Chapter VI (3)

"I will buy her a gown or two in Paris," said the new brother-in-law. "We shall sail next week, and be gone a year, or perhaps longer."

But three years passed before the little house on Capitol Hill had to be vacated by its tenant in favor of the owners, who walked in upon the Jones family one day, when the harvest apples were ripe, and the two girls sat upon the porch of the farm-house paring a bowlful of them for supper.

"What is the change in Rosa?" mother and sisters asked each other when the pair had gone back to town the next morning. Mrs. Brent was even more beautiful than she had been as a girl. She did not look unhappy. Yet there was a difference.

The family found out what it meant when they began to visit the little house in town. Rosa had found another guide than her own sweet will. She no longer idled the days away, but sat patiently upon her little stool and painted from morning till late in the afternoon, while Brent--the personification of vigilance--hovered about, pipe in mouth, seeing to the thousand and one things about the house, which, except for his superintendence, kept itself, and dividing the rest of his attention between Rosa's canvas and his own.

"Do you know," said Caroline, indignantly, "that Rosa--our lazy little Rosa--has made fifteen hundred dollars the past year, while Brent has only made three hundred?"

"That's what he married her for," said Minnie, with a rapid inspiration. "I wondered what impelled him. I thought it wasn't love."

"My dear, he seems very fond of her," said Mrs. Jones, divided between a wish to cry and a wish to make the best of it.

"He _is_ fond of her," declared Caroline, "and she's fond of him. But if ever a girl found a master she has. He makes her work as I never expected to see Rosa work. Not at housework, dear me, no! She is not to waste her precious strength on such things. She is to devote herself to art, which is to make _her_ reputation and _his_ living. That's all there is to it."

"Perhaps it is not the worst thing that could have happened to her," mused Minnie. "There is a kind of nature that needs to be compelled to make the best of itself."

"Don't you want some brute of an Englishman to compel you to make the best of yourself?" snapped Caroline.

"No," answered Minnie, quietly. "What would do for Rosa would never suit me."

"Well, I think we had better go in and take some peaches and straighten up that disorderly house," said the elder sister.

They found Rosa sitting absorbed over a beautiful screen which was a piece of ordered work, to cost a hundred and fifty dollars, while Brent stood at the kitchen door, smoking placidly as he contemplated a tableful of unwashed dishes.

"Come in, sisters both," he said, gaily. "But don't stop Rosa just now; she hates to be interrupted when she is at work."

AN AWAKENING[7]

"AND who is that tall young man in the store, who stood there as if nothing could induce him to take his hands from his pockets?"

Miss Stretton's companion looked as if he were mystified by her scornful tone. "That's Albert Johnson," he answered in his matter-of-fact way. "He's only been back hyar about six months. A couple o' years ago he went down to Texas and made about five hundred dollars, and then, all to onct, he turned up hyar again. He's nephew to old Johnson, and stays in th' store, mostly."

"Doing what?" asked Miss Stretton, crisply.

"Why, doin' whatever's to do," answered Jerry Douglas with his thin laugh. He was a tall, bony youth, with gray eyes and a delicate mouth. Although unformed and shy, there was a hint of character about him; which was the reason why Miss Stretton gave him the honor of her company that morning on his trip to Stoneyton. It was partly in pursuance of her amiable wish to draw him out, and partly because she liked the ride on horseback. She was usually talkative, but now they ambled along the dusty pike in silence.

"Ah--I jest thought of it, Miss Julia," Jerry said suddenly. "Old Johnson's got a nice horse he might let you have. Bert's been ridin' it since he come back, but he can't want it all th' time. I'll see if I kin git it fur you, if you say so."

"Of course I say so, Jerry," retorted Miss Stretton, coming out of her brown study and turning her bright blue eyes upon him. "And why didn't you think of it before? But I know it takes you Virginia young men a long time."

Young Douglas laughed again uneasily. "I s'pose we're ruther backward compared to th' men you know, but you must recollect we've been under a cloud since th' war. We haven't got eddication, and consequently we feel at a disadvantage. Me, now, I've been to school, but what do I know? Th' only thing's fur me to go ter Texas."

