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Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug

Author: Joseph C. Lincoln

Release Date: June, 2004  [EBook #5980]
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[This file was first posted on October 5, 2002]

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This eBook was produced by Don Lainson.




KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG


by


JOSEPH C. LINCOLN



1914



CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I.  Which is not a chapter at all

II.  Which repeats, for the most part, what Jim Campbell said to me
and what I said to him

III.  Which, although it is largely family history, should not be
skipped by the reader

IV.  In which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia sail together

V.  In which we view, and even mingle slightly with, the upper
classes

VI.  In which we are received at Bancroft's Hotel and I receive a
letter

VII.  In which a dream becomes a reality

VIII.  In which the pilgrims become tenants

IX.  In which we make the acquaintance of Mayberry and a portion of
Burgleston Bogs

X.  In which I break all previous resolutions and make a new one

XI.  In which complications become more complicated

XII.  In which the truth is told at last

XIII.  In which Hephzy and I agree to live for each other

XIV.  In which I play golf and cross the channel

XV.  In which I learn that all abbeys are not churches

XVI.  In which I take my turn at playing the invalid

XVII.  In which I, as well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, am surprised

XVIII.  In which the pilgrimage ends where it began

XIX.  Which treats of quahaugs in general





KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG



CHAPTER I

Which is Not a Chapter at All


It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history.
Perhaps I should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I
shouldn't.  He has gotten me out of a difficulty--or into one;
I am far from certain which.

Ordinarily--I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
romances, which is, or was, my trade--I swear I never have called
it a profession--the beginning of a story is the least of the
troubles connected with its manufacture.  Given a character or two
and a situation, the beginning of one of those romances is, or was,
pretty likely to be something like this:

"It was a black night.  Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun
and now, as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the
darkness was pitchy."

That is a good safe beginning.  Midnight, a stone tower, a booming
clock, and darkness make an appeal to the imagination.  On a night
like that almost anything may happen.  A reader of one of my
romances--and readers there must be, for the things did, and still
do, sell to some extent--might be fairly certain that something
WOULD happen before the end of the second page.  After that the
somethings continued to happen as fast as I could invent them.

But this story was different.  The weather or the time had nothing
to do with its beginning.  There were no solitary horsemen or
strange wayfarers on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the
doors of taverns, no cloaked personages landing from boats rowed by
black-browed seamen with red handkerchiefs knotted about their
heads and knives in their belts.  The hero was not addressed as "My
Lord"; he was not "Sir Somebody-or-other" in disguise.  He was not
young and handsome; there was not even "a certain something in his
manner and bearing which hinted of an eventful past."  Indeed there
was not.  For, if this particular yarn or history or chronicle
which I had made up my mind to write, and which I am writing now,
had or has a hero, I am he.  And I am Hosea Kent Knowles, of
Bayport, Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born
and in which I have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven
years old.  Nobody calls me "My Lord."  Hephzy has always called me
"Hosy"--a name which I despise--and the others, most of them,
"Kent" to my face and "The Quahaug" behind my back, a quahaug being
a very common form of clam which is supposed to lead a solitary
existence and to keep its shell tightly shut.  If anything in my
manner had hinted at a mysterious past no one in Bayport would have
taken the hint.  Bayporters know my past and that of my ancestors
only too well.

As for being young and handsome--well, I was thirty-eight years old
last March.  Which is quite enough on THAT subject.

But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it.
And immediately I got into difficulties.  How should I begin?  I
might begin at any one of a dozen places--with Hephzy's receiving
the Raymond and Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with
Jim Campbell's visit to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in
which the letter reached us, after crossing the ocean twice.  Any
one of these might serve as a beginning--but which?  I made I don't
know how many attempts, but not one was satisfactory.  I, who had
begun I am ashamed to tell you how many stories--yes, and had
finished them and seen them in print as well--was stumped at the
very beginning of this one.  Like Sim Phinney I had worked at my
job "a long spell" and "cal'lated" I knew it, but here was
something I didn't know.  As Sim said, when he faced his problem,
"I couldn't seem to get steerage way on her."

Simeon, you see--He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives
in the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand
side of the road--Simeon has "done carpentering" here in Bayport
all his life.  He built practically every henhouse now gracing or
disgracing the backyards of our village.  He is our "henhouse
specialist," so to speak.  He has even been known to boast of his
skill.  "Henhouses!" snorted Sim; "land of love!  I can build a
henhouse with my eyes shut.  Nowadays when another one of them
foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry
Raisin'' in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I
say, 'Yes sir.  Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a
hundred and fifteen if you want to wait and pay me out of your egg
profits.  That's all there is to it.'"

And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his
money selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to
summer people for bungalow sites--when Captain Darius, grown purse-
proud and vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a
mansard roof and a cupola, the latter embellishments to match those
surmounting his own dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas
flapping.  At the end of a week he had not driven a nail.
"Godfrey's mighty!" he is reported to have exclaimed.  "I don't
know whether to build the average cupola and trust to a hen's
fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola round her.
Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where to
start that beats me."

Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet,
if I hadn't dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt
telling a story to the group around the stove.  After he had
finished, and, the mail being sorted, we were walking homeward
together, I asked a question.

"Asaph," said I, "when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?"

"Hey?" he exclaimed.  "How do I begin?  Why, I just heave to and go
to work and begin, that's all."

"Yes, I know, but where do you begin?"

"At the beginnin', naturally.  If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat
race you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would
you?"

"_I_ might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose.  But--what IS the
beginning?  Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't
know which to choose."

"Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of--of edge around till I
found one that--that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start
there.  You understand, don't you?  Take that yarn I was spinnin'
just now--that one about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his
mother's side.  I mean his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig,
of course.  Now I hadn't no intention of tellin' about that hog;
hadn't thought of it for a thousand year, as you might say.  I just
commenced to tell about Angie Phinney, about how fast she could
talk, and that reminded me of a parrot that belonged to Sylvanus
Cahoon's sister--Violet, the sister's name was--loony name, too, if
you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight nigher bein' a sunflower
than she was a violet--weighed two hundred and ten and had a face
on her as red as--"

"Just a minute, Ase.  About that pig?"

"Oh, yes!  Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the
parrot reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to
roost in the pigpen nights--wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you
nor I would--and that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs
fetched Josiah's uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to
start on the yarn.  It pretty often works out that way.  When you
want to start a yarn and you can't start--you've forgot it, or
somethin'--just begin somewhere, get goin' somehow.  Edge around
and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll fetch up at the right
place TO start.  See, don't you, Kent?"

I saw--that is, I saw enough.  I came home and this morning I began
the "edging around" process.  I don't seem to have "fetched up"
anywhere in particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I
do.  As Asaph says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with
the Saturday morning of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher
and my friend--which is by no means such an unusual combination as
many people think--sat on the veranda of my boathouse overlooking
Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past, present and, more particularly,
my future.



CHAPTER II

Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and
What I Said to Him


"Jim," said I, "what is the matter with me?"

Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which
was the finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I
always offered to visitors, looked at me over the collar of my
sweater.  I used the sweater as I did the arm-chair when I did not
have visitors.  He was using it then because, like an idiot, he had
come to Cape Cod in April with nothing warmer than a very natty
suit and a light overcoat.  Of course one may go clamming and
fishing in a light overcoat, but--one doesn't.

Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater.  Then he crossed
his oilskinned and rubber-booted legs--they were my oilskins and my
boots--and answered promptly.

"Indigestion," he said.  "You ate nine of those biscuits this
morning; I saw you."

"I did not," I retorted, "because you saw them first.  MY interior
is in its normal condition.  As for yours--"

"Mine," he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch,
"being accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but
satisfactory, thank you--quite satisfactory."

"That," said I, "we will discuss later, when I have you out back of
the bar in my catboat.  Judging from present indications there will
be some sea-running.  The "Hephzy" is a good, capable craft, but a
bit cranky, like the lady she is named for.  I imagine she will
roll."

He didn't like that.  You see, I had sailed with him before and I
remembered.

"Ho-se-a," he drawled, "you have a vivid imagination.  It is a pity
you don't use more of it in those stories of yours."

"Humph!  I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty
statements you send me.  If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take
the 'Hephzy' across the Point Rip.  The waves there are fifteen
feet high at low tide.  See here, I asked you a serious question
and I should like a serious answer.  Jim, what IS the matter with
me?  Have I written out or what is the trouble?"

He looked at me again.

"Are you in earnest?" he asked.

"I am, very much in earnest."

"And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and
on a morning like this?"

"I do."

"Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-
end?"

"No-o.  No, of course not."

"You're another; it was.  When you met me at the railroad station
yesterday I could see there was something wrong with you.  All this
morning you've had something on your chest.  I thought it was the
biscuits, of course; but it wasn't, eh?"

"It was not."

"Then what was it?  Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?"

"You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve.  I don't
see why you do it."

"Oh," with a wave of the hand, "that's all right.  The publishing
of books is a pure philanthropy.  We are in business for our
health, and--"

"Shut up.  You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine
which your house published have not done as well as the others."

I had caught him now.  Anything remotely approaching a reflection
upon the business house of which he was the head was sufficient to
stir up Jim Campbell.  That business, its methods and its success,
were his idols.

"I don't know any such thing," he protested, hotly.  "We sold--"

"Hang the sale!  You sold quite enough.  It is an everlasting
miracle to me that you are able to sell a single copy.  Why a self-
respecting person, possessed of any intelligence whatever, should
wish to read the stuff I write, to say nothing of paying money for
the privilege, I can't understand."

"You don't have to understand.  No one expects an author to
understand anything.  All you are expected to do is to write; we'll
attend to the rest of it.  And as for sales--why, 'The Black Brig'--
that was the last one, wasn't it?--beat the 'Omelet' by eight
thousand or more."

"The Omelet" was our pet name for "The Queen's Amulet," my first
offence in the literary line.  It was a highly seasoned concoction
of revolution and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was
not dull, to say the least.  The humblest character in it was a
viscount.  Living in Bayport had, naturally, made me familiar with
the doings of viscounts.

"Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?" demanded
Jim Campbell combatively.

"It isn't.  It is astonishingly good.  It is the books themselves
that are bad.  The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as
a joke than anything else.  I didn't take it seriously at all.
Every time I called a duke by his Christian name I grinned.  But
nowadays I don't grin--I swear.  I hate the things, Jim.  They're
no good.  And the reviewers are beginning to tumble to the fact
that they're no good, too.  You saw the press notices yourself.
'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'  'Barnacles,
Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the Bourbons.'
That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The Black
Brig.'  And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as
if I was.  THAT fellow was right.  I am tired, Jim.  I'm tired and
sick of writing slush.  I can't write any more of it.  And yet I
can't write anything else."

Jim's pipe had gone out.  Now he relit it and tossed the match over
the veranda rail.

"How do you know you can't?" he demanded.

"Can't what?"

"Can't write anything but slush?"

"Ah ha!  Then it is slush.  You admit it."

"I don't admit anything of the kind.  You may not be a William
Shakespeare or even a George Meredith, but you have written some
mighty interesting stories.  Why, I know a chap who sits up till
morning to finish a book of yours.  Can't sleep until he has
finished it."

"What's the matter with him; insomnia?"

"No; he's a night watchman.  Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained
old shellfish?  Come on, let's dig clams--some of your own blood
relations--and forget it."

"I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for
clamming.  The tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet.  I
tell you I'm serious, Jim.  I can't write any more.  I know it.
The stuff I've been writing makes me sick.  I hate it, I tell you.
What the devil I'm going to do for a living I can't see--but I
can't write another story."

Jim put his pipe in his pocket.  I think at last he was convinced
that I meant what I said, which I certainly did.  The last year had
been a year of torment to me.  I had finished the 'Brig,' as a
matter of duty, but if that piratical craft had sunk with all
hands, including its creator, I should not have cared.  I drove
myself to my desk each day, as a horse might be driven to a
treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less interest in his
work than I had taken in mine.  It was bad--bad--bad; worthless and
hateful.  There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one in my
head.  I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had
failed, had now reached the point where that had failed, too.
Campbell's surmise was correct; with the pretence of asking him to
the Cape for a week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him
there to tell him of my discouragement and my determination to
quit.

He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he
faced me.

"So you're not going to write any more," he said.

"I'm not.  I can't."

"What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?"

"I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me
very long."

"Humph!  I should think they might keep you a good while down here.
You must have something in the stocking.  You can't have wasted
very much in riotous living on this sand-heap.  What have you done
with your money, for the last ten years; been leading a double
life?"

"I've found leading a single one hard enough.  I have saved
something, of course.  It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I
told you that.  It's myself; I'm no good.  Every author, sometime
or other, reaches the point where he knows perfectly well he has
done all the real work he can ever do, that he has written himself
out.  That's what's the matter with me--I'm written out."

Jim snorted.  "For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles," he demanded, "how
old are you?"

"I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but--"

"Thirty-eight!  Why, Thackeray wrote--"

"Drop it!  I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you
do.  I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at
thirty-eight than he was when he died--yes, older than he would
have been if he had lived twice as long.  So far as feeling and all
the rest of it go, I'm a second Methusaleh."

"My soul! hear the man!  And I'm forty-two myself.  Well, Grandpa,
what do you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's
Home?"

"I expect--" I began, "I expect--" and I concluded with the lame
admission that I didn't expect him to do anything.  It was up to me
to do whatever must be done, I imagined.

He smiled grimly.

"Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-
sense," he declared.  "You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot."

"Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have
this morning.  See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will
you?  They may be personal questions, but will you answer them?"

"I guess so.  There has been what a disinterested listener might
call a slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far.  Do your
worst.  Fire away."

"All right.  You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that.
What have you done in all that time--besides write?"

"Well, I've continued to live."

"Doubted.  You've continued to exist; but how?  I've been here
before.  This isn't my first visit, by a good deal.  Each time I
have been here your daily routine--leaving out the exciting clam
hunts and the excursions in quest of the ferocious flounder, like
the one we're supposed--mind, I say supposed--to be on at the
present moment--you have put in the day about like this:  Get up,
bathe, eat, walk to the post-office, walk home, sit about, talk a
little, read some, walk some more, eat again, smoke, talk, read,
eat for the third time, smoke, talk, read and go to bed.  That's
the program, isn't it?"

"Not exactly.  I play tennis in summer--when there is anyone to
play with me--and golf, after a fashion.  I used to play both a
good deal, when I was younger.  I swim, and I shoot a little, and--
and--"

"How about society?  Have any, do you?"

"In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal
going on, if you care for it--picnics and clam bakes and teas and
lawn parties and such."

"Heavens! what reckless dissipation!  Do you indulge?"

"Why, no--not very much.  Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society
man.  I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was
younger, but--"

"But now you're too antique, I suppose.  Wonder that someone hasn't
collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something.  So you don't
'tea' much?"

"Not much.  I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth.  The
summer crowd doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid."

"Astonishing!  You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative
cuss on first acquaintance, too.  So captivatingly loquacious to
strangers.  I can imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.'  Every summer
girl that tried to talk to you would be frost-bitten.  Do you
accept invitations when they do come?"

"Not often nowadays.  You see, I know they don't really want me."

"How do you know it?"

"Why--well, why should they?  Everybody else calls me--"

"They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation.
I know you, Kent.  You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the
most serious complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness.
They do want you.  They'd invite you if you gave them half a
chance.  Oh, I know you won't, of course; but if I had my way I'd
have you dragged by main strength to every picnic and tea and
feminine talk-fest within twenty miles.  You might meet some
persevering female who would propose marriage.  YOU never would,
but SHE might."

I rose to my feet in disgust.

"We'll go clamming," said I.

He did not move.

"We will--later on," he answered.  "We haven't got to the last page
of the catechism yet.  I mentioned matrimony because a good,
capable, managing wife would be my first prescription in your case.
I have one or two more up my sleeve.  Tell me this:  How often do
you get away from Bayport?  How often do you get to--well, to
Boston, we'll say?  How many times have you been there in the last
year?"

"I don't know.  A dozen, perhaps."

"What did you do when you went?"

"Various things.  Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally,
if there happened to be anything on that I cared to see.  Bought a
good many books.  Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library.
And--and--"

"And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I
suppose.  Wild life you lead, Kent.  Did you visit anybody?  Meet
any friends or acquaintances--any live ones?"

"Not many.  I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that.  As for the
wild life--well, I made two visits to New York this year."

"Yes," drily; "and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
Holland.  The rest of the time we talked shop.  That was the first
visit.  The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the
time and you took the six o'clock train home again."

"You're wrong there.  I saw the new loan collections at the
Metropolitan and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall.  I didn't start
for home until the next day."

"Is that so.  That's news to me.  You said you were going that
afternoon.  That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking
you home to my wife and her bridge party, I suppose.  Was it?"

"Well--well, you see, Jim, I--I don't play bridge and I AM such a
stick in a crowd like that.  I wanted to stay and you were mighty
kind, but--but--"

"All right.  All right, my boy.  Next time it will be Bustanoby's,
the Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours.  My time is
coming.  Now--Well, now we'll go clamming."

He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps
leading down to the beach.  I was surprised, of course; I have
known Jim Campbell a long time, but he can surprise me even yet.

"Here! hold on!" I protested.  "How about the rest of that
catechism?"

"You've had it."

"Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?"

"Yes."

"Humph!  And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get
from you!  How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?"

"You'll get those by and by.  Before I leave this gay and festive
scene to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a.  And you're
going to listen.  You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL
prescribe for you, don't you worry.  And now," beginning to descend
the steps, "now for clams and flounders."

"And the Point Rip," I added, maliciously, for his frivolous
treatment of what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing
and provoking.  "Don't forget the Point Rip."

We dug the clams--they were for bait--we boarded the "Hephzy,"
sailed out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders.  I caught
the most of them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the
greater part of the time.  Then we sailed home again and walked up
to the house.  Hephzibah, for whom my boat is named, met us at the
back door.  As usual her greeting was not to the point and
practical.

"Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch," she said.
"Here, give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em.  Hosy, you'll
find dry things ready in your room.  Here's your shoes; I've been
warmin' 'em.  Mr. Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some
flannels on your bed.  They may not fit you, but they'll be lots
better than the damp ones you've got on.  You needn't hurry; dinner
won't be ready till you are."

I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy--had known her all my life.
Jim, who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.

"We're not wet, Miss Cahoon," he declared.  "At least, I'm not, and
I don't see how Kent can be.  We both wore oilskins."

"That doesn't make any difference.  You ought to change your
clothes anyhow.  Been out in that boat, haven't you?"

"Yes, but--"

"Well, then!  Don't say another word.  I'll have a fire in the
sittin'-room and somethin' hot ready when you come down.  Hosy, be
sure and put on BOTH the socks I darned for you.  Don't get
thinkin' of somethin' else and come down with one whole and one
holey, same as you did last time.  You must excuse me, Mr.
Campbell.  I've got saleratus biscuits in the oven."

She hastened into the kitchen.  When Jim and I, having obeyed
orders to the extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed
through that kitchen she was busy with the tea-kettle.  I led the
way through the dining-room and up the front stairs.  My visitor
did not speak until we reached the second story.  Then he expressed
his feelings.

"Say, Kent" he demanded, "are you going to change your clothes?"

"Yes."

"Why?  You're no wetter than I am, are you?"

"Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same.  It's the
easier way."

"It is, is it!  What's the other way?"

"The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
consequences."

"What consequences?"

"Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in
front of the sitting-room fire.  Hephzibah went out sailing with me
last October and caught cold.  That was enough; no one else shall
have the experience if she can help it."

"But--but good heavens!  Kent, do you mean to say you always have
to change when you come in from sailing?"

"Except in summer, yes."

"But why?"

"Because Hephzy tells me to."

"Do you always do what she tells you?"

"Generally.  It's the easiest way, as I said before."

"Good--heavens!  And she darns your socks and tells you what--er
lingerie to wear and--does she wash your face and wipe your nose
and scrub behind your ears?"

"Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it."

"Well, I'll be hanged!  And she extends the same treatment to all
your guests?"

"I don't have any guests but you.  No doubt she would if I did.
She mothers every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood.
There, Jim, you trot along and do as you're told like a nice little
boy.  I'll join you in the sitting-room."

"Humph! perhaps I'd better.  I may be spanked and put to bed if I
don't.  Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!'
'Buccaneers and Blood!'  'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be!
Don't stand out here in the cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get
the croup if you do."

I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down.  There was a
roaring fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace.  That fireplace
had been bricked up in the days when people used those abominations,
stoves.  As a boy I was well acquainted with the old "gas burner"
with the iron urn on top and the nickeled ornaments and handles
which Mother polished so assiduously.  But the gas burner had long
since gone to the junk dealer.  Among the improvements which my
first royalty checks made possible were steam heat and the
restoration of the fireplace.

Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big "wing"
chairs which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects
were sold at auction.  I should not have acquired them as cheaply
if Captain Cyrus Whittaker had been at home when the auction took
place.  Captain Cy loves old-fashioned things as much as I do and,
as he has often told me since, he meant to land those chairs some
day if he had to run his bank account high and dry in consequence.
But the Captain and his wife--who used to be Phoebe Dawes, our
school-teacher here in Bayport--were away visiting their adopted
daughter, Emily, who is married and living in Boston, and I got the
chairs.

At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
"Freedom"--a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
Darius--and the set--two volumes missing--of The Spectator, bound
in sheepskin.  The "Freedom" is depicted "Entering the Port of
Genoa, July 10th, 1848," and if the port is somewhat wavy and
uncertain, the bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid
enough to make up.  The Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its
marginal notes; Captain Elkanah bought the books in London and read
and annotated at spare intervals during subsequent voyages.  His
opinions were decided and his notes nautical and emphatic.
Hephzibah read a few pages of the notes when the books first came
into the house and then went to prayer-meeting.  As she had
announced her intention of remaining at home that evening I was
surprised--until I read them myself.

Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out
for him.  I made no comment upon his appearance.  To do so would
have been superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.

I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down.
Two glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming
mixture, were on the little table beside us.

"Help yourself, Jim," I said, indicating the glasses.  He took up
the one containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.

"What?" he asked.

"A Cahoon toddy," said I.  "Warranted to keep off chills,
rheumatism, lumbago and kindred miseries.  Good for what ails you.
Don't wait; I've had mine."

He took a sniff and then a very small sip.  His face expressed
genuine emotion.

"Whew!" he gasped, choking.  "What in blazes--?"

"Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water," I explained blandly.  "It
won't hurt you--longer than five minutes.  It is Hephzy's
invariable prescription."

"Good Lord!  Did you drink yours?"

"No--I never do, unless she watches me."

"But your glass is empty.  What did you do with it?"

"Emptied it behind the back log.  Of course, if you prefer to drink
it--"

"Drink it!"  His "toddy" splashed the back log, causing a
tremendous sizzle.

Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to
announce that dinner was ready if we were.  We were, most
emphatically, so we went into the dining-room.

Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal.  I had
talked more that forenoon than I had for a week--I am not a chatty
person, ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname--and I was
very willing to eat and listen.  Hephzy, who was garbed in her best
gown--best weekday gown, that is; she kept her black silk for
Sundays--talked a good deal, mostly about dreams and presentiments.
Susanna Wixon, Tobias Wixon's oldest daughter, waited on table,
when she happened to think of it, and listened when she did not.
Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and the dish-washing
during Campbell's brief visit.  It was I who hired her.  If I had
had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the
household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea.  "Pity if I can't do
housework for two folks," she declared.  "I don't care if you can
afford it.  Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is
a sinful extravagance."  As Susanna's services had been already
engaged for the weekend she could not discharge her, but she
insisted on doing all the cooking herself.

Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and
presentiments.  Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious
person.  She doesn't believe in "signs," although she might feel
uncomfortable if she broke a looking-glass or saw the new moon over
her left shoulder.  She has a most amazing fund of common-sense and
is "down" on Spiritualism to a degree.  It is one of Bayport's pet
yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist camp-meeting when the "test
medium" announced from the platform that he had a message for a
lady named Hephzibah C--he "seemed to get the name Hephzibah C"--
Hephzy got up and walked out.  "Any dead relations I've got," she
declared, "who send messages through a longhaired idiot like that
one up there"--meaning the medium,--"can't have much to say that's
worth listenin' to.  They can talk to themselves if they want to,
but they shan't waste MY time."

In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious.  Whenever she
dreamed of "Little Frank" she was certain something was going to
happen.  She had dreamed of "Little Frank" the night before and, if
she had not been headed off, she would have talked of nothing else.

"I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy," she said
to me.  "I was somewhere, in a strange place--a foreign place, I
should say 'twas--and there I saw him.  He didn't know me; at least
I don't think he did."

"Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising," I
interrupted.  "I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of
coffee if you urged him.  Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup."

Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet.
I knew that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy.  She
refused to be headed, just then.

"But I knew HIM," she went on.  "He looked just the same as he has
when I've seen him before--in the other dreams, you know.  The very
image of his mother.  Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!"

"Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy.  Mr.
Campbell isn't interested in anatomy."

"Skeletons!  I don't know what you're talkin' about.  He wasn't a
skeleton.  I saw him just as plain!  And I said to myself, 'It's
little Frank!'  Now what do you suppose he came to me for?  What do
you suppose it means?  It means somethin', I know that."

"Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably," I answered.
"Jim, here, will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I
have no doubt."

Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't
mind so much.  What he feared most was a nightmare session with an
author.

Hephzibah was interested at once.  "Oh, do you dream about authors,
Mr. Campbell?" she demanded.  "I presume likely you do, they're so
mixed up with your business.  Do your dreams ever come true?"

"Not often," was the solemn reply.  "Most of my dream-authors are
rational and almost human."

Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the
effect for which I had been striving, that of driving "Little
Frank" from her mind for the time.

"I don't care," she declared, "I s'pose it's awful foolish and
silly of me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin'
in dreams, some kind of dreams.  Hosy laughs at me and maybe I
ought to laugh at myself, but some dreams come true, or awfully
near to true; now don't they.  Angeline Phinney was in here the
other day and she was tellin' about her second cousin that was--
he's dead now--Abednego Small.  He was constable here in Bayport
for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.'  Uncle Bedny had
been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick--Josiah Dimick's
niece--lots younger than he, she was.  He'd been thinkin' of
marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third
wife, so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a
letter sayin' it was all off between 'em.  Well, he'd begun the
letter but he never finished it, for three nights runnin' he
dreamed that awful trouble was hangin' over him.  That dream made
such an impression on him that he tore the letter up and married
the Dimick woman after all.  And then--I didn't know this until
Angie told me--it turned out that she had heard he was goin' to
give her the go-by and had made all her arrangements to sue him for
breach of promise if he did.  That was the awful trouble, you see,
and the dream saved him from it."

I smiled.  "The fault there was in the interpretation of the
dream," I said.  "The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit
wouldn't have been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny
got into by marrying Ann Dimick.  THAT trouble lasted till he
died."

Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't
thought of it in that way.

"Probably dreams are all nonsense," she admitted.  "Usually, I
don't pay much attention to 'em.  But when I dream of poor 'Little
Frank,' away off there, I--"

"Come into the sitting-room, Jim," I put in hastily.  "I have a
cigar or two there.  I don't buy them in Bayport, either."

"And who," asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, "is Little
Frank?"

"He is a mythical relative of ours," I explained, shortly.  "He was
born twenty years ago or so--at least we heard that he was; and we
haven't heard anything of him since, except by the dream route,
which is not entirely convincing.  He is Hephzy's pet obsession.
Kindly forget him, to oblige me."

He looked puzzled, but he did not mention "Little Frank" again, for
which I was thankful.

That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at
Simmons's store, which is also the post-office, for the mail.
Captain Cyrus Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt
and Bailey Bangs and Sylvanus Cahoon and several others.  I
introduced Campbell to the crowd and he seemed to be enjoying
himself.  When we came out and were walking home again, he
observed:

"That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?"

"Yes," I said.  "He is all right.  Been everywhere and seen
everything."

"And that," with an odd significance in his tone, "may possibly
help to make him interesting, don't you think?"

"I suppose so.  He lives here in Bayport now, though."

"So I gathered.  Popular, is he?"

"Very."

"Satisfied with life?"

"Seems to be."

"Hum!  No one calls HIM a--what is it--quahaug?"

"No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood."

He did not say any more, nor did I.  My fit of the blues was on
again and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my
work and my future, troubled me and made me more despondent.  I
began to lose faith in the "prescription" which he had promised so
emphatically.  How could he, or anyone else, help me?  No one could
write my stories but myself, and I knew, only too well, that I
could not write them.

The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to
Hephzibah.  I forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to
her.  Jim retired early; the salt air made him sleepy, so he said,
and he went upstairs shortly after nine.  He had not mentioned our
talk of the morning, nor did he until I left him at the door of his
room.  Then he said:

"Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum.  I've
diagnosed one of your troubles.  You're blind."

"Blind?"

"Yes, blind.  Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the
worse case of far-sightedness I ever saw.  All your literary--we'll
call it that for compliment's sake--all your literary life you've
spent writing about people and things so far off you don't know
anything about them.  You and your dukes and your earls and your
titled ladies!  What do you know of that crowd?  You never saw a
lord in your life.  Why don't you write of something near by,
something or somebody you are acquainted with?"

"Acquainted with!  You're crazy, man.  What am I acquainted with,
except this house, and myself and my books and--and Bayport?"

"That's enough.  Why, there is material in that gang at the post-
office to make a dozen books.  Write about them."

"Tut! tut! tut!  You ARE crazy.  What shall I write; the life of
Ase Tidditt in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and
ending with 'By godfrey'?"

"You might do worse.  If the book were as funny as its hero I'd
undertake to sell a few copies."

"Funny!  _I_ couldn't write a funny book."

"Not an intentionally funny one, you mean.  But there!  There's no
use to talk to you."

"There is not, if you talk like an imbecile.  Is this your
brilliant 'prescription'?"

"No.  It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you
won't--not now.  You need something else first and I'll give it to
you.  But I'll tell you this, and I mean it:  Downstairs, in that
dining-room of yours, there's one mighty good story, at least."

"The dining-room?  A story in the dining-room?"

"Yes.  Or it was there when we passed the door just now."

I looked at him.  He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not.
I hate riddles.

"Oh, go to blazes!" I retorted, and turned away.

I looked into the dining-room as I went by.  There was no story in
sight there, so far as I could see.  Hephzy was seated by the
table, mending something, something of mine, of course.  She looked
up.

"Oh, Hosy," she said, "that letter you brought was a travel book
from the Raymond and Whitcomb folks.  I sent a stamp for it.  It's
awfully interesting!  All about tours through England and France
and Switzerland and everywhere.  So cheap they are!  I'm pickin'
out the ones I'm goin' on some day.  The pictures are lovely.
Don't you want to see 'em?"

"Not now," I replied.  Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel.
She, who had never been further from Bayport than Hartford,
Connecticut, was forever dreaming of globe-trotting.  It was not a
new disease with her, by any means; she had been dreaming the same
things ever since I had known her, and that is since I knew
anything.  Some day, SOME day she was going to this, that and the
other place.  She knew all about these places, because she had read
about them over and over again.  Her knowledge, derived as it was
from so many sources, was curiously mixed, but it was comprehensive,
of its kind.  She was continually sending for Cook's circulars and
booklets advertising personally conducted excursions.  And, with
the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she picked out, as she
had just done, the particular tours she would go on when her "some
day" came.  It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but not half as
funny as the thought of her really going would have been.  I would
have as soon thought of our front door leaving home and starting on
its travels as of Hephzy's doing it.  The door was no more a part
and fixture of that home than she was.

I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down
at my desk.  Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of
considering something to write about.  That I made up my mind to
forget for this night, at least.  My desk chair was my usual seat
in that room and I took that seat as a matter of habit.

As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book.  I did not
have to look far.  Books were my extravagance--almost my only one.
They filled the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study
and overflowed in untidy heaps on the floor.  They were Hephzy's
bugbear, for I refused to permit their being "straightened out" or
arranged.

I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they
were old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them.  I
tried and tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a
lonely hour, failed to interest me with his chatter.  Perhaps
Campbell's pointed remarks concerning lords and ladies had its
effect here.  Old Samuel loved to write of such people, having a
wide acquaintance with them, and perhaps that very acquaintance
made me jealous.  At any rate I threw the volume back upon its pile
and began to think of myself, and of my work, the very thing I had
expressly determined not to do when I came into the room.

Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I
knew haunted and irritated me.  I did know Bayport--yes, and it
might be true that the group at the post-office contained possible
material for many books; but, if so, it was material for the other
man, not for me.  "Write of what you know," said Jim.  And I knew
so little.  There was at least one good yarn in the dining-room at
that moment, he had declared.  He must have meant Hephzibah, but,
if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's dull, gray life-story to
interest an outside reader?  Her story and mine were interwoven and
neither contained anything worth writing about.  His fancy had been
caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic and the
practical, and in her dream of "Little Frank" he had scented a
mystery.  There was no mystery there, nothing but the most
commonplace record of misplaced trust and ingratitude.  Similar
things happen in so many families.

However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and
to review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley
changed its course so completely.  And now it seems to me that, in
the course of my "edging around" for the beginning of this present
chronicle--so different from anything I have ever written before or
ever expected to write--the time has come when the reader--
provided, of course, the said chronicle is ever finished or ever
reaches a reader--should know something of that life; should know a
little of the family history of the Knowles and the Cahoons and the
Morleys.



CHAPTER III

Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped
by the Reader


Let us take the Knowleses first.  My name is Hosea Kent Knowles--I
said that before--and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles.
He was lost in the wreck of the steamer "Monarch of the Sea," off
Hatteras.  The steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a
howling gale blowing and the thermometer a few degrees above zero.
The passengers and crew took to the boats and were saved.  My
father stuck by his ship and went down with her, as did also her
first mate, another Cape-Codder.  I was a baby at the time, and was
at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles, formerly Emily Cahoon,
Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece.  Mother had a little money of her
own and Father's life was insured for a moderate sum.  Her small
fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain Barnabas, who
was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days.  Mother
and I continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went to
school in the village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a
preparatory school near Boston.  Mother died a year later.  I was
an only child, but Hephzibah, who had always seemed like an older
sister to me, now began to "mother" me, the process which she has
kept up ever since.

Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife.
Hephzy was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no
one would guess it.  Her mother died when she was a little girl and
ten years later Captain Barnabas married again.  His second wife
was Susan Hammond, of Ostable, and by her he had one daughter,
Ardelia.  Hephzy has always declared "Ardelia" to be a pretty name.
I have my own opinion on that subject, but I keep it to myself.

At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough.  She was pretty
when a baby and prettier still as a schoolgirl.  Her mother--while
she lived, which was not long--spoiled her, and her half-sister,
Hephzy, assisted in the petting and spoiling.  Ardelia grew up with
the idea that most things in this world were hers for the asking.
Whatever took her fancy she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did
not give it to her, she considered herself ill-used.  She was the
young lady of the family and Hephzibah was the housekeeper and
drudge, an uncomplaining one, be it understood.  For her, as for
the Captain, the business of life was keeping Ardelia contented and
happy, and they gloried in the task.  Hephzy might have married
well at least twice, but she wouldn't think of such a thing.  "Pa
and Ardelia need me," she said; that was reason sufficient.

In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business.  He had
retired from active sea-going years before, but he retained an
interest in a certain line of coasting schooners.  The Captain, as
I said, went to Philadelphia on business connected with these
schooners and Ardelia went with him.  Hephzibah stayed at home, of
course; she always stayed at home, never expected to do anything
else, although even then her favorite reading were books of travel,
and pictures of the Alps, and of St. Peter's at Rome, and the Tower
of London were tacked up about her room.  She, too, might have gone
to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had asked, but she did not ask.
Her father did not think of inviting her.  He loved his oldest
daughter, although he did not worship her as he did Ardelia, but it
never occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the trip.  Hephzy
was always at home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.

In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.

I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the
most important I have set down so far.  The whole story of the
Cahoons and the Knowleses--that is, all of their story which is the
foundation of this history of mine--hinges on just that.  If those
two had not met I should not be writing this to-day, I might not be
writing at all; instead of having become a Bayport "quahaug" I
might have been the Lord knows what.

However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant
named Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas.  This
shipping merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a
party at her father's home.  Barnabas and Ardelia were invited.
Strickland Morley was invited also.

Morley, at that time--I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he
was at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and
vacations--was a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman.  He was
twenty-eight, but he looked younger.  He was the second son in a
Leicestershire family which had once been wealthy and influential
but which had, in its later generations, gone to seed.  He was
educated, in a general sort of way, was a good dancer, played the
violin fairly well, sang fairly well, had an attractive presence,
and was one of the most plausible and fascinating talkers I ever
listened to.  He had studied medicine--studied it after a fashion,
that is; he never applied himself to anything--and was then, in
'88, "ship's doctor" aboard a British steamer, which ran between
Philadelphia and Glasgow.  Miss Osgood had met him at the home of a
friend of hers who had traveled on that steamer.

Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in
love with Ardelia Cahoon.  Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was
the most wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that
he did--he could not help it, she says.  I am not so sure.  It is
very hard for me to believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love
with anyone but himself.  Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had
the reputation of being much richer than he really was.  And
Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt of that.  At all events,
Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently, desperately, head over
heels in love, the very moment the two were introduced.  They
danced practically every dance together that evening, met
surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and on
the sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter
announcing that she and Morley were married and had gone to New
York together.  "We will meet you there, Pa," wrote Ardelia.  "I
know you will forgive me for marrying Strickland.  He is the most
wonderful man in the wide world.  You will love him, Pa, as I do."

There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read
the note.  According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language
was a throwback from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool
packet.  That his idolized daughter had married without asking his
consent was bad enough; that she had married an Englishman was
worse.  Captain Barnabas hated all Englishmen.  A ship of his had
been captured and burned, in the war time, by the "Alabama," a
British built privateer, and the very mildest of the terms he
applied to a "John Bull" will not bear repetition in respectable
society.  He would not forgive Ardelia.  She and her "Cockney
husband" might sail together to the most tropical of tropics, or
words to that effect.

But he did forgive her, of course.  Likewise he forgave his son-in-
law.  When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly
wedded pair with him.  I was not present at that homecoming.  I was
away at prep school, digging at my examinations, trying hard to
forget that I was an orphan, but with the dull ache caused by my
mother's death always grinding at my heart.  Many years ago she
died, but the ache comes back now, as I think of her.  There is
more self-reproach in it than there used to be, more vain regrets
for impatient words and wasted opportunities.  Ah, if some of us--
boys grown older--might have our mothers back again, would we be as
impatient and selfish now?  Would we neglect the opportunities?  I
think not; I hope not.

Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the
pain of sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that
other for Ardelia's sake.  She determined to like him very much
indeed.  This wasn't so hard, at first.  Everyone liked and trusted
Strickland Morley at first sight.  Afterward, when they came to
know him better, they were not--if they were as wise and discerning
as Hephzy--so sure of the trust.  The wise and discerning were not,
I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and shrewd enough in other
things, trusted him to the end.

Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
father-in-law.  For the first month or two after the return to
Bayport the new member of the family was always speaking of his
plans for the future, of his profession and how he intended soon,
very soon, to look up a good location and settle down to practice.
Whenever he spoke thus, Captain Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not
to do it yet, to wait awhile.  "I am so happy with you and Pa and
Hephzy," declared Ardelia.  "I can't bear to go away yet,
Strickland.  And Pa doesn't want us to; do you, Pa?"

Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so
the Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house.  Then came the
first of the paralytic shocks--a very slight one--which rendered
Captain Barnabas, the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for
exertion or the cares of business.  He was not bedridden by any
means; he could still take short walks, attend town meetings and
those of the parish committee, but he must not, so Dr. Parker said,
be allowed to worry about anything.

And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry.  He spoke no
more of leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his
profession.  Instead he settled down in Bayport and took the
Captain's business cares upon his own shoulders.  Little by little
he increased his influence over the old man.  He attended to the
latter's investments, took charge of his bank account, collected
his dividends, became, so to speak, his financial guardian.
Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious--"I've always bossed my own
ship," he declared, "and I ain't so darned feeble-headed that I
can't do it yet"--gradually grew reconciled and then contented.
He, too, began to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter
herself did.

"He's a wonder," said the Captain.  "I never saw such a fellow for
money matters.  He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot
better'n I ever did.  I used to cal'late if I got six per cent.
interest I was doin' well.  He ain't satisfied with anything short
of eight, and he gets it, too.  Whatever that boy wants and I own
he can have.  Sometimes I think this consarned palsy of mine is a
judgment on me for bein' so sot against him in the beginnin'.  Why,
just look at how he runs this house, to say nothing of the rest of
it!  He's a skipper here; the rest of us ain't anything but fo'most
hands."

Which was not the exact truth.  Morley was skipper of the Cahoon
house, Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast
hand was Hephzy.  And yet, so far as "running" that house was
concerned the foremast hand ran it, as she always had done.  The
Captain and Ardelia were Morley's willing slaves; Hephzy was, and
continued to be, a free woman.  She worked from morning until
night, but she obeyed only such orders as she saw fit.

She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.

"I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy," she
has told me since.  "Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was
just the reason.  When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO
polite--maybe the average sinful common mortal like me gets
jealous; I don't know.  But I do know that, to save my life, I
couldn't swallow him whole the way Ardelia and Father did.  I
wanted to look him over first; and the more I looked him over, and
the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure I felt he'd give
us all dyspepsy before he got through.  Unreasonable, wasn't it?"

For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to
get on with the new head of the family.  Only one thing she did,
and that against Motley's and her father's protest.  She withdrew
her own little fortune, left her by her mother, from Captain
Barnabas's care and deposited it in the Ostable savings bank and in
equally secure places.  Of course she told the Captain of her
determination to do this before she did it and the telling was the
cause of the only disagreement, almost a quarrel, which she and her
father ever had.  The Captain was very angry and demanded reasons.
Hephzibah declared she didn't know that she had any reasons, but
she was going to do it, nevertheless.  And she did do it.  For
months thereafter relations between the two were strained; Barnabas
scarcely spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed tears in the
solitude of her bedroom.  They were hard months for her.

At the end of them came the crash.  Morley had developed a habit of
running up to Boston on business trips connected with his father-
in-law's investments.  Of late these little trips had become more
frequent.  Also, so it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of
his genial sweetness and suavity, and becoming more moody and less
entertaining.  Telegrams and letters came frequently and these he
read and destroyed at once.  He seldom played the violin now unless
Captain Barnabas--who was fond of music of the simpler sort--
requested him to do so and he seemed uneasy and, for him,
surprisingly disinclined to talk.

Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him.  Ardelia
noticed it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed,
sought her sister's advice.

"I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last
time," Hephzy has told me over and over again.  "She came up to my
room, poor thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me
how worried she was about her husband.  Father had turned in and HE
was out, gone to the post-office or somewheres.  I had Ardelia all
to myself, for a wonder, and we sat and talked just the same as we
used to before she was married.  I'm glad it happened so.  I shall
always have that to remember, anyhow.

"Of course, all her worry was about Strickland.  She was afraid he
was makin' himself sick.  He worked so hard; didn't I think so?
Well, so far as that was concerned, I had come to believe that
almost any kind of work was liable to make HIM sick, but of course
I didn't say that to her.  That somethin' was troublin' him was
plain, though I was far enough from guessin' what that somethin'
was.

"We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about
ourselves.  Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her
husband for the subject of worship; she was so happy with him and
idolized him so that she couldn't spare time for much else.  But
she did speak a little about herself and, before she went away, she
whispered somethin' in my ear which was a dead secret.  Even Father
didn't know it yet, she said.  Of course I was as pleased as she
was, almost--and a little frightened too, although I didn't say so
to her.  She was always a frail little thing, delicate as she was
pretty; not a strapping, rugged, homely body like me.  We wasn't a
bit alike.

"So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra
hug and kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when
she was a little girl.  I wondered since if she had any inklin' of
what was goin' to happen.  I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I
am that it did happen.  She couldn't have kept it from me if she
had known--not that night.  She went away to bed and I went to bed,
too.  I was a long while gettin' to sleep and after I did I dreamed
my first dream about 'Little Frank.'  I didn't call him 'Little
Frank' then, though.  I don't seem to remember what I did call him
or just how he looked except that he looked like Ardelia.  And the
next afternoon she and Strickland went away--to Boston, he told
us."

From that trip they never returned.  Morley's influence over his
wife must have been greater even than any of us thought to induce
her to desert her father and Hephzy without even a written word of
explanation or farewell.  It is possible that she did write and
that her husband destroyed the letter.  I am as sure as Hephzy is
that Ardelia did not know what Morley had done.  But, at all
events, they never came back to Bayport and within the week the
truth became known.  Morley had speculated, had lost and lost again
and again.  All of Captain Barnabas's own money and all intrusted
to his care, including my little nest-egg, had gone as margins to
the brokers who had bought for Morley his worthless eight per cent.
wildcats.  Hephzy's few thousands in the savings bank and elsewhere
were all that was left.

I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I
can.  Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far
as the steamer which sailed for England.  Farther he would not
trace them, although he might easily have cabled and caused his
son-in-law's arrest.  For a month he went about in a sort of daze,
speaking to almost no one and sitting for hours alone in his room.
The doctor feared for his sanity, but when the breakdown came it
was in the form of a second paralytic stroke which left him a
helpless, crippled dependent, weak and shattered in body and mind.

He lived nine years longer.  Meanwhile various things happened.  I
managed to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of
entering college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business--
save the mark--taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a
wholesale drygoods house in Boston.  As entry clerk I did not
shine, but I continued to keep the place until the firm failed--
whether or not because of my connection with it I am not sure,
though I doubt if my services were sufficiently important to
contribute toward even this result.  A month later I obtained
another position and, after that, another.  I was never discharged;
I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I announced
to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the shock
with--to say the least--philosophic fortitude.

"We shall miss you, Knowles," he observed.

"Thank you, sir," said I.

"I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you."

I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.

"Oh, I guess you can find one if you try," I said, lightly, wishing
to comfort him.

He shook his head.  "I sha'n't try," he declared.  "I am not as
young and as strong as I was and--well, there is always the chance
that we might succeed."

It was a mean thing to say--to a boy, for I was scarcely more than
that.  And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to
smile and forgive than I was then.  My bookkeeping must have been a
trial to his orderly, pigeon-holed soul.  Why in the world he and
his partner put up with it so long is a miracle.  When, after my
first novel appeared, he wrote me to say that the consciousness of
having had a part, small though it might be, in training my young
mind upward toward the success it had achieved would always be a
great gratification to him, I did not send the letter I wrote in
answer.  Instead I tore up my letter and his and grinned.  I WAS a
bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business man.  Now I
don't care so much; that is the difference.

Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task.  What
else was there for me to do?  My salary was so small that, as
Charlie Burns, one of my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid
to count it over a bare floor for fear that it might drop in a
crack and be lost.  It was my only revenue, however, and I
continued to live upon it somehow.  I had a small room in a
boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my evenings
there or in the reading-room at the public library.  I was not
popular at the boarding-house.  Most of the young fellows there
went out a good deal, to call upon young ladies or to dance or to
go to the theater.  I had learned to dance when I was at school and
I was fond of the theater, but I did not dance well and on the rare
occasions when I did accompany the other fellows to the play and
they laughed and applauded and tried to flirt with the chorus
girls, I fidgeted in my seat and was uncomfortable.  Not that I
disapproved of their conduct; I rather envied them, in fact.  But
if I laughed too heartily I was sure that everyone was looking at
me, and though I should have liked to flirt, I didn't know how.

The few attempts I made were not encouraging.  One evening--I was
nineteen then, or thereabouts--Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant
and "go somewhere" afterward.  I agreed--it happened to be Saturday
night and I had my pay in my pocket--so we feasted on oyster stew
and ice cream and then started for what my companion called a
"variety show."  Burns, who cherished the fond hope that he was a
true sport, ordered beer with his oyster stew and insisted that I
should do the same.  My acquaintance with beer was limited and I
never did like the stuff, but I drank it with reckless abandon,
following each sip with a mouthful of something else to get rid of
the taste.  On the way to the "show" we met two young women of
Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them.  Charlie
offered his arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the
discard, and we proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont
Street mall of the Common.  We had strolled for perhaps ten
minutes, most of which time I had spent trying to think of
something to say, when Burns' charmer--she was a waitress in one of
Mr. Wyman's celebrated "sandwich depots," I believe--turned and,
looking back at my fair one and myself, observed with some sarcasm:
"What's the matter with your silent partner, Mame?  Got the lock-
jaw, has he?"

I left them soon after that.  There was no "variety show" for me
that night.  Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my
room at the boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that
the gentlemanly dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.

As I grew older I kept more and more to myself.  My work at the
office must have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary
was raised twice in four years, but I detested the work and the
office and all connected with it.  I read more and more at the
public library and began to spend the few dollars I could spare for
luxuries on books.  Among my acquaintances at the boarding-house
and elsewhere I had the reputation of being "queer."

My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in
summer.  These glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport.  There,
at our old home, for Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and
she and her father were living in mine, for which they paid a very
small rent, I was happy.  I spent the two weeks in sailing and
fishing, and tramping along the waved-washed beaches and over the
pine-sprinkled hills.  Even in Bayport I had few associates of my
own age.  Even then they began to call me "The Quahaug."  Hephzy
hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away and mended
my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval.  Captain
Barnabas sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window,
looking out or sleeping.  He took little interest in me or anyone
else and spoke but seldom.  Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July
or Christmas at Bayport; not often, but as often as I could.

One morning--I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday--
I read a story in one of the low-priced magazines.  It was not
much of a story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could
write as good a one.  I had had such ideas before, but nothing had
come of them.  This time, however, I determined to try.  In half an
hour I had evolved a plot, such as it was, and at a quarter to
twelve that night the story was finished.  A highwayman was its
hero and its scene the great North Road in England.  My conceptions
of highwaymen and the North Road--of England, too, for that matter--
were derived from something I had read at some time or other, I
suppose; they must have been.  At any rate, I finished that story,
addressed the envelope to the editor of the magazine and dropped
the envelope and its inclosure in the corner mail-box before I went
to bed.  Next morning I went to the office as usual.  I had not the
faintest hope that the story would be accepted.  The writing of it
had been fun and the sending it to the magazine a joke.

But the story was accepted and the check which I received--forty
dollars--was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half
that amount.  The encouraging letter which accompanied the check
was best of all.  Before the week ended I had written another
thriller and this, too, was accepted.

Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my
evenings were riots of ink and blood.  The ink was real enough and
the blood purely imaginary.  My heroes spilled the latter and I the
former.  Sometimes my yarns were refused, but the most of them were
accepted and paid for.  Editors of other periodicals began to write
to me requesting contributions.  My price rose.  For one
particularly harrowing and romantic tale I was paid seventy-five
dollars.  I dressed in my best that evening, dined at the Adams
House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw Joseph Jefferson from an
orchestra seat.

Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New
York and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be
written by me and published by the firm of which he was the head.
I saw my employer, obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday
and Sunday in New York, my first visit.

As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my
first long story, "The Queen's Amulet."  The "Amulet," or the
"Omelet," just as you like, was a financial success.  It sold a
good many thousand copies.  Six months later I broke to my
employers the distressing news that their business must henceforth
worry on as best it could without my aid; I was going to devote my
valuable time and effort to literature.

My fellow-clerks were surprised.  Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper
now, and a married man and a father, was much concerned.

"But, great Scott, Kent!" he protested, "you're going to do
something besides write books, ain't you?  You ain't going to make
your whole living that way?"

"I am going to try," I said.

"Great Scott!  Why, you'll starve!  All those fellows live in
garrets and starve to death, don't they?"

"Not all," I told him.  "Only real geniuses do that."

He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.

My plans were made and I put them into execution at once.  I
shipped my goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books,
to Bayport and went there to live and write in the old house where
I was born.  Hephzy was engaged as my housekeeper.  She was alone
now; Captain Barnabas had died nearly two years before.

Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his
death was a letter from Strickland Morley.  It was written from a
town in France and was dated six years after Morley's flight and
the disclosure of his crookedness.  Captain Barnabas had never,
apparently, answered the letter; certainly he had never told anyone
of its receipt by him.  The old man never mentioned Morley's name
and only spoke of Ardelia during his last hours, when his mind was
wandering.  Then he spoke of and asked for her continually, driving
poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love for her lost sister was
as great as his.

The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man.
I can scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I
understand more completely the circumstances under which it was
written.  It was not too plainly written or coherent and seemed to
imply that other letters had preceded it.  Morley begged for money.
He was in "pitiful straits," he declared, compelled to live as no
gentleman of birth and breeding should live.  As a matter of fact,
the remnant of his resources, the little cash left from the
Captain's fortune which he had taken with him had gone and he was
earning a precarious living by playing the violin in a second-rate
orchestra.  "For poor dead Ardelia's sake," he wrote, "and for the
sake of little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend the
financial help which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand.  You may
consider that I have wronged you, but, as you should know and must
know, the wrong was unintentional and due solely to the sudden
collapse of the worthless American investments which the
scoundrelly Yankee brokers inveigled me into making."

If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time
to prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.

"Suicide!  HE commit suicide!" sniffed Hephzy when she read me the
letter.  "He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it.
But, oh dear! I wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of
hidin' it away.  I might have sent somethin', not to him, but to
poor, motherless Little Frank."

She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but
her letter had been returned.  Morley and the child of whom this
letter furnished the only information were no longer in that
locality.  Hephzy had talked of "Little Frank" and dreamed about
him at intervals ever since.  He had come to be a reality to her,
and she even cut a child's picture from a magazine and fastened it
to the wall of her room beneath the engraving of Westminster Abbey,
because there was something about the child in the picture which
reminded her of "Little Frank" as he looked in her dreams.

She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out,
each with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and
places of which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing
whatever.  Finally I had reached my determination to write no more
"slush," profitable though it might be.  I invited Jim to visit me;
he had come and the conversation at the boathouse and his remarks
at the bedroom door were all the satisfaction that visit had
brought me so far.

I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I
have set it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility
of finding even a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional
foundation in Hephzibah or her life or mine was as remote at the
end of my thinking as it had been at the beginning.  There might be
a story there, or a part of a story, but I could not write it.  The
real trouble was that I could not write anything.  With which,
conclusion, exactly what I started with, I blew out the lamp and
went upstairs to bed.

Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not
return until nearly dinner-time.  During that whole forenoon he did
not mention the promised "prescription," although I offered him
plenty of opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.

He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal
and asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no
bearing on the all-important problem which had been my real reason
for inviting him to Bayport.  He questioned me again concerning my
way of spending my time, about my savings, how much money I had put
by, and the like, but I was not particularly interested in these
matters and they were not his business, to put it plainly.  At
least, I could not see that they were.

I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved
rather boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best
friend I had in the world.  His apparent lack of interest hurt and
disappointed me and I did not care if he knew it.  My impatience
must have been apparent enough, but if so it did not trouble him;
he chatted and laughed and told stories all the way from the
landing to the house and announced to Hephzy, who had stayed at
home from church in order to prepare and cook clam chowder and
chicken pie and a "Queen pudding," that he had an appetite like a
starved shark.

When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to
the sitting-room for a farewell smoke.  His train left at three-
thirty and it lacked but an hour of that time.  He had worn my
suit, the one which Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before,
but had changed to his own again and packed his bag before dinner.

We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar.  Then, to my
astonishment, he rose and shut the door.

"What did you do that for?" I asked.

He came back to his chair.

"Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle," he replied,
"and I don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in.
Kent, I told you that before I went I was going to prescribe for
you, didn't I?  Well, I'm going to do it now.  Are you ready for
the prescription?"

"I have been ready for it for some time," I retorted.  "I began to
think you had forgotten it altogether."

"I hadn't.  But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear
from me and I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of
fool objections to spring on me before I left.  Look here, I'm your
doctor now; do you understand?  You called me in as a specialist
and what I say goes.  Is that understood?"

"I hear you."

"You've got to do more than hear me.  You've got to do what I tell
you.  I know what ails you.  You've buried yourself in the mud down
here.  Wake up, you clam!  Come out of your shell.  Stir around.
Stop thinking about yourself and think of something worth while."

"Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle.  And what is the
something worth while I am to think about; you?"

"Yes, by George! me!  Me and the dear public!  Here are thirty-five
thousand seekers after the--the higher literature, panting open-
mouthed for another Knowles classic.  And you sit back here and
cover yourself with sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to
them."

"You're wrong.  I say I can't."

"You will, though."

"I won't.  You can bet high on that."

"You will, and I'll bet higher.  YOU write no more stories!  You!
Why, confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried.  You needn't
write another 'Black Brig' unless you want to.  You needn't--you
mustn't write anything UNTIL you want to.  But, by George! you'll
get up and open your eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until
the time comes when you've found something or someone you DO want
to write about.  THEN you'll write; you will, for I know you.  It
may turn out to be what you call 'slush,' or it may not, but you'll
write it, mark my words."

He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me.  But what he
had said did not suit me.

"Don't talk nonsense, Jim," I said.  "Don't you suppose I have
thought--"

"Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think.  Stop thinking.
Stop being a quahaug--a dead one, anyway.  Drop the whole business,
drop Bayport, drop America, if you like.  Get up, clear out, go to
China, go to Europe, go to--Well, never mind, but go somewhere.  Go
somewhere and forget it.  Travel, take a long trip, start for one
place and, if you change your mind before you get there, go
somewhere else.  It doesn't make much difference where, so that you
go, and see different things.  I'm talking now, Kent Knowles, and
it isn't altogether because it pays us to publish your books,
either.  You drop Bayport and drop writing.  Go out and pick up and
go.  Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years, but keep alive
and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is a brain
house-cleaning.  Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of
these best front parlors down here.  Open the windows and air out.
Let the outside light in.  An idea may come with it; it is barely
possible, even to you!"

He was out of breath by this time.  I was in a somewhat similar
condition for his tirade had taken mine away.  However, I managed
to express my feelings.

"Humph!" I grunted.  "And so this is your wonderful prescription.
I am to travel, am I?"

"You are.  You can afford it, and I'll see that you do."

"And just what port would you recommend?"

"I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way
off.  I'm not joking, Kent; this is straight.  A good long jaunt
around the world would do you a barrel of good.  Don't stop to
think about it, just start, that's all.  Will you?"

I laughed.  The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was
ridiculous.  If ever there was a home-loving and home-staying
person it was I.  The bare thought of leaving my comfort and my
books and Hephzy made me shudder.  I hadn't the least desire to see
other countries and meet other people.  I hated sleeping cars and
railway trains and traveling acquaintances.  So I laughed.

"Sorry, Jim," I said, "but I'm afraid I can't take your
prescription."

"Why not?"

"For one reason because I don't want to."

"That's no reason at all.  It doesn't make any difference what you
want.  Anything else?"

"Yes.  I would no more wander about creation all alone than--"

"Take someone with you."

"Who?  Will you go, yourself?"

He shook his head.

"I wish I could," he said, and I think he meant it.  "I'd like
nothing better.  I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that.  But I
can't leave the literature works just now.  I'll do my best to find
someone who will, though.  I know a lot of good fellows who travel--"

I held up my hand.  "That's enough," I interrupted.  "They can't
travel with me.  They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did."

He struck the chair arm with his fist.

"You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you," he
exclaimed.  "Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you.  I never
gave you bad advice yet, now did I?"

"No--o.  No, but--"

"I'm not giving it to you now.  You'll go and you'll go in a hurry.
I'll give you a week to think the idea over.  At the end of that
time if I don't hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll
worry you every minute until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me.
Kent, you must do it.  You aren't written out, as you call it, but
you are rusting out, fast.  If you don't get away and polish up
you'll never do a thing worth while.  You'll be another what's-his-
name--Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be.  I can see it coming on.
You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're--"

I broke in here.  I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not
like to be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town
clerk is a good citizen and all right, in his way.  But I had
flattered myself that way was not mine.

"Stop it, Jim!" I ordered.  "Don't blow off any more steam in this
ridiculous fashion.  If this is all you have to say to me, you may
as well stop."

"Stop!  I've only begun.  I'll stop when you start, and not before.
Will you go?"

"I can't, Jim.  You know I can't."

"I know you can and I know you're going to.  There!" rising and
laying a hand on my shoulder, "it is time for ME to be starting.
Kent, old man, I want you to promise me that you will do as I tell
you.  Will you?"

"I can't, Jim.  I would if I could, but--"

"Will you promise me to think the idea over?  Think it over
carefully; don't think of anything else for the rest of the week?
Will you promise me to do that?"

I hesitated.  I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like
to appear too stubborn.

"Why, yes, Jim," I said, doubtfully, "I promise so much, if that is
any satisfaction to you."

"All right.  I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind.  If I
don't hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that
you have made it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday.
I'll keep the process up week in and week out until you give in.
That's MY promise.  Come on.  We must be moving."

He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station.
His last words as we shook hands by the car steps were:  "Remember--
think.  But don't you dare think of anything else."  My answer was
a dubious shake of the head.  Then the train pulled out.

I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the "bluest" of
all my blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's
visit.  I was dreadfully disappointed.  Of course I should have
realized that no advice or "prescription" could help me.  As
Campbell had said, "It was up to me;" I must help myself; but I had
been trying to help myself for months and I had not succeeded.  I
had--foolishly, I admit--relied upon him to give me a new idea, a
fresh inspiration, and he had not done it.  I was disappointed and
more discouraged than ever.

My state of mind may seem ridiculous.  Perhaps it was.  I was in
good health, not very old--except in my feelings--and my stories,
even the "Black Brig," had not been failures, by any means.  But I
am sure that every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does
creative work of any kind, will understand and sympathize with me.
I had "gone stale," that is the technical name for my disease, and
to "go stale" is no joke.  If you doubt it ask the writer or
painter of your acquaintance.  Ask him if he ever has felt that he
could write or paint no more, and then ask him how he liked the
feeling.  The fact that he has written or painted a great deal
since has no bearing on the matter.  "Staleness" is purely a mental
ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its
attacks are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time.  He
knows he is dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in
earnest.

I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the
advice to go away and bury myself in a strange country did not
appeal to me.  It might be true that I was already buried in
Bayport, but that was my home cemetery, at all events.  The more I
thought of Jim Campbell's prescription the less I felt like taking
it.

However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that.
On Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding
information.  "When and where are you going?" he wrote.  "Wire
answer."  I did not wire answer.  I was not going anywhere.

I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame
of letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself,
had come to Simmons's for his mail.  He greeted me cordially.

"Hello, Kent," he hailed.  "How are you?"

"About the same as usual, Captain," I answered, shortly.

"That's pretty fair, by the looks.  You don't look too happy,
though, come to notice it.  What's the matter; got bad news?"

"No.  I haven't any news, good or bad."

"That so?  Then I'll give you some.  Phoebe and I are going to
start for California to-morrow."

"You are?  To California?  Why?"

"Oh, just for instance, that's all.  Time's come when I have to go
somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me.
It's this way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that.  Nobody's more
in love with this old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to
live and die here, if I have luck.  But it don't do for me to stay
here all the time.  If I do I begin to be no good, like a
strawberry plant that's been kept in one place too long and has
quit bearin.'  The only thing to do with that plant is to
transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot.  Then you
can move it back by and by and it's all right.  Same way with me.
Every once in a while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up.
My brains need somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle
gossip to keep them from shrivelin'.  I was commencin' to feel the
shrivel, so it's California for Phoebe and me.  Better come along,
Kent.  You're beginnin' to shrivel a little, ain't you?"

Was it as apparent as all that?  I was indignant.

"Do I look it?" I demanded.

"No--o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it.  No offence, you
understand.  Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all."

It was not likely that I should accept.  Two are company and three
a crowd, and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were
those two.  I thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.

"You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?" I asked.

"Hey?  I sartin do.  Change your course once in awhile, same as you
change your clothes.  Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the
same puddle all the time ain't healthy.  You're too apt to get sick
of the clothes and puddle both."

"But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?"

"No," emphatically, "I don't, generally speakin.'  If you go off by
yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself.  Take
somebody with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like,
though.  Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than
travelin' alone.  You want to be mighty sure of your shipmate."

I walked home.  Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and
knitting a stocking, a stocking for me.  She did not need to use
her eyes for the knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in
her sleep.

"Hello, Hosy," she said, "been up to the office, have you?  Any
mail?"

