"Do you think it will prevail?"

"Well, most o' folks don't know _what_ they want; and if there's some folks that know what they _don't_ want, they can generally keep from havin' it."

Bolton made a soft husky prefatory noise of protest in his throat, which seemed to stimulate his wife to a more definite a.s.sertion, and she cut in before he could speak--

"_I_ should say that unless them that stood Mr. Peck's friends first off, and got him here, done something to keep him, his enemies wa'n't goin'

to take up his cause."

Annie divined a personal reproach for Bolton in the apparent abstraction.

"Oh, now, you'll see it'll all come out right in the end, Pauliny," he mildly opposed. "There ain't any such great feelin' about Mr. Peck; nothin'

but what'll work itself off perfec'ly natural, give it time. It's goin' to come out all right."

"Yes, at the day o' jedgment," Mrs. Bolton a.s.sented, plunging her fists into the dough, and beginning to work a contempt for her husband's optimism into it.

"Yes, an' a good deal before," he returned. "There's always somethin' to objec' to every minister; we ain't any of us perfect, and Mr. Peck's got his failin's; he hain't built up the church quite so much as some on 'em expected but what he would; and there's some that don't like his prayers; and some of 'em thinks he ain't doctrinal enough. But I guess, take it all round, he suits pretty well. It'll come out all right, Pauliny. You'll see."

A pause ensued, of which Annie felt the awfulness. It seemed to her that Mrs. Bolton's impatience with this intolerable hopefulness must burst violently. She hastened to interpose. "I think the trouble is that people don't fully understand Mr. Peck at first. But they do finally."

"Yes; take time," said Bolton.

"Take eternity, I guess, for some," retorted his wife. "If you think William B. Gerrish is goin' to work round with time--" She stopped for want of some sufficiently rejectional phrase, and did not go on.

"The way I look at it," said Bolton, with incorrigible courage, "is like this: When it comes to anything like askin' Mr. Peck to resign, it'll develop his strength. You can't tell how strong he is without you try to git red of him. I 'most wish it would come, once, fair and square."

"I'm sure you're right, Mr. Bolton," said Annie. "I don't believe that your church would let such a man go when it really came to it. Don't they all feel that he has great ability?"

"Oh, I guess they appreciate him as far forth as ability goes. Some on 'em complains that he's a little _too_ intellectial, if anything. But I tell 'em it's a good fault; it's a thing that can be got over in time."

Mrs. Bolton had ceased to take part in the discussion. She finished kneading her dough, and having fitted it into two baking-pans and dusted it with flour, she laid a clean towel over both. But when Annie rose she took the lamp from the mantel-shelf, where it stood, and held it up for her to find her way back to her own door.

Annie went to bed with a spirit lightened as well as chastened, and kept saying over the words of Mr. Peck, so as to keep fast hold of the consolation they had given her. They humbled her with, a sense of his wisdom and insight; the thought of them kept her awake. She remembered the tonic that Dr. Morrell had left with her, and after questioning whether she really needed it now, she made sure by getting up and taking it.

XV.

The spring had filled and flushed into summer. Bolton had gone over the gra.s.s on the slope before the house, and it was growing thick again, dark green above the yellow of its stubble, and the young generation of robins was foraging in it for the callow gra.s.shoppers. Some boughs of the maples were beginning to lose the elastic upward lift of their prime, and to hang looser and limper with the burden of their foliage. The elms drooped lower toward the gra.s.s, and swept the straggling tops left standing in their shade.

The early part of September had been fixed for the theatricals. Annie refused to have anything to do with them, and the preparations remained altogether with Brandreth. "The minuet," he said to her one afternoon, when he had come to report to her as a co-ordinate authority, "is going to be something exquisite, I a.s.sure you. A good many of the ladies studied it in the Continental times, you know, when we had all those Martha Washington parties--or, I forgot you were out of the country--and it will be done perfectly. We're going to have the ball-room scene on the tennis-court just in front of the evergreens, don't you know, and then the balcony scene in the same place. We have to cut some of the business between Romeo and Juliet, because it's too long, you know, and some of it's too--too pa.s.sionate; we couldn't do it properly, and we've decided to leave it out.

But we sketch along through the play, and we have Friar Laurence coming with Juliet out of his cell onto the tennis-court and meeting Romeo; so that tells the story of the marriage. You can't imagine what a Mercutio Mr.

Putney makes; he throws himself into it heart and soul, especially where he fights with Tybalt and gets killed. I give him lines there out of other scenes too; the tennis-court sets that part admirably; they come out of a street at the side. I think the scenery will surprise you, Miss Kilburn.

