The Rise of Silas Lapham

, which he undertook to finish up in The Events, after he replaced their original projec

journalist, whom he caught sight of

ey his left hand for welcome, and he rolled his large head in the direct

y felt. "I'm in no hurry." He took a note-book from his p

his great hairy fist on the e

Well, sir," he continued, wheeling round in his leather-cushioned swivel-chair, and facing Bartley, seated so n

r," said Bartley. "Yo

the money," said Lapham, as if he were will

that. But you're just one million times more interesting to the public than if you hadn't a d

foot and pushed the ground-glass door shut between his lit

reddish-grey beard, growing to the edges of his firmly closing lips. His nose is short and straight; his forehead good, but broad rather than high; his eyes blue, and with a light in them that is kindly or sharp according to his mood. He is of medium height, a

just where you want me

th; that's where most of u

appreciation shot in

Canada line--so well up, in fact, that I came very near being an adoptive citizen; for I was bound to be an American of SOME sort, from the word Go! That was about--well, let me see!--pretty

and went to school winters: re

accepting this irreverent versi

eprivations of any kind, that would encourage the youthful reader to go and do likew

th quiet self-respect, "I guess if you see thes

ou'll see; it'll come out all right." And in fact

er, and a father who, if somewhat her inferior in education, was no less ambitious for the advancement of his children. They were quiet, unpretentious people, reli

am's unliterary habit of mind for his security in making it, and

from Lapham's answers that he generalised the history of his childhood. "Mr. Lapham, although he did not dwell on his boyish trials and struggles, spoke of them with deep feeling and an abiding sense of their reality." This was what he added in the interview, and by the time he had

de and mended from daylight till dark--and from dark till daylight, I was going to say; for I don't know how she got any time for sleep. But I suppose she did. She got time to go to church, and to teach us to read the Bible, and to misunderstand it in the old way. She was GOOD. But it ain't her on her knees in church that comes back to me so much like the sight of an angel as her on her knees before me at night, washing my poor, dirty little feet, that I'd run bare in all day, and making me decent for bed. There were six of us b

he was not there for the purpose of interviewing his ancestry. But Bartley had learned to practise a patience with his victi

he desk before him, "when I hear women complaining nowadays that their lives are stunt

cut in. "And you say, Mr. Lapham, that you discov

th anything; and father hadn't any facilities. It got to be a kind of joke with us; and I guess that paint-mine did as much as any one thing to make us boys clear out as soon as we got old enough. All my brothers went West, and took up land; but I hung on to New England and I hung on to the old farm, not because the paint-mine was on it, but because the old house was--and the graves. Well," said Lapham, as if unwilling to give himself too much credit, "there wouldn't been any market for it, anyway. You can go through that part of the State and buy more farms than you can shake a stick at for less money than it cost to

YOU," said Bartley, putting h

s. He's one of their leading lawyers, out Dubuque way; been judge of the Common Pleas once or twice.

to add, at the frown which gathered between Lapham's eyes, "What a beautiful c

said the fath

hter," said Lapham, indicating a girl with eyes that showed large, and a face of singular gravity. "Mis' Lapham," he continued, touching his wife's effigy with his little finger. "My brother Willard an

oung girls; some of these were extremely pretty, in fact. He had put them into awkward and constrained attitudes, of course; and they all looked as if they had the instrument of torture which photographers call a head-rest under their occiputs. Here and there an elderly lady's face was a mere blur; and some of the younger children had twitched themselves into w

at you stayed right along on the old

ent to Texas. Texas was all the cry in those days. But I got enough of the Lone Star in

ied Bartley, with his pencil

I'd hated to see the house with him in it; but we drove out one Saturday afternoon, and we brought back about a bushel of the stuff in the buggy-seat, and I tried it crude, and I tried it burnt; and I liked it. M'wife she liked it too. There wa'n't any painter by trade in the village, and I mixed it myself. Well, sir, that tavern's got that coat of paint on it yet, and it hain't ever had any other, and I don't know's it ever will. Well, you know, I felt as if it was a kind of harumscarum experiment, all the while; and I presume I shouldn't have tried it but I kind of liked to do it because father'd always set so much store by his paint-mine. And when I'd got the first coat on,"--Lapham called it CUT,--"I presume I must have set as much as half an hour; looking at it and thinking how he would have enjoyed it. I've had my share of luck in this world, and I ain't a-going to complain on my OWN account, but I've noticed that most things get along too late for most people. It made me feel bad, and it took all the pride out my success with the paint, thinking of father. Seemed to me I might 'a taken more interest in it w

X.' business,"

he farm, and he analysed it--made a regular Job of it. Well, sir, we built a kiln, and we kept a lot of that paint-ore red-hot for forty-eight hours; kept the Kanuck and his family up, fir

f awed through his pride by a little lingering uncertainty as to what peroxide was.

asked, when he had made

c cement in it, and it can stand fire and water and acids;' he named over a lot of things. Says he, 'It'll mix easily with linseed oil, whether you want to use it boiled or raw; and it ain't a-going to crack nor fade any; and it ain't a-going to scale. When you've got your arrangements for burning it properly, you're going to have a paint that will stand like the everlasting hills, in every climate under t

t make a greater mistake with a reporter than to hold back anything out of modesty. It may be the very thing we want to kno

hing where a paint is wanted, inside or out. It'll prevent decay, and it'll stop it, after it's begun, in tin or iron. You can paint the inside of a cistern or a bath-tub with it, and water won't

human conscience, I sup

the building, and diffused an honest, clean, wholesome smell of oil and paint. They were labelled and branded as containing each so many pounds of Lapham's Mineral Paint, and each bore the mystic devices, N.L.f. 1835--S.L.t. 1855. "There!" said Lapham, kicking one of the largest casks with the toe of his boot, "that's about our biggest package; and here," he added, laying hi

nd followed the vigorous lead of Lapham back to the office, where the sun of a long summer afternoon was just beginning to glare in at the window. On shelves opposite Lapham's desk were tin cans of various sizes, arranged in tapering cylinders, and showing, in a pattern diminishing toward the top, the same label bo

Bartley. "Th

d we find it takes with customers first-rate. Look here!" he said, ta

S BRAND," and then he lo

t it up and put the first of it on the m

n," said Bartley, while he made a

ntioning it in your intervi

myself, and I know just how you feel." It was in the dawn of Bartley's prospe

ed Americans; a few underrate their wives, but the rest think them supernal in intelligen

board. Mrs. Nash,

commence that way," sugg

n Clover Street before long. I suppose," said Bartley, returning to business, "that you did

again, in the first days of his married life. "I went right back to Lumberville and sold out everything, and put all I could ra

"That's the sort

ost of us marry silly little gi

ut so," assented Bartley,

used to tell her it wa'n't the seventy-five per cent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in the ORE t

artley. "I'll t

region that didn't have 'Lapham's Mineral Paint--Specimen' on it in the three colours we begun by making." Bartley had taken his seat

saw anything so very sacred about a big rock, along a river or in a pasture, that it wouldn't do to put mineral paint on it in three colours. I wish some of the people that talk about the landscape, and WRITE about it, had to bu'st one of them rocks OUT of the landscape with powder, or dig a hole to bury it in, as we used to have to do up on the farm; I guess they'd sing a lit

"it was made for the stove-pol

artley's irony. "Let 'em go and live with nature in the WINTER, up there along the C

he landscape,

nd you won't find it in the gazetteer. I give a pretty good lump of money to build a town-hall, about five years back,

t region that they get the ol

good paint," said Lapham conscientiously. "Like to show

like it first-ra

earted, but m'wife she looked at it another way. 'I guess it's a providence,' says she. 'Silas, I guess you've got a country that's worth fighting for. Any rate, you better go out and give it a chance.' Well, sir, I went. I knew she meant business. It might kill her to have me go, but it would kill her sure if I stayed. She was one of that kind. I went. Her last words was, 'I'll look after

al

rmometer. If it wa'n't for that, I should

e evidences of wear. "And when you came back

int was like my own blood to me. To have anybody else concerned in it was like--well, I don't know what. I saw it was the thing to do; but I tried to fight it off, and I tried to joke it off. I used to say, 'Why didn't you take a partner yourself, Persis, while I was away?' And she'd say, 'Well, if you hadn't come back, I should, Si.' Always DID like a joke about as well as any woman I ever saw. Well,

ce," suggested Bartley,

rtley divined, through the freemasonry of all who have sore places in

I suppose, you've

layed i

s to foreign countries, Colonel?" suggest

h, French, German, and Italian. "We expect to do a good business in all those countries. We've got our agencies in Cadiz now, and in Paris, and in Hamburg, and in Leghorn. It's a thing that's bound to make its way. Yes, sir. Wherever a man has got a ship, or a bridge, or a lock, or a house, or a car, or a fence, or a pig-pen anywhere in God's universe to paint, that's the paint for him, and he's bound to find it out

. "'F you ever want to run down and take a look at our works, pass you over the road,"--he called it RUD--

young man in the counting-room who had taken his letter at the beginning of the

he door, and I can drop you on my way home. I'm going to take Mis' L

if I do,"

man at one of the desks in the outer office. She was stylishly dressed, as Bartley saw, and her smooth, yellow hair was sculpturesquely waved over a low, white forehead. "Here,

gh stairway and found their way out to the street, past the dangling rope

work," said

at the curb-stone, and Lapham, gathering up the hitching-w

e spars of a vessel pencilled themselves delicately against the cool blue of the afternoon sky. The air was full of a smell pleasantly compounded of oakum, of leather, and of oil. It was not the busy season, and they met only two or three trucks heavily straggling toward the wharf wit

h-board from opposite sides to watch the stride of the horse, Bartley said, with

now, I tell you what you do. You let me come for you 'most any afternoon, now, and take you out over

Bartley; "I'll let you

cried

?" querie

f Morgan, of course; but you can't have much Morgan in a horse if you

ffice, just round the corner here. I've got

personally assenting to Bart

y picturesque thing of the discovery of the paint-mine. "Deep in the heart of the virgin forests of Vermont, far up toward the line of the Canadian snows, on a desolate mountain-side, where an autumnal storm had done its wild work, and the great trees, strewn hither and thither, bore witness to its violence, Nehemiah Lapham discovered, just forty

bold, and straightforward in mind and action, Colonel Silas Lapham, with a prompt comprehensiveness and a never-failing business sagacity, is, in the best sense of that much-abused term, one of nature's noblemen, to the last inch of his five eleven and a half. His life affords an example of single-minded application and unwavering perseverance which our young business men would do well to emulate. There is nothing showy or meretricious about the man. He believes in mineral paint, and he puts his heart and soul into it. He makes it a religion; though we would not imply that it IS his religion. Colonel Lapham is a regular attendant at the Rev. Dr. Langworthy's church. He subscribes liberally to the Associated Charities, and no good object or worthy public enterpris

igns by one of our leading architectural firms, which, when complete, will be one of the finest ornaments of

to Marcia, still smiling over the thought of Lapham, whose burly simplicity had peculiarly amused him.

ng nice out of it," said his wife;

hought of landscape advertising in Colonel Lapham's own words. I'll tell you one thing, Marsh: he had a girl there at one of the desks that you wouldn't let ME have within gunshot of MY offi

What's

ia tremulously. "A man brought it just befor

ith his penknife. "We must look into this thing. I should like to know who's sending packages to Mrs. Hubbard in my absence." He unfolded the wrappings of paper, growi

ng a little nearer: "Is it some kind of jam?" she implored. "Jam? No

ch showed the dark blue, dark green, light brown, dark brown, and black, with the dark crimson, f

it--all at once," replied her husband. "But

re are places in that Clover Street house that need touching up so dreadfully. I shall be very careful. You needn't be afraid I shall overdo. But, thi

you pitch into me for extravagance, Marcia. Persis is the name of his wife; and he named it after her because it'

ool?" falte

--the minera

tom of her soul. "Bartley! you WON'T make fun of

said Bartley, getting up and brushin

I

ttle girls in the same period had grown into young ladies; the Colonel's tough frame had expanded into the bulk which Bartley's interview indicated; and Mrs. Lapham, while keeping a more youthful outline, showed the sharp print of the crow's-foot at the corners of her motherly eyes, and certain slight creases in her wholesome cheeks. The fact that they lived in an unfashionable neighbourhood was something that they had never been made to feel to their personal disadvantage, and they had hardly known it till the summer before this story opens, when Mrs. Lapham and her daughter Irene had met some other Bostonians far from Boston, who made it memorable. They were people whom chance had brought for the time under a singular obligation to the Lapham

Lapham's part, and careful saving on his wife's. Suddenly the money began to come so abundantly that she need not save; and then they did not know what to do with it. A certain amount could be spent on horses, and Lapham spent it; his wife spent on rich and rather ugly clothes and a luxury of household appointments. Lapham had not yet reached the picture-buying stage of the rich man's development, but they decorated their house with the costliest and most abominable fres

iked them to go to some private school for their finishing. But Irene did not care for study; she preferred house-keeping, and both the sisters were afraid of being snubbed by the other girls, who were of a different sort from the girls of the grammar-school; these were mostly from the p

ours on her toilet every day. Her sister had a simpler taste, and, if she had done altogether as she liked, might even have slighted dress. They all three took long naps every day, and sat hours together minutely discussing what they saw out of the window. In her self-guided search for self-improvement, the elder sister went to many church lecture

or artist. They lurked helplessly about in the hotel parlours, looking on and not knowing how to put themselves forward. Perhaps they did not care a great deal to do so. They had not a conceit of themselves, but a sort of content in their own ways that one may notice in certain families. The very strength of their mutual affection was a barrier to worldly knowledge; they dressed for one another; they equipped their house for their own satisfaction; they lived richly to themselves, not because they were selfish, but because they did not know how to do otherwise. The elder daughter did not care for society, apparently. The younger, who was but three years younger, was not yet quite old enough to be ambitious of it. With all her wonderful beauty, she had an innocence almost vegetable. When her beauty, which in its immaturit

relating to these new acquaintances, and wrought them into the novel point of view which they were acquiring. When Mrs. Lapham retu

small importance, and she had to insist a little beyond he

been everywhere, and knew everything. I declare it made me feel as if we had always lived in the backwoods. I don't know but the mother and the daughters would have let

on Irene?" ask

Anyway, he paid me as much attention as he did her. Perhaps i

, but asked, as he had asked

Lapham nodded his head. "Do you k

n't in anythin

ice," said Mrs. L

," returned the Colonel.

eem stuck up,"

you. I could buy him an

ith the fact than with her husband. "Well,

l on Mrs. Lapham. They were again very polite. But the mother let drop, in apology f

nds are on the New L

gone; and on comparing notes with her daughter, Mrs. Lapham

ever been in this par

that the fact had been stated with anything like insinuatio

e sort of people haven't got much business up our way, and they don't come.

are," suggested hi

know where they are. I've got a

eagerly dema

t?" he asked in reply,

n get along he

. In the morning

o the best we can for th

lways had," repl

, according t

got some n

p on living in Boston and marry here, I presume we ought to tr

done. "Don't they have everything they want? Don't they dress just as you say? Don't you go everywhere with 'em? Is there ever anything going o

resume we didn't go to work just the right way about their schooling. We ought to have got them in

Miss Smillie's was

e to think about that

out for the future. We ought to have gone out mor

t? I guess nobody ever

have invited

for the girls, I don't care if you

confession full of humiliati

n't expect me

t we haven't had any chance to learn what to do with it. It's just the same with Irene's looks; I didn't expect she was ever going to have any, she WAS such a plain child, and, all at once, she's blazed out thi

Bay than mine. It's on the water side of Beacon, and it's twenty

said finally; "we've always got along well

irls, how would you like to have y

ow. It was more convenient to

lief at her husband, and nothi

s card, which advertised the principal depot and the several agencies of the mineral paint; and Mrs. Lapham doubted, till she wished to goodness that she had never seen nor heard of those people, whether to ignore her husband in the transac

from the people on the Hill, signed in ink by the mother, and affording Mrs. Lapham an opportunity to subscribe for a charit

ill take a cheque for a

d, looking up

ough; and I don't want t

thrust, "I guess you're about right. When do you want I should begin to build on Beacon Street?" He han

ll. What do you mean, Silas?" She r

But shouldn't you like to build? Everybo

They say it's unhe

them made her nervous. There was a period in which she felt that they were being ruined, but the crash had not come; and, since his great success, she had abandoned herself to a blind confidence in her husband's judgment, which she h

after that when I was trading; and I guess it's about as healthy on the Back Bay as it is here

ess you want to build there yourself." She insensibly got a little nearer to her husband. They liked to tal

worth the gold that will cover it--COIN. I've had offers for that lot, Pert, twice over what I give for it. Yes, I have. Don't you want to ride over there some afternoon with me and see it?" "I'm satisfied where we be, Si," said Mrs. Lapham, recurring to the parlance of her youth in her pathos at her husband's kindness. She

said the col

eel much like changi

that lives in a house he built to sell, and his wife don't keep any girl. You can have just as much style there as you want, or just as little. I guess we live

ild on Beacon Street, Si,

Persis. I ain't in

eque which she held in her right

nd watching the effect of the poison of ambitio

ing sigh. "What are you g

urn on the Brighton ro

hat I should like to g

t, and I want you should see me let her out once. They say

d cutter, where, as he said, they were a pretty tight fit. He was holding the mare in till the time came to speed her, and the mare was springily jolting over the sno

" proudly sugges

y," assent

The mare jounced easily along, and they talked of the different houses on either side of the way. They had a crude taste in architecture, and they admired the worst. There were women

look very bad behind one of tho

d his wif

UNG man? Did he

friend of his that has a ranch in Tex

ofession has got to play o

e came when he brought the mare down to a walk, and then slowed up almost to a stop, while they both turned their heads to the right and looked at

, lifting her hand from the reins, on

g, but he let the

ivers were already speeding their horses, and these shot to and fro on inner lines, between the slowly moving vehicles on either side of the road. Here and there a burly mounted policeman, bulging over the pommel of his M'Clellan saddle, jolted by, silently gesturing and directing the course, and keeping it all under the eye of the law. It was what Bartley Hubbard called "a carnival of fashion and gaiety on the Brighton road," in his account of it. But most of the pe

the scud of ice flung from the mare's heels, to betray it; except for the rush of her feet, the mare was as silent as the people behind her; the muscles of her back and thighs worked more and more swiftly, like some mechanism responding to an alien force, and she shot to the end of the course, grazing a hundred encou

jogging along, with time for uninterrupted thought since he

"I suppose you know what you're about.

hings, she said to the girls, who were helping her,

er?" asked Pene

itan Faiths, Hopes, Temperances, and Prudences. Penelope was the girl whose odd serious face had struck Bartley Hubbard in the photograph of the family group Lapham showed him on

at and cloak on the hall table, to be carried upstairs later, and they all went in to tea: creamed oysters, birds, hot biscuit, two kinds of cake, and dishes of stewed and canned fruit and honey. The women dined alone at one, and the Colonel at t

n't stop making on such a fire. The only way to get any co

with this threat, "there's nothing to prevent you, Si. And you can shovel

sidewalk on Beacon Street c

see you at it,"

sharp lookout, and

pride in each other. They liked to have it, give and

Beacon Street as well

I ain't so young any more." She passed Irene a cup of Oolong tea,--none of them had a sufficiently cultivated palate for Sou-c

d see," said the Colo

ve you do," pu

hate to have me. Your mother

for, I suppose; though you mightn't always think so." She had a slow, quaint way of talking, that seemed a pleasant personal mod

to let Irene and your mother stick in the old place here, and us

se on the water side of Beacon. The Colonel seemed less in earnest than any of them about

I

am; it proved to be a Texas newspaper, with a complimentary account of the ranch

pham, to whom her daughter brought th

e notice out and stuck it into the side of her mirror, where she could read it every morning when she brushed her hair, and the last thing at night when she l

er in the form of a puff to a cattle-ranch.

al of the paper, treating the fact with a

e fellow sent it, a

know

dn't write to 'Rene, if

r way," said Mrs. Lapham; she did no

on the street and a dining-room back. The parlours were to be on the second floor, and finished in black walnut or party-coloured paint. The chambers were to be on the three floors above, front and rear, with side-rooms over the front door. Black walnut w

ssion for looking into. He was confirmed in his ideas by a master builder who had put up a great many houses on the B

trace them. But it all happened, and Lapham promptly developed his ideas of black walnut finish, high studding, and cornices. The architect was able to conceal the shudde

me of those pretty old-fashioned country-houses, haven't you, wher

n-room here beside the door, and get the whole width of your house frontage for a square hall, and an easy low-tread staircase running up three sides of it. I'm sure Mrs. Lapham would find it much

, who said, "Of course,"

ntil that moment Lapham had thought a long, straight staircase the chie

pham. Her husband merely

parlours together, connected by folding

d Lapham. "They're al

one large square room at the front, taking the whole breadth of the house, an

er apprehension had followed the architect's penc

uess that would do. It'll

ls that Mrs. Lapham began to feel a motherly affection for the young man, and her husband could not deny in his heart that the fellow seemed to understand his business. He stopped walking about the room, as he had begun to do w

some less expensive wood can be made just as effective

" gasped t

ect quietly. "White, o

from the table. His wife made a little

awing-room there is really nothing like white paint. We should want to introduce a little gold here and there. Perhaps we migh

e you'll want Eastlake mantel-shelves and tiles?" He meant this

ng perhaps a white marble chimney-piece, treated in the

the Colonel. "I thought th

for a little while, but they must come back. It's only t

nture very modestly,

, of course," cons

the draw

uld say. But I should prefer to consu

the othe

pets, of

about th

he rail and banisters white-

architect's presence. When he went at last,--the session did not end till eleven o'clock,--Lapham said, "We

and what he was talking about. I declare, he knows what

fit state to swear by the architect. It seemed to him that he had discovered the fellow (as he always called him) and owned him now, and the fellow did nothing to disturb this impression. He entered into that brief but intense intimacy with the Laphams which the sympathetic architect holds

lew, they could be working at it all winter. It was found necessary to dig for the kitchen; at that point the original salt-marsh lay near the surface, and before they began to put in the piles for the foundation they had to pump. The neighbourhood smelt like the hold of a ship after

tion with even keener interest than the little loafing Irish boys who superintended it in force. It pleased him to hear the portable engine chuckle out a hundred thin whiffs of steam in carrying the big iron weight to the top of the framework above the pile, then seem to he

ere ain't anything like that in

e sight twenty or thirty times befor

holders had boarded up their front doors before the buds had begun to swell and the assessor to appear in early May; others had followed soon; and Mrs. Lapham was as safe from remark as if she had been in the depth of the country. Ordinarily she and her girls left town early in July, g

house. As the Colonel turned from casting anchor at the mare's head with the hitching-weight, after helping his wife to alight, he encountered a man to whom he could not help speaking, though the man seem

held out her

o refer the two men to each other. They shook hands, but Lapham did not speak. "

e flat, succinct sound of two pieces of wood cla

followed, and the

are quite set

. Rogers has merely remained t

re you coming

et. We sometimes t

is wife pulled a little at her glove, as if embarra

ouse," she said, wit

id Mr. Rogers, l

e again, and she

ston, I hope I sha

y to have you cal

made a bow forward rather tha

lls, and her husband slowly followed. When she turned her face toward h

!" she cried. "Why cou

to say to him," rep

t the work which they had come to enj

drove recklessly toward the Milldam. His wife kept her veil down and her face turned from him. After a ti

t the moment when he seems to have gone fairly out

he was dead,

a thing! It sounds a

What do you let him b

don't know as his being dead would help it any. I can'

d I wish, once for all, you would quit bothering about it. My c

without feeling as if y

a scowl. "I want you should recollect in the fir

money in when he did,

ain, and more, too," said the

want to t

s choice: buy

t buy out then. It w

business

m out. A man that had saved you! No, you had got greedy, Silas. You had made your

say he saved me. Well, if I hadn't got him out he'd 'a' ruined me

d wrong about it, then I should have some hope. I don't say you meant wrong exactly, but you took an advantage.