"Nothing much.  Humph!  Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb
circular?"

"No, not that one.  This is one I got last year.  I've been sittin'
here plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could.
It's the next best thing to really goin'."

I looked at her.  All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my
mind.  It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet--and yet
it seemed--

"Hephzy," said I, suddenly, "would you really like to go abroad?"

"WOULD I?  Hosy, how you talk!  You know I've been crazy to go ever
since I was a little girl.  I don't know what makes me so.  Perhaps
it's the salt water in my blood.  All our folks were sailors and
ship captains.  They went everywhere.  I presume likely it takes
more than one generation to kill off that sort of thing."

"And you really want to go?"

"Of course I do."

"Then why haven't you gone?  You could afford to take a moderate-
priced tour."

Hephzy laughed over her knitting.

"I guess," she said, "I haven't gone for the reason you haven't,
Hosy.  You could afford, it, too--you know you could.  But how
could I go and leave you?  Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute
wonderin' if you were wearin' clothes without holes in 'em and if
you changed your flannels when the weather changed and ate what you
ought to, and all that.  You've been so--so sort of dependent on me
and I've been so used to takin' care of you that I don't believe
either of us would be happy anywhere without the other.  I know
certain sure _I_ shouldn't."

I did not answer immediately.  The idea, the amazing, ridiculous
idea which had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of
its absurdity.  Somehow it began to look like the answer to my
riddle.  I realized that my main objection to the Campbell
prescription had been that I must take it alone or with strangers.
And now--

"Hephzy," I demanded, "would you go away--on a trip abroad--with
me?"

She put down the knitting.

"Hosy Knowles!" she exclaimed.  "WHAT are you talkin' about?"

"But would you?"

"I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely
that--where are you goin'?"

I did not answer.  I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the
house.

When I returned I found her still knitting.  The circular lay on
the floor at her feet.  She regarded me anxiously.

"Hosy," she demanded, "where--"

I interrupted.  "Hephzy," said I, "I have been to the station to
send a telegram."

"A telegram?  A TELEGRAM!  For mercy sakes, who's dead?"

Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness.
I laughed.

"No one is dead, Hephzy," I replied.  "In fact it is barely
possible that someone is coming to life.  I telegraphed Mr.
Campbell to engage passage for you and me on some steamer leaving
for Europe next week."

Hephzibah turned pale.  The partially knitted sock dropped beside
the circular.

"Why--why--what--?" she gasped.

"On a steamer leaving next week," I repeated.  "You want to travel,
Hephzy.  Jim says I must.  So we'll travel together."

She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time
to convince her.  But when at last she began to believe--at least
to the extent of believing that I had sent the telegram--her next
remark was characteristic.

"But I--I can't go, Hosy," declared Hephzibah.  "I CAN'T.  Who--who
would take care of the cat and the hens?"



CHAPTER IV

In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together


The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back
to it now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a
year ago.  Its happenings, important and wonderful as they were,
seem trivial and tame compared with those which came afterward.
And yet, at the time, that week was a season of wild excitement and
delightful anticipation for Hephzibah, and of excitement not
unmingled with doubts and misgivings for me.  For us both it was a
busy week, to put it mildly.

Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not "raving
distracted," which I think was her first diagnosis of my case,
Hephzy's practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her
going at all and, second, to going on such short notice.

"I don't think I'd better, Hosy," she said.  "You're awful good to
ask me and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I
ought to do it, even if I felt as if I could leave the house and
everything alone.  You see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that
I'm old-fashioned and funny and countrified, I guess.  You'd be
ashamed of me."

I smiled.  "When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy," I replied, "I shall
be on my way to the insane asylum, not to Europe.  You are much
more likely to be ashamed of me."

"The idea!  And you the pride of this town!  The only author that
ever lived in it--unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he
lived in the poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM."

Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet.  He wrote the
immortal ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:


    "On a fine morning at break of day,
     When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
     And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
     Then all hands start to go scallop-ING."


In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem
you should put a strong emphasis on the final "ing."  Joshua always
did and the summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him
recite it.  There are eighteen more verses.

"I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy," I repeated.  "You know it
perfectly well.  And I shall not go unless you go."

"But I can't go, Hosy.  I couldn't leave the hens and the cat.
They'd starve; you know they would."

"Susanna will look after them.  I'll leave money for their
provender.  And I will pay Susanna for taking care of them.  She
has fallen in love with the cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt
it."

"And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear."

"Neither have I.  We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New
York."

"But--"

There were innumerable "buts."  I answered them as best I could.
Also I reiterated my determination not to go unless she did.  I
told of Campbell's advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that
he had said travel was my only hope.  Unless she wished me to die
of despair she must agree to travel with me.

"And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to
go abroad," I added, as a final clincher.

"I know it.  I know I have.  But--but now when it comes to really
goin' I'm not so sure.  Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in
prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but
when he was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both
doctors here in town and one from Harniss.  I don't know whether I
want to go or not, Hosy.  I--I'm frightened, I guess."

Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.

"Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth,"
it read.  "Hearty congratulations on your good sense.  Who is your
companion?  Write particulars."

The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections.  The fares
had been paid and she was certain they must be "dreadful
expensive."  All that money could not be wasted, so she accepted
the inevitable and began preparations.

I did not write the "particulars" requested.  I had a feeling that
Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer
one and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not
change it, I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in
New York before telling him.  So I wrote a brief note stating that
my friend and I would reach New York on the morning of the tenth
and that I would see him there.  Also I asked, for my part, the
name of the steamer he had selected.

His answer was as vague as mine.  He congratulated me once more
upon my decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he
called my "foreign junket," and gave some valuable advice
concerning the necessary outfit, clothes, trunks and the like.
"Travel light," he wrote.  "You can buy whatever else you may need
on the other side.  'Phone as soon as you reach New York."  But he
did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for what port she was to
sail.

So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for
information upon those more or less important subjects, and we
speculated and guessed not a little.  The New York dailies were not
obtainable in Bayport except during the summer months and the
Boston publications did not give the New York sailings.  I wrote to
a friend in Boston and he sent me the leading journals of the
former city and, as soon as they arrived, Hephzy sat down upon the
sitting-room carpet--which she had insisted upon having taken up to
be packed away in moth balls--to look at the maritime advertisements.
I am quite certain it was the only time she sat down, except at
meals, that day.

I selected one of the papers and she another.  We reached the same
conclusion simultaneously.

"Why, it must be--" she began.

"The Princess Eulalie," I finished.

"It is the only one that sails on the tenth.  There is one on the
eleventh, though."

"Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
expensive liners afloat.  It isn't likely that Jim had booked us
for the 'Plutonia.'  She would scarcely be in our--in my class."

"Humph!  I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you,
Hosy.  But I would look funny on her, I give in.  I've read about
her.  She's always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and
things.  Just the sort of folks you write about.  She'd be just the
one for you."

I shook my head.  "My lords and ladies are only paper dolls,
Hephzy," I said, ruefully.  "I should be as lost as you among the
flesh and blood variety.  No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours.
She runs to Amsterdam, though.  Odd that Jim should send me to
Holland."

Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.

"I don't doubt he did it on purpose," she declared.  "He knew
neither you nor I was anxious to go to England.  He knows we don't
think much of the English, after our experience with that Morley
brute."

"No, he doesn't know any such thing.  I've never told him a word
about Morley.  And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy.  I've kept
that as a--as a surprise for him."

"Well, never mind.  I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England.  It's
nearer to France."

I was surprised.  "Nearer to France?" I repeated.  "What difference
does that make?  We don't know anyone in France."

Hephzibah was plainly shocked.  "Why, Hosy!" she protested.  "Have
you forgotten Little Frank?  He is in France somewhere, or he was
at last accounts."

"Good Lord!" I groaned.  Then I got up and went out.  I had
forgotten "Little Frank" and hoped that she had.  If she was to
flit about Europe seeing "Little Frank" on every corner I foresaw
trouble.  "Little Frank" was likely to be the bane of my existence.

We left Bayport on Monday morning.  The house was cleaned and swept
and scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom.  Every door was
double-locked and every window nailed.  Burglars are unknown in
Bayport, but that didn't make any difference.  "You can't be too
careful," said Hephzy.  I was of the opinion that you could.

The cat had been "farmed out" with Susanna's people and Susanna
herself was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night
and let them out each morning.  Their keeper had a carefully
prepared schedule as to quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had
prepared and furnished it.

"And don't you give 'em any fish," ordered Hephzy.  "I ate a
chicken once that had been fed on fish, and--my soul!"

There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off.
Captain Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were
near California by this time.  But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was
there and so was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs.
Bailey Bangs and Captain Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several
others.  Oh, yes! and Angeline Phinney.  Angeline was there, of
course.  If anything happened in Bayport and Angeline was not there
to help it happen, then--I don't know what then; the experiment had
never been tried in my lifetime.

Everyone said pleasant things to us.  They really seemed sorry to
have us leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves
as glad.  It would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much
to tell when we got back.  Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me
to give a little talk to the Sunday school upon my return.  It
would be a wonderful thing for the children.  To my mind the most
wonderful part of the idea was that he should take my consent for
granted.  _I_ talk to the Sunday school!  I, the Quahaug!  My knees
shook even at the thought.

Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a "lovely time."  She declared
that it had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing.
But she should never do it--no, no!  Such things wasn't for her.
If she had a husband like some women it might be, but not as 'twas.
She had long ago given up hopin' to do anything but keep boarders,
and she had to do that all by herself.

Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did
not attempt defence.  I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom.
It was time; he had attended his wife's academy a long while.

Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept
in the cellar over winter.  "Nice to eat on the cars," he told us.
Everyone asked us to send postcards.  Miss Phinney was especially
solicitous.

"It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin,"
she declared.

When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from
the window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's
request.

"I send HER postcards!" she snapped.  "I think I see myself doin'
it!  All she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to
Beersheba showin' 'em to everybody and talkin' about how
extravagant we are and wonderin' if we borrowed the money.  But
there! it won't make any difference.  If I don't send 'em to her
she'll read all I send to other folks.  She and Rebecca Simmons are
close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads everything that comes
through her husband's post-office.  All that aren't sealed, that
is--yes, and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're not
sealed tight."

Her next remark was a surprising one.

"Hosy," she said, "how much they all think of you, don't they.
Isn't it nice to know you're so popular."

I turned in the seat to stare at her.

"Popular!" I repeated.  "Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for
your brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it
shows signs of softening."

She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to
it.

"I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all,
like--well, Eben Salters," she went on.  "But the folks that count
all respect and like you, Hosy.  I know they do."

Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman--since the departure of
the Honorable Heman Atkins.  He has filled every office in his
native village and he has served one term as representative in the
State House at Boston.  He IS popular.

"It is marvelous how affection can be concealed," I observed, with
sarcasm.  Hephzy was back at me like a flash.

"Of course they don't tell you of it," she said.  "If they did
you'd probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and
not speak to 'em again.  But they do like you, and I know it."

It was useless to carry the argument further.  When Hephzy begins
chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender--and change the
subject.

In Boston we shopped.  It seems to me that we did nothing else.  I
bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat
and traveling cap included.  It did not take me long; fortunately I
am of the average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy
to please.  My shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent
the remainder of the afternoon at a bookseller's.  There was a set
of "Early English Poets" there, nineteen little, fat, chunky
volumes, not new and shiny and grand, but middle-aged and shabby
and comfortable, which appealed to me.  The price, however, was
high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought not to afford it.  Then
the bookseller himself, who also was fat and comfortably shabby,
and who had beguiled from me the information that I was about to
travel, suggested that the "Poets" would make very pleasant reading
en route.

"I have found," he said, beaming over his spectacles, "that a
little book of this kind," patting one of the volumes, "which may
be carried in the pocket, is a rare traveling companion.  When you
wish his society he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut
him up.  You can't do that with all traveling companions, you know.
Ha! ha!"

He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him.  Humor of that
kind is expensive, for I bought the "English Poets" and ordered
them sent to my hotel.  It was not until they were delivered, an
hour later, that I began to wonder what I should do with them.  Our
trunks were likely to be crowded and I could not carry all of the
nineteen volumes in my pockets.

Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return
until nearly seven.  She returned weary and almost empty-handed.

"But didn't you buy ANYTHING?" I asked.  "Where in the world have
you been?"

She had been everywhere, so she said.  This wasn't entirely true,
but I gathered that she had visited about every department store in
the city.  She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh
dear! they did cost so much.

"There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully," she
said.  "It was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so
it wouldn't show water spots.  I've been out sailing enough times
to know how your things get water-spotted.  It fitted me real nice;
there wouldn't have to be a thing done to it.  But it cost thirty-
one dollars!  'My soul!' says I, 'I can't afford THAT!'  But they
didn't have anything cheaper that wouldn't have made me look like
one of those awful play-actin' girls that came to Bayport with the
Uncle Tom's Cabin show.  And I tried everywhere and nothin' pleased
me so well."

"So you didn't buy the coat?"

"BUY it?  My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost--"

"I know.  What else did you see that you didn't buy?"

"Hey?  Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on.
That fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened.
And it would have gone SO well with that coat.  But the suit cost
FORTY dollars.  'Good land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for
poor folks?'  And you ought to have seen the look that girl gave
me!  And a hat--oh, yes, I saw a hat!  It was--"

There was a great deal more.  Summed up it amounted to something
like this:  All that suited her had been too high-priced and all
that she considered within her means hadn't suited her at all.  So
she had bought practically nothing but a few non-essentials.  And
we were to leave for New York the following night and sail for
Europe the day after.

"Hephzy," said I, "you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and
I'll go with you."

Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and
various other things.  With each purchase Hephzy's groans and
protests at my reckless extravagance grew louder.  At last I had an
inspiration.

"Hephzy," said I, "when we meet Little Frank over there in France,
or wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed
with your appearance, won't you?  These things cost money of
course, but we must think of Little Frank.  He has never seen his
American relatives and so much depends on a first impression."

Hephzy regarded me with suspicion.  "Humph!" she sniffed, "that's
the first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little
Frank.  All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign
poorhouses are more comfortable than ours, that's all.  If you make
me keep on this way, I'll fetch up in one before the first month's
over."

We left for New York on the five o'clock train.  Packing those
"Early English Poets" was a confounded nuisance.  They had to be
stuffed here, there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and
Hephzibah prophesied evil to come.

"Books are the worse things goin' to make creases," she declared.
"They're all sharp edges."

I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the
very start.  They might prove delightful traveling companions, as
the bookman had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to
sit on.

We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby
hotel.  I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the
steamer, but I was not sure--absolutely sure--which steamer it was
to be.  The "Princess Eulalie" almost certainly, but I did not dare
take the risk.

Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that
night.

"Just think, Hosy!" she cried, "this is the last night either of us
will spend on dry land."

"Heavens!  I hope it won't be as bad as that," I retorted.
"Holland is pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find
some dry spots."

She did not laugh.  "You know what I mean," she observed.  "To-
morrow night at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty
deep."

"We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'" I answered.  "Go to
sleep."

Neither of us spoke the truth.  At twelve the following night we
were neither "far out on the vasty deep" nor on the "Princess
Eulalie."

My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city
home.  He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was,
that is, at the hotel.  He would be there in an hour, he said.

He was five minutes ahead of his promise.  We shook hands heartily.

"You are going to take my prescription, after all," he crowed.
"Didn't I tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors?
Bully for you!  Wish I was going with you.  Who is?"

"Come to my room and I'll show you," said I.  "You may be
surprised."

"See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm
like yourself, have you?  If you have, I refuse--"

"Come and see."

We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room.  I
opened the door.

"Hephzy," said I, "here is someone you know."

Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried
in.

"Well, Mr. Campbell!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand, "how do
you do?  We got here all right, you see.  But the way Hosy has been
wastin' money, his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began
to think one spell we'd never get any further.  Is it time to start
for the steamer yet?"

Jim's face was worth looking at.  He shook Hephzibah's hand
mechanically, but he did not speak.  Instead he looked at her and
at me.  I didn't speak either; I was having a thoroughly good time.

"Had we ought to start now?" repeated Hephzibah.  "I'm all ready
but puttin' on my things."

Jim came out of his trance.  He dropped the hand and came to me.

"Are you--is she--" he stammered.

"Yes," said I.  "Miss Cahoon is going with me.  I wrote you I had
selected a good traveling companion.  I have, haven't I?"

"He would have it so, Mr. Campbell," put in Hephzy.  "I said no and
kept on sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless
I did.  I know you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it
isn't any queerer to you than it is to me."

Jim behaved very well, considering.  He did not laugh.  For a
moment I thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I
should have done, said things for which I might have been sorry
later on, probably.  But he did not laugh.  He didn't even express
the tremendous surprise which he must have felt.  Instead he shook
hands again with both of us and said it was fine, bully, just the
thing.

"To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon," he declared, "I have been rather
fearful of this pet infant of ours.  I didn't know what sort of
helpless creature he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him
in the wilds of Europe.  I expected another babe in the woods and I
was contemplating cabling the police to look out for them and shoo
away the wolves.  But he'll be all right now.  Yes, indeed! he'll
be looked out for now."

"Then you approve?" I asked.

He shot a side-long glance at me.  "Approve!" he repeated.  "I'm
crazy about the whole business."

I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so.  I did not care.
I agreed with him in this--the whole business was insane and
Hephzibah's going was the only sensible thing about it, so far.

His next question was concerning our baggage.  I told him I had
left it at the railway station because I was not sure where it
should be sent.

"What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?" I asked.

He looked at me oddly.  "What?" he queried.  "The 'Princess
Eulalie'?  Twelve o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure."

"You're not sure!  And it is after nine now.  It strikes me that--"

"Never mind what strikes you.  So long as it isn't lightning you
shouldn't complain.  Have you the baggage checks?  Give them to
me."

I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the
telephone and gave a number.  A short conversation followed.  Then
he hung up the receiver.

"One of the men from the office will be here soon," he said.  "He
will attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see
that it is put in your staterooms.  Now, then, tell me all about
it.  What have you been doing since I saw you?  When did you
arrive?  How did you happen to think of taking--er--Miss Cahoon
with you?  Tell me the whole."

I told him.  Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking
chair and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes.
She was decidedly fidgety.  When she went to Boston she usually
reached the station half an hour before train time, and to sit
calmly in a hotel room, when the ship that was to take us to the
ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble
with Fate, to her mind.

The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned
over to him.  So also were our bags and our umbrellas.  Campbell
stepped into the hall and the pair held a whispered conversation.
Hephzy seized the opportunity to express to me her perturbation.

"My soul, Hosy!" she whispered.  "Mr. Campbell's out of his head,
ain't he?  Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by.
We'll be too late.  Can't you make him hurry?"

I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our
guardian know it for the world.  If we lost a dozen steamers I
shouldn't call his attention to the fact.  I might be a "Babe in
the Wood," but he should not have the satisfaction of hearing me
whimper.

He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more
questions.  Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please
him a great deal.  At some of them he laughed uproariously.  At
last he looked at his watch.

"Almost eleven," he observed.  "I must be getting around to the
office.  Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so?
I have his letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had
better come around with me and get them.  If you have any last bits
of shopping to do, now is your opportunity.  Or you might wait here
if you prefer.  We will be back at half-past twelve and lunch
together."

I started.  Hephzy sprang from the chair.

"Half-past twelve!" I cried.

"Lunch together!" gasped Hephzy.  "Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
Eulalie' sails at noon.  You said so yourself!"

Jim smiled.  "I know I did," he replied, "but that is immaterial.
You are not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.'  Your passages
are booked on the 'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until
one o'clock to-morrow morning.  We will meet here for lunch at
twelve-thirty.  Come, Kent."

I didn't attempt an answer.  I am not exactly sure what I did.  A
few minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I
have a hazy recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and
of hearing her voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:

"The 'Plutonia'!  My soul and body!  The 'Plutonia'!  Me--ME on the
'Plutonia'!"

What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference.  I
know I called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one
of which he deserved.

"Confound you!" I cried.  "You know I wouldn't have dreamed of
taking a passage on a ship like that.  She's a floating Waldorf,
everyone says so.  Dress and swagger society and--Oh, you idiot!
I wanted quiet!  I wanted to be alone!  I wanted--"

Jim interrupted me.

"I know you did," he said.  "But you're not going to have them.
You've been alone too much.  You need a change.  If I know the
'Plutonia'--and I've crossed on her four times--you're going to
have it."

He burst into a roar of laughter.  We were in a cab, fortunately,
or his behavior would have attracted attention.  I could have
choked him.

"You imbecile!" I cried.  "I have a good mind to throw the whole
thing up and go home to Bayport.  By George, I will!"

He continued to chuckle.

"I see you doing it!" he observed.  "How about your--what's her
name?--Hephzibah?  Going to tell her that it's all off, are you?
Going to tell her that you will forfeit your passage money and
hers?  Why, man, haven't you a heart?  If she was booked for
Paradise instead of Paris she couldn't be any happier.  Don't be
foolish!  Your trunks are on the 'Plutonia' and on the 'Plutonia'
you'll be to-night.  It's the best thing that can happen to you.
I did it on purpose.  You'll thank me come day."

I didn't thank him then.

We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded
with tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes
bearing the name of the Bank of England.  Hephzibah was still in
the rocking chair.  I am sure she had not left it.

We lunched in the hotel dining-room.  Campbell ordered the luncheon
and paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance.  She
was too excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent
of her wardrobe to talk of less important matters.

"Oh dear, Hosy!" she wailed, "WHY didn't I buy another best dress.
DO you suppose my black one will be good enough?  All those lords
and ladies and millionaires on the 'Plutonia'!  Won't they think
I'm dreadful poverty-stricken.  I saw a dress I wanted awfully--in
one of those Boston stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it
was so dear.  And I didn't tell you I wanted it because I knew if I
did you'd buy it.  You're so reckless with money.  But now I wish
I'd bought it myself.  What WILL all those rich people think of
me?"

"About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine," I answered,
ruefully.  "Jim here has put up a joke on us.  He is the only one
who is getting any fun out of it."

Jim, for a wonder, was serious.  "Miss Cahoon," he declared,
earnestly, "don't worry.  I'm sure the black silk is all right; but
if it wasn't it wouldn't make any difference.  On the 'Plutonia'
nobody notices other people's clothes.  Most of them are too busy
noticing their own.  If Kent has his evening togs and you have the
black silk you'll pass muster.  You'll have a gorgeous time.
I only wish I was going with you."

He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon.  He
insisted on taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the
performance seemed to amuse him hugely.  It had been eleven years,
so she said, since she went to the theater.

"Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some
of those other plays that come to Bayport," she added.  "I suppose
I'm making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's
nothin' but make-believe, but I can't help it.  Isn't it splendid,
Hosy!  I wonder what Father would say if he could know that his
daughter was really travelin'--just goin' to Europe!  He used to
worry a good deal, in his last years, about me.  Seemed to feel
that he hadn't taken me around and done as much for me as he ought
to in the days when he could.  'Twas just nonsense, his feelin'
that way, and I told him so.  But I wonder if he knows now how
happy I am.  I hope he does.  My goodness!  I can't realize it
myself.  Oh, there goes the curtain up again!  Oh, ain't that
pretty!  I AM actin' ridiculous, I know, Mr. Campbell,' but you
mustn't mind.  Laugh at me all you want to; I sha'n't care a bit."

Jim didn't laugh--then.  Neither did I.  He and I looked at each
other and I think the same thought was in both our minds.  Good,
kind, whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah!  The last
misgiving, the last doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a
traveling companion vanished from my thoughts.  For the first time
I was actually glad I was going, glad because of the happiness it
would mean to her.

When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd
to shake my hand.

"Congratulations, old man," he whispered; "you did exactly the
right thing.  You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right.
She's a brick.  But don't I wish I was going along!  Oh my! oh my!
to think of you two wandering about Europe together!  If only I
might be there to see and hear!  Kent, keep a diary; for my sake,
promise me you'll keep a diary.  Put down everything she says and
read it to me when you get home."

He left us soon afterward.  He had given up the entire day to me
and would, I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I
would not hear of it.  A messenger from the office had brought him
word of the presence in New York of a distinguished scientist who
was preparing a manuscript for publication and the scientist had
requested an interview that night.  Campbell was very anxious to
obtain that manuscript and I knew it.  Therefore I insisted that he
leave us.  He was loathe to do so.

"I hate to, Kent," he declared.  "I had set my heart on seeing you
on board and seeing you safely started.  But I do want to nail
Scheinfeldt, I must admit.  The book is one that he has been at
work on for years and two other publishing houses are as anxious as
ours to get it.  To-night is my chance, and to-morrow may be too
late."

"Then you must not miss the chance.  You must go, and go now."

"I don't like to.  Sure you've got everything you need?  Your
tickets and your letters of credit and all?  Sure you have money
enough to carry you across comfortably?"

"Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'"

"Well, all right, then.  When you reach London go to our English
branch--you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand--
and whatever help you may need they'll give you.  I've cabled them
instructions.  Think you can get down to the ship all right?"

I laughed.  "I think it fairly possible," I said.  "If I lose my
way, or Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone
you."

"The latter would be safer and much less expensive.  Well, good-by,
Kent.  Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to
forget literature.  Write often and keep in touch with me.  Good-
by, Miss Cahoon.  Take care of this--er--clam of ours, won't you.
Don't let anyone eat him on the half-shell, or anything like that."

Hephzy smiled.  "They'd have to eat me first," she said, "and I'm
pretty old and tough.  I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you
worry."

"I don't.  Good luck to you both--and good-by."

A final handshake and he was gone.  Hephzy looked after him.

"There!" she exclaimed; "I really begin to believe I'm goin'.
Somehow I feel as if the last rope had been cast off.  We've got to
depend on ourselves now, Hosy, dear.  Mercy! how silly I am
talkin'.  A body would think I was homesick before I started."

I did not answer, for I WAS homesick.  We dined together at the
hotel.  There remained three long hours before it would be time for
us to take the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf.  I suggested another
theater, but Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.

"If you don't mind, Hosy," she said, "I guess I'd rather stay right
here in the room.  I--I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to
sit still and think.  Perhaps it's just as well.  After waitin'
eleven years to go to one theater, maybe two in the same day would
be more than I could stand."

So we sat together in the room at the hotel--sat and thought.  The
minutes dragged by.  Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed
and roared.  I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on
the sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or
pleasure of its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or
pleasure might be and why they hurried so.  There were many single
ones, of course, and occasionally groups of three or four, but
couples were the most numerous.  Husbands and wives, lovers and
sweethearts, each with his or her life and interests bound up in
the life and interests of the other.  I envied them.  Mine had been
a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind of life.  No one had
shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one had spurred me
on to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered with me,
helping me through the shadows and laughing with me in the
sunshine.  No one, since Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's
love and care and sacrifice, fine as they were, were different.  I
had missed something, I had missed a great deal, and now it was too
late.  Youth and high endeavor and ambition had gone by; I had left
them behind.  I was a solitary, queer, self-centered old bachelor,
a "quahaug," as my fellow-Bayporters called me.  And to ship a
quahaug around the world is not likely to do the creature a great
deal of good.  If he lives through it he is likely to be shipped
home again tougher and drier and more useless to the rest of
creation than ever.

Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my
dismal meditations with a long sigh.  I started and turned toward
her.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Oh, nothin'," was the solemn answer.  "I was wonderin', that's
all.  Just wonderin' if he would talk English.  It would be a
terrible thing if he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign
language and I couldn't understand him.  But Ardelia was American
and that brute of a Morley spoke plain enough, so I suppose--"

I judged it high time to interrupt.

"Come, Hephzy," said I.  "It is half-past ten.  We may as well
start at once."

Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze
of flashing signs and illuminated shop windows.  But --th street,
at the foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship
Company were located, was black and dismal.  It was by no means
deserted, however.  Before and behind and beside us were other cabs
and automobiles bound in the same direction.  Hephzy peered out at
them in amazement.

"Mercy on us, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "I never saw such a procession
of carriages.  They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you
can see.  It is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that
they don't crawl along the way a funeral does.  I'm glad of that,
anyhow.  I wish I didn't FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be
buried.  I don't know why I do.  I hope it isn't a presentiment."

If it was she forgot it a few minutes later.  The cab stopped
before a mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in
uniform opened the door.  The wide street was crowded with vehicles
and from them were descending people attired as if for a party
rather than an ocean voyage.  I helped Hephzy to alight and, while
I was paying the cab driver, she looked about her.

"Hosy!  Hosy!" she whispered, seizing my arm tight, "we've made a
mistake.  This isn't the steamboat; this is--is a weddin' or
somethin'.  Look! look!"

I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and
those who wore them.  For a moment I, too, was certain there must
be a mistake.  Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway
the flashing electric sign of the "Trans-Atlantic Navigation
Company."

"No, Hephzy," said I; "I guess it is the right place.  Come."

I gave her my arm--that is, she continued to clutch it with both
hands--and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway,
past a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles
of golf sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and
faced another and smaller door.

"Lift this way!  This way to the lift!" bawled a voice.

"What's a lift?" whispered Hephzy, tremulously, "Hosy, what's a
lift?"

"An elevator," I whispered in reply.

"But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we?
I never heard--"

I don't know what she never heard.  The sentence was not finished.
Into the lift we went.  On either side of us were men in evening
dress and directly in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-
cloaked, with diamonds in her ears and a rustle of silk at every
point of her persons.  The car reeked with perfume.

The large woman wriggled uneasily.

"George," she said, in a loud whisper, "why do they crowd these
lifts in this disgusting way?  And WHY," with another wriggle, "do
they permit PERSONS with packages to use them?"

As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.

"She meant us, Hosy," she said.  "I've got three of those books of
yours in this bundle under my arm.  I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into
either of the valises.  But she needn't have been so disagreeable
about it, need she."

Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and
into a huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the
cool air from the river blew upon our faces.  Beyond these openings
loomed an enormous something with rows of railed walks leading up
its sides.  Hephzibah and I, moving in a sort of bewildered dream,
found ourselves ascending one of these walks.  At its end was
another doorway and, beyond, a great room, with more elevators and
a mosaic floor, and mahogany and gilt and gorgeousness, and silk
and broadcloth and satin.

Hephzy gasped and stopped short.

"It IS a mistake, Hosy!" she cried.  "Where is the steamer?"

I smiled.  I felt almost as "green" and bewildered as she, but I
tried not to show my feelings.

"It is all right, Hephzy," I answered.  "This is the steamer.  I
know it doesn't look like one, but it is.  This is the 'Plutonia'
and we are on board at last."

Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the
lights of New York grow fainter behind us.

Hephzibah drew a deep breath.

"It is so," she said.  "It is really so.  We ARE, aren't we, Hosy."

"We are," said I.  "There is no doubt of it."

"I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again."

"I wonder."

"Do you think HE--Do you think Little Frank--"

"Hephzy," I interrupted, "if we are going to bed at all before
morning, we had better start now."

"All right, Hosy.  But you mustn't say 'go to bed.'  Say 'turn in.'
Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel."



CHAPTER V

In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes


It is astonishing--the ease with which the human mind can accustom
itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange.  Nothing could have
been more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean
voyage and the "Plutonia."  And yet before three days of that
voyage were at an end we were accustomed to both--to a degree.  We
had learned to do certain things and not to do others.  Some pet
illusions had been shattered, and new and, at first, surprising
items of information had lost their newness and come to be accepted
as everyday facts.

For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore
monocles, something, which I, of course, had known to be true but
which had seemed nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a
"dress-up" game for children and amateur actors.  The "English
swell" in the performances of the Bayport Dramatic Society always
wore a single eyeglass, but he also wore Dundreary whiskers and
clothes which would have won him admittance to the Home for Feeble-
Minded Youth without the formality of an examination.  His "English
accent" was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an Irish
brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior.
No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and
the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.

And yet, here on the "Plutonia," were at least a dozen men, men of
dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were
used to them.  The first evening before we left port, one or two
were in evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were
more.  The fact that they were on an English ship, bound for
England, brought the monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy
said, "like hoptoads after the first spring thaw."  Her amazed
comments were unique.

"But what good are they, Hosy?" she demanded.  "Can they see with
'em?"

"I suppose they can," I answered.  "You can see better with your
spectacles than you can without them."

"Humph!  I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far
as that goes.  I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all.
Take that man there," pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow
ulster, whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened
"The Duke of Labrador."  "Look at him!  He didn't wear a sign of
one until this mornin'.  If he needed it to see with he'd have worn
it before, wouldn't he?  Don't tell me!  He wears it because he
wants people to think he's a regular boarder at Windsor Castle.
And he isn't; he comes from Toronto, and that's only a few miles
from the United States.  Ugh!  You foolish thing!" as the "Duke of
Labrador" strutted by our deck-chairs; "I suppose you think you're
pretty, don't you?  Well, you're not.  You look for all the world
like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp out."

I laughed.  "Hephzy," said I, "every nation has its peculiarities
and the monocle is an English national institution, like--well,
like tea, for instance."

"Institution!  Don't talk to me about institutions!  I know the
institution I'd put HIM in."

She didn't fancy the "Duke of Labrador."  Neither did she fancy tea
at breakfast and coffee at dinner.  But she learned to accept the
first.  Two sessions with the "Plutonia's" breakfast coffee
completed her education.

"Bring me tea," she said to our table steward on the third morning.
"I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm
gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health.  Bring me
tea and I'll try to forget what time it is."

We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the
afternoon.  Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest.  She
watched her fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something
to say concerning their behavior.

"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered, as we sat together in the
"Lounge," sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
inevitable plum cake.  "Did you hear what that woman said about her
husband?"

I had not heard, and said so.

"Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and
she was sure he had been washed overboard.  'Where is Edward?' she
kept askin'.  'Poor Edward!  What WILL he do?  Where is he?'  I was
gettin' real anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid
that, if he didn't come soon, he'd miss his tea.  My soul!  Hosy,
I've been thinkin' and do you know the conclusion I've come to?"

"No," I replied.  "What is it?"

"Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the
conclusion that the first part of the Genesis in the English
scriptures must be different than ours.  I'm sure they think that
the earth was created in six days and, on the seventh, Adam and Eve
had tea.  I believe it for an absolute fact."

The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe
shock, was that concerning the nobility.  On the morning of our
first day afloat the passenger lists were distributed.  Hephzibah
was early on deck.  Fortunately neither she nor I were in the least
discomfited by the motion of the ship, then or at any time.  We
proved to be good sailors; Hephzibah declared it was in the blood.

"For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick," she announced, "would be
a disgrace.  Our men folks for four generations would turn over in
their graves."

She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and
I had the table to ourselves.  She had the passenger list propped
against the sugar bowl and was reading the names.

"My gracious, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "What, do you think!  There
are five 'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'!  Just think of it!  Where
do you suppose they are?"

"In their berths, probably, at this hour," I answered.

"Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out.  I'm goin'
to see 'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all
day."

I smiled.  "I wouldn't do that, Hephzy," said I.  "We can see them
at lunch."

"Oh!  O--Oh!  And there's a Princess here!  Princess B-e-r-g-e-n-s-
t-e-i-n--Bergenstein.  Princess Bergenstein.  What do you suppose
she's Princess of?"

"Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine," I answered.  "Oh, I see!
You've skipped a line, Hephzy.  Bergenstein belongs to another
person.  The Princess's name is Berkovitchky.  Russian or Polish,
perhaps."

"I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her.  I never
expected to look at a live Princess in MY life."

We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to
examine the table chart.  Hephzibah made careful notes of the
tables at which the knights and the lord and the Princess were
seated and their locations.  At lunch she consulted the notes.

"The lord sits right behind us at that little table there," she
said, excitedly.  "That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady
Erkskine.'  Now we must watch when they come in."

A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a
middle-aged woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small
table by an obsequious steward.  Hephzy gasped.

"Why--why, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "That isn't the lord, is it?
THAT?"

"I suppose it must be," I answered.  When our own Steward came I
asked him.

"Yes, sir," he answered, with unction.  "Yes, sir, that is Lord and
Lady Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir."

Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine.  I gave our luncheon
order, and the steward departed.  Then her indignant disgust and
disappointment burst forth.

"Well! well!" she exclaimed.  "And that is a real live lord!  That
is!  Why, Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in
Bayport.  If Ase could afford clothes like that he might be his
twin brother.  Well! I guess that's enough.  I don't want to see
that Princess any more.  Just as like as not she'd look like
Susanna Wixon."

Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other
nationalities.  Some of our own came in for comment quite as
severe.

"Look at those girls at that table over there," she whispered.
"The two in red, I mean.  One of 'em has got a little flag pinned
on her dress.  What do you suppose that is for?"

I looked at the young ladies in red.  They were vivacious damsels
and their conversation and laughter were by no means subdued.  A
middle-aged man and woman and two young fellows were their table-
mates and the group attracted a great deal of attention.

"What has she got that flag pinned on her for?" repeated Hephzy.

"She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I
suppose," I answered.  "She is evidently proud of her country."

"Humph!  Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen
to her the way we do.  There's some exports it doesn't pay to
advertise, I guess, and she and her sister are that kind.  Every
time they laugh I can see that Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a
sensitive plant.  I hope she don't think all American girls are
like those two."

"She probably does."

"Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake.  I might as well
believe all Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I
don't believe that, even if I do hail from Bayport."

The specimen was the "Duke of Labrador," who sauntered by, monocle
in eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the "Oxford
stoop" which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring.
Hephzibah shook her head.

"I wish Toronto was further from home than it is," she declared.
"But there!  I shan't worry about him.  I'll leave him for Lord
Erkskine and his wife to be ashamed of.  He's their countryman, or
he hopes he is.  I've got enough to do bein' ashamed of those two
American girls."

It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had
been so fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves.  This was not
the case.  There were four seats at our table and, according to the
chart of the dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a
"Miss Rutledge of New York" and the other by "A. Carleton
Heathcroft of London."  Miss Rutledge we had not seen at all.  Our
table steward informed us that the lady was "hindisposed" and
confined to her room.  She was an actress, he added.  Hephzy, whose
New England training had imbued her with the conviction that all
people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as
acquaintances, was quite satisfied.  "Of course I'm sorry she isn't
well," she confided to me "but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our
table.  I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk
to her as I would to an ordinary person.  I COULDN'T!  All I should
be able to think of was what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was
actin' her parts.  I expect I'm old-fashioned, but when I think of
those girls in the pictures outside that theater--the one we didn't
go to--I--well--mercy!"

The "pictures" were the posters advertising a popular musical
comedy which Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the
afternoon of our stay in New York.  Hephzibah's shocked expression
and my whispered advice had brought about a change of plans.  We
saw a perfectly respectable, though thrilling, melodrama instead.
I might have relieved my relative's mind by assuring her that all
actresses were not necessarily attired as "merry villagers," but
the probable result of my assurance seemed scarcely worth the
effort.

A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage,
in a professional way, at any rate.  He was a slim and elegant
gentleman, dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly
bored with life in general and our society in particular.  He
sported one of Hephzibah's detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when
he spoke at all, with a languid drawl and what I learned later was
a Piccadilly accent.  He favored us with his company during our
first day afloat; after that we saw him amid the select group at
that much sought--by some--center of shipboard prominence, "the
Captain's table."

Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension
and single eyeglass as much as I had expected.  She explained her
feeling in this way.

"I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that," she said.
"And the way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was
enough to squelch even an Angelina Phinney.  But I didn't care so
much.  Anybody, even a body as green as I am, can see that he
actually IS somebody when he's at home, not a make-believe, like
that Toronto man.  And I'm glad for our waiter's sake that he's
gone somewhere else.  The poor thing bowed so low when he came in
and was so terribly humble every time Mr. Heathcroft spoke to him.
I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you' when I was told that
the food was 'rotten bad.'  I never thought 'rotten' was a nice
word, but all these English folks say it.  I heard that pretty
English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly rotten
mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet as she can be.  Well, I'm
learnin' fast, Hosy.  I can see a woman smoke a cigarette now and
not shiver--much.  Old Bridget Doyle up in West Bayport, used to
smoke a pipe and the whole town talked about it.  She'd be right at
home in that sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner,
wouldn't she?"

My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have
ended almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way.  I was
in the "Smoke-Room" after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a
cigar and idly listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's
run, that time-honored custom which helps the traveling gentleman
of sporting proclivities to kill time and lose money.  On board the
"Plutonia," with its unusually large quota of millionaires and
personages, the bidding was lively and the prices paid for favored
numbers high.  Needless to say I was not one of the bidders.  My
interest was merely casual.

The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an
international reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers
to higher bids, was clever and amusing.  I was listening to it and
smiling at the jokes when a voice at my elbow said:

"Five pounds."

I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft.  His monocle was
in his eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if
he had been newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot.
He nodded carelessly and I bowed in return.

"Five pounds," repeated Mr. Heathcroft.

The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his
audience on to higher flights.  The flights were made and my
companion capped each with one more lofty.  Eight, nine, ten pounds
were bid.  Heathcroft bid eleven.  Someone at the opposite side of
the room bid twelve.  It seemed ridiculous to me.  Possibly my face
expressed my feeling; at any rate something caused the immaculate
gentleman in the next chair to address me instead of the
auctioneer.

"I say," he said, "that's running a bit high, isn't it?"

"It seems so to me," I replied.  "The number is five hundred and
eighty-six and I think we shall do better than that."

"Oh, do you!  Really!  And why do you think so, may I ask?"

"Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable
wind."

"Oh, but you forget the fog.  There's quite a bit of fog about us
now, isn't there."

I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying "Isn't
there."  I can't, however; there is no use trying.

"It will amount to nothing," I answered.  "The glass is high and
there is no indication of bad weather.  Our run this noon was five
hundred and ninety-one, you remember."

"Yes.  But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that."

"Why, not particularly good.  We slowed down about midnight.  There
was a real fog then and the glass was low.  The second officer told
me it dropped very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running.  For
an hour between twelve and one we were making not much more than
half our usual speed."

"Really!  That's interesting.  May I ask if you and the second
officer are friends?"

"Scarcely that.  He and I exchanged a few words on deck this
morning, that's all."

"But he told you about the fog and the--what is it--the glass, and
all that.  Fancy! that's extremely odd.  I'm acquainted with the
captain in a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to
say.  And I assure you he doesn't tell us a word.  And, by Jove, we
cross-question him, too!  Rather!"

I smiled.  I could imagine the cross-questioning.

"I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal," I observed.
"That's part of his job.  The second officer meant to be, I have no
doubt, but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested
in ships and the sea.  My father and grandfather, too, for that
matter were seafaring men, both captains.  That may have made the
second officer more communicative.  Not that he said anything of
importance, of course."

Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested.  He actually removed his
eyeglass.

"Oh!" he exclaimed.  "You know something about it, then.  I thought
it was extraordinary, but now I see.  And you think our run will be
better than five hundred and eighty?"

"It should be, unless there is a remarkable change.  This ship
makes over six hundred, day after day, in good weather.  She should
do at least six hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden
change, as I said."

"But six hundred would be--it would be the high field, by Jove!"

"Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that.  The
numbers are very low to-night.  Far too low, I should say."

Heathcroft was silent.  The auctioneer, having forced the bid on
number five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was
imploring his hearers not to permit a certain winner to be
sacrificed at this absurd figure.

"Fourteen pounds, gentlemen," he begged.  "For the sake of the wife
and children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the
union jack,--DON'T hesitate--don't even stammer--below fourteen
pounds."

He looked in our direction as he said it.  Mr. Heathcroft made no
sign.  He produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my
direction.

"Will you?" he inquired.

"No, thank you," I replied.  "I will smoke a cigar, if you don't
mind."

He did not appear to mind.  He lighted his cigarette, readjusted
his monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.

The bidding went on.  One by one the numbers were sold until all
were gone.  Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the "high
field," that is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four,
were in order.  My companion suddenly came to life.

"Ten pounds," he called.

I started.  "For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft," I protested, "don't
let anything I have said influence your bidding.  I may be entirely
wrong."

He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.

"You may wish to bid yourself," he drawled.  "Careless of me.  So
sorry.  Shall I withdraw the bid?"

"No, no.  I'm not going to bid.  I only--"

"Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen," shouted the auctioneer.
"Eleven pounds!  It would be like robbing an orphan asylum.  Do I
hear twelve?"

He heard twelve immediately--from Mr. Heathcroft.

Thirteen pounds were bid.  Evidently others shared my opinion
concerning the value of the "high field."  Heathcroft promptly
raised it to fourteen.  I ventured another protest.  So far as
effect was concerned I might as well have been talking to one of
the smoke-stacks.  The bidding was lively and lengthy.  At last the
"high field" went to Mr. A. Carleton Heathcroft for twenty-one
pounds, approximately one hundred and five dollars.  I thought it
time for me to make my escape.  I was wondering where I should hide
next day, when the run was announced.

"Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure," drawled the fortunate bidder.
"Won't you join me in a whisky and soda or something?"

I declined the whisky and soda.

"Sorry," said Mr. Heathcroft.  "Jolly grateful for putting me
right, Mr.--er--"

"Knowles is my name," I said.  He might have remembered it; I
remembered his perfectly.

"Of course--Knowles.  Thank you so much, Knowles.  Thank you and
the second officer.  Nothing like having professional information--
eh, what?  Rather!"

There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win.
There was more than a doubt in mine.  I told Hephzy of my
experience when I joined her in the Lounge.  My attempts to say
"Really" and "Isn't it" and "Rather" in the Heathcroft manner and
with the Heathcroft accent pleased her very much.  As to the result
of my unpremeditated "tip" she was quite indifferent.

"If he loses it will serve him good and right," she declared.
"Gamblin's poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose."

"I shall," I observed.  "I feel responsible in a way and I shall be
sorry."

"'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy.  That's what that blunderin' steward
said when he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose.
I told him he wasn't half as sorry as I was."

But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run
posted on the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two.
My "tip" had been a good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft,
Esquire, was richer by some seven hundred dollars, even after the
expenses of treating the "smoke-room" and feeing the smoke-room
steward had been deducted.  I did not visit the smoke-room to share
in the treat.  I feared I might be expected to furnish more
professional information.  But that evening a bottle of vintage
champagne was produced by our obsequious table steward.  "With Mr.
'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir," announced the
latter.

Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.

"WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?" she demanded.

"Why, drink it, I suppose," I answered.  "It is the only thing we
can do.  We can't send it back."

"But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start
in to be a drunkard at my age.  I'll take the least little bit of a
drop, just to see what it tastes like.  I've read about champagne,
just as I've read about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never
expected to see either of 'em.  Well there!" after a very small sip
from the glass, "there's another pet idea gone to smash.  A lord
looks like Ase Tidditt, and champagne tastes like vinegar and soda.
Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink that sour stuff all my life I'd
probably look like Asaph, too.  No wonder that Erkskine man is such
a shriveled-up thing."

I glanced toward the captain's table.  Mr. Heathcroft raised his
glass.  I bowed and raised mine.  The group at that table, the
captain included, were looking in my direction.  I judged that my
smoke-room acquaintance had told them of my wonderful "tip."  I
imagined I could see the sarcastic smile upon the captain's face.
I did not care for that kind of celebrity.

But the affair had one quite unexpected result.  The next forenoon
as Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain
himself, florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted
before us.

"I believe your name is Knowles, sir," he said, raising his cap.

"It is," I replied.  I wondered what in the world was coming next.
Was he going to take me to task for talking with his second
officer?

"Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger
list," he went on.  "Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?"

"Yes," I replied, more puzzled than ever.

"I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir.  He was a seafaring man
like myself.  His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him
he was commander of the bark 'Ranger.'"

"He was my father," I said.

Captain Stone extended his hand.

"Mr. Knowles," he declared, "this is a great pleasure, sir.  I knew
your father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our
ships engaged in the Italian fruit trade.  He was very kind to me
at that time.  I have never forgotten it.  May I sit down?"

The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and
he took it.  I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time.
The captain appeared delighted to meet the son of his old
acquaintance.  Father and he had met in Messina--Father's ship was
in the fruit trade also at that time--and something or other he had
done to help young Stone had made a great impression on the latter.
I don't know what the something was, whether it was monetary help
or assistance in getting out of a serious scrape; Stone did not
tell me and I didn't ask.  But, at any rate, the pair had become
very friendly there and at subsequent meetings in the Mediterranean
ports.  The captain asked all sorts of questions about Father, his
life, his family and his death aboard the sinking "Monarch of the
Seas."  Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars.  She
remembered them well.

Captain Stone nodded solemnly.

"That is the way the master of a ship should die," he declared.
"Your father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one.  He was
my first American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of
Yankees--if you'll excuse my calling them that, sir."

Hephzy had a comment to make.

"There are SOME pretty fair Yankees," she observed, drily.  "ALL
the good folks haven't moved back to England yet."

The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.

"Though two of the best are on their way," I added, with a wink at
Hephzy.  This attempt at humor was entirely lost.  Our companion
said he presumed I referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next
him at table.

"And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join
us," he went on.  "I could easily arrange for two places."

I looked at Hephzy.  Her face expressed decided disapproval and she
shook her head.

"Thank you, Captain Stone," I said; "but we have a table to
ourselves and are very comfortable.  We should not think of
troubling you to that extent."

He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure.  We were
firm in our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge.  He declared
his intention of seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to
accompany us through the engine-rooms and the working portions of
the ship whenever we wished, ordered the deck steward, who was all
but standing on his head in obsequious desire to oblige, to take
good care of us, shook hands once more, and went away.  Hephzibah
drew a long breath.

"My goodness!" she exclaimed; "sit at HIS table!  I guess not!
There's another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van
Hooks.  I'd look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there,
wouldn't I!  A hen is all right in her place, but she don't belong
in a peacock cage.  And they drink champagne ALL the time there;
I've watched 'em.  No thank you, I'll stay in the henyard along
with the everyday fowls."

"Odd that he should have known Father," I observed.  "Well, I
suppose the proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that
this is a small world.  That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would
say."

"It's what I say, too," declared Hephzy, with emphasis.  "Well,
it's awful encouraging for us, isn't it."

"Encouraging?  What do you mean?"

"Why, I mean about Little Frank.  It makes me feel surer than ever
that we shall run across him."

I suppressed a groan.  "Hephzy," said I, "why on earth should the
fact that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe
that we shall meet a person we never knew at all?"

"Hosy, how you do talk!  If you and I, just cruisin' this way
across the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin
Philander thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to
suppose we'll meet a child who was born twenty-one years ago?  I
should say 'twas!  Hosy, I've had a presentiment about this cruise
of ours:  We're SENT on it; that's what I think--we're sent.  Oh,
you can laugh!  You'll see by and by.  THEN you won't laugh."

"No, Hephzy," I admitted, resignedly, "I won't laugh then, I
promise you.  If _I_ ever reach the stage where I see a Little
Frank I promise you I sha'n't laugh.  I'll believe diseases of the
brain are contagious, like the measles, and I'll send for a
doctor."

The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening.  He came
over to our table and chatted for some time.  His visit caused
quite a sensation.  Shipboard society is a little world by itself
and the ship's captain is the head of it.  Persons who would, very
likely, have passed Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly
without recognizing him now toadied to him as if he were a Czar,
which, in a way, I suppose he is when afloat.  His familiarity with
us shed a sort of reflected glory upon Hephzy and me.  Several of
our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening for the first time.

A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues;
the smoke-room was his accustomed haunt.  But the next forenoon as
I leaned over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the
antics of the "Stokers' Band" which was performing for the benefit
of the second-class with an eye toward pennies and small silver
from all classes, Heathcroft sauntered up and leaned beside me.  We
exchanged good-mornings.  I thanked him for the wine.

"Quite unnecessary, Knowles," he said.  "Least I could do, it seems
to me.  I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of
yours; I did really.  Awfully obliged, and all that.  You seem to
have a wide acquaintance among the officers.  That captain chap
tells us he knew your father--the sailor one you told me of, you
understand."

Having had but one father I understood perfectly.  We chatted in a
inconsequential way for a short time.  In the course of our
conversation I happened to mention that I wrote, professionally.
To my surprise Heathcroft was impressed.

"Do you, really!" he exclaimed.  "That's interesting, isn't it now!
I have a cousin who writes.  Don't know why she does it; she
doesn't get her writings printed, but she keeps on.  It is a habit
of hers.  Curious dissipation--eh, what?  Does that--er--Miss--that
companion of yours, write also?"

I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's
bad habits.

"Extraordinary woman, isn't she," he said.  "I met her just now,
walking about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air.
She said she wouldn't quarrel with me because of that.  The more I
took the better she would like it; she could spare about a gale and
a quarter and not feel--What did she call it?  Oh yes, 'scrimped.'
What is 'scrimped,' may I ask?"

I explained the meaning of "scrimped."  Heathcroft was much amused.

"It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there," he declared.  "That
was a clever way of putting it, wasn't it?"

"She is a clever woman," I said, shortly.

Heathcroft did not enthuse.

"Oh," he said dubiously.  "A relative of yours, I suppose."

"A cousin, that's all."

"One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline
toward eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think.  I have an
aunt down in Sussex, who is queer.  A good sort, too, no end of
money, a big place and all that, but odd.  She and I get on well
together--I am her pet, I suppose I may say--but, by Jove, she has
quarreled with everyone else in the family.  I let her have her own
way and it has convinced her that I am the only rational Heathcroft
in existence.  Do you golf, Knowles?"

"I attempt something in that line.  I doubt if my efforts should be
called golf."

"It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it.  If you are
down in Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have
you play an eighteen with me.  Burglestone Bogs is the village.
Anyone will direct you to the Manor.  If I'm not there, introduce
yourself to my aunt.  Lady Kent Carey is the name.  She'll be jolly
glad to welcome you if you tell her you know me.  I'm her sole
interest in life, the greenhouses excepted, of course.  Cultivating
roses and rearing me are her hobbies."

I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would
ever be put to shame by the brilliancy of my game.  I thanked him,
however.  I was surprised at the invitation.  I had been under the
impression, derived from my reading, that the average Englishman
required an acquaintance of several months before proffering
hospitality.  No doubt Mr. Heathcroft was not an average
Englishman.

"Will you be in London long?" he asked.  "I suppose not.  You're
probably off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to
the other.  Two hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's
tomb, a Derby through the cathedral towns, and then the Channel
boat, eh?  That's the American way, isn't it?"

"It is not our way," I replied.  "We have no itinerary.  I don't
know where we may go or how long we shall stay."

Evidently I rose again in his estimation.

"Have you picked your hotel in London?" he inquired.

"No.  I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give
along that line."

He reflected.  "There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair," he said,
after a moment.  "A private sort of shop.  I don't use it myself;
generally put up at the club, I mean to say.  But my aunt and my
sisters do.  They're quite mad about it.  It is--Ah--Bancroft's--
that's it, Bancroft's Hotel.  I'll give you the address before I
leave."

I thanked him again.  He was certainly trying to be kind.  No doubt
the kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what
he called my "professional information," but it was kindness all
the same.

The first bugle for luncheon sounded.  Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.

"I'll see you again, Knowles," he said, "and give you the hotel
street and number and all that.  Hope you'll like it.  If you
shouldn't the Langham is not bad--quiet and old-fashioned, but
really very fair.  And if you care for something more public and--
Ah--American, there are always the Savoy and the Cecil.  Here is my
card.  If I can be of any service to you while you are in town drop
me a line at my clubs, either of them.  I must be toddling.  By,
by."

He "toddled" and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.

Two days more and our voyage was at an end.  We saw more of our
friend the captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well.
The former fulfilled his promise of showing us through the ship,
and Hephzy and I, descending greasy iron stairways and twisting
through narrow passages, saw great rooms full of mighty machinery,
and a cavern where perspiring, grimy men, looking but half-human in
the red light from the furnace mouths, toiled ceaselessly with
pokers and shovels.

We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking
out into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the
shadows at the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the
foremast, and the weird cry of "All's well" from the lookouts.
This experience made a great impression on us both.  Hephzy
expressed my feeling exactly when she said in a hushed whisper:

"There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board
a ship at sea.  My father and your father and all our men-folks for
ever so far back have heard that 'All's well'--yes, and called it,
too, when they first went as sailors.  Just think of it!  Why
Father was only sixteen when he shipped; just a boy, that's all.
I've heard him say 'All's well' over and over again; 'twas a kind
of byword with him.  This whole thing seems like somethin' callin'
to me out of the past and gone.  Don't you feel it?"

I felt it, as she did.  The black night, the quiet, the loneliness,
the salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside,
the high singsong wail from lookout to lookout--it WAS a voice from
the past, the call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn,
brave old Cape Codders to their descendants, reminding the latter
of a dead and gone profession and of thousands of fine, old ships
which had plowed the ocean in the days when "Plutonias" were
unknown.

We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the
promenade deck which followed.  Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have
made the acquaintance of most of the pretty girls on board,
informed us in the intervals between a two-step and a tango, that
he had been "dancing madly."

"You Americans are extraordinary people," he added.  "Your dances
are as extraordinary as your food.  That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits
near me at table, was indulging in--what do you call them?--oh,
yes, griddle cakes--this morning.  Begged me to try them.  I
declined.  Horrid things they were.  Round, like a--like a washing-
flannel, and swimming in treacle.  Frightful!"

"And that man," commented Hephzy, "eats cold toast and strawberry
preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea.
And he calls nice hot pancakes frightful!"

At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish
coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we
dropped anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village
which was to be our landing place.  The sun was shining dimly by
this time and the rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the
green slopes dotted with farms and checkered with hedges and stone
walls, the gray stone fort with its white-washed barrack buildings,
the spires and chimneys of the village in the hollow--all these
combined to make a picture which was homelike and yet not like
home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.

We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags
and bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat
which lay alongside.  Hephzy was nervous.

"They'll smash everything to pieces--they surely will!" she
declared.  "Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is
liable to happen first.  Mercy on us!  Did you see that?  That box
hit the man right in the back!"

"It didn't hurt him," I said, reassuringly.  "It was nothing but a
hat-box."

"Hurt HIM--no!  But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good.
I thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've
got some experts over here.  Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY
trunk--end over end, of course.  Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in
it, anyway.  Josiah Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to
his daughter-in-law every time he went to Boston.  He had 'em in a
box once and put the box on the seat alongside of him and a big fat
woman came and sat--Oh! that was your trunk, Hosy!  Did you hear it
hit?  I expect every one of those 'English Poets' went from top to
bottom then, right through all your clothes.  Never mind, I suppose
it's all part of travelin'."

Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top
coat, and hat at the back of his head, sauntered up.  He was, for
him, almost enthusiastic.

"Looking at the water, were you?" he queried.  "Glorious color,
isn't it.  One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that
anywhere but here at home."

Hephzy looked at the sea and sky.  It was plain that she wished to
admire, for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.

"Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
prettier?" she asked.

Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.

"Bluer?" he repeated.  "My dear woman, there are no skies as blue
as the English skies.  They are quite celebrated--really."

He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of
appreciation.

"He must be color-blind," I observed.  Hephzy was more charitable.

"I guess likely everybody's home things are best," she said.  "I
suppose this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look
bright and blue to him.  We must make allowances, Hosy.  He never
saw an August mornin' at Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and
the bay white and blue to the edge of all creation.  That's been
denied him.  He means well, poor thing; he don't know any better."

An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier
covered with substantial stone buildings.  Uniformed custom
officers and uniformed policemen stood in line as we came up the
gang-plank.  Behind them, funny little locomotives attached to
queer cars which appeared to be all doors, puffed and panted.

Hephzibah looked about her.

"Yes," she said, with conviction.  "I'm believin' it more and more
all the time.  It is England, just like the pictures.  How many
times I've seen engines like that in pictures, and cars like that,
too.  I never thought I'd ride in 'em.  My goodness me?  Hephzibah
Jane Cahoon, you're in England--YOU are!  You needn't be afraid to
turn over for fear of wakin' up, either.  You're awake and alive
and in England!  Hosy," with a sudden burst of exuberance, "hold on
to me tight.  I'm just as likely to wave my hat and hurrah as I am
to do anything.  Hold on to me--tight."

We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble.
Our tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway
journey to London.  I secured a first-class compartment at the
booking-office and a guard conducted us to it and closed the door.
Another short delay and then, with a whistle as queer and
unfamiliar as its own appearance, the little locomotive began to
pull our train out of the station.

Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme
content.

"And now," said I, "for London.  London! think of it, Hephzy!"

Hephzy shook her head.

"I'm thinkin' of it," she said.  "London--the biggest city in the
world!  Who knows, Hosy?  France is such a little ways off;
probably Little Frank has been to London a hundred times.  He may
even be there now.  Who knows?  I shouldn't be surprised if we met
him right in London.  I sha'n't be surprised at anything anymore.
I'm in England and on my way to London; that's surprise enough.
NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that."



CHAPTER VI

In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter


It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock.  The
long train journey was a delight.  During the few hours of daylight
and dusk we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying
past; at the villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim
farms.

"Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted," declared
Hephzy.  "There aren't any waste places at all.  What do they do
with their spare land?"

"They haven't any," I answered.  "Land is too valuable to waste.
There's another thatched roof.  It looks like those in the
pictures, doesn't it."

Hephzy nodded.  "Just exactly," she said.  "Everything looks like
the pictures.  I feel as if I'd seen it all before.  If that engine
didn't toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was
a picture.  But it isn't--it isn't; it's real, and you and I are
part of it."

We dined on the train.  Night came and our window-pictures changed
to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches
of darkness.  At length the lights became more and more frequent
and began to string out in long lines marking suburban streets.
Then the little locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and
we rolled slowly under a great train shed--Paddington Station and
London itself.

Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone
wanderers not exactly sure what we should do next.  About us the
busy crowd jostled and pushed.  Relatives met relatives and fathers
and mothers met sons and daughters returning home after long
separations.  No one met us, no one was interested in us at all,
except the porters and the cabmen.  I selected a red-faced chunky
porter who was a decidedly able person, apparently capable of
managing anything except the letter h.  The acrobatics which he
performed with that defenceless consonant were marvelous.  I have
said that I selected him; that he selected me would be nearer the
truth.

"Cab, sir.  Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said.  "Leave that to me,
sir.  Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?"

I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be.  I had read
about them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and
properly labeled.  For the matter of that, all the vehicles in
sight appeared to have four wheels.  So I said, at a venture, that
I thought an ordinary cab would do.

"Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir.  Your boxes are in the luggage van,
I suppose, sir."

I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I,
in my ignorance, would have called a baggage car:

"Yes, sir," said the porter.  "If the lidy will be good enough to
wait 'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir."

Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I
followed my guide to the "luggage van."  This crowded car disgorged
our two steamer trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a
fellow-craftsman to help him, the trunks were dragged to the
waiting cab.

I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.

"I saw one at last," she declared.  "I'd about come to believe
there wasn't such a thing, but there is; I just saw one."

"One--what?" I asked, puzzled.

"An Englishman with side-whiskers.  They wasn't as big and long as
those in the pictures, but they were side-whiskers.  I feel better.
When you've been brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em,
it was kind of humiliatin' not to see one single set."

I paid my porters--I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I
had given them altogether too much--and we climbed into the cab
with our bags.  The "boxes," or trunks, were on the driver's seat
and on the roof.

"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.

I hesitated.  Even at this late date I had not made up my mind
exactly "where to."  My decision was a hasty one.

"Why--er--to--to Bancroft's Hotel," I said.  "Blithe Street, just
off Piccadilly."

I think the driver was somewhat astonished.  Very few of his
American passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I
imagine.  However, his answer was prompt.

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said.  The cab rolled out of the
station.

"I suppose," said Hephzy, reflectively, "if you had told him or
that porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have
thanked you just the same and called you 'sir' four times besides."

"No doubt they would."

"Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would--thank you, sir.  So this
is London.  It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston
or New York so far."

But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New
York hotel as anything could be.  A short, quiet, eminently
respectable street, leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on
both sides, by three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of
brick and stone.  No signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring
lights.  Merely a gas lamp burning over the fanlight of a spotless
white door, and the words "Bancroft's Hotel" in mosaic lettering
set in a white stone slab in the pavement.

The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out
of the window.  The same thought was in both our minds.

"This can't be the place," said I.

"This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?" asked Hephzy.

The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in
uniform hastened to the cab.  Before he reached it I had seen the
lettering in the pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances,
we had reached our destination.

