Chapter 24

THE OLD AND THE NEW.

Primrose Henry put on her camlet cloak and took several skeins of yarn to one of the old ladies in the almshouses, to knit some stockings for some other poor. Afterward she sauntered round with a guilty feeling. She often ran in to see Phil and Andrew, and the one clerk always stared at the radiant vision. She hesitated on the broad sill, then she opened the door. There was a sort of counting room first, and that was vacant now. Andrew was in the apartment beyond.

There was her promise to Rachel. Oh, what must she do!

"Philemon has gone," and Andrew glanced up with tender gravity as he espied Primrose.

"Yes. I saw him. How is Aunt Lois, and Faith?"

"Very well." There was a different smile, now, a sense of amusement, and a peculiar light in the eyes like relief.

"What is it?" Her heart-beat almost strangled her.

"Rachel was in this morning. And you cannot guess--she is to be married presently."

"Married! And she cared so much for you," cried Primrose in consternation.

Andrew colored and moved his head with a slow negative.

"No, it could not have been. Andrew--I wonder what kind of a wife you would like?" turning her eyes away.

He could have reached out his hand and answered her with a clasp. But there was another who loved her very much, who was young and gay and full of ardent hopes. That would be better for the child.

"I shall not marry for years to come." His voice was very tranquil. "There is my mother, and now we are so much to each other."

"And _she_ ought to be a Friend. You would like a Friend best, Andrew? And no flighty young thing."

Was _she_ thinking of anything? Oh, she was too young and sweet. It would be putting a butterfly in a cage.

"That would be better, certainly. When two people elect to spend their lives together, it is best that they should have similar tastes and desires."

"But a sweet and pretty one, Andrew. One like Miss Whiting, who is intelligent and noble and reads a great many things and has a lovely garden of flowers. I want you to be very, very happy, Andrew."

"Thank you, little one. Let me wish the same for you. A gallant young lover with ambition, who can take his place in society and who will enjoy with you the youthful pleasures that are so much to you, and then grow older with you and come to ripe middle life and serene old age. I think I could put my finger on someone----"

Primrose's sweet face was scarlet, and her eyes suddenly fluttered down with tremulous lids.

"Thou hast been a dear little sister," going back to the Quaker speech. "Thy happiness will be much to me; thy pain, if any happened to thee, would be my pain. Thy prosperity will always be my prayer, for I think thou wert born for sunniness and clear sailing and joy, with someone bright and young like thyself."

"A little sister," she repeated softly. If it was that and only that, her conscience would be clear.

"Yes. Didst thou ever doubt it?"

He raised his serene brown eyes and smiled. He was not one to carry all his soul in his eyes.

"Nay, and I never shall." She pressed her lips to his forehead, which was as fair as any girl's. How long it had been since he kissed her! He might trust himself again on her wedding day.

"And now tell me about Rachel. We have queer talk of loves and such."

"He is a young man, a neighbor, the eldest of several sons. And Rachel hath a nice dower. I hope all will go well."

She was infinitely sorry for Rachel at that moment.

"You will come soon and see us. I send love to Aunt Lois," and Primrose turned.

"Fare thee well. Blessings attend thee, little one."

He sat there a long while, thinking how her mother had given up many worldly things for the man she loved. Primrose would do it, too, he said stoutly to himself, if she had loved. It was best this way. The sunshine did not rise up from the brown earth, but shone down out of the radiant blue sky.

Primrose Henry went home with a light heart. And that evening Allin Wharton had his answer.

Madam Wetherill shook her head, but said smilingly, "If you take the young woman you must take the old one, too. I will never give up Primrose."

The girl's soft arms were around her neck and the sweet young voice, with a rapture of emotion, cried, "Oh, madam, am I indeed so dear to you?"

* * * * *

The world goes on and the stories of life are repeated, but to each one comes that supreme taste of personal joy and rapture that is alone for itself; that is new, no matter how many times it may have been lived over.

