Chapter IV: Part 4

"I used to be. I tried to mould her. Don't _you_ ever try to mould any body; now run away to your work or to your book! Don't sigh over me, I am 'well and hearty.' How short my life seems when I look back. Such dreams as I had. It's all right, though."

She could not run away, for the door-bell, in answer to a most decided pull, detained her; she opened it, expecting to see Mr. Hammerton, but to her surprise, and but slightly to her pleasure, Felix Harrison stood there in broad-shouldered health.

"Good evening," she said with some bewilderment.

"Do I startle you?" he asked in the old gracious, winning manner. "May I come in?"

"I am very glad to see you. Will you walk into my parlor, Mr. Fly?"

The one tall candle in the china candlestick was the only light in the room. She set it upon the table, saying, "Excuse me, and I will bring a light, that we may the better look at each other. The light of other days is hardly sufficient."

"It is enough for me," he said, pushing the ottoman towards one of the low arm-chairs. "Sit down and I will take the ottoman. The parrot recognizes me."

Her hand moved nervously on the arm of her chair; the hand was larger now than when it had spilled ink on his copy-book, larger even than when it had written her first, shy, proud, indignant refusal.

"You are not the tempest you used to be," he said smiling after a survey of her face.

"_Wasn't_ I a tempest? I have outgrown my little breezes. In time I may become as gentle as a zephyr."

"You always were gentle enough."

"Not to you."

"Not to me when I tormented you."

"Probably I should not be gentle if I were tormented now."

She had never decided to which of the five thousand shades of green Felix Harrison's eyes belonged; they were certainly green; one of the English poets had green eyes, she wondered if they were like Felix Harrison's. To-night they glittered as if they were no color at all. This face beside her was a spiritualized face; a strong mouth as sweet as a woman's, a round benevolent chin; a low, square forehead; hair as light as her own; his side face as he turned at least five years younger than the full face; she had often laughed at his queer fashion of growing old and growing young. At times, in the years when they were more together than of late, he had changed so greatly that, after not having seen him for several days she had passed him in the street without recognition; these times had been in those indignant times after she had refused him; that they were more than indignant times to him she was made painfully aware by these changes in his rugged face.

"I have been thinking over those foolish times," she said, breaking the silence. "I am glad that you came in to-night; I am in a mood for confessing my wrong-doings; I have said many quick words; you know you always had the talent for irritating me."

"Yes, I always worried you."

"You did not intend to," she said hastily, watching the movement of his lips; "we did not understand, that is all. It takes longer than a summer and a winter for heart to answer to heart."

"We have known each other many summers and many winters."

"And now we are old, sensible, hard-working people; having given up all nonsense we are discovering the sense there is in sense."

He turned his face with a listening look in his eyes.

"Did not some one come in? Shall we be disturbed?"

"Not unless we wish to be. It is only Mr. Hammerton, he is a great friend of father's. He renews his youth in him."

"Is he not _your_ friend?"

How well she remembered his suspicious, exacting questions!

"He is my best friend," she said proudly.

"I wish I was in heaven," he said, his voice grown weak. "Every thing goes wrong with me; every thing has gone wrong all my life. Father is in a rage because I will not stay home; he offered me to-day the deed for two hundred acres as a bribe. I should be stronger to-day but that he worked my life out when I was a growing boy."

"A country life is best for you. Your old homestead is the loveliest place around, with its deep eaves and dormer-windows and vines. That wide hall is one of my pleasant recollections, and the porch that looks into the garden, the blue hills away off, and the cool woods, the thrushes and the robins and the whip-poor-will at twilight; that solitary note sets me to crying, or it used to when I dreamed dreams and told them to Laura! I hope that Laura will love the place too well to leave it; it is my ideal of a home; much more than splendid Old Place is."

"I will stay if you will come and live in it with me," he said quietly.

"I like my own home better," she answered as quietly. "Are you stronger than you were?"

"Much stronger. I have not had one of those attacks since March. Lake warns me; but I am twice the man that he is! How he coughed last winter! I haven't any thing to live for, anyway."

"It is very weak for you to say that."

"Whose fault is it that I am so weak? Whose fault is it that my life is spoiled? You have spoiled every thing for me by playing fast and loose with me."

"I never did that," she answered indignantly. "You accuse me wrongfully."

"Every time you speak to me or look at me you give me hope; an hour with you I live on for months. O, Tessa," dropping his head in both hands, "I have loved you all my life."

"I know it," she said solemnly. "Can't you be brave and bear it?"

"I _am_ bearing it. I am bearing it and it is killing me. You never had the water ebb and flow, ebb and flow when you were dying of thirst. Women can not suffer; they are heartless, all their heart is used in causing men to suffer. A touch of your hand, the color in your cheek, a dropping of your eyes, talks to me and tells me a lie; and then you go up-stairs and kneel down to Him, who is the truth-maker! You are a covenant-breaker. You have looked at me scores of times as if you loved me; you have told me that you like to be with me; and when I come to you and ask you like a man to become my wife, you blush and falter, and answer like a woman--_no_. I beg your pardon--"

The tears stood in her eyes but would not fall.

