Chapter II: Part 2

"Stan' up! Here, put t'other arm in fust. This han'kercher yours? Goes round your neck? There 't is. Here's your hat. Got any mittens? There they be, in your pocket. This way. This is the door you come in, an' this is the door you'll go out of." She preceded him, her head thrown up, her shoulders back. Amelia had no idea of dramatic values, but she was playing an effective part. She reached the door and flung it open, but Josiah, a poor figure in its huddled capes, still stood abjectly in the middle of the kitchen. "Come!" she called peremptorily. "Come, Josiah Pease! Out you go." And Josiah went, though, contrary to his usual habit, he did not talk. He quavered uncertainly down the steps, and Amelia called a halt. "Josiah Pease!"

He turned, and looked up at her. His mouth had dropped, and he was nothing but a very helpless old child. Vicious as he was, Amelia realized the mental poverty of her adversary, and despised herself for despising him. "Josiah Pease!" she repeated. "This is the end. Don't you darken my doors ag'in. I've done with you,--egg an' bird!" She closed the door, shutting out Josiah and the keen spring wind, and went back to the window, to watch him down the drive. His back looked poor and mean. It emphasized the pettiness of her victory. Even at that moment, she realized that it was the poorer part of her which had resented attack on a citadel which should be impregnable as time itself. Just then Enoch stepped into the kitchen behind her, and his voice jarred upon her tingling nerves.

"Well," said he, more jovially than he was wont to speak, "I guess I've made a good trade for ye. Company gone? Come here an' se' down while I eat, an' I'll tell ye all about it."

Amelia turned about and walked slowly up to him, by no volition of her conscious self. Again love, that august creature, veiled itself in an unjust anger, because it was love and nothing else.

"You've made a good bargain, have you?" she repeated. "You've sold my cows, an' had 'em drove off the place without if or but. That's what you call a good bargain!" Her voice frightened her. It amazed the man who heard. These two middle-aged people were waking up to passions neither had felt in youth. Life was strong in them because love was there.

"Why, 'Melia!" said the man. "Why, 'Melia!"

Amelia was hurried on before the wind of her destiny. Her voice grew sharper. Little white stripes, like the lashes from a whip, showed themselves on her cheeks. She seemed to be speaking from a dream, which left her no will save that of speaking.

"It's been so ever sence you set foot in this house. Have I had my say once? Have I been mistress on my own farm? No! You took the head o' things, an' you've kep' it. What's mine is yours."

Her triumph over Josiah seemed to be strangely repeated; the scene was almost identical. The man before her stood with his hands hanging by his sides, the fingers limp, in an attitude of the profoundest patience. He was thinking things out. She knew that. Her hurrying mind anticipated all he might have said, and would not. And because he had too abiding a gentleness to say it, the insanity of her anger rose anew. "I'm the laughin'-stock o' the town," she went on bitterly. "There ain't a man or woman in it that don't say I've married a tramp."

Enoch winced, with a sharp, brief quiver of the lips; but before she could dwell upon the sight, to the resurrection of her tenderness, he turned away from her, and went over to the bench.

"I guess I'll move this back where't was," he said, in a very still voice, and Amelia stood watching him, conscious of a new and bitterer pang: a fierce contempt that he could go on with his poor, methodical way of living, when greater issues waited at the door. He moved the bench into its old place, gathered up the clock, with its dismantled machinery, and carried it into the attic. She heard his step on the stairs, regular and unhalting, and despised him again; but in all those moments, the meaning of his movements had not struck her. When he came back, he brought in the broom; and while he swept up the fragments of his work, Amelia stood and watched him. He carried the dustpan and broom away to their places, but he did not reenter the room. He spoke to her from the doorway, and she could not see his face.

"I guess you won't mind if I leave the clock as 'tis. It needs some new cogs, an' if anybody should come along, he wouldn't find it any the worse for what I've done. I've jest thought it over about the cows, an' I guess I'll leave that, too, jest as it is. I made you a good bargain, an' when you come to think it over, I guess you'd rather it'd stan' so than run the resk of havin' folks make a handle of it. Good-by, 'Melia. You've been good to me,--better 'n anybody ever was in the world."

She heard his step, swift and steady, through the shed and out at the door. He was gone. Amelia turned to the window, to look after him, and then, finding he had not taken the driveway, she ran into the bedroom, to gaze across the fields. There he was, a lonely figure, striking vigorously out. He seemed glad to go; and seeing his haste, her heart hardened against him. She gave a little disdainful laugh.

"Well," said Amelia, "_that's_ over. I'll wash my dishes now."

