In War Time

IX.

THEN came the mild days of the Indian summer, and to the surprise of every one Colonel Morton continued to improve, and was at last sitting up and riding out, to the great triumph of his doctor and the endless happiness of Ann Wendell. The doctor was also prospering otherwise, and seemed on the tide which leads to fortune those who know how to take it.

With her husband’s gain in health there came back to Mrs. Morton her old habits of outside activity. To him she was always compliant, quietly yielding, remembering his wants and ways; in fact, quite too much prone to forget herself, and to exact from all others of her household a like self-effacement, where he was concerned. Years before, she had fought her battle for such individual freedom of thought and action as should belong to every woman, and had lost it, — lost it, with the repeatedly acquired conviction that there was for herself and all who were dear to her less sacrifice in losing than in winning. Perhaps she was right; more probably, as Alice Westerley thought, she was altogether wrong. The widow detested but endured Colonel Morton, and it was quite characteristic of her that, despite her almost indomitable tendency to jest with and at everything in life, neither with him, nor with any one whom she did not like, did she ever exhibit, herself in her true character.

At New Year’s time the doctor was pleased to find with the check for his account a second and much larger one from Mrs. Morton, with a note which made the little household more than happy ; but at the same time he began to see clearly that he was to lose, for a season at least, his very profitable patient. The colonel had reached a certain stage in recovery, but did not get beyond it; and Dr. Lagrange and a far higher authority had decided that he must leave home, and avoid the ill-humored weather of the later winter and the spring. He hated the idea; but although he knew well enough that compliance was wise, it was not in the man to yield without an unreasoning struggle.

“ And I am to be carried about the world in search of health, Helen ! ” he exclaimed, when this decree of his advisers was made clear to him. “ And where the mischief am I to go to?”

“ Dr. Lagrange says the West Indies or Europe,” replied Mrs. Morton.

“ I don’t see why I cannot be let alone! ”

“ You could, my dear, but it wouldn’t be wise. Dr. Lagrange and Dr. Wendell both agree about your going away.”

“ Confound the doctors ! I believe I should have done much better without them.”

“ Oh, John ! ”

“ And who’s to arrange it all ? And how the deuce is that poor devil of a broken-down Ned to wander all over Europe ? ”

“ We won’t wander, John ; and I was thinking that perhaps — perhaps Edward might be willing to stay with Dr. Wendell. I have talked to him about it, and I think it might be managed.”

“ Oh, I suppose so,” said her husband, He detested this easy mode of removing the obstacles he was placing in the way. “ A pretty time Ned will have, Helen, with that Puritan old maid and her selfsufficient brother ! ”

“ He has served you well, John. You owe him much.”

“Oh, of course, of course! That’s his business. I hate all this fuss about doctors. It is so thoroughly feminine.” “ Well. John, you shall have it your own way. What would you suggest?”

“ Suggest ? I have nothing to suggest. Jt seems to me that I am always the last person to be considered, in this household.! ”

“ Well, then, suppose Ned should go to Alice. She would be very glad to have him, I am sure. How would that answer ? ”

“ What, live with that woman ! Take care ; you shook my knee, Helen.”

Then Mrs. Morton said, her eyes filling, despite long years of self-control and her knowledge that a large part of all this evil-mindedness was the effect of illness, “ Well, my dear husband, we shall try to make it easy for you ; only don’t worry me any more.”

“ Have I worried you ? ” he asked.

“ Yes, you have worried me.”

“ Arrange it your own way, then ; but don’t make me discuss these endless questions.”

“No, dear.”

After this, Mrs. Morton said very little to her husband, and went on, as was her way, with sometimes a rather needless amount of energy, to make her preparations for a long absence from home. There were many talks with Mrs. Westerley and much counsel with Mr. Wilmington, on whose shrewd, quiet good sense Helen Morton greatly depended. Then, as I have said, her broken habits of a life of active thinking and doing for others had again become possible, and as usual, whenever her husband grew better, she began to concern herself anew in the plans and lives of those about her. This had always been her way. To what school her farmer’s children went, whether they knew their catechism, what the local sanitary commission had been about in her long absence, and whether this or that dependent wore warm enough underclothing or not, were by no means unimportant matters to Helen Morton. There was a strong flavor of kindliness in all her forthputting life, but its constant vigilance was sometimes an infliction on the victims of her good offices. She liked her own way, and generally had it, save only as regarded Morton, and, as Alice “Westerley said, “ She takes her revenge on the rest of us in a system of despotic philanthropy.” In fact, nothing but obstinate resistance ever conquered her combination of sweet-tempered interference and gentle good manners. There was one other rebel of her household, beside her husband : Edward did and said what he liked, his independence being largely due to her own intense and admiring affection, now made yet more patient and tender by his delicate health. She had consulted, in his case, a dozen doctors, and, mother-like, was pleased with none, because none could be found to promise the impossible; so that at last she had given up all further effort, — a conclusion rare enough for her.

