HARRIET had always been an authority in her small world; and it was not such a very small world either, as worlds go. Not only was she a person of consequence, now, when she was the head of a family and mistress of a fortune—her importance was of longer standing than that. To begin with, she had been the eldest of a family of brothers and sisters, who had looked up to her with an unquestioning respect, which even an eldest sister is by no means sure of inspiring. But Harriet was "her mother's own child," upright and firm, with that natural self-respect which is a law unto itself. Such an advantage, while sparing its possessor many a brush with those in authority, invests him with a nimbus of infallibility very impressive to younger and less well-balanced minds. Mrs. Anson Pratt, to be sure, was not the woman to yield the reins of government to any rival power, yet her daughter Harriet early became her chief adviser in such small matters of family economy and discipline as she thought unworthy the consideration of her husband's larger intelligence.
Under these favoring conditions Harriet grew to be a tall, self-possessed maiden; and as the handsomest and cleverest young woman of his acquaintance, was early wooed and won by the handsome and clever young business man James Spencer.
Indeed prosperity had marked her for its own from her very cradle. For while she was still in undisputed possession of that infant refuge, her mother's bachelor brother, William Kingsbury, had died, leaving to his little niece a legacy of two thousand dollars. This befell in the good old times when two thousand dollars was a tidy sum, and when money, being properly invested, doubled itself faster than is the case to-day. As their family increased in numbers a trifle faster than the family income grew, Anson Pratt and his wife would often remind one another that "Harriet was well provided for." The Pratts were plain, unworldly people, not at all inclined to pay undue deference to riches; yet one is tempted to wonder whether, if the little Harriet's future had been less assured, she might not sometimes have been called Hattie. The fact of never having known the levelling influences of a nickname is in itself not without weight in the sum of one's personal dignity.
During the many prosperous years that had elapsed since she had become Mrs. James Spencer, Harriet had tasted, one after another, the natural joys and the natural sorrows of life, and now that she was nearing the further boundaries of middle life she had become more and more the practical woman—the woman of affairs; the woman who was oftener appealed to for counsel than for sympathy. Her smooth "false front," her black eyes, her straight nose and well-closed mouth were all calculated to command respect. She was tall, and she felt her height; physically as well as mentally and morally she was unbending.
Even her great sorrow, the death of her husband, which had occurred fifteen years previous, had come to be to her a regrettable fact rather than an active emotion. Years and a strong will had done their work.
Yet for many weeks after James Spencer's death Harriet had felt with consternation that she was not self-sufficient. A strange, unreasoning sense of helplessness had oppressed her, which was even harder to bear than her actual grief.
The most vivid memory which she had of her husband's last days was that of a certain gloomy afternoon in November, when she had sat at his bedside, and they had taken counsel together for the last time. It was several days before his death, which they both knew to be close at hand. She had been sitting, erect and self-contained, while her husband slept, sternly denying herself the luxury of grief, simply facing the inevitable with rigid endurance. The rain was pattering upon the tin roof of the piazza beneath the windows, and the sky was dreary as her thoughts. It seemed to her afterward that that pattering rain, which continued persistently for three days, had worn a groove in her consciousness, causing her to shrink from the sound as from a physical pain. Her family wondered that she should have her piazza roof shingled almost immediately after James' death, and her mother, Old Lady Pratt, declared it to be a "downright piece of extravagance," and hoped she "was n't goin' to be disapp'inted in Harriet after all these years." But Harriet knew that when the shingles dulled the sound of the pattering drops she could think more naturally of her trouble, and it was peculiarly necessary that she should allow nothing to disturb her balance. For the same event which had taken from her a strong support had also imposed upon her unaccustomed responsibilities. On that dreary afternoon, which she remembered so well, her husband had quietly opened his eyes, and without making any other movement to indicate his return to consciousness, he had said: "Harriet, I have left all the money to you."
This simplicity of speech was characteristic of James Spencer. He had been a genial and rather demonstrative man in every-day life, but in matters that touched him deeply he disliked effusion. He could trust his wife to meet him in his own spirit.
"All, James?" she queried.
"Yes, all; I leave you to provide for the children according to your judgment."
"It is not the usual way," she said, with an anxious look.
"It would be, if all married people were like you and me."
