Chapter 22

As Linnet placed the chocolate pot on the table, Marjorie exclaimed, "There they are! Mother Rheid and Hollis. They are coming by the road; of course the field is blocked with snow. Now your anxious heart shall laugh at itself. I'll put on plates for two more. Is there chocolate enough? And it won't seem so much like playing house."

While Marjorie put on the extra plates and cut a few more slices of sponge cake, Linnet went to the front door, and stood waiting for them.

Through the open kitchen door Marjorie heard her ask, "Is anything the matter?"

"Hush! Where's Marjorie?" asked Hollis' voice.

Was it her trouble? Was it Miss Prudence? Or Prue--it could not be her father and mother; she had seen them at church. Morris! _Morris!_ Had they not just heard from Will? He went away, and she was not kind to him.

Who was saying "dead"? Was somebody dead?

She was trembling so that she would have fallen had she not caught at the back of a chair for support. There was a buzzing in her ears; she was sinking down, sinking down. Linnet was clinging to her, or holding her up. Linnet must be comforted.

"Is somebody--dead?" she asked, her dry lips parting with an effort.

"Yes, dear; it's Morris," said Mrs. Rheid. "Lay her down flat, Linnet. It's the shock? Hollis, bring some water."

"Oh, no, no," shivered Marjorie, "don't touch me. What shall I say to his mother? His mother hasn't any one else to care for her. Where is he? Won't somebody tell me all about it?"

"Oh, dear; I can't," sobbed Mrs. Rheid.

Hollis drew her into a chair and seated himself beside her, keeping her cold hand in his.

"I will tell you, Marjorie."

But Marjorie did not hear; she only heard, "Good-bye, Marjorie--_dear_."

"Are you listening, Marjorie?"

"Oh, yes."

Linnet stood very white beside her. Mrs. Rheid was weeping softly.

"They were near a ship in distress; the wind was high, and they could not go to her for many hours; at last Morris went in a boat, with some of the crew, and helped them off the wreck; he saved them all, but he was hurt in some way,--Will does not know how; the men tried to tell him, but they contradicted themselves,--and after getting safe aboard his own ship--do you understand it all?"

"Yes. Morris got back safe to the _Linnet_, but he was injured--"

"And then taken very ill, so ill that he was delirious. Will did everything for his comfort that he could do; he was with him night and day; he lived nine days. But, before he became delirious, he sent his love to his mother, and he gave Will something to give to you."

"Yes. I know," said Marjorie. "I don't deserve it. I refused it when he wanted to give it to me. I wasn't kind to him."

"Yes, you were," said Linnet, "you don't know what you are saying. You were always kind to him, and he loved you."

"Yes; but I might have been kinder," she said. "Must I tell his mother?"

"No; Miss Prudence will do that," answered Hollis. "I have Will's letter for you to take to her."

"Where is he? Where _is_ Morris?"

"Buried in England. Will could not bring him home," said Hollis.

"His mother! What will she do?" moaned Marjorie.

"Marjorie, you talk as if there was no one to comfort her," rebuked Mrs. Rheid.

"You have all your boys, Mrs. Rheid, and she had only Morris," said Marjorie.

"Yes; that is true; and I cannot spare one of them. Do cry, child. Don't sit there with your eyes so wide open and big."

Marjorie closed her eyes and leaned back against Linnet. Morris had gone to God.

It was hours before the tears came. She sobbed herself to sleep towards morning. She did not deserve it; but she would keep the thing he had sent to her. Another beautiful life was ended; who would do his work on the earth. Would Hollis? Could she do a part of it? She would love his mother. Oh, how thankful she was that he had known that rest had begun to come to his mother, that he had known that she was safe with Miss Prudence.

It was like Marjorie, even in her first great sorrow, to fall asleep thanking God.

XXIII.

GOD'S LOVE.

"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten."

Marjorie opened her "English Literature." She must recite to-morrow. She had forgotten whom she had studied about Saturday afternoon.

