pressed her to his heart, answering only, “_Papa’s own girl_.” Here fat
old Dinah was descried in the dining-room, wiping her grinning face with
her apron. At a gesture from Clara she came to the drawing-room door,
and Clara submitted to be hugged, and kissed, and “bressed,” and cried
over till she cried anew herself. Miss Marston looked a little surprised
at this familiarity with a negro servant, until she recalled the fact
that the doctor’s family had lived many years in the South, where, there
being never a possible question of equality before the late civil war,
the negro was often petted even like much-loved brutes.

That evening there was a grand reception in the doctor’s old-fashioned
house, in honor of Clara’s return. Dan came in after all the friends had
arrived, and for a time he saw no one but Clara, who advanced to meet
him, offering him her hand affectionately, but instead of taking it, he
grabbed the whole stately person of his sister and gave her a most
bearish hugging and kissing, which embarrassed her somewhat, perhaps,
because she knew Dr. Delano’s eyes were upon her. She had just left his
side, and the few minutes conversation with him had given her a taste of
feminine power. She had seen in every look, and word, and movement, that
she impressed him deeply. After escaping from Dan’s grip, she glanced
back to Dr. Delano. His eyes were averted. Was it from disgust at Dan’s
rough way of meeting her, or from delicacy? At all events he seemed to
have dropped her out of his thoughts, and was apparently greatly
absorbed in conversation with Leila, and as he talked he occasionally
twisted the long ends of a fine dark moustache. He was a rather
distinguished looking man, perhaps a little too self-conscious, and old
in Leila’s eyes, though in the prime of life, being not much over
thirty.

Before Dan would let Clara go, he said, glancing at the piano, where a
quiet, graceful lady was just sitting down to play, “That washed-out
virgin is your divinity, Miss Marston, I presume.”

“Hush! brother. You will never speak so of her when she has once deigned
to notice you. No one escapes the magic of her style, I assure you.”

“I wouldn’t give a sixpence for one woman’s judgment of another, sis;
but I’ll try on the magic as soon as you like. See! there’s my _bête
noir_ making dead for me;” and leaving his sister to entertain Mrs.
Buzzell, he just nodded to her and went to Susie, who was sitting quite
alone in the corner of the room, pretending to be interested in an album
of photographs. He greeted her with a pleasant word, and her sense of
being neglected vanished instantly. Ah! is it counted a blessing to love
like this poor child? Sentimental or emotional people never count
themselves happy except when floundering in some sea of passionate
madness. Do they not deceive themselves as to the nature of happiness?
Is it well for any human soul to so depend upon another for every thrill
of pleasure; aye, to have the very literal beating of the heart, in its
normal way, dependent upon the smiles, the tender words, of any single
creature among all the good and beautiful beings that the world
contains? Be it wise or foolish, it is the fate of many people to love
in just this mad way; though it excites the contempt of those who can
regulate the play of their emotions as easily as we do the movement of a
clock by raising or lowering the pendulum.

Susie kept on turning the leaves of Clara’s album, though listening
intently to every syllable her lover uttered. Stopping longer over one,
he noticed it. “Clara’s tenth wonder, eh?” he said. “How do you like
it?”

“I think it very beautiful; don’t you?”

“Bosh! she has no color, no life,” he answered, glancing toward the
original. “Why, you are a thousand times prettier, Susie.” This made the
little heart very happy indeed; and she looked up into Dan’s face with a
loving, trusting pride, that touched him for a moment; the next, he was
forced to give his attention to Miss Marston, whose fine voice swelled
through the room in the _brindisi_ of _La Traviata_, the one bit of
Italian music that Dan happened to know well, and as he listened, he was
entranced. The voice seemed to upbear him as on wings. How passionately
the pale little woman sung. Could such a voice belong to the commonplace
lady he had thought Miss Marston to be? A few minutes later, when he was
presented to her, and her little white hand lay in his for a moment, he
longed to kiss it; and was consciously awkward as he spoke the words of
greeting. Miss Marston knew how to put him at his ease at once, he never
suspecting that she was exercising a common art among certain refined
people of society. She made him thoroughly satisfied with the way he had
deported himself, and he left her with a sense of delight, as if he had
covered himself with glory. He returned to her as soon as he could, and
scarcely noticed Susie for the rest of the evening. Susie waited until
sure that Dan had no thought of returning to talk with her any more, and
when she could no longer control her emotion from the company, she crept
away to her room, and cried bitterly, while the sound of music and
joyous laughter from below fell like mockery upon her lonely heart.

Dan’s infatuation for Miss Marston was sudden and irresistible, and soon
became evident to everybody. To Clara it was an evidence of appreciation
which she had thought him incapable of; and having no knowledge of his
relation to Susie, she was delighted, though in her eyes Miss Marston
was too good for Dan, and that he might win her seemed an absurdity. She
thought, however, with the faith in love that all women cherish, that
his admiration would have a softening and refining influence, which in
this case was much needed. Miss Marston was very gracious. She sang for
him whenever he asked her, and without the least effort charmed him in
every way. When he made her a compliment, instead of saying that she
hated flattery, as most country girls have the bad manners to do, she
smiled and thanked him. In truth, her whole air and manner was a
revelation of womanhood to Dan. He received her gracious politeness as a
sign of preference, and before a week had passed, Susie was a millstone
about his neck. She, meanwhile, half dazed with the knowledge of Dan’s
disaffection, and the fate worse than death that hung over her, went
about the house, pale, silent, brooding over the thought of death as the
only possible escape for such as she. Mrs. Forest was quite touched by
her sad face, treated her more kindly than usual, and even seemed
disposed to talk to her. She asked her one day why she never went to see
her friends, as she used to do.

“I have no friends,” Susie answered, with a stony expression that
alarmed Mrs. Forest. What could she mean? “It must be,” she said to
herself, “Dan’s attention to Miss Marston. Poor thing! I wonder if she
really expected him to marry her?”

By-and-by the quick eye of Dr. Forest detected Susie’s condition, and
his anger at his son was bitter and terrible; but he said nothing,
waiting for the end of the week, when Dan would come home for the
Sunday. Saturday evening the doctor came in rather late. He first went
into the drawing-room and staid a few minutes. Dan was basking in the
heaven of Miss Marston’s smiles. The parlor casement windows were open
on the southern veranda, where they sat breathing the odor of the
honeysuckles that climbed over the old wooden pillars. Clara was
scarcely less happy than Dan, for Dr. Delano had been exceedingly
agreeable that special evening, and she had just discovered that he had
a certain, as yet ill-defined, but wholly delicious influence upon her.
Mrs. Forest was delighted. Dr. Delano was a “party” after her own heart;
so she kept discreetly at the further end of the room, and engaged the
twins near her to the best of her ability, that they might not disturb
either the flirtation at the piano or that on the veranda. As the doctor
entered, Leila was teazing Clara about Dr. Delano, who had just left,
and there was no little spite in this teazing, for Leila had fallen in
the doctor’s eyes from what appeared to be a first class object to a
third class one at best, since the advent of Clara.

“Don’t mind her, sister Clara,” said Linnie. “Her nose is out of joint,
that is all.” Leila scowled without turning her head, and continued her
bantering, while Clara kept on improvising pretty variations upon
Weber’s _Dernière Pensée_. “Oh, are you not tired of that gloomy air?”
exclaimed Leila. “You ought to play something more gay, I should say;
perhaps, though, it is appropriate as a wail.”

“Your remarks are very silly, my child,” said Mrs. Forest mildly, “and
quite out of taste.”

“Well, it’s so dull here. One is overpowered by a great event like the
prospect of a marriage. I wouldn’t have Dr. Delano, though, if I was
dying to get married.”

“And pray why not, Miss Wisdom?” asked the doctor.

“Well, he’s too old, in the first place,” replied Leila.

“Old!” repeated Clara, leaving the piano and approaching the back of her
father’s chair. “He is not as old as papa, and I always wanted to marry
papa,” she added, laughing and caressing his head with both her hands.

“Why, Clara!” exclaimed Mrs. Forest. “You make such unaccountably
strange speeches.”

“My girl flatters her old papa, does she not, by comparing him to her
younger slaves?” As he said this he drew one of her hands round to his
lips and kissed it.

“Good-night!” said Linnie, going toward the door. “When Clara and papa
commence making love, I always leave.”

Leila enjoyed this sally immensely, judging by the peal of laughter with
which she greeted it. She kissed her mother, as did Linnie, and then the
doctor, who took the opportunity to whisper to her, “Don’t undress till
you hear me go up stairs. Then I wish you to come down and tell Dan to
come to my study.”

A few minutes later Leila bounced on to the veranda, exclaiming, “Papa
wants you, Dan, in his study. Quick!” and with this she disappeared as
she came.

The summons was so sudden that Miss Marston started; but Dan, knowing
the nature of Leila, did not apprehend that any one had fallen dead in a
fit, as he might otherwise be justified in supposing. He assured Miss
Marston that it was only Leila’s way, said he would be absent but a few
minutes, and expressed a hope to find her on his return.

Dan passed into the parlor through the glass door, meeting Clara, who
joined Miss Marston. He then remembered for the first time that Susie,
despairing probably of seeing him alone, had given him a note when she
had opened the front door for him that evening. He stopped by the parlor
door, out of sight of Miss Marston, and ran over it hurriedly. What it
contained was terrible enough; and the writing was blurred, evidently by
tears, but the effort the poor girl had made to cheat her breaking heart
into the belief that Dan still loved her, was lost on him. He was not
fine enough to understand it.

As Dan crossed the threshold of his father’s study, the doctor wheeled
round from his desk and rose, not offering Dan a seat. Dan saw with an
inward misgiving that a storm was threatening. It burst upon him without
the slightest preliminary.

“Young man,” the doctor said, with perfect command of his voice, “I
suppose you are aware of the condition of Susie Dykes through your
folly.”

Dan silently approached the mantle-piece, on which he leaned for
support, for he was profoundly agitated. The doctor, who noticed
everything, was moved at the signs of wretchedness his words had caused,
and he continued, less severely, “I am sorry for you, my son; but my
greater concern is about this poor girl. To a man it is nothing; to a
woman it is worse than death.”

Dan thought of the gracious being on the veranda, brilliant, refined,
unapproachable, but for whose favor he had dared to hope, and he thought
the misfortune was worse than death for him also; and as he waited,
chewing the end of his youthful moustache, his heart hardened toward the
poor girl who had so tenderly loved, so foolishly trusted him. But his
silence was exasperating the doctor, who, he well knew, would see but
one way to pay for his “folly,” as he had termed it. He said, therefore,
doggedly, without looking up, “What is done is done. I suppose you wish
me to marry her.”

“_I_ wish you to marry her, you young scoundrel!” replied the doctor,
livid with indignation at the heartlessness of his son. “If you have
lost all affection for her, does not your sense of honor prompt you to
make the only reparation possible, when you have done a wrong like this
to an innocent girl?”

“Innocent!” sneered Dan, “I’m not over sure about that, sir.”

Hearing loud words proceeding from the doctor’s study, and guessing what
might be the cause, Susie, pale and trembling, crept down the stairs,
which ended just at the doctor’s door. She heard distinctly these words
from the lips that were so dear to her, and unable to move hand or foot,
she sank down on the stairs. Poor girl! She had obeyed the instinct of
her tender heart, meaning, if Dan was suffering under his father’s anger
for her sake, to go and shield him, woman-like, and take all the blame
on herself. Upon this noble impulse Dan’s words had fallen like cold
steel upon her warm heart. Her wonder was overwhelming when she heard
the doctor reply in a clear, distinct tone:

“Great God! that from a son of mine! Cowardly, ignobly, seeking to cover
your baseness by degrading a weak young girl, whose only fault is loving
you a thousand times more than you deserve. You have sought her and
courted her favor ever since she was thirteen years old. Even as long
ago as that, you promised her marriage, and tattooed yourself with her
name as a seal of the promise. She never doubted your honesty for years,
and when, through her devotion for you and the Devil knows not what arts
exercised on your part, she sacrifices everything a woman can sacrifice,
you would basely desert her. I tell you it is the most damnable act a
man can perpetrate. Brute force and ignorance have oppressed woman in
all history, making her a slave to petty cares, denying her the
political and social equality that belongs by right to human beings, and
making her dependent like a slave. Of course this has cramped woman’s
free growth in every way, and the man who takes advantage of her
weakness, as you have done with Susie Dykes, deserves the execration of
all honorable men.”

“For God’s sake, father, don’t speak so loud!” cried Dan, who was in
mortal terror lest Miss Marston should hear.

“I will neither control my voice nor my indignation at your meanness.
The whole world deserves to know the base dog who would deceive and
betray a woman through her folly in loving him too well.”

“Hold, sir! I have some feeling as well as you, and I won’t stand any
more of this.”

The doctor moved toward the door, and Dan knew well it would not be easy
to escape; nor did he feel much inclined to try it, for he felt the
weakness of guilt. The doctor continued: “You will hear all I have got
to say, and then I have done with you. There can be no question in my
mind that this girl knows only you. Whom has she known, or sought, or
cared for, except you? But this, in my opinion, is of little importance.
The worst women are about good enough for the best of us. See how much
more generous they are! They, in the freshness and cleanness of youth
and health, take husbands who have consorted with the vilest, whose
blood is vitiated with foul diseases, though every woman feels that a
man’s standard of morality should be as high as hers. The sophisms that
men take refuge in, in this connection, are beneath the contempt of
common sense. Sir, you could in no way have made me despise your
character as you have by that one insinuation. Do I not know you, sir?
What are you that you should demand spotless innocence in a young woman?
In this matter every honest man is bound to believe the woman whose
repute is good. Does this girl confess to having been debauched by
others?” demanded the doctor, whose rage knew no bounds.