She sat for some time, pondering his words. Then, "I don't know," she said, "but it seems to me the old way is a very good one. If I had my—" No, she could not say "widow's third" and maintain her composure. "Tell me," she asked instead, "why you have acted so out of the common. I should like to know your reasons."
"Well, Harriet, I look at it in this way. If I had lived out my natural life, there would n't have been any division of property, and I can't see why matters should n't rest just as they are. It's partly on your account," he went on, "and still more on account of the children. You 've always been the best judge of what was good for them. Besides," he added, after a few more words of explanation, "I've been in the habit of considering that the money was as much yours as mine."
Again he paused, and Harriet did not break the silence. Later, when the early dusk was in the chamber, he said, "You and I have always been very united, Harriet."
He held out his hand to her. She took it in both hers.
"Dear girl!" he whispered.
If she had been of a brooding nature she would have taken a mournful pleasure ever after in the pattering rain upon the tin roof. But she was indulgent neither to herself nor to others, and as she entered upon her widowhood she deliberately composed her mind to a calm acquiescence, which, like the shingled roof, gave forth the least possible vibration to reminders of her sorrow.
Her four sons and her two married daughters had all escaped the quicksands of youth, and were now well launched upon their several careers. She could not but take pride in her successful guidance, to which she justly attributed a share in this happy consummation. She had now but one child remaining with her in her spacious house, the "little Lucy," as she still was called, a good, obedient girl of eighteen, who had never given her mother a moment's trouble. Hers was a figure that was rarely present to her mother's mind during the anxious vigils which that responsible woman kept. Hers was the name least often mentioned in her mother's prayers; for Harriet was, in her way, a religious woman. She was not as zealous a church member as one would have expected so active and capable a woman to be. Indeed, her own affairs might well absorb her energies. But her private devotions were none the less earnest. She did much of what her mother once called "thinking on her knees." She was sometimes vaguely aware, after a longer maintenance of this attitude than was usual, that she had been silently talking things over rather than offering praise or supplication. Yet these prolonged statements of her case before a perfect Intelligence often brought her to a better understanding of her own needs and her own best course than she could otherwise have reached. If her religious rites lacked piety, they were at least alive with conscience. And though all her children were remembered in these secret communings, little Lucy's name was so unsuggestive of perplexities that it rarely received more than a passing mention.
One brilliant winter's day Lucy came down stairs arrayed in her squirrel tippet and muff, and wearing a little squirrel cap which sat jauntily on her bright brown hair. She had a fine color, and as she stopped at the sitting-room door to say that she was going over to see Grandma and Aunt Betsy, her mother was struck by her good looks. Indeed, so pleasant was the impression she received that Harriet, usually rather unsusceptible to merely "skin-deep" charms, got up from her chair, and still holding her sewing in her hand, stepped to the window to look out. Lucy lingered for a moment at the top of the long flight of stone steps, down which she then passed with a pretty, swaying motion all her own. "Little Lucy" had a good height, and was in other respects more like her mother than any one had yet discovered. As she reached the driveway below she turned abruptly, with a remarkably bright smile, and bowed. Following the direction of her glance, her mother beheld a surprising apparition. At the side gate stood a young man wearing a corduroy jacket, and holding in his hand a broader-brimmed hat than was then the fashion. His close cropped head thus exposed was a particularly shapely one, though that good point was lost upon his sharp-eyed observer. She meanwhile could see that he was speaking, and if it had not been for Lucy's expressive face she would have supposed that he was a stranger inquiring his way. What, then, was her astonishment when the smiling Lucy went toward the side gate, greeted the still hatless individual with outstretched hand, and, turning, walked away with him in the opposite direction from "Grandma's." Harriet found herself supplied with food for reflection which occupied her the rest of the morning.
Shortly before dinner the truant Lucy appeared, looking flushed and happy, and unmindful of her mother's stern countenance, proceeded to take off her gloves and loosen her tippet. Harriet, apparently intent upon her seam, sewed steadily on, waiting for the child to speak.
"I didn't go to Grandma's after all," said Lucy, stepping to the front window and gazing in an absorbed way across the snow.
Harriet stopped her sewing and looked up, expectant.
"Where did you go?" she asked.
"I went to walk with Frank Enderby. We walked away out into the country and it was perfectly glorious."
The girl had turned her glowing face toward her mother.