Again Hollis was beside her in the train. Her shawl strap was at her feet; her ticket was tucked into her glove; she opened at the same place in "English Literature." Now she remembered "Donald Grant Mitchell." His "Dream Life" was one of Morris' favorites. They had read it together one summer under the apple-tree. He had coaxed her to read aloud, saying that her voice suited it. She closed the book; she could not study; how strange it would be to go among the girls and hear them laugh and talk; would any of them ask her if she were in trouble? They would remember her sailor boy.

Was it Saturday afternoon? Hollis wore those brown kid gloves, and there was the anchor dangling from his black chain. She was not too shy to look higher, and meet the smile of his eyes to-day. Was she going home and expecting a letter from Morris? There was a letter in her pocket; but it was not from Morris. Hollis had said he expected to hear from Will; and they had heard from Will. He would be home before very long, and tell them all the rest. The train rushed on; a girl was eating peanuts behind her, and a boy was studying his Latin Grammar in front of her. She was going to Morris' mother; the rushing train was hurrying her on. How could she say to Miss Prudence, "Morris is dead."

"Marjorie."

"Well," she answered, rousing herself.

"Are you comfortable?"

The voice was sympathetic; tears started, she could only nod in reply.

There seemed to be nothing to talk about to-day.

She had replied in monosyllables so long that he was discouraged with his own efforts at conversation, and lapsed into silence. But it was a silence that she felt she might break at any moment.

The train stopped at last; it had seemed as if it would never stop, and then as if it would stop before she could catch her breath and be ready to speak. If she had not refused that something he had brought her this would not have been so hard. Had he cared so very much? Would she have cared very much if he had refused those handkerchiefs she had marked for him? But Hollis had taken her shawl strap, and was rising.

"You will not have time to get out."

"Did you think I would leave you anywhere but with your friends? Have you forgotten me so far as that?"

"I was thinking of your time."

"Never mind. One has always time for what he wants to do most."

"Is that an original proverb?"

"I do not know that it is a quotation."

She dropped her veil over her face, and walked along the platform at his side. There were no street cars in the small city, and she had protested against a carriage.

"I like the air against my face."

That last walk with Morris had been so full of talk; this was taken in absolute silence. The wind was keen and they walked rapidly. Prue was watching at the window, loving little Prue, as Marjorie knew she would be.

"There's a tall man with Marjorie, Aunt Prue."

Aunt Prue left the piano and followed her to the door. Mrs. Kemlo was knitting stockings for Morris in her steamer chair.

Marjorie was glad of Prue's encircling arms. She hid her face in the child's hair while Hollis passed her and spoke to Miss Prudence.

Miss Prudence would be strong. Marjorie did not fear anything for her. It might be cowardly, but she must run away from his mother. She laid Will's letter in Hollis' hand, and slipping past him hastened up the stairway. Prue followed her, laughing and pulling at her cloak.

She could tell Prue; it would relieve her to talk to Prue.

They were both weeping, Prue in Marjorie's arms, when Miss Prudence found them in her chamber an hour later. The only light in the room came through the open door of the airtight.

"Does she know?" asked Marjorie, springing up to greet Miss Prudence.

"Yes; she is very quiet, I have prayed with her twice; and we have talked about his life and his death. She says that it was unselfish to the end."

"He sent his love to her; did Hollis tell you?"

"I read the letter--I read it twice. She holds it in her hand now."

"Has the tall man gone?" asked Prue.

"Yes, he did not stay long. Marjorie, you did not bid him good-night."

"I know it; I did not think."

"Marjorie, dear;" Miss Prudence opened her arms, and Marjorie crept into them.

"Oh, Aunt Prue, I would not be so troubled, but he wanted to give me something--some little thing he had brought me--because he always did remember me, and I would not even look at it. I don't know what it was. I refused it; and I know he was so hurt. I was almost tempted to take it when I saw his eyes; and then I wanted to be true."

"Were you true?"

"I tried to be."

"Then there is nothing to be troubled about. He is comforted for it now. Don't you want to go down and see his mother?"

"I'm afraid to see her."

"She will comfort you. She is sure now that God loves her. I have been trying to teach her, and now God has taught her so that she can rejoice in his love. Whom the Lord loveth, she says, he chastens; and he knows how he has chastened her. If it were not for his love, Marjorie, what would keep our hearts from breaking?"

