p715-096 CHAPTER VIII. A CONSULTATION.

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The family tea was served in a small dining-room in the
rear. Mr. Blessing, who had become more and more cordial
with Joseph after formally accepting him, led the way thither,
and managed to convey a rapid signal to his wife before the
family took their seats at the table. Joseph was the only
one who did not perceive the silent communication of intelligence;
but its consequences were such as to make him
speedily feel at ease in the Blessing mansion. Even Clementina
relented sufficiently to say, in her most silvery tones,
“May I offer you the butter, Mr. Asten?”

The table, it is true, was very unlike the substantial suppers
of the country. There was a variety of diminutive
dishes, containing slices so delicate that they mocked rather
than excited the appetite; yet Julia (of course it was she!)
had managed to give the repast an air of elegance which was
at least agreeable to a kindred sense. Joseph took the little
cup, the thin tea, the five drops of milk, and the fragment
of sugar, without asking himself whether the beverage were
palatable: he divided a leaf-like piece of flesh and consumed
several wafers of bread, blissfully unconscious whether his
stomach were satisfied. He felt that he had been received
into The Family. Mr. Blessing was magnificently bland,
Mrs. Blessing was maternally interested, Clementina recognized
his existence, and Julia,—he needed but one look at
her sparkling eyes, her softly flushed cheeks, her bewitching
excitement of manner, to guess the relief of her heart. He

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forgot the vague distress which had preceded his coming, and
the embarrassment of his first reception, in the knowledge
that Julia was so happy, and through the acquiescence of
her parents, in his love.

It was settled that he should pass the night there. Mrs.
Blessing would take no denial; he must now consider their
house as his home. She would also call him “Joseph,” but
not now,—not until she was entitled to name him “son.”
It had come suddenly upon her, but it was her duty to be
glad, and in a little while she would become accustomed to
the change.

All this was so simply and cordially said, that Joseph quite
warmed to the stately woman, and unconsciously decided to
accept his fortune, whatever features it might wear. Until
the one important event, at least; after that it would be in
his own hands—and Julia's.

After tea, two or three hours passed away rather slowly.
Mr. Blessing sat in the pit of a back yard and smoked until
dusk; then the family collected in the “drawing-room,” and
there was a little music, and a variety of gossip, with occasional
pauses of silence, until Mrs. Blessing said: “Perhaps
you had better show Mr. Asten to his room, Mr. Blessing.
We may have already passed over his accustomed hour for
retiring. If so, I know he will excuse us; we shall soon
become familiar with each other's habits.”

When Mr. Blessing returned, he first opened the rear
window, drew an arm-chair near it, took off his coat, seated
himself, and lit another cigar. His wife closed the front
shutters, slipped the night-bolts of the door, and then seated
herself beside him. Julia whirled around on her music-stool
to face the coming consultation, and Clementina gracefully
posed herself in the nearest corner of the sofa.

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“How do you like him, Eliza?” Mr. Blessing asked, after
several silent, luxurious whiffs.

“He is handsome, and seems amiable, but younger than I
expected. Are you sure of his—his feelings, Julia?”

“O ma!” Julia exclaimed; “what a question! I can
only judge them by my own.”

Clementina curled her lip in a singular fashion, but said
nothing.

“It seems like losing Julia entirely,” Mrs. Blessing resumed.
“I don't know how she will be able to retain her
place in our circle, unless they spend a part of the winter in
the city, and whether he has means enough—”

She paused, and looked inquisitively at her husband.

“You always look at the establishment,” said he, “and
never consider the chances. Marriage is a deal, a throw, a
sort of kite-flying, in fact (except in our case, my dear), and,
after all I've learned of our future son-in-law, I must say
that Julia hasn't a bad hand.”

“I knew you'd like him, pa!” cried the delighted Julia.

Mr. Blessing looked at her steadily a moment, and then
winked; but she took no notice of it.

“There is another thing,” said his wife. “If the wedding
comes off this fall, we have but two months to prepare; and
how will you manage about the—the money? We can save
afterwards, to be sure, but there will be an immediate and
fearful expense. I've thought, perhaps, that a simple and
private ceremony,—married in travelling-dress, you know,
just before the train leaves, and no cards,—it is sometimes
done in the highest circles.”

“It won't do!” exclaimed Mr. Blessing, waving his right
hand. “Julia's husband must have an opportunity of learning
our standing in society. I will invite the Collector, and

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the Surveyor, and the Appraiser. The money must be raised.
I should be willing to pawn—”

He looked around the room, inspecting the well-worn
carpet, the nankeen-covered chairs, the old piano, and finally
the two pictures.

“—Your portrait, my dear; but, unless it were a Stuart,
I couldn't get ten dollars on it. We must take your set of
diamonds, and Julia's rubies, and Clementina's pearls.”

He leaned back, and laughed with great glee. The ladies
became rigid and grave.

“It is wicked, Benjamin,” Mrs. Blessing severely remarked,
“to jest over our troubles at such a time as this. I see
nothing else to do, but to inform Mr. Asten, frankly, of our
condition. He is yet too young, I think, to be repelled by
poverty.”

“Ma, it would break my heart,” said Julia. “I could
not bear to be humiliated in his eyes.”

“Decidedly the best thing to do,” warbled Clementina,
speaking for the first time.

“That's the way with women,—flying from one extreme
to the other. If you can't have white, you turn around and
say there's no other color than black. When all devices are
exhausted, a man of pluck and character goes to work and
constructs a new one. Upon my soul, I don't know where
the money is to come from; but give me ten days, and Julia
shall have her white satin. Now, girls, you had better go
to bed.”

Mr. Blessing smoked silently until the sound of his
daughters' footsteps had ceased on the stairs; then, bringing
down his hand emphatically upon his thigh, he exclaimed,
“By Jove, Eliza, if I were as sharp as that girl, I'd have
had the Collectorship before this!”

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“What do you mean? She seems to be strongly attached
to him.”

“O, no doubt! But she has a wonderful talent for reading
character. The young fellow is pretty green wood still;
what he'll season into depends on her. Honest as the day,—
there's nothing like a country life for that. But it's a
pity that such a fund for operations should lie idle; he has
a nest-egg that might hatch out millions!”

“I hope, Benjamin, that after all your unfortunate experience—”

“Pray don't lament in advance, and especially now, when
a bit of luck comes to us. Julia has done well, and I'll
trust her to improve her opportunities. Besides, this will
help Clementina's chances; where there is one marriage in a
family, there is generally another. Poor girl! she has
waited a long while. At thirty-three, the market gets v-e-r-y
flat.”

“And yet Julia is thirty,” said Mrs. Blessing; “and
Clementina's complexion and manners have been considered
superior.”

“There's just her mistake. A better copy of Mrs. Halibut's
airs and attitudes was never produced, and it was all
very well so long as Mrs. Halibut gave the tone to society;
but since she went to Europe, and Mrs. Bass has somehow
crept into her place, Clementina is quite—I may say—obsolete.
I don't object to her complexion, because that is a
standing fashion, but she is expected to be chatty, and witty,
and instead of that she stands about like a Venus of Milo.
She looks like me, and she can't lack intelligence and tact.
Why couldn't she unbend a little more to Asten, whether
she likes him or not?”

“You know I never seemed to manage Clementina,” his

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wife replied; “if she were to dispute my opinion sometimes,
I might, perhaps, gain a little influence over her: but she
won't enter into a discussion.”

“Mrs. Halibut's way. It was new, then, and, with her
husband's money to back it, her `grace' and `composure' and
`serenity' carried all before her. Give me fifty thousand a
year, and I'll put Clementina in the same place! But,
come,—to the main question. I suppose we shall need five
hundred dollars!”

“Three hundred, I think, will be ample,” said Mrs.
Blessing.

“Three or five, it's as hard to raise one sum as the other.
I'll try for five, and if I have luck with the two hundred
over—small, careful operations, you know, which always
succeed—I may have the whole amount on hand, long before
it's due.”

Mrs. Blessing smiled in a melancholy, hopeless way, and
the consultation came to an end.

When Joseph was left alone in his chamber, he felt no
inclination to sleep. He sat at the open window, and looked
down into the dim, melancholy street, the solitude of which
was broken about once every quarter of an hour by a forlorn
pedestrian, who approached through gloom and lamplight, was
foreshortened to his hat, and then lengthened away on the
other side. The new acquaintances he had just made
remained all the more vividly in his thoughts from their
nearness; he was still within their atmosphere. They were
unlike any persons he knew, and therefore he felt that he
might do them injustice by a hasty estimate of their character.
Clementina, however, was excluded from this charitable
resolution. Concentrating his dislike on her, he found that
her parents had received him with as much consideration as

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a total stranger could expect. Moreover, whatever they
might be, Julia was the same here, in her own home, as
when she was a guest in the country. As playful, as winning,
and as natural; and he began to suspect that her
present life was not congenial to such a nature. If so, her
happiness was all the more assured by their union.

This thought led him into a pictured labyrinth of anticipation,
in which his mind wandered with delight. He was
so absorbed in planning the new household, that he did not
hear the sisters entering the rear room on the same floor,
which was only separated by a thin partition from his
own.

“White satin!” he suddenly heard Clementina say: “of
course I shall have the same. It will become me better
than you.”

“I should think you might be satisfied with a light silk,”
Julia said; “the expenses will be very heavy.”

“We'll see,” Clementina answered shortly, pacing up and
down the room.

After a long pause, he heard Julia's voice again. “Never
mind,” she said, “I shall soon be out of your way.”

“I wonder how much he knows about you!” Clementina
exclaimed. “Your arts were new there, and you
played an easy game.” Here she lowered her voice, and
Joseph only distinguished a detached word now and then.
He rose, indignant at this unsisterly assault, and wishing to
hear no more; but it seemed that the movement was not
noticed, for Julia replied, in smothered, excited tones, with
some remark about “complexion.”

“Well, there is one thing,” Clementina continued,—“one
thing you will keep very secret, and that is your birthday.
Are you going to tell him that you are—”

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Joseph had seized the back of a chair, and with a sudden
impulse titled it and let it fall on the floor. Then he
walked to the window, closed it, and prepared to go to rest,—
all with more noise than was habitual with him. There
were whispers and hushed movements in the next room, but
not another audible word was spoken. Before sleeping he
came to the conclusion that he was more than Julia's lover:
he was her deliverer. The idea was not unwelcome: it gave
a new value and significance to his life.

However curious Julia might have been to discover how
much he had overheard, she made no effort to ascertain the
fact. She met him next morning with a sweet unconsciousness
of what she had endured, which convinced him that
such painful scenes must have been frequent, or she could
not have forgotten so easily. His greeting to Clementina
was brief and cold, but she did not seem to notice it in the
least.

It was decided, before he left, that the wedding should
take place in October.

p715-104 CHAPTER IX. JOSEPH AND HIS FRIEND.

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The train moved slowly along through the straggling and
shabby suburbs, increasing its speed as the city melted gradually
into the country; and Joseph, after a vain attempt
to fix his mind upon one of the volumes he had procured for
his slender library at home, leaned back in his seat and took
note of his fellow-travellers. Since he began to approach
the usual destiny of men, they had a new interest for him.
Hitherto he had looked upon strange faces very much as on
a strange language, without a thought of interpreting them
but now their hieroglyphics seemed to suggest a meaning
The figures around him were so many sitting, silent histories,
so many locked-up records of struggle, loss, gain, and all the
other forces which give shape and color to human life. Most
of them were strangers to each other, and as reticent (in
their railway conventionality) as himself; yet, he reflected,
the whole range of passion, pleasure, and suffering was probably
illustrated in that collection of existences. His own
troublesome individuality grew fainter, so much of it seemed
to be merged in the common experience of men.

There was the portly gentleman of fifty, still ruddy and
full of unwasted force. The keenness and coolness of his
eyes, the few firmly marked lines on his face, and the color
and hardness of his lips, proclaimed to everybody: “I am
bold, shrewd, successful in business, scrupulous in the performance
of my religious duties (on the Sabbath), voting

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with my party, and not likely to be fooled by any kind of
sentimental nonsense.” The thin, not very well-dressed man
beside him, with the irregular features and uncertain expression,
announced as clearly, to any who could read: “I
am weak, like others, but I never consciously did any harm.
I just manage to get along in the world, but if I only had a
chance, I might make something better of myself.” The
fresh, healthy fellow, in whose lap a child was sleeping,
while his wife nursed a younger one,—the man with ample
mouth, large nostrils, and the hands of a mechanic,—also
told his story: “On the whole, I find life a comfortable
thing. I don't know much about it, but I take it as it comes,
and never worry over what I can't understand.”

The faces of the younger men, however, were not so easy
to decipher. On them life was only beginning its plastic
task, and it required an older eye to detect the delicate
touches of awakening passions and hopes. But Joseph consoled
himself with the thought that his own secret was as
little to be discovered as any they might have. If they were
still ignorant of the sweet experience of love, he was already
their superior; if they were sharers in it, though strangers,
they were near to him. Had he not left the foot of the
class, after all?

All at once his eye was attracted by a new face, three or
four seats from his own. The stranger had shifted his position,
so that he was no longer seen in profile. He was
apparently a few years older than Joseph, but still bright
with all the charm of early manhood. His fair complexion
was bronzed from exposure, and his hands, graceful without
being effeminate, were not those of the idle gentleman. His
hair, golden in tint, thrust its short locks as it pleased about
a smooth, frank forehead; the eyes were dark gray, and the

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mouth, partly hidden by a mustache, at once firm and full.
He was moderately handsome, yet it was not of that which
Joseph thought; he felt that there was more of developed
character and a richer past history expressed in those features
than in any other face there. He felt sure—and
smiled at himself, notwithstanding, for the impression—
that at least some of his own doubts and difficulties had
found their solution in the stranger's nature. The more he
studied the face, the more he was conscious of its attraction,
and his instinct of reliance, though utterly without grounds,
justified itself to his mind in some mysterious way.

It was not long before the unknown felt his gaze, and,
turning slowly in his seat, answered it. Joseph dropped his
eyes in some confusion, but not until he had caught the full,
warm, intense expression of those that met them. He fancied
that he read in them, in that momentary flash, what he
had never before found in the eyes of strangers,—a simple,
human interest, above curiosity and above mistrust. The
usual reply to such a gaze is an unconscious defiance: the
unknown nature is on its guard: but the look which seems
to answer, “We are men, let us know each other!” is, alas!
too rare in this world.

While Joseph was fighting the irresistible temptation to
look again, there was a sudden thud of the car-wheels. Many
of the passengers started from their seats, only to be thrown
into them again by a quick succession of violent jolts. Joseph
saw the stranger springing towards the bell-rope; then
he and all others seemed to be whirling over each other;
there was a crash, a horrible grinding and splintering sound,
and the end of all was a shock, in which his consciousness
left him before he could guess its violence.

After a while, out of some blank, haunted by a single

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lost, wandering sense of existence, he began to awaken
slowly to life. Flames were still dancing in his eyeballs,
and waters and whirlwinds roaring in his ears; but it was
only a passive sensation, without the will to know more.
Then he felt himself partly lifted and his head supported,
and presently a soft warmth fell upon the region of his
heart. There were noises all about him, but he did not
listen to them; his effort to regain his consciousness fixed
itself on that point alone, and grew stronger as the warmth
calmed the confusion of his nerves.

“Dip this in water!” said a voice, and the hand (as he
now knew it to be) was removed from his heart.

Something cold came over his forehead, and at the same
time warm drops fell upon his cheek.

“Look out for yourself: your head is cut!” exclaimed
another voice.

“Only a scratch. Take the handkerchief out of my pocket
and tie it up; but first ask yon gentleman for his flask!”

Joseph opened his eyes, knew the face that bent over his,
and then closed them again. Gentle and strong hands raised
him, a flask was set to his lips, and he drank mechanically,
but a full sense of life followed the draught. He looked
wistfully in the stranger's face.

“Wait a moment,” said the latter; “I must feel your
bones before you try to move. Arms and legs all right,—
impossible to tell about the ribs. There! now put your
arm around my neck, and lean on me as much as you like,
while I lift you.”

Joseph did as he was bidden, but he was still weak and
giddy, and after a few steps, they both sat down together
upon a bank. The splintered car lay near them upside
down; the passengers had been extricated from it, and were

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now busy in aiding the few who were injured. The train
had stopped and was waiting on the track above. Some
were very pale and grave, feeling that Death had touched
without taking them; but the greater part were concerned
only about the delay to the train.

“How did it happen?” asked Joseph: “where was I?
how did you find me?”

“The usual story,—a broken rail,” said the stranger. “I
had just caught the rope when the car went over, and was
swung off my feet so luckily that I somehow escaped the
hardest shock. I don't think I lost my senses for a moment.
When we came to the bottom you were lying just before me;
I thought you dead until I felt your heart. It is a severe
shock, but I hope nothing more.”

“But you,—are you not badly hurt?”

The stranger pushed up the handkerchief which was tied
around his head, felt his temple, and said: “It must have
been one of the splinters; I know nothing about it. But
there is no harm in a little blood-letting except”—he added,
smiling—“except the spots on your face.”

By this time the other injured passengers had been conveyed
to the train; the whistle sounded a warning of departure.

“I think we can get up the embankment now,” said the
stranger. “You must let me take care of you still: I am
travelling alone.”

When they were seated side by side, and Joseph leaned
his head back on the supporting arm, while the train moved
away with them, he felt that a new power, a new support,
had come to his life. The face upon which he looked was
no longer strange; the hand which had rested on his heart
was warm with kindred blood. Involuntarily he extended

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his own; it was taken and held, and the dark-gray, courageous
eyes turned to him with a silent assurance which he felt
needed no words.

“It is a rough introduction,” he then said: “my name is
Philip Held. I was on my way to Oakland Station; but if
yon are going farther—”

“Why, that is my station also!” Joseph exclaimed, giving
his name in return.

“Then we should have probably met, sooner or later, in any
case. I am bound for the forge and furnace at Coventry,
which is for sale. If the company who employ me decide to
buy it,—according to the report I shall make,—the works
will be placed in my charge.”

“It is but six miles from my farm,” said Joseph, “and
the road up the valley is the most beautiful in our neighborhood.
I hope you can make a favorable report.”

“It is only too much to my own interest to do so. I have
been mining and geologizing in Nevada and the Rocky
Mountains for three or four years, and long for a quiet, ordered
life. It is a good omen that I have found a neighbor
in advance of my settlement. I have often ridden fifty
miles to meet a friend who cared for something else than
horse-racing or monte; and your six miles,—it is but a step!”

“How much you have seen!” said Joseph. “I know
very little of the world. It must be easy for you to take
your own place in life.

A shade passed over Philip Held's face. “It is only easy
to a certain class of men,” he replied,—“a class to which I
should not care to belong. I begin to think that nothing is
very valuable, the right to which a man don't earn,—except
human love, and that seems to come by the grace of
God.”

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“I am younger than you are,—not yet twenty-three,”
Joseph remarked. “You will find that I am very ignorant.”

“And I am twenty-eight, and just beginning to get my
eyes open, like a nine-days' kitten. If I had been frank
enough to confess my ignorance, five years ago, as you do
now, it would have been better for me. But don't let us
measure ourselves or our experience against each other.
That is one good thing we learn in Rocky Mountain
life; there is no high or low, knowledge or ignorance, except
what applies to the needs of men who come together. So
there are needs which most men have, and go all their lives
hungering for, because they expect them to be supplied in a
particular form. There is something,” Philip concluded,
“deeper than that in human nature.”

Joseph longed to open his heart to this man, every one of
whose words struck home to something in himself. But the
lassitude which the shock left behind gradually overcame
him. He suffered his head to be drawn upon Philip Held's
shoulder, and slept until the train reached Oakland Station.
When the two got upon the platform, they found Dennis
waiting for Joseph, with a light country vehicle. The news
of the accident had reached the station, and his dismay was
great when he saw the two bloody faces. A physician had
already been summoned from the neighboring village, but
they had little need of his services. A prescription of quiet
and sedatives for Joseph, and a strip of plaster for his companion,
were speedily furnished, and they set out together
for the Asten place.

