The Foe in the Household

CHAPTER I.

EDWARD ROLFE drove his chestnut mare over the red shale road which connected Emerald with Swatara, late one afternoon in September, chatting with his companion as he drove, in a way to make her merry.

She was a demure-looking young woman, but it was her dress that made her appear so. The daughter of the Mennonite bishop living in Swatara, she must, of course, conform to the customs of her people ; but beneath the quaint apparel, “the young man seated beside her in that light spring wagon, which was so well known on all the mountain roads, had discovered a rare intelligence, a rare sweetness, and a dignity of character, which commanded his reverence and love.

He had been telling her one of the many “ thrilling adventures ” of which he was the hero, — for he had travelled far and wide on his business as a civil engineer, and had passed through a great variety of fortunes for so young a man, — when, as they approached the Emerald station, he checked his horse’s pace, and said, “Delia, Father Frost is going on this train.” And there he paused. She understood him, and did not answer. Then he sought to ascertain her thought another way ; he leaned forward and looked at the lovely face concerning which he was often asking himself whether it would be more or less lovely when she had laid aside that uncouth bonnet, and donned the head-gear worn by ladies of his rank and station among the world’s people. She smiled when he caught her eye, but it was a serious, thoughtful, doubting smile. Had he the very purpose which his words now suggested, when he asked her if she would ride with him to the Emerald station that pleasant afternoon ?

“ No,” he said, as if in answer to her questioning thought. “ I will not urge it, dear, though I do not know when so good an opportunity will offer again. We could keep our own secret,” he added, immediately, “ until we chose to make it known. O my darling, we are not going to trifle always, are we, with our blessed destiny?” That was the way he would not urge it.

“ You may drive on, Edward, and do as you think best. We shall do our duty by each other, at least.”

“ We shall have done our highest duty surely then. It is all quite clear to me.”

“ Well, perhaps ; you ought to know ! I do not see clearly. Is the train about to start ? ”

“ In a moment.”

An expression of grave and satisfied determination appeared on the youngman’s face as he answered this question, which was asked with such evident anxiety. He did not now consume time in seeking to make his companion see more clearly that the thing he had resolved upon was the thing to do. This was not a moment for expostulation or for argument, but for rapid driving. The train would leave Emerald in less than ten minutes. The chestnut mare understood her master’s pleasure, and went on at a quick trot. They were making up the train at the station, and the locomotive was working backward and forward. Edward might have driven upon the track and the mare would not have flinched, but, instead, he drove into the shed back of the station, threw down the lines, helped Delia to alight, and said, “Go into the waiting-room, and I will find him,” and hurried away, while she walked quietly into the house. The behavior of each was perfectly natural, as any person must have acknowledged who had seen them at this moment. Edward Rolfe was always in a hurry, Delia Rose never.

When the engineer came into the waiting - room, ’she was there alone. He was accompanied by Father Trost, the burly Methodist, to whom Edward had already explained his wish.

“ I don’t know about this,” Trost was saying, as they crossed the platform.

“Give us the benefit of the doubt, then,” said Edward, gayly. “ Here is your fee ; you will find there are ten tens, but don’t stop to count them now. We have really no time to lose. Bestow your blessing. Make us man and wife, according to the laws of God and the Commonwealth, and go your way rejoicing. The conductor will wait the train for you.” Edward Rolfe thought he understood the man, and that the fee already in his hands would settle his doubts, even though he exclaimed when he saw who the young lady was in whose behalf his priestly service was requested.

He was right about it, but the old man felt himself drawn powerfully in two different directions when he saw the girl. His friendship for Bishop Rose would have dissuaded him from performing the ceremony which would unite his daughter with the man whom, according to the regulations of her sect, it was unlawful for her to wed, unless she intended to abandon openly the faith of which her father was so noted an expounder. But then, again, his dislike of the sect against which he had been preaching violently the year past prompted him to perform the ceremony, which would prove, when discovered or declared, the most effective blow the Mennonites had ever received. And then, besides, there was the eleventh-hour providence of that hundred-dollar fee !

“Father Trost,” said Delia, “your last religious service in this region is not one you could have expected to perform.”

“ I wish the train had started an hour ago,” he answered ; “but, young people, this is your business, not mine.”

“ Exactly, sir. And we consider ourselves very fortunate that we knew when the train would start, and who would be on board,” said Edward, cheerfully.

“ Come, then,” said Father Trost, hurriedly, and of these two he made one.

“ You may pray for us on your journey,” said Edward ; but the old man, in spite of the hint, lifted his hands, and besought for bridegroom and bride the blessing which rested on Isaac and Rebecca. Then, turning to Delia, he asked, “ Do you mean to let your father know what you have done, Miss Dely ? ”

The bridegroom answered for her. “ Not yet ; just because Bishop Rose is the man he is, we could not speak to him. I do not mean to ask my wife to leave her people while her father lives.”

“Then, young man, you might better have let this business alone.”

“ I will tell Adams that you are coming. Go that way,” said Edward, cutting short the talk ; and, pointing to the door which led into the bar-room, he himself passed out by that which opened directly on the piazza.

Delia, left alone, sat down. The next moment, however, she arose again and hurried out. Rolfe was talking with the conductor, but when he saw her looking for him, and evidently a little troubled, he went to her at once.