“ You will kill yourself, Helen, before you leave home,” Alice Westerley said to her, one morning. The widow sat in front of a roaring wood fire in Mrs. Morton’s sitting-room. Her feet rested on the brass fender, and as she spoke she looked at them, and approved of them. They were pretty feet, and were beautifully shod,and she very well knew that she had not been alone in her appreciation. Mrs. Morton sat at a Chippendale table, covered with papers and account-books.

“ No, I like the work,” she replied. “It enables me to forget a good deal, which, as I have well learned, dear, it is quite wise to forget. Don’t you think it is one of our great miseries that we have no exacting work which we must do, in the way a man’s work has to be done ? ”

“ I don’t think you need complain of that, Helen! It seems to me that you have quite enough. If you had, or imagined you had, any more, you could not manage at all. For my part, I hate work! I don’t like even to sew, or do fancy work.”

“ I do not see how you stand it, Alice! ”

“ We are pretty much alike as to that. It tires me to look at you. You are never still. I dare say I think as much. In fact, everything in life interests me, but I do not bother myself about other folks’ lives, us you do.”

“ I can’t help it.”

“ I really suppose you can’t. How cold it is ! The thermometer was at thirty degrees, this morning. I wish I liked cold weather.”

“ For me it is the best of all tonics. But, good gracious, Alice, why do you wear such thin stockings?”

“ To look the nicer, my dear.”

“ Some day you will die of consumption, if you are not more careful,” observed Mrs. Morton, who was given to grim anticipations as to the future of those who despised her counsels. “You never would take advice ! Now if you really would consider it, I should like to give you, dear, a very serious piece of advice. You would n’t take it, I am sure, or you would laugh at it, which is worse ; but that you do at everything.”

“ Ah, my dear Helen,” said Alice, “ when one has so soft a heart as I have, some kind of armor is needful for defense, and mirth is mine. I find it very useful. And as to advice, dear, do you ever think that you sometimes may, in your real goodness of heart, give an over-dose of that valuable drug? I am a little like Arty about that. If you advised me, Helen, as much as you do that sweet boy, I — I don’t know what I should do. Do you never hate a clock for so persistently telling you what time it is, — I mean exactly what time it is?”

“ How absurd you are, Alice ! ”

“ Perhaps so,” assented the widow, who was a little uneasy as to the possible nature of the threatened advice. “ But here comes Hester Gray, across the lawn,” she added, with a sense of relief.

“ Yes; I asked the doctor to let her spend the day with us. How glad the boys will be ! I think I never saw a young girl I liked so much. But what a pity it is that she should grow up with that very definite old maid ! ”

“ I rather like Miss Wendell,” Mrs. Westerley replied.

“ You like anybody a week at a time,” returned her friend, laughing, — “ anybody ! ”

“ And some, longer, dear.”

“ Yes; I, at least, have no cause of complaint, Alice,” and she patted her affectionately on the knee. “ But, Alice, this child troubles me. I think I shall write to her people in the South, and get Mr. Stanton to send the letter through the lines ; and yet I cannot expect any answer. She is an orphan. She says that she has no uncles or aunts, and, so far as I can see, is going to be left on the hands of the doctor. I was rather surprised, last week, when Morton asked me what had become of her. He does n’t interest himself much in such waifs, as a rule. I was thinking I might send her to some good school.”

“ I don’t see why you should not. But how on earth are you to attend to it ? ”

“ I thought I might break it to the Wendells, and ” —

“ Break it! ” exclaimed her friend. “ What is there to break ? ”

“ Oh, nothing,” said Mrs. Morton, “except that Hester really must go to school. I fancy the doctor has grown fond of the child ; and as for Miss Wendell, she has a genius for opposition.”

Alice Westerley smiled a little. “ That is n’t rare as a talent, but it doesn’t often reach to the level of genius ! However, if they agree to it, I will arrange the practical part of it after you leave us. I ought to have thought of it myself. I am sure. You see I do not always reject advice. Does Colonel Morton have any feeling still, or did he ever have any, about that poor fellow’s charge that he shot him ? I was thinking about it yesterday.”

