ANSON PRATT the younger was something of an old Betty. His mother had made the discovery when he was still in petticoats, and she had tried by many ingenious devices to change his nature. He was only her second child, and she, being then young and inexperienced, had not yet learned that natures are not to be changed. Years, however, and an instructive family of children taught her wisdom. She brought her son up in the paths of godliness and temperance; she inculcated in him the most sterling principles; she taught him self-reliance and integrity. But an old Betty he remained to the end of the chapter.
This was the more unfortunate since he had married a woman who would have seemed especially designed by Providence to be a trial to an old Betty in any capacity, and pre-eminently so in the capacity of helpmeet. Yet there were compensations in his lot, which Anson Pratt would have been the last man to underrate.
Emmeline Joy, though not possessed of beauty, was a woman of a good deal of personal fascina tion. She had a piquant face and great vivacity. She had also her seasons of dreaminess—of remoteness from every-day concerns. She passed for an accomplished woman in the good old simple days when she was young, before the world grew critical and fault-finding, when people were still easily pleased. She could sing, and play the piano—a queer little thin-voiced instrument, having the maker's name done in mother-of-pearl, with floral ornamentations, on the lid. She could paint in water-colors, to the admiration of all beholders. She had a delightful talent for acting, and she so far succeeded in overcoming the prejudices of the Puritan community into which she had married, as to introduce private theatricals into staid old Dunbridge itself. She did none of these things well, judged by modern standards, unless it was perhaps the acting, in which she really excelled, by virtue of a remarkable power of mimicry and a spontaneity as refreshing as it was unusual. In music and painting she had no more technical facility than many of her contemporaries. But there was a touch of genius in all that she did, which made it go straight to people's hearts. Her painted flowers may have been a trifle out of drawing, but somehow she seemed to have got their fragrance into her pictures. The dear, old-fashioned tunes she played and sang were very primitive, but her touch made them beautiful. And the same spark of genius that prevailed in what she did, also made her what she was, a woman of singular charm and lovableness. It was no wonder that Anson Pratt fell in love with her, in spite of her well known shortcomings; it was no wonder that he was quite as much in love with her as ever, after having suffered from those shortcomings for seven years.
Emmeline's manifold faults might all be summed up in a word—she was the very worst housekeeper imaginable. Anson Pratt, old Betty as he was, was forced to live in the midst of disorder and dust; he had to see his two boys, bright little fellows with a capacity for getting into trouble, going about in rags and tatters. He himself had more than once experienced the humiliation of substituting a pin for a button; he had sometimes walked the streets with the degrading consciousness of a hole in his socks. This would have been hard enough for any man to bear. For an old Betty it was wellnigh intolerable. Furthermore, although he was not an epicure, Anson liked his meals well cooked and well served, and this reasonable wish was rarely gratified. Slatternly, inefficient servants succeeded one another in the kitchen, and unpalatable viands appeared as a result upon the table. Emmeline never seemed to notice what she ate. She had a good, healthy appetite and a preoccupied mind, and she could not understand any one's being fastidious—about his food.
To do Anson justice, it was some time before he complained. During the early part of his married life the muddiest coffee had the flavor of nectar when his wife's hands poured it out; the most unpalatable food of her serving seemed ambrosial. And when, after many months, he returned to a normal state of mind, and ventured upon a mild protest, Emmeline hardly took it in earnest. In fact, Emmeline was the only person who knew Anson Pratt intimately, who had not discovered that he was an old Betty.
Mrs. Anson's general inefficiency was the more aggravating, because it existed side by side with unusual capacity. When, at not very rare intervals, the maid-of-all-work took French leave, Emmeline invariably rose to the occasion. Then it was that Anson was well fed and well cared for. Appetizing dishes were served in the most appetizing manner. The touch of genius which Emmeline possessed, the quick perception and the light hand, made themselves felt in the homeliest tasks on which she really put her mind. The difficulty usually was that she did not put her mind on these things. She had too many bad habits, which interfered with that system so essential in the government of a household. She would read Scott or Byron until far into the night, and wake in the morning dazed and sleepy. Or again, she would rise with the sun and take her boys for a long walk, out into the dewy fields, to listen to the meadow thrush, instead of busying herself with housewifely duties. She had been known to practise an entire morning on a new piano piece, to spend days in fashioning a velvet tunic for Robbie, or an embroidered skirt for little Aleck, while the boys, happily unconscious, shocked the neighborhood in their well ventilated pinafores and tattered hats.