“ Edward,” she said, “should n't there be a —a certificate, or something ? He is not coming back, you know. He should give us one.”

“ Certainly, dear ; how stupid I was ! I 'll speak to him.” The train was in rapid motion when the engineer leaped from the car to the platform.

“ Don't ever one of you try a thing like that, — it’s as much as your life is worth,” said he, shaking his head at a group of urchins who had watched his feat with admiration. Then he hurried into the room where Delia was.

“ Too late ! ” he exclaimed. “ I wish I had thought of it before. It was a careless trick. But he will send us one, Delia, as soon as he can. It will be all right. I have to speak to some of the men; can you wait here a few minutes ? or have n’t you some errand ? ”

Delia now recollected that there were some articles for domestic use which she had intended to purchase in Emerald ; and, while Edward gave his orders and gained his information, she attended to these.

The daylight seemed to have been arrested in its departure, so brightly the moon shone on their return. They did not linger by the way. Edward did not need to be reminded that the bishop would be looking for Delia, and he let the mare take her own swift return-pace.

He was so satisfied with the day’s success, that he hardly cared to talk about itOnce he broke out gayly : “ There goes Delia Rolfe ! Do you see her, young woman ? The lady in the white bonnet with the white roses and green leaves. She wears a gay gown, and a white shawl embroidered with pretty flowers. She is going out of the grays by the gray road, gradually, I suppose. Ned Rolfe was always in luck.”

“The woman is so fine that I don't know her,” said Delia. “ Perhaps I have never seen her, though.”

“I really think you never have,” said he. And then Delia silently reproached herself for the thrill of satisfaction his words had occasioned, knowing as she did that it was only by the Valley of Death that she could pass to the place where he beheld her so changed in exterior; for it had been decided by them, that, so long as her father lived, she should remain quietly among the Mennonites.

The bishop was in his garden, listening to the crickets and the katydids, when Delia opened the gate and passed through, and stood there looking around her. Two hours ago only she went ; and now she had come again, another and another’s.

At first, when Edward had talked of marriage, she had said, with a secret grief she had resolved he never should suspect, that it could never be. She had seen that it could be. And there stood the obstacle which had seemed insurmountable. A loving old man ! For, after all, the church, she found, was her father ! And even he had not been able to stand in Edward’s way. How wonderful his power was ! Everybody felt it. It was said no other man could have pushed the Emerald road through ; nothing could thwart him ; oh, least of all her foolish heart, least of all could it stand between herself and him! Bishop Rose was an old man ; in the moonlight he looked very old. It seemed to his daughter that there were a dozen furrows in the place of one since she saw him last two hours ago. As if she had been considering the probabilities of his lengthened life, and had found them against it, — which she had not, dear soul, — Delia felt condemned. She rejoiced when they went into the house, and she looked at him by steady candlelight to see that his blue eyes were bright with an almost youthful fire. Though her freedom could only come by his death, he must not die.

Edward joined them at the tea-table which Delia had quickly spread. He was a frequent and always a welcome guest in the house of the bishop.

“You missed an old friend by being away this afternoon, Delia.” said her father, looking at Rolfe and smiling as he spoke. " Mr. Trost was here, or Father Trost as the people call him. I must return his compliment, for he called me bishop when he went away, and it was the first time that 1 remember hearing it from him. Maybe you saw him at the station, daughter ?”

“Yes, we did. You parted good friends then, father, if he called you bishop, for he always said that you were none.”

“ Good friends, to be sure. O, Trost meant well, and he was a hard worker. I never saw his equal for holding on.”

“But I assure you, Bishop, he was no loss to Swatara. Nobody really loved him, and as for homage, which a preacher of the Gospel ought to be able to command — ”

“ I don’t know,” interrupted the old man, pained evidently by this criticism of the preacher who had not only made himself conspicuous as his rival in the neighborhood, but had taken great pride and pleasure in so doing, — “I don’t know. I think it may be the zeal of the Lord’s house that is eating him up.”

“No, no,” replied Edward, hastily, “it’s your charity that is trying to cover up a multitude of sins. I know Trost; he is a hard, unforgiving, irascible, selfish man, and vain as a girl, — I beg your pardon, Miss Delia. For my part, I am heartily glad he has gone out to the Indians ; but I doubt whether he will be able to win them over to his cause ; he will be pretty sure to reveal anything but the beauty of holiness to them.”

The bishop’s Christian kindness was almost offended by these words, and Delia felt not a little pained that the man who had been associated with herself and Edward in the most important transaction of their lives should now be spoken of by him with so little respect. It almost seemed as if this feeling might even extend to that solemn covenant into which they had entered ; that he would regard it as lightly.

Perhaps the bishop had felt relieved ? when he saw Trost going away from Swatara, but he said : “There was room for both of us here, and work enough to do. We will just keep in mind, daughter, that it was n’t our people, but our doctrines, he fought so hard.”

Delia could not hear this without thinking with sudden pain : “Haven’t I given him warrant tor the worst thing he ever said against us, that we don’t stand to our rules and keep our vows ? He has gone off victorious, and I have put a sword in his hand ! ”

“ Whoever they send in his place, they cannot send a worse man for us,” she said. “ Whatever happens, nobody can complain of your stewardship, father.”