“I don’t know. John is rather reticent, and it is so hard to be sure what men do think! I should have no reason to suspect that he ever felt it at all except for what I just spoke of, — his interest in the girl. It is unusual for John.”

“ Has he ever seen her ? ”

“ Two or three times only, I believe, since he has been up and about.”

“ It would be a droll thing for a man like your husband to entertain any such morbid idea.”

“ Yes, I think so. But here is Hester ; ” and so saying, Mrs. Morton raised the long window sash, and the young girl, glowing with the rough buffets of a northwester, came in, and with her a gust of cold, frosty air.

“ Oh, Mrs. Morton, it was so hard to walk against the wind ! It did blow so ! ”

Then both ladies kissed the girl, while her bonnet was taken off, and the shapely little head showed, with its coil of yellow hair, fast darkening year by year, above eyes of deep blue, whose size, as yet too great for the face, gave them a look of unnatural attentiveness.

“ How you grow, child ! ” said Mrs. Westerley.

Hester, like most children, had heard this remark before. “ Yes,” she said;

“ but Dr. Wendell says that I ought soon to grow sideways, too, and Miss Ann thinks I must have longer gowns. Do you think they are too short, Mrs. Morton ? They are awfully in my way now, when I climb trees or coast.”

“ They are not one bit too short,” remarked the widow, cheerfully, wishing she too could go coasting.

“And I think,” said Mrs. Morton, “ that Miss Ann is quite right. I will speak to her about it.”

“Oh, there is Edward! ” cried the child, — “ and Arthur! ”

“ I think I should say ’ Mr. Edward,’ ” returned Mrs. Morton. “ Don’t you remember our talk last week ? ”

Mrs. Westerley smiled, though she made no comment. The girl replied,

“ But he said I must call him ‘ Edward.’ ”

“ You must n’t mind what young men say, my dear, and — What do you want, boys ? ”

“Oh,” cried Arthur, “ we want Hester to coast! The hills are grand.”

“ It is very cold.”

“ Oh, let her come, mother! ” exclaimed Edward ; and not waiting a reply, he said, “ Come along, Hester. I can’t coast, but I can look on.”

“ Well, if you wish it, Ned,” said his mother. “Get my fur cloak, and wrap her up well;” and with this the younger pair sped away, Edward slowly and gravely walking after them, a faint sadness in his eyes as he watched their fleet movements. Presently they stopped, and coming back the girl asked Edward, “ Don’t you think if you put a hand on my shoulder you might go easier ? It is very slippery.”

The young man smiled, and, doing as she desired, said, “I am like an old man-of-war with two little eager tugs. Did you ever see a picture of the old Téméraire ? I feel like the old Téméraire. I will show it to you, Pussy.” Then he went on in silence, while the girl’s tender eyes turned up to his at times with gentle, womanly consciousness of her helpful strength.

Wendell had builded his opinions about Hester better than he knew, and was right for wrong reasons. He believed, and truly, that the protection and advice of Mrs. Morton were good for Hester. He was learning that the friendliness of the lads and Colonel Morton’s interest were of use to her. Ann Wendell found it hard, as yet impossible, to do more than care for the child’s health and lessons. Love, and even liking, grew slowly with her. A few, a finely moulded few, among middle-aged unwedded women have the ready hospitality of affection which comes to many married women as a natural acquisition. Most of all is this true of single women who live much alone, as did Ann Wendell, who felt now, while she accepted her new care, — and a care it was — that she should at least be left to control it as her conscience advised. Her sense of the child’s probable future was definite, as Ann’s views usually were, and inclined her to train the girl by endurance for a life of self-sustaining labor. Nor could she see that social sunshine and young companions were necessary to the growth of a nature which had a ready pleasure in all the pleasant things of life, and which would best get from the summer of joy the strength to battle with such wintry storms as life might bring. “ Yes, I know, of course. I try not to think of it, and sometimes life is so strong in me that I believe I shall yet be as other men; but I never shall be, — never ! And last night, Mrs. Westerley, I dreamed — You don’t mind my telling you ? Father says it is bad manners to tell your dreams.”

The young people went slowly down the garden walks, halting a moment at the sun-dial, which for a century had kept noiseless note of time among the tall, clipped box rows.