“Of course not. According to her, she is most immaculate; but I know
better.”

“Do you?” said the doctor, with fine contempt. “No man has a right to
make that statement of any girl of good reputation; and let me tell you,
for the benefit of your ignorance, that scientific men are not so
confident in such cases. You have graduated in the Jim Dykes school, and
all blackguards are wise on such subjects.”

Dan’s respect for his father was greatly tried. His way of showing
resentment was of the Jim Dykes order; and during his father’s outburst
he had been angry enough to have felled any other man to the earth. He
felt dimly something of his father’s moral force and the secret of his
power among men, as he had never done before. He felt abased before the
sublime justice of the doctor; but still the doctor, who understood the
heart so well, did not know of the new sentiment that Dan cherished for
Miss Marston, as for a superior being. He wished he could tell his
father. It would at least be a new complication that would interest him
as a philosopher, and perhaps make him less hard upon him. This passed
through Dan’s mind as the doctor continued, in a calmer tone: “But I
have said enough; more, perhaps, than you will ever understand. The
question now is, are you ready to make this girl the only reparation in
your power?”

“I am no hero,” said Dan, bitterly. “A little while ago it would not
have been so hard. You have wronged me in some things, though I know I
have not done right. Yes, I am ready to marry Susie Dykes to-morrow,
though I confess I would rather die.”

Here the door opened, and Susie, who had heard all, ashy pale and
trembling in every limb, confronted her lover, more dead than alive, and
scarcely able to articulate the words: “God forgive you, Dan, and make
you happy. You will never marry Susie Dykes;” and sinking down exhausted
from her emotion, the doctor caught her and kissed her forehead. “Brave
girl!” he said. “Are you really in earnest? Would you really refuse,
under such circumstances?” “I would die ten thousand deaths,” she cried,
“rather than permit him to make a sacrifice in keeping his word to me,”
and she motioned violently for Dan to leave her presence.

As he rushed from the room and from the house, covered with shame and
self-contempt, Dan was as wretched as his most murderous enemy could
have desired. When the door closed behind him, Susie sobbed bitterly,
and the doctor lifted her bodily and laid her on the lounge.

“I did not think you had so much character,” he said, laying his hands
on her temples. “You are a good girl, though you have thrown away your
heart and gone the way of many. You shall never want a friend, my dear
child. I shall stand by you. Now cheer up, and we will see what can be
done by-and-by.” As he said this, he mixed her a powder, not too
innocuous this time, and as he held it to her lips she moaned, “Oh,
good, kind, noble one, you would be kinder to me if you would help me
end my wretched life. Oh, do, doctor! Do give me something; I will never
tell that it was you.”

“Very likely not. You couldn’t very well, if it was an effective dose,”
said the doctor, trying to be gay for her sake.

“Oh! I mean when I am suffering—dying. Do you think I would tell? Oh,
you do not know me!”

“Nonsense, little one. Now, shut your eyes and let me hold my hand over
them. This powder will soon take effect. You are young, and the world
has need of brave hearts and willing hands like yours. Don’t _feel_
disgraced, and you will not be so in fact. Cultivate the thought that it
is not you, but conventional society that makes it wrong to have a child
by one you love, and right by one you loathe, if you happen to be
married to him. Remember this: grief does not last forever; and if you
are wise, this experience may prove a blessing to you—nothing like it to
show a woman the gold from the dross.” As he said this, music rang out
from happy voices in the parlor, for none but the actors themselves knew
of the drama enacted in the doctor’s study. Susie thought Dan was there
in the parlor, careless of her suffering, and she sobbed aloud in her
agony: “What shall I do? what shall I do?”

“Put your whole trouble on me. Go straight to bed, now, and take this
powder along, but don’t take it if you can get to sleep without it. I
will go and talk with Mrs. Forest, and see if she will help us.”

“_Us_,” repeated Susie, covering the doctor’s hand with tears and
kisses. “You are as good as Christ was, and if I live, I will show you
how I thank you for your goodness—how I love you for being so good to me
in this awful time.”

“Trust me, child. I shall be the same to you to-morrow and every day.
Bear up bravely, and all will come out right.”

Susie tottered up stairs and sought her little room. She threw herself
down by her bed, and wept and prayed, but no peace came to her troubled
soul. She forgot the doctor’s powder, and when she woke, it was nearly
daylight, and she was lying faint and ill on the floor beside her bed.
She took the powder then, and with great effort got her clothes off and
went to bed.

                              CHAPTER XI.
                            FAITH AND WORKS.

 The next morning the doctor found Susie weak and feverish, and forbade
her to leave her bed. He told her he had not been able to talk with Mrs.
Forest, but should do so the coming evening, and meanwhile Dinah would
be very kind to her and see that she did not want for anything. He was
deeply touched by her condition, seeing her lie there alone, pale and
suffering, with no woman’s sympathy to cheer her, though the house was
full of women; and he dwelt with some bitterness upon the fact that he
could not by a word bring his wife to his side in kindly, womanly faith
that his impulses were generous and right. Clara he knew he could
influence, but he wished her to act freely, and not through love for
him; therefore he determined to have a talk with Mrs. Forest first, but
meanwhile he had had a word with good old Dinah, and flattered her
exceedingly by saying, “Now, you know all, Dinah, and I count on your
help and discretion. You and I are the only ones in the house who know
this. Help Susie all you can, for my sake, and mind that you say
nothing. Are you sure you can keep the secret, Dinah?”

“Lor bress you, Massa! Massa knows Dinah can.”

“All right, Dinah. I trust you, and I go away feeling easier now;” and
he pressed the old servant’s hand cordially.

This interview had taken place while Dinah was putting the dining-room
in order; and while getting the hominy and coffee ready for breakfast,
she found opportunity to prepare Susie some traditional medicament and
carry it to her. Her heart was overflowing with real sympathy for Susie,
and her pride that the wise and great Dr. Forest had chosen to take her
alone into his confidence, made her feel exceedingly important in her
own eyes.

“Lor bress you, chile!” she said, her shining black face beaming as she
held the cup to Susie’s mouth, “Why didn’t ye tell old Dinah long fore
dis time? Dinah could a helped ye, mebbe. Not now. Massa’d kill me, now
you done gone told him; but cheer up, honey. Dem accidens will happen
mos all de time!”

Susie, weak and suffering as she was, could not resist a smile, and as
she drank the decoction Dinah had brought, she thanked her with tears.
It was the first woman who had come to her in her sorrow, and she did
not think of Dinah’s black skin, but silently thanked God for this
blessing.

The breakfast in Dr. Forest’s family was the pleasantest meal of the
day, for it was the only one when he was pretty certain to be present.
On this morning, however, there was something like a cloud over the
family circle, which seemed to oppress all except Leila, who chatted
gayly to, or rather at, Miss Marston. The latter did not respond
readily, and Leila turned her batteries upon Linnie, who was rather of a
sentimental turn, and fancied that she was a victim of heart disease.
Sentimental young ladies perfectly dote on heart disease. Linnie was
disgusted with the incredulity of the family about the cause of her
ailment. Even old Dinah had said, “Lor, Miss Linnie, you is growing like
a potato-vine, and dese pains ain’t noffin but de growing pains!” After
that Leila teazed her sister unmercifully about her “growing pains;” but
that being frowned down by the family, it was held in reserve for
private persecution. By-and-by Leila, finding the want of gayety at the
breakfast table quite oppressive, drew a long sigh as she laid down her
napkin.

“What is the matter, my child?” asked the doctor. Leila glanced at her
sister mischievously, tilting her head low on the left side, and
answered:

“Oh, I have got such a fearful pain in my diaphragm!” Miss Marston
laughed, not fully comprehending the malice of the young minx, but the
rest were very grave. Leila was impatient over mysteries, and clearly
there was something in the air on this particular morning, so she soon
began to probe the silence.

“I declare this breakfast is as solemn as a Quaker funeral,” she said;
and as no one made any remark, she asked where Susie was.

“She is quite ill this morning, my dear,” answered the doctor; “quite
ill. I hope you and Linnie will try to take her place until she is
better.”

“I will, papa,” replied Linnie; “and I will help nurse her too, for I
think Susie is really nice.” Then there was silence again until Leila
exclaimed, “Dear me! They say everybody have their skeleton closet. I
thought we were an exception, as we keep ours right out fairly in the
light. Why, it’s an age since I saw him. I must go up in the garret and
give the old darling a ‘gyrate,’ as we used to say. Do you remember,
Clara?”

“I remember many things,” replied Clara, with a dignity that was perhaps
a little sophomorical.

“O, do we? How antique we are getting.”

“Yes; I remember, for example, that there is a certain young lady who
will probably go on repeating a certain grammatical solecism until she
is gray,” answered Clara, alluding to Leila’s “everybody have.” Leila
made an indiscriminate onslaught upon grammars generally, during which
the doctor was called away to his patients, and the breakfast ended.

During the day Mrs. Forest, and subsequently Clara, visited Susie’s
room; but in both cases Susie seemed disturbed, and disinclined to enter
upon the details of her illness, and declared she wanted nothing. She
thanked them for their kindness, and once, upon some gentle word from
Mrs. Forest, she hid her eyes, which had filled with tears. Dinah was
the only welcome presence to the poor girl during that long, sad day,
and for obvious reasons.

Early in the evening Dr. Delano called, and made himself very agreeable
to all the ladies, and especially so to Clara, a little later, when they
had a long tête-a-tête on the old south-facing veranda. The sunset had
been magnificent, and as Dr. Delano was quite seriously enamoured with
Clara, he was gay, poetic, appreciative—everything that could charm
her—but she could say little in reply to his fervid eloquence, for she
had the disadvantage of being immeasurably in love, and consequently
felt a certain awkwardness, a triumph to Dr. Delano, growing sweeter and
sweeter every hour. It was her first romance. It was his—well, not his
first, certainly. _That_ was an early attachment to Ella Wills, his
father’s ward, and this night he told Clara the story of that romance,
showing her, of course, beyond a shadow of doubt, that _that_ was a very
insignificant passion—“as water unto wine,” was the way he characterized
it—comparing it to his present deeper and dearer love. Do not lovers,
not always, but very generally, tell this same old fib? The truth was,
he had adored Ella with all a boy’s enthusiasm, and she had flirted with
him persistently—“outrageously,” Miss Charlotte Delano, the doctor’s
sister, declared—and had escaped heart-free herself. So when he came to
tell her in words that his heart was under her feet, she affected the
most innocent surprise, and hoped she had not led him to suppose, etc.,
etc. In the end she somehow won his respect, for he did not curse her,
as rejected lovers do, at least in most novels. She wept very lavishly,
for she meant to keep him in reserve, and marry him finally, if no more
brilliant offer occurred, or if ever in danger of becoming an old
maid—that terror of women who have no serious object in life. When Dr.
Delano first began to mention Clara in his letters to his sister
Charlotte, which he did once as “the noblest and sweetest of mortal
women,” Ella felt personally affronted, and commenced at once to
speculate on the chances of winning him back, not once asking herself if
this “noblest and sweetest woman” had not already acquired rights over
the heart once so lightly rejected. She had not seen him since his
return from Europe, where he had spent three years in completing his
medical education.

Ella always played the kitten, though she was no longer a child, and a
very Methuselah, if age could be numbered by her conquests. She had no
heart to speak of, and less conscience, but she impressed every male
creature with a sense of childish, artless innocence. She was a
brunette, petite, with dark short ringlets about her small head, a peach
bloom on her cheeks, and a babyish, pouting mouth, whose sweetness
Albert Delano had found difficult to forget, or even to recall without
regret, until he had found in Clara something infinitely superior to the
sweetness and prettiness that had so charmed him in earlier days. This
something he hardly comprehended, though he owned its power to a certain
extent. It was soul, for want of a better name—a moral sweetness, a
divine, emotional sensitiveness, and a straightforward honesty of
purpose, that made you conscious, last of all, that she was beautiful in
person and exceedingly graceful in every movement.

This evening Clara remembered long after, as the happiest in her life.
The bright moon shone through the climbing foliage on the veranda,
carpeting the floor with soft mosaic patterns, through which the “mated
footsteps” of the lovers passed and repassed, talking in low tones of
the beauty of the scene, at intervals, when time could be spared from
the dearer theme of their perfections in each other’s eyes, and the
future that, before them,

                   ——“like a fruitful land reposed.”

Of course, they took no note of time, and Miss Marston, after talking
some time with Mrs. Forest, went quietly to her room. Leila fidgeted
about for awhile, and then exclaimed, crossly:

“I _don’t_ see why they wish to moon out there all night.”

“Why, Leila!” said Mrs. Forest, reproachfully. “I see nothing improper
in their enjoying each other’s society, and you should not speak in that
way.”

“She’s jealous,” remarked Linnie.

“You mean thing! I’m not,” Leila answered, in a high key, and then they
went to bed to fight it out in the ordinary sisterly way; and I take it
that sisters can be as caustic and insolently mean in their treatment of
each other as any kindred under the sun. In this case, however, Linnie
was really fond of her sister, and would have manifested it quite
lavishly by way of petting, but for being discouraged and called
“spooney” by Leila whenever she attempted any expression of sentiment.