There was a long, delightful engagement of the young people, who waited for Allin to take his degree, and his father felt justly proud of his standing. There was all the reckless happiness of two young people in that wonderful joyousness of youth when one apes sorrows for the sake of being comforted, indulges in dainty disagreements so that they can repent with fascinating sweetness, and are inconsequent, unreasonable, entrancing, and delightful, and gayety of any kind seems good, so that it goes hand and hand with love. Primrose danced and laughed through her April years, and then came May with bloom and more steadiness, and then peerless, magnificent June.

"I am but a sad trifler, after all," she would say to Madam Wetherill. "Shall I ever be like my dear mother or have any of the sober Henry blood in me?"

"Nay," was the answer. "We never find fault with the rose because it does not bear an ear of corn or a stalk of grain. And yet so great a thing as an oak tree is content to bear a small acorn."

And while they were being married and rejoicing in Phil's sturdy little boy and dainty, golden-haired baby girl called Primrose, old Philadelphia was making rapid strides. Indeed, in Washington's language, the United Colonies had now "the opportunity to become a respectable nation," and it came back to the city where it had first uttered its lusty young cry and protest. In May of 1787, in the old State House, assembled the delegates who were to frame a Constitution that would stand the wear and tear of time. Their four months' work has come down to us written in letters of imperishable glory, that were not to be too large for the Thirteen Colonies, and large enough for any multiple the nation might come to use in the course of its existence.

For the tardy treaty of peace had been signed, and though there were much discussion and various opinions, such as children of one family often have, it was all settled. And the next Fourth of July had a grand procession, for the times, and a ship of state was dragged proudly through the streets on a float, with some pretty boys for midshipmen; the great judges in their official robes, soldiers, and civilians, and, side by side, walked Andrew Henry and Philemon Henry, brothers indeed in all the wide and varied interests that go to make up brotherhood and not a little human love. The bells of Christ Church, that had once been taken down and hidden from vandal hands, were rehung, and rung at intervals all day long, while flags floated and bonfires blazed at night, and a grand supper was eaten by the dignitaries at Bush Hill.

While other and larger matters were being discussed, a President nominated, elected, and inaugurated, Philadelphia, like a prudent householder, was attending to her own affairs. When Washington passed through the city on his way to New York to receive the grandest compliment of the nation, she again paid him all honor in his reception.

The beautiful city with its greenery and quiet, of which William Penn had dreamed, and in many of whose footsteps the renowned Franklin had followed, had gone through curious changes, and was putting on new aspects with every year. But "Fairemount," with its homes that were to be handed down in story a hundred years later; Stenton, with its grand aspects; Lansdowne, with its woods and waters; the Logan House, the Shippens', and old Mount Pleasant, and so on stretching up the banks of the Schuylkill were to be left beautiful and tranquil and free from the thought of business invasion. For Old Philadelphia is like a dream, and there will always linger about it the youthful tenderness of William Penn's plan and his life story.

And then, to the chagrin of New York, came the transference of the Capital to Philadelphia. She had perked up and brightened up, stretched out her wharves, filled up her low places, cleared her streets of rubbish, and built rows of houses, had her library and her university, and it seemed as if she had been getting ready for this accession within her borders, the "Republican Court," as it was to be called.

A plain enough house, on High Street, it was, with a few fine old trees about, where many famous decisions were shaped by wisdom that seems wonderful to us now. When Congress was in session there were many gayeties, dinners, private balls, suppers, and dances for the young people, and then, to its ruler, the retirement of Mount Vernon.

With it all a sort of serene steadiness and refinement that never allowed pleasures to degenerate into a maddening whirl. A thrift and prudence, too, that had become a solid, underlying strand in the character of the city.

The bell still rang out on market mornings and mistresses were not above visiting the long, clean spaces, though there was much fault-finding about the dearness of things, and Mrs. Adams complained of the loneliness of Bush Hill, though she was afterward to be comforted by being the first lady of the land at Washington, the final Capital.

Primrose Wharton was a pretty young wife and the mother of a golden-haired little girl when she next saw "Lady Washington," as she was often called. She had settled into a gracious, but still piquant, matron, and she and Allin enjoyed the theater and still dearly loved a dance. Madam Wetherill was yet a handsome and stately dame, and "foolish over the little one," she said.