“ Yes, I should like to see the picture,” rejoined Hester, “and I will remind you,—and what is that, Mr. Edward ? ”

“A sun-dial, Miss Gray. Why on earth should I be ‘ Edward ’ and ’ Ned ’ yesterday, and ’ Mr. Edward ’ to-day ? ”

“ Mrs. Morton says I must n’t call you ’ Edward.’ ”

“ Nonsense ! No, I don’t mean that.

I will speak to mamma about it. I suppose Arty is not promoted.”

“ What ? I don’t understand.”

“ I mean, he is still to be Arty ? I can tell you I won’t stand that! ”

“And did you never see a sun-dial?” exclaimed Arthur.

“No, never; but I have heard of them.”

“ My grandfather set it here when he came home after the war, and I dare say Washington has seen it, and old mad Anthony Wayne.”

“ It tells what o ’clock it is,” said Hester.

“ Yes. See ! it is twelve now.”

“ But when the sun is hid, it can’t tell then ! ” cried the girl, triumphantly.

“No,” coincided Arthur. “ It goes to sleep, just as you do.”

“ How nice ! ” returned Hester, musingly. “ I think I like a sun-dial.”

“ Non numero horas, etc.,” said Edward.

“ Like Mrs. Westerley,” laughed Arthur. “Come along, Hester; that’s Latin, and you have no business with it. I hope you never will.”

“ Tell her your lines about the dial, Arty.”

“ No, sir.”

“ Please do, Arty.”

“ No ! A-coasting we go; and when I go a-coasting, I go a-coasting. But, Hester,” he said aside, “ some time I will.” The ready little woman smiled, well pleased, and presently the two sleds were speeding down the long coastinghill, where by and by Mrs. Westerley came, and to the lads’ immense delight was persuaded to try it once with Arthur, and was soon the youngest of the party, until, as she toiled up the hill, glowing and joyous, she chanced to notice the elder lad painfully shifting his station as he leaned against a tall tulip poplar, and looked with a certain gravity at the wild career of the gliding cutters.

“ Not tired? ” he asked.

“ Oh, yes. I’m an old woman, you know.”

“ I wish I felt myself as young a man,” he replied, smiling, as he glanced with admiration at her straight, active figure and frank face.

“ Oh, we shall get you well,” she’said. “ Don’t think about it, Ned.”

“ Oh, my dear Ned, what an old-fashioned notion! Go on. What was it?”

“ I dreamed I was riding into the thick of a great light behind Colonel Fox, — what that dear old Kingsley calls a melley, —and shots were flying, and I was riding, riding like mad, for a rebel flag; and then I had it, and the thought came over me, as I broke through the lines, ‘Oh, what will mother say now ! ’ And then I woke and — my God, I cried! ”

“ And you have made me cry, too, Ned. I wish I could help you ! But perhaps God has other work for you in life than this; who knows, Ned?”

“Who, indeed ?” he said. Then she grasped his hand, dropped it, and was silent. She was a woman who thought less about her words than her actions, and in whose life the undercurrents of tenderness and reverent feeling were strong, and the purer for the rarity with which they came to the surface.

Not the wisest sermon could have helped him like her few words, and the man-like grip, which filled him with a wholesome sense of being understood by a nature as noble as his own.

At last he mastered himself. He had been afraid to speak. “ Thank you,” he said, " How you help a fellow ! Arty, my poet, says that you are just like the sun : you can never see the shadows.”

“ Oh, did he say that ? I shall kiss him some time for that ! How well he looks ! I mean,” she added, quickly correcting herself, “ how handsome They make a charming couple.”

“I don’t think him handsome,” Edward returned, “ but he has a strong face; and as to that child, — she is just the sweetest little person I ever saw. Don’t you know, Mrs. Westerley, how sometimes, on bleak days, you wander into the sun, and suddenly feel just comfortable, and you hardly think why for a time? That is the way I feel when that child is about.”

Mrs. Westerley reflected a little. “ There could hardly be a nicer girl,” she returned; “ but she does need a little forming.”

“ Now that’s mother, Mrs. Westerley ; that’s mother all over.”

“ Oh, I think so, too ! I do, indeed.”

“ Bother the forming! ” said Edward. “ Let’s go in to lunch. Now come along, steam-tugs, — one to starboard, one to port! ” And laughing and chaffing one another, they went into the house.

X.

“ And so,” said Colonel Morton to his younger son, “ I understand that you have kindly consented to go to Europe with us, for six months, and that then you propose not to go to Harvard. How old are you, please?”

“ Seventeen, sir.”