"This is it, Hephzy," I said.  "Come."

The boy opened the cab door and we alighted.  Then in the doorway
of "Bancroft's" appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified
person, also in uniform.  This person wore short "mutton-chop"
whiskers and had the air of a member of the Royal Family; that is
to say, the air which a member of the Royal Family might be
expected to have.

"Good evening, sir," said the personage, bowing respectfully.  The
bow was a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least,
not familiar; a bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow
which seemed to demand references, but was far from repellant or
bullying.  Altogether a wonderful bow.

"Good evening," said I.  "This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

"I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible."

"Yes, sir.  This way, sir, if you please.  Richard," this to the
boy and in a tone entirely different--the tone of a commanding
officer to a private--"see to the gentleman's luggage.  This way,
sir; thank you, sir."

I hesitated.  "The cabman has not been paid," I stammered.  I was a
trifle overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the "sir."

"I will attend to that, sir.  If you will be good enough to come
in, sir."

We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned,
homelike and as spotless as the white door.  Two more uniforms
bowed before us.

"Thank you, sir," said the member of the Royal Family.  It was with
difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite
welcome.  His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had
conferred a favor.

"I will speak to Mr. Jameson," he went on, with another bow.  Then
he left us.

"Is--is that Mr. Bancroft?" whispered Hephzy.

I shook my head.  "It must be the Prince of Wales, at least," I
whispered in return.  "I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft."

It developed that I was right.  Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of
the hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of
middle age.  He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our
wants, stated that he had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate
us.

"Do you wish a sitting-room?" he asked.

I was not sure.  I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so.  I
mentioned, as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended
Bancroft's to me.

The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything.  Mr. Jameson
summoned the representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low
tone.  The representative--his name, I learned later, was Henry and
he was butler and major-domo at Bancroft's--bowed once more.  A few
minutes later we were shown to an apartment on the second floor
front, a room large, old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs,
tables and a big, comfortable sofa.  Sofa and easy-chairs were
covered with figured, glazed chintz.

"Your sitting-room, sir," said Henry.  "Your bedrooms open hoff it,
sir.  The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir.
Richard and the porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes.
Will you and the lady wish supper, sir?  Thank you, sir.  Very
good, sir.  Will you require a fire, sir?"

The room was a trifle chilly.  There was a small iron grate at its
end, and a coal fire ready to kindle.  I answered that a fire might
be enjoyable.

"Yes, sir," said Henry.  "Himmediately, sir."

Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter
and plum cake before a snapping fire.  George, the waiter, had
brought us the tea and accessories and set the table; the
chambermaid had prepared the bedrooms; Henry had supervised
everything.

"Well," observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, "I feel better
satisfied every minute.  When we were in the hack--cab, I mean--I
couldn't realize we weren't ridin' through an American city.  The
houses and sidewalks and everything--what I could see of 'em--
looked so much like Boston that I was sort of disappointed.  I
wanted it to be more different, some way.  But this IS different.
This may be a hotel--I suppose likely 'tis--but it don't seem like
one, does it?  If it wasn't for the Henry and that Richard and
that--what's his name?  George--and all the rest, I should think I
was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's settin-room back home.  The
furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the pictures look like those he
has, and--and everything looks as stiff and starched and old-
fashioned as can be.  But the Cap'n never had a Henry.  No, sirree,
Henry don't belong on Cape Cod!  Hosy," with a sudden burst of
confidence, "it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first.  If I
hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought
Henry was one sure.  Do you really think it's right for me to call
him by his Christian name?  It seems sort of--sort of irreverent,
somehow."

I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days
at Bancroft's.  If it were not for the fact that so many really
important events and happenings remain to be described--if it were
not that the most momentous event of my life, the event that was
the beginning of the great change in that life--if that event were
not so close at hand, I should be tempted to linger upon those
first few days.  They were strange and wonderful and funny to
Hephzibah and me.  The strangeness and the wonder wore off
gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.

To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid
who, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still
occupied by a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot
water and fill the tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny
enough, Hephzibah's comments on the proceeding were funnier still.

"Do you mean to tell me," she demanded, "that that hussy was brazen
enough to march right in here before you got up?"

"Yes," I said.  "I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up."

"Well!  I must say!  Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-
pot, same as she did to me?"

"Just the same."

"And did she pour it into that--that flat dishpan on the floor and
tell you your 'bawth' was ready?"

"She did."

"Humph!  Of all the--I hope she cleared out THEN?"

"She did."

"That's a mercy, anyhow.  Did you take a bath in that dishpan?"

"I tried."

"Well, I didn't.  I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer.  I'd have
felt as if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water
and pour it over me.  Don't these English folks have real bathtubs
for grown-up people?"

I did not know, then.  Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel
possessed several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I
preferred.  Being an American I did so prefer.  Most of the guests,
being English, preferred the "dishpans."

We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
matters of course.  We learned to order breakfast the night before
and to eat it in our sitting-room.  We tasted a "grilled sole" for
the first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as
"fried flatfish" we liked the taste.  We became accustomed to being
waited upon, to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that
a valet who laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my
shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished,
was a rather convenient person to have about.  Hephzy fumed a good
deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied
woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do nothing.
She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she
received explained some of her puzzles.

"Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?" she observed,
referring to the maid.  "Eight shillin's--two dollars a week,
that's what she gets.  And your valet man doesn't get any more.  I
can see now how Mr. Jameson can afford to keep so much help at the
board he charges.  I pay that Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three
dollars and she doesn't know enough to boil water without burnin'
it on, scarcely.  And Peters--why in the world do they call women
by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid, says it's a real nice
place and she's quite satisfied.  Well, where ignorance is bliss
it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_ wouldn't fetch and
carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body
like me, for two dollars a week."

We learned that the hotel dining-room was a "Coffee Room."

"Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they
wouldn't," declared Hephzy.  "I asked Peters why they didn't call
it the 'Tea Room' and be done with it.  She said because it was the
Coffee Room.  I suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a
good deal as if I'd come out of the same hole I went in at.  She
thanked me for askin' her, though; she never forgets that."

We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his
Christian name and found him a most obliging person.  He, like
everyone else, had instantly recognized us as Americans, and,
consequently, was condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant
and barbarous country.

"What SORT of place do they think the States are?" asked Hephzy.
"That's what they always call home--'the States'--and they seem to
think it's about as big as a pocket handkerchief.  That Henry asked
me if the red Indians were numerous where we lived.  I said no--as
soon as I could say anything; I told him there was only one tribe
of Red Men in town and they were white.  I guess he thought I was
crazy, but it don't make any difference.  And Peters said she had a
cousin in a place called Chicago and did I know him.  What do you
think of that?"

"What did you tell her?" I inquired.

"Hey?  Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles
from Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there.  I told
her the truth, but she didn't believe it.  I could see she didn't.
She thinks Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are
nests of wigwams in the same patch of woods and all hands that live
there have been scalped at least once.  SUCH ignorance!"

Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London
theaters.  There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy
laughed and wept at the performance.  As usual, however, she had a
characteristic comment to make.

"Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?" she whispered to
me between the acts.  "Stalls!  The idea!  I'm no horse.  Perhaps
they call 'em that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two
dollars and a half for the privilege of sittin' in 'em.  Don't YOU
be so extravagant again, Hosy."

One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
indignation.  I asked the question which every American asks under
similar circumstances.

"Why on earth," I demanded, "do they permit that fellow to make
such a fool of himself?  He yells and drawls and whines through his
nose and wears clothes which would make an American cry.  That last
scene was supposed to be a reception and he wore an outing suit and
no waistcoat.  Do they suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in
respectable society in the United States?"

And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.

"I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough," she said.
"He's what they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't.
If he behaved like a human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of
American they expect on the stage.  After all, he isn't any worse
than the Englishmen we have in the Dramatic Society's plays at
home.  I haven't seen one of that kind since I got here; and I've
given up expectin' to--unless you and I go to some crazy asylum--
which isn't likely."

We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and
Westminster Abbey, and Saint Paul's.  We saw the Horse Guard
sentinels on duty in Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard
changing at St. James's.  Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by
the uniforms of the "Cold Streams."

"There!" she exclaimed, "I've seen 'em walk.  Now I feel better.
When they stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats
on their heads, I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been
taken out of a box for children to play with.  I wanted to get up
close so as to see if their feet were glued to round pieces of wood
like Noah's and Ham's and Japhet's in the Ark.  But they aren't
wood, they're alive.  They're men, not toys.  I'm glad I've seen
'em.  THEY are satisfyin'.  They make me more reconciled to a King
with a Derby hat on."

She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen
King George trot by on horseback.  His Majesty's lack of crown and
robes and scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I
think she expected the crown at least.

I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in
Camford Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting
me.  Jim Campbell had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews'
welcome was a warm one.  He was kindness itself.  All my financial
responsibilities were to be shifted to his shoulders.  I was to use
the office as a bank, as a tourist agency, even as a guide's
headquarters.  He put his clerks at my disposal; they would conduct
us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever and wherever we wished.  He
even made out a list of places in and about London which we, as
strangers, should see.

His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated.  They made me
feel less alone and less dependent upon my own resources.  Campbell
had arranged that all letters addressed to me in America should be
forwarded to the Camford Street office, and Matthews insisted that
I should write my own letters there.  I began to make it a practice
to drop in at the office almost every morning before starting on
the day's round of sight-seeing.

Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike.
Mr. Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow--quiet, refined, and
pleasant.  He, too, tried to help us in every possible way.  His
wife, a sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and
Hephzy liked her extremely.

"She's as nice as she can be," declared Hephzy.  "If it wasn't that
she says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I
want to know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the
best kind of one.  She's got sense, too.  SHE don't ask about 'red
Indians' in Bayport."

Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of
a judicious "tip."  We had learned something concerning tips on the
"Plutonia"; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were
provided with a schedule of rates--so much to the bedroom steward,
so much to the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the "boots," and
all the rest.  But tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for
ourselves, and the result of our education was surprising.

At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a
black robe showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned
lectures before the tombs of Nelson and Wellington.  His appearance
and manner were somewhat awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who
asked me, in a whisper, if I thought likely he was a bishop or a
canon or something.  When the round was ended and we were leaving
the Crypt she saw me put a hand in my pocket.

"Mercy sakes, Hosy," she whispered.  "You aren't goin' to offer him
money, are you?  He'll be insulted.  I'd as soon think of givin'
Mr. Partridge, our minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to
see the first settlers' gravestones.  Don't you do it.  He'll throw
it back at you.  I'll be so ashamed."

But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out,
and when our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the
black-robed dignitary.  The hand did not spurn the coins, which I--
rather timidly, I confess--dropped into it.  Instead it closed upon
them tightly and the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not
even smilingly, but thanked me, nevertheless.

At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us.
Another dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his
appearance, should have been a judge at least, not only accepted
the shilling I gave him, but bowed, smiled and offered to conduct
us to the divorce court.

"A very interesting case there, sir, just now," he murmured,
confidingly.  "Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir.  You
and the lady will enjoy it, I'm sure, sir.  All Americans do."

Hephzy was indignant.

"Well!" she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand.  "Well!  I
must say!  What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to
know.  Divorce case!  I'd be ashamed to hear one.  And that old man
bein' so wicked and ridiculous for twenty-five cents!  Hosy, I do
believe if you'd given him another shillin' he'd have introduced us
to that man in the red robe and cotton wool wig--What did he call
him?--Oh, yes, the Lord Chief Justice.  And I suppose you'd have
had to tip HIM, too."

The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end.  Our
plans were still as indefinite as ever.  How long we should stay,
where we should go next, what we should do when we decided where
that "next" was to be--all these questions we had not considered at
all.  I, for my part, was curiously uninterested in the future.  I
was enjoying myself in an idle, irresponsible way, and I could not
seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a definite course of action.
If I did permit myself to think I found my thoughts straying to my
work and there they faced the same impassable wall.  I felt no
inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that I should
never write again.  Thinking along this line only brought back the
old feeling of despondency.  So I refused to think and, taking
Jim's advice, put work and responsibility from my mind.  We would
remain in London as long as we were contented there.  When the
spirit moved we would move with it--somewhere--either about England
or to the Continent.  I did not know which and I did not care; I
did not seem to care much about anything.

Hephzy was perfectly happy.  London to her was as wonderful as
ever.  She never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I
felt disinclined to leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or
wandering about the streets.

She scarcely mentioned "Little Frank" and I took care not to remind
her of that mythical youth.  I had expected her to see him on every
street corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young
Englishmen and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to
our being taken in charge as a pair of demented foreigners.  But my
forebodings were not realized.  London was so huge and the crowds
so great that even Hephzy's courage faltered.  To select Little
Frank from the multitude was a task too great, even for her, I
imagine.  At any rate, she did not make the attempt, and the belief
that we were "sent" upon our pilgrimage for that express purpose
she had not expressed since our evening on the train.

The third week passed.  I was growing tired of trotting about.  Not
tired of London in particular.  The gray, dingy, historic,
wonderful old city was still fascinating.  It is hard to conceive
of an intelligent person's ever growing weary of the narrow streets
with the familiar names--Fleet Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane
and all the rest--names as familiar to a reader of history or
English fiction as that of his own town.  To wander into an unknown
street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to look up at an
ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse, were ever
fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every book-
loving American.  No, I was not tired of London.  Had I come there
under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content
as Hephzy herself.  But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I
was beginning to think again, to think of myself--the very thing I
had determined, and still meant, not to do.

One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office.  Hephzy had
left me at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume,
enjoying a delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford
Streets.  When she returned she would have a half-dozen purchases
to display, a two-and-six glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of
lace from Selfridge's, a knick-knack from Liberty's--"All so MUCH
cheaper than you can get 'em in Boston, Hosy."  She would have had
a glorious time.

Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the
head clerk--I was learning to speak of him as a "clark"--was in.

"There are some American letters for you, sir," he said.  "I was
about to send them to your hotel."

He gave me the letters--four of them altogether--and I went into
the private office to look them over.  My first batch of mail from
home; it gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the
corners of the envelopes.

One of the letters was from Campbell.  I opened it first of all.
Jim wrote a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business,
news, advice and nonsense.  "The Black Brig" had gone into another
edition.  Considering my opinion of such "slush" I should be
ashamed to accept the royalties, but he would continue to give my
account credit for them until I cabled to the contrary.  He trusted
we were behaving ourselves in a manner which would reflect credit
upon our country.  I was to be sure not to let Hephzy marry a
title.  And so on, for six pages.  The letter was almost like a
chat with Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and a pang of
homesickness.

One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not
open it.  It was postmarked "Bayport" and I thought I recognized
the handwriting as Susanna Wixon's.  The third letter turned out to
be not a letter at all, but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took
care of our "lots" in the Bayport cemetery.  It had been my
intention to pay all bills before leaving home, but, somehow or
other, Sylvanus's had been overlooked.  I must send him a check at
once.

The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled.  It had
traveled a long way.  To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in
the corner was English and the postmark "London."  The address,
moreover, was "Captain Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts,
U. S. A."  The letter had obviously been mailed in London, had
journeyed to Bayport, from there to New York, and had then been
forwarded to London again.  Someone, presumably Simmons, the
postmaster, had written "Care Hosea Knowles" and my publisher's New
York address in the lower corner.  This had been scratched out and
"28 Camford Street, London, England," added.

I looked at the envelope.  Who in the world, or in England, could
have written Captain Barnabas--Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-
uncle, dead so many years?  At first I was inclined to hand the
letter, unopened, to Hephzy.  She was Captain Barnabas's daughter
and it belonged to her by right.  But I knew Hephzy had no secrets
from me and, besides, my curiosity was great.  At length I yielded
to it and tore open the envelope.

Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with
writing.  I read the first line.


"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.

"Sir:

"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I--"


"I uttered an exclamation.  Then I stepped to the door of the
private office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in
the chair before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my
disposal, and read the letter from beginning to end.  This is what
I read:


"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.

"Sir:

"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
address this letter to you.  I know little concerning you.  I do
not know even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are
living at all.  (N.B.  In case Captain Cahoon is not living this
letter is to be read and acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate
I have an equal claim.)  My mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in
Liverpool in 1896.  My father, Strickland Morley, died in Paris in
December, 1908.  I, as their only child, am their heir, and I am
writing to you asking what I might demand--that is, a portion of
the money which was my mother's and which you kept from her and
from my father all these years.  My father told me the whole story
before he died, and he also told me that he had written you several
times, but that his letters had been ignored.  My father was an
English gentleman and he was proud; that is why he did not take
legal steps against you for the recovery of what was his by law in
England OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY, one may presume.  He would not
STOOP to such measures even against those who, as you know well, so
meanly and fraudulently deprived him and his of their inheritance.
He is dead now.  He died lacking the comforts and luxuries with
which you might and SHOULD have provided him.  His forbearance was
wonderful and characteristic, but had I known of it sooner I should
have insisted upon demanding from you the money which was his.  I
am now demanding it myself.  Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY
understood.  I am giving you the opportunity to make a partial
restitution, that is all.  It is what he would have wished, and his
wish ALONE prevents my putting the whole matter in my solicitor's
hands.  If I do not hear from you within a reasonable time I shall
know what to do.  You may address me care Mrs. Briggs, 218 ----
Street, London, England.

"Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,

"Yours,

"FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY.

"P. S.

"I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for
charity.  I am NOT begging.  You, I am given to understand, are a
wealthy man.  I demand my share of that wealth--that is all."


I read this amazing epistle through once.  Then, after rising and
walking about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake,
I sat down and read it again.  There was no mistake.  I had read it
correctly.  The writing was somewhat illegible in spots and the
signature was blotted, but it was from Francis Strickland Morley.
From "Little Frank!"  I think my first and greatest sensation was
of tremendous surprise that there really was a "Little Frank."
Hephzy had been right.  Once more I should have to take off my hat
to Hephzy.

The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it
company.  The extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when
and where it did, in London, the city from which it was written and
where, doubtless, the writer still was.  If I chose I might,
perhaps, that very afternoon, meet and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's
son, with "Little Frank" himself.  I could scarcely realize it.
Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was the result of a
special dispensation--we had been "sent" there.  In the face of
this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.

The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else.  It was
that of a young person, of a hot-headed boy.  But WHAT a boy he
must be!  What an unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub!  The
boyishness was evident in every line, in the underscored words, the
pitiful attempt at dignity and the silly veiled threats.  He was so
insistent upon the statement that he was not a beggar.  And yet he
could write a begging letter like this.  He did not ask for
charity, not he, he demanded it.  Demanded it--he, the son of a
thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
"rights."  He should have his rights; I would see to that.

I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time,
the pitifulness of it became more apparent.  I imagined Francis
Strickland Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I
remembered, the useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-
nothing father.  No doubt the father was responsible for such a
letter as this having been written.  Doubtless he HAD told the boy
all sorts of tales; perhaps he HAD declared himself to be the
defrauded instead of the defrauder; he was quite capable of it.
Possibly the youngster did believe he had a claim upon the wealthy
relatives in that "uncivilized" country, America.  The wealthy
relatives!  I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost
opportunities, of the college course which I had been obliged to
forego.  My indignation returned.  I would not go back at once to
Hephzy with the letter.  I would, myself, seek out the writer of
that letter, and, if I found him, he and I would have a heart to
heart talk which should disabuse his mind of a few illusions.  We
would have a full and complete understanding.

I hastily made a memorandum of the address, "Care Mrs. Briggs,"
thrust the letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail
into my pocket, and walked out into the main office.  Holton, the
clerk, looked up from his desk.  Probably my feelings showed in my
face, for he said:

"What is it, Mr. Knowles?  No bad news, I trust, sir."

"No," I answered, shortly.  "Where is ---- Street?  Is it far from
here?"

It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of
the river.  I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at
so and so.  It sounded like a journey and I was impatient.  I
suggested that I might take a cab.  Certainly I could do that.
William, the boy, would call a cab at once.

William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on
through the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey
side.  The locality did not impress me favorably.  There was an
abundance of "pubs" and of fried-fish shops where "jellied eels"
seemed to be a viand much in demand.

---- Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate.  Three-
storied old brick houses, with shops on their first floors,
predominated.  Number 218 was one of these.  The signs "Lodgings"
over the tarnished bell-pull and the name "Briggs" on the plate
beside it proved that I had located the house from which the letter
had been sent.

I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell.  A slouchy
maid-servant answered the ring.

"Is Mr. Francis Morley in?" I asked.

The maid looked at me.

"Wat, sir?" she said.

"Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?" I asked, raising my voice.
"Is he in?"

The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post.  Her mouth, already
open, opened still wider and she continued to stare.  A step
sounded in the dark hall behind her and another voice said,
sharply:

"'Oo is it, 'Arriet?  And w'at does 'e want?"

The maid grinned.  "'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am," she
said, with a giggle.

She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and
scowl, took her place.

"'OO do you want to see?" she demanded.

"Francis Morley.  Does he live here?"

"'OO?"

"Francis Morley."  My answer was sharp enough this time.  I began
to think I had invaded a colony of imbeciles--or owls; their
conversation seemed limited to "oos."

"W'at do you want to see--to see Morley for?" demanded the red-
faced female.

"On business.  Is Mrs. Briggs in?"

"I'm Mrs. Briggs."

"Good!  I'm glad of that.  Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is
in?"

"There ain't no Mr. Morley.  There's a--"

She was interrupted.  From the hall, apparently from the top of the
flight of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the
others, but unlike them--decidedly unlike.

"Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?" said this voice.  "Does the gentleman
wish to see me?"

"No, 'e don't," declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis.  "'E wants to
see Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such."

"But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley?  Ask him, please."

Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.

"I want to see a Francis Morley," I repeated, loudly.  "I have come
here in answer to a letter.  The letter gave this as his address.
If he isn't here, will you be good enough to tell me where he is?
I--"

There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness
behind Mrs. Briggs and the maid.

"Oh!" said the third voice, with a little catch in it.  "Who is it,
please?  Who is it?  What is the person's name?"

Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.

"Wat's your name?" she snapped.

"My name is Knowles.  I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and
I'm here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself."

There was a moment's silence.  Then the third voice said:

"Ask--ask him to come up.  Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you
please."

Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside.  I entered the hall.

"First floor back," mumbled the landlady.  "Straight as you go.
You won't need any showin'."

I mounted the stairs.  The landing at the top was dark, but the
door at the rear was ajar.  I knocked.  A voice, the same voice I
had heard before, bade me come in.  I entered the room.

It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two
chairs, a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau.  I noticed
these afterwards.  Just then my attention was centered upon the
occupant of the room, a young woman, scarcely more than a girl,
dark-haired, dark-eyed, slender and graceful.  She was standing by
the bureau, resting one hand upon it, and gazing at me, with a
strange expression, a curious compound of fright, surprise and
defiance.  She did not speak.  I was embarrassed.

"I beg your pardon," I stammered.  "I am afraid there is some
mistake.  I came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis
Morley, who is--well, I suppose he is a distant relative of mine."

She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered.
Then she turned and faced me.

"You are an American," she said.

"Yes, I am an American.  I--"

She interrupted me.

"Do you--do you come from--from Bayport, Massachusetts?" she
faltered.

I stared at her.  "Why, yes," I admitted.  "I do come from Bayport.
How in the world did you--"

"Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?"

"Yes."

"Then--then there isn't any mistake.  I wrote it."

I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.

"You!" I exclaimed.  "Why--why--it was written by Francis Morley--
Francis Strickland Morley."

"I am Frances Strickland Morley."

I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it.  I had been
working along the lines of a fixed idea.  Now that idea had been
knocked into a cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with
it.

"Why--why, no," I repeated, stupidly.  "Francis Morley is the son
of Strickland Morley."

"There was no son," impatiently.  "I am Frances Morley, I tell you.
I am Strickland Morley's daughter.  I wrote that letter."

I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs.  I was obliged to
sit.  I could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my
benumbed brain was beginning to comprehend.  The mistake was a
simple one, merely the difference between an "i" and an "e" in a
name, that was all.  And yet that mistake--that slight difference
between "Francis" and "Frances"--explained the amazing difference
between the Little Frank of Hephzibah's fancy and the reality
before me.

The real Little Frank was a girl.



CHAPTER VII

In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality


I said nothing immediately.  I could not.  It was "Little Frank"
who resumed the conversation.  "Who are you?" she asked.

"Who--I beg your pardon?  I am rather upset, I'm afraid.  I didn't
expect--that is, I expected. . . .  Well, I didn't expect THIS!
What was it you asked me?"

"I asked you who you were."

"My name is Knowles--Kent Knowles.  I am Captain Cahoon's grand-
nephew."

"His grand-nephew.  Then--Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?"

"Send me!  I beg your pardon once more.  No. . . .  No.  Captain
Cahoon is dead.  He has been dead nearly ten years.  No one sent
me."

"Then why did you come?  You have my letter; you said so."

"Yes; I--I have your letter.  I received it about an hour ago.  It
was forwarded to me--to my cousin and me--here in London."

"Here in London!  Then you did not come to London in answer to that
letter?"

"No.  My cousin and I--"

"What cousin?  What is his name?"

"His name?  It isn't a--That is, the cousin is a woman.  She is
Miss Hephzibah Cahoon, your--your mother's half-sister.  She is--
Why, she is your aunt!"

It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt.  I don't know
why that seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did.  The
young lady herself seemed to find it so.

"My aunt?" she repeated.  "I didn't know--But--but, why is my--my
aunt here with you?"

"We are on a pleasure trip.  We--I beg your pardon.  What have I
been thinking of?  Don't stand.  Please sit down."

She accepted the invitation.  As she walked toward the chair it
seemed to me that she staggered a little.  I noticed then for the
first time, how very slender she was, almost emaciated.  There were
dark hollows beneath her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-
linen--No, I am wrong; it was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.

"Are you ill?" I asked involuntarily.

She did not answer.  She seated herself in the chair and fixed her
dark eyes upon me.  They were large eyes and very dark.  Hephzy
said, when she first saw them, that they looked like "burnt holes
in a blanket."  Perhaps they did; that simile did not occur to me.

"You have read my letter?" she asked.

It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not
have learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to
this.  I said simply that I had read the letter.

"Then what do you propose?" she asked.

"Propose?"

"Yes," impatiently.  "What proposition do you make me?  If you have
read the letter you must know what I mean.  You must have come here
for the purpose of saying something, of making some offer.  What is
it?"

I was speechless.  I had come there to find an impudent young
blackguard and tell him what I thought of him.  That was as near a
definite reason for my coming as any.  If I had not acted upon
impulse, if I had stopped to consider, it is quite likely that I
should not have come at all.  But the blackguard was--was--well, he
was not and never had been.  In his place was this white-faced,
frail girl.  I couldn't tell her what I thought of her.  I didn't
know what to think.

She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb
idiot, her impatience grew.  Her brows--very dark brown they were,
almost black against the pallor of her face--drew together and her
foot began to pat the faded carpet.  "I am waiting," she said.

I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing
which occurred to me.  It was a question.

"Your father is dead?" I asked.

She nodded.  "My letter told you that," she answered.  "He died in
Paris three years ago."

"And--and had he no relatives here in England?"

She hesitated before replying.  "No near relatives whom he cared to
recognize," she answered haughtily.  "My father, Mr. Knowles was a
gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family,
as well as by OTHERS"--with a marked emphasis on the word--"he did
not stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should
have commanded."

"Oh!  Oh, I see," I said, feebly.

"There is no reason why you should see.  My father was the second
son and--But this is quite irrelevant.  You, an American, can
scarcely be expected to understand English family customs.  It is
sufficient that, for reasons of his own, my father had for years
been estranged from his own people."

The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming.  If I
had not known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I
should have been crushed.

"Then you have been quite alone since his death?" I asked.

Again she hesitated.  "For a time," she said, after a moment.  "I
lived with a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs.
Then I--But really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private
affairs need interest you.  As I understand it, this interview of
ours is quite impersonal, in a sense.  You understand, of course--
you must understand--that in writing as I did I was not seeking the
acquaintance of my mother's relatives.  I do not desire their
friendship.  I am not asking them for anything.  I am giving them
the opportunity to do justice, to give me what is my own--my OWN.
If you don't understand this I--I--Oh, you MUST understand it!"

She rose from the chair.  Her eyes were flashing and she was
trembling from head to foot.  Again I realized how weak and frail
she was.

"You must understand," she repeated.  "You MUST!"

"Yes, yes," I said hastily.  "I think I--I suppose I understand
your feelings.  But--"

"There are no buts.  Don't pretend there are.  Do you think for one
instant that I am begging, asking you for HELP?  YOU--of all the
world!"

This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.

"But you never met me before," I said, involuntarily.

"You never knew of my existence."

She stamped her foot.  "I knew of my American relatives," she
cried, scornfully.  "I knew of them and their--Oh, I cannot say the
word!"

"Your father told you--" I began.  She burst out at me like a
flame.

"My father," she declared, "was a brave, kind, noble man.  Don't
mention his name to me.  I won't have you speak of him.  If it were
not for his forbearance and self-sacrifice you--all of you--would
be--would be--Oh, don't speak of my father!  Don't!"

To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and
burst into tears.  I was completely demoralized.

"Don't, Miss Morley," I begged.  "Please don't."

She continued to sob hysterically.  To make matters worse sounds
from behind the closed door led me to think that someone--
presumably that confounded Mrs. Briggs--was listening at the
keyhole.

"Don't, Miss Morley," I pleaded.  "Don't!"

My pleas were unavailing.  The young lady sobbed and sobbed.  I
fidgeted on the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified
embarrassment.  "Don'ts" were quite useless and I could think of
nothing else to say except "Compose yourself" and that, somehow or
other, was too ridiculously reminiscent of Mr. Pickwick and Mrs.
Bardell.  It was an idiotic situation for me to be in.  Some men--
men of experience with woman-kind--might have known how to handle
it, but I had had no such experience.  It was all my fault, of
course; I should not have mentioned her father.  But how was I to
know that Strickland Morley was a persecuted saint?  I should have
called him everything but that.

At last I had an inspiration.

"You are ill," I said, rising.  "I will call someone."

That had the desired effect.  My newly found third--or was it
fourth or fifth--cousin made a move in protest.  She fought down
her emotion, her sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair
looking paler and weaker than ever.  I should have pitied her if
she had not been so superior and insultingly scornful in her manner
toward me.  I--Well, yes, I did pity her, even as it was.

"Don't," she said, in her turn.  "Don't call anyone.  I am not ill--
not now."

"But you have been," I put in, I don't know why.

"I have not been well for some time.  But I am not ill.  I am quite
strong enough to hear what you have to say."

This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say.  I
had not.  She evidently expected me to express repentance for
something or other and make some sort of proposition.  I was not
repentant and I had no proposition to make.  But how was I to tell
her that without bringing on another storm?  Oh, if I had had time
to consider.  If I had not come alone.  If Hephzy,--cool-headed,
sensible Hephzy--were only with me.

"I--I--" I began.  Then desperately:  "I scarcely know what to say,
Miss Morley," I faltered.  "I came here, as I told you, expecting
to find a--a--"

"What, pray?" with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows.  "What did
you expect to find, may I ask?"

"Nothing--that is, I--Well, never mind that.  I came on the spur of
the moment, immediately after receiving your letter.  I have had no
time to think, to consult my--your aunt--"

"What has my--AUNT" with withering emphasis, "to do with it?  Why
should you consult her?"

"Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose.  She is
Captain Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I.  I
must consult her, of course.  But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I
ought to tell you that you are under a misapprehension.  There are
matters which you don't understand."

"I understand everything.  I understand only too well.  What do you
mean by a misapprehension?  Do you mean--do you dare to insinuate
that my father did not tell me the truth?"

"Oh, no, no," I interrupted.  That was exactly what I did mean, but
I was not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear
again until I was out of that room and house.  "I am not
insinuating anything."

"I am very glad to hear it.  I wish you to know that I perfectly
understand EVERYTHING."

That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time.
I took up my hat.

"Miss Morley," I said, "I can't discuss this matter further just
now.  I must consult my cousin first.  She and I will call upon you
to-morrow at any hour you may name."

She was disappointed; that was plain.  I thought for the moment
that she was going to break down again.  But she did not; she
controlled her feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.

"At nine--no, at ten to-morrow, then," she said.  "I shall expect
your final answer then."

"Very well."

"You will come?  Of course; I am forgetting.  You said you would."

"We will be here at ten.  Here is my address."

I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's
in pencil in the corner.  She took the card.

"Thank you.  Good afternoon," she said.

I said "Good afternoon" and opened the door.  The hall outside was
empty, but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry.  I
descended also.  At the top step I glanced once more into the room
I had just left.  Frances Strickland Morley--Little Frank--was
seated in the chair, one hand before her eyes.  Her attitude
expressed complete weariness and utter collapse.  She had said she
was not sick, but she looked sick--she did indeed.

Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the
street door for myself.  As I reached the sidewalk--I suppose, as
this was England, I should call it the "pavement"--I was accosted
by Mrs. Briggs.  She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had
reached that pavement but the moment before.

"'Ow is she?" demanded Mrs. Briggs.

"Who?" I asked, not too politely.

"That Morley one.  Is she goin' to be hill again?"

"How do I know?  Has she been sick--ill, I mean?"

"Huh!  Hill!  'Er?  Now, now, sir!  I give you my word she's been
hill hever since she came 'ere.  I thought one time she was goin'
to die on my 'ands.  And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like
to know?  That's w'at it is!  'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin'
and the food she eats; to say nothin' of 'er room money, and that's
been owin' me for a matter of three weeks?"

"How should I know who is going to pay for it?  She will, I
suppose."

"She!  W'at with?  She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she
ain't.  She's broke, stony broke.  Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a
been out on the street afore this.  That and 'er tellin' me she was
expectin' money from 'er rich friends in the States.  You're from
the States, ain't you, sir?"

"Yes.  But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of
her own?"

"Of course I mean it.  W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on
the stage.  A hopera singer, she said she was.  She 'ad money then,
enough to pay 'er way, she 'ad.  She was expectin' to go with some
troupe or other, but she never 'as.  Oh, them stage people!  Don't
I know 'em?  Ain't I 'ad experience of 'em?  A woman as 'as let
lodgin's as long as me?  If it wasn't for them rich friends in the
States I 'ave never put up with 'er the way I 'ave.  You're from
the States, ain't you, sir?"

"Yes, yes, I'm from the States.  Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm
coming back here to-morrow.  If--Well, if Miss Morley needs
anything, food or medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see
that she has them.  I'll pay you when I come."

Mrs. Briggs actually smiled.  She would have patted my arm if I had
not jerked it out of the way.

"You trust me, sir," she whispered, confidingly.  "You trust my
kind 'eart.  I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter."

I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy--if I had one--to
Mrs. Briggs' "kind heart."  I walked off in disgust.  I found a cab
at the next corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's,
threw myself back on the cushions.  This was a lovely mess!  This
was a beautiful climax to the first act--no, merely the prologue--
of the drama of Hephzy's and my pilgrimage.  What would Jim
Campbell say to this?  I was to be absolutely care-free; I was not
to worry about myself or anyone else.  That was the essential part
of his famous "prescription."  And now, here I was, with this
impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my hands.
If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad
enough.  But Little Frank was a girl--a sick girl, without a penny.
And a girl thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to
goodness knows how much wealth--wealth of which we, the uncivilized,
unprincipled natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had
robbed her parents and herself.  Little Frank had been a dream
before; now he--she, I mean--was a nightmare; worse than that, for
one wakes from a nightmare.  And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!

Well, I told her.  She was in our sitting-room when I reached the
hotel and I told her the whole story.  I began by reading the
letter.  Before she had recovered from the shock of the reading, I
told her that I had actually met and talked with Little Frank; and
while this astounding bit of news was, so to speak, soaking into
her bewildered brain, I went on to impart the crowning item of
information--namely, that Little Frank was Miss Frances.  Then I
sat back and awaited what might follow.

Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected--and I
had expected almost anything.

"Oh, Hosy," gasped Hephzy, "tell me--tell me before you say
anything else.  Does he--she, I mean--look like Ardelia?"

"Eh?  What?" I stammered.  "Look like--look like what?"

"Not what--who.  Does she look like Ardelia?  Like her mother?  Oh,
I HOPE she doesn't favor her father's side!  I did so want our
Little Frank to look like his--her--I CAN'T get used to it--like
my poor Ardelia.  Does she?"

"Goodness knows!  I don't know who she looks like.  I didn't
notice."

"You didn't!  I should have noticed that before anything else.
What kind of a girl is she?  Is she pretty?"

"I don't know.  She isn't ugly, I should say.  I wasn't particularly
interested in her looks.  The fact that she was at all was enough; I
haven't gotten over that yet.  What are we going to do with her?  Or
are we going to do anything?  Those are the questions I should like
to have answered.  For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her
personal appearance.  There she is and here are we.  What are we
going to do?"

Hephzy shook her head.  "I don't know, Hosy," she admitted.  "I
don't know, I'm sure.  This is--this is--Oh, didn't I tell you we
were SENT--sent by Providence!"

I was silent.  If we had been "sent," as she called it, I was far
from certain that Providence was responsible.  I was more inclined
to place the responsibility in a totally different quarter.

"I think," she continued, "I think you'd better tell me the whole
thing all over again, Hosy.  Tell it slow and don't leave out a
word.  Tell me what sort of place she was in and what she said and
how she looked, as near as you can remember.  I'll try and pay
attention; I'll try as hard as I can.  It'll be a job.  All I can
think of now is that to-morrow mornin'--only to-morrow mornin'--I'm
going to see Little Frank--Ardelia's Little Frank."

I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
experience.  I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she
might read it herself.  I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen
of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house.  I described Miss Morley as best I
could, dark eyes, dark hair and the look of weakness and frailty.
I repeated our conversation word for word; I had forgotten nothing
of that.  Hephzy listened in silence.  When I had finished she
sighed.

"The poor thing," she said.  "I do pity her so."

"Pity her!" I exclaimed.  "Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way.
But my pity and yours don't alter the situation.  She doesn't want
pity.  She doesn't want help.  She flew at me like a wildcat when I
asked if she was ill.  Her personal affairs, she says, are not
ours; she doesn't want our acquaintance or our friendship.  She has
gotten some crazy notion in her head that you and I and Uncle
Barnabas have cheated her out of an inheritance, and she wants
that!  Inheritance!  Good Lord!  A fine inheritance hers is!
Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we had."

"I know--I know.  But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy.  Her father
must have told her--"

"He told her a barrel of lies, of course.  What they were I can't
imagine, but that fellow was capable of anything.  Know!  No, she
doesn't know now, but she will have to know."

"Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?"

I stared in amazement.

"Tell her!" I repeated.  "What do you mean?  You don't intend
letting her think that WE are the thieves, do you?  That's what she
thinks now.  Of course I shall tell her."

"It will be awful hard to tell.  She worshipped her father, I
guess.  He was a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be.
He could make a body believe black was white.  Poor Ardelia thought
he was--"

"I can't help that.  I'm not Ardelia."

"I know, but she is Ardelia's child.  Hosy, if you are so set on
tellin' her why didn't you tell her this afternoon?  It would have
been just as easy then as to-morrow."

This was a staggerer.  A truthful answer would be so humiliating.
I had not told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a
liar because I couldn't muster courage to do it.  She had seemed so
alone and friendless and ill.  I lacked the pluck to face the
situation.  But I could not tell Hephzy this.

"Why didn't you tell her?" she repeated.

"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed, impatiently.  "This is nonsense and you
know it, Hephzy.  She'll have to be told and you and I must tell
her.  DON'T look at me like that.  What else are we to do?"

Another shake of the head.

"I don't know.  I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy.  What
do YOU think we should do?"

"I don't know."

With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation
ended.  I went to my room to dress for dinner.  I had no appetite
and dinner was not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little
Frank any longer.  I mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times
that evening and during the better part of a sleepless night.  If
it were not for him I should be in Bayport instead of London.  From
a distance of three thousand miles I could, without the least
hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's "heir" what to do.

Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all.  From behind the door of
her room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat.
I could not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so.  The
next morning, at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent
pair.  I don't know what George, the waiter, thought of us.

At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which
I had been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster
in the street below.

"You'd better get on your things," I said.  "It is time for us to
go."

Hephzy donned her hat and wrap.  Then she came over to me.

"Don't be cross, Hosy," she pleaded.  "I've been thinkin' it over
all night long and I've come to the conclusion that you are
probably right.  She hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's
the other way around, if anything.  You do just as you think best
and I'll back you up."

"Then you agree that we should tell her the truth."

"Yes, if you think so.  I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands.
Whatever you do will be right.  I'll trust you as I always have."

It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me.  I did wish she had
been more emphatic.  However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a
course of action.  Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would
not consider.  Right was right, and justice was justice.  I would
end a disagreeable business as quickly as I could.

Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more
inviting at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the
afternoon.  I expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty
steps and the still dirtier front door.  She did neither.  We stood
together upon the steps and I rang the bell.

Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door.  I think she had been watching
from behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb.
She was in a state of great agitation, a combination of relieved
anxiety, excitement and overdone politeness.

"Good mornin', sir," she said; "and good mornin', lady.  I've been
expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear.  I thought one w'ile she
was that hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed
'er same as if she was my own daughter.  I told you I would sir,
now didn't I."

One word in this harangue caught my attention.

"Ill?" I repeated.  "What do you mean?  Is she worse than she was
yesterday?"

Mrs. Briggs held up her hands.  "Worse!" she cried.  "Why, bless
your 'art, sir, she was quite well yesterday.  Quite 'erself, she
was, when you come.  But after you went away she seemed to go all
to pieces like.  W'en I went hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea--She
always 'as 'er tea; I've been a mother to 'er, I 'ave--she'll tell
you so.  W'en I went hup with the tea there she was in a faint.
W'ite as if she was dead.  My word, sir, I was frightened.  And all
night she's been tossin' about, a-cryin' out and--"

"Where is she now?" put in Hephzy, sharply.

"She's in 'er room ma'am.  Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin'
of your comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't.  She's dressed,
but she's lyin' down.  She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I
wouldn't 'ave, ma'am.  'Now, dearie,' I told 'er--"

But I would not hear any more.  As for Hephzy she was in the dingy
front hall already.

"Shall we go up?" I asked, impatiently.

"Of COURSE you're to go hup.  She's a-waitin' for you.  But sir--
sir," she caught my sleeve; "if you think she's goin' to be ill and
needin' the doctor, just pass the word to me.  A doctor she shall
'ave, the best there is in London.  All I ask you is to pay--"

I heard no more.  Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I
followed.  The door of the first floor back was closed.  I rapped
upon it.

"Come in," said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker
than before.

Hephzy looked at me.  I nodded.

"You go first," I whispered.  "You can call me when you are ready."

Hephzy opened the door and entered the room.  I closed the door
behind her.

Silence for what seemed a long, long time.  Then the door opened
again and Hephzy appeared.  Her cheeks were wet with tears.  She
put her arms about my neck.

"Oh, Hosy," she whispered, "she's real sick.  And--and--Oh, Hosy,
how COULD you see her and not see!  She's the very image of
Ardelia.  The very image!  Come."

I followed her into the room.  It was no brighter now, in the
middle of a--for London--bright forenoon, than it had been on my
previous visit.  Just as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever.
But now there was no defiant figure erect to meet me.  The figure
was lying upon the bed, and the pale cheeks of yesterday were
flushed with fever.  Miss Morley had looked far from well when I
first saw her; now she looked very ill indeed.

She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow.  Her illness
had not quenched her spirit, that was plain.  She attempted to
rise, but Hephzy gently pushed her back upon the pillow.

"You stay right there," she urged.  "Stay right there.  We can talk
just as well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy."

I stammered something or other.  My errand, difficult as it had
been from the first, now seemed impossible.  I had come there to
say certain things--I had made up my mind to say them; but how was
I to say such things to a girl as ill as this one was.  I would not
have said them to Strickland Morley himself, under such
circumstances.

"I--I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley," I faltered.

She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.

"I am not well," she said; "but that need make no difference.  I
presume you and this--this lady are prepared to make a definite
proposition to me.  I am well enough to hear it."

Hephzy and I looked at each other.  I looked for help, but Hephzy's
expression was not helpful at all.  It might have meant anything--
or nothing.

"Miss Morley," I began.  "Miss Morley, I--I--"

"Well, sir?"

"Miss Morley, I--I don't know what to say to you."

She rose to a sitting posture.  Hephzy again tried to restrain her,
but this time she would not be restrained.

"Don't know what to say?" she repeated.  "Don't know what to say?
Then why did you come here?"

"I came--we came because--because I promised we would come."

"But WHY did you come?"

Hephzy leaned toward her.

"Please, please," she begged.  "Don't get all excited like this.
You mustn't.  You'll make yourself sicker, you know.  You must lie
down and be quiet.  Hosy--oh, please, Hosy, be careful."

Miss Morley paid no attention.  She was regarding me with eyes
which looked me through and through.  Her thin hands clutched the
bedclothes.

"WHY did you come?" she demanded.  "My letter was plain enough,
certainly.  What I said yesterday was perfectly plain.  I told you
I did not wish your acquaintance or your friendship.  Friendship--"
with a blaze of scorn, "from YOU!  I--I told you--I--"

"Hush! hush! please don't," begged Hephzy.  "You mustn't.  You're
too weak and sick.  Oh, Hosy, do be careful."

I was quite willing to be careful--if I had known how.

"I think," I said, "that this interview had better be postponed.
Really, Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to--"

She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.

"My condition has nothing to do with it," she cried.  "Oh, CAN'T I
make you understand!  I am trying to be lenient, to be--to be--And
you come here, you and this woman, and try to--to--You MUST
understand!  I don't want to know you.  I don't want your pity!
After your treatment of my mother and my father, I--I--I . . .
Oh!"

She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and
then collapsed in a dead faint.

Hephzy was at her side in a moment.  She knew what to do if I did
not.

"Quick!" she cried, turning to me.  "Send for the doctor; she has
fainted.  Hurry!  And send that--that Briggs woman to me.  Don't
stand there like that.  HURRY!"

I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall.  From her I learned the
name and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public
telephone.  Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to
telephone.

Oh, those London telephones!  After innumerable rings and "Hellos"
from me, and "Are you theres" from Central, I, at last, was
connected with the doctor's office and, by great good luck, with
the doctor himself.  He promised to come at once.  In ten minutes I
met him at the door and conducted him to the room above.

He was in that room a long time.  Meanwhile, I waited in the hall,
pacing up and down, trying to think my way through this maze.  I
had succeeded in thinking myself still deeper into it when the
physician reappeared.

"How is she?" I asked.

"She is conscious again, but weak, of course.  If she can be kept
quiet and have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry
she will, probably, gain strength and health.  There is nothing
seriously wrong physically, so far as I can see."

I was glad to hear that and said so.

"Of course," he went on, "her nerves are completely unstrung.  She
seems to have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings
are not--"  He paused, and then added, "Is the young lady a
relative of yours?"

"Ye--es, I suppose--She is a distant relative, yes."

"Humph!  Has she no near relatives?  Here in England, I mean.  You
and the lady with you are Americans, I judge."

I ignored the last sentence.  I could not see that our being
Americans concerned him.

"She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know," I
answered.  "Why do you ask?"

"Merely because--Well, to be frank, because if she had such
relatives I should strongly recommend their taking charge of her.
She is very weak and in a condition where she knight become
seriously ill."

"I see.  You mean that she should not remain here."

"I do mean that, decidedly.  This," with a wave of the hand and a
glance about the bare, dirty, dark hall, "is not--Well, she seems
to be a young person of some refinement and--"

He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.

"I see," I interrupted.  "And yet she is not seriously ill."

"Not now--no.  Her weakness is due to mental strain and--well, to a
lack of nutrition as much as anything."

"Lack of nutrition?  You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!"

"Yes.  Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion
if I were forced to give one.  At all events, she should be taken
from here as soon as possible."

I reflected.  "A hospital?" I suggested.

"She might be taken to a hospital, of course.  But she is scarcely
ill enough for that.  A good, comfortable home would be better.
Somewhere where she might have quiet and rest.  If she had
relatives I should strongly urge her going to them.  She should not
be left to herself; I would not be responsible for the consequences
if she were.  A person in her condition might--might be capable of
any rash act."

This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action
plainer to me.

"Is she well enough to be moved--now?" I asked.

"Yes.  If she is not moved she is likely to be less well."

I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription--"To quiet the
nerves," he explained--and went away.  I was to send for him
whenever his services were needed.  Then I entered the room.

Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed.  The face upon
the pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever.  The dark eyes
were closed.

Hephzy signaled me to silence.  She rose and tiptoed over to me.  I
led her out into the hall.

"She's sort of dozin' now," she whispered.  "The poor thing is worn
out.  What did the doctor say?"

I told her what the doctor had said.

"He's just right," she declared.  "She's half starved, that's
what's the matter with her.  That and frettin' and worryin' have
just about killed her.  What are you goin' to do, Hosy?"

"How do I know!" I answered, impatiently.  "I don't see exactly why
we are called upon to do anything.  Do you?"

"No--o, I--I don't know as we are called on.  No--o.  I--"

"Well, do you?"

"No.  I know how you feel, Hosy.  Considerin' how her father
treated us, I won't blame you no matter what you do."

"Confound her father!  I only wish it were he we had to deal with."

Hephzy was silent.  I took a turn up and down the hall.

"The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once," I
observed.

Hephzy nodded.  "There's no doubt about that," she declared with
emphasis.  "I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman.
She's a--well, she's what she is."

"I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve," I went on.  "He
recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the
rest of it.  Her relatives should look after her, he said.  She
hasn't any relatives that we know of, or any home to go to."

Again Hephzy was silent.  I waited, growing momentarily more
nervous and fretful.  Of all impossible situations this was the
most impossible.  And to make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt,
reliable Hephzy, was of no use at all.

"Do say something," I snapped.  "What shall we do?"

"I don't know, Hosy, dear.  Why! . . .  Where are you going?"

"I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled.  I'll
be back soon."

The drug-store--it was a "chemist's shop" of course--was at the
corner.  It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I
called the doctor.  I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he
was busy with it, I paced up and down the floor of the shop.  At
length I sat down before the telephone and demanded a number.

When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders
which the chemist's clerk had prepared.

"Is she any better?" I asked.

"She's just about the same."

"What does she say?"

"She's too weak and sick to say anything.  I don't imagine she
knows or cares what is happening to her."

"Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
afterward?"

"I guess so.  We could help her, you know.  But, Hosy, what cab?
What do you mean?  What are you going to do?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do.  I'm going to take her away
from this hole.  I must.  I don't want to; there's no reason why I
should and every reason why I shouldn't; but--Oh, well, confound
it!  I've got to.  We CAN'T let her starve and die here."

"But where are you going to take her?"

"There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's.  I've
'phoned and engaged a room next to ours.  She'll have to stay with
us for the present.  Oh, I don't like it any better than you do."

To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and
hugged me.

"I knew you would, Hosy!" she sobbed.  "I knew you would.  I was
dyin' to have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world.  You're
the best man that ever lived.  I knew you wouldn't leave poor
Ardelia's little girl to--to--Oh, I'm so grateful.  You're the best
man in the world."

I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could.  I didn't feel
like the best man in the world.  I felt like a Quixotic fool.

Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my
feelings.  Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the
invalid to the cab and to collect and pack her most necessary
belongings.  I spent my time in a financial wrangle with Mrs.
Briggs.  The number of items which that woman wished included in
her bill was surprising.  Candles and soap--the bill itself was the
sole evidence of soap's ever having made its appearance in that
house--and washing and tea and food and goodness knows what.  The
total was amazing.  I verified the addition, or, rather, corrected
it, and then offered half of the sum demanded.  This offer was
received with protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I
'ad the 'art to rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself.
Finally we compromised on a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs
receipted the bill.  She said her kind disposition would be the
undoing of her and she knew it.  She was too silly and soft-'arted
to let lodgings.

We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to
the cab.  The effect of the doctor's powders--they must have
contained some sort of opiate--was to render the girl only
partially conscious of what was going on and we got her to and into
the vehicle without difficulty.  During the drive to Bancroft's she
dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.

Her room--it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door--was
ready and we led her up the stairs.  Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very
kind and sympathetic.  They asked surprisingly few questions.

"Poor young lady," said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in
our sitting-room.  "She is quite ill, isn't she."

"Yes," I admitted.  "It is not a serious illness, however.  She
needs quiet and care more than anything else."

"Yes, sir.  We will do our best to see that she has both.  A
relative of yours, sir, I think you said."

"A--a--my niece," I answered, on the spur of the moment.  She was
Hephzy's niece, of course.  As a matter of fact, she was scarcely
related to me.  However, it seemed useless to explain.

"I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles.  I had been
under the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here."

So had I, but I did not explain that, either.  Mrs. Jameson joined
us.

"She will sleep now, I think," she said.  "She is quite quiet and
peaceful.  A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?"

"She is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained her husband.

"Oh, yes.  A sweet girl she seems.  And very pretty, isn't she."

I did not answer.  Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.

"I presume you will wish to communicate with her people," said the
former.  "Shall I send you telegram forms?"

"Not now," I stammered.  Telegrams!  Her people!  She had no
people.  We were her people.  We had taken her in charge and were
responsible.  And how and when would that responsibility be
shifted!

What on earth should we do with her?

Hephzy tiptoed in.  Her expression was a curious one.  She was very
solemn, but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but
appeared to be a sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.

"She's asleep," she said, gravely; "she's asleep, Hosy."

There was precious little comfort in that.

"She'll wake up by and by," I said.  "And then--what?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I--now.  But we shall have to know pretty soon."

"I suppose we shall, but I can't--I can't seem to think of anything
that's ahead of us.  All I can think is that my Little Frank--my
Ardelia's Little Frank--is here, here with us, at last."

"And TO last, so far as I can see.  Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do
try to be sensible.  Do you realize what this means?  As soon as
she is well enough to understand what has happened she will want to
know what 'proposition' we have to make.  And when we tell her we
have none to make, she'll probably collapse again.  And then--and
then--what shall we do?"

"I don't know, Hosy.  I declare I don't know."

I strode into my own room and slammed the door.

"Damn!" said I, with enthusiasm.

"What?" queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room.  "What did you say,
Hosy?"

I did not tell her.



CHAPTER VIII

In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants


Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry.  Two weeks
only, and yet in that two weeks all our plans--if our indefinite
visions of irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the
continent might be called plans--had changed utterly.  Our
pilgrimage was, apparently, ended--it had become an indefinite
stay.  We were no longer pilgrims, but tenants, tenants in an
English rectory, of all places in the world.  I, the Cape Cod
quahaug, had become an English country gentleman--or a country
gentleman in England--for the summer, at least.

Little Frank--Miss Frances Morley--was responsible for the change,
of course.  Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune
which had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were
responsible for everything.  For how much more, how many other
changes, she would be responsible the future only could answer.
And the future would answer in its own good, or bad, time.  My
conundrum "What are we going to do with her?" was as much of a
puzzle as ever.  For my part I gave it up.  Sufficient unto the day
was the evil thereof--much more than sufficient.

For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of "my niece"
at Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as
it was.  Miss Morley--or Frances--or Frank as Hephzy persisted in
calling her--was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least,
to speak of it.  She spoke very little, was confined to her room
and bed and slept the greater part of the time.  The doctor whom I
called, on Mr. Jameson's recommendation, confirmed his fellow
practitioner's diagnosis; the young lady, he said, was suffering
from general weakness and the effect of nervous strain.  She needed
absolute rest, care and quiet.  There was no organic disease.

But on the morning of the second day she was much better and
willing, even anxious to talk.  She assailed Hephzy with questions
and Hephzy, although she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged
to answer some of them.  She reported the interview to me during
luncheon.

"She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what
happened before or afterward," said Hephzy.  "But she wanted to
know it all.  I told her the best I could.  'You couldn't stay
there,' I said.  'That Briggs hyena wasn't fit to take care of any
human bein' and neither Hosy nor I could leave you in her hands.
So we brought you here to the hotel where we're stoppin'.'  She
thought this over a spell and then she wanted to know whose idea
bringin' her here was, yours or mine.  I said 'twas yours, and just
like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the world, I
said.  Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy.  It's the plain
truth, and you know it."

"Humph!" I grunted.  "If the young lady were a mind-reader she
might--well, never mind.  What else did she say?"

"Oh, a good many things.  Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs.
Briggs' was paid.  I said it was.  She thought about that and then
she gave me orders that you and I were to keep account of every
cent--no, penny--we spent for her.  She should insist upon that.
If we had the idea that she was a subject of charity we were
mistaken.  She fairly withered me with a look from those big eyes
of hers.  Ardelia's eyes all over again!  Or they would be if they
were blue instead of brown.  I remember--"

I cut short the reminiscence.  I was in no mood to listen to the
praises of any Morley.

"What answer did you make to that?" I asked.

"What could I say?  I didn't want any more faintin' spells or
hysterics, either.  I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity
and if it would please her to have us run an expense book we'd do
it, of course.  She asked what the doctor said about her condition.
I told her he said she must keep absolutely quiet and not fret
about anything or she'd have an awful relapse.  That was pretty
strong but I meant it that way.  Answerin' questions that haven't
got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for ME.  You try it
some time yourself and see."

"I have tried it, thank you.  Well, is that all?  Did she tell you
anything about herself; where she has been or what she has been or
what she has been doing since her precious father died?"

"No, not a word.  I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't.  She says
she wants to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all."

She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call.
Several days passed before he would permit her to talk with him.
Meanwhile he and I had several talks.  What he told me brought my
conundrum no nearer its answer.

She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her
delicate nervous organism must be handled with care.  The slightest
set-back would be disastrous.  He asked if we intended remaining at
Bancroft's indefinitely.  I had no intentions--those I had had were
wiped off my mental slate--so I said I did not know, our future
plans were vague.  He suggested a sojourn in the country, in some
pleasant retired spot in the rural districts.

"An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do
your niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles," he declared.  "She needs
just that.  A very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my
saying so," he went on.  "Were her people Londoners, may I ask?"

He might ask but I had no intention of telling him.  What I knew
concerning my "niece's" people were things not usually told to
strangers.  I evaded the question.

"Has she had a recent bereavement?" he queried.  "I hope you'll not
think me merely idly inquisitive.  I cannot understand how a young
woman, normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such
a strait.  Our English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from
nerves, as I am told your American young women so frequently do.
Has your niece been in the States with you?"

I said she had not.  Incidentally I informed him that American
young women did NOT frequently suffer from nerves.  He said
"Really," but he did not believe me, I'm certain.  He was a good
fellow, and intelligent, but his ideas of "the States" had been
gathered, largely, I think, from newspapers and novels.  He was
convinced that most Americans were confirmed neurotics and
dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all Englishmen wore side-
whiskers.

I changed the conversation as soon as I could.  I could tell him so
little concerning my newly found "niece."  I knew about as much
concerning her life as he did.  It is distinctly unpleasant to be
uncle to someone you know nothing at all about.  I devoutly wished
I had not said she was my niece.  I repeated that wish many times
afterward.

Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results,
surprising results.  Following that talk she sent word by the
doctor that she wished to see Hephzy and me.  We went into her
room.  She was sitting in a chair by the window, and was wearing a
rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or whatever that sort of garment
is called.  At any rate, it was becoming.  I was obliged to admit
that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons and Hephzy and
the doctor--that she was pretty, was correct enough.  She was
pretty, but that did not help matters any.

She asked us--no, she commanded us to sit down.  Her manner was
decidedly business-like.  She wasted no time in preliminaries, but
came straight to the point, and that point was the one which I had
dreaded.  She asked us what decision we had reached concerning her.

"Have you decided what your offer is to be?" she asked.

I looked at Hephzy and she at me.  Neither of us derived comfort
from the exchange of looks.  However, something must be done, or
said, and I braced myself to say it.

"Miss Morley," I began, "before I answer that question I should
like to ask you one.  What do you expect us to do?"

She regarded me coldly.  "I expect," she said, "that you and this--
that you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was
my mother's and which my grandfather should have turned over to her
while he lived."

Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene
which I was certain would follow.

"It is your impression then," I said, "that your mother had money
of her own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that
money for his own use."

"It is not an impression," haughtily; "I know it to be a fact."

"How do you know it?"

"My father told me so, during his last illness."

"Was--pardon me--was your father himself at the time?  Was he--er--
rational?"

"Rational!  My father?"

"I mean--I mean was he himself--mentally?  He was not delirious
when he told you?"

"Delirious!  Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the
last time I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against
my father."

"I am not insinuating anything.  I am seeking information.  Were
you and your father together a great deal?  Did you know him well?
Just what did he tell you?"

She hesitated before replying.  When she spoke it was with an
exaggerated air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an
unreasonable child.

"I will answer you," she said.  "I will answer you because, so far,
I have no fault to find with your behavior toward me.  You and my--
and my aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect,
everything considered.  Your bringing me here and providing for me
was even kind, I suppose.  So I will answer your questions.  My
father and I were not together a great deal.  I attended a convent
school in France and saw Father only at intervals.  I supposed him
to possess an independent income.  It was only when he was--was
unable to work," with a quiver in her voice, "that I learned how he
lived.  He had been obliged to depend upon his music, upon his
violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us both alive.  Then
he told me of--of his life in America and how my mother and he had
been--been cheated and defrauded by those who--who--Oh, DON'T ask
me any more!  Don't!"

"I must ask you.  I must ask you to tell me this:  How was he
defrauded, as you call it?"

"I have told you, already.  My mother's fortune--"

"But your mother had no fortune."

The anticipated scene was imminent.  She sprang to her feet, but
being too weak to stand, sank back again.  Hephzy looked
appealingly at me.

"Hosy," she cautioned; "Oh, Hosy, be careful!  Think how sick she
has been."

"I am thinking, Hephzy.  I mean to be careful.  But what I said is
the truth, and you know it."

Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be
silent.

"Hush!" she commanded.  "Mr. Knowles, what do you mean?  My mother
had money, a great deal of money.  I don't know the exact sum, but
my father said--You know it!  You MUST know it.  It was in my
grandfather's care and--"

"Your grandfather had no money.  He--well, he lost every dollar he
had.  He died as poor as a church rat."

Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing
scrutiny from the dark eyes.  Then Miss Morley's tone changed.

"Indeed!" she said, sarcastically.  "You surprise me, Mr. Knowles.
What became of the money, may I ask?  I understand that my
grandfather was a wealthy man."

"He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and
died poor."

"How did he lose it?"

The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying
answer.  But how could I give that answer--then?  Hephzy was
shaking her head violently.  I stammered and faltered and looked
guilty, I have no doubt.

"Well?" said Miss Morley.

"He--he lost it, that is sufficient.  You must take my word for it.
Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own."

"When did he LOSE his wealth?" with sarcastic emphasis.

"Years ago.  About the time your parents left the United States.
There, there, Hephzy!  I know.  I'm doing my best."

"Indeed!  When did he die?"

"Long ago--more than ten years ago."

"But my parents left America long before that.  If my grandfather
was penniless how did he manage to live all those years?  What
supported him?"

"Your aunt--Miss Cahoon here--had money in her own right."

"SHE had money and my mother had not.  Yet both were Captain
Cahoon's daughters.  How did that happen?"

It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target.
I turned to her.

"Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself," I observed,
maliciously.

Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.

"I--I--Oh, what difference does all this make?" she faltered.
"Hosy has told you the truth, Frances.  Really and truly he has.
Father was poor as poverty when he died and all his last years,
too.  All his money had gone."

"Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say.  But how did it go?"

"In--in--well, it was invested in stocks and things and--and--"

"Do you mean that he speculated in shares?"

"Well, not--not--"

"I see.  Oh, I see.  Father told me a little concerning those
speculations.  He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States,
but his warnings were not heeded, I presume.  And you wish me to
believe that ALL the money was lost--my mother's and all.  Is that
what you mean?"

"Your mother HAD no money," I put in, desperately, "I have told
you--"

"You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles.  Even admitting that my
grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because
of his folly?  I am not asking for HIS money.  I am demanding money
that was my mother's and is now mine.  That I expected from him and
now I expect it from you, his heirs."

"But your mother had no--"

"I do not care to hear that again.  I know she had money."

"But how do you know?"

"Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie."