"I did not come here to upbraid you. I did not start from home with the intention of coming; but I saw you through the window with your arms around your father's neck and I thought, 'Her heart is soft to-night; she will listen to me.' I was drawn in, as you always draw me, against my better judgment. I shall not trouble you again; I am going away. Tessa," suddenly snatching both hands, "if you are so sorry for me, why can't you love me?"

"I don't know," not withdrawing her hands, "something hinders. I honor you. I admire you. Your love for me is a great rest to me; I want to wrap myself up in it and go to sleep; I do not want to give it up--no one else loves me, and I _do_ want somebody to love me."

"I will love you; only let me. Marry me and I will stay at home; I will do for you all that a human heart and two human hands can do; I will _be_ to you all that you will help me to be."

"But I do not want to marry you," she said perplexed. "I should have to give up too much. I love my home and the people in it better than I love you."

"I will not take you away; you shall have them all; you shall come to them and they shall come to you; remember that I have never loved any one but you--" the great tears were rolling down his cheeks. "I am not worth it; I am not worthy to speak to you, or even to hold your hands like this." He broke down utterly, sobbing wearily and excitedly.

"Don't, oh, don't," she cried hurriedly. "I may grow to love you if you want me to so much, and you are good and true, I can believe every word you say--not soon--in two or three years perhaps."

His tears were on her hands, and he had loved her all her life; no one else loved her, no one else ever would love her like this; he was good and true, and she wanted some one to love her; she wanted to be sure of love somewhere and then to go to sleep. Her father should see her married before he died; her mother would never--

"You have promised," he cried, in a thick voice. "You have promised and you never break your word."

"I have promised and I never break my word; but you must not speak of it to any one, not even to Laura, and I will not tell father, or Gus, or Miss Jewett, or Dine; no one must guess it for one year--it is so sudden and strange! I couldn't bear to hear it spoken of; and if you are very gentle and do not _try_ to make me love you--you must not kiss me, or put your arms around me, you know I never did like that, and perhaps that is one reason why I never liked you before--you must let me alone, let love come of itself and grow of itself."

"I will," he uttered brokenly, and rose up trembling from head to foot. "May God bless you!--bless you!--bless you!"

It was better for him to leave her; the strain had been too great for both.

"I must be alone; I must go out under the stars and thank God."

She lifted her face to his and kissed him. How unutterably glad and thankful she was in all her life afterward that she gave that kiss unasked.

"God bless you, my darling," he said tenderly, "and He _will_ bless you for this."

Bewildered, not altogether unhappy, she sat alone while he went out under the stars.

Was this the end of all her girlhood's dreams?

Only Felix Harrison! Must she pass all her life with him? Must her father and mother and Gus and Dine be not so much to her because Felix Harrison had become more--had become most? And Ralph Towne? Ought she to love Felix as she had loved him?

The hurried questions were answerless. She did not belong to herself; not any more to her father as she had belonged to him half an hour since with both her arms around his neck. Love constituted ownership, and she belonged to Felix through this mighty right of love; did he belong to her through the same divine right?

He was thanking God and so must she thank Him.

"Tessa," called her father, "come here, daughter!"

With the candle in her hand, she stood in the door-way of the sitting-room. "Well," she said.

"With whom were you closeted?" asked Mr. Hammerton, looking up from the chess-board.

The effort to speak in her usual tone lent to her voice a sharpness that startled herself.

"Felix Harrison."

"Your old tormentor!" suggested Mr. Hammerton.

"Who ever called him that?" She came to the table, set the candlestick down and looked over the chess-board.

"She has refused him again," mentally decided Mr. Hammerton, carefully moving his queen.

"I called you, daughter, because Gus withstood me out and out about 'Heaven doth with us as we with torches do.' Find it and let his obstinate eyes behold!"

She opened the volume, turning the leaves with fingers that trembled. "Truly enough," she was thinking, "a year from to-day will find a difference."

"Now I am going over for Dine," she said, after Mr. Hammerton had acknowledged himself in the wrong.

"Permit me to accompany you," he said. Even with Tessa Wadsworth, Gus Hammerton was often formal. They found Dinah bidding Norah good-by at Mr. Bird's gate; they were laughing at nothing, as usual.

"Let us walk to the end of the planks," suggested Mr. Hammerton. "On a night like this I could tramp till sunrise." He drew Tessa's arm through his, saying, "Now, Dine, take the other fin."

The end of the planks touched a piece of woods; at the entrance of the wood stood an old building, windowless, doorless, chimneyless; the school children knew that it was haunted.

"We're afraid," laughed Dine; "the old hut looks ghostly."

"It _is_ ghostly, I will relate its history. Once upon a time, upon a dark night, so dark that I could not see the white horse upon which I rode--"

"Oh, that's splendid," cried Dinah, hanging contentedly upon his arm. "Listen, Tessa."