f you'll 'tend to the house, I'll m

ry glad of m

ed of it now.

for me to meddle, as you call it, and I will. I can't ever get you to own up t

nything to complain of, and that's what I told you from the start. It's a thing that's done every day. I wa

paint was going to be worth about twice what it ever ha

to it. I made

you took his share of it. I guess you thought of that when y

ds Lapham lo

ith me any more to-day," he said,

d don't you ask me to go to that house with you any more. You ca

V

r's rights and feelings, but even tender of them for the most part, may tear at each other's heart-strings in this sacred bond with perfect impunity; though if they were any other two they would not speak or look at each other again after the outrages they exchange. It is certainly a curious spectacle, and doubtless it ought to co

e they could look each other in the face and speak of him. No one gave up more than they when they gave up each other and Lapham went to the war. When he came back and began to work, her zeal and courage formed the spring of his enterprise. In that affair of the partnership she had tried to be his conscience, but perhaps she would have defended him if he had accused himself; it was one of those things in this life which seem destined to await justice, or at least judgment, in the next. As he said, Lapham had dealt fairly by his partner in money; he had let Rogers take more money out of the business than he put into it; he had, as he said, simply forced out

siness to him; it was a sentiment, almost a passion. He could not share its management and its profit with another without a measure of self-sacrifice far beyond that which he must make with something less personal to him. It was the poetry of that nature, otherwise so intensely prosaic; and she understoo

ly to say a few days after at breakfast, "I guess the girls would like to go round with you this afternoon, and look at the ne

ll see,"

ere in place, with provisional treads rudely laid. They had not begun to lath and plaster yet, but the clean, fresh smell of the mortar in the walls mingling with the pungent fragrance of the pine shavings neutralised the Venetian odour that drew in over the

doned himself to the pleasure of whittling it in what was to be the reception-room, where he sat looking out on the street from what was to be the bay-window. Here he

to them, as they looked in at him through the ribs of the wall

e up their minds to do. When they had taken their places on their trestle, they could not help laughing with scorn, open and

ladyishness, "your mother wa'n't ashamed to sit with me on a trestle when I ca

with easy security of her father's liking what

good story," s

He dropped his eyes in coming abreast of the bay-window, where Lapham sat with his girls, and then his face lighten

uit or flowers. She had red hair, like her father in his earlier days, and the tints of her cheeks and temples were such as suggested May-flowers and apple-blossoms and peaches. Instead of the grey that often dulls this complexion, her eyes were of a blue at once intense and tender

eting, of which the sum was that he supposed she was out of town, and that she had not known that he had got back. A pause ensued,

hair began. He was dressed in a fine summer check, with a blue white-dotted neckerchief, and he had a white hat, in which he looked very well wh

and reaching out of it the hand which the young man advanced to

nd he came promptly up the steps, and t

while the girls exchanged little shoc

the young man si

erviewing the carpenter, but

d Corey. "I supposed--I was af

ket next week. The house ke

, building a house," said

refusing in Irene's interest the o

ter. "I suppose you've

chitect and ma

t of us to agree, when we

at she was shorter than her sis

exciting,"

onel, rising, "and look

ich they had made their way unassisted before. The elder sister left the younger to profit solely by these offices as much as possible. She walked

here, so as get the water all the way up and down. This i

te. Irene blushed deeply

them, empty but for a few small boats and a large schooner, with her sails close-furled and dripping like snow from her spars, which a tug was rapid

to stay with you, they can put up with the second best. Though we don't intend to have any se

thed Irene to her sister, where they sto

regular job of it. I've got the best architect in Boston, and I'm building

htful," said Corey,

d five minutes before I saw that he

ne again. "I shall certainly go through

uses nowadays," said the young man. "It's ve

housand already, and I doubt if I get out of it much under a hundred. You can't have a nice house for nothing. It's just like ordering a picture of a painter. You pay him enough, and he can afford to paint you a first-class picture; and if you don't, he can'

tting money to realise their ideas,"

resist. It has good looks and common-sense and everything in its favour, and it's like throwing money

ly. The girls turned, and he said, "I don't think I ever saw this view to better advantage. It's surprising

ot wait for

ater. When people talk to me about the Hill, I can understand 'em. It's snug, and it's old-fashioned, and it's where they've always lived. But when they talk about Commonwealth Avenue, I don't know what they mean. It don't hold a candle to

ght," said the young man. "T

o be; and she presently appeared, with one substantial foot a long way ahead. She was followed by the carpenter, with his rule sticking out of his overalls pocket, and she was s

he uncertain footing would allow, and Mrs. Lapham

ey! When did

if I HAD got back. I didn't exp

't expect I should make excuses for the state you

e of your house than I eve

ere'll be several chances to see us

f making the invitation, for he looked at his w

ife. "We shall be very glad

I shall be g

oted than the others; she clung to the young man's hand an imperceptible moment longer than need be, or els

. "They must all be glad t

y la

ve me. But the fact is, there's nobody in the house but my

e they

e my mother can get just the combination

his summer, mamma's so taken up with building. We do nothing but talk house; and Pen says we e

of humour," the young man ventu

y. A lovely light of happiness played over her face and etherealised its delicious beauty. She had some ado to keep herself from smiling

ing able to interpret its warning exactly, was able to arrest himself, and went about gathering up the hitching-weight, while the young man handed the ladies into the phaet

in't a bad-looking fellow, and he's got a good, fair and square, honest eye. But I don't see how a fellow like that, that's had every advantage in this world, c

er's hands, and they exchanged electrical press

am, "that he was down in Te

without findin

support him, and don't complain of t

to see him taken care of like a young lady. Now, I suppose that fellow belongs to two or three clubs, and hangs around

ng to twenty clubs, if I could find them and I would hang

ce, and twisting his fat head around over his shoulder to look at her. "We

and see," reto

iously to the subject that night, as he was winding up

ay I did because I didn't choose Irene should think I would stand any kind of a loafer 'round--I don't care who he i

which he had made upon the young man. She had talked it over and over with her sister before they went to

think papa always talk

k. You never noticed it so much, that's all. And I guess if he can't make allowance fo

n distress. Then she sighed. "Didn

t of calling her father so from her mother, and she

Why didn't you say Mr. Corey if you meant Mr. Corey? If I meant Mr.

"Will you HUSH, you wretched thing?" she

think he looked well enough for a plain youth, who ha

laughed at the drab effect of Mr. Corey's skull, as they re

enelope. "I don't know whether, if I had so

to have a nose part one kind a

s, and crossing her hands, with the brush in one of them, before her, regarded it judicially. "Now, my nose sta

," said Irene, joining in the conte

e to compliment HIS, Mrs."--she stopp

sister and beat her very softly on the shoulder with the flat of it

ve nothing to say against D.? Though I

r, for all expression

ery good eyes," a

is sackcoat set? So close to him, and yet

ung man of great judgment. He

air. "It was so nice of you, Pen,

sition," said Penelope. "I couldn't have fath

t a relief to have mamma come down, even if

d hid their faces in each other's neck

dreamy absent-mindedness. "'You give the painter money enough, and he can afford to paint you a firs

ould ever have supposed that he had fought the very

acon,--long before I owned property there. When you come t

shrieked Ire

d the voice of the real Colonel called, "What are y

eet, whisking drapery, and slamming doors. Then he heard one of the doors opened again, a

pone the rest of it till to-morrow at breakfast,

evue des Deux Mondes. He was a white-moustached old gentleman, who had never been able to abandon his pince-nez for the superior comfort of spectacles, even in the privacy of h

here did you get s

" replied the son, finding himself

ed the father thoughtfully, swinging his glasses,

ech with his father, now and then, in an old-fashioned way th

hing toward his son a box of cigar

said the son. "I'

o him. "Well,--oh, thank you, Tom!--I believe some statisticians prove that if you will give up smoking you can dress very well on the money your tobacco cos

young Corey, watching the accomplished f

l summer through, in weather that sends the sturdiest female flying to the sea-shore,

in summer," said the son, declining to

father, smoking tranquilly on. "But I don't suppose you

way down Beacon Street and up Commonwealth Avenue. It'

on. But I'm glad to have you back, Tom, even as it is, and I hope y

ith abnormal activity," suggested the so

do you think of taking up next? I mean after you have embraced your mother and sisters at Mount Desert. Real estate?

d the young man. "I shouldn't quite li

money,--that would be rather bad,--but I don't see why, when it comes to falling in love, a man shouldn't fall in love with a rich girl as easily as a poor one. Some of the rich girls are

h long enough to have given her position before she married. If they hadn't

nd knows how to drive a bargain. I dare say it makes the new rich pay too much. But there's no doubt but money is to the fore now. It is the romance, the poetry of our age. It's the thing that chiefly

rich daughter-in-law,

le good sense and pretty behaviour--one mustn't object to those things; and they go just as of

"How can you expect people who have been strictly devoted

your mother to say that those benefactors of hers, wh

ather

file toward his son, now turned his face ful

alking down street this afternoon, and happened to look round at a new house some one was puttin

orey. The gift of holding one's tongue seems to have skipped me, but you have it in full force. I can't say just how you would behave under peine forte et dure, but under o

I didn't quite see my way to speaking of it.

wouldn't have mentioned it now if

her on my mind to do so. Perha

did. Your mother would have known you were leading up t

o you know that in spite of h

he boy's full confidence was offered, Corey was n

ttle out of our tradition; and I dare say that if I hadn't passed a

here are worse t

I saw it wouldn't be quite fair

with our convictions shaken to their foundations. One man goes to England, and returns with the conception of a grander social life; another comes home from Germany with the notion of a more searching intellectual activity; a fellow just back from Paris has the absurdest i

"What are the characteristics of Papa Lapham that place him beyond our jurisdiction?" the youn

, he bragg

exempt him from the ordinary processes.

that personal way

as certainl

eople could not help observing and liking in him, "that it was more

s something of the kind myself,

shouldn't show his pleasure in it. It might have been vulgar, but it wasn't sordid. And I don't kn

girl must be uncommonly pretty. What did

f them," answered

is the siste

her interesting. She

y one isn't the

k me as very simple-hearted and rather wholesome. Of course he could be tiresome; we all can; and I suppose his range of ide

little beyond the salt of the earth. I will tell you plainly that I don't like the notion of a man who has rivalled the hues of nature in her wildest hau

nothing really to be ashamed of in mineral

is mouth and once more looked his so

've seen much younger men all through the West and South-west taking care of themselves. I don't think

parent or a wife continues the animating spirit of our youth. It strikes at the root of the whole feudal system. I really think you owe m

it's quite so bad as that; but the thing had certainly crossed my mind. I don't know how it's to be approached, and I don't know that it's at all

ne into the China trade or the India trade--though I didn't; and a little later cotton would have been your manifest destiny--though it wasn't mine; but now a man may do almost anything. The real-estate business is pr

y the way, sir," said the son, smiling

Why

start. I don't think it woul

should be punctili

that if he were ma

are right, Tom. W

t to get some business friend of ours, whose judgm

ou a ch

retty thoroughly about him, and then, if I liked the look of things, to go right

Tom, though it may be just the wrong way.

the young man. "I shall turn i

I don't deny that it is justified by necessity. It's a consolation to think that while I've been spending and enjoying, I have been preparing the noblest future for you--a futu

ed after him and preceded him into his chamber. He glanced over it to see that everything was there, to his father's h

ccurs more rarely in the descendants of the conscript fathers, though it still characterises the profiles of a good many Boston ladies. Bromfield Corey had not inherited it, and he had made his straight nose his defence when the old merchant accused him of a want of energy. He said, "What could a man do whose unnatural father had left his own nose away from him?" This amused but did not satisfy the merchant. "You must do something," he said; "and it's for you to choose. If you don't like the India trade, go int

and getting himself presented at several courts, at a period when it was a distinction to do so. He had always sketched, and with his father's leave he fixed himself at Rome, where he remained studying art and rounding the being inherited from his Yankee progenitors, till there was very little left of the ancestral angularities. After ten years he came home and painted that portrait of his father. It was very good, if a little amateurish, and he might have made himself a name as a painter of portraits if he had not had so much money. But he had plenty of money, though by this tim

l way. Before he knew it his son had him out to his class-day spread at Harvard, and then he had his son on his hands. The son made various unsuccessful provisions for himself, and still continued upon his father's hands, to their common dissatisfaction, thoug

elled the disturbance in his daughters' room overhead

that fellow in the business wit

al paint on the brain. Do you suppose a fellow like young Corey, brough

ughtily asked

w already, there's no u

I

ey were going, the family would be straitened to the point of changing their mode of life altogether. They began to be of the people of whom it was said that they stayed in town very late; and when the

s Loring Stanton, but he doubted if Stanton was doing very well. Then he mentioned the new project which he had been thinking over. She did not deny that there was something in

tisements," she said, "painted on a

d state of preservation, that is proof positive of

g else in her mind, she did not speak more plainly of it than to add: "It's no

t find them so very

them in Nanke

e water side of Beacon

se. At the end his mother merely said, "It is getting very common dow

e had studied simplicity in his summer dress he could not have presented himself in a figure more to the mind of a practica

ng at him. "Is Mr. Lapham in?" he asked; and after that moment for reflection which an array of book-keepers

a hot afternoon, and Lapham was in his shirt sleeves. Scarcely a trace of the boastful hospitality with which he had welcomed Corey to his house a few days

excuse me," he added, in brief allusion t

wish you'd let me

ere is something in human nature which causes the man in his shi

ellow, companionably pulling up the chair offered him toward the desk where Laph

oing to knock off. I can give you twenty, and the

want you to take me into t

. He would not have liked to have any of those fellows outside hear him, but there is no saying wha

and sobriety, and say a word for my business capacity. But I thought I wouldn't trouble anybody for certificat

ugh he was dispersed by that astounding shot at first, he was not going to let any one even hypothetically despise his paint with impunity. "How do you think I am going to take you on?" The

't a very clear idea, I'm afraid; but I've been l

seemed to notice it much, and Lapham had experienced the gratitude of the man who escapes. Then his girls had begun to make fun of it; and though he did not mind Penelope's jokes much, he did not like to see that Irene's gentility was wounded. Business friends met him with the kind of knowing smile about it that implied their sense of the frau

n," replied Corey, "I don'

down here to interview me, and he got

Corey. "I hadn't seen it. Perha

aps i

l to you was based on a hint I go

rculars; he thought they rea

the tentative accent of a man who chances a thing. "I've got a litt

he Colonel bluntly. "I've had

the vague hopes of youth. "I didn't come to propose a partnership. But I see that you are introducing yo

d the Colon

well. I know French, and I know German, and

gled awe and slight that such a man feels for such accomplishments

s easy enough to get all the

troduce this paint of yours. I've been there. I've been in Germany and France and I've been in South America and

race of persuasion in his fa

ouldn't pay us to send anybody out to look after it. Your sal

intrepidly, "if you had to p

opose to work

gain, but Corey hurried on. "I haven't come to you without making some inquiries ab

d and looked at the y

d's universe," he said wit

et," said Corey; and he re

instant presence. He warmed and softened to the young man in every way, not only because he must do so to any one who believed in his paint, but because he had done

ey

out his watch. "I don't expect you to give a decided answer on t

t this paint," he added, in a voice husky with the feeling that

ou to the boat," sug

"Here's where we get it. This photograph don't half do the place justice," he said, as if the imperfect art had slighted the features of a beloved face. "It's one of the sig

t on their seersucker or flannel street coats. The young lady went too, and nobody was left but the porter, who made from time to time a noisy demonstration of fastening a d

ey, with a long breath, as they rose

but what we've got to have another talk about this thing. It's a sur

Corey. "As I said, I believe in it. I should

r. We've just got time for the six o'clock boat. Why don't you come down with m

lder. "Why, I don't see why I shouldn't," he allowed himself to say. "I confess I sh

o the remote porter, and the man came. "Wa

out keeping account of each other. If I don't com

you can't do that when you're married.

and set him the example of catching up a camp-stool on their way to that point on the boat which his experience had taught him was the best. He opened his paper at once and began to run over its news, while the young man watched the spectacular recession of the city, and was vaguely

gain," said the Colonel, speaking into the paper on his

oung man. "What a

the strain I've had on me for the last ten years, I should 'a' been a dead man long ago. That's the reason I like a horse. You've got to give your mind to the horse; you can't help it, unless you want to break your neck; but a boat's different, and there you got to use your will-power. You got to take your mind right up and put it where you want it. I make it a rule to read the paper on the boat----Hold on!" he interrupted himself to prevent Corey from paying his fare to the man who had come round for it. "I've got tickets. And when I get through the paper, I try to get somebody to talk to, or I watch the people. It's an astonishing thing to me where they all come from. I've been riding up and down on these boats for six or seven years, and I don't know but very few of the faces I see on board. Seems to be a perfectly fresh lo

perfectly reconciled to philosophy in the p

hands. As long as he's in his own hands, there's some hopes of his doing something with himself; but if a fellow has been found out--even

g but the American poetry of vivid purpose to light them up, where they did not wholly lack fire. But they were nearly all shrewd and friendly-looking, with an apparent readiness for the humorous intimacy native to us all. The women were dandified in dress, according to their means and taste, and the men differed from each other in degrees of i

the wharf of the final landing, "there's going to be a

f locks and gates, to prevent them from rushing on board the boat and posses

s they ought to carry, and about ten times as many as they could save if anything happened. Yes, sir, it's bound to come. Hello! There's my girl!" He took out his folded newspaper

l, you've improved your last chance. We've been coming to every boat since four o'clock,--or Jerry has,--and I told mother that I w

uest and satisfaction in her probably being able to hold her own against any discomfiture, "I've brou

quick bow, and Penelope Lapham was cozily drawling, "Oh, how do y

eside the driver. "No, no," he had added quickly, at some signs of polite protest in the young man, "I

the sand along the shore. "Pretty gay down here," he said, indicating all this with a turn of his whip, as he left it behind him. "But I've got about sick of hotels; and this summer I made up my mind that I'd take a cottage. Well, Pen, how are the folks?" He looked half-way rou

's boyishness. "I don't think there's much change si

aid the

there's tha

Colonel with vex

ene isn't well," s

too long on the beach. The air is so cool

s true," as

," suggested the Colonel, without looking r

said Corey, "I suppose you

know it all by heart--just how it looks at high tide, and how it looks at low tide, and how it looks after a storm. We're as well acquainted with the crabs a

geraniums clutching the rock that cropped up in the loop formed by the road. It was treeless and bare all round, and the ocean, unnecessarily vast, weltered away a little more than a stone's-cast from the cotta

I

y down from his seat. "I've brought Mr. C

assuring himself that there was nothing wanting there. Then he went to wash his own ha

he asked, making himself a f

wife. "How came he to come? Did you press hi

ulder to make him laugh lower. "'Sh!" she whispered. "

g to get all the good out of this. "No, I

e it. Where did

he of

t of

in

hat was he d

othing

r? Oh! he SAID he wanted to go i

aken with smothered laughter. "Silas Lapham," she gasped,

. "Had a notion he could work it in Sout

his wife. "I'll ge

er," continued the Colonel, in well-affected simplici

hreatened

ng to do,

it. A maid announced supper. "Very well," she said, "c

sister's room as soon a

any better, 'R

ut I shall not come to tea. I don't want anything.

the elder sister. "He'

rene, starting up in simu

e hasn't, what's the us

so!" moaned the sufferer

hing her like a cat playing with a mouse. "If you're n

ed and writhed

ldn't trea

elf across the room

ache. Why, of course you can't come! It would be too barefaced. But you needn't be troubled, Irene; I'll do my best to make the tim

uld be ashamed to come

ome down with father, if father asked him? and he'd be sure to if he thought of

ease; she broke down in a fit of smothered laughter, which co

uldn't use you s

herself on the

nd soothed her sister, while she choked with laughter. "You must get

ly. Then she added, with a wilder despai

"come out and get some tea.

t come. But sen

ps you can see him l

not see h

soon as we were done father said, 'Well, Mr. Corey and I have got to talk over a little matter of business, and we'll excuse you, ladies.' He looked at mother in a way th

suddenly ope

, "I've had just as much as I can stand from your father, a

imagination, and Penelope rep

what his business with Mr. Corey is, for I don't know. All that I know is that I met

hat do you t

about business is nothing but a blind. It seems a pity

her mother, who was too much preoccupie

wanted to go into t

tonishment and mystification, but Pen

ucrative busine

d of it!" cried Mrs. Lapham.

convince him?" i

" she said. "He's got to tell me every word,

wn in one of her queer laughs, "I shouldn

into the parlour. They can have just two hours for business, and then we mu

gone now," s

Colonel, Mrs. Lapham looked into the dinin

nd the parlour pleasanter now,

Corey was already standing, and Lapham rose too. "I guess we can

many newspapers scattered about on the table where the large lamp was placed. But after Corey had greeted Irene he glanced at the novel unde

asked t

f the library; I heard so much talk about it. I wish she would let you find out a

e, or a lecture, if they've got a good stereopticon to give you views of the places. But I guess we all like a play better than 'most anything else. I want so

ll had their opinions of the plays and actors. Mrs. Lapham brought the

ng to put it all on me!" sai

book when I was a girl; but we weren't allowed to read many novels in those days. My mo

ly fictions," sa

And when the girls want a novel, I tell 'em to get it out of the library. That's what the library's for. Phew!" he panted, blowing away the whole unprofitable subject. "How close you women-folks like to keep a room! You go down to the

ility, and Penelope made a droll mouth, but the Colonel remained serenely content with his finesse. "I got 'em out of the way," he said, as soon as they were gone, and before his

suffer for attempting to hoax her. But she was too intensely interested to p

't so easy. And now he's got an idea that he can take hold of the paint and push it in other countries--push it in Mexico and push it in South America. He's a splendid Spanish scholar,"--thi

omething else besides the

do you

W that he's after Irene, I don't know wh

ou're wrong, but if it's Irene, I don't see why he should want to go off to South America to get her. And that's what he proposes to do. I guess there's some paint about it too, Persis.

of it any way so as to feel beholden t

t it, and he's been stirred up by this talk, just now, about getting our manufactures into the foreign markets. There's an overstock in everything, and we've got to get rid of it, or we've got to shut down till the home demand begins again. We've had two or three such flurries before now, and they didn't amount to much. They say we can't extend our commerce under the high tariff system we've got now, because there ain't any

er after all?" Mrs. Lapham

f a partner. It isn't mine,

ind, Si, I suppose you're ready

"Yes, I am. What have yo

e got anything. I'm

el

ng to start for

. He'll get off some time in the winter.

going to take him to

you afte

feel free to visit in the family

sume h

do you think he'll be a fit person to

nsciously. "I'm not tak

ain't to yourself, but you mustn't p

laughed. "Ps

rey into the business. It will do all very well if he DOES take a fancy to her; but if he don't, you know how you'll feel about it. And I know you well enough, Silas, to know th

heart on it at all

e going to feel unhappy over it," pursu

more about what's in my mind than I do,

ould live to see at least three generations of his descendants gilded with mineral paint, he could not hope to realise in his own. He was acquainted in a business way with the tradition of old Phillips Corey, and he had heard a great many things about the Corey who had spent his youth abroad and his father's money everywhere, and done nothing but say smart things. Lapham could not see the smartness of some of them which had been repeated to him. Once he had encountered the fellow, and it seemed to Lapham that the tall, slim, white-moustached man, with the slight stoop, was eve

since the girl who taught him spelling and grammar in the sch

nd he could see that they were coming toward the house. He

I

h the husband who has been staying in town all summer receives his wife when she drops down upon him from the mountains or the sea-side. For a little moment she feels herself strange in the house, and

in the luxury you left me to

gh to form a theatrical contrast with his moustache, was yet some shades darker, and, in becoming a little thinner, it had become a little more gracefully wavy. His skin had the pearly tint which that of el

have with me," he returned;

s he?" demand

ft me yesterday afternoon to go and offer his allegiance

Mrs. Corey. "Why di

not sure that it isn

hing? It'

found out--without consulting the landscape,

deo

nks that he has some ideas in regard to it

into something else?"

