CHAPTER VI.

the next afternoon, and had hinted there might be other company. "There's a good many I should like to ask," she had said, "but I ain't situated so I can jest now, an' it's a dreadful puzzle to know who to leave out without offendin' them. I'm goin' to have the minister an' his wife anyhow, an' Lawyer Tuxbury an' his sister. I should ask Flora, but if she comes the children have got to, an' I can't have them anyhow; they're the worst-actin' young ones at the table I ever saw in my life. There's two or three men I'm goin' to ask. Now you an' Lois come real early, Esther."

Mrs. Field's ideas of early, when invited to spend the afternoon and take tea, were primitive. Directly after the dinner dishes were put away, about one o'clock, she spoke to Lois in the harsh, defiant tone she now used towards her. 'You'd bet ter go an' get ready," said she. "She wanted us to come early."

A stubborn look came into Lois's face. "I ain't going," said she, in an undertone.

"What did you say?"
"I ain't going."

"Then you can stay to home, if you want to get your mother into trouble, an' make folks think we're guilty of somethin'."

Mrs. Field went into her bedroom to get ready. Presently Lois went softly through on her way to her own. Jane Field stood before her little mirror, brushed her gray hair in smooth curves around her ears, and pinned her black woollen dress with a gold-rimmed brooch contain ing her dead sister's and her husband's hair.

Lois, before her own glass, twisted up her pretty hair carefully; she pulled a few curly locks loose on her temples, thinking half indignantly and shamefacedly how she should see that young man again. Lois was bewildered and terrified, borne down by reflected guilt, almost as if it were her own. She had a wild dread of this going out to tea, meet

VOL. LXXXV.-No. 508.-61

The wind was from the east, and had the salt smell of the sea. All the whiteflowering bushes in the yards and the fruit trees bowed toward the west. There was a storm of white petals. Lois, as she and her mother walked against the wind, kept putting her hand to her hair, to keep it in place.

Mrs. Maxwell's house was a large cottage with a steep Gothic roof jutting over a piazza on each side. The house was an old one, and originally very simple in its design; but there had been evidently at some time a flood-tide of prosperity in the fortunes of its owner, which had left marks in various improvements. There was a large ornate bay-window in front, which contrasted oddly with the severe white peak of wall above it; the piazzas had railings in elaborate scroll-work; and the windows were set with four large panes of glass, instead of the original twelve small ones. The front yard was enclosed by a fine iron fence. But the highest mark was shown by a little white marble statue in the midst of it. There was no other in the village outside of the cemetery. Mrs. Jane Maxwell's house was always described to inquiring strangers as the one with the statue in front of it.

Lois, as they went up the walk, looked wonderingly at this marble girl standing straight and white in the midst of a votive circle of box. The walk, too, was bordered with box, and there was a strange pungent odor from it.

Mrs. Field rang the .door- bell, and she and Lois stood waiting. Nobody

came.

nounced, finally. "Mebbe they don't use this one."

Lois followed her mother around to the other side of the house to the door opening on the south piazza. Mrs. Field rang again, and they waited; then she gave a harder pull. A voice sounded unexpectedly close to them from behind the blinds of a window:

"You jest walk right in," said the voice, which was at once flurried and ceremonious. "Open the door an' go right in, an' turn to the right, an' set down in the parlor. I'll be in in jest a minute. I ain't quite dressed."

Lois and her mother went in as they were directed, and sat down in two of the parlor chairs. The room looked very grand to Mrs. Field. She stared at the red velvet furniture, the tapestry carpet, and the long lace curtains, and thought, with a hardening heart, how, at all events, she was not defrauding this other woman of a fine parlor. It was to her mind much more splendid than the sitting room in the other house, with its dim oldfashioned state, and even than the great north parlor, whose furniture and paper had been imported from England at great cost nearly a hundred years ago.

Mrs. Maxwell did not appear for a halfhour. Now and then they heard a scurry of feet, the rattle of dishes, and the closing of a door. They sat primly waiting. They had not removed their wraps. Lois looked very pale against the red back of her chair.