There we were again--just where we started.  The doctor re-entered
the room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself.
She must lie down and rest, he said.  His manner was one of
distinct disapproval.  It was evident that he considered Hephzy and
me disturbers of the peace; in fact he intimated as much when he
joined us in the sitting-room in a few minutes.

"I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference," he
said.  "The young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles.  If she
is, complete nervous prostration may follow.  She may be an invalid
for months or even years.  I strongly recommend her being taken
into the country as soon as possible."

This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
alarming.  The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming
still.  We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little
Frank that day nor the next.

But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to
Camford Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room.
She was very solemn.

"Hosy," she said, "sit down.  I've got somethin' to tell you."

"About her?" I asked, apprehensively.

"Yes.  She's just been talkin' to me."

"She has!  I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all."

"We did, and I tried not to.  But when I went in to see her just
now she was waitin' for me.  She had somethin' to say, she said,
and she said it--Oh, my goodness, yes! she said it."

"What did she say?  Has she sent for her lawyer--her solicitor, or
whatever he is?"

"No, she hasn't done that.  I don't know but I 'most wish she had.
He wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is.  Hosy, she's made
up her mind."

"Made up her mind!  I thought HER mind was already made up."

"It was, but she's made it up again.  That doctor has been talkin'
to her and she's really frightened about her health, I think.
Anyhow, she has decided that her principal business just now is to
get well.  She told me she had decided not to press her claim upon
us for the present.  If we wished to make an offer of what she
calls restitution, she'll listen to it; but she judges we are not
ready to make one."

"Humph! her judgment is correct so far."

"Yes, but that isn't all.  While she is waitin' for that offer she
expects us to take care of her.  She has been thinkin', she says,
and she has come to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we
have done isn't charity--or needn't be considered as charity--at
all.  She is willin' to consider it a part of that precious
restitution she's forever talkin' about.  We are to take care of
her, and pay her doctor's bills, and take her into the country as
he recommends, and--"

I interrupted.  "Great Scott!" I cried, "does she expect us to
ADOPT her?"

"I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she
said.  We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it
costs, and then when we are ready to make a--a proposition, as she
calls it, this account can be subtracted from the money she thinks
we've got that belongs to her."

"But there isn't any money belonging to her.  I told her so, and so
did you."

"I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't
affect her father's tellin' her once.  Oh, that Strickland Morley!
If only--"

"Hush! hush, Hephzy . . . Well, by George! of all the--this thing
has gone far enough.  It has gone too far.  We made a great mistake
in bringing her here, in having anything to do with her at all--but
we shan't go on making mistakes.  We must stop where we are.  She
must be told the truth now--to-day."

"I know--I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?"

"I will."

"She won't believe you."

"Then she must disbelieve.  She can call in her solicitor and I'll
make him believe."

Hephzy was silent.  Her silence annoyed me.

"Why don't you say something?" I demanded.  "You know what I say is
plain common-sense."

"I suppose it is--I suppose 'tis.  But, Hosy, if you start in
tellin' her again you know what'll happen.  The doctor said the
least little thing would bring on nervous prostration.  And if she
has that, WHAT will become of her?"

It was my turn to hesitate.

"You couldn't--we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
nervous prostrated, could we," pleaded Hephzy.  "After all, she's
Ardelia's daughter and--"

"She's Strickland Morley's daughter.  There is no doubt of that.
Hereditary influence is plain enough in her case."

"I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too.  I don't see how we
can tell her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again."

I was never more thoroughly angry in my life.  My patience was
exhausted.

"Look here, Hephzy," I cried: "what is it you are leading up to?
You're not proposing--actually proposing that we adopt this girl,
are you?"

"No--no--o.  Not exactly that, of course.  But we might take her
into the country somewhere and--"

"Oh, DO be sensible!  Do you realize what that would mean?  We
should have to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything
we had planned to do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a
sanitarium for the benefit of a girl whose father's rascality made
your father a pauper.  And, not only do this, but be treated by her
as if--as if--"

"There, there, Hosy!  I know what it will mean.  I know what it
would mean to you and I don't mean for you to do it.  You've done
enough and more than enough.  But with me it's different.  _I_
could do it."

"You?"

"Yes.  I've got some money of my own.  I could find a nice, cheap,
quiet boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she
and I could go there and stay until she got well.  You needn't go
at all; you could go off travelin' by yourself and--"

"Hephzy, what are you talking about?"

"I mean it.  I've thought it all out, Hosy.  Ever since Ardelia and
I had that last talk together and she whispered to me that--that--
well, especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've
been thinkin' and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I
have.  He--she isn't the kind of Little Frank I expected, but
she's, my sister's baby and I can't--I CAN'T, turn her away to be
sick and die.  I can't do it.  I shouldn't dare face Ardelia in--on
the other side if I did.  No, I guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to
go on with it.  But with you it's different.  She isn't any real
relation to you.  You've done enough--and more than enough--as it
is."

This was the climax.  Of course I might have expected it, but of
course I didn't.  As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered,
from my stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued.  Hephzy
was quiet but firm.  She hated to part from me--she couldn't bear
to think of it; but on the other hand she couldn't abandon her
Ardelia's little girl.  The interview ended by my walking out of
the room and out of Bancroft's in disgust.

I did not return until late in the afternoon.  I was in better
humor then.  Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if
she had been crying.

"Hosy," she said, as I entered, "I--I hope you don't think I'm too
ungrateful.  I'm not.  Really I'm not.  And I care as much for you
as if you was my own boy.  I can't leave you; I sha'n't.  If you
say for us to--"

I interrupted.

"Hephzy," I said, "I shan't say anything.  I know perfectly well
that you couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you.  I have
arranged with Matthews to set about house-hunting at once.  As soon
as rural England is ready for us, we shall be ready for it.  After
all, what difference does it make?  I was ordered to get fresh
experience.  I might as well get it by becoming keeper of a
sanitarium as any other way."

Hephzy looked at me.  She rose from her chair.

"Hosy," she cried, "what--a sanitarium?"

"We'll keep it together," I said, smiling.  "You and I and Little
Frank.  And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment."

Hephzy said--she said a great deal, principally concerning my
generosity and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice.  I tried
to shut off the flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it
ceased.

"Why!" cried Hephzy.  "You're laughin'!  What in the world?  I
don't see anything to laugh at."

"Don't you?  I do.  Oh, dear me!  I--I, the Bayport quahaug to--Ho!
ho!  Hephzy, let me laugh.  If there is any fun in this perfectly
devilish situation let me enjoy it while I can."

And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman
instead of a traveler.  When I told Matthews of my intention he had
been petrified with astonishment.  I had written Campbell of that
intention.  I devoutly wished I might see his face when he read my
letter.

For days and days Hephzy and I "house-hunted."  We engaged a nurse
to look after the future patient of the "sanitarium" while we did
our best to look for the sanitarium itself.  Mr. Matthews gave us
the addresses of real estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to
suburb and from seashore to hills.  We saw several "semi-detached
villas."  The name "semi-detached villa" had an appealing sound,
especially to Hephzy, but the villas themselves did not appeal.
They turned out to be what we, in America, would have called "two-
family houses."

"And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,"
declared Hephzy.  "I've known plenty of real nice folks who did
live in 'em, or one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened
that the folks in the other half was a dreadful mean set.  They let
their dog chase your cat and if your hens scratched up their flower
garden they were real unlikely about it.  I've heard Father tell
about Cap'n Noah Doane and Cap'n Elkanah Howes who used to live in
Bayport.  They'd been chums all their lives and when they retired
from the sea they thought 'twould be lovely to build a double house
so's they would be right close together all the time.  Well, they
did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a month when they began
quarrelin'.  Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house painted yellow and
Mrs. Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green.  They started the fuss and
it ended by one-half bein' yellow and t'other half green--such an
outrage you never saw--and a big fence down the middle of the front
yard, and the two families not speakin', and law-suits and land
knows what all.  They wouldn't even go to the same church nor be
buried in the same graveyard.  No sir-ee! no two-family house for
us if I can help it.  We've got troubles enough inside the family
without fightin' the neighbors."

"But think of the beautiful names," I observed.  "Those names ought
to appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy.  We haven't seen a villa
yet, no matter how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened
'Rosemary Terrace' or 'Sunnylawn' or something.  That last one--the
shack with the broken windows--was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced
an alley ending at a brick stable."

"I know it," she said.  "If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow
Prospect' 'twould have been more fittin', I should say.  But I
think givin' names to homes is sort of pretty, just the same.  We
might call our house at home 'Writer's Rest.'  A writer lives in
it, you know."

"And he has rested more than he has written of late," I observed.
"'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say."

When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real
estate brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show us
"estates."  These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions,
game-keepers' and lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what.
Some, so the brokers were particular to inform us, were celebrated
for their "shooting."

The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too
good.  We inspected but one and then declined to see more.

"Shootin'!" sniffed Hephzy.  "I should feel like shootin' myself
every time I paid the rent.  I'd HAVE to do it the second time.
'Twould be a quicker end than starvin', 'and the first month would
bring us to that."

We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious
name of "Leatherhead"--that is, the village was named "Leatherhead";
the cottage was "Ash Clump."  I teased Hephzy by referring to it as
"Ash Dump," but it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and
flowers.  For the matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the
smallest, was bowered in flowers.

Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to "Leatherhead," but I
told her nothing could be more appropriate.

"This whole proposition--Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that
word; we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'--but really,
Hephzy, 'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us.  If we weren't
leather-headed and deserving of leather medals we should not be
hunting houses at all.  We should have left Little Frank and her
affairs in a lawyer's hands and be enjoying ourselves as we
intended.  Leatherhead for the leather-heads; it's another
dispensation of Providence."

"Ash Dump"--"Clump," I mean--was owned by a person named Cripps,
Solomon Cripps.  Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual,
strongly suggestive of Bancroft's "Henry."  He was rather pompous
and surly when I first knocked at the door of his residence, but
when he learned we were house-hunting and had our eyes upon the
"Clump," he became very polite indeed.  "A 'eavenly spot," he
declared it to be.  "A beautiful neighborhood.  Near the shops and
not far from the Primitive Wesleyan chapel."  He and Mrs. Cripps
attended the chapel, he informed us.

I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too--too something, I was not
sure what.  And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar
type.  They, like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once
and they spoke highly of the "States."

"A very fine country, I am informed," said Mr. Cripps.  "New, of
course, but very fine indeed.  Young men make money there.  Much
money--yes."

Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as
a rule.  Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in
England.

I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep
it up to the standard.  I had read, in books by English writers, of
the British middle-class Pharisee.  I judged the Crippses to be
Pharisees.

Hephzy's opinion was like mine.

"If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs.
Cripps," she declared.  "And her husband ain't any better.  They
remind me of Deacon Hardy and his wife back home.  He always passed
the plate in church and she was head of the sewin' circle, but when
it came to lettin' go of an extry cent for the minister's salary
they had glue on their fingers.  Father used to say that the Deacon
passed the plate himself so nobody could see how little he put in
it.  They were the ones that always brought a stick of salt herrin'
to the donation parties."

We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like "Ash Clump."  We had
almost decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member
of our party on whose account we had planned solely.  Miss Morley
flatly refused to go to Leatherhead.

"Don't ask ME why," said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made.
"I don't know.  All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead'
turned her whiter than she has been for a week.  She just put that
little foot of hers down and said no.  I said 'Why not?' and she
said 'Never mind.'  So I guess we sha'n't be Leatherheaded--in that
way--this summer."

I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the
young lady I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.

"I do not care," said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, "to explain
my reasons.  I have them, and that is sufficient.  I shall not go
to--that town or that place."

"But why?" I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.

"I have my reasons.  You may go there, if you wish.  That is your
right.  But I shall not.  And before you go I shall insist upon a
settlement of my claim."

The "claim" could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's
warning was no less insistent although his patient was steadily
improving.  I faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous
prostration and I chose the former.  My desire to shake her
remained.

So "Ash Clump" was given up.  Hephzy and I speculated much
concerning Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.

"It must be," said Hephzy, "that she knows somebody there, or
somethin' like that.  That's likely, I suppose.  You know we don't
know much about her or what she's done since her father died, Hosy.
I've tried to ask her but she won't tell.  I wish we did know."

"I don't," I snarled.  "I wish to heaven we had never known her at
all."

Hephzy sighed.  "It IS awful hard for you," she said.  "And yet, if
we had come to know her in another way you--we might have been
glad.  I--I think she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks
she didn't consider thieves--and Americans.  She does hate
Americans.  That's her precious pa's doin's, I suppose likely."

The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard.
George, the waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room
each day.  The advertisement read as follows:


"To Let for the Summer Months--Furnished.  A Rectory in Mayberry,
Sussex.  Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small
fruit, tennis court, etc., etc.  Water and gas laid on.  Golf near
by.  Terms low.  Rector--Mayberry, Sussex."


"I answered it, Hosy," said Hephzy.

"You did!"

"Yes.  It sounded so nice I couldn't help it.  It would be lovely
to live in a rectory, wouldn't it."

"Lovely--and expensive," I answered.  "I'm afraid a rectory with
tennis courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will
prove too grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me.  However,
your answering the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to
anything."

But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing
than the advertisement itself.  And the terms, although a trifle
higher than we had planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our
means.  The rector--his name was Cole--urged us to visit Mayberry
and see the place for ourselves.  We were to take the train for
Haddington on Hill where the trap would meet us.  Mayberry was two
miles from Haddington on Hill, it appeared.

We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy
consulted the most particular member of our party.

"It's no use doing anything until we ask her," she said.  "She may
be as down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead."

But she was not.  She had no objections to Mayberry.  So, after
writing and making the necessary arrangements, we took the train
one bright, sunny morning, and after a ride of an hour or more,
alighted at Haddington on Hill.

Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the
middle of a wide flat meadow be called that.  There were no houses
near the railway station, either rectories or any other sort.  We
were the only passengers to leave the train there.

The trap, however, was waiting.  The horse which drew it was a
black, plump little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad
who touched his hat and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the
vehicle.  I climbed up beside her.

The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow.  On
either side were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures
with flocks of sheep grazing contentedly.  In the distance, in
every direction, one caught glimpses of little villages with gray
church towers rising amid the foliage.  Each field and pasture was
bordered with a hedge instead of a fence, and over all hung the
soft, light blue haze which is so characteristic of good weather in
England.

Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward
were rooks, whirled and circled.  As we turned a corner a smaller
bird rose from the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing
with all its little might until it was a fluttering speck against
the sky.  Hephzy watched it, her eyes shining.

"I believe," she cried, excitedly, "I do believe that is a skylark.
Do you suppose it is?"

"A lark, yes, lady," said our driver.

"A lark, a real skylark!  Just think of it, Hosy.  I've heard a
real lark.  Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book,
but you're livin' among book things every day of your life.  'And
singin' ever soars and soarin' ever singest.'  I'd sing, too, if I
knew how.  You needn't be frightened--I sha'n't try."

The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this
time.  At our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with
towers and turrets, rose above the trees.  Hephzy whispered to me.

"You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?" she asked,
in an awestricken tone.

"If it is we may as well go back to London," I answered.  "But it
isn't.  Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up
that establishment."

The driver settled our doubts for us.

"The Manor House, sir," he said, pointing with his whip.  "The
estate begins here, sir."

The "estate" was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far
as we could see.  Beside that fence we rode for some distance.
Then another turn in the road and we entered the street of a little
village, a village of picturesque little houses, brick or stone
always--not a frame house among them.  Many of the roofs were
thatched.  Flowers and climbing vines and little gardens
everywhere.  The village looked as if it had been there, just as it
was, for centuries.

"This is Mayberry, sir," said our driver.  "That is the rectory,
next the church."

We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not
yet visible to our eyes.  We turned in between two of the houses,
larger and more pretentious than the rest.  The driver alighted and
opened a big wooden gate.  Before us was a driveway, shaded by
great elms and bordered by rose hedges.  At the end of the driveway
was an old-fashioned, comfortable looking, brick house.  Vines hid
the most of the bricks.  Flower beds covered its foundations.  A
gray-haired old gentleman stood in the doorway.

This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired
gentleman was the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.

"My soul!" whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious
grounds, "we can never hire THIS.  This is too expensive and grand
for us, Hosy.  Look at the grass to cut and the flowers to attend
to, and the house to run.  No wonder the servants have 'quarters.'
My soul and body!  I thought a rector was a kind of minister, and a
rectory was a sort of parsonage, but I guess I'm off my course, as
Father used to say.  Either that or ministers' wages are higher
than they are in Bayport.  No, this place isn't for you and me,
Hosy."

But it was.  Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had
agreed to lease it until the middle of September, servants--there
were five of them, groom and gardener included--horse and trap,
tennis court, vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all.  It
developed that the terms, which I had considered rather too high
for my purse, included the servants' wages, vegetables from the
garden, strawberries and other "small fruit"--everything.  Even
food for the horse was included in that all-embracing rent.

As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory
was lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.

The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman.  His wife was
equally kind and agreeable.  I think they were, at first, rather
unpleasantly surprised to find that their prospective tenants were
from the "States"; but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike
savages as we could, and the Cole manner grew less and less
reserved.  Mr. Cole and his wife were planning to spend a long
vacation in Switzerland and his "living," or parish, was to be left
in charge of his two curates.  There was a son at Oxford who was to
join them on their vacation.

Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the
yard of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old
trees, adjoined the rectory on the western side, behind the tall
hedge.

The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was
older than the Norman conquest.  Before the altar steps were two
ancient effigies of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and
their feet supported by crouching lions.  These old fellows were
scratched and scarred and initialed.  Upon one noble nose were the
letters "A. H. N. 1694."  I decided that vandalism was not a modern
innovation.

While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and
Hephzy were making a tour of the house.  They met us at the door.
Mrs. Cole's eyes were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy
amusing.  If this was true it had not warped her judgment, however,
for, a moment later when she and I were alone, she said:

"Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine."

"She is all of that," I said, decidedly.

"Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery
and the maids' rooms.  Are all American housekeepers as
particular?"

"Not all.  Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a
remarkable woman in all."

"Yes.  I am sure of it.  And she has such a typical American
accent, hasn't she."

We were to take possession on the following Monday.  We lunched at
the "Red Cow," the village inn, where the meal was served in the
parlor and the landlord's daughter waited upon us.  The plump black
horse drew us to the railway station, and we took the train for
London.

We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class
travel was quite good enough for short journeys and that very few
English people paid for first-class compartments.  We were
fortunate enough to have a second-class compartment to ourselves
this time, and, when we were seated, Hephzy asked a question.

"Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?" she said.  "You will
want to play some, won't you?"

"Yes," said I.  "I did ask about it.  It seems that the golf course
is a private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the
station.  Permission is always given the rectory tenants."

"Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand!  That estate isn't in Mayberry.
The Mayberry bounds--that's what Mrs. Cole called them--and just
this side.  The estate is in the village of--of Burgleston Bogs.
Burgleston Bogs--it's a funny name.  Seem's if I'd heard it
before."

"You have," said I, in surprise.  "Burgleston Bogs is where that
Heathcroft chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally.
His aunt has a big place there.  By George! you don't suppose that
estate belongs to his aunt, do you?"

Hephzy gasped.  "I wouldn't wonder," she cried.  "I wouldn't wonder
if it did.  And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she.  Maybe
you'll meet him there.  Goodness sakes! just think of your playin'
golf with a Lady's nephew."

"I doubt if we need to think of it," I observed.  "Mr. Carleton
Heathcroft on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians,
but on shore, and when visiting his aunt, he may be quite
different.  I fancy he and I will not play many holes together."

Hephzy laughed.  "You 'fancy,'" she repeated.  "You'll be sayin'
'My word' next.  My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English."

"Indeed I'm not!" I declared, with emphasis.  "My experience with
an English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that.  Miss
Frances Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only."



CHAPTER IX

In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of
Burgleston Bogs


We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to
do.  Miss Morley went with us, of course.  I secured a first-class
apartment for our party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet
one.  Our invalid was too weak to talk a great deal even if she had
wished, which she apparently did not.  Johnson, the groom, met us
at Haddington on Hill and we drove to the rectory.  There Miss
Morley, very tired and worn out, was escorted to her room by Hephzy
and Charlotte, the housemaid.  She was perfectly willing to remain
in that room, in fact she did not leave it for several days.

Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted
with our new and novel mode of life.  Hephzy took charge of the
household and was, in a way, quite in her element; in another way
she was distinctly out of it.

"I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy," she
confided, "but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again.
Managin' one hired girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I
thought managin' three, same as we've got here, would be a
staggerer.  But it isn't.  Somehow the kind of help over here don't
seem to need managin'.  They manage me more than I do them.
There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook.  Mrs. Cole told me she was a
'superior' person and I guess she is--at any rate, she's superior
to me in some things.  She knows what a 'gooseberry fool' is and
I'm sure I don't.  I felt like another kind of fool when she told
me she was goin' to make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night.
As nigh as I can make out it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but _I_
should never have called a gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would
have been better, accordin' to my reckonin'.  However, all desserts
over here are 'sweets' and fruit is dessert.  Then there's
Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker, the 'between-maid'--between
upstairs and down, I suppose that means--and Grimmer, the gardener,
and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the horse.  Each one of 'em
seems to know exactly what their own job is and just as exactly
where it leaves off and t'other's job begins.  I never saw such
obligin' but independent folks in my life.  As for my own job, that
seems to be settin' still with my hands folded.  Well, it's a brand
new one and it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it."

It seemed likely to be a "spell" before I became accustomed to my
own "job," that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but
play the part.  When I went out to walk about the rectory garden,
Grimmer touched his hat.  When, however, I ventured to pick a few
flowers in that garden, his expression of shocked disapproval was
so marked that I felt I must have made a dreadful mistake.  I had,
of course.  Grimmer was in charge of those flowers and if I wished
any picked I was expected to tell him to pick them.  Picking them
myself was equivalent to admitting that I was not accustomed to
having a gardener in my employ, in other words that I was not a
real gentleman at all.  I might wait an hour for Johnson to return
from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on no
account save time by harnessing the animal myself.  That sort of
labor was not done by the "gentry."  I should have lost caste with
the servants a dozen times during my first few days in the rectory
were it not for one saving grace; I was an American, and almost any
peculiar thing was expected of an American.

When I strolled along the village street the male villagers,
especially the older ones, touched their hats to me.  The old women
bowed or courtesied.  Also they invariably paused, when I had
passed, to stare after me.  The group at the blacksmith shop--where
the stone coping of the low wall was worn in hollows by the
generations of idlers who had sat upon it, just as their descendants
were sitting upon it now--turned, after I had passed, to stare.
There would be a pause in the conversation, then an outburst of talk
and laughter.  They were talking about the "foreigner" of course,
and laughing at him.  At the tailor's, where I sent my clothes to be
pressed, the tailor himself, a gray-haired, round-shouldered
antique, ventured an opinion concerning those clothes.  "That coat
was not made in England, sir," he said.  "We don't make 'em that way
'ere, sir.  That's a bit foreign, that coat, sir."

Yes, I was a foreigner.  It was hard to realize.  In a way
everything was so homelike; the people looked like people I had
known at home, their faces were New England faces quite as much as
they were old England.  But their clothes were just a little
different, and their ways were different, and a dry-goods store was
a "draper's shop," and a drug-store was a "chemist's," and candies
were "sweeties" and a public school was a "board school" and a
boarding-school was a "public school."  And I might be polite and
pleasant to these people--persons out of my "class"--but I must not
be too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people, I
lost caste and they would despise me.

Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.

Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the
class distinction in Mayberry was strange at first.  I do not mean
that there was not independence there; there was, among the poorest
as well as the richer element.  Every male Mayberryite voted as he
thought, I am sure; and was self-respecting and independent.  He
would have resented any infringement of his rights just as
Englishmen have resented such infringements and fought against them
since history began.  But what I am trying to make plain is that
political equality and social equality were by no means synonymous.
A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was a gentleman he was
'a' that' and more.  And when he was possessed of a title he was
revered because of that title, or the title itself was revered.
The hatter in London where I purchased a new "bowler," had a row of
shelves upon which were boxes containing, so I was told, the spare
titles of eminent customers.  And those hat-boxes were lettered
like this:  "The Right Hon. Col. Wainwright, V.C.," "His Grace the
Duke of Leicester," "Sir George Tupman, K.C.B.," etc., etc.  It was
my first impression that the hatter was responsible for thus
proclaiming his customers' titles, but one day I saw Richard,
convoyed by Henry, reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's
Hotel.  And that suitcase bore upon its side the inscription, in
very large letters, "Lord Eustace Stairs."  Then I realized that
Lord Eustace, like the owners of the hat-boxes, recognizing the
value of a title, advertised it accordingly.

I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes.  When I told
Hephzy about the latter she laughed, too.

"That's funny, isn't it," she said.  "Suppose the folks that have
their names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em
lettered 'Cap'n Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,'
'The Grand Exalted Sachem Order of Red Men George Kendrick.'  How
everybody would laugh, wouldn't they.  Why they'd laugh Cap'n
Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out of town."

So they would have done--in Bayport--but not in Mayberry or London.
Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of
that kind are laughed at they soon cease to be.  Hephzy summed it
up pretty well when she said:

"After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to,
doesn't it, Hosy.  Your coat don't look funny to you because you've
always worn that kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas
funny because he never saw one made like it.  And a lord takin' his
lordship seriously seems funny to us, but it doesn't seem so to him
or to the tailor.  They've been brought up to it, same as you have
to the coat."

On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that
was that we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social
intercourse with the people of Mayberry.

"They don't know anything about us," said I, "except that we are
Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according
to the kind of Americans they have previously met.  The Englishman,
so all the books tell us, is reserved and distant at first.  He
requires a long acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home
life and we shall probably have no opportunity to make that
acquaintance.  If we were to stay in Mayberry a year, and behaved
ourselves, we might in time be accepted as desirable, but not
during the first summer.  So if they leave us to ourselves we must
make the best of it."

Hephzy agreed thoroughly.  "You're right," she said.  "And, after
all, it's just what would happen anywhere.  You remember when that
Portygee family came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett
house.  Nobody would have anything to do with 'em for a long time
because they were foreigners, but they turned out to be real nice
folks after all.  We're foreigners here and you can't blame the
Mayberry people for not takin' chances; it looks as if nobody in it
ever had taken a chance, as if it had been just the way it is since
Noah came out of the Ark.  I never felt so new and shiny in my life
as I do around this old rectory and this old town."

Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, "new
and shiny" as we were, the Mayberry people--those of our "class"--
began to call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their
homes, to show us little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and
hospitable and friendly as if we had known them and they us for
years.  It was one of the greatest surprises, and remains one of
the most pleasant recollections, of my brief career as a resident
in England, the kindly cordiality of these neighbors in Mayberry.

The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied "Jasmine Gables,"
the pretty house next door.  He dropped in one morning, introduced
himself, shook hands and chatted for an hour.  That afternoon his
wife called upon Hephzy.  The next day I played a round of golf
upon the private course on the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston
Bogs grounds--with the doctor and his son, young Herbert Bayliss,
just through Cambridge and the medical college at London.  Young
Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking young chap and I liked him as
I did his father.  He was at present acting as his father's
assistant in caring for the former's practice, a practice which
embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of country.

Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner.  The
grounds were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for,
so Bayliss, Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy
of whom were gardeners.  Of the Manor House itself I caught a
glimpse, gray-turreted and huge, set at the end of lawns and flower
beds, with fountains playing and statues gleaming white amid the
foliage.  I asked some questions concerning its owner.  Yes, she
was Lady Kent Carey and she had a nephew named Heathcroft.  So
there was a chance, after all, that I might again meet my ship
acquaintance who abhorred "griddle cakes."  I imagined he would be
somewhat surprised at that meeting.  It was an odd coincidence.

As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better.
Doctor Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game,
was kind enough to tell me I had a "topping" drive.  I thanked him,
but there was altogether too much "topping" connected with my play
that forenoon to make my thanks enthusiastic.  I determined to
practice assiduously before attempting another match.  Somehow I
felt responsible for the golfing honor of my country.

Other callers came to the rectory.  The two curates, their names
were Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and
good fellows, Worcester particularly.  Although they wore clerical
garb they were not in the least "preachy."  Hephzy, although she
liked them, expressed surprise.

"They didn't act a bit like ministers," she said.  "They didn't ask
us to come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or
anything, yet they looked for all the while like two Methodist
parsons, young ones.  A curate is a kind of new-hatched rector,
isn't he?"

"Not exactly," I answered.  "He is only partially hatched.  But,
whatever you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they
wouldn't consider it a compliment."

Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur.  "Well,
I guess a Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian," she declared.
"And they don't ACT like Methodists.  Why, one of 'em smoked a
pipe.  Just imagine Mr. Partridge smokin' a pipe!"

Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together.  He played
a little worse than I did and I felt better.  The honor of
Bayport's golf had been partially vindicated.

While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater
part of the time, in her room.  She was improving steadily.  Doctor
Bayliss, whom I had asked to attend her, declared, as his London
associates had done, that all she needed was rest, quiet and the
good air and food which she was certain to get in Mayberry.  He,
too, like the physician at Bancroft's, seemed impressed by her
appearance and manner.  And he also asked similar embarrassing
questions.

"Delightful young lady, Miss Morley," he observed.  "One of our
English girls, Knowles.  She informs me that she IS English."

"Partly English," I could not help saying.  "Her mother was an
American."

"Oh, indeed!  You know she didn't tell me that, now did she."

"Perhaps not."

"No, by Jove, she didn't.  But she has lived all her life in
England?"

"Yes--in England and France."

"Your niece, I think you said."

I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now
without many explanations.  So I nodded.

"She doesn't--er--behave like an American.  She hasn't the American
manner, I mean to say.  Now Miss Cahoon has--er--she has--"

"Miss Cahoon's manner is American.  So is mine; we ARE Americans,
you see."

"Yes, yes, of course," hastily.  "When are you and I to have the
nine holes you promised, Knowles?"

One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs.  The "between-maid"
had arranged chairs and the table on the lawn.  We were to have tea
there; we had tea every day, of course--were getting quite
accustomed to it.

Frances--I may as well begin calling her that--looked in better
health then than at any time since our meeting.  She was
becomingly, although simply gowned, and there was a dash of color
in her cheeks.  Hephzibah escorted her to the tea table.  I rose to
meet them.

"Frank--Frances, I mean--is goin' to join us to-day," said Hephzy.
"She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she."

I said she was.  Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs,
the most comfortable one.  She appeared perfectly self-possessed,
which I was sure I did not.  I was embarrassed, of course.  Each
time I met the girl the impossible situation in which she had
placed us became more impossible, to my mind.  And the question,
"What on earth shall we do with her?" more insistent.

Hephzy poured the tea.  Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.

"This is rather a nice place, after all," she observed, "isn't it."

"It's a real lovely place," declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.

The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.

"Yes," she repeated, "it's a jolly old house and the grounds are
not bad at all."

Her tone nettled me.  Everything considered I thought she might
have shown a little more enthusiasm.

"I infer that you expected something much worse," I observed.

"Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect.  How should I?  I had
no hand in selecting it, you know."

"She's hardly seen it," put in Hephzy.  "She was too sick when she
came to notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has
been out doors."

"I am glad you approve," I observed, drily.

My sarcasm was wasted.  Miss Morley said again that she did
approve, of what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have
chosen very well.

"I don't suppose," said Hephzy, complacently, "that there are many
much prettier places in England than this one."

"Oh, indeed there are.  But all England is beautiful, of course."

I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it.
Our guest--or my "niece"--or our ward--it was hard to classify her--
changed the subject.

"Have you met any of the people about here?" she asked.

Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the
curates and the Coles.

"They're all just as nice as they can be," she declared.  "I never
met nicer folks, at home or anywhere."

Frances nodded.  "All English people are nice," she said.

Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to
myself.  Hephzy went on rhapsodizing.  I paid little attention
until I heard her speak my name.

"And Hosy thinks so, too.  Don't you, Hosy?" she said.

I answered yes, on the chance.  Frances regarded me oddly.

"I thought--I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles," she
said.

"It is."

"Then why does Miss Cahoon always--"

Hephzy interrupted.  "Oh, I always call him Hosy," she explained.
"It's a kind of pet name of mine.  It's short for Hosea.  His whole
name is Hosea Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call
him Kent.  I don't think he likes Hosea very well."

Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my
dislike.  Her eyes twinkled.

"Hosea," she repeated.  "That is an odd name.  The original Hosea
was a prophet, wasn't he?  Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?"

"Far from it," I answered, with decision.  If I had been a prophet
I should have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.

She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile
was attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.

"I remember now," she said; "all Americans have Scriptural names.
I have read about them in books."

"Hosy writes books," said Hephzy, proudly.  "That's his profession;
he's an author."

"Oh, really, is he!  How interesting!"

"Yes, he is.  He has written ever so many books; haven't you,
Hosy."

I didn't answer.  My self and my "profession" were the last
subjects I cared to discuss.  The young lady's smile broadened.

"And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?" she asked.  "In--
er--Bayport?"

"Yes," I answered, shortly.  "Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another
cup of tea, I think."

"Oh, no, thank you.  But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles.
Are they stories of Bayport?"

"No indeed!"  Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not
order her to be quiet.  "No indeed!" she declared.  "He writes
about lords and ladies and counts and such.  He hardly ever writes
about everyday people like the ones in Bayport.  You would like his
books, Frances.  You would enjoy readin' 'em, I know."

"I am sure I should.  They must be delightful.  I do hope you
brought some with you, Mr. Knowles."

"He didn't, but I did.  I'll lend you some, Frances.  I'll lend you
'The Queen's Amulet.'  That's a splendid story."

"I am sure it must be.  So you write about queens, too, Mr.
Knowles.  I thought Americans scorned royalty.  And what is his
queen's name, Miss Cahoon?  Is it Scriptural?"

"Oh, no indeed!  Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the
Bible, any more than the names in England are.  That man who wanted
to let us his house in Copperhead--no, Leatherhead--funny I should
forget THAT awful name--he was named Solomon--Solomon Cripps . . .
Why, what is it?"

Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished.  She
looked startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.

"What is it, Frances?" repeated Hephzy, anxiously.

"Nothing--nothing.  Solomon--what was it?  Solomon Cripps.  That is
an odd name.  And you met this Mr.--er--Cripps?"

"Yes, we met him.  He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess
we'd have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of
Leatherhead so.  Don't you remember you did?  I don't blame you.
Of the things to call a pretty town that's about the worst."

"Yes, it is rather frightful.  But this, Mr.--er--Cripps; was he as
bad as his name?  Did you talk with him?"

"Only about the house.  Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to
talk about anything else, except religion.  He and his wife gave us
to understand they were awful pious.  I'm afraid we wouldn't have
been churchy enough to suit them, anyway.  Hosy, here, doesn't go
to meetin' as often as he ought to."

"I am glad of it."  The young lady's tone was emphatic and she
looked as if she meant it.  We were surprised.

"You're glad of it!" repeated Hephzy, in amazement.  "Why?"

"Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of
it, who do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach
continually.  They are hypocritical and false and cruel.  I HATE
them."

She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
questioned her concerning her father.  I could not imagine the
reason for this sudden squall from a clear sky.  Hephzy drew a long
breath.

"Well," she said, after a moment, "then Hosy and you ought to get
along first-rate together.  He's down on hypocrites and make-
believe piety as bad as you are.  The only time he and Mr.
Partridge, our minister in Bayport, ever quarreled--'twasn't a real
quarrel, but more of a disagreement--was over what sort of a place
Heaven was.  Mr. Partridge was certain sure that nobody but church
members would be there, and Hosy said if some of the church members
in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the other place had strong
recommendations.  'Twas an awful thing to say, and I was almost as
shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been if I hadn't
known he didn't mean it."

Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought
she did.

"Did you mean it?" she asked.

I smiled.  "Yes," I answered.

"Now, Hosy," cried Hephzy.  "What a way that is to talk!  What do
you know about the hereafter?"

"Not much, but," remembering the old story, "I know Bayport.
Humph! speaking of ministers, here is one now."

Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn.  Hephzy
hastily removed the lid of the teapot.  "Yes," she said, with a
sigh of relief, "there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have
any more, Hosy.  Mr. Judson always takes three cups."

Judson was introduced and, the "between-maid" having brought
another chair, he joined our party.  He accepted the first of the
three cups and observed.

"I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation.  You
appeared to be talking very earnestly."

I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified
expostulation warned me to be silent.  Frances, although she must
have seen the look, answered instead.

"We were discussing Heaven," she said, calmly.  "Mr. Knowles
doesn't approve of it."

Hephzy bounced on her chair.  "Why!" she cried; "why, what a--why,
WHAT will Mr. Judson think!  Now, Frances, you know--"

"That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it.  You said if
Paradise was exclusively for church members you preferred--well,
another locality.  That was what I understood you to say."

Mr. Judson looked at me.  He was a very good and very orthodox and
a very young man and his feelings showed in his face.

"I--I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley," he
protested.  "You must have misunderstood him."

"Oh, but I didn't misunderstand.  That was what he said."

Again Mr. Judson looked at me.  It seemed time for me to say
something.

"What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future
life, the--er--pleasant part of it, was confined exclusively to--
er--professed church members," I explained.

The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
explanation.

"But--but, Mr. Knowles," he stammered, "really, I--I am at a loss
to understand your meaning.  Surely you do not mean that--that--"

"Of course he didn't mean that," put in Hephzy.  "What he said was
that some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-
meetin' at our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they
pretended to be.  And that's so, too."

Mr. Judson seemed relieved.  "Oh," he exclaimed.  "Oh, yes, I quite
comprehend.  Methodists--er--dissenters--that is quite different--
quite."

"Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of
England are certain of happiness," observed Frances, very gravely.

Our caller turned his attention to her.  He was not a joker, but I
think he was a trifle suspicious.  The young lady met his gaze with
one of serene simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to
the charge.

"I should--I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley," he
said.  "But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to--er--church
members; and--er--dissenters--Methodists and others--are not--are
not--"

"Well," broke in Hephzibah, with decision, "I'm a Methodist,
myself, and _I_ don't expect to go to perdition."

Judson's guns were spiked.  He turned redder than ever and changed
the subject to the weather.

The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
Frances and the curate.  They discussed the village and the people
in it and the church and its activities.  At length Judson
mentioned golf.

"Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust," he
said.  "You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles."

"Oh," exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, "does Mr.
Knowles play golf?"

"Not real golf," I observed.

"Oh, but he does," protested Mr. Judson, "he does.  Rather!  He
plays a very good game indeed.  He beat me quite badly the other
day."

Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of
extraordinary ability.  Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained
reason.

"I should never have thought it," she observed.

"Why not?" asked Judson.

"Oh, I don't know.  Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as
if he played games.  I should have expected nothing so frivolous
from him."

"My golf is anything but frivolous," I said.  "It's too seriously
bad."

"Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?" inquired the curate.

"I have occasionally, after a fashion.  I am sure I should like to
learn."

"I shall be delighted to teach you.  It would be a great pleasure,
really."

He looked as if it would be a pleasure.  Frances smiled.

"Thank you so much," she said.  "You and I and Mr. Knowles will
have a threesome."

Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.

"Oh, of course," he said.  "It will be a great pleasure to have
your uncle with us.  A great pleasure, of course."

"My--uncle?"

"Why, yes--Mr. Knowles, you know.  By the way, Miss Morley--excuse
my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
Knowles.  That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so.
A bit distant and--er--formal to our English habit.  Do all nieces
and nephews in your country do that?  Is it an American custom?"

Hephzy and I looked at each other and my "niece" looked at both of
us.  I could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.

"Is it an American custom?" repeated Mr. Judson.

"I don't know," with chilling deliberation.  "I am NOT an
American."

The curate said "Indeed!" and had the astonishing good sense not to
say any more.  Shortly afterward he said good-by.

"But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley," he
declared.  "I shall count upon it in the near future."

After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of
silence.  Hephzy spoke first.

"Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances," she said.
"Seems to me you had.  It's the first time you've been out at all,
you know."

The young lady rose.  "I am going," she said.  "I am going, if you
and--my uncle--will excuse me."

That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room.
It was a beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and
every shutter tightly closed.  We had, on our second evening in the
rectory, suggested leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown
such shocked surprise and disapproval that we had not pressed the
point.  By this time we had learned that "privacy" was another
sacred and inviolable English custom.  The rectory sat in its own
ground, surrounded by high hedges; no one, without extraordinary
pains, could spy upon its inmates, but, nevertheless, the privacy
of those inmates must be guaranteed.  So the shutters were closed
and the shades drawn.

"Well?" said I to Hephzy.

"Well," said Hephzy, "it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to
be.  I explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your
niece because 'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to
tell 'em somethin'.  And down here in Mayberry the same way.  She
understood, I guess; at any rate she didn't make any great
objection.  I thought at the last that she was laughin', but I
guess she wasn't.  Only what she said sounded funny."

"What did she say?"

"Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.'  She
supposed it should be that--'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little
irreverent."

I did not answer.  "Uncle Hosea!" a beautiful title, truly.

She acted so different to-day, didn't she," observed Hephzy.  "It's
because she's gettin' well, I suppose.  She was real full of fun,
wasn't she."

"Confound her--yes," I snarled.  "All the fun is on her side.
Well, she should make the best of it while it lasts.  When she
learns the truth she may not find it so amusing."

Hephzy sighed.  "Yes," she said, slowly, "I'm afraid that's so,
poor thing.  When--when are you goin' to tell her?"

"I don't know," I answered.  "But pretty soon, that's certain."



CHAPTER X

In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One


That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great
change in our life at the rectory.  Prior to that Hephzy and I had,
golfly speaking, been playing it as a twosome.  Now it became a
threesome, with other players added at frequent intervals.  At
luncheon next day our invalid, a real invalid no longer, joined us
at table in the pleasant dining-room, the broad window of which
opened upon the formal garden with the sundial in the center.
She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy confided to me afterward,
was "gettin' a real nice appetite."  In gaining this appetite she
appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling condescension;
at all events, she treated her American relatives as if she
considered them human beings.  She addressed most of her
conversation to Hephzy, always speaking of and to her as "Miss
Cahoon."  She still addressed me as "Mr. Knowles," and I was duly
thankful; I had feared being hailed as "Uncle Hosy."

After lunch Mr. Judson called again.  He was passing, he explained,
on his round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually.  Mr.
Worcester also came; his really was a casual stop, I think.  He and
his brother curate were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an
apparent reluctance on the part of each to leave before the other.
They left together, but Mr. Judson again hinted at the promised
golf game, and Mr. Worcester, having learned from Miss Morley that
she played and sang, expressed great interest in music and begged
permission to bring some "favorite songs," which he felt sure Miss
Morley might like to run over.

Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both
the clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she
said, and the songs she was certain would be jolly.  Hephzy and I
had very little to say, and no one seemed particularly anxious to
hear that little.

The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor
Bayliss and his son strolled in from next door.  Doctor Bayliss,
Senior, was much pleased to find his patient up and about, and
Herbert, the son, even more pleased to find her at all, I judge.
Young Bayliss was evidently very favorably impressed with his new
neighbor.  He was a big, healthy, broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-
up boy, whose laugh was a pleasure to hear, and who possessed the
faculty, envied by me, the quahaug, of chatting entertainingly on
all subjects from tennis and the new American dances to Lloyd-
George and old-age pensions.  Frances declared a strong aversion to
the dances, principally because they were American, I suspected.

Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.

"What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?" he asked.

"I should say," I answered, "that, so far as they are understood in
America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here."

"Really!  But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as
we have, you know."

"We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our
political parties are not so named."

"We call 'em Republicans and Democrats," explained Hephzy.  "Hosy
is a Republican," she added, proudly.

"I am not certain what I am," I observed.  "I have voted a split
ticket of late."

Young Bayliss asked a question.

"Are you a--what is it--Republican, Miss Morley?" he inquired.

Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.

"I am neither," she said.  "My father was a Conservative, of
course."

"Oh, I say!  That's odd, isn't it.  Your uncle here is--"

"Uncle Hosea, you mean?" sweetly.  "Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American.
I am English."

She did not add "Thank heaven," but she might as well.  "Uncle
Hosea" shuddered at the name.  Young Bayliss grinned behind his
blonde mustache.  When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy
invited him to "run in any time."

"We're next-door neighbors," she said, "so we mustn't be formal."

I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous.  If I
knew human nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not
intend to let formality stand in the way of frequent calls at the
rectory.

My intuition was correct.  The following afternoon he called again.
So did Mr. Judson.  Both calls were casual, of course.  So was Mr.
Worcester's that evening.  He came to bring the "favorite songs"
and was much surprised to find Miss Morley in the drawing-room.  He
said so.

Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history.  She had
volunteered no particulars other than those given on the occasion
of our first meeting, but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told
us, that she had been a member of an opera troupe.  This evening we
heard her sing for the first time.  She sang well; her voice was
not a strong one, but it was clear and sweet and she knew how to
use it.  Worcester sang well also, and the little concert was very
enjoyable.

It was the first of many.  Almost every evening after dinner
Frances sat down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle
brackets at each side of the music rack, and sang.  Occasionally we
were her only auditors, but more often one or both of the curates
or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or Bayliss, Junior, dropped in.  We made
other acquaintances--Mrs. Griggson, the widow in "reduced
circumstances," whose husband had been killed in the Boer war, and
who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's shop; Mr. and
Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses, and
others.  They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we
enjoyed their society.

Each day Frances gained in health and strength.  The care-free,
wholesome, out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her.  She
seemed to consider herself a member of the family now; at all
events she did not speak of leaving nor hint at the prompt
settlement of her preposterous "claim."  Hephzy and I did not
mention it, even to each other.  Hephzy, I think, was quite
satisfied with things as they were, and I, in spite of my threats
and repeated declarations that the present state of affairs was
ridiculous and could not last, put off telling "my niece" the
truth.  I, too, was growing more accustomed to the "threesome."

The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening
a storm at any moment, but I was learning to forget it.  The
situation had its pleasant side; it was not all bad.  For instance,
meals in the pleasant dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the
table, I at the other, and Frances between us, were more social and
chatty than they had been.  To have the young lady come down to
breakfast, her hair prettily arranged, her cheeks rosy with health,
and her eyes shining with youth and the joy of life, was almost a
tonic.  I found myself taking more pains with my morning toilet,
choosing my tie with greater care and being more careful concerning
the condition of my boots.  I even began to dress for dinner, a
concession to English custom which was odd enough in one of my
easy-going habits and Bayport rearing.  I imagine that the
immaculate appearance of young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the
"sing" in the drawing-room, was responsible for the resurrection of
my dinner coat.  He did look so disgustingly young and handsome and
at ease.  I was conscious of each one of my thirty-eight years
whenever I looked at him.

I was rejuvenating in other ways.  It had been my custom at Bayport
to retire to my study and my books each evening.  Here, where
callers were so frequent, I found it difficult to do this and,
although the temptation was to sit quietly in a corner and let the
others do the talking, I was not allowed to yield.  The younger
callers, particularly the masculine portion, would not have
objected to my silence, I am sure, but "my niece" seemed to take
mischievous pleasure in drawing the quahaug out of his shell.  She
had a disconcerting habit of asking me unexpected questions at
times when my attention was wandering, and, if I happened to state
a definite opinion, taking the opposite side with promptness.
After a time I decided not to express opinions, but to agree with
whatever was said as the simplest way of avoiding controversy and
being left to myself.

This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but
apparently it did not.  On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss
being present, the conversation turned to the subject of American
athletic sports.  The curate and Bayliss took the ground, the
prevailing thought in England apparently, that all American games
were not games, but fights in which the true sporting spirit was
sacrificed to the desire to win at any cost.  I had said nothing,
keeping silent for two reasons.  First, that I had given my views
on the subject before, and, second, because argument from me was,
in that company, fruitless effort.  The simplest way to end
discussion of a disagreeable topic was to pay no attention to it.

But I was not allowed to escape so easily.  Bayliss asked me a
question.

"Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles," he asked, "that the American football
player wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?"

My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere.  Just then
they were centered about "my niece's" hands.  She had very pretty
hands and a most graceful way of using them.  At the moment they
were idly turning some sheets of music, but the way the slim
fingers moved in and out between the pages was pretty and
fascinating.  Her foot, glimpsed beneath her skirt, was slender and
graceful, too.  She had an attractive trick of swinging it as she
sat upon the piano stool.

Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's
mention of my name, I looked up.

"I beg pardon?" said I.

Bayliss repeated his question.

"Oh, yes," said I, and looked down again at the foot.

"So I have been told," said the questioner, triumphantly.  "And
without that--er--armor many of the players would be killed, would
they not?"

"What?  Oh, yes; yes, of course."

"And many are killed or badly injured as it is?"

"Oh, yes."

"How many during a season, may I ask?"

"Eh?  Oh--I don't know."

"A hundred?"

The foot was swinging more rapidly now.  It was such a small foot.
My own looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.

"A--oh, thousands," said I, at random.  If the number were large
enough to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.

"A beastly game," declared Judson, with conviction.  "How can a
civilized country countenance such brutality!  Do you countenance
it, Mr. Knowles?"

"Yes--er--that is, no."

"You agree, then, that it is brutal?"

"Certainly, certainly."  Would the fellow never stop?

"Then--"

"Nonsense!"  It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
impatient.  We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she
appeared highly indignant.  "Nonsense!" she said again.  "He
doesn't agree to any such thing.  I've heard him say that American
football was not as brutal as our fox-hunting and that fewer people
were killed or injured.  We play polo and we ride in steeplechases
and the papers are full of accidents.  I don't believe Americans
are more brutal or less civilized in their sports than we are, not
in the least."

Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation
apparently agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had
often, in speaking to Hephzy and me, referred to the "States" as an
uncivilized country, this declaration was astonishing.  I was
astonished for one.  Hephzy clapped her hands.

"Of course they aren't," she declared.  "Hosy--Mr. Knowles--didn't
mean that they were, either."

Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily
changed the subject.  After they had gone I ventured to thank my
champion for coming to the rescue of my sporting countrymen.  She
flashed an indignant glance at me.

"Why do you say such things?" she demanded.  "You know they weren't
true."

"What was the use of saying anything else?  They have read the
accounts of football games which American penny-a-line correspondents
send to the London papers and nothing I could say would change their
convictions."

"It doesn't make any difference.  You should say what you think.
To sit there and let them--Oh, it is ridiculous!"

"My feelings were not hurt.  Their ideas will broaden by and by,
when they are as old as I am.  They're young now."

This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
indignant than ever.

"Nonsense!" she cried.  "You speak as if you were an Old Testament
patriarch."

Hephzy put in a word.

"Why, Frances," she said, "I thought you didn't like America."

"I don't.  Of course I don't.  But it makes me lose patience to
have him sit there and agree to everything those boys say.  Why
didn't he answer them as he should?  If I were an American no one--
NO one should rag me about my country without getting as good as
they gave."

I was amused.  "What would you have me do?" I asked.  "Rise and
sing the 'Star Spangled Banner'?"

"I would have you speak your mind like a man.  Not sit there like
a--like a rabbit.  And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh
until I was one."

It was quite evident that "my niece" was a young person of whims.
The next time the "States" were mentioned and I ventured to speak
in their defence, she calmly espoused the other side and "ragged"
as mercilessly as the rest.  I found myself continually on the
defensive, and this state of affairs had one good effect at least--
that of waking me up.

Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different.  She now, especially
when we three were alone, occasionally addressed her as "Auntie."
And she would not permit "Auntie" to be made fun of.  At the least
hint of such a thing she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly.
She and Hephzy were becoming really friendly.  I felt certain she
was beginning to like her--to discern the real woman beneath the
odd exterior.  But when I expressed this thought to Hephzy herself
she shook her head doubtfully.

"Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy," she said, "but only this
mornin' when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she
looked like her, she almost took my head off.  And she's got her
pa's picture right in the middle of her bureau.  No, Hosy, she's
nicer to us than she was at first because it's her nature to be
nice.  So long as she forgets who and what we are, or what her
scamp of a father told her we were, she treats us like her own
folks.  But when she remembers we're receivers of stolen goods,
livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different.  You
can't blame her for that, I suppose.  But--but how is it all goin'
to end?  _I_ don't know."

I didn't know either.

"I had hoped," I said, "that, living with us as she does, she might
come to know and understand us--to learn that we couldn't be the
sort she has believed us to be.  Then it seems to me we might tell
her and she would listen to reason."

"I--I'm afraid we can't wait long.  You see, there's another thing,
Hosy.  She needs clothes and--and lots of things.  She realizes it.
Yesterday she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty
soon.  She asked me to go with her.  I put her off; said I was
awful busy around the house just now, but she'll ask me again, and
if I don't go she'll go by herself."

"Humph!  I don't see how she can do much shopping.  She hasn't a
penny, so far as I know."

"You don't understand.  She thinks she has got a good many pennies,
or we've got 'em for her.  She's just as liable to buy all creation
and send us the bills."

I whistled.  "Well," I said, decidedly, "when that happens we must
put our foot down.  Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and
she must understand that regardless of consequences."

"You mean you'll tell her--everything?"

"I shall have to.  Why do you look at me like that?  Are we to use
common-sense or aren't we?  Are we in a position to adopt a young
woman of expensive tastes--actually adopt her?  And not only that,
but give her carte blanche--let her buy whatever she pleases and
charge it to us?"

"I suppose not.  But--"

"But what?"

"Well, I--I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she
pleases with what she thinks is her own money."

"I do.  We can tell her she has no money.  I shall do it.  My mind
is made up."

Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt.  I
stalked off in a bad temper.  Discussions of the kind always ended
in just this way.  However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word
this time.  There were limits and they had been reached.  Besides,
as I had said, the situation was changed in one way; we no longer
had an invalid to deal with.  No, my mind was made up.  True, this
was at least the tenth time I had made it up, but this time I meant
it.

The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the
Samsons.  The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to
their house in the trap behind "Pet," the plump black horse.  Mrs.
Samson seemed very glad to see us, urged us to remain for tea, and
invited us to attend a tennis tournament on their lawn the
following week.  She asked if Miss Morley played tennis.  Frances
said she had played, but not recently.  She intended to practice,
however, and would be delighted to witness the tournament,
although, of course, she could not take part in it.

"Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--plays tennis," observed Hephzy, seizing
the opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me.  "He used
to play real well."

"Really!" exclaimed Mrs. Samson, "how interesting.  If we had only
known.  No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter.  I'm so
sorry."

I hastened to protest.  "My tennis is decidedly rusty," I said.  "I
shouldn't think of displaying it in public.  In fact, I don't play
at all now."

On the way home Frances was rather quiet.  The next morning she
announced that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon.
"Johnson will drive me over," she said.  "I shall be glad if Auntie
will go with me."

Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from
Mayberry.  Hephzy declined the invitation.  She had promised to
"tea" with Mrs. Griggson that afternoon.

"Then I must go alone," said Frances.  "That is unless--er--Uncle
Hosea cares to go."

"Uncle Hosea" declined.  The name of itself was sufficient to make
him decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.

"I shall go alone then," said "my niece," with decision.  "Johnson
will look after me."

But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to
harness "Pet," I met with an unexpected difficulty.  Johnson, it
appeared, was ill, had been indisposed the day before and was now
at home in bed.  I hesitated.  If this were Bayport I should have
bade the gardener harness "Pet" or have harnessed him myself.  But
this was Mayberry, not Bayport.

The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help--Johnson worked
about the garden when not driving--was not in good humor.  I
decided not to ask him to harness, but to risk a fall in the
estimation of the servants by doing it myself.

The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval.  Then
he interfered.

"If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir," he said, "I'll 'arness, but I
can't drive, sir.  I am netting the gooseberries.  Perhaps you
might get a man from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady
might wish to drive yourselves."

I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I
walked to the Inn I found no driver available.  So, rather than be
disagreeable, I sent word to the curate that our match was
postponed, and accepted the alternative.

Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise
to find that I was to be her coachman.  Instead of occupying the
rear seat she climbed to that beside me.

"Good-by, Auntie," she called to Hephzy, who was standing in the
doorway.  "Sorry you're not going.  I'll take good care of Mr.
Knowles--Uncle Hosea, I mean.  I'll see that he behaves himself
and," with a glance at my, I fear, not too radiant visage, "doesn't
break any of his venerable bones."

The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and
smooth as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and
fragrant, the larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside
pastures were picturesque as always.  "Pet," who had led an easy
life since we came to the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped
along in lively fashion.  My companion, too, was in good spirits
and chatted and laughed as she had not done with me since I knew
her.

Altogether it was a delightful ride.  I found myself emerging from
my shell and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I
was supposed to be.  We passed a party of young fellows on a
walking tour, knapsacked and knickerbockered, and the admiring
glances they passed at my passenger were flattering.  They envied
me, that was plain.  Well, under different circumstances, I could
conceive myself an object of envy.  A dozen years younger, with the
heart of youth and the comeliness of youth, I might have thought
myself lucky to be driving along such a road with such a vision by
my side.  And, the best of it was, the vision treated me as if I
really were her own age.  I squared my shoulders and as Hephzy
would have said, "perked up" amazingly.

We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows
of ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable
and always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square
with the statue of William Pitt in its center.  My companion, all
at once, seemed to become aware of her surroundings.

"Why!" she exclaimed, "we are here, aren't we?  Fancy!  I expected
a longer drive."

"So did I," I agreed.  "We haven't hurried, either.  Where has the
time gone."

"I don't know.  We have been so busy talking that I have thought of
nothing else.  Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining--
Uncle Hosea."

The detested title brought me to myself.

"We are here," I said, shortly.  "And now where shall we go?  Have
you any stopping place in particular?"

She nodded.

"Yes," she said, "I want to stop now.  Please pull up over there,
in front of that shop with the cricket bats in the window."

The shop was what we, in America, would have called a "sporting-
goods store."  I piloted "Pet" to the curb and pulled up.

"I am going in," said Miss Morley.  "Oh, don't trouble to help me.
I can get down quite well."

She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion
fluff before I could scramble down on the other side.

"I won't be long," she said, and went into the shop.  I, not being
invited, remained on the pavement.  Two or three small boys
appeared from somewhere and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered
to hold the horse.  I declined their services.

Five minutes passed, then ten.  My passenger was still in the shop.
I could not imagine what she was doing there.  If it had been a
shop of a different kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement
concerning the buying of clothes, I might have been suspicious.
But no clothes were on sale at that shop and, besides, it never
occurred to me that she would buy anything of importance without
mentioning her intention to me beforehand.  I had taken it for
granted that she would mention the subject and, when she did, I
intended to be firm.  But as the minutes went by my suspicions
grew.  She must be buying something--or contemplating buying, at
least.  But she had said nothing to me concerning money; HAD she
money of her own after all?  It might be possible that she had a
very little, and was making some trifling purchase.

She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very
polite young man with a blonde mustache.  The young man was bowing
and smiling.

"Yes, miss," he said, "I'll have them wrapped immediately.  They
shall be ready when you return, miss.  Thank you, miss."

Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks.  Then she favored me
with another nod and a most bewitching smile.

"That's over," she announced, "and now I'm going to the draper's
for a moment.  It is near here, you say?"

The young man bowed again.

"Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's."

She turned to me.  "You may wait here, Mr. Knowles," she said.  "I
shall be back very soon."

She hurried away.  I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that "sporting-goods
store."

The blond young man was at my elbow.

"Yes, sir," he said, ingratiatingly.

"Did--did that young lady make some purchases here?" I asked.

"Yes, sir.  Here they are, sir."

There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and
waterproof case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white
felt hat.  I stared at the collection.  The clerk took up the
racket.

"Not a Slazenger," he observed, regretfully.  "I did my best to
persuade her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have.
But she decided the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir.
However, sir, this one is not bad.  A very fine racket for lady's
use; very light and strong, sir, considering the cost--only sixteen
and six, sir."

"Sixteen and six.  Four dollars and--Did she pay for it?"

"Oh no, sir.  She said you would do that, sir.  The total is two
pound eight and thruppence, sir.  Shall I give you a bill, sir?
Thank you, sir."

His thanks were wasted.  I pushed him to one side and walked out of
that shop.  I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be
sorry later.  After all, it wasn't his fault.  My business was not
with him, but with her.

It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me.
Two pounds eight--twelve dollars--was not so much.  If she had
asked me, if she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it
during the drive over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive,
I should have bought them for her.  But she had not asked; she had
calmly bought them without consulting me at all.  She had come to
Wrayton for that very purpose.  And then had told the clerk that I
would pay.

The brazen presumption of it!  I was merely a convenience, a sort
of walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her
imperial will, if you please.  It made no difference, to her mind,
whether I liked it or not--whether I could afford it or not.  I
could, of course, afford this trifling sum, but this was only the
beginning.  If I permitted this there was no telling to what extent
she might go on, buying and buying and buying.  This was a
precedent--that was what it was, a precedent; and a precedent once
established . . .  It should not be established.  I had vowed to
Hephzy that it should not.  I would prove to this girl that I had a
will of my own.  The time had come.

One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was
performing that entirely unnecessary duty.

"Stay here until I come back," I ordered and hurried to the
draper's.

She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
displaying cloths--white flannels and serges they appeared to be.
She was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.

"So you came, after all," she said.  "I wondered if you would.  Now
you must help me.  I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels
may be, but I hope it is good.  I shall have these made up at
Mayberry, of course.  My other frocks--and I need so many of them--
I shall buy in London.  Do you fancy this, now?"

I don't know whether I fancied it or not.  I am quite sure I could
not remember what it was if I were asked.

"Well?" she asked, after an instant.  "Do you?"

"I--I don't know," I said.  "May I ask you to step outside one
moment.  I--I have something I wish to say."

She regarded me curiously.

"Something you wish to say?" she repeated.  "What is it?"

"I--I can't tell you here."

"Why not, pray?"

"Because I can't."

She looked at me still more intently.  I was conscious of the
salesman's regard also.  My tone, I am sure, was anything but
gracious, and I imagine I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as
I felt.  She turned away.

"I think I will choose this one," she said, addressing the clerk.
"You may give me five yards.  Oh, yes; and I may as well take the
same amount of the other.  You may wrap it for me."

"Yes, miss, yes.  Thank you, miss.  Is there anything else?"

She hesitated.  Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she
said:  "Yes, I believe there is.  I wish to see some buttons, some
braid, and--oh, ever so many things.  Please show them to me."

"Yes, miss, certainly.  This way, if you please."

She turned to me.

"Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?" she inquired, with
suspicious sweetness.  "I am sure your opinion will be invaluable.
No?  Then I must ask you to wait."

And wait I did, for I could do nothing else.  That draper's shop
was not the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy
it.  I waited, fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great
deal of time, and lingering over each purchase in a maddening
manner.  At last she seemed able to think of no more possibilities
and strolled to where I was standing, followed by the salesman,
whose hands were full.

"You may wrap these with the others," she said.  "I have my trap
here and will take them with me.  The trap is here, isn't it--er--
Uncle Hosea?"

"It is just above here," I answered, sulkily.  But--"

"But you will get it.  Thank you so much."

The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon
it and hastened to oblige.

"I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there," he said.
"Our boy will do it, miss.  It will be no trouble."

Miss Morley thanked him so much.  I was hoping she might leave the
shop then, but she did not.  The various packages were wrapped,
handed to the boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and
showed him our equipage standing before the sporting-goods
dealer's.  Then she sauntered back.

"Thank you," she said, addressing the clerk.  "That is all, I
believe."

The clerk looked at her and at me.

"Yes, miss, thank you," he said, in return.  "I--I--would you be
wishing to pay at once, miss, or shall I--"

"Oh, this gentleman will pay.  Do you wish to pay now--Uncle
Hosea?"

Again I was stumped.  The salesman was regarding me expectantly;
the other clerks were near by; if I made a scene there--No, I could
not do it.  I would pay this time.  But this should be the end.

Fortunately, I had money in my pocket--two five-pound notes and
some silver.  I paid the bill.  Then, and at last, my niece led the
way to the pavement.  We walked together a few steps in silence.
The sporting-goods shop was just ahead, and if ever I was
determined not to do a thing that thing was to pay for the tennis
racket and the rest.

"Frances," I began.

"Well--Mr. Knowles?" calmly.

"Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly.  You appear to
take certain things for granted in your--your dealings with Miss
Cahoon and myself, things which--which I cannot countenance or
permit."

She had been walking slowly.  Now she stopped short.  I stopped,
too, because she did.

"What do you mean?" she asked.  "What things?"

She was looking me through and through.  Again I hesitated, and my
hesitation did not help matters.

"What do you mean?" she repeated.  "What is it you cannot
countenance or"--scornfully--"permit concerning me?"

"I--well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day.  You
did not tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton.
You did not tell us you were coming here to buy--to buy various
things for yourself."

"Why should I tell you?  They were for myself.  Is it your idea
that I should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?"

"Considering that you ask me to pay, I--"

"I most distinctly did NOT ask you.  I TOLD you to pay.  Certainly
you will pay.  Why not?"

"Why not?"

"Yes, why not.  So this was what you wished to speak to me about.
This was why you were so--so boorish and disagreeable in that shop.
Tell me--was that the reason?  Was that why you followed me there?
Did you think--did you presume to think of preventing my buying
what I pleased with my money?"

"If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly.
If you had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even
have paid for your purchases and said nothing.  I should--I should
have been glad to do so.  I am not unreasonable."

"Indeed!  Indeed!  Do you mean that you would have condescended to
make me a present of them?  And was it your idea that I would
accept presents from you?"

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already
accepted a good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk,
seemed hardly fitting for the discussion of weighty personal
matters.  Passers-by were regarding us curiously, and in the door
of the draper's shop which we had just left I noticed the elderly
clerk standing and looking in our direction.  I temporized.

"You don't understand, Miss Morley," I said.  "Neither your aunt
nor I are wealthy.  Surely, it is not too much to ask that you
consult us before--before--"

She interrupted me.  "I shall not consult you at all," she
declared, fiercely.  "Wealthy!  Am _I_ wealthy?  Was my father
wealthy?  He should have been and so should I.  Oh, WHAT do you
mean?  Are you trying to tell me that you cannot afford to pay for
the few trifles I have bought this afternoon?"

"I can afford those, of course.  But you don't understand."

"Understand?  YOU do not understand.  The agreement under which I
came to Mayberry was that you were to provide for me.  I consented
to forego pressing my claim against you until--until you were ready
to--to--Oh, but why should we go into this again?  I thought--I
thought you understood.  I thought you understood and appreciated
my forbearance.  You seemed to understand and to be grateful and
kind.  I am all alone in the world.  I haven't a friend.  I have
been almost happy for a little while.  I was beginning to--"

She stopped.  The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in
my direction suddenly filled with tears.  My heart smote me.  After
all, she did not understand.  Another plea of that kind and I
should have--Well, I'm not sure what I should have done.  But the
plea was not spoken.

"Oh, what a fool I am!" she cried, fiercely.  "Mr. Knowles,"
pointing to the sporting-goods store, "I have made some purchases
in that shop also.  I expect you to pay for those as well.  Will
you or will you not?"

I was hesitating, weakly.  She did not wait for me to reply.

"You WILL pay for them," she declared, "and you will pay for others
that I may make.  I shall buy what I please and do what I please
with my money which you are keeping from me.  You will pay or take
the consequences."

That was enough.  "I will not pay," I said, firmly, "under any such
arrangement."

"You will NOT?"

"No, I will not."

She looked as if--Well, if she had been a man I should have
expected a blow.  Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched.  Then
she turned and walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the
window.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to
Mayberry by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you."

"If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind.  Miss
Morley, I don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but--"

"Stop!  Stop!  Oh!" with a sobbing breath, "how I hate you!"

"I'm sorry.  When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I
think.  If you will go back to the rectory with me now--"

"I shall not go back with you.  I shall never speak to you again."

"Miss Morley, be reasonable.  You must go back with me.  There is
no other way."

"I will not."

Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation.  She could
not get to Mayberry that night unless she rode with me.  She had no
money to take her there or anywhere else.  I could hardly carry her
to the trap by main strength.  And the curiosity of the passers-by
was more marked than ever; two or three of them had stopped to
watch us.

I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an
unexpected manner.

"Why, Miss Morley," cried a voice from the street behind me.  "Oh,
I say, it IS you, isn't it.  How do you do?"

I turned.  A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert
Bayliss was at the wheel.

"Ah, Knowles, how do you do?" said Bayliss.

I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion.  I wondered
how long he had been there and what he had heard.  He alighted from
the car and shook hands with us.

"Didn't see you, Knowles, at first," he said.  "Saw Miss Morley
here and thought she was alone.  Was going to beg the privilege of
taking her home in my car."

Miss Morley answered promptly.  "You may have the privilege, Doctor
Bayliss," she said.  "I accept with pleasure."

Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.

"Thanks, awfully," he said.  "But my car holds but two and your
uncle--"

"Oh, he has the dogcart.  It is quite all right, really.  I should
love the motor ride.  May I get in?"

He helped her into the car.  "Sure you don't mind, Knowles," he
asked.  "Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the
horse, though, could you?  Quite comfy, Miss Morley?  Then we're
off."

The car turned from the curb.  I caught Miss Morley's eye for an
instant; there was withering contempt in its look--also triumph.

Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy
sixpence, climbed to the seat and took up the reins.  "Pet" jogged
lazily up the street.  The ride over had been very, very pleasant;
the homeward journey was likely to be anything but that.

To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself.  I had
bungled the affair dreadfully.  This was not the time for
explanations; I should not have attempted them.  It would have been
better, much better, to have accepted the inevitable as gracefully
as I could, paid the bills, and then, after we reached home, have
made the situation plain and "have put my foot down" once and for
all.  But I had not done that.  I had lost my temper and acted like
an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged man.

She did not understand, of course.  In her eyes I must have
appeared stingy and mean and--and goodness knows what.  The money I
had refused to pay she did consider hers, of course.  It was not
hers, and some day she would know that it was not, but the town
square at Wrayton was not the place in which to impart knowledge of
that kind.

She was so young, too, and so charming--that is, she could be when
she chose.  And she had chosen to be so during our drive together.
And I had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly
since our arrival in England.  She had enjoyed it, too; she had
said so.

Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind.  This was the
end, of course.  And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis
racket and a few other things.  They were things she wanted--yes,
needed, if she were to remain at the rectory.  And, expecting to
remain as she did, it was but natural that she should wish to play
tennis and dress as did other young players of her sex.  Her life
had not been a pleasant one; after all, a little happiness added,
even though it did cost me some money, was not much.  And it must
end soon.  It seemed a pity to end it in order to save two pounds
eight and threepence.

There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts.  Some I have
catalogued and the others were similar.  The memory of her face and
of the choke in her voice as she said she had been almost happy
haunted me.  My reason told me that, so far as principle and
precedent went, I had acted rightly; but my conscience, which was
quite unreasonable, told me I had acted like a boor.  I stood it as
long as I could, then I shouted at "Pet," who was jogging on,
apparently half asleep.

"Whoa!" I shouted.

"Pet" stopped short in the middle of the road.  I hesitated.  The
principle of the thing--

"Hang the principle!" said I, aloud.  Then I turned the trap around
and drove back to Wrayton.  The blond young man in the sporting-
goods store was evidently glad to see me.  He must have seen me
drive away and have judged that his sale was canceled.  His
judgment had been very near to right, but now I proved it wrong.

I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest.
They were wrapped and ready.

"Thank you, sir," said the clerk.  "I trust everything will be
quite satisfactory.  I'm sorry the young lady did not take the
Slazenger, but the one she chose is not at all bad."

I was on my way to the door.  I stopped and turned.

"Is the--the what is it--'Slazenger' so much better?" I asked.

"Oh, very much so, sir.  Infinitely better, sir.  Here it is; judge
for yourself.  The very best racket made.  And only thirty-two
shillings, sir."

It was a better racket, much better.  And, after all, when one is
hanging principle the execution may as well be complete.

"You may give me that one instead of the other," I said, and paid
the difference.

On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door.  The
between-maid took the packages from the trap.  I entered the
drawing-room and Hephzy followed me.  She looked very grave.

"Frances is here, I suppose," I said.

"Yes, she came an hour ago.  Doctor Bayliss, the younger one,
brought her in his auto.  She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went
straight to her room.  Hosy, what happened?  What is the matter?"

"Nothing," said I, curtly.  "Nothing unusual, that is.  I made a
fool of myself once more, that's all."

The between-maid knocked and entered.  "Where would you wish the
parcels, sir?" she asked.

"These are Miss Morley's.  Take them to her room."

The maid retired to obey orders.  Hephzy again turned to me.

"Now, Hosy, what is it?" she asked.

I told her the whole story.  When I had finished Hephzy nodded
understandingly.  She did not say "I told you so," but if she had
it would have been quite excusable.

"I think--I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her," she
said.

"All right.  I have no objection."

"But she'll ask questions, of course.  What shall I tell her?"

"Tell her I changed my mind.  Tell her--oh, tell her anything you
like.  Don't bother me.  I'm sick of the whole business."

She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed
the door.  There were books enough there, but the majority of them
were theological works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of
religion.  Most of my own books were in my room.  These did not
appeal to me; I was not religiously inclined just then.

So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the
window.  After a time there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," said I, expecting Hephzy.  It was not Hephzy who came,
however, but Miss Morley herself.  And she closed the door behind
her.

I did not speak.  She walked over and stood beside me.  I did not
know what she was going to say and the expression did not help me
to guess.

For a moment she did not say anything.  Then:

"So you changed your mind," she said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know.  Yet you changed it."

"Yes.  Oh yes, I changed it."

"But why?  Was it--was it because you were ashamed of yourself?"

"I guess so.  As much that as anything."

"You realize that you treated me shamefully.  You realize that?"

"Yes," wearily.  "Yes, I realize everything."

"And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your
mind.  Was that it?"

"Yes."

There was no use in attempting justification.  For the absolute
surrender I had made there was no justification.  I might as well
agree to everything.

"And you will never, never treat me in that way again?"

"No."

"And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as
I please with my money?"

"Yes."

"And you beg my pardon?"

"Yes."

"Very well.  Then I beg yours.  I'm sorry, too."

Now I WAS surprised.  I turned in my chair and looked at her.

"You beg my pardon?" I repeated.  "For what?"

"Oh, for everything.  I suppose I should have spoken to you before
buying those things.  You might not have been prepared to pay then
and--and that would have been unpleasant for you.  But--well, you
see, I didn't think, and you were so queer and cross when you
followed me to the draper's shop, that--that I--well, I was
disagreeable, too.  I am sorry."

"That's all right."

"Thank you.  Is there anything else you wish to say?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?"

I had forgotten the "Slazenger" for the moment.  She had caught me
unawares.

"Oh--oh," I stammered, "well, it was a much better racket and--and,
as you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best."

"I know.  I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
expensive.  I did not feel that I should spend so much money."

"That's all right.  The difference wasn't so much and I made the
change on my own responsibility.  I--well, just consider that I
bought the racket and you bought none."

She regarded me intently.  "You mean that you bought it as a
present for me?" she said slowly.

"Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such."

She was silent.  I remembered perfectly well what she had said
concerning presents from me and I wondered what I should do with
that racket when she threw it back on my hands.

"Thank you," she said.  "I will accept it.  Thank you very much."

I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was
quite welcome.

She turned to go.  Then she turned back.

"Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning,"
she said.  "May I?"

"May you?  Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose.  Why in
the world do you ask my permission?"

"Oh, don't you wish me to ask?  I inferred from what you said at
Wrayton that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many
things."

"I wished--I said--oh, don't be silly, please!  Haven't we had
silliness enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley."

"My Christian name is Frances.  May I play tennis with Doctor
Bayliss to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?"

"Of course you may.  How could I prevent it, even if I wished,
which I don't."

"Thank you, Uncle Hosea.  Mr. Worcester is going to play also.  We
need a fourth.  I can borrow another racket.  Will you be my
partner, Uncle Hosea?"

"_I_?  Your partner?"

"Yes.  You play tennis; Auntie says so.  Will you play to-morrow
morning as my partner?"

"But I play an atrocious game and--"

"So do I.  We shall match beautifully.  Thank you, Uncle Hosea."

Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.

"Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?" she asked.

The repetition repeated was too much.

"Yes," I declared.  "Stop calling me Uncle Hosea.  I'm not your
uncle."

"Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't
you?"

I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
emphatically that I didn't like the title.

"Oh, very well," she said.  "But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal,
don't you think.  What shall I call you?  Never mind, perhaps I can
think while I am dressing for dinner.  I will see you at dinner,
won't I.  Au revoir, and thank you again for the racket--Cousin
Hosy."

"I'm not your cousin, either--at least not more than a nineteenth
cousin.  And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall--I don't know
what I shall do."

"Dear me, how particular you are!  Well then, au revoir--Kent."

When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's
chair.  She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask
a dozen questions at once.  But I headed off the first of the
dozen.

"Hephzy," I observed, "I have made no less than fifty solemn
resolutions since we met that girl--that Little Frank of yours.
You've heard me make them, haven't you."

"Why, yes, I suppose I have.  If you mean resolutions to tell her
the truth about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I
have, certain."

"Yes; well, I've made another one now.  Never, no matter what
happens, will I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland
Morley or her 'inheritance' or anything else.  Every time I've
tried I've made a blessed idiot of myself and now I'm through.  She
can stay with us forever and run us into debt to her heart's
desire--I don't care.  If she ever learns the truth she sha'n't
learn it from me.  I'm incapable of telling it.  I haven't the sand
of a yellow dog and I'm not going to worry about it.  I'm through,
do you hear--through."

That was my newest resolution.  It was a comfort to realize that
THIS resolution I should probably stick to.



CHAPTER XI

In Which Complications Become More Complicated


And stick to it I did.  From that day--the day of our drive to
Wrayton--on through those wonderful summer days in which she and
Hephzy and I were together at the rectory, not once did I attempt
to remonstrate with my "niece" concerning her presumption in
inflicting her presence upon us or in spending her money, as she
thought it--our money as I knew it to be--as she saw fit.  Having
learned and relearned my lesson--namely, that I lacked the courage
to tell her the truth I had so often declared must be told, having
shifted the responsibility to Hephzy's shoulders, having admitted
and proclaimed myself, in that respect at least, a yellow dog, I
proceeded to take life as I found it, as yellow dogs are supposed
to do.

And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I
began to enjoy that life.  To enjoy the freedom of it, and the
novelty of the surroundings, and the friendship of the good people
who were our neighbors.  Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the
afternoons on the tennis court or the golf course, the evenings in
the drawing-room, the "teas" on the lawn--either our lawn or
someone else's--the chats together across the dinner-table; to
enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still, to accept the
companionship of the young person who was responsible for our
living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.

Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug,
who had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be
expected to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like
Frances Morley.  At times she charmed and attracted me, at others
she tormented and irritated me.  She argued with me one moment and
disagreed the next.  She laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent
and idioms, but when Bayliss, Junior, or one of the curates
ventured to criticize an "Americanism" she was quite as likely to
declare that she thought it "jolly" and "so expressive."  Against
my will I was obliged to join in conversations, to take sides in
arguments, to be present when callers came, to make calls.  I, who
had avoided the society of young people because, being no longer
young, I felt out of place among them, was now dragged into such
society every day and almost every evening.  I did not want to be,
but Little Frank seemed to find mischievous pleasure in keeping me
there.

"It is good for you," she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked
off to my room and the company of the "British Poets."  "Auntie
says you started on your travels in order to find something new to
write about.  You'll never find it in those musty books; every poem
in them is at least seventy years old.  If you are going to write
of England and my people you must know something about those that
are alive."

"But, my dear young lady," I said, "I have no intention of writing
of your people, as you call them."

"You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens.  You do--or
you did--and you certainly know nothing about THEM."

I was quite a bit ruffled.  "Indeed!" said I.  "You are quite sure
of that, are you?"

"I am," decidedly.  "I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen
on earth--in England, surely--ever acted or spoke like that one.
An American queen might, if there was such a thing."

She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with
her.  She had a most infectious laugh.

"My dear young lady--" I began again, but she interrupted me.

"Don't call me that," she protested.  "You're not the Archbishop of
Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech.  You asked
me not to call you 'Uncle Hosea.'  If you say 'dear young lady' to
me again I shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.'  Don't
be silly."

I laughed again.  "But you ARE young," I said.

"Well, what of it.  Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of
our age.  I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on
the subject.  There! there! put away those silly old books and come
down to the drawing-room.  I'm going to sing.  Mr. Worcester has
brought in a lot of new music."

Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.

"Very well," I said; "I'll come if you wish.  But I shall only be
in the way, as I always am.  Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my
company, did he?  Do you know I think he will bear up manfully if I
don't appear."

She regarded me with disapproval.

"Don't be childish in your old age," she snapped, "Are you coming?"

I went, of course, and--it may have been by way of reward--she sang
several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a dog's-
eared portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my
mother used to sing them when I was a little chap.  I had asked for
them before and she had ignored the request.

This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the
darkest corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.

"Her mother all over again," she whispered.  "Ardelia used to sing
those."

Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss
against Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to
one.  The only regret she expressed was that she and her partner
had not made it a "love set."

Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence
that was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me.  I needed
to be kept alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake
household, I couldn't be anything else.  The future did not look as
dull and hopeless as it had when I left Bayport.  I even began to
consider the possibilities of another novel, to hope that I might
write one.  Jim Campbell's "prescription," although working in
quite a different way from that which he and I had planned, was
working nevertheless.

Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters
and honoring my drafts with promptness.  I received a note each
week from Campbell.  I had written him all particulars concerning
Little Frank and our move to the rectory, and he professed to see
in it only a huge joke.

"Tell your Miss Cahoon," he wrote, "that I am going to turn
Spiritualist right away.  I believe in dreams now, and presentiments
and all sorts of things.  I am trying to dream out a plot for a
novel by you.  Had a roof-garden supper the other night and that
gave me a fine start, but I'll have to tackle another one before I
get sufficient thrills to furnish forth one of your gems.  Seriously
though, old man, this whole thing will do you a world of good.
Nothing short of an earthquake would have shaken you out of your
Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you and--what's her name--
Hephzibah, had had the quake.  What are you going to do with the
Little Frank person in the end?  Can't you marry her off to a
wealthy Englishman?  Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself?
She'd turn a dead quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if
anyone could.  Great idea!  What?"

His "great idea" was received with the contempt it deserved.
I tore up the letter and threw it into the waste basket.

But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after
this.  We were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride
with Herbert Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day
at "Jasmine Gables."

"Hosy," said Hephzy, "do you realize the summer is half over?  It's
the middle of July now."

So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.

"Yes," she went on.  "Our lease of this place is up the first of
October.  We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely,
sha'n't we."

"I suppose so.  We can't stay over here indefinitely.  Life isn't
all skittles and--and tea."

"That's so.  I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea
is.  Land sakes!  I should say I did.  They tell me the English
national flower is a rose.  It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if
there is such a thing.  Hosy," with a sudden return to seriousness,
"what are we goin' to do with--with HER when the time comes for us
to go?"

"I don't know," I answered.

"Are you going to take her to America with us?"

"I don't know."

"Humph!  Well, we'll have to know then."

"I suppose we shall; but," defiantly, "I'm not going to worry about
it till the time comes."

"Humph!  Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say.  'Twan't
so long ago that you did nothin' BUT worry.  I never saw anybody
change the way you have anyway."

"In what way?"

"In every way.  You aren't like the same person you used to be.
Why, through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think
sometimes you were older than I was--older in the way you thought
and acted, I mean.  Now you act as if you were twenty-one.
Cavortin' around, playin' tennis and golf and everything!  What has
got into you?"

"I don't know.  Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I
guess.  He said the change of air and environment would do me good.
I tell you, Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I
can.  I realize as well as you do that the trouble is bound to
come, but I'm not going to let it trouble me beforehand.  And I
advise you to do the same."

"Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin'
and dreadin'.  Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'.  It may be
that, by the time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank
will be provided for."

"Provided for?  What do you mean?"

"I mean provided for by somebody else.  There's at least two
candidates for the job:  Don't you think so?"

"You mean--"

"I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss.  That Worcester man is a
gone case, or I'm no judge.  He's keepin' company with Frances, or
would, if she'd let him.  'Twould be funny if she married a curate,
wouldn't it."

"Not very," I answered.  "Married life on a curate's salary is not
my idea of humor."

"I suppose likely that's so.  And I can't imagine her a minister's
wife, can you?"

I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young
lady herself.  In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far
from her thoughts at present, I judged.  But Hephzy did not seem so
sure.

"No," she went on, "I don't think the curate's got much chance.
But young Doctor Bayliss is different.  He's good-lookin' and smart
and he's got prospects.  I like him first-rate and I think Frances
likes him, too.  I shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to
somethin'.  Wouldn't it be splendid if it did!"

I said that it would.  And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious
of a peculiar feeling of insincerity.  I liked young Bayliss.  He
was all that Hephzy had said, and more.  He would, doubtless, make
a good husband for any girl.  And his engagement to Frances Morley
might make easier the explanation which was bound to come.  I
believed I could tell Herbert Bayliss the truth concerning the
ridiculous "claim."  A man would be susceptible to reason and
proof; I could convince him.  I should have welcomed the
possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not.  Somehow or other,
the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me.  I did not
like to think of it.

"Oh dear!" sighed Hephzy; "if only things were different.  If only
she knew all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with
us because she wanted to--if that was the way of it, it would be so
different.  If you and I had really adopted her!  If she only was
your niece."

"Nonsense!" I snapped.  "She isn't my niece."

"I know it.  That's what makes your goodness to her seem so
wonderful to me.  You treat her as if you cared as much as I do.
And of course you don't.  It isn't natural you should.  She's my
sister's child, and she's hardly any relation to you at all.
You're awful good, Hosy.  She's noticed it, too.  I think she likes
you now a lot better than she did; she as much as said so.  She's
beginning to understand you."

"Nonsense!" I said again.  Understand me!  I didn't understand
myself.  Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she
liked me.  It was pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined
to hate me later on.

"I hope she won't feel too hard against us," continued Hephzy.  "I
can't bear to think of her doin' that.  She--she seems so near and
dear to me now.  We--I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all
over."

I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also.
But I did not say anything of the kind.

I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her.  Hadn't I been
scheming and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust
herself upon us?  To be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of
would be too idiotic.

"Well," observed Hephzy, in conclusion, "perhaps she and Doctor
Bayliss will make a match after all.  We ought to help it all we
can, I suppose."

This conversation had various effects upon me.  One was to make me
unaccountably "blue" for the rest of that day.  Another was that I
regarded the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a
different eye.  I speculated foolishly concerning those visits and
watched both young gentlemen more closely.

I did not have to watch the curate long.  Suddenly he ceased
calling at the rectory.  Not altogether, of course, but he called
only occasionally and his manner toward my "niece" was oddly formal
and constrained.  She was very kind to him, kinder than before, I
thought, but there was a difference in their manner.  Hephzy, of
course, had an explanation ready.

"She's given him his clearance papers," was her way of expressing
it.  "She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned.
Well, I never did think she cared for him.  And that leaves the
course clear for the doctor, doesn't it."

The doctor took advantage of the clear course.  His calls and
invitations for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than
ever.  She must have understood; but, being a normal young woman,
as well as a very, very pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and
kept the boy--for, after all, he was scarcely more than that--at
arm's length and in a state of alternate hope and despair.  I
shared his varying moods.  If he could not be sure of her feelings
toward him, neither could I, and I found myself wondering,
wondering constantly.  It was foolish for me to wonder, of course.
Why should I waste time in speculation on that subject?  Why should
I care whether she married or not?  What difference did it make to
me whom she married?  I resolved not to think of her at all.  And
that resolution, like so many I had made, amounted to nothing, for
I did think of her constantly.

And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.

Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf
on the Manor House course that morning.  I had had no intention of
playing.  My projected novel had reached the stage where, plot
building completed, I had really begun the writing.  The first
chapter was finished and I had intended beginning the second one
that day.  But, just as I seated myself at the desk in the Reverend
Cole's study, the young lady appeared and insisted that the twosome
become a threesome, that I leave my "stupid old papers and pencils"
and come for a round on the links.  I protested, of course, but she
was in one of her wilful moods that morning and declared that she
would not play unless I did.

"It will do you good," she said.  "You'll write all the better this
afternoon.  Now, come along."

"Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?" I
asked maliciously.

She tossed her head.  "Of course he is," she retorted.  "Besides it
doesn't make any difference whether he is or not.  _I_ want you to
play, and that is enough."

"Humph! he may not agree with you."

"Then he can play by himself.  It will do him good, too.  He takes
altogether too much for granted.  Come!  I am waiting."

So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside
the paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag
of clubs on my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.

Frances greeted me very cordially indeed.  Her clubs--I had bought
them myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in
the matter of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things
which I thought would please her--were carried by Herbert Bayliss,
who, of course, also carried his own.  His greeting was not as
enthusiastic.  He seemed rather glum and out of sorts.  Frances
addressed most of her conversation to me and I was inclined to
think the pair had had some sort of disagreement, what Hephzy would
have called a "lover's quarrel," perhaps.

We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past
the cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered
the great gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms
emblazoned above it.  Then a quarter of a mile over rolling hills,
with rare shrubs and flowers everywhere, brought us to the top of
the hill at the edge of the little wood which these English people
persisted in calling a "forest."  The first tee was there.  You
drove--if you were skillful or lucky--down the long slope to the
green two hundred yards away.  If you were neither skillful nor
lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass on
either side of the fair green.  Then you hunted for your ball and,
having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding
it out of the "rough."

At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing
togs was practicing his "swing."  A caddy was carrying his bag.
This of itself argued the swinger a person of privilege and
consequence, for caddies on those links were strictly forbidden by
the Lady of the Manor.  Why they were forbidden she alone knew.

As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us.  He was
not a Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his
appearance.  He regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his
driver, lounged toward me and extended his hand.

"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed.  "It is you, isn't it!  How do you do?"

"Why, Mr. Heathcroft!" I said.  "This is a surprise."

We shook hands.  He, apparently, was not at all surprised.

"Heard about your being here, Knowles," he drawled.  "My aunt told
me; that is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when
she mentioned the name I knew, of course, it must be you.  Odd you
should have located here, isn't it!  Jolly glad to see you."

I said I was glad to see him.  Then I introduced my companions.

"Bayliss and I have met before," observed Heathcroft.  "Played a
round with him in the tournament last year.  How do, Bayliss?
Don't think Miss Morley and I have met, though.  Great pleasure,
really.  Are you a resident of Mayberry, Miss Morley?"

Frances said that she was a temporary resident.

"Ah! visiting here, I suppose?"

"Yes.  Yes, I am visiting.  I am living at the rectory, also."

"Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained Bayliss.

Heathcroft seemed surprised.

"Indeed!" he drawled.  "Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles.  She
wasn't with you on the ship, now was she."

"Miss Morley had been living in England--here and on the
Continent," I answered.  I could have kicked Bayliss for his
officious explanation of kinship.  Now I should have that
ridiculous "uncle" business to contend with, in our acquaintance
with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the rest.  Frances, I am
sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth twitched and
she looked away over the course.

"Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game--Uncle?" she said.
She had dropped the hated "Hosea," I am happy to say, but in the
presence of those outside the family she still addressed me as
"Uncle."  Of course she could not do otherwise without arousing
comment, but I did not like it.  Uncle! there was a venerable,
antique quality in the term which I resented more and more each
time I heard it.  It emphasized the difference in our ages--and
that difference needed no emphasis.

Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in
accepting it.

"Oh, I shouldn't do that, really," he declared.  "I should be in
the way, now shouldn't I."

Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer.  I
judged that he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft
company.  But Frances, after a glance in his direction, answered
for him.

"Oh, not in the least," she said.  "A foursome is ever so much more
sporting than a threesome.  Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play
Doctor Bayliss and--Uncle.  Shall we?"

Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored.  He looked the
former.  He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since
their introduction.

That match was hard fought.  Our new acquaintance was a fair player
and he played to win.  Frances was learning to play and had a
natural aptitude for the game.  I played better than my usual form
and I needed to, for Bayliss played wretchedly.  He "dubbed" his
approaches and missed easy putts.  If he had kept his eye on the
ball instead of on his opponents he might have done better, but
that he would not do.  He watched Heathcroft and Miss Morley
continually, and the more he watched the less he seemed to like
what he saw.

Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered.
Frances was quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his
discomfiture.  She--well, perhaps she did not precisely flirt with
A. Carleton Heathcroft, but she was very, very agreeable to him and
exulted over the winning of each hole without regard to the
feelings of the losers.  As for Heathcroft, himself, he was quite
as agreeable to her, complimented her on her playing, insisted on
his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted her over the rough places
on the course, and generally acted the gallant in a most polished
manner.  Bayliss and I were beaten three down.

Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate.  Then he said
good-by with evident reluctance.

"Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley," he said.  "Enjoyed
it hugely.  You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying
so."

Frances was pleased.  "Thank you," she answered.  "I know it isn't
true--that about my playing--but it is awfully nice of you to say
it.  I hope we may play together again.  Are you staying here
long?"

"Don't know, I'm sure.  I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me
as long as she can.  Seems to think I have neglected her of late.
Of course we must play again.  By the way, Knowles, why don't you
run over and meet Lady Carey?  She'll be awfully pleased to meet
any friends of mine.  Bring Miss Morley with you.  Perhaps she
would care to see the greenhouses.  They're quite worth looking
over, really.  Like to have you, too, Bayliss, of course."

Bayliss's thanks were not effusive.  Frances, however, declared
that she should love to see the greenhouses.  For my part, common
politeness demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the
rectory.  He accepted the invitation at once and heartily.

He called the very next day and joined us at tea.  The following
afternoon we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses.  On
this occasion we met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor
herself.  Lady Kent Carey was a stout, gray-haired person, of very
decided manner and a mannish taste in dress.  She was gracious and
affable, although I suspected that much of her affability toward
the American visitors was assumed because she wished to please her
nephew.  A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was plainly her
ladyship's pride and pet.  She called him "Carleton, dear," and
"Carleton, dear" was, in his aunt's estimation, the model of
everything desirable in man.

The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and
flowers more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen.  We
walked through the grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with
becoming reverence the trees planted by various distinguished
personages, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Her late
Majesty Queen Victoria, Ex-President Carnot of France, and others.
Hephzy whispered to me as we were standing before the Queen
Victoria specimen:

"I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do
you, Hosy.  She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin'
away diggin' holes with a spade, now would she!"

I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by
someone else.

Hephzy nodded.

"I guess so," she added.  "And the tree was put in by someone else
and the dirt put back by the same one.  Queen Victoria planted that
tree the way Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not
doin' a single thing to it.  I could plant a whole grove that way
and not get a bit tired."

Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come
again.  Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home--that
is, he accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear
guard.  The next day he dropped in for some tennis.  Herbert
Bayliss was there before him, so the tennis was abandoned, and a
three-cornered chat on the lawn substituted.  Heathcroft treated
the young doctor with a polite condescension which would have
irritated me exceedingly.

From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a
great deal of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle.  And when
he was not there, it was fairly certain that he and Frances were
together somewhere, golfing, walking or riding.  Sometimes I
accompanied them, sometimes Herbert Bayliss made one of the
party.  Frances' behavior to the young doctor was tantalizingly
contradictory.  At times she was very cordial and kind, at others
almost cold and repellent.  She kept the young fellow in a state of
uncertainty most of the time.  She treated Heathcroft much the same,
but there was this difference between them--Heathcroft didn't seem
to mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather than to annoy him.
Bayliss, on the contrary, was either in the seventh heaven of bliss
or the subcellar of despair.  I sympathized with him, to an extent;
the young lady's attitude toward me had an effect which, in my case,
was ridiculous.  My reason told me that I should not care at all
whether she liked me or whether she didn't, whether I pleased or
displeased her.  But I did care, I couldn't help it, I cared
altogether too much.  A middle-aged quahaug should be phlegmatic and
philosophical; I once had a reputation for both qualities, but I
seemed to possess neither now.

I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning
the outcome of all this.  Was there anything serious in the wind at
all?  Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was
obvious now.  But was she in love with him?  I doubted it.  Did she
care in the least for him?  I did not know.  She seemed to enjoy
his society.  I did not want her to fall in love with A. Carleton
Heathcroft, certainly.  Nor, to be perfectly honest, did I wish her
to marry Bayliss, although I like him much better than I did Lady
Carey's blasé nephew.  Somehow, I didn't like the idea of her
falling in love with anyone.  The present state of affairs in our
household was pleasant enough.  We three were happy together.  Why
could not that happiness continue just as it was?

The answer was obvious:  It could not continue.  Each day that
passed brought the inevitable end nearer.  My determination to put
the thought of that end from my mind and enjoy the present was
shaken.  In the solitude of the study, in the midst of my writing,
after I had gone to my room for the night, I found my thoughts
drifting toward the day in October when, our lease of the rectory
ended, we must pack up and go somewhere.  And when we went,
would she go with us?  Hardly.  She would demand the promised
"settlement," and then--What then?  Explanations--quarrels--
parting.  A parting for all time.  I had reached a point where,
like Hephzy, I would have gladly suggested a real "adoption," the
permanent addition to our family of Strickland Morley's daughter,
but she would not consent to that.  She was proud--very proud.  And
she idolized her father's memory.  No, she would not remain under
any such conditions--I knew it.  And the certainty of that
knowledge brought with it a pang which I could not analyze.  A man
of my age and temperament should not have such feelings.

Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft.  She had liked him well enough
during our first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she
knew him better, she did not fancy him.  His lofty, condescending
manner irritated her and, as he seemed to enjoy joking at her
expense, the pair had some amusing set-tos.  I will say this for
Hephzy:  In the most of these she gave at least as good as she
received.

For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn,
Hephzy, Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and
Heathcroft.  The conversation had drifted to the subject of
eatables, a topic suggested, doubtless, by the plum cake and
cookies on the table.  Mr. Heathcroft was amusing himself by poking
fun at the American custom of serving cereals at breakfast.

"And the variety is amazing," he declared.  "Oats and wheat and
corn!  My word!  I felt like some sort of animal--a horse, by Jove!
We feed our horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon."

Hephzy sniffed.  "So do we," she admitted, "but we eat 'em
ourselves, sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be.
I think some breakfast foods are fine."

"Do you indeed?  What an extraordinary taste!  Do you eat hay as
well, may I ask?"

"No, of course we don't."

"Why not?  Why draw the line?  I should think a bit of hay might be
the--ah--the crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American.  Your
horses and donkeys enjoy it quite as much as they do oats, don't
they?"

"Don't know, I'm sure.  I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope."

"Yes.  Oh, yes.  But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
experiences on the other side.  I visited in a place called
Milwaukee and my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each
morning.  We did the oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon
my word, I expected the hay.  It was the only donkey food he didn't
have in the house, and I don't see why he hadn't provided a supply
of that."

"Perhaps he didn't know you were comin'," observed Hephzy,
cheerfully.  "Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss?  Or a cooky
or somethin'?"

The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.

"I suppose--what do you call them?--cereals, are an American
custom," she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were
ruffled.  "Every country has its customs, so travelers say.  Even
our own has some, doubtless, though I can't recall any at the
moment."

Heathcroft stroked his mustache.

"Oh," he drawled, "we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are
not as queer as the American breakfasts.  You mustn't mind my fun,
Miss Cahoon, I hope you're not offended."

"Not a bit," was the calm reply.  "We humans ARE animals, after
all, I suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another.
Donkeys like hay and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't
just as soon live in a stable as a sty.  Do help yourself to the
cake, Mr. Heathcroft."

No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come
out ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was
obliged to suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited
retorts.  Frances, too, seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee
victories.  Her prejudice against America had, so far as outward
expression went, almost disappeared.  She was more likely to
champion than criticize our ways and habits now.

But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft
society.  The two were together a great deal.  The village people
noticed the intimacy and comments reached my ears which were not
intended for them.  Hephzy and I had some discussions on the
subject.

"You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?" she
asked.  "Or that she thinks he does?"

"I don't know," I answered.  I didn't like the idea any better than
she did.

"I hope not.  Of course he's a big man around here.  When his aunt
dies he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says.
And if Frances should marry him she'd be--I don't know whether
she'd be a 'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in
society."

"I suppose she would.  But I hope she won't do it."

"So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else.
He's so good and so patient with it all.  And he's just eaten up
with jealousy; anybody can see that.  I'm scared to death that he
and this Heathcroft man will have some sort of--of a fight or
somethin'.  That would be awful, wouldn't it!"

I did not answer.  My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's
account.  He could look out for himself.  It was Frances' happiness
I was thinking of.

"Hosy," said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, "there's somethin'
else.  I'm not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all.
Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss said to me makes me feel a little mite
anxious.  She said Carleton Heathcroft was a great lady's man.  She
told me some things about him that--that--Well, I wish Frances
wasn't so friendly with him, that's all."

I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.

"She's a sensible girl," said I.  "She doesn't need a guardian."

"I know, but--but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
that.  She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her.
Any girl would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much
of class and all that as they do over here and as she does.  I wish
I knew how she did feel toward him."

"Why don't you ask her?"

Hephzy shook her head.  "I wouldn't dare," she said.  "She'd take
my head off.  We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it
is.  She treats us real nicely now, but that's because we don't
interfere.  If I should try just once to tell her what she ought to
do she'd flare up like a bonfire.  And then do the other thing to
show her independence."

"I suppose she would," I admitted, gloomily.

"I know she would.  No, we mustn't say anything to her.  But--but
you might say somethin' to him, mightn't you.  Just hint around and
find out what he does mean by bein' with her so much.  Couldn't you
do that, Hosy?"

I smiled.  "Possibly I could, but I sha'n't," I answered.  "He
would tell me to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame
him."

"Why no, he wouldn't.  He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian,
you know.  You'd have a right to do it."

I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so,
emphatically.  And yet, before that week was ended, I did do what
amounted to that very thing.  The reason which led to this rash act
on my part was a talk I had with Lady Kent Carey.

I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the
golf course.  I was playing a round alone.  She came strolling over
the green, dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very
feminine parasol, which by comparison with the rest of her get-up,
looked as out of place as a silk hat on the head of a girl in a
ball dress.  She greeted me very affably, waited until I putted
out, and then sat beside me on the bench under the big oak and
chatted for some time.

The subject of her conversation was her nephew.  She was,
apparently, only too glad to talk about him at any time.  He was
her dead sister's child and practically the only relative she had.
He seemed like a son to her.  Such a charming fellow, wasn't he,
now?  And so considerate and kind to her.  Everyone liked him; he
was a great favorite.

"And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles," she said.  "He enjoys
your acquaintance so much.  He says that there is a freshness and
novelty about you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing.
This Miss--ah--Cahoon--your cousin, I think she is--is a constant
joy to him.  He never tires of repeating her speeches.  He does it
very well, don't you think.  He mimics the American accent
wonderfully."

I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed.
It was all that and more.  Lady Carey went on.

"And this Miss Morley, your niece," she said, poking holes in the
turf with the tip of her parasol, "she is a charming girl, isn't
she.  She and Carleton are quite friendly, really."

"Yes," I admitted, "they seem to be."

"Yes.  Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles.  Has she lived in
England long?  Who were her parents?"

I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that
Frances' father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that
most of the young lady's life had been spent in France.  I feared
more searching questions, but she did not ask them.

"I see," she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment.  Then she
changed the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.

"He's a dear boy," she declared.  "I am planning great things for
him.  Some day he will have the estate here, of course.  And I am
hoping to get him the seat in Parliament when our party returns to
power, as it is sure to do before long.  He will marry then; in
fact everything is arranged, so far as that goes.  Of course there
is no actual engagement as yet, but we all understand."

I had been rather bored, now I was interested.

"Indeed!" said I.  "And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?"

"A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire--a fine
family, one of the oldest in England.  She and Carleton have always
been so fond of each other.  Her parents and I have considered the
affair settled for years.  The young people will be so happy
together."

Here was news.  I offered congratulations.

"Thank you so much," she said.  "It is pleasant to know that his
future is provided for.  Margaret will make him a good wife.  She
worships him.  If anything should happen to--ah--disturb the
arrangement her heart would break, I am sure.  Of course nothing
will happen.  I should not permit it."

I made some comment, I don't remember what.  She rose from the
bench.

"I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
garrulous old woman, haven't I," she observed, smiling.  "So silly
of me.  You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles.
Forgive me, won't you.  Carleton dear is my one interest in life
and I talk of him on the least excuse, or without any.  So sorry to
have inflicted my garrulity upon you.  I may count upon you
entering our invitation golf tournament next month, may I not?  Oh,
do say yes.  Thank you so much.  Au revoir."

She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full
sail.  I walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.

I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into
confidence concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects.  If I
had believed the "garrulity," as she called it, to have been
unintentional, I might have been flattered.  But I did not so
believe.  I was pretty certain there was intention in it and that
she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take it as a warning.
Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly with the
youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory.  The "garrulity" was a notice
to keep hands off.

I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather.  But with
Heathcroft I was growing more incensed every moment.  Engaged to be
married, was he!  He and this Warwickshire girl of "fine family"
had been "so fond" of each other for years.  Everything was
understood, was it?  Then what did he mean by his attentions to
Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry was probably discussing
at the moment?  The more I considered his conduct the angrier I
became.  It was the worst time possible for a meeting with A.
Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and
most secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.

He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be
called cordial.

"Ah, Knowles," he said.  "Been doing the round I see.  A bit stupid
by oneself, I should think.  What?  Miss Morley and I have been
riding.  Had a ripping canter together."

It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time.  It had the effect
of spurring my determination to the striking point.  I would have
it out with him then and there.

"Heathcroft," I said, bluntly, "I am not sure that I approve of
Miss Morley's riding with you so often."

He regarded me with astonishment.

"You don't approve!" he repeated.  "And why not?  There's no
danger.  She rides extremely well."

"It's not a question of danger.  It is one of proprieties, if I
must put it that way.  She is a young woman, hardly more than a
girl, and she probably does not realize that being seen in your
company so frequently is likely to cause comment and gossip.  Her
aunt and I realize it, however."

His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid
amusement.

"Really!" he drawled.  "By Jove!  I say, Knowles, am I such a
dangerously fascinating character?  You flatter me."

"I don't know anything concerning your character.  I do know that
there is gossip.  I am not accusing you of anything.  I have no
doubt you have been merely careless.  Your intentions may have
been--"

He interrupted me.  "My intentions?" he repeated.  "My dear fellow,
I have no intentions.  None whatever concerning your niece, if that
is what you mean.  She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good
company.  I like her and she seems to like me.  That is all, upon
my word it is."

He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it.  But I had gone too
far to back out.

"Then you have been thoughtless--or careless," I said.  "It seems
to me that you should have considered her."

"Considered her!  Oh, I say now!  Why should I consider her pray?"

"Why shouldn't you?  You are much older than she is and a man of
the world besides.  And you are engaged to be married, or so I am
told."

His smile disappeared.

"Now who the devil told you that?" he demanded.

"I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
amounts to the same thing.  It is true, isn't it?"

"Of course it's true!  But--but--why, good God, man! you weren't
under the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were
you?  Oh, I say! that would be TOO good!"

He laughed heartily.  He did not appear in the least annoyed or
angry, but seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke.  I
failed to see the joke, myself.

"Oh, no," he went on, before I could reply, "not that, I assure
you.  One can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a
luckier beggar than I am.  Auntie is attending to all that sort of
thing.  She has me booked, you know, and I can't afford to play the
high-spirited independent with her.  I should say not!  Rather!"

He laughed again.

"So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's
neighborhood, do you?" he observed.  "Sorry.  I'd best keep off the
lawn a bit, you mean to say, I suppose.  Very well!  I'll mind the
notice boards, of course.  Very glad you spoke.  Possibly I have
been a bit careless.  No offence meant, Knowles, and none taken, I
trust."

"No," I said, with some reluctance.  "I'm glad you understand my--
our position, and take my--my hint so well.  I disliked to give it,
but I thought it best that we have a clear understanding."

"Of course!  Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of
thing.  You Americans are queer beggars.  You don't strike me as
the usual type of stern uncle at all, Knowles.  Oh, by the way,
does the niece know that uncle is putting up the notice boards?"

"Of course she doesn't," I replied, hastily.

His smile broadened.  "I wonder what she'll say when she finds it
out," he observed.  "She has never struck me as being greatly in
awe of her relatives.  I should call HER independent, if I was
asked.  Well, farewell.  You and I may have some golf together
still, I presume?  Good!  By-by."

He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension
apparently unruffled.  I continued on my way also.  But my serenity
had vanished.  I had the feeling that I had come off second-best in
the encounter.  I had made a fool of myself, I feared.  And more
than all, I wondered, as he did, what Frances Morley would say when
she learned of my interference in her personal affairs.

I foresaw trouble--more trouble.



CHAPTER XII

In Which the Truth Is Told at Last


I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey
or with Heathcroft.  I was not proud of my share in the putting up
of "the notice boards."  I did not mention meeting either the
titled aunt or the favored nephew.  I kept quiet concerning them
both and nervously awaited developments.

There were none immediately.  That day and the next passed and
nothing of importance happened.  It did seem to me, however, that
Frances was rather quiet during luncheon on the third day.  She
said very little and several times I found her regarding me with an
odd expression.  My guilty conscience smote me and I expected to be
asked questions answering which would be difficult.  But the
questions were not asked--then.  I went to my study and attempted
to write; the attempt was a failure.

For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper.  I hadn't
an idea in my head, apparently.  At last I threw down the pencil
and gave up the battle for the day.  I was not in a writing mood.
I lit my pipe, and, moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat
there, looking out at the lawn and flower beds.  No one was in
sight except Grimmer, the gardener, who was trimming a hedge.

I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking.  Hephzy dressed in
her best, passed the window on her way to the gate.  She was going
for a call in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I
declined.  I did not feel like calling.

My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket.  If I could have gotten
rid of my thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I
could not do.  They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts,
ridiculous, unavailing thoughts.  For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to
permit myself to think in that way was worse than ridiculous; it
was pitiful.  This was a stern reality, this summer of mine in
England, not a chapter in one of my romances.  They ended happily;
it was easy to make them end in that way.  But this--this was no
romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic relief in the story,
the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of himself.  That was
what I was, an old fool.  Well, I must stop being a fool before it
was too late.  No one knew I was such a fool.  No one should know--
now or ever.

And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to
dream of dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table--our
table; of a home in Bayport--our home; of someone always with me,
to share my life, my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to
glory in my triumphs and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of
what might have been if--if it were not absolutely impossible.  Oh,
fool, fool, fool!

A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window.  I knew
the step, should have recognized it anywhere.  She was walking
rapidly toward the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the
path before her.  Grimmer touched his hat and said "Good afternoon,
miss," but she apparently did not hear him.  She passed on and I
heard her enter the hall.  A moment later she knocked at the study
door.

She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door
behind her.  She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white
shirtwaist--blouse, she would have called it--a short, dark skirt
and stout boots.  The light garden hat was set upon her dark hair
and her cheeks were flushed from rapid walking.  The hat and waist
and skirt were extremely becoming.  She was pretty--yes, beautiful--
and young.  I was far from beautiful and far from young.  I make
this obvious statement because it was my thought at the moment.

She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when
she entered the study during my supposed working periods.  This was
strange, of itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all
sorts of things.  But she smiled and answered my greeting
pleasantly enough and, for the moment, I experienced relief.
Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of my interview with
Heathcroft.

"I have come to talk with you," she began.  "May I sit down?"

"Certainly.  Of course you may," I answered, smiling as cheerfully
as I could.  "Was it necessary to ask permission?"

She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had
just risen.  For a moment she was silent.  I ventured a remark.

"This begins very solemnly," I said.  "Is the talk to be so very
serious?"

She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.

"I don't know," she answered.  "I hope it may not be serious at
all, Mr. Knowles."

I interrupted.  "Mr. Knowles!" I repeated.  "Whew! this IS a formal
interview.  I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along
with 'Uncle Hosea'."

She smiled slightly then.  "Perhaps it has," she said.  "I am just
a little troubled--or puzzled--and I have come to you for advice."

"Advice?" I repeated.  "I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much.
What sort of advice do you want?"

"I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I
have received to motor with Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss.
He has asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow.  Should I
accept?"

I hesitated.  Then:  "Alone?" I asked.

"No.  His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also."

"I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go."

"Thank you.  But suppose it was alone?"

"Then--Well, I presume that would be all right, too.  You have
motored with him before, you know."

As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in
such a matter.  She had never asked it before.  Her next remark was
more puzzling still.

"You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you," she said.  It did seem
to me there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

"Yes--certainly," I answered.  I did approve of young Bayliss,
generally speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have
approved of him absolutely.

"And you trust me?  You believe me capable of judging what is right
or wrong?"

"Of course I do."

"If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal
affairs?  You would not think of doing that, of course?"

"No--o," more slowly.

"Why do you hesitate?  Of course you realize that you have no
shadow of right to interfere.  You know perfectly well why I
consented to remain here for the present and why I have remained?"

"Yes, yes, I know that."

"And you wouldn't presume to interfere?"

"Doctor Herbert Bayliss is--"

She sprang to her feet.  She was not smiling now.

"Stop!" she interrupted, sharply.  "Stop!  I did not come to
discuss Doctor Bayliss.  I have asked you a question.  I ask you if
you would presume to interfere in my personal affairs.  Would you?"

"Why, no.  That is, I--"

"You say that to me!  YOU!"

"Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the
Doctor, I--"

She stamped her foot.

"Stop!  Oh, stop!" she cried.  "You know what I mean.  What did you
say to Mr. Heathcroft?  Do you dare tell me you have not interfered
there?"

It had come, the expected.  Her smile and the asking for "advice"
had been apparently but traps to catch me off my guard.  I had been
prepared for some such scene as this, but, in spite of my
preparations, I hesitated and faltered.  I must have looked like
the meanest of pickpockets caught in the act.

"Frances," I stammered, "Frances--"

Her fury took my breath away.

"Don't call me Frances," she cried.  "How dare you call me that?"

Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.

"You asked me to," I said.

"I asked you!  Yes, I did.  You had been kind to me, or I thought
you had, and I--I was foolish.  Oh, how I hate myself for doing it!
But I was beginning to think you a gentleman.  In spite of
everything, I was beginning to--And now!  Oh, at least I thought
you wouldn't LIE to me."

I rose now.

"Frances--Miss Morley," I said, "do you realize what you are
saying?"

"Realize it!  Oh," with a scornful laugh, "I realize it quite well;
you may be sure of that.  Don't you like the word?  What else do
you call a denial of what we both know to be the truth.  You did
see Mr. Heathcroft.  You did speak with him."

"Yes, I did."

"You did!  You admit it!"

"I admit it.  But did he tell you what I said?"

"He did not.  Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman.  He told me very
little and that only in answer to my questions.  I knew you and he
met the other day.  You did not mention it, but you were seen
together, and when he did not come for the ride to which he had
invited me I thought it strange.  And his note to me was stranger
still.  I began to suspect then, and when we next met I asked him
some questions.  He told me next to nothing, but he is honorable
and he does not LIE.  I learned enough, quite enough."

I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of
Heathcroft's engagement.

"Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?" I asked.

"He told me nothing!  Nothing!  The very fact that you had
objected, as you call it, was sufficient.  Object!  YOU object to
my doing as I please!  YOU meddle with my affairs!  And humiliate
me in the eyes of my friends!  I could--I could die of shame!
I . . .  And as if I did not know your reasons.  As if they were
not perfectly plain."

The real reason could not be plain to her.  Heathcroft evidently
had not told her of the Warwickshire heiress.

"I don't understand," I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly.
"What reasons?"

"Must I tell you?  Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor
Bayliss, pray?"

"Doctor Bayliss!  Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different.  He is a
fine young fellow, and--"

"Yes," with scornful sarcasm, "so it would appear.  You and my aunt
and he have the most evident of understandings.  You need not
praise him for my benefit.  It is quite apparent how you both feel
toward Doctor Bayliss.  I am not blind.  I have seen how you have
thrown him in my company, and made opportunities for me to meet
him.  Oh, of course, I can see!  I did not believe it at first.  It
was too absurd, too outrageously impertinent.  I COULDN'T believe
it.  But now I know."

This was a little too much.  The idea that I--_I_ had been playing
the matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as she
was.

"Nonsense!" I declared.  "Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go
on.  I did speak to Mr. Heathcroft.  There was a reason, a good
reason, for my doing so."

"I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it.  The fact that
you did speak to him concerning me is enough.  Mr. Knowles, this
arrangement of ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long.
I should have known it was impossible in the beginning.  But I did
not know.  I was alone--and ill--and I did need friends--I was SO
alone.  I had been through so much.  I had struggled and suffered
and--"

Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears.
And again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me.  I longed
to--Well, to prove myself the fool I was.

But she did not give me the opportunity.  Before I could speak or
move she was on her way to the door.

"This ends it," she said.  "I shall go away from here at once.  I
shall put the whole matter in my solicitor's hands.  This is an end
of forbearance and all the rest.  I am going.  You have made me
hate you and despise you.  I only hope that--that some day you will
despise yourself as much.  But you won't," scornfully.  "You are
not that sort."

The door closed.  She was gone.  Gone!  And soon--the next day at
the latest--she would have been gone for good.  This WAS the end.

I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know.  Dinner was
waiting for me when I returned, but I could not eat.  I rose from
the table, went to the study and sat there, alone with my misery.
I was torn with the wildest longings and desires.  One, I think,
was to kill Heathcroft forthwith.  Another was to kill myself.

There came another knock at the door.  This time I made no answer.
I did not want to see anyone.

But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in.  She crossed
the room and stood by my chair.

"What is it, Hosy?" she said, gently.  "You must tell me all about
it."

I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think.  If
that was it she did not heed.  She put her hand upon my shoulder.

"You must tell me, Hosy," she said.  "What has happened?  You and
Frances have had some fallin' out, I know.  She wouldn't come to
dinner, either, and she won't see me.  She's up in her room with
the door shut.  Tell me, Hosy; you and I have fought each other's
battles for a good many years.  You can't fight this one alone;
I've got to do my share.  Tell me, dearie, please."

And tell her I did.  I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought
that she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and
sensible, was, if not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help.
I began by telling her a little and then went on to tell her all,
of my talk with Lady Carey, my meeting with Heathcroft, the scene
with Frances--everything, word for word.

When it was over she patted my shoulder.

"You did just right, Hosy," she said.  "There was nothin' else you
could do.  I never liked that Heathcroft man.  And to think of him,
engaged to another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he
has.  I'D like to talk with him.  He'd get a piece of MY mind."

"He's all right enough," I admitted grudgingly.  "He took my
warning in a very good sort, I must say.  He has never meant
anything serious.  It was just his way, that's all.  He was amusing
himself in her company, and doubtless thought she would be
flattered with his aristocratic attentions."

"Humph!  Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other
girl.  You didn't tell her that, you say."

"I couldn't.  I think I should, perhaps, if she would have
listened.  I'm glad I didn't.  It isn't a thing for me to tell
her."

"I understand.  But she ought to know it, just the same.  And she
ought to know how good you've been to her.  Nobody could be better.
She must know it.  Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must
know that."

I seized her arm.  "You mustn't tell her a word," I cried.  "She
mustn't know.  It is better she should go.  Better for her and for
me--My God, yes! so much better for me."

I could feel the arm on my shoulder start.  Hephzy bent down and
looked into my face.  I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked
and looked.  Then she drew a long breath.

"Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "Hosy!"

"Don't speak to me.  Oh, Hephzy," with a bitter laugh, "did you
ever dream there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am!  You
needn't say it.  I know the answer."

"Hosy!  Hosy! you poor boy!"

She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty
house at the time of my mother's death.  That memory came back to
me even then.

"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said.  "I am ashamed of myself, of course.
And don't worry.  Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else
shall.  I'm going to behave and I'm going to be sensible.  Just
forget all this for my sake.  I mean to forget it, too."

But Hephzy shook her head.

"It's all my fault," she said.  "I'm to blame more than anybody
else.  It was me that brought her here in the first place and me
that kept you from tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'.  So it's
me who must tell her now."

"Hephzy!"

"Oh, I don't mean the truth about--about what you and I have just
said, Hosy.  She'll never know that, perhaps.  Certainly she'll
never know it from me.  But the rest of it she must know.  This has
gone far enough.  She sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin'
you, thinkin' you're a thief, as well as all the rest of it.  That
she sha'n't do.  I shall see to that--now."

"Hephzy, I forbid you to--"

"You can't forbid me, Hosy.  It's my duty, and I've been a silly,
wicked old woman and shirked that duty long enough.  Now don't
worry any more.  Go to your room, dearie, and lay down.  If you get
to sleep so much the better.  Though I guess," with a sigh, "we
sha'n't either of us sleep much this night."

Before I could prevent her she had left the room.  I sprang after
her, to call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had
threatened.  But, in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid,
met me with an announcement.

"Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss--is here, sir," she said.
"He has called to see you."

"To see me?" I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of
composure.  "To see Miss Frances, you mean."

"No, sir.  He says he wants to see you alone.  He's in the hall
now, sir."

He was; I could hear him.  Certainly I never wished to see anyone
less, but I could not refuse.

"Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte," said I.

The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk.  The
long English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep
shadow.  Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp.  I was strongly
tempted to order her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor
to sit in the dark, however much I might prefer to do so.  I
compromised by moving to a seat farther from the lamp where my face
would be less plainly visible.  Then, Bayliss having, on my
invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him to state his
business.

It was not easy to state, that was plain.  Ordinarily Herbert
Bayliss was cool and self-possessed.  I had never before seen him
as embarrassed as he seemed to be now.  He fidgeted on the edge of
the chair, crossed and recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered
the original remark that it had been an extremely pleasant day.  I
admitted the fact and again there was an interval of silence.  I
should have helped him, I suppose.  It was quite apparent that his
was no casual call and, under ordinary circumstances, I should have
been interested and curious.  Now I did not care.  If he would say
his say and go away and leave me I should be grateful.

And, at last, he said it.  His next speech was very much nearer the
point.

"Mr. Knowles," he said, "I have called to--to see you concerning
your niece, Miss Morley.  I--I have come to ask your consent to my
asking her to marry me."

I was not greatly surprised.  I had vaguely suspected his purpose
when he entered the room.  I had long foreseen the likelihood of
some such interview as this, had considered what I should say when
the time came.  But now it had come, I could say nothing.  I sat in
silence, looking at him.

Perhaps he thought I did not understand.  At any rate he hastened
to explain.

"I wish your permission to marry your niece," he repeated.  "I have
no doubt you are surprised.  Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty.  I
suppose you do.  But I--I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles.
I will try to make her a good husband.  Not that I am good enough
for her, of course--no one could be that, you know; but I'll try
and--and--"

He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky
sentences, like a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully.
I could not help admiring the young fellow.  He was so young and
handsome and so honest and boyishly eager in his embarrassment.  I
admired him--yes, but I hated him, too, hated him for his youth and
all that it meant, I was jealous--bitterly, wickedly jealous, and
of all jealousy, hopeless, unreasonable jealousy is the worst, I
imagine.

He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects.  He did not
intend to remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not
he.  He should remain for a time, of course, but then he intended
to go back to London.  There were opportunities there.  A fellow
with the right stuff in him could get on there.  He had friends in
the London hospitals and they had promised to put chances his way.
He should not presume to marry Frances at once, of course.  He
would not be such a selfish goat as that.  All he asked was that,
my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a bit until he
got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then--

I interrupted.

"One moment," said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding
remarkably well, considering the turmoil in my brain; "just a
moment, Bayliss, if you please.  Have you spoken to Miss Morley
yet?  Do you know her feelings toward you?"

No, he had not.  Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had
had our understanding.  He had tried to be honorable and all that.
But--but he thought she did not object to him.  She--well, she had
seemed to like him well enough.  There had been times when he
thought she--she--

"Well, you see, sir," he said, "she's a girl, of course, and a
fellow never knows just what a girl is going to say or do.  There
are times when one is sure everything is quite right and then that
it is all wrong.  But I have hoped--I believe--She's such a ripping
girl, you know.  She would not flirt with a chap and--I don't mean
flirt exactly, she isn't a flirt, of course--but--don't you think
she likes me, now?"

"I have no reason to suppose she doesn't," I answered grudgingly.
After all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.

He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.

"Thanks, thanks awfully," he exclaimed.  "I--I--by Jove, you know,
I can't tell you how I like to hear you say that!  I'm awfully
grateful to you, Knowles, I am really.  And you'll give me
permission to speak to her?"

I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic
humor in the situation.  The idea of anyone's seeking my
"permission" in any matter concerning Frances Morley.  He noticed
the smile and was, I think, inclined to be offended.

"Is it a joke?" he asked.  "I say, now! it isn't a joke to me."

"Nor to me, I assure you," I answered, seriously.  "If I gave that
impression it was a mistaken one.  I never felt less like joking."

He put his own interpretation on the last sentence.  "I'm sorry,"
he said, quickly.  "I beg your pardon.  I understand, of course.
You're very fond of her; no one could help being that, could they.
And she is your niece."

I hesitated.  I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not
my niece at all; that I had no authority over her in any way.  But
what would be the use?  It would lead only to explanations and I
did not wish to make explanations.  I wanted to get through with
the whole inane business and be left alone.

"But you haven't said yes, have you," he urged.  "You will say it,
won't you?"

I nodded.  "You have my permission, so far as that goes," I
answered.

He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.

"That's topping!" he cried, his face radiant.  "I can't thank you
enough."

"That's all right.  But there is one thing more.  Perhaps it isn't
my affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish.  Have you
consulted your parents?  How do they feel about your--your
intentions?"

His expression changed.  My question was answered before he spoke.

"No," he admitted, "I haven't told them yet.  I--Well, you see, the
Mater and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally.
They have some silly ideas about a friend of the family that--Oh,
she's a nice enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss
Morley.  Well, hardly!  They'll take it quite well.  By Jove!"
excitedly, "they must.  They've GOT to.  Oh, they will.  And
they're very fond of--of Frances."

There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at
any rate.  I, too, rose.  He shook my hand again.

"You've been a trump to me, Knowles," he declared.  "I appreciate
it, you know; I do indeed.  I'm jolly grateful."

"You needn't be.  It is all right.  I--I suppose I should wish you
luck and happiness.  I do.  Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even
if--"

"Even if--what?  Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do
you?  You don't think that?"

"I've told you that I see no reason why she should."

"Thank you.  Thank you so much.  Is there anything else that you
might wish to say to me?"

"Not now.  Perhaps some day I--But not now.  No, there's nothing
else.  Good night, Bayliss; good night and--and good luck."

"Good night.  I--She's not in now, I suppose, is she?"

"She is in, but--Well, I scarcely think you had better see her to-
night.  She has gone to her room."

"Oh, I say! it's very early.  She's not ill, is she?"

"No, but I think you had best not see her to-night."

He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded.  He would have
agreed, doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.

"No doubt you're right," he said.  "Good night.  And thank you
again."

He left the room.  I did not accompany him to the door.  Instead I
returned to my chair.  I did not occupy it long, I could not.  I
could not sit still.  I rose and went out on the lawn.  There, in
the night mist, I paced up and down, up and down.  I had longed to
be alone; now that I was alone I was more miserable than ever.

Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.

"Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?" she asked.

"No," said I, curtly.  "You may put it out."

"And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?"

"Yes.  Where is Miss Cahoon?"

"She's above, sir.  With Miss Morley, I think, sir."

"Very well, Charlotte.  That is all.  Good night."

"Good night, sir."

She went into the house.  The lamp in the study was extinguished.
I continued my pacing up and down.  Occasionally I glanced at the
upper story of the rectory.  There was a lighted window there, the
window of Frances' room.  She and Hephzy were together in that
room.  What was going on there?  What had Hephzy said to her?
What--Oh, WHAT would happen next?

Some time later--I don't know how much later it may have been--I
heard someone calling me again.

"Hosy!" called Hephzy in a loud whisper; "Hosy, where are you?"

"Here I am," I answered.

She came to me across the lawn.  I could not, of course, see her
face, but her tone was very anxious.

"Hosy," she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, "what are you
doin' out here all alone?"