The old man smiled, and his daughter smiled with him ; but this hour, which should have been the happiest of her life, was, in spite of her, the saddest. Rolfe perceived the truth, saw that she was saying to herself, “ He trusts me and I have deceived him,” and exerted himself so successfully for the general enlivenment, that her misgivings presently were quieted. Then she felt ashamed of her varying mood, for how contemptible it must have seemed to Edward !

“The fact is,” she said to herself, “ I married him because I loved him more than anything else. Can’t I stand by that ? Do I love him less than I did three hours ago, when I saw that the most important of all things was to please him ?” From the moment when she sharply reminded herself of these facts, Edward saw no further evidence of doubt on Delia’s part. She would honor herself in the act she had performed. “ I consented to this because I did not fear to let my heart lead me. We cannot be parted now, at least.” she seemed to say ; and he who had quietly watched her as she passed through these moods thought, “Thank Heaven you see how it is. But I knew I could trust to your reason.”

From this time forth he continued to come and go as he had come and gone during the past year, reckoning the house of the bishop as one of his homes, and paying his way with a liberal hand. His work on the main road was nearer to Swatara than the Emerald station, and a drive of three miles took him across the hills to his scene of action.

While at work on his charts he completed many a drawing under the bishop’s root ; and he brought his books there one by one, until the old man saw his shelves filled with a literature to which he would otherwise have had no access. These books he valued, and his daughter loved them. They gave to her the world from which Edward came, the world to which he would perhaps one day lead her. They had enriched her thoughts, and were not without their witness in her heart. The intelligence, the energy, and skill of the engineer had long made him an interesting study to the bishop, as well as a valued friend. He was his first point of contact with the great world ; through him he felt the vast tides coming in and going out, ebbing and flowing; and through him he learned of the great enterprises by which the resources, power, and humanity of nations were discovered to each other.

So the weeks passed, the months. It was in the spring to which Delia had been looking forward with impatience,— for in the spring it would be easier for her to get away from home, and she had long promised herself a visit to a friend’s house among the Ancaster hills. — in the spring that the man for whom she had endured anxieties as if they were joys, the gay, careless, happy fellow who secretly smiled at his good wife’s occasional sighs as she thought of the poor Mennonite folk from whose company she, unsuspected, had separated herself, was taken out of the world as suddenly as by lightning’s stroke.

When news of the appalling accident reached the bishop’s house, Delia was alone. A child, the son of one of the miners, passing by, and seeing her on the doorstep, stopped and told her what he had heard at the Emerald station, from which he had just returned.

“ When was it ? ” she asked, as she might have asked the time of any ordinary event.

“ Day before yesterday.”

After a moment the boy, perceiving that no more questions would be asked, ran on.

Delia went into the house. Hours passed. There she sat, waiting in silent, horrible uncertainty. The strength of her nature had never a better demonstration than in this. Her impulse was, of course, to leave the house, to fly to Emerald, and see and learn for herself what had happened. But among these strangers who, if the rumor had grown in its transit and Edward still lived, would gather around her husband, could she stand as a silent spectator ? How could she account to them from her presence there ? Say to him that she had come in her father’s stead, Mr. Rolfe’s dear friend ? Would not everybody discover in an instant that Rolfe was too much to her, if he was not all ? And why might she not speak and say that he was all ? If Edward himself could not declare it, she had no evidence. They had looked and looked in vain for the letter which Father Trost had promised. No; the one thing for her to do was to remain where she was. And yet ! if he lived, if he could speak ; if he could by signs even testify for her to that marriage before he passed out of the world, there might be time yet. But her father, but the church ! Delia had not yet disposed of this afterthought when her father came home.

He had heard of the accident just after he had set out on his pastoral visits, and at once changed his course, going over to Emerald, and so to Laurel Station, arriving there in time to witness the funeral services, and to seethe little company of mourning men start with the body for Philadelphia, where Edward’s surviving sister lived.

The old man had come home to tell all this to his daughter, and to mourn with her.

The death of this young engineer, this enterprising man of business, so shocked the venerable bishop, he so deeply mourned his loss, that merely through sympathy his daughter might have fallen into a state of dejection from which she would find it difficult to rally. It seemed, indeed, impossible for either of them to accept the fact of Edward’s death. So cheerful was he, so alive, so strong, it was monstrous to associate with him thoughts of helplessness and decay. He still lived,—he must come again ! The reading he had begun must be continued ; the work he planned must be finished. Alas ! death had decreed not so ! He would return for no more pleasant chat or kindly service. He was gone forever.

Late in the spring Delia made a great effort to break away from the seemingly hopeless slate of life into which she had fallen. She began to talk again about the projected visit to Aneaster, and the bishop, perceiving that she needed a change, urged her going. So they closed the house, and he went on his long summer circuit, preaching through all the region until the end of July, when he came back, and found that Delia had preceded him by a single clay. A glance assured him that it had been to her a profitable journey. She had recovered something of her native cheerfulness, and seemed young again.

Certain experiences had befallen both father and daughter during this separation which made them in subsequent intercourse more tenderly regardful of each other. The filial heart of Delia seemed to have been enlarged. She deported herself as though she had but her father to live for. There was no other for whose coming she might watch and wait ; no light elastic step ; only that heavy tread which was growing slower from the uncertainties of age.

