Philip and His Wife

VIII.

EVERYBODY watched little Lyssie’s romance with approval and interest, for Old Chester loved her. It had been recognized as a romance the moment it was known that Mr. Carey’s two weeks’ visit was to be prolonged to three, and then to four.

“ Oh, thank you very much,” he said eagerly, when Mrs. Shore first proposed that he should stay another week ; “ I ’ll be delighted to.” And then he added, rather ruefully, “ I might just as well, since you are good enough to ask me; for the fact is, I have n’t anything on hand just now.” That a client might knock at his door in his absence did not seem to trouble him, and Cecil, smiling to herself at the confession of his prompt acceptance, did not remind him of it. Indeed, his visit had done so much to relieve the intolerable dullness of Old Chester that she was glad he was going to stay. “ Even his impudence is refreshing,” she thought; for she had winced once or twice under some blunt expression of his opinion.

Still, such rudeness showed itself only at the beginning of any conversation they might have; at the end, admiration would, for the time, thrust out the dislike which was, oddly enough, his real, sober feeling for Miss Drayton’s sister. He felt this dislike more keenly when he saw them together ; indeed, he did not like to see them together. Alicia seemed just a little childish, in the presence of this strong, clever woman. Nevertheless, Roger Carey was too glad to talk to little Miss Drayton to slight any chance of seeing her, whether it was in Mrs. Shore’s presence or not ; and he certainly would not have taken Eric out for a run on the hills, one charming morning, had he known that Lyssie was coming up to her sister’s at that very hour. He had left Mrs. Shore struggling to make up her mind to pay the inevitable calls which were the price of a visit to Old Chester, and he had advised her, gayly, to find out when people were to be away from home; then, whistling to Eric, he had tramped off into the sunshine, thinking with satisfaction how incapable Miss Lyssie Drayton would be of any such forethought.

Mrs. Shore, however, had scarcely required his instruction.

“ Tell me, Lys,” she said, as, with Molly clinging to her hand, she walked down the path to meet her sister, “ when does the next sewing society meet ? ” And then she put her finger under the girl’s chin and kissed her. “ Mr. Carey has gone off to exercise Eric,” she returned significantly.

“ I’m sure I hope he will do it properly, ” Alicia returned, her head high ; but she laughed and blushed. “ What do you want to know about the sewing society for ? Do you mean to go ? ” She slipped her arm about her sister’s waist, and brushed her cheek against her shoulder. Lyssie smiled readily in those summer days ; it seemed such happiness to be alive; she had recognized no other cause for happiness, either in herself or in Roger Carey. It is generally so with a girl; the spoken word has to fall like some subtle chemical into the luminous nebula of bliss, to crystallize it into a jewel that she can recognize as her own. Alicia’s joyous bubble of laughter at her sister’s interest in the sewing society was only this vague happiness seeking expression.

“ I go ? Lyssie ! I must make my manners to all the old ladies, and I wanted to know when I could call with safety.”

“ Oh, Ceci! ” Alicia remonstrated. “ Indeed, I won’t tell you when it’s going to be ; you shall find them all at home.”

“ But mamma doesn’t want to see them, aunt Lyssie ; that’s why she goes when they are out,” Molly explained, astonished at her aunt’s dullness.

Cecil laughed. “ Intelligent Molly ! ” she said.

The two sisters and the child had come along the flagged walk below the terrace to the pool, which was almost hidden now by water-plants. The flags ended in three mossy steps leading down to the water’s edge. Two ancient Lombardy poplars stood here, with gnarled trunks, and mournful breaks of dead branches through their dark foliage. They made a spot of shade on the sunny, faintly undulating expanse of shimmering lily leaves. A frog splashed from the bank at the sound of footsteps, and made for a moment a widening, rocking circle on the still surface. Molly was instantly desirous of catching him, but her mother said peremptorily, “ No. Now don’t bother me, precious, or you ’ll have to go into the nursery. Sit down here beside mamma. Lyssie, is there anything so important in one’s domestics as health ? The honest, temperate, capable young woman amounts to nothing compared to the robust one ! Molly’s Rosa is ill, and I, in one of those moments of rash good nature that we all have at times, and on which we look back with such astonishment, — I said I’d take Molly to walk this morning. Did n’t I, you nuisance ? ” And she drew the child’s head down upon her lap and mumbled her little neck with kisses.

They were sitting on an old stone seat between the two poplars; the sunshine, sifting down, touched Cecil’s head, and flecked Lyssie’s cotton gown, and shone into Molly’s eyes, until she said she did not like it, and wished mamma would go to walk. “ Anywhere, — down to the village,” Molly urged. “ You said you would! ”

“ It’s too hot, Polly. Yes, Rosa has been creeping about with a white face for two days. So annoying to see her ! ”

Lyssie was full of sympathy for Rosa. Had Dr. King seen her ? What was the matter ?

“ Oh, nothing,” Cecil answered impatiently ; “ a little feverish, perhaps. Of course I have n’t sent for the doctor. One might as well start a hospital at once as keep five or six women. They always have something the matter with them, — or they think they have.” And then she began to tease and cuddle Molly, until the clang of the iron gate broke in upon the child’s laughing cries, and Cecil, leaning backwards, glanced through the shrubbery. "’Good Lord, deliver us !'" ” she said, under her breath, “ it’s Mrs. Dale. She has come to tell me her opinion of young women who don’t call upon their elders and betters, — I know she has ! But I was going; you ’ll bear witness to that, Lys ? ”

“ Yes, when she was at the sewing society,” Alicia returned, with malice.

Cecil slipped Molly down on her feet. “ Molly, my angel, run ! Say to that lady that mamma is not at home; say I ’ve gone down to the village. Run ! She has n’t seen us, and you can meet her at the front door.”

Molly went, with the matter-of-fact obedience that found such a command no surprise.

“ Why, Cecil! ” cried Alicia Drayton. “ What ? ‘ Not at home ’ ? Oh, Lyssie, what a funny little thing you are ! ”

“ But Molly ? ” Alicia protested, her eyes widening with dismay.

“ Oh, you really are delightful,” Cecil said, much amused, looking at her with kind eyes. “ How very far from the madding crowd you have lived ! ”

“ But, Ceei, I ’m — horrified ! To tell Molly ” —

Cecil put her hand suddenly, softly, over her sister’s lips. “ Fault-finding is the wind that blows to the Place-we-don’tbelieve-in, and it sends more people there than anything else. Do be quiet. Look ! there is Mr. Carey.”

Philip and Roger, with Eric at their heels, were crossing the meadow on the further side of the pool. Lyssie’s face was so serious, when the two men reached the stone seat under the poplars, that Roger Carey looked blank.

“ I wonder if she ’s offended ? ” he thought, frowning. “ I wonder if Mrs. Shore has been saying nasty things about me ? Why, she’s hardly smiled ! ” And he himself hardly smiled, while Cecil told him how Molly had come to the rescue and dismissed Mrs, Dale.

