Part 2

Before the tumble-down structure where, in connection with the sale of petrified candy, withered oranges, fly-specked literature, and gingerpop, the post-office was carried on, sat that genial old reprobate, the post-master, relating for the hundredth time to a sleepy and indifferent audience, his personal exploits in the late war; pausing, however, long enough to bestow upon Horton a greeting worthy of the occasion.

"Welcome home!" said Mr. Doolittle, with an oratorical flourish, as became a politician and a post-master; "welcome back to the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

Whereupon he carefully seated himself on the precarious chair which served him as rostrum, and resumed his gory narrative.

A little further on, another village worthy, Fred Hanniford, cobbler, vocalist, and wit, sat pegging away in the door of his shop, making the welkin ring with the inspiring strains of "The Sword of Bunker Hill," just as in the old days. True, the brilliancy of his tones was somewhat marred by the presence of an ounce or so of shoe-pegs in his left cheek, but this fact had no dampening effect upon the enthusiasm of a select, peanut-consuming audience of small boys on the steps.

He, too, suspended work and song to nod familiarly to his somewhat foreignized young townsman, and watched him turn the corner, fixing curious and jealous eyes upon the receding feet.

"Who made your boots?" he remarked _sotto voce_, as their firm rap upon the plank sidewalk grew indistinct, which profound sarcasm having extracted the expected meed of laughter from his juvenile audience, Mr. Hanniford resumed his hammer, and burst forth with a high G of astounding volume.

As young Horton came in sight of Mrs. Fairfield's residence, he involuntarily quickened his steps. As a matter of course, he had met in his wanderings many pretty and agreeable girls, and, being an attractive young man, it is safe to say that eyes of every hue had looked upon him with more or less favor. It would be imprudent to venture the assertion that the young man had remained quite indifferent to all this, but Horton's nature was more tender than passionate; early associations held him very closely, and his boyish fancy for the widow's pretty daughter had never quite faded. A rather fitful correspondence had been kept up, and photographs exchanged, and he felt himself justified in believing that the welcome the purple violets had spoken would speak to him still more eloquently from a pair of violet eyes.

He scanned the pretty lawn with a pleased, expectant glance. Flowers were massed in red, white and purple against the vivid green; the fountain was scattering its spray; hammocks were slung in tempting nooks, and fanciful wicker chairs, interwoven with blue and scarlet ribbons, stood about the vine-draped piazza. He half expected a girlish figure to run down the walk to meet him, in the old childish way, and as a fold of white muslin swept out of the open window his heart leaped; but it was only the curtain after all, and just as he saw this with a little pang of disappointment, a girl's figure did appear, and came down the walk toward him. It was a tall figure, in a simple dark dress. As it came nearer, he saw a colorless, oval face, with downcast eyes, and a mass of ruddy hair, burnished like gold, gathered in a coil under the small black hat. There was something proud, yet shrinking, in the face and in the carriage of the whole figure. As the latch fell from his hand the girl looked up, and encountered his eyes, pleased, friendly and a trifle astonished, fixed full upon her.

She stopped, and a beautiful color swept into her cheeks, a sudden unleaping flame filled the luminous eyes, and her lips parted.

"Why, it is Lilly O'Connell!" the young man said, cordially, extending his hand.

The girl's hand was half extended to meet his, but with a quick glance toward the house she drew it back into the folds of her black dress, bowing instead.

Horton let his hand fall, a little flush showing itself upon his forehead.

"Are you not going to speak to me, Miss O'Connell?" he said, in his frank, pleasant way. "Are you not going to say you are glad to see me back, like all the rest?"

The color had all faded from the girl's cheeks and neck. She returned his smiling glance with an earnest look, hesitating before she spoke.

"I am very glad, Mr. Horton," she said, at last, and, passing him, went swiftly out of sight.

The young man stood a moment with his hand upon the gate, looking after her; then turned and went up the walk to the door, and rang the bell. A smiling maid admitted him, and showed him into a very pretty drawing-room.

