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ABOUT the house at Beechwood the May flowers
were blooming, and in the maple-trees the birds
were building their nests, cooing lovingly to
each other as they did so, and seeming all unconscious of
the young heart which within the doors felt that never
before had there come to it a spring so full of sorrow and
harrowing dread. Jessie and Bell Verner were both
there now, and Jessie had brought two immense trunks
and a hat-box, as if her intention was to spend the entire
summer. She was just as merry and hoydenish as of old,
romping with the children in the grass and on the nursery
floor, herself the veriest child among them, while her
ringing laugh woke all the echoes of the place and made
even the Squire join in it, and try to act young again.

Both Jessie and Bell noted the change in Dora, and
Jessie asked her outright what it was that made her
look so frightened, as if constantly in fear of something;
but Dora could not tell what she feared, for she had
scarcely dared to define to herself the meaning of Squire
Russell's manner toward her. A stranger would have

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perceived no difference in his treatment of her now and
when his wife was living, but Dora felt the change, and it
almost drove her wild, making her one day sharply rebuke
the little Daisy for calling her mamma.

“I am not your mother,” she said fiercely. “Your
mamma is dead, and I am only Auntie.”

The child looked up in surprise, but called her mamma
just the same, while Dora's eyelids closed tightly over
the hot tears she thus kept from falling. That day
when Johnnie came home from school at dinner-time he
showed unmistakable marks of having been in a fight,
and when questioned by his father as to the cause of his
black eye, broke out furiously:

“I've been a lickin' Bill Carter, and I'll do it again if
he ever tells such stuff about you! Why, he said you're
a going to get married to that ill-begotten, shoulder-shotten
snap-dragon of a Miss Dutton! I told him 'twas the
biggest lie, and then he said it wasn't, that it was true,
and she was coming here to be our step-mother; that she
would cut off 'Tish's curls, spank Ben and Burt twice a
day, shake Daisy into shoe-strings, and make Jim and me
toe the mark,—the hateful!”

“She ain't, she shan't,—old nasty Dutton,” and fiery
Ben shook his tiny fist at an imaginary bugbear who was
to spank him twice a day.

Jessie laughed aloud. Bell looked amused, Dora disturbed,
and the Squire very red, as he said to his son:

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“You should not mind such gossip, or allow yourself
to get into a passion. Time enough to rebel when
the step-mother comes. Now go to your room and bathe
your eye.”

Johnnie obeyed, muttering as he went:

“There's only one person I'd have for a step-mother
any how, and that's Aunt Dora. Guy, wouldn't
I raise hob with anybody else!”

“John, leave instantly!” the Squire said sternly, while
his face colored crimson, as did Dora's also, making Bell
and Jessie glance curiously at each other, as both thought
of the same thing.

In their own room, after dinner, they discussed together
the possibility of Dora's becoming what Johnnie
wished her to be, Bell scouting the idea as preposterous,
and Jessie insisting that a girl might love Squire Russell
well enough to take him with all his children.

“Not that I think Dora will do so,” she said, “for I
fancy he is not as much to her taste, even, as he is to
mine; and I guess I'd jump in the creek sooner than
marry an old widower with half a dozen children.”

What the two sisters were discussing privately in
their room was talked openly in the village, some of
the people arguing that Dora could not do better,
while all agreed that for the Squire it would be a match
every way desirable both for his own and his children's
sake. To the Squire himself the story was told one day,

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the teller hinting that the matter was entirely settled,
and asking when the marriage would take place.

With some jocose reply, the Squire rode away, going
round to Margaret's grave, and thence back to his home,
where the evening lights were shining, and where Dora,
with Daisy in her arms, sat alone in the back parlor,
Bell and Jessie having accepted an invitation which she
was obliged to decline on account of a bad headache.

There were strange thoughts stirring in the Squire's
breast that night, thoughts which had haunted him for
weeks and months, aye, since Margaret died, for he could
not forget her words.

“You need not wait long. You and Dora are above
people's gossip, and it will be so much better for the
children.”

This was what Margaret had said to him that night
when misapprehending her sister just as she was misapprehended,
she had told him:

“I have talked with Dora, and she has promised to
take my place.”

At first he had been satisfied with matters as they
were, and had said that he never could marry and love
again. But gradually there had crept into life another
feeling, which prompted him to watch Dora constantly
as she moved about his house; to miss her when she was
away,—to think of her the last at night as well as first in
the morning,—to wonder, with a harassing jealousy, if Dr.

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West cared for Dora, or if she cared for him. No, she
did not, he thought, and made himself believe it, else he
had never said to her what he did that night, when, with
Daisy in her arms, she sat wholly in his power, and was
obliged to listen to what was not unexpected, but which,
nevertheless, fell like a thunderbolt upon her, turning her
into stone, and making her grow faint and sick, just as
she did at Saratoga, when the first suspicion dawned upon
her that some day John Russell would speak to her what
he was speaking now, with one hand on her shoulder and
the other on Daisy's golden head. It was a kind, true,
fatherly heart he offered her, and she felt that he meant
it all. He cast no reflections upon his departed wife,—
he merely said:

“You knew Margaret as well as I. She was not, perhaps,
as even-tempered as a more healthy person would
have been, but I loved her, remembering always what she
was when I took her from her home. You were a little
girl, then, Dora, and I never dreamed that I should
some time be sueing for your hand just as I had sued for
Margaret's.”

