"Look, that's where father went to school." "Is that where you used to draw pictures on your slate instead of doing sums?" Philip's confession would not have been approved by an educator: "Yes; it was a great deal better than sums." After that they stopped to buy some candy at Tommy Dove's. "I used to waste lots of my allowance here when Mr. Tommy's father kept the apothecary shop," Philip said; and the purchase of a red-and-white-striped candy whistle, very stale and very strongly flavored with wintergreen, detained them at least a quarter of an hour. Then, too, they had to pause under one of the ailanthus trees on the green, so that her father might show Molly how to make a strange, husky noise through, the whistle, while between her lips it was melting into sticky sweetness. It was nearly noon before they reached the rectory, a small, rambling house, with vines growing thick about its doors and windows. When they crossed the threshold, the visitors took one step down into a narrow hall, and then turned sharp to the right to enter Dr. Lavendar's study, a small room, smelling of tobacco smoke and leather bindings. There was a work table, with a lathe beside it, standing in a flood of sunshine by a south window, but vines darkened the other windows, and the book-covered walls filled the room with a pleasant dusk. The old clergyman looked up from his sermon when Philip and Molly broke in upon his solitude. His eyes shone with pleasure; he took his pipe from his lips, and stretched out his hand to them without rising. "Can't get up," he said, frowning, with great show of annoyance; "this abominable dog has gone to sleep with his head on my foot! Dogs are perfect nuisances! But, as a shaggy old Scotch terrier rose, yawning and stretching, from the floor beside him, he did rise, and clapped Philip on the shoulder, twinkling at him from under bushy white eyebrows. "Good boy! Good boy! " he said. "And the child? Nice child. Go and play in the garden, my dear. I can't remember her name, Philip?" Molly, obedient, and glad to get out again into the sunshine, would have stepped from the open French window into the deep, tangled sweetness of an old-fashioned garden, but Dr. Lavendar called her back. He put his pipe down on the mantelshelf, and searched slowly in all the pockets of his ancient dressinggown. "There," he said, "there's a nickel! Now go." And Molly, with a wondering glance at her father, went. Dr. Lavendar sat down in front of his work table. "Back again, boy? How long do you intend to stay? How's your wife?" "Well," Philip told him briefly, and added that they should spend the summer in Old Chester. "You did n't see Joseph in Mercer, as you came through? Well, never mind; he'll be here on Saturday, never fails to come on Saturday. Hi, there, Danny! Do you see that dog getting into my armchair? I won't have it; I'll give him away. Daniel, you 're a scoundrel." Then he got up and poked a cushion under Danny's little old gray head. "I have seen only two or three people beside Mrs. Drayton," said Philip,"oh! and Mrs. Pendleton. I stopped at her house to present my friend, Roger Carey, who is staying with me. He is a connection of her husband's.” "Yes, yes; she's come here to live," said Dr. Lavendar, the eager sweetness of his old face changing suddenly. "You know who she is? She's the girl who broke off with Joey. She lived in Mercer then. Well, that 's twenty years ago now; but she 's the same woman, - the same woman ! "Perhaps she's had a change of heart," Philip suggested. "I'm afraid I seem irritated," he said apologetically; "sometimes I almost lose my patience in speaking of her. Yes, Yes, Joe forgave her, and I ought not to be resentful, I'm sure. I'm the gainer. I'd have lost him if she 'd appreciated him. She's the kind of woman who comes out three or four words behind the rest of the congregation in the responses, Philip. If you were a clergyman, you'd know what that means!" He pulled his black silk skullcap down hard over his white hair that stood up very stiff and straight above his anxious, wrinkled forehead and his keen dark eyes. Then he sighed, and said, with a little effort, Look here, Philip, I've something to show you." He turned his swivel chair round a little, and began to fumble at the lock of a drawer in his table. "I always keep the key in the lock," he said, chuckling. "If I did n't, I should lose it twenty times a day!" He pulled the drawer open with an excited jerk, and took out some small packages of soft white tissue paper; he unfolded them with eager haste, his lips opening and closing with interest. rich man, you shall give me a diamond to cut?" "You shall have it, sir," Philip assured him "but I'm afraid I'll never be a rich man. How does the book come on, Dr. Lavendar?" The old clergyman shook his head. "Fairly, Philip, fairly; I think it will be done in about three years. You see, The History of Precious Stones cannot be written in a day. (That's the title, The History of Precious Stones. Don't you think that is a good title?) No, it can't be written in a day. It is the history of the human race, when you come to think of it. And that's a large subject, sir, a large subject. You see, there are so many discursions from the main subject necessary, sub-subjects, as it were. Take, for instance, the story of the emerald of Artabanus; of course that brings up his wife, and she at once recalls to the thoughtful reader the incident of her father and his general. eral. Or say rubies one is reminded of the dancer who lost his bride because Clisthenes objected that he 'gesticulated with his legs.' You remember the story of the ruby there, of course, Philip?" Philip was prudently silent. "Of course all that must be given. Yes, I think it