Mrs. Forest waited awhile after the twins were gone, and then went to
the veranda and gave the lovers some friendly caution about the night
air. This duty discharged, and hearing her husband enter his
sleeping-room, she joined him there. He was very glad to see her, for he
wished to broach the subject of Susie’s condition, a task requiring
considerable diplomacy, for he knew Mrs. Forest would naturally be
merciless to one like Susie. But the doctor in his diplomacy, as Clara
said, did very well until he came to the diplomatic part, and then he
lost the first requisite, patience. He greeted Mrs. Forest very
pleasantly, and told her she never looked lovelier in her life.

“Ah! dear,” she answered, “it is very sweet to hear you say so, but”—and
she viewed herself composedly in the mirror of the doctor’s
wardrobe—“this glass shows me my wrinkles and my gray hair.”

“Well, your hair is beautiful, and I like these little crows’-feet at
the corners of your eyes; but this is not what makes your beauty in my
eyes—” and he came beside her, and put his arm around her—“it is the
softness and tenderness of expression in your face. You did not have
this as a girl.” Here was possibly the approach to the needed diplomacy.

“Yet you used to rave about my beauty; and how indifferent I was to it.”

“To which?”

“To your raving, to be sure.”

“Ah! of course.”

“See how my color has gone. I think I never was vain, but who can look
at such a reflection with any satisfaction? You are bronzed by exposure,
but that rather improves you, and I’m sure, as we stand here, you look
ten years younger than I do, instead of five older. That is because you
have had no babies.”

“Ah! Indeed!” exclaimed the doctor, with Pantagruelistic gayety. “I
thought they were all mine—all but that doubling feat. That was entirely
your invention.”

“For shame! Have you not teazed me enough with that. I think you are so
absurd. I wish you would never make such a remark again.”

“Well, then, I won’t; but the way you take it is so amusing. Are you
going to stay?”

“Do you wish me to?”

“Ah! That is not to be considered,” said the doctor, with his usual
gallantry, which was not gallantry at all in his case, but the simple
expression of his interpretation of woman’s most primitive right. “The
question is, do _you_ wish to stay?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You don’t come too often these days,” he said, toying with her ear.

“That is because I know that you are tired, and would rather sleep when
you have left your study.”

“Too tired, you think, to enjoy your presence?”

“Yes; you know I have not lost the girlish habit of liking to lie awake
and talk. You go to sleep the moment you touch the pillow. Ah, me! how
we change! I remember how you used to keep me awake with your ineffable
words and caresses! and I was so indifferent then. You loved me more
than I could possibly appreciate;” and she added, taking the hair-pins
from her silvery hair, and with a little sigh, “Ah! if I were only young
again!” For answer, the doctor sang the trivial words of Beranger:

                          “Combien je regrette
                          Mon bras si dodu,
                          Ma jambe bien faite
                          Et le temps perdu.”

“Translate your French. It is something shocking, no doubt.”

“No, indeed. But I could not do it justice. I promise to keep you awake
to-night though, for I must consult you about a matter of importance.”

“What is it about?”

“It is about Susie Dykes.”

“She does look ill, I think, and she has been so silent and moody
lately. You don’t think she has anything serious the matter with her, do
you?”

“Yes, serious enough. It is strange you have not guessed.”

“What!” exclaimed Mrs. Forest, a sudden light breaking into her mind.
“You don’t mean to say——”

“Yes, just that,” interrupted the doctor, “and the agony of the poor
girl is dreadful. What is worse, Dan has put it out of his power to save
her from disgrace.”

“Dan!” exclaimed Mrs. Forest, in great disgust. “I don’t believe he
knows anything about it. The shameless thing! No doubt——”

“Now! now! Don’t go off at half-cock. He admits it all—did so in my
study last night, where he said he would rather die than marry Susie.”

“Oh, Heaven! How dreadful for Dan!”

“And you think only of him.”

“Only of him! Is he not my child? Is it not natural that I should think
only of him?”

“Many things are natural that are very selfish. Is Susie not somebody’s
child too as well as Dan? And what is his suffering compared to hers?
Will the world howl at him as a sinner, kick him down further into hell,
and abandon him with virtuous scorn? No, no; there’s plenty of girls
here in Oakdale, of good family too, who would marry him to-morrow for
all his damnable treachery to this poor girl, while the hypocrites,
drawing their immaculate skirts clear of his victim, wink at his act,
and distinguish it ‘as sowing wild oats.’ And you, my wife—you among the
number! You would send her out to die in the streets, would you?”

“I am sorry for her, of course. You know I am.”

Mrs. Forest was thinking of Clara’s prospects; of the aristocratic
Delanos, who were soon coming to Oakdale, and the event was important.
What would they say at Clara’s family supporting and harboring under
their roof a girl so disgraced? Mrs. Forest added, “But we cannot be
expected to be victimized because of her want of virtue. Of course she
cannot stay here.”

“Virtue!” said the doctor, with contempt. “Virtue, in any decent code of
morals, must include all the best qualities of the heart. You are one of
the soulless Pharisees who would cover it with a fig-leaf. I thought I
knew you better, Fannie. Some one says, if you would know a man, divide
an inheritance with him; but, by ——, after you have slept in a woman’s
arms twenty odd years, shared your fortune and all the joys and sorrows
of life with her for that time, a simple case like this arises when you
expect common human sympathy, and she fails you utterly.”

Mrs. Forest began to sob quietly, but finding to her astonishment that
this redoubtable weapon had lost its power over the soft-hearted doctor,
she was piqued, and hardened her heart like a flint. She began hastily
replacing her hair-pins in her hair. This was to punish him by depriving
him of her presence for the night, which she had so sweetly promised.
The doctor noted this movement, the critical moment, probably, if only
his diplomacy had been equal to the situation; but he was “a plain,
blunt man,” as Mark Antony says of himself, and he had already played
his last card. He knew it was hopeless. Mrs. Forest, gentle, mild,
pious, as she undoubtedly was, could not understand the doctor’s broad
love of humanity. She had no power of loving anything that was not
distinctly her own; but she was sure of her own integrity, and when told
by the doctor that there was no more virtue in her love than in that of
a hen for her chickens when she gathers her own under her wings, but
pecks away all others, even though motherless and dying for care, she
was not in the least disturbed; she was sure of her own position, and as
immovable as a rock. “Do as you like,” he said to her, giving up the
case, but determined to speak his mind freely; “do as you like, you and
the other godly who pretend to be followers of one who said, ‘Neither do
I condemn thee.’ Your respect for Christ is a common farce. It is merely
a thing of form and respectability. You don’t take the trouble to see
what manner of man he really was, or you would see how impossible it is
for you to have any sentiments in common with him. Was he not a radical,
sitting down with publicans and sinners, shocking all the conventional
morality of his time, befriending the needy, supporting the outcasts of
society, and a thorough despiser of all cant and hypocrisy?”

“I dislike to hear any one quoting Christ who does not believe in him,”
said Mrs. Forest very softly, but none the less angry for all that.

“Believe,” echoed the doctor. “_You_ are the real infidel. Do you
believe in the divine nature of Christ? Of course you do not; for if you
did, you would have more respect for his morality and magnanimity of
character. Do you believe in your heaven? You have no shadow of real
faith in it, and you know it in your own heart, for it is a place where
this same unhappy girl may be your equal or superior, according to your
own scheme of salvation; and you know you would prefer annihilation to
any such democratic mixing of saint and sinner. Do you think you can
make me think you believe in hell, when you coolly run the risk of its
terrors by turning against the suffering wretches whom Christ helped and
befriended? Oh, Fannie! you have no religion in your heart, for you have
no love for humanity; or, call it religion if you like, and say you have
no honest human sympathy, and no faith that can triumph over the little
expedients and conventional proprieties of the day.”

“I do not wish to manifest levity, but it does seem to me amusing to
hear _you_ talk of faith.”

At another time the doctor would have ceased in despair; but it is so
hard to believe absolutely that those allied to us by many tender ties,
can never respect our most sacred convictions; besides, the doctor’s
sense of human justice was outraged, and he had not yet given full vent
to his righteous indignation.

“I will not try to show you that I have a faith which you can never
comprehend. It would be useless,” he said, “but I can tell you, though
you could never persuade me to cant and howl among your pious herd, that
I respect Christ and his example as I respect the dignity of all
sympathy for human misery; and I shall prove it by standing by this
unhappy girl. I am none the less ready to do so because her suffering is
caused by a knave whom I had the misfortune to beget.”

“Why, I never heard any one utter such language!” exclaimed Mrs. Forest;
“but it is useless to reason with you, when you are in a passion. For my
part, I think ‘charity begins at home.’”

“Yes, I know you do; and according to your creed, it not only begins but
ends there also.”

“Would you sacrifice the prospects of your children to protect a
shameless girl?”

“I’d sacrifice anything and everything on earth to show my faith in the
triumph of justice. Besides, this girl is not shameless. She has a noble
nature. She told Dan to his face that he would never marry Susie
Dykes—this when she found he would marry her, but only as a duty. Yes,
madam, you can now measure my faith, which you despise, and see what it
is worth beside yours. Let what will come, I shall stand by this girl.
Life, with the consciousness that I have acted like a cur, is not worth
having. Now you had better go and pray for grace to do unto others as
you would have others do unto you;” and the doctor burst into a bitter
laugh, as the door closed behind her who had come with wifely tenderness
to sleep by his side.

                              CHAPTER XII.
             CLARA DECIDES BETWEEN RELIGION AND PRINCIPLE.

 Mrs. Forest had often had rather severe conflicts with her husband on
questions of morality and justice, upon which, in her mind, he held very
lax notions. This, however, was the first time they had been
diametrically opposed in a matter of actual practice, and she was
considerably disturbed, though she carried away the gratification of
having preserved that serenity of soul that naturally belongs to those
who are in the right; moreover she was somewhat piqued in her womanly
vanity, because the doctor had not desired her to stay sufficiently to
yield the point. But there was one deep satisfaction for her that atoned
for everything: Dan was in no danger of being compelled to marry Susie
Dykes. During all the first part of her conversation with the doctor,
she had mortally feared that he would insist on bringing this about.

As she descended the stairs, she found Clara bolting the front door. She
had just let Dr. Delano out, after bidding him good-night as many times
as lovers usually do, and was in a blissful state of mind. Her
beautiful, limpid eyes shone brilliantly through her long lashes, her
lips were crimson and dewy, and her whole being expressed the happiness
of the young, poetic enthusiast.

“Come and sleep with me, daughter. I wish to talk with you,” she said,
embracing Clara with more effusion than was her wont, and Clara saw that
some grief disturbed her mother. What could it be? Surely not
disapproval of her attachment to Dr. Delano, for had not her mother
smiled upon the happy lovers not an hour ago? This settled, in Clara’s
thought, there could be nothing serious in what her mother had to say,
and this special night she wished to be alone. There seemed lately no
time to think, to enjoy the delicious creations of a vivid imagination,
stimulated by a passion as real and sweet as it was dreamy and ideal.
The longing to be alone with her thoughts made her say, “Come into the
parlor, mamma dear, and tell me there.”

“No,” said Mrs. Forest, with the persistence of a child, “I want you
with me,” and she added, reproachfully, “Is it a sacrifice?” thus
forcing Clara to say what was not strictly true—“Certainly not, mamma
dear. I will go with you.”

Long into the night Mrs. Forest talked earnestly to her daughter. Clara
was shocked, as any romantic young girl would be, having the case
presented in its worst light—disgusted, indeed—but she was much too
severe upon Dan to please her mother. Clara was her father’s own girl,
as Mrs. Forest knew, and her heart was naturally inclined to pity Susie,
and she said to her mother in extenuation, “She is so young, you know,
and without any education, or she would know she could never win a lover
in that way.” This was a sign of wisdom that pleased Mrs. Forest.

“My daughter, I am sure,” she said, “would never be in danger of
forwardness and immodesty with gentlemen; and I will say here, my dear,
that much being alone with gentlemen before marriage, is very
injudicious, for the most honorable of them will take advantage of such
confidence.”

Clara was rather inclined to believe this, recalling certain passages on
the veranda that evening, but she was very silent on that subject. Mrs.
Forest returned to the subject of Susie, and labored to show the
importance of having her out of the house as soon as possible. “Your
father is so unreasonable. I really believe he thinks it our duty to
have her here. Why, I should die of shame to have the Delanos know it.
What would they think?”

“We must do right, mamma, whatever people think.”

“Yes, yes; but we can do right in a prudent way, and there is so much at
stake. Dr. Delano asked your father’s permission to address you only
to-day.” Clara knew this fact, but it was very agreeable to have a
second account of it. “Your father is so unlike the rest of the world. I
was shocked at his answer. Instead of thanking Dr. Delano for the honor,
as would have been the proper way, he answered brusquely, ‘Bless my
soul! Delano, it’s none of my business. I don’t see what the girl can
want with your ridiculous addresses, but that is her affair. You know I
advocate woman’s rights, and that includes her right to make a fool of
herself;’ and he actually laughed.” Clara asked anxiously how Dr. Delano
received it—that was the all-important part to her.

“Oh, he took it exceedingly well, I am glad to say. He held out his hand
to your father, and thanked him in a very gentlemanly style.”

“Did papa say any more?”