"Yes, and make a little money and come back again and loaf around till it is spent," commented the girl inwardly. But she said aloud, "Don't be disheartened, Jerry. It isn't what we know that counts; it's what we do."

"What I want t' do is t' make money," Jerry muttered; "only th' people home won't let me go 'way."

"Your time will come if you don't give up, never fear," she returned kindly, as they rode up to the stile and he awkwardly helped her off the great plow-horse.

She stood at the gate for a minute, watching the angular, boyish figure lead the horse to the stable, heard the rough but not unkindly, "Go in thar, now, Victor--stand, sir!" And then all was still.

In front of the low frame-house was a small, trim garden, with two beds of red geranium bordered by bits of whitened oyster-shells. Behind, lay the fields; to the left, the stable, pig-sty and orchard. On the right, was an unkempt bit of woods, thick with undergrowth. Some day they were going to cut out that undergrowth, which obstructed the fine view of the hills beyond.

"Some day," mused Miss Stretton, "great things are to be done!" And yet she was not without pity as she contemplated the few acres of worn-out land, the meager cattle, the small, uncertain fruit-crop which made the living of the worthy lady, Mrs. Douglas, and her sluggish, semi-invalid husband. This summer they had for the first time followed the example of their neighbors and augmented their income by taking two summer boarders; there was not room for more.

Two or three days went by, and Jerry had apparently done nothing about the horse. Miss Stretton's dearest wish was to hire an animal on which she might take her daily rides with credit to herself and less jarring of her bones. The great beast now at her service resembled some creature in process of transformation to some other species, so shambling, so long-mouthed, so ashamed of his own appearance did he seem. But, rendered desperate by Jerry's procrastination, she mounted Prince one morning and turned toward the village.

"You have shaken me to pieces--you, Prince!" she said reproachfully as she stopped him in front of the store.

Stoneyton was perhaps the very smallest village ever dignified by the name. There was a church, the store, and two neighboring houses, one beside the store and one just across the narrow street. Two swaying elms almost covered this space with their low-hanging branches, and a broken wagon shaft lying in the way made it difficult for a vehicle to turn there. A cart and horse now stood in the road, its driver absent. There was, for a rarity, no one on the stoop; all was unusually still; and Miss Stretton, waiting impatiently until the driver should come out and start off, leaving the road again a thoroughfare, sat still on her tall steed, and let her eyes roam dreamily around on the well-known but ever-pleasing landscape.

The customer came out, and with her came young Mr. Johnson, who stowed away her parcels, helped her into the wagon, and handed her the reins before he turned to the pretty girl with a tinge of color still dyeing his brown cheek.

"Is--your uncle in?" asked Miss Stretton sweetly.

He was very sorry, but his uncle had gone to Port Royal that morning to see a sick sister. Could he do anything for her?

"Well," she said, hesitating, "I suppose you might do just as well, only--I had expected to talk with your uncle."

Young Johnson looked puzzled but admiring. It was the admiration in his splendid dark eyes that embarrassed her. To the city girls who came up to the mountain every one of these little country stores, and every farm which boasted a son or two of some old, impoverished family, furnished an escort to dances and picnics, and the beau of a summer. Miss Stretton was not exempt from girlish weaknesses, and as the handsome countryman stood there waiting for her probable order for ribbons or candy or stationery, she wished that she could settle her little matter of business with some one else.

But she took it like a douche at last, all at once. "Jerry told me that your uncle has a nice riding-horse, and I want one for a month or so. Would he hire it? Could I arrange the matter with you?"

"Well, the horse is mine, in fact. Uncle made a present of it to me," explained Albert, kicking a little stone in the road.

"Oh!" said the young lady. The affair was now a nuisance to both of them. For her part, she felt that, if she proceeded, there must ensue some pecuniary loss in the transaction; she must be large and uncalculating. On the other hand, Albert shrank from the mention of dollars and cents, although if the matter had been conducted through a third party, he would not have hesitated to make something out of the Yankee girl. Being a Virginian, he could not now put a cool, business face upon it. It occurred to him that he would like to drive her down to the hop at Berryville to-morrow night. How would it look to make bargains before tendering an invitation!