ut of this. But as I had nothing to suggest in place of it, I thought it best not to interfere. In fact, wh

! I

opinion three times as much as he values mine. Perh

s throwing himself away. Yes, I sho

er shook

d he has plenty of the kind of sense which we call horse; but he isn't brilliant. No, Tom is not brilliant. I don't think he would get on in a profession, and he's instinctively kept out of everything of the kind. But he has got to do something

then she perceptibly arrested herself, and made a div

ion from that side, but I suspect Tom has a conscience against it, and I rather like h

antly, though she felt it r

f you come to money, there is the pa

ighed the mother. "I suppose I

thought you said she was a v

behaved; but there is nothing of her.

o like her flavou

ation to them, and I naturally wished him to be

was too

t there is no doubt that the

of them. Perhaps they wi

Mrs. Corey. "I don't see how you can joke

ues. It's very odd," interjected Corey, "that some values should have this peculiarity of shrinking. You never hear of values in a picture shrinking; but rents, stoc

s. Corey, refusing her husband's jest.

omewhat restricted, and it would cramp the rest of us; but it is a world of sacrifices and compromises. He couldn't agree with me, and he was not in the least moved by the example of p

ot done much else. In fact, he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. It was a good trait in him that he was not actively but only passively extravagant. He was not adventurous with his money; his tastes were as simple as an Italian's; he had no expensive habits. In the process of time he had grown to lead a more and more secluded life. It was hard to get him out anywhere, even to dinner. His pat

only a remote possibility, for which your principal ground is your motherly solicitude. But even if it were probable and imminent, what could you do? The chief consolation that we American parents have in these matters is that we can do nothing. If we were Europeans, even English, we should take some cognisance of our children's love affairs, and in some measure teach their young affections how to shoot. But it is our custom to ignore them until they ha

h their children's marriages

in spite of them, as they're pretty apt to do. Now, my idea is that I ought to cut Tom off with a shilling.

in regard to such things

intance shall I go and propose an alliance for Tom with his daughter? I should feel like an ass. And will you go to some mother,

k to Tom when the time

bsent from your discomfiture,

ng his mother in Boston. He was so frank that she had not quite the

omptly, "I have made an en

Tom?" she a

am going out to manage that side of his business in South America and Mexico. He's behaved very handsomely about it. He says that if it appe

oes?" queried Mrs

whole way through, and I

rehensible treachery

And besides, I couldn't possibly have gon

er painful its interest, was, for the moment, superseded by a more

about your business wit

ee him yesterday afternoon, after I had gone over the whole ground with

y. "Yes, to Nantasket. He

er brows a little. "What in the worl

There are the regulation rocks by the sea; and the big hotels on the beach about a mile off,

. "Is Mrs. Lapham wel

in the usual way after dinner, and then I came back and talked paint with Mr. Lapha

ople do they see

f; and her son laughed, but apparently not at her. "They're just reading Middlemarch. They say there's so much

plain sister who's r

ed me of Southern people in that." The young man smiled, as if amused by some of his impressions of the Lapham family. "The living, as the country people call it, is tremendously good. The Colonel--he's a colonel--talked o

ntly in her own life; but it seemed to bring her a certain comfort in its applic

ey. "I don't know why they should. The Colonel said they bought a good many

eyed people lately, and they lavish on every conceivable luxury,

said the young man, smilingly. "But they are ve

Do you mean like Mrs. Sayre?" she asked, naming the lady whose

es; nothing the least literary. But it's a sort of droll way of looking at things; or a droll medium

fter a moment she asked: "And i

tisfactorily. "I shall want to be by when father

hat way in which a wife at once compassionate

oing to be a trial to him?"

But I confess I wish it wa

ow is the amount of money; and while I would rather starve than

, my son!" interpose

on it. I'll use my influence with Colonel Lapham--if I ev

won't begin t

g at his mother's simple ignorance of bu

rrow m

ady, and I shall be down there at nin

m has taken you into business so readily? I've alway

t easy with him? We had abo

it was any sort of--p

ly what you mean, mother

st what she meant. She answ

like it to be a f

n interest. But I don't mind his beginning by liking me. It

said Mr

first meeting after her interview wit

his mind made up, and it would only have d

isely what I

ully with James, and seems to have been a

wise to let him alone, Anna. We represent a faded tradition. We don't really care what business a man is

so, Bromfield?" aske

ed myself some sort of porcelain; but it's a relief to be of the common cl

usiness," said Mrs. Corey, "I

Corey, betraying the fact that he had perhaps had a good deal of his brother-in-law's judgment

ey, with dignity. After a moment, she asked, "Should you f

a little mo

ld is good, I haven't the least doubt, and all those things can be managed so that they wouldn't disgrace us. But she has had a certain sort of br

ll, nor so wide as a churc

ldn't l

hasn't hap

an realise anyth

ast the consolation of two anxieties at once. I always find t

pending his first day at his desk in Lapham's office. He was in a gay humour, and she departed in a reflected gleam of his good spirits. He told her all about it, as he sat talking with her at the stern of the boat, lingering till the last moment, and then stepping ashore

in the world, after a good deal of looking, and he had the relief, the repose, of fitting into it. Every little incident of the momentous, uneventful day was a pleasure in his mind, from his sitting down at his desk, to which Lapham's boy brought him the foreign letters, till his rising from it an hour ago. Lapham had been in view within his own office, but he had given Corey no formal reception, and had, in fact, not spoken to him till toward the end of the forenoon, when he suddenly came out of his den with some more letters in his hand, and after a brief "How d'ye do?" had spoken a few words about them, and left them with him. He was in his shirt-sleeves again, and his sangui

ay, these two came down the stairs together, and he hea

which she veiled at sight of Corey, showed trace

he show of no feeling but surprise:

letters I hadn't qui

u better let them go till to-morrow. I alway

right," said C

at with me. There's a little matt

d related to Corey's propose

might have taken him for a plump elder, if he had not looked equally like a robust infant. The thick drabbish yellow moustache was what arrested decision in either direction, and the prompt vigour of all his movements was that of a young man of thirty, which was really Walker's

ed if the rest of us do half the time. Anyway, we don't till he's ready to let us. You take my position in most business houses. It's confidential. The head book-keeper knows right along pretty much everything the house has got in hand. I'll give you my word I don't. He may open up to you a little more in your department, but, as far as the rest

ng off pieces of French bread from the long loaf, and feeding them in

sted Corey, "that if he does

r from his glass, and wiped

ito. There isn't one of us knows who she is, or where she came from, or who she belongs to. He brought her and her machine into the office one morning, and set 'em down at a table, and that's all there is ab

eard from Lapham to the girl. But he sa

twice as hard, if he wants to keep everything in his own mind. But he ain't afraid of work. That's one good thing about him. And Miss Dewey has to keep step with th

ommittally. "But I suppose a great many

he's had trouble. I shouldn't be much more than half surprised if Miss Dewey wasn't Miss Dewey, or hadn't always been. Yes, sir," continued the book-keeper, who prolonged the talk as they walked back to Lapham's warehouse together, "I don't know exactly

he walked beside the boo

do like the man in the moon, and yet I couldn't say where the difference came in, to save me. And it's just so with a woman. The m

om what I read occasionally of some people who go about repeating their happi

position. "All signs fail in dry weather. Hello! What's

by the arm, as if to detain her. A brief struggle ensued, the woman trying to free herself, and the man half coaxing, half scolding. The spectators could now see that he was drunk; but before they could decide whether it was a case for their interferenc

a sheet of paper into her type-writer. She looked up at them with her eyes of turquoise blue, under her

X

ing, before the clock gets in the word. I guess it's his grandfather coming out in him. He's got charge of the foreign correspondence. We're pushing the paint everywhere." He flattered himself that he did not lug the matter in. He had been warned against that by his wife, but he had the right to do Corey justice, and his brag took the form of illustration. "Talk about training for business--I tell you it's all in the man himself! I used to believe in what old Horace Greeley said about college graduates being the poorest kind of horned cattle; but I've changed my mind a little. You take that fellow Corey. He's been through Harvard, and he's had about every advantage that a fellow could have. Been everywhere, and talks half a dozen languages like English.

o Nantasket for the night. Then he suffered exposure and ridicule at the hands of his wi

think we're running after him. If he wants to see I

ee Irene?" retorted

your connivance, Silas. I'm not going to have it said that I put m

e's going to take charge of a part of t

ham vexatiously. "Then you

hoose!" returned the Colonel

e fearlessness of a woma

I know just how proud you are, and I'm not going to have you do anything that will make you feel meeching afterward. You just let things take their cours

ce of hopes and ambitions which a man hides with shame, but a woman tal

get this fellow, who is neither partner nor clerk, down here to talk bus

een Lapham and himself, in his presence he silenced his traditions, and showed him all the respect that he could have exacted from any of his clerks. He talked horse with him, and when the Colonel wished he talked house. Besides himself and his paint Lapham had not many other topics; and if he had a choice between the mare and the edifice on the water side of Beacon Street, it was just now the latter. Sometimes, in driving in or out, he stopped at the house, and made Corey his guest there, if he might not at Nantasket; and one day it happened that the young man met Irene there again. She had come up with her mother

at this window a good de

ice. There's so much more going

teresting to you to

n't seem to grow so

rogress your carpenter ha

lifting her eyes she said, wi

at book since you wer

reddened with disappointment. "Oh

ugh with it yet. Pe

s she thi

well. I haven't heard her talk

sely. But it's several

ot into the Seaside Library," she urged,

reat while," said Corey politely. "It

owed the curl of a shaving on the f

amond Vincy?" she ask

led in hi

t think I disliked her so much as the author does. She's pretty hard on her good-looking"--

er any chance to be good. She says she should have been

"Your sister is very

e the shaving a little toss from her, and took the parasol up across her lap. The unworldliness of the Lapham girls did not extend to their dress; Irene's costume

. "I should think tha

ases, but the architect wan

be referred to Co

y'll look like part of the room then. You can m

d out of the window in adding, "I presume

urnishes a roo

have to be a goo

ize of your room and the

said Irene, thoughtfully, "w

id Corey, with a laugh of sym

ool. I believe we had one of his book

said, seriously, "You'll want Greene

ind of write

histori

That's what Gibbon was.

nt with apparently superfluou

used to get them mixed up with each other, and I couldn't

ome edition of th

us like poetry.

"But, of course, there was a time when Tennys

o. I think I remember the name. I think

you want Longfellow and Bryant and Whit

tively, as if making me

added. "Don't you lik

s, ver

perfectly astonished when you found out how many other plays of his there were? I always thought there was nothing but 'Hamlet' and 'R

es they usually p

Scott's works," said Irene, ret

ye

talking about Scott." Irene made a pretty little amiably co

ey; "he's Scot

tly ridiculous having one. But papa thinks whatever the architect says is right. He fought him hard enough at first. I don't see how any one can keep the poets and the historians and noveli

, taking out his pencil, "I'll put dow

breast pockets to detect s

he carpenter writes on a three-cornered block and puts it into his pocket, and it's so uncomfortable

d after a moment sat down on the trestle beside her. She looked over the card as he

get them in the nicest binding, too. I shall tell him about their helping to furnish the

ill take that to any bookseller, and tell him what

oward the young man, beaming with the triumph a woman feels in any bit of successful manoeuvring, and began to talk with recovered gaiety o

g within reach of her parasol, and began poking that with it, and

sion for playing with shaving

w w

ssi

ping on with her effort. She looked shyly aslant at him

s rather difficult. I've a great ambition to put

said t

rasol point easily through it. They looked at each other and laugh

she replied. "I t

. To a girl everything a young man does is of significance; and if he holds a shaving down with

," said Irene, looking vaguely toward the ceiling. She turned with polite

letting me stay

they will be down before a great while. Don't you lik

shaving with which they had been playing, and put it to his nose. "It'

it from him and put it into her belt,

people reached the floor where they were sit

o solemn, 'Rene?"

rl. "I'm not a BIT sole

g across the table at his father, he said, "I wonder w

is pretty low even with cultivated people. Yo

t wasn't because I was fond of reading. Still I think I read with some sense of literature and the difference between authors. I don't suppose that people generally do that; I have met peopl

ound them while they are in the very act of achieving immortality must be tremendously discouraging. I don't suppose that we who have the habit of reading, and at least a nodding acquaintance with literature, can imagine the bestial darkness

"It wasn't exactly

N

uy books. The young ladies get novels that they

enough to be ashamed

in ways--to a

d and the other a barbarian. I've occasionally met young girls who were so brutally, insolently, wilfully indifferent to the arts which make civilisation that they ought to have been clothed in the sk

d the son, smiling. "The father and mother rather apologised about n

e quite

ve a library in their

re they ever going to g

ouring a little, "I have been

er dropped back in h

e standard author

d your PRUDENCE woul

pathy with his father's enjoyment, "they're not unintelligent

country. A Greek got his civilisation by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it. But we, who live remote from history and monument

eatre-goers; and they go a great deal to lectures

a factor in civilisation among us. I dare say it doesn't deprave a great deal, but from what I've seen of it I should say that it was intellectually degrading. Perhaps they might get some sort of li

ion. Colonel Lapham would be the last man in the world to want to give our relation any

ything in the summer, and I should prefer your mother's superintendence. Still, I can'

feel that there'

ith easy resignation, "th

father behaves. I don't want to force myself on any man; but it seems to me pretty queer the way he holds off. I should think he would take enough interest in his son to want to know something about his

words, and replying to their spirit rather than their letter, "I hop

to him!" roared the Colonel. "

thing in the world for their acquaintance. We shouldn't be a bit better off. We

. "Don't I tell you," he gasped, "that I don't want to know the

ng Corey is a clerk of yours. And I want we should hold ourselves so that when they

shouldn't we make 'em? Are they any better than we are? My note of hand would be worth ten times

, and it isn't what you've do

what's the

k of it. But he's been all his life in society, and he knows just what to say and what to d

snort. "And does tha

you humble yourself to a living soul. But I'm not going to have you coming to me, and pretending that you can meet Bromfield Corey as an equal on his own ground. You can't. He's got a better education than you, and if he hasn't got more brains than

nt for swallowing the pill, "that they'd have been in a pretty

But all I say now is that if you've got young Corey into business with you, in hopes of our getting i

it on that basis?"

on't," said Mrs.

by her father, and unquestioned by her mother. But her sis

elf-betrayal, taking the shaving carefully out, and

water, 'Rene? It'll be all

ied the happy girl.

as a whole bouquet.

l you," said

r. Corey had been down here this afte

He was at the house with ME. T

"Then I never could guess who

ess, and you may guess!" With her lovely eyes she coaxed her sister to keep on teasing h

shavings instead of flowers. But there's some sense in it. They can be used for kindlings when they

his tormenting. "O Pen, I want

you, then? Well, I gues

out of the room, and pushed her into a chair. "There, now!" She pulled up another chair,

ose as you a

oper distance. And here was this shaving on the

your emba

! And then he asked me to let him hold the shaving down with his

said he might hold a

ne shavings. And then he picked it up, and said it smelt like a flower. And then he asked if he might offer it to me--just for a joke, you know. And I took it, and stuck it in my belt. And

e of flowers. But I never knew much about the la

e Irene gave over laughing, and

!" cried th

oesn't care a bit about me. He hates me

ms; then the drolling light came back into her eyes. "Well, 'Rene, YOU haven't got to do A

nto the mirror confronting them, where her beauty showed all the more brilliant f

she said, smiling into her own fac

cially when there's such

uth, Pen," she added thoughtfully, surveying the feature in the glas

ed; "I don't believe I could get along

r eyes; as if you were just going to say something ridiculous. He s

aid it. Why didn't you tell me so before, and not le

have her sister take his praise

f mouth," she said, drawing it down

he offered you the shaving. If you did, I don't

ly laugh, and then pressed itself

cepting ME before I've offered myself, ANYWAY." She freed hers

hiding her face against her should

ter, Mrs. Lapham asked, as if knowing that Penelope must have already made it su

gave it to her at the new house." Penelope did not

u think he

ffair, and her mother listened without see

ughtful pause: "Irene is as good a girl as ever breathed, and she's a perfect bea

far as I'm con

the first, and it's been borne in upon me more and more ever since. She hasn't mind enoug

ith Irene at all. If he had, it wo

the self-cont

he has, a

leases him when he sees her. B

You won't let fat

't in his mind enough to make him. He goes away and doesn't think anything more about her. She's a child.

hat won't

n in his head, and he will move heaven and earth to bring

observed the girl, rocking to and fro

m. "I wish we had never thought of building! I w

her," said the girl. "Perhaps

y," said Mrs. Lapham, with the

t," said Penelope, with the q

hs of the east wind that seem to saturate the soul with delicious freshness. Then there are stretches of grey westerly weather, when the air is full of the sentiment of early autumn, and the frying, of the grasshopper in the blossomed weed of the vacant lots on the Back Bay is intershot with the carol of crickets; and the yellowing leaf on the long slope of Mt. Vernon Street smites the sauntering

limitations, an Athenian or Florentine, some abatement might as justly be made in Boston for like reason. Corey's powers had been gauged in college, and he had not given his world reason to think very differently of him since he came out of college. He was rated as an energetic fellow, a little indefinite in aim, with the smallest amount of inspiration that can save a man from being commonplace. If he was not commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in his mind, which was simply clear and practical, but through some combination of qualities of the heart that made men trust him, and women call him sweet--a word of theirs which conveys otherwise indefinable excellences. Some of the more nervous and excitable said that Tom Corey was as sweet as he could live; but this perhaps meant no more than the word alone. No man ever had a son less like him than Bromfield Corey. If Tom Corey had ever said a witty thing, no one could remember it; and yet the father had never said a witty thing to a more sympathetic listener than his own son. The clear mind which produced nothing but practical res

e to run down to Mt. Desert and see them; and then he heard how the Philadelphia and New York people were getting in everywhere, and was given reason to regret the house at Nahant which he had urged to be sold. He came back and applied himself to his desk with a devotion that was exem

more reasonably led on from one outlay to another. It appeared that Lapham required but to understand or feel the beautiful effect intended, and he was ready to pay for it. His bull-headed pride was concerned in a thing which the architect made him see, and then he believed that he had seen it himself, perhaps conceived it. In some measure the architect seemed to share his delusion, and freely said that Lapham was very suggestive. Together they blocked out windows here, and bricked them up there; they changed doors and passages; pull

ose to buy it, and that isn't likely. No, sir! You just stop at a hundred thousand, and don't you let him get you a cent beyond. Why, y

her to talk that way, and prom

y a question what to do with the money. I can reinve

ay! And how came you to have so much more money tha

very good thing i

id you take up gam

hat gambling? Who s

e; many

de transaction. I bought at forty-three for an investment, and

e conservatism of her sex. "Next time you'll buy at a hundr

dmitted t

et with the radiant air which he wore when he had done a good thing in business and wanted his wife's sympathy. He did not say anything of what had happened till he was alone with her i

n the time came. "Any more big-bugs wanting t

g better

things," said his wife, with a sigh o

ad a vi

ho

you g

nt to try.

ger

her lap, and stared at the smile on her

ttle hoarsely, "and you wouldn't grin about it unless you had some good

ike one who c

rarely spoke of anything but the virtues of his paint. "He came to bor

is wife, with g

fe as I was to see that man come into my office. You

wonder.

ake a chair. I don't know just how we got at it. And I don't remember just how it was that he said he came to come to me. But he

pham, with her voice

you always did feel, and I guess I surprised him with my

it, Silas!" his

o the old thing, from the very start. And we talked it all over. And when we got through we

wned up to him that you

tly; "for I wasn't. And before we got thro

ou had the chance to

nel. "I've lent him the money, and I've kept hi

back his

wn that no bank would take them as security, and I've got to hold them till they do rise. I hope you're satisfied now, Persis," said her husband; and he looked at her

you choose, and I don't know as I believe in his interfering a great deal; but I believe he's interfered this time; and I tell you, Silas, it ain't always he give

y, "but I hadn't anything to make up to Milton K

e done it! I shan't stop you. You've taken the one spot--the

ld out, lapsing more and more into his vernacu

for your own so

ul's all right

should promise m

said you we

g tempt you--anything!--to ever trouble Rogers for that money you lent h

glad to have that old trouble healed up. I don't THINK I ever did Rogers any wrong, and I never did think so

's all," sa

an, that they should kiss or embrace each other at such a moment. She was content to have told him that he had done his duty, and he was content with her saying that. But before she slept she found words to add that she always feared

achment. "Well, it's all past and gone now, anyway; and

upper. His wife could not help condoning the sin of disobedience in him at such a time. Penelope said that between the admiration she felt fo

at she said. She was content to sit and look pretty as she looked at the young man and listened to her sister's drolling. She laughed and kept glancing at

er face, glimpsed now and then in the moonlight as she turned it or lifted it a little, had a fascination which kept his eye. Her talk was very unliterary, and its effect seemed hardly conscious. She was far from epigram in her funning. She told of this trifle and that; she sketched the characters and looks of peopl

, Pert, I've arranged the whole thing with Rogers, and I hope you'll be satisfied to know that he owes me twenty thousan

me down with you?"