Well, and then we have the Nurse and Juliet, and the poison scene--we put it into the garden, on the tennis-court, and we condense the different acts so as to give an idea of all that's happened, with Romeo banished, and all that. Then he comes back from Mantua, and we have the tomb scene set at one side of the tennis-court just opposite the street scene; and he fights with Paris; and then we have Juliet come to the door of the tomb--it's a liberty, of course; but we couldn't arrange the light inside--and she stabs herself and falls on Romeo's body, and that ends the play. You see, it gives a notion of the whole action, and tells the story pretty well. I think you'll be pleased."

"I've no doubt I shall," said Annie. "Did you make the adaptation yourself, Mr. Brandreth?"

"Well, yes, I did," Mr. Brandreth modestly admitted. "It's been a good deal of work, but it's been a pleasure too. You know how that is, Miss Kilburn, in your charities."

"_Don't_ speak of my charities, Mr. Brandreth. I'm not a charitable person."

"You won't get people to believe _that_" said Mr. Brandreth.

"Everybody knows how much good you do. But, as I was saying, my idea was to give a notion of the whole play in a series of pa.s.sages or tableaux. Some of my friends think I've succeeded so well in telling the story, don't you know, without a change of scene, that they're urging me to publish my arrangement for the use of out-of-door theatricals."

"I should think it would be a very good idea," said Annie. "I suppose Mr.

Chapley would do it?"

"Well, I don't know--I don't know," Mr. Brandreth answered, with a note of trouble in his voice. "I'm afraid not," he added sadly. "Miss Kilburn, I've been put in a very unfair position by Miss Northwick's changing her mind about Juliet, after the part had been offered to Miss Chapley. I've been made the means of a seeming slight to Miss Chapley, when, if it hadn't been for the cause, I'd rather have thrown up the whole affair. She gave up the part instantly when she heard that Miss Northwick wished to change her mind, but all the same I know--."

He stopped, and Annie said encouragingly: "Yes, I see. But perhaps she doesn't really care."

"That's what she said," returned Mr. Brandreth ruefully. "But I don't know.

I have never spoken of it with her since I went to tell her about it, after I got Miss Northwick's note."

"Well, Mr. Brandreth, I think you've really been victimised; and I don't believe the Social Union will ever be worth what it's costing."

"I was sure you would appreciate--would understand;" and Mr. Brandreth pressed her hand gratefully in leave-taking.

She heard him talking with some one at the gate, whose sharp, "All right, my son!" identified Putney.

She ran to the door to welcome him.

"Oh, you're _both_ here!" she rejoiced, at sight of Mrs. Putney too.

"I can send Ellen home," suggested Putney.

"Oh _no_, indeed!" said Annie, with single-mindedness at which she laughed with Mrs. Putney. "Only it seemed too good to have you both," she explained, kissing Mrs. Putney. "I'm _so_ glad to see you!"

"Well, what's the reason?" Putney dropped into a chair and began to rock nervously. "Don't be ashamed: we're _all_ selfish. Has Brandreth been putting up any more jobs on you?"

"No, no! Only giving me a hint of his troubles and sorrows with those wretched Social Union theatricals. Poor young fellow! I'm sorry for him. He is really very sweet and unselfish. I like him."

"Yes, Brandreth is one of the most lady-like fellows I ever saw," said Putney. "That Juliet business has pretty near been the death of him. I told him to offer Miss Chapley some other part--Rosaline, the part of the young lady who was dropped; but he couldn't seem to see it. Well, and how come on the good works, Annie?"

"The good works! Ralph, tell me: _do_ people think me a charitable person? Do they suppose I've done or can do any good whatever?" She looked from Putney to his wife, and back again with comic entreaty.

"Why, aren't you a charitable person? Don't you do any good?" he asked.

"No!" she shouted. "Not the least in the world!"

"It is pretty rough," said Putney, taking out a cigar for a dry smoke; "and n.o.body will believe me when I report what you say, Annie. Mrs. Munger is telling round that she don't see how you can live through the summer at the rate you're going. She's got it down pretty cold about your taking Brother Peck's idea of the invited dance and supper, and joining hands with him to save the vanity of the self-respecting poor. She says that your suppression of that one unpopular feature has done more than anything else to promote the success of the Social Union. You ought to be glad Brother Peck is coming to the show."

"To the theatricals?"

Putney nodded his head. "That's what he says. I believe Brother Peck is coming to see how the upper cla.s.ses amuse themselves when they really try to benefit the lower cla.s.ses."

Annie would not laugh at his joke. "Ralph," she asked, "is it true that Mr.

Peck is so unpopular in his church? Is he really going to be turned out--dismissed?"