“Such a lot of nonsense! He said he had brought you up to be
independent. For my part, I think an independent girl dreadful. He said
he had told you what rascally dogs men were, and if this was the result
of his warning, why he must submit. You cannot imagine how mortified I
was. Your father was called away then, and I apologized to Dr. Delano
for his manner.”

“Why, mamma! the idea of apologizing for papa’s manner. I should not
think of doing Dr. Delano the injustice of supposing he could not
understand and appreciate my father. He speaks of him in a way that
charms me.”

Mrs. Forest kept on talking, making a mountain of the importance of
getting rid of Susie. She would, of course, be kind to her; all the
ladies of the church would do something for her; but Dr. Delano’s august
father and Miss Charlotte were coming, and they must never hear of this
terrible disgrace.

Clara was bewildered. Her education at Stonybrook had inculcated the
conventional respect for the proprieties; but now face to face with a
practical trouble like this, she did not feel like trusting entirely her
mother, who was the very soul of conventionality. She would see her
father, and then judge for herself; and with this decision she dropped
asleep.

In the morning Clara slept rather late, and when she went down-stairs
her father was gone. During breakfast Mrs. Forest had hardly addressed a
word to him. In her mind, there was a kind of lovers’ quarrel between
her and the doctor. There had been many of these in her married life;
but feeling conscious of her power when she chose to be gracious, it did
not trouble her much. She felt he ought to be punished, and rather
enjoyed his perturbation, not being sufficiently discriminating to
perceive how deeply he was disappointed in her want of sympathy with his
desire to help Susie in her strait. If Clara should fail him also, it
would go hard with poor Susie. He determined, however, to say very
little to Clara until he found how she would be disposed to act. This
was a most interesting point to him. How would his Clara face a thing
like this? Of course he might influence her through her love for him,
but he scorned to do that—she must act freely. If he saw her, he would
simply state the case and leave her to her own decision. The opportunity
occurred unexpectedly, for in his drive across the common, in the middle
of the forenoon, he overtook his daughter, who was out for a walk. He
drew up beside her and talked a few minutes, being careful to avoid any
expression as to how a woman ought to act to any sister woman in such a
case. He expressed simply his own feeling for Susie, and his
determination to stand by her. Clara listened silently, and walked home
turning the matter over in her own mind. She found herself unconsciously
calculating effects, after the manner of her mother, and was disgusted
with this evidence of meanness. When she reached home, Miss Marston and
her mother were in the drawing-room, where the latter had just informed
her guest of the scandal, regretting that anything so unpleasant should
occur during Miss Marston’s visit. Mrs. Forest was careful to avoid
mentioning her son as in any way implicated, but she was pleased to have
some one with whom she could talk of her troubles and cares—one, too,
who had sound notions upon moral questions. Miss Marston indeed was a
rigid moralist of the conventional school, not, indeed, from any
narrowness of heart, but through logical conclusions from premises
which, if not sound in principle, were at least well considered. Mrs.
Forest knew that the influence of her guest was very great over Clara,
because of her affection and admiration for Miss Marston, and so Mrs.
Forest continued the conversation about Susie after Clara entered. One
thing troubled her, however. Clara was ignorant of her mother’s
intention to shield Dan from Miss Marston’s censure; and she might, by
some ill-timed remark, let out the cat that her mother would so
carefully tie up. Tact was necessary, and she soon found a pretext to
send Clara to her room for something, and another pretext to follow her
and implore her to not mention Dan. What was the use? It could do no
good, and it was her duty to be kind to Dan as well as to Susie. Clara
said nothing, but pondered deeply over her mother’s ways of securing her
ends.

When the conversation was resumed, Mrs. Forest showed a remarkable
clemency toward Susie, especially after discovering that Clara had been
talking with her father during her walk. This was tact again. Clara had
somehow inherited her father’s tendency to radicalism, and might be
easily shocked into a heroic course toward her brother’s victim.

“I do not think,” said Mrs. Forest, “that we can do better than to get
her a place where she can be quiet; and as she is so very deft with her
needle, and can make herself useful in many ways, I do not think this
will be difficult.”

“This will be to fail her in what she most needs—sympathy,” Clara
remarked.

“My dear Clara,” said Miss Marston, “we cannot sympathize with folly
unless we are foolish ourselves. You know the meaning of the word
sympathy.”

There was a little too much of the dogmatism of the teacher in this to
please Clara, but she showed no displeasure in her very calm reply: “But
we can sympathize with suffering in all cases.”

“Yet even for her good,” replied Mrs. Forest, “we should show
disapprobation of her conduct. By being too lenient, it would lead her
to hold her act lightly, and open the way for its repetition.”

“Well, I think, mamma, with all proper deference, that your reasoning is
exceedingly weak. Will not one terrible lesson like this be enough for
any girl like Susie? Besides, you forget how many years it must be
before she can outlive her love for——” Mrs. Forest trembled; but Clara
saw the danger her mother dreaded, and continued, “for her betrayer, and
by that time she will become staid and prudent.”

“I think myself,” said Miss Marston, “that there is little danger of her
repeating her folly. She seems really a very modest young person. She
has undoubtedly fallen through an ill-directed affection. What sort of a
man is her lover, and where is he?”

Mrs. Forest did not dare meet Clara’s eyes during her quick answer, “Oh,
it is a young man in town. He does not seem to care anything for her.”

“I consider him an unprincipled wretch,” replied Clara, indignantly. Her
mother’s determination to screen Dan looked very ugly in her eyes. “Papa
says he offered to marry her,” she continued, addressing Miss Marston,
“but in a way that showed he considered it a great sacrifice; and she
was proud enough and womanly enough to throw his insulting offer back in
his teeth. I like her for that, and I think we ought to protect her
right generously. I mean to help her, at all events.”

“My child!” cried Mrs. Forest, in alarm. “You are so impulsive, so
imprudent. You will certainly be talked about.”

“I don’t think, mamma, that should make any difference when we know we
are in the right. I believe the right way is to find out what our duty
is, and then, to do it openly and fairly.”

“My dear,” said Miss Marston, “there are very Quixotic ways of doing our
duty.” She said this in a cool, decided way, that chafed Clara’s growing
heroic mood, and she replied, bitterly: “I could avoid these ways, I
suppose, by making bibs and baby things in secret, and sending them to
her anonymously, but I think that would be contemptible. I know if such
an awful thing should happen to any one of my dear friends, my equals,
or to my own sister, I should go to her and comfort her with my
sympathy; and if there is any goodness or nobility in doing so for a
dear friend, there must be still more virtue in such a course when the
object is a poor, friendless girl, deprived of all advantages of
education and social culture until she came here.”

“Very well reasoned,” said Miss Marston, ironically; “but I am sorry to
see that you forget how this young person has profited by the advantages
for social culture that she has already had in this family.”

Clara’s eyes fairly flashed, and Mrs. Forest saw that she was sorely
tempted to show Miss Marston what social and moral influence Susie had
been under through one member of the family at least; so she made haste
to answer soothingly, almost before the words were out of Miss Marston’s
mouth, “You are so young, my daughter, that it hardly becomes you to
seem to know so much more than your elders about what is right and
proper. I know your motives are generous, but you must not trust
yourself wholly in such a case as this. You are wrong in supposing that
showing open sympathy with a girl who has fallen from virtue, can do her
any good; and it certainly may injure you irreparably.”

“Your whole tone, mamma, is cold and calculating. This poor girl is
alone, and in an agony of grief such as we have never dreamed of. If
helping her bear up under her burden, must injure me, even irreparably,
as you say, let it do so. I do not want the favor nor the admiration of
the Levites and Pharisees who pass by on the other side. Besides, I do
not act alone. I have had the counsel of the clearest head I know, and
as noble a heart as ever beat.” Here Clara paused and sighed heavily,
almost overcome with a feeling of disappointment that Miss Marston
should manifest so little generosity, and one of sorrow also that she
had been compelled to express sentiments that must wound her much-loved
teacher and friend. As she expected, Miss Marston took refuge in
dignified silence, understanding herself, of course, as included among
the Pharisees and Levites. Mrs. Forest remarked that all experience
showed the feelings to be dangerous guides; as also were what were
loosely called principles; that the only thing that upheld pure morals
was religion, and therefore it was the only sure guide.

Clara had often seen this making religious duty an excuse for
selfishness, and she had a contempt for it as natural as was her
repulsion to everything dark and ugly. She replied boldly, “I hear much
about principles and religion, and I am compelled to judge them by their
fruits. My father, you say, has no religion. Surely principles are
better than religion, if one leads to helpful sympathy with all
misfortune, and the other to cold calculation of the effect of evil
tongues. I have thought over all the possible results, mamma, and I have
decided. I know one who will help Susie openly, and without either
calculation or shame; and I shall certainly follow his example, for I
will trust my father’s sense of right against the world!” and with this,
delivered very dramatically and rapidly, Clara left the room.

                             CHAPTER XIII.
                            PAPA’S OWN GIRL.

 Not long after Clara left her mother and Miss Marston, she rapped very
softly on Susie’s door, not wishing to wake her if sleeping, and thus
oblivious for the time, to her misery. Thinking it was Dinah, Susie bade
the knocker come in. She was trying to dress herself, and sat by her
glass brushing her long light hair. Perceiving the happy sister of Dan,
resplendent in her youth and beauty, Susie buried her face with her
pretty round arms, and wept softly. Clara approached her, and patted her
white shoulder, saying, “Poor Susie! I have come to comfort you in your
trouble. I know all about it, and I am so sorry, but I blame my brother
far more than I do you;” at the mention of Dan, Susie sobbed aloud. “He
is so cruel to you after all your loving him.”

“Don’t blame him too much,” sobbed Susie. “He could not help it. If I
were handsome and educated like Miss Marston, he would love me always;
but it is so hard. I wonder why I cannot die. Every hour is harder and
harder to bear.”

Clara’s tender heart was profoundly touched. This was the first time she
had ever been brought face to face with real anguish, and she found it
more terrible than any romance had ever pictured it. She reproached
herself for ever thinking even for one moment of consequences, in view
of so plain a question of duty as trying to comfort this poor girl in
every possible way. Yet she hardly knew what to say or do in the
presence of such agony. She felt the necessity, however, of saying
something, and inspiration and hope came as soon as she saw her words
had any effect. “Don’t give way so, dear child, I beg you. Remember what
papa says, ‘Grief cannot last forever.’ Time will soften it all away,
and if you live a noble life after this, as I am confident you will, you
will have good and true friends. See how papa is going to stand by you;
and I am also, if you will let me.”

“If I will let you!” repeated Susie, raising her head. “What a good
angel you are! I am not good enough to deserve so much kindness.”

“Why, do you know, I think you are. I don’t think any of the family but
papa appreciate your sweetness and goodness. Now I want to tell you that
Miss Marston will never marry Dan. She would never dream of such a
thing. There is an idol in her heart enshrined, which no common man
could displace; but that is a little secret, and I only tell it to
reassure you. You are not going to sink down under this misfortune like
a common-spirited girl. Do you know I admire you so much for refusing to
be saved by Dan as a charity on his part? I’ve been thinking of it all
day. You can win him back if you will; I’m sure of it, and the way to do
it is to show him that he is not important enough for a woman to die
for—not important enough to destroy your happiness for all time either.
I tell you there is nothing so sure to win the love of men as to force
them to admire our strength and independence. The clinging vines become
very disagreeable and burdensome to the oaks after a time.” Clara said
all this smiling cheerfully, and not in a patronizing “I am holier than
thou” way at all. This won Susie’s heart, and gave her a first impulse
of hope.

“Oh, how good you are, Miss Forest. You come like warm sunlight into a
cold dungeon, and I bless you with all my soul. And how selfish I am to
let you stand all this time.” And Susie rose and begged Clara to be
seated, and excuse her while she finished dressing. Clara was struck
with the delicacy of feeling in this poor girl, and especially by her
good manners; and every minute in her presence increased her faith in
her natural worth. “If I had only been here,” she said to herself, “I
would have helped her to study and be interested in something in the
universe besides Dan, and this would never have happened.” Then a new
thought struck her suddenly, and she said, “What you want now is
distraction from the one subject that worries you. What do you say to
commencing to study seriously, and making me your teacher?”

“Oh, I will do anything in the world, and you shall never regret—” she
said, but broke down before she could finish, after a moment adding,
“never regret helping poor Susie. No one ever cared for me but Dan, and
it was natural that I should love him too well——”

“Don’t think of him just now any more,” said Clara. “Of course it was
natural. It is too bad that you have had so little chance for education,
but we will make up for lost time.” Clara remembered the delight she had
often experienced when, finding a pot-flower drooping, she had given it
water, and waited to see it slowly lift up its limp foliage, as if in
gratitude to the beneficent hand that came to its relief. How much
grander the pleasure in raising up a sorrow-burdened human soul, she
thought; and life seemed to have more scope and meaning to her from that
hour. She entered enthusiastically into her plan of teaching Susie, and
was delighted at the quick response it met.

“I have so longed to learn. I have tried to study grammar alone, but it
is very difficult to get on. I fear you will find me so ignorant that
you will give up in despair. I know so little of books; but I can read,
and write too, but I am a dreadful poor speller though. Dan used to
laugh at me so.”

“Did he? Why he was a perfect blockhead himself in school, and forever
at the foot of the spelling class.”

“Why, Miss Forest! I thought he was a beautiful writer and speller,”
said Susie, wondering if this could be so.

“Have you any of his letters?” asked Clara, laughing and thinking it
would be a good stroke of policy to show Susie that her tyrant was not
quite omnipotent in wisdom.