Coming back into the kitchen, with an assured step, she moved calmly about her work, as if the world were there to see. Her pride enveloped her like a garment. She handled the dishes as if she scorned them, yet her method and care were exquisite. Presently there came a little imperative pounding at the side door. It was Rosie. She had forgotten the cloudy atmosphere of the house, and being cold, had come, in all her old, imperious certainty of love and warmth, to be let in. Amelia stopped short in her work, and an ugly frown roughened her brow. Josiah Pease, with all his evil imaginings, seemed to be at her side, his lean forefinger pointing out the baseness of mankind. In that instant, she realized where Enoch had gone. He meant to take the three o'clock train where it halted, down at the Crossing, and he had left the child behind. Tearing off her apron, she threw it over her head. She ran to the door, and, opening it, almost knocked the child down, in her haste to be out and away. Rosie had lifted her frosty face in a smile of welcome, but Amelia did not see it. She gathered the child in her arms, and hurried down the steps, through the bars, and along the narrow path toward the pine woods. The sharp brown stubble of the field merged into the thin grasses of the greener lowland, and she heard the trickling of the little dark brook, where gentians lived in the fall, and where, still earlier, the cardinal flower and forget-me-not crowded in lavish color. She knew every inch of the way; her feet had an intelligence of their own. The farm was a part of her inherited life; but at that moment, she prized it as nothing beside that newly discovered wealth which she was rushing to cast away. Rosie had not striven in the least against her capture. She knew too much of life, in some patient fashion, to resist it, in any of its phases. She put her arms about Amelia's neck, to cling the closer, and Amelia, turning her face while she staggered on, set her lips passionately to the little sleeve.

"You cold?" asked she--"_dear_?" But she told herself it was a kiss of farewell.

She stepped deftly over the low stone wall into the Marden woods, and took the slippery downward path, over pine needles. Sometimes a rounded root lay above the surface, and she stumbled on it; but the child only tightened her grasp. Amelia walked and ran with the prescience of those without fear; for her eyes were unseeing, and her thoughts hurrying forward, she depicted to herself the little drama at its close. She would be at the Crossing and away again, before the train came in; nobody need guess her trouble. Enoch must be there, waiting. She would drop the child at his side,--the child he had deserted,--and before he could say a word, turn back to her desolate home. And at the thought, she kissed the little sleeve again, and thought how good it would be if she could only be there again, though alone, in the shielding walls of her house, and the parting were over and done. She felt her breath come chokingly.

"You'll have to walk a minute," she whispered, setting the child down at her side. "There's time enough. I can't hurry."

At that instant, she felt the slight warning of the ground beneath her feet, shaken by another step, and saw, through the pines, her husband running toward her. Rosie started to meet him, with a little cry, but Amelia thrust her aside, and hurried swiftly on in advance, her eyes feeding upon his face. It had miraculously changed. Sorrow, the great despair of life, had eaten into it, and aged it more than years of patient want. His eyes were like lamps burned low, and the wrinkles under them had guttered into misery. But to Amelia, his look had all the sweet familiarity of faces we shall see in Paradise. She did not stop to interpret his meeting glance, nor ask him to read hers. Coming upon him like a whirlwind, she put both her shaking hands on his shoulders, and laid her wet face to his.

"Enoch! Enoch!" she cried sharply, "in the name of God, come home with me!"

She felt him trembling under her hands, but he only put up his own, and very gently loosed the passionate grasp. "There! there!" he said, in a whisper. "Don't feel so bad. It's all right. I jest turned back for Rosie. Mebbe you won't believe it, but I forgot all about her."

He lowered his voice, for Rosie had gone close to him, and laid her hands clingingly upon his coat. She did not understand, but she could wait. A branch had almost barred the path, and Amelia, her dull gaze fallen, noted idly how bright the moss had kept, and how the scarlet cups enriched it. Her strength would not sustain her, void of his, and she sank down on the wood, her hands laid limply in her lap. "Enoch," she said, from her new sense of the awe of life, "don't lay up anything ag'inst me. You couldn't if you knew."

"Knew what?" asked Enoch gently. He did not forget that circumstance had laid a blow at the roots of his being; but he could not turn away while she still suffered.

Amelia began, stumblingly,--

"He talked about you, I couldn't stan' it."

"Did you believe it?" he queried sternly.

"There wa'n't anything to believe. That's neither here nor there. But--Enoch, if anybody should cut my right hand off--Enoch"--Her voice fell brokenly. She was a New England woman, accustomed neither to analyze nor talk. She could only suffer in the elemental way of dumb things who sometimes need a language of the heart. One thing she knew. The man was hers; and if she reft herself away from him, then she must die.

He had taken Rosie's hand, and Amelia was aware that he turned away.

"I don't want to bring up anything," he said hesitatingly, "but I couldn't stan' bein' any less 'n other men would, jest because the woman had the money, an' I hadn't. I dunno's 't was exactly fair about the cows, but somehow you kind o' set me at the head o' things, in the beginnin', an' it never come into my mind"--

Amelia sat looking wanly past him. She began to see how slightly argument would serve. Suddenly the conventions of life fell away from her and left her young.

"Enoch," she said vigorously, "you've got to take me. Somehow, you've got to. Talkin' won't make you see that what I said never meant no more than the wind that blows. But you've got to keep me, or remember, all your life, how you murdered me by goin' away. The farm's come between us. Le's leave it! It's 'most time for the cars. You take me with you now. If you tramp, I'll tramp. If you work out, so'll I. But where you go, I've got to go, too." Some understanding of her began to creep upon him; he dropped the child's hand, and came a step nearer. Enoch, in these latter days of his life, had forgotten how to smile; but now a sudden, mirthful gleam struck upon his face, and lighted it with the candles of hope. He stood beside her, and Amelia did not look at him.

"Would you go with me, 'Melia?" he asked.

"I'm goin'," said she doggedly. Her case had been lost, but she could not abandon it. She seemed to be holding to it in the face of righteous judgment.

"S'pose I don't ask you?"

"I'll foller on behind."

"Don't ye want to go home, an' lock up, an' git a bunnit?"