He had not waited long when Florence, preceded by her mother, came in. She had been a pretty school-girl, but he was hardly prepared to see so beautiful a young woman, or one so self-possessed, and so free from provincialism in dress and manner. She was a blonde beauty, of the delicate, porcelain-tinted type, small, but so well-made and well-dressed as to appear much taller than she really was. She was lovely to-night in a filmy white dress, so richly trimmed with lace as to leave the delicate flesh-tints of shoulders and arms visible through the fine meshes.

She had always cared for Roger, and, being full of delight at his return and his distinguished appearance, let her delight appear undisguisedly. Although a good deal of a coquette, with Roger coquetry seemed out of place. His own simple, sincere manners were contagious, and Florence had never been more charming.

"Tell us all about the pictures and artists and singers you have seen and heard," she said, in the course of their lively interchange of experiences.

"I am afraid I can talk better about hospitals and surgeons," said Horton. "You know I am not a bit æsthetic, and I have been studying very closely."

"You are determined, then, to practise medicine?" Mrs. Fairfield said, with rather more anxiety in her tones than the occasion seemed to demand.

"I think I am better fitted for that profession than any other," Horton answered.

"Y-yes," assented Mrs. Fairfield, doubtfully, looking at her daughter.

"I should never choose it, if I were a man," said Florence, decidedly.

"It seems to have chosen me," Horton said. "I have not the slightest bent in any other direction."

"It is such a hard life," said Florence. "A doctor must be a perfect hero."

"You used to be enthusiastic over heroes," said Horton, smiling.

"I am now," said Florence, "but----"

"Not the kind who ride in buggies instead of on foaming chargers and wield lancets instead of lances," laughed Horton, looking into the slightly vexed but lovely face opposite, with a great deal of expression in his dark eyes.

"Of course you would not think of settling in Ridgemont," remarked Mrs. Fairfield, blandly, "after all you have studied."

"I don't see why not," he answered.

"But for an ambitious young man," began Mrs. Fairfield.

"I'm afraid I am not an ambitious young man," said Horton. "There is a good opening here, and the old home is very dear to me."

Florence was silently studying the toe of one small sandalled foot.

"Well, to be sure," said Mrs. Fairfield, who always endeavored to fill up pauses in conversation,--"to be sure, Ridgemont _is_ improving. Don't you find it changed a good deal?"

"Why, not very much," Horton answered. "Places don't change so much in a few years as people. I met Lilly O'Connell as I came into your grounds. _She_ has changed--wonderfully."

"Y-yes," said Mrs. Fairfield, rather stiffly. "She _has_ improved. Since her father died, she has lived in Parson Townsend's family. She is a very respectable girl, and an excellent seamstress."

Florence had gone to the window, and was looking out.

"She was very good at her books, I remember," he went on. "I used to think she would make something more than a seamstress."

"I only remember her dreadful temper," said Florence, in a tone meant to sound careless. "We called her 'Tiger-Lily,' you know."

"I never wondered at her temper," said Horton. "She had a great deal to vex her. I suppose things are not much better now."

"Oh, she is treated well enough," said Mrs. Fairfield. "The best families in the place employ her. I don't know what more she can expect, considering that she is--a----"

"Off color," suggested Horton. "No. She cannot expect much more. But it is terrible--isn't it?--that stigma for no fault of hers. It must be hard for a girl like her--like what she seems to have become."

"Oh, as to that," said Florence, going to the piano and drumming lightly, without sitting down, "she is very independent. She asserts herself quite enough."

"Why, yes," broke in her mother, hastily. "She actually had the impudence to apply for a position as teacher of the primary school, and Parson Townsend, and Hickson of the School Board, were determined she should have it. The 'Gazette' took it up, and for awhile Lilly was the heroine of the day. But of course she did not succeed. It would have ruined the school. A colored teacher! Dreadful!"

"Dreadful, indeed," said Horton. He rose and joined Florence at the piano, and a moment later Mrs. Fairfield was contentedly drumming upon the table, in the worst possible time, to her daughter's performance of a brilliant waltz.