But Tessa could not listen. She was feeling the peace that rested over the woods, the fields; that was enwrapping Old Place, and further down the dim road the low-eaved homestead that must thenceforth be home to her. There could be no more air-castles; her future was decided. She had turned the leaf and discovered a name that hitherto had meant so little: Felix Harrison. Not Ralph Towne; a year ago to-night it was English violets and Ralph Towne. The peace that brooded over all might be hers, if only she would be content.

At this moment,--while she was trying to be content, trying to believe that she could interpret the peace of the shining stars, and while she was hearing the sound of her companion's words, a solemn, even tone that rolled on in unison with her thoughts,--two people far away were thinking of her; thinking of her, but not wishing and not daring to speak her name.

"I can not understand, Ralph. I was sure that we would bring Naughty Nan away with us."

"Truly, mother, I would have pleased you, if I could."

"You are too serious for her; with all her mischievous advances,--like a white kitten provokingly putting out its paw,--she was more than half afraid of you."

"It does not hurt her to be afraid."

"She is most bewitching."

"Now, mother! But it is too late; she will understand by my parting words that I do not expect to see her soon again. In my mind is a memory that has kept me from loving that delicious Naughty Nan."

"Is the memory a fancy?"

"No; it is too real for my ease of mind. If I were a poet, which I am not, I should think that her spirit haunted me."

"Can you tell me no more of her? That daughter that I might have had!"

"I do not understand her: she is beyond me, she baffles me."

"I read of a man once who loved a woman too well to marry any one else, and yet he did not love her well enough to marry her."

"Was he a fool?"

"Answer the question for yourself. Are _you_ a fool?"

"Yes, I am. I do not know my own mind. I should call another man a fool."

"It may not be too late," she gently urged.

"Too late for what?" he asked irritably.

"To be wise."

In a few moments he spoke in an abrupt, changed tone--

"Mother! I have decided at last. I shall hang out my shingle in Dunellen. It is a picturesque little city, and the climate is as good for you as the south of France."

"I am very glad," she answered cordially. "You are a born physician, you are cool, you are quick, you are gentle; you can keep your feelings under perfect control. You are not quite a Stoic, but you will do very well for one."

"But you will not be happy at Old Place without me."

"Why should I be without you?"

"You have noticed that large, wide brick house on the opposite side of the Park from Miss Jewett's? It has a garden and stable; it is just the house for us; you may have two rooms thrown into one for your sitting-room and any other changes that you please."

"I remember it, I like the situation; there are English sparrows in the trees."

"We will take that for the present. John Gesner owns it; he will make his own price if he sees that I want it, I suppose. I _do_ want it. There are not many things that I desire more. You and I will have a green old age at Old Place."

"You forget that I am thirty years older than you, my son."

By accident, one day, Mrs. Towne had come across, in one of the drawers of her son's writing-table, a large photograph of Tessa Wadsworth, a vignette, and she had gazed long upon her; the face was not beautiful, one would not even think of it as pretty, but it was fine, intellectual, sensitive, and sweet. In searching for an old letter not long before leaving home, she had discovered this picture, defaced and torn into several pieces.

"Ralph, you will not be angry with your white-headed old mother, but were you ever refused?"

"No," he said, laughing. "A dozen women may have been ready to refuse me, but not one ever did."

"Nor accepted you, either," she continued, shrewdly.

He arose and began to pace the floor; after some turns of excited movement, he came to her and stood behind her chair. "I know that I have been accepted; I know that I asked when I did not intend to ask--that is--I was carried beyond myself; I asked when I did not know that I was asking."

"What shall you do now?"

"I shall ask in reality; I shall confess myself in the wrong."

"And she?"

"And she? She has the tenderest heart in the world. She has forgiven me long ago."

"Do not trust her eyes and forget her lips," warned his mother. "Love is slain sometimes."

He resumed his walk with a less confident air. He _had_ forgotten her lips.

Would Tessa have cared to hear this? Would she have forgotten Felix, his blessing and the quiet of the holy stars?

"Oh," cried Dinah, with her little shout (she would not have been Dinah without that little shout), "Oh, Tessa, did you hear?"

"She is star-gazing," said Mr. Hammerton.

"It isn't a true story," pleaded Dinah. "You didn't really see him hanging by the rope and the woman looking on."

"My young friend, it is an allegory; that is what you will drive some man to some day."

"You know I won't. What is the name of that bright star?"

"It isn't a star, it's a planet."

"How do I know the difference?"

"Lady Blue knows."

"Do you call her that because her eyes are so blue or because she is a blue-stocking?"

"She is not a blue-stocking; I will not allow it. It is for her eyes."

"Gus," said Dinah, "I can't understand things."

"What things?"

"Tennyson's Dream of Fair Women."

"I shouldn't think you could. I have spent hours on it trying to make it out. You look up Marc Antony and Cleopatra--"

"As if I had to."

"Well, look up the daughter of the warrior Gileadite, and fair Rosamond, and angered Eleanor, and Fulvia, and Joan of Arc."

"And will you read it to us, and talk all about it?" cried Dinah in delight. "I like King Lear when father reads it, but I can't understand Shakespeare; he is all conversations."