In his circuit Bishop Rose had met Friend Holcombe again, that godly young man who had, before he began his ministry, worked in the bishop’s blacksmith’s shop ; for like Paul, the teachers among Mennonites labored to get their own living with their own hands. He had found Mr. Holcombe in a remote corner of his circuit, preaching and praying with an earnestness of which his earlier youth had given promise, and he had invited him to return to Swatara. Since the mines were becoming famous, the population increased fast, and he felt that there should be at this important point a younger man, a man of more activity and vigor, than himself. When he gave the invitation, he had every reason to hope that Mr. Holcombe would think well of it ; for it had been clear to the father’s eyes when Friend was with him, that he had but one great human-pointing desire, and that was to marry Delia.

Mr. Holcombe came back to Swatara and entered upon the work designated by the bishop, with a singleness and sincerity of purpose which could not but insure marked success. Everything about the young preacher was attractive ; by voice, manner, and teaching he won upon the people, and from Sunday to Sunday the benches of the meeting-house were filled with hearers, many of whom Father Trost had counted as members of his flock. Still he did not get on rapidly with Delia Rose. She knew what her father’s hope was ; but she was looking for a letter, which still did not come. The expectation of it never left her. It took from ker life all peace. There was not a day passed but she thought : “ Who will open that letter ? Who will read it first, and come to tell him that the worst foe of the church is of his own household ?”

CHAPTER II.

ONE day Dr. Detwiler, who made as free as he pleased of every house in Swatara, coming in and going out a well-beloved physician, walked into her dairy, where she was busy with her eream-jars and her milk-pans, and her thoughts, and said : “ Delia Rose, there is one thing for which you will not find it easy tō get forgiveness. The greatest sin you can be guilty of is keeping Friend Flolcombe doubting whether you are ever going to relent. You can’t prevent his hoping that you finally will.”

“ What do you mean ? ” asked Delia, turning quietly toward the doctor, who had appealed to her in that abrupt way in behalf of another man. The doctor was an old friend to everybody, and freely used the privilege of speech, which he deemed he had earned in his summering and wintering with the country folk among the hills. He was in the country before Mr. Holcombe became a shining light, and people said that he might himself marry the bishop’s daughter if he would only join the Mennonites. When anybody ventured to speak to him on the subject, he always answered that he was already married to Swatara for better or for worse.

He had come now prepared to answer in'full Delia’s question.

“ You are giving I don’t know how many years of unhappiness to the best man living, that’s all. And I don’t know as there’s the woman on earth who has the right to do it.”

“If he is the best man living, he is a great deal too good for me,” said Delia. “ I am saving him from his misery, if he did but know it.”

“He is in no condition to appreciate your kindness, and never will be. It may be all true, but if you cannot make him see it, you had better stop trying. You are a sensible woman, Delia. I would n’t have come here to say this, expressly for the man I love with my heart and my understanding, if I could see anything or anybody in the way. But I find there is n’t, and I warn you against interfering with the Lord’s designs ; for if ever He intended two persons for each other, He took thought of Delia Rose and Friend Holcombe.”

These words, spoken by such a man as the doctor, filled Delia with desperation. She saw her father’s advocate, Mr. Holcombe’s advocate, and the church’s advocate in Detwiler, anti gave him an answer that would have indicated despair to any one who could have suspected it: “If this should ever happen, you will have to take the consequences.”

Fie answered as cheerily as if now quite assured that he had gained his cause, “Thank you, I will.”

Then she asked : “ Did Friend send you here to say this ? ”

“Not he.”

And now, evidently, since she had gone so far as to ask this question, the doctor did not care whether his words displeased her or not. He had that high-handed way when he had determined that a certain course was desirable, and this marriage he decreed.

“I had only a minute to stop, and have stayed five,” said he, looking at his watch. “ I must go, but you will be married before the month is out.” He wanted to provoke a smile, or at least some sort of emotion. This tranquillity of hers, considering Holcombe’s state, was past endurance. He went out quickly as he spoke, but in a moment came back again.

“ There are some persons who are born for higher ends than just to suit themselves,” said he : “ you are among these, Delia. I can see how well you would fill the place which is vacant, and always will be vacant unless you choose to fill it. Tell me, dear girl, is there anything in him which you positively dislike ? ”

She was still pondering that question when, the doctor turned away and left her. " Have n’t you said he is the best man living? Why should I dislike him ? ”

She was aware that the doctor was gone, but she said this aloud as if he were still within hearing.

It was not for the first time the doctor had said that she was wronging herself and the patient love that waited her relenting. But his words had never obtained such a hearing as they had that afternoon. If this marriage was ordained, — and had she not, since the day Friend Holcombe came back to Swatara and renewed the suit of bis youth, trembled before him as in the presence of destiny ?

“ It would be better to die,” she said, when the doctor had left her with that promise which had the sound of a threat in her ears. But she knew no messenger of death would come. Vain would have been her endeavor to make the doctor understand how she shrank from the duties which would make their demands upon her from the moment she should step from her present place, and stand before the people as the young preacher’s wife. No one beside herself would be even surprised that she should take upon herself the duties pertaining to such station. People, indeed, expected her to do it ; it was the one desire of her father’s heart that she should occupy the place held by her mother so honorably many and many a year. Surely her expectation of life was not so great that she could afford to disappoint all these, and, intrenched in her secret, live to the memory of the unclaimed, unclaiming dead !

One day Detwiler dropped in with the news that Father Trost had been murdered by the Indians among whom he was laboring. He had come across men more savage than himself, and had got the worst of it.