"Frank Enderby!" Harriet repeated, with increased displeasure. "Was that Italian-looking man, waiting for you at the gate, Frank Enderby?"
"Why, yes! Did you see him? And didn't you know him?"
"I never thought of such a thing. When did he come back?"
"The 14th of last month," said Lucy, with prompt exactitude.
"And have you seen much of him?"
"I've seen him three times, not counting to-day."
"Where have you been seeing him?"
"The first time was at Annie Owen's party. And then I saw him at church the next Sunday; and yesterday he was calling at Annie's when I was there."
"Why didn't you mention him to me?"
"I don't know," said Lucy, promptly taking refuge in a time-honored subterfuge.
"You must at least know that you were behaving very improperly, when you took a long walk with a young man I'm not acquainted with."
"I know, Mother; but I really didn't mean to. He asked me if he might not walk with me to Grandma's, by way of the common, and before we knew it we were going down Elm Street. You have no idea," she continued, with renewed animation, "how lovely the bare branches of the trees were against the sky. I had never noticed them so much myself, till Frank pointed them out to me. He said it was the best lesson in architecture a man could have, just to see how they met and divided. Do you know, mother, if I were a man, I should have been an architect myself."
"But you're not a man, Lucy; and I don't like the familiar way in which you are speaking of a perfect stranger."
"But, Mother, Frank isn't a stranger. I've known him all my life. He used to be ever so good to me when I was a little girl. I was always fond of Frank."
"That was when he was a boy, Lucy. You don't know anything about him since he has grown up. We don't any of us know how he has spent his time in all these years."
"Oh! but I know. He has been studying like a tiger; he told me so himself. And now he is prepared to build theatres, and cathedrals, and—and houses, and make a great name for himself."
"He's got a pretty poor one to start with," cried Harriet, with asperity.
"Theatres and cathedrals," she reflected, as Lucy left the room, scarcely heeding her mother's last remark; "theatres and cathedrals, indeed! Just what I should have expected of him! I shouldn't be at all surprised if he had turned Romanist. Like as not he was hand in glove with all the play-actors in Europe."
This highly colored view of the young man's probable career was due partly to her profound disapproval of all his antecedents, and partly to his "theatrical" appearance. None of the Dunbridge young men wore velvet jackets and broad-brimmed hats, nor did they stand bareheaded while they talked to a little chit like Lucy. Much as ever if they showed Old Lady Pratt herself such deference. To say nothing of his hair, cropped as close as a jail-bird's! A horrible suspicion crossed Harriet's mind. Could he have been in jail?
It was easy to believe anything, however bad, of a son of Frank Enderby. Had not the father drunk himself into the grave, lingering by the way, however, to drink up a decent fortune? Had not his wife been an inefficient, slatternly woman, without backbone enough to keep her children out of rags? What could one expect of the son of such people? The other children had all died. It was more than likely that the inherited vices of the whole family had centred in this boy. And what was he, after all, but a charity boy, supported, ever since his parents' death, by a rich stranger? A self-respecting young fellow would have gone into a store, and worked his way up. But that was not a fine enough career for Frank Enderby's son. He must needs be "educated" for an architect, and fritter away years of his life in Europe, living the while on charity. An architect, indeed! Nothing but a new fangled name for builder. Had not her own father built half the houses in Dunbridge? Good enough houses for anybody to live in. The stately roof over her own head was a lasting monument to Anson Pratt's skill and ability. Anson Pratt's education had consisted in several years of hard work and privation, as a 'prentice boy. And here was this young upstart requiring all Europe to his teacher! It was just the sort of thing that Harriet had no patience with, and she resolved then and there that this would-be builder of Catholic cathedrals should have no countenance from her family.
But Harriet Spencer was reckoning without "little Lucy," as she might have known at first sight of Lucy's preoccupied face at dinner, and "little Lucy," up to this time, was practically an unknown factor even to her mother.
One of Old Lady Pratt's many wise sayings was, "There's nothin' more likely to come to pass than what you ain't lookin' for." Holding which view, she should have been proof against surprise.
Now it surely would have been difficult to imagine anything more in accordance with this philosophy than Lucy's sudden elevation to inconvenient prominence in the family councils. And yet so inconsistent is even the wisest philosopher that when Harriet, a few weeks later, unfolded to her mother this new and growing perplexity, Old Lady Pratt so far forgot herself as to lay down her knitting, take off her steel-bowed spectacles, and exclaim: "Well, I never! That beats me, I declare for 't!"