It is unnecessary to describe Rachel Miller's agitation
when the party arrived; or the parting of the two men who
had been so swiftly brought near to each other; or Philip
Held's farther journey to the forge that evening. He

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resisted all entreaty to remain at the farm until morning, on
the ground of an appointment made with the present proprietor
of the forge. After his departure Joseph was sent
to bed, where he remained for a day or two, very sore and
a little feverish. He had plenty of time for thought,—not
precisely of the kind which his aunt suspected, for out of
pure, honest interest in his welfare, she took a step which
proved to be of doubtful benefit. If he had not been so innocent,—
if he had not been quite as unconscious of his inner
nature as he was over-conscious of his external self,—
he would have perceived that his thoughts dwelt much more
on Philip Held than on Julia Blessing. His mind seemed
to run through a swift, involuntary chain of reasoning, to
account to himself for his feeling towards her, and her inevitable
share in his future; but towards Philip his heart
sprang with an instinct beyond his control. It was impossible
to imagine that the latter also would not be shot, like
a bright thread, through the web of his coming days.

On the third morning, when he had exchanged the bed for
an arm-chair, a letter from the city was brought to him.
“Dearest Joseph,” it ran, “what a fright and anxiety we
have had! When pa brought the paper home, last night,
and I read the report of the accident, where it said, `J.
Asten, severe contusions,' my heart stopped beating for a
minute, and I can only write now (as you see) with a
trembling hand. My first thought was to go directly to
you; but ma said we had better wait for intelligence. Unless
our engagement were generally known, it would give
rise to remarks,—in short, I need not repeat to you all the
worldly reasons with which she opposed me; but, oh, how I
longed for the right to be at your side, and assure myself
that the dreadful, dreadful danger has passed! Pa was

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

quite shaken with the news: he felt hardly able to go to the
Custom-House this morning. But he sides with ma about
my going, and now, when my time as a daughter with them
is growing so short, I dare not disobey. I know you will
understand my position, yet, dear and true as you are, you
cannot guess the anxiety with which I await a line from
your hand, the hand that was so nearly taken from me
forever!”

Joseph read the letter twice and was about to commence
it for the third time, when a visitor was announced. He
had barely time to thrust the scented sheet into his pocket;
and the bright eyes and flushed face with which he met the
Rev. Mr. Chaffinch convinced both that gentleman and his
aunt, as she ushered the latter into the room, that the visit
was accepted as an honor and a joy.

On Mr. Chaffinch's face the air of authority which he had
been led to believe belonged to his calling had not quite succeeded
in impressing itself; but melancholy, the next best
thing, was strongly marked. His dark complexion and his
white cravat intensified each other; and his eyes, so long
uplifted above the concerns of this world, had ceased to vary
their expression materially for the sake of any human interest.
All this had been expected of him, and he had simply
done his best to meet the requirements of the flock over
which he was placed. Any of the latter might have easily
been shrewd enough to guess, in advance, very nearly what
the pastor would say, upon a given occasion; but each and
all of them would have been both disappointed and disturbed
if he had not said it.

After appropriate and sympathetic inquiries concerning
Joseph's bodily condition, he proceeded to probe him spiritually.

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

“It was a merciful preservation. I hope you feel that it
is a solemn thing to look Death in the face.”

“I am not afraid of death,” Joseph replied.

“You mean the physical pang. But death includes what
comes after it,—judgment. That is a very awful thought.”

“It may be to evil men; but I have done nothing to
make me fear it.”

“You have never made an open profession of faith; yet
it may be that grace has reached you,” said Mr. Chaffinch.
“Have you found your Saviour?”

“I believe in him with all my soul!” Joseph exclaimed;
“but you mean something else by `finding' him. I will be
candid with you, Mr. Chaffinch. The last sermon I heard
you preach, a month ago, was upon the nullity of all good
works, all Christian deeds; you called them `rags, dust, and
ashes,' and declared that man is saved by faith alone. I
have faith, but I can't accept a doctrine which denies merit
to works; and you, unless I accept it, will you admit that I
have `found' Christ?”

“There is but One Truth!” exclaimed Mr. Chaffinch,
very severely.

“Yes,” Joseph answered, reverently, “and that is only
perfectly known to God.”

The clergyman was more deeply annoyed than he cared to
exhibit. His experience had been confined chiefly to the
encouragement of ignorant souls, willing to accept his message,
if they could only be made to comprehend it, or to the
conflict with downright doubt and denial. A nature so
seemingly open to the influences of the Spirit, yet inflexibly
closed to certain points of doctrine, was something of a
problem to him. He belonged to a class now happily becoming
scarce, who, having been taught to pace a reasoned

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

theological round, can only efficiently meet those antagonists
who voluntarily come inside of their own ring.

His habit of control, however, enabled him to say, with a
moderately friendly manner, as he took leave: “We will
talk again when you are stronger. It is my duty to give
spiritual help to those who seek it.”

To Rachel Miller he said: “I cannot say that he is dark.
His mind is cloudy, but we find that the vanities of youth
often obscure the true light for a time.”

Joseph leaned back in his arm-chair, closed his eyes, and
meditated earnestly for half an hour. Rachel Miller, uncertain
whether to be hopeful or discouraged by Mr. Chaffinch's
words, stole into the room, but went about on tiptoe, supposing
him to be asleep. Joseph was fully conscious of all
her movements, and at last startled her by the sudden
question:—

“Aunt, why do you suppose I went to the city?”

“Goodness, Joseph! I thought you were sound asleep.
I suppose to see about the fall prices for grain and cattle.”

“No, aunt,” said he, speaking with determination,
though the foolish blood ran rosily over his face, “I went
to get a wife!”

She stood pale and speechless, staring at him. But for
the rosy sign on his cheeks and temples she could not have
believed his words.

“Miss Blessing?” she finally uttered, almost in a whisper.

Joseph nodded his head. She dropped into the nearest
chair, drew two or three long breaths, and in an indescribable
tone ejaculated, “Well!”

“I knew you would be surprised,” said he; “because it
is almost a surprise to myself. But you and she seemed to
fall so easily into each other's ways, that I hope—”

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

“Why, you're hardly acquainted with her!” Rachel exclaimed.
“It is so hasty! And you are so young!”

“No younger than father was when he married mother;
and I have learned to know her well in a short time. Isn't
it so with you, too, aunt?—you certainly liked her?”

“I'll not deny that, nor say the reverse now: but a farmer's
wife should be a farmer's daughter.”

“But suppose, aunt, that the farmer doesn't happen to
love any farmer's daughter, and does love a bright, amiable,
very intelligent girl, who is delighted with country life,
eager and willing to learn, and very fond of the farmer's
aunt (who can teach her everything)?”

“Still, it seems to me a risk,” said Rachel; but she was
evidently relenting.

“There is none to you,” he answered, “and I am not
afraid of mine. You will be with us, for Julia couldn't do
without you, if she wished. If she were a farmer's daughter,
with different ideas of housekeeping, it might bring
trouble to both of us. But now you will have the management
in your own hands until you have taught Julia, and
afterwards she will carry it on in your way.”

She did not reply; but Joseph could see that she was becoming
reconciled to the prospect. After awhile she came
across the room, leaned over him, kissed him upon the forehead,
and then silently went away.

p715-116 CHAPTER X. APPROACHING FATE.

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

Only two months intervened until the time appointed for
the marriage, and the days rolled swiftly away. A few lines
came to Joseph from Philip Held, announcing that he was
satisfied with the forge and furnace, and the sale would
doubtless be consummated in a short time. He did not,
however, expect to take charge of the works before March,
and therefore gave Joseph his address in the city, with the
hope that the latter would either visit or write to him.

On the Sunday after the accident Elwood Withers came
to the farm. He seemed to have grown older in the short
time which had elapsed since they had last met; after his first
hearty rejoicing over Joseph's escape and recovery, he relapsed
into a silent but not unfriendly mood. The two young
men climbed the long hill behind the house and seated themselves
under a noble pin-oak on the height, whence there was
a lovely view of the valley for many miles to the southward.

They talked mechanically, for a while, of the season, and
the crops, and the other usual subjects which farmers never
get to the end of discussing; but both felt the impendence
of more important themes, and, nevertheless, were slow to
approach them. At last Elwood said: “Your fate is settled
by this time, I suppose?”

“It is arranged, at least,” Joseph replied. “But I can't
yet make clear to myself that I shall be a married man in
two months from now.”

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

“Does the time seem long to you?”

“No,” Joseph innocently answered; “it is very short.”

Elwood turned away his head to conceal a melancholy
smile; it was a few minutes before he spoke again.

“Joseph,” he then said, “are you sure, quite sure, you
love her?”

“I am to marry her.”

“I meant nothing unfriendly,” Elwood remarked, in a
gentle tone. “My thought was this,—if you should ever
find a still stronger love growing upon you,—something that
would make the warmth you feel now seem like ice compared
to it,—how would you be able to fight it? I asked the question
of myself for you. I don't think I'm much different
from most soft-hearted men,—except that I keep the softness
so well stowed away that few persons know of it,—but if I
were in your place, within two months of marriage to the
girl I love, I should be miserable!”

Joseph turned towards him with wide, astonished eyes.

“Miserable from hope and fear,” Elwood went on; “I
should be afraid of fever, fire, murder, thunderbolts! Every
hour of the day I should dread lest something might come
between us; I should prowl around her house day after day,
to be sure that she was alive! I should lengthen out the
time into years; and all because I'm a great, disappointed,
soft-hearted fool!”

The sad, yearning expression of his eyes touched Joseph
to the heart. “Elwood,” he said, “I see that it is not in
my power to comfort you; if I give you pain unknowingly,
tell me how to avoid it! I meant to ask you to stand beside
me when I am married; but now you must consider
your own feelings in answering, not mine. Lucy is not
likely to be there.”

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

“That would make no difference,” Elwood answered. “Do
you suppose it is a pain for me to see her, because she seems
lost to me? No; I'm always a little encouraged when I have
a chance to measure myself with her, and to guess—sometimes
this and sometimes that—what it is that she needs to find in
me. Force of will is of no use; as to faithfulness,—why, what
it's worth can't be shown unless something turns up to try
it. But you had better not ask me to be your groomsman.
Neither Miss Blessing nor her sister would be overly
pleased.”

“Why so?” Joseph asked; “Julia and you are quite
well acquainted, and she was always friendly towards you.”

Elwood was silent and embarrassed. Then, reflecting that
silence, at that moment, might express even more than
speech, he said: “I've got the notion in my head; maybe
it's foolish, but there it is. I talked a good deal with
Miss Blessing, it's true, and yet I don't feel the least bit
acquainted. Her manner to me was very friendly, and yet
I don't think she likes me.”

“Well!” exclaimed Joseph, forcing a laugh, though he
was much annoyed, “I never gave you credit for such a
lively imagination. Why not be candid, and admit that the
dislike is on your side? I am sorry for it, since Julia will
so soon be in the house there as my wife. There is no one
else whom I can ask, unless it were Philip Held—”

“Held! To be sure, he took care of you. I was at Coventry
the day after, and saw something of him.” With
these words, Elwood turned towards Joseph and looked him
squarely in the face. “He'll have charge there in a few
months, I hear,” he then said, “and I reckon it as a piece
of good luck for you. I've found that there are men, all,
maybe, as honest and outspoken as they need be; yet two of

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

'em will talk at different marks and never fully understand
each other, and other two will naturally talk right straight
at the same mark and never miss. Now, Held is the sort that
can hit the thing in the mind of the man they're talking to;
it's a gift that comes o' being knocked about the world
among all classes of people. What we learn here, always
among the same folks, isn't a circumstance.”

“Then you think I might ask him?” said Joseph, not
fully comprehending all that Elwood meant to express.

“He's one of those men that you're safe in asking to do
anything. Make him spokesman of a committee to wait on
the President, arbitrator in a crooked lawsuit, overseer of a
railroad gang, leader in a prayer-meeting (if he'd consent),
or whatever else you choose, and he'll do the business as if
he was used to it! It's enough for you that I don't know
the town ways, and he does; it's considered worse, I've
heard, to make a blunder in society than to commit a real sin.”

He rose, and they loitered down the hill together. The
subject was quietly dropped, but the minds of both were
none the less busy. They felt the stir and pressure of new
experiences, which had come to one through disappointment
and to the other through success. Not three months had
passed since they rode together through the twilight to Warriner's,
and already life was opening to them,—but how differently!
Joseph endeavored to make the most kindly allowance
for his friend's mood, and to persuade himself that his
feelings were unchanged. Elwood, however, knew that a
shadow had fallen between them. It was nothing beside the
cloud of his greater trouble: he also knew the cost of his own
justification to Joseph, and prayed that it might never come.

That evening, on taking leave, he said: “I don't know
whether you meant to have the news of your engagement

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

circulated; but I guess Anna Warriner has heard, and that
amounts to—”

“To telling it to the whole neighborhood, doesn't it?”
Joseph answered. “Then the mischief is already done, if it
is a mischief. It is well, therefore, that the day is set: the
neighborhood will have little time for gossip.”

He smiled so frankly and cheerfully, that Elwood seized
his hand, and with tears in his eyes, said: “Don't remember
anything against me, Joseph. I've always been honestly
your friend, and mean to stay so.”

He went that evening to a homestead where he knew he
should find Lucy Henderson. She looked pale and fatigued,
he thought; possibly his presence had become a restraint. If
so, she must bear his unkindness: it was the only sacrifice
he could not make, for he felt sure that his intercourse with
her must either terminate in hate or love. The one thing of
which he was certain was, that there could be no calm, complacent
friendship between them.

It was not long before one of the family asked him whether
he had heard the news; it seemed that they had already discussed
it, and his arrival revived the flow of expression. In
spite of his determination, he found it impossible to watch
Lucy while he said, as simply as possible, that Joseph Asten
seemed very happy over the prospect of the marriage; that
he was old enough to take a wife; and if Miss Blessing could
adapt herself to country habits, they might get on very well
together. But later in the evening he took a chance of saying
to her: “In spite of what I said, Lucy, I don't feel
quite easy about Joseph's marriage. What do you think of
it?”

She smiled faintly, as she replied: “Some say that people
are attracted by mutual unlikeness. This seems to me to be

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

a case of the kind; but they are free choosers of their own
fates.”

“Is there no possible way of persuading him—them—to
delay?”

“No!” she exclaimed, with unusual energy; “none
whatever!”

Elwood sighed, and yet felt relieved.

Joseph lost no time in writing to Philip Held, announcing
his approaching marriage, and begging him—with many
apologies for asking such a mark of confidence on so short
an acquaintance—to act the part of nearest friend, if there
were no other private reasons to prevent him.

Four or five days later the following answer arrived:—

My dear Asten:—Do you remember that curious whirling,
falling sensation, when the car pitched over the edge of
the embankment? I felt a return of it on reading your letter;
for you have surprised me beyond measure. Not by your
request, for that is just what I should have expected of you;
and as well now, as if we had known each other for twenty
years; so the apology is the only thing objectionable— But
I am tangling my sentences; I want to say how heartily I return
the feeling which prompted you to ask me, and yet how
embarrassed I am that I cannot unconditionally say, “Yes,
with all my heart!” My great, astounding surprise is, to
find you about to be married to Miss Julia Blessing,—a
young lady whom I once knew. And the embarrassment is
this: I knew her under circumstances (in which she was not
personally concerned, however) which might possibly render
my presence now, as your groomsman, unwelcome to the
family: at least, it is my duty—and yours, if you still
desire me to stand beside you—to let Miss Blessing and her

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

family decide the question. The circumstances to which I
refer concern them rather than myself. I think your best
plan will be simply to inform them of your request and my
reply, and add that I am entirely ready to accept whatever
course they may prefer.

Pray don't consider that I have treated your first letter to
me ungraciously. I am more grieved than you can imagine
that it happens so. You will probably come to the city a
day before the wedding, and I insist that you shall share my
bachelor quarters, in any case.

This letter threw Joseph into a new perplexity. Philip a
former acquaintance of the Blessings! Formerly, but not
now; and what could those mysterious “circumstances”
have been, which had so seriously interrupted their intercourse?
It was quite useless to conjecture; but he could
not resist the feeling that another shadow hung over the aspects
of his future. Perhaps he had exaggerated Elwood's
unaccountable dislike to Julia, which had only been implied,
not spoken; but here was a positive estrangement on
the part of the man who was so suddenly near and dear to
him. He never thought of suspecting Philip of blame; the
candor and cheery warmth of the letter rejoiced his heart.
There was evidently nothing better to do than to follow the
advice contained in it, and leave the question to the decision
of Julia and her parents.

Her reply did not come by the return mail, nor until
nearly a week afterwards; during which time he tormented
himself by imagining the wildest reasons for her silence.

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

When the letter at last arrived, he had some difficulty in
comprehending its import.

“Dearest Joseph,” she said, “you must really forgive me
this long trial of your patience. Your letter was so unexpected,—
I mean its contents,—and it seems as if ma and pa
and Clementina would never agree what was best to be done.
For that matter, I cannot say that they agree now; we had
no idea that you were an intimate friend of Mr. Held, (I
can't think how ever you should have become acquainted!)
and it seems to break open old wounds,—none of mine, fortunately,
for I have none. As Mr. Held leaves the question
in our hands, there is, you will understand, all the more necessity
that we should be careful. Ma thinks he has said
nothing to you about the unfortunate occurrence, or you
would have expressed an opinion. You never can know how
happy your fidelity makes me; but I felt that, the first moment
we met.

“Ma says that at very private (what pa calls informal)
weddings there need not be bridesmaids or groomsmen.
Miss Morrisey was married that way, not long ago; it is true
that she is not of our circle, nor strictly a first family (this
is ma's view, not mine, for I understand the hollowness of
society); but we could very well do the same. Pa would be
satisfied with a reception afterwards; he wants to ask the
Collector, and the Surveyor, and the Appraiser. Clementina
won't say anything now, but I know what she thinks, and
so does ma; however, Mr. Held has so dropped out of city
life that it is not important. I suppose everything must be
dim in his memory now; you do not write to me much that
he related. How strange that he should be your friend!
They say my dress is lovely, but I am sure I should like a
plain muslin just as well. I shall only breathe freely when

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

I get back to the quiet of the country, (and your—our
charming home, and dear, good Aunt Rachel!) and away
from all these conventional forms. Ma says if there is one
groomsman there ought to be two; either very simple, or
according to custom. In a matter so delicate, perhaps, Mr.
Held would be as competent to decide as we are; at least I
am quite willing to leave it to his judgment. But how trifling
is all this discussion, compared with the importance of
the day to us! It is now drawing very near, but I have no
misgivings, for I confide in you wholly and forever!”

After reading the letter with as much coolness as was
then possible to him, Joseph inferred three things: that his
acquaintance with Philip Held was not entirely agreeable to
the Blessing family; that they would prefer the simplest
style of a wedding, and this was in consonance with his own
tastes; and that Julia clung to him as a deliverer from conditions
with which her nature had little sympathy. Her
incoherence, he fancied, arose from an agitation which he
could very well understand, and his answer was intended to
soothe and encourage her. It was difficult to let Philip
know that his services would not be required, without implying
the existence of an unfriendly feeling towards
him; and Joseph, therefore, all the more readily accepted
his invitation. He was assured that the mysterious difficulty
did not concern Julia; even if it were so, he was not called
upon to do violence, without cause, to so welcome a friendship.

The September days sped by, not with the lingering, passionate
uncertainty of which Elwood Withers spoke, but
almost too swiftly. In the hurry of preparation, Joseph had
scarcely time to look beyond the coming event and estimate
its consequences. He was too ignorant of himself to doubt:
his conscience was too pure and perfect to admit the

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

possibility of changing the course of his destiny. Whatever the
gossip of the neighborhood might have been, he heard
nothing of it that was not agreeable. His aunt was entirely
reconciled to a wife who would not immediately, and
probably not for a long time, interfere with her authority;
and the shadows raised by the two men whom he loved best
seemed, at last, to be accidentally thrown from clouds beyond
the horizon of his life. This was the thought to which he
clung, in spite of a vague, utterly formless apprehension,
which he felt lurking somewhere in the very bottom of his
heart.