? Ro

Cor

ting not to have thought she co

is wife, but with

d he walked down to the boat with me; and then he said if I didn't mind he guessed he'd

for you you

o less than bring

ertain

the night--unless," falter

nt him to! I guess h

that last boat always is, an

pe you'll be just as well satisfied, Si, if i

pleaded the Colonel. Then he fell silent, and presently h

abstraction. "I see how you'd feel; and I hope

ham, with the confidence

tone came through the closed windows, with j

ble satisfaction. "That girl can talk for twenty, right straight alon

she's ever seen but what she's got something from them to make you laugh at; and I don't believe we've ever had anybody in the house since the girl could talk that she hain't got some saying from, or some trick that'll paint 'em out so't you can see

d I guess she's got about as much

should injure her health, and sometimes I feel like snatchin' the books away from her. I don't know as

ow how to take care of

wide-awake every minute; and I declare, any one to see these two together when there's anything to be done, or any lead to be taken, wou

, and leaning back in his chair in supreme conte

e. "I presume they're as muc

honestl

don't you be silly, i

left of the hotels. From time to time he almost stopped in his rapid walk, as a man does whose mind is in a pleasant tumult; and then he went forward at a swifter pace. "She's charming!" he said, and he thought he had spoken aloud. He found himself floundering about in the deep sand, wide of the path; he got back to it, and reached the

I

f a frown, of which he first became aware a

h your department of the

nd beaming again. "But I was thinking whether you were not perhaps right in your impressio

Bromfield Corey, laying aside his book and t

ly. "I was merely thinking whether it might not

have been leaving it

e, and I didn't mean to urg

do, and when to do it. If I had been left quite to my own lawless impulses, I think I should have called upon your padrone at once. It seems to me that

so?" asked t

rity in such matters. As far as they go, I am alw

idn't seem quite a necessity yet. I'm very sorry," he said again, and this time with more comprehensive regret. "I

der can help feeling in disabling the judgment of a younger man, "tha

imagine your doing

in my teeth," said the father, with the pleasure which men of weak will some

xpect to be in it

o society?" asked Bromfield Core

you mean," returned the

e that yo

at they are all people of g

mother's social conscientiousness could not compass it. Society is a very different sort of thing from good sense and right ideas. It is based upon them, of course, bu

k they have the most elemental ideas of society, as we und

hat money!" sig

able. I suspect that when they don't drink tea an

said Bromf

me that this

are not cognoscible. But people who have never yet

many people," sugg

sauce piquante with them. Now, as I understand

ow about that!"

to win their way to general regard. We must have the Colonel elected to the Ten O'clock Club, and he must put himself down in

d his son whether he should find La

. I've never been there before him. I do

se I go with

ir," said the son, w

stion is, wi

the father could see that hi

or of his inner room. He looked up from the newspaper spread on the desk before him, and then

I wish to introduce my father." Then he answered, "Good morning," and added rather sternl

Corey remained standing, watching them in their observance of each other with an amusement

My father in your place would have expected it of a man in my place at once, I believe. But I c

id Lapham, "the

ery kind to

othing Mrs. Lapham likes better than a chance of

heard from them. Th

r. Corey, here, told Mrs. Lapham." He leaned back in his chair, stiffly reso

to make him useful to you here?" Corey looked round Lapham's room vaguely, and then out at the clerks in the

s it will be our own fault if we don't. By the way, Corey," he added, to the younger man, as he g

," said Corey, taki

made an off

are to say it to his face,--I don't like the principle,--but since you ask me about it, I'd just as l

had the idea that there was something in my son, if he could only find the way t

ld me about it. He looked into it. And that p

e had invented it, if you

ys wanting to tinker with something else. 'Why,' says I, 'you've got the best thing in God's universe now. Why ain't you satisfied?' I had to get rid of him at last. I stuck to my paint, and that fellow's drifted round pretty much all over the whole country

very kin

ne, I've had many a fellow right out of the street that had to work ha

eme excellence of his paint, and his own sagacity and benevolence; and here he was sitting face to face with Bromfield Corey, praising his son

h in his ideas, that's the truth. But I had faith in him, and I saw that he

od, on both sides." "Well, sir, we can't help those things," said Lapham compassionately. "Som

is the idea.

along. It's just like exercising your muscles in a gymnasium. You can lift twice or three times as much after you've been in training a month as you could before. And I can see that it's going to be just so with your son. His going through college won't hurt him,--he'

rit was safe in the humility he sometimes boasted, or because it was t

utely. "Well, glad to see you. It was natural you should want to come and see what he was about, and I'm glad you did. I should have f

d his visitor. "That colour through the jar--

m blu

ou saw an interview that fellow pub

s the E

t new paper Wit

aily," he explained; by which he meant The Daily Advertiser,

e warehouse to see the large packages. At the head of the stairs, where his guest stopped to nod to his son and say "Good-bye, Tom," Lapham insisted upon going down to the lower door with him "Well, call again," he said in hospitable dismissal

r the horse, the more I should be sca

l! every one to his taste. Well, good m

morning?" asked Walker, the book-kee

fath

be one of your Italian correspondents t

gure could have looked more alien to its life. He glanced up and down the facades and through the crooked vistas like a stranger, and the swarthy fruiterer

en his way of letting Corey see that he was not overcome by the honour of his father's visit. But he presented himself at Nantasket with the event so perceptibly on

r one while." He hesitated, to give the fact an effect

want to borrow some money too?" "Not as I understood." Lapham was smoking at gr

on the water again. "There's no man in it to-ni

ant, then?" as

be just a friendly call. Said

ile. Then she said: "Well,

offered. "I don't know about being satis

pretence also. "What sort

been very kind to his wife. Of course I turned it off. Yes," said Lapham thoughtfully, with his hands resting on his knees, and his cigar between the fingers of his left hand, "I guess he meant to do the right thing, every way. Don't know as I ever saw a much pleasanter man. Dunno but what he's about the pleasantest man I ever did see." He was not letting his wife see in his averted face the struggle that revealed itself there--the struggle of stalwart achievement not to feel flattered at the notice of sterile elegance, not to be sneakingly glad of its amiabili

e pleasant," said Mrs. Lapham.

ith an uneasy laugh. "Pshaw, Pe

o remember. I suppose you aske

ing guiltily, "he said he w

rs. Lapham crocheted in silence, and her h

loafing on it. There's no reason why we shouldn't be in it by

d his wife. Then she broke out on him: "What are you in such a hurry to get

d at her wit

ould say you were about the biggest fool! Don't you know ANYthing? Don't you know that it wouldn't

t's the difference between our asking them and

! If you

em to the house. I suppose, if I want to, I ca

rk drop in her lap with that "Tckk!" in which her

s the

did think, after you'd behaved so well about Rogers, I might trust you a little. But I see I can'

g to pluck up a spirit. "I haven't done anything yet. I can't ask your advice about anyth

wife heard him in the dining-room pouring himself out a glass of ice-water, a

who lounged into the parlour a moment with her wrap stringing from her arm, while the young

he stopped, and, with a laugh of amused expectance

world has put the

e this morning, and talks five minutes with him, and your father is flattered out of his five senses.

u can't say but what you

s. Lapham. "Pen," she broke out, "

father? What does

t things than I did; and your father's being so bent on it sets me all in a twitter. He thinks his money can do everything. Well, I don't say but what it can, a good many. And 'Rene is as good a child as ever there was; and I don't see but what she's pretty-appearing enough to suit any one. She's pretty-behaved, too; and she IS the most capable girl. I presume young men don't care very much for such things nowadays; but there ain't a great m

looked as if a little weary of the subject, "why do you wo

myself, I see how hard it is for him to rest quiet. I'm a

l go that far. And I think I wouldn't be sorry for it beforehand, if I were in your place, mother. Let the Colonel go

th which her mother tried to fling off the burden of her anxieties. "Pen! I believe you're right

n't believe 'Rene would, eithe

ht, and in the morning Mrs. Laph

l," she reported. "He'

of them," said Penelope, "by the stamping r

gh," returned Penelope. "Well, I'm glad the Colonel isn't sojering. At first I thought he might be sojering." She broke into a laugh, and, struggling indolently with it, l

cried

up on the ten o'clock boat

ough the summer. Why don't you make

ice. And this year he says he doesn't intend to go down to Lapham, except to see after the works for a few days. I don't know what to do with the man any more! Seems as if the more mon

on the ten o'clock bo

h, girls, and telegraph that he's not well, and won't be at the office till

know but they might send----" she loo

" cried

no living with this family

o forbid her teasing. It gave a pleasant sort of reality to the affair that w

ore night he became very cross, in spite of the efforts of the family to soothe him, and grumbled that he had b

rrow, Silas, if you have

elope, "the Colonel d

ey. The girls were sitting on th

in her face; and Penelope had no time

and they could hear their mother engaged i

ou at the office, shirt-sleeves or not. You're in a gentleman's house no

in to subdue he

u!" said Irene, speaking up loudly t

ratification that he should be the object of solicitude to the young man. In Lapham's circle of acquaintance they complained when they were sick, but they made no womanish inquiries after one another's health, and certainly paid no visits of sympathy till matters were serious. He would have enlarged upon the particulars of his indisposition if

ther, and Irene is all alone with Mr. Corey; and I know she'll be

out me, mother," said Penelope sobe

then I must. There'll be a per

n't go till toward the last. If he's coming here to see Irene--and I don't believe he's come on father's account--he wants to see her and not me. If she can't interest

ight. I'll go down directly. It does seem

oming to see a girl, it was only common-sense to suppose that he wished to see her alone; and her life in town had left M

t lay in her lap, though she kept her eyes fast on the print. Once she rose and almost shut the door, so that she could scarcely hear; then she opened it wide again with a s

made a feint of scolding her for l

ave a pleasant cal

DID call! I didn't suppose I could make it go off s

AT was a very int

inks of you, Pen. O Pen! what do you think made him come? Do you think he rea

side, submitting. "Well," she said

t met him this evening, not thanking him for coming? I know he thinks I've no manners. But it seemed as if it would be thanking him for coming to see me. Ought I to have asked h

ng a great deal, yet

asn't. But if he

uld think h

at you think. I wish there was some one coming to see you too. That's all that I d

Texas. You needn't ask Mr. Corey to trouble about me, 'Ren

hed some of Penelope's things aside on the dressing-case, to res

said; "and if that's what

d the neck again, and

repeating his visit in a week. This time Irene came radiantly up to Penelope's room, where she had again withdraw

ar into the night after Corey was gone. But when the impatient curiosity of her mother p

thing to you about her

mentioned

s. Lapham, with a sigh of trouble.

in Boston where he's acquainted. Wait till some of his friends

less and less able to attribute Corey's visits to his l

young Corey keep coming so. I don't qu

can go where he pleases. It don't mat

e should come? Should you feel

ou! What is it? You didn't use to be so. But to hear you talk, you'd think tho

we took an advantage of their

R 'em say it!" cried

ety, "I can't make out whether he cares anything for he

s for her, fast enou

he's said or done the f

r than a year gett

mparison, and yet with a certain fondness. "I guess, if he cared for her, a fel

fist down on the

n, and I've made it every cent myself; and my girls are the equals of anybody, I don't care who it is. He ain't the fellow to tak

unassuming as he can be, and I think Irene's a match for anybody. You just let things go on. It'll be all right. Y

pride itself stood in the way of what his pride had threatened. He contented himself with his wife's promise that she would ne

I

and toadstools, with accessory rocks and rotten logs, which she would never finish up and never show any one, knowing the slightness of their merit. Nanny, the younger, had read a great many novels with a keen sense of their inaccuracy as representations of life, and had seen a great deal of life with a sad regret for its

interest in their brother's affairs, which they could see weig

nd your father has never written a wor

air that filled a bonnet-front very prettily; she looked best in a bonnet. "It would only h

, dark girl, who looked as if she were not quite warm enough, and whom you always

ffection, to like or to seem to like her, to take her to their intimacy, however odious she may be to them. With the Coreys it was something more than an affair of sentiment. They were by no means poor, and they were not dependent money-wise upon Tom Corey; but the mother had come, without knowing it, to rely upon his sense, his advice in everything, and the sisters, seeing him hitherto so indiff

ed an affectionate little thing with her mother, without a great

," said Nanny. "And that characterless capability becomes the most in ten

," Lily interposed, "and w

can't help it; and if we can't, her

s altogether ignorant,"

n read and write,

he finds to talk about

y simple," retu

hall be,--with remote and minute particulars. And she ends by saying that perhaps he does not like people to tat, or knit, or embroider, or whatever. And he says, oh, yes, he does; what could make her think such a thing? but for his part he likes boating rather better, or if you're in the woods camping. Then she lets him take up one corner of her work, and perhaps touch her fingers; and that encourages him to say

, Nanny," sai

utumnally. "O

her sister. "It's very amusing whe

people see in each other," o

at there is much comfort for us in the appl

best till we know the worst. Of course we sh

ere in July that those things can always be managed. You must face them as if they were

too much resignation beforehand. It

ose it in all proper way

he was expected not to be very practical. It was her mother and her sister who

am at his place of business," said Mrs. Corey, seizing h

s father's idea, but he came do

new light on the fact that Corey had suggested the visit. "He said so

son, "and so did father. I was glad that I suggested it,

y. I suppose you have seen somethin

've been down at Nan

es droop. Then she as

en himself any vacation this summer; he has such a passion for his business that I fancy he fi

se! Is it to be

tiful house. Seym

me. I suppose the young ladies are very

't think the young ladie

hey ambitious?" asked Mrs. Cor

while. Then he ans

rs. Corey permitted herself a long breath. But her son added, "It's the pa

" she

ursued Corey. "I think you'll like t

implied an expectation that the two f

lectual than her sister

"No; that isn't the word, quite. T

r seemed ve

She can do all sorts of things, and likes to be doin

s," said Mrs. Co

y innocent and transparent. I think you will

n nature asserted itself in her. "But I should be afraid that she might perhaps b

he interests you by her very limitations. You can see the working of her

" said Mrs. Corey. "But I am not saying the Miss Laphams are not----" H

ss Lapham and something she was sa

told me that. Can you see th

another reverie, and smiled again; but he did not offer

he said afterward to her husband. "That couldn't come naturally ti

f the Bismarck idea in diplomacy. If a man praises one woman, you still think he's in love with a

ce, saying that it did not follo

re in such good shape, then. At any

. Corey. "I wish Tom would

ith his parents. I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he mean

think he does

them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because the

really t

n during the summer. Most of the young men are here, kept by business through the week, with evenings availabl

ast for even an excuse

part of my theory. Why shoul

gs are very serious with girls. I shouldn't like Tom to hav

e difficult, my dear." Her husband pulled a

omen often do when their ideas are perfectly clear. "Don't go to reading, please, Bromfield! I am really worried about

e of me when I die; and yet I sleep well," repli

is a very di

when you were here in the summer, and you agreed with me then

s. Corey, again expressing the fact by a contradi

u can't do t

doesn't he

believe--on the American plan. He will tell us after he has told HER. That was the

ent," said Mrs. Cor

it at second hand. But we shall not know it until the girl herself does. Depend upon that. Your mother knew, and she told your f

YOU calle

--for a ye

words conjured up, however little she liked its relation to her son's interest in Irene Lap

anding? Oh,

lanatio

aying is that it hasn't. But I don't ask you to ac

hich perhaps express a feminine sense of the unsatisfactoriness of

ink I'll smoke too," said Brom

hams, who had now come up from Nantasket to Nankeen Square. She said to her daughters that she had always been a little ashamed of using her acquaintance with them to get money for her charity, and then seeming to drop it. Besides, it seemed to her that

this time," replied t

t difficulty, and she sent up a card, which Mrs. Lap

e got to see h

r," joked the girl; "you haven't b

oming here of his own accord, and I fought against his coming long enough, goodness knows. I didn't want him to come. And as far forth as that goes, we're as respectable

"and if you keep saying them over, and count a hundred ev

she had shrewdly guessed so much that she could not meet her on the former footing of equality. In spite of as brave a spirit and as good a conscience as woman need have, Mrs. Lapham cringed inwardly, and tremulously wondered what her visitor had come for. She turned from pale to red, and was hardly coherent in her greetings; she did not know how they got to where Mrs. Corey was saying exactly the right things about her son's interest and satis

be in. She went to get a book." And here she turned red again, knowing tha

"I had hoped to see her. And your

o could be rung for; they kept two girls and a man to look after the furnace, as they had for the last ten years. If Mrs. Lapham had rung in the parlour, her second

ter their introduction, and sat down, indolently submissive on the surface to the tes

ad to be getting into your n

d Penelope. "We're

she said sympathetically, "Of course, yo

of her daughters: "I guess if it was left to t

t. My children would be heart-broken too if we were to leave the old place." She turned

to them too," said Penelope, in re

son has told me of the lovely outlook you're to have over the water. He thinks you have such a

he was our f

harply, however politely, on Penelope's face, as if to surprise there the secre

ral times with father; and he wouldn't be a

e more courage from her

er's excitement about his building, an

Corey, with civil misu

ent on: "I tell him he's more of a

philosophical nowaday

always had everything, so that nothing's a surprise

s. Corey, with

l and myself," exp

es!" said

plessly, "we had to work hard enough for e

y-hardships standpoint of Mrs. Lapham. "But I don't know that they are always the better for it

p to blessings that you've

archingly again, as if to determine whether this were a touch of the drolling her son had spoken of. But she only added: "You will enjoy the sunsets on the B

she breathed vaguely. "My son spoke of the fine effect of the lights ab

ady. "I guess the girls went down every n

poke of those rocks. I suppose both you young ladies spend a great deal of your

enelope. "I don't care much abo

t quite as well looking at the li

t see them fr

hat my son would have done for a breath of sea air this summer, if you had not allowed him t

Corey. He says it's born in him to be a business man, and he can't help it." She recurred to Corey gladly because she felt that she had not said enough of him when his mo

so." At these grateful expressions Mrs. Lapham reddened once more, and murmured that it had been very pleasant to them, she was sure. She glanced at her

-Colonel?--Lapham had not been quite we

's hardly ever been sick, and he don't know how to take care o

at blessing," si

st daughter?" inquired Mrs. Laph

ned. She based her statement upon Nanny's sarcastic demand; and, perhaps seeing it topple a little, she rose hastily, to get away from its fall. "But we shall hope for some--some othe

, and trying to grapple with the effect or purport of th

t Mrs. Corey's carri

ot a bit stiff! Mrs. Corey was so friendly! She didn't make one feel at all as if she'd bought me, and thought she'd given to

idation, and Mrs. Corey's well-bred repose and polite scrutiny of them both. She en

ession, but I guess I succeeded--even beyond my deserts." She laughed; then suddenly she flashed out in fierce earnest. "If I missed doing anything that could make me as hatefu

it mean?" asked

's call had reduced her. Penelope's vehemence did not rouse he

? I didn't suppose it would make any differen

could be, every minute of the time. I guess she didn't like Mrs. Corey

amma," said Irene, d

er husband on her return home. "Well, a

that is, the mother. I don't wish to do her in

terrible you must have been in the character of an accusing

ss of defending herself. "But I saw quite enough to convince

ou went to find out whether Tom was in love

she was not at home

you quite, Anna. But no matt

disagreeable

did sh

o sly for that. But th

find her so amu

her word for it. She says things

that was criminal. Well, let us thank

fter a moment of troubled silence, "I have been thinking ov

an?" inquired

din

ing-spirit business, and this is reparation." But Mrs.

ow it; whatever comes of it, we can't disown it. They are very simple, unfashionable people, and unworldly; but I can't say that they are of

if you start him on his paint. What was the d

them all," Mrs. Corey sighed. "Then

th delicate irony in his voice and smile, and she fetched another sigh, so deep and sore now that he laughed outright. "Perhaps," he suggested, "it would be the best way of curing Tom of his fancy, if he has one. He ha

ng courage a little. "That might do," But her spirits visib

hen, bet

-like, very modes

ore cult

get on with

him to marry

, n

dinner to bring them toget

e appearance. It isn't just to them. A dinner won't leave us in any worse position, and may leave us in a better. Ye

meaning, my dear. If we do this at all, we mustn't do it a

he added, with relief that caused her husband another smile. "There

gainst it. Go and reconcile Lily an

"But don't you think it will

scheme is the fact that I first suggested it. But if you have adop

is wife, "it

I

d, but the accruing interest. They said, What harm could giving the dinner possibly do them? They might ask any or all of their acquaintance without disadvantage to themselves; but it would be perfectly easy to give the dinner just the character they chose, and still flatter the ignorance of the Laphams. The trouble would be with Tom, if he were really interested in the girl; but he could not say anything if they made it a family dinner; he could not feel anything. They had each turned in her own mind, as it appeared from a comparison of ideas, to one of the most comprehensive of those cousinships which form the admiration and terror of the adventurer in Boston society. He finds himself hemmed in and left out at every turn by ramifications that forbid him all hope of safe personality

ctually involved in the meshes of such a cousinship, as never to be heard of outside of it and tremendous stories are told of people who have spent a whole wint

n with Lapham. She thought next of the widow of her cousin, Henry Bellingham, who had let her daughter marry that Western steamboat man, and was fond of her son-in-law; she might be expected at least to endure the paint-king and his family. The daughters insisted so s

said Nanny. "You can ha

ented Mrs. Corey. "He is our mi

Robert Chase. It is a pity he sh

him too, if it won't make too many." The painter had married into a poo

s Miss K

ch. She will begin to

nd; she's so

llinghams, one Chase, and one Kingsbury--fifteen. Oh! and two Sewells. Seventeen.

he ladies won't co

es always com

let us pick up some gentlemen somewhere; some more artists. Why! we must have Mr.

on's name, and she told him of her plan, when he

mother?" he asked, looking

owledgment of their kindness to us at Baie St. Paul. Then in the winter, I'm ashamed to say, I got money from her for a charity I was interested in; and I hate the ide

rey. "Do you think it

mother. "We shall have hardly any

ght do. I suppose what you wis

on't you think the

here is another thing. I should have said that if you wanted to have them,

seemed to think it implied a social distrust of them; and we

s he wa

might seem a li

you think of asking?" His mother repeated the names. "Ye

at all, if you

I dare say it's right. What did you mean

that had troubled her. But "I don't know," she said, since she must. "I shouldn't want to give that youn

this affair, went off and wrote her invitation to Mrs. Lapham. Later in the evening, when they again found themselves alone, her son said, "I don't think I understood you, mother, in regar

Corey's face. "But don't be annoyed by it, Tom. It isn't a family dinner, you know, and everything can be managed without embarrassment.

e say it's all right. At any

before. "I am sure it is quite fit and proper, and we can make them have a very pleasant time. They are good, inoffensive peo

was not sorry. It was quite time that he should think seriously of his attitude toward these people

as now unquestionably a consolation if not wholly a pleasure. If she considered the Laphams at all, it was w

Irene was downcast with her; Penelope was purposely gay; and the Colonel was beginning, after his first plate of the boiled ham,--which, bristling with cloves, rounded its bulk on a wide platter before him,--to take note of the surroun

lonel, who had taken up his carving-knife for anoth

answered Mrs. Lapham tremulously, and s

end with a joyful cry and a flush that burned to the t

You read it out loud, if you know what to make of it, Irene." But Irene, with

MRS. L

nd General

hall have to be looking up my back pay. Who is it writes this,

ed his wife, with a kindling glance of

easure of your company at dinner on

s sin

B. C

ulties with the signature which he did not instantly surmount. When he had made

d flutter. "She was here this afternoon, and I should have said she had come to see how

had been offered. Mrs. Lapham tried to tell him, but there was really nothing tangible; and when she came to put it into words, she could not make out a case. Her husband listened to her excited atte

s. Lapham was shaken. She could only say, "

Oh, I can't prove it! I begin to think

or choosing to take her seriously. "You can't really put your finger on anything," he said to hi

y. She looked from Penelope's impassive face to the eager eyes of Irene. "Well--just as you