The two boys were very different, even at the age of five and three, respectively. Robbie, the elder, was the greater rogue of the two, the one who took the initiative in every scheme of mischief, leading the small boys of the neighborhood, as well as his matter-of-fact little brother, into scrapes innumerable. Yet when Emmeline played the piano, or sang an old ballad, the little figure that stole in on tiptoe and curled itself up in the corner of the sofa, that sat there motionless as long as the music lasted, was Robbie's, and Robbie's were the little arms that were most often flung about her neck in a burst of passionate affection, or an equally passionate burst of penitence. It was the little Robbie who was improvident with his playthings, who emptied his entire store of pennies for the roughest tramp who caine their way. It was little Robbie who gave his mother more trouble and more delight than a dozen little Alecks could have done.
Aleck, on the other hand, was his father's boy, the boy for whom Anson already prophesied success in life, and considering that the two were little Pratts, brought up in Dunbridge, this prophecy was likely enough to come true. The old New England community of half a century ago knew how to prize a level head and a well-governed mind. Genius and impetuosity were rather thrown away upon our forebears. A boy who drew pictures on his slate instead of doing his sums, who forgot his history dates in enthusiasm over the history heroes, did not, in old times, arouse the tender and peculiar interest of his teachers. Nobody but his mother looked upon Robbie as anything more than a bright but troublesome little lad, with ears in crying need of being boxed.
Meanwhile, Emmeline lived an abstracted sort of life, throwing herself ardently into whatever happened to appeal to her for the moment, adoring her husband and her little boys, and taking the worst possible care of them. She led her own life of the imagination and the emotions, curiously oblivious of the clouds that were gathering on the domestic horizon. And Anson, tired of protesting, tired of "putting up" with things, tired of living "out at elbows," was gradually forming a great resolve.
For several weeks past, Emmeline had been given over, heart and soul, to the preparations for a "parlor comedy," to be performed in aid of a fund for buying a new church organ. She had not only to play the title-rôle, "The Artless Celestina," but she was stage-manager as well. This latter undertaking was the more arduous of the two, because of the uncompromising stiffness of the material she had to work with. The women of her little troupe, sensible wives and daughters of Dunbridge citizens, women who had all their lives been engaged in repressing their more lively emotions, in refraining from indecorous exhibitions of feeling, found it difficult to teach their voices the art of trembling, their features the trick of looking moved in an imaginary situation. The estimable youth who had assumed the rôle of insinuating villain could scarcely be induced not to state his designs and convey the subtle cunning of his machinations in a voice with which he might have taken command of an army. As to Celestina's lover, though his declaration of undying affection smacked strongly of the counting-house, his arms and legs would have done credit to a Dutch windmill. But Emmeline never for a moment lost heart. She drilled her unpromising company with tact and spirit, and she threw into her own rôle a naturalness and fire which held its own against all odds. The play, according to Dunbridge standards, turned out a success, and the "leading lady" went home with her husband after the performance, exhausted but triumphant.
But great as had been Emmeline's perplexities, this period of excitement and anxiety had been far more severe a strain upon Anson's nerves than upon hers. His house had been more at sixes and sevens than ever, his children had taken on more than ever the semblance of street-ragamuffins, and as for his food, he was left to the mercy of the most inefficient servant who had yet dispensed indigestion to this long-suffering household.
Yet Anson possessed himself in patience all through the time of rehearsals. He was even magnanimous enough to take a pride in his wife's success. He was a little bewildered, indeed, by the ease and naturalness with which she played the part of designing coquette, but her eagerness, when she turned to her rightful lord for approval, once the play being ended, proved entirely reassuring.
The next day Anson laid before her his list of grievances, and waited in the lingering hope of better things. Alas! It was a vain hope. Emmeline took his fault-finding in the sweetest spirit, promised to "see to things," and to "speak to" the servant, and immediately became absorbed in the manufacture of a pair of slippers for her husband's birthday, and forgot all about everything else.