He looked up and down the road; the soft breeze from over the hills just rustled the leaves, the low grunt of a porker reached their ears from around the house, a dog barked somewhere, but no figure disturbed the scene; nobody was coming, they must talk it out.

"Well?" she interrogated impatiently. She looked very graceful and saucy. He glanced upward and caught her fleeting smile.

"I'll tell you what, Miss Stretton," he said with the relief of an inspiration, "you mustn't make bargains in the dark. Try my Sultana to-morrow, and if she goes to suit you, we'll talk further."

"All right, Mr. Johnson, and I'm extremely obliged to you." She was grateful for the suggestion; Jerry should be messenger next time.

They were now at ease and could look one another frankly in the face. Each knew the other well by hearsay. Who did not know of the Johnson family, who had lived on the same fine old place for a hundred years and more? And to which of the inquisitive natives was the affable young lady a stranger when she had been staying for a fortnight at the Douglas farm? It was quite conventional for them to call each other by name and to linger a few minutes talking.

She rode off finally, with a charming smile, and Albert went into the dingy store whistling, with his hands in his pockets; handsome and lazy, and with nothing better to do than to recline on the counter and recollect each detail of the conversation.

The next morning he made taking the horse over an excuse for a call, and obtained her promise to go with him to the hop. Every one went; the road was gay with vehicles of every description, and on the ten-mile drive there and back their acquaintance grew old. If Miss Stretton knew how to talk, Albert could listen eloquently.

Afterward she tried to recall something sensible and original in his talk, which would account for the pleasure she had taken in his company, but there was nothing in her memory save confused impressions of what he must have meant.

"What a shame," she said to herself vehemently, "for a young man of intelligence and versatility--he knows many things and could know more if he tried--to be playing fifth wheel to a coach on a stupid country road--clerk in that little store which a girl of twelve could manage alone!"

And as soon as the chance came, she told him this, indirectly, and with many a friendly ameliorating glance. Albert took her lecture meekly. It came one morning when they were riding together. She had found Sultana delightful, and he had made a joking bargain, letting her ride if he might ride with her when he had time and his mother's horse could be spared from the farm. And so this little matter was adjusted without any reference to money.

It was rare pleasure to the city girl to gallop over the open country of a fair August morning before the sun grew red; the fresh breeze from the Blue Ridges colored her cheeks and lighted up her eyes, while it filled her mind with longings, arousing her energy.

"It is energy that you young men lack," she admonished him in a sweet, deferential tone. "Energy! Chalk it up on the fences, and spell it out as you saunter along these dull little country lanes."

Albert thought best to treat it as a joke, but that only made her more earnest. Then he changed his tactics, and met the reproach by a degree of pathetic admission that unsettled her.

She found it a fascinating pastime to chide this handsome idler for making little use of his abilities and she longed to be able to exert a strongly stimulating influence. But when he told her that, on the whole, he enjoyed his life as it was and had no wish to change it, that there was virtue in contentment and that he appreciated his lot, much as she seemed to despise it----

"I didn't say I despised it!" she exclaimed, abashed, her airy ambitions seeming for an instant less grand. But when she looked at her young Alcibiades, lost in the luxury of peace, she pined to send him forth among men to do battle for the things men care to win. And yet the girl had such tact that her touch did not irritate. The young Southerner felt her thrilling tones move him pleasantly; she cooled his languid breath like a fresh North wind coming in the summer heat. Throughout, his face wore the same look of rich, indolent peace. One day, however, he opened his splendid, dark eyes wide, and asked her just what she would have a man do to prove himself a man.

Miss Stretton was as vague and inexperienced as women usually are who urge extraordinary feats upon men in whom they are interested. But not to seem foolish, she took the matter into consideration.

"I'll give you time," he said, laughing when she hesitated, "but--you have been so hard on me, Miss Julia, that I really must press the question home."

