Dr. Lavendar, it appeared, had mentioned Mr. Spangler's name to one Mr.

Horatius Brown, stating that in his opinion Mr. Spangler was just the man for the place--"exact, painstaking, conscientious," Mr. Brown quoted in his letter; but forbore to add Dr. Lavendar's further remark that Mr. Spangler would never embarra.s.s the management by an original idea. "He'll pick up pins as faithfully as any man I know," said Dr.

Lavendar, "and that's what you religious newspapers want, I believe?"

Mr. Spangler was not without a solemn pride in being thus sought out by the ecclesiastical business world, especially when he reflected upon the salary which Mr. Brown was prepared to offer; but acceptance was another matter. To leave his high calling for mere business! A business, too, which would involve exact hours and steady application;--Compared with that, and with the crude, smart bustle of the Western city, the frugal leisure of his placid days in Mercer a.s.sumed in his mind the sanct.i.ty of withdrawal from the world, and his occasional preaching took on the glow of missionary zeal. "No," said Mr. Spangler, "mercenary considerations do not move me a hair's-breadth." Mr. Spangler did not call his tranquil life in Mercer, his comfortable old house, his good cook, his old friends, his freedom from sermon-writing, mercenary considerations. On the contrary, he a.s.sured himself that his "circ.u.mstances were far from affluent; but I must endure hardness!" he used to add cheerfully. And very honestly his declination seemed to him something that Heaven would place to his credit. So he wrote to the publishing-house that he had given the proposition his most prayerful consideration, but that he believed that it was his duty to still labor at the sacred desk--and duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. And he was Mr. Brown's "obedient servant and brother in Christ--Augustus Spangler."

Then he settled down in Dr. Lavendar's armchair by the fire in the study; but he did not read the ecclesiastical paper which every week fed his narrow and sincere mind. Instead he wondered how often Dr.

Lavendar called upon his female parishioners. Would twice in a fortnight be liable to be misunderstood? Mr. Spangler was terribly afraid of being misunderstood. Then he had a flash of inspiration: he ought, as rector, to visit the schools. That was only proper and could not possibly be misunderstood. "For an interest in educational affairs is part of a priest's duty," Mr. Spangler reflected.

If he was right, it must be admitted that Dr. Lavendar was very remiss.

So far as we children could remember, he had never visited Miss Ellen's school and listened to recitations and heard us speak our pieces.

Whether that was because he did not care enough about us to come, or because he saw us at Collect cla.s.s and Sunday-school and church, and in the street and at the post-office and at home, until he knew us all by heart, so to speak, may be decided one way or the other; but certainly when Mr. Spangler came, and sat through one morning, and told us stories, and said we made him think of a garden of rosebuds, and took up so much of Miss Ellen's time that she could not hear the mental arithmetic, it was impossible not to inst.i.tute comparisons. Indeed, some hearts were (for the moment) untrue to Mr. David. When Miss Ellen called on us to speak our pieces, we were so excited and breathless that, for my part, I could not remember the first line of "Bingen on the Rhine," and had to look quickly into the Fourth Reader; but before I could begin, Lydia Wright started in with "Excelsior," and she got all the praise; though I'm sure I--well, never mind! But Dr. Lavendar wouldn't have praised one girl so that all the others wanted to scratch her! All that first half, the pupils, bending over their copy-books, writing, "_Courtesy to inferiors is true gentility_," glanced at the visitor sideways, and if they caught his eye, looked down, blushing to the roots of their hair--which was not frizzled, if you please, or hanging over their eyes like the locks of Skye-terriers, but parted and tied with a neat ribbon bow on the tops of all the small heads. But Mr. Spangler did not look often at the pupils; instead he conversed in a low voice with Miss Ellen. n.o.body could hear what he said, but it must have been very interesting, for when Miss Ellen suddenly looked at the clock she blushed, and brought her hand hurriedly down on the bell on her desk. It was ten minutes after the hour for recess!

For the rest of that day Miss Ellen Baily moved and looked as one in a dream. Her brother, however, did not seem to notice her absent-mindedness. Indeed, he was as talkative as she was silent.

"Sister," he said, as they sat at tea, "I need a new hat. One with a blue band about it might be--ah--becoming."

"Blue is a sweet color," said Miss Ellen, vaguely.

"Mrs. Smily remarked to me that before her affliction made it improper, she was addicted to the color of blue."

"Was she?" Ellen said, absently.

"Don't you think," David said, after a pause, "that my coat is somewhat shabby? You bought it, you may remember, the winter of the long frost."

"Is it?" Miss Ellen said.

"Yes; and the style is obsolete, I think. Not that I am a creature of fashion, but I do not like to be conspicuous in dress."

"You are not that, dear David," Miss Ellen protested. "On Sunday I often think n.o.body looks as handsome as you."

David blushed. "You are partial, Ellen."

"No, I'm not," cried Miss Ellen, coming out of her reveries. "Only yesterday I heard some one say that you were very fine-looking."

"Who said it?"