Anson felt deeply injured, as he certainly had a right to do. He thought bitterly of his own hardworking life, of how he never looked to the right nor to the left when in the path of duty, of the discomforts and vexations he had endured for all these years, and his heart became hard within him.
On the evening of the third day after the theatricals he went down cellar to saw wood, a favorite diversion of his. He liked the damp, cold, clean cellar, and the sense of having his own way in his own province; he liked to feel his hand close firmly upon the smooth handle of the saw, he enjoyed the tingling sensation that went through the sole of his foot, pressed hard against the log, as the saw ground its way through the resisting fibres of the wood. On a cold March evening like this the exercise was particularly agreeable.
To-night, however, his mind was laboring harder than his muscles. Yes, he thought to himself,—sawing wood is rough work, and it makes a grating sound. But some difficulties have to be sawed through in just that hard, uncompromising way. As he tossed one stick after another onto the pile, he first held it in the small circle of light his lantern cast, and admired the smooth, even cut which the ugly tool had made. And as he worked, and as he pondered, he experienced a strong desire to saw through the difficulties of his daily life, no matter how rude and jarring the process might be.
He had a right to have a comfortable home, if ever aman had. It was a right that he fairly earned, every day of his life. Emmeline was very sweet, and he loved her very much, but, good heavens! a man could not live on sweetness and love! He kept sawing one log after another to the required length, and when he had had enough of it, he drew himself up, and took a long breath.
"I'll do it," he said to himself; "I swear I'll do it."
"It'll cost a good deal," he continued, as he put on his coat and hung up his saw on its own special peg, "but I can make it up somehow."
He went up stairs into the kitchen, where he hung up his lantern, and washed his hands at the sink. Then, as he passed on into the front of the house, he heard Emmeline's voice, singing a lullaby in the nursery. He paused and listened. Emmeline's singing always appealed to him. To-night her voice was wonderfully sweet, and he liked the words:
Emmeline made her own tunes when she sang to the children. The melody was low and crooning, and in the middle of it Anson could hear little Robbie's voice, saying sleepily: "Kiss me again, Mamma."
Anson leaned against the balustrade.
Was father a nobleman, to care so much about sordid things? Was not Emmeline, after all, a kind of queen, not made for common cares?
She had left out the rest of the verse now, and was merely murmuring that one line. For the hundredth time Anson Pratt's heart softened, and his annoyances seemed petty and unreal. He took his hand off the railing, meaning to go up to the nursery, when his eye fell upon a long streak of dust, that ran over his hand, his wristband, and his coat-sleeve. He shuddered at the sight of it as only an old Betty could do, and striding into the sitting-room he slammed the door behind him.
The rude sound startled Emmeline out of her reverie, and little Aleck waked up crying.
The next evening, after the children were put to bed, Emmeline came down to the sitting-room, looking very pretty and housewifely in a black silk apron, with a white muslin neckerchief crossed over her breast. She took a good deal of pride in looking matronly, and longed for the time when Anson would let her wear a cap. Her face fell as she saw that her husband was reading his paper by the aid of a very smoky lamp.
"Oh, Anson," she cried, "I'm so sorry! I shall have to get you another lamp."
"Can't the girl fill this one?" he asked.
Anson had long since given up trying to keep run of the "girls'" names.
"I'm afraid there isn't any oil," she said, regretfully; "but never mind, the other lamp will do to talk by."
"Yes, any light will do to talk by." When the change had been made, Emmeline came and sat down beside him, with her little confiding air, which had disarmed him more than once when he was on the verge of rebellion. But this time his heart was steeled.
Anson Pratt was a fine-looking man, an advantage of which he himself made very little account. If he had been told that he had more actual beauty than his wife, he would have been much offended. It was nevertheless a fact, and one which Emmeline knew and gloried in. To-night as she glanced at his handsome face in the halflight cast by the second-best lamp, a sudden misgiving seized her. The face was not at its best. The finely marked brows were contracted, the eyes looked nearer together than was quite becoming, the lips were so tightly compressed as to seem thinner than usual. Decidedly, Anson was out of sorts. Oh! what was it this time? Was it buttons? Or was it fat in the gravy? or"
"Emmeline," Anson said, in a slightly constrained voice, "I have been making up my mind about something for a long time, and now my mind is made up."