Susie produced from the bottom of a well-worn paper box, whose corners,
both of box and cover, had been carefully sewed together, a package of
letters, and handed it confidently to Clara, who took out one at random,
which was written while Dan was in the peddling business. It ran thus:

“MY DARLING SUSIE: I have gone all over this one horse town of Boilston
to-day, and have sold a peice of red coton velvit for a safer covering
and some pins and matches and that is all. To-morrow I shall be in
Marlboro and expect to do a big business. I have not written to the
governer yet because I want to show him I can live and succede to, away
from home, so dont tell whear I am til I come back whitch will be next
weak. Thear is a pretty little house here for sail and I mean to buy it
as soon as I get money enough. How would you like it as a present? Only
I shall expect you to take me as a purmanent border and I may be a very
dyspeptic one and hard to pleas.”

There was much more about the cottage, and many expressions of
tenderness and anxiety because he thought Susie did not fully return his
love. Clara sighed as she refolded the letter, to think that one of her
sex should be so deficient in culture as to take this effusion as a
masterpiece of composition; but it revealed the fact that Dan had loved
Susie sincerely in his way, and made her look very leniently upon
Susie’s inordinate faith in him.

“Are there any mistakes in that?” asked Susie, seeing that Clara was
silent.

“Yes, dear; plenty of them,” she answered, regretting her determination
to destroy any of the poor child’s illusions; but she had committed
herself to it, and so she pointed out the errors consecutively,
beginning with “peice” in the first line, and then she said, “You see,
if he had any serious education himself, he would not laugh at your
mistakes in spelling. Only ignoramuses are vain about small
accomplishments. I do not doubt in the least that your own letters were
superior to this.”

“Oh, I think not; but you can see for yourself. He gave them to me to
keep, because he is always going about. He always keeps my last till I
write again, and then returns it for me to keep—I mean he always did do
so—but he will never write me again,” she said, struggling with her
emotion, as she gave Clara one of her letters to Dan. Clara read with
quiet interest, forgetting all thought of the orthography in the simple
eloquence expressed in every sentence. Tears came into her eyes as she
read the closing paragraphs, “but I must not sit up later though I could
never wish to stop. It is so sweet to know where you are and to send you
words of love and then so much more sweet to know that you care for
them. I must be up early to help your mother who is so kind to me. I
keep thinking all the day that sometime she may come to like me and be
willing that I should be your wife though I know I am not worthy of so
high an honor. Your family would be ashamed of mine, Dan. This is a hard
thought, but it is not my fault, and I mean to be good and true always.
I read all the time I can get, and try to improve all I can. Do not
laugh at my spelling, dearest. Remember I never went to school steadily
but two months in my life. When we are together you will teach me, and I
shall show you how seriously I can study. Good-night, dearest one. I
kiss you in my thoughts and all my love and all my life are yours
forever.”

“Oh, how blind your love has made you, Susie. Why, this letter is
eloquent. If my brother had been capable of understanding your generous
sensibility, he would rather have sought to learn of you, than to have
presumed to be your teacher. There are errors in orthography, but not
half so many as there are in his; besides the sentiment of yours is
noble, and that of his is not. You spell beautiful with two ll’s, and
there are one or two other errors; but I believe they are all from
studying Dan’s ridiculous style. You write a pretty hand, and your head,
as papa says, is an excellent one. There is nothing to hinder your
getting a fair education. I will teach you the Latin and Greek words
from which ours are made up, also rhetoric, and history, and geography,
and we will study botany together. You will be charmed with botany. I
have all the text-books, and I want you to commence even to-morrow, so
that you can have no time to brood over your miseries. I know you won’t
do as silly girls do who, when persecuted for falling one step, think
they may as well go quite down to perdition. Remember, you are not
really degraded in my eyes, and I want you to take me into your heart as
a true friend.”

Susie at this knelt down beside Clara, and burying her head in her lap
sobbed anew, but quickly raised her head, saying, “I am only crying now
for joy, because God is so good in sending you to me. Never in this
world shall I forget the blessed help and comfort you bring to me. You
will go to a home of your own some day, and if you will have me, I will
come and take all your cares. I will keep your house. I will learn to do
everything; and oh! I shall love you to my dying day.”

“Dear, dear Susie!” said Clara, her own eyes full of tears as she bent
down and kissed Susie tenderly. “You would pay me too generously for
what gives me so much pleasure. I ask only that you will be happy and
make the best of everything. Do not kneel before me.”

“Oh, let me, do! It is natural for me, when I see anything so good and
beautiful as you are; but have you thought that others will not think of
me as you do? I am afraid you will pay dearly for your goodness to poor
Susie.”

“Have no fear. I despise cold, shallow-hearted people, and shall lose
the love of none but them. Papa will love me better, and that is
compensation enough for that which merits no compensation at all. His
approbation is worth more than that of all the world without it.” Clara
found Susie quite capable of appreciating the character of Dr. Forest,
and that raised her at once higher in her estimation. She talked with
her some time longer, and then rose to go; but just then she saw Susie’s
face blanch and her limbs shake. She had forgotten how great a strain
this long interview must have been to Susie in her weak condition, and
quickly atoned for her oversight, first by bringing her a cordial, and
then helping her to undress and put her to bed like a child. Susie
submitted like a tired baby. Her eyes were greatly swollen with weeping,
and for these Clara brought hot water, and laid a compress upon them,
saying, “Hot water, you know, is better for inflammation. That’s what
the new school says, and we belong to the new school. Papa is a radical,
they say; so are we. We believe in love, not in hate; in happiness, not
in misery;” and Clara kissed Susie and bade her good-bye, saying, “Now
go to sleep, if you can. Rest perfectly quiet. Trust to me and papa, and
all will be well. No, don’t say a word. I won’t be thanked and called an
angel, for I am only a girl like you, and in your place you would be
just as kind to me.”

Clara left Susie’s chamber in a most enviable frame of mind. She had
experienced a new pleasure from her course toward Susie, and in her
heart she wondered why all the world was not loving and kind, when to be
so created such deep satisfaction. “I think I did right too,” she said
to herself, “in instilling a little healthy poison into Susie’s mind
about Dan. If she can see a few of his meannesses, perhaps she will
suffer less from the ‘pangs of despised love.’” Still Clara was not
quite sure that she was right in lowering Dan in Susie’s estimation. On
general principles, she would have naturally opposed anything of the
kind; but Susie’s restoration to peace of mind and usefulness was the
one object to be gained. To this end her self-respect must be roused,
which could hardly be effected while she considered herself Dan’s
inferior intellectually. Clara determined to prove to Susie her own
innate strength, and humble Dan by showing him what a pearl he had
thrown away. This was a labor worthy of Clara, and she left Susie’s room
feeling that she loved all the world better for the course she had
taken, and her heart was so full of human sweetness that she poured it
out on everybody; on Dinah, whom she helped for an hour or two in her
household work; on her twin sisters, who were not inclined much,
especially Leila, to sentiment. Clara helped them both with their piano
practice, petted them, called them her darlings, and encouraged them in
every way. Linnie was touched by Clara’s kindness, and when she left
said to Leila:

“How sweet Clara is, isn’t she?”

“As honey and nectar,” replied Leila; “all of a sudden, too. I guess
she’s experienced religion,” she added, with her clear, metallic laugh.
Leila was like Dan in many ways. The spirit of devotion was apparently
wholly wanting in her nature. She was one of those whose doubting was an
offence to freedom of thought, and whom you would rather see canting
bigots than supporters of any principle dear to you. The doctor came in
some time before tea, and went directly to Susie’s room, where he
remained a full half hour. The change that he perceived in Susie was a
revelation to him of his daughter’s character that brought an infinite
relief, and more than justified all his hopes of her. As he went down
the family were going into the dining-room. Clara stood at the foot of
the stairs, waiting for him. He drew her head down on his breast and
caressed it fondly; then held it away with both hands, and looked
searchingly into her splendid eyes. This scrutiny evidently revealed
what he sought, for he said softly and slowly, dwelling fondly on each
word, “_Papa’s own girl_;” and then they joined the family in the
dining-room.

                              CHAPTER XIV.
               DAN’S MONEY RETURNED—THE DOCTOR CONQUERED.

 The twins, who were now about thirteen years of age, had great
difficulty in fathoming the secret regarding Susie, for, being the
youngest of the children, they were still babies in the eyes of the
family. They were not long in “nosing out,” as Leila called it, the real
difficulty, and they discussed the subject together in a naive way that
would have been amusing but for the heartlessness they displayed; still
it was the heartlessness of the kitten over the agonies of a captive
mouse, and perhaps implied no real cruelty of purpose beyond a certain
spitefulness that they were not considered of sufficient importance to
be taken into anybody’s confidence. Even Dinah snubbed them in a
supercilious way when they attempted to obtain information from her, and
they revenged themselves in a thousand nameless ways. Susie meanwhile
had recovered from her illness occasioned by the shock she had received,
and made superhuman efforts to win some little show of sympathy from
Mrs. Forest. Clara had talked Miss Marston over to her side in a
measure, so that she manifested a good deal of kindness to poor Susie,
whose position was very difficult to endure. The twins, taking their cue
from their mother, ignored Susie’s existence completely, more especially
Leila, who, though in the habit of shirking every duty upon the willing
hands of Susie, informed “Miss Dykes,” as she called her one day for the
first time, that she need not come into her room any more to do the
chamber-work. Susie looked at her with mild, sorrowful eyes, set down
the water she had brought, and left the room without a word. Linnie,
being softer in her feelings, said, “I think you are too bad, Leila. Did
you see how she looked at you?”

“No, nor I don’t care. She’s a nasty thing.”

“I don’t see much difference between her now and a week ago, when you
used to kiss her when you wanted her to do anything for you.” Leila
flared up, and a very sisterly fight ensued. Linnie was no match for the
hardheaded Leila in a contest of words, but in revenge, later in the
day, she told Clara how Susie had been treated. This happened to be a
good policy, though not intended as such. Clara drew her arm about
Linnie, saying, “I am glad, sister dear, that you show some feeling. I
knew you would, and I have wanted to take you into my confidence, for
you are more mature for your age than Leila is; but mamma thought it not
best. I think she is wrong, and I am going to tell you the truth. You
have guessed it already. Susie, you know, has loved Dan since she was
your age, and she has been foolish of course; but I want you to remember
that she was a poor, ignorant, neglected child, and Dan was engaged to
marry her. I blame him infinitely more than I do her. He was very
selfish and unprincipled.”

“So I think, sissy. I thought it must be Dan—the mean thing. I’m real
sorry for Susie; but what a goose she must be to care so for _him_.” And
so another friend was won over to Susie. Linnie grew immensely important
in her own eyes after this confidence of Clara, who told her, among
other pretty compliments, that she was “right womanly” in her
sentiments.

On one of those weary days, when Susie felt like destroying her life
despite the kindness and sympathy of Clara and her father, she received
a note from Dan. It was written in a cold, heartless style that she
could scarcely believe him capable of after all she knew of him, and
ended: “I don’t want you to be disgraced through me, and I am willing to
marry you. Name the time and place, and I will be on hand. It is no use
to palaver and swear I shall be supremely happy, and all that; but you
are ‘ruined,’ of course, if I don’t, and I’m willing to do it, and ought
to for the prospective brat’s sake, at least.” The letter enclosed a
cheque for fifty dollars. Susie regarded the money greedily. She had
never had half as much in her whole life, and this would buy so many
things she needed, and then she read Dan’s heartless letter again,
crying bitterly. Not one word of tenderness; nothing of the old love was
left, only pity and an offer to sacrifice himself to save her. Disgust
with her weakness, self-reproach, indignation, possessed her by turns,
and the result was sending back the letter and the cheque, with only
these words: “I can beg in the streets for myself or for your child much
easier than I can accept charity from you. O my God! that I should come
to this—to have money thrown at me like a bone to a dog, from one, too,
whom I have so loved and trusted. Believe me, the only favor I ask, is
that you may forget that I ever cared for you, for—

                   ‘I am shamed through all my being
                   To have loved so weak a thing.’”

When Dan received this, he was surprised, to say the least, and chewed
his moustache viciously. Beyond all his pique at the way his offer was
received, there was a dawning respect for the girl he had ruined, as he
thought; but Susie was not quite ruined yet, thanks to the generous
sympathy of Dr. Forest and his daughter; and losing her respect for Dan,
through finding out how soulless and unworthy he was, her heart-aches on
account of his faithlessness gradually began to subside. Pretty soon
another letter came, containing one hundred dollars in greenbacks. This
time he confessed admiration for her “pluck,” as he called it, but swore
that if she sent back this money he would burn it, leaving enough of the
notes to show her he had kept his word. This was why he had sent
greenbacks, which, if destroyed, could not be made good like a bank
cheque.

Susie resolved to show this letter to Clara, and ask her advice,
apologizing for not doing so with the first one. In fact Susie had
enjoyed, in a bitter way, her answer, knowing it would wound Dan’s
vanity, and she had feared that Clara’s advice would interfere with this
satisfaction. The letter was written in a moment of exaltation, and was
the wisest thing Susie could have done; but yet after it was in the
post-office and beyond recall, the poor girl suffered new tortures lest
her words should alienate him still further from her; for she had to own
that, after all, she had not utterly given up the hope that he was only
temporarily under some new influence, that made him act so dishonorably
toward her. Love is not only blind, but absolutely idiotic, in its
faith. When once we are even partially free from his gilded toils, how
wide our eyes are opened! How microscopic their power to detect and
measure infinitesimal quantities of meanness in the lover.