From that day there was a marked change in Delia ; and yet the anxious expectation of her heart was not immediately dismissed. The cloud above her head did not at once break and disappear. There was still on the sky and in the air a presage of storm. That letter which Trost had promised might be wandering along the wide distance which stretched between the prairies and her home among the hills ; and it was many a week yet, after the doctor had brought the intelligence which had given her almost a shock of joy, before she ceased to look with doubt on every mortal who approached her. But at last there came a day when this apprehension lost so much of its force that she listened to Friend Holcombe’s suit, and for her father’s sake, and for the sake of the church which sustained him in it, she encouraged it.

Thus it was that the bishop, before his departure from earth, deemed himself among the blest. In the presence of his deacons and his lifelong friends, he gave his daughter to Friend Holcombe, as a king might give away a kingdom. “Take her,” he said, to the young preacher ; “ .so good a daughter as my girl has been to me will make you the truest and best of wives.” And the old man’s happy tears mingled with those of his daughter, who beheld among the wedding guests Edward and Edward’s child. And it was not on the face of the dead that she saw the frown and the contempt.

Indeed, so surrounded and so cheered as Delia was by all these approving faces and voices, it would have been strange if she had not supposed that the Lord also would smile on her endeavor to retrieve the past. Judgment had fallen upon her when she sought out happiness in her own way ; she must shut her eyes on the past, and forget her lost joy ; not for her the world’s ways, the world’s pride, the world’s successes; it was here, in Swatara, among her father’s people, that her duties lay. Trost was dead ; and the child born far away among the Ancaster hills should never sorrow for the loss she had never known.

CHAPTER III.

BUT sometimes on a midsummer afternoon a sound is heard which surprises everybody, — a warning of storm. The cloud must be looked for whence the warning issued. Everybody may not be glad to hear it. There is clover or grain cut, which the rain will not sweeten more thoroughly than the sun has done already ; or a party of pleasure, about to set forth gay as youth, is subjected to the misery of a doubting mind.

The voice that asked, “ Is it Dely Rose ? ” at the gate of the preacher’s house, was not unlike such thunder, — as startling, and perhaps not more welcome.

No dweller in Swatara could have asked the question of the commanding figure that arose at the sound of the voice from behind the currant-bushes which lined the garden fence. Leaning over the gate the man had perceived the woman, and thereupon had spoken as kindly and as cheerily as it was possible for him to speak. His voice was remarkable, but kindliness and cheeriness were not among its natural tones.

Mistress Holcombe appeared instantly to recognize it. She cast a quick glance around her, — where loomed the cloud? Astonishment for a moment seemed to have mastered every other emotion. Then, for hospitality was the law of Friend Holcombe’s house, and the law of her life as well, she hastened from the garden path and stood on the gravel walk which led from the gate to the front door of the cottage.

“Is this Father Trost?” she asked, and at the same time she smiled and extended one hand, while with the other she lifted the latch.

He entered, saying; “ I jest found you out, Miss Dely. Did ye know I had come back to Swatary to live ? ”

“We heard that the Indians had dealt so unkindly by you that you never could come back,” she answered.

“ I see, I see, everybody round here had me dead and buried,” he said, with a note of exultation in his voice, He still lived !

“When did you come?” asked Delia.

“ Last week, and been dreadful busy sence. I 've bought a little place for my hum up there among you folks. Mary is with me, — you remember Mary ? ”

“ Little Mary, your granddaughter ? O yes.”

“Anything but little Mary now ; she’s a woman grown. This does look nat’ral. It always was a purty place. But you ’ve been making a good many changes too.” He withdrew his eyes from Delia and looked around on the red cottage, the blue hills, the garden, the flowers.

“ O yes, changes everywhere,” she answered, as if in her heart she had sighed and shuddered. “It is seventeen years since you went away, Father Trost ; the bushes and vines have had time to grow. My hair was n’t quite as gray when you went as it is now. You look as young as ever.”

Father Trost, who wore a red wig which was fringed by obtrusive locks of his own gray hair, fixed his cold blue eyes on the flatterer, and seemed pleased by what she had said.

“You’re young yourself yet, Miss Dely, to be talking about gray. It would take sharper eyes than mine are to see the signs of age about you. Your ma had n’t a gray hair at sixty. But ’pears to me you favor t’ other side o’ the house. Well, well, he’s gone too since I went away. I was glad to hear you was living down here to the old place. You must have a good deal to tell me. Did you get the certificate ? ”

“ No ! ” exclaimed Delia, looking around quickly, and going nearer to the old man. “ You did not send it. Did you, Father Trost ? ”

“ Did n’t I, though ! That ’s like saying I broke my word,” he answered roughly, and looking indignant. “ I writ my letter, and I sent it, ma’am.”

“It never came to us,” said she, in the same low voice, which invited his to softer speech, — which expressed entreaty indeed, as well as apprehension.

“ I sent it, though. I sent it to Rolfe from Arkansas.”

“ How soon ? Was it long, — weeks or months first, Father Trost?”

“ Well, I was nigh on to four months getting out there, and that was one of the things I attended to firstly after I got there.”

“It was too late !” If lie had spoken truly, if he wrote the letter, and if they had received it, would all this have happened that had happened since ? And did she now wish that all this had not happened, that the people did not know her as Friend Holcombe’s wife, and that Rose did not call her “ mother ” ?