"Don't you feel well?" asked her mother.

lor. Lois sat beside the window, her hands folded meekly in her lap; her mother and Mrs. Maxwell knitted.

"Don't you do any fancy-work, Lois?" asked Mrs. Maxwell.

"No, she don't do much," replied her mother for her.

"Don't she? I'd like to know! Now Flora, she does considerable. She's makin' a real handsome tidy now. She'll show you how, Lois, if you'd like to make one. It's real easy, an' it don't cost a great deal-but then cost ain't much object to you." Mrs. Maxwell laughed an unpleasant snigger. Then she resumed: "Some tidies would look real handsome on some of them great bare chairs over to your house; there ain't one there so far as I know. John he wouldn't never have a new thing in the house; he was terrible set and notional about it, an' he was terrible tight with his money. I don't care if I do say it; everybody knows it, an' I don't see why it's any worse to say things that's true about the dead than the livin'. With some folks it's all 'Oh, don't say nothin'; he's dead. Cover it all up; he's buried, an' bury it too, an' set all the roses an' pinks a-growin' over it.' I tell you sometimes nettles will sprout, an' when they do, it don't make it any better to call 'em pinks. Thomas Maxwell was terrible tight. I 'ain't forgot how he talked because we bought this parlor furniture, an' put big lights in the windows, an' had that iron fence. Then my poor husband had gone into business with your husband, an' they seemed to be makin' money. Why

"You look sick enough," said her mother, harshly.

Lois looked out of the window at the marble girl in the yard, and her mouth quivered.

Presently Mrs. Maxwell came, in her soft flurry of silk and old ribbons. She had on a black lace head-dress trimmed with purple flowers, and she wore her black kid gloves.

"I'm real sorry I had to keep you waitin' so long, Esther," said she; "but we were kinder late about dinner. Do take off your things. Flora she'll be down in a few minutes; she's jest gone up stairs to change her dress an' comb her hair.

It's a beautiful day, ain't it?"
The three settled themselves in the par-

we'd always done without, I'd like to know? You remember what a time the old man made when we bought these things, Esther, I s'pose?"

"I can't say as I do," returned Mrs. Field.

"Why, seems to me it's funny you don't. You sure?"

Mrs. Field nodded.

“Well, it's queer you don't. He made an awful time over it; but the worst of it was over that image out in the yard. I b'lieve he always thought my poor husband and yours failed up because we bought that image. There was one thing about it, your husband wa'n't never extravagant, though, was he? Thomas Maxwell couldn't say his son wasted his money, whatever else he said. Your

"Yes, I always thought Edward Maxwell was prudent," returned Mrs. Field. Lois, staring soberly and miserably out of the window, saw just then a stout girlish figure, leant to one side with the weight of a valise, pass hurriedly out of the yard. She wondered if it was Flora Maxwell, and watched the pink flowers in her hat and the blue folds of her dress out of sight down the street.

"I guess your husband took after his father a little; I guess he was a little savin'," said Mrs. Maxwell. "I know Edward looked kind of scared when he came over one night an' saw that image jest after we'd got it set up, an' he asked how much it cost. It did cost considerable. We didn't ever tell anybody jest how much; but I didn't care; I'd always wanted one; an' I made up my mind I'd rather have that if I had to go without some other things. An' my husband wanted it too; he was one of the Maxwells, you know, an' I think they all had a taste for such things if they wa'n't too tight to get 'em. As for me, I had to do without all my young days, an' I have to now except for the few things we got together along then when my poor husband seemed to be prospering; but I've always been crazy over images, an' I've always thought one in a front yard was about the most ornamental thing anybody could have. I've told Flora a good many times that I believed if I'd had advantages when I was young, I should have made images. Don't you think that one's handsome, Esther?"

Of

"Real handsome," said Mrs. Field. "Some folks have found fault with it because it didn't have more clothes on, but it ain't as if it was in a cemetery. course it would have to be dressed different if it was. An' it ain't anything but marble, when you come right down to it. I think there's such a thing as bein' too particular, for my part, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," replied Mrs. Field, looking out at the marble figure.