She put one trembling hand to the calico apron about her head.

"No."

"Don't ye want to leave the key with some o' the neighbors?"

"I don't want anything in the world but you," owned Amelia shamelessly.

Enoch bent suddenly, and drew her to her feet. "'Melia," said he, "you look up here."

She raised her drawn face and looked at him, not because she wished, but because she must. In her abasement, there was no obedience which she would deny him. But she could only see that he was strangely happy, and so the more removed from her own despair. Enoch swiftly passed his arm about her, and turned her homeward. He laughed a little. Being a man, he must laugh when, that bitter ache in the throat presaged more bitter tears.

"Come, 'Melia," said he, "come along home, an' I'll tell you all about the cows. I made a real good bargain. Come, Rosie."

Amelia could not answer. It seemed to her as if love had dealt with her as she had not deserved; and she went on, exalted, afraid of breaking the moment, and knowing only that he was hers again. But just before they left the shadow of the woods, he stopped, holding her still, and their hearts beat together.

"'Melia," said he brokenly, "I guess I never told you in so many words, but it's the truth: if God Almighty was to make me a woman, I'd have her you, not a hair altered. I never cared a straw for any other. I know that now. You're all there is in the world."

When they walked up over the brown field, the sun lay very warmly there with a promise of spring fulfilled. The wind had miraculously died, and soft clouds ran over the sky in flocks. Rosie danced on ahead, singing her queer little song, and Enoch struggled with himself to speak the word his wife might wish.

"'Melia," said he at last, "there ain't anything in my life I couldn't tell you. I jest ain't dwelt on it, that's all. If you want to have me go over it"--

"I don't want anything," said Amelia firmly. Her eyes were suffused, and yet lambent. The light in them seemed to be drinking up their tears. Her steps, she knew, were set within a shining way. At the door only she paused and fixed him with a glance. "Enoch," said she threateningly, "whose cows were them you sold to-day?"

He opened his lips, but she looked him down. One word he rejected, and then another. His cheeks wrinkled up into obstinate smiling, and he made the grimace of a child over its bitter draught.

"'Melia, it ain't fair," he complained. "No, it ain't. I'll take one of 'em, if you say so, or I'll own it don't make a mite o' difference whose they be. But as to lyin'"--

"Say it!" commanded Amelia. "Whose were they?"

"Mine!" said Enoch. They broke into laughter, like children, and held each other's hands.

"I ain't had a mite o' dinner," said Amelia happily, as they stepped together into the kitchen. "Nor you! An' Rosie didn't eat her pie. You blaze up the fire, an' I'll fry some eggs."

THE MORTUARY CHEST

"Now we've got red o' the men-folks," said Mrs. Robbins, "le's se' down an' talk it over." The last man of all the crowd accustomed to seek the country store at noontime was closing the church door behind him as she spoke. "Here, Ezry," she called after him, "you hurry up, or you won't git there afore cockcrow to-morrer, an' I wouldn't have that letter miss for a good deal."

Mrs. Robbins was slight, and hung on wires,--so said her neighbors. They also remarked that her nose was as pickèd as a pin, and that anybody with them freckles and that red hair was sure to be smart. You could always tell. Mrs. Robbins knew her reputation for extreme acuteness, and tried to live up to it.

"Law! don't you go to stirrin' on him up," said Mrs. Solomon Page comfortably, putting on the cover of her butter-box, which had contained the family lunch. "If the store's closed, he can slip the letter into the box, an' three cents with it, an' they'll put a stamp on in the mornin'."

By this time, there was a general dusting of crumbs from Sunday gowns, a settling of boxes and baskets, and the feminine portion of the East Tiverton congregation, according to ancient custom, passed into the pews nearest the stove, and arranged itself more compactly for the midday gossip. This was a pleasant interlude in the religious decorum of the day; no Sunday came when the men did not trail off to the store for their special council, and the women, with a restful sense of sympathy alloyed by no disturbing element, settled down for an exclusively feminine view of the universe. Mrs. Page took the head of the pew, and disposed her portly frame so as to survey the scene with ease. She was a large woman, with red cheeks and black, shining hair. One powerful arm lay along the back of the pew, and, as she talked, she meditatively beat the rail in time. Her sister, Mrs. Ellison, according to an intermittent custom, had come over from Saltash to attend church, and incidentally to indulge in a family chat. It was said that Tilly rode over about jes' so often to get the Tiverton news for her son Leonard, who furnished local items to the Sudleigh "Star;" and, indeed, she made no secret of sitting down in social conclave with a bit of paper and a worn pencil in hand, to jog her memory. She, too, had smooth black hair, but her dark eyes were illumined by no steadfast glow; they snapped and shone with alert intelligence, and her great forehead dominated the rest of her face, scarred with a thousand wrinkles by intensity of nature rather than by time. A pleasant warmth had diffused itself over the room, so cold during the morning service that foot-stoves had been in requisition. Bonnet strings were thrown back and shawls unpinned. The little world relaxed and lay at ease.

"What's the news over your way, sister?" asked Mrs. Ellison, as an informal preliminary.

"Tilly don't want to give; she'd ruther take," said Mrs. Baxter, before the other could answer. "She's like old Mis' Pepper. Seliny Hazlitt went over there, when she was fust married an' come to the neighborhood an' asked her if she'd got a sieve to put squash through. Poor Seliny! she didn't know a sieve from a colander, in them days."