“ Why was it too late ? ” said he.

“ Have you heard that I am the wife of the preacher, Friend Holcombe ? ” said she, quickly. “ God took away the other, — your letter did not come, — you see how it was, — we said nothing about it. Only a little over four months and he was taken . . . .”

“ You mean to say it is your and my secret, Miss Dely ! ”

“Mine certainly,” she said. “You remember it was to be made public when we pleased, but not while father lived.” While Delia spoke she was steadily regarding the face of the old man. She did not like its expression. She feared that she had spoken unwisely and had angered him, — his violent temper she remembered of oId, — but she had not spoken unawares ; she had seen in these few moments since he had, as it were, risen out of the grave, that she must show him that he had nothing to do with her past.

“ Come in, let me show you my husband, Mr. Trost,” she said, now speaking cheerfully and more kindly. “ FFe happens to be at home to-day. He will remember your name, though he never saw you, perhaps. You left such a record behind you when you went away.” While she spoke, Delia led the way to the house, and Father Trost followed her.

“ You keep to your old style of wcaring-apparcl, Miss Dely,” he said, in a not unfriendly way.

“ We do not change our style, you know. We only grow old, and worse or better.”

“You have Scriptur’ for your fashion, and there’s a great economy in it,” he said, with approval. But eyes that loved grace and beauty more would have looked with less admiration on the scant skirt, the short waist, the awkwardly shaped sleeves of the gown in which Mrs. Holcombe was attired.

They made slow progress through the “ first room ” of the cottage. At almost every step the old man paused, and leaned upon his stick, and looked around him. He recognized the venerable Dutch clock which adorned one corner, and Delia called his attention to the carpet on the floor. It was one of her mother’s weaving. There was a book-shelf too, between the front door and the window, which he remembered hung in the same place in her father’s time ; he noticed that it contained a greater number of books than of old. He could have told her the title of every volume it contained eighteen years ago. The room, as well as the bookshelf, had undergone a few slight changes. The whitewashed walls were covered with a light and pretty paper. There was a vase containing flowers on the table, and an easy-chair near by, which looked less than a hundred years old. A modern, it was evident, presided over the home of the ancients, but a modern who was not a cold-blooded innovator. The atmosphere of the place had undergone a change, but not such a change as less than eighteen years must have made in a home belonging to “ world’s people.”

They passed into the kitchen, and again there was halting, but only long enough for Father Trost to note the exceeding order and cleanliness of the domestic arrangements. He had an eye for these signs, and smiled in his way. It was there in the kitchen that Friend Holcombe and the old man met. Friend had come in from the back porch, drawn by the sound of a strange voice.

“ Ah,” he said, after a single searching glance, “ nobody need tell me who this is ” and he gave his hand to Father Trost with a cordiality which proved that in warmth of heart, at least, he was worthy to succeed to the headship of this house. “ I was going to tell you, Delia, that I heard to-day Mr. Trost had come back to live among us. Your name is not strange to me, sir, though I have never before met you face to face. You were doing a good work in Swatara when I came here the first time, that was nigh twenty years ago.”

Anybody looking at Delia while her husband spoke could not have failed to see the satisfied pride with which she gazed at him.

Well had the man been named Friend by his mother, who in her heart consecrated him from his birth to the service of bis fellows as a friend. All the way up from childhood he had borne the name, conscious that he must redeem the promise it gave to all created beings.

“ So you ’re the man that’s in Bishop Rose’s place,” said Father Trost. From his ministerial habit of addressing a multitude as if it were an individual, he seemed now to be speaking to Delia as much as to her husband, turning from the one to the other.

He could nowhere have found a man and woman in finer physical harmony than these before him. They were models of manly and womanly beauty. A narrow, selfish, sordid life it was simply impossible that either of them should live ; Nature had decreed otherwise. Friend Holcombe’s character spoke out in his voice, frank, trustful, generous: —

“Not in the bishop’s place, though I preach in the church and have married his daughter. Come into the porch, sir, and rest in the bishop’s chair. Rosa, — I will show you our daughter, his grandchild, Father Trost. She has his name, you see.”

A girl between eleven and twelve years of age came at this call across the porch and stood by her father. Her parentage was in her face. At her age I riend Holcombe’s hair must have been of that golden brown ; her forehead, which looked as if it had never been shadowed by a sorrow or marred by a passionate feeling, bad the same beautiful shape as that of the man ; her sweet blue eyes had an expression which had deepened in his to the great knowledge of a good man ; her mouth bore out the testimony her eyes gave to the grace of a godly nature. She did not shrink back from the scrutiny which seemed harshly critical, rather than softly kind, but stepped forward and gave Father Trost her hand before he seemed to perceive that she was there as one of the family, and for something more than inspection.