After this she listened to the reports about him, and heard much of his sweet temper under provocation--to which, she owned, she herself could testify--of his kindness of heart, his courage, his goodness to his feeble mother. The country people relied upon him; his moral character was spotless. Yet, even while she learned to admire him, she was not satisfied. Seeing her gem thus proved real, made her the more determined to bring out its luster.

His question was carried gravely in her mind, and she forbore to resume the subject until she could say something wise and practical.

They met often, there were so many affairs during the summer to bring them together, hops, drives, and picnics, and then the camp-meetings, which brought out all the county. She saw him sometimes in attendance on his mother there, always gentlemanly and good, where the other boys were openly rowdy. She saw him in the store, always patient with the freaks of customers and with the cross humors of his uncle.

And one day she met him (and her heart was touched) carrying along the road a little crying child, whose bare toes were crinkled up with the hurt from a sharp stone. The ragamuffin sat perched upon the broad shoulder and peered down at the lady with eyes of cerulean blue. He hugged his friend a little closer but with undiminished confidence. Albert colored slightly, but walked along beside the stylish girl without apologizing for his burden.

"Can't I do something for the little fellow?" she asked gently, and being used to children (she was a school teacher), she saw in a minute what the matter was, and taking from her purse a piece of court-plaster, she made Albert set him down while she applied it to the cut. If her fingers shrank from the dirty little foot neither of her watchers saw it.

"There, little man, does that feel better?"

"I wants ter b' toted," said the urchin, irrelevantly.

"Of course," said Albert, shouldering him again. "Didn't I promise to carry you clear home? But if the lady had done something for me, I'd have thanked her, heh?"

But the child's face expressed only a vacant sort of contentment.

And they all went on together until they reached a poor house where a woman stood at the door, looking anxiously up and down the road. As her boy was brought to her, she caught him up, with a shake and a kiss delivered simultaneously.

"That's jus' like ye, Albert," she said gruffly. "I've been ter'ble worried fur th' past hour--feared he'd got runned over. Yer ma well?"

"Middling, thank you, Mrs. Smithers."

Then he rubbed his handkerchief over his forehead and asked Miss Stretton if she was going "to town" this hot day.

"Yes, I'm trying to walk off a restless fit, and I have a letter to mail."

"Better give that to me. See, I've picked up three or four along the road and got half-a-dozen commissions--hope I shan't forget 'em."

"Are you general errand-boy?" she demanded impatiently.

"You wouldn't want me to be unneighborly? Besides," he added with a twinkle in his eye, "I thought you found fault with me for not being useful!"

"Oh, no, not in that way. Don't you suppose I see that you are useful here, that everybody likes you and depends upon you--but it is such a waste of yourself to be busied with such little things--there are larger places to be filled elsewhere----"

"And larger men to fill them," he said seriously. "There ain't as much to me as you suppose. It seems to me my place is here, right in this little sleepy village. I can be a help to my uncle and to others, and my mother can't do without me."

"Oh!" she cried sharply. This was a stumbling-block she had to recognize. Yet she found that he hardly understood her. She wanted to stir him up to discontent with himself and his surroundings, so that he might be led to enlarge his mental outlook. The thing was for him first to become enlightened, aspiring, superior to his friends--action would follow.

Although it is hard for a man to follow the rapid deviations of a woman's mind, yet the most phlegmatic have their moments of insight. Miss Stretton had revealed a great deal more than she was aware to the young countryman, and he was less dull than he seemed. It came to him that there was something that he wanted to say, but all his ideas grew confused as he thought. He looked around with an uncertain, wistful gaze. He was only a poor man, surrounded by commonplace, meager things; advantages had been lacking to him; perhaps, as she had said, he had not improved his chances. And yet it seemed to him that he had done his duty.