The evening terminated pleasantly. After Horton had gone, mother and daughter had a long confidential talk upon the piazza, which it is needless to repeat. But at its close, as Mrs. Fairfield was closing the doors for the night, she might have been heard to say:

"You could spend your _winters_ in Boston, you know."

To which Florence returned a dreamy "Yes."

The tranquillity of Ridgemont was this summer disturbed by several events of unusual local interest. Two, of a melancholy nature, were the deaths of good old Parson Townsend and of Dr. Brown, one of the only two regular physicians of whom the town could boast. The latter event had the effect to bring about the beginning of young Dr. Horton's professional career. The road now lay fair and open before him. His father had been widely known and liked, and people were not slow in showing their allegiance to the honored son of an honored father.

Of course this event, being one of common interest, was duly discussed and commented upon, and nowhere so loudly and freely as in the post-office and cobbler's shop, where, surrounded by their disciples and adherents, the respective proprietors dispensed wit and wisdom in quantities suitable to the occasion.

"He's young," remarked the worthy post-master, with a wave of his clay pipe, "an' he's brought home a lot o' new-fangled machines an' furrin notions, but he's got a good stock of Yankee common-sense to back it all, an' I opine he'll _do_."

And such was the general verdict.

His popularity was further increased by the rumor of his engagement to Miss Florence Fairfield. Miss Fairfield being a native of the town, and the most elegant and accomplished young woman it had so far produced, was regarded with much the same feeling as the brick block and the soldiers' monument; and as she drove through the village streets in her pretty pony phaeton, she received a great deal of homage in a quiet way, particularly from the masculine portion of the community.

"A tip-top match for the young doctor," said one. "She's putty as a picter an' smart as lightnin', an' what's more, she's got 'the needful.'"

"Well, as to that," said another, "Horton ain't no need to look for that. He's got property enough."

To which must be added Mr. Hanniford's comments, delivered amidst a rapid expectoration of shoe-pegs.

"She's got the littlest foot of any girl in town, an' I ought to know, for I made her shoes from the time she was knee-high to a grasshopper till she got sot on them French heels, which is a thing I ain't agoin' to countenance. She was always very fond o' my singin', too. Says she,'You'd ought to have your voice cultivated, Mr. Hanniford,' says she, 'it's equal, if not superior, to Waktel's or Campyneeny's, any time o' day.' Though," he added, musingly, "as to _cultivatin'_, I've been to more'n eight or ten singin'-schools, an' I guess there ain't much more to learn."

The death of Parson Townsend brought about another crisis in the life of Lilly O'Connell. It had been his express wish that she should remain an inmate of his family, which consisted now of a married son and his wife and children. But, with her quick intuition, Lilly saw, before a week had passed, that her presence was not desired by young Mrs. Townsend, and her resolution was at once taken.

Through all these years she had had one true friend and helper--Priscilla Bullins, milliner and dress-maker.

Miss Bullins was a queer little frizzed and ruffled creature, with watery blue eyes, and a skin like yellow crackle-ware. There was always a good deal of rice-powder visible in her scant eyebrows, and a frost-bitten bloom upon her cheeks which, from its intermittent character, was sadly open to suspicion, but a warm heart beat under the tight-laced bodice, and it was to her, after some hours of mental conflict, that Lilly went with her new trouble. Miss Bullins listened with her soul in arms.

"You'll come and stay with _me_; that's just what you'll do, Lilly, and Jim Townsend's wife had ought to be ashamed of herself, and she a professor! I've got a nice little room you can have all to yourself. It's next to mine, and you're welcome to it till you can do better. I shall be glad of your company, for, between you and me," dropping her voice to a confidential whisper, "I ain't so young as I was, and, bein' subject to spells in the night, I ain't so fond of livin' alone as I used to be."

So Lilly moved her small possessions into Miss Bullin's spare bedroom, and went to work in the dingy back shop, rounding out her life with such pleasure as could be found in a walk about the burying-ground on Sundays, in the circulating library, and in the weekly prayer-meeting, where her mellow voice revelled in the sweet melodies of the hymns, whose promises brought such comfort to her lonely young heart.