Just then another girl came from the garden in the rear of the house, a girl taller and older than Rosa, possibly by half a dozen years. Her hands were full of crimson cardinal - flowers, and she had evidently just returned from a long walk ; her shoes were soiled, and her face heated ; how many miles she had walked with her sun-bonnet under her arm, no one of that group would have ventured to say. She was dressed in the same fashion as the mistress and the daughter of the house, but the attire did not befit her as well as it did either of them ; one could hardly help feeling that she was conscious of its awkward unbecomingness. Her dark hair was put up in a knot at the back, but there were short front locks which had escaped, and were always escaping this folding, and falling around her forehead and behind her ears in short, wild curls. The face had a graver expression than is often seen, or than is pleasant to see, on the countenance ot youth. It was not a fair face, but brown and stained by the exposure to which it had been subjected ; freckle and tan abounded. But it was a fine tace, the pure gray eyes kept always alive a lire which an emotion or a thought could set aglow ; a face capable of expressing nobly a wide range of feeling. Edward Rolfe would have loved it; he would have seen a promise of his mother s beauty in his daughter’s countenance, and in her form.

Father Trost was about to sit down, as he had been bidden, in the bishop’s, chair, when Mrs. Holcombe said, quite suddenly, “ Edna, come here ” ; for the girl, seeing a stranger there, would have gone away again. She shook her head as if she would go in spite of the call ; but Delia repeated, “ Come, dear,’’ in a way that few persons would have found themselves capable of disregarding. Edna obeyed.

“ Our daughter Edna, Father Trost,” said Mistress Holcombe, taking her hand, and thus quietly drawing the reluctant form towards her.

“What, another? ” he said, and this time he extended his hand. Edna did not seem to see that he did so. She looked at the face before her and found it repulsive and ugly, there was not a feature or a line of it that she did not scan and judge. Old Annie Gell had talked with her from her childhood up as though she had been a woman grown, and she had sharp criticism at her tongue’s end concerning the cold, hard eyes, the hanging cheeks, the red wig, the altogether tremendous person of the old man who affected her so disagreeably.

She had caught those words “ daughter ” and “ another,” spoken, the one so kindly and the other with unsympathetic surprise, by Mrs. Holcombe and the stranger, and the bitter thing she thought she forthwith said : “ As much a daughter as you are a friend, maybe. Because they were kind and took me in. Do you want Rosa, Mrs. Holcombe ? ”

Delia looked distressed, perhaps because of the girl’s rude speech, perhaps because the “ daughter ” declined to acknowledge relationship, persisting in that formality of speech which showed her constant recognition of the mere externality of the relationship. But she answered, kindly, “No, dear, not just now. But do you want her ? ”

“There are plenty of blueberries up the creek.”

“But you look so very tired, Edna.”

“ I am not tired ” ; and Edna looked at Delia as a child can look at the woman whose soul it can nearly vex to death, knowing partly her power, and capable of repenting, but first of testing fairly the patience and the love to which it intends to yield. “ I brought these flowers for you ” ; saying this she laid the scarlet bloom on Delia’s lap.

“You may go,” said Delia, “but do not go far ; perhaps our friend will stay to tea with us.”

“Oh, then we might catch some trout!” exclaimed Rosa, springing from her seat, and looking up at the shelf where the lines wore kept.

“ That will take too long,” said Edna, and her words decided the question. The girls went into the kitchen for pails, and did not return, but passed out by the front door.

“ I hope that dreadful thing will be gone when we come back,” said Edna, as they dosed the gate behind them.

Rosa thought that he was very funny.

“ Funny ! His face looks as if it was cut out of red leather, with holes for his eyes to stick through ; and did you ever see such hands ! ”

“Well, no matter,father seemed glad to see him,” said Rosa, quickly, as if to reconcile Edna to the fact that the old man had come to her parents’ house.

“ He don’t look as though he had any business there.”

“But you know,” said Rosa, “our house is n’t like any other ; we always take everybody in.”

“ O yes, I know,” returned Edna, as If it were very painful knowledge. At that Rosa’s face turned a bright red, and she wished herself home again. She was always saying the wrong thing to Edna, and now she had reminded her of the fact which Edna had been so long forgetting, and would probably never forget, that she too was one of the wanderers overtaken by night for whom the hospitality of the house had been proven.

Meanwhile Father Trost, who never yet had seen a reason for forbearing to ask concerning anything that excited his curiosity, had turned to Friend Holcombe with, “ Who is that girl ? Adopted?”

“She has quite a story. She was bequeathed to us less than a year ago,” said Mr. Holcombe. “ We are quite busy yet trying to make her feel at home here ; it has proved a little difficult.”

“'Pears to me I’ve seen a face like hers, but I can't locate it. Was she born in your parish ? ”

Delia looked at the questioner without answering. “ Are you going to the root of the matter?” she thought. “Perhaps the sooner the better.”

Mr. Holcombe said : “ I don’t know as we ought to claim old Annie Gell, exactly, but she belonged to us as much as she did to anybody.”

“ You don't mean to say this girl belonged to her! ”

“Not exactly. She is her sister’s child, so she lias been passed around. We are trying to make the poor child feel at home with us, and it will be strange if my wife does n’t accomplish it. Do you find many changes in your parish, sir ? ”

The question had hardly escaped Mr. Holcombe’s lips when Deacon Ent appeared. He brought a message to the preacher, and seemed to be in baste, for he turned to go as soon as he had delivered it.

“You might give me a lift up the mountain, if you are on your road back,” said Father Trost.

Delia had already concluded that her guest intended to remain all night, and she now invited him to do so ; but he answered that he had Mary and the cow at home expecting him, and if the Deacon, who was his near neighbor, would take him part way, it would be a timely favor.

The young man expressed his willingness to do so, but had evidently made an exact estimate of the amount of freight he was thus imposing on his favorite colt.