They were in Old Lady Pratt's sunny sitting-room, with the pretty green three-ply carpet on the floor, and the canary bird singing lustily above the plants in the window. Deaf Aunt Betsy was sitting by, nodding her head over her worsted-work, but she was no interruption to confidences. If she marked the agitation which caused her mother to take off her spectacles, she gave no sign. Betsy rarely knew the preliminary intricacies of the family affairs. She was thought to have had her share of the excitement if she received sufficient warning to enable her to get a sofa cushion worked in time for the wedding. So, when she observed her mother's withered fingers tightly holding the bows of the shining spectacles—careful even in her excitement that the glasses should not get blurred—Betsy merely took a critical survey of her worsteds, and choosing a rich green, proceeded to fill in one of her "heart patterns" with it, rejoicing in the fine contrast it offered to its brilliant crimson neighbor.
"And you feel sure, Harriet, that it ain't jest a passing fancy?"
"I'm afraid it's more 'n that, Mother. Lucy hasn't been the same girl since I took her to task about it. She used to be the evenest of all my children, and now she's either moping about from morning till night, or else she's as high-flying as a long-tail kite. I thought first myself that she'd see the sense of what I said to her, and I didn't believe she'd mind breakin' with him after such a short acquaintance. That's why I made up my mind not to say anything to you about it. I knew just how you'd feel about Frank Enderby's son, and how you'd hate"
"Fudge, Harriet! 'T ain't Frank Enderby I object to. Frank would ha' come out straight enough if he'd had any kind of a wife. It's Frank's wife I never could abide—a weak, shiftless, wishy-washy woman! It always did rile me jest to look at Sally Enderby; and I must say 't would put me out more 'n most anything I can think of to have any of my own kith and kin on more 'n speakin' terms with a child of hers."
"But, Mother, Frank Enderby was a drunkard," Harriet remonstrated.
"I don't care 'f he was. Any man with a spark of sperit would have gone to the dogs with such a wife as that."
Harriet gave a little gasp of consternation.
"Well," she said, when she had recovered herself sufficiently to speak, "I never thought I should live to hear you stand up for a drunkard!"
The old lady gave her a shrewd look, anda gleam of humor came into the bright old eyes—Harriet did take things so seriously.
"You'll have to hear a good many surprising things before you're as old as I be," she answered, tranquilly resuming her spectacles and her knitting-work.
The canary, as though startled by his old friend's heresy, had fallen into a sudden silence. For a little while the click of the knitting-needles and Betsy's soft woolly manipulations were the only sounds audible.
Then Old Lady Pratt said: "How would it do to send Lucy away on a visit? May be Jane could have her at her house for a spell."
Jane was a daughter of the house of Pratt who had married somewhat "beneath her." She lived in a smoky manufacturing town about ten miles distant from the genteel suburb where the Pratts "resided." Her husband was an optician in a small way, who had not made a success of life, and one would have supposed that there was not much in the nature of festivity to be enjoyed in Jane's stuffy little house. But there was a theory in the Pratt family that a visit must necessarily be considered as an indulgence, and Harriet answered, with decision:
"No, Mother, I've no idea of humorin' her; she don't deserve it. And besides," she added, "it is n't likely 't would do any good. You know it was just what you tried with Jane herself, and after all she married Henry Bennett before the year was out."
"We'll let by-gones be by-gones," said Old Lady Pratt, rather sharply. She had been "disapp'inted" in Jane's marriage, but she did not propose to cry over spilt milk.
Little Lucy, meanwhile, was having a hard time. Her mother's disapproval was no light affliction, living, as she did, alone with her in that big house, with nobody else to speak to. Harriet had never been a demonstrative mother. She had a certain manner under which she concealed her affection for her children as carefully as she concealed her abundant gray hair beneath a false front. Overt tenderness was not the fashion of the day, nor would it have accorded well with Harriet's self-contained temperament. But though Lucy missed no accustomed warmth, she felt an unaccustomed chill, and it was hard to bear; the more so, as she had gained little in the way of compensation. She "liked" Frank Enderby, and she modestly "hoped" that he liked her. Even in her inmost thoughts Lucy never used a warmer word. Yes, she liked him, and he was very "nice" to her; and how could she break with him as her mother wished her to do? She never thought of disobeying her mother; that was quite out of the question. But, oh! it was very hard.