Then he pleaded for his children, who loved her so
much; would she be their mother, just as she had promised
Margaret she would? Then Dora roused herself,
and the face which met the Squire's view made his heart
beat faster as he doubted what it portended.

“I did not think Margaret meant what you ask,” Dora

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said, her words coming gaspingly. “I thought she meant
care for them as I have tried to do, and will do still. I'll
stay with you, John. I'll be your housekeeper, but don't
ask me to be your wife. I can't; I'm too young for
you; I'm,—O John! O Margaret!” and here the
voice broke down entirely, while Dora sobbed convulsively.

Margaret, too, had said she could not be his wife when
he asked her. She, too, had said she was too young, and
cried, but hers was not like Dora's crying, and Squire
Russell saw the difference, feeling perplexed, but never
suspected the truth. It was natural for girls to cry, he
thought, when they received an offer of marriage, and so,
with both hands on her shoulder, he pleaded again, but
this time for himself, telling her in words which his true
love made eloquent, how dear she was to him, dearer, if
possible, than his early choice, the beautiful Margaret.
And Dora believed him, for she knew he was incapable of
deception, and that made her pain harder to bear.

“If I had supposed you cared for any one else,” he
said, “I should not have sought you, but I did not. Dr.
West wrote to you, I know, and I was foolish enough to
wish he had not called you his dear Dora, but you did
not answer him, and of course there is but one conclusion
to be drawn from that. You do not care for him, nor he
for you?”

He put this to her interrogatively, but Dora could not

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speak. Once she thought to tell him what there was between
her and Dr. West, but something kept her silent,
and so in perfect good faith, kind, honest, truthful John
kept on until she answered:

“Please leave me now; I must think, and I am so
stunned and bewildered. I'll answer another time.”

Squire Russell was far too good-natured to stay longer
if she did not wish it, and stooping down he kissed his
sleeping child, and said:

“Let me kiss baby's auntie, too?”

Dora offered no resistance, and he touched her forehead
respectfully, and then quitted the room. He had kissed
her many times when Margaret was living, but no kiss
had ever burned her as this one did, for she knew it was
not a brother's kiss, and with a sensation of loathing she
passed her hand over the place, and then wiped it with
her handkerchief, just as a rustling sound met her ear, and
the next moment there was another pleader kneeling at
her feet, Johnnie, who had overheard a part of his father's
wooing, and who took it up just where his sire had
left it; his stormy, impetuous arguments bearing Dora
completely away from herself, so that she hardly knew
what she did or said.

“You will be father's wife, Aunt Dora; you will, you
must!” Johnnie began. “I've prayed for it every single
day since I heard that stuff about old Dutton. I've
gone to mother's grave and knelt down there, asking that

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it might be. Jim and 'Tish pray so, too, for I told 'em
to, and I should make Ben and Burt, only I knew they'd
tell you; and Auntie, you will! Father's older than you
a lot, I s'pose, but he is so good, and was so kind to
mother, even when she plagued him. I never told, but
once after you went to Morrisville, she got awful, and
lammed him the wust kind,—told him he was fat, and
pussy, and awkward, and she was always ashamed of him
at watering-places, and a sight more. At last she left
the room, and poor papa put his head right in my lap
and cried out loud. I cried too, and said to him:

“`Let's lick her: I'll help.'

“But he wouldn't hear a word. Says he:

“`Hush, my boy; she's your mother and my wife.
She is not as she used to be. She's sick and nervous.'

“And when I asked the difference between ugly and
nervous, he made me stop, and was just as kind to her at
supper-time as ever. Tell me such a man won't make a
good husband! He'll be splendid, and he's handsomer
than he was,—he has lost that look as if he was afraid
something was after him, a henpecked look, Clem called
it. Poor father; he has had so little comfort, you must
make him happy, Auntie; you will, and you'll make
us all so good. You know how like Cain we behave without
you, and how we all mind when you tell us what is
right. Will you be father's wife and help us grow up
good?”

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He had her face between his warm hands, and was
looking at her so earnestly, that for his sake Dora could
almost have answered yes, but thoughts of what being his
father's wife involved chilled her through and through,
and she answered him:

“Johnnie, I do not believe I can.”

For an instant the boy's black eyes blazed fiercely at
her, and then he angrily exclaimed, “I'll go to ruin, just
as fast as I can go! I'll smoke to-morrow, if I live, and
teach Jim and Ben to do so too! I'll swear, and when
the circus comes next week I'll run away to that, and
take 'Tish with me; I'll gamble; I'll drink, and when
I'm brought home drunker'n a fool, you'll know it is your
work!”