will certainly be three years before the book is finished. Then I'll rewrite it and polish it. I've no patience with those crude writers who don't polish. Books are like sapphires; they must be polished polished! or else you insult your readers." "It will be a very valuable book, I've no doubt, sir." 66 Why, certainly, certainly," Dr. Lavendar agreed, rather curtly (the young man's observation seemed trite); "of course it will be valuable. It gives me pleasure to feel that I am going to be able to leave Joey a snug little sum; he'll have a regular income from The History of Precious Stones, when I'm dead and gone, sir." Philip, suppressing any astonishment he might have felt at the profits of literature, examined an amethyst of very beautiful color, while Dr. Lavendar explained that all his stones were cheap. "Joey can't afford valuable stones," he said; "but for beauty, what is more beautiful than those drops of immortal, unchangeable light? Look here!" He rummaged in another drawer, and found a cracked china cup, half full of small, roughly cut stones. Topazes, garnets, green garnets, look!" He took up a handful of them, and, standing there in the stream of sunshine from the deep window, let them slip by twos and threes between his fingers, a flashing drip of color. ing. 66 Chester was behind them, and high up on a hillside on the left the balconied roof of Cecil Shore's house gleamed whitely above the treetops. "Oh, father," said Molly, "can't I take off my shoes and stockings and wade?" And Philip, nothing loath to light a cigar and sit in the sun, said, "Yes, by all means! Miss Susan has to cross this field to get home, so we 'll wait for her here." He stretched himself out lazily under a beech, and with half-shut eyes watched, through the cigar smoke, the child holding her skirts well up out of the water, gripping the slippery stones with little Philip went away, smiling and sigh- bare white feet, and balancing herself in all the delightful excitement of a possible tumble. The beech leaves moved and whispered in a fresh breeze, and the brook kept up a low argument broken into chattering bursts; the sun shone warm on the green slope of the field, "What do you breathe such long breaths for, father?" said Molly; and he turned his sigh into a laugh, and said he was thinking it was pretty nice to live in Old Chester. "Everybody's so happy, Polly," he and far off, behind the hills, deep in the explained. "But why do they all fuss so?" Molly inquired gravely; and when he bade her remember that little girls did not know enough to talk about grown persons, she looked up at him and made her small excuse with puzzled face. "But mamma said so. Mamma said that everybody here was awfully fussy, and they bored her to death." Her father was too busy pointing out a martin-house in the fork of an oak to make any comment on "mamma's" views, and she did not look up to see the irritation in his face. She went springing along by his side over the short pasture turf, in a search for Miss Susan Carr, who was, they were told, looking after some late planting on her farm. They crossed a brook, that went bubbling between green banks, making whirling loops of foam about the larger stones in its path; a cow, standing ankle-deep in its shallow rush, sighed, as they passed her, in calm and fragrant meditation. Old 2 NO. 435. VOL. LXXIII. placid blue, great shiny clouds lay like the domes of a distant and celestial city. A man could forget the harshness of living, in such warm peace. Philip was almost sorry when Miss Susan Carr's cordial, strident voice hailed him with affection and surprise. She came towards him, all unconscious of her heavy, muddy boots and her hot, red face. 66 "My dear Philip! My dear boy!" she said, her kind, near-sighted brown. eyes dimmed with pleasure. And then she kissed him heartily, and asked a dozen questions about his health and his concerns, and hugged Molly, and said she hoped Cecil was well. She stood there in her short linsey-woolsey skirt and loose baggy jacket, one hand on her hip, looking at him with those quick, anxious glances which, to be sure, do not see very deeply into a man's soul, but are full of that mother comfort that often speaks in the faces of childless women. Philip's affection answered her in his words and eyes. He and Molly went home with her; and Molly had a cake, and went to visit the kittens in company with Miss Susan's old Ellen; and Philip drank a glass of wine, and Miss Susan talked and beamed. She gossiped, like all the rest of Old Chester; but, by some mysterious method, Susan Carr's gossip gave the listener a gentler feeling towards his kind. When she spoke of her neighbors' faults, one knew that somehow they were simply virtues gone to seed; and, what was more remarkable, her praise had no sting of insinuation in it, no suggestion that she could speak differently if she chose. Susan Carr's heart was sound and sweet; she seemed to have brought from her fields and pastures the courage of the winds and sunshine, and the spirit of the steadfast earth. Her face was as fresh as an autumn morning; her nut-brown hair, with a large, soft wave on either side of the parting, had not a thread of gray, though she was quite forty-five; on her cheek there was the glow that a russet apple has on the side nearest the sun, and her dark eyes crinkled into laughter as easily as they had done at twenty. She had a great deal to say to Philip, and all in a loud, breezy, vibrating voice, full of eager and friendly confidence in his interest. She told him that Lyssie was the dearest child in the world, "and devoted to Frances," she declared. "Of course she has n't Cecil's looks; but she's such a pleasant girl, and such a good child, too." She had