This was evidently a more serious matter than buttons or gravy, and Emmeline's courage revived, as it had a way of doing in the face of a real trouble.
"What is it, Anson? Do you think you'll have to take a partner after all?"
"Something like it," he answered, avoiding her eyes as he spoke. "I've engaged a housekeeper."
"A what?"
"A housekeeper."
"Engaged a housekeeper? Why, Anson, what do you mean!"
"I mean exactly what I say. I've engaged the woman Sister Harriet was telling us about. She's coming to-morrow afternoon."
"Coming here, to keep house for you? To take my place?"
"She's coming here to keep this house." Emmeline had grown very white.
"Why have you taken such a step without consulting me?"
"Because I was sure you would object, and I didn't want any discussion."
"But, Anson, what do you want of a housekeeper?"
"What most folks want of a housekeeper. To have the house kept." Anson was desperately afraid that his wife would persuade him to abandon his plan, and before she could interpose he had armed himself from top to toe in his grievances.
"I have borne a great deal, Emmeline. I've lived for seven years without any of the comforts ofa home. There isn't aman in Dunbridge who has had so much to put up with as I. And I've made up my mind that I'm not going to stand it another day. I'm going to try for once what it is like to have a clean house and whole clothes and something fit to eat."
"You've lived for seven years without the comforts of ahome? Do you mean that, Anson?"
"I mean just that."
"And there isn't aman in Dunbridge who has been so badly off as you?"
"In some respects, no! There isn't a man in Dunbridge that is as badly off as I."
Emmeline got up from her chair and walked about the room with swift, nervous movements. Anson kept his seat and kept his determination.
At last Emmeline came back and knelt down beside his chair.
There were very few women of her day and generation who could have knelt down in just that supplicating way, and very few voices that could have sounded so beseeching as did hers.
"Anson, won't you please give me one more trial? Won't you please tell that woman not to come?"
"No, I won't," he answered stolidly. "I've made up my mind to have a little comfort, and I've engaged Mrs. Beach for a month, beginning to-morrow."
"But, Anson, for my sake, for both our sakes, tell her not to come. Oh, Anson! I cannot bear it! I am sure I cannot bear it—please—please don't let her come."
Her tone of passionate entreaty was too intense to move him. It seemed to him like play acting.
"I tell you, Emmeline," he said, getting up and leaving her kneeling there beside his chair, "the thing is done, and I'm not going to undo it. It's no more than my right to have at least a month's comfort, and I'm going to have it."
He felt that in saying "at least a month," he had made a great concession.
As he turned away Emmeline got up from her knees and steadied herself against the back of the chair. The blood had rushed back into her white cheeks, and her eyes had an unnatural light in them. But she spoke with a great deal of self-command.
"Anson," she said, and he turned and looked at her. "Anson, you will have to choose between us—I will not stay with you one hour after that womat comes into the house."
"And where shall you go?"
"I don't know. I suppose to mother's. But that is of no consequence. As long as I cannot be your housekeeper, you will have to choose. You can have your new housekeeper, or you can have me, but you can't have both. Oh, Anson, please don't drive me out of the house like this," she cried, coming toward him and putting both hands on his arm.
He remembered the streak of dust that had been there the evening before.
"Nonsense, Emmeline," he said, impatiently, shaking off her hands. "Don't be so theatrical. I've engaged the woman, and she's coming, and that's all there is about it. If you've a mind to fly into a passion, I can't help it. Only one thing I must insist upon!" he added, sharply. "That you stay in your own house where you belong."
"Nevertheless I shall go."
There was a tone of quiet self-assertion in her voice that Anson had never heard before, and he suddenly felt himself in a white heat of anger.
"I forbid you to leave the house!" he cried. His masterful tone was also new to her, and for a moment husband and wife looked at each other, estranged and bewildered, as though all their old moorings had been swept away.
Then Emmeline left him and went slowly up stairs, with despair in her heart. If he could speak to her like that everything was at an end. Oh! Where should she turn, what should she do?
The nursery-door stood open at the head of the stairs, and instinctively she stayed her foot. The children! Neither of them had thought of the children. She went in and closed the door behind her and then she knelt down by the bed and burst into tears.