"Well, I do. Mis' Jay said, after my husband died, that she should think I'd like to put up that image for a kind of a monument for him. I didn't feel as if I could put up anything more than stones; but I did think a little of it, and I knew if I did, I should have to have some wings made on it, and a cape or a shawl over

ent. I look out at it a good many times, an' I'm thankful it 'ain't got any more on, clothes do get so out of fashion. You know how they look in photographs sometimes. I s'pose that's the reason that the men who make these images don't put any more on. There! I must show you my photograph album, Esther."

Mrs. Maxwell took a heavy album with gilt clasps from the centre table, and drew a chair close to Mrs. Field.

"Now you get a chair, and come on the other side, Lois," said she, “an' I can show 'em to both of you.'

Lois obeyed, and Mrs. Maxwell turned over the album leaves and explained the pictures.

66

This is a lady I used to know," said she. She lived in North Elliot. She's dead now. That's her husband; he's married again. His second wife's kind of silly. Ain't much like the first one. She was a real stepper. That's Flora Lowe's baby-the first one-an' that's Flora. I think it flatters her. That's my Flora. It ain't very good. She looks terrible sober. There's my poor husband. I s'pose you remember him, Esther? course you know how he used to look. Do you think it's a good likeness?"

Of

"I don't know. I guess it's pretty good, ain't it?" stammered Mrs. Field.

Well, some thinks it is, and some don't. I 'ain't never liked it very well myself, but it was all I had. It was taken some years before he died. I guess jest about the time you was down here. There! I s'pose you know whose this is?"

It was her own photograph that Mrs. Field leant over and saw, and Lois, on the other side, saw it also.

"Yes, I guess I do," she said.

"Was it a pretty good one of your sister?"

There was a strange gulping sound in Mrs. Field's throat. She did not answer. Mrs. Maxwell thought she did not hear, and repeated her question.

"No, I don't think 'twas, very," said Mrs. Field, hoarsely.

Mrs. Field turned over another page of the album. Her pale face had a hard, indifferent look. Mrs. Maxwell nudged her, and nodded towards Lois in the window.

"She looks dreadful," she whispered.

"I don't see as she looks any worse than she's been doin' right along," said Mrs. Field, without lowering her voice. "What baby is this?"

"It's Mis' Robinson's; it's dead. Hadn't I better get her something to take? I've got some currant wine. Maybe a little of that would do her good."

"No, thank you; I don't care for any," Lois interposed, quickly.

"Hadn't you better have a little? You look real pale."

innocent purpose, but there was a sly note in her voice. She hurried out of the room, and they heard her call, "Flora! Flora!" in the entry. Then they heard her footsteps on the cellar stairs. Lois turned to her mother. "Mother," said she, "I can't stand it-I can't stand it anyway in the world."

Her mother turned over another page of the photograph album. She looked at a faded picture of a middle-aged woman, whose severe and melancholy face seemed to have betrayed all the sadness and toil of her whole life to the camera. She noted deliberately the old-fashioned sweep of the skirt quite across the little card, and the obsolete sleeves, then she spoke, as if she were talking to the picture: "I'm a-followin' out my own law an' my own light," said she. "I ain't ashamed of it. If you want to be, you can."

"It's awful. Oh, mother, don't!"

"A good many things are awful," said her mother. "Injustice is awful. If you want to set yourself up against your mo'ther, you can. I've laid out this road that's just an' right, an' I'm goin' on it; you can do jest as you're a mind to. If you want to tell her when she comes back, you can. I ain't ashamed of it, for I know I'm doin' what is just an' right."

Mrs. Field noted how the photographed woman's dress was trimmed with fringe, after the fashion of one she had worn twenty years ago.

Lois looked across the room at her mother's pale stern face bending over the album. The garlands on Mrs. Maxwell's parlor carpet might have been the flora of a whole age, she and her mother seemed so far apart, with that recession of soul which can cover more than earthly spaces. To the young girl with her scared indignant eyes the older woman seemed actually living and breathing under new conditions in some strange element.

out any demur. Her mother glanced sharply from the album as she took it.

