a sympathetic modulation of voice if she were any better. But the safe feeling was the most blessed of all. Towards noon she lay still with her white kitten cuddled up in her arms, wondering who would come next; Hollis had not come, nor Miss Prudence, nor the new minister, nor grandma, nor Josie Grey; she was wishing they would all come to-day when she heard a quick step on the piazza and a voice calling out to somebody.

"I won't stay five minutes, father."

The next instant the handsome, cheery face was looking in at the parlor door and the boisterous "vacation" voice was greeting her with,

"Well, Miss Mousie! How about the tumble down now?"

But her eyes saw nothing excepting the mysterious, flat, round parcel in his hand.

"Oh, Hollis, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, raising herself upon one elbow.

The stiff blue muslin was rather crumpled by this time, and in place of the linen collar and old-fashioned pin her mother had tied a narrow scarf of white lace about her throat; her hair was brushed back and braided in two heavy braids and her forehead was bandaged in white.

"Well, Marjorie, you _are_ a picture, I must say," he cried, bounding in. "Why don't you jump up and take another climb?"

"I want to. I want to see the swallow's nest again; I meant to have fed the swallows last night"

"Where are they?"

"Oh, up in the eaves. Linnet and I have climbed up and fed them."

As he dropped on his knees on the carpet beside the sofa she fell back on her pillow.

"Father is waiting for me to go to town with him and I can't stay. You will soon be climbing up to see the swallows again and hunting eggs and everything as usual."

"Oh, yes, indeed," said Marjorie, hopefully.

Watching her face he laid the parcel in her hand. "Don't open it till I'm gone. I had something of a time to get it. The old fellow was as obstinate as a mule when he saw that my heart was set on it. Mother hadn't a thing old enough--I ransacked everywhere--if I'd had time to go to grandmother's I might have done better. She's ninety-three, you know, and has some of her grandmother's things. This thing isn't a beauty to look at, but it's old, and that's the chief consideration. Extreme old age will compensate for its ugliness; which is an extenuation that I haven't for mine. I'm going to-morrow."

"Oh, I want to see it," she exclaimed, not regarding his last remark.

"That's all you care," he said, disappointedly. "I thought you would be sorry that I'm going."

"You know I am," she returned penitently, picking at the yellow cord.

"Perhaps when I am two hundred years old you'll be as anxious to look at me as you are to look at that!"

"Oh, Hollis, I do thank you so."

"But you must promise me two things or you can't have it!"

"I'll promise twenty."

"Two will do until next time. First, will you go and see my mother as soon as you get well, and go often?"

"That's too easy; I want to do something _hard_ for you," she answered earnestly.

"Perhaps you will some day, who knows? There are hard enough things to do for people, I'm finding out. But, have you promised?"

"Yes, I have promised."

"And I know you keep your promises. I'm sure you won't forget. Poor mother isn't happy; she's troubled."

"About you?"

"No, about herself, because she isn't a Christian."

"That's enough to trouble anybody," said Marjorie, wisely.

"Now, one more promise in payment. Will you write to me every two weeks?"

"Oh, I couldn't," pleaded Marjorie.

"Now you've found something too hard to do for me," he said, reproachfully.

"Oh, I'll do it, of course; but I'm afraid."

"You'll soon get over that. You see mother doesn't write often, and father never does, and I'm often anxious about them, and if you write and tell me about them twice a month I shall be happier. You see you are doing something for me."

"Yes, thank you. I'll do the best I can. But I can't write like your cousin Helen," she added, jealously.

"No matter. You'll do; and you will be growing older and constantly improving and I shall begin to travel for the house by and by and my letters will be as entertaining as a book of travels."

"Will you write to me? I didn't think of that."

"Goosie!" he laughed, giving her Linnet's pet name. "Certainly I will write as often as you do, and you mustn't stop writing until your last letter has not been answered for a month."

"I'll remember," said Marjorie, seriously. "But I wish I could do something else. Did you have to pay money for it?"

Marjorie was accustomed to "bartering" and that is the reason that she used the expression "pay money."

"Well, yes, something," he replied, pressing his lips together.