“ But I wish you could have seen my sister’s horror,” she ended gayly.

Roger sat down on the grass, and Eric squatted behind him, leaning his chin on the young man’s shoulder, and blinking his honest yellow eyes at Philip, who was talking to Alicia. Philip did not look at his wife until she said, breaking into something she was telling Mr.Carey, “There, Polly, don’t lean on mamma. Come! run and tell Rosa she really must take you out to walk.”

“ No, you take me ; you promised,” Molly teased. “ Rosa ’s sick ; she says she feels ” —

But Mrs. Shore was not interested in Rosa’s feelings. “ My little Polly, I adore you, — you are an angel; but don’t bore me. Run along, like a good child.”

“ I will take you to walk, Molly,” said Philip over his shoulder.

Cecil leaned her head back and laughed. “ Philip never surprises one. Of course he ’ll take Molly to walk ! ”

“ Is Rosa really ill ? ” her husband asked. “ Shall I send King up to see her ? ”

“ Oh, if you want to. I suppose we ought to make sure it is nothing contagious,” Mrs. Shore said indolently.

Roger Carey looked as though about to whistle, but checked himself, and eased his mind by pulling Eric’s ears until the amiable dog squealed, and then licked his hand, as if apologizing for having allowed his emotions to overcome him.

Philip was indifferent, apparently, to the nature of his wife’s consent. “ Very well, I ’ll tell him to come up. Come along, Molly.” And he whistled to Erie, and started toward the village.

“ Philip’s goodness leaves nothing to the imagination,” murmured Cecil.

“ I have known people who left it all to the imagination,” Mr. Carey observed.

“ If you are going to be epigrammatic, I shall leave you,” his hostess assured him.

“ Oh, are you going in ? ” Roger said cheerfully, rising as she rose, but instantly sitting down again to talk to Miss Drayton.

Cecil laughed, but the color came into her face as she went back alone to the house.

As for Philip, he walked along with Molly, his face grim with the restraint he had put upon himself in the talk by the pool.

“ To deliberately tell the child to lie ! ” he was thinking ; and then he told Molly that he was going to take her into the woods. “You’ll like that, won’t you, old lady ? ” he asked absently.

“ Oh yes,” cried Molly, “ let’s go to the woods ! Mamma promised she would take me last week, but she did n’t. And can I pick some flowers for her ? And shall we watch the ants carry their babies into the sun to keep them warm ? Oh, and father, will you tell me the story you told me when I had the measles, about the man who rode to the moon on a wooden horse ? And father ” — Her little, bubbling flood of questions caressed his ear.

“ Yes ; yes ; yes,” Philip answered, blindly, as she seemed to expect. His indignation at Cecil’s carelessness about Molly’s truth-telling deepened into a bitter sense of his own helplessness to protect the child. This sort of thing was always going on. So far as Cecil was concerned, Molly knew, nothing of the sacreduess of a promise; the duty and grace of kindliness to inferiors she had never seen ; truthfulness, according to her mother, was always secondary to good manners, and, in consequence, a matter of expediency. Cecil caressed or punished the child with the most absolute selfishness, and lived her own life without a thought of the responsibility of example. Any protest from the unloving husband to the unloving wife only made matters worse, by adding to carelessness the deliberateness of antagonism. The effect of all this upon Molly was, of course, deplorable.

The child of unloving parents, illegitimate in a deep and terrible sense, —for love is the fulfilling of the law, — suffers, as whatever is in opposition to law, human or divine, must always suffer.

Philip said to himself that this little human soul, this little child of his, had wandered into a home polluted by the presence of the dreadful dead body of Love ; and if a man fears corruption and its train of disease for his child physically, what must he feel for a corruption which may taint Her spiritually ? He held Molly’s hand in his in a rigid grasp.

“ Oh, father, you hurt my hand ! ” she cried, pulling it away from him, and dancing on in front of him, across the upland meadow towards the woods; then she ran back to adorn the lapel of his coat with a stalk of early goldenrod. “ Tell me the wooden-horse story now! ”

“ Oh, not now,” Philip objected. “ I ’ll tell you what will be nice : let’s sit down here, and father ’ll smoke, and you shall tell him a story.”

“ That would be nice for father,” Molly said, pushing out her lips, “ but it would n’t be very interesting for me.”

“Oh, but to entertain me? You did n’t think of that,” he reminded her.

Such confidence in her amiability could have only the desired effect, though she qualified her consent by the condition that they should tell the story together; for collaboration was a frequent amusement of these two friends.

Philip scratched a match on a stone, shielding the spurt of flame with a curving hand ; then he lighted a cigar, and stretched himself out on his back, his hands under his head and his hat pulled over his eyes. “ All right,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“ No! You begin,” Molly insisted anxiously. And with a little sigh Philip resigned himself to fiction.

It was a still July morning : the leaves overhead moved slightly back and forth across a sky that was deeply blue and cloudless ; there was a flickering play of shadows on the grass and moss. Down in the valley lay Old Chester : here and there a gable showed through the thick foliage, or a chimney-stack rose well above it; beyond, on the opposite hillside, was the house from which they had just come, — "Cecil’s house.” Philip, staring out from under his hat brim at that house, and telling the story of a green-haired banshee, was reflecting upon that extraordinary folly of sentiment which, when love, which constitutes the home, has died, holds a husband and wife together, lest the “ home be broken up.” “ As though the family idea meant the mere living together of the father and mother! ” he said to himself.

Molly, cuddled against his side, with one arm thrown across his breast, watched him as he began his tale, her round, serious eyes full of profound interest; the more so as her father’s stories were not apt to end with a moral, or to contain those indirect insinuations of virtue which children find as personal and as disagreeable as do their elders.

“ Well, this green-haired banshee,” Philip declared, after having described a banshee suitable for the infant mind, “ went down to the seashore, and she saw a sea serpent. He had a mane all about his head, and it was covered with barnacles and little pink shells, and they rattled and clashed ; and his sides were all wet and shining, and they were blue and green and gold; and he had diamond eyes” —

“ Oh, draw him, father, draw him ! ”

So Philip hunted in his pocket for a pencil and an old envelope, and proceeded to sketch a strange beast unknown to natural history; on its back, clinging with bony fingers to its mane, he put a banshee, with wild hair and eyes, and a dreadful mouth full of sharp and jagged teeth.

“ The banshee waded out and got on the back of the sea serpent, and he began to career around. She thought it was pretty nice at first; but sometimes the sea serpent would go under the water for an hour or so, and that made her wet, you know ” —

“ Why, she’d get drowned, father ! ” Molly broke in, with some sternness.

“ Oh, she was a land-and-water lady,” Philip explained.

But Molly frowned. “ She was n’t a lady; she was a creature,” she informed him.

Her father looked at her admiringly. “Your distinction is fine, Molly. I’ve known ‘creatures.’ Well, anyhow, once when the sea serpent came up to the surface of the water, the banshee looked up into the air, and away up in the air, about nine hundred miles, she saw two rocs fighting.”