"I guess she found out soon enough," volunteered Mrs. Page. "_He_ was one o' them kind o' men that can keep house as well as a woman. I'd ruther live with a born fool."

"Well, old Mis' Pepper she ris up an' smoothed down her apron (recollect them little dots she used to wear?--made her look as broad as a barn door!), an' she says, 'Yes, we've got a sieve for flour, an' a sieve for meal, an' a sieve for rye, an' a sieve for blue-monge, an' we could have a sieve for squash if we was a mind to, _but I don't wish to lend_.' That's the way with Tilly. She's terrible cropein' about news, but she won't lend."

"How's your cistern?" asked Mrs. John Cole, who, with an exclusively practical turn of mind, saw no reason why talk should be consecutive. "Got all the water you want?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Page; "that last rain filled it up higher'n it's been sence November."

But Mrs. Ellison was not to be thrown off the track.

"Ain't there been consid'able talk over here about Parson Bond?" she asked.

Miss Sally Ware, a plump and pleasing maiden lady, whose gold beads lay in a crease especially designed for them, stirred uneasily in her seat and gave her sisters an appealing glance. But she did not speak, beyond uttering a little dissentient noise in her throat. She was loyal to her minister. An embarrassed silence fell like a vapor over the assemblage. Everybody longed to talk; nobody wanted the responsibility of beginning. Mrs. Page was the first to gather her forces.

"Now, Tilly," said she, with decision, "you ain't comin' over here to tole us into haulin' our own pastor over the coals, unless you'll say right out you won't pass it on to Saltash folks. As for puttin' it in the paper, it ain't the kind you can."

Tilly's eyes burned.

"I guess I know when to speak an' when not to," she remarked. "Now don't beat about the bush; the men-folks'll be back to rights. I never in my life give Len a mite o' news he couldn't ha' picked up for himself."

"Well, some master silly pieces have got into the paper, fust an' last," said Mrs. Robbins. "Recollect how your Len come 'way over here to git his shoes cobbled, the week arter Tom Brewer moved int' the Holler, an' folks hadn't got over swappin' the queer things he said? an' when Tom got the shoes done afore he promised, Len says to him, 'You're better'n your word.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'I flew at 'em with all the venom o' my specie.' An' it wa'n't a fortnight afore that speech come out in a New York paper, an' then the Sudleigh 'Star' got hold on 't, an' so 't went. If folks want that kind o' thing, they can git a plenty, _I_ say." She set her lips defiantly, and looked round on the assembled group. This was something she had meant to mention; now she had done it.

The informal meeting was aghast. A flavor of robust humor was accustomed to enliven it, but not of a sort to induce dissension.

"There! there!" murmured Sally Ware. "It's the Sabbath day!"

"Well, nobody's breakin' of it, as I know of," said Mrs. Ellison. Her eyes were brighter than usual, but she composed herself into a careful disregard of annoyance. When desire of news assailed her, she could easily conceal her personal resentments, cannily sacrificing small issues to great. "I guess there's no danger o' Parson Bond's gittin' into the paper, so long 's he behaves himself; but if anybody's got eyes, they can't help seein'. I hadn't been in the Bible class five minutes afore I guessed how he was carryin' on. Has he begun to go with Isabel North, an' his wife not cold in her grave?"

"Well, I think, for my part, he does want Isabel," said Mrs. Robbins sharply, "an' I say it's a sin an' a shame. Why, she ain't twenty, an' he's sixty if he's a day. My soul! Sally Ware, you better be settin' your cap for my William Henry. He's 'most nineteen."

Miss Ware flushed, and her plump hands tightened upon each other under her shawl. She was never entirely at ease in the atmosphere of these assured married women; it was always a little bracing.

"Well, how's she take it?" asked Tilly, turning from one to the other. "Tickled to death, I s'pose?"

"Well, I guess she ain't!" broke in a younger woman, whose wedding finery was not yet outworn. "She's most sick over it, and so she has been ever since her sister married and went away. I believe she'd hate the sight of him, if 't wasn't the minister; but _'tis_ the minister, and when she's put face to face with him, she can't help saying yes and no."

"I dunno'," said Mrs. Page, with her unctuous laugh. "Remember the party over to Tiverton t'other night, an' them tarts? You see, Rosanna Maria Pike asked us all over; an' you know how flaky her pie-crust is. Well, the minister was stan'in' side of Isabel when the tarts was passed. He was sort o' shinin' up to her that night, an' I guess he felt a mite twittery; so when the tarts come to him, he reached out kind o' delicate, with his little finger straight out, an' tried to take one. An' a ring o' crust come off on his finger. Then he tried it ag'in, an' got another ring. Everybody'd ha' laughed, if it hadn't been the minister; but Isabel she tickled right out, an' says, 'You don't take jelly, do you, Mr. Bond?' An' he turned as red as fire, an' says, 'No, I thank you.'"

"She wouldn't ha' said it, if she hadn't ha' been so nervous," remarked Miss Sally, taking a little parcel of peppermints from her pocket, and proceeding to divide them.