There were many memories of the dismal winter of Valley Forge renewed when Mrs. Washington met some of the brave soldiers. And among them all there was no finer nor more attractive figure than that of Andrew Henry, now arrived at its full manliness. The Quaker costume became him as no other would, though the Continental attire was distinctive and well calculated to show off a man. Fair and fresh and strong, yet with well-bred gentleness and a cultivated mind, he was often singled out at the receptions, and more than one admiring girl would have gladly enacted Bessy Wardour's romance.

Was there any story in the eyes that gave a glimpse of the great heart back of them? tender, sweet, brave eyes? Sometimes Primrose Wharton thought so, and all her pulses stood still in awesome silence. She was very happy. She and Allin had had an April fling and had settled into May bloom, but--could anything have been different--better? Not for her, but for him. A little sister! Is she that?

He was very happy, now, in a larger house, with a study and book shelves, his mother a tender and tranquil woman, Faith a contented housekeeper with a servant, and hardly knowing which to adore the most, Polly Henry's merry madcap household, or Primrose Wharton's sunny-haired daughter.

The only thing Philemon Henry would undo are those years that he was hardly answerable for.

"Of course it was not your fault," Polly declares in her impetuous, fond, and justifying way. "I think it really braver, for it requires more courage to own that a man has been wrong, than to go along in a straight path already made for him. And I fell in love with you as a redcoat, I really did, and fought with myself in the nights when I was alone. For, of course, I couldn't have told Prim; she would have crossed me quite out of her books. And I wouldn't have dared hint such a thing to anybody. Now, truly, was I not a silly girl?"

A fond kiss is her answer.

If the war made enemies it also made brothers, informed with larger wisdom.

A hundred and more years ago! Yet there are storied places that will never die out and the old bell of freedom has clanged many a peal, and the State House had many a Pilgrim. Truly there are numberless worthies in the great beyond, who have left behind imperishable memories even in a city that has grown anew more than once, and added beauty to beauty.

THE END.

* * * * *

The Girl Chum's Series

ALL AMERICAN AUTHORS.

ALL COPYRIGHT STORIES.

A carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. Their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers.

HANDSOME CLOTH BINDING.

PRICE, 60 CENTS.

BENHURST, CLUB, THE. By Howe Benning.

BERTHA'S SUMMER BOARDERS. By Linnie S. Harris.

BILLOW PRAIRIE. A Story of Life in the Great West. By Joy Allison.

DUXBERRY DOINGS. A New England Story. By Caroline B. Le Row.

FUSSBUDGET'S FOLKS. A Story For Young Girls. By Anna F. Burnham.

HAPPY DISCIPLINE, A. By Elizabeth Cummings.

JOLLY TEN, THE; and Their Year of Stories. By Agnes Carr Sage.

KATIE ROBERTSON. A Girl's Story of Factory Life. By M. E. Winslow.

LONELY HILL. A Story For Girls. By M. L. Thornton-Wilder.

MAJORIBANKS. A Girl's Story. By Elvirton Wright.

MISS CHARITY'S HOUSE. By Howe Benning.

MISS ELLIOT'S GIRLS. A Story For Young Girls. By Mary Spring Corning.

MISS MALCOLM'S TEN. A Story For Girls. By Margaret E. Winslow.

ONE GIRL'S WAY OUT. By Howe Benning.

PEN'S VENTURE. By Elvirton Wright.

RUTH PRENTICE. A Story For Girls. By Marion Thorne.

THREE YEARS AT GLENWOOD. A Story of School Life. By M. E. Winslow.

* * * * *

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York.

The Girl Comrade's Series

ALL AMERICAN AUTHORS. ALL COPYRIGHT STORIES.

A carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. Their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers.

HANDSOME CLOTH BINDING.

PRICE, 60 CENTS.

A BACHELOR MAID AND HER BROTHER. By I. T. Thurston.