From the window where she sat when at work she could look out over fields and orchards, and follow the winding of the river in and out the willow-fringed banks. Just opposite the window, a small island separated it into two deep channels, which met at the lower point with a glad rush and tumult, to flow on again united in a deeper, smoother current than before.

Along the river bank, the road ran to the covered bridge, and across it into the woods beyond. And often, as Lilly sat at her work, she saw Miss Fairfield's pony phaeton rolling leisurely along under the overhanging willows, so near that the voices of the occupants, for Miss Fairfield was never alone, now, came up to her with the cool river-breeze and the scent of the pines on the island. Once, Roger Horton happened to look up, and recognized her with one of those grave smiles which always brought back her childhood and the barren pasture where the tiger-lilies grew; and she drew back into the shadow of the curtain again.

Doctor Horton saw Lilly O'Connell often; he met her flitting through the twilight with bulky parcels, at the bedsides of sick women and children, and even at the various festivals which enlivened the tedium of the summer (where, indeed, her place was among the workers only), and he would have been glad to speak to her a friendly word now and then, but she gave him little chance. There was a look in her face which haunted him, and the sound of her voice, rising fervid and mournful above the others at church or conference-meeting, thrilled him to the heart with its pathos. Once, as he drove along the river-side after dark, the voice came floating out from the unlighted window of the shop where he so often saw her at work, and it seemed to him like the note of the wood-thrush, singing in the solitude of some deep forest.

Before the summer was over, something occurred to heighten the interest which the sight of this solitary maiden figure, moving so unheeded across the dull background of village life, had inspired.

It was at a lawn party held upon Mrs. Fairfield's grounds, for the benefit of the church of which she was a prominent member. There was the usual display of bunting, Chinese lanterns, decorated booths, and pretty girls in white. A good many people were present, and the Ridgemont brass band was discoursing familiar strains. Doctor Horton, dropping in, in the course of the evening, gravitated naturally toward an imposing structure, denominated on the bills the "Temple of Flora," where Miss Fairfield and attendant nymphs were disposing of iced lemonade and button-hole bouquets in the cause of religion. The place before the booth was occupied by a group of young men, who were flinging away small coin with that reckless disregard of consequences peculiar to very youthful men on such occasions. All were adorned with _boutonnières_ at every possible point, and were laughing in a manner so exuberant as might, under other circumstances, have led to the suspicion that the beverage sold as lemonade contained something of a more intoxicating nature.

Miss Fairfield was standing outside the booth, one bare white arm extended across the green garlands which covered the frame-work. She looked bored and tired, and was gazing absently over the shoulder of the delighted youth _vis-à-vis_.

Her face brightened as Doctor Horton was seen making his way toward the place.

"We were laughing," said the young man who had been talking with her, after greetings had been exchanged,--"we were laughing over the latest news. Heard it, Doctor?"

Dr. Horton signified his ignorance.

He was abstractedly studying the effect of a bunch of red columbine nodding at a white throat just before him. He had secured those flowers himself, with some trouble, that very day, during a morning drive, and he alone knew the sweetness of the reward which had been his.

"A marriage, Doctor," went on the youth, jocosely. "Marriage in high life. Professor Samuel Commeraw to Miss Lilly O'Connell, both of Ridgemont."

Horton looked up quickly.

"From whom did you get your information?" he asked, coolly regarding the young fellow.

"From Commeraw himself," he answered, with some hesitation.

"Ah!" Dr. Horton returned, indifferently. "I thought it very likely."

"I don't find it so incredible," said Miss Fairfield, in her fine, clear voice. "He is the only one of her own color in the town. It seems to me very natural."

Dr. Horton looked into the fair face. Was it the flickering light of the Chinese lanterns which gave the delicate features so hard and cold a look?