“ Rocks ? ” said Molly, following him breathlessly.

“ I mean birds. Don’t you remember the rocs in Sindbad ? They were fighting up there eight hundred miles, and ” —

“You said nine hundred,” Molly interrupted threateningly.

“Why, yes, it was nine hundred. What am I thinking of ? Their great wings were like four gray clouds, and they covered the sun. And just then a feather from one of their wings floated down into the sea, and lay rocking up and down on the waves like a boat. So the banshee climbed on to it.”

“You didn’t draw her with any legs, father,” Molly objected.

“ Oh, we must give her some legs,” Philip said gravely, and, putting his cigar down on a flat stone, he indicated, among the voluminous folds of flying drapery, the very thin legs proper to a banshee. “ Well, she climbed up on this great gray feather, and pulled up the big end for a sort of sail, you know, and then she went sailing and sailing and sailing; and after a while she came to a desert island.”

Molly sighed deeply, and nestled close up to her father, her chin on his breast, and her eyes watching his lips.

“ She came bump up against this island, and the great gray feather grated against the pebbles on the beach, and she got off and ran up on the shore. It was a very rocky island; there was n’t a single green thing anywhere on it, — not a tree, nor a bush, nor a blade of grass.”

“Nor any goats ? ” Molly asked anxiously. “ Robinson had goats.”

“ No, no goats. But right in the middle of the island was a great white roc’s egg that looked like the Mormons’ Temple. No, you never Saw the Mormons’ Temple, Molly, but never mind. That’s what it looked like. And what do you suppose the banshee did ? She knocked a hole at either end of the roc’s egg, — just as if she were going to suck it, you know; and then the wind blew right straight through it, and there it was, empty ! a beautiful, white, shining house for the banshee, who immediately turned into a beautiful princess ; for it seems a wicked magician had enchanted her and turned her into a — a creature. Oh, and the inside of the egg, the part we eat, I mean ” —

“ Do we eat roc’s eggs ? ”

“ I never have, Molly,” Philip admitted, “ but I should like to. Well, anyhow. it all ran out on a rock where the sun had been beating for a thousand years, so it, was very hot, and of course it cooked the egg into omelets; so you see the beautiful princess had plenty to eat. Now finish it; it’s your turn.”

Molly gasped. “ Oh, father, not yet ? ”

“ Yes, it s your turn. What are you going to do with the princess ? ”

But he did not follow her adventures. His thoughts went back to the old question : “ What is my duty ? ” He said to himself again, as he had said so many times in these last few years, “ Molly ? ” He knew, of course, that if he ended what he believed to be an ignoble and a lying relation, if he and his wife separated, the court would take no cognizance of his subtleties, and Molly would unquestionably be given to her mother ; that is. if the matter were pushed to any legal decision. And if it were not made a legal question, he knew equally well that Cecil would never consent to give the child to him ; the only possible arrangement would be a division of Molly’s time, — that arrangement fatal to the father and mother idea in a child’s mind. All the embarrassment and pain of such a plan to the growing girl came before his mind : she would have no fixed home; she would have to make explanations : she would be surrounded by the horrible atmosphere of antagonism in which each parent must live in regard to the other, who, in so many months or so many weeks, would steal the child away again. On the other hand, suppose that he were to give up his desire for integrity, his passionate belief in the honor of marriage, and continue this miserable life, so that Molly’s little existence be kept unruffled: what would be the result to her ? What would be the effect upon her of the incessant contradiction and bickering between her father and mother, the teaching of each denying the teaching of the other; and, more subtle and deadly possibility, what would be the effect upon her of the lie which the father and mother lived ? Was not the truth safer ? Was it not to be trusted ? There was surely less danger to her from the sad, outspoken acknowledgment that because love was the supreme thing, because they honored marriage, her father and mother had parted! Again and again he had argued this with himself; again and again he had answered, “Yes, the truth is best! ” And yet, how could he give her up, how could he trust her to Cecil even for half the time? — Molly! It was as though upon the fine and delicate and admirable machinery of his theories this little unconscious hand was laid, and everything jarred and snapped and broke. Ah, we take a great deal upon us, we men and women, when, all uncertain of ourselves and of each other, we dare to bring a child’s soul into the strife and confusion and cruelty which any lack of love between us will create out of marriage !

Philip was not listening to Molly’s story, — it was something about Indians and sponges, — when suddenly she broke it off with a question : —

“ Father, why does n’t God kill the devil ? ”

“ Well,” said Philip, knocking off the ashes of his cigar with a careful finger, “candidly, I don’t know.”

“Why, father ! “ cried Molly. “You ought to know,” she said severely.

“ I don’t,” Philip confessed meekly.

Molly sighed. “ I don’t know why He does n’t, either. He’s the biggest.”

“ What do you know about God and the devil ? ” her father inquired.

“ Oh, I know everything.”

“ Really ? Do impart your information, Polly.”

“ Well, God lives in a garden. I think the stars are the bushes growing in it. And He hides somewhere in the bushes, ’cause we never see Him, you know.

“Yes,” Philip said, “it does seem sometimes as if He hid Himself.”

“ There is a river in the garden, and a gold house for Him to live in. And He keeps crowns in a box under the bed, and gives ’em to the angels, an’ the angels keep throwing them down in front of Him. I don’t see why.”

“ It does seem singular,” her father agreed.

“ Well, and the — Other. He has ears like a cow, and hoofs. He makes people bad. He makes ’em say — ‘ damn ’! ”

“ Oh, dear ! ”

“Yes, he does; he’s awfully wicked. And God does n’t like him. So why does n’t He kill him ? I would.” She dropped her head on her father’s breast, so that her soft, straight hair touched his lips. “ I really don’t understand it, father ? ”

“ I’ve known others who are confused by it, Polly. But if I were you, I would n’t bother about it. If God knows, why, that’s enough.”

“Well,” returned Molly reluctantly. Then she looked up and said, “ Mamma laughs and laughs, but I think it is a good deal better to say a prayer to both of ’em. If God is n’t quite big enough to kill him, why, it’s safer to say a prayer to him, too. Then he won’t be mad. ’

Philip’s hand, holding his cigar, hid his face for a moment, but when he spoke his voice was very serious. It was better to think of what was good than of what was bad, he told her. “ And so,” he ended, “ I would n’t pray to the devil, darling.”

“Well,” said Molly doubtfully; “but it seems to me—just as well! Mamma said my devil prayer was naughty, — oh, she thought it was real wicked, father,” she said, with some pride, — “ but it made her laugh and laugh ; she made me say it to Mr. Carey. Want me to say it to you, father ? It will make you laugh like everything. ‘ Dear Dev— ’ ”

“ No ! ”

At the change in his voice, Molly’s little face puckered into excuses and defense. “ Why, mamma laughed, she ” —

“ No,” Philip said again, but gently.

“ You must not make an exhibition of your prayers, Mary.”

