[figure description] Page 327.[end figure description]

AT Arden's request his mother called in the
evening, and also Mrs. Groody, from the hotel.
Hannibal met them, and stated the doctor's orders.
Mrs. Allen and Laura did not feel equal to facing
any one. Though the old servant was excessively
polite, the callers felt rather slighted that they saw
no member of the family. They went away a little
chilled in consequence, and contented themselves
thereafter by sending a few delicacies and inquiring
how Edith was.

“If you have any self-respect at all,” said Rose
Lacey to her mother, “you will not go there again
till you are invited. It's rather too great condescension
for you to go at all, after what has happened.”

Arden listened with a black look, and asked,
rather sharply,

“Will you never learn to distinguish between Miss
Edith and the others?”

“Yes,” said Rose, dryly, “when she gives me a
chance.”

The doctor's view of Edith's case was correct.
Her vigorous and elastic constitution soon rallied
from the shock it had received. Hannibal had sent
to the village for nutritious diet, which he knew so

[figure description] Page 328.[end figure description]

well how to prepare, and, after a few days, she was
quite herself again. But with returning strength
came also a sense of shame, anxiety, and a torturing
dread of the future. The money accruing from
her last sale of jewelry would not pay the debts resting
on them now, and she could not hope to earn
enough to pay the balance remaining, in addition to
their support. Her mother suggested the mortgaging
of her place. She had at first repelled the idea,
but at last entertained it reluctantly. There seemed
no other resource. It would put off the evil day of
utter want, and might give her time to learn something
by which she could compete with trained
workers.

Then there was the garden. Might not that and
the orchard, in time, help them out of their
troubles?

As the long hours of her convalescence passed,
she sat at her window and scanned the little spot
with a wistfulness that might have been given to
one of Eden-like proportions. She was astonished
to see how her strawberries had improved since she
hoed them, but noted in dismay that both they and
the rest of the garden were growing very weedy.

When the full knowledge of their poverty and
danger dawned upon her, she felt that it would not
be right for Malcom to come any more. At the
same time she could not explain things to him; so
she sent a written request through the mail for his
bill, telling him not to come any more. This action
following the evening when Gus Elliott had surprised

[figure description] Page 329.[end figure description]

her in the garden, perplexed and rather nettled
Malcom, who was, to use his own expression, “a
bit tetchy.” Their money had grown so scarce that
Edith could not pay the bill, and was ashamed to
go to see him till there was some prospect of her
doing so. Thus Malcom, though disposed to be
very friendly, was lost to her at this critical time,
and her garden suffered accordingly. She and Hannibal
had done what they could, but of late her illness,
and the great accession of duties resting on
the old servant, had caused complete neglect in her
little plantation of fruit and vegetables. Thus,
while all her crops were growing well, the weeds
were gaining on them, and even Edith knew that
the vigor of evil was in them, and that, unchecked,
they would soon make a tangled swamp of that one
little place of hope. She could not ask Hannibal
to work there now, for he was overburdened already.
Laura seemed so feeble and crushed that her
strength was scarcely equal to taking care of her
mother, and the few lighter duties of housework.
Therefore, though the June sunshine rested on the
little garden, and all nature seemed in the rapture
of its early summer life, poor, practical Edith saw
only the pestiferous weeds that threatened to
destroy her one slender prospect of escape from
environing difficulties. At last she turned away.
To the sad and suffering, scenes most full of cheer
and beauty often seem the most painful mockery.

She brooded over her affairs most of the day,
dwelling specially on the suggestion of a mortgage.

[figure description] Page 330.[end figure description]

She felt extreme reluctance in periling her home.
Then again she said to herself, “It will at least give
me time, and perhaps the place will be sold for
debt, for we must live.”

The next morning she slept late, her weary, over-taxed
frame asserting its need. But she rose greatly
refreshed, and it seemed that her strength had come
back again. With returning vigor hopefulness revived.
She felt some cessation of the weary, aching
sorrow at her heart. The world is phosphorescent
to the eyes of youth, and even engulfing waves of
misfortune will sometimes gleam with sudden
brightness.

The morning light also brought Edith a pleasant
surprise, for, as she was dressing, her eyes eagerly
sought the strawberry bed. She had been thinking,

“If I only continue to gain in this style, I will
soon be able myself to attack the weeds.”