"I can't imagine where Flora is," said Mrs. Maxwell.

"I saw somebody go out of the yard a while ago," said Lois.

"You did? Was she kind of stout, with light hair?"

"Yes, 'm."

"It was Flora, then. I don't see where she's gone. Mebbe she went down to the store to get some more thread for her tidy. Now I guess you'll feel better." "Who's this a picture of?" asked Mrs. Field.

"Hold it up. Oh, that's Mis' John Robbins! She's dead. Yes, I guess Flora must have gone after that thread. She'll show you how to make that tidy, Lois, if you want to learn; it's real handsome. I guess she'll be here before long."

But when Mrs. Maxwell had shown her guest all the photographs in the album and a book of views in Palestine, and it was nearly four o'clock, Flora still had not come.

"Do you see anybody comin'?" Mrs. Maxwell kept asking Lois at the window. Before Mrs. Maxwell spoke, a nervous vibration seemed to seize upon her whole body. She cleared her throat sharply. It was like a premonitory click of machinery before motion, and Lois waited, numb with fear, for what she might say. Suppose she should suddenly suspect, and should cry out, "Is this woman here Esther Maxwell?"

But all Mrs. Maxwell's thoughts were on her absent daughter. "I don't see where she is," said she. "Here she's got to make cream-tartar biscuits for tea, an' it's most time for the folks to come."

"I'm afraid we came too early," said Mrs. Field.

"Oh no, you didn't," returned Mrs. Maxwell, politely. "It ain't half as pleasant goin' as late as they do here when they're asked out to tea. You don't see anything of 'em; they begin to eat jest as soon as they come, an' it seems as if that was all they come for. The old-fashioned way of goin' right after dinner, an' takin' your sewin', is a good deal better, accordin' to my way of thinkin', but they ain't done so for years here. Elliot is a pretty fashionable place. I s'pose it must be very different up in Green River, where you come from?"

Yes, I guess 'tis," said Mrs. Field.

The front gate clicked, and Mrs. Maxwell peered cautiously around a lace curtain. Two ladies, in their best black dresses, came up the walk, stepping with a pleasant ceremony.

"There's Mis' Isaac Robbins an' Ann 'Liza White," Mrs. Maxwell whispered, agitatedly. "I shall have to go right out in the kitchen an' make them biscuits the minute they get here. I don't see what Flora Maxwell is thinkin' of."

Mrs. Maxwell greeted her friends at the door with a dignified bustle, showed them into her bedroom to lay aside their bonnets; then she introduced them to Mrs. Field and Lois in the parlor.

"There!" said she; "now I've got to let you entertain each other a few minutes. I've got something to see to. Flora she's stepped out, an' I guess she's forgot how late 'tis."

After Mrs. Maxwell had left the room, the guests sat around with a kind of solemn primness as if they were in meeting; they seemed almost hostile. The elder of the new-comers took out her knitting and fell to work. She was a tall, pale, severely wrinkled woman, and a ruffled trimming on her dress gave her high shoulders a curiously girlish air. Finally the woman who had come with her asked, pantingly, how Mrs. Field liked Elliot, and if she thought it changed much. The color flashed over her little face, with its softly scalloping profile, as she spoke. Her hair was crimped in even waves. She wore nice white ruching in her neck and sleeves, and flat satin folds crossed each other exactly over her flat chest. Her nervous self-consciousness did not ruffle her fine order, and she did not smile as she spoke.

"I like it pretty well," replied Mrs. Field. "I dun know as I can tell whether it's changed much or not." She knitted fast.

“The meetin’-house has been made over since you was here," volunteered the elder woman. She did not look up from her knitting.

Presently Lois, at the window, saw Mr. Tuxbury's sister, Mrs. Lowe, coming, and the minister's wife hurrying, with a voluminous swing of skirts, in her wake. The minister's wife had been calling, but Mrs. Lowe, who was a little deaf, had not heard her, and it was not until she shut the iron gate almost in her face that she saw her. Then the two came up the walk