“ A what, father ? ”

“ An exhibition. Let’s see if you can understand. Your prayer is only for the One to whom you speak. If it is only one word, ‘ God,’ it is a prayer; and if you say it to make father laugh ” — He stopped and set his lips; how was he to spare the mother to the child ? “Your prayers must be reverent, dear,” he ended lamely ; “ will you remember? Whether it is a devil prayer or a God prayer, you must not think of any one else. Do you understand, Molly ? ”

“ Yes,” Molly answered. “ Oh, father, quick! look at the ant walking around your hat! ”

Philip let her chatter on, with a word now and then to keep her happy. Once the look in his face called out her rebuke : “ Don’t wrinkle your forehead so, father. It is n’t pretty. What makes you hold your lip in your teeth that way ? Father, you look cross.”

He kissed her and soothed her, but he was angry. “ I will see her tonight,” he was saying to himself. “ I must speak to her. This sort of thing has got to stop ! Oh, the child ! ”

IX.

But Philip had no opportunity to speak to Cecil that evening.

Alicia came to dinner, and, watching the pretty drama being enacted under His eyes, his harsh and silent thought of his wife seemed to him a sort of sacrilege. No shy inflection of the girl’s voice, no humid look from the undeclared lover’s eyes, no meaningless badinage that hid all meanings, escaped his reverent appreciation. He was like a man struggling and drowning in the mire, yet seeing, far off, firm sunlit uplands. He had not attained them, but he was still able to believe in them. There are the lowest deeps, where a man ceases to believe in what he has missed; but Philip Shore believed in love with all his soul.

Cecil watched the lovers, too; and when Lyssie went home, with Philip and Mr. Carey as escorts, she thought tenderly of her little sister, but with half-bitter amusement of the situation. “ She takes it seriously! ” she thought. She was distinctly interested, however, and checked Molly’s persistent chatter that she might follow her own thoughts undisturbed ; but the child’s teasing questions annoyed her, and she sent her into the house for some candy. “ You can have all you want, if you ’ll only keep quiet; but if you bother mamma, you must go to bed.”

Molly, delighted to find herself possessed of a whole box of candy, was very obedient, until Rosa, looking pallid, came to take her to bed. Then she cried, and Cecil kissed her, and promised her a present if she would be good,— a bribe which left the mother to the peace and quiet she desired.

Yes, they were interesting, those two. “ He’s charmed because she’s so good, but I don’t believe he’s in love,” she said to herself; “ he’s not the kind of man to go mad over goodness; and Lys is good, bless her little heart! ”

Cecil had a small silver flask in her hand, full of some thick golden perfume, and she opened it slowly. “To think it should be Lys ! What a pity Philip is married ; he would be so much more appropriate for her.” The natural sequence of this statement occurred to her, and she meditated upon it with some interest.

Cecil Shore was a singularly clearsighted woman, and she was in the habit of observing herself as truthfully and intelligently as she did other people. But truthfulness of this sort is in no sense spiritual; it is only a calm, material dealing with facts. Hence she felt no shock or shrinking at the tendency of her thoughts, or her serious admission that it was a pity things could not be more appropriately arranged ; she only sighed a little, and began to plan how she might make this sweet, unreal, fleeting time still sweeter for Lyssie. “ I must have her here oftener,” she thought. Then she remembered Mrs. Drayton, and half laughed and groaned. “ I ’ll have to step into the breach and be agreeable to her, so that she ’ll let Lys off. I ’ll have to go and sit with her sometimes, and talk about her soul, — Heaven help me ! ” Then she started, and said sharply, “ Who’s that? ” for a figure moved down among the shadows at the foot of the steps, and then stood still.

“ Me, ma’am,” a frightened voice answered.

Cecil, still feeling her heart beating, sat up, and said, “ Well! who are you ? Eliza Todd? What do you want, Eliza ? You should n’t come creeping about this way; you frightened me to death ! ”

The little gray figure came out into the faint light from the house. “I — I thought Miss Lyssie was here, ma’am.

I’m sure I did n’t mean to frighten you, Mrs. Shore. I thought Miss Lyssie was here.”

“ She has gone home.”

“ Oh, has she, ma’am ? ”

“ Yes.”

“ Well, it don’t matter. ’T ain’t, no great odds. I’m sorry I disturbed you,

I’m sure.”

Eliza was creeping back into the shadows, but stopped as Cecil asked,

“ Why did you want to see Miss Lyssie, Eliza ? Anything wrong ? ”

“ No, ’m ; oh no, ’m. I just thought she was here ; I thought I’d— I’d get her, ’ said Eliza, her voice breaking; and then she lifted the skirt of her calico dress and wiped her eyes. “ I’m all shook up, Mrs. Shore. I ’m sure I beg your pardon for giving way before a lady like you. But I thought Miss Lyssie was here.”

“Oh, don’t cry, whatever you do ! ” Mrs. Shore said cheerfully, “’lell me what troubles you. I think I ’ll do as well as Miss Lyssie. Is it the rent ? ”

Cecil could see, in the half light, Mrs. Todd’s pallid face, and her worn, thin hand which she laid across her mouth, as though to steady the nervous tremor of her lips. “ I’ve been doin’ your windows to-day, Mrs. Shore, and the girls said Miss Lyssie was here to dinner, and was out setting on the porch with you ; and so I come round from the back of the house to see if I could get her. That’s all.”

“ But what do you want Miss Lyssie for, at this hour of the night ? Oh, come, Eliza, you must n’t cry! I never can do anything for people that cry.” And then, after a moment’s pause, seeing the little, crouching, crying figure at the foot of the steps, Cecil added kindly, “ Come up here ; then I can talk to you better.”

Eliza came, slowly, catching her breath as she tried to stop crying. She sat down on the steps, and Cecil, stretched out in her long chair, could see all the details of work and poverty in her face.

“ ’T ain’t anything, ma’am, only I was afraid to go home. I thought maybe Miss Lyssie would go with me. She can do anything with him.”

“ Miss Lyssie ! ” cried Lyssie’s sister, resentment and amusement in her face. “ Why, my sister could n’t go home with you at this time of night, Eliza. I suppose you mean that you and Todd have quarreled; but Miss Lyssie can’t do anything.”

“ Oh no, ma’am, we ’ain’t quarreled,” Eliza explained eagerly. “ Only your Rosa said that Mr. Shore’s John told her he seen Todd going home, full. Well, I expect my baby in six weeks, ma’am, and I ain’t real smart; an’ when he ’s full, he’s just as like as not to jaw at me. And I thought I ’d just get Miss Lyssie to speak to him. She’d get him pleasant, if he was n’t real drunk. If he’s real drunk, he sleeps, and then I don’t mind. But Rosa said John said that he were n’t more ’an half. So I thought I’d get Miss Lyssie.”

“ Is Miss Lyssie in the habit of going around at night to pacify Todd ? ” said Cecil curiously.