Philip met him on his arrival in the city, and after taking
him to his pleasant quarters, in a house looking on one
of the leafy squares, good-naturedly sent him to the Blessing
mansion, with a warning to return before the evening was
quite spent. The family was in a flutter of preparation,
and though he was cordially welcomed, he felt that, to all
except Julia, he was subordinate in interest to the men who
came every quarter of an hour, bringing bouquets, and silver
spoons with cards attached, and pasteboard boxes containing
frosted cakes. Even Julia's society he was only allowed to
enjoy by scanty instalments; she was perpetually summoned
by her mother or Clementina, to consult about some indescribable
figment of dress. Mr. Blessing was occupied in
the basement, with the inspection of various hampers. He
came to the drawing-room to greet Joseph, whom he shook
by both hands, with such incoherent phrases that Julia
presently interposed. “You must not forget, pa,” she said,
“that the man is waiting: Joseph will excuse you, I know.”
She followed him to the basement, and he returned no
more.

Joseph left early in the evening, cheered by Julia's words:

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

“We can't complain of all this confusion, when it's for our
sakes; but we'll be happier when it's over, won't we?”

He gave her an affirmative kiss, and returned to Philip's
room. That gentleman was comfortably disposed in an arm-chair,
with a book and a cigar. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “you
find that a house is more agreeable any evening than that
before the wedding?”

“There is one compensation,” said Joseph; “it gives me
two or three hours with you.”

“Then take that other arm-chair, and tell me how this came
to pass. You see I have the curiosity of a neighbor, already.”

He listened earnestly while Joseph related the story of his
love, occasionally asking a question or making a suggestive
remark, but so gently that it seemed to come as an assistance.
When all had been told, he rose and commenced walking
slowly up and down the room. Joseph longed to ask, in
turn, for an explanation of the circumstances mentioned in
Philip's letter; but a doubt checked his tongue.

As if in response to his thought, Philip stopped before
him and said: “I owe you my story, and you shall have it
after a while, when I can tell you more. I was a young fellow
of twenty when I knew the Blessings, and I don't attach
the slightest importance, now, to anything that happened.
Even if I did, Miss Julia had no share in it. I remember her
distinctly; she was then about my age, or a year or two older;
but hers is a face that would not change in a long while.”

Joseph stared at his friend in silence. He recalled the latter's
age, and was startled by the involuntary arithmetic
which revealed Julia's to him. It was unexpected, unwelcome,
yet inevitable.

“Her father had been lucky in some of his `operations,'”
Philip continued, “but I don't think he kept it long. I

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

hardly wonder that she should come to prefer a quiet country
life to such ups and downs as the family has known.
Generally, a woman don't adapt herself so readily to a change
of surroundings as a man: where there is love, however,
everything is possible.”

“There is! there is!” Joseph exclaimed, certifying the
fact to himself as much as to his friend. He rose and stood
beside him.

Philip looked at him with grave, tender eyes.

“What can I do?” he said.

“What should you do?” Joseph asked.

“This!” Philip exclaimed, laying his hands on Joseph's
shoulders,—“this, Joseph! I can be nearer than a brother.
I know that I am in your heart as you are in mine. There
is no faith between us that need be limited, there is no truth
too secret to be veiled. A man's perfect friendship is rarer
than a woman's love, and most hearts are content with one
or the other: not so with yours and mine! I read it in
your eyes, when you opened them on my knee: I see it in
your face now. Don't speak: let us clasp hands.”

But Joseph could not speak.

p715-128 CHAPTER XI. A CITY WEDDING.

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

There was not much of the happy bridegoom to be seen
in Joseph's face when he arose the next morning. To Philip's
eyes he appeared to have suddenly grown several years
older; his features had lost their boyish softness and sweetness,
which would thenceforth never wholly come back
again. He spoke but little, and went about his preparation
with an abstracted, mechanical air, which told how much
his mind was preoccupied. Philip quietly assisted, and
when all was complete, led him before the mirror.

“There!” he said; “now study the general effect; I
think nothing more is wanting.”

“It hardly looks like myself,” Joseph remarked, after a
careless inspection.

“In all the weddings I have seen,” said Philip, “the
bridegrooms were pale and grave, the brides flushed and
trembling. You will not make an exception to the rule;
but it is a solemn thing, and I—don't misunderstand me,
Joseph—I almost wish you were not to be married to-day.”

“Philip!” Joseph exclaimed, “let me think, now, at
least,—now, at the last moment,—that it is best for me!
If you knew how cramped, restricted, fettered, my life has
been, and how much emancipation has already come with
this—this love! Perhaps my marriage is a venture, but it
is one which must be made; and no consequence of it shall
ever come between us!”

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

“No; and I ought not to have spoken a word that might
imply a doubt. It may be that your emancipation, as you
rightly term it, can only come in this way. My life has
been so different, that I am unconsciously putting myself in
your place, instead of trying to look with your eyes. When
I next go to Coventry Forge, I shall drive over and dine with
you, and I hope your Julia will be as ready to receive me as a
friend as I am to find one in her. There is the carriage at
the door, and you had better arrive a little before the appointed
hour. Take only my good wishes, my prayers for your
happiness, along with you,—and now, God bless you, Joseph!”

The carriage rolled away. Joseph, in full wedding costume,
was painfully conscious of the curious glances which
fell upon him, and presently pulled down the curtains.
Then, with an impatient self-reprimand, he pulled them up
again, lowered the window, and let the air blow upon his
hot cheeks. The house was speedily reached, and he was
admitted by a festive waiter (hired for the occasion) before
he had been exposed for more than five seconds to the gaze
of curious eyes in all the windows around.

Mrs. Blessing, resplendent in purple, and so bedight that
she seemed almost as young as her portrait, swept into the
drawing-room. She inspected him rapidly, and approved,
while advancing; otherwise he would scarcely have received
the thin, dry kiss with which she favored him.

“It lacks half an hour,” she said; “but you have the
usual impatience of a bridegroom. I am accustomed to it.
Mr. Blessing is still in his room; he has only just commenced
arranging his cambric cravat, which is a work of time.
He cannot forget that he was distinguished for an elegant
tie in his youth. Clementina,”—as that young lady entered
the room,—“is the bride completely attired?”

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

“All but her gloves,” replied Clementina, offering three-fourths
of her hand to Joseph. “And she don't know what
ear-rings to wear.”

“I think we might venture,” Mrs. Blessing remarked,
“as there seems to be no rule applicable to the case, to allow
Mr. Asten a sight of his bride. Perhaps his taste might assist
her in the choice.”

Thereupon she conducted Joseph upstairs, and, after some
preliminary whispering, he was admitted to the room. He
and Julia were equally surprised at the change in each
other's appearance: he older, paler, with a grave and serious
bearing; she younger, brighter, rounder, fresher, and with
the loveliest pink flush on her cheeks. The gloss of her
hair rivalled that of the white satin which draped her form
and gave grace to its outlines; her neck and shoulders were
slight, but no one could have justly called them lean; and
even the thinness of her lips was forgotten in the vivid coral
of their color, and the nervous life which hovered about
their edges. At that moment she was certainly beautiful,
and a stranger would have supposed her to be young.

She looked into Joseph's face with a smile in which some
appearance of maiden shyness yet lingered. A shrewder
bridegroom would have understood its meaning, and would
have said, “How lovely you are!” Joseph, it is true, experienced
a sense of relief, but he knew not why, and could
not for his life have put it into words. His eyes dwelt
upon and followed her, and she seemed to be satisfied with
that form of recognition. Mrs. Blessing inspected the dress
with a severe critical eye, pulling out a fold here and
smoothing a bit of lace there, until nothing further could be
detected. Then, the adornment of the victim being completed,
she sat down and wept moderately.

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

“O ma, try to bear up!” Julia exclaimed, with the very
slightest touch of impatience in her voice; “it is all to come
yet.”

There was a ring at the door.

“It must be your aunt,” said Mrs. Blessing, drying her
eyes. “My sister,” she added, turning to Joseph,—Mrs.
Woollish, with Mr. Woollish and their two sons and one
daughter. He's in the—the leather trade, so to speak,
which has thrown her into a very different circle; but, as
we have no nearer relations in the city, they will be present
at the ceremony. He is said to be wealthy. I have no
means of knowing; but one would scarcely think so, to judge
from his wedding-gift to Julia.”

“Ma, why should you mention it?”

“I wish to enlighten Mr. Asten. Six pairs of shoes!—
of course all of the same pattern; and the fashion may
change in another year!”

“In the country we have no fashions in shoes,” Joseph
suggested.

“Certainly!” said Julia. “I find Uncle Woollish's
present very practical indeed.”

Mrs. Blessing looked at her daughter, and said nothing.

Mr. Blessing, very red in the face, but with triumphant
cambric about his throat, entered the room, endeavoring to
get his fat hands into a pair of No. 9 gloves. A strong
smell of turpentine or benzine entered with him.

“Eliza,” said he, “you must find me some eau de cologne.
The odor left from my—my rheumatic remedy is still
perceptible. Indeed, patchouly would be better, if it were
not the scent peculiar to parvenus.”

Clementina came to say that the clergyman's carriage had
just reached the door, and Mr. Blessing was hurried down

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

stairs, mopping his gloves and the collar of his coat with
liquid fragrance by the way. Mrs. Blessing and Clementina
presently followed.

“Julia,” said Joseph when they were quite alone, “have
you thought that this is for life?”

She looked up with a tender smile, but something in his
face arrested it on her lips.

“I have lived ignorantly until now,” he continued,—
“innocently and ignorantly. From this time on I shall
change more than you, and there may be, years hence, a
very different Joseph Asten from the one whose name you
will take to-day. If you love me with the love I claim from
you,—the love that grows with and through all new knowledge
and experience,—there will be no discord in our lives.
We must both be liberal and considerate towards each
other; it has been but a short time since we met, and we
have still much to learn.”

“O, Joseph!” she murmured, in a tone of gentle
reproach, “I knew your nature at first sight.”

“I hope you did,” he answered gravely, “for then you
will be able to see its needs, and help me to supply them.
But, Julia, there must not the shadow of concealment come
between us: nothing must be reserved. I understand no
love that does not include perfect trust. I must draw
nearer, and be drawn nearer to you, constantly, or—”

He paused; it was no time to utter the further sentence
in his mind. Julia glided to him, clasped her arms about
his waist, and laid her head against his shoulder. Although
she said nothing, the act was eloquent. It expressed
acquiescence, trust, fidelity, the surrender of her life to his,
and no man in his situation could have understood it
otherwise. A tenderness, which seemed to be the

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

something hitherto lacking to his love, crept softly over his
heart, and the lurking unrest began to fade from his face.

There was a rustle on the stairs; Clementina and Miss
Woollish made their appearance. “Mr. Bogue has arrived,”
whispered the former, “and ma thinks you should
come down soon. Are you entirely ready? I don't think
you need the salts, Julia; but you might carry the bottle in
your left hand: brides are expected to be nervous.”

She gave a light laugh, like the purl and bubble of a
brook; but Joseph shrank, with an inward chill, from the
sound.

“So! shall we go? Fanny and I—(I beg pardon; Mr.
Asten—Miss Woollish)—will lead the way. We will stand
a little in the rear, not beside you, as there are no groomsmen.
Remember, the farther end of the room!”

They rustled slowly downward, in advance, and the bridal
pair followed. The clergyman, Mr. Bogue, suddenly broke
off in the midst of an oracular remark about the weather,
and, standing in the centre of the room, awaited them. The
other members of the two families were seated, and very
silent.

Joseph heard the introductory remarks, the ceremony,
and the final benediction, as in a dream. His lips opened
mechanically, and a voice which did not exactly seem to be
his own uttered the “I will!” at the proper time; yet, in
recalling the experience afterwards, he was unable to decide
whether any definite thought or memory or hope had passed
through his mind. From his entrance into the room until
his hand was violently shaken by Mr. Blessing, there was a
blank.

Of course there were tears, but the beams of congratulation
shone through them, and they saddened nobody. Miss

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Fanny Woollish assured the bridal pair, in an audible
whisper, that she had never seen a sweeter wedding; and her
mother, a stout, homely little body, confirmed the opinion
with, “Yes, you both did beautifully!” Then the marriage
certificate was produced and signed, and the company partook
of wine and refreshments to strengthen them for the
reception.

Until there had been half a dozen arrivals, Mrs. Blessing
moved about restlessly, and her eyes wandered to the front
window. Suddenly three or four carriages came rattling
together up the street, and Joseph heard her whisper to her
husband: “There they are! it will be a success!” It was
not long before the little room was uncomfortably crowded,
and the presentations followed so rapidly that Joseph soon
became bewildered. Julia, however, knew and welcomed
every one with the most bewitching grace, being rewarded
with kisses by the gorgeous young ladies and compliments
by the young men with weak mouths and retreating chins.

In the midst of the confusion Mr. Blessing, with a wave
of his hand, presented “Mr. Collector Twining” and “Mr.
Surveyor Knob” and “Mr. Appraiser Gerrish,” all of
whom greeted Joseph with a bland, almost affectionate, cordiality.
The door of the dining-room was then thrown
open, and the three dignitaries accompanied the bridal pair
to the table. Two servants rapidly whisked the champagnebottles
from a cooling-tub in the adjoining closet, and Mr.
Blessing commenced stirring and testing a huge bowl of
punch. Collector Twining made a neat little speech, proposing
the health of bride and bridegroom, with a pun upon
the former's name, which was received with as much delight
as if it had never been heard before. Therefore Mr. Surveyor
Knob repeated it in giving the health of the bride's

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parents. The enthusiasm of the company not having diminished,
Mr. Appraiser Gerrish improved the pun in a third
form, in proposing “the Ladies.” Then Mr. Blessing,
although his feelings overcame him, and he was obliged to
use a handkerchief smelling equally of benzine and eau de
cologne, responded, introducing the collector's and surveyor's
names with an ingenuity which was accepted as the
inspiration of genius. His peroration was especially admired.

“On this happy occasion,” he said, “the elements of
national power and prosperity are represented. My son-in-law,
Mr. Asten, is a noble specimen of the agricultural
population,—the free American yeomanry; my daughter, if
I may be allowed to say it in the presence of so many
bright eyes and blooming cheeks, is a representative child
of the city, which is the embodiment of the nation's action
and enterprise. The union of the two is the movement of
our life. The city gives to the country as the ocean gives
the cloud to the mountain-springs: the country gives to the
city as the streams flow back to the ocean. [“Admirable!”
Mr. Collector Twining exclaimed.] Then we have, as our
highest honor, the representatives of the political system
under which city and country flourish alike. The wings of
our eagle must be extended over this fortunate house to-day,
for here are the strong Claws which seize and guard its
treasures!”

The health of the Claws was drunk enthusiastically. Mr.
Blessing was congratulated on his eloquence; the young
gentlemen begged the privilege of touching their glasses to
his, and every touch required that the contents be replenished;
so that the bottom of the punch-bowl was nearly
reached before the guests departed.

When Joseph came down in his travelling-dress, he found

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the drawing-room empty of the crowd; but leaves, withered
flowers, crumbs of cake, and crumpled cards scattered over
the carpet, indicated what had taken place. In the dining-room
Mr. Blessing, with his cravat loosened, was smoking a
cigar at the open window.

“Come, son-in-law!” he cried, “take another glass of
punch before you start.”

Joseph declined, on the plea that he was not accustomed
to the beverage.

“Nothing could have gone off better!” said Mr. Blessing.
“The collector was delighted: by the by, you're to go to
the St. Jerome, when you get to New York this evening.
He telegraphed to have the bridal-chamber reserved for
you. Tell Julia: she won't forget it. That girl has a
deuced sharp intellect: if you'll be guided by her in your
operations—”

“Pa, what are you saying about me?” Julia asked,
hastily entering the room.

“Only that you have a deuced sharp intellect, and
to-day proves it. Asten is one of us now, and I may tell
him of his luck.”

He winked and laughed stupidly, and Joseph understood
and obeyed his wife's appealing glance. He went
to his mother-in-law in the drawing-room.

Julia lightly and swiftly shut the door. “Pa,” she
said, in a strong, angry whisper; “if you are not able
to talk coherently, you must keep your tongue still. What
will Joseph think of me, to hear you?”

“What he'll think anyhow, in a little while,” he doggedly
replied. “Julia, you have played a keen game, and
played it well; but you don't know much of men yet.
He'll not always be the innocent, white-nosed lamb he

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is now, nibbling the posies you hold out to him. Wait till
he asks for stronger feed, and see whether he'll follow you!”

She was looking on the floor, pale and stern. Suddenly
one of her gloves burst, across the back of the hand.
“Pa,” she then said, “it's very cruel to say such things
to me, now when I'm leaving you.”

“So it is!” he exclaimed, tearfully contrite; “I am
a wretch! They flattered my speech so much,—the collector
was so impressed by me,—and said so many pleasant
things, that—I don't feel quite steady. Don't forget
the St. Jerome; the bridal-chamber is ordered, and I'll
see that Mumm writes a good account for the `Evening
Mercury.' I wish you could be here to remember my
speech for me. O, I shall miss you! I shall miss you!”

With these words, and his arm lovingly about his
daughter, they joined the family. The carriage was already
at the door, and the coachman was busy with
the travelling-trunks. There were satchels, and little
packages,—an astonishing number it seemed to Joseph,—
to be gathered together, and then the farewells were said.

As they rolled through the streets towards the station,
Julia laid her head upon her husband's shoulder, drew
a long, deep breath, and said, “Now all our obligations
to society are fulfilled, and we can rest awhile. For
the first time in my life I am a free woman,—and you
have liberated me!”

He answered her in glad and tender words; he was
equally grateful that the exciting day was over. But,
as they sped away from the city through the mellow
October landscapes, Philip's earnest, dark gray eyes, warm
with more than brotherly love, haunted his memory,
and he knew that Philip's faithful thoughts followed him.

p715-138 CHAPTER XII. CLOUDS.

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

There are some days when the sun comes slowly up,
filling the vapory air with diffused light, in advance of
his coming; when the earth grows luminous in the broad,
breezeless morning; when nearer objects shine and sparkle,
and the distances melt into dim violet and gold; when
the vane points to the southwest, and the blood of man
feels neither heat nor cold, but only the freshness of that
perfect temperature wherein the limits of the body are
lost, and the pulses of its life beat in all the life of the
world. But ere long the haze, instead of thinning into
blue, gradually thickens into gray; the vane creeps
southward, swinging to southeast in brief, rising flaws
of the air; the horizon darkens; the enfranchised life
of the spirit creeps back to its old isolation, shorn of
all its rash delight, and already foreboding the despondency
which comes with the east wind and the chilly
rains.

Some such variation of the atmospheric influences attended
Joseph Asten's wedding-travel. The mellow, magical
glory of his new life diminished day by day; the
blue of his sky became colder and grayer. Yet he could
not say that his wife had changed: she was always ready
with her smiles, her tender phrases, her longings for
quiet and rest, and simple, natural life, away from the
conventionalities and claims of Society. But, even as,

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

looking into the pale, tawny-brown of her eyes, he saw
no changing depth below the hard, clear surface, so it
also seemed with her nature; he painfully endeavored
to penetrate beyond expressions, the repetition of which
it was hard not to find tiresome, and to reach some spring
of character or feeling; yet he found nothing. It was
useless to remember that he had been content with those
expressions before marriage had given them his own eager
interpretation, independent of her will and knowledge;
that his duty to her remained the same, for she had not
deceived him.

On the other hand, she was as tender and affectionate
as he could desire. Indeed, he would often have preferred
a less artless manifestation of her fondness; but she
playfully insisted on his claiming the best quarters at
every stopping-place, on the ground of their bridal character,
and was sometimes a little petulant when she
fancied that they had not been sufficiently honored.
Joseph would have willingly escaped the distinction,
allowing himself to be confounded with the prosaic multitude,
but she would not permit him to try the experiment.

“The newly married are always detected,” she would
say, “and they are only laughed at when they try to
seem like old couples. Why not be frank and honest,
and meet half-way the sympathy which I am sure everybody
has for us?”

To this he could make no reply, except that it was not
agreeable to exact a special attention.

“But it is our right!” was her answer.

In every railway-car they entered she contrived, in a
short time, to impress the nature of their trip upon the

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

other travellers; yet it was done with such apparent
unconsciousness, such innocent, impulsive manifestations
of her happiness in him, that he could not, in his heart,
charge her with having intentionally brought upon him
the discomfort of being curiously observed. He could
have accustomed himself to endure the latter, had it been
inevitable; the suspicion that he owed it to her made
it an increasing annoyance. Yet, when the day's journey
was over, and they were resting together in their own
private apartment, she would bring a stool to his feet,
lay her head on his knee, and say: “Now we can talk
as we please,—there are none watching and listening.”