"I know our farmers' lives up here must seem mean to you," he said slowly, "poor and small. You think we might do more and make more out of ourselves. Well, maybe we might. I think that, after a while, we'll find new things to do. I thought once I'd strike out, and I went to Texas. But can you fancy what life is down there among the cattle-drovers? I couldn't stand it, Miss Stretton. I didn't love money well enough to sink myself quite so low. And so I came back. Maybe you think I lay 'round a heap, but I do all that comes in my way, and somebody'd have to do it. If I was ambitious, I s'pose I'd want to be something else besides a country storekeeper, but it seems to me there's more love in my heart for this poor land and for my neighbors than for anything else. I'm not of a restless disposition, and yet I've got my share of pride. I'm not old yet,"--the fine figure straightening a little, involuntarily--"and maybe after a while something else will come to me that I can do."

"And you are content to wait for it--the chance--to come, are you?" she asked, bending her earnest gaze upon him.

"I won't quote the only bit of Milton I remember, but I believe I serve a useful purpose even while I wait for promotion--that is, what you think promotion."

The girl was silenced. She could not exactly understand how a man could be like this, yet in the midst of her defeat was a feeling of triumph in him. Through the _far niente_ her energetic mind had so despised there came the gleam of a fine thought, a real purpose, before which her woman's nature bowed, rejoicing. Obeying a common impulse, they lingered in the lane.

"They need a new teacher in this district," said Albert abruptly, and looking full at her. "If it is your mission to put energy into us, why not begin the missionary work there? Take the boys young."

She had no reply to this but a look of reproach. He had put away her friendship for himself, he recommended her to other matters. Tacitly, he implied that she was incapable of the sacrifice involved in his suggestion. It was ironical.

She turned to walk on, but Albert started and caught her hand. "Don't be angry, Miss Julia! I only meant that it would be less dangerous with them than it has been with me. I--I am more stirred than you would like me to be----"

His blazing eyes transfixed her. For an instant she stared, then drew her hand away and put it up to her face.

"Yes," he continued brokenly, "I know it's no use to speak, you couldn't condescend to this paltry existence--you want the fulness and brightness of the city,--the company of an educated man. There isn't anything about me that's fit to associate with you. Well? I must beg pardon, I s'pose, and yet I couldn't forbear letting you know that, while you've been trying to put some vim into the lazy country fellow, you've waked up his heart, at least."

Miss Stretton uncovered her face. They confronted one another--the bright, sweet girl, the handsome youth, aglow with passion.

The land was poverty-stricken, the promise small, but there was freshness, beauty, peace all about. "He is good, he is noble," she thought. There crept into her face something that amazed him, but he did not stop to wonder at it. He saw fortune sweeping down a shower of gold at his feet, and it was no time to question her beneficence. By a step he lessened the little distance between them, and the two shadows melted into one along the sunny lane.

"You are far brighter than I, Julia," he murmured after a while, "though your reasoning has never moved me any. But if you love me!--I think you will do whatever you wish with me."

"I didn't mean this, at all," she returned, her lovely face sparkling with tears and smiles both at once. In her heart she felt that it was her nature, not his, which the future might change.

Yet, when they concluded to walk on to the store, she looked about with a sense of responsibility and an eye to changes to come, while he--his face flushed with happiness--lounged beside her in the old indolent way--unreproved.

APPLE BLOSSOMS[8]

IN the clean, large kitchen of a Virginia farm-house sat an old woman alone, knitting. She had been pretty once; fifty years ago that wrinkled yellow skin had been called "creamy," and the scant gray hair drawn back under the plain cap had been a shower of brown curls. And she had coquetted with Judge Holt and turned away from him at the last to marry plain Nathan Bennett, living with him in rare contentment for two-score years, and then coming to spend the remnant of her days with her daughter Ann. Now Ann, too, was gone, and only the children were left; Ben and Nancy, and her own adopted child, Lura Ann.

She smoothed down her neat gray cashmere gown, which had been her "second best" dress since Ann's death, and leaned back more comfortably against the cushioned surface of the splint rocking-chair.

"They're good children," she said to herself,--"excepting Nancy. And she's not so bad as might be." She cast a satisfied glance at the meadows and fields stretching as far as her eyes could reach, and then looked lovingly at the dwarf apple-trees whose branches pressed against the window-shutters. Some of the pink blossoms lay on the ledge. It was May. The flies were buzzing, the sparrows twittering, as they stole cotton from the body of a doll lying in the yard and flew up to the roof with it.