Tears have been a good deal maligned, but they are a great comfort. While Emmeline wept by the side of her sleeping boys she got her balance. It was impossible that she should do full justice to Anson's cause of complaint, that she should quite appreciate the enormity of her own transgressions. Indeed, her mind did not busy itself with either the one or the other. She simply struggled to adjust herself to the situation as it existed. After all everything was not over. Here, at least, in those sturdy little fellows that needed her and needed their father too, was something real and abiding, something of a good deal more importance than anybody's injured sensibilities. No, all was not over. There was nothing to be tragical about. She was wounded, humiliated. It was very grievous. But they would get the better of it yet. Her soul revolted at the thought of the woman who was coming to usurp her place, her soul revolted at the tone in which her husband had spoken to her. But all would yet be well. She was sure that all would yet be well. She kissed the boys very tenderly, and then she slipped into her own room, where she went into consultation with herself.
Anson, meanwhile, resumed his seat and tried hard not to feel like a brute. Men are at a great disadvantage in their quarrels with women. The consciousness of a heavy hand, so to speak, discomposes them. Anson knew very well that in his desperate effort not to soften, he had hardened. He knew that his tone had been masterful, his behavior unchivalrous. Somehow that interview had given him a new and far from agreeable impression of himself. He found himself wondering whether, if he had married a less captivating and irresistible woman than Emmeline, he might not have turned out to be a domestic tyrant. Hehad always despised domestic tyrants.
Impatiently he sought refuge in the evening paper. But, alas! the print was bad, and the second-best lamp was worse, and this small annoyance restored his wavering resolution.
In the broad light of day matters did not seem quite so serious, and even when Emmeline told him at breakfast that she was really going to pay a visit to her mother, it seemed a sufficiently natural thing to do, and he was relieved to find that it was not worth while to oppose her. Mrs. Joy lived in the city, and her house was easily accessible. He was only surprised that Emmeline did not propose taking the children with her, but he reflected that her mother was in delicate health and might not like two noisy boys about the house.
The "high tragedy" which had annoyed him in Emmeline the evening before had entirely disappeared. Indeed, there was an airy lightness in her manner, when she bade him good-bye, which was mortifying to him. He left the house with rather a heavy, inelastic step, and being but a mortal man, he did not feel her eyes upon him, as she gazed, half-blinded by tears, through the slats of the blinds, after his retreating figure.
And now began the era of peace and order for which Anson Pratt had longed. His new housekeeper proved to be a most efficient woman. She promptly got rid of the kitchen "baggage," as she termed the late incumbent, and took in her place a wild, red-headed Irish girl, freckled to the very tip of her nose, whose astonishing brogue and slam-bang manners made her seem anything but promising. Under Mrs. Beach's skilful generalship, however, she toned down somewhat, and proved to be an admirable servant. Up early in the morning, always busy, cheery, and goodtempered, serving delicious meals, ready to lenda hand with the children, thoughtful, and attentive to her master. She had a way of helping Anson off with his great-coat, and having his slippers in readiness for him, which made him feel like a pampered aristocrat. Nor was he ungrateful.
"Katie," he said to her one evening, "you're a very good girl. I hope you are contented and happy with us."
"Indade, Sorr, but I am," she declared heartily.
"Mrs. Pratt will be pleased to find you here when she comes back."
Anson always made a point of referring to his wife in the presence of Mrs. Beach and Katie, who were quite ready to regard her with respect and admiration. Katie had a queer little way of looking askance when she had anything to say. With her eyes fixed upon Anson's coat-sleeve she asked:
"An' is it long that she'll be bidin' awa'?"
"No, she will come home before long." Then Katie, blushing violently under her freckles, blurted out: "Beggin' your pardon, Sorr. It's mesilf as was wonderin' how she could lave your honor and the two swate little boys, at all, at all!"
"Your mistress is obliged to be away," Anson replied, with a dignity which was intentionally chilling to the impulsive Katie. She dropped an apologetic courtesy and retired precipitately to her own domain.
Now Anson Pratt, who had got what he thought he most wanted, namely, an orderly house and a good table,—Anson Pratt, whose buttons were now always sewed on, whose wristbands were never frayed, was, of course, far from happy. Creature comforts are all very well, but they are not in themselves satisfying. Little Robbie quite expressed his father's feelings, when, after the first day of the new régime, Anson took him on his knee and asked him how he liked Mrs. Beach.