“ Ma’am ? ”

“ Does she often come and talk to your husband ? She ought not to go at night, Eliza.”

“ Well, yes, ’m, she comes sometimes. There’s nobody can do anything with him but Miss Lyssie, — the nasty brute! ”

“ Oh,” said Cecil, surprised, “ is that the way you feel about him? Well, I m sure I should think you would. It would be very disagreeable to live with a man who ‘ jawed ’ at one.”

“ Well, that’s just what he does,” Eliza said resentfully. “My! nobody knows what I’ve put up with in that man. An’ he’s just a worthless brute ; I’ve told him so a hundred times. I’ve told him the Lord only knew why I demeaned myself to marry him.”

“ That must have been encouraging to him,” Cecil observed.

But Mrs. Todd went on passionately: “ Me, that was well brought up ! I had my music lessons, Mrs. Shore, when I was a girl, and I had an instrument; I could play ‘ See the dewdrop.’ I suppose you know that piece, ma’am ? ”

“ I don’t recall it,” Mrs. Shore confessed.

“ And then to think I married that — that—that — carpenter ! ” ended Eliza, at a loss for an adjective.

“ Well, you were very foolish to marry a man who drank,” Cecil said, yawning.

“ Oh, but he signed the pledge,” Eliza excused herself, — “ he signed it as many as six times before we was finally married. And now look at him ! And look at me, slavin’! I never thought I ’d come down to washing people’s windows, Mrs. Shore. My father was a respectable man. He was never took up for anything, and he never kept company with them that was took up. So I had advantages ; course, now, I feel it. We ’ain’t got any instrument. My goodness ! we ’ain’t got anything. Oh, it ’s no good talking ; it makes me real put out. But to-night I thought I just could n’t stand him if he got to jawing; so I came round to get Miss Lyssie to speak to him.”

“Well, Eliza.” Mrs. Shore assured her, “I think, considering your powers of invective, there may be something to he said for Job. However, never mind that. I wish you’d tell me one thing: why in the world do you go on living with Job ? I should think the simplest way out of it all would be to leave him ? ”

“ My! I’ve threatened to do that a hundred times. But then, when he ain’t drinking he gets good wages. I suppose I ’m more comfortable, ma’am, takin’ it all together, than if I had n’t his wages coming in sometimes ? And then, Mrs. Shore, I’ve got a tongue.”

“ I’ve noticed that,” Cecil murmured.

“ An’ I can give it back to him ! It’s only when he licks me — well, he ’s only done that three times. I could have had him took up, but then there would n’t ’a’ been any wages, you see ; so I just content myself by telling him that he’s a brute. An’ he is !—my baby coming, and me afraid to go home for fear he ’ll get me in a tremble ! I thought Miss Lyssie would make him pleasant,” she ended, and whimpered, and wiped her eyes on her skirt again, and rose. “ Oh, I ’m that scared of him! ” She stood there, her poor gaunt little face full of the frightened resentment of selfishness, but with no gleam of pity for the sinfulness of the poor sinner who was her husband.

“ You are a very foolish woman to live with him,” Cecil said impatiently. “ As for to-night, I can send John home with you— But no, that would n’t do any good. Oh, well, you poor silly little creature, come, I ’ll go home with you myself.” She got up lazily. “ Run into the hall and bring me that white wrap that is on the sofa. Yes, yes ; I ’ll walk home with you,” she insisted good naturedly in answer to Eliza’s tremulous protest.

They were outside the gates before Cecil remembered that she should have had John follow her, that she might not have to come back alone. Still, in Old Chester one does not mind being out after dark by one’s self. So she said one or two kind things to Eliza, promised her some baby clothes, told her she might come up to the barn every night and get milk for the children, and then, silently, walked along in the starlight down to the village, to the miserable little house where the Todds lived. There, Eliza slipped behind her, while she knocked gayly, and then instantly pushed the door open and entered.

There was a moment’s pause on the threshold of the squalid room. Job, who was sitting with his head on his arms, at a table on which were some unwashed plates with scraps of meat upon them, and a pitcher of tea, and a sugar bowl black with flies, lifted his head, and looked at her with dull eyes ; a child, wailing fretfully on a bed still unmade, stopped, open-mouthed. Cecil, with a quick glance, took in the scene. Job Todd’s jaw dropped in blank and sheepish astonishment as she came toward him.

“Oh, Mr. Todd,” she said graciously, “ I’m so glad you ’re at home. You ’re just the man I want to see. Can you do a piece of work for me to-morrow, in my stable ? Ah, Eliza, that little woman on the bed wants her supper ! Mr. Todd, I ’m afraid I kept your wife very late, but she is such a capital cleaner I really could n’t let her go sooner.”

Job had gotten on his feet, and was grinning in a silly way, but at Eliza’s name his heavy red face darkened. “I had to get my own supper,” he began threateningly.

Cecil, with a charming smile, broke in : “ I have heard people say that men are better cooks than women ! But you’ve had your supper, Mr. Todd ? I ’m not interrupting you ? ”

“ Oh no, ’m ; not at all, I m sure,” Job said, jerking his head up and down in a bow.

“ I just wanted to ask you about this piece of work,” Cecil went on, aware that Eliza was slipping the children away to an inner room, and clearing the table, and turning down the lamp which was smoking on the mantelpiece above the untidy stove. “ I know what a good carpenter you are : I remember hearing some one say what good work you did.”

Job shook his head, with a pleased look, and thrust out his weak lips. “ Well, I don’t know. Used to be.” And then the drunken anger came back into his face. “ She wastes all my money, an’ I have to get my own supper ; no good in being first-rate in your trade, if ” — He glared at Eliza, and Cecil was in despair. Well, there was nothing for it but to take him away. She shivered a little, but she said, courteously, that she wondered if he would be so good as to walk up the hill with her ?

“ I forgot to tell my man to come for me ; but if you will walk home with me, Mr. Todd, that will be better, because I can tell you about the work.”

That Job was flattered was so evident that Cecil could hardly keep the gravity of countenance which was essential: he came stumbling out into the street with her, murmuring, “ Yes, ’m, yes, ’m,” to everything she said. And she said much, and always with “ Mr. Todd ? ” at the end of her sentences, spoken in that enchanting voice which made the poor fellow straighten himself, and feel more like a man than he had in many a year, — far more than Dr. Lavendar’s invectives, and Miss Susan’s sensible reproaches, and Miss Lyssie’s entreaties had ever made him feel. Cecil did not refer to the work again, and she devoutly hoped he would not. “ What shall I say, if he asks what it is ? she thought nervously. She spoke of the weather, and was “ so glad ” Mr. Todd thought it was going to be fine ; she asked him about his politics with all the gravity in the world, and took him to task for not voting. “ American men ought to vote, and not leave the ballot to aliens, don’t you think so, Mr. Todd ? ” And Job, who had not paid his poll tax since he was twenty-one, said, “ Yes, ’m, yes, ’m. Yer right, ’m. We had ought to vote ; yer right, ’m.” It seemed to Job that she had forgotten that he was a drunkard, as Dr. Lavendar and the others had assured him he was, over and over. A glow came about his heart. He was so elated that he did not notice the relief in her tone, when, halfway up the hill, she interrupted herself suddenly by saying, “ Oh, there ’s Mr. Carey, — there’s Mr. Shore and Mr. Carey, Mr. Todd. I shall not have to trouble you to go on up the hill with me. Philip ! ” she called out sharply, and the two men turned, astonished to see her and her companion. When they were beside her, she laughed a little at her own relief, but she said, still with that gracious politeness that stirred Job as nothing but flattery can stir a fool, “ I had to go down to the village, and Mr. Todd was so kind as to walk up the hill with me. Good-night, Mr. Todd. Thank you so much.”