Therefore, instead of the helpless look, such as
she gave yesterday, her glance had something
vengeful and threatening in it. But the moment
she opened the lattice, so that she could see, an
exclamation came from her lips, and she threw back
the blinds, in order that there might be no mistake
as to the wonder that startled her. What magic
had transformed the little place since, in the twilight
of the previous evening, she had given the
last discouraged look in that direction? There was
scarcely a weed to be seen in the strawberry bed.
They had not only been cut off, but raked away
and here and there she could see a berry reddening

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in the morning sun. In addition, some of her most
important vegetables, and her prettiest flower border,
had been cleaned and nicely dressed. A long
row of Dan O'Rourk peas, that had commenced to
sprawl on the ground, was now hedged in by brush;
and, better still, thirty cedar poles stood tall and
straight among her Lima beans, that had been
vainly feeling round for a support the last few days.
Her first impulse was to clap her hands with
delight and exclaim:

“How, in the name of wonder, could he do it
all in a night! Oh, Malcom, you are a canny
Scotchman, but you put the `black art' to very
white uses.”

She dressed in excited haste, meaning to question
Hannibal, but, as she left her room, Laura
met her, and said, in a tone of the deepest despondency,

“Mother seems very ill. She has not felt like
herself since that dreadful night, but we did not
like to tell you, fearing it would put back your
recovery.”

The rift in the heavy clouds, through which the
sun had gleamed for a moment, now closed, and a
deeper gloom seemed to gather round them. In
sudden revulsion Edith said, bitterly:

“Are we to be persecuted to the end? Cannot
the heavy hand of misfortune be lifted a moment?”

She found her mother suffering from a low
nervous fever, and quite delirious.

Hannibal was at once despatched for the doctor,

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who, having examined Mrs. Allen's symptoms,
shook his head, saying:

“Nothing but good nursing will bring her through
this.”

Edith's heart sank like lead. What prospect was
there for work now, even if Mrs. Groody gave it to
her, as she promised? She saw nothing but the
part of a weary watcher, for perhaps several weeks.
She hesitated no longer, but resolved to mortgage
her place at once. Her mother must have delicacies
and good attendance, and she must have time to extricate
herself from the difficulties into which she had
been brought by false steps at the beginning. Therefore
she told Hannibal to give her an early lunch,
after which she would walk to the village.

“You is'nt able,” said he earnestly.

“Oh yes, I am,” she replied; “better able than
to stay home and worry. I must have something
settled, and my mind at rest, even for a little while,
or I will go distracted.” Then she added, “Did
you see Malcom here early this morning.”

“No, Miss Edie, he hasn't been here.”

“Go look at the garden.”

He returned with eyes dilated in wonder, and
asked quickly, “Miss Edie, when was all dat
done.”

“Between dark last night and when I got up this
morning. It seems like magic, don't it? But of
course it is Malcom's work. I only wish I could
see him.”

But Hannibal shook his head ominously and said

[figure description] Page 333.[end figure description]

with emphasis, “Dat little Scotchman couldn't
scratch around like dat, even if de Debel was arter
him. 'Taint his work.”

“Why, whose else could it be?” asked Edith,
sipping a strong cup of coffee, with which she was
fortifying herself for the walk.

Hannibal only shook his head with a very troubled
expression, but at last he ventured,

“If tis a spook, I hope it won't do nothing
wuss to us.”

Even across Edith's pale face a wan smile flitted
at this solution of the mystery, and she said,

“Why, Hannibal, you foolish old fellow. The
idea of a ghost hoeing a strawberry bed and sticking
in bean-poles!”

But Hannibal's superstitious nature was deeply
stirred. He had been under a severe strain himself
of late, and the succession of sorrows and strange
experiences was telling on him as well as the others.
He could not indulge in a nervous fever, like Mrs.
Allen, but he had reached that stage when he could
easily see visions, and tremble before the slightest
vestige of the supernatural. So he replied a little
doggedly;

“Spooks does a heap ob quar tings, Miss Edie.
I'd tink it was Massa Allen, ony I knows dat he
neber hab a hoe in his hand all his life. I doesn't
like it. I'd radder hab de weeds.”

“O Hannibal, Hannibal! I couldn't believe it of
you. I'll go and see Malcom, just to satisfy you.”

p670-351

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