"Papa died, too," said Prue.

Marjorie went down to the parlor. Mrs. Kemlo was sitting at the grate, leaning back in her steamer chair. Marjorie kissed her without a word.

"Marjorie! The girls ought to know. I don't believe I can write."

"I can. I will write to-night."

"And copy this letter; then they will know it just as it is. He was with you so long they will not miss him as we do. They were older, and they loved each other, and left him to me. And, Marjorie--"

"Yes'm."

"Tell them I am going to your mother's as soon as warm weather comes, unless one of them would rather take me home; tell them Miss Prudence has become a daughter to me; I am not in need of anything. Give them my love, and say that when they love their little ones, they must think of how I loved them."

"I will," said Marjorie, "You and mother will enjoy each other so much."

Marjorie wrote the letters that evening, her eyes so blinded with tears that she wrote very crookedly. No one would ever know what she had lost in Morris. He had been a part of herself that even Linnet had never been. She was lost without him, and for months wandered in a new world. She suffered more keenly upon the anniversary of the day of the tidings of his death than she suffered that day. Then, she could appreciate more fully what God had taken from her. But the letters were written, and mailed on her way to school in the morning; her recitations were gone through with; and night came, when she could have the rest of sleep. The days went on outwardly as usual. Prue was daily becoming more and more a delight to them all. Mrs. Kemlo's sad face was sweet and chastened; and Miss Prudence's days were more full of busy doings, with a certain something of a new life about them that Marjorie did not understand. She could almost imagine what Miss Prudence had been twenty years ago. Despite her lightness of foot, her inspiriting voice, and her _young_ interest in every question that pertained to life and work and study, Miss Prudence seemed old to eighteen-years-old Marjorie. Not as old as her mother; but nearly forty-five was very old. When she was forty-five, she thought, her life would be almost ended; and here was Miss Prudence always _beginning again_.

Answers to her letters arrived duly. They were not long; but they were conventionally sympathetic.

One daughter wrote: "Morris took you away from us to place you with friends whom he thought would take good care of you; if you are satisfied to stay with them, I think you will be better off than with me. Business is dull, and Peter thinks he has enough on his hands."

The other wrote: "I am glad you are among such kind friends. If Miss Pomeroy thinks she owes you anything, now is her time to repay it. But she could pay your board with me as well as with strangers, and you could help me with the children. I am glad you can be submissive, and that you are in a pleasanter frame of mind. Henry sends love, and says you never shall want a home while he has a roof over his own head."

The mother sighed over both letters. They both left so much unsaid. They were wrapped up in their husbands and children.

"I hope their children will love them when they are old," was the only remark she made about the letters.

"I am your child, too," said Marjorie. "Won't you take me instead--no, not instead of Morris, but _with_ him?"

In April Will came home. He spent a night in Maple Street, and almost satisfied the mother's hungry heart with the comfort he gave her. Marjorie listened with tears. She went away by herself to open the tiny box that Will placed in her hand. Kissing the ring with loving and reverent lips, she slipped it on the finger that Morris would have chosen, the finger on which Linnet wore her wedding ring. "_Semper fidelis._" She could see the words now as he used to write them on the slate. If he might only know that she cared for the ring! If he might only know that she was waiting for him to come back to bring it to her. If he might only know--But he had God now; he was in the presence of Jesus Christ. There was no marrying or giving in marriage in the presence of Christ in Heaven. Giving in marriage and marrying had been in his presence on the earth; but where fullness of joy was, there was something better. Marriage belonged to the earth. She belonged to the earth; but he belonged to Heaven. The ring did not signify that she was married to him--I think it might have meant that to her, if she had read the shallow sentimentalism of some love stories; but Miss Prudence had kept her from false ideas, and given her the truth; the truth, that marriage was the symbol of the union of Christ and his people; a pure marriage was the type of this union. Linnet's marriage was holier and happier because of Miss Prudence's teaching. Miss Prudence was an old maid; but she had helped others beside Linnet and Marjorie towards the happiest marriage. Marjorie had not one selfish, or shallow, or false idea with regard to marriage. And why should girls have, who have good mothers and the Old and New Testaments?