“And you intend, I am told, in six months, to take command of the Potomac army.”

“I want to enter as a private.”

“ Bless me, you are modest! ”

The boy flushed. He and his father were never altogether in accord. The lad had his father’s resolute will, and far more than his intelligence.

“ I thought,” he said, “ until quite lately, that you would like it, sir. We have had somebody in every war, and I would n’t like to grow up and feel that neither Ned nor I had had a share in this one ; and Ned can’t go, you know.”

“Yes, I know. He has got that confounded Irving constitution, — no stuff in it ! What the deuce do you want to go into the army for ? ”

“ Excuse me, father, but why did you ? ”

“ Upon my word, I don’t know ! I rather think I was bored, in this enchantingly wide-awake town.”

“ And you won’t say I must not go, father ? ”

“ No, you young stupid. Your mother will have a horrible time over it; but really, I suppose it is a matter of breed, and I might as well tell my pointer Joe not to stand at a pheasant. The next thing you would go, whether I liked it or not.”

“ No, I would not.”

“ Then you would n’t be your father’s son. Why do you always contradict me ? ”

“ But I don’t.”

“ Yes, you do. What else are you doing now? If this war lasts, I will write to Stanton, or the governor, and get you a commission ; but remember, sir, no nonsense about going into the ranks. There, your mother wants you to drive her over to the doctor’s. Take Bessie, and don’t lame her, and see that she is roughed.”

“ Yes, sir, and thank you.”

“ Oh, you need n’t thank me ! ” And the boy left him, feeling half satisfied, and, as was usual after a talk with his father, a good deal hurt.

“ He is worth all the rest of the lot,” soliloquized the colonel. “ I felt as if I were looking into a mirror.”

Mrs. Westerley would have said, and with reason, that the colonel flattered himself. Colonel Morton had, in fact, made up his mind, before the boy spoke of it, that he should have his way; and that it would be a sore trial to the lad’s mother was, he also felt, perfectly natural, but practically a matter to be disregarded. If he had been asked why his son should enter on a perilous career at eighteen, he probably would have said and thought that people of a certain position were pledged thereby to do certain things, one of these being to fight.

Meanwhile, the object of his parental reflections was driving Bessie, in a neat sleigh, at a rate to which the father would certainly have demurred, and at which the portly mother, coiled up in furs beside him, was more or less disturbed. By and by he pulled up a little, and found time to talk over his plans.

“ Father says that you won’t like my going into the army, mother; but you won’t say I must not ? You know I would have to stay, then, and I ought to go. Jack Wilmington is only a year older than I am.”

‘’But he has no mother.”

“ Worse luck for him. I have one who knows where a man’s duty lies, in these days.”

Mrs. Morton felt this to be a little artful, but, nevertheless, she liked it, and six months made up a long time. Europe was far away, and it is one thing to say yes for to-morrow, and quite another to say yes for six months off. She glanced at the boy’s side face, and, noting its stern and powerful outline and its look of intense, earnestness, said with some gravity, “It is — it will be hard, Arthur; but I never disagree with your father, though it seems a great sacrifice.”

“ But I don’t mean to be a sacrifice,” returned her son ; “ not to the Johnny Rebs, anyhow. Thank you, mother,” and, leaning over, lie kissed her.

“ You foolish boy ! you have put my bonnet all awry.”

“ Yes, ma’am,” said the lad, well pleased.

Then they flew along the main street, and Bessie was pulled up at the doctor’s door.

“ Send Hester out, mother. Please don’t forget!” So presently Hester came forth, laughing, in a gray fur hood of Miss Ann’s, and was whisked along up lanes and by-roads at a rate which took her breath away ; and was told the sun-dial verses and many others, and about the war, which concerned her more.

“ And you might be killed ! ” she exclaimed.

“ Yes,” he replied, “ I might, but I won’t. We have had all our ill luck already, and I may come back a general. No, I don’t mean that, but perhaps a colonel.”

“ I won’t be satisfied unless you are a colonel. J like colonels. I saw Colonel Fox, and I like him.”

“ But I won’t have you liking any colonel but me, — and here we are at home, again. Stay with me till mother comes out.”

“ But I ought to go in.”

“ Don’t go ! I will tell you stories ; ” and the lad, whose fertile brain was full of Arthur and his knights, and Roland and what not, held the little lady tranced in the pleasant country of Romance, while within their elders discussed her future life.