"I might as well be a nun, and never go anywhere," she had said, in a melancholy little voice, when her mother had carefully laid down the law as to her conduct.
A new look of displeasure had appeared in Harriet's severe face, but she said nothing. She only made a mental note of the little speech as being "another foreign notion."
To-day, while her mother was "gone to Grandma's," Lucy stood at a front window, gazing idly across the snow-covered lawn to the street, as young girls will gaze when the house seems empty, and the outside world is full of possibilities. She told herself she was hoping that Annie Owen might come to see her.
Suddenly she beheld her pet kitten, a frisky little bunch of gray fur, scurrying across the snow toward the street, toward all the dangers that menace little kittens in this wicked world. Quick as thought, Lucy had snatched her Red Riding-hood cape, that was hanging on the hat-tree, and was running swiftly toward the "evergreen corner" in pursuit. She found kitty examining with much interest the shady recesses beneath a dark hemlock, whose branches swept the ground. Puss paid no heed to her mistress' voice. She was stepping daintily about in the snow, lifting her soft little paws very high, and evincing great surprise when her waving tail brought a sudden shower of white powder down upon her from the low-hanging needles.
"Here, kitty, kitty! Come, puss, come!" Lucy called, in persuasive tones. But pussy did not move an eyelid in response.
Now Lucy, whose very decided will was trained to submission in several legitimate directions, had no mind to be thwarted by her own kitten. She drew her little red cape tightly about her, and diving in among the wet prickly branches, seized Miss Pussy Cat by the back of her neck, and pulled her out. "Bad pussy," she said, in a caressing tone, holding the warm little creature up against her cheek. The red cape and the dark hair were well powdered with snow, but Lucy did not move away directly. It felt warm and sheltered in there among the tall dark hemlocks, with a blue sky for a roof. She stood, lost in a sudden girlish reverie, softly stroking the kitten, which purred contentedly against her chin.
"I wish you liked me half as well as you do that kitten, Lucy," said a voice she knew.
The sidewalk was close at hand, with only a low stone wall between. He stood holding the branches of the evergreens apart, and looking in upon her with a deprecating, beseeching face. It seemed like a part of her reverie, his coming had been so silent. She did not more than half believe it was really he. She looked at him incredulously for an instant, and then, still gazing into his ardent eyes, she said: "Oh, Frank, I do, I do!"
Before he could speak or look an answer, she had turned and fled across the snow.
But she could not flee so lightly the echo of her own daring words, and all that day and evening the impulse of flight was still strong upon her.
At last, when bedtime came, Lucy said to her mother, "I wish you would let me go to Aunt Jane's for a visit."
Her eyes were fixed upon the carpet. Her mother thought they looked swollen and red.
"Why do you want to go to Aunt Jane's?"
"I should like to get away from home."
"Why?"
She lifted her eyes to her mother's. Mother and daughter were very much alike at that moment.
"Why?" Harriet repeated.
"It isn't easy to do as you wish me to at home, and"
"And what?"
"I should like to think it over quietly."
There was no defiance in the tone. It seemed to Harriet as though she were listening to her own voice. A peculiar sense of identity with the girl came over her, and she did not resent the speech. If Lucy really did resemble her in character there was nothing to fear. Harriet, with all her determination, would never have rebelled against lawful authority.
"Go to bed now, child," she said, not unkindly; "I will think about it."
When she left Lucy at her Aunt Jane's the next day, with no more enlivening companionship than that of her dull old bachelor cousin, Anson Bennett, Harriet felt some misgivings.
"I don't know 's it's just the place for her," she said to herself. "If she wants to fret and pine, there's nothing at Jane's to hinder."
For the moment she felt out of humor with herself, and mistrustful of her own wisdom. But this dissatisfaction soon gave place to the much less irksome feeling of annoyance with others. For during Lucy's three weeks' absence, her mother heard so much of young Frank Enderby that she got into a state of chronic displeasure against the world in general. He seemed to have bewitched the neighborhood.
"Just like his father," she would say to herself, rocking so fiercely that she could not sew. "Frank Enderby always had a taking way with him. These good-for-nothing fellows are very apt to."