And Job Todd made a jerky bow, promised to attend to the stable job, and went off with a brisk step that surprised himself.

As for Cecil, she drew her wrap about her, with a shiver and a laugh. It seemed as though she still felt bis heavy presence, and the smell of liquor near her. “ Oh, what a beast he is ! ” she said. “ How glad I am I met you ! Mr. Carey, that is one of my sister’s protégés. Philip, find something for him to do to-morrow, will you ? I’ve told him I had some work for him. Can’t you break down a stall, or something ? I told him the work was in the stable.” And then she shook her head and laughed. “ No, no! please don’t talk about him, — horrible creature ! ”

She was plainly nervous, and yet full of the drollery of the situation.

It was useless, Philip saw, to think of having any talk with her about Molly that night.

X.

The next morning, in accordance with her plan of being agreeable to Mrs. Drayton, so that Lyssie might have a little more freedom, Cecil went to see her stepmother ; and she was agreeable, though the repression she had to put upon herself in her conversation with this foolish little woman made her tired and cross, — so cross that when, at noon, Rosa came to ask what work Mrs. Shore wished Job Todd to do in the stable, Cecil replied impatiently, “ I don’t know, I’m sure ! Don’t bother me about it, Rosa. Just tell John to find something for him to do. Anything ; I don’t care what. Let him build a kennel for Eric.”

“ Eric has a very good kennel, Mrs. Shore,” Rosa said hesitatingly.

“Well, let him tear it down and make a bigger one,” Cecil said, relieved to have the matter decided ; and then she called the woman back. “ Oh, I suppose I must go myself,” she remarked crossly, with that impatience which we all feel when we would do evil, but find good present with us. So she went out across the hot sunshine of the courtyard, said a dozen pretty words to Job, and then came back again, touched and amused by the poor stupid fellow’s slavish admiration.

She had a delicious nap that afternoon, Rosa fanning her softly until she fell asleep, and when she awakened, warm and flushed, bringing her a sangaree so cold that the goblet was frosted with beads of mist. Cecil was very comfortable by that time, and very good natured : she had planned an unusual salad for dinner (tomatoes set in aspic, with a delicious accompaniment of stuffed eggs), and she had arranged with Mrs. Drayton that Lyssie should have a whole day off, and two such successes could not fail to make her good natured. She intended that Lyssie’s day should be charmingly spent with Philip and Mr, Carey on the river. For her part, she would go and sit with her stepmother, and then have her nap as usual in the afternoon. Cecil very frankly hated excursions, — they involved too much exertion, and the sun was generally hot; but, provided she could stay at home, she was willing to arrange them for other people. In fact, she liked the pleasure, which in some natures is almost sensuous, of giving pleasure to others.

When she announced her plan to Mr. Carey, that evening, his quick look of delight annoyed her. She did not know why. “ One would think he would be a little bored by a whole day of it,” she thought; and when Philip, who had been walking restlessly up and down the porch, turned to go into his library, she stopped him rather curtly, and told him what she had arranged.

“ That will be very nice,” he said absently. “ To-morrow, you say ? I’m glad of that; I must be away the next day, unfortunately.” And then he explained to Mr. Carey that he had been called up to town. “ I’ve just had a letter from Woodhouse,” he said, “ saying that he can go over Miller’s work with me on Thursday.”

“ Miller is Philip’s little artist,” Cecil said. “ You know Philip keeps an artist as some people support missionaries. He thinks he can create genius by encouraging ability. Now, Philip, I hope you are not going to be hard on him ? ”

“ I hope not,” Philip returned briefly.

“ I ’m sorry, Carey, to clear out in this way, but I have to take Woodhouse when I can get him. Miller is his missionary as well as mine. Poor Miller sent the pictures over six weeks ago, and I suppose he is beside himself with anxiety to know what his chances are. We withdraw the money, you know, if the excellence of the work does n’t warrant it.”

“ What are his chances ? Has he the real stuff in him ? ” Roger asked. He knew all about this plan of Philip Shore’s for lending a young artist money for three years’ study abroad. One man had already profited by this arrangement, and now Philip was watching with some anxiety the progress of the second.

“ Well,” he said doubtfully, “ I don’t know. This examination will settle it. He does not seem to me to stick as he should.”

“ Sure you ’re not holding too tight a rein ? ” Roger suggested. “ He ’s young, you know.”

“ Indeed he is holding too tight a rein ! ” Cecil broke in. “ Philip’s idea of the artistic passion is to die in an attic. Now, I think one can be an artist, and yet not die in an attic. Here’s Philip himself,” she ended, with a droll glance.

Her reference to the life which he had put aside because he had recognized his limitations, put aside with agony and truth, stung like a lash across his face ; but he said, carelessly enough, “ Oh, very likely I was n’t capable of dying at such an altitude,” and would have gone away, but Cecil detained him by a gesture and a laugh.

“ You did n’t sell your pictures ; that was the real reason. Come, now, Philip, was n’t it ? ”

“ Of course it was. If they had been good, they would have sold ; and fortunately for me, no misguided friends purchased what was n’t good, to encourage me in devoting myself to mediocrity.”

It’s a pity your view is n’t more general,” Roger Carey observed. “ Misguided friendship and weak-kneed benefaction are harder on art than hunger and cold ever were. I’m glad you won’t support your man unless he has the real stuff in him. But, poor devil,

I’m sorry for him, if his work does n’t come up to the scratch.”

“ So am I,” said Philip Shore ; _and there was something in his voice which told that he was acquainted with that grief.

“ Ah, well,” Cecil said lightly, “ somebody may die and leave him some money, or he may marry a rich wife; that will destroy any passion for dying in attics. But really, it would be very hard on him to have to give up, now, without such compensation. If you decide against him, I ’ll send him the money to go on with his work.”

Naturally the conversation ended with this remark. Roger Carey looked at his hostess with a wonder at her possibilities which was almost admiration. As for Philip, he excused himself to his guest because he had some letters to write, and went into his library, setting his teeth hard, and closing the door behind him with a vicious bang. As he did so, he heard Cecil’s voice saying, “ Has she talked religion to you yet ? She has it in its most malignant form ”—and he knew that poor Mrs. Drayton was serving as a stalking-horse for his wife’s wit.