Clara was away when the second letter came, and Mrs. Forest and her
visitor were out riding. Just as she had folded and put away Dan’s
second letter, the doctor came in. He greeted her pleasantly, and threw
himself wearily on the lounge in the dining-room. Upon his inquiring for
Clara, Susie told him she was out. “But cannot I take her place, just
for once?” she asked. “You want your bath, I know, for you always say
that nothing rests you so much;” and not waiting for any verbal assent,
Susie ran and pumped the water from the rain-cistern into the bath-tub,
and added a pail of hot water from Dinah’s range. The bath refreshed
him, as it always did, and when he came back Susie had his pipe filled
for him, and a cup of fresh coffee beside it.

“What a grand sachem I am, to be so coddled by nice women. Now come and
talk to me, Susie,” he said, stretching himself on the lounge. Susie sat
down beside him on a low stool, and showed him Dan’s first letter and a
copy of her answer.

“Good for your answer, Susie. I rather like it, though it is a little
romantic. Yes, I like it; but your sending back the money—ah! that was
too romantic by far. He’s a spendthrift, and the best possible use he
can make of his money is to give it to you. Don’t you do it
again—hear?—if he sends you any more.”

Susie listened to the doctor, but could not tell him just then that Dan
had sent more, having stubbornly determined to refuse it, as she had the
first; but she would consult Clara first. Seeing her silent, the doctor
said:

                “‘Is there confusion in the little isle?
                Let what is broken so remain.’

“See! I am romantic, too. I also quote Tennyson. You’ve borne up
bravely, Susie, these last days, and by and by all will be right. I am
going to find you a place with some patient of mine, as near here as
possible.” Susie’s face beamed at this. She felt that she could not
possibly stay much longer in the doctor’s house, for she knew how Mrs.
Forest felt toward her. He left her no time to thank him before he
added, “I trust you are cultivating a healthy contempt for your rascally
lover?”

“Do you think he will never, never care for Susie any more?” she asked.
“See! he commences even this letter ‘_Dear Susie_,’” and she looked up
inquiringly to the doctor, who answered, after a long pause:

“What dry husks a hungry heart will feed upon! Pitiful, pitiful!” and
the doctor uttered a heavy sigh. “Why, no; he cares nothing for you
beyond a feeling of pity, which no one could possibly withhold who had
any natural feeling. I say this because the sooner you give up all hope
that his disaffection is an accident, the better it will be for you.”

“Yet only so little while ago he told me I was all the world to him.”

“And he wrote you often, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Sometimes twice a day,” said Susie, smiling through her tears.

“Well, when he did that he was in love. There is no sign of that
delectable state, so constant. You may lay it down as a law, _if a man
loves he writes_, and simply because he cannot avoid doing so. He _must_
be governed by the strongest impulse. When he is writing he does not
know when to stop, for being away from an object that strongly attracts
him, writing is the most effective solace. In fact, the amount a lover
writes is a very good barometer of the pressure he is under from his
passion.”

“But might he not be so busy he could not write?”

“He would take the hours for sleeping, because writing would be far
pleasanter than sleeping. Of course there are accidents, serious
illness, and so forth. I speak of natural, happy, passional attraction.”

“Why, I have not written myself sometimes because, indeed, I loved him
so much,” said Susie.

“Ah! I was calculating the motives of my own sex. I doubt if the Devil
himself could fathom all a woman’s motives.”

“I am sorry you think so, sir,” said the serious little Susie. “I mean I
could not write because I wanted so to keep his love, and feared to
reproach him, feared to be too loving, feared and distrusted my power
every way; and so I often tore up letter after letter—often brought them
back from the post-office door, and did not write perhaps for days; and
yet I loved him so, all the time, that I could not sleep.”

“Poor child!” said the doctor, taking her hand. “Don’t you see you were
but proving my rule, for in the first place you _did_ write continually,
according to your own confession; and then you remember I said _happy_
passional attraction.”

“Oh, yes. I see you are right. You are always right; but do you not
think love may sometimes return when once it goes out of the heart?”

“That’s a deep question, little woman—the rehabilitation of love. In
romances, it happens often enough; but I am an old fellow, and I never
knew a case in actual life. It is like small-pox, I suspect, and never
breaks out the second time.

“But people do love deeply the second time.”

“Yes. I see my comparison is not well chosen; well, like the water of a
river which never passes over its bed but once.”

While the doctor was conversing with Susie, Mrs. Forest was also engaged
in her service, though with motives wholly different from those
actuating the doctor, who talked to her to give her strength and
self-confidence. He had never taken the trouble to have her sit by him,
before the discovery of her sad condition, and seeing how deeply she
appreciated his attention to her, made the giving of it very pleasant to
him. Mrs. Forest, during her ride, called on old Mrs. Buzzell, who lived
a very solitary life with her one old servant, to see if she would not
receive Susie in her disgrace. Mrs. Forest was careful to mention all
Susie’s good qualities, and Mrs. Buzzell at first felt inclined to
assent because she was lonely, and had observed Susie with much interest
whenever she had visited at the doctor’s house, and felt quite attracted
to her; but some way she sniffed in the air that Mrs. Forest’s society
notions were at the bottom of this move of hers, and so her reply was
rather galling to one of Mrs. Forest’s refinement.

“Well, I will try to help her, and, as you say, no doubt the other
ladies of our church will do the same; but if your house is too highly
respectable to shelter her, of course mine is, and so there’s an end of
that.”

This was Mrs. Forest’s last call upon Mrs. Buzzell. Their friendship,
such as it was, had lasted twenty years, and thus it was brought to a
sudden end, by wounding each other’s vanity. While they confined their
mutual interests to gossip, and to superficial considerations of things
generally, they met as on a bridge; but when deeper questions arose the
bridge fell through, and they found themselves separated as by an
impassable torrent. When Mrs. Forest had gone, Mrs. Buzzell questioned
whether she herself had acted in a Christian spirit, and she was forced
to confess that she had not. She thought, indeed, that she was very
sorry, and anxious to apologize; but in fact her regret amounted to very
little, for she would have been drawn and quartered in her present mood
before she would have taken Susie in, after Mrs. Forest’s presumption.

This same day, in the early evening, after Clara was dressed for
receiving Dr. Delano, she sat awhile with Susie in the room of the
latter, and helped her in her first lesson; but they continually
wandered from the subject of nouns and articles to those lying nearer
the hearts of both. Still Susie’s recitation was very successful. She
concealed from her friend the painful effort it had cost to concentrate
her attention upon study, even for one minute, and hours had been
consumed in preparing herself so that she might not disappoint Clara.

“Now you are going to do splendidly,” said Clara, assigning her a
certain portion of history for the next day, to be read over and recited
in Susie’s own language, and a very short task in a text-book of
etymology. Clara had the true instinct of the teacher, and knew better
than to give long tasks to a beginner, lest they should discourage.
After this, Susie showed her Dan’s first letter and its answer, and
before there was any time for Clara to reprove her for returning the
money, she gave her Dan’s second letter, telling her at the same time
that she was resolved to refuse the money. Clara held the money very
closely, and said, “I shall not let you send this back. He is just
pig-headed enough to burn it as he threatens. I will write him that I
have seized it to prevent your returning it, and that I shall use it as
I think best.” This she did, and Susie was forced to yield, not being
sorry to have the responsibility thus completely removed from her own
shoulders. She then consulted Clara about going away, and this Clara
confessed was to be considered. “I do not wonder that you cannot endure
mamma’s coldness,” she said, “but do not think of it to-night. Dr.
Delano is anxious for our marriage to take place immediately, and _entre
nous_—that is, between ourselves—I am myself going to manifest what
mamma calls ‘indecent haste’ to get married, so that I may have a home
for you;” and Clara laughed gayly, to prevent Susie’s taking it
seriously, though in reality it was not wholly a pleasantry on her part.
The ring of the door-bell interrupted Clara’s speech, and she bade Susie
good-night tenderly, urging her to con over her lessons, and then go to
bed and sleep. Susie clung to her friend a moment, crying silently;
indeed, she cried so often that Clara found the best way was to not
notice it too much; but she said, “Would you like me to come back after
my friend has gone?” “Oh, do!” replied Susie. “Come and hear my lessons.
I must have something to do, or I shall go crazy. If I can only get away
from here——” “Yes, yes, I know just how you feel,” said Clara; “but it
will not be long. I am going to talk with papa, if I am up when he comes
home, and then I’ll come and tell you about it.” Susie begged Clara to
understand how deeply she regretted leaving her and the doctor, but he
would call on her, she knew. “And so shall I, every day of my life. Why,
of course I shall, to hear your lessons. But I must go now;” and with
another hasty kiss, after the manner of girls, Clara ran down-stairs.

Clara had thought to give Susie her sympathy and moral support in her
trouble, but she had not dreamed of ever really loving her as a friend.
And yet a week had not passed before she discovered qualities and
sensibilities in Susie that not only surprised her, but made her compare
most favorably with all the young friends Clara had known. The doctor
was delighted with the growing regard of his daughter for Susie, in whom
he had full faith. “Depend upon it, Clara,” he said, “Susie is a real
gem, and under your polishing, you will see how she will shine out
by-and-by. I think she will prove your best friend among women.”

The next morning the doctor had a long talk with his wife, who had
“pouted” him, as the French say, ever since their last stormy interview;
but he found it useless to try to move her. She was still as firm as a
rock, though manifesting it in a way that seemed very gentle; and by
appealing to his affection for her, by recalling the tenderness on his
part that had endured all through their married life, the happiness that
reigned in their home until he became “estranged” from her, as she said,
and especially by her tears, which he called cowardly weapons, because
she knew beforehand that he could not resist them—by all this she
succeeded in making the good doctor _feel_ that he was a brute, though
he knew perfectly well that he had acted only justly and honorably in
protecting a good girl in a disgrace caused by his own son. In the end
he petted and caressed her, and turned her tears into smiles that were a
triumph, but he saw in them only delight at his caresses.

That night Mrs. Forest appeared in the doctor’s room in a ravishing
night toilet that had been packed away in lavender since the days of
their honeymoon.

Is it possible that even virtuous married men are sometimes the victims
of artful women?

                              CHAPTER XV.
                   THE DOCTOR’S LETTER—DAN REJECTED.

 As Mrs. Buzzell was watering her house plants, a few days after the
visit of the doctor’s wife, a letter arrived for her, and her eyes
brightened, seeing the doctor’s handwriting in the superscription. She
was very familiar with this handwriting, not from letters,
indeed—nothing so romantic, but from his manifold medical prescriptions
for her dyspepsia. There was no person in the world she esteemed so
highly as she did Dr. Forest, and receiving a letter from him was a rare
delight; yet she did not open it at once, but kept on tending her
plants, which occupied a large table before the south window of her
sitting-room. She did not open it hastily, probably for the same reason
that has led many of us on receiving several letters, to leave the
specially coveted one until the last, or perhaps until we were quite at
ease and alone. At all events, Mrs. Buzzell waited until the flowers
were all watered, and the stray drops of water fallen on the square of
oiled cloth beneath the table carefully wiped up. Then she sat down, put
on her gold-bowed spectacles, opened her letter, and read:

“MY DEAR MRS. BUZZELL: I have wormed out of my wife this evening the
object and the result of her late visit to you. I can quite understand,
as I told her, why you should have refused her request.

“Now, you two women have danced in pint-pots all your lives, but with
this difference: you, because the tether of your education and
surroundings never permitted you to examine principles and motives of
action outside of a given circumference; she, because the pint-pot fits
her like a glove, and she measures the harmony of the spheres by this
beautiful fit. She has never tried to breathe the broader, freer
atmosphere outside, because her theory is, the pint-pot first and the
universe afterward.

“By the pint-pot you know I mean society. Mrs. Forest sees plainly that
no devotee of conventional morality can stand by a girl, especially one
who is poor and humble in social position, and give her moral support
through disgrace, without being ‘talked about’—that bugbear of little
souls. Fools will say it is countenancing vice. I appeal to you because,
from many sentiments I have heard you utter, I believe you capable of
defying shallow criticism when you know you are right. I know you have
broad and generous impulses, and you are young enough in soul and in
body [this was a Bismarckian stroke of diplomacy, but the honest doctor
never knew it] to obey them. You are the mother of no human child, but
childless women should be the mothers of the world—sad for all its
sorrows, glad for all its joys.

“Susie Dykes has more heart and brain than nine-tenths of the women I
know, and if we treat her right fraternally—as I intend to do even if
every one else abandons her—she will come out all right. She has not
fallen yet; for she respects herself, despite this misfortune. I can say
truly that I take pleasure in keeping this victim’s head above the muddy
swash of conventional virtue that would wash her under.

“Will you be my real friend, and stand by me in this work? There is
nothing like a good woman’s heart where such help is needed.”

The letter was well calculated to effect its purpose. There is nothing
like faith in the justice and generosity of human nature, to call these
qualities into action, even in the narrowest hearts. The doctor’s faith
in Mrs. Buzzell made her feel equal to facing martyrdom; and then she
was very proud of his appealing to her to stand by him when his own wife
failed him; so without delay she put on her old gloves and her antique
bonnet, shut her cat out of the house lest he should worry her canaries,
and marched straight over to Dr. Forest’s, and called for Susie Dykes,
without the slightest mention of the mistress of the family. Susie came
down to meet her with wondering eyes. What could it mean that the staid
and dignified Mrs. Buzzell should so honor her? She soon learned the
object of Mrs. Buzzell’s call, and that very night, having packed all
her worldly goods in two paper boxes and a bundle, she slept under the
roof of her new friend.