"Never mind," Ellen said, gayly.

"Do tell me, sister," he entreated; "that's a good girl."

"It was somebody whose opinion you care a great deal about."

"I think you might tell me," said Mr. David, aggrieved. "Not that I care, because it isn't true, and was only said to please you. People know how to get round you, Ellen. But I'd just like to know."

"Guess," said Miss Ellen.

"Well, was it--Mrs. Smily?"

"Oh, dear, no! It was somebody very important in Old Chester. It was Mrs. Barkley."

"Oh," said Mr. David.

"A compliment from her means so much, you know," Miss Ellen reminded him.

David was silent.

"But all the same," Ellen said, "you do need a coat, dear brother. I'm afraid I've been selfish not to notice it."

Mr. David made no reply.

Miss Ellen beamed at him. "You always look well, in my eyes: but it pleases me to have you well dressed, too."

"Well, then, to please you, I'll dress up," said Mr. David, earnestly.

IV

"Does not Mr. Baily take any part whatever in his sister's work?" Mr.

Spangler said. He was calling upon Mrs. Barkley, and the conversation turned upon the guests whom he had met at the tea-party.

"That is a very foolish question," said Mrs. Barkley; "but of course you don't know poor David, or you wouldn't have asked it. David means well, but he has no mind. Still, he has tried, poor fellow." Then she recited the story of David's failures. "There is really nothing that he is capable of doing," she ended, thoughtfully; "though I think, if his eyes hadn't given out, he might have made a good minister. For David is a pious man, and he likes to visit."

A faint red came into Mr. Spangler's cheeks; although he had been in Old Chester nearly a month, he had not yet become acclimated to Mrs.

Barkley. The watchword of duty made him call, but he closed her front door behind him with an emphasis which was not dutiful.

"That's done!" he said; and thought to himself how much pleasanter than parochial visits were educational matters.

Mr. Spangler felt their importance so deeply that he spent two more mornings watching Miss Ellen's pupils work out examples on the blackboard and hearing them read, turn about, in the Fourth Reader. In fact, the next month was a pretty happy time for Miss Ellen's girls.

"I skipped to the bottom of the page in 'Catiline's Reply,'" Lydia Wright said, giggling, "and she never knew it!"

The girls were tremendously interested but not very sympathetic, for "she's so dreadfully old!" they told each other. Had Miss Ellen been Maria's age and had a beau (by this time they called Mr. Spangler Miss Ellen's beau, the impudent little creatures!), how different it would have been! But Miss Ellen was forty. "Did you ever know anything so perfectly absurd?" said the older girls. And the second-cla.s.s girls said they certainly never did. So when Mr. Spangler came and listened to recitations we poked one another, and put out our tongues behind our Readers, and made ourselves extremely obnoxious--if dear Miss Ellen had had the eyes to see it, which, indeed, she had not. She was very absent in those days; but she did her work faithfully, and saw to David's new coat, and asked Mrs. Smily to tea, not only to help out Miss Harriet at the Stuffed-Animal House, but because David told her a piteous tale of Mrs. Smily's loneliness and general forlornness. David had had it directly from Mrs. Smily herself, and had been greatly moved by it; she had told him that this was a sad and unfriendly world.

"But I am sure your brother-in-law's family is much attached to you?"

David said, comfortingly.

Then poor Mrs. Smily suddenly began to cry. "Yes; but I am afraid I can't live at my brother-in-law's any longer. His wife is--is tired of me," said the poor little creature.

David was thunderstruck. "Tired? Of you! Oh, impossible!"

Then she opened her poor foolish heart to him. And David was so touched and interested that he could hardly wait to get home to pour it all into Ellen's ears. Ellen was very sympathetic, and made haste to ask Mrs. Smily to tea; and when she came was as kind and pitiful as only dear, kind Ellen could be. But perhaps she took Mrs. Smily's griefs a little less to heart than she might have done had she heard the tale a month before. Just then she was in the whirl of Old Chester hospitality; she was asked out three times in one week to meet the Supply!--and by that time the Supply had reached the point of hoping that he was going to meet Miss Ellen.

Yet, as Mr. Spangler reflected, this was hardly prudent on his part.

"For I might become interested," he said to himself, and frowned and sighed. Now, as everybody knows, the outcome of "interest" is only justified by a reasonable affluence. "And," Augustus Spangler reminded himself, "my circ.u.mstances are not affluent." Indeed, that warm, pleasant old house in Mercer, and Mary Ann, and his books, and those b.u.t.toned-up coats needed every penny of his tiny income. "Therefore,"

said Mr. Spangler, "it is my duty to put this out of my head with an iron hand." But, all the same, Ellen Baily was like a spray of heliotrope.

For a week, the second week in April, while Old Chester softened into a mist of green, and the crown-imperials shook their clean, bitter fragrance over the bare beds in the gardens--for that week Mr. Spangler thought often of his income, but oftener of Miss Ellen. Reason and sentiment wrestled together in his lazy but affectionate heart; and then, with a mighty effort, sentiment conquered....