At such times he was puzzled to guess whether some
relic of his former nervous shyness were not remaining,
and had made him over-sensitive to her ways. The doubt
gave him an additional power of self-control; he resolved
to be more slow and cautious of judgment, and observe
men and women more carefully than he had been wont to
do. Julia had no suspicion of what was passing in his
mind: she took it for granted that his nature was still
as shallow and transparent as when she first came in
contact with it.

After nearly a fortnight this flying life came to an end.
They returned to the city for a day, before going home
to the farm. The Blessing mansion received them with
a hearty welcome; yet, in spite of it, a depressing atmosphere
seemed to fill the house. Mrs. Blessing looked
pinched and care-worn, Clementina discontented, and
Mr. Blessing as melancholy as was possible to so bouyant
a politician.

“What's the matter? I hope pa hasn't lost his place,”
Julia remarked in an undertone to her mother.

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

“Lost my place!” Mr. Blessing exclaimed aloud; “I'd
like to see how the collection of customs would go on without
me. But a man may keep his place, and yet lose his
house and home.”

Clementina vanished, Mrs. Blessing followed, with her
handkerchief to her eyes, and Julia hastened after them,
crying: “Ma! dear ma!”

“It's only on their account,” said Mr. Blessing, pointing
after them and speaking to Joseph. “A plucky man never
desponds, sir; but women, you'll find, are upset by every
reverse.”

“May I ask what has happened?”

“A delicate regard for you,” Mr. Blessing replied, “would
counsel me to conceal it, but my duty as your father-in-law
leaves me no alternative. Our human feelings prompt us to
show only the bright side of life to those whom we love;
principle, however, — conscience, commands us not to suppress
the shadows. I am but one out of the many millions
of victims of mistaken judgment. The case is simply this;
I will omit certain legal technicalities touching the disposition
of property, which may not be familiar to you, and state
the facts in the most intelligible form; securities which I
placed as collaterals for the loan of a sum, not a very large
amount, have been very unexpectedly depreciated, but only
temporarily so, as all the market knows. If I am forced to
sell them at such an untoward crisis, I lose the largest part
of my limited means; if I retain them, they will ultimately
recover their full value.”

“Then why not retain them?” Joseph asked.

“The sum advanced upon them must be repaid, and it so
happens—the market being very tight—that every one of
my friends is short. Of course, where their own paper is

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

on the street, I can't ask them to float mine for three months
longer, which is all that is necessary. A good indorsement
is the extent of my necessity; for any one who is familiar
with the aspects of the market can see that there must be a
great rebound before three months.”

“If it were not a very large amount,” Joseph began.

“Only a thousand! I know what you were going to say
it is perfectly natural: I appreciate it, because, if our positions
were reversed, I should have done the same thing.
But, although it is a mere form, a temporary fiction, which
has the force of reality, and, therefore, so far as you are concerned,
I should feel entirely easy, yet it might subject me
to very dishonoring suspicions! It might be said that I
had availed myself of your entrance into my family to beguile
you into pecuniary entanglements; the amount might
be exaggerated, the circumstance misrepresented,—no, no!
rather than that, let me make the sacrifice like a man! I'm
no longer young, it is true; but the feeling that I stand on
principle will give me strength to work.”

“On the other hand, Mr. Blessing,” said Joseph, “very unpleasant
things might be said of me, if I should permit you to
suffer so serious a loss, when my assistance would prevent it.”

“I don't deny it. You have made a two-horned dilemma
out of a one-sided embarrassment. Would that I had kept
the secret in my own breast! The temptation is strong, I
confess, for the mere use of your name for a few months is
all I should require. Either the securities will rise to their
legitimate value, or some of the capitalists with whom I
have dealings will be in a position to accommodate me. I
have frequently tided over similar snags and sand-bars in
the financial current; they are familiar even to the most
skilful operators,—navigators, I might say, to carry out the

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

figure,—and this is an instance where an additional inch of
water will lift me from wreck to flood-tide. The question
is, should I allow what I feel to be a just principle, a natural
suggestion of delicacy, to intervene between my necessity and
your generous proffer of assistance?”

“Your family—” Joseph began.

“I know! I know!” Mr. Blessing cried, leaning his
head upon his hand. “There is my vulnerable point,—my
heel of Achilles! There would be no alternative,—better
sell this house than have my paper dishonored! Then, too,
I feel that this is a turning-point in my fortunes: if I can
squeeze through this narrow pass, I shall find a smooth road
beyond. It is not merely the sum which is at stake, but
the future possibilities into which it expands. Should I
crush the seed while it is germinating? Should I tear up
the young tree, with an opening fruit-bud on every twig?
You see the considerations that sway me: unless you withdraw
your most generous proffer, what can I do but yield
and accept it?”

“I have no intention of withdrawing it,” Joseph answered,
taking his words literally; “I made the offer freely and
willingly. If my indorsement is all that is necessary now, I
can give it at once.”

Mr. Blessing grasped him by the hand, winked hard three
or four times, and turned away his head without speaking.
Then he drew a large leather pocket-book from his breast,
opened it, and produced a printed promissory note.

“We will make it payable at your county bank,” said he,
“because your name is known there, and upon acceptance—
which can be procured in two days—the money will be
drawn here. Perhaps we had better sav four months, in
order to cover all contingencies.”

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

He went to a small writing-desk, at the farther end of
the room, and filled the blanks in the note, which Joseph
then endorsed. When it was safely lodged in his breast-pocket,
he said: “We will keep this entirely to ourselves.
My wife, let me whisper to you, is very proud and sensitive,
although the De l'Hotels (Doolittles now) were never quite
the equals of the De Belsains; but women see matters in a
different light. They can't understand the accommodation
of a name, but fancy that it implies a kind of humiliation, as
if one were soliciting charity.”

He laughed and rubbed his hands. “I shall soon be in a
position,” he said, “to render you a favor in returm. My
long experience, and, I may add, my intimate knowledge of
the financial field, enables me to foresee many splendid opportunities.
There are, just now, some movements which
are not yet perceptible on the surface. Mark my words! we
shall shortly have a new excitement, and a cool, well-sesoned
head is a fortune at such times.”

“In the country,” Joseph replied, “we only learn
enough to pay off our debts and invest our earnings. We
are in the habit of moving slowly and cautiously. Perhaps
we miss opportunities; but if we don't see them, we are
just as contented as if they had not been. I have enough
for comfort, and try to be satisfied.”

“Inherited ideas! They belong to the community in
which you live. Are you satisfied with your neighbors' ways
of living and thinking? I do not mean to disparage them,
but have you no desire to rise above their level? Money,—
as I once said at a dinner given to a distinguished railroad
man,—money is the engine which draws individuals up the
steepest grades of society; it is the lubricating oil which
makes the truck of life run easy; it is the safety-break

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which renders collision and wreck impossible! I have long
been accustomed to consider it in the light of power, not of
property, and I classify men according as they take one or
the other view. The latter are misers; but the former, sir,
are philosophers!”

Joseph scarcely knew how to answer this burst of eloquence.
But there was no necessity for it; the ladies entered the
room at that moment, each one, in her own way, swiftly
scrutinizing the two gentlemen. Mrs. Blessing's face lost its
woe-worn expression, while a gleam of malicious satisfaction
passed over Clementina's.

The next day, on their journey to the country, Julia suddenly
said, “I am sure, Joseph, that pa made use of your
generosity; pray don't deny it!”

There was the faintest trace of hardness in her voice,
which he interpreted as indicating dissatisfaction with his
failure to confide the matter to her.

“I have no intention of denying anything, Julia,” he
answered. “I was not called upon to exercise generosity;
it was simply what your father would term an `accommodation.
'”

“I understand. How much?”

“An endorsement of his note for a thousand dollars, which
is little, when it will prevent him from losing valuable
securities.”

Julia was silent for at least ten minutes; then, turning
towards him with a sternness which she vainly endeavored to
conceal under a “wreathed smile,” she said: “In future,
Joseph, I hope you will always consult me in any pecuniary
venture. I may not know much about such matters, but it
is my duty to learn. I have been obliged to hear a great
deal of financial talk from pa and his friends, and could not

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

help guessing some things which I think I can apply for
your benefit. We are to have no secrets from each other,
you know.”

His own words! After all, what she said was just
and right, and he could not explain to himself why he
should feel annoyed. Perhaps he missed a frank expression
of delight in the assistance he had so promptly
given; but why should he suspect that it was unwelcome
to her? He tried to banish the feeling, to hide it under
self-reproach and shame, but it clung to him most uncomfortably.

Nevertheless, he forgot everything in the pleasure of the
homeward drive from the station. The sadness of late
autumn lay upon the fields, but spring already said, “I am
coming!” in the young wheat; the houses looked warm and
cosey behind their sheltering fir-trees; cattle still grazed on
the meadows, and the corn was not yet deserted by the
huskers. The sun gave a bright edge to the sombre colors
of the landscape, and to Joseph's eyes it was beautiful as
never before. Julia leaned back in the carriage, and complained
of the cold wind.

“There!” cried Joseph, as a view of the valley opened
below them, with the stream flashing like steel between the
leafless sycamores,—“there is home-land! Do you know
where to look for our house?”

Julia made an effort, leaned forward, smiled, and pointed
silently across the shoulder of a hill to the eastward. “You
surely didn't suppose I could forget,” she murmured.

Rachel Miller awaited them at the gate, and Julia had no
sooner alighted than she flung herself into her arms. “Dear
Aunt Rachel!” she cried: “you must now take my mother's
place; I have so much to learn from you! It is doubly a

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

home since you are here. I feel that we shall all be happy
together!”

Then there were kisses, of which Joseph received his
share, and the first evening lapsed away in perfect harmony.
Everything was delightful: the room, the furniture,
the meal, even the roar of the wind in the dusky trees.
While Julia lay in the cushioned rocking-chair, Rachel
gave her nephew an account of all that had been done on the
farm; but Joseph only answered her from the surface of his
mind. Under the current of his talk ran a graver thought,
which said: “You wanted independence and a chance of
growth for your life; you fancied they would come in this
form. Lo, now! here are the conditions which you desired
to establish; from this hour begins the new life of which
you dreamed. Whether you have been wise or rash, you
can change nothing. You are limited, as before, though
within a different circle. You may pace it to its fullest extent,
but all the lessons you have yet learned require you to
be satisfied within it.”

p715-148 CHAPTER XIII. PRESENTIMENTS.

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The autumn lapsed into winter, and the household on the
Asten farm began to share the isolation of the season. There
had been friendly visits from all the nearest neighbors and
friends, followed by return visits, and invitations which Julia
willingly accepted. She was very amiable, and took pains to
confirm the favorable impression which she knew she had made
in the summer. Everybody remarked how she had improved
in appearance, how round and soft her neck and shoulders,
how bright and fresh her complexion. She thanked them,
with many grateful expressions to which they were not
accustomed, for their friendly reception, which she looked
upon as an adoption into their society; but at home, afterwards,
she indulged in criticisms of their manners and habits
which were not always friendly. Although these were given
in a light, playful tone, and it was sometimes impossible not
to be amused, Rachel Miller always felt uncomfortable when
she heard them.

Then came quiet, lonely days, and Julia, weary of her idle
life, undertook to master the details of the housekeeping.
She went from garret to cellar, inspecting every article in
closet and pantry, wondering much, censuring occasionally,
and only praising a little when she found that Rachel was
growing tired and irritable. Although she made no material
changes, it was soon evident that she had very stubborn
views of her own upon many points, and possessed a marked

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tendency for what the country people call “nearness.”
Little by little she diminished the bountiful, free-handed
manner of provision which had been the habit of the house.
One could not say that anything needful was lacking, and
Rachel would hardly have been dissatisfied, had she not felt
that the innovation was an indirect blame.

In some directions Julia seemed the reverse of “near,”
persuading Joseph into expenditures which the people considered
very extravagant. When the snow came, his new
and elegant sleigh, with the wolf-skin robe, the silver-mounted
harness, and the silver-sounding bells, was the envy
of all the young men, and an abomination to the old. It
was a splendor which he could easily afford, and he did not
grudge her the pleasure; yet it seemed to change his
relation to the neighbors, and some of them were very
free in hinting that they felt it so. It would be difficult
to explain why they should resent this or any other slight
departure from their fashions, but such had always been
their custom.

In a few days the snow vanished and a tiresome season of
rain and thaw succeeded. The south-eastern winds, blowing
from the Atlantic across the intervening lowlands, rolled
interminable gray masses of fog over the hills and blurred
the scenery of the valley; dripping trees, soaked meadows,
and sodden leaves were the only objects that detached themselves
from the general void, and became in turn visible to
those who travelled the deep, quaking roads. The social
intercourse of the neighborhood ceased perforce, though the
need of it were never so great: what little of the main highway
down the valley was visible from the windows appeared
to be deserted.

Julia, having exhausted the resources of the house,

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insisted on acquainting herself with the barn and everything
thereto belonging. She laughingly asserted that her education
as a farmer's wife was still very incomplete; she must
know the amount of the crops, the price of grain, the value
of the stock, the manner of work, and whatever else was
necessary to her position. Although she made many pretty
blunders, it was evident that her apprehension was unusually
quick, and that whatever she acquired was fixed in
her mind as if for some possible future use. She never
wearied of the most trivial details, while Joseph, on the
other hand, would often have willingly shortened his lessons.
His mind was singularly disturbed between the
desire to be gratified by her curiosity, and the fact that its
eager and persistent character made him uncomfortable.

When an innocent, confiding nature begins to suspect
that its confidence has been misplaced, the first result is a
preternatural stubbornness to admit the truth. The clearest
impressions are resisted, or half-consciously misinterpreted,
with the last force of an illusion which already foresees its
own overthrow. Joseph eagerly clung to every look and
word and action which confirmed his sliding faith in his
wife's sweet and simple character, and repelled—though a
deeper instinct told him that a day would come when it
must be admitted—the evidence of her coldness and selfishness.
Yet, even while almost fiercely asserting to his own
heart that he had every reason to be happy, he was consumed
with a secret fever of unrest, doubt, and dread.

The horns of the growing moon were still turned downwards,
and cold, dreary rains were poured upon the land.
Julia's patience, in such straits, was wonderful, if the truth
had been known, but she saw that some change was necessary
for both of them. She therefore proposed, not what she

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

most desired, but what her circumstances prescribed,—a
visit from her sister Clementina. Joseph found the request
natural enough: it was an infliction, but one which he had
anticipated; and after the time had been arranged by letter,
he drove to the station to meet the westward train from
the city.

Clementina stepped upon the platform, so cloaked and
hooded that he only recognized her by the deliberate grace
of her movements. She extended her hand, giving his a
cordial pressure, which was explained by the brass baggage-checks
thus transferred to his charge.

“I will wait in the ladies' room,” was all she said.

At the same moment Joseph's arm was grasped.

“What a lucky chance!” exclaimed Philip: then, suddenly
pausing in his greeting, he lifted his hat and bowed to
Clementina, who nodded slightly as she passed into the
room.

“Let me look at you!” Philip resumed, laying his hands
on Joseph's shoulders. Their eyes met and lingered, and
Joseph felt the blood rise to his face as Philip's gaze sank
more deeply into his heart and seemed to fathom its hidden
trouble; but presently Philip smiled and said: “I scarcely
knew, until this moment, that I had missed you so much,
Joseph!”

“Have you come to stay?” Joseph asked.

“I think so. The branch railway down the valley, which
you know was projected, is to be built immediately; but
there are other reasons why the furnaces should be in blast.
If it is possible, the work—and my settlement with it—will
begin without any further delay. Is she your first family
visit?”

He pointed towards the station.

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

“She will be with us a fortnight; but you will come,
Philip?”

“To be sure!” Philip exclaimed. “I only saw her face
indistinctly through the veil, but her nod said to me, `A
nearer approach is not objectionable.' Certainly, Miss
Blessing; but with all the conventional forms, if you please!”

There was something of scorn and bitterness in the laugh
which accompanied these words, and Joseph looked at him
with a puzzled air.

“You may as well know now,” Philip whispered, “that
when I was a spoony youth of twenty, I very nearly imagined
myself in love with Miss Clementina Blessing, and she encouraged
my greenness until it spread as fast as a bamboo or
a gourd-vine. Of course, I've long since congratulated myself
that she cut me up, root and branch, when our family
fortune was lost. The awkwardness of our intercourse is all
on her side. Can she still have faith in her charms and my
youth, I wonder? Ye gods! that would be a lovely conclusion
of the comedy!”

Joseph could only join in the laugh as they parted.
There was no time to reflect upon what had been said.
Clementina, nevertheless, assumed a new interest in his
eyes; and as he drove her towards the farm, he could not
avoid connecting her with Philip in his thoughts. She,
too, was evidently preoccupied with the meeting, for Philip's
name soon floated to the surface of their conversation.

“I expect a visit from him soon,” said Joseph. As she
was silent, he ventured to add: “You have no objections to
meeting with him, I suppose?”

“Mr. Held is still a gentleman, I believe,” Clementina
replied, and then changed the subject of conversation.

Julia flew at her sister with open arms, and showered on

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

her a profusion of kisses, all of which were received with
perfect serenity, Clementina merely saying, as soon as she
could get breath: “Dear me, Julia, I scarcely recognize
you! You are already so countrified!”

Rachel Miller, although a woman, and notwithstanding
her recent experience, found herself greatly bewildered by
this new apparition. Clementina's slow, deliberate movements
and her even-toned, musical utterance impressed her
with a certain respect; yet the qualities of character they
suggested never manifested themselves. On the contrary,
the same words, in any other mouth, would have often expressed
malice or heartlessness. Sometimes she heard her
own homely phrases repeated, as if by the most unconscious,
purposeless imitation, and had Julia either smiled or appeared
annoyed her suspicions might have been excited; as it was,
she was constantly and sorely puzzled.

Once only, and for a moment, the two masks were slightly
lifted. At dinner, Clementina, who had turned the conversation
upon the subject of birthdays, suddenly said to Joseph:
“By the way, Mr. Asten, has Julia told you her
age?”

Julia gave a little start, but presently looked up, with an
expression meant to be artless.

“I knew it before we were married,” Joseph quietly
answered.

Clementina bit her lip. Julia, concealing her surprise,
flashed a triumphant glance at her sister, then a tender one
at Joseph, and said: “We will both let the old birthdays
go; we will only have one and the same anniversary from
this time on!”

Joseph felt, through some natural magnetism of his nature
rather than from any perceptible evidence, that Clementina

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

was sharply and curiously watching the relation between
himself and his wife. He had no fear of her detecting misgivings
which were not yet acknowledged to himself, but
was instinctively on his guard in her presence.

It was not many days before Philip called. Julia received
him cordially, as the friend of her husband, while Clementina
bowed with an impassive face, without rising from her
seat. Philip, however, crossed the room and gave her his
hand, saying cheerily: “We used to be old friends, Miss
Blessing. You have not forgotten me?”

“We cannot forget when we have been asked to do so,”
she warbled.

Philip took a chair. “Eight years!” he said: “I am the
only one who has changed in that time.”

Julia looked at her sister, but the latter was apparently
absorbed in comparing some zephyr tints.

“The whirligig of time!” he exclaimed: “who can foresee
anything? Then I was an ignorant, petted young
aristocrat,—an expectant heir; now behold me, working
among miners and puddlers and forgemen! It's a rough
but wholesome change. Would you believe it, Mrs. Asten,
I've forgotten the mazurka!”

“I wish to forget it,” Julia replied: “the spring-house is
as important to me as the furnace to you.”

“Have you seen the Hopetons lately?” Clementina asked.

Joseph saw a shade pass over Philip's face, and he seemed
to hesitate a moment before answering: “I hear they will
be neighbors of mine next summer. Mr. Hopeton is interested
in the new branch down the valley, and has purchased
the old Calvert property for a country residence.”

“Indeed? Then you will often see them.”

“I hope so: they are very agreeable people. But I shall

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

also have my own little household: my sister will probably
join me.”

“Not Madeline!” exclaimed Julia.

“Madeline,” Philip answered. “It has long been
her wish, as well as mine. You know the little cottage
on the knoll, at Coventry, Joseph! I have taken it
for a year.”

“There will be quite a city society,” murmured Clementina,
in her sweetest tones. “You will need no commiseration,
Julia. Unless, indeed, the country people succeed in
changing you all into their own likeness. Mrs. Hopeton
will certainly create a sensation. I am told that she is very
extravagant, Mr. Held?”