The fact of Susie’s condition soon leaked out, and the “muddy swash,” as
the doctor termed it, began to rise threateningly. Clara nobly sustained
her, went every day and heard her lessons, as she had resolved to do,
for having once decided upon the right course, she was indeed her
father’s own girl, and there was no thought of turning back. Susie’s
prompt response to Clara’s kindness, touched her heart, and gradually
the friendship for her _protégée_ grew into a deep and sincere
affection, nourished by the best feelings of both.

In the plants of Mrs. Buzzell’s sitting-room, in her garden, and in the
woods behind her house, there was ample means for botanizing, though at
first it was a hard task for Susie to study. The mental effort required
to distinguish the monocotyledonous and the dicotyledonous in the
specimens she and Clara gathered, seemed a mockery to her over-burdened
soul; but the struggle paid well. In a few weeks she became deeply
interested in all her studies, and her rapid progress astonished her
little circle of friends. Meanwhile, she carefully tended Mrs. Buzzell’s
plants, which after a time began to respond to the knowledge she had
acquired of their nature and different wants, and day by day she took
some new responsibility of household cares from Mrs. Buzzell, who, after
a month, could not have been induced to part with Susie. She took the
whole charge of the wardrobe of the coming waif, and the hard lines
about her mouth softened with the new, strange pleasure in the work that
awakened memories of nearly forty years before, when, as a young wife,
she had once, with loving care, prepared numerous tiny articles for a
baby that never wore them. They had lain ever since, packed away in
camphor, and no one had ever known the secret but her husband, now dead
many years. Many times she had been tempted to give them to this or that
friend, but her generosity could not quite overcome a sense of shame
that women always experience over a useless work of this kind; yet she
dreaded to have them found after her death, and there was a soft spot
somewhere in her old heart, that would not let her destroy them. One
day, therefore, with many misgivings, she unpacked with Susie the
antique, camphor-scented trunk, and told the little history of her early
married years, delighted only that Susie did not laugh at her. The idea
of the serious little Susie laughing at any human disappointment, was
simply absurd. She only said:

“It was too bad, when you were married to one you loved, and the baby
would have been so welcome.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Buzzell, kindly, “we’ll make this baby welcome in
spite of everything. We can’t understand all God’s ways; and who knows
but this may be a trial that will lead you nearer to Him who judges
hearts not as men judge, but as one who made them, and knows all their
secret springs?”

This little experience, which to Mrs. Buzzell seemed a most important
confidence, tended to develop all the dormant softness and tenderness of
her nature; and one day the little, old baby-wardrobe was brought down,
and her own wrinkled hands washed out the odor of camphor and the yellow
of forty years.

As Susie’s fate had been so well provided for, and especially as Miss
Marston’s visit was drawing to its close, Dan again appeared on the
scene. In fact he could no longer keep away from this woman who had
captured him, body and soul. He thought of her all the time, and the
fear that she might not return his love, made his days and nights
wretched. It was a new experience for Dan. Grief did not sit gracefully
upon him at all. It was an enemy whose blows his “science” could not
parry, and it made him furious, without leading him to reflect that he
had caused a thousand-fold keener heart-aches to poor Susie (even apart
from the special wrong he had done her by deserting her at a time when
no man of sensibility ever shows that his heart is growing cold), for we
can never suffer from failing to win love, as from the loss of it when
it has become necessary, not only to our happiness, but even to the
rendering of life tolerable. In his selfishness, Dan thought no
suffering could equal his, and he determined to know his fate before
Miss Marston left Oakdale.

One evening, therefore, he dressed himself with extraordinary care, and
sallied forth in the direction of his father’s house. As he drew near,
he heard Miss Marston’s adorable voice in the parlor, and instead of
ringing at the front door, he went around to the veranda, and waited
until the song ceased. Even then he had not the courage to approach
her—she might come out, he thought, and be pleased by finding him there.
Meanwhile he drank in greedily the sweet half-melodies, half-harmonies,
evoked by her beautiful fingers, as they strayed over the key-board of
the piano without any special aim, for she was evidently alone and
“fancy free.” Pretty soon he recognized a kind of phantasy upon an old
Scotch ballad, and then her voice swelled out in the first two lines of
“Comin’ thro’ the Rye,” and then stopped. Again she commenced:

               “Amang the train there is a swain,
                 I dearly love mysel’;
               But what’s his name and where’s his hame,
                 I dinna choose to tell.”

This verse she sang entire. “Why this special verse?” asked Dan’s heart,
for it was in the state when clinging to straws is perfectly natural. At
this juncture he made bold to enter by the French window, which was
open, and stood beside her. She attempted to rise, but he prevented it,
begging her to keep on playing—he had something to say to her, which
could be fittest said to music.

“So it is coming,” thought Miss Marston. “How shall I stave it off?”

If Dan had only read her thoughts as easily as she read his, he would
not have made the headlong plunge into a declaration of love, as he did,
without a moment’s pause. Miss Marston quickly interrupted him.

“You do me honor, Mr. Forest,” she said, rising and looking him calmly
in the face; “but——”

Dan was half mad. He thought he detected contempt in the way she
pronounced the word “honor.” He thought some one had been “poisoning her
mind” against him—by the truth in his case—and scarcely knowing what he
was saying, he blurted out this fear—thus, by a stroke of poetic
justice, revealing what the prudent Mrs. Forest had taken such infinite
pains to conceal.

“Indeed!” exclaimed Miss Marston, coldly. “I never dreamed that, young
as you are, you could be so old in iniquity. I should much like to be
able to respect you for the sake of your estimable family; but if this
is so, and I see the truth of it in your face, let me give you a word of
advice: I am some years older than you are, and I think I know human
nature well enough to assure you that you will never win the love of any
true woman while basely deserting another, whose happiness”—and she
added in a low, withering tone, as she turned to leave the room—“and
whose honor you have placed in your hands.” The door closed behind her,
and Dan, in speaking of his sensations years after, remarked that you
could have “knocked him down with a feather.”

                              CHAPTER XVI.
                       THE VISIT OF THE DELANOS.

 Dr. Delano winced a little at the scandals circulating in the village,
for he heard the name of his betrothed constantly coupled with that of
the “fallen” Susie Dykes. Once he expressed a kind of gentle
remonstrance that she should visit Susie so often, but she replied with
such frank confidence, as if he could not possibly look at the matter
except as one of the very highest and best of earth’s creatures, that he
felt little in his own eyes, and dropped the subject. Still, he was a
good deal disturbed when his father and the stately Miss Charlotte
Delano appeared on the scene, coming from the centre of the _élite_ of
Beacon Hill, in Boston. While in Oakdale they were the guests of the
Kendricks, old friends of the Delanos, and the richest people in the
county. He knew that the Kendrick girls had cut Clara’s acquaintance
from the beginning of these scandals. One of these, Louise Kendrick, had
been Clara’s most intimate friend since their girlhood, when they used
to play with the skeleton in the doctor’s garret. Clara herself was
really distressed over her friend’s disaffection, and Mrs. Forest
regarded it almost as a calamity, and tortured Clara about it in season
and out of season. “I’m sure you might have expected it,” she would say,
in an injured tone. “Girls, who have a proper regard for their
reputation, shrink instinctively from those who have not.” These
speeches roused Clara one day, and she flashed defiance in a very
shocking way. “I begin to hate the very word reputation,” she said. “I
wouldn’t have it at the cost of being mean and heartless, like Louise
Kendrick.” Mrs. Forest was amazed, and asked her daughter what Dr.
Delano would say if he could hear her utter such sentiments. The answer
was very unexpected, and silenced Mrs. Forest effectually. It came like
thunder from a clear sky:

“I don’t know what he would say. I only know it wouldn’t require any
extraordinary amount of temptation to make _him_ fall, reputation or
not.”

This speech sounded very ugly to Clara when once it was uttered, but she
was very angry, and it could not be recalled, though her heart, if not
her head, accused her of a certain injustice.

The Delanos were not over-pleased that the male representative of the
family name and wealth, should marry out of their “set;” but they were
too well bred to not do honor, at least outwardly, to any wife he saw
fit to choose, provided she was of irreproachable character. They had a
natural contempt for country village scandals, and they saw there was
nothing really improper in Miss Forest’s befriending the “unfortunate
young woman.” It only showed an ill-directed enthusiasm, excusable in a
young lady educated quite irregularly, as they understood she had been.
Mrs. Forest, however, trembled for fear that what Mr. Delano and his
daughter would hear at the Kendricks about Clara’s late course, would
make them think unfavorably of the marriage; but her soul was at rest
when the grave old gentleman, with his daughter, called formally, and
thus recognized Clara as the son’s choice. After this formal call they
graciously accepted an invitation to spend the evening at the doctor’s,
one inducement being that he was absent in the first instance, and they
had not seen him. Mrs. Forest was in her element receiving these elegant
people. She had made the evening reception the study of days. On the
occasion she looked very handsome in a pearl-gray silk with white lace,
and her gray hair, in three rolls on each side of her face, surmounted
by a pretty cap. Clara wore a pretty evening dress of white, with
sleeves of illusion, puffed with narrow green velvet. As a finishing
touch, Mrs. Forest fastened a string of pearls around her daughter’s
neck, saying, “These, you know, are to be your wedding present from me.
You look exceedingly well, my daughter, and I want you to talk very
little this evening, and especially to avoid any of your father’s
radical expressions. I don’t want them to think you are——”

“Strong-minded,” said Clara, finishing the sentence. “I know you were
not going to say that, but you meant it. O dear! How different you are
from papa. I wonder how you two ever came to marry. Now _he_ would say
to me, ‘Be yourself.’ _You_ never said such a thing to me in your life.
I am not namby-pamby, and I cannot speak with the affected voice of
Louise Kendrick, who is your ideal; and I must say I am glad of it.
However, mamma dear, I will try to please you, and if papa don’t inspire
me, I shall be inane enough to gratify your taste.”

Dr. Delano came early, and had a _tête-à-tête_ with Clara before his
people arrived. He had never seen her neck and arms before, and his
expressions of admiration at their exquisite moulding were perhaps
intemperate, after the manner of lovers, but altogether delightful to
Clara’s ear. He was proud of her, he said, and wanted his father and
sister to see her looking as she did then; and certainly they must have
been lacking in appreciation, if they could fail to admire a girl so
beautiful as Clara was made by her charming toilet, the grace that was
incarnate in every movement, and by every feature of her face, enhanced
and glorified by the power of Love’s spell.

The evening passed very pleasantly until the subject of the late civil
war was mentioned, and then Mrs. Forest fidgeted, expecting every moment
some horrid radicalism from the doctor, who would not think like other
people! Clara, too, she feared would “talk,” and, according to her
creed, not only children, but young ladies, should be seen, not heard.

“Under all possible aspects,” the doctor said, on this occasion, in
reply to some opinion of Mr. Delano, “under all possible aspects, war is
a stupendous imbecility.”

“Then, sir,” replied Mr. Delano, “you would not justify defensive war.”

Mr. Delano was a retired cotton speculator. He was rather slight in
build, with small, keen eyes, set deep and near together; a high, thin,
Roman nose, thin lips, teeth of the very best manufacture, his face
clean-shaven, and his dress faultless in its elegance.

“No, sir, I should not,” the doctor answered.

“Yet it seems to me that the principle of giving your cloak also, to the
rascal who takes your coat, works very ill in practice, at least in
these degenerate days.”

“Ah! that may be. I certainly never attempted to carry it into practice.
If we have a barbarian people for a neighbor, and they organize an army
to destroy us, we must, of course, defend ourselves. We should have the
_esprit de corps_ which would rouse men, women, and children even, to
help crush the invaders in a single day; but this would not be organized
war, as generally understood. Moreover, if we had barbarian enemies, it
would be the wiser policy to conquer them by making them our friends;
and that is by no means an impractical policy, as has been proved by
history. Between civilized nations, this method of settling
difficulties, is an insult to the dignity of civilization. In the first
place, it never settles anything, any more than the duel does.”

No one seemed ready to defend dueling; and seeing a pause, Clara said,
“I think the history of horrid wars might end with this generation, if
only women could be inspired with a normal disgust for all kinds of
murdering.”

Mrs. Forest thought that was not so bad, if only Clara would say nothing
more radical. She herself believed that women would be the most
effective instruments, under divine will, of ending human butchery.

Miss Delano regarded Clara as if astonished at opinions in a young lady.
The old gentleman was evidently struck, for he deigned to reply to her
directly.

“Yet the fair hands of your sex, Miss Forest, even to-day, are engaged
buckling on the armor of their male friends.”

“I am sorry, sir, that this is true.”

“Your daughter seems to have opinions”—said Miss Delano to Mrs. Forest,
with whom she had been keeping up a separate conversation—“not common to
young ladies of her age.” This was really intended as a compliment, but
was not taken as such at the time.

“I hope I am not unpatriotic,” said Clara, looking straight at Miss
Delano with a frank, sweet expression. “I love my country; but I love
other countries also, and I have been taught to look upon the human race
as one, and not simply to confine my sympathies to the place where I
happened to be born. It seems to me clearly a duty to cultivate this
feeling of unity.”

