"I never would have believed it to see such overturnings in my house!"

exclaimed Miss Jewett, with a sigh; "and if 'twas anybody but John Britton I wouldn't stand it. I wonder if he won't be telling me how to make b.u.t.ter and raise chickens and turkeys next!"

"Mebbe he'll bring 'round one o' them new-fangled contrivances for hatchin' chickens without hens," Sally ventured, with a laugh; adding, reflectively, "I wonder why, when they was about it, they didn't invent a machine to lay aigs as well as hatch 'em; that would 'ave been a savin', for a hen's keep don't amount to much when she's settin', but they're powerful big eaters generally."

Miss Jewett prided herself upon her thrift and economy; her well-kept house where nothing was allowed to go to waste; her spotless dairy-rooms and rolls of golden b.u.t.ter which never failed to bring a cent and a half more a pound than any other; her fine breeds of poultry which annually carried off the blue ribbons at the county fair. She had achieved a local reputation of which she was quite proud; she would brook no interference in her management of household affairs, and, as she said, no one but John Britton would ever have been allowed to infringe upon her established rules and regulations. There had been a time when she had shared equally with her sister John Britton's attentions. It had been the only bit of romance in her life, but a lingering sweetness from it still remained in her heart through all the commonplace years that had followed, like the faint perfume from rose-leaves, faded and shrivelled, but cherished as sacred mementos. She had not blamed him for choosing her younger and more attractive sister, and she had secretly admired her sister for braving their father's displeasure to marry him.

And now she was glad that he had returned; glad for his own sake that the imputations cast upon him by her father and others were refuted; for her sister's sake, that her last days should be so brightened and glorified; but deep within her heart, glad for her own sake, because it was good to look upon his face and hear his voice again.

Sally's strident tones broke in upon her retrospection:

"There's one thing, Miss Jewett, I guess you needn't be afeard they'll meddle with, and that's your cookin'. Mr. Darrell, he was tellin' me about the prices people had to pay for meals on them eatin'-cars,--'diners' he called 'em,--and I told him there wasn't no vittles on earth worth any such price as that, and I up and asked him whether they was as good as the vittles he gets here, and he laughed and said there wasn't n.o.body could beat his Aunt Espey at cookin'."

Miss Jewett's eyes brightened. "Bless the boy's heart!" she exclaimed; "I'm glad they're going to be here for Thanksgiving; I'll see that they get such a dinner as they neither of them ever dreamed of!"

Darrell had won a warm place in her heart in his baby days with his earliest efforts to speak her name. "Espey" had been the result of his first attack on the formidable name of "Experience," and "Aunt Espey"

she had been to him ever since.

Her father, Hosea Jewett, was a hale, hearty man of upward of seventy, hard and unyielding as the granite ledges cropping out along the hill-sides of his farm, and with a face gnarled and weather-beaten as the oaks before his door. He was scrupulously honest, but exacting, relentless, unforgiving.

He was not easily reconciled to the new order of things, but for his daughter's sake he held his peace. Then, too, though he never forgave John Britton for having married his daughter, yet John Britton as a man whose wealth exceeded even his own was an altogether different person from the ambitious but impecunious lover of thirty years before. He had never forgiven Darrell for being John Britton's son, but mingled with his long-cherished animosity was a secret pride in the splendid physical and intellectual manhood of this sole representative of his own line.

Between the sisters there had been few points of resemblance. Patience Jewett had been of an ardent, emotional nature, pa.s.sionately fond of music, a great reader, and with little taste for the household tasks in which her more practical sister delighted. Having a more delicate const.i.tution, she had little share in the busy routine of farm life, but was allowed to follow her own inclinations. She was still absorbed in her music and studies when Love found her, and the woman within her awoke at his call.

After Darrell's birth her health was seriously impaired. It seemed as though her faith in her husband, her belief that he would one day return, and her love for her son were the only ties holding soul and body together, and, with her natural religious tendencies, the spiritual nature developed at the expense of the physical. Since Darrell's strange disappearance she had failed rapidly.

With the return of her husband and son she seemed temporarily to renew her hold on life, appearing stronger than for many months. For the first few days much of her time was spent at her piano, singing with her husband the old songs of their early love, but oftenest a favorite of his which she had sung during the years of his absence, and which Darrell had sung on that night at The Pines following his discovery of the violin,--"Loyal to Love and Thee."