A little girl came around the house and picked up the doll, shook it, looked up at the eaves where the mother sparrow sat, muttered something in an angry tone, and entered the house, singing. She sang: "The apples were ripe and beginning to fall, beginning to fall!"

"Ah, yes," said her grandmother, "you'll see the apples fall a many times, but I shall scarcely see 'em more'n once more--once or twice more, at most. Well, well, I'll be contented to die if only I can live to see my boy and Lura Ann----" then she stopped, meeting the child's bright eyes.

"Lura Ann is going to marry Sackford Moss," said the child.

An angry flush came over the old woman's thin face; she jerked her knitting, and one of her needles fell to the floor.

"Now you're mad, granny, and it's wicked to be mad, so I shan't hand you your knitting-needle," sang the little girl, in a silvery voice.

"Then you'll have no stockings to wear when the biting frost comes; but you don't care--you don't care. 'Tis a generation that thinks not of the future, but works its will in the present," moaned the old woman, folding her hands together hard.

"I'll hand you your needle if you'll tell Lura Ann to make waffles for supper," said the sharp child; but her grandmother looked upon her with disfavor and did not reply. After a moment the little girl came quietly forward and laid the needle on her lap, but the old woman did not resume her knitting. She sat with her hands folded, and looked at intervals out of the window, but with a much-wrinkled brow.

A door opened, and Lura Ann came in with a wide straw hat on. She was tall, slim, and fair, with deep gray eyes, heavy-lidded and long-lashed, and a little red mouth whose short upper lip just raised itself enough to give a glimpse of small, pearly teeth. She looked shy and sweet.

"I am going to town, grandaunt," she said, timidly. "Shall I bring you some more yarn?"

The old woman straightened herself and looked sternly at the maiden. "Be you a-going to marry Sackford Moss?" she asked shrilly.

The pretty lips closed together, and no answer came from them.

"She's going to buy her wedding-gown now," cried the child, getting up quickly from her stool. "Say, Lura Ann, can I go with you?"

"You stay right hyar, Nancy, and take care of granny," said Lura Ann, with some severity. Then she went out, murmuring to herself: "They all think the same thing."

She walked steadily out through the front gate and along the road to town. It was two miles distant, and the air was close and dusty. Her little black shoes were soon specked, and the hem of her dress gathered soil by dipping against them. The blue merino scarf over her shoulders made her too warm, but she did not dare take it off, because it covered a large patch under her arm.

A handsome road-wagon, drawn by a pair of bay horses, dashed up suddenly beside her. The driver leaned forward and touched his hat with an air of devotion.

"Just in time, Lura Ann," he cried, gaily. "Come, get in, and I'll drive you to town and wherever else you want to go."

"No, I thank you," said Lura Ann.

But he got down and urged her cordially. The high, shaded seat looked delightful. The fine horses tossed their heads and pawed impatiently. The long road stretched out, hot and dusty. Walking she would get to town looking like a fright, and it would take much longer. The last consideration had a weight known to nobody but herself. She let Sackford help her up into the seat and draw the linen duster over her knees. Covertly he examined her dress.

"Going to shop?" he asked; adding carelessly: "Burns has got in quite a lot of new goods. My sisters were in last week and bought a carriage load. But they are nothing to what is in the city. I am going to the city soon. Emily has been teasing me to buy her a lace dress. How pretty you would look in a lace dress, Lura Ann, with a little lace bonnet on your soft brown hair, trimmed with rosebuds just the color of your lips!"

Lura Ann's cheeks grew pinker than the bunch of apple blossoms at her throat. "Your sisters and I air different people," she said, in her plaintive, soft voice.

Sackford feasted his eyes in the blush. The veins in his short, thick neck began to swell, and he shifted the reins to his right hand and laid the left across the back of the seat. But Lura Ann sat up very straight.

"Lean back and be comfortable," he urged.