I laughed.  "I'm taking the air," I answered.  "It is good for me.
I am enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always
talking about.  Fresh air and exercise--those will cure anything,
so he says.  Perhaps they will cure me.  God knows I need curing."

"Sshh! shh, Hosy!  Don't talk that way.  I don't like to hear you.
Out here bareheaded and in all this damp!  You'll get your death."

"Will I?  Well, that will be a complete cure, then."

"Hush!  I tell you.  Come in the house with me.  I want to talk to
you.  Come!"

Still holding my arm she led me toward the house.  I hung back.

"You have been up there with her?" I said, with a nod toward the
lighted window of the room above.  "What has happened?  What have
you said and done?"

"Hush!  I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it.  Only come in
now.  I sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside.  Oh, Hosy, DON'T
act this way!  Do you want to frighten me to death?"

That appeal had an effect.  I was ashamed of myself.

"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said.  "I'll try to be decent.  You needn't
worry about me.  I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I
shall try to stop behaving like one.  Come along; I'm ready."

In the drawing-room she closed the door.

"Shall I light the lamp?" she asked.

"No.  Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know
what you said to that girl and what she said to you?  Tell me, and
hurry up, will you!"

She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience.
Instead she put her arm about me.

"Sit down, Hosy," she pleaded.  "Sit down and I'll tell you all
about it.  Do sit down."

I refused to sit.

"Tell me now," I commanded.  "What did you say to her?  You didn't--
you didn't--"

"I did.  I told her everything."

"EVERYTHING!  You don't mean--"

"I mean everything.  'Twas time she knew it.  I went to that room
meanin' to tell her and I did.  At first she didn't want to listen,
didn't want to see me at all or even let me in.  But I made her let
me in and then she and I had it out."

"Hephzy!"

"Don't say it that way, Hosy.  The good Lord knows I hate myself
for doin' it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be
done.  Every word I spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her.  I
kept thinkin', 'This is Little Frank I'm talkin' to.  This is
Ardelia's daughter I'm makin' miserable.'  A dozen times I stopped
and thought I couldn't go on, but every time I thought of you and
what you'd put up with and been through, and I went on."

"Hephzy! you told her--"

"I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her
father and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything.
She must know it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been.
I told it all.  At first she wouldn't listen, said I was--well,
everything that was mean and lyin' and bad.  If she could she'd
have put me out of her room, I presume likely, but I wouldn't go.
And, of course, at first she wouldn't believe, but I made her
believe."

"Made her believe!  Made her believe her father was a thief!  How
could you do that!  No one could."

"I did it.  I don't know how exactly.  I just went on tellin' it
all straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she
was commencin' to believe.  And she believes now, Hosy; she does,
I know it."

"Did she say so?"

"No, she didn't say anything, scarcely--not at the last.  She
didn't cry, either; I almost wish she had.  Oh, Hosy, don't ask me
any more questions than you have to.  I can't bear to answer 'em."

She paused and turned away.

"How she must hate us!" I said, after a moment.

"Why, no--why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm
tryin' to hope she doesn't.  I softened it all I could.  I told her
why we took her with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell
her the truth at first, or leave her, either, when she was so sick
and alone.  I told her why we brought her here, hopin' it would
make her well and strong, and how, after she got that way, we put
off tellin' her because it was such a dreadful hard thing to do.
Hard!  When I think of her sittin' there, white as a sheet, and
lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her fingers twistin' and
untwistin' in her lap--a way her mother used to have when she was
troubled--and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel and--and--"

She paused once more.  I did not speak.  Soon she recovered and
went on.

"I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
puttin' off any longer.  I told her I loved her as if she was my
very own and that this needn't make the least bit of difference
unless she wanted it to.  I said you felt just the same.  I told
her your speakin' to that Heathcroft man was only for her good and
for no other reason.  You'd learned that he was engaged to be
married--"

"You told her that?" I interrupted, involuntarily.  "What did she
say?"

"Nothin', nothin' at all.  I think she heard me and understood, but
she didn't say anything.  Just sat there, white and trembling and
crushed, sort of, and looked and looked at me.  I wanted to put my
arms around her and ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did
her, but I didn't dare--I didn't dare.  I did say that you and I
would be only too glad to have her stay with us always, as one of
the family, you know.  If she'd only forget all the bad part that
had gone and do that, I said--but she interrupted me.  She said
"Forget!" and the way she said it made me sure she never would
forget.  And then--and then she asked me if I would please go away
and leave her.  Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but just leave
her, only leave her alone.  So I came away and--and that's all."

"That's all," I repeated.  "It is enough, I should say.  Oh,
Hephzy, why did you do it?  Why couldn't it have gone on as it has
been going?  Why did you do it?"

It was an unthinking, wicked speech.  But Hephzy did not resent it.
Her reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a
child.

"I had to do it, Hosy," she said.  "After our talk this evenin'
there was only one thing to do.  It had to be done--for your sake,
if nothin' else--and so I did it.  But--but--" with a choking sob,
"it was SO hard to do!  My Ardelia's baby!"

And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it
had been for her.  To understand what she had gone through for my
sake and what a selfish brute I had been.  I put my hands on her
shoulders and kissed her almost reverently.

"Hephzy," said I, "you're a saint and a martyr and I am--what I am.
Please forgive me."

"There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy.  And," with a shake of the
head, "I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess.  They'd never put
my image up in the churches over here--not if they knew how I felt
this minute.  And a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome
anyway, I'm afraid.  I meant well, but that's a poor sort of
recommendation.  Oh, Hosy, you DO think I did for the best, don't
you?"

"You did the only thing to be done," I answered, with decision.
"You did what I lacked the courage to do.  Of course it was best."

"You're awful good to say so, but I don't know.  What'll come of it
goodness knows.  When I think of you and--and--"

"Don't think of me.  I'm going to be a man if I can--a quahaug, if
I can't.  At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the
last month."

"I know.  But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me,
then, I--"

"You mustn't think.  You must go to bed and so must I.  To-morrow
will take care of itself.  Come.  Let's both sleep and forget it."

Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice,
impossible to follow.  I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I
forget.  God help me!  I was realizing that I never could forget.

At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some
biscuits and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a
brief note to Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should
not be back to breakfast, and started out.  The walk developed into
a long one and I did not return to the rectory until nearly eleven
in the forenoon.  By that time I was in a better mood, more
reconciled to the inevitable--or I thought I was.  I believed I
could play the man, could even see her married to Herbert Bayliss
and still behave like a man.  I vowed and revowed it.  No one--no
one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we knew.

Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me.  She
hastened to the drawing-room.

"Here he is, Miss Cahoon," she said.  "He's come back, ma'am.  He's
here."

"Of course I'm here, Charlotte," I said.  "You didn't suppose I had
run away, did you? . . .  Why--why, Hephzy, what is the matter?"

For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her
face an expression which I did not understand--sorrow, agitation--
yes, and pity--were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.

"Oh, Hosy!" she cried, "I'm so glad you've come.  I wanted you so."

"Wanted me?" I repeated.  "Why, what do you mean?  Has anything
happened?"

She nodded, solemnly.

"Yes," she said, "somethin' has happened.  Somethin' we might have
expected, perhaps, but--but--Hosy, read that."

I took what she handed me.  It was a sheet of note paper, folded
across, and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side.  I
recognized the writing and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it.
Upon the other side was written in pencil this:


"I am going away.  I could not stay, of course.  When I think how I
have stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very,
very kind to me, I feel--I can't tell you how I feel.  You must not
think me ungrateful.  You must not think of me at all.  And you
must not try to find me, even if you should wish to do such a
thing.  I have the money which I intended using for my new frocks
and I shall use it to pay my expenses and my fare to the place I am
going.  It is your money, of course, and some day I shall send it
to you.  And someday, if I can, I shall repay all that you have
spent on my account.  But you must not follow me and you must not
think of asking me to come back.  That I shall never do.  I do
thank you for all that you have done for me, both of you.  I cannot
understand why you did it, but I shall always remember.  Don't
worry about me.  I know what I am going to do and I shall not
starve or be in want.  Good-by.  Please try to forget me.

"FRANCES MORLEY.

"Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him
this afternoon and so many times before.  How he could have been so
kind and patient I can't understand.  I shall always remember it--
always.  Perhaps he may forgive me some day.  I shall try and hope
that he may."


I read to the end.  Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy.
Her eyes were brimming with tears.

"She has gone," she said, in answer to my unspoken question.  "She
must have gone some time in the night.  The man at the inn stable
drove her to the depot at Haddington on Hill.  She took the early
train for London.  That is all we know."



CHAPTER XIII

In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other


I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible.  I
should omit it altogether, if I could.  We tried to trace her, of
course.  That is, I tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although
she realized, I am sure, the hopelessness of the quest.  Frances
had left the rectory very early in the morning.  The hostler at the
inn had been much surprised to find her awaiting him when he came
down to the yard at five o'clock.  She was obliged to go to London,
she said, and must take the very first train:  Would he drive her
to Haddington on Hill at once?  He did so--probably she had offered
him a great deal more than the regular fare--and she had taken the
train.

Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout,
resulted in my learning very little in addition to this.  The young
lady seemed about as usual, so far as he could see.  She might 'ave
been a bit nervous, impatient like, but he attributed that to her
anxiety to make the train.  Yes, she had a bag with her, but no
other luggage.  No, she didn't talk on the way to the station:  Why
should she?  He wasn't the man to ask a lady questions about what
wasn't his affair.  She minded her own business and he minded his.
No, he didn't know nothin' more about it.  What was I a-pumpin' him
for, anyway?

I gave up the "pumping" and hurried back to the rectory.  There
Hephzy told me a few additional facts.  Frances had taken with her
only the barest necessities, for the most part those which she had
when she came to us.  Her new frocks, those which she had bought
with what she considered her money, she had left behind.  All the
presents which we had given her were in her room, or so we thought
at the time.  As she came, so she had gone, and the thought that
she had gone, that I should never see her again, was driving me
insane.

And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first.  The things I
did and said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now,
as I remember them.  I was going to London at once.  I would find
her and bring her back.  I would seek help from the police, I would
employ detectives, I would do anything--everything.  She was almost
without money; so far as I knew without friends.  What would she
do?  What would become of her?  I must find her.  I must bring her
back.

I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions
and upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener
to find me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse.  Hephzy
offered no excuse.  She did not attempt justification.  Instead she
brought the railway time-table, gave orders that the horse be
harnessed, helped me in every way.  She would have prepared a meal
for me with her own hands, would have fed me like a baby, if I had
permitted it.  One thing she did insist upon.

"You must rest a few minutes, Hosy," she said.  "You must, or
you'll be down sick.  You haven't slept a wink all night.  You
haven't eaten anything to speak of since yesterday noon.  You can't
go this way.  You must go to your room and rest a few minutes.  Lie
down and rest, if you can."

"Rest!"

"You must.  The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two
hours, and we've got lots of time.  I'll fetch you up some tea and
toast or somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when
you are.  Now go and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me."

I ignored the last sentence.  "You will be ready?" I repeated.  "Do
you mean you're going with me?"

"Of course I am.  It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone,
when you're in a state like this.  Of course I'm goin' with you.
Now go and lie down.  You're so worn out, poor boy."

I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
unselfishness.  For the first time I thought of her.  I remembered
that she, too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be
suffering.

"I am no more tired than you are," I said.  "You have slept and
eaten no more than I.  You are the one who must rest.  I sha'n't
let you go with me."

"It isn't a question of lettin'.  I shall go if you do, Hosy.  And
a woman don't need rest like a man.  Please go upstairs and lie
down, Hosy.  Oh," with a sudden burst of feeling, "don't you see
I've got about all I can bear as it is?  I can't--I can't have YOU
to worry about too."

My conscience smote me.  "I'll go, Hephzy," said I.  "I'll do
whatever you wish; it is the least I can do."

She thanked me.  Then she said, hesitatingly:

"Here is--here is her letter, Hosy.  You may like to read it again.
Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do."

She handed me the letter.  I took it and went to my room.  There I
read it again and again.  And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's
last sentence, that the letter might help me to decide what was
best to do, began to force itself upon my overwrought brain.  I
began to understand what she had understood from the first, that my
trip to London was hopeless, absolutely useless--yes, worse than
useless.

"You must not try to find me . . .  You must not follow me or think
of asking me to come back.  That I shall never do."

I was understanding, at last.  I might go to London; I might even,
through the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances
Morley.  But, having found her, what then?  What claim had I upon
her?  What right had I to pursue her and force my presence upon
her?  I knew the shock she had undergone, the shattering of her
belief in her father, the knowledge that she had--as she must feel--
forced herself upon our kindness and charity.  I knew how proud
she was and how fiercely she had relented the slightest hint that
she was in any way dependent upon us or under the least obligation
to us.  I knew all this and I was beginning to comprehend what her
feelings toward us and toward herself must be--now.

I might find her--yes; but as for convincing her that she should
return to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was
so clearly impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me.  My
following her, my hunting her down against her expressed wish,
would almost surely make matters worse.  She would probably refuse
to see me.  She would consider my following her a persecution and
the result might be to drive her still further away.  I must not do
it, for her sake I must not.  She had gone and, because I loved
her, I must not follow her; I must not add to her misery.  No,
against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my duty was to
make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation as it
was, to cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had gone--
gone somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to
protect her name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from
all the world.  That was my duty; that was the situation I must
face.  But how could I face it!

That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never
be called upon to face such another.  But, at last, I am glad to
say, I had made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and
toast I was measurably composed and ready to express my
determination.

"Hephzy," said I, "I am not going to London.  I have been thinking,
and I'm not going."

Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying.  She did seem surprised,
but I am sure she was relieved.

"You're not goin'!" she exclaimed.  "Why, Hosy!"

"No, I am not going.  I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am
fairly sane now.  I have reached the conclusion that you reached
sometime ago, I am certain.  We have no right to follow her.  Our
finding her would only make it harder for her and no good could
come of it.  She went, of her own accord, and we must let her go."

"Let her go?  And not try--"

"No.  We have no right to try.  You know it as well as I do.  Now,
be honest, won't you?"

Hephzy hesitated.

"Why," she faltered; "well, I--Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're
right.  At first I was all for goin' after her right away and
bringin' her back by main strength, if I had to.  But the more I
thought of it the more I--I--"

"Of course," I interrupted.  "It is the only thing we can do.  You
must have been ashamed of me this morning.  Well, I'll try and give
you no cause to be ashamed again.  That part of our lives is over.
Now we'll start afresh."

Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her
hands and began to cry.  I stepped to her side, but she recovered
almost immediately.

"There! there!" she said, "don't mind me, Hosy.  I've been holdin'
that cry back for a long spell.  Now I've had it and it's over and
done with.  After all, you and I have got each other left and we'll
start fresh, just as you say.  And the first thing is for you to
eat that toast and drink that tea."

I smiled, or tried to smile.

"The first thing," I declared, "is for us to decide what story we
shall tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for
her leaving so suddenly.  I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment.
He came to see me about--about her last evening."

Hephzy nodded.

"I guessed as much," she said.  "I knew he came and I guessed what
'twas about.  Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too.
He was here this mornin' and I said Frances had been called away
sudden and wouldn't be back to-day.  And I said you would be away
all day, too, Hosy.  It was a fib, I guess, but I can't help it if
it was.  You mustn't see him now and you mustn't talk with me
either.  You must clear off that tray the first thing.  We'll have
our talk to-morrow, maybe.  We'll--we'll see the course plainer
then, perhaps.  Now be a good boy and mind me.  You ARE my boy, you
know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you get."

Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon.  I did not see him,
but Hephzy did.  The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at
Frances' sudden departure and asked all sorts of questions as to
when she would return, her London address and the like.  Hephzy
dodged the questions as best she could, but we both foresaw that
soon he would have to be told some portion of the truth--not the
whole truth; he need never know that, but something--and that
something would be very hard to tell.

The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or
the reason for it.  Hephzy had already given them some excuse,
fabricated on the spur of the moment.  They knew Miss Morley had
gone away and might not return for some time.  But we realized that
upon our behavior depended a great deal and so we agreed to appear
as much like our ordinary selves as possible.

It was a hard task.  I shall never forget those first meals when we
two were alone.  We did not mention her name, but the shadow was
always there--the vacant place at the table where she used to sit,
the roses she had picked the morning before; and, afterward, in the
drawing-room, the piano with her music upon the rack--the hundred
and one little reminders that were like so many poisoned needles to
aggravate my suffering and to remind me of the torture of the days
to come.  She had bade me forget her.  Forget!  I might forget when
I was dead, but not before.  If I could only die then and there it
would seem so easy by comparison.

The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk.  We discussed our
future.  Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to
Bayport where we belonged?  I was in favor of this, but Hephzy
seemed reluctant.  She, apparently, had some reason which made her
wish to remain for a time, at least.  At last the reason was
disclosed.

"I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy," she said; "or
at any rate you'll think I'm awful silly.  But I know--I just KNOW
that this isn't the end.  We shall see her again, you and I.
She'll come to us again or we'll go to her.  I know it; somethin'
inside me tells me so."

I shook my head.

"It's true," she went on.  "You don't believe it, but it's true.
It's a presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments
before, but they've come true.  Why, you didn't believe we'd ever
find Little Frank at all, but we did.  And do you suppose all that
has happened so far has been just for nothin'?  Indeed and indeed
it hasn't.  No, this isn't the end; it's only the beginnin'."

Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict
her.  I said nothing.

"And that's why," she went on, "I don't like to have us leave here
right away.  She knows we're here, here in England, and if--if she
ever should be in trouble and need our help she could find us here
waitin' to give it.  If we was away off on the Cape, way on the
other side of the ocean, she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas
too late anyhow.  That's why I'd like to stay here a while longer,
Hosy.  But," she hastened to add, "I wouldn't stay a minute if you
really wanted to go."

I was silent for a moment.  The temptation was to go, to get as far
from the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did
it matter?  I could never flee from that trouble.

"All right, Hephzy," I said.  "I'll stay, if it pleases you."

"Thank you, Hosy.  It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't
believe it is.  And--and there's somethin' else.  I don't know
whether I ought to tell you or not.  I don't know whether it will
make you feel better or worse.  But I've heard you say that she
must hate you.  She doesn't--I know she doesn't.  I've been lookin'
over her things, those she left in her room.  Everythin' we've
given her or bought for her since she's been here, she left behind--
every single thing except one.  That little pin you bought for her
in London the last time you was there and gave her to wear at the
Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere.  She must have taken
it with her.  Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?"

"Probably she forgot it," I said.

"Humph!  Queer she should forget that and nothin' else.  I don't
believe she forgot it.  _I_ think she took it because you gave it
to her and she wanted to keep it to remind her of you."

I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it
which I should have been ashamed to confess.  The idea that she
wished to be reminded of me was foolish, but--but I was glad she
had forgotten to leave the pin.  It MIGHT remind her of me, even
against her will.

A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview.
He had called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way.
This time our meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when
dodging him was an impossibility.  He hurried up to me and seized
my hand.

"So you're back, Knowles," he said.  "When did you return?"

For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning.  I had
forgotten Hephzy's "fib" concerning my going away.  Fortunately he
did not wait for an answer.

"Did Frances--did Miss Morley return with you?" he asked eagerly.

"No," said I.

His smile vanished.

"Oh!" he said, soberly.  "She is still in London, then?"

"I--I presume she is."

"You presume--?  Why, I say! don't you know?"

"I am not sure."

He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask
why I was not sure.  Instead he asked when she would return.  I
announced that I did not know that either.

"You don't know when she is coming back?" he repeated.

"No."

He regarded me keenly.  There was a change in the tone of his next
remark.

"You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she
is coming back," he said, slowly.  "Would you mind telling me why
she left Mayberry so suddenly?  She had not intended going; at
least she did not mention her intention to me."

"She did not mention it to anyone," I answered.  "It was a very
sudden determination on her part."

He considered this.

"It would seem so," he said.  "Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it,
but this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me.  There is something
which I don't understand.  You haven't answered my question.  Under
the circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think
I have a right to ask it.  Why did she leave so suddenly?"

I hesitated.  Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from
crowded, but it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.

"She had a reason for leaving," I answered, slowly.  "I will tell
you later, perhaps, what it was.  Just now I cannot."

"You cannot!" he repeated.  He was evidently struggling with his
impatience and growing suspicious.  "You cannot!  But I think I
have a right to know."

"I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now."

"Why not?"

"Because--Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her.  She
would not wish me to tell you."

"She would not wish it?  Was it because of me she left?"

"No; not in the least."

"Was it--was it because of someone else?  By Jove! it wasn't
because of that Heathcroft cad?  Don't tell me that!  My God! she--
she didn't--"

I interrupted.  His suspicion angered me.  I should have understood
his feelings, should have realized that he had been and was
disappointed and agitated and that my answers to his questions must
have aroused all sorts of fears and forebodings in his mind.  I
should have pitied him, but just then I had little pity for others.

"She did nothing but what she considered right," I said sharply.
"Her leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you.  I
doubt if she thought of either of you at all."

It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man.  I saw him turn
pale and bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer
tone.

"I'm sorry," he said.  "I was a silly ass even to think such a
thing.  But--but you see, Knowles, I--I--this means so much to me.
I'm sorry, though.  I ask her pardon and yours."

I was sorry, too.  "Of course I didn't mean that, exactly," I said.
"Her feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but
her reason for leaving was a purely personal one.  You were not
concerned in it."

He reflected.  He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next
speech showed it.

"It is extraordinary, all this," he said.  "You are quite sure you
don't know when she is coming back?"

"Quite."

"Would you mind giving me her London address?"

"I don't know it."

"You don't KNOW it!  Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense!  You don't
know when she is coming back and you don't know her address!  Do
you mean you don't know where she has gone?"

"Yes."

"What--?  Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?"

"I am afraid not."

He was very pale.  He seized my arm.

"What is all this?" he demanded, fiercely.  "What has happened?
Tell me; I want to know.  Where is she?  Why did she go?  Tell me!"

"I can tell you nothing," I said, as calmly as I could.  "She left
us very suddenly and she is not coming back.  Her reason for
leaving I can't tell you, now.  I don't know where she is and I
have no right to try and find out.  She has asked that no one
follow her or interfere with her in any way.  I respect her wish
and I advise you, if you wish to remain her friend, to do the same,
for the present, at least.  That is all I can tell you."

He shook my arm savagely.

"By George!" he cried, "you must tell me.  I'll make you!  I--I--Do
you think me a fool?  Do you suppose I believe such rot as that?
You tell me she has gone--has left Mayberry--and you don't know
where she has gone and don't intend trying to find out.  Why--"

"There, Bayliss! that is enough.  This is not the place for us to
quarrel.  And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all.  I
have told you all that I can tell you now.  Some day I may tell you
more, but until then you must be patient, for her sake.  Her
leaving Mayberry had no connection with you whatever.  You must be
contented with that."

"Contented!  Why, man, you're mad.  She is your niece.  You are her
guardian and--"

"I am not her guardian.  Neither is she my niece."

I had spoken involuntarily.  Certainly I had not intended telling
him that.  The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm
and step back.  He stared at me blankly.  No doubt he did think me
crazy, then.

"I have no authority over her in any way," I went on.  "She is Miss
Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians.  She has left our
home of her own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else
shall follow her if I can help it.  I am sorry to have deceived
you.  The deceit was unavoidable, or seemed to be.  I am very, very
sorry for you.  That is all I can say now.  Good morning."

I left him standing there in the street and walked away.  He called
after me, but I did not turn back.  He would have followed me, of
course, but when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn
was trying to talk with him and was detaining him.  I was glad that
the landlord had appeared so opportunely.  I had said too much
already.  I had bungled this interview as I had that with
Heathcroft.

I told Hephzy all about it.  She appeared to think that, after all,
perhaps it was best.

"When you've got a toothache," she said, "you might as well go to
the dentist's right off.  The old thing will go on growlin' and
grumblin' and it's always there to keep you in misery.  You'd have
had to tell him some time.  Well, you've told him now, the worst of
it, anyhow.  The tooth's out; though," with a one-sided smile, "I
must say you didn't give the poor chap any ether to help along."

"I'm afraid it isn't out," I said, truthfully.  "He won't be
satisfied with one operation."

"Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one.  And, between us,
I cal'late we can make that final.  Poor boy!  Well, he's young,
that's one comfort.  You get over things quicker when you're
young."

I nodded.  "That is true," I said, "but there is something else,
Hephzy.  You say I have acted for the best.  Have I?  I don't know.
We know he cares for her, but--but does she--"

"Does she care for him, you mean?  I don't think so, Hosy.  For a
spell I thought she did, but now I doubt it.  I think--Well, never
mind what I think.  I think a lot of foolish things.  My brain's
softenin' up, I shouldn't wonder.  It's a longshore brain, anyhow,
and it needs the salt to keep it from spoilin'.  I wish you and I
could go clammin'.  When you're diggin' clams you're too full of
backache to worry about toothaches--or heartaches, either."

I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did
not come to the rectory.  Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and
requested an interview with me.  Hephzy announced the visitor.

"He acts pretty solemn, Hosy," she said.  "I wouldn't wonder if his
son had told him.  I guess it's another toothache.  Would you like
to have me stay and help?"

I said I should be glad of her help.  So, when the old gentleman
was shown into the study, he found her there with me.  The doctor
was very grave and his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and
careworn.  He took the chair which I offered him and, without
preliminaries, began to speak of the subject which had brought him
there.

It was as Hephzy had surmised.  His son had told him everything, of
his love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and
of our talk before the inn.

"I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles," he said, "that all
this has shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully.  We knew, of
course, that the young people liked each other, were together a
great deal, and all that.  But we had not dreamed of any serious
attachment between them."

Hephzy put in a word.

"We don't know as there has been any attachment between them," she
said.  "Your boy cared for her--we know that--but whether she cared
for him or not we don't know."

Our visitor straightened in his chair.  The idea that his son could
love anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite
inconceivable.

"I think we may take that for granted, madame," he said.  "The news
was, as I say, a great shock to my wife and myself.  Herbert is our
only child and we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his
future.  The--the overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief
and disappointment to us.  Not, please understand, that we question
your niece's worth or anything of that sort.  She is a very
attractive young woman and would doubtless make my son a good wife.
But, if you will pardon my saying so, we know very little about her
or her family.  You are comparative strangers to us and although we
have enjoyed your--ah--society and--ah--"

Hephzy interrupted.

"I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "but
you know as much about us as we do about you."

The doctor's composure was ruffled still more.  He regarded Hephzy
through his spectacles and then said, with dignity.

"Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years.  I
think my record and that of my family will bear inspection."

"I don't doubt it a bit.  But, as far as that goes, I have lived in
Bayport for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there
for a hundred and fifty.  I'm not questionin' you or your family,
Doctor Bayliss.  If I had questioned 'em I could easily have looked
up the record.  All I'm sayin' is that I haven't thought of
questionin', and I don't just see why you shouldn't take as much
for granted as I have."

The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted.  He cleared his throat
and fidgeted in his seat.

"I do--I do, Miss Cahoon, of course," he said.  "But--ah--Well, to
return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley.  The boy is
dreadfully agitated, Mr. Knowles.  He is quite mad about the girl
and his mother and I are much concerned about him.  We would--I
assure you we would do anything and sacrifice anything for his
sake.  We like your niece, and, although, as I say, we had planned
otherwise, nevertheless we will--provided all is as it should be--
give our consent to--to the arrangement, for his sake."

I did not answer.  The idea that marrying Frances Morley would
entail a sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I
did not trust myself to speak.  But Hephzy spoke for me.

"What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?" she
asked.

"Why, I mean--I mean provided we learn that she is--is--That is,--
Well, one naturally likes to know something concerning his
prospective daughter-in-law's history, you know.  That is to be
expected, now isn't it."

Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.

"Doctor," she said.  "I wonder if your son told you about some
things Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--told him this mornin'.  Did he
tell you that?"

The doctor colored slightly.  "Yes--yes, he did," he admitted.  "He
said he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles
and was told by him some quite extraordinary things.  Of course, we
could scarcely believe that he had heard aright.  There was some
mistake, of course."

"There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss," said I.  "I told your son
the truth, a very little of the truth."

"The truth!  But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported
it to me.  He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for
some unexplained reason, and was not coming back--that you did not
know where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or
followed or something.  And he said--My word! he even said you,
Knowles, had declared yourself to be neither her uncle nor her
guardian.  THAT couldn't be true, now could it!"

Again Hephzy and I looked at each other.  Without speaking we
reached the same conclusion.  Hephzy voiced that conclusion.

"I guess, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "that the time has come when
you had better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole
truth about Frances as Hosy and I know.  I'm goin' to tell it to
you.  It's a kind of long story, but I guess likely you ought to
know it."

She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the
history of the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from
America, to our own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the
astonishing happenings since.

"She's gone," she said.  "She found out what sort of man her father
really was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl--as proud and
high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good--she ran away
and left us.  We don't blame her, Hosy and I.  We understand just
how she feels and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not
try to follow her or try to bring her back to us against her will.
We think the world of her.  We haven't known her but a little
while, but we've come--that is," with a sudden glance in my
direction, "I've come to love her as if she was my own.  It pretty
nigh kills me to have her go.  When I think of her strugglin' along
tryin' to earn her own way by singin' and--and all, I have to hold
myself by main strength to keep from goin' after her and beggin'
her on my knees to come back.  But I sha'n't do it, because she
doesn't want me to.  Of course I hope and believe that some day she
will come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm goin'
to wait.  And, if your son really cares for her as much as we--as I
do, he'll wait, too."

She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.  I
turned in order that the Doctor might not see my face.  It was an
unnecessary precaution.  Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently,
with but one thought.

"An opera singer!" he exclaimed, under his breath.  "An opera
singer!  Herbert to marry an opera singer!  The granddaughter of a
Yankee sailor and--and--"

"And the daughter of an English thief," put in Hephzy, sharply.
"Maybe we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss.  The
Yankees have the best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion."

He paid no attention to this.

He was greatly upset.  "It is impossible!" he declared.  "Absolutely
impossible!  Why haven't we known of this before?  Why did not
Herbert know of it?  Mr. Knowles, I must say that--that you have
been most unthinking in this matter."

"I have been thinking of her," I answered, curtly.  "It was and is
her secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such.  We trust to
your honor to tell no one, not even your son."

"My son!  Herbert?  Why I must tell him!  I must tell my wife."

"You may tell your wife.  And your son as much as you think
necessary.  Further than that it must not go."

"Of course, of course.  I understand.  But an opera singer!"

"She isn't a real opera singer," said Hephzy.  "That is, not one of
those great ones.  And she told me once that she realized now that
she never could be.  She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice,
but it isn't powerful enough to make her a place in the big
companies.  She tried and tried, she said, but all the managers
said the same thing."

"Hephzy," I said, "when did she tell you this?  I didn't know of
it."

"I know you didn't, Hosy.  She told me one day when we were alone.
It was the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say
much then.  She spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in
England and what awful, mean, hard people they were.  She didn't
say who they were nor where they lived, but she did say she ran
away from them to go on the stage as a singer and what trials and
troubles she went through afterward.  She told me that much and
then she seemed sorry that she had.  She made me promise not to
tell anyone, not even you.  I haven't, until now."

Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.

"A provincial opera singer," he repeated.  "Oh, impossible!  Quite
impossible!"

"It may seem impossible to you," I couldn't help observing, "but I
question if it will seem so to your son.  I doubt if her being an
opera singer will make much difference to him."

The doctor groaned.  "The boy is mad about her, quite mad," he
admitted.

I was sorry for him.  Perhaps if I were in his position I might
feel as he did.

"I will say this," I said:  "In no way, so far as I know, has Miss
Morley given your son encouragement.  He told me himself that he
had never spoken to her of his feelings and we have no reason to
think that she regards him as anything more than a friend.  She
left no message for him when she went away."

He seemed to find some ground for hope in this.  He rose from the
chair and extended his hand.

"Knowles," he said, "if I have said anything to hurt your feelings
or those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry.  I trust it will make no
difference in our friendship.  My wife and I respect and like you
both and I think I understand how deeply you must feel the loss of
your--of Miss Morley.  I hope she--I hope you may be reunited some
day.  No doubt you will be.  As for Herbert--he is our son and if
you ever have a son of your own, Mr. Knowles, you may appreciate
his mother's feelings and mine.  We have planned and--and--Even now
I should not stand in the way of his happiness if--if I believed
happiness could come of it.  But such marriages are never happy.
And," with a sudden burst of hope, "as you say, she may not be
aware of his attachment.  The boy is young.  He may forget."

"Yes," said I, with a sigh.  "He IS young, and he may forget."

After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.

"If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's," she declared,
"I'd have given him one talkin' to.  The idea of his speakin' as if
Frances wouldn't be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might
be proud of!  But he didn't know.  He's been brought up that way,
and he doesn't know.  And, of course, his son IS the only person on
earth to him.  Well, that's over!  We haven't got to worry about
them any more.  We'll begin to live for each other now, Hosy, same
as we used to do.  And we'll wait for the rest.  It'll come and
come right for all of us.  Just you see."



CHAPTER XIV

In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel


And so we began "to live for each other again," Hephzy and I.  This
meant, of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the
greater part of her time trying to find ways to make my living more
comfortable, just as she had always done.  And I--well, I did my
best to appear, if not happy, at least reasonably calm and
companionable.  It was a hard job for both of us; certainly my part
of it was hard enough.

Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a
visit to relatives in another part of England to account for the
unannounced departure of Miss Morley.  This excuse served with the
neighbors and friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the
servants, Hephzy elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at
the arrival of the mails and by certain vague remarks at table
concerning letters she was writing.

"I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy," she said.  "I write to her every few
days.  Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares
things with my conscience to really write after talking so much
about it.  As for her visitin' relatives--well, she's got relatives
somewhere in England, we know that much, and she MAY be visitin'
'em.  At any rate I try to think she is.  Oh, dear, I 'most wish
I'd had more experience in tellin' lies; then I wouldn't have to
invent so many extra ones to make me believe those I told at the
beginnin'.  I wish I'd been brought up a book agent or a weather
prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in trainin'."

Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone
together.  In consequence, on these occasions, there would be long
intervals of silence suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with
a surmise concerning what was happening in Bayport, whether they
had painted the public library building yet, or how Susanna was
getting on with the cat and hens.  She had received three letters
from Miss Wixon and, as news bearers, they were far from
satisfactory.

"That girl makes me so provoked," sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most
recent letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust.  "She says
she's got a cold in the head and she's scared to death for fear
it'll get 'set onto her,' whatever that is.  Two pages of this
letter is nothin' but cold in the head and t'other two is about a
new hat she's goin' to have and she don't know whether to trim it
with roses or forget-me-nots.  If she trimmed it with cabbage
'twould match her head better'n anything else.  I declare! she
ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head like hers; it must
be comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there.  You've got a
letter, too, Hosy.  Who is it from?"

"From Campbell," I answered, wearily.  "He wants to know how the
novel is getting on, of course."

"Humph!  Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid
gets ahead--by goin' backwards.  Don't let him pester you one bit,
Hosy.  You write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like.
He told you to take a vacation, anyway."

I smiled.  Mine was a delightful vacation.

The summer dragged on.  The days passed.  Pleasant days they were,
so far as the weather was concerned.  I spent them somehow,
walking, riding, golfing, reading.  I gave up trying to work; the
half-written novel remained half written.  I could not concentrate
my thoughts upon it and I lacked the courage to force myself to
try.  I wrote Campbell that he must be patient, I was doing the
best I could.  He answered by telling me not to worry, to enjoy
myself.  "Why do you stay there in England?" he wrote.  "I ordered
you to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die of dry
rot.  A British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod
quahaug.  You have been in that rectory about long enough.  Go to
Monte Carlo for change.  You'll find it there--or lose it."

It may have been good advice--or bad--according to the way in which
it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me.  I had
no desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport,
where I belonged.  I felt no interest in Monte Carlo--for the
matter of that, I felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else.  I
was not interested in anything or anybody--except one, and that one
had gone out of my life.  Night after night I went to sleep
determining to forget and morning after morning I awoke only to
remember, and with the same dull, hopeless heartache and longing.

July passed, August was half gone.  Still we remained at the
rectory.  Our lease was up on the first of October.  The Coles
would return then and we should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether
we wished to or not.  Hephzy, although she did not say much about
it, was willing to go, I think.  Her "presentiment" had remained
only a presentiment so far; no word came from Little Frank.  We had
heard or learned nothing concerning her or her whereabouts.

Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly
as ever.  For the first few days after our interview with Doctor
Bayliss, Senior, Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family.
Then the doctor called again.  He seemed in better spirits.  His
son had yielded to his parents' entreaties and had departed for a
walking tour through the Black Forest with some friends.

"The invitation came at exactly the right time," said the old
gentleman.  "Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything.  The
poor boy was in the depths and when his mother and I urged him to
accept he did so.  We are hoping that when he returns he will have
forgotten, or, if not that, at least be more reconciled."

Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer.  I met
him on the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever.
Our talk concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous
consequences to her and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not
disturbed him in the least.  He greeted me blandly and cheerfully,
asked how we all were, said he had been given to understand that
"my charming little niece" was no longer with us, and proceeded to
beat me two down in eighteen holes.  I played several times with
him afterward and, under different circumstances, should have
enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly matched.

His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met.  She went out of her
way to be as sweetly gracious as possible.  I presume she inferred
from Frances' departure that I had taken her hint and had removed
the disturbing influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path.
At each of our meetings she spoke of the "invitation golf
tournament," several times postponed and now to be played within a
fortnight.  She insisted that I must take part in it.  At last,
having done everything except decline absolutely, I finally
consented to enter the tournament.  It is not easy to refuse to
obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of Mayberry.

After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also
had received an invitation.  Not to play golf, of course; her
invitation was of a totally different kind.

"What do you think, Hosy!" she cried.  "I've got a letter and you
can't guess who it's from."

"From Susanna?" I ventured.

"Susanna!  You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a
letter from Susanna Wixon, do you?  No indeed!  I've got a letter
from Mrs. Hepton, who had the Nickerson cottage last summer.  She
and her husband are in Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in
a couple of weeks and go for a short trip through Switzerland.
They got our address from Mr. Campbell before they left home.  Mrs.
Hepton writes that they're countin' on our company.  They're goin'
to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and everywhere.  Wouldn't it be
splendid!"

The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for
several seasons.  They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first
come to Bayport on his recommendation.  I liked them very well,
and, oddly enough, for I was not popular with the summer colony,
they had seemed to like me.

"It was very kind of them to think of us," I said.  "Campbell
shouldn't have given them our address, of course, but their
invitation was well meant.  You must write them at once.  Make our
refusal as polite as possible."

Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.

"Then you think I'd better say no?" she observed.

"Why, of course.  You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?"

"Well, I didn't know.  I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the
right thing.  I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've
about come to the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you.
Maybe it's bad for both of us.  Perhaps a change would do us both
good."

I was astonished.  "Humph!" I exclaimed; "this is a change of
heart, Hephzy.  A while ago, when I suggested going back to
Bayport, you wouldn't hear of it.  You wanted to stay here and--and
wait."

"I know I did.  And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it.
I've still got my presentiment, Hosy.  I believe just as strong as
I ever did that some time or other she and you and I will be
together again.  But stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other
and broodin' don't do us any good.  It's doin' you harm; that's
plain enough.  You don't write and you don't eat--that is, not
much--and you're gettin' bluer and more thin and peaked every day.
You have just got to go away from here, no matter whether I do or
not.  And I've reached the point where I'm willin' to go, too.  Not
for good, maybe.  We'll come back here again.  Our lease isn't up
until October and we can leave the servants here and give them our
address to have mail forwarded.  If--if she--that is, if a letter
or--or anything--SHOULD come we could hurry right back.  The
Heptons are real nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy.  And you
always wanted to see Switzerland; you used to say so.  Why don't we
say yes and go along?"

I did not answer.  I believed I understood the reason for
Campbell's giving our address to the Heptons; also the reason for
the invitation.  Jim was very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he
believed travel and change of scene were what I needed.  Doubtless
he had put the Heptons up to asking us to join them on their trip.
It was merely an addition to his precious prescription.

"Why don't we go?" urged Hephzy.

"Not much!" I answered, decidedly.  "I should be poor company on a
pleasure trip like that.  But you might go, Hephzy.  There is no
reason in the world why you shouldn't go.  I'll stay here until you
return.  Go, by all means, and enjoy yourself."

Hephzy shook her head.

"I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I," she observed.
"While I was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had
for breakfast.  Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your
gettin' your feet wet and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd
wonder if you had blankets enough on your bed.  I'd be like that
yellow cat we used to have back in the time when Father was alive.
That cat had kittens and Father had 'em all drowned but one.  After
that you never saw the cat anywhere unless the kitten was there,
too.  She wouldn't eat unless it were with her and between bites
she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off.  She lugged it around
in her mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet holes
punched in the scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and
make it easier for both of 'em.  It died, finally; she wore it out,
I guess likely.  Then she adopted a chicken and started luggin'
that around.  She had the habit, you see.  I'm a good deal like
her, Hosy.  I've took care of you so long that I've got the habit.
No, I shouldn't go unless you did."

No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.

The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine.  I
shouldered my bag of clubs and walked through the lane toward the
first tee.  I never felt less like playing or more inclined to
feign illness and remain at home.  But I had promised Lady Carey
and the promise must be kept.

There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the
tee.  Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew,
Mr. Carleton Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time.
Heathcroft was in conversation with a young fellow who, when he
turned in my direction, I recognized as Herbert Bayliss.  I was
surprised to see him; I had not heard of his return from the Black
Forest trip.

Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy.
She welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her
guests, ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and
then bustled away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the
estate, concerning the arrangements for the tournament.  I felt a
touch on my arm and, turning, found Doctor Bayliss standing beside
me.  He was smiling and in apparent good humor.

"The boy is back, Knowles," he said.  "Have you seen him?"

"Yes," said I, "I have seen him, although we haven't met yet.  I
was surprised to find him here.  When did he return?"

"Only yesterday.  His mother and I were surprised also.  We hadn't
expected him so soon.  He's looking very fit, don't you think?"

"Very."  I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either
more or less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the
old gentleman seemed so very anxious that I should.  He was
evidently gratified.  "Yes," he said, "he's looking very fit
indeed.  I think his trip has benefited him hugely.  And I think--
Yes, I think he is beginning to forget his--that is to say, I
believe he does not dwell upon the--the recent happenings as he
did.  I think he is forgetting; I really think he is."

"Indeed," said I.  It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was
forgetting, his memory must be remarkably short.  I imagined that
his father's wish was parent to the thought.

"He has--ah--scarcely mentioned our--our young friend's name since
his return," went on the doctor.  "He did ask if you had heard--ah--
by the way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?"

"No."

"Dear me! dear me!  That's very odd, now isn't it."

He did not say he was sorry.  If he had said it I should not have
believed him.  If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we
remained without news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert
Bayliss's parents would be.

"But I say, Knowles," he added, "you and he must meet, you know.
He doesn't hold any ill-feeling or--or resentment toward you.
Really he doesn't.  Herbert!  Oh, I say, Herbert!  Come here, will
you."

Young Bayliss turned.  The doctor whispered in my ear.

"Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to--to--You
understand me, Knowles.  Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh?  Oh,
Herbert, here is Knowles waiting to shake hands with you."

We shook hands.  The shake, on his part, was cordial enough,
perhaps, but not too cordial.  It struck me that young Bayliss was
neither as "fit" nor as forgetful as his fond parents wished to
believe.  He looked rather worn and nervous, it seemed to me.  I
asked him about his tramping trip and we chatted for a few moments.
Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by Lady Carey and Handliss to join
the discussion concerning the tournament rules and the young man
and I were left alone together.

"Knowles," he asked, the moment after his father's departure, "have
you heard anything?  Anything concerning--her?"

"No."

"You're sure?  You're not--"

"I am quite sure.  We haven't heard nor do we expect to."

He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long
breath.

"It's deucedly odd, this," he said.  "How she could disappear so
entirely I don't understand.  And you have no idea where she may
be?"

"No."

"But--but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?"

"No."

"You're not!  Why not?"

"You know why not as well as I.  She left us of her own free will
and her parting request was that we should not follow her.  That is
sufficient for us.  Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her
friends."

He was silent for a moment.  Then his teeth snapped together.

"I'll find her," he declared, fiercely.  "I'll find her some day."

"In spite of her request?"

"Yes.  In spite of the devil."

He turned on his heel and walked off.  Mr. Handliss stepped to the
first tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a
little speech.

The tournament, he said, was about to begin.  Play would be, owing
to the length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes
instead of the usual thirty-six.  This meant that each pair of
contestants would play the nine holes twice.  Handicaps had been
fixed as equitably as possible according to each player's previous
record, and players having similar handicaps were to play against
each other.  A light lunch and refreshments would be served after
the first round had been completed by all.  Prizes would be
distributed by her ladyship when the final round was finished.  Her
ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our acceptance of
her invitation.  He would now proceed to read the names of those
who were to play against each other, stating handicaps and the
like.  He read accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to
be Mr. Heathcroft, each of us having a handicap of two.

Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff
one.  Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of
three of our matches.  However, I determined to play my best.
Being the only outlander on the course I couldn't help feeling that
the sporting reputation of Yankeeland rested, for this day at
least, upon my shoulders.

The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first.
Heathcroft and I were next to the last.  A London attorney by the
name of Jaynes and a Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us.
Their rating was one plus and, judging by the conversation of the
"gallery," they were looked upon as winners of the first and second
prizes respectively.  The Reverend Mr. Wilson was called, behind
his back, "the sporting curate."  In gorgeous tweeds and a
shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.

The first nine went to me.  An usually long drive and a lucky putt
on the eighth gave me the round by one.  I played with care and
tried my hardest to keep my mind on the game.  Heathcroft was, as
always, calm and careful, but between tees he was pleased to be
chatty and affable.

"And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?" he inquired.
"Does she still devour her--er--washing flannels and treacle for
breakfast?"

"She does when she cares to," I replied.  "She is an independent
lady, as I think you know."

"My word!  I believe you.  And how are the literary labors
progressing?  I had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours
the other day.  Began it that same night, by Jove!  It was quite
interesting, really.  I should have finished it, I think, but some
of the chaps at the club telephoned me to join them for a bit of
bridge and of course that ended literature for the time.  My
respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge.  She foresees a
gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons and all
that sort of thing.  I am to die of starvation, I think.  Is it
starvation gamblers die of?  'Pon my soul, I should say most of
those I know would be more likely to die of thirst.  Rather!"

Later on he asked another question.

"And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?" he inquired.  "When is she
coming back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever
it is?"

"I don't know," I replied, curtly.

"Oh, I say!  Isn't she coming at all?  That would be a calamity,
now wouldn't it?  Not to me in particular.  I should mind your
notice boards, of course.  But if I were condemned, as you are, to
spend a summer among the feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like
hers would be like a whisky and soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I
know is fond of saying.  Oh, and by the way, speaking of your
niece, I had a curious experience in Paris a week ago.  Most
extraordinary thing.  For the moment I began to believe I really
was going dotty, as Auntie fears.  I . . .  Your drive, Knowles.
I'll tell you the story later."

He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably.  I did
not remind him.  The longer he kept clear of the subject of my
"niece" the more satisfied I was.  We lunched in the pavilion by
the first tee.  There were sandwiches and biscuits--crackers, of
course--and cakes and sweets galore.  Also thirst-quenching
materials sufficient to satisfy even the gamblers of Mr.
Heathcroft's acquaintance.  The "sporting curate," behind a huge
Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs.
Judson and Worcester.  Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet
subject, the talents and virtues of "Carleton, dear," for the
benefit of the London attorney, who was pretending to listen with
the respectful interest due blood and title, but who was thinking
of something else, I am sure.  "Carleton, dear," himself, was
chatting languidly with young Bayliss.  The latter seemed greatly
interested.  There was a curious expression on his face.  I was
surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not
like Lady Carey's nephew.

The second and final round of the tournament began.  For six holes
Heathcroft and I broke even.  The seventh he won, making us square
for the match so far and, with an equal number of strokes.  The
eighth we halved.  All depended on the ninth.  Halving there would
mean a drawn match between us and a drawing for choice of prizes,
provided we were in the prize-winning class.  A win for either of
us meant the match itself.

Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and
unconcerned as ever.  I tried to appear likewise.  As a matter of
fact, I wanted to win.  Not because of the possible prize, I cared
little for that, but for the pleasure of winning against him.  We
drove from the ninth tee, each got a long brassy shot which put us
on the edge of the green, and then strolled up the hill together.

"I say, Knowles," he observed; "I haven't finished telling you of
my Paris experience, have I.  Odd coincidence, by Jove!  I was
telling young Bayliss about it just now and he thought it odd, too.
I was--some other chaps and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris
a week or so ago and while we were there a girl came out and sang.
She was an extremely pretty girl, you understand, but that wasn't
the extraordinary part of it.  She was the image--my word! the very
picture of your niece, Miss Morley.  It quite staggered me for the
moment.  Upon my soul I thought it was she!  She sang extremely
well, but not for long.  I tried to get near her--meant to speak to
her, you know, but she had gone before I reached her.  Eh!  What
did you say?"

I had not said anything--at least I think I had not.  He
misinterpreted my silence.

"Oh, you mustn't be offended," he said, laughing.  "Of course I
knew it wasn't she--that is, I should have known it if I hadn't
been so staggered by the resemblance.  It was amazing, that
resemblance.  The face, the voice--everything was like hers.  I was
so dotty about it that I even hunted up one of the chaps in charge
and asked him who the girl was.  He said she was an Austrian--
Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or something.  That ended it, of
course.  I was a fool to imagine anything else, of course.  But you
would have been a bit staggered if you had seen her.  And she
didn't look Austrian, either.  She looked English or American--
rather!  I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap.  I
apologize to you and Miss Morley, you understand.  I couldn't help
telling you; it was extraordinary now, wasn't it."

I made some answer.  He rattled on about that sort of thing making
one believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that.
We reached the green.  My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his
putt.  He made it, a beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of
the cup.  My putt was wild.  He holed out on the next shot.  It
took me two and I had to concentrate my thought by main strength
even then.  The hole and match were his.

He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I
had, generally speaking, played much the better game and should
have won easily.  I paid little attention to what he said although
I did, of course, congratulate him and laughed at the idea that
luck had anything to do with the result.  I no longer cared about
the match or the tournament in general or anything connected with
them.  His story of the girl who was singing in Paris was what I
was interested in now.  I wanted him to tell me more, to give me
particulars.  I wanted to ask him a dozen questions; and, yet,
excited as I was, I realized that those questions must be asked
carefully.  His suspicions must not be aroused.

Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over
to us to learn the result of our play and to announce that the
distribution of prizes would take place in a few moments; also that
Lady Carey wished to speak with her nephew.  The latter sauntered
off to join the group by the pavilion and my opportunity for
questioning had gone, for the time.

Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I
seem to recall very little.  Lady Carey made a little speech, I
remember that, but just what she said I have forgotten.  "Much
pleasure in rewarding skill," "Dear old Scottish game," "English
sportsmanship," "Race not to the swift"--I must have been splashed
with these drops from the fountain of oratory, for they stick in my
memory.  Then, in turn, the winners were called up to select their
prizes.  Wilson, the London attorney, headed the list; the sporting
curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I.  It had not occurred
to me that I should win a prize.  In fact I had not thought
anything about it.  My thoughts were far from the golf course just
then.  They were in Paris, in a cathedral--Heathcroft had called it
an abbey, but cathedral he must have meant--where a girl who looked
like Frances Morley was singing.

However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped
forward.  Her Ladyship said something or other about "our cousin
from across the sea" and "Anglo-Saxon blood" and her especial
pleasure in awarding the prize.  I stammered thanks, rather
incoherently expressed they were, I fear, selected the first
article that came to hand--it happened to be a cigarette case; I
never smoke cigarettes--and retired to the outer circle.  The other
winners--Herbert Bayliss and Worcester among them--selected their
prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the tournament, speaking in
behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her kindness and
hospitality.

Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr.
Wilson mentioned feelingly.  Also the gracious condescension in
presenting the prizes with her own hand.  They would be cherished,
not only for their own sake, but for that of the donor.  He begged
the liberty of proposing her ladyship's health.

The "liberty" was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full
glasses ready and waiting.  The health was drunk.  Lady Carey drank
ours in return, and the ceremony was over.

I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft.  He was in
conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt
and walked home.  The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me,
but I avoided him.  I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip;
I wanted to be alone.

Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me--a most
unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he
related them.  The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances--yes;
but she was an Austrian, her name was not Morley.  And resemblances
were common enough.  That Frances should be singing in a Paris
church was most improbable; but, so far as that went, the fact of
A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending a church service I should,
ordinarily, have considered improbable.  Improbable things did
happen.  Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances.  My heart leaped
at the thought.

But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make--to me?
None, of course.  She had asked us not to follow her, to make no
attempt to find her.  I had preached compliance with her wish to
Hephzy, to Doctor Bayliss--yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very
afternoon.  But Herbert Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of
me, in spite of the Evil One.  And Heathcroft had told young
Bayliss the same story he had told me.  HE would not be deterred by
scruples; her wish would not prevent his going to Paris in search
of her.

I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions
concerning the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings
over my perfectly useless prize.  I did not tell her of
Heathcroft's story.  I merely said I had met that gentleman and
that Herbert Bayliss had returned to Mayberry.  And I asked a
question.

"Hephzy," I asked, "when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip
through Switzerland?"

Hephzy considered.  "Let me see," she said.  "Today is the
eighteenth, isn't it.  They start on the twenty-second; that's four
days from now."

"Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their
invitation to go along?"

She hesitated.  "Why, no," she admitted, "I haven't.  That is, I
have written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter.  Humph! did you
notice that 'posted'?  Shows what livin' in a different place'll do
even to as settled a body as I am.  In Bayport I should have said
'mailed' the letter, same as anybody else.  I must be careful or
I'll go back home and call the expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a
'tart' and a cracker a 'biscuit.'  Land sakes!  I remember readin'
how David Copperfield's aunt always used to eat biscuits soaked in
port wine before she went to bed.  I used to think 'twas dreadful
dissipated business and that the old lady must have been ready for
bed by the time she got through.  You see I always had riz biscuits
in mind.  A cracker's different; crackers don't soak up much.  We'd
ought to be careful how we judge folks, hadn't we, Hosy."

"Yes," said I, absently.  "So you haven't posted the letter to the
Heptons.  Why not?"

"Well--well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you
might change your mind and decide to go, after all.  I wish you
would; 'twould do you good.  And," wistfully, "Switzerland must be
lovely.  But there!  I know just how you feel, you poor boy.  I'll
mail the letter to-night."

"Give it to me," said I.  "I'll--I'll see to it."

Hephzy handed me the letter.  I put it in my pocket, but I did not
post it that evening.  A plan--or the possible beginning of a plan--
was forming in my mind.

That night was another of my bad ones.  The little sleep I had was
filled with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly.
I rose and walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old
fool, over and over again.  But when morning came my plan, a
ridiculous, wild plan from which, even if it succeeded--which was
most unlikely--nothing but added trouble and despair could possibly
come, my plan was nearer its ultimate formation.

At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the
Manor House and rang the bell.  The butler, an exalted personage in
livery, answered my ring.  Mr. Heathcroft?  No, sir.  Mr.
Heathcroft had left for London by the morning train.  Her ladyship
was in her boudoir.  She did not see anyone in the morning, sir.  I
had no wish to see her ladyship, but Heathcroft's departure was a
distinct disappointment.  I thanked the butler and, remembering
that even cathedral ushers accepted tips, slipped a shilling into
his hand.  His dignity thawed at the silver touch, and he expressed
regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.

"You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this
morning, sir," he said.  "Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called
about an hour ago.  He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as
you are, sir."

I think that settled it.  When I again entered the rectory my mind
was made up.  The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable
perhaps, but the decision was made.

"Hephzy," said I, "I have changed my mind.  Travel may do me good.
I have telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on
the evening of the twenty-first.  After that--Well, we'll see."

Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise.  She said I was a
dear, unselfish boy.  Considering what I intended doing I felt
decidedly mean; but I did not tell her what that intention was.

We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of
the twenty-first.  The servants had been left in charge of the
rectory.  We would return in a fortnight, so we told them.

It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky,
grimy London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the
Kentish countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where
the sheep were feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing.
Further on, as we wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending
trees and shrubs proved that the breeze was a miniature gale.  And
when we came in sight of the Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with
whitecaps from beach to horizon.

"I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy," said I.

Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.

"Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?" she asked.  "I should
think an 'up' would be better.  What did you say, Hosy?  A rough
passage?  I guess that won't bother you and me much.  This little
mite of water can't seem very much stirred up to folks who have
sailed clear across the Atlantic Ocean.  But there!  I mustn't put
on airs.  I used to think Cape Cod Bay was about all the water
there was.  Travelin' does make such a difference in a person's
ideas.  Do you remember the Englishwoman at Bancroft's who told me
that she supposed the Thames must remind us of our own Mississippi?"

"So that's the famous English Channel, is it," she observed, a
moment later.  "How wide is it, Hosy?"

"About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe," I said.

"Twenty miles!  About as far as Bayport to Provincetown.  Well, I
don't know whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with
William the Conquerer or not, but if they did, they didn't have far
to come.  I cal'late I'll be contented with having my folks cross
in the Mayflower.  They came three thousand miles anyway."

She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just
then.  A half hour later she was more respectful.

The steamer was awaiting us at the pier.  As the throng of
passengers filed up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.

"Look!  Hosy!" she cried.  "Look!  Isn't that him?"

I looked where she was pointing.

"Him?  Who?" I asked.

"Look!  There he goes now.  No, he's gone.  I can't see him any
more.  And yet I was almost certain 'twas him."

"Who?" I asked again.  "Did you see someone you knew?"

"I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken.  He's just got home;
he wouldn't be startin' off again so soon.  No, it couldn't have
been him, but I did think--"

I stopped short.  "Who did you think you saw?" I demanded.

"I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to
the steamboat.  It looked like him enough to be his twin brother,
if he had one."

I did not answer.  I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat,
but if young Bayliss was there he was not in sight.  Hephzy rattled
on excitedly.

"You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs," she declared.  "I
remember one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles--You don't remember
him, Hosy; he died when you was little--One time Cousin Hezzy was
up to Boston with his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big
stores.  That is, Martha Ann--the wife--was shoppin' and he was
taggin' along and complainin', same as men generally do.  He was
kind of nearsighted, Hezzy was, and when Martha was fightin' to get
a place in front of a bargain counter he stayed astern and kept his
eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'.  'Twas a new hat with blue and
yellow flowers on it.  Hezzy always said, when he told the yarn
afterward, that he never once figured that there could be another
hat like that one.  I saw it myself and, if I'd been in his place,
I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway.  Well, he followed that hat
from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said,
'Look here, dearie,' he says--They hadn't been married very long,
not long enough to get out of the mushy stage--'Look here, dearie,'
he says, 'hadn't we better be gettin' on home?  You'll tire those
little feet of yours all out trottin' around this way.'  And when
the hat turned around there was a face under it as black as a crow.
He'd been followin' a darkey woman for ten minutes.  She thought he
was makin' fun of her feet and was awful mad, and when Martha came
along and found who he'd taken for her she was madder still.  Hezzy
said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha.  Nobody could.  I never saw two
craft look more alike from twenty foot astern.  And she wears that
hat just the way you do.'  That didn't help matters any, of course,
and--Why, Hosy, where are you goin'?  Why don't you say somethin'?
Hadn't we better sit down?  All the good seats will be gone if we
don't."

I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a
glimpse of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss.  If it
was he then my suspicions were confirmed.  Heathcroft's story of
the girl who sang in Paris had impressed him as it had me and he
was on his way to see for himself.  But the man, whoever he might
be, had disappeared.

"How the wind does blow," said Hephzy.  "What are the people doin'
with those black tarpaulins?"

Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers
distributing large squares of black waterproof canvas.  I watched
the use to which the tarpaulins were put and I understood.  I
beckoned to the nearest sailor and rented two of the canvases for
use during the voyage.

"How much?" I asked.

"One franc each," said the man, curtly.

I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and
was prepared.  Hephzy's eyes opened.

"A franc," she repeated.  "That's French money, isn't it.  Is he a
Frenchman?"

"Yes," said I.  "This is a French boat, I think."

She watched the sailor for a moment.  Then she sighed.

"And he's a Frenchman," she said.  "I thought Frenchmen wore
mustaches and goatees and were awful polite.  He was about as
polite as a pig.  And all he needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to
be an Italian.  A body couldn't tell the difference without specs.
What did you get those tarpaulins for, Hosy?"

I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw
our fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy,
enveloping her from her waist down.

"I don't need that," she protested.  "It isn't cold and it isn't
rainin', either.  I tell you I don't need it, Hosy.  Don't tuck me
in any more.  I feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby
carriage, not a steamboat.  And what are they passin' round those--
those tin dippers for?"

"They may be useful later on," I said, watching the seas leap and
foam against the stone breakwater.  "You'll probably understand
later, Hephzy."

She understood.  The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat,
which had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to
manifest a desire to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a
log in a rapid.  The sun was shining brightly overhead, the
verandas of the hotels along the beach were crowded with gaily
dressed people, the surf fringing that beach was dotted with
bathers, everything on shore wore a look of holiday and joy--and
yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was anything but
calm and anything but joy.

How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch!
And how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther
from land!  It came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the
wind in showers, in torrents.  Hephzy hastily removed her hat and
thrust it beneath the tarpaulin.  I turned up the collar of my
steamer coat and slid as far down into that collar as I could.

"My soul!" exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face.
"My soul and body!"

"I agree with you," said I.

On we went, over the waves or through them.  Our fellow-passengers
curled up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned
dismally, according to their dispositions--or digestions.  A huge
wave--the upper third of it, at least--swept across the deck and
spilled a gallon or two of cold water upon us.  A sturdy, red-faced
Englishman, sitting next me, grinned cheerfully and observed:

"Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir."

I agreed that it did.  Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my
shoulder, sputtered.

"Trickles!" she whispered.  "My heavens and earth!  If this is a
trickle then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash.
Trickles!  There's a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this
minute."

Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came
tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other.  His was a zig-zag
transit.  He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a
fresh start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house,
carromed from them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying
brine, came head first into my lap.  I expected profanity and
temper.  I did get a little of the former.

"This damned French boat!" he observed, rising with difficulty.
"She absolutely WON'T be still."

"The sea is pretty rough."

"Oh, the sea is all right.  A bit damp, that's all.  It's the
blessed boat.  Foreigners are such wretched sailors."

He was off on another tack.  Hephzy watched him wonderingly.

"A bit damp," she repeated.  "Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas.
I suppose likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard."

"Not on this side of the Channel," I answered.  "This side is
English water, therefore it is all right."

A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.

"Look at those poor women," she said.

Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill
and so wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.

"Just like drowned cats' tails," observed Hephzy.  "Ain't it awful!
And they're too miserable to care.  You poor thing," she said,
leaning forward and addressing the nearest, "can't I fix you so
you're more comfortable?"

The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.

"Oh, no, thank you," she said, weakly but cheerfully.  "We're doing
quite well.  It will soon be over."

Hephzy shook her head.

"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered.  "I declare! if it wasn't
off already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and
the English people.  Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still
and soak and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.'
Whenever I read about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll
think of the folks on this boat.  It may be patriotism or it may be
the race pride and reserve we hear so much about--but, whatever it
is, it's fine.  They've all got it, men and women and children.  I
presume likely the boy that stood on the burnin' deck would have
said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all. . . .  What is it, Hosy?"

I had uttered an exclamation.  A young man had just reeled by us on
his way forward.  His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his
coat collar was turned up, but I recognized him.  He was Herbert
Bayliss.

We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead
of the usual scant two.  We entered the harbor, where the great
crucifix on the hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention
and the French signs over the doors of hotels and shops by the quay
made her realize, so she said, that we really were in a foreign
country.