He was angry with the shoemaker about that bargain yet.

"How much? I want to pay you."

"Ladies never ask a gentleman such a question when they make them a present," he said, laughing as he arose. "Imagine Helen asking me how much I paid for the set of books I gave her on her birthday."

The tears sprang to Marjorie's eyes. Had she done a dreadful thing that Helen would not think of doing?

Long afterward she learned that he gave for the plate the ten dollars that his father gave him for a "vacation present."

"Good-bye, Goosie, keep both promises and don't run up a ladder again until you learn how to run down."

But she could not speak yet for the choking in her throat.

"You have paid me twice over with those promises," he said. "I am glad you broke the old yellow pitcher."

So was she even while her heart was aching. Her fingers held the parcel tightly; what a hearts-ease it was! It had brought her peace of mind that was worth more hard promises than she could think of making.

"He said his father's great-grandfather had eaten out of that plate over in Holland and he had but one more left to bequeath to his little grandson."

"I'm glad the great-grandfather didn't break it," said Marjorie.

Hollis would not disturb her serenity by remarking that the shoemaker _might_ have added a century to the age of his possession; it looked two hundred years old, anyway.

"Good-bye, again, if you don't get killed next time you fall you may live to see me again. I'll wear a linen coat and smell of cheese and smoke a pipe too long for me to light myself by that time--when I come home from Germany."

"Oh, don't," she exclaimed, in a startled voice.

"Which? The coat or the cheese or the pipe."

"I don't care about the cheese or the coat--"

"You needn't be afraid about the pipe; I promised mother to-day that I would never smoke or drink or play cards."

"That's good," said Marjorie, contentedly.

"And so she feels safe about me; safer than I feel about myself, I reckon. But it _is_ good-bye this time. I'll tell Helen what a little mouse and goose you are!"

"Hollis! _Hollis!_" shouted a gruff voice, impatiently.

"Aye, aye, sir," Hollis returned. "But I must say good-bye to your mother and Linnet."

Instead of giving him a last look she was giving her first look to her treasure. The first look was doubtful. It was not half as pretty as the pitcher. It was not very large and there were innumerable tiny cracks interlacing each other, there were little raised figures on the broad rim and a figure in the centre, the colors were buff and blue. But it was a treasure, twofold more a treasure than the yellow pitcher, for it was twice as old and had come from Holland. The yellow pitcher had only come from England. Miss Prudence would be satisfied that she had not hidden the pitcher to escape detection, and perhaps her friend might like this ancient plate a great deal better and be glad of what had befallen the pitcher. But suppose Miss Prudence did believe all this time that she had hidden the broken pieces and meant, never to tell! At that, she could not forbear squeezing her face into the pillow and dropping a few very sorrowful tears. Still she was glad, even with a little contradictory faint-heartedness, for Hollis would write to her and she would never lose him again. And she could _do_ something _for_ him, something hard.

Her mother, stepping in again, before the tears were dried upon her cheek, listened to the somewhat incoherent story of the naughty thing she had done and the splendid thing Hollis had done, and of how she had paid him with two promises.

Mrs. West examined the plate critically. "It's old, there's no sham about it. I've seen a few old things and I know. I shouldn't wonder if he gave five dollars for it"

"Five dollars!" repeated Marjorie in affright "Oh, I hope not."

"Well, perhaps not, but it is worth it and more, too, to Miss Prudence's friend."

"And I'll keep my promises," said Marjorie's steadfast voice.

"H'm," ejaculated her mother. "I rather think Hollis has the best of it."

"That depends upon me," said wise little Marjorie.

VI.

MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE.

"She was made for happy thoughts."--_Mary Howlet._

I wonder if there is anything, any little thing I should have said, that tries a woman more than the changes in her own face, a woman that has just attained two score and--an unmarried woman. Prudence Pomeroy was discovering these changes in her own face and, it may be undignified, it may be unchristian even, but she was tried. It was upon the morning of her fortieth birthday, that, with considerable shrinking, she set out upon a voyage of discovery upon the unknown sea of her own countenance. It was unknown, for she had not cared to look upon herself for some years, but she bolted her chamber door and set herself about it with grim determination this birthday morning. It was a weakness, it may be, but we all have hours of weakness within our bolted chamber doors.