Mr. Hammerton laughed, and patted her head. "I will bring you the stories that Charles and Mary Lamb gathered from Shakespeare."

"Shall we turn?" asked Tessa, slipping her hand through his arm; he instantly imprisoned her fingers. Felix would be troubled and angry she knew, even at this clasp of an old friend's hand. Jealousy was his one strong passion; he was jealous of the books she read, of the letters she received, of every word spoken to her that he did not hear; she wondered as her fingers drew themselves free, if he would ever become jealous of her prayers.

She drew a long breath as the weight of her bondage fell heavier and heavier; and then, he was so demonstrative, so lavish of his caresses, and her ideal of a lover was one who held himself aloof, who kept his hands and his lips to himself. She sighed more than once as she kept even pace with the others.

"Has the nightingale made a mistake?" asked Mr. Hammerton, as they were crossing to the gate.

"She only made one mistake. I wonder how many I _can_ make if I do my best to make them."

Dinah opened the gate; her father's light streamed through the windows over the garden, down the path.

"Good night," said Mr. Hammerton. "Oh, I just remember, what shall I do? I asked my cousin Mary to go to a lecture on Burns with me to-night, and I declare! I never thought of it until this minute."

"Mary Sherwood will give it to you," said Dinah. "I wonder what your wife will do with you."

"A wife's first duty is obedience," he answered.

"I'd like to see the man I'd promise to obey," said Dinah, quickly.

"I expect you would," he said gravely.

Dine darted after him to box his ears, words being impotent, and Tessa went into the house. "I think I'll pigeon-hole _this_ day and then go to bed," she said, a merry gleam crossing her eyes; "between my two walks on the planks to-day, I have lived half a lifetime. I hope Dr. Lake is asleep; I will never hurt Felix as he is hurt."

IX.--THE NEW MORNING.

Her eyes were wide open an hour before the dawn; as the faint light streamed through the east and glowed brighter and brighter along the rim of the south that she could see from her position on the pillow, she arose, wrapped a shawl about her, and went to the window to watch the new morning. On the last night of the old year she had watched the sunset standing at her western window, then the light had gone out of her life and all the world was dark; now, in the new year, her private and personal new year, the light was rising, creeping up slowly into the sky, the gold, the faint rose and the bright rose running into each other, softening, blending, glowing deeper and deeper as she watched. This new morning that was an old morning to so many other eyes that were looking out upon it; this new morning that would be again for Dinah, perhaps, and for all the other girls that were growing up into God's kingdom on the earth! The robins in Mr. Bird's apple orchard were awake, too, and chanticleer down the road had proclaimed the opening of another new day with all his lusty might. She wondered, as she listened and looked, if Felix were standing in the light of the morning on the porch, or he might be walking up and down the long garden path. And thanking God? She wished that she were thanking God. She was thanking Him for the light, the colors, the refreshing, misty air, the robins and the white and pink wealth of apple blossoms; but she was not thanking Him because Felix Harrison loved her.

"And that night they caught nothing."

The words repeated themselves with startling clearness. What connection could they possibly have with the sunrise? Oh, now she knew; it was because the fishermen had seen the Lord upon the shore in the morning.

_She_ had caught nothing; all her night of toil had been fruitless; she had striven and hoped and dreamed, oh, how she had dreamed of all that she would do and become! And now she could not be glad of any thing.

The years had ended in having Felix Harrison love her; that was all. She had lived her childhood and girlhood through for such a time as this.

This new year had brought more hard things to bear than any of the old years; if she could only tell some one who would care and sympathize with her and help her not only to bear but to do and to become; but her father would be justly angry and exclaim, "Madness, daughter," her mother would laugh and look perplexed, Miss Jewett would say, "O, Tessa, Tessa, I didn't think such a thing of you," and Mr. Towne--but she had no right to think of him! And Gus! He would look at her steadily and say nothing; he would be disappointed in her if he knew that she could promise with her lips, with no love in her heart save the love of regret, compassion, and contrition for all that she had so unconsciously caused him to suffer. And how could she reveal to Felix, poor Felix! the plain, cold truth! how she shrank from him as soon as she was alone and could think! how as the morning grew brighter and her world more real she shrank from him yet more and more! how the very thought of his presence, of his tight arms around her, and his smooth face close to hers gave her a feeling of repulsion that she had never felt towards any human being before! She felt that she must flee to the ends of the earth rather than to endure him. But it was done; she must keep her word; he should never guess; she would write a note and slip it into his hand to-day, he would be sure to press through the crowd towards her as she came out of church. She would write it now and be at rest. Her writing-desk stood open, pages of manuscript were laid upon it. She selected a sheet of lemon-colored note paper, and wrote a message, hurriedly, in pencil. Never afterward would she write a word upon lemon-colored paper.