“I have never seen her husband's bank account,” said
Philip, dryly.

He rose presently, and Joseph accompanied him to the
lane. Philip, with the bridle-rein over his arm, delayed to
mount his horse, while the mechanical commonplaces of
speech, which, somehow, always absurdly come to the lips
when graver interests have possession of the heart, were
exchanged by the two. Joseph felt, rather than saw, that
Philip was troubled. Presently the latter said: “Something
is coming over both of us,—not between us. I thought
I should tell you a little more, but perhaps it is too soon.
If I guess rightly, neither of us is ready. Only this, Joseph,
let us each think of the other as a help and a support!”

“I do, Philip!” Joseph answered. “I see there is some
influence at work which I do not understand, but I am
not impatient to know what it is. As for myself, I seem
to know nothing at all; but you can judge,—you see all
there is.”

Even as he pronounced these words Joseph felt that they

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

were not strictly sincere, and almost expected to find an expression
of reproof in Philip's eyes. But no: they softened
until he only saw a pitying tenderness. Then he knew that
the doubts which he had resisted with all the force of his
nature were clearly revealed to Philip's mind.

They shook hands, and parted in silence; and Joseph, as
he looked up to the gray blank of heaven, asked himself:
“Is this all? Has my life already taken the permanent
imprint of its future?”

p715-157 CHAPTER XIV. THE AMARANTH.

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

Clementina returned to the city without having made
any very satisfactory discovery. Her parting was therefore
conventionally tender: she even thanked Joseph for
his hospitality, and endeavored to throw a little natural
emphasis into her words as she expressed the hope of
being allowed to renew her visit in the summer.

During her stay it seemed to Joseph that the early harmony
of his household had been restored. Julia's manner
had been so gentle and amiable, that, on looking back, he
was inclined to believe that the loneliness of her new life was
alone responsible for any change. But after Clementina's
departure his doubts were reawakened in a more threatening
form. He could not guess, as yet, the terrible chafing of a
smiling mask; of a restraint which must not only conceal
itself, but counterfeit its opposite; of the assumption by a
narrow, cold, and selfish nature of virtues which it secretly
despises. He could not have foreseen that the gentleness,
which had nearly revived his faith in her, would so suddenly
disappear. But it was gone, like a glimpse of the
sun through the winter fog. The hard, watchful expression
came back to Julia's face; the lowered eyelids no longer
gave a fictitious depth to her shallow, tawny pupils; the
soft roundness of her voice took on a frequent harshness,
and the desire of asserting her own will in all things
betrayed itself through her affected habits of yielding and
seeking counsel.

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

She continued her plan of making herself acquainted with
all the details of the farm business. When the roads began
to improve, in the early spring, she insisted in driving to the
village alone, and Joseph soon found that she made good use
of these journeys in extending her knowledge of the social
and pecuniary standing of all the neighboring families. She
talked with farmers, mechanics, and drovers; became familiar
with the fluctuations in the prices of grain and cattle;
learned to a penny the wages paid for every form of service;
and thus felt, from week to week, the ground growing more
secure under her feet.

Joseph was not surprised to see that his aunt's participation
in the direction of the household gradually diminished.
Indeed, he scarcely noticed the circumstance at all, but he
was at last forced to remark her increasing silence and the
trouble of her face. To all appearance the domestic harmony
was perfect, and if Rachel Miller felt some natural
regret at being obliged to divide her sway, it was a matter,
he thought, wherein he had best not interfere. One day,
however, she surprised him by the request:—

“Joseph, can you take or send me to Magnolia to-morrow?”

“Certainly, Aunt!” he replied. “I suppose you want
to visit Cousin Phebe; you have not seen her since last
summer.”

“It was that,—and something more.” She paused a moment,
and then added, more firmly: “She has always wished
that I should make my home with her, but I couldn't think
of any change so long as I was needed here. It seems to me
that I am not really needed now.”

“Why, Aunt Rachel!” Joseph exclaimed, “I meant this
to be your home always, as much as mine! Of course you

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

are needed,—not to do all that you have done heretofore,
but as a part of the family. It is your right.”

“I understand all that, Joseph. But I've heard it said
that a young wife should learn to see to everything herself,
and Julia, I'm sure, doesn't need either my help or my advice.”

Joseph's face became very grave. “Has she—has she—?”
he stammered.

“No,” said Rachel, “she has not said it—in words. Different
persons have different ways. She is quick, O very
quick!—and capable. You know I could never sit idly by,
and look on; and it's hard to be directed. I seem to belong
to the place and everything connected with it; yet there's
times when what a body ought to do is plain.”

In endeavoring to steer a middle course between her conscience
and her tender regard for her nephew's feelings Rachel
only confused and troubled him. Her words conveyed something
of the truth which she sought to hide under them.
She was both angered and humiliated; the resistance with
which she had attempted to meet Julia's domestic innovations
was no match for the latter's tactics; it had gone down
like a barrier of reeds and been contemptuously trampled
under foot. She saw herself limited, opposed, and finally
set aside by a cheerful dexterity of management which
evaded her grasp whenever she tried to resent it. Definite
acts, whereon to base her indignation, seemed to slip from
her memory, but the atmosphere of the house became fatal
to her. She felt this while she spoke, and felt also that
Joseph must be spared.

“Aunt Rachel,” said he, “I know that Julia is very anxious
to learn everything which she thinks belongs to her
place,—perhaps a little more than is really necessary. She's
an enthusiastic nature, you know. Maybe you are not fully

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

acquainted yet; maybe you have misunderstood her in some
things: I would like to think so.”

“It is true that we are different, Joseph,—very different.
I don't say, therefore, that I'm always right. It's likely,
indeed, that any young wife and any old housekeeper like
myself would have their various notions. But where there
can be only one head, it's the wife's place to be that head.
Julia has not asked it of me, but she has the right. I can't
say, also, that I don't need a little rest and change, and there
seems to be some call on me to oblige Phebe. Look at the
matter in the true light,” she continued, seeing that Joseph
remained silent, “and you must feel that it's only natural.”

“I hope so,” he said at last, repressing a sigh; “all things
are changing.”

“What can we do?” Julia asked, that evening, when he
had communicated to her his aunt's resolution; “it would
be so delightful if she would stay, and yet I have had a presentiment
that she would leave us—for a little while only, I
hope. Dear, good Aunt Rachel! I couldn't help seeing how
hard it was for her to allow the least change in the order of
housekeeping. She would be perfectly happy if I would sit
still all day and let her tire herself to death; but how can I
do that, Joseph? And no two women have exactly the same
ways and habits. I've tried to make everything pleasant
for her: if she would only leave many little matters entirely
to me, or at least not think of them,—but I fear she cannot.
She manages to see the least that I do, and secretly worries
about it, in the very kindness of her heart. Why can't women
carry on partnerships in housekeeping as men do in
business? I suppose we are too particular; perhaps I am
just as much so as Aunt Rachel. I have no doubt she
thinks a little hardly of me, and so it would do her good—

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

we should really come nearer again—if she had a change.
If she will go, Joseph, she must at least leave us with the
feeling that our home is always hers, whenever she chooses
to accept it.”

Julia bent over Joseph's chair, gave him a rapid kiss, and
then went off to make her peace with Aunt Rachel. When
the two women came to the tea-table the latter had an uncertain,
bewildered air, while the eyelids of the former were
red,—either from tears or much rubbing.

A fortnight afterwards Rachel Miller left the farm and
went to reside with her widowed niece, in Magnolia.

The day after her departure another surprise came to Joseph
in the person of his father-in-law. Mr. Blessing arrived
in a hired vehicle from the station. His face was so red and
radiant from the March winds, and perhaps some private
source of satisfaction, that his sudden arrival could not possibly
be interpreted as an omen of ill-fortune. He shook
hands with the Irish groom who had driven him over, gave
him a handsome gratuity in addition to the hire of the team,
extracted an elegant travelling-satchel from under the seat,
and met Joseph at the gate, with a breezy burst of feeling:—

“God bless you, son-in-law! It does my heart good to
see you again! And then, at last, the pleasure of beholding
your ancestral seat; really, this is quite—quite manorial!”

Julia, with a loud cry of “O pa!” came rushing from
the house.

“Bless me, how wild and fresh the child looks!” cried
Mr. Blessing, after the embrace. “Only see the country
roses on her cheeks! Almost too young and sparkling for
Lady Asten, of Asten Hall, eh? As Dryden says, `Happy,
happy, happy pair!' It takes me back to the days when I

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

was a gay young lark; but I must have a care, and not
make an old fool of myself. Let us go in and subside into
soberness: I am ready both to laugh and cry.”

When they were seated in the comfortable front room,
Mr. Blessing opened his satchel and produced a large leather-covered
flask. Julia was probably accustomed to his
habits, for she at once brought a glass from the sideboard.

“I am still plagued with my old cramps,” her father said
to Joseph, as he poured out a stout dose. “Physiologists,
you know, have discovered that stimulants diminish the wear
and tear of life, and I find their theories correct. You, in
your pastoral isolation and pecuniary security, can form no
conception of the tension under which we men of office and
of the world live. Beatus ille, and so forth,—strange that
the only fragment of Latin which I remember should be so
appropriate! A little water, if you please, Julia.”

In the evening, when Mr. Blessing, slippered, sat before
the open fireplace, with a cigar in his mouth, the object of
his sudden visit crept by slow degrees to the light. “Have
you been dipping into oil?” he asked Joseph.

Julia made haste to reply. “Not yet, but almost everybody
in the neighborhood is ready to do so now, since Clemson
has realized his fifty thousand dollars in a single year.
They are talking of nothing else in the village. I heard
yesterday, Joseph, that Old Bishop has taken three thousand
dollars' worth of stock in a new company.”

“Take my advice, and don't touch 'em!” exclaimed Mr.
Blessing.

“I had not intended to,” said Joseph.

“There is this thing about these excitements,” Mr. Blessing
continued: “they never reach the rural districts until
the first sure harvest is over. The sharp, intelligent

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

operators in the large cities—the men who are ready to take up
soap, thimbles, hand-organs, electricity, or hymn-books, at a
moment's notice—always cut into a new thing before its
value is guessed by the multitude. Then the smaller fry
follow and secure their second crop, while your quiet men
in the country are shaking their heads and crying `humbug!
' Finally, when it really gets to be a humbug, in a
speculative sense, they just begin to believe in it, and are
fair game for the bummers and camp-followers of the financial
army. I respect Clemson, though I never heard of him
before; as for Old Bishop, he may be a very worthy man,
but he'll never see the color of his three thousand dollars
again.”

“Pa!” cried Julia, “how clear you do make everything.
And to think that I was wishing—O, wishing so much!—
that Joseph would go into oil.”

She hung her head a little, looking at Joseph with an
affectionate, penitent glance. A quick gleam of satisfaction
passed over Mr. Blessing's face; he smiled to himself, puffed
rapidly at his cigar for a minute, and then resumed: “In
such a field of speculation everything depends on being initiated.
There are men in the city—friends of mine—who
know every foot of ground in the Alleghany Valley. They
can smell oil, if it's a thousand feet deep. They never touch
a thing that isn't safe,—but, then, they know what's safe.
In spite of the swindling that's going on, it takes years to
exhaust the good points; just so sure as your honest neighbors
here will lose, just so sure will these friends of mine
gain. There are millions in what they have under way, at
this moment.”

“What is it?” Julia breathlessly asked, while Joseph's
face betrayed that his interest was somewhat aroused.

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

Mr. Blessing unlocked his satchel, and took from it a roll
of paper, which he began to unfold upon his knee. “Here,”
he said, “you see this bend of the river, just about the centre
of the oil region, which is represented by the yellow
color. These little dots above the bend are the celebrated
Fluke Wells; the other dots below are the equally celebrated
Chowder Wells. The distance between the two is
nearly three miles. Here is an untouched portion of the
treasure,—a pocket of Pactolus waiting to be rifled. A few
of us have acquired the land, and shall commence boring
immediately.”

“But,” said Joseph, “it seems to me that either the attempt
must have been made already, or that the land must
command such an enormous price as to lessen the profits.”

“Wisely spoken! It is the first question which would
occur to any prudent mind. But what if I say that neither
is the case? And you, who are familiar with the frequent
eccentricities of old farmers, can understand the explanation.
The owner of the land was one of your ignorant, stubborn
men, who took such a dislike to the prospectors and speculators,
that he refused to let them come near him. Both the
Fluke and Chowder Companies tried their best to buy him
out, but he had a malicious pleasure in leading them on to
make immense offers, and then refusing. Well, a few
months ago he died, and his heirs were willing enough to let
the land go; but before it could be regularly offered for sale,
the Fluke and Chowder Wells began to flow less and less.
Their shares fell from 270 to 95; the supposed value of the
land fell with them, and finally the moment arrived when
we could purchase for a very moderate sum. I see the question
in your mind; why should we wish to buy when the
other wells were giving out? There comes in the secret,

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

which is our veritable success. Consider it whispered in
your ears, and locked in your bosoms,—torpedoes! It was
not then generally exploded (to carry out the image), so we
bought at the low figure, in the very nick of time. Within
a week the Fluke and Chowder Wells were torpedoed, and
came back to more than their former capacity; the shares
rose as rapidly as they had fallen, and the central body we
hold—to which they are, as it were, the two arms—could
now be sold for ten times what it cost us!”

Here Mr. Blessing paused, with his finger on the map,
and a light of merited triumph in his eyes. Julia clapped
her hands, sprang to her feet, and cried: “Trumps at
last!”

“Ay,” said he, “wealth, repose for my old days,—
wealth for us all, if your husband will but take the hand
I hold out to him. You now know, son-in-law, why the
endorsement you gave me was of such vital importance;
the note, as you are aware, will mature in another week.
Why should you not charge yourself with the payment,
in consideration of the transfer to you of shares of the
original stock, already so immensely appreciated in value?
I have delayed making any provision, for the sake of
offering you the chance.”

Julia was about to speak, but restrained herself with
an apparent effort.

“I should like to know,” Joseph said, “who are associated
with you in the undertaking?”

“Well done, again! Where did you get your practical
shrewdness? The best men in the city!—not only the
Collector and the Surveyor, but Congressman Whaley,
E. D. Stokes, of Stokes, Pirricutt and Company, and even
the Reverend Doctor Lellifant. If I had not been an

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

old friend of Kanuck, the agent who negotiated the
purchase, my chance would have been impalpably small.
I have all the documents with me. There has been no
more splendid opportunity since oil became a power!
I hesitate to advise even one so near to me in such
matters; but if you knew the certainties as I know them,
you would go in with all your available capital. The
excitement, as you say, has reached the country communities,
which are slow to rise and equally slow to
subside; all oil stock will be in demand, but the Amaranth,—
`The Blessing,' they wished to call it, but I was
obliged to decline, for official reasons,—the Amaranth
shares will be the golden apex of the market!”

Julia looked at Joseph with eager, hungry eyes. He,
too, was warmed and tempted by the prospect of easy
profit which the scheme held out to him; only the habit
of his nature resisted, but with still diminishing force.
“I might venture the thousand,” he said.

“It is no venture!” Julia cried. “In all the speculations
I have heard discussed by pa and his friends,
there was nothing so admirably managed as this. Such
a certainty of profit may never come again. If you
will be advised by me, Joseph, you will take shares to
the amount of five or ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand is exactly the amount I hold open,”
Mr. Blessing gravely remarked. “That, however, does
not represent the necessary payment, which can hardly
amount to more than twenty-five per cent. before we
begin to realize. Only ten per cent. has yet been called,
so that your thousand at present will secure you an investment
of ten thousand. Really, it seems like a fortunate
coincidence.”

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

He went on, heating himself with his own words, until
the possibilities of the case grew so splendid that Joseph
felt himself dazzled and bewildered. Mr. Blessing was
a master in the art of seductive statement. Even where
he was only the mouthpiece of another, a few repetitions
led him to the profoundest belief. Here there could be
no doubt of his sincerity, and, moreover, every movement
from the very inception of the scheme, every statistical
item, all collateral influences, were clear in his mind and
instantly accessible. Although he began by saying, “I
will make no estimate of the profits, because it is not prudent
to fix our hopes on a positive sum,” he was soon
carried far away from this resolution, and most luxuriously
engaged, pencil in hand, in figuring out results which
drove Julia wild with desire, and almost took away Joseph's
breath. The latter finally said, as they rose from the
session, late at night:—

“It is settled that I take as much as the thousand will
cover; but I would rather think over the matter quietly
for a day or two before venturing further.”

“You must,” replied Mr. Blessing, patting him on
the shoulder. “These things are so new to your experience,
that they disturb and—I might almost say—alarm
you. It is like bringing an increase of oxygen into your
mental atmosphere. (Ha! a good figure: for the result
will be, a richer, fuller life. I must remember it.) But
you are a healthy organization, and therefore you are
certain to see clearly: I can wait with confidence.”

The next morning Joseph, without declaring his purpose,
drove to Coventry Forge to consult Philip. Mr.
Blessing and Julia, remaining at home, went over the
shining ground again, and yet again, confirming each

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

other in the determination to secure it. Even Joseph, as
he passed up the valley in the mild March weather, taking
note of the crimson and gold of the flowering spice-bushes
and maple-trees, could not prevent his thoughts from
dwelling on the delights of wealth,—society, books, travel,
and all the mellow, fortunate expansion of life. Involuntarily,
he hoped that Philip's counsel might coincide with
his father-in-law's offer.

But Philip was not at home. The forge was in full activity,
the cottage on the knoll was repainted and made
attractive in various ways, and Philip would soon return
with his sister to establish a permanent home. Joseph
found the sign-spiritual of his friend in numberless little
touches and changes; it seemed to him that a new soul
had entered into the scenery of the place.

A mile or two farther up the valley, a company of
mechanics and laborers were apparently tearing the old
Calvert mansion inside out. House, barn, garden, and
lawn were undergoing a complete transformation. While
he paused at the entrance of the private lane, to take a
survey of the operations, Mr. Clemson rode down to him
from the house. The Hopetons, he said, would migrate
from the city early in May: work had already commenced
on the new railway, and in another year a different life
would come upon the whole neighborhood.

In the course of the conversation Joseph ventured to
sound Mr. Clemson in regard to the newly formed oil
companies. The latter frankly confessed that he had
withdrawn from further speculation, satisfied with his
fortune; he preferred to give no opinion, further than
that money was still to be made, if prudently placed.
The Fluke and Chowder Wells, he said, were old, well

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

known, and profitable. The new application of torpedoes
had restored their failing flow, and the stock had recovered
from its temporary depreciation. His own venture had
been made in another part of the region.

The atmosphere into which Joseph entered, on returning
home, took away all further power of resistance.
Tempted already, and impressed by what he had learned,
he did what his wife and father-in-law desired.

p715-170 CHAPTER XV. A DINNER PARTY.

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

Having assumed the payment of Mr. Blessing's note,
as the first instalment upon his stock, Joseph was compelled
to prepare himself for future emergencies. A year
must still elapse before the term of the mortgage upon
his farm would expire, but the sums he had invested for
the purpose of meeting it when due must be held ready
for use. The assurance of great and certain profit in the
mean time rendered this step easy; and, even at the worst,
he reflected, there would be no difficulty in procuring a
new mortgage whereby to liquidate the old. A notice
which he received at this time, that a second assessment
of ten per cent. on the Amaranth stock had been made,
was both unexpected and disquieting. Mr. Blessing,
however, accompanied it with a letter, making clear not
only the necessity, but the admirable wisdom of a greater
present outlay than had been anticipated. So the first
of April—the usual business anniversary of the neighborhood—
went smoothly by. Money was plenty, the Asten
credit had always been sound, and Joseph tasted for the
first time a pleasant sense of power in so easily receiving
and transferring considerable sums.

One result of the venture was the development of a new
phase in Julia's nature. She not only accepted the future
profit as certain, but she had apparently calculated its exact
amount and framed her plans accordingly. If she had been

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

humiliated by the character of Joseph's first business transaction
with her father, she now made amends for it. “Pa”
was their good genius. “Pa” was the agency whereby they
should achieve wealth and social importance. Joseph now
had the clearest evidence of the difference between a man
who knew the world and was of value in it, and their slow,
dull-headed country neighbors. Indeed, Julia seemed to
consider the Asten property as rather contemptible beside
the splendor of the Blessing scheme. Her gratitude for a
quiet home, her love of country life, her disparagement of
the shams and exactions of “society,” were given up as suddenly
and coolly as if she had never affected them. She
gave herself no pains to make the transition gradual, and
thus lessen its shock. Perhaps she supposed that Joseph's
fresh, unsuspicious nature was so plastic that it had already
sufficiently taken her impress, and that he would easily forget
the mask she had worn. If so, she was seriously mistaken.