It so happened that while Mrs. Morton drove over from her own home, Ann Wendell had been sitting upstairs, with her sewing in her lap, thinking a good deal, as was her wont, about her brother and his affairs; and a good deal, too, of the orphan, who seemed now to have been left to her care, with little or no chance that any relatives in the South would come forward to claim her as their own by superior right of kindred. With characteristic sense oE duty, and of late with a vague feeling of jealousy at her brother’s sudden attachment to the child, and yet with a kindly desire to please him in this, as in all else, Ann had set herself sedulously to see that she did not fail in the face of her novel obligation. At any moment she would gladly have been relieved of her task, but it had been put upon her by a Providence, which for her overruled all things, and she felt distinctly that she must answer the call, and so leave nothing undone.

When she was a teacher she had always taken a certain pride in the idea that she had some insight into the characters of her pupils, and now she had framed rather in haste a conception as to what Hester was and what she needed. The child’s accuracy and exactness in her tasks, as well as her notable conscientiousness, caused Ann to think that she in some ways resembled herself, as in fact she did, in these especial particulars; but Ann had in her own being no clue to the tangle we call character, and utterly lacked capacity to unravel into distinctiveness of appreciation its changing web and woof. The intelligence of each year of growth is commonly underrated by those who are called on familiarly to observe it, and very few apprehend the zones of change through which a clever girl, approaching womanhood, is apt to pass, or understand that temporary displays of capriciousness, or melancholy, or irritability are only expressions of physiological changes consistent with general healthy growth. Indeed, Ann looked aghast when, on complaining to her brother that Hester had been unmanageable for the last month or so, he said to her, “ My dear Ann, children have moral measles sometimes. Only let them alone, and they will get well of themselves. There is a wise herb in the gardens, Ann, and it is called Thyme.”

Ann felt that she had not received any very great assistance. In fact, Wendell saw one side of the girl’s character, and his sister another, and a small one; for this bright little crystal had many facets.

Mrs.Morton was marveling, like Alice Westerley when she had paid her last visit, over the odd literature on the table. It had changed a little, for Wendell often haunted the cloistral alcoves of the old Franklin library on Fifth Street, and found a pleasure in books which a generation or two had left unread since James Logan had placed them upon its shelves.

Ann Wendell, coming down from her room, received her guest quietly. She did not like her overmuch, and was a little in awe of a woman who, without quite knowing that she did it, patronized her with such supreme gentleness, and yet with so much sense of never asking anything but what must be right.

“ Won’t you put off your cloak ? ” said Ann.

“ No, thank you ; I have only a moment to stay. But — excuse me — who does read all these books, and are you a Swedenborgian ? ”

“ No, I am not,” replied Ann, severely.

“ Oh, it must be your brother, then ? ”

“ He reads all sorts of things,” said Ann diplomatically; and then, taking herself to task for lack of exact truth, added, “ My brother does not go to the church of those people.”

“ Oh,” said Mrs. Morton, with the feeling that she had made a false step, “ I suppose not, of course. It is such an absurd mysticism. I thought I should like, before I go away, to talk to you a little about Hester Gray. You won’t mind it, will you ? You know we are all so very fond of her.”

“ Of course not; why should I ? ” said Miss Wendell.

“ I have thought that I would write to her people in the South, if you liked. We have ways of getting letters through the lines, and if you think well of it I can write to the cousin, Henry Gray, of whom she speaks.”

“ I believe my brother has already done so,” said Ann ; “ at least, he said that he would. He has n’t much tiuie now, and he forgets. I ought to have asked him about it again.”

“But even if he has written, it will be as well that I also write.”

“ If you please ; but 1 don’t think we shall hear, and I begin to believe that the little girl will be with us until the war is over.”

“ No doubt you must feel it somewhat of a burden.”

“ It was the Lord’s doing,” returned Ann, “ and I try to see that it is my duty to take care of her.” She would not say that it was not a burden.

“ But still it must be a care. I think that the whole weight ought not to fall on you, and that, if it be agreeable to you and to the doctor, I might send her to Miss Pearson’s school, on Long Island.”

“ You are very kind,” replied Ann, “ but I teach her myself; and if I let her go away I should feel as if I had thrust aside what God had sent me. I shouldn’t consider it to be quite right. At least, I don’t think I should.”

“ But you can’t teach her French, or drawing, and she has a good deal of talent that way.”

“ I don’t see that French is needful,” returned Ann. “ I have never found any use for it.”