I tell you she didn't mean anything by it? It's just the way she acted at

her way of showing her gratitude? I'm

her father with a grieved face for their protection, and Lapham sa

ception," sa

with a mouth full of ham. "Oh, nothing

you'll change your mind when the time comes," he said. "Anyway, Persis, you say we'll all come, a

bsence. She did not find it so simple a matter to accept the invitation. Mrs. Corey had said "Dear Mrs. Lapham," but Mrs. Lapham had her doubts whether it would not be a servile imitation to say "Dear Mrs. Corey" in return; and she was tormented as to the proper phrasing throughout and the precise te

se or criticise; but Irene had decided upon the paper, and on the

ot choosing to let them see that he was elated; he tried to give the effect of its being an everyday sort of thing, abruptly closing the discussion with his order to Mrs. Lapham to a

demanded, "what

t know what TO say. I declare, I'm all mixed up about it, and I don't know as we've begun as we can carry out in pro

nybody at all, we've got to go and see how it's done. I presume we've got to give some sort of party when we get into the ne

er humility which she saw rising in her husband's face; "but if it's all going to be as much trouble as that letter, I'd rather be whipped. I don'

out it. You just go round to White's or Jordan & Marsh's, and ask for a dinner dress. I guess that'll settle

to those people when we get there. We haven't got anything in common with them. Oh, I don't say they're any better," she again made haste to say in arrest of her husband's resentment. "I don't believ

without you, Persis," interposed Lapha

is world against you. But still, for all that, I can see--and I can feel it when I can't see it--that we're different fro

ain't," said L

ed his wife, "and that's the onl

ased Irene looke

he was

ll think better of it

gainst HIM. Irene'll be a lucky girl to get him, if she wants him. But there! I'd ten times rather she was going to m

ctly to it. "I guess, if it wa'n't for me, he wouldn't have a much easier time. But don't you fret! It's all com

e was afraid Corey might not understand that he was coming too; but he did not know how to approach the subject again, and Corey did not, so he let it pass. It worried him to see all the preparation that his wife and Irene were making, and he tried to laugh at them for it; and it worried him to find that Penelope was making no preparation at all for herself,

er thing, he had none--had none on principle. He would go in a frock-coat and black pantaloons, and perhaps a white waistcoat, but a black cravat anyway. But as soon as he developed this ideal to his family, which he did in pompous disdain of their anxieties about their own dress, they said he should not go so. Irene reminded him that he was the only person w

ok of etiquette, which settled the question adversely to a white waistcoat. The author, however, after being very explicit in telling them not to eat with their knives, and above all not to pick their teeth with their forks,--a thing which he said no lady or gentleman ever did,--was still far from decided as to the kind of cravat Colonel Lapham ought to wear: shaken on other points, Lapham had begun

in the anxiety of the debate; he groaned, and he swo

es are as much trouble as anybody's. Why don't you go to Jordan & Marsh's and order one of the imported dress

gloves?" This would naturally lead to some talk on the subject, which would, if properly managed, clear up the whole trouble. But Lapham found that he would rather die than ask this question, or any

s reading in one of those books to-day, and I don't believe but

dismay which beset him at every

ht,--at first I didn't know but what we had been a little too quick, may be,--but then it says if you're not goi

e said finally, "if there seems to be any end to this thi

but it's too late to think about that now. The qu

he'll go, at t

judice against Mrs. Corey that day,

rite in the morning, as soon as

't know how to get it in. It's so late no

he's got to go

set she

am with the loud obstinacy of a ma

pported by the sturdin

. Lapham felt, and what she said to her husband next morning, bidding him let Penelope alone, unless she chose herself to go. She said it was too late now to do anything, and she must make the best

ome home full of 'em last year, and want me to sell out here and move somewheres else because

ned to come into the new house that day, you've been perfectly crazy to get in with them. And now you're so afraid you shall do something wrong b

to go on my own account

ing it for Irene; but, for goodness gracious' sake, don't worry our liv

half hook-and-eyed at her glass in her new dress, and went down to his own den beyond the parlour. Before he shut his door he caught a glimpse of Irene trailing up and down before the long mirror in HER new dress, followed by the seamstress on her knees; the woman had her mouth full of pins, and from time to time she made Irene stop till she could put one of the pins into her train; Penelope sat in a corner criticising and counselling. It made Lapham sick, and he despised himself and all his brood for the trouble they were taking. But another glance gave him a sight of the young girl's face in the mirror, beautiful and radiant with happiness, and his heart melted again with paternal tenderness and pride. It was going to be a

laugh; and then they drove away, and Penelope shut the doo

I

reet opposite the Common. It has a wooden portico, with slender fluted columns, which have always been painted white, and which, with the delicate mouldings of the cornice, form the sole and sufficient decoration of the street front; nothing could be simpler, and nothing could be better. Within, the architect has again indulged his preference for the classic; the roof of the vestibule, wide and low, rests on marble columns, slim and fluted like the wooden columns without, and an ample staircase climbs i

s hang down on either side, they looked, in the saffron tint which the shop-girl said his gloves should be of, like canvased hams. He perspired with doubt as he climbed the stairs, and while he waited on the landing for Mrs. Laph

apham! Very gl

button his right glove, and he now began, with as much indifference as he could assume, to pull them both off, for he sa

, and she did not know whether she ought to excuse her to him first or not. She said nothing, and after a glance toward the regions

or neither, according to their degrees of ignorance. If it was more like a ball dress than a dinner dress, that might be excused to the exquisite effect. She trailed, a delicate splendour, across the carpet in her mother's sombre wake, and the consciousness of success brought a vivid smile to her fac

and in her gratitude to them for being so irreproachable, she threw into her manner a warmth that people did not always find th

was physically rather than socially cold, and Nanny stood holding Irene's hand in both of hers a moment, and taking in her beauty and her style with a generous admiration which she could afford, for she was herself faultlessly dressed in the quiet taste of her city, and looking very pretty. The interval was long enough to let every man present confide his sense of

aid quietly to Mrs. Lapham, "Can I send any one to be of use

er's absence went out of her head. "She isn't upstairs," she said, at her bluntest, as country people ar

gan to grow larger and hotter and to burn into Mrs. Lapham's soul befo

nd did not deserve to know it. Mrs. Corey glanced round the room, as if to take account of her guests, and said to her husband, "I think we are all here, then," and he came forwar

l they called Miss Kingsbury, and the handsome old fellow whom Mrs. Corey had introduced as her cousin took Irene out. Lapham was startled from the misgiving in which this left him by Mrs. Corey's passing her hand through his arm, and he made a sudden mo

ut Bellingham did it, became alarmed and took it out again slyly. He never had wine on his table at home, and on principle he was a prohibitionist; but now he did not know just what to do about the glasses at the right of his plate. He had a notion to turn them all down, as he had read of a well-known politician's doing at a public dinner, to show that he did not take wine; but, after twiddling with one of them a moment, he let them be, for it seemed to him that would be a li

rey, who had begun with him about his new house; he was telling her all about it, and giving her his ideas. Their conversation naturally included his architect across the table; Lapham had been delighted and secretly surprised to find the fellow there; and at something Seymour said th

is head confidentially to Mrs. Lapham, he added, "Does he bleed you

draining his glass of sauterne, as wonderfully discreet in his wife. Bromfield Corey leaned back in his chair a moment. "Well, after a

se for being old-fashioned. What we've done is largely to go back of the hideous style that raged after they forgot how to make this sort of house. But I think w

and olives, and your c

l Lapham, and modesty prevents my saying, that his house is prettier,--though I may have my c

ility for it that made them all laugh. "My ancestral halls are in Salem, and I'm told you c

d Seymour, "and I shall be far from pressing the point

pham silently wondered that the fellow

inters, novelists, and tailors, deal with forms that we have before us; we try to imitate, we try to represent. But you two sort

impeachment," said the arc

handsome of me to say this, after your unju

field Corey's warning Mrs. Lapham, in some connection that Lapham lost, against Miss Kingsbury. "She's worse," he was saying, "when it comes to appropriations than Seymour himself. Depend upon it, Mrs. Lapham, she will give you no peace of your mind, now she's met you, from this out. Her tender mercies are cruel; and I leave you to supply the cont

; but Miss Kingsbury seemed to enjoy the fun a

ch of the committee, Mr. Corey; then you w

alk with your indigent Italians in their native tongue," said Charles Bellingham.

cted that he probably wouldn't talk with them at all; he would mak

fair return for Corey's pleasa

to Miss Kingsbury's point, "that is so difficult, I wonder

ss Kingsbury.

tiful, airy, wholesome houses that stand empty the whole summer lo

often thought of our great, cool houses standing useless here, and the thousands of poor creatures stiflin

my own house, so that I can speak impartially and intelligently; and I tell you that in some of my walks on the Hill and down on the Back Bay, nothing but the surveillance of the local policeman prevents my offering personal violence

on't consider what havoc such people would

orey, with meek conviction

, I doubt if you'd have so much heart for bur

nister. "The spectacle of the hopeless comfort the

r man was satisfied if he could make both ends meet; that he didn't envy any one his good luck, if he had earned it, so long as he wasn't r

said Corey. "In fact, we rather invite

ork under him out there at Omaha, and he says it's the fellows from countries where they've been kept from thinking about it that are discontent

Mrs. Corey, turning from these profi

dy in a lower tone, "tha

dn't hear

y have named him

joining in. "He is said to be

d look like anybody you wish them to resemble. Is Leslie

es, and leads a very exciting life. She says she's like people who have been home from Europe three years; she's

said of a picture which he saw on the wall o

her, don't you think?" They both looked at Nanny Corey and then at the portrait. "Those pretty old-fashioned dresses are coming in again. I'm not s

s laughing, and seemed very happy. From time to time Bellingham took part in the general talk between the host and James Bellingham and Miss Kingsbury and that minister, Mr. Sewell. They talked of people mostly; it astonished Lapham to hear with what freedom

bright; and Lapham was aware that Irene was not as bright, though when he looked at her face, triumphant in its young beauty and fondness, he said to himself that it did not make any difference. He felt that he was not holding up his end of the line, however. When some one spoke to him he could only su

talked of before; but again he was vexed that Penelope was not there,

aid she wondered at him. "It's perfectly heart-breaking, as you'll imagine from the name; but there's such a dear old-fashioned hero and heroine in it, who keep dy

reader by painting the characters colossal, but with his limp and stoop, so t

. "It ought to have been

OP, Nanny," plead

r our heart-strings. And I really suppose that you can't put a more popular thing

Bellingham, "about novels going out." "The

re ever was a time when they formed the whole intellectual e

ous, parson,"

p. But those novels with old-fashioned heroes and her

moral wreck, Miss Kin

if they painted life as it is, and human feelings in their true proportion an

ld Corey asked: "But what if life as it

the minister. "And the self-sacrifice

sted the proud father of

, and is as wholly immoral as the spec

minister, who had apparently got upon a battle-horse of his, careered

ing and marrying, is painted by the novelists in a monstrous disproport

" said Nanny Corey, in a wa

ly as if it were the chief interest of life, but the sole interest of the lives of two ridiculous young persons; and it is taught that love is perpetual, that

e," said the minister, and then he had the applause with him. Lapham

al changed," said Bromfield Corey, "since the po

to be changed again

t! B

mething natural and mortal, and divine honours, which

laughed his host, and the talk

ng too much. He now no longer made any pretence of not drinking his wine, for he was thirsty, and there was no more water, and he hated to ask for any. The ice-cream came, an

ir places, except young Corey, who ran and opened the door for his mother. Lapham thought with shame that it was he who ought to ha

confessed that he liked a good cigar about as well as anybody, and Corey said: "These are new. I had an English

before. He turned sidewise in his chair and, resting one arm on the back, intertwined the fingers of both hands, and smoked at large ease. James Bellingham came and sat down

ed his head for assent, letting out a white

husetts, and I sha'n't forget that slaughter. We were all ne

I read of it out in Missouri, where I was stationed at the time, and I recollect the talk of some

igar-ash off on the edge of a plate. James Bellingham reached him a

said: "How incredible those things seem already! You gentlemen

ence doesn't differ a great deal from the past of one's knowledge. It isn't much more probabl

f that," said J

f from Lapham's Apollinaris bottle. "There would be very little t

he craven civilian in all these things is the abundance--the superabundance--of h

," said Lapham, without taki

ays to the fellow who was at Inkerman, 'I should think you would be so proud of it,' and

dded, with a friendly glance at his brother-in-law, and with the willingness Boston men often show to turn one another's good points to the light in company; bre

you choose to dispute my claim, what has become of all the heroism? Tom, how many

the moment, sir," replied the son,

said his uncle. "Nevert

orey. "But why shouldn't civil service reform, and the resumption of specie pa

said James Bellingham, ignoring the

t he could not follow; it was too quick for him; but here was something he was clear of. "I don't want to see any more men killed in my time." Something serious, som

ll have the heroism again if we have the occasion. Till it comes, we must content ourselves with the every-day generosities and sacrifices. They make up in quantity what they lack in quali

sted Charles Bellingham. "If I were one of these fellows

monplace?" ask

er got into their confounded books yet. The novelist who could interpret the common feelings o

pham looked from one to the other, trying to make out w

and in many another has gone into battle simply and purely for his country's sake, not knowing whether, if he laid down his life, he should ever find it again, or whether, if he took it up he

imagined at all. But if you suppose such a man as that was Aut

hich is which. I suppose Jim Millon's wife was enough to account for his going, herself. She was a pretty bad assortment," said Lapham, lowering his voice and glancing round at the door to make sure that it was shut, "and she used to lead Jim ONE kind of life. Well, sir," continued Lapham, synthetising his auditors in that form of address, "that fellow used to save every cent of his pay and send it to that woman. Used to get me to do it for him. I tried to stop him. 'Why, Jim,' said I, 'you know what she'll do with it.' 'That's so, Cap,' says he, 'but I don't know what she'll do without it.' And it did keep her straight--straight as a string--as long as Jim lasted. Seemed as if there was something mysterious about it. They had a little girl,--about as old as my oldest girl,--and Jim used to talk to me about her. Guess he done it as much for her as for th

and say something to heighten the effect his story had produced. At the same time he was aware of a certain want of clearness. He

rest. When Mrs. Corey asked him to meet Lapham, he accepted gladly. "You know I go in for that sort of thing, Anna. Since Leslie's affair we're rather bound to do it. And

e, unconscious of its preciousness, and waited for the result. That cloudiness in his brain disappeared before it, but a mere blank remained. He not only could not remember what he was going to

ad happened. It seemed to him a lon

borate acknowledgment to Bromfield Corey of his son's kindness in suggesting books for his library; he said that he had ordered them all, and that he meant to have pictures. He asked Mr. Corey who was about the best American painter going now. "I don't set up to be a judge of pictures, but I know what I like," he said. He lost the reserve which he had maintained earlier, and began to boast. He himself introduced the subject of his paint, in a natural transition from pictures; he said Mr. Corey must take a run up to Lapham with him some day, and see the Works; they would interest him, and he would drive him round the country; he kept most of his horses up there, and he could show Mr. Corey some of the finest Jersey grades in the country. He told about his brother William, the judge at Dubuque; and a farm he had out there that paid for itself every year in wheat. As he cast off all fear, his voice rose, and he hammered his arm-chair with the thick

ne had said when he first came to Boston that in less than ten years he should be hobnobbing with Jim Bellingham, he should have told that person he lied. He would have told anybody he lied that had told him ten years ago that a son of Bromfield Corey would have come and asked him to take him into the business. Ten years ago he, Silas Lapham, had come to Boston a little worse off than nothing at all, for he was in debt for half the money that he had bought out his partne

ore money than he knew what to do with. "Why, when your wife sent to mine last fall," he said, turning to Mr. Corey, "I drew my cheque for five hundred dollars, but my wife wouldn't take more

saying, "I think Mrs. Lapham is waiting for you below, sir," and in obeying the direction Corey gave him t

t Mrs. Corey, without pressing her to stay longer, had said it was not at all late. She and Irene had had a perfect time. Everybody had been very polite, on the way home they celebrated the amiability of both the Miss Coreys a

Lapham proudly, "I know all about h

ou do smell of smo

e in, though it stopped his tongue, and he listened more and more drowsily to the rejoicings that his wife and daughter exchanged. He meant to have them wake Penelope up

grey light of the morning the glories of the night before showed poorer. Here and there a painful doubt obtruded itself and marred them with its awkwa

y he grew more restively conscious. He sent out word by his office-boy that he would like to see Mr. Corey for a few minutes after closin

id bluffly, but not unkindly. "Perhaps I'

irl, with a spoiled

, he closed the door upon her. Then he turned to th

V

on: shame, fear of the things that must have been thought of him, mixed with a faint hope

k in my life before, and I don't know." He stood with his huge hands trembl

Colonel Lapham," said the young man.

er after I left?" as

t talk his guests over with one another." He added,

s friends!" His head dropped. "I showed that I wasn't fit to go with you. I'm not fit for any decent place. What did I say? What did I do?" he

y father DID speak of it to me," he confessed, "when we were alone. He said that he was afraid we had not been thoughtful of you,

hat did th

that it was purely a mi

ted Lapham. "Do you want to leave?

altered th

siness? Cut the w

it ain't right I should be over you. If you want to go, I know some parties that would be glad to get you. I will give you up if you wan

going, unless you wish it,"

en blackguard, and that I've suffered for it all day? Will you tell him I don't want him to notice me if we ev

orey. "I can't listen to you any longer. What you say

am, with astonishment; "if

e yourself, if you will; but I have my reasons for refusing to hear you--

ered Lapham, in bewilderment,

man. "It's enough, more than enough, for you to have mentioned

tragic humility of his appeal. "Don't go yet! I can't let you. I've

n. "But let us say no more about it--think no more. There wasn't one of the gentlemen present last night wh

The very innocence of Lapham's life in the direction in which he had erred wrought against him in the young man's mood: it contained the insult of clownish inexperience. Amidst the stings and flashes of his wounded pride, all the social traditions, all the habits of feeling, which he had silenced more and more by force of will during the past months, asserted their natural sway, and he rioted in his contempt of the offensive boor, who was even more offensive in his shame than in his trespass. He said to himself that he was a Corey, as if that were somewhat; yet he knew that at the bottom of his heart all the time was that which must control him at last, and which seemed sweetly to be suffering his rebellion, secure of his submission in the end. It was almost with the girl's voice that it seemed to plead with him, to undo in him, effect by effect, the work of his indignant resentment, to set all things in

wn, to try to find his way out of the chaos, which now seemed ruin, and now the materials out of

great reason and justice on their side in not wishing him to alienate himself from their common life and associations. The most that he could urge to himself was that they had not all the reason and justice; but he had hesitated and delayed because they had so much. Often he could not make it appear right that

be doing to some one besides his family and himself; this was the defect of his diffidence; and it had come to him in a pang for the first time when his mother said that she would not have the Laphams think she wished to make more of the acquaintance than he did; and then it had come too late. Since that he had suffered quite as much from the fear that it might not be as that it might be so; and now, in the m

V

answered Corey's ring said tha

ng man, hesitating

said the girl, "I'll go and se

nd-girl's patronising friendliness, and let her shut him into the drawing-room, while

when he WOULD be in," said the girl, with the human interest which sometimes

the glass. "Well," she cried finally, dropping from her shoulders the light sha

f the pale dark of her complexion with a flash of crimson ribbon at her throat. She moved across the carpet once or twice with the quaint grace that belonged to

a small pattern in crude green, which, at the time Mrs. Lapham bought it, covered half the new floors in Boston. In the panelled spaces on the walls were some stone-coloured landscapes, representing the mountains and canyons of the West, which the Colonel and his wife had visited on one of the early official railroad excursions. In front of the long windows looking into the Square were statues, kneeling figures which turned their backs upon the company within-doors, and represented allegories of Faith and Prayer to people without. A white marble group of several figures, expressing

Penelope looked into this first, and then she looked into the parlour, with a smile that broke into a laugh as

it was because Alice thought you were only here on probation, anyway. Father hasn't got home yet, but I'm expe

n feeling, he perceived with half a sigh; it must all be upon this lower level; perhaps it was best so.

membering that she had not been well e

ssed you v

d you wouldn't have misse

ld," said Corey,

ked at e

eved I was saying some

an. They laughed rather wildly, and

s dropped in her lap, and the back of her head on her shoulders as she looked up at him. The soft-coal fire in the grate purred and flickered; th

ve gone to the Spani

t his hat, which he had been holding in

no other, and turned a little red. Corey turned a little red himself.

warm it is out-of

? I haven't bee

e a summe

re, and then started abruptly. "Pe

's very co

w days that's still in the house. I was

errupt

the book. I was just

e to read b

s that I l

it?" ask

er a sentimental name. Did you e

t; it's a famous book with ladies. They brea

t one is very natural till you come to the main point. Then the naturalness

him up to th

t the other one had cared for him first. Why

suppose that the

iate him half as much as she could. I'm provoked with myself when I think how I cried over that book--for I did cry. It's sil

ke it so attractive," sug

said the girl. "But so it would in

houldn't people in l

he embarrassment of supporting an inquiry which she had certainly instigated herself. She seemed to

disp

think it's quite equal to an

ldn't let me be serious

ld--if you like

't y

matters. That's the reas

ng. Miss Irene was tellin

to deny it so soon. I mus

t forbid her to

o the small chin, had a Japanese effect in the subdued light, and it had the charm which comes to any woman with happiness. It would be hard to say how much of this she perceived that he felt. They talked about other things a while, and then s

I hope if you said anything very bad of me you'll

e, please!" crie

own at the fan, now flat in her lap, and tried to govern her head, but it trembled, and she remained looking down

aid Corey, "because I get

re--together?" She glanced sidewise at him;

dom together,

now what y

ht--I've been afraid

ided

not to be al

nge he should make this complaint of her. But she did not. She kept looking down at the fan, and then she li

mechanically put out her hand. He took it as if to say goo

t I feel as if you must know it." She stood quite still, letting him keep her hand, and questioning his face with a bewildered gaze. "You MUST know--she must have told you--she must have guessed-

om him across the room with a sinuous spring. "ME!" Whatever potential compli

her again. "Yes,

an imploring gesture. "I

where he remained in silent amaze. Then her words

with a vague smile, "I do

terically herself. "Unless you want me to

For heaven's sake te

put your hand on your heart and say that--you--sa

-But what does it matter? You must have known it--you must have seen--and it's for you to answer me. I've been abru

t him with

at you say--you must go!" she said. "And you

ould I promise such a thing--so abominably w

deed I don't! No

't believe

himself of he

f it is anything about any one else, it wouldn't make the least difference in the world, no matter what it

don't und

't. You mu

never

till your mother comes,

k H

will give you up ti

tell you, and never let any human cr

s you give

ed, and made two or three ineffectual efforts

ll no

oved me. If you

stretched towards her, and

re. And will you promise me--on your honour--not to speak--not

bey you,

er to see me again?

see you again; and don't talk of dyin

too, and lifted her face towards him. "It's the end of life for me, because I know now that I must have been playing false from the beginning. You don't know what I mean, a

d me. I must d

n. And you shall not

ld I thi

hard you

espair. "Can I make it e

king crazily. Bu

ll me this trouble! There is nothing under heaven--no calamity, no sorrow-

this you can'

! Let me ask your mot

ave a

you will make me ha

latch-key was hear

!" cried

I pro

nd, pressing her cheek tight against his, flashed out of

to speak with you--about a matter----But it'

referable to Corey. He had his hat still on, and he glared at the young man

y weakly. "It will do quite as

devil must have got into pretty much everybody to-night," he muttered, coming back to the room, where he pu

V

poke with the severity of a hungry man. "It seems to me they don't amount to ANYthing. Here I am, at my time of life, up the first one in the house. I ring the bell for the co

girls are nearly always down. But they're young, an

hey don't do anything after

laughed at Lapham's Spartan mood, and went on to excuse the young people. "Irene's been up two nights hand running

een doing anything to be a

llily. "You'll only be hard on the r

, and said, without looking up, "I wonder what th

came home, and he said he wanted

e was

sittin

Pen t

n't se

he cream-jug. "Why, what in the land d

what h

he would

e came here"--she looked about the room and lowered her voi

e wants to," said Lapham glumly. "All I know is, he was h

, as her husband closed the front door after him, she

rely showed black against the light, and revealed nothing till her mother came close to her with successive questions. "Why, how long have you been up, Pe

been c

cheeks ar

ck in her chair. "Lock the door!" she ordered, and her mother mechanically obeyed. "I don't wa

maze, perhaps, as dismay. "Oh, I'm not a ghost! I wish I was! Yo

l went slowly but briefly on, touching only the vital points of the story, and breaki

I had dreamt, it, if I had slept any las

ccupy herself delayingly with the minor care: "Why, you

eeing that her mother remained blankly silent again, she demanded, "Why don't you blame me, mother?

of self-accusal needed none. "Do you think," she as

I keep it from him? I s

You might as well said you did. It co

help her with him

I saw that from the start; but I tried to bl

. "I was nobody! I couldn't feel! No one could care for me!" The turmoil of despair, of triu

think of you enough. It did come across me sometimes that may be

talk with him for her, and you didn't think I

t. When did you--be

, unless I let him." She could not help betraying her pride in this authority of hers, but she went on anxiously enou

t in an apathy from which she apparently could not

hed in a pity

go on then. But

and your father's got the money--I don't know what I'm saying! She ain't equal to hi

"it wouldn't have mattered whether she was eq

; but I had got set----Well! I can see it all clear

the girl. "Do you want ME to go to Irene a

ham. "What shall I do? What d

"I've had it out with myself. N

d done wrong, if you w

the

ight to do it. There ain't any one to blame. He's behaved like a gentleman, and I can see now that he never t

want you to talk about me.

fancy with her. She'll get over it. She

, mother. She's got her whole l

promptly as if she had been arguing to

he isn't mine to give." She added in a b

on't know what's to come of it all. But she's got to b

. "You're not going to tell Irene?" she ga

. "If she's a woman grown, sh

her face on her mother's neck. "Not Irene," she moaned.