He saw, with a deadly chill of the heart, the change in
her manner,—a change so complete that another face confronted
him at the table, even as another heart beat beside
his on the dishallowed marriage-bed. He saw the gentle
droop vanish from the eyelids, leaving the cold, flinty pupils
unshaded; the soft appeal of the half-opened lips was lost
in the rigid, almost cruel compression which now seemed
habitual to them; all the slight dependent gestures, the tender
airs of reference to his will or pleasure, had rapidly
transformed themselves into expressions of command or obstinate
resistance. But the patience of a loving man is
equal to that of a loving woman: he was silent, although
his silence covered an ever-increasing sense of outrage.

Once it happened, that after Julia had been unusually

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

eloquent concerning “what pa is doing for us,” and what
use they should make of “pa's money, as I call it,” Joseph
quietly remarked:—

“You seem to forget, Julia, that without my money not
much could have been done.”

An angry color came into her face; but, on second thought,
she bent her head, and murmured in an offended voice: “It
is very mean and ungenerous in you to refer to our temporary
poverty. You might forget, by this time, the help pa
was compelled to ask of you.”

“I did not think of that!” he exclaimed. “Besides,
you did not seem entirely satisfied with my help, at the
time.”

“O, how you misunderstand me!” she groaned. “I
only wished to know the extent of his need. He is so
generous, so considerate towards us, that we only guess his
misfortune at the last moment.”

The possibility of being unjust silenced Joseph. There
were tears in Julia's voice, and he imagined they would soon
rise to her eyes. After a long, uncomfortable pause, he
said, for the sake of changing the subject: “What can have
become of Elwood Withers? I have not seen him for
months.”

“I don't think you need care to know,” she remarked.
“He's a rough, vulgar fellow: it's just as well if he keeps
away from us.”

“Julia! he is my friend, and must always be welcome to
me. You were friendly enough towards him, and towards
all the neighborhood, last summer: how is it that you have
not a good word to say now?”

He spoke warmly and indignantly. Julia, however, looked
at him with a calm, smiling face. “It is very simple,”

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

she said. “You will agree with me, in another year. A
guest, as I was, must try to see only the pleasant side of
people: that's our duty; and so I enjoyed—as much as I
could—the rusticity, the awkwardness, the ignorance, the
(now, don't be vexed, dear!)—the vulgarity of your friend.
As one of the society of the neighborhood, as a resident, I
am not bound by any such delicacy. I take the same right
to judge and select as I should take anywhere. Unless I
am to be hypocritical, I cannot—towards you, at least—
conceal my real feelings. How shall I ever get you to see
the difference between yourself and these people, unless I
continually point it out? You are modest, and don't like
to acknowledge your own superiority.”

She rose from the table, laughing, and went out of the
room humming a lively air, leaving Joseph to make the best
of her words.

A few days after this the work on the branch railway,
extending down the valley, reached a point where it could
be seen from the Asten farm. Joseph, on riding over to inspect
the operations, was surprised to find Elwood, who had
left his father's place and become a sub-contractor. The
latter showed his hearty delight at their meeting.

“I've been meaning to come up,” he said, “but this is a
busy time for me. It's a chance I couldn't let slip, and now
that I've taken hold I must hold on. I begin to think this
is the thing I was made for, Joseph.”

“I never thought of it before,” Joseph answered, “and yet
I'm sure you are right. How did you hit upon it?”

“I didn't; it was Mr. Held.”

“Philip?”

“Him. You know I've been hauling for the Forge, and
so it turned up by degrees, as I may say. He's at home,

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

and, I expect, looking for you. But how are you now,
really?”

Elwood's question meant a great deal more than he knew
how to say. Suddenly, in a flash of memory, their talk of
the previous year returned to Joseph's mind; he saw his
friend's true instincts and his own blindness as never before.
But he must dissemble, if possible, with that strong,
rough, kindly face before him.

“O,” he said, attempting a cheerful air, “I am one of the
old folks now. You must come up—”

The recollection of Julia's words cut short the invitation
upon his lips. A sharp pang went through his heart, and
the treacherous blood crowded to his face all the more that
he tried to hold it back.

“Come, and I'll show you where we're going to make
the cutting,” Elwood quietly said, taking him by the arm.
Joseph fancied, thenceforth, that there was a special kindness
in his manner, and the suspicion seemed to rankle in
his mind as if he had been slighted by his friend.

As before, to vary the tedium of his empty life, so now, to
escape from the knowledge which he found himself more and
more powerless to resist, he busied himself beyond all need
with the work of the farm. Philip had returned with his
sister, he knew, but after the meeting with Elwood he shrank
with a painful dread from Philip's heart-deep, intimate eye.
Julia, however, all the more made use of the soft spring
weather to survey the social ground, and choose where to
take her stand. Joseph scarcely knew, indeed, how extensive
her operations had been, until she announced an invitation
to dine with the Hopetons, who were now in possession
of the renovated Calvert place. She enlarged, more than
was necessary, on the distinguished city position of the

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

family, and the importance of “cultivating” its country
members. Joseph's single brief meeting with Mr. Hopeton—
who was a short, solid man, in ripe middle age, of a
thoroughly cosmopolitan, though not a remarkably intellectual
stamp—had been agreeable, and he recognized the obligation
to be neighborly. Therefore he readily accepted the
invitation on his own grounds.

When the day arrived, Julia, after spending the morning
over her toilet, came forth resplendent in rosy silk, bright
and dazzling in complexion, and with all her former grace of
languid eyelids and parted lips. The void in Joseph's heart
grew wider at the sight of her; for he perceived, as never
before, her consummate skill in assuming a false character.
It seemed incredible that he should have been so deluded.
For the first time a feeling of repulsion, which was almost
disgust, came upon him as he listened to her prattle of delight
in the soft weather, and the fragrant woods, and the
blossoming orchards. Was not, also, this delight assumed?
he asked himself: false in one thing, false in all, was the
fatal logic which then and there began its torment.

The most that was possible in such a short time had been
achieved on the Calvert place. The house had been brightened,
surrounded by light, airy verandas, and the lawn and
garden, thrown into one and given into the hands of a skilful
gardener, were scarcely to be recognized. A broad, solid
gravel-walk replaced the old tan-covered path; a pretty
fountain tinkled before the door; thick beds of geranium
in flower studded the turf, and veritable thickets of rosetrees
were waiting for June. Within the house, some rooms
had been thrown together, the walls richly yet harmoniously
colored, and the sumptuous furniture thus received a proper
setting. In contrast to the houses of even the wealthiest

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

farmers, which expressed a nicely reckoned sufficiency of
comfort, the place had an air of joyous profusion, of a
wealth which delighted in itself.

Mr. Hopeton met them with the frank, offhand manner
of a man of business. His wife followed, and the two
guests made a rapid inspection of her as she came down the
hall. Julia noticed that her crocus-colored dress was high
in the neck, and plainly trimmed; that she wore no ornaments,
and that the natural pallor of her complexion had
not been corrected by art. Joseph remarked the simple
grace of her movement, the large, dark, inscrutable eyes, the
smooth bands of her black hair, and the pure though somewhat
lengthened oval of her face. The gentle dignity of her
manner more than refreshed, it soothed him. She was so
much younger than her husband that Joseph involuntarily
wondered how they should have come together.

The greetings were scarcely over before Philip and Madeline
Held arrived. Julia, with the least little gush of tenderness,
kissed the latter, whom Philip then presented to
Joseph for the first time. She had the same wavy hair as
her brother, but the golden hue was deepened nearly into
brown, and her eyes were a clear hazel. It was also the
same frank, firm face, but her woman's smile was so much
the sweeter as her lips were lovelier than the man's. Joseph
seemed to clasp an instant friendship in her offered hand.

There was but one other guest, who, somewhat to his surprise,
was Lucy Henderson. Julia concealed whatever she
might have felt, and made so much reference to their former
meetings as might satisfy Lucy without conveying to Mrs.
Hopeton the impression of any special intimacy. Lucy
looked thin and worn, and her black silk dress was not of
the latest fashion: she seemed to be the poor relation of the

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

company. Joseph learned that she had taken one of the
schools in the valley, for the summer. Her manner to him
was as simple and friendly as ever, but he felt the presence
of some new element of strength and self-reliance in her nature.

His place at dinner was beside Mrs. Hopeton, while
Lucy—apparently by accident—sat upon the other side of
the hostess. Philip and the host led the conversation, confining
it too exclusively to the railroad and iron interests;
but these finally languished, and gave way to other topics in
which all could take part. Joseph felt that while the others,
except Lucy and himself, were fashioned under different aspects
of life, some of which they shared in common, yet that
their seeming ease and freedom of communication touched,
here and there, some invisible limit, which they were careful
not to pass. Even Philip appeared to be beyond his
reach, for the time.

The country and the people, being comparatively new to
them, naturally came to be discussed.

“Mr. Held, or Mr. Asten,—either of you know both,”—
Mr. Hopeton asked, “what are the principal points of difference
between society in the city and in the country?”

“Indeed, I know too little of the city,” said Joseph.

“And I know too little of the country,—here, at least,”
Philip added. “Of course the same passions and prejudices
come into play everywhere. There are circles, there are
jealousies, ups and downs, scandals, suppressions, and rehabilitations:
it can't be otherwise.”

“Are they not a little worse in the country,” said Julia,
“because—I may ask the question here, among us—there is
less refinement of manner?”

“If the external forms are ruder,” Philip resumed, “it

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

may be an advantage, in one sense. Hypocrisy cannot be
developed into an art.”

Julia bit her lip, and was silent.

“But are the country people, hereabouts, so rough?” Mrs.
Hopeton asked. “I confess that they don't seem so to me.
What do you say, Miss Henderson?”

“Perhaps I am not an impartial witness,” Lucy answered.
“We care less about what is called `manners' than the city
people. We have no fixed rules for dress and behavior,—only
we don't like any one to differ too much from the rest of us.”

“That's it!” Mr. Hopeton cried; “the tyrannical levelling
sentiment of an imperfectly developed community!
Fortunately, I am beyond its reach.”

Julia's eyes sparkled: she looked across the table at Joseph,
with a triumphant air.

Philip suddenly raised his head. “How would you correct
it? Simply by resistance?” he asked.

Mr. Hopeton laughed. “I should no doubt get myself
into a hornet's-nest. No; by indifference!”

Then Madeline Held spoke. “Excuse me,” she said; “but
is indifference possible, even if it were right? You seem to
take the levelling spirit for granted, without looking into its
character and causes; there must be some natural sense of
justice, no matter how imperfectly society is developed. We
are members of this community,—at least, Philip and I certainly
consider ourselves so,—and I am determined not to
judge it without knowledge, or to offend what may be only
mechanical habits of thought, unless I can see a sure advantage
in doing so.”

Lucy Henderson looked at the speaker with a bright,
grateful face. Joseph's eyes wandered from her to Julia,
who was silent and watchful.

[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]

“But I have no time for such conscientious studies,” Mr.
Hopeton resumed. “One can be satisfied with half a dozen
neighbors, and let the mass go. Indifference, after all, is the
best philosophy. What do you say, Mr. Held?”

“Indifference!” Philip echoed. A dark flush came into
his face, and he was silent a moment. “Yes: our hearts are
inconvenient appendages. We suffer a deal from unnecessary
sympathies, and from imagining, I suppose, that others
feel them as we do. These uneasy features of society are
simply the effort of nature to find some occupation for brains
otherwise idle—or empty. Teach the people to think, and
they will disappear.”

Joseph stared at Philip, feeling that a secret bitterness was
hidden under his careless, mocking air. Mrs. Hopeton rose,
and the company left the table. Madeline Held had a
troubled expression, but there was an eager, singular brightness
in Julia's eyes.

“Emily, let us have coffee on the veranda,” said Mr.
Hopeton, leading the way. He had already half forgotten
the subject of conversation: his own expressions, in fact,
had been made very much at random, for the sole purpose
of keeping up the flow of talk. He had no very
fixed views of any kind, beyond the sphere of his business
activity.

Philip, noticing the impression he had made on Joseph,
drew him to one side. “Don't seriously remember my
words against me,” he said; “you were sorry to hear them,
I know. All I meant was, that an over-sensitive tenderness
towards everybody is a fault. Besides, I was provoked to
answer him in his own vein.”

“But, Philip!” Joseph whispered, “such words tempt
me! What if they were true?”

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

Philip grasped his arm with a painful force. “They
never can be true to you, Joseph,” he said.

Gay and pleasant as the company seemed to be, each one
felt a secret sense of relief when it came to an end. As Joseph
drove homewards, silently recalling what had been
said, Julia interrupted his reflections with: “Well, what do
you think of the Hopetons?”

“She is an interesting woman,” he answered.

“But reserved; and she shows very little taste in dress.
However, I suppose you hardly noticed anything of the
kind. She kept Lucy Henderson beside her as a foil: Madeline
Held would have been damaging.”

Joseph only partly guessed her meaning; it was repugnant,
and he determined to avoid its further discussion.

“Hopeton is a shrewd business man,” Julia continued,
“but he cannot compare with her for shrewdness—either
with her or—Philip Held!”

“What do you mean?”

“I made a discovery before the dinner was over, which
you—innocent, unsuspecting man that you are—might have
before your eyes for years, without seeing it. Tell me now,
honestly, did you notice nothing?”

“What should I notice, beyond what was said?” he asked.

“That was the least!” she cried; “but, of course, I
knew you couldn't. And perhaps you won't believe me,
when I tell you that Philip Held,—your particular friend,
your hero, for aught I know, your pattern of virtue and
character, and all that is manly and noble,—that Philip
Held, I say, is furiously in love with Mrs. Hopeton!”

Joseph started as if he had been shot, and turned around
with an angry red on his brow. “Julia!” he said, “how
dare you speak so of Philip!”

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

She laughed. “Because I dare to speak the truth, when
I see it. I thought I should surprise you. I remembered
a certain rumor I had heard before she was married,—while
she was Emily Marrable,—and I watched them closer than
they guessed. I'm certain of Philip: as for her, she's a
deep creature, and she was on her guard; but they are
near neighbors.”

Joseph was thoroughly aroused and indignant. “It is
your own fancy!” he exclaimed. “You hate Philip on
account of that affair with Clementina; but you ought to
have some respect for the woman whose hospitality you
have accepted!”

“Bless me! I have any quantity of respect both for her
and her furniture. By the by, Joseph, our parlor would
furnish better than hers; I have been thinking of a few
changes we might make, which would wonderfully improve
the house. As for Philip, Clementina was a fool. She'd
be glad enough to have him now, but in these matters, once
gone is gone for good. Somehow, people who marry for
love very often get rich afterwards,—ourselves, for instance.”

It was some time before Joseph's excitement subsided.
He had resented Julia's suspicion as dishonorable to Philip,
yet he could not banish the conjecture of its possible truth.
If Philip's affected cynicism had tempted him, Julia's unblushing
assumption of the existence of a passion which was
forbidden, and therefore positively guilty, seemed to stain
the pure texture of his nature. The lightness with which
she spoke of the matter was even more abhorrent to him
than the assertion itself; the malicious satisfaction in the
tones of her voice had not escaped his ear.

“Julia,” he said, just before they reached home, “do not

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

mention your fancy to another soul than me. It would
reflect discredit on you.”

“You are innocent,” she answered. “And you are not
complimentary. If I have any remarkable quality, it is
tact. Whenever I speak, I shall know the effect beforehand;
even pa, with all his official experience, is no match
for me in this line. I see what the Hopetons are after, and
I mean to show them that we were first in the field. Don't
be concerned, you good, excitable creature, you are no match
for such well-drilled people. Let me alone, and before the
summer is over we will give the law to the neighborhood!”

p715-183 CHAPTER XVI. JOSEPH'S TROUBLE, AND PHILIP'S.

[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]

The bare, repulsive, inexorable truth was revealed at last.
There was no longer any foothold for doubt, any possibility
of continuing his desperate self-deceit. From that day all
the joy, the trust, the hope, seemed to fade out of Joseph's
life. What had been lost was irretrievable: the delusion
of a few months had fixed his fate forever.

His sense of outrage was so strong and keen—so burned
upon his consciousness as to affect him like a dull physical
pain—that a just and temperate review of his situation was
impossible. False in one thing, false in all: that was the
single, inevitable conclusion. Of course she had never even
loved him. Her coy maiden airs, her warm abandonment
to feeling, her very tears and blushes, were artfully simulated:
perhaps, indeed, she had laughed in her heart, yea,
sneered, at his credulous tenderness! Her assumption of
rule, therefore, became an arrogance not to be borne. What
right had she, guilty of a crime for which there is no name
and no punishment, to reverse the secret justice of the soul,
and claim to be rewarded?

So reasoned Joseph to himself, in his solitary broodings;
but the spell was not so entirely broken as he imagined.
Sternly as he might have resolved in advance, there was a
glamour in her mask of cheerfulness and gentleness, which
made his resolution seem hard and cruel. In her presence
he could not clearly remember his wrongs: the past delusion

[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]

had been a reality, nevertheless; and he could make no
assertion which did not involve his own miserable humiliation.
Thus the depth and vital force of his struggle could
not be guessed by Julia. She saw only irritable moods, the
natural male resistance which she had often remarked in her
father,—perhaps, also, the annoyance of giving up certain
“romantic” fancies, which she believed to be common to all
young men, and never permanent. Even an open rupture
could not have pushed them apart so rapidly as this hollow
external routine of life.

Joseph took the earliest opportunity of visiting Philip,
whom he found busy in forge and foundry. “This would be
the life for you!” he said: “we deal only with physical
forces, human and elemental: we direct and create power,
yet still obey the command to put money in our purses.”

“Is that one secret of your strength?” Joseph asked.

“Who told you that I had any?”

“I feel it,” said Joseph; and even as he said it he remembered
Julia's unworthy suspicion.

“Come up and see Madeline a moment, and the home
she has made for me. We get on very well, for brother and
sister—especially since her will is about as stubborn as mine.”

Madeline was very bright and cheerful, and Joseph, certainly,
saw no signs of a stubborn will in her fair face. She
was very simply dressed, and busy with some task of
needle-work, which she did not lay aside.

“You might pass already for a member of our community,”
he could not help saying.

“I think your most democratic farmers will accept me,”
she answered, “when they learn that I am Philip's housekeeper.
The only dispute we have had, or are likely to
have, is in relation to the salary.”

[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]

“She is an inconsistent creature, Joseph,” said Philip.
“I was obliged to offer her as much as she earned by her
music-lessons before she would come at all, and now she
can't find work enough to balance it.”

“How can I, Philip, when you tempt me every day
with walks and rides, botany, geology, and sketching from
nature?”

So much frank, affectionate confidence showed itself
through the playful gossip of the two, that Joseph was at
once comforted and pained. “If I had only had a sister!”
he sighed to Philip, as they walked down the knoll.

The friends took the valley road, Joseph leading his
horse by the bridle. The stream was full to its banks, and
crystal clear: shoals of young fishes passed like drifted
leaves over the pebbly ground, and the fragrant waterbeetles
skimmed the surface of the eddies. Overhead the
vaults of the great elms and sycamores were filled with the
green, delicious illumination of the tender foliage. It was
a scene and a season for idle happiness.

Yet the first words Philip spoke, after a long silence,
were: “May I speak now?” There was infinite love and
pity in his voice. He took Joseph by the hand.

“Yes,” the latter whispered.

“It has come,” Philip continued; “you cannot hide it
from yourself any longer. My pain is that I did not dare
to warn you, though at the risk of losing your friendship.
There was so little time—”

“You did try to warn me, Philip! I have recalled your
words, and the trouble in your face as you spoke, a thousand
times. I was a fool, a blind, miserable fool, and my
folly has ruined my life!”