“ And yet she might,” said Mrs. Morton. “And then—you will pardon me,” she added, with sublime indiscretion — “ but don’t you think that as she has been brought up an Episcopalian she ought to go to the Episcopal church ? Now, at Miss Pearson’s” —

Ann flushed a little, and sat up a trifle in her chair. “ No,” she exclaimed, interrupting her visitor, “what God gave, I am responsible for to Him. I trust that in the essential matters of religion she will not be found wanting. You are very kind, but I cannot see it in your way. However,” she added, conscious that she was addressing not only a very kind woman, but a valuable patient, “ I will talk it over with Ezra.”

And then Mrs. Morton, put to rout, but by no means defeated, resolved that she too would talk to Ezra Wendell, and so went her way to the sleigh, out of which the laughing Hester slipped as she came.

Mrs. Morton’s campaigns were usually brief, and in one way or another decisive. She sent her sleigh to the doctor’s in the afternoon of the same day, with a note to him, and desired her servant to await a reply. Dr. Wendell chanced to be at home when this message came. The note was only to the effect that Mrs. Morton wanted to see him about the colonel, and in a postscript there was added, Would he be sure to bring Hester, as Mrs. Morton had a present for her, —a fur jacket, — and she wished to have it tried on, to see if it fitted.

Wendell knew that he must again, for the hundredth time, summon the girl from Ann’s schooling.

“ Ann,” he called at the foot of the stairs, — “ Ann, come down a moment! ”

“What is it, brother?” she cried, tripping lightly down the staircase, and looking, as Wendell noticed, very bright and well.

“ Why, Ann, you come down as if you were fifteen,”he exclaimed; “and how good-looking you grow ! ”

“ It’s the good honest Yankee winter we have had, Ezra. But what is it? The child is at her lessons. I must go back to her. She does them so well that it is getting to be quite a pleasure to me. What is it ? ”

“ I have a note from Mrs. Morton. There, read it, dear; and I am really sorry, Ann. I did mean to respect your hours, but I suppose this time she must go.”

Ann’s face rarely betrayed emotion. Her stern orthodox New England training had taught her such restraint of emotion as saved the features habitually from telling her secret thoughts. Whatever was, be it, small or great, was to be endured. If there was little laughter in her life, there were also few tears. But now, if ever, she was very angry. .She saw defeat in the distance, and knew that she must yield, and somehow be made to show a semblance of being grateful; and she also felt that Mrs. Morton’s note was deceitful, and for herself there was no big or little in this matter of truthfulness. These thoughts went swiftly through her mind, and she hesitated a moment.

“ I should like,” she said, “ to talk to you before you go. Mrs. Morton was here to-day, and ”—

“ But, sister,” he returned, “ I have to meet Dr. James in an hour, and I must go to Mrs. Morton’s first, and her horses are waiting in the cold. We can talk to-night.”

Ann felt that to-night would be too late.

“ Very well,” she replied, rather shortly for her, “ I will send her down to you ; ” and she went upstairs, feeling that life was being made quite too hard.

Wendell and Hester found Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Westcrley In the drawing-room, enjoying the cup of tea which Mrs. Morton well knew the doctor liked. After a few words in regard to the colonel and his coming voyage, they drew together about the fire. Then the boys were beard calling Hester; but Mrs. Morton said, “No, I want Hester myself, Edward. Come back in half an hour.”

“And what’s up now?” asked Arthur.

“ Better ask,” observed Edward.

“ Not I, Ned ; ” and they went away from the door.

“I have been having a chat with Miss Ann to-day,” said Mrs. Morton ; “ a talk about my friend Hester, here.” The girl looked up, suddenly curious, and feeling a new importance. “ We did not quite agree, but I think we shall. I am anxious that Hester should go to Miss Pearson’s school on Long Island. I know Miss Pearson well, and the school is all we could desire. Colonel Morton also wishes it, and we both desire to have the pleasure of helping you and Miss Ann in this way.”

Wendell’s heart sunk within him. He was growing to love the small person at his side with a deep and strange tenderness, the strength of which discovered itself to him now abruptly, as he heard of the possibility of her being taken out of his life. He looked down at the child, and up at Mrs. Morton.

“ Do you think it is really necessary ? ”

“ I do. There are many reasons for it, — many. She did not state them all, nor did she choose to do so. “ However well able Miss Ann may be to teach her, there are things which she cannot teach. You of course know what I mean. Then, Miss Ann was not well last fall ; and even if she is better now, the burden of Hester’s lessons will be felt some time, and then we shall be away, and it will be past remedy. So you see how desirable it is. Colonel Morton wished me to say to you that he felt that, having in a measure promised her father to see after the girl, he thought a share of the responsibility of her care lay with us, and that as we can well afford it we should have some part in providing for her.”