He turned his eyes away, and as he did so he saw that Lilly O'Connell, with three or four children clinging about her, had approached, and, impeded by the crowd, had stopped very near the floral temple. A glance at her face showed that she had heard all which had been said concerning her.

The old fiery spirit shone from her dilated eyes as they swept over the insignificant face of the youth who had spoken her name. Her lips were contracted, and her hand, resting on the curly head of one of the children, trembled violently.

She seemed about to speak, but as her eyes met those of Doctor Horton, she turned suddenly, and, forcing a passage through the crowd, disappeared.

Dr. Horton lingered about the flower-booth until the increasing crowd compelled Miss Fairfield to to resume her duties, when he slipped away, and wandered aimlessly about the grounds. At last, near the musicians' stand, he saw Lilly O'Connell leaning against a tree, while the children whom she had in charge devoured ice-cream and the music with equal satisfaction. Her whole attitude expressed weariness and dejection. Her face was pale, her eyes downcast, her lips drawn like a child's who longs to weep, yet dares not.

Not far away he saw, hanging upon the edge of the crowd, the tall form of Commeraw, his eyes, alert and swift of glance as those of a lynx, furtively watching the girl, who seemed quite unconscious of any one's observation.

Some one took Horton's attention for a moment, and when he looked again both Lilly, with her young charge, and Commeraw were no longer to be seen. He moved away from the spot, vaguely troubled and perplexed.

The brazen music clashed in his ears the strains of "Sweet Bye-and-Bye," people persisted in talking to him, and at last, in sheer desperation, he turned his steps toward the temple of Flora. It was almost deserted. The band had ceased playing, people were dispersing, the flowers had wilted, and the pretty girls had dropped off one by one with their respective cavaliers. The reigning goddess herself was leaning against a green pillar, looking, it must be confessed, a little dishevelled and a good deal out of humor, but very lovely still.

"You must have found things very entertaining," she remarked, languidly. "You have been gone an hour at least."

"I have been discussing sanitary drainage with Dr. Starkey," Horton answered, taking advantage of the wavering light to possess himself of one of the goddess's warm white hands, and the explanation was, in a measure, quite true.

Miss Fairfield made no other reply than to withdraw her hand, under the pretext of gathering up her muslin flounces for the walk across the lawn. Horton drew her white wrap over the bare arms and throat, and walked in silence by her side to the hall door. Even then he did not speak at once, feeling that the young lady was in no mood for conversation, but at last he drew the little white figure toward him, and said:

"You are tired, little girl. These church fairs and festivals are a great nuisance. I will not come in to-night, but I will drive round in the morning to see how you have slept."

To his surprise, the girl turned upon him suddenly, repulsing his arm.

"Why," she began, hurriedly, "why are you always defending Lilly O'Connell?"

She shot the question at him with a force which took away his breath. She had always seemed to him gentleness itself. He hardly recognized her, as she faced him with white cheeks and blazing eyes.

"It was always so," she went on, impetuously, "ever since I can remember. You have always been defending her. No one must speak of her as if she were anything but a lady. I cannot understand it, Roger! I want to know what it means--the interest you show, and always have shown, in that--that girl!"

Horton had recovered himself by this time. He looked into the angry face with a quiet, almost stern, gaze. The girl shrank a little before it, and this, and the quiver of her voice toward the close of her last sentence, softened the resentment which had tingled through his veins. Shame, humiliation, not for himself, but for her, his affianced wife, burned on his cheeks.

"What interest, Florence?" he said, repeating her words. "Just that interest which every honest man, or woman, feels in a fellow-creature who suffers wrongfully. Just that--and nothing more."

Her lips parted as if to retort, but the steadiness of her lover's gaze disconcerted her. He was very gentle, but she felt, as she had once or twice before, the quiet mastery of his stronger nature, and the eyes fell. He took both her hands and held them awhile without removing his eyes from her face.

"Good-night, Florence," he said, at last, almost with sadness.

She would have liked to let him see that she was sorry for her ill-temper, or rather for the manifestation of it, but she was only overawed, not penitent, and bent her head to his parting kiss without a word.

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