He looked like a young tiger as he stood uttering
these terrible threats, and Dora quailed before his flashing
eyes, feeling that much he had said was in earnest.
She did not fear his swearing, or gambling, or drinking,
for the present, at least, but he might not always act his
best; he might grow surly and hard and unmanageable,
even by her, unless she yielded to his request, and this
she couldn't do.

“Johnnie,” she began, and something in her voice
quieted the excited boy, “would you have me marry your
father when I do not love him, and just the thought of
being his wife makes me almost sick?”

Johnnie was not old enough to comprehend her

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meaning. He only felt that it was not a very bad thing
to be the wife of a man as good as his father, and he answered
her, “You do love him well enough, or you will,
and he so affectionate. Why he used to hug and kiss
mother every day, even when she was crosser than fury.
Of course then he'll hug you most to death.”

“Oh—h,” Dora groaned, the tone of her voice so indicative
of disgust that even Johnnie caught a new idea,
which he afterwards acted upon; but he would not yield
his point: Dora should be his mother, and he continued
the siege until, wearied out with his arguments, Dora peremptorily
bade him leave her while she could think in
quiet.

Oh, that long, terrible thinking which brought on so
racking a headache that Dora was not seen in the parlor
on the day following, but lay upstairs in her own room,
where, with the bolted door between her and the world
outside, she met and battled with what seemed her destiny!
One by one every incident connected with Margaret's
death came back to her, and she knew now what
the questionings meant, far better than she did then,
while she half expected the dead sister to rise before her
and reproach her for shrinking from her duty. Then the
children came up, a powerful argument swaying her in
the direction of Squire Russell. She could do them good;
she could train them so much better than another, and
John, if she refused him, would assuredly bring another

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there to rule and govern them. These were the arguments
in favor of John's suit, while on the other side a
mighty barrier was interposed to keep her from the sacrifice.
Her love for Dr. West, and the words spoken to
her at Anna's grave; and was she not virtually engaged
to him?

“Yes,—oh yes, I am!” she cried, and then there
came over her all the doubts which had so tortured her
since that time in the Morrisville cemetery.

Had he not spoken hastily and repented afterwards?
His continued silence on the subject would seem so; and
why did he not write to her just as did he to Jessie, who,
since coming to Beechwood, had received a letter from
him which contained no mention of her, but was full of
the light, bantering matter in which he knew Jessie delighted.
Dora had heard Jessie say she was going to
answer the letter that very day; and suddenly, like a
dawn of hope, there flashed over her the determination
that she, too, would write and tell him of Squire Russell's
offer; and if he loved her still he would come to
save her, or he would write, telling her again how dear
she was to him, and that he alone must call her his wife.

“Yes, I'll do it,” Dora whispered; “I know he is at
San Francisco, for Jessie directs there; I'll write to-day.
It shall go in the same mail with hers. I'll wait
two months for his reply, and then, if he answers Jessie
and ignores me, I'll—”

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Dora set her teeth firmly together, and her breath
came hurriedly, as she paused a moment ere she added,
“I'll marry John.”

And so with a throbbing head Dora wrote to Dr.
West, telling him of the proposal and asking what he
thought of it. This was all she meant the letter to
mean, for her maidenly reserve would not suffer her to
betray her real motive if she knew it, but it was more
like a pleading cry for help, more like a wail of anguish
for one she loved to save her from a fate she had not
strength to resist alone, than like a mere asking of advice.
The letter was finished, and just after dark, when
sure no one could see her, Dora stole from the house
unobserved, and hastening to the office, dropped into the
box the missive of so much importance to her.

“It is sure to go with Jessie's,” she said, as she
wended her way back, “so if hers is received I shall
know that mine was also.”

Alas! Jessie's had been written the previous night,
after that young lady's return from her visit, and while
Dora's letter was lying quietly in the box at Beechwood
awaiting the morning mail, Jessie's was miles on its way
to New York and the steamer which would take it to
California a week in advance of the other. But Dora
did not know this, neither did she know that it contained
the following paragraph:

“There is no news, except the rumor that Squire

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Russell will marry his pretty sister-in-law. Bell won't
believe a word of it, but some things look like it. Dora
is so queer. I had picked her out for you, and believe
now that she likes you, though when your name is mentioned,
she bites her words off so short and crisp that I
am confounded. She is a splendid girl, and will make a
grand wife, to say nothing of step-mother.”

Little did Jessie suspect the harm these few comparatively
harmless lines would cause, and little did Dora
suspect it either, as with a load of pain lifted from her
heart and consequently from her head, she sat down by
her open window and followed with her mind her letter's
course to far-off California, and then imagined the quick
response it would bring back, and which would make her
so happy.

“Johnnie must be the medium between Squire Russell
and me,” she said. “I'll tell him to-morrow that
his father must wait for my definite reply at least six
weeks, and possibly two months. At the end of that
time I shall know for sure, and if the doctor does not
care, there will be a kind of desperate pleasure in marrying
my brother.”

p605-164

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