He did not hear Roger Carey’s blunt rejoinder: “ Oh, now, look here, Mrs. Shore, I like Mrs. Drayton ! You must n’t abuse her to me.”

Cecil laughed. “ My dear Mr. Carey, what has liking to do with it? You don’t suppose that I am not deeply attached to my stepmother? But I can’t help seeing that she is amusing.”

“ You would see something amusing at a funeral! ”

“ Ah, well, you have n’t experienced her religion,” Cecil defended herself. “ She has n’t told you how intimate she is with her Creator, and you’ve never heard her purring on about infinity by the hour ! I assure you, Mr. Carey, she empties her soul of its emotions just as a boy pulls his pocket wrong side out to show you that there’s nothing in it. And to think that I am going to sit with her to-morrow morning, so that my sister can have a little spree, poor child ! ”

Roger felt the reproach for his somewhat aggressive goodness, as she meant he should.

“ You ’re very good, awfully good, to sit with her instead of coming out on the river. But is she too sick to be left alone ? ”

Cecil laughed. “ Sick ? She is the most robustly delicate person I know ! ”

“Well, then, why does she object to being left alone ? ”

“ But don’t you know ? ” said Cecil, surprised — “ there is never any ‘ why ’ in Mrs. Drayton’s objections ! ”

Again Roger Carey frowned, and said that at any rate Mrs. Drayton spared Miss Lyssie to do lots of charitable work ; and for his part, he thought there was nothing more attractive in a woman than just that sort of thing.

“ Oh, nothing ! “ Cecil agreed, smiling.

But Mr. Carey had nothing more to say of little Lyssie. Indeed, he did not like to talk about her to this strangely different woman ; to discuss her with Cecil Shore was like analyzing a violet upon a gaming table. Instead, he took her to task for having told Molly to fib, the day before. “ I should think it was awfully important to teach children to tell the truth,’ he said. “ “ ‘ I speak as a fool,’ for I don’t know much about ’em, but don’t they take to lying pretty easily. anyhow ? You instructed Molly so gracefully, the young one will think fibbing is a fine art.”

This led to a discussion upon truth, in which Mr. Carey aired very noble sentiments, and Cecil insisted that truth was governed by the law of benefit. “ And I consider that I was a benefactor to you all by saving you from the old lady,” she said, with some earnestness. Mr. Carey’s carelessly frank astonishment at what she had done annoyed her to the point of self-defense. “ Besides, the child discriminates, you know.”

“ Yes, against Mrs. Dales, no doubt,” Roger said, but was so little interested in her explanations that he hardly waited for her to finish another excuse before he began to talk about Job Todd; his admiration of what he called in his own mind her “ sand ” in walking at night with an intoxicated man spoke plainly in his voice.

“ Do tell me how you happened to do it,” he said, scratching a match upon the sole of his boot, and lighting his cigar.

And she told him ; commenting, when she ended, upon the absurdity of the situation. Here they are, living a eatand-dog life ; and we have to support their miserable little children! I told her she was a great goose not to leave him.”

“ She was a goose to marry him, but she ought to stick to her bargain. I hope your dangerous views did n’t Strike in ? ”

“ Marriages are queer things, are n’t they ? ” Cecil returned thoughtfully. “ Did you ever notice how we say of all our friends, ‘ Why in the world did he marry her ! or, ‘ What possessed her to marry him ? ’ ”

“ Yes, I — I’ve noticed it,” said Roger Carey, looking at the tip of his cigar.

“ All, well, there’s a mistake somewhere in this idea of marriage,” Cecil informed him gayly. “ Talk about matches being made in heaven ! If they are, they light the fires of — the other place very successfully.”

“ Well, you help to light the fires with bad advice,” Roger Carey insisted dogmatically, but with that good-humored contempt of a woman’s opinion which does not condescend to argument; and then he moved his chair so that he might see her face as she talked. His first repulsion always faded after he had been with her a little while. Perhaps it was her repose which charmed him, — a repose so absolute that to see her eyes when she lifted her white lids he had thus to move his chair, for she would not turn her head when she spoke. Her voice, between her melodious silences, was deep, for a woman, and soft, and it had in it the delicious clearness and color of dark wine; she spoke slowly, too, so that lie could feel the caress of sound without the tension to catch the sense. He heard her excuse Job Todd because of the fatality of his environment; lie heard her advocate the irresponsibility of temperament. She talked well and cleverly, touching, with the conventional uneonventionality of our day, on subjects which a generation ago were tabooed between men and women, but which now we sec lit to discuss, declaring that there can be no consciousness in the commonplace — though every man and woman of us knows better ! Once he contradicted her sharply, and once he laughed ; but he was not listening closely. “ Oh, now, look here ! ” he said vaguely, with the intonation with which, to a man, he would have said, “ Bosh ! ” He was following — for her sleeve was of some sheer muslin — the line of her arm from the shoulder to the finger tip : he saw the exquisite curves, unmarred by any ornament, he saw the faint color of her relaxed palm, and it came into his mind, with that primitive ferocity which lurks below the product of civilization which is named a gentleman, that a man might grasp the satin smoothness of the round flesh, above and below the elbow, and kiss the blue vein on that warm curve of the inner arm. — kiss it, and kiss it, until —

Roger Carey rose hastily. “ I must go in ; I have some letters to write. Beg pardon for interrupting you, but I must go in. I just remembered.” He dropped her hand carelessly when he said “ Good-night,” and then went hastily to his own room, where for a long time he stood before the open window frowning out into the darkness. But after a while his face cleared, and he smiled and drew a deep breath. “ She is a dear little thing ! ” he said.

Roger, capable of forgetting himself, was also capable of forgetting Cecil; but she did not readily forget him. When she went upstairs there was some annoyance in her face. “ How unpleasant he is ! ” she thought, and sat down in front of her mirror, looking absently into its shadowy depths. “ Very unpleasant, but ” — Then she half laughed and sighed, and, leaning her elbow on the table, looked long and deeply into the glass.

The room was lighted only by the candles on the dressing table, for the night was warm and still. Cecil, moving about, stopped to trim the wicks, and then stood, the snuffers in her hand, absorbed in thought. Some one knocked, and she answered absently, without turning her head, “Come in ; ” then, with a start, she saw her husband’s face in the mirror,

“ What, you ? ”

“ Yes ; can you spare me a few moments ? ” said Philip ; but, involuntarily, he stood still on the threshold, in the quick delight of the artist at that sumptuous figure, standing there in the faint dusk of the candlelight. Somehow, the beauty of it, and the sense of his absolute ownership, took him by the throat for one bad moment that sent the blood into his face. All this beauty which enchanted and invited him. this length of shining hair, the white column of the stately throat, was his ; for was she not his wife ?

But the soul of the man knew better.

“ Of course I can spare you a few moments,” Cecil answered, smiling, and sitting down, one white bare arm along the back of her chair, and the other on the dressing table.