She had a hard early morning all by herself; but the battle with herself did not commence until she shoved that bolt, pushed back the white curtains, and stationed herself in the full glare of the sun light with her hand-glass held before her resolute face. It was something to go through; it was something to go through to read the record of a score of birthdays past: but she had done that before the breakfast bell rang, locked the old leathern bound volume in her trunk and arranged herself for breakfast, and then had run down with her usual tripping step and kept them all amused with her stories during breakfast time. But that was before the door was bolted. She gazed long at the reflection of the face that Time had been at work upon for forty years; there were the tiniest creases in her forehead, they were something like the cracks in the plate two hundred years old that Marjorie had sent to her last night, there were unmistakable lines under her eyes, the pale tint of her cheek did not erase them nor the soft plumpness render them invisible, they stared at her with the story of relentless years; at the corners of her lips the artistic fingers of Time had chiselled lines, delicate, it is true, but clearly defined--a line that did not dent the cheeks of early maidenhood, a line that had found no place near her own lips ten years ago; and above her eyes--she had not discerned that, at first--there was a lack of fullness, you could not name it hollowness; that was new, at least new to her, others with keener eyes may have noticed it months ago, and there was a yellowness--she might as well give it boldly its right name--at the temple, decrease of fairness, she might call it, but that it was a positive shade of that yellowness she had noticed in others no older than herself; and, then, to return to her cheeks, or rather her chin, there was a laxity about the muscles at the sides of her mouth that gave her chin an elderly outline! No, it was not only the absence of youth, it was the presence of age--her full forty years. And her hair! It was certainly not as abundant as it used to be, it had wearied her, once, to brush out its thick glossy length; it was becoming unmistakably thinner; she was certainly slightly bald about the temples, and white hairs were straggling in one after another, not attempting to conceal themselves. A year ago she had selected them from the mass of black and cut them short, but now they were appearing too fast for the scissors. It was a sad face, almost a gloomy one, that she was gazing into: for the knowledge that her forty years had done their work in her face as surely, and perhaps not as sweetly as in her life had come to her with a shock. She was certainly growing older and the signs of it were in her face, nothing could hide it, even her increasing seriousness made it more apparent; not only growing older, but growing old, the girls would say. Twenty years ago, when she first began to write that birthday record, she had laughed at forty and called it "old" herself. As she laid the hand-glass aside with a half-checked sigh, her eyes fell upon her hand and wrist; it was certainly losing its shapeliness; the fingers were as tapering as ever and the palm as pink, but--there was a something that reminded her of that plate of old china. She might be like a bit of old china, but she was not ready to be laid upon the shelf, not even to be paid a price for and be admired! She was in the full rush of her working days. Awhile ago her friends had all addressed her as "Prudence," but now, she was not aware when it began or how, she was "Miss Prudence" to every one who was not within the nearest circle of intimacy. Not "Prudie" or "Prue" any more. She had not been "Prudie" since her father and mother died, and not "Prue" since she had lost that friend twenty years ago.

In ten short years she would be fifty years old, and fifty was half a century: old enough to be somebody's grandmother. Was she not the bosom friend of somebody's grandmother to-day? Laura Harrowgate, her friend and schoolmate, not one year her senior, was the grandmother of three-months-old Laura. Was it possible that she herself did not belong to "the present generation," but to a generation passed away? She had no daughter to give place to, as Laura had, no husband to laugh at her wrinkles and gray hairs, as Laura had, and to say, "We're growing old together." If it were only "together" there would be no sadness in it. But would she want it to be such a "together" as certain of her friends shared?