She felt more determined than ever in her opposition to him. But still his praises resounded. He was going to be a great architect. He had set up an office of his own in the city. He was already paying off the debt to his rich benefactor. It was rumored that he was to have the building of the new Episcopal church in Dunbridge, and that there were to be stained-glass windows in it, and two pulpits. As time went on Harriet began to feel that the whole community was in league against her, and she summoned all her will and diplomacy to avert the crisis which she feared.
One day Old Lady Pratt was passing the afternoon with her daughter. The two women had established themselves comfortably over the iron register, whence issued a mild, well-regulated heat, very pleasing to a well-regulated mind. They talked amicably of this and that, while their knitting-needles clicked accompaniment, and Harriet had begun to feel more at one with herself and with the world at large than had been the case for some time past. Suddenly, as out of a clear sky, the old lady remarked:
"'T ain't often that you see a handsomer house than this, Harriet."
Now the superiority of the Spencer house over others of the neighborhood was an established fact, and one that hardly called for comment at this late day. Harriet could not but wonder at the turn her mother's thoughts had taken. She soon caught their drift, however.
"I must say," the latter continued, "that I was quite pleased to hear that young Enderby has been heard to say that 'Old Anson Pratt's houses' were a long sight ahead of the new 'French-roof monstrosities.' He called 'em monstrosities, Harriet," she repeated, with a quiet chuckle.
Harriet's face suddenly hardened. "I always thought the French-roof houses very pretty myself," said she.
Her mother glanced at her quickly.
"I hope you ain't so sot agin that boy as you was, Harriet. Far 's I can make out, he seems to be a likely enough young fellow."
"Likely enough to go to the bad," Harriet retorted, sharply.
"He ain't showed no signs of it yet," the old lady rejoined, with answering spirit. "He 'pears to be doin' uncommon well. Dr. Baxter says he's makin' his mark a'ready."
"He has n't stopped being the son of his father and mother, far's I know."
"That's true enough, and I never could abide Sally Enderby. But then, folks don't always take after their fathers and mothers."
"I don't know who else they take after," cried Harriet, with as near an approach to irritability as she ever permitted herself. "Anyway, my mind's made up about Lucy. She sha'n't have anything to do with Frank Enderby, not if I have to lock her up."
Old Lady Pratt eyed her daughter an instant. It was one of the rare occasions on which she was displeased with her.
"Speakin' of takin' after your parents," she said, dryly, "you ain't one mite like your father."
The reproof was administered, and the culprit knew it.
Opposition is a great stiffener. From that time forward Harriet Spencer's determination had turned to obstinacy.
When Lucy came home a few days later, her mother, after a searching glance at her pale face, gave her a rather frosty greeting. The girl wore a deep red rose in her dress.
"Where did you get that rose?" Harriet asked presently, for hot-house flowers did not bloom at Jane's.
"Frank left it for me yesterday."
"Did he come 'way over to Westville on purpose to see you?"
"I don't know."
"How did he find out you were at Jane's?"
"I don't know."
"Didn't you ask him?"
"I didn't see him."
"Why not?"
"I thought it would be mean."
The inquisitor's face relaxed.
"Did Jane see him?"
"Yes 'm."
"What did she say to him?"
"I don't know. She said she made it all right."
"Jane had better mind her own business," Harriet muttered.
She was suspicious of her sister's methods. Jane's had never been a well-regulated mind. But the rose was suffered to remain where it was. Lucy had certainly behaved very well, exactly as Harriet herself would have done in her place.
When she said good-night, Lucy still looked pale and tired; but there was a "grown-up," experienced look in her face which did not escape her mother.
Harriet was again struck with that curious sense of identity with her which had come over her once before. "I guess it's that red rose," she said to herself, with a dreary feeling at her heart.