With no shamefacedness, no foolish consciousness, she went down among them with Morris' ring upon her finger. She would as soon have been ashamed to say that an angel had spoken to her. Perhaps she was not a modern school-girl, perhaps she was as old-fashioned as Miss Prudence herself.

XXIV.

JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE.

"I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well."--_Goldsmith._

"Prudence!"

"Well, John," she returned, as he seemed to hesitate.

"Have we arranged everything?"

"Everything! And you have been home three hours."

"Three and a half, if you please; it is now six o'clock."

"Then the tea-bell will ring."

"No; I told Deborah to ring at seven to-night."

"She will think you are putting on the airs of the master."

"Don't you think it is about time? Or, it will be at half past six."

"Why, in half an hour?"

"Half an hour may make all the difference in the world."

"In some instances, yes?"

They were walking up and down the walk they had named years ago "the shrubbery path." He had found her in the shrubbery path in the old days when she used to walk up and down and dream her girlish dreams. Like Linnet she liked her real life better than anything she had dreamed.

Mr. Holmes had returned with his shoulders thrown back, the lines of care softened into lines of thought, and the slouched hat replaced by a broad-brimmed panama; his step was quick, his voice had a ring in it, the stern, determined expression was altogether gone; there was a loveliness in his face that was not in Miss Prudence's own; when his sterner and stronger nature became sweet, it was very sweet. Life had been a long fight; in yielding, he had conquered. He bubbled over into nonsense now and then. Twenty years ago he had walked this path with Prudence Pomeroy, when there was hatred in his heart and an overwhelming sorrow in hers. There always comes a time when we are _through_. He believed that tonight. Prue was not lighter of heart than he.

"Twenty years is a large piece out of a man's lifetime; but I would have waited twice twenty for this hour, Prudence."

"I wish I deserved my happiness as much as you do yours, John."

"Perhaps you haven't as much to deserve."

"I'm glad I don't deserve it. I want it to be all God's gift and his goodness."

"It is, dear."

"I wish we might take Marjorie with us," she said, after a moment; "she would have such an unalloyed good time."

"Any one else?"

"Mrs. Kemlo."

"Is that all?"

"There's Deborah."

"Prudence, you ought to be satisfied with me. You don't know how to be married."

"Suppose I wait twenty years longer and learn."

"No, it is like learning to swim; the best way is to plunge at once. And at once will be in about twenty minutes, instead of twenty years."

"What do you mean?" she asked, standing still in unfeigned astonishment.

"I mean that your neighbor across the way has been invited to call at half past six this evening to marry me, and I supposed you were willing to be married at the same time."

"John Holmes!"

"Do you want to send me off again?"

"But I never thought of such a thing."

"It wasn't necessary; one brilliant mind is enough to plan. What did you ask me to come home for?"

"But not now--not immediately."

"Why not?" he asked, gravely.

"Because," she smiled at her woman's reason, "I'm not ready."

"Don't you know whether you are willing or not?"

"Yes, I know that."

"Aren't you well enough acquainted with me? Haven't you proved me long enough?"

"O, John," her eyes filling with tears.

"What else can you mean by 'ready'?"

She looked down at her dress; a gray flannel--an iron gray flannel--a gray flannel and linen collar and cuffs to be married in. But was it not befitting her gray locks?

"John, look at me!"

"I am looking at you."

"What do you see?"

"You were never so lovely in your life."

"You were never so obstinate in your life."

"I never had such a good right before. Now listen to reason. You say this house is to be sold; and the furniture, for future housekeeping, is to be packed and stored; that you and Prue are to sail for Havre the first steamer in July; and who beside your husband is to attend to this, and to get you on board the steamer in time?"

"But, John!" laying her hand in expostulation upon his arm.

"But, Prudence!" he laughed. "Is Deborah to go with us? Shall we need her in our Italian palace, or are we to dwell amid ruins?"

"Nothing else would make her old heart so glad."

"Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo expect to go home to-morrow."

"Yes."

"Don't you want Marjorie to stay and help you?"

"With such a valiant husband at the front! I suspect you mean to create emergencies simply to help me out of them."

"I'm creating one now; and all I want you to do is to be helped out--or in."