"Somehow England never did seem so very foreign," she said.  "And
the Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to
think of 'em as, not just neighbors, but friends.  But this--THIS
is foreign enough, goodness knows!  Let go of my arm!" to the
smiling, gesticulating porter who was proffering his services.
"DON'T wave your hands like that; you make me dizzy.  Keep 'em
still, man!  I could understand you just as well if they was tied.
Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on.  Now I KNOW Cape Cod
is three thousand miles off."

We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the
train, and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and
tooting in a manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.

We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-
car.  Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading "Compagnie
Internationale des Wagon Lits" on the bill of fare, declared she
couldn't see why a dining-car should be called a "wagon bed."
"There's enough to eat to put you to sleep," she declared, "but you
couldn't stay asleep any more than you could in the nail factory up
to Tremont.  I never heard such a rattlin' and slambangin' in my
life."

We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little
towns, with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable
church and chateau, until night came and looking out of the window
was no longer profitable.  At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted
from the train at Paris.

In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the
Heptons, Hephzy talked incessantly.

"Paris!" she said, over and over again.  "Paris! where they had the
Three Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint
Bartholomew and Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad
and--and everything.  Paris!  And I'm in it!"

At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.

Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred
telling until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for
Switzerland with her and with the Heptons the following day.  I did
not tell her my real reason for staying; I had invented a reason
and told her that instead.

"I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days," I said.  "I
think I may find some material here which will help me with my
novel.  You and the Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and
I will join you at Lucerne or Interlaken."

Hephzy stared at me.

"I sha'n't stir one step without you," she declared. "If I'd known
you had such an idea as that in your head I--"

"You wouldn't have come," I interrupted.  "I know that; that's why
I didn't tell you.  Of course you will go and of course you will
leave me here.  We will be separated only two or three days.  I'll
ask Hepton to give me an itinerary of the trip and I will wire when
and where I will join you.  You must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it."

In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go.
It was nearly midnight before she gave in.

"And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest," she said,
"you'll find me back here huntin' you up.  I mean that, Hosy, so
you'd better understand it.  And now," rising from her chair, "I'm
goin' to see about the things you're to wear while we're separated.
If I don't you're liable to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and
things all the time and forget to change 'em.  You needn't say you
won't, for I know you too well.  Mercy sakes! do you suppose I've
taken care of you all these years and DON'T know?"

The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the
railway station.  Hephzy's last words to me were these:

"Remember," she said, "if you do get caught in the rain, there's
dry things in the lower tray of your trunk.  Collars and neckties
and shirts are in the upper tray.  I've hung your dress suit in the
closet in case you want it, though that isn't likely.  And be
careful what you eat, and don't smoke too much, and--Yes, Mr.
Hepton, I'm comin'--and don't spend ALL your money in book-stores;
you'll need some of it in Switzerland.  And--Oh, dear, Hosy! do be
a good boy.  I know you're always good, but, from all I've heard,
this Paris is an awful place and--good-by.  Good-by.  In Lucerne in
two days or Interlaken in three.  It's got to be that, or back I
come, remember.  I HATE to leave you all alone amongst these
jabberin' foreigners.  I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one
comfort.  If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United
States language at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just
holler louder.  I--Yes, Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now.  Good-by,
Hosy, dear."

The train rolled out of the station.  I watched it go.  Then I
turned and walked to the street.  So far my scheme had worked well.
I was alone in Paris as I had planned to be.  And now--and now to
find where a girl sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.



CHAPTER XV

In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches


And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear
more and more of a task.  Paris must be full of churches; to visit
each of them in turn would take weeks at least.  Hephzy had given
me three days.  I must join her at Interlaken in three days or
there would be trouble.  And how was I to make even the most
superficial search in three days?

Of course I had realized something of this before.  Even in the
state of mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized
that my errand in Paris was a difficult one.  I realized that I had
set out on the wildest of wild goose chases and that, even in the
improbable event of the singer's being Frances, my finding her was
most unlikely.  The chances of success were a hundred to one
against me.  But I was in the mood to take the hundredth chance.  I
should have taken it if the odds were higher still.  My plan--if it
could be called a plan--was first of all to buy a Paris Baedeker
and look over the list of churches.  This I did, and, back in the
hotel room, I consulted that list.  It staggered me.  There were
churches enough--there were far too many.  Cathedrals and chapels
and churches galore--Catholic and Protestant.  But there was no
church calling itself an abbey.  I closed the Baedeker, lit a
cigar, and settled myself for further reflection.

The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle
Juno or Junotte, so Heathcroft had said.  So much I knew and that
was all.  It was very, very little.  But Herbert Bayliss had come
to Paris, I believed, because of what Heathcroft had told him.  Did
he know more than I?  It was possible.  At any rate he had come.  I
had seen him on the steamer, and I believed he had seen and
recognized me.  Of course he might not be in Paris now; he might
have gone elsewhere.  I did not believe it, however.  I believed he
had crossed the Channel on the same errand as I.  There was a
possible chance.  I might, if the other means proved profitless,
discover at which hotel Bayliss was staying and question him.  He
might tell me nothing, even if he knew, but I could keep him in
sight, I could follow him and discover where he went.  It would be
dishonorable, perhaps, but I was desperate and doggedly regardless
of scruples.  I was set upon one thing--to find her, to see her and
speak with her again.

Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort.  Before
that I would search on my own hook.  And, tossing aside the useless
Baedeker, I tried to think of someone whose advice might be of
value.  At last, I resolved to question the concierge of the hotel.
Concierges, I knew, were the ever present helps of travelers in
trouble.  They knew everything, spoke all languages, and expected
to be asked all sorts of unreasonable questions.

The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his
talented class.  His name and title was Monsieur Louis--at least
that is what I had heard the other guests call him.  And the
questions which he had been called upon to answer, in my hearing,
ranged in subject from the hour of closing the Luxemburg galleries
to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with various interruptions
during which he settled squabbles over cab fares, took orders for
theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at the tables of
the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.

Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every
appearance of interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who
was singing at one of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or
Junotte, but, when I had finished, reluctantly shook his head.
There were many, many churches in Paris--yes, and, at some of them,
young ladies sang; but these were, for the most part, the
Protestant churches.  At the larger churches, the Catholic
churches, most of the singers were men or boys.  He could recall
none where a lady of that name sang.  Monsieur had not been told
the name of the church?

"The person who told me referred to it as an abbey," I said.

Louis raised his shoulders.  "I am sorry, Monsieur," he said, "but
there is no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris.  It is, alas,
regrettable, but it is so."

He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death
of a friend.  Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my
French, he spoke in English, very good English.

"I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur," he went on.  "Possibly
I may discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his
difficulty."  In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at
the Champ de Mars at four, and the evening performance at the
Folies Bergeres was unusually good and English and American
gentlemen always enjoyed it.  It would give him pleasure to book a
place for me.

I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
concerned.  I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few
churches at which ladies sang.  This he did and I set out to find
them, in a cab which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the
driver was bent upon suicide and manslaughter.

I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that
evening.  Those in charge--for I attended no services--knew nothing
of Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno.  I retired at ten, somewhat
discouraged, but stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three
days at least.

The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list
of hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the
churches.  Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis.
Could he tell me a few of the hotels where English visitors were
most likely to stay.

He could do more than that, apparently.  Would I be so good as to
inform him if the lady or gentleman--being Parisian he put the lady
first--whom I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris.  I told
him that the gentleman had arrived the same evening as I.
Whereupon he produced a list of guests at all the prominent hotels.
Herbert Bayliss was registered at the Continental.

To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge
there.  Mr. Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge
believed.  He would be pleased to ascertain.  Would I give my name?
I declined to give the name, saying that I did not wish to disturb
Mr. Bayliss.  If he was in his room I would wait until he came
down.  He was in his room, had not yet breakfasted, although it was
nearly ten in the forenoon.  I sat down in a chair from which I
could command a good view of the elevators, and waited.

The concierge strolled over and chatted.  Was I a friend of Mr.
Bayliss?  Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not.  This was not
his first visit to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently--though not
as frequently of late--and he invariably stayed at the Continental.
He had been out late the evening before, which doubtless explained
his non-appearance.  Ah, he was breakfasting now; had ordered his
"cafe complete."  Doubtless he would be down very soon?  Would I
wish to send up my name now?

Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend.  He was called to
his desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I
waited where I was.  At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged
from the elevator.

His appearance almost shocked me.  Out late the night before!  He
looked as if he had been out all night for many nights.  He was
pale and solemn.  I stepped forward to greet him and the start he
gave when he saw me was evidence of the state of his nerves.  I had
never thought of him as possessing any nerves.

"Eh?  Why, Knowles!" he exclaimed.

"Good morning, Bayliss," said I.

We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see
him and he had not expected to see me.  I made a move to shake
hands but he did not respond.  His manner toward me was formal and,
I thought, colder than it had been at our meeting the day of the
golf tournament.

"I called," I said, "to see you, Bayliss.  If you are not engaged I
should like to talk with you for a few moments."

His answer was a question.

"How did you know I was here?" he asked.

"I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the
Continental," I answered.

"I mean how did you know I was in Paris?"

"I didn't know.  I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat.
I was almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize
me and I had no opportunity to speak then."

He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having
seen and recognized me during the Channel crossing.  He regarded me
intently and, I thought, suspiciously.

"Who sent you here?" he asked, suddenly.

"Sent me!  No one sent me.  I don't understand you."

"Why did you follow me?"

"Follow you?"

"Yes.  Why did you follow me to Paris?  No one knew I was coming
here, not even my own people.  They think I am--Well, they don't
know that I am here."

His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating.  I had made a
firm resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this
interview might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.

"I had no intention of following you--here or anywhere else," I
said.  "Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no
particular interest to me.  I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor
Bayliss."

He reddened and hesitated.  Then he led the way to a divan in a
retired corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated.  There
he sat down beside me and waited for me to speak.  I, in turn,
waited for him to speak.

At last he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Knowles," he said.  "I am not myself today.  I've had a
devil of a night and I feel like a beast this morning.  I should
probably have insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as
you did.  Of course I should have known you did not follow me to
Paris.  But--but why did you come?"

I hesitated now.  "I came," I said, "to--to--Well, to be perfectly
honest with you, I came because of something I heard concerning--
concerning--"

He interrupted me.  "Then Heathcroft did tell you!" he exclaimed.
"I thought as much."

"He told you, I know.  He said he did."

"Yes.  He did.  My God, man, isn't it awful!  Have you seen her?"

His manner convinced me that he had seen her.  In my eagerness I
forgot to be careful.

"No," I answered, breathlessly; "I have not seen her.  Where is
she?"

He turned and stared at me.

"Don't you know where she is?" he asked, slowly.

"I know nothing.  I have been told that she--or someone very like
her--is singing in a Paris church.  Heathcroft told me that and
then we were interrupted.  I--What is the matter?"

He was staring at me more oddly than ever.  There was the strangest
expression on his face.

"In a church!" he repeated.  "Heathcroft told you--"

"He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss
Morley was so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris
church.  He called it an abbey, but of course it couldn't be that.
Do you know anything more definite?  What did he tell you?"

He did not answer.

"In a church!" he said again.  "You thought--Oh, good heavens!"

He began to laugh.  It was not a pleasant laugh to hear.  Moreover,
it angered me.

"This may be very humorous," I said, brusquely.  "Perhaps it is--to
you.  But--Bayliss, you know more of this than I.  I am certain now
that you do.  I want you to tell me what you know.  Is that girl
Frances Morley?  Have you seen her?  Where is she?"

He had stopped laughing.  Now he seemed to be considering.

"Then you did come over here to find her," he said, more slowly
still.  "You were following her, why?"

"WHY?"

"Yes, why.  She is nothing to you.  You told my father that.  You
told me that she was not your niece.  You told Father that you had
no claim upon her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to
trace her or to learn where she was.  You said all that and
preached about respecting her wish and all that sort of thing.  And
yet you are here now trying to find her."

The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.

"And so are you," I said.

His fists clinched.

"I!" he cried, fiercely.  "I!  Did _I_ ever say she was nothing to
me?  Did _I_ ever tell anyone I should not try to find her?  I told
you, only the other day, that I would find her in spite of the
devil.  I meant it.  Knowles, I don't understand you.  When I came
to you thinking you her uncle and guardian, and asked your
permission to ask her to marry me, you gave that permission.  You
did.  You didn't tell me that she was nothing to you.  I don't
understand you at all.  You told my father a lot of rot--"

"I told your father the truth.  And, when I told you that she had
left no message for you, that was the truth also.  I have no reason
to believe she cares for you--"

"And none to think that she doesn't.  At all events she did not
tell ME not to follow her.  She did tell you.  Why are you
following her?"

It was a question I could not answer--to him.  That reason no one
should know.  And yet what excuse could I give, after all my
protestations?

"I--I feel that I have the right, everything considered," I
stammered.  "She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's."

"And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that
you both make no attempt to learn where she was.  The whole affair
is beyond understanding.  What the truth may be--"

"Are you hinting that I have lied to you?"

"I am not hinting at anything.  All I can say is that it is deuced
queer, all of it.  And I sha'n't say more."

"Will you tell me--"

"I shall tell you nothing.  That would be her wish, according to
your own statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't."

I rose to my feet.  There was little use in an open quarrel between
us and I was by far the older man.  Yes, and his position was
infinitely stronger than mine, as he understood it.  But I never
was more strongly tempted.  He knew where she was.  He had seen
her.  The thought was maddening.

He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.

"Good morning, Doctor Bayliss," said I, and walked away.  I turned
as I reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back.  He was
still standing there, staring at me.

That afternoon I spent in my room.  There is little use describing
my feelings.  That she was in Paris I was sure now.  That Bayliss
had seen her I was equally sure.  But why had he spoken and looked
as he did when I first spoke of Heathcroft's story?  What had he
meant by saying something or other was "awful?"  And why had he
seemed so astonished, why had he laughed in that strange way when I
had said she was singing in a church?

That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.

"Is there any building here in Paris," I asked, "a building in
which people sing, which is called an abbey?  One that is not a
church or an abbey, but is called that?"

Louis looked at me in an odd way.  He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
embarrassment I should not have expected from him.

"Monsieur asks the question," he said, smiling.  "It was in my mind
last night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church.  There is
a place called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but--" he
hesitated, shrugged and then added, "but L'Abbaye is not a church.
No, it is not that."

"What is it?" I asked.

"A restaurant, Monsieur.  A cafe chantant at Montmartre."

Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken.  At
the hour when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the
Paris of which the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring,
Montmartre--or that section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated--
begins to open its eyes.  At ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the
square and pulled up at the curb, the electric signs were blazing,
the sidewalks were, if not yet crowded, at least well filled, and
the sounds of music from the open windows of The Dead Rat and the
other cafes with the cheerful names were mingling with noises of
the street.

Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak.  He had
told me that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite
useless.  Midnight was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I
would find it rather dull, triste.  But after that--Ah, Monsieur
would, at least, be entertained.

"But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of
whom he is in search there," he said.  "A relative is she not?"

Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my
quest to him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.

He smiled and shrugged.

"A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at
L'Abbaye," he said.  "But it is a most interesting place,
entertaining and chic.  Many English and American gentlemen sup
there after the theater."

I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening
was my sole reason for visiting the place.  He was certain I would
be pleased.

The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the "triste" hour
of ten-thirty.  Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the
stairs leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed
couples bound, as I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of
supper and entertainment.  I had, acting upon the concierge's hint,
arrayed myself in my evening clothes and I handed my silk hat,
purchased in London--where, as Hephzy said, "a man without a tall
hat is like a rooster without tail feathers"--to a polite and busy
attendant.  Then a personage with a very straight beard and a very
curly mustache, ushered me into the main dining-room.

"Monsieur would wish seats for how many?" he asked, in French.

"For myself only," I answered, also in French.  His next remark was
in English.  I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a
Parisian in his native language, he usually answered in mine.  This
may have been because of a desire to please me, or in self-defence;
I am inclined to think the latter.

"Ah, for one only.  This way, Monsieur."

I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner.
There were plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was
apparently reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate
he did not offer one to me.  I took the seat indicated.

"I shall wish to remain here for some time?" I said.  "Probably the
entire--" I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether
to say "evening" or "morning."  At last I said "night" as a
compromise.

The bearded person seemed doubtful.

"There will be a great demand later," he said.  "To oblige Monsieur
is of course our desire, but. . . .  Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will
see that Monsieur is not disturbed."

The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in
restaurants.  He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter
to take my order.

I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in
the waiter's estimation.  However, after a glance at my fellow-
diners at nearby tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a
bottle of extremely expensive wine.  I had had the idea that, being
in France, the home of champagne, that beverage would be cheap or,
at least, moderately priced.  But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be
erroneous.

The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed.
I did not care.  I had not come there to eat--or to drink, either,
for that matter.  I had come--I scarcely knew why I had come.  That
Frances Morley would be singing in a place like this I did not
believe.  This was the sort of "abbey" that A. Carleton Heathcroft
would be most likely to visit, that was true, but that he had seen
her here was most improbable.  The coincidence of the "abbey" name
would not have brought me there, of itself.  Herbert Bayliss had
given me to understand, although he had not said it, that she was
not singing in a church and he had found the idea of her being
where she was "awful."  It was because of what he had said that I
had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope.  Of course she
would not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that
was impossible.

How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the
next hour.  There was nothing particularly "awful" about L'Abbaye
of itself--at first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the
awfulness was well covered.  The program of entertainment was awful
enough, if deadly mediocrity is awful.  A big darkey, dressed in a
suit which reminded me of the "end man" at an old-time minstrel
show, sang "My Alabama Coon," accompanying himself, more or less
intimately, on the banjo.  I could have heard the same thing,
better done, at a ten cent theater in the States, where this chap
had doubtless served an apprenticeship.  However, the audience,
which was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the bellowing
enjoyable and applauded loudly.  Then a feminine person did a
Castilian dance between the tables.  I was ready to declare a
second war with Spain when she had finished.  Then there was an
orchestral interval, during which the tables filled.

The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became
more certain each minute, to my mind.  I called the waiter.

"Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?" I asked, in my
lame French.

He shook his head.  "Non, Monsieur," he answered, absently, and
hastened on with the bottle he was carrying.

Apparently that settled it.  I might as well go.  Then I decided to
remain a little longer.  After all, I was there, and I, or
Heathcroft, might have misunderstood the name.  I would stay for a
while.

The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end.
There were several couples, male and female, and a number of
unattached young ladies, well-dressed, pretty for the most part,
and vivacious and inclined to be companionable.  They chatted with
their neighbors and would have chatted with me if I had been in the
mood.  For the matter of that everyone talked with everyone else,
in French or English, good, bad and indifferent, and there was much
laughter and gaiety.  L'Abbaye was wide awake by this time.

The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared,
followed by a dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags
containing little celluloid balls, red, white, and blue.  They were
distributed among the feminine guests.  The parasols, it developed,
were to be waved and the balls to be thrown.  You were supposed to
catch as many as were thrown at you and throw them back.  It was
wonderful fun--or would have been for children--and very, very
amusing--after the second bottle.

For my part I found it very stupid.  As I have said at least once
in this history I am not what is called a "good mixer" and in an
assemblage like this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a
hot stove.  Worse than that, for the ice would have melted and I
congealed the more.  My bottle of champagne remained almost
untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced on the top of my head I
did not scream "Whoopee!  Bullseye!" as my American neighbors did
or "Voila!  Touche!" like the French.  There were plenty of
Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a good
time, but their good time was incomprehensible to me.  This was
"gay Paris," of course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and
artificial and silly, except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye.  If I
had been getting the price for food and liquids which they received
I might, perhaps, have been gay.

The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough.  He had early
discovered my nationality and did his best to be entertaining.
When a performer from the Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard
des Italiens, sang a distressing love ballad in a series of shrieks
like those of a circular saw in a lumber mill, this person shouted
his "Bravos" with the rest and then, waving his hands before my
face, called for, "De cheer Americain!  One, two, tree--Heep!
Heep!  Heep!  Oo--ray-y-y!"  I did not join in "the cheer
Americain," but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which caused
the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted approval.
She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at last.
She was never more mistaken.

It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye.
I had not enjoyed myself--had not expected to, so far as that went.
I hope I am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness
had no part in my feelings then.  Under ordinary circumstances I
should not have enjoyed myself in a place like that.  Mine is not
the temperament--I shouldn't know how.  I must have appeared the
most solemn ass in creation, and if I had come there with the idea
of amusement, I should have felt like one.  As it was, my feeling
was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.  Certainly I did
not wish--now that I had seen L'Abbaye--to find Frances Morley
there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.

I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up.  I gave one look about
the crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down
again.  I had seen Herbert Bayliss.  He had, apparently, just
entered and a waiter was finding a seat for him at a table some
distance away and on the opposite side of the great room.

There was no doubt about it; it was he.  My heart gave a bound that
almost choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my
brain.  He had come to Paris to find her, he had found her--in our
conversation he had intimated as much.  And now, he was here at the
"Abbey."  Why?  Was it here that he had found her?  Was she singing
here after all?

Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair.  I
did not wish him to see me.  Fortunately the lady opposite waved
her paper parasol just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he
was concerned.  When the eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.

The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in
the clear space at the center of the room between the tables and
waved his hands.  He was either much excited or wished to seem so.
He shouted something in French which I could not understand.  There
was a buzz of interest all about me; then the place grew still--or
stiller.  Something was going to happen, that was evident.  I
leaned toward my voluble neighbor, the French gentleman who had
called for "de cheer Americain."

"What is it?" I asked.  "What is the matter?"

He ignored, or did not hear, my question.  The bearded person was
still waving his hands.  The orchestra burst into a sort of
triumphal march and then into the open space between the tables
came--Frances Morley.

She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or
powdered to the extent that women who had sung before her had been,
her hair was simply dressed.  She looked thinner than she had when
I last saw her, but otherwise she was unchanged.  In that place,
amid the lights and the riot of color, the silks and satins and
jewels, the flushed faces of the crowd, she stood and bowed, a
white rose in a bed of tiger lilies, and the crowd rose and shouted
at her.

The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood
up, his violin at his shoulder.  He played a bar or two and she
began to sing.

She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French.  There was
nothing sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing
which should have appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye.  And her
voice, although sweet and clear and pure, was not extraordinary.
And yet, when she had finished, there was a perfect storm of
"Bravos."  Parasols waved, flowers were thrown, and a roar of
applause lasted for minutes.  Why this should have been is a puzzle
to me even now.  Perhaps it was because of her clean, girlish
beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so different;
perhaps because of the mystery concerning her.  I don't know.  Then
I did not ask.  I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head
to foot, and looking at her.  I had never expected to see her again
and now she was before my eyes--here in this place.

She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and
glory and the victory of the Tri-Color.  And again she swept them
off their feet.  She bowed and smiled in answer to their applause
and, motioning to the orchestra leader, began without accompaniment,
"Loch Lomond," in English.  It was one of the songs I had asked her
to sing at the rectory, one I had found in the music cabinet, one
that her mother and mine had sung years before.


    "Ye'll take the high road
     And I'll take the low road,
     And I'll be in Scotland afore ye--"


I was on my feet.  I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
standing, leaning across the table, looking at her.  There were
cries of "Sit down" in English and other cries in French.  There
were tugs at my coat tails.


    "But me and my true love
     Shall never meet again,
     By the bonny, bonny banks
     Of Loch--"


She saw me.  The song stopped.  I saw her turn white, so white that
the rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots.  She looked at me
and I at her.  Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and
almost ran from the room.

I should have followed her, then and there, I think.  I was on my
way around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and
feminine skirts.  But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained
me and the crowd was so dense that I could not push through it.  It
was an excited crowd, too.  For a moment there had been a surprised
silence, but now everyone was exclaiming and talking in his or her
native language.

"Oh, I say!  What happened?  What made her do that?" demanded the
stout Englishman.  Then he politely requested me to get off his
foot.

The bearded manager--or proprietor--was waving his hands once more
and begging attention and silence.  He got both, in a measure.
Then he made his announcement.

He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot--That was
it, Guinot, not Juno or Junotte--had been seized with a most
regrettable illness.  She had been unable to continue her
performance.  It was not serious, but she could sing no more that
evening.  To-morrow evening--ah, yes.  Most certainly.  But to-
night--no.  Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the most famous Engleesh comedy
artiste would now entertain the patrons of L'Abbaye.  He begged, he
entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.

I did not wait for "Monsieur Hairee."  I forced my way to the door.
As I passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss.
He was on his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill.  I
had so much start, at all events.

Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed.  Another
man with a beard--he looked enough like the other to be his
brother, and perhaps he was--got in my way at last.  A million or
more pardons, but Monsieur could not go in that direction.  The
exit was there, pointing.

As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
explained that I did not wish to find the exit.  I was a friend, a--
yes, a--er--relative of the young lady who had just sung and who
had been taken ill.  I wanted to go to her.

Another million pardons, but that was impossible.  I did not
understand, Mademoiselle was--well, she did not see gentlemen.  She
was--with the most expressive of shrugs--peculiar.  She desired no
friends.  It was--ah--quite impossible.

I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand.  Would he
give Mademoiselle my card?  Would he tell her that I must see her,
if only for a minute?  Just give her the card and tell her that.

He shook his head, smiling but firm.  I could have punched him for
the smile, but instead I took other measures.  I reached into my
pocket, found some gold pieces--I have no idea how many or of what
denomination--and squeezed them in the hand with the card."  He
still smiled and shook his head, but his firmness was shaken.

"I will give the card," he said, "but I warn Monsieur it is quite
useless.  She will not see him."

The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
hurrying by me.  I caught his arm.

"Pardon, Monsieur," he protested, "but I must go.  The gentleman
yonder desires his bill."

"Don't give it to him," I whispered, trying hard to think of the
French words.  "Don't give it to him yet.  Keep him where he is for
a time."

I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket.
The waiter seemed surprised.

"Not give the bill?" he repeated.

"No, not yet."  I did my best to look wicked and knowing--"He and I
wish to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first."

That was sufficient--in Paris.  The waiter bowed low.

"Rest in peace, Monsieur," he said.  "The gentleman shall wait."

I waited also, for what seemed a long time.  Then the bearded one
reappeared.  He looked surprised but pleased.

"Bon, Monsieur," he whispered, patting my arm.  "She will see you.
You are to wait at the private door.  I will conduct you there.  It
is most unusual.  Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman."

At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase--decidedly lacking
in the white and gold of the other, the public one--I waited, for
another age.  The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and
the street outside was dark and dirty.  I waited on the narrow
sidewalk, listening to the roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the
corner, to the beating of my own heart, and for her footstep on the
stairs.

At last I heard it.  The door opened and she came out.  She wore a
cloak over her street costume and her hat was one that she had
bought in London with my money.  She wore a veil and I could not
see her face.

I seized her hands with both of mine.

"Frances!" I cried, chokingly.  "Oh, Frances!"

She withdrew her hands.  When she spoke her tone was quiet but very
firm.

"Why did you come here?" she asked.

"Why did I come?  Why--"

"Yes.  Why did you come?  Was it to find me?  Did you know I was
here?"

"I did not know.  I had heard--"

"Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?"

I hesitated.  So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.

"No," I answered, after a moment, "he did not tell me, exactly.
But I had heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in
Paris."

"And you followed me.  In spite of my letter begging you, for my
sake, not to try to find me.  Did you get that letter?"

"Yes, I got it."

"Then why did you do it?  Oh, WHY did you?"

For the first time there was a break in her voice.  We were
standing before the door.  The street, it was little more than an
alley, was almost deserted, but I felt it was not the place for
explanations.  I wanted to get her away from there, as far from
that dreadful "Abbey" as possible.  I took her arm.

"Come," I said, "I will tell you as we go.  Come with me now."

She freed her arm.

"I am not coming with you," she said.  "Why did you come here?"

"I came--I came--Why did YOU come?  Why did you leave us as you
did?  Without a word!"

She turned and faced me.

"You know why I left you," she said.  "You know.  You knew all the
time.  And yet you let me believe--You let me think--I lived upon
your money--I--I--Oh, don't speak of it!  Go away! please go away
and leave me."

"I am not going away--without you.  I came to get you to go back
with me.  You don't understand.  Your aunt and I want you to come
with us.  We want you to come and live with us again.  We--"

She interrupted.  I doubt if she had comprehended more than the
first few words of what I was saying.

"Please go away," she begged.  "I know I owe you money, so much
money.  I shall pay it.  I mean to pay it all.  At first I could
not.  I could not earn it.  I tried.  Oh, I tried SO hard!  In
London I tried and tried, but all the companies were filled, it was
late in the season and I--no one would have me.  Then I got this
chance through an agency.  I am succeeding here.  I am earning the
money at last.  I am saving--I have saved--And now you come to--Oh,
PLEASE go and leave me!"

Her firmness had gone.  She was on the verge of tears.  I tried to
take her hands again, but she would not permit it.

"I shall not go," I persisted, as gently as I could.  "Or when I go
you must go with me.  You don't understand."

"But I do understand.  My aunt--Miss Cahoon told me.  I understand
it all.  Oh, if I had only understood at first."

"But you don't understand--now.  Your aunt and I knew the truth
from the beginning.  That made no difference.  We were glad to have
you with us.  We want you to come back.  You are our relative--"

"I am not.  I am not really related to you in any way.  You know I
am not."

"You are related to Miss Cahoon.  You are her sister's daughter.
She wants you to come.  She wants you to live with us again, just
as you did before."

"She wants that!  She--But it was your money that paid for the very
clothes I wore.  Your money--not hers; she said so."

"That doesn't make any difference.  She wants you and--"

I was about to add "and so do I," but she did not permit me to
finish the sentence.  She interrupted again, and there was a change
in her tone.

"Stop!  Oh, stop!" she cried.  "She wanted me and--and so you--Did
you think I would consent?  To live upon your charity?"

"There is no charity about it."

"There is.  You know there is.  And you believed that I--knowing
what I know--that my father--my own father--"

"Hush! hush!  That is all past and done with."

"It may be for you, but not for me.  Mr. Knowles, your opinion of
me must be a very poor one.  Or your desire to please your aunt as
great as your--your charity to me.  I thank you both, but I shall
stay here.  You must go and you must not try to see me again."

There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much.  But
I was as firm as she was.

"I shall not go," I reiterated.  "I shall not leave you--in a place
like this.  It isn't a fit place for you to be in.  You know it is
not.  Good heavens! you MUST know it?"

"I know what the place is," she said quietly.

"You know!  And yet you stay here!  Why?  You can't like it!"

It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought.  She did
not answer.  Instead she began to walk toward the corner.  I
followed her.

"I beg your pardon," I stammered, contritely.  "I did not mean
that, of course.  But I cannot think of your singing night after
night in such a place--before those men and women.  It isn't right;
it isn't--you shall not do it."

She answered without halting in her walk.

"I shall do it," she said.  "They pay me well, very well, and I--I
need the money.  When I have earned and saved what I need I shall
give it up, of course.  As for liking the work--Like it!  Oh, how
can you!"

"I beg your pardon.  Forgive me.  I ought to be shot for saying
that.  I know you can't like it.  But you must not stay here.  You
must come with me."

"No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you.  And you must leave me
and never come back.  My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to
tell you that.  But--" she hesitated and then said, with quiet
emphasis, "you may tell my aunt not to worry about me.  In spite of
my singing in a cafe chantant I shall keep my self-respect.  I
shall not be--like those others.  And when I have paid my debt--I
can't pay my father's; I wish I could--I shall send you the money.
When I do that you will know that I have resigned my present
position and am trying to find a more respectable one.  Good-by."

We had reached the corner.  Beyond was the square, with its lights
and its crowds of people and vehicles.  I seized her arm.

"It shall not be good-by," I cried, desperately.  "I shall not let
you go."

"You must."

"I sha'n't.  I shall come here night after night until you consent
to come back to Mayberry."

She stopped then.  But when she spoke her tone was firmer than
ever.

"Then you will force me to give it up," she said.  "Before I came
here I was very close to--There were days when I had little or
nothing to eat, and, with no prospects, no hope, I--if you don't
leave me, Mr. Knowles, if you do come here night after night, as
you say, you may force me to that again.  You can, of course, if
you choose; I can't prevent you.  But I shall NOT go back to
Mayberry.  Now, will you say good-by?"

She meant it.  If I persisted in my determination she would do as
she said; I was sure of it.

"I am.  sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me,
against my will," she went on.  "If she cares for me at all she
would not wish that.  You have done your best to please her.  I--I
thank you both.  Good-by."

What could I do, or say?

"Good-by," I faltered.

She turned and started across the square.  A flying cab shut her
from my view.  And then I realized what was happening, realized it
and realized, too, what it meant.  She should not go; I would not
let her leave me nor would I leave her.  I sprang after her.

The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars.  The Abbey and
The Dead Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the
street.  Paris traffic regulations are lax and uncertain.  I dodged
between a limousine and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just
as she reached the opposite sidewalk.

"Frances!" I called.  "Frances!"

She turned and saw me.  Then I heard my own name shouted from the
sidewalk I had just left.

"Knowles!  Knowles!"

I looked over my shoulder.  Herbert Bayliss was at the curb.  He
was shaking a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.

"Knowles!" he shouted.  "Stop!  I want to see you."

I did not reply.  Instead I ran on.  I saw her face among the crowd
and upon it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.

"Kent!  Kent!" she cried.  "Oh, be careful!  KENT!"

There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being
thrown into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of
the street.  And there my recollections end, for the time.



CHAPTER XVI

In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid


Not for a very long time.  They begin again--those recollections--a
few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break
off alternately, over and over again.

The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the
Paris pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at
my collar and holding my wrist.  This someone, a man, a stranger,
said in French:

"He is not dead, Mademoiselle."

And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:

"You are sure, Doctor?  You are sure?  Oh, thank God!"

I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker--whom I decided,
for some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy--and to tell her that
of course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was
another blank.

The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a
throbbing, savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a
wish that the buzzing in my ears would stop.  It did not stop, on
the contrary it grew louder and there was a squeak and rumble and
rattle along with it.  A head--particularly a head bumped as hard
as mine had been--might be expected to buzz, but it should not
rattle, or squeak either.  Gradually I began to understand that the
rattle and squeak were external and I was in some sort of vehicle,
a sleeping car apparently, for I seemed to be lying down.  I tried
to rise and ask a question and a hand was laid on my forehead and a
voice--the voice which I had decided was Hephzy's--said, gently:

"Lie still.  You mustn't move.  Lie still, please.  We shall be
there soon."

Where "there" might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to
ask, so I drifted off again.

Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me--or
trying to.  And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.

"Here!  What are you doing?" I asked.  "I am all right.  Let go of
me.  Let go, I tell you."

Again the voice--it sounded less and less like Hephzy's--saying:

"Don't!  Please don't!  You mustn't move."

But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
process.

"What are they doing to me?" I asked.  "Where am I?  Hephzy, where
am I?"

"You are at the hospital.  You have been hurt and we are taking you
to the hospital.  Lie still and they will carry you in."

That woke me more thoroughly.

"Nonsense!" I said, as forcefully as I could.  "Nonsense!  I'm not
badly hurt.  I am all right now.  I don't want to go to a hospital.
I won't go there.  Take me to the hotel.  I am all right, I tell
you."

The man's voice--the doctor's, I learned afterward--broke in,
ordering me to be quiet.  But I refused to be quiet.  I was not
going to be taken to any hospital.

"I am all right," I declared.  "Or I shall be in a little while.
Take me to my hotel.  I will be looked after, there.  Hephzy will
look after me."

The doctor continued to protest--in French--and I to affirm--in
English.  Also I tried to stand.  At length my declarations of
independence seemed to have some effect, for they ceased trying to
lift me.  A dialogue in French followed.  I heard it with growing
impatience.

"Hephzy," I said, fretfully.  "Hephzy, make them take me to my
hotel.  I insist upon it."

"Which hotel is it?  Kent--Kent, answer me.  What is the name of
the hotel?"

I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it.  There was
more argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak
began again.  The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried
to my room and hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited
questioning and command.

After that my recollections are clearer.  But it was broad daylight
when I became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was.
I was in my room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the
window and Hephzy--I still supposed it was Hephzy--was sitting by
that window.  And for the first time it occurred to me that she
should not have been there; by all that was right and proper she
should be waiting for me in Interlaken.

"Hephzy," I said, weakly, "when did you get here?"

The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside.  It was not
Hephzy.  With a thrill I realized who it was.

"Frances!" I cried.  "Frances!  Why--what--"

"Hush!  You mustn't talk.  You mustn't.  You must be quiet and keep
perfectly still.  The doctor said so."

"But what happened?  How did I get here?  What--?"

"Hush!  There was an accident; you were hurt.  We brought you here
in a carriage.  Don't you remember?"

What I remembered was provokingly little.

"I seem to remember something," I said.  "Something about a
hospital.  Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I
wouldn't go.  Hephzy--No, it couldn't have been Hephzy.  Was it--
was it you?"

"Yes.  We were taking you to the hospital.  We did take you there,
but as they were taking you from the ambulance you--"

"Ambulance!  Was I in an ambulance?  What happened to me?  What
sort of an accident was it?"

"Please don't try to talk.  You must not talk."

"I won't if you tell me that.  What happened?"

"Don't you remember?  I left you and crossed the street.  You
followed me and then--and then you stopped.  And then--Oh, don't
ask me!  Don't!"

"I know.  Now I do remember.  It was that big motor car.  I saw it
coming.  But who brought me here?  You--I remember you; I thought
you were Hephzy.  And there was someone else."

"Yes, the doctor--the doctor they called--and Doctor Bayliss."

"Doctor Bayliss!  Herbert Bayliss, do you mean?  Yes, I saw him at
the 'Abbey'--and afterward.  Did he come here with me?"

"Yes.  He was very kind.  I don't know what I should have done if
it had not been for him.  Now you MUST not speak another word."

I did not, for a few moments.  I lay there, feebly trying to think,
and looking at her.  I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course,
but I wished--even then I wished someone else and not he had helped
me.  I did not like to be under obligations to him.  I liked him,
too; he was a good fellow and I had always liked him, but I did not
like THAT.

She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.

"Don't go," I said.

She came back almost immediately.

"It is time for your medicine," she said.

I took the medicine.  She turned away once more.

"Don't go," I repeated.

"I am not going.  Not for the present."

I was quite contented with the present.  The future had no charms
just then.  I lay there, looking at her.  She was paler and thinner
than she had been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin
as when I first met her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging
house.  And there was another change, a subtle, undefinable change
in her manner and appearance that puzzled me.  Then I realized what
it was; she had grown older, more mature.  In Mayberry she had been
an extraordinarily pretty girl.  Now she was a beautiful woman.
These last weeks had worked the change.  And I began to understand
what she had undergone during those weeks.

"Have you been with me ever since it happened--since I was hurt?" I
asked, suddenly.

"Yes, of course."

"All night?"

She smiled.  "There was very little of the night left," she
answered.

"But you have had no rest at all.  You must be worn out."

"Oh, no; I am used to it.  My--" with a slight pause before the
word--"work of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime.
And I shall rest by and by, when my aunt--when Miss Cahoon comes."

"Miss Cahoon?  Hephzy?  Have you sent for her?"

My tone of surprise startled her, I think.  She looked at me.

"Sent for her?" she repeated.  "Isn't she here--in Paris?"

"She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria.  Didn't the concierge tell
you?"

"He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present.  He said
she had gone away with some friends.  But we took it for granted
she was in Paris.  I told them I would stay until she came.  I--"

I interrupted.

"Stay until she comes!" I repeated.  "Stay--!  Why you can't do
that!  You can't!  You must not!"

"Hush! hush!  Remember you are ill.  Think of yourself!"

"Of myself!  I am thinking of you.  You mustn't stay here--with me.
What will they think?  What--"

"Hush! hush, please.  Think!  It makes no difference what they
think.  If I had cared what people thought I should not be singing
at--Hush! you must not excite yourself in this way."

But I refused to hush.

"You must not!" I cried.  "You shall not!  Why did you do it?  They
could have found a nurse, if one was needed.  Bayliss--"

"Doctor Bayliss does not know.  If he did I should not care.  As
for the others--" she colored, slightly,

"Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle.  It was only a
white lie; you used to say you were, you know."

"Say!  Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please--"

"Hush!  Do you suppose," her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed
as I had seen them flash before, "do you suppose I would go away
and leave you now?  Now, when you are hurt and ill and--and--after
all that you have done!  After I treated you as I did!  Oh, let me
do something!  Let me do a little, the veriest little in return.
I--Oh, stop! stop!  What are you doing?"

I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my
elbow.  Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the
agonizing pain in my side.  And after that there is another long
interval in my recollections.

For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my
memories consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the
hours immediately following the accident.  I remember people
talking, but not what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I
do, and the touch of her hand on my forehead.  And afterward, other
voices, Hephzy's in particular.  But when I came to myself, weak
and shaky, but to remain myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real
Hephzy--was in the room with me.

Even then they would not let me ask questions.  Another day dragged
by before I was permitted to do that.  Then Hephzy told me I had a
cracked rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered
slight concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to
behave myself and get well.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "there was a time when I thought you
never was goin' to get well.  Hour after hour I've set here and
listened to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and
nothin' in particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip,
and thought and thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do.  And
now I KNOW what I'm goin' to do.  I'm goin' to keep you in that bed
till you're strong and well enough to get out of it, if I have to
sit on you to hold you down.  And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes
to perchin', either."

She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
Interlaken post haste.

"And I don't know," she declared, "which part of that telegram
upset me most--what there was in it or the name signed at the
bottom of it.  HER name!  I couldn't believe my eyes.  I didn't
stop to believe 'em long.  I just came.  And then I found you like
this."

"Was she here?" I asked.

"Who--Frances!  My, yes, she was here.  So pale and tired lookin'
that I thought she was goin' to collapse.  But she wouldn't give in
to it.  She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor
said and everything.  I didn't pay much attention to it then.  All
I could think of was you.  Oh, Hosy! my poor boy!  I--I--"

"There! there!" I broke in, gently.  "I'm all right now, or I'm
going to be.  You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while
longer.  But," returning to the subject which interested me most,
"what else did she tell you?  Did she tell you how I met her--and
where?"

"Why, yes.  She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly,
but it is in some kind of opera-house, I judged.  There's a
perfectly beautiful opera-house a little ways from here on the
Avenue de L'Opera, right by the Boulevard des Italiens, though
there's precious few Italians there, far's I can see.  And why an
opera is a l'opera I--"

"Wait a moment, Hephzy.  Did she tell you of our meeting?  And how
I found her?"

"Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy.  She's acted kind of queer about
that, seemed to me.  She said you went to this opera-house,
wherever it was, and saw her there.  Then you and she were crossin'
the road and one of these dreadful French automobiles--the way they
let the things tear round is a disgrace--ran into you.  I declare!
It almost made ME sick to hear about it.  And to think of me away
off amongst those mountains, enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a
thing!  Oh, it makes me ashamed to look in the glass.  I NEVER
ought to have left you alone, and I knew it.  It's a judgment on
me, what's happened is."

"Or on me, I should rather say," I added.  Frances had not told
Hephzy of L'Abbaye, that was evident.  Well, I would keep silence
also.

"Where is she now?" I asked.  I asked it with as much indifference
as I could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.

"Oh, she comes every day to ask about you," she said.  "And Doctor
Bayliss comes too.  He's been real kind."

"Bayliss!" I exclaimed.  "Is he with--Does he come here?"

"Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does.  He
hasn't been here for two days now, though.  Hosy, do you suppose he
has spoken to her about--about what he spoke to you?"

"I don't know," I answered, curtly.  Then I changed the subject.

"Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?" I
asked.  "Have you told her how we feel toward her?"

Hephzy's manner changed.  "Yes," she said, reluctantly, "I've told
her.  I've told her everything."

"Not everything?  Hephzy, you haven't told her--"

"No, no.  Of course I didn't tell her THAT.  You know I wouldn't,
Hosy.  But I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our
money didn't make a mite of difference.  I told her how much we
come to think of her and how we wanted her to come with us and be
the same as she had always been.  I begged her to come.  I said
everything I could say."

"And she said?"

"She said no, Hosy.  She wouldn't consider it at all.  She asked me
not to talk about it.  It was settled, she said.  She must go her
way and we ours and we must forget her.  She was more grateful than
she could tell--she most cried when she said that--but she won't
come back and if I asked her again she declared she should have to
go away for good."

"I know.  That is what she said to me."

"Yes.  I can't make it out exactly.  It's her pride, I suppose.
Her mother was just as proud.  Oh, dear!  When I saw her here for
the first time, after I raced back from Interlaken, I thought--I
almost hoped--but I guess it can't be."

I did not answer.  I knew only too well that it could not be.

"Does she seem happy?" I asked.

"Why, no; I don't think she is happy.  There are times, especially
when you began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last
few times she was here she was--well, different."

"How different?"

"It's hard to tell you.  She looked sort of worn and sad and
discouraged.  Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Some things you said when you were out of your
head made me wonder.  That, and some talk I overheard her and
Doctor Bayliss havin' one time when they were in the other room--my
room--together.  I had stepped out for a minute and when I came
back, I came in this door instead of the other.  They were in the
other room talkin' and he was beggin' her not to stay somewhere any
more.  It wasn't a fit place for her to be, he said; her reputation
would be ruined.  She cut him short by sayin' that her reputation
was her own and that she should do as she thought best, or
somethin' like that.  Then I coughed, so they would know I was
around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else.  But it set
me thinkin' and when you said--"

She paused.  "What did I say?" I asked.

"Why, 'twas when she and I were here.  You had been quiet for a
while and all at once you broke out--delirious you was--beggin'
somebody or other not to do somethin'.  For your sake, for their
own sake, they mustn't do it.  'Twas awful to hear you.  A mixed-up
jumble about Abbie, whoever she is--not much, by the way you went
on about her--and please, please, please, for the Lord's sake, give
it up.  I tried to quiet you, but you wouldn't be quieted.  And
finally you said:  'Frances!  Oh, Frances! don't!  Say that you
won't any more.'  I gave you your sleepin' drops then; I thought
'twas time.  I was afraid you'd say somethin' that you wouldn't
want her to hear.  You understand, don't you, Hosy?"

"I understand.  Thank you, Hephzy."

"Yes.  Well, _I_ didn't understand and I asked her if she did.
She said no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did
understand, in spite of her sayin' it.  What sort of a place is it,
this opera-house where she sings?"

I dodged the question as best I could.  I doubt if Hephzy's
suspicions were allayed, but she did not press the subject.
Instead she told me I had talked enough for that afternoon and must
rest.

That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident.
He congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help
in bringing me to the hotel.  He waved my thanks aside.

"Quite unnecessary, thanking me," he said, shortly.  "I couldn't do
anything else, of course.  Well, I must be going.  Glad you're
feeling more fit, Knowles, I'm sure."

"And you?" I asked.  "How are you?"

"I?  Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose.  Good-by."

He didn't look fit.  He looked more haggard and worn and moody than
ever.  And his manner was absent and distrait.  Hephzy noticed it;
there were few things she did not notice.

"Either that boy's meals don't agree with him," she announced, "or
somethin's weighin' on his mind.  He looks as if he'd lost his last
friend.  Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to--to her about what he
spoke of to you?"

"I don't know.  I suppose he has.  He was only too anxious to
speak, there in Mayberry."

"Humph!  Well, IF he has, then--Hosy, sometimes I think this, all
this pilgrimage of ours--that's what you used to call it, a
pilgrimage--is goin' to turn out right, after all.  Don't it remind
you of a book, this last part of it?"

"A dismal sort of book," I said, gloomily.

"Well, I don't know.  Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the
heroine.  And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care
of him--she WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she
falls in love with him and--"

"Yes," I observed, sarcastically.  "She always does--in books.  But
in those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug.  Suppose we
stick to real life and possibilities, Hephzy."

Hephzy was unconvinced.  "I don't care," she said.  "She ought to
even if she doesn't.  _I_ fell in love with you long ago, Hosy.
And she DID bring you here after you were hurt and took care of
you."

"Hush! hush!" I broke in.  "She took care of me, as you call it,
because she thought it was her duty.  She thinks she is under great
obligation to us because we did not pitch her into the street when
we first met her.  She insists that she owes us money and
gratitude.  Her kindness to me and her care are part payment of the
debt.  She told me so, herself."

"But--"

"There aren't any 'buts.'  You mustn't be an idiot because I have
been one, Hephzy.  We agreed not to speak of that again.  Don't
remind me of it."

Hephzy sighed.  "All right," she said.  "I suppose you are right,
Hosy.  But--but how is all this goin' to end?  She won't go with
us.  Are we goin' to leave her here alone?"

I was silent.  The same question was in my mind, but I had answered
it.  I was NOT going to leave her there alone.  And yet--

"If I was sure," mused Hephzy, "that she was in love with Herbert
Bayliss, then 'twould be all right, I suppose.  They would get
married and it would be all right--or near right--wouldn't it,
Hosy."

I said nothing.

The next morning I saw her.  She came to inquire for me and Hephzy
brought her into my room for a stay of a minute or two.  She seemed
glad to find me so much improved in health and well on the road to
recovery.  I tried to thank her for her care of me, for her sending
for Hephzy and all the rest of it, but she would not listen.  She
chatted about Paris and the French people, about Monsieur Louis,
the concierge, and joked with Hephzy about that gentleman's
admiration for "the wonderful American lady," meaning Hephzy
herself.

"He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'" she said, "and he thinks you a
miracle of decision and management.  I think he is almost afraid of
you, I really do."

Hephzy smiled, grimly.  "He'd better be," she declared.  "The way
everybody was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from
Interlaken, and the way the help jabbered and hunched up their
shoulders when I asked questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep
still.  I wanted an egg for breakfast, that first mornin' and when
the waiter brought it, it was in the shell, the way they eat eggs
over here.  I can't eat 'em that way--I'm no weasel--and I told the
waiter I wanted an egg cup.  Nigh as I could make out from his
pigeon English he was tellin' me there was a cup there.  Well,
there was, one of those little, two-for-a-cent contraptions, just
big enough to stick one end of the egg into.  'I want a big one,'
says I.  'We, Madame,' says he, and off he trotted.  When he came
back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I guess 'twas.  Then I
scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he went and fetched
this Monsieur Louis man.  He could speak English, thank goodness,
and he was real nice, in his French way.  He begged my pardon for
the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like of
that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin' till I almost
had a fit.

"'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it.  If that
last egg hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an--an
ostrich, or somethin' or other, by this time.  And it's stone cold,
of course.  Have this--this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot
egg--a hen's egg--opened, in a cup big enough to see without
spectacles, and tell him to bring some cream with the coffee.  At
any rate, if there isn't any cream, have him bring some real milk
instead of this watery stuff.  I might wash clothes with that, for
I declare I think there's bluin' in it, but I sha'n't drink it; I'd
be afraid of swallowin' a fish by accident.  And do hurry!'

"He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since
then he's been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything
satisfactory.'  I suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did,
he means well--it isn't his fault, or the waiter's either, that
they can't talk without wavin' their hands as if they were givin'
three cheers--but I was terribly nervous that mornin' and I barked
like a tied-up dog.  Oh dear, Hosy! if ever I missed you and your
help it's in this blessed country."

Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high
spirits; but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were
assumed for our benefit.  At the first hint of questioning
concerning her own life, where she lodged or what her plans might
be, she rose and announced that she must go.

Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and
always refusing to speak of herself or her plans.  Hephzy and I,
finding that a reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination
of the call, ceased trying to question.  And we did not mention our
life at the rectory, either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to
discuss.  Once, when I spoke of our drive to Wrayton, she began a
reply, stopped in the middle of a sentence, and then left the room.

Hephzy hastened after her.  She returned alone.

"She was cryin', Hosy," she said.  "She said she wasn't, but she
was.  The poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable.
But she's so proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put
my arms around her and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away
and never come back.  Do you notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie'
once.  And she always used to--at the rectory.  I'm afraid--I'm
afraid she's just as determined as she was when she ran away, never
to live with us again.  What SHALL we do?"

I did not know and I did not dare to think.  I was as certain that
these visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only
things which made my life bearable.  How I did look forward to
them!  And while she was there, with us, how short the time seemed
and how it dragged when she had gone.  The worst thing possible for
me, this seeing her and being with her; I knew it.  I knew it
perfectly well.  But, knowing it, and realizing that it could not
last and that it was but the prelude to a worse loneliness which
was sure to come, made no difference.  I dreaded to be well again,
fearing that would mean the end of those visits.

But I was getting well and rapidly.  I sat up for longer and longer
periods each day.  I began to read my letters now, instead of
having Hephzy read them to me, letters from Matthews at the London
office and from Jim Campbell at home.  Matthews had cabled Jim of
the accident and later that I was recovering.  So Jim wrote,
professing to find material gain in the affair.

"Great stuff," he wrote.  "Two chapters at least.  The hero,
pursuing the villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is
run down by an auto driven by said villain.  'Ah ha!' says the
villain:  'Now will you be good?' or words to that effect.
'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly, as they extract the
cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the moment, but
beware! there will be something doing later on.'  See?  If it
wasn't for the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it
happened.  All you need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to
recovery.  Can't you find her?"

He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel
was less likely to be finished than ever.

Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks
which I insisted upon.  She had some queer experiences in these
walks.

"Lost again to-day, Hosy," she said, cheerfully, removing her
bonnet.  "I went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard
and they were so narrow and so crooked--to say nothin' of bein'
dirty and smelly--that I thought I never should get out.  Of course
I could have hired a hack and let it bring me to the hotel but I
wouldn't do that.  I was set on findin' my own way.  I'd walked in
and I was goin' to walk out, that was all there was to it.
'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris place and I've
got a system of my own.  When I get to the square 'Place delay
Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am.  And 'Concorde' is
enough like Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name.  So I
walk up to a nice appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers--
I didn't know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East
Harniss, or some other back number place--and I say, 'Pardon,
Monseer.  Place delay Concorde?'  Just like that with a question
mark after it.  After I say it two or three times he begins to get
a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin' at and says he:  'Place delay
Concorde?  Oh, we, we, we, Madame!'  Then a whole string of jabber
and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle of it.  Now I've
learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he means for me to
keep on for two or three more streets in the way he's pointin'.  So
I keep on, and, when I get there, I go through the whole rigamarole
with another Frenchman.  About the third session and I'm back on
the Concord Place.  THERE I am all right.  No, I don't propose to
stay lost long.  My father and grandfather and all my men folks
spent their lives cruisin' through crooked passages and crowded
shoals and I guess I've inherited some of the knack."

At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's
company.  I returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me.  She was
going to do a little shopping by herself.  I went to my room and
sat down to rest.  A bell boy--at least that is what we should have
called him in the States--knocked at the door.

"A lady to see Monsieur," he said.

The lady was Frances.

She entered the room and I rose to greet her.

"Why, you are alone!" she exclaimed.  "Where is Miss Cahoon?"

"She is out, on a shopping expedition," I explained.  "She will be
back soon.  I have been out too.  We have been driving together.
What do you think of that!"

She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait
for Hephzy's return she hesitated.  Her hesitation, however, was
only momentary.  She took the chair by the window and we chatted
together, of my newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a
pathfinder in Paris, of the weather, of a dozen inconsequential
things.  I found it difficult to sustain my part in the conversation.
There was so much of real importance which I wanted to say.  I
wanted to ask her about herself, where she lodged, if she was still
singing at L'Abbaye, what her plans for the future might be.  And I
did not dare.

My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed
uneasy and absent-minded.  At length there was an interval of
silence.  She broke that silence.

"I suppose," she said, "you will be going back to Mayberry soon."

"Back to Mayberry?" I repeated.

"Yes.  You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that
you are strong enough to travel.  She told me that the American
friends with whom you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed
their plans and were going on to Italy.  She said that she had
written them that your proposed Continental trip was abandoned."

"Yes.  Yes, that was given up, of course."

"Then you will go back to England, will you not?"

"I don't know.  We have made no plans as yet."

"But you will go back.  Miss Cahoon said you would.  And, when your
lease of the rectory expires, you will sail for America."

"I don't know."

"But you must know," with a momentary impatience.  "Surely you
don't intend to remain here in Paris."

"I don't know that, either.  I haven't considered what I shall do.
It depends--that is--"

I did not finish the sentence.  I had said more than I intended and
it was high time I stopped.  But I had said too much, as it was.
She asked more questions.

"Upon what does it depend?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing.  I did not mean that it depended upon anything in
particular.  I--"

"You must have meant something.  Tell me--answer me truthfully,
please:  Does it depend upon me?"

Of course that was just what it did depend upon.  And suddenly I
determined to tell her so.

"Frances," I demanded, "are you still there--at that place?"

"At L'Abbaye.  Yes."

"You sing there every night?"

"Yes."

"Why do you do it?  You know--"

"I know everything.  But you know, too.  I told you I sang there
because I must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the
only place where I can earn it.  They pay me well there, and the
people--the proprietors--are considerate and kind, in their way."

"But it isn't a fit place for you.  And you don't like it; I know
you don't."

"No," quietly.  "I don't like it."

"Then don't do it.  Give it up."

"If I give it up what shall I do?"

"You know.  Come back with us and live with us as you did before.
I want you; Hephzy is crazy to have you.  We--she has missed you
dreadfully.  She grieves for you and worries about you.  We offer
you a home and--"

She interrupted.  "Please don't," she said.  "I have told you that
that is impossible.  It is.  I shall never go back to Mayberry."

"But why?  Your aunt--"

"Don't!  My aunt is very kind--she has been so kind that I cannot
bear to speak of her.  Her kindness and--and yours are the few
pleasant memories that I have--of this last dreadful year.  To
please you both I would do anything--anything--except--"

"Don't make any exceptions.  Come with us.  If not to Mayberry,
then somewhere else.  Come to America with us."

"No."

"Frances--"

"Don't!  My mind is made up.  Please don't speak of that again."

Again I realized the finality in her tone.  The same finality was
in mine as I answered.

"Then I shall stay here," I declared.  "I shall not leave you
alone, without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night
after night in that place.  I shall not do it.  I shall stay here
as long as you do."

She was silent.  I wondered what was coming next.  I expected her
to say, as she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up
her one opportunity.  I expected reproaches and was doggedly
prepared to meet them.  But she did not reproach me.  She said
nothing; instead she seemed to be thinking, to be making up her
mind.

"Don't do it, Frances," I pleaded.  "Don't sing there any longer.
Give it up.  You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you.
Give it up."

She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into
the street.  Suddenly she turned and looked at me.

"Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?" she asked
quietly.  "You know it would."

"And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England--at
once?"

Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer.
I tried to temporize.

"We want you to come with us," I said, earnestly.  "We want you.
Hephzy--"

"Oh, don't, don't, don't!  Why will you persist?  Can't you
understand that you hurt me?  I am trying to believe I have some
self-respect left, even after all that has happened.  And you--What
CAN you think of me!  No, I tell you!  NO!"

"But for Hephzy's sake.  She is your only relative."

She looked at me oddly.  And when she spoke her answer surprised
me.

"You are mistaken," she said.  "I have other--relatives.  Good-by,
Mr. Knowles."

She was on her way to the door.

"But, Frances," I cried, "you are not going.  Wait.  Hephzy will be
here any moment.  Don't go."

She shook her head.

"I must go," she said.  At the door she turned and looked back.

"Good-by," she said, again.  "Good-by, Kent."

She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner
of the corridor.

When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.

"That's queer," said Hephzy.  "I can't think what she meant.
I don't know of any other relatives she's got except Strickland
Morley's tribe.  And they threw him overboard long, long ago.
I can't understand who she meant; can you, Hosy?"

I had been thinking.

"Wasn't there someone else--some English cousins of hers with whom
she lived for a time after her father's death?  Didn't she tell you
about them?"

Hephzy nodded vigorously.  "That's so," she declared.  "There was.
And she did live with 'em, too.  She never told me their names or
where they lived, but I know she despised and hated 'em.  She gave
me to understand that.  And she ran away from 'em, too, just as she
did from us.  I don't see why she should have meant them.  I don't
believe she did.  Perhaps she'll tell us more next time she comes.
That'll be tomorrow, most likely."

I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful.  The way in
which she had said good-by made me so.  Her look, her manner,
seemed to imply more than a good-by for a day.  And, though this I
did not tell Hephzy, she had called me "Kent" for the first time
since the happy days at the rectory.  I feared--all sorts of
things.

She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day
after that.  Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we
received any word from her.  By that time Hephzy was as anxious and
fretful as I.  And, when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy,
for a wonder, considering how very, very careful she was of my
precious health, did not say no.

"You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy," she
said.  "And I know how terribly worried you are.  If you do go out
at night you may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake
frettin' and frettin' about her I KNOW you'll be sick.  So perhaps
you'd better do it.  Shall I--Sha'n't I go with you?"

"I think you had better not," I said.

"Well, perhaps you're right.  You never would tell me much about
this opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if,
bein' a Yankee, I'd guessed considerable.  Go, Hosy, and bring her
back if you can.  Find her anyhow.  There! there run along.  The
hack's down at the door waitin'.  Is your head feelin' all right?
You're sure?  And you haven't any pain?  And you'll keep wrapped
up?  All right?  Good-by, dearie.  Hurry back!  Do hurry back, for
my sake.  And I hope--Oh, I do hope you'll bring no bad news."

L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place
compared to what it had been when I visited it at midnight.  The
waiters and attendants were there, of course, and a few early bird
patrons, but not many.  The bearded proprietors, or managers, were
flying about, and I caught one of them in the middle of a flight.

He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he
did.  Out went his hands and up went his shoulders.

"The Mademoiselle," he said.  "Ah, yes!  You are her friend,
Monsieur; I remember perfectly.  Oh, no, no, no! she is not here
any more.  She has left us.  She sings no longer at L'Abbaye.  We
are desolate; we are inconsolable.  We pleaded, but she was firm.
She has gone.  Where?  Ah, Monsieur, so many ask that; but alas! we
do not know."

"But you do know where she lives," I urged.  "You must know her
home address.  Give me that.  It is of the greatest importance that
I see her at once."

At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address
where she lodged.  I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he
did know it, but that he was bound by the most solemn promise to
reveal it to no one.

"It was her wish, Monsieur.  It was a part of the agreement under
which she sang for us.  No one should know who she was or where she
lived.  And I--I am an honorable man, Monsieur.  I have promised
and--" the business of shoulders and hands again--"my pledged word
to a lady, how shall it be broken?"

I found a way to break it, nevertheless.  A trio of gold pieces and
the statement that I was her uncle did the trick.  An uncle!  Ah,
that was different.  And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when
I came before, that was true.  She had seen the young English
gentleman also--but we two only.  Was the young English Monsieur--
"the Doctor Baylees"--was he a relative also?

I did not answer that question.  It was not his business and,
beside, I did not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.

The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a
card, was a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away.  I
might easily have walked there, I was quite strong enough for
walking now, but I preferred a cab.  Paris motor cabs, as I knew
from experience, moved rapidly.  This one bore me to my destination
in a few minutes.

A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring.  But her answer
to my inquiries was most unsatisfactory.  And, worse than all, I
was certain she was telling me the truth.

The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said.  She had given up
her room three days ago and had gone away.  Where?  That, alas, was
a question.  She had told no one.  She had gone and she was not
coming back.  Was it not a pity, a great pity!  Such a beautiful
Mademoiselle! such an artiste! who sang so sweetly!  Ah, the
success she had made.  And such a good young lady, too!  Not like
the others--oh, no, no, no!  No one was to know she lodged there;
she would see no one.  Ah, a good girl, Monsieur, if ever one
lived.

"Did she--did she go alone?" I asked.

The stout lady hesitated.  Was Monsieur a very close friend?
Perhaps a relative?

"An uncle," I said, telling the old lie once more.

Ah, an uncle!  It was all right then.  No, Mademoiselle had not
gone alone.  A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone
with her, or, at least, had brought the cab in which she went and
had driven off in it with her.  A young English gentleman with a
yellow mustache.  Perhaps I knew him.

I recognized the description.  She had left the house with Herbert
Bayliss.  What did that mean?  Had she said yes to him?  Were they
married?  I dreaded to know, but know I must.