anything, Pen," said

hink? Even last night! It was the first time I ever had him all to myself, for myself, and I know now that I tried to make him think that I was pretty and--funny. And I didn't try to make him think of her. I knew that I pleased him, and I tried to please him more. Perhaps I could have kept him from saying that he cared for me; but when I saw he did--I must have seen it--I couldn

r he was dead," began

lance, and you can't see more or less if you spend your life looking at it." She laughed again, as if the hopelessness of the thing amused her. Then she flew to the extreme of self-assertion. "Well, I HAVE a right to him, and he has a right to me. If he's never done anything to make

ak to your fa

ttle more forlornly

sn't a trouble that I can keep to myself exactl

m her return to her old way of saying thi

ut the Colonel will

-hearted about it. It--i

Irene that

eching appeal for the comfort she could not imagine herself. "Don't look at me, mother," said Penelope,

en

that loves her so as to make some other girl hap

ust for the pseudo heroism. "No! If there's to be any giving up, let it be by the one that shan't make a

e slipped round and set herself ag

about it," said the moth

t Irene c

to bed now, and try to get some rest. She isn'

'll come down if I can't sleep. Life has got to go on. It does wh

se!" cried Mrs. Lapham

, then," said Penelope

pened Irene's door. The girl lifted her head drowsily from her pillow "Do

ne. "Do go, mamma! I shan't disturb her." She turned her face

light by striving; she had hitherto literally worked to it. But it is the curse of prosperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts that door to hope and health of spirit. In this house, where everything had come to be done for her, she had no tasks to interpose between her and her despair. She sat down in her own room and let her hands fall in her lap,--the hands that had once been so helpful and busy,--and tried to think it all out. She had never heard of the fate that was once supposed to appoint the sorrows of men irrespective of their blamelessness or blame, before the time when it came to be believed that sorrows were penalties; but in her simple way she recognised something like that mythic power when she rose from her struggle with the problem, and said aloud to herself

, when answer came that he would be at the house with the buggy at half-past two. It is easy to put off a girl who has but one thing in her head; but though Mrs. Lapham could escape without telling anything of Penelope, she could not escape seeing h

much interest, mamma!" she said,

sted Mrs. Lapham, and th

hinking----" But at this the girl turned so white, and looked such reproach at her, that she added frantically: "Yes, get the pin. It is just the thing for you! But don't disturb Penelope. Let her alone till I get back. I'm going out to ride wi

normal state of innocent selfishness by these flatteries. "Don't you suppo

w. Better le

submitte

II

husband drove up. She opened the door and ran down the steps. "Don't get out; I can help myself

should go?" he aske

wish you hadn't brought this fool of a horse," sh

I'll sell out altogether," said Lapham. "She

way across the city to the Milldam she answered certai

e answered so quickly, "Not to-day," that he gave it up and tu

one cottages, with here and there a patch of determined ivy on their northern walls, did what they could to look English amid the glare of the autumnal foliage. The smooth earthen t

the mare. "I want to talk with you about Rogers, Persis. He's been getting in deeper and deeper with me; and last night he pestered me half to death t

your business. It seems as if you couldn't think of anything else--that and the new house. Did you suppose I wanted to ride so as to talk Rogers with

Lapham. "What DO you want t

and then she broke off to say, "Well, you may wait, n

his whip over and over

t last, "that that young Corey

ham sullenly. "You always said so." He look

own that blackened on her husband's face. "And I can tell you

" retorted Lapham savagely

romise that you'll h

u'll give me a chance. I

, and looking like a perfect thunder-cloud at the very st

have a chanc

ng to do about it. There's only one thing we can do; for if he don't care for the child, nobody w

't!" exclai

protested

ing to see her, what H

he sight of the swift passions working in his face to a perfect comprehension of the whole trouble, she fell to trembling, and her brok

y. He passed it over his forehead, and then flicked from it the moisture it had gathered there. He caught his bre

of afflicting him. "I don't say but what it can be made to come out

ink he likes Pen?"

nd she told me this morning.

n there much myself. He didn't sa

ing. She wants to get a pin like the one Nann

since he saw her; and we've taken up with a notion, and blinded ourselves with it. Time and again I've had my doubts whether he cared for Irene any; but I declare to

you said. I sup

me, Silas?" sh

hing but the children's good. What's it all of it for, if it ai

f people LOSE their ch

died? No, I can't do it. And this is worse than death, someways. That comes and it goes; but this looks as if it was one of those things that had come to stay. The way I look at it, ther

d that she always thought was in love with her sister, and go off and be happy with him? Don't you believe but what it would come back to her, as long as she breathed the breath of

rward over his breast; the reins lay loose in his moveless hand; the ma

quavered

ts him, I don't see what that's got to do with it.

lieved you could be willing to break that poor child's heart, and let Pen disgrace herself by marrying a ma

at, Persis! Get up!" he called to the mare, without glancing at her, and she sp

in front of him. "Where

KILL somebody!"

pham had driven into. He made his excuses to the occupant; and the accident relieved the tension of their feelings, and left them fa

r of us see this thing in the right light. We're too near to i

wife; "but there

ment; "why not talk to the minister of your c

do. I've never taken up my connection with the churc

VE got a claim on him," urged Lapham; and he spoiled his argu

TOO well. No; if I was to ask any one, I should want to ask a total stranger. But what's the use, Si? N

t a hundred times, and still came back to it. They drove on and on. It began to be late. "I guess we better go back, Si," said his

ffering her his handkerchief, and she took it and dried her eyes with it. "There was one of those fellows there the other night," he spoke again, when his wife leaned b

"Persis," he resumed, "I can't bear to go back with n

ith gentle gratitude. Lapham groane

Street. He gav

do any good. What c

ssly; and neither of them said anything more till they crossed

e. "I couldn't bear to see it. Drive--drive up Boling

. "That's the place," he said finally, sto

ne which he understood as well as he understood h

minute," he said, ha

till the door opened; then he came back an

om under the buggy-seat and m

l stand with that?"

If she don'

take cold," she persist

his wife's trembling hand under

razy," she murmured

n the Protestant confessional for many burdened souls before their time, coming, as they did, with the belief that they were bowed down with the only misery like theirs in the universe; for ea

mple dignity which he had wanted in his bungling and apologetic approaches, he laid the affair clearly before the minister's compassionate

e got any warrant for doing it. But, as I told my wife here, there was something about you--I don't know whether it was anything you SAID exactly--that m

very one of us when we can't help ourselves, and then we must get others to help us. If people turn to me at such

ere, had a welcome in them that these

and his wife began to wipe t

lves. We can see another's sins and errors in a more merciful light--and that is always a fairer light--than we can our own; and we can look more sanely at others' afflict

understand you," fa

d, "I mean, what do you think some

es in such a strait before?" she

uble under the sun,

I should say--Why, of course! I should say

hich naturally suggests itself, and which would insist upon itself, if we were not all perverted by traditions which are the figmen

cross me. But I didn't

it with you

ought, of course. But

self-sacrifice. It wraps us round with its meshes, and we can't fight our way out of it

now she would die sooner t

ster bitterly. "And yet she is

ore common

en confronted with it. Your daughter believes, in spite of her common-sense, that she ought to make herself and the man who loves her unhappy, in order to assure the life-long wretchedness of her sister, whom he doesn't love, simply because her sister saw him and fancied him first! And I'm sorry to say that nine

rown quite heated

t it is not in the power of all the world, or any soul in the world, to give her. Her sister will suffer--yes, keenly!--in heart and in pride; but she will not die. You will suffer too, in your tendern

I

, as he mounted to his wife's side in the bug

e. There ain't any other way for it. It's sense; and, yes, it's justice." They walked to their door after they left the horse at t

y supper first?" faltered Lapham

minute. If I do, I s

id her husband tenderly

corn for a man's helplessness in such a case. "Send her

hout waiting to speak to Irene, who had come into th

s to see you upstairs," s

e entered the chamber, so close upon her that she had not yet had t

bear. It's a mistake we've all made. He don't care anything for

t flinching. She stood up immovable, but the delicate rose-light of her

g?" cried her mother. "Do y

l replied steadily, but in an alien voice. "The

helplessly followed. Irene went first to her own room at the front of the house, and then came out leaving the door open and the g

ood in the entry. "You can come too

not go to her; but she went and laid a gold hair-pin on her bureau, and said, without looking at her, "There's a pi

ope's mirror. "There's that account of Mr. Stan

beside the pin. "There's his button-hole bou

a moment; then, looking deliberately at Penelope, she went up to her, and dropped it in her l

d with an imploring cry,

"Don't touch me," she said icily. "Mamma, I'm going to put

go out, Irene, child

ed the girl. "Tell pap

esn't want any supp

lk about that. Tell

them on

ed a hapless gla

thing for her." She sat still; she did not even brush to the floor the fantastic thing that lay in her l

child, and began to talk with h

Don't talk, papa. I don't wan

up at it. The scaffolding which had so long defaced the front was gone, and in the light of the gas-lamp before it all the architectural beauty of the facade was sugges

shall never live in it,"

d heavily after her. "Oh yes, you will, Iren

t speak of it now. Lapham understood that she was trying to walk herself weary, and he was glad to hold his peac

u to make you sleep?" she asked vag

guess you don't wa

he retorted wilfully. "If you do

a stone, while her father's expressed the anguish of his sympathy. He looked as if he had not slept for a week; his fat eyelids drooped over his glassy eyes, and his cheeks and throat hung flaccid. He started as the apothecary's cat stole smoothly up and rubbed itself against his l

s heavy paw on her gloved fingers. After a while she sai

rrow's Sunday, Irene!

n. I can live thro

e no pretence of asking her why she wishe

en he opened the door at home for h

mother; the Colonel and Penelope did not appear,

me, mamma," she said. "I shall get along." Sh

ied her mother. "It'll be all the worse for you when

ything, or LOOK anything. And, whatever I do, I don't want you should try to stop me. And, the first thing, I'm going to take her breakfast up to her. Don't!" she cried, intercepting the protest on her mother's

thank you, Irene." And, though two or three times they turned their faces toward each other while Irene remained in the room, mechanically putting its confusion to rights, their eyes did not meet. Then Irene descended upon the other rooms, which she set in order, and some of which she fiercely swept and dusted. She made the beds; and she sent the two servan

y papers, and she had no heart to go to church, as she would have done earlier in life when in trouble. Just then sh

ould have thought it was such a light matter if it had been his own children.

rsis,--the only thing. We couldn't le

rene's showing twice the characte

er. He did not fail. "Irene's got the easiest part, the way I look at

u want she

that yet. What are we g

ld do," repeated Mrs. Laph

should take him, for O

and, and she said in defence of Corey, "Why, I do

hat now. What

row. She feels that she's got to get a

be about the best thing FOR

es

in, and she rose with a sigh, and went to her ro

me to walk with her again. It was a repetition of the aimlessness of the last night's wanderings. They came back, and she got tea for them, and after that they heard her stirring

s got to fight out by h

t I don't want you should misjudge Pen eithe

all at once. I shan't misjudge her, but you

ing their departure the next morning, "

and after a while she added,

y anything,

mustn't come

effect of not seeing or touching her. "I want you should tell him all about it. If he's hal

difference. I couldn

. But if you don't tel

ared for him. But you can say that

rene

selves about her. "You are all right, Pen. You haven't done

Lapham with a sharp "Now, mamma!" and went

Pullman car; and as he stood leaning with his lifted hands against the sides of the doorway, he tried to say something conso

papa," returned the girl, in rigid reje

till the cars started. He saw Irene bustling about in the compartment, making her mother comfortable for the

new what had taken place between him and Penelope. When Rogers came in about time of closing, and shut himself up wit

merely answered, "Well!" when the young man said that he

to speak to you in case you know of the matter

hat you mean. It'

attached to her--you'll excuse my saying

ble," said Lapham

ully. "I want you to believe that this isn't a new thing or an u

ight as far as I'm concerned--or her mo

es

Penelope's mind--I don't know--" The

hat with your leave I might overcome it--the barrier--whatever it was. Miss L

onfronted the young fellow's honest face with his own face, so different

ne such a thing? If tha

don't want you should go upon that idea. I ju

een so impossible to me that I couldn't have thought of it; and

alarmed at the feeling he had excited; "I don't say

ng I can say or do

ssary to say anyth

see her again? I may try

ld not open his lips. At the same time he could not help feeling that Penelope had a right to what was her own, and Sewell's words came back to him. Besides, they had already put Irene to the

r and took her mother's pla

long as he could bear it. Then he a

the girl. "A thief that h

, "Well, now, your mother and I want

say. It's something

e the best of it and not the worst. Heigh? It ain't going to help Irene any for you to hurt yourself--or anybody else; and I don't want y

speaking to

's been spea

en speakin

ither here

word, and I will nev

n't talk to me on a subject"--Lapham drew a deep bre

u bring

s well as yours, and we're going to have our say. He hain't done anything wrong, Pen, nor anything that he's going to be punished for. Understand that. He's got to have a

comin

as you'd call

id the girl, in forlorn a

ng here to

s he c

but he's com

ant I shou

now but yo

ht. I'll

cion inspired by this acquiescence. "Wh

the girl sadly. "It depends a

the family-room where he and Penelope were sitting, he went into the parlour to find him. "I guess Penelope want

was not allayed by her silence and languor. She sat in the chair wher

at the spectacle of his subjection. "Sit down, Mr. Corey," she said. "There's no

ur father knew of it to-day, I asked him to let me see you aga

her words. "But I've only come to do whatever y

I couldn't tell you before.

the young man's face, on which s

d it--it wa

id with a smile of relief, of deprecation,

that. I see how terrible it is!" he said; but he still smiled, as if he could not take it seriously. "I admired her beauty--who could help doing that?--and I thought her very good and sensible. Why, last winter in Texas, I told Stanton about our meeting i

ht it came

as before. I can see, now, how I must have seemed to be seeking her out; but it was to talk of you with her--I never talked of anything else if I could help it,

It's all been

ou, Penelope," he said; and the old-fashioned name, at w

kes it worse!

makes it better. It makes it right

ow! Don't you see that if she believed so

sister--think that

, and went on about you, I helped her to flatter herself--oh! I don't see how she can forgive me. But she knows I can never forgive myself! That's the reason she can do it. I can see now," she went on, "

e--all th

going to keep on caring. You won

l, then? Is

nce I thought I could, but now I see that I can't. It seems t

till to yourself. I never tried to see her, except with the hope of seeing you too. I supposed she must know that I was in love with you. From the first time I saw you there that afternoon,

me of this again. If you do, I

hat help her? I

e! I have said that

e you, it won't make me

merely stared at him. "I must do what you say," he continued. "But what

me to profit

orld. But ther

a wall between us. I shall dash myself against

rong. Why should we suffer from anot

ow. But we

my part, and I will not let

o right to

piness I haven't done anything to forfeit. I will never give you up. I will wait as long as you please for the time when you shall feel free from this mistake; but you shall be mine at last

change anything? Don't you see

coming back

s father to come and take

n the country wit

es

; then he sai

young; and perhaps--per

fference. It wouldn'

ing of that book; and you said it was foolish and wicked to do as that girl did. Why is it different with you, except that you g

ometimes I think it might be if I would only say so to myse

y--more clearly. Good-bye--no! Good night! I shall come again to-morrow. It will surely come right, an

ut she put it behind her. "N

X

together from the station, where he had met her in obedience to her telegraphic summons. "She keeps herself busy helping about the house; and she goes round amongst the hands in their houses. There's

bove well yourself, Persis

h her somewhere. I wrote to you about Dubuque. She'll work herself down, I'm afraid; and THEN

t, as it happens, I've got to go out West on business,

's about the best thing I've

ubuque

matter with

t's bu

's P

in't much bett

en abo

t see as it help

s. "I declare, to see her willing to take the man that we

she was. But there don't seem to be any way out of the thing, anywhere. It

et Penelope she gave the girl's wan face a s

you went away. I needn't ask if 'Rene's in good spirits. We all seem to be overflowing with th

ngaged to him, Pen?

I feel as if it was a last will and testame

ear to loo

pect to be looked at. Well! we're all just wher

work it off. Irene keeps doing; but Pen just sits in her room and mopes. She don't even read. I went up this afternoon to scold her about the state the house was in--you can see that Irene's away by the perfect mess; but when I saw her through the crack of

far from the point. "I guess I've got

w s

o-morrow

Then, "All right," she s

, and then I'll push on through Can

you can tell m

ur hands pretty full as it is. I've been throwing good money after ba

rs. Lapham asked

s Ro

should get in any

him either; and I had to do one or

s wife, "I'm afr

him--I jumped at the chance. I guess Rogers saw that he had a soft thing in me,

. He added casually, "Pretty near everybody but the fellows that

t payments to make, and tha

when I tell you it's all right, I mean it, Persis. I ain't going to let the grass gro

you goin

ce the day they had driven out to Brookline. "Milton K. Rogers is a rascal, if you want to know; or else all the signs fail. But I

's he

ine of the P. Y. & X.,--saw-mills and grist-mills and lands,--and for the last eight years he's been doing a land-office business with 'em--business that would have made anybody else rich. But you can't make Milton K. Rogers rich, any more than you can fat a hide-bound colt. It ain't in him. He'd run through Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Tom Scott rolled into one in less than six months, give him a cha

nderstand

ninety-nine years,--bought it, practically,--and it's going to build car-works right by th

't that make the mills valuable? Y

local road like the P. Y. & X. to deal with, Rogers could manage; but when it come to a big through line like the G. L. & P., he couldn't stand any chance at all. If such a road as that too

ls when he turned them in on you?" asked Mrs. Lapham agha

ide. But such a man as that is sure to have a screw loose in him somewhere." Mrs. Lapham sat discomfited. All that she could say was, "Well, I want you should ask yourself whether Rogers would ever have

Lapham sullenly. "I guess I can take care of

ibrary, where his mother sat with his father and sisters, and showed no signs of leaving them. At

h you, mother. I have been

my room,"

you know what I want

the chimney-piece, and tried to put a c

n't like it--that you won't approve of

Tom. If I don't like this at once, I shall try to l

about Miss Lapham." He hastened to add, "I hope it isn't

I was afraid--I suspecte

silent in a p

er?" he ask

g you've quite ma

t

e already spo

that first,

of my saying anything,

o disl

ad chosen some nice girl among those that you had been brought up with--

from the first, and it kept me hesitating in a way that I'm ashamed to think of; for it wasn't quite right towards--others.

his love affair, appeared to think that he had yielded

Tom, and I have prepared myself for it. I have talked it over with your father, and we both agreed fr

g. But I'm sure that it's one that will

e shall all be fond of her,--for your sake

ce which experience does not always confirm in such cases. "

agreeable. I suppose we needn't speak of the family. We must both think alike about them. They have their--drawbacks, but they are thoroughly good people, and I satisfied myself the other night that they were not to be dreaded." She rose,

blight on me yet, and that it sometimes seems as if we couldn't escape from

ut how CO

was ashamed of making it so outright from the b

ny one were taken with that wonderful beauty; and I'm sure she's good too. But I'm astonished

g man, turning a ghastly

you mea

u think so too--that

of c

at her h

id, for all commen

me, mother! I co

o do that. But how--

d it so, I laughed--almost--it was so far from me. But now wh

es

d pass through my mind once--that day I went to call upon them--th

orey mechanic

g enough to reject the idea; and it was natural after our seeing something of t

pretty child. I was civil to her because you wished it; and when I met her here

in his trouble. "It's a terrible business for them, poor things," she added. "I do

is--how patient she is with me, and how unsparing she is of herself. If she were concerned alone--if I were not concerned too--it would soon end. She's never had a thought for anything but her sister's feeling and mine from the beginning. I go there,--I know that I oughtn't, but I can't help it,--and she suffers it, and tries not to let

none in her son's behaviour, and she gave him her further sympathy. She tried to praise Penelope, and said that it was not to be expected that she could r

ed that f

ification and pain is something that must be lived down. That's all. And don't let what I said griev

e young man drearily.

you

't stand any more of this,

on decencies to propose: "We must go to call on her--your sisters and I. They have never seen her ev

erception that nothing could be worse for him. "We must wait--

y to the door. There were some questions that she would have liked to ask him; but s

n regard to most matters was that of the sympathetic humorist who would be glad to have the victim of circumstance laugh with him, but was not too mu

"I don't see how you can laugh.

ady. Tom has told his love to the right one, and

all as that, it would make me very u

tches on the mantel, and then dropping them with a sign, as if recollecting that he must not smoke there. "I've n

an nature, that SHE isn't resigned--l

nd to me here, in the sanctuary of home, that practically the human affections don't reconcile themselves to any situation that the human sentiments condemn

d, you're

ctator of his species feels in signal exhibitions of human nature. "Depend upon it, the right sister will be reconciled; the wrong one will b

t wish the right one, as you call her,

y to the fire. "The whole Lapham tribe is distasteful to me. As I don't happen to have seen our daughter-in-law elect

o, Bromfield?" anxiou

sat down, and stretched out

when you've shown so much indifference up to this time. You

it with an impartial eye; but now that it seems at hand, I find that, while my reason is still acquiescent, my nerves are disposed to--excuse the phrase--kick. I ask myself, what have I done nothing for, all my life, and lived as a gentleman should, upon the earnings

divining the core of real repugnan

ll enough; but their conversation was terrible. Mrs. Lapham's range was strictly domestic; and when the Colonel got me in the library, he poured mineral paint all over me, till I could have been safely

ife; and she suggested for his consolation th

like the Laphams better if I knew them better. But in any case, I resign myself. And we must keep in view the fact

won't turn out so badly. It's a great comfort

her husband,

ght share of it. To see him so depressed dismayed her, and she might well have reproached him more sharply than she did for showing so much indifference, when she was so anxiou

nothing, but try to take bac

ss. If it had been the pretty one, her beauty would have been our e

don't mean unkindness, and can't, by anything we say or do, when she's Tom's wife." She pronounced the distasteful word with courage, and went on: "The pretty one might not have been able to see that. She might have got it into her head tha

ion of the Lapham side, at last. Confess, now, that the right girl has secretly been your choice all along, and that while you sympathise with the wrong one, you rejoice in the t

al, and it's right." But she added, "I s

sband. "When shall we see our daughter-in-law elect? I fi

"Tom thinks we had bet

ur terrible behaviour w

he couldn't be so

hing shor

X

r room, and he made no sign throughout the forenoon, except to strike savagely on his desk-bell from time to time, and send out to Walker for some book of accounts or a letter-file. His boy confidentially reported to Walker that the old

ly, and said, "I haven't

ng the whole coast, and increased pressure in the region of t

y was entirely personal to Lapham. "What do you mean?" he asked, without v

lar man don't build a hundred-thousand-dollar house without feeling the drain, unless there's a regular boom. And just now there ain't any boom at all. Oh, I don't say but what the old man's got anchors to windward; guess he HAS; but if he's GOIN' to leave me his money, I wish he'd left it six weeks ago. Yes, sir, I guess there's a cold wave comin'; but you can't generally 'most always tell, as a usual thing, where the old man's concerned, and it's ONLY a guess." Walker began to feed in his breaded chop with the same nervous excitement with which he abandoned himself to the slangy and figurative excesses of his ta

e, the works up at Lapham are going full chip, just the same as ever. Well, it's his pride. I don't say but what it's a good sort of pride, but he likes to make his brags that the fire's never been out in the works since they started,

e," assen

o-day," said Walker, gl

with a h

hard to suit, when it comes to diseases. Notice how yellow the old man looked when he came in this morning? I don't like to see a man of his build look yellow--much." About the middle of the

advanced, he rose and added, "I don't know as you can

; "I think he will see ME

brown whiskers and the moustache closing over both lips were incongruously and illogically clerical in effect, and the effect was heightened for no reason by the parchment texture of his skin; the baldness extending to the crown of his head was like a baldne

his swivel-chair as Rogers entered his room, and p

im on his knees, and its crown pointed towards Lapham. "I want to know

buque, and I've found out all about that milling property you turned

pected that

roperty in on me? Did you know that th

or them," said Rogers, winking his eyes in out

ing the statements. "You knew how I felt about that old matter--or my wife did; and that I wanted to make it up to you, if you felt anyway badly used. And you took advantage of it. You've got money out of me, in the first place, on securities that wa'n't worth thirty-five cents on the dollar, and you've let me in for this thing, and that thing, and you've bled me every time. And all I've got to

and turned his burly back on his

some third person, who probably merited them, but in whom he was so little interested that he had been obliged to use patienc