"But, John, I must go in and fix my hair."

"Your hair looks as usual."

"But I don't want it to look as usual. Do you want the bride to forget her attire and her ornaments?"

A blue figure with curls flying and arms outstretched was flying down towards them from the upper end of the path.

"O, Aunt Prue! Mr. March has come over--without Mrs. March, and he asked for you. I told him Uncle John had come home, and he smiled, and said he could not get along without him."

"John, you should have asked Mrs. March, too."

"I forgot the etiquette of it. I forgot she was your pastor's wife. But it's too late now."

"Prue!" Miss Prudence laid her hand on Prue's head to keep her quiet. "Ask Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo and Deborah to come into the parlor."

"We are to be married, Prue!" said John Holmes.

"_Who_ is?" asked Prue.

"Aunt Prue and I. Don't you want papa and mamma instead of Uncle John and Aunt Prue?"

"Yes; I do! Wait for us to come. I'll run and tell them," she answered, fleeing away.

"John, this is a very irregular proceeding!"

"It quite befits the occasion, however," he answered gravely. Very slowly they walked toward the house.

All color had left Miss Prudence's cheeks and lips. Deborah was sure she would faint; but Mrs. Kemlo watched her lips, and knew by the firm lines that she would not.

No one thought about the bridegroom, because no one ever does. Prue kept close to Miss Prudence, and said afterward that she was mamma's bridesmaid. Marjorie thought that Morris would be glad if he could know it; he had loved Mr. Holmes.

The few words were solemnly spoken.

Prudence Pomeroy and John Holmes were husband and wife.

"What God hath joined--"

Oh, how God had joined them. She had belonged to him so long.

The bridegroom and bride went on their wedding tour by walking up and down the long parlor in the summer twilight. Not many words were spoken.

Deborah went out to the dining-room to change the table cloth for one of the best damasks, saying to herself, "It's just as it ought to be! Just as it ought to be! And things do happen so once in a while in this crooked world."

XXV.

THE WILL OF GOD.

"To see in all things good and fair, Thy love attested is my prayer."--_Alice Cary._

"Linnet is happy enough," said their mother; "but there's Marjorie!"

Yes; there was Marjorie! She was not happy enough. She was twenty-one this summer, and not many events had stirred her uneventful life since we left her the night of Miss Prudence's marriage. She came home the next day bringing Mrs. Kemlo with her, and the same day she began to take the old household steps. She had been away but a year, and had not fallen out of the old ways as Linnet had in her three years of study; and she had not come home to be married as Linnet had; she came home to do the next thing, and the next thing had even been something for her father and mother, or Morris' mother.

Annie Grey went immediately, upon the homecoming of the daughter of the house, to Middlefield to learn dressmaking, boarding with Linnet and "working her board." Linnet was lonely at night; she began to feel lonely as dusk came on; and the arrangement of board for one and pleasant companionship for the other, was satisfactory to both. Not that there was very much for Annie to do, beside staying at home Monday mornings to help with the washing, and ironing Monday evening or early Tuesday. Linnet loved her housekeeping too well to let any other fingers intermeddle. Will decided that she must stay, for company, especially through the winter nights, if he had to pay her board.

Therefore Marjorie took the place that she left vacant in the farmhouse, and more than filled it, but she did not love housekeeping for its own comfortable sake, as Linnet did; she did it as "by God's law."

Her father's health failed signally this first summer. He was weakened by several hemorrhages, and became nervous and unfitted even to superintend the work of the "hired man." That general superintendence fell to Mrs. West, and she took no little pride in the flourishing state of the few acres. Now she could farm as she wanted to; Graham had not always listened to her. The next summer he died. That was the summer Marjorie was twenty. The chief business of the nursing fell to Marjorie; her mother was rather too energetic for the comfort of the sickroom, and there was always so much to be attended to outside that quiet chamber.

"Marjorie knows her father's way," Mrs. West apologized to Mrs. Kemlo. "He never has to tell her what he wants; but I have to make him explain. There are born nurses, and I'm not one of them. I'll keep things running outside, and that's for his comfort. He is as satisfied as though he were about himself. If one of us must be down, he knows that he'd better be the one."