"No, I don't s'pose she would," owned Mrs. Page reflectively. "But if what they say is true, she's been pretty sassy to him, fust an' last. Why, you know, no matter how the parson begins his prayer, he's sure to end up on one line: 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha Cole, when he come home from Illinois, walked over here to meetin', to surprise some o' the folks. He waited in the entry to ketch 'em comin' out, an' the fust word he heard was, 'Lord, we thank Thee we have not been left to live by the dim light of natur'.' 'Lisha said he'd had time to be shipwrecked (you know he went to California fust an' made the v'yage), an' be married twice, an' lay by enough to keep him, and come home poor; but when he heard that, he felt as if the world hadn't moved sence he started."

Sally Ware dropped her mitten, to avoid listening and the necessity of reply; it was too evident that the conversational tone was becoming profane. But Mrs. Page's eyes were gleaming with pure dramatic joy, and she continued:--

"Well, a fortnight or so ago he went over to see Isabel, an' Sadie an' her husband happened to be there. They were all settin' purrin' in the dark, because they'd forgot to send for any kerosene. 'No light?' says he, hittin' his head ag'inst the chimbly-piece goin' in,--'no light?' 'No,' says Isabel, 'none but the dim light of natur'.'"

There was a chime of delighted laughter in many keys. The company felt the ease of unrestricted speech. They wished the nooning might be indefinitely prolonged.

"Sometimes I think she sets out to make him believe she's wuss 'n she is," remarked Mrs. Cole. "Remember how she carried on, last Sabbath?"

"I guess so!" returned Mrs. Page. "You see, Tilly, he's kind o' pushin' her for'ard to make her seem more suitable,--he'd like to have her as old as the hills!--an' nothin' would do but she must go into the Bible class. Ain't a member that's under fifty, but there that little young thing sets, cheeks red as a beet, an' the elder asks her questions, when he gits to her, as if he was coverin' on her over with cotton wool. Well, last Sabbath old Deacon Pitts--le's see, there ain't any o' his folks present, be they?--well, he was late, an' he hadn't looked at his lesson besides. 'T was the fust chapter in Ruth, where it begins, 'In the days when the judges ruled.' You recollect Naomi told the two darters they'd got to set sail, an' then the Bible says, 'they lifted up their voice an' wept.' 'Who wept?' says the parson to Deacon Pitts, afore he'd got fairly se'down. The deacon he opened his Bible, an' whirled over the leaves. 'Who wept, Brother Pitts?' says the parson over ag'in. Somebody found the deacon the place, an' p'inted. He was growin' redder an' redder, an' his spe'tacles kep' slippin' down, but he did manage to see; the chapter begun suthin' about the judges. Well, by that time parson spoke out sort o' sharp. 'Brother Pitts,' says he, 'who wept?' The deacon see't he'd got to put some kind of a face on't, an' he looked up an' spoke out, as bold as brass. 'I conclude,' says he,--'I conclude 't was the judges!'"

Even Miss Ware smiled a little, and adjusted her gold beads. The others laughed out rich and free.

"Well, what'd that have to do with Isabel?" asked Mrs. Ellison, who never forgot the main issue.

"Why, everybody else drawed down their faces, an' tried to keep 'em straight, but Isabel, she begun to laugh, an' she laughed till the tears streamed down her cheeks. Deacon Pitts was real put out, for him, an' the parson tried not to take no notice. But it went so fur he couldn't help it, an' so he says, 'Miss Isabel, I'm real pained,' says he. But 'twas jest as you'd cuff the kitten for snarlin' up your yarn."

"Well, what's Isabel goin' to do?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "S'pose she'll marry him?"

"Why, she won't unless he tells her to. If he does, I dunno but she'll think she's got to."

"I say it's a shame," put in Mrs. Robbins incisively; "an' Isabel with everything all fixed complete so 't she could have a good time. Her sister's well married, an' Isabel stays every night with her. Them two girls have been together ever sence their father died. An' here she's got the school, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh every Saturday to take lessons in readin', an' she'd be as happy as a cricket, if on'y he'd let her alone."

"She reads real well," said Mrs. Ellison. "She come over to our sociable an' read for us. She could turn herself into anybody she'd a mind to. Len wrote a notice of it for the 'Star.' That's the only time we've had oysters over our way."

"I'd let it be the last," piped up a thin old lady, with a long figured veil over her face. "It's my opinion oysters lead to dancin'."

"Well, let 'em lead," said optimistic Mrs. Page. "I guess we needn't foller."

"Them that have got rheumatism in their knees can stay behind," said the young married woman, drawn by the heat of the moment into a daring at once to be repented. "Mrs. Ellison, you're getting ahead of us over in your parish. They say you sing out of sheet music."

"Yes, they do say so," interrupted the old lady under the figured veil. "If there's any worship in sheet music, I'd like to know it!"

"Come, come!" said peace-loving Mrs. Page; "there's the men filin' in. We mustn't let 'em see us squabblin'. They think we're a lot o' cacklin' hens anyway, tickled to death over a piece o' chalk. There's Isabel, now. She's goin' to look like her aunt Mary Ellen, over to Saltash."

Isabel preceded the men, who were pausing for a word at the door, and went down the aisle to her pew. She bowed to one and another, in passing, and her color rose. They could not altogether restrain their guiltily curious gaze, and Isabel knew she had been talked over. She was a healthy-looking girl, with clear blue eyes and a quantity of soft brown hair. Her face was rather large-featured, and one could see that, if the world went well with her, she would be among those who develop beauty in middle life.