"Take away your arm then, please," faltered Lura Ann. And just then Ben Falconer, coming across a field in his coarse working clothes, saw her drooping with the blush upon her cheek and Sackford's arm about her waist. He stood still, and looked after the handsome team with a frown and a sigh. Lura Ann had not seen him, but Sackford had, and secretly blessed the hour. Yet he did not dare kiss Lura Ann, as he had intended.

"Where shall I take you first?" he asked, as they entered the town.

"To Mr. Wright's, if you please."

"Of course--he holds some little money belonging to her, I've heard," thought Sackford.

"Don't wait for me," she said, but he waited, and she was gone a long time. When she came out she was pale, as if she had been worried. Yet she looked resolute, and spoke in a tone that had lost all its timidity.

"Take me to the old red brick house at the end of the street," she said, eagerly, "and oh be quick!"

"Why, what's the attraction in that old rookery--a new milliner?" jested Sackford. He could not conceive the idea of a woman's being interested in anything but clothes.

Lura Ann's slim hand closed tightly under her shawl about the old purse that had come out empty and was now full to bursting with currency. Five hundred dollars! She was of age to-day, and had drawn it in her own name, every cent. Milliner! Yes, her hat was shabby, but no matter about that.

Sackford was smiling to himself at her excitement as he helped her out on to the stone step before the old red brick house. She rang the bell, and there was no response. Her courage seemed to be oozing away as she waited.

"Better come back," called Sackford. But she shook her head and applied herself to the bell again. After a moment a shuffling step approached and the door opened a few inches, allowing a man's head to be seen. He was old and grim-looking. Lura Ann said something low and timidly, and after a look of keen scrutiny he let her in.

Sackford felt an indescribable reluctance to have her go in.

After about five minutes she appeared at the door with a paper in her hand, and beckoned him. He sprang out quickly, tied his horses, and stepped into the hall beside her.

"Oh, please see if that is all right," she entreated, putting a legal paper in his hand. "You are a lawyer, and _he_--this gentleman, said to let you see it."

Sackford glanced from it to her, saw her total unconsciousness of anything out of the way, frowned, bit his lip, and examined the document with care.

"It is all right," he then said. "It is a full release. Is this what you want?"

"Yes, oh, yes, thank you! and I am much obliged to you, sir," she added, sweetly, to the grim old man who stood looking on from the background.

He bowed sardonically. "The obligation is on my side, young lady," he said.

"By Jove! It is on somebody else's side," thought Sackford, as he put Lura Ann back into the vehicle; adding, aloud, "I don't like this."

"Ah, but you don't know," said Lura Ann, pleadingly. Her long lashes grew moist. "It is the wish of grandaunt's heart to have the farm free from this mortgage. I always felt as if the debt had been made because of me. She took me when father died--I was a tiny child of three--and oh, they have always been so good to me!"

Sackford's frown did not soften. It was surprising how surly his shrewd, coarse face became. "But whose _is_ the farm?" he asked. "That release was made out to Ben Falconer."

"Yes, but it is just the same. Grandaunt made over her share of the farm to him, and he cares for all of us. He is the best man in the world--my cousin Ben."

"The world--what do you know of the world?" said Sackford. "But, see here, Lura Ann, do you understand? You have given away all your little fortune and left yourself penniless."

"Yes," said Lura Ann, simply. There was something in her face that checked further speech upon his part. She was a foolish, improvident child, and rather too confiding toward this cousin Ben of hers, but she was very pretty--wonderfully pretty--and, after all, he had money enough. If five hundred dollars had rid her of her sense of obligation, the price was cheap. A sigh came here, for Sackford Moss did not love to part with money. But feeling that he had better put this subject out of his mind, he smoothed his face and tried to regain his former jovial, easy bearing. Lura Ann heard his talk as if it sounded from a far-off country. But suddenly there was a question; it brought her with a start to a sense of her surroundings. His face was bent down close to hers; his breath--she shuddered and turned her head. Then the answer came, clear and final. What could he do after that but whip up the horses and hasten on?