“ I am afraid it is late,” he said. “ but I saw your light, and I was anxious to speak to you. I won’t detain you very long.”

“ I don’t see why you should be apologetic,” she interposed good naturedly. “ Sit down, won’t you ? ”

There was a certain intent look in Philip’s face that did not escape Cecil.

“ I have attacks of nerves,” she had once said, “ but Philip has attacks of soul ! ” Such attacks were not agreeable to her, though she bore them with remarkable patience. She thought now, watching him with amused, critical eyes, that such an attack was imminent. “ I suppose,” she reflected, that this sort of thing attracted me at first, because it was odd. Yes, and there is an intellectual value, too ; Philip is no fool.”

I hope nothing has bothered you ? ” she said, aloud.

“ I want to speak to you about Molly.”

“ Molly ! Why, what is the matter ? Is she ill ? What about Molly ? ” Her face changed sharply, and she half rose.

“ No ; nothing, nothing ; she is quite well.”

Cecil sank back in her chair, with a quick breath of relief. “ Oh, you startled me so ! ” she said, her color coming again. Her hair, falling over her shoulders, was pulled sideways by her change of position; she caught it and twisted it in a rope, and wrapped it about one bare arm ; a faint gleam touched a gilt thread here and there in the soft coil, as the flames of the candles behind her bent and flared in a sudden light draught. “ I wish you would n’t come in and frighten me this way,” she told him irritably. “ Well, what is it ? What do you want ? ”

“ I want to ask you ” — he spoke slowly, and his manner was guardedly polite — “ I want to call your attention to the danger of giving Molly an idea that truth is not important. I noticed yesterday morning ” —

“ Yesterday morning ? ” she broke in. “ Oh, you mean ‘ not at home ’ ? Oh, now, really, Philip, do you think it worth while to discuss a social form ? I’m pretty patient with your ideas generally, but really ! ”

“ I’m not talking about a social form ; I’m talking about the spirit of truth. We debauch a child’s soul when we allow it to sink its directness in what we call a social form. Molly can’t discriminate. She tells what she thinks is a lie, and finds it indorsed, in fact suggested, by us! ”

“ ‘ Us ’! ” Cecil repeated, and laughed. “ Philip, your politeness leads you dangerously near this same debauchery yourself. Pray don’t consider my feelings. Tell the truth, and shame — me. Oh, I ’ll not send any more such messages by her, if it distresses you so much. But don’t, don’t, at midnight, begin about the ‘ spirit of truth ‘ ! Must you, Philip?”

All her good nature had come back again, for she was sleepy.

Philip Shore made no appeal for any deeper motive in her acquiescence than this mere contemptuous consideration of his wishes ; the time for such appeals seemed to him long gone by. “ Thank you,” he said. “And there’s one other thing. Molly happened to speak about that prayer of hers — to the devil, you know ? ”

“ Yes, well ? What of it ? It was very funny. Did she repeat it to you ? ” “ Repeat it ? Of course not. Do yon suppose I ’d let the child think her prayer could be amusing ? That is what I wanted to speak to you about; it was outrageous to make a jest of the child’s prayer! ”

Cecil dropped her arm on her dressing table with a soft crash. “ Oh, dear me! ” she said, and then swallowed a yawn which brought the water into her eyes and made her smile. “ (I beg your pardon.) Philip, if you had the slightest sense of humor, you would be spared much. The idea of being harrowed because I laughed at Molly’s prayer! And really, I must protest ; I can’t have my child praying to the devil, — if that is what you want. I mean that Molly shall have some religious teaching, and know that one does n’t pray to the devil.”

“ Certainly. Check it, by all means. But the point I make is this : when you treated her prayer, which according to your theology was bad, as a joke, you robbed the child of reverence.”

“ Your ideas of reverence are interesting. Reverence, and a prayer to the devil! ”

“ It is the prayer which I revere. The name ‘ God ’ or ‘ devil ’ is nothing, the instinct of prayer is everything ; and you laughed at it, and made the child repeat it; you turned it into a show. It was shocking!” His anger with her grew as he put it into words. “ I know you have no reverence yourself, but, for Heaven’s sake, don’t rob the child of it!”

Cecil sighed. It was nearly a year since Philip’s last attack of “ soul; ” she felt that she owed him a hearing for so long a holiday, but she wished he would hurry. “ Go on,” she said resignedly ; but could not help adding, “It is interesting to hear you advocating religious teaching,—you, a skeptic. Oh. Philip, there ! I did n’t mean to call down a statement of your faith ! ”

“ Don’t be alarmed,” he said dryly. “ I should n’t make such a statement to you”

“There’s one thing that always interests me about you good people,” returned Cecil, yawning : “ not your certainty that the rest of us are swine, — no doubt we are, — but your certainty that your opinions are pearls,”

“My only certainty is that there is no skepticism so dreadful as that which finds no seriousness in life,” he answered significantly.

“ If you mean that for me,” she protested, “ my dear friend, no one finds life more serious than I ; especially on such occasions.”

“You don’t know what it means, even, ’ he said angrily. “If you did, you would be incapable of treating lightly the instinct of worship in a child’s soul! ”

It seemed that his words had some effect, for she sat without speaking, tapping one foot upon the floor, and pulling with a restless finger at her red lip. But her flippancy was so intolerable to him that he turned to leave the room. “ I don’t often interfere,” he said, pausing on the threshold, for her continued silence restrained him like some spoken word, — “I don’t often interfere about Molly, but in a thing of such vital importance as ” —

“ Look here, Philip,” she interrupted. “ You and I will never agree about Molly, so what is the use of talking about it? I will never allow her to be taught your dreadful agnostic ideas; I’d rather have her pray to the devil upon the housetops, to the amusement of everybody. No, we ’ll never agree about her; but oh, life would be so much more comfortable if you would just make up your mind to that fact. You go your way, and I ’ll go mine.”

“ What ? ”

“ I mean, you teach her your ideas, and I ’ll teach her mine.”

“ Oh, I — I misunderstood you ! ” he exclaimed, his voice suddenly harsh ; and then he was silent a moment until he said, “ Of course that is perfectly absurd ; it would be as though you said a thing was white, and I said it was black. She would end by not believing either of us. No, I sha’n’t contradict your religious teaching; but you must not ignore moral teaching, — that I shall insist upon. I sha’n’t say that this or that doctrine seems to me ridiculous; but I do insist that while your teaching is, as I think, intellectually crooked, it is not also morally crooked.”

Cecil s face had grown slowly white. “This is — insufferable!” she said, in a low voice. She turned her back upon him, and, shaking her hair loose, began to braid it with trembling fingers. “ Philip, I shall do exactly as I please. You can make up your mind to that. Good-night. Please go. You are perfectly impossible. Please go.” Anger vibrated in her scantily civil words. She saw him, in the mirror, hesitate, and then turn away.

As the door closed behind him, she said, violently, under her breath, “You fool! ”

Margaret Deland.