The group of dames dispensed to their several pews, and settled their faces into expressions more becoming a Sunday mood. The village folk, who had time for a hot dinner, dropped in, one by one, and by and by the parson came,--a gaunt man, with thick red-brown hair streaked with dull gray, and red-brown, sanguine eyes. He was much beloved; but something impulsive and unevenly balanced in his nature led even his people to regard him with more or less patronage. He kept his eyes rigorously averted from Isabel's pew, in passing; but when he reached the pulpit, and began unpinning his heavy gray shawl, he did glance at her, and his face grew warm. But Isabel did not look at him, and all through the service she sat with a haughty pose of the head, gazing down into her lap. When it was over, she waited for no one, since her sister was not at church, but sped away down the snowy road.

The next day, Isabel stayed after school, and so it was in the wintry twilight that she walked home, guarded by the few among her flock who had been kept to learn the inner significance of common fractions. Approaching her own house, she quickened her steps, for there before the gate (taken from its hinges and resting for the winter) stood a blue pung. The horse was dozing, his Roman nose sunken almost to the snow at his feet. He looked as if he had come to stay. Isabel withdrew her hand from the persistent little fingers clinging to it.

"Good-night, children," said she. "I guess I've got company. I must hurry in. Come bright and early to-morrow."

The little group marched away, swathed in comforters, each child carrying the dinner-pail with an easy swing. Their reddened faces lighted over the chorusing good-nights, and they kept looking back, while Isabel ran up the icy path to her own door. It was opened from within, before she reached it, and a tall, florid woman, with smoothly banded hair, stood there to receive her. Though she had a powerful frame, she gave one at the outset an impression of weak gentleness, and the hands she extended, albeit cordial, were somewhat limp. She wore her bonnet still, though she had untied the strings and thrown them back; and her ample figure was tightly laced under a sontag.

"Why, aunt Luceba!" cried Isabel, radiant. "I'm as glad as I can be. When did you rain down?"

"Be you glad?" returned aunt Luceba, her somewhat anxious look relaxing into a smile. "Well, I'm pleased if you be. Fact is, I run away, an' I'm jest comin' to myself, an' wonderin' what under the sun set me out to do it."

"Run away!" repeated Isabel, drawing her in, and at once peeping into the stove. "Oh, you fixed the fire, didn't you? It keeps real well. I put on coal in the morning, and then again at night."

"Isabel," began her aunt, standing by the stove, and drumming on it with agitated fingers, "I hate to have you live as you do. Why under the sun can't you come over to Saltash, an' stay with us?"

Isabel had thrown off her shawl and hat, and was standing on the other side of the stove; she was tingling with cold and youthful spirits.

"I'm keeping school," said she. "School can't keep without me. And I'm going over to Sudleigh, every Saturday, to take elocution lessons. I'm having my own way, and I'm happy as a clam. Now, why can't you come and live with me? You said you would, the very day aunt Eliza died."

"I know I did," owned the visitor, lowering her voice, and casting a glance over her shoulder. "But I never had an idea then how Mary Ellen 'd feel about it. She said she wouldn't live in this town, not if she was switched. I dunno why she's so ag'in' it, but she seems to be, an' there 't is!"

"Why, aunt Luceba!" Isabel had left her position to draw forward a chair. "What's that?" She pointed to the foot of the lounge, where, half hidden in shadow, stood a large, old-fashioned blue chest.

"'Sh! that's it! that's what I come for. It's her chist."

"Whose?"

"Your aunt 'Liza's." She looked Isabel in the face with an absurd triumph and awe. She had done a brave deed, the nature of which was not at once apparent.

"What's in it?" asked Isabel, walking over to it.

"Don't you touch it!" cried her aunt, in agitation. "I wouldn't have you meddle with it--But there! it's locked. I al'ays forgit that. I feel as if the things could git out an' walk. Here! you let it alone, an' byme-by we'll open it. Se' down here on the lounge. There, now! I guess I can tell ye. It was sister 'Liza's chist, an' she kep' it up attic. She begun it when we wa'n't more 'n girls goin' to Number Six, an' she's been fillin' on't ever sence."

"Begun it! You talk as if 't was a quilt!" Isabel began to laugh.

"Now don't!" said her aunt, in great distress. "Don't ye! I s'pose 't was because we was such little girls an' all when 'Liza started it, but it makes me as nervous as a witch, an' al'ays did. You see, 'Liza was a great hand for deaths an' buryin's; an' 'as for funerals, she'd ruther go to 'em than eat. I'd say that if she was here this minute, for more 'n once I said it to her face. Well, everybody 't died, she saved suthin' they wore or handled the last thing, an' laid it away in this chist; an' last time I see it opened, 'twas full, an' she kind o' smacked her lips, an' said she should have to begin another. But the very next week she was took away."

"Aunt Luceba," said Isabel suddenly, "was aunt Eliza hard to live with? Did you and aunt Mary Ellen have to toe the mark?"