a good word for Mrs. Pendleton, though there was a little effort in her voice. She laughed good naturedly about the Lavendars. "Yes, the dear old doctor still preaches on the Walls of the New Jerusalem. He is wonderfully learned, Philip, about precious stones; and I don't mind hearing about jacinth and chrysoprase and all those; it's really interesting. And it is about heaven, too," she added reverently. "I suppose you and Lyssie do a good deal of his parish work for him?" Philip said, lounging up and down the room, his hands in his pockets. "How familiar everything looks, Miss Susan! How well I remember the first time I came into this room with uncle Donald!" "Do you?" she said, her face soften"How proud he was of you, ing. Philip! Well, yes, Lyssie and I help the doctor sometimes. He's getting old, dear old man. But he won't spare himself. Careless as he is in his dress and about small things, in his work he's as exact and as punctual! Dear me, I wish the rest of us were half so methodical. You can't make him remember to order Jones to clip the hedge by the church, or to tell his Mary to mend his surplice; but if he has promised to see a poor soul at the upper village, he's there on the minute; or if he thinks Job Todd has been drinking, he 's sure to call just at the time he gets home from the shop, so as to keep him from abusing Eliza." Philip, listening and smiling, said "yes or "no" as Miss Susan seemed to expect; but he paid sudden attention when, in speaking again of Alicia, she referred incidentally to Eliza Todd's unhappiness. Miss Susan did not speak of Eliza as a "case," and the absence of that objectionable word was sweet to Philip's ears. "Yes," Miss Susan said, "Lyssie is really very useful in parish work. The way she has induced Eliza to stay with Job, when I was ready to give it up and let her go, is quite remarkable. Of course, there are matters that Lyssie can't help us in; for instance, that poor Ettie Brown and her baby. You remember you sent me some money for her, Philip?" "Cecil sent it," he corrected her; "I am only her almoner." "It's the same thing," said Miss Susan, with that positiveness which confesses an unwillingness to acknowledge what is painful; "it's just the same. Well, it would n't have been proper to have had Lyssie have anything to do with that; but she's invaluable in most things, and it's wonderful how she has kept Eliza to her duty." "Her duty?" cried Philip sharply. "Do you call it duty?" The worn lines in his face deepened suddenly as he spoke. "Why, Miss Susan, a thousand times better let Lyssie help the poor girl than meddle in the unspeakable viciousness of I mean ". he seemed to try to shake off his sudden earnestness "I mean have any hand in keeping two people together who don't love each other!" I never can be silly," she had long ago admitted sadly to herself. The worried look which Philip's allusion to Mr. Joseph Lavendar had brought into her face deepened, as she sat there frowning and tapping her foot upon the floor. After a while she rose, and tramped up and down the room, with her hands behind her, absorbed in thought. Then she stopped before a big, old-fashioned writing-desk, littered with farming papers, and with packages of vegetable seeds overflowing from crowded pigeonholes; accounts and memoranda and "Why, but, my dear Philip!" said ledgers lent it a most businesslike and unMiss Susan, aghast. But Philip offered no explanation; he looked annoyed at himself, and said he must call Molly and go home. "I've forgotten all about Carey," he observed. 66 Roger Carey is staying with me. I'm going to bring him to call." Miss Susan was so bewildered by Philip's extraordinary view of what was proper for Lyssie that she made no protest at his departure; but her confused look changed abruptly when, with his hand upon the door, he made some careless, friendly comment upon Joseph Lavendar. "He still plays at the morning service, I suppose? What a grave, splendid touch he has!" And then he went away. "Oh my!" said Susan Carr. "I'd almost forgotten it. Oh dear!" She sighed, and sat down as though suddenly tired. She sat as a man might, leaning forward, her clasped hands between her knees, and staring with an absent frown at her heavy boots; then she seemed to realize her masculine attitude, and drew herself together with an effort to achieve some feminine grace. There was something pathetic in the constant endeavor of this gentle, robust woman, whose occupation had made her clumsy, to express in her body the very genuine and delicate femininity of her soul. "Though feminine look. Miss Susan took a letter from a little drawer, and read it, standing up, twisting her lip absently between her thumb and forefinger. MY DEAR MISS SUSAN,I have found a very good Te Deum in C. I send it with this. Will you be so good as to look it over, so that we can try it on Saturday? Very truly yours, JOSEPH LAVENDAR. P. S. May I add, although the somewhat businesslike tenor of my letter might seem to preclude the mention of tenderer sentiments, that I have long desired to address you upon the subject of my affections? Delicacy only has restrained my pen or lips, and also the doubt (proper to a gentleman) of my own worthiness. But I cannot longer remain silent. I feel that the time has come when I must beg your amiable and ever ready sympathy and kindness, for I believe that my future lies in your hands; with your help, I venture to hope that I may become the happiest of men. I am sure that my brother has a warmer regard for you than for any one else whom I might mention, and your sympathy with my suit will mean very much to him. May I beg that will think this over, and let me have an opportunity for free discourse upon the subject? you |