And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my
cab driver take me to the Hotel Continental.  There, at the desk, I
asked if Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel.  They said he was.
I think I must have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with
which I received the news was audible, for the concierge asked me
if I was ill.  I said no, and then he told me that Bayliss was
planning to leave the next day, but was just then in his room.  Did
I wish to see him?  I said I did and gave them my card.

He came down soon afterward.  I had not seen him for a fortnight,
for his calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit.  Hephzy
had said that, in her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with
him.  Judging by his appearance his digestion was still very much
impaired.  He was in evening dress, of course; being an English
gentleman he would have dressed for his own execution, if it was
scheduled to take place after six o'clock.  But his tie was
carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly crumpled and
there was a general "don't care" look about his raiment which was,
for him, most unusual.  And he was very solemn.  I decided at once,
whatever might have happened, it was not what I surmised.  He was
neither a happy bridegroom nor a prospective one.

"Good evening, Bayliss," said I, and extended my hand.

"Good evening, Knowles," he said, but he kept his own hands in his
pockets.  And he did not ask me to be seated.

"Well?" he said, after a moment.

"I came to you," I began--mine was a delicate errand and hard to
state--"I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley
has gone.  She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her
lodgings.  She has gone--somewhere.  Do you know where she is?"

It was quite evident that he did know.  I could see it in his face.
He did not answer, however.  Instead he glanced about uneasily and
then, turning, led the way toward a small reception room adjoining
the lobby.  This room was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.

"We can be more private here," he explained, briefly.  "What did
you ask?"

"I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was
at the present time?"

He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning.  "I don't see
why you should ask me that?" he said, after a moment.

"But I do ask it.  Do you know where she is?"

Another pause.  "Well, if I did," he said, stiffly, "I see no
reason why I should tell you.  To be perfectly frank, and as I have
said to you before, I don't consider myself bound to tell you
anything concerning her."

His manner was most offensive.  Again, as at the time I came to him
at that very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris,
I found it hard to keep my temper.

"Don't misunderstand me," I said, as calmly as I could.  "I am not
pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley.  I am not asking
you to tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell.  And
it is not for my sake--that is, not primarily for that--that I am
anxious about her.  It is for hers.  I wish you might tell me this:
Is she safe?  Is she among friends?  Is she--is she quite safe and
in a respectable place and likely to be happy?  Will you tell me
that?"

He hesitated again.  "She is quite safe," he said, after a moment.
"And she is among friends, or I suppose they are friends.  As to
her being happy--well, you ought to know that better than I, it
seems to me."

I was puzzled.  "_I_ ought to know?" I repeated.  "I ought to know
whether she is happy or not?  I don't understand."

He looked at me intently.  "Don't you?" he asked.  "You are certain
you don't?  Humph!  Well, if I were in your place I would jolly
well find out; you may be sure of that."

"What are you driving at, Bayliss?  I tell you I don't know what
you mean."

He did not answer.  He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug
with his foot.

"I don't understand what you mean," I repeated.  "You are saying
too much or too little for my comprehension."

"I've said too much," he muttered.  "At all events, I have said all
I shall say.  Was there any other subject you wished to see me
about, Knowles?  If not I must be going.  I'm rather busy this
evening."

"There was no subject but that one.  And you will tell me nothing
more concerning Miss Morley?"

"No."

"Good night," I said, and turned away.  Then I turned back.

"Bayliss," said I, "I think perhaps I had better say this:  I have
only the kindest feelings toward you.  You may have misunderstood
my attitude in all this.  I have said nothing to prejudice her--
Miss Morley against you.  I never shall.  You care for her, I know.
If she cares for you that is enough, so far as I am concerned.  Her
happiness is my sole wish.  I want you to consider me your friend--
and hers."

Once more I extended my hand.  For an instant I thought he was
going to take it, but he did not.

"No," he said, sullenly.  "I won't shake hands with you.  Why
should I?  You don't mean what you say.  At least I don't think you
do.  I--I--By Jove! you can't!"

"But I do," I said, patiently.

"You can't!  Look here! you say I care for her.  God knows I do!
But you--suppose you knew where she was, what would you do?  Would
you go to her?"

I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the
lodgings and on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a
conclusion.

"No," I answered, slowly.  "I think I should not.  I know she does
not wish me to follow her.  I suppose she went away to avoid me.
If I were convinced that she was among friends, in a respectable
place, and quite safe, I should try to respect her wish.  I think I
should not follow her there."

He stared at me, wide-eyed.

"You wouldn't!" he repeated.  "You wouldn't!  And you--Oh, I say!
And you talked of her happiness!"

"It is her happiness I am thinking of.  If it were my own I should--"

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing.  She will be happier if I do not follow her, I
suppose.  That is enough for me."

He regarded me with the same intent stare.

"Knowles," he said, suddenly, "she is at the home of a relative of
hers--Cripps is the name--in Leatherhead, England.  There!  I have
told you.  Why I should be such a fool I don't know.  And now you
will go there, I suppose.  What?"

"No," I answered.  "No.  I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but
it shall make no difference.  I will respect her wish.  I will not
go there."

"You won't!"

"No, I will not trouble her again."

To my surprise he laughed.  It was not a pleasant laugh, there was
more sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should
laugh at all I could not understand.

"Knowles," he said, "you're a good fellow, but--"

"But what?" I asked, stiffly.

"You're no end of a silly ass in some ways.  Good night."

He turned on his heel and walked off.



CHAPTER XVII

In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised


"And to think," cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I
told her, "that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she
lived with after her pa's death!  No wonder she was surprised when
I told her how you and I went to Leatherhead and looked at their
'Ash Dump'--'Ash Chump,' I mean.  And we came just as near hirin'
it, too; we would have hired it if she hadn't put her foot down and
said she wouldn't go there.  A good many queer things have happened
on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy, but I do believe our goin'
straight to those Crippses, of all the folks in England, is about
the strangest.  Seems as if we was sent there with a purpose, don't
it?"

"It is a strange coincidence," I admitted.

"It's more'n that.  And her goin' back to them is queerer still.
She hates 'em, I know she does.  She as much as said so, not
mention' their names, of course.  Why did she do it?"

I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.

"She did it to please you and me, Hephzy," I said.  "And to get rid
of us.  She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I
did not want her to remain here in Paris.  I told her I should stay
here as long as she did, or at least as long as she sang at--at the
place where she was singing.  And she asked if, provided she gave
up singing there, you and I would go back to England--or America?"

"Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy.  But you said you didn't
promise to do it."

"I didn't promise anything.  I couldn't promise not to follow her.
I didn't believe I could keep the promise.  But I sha'n't follow
her, Hephzy.  I shall not go to Leatherhead."

Hephzy was silent for a moment.  Then she said:  "Why not?"

"You know why.  That night when I first met her, the night after
you had gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in
following her and trying to see her I would force her to give up
the only means of earning a living she had been able to find.
Well, I have forced her to do that.  She has been obliged to run
away once more in order to get rid of us.  I am not going to
persecute her further.  I am going to try and be unselfish and
decent, if I can.  Now that we know she is safe and among friends--
"

"Friends!  A healthy lot of friends they are--that Solomon Cripps
and his wife!  If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of
hypocrites they're the pair.  Oh, they were sweet and buttery
enough to us, I give in, but that was because they thought we was
goin' to hire their Dump or Chump, or whatever 'twas.  I'll bet
they could be hard as nails to anybody they had under their thumbs.
Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth that shuts up like a
crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more than Scriptur'
texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite when it has
the chance.  Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable.  WHAT made her go
there?"

"Because she had no other place to go, I suppose," I said.  "And
there, among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our
persecution."

"There's some things worse than persecution," Hephzy declared;
"and, so far as that goes, there are different kinds of
persecution.  But what makes those Crippses willin' to take her in
and look after her is what _I_ can't understand.  They MAY be
generous and forgivin' and kind, but, if they are, then I miss my
guess.  The whole business is awful queer.  Tell me all about your
talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy.  What did he say?  And how did he
look when he said it?"

I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I
could remember it.  She listened intently and when I had finished
there was an odd expression on her face.

"Humph!" she exclaimed.  "He seemed surprised to think you weren't
goin' to Leatherhead, you say?"

"Yes.  At least I thought he was surprised.  He knew I had chased
her from Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to
learn from him where she was.  And he knows you are her aunt.  I
suppose he thought it strange that we were not going to follow her
any further."

"Maybe so . . . maybe so.  But why did he call you a--what was it?--
a silly donkey?"

"Because I am one, I imagine," I answered, bitterly.  "It's my
natural state.  I was born one."

"Humph!  Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me
believe it.  No there's something!--I wish I could see that young
fellow myself.  He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?"

"Yes; but he leaves to-morrow.  There, Hephzy, that's enough.
Don't talk about it.  Change the subject.  I am ready to go back to
England--yes, or America either, whenever you say the word.  The
sooner the better for me."

Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris
the following afternoon.  We would go back to the rectory, of
course, and leave there for home as soon as the necessary
arrangements could be made.  Hephzy agreed to everything, she
offered no objections, in fact it seemed to me that she was paying
very little attention.  Her lack of interest--yes, and apparent
lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know what my decision meant
to me--hurt and irritated me.

I rose.

"Good night," I said, curtly.  "I'm going to bed."

"That's right, Hosy.  You ought to go.  You'll be sick again if you
sit up any longer.  Good night, dearie."

"And you?" I asked.  "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to set up a spell longer.  I want to think."

"I don't.  I wish I might never think again.  Or dream, either.  I
am awake at last.  God knows I wish I wasn't!"

She moved toward me.  There was the same odd expression on her face
and a queer, excited look in her eyes.

"Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy," she said, gently.
"Perhaps this is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find--
"

"Oh, bosh!" I interrupted.  "Don't tell me you have another
presentiment.  If you have keep it to yourself.  Good night."

I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great
nervous strain all that evening.  These are my only excuses and
they are poor ones.  I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry
for it afterward.  I have told Hephzy so a good many times since,
but I think she understood without my telling her.

"Well," she said, quietly, "dreams are somethin', after all.  It's
somethin' to have had dreams.  I sha'n't forget mine.  Good night,
Hosy."

The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an
errand or two to do.  She would run out and do them, she said, but
she would be gone only a little while.  She was gone nearly two
hours during which I paced the floor or sat by the window looking
out.  The crowded boulevard was below me, but I did not see it.
All I saw was a future as desolate and blank as the Bayport flats
at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those flats, doomed to live, or
exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing to live for.

Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty
and good-humored.  She talked, talked, talked all the time, about
nothing in particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing
our belongings and humming to herself.  She acted more like the
Hephzy of old than she had for weeks.  There was an air of
suppressed excitement about her which I could not understand.  I
attributed it to the fact of our leaving for America in the near
future and her good humor irritated me.  My spirits were lower than
ever.

"You seem to be remarkably happy," I observed, fretfully.

"What makes you think so, Hosy?  Because I was singin'?  Father
used to say my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard,
except a fog-horn on a lee shore.  I'm glad if you think it's a
proof of happiness: I'm much obliged for the compliment."

"Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so.  If you are
pretending for my benefit, don't.  I'M not happy."

"I know, Hosy; I know.  Well, perhaps you--"

She didn't finish the sentence.

"Perhaps what?"

"Oh, nothin', nothin'.  How many shirts did you bring with you? is
this all?"

She sang no more, probably because she saw that the "fog-horn"
annoyed me, but her manner was just as strange and her nervous
energy as pronounced.  I began to doubt if my surmise, that her
excitement and exaltation were due to the anticipation of an early
return to Bayport, was a correct one.  I began to thing there must
be some other course and to speculate concerning it.  And I, too,
grew a bit excited.

"Hephzy," I said, suddenly, "where did you go when you went out
this morning?  What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?"

She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered
without turning.

"Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do," she said.  "This
plaid necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy.  I guess you
can't wear it again.  There!  I mustn't stop to talk.  I've got my
own things to pack."

She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just
then.  But I was more suspicious than ever.  I remembered a
question of hers the previous evening and I believed. . . .  But,
if she had gone to the Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what
could he have told her to make her happy?

We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover.
This time the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at
sunset.  No jumpy, white-capped billows, no flying spray, no
seasick passengers.  Tarpaulins were a drag on the market.

"I wouldn't believe," declared Hephzy, "that this lookin'-glass was
the same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before.
It doesn't trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy.  A 'nahsty'
cross-in' comin' and a smooth one comin' back.  I wonder if that's
a sign."

"Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy," I pleaded, wearily.  "You'll
begin to dream again, I suppose, pretty soon."

"No, I won't.  I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy.
Maybe we're just wakin' up, same as I told you."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Mean?  Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything.  Good-by, old France!
You're a lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at
sayin' good-by to you this time.  And there's England dead ahead.
Won't it seem good to be where they talk instead of jabber!  I
sha'n't have to navigate by the 'one-two-three' chart over there."

Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an
English dinner in an English restaurant car--not a "wagon bed," as
Hephzy said, exultantly--and then London.

We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as
English.  In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but
she would not be questioned, declaring that she was tired and
sleepy.  I was tired, also, but not sleepy.  I was almost as
excited as she seemed to be by this time.  I was sure she had
learned something that morning in Paris, something which pleased
her greatly.  What that something might be I could not imagine; but
I believed she had learned it from Herbert Bayliss.

And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had
arranged for a cab and we must start for the station at once.  I
said nothing then, but when the cab pulled up before a railway
station, a station which was not our accustomed one but another, I
said a great deal.

"What in the world, Hephzy!" I exclaimed.  "We can't go to Mayberry
from here."

"Hush, hush, Hosy.  Wait a minute--wait till I've paid the driver.
Yes, I'm doin' it myself.  I'm skipper on this cruise.  You're an
invalid, didn't you know it.  Invalids have to obey orders."

The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.

"And now, Hosy," she said, "let me tell you.  We aren't goin' to
Mayberry--not yet.  We're going to Leatherhead."

"To Leatherhead!" I repeated.  "To Leatherhead!  To--her?  We
certainly will do no such thing."

"Yes, we will, Hosy," quietly.  "I haven't said anything about it
before, but I've made up my mind.  It's our duty to see her just
once more, once more before--before we say good-by for good.  It's
our duty."

"Duty!  Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she
asked us."

"How do you know she is in peace?  Suppose she isn't.  Suppose
she's miserable and unhappy.  Isn't it our duty to find out?  I
think it is?"

I looked her full in the face.  "Hephzy," I said, sharply, "you
know something about her, something that I don't know.  What is
it?"

"I don't know as I know anything, Hosy.  I can't say that I do.
But--"

"You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday.  That was the 'errand' you went
upon yesterday morning in Paris.  Wasn't it?"

She was very much taken aback.  She has told me since that she had
no idea I suspected the truth.

"Wasn't it?" I repeated.

"Why--why, yes, it was, Hosy.  I did go to see him, there at his
hotel.  When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I
thought 'twas awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the
funnier it seemed.  So I made up my mind to see him and talk with
him myself.  And I did."

"What did he tell you?" I asked.

"He told me--he told me--Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe,
but he gave me to understand a whole lot.  She's gone to those
Crippses, Hosy, just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em--
she hates 'em--or because she wanted to go, but because she thought
'twould please us if she did.  It doesn't please us; it doesn't
please me, anyway.  She sha'n't be miserable for our sake, not
without a word from us.  No, we must go there and see her and--and
tell her once more just how we feel about it.  It's our duty to go
and we must.  And," with decision, "we're goin' now."

She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if
fearful that I might interrupt and ask more questions.  I asked one
of them the moment she paused.

"We knew all that before," I said.  "That is, we were practically
sure she had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her
cousins, the Crippses, because of her half-promise to me not to
sing at places like the Abbey again.  We knew all that.  And she
asked me to promise that we would not follow her.  I didn't
promise, but that makes no difference.  Was that all Bayliss told
you?"

Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered
promptly enough.

"He told me he knew she didn't want to go to--to those Leatherheaded
folks," she declared.  "We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it
for sure.  And he said we ought to go to her.  He said that."

"But why did he say it?  Our going will not alter her determination
to stay and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her."

"No, it won't--no it won't," hastily.  "Besides I want to see that
Cripps man and have a talk with him, myself.  I want to know why a
man like him--I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and
bargained and dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he
isn't the kind to do things for nothin' for ANYBODY--I want to know
why he and his wife are so generous to her.  There's somethin'
behind it."

"There's something behind you, Hephzy.  Some other reason that you
haven't told me.  Was that all Bayliss said?"

She hesitated.  "Yes," she said, after a moment, "that's all, all I
can tell you now, anyway.  But I want you to go with me to that Ash
Dump and see her once more."

"I shall not, Hephzy."

"Well, then I'll have to go by myself.  And if you don't go, too, I
think you'll be awfully sorry.  I think you will.  Oh, Hosy,"
pleadingly, "please go with me.  I don't ask you to do many things,
now do I?  I do ask you to do this."

I shook my head.

"I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy," I began.

"But this isn't for my sake.  It's for hers.  For hers.  I'm sure--
I'm ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it."

I could not understand it at all.  I had never seen her more
earnest.  She was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet
where her sister's child was concerned she could be obstinate
enough--I knew that.

"I shall go whether you do or not," she said, as I stood looking at
her.

"You mean that, Hephzy?"

"I surely do.  I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon.  And I do
hope you'll go with me."

I reflected.  If she went alone it would be almost as hard for
Frances as if I went with her.  And the temptation was very strong.
The desire to see her once more, only once. . . .

"I'll go, Hephzy," I said.  I didn't mean to say it; the words
seemed to come of themselves.

"You will!  Oh, I'm so glad!  I'm so glad!  And I think--I think
you'll be glad, too, Hosy.  I'm hopin' you will."

"I'll go," I said.  "But this is the last time you and I must
trouble her.  I'll go--not because of any reason you have given me,
Hephzy, but because I believe there must be some other and stronger
reason, which you haven't told me."

Hephzy drew a long breath.  She seemed to be struggling between a
desire to tell me more--whatever that more might be--and a
determination not to tell.

"Maybe there is, Hosy," she said, slowly.  "Maybe there is.  I--I--
Well, there!  I must go and buy the tickets.  You sit down and
wait.  I'm skipper of this craft to-day, you know.  I'm in command
on this voyage."

Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit.  "Ash
Clump," the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to
hire, was still untenanted, or looked to be.  We walked on until we
reached the Cripps home and entered the Cripps gate.  I rang the
bell and the maid answered the ring.

In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in.
He and Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel.  I remembered then that the
day was Sunday.  I had actually forgotten it.

"Is Miss Morley in?" asked Hephzy.

The maid shook her head.

"No, ma'am," she said.  "Miss Morley ain't in, either.  I think
she's gone to chapel, too.  I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she
'as.  She's not in."

She asked if we would leave cards.  Hephzy said no.

"It's 'most noon," she said.  "They'll be back pretty soon.  We'll
wait.  No, we won't come in.  We'll wait out here, I guess."

There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy
seated herself upon it.  I walked up and down.  I was in a state of
what Hephzy would have called "nerves."  I had determined to be
very calm when I met her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and
cool, no matter what happened.  But this waiting was hard.  I grew
more nervous every minute.

"I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy," I said.  "About the garden and
grounds.  I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon.  I shall be within
call.  Send one of the servants for me if she--if the Crippses come
before I get back."

Hephzy did not urge me to remain.  Nor did she offer to accompany
me.  As usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.

"All right, Hosy," she said.  "You go and have your walk.  I'll
wait here.  But don't be long, will you."

I promised not to be long.  The Cripps gardens and grounds were
not extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were
geometrically ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste.
The birds sang, the breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there
was a Sunday quiet, the restful hush of an English Sunday,
everywhere.

I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge
dividing the kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section,
past the stables, until I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of
a little hill.  There was a pleasant view from this hill, the
customary view of hedged fields and meadows, flocks of sheep and
groups of grazing cattle, and over all the soft blue haze and misty
sky.

I paused.  And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.

I turned.  In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat.
Rising from that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed
incredulity, was--Frances Morley.

I did not speak.  I could not, for the moment.  She spoke first.

"You!" she exclaimed.  "You--here!"

And still I did not speak.  Where was the calm with which I was to
meet her?  Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to
explain how I had come and why?  I don't know where they were; I
seemed to know only that she was there, that I was alone with her
as I had never thought or meant to be again, and that if I spoke I
should say things far different from those I had intended.

She was recovering from her surprise.  She came toward me.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.  "Why did you come?"

I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I
had not expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at
church.  She shook her head, impatiently.

"I mean why did you come here--to Leatherhead?" she asked.  "Why
did you come?  Did you know--"

I interrupted her.  If ever I was to explain, or attempt to
explain, I realized that it must be at that moment.  She might
listen to me then, before she had had time to think.  Later I knew
she would not.

"I knew you were here," I broke in, quickly.  "I--we--your aunt
knew and we came."

"But HOW did you know?  Who told you?"

"The--we learned," I answered.  "And we came."

It was a poor explanation--or none at all.  She seemed to think it
so.  And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.

"You came--yes," she said.  "And you knew that I left Paris
because--Oh, you knew that!  I asked you not to follow me.  You
promised you would not."

I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for
yielding to Hephzy's entreaties.

"No, no," I protested, "I did not promise.  I did not promise,
Frances."

"But you know I did not wish you to do it.  I did not wish you to
follow me to Paris, but you did it.  I told you you would force me
to give up my only means of earning money.  You did force me to
give it up.  I gave it up to please you, for your sake, and now--"

"Did you?" I cried, eagerly.  "Did you give it up for my sake,
Frances?  Did you?"

"You know I did.  You must know it.  And now that I have done it,
now that I have given up my opportunity and my--my self-respect and
my one chance and come here to this--to this place, you--you--Oh,
how could you!  Wasn't I unhappy enough before?  And unhappy enough
now?  Oh, how could you!"

I was more ashamed than ever.  I tried desperately to justify my
action.

"But that was it," I persisted.  "Don't you see?  It was your
happiness, the thought that you were unhappy which brought me here.
I know--you told your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were
with these people before.  I know how much you disliked them.  That
was why I came.  To ask you to give this up as you did the other.
To come with us and BE happy.  I want you to come, Frances.  Think!
Think how much I must want you."

And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect.  It
seemed to me that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.

"You--you really want me?" she repeated.

"Yes.  Yes, I can't tell you--I must not tell you how much I want
you.  And your aunt--she wants you to come.  She is here, too.  She
will tell you."

Her manner changed once more.  The tone in which she spoke was
different.  There were no signs of the wavering which I had
noticed--or hoped I noticed.

"No," she said.  "No.  I shall not see my aunt.  And I must not
talk with you any longer.  I asked you not to follow me here.  You
did it, in spite of my asking.  Now, unless you wish to drive me
away from here, as you did from Paris, you will leave me and not
try to see me again.  Oh, don't you see--CAN'T you see how
miserable you are making rne?  And yet you talk of my happiness!"

"But you aren't happy here.  ARE you happy?"

"I am happy enough.  Yes, I am happy."

"I don't believe it.  Are these Crippses kind to you?"

"Yes."

I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so.  Instead I
said what I had determined to say, the same thing that I should
have said before, in Mayberry and in Paris--if I could have
mustered the courage and decency to say it.

"Frances," I said, "there is something else, something which may
have a bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know.  The
night before you left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me
and asked my permission to marry you, if you were willing.  He
thought you were my niece--then.  I said that--I said that,
although of course I had no shadow of authority over you, I did
care for your happiness.  I cared for that a great deal.  If you
loved him I should certainly--"

"I see," she broke in, scornfully.  "I see.  He told you I was
here.  That is why you came.  Did he send you to me to say--what
you are trying to say?"

"Oh, no, no!  You are mistaken.  You wrong him, Frances.  He did
not do that.  He's not that sort.  He's a good fellow, an honorable
man.  And he does care for you.  I know it.  He cares greatly.  He
would, I am sure, make you a good husband, and if you care for him,
he would do his best to make you happy, I--"

Again she interrupted.  "One moment," she said, "Let me understand.
Are you urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?"

"No.  I am not urging you, of course.  But if you do care for him--"

"I do not."

"Oh, you don't love him?"

I wonder if there was relief in my tone.  There should not have
been, of course, but I fear there was."

"No, I do not--love him.  He is a gentleman and I like him well
enough, but not in that way.  Please don't say any more."

"Very well.  I only meant--Tell me this, if you will:  Is there
someone you do care for?"

She did not answer.  I had offended her again.  She had cause to be
offended.  What business was it of mine?

"I beg your pardon," I said, humbly.  "I should not have asked
that.  I have no right to ask it.  But if there is someone for whom
you care in that way and he cares for you, it--"

"Oh, don't, don't!  He doesn't."

"Then there is someone?"

She was silent.  I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was
pretending to be.

"I am glad to know it," I said.  "If you care for him he must care
for you.  He cannot help it.  I am sure you will be happy by and
by.  I can leave you here now with more--with less reluctance.
I--"

I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so.  She
answered, without looking at me.

"Yes," she said, "you can leave me now.  I am safe and--and happy.
Good-by."

I took her hand.

"Good-by," I said.  "Forgive me for coming.  I shall not trouble
you again.  This time I promise.  You may not wish to write us, but
we shall write you.  And I--I hope you won't forget us."

It was a lame conclusion and trite enough.  She must have thought
so.

"I shall not forget you," she said, simply.  "And I will try to
write occasionally.  Yes, I will try.  Now please go.  Good-by."

I went, without looking back.  I strode along the paths, scarcely
noticing where I was going.  As I neared the corner of the house I
heard voices, loud voices.  One of them, though it was not as loud
as the others, was Hephzy's.

"I knew it," she was saying, as I turned the corner.  "I knew it.
I knew there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were
willin' to take that girl under your wing.  I knew it wasn't kind-
heartedness and relationship.  I knew it."

It was Solomon Cripps who answered.  Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed
in their Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of
their villa.  Hephzy was standing before them.  Her face was set
and determined and she looked highly indignant.  Mr. Cripps' face
was red and frowning and he gesticulated with a red hand, which
clasped a Testament.  His English was by no means as pure and
undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade us into hiring "Ash
Clump."

"Look 'ere," he snarled.  "Don't you talk to me like that.  Don't
you suppose I know what I'm doing.  You Yankees may be clever at
your tricks, but you can't trick me.  Don't I know about the money
you stole from 'er father?  Don't I, eh?  You can tell 'er your
lies about it being stolen by someone else, but I can see a 'ole
through a millstone.  You can't trick me, I tell you.  They're
giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all that, but we're goin'
to see she 'as 'er rights.  You've filled 'er silly 'ead with your
stories.  You've made 'er think you're all that's good and--"

I was at hand by this time.

"What's all this, Hephzy?" I asked.

Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.

"It's him!" she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
pointing at me with the other.  "It's him," she cried, venomously.
"He's here, too."

The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr.
Cripps had left.

"You!" he shouted, "I might 'ave known you were 'ere.  You're the
one that's done it.  You're responsible.  Filling her silly 'ead
with lies about your goodness and all that.  Making her fall in
love with you and--"

I sprang forward.

"WHAT?" I cried.  "What are you saying?"

Hephzy was frightened.

"Hosy," she cried, "don't look so.  Don't!  You frighten me."

I scarcely heard her.

"WHAT did you say?" I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back,
rather alarmed apparently.  "Why, you scoundrel!  What do you mean
by saying that?  Speak up!  What do you mean by it?"

If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not.  She stepped forward
and faced me defiantly.

"He means just what he says," she declared, her shrill voice
quivering with vindictive spite.  "And you know what he means
perfectly well.  You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old
as you and she an innocent young girl!  You've hypnotized her--that
is what you've done, hypnotized her.  All those ridiculous stories
about her having no money she believes because you told them to
her.  She would believe the moon was made of green cheese if you
said so.  She's mad about you--the poor little fool!  She won't
hear a word against you--says you're the best, noblest man in the
world!  You!  Why she won't even deny that she's in love with you;
she was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it.  Oh. . . .
Stop!  Where are you going?  Solomon, stop him!"

Solomon did not stop me.  I am very glad he didn't try.  No one
could have stopped me then.  I was on my way back along the garden
path, and if I did not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly
through flower beds and shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care
now.

She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her.  There
were tears on her cheeks.  She had heard me coming--a deaf person
would have heard that--and she rose as I burst into view.

"What is it?" she cried, in alarm.  "Oh, what is it?"

At the sight of her I paused.  I had not meant to pause; I had
intended to take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just
heard was true, to make her answer me.  But now, as she stood there
before me, so young, so girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy
of the thing struck me with overwhelming force.  It WAS idiocy.  It
couldn't be true.

"What is it?" she repeated.  "Oh, Kent! what is the matter?  Why
did you come back?  What has happened?"

I stepped forward.  True or false I must know.  I must know then
and there.  It was now or never for me.

"Frances," I stammered, "I came back because--I--I have just heard--
Frances, you told me you loved someone--not Bayliss, but someone
else.  Who is that someone?"

She had been pale.  My sudden and unexpected appearance had
frightened her.  Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking
down into her face, I saw the color rise and spread over that face
from throat to brow.

"Who is it?" I repeated.

She drew back.

"I--I can't tell you," she faltered.  "You mustn't ask me."

"But I do ask.  You must tell me, Frances--Frances, it isn't--it
can't be that you love ME.  Do you?"

She drew back still further.  If there had been a way of escape I
think she would have taken it.  But there was none.  The thick
shrubbery was behind her and I was between her and the path.  And I
would not let her pass.

"Oh, Frances, do you?" I repeated.  "I never meant to ask you.  I
never meant that you should know.  I am so much older, and so--so
unworthy--it has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous.  But I love
you, Frances, I have loved you from the very beginning, although at
first I didn't realize it.  I--If you do--if you can--I--I--"

I faltered, hesitated, and stopped.  She did not answer for a
moment, a long, long moment.  Then:

"Mr. Knowles," she said, "you surprise me.  I didn't suspect--I
didn't think--"

I sighed.  I had had my answer.  Of course it was idiotic.  I
should have known; I did know.

"I see," I said.  "I understand.  Forgive me, please.  I was a fool
to even think of such a thing.  I didn't think it.  I didn't dare
until--until just now.  Then I was told--your cousin said--I might
have known he didn't mean what he said.  But he said it and--and--"

"What did he say?  Mr. Cripps, do you mean?  What did he say?"

"He said--he said you--you cared for me--in that way.  Of course
you don't--you can't.  I know better.  But for the moment I dared
to hope.  I was crazy, of course.  Forgive me, Frances."

She looked up and then down again.

"There is nothing to forgive," she said.

"Yes, there is.  There is a great deal.  An old--"

"Hush! hush, please.  Don't speak like that.  I--I thank you.  I--
you mustn't suppose I am not grateful.  I know you pity me.  I know
how generous you are.  But your pity--"

"It isn't pity.  I should pity myself, if that were all.  I love
you Frances, and I shall always love you.  I am not ashamed of it.
I shall have that love to comfort me till I die.  I am ashamed of
having told you, of troubling you again, that is all."

I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her
hand upon my sleeve.  I turned back again.  She was looking me full
in the face now and her eyes were shining.

"What Mr. Cripps said was true," she said.

I could not believe it.  I did not believe it even then.

"True!" I repeated.  "No, no!  You don't mean--"

"I do mean it.  I told him that I loved you."

I don't know what more she would have said.  I did not wait to
hear.  She was in my arms at last and all England was whirling
about me like a top.

"But you can't!" I found myself saying over and over.  I must have
said other things before, but I don't remember them.  "You can't!
it is impossible.  You! marry an old fossil like me!  Oh, Frances,
are you sure?  Are you sure?"

"Yes, Kent," softly, "I am sure."

"But you can't love me.  You are sure that your--You have no reason
to be grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know.  You
are sure you are not doing this because--"

"I am sure.  It is not because I am grateful."

"But, my dear--think!  Think what it means, I am--"

"I know what you are," tenderly.  "No one knows as well.  But,
Kent--Kent, are YOU sure?  It isn't pity for me?"

I think I convinced her that it was not pity.  I know I tried.  And
I was still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other
side of the shrubbery caused us--or caused her; I doubt if I should
have heard anything except her voice just then--to start and
exclaim:

"Someone is coming!  Don't, dear, don't!  Someone is coming."

It was the Crippses who were coming, of course.  Mr. and Mrs.
Cripps and Hephzy.  They would have come sooner, I learned
afterwards, but Hephzy had prevented it.

Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together.  And
Mrs. Cripps' mouth looked more like "a crack in a plate" than ever.

"So!" she exclaimed.  "Here's where you are!  I thought as much.
And you--you brazen creature!"

I objected strongly to "brazen creature" as a term applied to my
future wife.  I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.

"You get off my grounds," he blurted, waving his fist.  "You get
out of 'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off.  Do you 'ear?"

I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but
Frances would not let me.

"Don't, Kent," she whispered.  "Don't quarrel with him, please.  He
is going, Mr. Cripps.  We are going--now."

Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked.  "WE are going?" she repeated.  "Do
you mean you are going with him?"

Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.

"You are goin'?" she said, joyfully.  "Oh, Frances, are you comin'
with us?"

It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect.  An entire
brigade of Crippses would not have daunted me then.  I should have
enjoyed defying them all.

"Yes," said I, "she is coming with us, Hephzy.  Mr. Cripps, will
you be good enough to stand out of the way?  Come, Frances."

It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs, Cripps said.
They said a good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits
among the rest.  Hephzy fired the last guns for our side.

"Yes, yes," she retorted, impatiently.  "I know you're goin' to
sue.  Go ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you
want to.  The lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some
comfort--though I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even
that.  And I tell you this:  If you don't send Little Frank's--Miss
Morley's trunks to Mayberry inside of two days we'll come and get
'em and we'll come with the sheriff and the police."

Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
intrenchments, the line of piety.

"And to think," she declared, with upturned eyes, "that this is the
'oly Sabbath!  Never mind, Solomon.  The Lord will punish 'em.  I
shall pray to Him not to curse them too hard."

Hephzy's retort was to the point.

"I wouldn't," she said.  "If I had been doin' what you two have
been up to, pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to
give her a home, and all the time doin' it just because I thought I
could squeeze money out of her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much.
I wouldn't take the risk of callin' His attention to me."



CHAPTER XVIII

In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began


We did not go to Mayberry that day.  We went to London and to the
hotel; not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed
the previous night.  It was Frances' wish that we should not go to
Bancroft's.

"I don't think that I could go there, Kent," she whispered to me,
on the train.  "Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked
them so much, but--but they would ask questions; they wouldn't
understand.  It would be hard to make them understand.  Don't you
see, Kent?"

I saw perfectly.  Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss
Morley to be my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them
understand.  I was not inclined to try.  I had had quite enough of
the uncle and niece business.

So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see
us again so soon he said nothing about it.  Perhaps he was not
surprised.  It must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.

On the train, in our compartment--a first-class compartment, you
may be sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been
necessary; there was nothing too good or too expensive for us that
afternoon--on the train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did
most of the talking.  I was too happy to talk much and Frances,
sitting in her corner and pretending to look out of the window, was
silent also.  I should have been fearful that she was not happy,
that she was already repenting her rashness in promising to marry
the Bayport "quahaug," but occasionally she looked at me, and,
whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes exchanged, sent
that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise.  A flying clam is
an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in this wide,
wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.

Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence.  She chatted and
laughed continuously.  We had not told her our secret--the great
secret--and if she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself.
Her chatter was a curious mixture: triumph over the detached
Crippses; joy because, after all, "Little Frank" had consented to
come with us, to live with us again; and triumph over me because
her dreams and presentiments had come true.

"I told you, Hosy," she kept saying.  "I told you!  I said it would
all come out in the end.  He wouldn't believe it, Frances.  He said
I was an old lunatic and--"

"I didn't say anything of the kind," I broke in.

"You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you.
But I knew--I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and
that we--all three of us--would make the right port in the end.
And we have--we have, haven't we, Frances?"

"Yes," said Frances, simply.  "We have, Auntie--"

"There! do you hear that, Hosy?  Isn't it good to hear her call me
'Auntie' again!  Now I'm satisfied; or"--with a momentary
hesitation--"pretty nearly satisfied, anyway."

"Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all," I observed.
"What more do you want?"

"I want just one thing more; just one, that's all."

I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her.  She
shot a look at me, a look of indignant meaning.

"Never mind," she said, decidedly.  "That's my affair.  Oh, Ho!"
with a reminiscent chuckle, "how that Cripps woman did glare at me
when I said 'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention
to their doin's.  I hope it did her good.  Maybe she'll think of it
next time she goes to chapel.  But I suppose she won't.  All such
folks care for is money.  They wouldn't be so anxious to get to
Heaven if they hadn't read about the golden streets."

That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story of
which we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so
little--how, after her father's death, she had gone to live with
the Crippses because, as she thought, they wished her to do so from
motives of generosity and kindness.

"They are not really relatives of mine," she said.  "I am glad of
that.  Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and
then she married Mr. Cripps.  After Father's death they wrote me a
very kind letter, or I thought it kind at the time.  They said all
sorts of kindly things, they offered me a home, they said I should
be like their own daughter.  So, having nowhere else to go, I went
to them.  I lived there nearly two years.  Oh, what a life it was!
They are very churchly people, they call themselves religious, but
I don't.  They pretend to be--perhaps they think they are--good,
very good.  But they aren't--they aren't.  They are hard and cruel.
Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor people live.  I have
heard things from those people that--Oh, I can't tell you!  I ran
away because I had learned what they really were."

Hephzy nodded.  "What I can't understand," she said, "is why they
offered you a home in the first place.  It was because they thought
you had money comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did
they know?"

Frances colored.  "I'm afraid--I'm afraid Father must have written
them," she said.  "He needed money very much in his later years and
he may have written them asking--asking for loans and offering my
'inheritance' as security.  I think now that that was it.  But I
did not think so then.  And--and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too
harshly of Father.  He was very good to me, he really was.  And
DON'T you think he believed--he had made himself believe--that
there was money of his there in America?  I can't believe he--he
would lie to me."

"Of course he didn't lie," said Hephzy, promptly.  I could have
hugged her for saying it.  "He was sick and--and sort of out of his
head, poor man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts
of things.  Of course he didn't lie--to his own daughter.  But
why," she added, quickly, before Frances could ask another
question, "did you go back to those precious Cripps critters after
you left Paris?"

Frances looked at me.  "I thought it would please you," she said,
simply.  "I knew you didn't want me to sing in public.  Kent had
said he would be happier if he knew I had given up that life and
was among friends.  And they--they had called themselves my
friends.  When I went back to them they welcomed me.  Mr. Cripps
called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and Mrs. Cripps prayed over me.
It wasn't until I told them I had no 'inheritance,' except one of
debt, that they began to show me what they really were.  They
wouldn't believe it.  They said you were trying to defraud me.  It
was dreadful.  I--I think I should have run away again if--if you
had not come."

"Well, we did come," said Hephzy, cheerfully, "and I thank the good
Lord for it.  Now we won't talk any more about THAT."

She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room--we were in
hers, hers and Frances'--to unpack my trunk once more.  She
wouldn't hear of my unpacking it.  When she was gone Frances turned
to me.

"You--you haven't told her," she faltered.

"No," said I, "not yet.  I wanted to speak with you first.  I can't
believe it is true.  Or, if it is, that it is right.  Oh, my dear,
do you realize what you are doing?  I am--I am ever so much older
than you.  I am not worthy of you.  You could have made a so much
better marriage."

She looked at me.  She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle
between her brows.

"Meaning," she said, "I suppose, that I might have married Doctor
Bayliss.  I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished.  I--I
think he would have me, if I threw myself at his head."

"Yes," I admitted, grudgingly.  "Yes, he loves you, Frances."

"Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt
and you were almost anxious that I should marry him.  It seemed to
me that you took every opportunity to throw me in his way; you
refused my invitations for golf and tennis and suggested that I
play with him instead.  It used to annoy me.  I resented it.  I
thought you were eager to get rid of me.  I did not know then the
truth about Father and--and the money.  And I thought you hoped I
might marry him and--and not trouble you any more.  But I think I
understand now.  You--you did not care for me so much then.  Was
that it?"

I shook my head.  "Care for you!" I repeated.  "I cared for you so
much that I did not dare trust myself with you.  I did not dare to
think of you, and yet I could think of no one else.  I know now
that I fell in love with you when I first met you at that horrible
Briggs woman's lodging-house.  Don't you see?  That was the very
reason why.  Don't you see?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't quite see.  If you cared for me like that
how could you be willing for me to marry him?  That is what puzzles
me.  I don't understand it."

"It was because I did care for you.  It was because I cared so
much, I wanted you to be happy.  I never dreamed that you could
care for an old, staid, broken-down bookworm like me.  It wasn't
thinkable.  I can scarcely think it now.  Oh, Frances, are you SURE
you are not making a mistake?  Are you sure it isn't gratitude
which makes you--"

She rose from her chair and came to me.  Her eyes were wet, but
there was a light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.

"Don't, please don't!" she begged.  "And caring for me like that
you could still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my
marrying him."

"Yes, yes, I came because--because I knew he loved you and I
thought that you might not know it.  And if you did know it I
thought--perhaps--you might be happier and--"

I faltered and stopped.  She was standing beside me, looking up
into my face.

"I did know it," she said.  "He told me, there in Paris.  And I
told him--"

"You told him--?"

"I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man.  But I
told him--" she rose on tiptoe and kissed me--"I told him that I
loved you, dear.  See! here is the pin you gave me.  It is the one
thing I could not leave behind when I ran away from Mayberry.  I
meant to keep that always--and I always shall."

After a time we remembered Hephzy.  It would be more truthful to
say that Frances remembered her.  I had forgotten Hephzy
altogether, I am ashamed to say.

"Kent," she said; "don't you think we should tell Auntie now?  She
will be pleased, I hope."

"Pleased!  She will be--I can't think of a word to describe it.
She loves you, too, dear."

"I know.  I hope she will love me more now.  She worships you,
Kent."

"I am afraid she does.  She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am.
And I fear you don't either.  I am not a great man.  I am not even
a famous author.  I--Are you SURE, Frances?"

She laughed lightly.  "Kent," she whispered, "what was it Doctor
Bayliss called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to
Leatherhead?"

I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at
the Continental.

"He called me a silly ass," I answered promptly.  "I don't care."

"Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit
of one, in some things?  You mustn't ask me if I am sure again.
Come! we will go to Auntie."

Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the
closet door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat.  She heard
us enter and turned.

"I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life," she announced.
"And I packed this trunk, too.  I guess the trembles in my head
must have got into my fingers when I did it.  I--"

She stopped at the beginning of the sentence.  I had taken Frances
by the hand and led her up to where she was standing.  Hephzy said
nothing, she stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the
floor.

"Hephzy," said I, "I've come to make an apology.  I believe in
dreams and presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it
now.  You were right.  Our pilgrimage has ended just as you
declared it would.  I know now that we were 'sent' upon it.
Frances has said--"

Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more.  She threw her arms about
Frances' neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my
utter astonishment, sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into
tears.  When we tried to comfort her she waved us away.

"Don't touch me," she commanded.  "Don't say anything to me.  Just
let me be.  I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this
attack is just natural, that's all.  I--I'll get over it in a
minute.  There!" rising and dabbing at her eyes with her
handkerchief, "I'm over it now.  Hosy Knowles, I've cried about a
million times since--since that awful mornin' in Mayberry.  You
didn't know it, but I have.  I'm through now.  I'm never goin' to
cry any more.  I'm goin' to laugh!  I'm going to sing!  I declare
if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance!  Oh, Oh, OH!
I'm so glad!  I'm so glad!"

We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning.  We
were to go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon
that we all agreed in the end.  I was the only one who hesitated.
I had a vague feeling of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might
not wish it, that her saying she would love to go was merely to
please me.  I remembered how she had hated America and Americans,
or professed to hate them, in the days of our first acquaintanceship.
I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum old Bayport and the fear that
she might be disappointed when she saw it, that she might be lonely
and unhappy there, was strong.  So when Hephzy talked of our going
straight to the steamship offices next day I demurred.  I suggested
a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the Mediterranean--anywhere.
I forgot that my means were limited, that I had been idle for longer
than I should have been, and that I absolutely must work soon.  I
forgot everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward,
"regardless, like a whole kerosene oil company."

But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent
upon our going to America.  She wanted to go, she said.  Of course
she did not mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished
to go to the Continent or remain in England she would be quite
content.

"But, Oh Kent," she said, "if you are suggesting all this merely
because you think I will like it, please don't.  I have lived in
France and I have been very unhappy there.  I have been happier
here in England, but I have been unhappy here, too.  I have no
friends here now.  I have no friends anywhere except you.  I know
you both want to see your home again--you must.  And--and your home
will be mine now."

So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay.  And the
next morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another
suggestion.

"Hosy," she said, "I've been thinkin'.  All our things, or most of
'em, are at Mayberry.  Somebody's got to go there, of course, to
pack up and make arrangements for our leavin'.  She--Frances, I
mean--would go, too, if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do
anything you asked, now.  But it would be awful hard for her.
She'd meet all the people she used to know there and they wouldn't
understand and 'twould be hard to explain.  The Baylisses know the
real truth, but the rest of 'em don't.  You'd have all that niece
and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any more of
THAT."

"I should say I didn't!" I exclaimed, fervently.

"Yes, that's the way it seemed to me.  So she hadn't ought to go to
Mayberry.  And we can't leave her here alone in London.  She'd be
lonesome, for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find
out where she was, for another.  It may be that that Solomon and
his wife will let her go and say nothin', but I doubt it.  So long
as they think she's got a cent comin' to her they'll pester her in
every way they can, I believe.  That woman's nose can smell money
as far as a cat can smell fish.  No, we can't leave Little Frank
here alone.  Of course, I might stay with her and you might go by
yourself, but--"

This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she
seemed to hesitate, I asked:  "But what?"

"But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry.  You'd have
considerable explainin' to do.  And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all
that packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too
often before.  You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of
a lookin' glass as to do the other thing.  No, I'm the one to go to
Mayberry.  I must go by myself and you must stay here in London
with her."

"I can't do that, Hephzy," I said.  "How could I?"

"You couldn't, as things are, of course.  But if they were
different.  If she was your wife you could.  And then if that
Solomon thing came you could--"

I interrupted.  "My wife!" I repeated.  "Hephzy, what are you
talking about?  Do you mean--"

"I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day
perhaps.  Then everything would be all right."

I stared at her.

"But--but she wouldn't consent," I stammered.  "It is impossible.
She wouldn't think of such a thing."

Hephzy nodded.  "Oh, yes, she would," she said.  "She is thinkin'
of it now.  She and I have just had a long talk.  She's a sensible
girl, Hosy, and she listened to reason.  If she was sure that you
wanted to marry her so soon she--"

"Wanted to!" I cried.  "Hephzy!"

Hephzy nodded again.  "Then that's settled," she said.  "It's a big
disappointment to me, I give in.  I'd set my heart on your bein'
married at our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do
the marryin', and a weddin' reception at our house and--and
everything.  But I guess this is the best, and I know it's the most
sensible.  But, Oh Hosy, there's one thing I can't give up.  I want
you to be married at the American Ambassador's or somewhere like it
and by an American minister.  I sha'n't feel safe if it's done
anywhere else and by a foreigner, even if he's English, which don't
seem foreign to me at all any more.  No, he's got to be an American
and--and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a Methodist."

I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I
found an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine
fellow and consented to perform the ceremony.  And, if we were not
married at the American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London
consul, whom Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who
was another splendid chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman,
particularly after seeing the lady he was to marry.

The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses.
Frances' wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming--the
consul's wife said so, and she should know.  Also she said she had
never seen a sweeter or more beautiful bride.  No one said anything
concerning the bridegroom's appearance, but he did not care.  It
was a drizzly, foggy day, but that made no difference.  A Kansas
cyclone and a Bayport no'theaster combined could not have cast a
damper on that day.

When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to
keep her vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged
us both.

"I--I--" she faltered, "I--I can't say it, but you know how I feel.
There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this.  I used to believe
I'd never travel, but I have.  And there in Mayberry I believed I'd
never be happy again, but I am.  HAPPY! hap--hap--Oh dear!  WHAT a
fool I am!  I ca--I can't help it!  I expect I look like the most
miserable thing on earth, but that's because I AM so happy.  God
bless you both!  Now--now don't so much as look at me for a few
minutes."

That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the "packing up" and my
wife and I were alone--and together.

I saw London again during the next few days.  We rode on the tops
of busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor.
We took long trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers.
Frances called them our honeymoon trips.  The time flew by.  Then I
received a note from Hephzy that the "packing up" was finished at
last and that she was returning to London.

It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone
to meet her at the railway station.  I was early there and, as I
was walking up, awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name.
I turned and there, immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A.
Carleton Heathcroft.

"Ah, Knowles," he said, cheerfully.  "Thought it was you.  Haven't
seen you of late.  Missed you at Burgleston, on the course.  How
are you?"

I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own
health.

"Topping," he replied.  "Rotten weather, eh--what?  And how's Miss--
Oh, dear me, always forget the name!  The eccentric aunt who is so
intensely patriotic and American--How is she?"

"She is well, too," I answered.

"Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow," he observed.  "And
where have you been, may I ask?"

I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.

"Oh, yes!  I remember now.  Someone said you had gone.  That
reminds me:  Did you go to Paris?  Did you see the girl who sang at
the Abbey--the one I told you of, who looked so like that pretty
niece of yours?  Hope you did.  The resemblance was quite
extraordinary.  Did you see her?"

I dodged the question.  I asked him what he had been doing since
the day of the golf tournament.

"I--Oh, by Jove!" he exclaimed, "now I am going to surprise you.
I have been getting ready to take the fatal step.  I'm going to be
married."

"Married!" I repeated.  "Really?  The--the Warwickshire young lady,
I presume."

"Yes.  How did you know of her?"

"Your aunt--Lady Carey--mentioned that your--your affections were
somewhat engaged in that quarter."

"Did she?  Really!  Yes, she would mention it, I suppose.  She
mentions it to everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my
humble self, and the roses.  She has been more insistent of late
and at last I consented to oblige her.  Do you know, Knowles, I
think she was rather fearful that I might be smitten by your Miss
Morley.  Shared your fears, eh?"

I smiled, but I said nothing.  A train which I believed to be the
one upon which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station,

"A remarkably attractive girl, your niece," he went on.  "Have you
heard from her?"

"Yes," I said, absently.  "I must say good-by, Heathcroft.  That is
the train I have been waiting for."

"Oh, is it.  Then, au revoir, Knowles.  By the way, kindly remember
me to your niece when you see her, will you."

"I will.  But--" I could not resist the temptation; "but she isn't
my niece," I said.

"Oh, I say!  What?  Not your niece?  What is she then?"

"She is my wife--now," I said.  "Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft."

I hurried away before he could do more than gasp.  I think I shook
even his serene composure at last.

I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.

"It was silly, I suppose," I said.  "I told him on the spur of the
moment.  I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs,
will have something to talk about now.  They expect almost anything
of Americans, or some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and
niece ought to be a surprise, I should think."

Hephzy laughed.  "The Baylisses will explain," she said.  "I told
the old doctor and his wife all about it.  They were very much
pleased, that was plain enough.  They knew she wasn't your niece
and they'll tell the other folks.  That'll be all right, Hosy.
Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were tickled almost to death.  It
stops all their worry about their son and Frances, of course.  He
is in Switzerland now, poor chap.  They'll write him and he'll come
home again by and by where he ought to be.  And he'll forget by and
by, too.  He's only a boy and he'll forget.  So THAT'S all right.

"Everybody sent their love to you," she went on.  "The curates and
the Samsons and everybody.  Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back
next week and the servants'll take care of the rectory till they
come.  Everybody was so glad to see me, and they're goin' to write
and everything.  I declare!  I felt real bad to leave 'em.  They're
SUCH nice people, these English folks.  Aren't they, Hosy."

They were and are.  I hope that some day I may have, in my own
country, the opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and
kindness that my Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.

We sailed for home two days later.  A pleasant voyage it was, on a
good ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers.  And, at last, one
bright, cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and
white waves leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us
a little speck--the South Shoal lightship.  Everyone crowded to the
rail, of course.  Hephzy sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.

"Nantucket!" she said, reading the big letters on the side of the
little vessel.  "Nantucket!  Don't that sound like home, Hosy!
Nantucket and Cape Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say!
My! the air seems different already.  I believe I can almost smell
the Bayport flats.  Do you know what I am goin' to do as soon as I
get into my kitchen?  After I've seen some of my neighbors and the
cat and the hens, of course.  I'm going to make a clam chowder.
I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder ever since we left
England."

And the next morning we landed at New York.  Jim Campbell was at
the wharf to meet us.  His handshake was a welcome home which was
good to feel.  He welcomed Hephzy just as heartily.  But I saw him
looking at Frances with curiosity and I flattered myself,
admiration, and I chuckled as I thought of the surprise which I was
about to give him.  It would be a surprise, sure enough.  I had
written him nothing of the recent wonderful happenings in Paris and
in London, and I had sworn Matthews to secrecy likewise.  No, he
did not know, he did not suspect, and I gloried in the opportunity
which was mine.

"Jim," I said, "there is one member of our party whom you have not
met.  Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often.
Here he is.  Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs.
Knowles, my wife."

Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering.  He gave me one
glance, a glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and
then he and Frances shook hands.

"Mrs. Knowles," he said, "I--you'll excuse my apparent lack of
intellect, but--but this husband of yours has--I've known him a
good while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at
anything he might do, but--but I hadn't.  I--I--Please don't mind
me; I'm really quite sane at times.  I am very, very glad.  May we
shake hands again?"

He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel.
When he and I were alone together he seized my arm.

"Confound you!" he exclaimed.  "You old chump!  What do you mean by
springing this thing on me without a word of warning?  I never was
as nearly knocked out in my life.  What do you mean by it?"

I laughed.  "It is all part of your prescription," I said.  "You
told me I should marry, you know.  Do you approve of my selection?"

"Approve of it!  Why, man, she's--she's wonderful.  Approve of YOUR
selection!  How about hers?  You durned quahaug!  How did you do
it?"

I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story.  He
did not interrupt once--a perfectly amazing feat for him--and when
I had finished he shook his head.

"It's no use," he said.  "I'm too good for the business I am in.  I
am wasting my talents.  _I_ sent you over there.  _I_ told you to
go.  _I_ prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest.  _I_ did
it.  I'm going to quit the publishing game.  I'm going to set up as
a specialist, a brain specialist, for clams.  And I'll use your
face as a testimonial:  'Kent Knowles, Quahaug.  Before and After
Taking.'  Man, you look ten years younger than you did when you
went away."

"You must not take all the credit," I told him.  "You forget Hephzy
and her dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport.
That dream has come true; do you realize it?"

He nodded.  "I admit it," he said.  "She is a better specialist
than I.  I shall have to take her into partnership.  'Campbell and
Cahoon.  Prescribers and Predictors.  Authors Made Human.'  I'll
speak to her about it."

As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me
another question.

"Kent," he whispered, "what are you going to do now?  What are you
going to do with her?  Are you and she going back to Bayport to be
Mr. and Mrs. Quahaug?  Is that your idea?"

I shook my head.  "We're going back to Bayport," I said, "but how
long we shall stay there I don't know.  One thing you may be sure
of, Jim; I shall be a quahaug no more."

He nodded.  "I think you're right," he declared.  "She'll see to
that, or I miss my guess.  No, my boy, your quahaug days are over.
There's nothing of the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as
well as a mighty pretty one, and she cares enough about you to keep
you awake and in the game.  I congratulate you, Kent, and I'm
almost as happy as you are.  Also I shall play the optimist at our
next directors' meeting; I see signs of a boom in the literature
factory.  Go to it, my son.  You have my blessing."

We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over
night, and left on the early morning "accommodation"--so called, I
think, because it accommodates the train hands--for Cape Cod.  As
we neared Buzzard's Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch,
began to sink.  When the sand dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in
sight they sank lower and lower.  It was October, the summer
people, most of them, had gone, the station platforms were almost
deserted, the more pretentious cottages were closed.  The Cape
looked bare and brown and wind-swept.  I thought of the English
fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry pastures.
What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I was
bringing her?

She had been very much excited and very much interested.  New York,
with its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean
white buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray
dwellings and shops of London, had been a wonderland to her.  She
had liked the Pullman and the dining-car and the Boston hotel.  But
this, this was different.  How would she like sleepy, old Bayport
and the people of Bayport.

Well, I should soon know.  Even the morning "accommodation" reaches
Bayport some time or other.  We were the only passengers to alight
at the station, and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley,
who drives the depot wagon, were the only ones to welcome us.
Their welcome was hearty enough, I admit.  Gabe would have asked a
hundred questions if I had answered the first of the hundred, but
he seemed strangely reluctant to answer those I asked him.

Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me.  Tad Simpson's
youngest child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish
weirs had caught consider'ble mackerel that summer.  So much he was
willing to say, but he said little more.  I asked how the house and
garden were looking and he cal'lated they were all right.  Pumping
Gabe Lumley was a new experience for me.  Ordinarily he doesn't
need pumping.  I could not understand it.  I saw Hephzy and he in
consultation on the station platform and I wondered if she had been
able to get more news than I.

We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place--
I looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't
see him--and on until we reached our gate.  Frances said very
little during our progress through the village.  I did not dare
speak to her; I was afraid of asking her how she liked what she had
seen of Bayport.  And Hephzy, too, was silent, although she kept
her head out of the window most of the time.

But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before
the side door I felt that I must say something.  I must not appear
fearful or uneasy.

"Here we are!" I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
alight.  "Here we are at last.  This is home, dear."

And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled
with people, people whom I had known all my life.  Mr. Partridge,
the minister, was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and
his wife, and the Dimicks and the Salterses and more.  Before I
could recover from my surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.

"Mr. Knowles," he said, "on this happy occasion it is our privilege
to--"

But Captain Cy interrupted him.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "don't make a speech to him now, Mr.
Partridge.  Welcome home, Kent!  We're all mighty glad to see you
back again safe and sound.  And Hephzy, too.  By the big dipper,
Hephzy, the sight of you is good for sore eyes!  And I suppose this
is your wife, Kent.  Well, we--Hey!  I might have known Phoebe
would get ahead of me."

For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands.  Others were
crowding forward to do so.  And the table was set and there were
flowers everywhere and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon,
grinning from ear to ear, with the cat--our cat--who seemed the
least happy of the party, in her arms.

Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my
marriage; she had telegraphed from New York the day before,
announcing the hour of our return.  And this was the result.

When it was all over and they had gone--they would not remain for
dinner, although we begged them to do so--when they had gone and
Hephzy had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my
wife.

"Frances," I said, "this is home.  Here is where Hephzy and I have
lived for so long.  I--I hope you may be happy here.  It is a
rather crude place, but--"

She came to me and put her arms about my neck.

"Don't, my dear, don't!" she said.  "It is beautiful.  It is home.
And--and you know I have never had a home, a real home before."

"Then you like it?" I cried.  "You really like it?  It is so
different from England.  The people--"

"They are dear, kind people.  And they like you and respect you,
Kent.  How could you say they didn't!  I know I shall love them
all."

I made a dash for the kitchen.  "Hephzy!" I shouted.  "Hephzy!  She
does like it.  She likes Bayport and the people and everything."

Hephzy was just entering at the back door.  She did not seem in the
least surprised.

"Of course she likes it," she said, with decision.  "How could
anybody help likin' Bayport?"



CHAPTER XIX

Which Treats of Quahaugs in General


Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
pilgrimage.  Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it.  He
dropped in for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my
day's "stunt" at the desk, I assisted in entertaining him.  Frances
was in the sitting-room also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward.
Mr. Tidditt had stopped at the post-office on his way down and he
had the Boston morning paper in his hand.  Of course he was filled
to the brim with war news.  We discuss little else in Bayport now;
even the new baby at the parsonage has to play second fiddle.

"My godfreys!" exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the
rocking chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it.  "My
godfreys, but they're havin' awful times over across, now ain't
they.  Killin' and fightin' and battlin' and slaughterin'!  It
don't seem human to me somehow."

"It is human, I'm afraid," I said, with a sigh.  "Altogether too
human.  We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all.  We pride
ourselves on our civilization, but after all, it takes very little
to send us back to savagery."

"That's so," said Asaph, with conviction.  "That's true about
everybody but us folks in the United States.  We are awful
fortunate, we are.  We ain't savages.  We was born in a free
country, and we've been brought up right, I declare!  I beg your
pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't born in Bayport."

Frances smiled.  "No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt," she said.
"I confess to having been born a--savage."

"But you're all right now," said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover
his slip.  "You're all right now.  You're just as American as the
rest of us.  Kent, suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your
trade any?  It's goin' to hurt a good many folks's.  They tell me
groceries and such like is goin' way up.  Lucky we've got fish and
clams to depend on.  Clams and quahaugs'll keep us from starvin'
for a spell.  Oh," with a chuckle, "speakin' of quahaugs reminds
me.  Did you know they used to call your husband a quahaug, Mrs.
Knowles?  That's what they used to call him round here--'The
Quahaug.'  They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside his
shell all the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to
the summer crowd and all.  I always respected him for it.  _I_
don't toady to nobody neither."

Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
conversation.

"They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more," she declared,
indignantly.  "He's been out of his shell more and seen more than
most of the folks in this town."

"I know it; I know it.  And he's kept goin' ever since.  Runnin' to
New York, he and you," with a nod toward Frances, "and travelin' to
Washin'ton and Niagary Falls and all.  Wonder to me how he does as
much writin' as he does.  That last book of yours is sellin' first-
rate, they tell me, Kent."

He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry.  I have rewritten and
finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale.  The critics
seem to think I have achieved my first genuine success.

"What are you writin' now?" asked Asaph.  "More of them yarns about
pirates and such?  Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and
see a light in your library window there, Kent, and know you're
pluggin' along amongst all them adventures, I wonder how you can
stand it.  'Twould give me the shivers.  Godfreys! the last time I
read one of them yarns--that about the 'Black Brig' 'twas--I hardly
dast to go to bed.  And I DIDN'T dast to put out the light.  I see
a pirate in every corner, grittin' his teeth.  Writin' another of
that kind, are you?"

"No," I said; "this one is quite different.  You will have no
trouble in sleeping over this one, Ase."

"That's a comfort.  Got a little Bayport in it?  Seems to me you
ought to put a little Bayport in, for a change."

I smiled.  "There is a little in this," I answered.  "A little at
the beginning, and, perhaps, at the end."

"You don't say!  You ain't got me in it, have you?  I'd--I'd look
kind of funny in a book, wouldn't I?"

I laughed, but I did not answer.

"Not that I ain't seen things in my life," went on Asaph,
hopefully.  "A man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and
not see things.  But I hope you won't put any more foreigners in.
This we're readin' now," rapping the newspaper with his knuckles,
"gives us all we want to know about foreigners.  Just savages, they
be, as you say, and nothin' more.  I pity 'em."

I laughed again.

"Asaph," said I, "what would you say if I told you that the English
and French--yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them
at home as I have the others--were no more savages than we are?"

"I'd say you was crazy," was the prompt answer.

"Well, I'm not.  And you're not very complimentary.  You're
forgetting again.  You forget that I married one of those savages."

Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.

"She ain't any savage," he announced.  "Her mother was born right
here in Bayport.  And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the
best place in the world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?"

"Yes," said Frances, "I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt."

So Asaph went away triumphantly happy.  After he had gone I
apologized for him.

"He's a fair sample," I said.  "He is a quahaug, although he
doesn't know it.  He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of
American."

Frances smiled.  "He's not much worse than I used to be," she said.
"I used to call America an uncivilized country, you remember.  I
suppose I--and Mr. Heathcroft--were exaggerated types of a certain
kind of English.  We were English quahaugs, weren't we?"

Hephzy nodded.  "We're all quahaugs," she declared.  "Most of us,
anyhow.  That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations;
they stay in their shells and they don't try to know and understand
their neighbors.  Kent, you used to be a quahaug--a different kind
of one--but that kind, too.  I was a quahaug afore I lived in
Mayberry.  That's who makes wars like this dreadful one--quahaugs.
We know better now--you and Frances and I.  We've found out that,
down underneath, there's precious little difference.  Humans are
humans."

She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:

"I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything--nice
folks are nice folks anywhere."



THE END














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