Rogers," said Lapham,

e to ask is that you

who answered it, and who stood waiting while he dashed off a note to the brokers and enclosed it with the bundle of securities in a large envelope, "take these do

e was impartial. He wore the air of a man who was ready to return to business whenever the wayward mood of his interlocutor permi

sign of gratifying his curiosity, and treated this last remark of Lapham's as of the irrelevance of all the rest, he said, frowning, "You bring me a party that will give me enough f

ughtfully into his hat a moment, cleared his throat, and quietl

enetrated to the outer office. Somewhat earlier than the usual hour for closing, he appeared there with his hat on and his overcoat buttoned about him. He said briefly to his boy, "William, I shan't be back again t

h his wife alone at tea, he ask

way she's going on, any too well. I'm afraid, if she keeps o

n his usual fashion, he sat and looked at his plate with an indifference that

haven't got

matter?" s

from you, Persis, well you asked me, and it's too late to begin now. I'm in a fix. I'll tell you what ki

sked with a look of grave,

ull all the fall, but I thought they'd brisk up come winter. They haven't. There have been a lot o

" prompted

ore he added, "A

t," said Mrs. Lapham.

t as what you were," answered Laph

ould not help saying, as soon as acquitted, "I warned you against

my money back. I might as well poured wat

e we were married, and I guess I shall have as long as you live, whether we go on to the Back Bay, or go back to the old house at Lapham. I know who's to blame, and I blame myself. It was my fo

r husband. "But I shall have to hold up on the new

s wife, in passionate self-condemnation. "I shoul

n't," sai

d she remembered ruefully h

ay be Pen needn't worry so much about Corey, after all," he continued, with a bitter irony new to him. "It's an ill wind tha

Mrs. Lapham, with a gleam of h

face fell again. "He says there are some En

el

enty-four hours to p

eve there are a

n THIS

f ther

e were, Persis

he COULD be such a villain. What would be the use

on't want to make anything on 'em. But guess I shall hear from the G. L. & P. first. And when they make thei

rice from those English parties before they knew that the G. L.

out," sa

ng him a kindness, Silas. He CAN'T be so ungrateful! Why, why SHOULD he pretend to have any such parties

made a hearty supper in the revulsion from his entire despair; and they fell asleep that night talking hopefully of his affairs, which he laid before her fully, as he used to do when he first started in business. That brought the old times back, and

dly. "I should like to see the thing that ever scared

he asked, with the joy

in a voice which the darkness rendered still

I'm

g about those Engl

've

just as bad as Rogers, every bit and grain,

were with the G. L. & P.? I thought

aven knows in what measure the passion of her soul was mired with pride in h

"You'll wake Pen if you keep on that

" She sobbed herself quiet. "It does seem too hard," she said, when she could speak agai

uch parties; but if there were, they couldn't have the mills from me without the whole story. Don't you be troubled, Persis. I'm going t

w I DIDN'T need it," sa

ll Bill how

rich one so long, that I couldn't bring

es

y till to-day. But I guess we s

N

X

eference whatever to the writer or her state of mind. It gave the news of her uncle's family; it told of their

hat do you make out of it?" she asked; and without waiting to be answered she said, "I don't know as I believe in cou

nce as far as I was concerned

m lost her

, talking about it. That abominable Rogers has got a lot of money away from him; and he's lost by others that he's helped,"--Mrs. Lapham put it in this way because she had no time to be explicit,--"and

out father?" she demanded eagerly. "Is he in trouble? Is he g

girl's conjectures, and half with the habit of prosperity in her child, which could conceive no better of what adversi

aid the girl promptl

han her facts. "Your father thinks he'll pull through all right, and I don't know but what he will. But I want you should see if you can't do something to cheer him up and keep h

"I will. You needn't be t

hen she came down she was dressed to go out-of-d

r from me. I have a reason which I cannot gi

ant desperation, and she came do

ght as well saved our good resolutions till they were want

ean he di

p to half-past fi

her it is still afloat, and so far forth as the danger goes of being dragged under with it, I'm all right." Penelope came in. "Hello, Pen

n to-night and cheer you up a little. I sha

y blue last night; but I guess I was more scared than hurt. How'd y

t you think they could ge

olonel. "Let's all go. Unless," he added i

dy coming," s

go. Mother, don'

ey returned from the theatre, where the Colonel roared through the comedy, with continual reference of his pleasure to Penelope, to make sure that she was enjoying it too, his wife said, as if the whole affair

u're right, Persi

e, when I see the way she came out to-night, just to please you, I d

p Pen going for a while yet," said

isappeared. It was none the less winter, and none the less harassing for these fluctuations, and Lapham showed in his face and temper the effect of like fluctuations in his affairs. He grew thin and old, and both at home and at his office he was irascible to the point of offence. In these days Penelope shared with her mother the burden of their troubled home, and united with her

hard on you,

eturned the girl, who did not ot

o sign since receiving her note. She would have liked to ask her father if Corey was sick

if he didn't half know what he was about. He always did have that close streak in him, and I don't suppose but wh

roubles were a defence and shelter to her. Some nights she could hear them going out together, and then she lay awake for their return from their long walk. When the hour or day of respite came again, the home felt it first. Lapham wanted to know what the news from Irene was; he joined his wife in

ffer for the mills. Once, when one of these letters came, he submitted to his wife whether, in the absence of any positive information

rom a season of deep depression with him. "No, Si

o rail at the unpracticality of women; and then he shut some paper

she picked the paper up to lay it on the desk. Then she glanced at it, and saw that it was a long column of dates and figures, recording

him looking absent-mindedly about for something, and then going to work upon his papers, apparently without it. She thought she would wait till he missed it

II

peated falls, which in turn lost their whiteness, beaten down, and beaten black and hard into a solid bed like iron. The sleighing was incomparable, and the air was full of the d

not like to ask the girl herself, especially as Corey no longer came to the house. He saw that she was cheerfuller than she had been, and helpfuller with him a

me you know I

to be there,"

een being there by your own fault a

l it his fau

mine," said

e, and her father's wholly of his. She must come

I wish I'd let stocks alone. It's what I always promised your mother I wou

ght have seen how little she cared for all that money could do or undo. He did not observe her enough to see how variable her moods were in those days, and how often she sank from some wild gaiety into abject melancholy; how at times she was fi

id Mrs. Lapham, with an inquiring loo

nor reason to it." He stopped, and his wife waited. "If she said the word, I cou

way, Si," she said pityingly, "o

on't know where to turn. You won't let

t you," said

You know I can't do anythi

did not know what to say. She was frightened,

s got to go," he

ere was no prospect of their being able to get into it that winter; and the architect had agreed with him that it would not hurt it to stand. Her heart was heavy for him, though she could not say so. They

rs to shut down at

n out before since it was first kindled. She knew how he had prided himself upon that; how he had bragged of it

ey used to put it on the market raw. But lately they got to baking it, and now they've struck a vein of natural gas right by their works, and they pay ten cents for fuel, where I pay a dolla

inter, this way," said Mrs. Lapham, laying hold of one definite thought

et 'em share the other thing. And if you're so very sorry for the hands, I wish you'd

o, Silas," said

, with that everlasting confusion of papers before him on the desk. That made her think of the paper in her work-

ught it from her, turning red and lo

r the other night, and I pi

as down, she found a scrap of the paper, which must have fluttered to the hearth; and glancing at it she saw that the words were "Mrs. M." She wondered what dealings with a woman her husband could have, and she remembered the confusion h

seem inclined to break, "Silas,

I don't know what y

ngly. "When you do, you tell me

N

o the room again, and dashed some papers down beside his plate. "Here are some more things of yours, and I'll thank you to lock them up in your desk and not litter my room with them, if you please." Now he saw that she was angry, and it must be with him.

t to tell you you're wasting your time here. I spoke the other day about your placin' yourself better, and I can help you to do it,

"I've as much faith in it as ever; and I want to propose now what I hin

nd frowned as if he had not quite understo

er that you objected to a partner--you can let me regard it as an investment. But I think I see the way to doing some

, and rubbed his hand hard and slowly over his face. His features were still twi

le Jame

would be a goo

time I ought to be able t

could see your unc

ine he'

and went with Corey to his door. "I guess I shan't change my mind about taking you into the business

invaded by two women, who pushed by the protesting porter on the stairs and made their way towards Lapham's room. One of them was Miss Dewey, the type-writer gi

freed itself from the fringe of dirty shawl under which it had hung. She went forward without waitin

a high key of challenge. "I want to know if thi

u want?" as

he money to pay my month's rent; there ain't a bite

which she shrank back a step. "You've ta

" said the woman, b

seemed so indifferent to Corey's presence that the young man though

r himself from the head of the stai

you want I should call a hack, or d

n end of her shawl. "I don't

is. If you ever come here again, I'll have you arrested. Min

eekly; she and her mother s

his door wit

d about Lapham, who seemed to have, more than ever since his apparent difficulties began, the fascinatio

rcus?" asked Co

told me about it. I told him if he liked

y good advice

. "But I'll tell you what: the old man can't expect it of everybody. If he keeps this thing up much longer, it's going to be talked about. You can't have a woman walking into your place of bus

she was Miss Dewey's mother; but I couldn't see that Colonel Lapham showed anything but a natural resentment of her coming to him in th

k of his never letting Miss D

a sort of charity of his. That

o a fine straight line. "It won't do for a book-keeper to think wrong, any more than a

would do that if you had seen the 'circus' yourself. A man doesn't t

taking his cigar from his mouth. "I neve

ther, except in generalities, "must go for something. If it's to be

that filled Corey with indignation. Nothing, perhaps, removed his matter-of-fact nature further from the

rs were gone. He opened his door at her knock, and stood looking at her with a worr

he and mother have made it up, and they both got to drinking last nig

that my own family is, now. But I know what I'd do, mighty quick, if it wasn't for you, Zerrilla," he went on re

so often to spite me. He's never gone more than a year at the furthest, and you can't

t cry around here," s

uld manage well enough with mother. Mr. Wemmel would marry me

"I don't know as I want you should get married in any hurry agai

t'll be all right. It'll be the best

can't think about it now. I suppose

aid Zerrilla; "ther

here!" He took out his pocket-book and gave her a not

and Zerrilla dried her tears, put the

itting down at his own table he was climbing the stairs to her lodging in the old-fashioned dwelling which had been portioned off into flats. It was in a region of depots, and of the cheap hotels, and "ladies' and gents'" dining-rooms, and restaurants with bars, which abound near depots; and Lapham followed to Miss Dewey's door a waiter from one of these, who bore on a salver before him a supper cover

e didn't seem to have the spirit to go to cookin' anything, and I had such a bad night last night I was feelin' all broke up, and s'd I, what's the use, anyway? By the time the butcher'

stood with his hat on and his hands in his pockets, indifferent alike to

n assumption of virtuous frankness. "It's whisky;

. "You've been rubbing H

of the sailor, now softly and rhyth

p to-day in THIS hou

no business ashore. Where's your ship? Do you think I'm going to let you come here a

n, eagerly joining in the rebuke of her late boon companion. "You got no business here, Hen, s'd I. You can

tipsy amiability for Lapham, somet

to marry Z'rilla and provide a comfortable home for us both--I hain't got a great many years more to live, and I SHOULD like to get some satisfaction out of 'em, and not be

ss, and I'm not going to meddle with it. But it's my business who lives off me; and so I tell yo

ather," the mother interpolated, "you wouldn'

am. "But I'll tell you what, Mr. D

n's done," said the

to get a ship, and he's got to get out of this. And Zerrilla

u said it yourself a hundred times? And don't she work for her money, and slave for it mornin', noon, and night? You talk as if we

n business this time," said

ere ain't any use goin' to the trouble to git a divorce without she's sure about him. Don't you think we'd ought to git him to sign a paper, or s

stairs, and on the pavement at the lower door he almost struck against Rogers, who had a bag in his hand, and seemed to be hurrying towards

of his troubles to his wife, but she repulsed him sharply; she seemed to despise and hate him; but he set himself doggedly to make a confession

something I've

if fixed against h

about it already, and I gu

Lapham. You go your way, a

ak, listening with a cold

I don't want you to spare me, and I don't ask y

rs. Lapham c

w it's no excuse; but watching the market to see what the infernal things were worth from day to day, and seeing it go up, and seeing it go down, was too much for me; and, to make a long story short, I began to buy and sell on a margin--just what I told you I never would do. I seemed to make something--I did make something; and I'd have stopped, I do believe, if I could have

credulity, changing into a look of relief that was almost triumph, lapsed again into severi

What did you suppose

!--you haven't got anythi

I've been feeling bad about it, Persis, a good while, but I hain't had the heart to speak of it. I can't expect you to say you like it. I've been a f

m, as she turned towards the door, "It's all rig

he was very sweet with him, and seemed to wish i

ad done about it. She did not seem to care for his part in it, however; at which L

on accoun

f-devoted action--the question whether it was not after all a needless folly--is mixed, as it was in Lapham's case, with the vague belief that we might have done ourselves a good turn withou

she showed herself impatient to make up for the time

on speaking terms bef

a conscious flush. "I hope he won't thi

X

e to see Corey after dinner, and

uncle. "He was at my office to-day, and I had a long t

uble. And I had the book-keeper's conjectu

now how he stands, and why he declined that proposition of y

ot sur

est is vitally concerned. And Lapham doesn't strike me as a

f us?" as

him something to say no to you, for he's just in that state when h

"Is he really in

nest about it, but he's had a loose way of estimating his assets; he's reckoned his wealth on the basis of his capital, and some of his capital is borrowed. He's lost heavily by some of the recent failures, a

y no

n at a cost of manufacturing so low that they can undersell him everywhere. If this proves to be the case, it will not only dri

've understood that he had put a g

; and he's all mixed up about them. He's asked me to look into his affairs with him, and I've promised to do so. Whether he can be tided over his difficulties remains to be seen. I'm afraid it will take a good deal of money to do it--a great deal more than he thinks, at least. He believes comparatively little wo

ellingham had meant to conclude. But he sa

ering, whatever his mood was, whether Penelope knew anything of the fac

on your account," Mrs. La

ey? And if father lost it for him, does he suppose it would make it an

she even smiled a little, and her mother reported to her father th

at his offer, she would hav

r know if he does,

n't do it to y

l he do it to

ey had each been talki

deal about her cousin Will, as she called him. At the end she had written, "Tell Pen I don't want she should be foolish." "There!" said Mrs. Lapham. "I guess it's going to co

been telling

ch. What sh

er to say what I should do if

in him to make your father t

y," said the girl. "Most nice thin

ote another one, short and hurried, and tore that up too. Then she went back to her mother, in the family room, and asked to see Irene's letter, and re

uld be a pleasure to him,"

n by giving him a scolding. Of course, he meant well by it, but can't you

ve he ever tho

t you

that kind. He might want to please you wit

at he could do. I thought of that. I shouldn't like him to feel that I could

t see w

No, I shall just let it go

n't stand up on its edge, and the other so pert and flippant. Mother, I wish you could have seen those two letters! I w

on he don't come

in turn, as if it were something

ought t

e doesn't come, I suppose it's becau

did yo

I didn't believe he would be angry at it. But this--this that he's done shows

e, Pen?" demanded

that father was in trouble with his business, I wrote to him not to come any more till I let him. I

m! For a sensible child, you ARE the greatest goose I ever saw. Did

e written," u

e's acted just exactly right, and you--you've acted--I don't know HOW you've acted. I'm ashamed of you. A girl that could be so sensi

d that he would be bankrupt the next day, and that then HE would understand what I meant. But to have it drag along for a fortnight seems to take all the heroism out of it, and leave it as flat!" She looked at her mother with a smile that shone through her tears, and a pathos that quivered round her jesting lips. "It's easy enough to be sensible for other people. But when it comes to myself, ther

"Well, now, go along, and write to him. It don't matte

ely better than the rest, but she sent it, thou

ou any more. You must know now, and you must not think that if anything happened to my father, I should wish you to help

rely, PENEL

and he sent his reply i

by the bearer, to say that I may come to see you? I know how you feel; but I am sure that I can make you think d

.

eyes by the tears that sprang into them

as this trouble is hanging over us, I cannot see you.

itten in reply. Her mother was thoughtful a while before she said,

r husband of the affair, he was silent at first, as she had been. Then he said, "I don't know as I should have wanted her to done differently; I don't know as she could. If I

ment on the fact which their son fel

ll," said Mrs. Corey, to

well. If she had studied the whole situation with the most artfu

that this is false. The house of mourning is decorously darkened to the world, but within itself it is also the house of laughing. Bursts of gaiety, as heartfelt as its grief, relieve the gloom, and the stricken survivors have their jests together, in which the thought of the dead is tenderly involved, and a fond sense, not crazier than many others, of sympathy and enjoyment beyond the silence, justifies the sunnier mood before sorrow rushes back, deploring and despairing, and making it all up again with the conventional fitness of things. Lapham's adversity had this quality in common with bereavement. It was not always like the adversity we figure in allegory; it had its moments of being like prosperity, and if upon the whole it was continual, it was not incessant. Sometimes there was a week of repeated reverses, when he had to keep his teeth set and to hold on hard to all his hopefulness; and th

satisfaction that there had been no engagement between Corey and Penelope, and that it was she who had forbidden it. In the closeness of interest and sympathy in which their troubles had reunited them, they confessed to each other that nothing would have been mor

men so very liberal or faithful with him; a good many of them appeared to have combined to hunt him down; a sense of enmity towards all his creditors asserted itself in him; he asked himself why they should not suffer a little too. Above all, he shrank from the publicity of the assignment. It was open confession that he had been a fool in some way; he could not bear to have his family--his brother the judge, especially, to whom he had always appeared the soul of business wisdom--think him imprudent or stupid. He would make any sacrifice before it came to that. He determined in parting with Bellingham to make the sacrifice which he had oftenest in his mind, because it was the hardest, and to sell his new house. That would cause the least comment. Most people would simply think that he had got a splendid offer, and with his usual luck had made a very good thing of it; others who knew a little more about him would say that he was hauling in his horns, but they could not blame him; a grea

is wife what he had done, and he sat taciturn that whole evening, without even going over his accounts, and went early to bed, where he lay tossing half the night before he fell asleep. He slept at last only upon the promise he made himself

ht, and was willing to pay the cost of the house up to the time he had seen it. Lapham took refuge in trying to think who the party could be; he concluded that it must have been somebody

eir multitude. They were not merely a part of the landscape; they were a part of his pride and glory, his success, his triumphant life's work which was fading into failure in his helpless hands. He ground his teeth to keep down that lump, but the moisture in his eyes blurred the lamps, and the keen pale crimson against which it made them flicker. He turned and looked up, as he had so often done, at the window-spaces, neatly glazed for the winter with white linen, and recalled the night when he had stopped with Irene before the house, and she had said that she should never live there, and he had tried to coax her into courage about it. There was no such facade as that on

woods and the clean, hard surfaces of the plaster, where the experiments in decoration had left it untouched; and mingled with these odours was that of some rank pigments and metallic compositions which Seymour had used in trying to realise a certain daring novelty of finish, which had not proved successful. Above all, Lapham detec

ch the carpenters had left, and in the music-room these had been blown into long irregular windrows by the draughts through a wide rent in the linen sash. Lapham tried to pin it up, but failed, and stood looking out of it over the water. The ice had left the river, and the low tide

anced out of the torn linen sash he said to himself that that party, whoever he was, who had offered to buy his house might go to the devil; he would never sell it as long as he had a dollar. He said that he should pull through yet; and it suddenly came into his mind that, if he could raise the money to buy out those West Virginia fellows, he should be all right, and would have the whole game in his own hand. He slapped himself on the t

orted Lapham, wheeling ha

and then stopping short as he recognised him. "Why, C

am hospitably. "Sorry the

oke it outside. I've just come on, a

w it would draw, in here.

n eye of inspection. "You want to get

builder about that. It

where Lapham had failed before. "I can't fix it." He looked round on

guessed he had a sure thing of it now, and in another twenty-four hours he should tell her just how. He made Penelope go to the theatre with him, and when they came out, after the play, the night was so fine t

den, they saw a black mass of people obstructing the perspective of the brightly-lighted street, and out of this mass a half-dozen engines, whose strong heart-beats had already reached them, sent up volumes of fire-tinged smoke and steam from their funnels. Ladders were plante

and gossiping, with shouts and cries and hysterical laught

e it, Pen," wa

un out from dinner in some neighbouring house; the ladies were fantastica

rl. "I wouldn't have missed it on any account. Than

"and you can enjoy it without the least compunction, Miss Delano, for I happen to kno

nk he would, if

bt of it. We don't do th

is noncombustible paint on it," s

rst carriage she could reach of a number that

n fire myself;" and while he rummaged among the papers in his desk, still with his coat and hat on, his wife got the facts as she could from Penelope. She did no

hey'll think you set it on

in his hand. "I had a builder's risk on it,

merciful Lord!"

am. "Well, it's a que

which sometimes follows a great moral shock

X

e he lifted his head from the pillow, it gathered substance and weight against which it needed all his will to bear up and live.

coincidence that the policy had expired only the week before; heaven knows how they knew it. They said that nothing remained of the building but the walls; and Lapham, on his way to business, walked up past the smoke-stained shell. The windows looked like the

oss than he would have been by letting his money lie idle in it; what he might have raised by mortgage on it could be made up in some other way; and if they would sell he could still buy out the whole business of that West Virginia company, mines, plant, stock on hand, good-will, and everything, and unite it with his own. He wen

got much money behind them," urged

can have all the money they want. And it will be very difficult for you to raise it if you're threatened by them. With that competition, you know what yo

entment. "Good afternoon, sir." Men are but grown-up boys after all. Bellingham watched this perversely proud and obs

was glad that he had nothing to do with that cold-hearted, self-conceited race, and that the favours so far were all from his side. He was more than ever determined to show them, every one of them, high and

y had not yet tested their strength in the money market, and had not ascertained how much or how little capital they could command. Lapham himself, if he had had so much, would not have hesitated to put a million dollars into their business. He saw, as they did not see, that they had the game in their own hands, and that if they could raise the money to extend their business, they could ruin him. It was only a question of time, and he was on the ground first. He frankly proposed a union of their interests. He admitted that they had a good thing, and that he should have to fight them hard; but he meant to fight them to the dea

knew they had a big thing. But they would as soon use his capital to develop it as anybody else's, and if he could put in a certain sum for this purpose, they would go in with him. He should run the works at Lapham and manage the business in Boston, and they would run the works at Kanawha Falls and manage the business in New York. The two brothers with whom Lapham talked named their figure, subject to the approval of another brother at Kanawha Falls, to whom they would write, and who would telegraph his answer, so that Lapham could have it inside of three days. But they felt perfectly sure that he would approve; and Lapham started back on the eleven o'clock train with an elation that gradually left him as he drew near Boston, where the difficulties of raising this sum were to be over come. It seemed to him, then, that those fellows had put it up on him pretty steep, but he owned to himself that they had a sure thing, and that they were right in believing they could raise the same sum elsewhere; it would take all OF it, he admitted, to make their paint pay on

o the state of the business; but Lapham had no time to give, and he knew that the state of the business would not bear looking into. He could raise fifteen thousand on his Nankeen Square house, and another fifteen on his Beacon Street lot, and this was all that a man who was worth a million by rights could do! He said a million, and he said it in defiance of Bellingham, who had subjected his figures t

ave the chance offered him to get even with them again; he thought he should know how to look out for himself. As he understood it, he had several days to turn about in, and he did not let one day's failure dishearten him. The morning after his return he had, in fact, a gleam of luck that gave him the greatest encouragement for the moment. A man came in to inquire about one of Rogers's wild-cat patents, as Lapham called them, and ended by buying it. He got it, of course, for less than Lapham took it for, but Lapham was glad to be ri

owards him by the morning's touch of prosperity that he asked him to sit down, gruffly, of course, but distinctly; and when Rogers said in his lifeless way, and with the effect o

s was after; for he did not believe that the English par

asked. "You know that I've been ex

They haven't made you any

m in on somebody else as you turned them in on me, when the chances are

ere to tell you that these parties stand ready to take the mills off your ha

in his breast. "I don't believe there are any such parties to begin with; and in the next place, I don't believe they would

but he answered, with unvaried dryne

k out in furious denunciation of Rogers when he got it; but he only foun

e that he differed at all with him as to disposing of the property in the way he had suggested: "If we should succeed in s

to help you plunder somebody in a new scheme?" answered Lapha

y would be useful t

hy

hat you have been

iny, flashed upon Lapham; but he answered, "I shall want money a great deal worse than I've ever wanted it yet, before I go into such rascal

some weeks ago, but they disappointed me. They arrived on the Circassian last nig

elevance, and feeling himself somehow drifted fro

we would call upon them after di

r anchor for a fresh clutch on his underlying principles. "

evening because they were not certain they could remain ov

in terror as defiance, for he felt his anchor dragging.