And so with expressions of mutual good-will, Trost and the Holcombes parted. The old man indulged in a bit of pleasantry at the last which cost Delia many a thoughtful moment after.

“ I shall be coming across you on your circuit,” said he, “ but there’s room for fair play in the mountains. My trumpet is n’t one to give forth an uncertain sound.”

“Good !” exclaimed Friend, with spirit. “ I hope I shall prove that the same may be said of mine.”

But Delia, standing back and looking at the two men. thought: “ The odds are against us. Those two don’t fight with the same kind of weapons. He has n’t grown any peaceabler than he was in father’s time, and then he claimed that he fought with the sword of the Lord, only because there was war in his heart.”

The Deacon and the old man were neighbors, it is true, but they had no joint interest to discuss, and there was no matter of public importance before them which they felt disposed to talk about just now, so the ride along the mountain road toward the mines was enlivened by the exchange of few words. Ent was thinking of the church business which had taken him to the preacher’s house, and Father Trost was absorbed by his thoughts on Delia Holcombe’s secret. He began to sec why it was that he had escaped with his life from savages, and was now again in Swatara. He had his testimony to give against the religious system which could foster liars and hypocrites. Thus the business of Delia’s marriage shaped itself to his mind ; her fair exterior, her position and influence in the region, stirred his indignation, fired him with holy resentment. If he had bound himself to regard her secret as her own, it was, nevertheless, his duty to warn the young folks of this neighborhood, and up and down the hills, and through the valley, against the system of which he suddenly remembered the young man by his side was a most zealous upholder.

“I must stop at the furnace a moment fora chain I left there, " said the Deacon, driving past the miners’ cottages towards the mine.

“ Is Mr. Hooper anywhere about here yet, or is everything changed about the works ? ” asked Trost.

“Hooper is gone ; but don’t you remember Mr. Elsden ? He was down at Emerald for a good while, I believe, in the office there.”

“ Elsden ? Elsden ? Yes, I remember that name.”

“That’s his office yonder; he’s the superintendent of Mr. Boyd’s works now. Hooper did n’t seem to be the man for the place ; but Mr. Elsden is carrying all before him.”

“Well, you might let me out here, August, if you 'll be sure to pick me up again. I should like to look at the new man.”

“I’ll do that, sir,” said August; and he dropped his burden at the superintendent’s door.

Father Trost, whose memory had lost nothing of its remarkably retentive power in all the long years of his life, had at once associated Mr. Elsden with Edward Kolfe, and there was one single question which he wished to ask him, and that was, “ What had become of the engineer?” Doha had told him a single word concerning his fate ; what had a man to say, a man like Elsden, who had been Rolfe’s bosom friend, and was, most likely, in his councils ?

Mr. Elsden was so busy looking over the Pit Hole estimates that he would not have looked a very hearty welcome even at Christopher Boyd himself that afternoon ; but when he understood that his visitor was old Father Trost, he pushed away his papers and was all courtesy. Trost was a man whom he had much wished to see, and had no expectation of seeing. The wish was not based on any prophetic instinct of friendship, as if, “There was a man I should have loved to work with in this benighted region,” nothing like this shone from the superintendent’s eyes as he shook hands with the old itinerant and said he was right glad he had got back to Swatara ; he had merely a curiosity of his own to ease. August Ent was outside, shouting to the minister, before Trost bad gone much beyond his expression of wonder at the start things had taken in Swatara, and the surprising way the mines were looking up. When he heard Ent’s voice, he said, “ I was going to ask you about a young man who was very busy about these parts when I went away, — that was Rolfe, the engineer, — I don’t see him around.”

“ Poor fellow !” answered Mr. Elsden, walking towards the door and then turning back again, with bis head bent a little, and a grave expression stealing over his face, “ he was a great loss to this region.”

“ Then he’s gone ? ”

“ Gone ? Killed, sir, in a minute, — crushed to death, — that must have been seventeen or eighteen years ago. ’

“ What a blow ! he was the liveliest man about in those days.”

“Yes, sir, it took us a long time to get over it. It killed his sister. He had begun to build his house up here, — the one Mr. Boyd owns and lives in. I dare say he would have married and settled down among us, if he had n’t been snatched away ; the place seemed to have a great charm for him.”

“ Is that boy waiting outside there for me ?” said Father Trost, and he seemed to be slightly bewildered as be turned towards the door. “Well, I 'll say good by t’ ye, I’m beholden to him for a lift.”

“ Come in again, when you are not in haste, sir,” said Mr. Elsden, going to the door with Trost, who, having heard what he wanted to hear, seemed to forget that Mr. Elsden, the elegant gentleman who apparently had been cast away in Swatara by a freak of Providence, so unlikely was the post to be held by such a man, had any other business than to furnish him with the intelligence he happened to want He went away though, promising that he would come again, to think during the remainder of the drive of that sole partnership of his in Delia Holcombe’s secret.

But when Mr. Elsden went back to his desk, instead of occupying himself at once with his estimates, he took from a black wallet which he carried in the breast pocket of his coat, a letter, the contents of which were known only to the writer and himself. It was the letter Father Trost had written agreeably to promise, and contained his certificate of the marriage ceremony performed by him at the Emerald station. It had been received at that station not long after Edward’s death, and had been tossed by careless hands, with other papers, into a box which Mr. Elsden had only recently been overhauling.