Laura Harrowgate was a grandmother, but still she would gush over that plate from Holland two centuries old, buy a bracket for it and exhibit it to her friends. A hand-glass did not make _her_ dolorous. A few years since she would have rebelled against what the hand-glass revealed; but, to-day, she could not rebel against God's will; assuredly it _was_ his will for histories to be written in faces. Would she live a woman's life and adorn herself with a baby's face? Had not her face been moulded by her life? Had she stopped thinking and working ten years ago she might, to-day, have looked at the face she looked at ten years ago. No, she demurred, not a baby's face, but--then she laughed aloud at herself--was not her fate the common fate of all? Who, among her friends, at forty years of age, was ever taken, or mistaken, for twenty-five or thirty? And if _she_ were, what then? Would her work be worth more to the world? Would the angels encamp about her more faithfully or more lovingly? And, then, was there not a face "marred"? Did he live his life upon the earth with no sign of it in his face? Was it not a part of his human nature to grow older? Could she be human and not grow old? If she lived she must grow old; to grow old or to die, that was the question, and then she laughed again, this time more merrily. Had she made the changes herself by fretting and worrying; had she taken life too hard? Yes; she had taken life hard. Another glance into the glass revealed another fact: her neck was not as full and round and white as it once was: there was a suggestion of old china about that, too. She would discard linen collars and wear softening white ruffles; it would not be deceitful to hide Time's naughty little tracery. She smiled this time; she _was_ coming to a hard place in her life. She had believed--oh, how much in vain!--that she had come to all the hard places and waded through them, but here there was looming up another, fully as hard, perhaps harder, because it was not so tangible and, therefore, harder to face and fight. The acknowledging that she had come to this hard place was something. She remembered the remark of an old lady, who was friendless and poor: "The hardest time of my life was between forty and forty-five; I had to accept several bitter facts that after became easier to bear." Prudence Pomeroy looked at herself, then looked up to God and accepted, submissively, even cheerfully, his fact that she had begun to grow old, and then, she dressed herself for a walk and with her sun-umbrella and a volume of poems started out for her tramp along the road and through the fields to find her little friend Marjorie. The china plate and pathetic note last night had moved her strangely. Marjorie was in the beginning of things. What was her life worth if not to help such as Marjorie live a worthier life than her own two score years had been?

A face flushed with the long walk looked in at the window upon Marjorie asleep. The child was sitting near the open window in a wooden rocker with padded arms and back and covered with calico with a green ground sprinkled over with butterflies and yellow daisies; her head was thrown back against the knitted tidy of white cotton, and her hands were resting in her lap; the blue muslin was rather more crumpled than when she had seen it last, and instead of the linen collar the lace was knotted about her throat. The bandage had been removed from her forehead, the swelling had abated but the discolored spot was plainly visible; her lips were slightly parted, her cheeks were rosy; if this were the "beginning of things" it was a very sweet and peaceful beginning.

Entering the parlor with a soft tread Miss Prudence divested herself of hat, gloves, duster and umbrella, and, taking a large palm leaf fan from the table, seated herself near the sleeper, gently waving the fan to and fro as a fly lighted on Marjorie's hands or face. On the window seat were placed a goblet half filled with lemonade, a small Bible, a book that had the outward appearance of being a Sunday-school library book, and a copy in blue and gold of the poems of Mrs. Hemans. Miss Prudence remembered her own time of loving Mrs. Hemans and had given this copy to Marjorie; later, she had laid her aside for Longfellow, as Marjorie would do by and by, and, in his turn, she had given up Longfellow for Tennyson and Mrs. Browning, as, perhaps, Marjorie would never do. She had brought Jean Ingelow with her this morning to try "Brothers and a Sermon" and the "Songs of Seven" with Marjorie. Marjorie was a natural elocutionist; Miss Prudence was afraid of spoiling her by unwise criticism. The child must thoroughly appreciate a poem, forget herself, and then her rendering would be more than Miss Prudence with all her training could perfectly imitate.

"Don't teach her too much; she'll want to be an actress," remonstrated Marjorie's father after listening to Marjorie's reading one day.

Miss Prudence laughed and Marjorie looked perplexed.

"Marjorie is to comfort with her reading as some do by singing," she replied. "Wait till you are old and she reads the Bible to you!"

"She reads to me now," he said. "She read 'The Children of the Lord's Supper' to me last night."