At the farm gate he let her down and drove away without a backward glance. A spray of withered apple blossoms fell from her dress into the dust, and his wheel passed over it.

But she walked up the path with a step like the toss of thistledown and a heart as light.

The old woman was again looking from the window. She nodded kindly, but her brow was careworn. "Nancy laid the fire," she said. "It's five o'clock. I think it's going to rain. Ben has worked too hard lately. He's in his room with a headache."

"I'll get tea in a minute," said Lura Ann. "But first, grandaunt, look hyar!" She laid off her hat and scarf, and came and knelt on the stool at the old woman's feet. "See," and she opened the paper. "It is a release from the mortgage! It is my gift to you, grandaunt, bought with the money uncle left me. The farm is free!"

The old woman's hands trembled as she laid them on the beautiful young head. "The Lord bless you, child!" she murmured. But in a moment came the after-thought. "Lura Ann, it has taken everything!" she exclaimed. "You haven't a dollar left to buy your wedding-gown!"

The stair door opened, and Ben came down from his room, carrying a little hand-mirror in a carved wooden frame. He was a fine specimen of young manhood, tall, straight, and strong. His dark brown eyes showed intelligence and depth of feeling. Over his features--naturally good--was now cast the reflection of that victory which makes a man "greater than he that taketh a city." He advanced with an air of cheerfulness.

"Lura Ann, I did not forget that this is your birthday. I carved this frame for you myself, and I wish you----"

"Ben!" cried his grandmother. "Lura Ann has bought off the mortgage!"

"And I'm going to light the fire with it," cried Lura Ann a little tremulously, and springing up.

But Ben came and took it from her quickly. He did not comprehend the legal phrases as Sackford had done, but he gathered the sense. His fine eyes began to brighten and glow as they rested on his cousin's face, now averted and blushing.

"Lura Ann, let me see your wedding-gown," exclaimed Nancy, coming in; and Lura Ann grew rose red, but she made a violent effort to free herself from this wretched mistake.

"I haven't got any--I'm not going to have any!" she cried hysterically, turning to strike a match to the fire. "What do I want of a wedding-gown when I'm not going to be married?"

"But Sackford Moss said----" began Nancy, with staring eyes.

"Bother Sackford Moss!" said Lura Ann, pettishly, trembling with nervousness under Ben's grave eyes.

"He said he was going to take you away from us!" finished the persistent child.

"Well, he isn't!" said Lura Ann emphatically. Then she would have liked to flee to her room, but Ben was still standing before her.

"Nancy," he said, in singularly happy tones, "go, get in the young chickens, quick. Don't you see how fast the rain is coming?" And Nancy, who always obeyed her brother, went.

Then Ben, conscious of the whole evening before him, let Lura Ann get supper and clear it away, before supplementing by a single word the tender, hopeful look in his eyes.

But an hour later, when the shower had passed, they stood together on the stoop, which was covered with fallen apple blossoms. The clouds were gone and the sky was clear blue, except for a trail of gold in the west. The fields lay green and wet. They looked at sky and fields, and at last into each other's eyes, and there their gaze rested.

"How sweet the air is after the rain," said the old woman.

"It is the apple blossoms," said Ben, from the stoop; and gathering up a handful he let them fall in a shower over Lura Ann's head.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Copyright, 1897 and 1898, by S. H. Moore & Co.

[2] Copyright, 1900, by the F. M. Lupton Publishing Co.

[3] Copyright, 1893, by Romance Publishing Co.

[4] Copyright, 1899, by "The Housewife."

[5] Copyright, 1899, by S. H. Moore & Co.

[6] Copyright, 1896, by "The Independent."

[7] Copyright, 1896, by "The Independent."

[8] Copyright, 1896, by "The Independent."

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| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. |
| |
| Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant |
| form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. |
| |
| Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. |
| |
| Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, |
| _like this_. |
| |
| Duplicated chapter headings have been omitted. |
| |
| Footnotes were moved to the end of the book and numbered in one |
| continuous sequence. |
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End of Project Gutenberg's Southern Hearts, by Florence Hull Winterburn