Wendell was perplexed. It did not sound much like the colonel.

“ What do you think, Mrs. Westerley ? ” he inquired. “ You will pardon me, Mrs. Morton, if I ask.”

The doctor was learning socially a good deal, and was a very different person from the Ezra Wendell we first knew.

“ Miss Pearson was my own schoolmistress, and is my friend,” said Mrs. Westerley. “ She is a gentle, highminded woman. If I were Hester, I should like it well. Don’t you think you will, Hester ? ”

Hester had a good deal of the caution of clever girlhood, the outcome of intelligence and inexperience.

“ I don’t know,” she replied. “ I like it at home. Every one is so kind to me — and — and — you all, and Arty, and Mr. Edward.”

“ Well, go upstairs,” said Mrs. Morton, “ and ask my maid for a present. I have for you, and put it on, and then go and ask Arty how it looks.”

“ A present ? ” exclaimed Hester. “ Oh, thank you, Mrs. Morton ! ” and left the room.

” We were thinking,” continued Mrs. Morton, “ that if this girl has no relatives who will help her, and has no fortune, as seems to be the case, a simple education, however sound, will be of little use to her; while if she can become an accomplished woman, she may be able to help herself, come what may. Does n’t that appear reasonable to you ? ”

He had to confess that it did.

“ She draws cleverly now, and reads French well. It does seem to me, doctor, that a year at Miss Pearson’s, with what she could get afterwards here, would be of lifelong value.”

Wendell felt that his cause was lost.

“ But my sister,” he rejoined.

“ I was thinking,” returned Mrs. Westerley, " that I would see her. Mrs. Morton is very busy.”

“ If you would,” he said. “ I certainly shall do all I can to help the girl in whatever way seems the best, but Ann has her own ideas, as you will find.”

Mrs. Morton was well aware of this, but she thought that she saw her way now, and was beginning to feel that more obstacles than there was need for were put in the way of her kind intentions.

“ I dare say that we shall make her come over to our side, and Mrs. Westerley will see her. Few people resist her.”

This was very much Wendell’s own opinion ; so he thanked Mrs. Morton, finished his tea, and rose to go, as Hester came in with the young men, looking rosy and pretty in the little sealskin jacket, which admirably set off her delicate complexion, in which the color came and went so ceaselessly.

“ And you have n’t thanked me, Hester.”

Hester kissed her. “ The boys think I look so nice,” she said, and she turned herself around for inspection. She was at that formless age of girlhood when the face anticipates in development the changes which yet are lacking in the frame; and now the heavy cloak hid what was as yet ungraceful, so that both of the elder women exchanged quiet glances of admiration at the girl’s appearance.

Then Hester and Wendell, after a little laughing chat, went away.

“ I would like to take that girl to Newport, in two or three years,” said Mrs. Westerley. “ But do you ever think of what a tempting little personage she is going to be, Helen ? Those boys of yours ! ”

“ Nonsense, Alice. Ned is out of the question, and Arthur will possibly be away for years. I should as soon think of their falling in love with you.”

“ But they both have,” affirmed her friend, laughing. “ However, remember that I have warned you.”

“ If Dr. Wendell were a little more of a man of the world, I should think you ran rather more risk from him, Alice, than from my boys,” returned Mrs. Morton, smiling, but regarding Alice attentively.

“ I have seen enough of men of the world.”

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Morton.

“ Stuff, Helen ! You always misunderstand me ; ” but she had a queer sense of a suddenly widened horizon of the possible. What had she said or done to justify such a suspicion ? “ I must go,” she said. “ Please order my ponies.”

“ I am afraid I have vexed you, Alice.”

“ Yes, you have vexed me.”

“ I did n’t mean to.”

“ No, I dare say.”

“ And you will come over to-morrow? If you don’t, I shall think you are angry.”

“ Yes, I ‘ll come. We have made too much of it, and I will see that rosyfaced, impassive Ann Wendell. Your account of her was immensely amusing. How can one live with such a conscience ? I think they begin in childhood, in New England, with girls’ consciences as the Chinese do with their children’s feet, until when they grow up they can’t stir, morally speaking, without discomfort. I have no patience with them! ”

S. Weir Mitchell.