Miss Prudence moved the fan backward and forward and studied the sleeping, innocent face. I had almost written "sweet" again; I can scarcely think of her face, as it was then, without writing sweet. It would be long, Miss Prudence mused, before lines and creases intruded here and there in that smooth forehead, and in the tinted cheeks that dimpled at the least provocation; but life would bring them in time, and they would add beauty if there were no bitterness nor hardness in them. If the Holy Spirit dwelt in the temple of the body were not the lines upon the face his handwriting? She knew more than one old face that was growing more attractive with each year of life.

The door was pushed open and Mrs. West's broad shoulders and motherly face appeared. Miss Prudence smiled and laid her finger on her lips and, smiling, too, the mother moved away. Linnet, in her kitchen apron, and with the marks of the morning's baking on her fingers, next looked in, nodded and ran away. After awhile, the sleeping eyelids quivered and lifted themselves; a quick flush, a joyous exclamation and Marjorie sprang into her friend's arms.

"I _felt_ as if I were not alone! How long have you been here? Oh, why _didn't_ you speak to me or touch me?"

"I wanted to have the pleasure all on my side. I never saw you asleep before."

"I hope I didn't keep my mouth open and snore."

"Oh, no, your lips were gently apart and you breathed regularly as they would say in books!"

Marjorie laughed, released Miss Prudence from the tight clasp and went back to her chair.

"You received my note and the plate," she said anxiously.

"Both in perfect preservation. There was not one extra crack in the plate, it was several hours older than when it left your hands, but that only increases its value."

"And did you think I was dreadful not to confess before?" asked Marjorie, tremulously.

"I thought you were dreadful to run away from me instead of _to_ me."

"I was so sorry; I wanted to get something else before you knew about it. Did you miss it?"

"I missed something in the room, I could not decide what it was."

"Will the plate do, do you think? Is it handsome enough?"

"It is old enough, that is all the question. Do you know all about Holland when that plate first came into existence?"

"No; I only know there _was_ a Holland."

"That plate will be a good point to begin with. You and I will study up Holland some day. I wonder what you know about it now."

"Is that why your friend wants the plate, because she knows about Holland two hundred years ago?"

"No; I'm afraid not. I don't believe she knows more than you do about it. But she will delight in the plate. Which reminds me, your uncle has promised to put the unfortunate pitcher together for me. And in its mended condition it will appear more ancient than ever. I cannot say that George Washington broke it with his little hatchet; but I can have a legend about you connected with it, and tell it to your grandchildren when I show it to them fifty years hence. Unto them I will discover--not a swan's nest among the reeds, as Mrs. Browning has it, but an old yellow pitcher that their lovely grandmother was in trouble about fifty years ago."

"It will be a hundred and fifty years old then," returned Marjorie, seriously, "and I think," she added rebukingly, "that _you_ were building castles then."

"I had you and the pitcher for the foundation," said Miss Prudence, in a tone of mock humility.

"Don't you think--" Marjorie's face had a world of suggestion in it--"that 'The Swan's Nest' is bad influence for girls? Little Ellie sits alone and builds castles about her lover, even his horse is 'shod in silver, housed in azure' and a thousand serfs do call him master, and he says 'O, Love, I love but thee.'"

"But all she looks forward to is showing him the swan's nest among the reeds! And when she goes home, around a mile, as she did daily, lo, the wild swan had deserted and a rat had gnawed the reeds. That was the end of her fine castle!"

"'If she found the lover, ever,
Sooth, I know not, but I know
She could never show him, never,
That swan's nest among the reeds,'"

quoted Marjorie. "So it did all come to nothing."

"As air-castles almost always do. But we'll hope she found something better."

"Do people?" questioned Marjorie.

"Hasn't God things laid up for us better than we can ask or think or build castles about?"

"I _hope_ so," said Marjorie; "but Hollis Rheid's mother told mother yesterday that her life was one long disappointment."

"What did your mother say?"

"She said 'Oh, Mrs. Rheid, it won't be if you get to Heaven, at last.'"

"I think not."

"But she doesn't expect to go to Heaven, she says. Mother says she's almost in 'despair' and she pities her so!"