to them," said Rogers; "but if you think it will be better t

an't see them! I shan't have anything

ion of Lapham's, "that you wished to meet these parties. You told me that you would give me ti

the matter over with his wife, and perceived his moral responsibility in it; even she had not seen this at once. He could not enter into this explana

at the time. There has been no change in the posture of affairs. You don't know now any more than you knew then that the G

pham felt it--felt it only too eager

parties when you meet them; but you've allowed me to commit

promise," s

say to them? It places me in a ridiculous position." Rogers urged his grievance calmly, almost impersonally, making his appeal to Lapham's sense of j

'll come and TELL them why. Who sha

apparent alarm at his threat, if it was a threat. "And as

I get there," said Lapham; but he

and talked on as though it were merely the opening of the negotiation. When he became plain with them in his anger, and tol

otice him otherwise, "been telling you that it's part of my game to say this? Well, sir, I can te

s were those best calculated to develop the energy and enterprise of the proposed community. They were prepared to meet Mr. Lapham--Colonel, they begged his pardon, at the instance of Rogers--at any reasonable figure, and were quite willing to assume the risks he had pointed out. Something in the eyes of these men, something that lurked at an infinite depth below their speech, and was not really in their eyes when Lapham looked again, had flashed through him a sense of treachery in them. He had thought them the dupes of Rogers; but in that brief instant he had seen them--or thought he had seen them--his accomplices, re

you can console yourself with the fact that the loss, if there is to be any, will fall upon people who are able to bear it--upon an association of rich and chari

s an hereditary prince. Lapham met the Englishman's eye, and with difficulty kept himself from winking. Then he looked away, and tried to find out where he stood, or what he wanted to do. He could hardly tell. He had expected to come into that room and unmask Rogers, and have it over. But he had unmasked Rogers without any effect whatever, and the play had only begun. He had a whims

If Colonel Lapham's figure should be a little larger than o

so many words, that if they paid him a larger price, it was to be expected that a certain portion of the purcha

iator button in the wall near Rogers's head, "and 'ave up something 'of, can't you? I should

the dinner at Corey's where he had disgraced and betrayed himself, and if he went into t

Mr. Lapham," said the first Englishman wi

O," said Lapham. "If you want another, yo

me ourselves, and we hoped for an answer--'oped for a hanswer," he co

n was, without any parting salutation. He thought Rogers might try to detain him; but Rogers

g, and that the whole affair was in his hands. It made him groan in spirit to think that it was. If he had hoped that some chance might take the decision fr

pectedly, and that the sight of her was somehow going to make it harder for him; then he thought it might be Corey, come upon some desperate pretext to see Penelope; but when he opened the door he saw, with a certain absence of surprise, that it was Rogers. He was standing with his back to the fireplace, talking to Mrs. Lapham, a

began Rogers, "to

you wanted to come here and make a poor

t that I hadn't put to you at the hotel, and that I want you should consider. And I want you should consider me a little in this business too; you're not the only one th

id Lapham, "or the

ded by the Golden Rule, as I was saying to Mrs. Lapham before you came in. I told her that if I knew myself, I should in your place consider the circumstances of a man in mine

ith you and those fellows, I should b

ut a cent in the world; and my wife is an invalid. She needs comforts, she needs little luxuries, and she hasn't even the necessaries; and you want to sacrifice her to a mere idea! You don't know in the first place that the Road will ever want to buy; and if it does, the probability is tha

rous, of the reparation to Rogers which she had forced her husband to make, or whether her perceptions had been blunted and darkened by the appeals which Rogers had now used, i

growing superiority. "You have shown a proper spirit in rega

m. "I've used up about a hundred a

d be so mindful of others now, when you showed so little regard for me then. I had come to your aid at a time when you needed help, and when you got on your feet you kick

perceived now that when he had thought it was for him alone to decide, he had counted upon her just spirit to stay his own in its struggle to be just. He had not forgotten how she held out against him only a little while ago, when he asked her whether he might not rightfully sell in some such contingency as t

rs said, with the obvious intention of

I don't ask now that you

m paused,

other for, then?" demanded

to me. I don't say what I'm going to do with the property, and

he saw his wife's face lig

e got the money to buy it. What will you take for

her a look that meant obedience for her. She wen

in your man, Milton Rogers," said Lapham, lighting a cigar. "As soon as I sold to

ing you what I shall or shall not do with the property when it is in my hands again. The question is, Will

rge him to consent. He did not see why he should refuse. There was no longer a reason. He was standing out alone for nothing, any one else would say. He smoked on as if Rogers were not there, an

ou've said now hasn't changed the thing a bit. I wish it had. The Lord knows, I want to be rid of the property fast enou

at; but if I can by

nothing!" cried Rogers, in his disappointment. "Why are you so particula

who had once so selfishly consulted his own inter

ight," he answered sullenly. "Anyway, I

n I see you i

-past

the room without another word. Lapham foll

m from above as he approac

'd let him know

come down and

p and down; and then the rest of the night she lay awake and listened to him walking up and down. But when the first light whitened the window, the words of the Scripture came into h

raised his dull eyes after the first silence, and s

husband when she followed him with her eyes from the window, drag h

ted letter-heading on the outside, and Lapham had no need to open it in order to know that it was the offer of the Great Lacustrine & Polar Railroad f

e must have taken it all in at a glance, and seen the impossibility of negotiat

out. "I haven't a cent left in

upon him. This was his reward for standing firm for right and ju

X

himself. He spent the time in a desperate endeavour to raise the money, but he had not raised the half of it when the banks closed. With shame in his heart he went to Bellingham, from whom he had parted so haughtily, and laid his plan before him. He could not bring himself to ask Bellingham's help, but he told him what he proposed to do. Bel

clinch this offer within twenty-four hours, they'll wi

with you. They must give you time to look at what they want to sell. If it turns

ur o'clock train. He hurried back to his office, and put together some papers preparatory to going, and despatched a

ir street-coats and hats on; Miss Dewey had her jacket dragged up on her shoulders, and looked particularly

answered, with the air of unmerited wrong habitual wi

oom. There's a fire in the stove

prided herself, in which she thought herself superior to her husband, it was her instant and steadfast perception of right and wrong, and the ability to choose the right to her own hurt. But she had now to confess, as each of us has had likewise to confess in his own case, that the very virtue on which she had prided herself was the thing that had played her false; that she had kept her mind so long upon that old wrong which she believed her husband had done this man that she could not detach it, but clung to the thought of reparation for it when she ought to have seen that he was proposing a piece of roguery as the means. The suff

ays when she knew as much about the paint as he did; she wished that those days were back again. She saw Corey at his desk, and she could not bear to spe

that any one else should seem to be helping her husband about business that she had once been so intimate with; and she did not at all like the girl's indifference to her presence. Her hat and sack hung on a nail in one corner, and Lapham's office coat, looking intensely like him to his wife's familiar eye, hung on a nail in

be in, do you suppose?" sh

y," replied the girl,

been o

looking up at the clock, without looking at

abruptly. "When Colonel Lapham comes in, you

pham with a red and startled face, which she did not l

herself in vain what the mysterious business could be that took him away so suddenly. She said to herself that he was neglecting her; he was leaving her out a little too much; and in demanding of herself why he had never mentioned that girl there in h

here was nothing to do; and the looks of that girl kept coming back to her vacancy, her disoccupation. She tried to make herself something to do, but that beauty, which she had not liked, followed her amid the work of over

ger who said there was no answer. "A note for me?" she said, staring at the unknown, and somehow artificial-looking, handwriting of the superscripti

n. She passed the night without sleep, without rest, in the frenzy of the cruellest of the passions, which covers with shame the unhappy soul it possesses, and murderously lusts for the misery of its object. If she had known where to

our office, Silas Lapham?" she de

in my

he? What is sh

ave you hear

is! I want to know what a respectable man, with grown-up girls of his own, is doing with such a looking thing

now, to keep the household from hearing her lifted voice. For a while he stood bewildered, and could not have a

red furiously, placing hers

w me to do anythi

t what I a

out about that girl yourse

t away from

nd went out. "I WILL find out about her," she screamed after him. "I'

es she lowered the window to put her head out and ask him if he could not hurry. A thousand things thronged into her mind to support her in her evil will. She remembered how glad and proud that man had been to marry her, and how everybody said she was marrying beneath her when she took him. She remembered how good she had always been to him, how perfectly devoted, slaving early and late to advance him, and looking out for his interests in all things, and sparing herself in nothing. If it had not been for her, he might have been drivin

ter her when she had got half-way up the stairs. Then she went straight to Lapham's room, with outrage in her heart. There was again no o

n confronted

ried Mrs. Lapham, "ain'

altered the girl "M

aughter, anyway. How l

arly; I've been here off a

s your

ere--in

g, into her husband's chair, and a sort of amaze and curiosity w

got me a type-writer, so that I can help myself a little. Mother's

your h

--he's agreed to it, time and again,--I don't know what we're going to do." Zerrilla's voice fell, and the trouble which she could keep out of her face usually, when she was comfortably warmed and fed and prettily dressed, clouded it in the presence of a sympathetic listener. "I saw it was you

BE the last time. He had then got her a little house in one of the fishing ports, where she could take the sailors to board and wash for, and earn an honest living if she would keep straight. That was five or six years ago, and Mrs. Lapham had heard nothing of Mrs. Millon since; she had heard quite enough of her before; and had known her idle and baddish ever since she was the worst little girl at school in Lumberville, and all through her shameful girlhood, and the married days which she had made so miserable to the poor fellow who had given her his decent name and a chance to behave herself. Mrs. Lapham had no mercy on Moll Mill

im Millon, I've go

erly grateful that his deceit was in this sort, and not in that other. All cruel and shameful doubt of him went out of it. She looked at this beautiful girl, who had blossomed out of her knowledge since she saw her last, and she knew that she was only a blossomed weed, of the same worthless root as her mother, and saved, if saved, from the same evil destiny, by the good of her father in her; but so far as the girl and her mother were concerned, Mrs. Lapham knew that her husband was to blam

ham? The Colonel was here just before

ch him here. But it don't matter. I wish you would let s

he twilight of the staircase, and she was glad to put her trembling hand through it, and keep it there till he helped

ight now," she said, and

mselves so, even to Mrs. Lapham's remorse--secretly and in defiance of her, it was because he dreaded her blame, which was so sharp and bitter, for what he could not help doing. It consoled her that he had defied her, deceived her; when he came back she should tell

king his bag, and had offered to help him; but he had said he could do it

n the parlour," she asked her mother, "just

was no

the curtains on account of her mother's headache, and doing awkwardly and i

ope said there was no one to ask; the clerks would all be gone home, and her m

a whisper, and she presently laughed huskily. "Mr. Corey seems

the answer came quickly back that Corey did not know, but would look up the book-keeper and inquire. This office b

e could pack his bag," Penelope explained, "and we hadn't a chance to as

t the office to-day. And so I thought I would com

thank

can do--telegraph Colo

better now. She merely wan

mother was much better since she had had a cup of tea; and then they looked at each other, and without any apparent exchange of intelligence he remained, and at e

he said. "But with father gone, and

er hand a moment at the door,

"and I want to ask you now when I may c

rt asunder, and at a sign from Penelope, who knew t

e!" shriek

th her small bags, and kissed her sister with resolute composure. "That's all," she

w do you do, Mr. Corey?" she said, with a courage that sent a thrill of

ts, and Irene ran up the stairs to her mother's ro

e Lap

ing so silly, too? You ought to have been ashamed to let me stay so long! I started just as soon as I could pack. Did you get my despatch? I telegraphed from Springfield. But it don't m

"It's the first time he's been here

ene, and before she took off her bonnet she began to un

father and sisters came down, he told her, with embarrassment which told

er hopes she had lately permitted herself. She answered with Roman fortitude: "Of cour

said

me call at first, but now if

hope--ye

come here and--we ought all to see her and make the matter public. We

h I don't seem to have done so; I know what your rights are, and I wish with all my heart that I were meeting even your tastes perfectly. But I know you wil

e reported, said she was sure of it, and t

Colonel Lapham's difficulties. I should like to have you go, now, for that very reason. I d

manly. She answered, with what composure she could, "I will take your sisters," and then she made some natural inquiries about Lapham's affairs. "Oh, I hope it will come out all right," Corey said, with a lover's vague smile, and left her. When his father cam

upposing yourself porcelain, this is a just punishment of your arrogance. Here you are bound by the very quality on which you've pr

he money," said Mrs.

dilemma gores us. Well, we still have the comfort we had in the beginning; we can't help ourselves;

e had my way of expressing my sense of it, and you yours, but we have always been of the same mind about it. We would both have preferred to have Tom marry in his own set; the Laphams are about the last set we could have wished him to marry into. They ARE uncultivated people, and so far as I

he Neapolitan manner,

VI

notion. She said that he was as good as engaged to a girl out there, and that he had never dreamt of her. Her mother wondered at her severity; in these few months the girl had toughened and hardened; she had lost all her babyish dependence and pliability; sh

r sister she ignored the past as completely as it was possible to do; and she treated both Corey and Penelope with the justice which their innocence of voluntary offence deserved. It was a difficult part, and she kept away f

tilted away from the Emancipation group, as if he expected the Lincoln to hit him, with that lifted hand of benediction; and that Mrs. Corey looked as if she were not sure but the Eagle pecked. But for the time being Penelope was as nearly crazed as might be by the complications of her position, and received her visitors with a piteous distraction which

pertness," said Mrs Corey,

queried. "The child h

grig, you can see that, and there's no harm in her. I can understand a little why a formal fellow like Tom should be taken with her. She hasn't the l

very diffe

. Anna, a terrible thought occurs to me! Fancy Tom being married in front of tha

ed his wife, "yo

the least bit slow, at times, if it were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that I'm convinced he sometim

irl were not so offensive to his fastidiousness, there might be some hope that she was not so offensive as Mrs. Corey had thought. "I wonder

nd hard to bear; but now she almost welcomed them. At the end of three days Lapham returned, and his wife met him as if nothing unusual had marked their parting; she reserved her atonement for a fitter time; he would know now from the way she acted that she felt all right towards him. He took very little note of her manner, but met his family with an austere quiet that

Lapham. "It was time for h

's having been there, and of his father's and mother's c

apham; and now she could no longer f

" she said humbly, with remote allusion to her treatment of hi

and tilting himself back in his chair. "Or

n, Si?" she pers

and put myself in their hands. If there's enough left to satisfy them, I'm satisfied.

s all over with you?"

that had turned up in New York, and wanted to put money in the business. His money would have enabled Lapham to close with the West Virginians. "The devil was in it, right straight along," said Lapham. "All I had to do was to keep quiet about that other company. It was Rogers and his property right over again. He liked the look of things, and he wanted to go into the b

everything go

ance at everything--every dollar, every cent

ut unscathed and unstained. He was able in his talk to make so little of them; he hardly seemed to see what they were; he was apparently not proud of them, and certainly not glad; if they were victories of any sort, he bore them with the patience of defeat. Hi

intend to tell you at first, but then I put--I put it off. I t

in your business to even come near it. If we're brought back to

about the lesson

gainst him. He turned it listlessly over in his hand. "I guess I know who i

-how coul

, with patience that cut her more k

sh sensation of calamity. In the shadow of his disaster they returned to something like their old, united life; they were at least all together again; and it will be intelligible to those whom life has blessed with vicissitude, that Lapham should come home the eveni

with him, and what he meant to do. Bellingham made some futile inquiries about his negotiations with the West Virginians, and Lapham told him they had come to nothing.

t seeing till afterwards the ful

e had acted right in that matter, and he was satisfied; but he did not

on the water side of Beacon. This thing and that is embittered to us, so that we may be willing to relinquish it; the world, life itself, is embittered to most of us, so that we are glad to have done with them at last; and this home was haunted with such memories to each of those who abandoned it that to go was less exile than escape. Mrs. Lapham could not look into Irene's room without seeing the girl there before her glass, tearing the poor little keep-sakes of her hapless fancy from their hiding-places to take them and fling them in passionate renunciation upon her sister; she could not come into the sitting-room, where her little ones had grown up, without starting at the thought of her husband sitting so many weary nights at his desk there, trying to fight his way back to hope out of the ruin into which he was slipping. When she remembered that night when Rogers came, she hated the place. Irene accepted her release from the house eagerly, and was glad to go before and prepare for the family at Lapham. Penelope was always ashamed of her engagement there; it

facilities that had conquered him, not their ill-will; and he recognised in them without enmity the necessity to which he had yielded. If he succeeded in his efforts to develop his paint in this direction, it must be for a long time on a small scale compared with his former business, which it could never equal, and he brought to them the flagging energies of an elderly man. He was more broken than he knew by his failure; it d

y means of his recommendation, was perhaps the Colonel's proudest consolation. Corey knew the business thoroughly, and after half a year at Kanawha Falls and in th

South America several years, watching the new railroad enterprises and the development of mechanical agriculture and whatever other undertakings offered an opening for the introd

uld say Yes, or why I should say No. Everything else changes, but this is just where it was a year ago. It don't go

suggested her mother. "You ca

id Penelope. "I ought to be

d ever to b

ce if I could make up my mind to it." She laughed. "Well, if I could be SENTENCED to b

d now, they had better go all over it and try to reason it out. "And I

hat, and looked at her with

right. I don't know whether I can make you understand, but the idea of being happy,

hare of the common sufferin

before, that as long as father is in trouble I can't let you think of me. Now that he's lost

answered seriously, but smiling still. "Do y

must," she said,

on account of your father's loss? You didn't sup

er so delicate and gentle, in his

ot go on and say that she had felt herself more worthy of him because of her father's money; it would

why you shouldn't wish me to suf

k at that again. You mustn't pretend that you don't know it, for that wouldn't be

ttle daunted, "you won't

isn't th

other--she can't help it!" he exclaimed, less judicially than he had hitherto spoken, and he went on to urge some points of doubtful tenability. "We have our ways, and you have yours; and while I don't say but what you

pleasant to have you on my

es. Tell me just what i

rai

ing of

h her eyes intent on his. "It's what they are. I couldn't be natural

be natura

I never was. That was the

's necessary. And it never w

me untrue

that! You were al

ed for y

cared for her at al

ought y

, and I can't let you ma

s making from his; "I want you to realise the whole affair. Should you want a girl who hadn't a cent i

ant

ought to give you up for all these reasons. Yes, I must." She looked

must submit. If I asked too much

u will soon look at me differently; and see that even IF there hadn't been this about Irene, I was not the one for you. You do think so, don't you?" she pleaded, clinging to his hand. "I am not at all what they would like--your family; I felt that. I am little, and black, and homely, and they don't understand my way of talking, and now that we've lost everything--No, I'm not fit. Good-bye. You're quite right, not to have patience with me

She was spared from the first advance toward this by an accident or a misunderstanding. Irene came straight to her af

you did, I'll thank you to bring him back again. I'm not going to have him thinking that I'm dying for a

ded, shamed out of her prevarication by Irene's haugh

fiercely, "Well!" and left her to her dismay--her dismay and her relief, for

y had so far been his friend that it had taken from him all hope of the social success for which people crawl and truckle, and restored him, through failure and doubt and heartache, the manhood which his prosperity had so nearly stolen from him. Neither

d not see how she could go through it.

steadily answer

. But it don

band's family and endeared her to them. These things continually happen in novels; and the Coreys

he heroism with which Lapham had withstood Rogers and his temptations--something finely dramatic and unconsciously effective,--wrote him a letter which would once have fl

ble, between the Coreys and Tom Corey's wife. "If he had

sketch of her, which she put by with other studies to finish up, sometime, and found her rather picturesque in some ways. Nanny got on with her better than the rest, and saw possibilities for her in the country to which she was going. "As she's quite unformed, socially," she explained to her mother, "there is a chanc

sure they all got on very pleasantly as it was,

mfield Corey which he had dreaded; the Laphams were far off in their native fastnesses, and neither Lily nor Nanny Corey was obliged to sacrifice herself to the conversation of Irene; they were not even called upon to make a social demonstration for Penelope at a time when, most people being still out of town, it would have been so easy; she and Tom had both

onising to do, since they were four to one; but then she had gone through so much greater trials before. When th

Corey, who ought t

nk I shall feel strange a

r manners and customs go for more in life than our qualities. The price that we pay for civilisation is the fine yet impassable differentiation of these. Perhaps we pay too much; but it will not be possible to persuade those who have the difference in their favour that this is so.

vaster enterprise of the younger men, which he had once vainly hoped to grasp all in his own hand. He began to tell of this coincidence as something very striking; and pushing on more actively the special branch of the business left to him, he bragged, quite in his old way, o

but his own; every dollar, every cent had gone to pay his debts; he had come out with clean hands. He said all this, and much more, to Mr. Sewell the summer after he sold out,

n; but no woman could endure to live in the same house with a perfect hero, and there were other times when she reminded him that if he had kept his word to her about speculating in stocks, and had looked after the insurance of his property half as carefully as he had loo

hed to be confirmed in his belief that he had advised them soundly; but he had not given her their names, and he had not known Corey's himself. Now he had no compunctions in talking the affair over with her without the veil of ignorance which she had hitherto assumed, for she declared that as soon as she heard of Corey's engagement to Pe

I'm sure that's out of your novel-reading, my dear, and not out of

over it--how much character she has got!

er anything between them is a fact that would need a separate inquiry. It is certain that at the end of five years after the disappointment which she met so bravely, she was still unmarried. But she was even then still very young,

driven on the Milldam. He was rather shabby and slovenly in dress, and he had fallen unkempt, after the country fashion, as to his hair and beard and boots. The house was plain, and was furnished with the simpler moveables out of the house in Nankeen Square. There were certainly all the necessaries, but no luxuries unless the statues of Prayer and Faith might be so considered. The Laphams now burned kerosene, of course, and they had no furnace in the winter; these were the only hardships the Colonel complained of; but he s

It was just like starting a row of bricks. I tried to catch up and stop 'em from going, but they all tumbled, one after another. It wa'n't in the nature of

e moral world. There its course is often so very obscure; and often it seems to involve, so far as we can see, no penalty whate

don't. That i

ay; and it can't be that our sins only weaken us--that your fear of having possibly behaved selfishly toward this man kept you on your guard, and st

u thin

re may be truth i

h I could see that I'd got to go under unless I did it--that I couldn't sell out to those Englishmen,

, just because his prosperity had been so gross and palpable; and he had now a burning desire to know exactly how

e, and I crept out of it. I don't know," he added thoughtfully, biting the corner of his stiff moustache. "I don't know as I shoul