"Pretty well," said Robbie, "But I like mamma better."
Anson too found Mrs. Beach and her housekeeping "pretty well," in their way, but with little Robbie he "liked mamma better."
The lamp was always filled now, and he could read his evening paper in comfort. But it was remarkable how often the paper had to wait while he pored over a certain note which he had received the day after Emmeline's departure,—a particularly foolish thing to do, since he knew the note by heart, and could have read it just as well by the light of the second-best lamp, or without any light at all, for the matter of that.
The note had said:
"Dear Anson—"Mother has asked me to go on a little journey with her, and as you are so well taken care of I thought it was a good time to go. I write this so that you need not come way up to mother's for nothing. I hope you like your new housekeeper and that you are enjoying all 'the comforts of a home.'
Then there was a short postscript written in a less careful hand:
"Don't forget me, Anson—and kiss the boys for me."
Anson did not forget her, though he tried his best to take her desertion philosophically. The evening after Emmeline went away, for instance, he had resort to his favorite occupation of sawing wood, and he sawed himself, so to speak, into a very sensible frame of mind. But when he came upstairs and into the front of the house, he stopped mechanically and listened. He could almost hear Emmeline's voice singing:
Almost, but not quite. As he stood with his hand on the stair railing, his heart sank at the stillness of the house, and then, lifting his hand, he involuntarily looked to see if there was any mark on it. Singularly enough he experienced a shock of disappointment. No son or daughter of Old Lady Pratt was ever morbidly sentimental. Yet so much did Anson miss the voice he had listened for, that there would have been consolation, he thought, in the old familiar dirt streak. But alas! nothing was old and familiar. Everything was different.
And even the creature comforts seemed likely to forsake him, for scarcely had Mrs. Beach been in the house a week, when she was suddenly called away by the illness of her daughter.
Anson's heart gave a great bound at the news. Emmeline must come home now. She must come home at once. He would send for her. But where? How? She had given him no address. She had not written to him again. At first he thought he would go to Mrs. Joy's house and find out her whereabouts. But then his pride arose and he said to himself: "She has chosen to leave me in the lurch. She shall choose her own time for coming back."
Happily Katie proved quite equal to the emergency. She was housekeeper and servant in one. She seemed able to look after everything. The house, the kitchen, the master, and the boys.
One evening, soon after Mrs. Beach's departure, Anson went into the sitting-room where he found Katie lighting the lamp. In a glasson the table were the first crocuses of the season. The sight of them touched him. Emmeline had always taken pride in finding the first crocuses as a surprise for him.
He stepped up and looked at them, and at the same time the boys came running in, looking clean and whole as they usually did nowadays. He took little Aleck on his knee, and then he said, as Katie finished her task:
"Did you put those flowers there, Katie?"
"Yes, Sorr."
She stood, with her apron in her mouth, looking shy and awkward. "I was thinkin', Sorr, as how it seemed so lonesome-like after the childers was put to bed, and I thought as how the shmall flowers might be company for ye'z."
"Thank you, Katie, they are very pretty," said Anson.
"They's my mamma's flowers," little Robbie declared, looking doubtfully at the smiling Katie. Katie had a grotesque smile. Her lips went down and in at the corners in a manner that was not prepossessing. She fixed her eyes, with an inconsequent expression on the key-board of the piano, and said: "Beggin' your pardon, Sorr, and does the mistress like the flowers?"
"Yes, Katie. Your mistress likes flowers," Anson replied, with a queer feeling in his throat.
"My mamma's more beautifuller than those flowers," Robbie asserted stoutly.
Meanwhile little Aleck, who had been rifling his father's pockets, had pulled out a small folded piece of paper. It was before the day of envelopes, and as it fell from the child's hand the paper flew open. Katie picked it up and handed it to her master, who folded it carefully, and put it back in his pocket, chiding Aleck rather sharply.
If Katie had been an observing young woman she would have noticed that the bit of paper was a note, much worn, and presumably very old. And yet if she had been quick enough to read the date she would have seen that it was written only ten days ago. But wild Irish girls have not always quick perceptions, and it is hardly to be supposed that Katie made any observations on the subject.