Her delight in the rooms newly fitted up for her was unbounded, and against the background of their subdued, warm tints she made a strikingly beautiful picture, with her sweet, spirituelle face crowned with waving silver hair.

Either Darrell or his father, or both, were constantly with her, for they realized that the time was short in which to make amends for the missing years. She loved to listen to her husband's tales of the great West or to bits which Darrell read from his journal of that strange chapter of his own life.

"You have not yet asked after your sweetheart, Darrell," his mother said one evening soon after his arrival, as they sat awaiting his father's return from a short stroll.

"You are my sweetheart now, little mother," he replied, kissing the hand that lay within his own.

"Does that mean that you care less for Marion than before you went away?" she queried.

"No," Darrell answered, slowly; "I cannot say that my regard for her has decreased. I may have changed in some respects, but not in my feelings towards Marion. I will ask you a question, mother: Do you think she still cares for me as before I left home?"

"I hardly know how to answer you, because, as you know, Marion is so silent and secretive. I never could understand the girl. To be candid, Darrell dear, I never could understand why you should care for her, and I never thought she cared for you as she ought."

"You know, mother, how I came to be attracted to her in the first place; we were schoolmates, and you know she was an exceptionally brilliant girl, and different from most of the others. We were interested in the same subjects, and naturally there sprang up quite an intimacy between us. Then we corresponded while I was at college, and her letters were so bright and entertaining that my admiration for her increased. I thought her the most brilliant and the best girl, every way, in all my acquaintance, and I think so still."

"But, my dear boy," his mother exclaimed, "admiration is not love; I don't believe you ever really loved her, and she always seemed to me to be all brains and no heart--one of those cold, silent natures incapable of loving."

"I think you are wrong there, mother. Marion is silent, but I don't believe she is cold or incapable of loving. She may, or may not, be incapable of expressing it, but I believe she could love very deeply and sincerely were her love once awakened."

"You know she has taken up the study of medicine?"

"Ned Elliott told me she had been studying with Dr. Parker for about a year."

"Dr. Parker tells me she is making remarkable progress."

"I don't doubt it, mother; she will probably make a success of it; she is just the woman to do so."

"There never was any mention of love between you two, was there, or any engagement?" Darrell's mother asked, with some hesitation, after a brief silence.

"None whatever," he replied, then added, with a smile: "We considered ourselves in love at the time,--at least, I did; but as I look back now it seems a very Platonic affair; but I thought I loved her, and I think she loved me."

"You say, Darrell, that your regard for her is unchanged?"

"Yes; the same as ever."

"But you do not think now that you love her or loved her then?"

"No, mother; I know I do not, and did not."

"Then, Darrell, my boy, some one else has taught you what love really is?"

For answer Darrell bowed his head in a.s.sent over his mother's hand.

For a few moments she silently stroked his hair as in his boyish days; then she said, in low tones,--

"Answer me one question, Darrell: Was she a good, pure woman?"

Darrell raised his head, his eyes looking straight into the searching dark eyes, so like his own.

"My little mother," he replied, tenderly, "don't think that your teachings all the past years or the lessons of your own sweet life were lost in those two years; their influence lived even when memory had failed."

He bent and kissed her, then added: "She was scarcely more than a child; not so brilliant, perhaps, as Marion, but beautiful, good, and pure as the driven snow."

Hearing his father's voice outside, Darrell rose and, picking up his journal, opened it at the story of his love and Kate's. Then placing it open upon a table beside his mother, he said,--

"There, mother, is the story of my Dream-Love, as I call her. Read it, and if you should wish to know anything further regarding it, ask my father, for he knows all."

_Chapter x.x.xII_

MARION HOLMES

The following day when Darrell entered his mother's rooms he found her with his journal lying open before her. Looking up with a smile, she said,--

"Darrell, my dear, I would like to meet your 'Kathie,' but that can never be in this world. But you will meet her again, and when you do, give her a mother's love and blessing from me."

Then, laying her hand on his arm, she added: "I understand now your question regarding Marion. As I told you, it is difficult to judge anything about her real feelings. For the first year after you went away she came often to see me and frequently inquired for tidings of you, but this last year she has seemed different. She has come here less frequently and seldom referred to you, and appeared so engrossed in her studies I concluded she had little thought or care for you. I may have misjudged her, but even were that so and she did care for you still, you would not marry her now, loving another as you do, would you?"