“These sentiments do you honor,” replied Mr. Delano, anxious to draw out
this girl, who was not like any he had ever met; “but it seems to me
singular that you should have arrived at such conclusions at your time
of life.”

“It ought not to be singular, I think. I have heard the doctrines of
peace and the brotherhood of man presented by my father ever since I can
remember. It is perfectly impossible for me to see anything in military
glory worthy of admiration. To me, any honest laboring man is more noble
than the military hero, and I consider the sword a badge of disgrace. If
I were a man, I should be so ashamed to be seen with such a thing at my
side! Think what it suggests!” said Clara, with disgust in every feature
of her beautiful face.

“It is true, father,” said the son, “that this spirit in women would
soon put an end to war. We should hardly fight, if we thereby made
ourselves despicable in the eyes of those we love.”

“But this spirit among women, my son, would make cowards of us all.”

“That, I think, is a great mistake,” said Dr. Forest. “It might in time
make us forget how to use the sword and the bayonet dexterously—a
‘consummation devoutly to be wished,’ in my opinion; but, good Heaven!
sir, is the courage and manliness of men to be measured by their skill
in killing each other, as the valor of the savage by the number of
scalps he can show? He can brave death, if that be the test, in nobler
ways than at the hands of some mad, misguided brother.”

“Yet, in all examination of such questions, we must not forget that
human passions remain the same. In all ages mankind has shown a decided
tendency towards conquest.”

“Certainly,” replied the doctor, “human passions remain the same: that
is, no new faculties are created, and none destroyed; but their relative
activity differs with degrees and stages of development. You and I have
the same faculties that in the Apache express themselves in pow-wow-ing
and scalping, yet we neither pow-wow nor scalp: we have outgrown that
kind of gratification for the passion, but we still express it in
fighting. The time will come when we shall have outgrown that kind of
expression as well. The desire to triumph over obstacles, to succeed, as
well as the passion for organizing great enterprises, will always find
ample avenues of expression and gratification.” The doctor paused,
fearing to monopolize the conversation.

“I should much like to hear your views as to the way those passions can
be gratified,” said Mr. Delano.

“In many ways,” replied the doctor. “Suppose, instead of going into the
South to subdue and kill our fellow-men, we had organized our vast army
for the purpose of draining and reclaiming the Dismal Swamp. That would
have been a noble work. Where now that miserable tract is exhaling
poisonous vapors, it might be to-day yielding fruits and grains to feed
the children starving in our cities.”

“Why, this is constructive radicalism!” said Mr. Delano. “But while our
army were reclaiming the Dismal Swamp, the Southern army would have been
marching into our Northern towns and laying them waste!”

“No; I think,” said Miss Delano, “they would have been astounded into
very good humor, and would have at once set about adjusting our quarrel
amicably.”

“It is difficult to say,” said the doctor, “how our Southern citizens
would have taken the invasion of a nonfighting army. The slavery system
is a fearful drag upon the growth of the higher faculties. If we had
gone down there to build them railroads and school-houses, they might
have considered it very patronizing on our part. Slavery made white men
despise labor; so they would not have felt like joining in, perhaps,
like good fellows, though they were ‘spoiling’ for action, and their
chivalry, as they called it, dreamed only of military glory, as the sole
gentlemanly expression of their bottled-up forces. If they had respected
labor, they would have met us right fraternally; but then, if they had
understood the dignity of labor, slavery would have never been, and
consequently our civil war would have been avoided; so our speculation
is useless.”

“It is very interesting, at all events,” said Dr. Delano. “I confess
that the idea of a grand army to drain the Dismal Swamp inspires me. I
would join such an expedition with enthusiasm.”

Miss Delano suggested that such an army need not become demoralized for
the want of woman’s influence, because they could take women along with
them; and Clara drew a glowing picture of camp-life under such
conditions, with music and fancy-dress balls to inspire the workers
after the day’s labor, which, with an army of fifty thousand or more
perfectly organized, need not become drudgery, for each division could
be constantly relieved after three or four hours, which would constitute
a day’s work. “And then when all was over,” Clara continued, “when all
the glory was gained, you would have, in place of murders on your
conscience, the satisfaction of having created only pleasure, and
benefited all coming generations.”

“It would be a very economical campaign,” said Mr. Delano. “Your war
debt would be reduced to zero; for as the work would require several
years, you could carry on at the same time all the agricultural and
manufacturing operations necessary to support your army.”

“But the greatest economy,” said Dr. Delano, “would be the economy of
men. Citizens being the most valuable part of the body politic.”

“That is the best part of it,” said Clara. “You would have no bones
bleaching on some terrible field of glory; no mothers and wives and
orphans mourning for their dead. I think that ‘glory’ is a gilded snare
that catches only fools. There can be no true glory in a work that
shames humanity.”

“For my part, I should like to see war ended forever,” said Miss
Charlotte; “but I think preaching a crusade against glory will not do
any good.”

“If preached by women, it certainly will,” said the doctor. “As soon as
the rank and file, without which there could be no army, and
consequently no war, come to realize the contemptible position they
occupy as puppets in the hands of an ambitious glory-seeking few, they
will say No; and when, by general culture, they come to respect labor
and human rights, they will say, ‘We will do no murder; we believe in
labor—in building up, not in tearing down.’ Depend upon it, the solution
is simpler than politicians and demagogues have ever dreamed, and
nearer, too, for the growing moral sense of the age points directly to a
time when international disputes will all be settled by arbitration; and
when, if two nations are about to grip each other’s throats, all the
other nations, as by instinct, will unite and separate them.”

“How could they do that without fighting also?” asked Mr. Delano.

“Why, by mere remonstrance. Is there any person insensible to public
opinion? A nation is only a body of individuals. It could not stand
against the moral convictions of the majority of nations. It would be
simply impossible. If one man is foolish enough to fight a wind-mill,
like Don Quixote, you cannot suppose any nation of men would be.”

“I admit that,” replied Mr. Delano; “yet I am not convinced that we
shall ever arrive at that reign of reason; and your constructive army
does not seem to me to meet all the wants supplied by the destructive
one. There must be far more excitement in the latter.”

“But we must not forget that, as man reaches a higher state of culture,
he shuns violent excitement of all kinds—it has no charm for him.
Natural attractions constantly demand better and finer food for their
gratifications. To deny this, is like saying that because man loves
conviviality and exhilaration, he must always continue to gratify them
by the rum-shop and a free-fight.”

At this point in the conversation Miss Marston, who had been out of town
on a visit, came in, and entertained the company by her exquisite
singing, and soon after Dinah brought in a tray of dainties, and a
decanter of California wine. While the company were sipping the wine,
she reappeared with fruit. Her black face always beamed with delight on
“massa’s company.” The doctor made some kindly remark to her, as he
always did, and poured her out a glass of wine. Mrs. Forest was
unspeakably shocked. On this special occasion why could he not behave
himself properly? Dinah took the glass with thanks, and said, raising it
to her sable lips, “I hopes massa’l lib forebber.” This was her toast;
and grinning upon the amused guests, she courtesied to them and left.
The doctor thoroughly enjoyed this shock to conventional propriety.
Clara was not disturbed in the least, for whatever her father did was
right in her eyes. Mrs. Forest made some excuse to Miss Delano for what
she called the doctor’s “eccentricity.”

“Your family is Southern, I believe,” said Mr. Delano.

“I am,” said Mrs. Forest, a little proudly, “but my husband is not.”

“No,” said the doctor, “I am of the good old New England, witch-burning
stock; though I lived South many years.” Mr. Delano asked him if he did
not find his sympathies in this war rather on the side of the South. “No
more than with the North,” he answered. “I deplore it for the injury it
must do to the whole country and to the world at large. The moral sense
of the civilized world has a natural right to forbid anything so
imbecile as an appeal to arms.”

“Do you suppose, sir,” asked Miss Delano, “if you had taken the vote of
all the people of this country on the question of war or secession, the
majority would have decided for secession?”

“Most certainly I do, if you mean the people, madame, and not simply the
fighting portion. Men would not vote for war if it involved the
destruction of their mothers and sisters, daughters, wives, and
sweethearts, and women are said to be more tender towards those they
love, than men are.”

“I must say,” said Mrs. Forest, “I do not think any nation has a right
to declare war without consulting women—those who must be the greatest
sufferers in the end.” This was very bold for Mrs. Forest, who seldom
expressed opinions on such questions. This was just after the
emancipation proclamation, and the doctor remarked that the abolition of
slavery was a grand result, but even that was purchased too dearly.

“I never identified myself with the abolition movement,” said Mr.
Delano, not mentioning the fact that, as a cotton-broker, his policy did
not lie in that direction; “but slavery is a relic of barbarism, and
therefore out of place in the nineteenth century. Still you are right,
perhaps, that war does really never settle vexed questions. I foresee
confusion worse confounded in our future political relations with the
South.”

Mr. Delano and his daughter stayed quite late, and evidently enjoyed
their visit, and were more pleased with the family of Albert’s future
wife than they had expected. When they were gone, Mrs. Forest inwardly
thanked God that the conversation had been providentially prevented from
drifting into religion or woman’s rights, and went to bed in a very
serene state of mind.

                             CHAPTER XVII.
                             COSTLY GRAPES.

 When Dan left his father’s house after his rejection by Miss Marston,
he was really wretched for the first time in his life; yet the
experience did not soften him as fine natures are softened by unhappy
love. Between his set teeth he called her hard names, and cursed himself
for giving her the opportunity to reject his offer. He passed Susie
during this walk, who, being surprised, looked up into his face with the
old light in her eyes. He met her eyes as we meet a stranger’s, without
a sign of recognition; whereat the poor girl’s limbs trembled, and
putting down her veil after passing him, she walked on blinded by her
tears.

In his frame of mind, Dan looked upon all women as his enemies, and
especially Susie, but for whom he might have won the queenly Miss
Marston. But for the recentness of his rebuff, he would have spoken
kindly enough to Susie, for he was capable of pity, and he had
considerable affection in his nature, though it was of the bearish kind,
wholly divested of that sensitive, tender element which, when a woman
has once known it, makes valueless all other love of men. It is not
found in common men, however, who are mostly capable of violent
demonstration, without any of that high sentiment which seeks only to
learn the real desire of the loved one, and then studies to gratify it,
finding keen delight in that, and that alone. It is true, also, that few
women are capable of inspiring such a sentiment, and so the world knows
little of the highest phase of the passion of love. Susie had never
known any love but Dan’s, and though it had occurred to her that there
might be kisses, for example, not so much like the pounce of a hawk upon
a pigeon, as his were, still she had loved him with all her heart, and
it was terrible, even when she knew he had ceased to love her, to think
that he could pass her in the street without a sign of recognition. But
Susie had outlived that experience, and with the certainty that he was
lost to her forever, and with time and the accession of new thoughts and
cares, and especially with the interest Clara had succeeded in awakening
in regular daily study, her grief lessened. There were, first hours, and
then whole days, when there were no heart-aches on his account. Over the
thought of this she would invariably rejoice, as over a great triumph,
until some treacherous retrospection of happier days quickened the old
tenderness into life—renewed agonies that she thought were quieted
forever, and revealed her situation as dreadful beyond mortal endurance.

After Miss Marston left Oakdale, Dan went home once or twice, but it was
like a strange place to him. His father, to be sure, treated him much
the same, and never alluded to Susie by any accident. Mrs. Forest pitied
him more than ever, and Clara was at least polite to him on all
occasions. He could see and feel, however, that his conduct was
detestable in her eyes, and as for Leila and Linnie, he considered them
of slight importance. One day he discovered that Clara knew of his
offering himself to Miss Marston, and of the galling manner with which
he had been refused, and this made him furious. Miss Marston, then, had
despised him too much to keep his humiliation a secret, as any honorable
woman would do under ordinary circumstances.

Miss Marston would indeed have been the last person to reveal such a
thing, but the day before her departure, in a long talk with Clara, she
expressed the desire that Clara would make it certain to Susie that Dan
was nothing to her. “You know,” she said, “how a person in her abandoned
condition would naturally feel toward one she supposed the cause of her
being abandoned. Do convince her that there has never been the slightest
encouragement on my part—no intimacy whatever between me and your
brother, no thought of correspondence, or anything of the kind;” and
then she told Clara of the last meeting with Dan, and expressed
unqualified disapproval of him altogether; at the same time sending kind
messages to Susie, and a present of a microscope for her botanical
studies.

“There is one thing I have wished to ask you, Miss Marston,” said Clara,
“but I have never dared to. Will you tell me just your true impressions
of Albert?” Miss Marston did not reply satisfactorily, and Clara,
putting her arm around her rather timidly, for the teacher that
expressed itself in every word and manner, still continued to awe Clara,
as it had done in Stonybrook, urged a reply. She had often noticed Miss
Marston studying Albert. The two were very polite to each other, but it
was easy to see that there was little true sympathy between them. Thus
urged, Miss Marston answered: “I have studied him carefully, because he
has your happiness in his hands. I confess I fear greatly that you are
not just the kind of wife he should select.” Clara was grieved, not
understanding Miss Marston, and she said quickly, “I have often wondered
that he should think so highly of me.”

“No, no. It is not a question of your worthiness. You are worthy, I
think, of any one—certainly of Dr. Delano; but there is a
self-sufficiency, well concealed by his culture, that will some time be
very apt to run counter to your ideas of justice and devotion. I only
say I fear, understand. I may be wrong; but I would urge you to avoid