"Don't you say one word," answered her aunt hastily. "That's all past an' gone. There ain't no way of settlin' old scores but buryin' of 'em. She was older 'n we were, an' on'y a step-sister, arter all. We must think o' that. Well, I must come to the end o' my story, an' then we'll open the chist. Next day arter we laid her away, it come into my head, 'Now we can burn up them things.' It may ha' been wicked, but there 't was, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', 'Le's open it to-day an' make a burnfire!' An' Mary Ellen she turned as white as a sheet, an' dropped her spoon into her sasser, an' she says: 'Not yet! Luceba, don't you ask me to touch it yet.' An' I found out, though she never'd say another word, that it unset her more'n it did me. One day, I come on her up attic stan'in' over it with the key in her hand, an' she turned round as if I'd ketched her stealin', an' slipped off downstairs. An' this arternoon, she went into Tilly Ellison's with her work, an' it come to me all of a sudden how I'd git Tim Yatter to harness an' load the chist onto the pung, an' I'd bring it over here, an' we'd look it over together; an' then, if there's nothin' in it but what I think, I'd leave it behind, an' maybe you or Sadie'd burn it. John Cole happened to ride by, and he helped me in with it. I ain't a-goin' to have Mary Ellen worried. She's different from me. She went to school, same's you have, an' she's different somehow. She's been meddled with all her life, an' I'll be whipped if she sha'n't make a new start. Should you jest as lieves ask Sadie or John?"

"Why, yes," said Isabel wonderingly; "or do it myself. I don't see why you care."

Aunt Luceba wiped her beaded face with a large handkerchief.

"I dunno either," she owned, in an exhausted voice. "I guess it's al'ays little things you can't stand. Big ones you can butt ag'inst. There! I feel better, now I've told ye. Here's the key. Should you jest as soon open it?"

Isabel drew the chest forward with a vigorous pull of her sturdy arm. She knelt before it and inserted the key. Aunt Luceba rose and leaned over her shoulder, gazing with the fascination of horror. At the moment the lid was lifted, a curious odor filled the room.

"My soul!" exclaimed Aunt Luceba. "O my soul!" She seemed incapable of saying more; and Isabel, awed in spite of herself, asked, in a whisper:--

"What's that smell? I know, but I can't think."

"You take out that parcel," said aunt Luceba, beginning to fan herself with her handkerchief. "That little one down there't the end. It's that. My soul! how things come back! Talk about spirits! There's no need of 'em! _Things_ are full bad enough!"

Isabel lifted out a small brown paper package, labeled in a cramped handwriting. She held it to the fading light. "'Slippery elm left by my dear father from his last illness,'" she read, with difficulty. "'The broken piece used by him on the day of his death.'"

"My land!" exclaimed aunt Luceba weakly. "Now what'd she want to keep that for? He had it round all that winter, an' he used to give us a little mite, to please us. Oh, dear! it smells like death. Well, le's lay it aside an' git on. The light's goin', an' I must jog along. Take out that dress. I guess I know what 't is, though I can't hardly believe it."

Isabel took out a black dress, made with a full, gathered skirt and an old-fashioned waist. "'Dress made ready for aunt Mercy,'" she read, "'before my dear uncle bought her a robe.' But, auntie," she added, "there's no back breadth!"

"I know it! I know it! She was so large they had to cut it out, for fear 't wouldn't go into the coffin; an' Monroe Giles said she was a real particular woman, an' he wondered how she'd feel to have the back breadth of her quilted petticoat showin' in heaven. I declare I'm 'most sick! What's in that pasteboard box?"

It was a shriveled object, black with long-dried mould.

"'Lemon held by Timothy Marden in his hand just before he died.' Aunt Luceba," said Isabel, turning with a swift impulse, "I think aunt Eliza was a horror!"

"Don't you say it, if you do think it," said her aunt, sinking into a chair and rocking vigorously. "Le's git through with it as quick 's we can. Ain't that a bandbox? Yes, that's great-aunt Isabel's leghorn bunnit. You was named for her, you know. An' there's cousin Hattie's cashmere shawl, an' Obed's spe'tacles. An' if there ain't old Mis' Eaton's false front! Don't you read no more. I don't care what they're marked. Move that box a mite. My soul! There's ma'am's checked apron I bought her to the fair! Them are all her things down below." She got up and walked to the window, looking into the chestnut branches, with unseeing eyes. She turned about presently, and her cheeks were wet. "There!" she said; "I guess we needn't look no more. Should you jest as soon burn 'em?"

"Yes," answered Isabel. She was crying a little, too. "Of course I will, auntie. I'll put 'em back now. But when you're gone, I'll do it; perhaps not till Saturday, but I will then."

She folded the articles, and softly laid them away. They were no longer gruesome, since even a few of them could recall the beloved and still remembered dead. As she was gently closing the lid, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Aunt Luceba was standing there, trembling a little, though the tears had gone from her face.

"Isabel," said she, in a whisper, "you needn't burn the apron, when you do the rest. Save it careful. I should like to put it away among my things."

Isabel nodded. She remembered her grandmother, a placid, hopeful woman, whose every deed breathed the fragrance of godly living.

"There!" said her aunt, turning away with the air of one who thrusts back the too insistent past, lest it dominate her quite. "It's gittin' along towards dark, an I must put for home. I guess that hoss thinks he's goin' to be froze to the ground. You wrop up my soap-stone while I git on my shawl. Land! don't it smell hot? I wisht I hadn't been so spry about puttin' on't into the oven." She hurried on her things; and Isabel, her hair blowing about her face, went out to uncover the horse and speed the departure. The reins in her hands, aunt Luceba bent forward once more to add, "Isabel, if there's one thing left for me to say, to tole you over to live with us, I want to say it."