ALL ABOARD. A Story For Girls. By Fanny E. Newberry.

ALMOST A GENIUS. A Story For Girls. By Adelaide L. Rouse.

ANNICE WYNKOOP, Artist. Story of a Country Girl. By Adelaide L. Rouse.

BUBBLES. A Girl's Story. By Fannie E. Newberry.

COMRADES. By Fannie E. Newberry.

DEANE GIRLS, THE. A Home Story. By Adelaide L. Rouse.

HELEN BEATON, COLLEGE WOMAN. By Adelaide L. Rouse.

JOYCE'S INVESTMENTS. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry.

MELLICENT RAYMOND. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry.

MISS ASHTON'S NEW PUPIL. A School Girl's Story. By Mrs. S. S. Robbins.

NOT FOR PROFIT. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry.

ODD ONE, THE. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry.

SARA, A PRINCESS. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. Newberry.

* * * * *

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York.

The Blue Grass Seminary Girls Series

By CAROLYN JUDSON BURNETT

Handsome Cloth Binding Price, 40c. per Volume

_Splendid Stories of the Adventures of a Group of Charming Girls_

THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' VACATION ADVENTURES; or, Shirley Willing to the Rescue.

THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS; or, A Four Weeks' Tour with the Glee Club.

THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS; or, Shirley Willing on a Mission of Peace.

THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS ON THE WATER; or, Exciting Adventures on a Summer's Cruise Through the Panama Canal.

The Mildred Series

By MARTHA FINLEY

Handsome Cloth Binding Price, 40c. per Volume

_A Companion Series to the Famous "Elsie" Books by the Same Author_

MILDRED KEITH

MILDRED'S MARRIED LIFE

MILDRED AT ROSELANDS

MILDRED AT HOME

MILDRED AND ELSIE

MILDRED'S BOYS AND GIRLS

MILDRED'S NEW DAUGHTER

* * * * *

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers

A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street. New York.

The Camp Fire Girls Series

By HILDEGARD G. FREY. The only series of stories for Camp Fire Girls endorsed by the officials of the Camp Fire Girls Organization. PRICE, 40 CENTS PER VOLUME

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or, The Winnebagos go Camping.

This lively Camp Fire group and their Guardian go back to Nature in a camp in the wilds of Maine and pile up more adventures in one summer than they have had in all their previous vacations put together. Before the summer is over they have transformed Gladys, the frivolous boarding school girl, into a genuine Winnebago.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL; or, The Wohelo Weavers.

It is the custom of the Winnebagos to weave the events of their lives into symbolic bead bands, instead of keeping a diary. All commendatory doings are worked out in bright colors, but every time the Law of of the Camp Fire is broken it must be recorded is black. How these seven live wire girls strive to infuse into their school life the spirit of Work, Health and Love and yet manage to get into more than their share of mischief, is told in this story.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; or, The Magic Garden.

Migwan is determined to go to college, and not being strong enough to work indoors earns the money by raising fruits and vegetables. The Winnebagos all turn a hand to help the cause along and the "goings-on" at Onoway House that summer make the foundations shake with laughter.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or, Along the Road That Leads the Way.

The Winnebagos take a thousand mile auto trip. The "pinching" of Nyoda, the fire in the country inn, the runaway girl and the dead-earnest hare and hound chase combine to make these three weeks the most exciting the Winnebagos have ever experienced.

* * * * *

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers

A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street. New York.

The "Little Girl" Series

By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS

In Handsome Cloth Binding

Price, per Volume 60 Cents

* * * * *

A Little Girl in Old New York

A Little Girl of Long Ago A sequel to "A Little Girl in Old New York"

A Little Girl in Old Boston

A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia

A Little Girl in Old Washington

A Little Girl in Old New Orleans

A Little Girl in Old Detroit

A Little Girl in Old St. Louis

A Little Girl in Old Chicago

A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

A Little Girl in Old Quebec

A Little Girl in Old Baltimore

A Little Girl in Old Salem

A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg

* * * * *

For Sale by all Booksellers or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price

A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

New York