"Poor woman! I don't see how she can live through despair. The old proverb 'If it were not for hope, the heart would break,' is most certainly true."

"Why didn't you come before?" asked Marjorie, caressing the hand that still played with the fan.

"Perhaps you never lived on a farm and cannot understand. I could not come in the ox-cart because the oxen were in the field, and every day since I heard of your accident your uncle has had to drive your aunt to Portland on some business. And I did not feel strong enough to walk until this morning."

"How good you are to walk!"

"As good as you are to walk to see me."

"Oh, but I am young and strong, and I wanted to see you so, and ask you questions so."

"I believe the latter," said Miss Prudence smiling.

"Well, I'm happy now," Marjorie sighed, with the burden of her trouble still upon her. "Suppose I had been killed when I fell and had not told you about the pitcher nor made amends for it."

"I don't believe any of us could be taken away without one moment to make ready and not leave many things undone--many tangled threads and rough edges to be taken care of. We are very happy if we have no sin to confess, no wrong to make right."

"I think Hollis would have taken care of the plate for me," said Marjorie, simply; "but I wanted to tell you myself. Mother wants to go home as suddenly as that would have been for me, she says. I shouldn't wonder if she prays about it--she prays about everything. Do people have _that_ kind of a prayer answered?"

"I have known more than one instance--and I read about a gentleman who had desired to be taken suddenly and he was killed by lightning while sitting on his own piazza."

"Oh!" said Marjorie.

"That was all he could have wished. And the mother of my pastor at home, who was over ninety, was found dead on her knees at her bedside, and she had always wished to be summoned suddenly."

"When she was speaking to him, too," murmured Marjorie. "I like old people, don't you? Hollis' grandmother is at his house and Mrs. Rheid wants me to go to see her; she is ninety-three and blind, and she loves to tell stories about herself, and I am to stay all day and listen to her and take up her stitches when she drops them in her knitting work and read the Bible to her. She won't listen to anything but the Bible; she says she's too old to hear other books read."

"What a treat you will have!"

"Isn't it lovely? I never had _that_ day in my air-castles, either. Nor you coming to stay all day with me, nor writing to Hollis. I had a letter from him last night, the funniest letter! I laughed all the time I was reading it. He begins: 'Poor little Mousie,' and ends, 'ours, till next time.' I'll show it to you. He doesn't say much about Helen. I shall tell him if I write about his mother he must write about Helen. I'm sorry to tell him what his mother said yesterday about herself but I promised and I must be faithful."

"I hope you will have happy news to write soon."

"I don't know; she says the minister doesn't do her any good, nor reading the Bible nor praying. Now what can help her?"

"God," was the solemn reply. "She has had to learn that the minister and Bible reading and prayer are not God. When she is sure that God will do all the helping and saving, she will be helped and saved. Perhaps she has gone to the minister and the Bible instead of to God, and she may have thought her prayers could save her instead of God."

"She said she was in despair because they did not help her and she did not know where to turn next," said Marjorie, who had listened with sympathetic eyes and aching heart.

"Don't worry about her, dear, God is teaching her to turn to himself."

"I told her about the plate, but she did not seem to care much. What different things people _do_ care about!" exclaimed Marjorie, her eyes alight with the newness of her thought.

"Mrs. Harrowgate will never be perfectly satisfied until she has a memorial of Pompeii. I've promised when I explore underground I'll find her a treasure. Your Holland plate is something for her small collection; she has but eighty-seven pieces of china, while a friend of hers has gathered together two hundred."

"What do _you_ care for most, Miss Prudence?

"In the way of collections? I haven't shown you my penny buried in the lava of Mt. Vesuvius; I told my friend that savored of Pompeii, the only difference is one is above ground and the other underneath, but I couldn't persuade her to believe it."

"I don't mean collecting coins or things; I mean what do you care for _most_?"

"If you haven't discovered, I cannot care very much for what I care for most."

Marjorie laughed at this way of putting it, then she answered gravely: "I do know. I think you care most--" she paused, choosing her phrase carefully--"to help people make something out of themselves."

"Thank you. That's fine. I never put it so excellently to myself."

"I haven't found out what I care most for."