“Strange,” said Philip, musingly, “that only a perfectly

[figure description] Page 171.[end figure description]

good and pure nature can fall into such a wretched snare.
And yet `Virtue is its own reward,' is dinned into our
ears! It is Hell for a single fault: nay, not even a fault,
an innocent mistake! But let us see what can be done:
is there no common ground whereon your natures can
stand together? If there should be a child—”

Joseph shuddered. “Once it seemed too great, too wonderful
a hope,” he said, “but now, I don't dare to wish for
it. Philip, I am too sorely hurt to think clearly: there is
nothing to do but to wait. It is a miserable kind of comfort
to me to have your sympathy, but I fear you cannot
help me.”

Philip saw that he could bear no more: his face was pale
to the lips and his hands trembled. He led him to the bank,
sat down beside him, and laid his arm about his neck. The
silence and the caress were more soothing to Joseph than
any words; he soon became calm, and remembered an important
part of his errand, which was to acquaint Philip
with the oil speculation, and to ask his advice.

They discussed the matter long and gravely. With all his
questions, and the somewhat imperfect information which
Joseph was able to give, Philip could not satisfy himself
whether the scheme was a simple swindle or a well-considered
business venture. Two or three of the names were
respectable, but the chief agent, Kanuck, was unknown to
him; moreover, Mr. Blessing's apparent prominence in
the undertaking did not inspire him with much confidence.

“How much have you already paid on the stock?” he asked.

“Three instalments, which, Mr. Blessing thinks, is all
that will be called for. However, I have the money for a
fourth, should it be necessary. He writes to me that the
stock has already risen a hundred per cent. in value.”

[figure description] Page 172.[end figure description]

“If that is so,” said Philip, “let me advise you to sell
half of it, at once. The sum received will cover your liabilities,
and the half you retain, as a venture, will give you
no further anxiety.”

“I had thought of that; yet I am sure that my father-in-law
will oppose such a step with all his might. You
must know him, Philip; tell me, frankly, your opinion of
his character.”

“Blessing belongs to a class familiar enough to me,”
Philip answered; “yet I doubt whether you will comprehend
it. He is a swaggering, amiable, magnificent
adventurer; never purposely dishonest, I am sure, yet
sometimes engaged in transactions that would not bear
much scrutiny. His life has been one of ups and downs.
After a successful speculation, he is luxurious, open-handed,
and absurdly self-confident; his success is soon flung away:
he then good-humoredly descends to poverty, because he
never believes it can last long. He is unreliable, from his
over-sanguine temperament; and yet this very temperament
gives him a certain power and influence. Some of
our best men are on familiar terms with him. They are on
their guard against his pecuniary approaches, they laugh
at his extravagant schemes, but they now and then find
him useful. I heard Gray, the editor, once speak of him as
a man `filled with available enthusiasms,' and I guess that
phrase hits both his strength and his weakness.”

On the whole, Joseph felt rather relieved than disquieted.
The heart was lighter in his breast as he mounted his horse
and rode homewards.

Philip slowly walked forwards, yielding his mind to
thoughts wherein Joseph was an important but not the principal
figure. Was there a positive strength, he asked

[figure description] Page 173.[end figure description]

himself, in a wider practical experience of life? Did such experience
really strengthen the basis of character which must
support a man, when some unexpected moral crisis comes
upon him? He knew that he seemed strong, to Joseph; but
the latter, so far, was bearing his terrible test with a patience
drawn from some source of elemental power. Joseph had
simply been ignorant: he had been proud, impatient, and—
he now confessed to himself—weakly jealous. In both
cases, a mistake had passed beyond the plastic stage where
life may still be remoulded: it had hardened into an inexorable
fate. What was to be the end of it all?

A light footstep interrupted his reflections. He looked
up, and almost started, on finding himself face to face with
Mrs. Hopeton.

Her face was flushed from her walk and the mellow
warmth of the afternoon. She held a bunch of wild-flowers,—
pink azaleas, delicate sigillarias, valerian, and scarlet
painted-cup. She first broke the silence by asking after
Madeline.

“Busy with some important sewing,—curtains, I fancy.
She is becoming an inveterate housekeeper,” Philip said.

“I am glad, for her sake, that she is here. And it must
be very pleasant for you, after all your wanderings.”

“I must look on it, I suppose,” Philip answered, “as the
only kind of a home I shall ever have,—while it lasts. But
Madeline's life must not be mutilated because mine happens
to be.”

The warm color left Mrs. Hopeton's face. She strove to
make her voice cold and steady, as she said: “I am sorry
to see you growing so bitter, Mr. Held.”

“I don't think it is my proper nature, Mrs. Hopeton.
But you startled me out of a retrospect which had

[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]

exhausted my capacity for self-reproach, and was about to become
self-cursing. There is no bitterness quite equal to that of
seeing how weakly one has thrown away an irrecoverable
fortune.”

She stood before him, silent and disturbed. It was impossible
not to understand, yet it seemed equally impossible
to answer him. She gave one glance at his earnest, dark
gray eyes, his handsome manly face, and the sprinkled
glosses of sunshine on his golden hair, and felt a chill strike
to her heart. She moved a step, as if to end the interview.

“Only one moment, Mrs. Hopeton—Emily!” Philip
cried. “We may not meet again—thus—for years. I will
not needlessly recall the past. I only mean to speak of my
offence,—to acknowledge it, and exonerate you from any
share in the misunderstanding which—made us what we
are. You cannot feel the burden of an unpardoned fault;
but will you not allow me to lighten mine?”

A softer change came over her stately form. Her arm relaxed,
and the wild-flowers fell upon the ground.

“I was wrong, first,” Philip went on, “in not frankly confiding
to you the knowledge of a boyish illusion and disappointment.
I had been heartlessly treated: it was a silly
affair, not worth the telling now; but the leaven of mistrust
it left behind was not fully worked out of my nature. Then,
too, I had private troubles, which my pride—sore, just then,
from many a trifling prick, at which I should now laugh—
led me to conceal. I need not go over the appearances
which provoked me into a display of temper as unjust as it
was unmanly,—it is enough to say that all circumstances
combined to make me impatient, suspicious, fiercely jealous.
I never paused to reflect that you could not know the series

[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]

of aggravations which preceded our misunderstanding. I
did not guess how far I was giving expression to them, and
unconsciously transferring to you the offences of others.
Nay, I exacted a completer surrender of your woman's
pride, because a woman had already chosen to make a plaything
of my green boy-love. There is no use in speaking of
any of the particulars of our quarrel; for I confess to you
that I was recklessly, miserably wrong. But the time has
come when you can afford to be generous, when you can
allow yourself to speak my forgiveness. Not for the
sake of anything I might have been to you, but as a
true woman, dealing with her brother-man, I ask your pardon!”

Mrs. Hopeton could not banish the memory of the old
tenderness which pleaded for Philip in her heart. He had
spoken no word which could offend or alarm her: they were
safely divided by a gulf which might never be bridged, and
perhaps it was well that a purely human reconciliation
should now clarify what was turbid in the past, and reunite
them by a bond pure, though eternally sad. She came slowly
towards him, and gave him her hand.

“All is not only pardoned, Philip,” she said, “but it is
now doubly my duty to forget it. Do not suppose, however,
that I have had no other than reproachful memories. My
pride was as unyielding as yours, for it led me to the defiance
which you could not then endure. I, too, was haughty
and imperious. I recall every word I uttered, and I know
that you have not forgotten them. But let there be equal
and final justice between us: forget my words, if you can,
and forgive me!”

Philip took her hand, and held it softly in his own. No
power on earth could have prevented their eyes from

[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]

meeting. Out of the far-off distance of all dead joys, over all
abysses of fate, the sole power which time and will are powerless
to tame, took swift possession of their natures.
Philip's eyes were darkened and softened by a film of gathering
tears: he cried in a broken voice:—

“Yes, pardon!—but I thought pardon might be peace.
Forget? Yes, it would be easy to forget the past, if, —O
Emily, we have never been parted until now!”

She had withdrawn her hand, and covered her face. He
saw, by the convulsive tremor of her frame, that she was
fiercely suppressing her emotion. In another moment she
looked up, pale, cold, and almost defiant.

“Why should you say more?” she asked. “Mutual
forgiveness is our duty, and there the duty ends. Leave me
now!”

Philip knew that he had betrayed himself. Not daring
to speak another word he bowed and walked rapidly away.
Mrs. Hopeton stood, with her hand pressed upon her
bosom, until he had disappeared among the farther trees:
then she sat down, and let her withheld tears flow
freely.

Presently the merry whoops and calls of children met her
ear. She gathered together the fallen flowers, rose and took
her way across the meadows towards a little stone schoolhouse,
at the foot of the nearest hill. Lucy Henderson
already advanced to meet her. There was still an
hour or two of sunshine, but the mellow, languid heat
of the day was over, and the breeze winnowing down
the valley brought with it the smell of the blossoming
vernal grass.

The two women felt themselves drawn towards each other,
though neither had as yet divined the source of their

[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]

affectionate instinct. Now, looking upon Lucy's pure, gently
firm, and reliant face, Mrs. Hopeton, for the second or third
time in her life, yielded to a sudden, powerful impulse, and
said: “Lucy, I foresee that I shall need the love and the
trust of a true woman: where shall I find it if not in you?”

“If mine will content you,” said Lucy.

“O my dear!” Mrs. Hopeton cried; “none of us can
stand alone. God has singular trials for us, sometimes, and
the use and the conquest of a trouble may both become clear
in the telling of it. The heart can wear itself out with its
own bitterness. You see, I force my confidence upon you,
but I know you are strong to receive it.”

“AT least,” Lucy answered, gravely, “I have no claim
to strength unless I am willing to have it tested.”

“Then let me make the severest test at once: I shall
have less courage if I delay. Can you comprehend the
nature of a woman's trial, when her heart resists her duty?”

A deep bllush overspread Lucy's face, but she forced herself
to meet Mrs. Hopeton's gaze. The two women were
silent a moment; then the latter threw her arms around
Lucy's neck and kissed her.

“Let us walk!” she said. “We shall both find the words
we need.”

They moved away over the fragrant, shining meadows.
Down the valley, at the foot of the blue cape which wooed
their eyes, and perhaps suggested to their hearts that mysterious
sence of hope which lies in landscape distances,
Elwood Withers was directing his gang of workmen. Over
the eastern hill, Joseph Asten stood among his fields, hardly
recognizing their joyous growth. The smoke of Philip's
forge rose above the trees to the northward. So many disappointed
hearts, so many thwarted lives! What strand

[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]

shall be twisted out of the broken threads of these destinies,
thus drawn so near to each other? What new
forces — fatal or beneficent—shall be developed from these
elements?

Mr. Hopeton, riding homewards along the highway, said to
himself: “It's a pleasant country, but what slow, humdrum
lives the people lead!”

p715-194 CHAPTER XVII. A STORM.

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

“I have a plan,” said Julia, a week or two later. “Can
you guess it? No, I think not; yet you might! O, how
lovely the light falls on your hair: it is perfect satin!”

She had one hand on his shoulder, and ran the fingers of
the other lightly through his brown locks. Her face, sparkling
all over with a witching fondness, was lifted towards his.
It was the climax of an amiable mood which had lasted
three days.

What young man can resist a playful, appealing face, a
soft, caressing touch? Joseph smiled as he asked,—

“Is it that I shall wear my hair upon my shoulders, or
that we shall sow plaster on the clover-field, as old Bishop
advised you the other day?”

“Now you are making fun of my interest in farming; but
wait another year! I am trying earnestly to understand it, but
only so that ornament—beauty—what was the word in those
lines you read last night?—may grow out of use. That's
it—Beauty out of Use! I know I've bored you a little
sometimes—just a little, now, confess it!—with all my questions;
but this is something different. Can't you think of
anything that would make our home, O so much more beautiful?”

“A grove of palm-trees at the top of the garden? Or a
lake in front, with marble steps leading down to the water?”

“You perverse Joseph! No: something possible,

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

something practicable, something handsome, something profitable!
Or, are you so old-fashioned that you think we must drudge
for thirty years, and only take our pleasure after we grow
rheumatic?”

Joseph looked at her with a puzzled, yet cheerful face.

“You don't understand me yet!” she exclaimed. “And
indeed, indeed, I dread to tell you, for one reason: you have
such a tender regard for old associations,—not that I'd have
it otherwise, if I could. I like it: I trust I have the same
feeling; yet a little sentiment sometimes interferes practically
with the improvement of our lives.”

Joseph's curiosity was aroused. “What do you mean,
Julia?” he asked.

“No!” she cried; “I will not tell you until I have read
part of pa's letter, which came this afternoon. Take the
arm-chair, and don't interrupt me.”

She seated herself on the window-sill and opened the letter.
“I saw,” she said, “how uneasy you felt when the call
came for the fourth instalment of ten per cent. on the Amaranth
shares, especially after I had so much difficulty in persuading
you not to sell the half. It surprised me, although
I knew that, where pa is concerned, there's a good reason for
everything. So I wrote to him the other day, and this is
what he says,—you remember, Kanuck is the company's
agent on the spot:—

“`Tell Joseph that in matters of finance there's often a
wheel within a wheel. Blenkinsop, of the Chowder Company,
managed to get a good grab of our shares through a
third party, of whom we had not the slightest suspicion. I
name no name at present, from motives of prudence. We
only discovered the circumstance after the third party left
for Europe. Looking upon the Chowder as a rival, it is our

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

desire, of course, to extract this entering wedge before it has
been thrust into our vitals, and we can only accomplish the
end by still keeping secret the discovery of the torpedoes (an
additional expense, I might remark), and calling for fresh
instalments from all the stockholders. Blenkinsop, not being
within the inside ring,—and no possibility of his getting
in!—will naturally see only the blue of disappointment
where we see the rose of realized expectations. Already, so
Kanuck writes to me, negotiations are on foot which will relieve
our Amaranth of this parasitic growth, and a few weeks—
days—hours, in fact, may enable us to explode and triumph!
I was offered, yesterday, by one of our shrewdest operators,
who has been silently watching us, ten shares of the Sinnemahoning
Hematite for eight of ours. Think of that,—the
Sinnemahoning Hematite! No better stock in the market, if
you remember the quotations! Explain the significance of
the figures to your husband, and let him see that he has—
but no, I will restrain myself and make no estimate. I will
only mention, under the seal of the profoundest secrecy, that
the number of shafts now sinking (or being sunk) will give
an enormous flowing capacity when the electric spark fires
the mine, and I should not wonder if our shares then soared
high over the pinnacles of all previous speculation!'

“No, nor I!” Julia exclaimed, as she refolded the letter;
“it is certain,—positively certain! I have never known
the Sinnemahoning Hematite to be less than 147. What do
you say, Joseph?”

“I hope it may be true,” he answered. “I can't feel so
certain, while an accident—the discovery of the torpedo-plan,
for instance—might change the prospects of the Amaranth.
It will be a great relief when the time comes to `realize,' as
your father says.”

[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]

“You only feel so because it is your first experience; but
for your sake I will consent that it shall be the last. We
shall scarcely need any more than this will bring us; for, as
pa says, a mere competence in the city is a splendid fortune
in the country. You need leisure for books and travel and
society, and you shall have it. Now, let us make a place for
both!”

Thereupon she showed him how the parlor and rear bed-room
might be thrown into one; where there were alcoves
for bookcases and space for a piano; how a new veranda
might be added to the western end of the house; how the
plastering might be renewed, a showy cornice supplied, and
an air of elegant luxury given to the new apartment. Joseph
saw and listened, conscious at once of a pang at changing
the ancient order of things, and a temptation to behold
a more refined comfort in its place. He only asked to postpone
the work; but Julia pressed him so closely, with such
a multitude of unanswerable reasons, that he finally consented
to let a mechanic look at the house, and make an estimate
of the expense.

In such cases, the man who deliberates is lost.

His consent once reluctantly exacted, Julia insisting that
she would take the whole charge of directing the work, a
beginning was made without delay, and in a few days the
ruin was so complete that the restoration became a matter
of necessity.

Julia kept her word only too faithfully. With a lively,
playful manner in the presence of the workmen, but with a
cold, inflexible obstinacy when they were alone, she departed
from the original plan, adding showy and expensive features,
every one of which, Joseph presently saw, was devised to
surpass the changes made by the Hopetons in their new

[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]

residence. His remonstrances produced no effect, and he was
precluded from a practical interference by the fear of the
workmen guessing his domestic trouble. Thus the days
dragged on, and the breach widened without an effort on
either side to heal it.

The secret of her temporary fondness gave him a sense of
positive disgust when it arose in his memory. He now suspected
a selfish purpose in her caresses, and sought to give
her no chance of repeating them, but in the company of others
he was forced to endure a tenderness which, he was surprised
to find, still half deceived him, as it wholly deceived
his neighbors. He saw, too,—and felt himself powerless to
change the impression,—that Julia's popularity increased
with her knowledge of the people, while their manner towards
him was a shade less frank and cordial than formerly.
He knew that the changes in his home were so much needless
extravagance, to them; and that Julia's oft-repeated
phrase (always accompanied with a loving look), “Joseph is
making the old place so beautiful for me!” increased their
mistrust, while seeming to exalt him as a devoted husband.

It is not likely that she specially intended this result;
while, on the other hand, he somewhat exaggerated its character.
Her object was simply to retain her growing ascendency:
within the limits where her peculiar faculties had
been exercised she was nearly perfect; but she was indifferent
to tracing the consequences of her actions beyond those
limits. When she ascertained Mr. Chaffinch's want of faith
in Joseph's entire piety, she became more regular in her attendance
at his church, not so much to prejudice her husband
by the contrast, as to avoid the suspicion which he had
incurred. To Joseph, however, in the bitterness of his deception,
these actions seemed either hostile or heartless; he

[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]

was repelled from the clearer knowledge of a nature so foreign
to his own. So utterly foreign: yet how near beyond
all others it had once seemed!

It was not a jealousy of the authority she assumed which
turned his heart from her: it was the revelation of a shallowness
and selfishness not at all rare in the class from
which she came, but which his pure, guarded youth had
never permitted him to suspect in any human being. A
man familiar with men and women, if he had been caught
in such toils, would have soon discovered some manner
of controlling her nature, for the very shrewdest and falsest
have their vulnerable side. It gave Joseph, however,
so much keen spiritual pain to encounter her in her
true character, that such a course was simply impossible.

Meanwhile the days went by; the expense of labor and
material had already doubled the estimates made by the
mechanics; bills were presented for payment, and nothing
was heard from the Amaranth. Money was a necessity,
and there was no alternative but to obtain a temporary loan
at a county town, the centre of transactions for all the debtors
and creditors of the neighboring country. It was a new
and disagreeable experience for Joseph to appear in the
character of a borrower, and he adopted it most reluctantly;
yet the reality was a greater trial than he had suspected.
He found that the most preposterous stories of his extravagance
were afloat. He was transforming his house into a
castle: he had made, lost, and made again a large fortune
in petroleum; he had married a wealthy wife and squandered
her money; he drove out in a carriage with six white
horses; he was becoming irregular in his habits and heretical
in his religious views; in short, such marvellous powers

[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]

of invention had been exercised that the Arab story-tellers
were surpassed by the members of that quiet, sluggish community.

It required all his self-control to meet the suspicions of
the money-agents, and convince them of the true state of
his circumstances. The loan was obtained, but after such a
wear and tear of flesh and spirit as made it seem a double
burden.

When he reached home, in the afternoon, Julia instantly
saw, by his face, that all had not gone right. A slight effort,
however, enabled her to say carelessly and cheerfully,—

“Have you brought me my supplies, dear?”

“Yes,” he answered curtly.

“Here is a letter from pa,” she then said. “I opened it,
because I knew what the subject must be. But if you're
tired, pray don't read it now, for then you may be impatient.
There's a little more delay.”

“Then I'll not delay to know it,” he said, taking the letter
from her hand. A printed slip, calling upon the stockholders
of the Amaranth to pay a fifth instalment, fell out
of the envelope. Accompanying it there was a hasty note
from B. Blessing: “Don't be alarmed, my dear son-in-law!
Probably a mere form. Blenkinsop still holds on, but we
think this will bring him at once. If it don't, we shall very
likely have to go on with him, even if it obliges us to unite
the Amaranth and the Chowder. In any case, we shall ford
or bridge this little Rubicon within a fortnight. Have the
money ready, if convenient, but do not forward unless I
give the word. We hear, through third parties, that Clementina
(who is now at Long Branch) receives much attention
from Mr. Spelter, a man of immense wealth, but, I regret
to say, no refinement.”