Harriet's devotions that evening were serious and absorbing. Long after the house was quiet she still knelt beside her bed, her head resting in her hands. Yet meek as was the attitude, her face, when she lifted it, was harder than before; the set look seemed fixed there. She put out her light and got into bed, but she could not compose herself to sleep. Hour after hour she lay with her eyes wide open, staring into the darkness. She had ceased to think; she had ceased to resolve. She was trying, with a dull, persistent effort, not to see that red rose and the pale face above it, so like her own. The tall clock in the dining-room struck eleven and twelve. Then the minutes dragged so slowly that she hoped she had been asleep. But no; the next stroke that echoed through the empty halls was one. At two o'clock something seemed to give way within her. She got up and struck a light, and having put on her heavy flannel double-gown and slippers, she stood for a moment irresolute. She glanced furtively at the old mahogany bureau between the front windows, and then, candle in hand, she passed out into the warm hall and down the stairs. As the old timbers creaked beneath her feet she paused, and cast a guilty look over her shoulder. "If this isn't perfectly ridiculous!" she said to herself, with strong disapproval. But she pursued her way still more cautiously.
Arrived below she went about from room to room feeling the window fastenings. Yet she had secured them all herself, and Harriet Spencer was the last woman to doubt her own thoroughness. The long parlor was dim and shadowy in the flickering candle-light, and her own figure seen in the pier-glass as she came down the room had a ghostly look. She turned her eyes away from the glass, and was glad to go out into the hall.
In the kitchen she examined the bread, which had been set to rise. It was doing its duty bravely. The gray kitten, curled up in its little basket beside the stove, opened one eye upon the intruder, but it told no tales of hemlock boughs and Red Riding-hood capes, nor of a swift passage across the snow, held close against a wildly beating heart.
A few moments later Harriet was standing at Lucy's bedside. The girl was fast asleep, but the candle-light upon her face showed it flushed and tear-stained. In the mug upon the washstand the red rose drooped its head. Harriet bent down and breathed the delicate perfume, shading the candle lest the light should wake the sleeper. "I wish I could sleep like that," she thought, sighing deeply. "'T isn't much of a trouble that don't keep you awake nights."
Yet the touch was very gentle with which she drew the warm coverlid closer about the child.
Harriet was not herself to-night. For once in her life she had slipped from her own guidance. Something from without seemed to direct her movements; or was it something deep, deep within? As she closed her chamber door and put the candle upon the bureau, she made one last, half-hearted effort to break the spell which was upon her, but the effort was vain. A look of unwonted emotion transformed her handsome features, and, in sudden defiance of her own will, she pulled open a certain bureau drawer, and reaching far back under the cool linen, drew forth an old shell box. Her hands trembled a little as she lifted the lid. The subtle odor which clings about old letters floated up. She took them out and opened them, one after the other, straining her eyes to read them in the uncertain candle-light. Curiously enough, she did not think of putting on her glasses. The young eyes for which those lines were written had required no such aids. Each letter began: "My beloved Harriet," and each one was signed: "Your faithful James." Nor did they differ very greatly in their contents, these three or four yellow letters with the ink fading out. She read them slowly and with difficulty, a deep crimson coming into her cheeks, a strange softness into her eyes.
Last of all, she took up a piece of silk tissue-paper lying folded together in the bottom of the box. How long it was since she had looked at it! The creases were worn quite through. Lying within,—yes, there it was, a faded rose, no longer red. The dull brownish petals would have crumbled had her touch been less tender. For a long, long time she looked at it before laying it carefully back into the box; then, with a sudden, passionate movement, she bowed her gray head upon the open letters, and wept—wept not like an old woman, but like a young girl in an abandonment of grief.
The candle burnt lower and lower, while Harriet Spencer sat and wept; the old clock struck three, and the faint yet pervasive odor of the yellowing paper crept slowly through the quiet chamber. It was gray dawn before the weary watcher sank into a troubled sleep.
But that short sleep bridged the way back to real life. There was no trace of weariness in the brisk step with which Harriet went about the house the next morning. Her voice, too, was quite steady and matter-of-fact as she said to Lucy: "How would you like to have me send and ask Frank Enderby to come in to supper to-night, seeing he was so polite as to go 'way over to Jane's to wait on you. We are going to have waffles," she tried to add, but there were close clinging arms about her neck and a soft cheek was pressed against her own for answer. Such behavior did not seem to Harriet quite decorous. She actually blushed, as she put the girl gently from her, saying: "There, there, Lucy! Don't take on about it."
Little Lucy did not mark the strangely tired look in her mother's eyes. A happy wonder filled her heart, and shut out all besides.
At the wedding, a year or two after that, some one remarked, "How well-preserved Harriet Spencer is!"
"Yes," said the widow Perkins, with a self-conscious sigh; "that comes of keeping your feelings under."