"Do not come to me, dear Felix--" she hesitated over the adjective, erased the words, and dropped the sheet into her waste paper basket and found another: "Do not come to me, Felix, until I send for you, please. I am not strong. I want to be alone. Do not think me unkind, you know that I always did like to be alone. Do not expect too much of me; I am not what you think; I am a weak, impulsive woman, too tender-hearted to be wise, or to be just towards myself or towards you. If you want me to love you, ask it of Him, who is love; do not ask it of me, I am not love. But do not be troubled, I have given my word, I am not a covenant-breaker, _I will be true_."

She folded it, not addressing it, and placed it in the pocket of the dress that she would wear to church; as she passed the window she saw Dr. Lake driving towards home. Shivering, although the sun was high enough to shine on the apple blossoms, she crept back to bed, nestling close to sleepy Dine who loved her morning nap better than the sunrise. Her confused thoughts ran hither and thither; she found herself repeating something that she and Mr. Hammerton had learned together years ago,

"'Yes,' I answered you last night;
'No,' this morning, sir, I say;
Colors seen by candlelight
Do not look the same by day."

Mr. Hammerton said that he and the Wadsworth girls had learned "miles" of poetry together. The Harrisons were not at church. When had such a thing happened before? Her fingers were on the note in her pocket as she passed down the aisle.

"Tessa, Tessa," whispered a loud whisper behind her, and Sue's irrepressible lips were close to her ear; "come home to dinner with me; you won't want to go to Bible class, for Miss Jewett is down to Harrison's. Father sent for her to go early this morning."

"Why is she there?"

"Oh, somebody is sick. Felix. Dr. Lake was there in the night and father was going this morning. He was taken crazy, I believe. Come home with me, will you?"

"Very well."

She found Dine waiting for Norah, and told her that she was going home with Sue, then rejoined Sue at one of the gates.

"I'm awful lonesome Sundays," began Sue; "Aunt Jane has gone, I told you, didn't I? A cousin of hers died and left some dozens of young ones and she had to go and take care of them and console the widower. 'The unconsolable widder of Deacon Bedott will never get married again!' but she went all the same. She said that she had brought _me_ up far enough to take care of father."

Sue's lightness grated all along her nerves.

"Did you like Mary Sherwood's hat? Too many flowers, don't you think so? And she _will_ wear light blue with her sallow face! Wasn't it a queer sermon, too? Don't you think it is wicked for ministers to frighten people so? He said that we make our own lives, that we choose every day, and that every choice has an influence. You think that I don't listen because I stare around, don't you? I sha'n't forget that ever, because I have just had a choice that will influence my life; and I chose _not_ to do it. It's hateful to have Miss Jewett away; I won't go to Bible class, and I won't let you, either. I have a book to read, or I can go to sleep."

"Yes, you can go to sleep."

"I have something to tell you," said Sue, shyly, hesitating as she glanced into Tessa's quiet, almost stern, face.

"Not now--in the street."

"Oh, no, when we are by ourselves. Our parlors are lovely now; you will see how I have fixed up things. Father is so delighted to have me home that he will let me do any thing I like."

Voices behind them and voices before them, now and then a soft, Sunday laugh; through the pauses of Sue's talk Tessa listened, catching at any thing to keep herself from thinking.

"A rare sermon."

"It will do me good all the week."

"The most becoming spring hat I've seen."

"He is very handsome in the pulpit."

"Come over to tea."

"I expect to do great things this summer."

"If I could talk like that I'd set people to thinking."

"We sha'n't get out of trouble in _this_ world."

"When I can't forgive myself, I just let go of myself, and let God forgive me."

She wished that she could see that face; the voice sounded familiar, the reply was in a man's voice; she felt as if she were listening, but she would have liked to hear the reply, all the more when she discovered that the talkers were Mr. Lewis Gesner and his sister.

"_Isn't_ she handsomely dressed?" exclaimed Sue in admiration. "She passed me without seeing me. He is so wrapped up in that sister that he will never be married."

The crowd became thinner; couples and threes and fours, sometimes only one, entered at each gate as they moved on; they passed down the long street almost alone; Dr. Greyson's new house stood nearly a mile from the Park; there was a grass plot in front and stables in the rear.

Dr. Lake was driving around to the stables.

"I hoped that he wouldn't be home to lunch; he's awful cross," said Sue, with a pout and a flush. Fifteen minutes later the lunch bell rang; Dr. Greyson hurried in as they were seating themselves at the table.

Tessa's quickened heart-beats would not allow her to ask about Felix; she knew that her voice would betray her agitation; Dr. Lake had shaken hands and had not stopped to speak to her; his miserable face was but a repetition of yesterday.

Dr. Greyson seldom talked of anything but his patients and he was interested in Felix Harrison, she knew that she had but to wait patiently.

"Susie is a perfect housekeeper, isn't she? Somebody will find it out, I'm afraid."

"That's all I am," said Sue. "Father, why didn't you educate me?"

"Educate a kitten!"

"How is Felix Harrison?" inquired Dr. Lake.

"Bad! Bad enough. That fellow has been walking around with a brain fever. He'll pull through with care. Miss Jewett will stay until they can get a nurse; I would rather keep _her_, though. I warned him months ago. I told him that it would come to this. He has thrown away his life; he'll never be good for any thing again. I am glad that he has a father to take care of him; lucky for him, and not so lucky for his father. I wouldn't care to see my son such a wreck as he'll be. Why a man born with brains will deliberately make a fool of himself, I can't understand. Teaching and studying law and what not? He will have fits as long as he lives coming upon him any day any hour; he will be as much care as an infant. More, for an infant does grow up, and he will only become weaker and weaker mentally and physically. He has been under some great excitement, I suspect. _They_ don't know what it is. He came home late last night; his father heard a noise in his room and went in to find him as crazy as a loon. He said that he had heard him talking in his sleep all night long for two or three nights. I hope that he isn't engaged. I know a case like his, and that poor fellow _was_ engaged."

"Of course that ended it," said Sue. "A sick husband of all things. I would drown myself, if I had a sick husband."

"Of course it ended it. It almost broke her heart, though; broke it for a year, and then a dashing cousin of his mended it."

"Perhaps Felix hasn't any cousin. Dr. Lake, will you have more coffee?" Sue spoke carelessly, not meeting his glance.

"Thank you, no."

Dr. Greyson ran on talking and eating: "I told the old man the whole truth; he begged so hard to know the worst. He cried like a baby. He was proud of Felix. Felix was a fine fellow,--a noble fellow. But he's dead now; dead, _and_ buried."

"Does Laura know?" inquired Sue, helping herself to sweet pickled peaches. Tessa was tasting the peaches, her throat so full of sobs that she swallowed the fruit with pain.

"No, of course not. I told Miss Jewett to tell her any thing, but be sure to keep her up. He won't die. Why should he? It will come gradually to her. The very saddest case I know. And to think that it might have been avoided. I didn't tell his father _that_, though. Felix has no one but himself to thank. I warned him a year ago. Brains _without_ common sense is a very poor commodity. What did the minister tell you Miss Tessa? I haven't been to church since Sue was a baby."

"No wonder that I'm a heathen, then; any body would be with such a father," retorted Sue.

Dr. Lake excused himself abruptly, and crossing the hall went into the office.

"That foolish boy has taught me a lesson. I would take a vacation this summer, only if I leave Sue at home she would run off and marry Lake before a week."

"You needn't be afraid," answered Sue, scornfully. "I look higher than Gerald Lake."

The office door stood ajar. Sue colored with vexation as the words in her high voice left her lips.

"Shall we go into the parlor?" she said rising. "You can find a book and I'll go to sleep."

The parlors had been refurnished in crimson and brown. Standing in the centre of the front parlor, Tessa exclaimed, "Oh, how pretty!"

"Isn't it? All my taste. Dr. Lake did advise me, though; he went with me. Now, you shall sit in the front or back just as you please, in the most comfortable of chairs, and I will sit opposite you and snooze,--that is," rather doubtfully, for she was afraid of Tessa, "unless you will let me tell you my secret."

In passing through the rooms, Tessa had taken a volume of Josephus from a table; she settled herself at one of the back windows in a pretty crimson and brown chair, smoothed the folds of her black dress, folded her hands in her lap over the green volume, and looked up at Sue. Sue and a book in brown paper were in another crimson and brown chair at another window; flushed and vexed she played with the edges of her book.

"Do you think that he heard what I said?" she asked anxiously.

"You know as well as I."

She did not feel in a gentle mood towards Sue; her voice and words had rasped her nerves for the last hour.

"I didn't intend it for him," she was half crying, "but father provoked me. He does bother me so. I didn't flirt with him, I was real good and sisterly. I told him to call me Sister Sue. But after it all, he asked me to marry him, and was as mad as a hornet, and said dreadful things to me when I refused him."

She nibbled the edge of her book; Tessa had nothing to say.

"I couldn't help it now, could I?" in a tearful voice.

"You know best."

"I _know_ I couldn't. I like him. I can't help liking him; a cat or a dog would like him. In some things, I like him better than Stacey, and I'm sure I like him better than old John Gesner."

Tessa opened her book and looked into the handsome face of Flavius Josephus.

"Haven't you any thing to say to me?"

"No."

"You might sympathize with me."

"I don't know how."

Sue nibbled the edge of her book, with her eyes filled with tears. She had no friend except Tessa, and now she had deserted her!

Tessa turned the leaves and thought that she was reading; she did read the words: "The family from which I am derived is not an ignoble one, but hath descended all along from the priests; and as nobility among several people is of a different origin, so with us to be of the sacerdotal dignity is an indication of the splendor of a family."

"Yes," she tried to think, her eyes wandering out of the window towards the rear of Gesner's Row, "and that is why the promise, to be made kings and priests--"

"Tessa, I think you are real mean," said Sue, in a pathetic voice.

Tessa met her eyes and smiled. She did not like to be hard towards Sue.

"Do you think that I've been so wicked?"

"I think that you have been so wicked that you must either be forgiven or punished."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear _me_," dropping her head on the arm of her chair.

Tessa turned another leaf. "Moreover when I was a child and about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had to learning; on which account the high priests and principal men of the city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of points of the law."

Her eyes wandered away from the book and out the open window towards the rows of open windows in the houses behind the stables. At one window was seated an old man reading; in the same room, for he raised his head to speak to her, at another window, a woman was sitting reading also. She was glad that there were two. She wondered if they had been kind to each other as long as they had known each other. If the old man should die to-night would the old woman have need to say, "Forgive me." Through the windows above came the heavy, steady whirr of a sewing-machine, with now and then a _click_, as if the long seam had come to its end; the bushy, black head of a German Jew was bent over it; the face that he raised was not at all like that of the refined Flavius Josephus. No one ever went to him with knotty points in the law! There were plants in the other window of the room; she was glad of the plants. It was rather mournful to be seeking things to be glad about. A child was crying, sharply, rebelliously; a woman's sharper voice was breaking in upon it.

There was a voice in the stable speaking to a horse, "Quiet, old boy." A horse was brought out and harnessed to a buggy without a top. Dr. Greyson climbed into the buggy and drove off. Another horse was brought out and harnessed to a buggy with a top. She persuaded herself that she was very much interested in watching people and things; she had not had time to think of Felix yet. Dr. Lake came out, sprang into the buggy, and drove slowly out, not looking towards the windows where sat the two figures, each apparently absorbed in a book.

"Tessa," in a broken voice, like the appeal of a naughty child with the naughtiness all gone, "what shall I do?"

"I don't know," said Tessa.

"You don't think that I ought to marry him. He smells of medicine so."

"I do not think any thing. If I did think any thing, it would be my thinking and not yours."

"Do you believe that he cares so _very_ much?"

The exultant undertone was too much for Tessa's patience.

"I hope that he has too much good sense to care long; some day when he can see how heartless you are, he will despise himself for having fancied that he loved you."

"You don't care how you hurt my feelings."

"I am not sure that you have any to be hurt."

"You are a mean thing; I don't like you; I wish that I hadn't asked you to come."

Tessa's eyes were on _Josephus_ again.

After a long, silent hour, during which Sue looked out the window, and nibbled the edge of her book, and during which Tessa thought of every body and every thing except Felix Harrison, Sue spoke: "I'm going up-stairs for a while; excuse me, please."

Tessa nodded, closed her book and leaned back in the pretty crimson and brown chair. Sue came to her and stood a moment; her heart _was_ sore. If Tessa would only say something kind! But Tessa would not; she only said coolly, "Well?"

"You don't believe that I am sorry."

"I don't believe any thing about it, but that you are heartless and wicked."

Sue stood waiting for another word, but Tessa looked tired, and as if she had forgotten her presence. Why should she look so, Sue asked herself resentfully; _she_ had nothing to trouble her? Sue went away, her arms dropped at her side, her long green dress trailing on the carpet; tenderness gathered in Tessa's eyes as the green figure disappeared. "I don't like to be hard to her," she murmured.

The terrible thought of Felix pressed heavier and heavier. She took the note from her pocket and pondered each word; the cruel, truthful words! If he had read them she might have had to believe all her life that she had hastened this illness! The sunshine grew warmer, beating down upon the paving stones in the yard, the faces kept their places in the windows, the child's shrill, rebellious cry burst out again and the woman's sharper voice.

Sue's steps were moving overhead; suddenly, so suddenly as to break in upon the current of her thoughts, Sue's voice rang out in her clear soprano, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me."

The voice grated, the words coming from the thoughtless lips grated on her ear and on her heart, grated more harshly than the woman's sharp voice in taunting rebuke.

"Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling."

As soon as she had decided that she could not bear it another instant, the singing ceased. It ceased and left her in tears.

X.--FORGETTING THE BREAD.

Again Tessa was spending the night with Miss Jewett; Sue Greyson had chatted away half the evening, and it was nearly eleven before Tessa could put both arms around her friend and squeeze her.

"I am hungry for a talk with you, you dear little woman, every thing is getting to be criss-cross with me nowadays; I'm so troubled and so wicked that I almost want to die. You wouldn't love me any more if you could know how false I am. All my life I have been so proud of being true," she added bitterly, "I despise myself."

"Is that all?"

Miss Jewett was leaning back in her little rocker. Almost before she knew it herself, Tessa had dropped upon the carpet at her feet.

"I have come to learn of you, my saint."

"What have you come to learn, my sinner?"