[figure description] Page 186.[end figure description]

Joseph smiled grimly when he finished the note. “Is
there never to be an end of humbug?” he exclaimed.

“There, now!” cried Julia; “I knew you'd be impatient.
You are so unaccustomed to great operations.
Why, the Muchacho Land Grant—I remember it, because
pa sold out just at the wrong time—hung on for seven
years!”

“D— curse the Muchacho Land Grant, and the Amaranth
too!”

“Are n't you ashamed!” exclaimed Julia, taking on a
playful air of offence; “but you're tired and hungry, poor
fellow!” Therewith she put her hands on his shoulders,
and raised herself on tiptoe to kiss him.

Joseph, unable to control his sudden instinct, swiftly
turned away his head.

“O you wicked husband, you deserve to be punished!”
she cried, giving him what was meant to be a light tap on
the cheek.

It was a light tap, certainly; but perhaps a little of the
annoyance which she banished from her face had lodged,
unconsciously, in her fingers. They left just sting enough
to rouse Joseph's heated blood. He started back a step,
and looked at her with flaming eyes.

“No more of that, Julia! I know, now, how much your
arts are worth. I am getting a vile name in the neighborhood,—
losing my property,—losing my own self-respect,—
because I have allowed you to lead me! Will you be content
with what you have done, or must you go on until my
ruin is complete?”

Before he had finished speaking she had taken rapid
counsel with herself, and decided. “Oh, oh! such words
to me!” she groaned, hiding her face between her hands.

[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]

“I never thought you could be so cruel! I had such pleasure
in seeing you rich and free, in trying to make your
home beautiful; and now this little delay, which no business
man would think anything of, seems to change your
very nature! But I will not think it's your true self:
something has worried you to-day,—you have heard some
foolish story—”

“It is not the worry of to-day,” he interrupted, in haste
to state his whole grievance, before his weak heart had
time to soften again,—“it is the worry of months past! It
is because I thought you true and kind-hearted, and I find
you selfish and hypocritical! It is very well to lead me
into serious expenses, while so much is at stake, and now
likely to be lost,—it is very well to make my home beautiful,
especially when you can outshine Mrs. Hopeton! It is
easy to adapt yourself to the neighbors, and keep on the
right side of them, no matter how much your husband's
character may suffer in the process!”

“That will do!” said Julia, suddenly becoming rigid.
She lifted her head, and apparently wiped the tears from
her eyes. “A little more and it would be too much for
even me! What do I care for `the neighbors'? persons
whose ideas and tastes and habits of life are so different
from mine? I have endeavored to be friendly with them
for your sake: I have taken special pains to accommodate
myself to their notions, just because I intended they should
justify you in choosing me! I believed—for you told me
so—that there was no calculation in love, that money was
dross in comparison; and how could I imagine that you
would so soon put up a balance and begin to weigh the
two? Am I your wife or your slave? Have I an equal
share in what is yours, or am I here merely to increase it?

[figure description] Page 188.[end figure description]

If there is to be a question of dollars and cents between us,
pray have my allowance fixed, so that I may not overstep
it, and may save myself from such reproaches! I knew
you would be disappointed in pa's letter: I have been anxious
and uneasy since it came, through my sympathy with
you, and was ready to make any sacrifice that might relieve
your mind; and now you seem to be full of unkindness and
injustice! What shall I do, O what shall I do?”

She threw herself upon a sofa, weeping hysterically.

“Julia!” he cried, both shocked and startled by her
words, “you purposely misunderstand me. Think how constantly
I have yielded to you, against my own better judgment!
When have you considered my wishes?”

“When?” she repeated: then, addressing the cushion
with a hopeless, melancholy air, “he asks, when! How
could I misunderstand you? your words were as plain as
daggers. If you were not aware how sharp they were, call
them back to your mind when these mad, unjust suspicions
have left you! I trusted you so perfectly, I was looking
forward to such a happy future, and now—now, all seems so
dark! It is like a flash of lightning: I am weak and giddy:
leave me,—I can bear no more!”

She covered her face, and sobbed wretchedly.

“I am satisfied that you are not as ignorant as you profess
to be,” was all Joseph could say, as he obeyed her command,
and left the room. He was vanquished, he knew,
and a little confused by his wife's unexpected way of taking
his charges in flank instead of meeting them in front, as a
man would have done. Could she be sincere? he asked
himself. Was she really so ignorant of herself, as to believe
all that she had uttered? There seemed to be not the
shadow of hypocrisy in her grief and indignation. Her

[figure description] Page 189.[end figure description]

tears were real: then why not her smiles and caresses? Either
she was horribly, incredibly false,—worse than he
dared dream her to be,—or so fatally unconscious of her nature
that nothing short of a miracle could ever enlighten
her. One thing only was certain: there was now no confidence
between them, and there might never be again.

He walked slowly forth from the house, seeing nothing,
and unconscious whither his feet were leading him.

p715-205 CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE RAILROAD TRACK.

[figure description] Page 190.[end figure description]

Still walking, with bent head, and a brain which vainly
strove to work its way to clearness through the perplexities
of his heart, Joseph went on. When, wearied at last,
though not consciously calmer, he paused and looked about
him, it was like waking from a dream. Some instinct had
guided him on the way to Philip's forge: the old road had
been moved to accommodate the new branch railway, and a
rapid ring of hammers came up from the embankment below.
It was near the point of the hill where Lucy's schoolhouse
stood, and even as he looked she came, accompanied by her
scholars, to watch the operation of laying the track. Elwood
Withers, hale, sunburnt, full of lusty life, walked along
the sleepers directing the workmen.

“He was right,—only too right!” muttered Joseph to
himself. “Why could I not see with his eyes? `It's the
bringing up,' he would say; but that is not all. I have
been an innocent, confiding boy, and thought that years and
acres had made me a man. O, she understood me—she understands
me now; but in spite of her, God helping me, I
shall yet be a man.”

Elwood ran down the steep side of the embankment,
greeted Lucy, and helped her to the top, the children following
with whoops and cries.

“Would it have been different,” Joseph further soliloquized,
“if Lucy and I had loved and married? It is

[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]

hardly treating Elwood fairly to suppose such a thing, yet—
a year ago—I might have loved her. It is better as it is:
I should have stepped upon a true man's heart. Have they
drawn nearer? and if so, does he, with his sturdier nature,
his surer knowledge, find no flaw in her perfections?”

A morbid curiosity to watch the two suddenly came upon
him. He clambered over the fence, crossed the narrow strip
of meadow, and mounted the embankment. Elwood's back
was towards him, and he was just saying: “It all comes of
taking an interest in what your're doing. The practical
part is easy enough, when you once have the principles. I
can manage the theodolite already, but I need a little showing
when I come to the calculations. Somehow, I never
cared much about study before, but here it's all applied as
soon as you've learned it, and that fixes it, like, in your head.”

Lucy was listening with an earnest, friendly interest on
her face. She scarcely saw Joseph until he stood before her.
After the first slight surprise, her manner towards him was
quiet and composed: Elwood's eyes were bright, and there
was a fresh intelligence in his appearance. The habit of
command had already given him a certain dignity.

“How can I get knowledge which may be applied as soon
as learned?” Joseph asked, endeavoring to assume the manner
furthest from his feelings. “I'm still at the foot of the
class, Lucy,” he added, turning to her.

“How?” Elwood replied. “I should say by going around
the world alone. That would be about the same for you as
what these ten miles I'm overseeing are to me. A little
goes a great way with me, for I can only pick up one thing
at a time.”

“What kind of knowledge are you looking for, Joseph?”
Lucy gravely asked.

[figure description] Page 192.[end figure description]

“Of myself,” said he, and his face grew dark.

“That's a true word!” Elwood involuntarily exclaimed.
He then caught Lucy's eye, and awkwardly added: “It's
about what we all want, I take it.”

Joseph recovered himself in a moment, and proposed looking
over the work. They walked slowly along the embankment,
listening to Elwood's account of what had been done
and what was yet to do, when the Hopeton carriage came
up the highway, near at hand. Mrs. Hopeton sat in it
alone.

“I was looking for you, Lucy,” she called. “If you are
going towards the cutting, I will join you there.”

She sent the coachman home with the carriage, and walked
with them on the track. Joseph felt her presence as a relief,
but Elwood confessed to himself that he was a little disturbed
by the steady glance of her dark eyes. He had
already overcome his regret at the interruption of his rare
and welcome chance of talking with Lucy, but then Joseph
knew his heart, while this stately lady looked as if she were
capable of detecting what she had no right to know. Nevertheless,
she was Lucy's friend, and that fact had great weight
with Elwood.

“It's rather a pity to cut into the hills and bank up the
meadows in this way, isn't it?” he asked.

“And to disturb my school with so much hammering,”
Lucy rejoined; “when the trains come I must retreat.”

“None too soon,” said Mrs. Hopeton. “You are not
strong, Lucy, and the care of a school is too much for you.”

Elwood thanked her with a look, before he knew what he
was about.

“After all,” said Joseph, “why shouldn't nature be cut
up? I suppose everything was given up to us to use, and

[figure description] Page 193.[end figure description]

the more profit the better the use, seems to be the rule of
the world. `Beauty grows out of Use,' you know.”

His tone was sharp and cynical, and grated unpleasantly
on Lucy's sensitive ear.

“I believe it is a rule in art,” said Mrs. Hopeton, “that
mere ornament, for ornament's sake, is not allowed. It
must always seem to answer some purpose, to have a necessity
for its existence. But, on the other hand, what is necessary
should be beautiful, if possible.”

“A loaf of bread, for instance,” suggested Elwood.

They all laughed at this illustration, and the conversation
took a lighter turn. By this time they had entered the narrower
part of the valley, and on passing around a sharp
curve of the track found themselves face to face with Philip
and Madeline Held.

If Mrs. Hopeton's heart beat more rapidly at the unexpected
meeting, she preserved her cold, composed bearing.
Madeline, bright and joyous, was the unconscious agent of
unconstraint, in whose presence each of the others felt immediately
free.

“Two inspecting committees at once!” cried Philip. “It
is well for you, Withers, that you didn't locate the line. My
sister and I have already found several unnecessary curves
and culverts.”

“And we have found a great deal of use and no beauty,”
Lucy answered.

“Beauty!” exclaimed Madeline. “What is more beautiful
than to see one's groceries delivered at one's very door?
Or to have the opera and the picture-gallery brought within two
hours' distance? How far are we from a lemon, Philip?”

“You were a lemon, Mad, in your vegetable, pre-human
state; and you are still acid and agreeable.”

[figure description] Page 194.[end figure description]

“Sweets to the sweet!” she gayly cried. “And what,
pray, was Miss Henderson?”

“Don't spare me, Mr. Held,” said Lucy, as he looked at
her with a little hesitation.

“An apple.”

“And Mrs. Hopeton?”

“A date-palm,” said Philip, fixing his eyes upon her face.

She did not look up, but an expression which he could
not interpret just touched her lips and faded.

“Now, it's your turn, Miss Held,” Elwood remarked:
“what were we men?”

“O, Philip a prickly pear, of course; and you, well, some
kind of a nut; and Mr. Asten—”

“A cabbage,” said Joseph.

“What vanity! Do you imagine that you are all head,—
or that your heart is in your head? Or that you keep the
morning dew longer than the rest of us?”

“It might well be,” Joseph answered; and Madeline felt
her arm gently pinched by Philip, from behind. She had
tact enough not to lower her pitch of gayety too suddenly,
but her manner towards Joseph became grave and gentle.
Mrs. Hopeton said but little: she looked upon the circling
hills, as if studying their summer beauty, while the one desire
in her heart was to be away from the spot,—away from
Philip's haunting eyes.

After a little while, Philip seemed to be conscious of her
feeling. He left his place on the opposite side of the track,
took Joseph's arm and led him a little aside from the group.

“Philip, I want you!” Joseph whispered; “but no, not
quite yet. There is no need of coming to you in a state of
confusion. In a day or two more I shall have settled a little.”

[figure description] Page 195.[end figure description]

“You are right,” said Philip: “there is no opiate like
time, be there never so little of it. I felt the fever of your
head in your hand. Don't come to me, until you feel that
it is the one thing which must be done! I think you know
why I say so.”

“I do!” Joseph exclaimed. “I am just now more of an
ostrich than anything else; I should like to stick my head
in the sand, and imagine myself invisible. But—Philip—
here are six of us together. One other, I know, has a secret
wound, perhaps two others: is it always so in life? I
think I am selfish enough to be glad to know that I am not
specially picked out for punishment.”

Philip could not help smiling. “Upon my soul,” he said,
“I believe Madeline is the only one of the six who is not
busy with other thoughts than those we all seem to utter.
Specially picked out? There is no such thing as special picking
out, in this world! Joseph, it may seem hard and schoolmaster-like
in me again to say `wait!' yet that is the only
word I can say.”

“Good evening, all!” cried Elwood. “I must go down
to my men; but I'd be glad of such an inspection as this, a
good deal oftener.”

“I'll go that far with you,” said Joseph.

Mrs. Hopeton took Lucy's arm with a sudden, nervous
movement. “If you are not too tired, let us walk over the
hill,” she said; “I want to find the right point of view for
sketching our house.”

The company dissolved. Philip, as he walked up the
track with his sister, said to himself: “Surely she was
afraid of me. And what does her fear indicate? What, if
not that the love she once bore for me still lives in her
heart, in spite of time and separated fates? I should not,

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dare not think of her; I shall never again speak a word to
her which her husband might not hear; but I cannot tear
from me the dream of what she might be, the knowledge of
what she is, false, hopeless, fatal, as it all may be!”

“Elwood,” said Joseph, when they had walked a little
distance in silence, “do you remember the night you spent
with me, a year ago?”

“I'm not likely to forget it.”

“Let me ask you one question, then. Have you come
nearer to Lucy Henderson?”

“If no further off means nearer, and it almost seems so
in my case,—yes!”

“And you see no difference in her,—no new features of
character, which you did not guess, at first?”

“Indeed, I do!” Elwood emphatically answered. “To
me she grows less and less like any other woman,—so right,
so straightforward, so honest in all her ways and thoughts!
If I am ever tempted to do anything—well, not exactly
mean, you know, but such as a man might as well leave undone,
I have only to say to myself: `If you're not thoroughly
good, my boy, you'll lose her!' and that does the business,
right away. Why, Joseph, I'm proud of myself, that I mean
to deserve her!”

“Ah!” A sigh, almost a groan, came from Joseph's lips.
“What will you think of me?” he said. “I was about to
repeat your own words,—to warn you to be cautious, and
take time, and test your feelings, and not to be too sure of
her perfection! What can a young man know about women?
He can only discover the truth after marriage, and
then—they are indifferent how it affects him—their fortunes
are made!”

“I know,” answered Elwood, turning his head away

[figure description] Page 197.[end figure description]

slightly; “but there's a difference between the women you
seek, and work to get, and the women who seek, and work
to get you.”

“I understand you.”

“Forgive me for saying it!” Elwood cried, instantly repenting
his words. “I couldn't help seeing and feeling
what you know now. But what man—leastways, what
friend—could ha' said it to you with any chance of being
believed? You were like a man alone in a boat above a
waterfall; only you could bring yourself to shore. If I
stood on the bank and called, and you didn't believe me,
what then? The Lord knows, I'd give this right arm,
strong as it is, to put you back where you were a year ago.”

“I've been longing for frankness, and I ought to bear it
better,” said Joseph. “Put the whole subject out of your
thoughts, and come and see me as of old. It is quite time I
should learn to manage my own life.”

He grasped Elwood's hand convulsively, sprang down the
embankment, and took to the highway. Elwood looked
after him a minute, then slowly shook his head and walked
onward towards the men.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Hopeton and Lucy had climbed the hill,
and found themselves on the brow of a rolling upland, which
fell on the other side towards the old Calvert place. The
day was hot. Mrs. Hopeton's knees trembled under her,
and she sank on the soft grass at the foot of a tree. Lucy
took a seat beside her.

“You know so much of my trouble,” said the former,
when the coolness and rest had soothed her, “and I
trust you so perfectly, that I can tell you all, Lucy. Can
you guess the man whom I loved, but must never love
again?”

[figure description] Page 198.[end figure description]

“I have sometimes thought —” but here Lucy hesitated.

“Speak the name in your mind, or, let me say `Philip
Held' for you! Lucy, what am I to do? he loves me still:
he told me so, just now, where we were all together below
there!”

Lucy turned with a start, and gazed wonderingly upon
her friend's face.

“Why does he continue telling me what I must not
hear? with his eyes, Lucy! in the tones of his voice, in
common words which I am forced to interpret by his meaning!
I had learned to bear my inevitable fate, for it is not an
unhappy one; I can bear even his presence, if he were
generous enough to close his heart as I do,—either that, or
to avoid me; for I now dread to meet him again.”

“Is it not,” Lucy asked, “because the trial is new, and
takes you by surprise and unprepared? May you not be
fearing more than Mr. Held has expressed, or, at least, intended?”

“The speech that kills, or makes alive, needs no words.
What I mean is, there is no resistance in his face. I blush
for myself, I am indignant at my own pitiful weakness, but
something in his look to-day made me forget everything
that has passed since we were parted. While it lasted, I
was under a spell,— a spell which it humiliates me to remember.
Your voices sounded faint and far off; all that I
have, and hold, seemed to be slipping from me. It was only
for a moment, but, Lucy, it frightened me. My will is
strong, and I think I can depend upon it; yet what if some
influence beyond my control were to paralyze it?”

“Then you must try to win the help of a higher will; our
souls always win something of that which they wrestle and

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struggle to reach. Dear Mrs. Hopeton, have you never
thought that we are still as children who cannot have all
they cry for? Now that you know what you fear, do not
dread to hold it before your mind and examine what it is:
at least, I think that would be my instinct,—to face a danger
at once when I found I could not escape it.”

“I have no doubt you are right, Lucy,” said Mrs. Hopeton;
but her tone was sad, as if she acquiesced without
clearly believing.

“It seems very hard,” Lucy continued, “when we cannot
have the one love of all others that we need, harder
still when we must put it forcibly from our hearts. But I
have always felt that, when we can bring ourselves to renounce
cheerfully, a blessing will follow. I do not know
how, but I must believe it. Might it not come at last
through the love that we have, though it now seems imperfect?”

Mrs. Hopeton lifted her head from her knees, and sat
erect. “Lucy,” she said, “I do not believe you are a
woman who would ask another to bear what is beyond your
own strength. Shall I put you to the test?”

Lucy, though her face became visibly paler, replied: “I
did not mean to compare my burden with yours; but weigh
me, if you wish. If I am found wanting, you will show me
wherein.”

“Your one love above all others is lost to you. Have
you conquered the desire for it?”

“I think I have. If some soreness remains, I try to believe
that it is the want of the love which I know to be
possible, not that of the—the person.”

“Then could you be happy with what you call an imperfect
love?”

[figure description] Page 200.[end figure description]

Lucy blushed a little, in spite of herself. “I am still
free,” she answered, “and not obliged to accept it. If I
were bound, I hope I should not neglect my duty.”

“What if another's happiness depended on your accepting
it? Lucy, my eyes have been made keen by what I
have felt. I saw to-day that a man's heart follows you,
and I guess that you know it. Here is no imperfect love on
his part: were you his wife, could you learn to give him so
much that your life might become peaceful and satisfied?”

“You do, indeed, test me!” Lucy murmured. “How
can I know? What answer can I make? I have shrunk
from thinking of that, and I cannot feel that my duty lies
there. Yet, if it were so, if I were already bound, irrevocably,
surely all my present faith must be false if happiness in
some form did not come at last!”

“I believe it would, to you!” cried Mrs. Hopeton. “Why
not to me? Do you think I have ever looked for love in
my husband? It seems, now, that I have been content to
know that he was proud of me. If I seek, perhaps I may
find more than I have dreamed of; and if I find, —if indeed
and truly I find, —I shall never more lack self-possession
and will!”

She rose to her full height, and a flush came over the
pallor of her cheeks. “Yes,” she continued, “rather than
feel again the humiliation of to-day, I will trample all my
nature down to the level of an imperfect love!”

“Better,” said Lucy, rising also, — “better to bend only
for a while to the imperfect, that you may warm and purify
and elevate it, until it shall take the place of the perfect in
your heart.”

The two women kissed each other, and there were tears on
the cheeks of both.