Isabel laughed. "I know it," she answered brightly. "And if there's anything I can say to make you and aunt Mary Ellen come over here"--

Aunt Luceba shook her head ponderously, and clucked at the horse. "Fur's I'm concerned, it's settled now. I'd come, an' be glad. But there's Mary Ellen! Go 'long!" She went jangling away along the country road to the music of old-fashioned bells.

Isabel ran into the house, and, with one look at the chest, set about preparing her supper. She was enjoying her life of perfect freedom with a kind of bravado, inasmuch as it seemed an innocent delight of which nobody approved. If the two aunts would come to live with her, so much, the better; but since they refused, she scorned the descent to any domestic expedient. Indeed, she would have been glad to sleep, as well as to eat, in the lonely house; but to that her sister would never consent, and though she had compromised by going to Sadie's for the night, she always returned before breakfast. She put up a leaf of the table standing by the wall, and arranged her simple supper there, uttering aloud as she did so fragments of her lesson, or dramatic sentences which had caught her fancy in reading or in speech. Finally, as she was dipping her cream toast, she caught herself saying, over and over, "My soul!" in the tremulous tone her aunt had used at that moment of warm emotion. She could not make it quite her own, and she tried again and again, like a faithful parrot. Then of a sudden the human power and pity of it flashed upon her, and she reddened, conscience-smitten, though no one was by to hear. She set her dish upon the table with indignant emphasis.

"I'm ashamed of myself!" said Isabel, and she sat down to her delicate repast, and forced herself, while she ate with a cordial relish, to fix her mind on what seemed to her things common as compared with her beloved ambition. Isabel often felt that she was too much absorbed in reading, and that, somehow or other, God would come to that conclusion also, and take away her wicked facility.

The dark seemed to drift quickly down, that night, because her supper had been delayed, and she washed her dishes by lamplight. When she had quite finished, and taken off her apron, she stood a moment over the chest, before sitting down to her task of memorizing verse. She was wondering whether she might not burn a few of the smaller things to-night; yet somehow, although she was quite free from aunt Luceba's awe of them, she did feel that the act must be undertaken with a certain degree of solemnity. It ought not to be accomplished over the remnants of a fire built for cooking; it should, moreover, be to the accompaniment of a serious mood in herself. She turned away, but at that instant there came a jingle of bells. It stopped at the gate. Isabel went into the dark entry, and pressed her face against the side-light. It was the parson. She knew him at once; no one in Tiverton could ever mistake that stooping figure, draped in a shawl. Isabel always hated him the more when she thought of his shawl. It flashed upon her then, as it often did when revulsion came over her, how much she had loved him until he had conceived this altogether horrible attachment for her. It was like a cherished friend who had begun to cut undignified capers. More than that, there lurked a certain cruelty in it, because he seemed to be trading on her inherited reverence for his office. If he should ask her to marry him, he was the minister, and how could she refuse? Unless, indeed, there were somebody else in the room, to give her courage, and that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began casting wildly about her for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing current, and even in the midst of her tragic despair some sense of the foolishness of it smote her like a comic note, and she could have laughed hysterically.

"But I can't help it," she said aloud, "I am afraid. I can't put out the light. He's seen it. I can't slip out the back door. He'd hear me on the crust. He'll--ask me--to-night! Oh, he will! he will! and I said to myself I'd be cunning and never give him a chance. Oh, why couldn't aunt Luceba have stayed? My soul! my soul!" And then the dramatic fibre, always awake in her, told her that she had found the tone she sought.

He was blanketing his horse, and Isabel had flown into the sitting-room. Her face was alive with resolution and a kind of joy. She had thought. She threw open the chest, with a trembling hand, and pulled out the black dress.

"I'm sorry," she said, as she slipped it on over her head, and speaking as if she addressed some unseen guardian, "but I can't help it. If you don't want your things used, you keep him from coming in!"

The parson knocked at the door. Isabel took no notice. She was putting on the false front, the horn spectacles, the cashmere shawl, and the leghorn bonnet, with its long veil. She threw back the veil, and closed the chest. The parson knocked again. She heard him kicking the snow from his feet against the scraper. It might have betokened a decent care for her floors. It sounded to Isabel like a lover's haste, and smote her anew with that fear which is the forerunner of action. She blew out the lamp, and lighted a candle. Then she went to the door, schooling herself in desperation to remember this, to remember that, to remember, above all things, that her under dress was red and that her upper one had no back breadth. She threw open the door.

"Good-evening"--said the parson. He was, about to add "Miss Isabel," but the words stuck in his throat.

"She ain't to home," answered Isabel. "My niece ain't to home."

The parson had bent forward, and was eyeing her curiously, yet with benevolence. He knew all the residents within a large radius, and he expected, at another word from the shadowy masker, to recognize her also. "Will she be away long?" he hesitated.

"I guess she will," answered Isabel promptly. "She ain't to be relied on. I never found her so." Her spirits had risen. She knew how exactly she was imitating aunt Luceba's mode of speech. The tones were dramatically exact, albeit of a more resonant quality. "Auntie's voice is like suet," she thought. "Mine is vinegar. _But I've got it!_" A merry devil assailed her, the child of dramatic triumph. She spoke with decision: "Won't you come in?"

The parson crossed the sill, and waited courteously for her to precede him; but Isabel thought, in time, of her back breadth, and stood aside.

"You go fust," said she, "an' I'll shet the door."

He made his way into the ill-lighted sitting-room, and began to unpin his shawl.