"I'm confused--I'm bewildered--I'm all in a tangle. People say, 'pray about it'; you say that yourself; and I do pray about all the trials in my life and yet--I can not understand--I am groping my way, I am blind, walking in the dark. Do you know that I believe that praying for a thing is the hardest way in the world to get it? I would rather earn it a thousand times over; I know that you think me dreadfully wicked, but do not stop me, let me pour it all out; hard praying, never ceasing, night and day, is enough to wear one out soul and body, because you _must_ expect to get what you ask for, and if you do not after praying so long the disappointment is heart-breaking. There now! I have said it and I feel better. I have no one except you to talk to and I wouldn't dare tell you how wicked I am. About something I have prayed with all my strength--I will not be ashamed to tell you--I know you will understand; it is about loving somebody. I have been so ashamed and shocked at girls' love-stories and I wanted one so true and pure and unselfish and beautiful, and I have prayed that mine might be that, and I have tried so hard to make it that, and yet I get into trouble and break my own heart, which is nothing at all, and more than break some one else's heart and do as much harm as Sue Greyson does, who is as flighty as a witch! I would rather go without things than pray years and years and be disappointed every day, or go farther and farther into wrong-doing as I do; I don't believe that the flightiest and flirtiest of your girls does as much harm as I do, or is as false to herself as I am! And I have been so proud of being true!"

"My _dear_ child."

"Is that all you can say to comfort me?"

"Why do you pray?"

"Why do I pray?" repeated Tessa in surprise. "To get what I want, I suppose."

"I thought so."

"Isn't that what you pray for?"

"Hardly. I pray that I may get what God wants."

"Oh," said Tessa with a half startled, little cry.

"I fear that you are having a hard time over something, child."

"If you only knew--but you wouldn't believe in me any longer; neither would father, or Dine, or Gus, or any one who trusts me; I will not tell you; I have lost all faith in myself."

"Thank God for that!" exclaimed the little woman brightly.

"I am too sore and bruised to be thankful; I feel, sometimes, as if I could creep into a dark corner and cry my heart out. I could bear it if I were the only one, but to think that I must make somebody's heart ache as mine does! I thought all my prayers would prevail to keep me from making mistakes."

"Perhaps you have been trying to _earn_ your heart's desire by heaping up prayers, piling them up higher and higher, morning, noon, and night, and you have held them up to God thinking that He must be glad to take them; I shouldn't wonder if you had even supposed that you were paying Him overmuch--you had prayed enough to get what you want some time ago."

"That is true," answered Tessa, emphatically. "I have felt as if He were wronging me by taking my prayers and giving me so little in return. I believe that I have thought my prayers precious enough to pay for any thing. I paid my prayers, and I am disappointed that I have not my purchases."

"Then your faith has been all in your _prayers_."

"Yes; I was sure that I could not go wrong because I prayed so much."

"And your faith has been in your _faith_."

"And neither my faith nor my prayers have kept me from being false. Oh, it has been such hard work!"

Tessa's face was drawn as if by physical pain.

"I was thinking in the night last night that I did not believe that Hannah, or Elizabeth, or Huldah, or Persis, or Dorcas ever prayed more fervently or unceasingly than I have; I have builded on my _faith_, no wonder that the first rough wind has shaken my foundation! Ever since Felix Harrison years ago called me a flirt, I have prayed that I might be true; and to-night I am as false as Sue Greyson."

"Through an experience once, long ago, I learned to pray that the will of God might be done in me, even although I must be sifted as wheat."

"I am not brave enough for that. Oh, Miss Jewett, I am afraid that God is angry with me; and I have meant to be so true."

"Do you remember the time that the disciples forgot to take bread?"

"Yes, but that is not like me."

"I think it is--just like you."

"Then tell me."

"It was one time when Jesus and the disciples were alone on board the ship; He had been deeply grieved with the Pharisees, sighing in His spirit over them, for they had tempted Him with asking of Him a sign from heaven. A sign from heaven! And He had just filled four thousand hungry people with seven loaves and a few small fishes!

"By and by He began to talk to the disciples; speaking with authority, perhaps, it even sounded severe to them as He charged them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.

"Then they began to talk among themselves: what had they done to be thus bidden to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees? _Leaven_ reminded them of bread! Oh, now they knew! They had but one loaf in the ship; they had forgotten to bring bread with them; perhaps the Lord was hungry and knew that they had not enough for Him and for themselves. It may be that He overheard them reasoning among themselves, or perhaps, forward Peter asked Him if He were rebuking them for forgetting the bread; for as soon as He knew what was troubling their simple hearts, how He talked to them! Seven questions, one after another, He asked them, ending with: _How is it_ that ye do not understand?

"And you are like them, child. The Lord has suffered you to be led into trouble that He may teach you something about Himself and you fall down at His feet bemoaning yourself; you forget Him and the great lessons He has to teach you and think only of yourself and some little thing that you missed doing; you missed it, blinded with tears in your eagerness to do right, you _meant_ to be so good and true, and because you made a mistake in your blindness and eagerness, you think Him such a harsh, unloving Father that all He cares to do is to punish you! Trust Him, Tessa! Don't moan over a loaf of bread forgotten before Him who has love enough, and power enough to give you and somebody beside a thousand thousand loaves. Do not grieve Him by crying out any longer, 'Do not punish me; I _meant_ to be so good?'"

Tessa's head kept its position. When she raised it, after a long silence, she said: "I will not think so any more; you don't know what I suffered in thinking that He is punishing me."

"'How is it that ye do not understand?'"

"Because I think about my own troubles and not of what He is teaching me," said Tessa humbly.

XI.--ON THE HIGHWAY.