Whatever Katie lacked in perception, however, she made up in feeling. She evidently took her master's lonely and deserted state very much to heart. As she bustled about the dining-room, setting the table for supper, she stopped more than once to dry her eyes on the corner of her apron. Any one observing Katie in her unguarded moments would have discovered that she was one of those unfortunates who are born to do themselves injustice while lavishing devotion upon others. Such an observer would have learned that it was her shyness which distorted her features and made her voice harsh. When she was by herself her freckled face lost much of the gawky look which it took on in the presence of her betters. Her lower jaw did not drop so heavily, her eyes did not look so dull. Her movements, too, were less awkward and jerky as she laid the table in unembarrassed solitude. And when, an hour after supper, she went up to give the boys their baths and put them to bed, there was a tender motherliness about her which was really very winning.
Little Robbie seemed full of thoughts of his mother that evening. He chattered on about her tothe sympathetic Katie as she polished off his small pink ears, and even when the ablutions were over his glowing eulogy still continued.
"She's just the most beautifullest lady you ever saw," he declared, as Katie tucked him up in bed beside his little brother. "You'll just love her so! She's got such pretty red cheeks, and such shiny black hair. Katie, don't you wish you was pretty? And she plays the pianner, and she sings, Katie—oh! she sings such pretty songs when she puts us to bed. Can't you sing, Katie? Can't you sing just one little song?"
"Ach! go way wid ye'z," cried Katie, "and would ye be afther makin' a lady o' the likes o' me?"
She knelt down beside the bed, and tucked the little fellow in, and then she watched him as he fell asleep.
By and by, when he was breathing regularly, the warm flush coming on his cheeks, the lips opening just a trifle, she stooped and kissed him. She laid her arm across him till her hand touched his little brother, and then she began to croon the sweetest song, very, very softly, and strangely enough, the words were the old familiar ones:
Robbie stirred in his sleep, and murmured, "Mamma," and she slipped her arm under his head, and he nestled down against her, and she went on singing, singing:
—not quite so softly now.
Anson, sitting down-stairs by himself, with the crocuses beside him, heard the song, and a sudden, superstitious thrill went through him. He dropped his paper, and stole to the foot of the stairs, and the sweet voice, crooning more softly again, just reached his ear.
"Emmeline!" he cried, and bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time. There was no light in the nursery, where he could only discern a shadowy figure kneeling by the bed. "Emmeline!" he whispered, "Emmeline!"
"Sh, Anson! Don't wake the children."
He leaned down and tried to lift her up, but, as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he could see little Robbie's head against her breast.
"Emmeline! Emmeline! When did you come home?"
"I've been here all the time," she said, with a little sob, gently laying Robbie's head upon the pillow. "You stupid, stupid Anson! You never knew me!"
"Emmeline! What do you mean?"
"Sure an' I'm thinkin' the misthress has got home, Sorr!"
It was the voice of the faithful Katie, whom he was apparently holding in his arms.
******
"And did you really think?" asked Emmeline, an hour later, when they sat together by the light of the best lamp,—"And did you really think that I could leave you and the children for ten whole days, and not know how you were getting along?"
"No, I couldn't have thought so," said Anson, with conviction. "I couldn't possibly have thought that. I must have known all the time that you were Katie, only I didn't quite take it in."
As Anson looked at his wife's face, where a few of the more obdurate freckles still clung, and into the eyes which looked so natural and so dear, in spite of the hint of red which still lingered in the eyebrows, he thought that he had never been so well content in all his life—no, not even seven years ago, when his wife seemed to him to be a perfectly faultless being. But he only said:
"Go and play me something, Emmeline. I haven't heard the piano for so long."
And as the sweet familiar chords answered to the old magic of her touch, he got up and took the crocuses over to the piano, and set them down where she could see them, and she played on and on, nearly all the evening.
That was a very pleasant evening, and it taught them more than all their troubles had done. Things never came to such a very bad pass again. When, occasionally, this or that went wrong in the household, and the old Betty in Anson rebelled, Emmeline would strengthen her own resolution, and Anson's patience too, by crooning softly, as though to herself, a certain old nursery rhyme, beginning: