"It seems," said Mr. Spangler, nervously, "a little premature, but my sojourn in Old Chester is drawing to a close; I shall not tarry more than another fortnight; so I felt, my dear friend, that I must, before seeking other fields of usefulness, tell you what was in my mind--or may I say heart?"

"You are very kind," Ellen Baily said, breathlessly.

.... Mr. Spangler had invited Miss Ellen to walk with him on Sat.u.r.day afternoon at four. Now, as everybody knows in Old Chester, when a gentleman invites you to walk out with him, you had better make up your mind whether it is to be "yes" or "no" before you start. As for poor Ellen, she did not have to make up her mind; it was made up for her by unconquerable circ.u.mstances. If she should "seek other fields of usefulness," she could not take David with her. It was equally clear that she could not leave him behind her. Where would he find his occasional new coat, or even the hat with the blue band, if there were no school in the bas.e.m.e.nt? Compared to love-making and romance, how sordid are questions about coats! Yet, before starting on that Sat.u.r.day-afternoon walk, poor, pretty Miss Ellen, tying the strings of her many-times retrimmed bonnet under her quivering chin, asked them, and could find no answer except that if he should "say anything," why, then, she must say "no"; but, of course, he wasn't going to say anything. So she tied her washed and ironed brown ribbons into a neat bow, and started down the street with the Reverend Mr. Spangler.

David Baily, watching them from the gate, ruminated over obvious possibilities. Mrs. Barkley had opened his eyes to the fact that Mr.

Spangler "was taking notice," and David was not without a certain family pride in a ministerial proposal. "He'll do it this afternoon,"

said David; and went pottering back into the empty school-room to mend a bench that Ellen told him needed a nail or two. But the room was still and sunny, and Ellen's chair was comfortable; and sitting there to think about the bench, he nodded once or twice, and then dozed for an hour. When he awoke it seemed best to mend the bench the next day; then, yawning, and staring vacantly out of the window, he saw Mrs.

Smily, and it seemed only friendly to go out and tell her (confidentially) what was going to happen.

"It will make quite a difference to you, won't it?" Mrs. Smily said.

"Oh," David said, blankly, "that hadn't occurred to me. However," he added, with a little sigh, "my sister's happiness is my first thought."

Mrs. Smily clasped her hands. "Mr. Baily, I do think you are real n.o.ble!" she said.

Mr. David stood very erect. "Oh, you mustn't flatter me, ma'am."

"Mr. Baily, I never flatter," Mrs. Smily said, gravely. "I don't think it's right."

And David thought to himself how n.o.ble Mrs. Smily was. Indeed, her n.o.bility was so much in his mind that, strangely enough, he quite forgot Ellen's exciting afternoon. He remembered it the next morning, but when he essayed a little joke and a delicate question, the asperity with which the mild Ellen answered him left him gaping with astonishment. Evidently Mr. Spangler had not spoken. David would have been less (or more) than a human brother if he had not smiled a very little at that. "Ellen expected it," he said to himself. "Well, I did myself, and so did Mrs. Barkley." It never occurred to him that the Reverend Mr. Spangler might also have had expectations which left him disappointed and mortified. Yet when a gentleman of Mr. Spangler's age--one, too, whose income barely suffices for his own comfort, and who, added to this, has had his doubts whether the celibacy of the clergy may not be a sacrament of grace--when such a gentleman does make up his mind to offer himself--to offer himself, moreover, to a lady no longer in her first youth, who is pleasing perhaps to the eye, but not, certainly, excessively beautiful, and whose fortune is merely (and most meritoriously, of course) in her character and understanding--it is a blow to pride to be refused. Mr. Spangler found it hard to labor at the sacred desk that morning; yet no one would have thought it, to see the fervor with which, as Old Chester said, he "went through his performances."

But he read the service, hot at heart and hoping that Miss Baily observed how intensely his attention was fixed on things above. When he stood in the chancel waiting for the collection-plates, and saying, in a curious sing-song, absolutely new to Old Chester, "_Zaccheus stood forth, and said, Behold, Lord--_" his glance, roving over the congregation, rested once on Ellen Baily, and was as carefully impersonal as though she were only a part of the pew in which she sat.

Miss Ellen thrilled at that high indifference; it occurred to her that even had David's circ.u.mstances been different, she could scarcely have dared to accept the hand of this high creature.

"_--the half of all my goods--_" said Mr. Spangler. Yes, it was inconceivable, considering what he was offering her, that Ellen Baily could let her brother stand in the way!

All that long, pleasant spring Sunday, Augustus Spangler was very bitter. All that week he was distinctly angry. He said to himself that he was glad that Dr. Lavendar was soon to return; he would, after making his report of the parish, shake the dust of Old Chester from off his feet as witness against Miss Baily, and depart. By the next Sunday he had ceased to be angry, but his pride was still deeply wounded. By Wednesday he had softened to melancholy; he was able to say that it all came from her sense of duty. Unreasonable, of course, but still duty.

Then, on Thursday, suddenly, he was startled by a question in his own mind: Was it unreasonable? If she gave up her teaching--"what would that fellow live on?"

That was a very bad moment to the Reverend Mr. Spangler. Pride vanished in honest unhappiness. He began to think again about his income; he had known that to marry a wife meant greater economy; but sacrifices had not seemed too difficult considering that that wife was to be Miss Ellen Baily. But if the wife must be Miss Baily _plus_--"that fellow"!

"It is out of the question," said poor Mr. Spangler, and arose and paced up and down the study. He was very miserable; and the more miserable he became, the more in love he knew himself to be. "But it is madness to think of the matter further," he told himself, sternly--"madness!"

Yet he kept on thinking of it--or of Miss Ellen's dark eyes, and her smile, and the way her hair curled in little rings about her temples.

"But it's impossible--impossible!" he said. Then, absently, he made some calculations: To meet the support of David Baily he would have to have an increase of so much in his income or a decrease of so much in his expenses. "Madness!" said Augustus Spangler, firmly. "But how her eyes crinkle up when she smiles!"

Yet it took another day before the real man conquered. His expenses should be decreased, _and David should live with them_.

Yes, it would mean undeniable pinching; he must give up this small luxury and that; his Mary Ann could not broil his occasional sweetbread; and the occasional new book must be borrowed from the library, not purchased for his own shelves. He must push about to get more supplying. He had meant to come down one step when he got married; well, he would have to come down two--yes, or three. But he would have Miss Baily. And warmed with this tender thought, he sat down, then and there, at nearly midnight, and wrote Miss Ellen a letter. It was a beautiful letter, full of most beautiful sentiments expressed with great elegance and gentility. It appreciated Miss Ellen's devotion to her family, and acknowledged that a sense of duty was a part of the character of a Christian female. It protested that it was far from the Reverend Mr. Spangler to interfere with that sense of duty; on the contrary, he would share it; nay more, he would a.s.sist it, for duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. If Miss Baily would consent to become his wife, Mr. Baily, he trusted, would make his home with his sister.

Mr. Spangler may have been addicted to petticoats (in his own toilet) and given to candles and other emblems of the Scarlet Woman, but his letter, beneath its stilted phrase, was an honest, manly utterance, and Ellen Baily read it, thrilling with happiness and love.

That was Friday, and she had only time to read those thin, blue pages and thrust them into the bosom of her dress, when it was time to go to school and hear her girls declare that the Amazon was the largest river in South America; but we might have said it was the largest river in Pennsylvania, and Miss Ellen would have gone on smiling at us. At recess we poured out into the garden, eager to say, "Goodness! do you suppose he's popped?" The older girls were especially excited, but they took their usual furtive look about the garden before sitting down on the steps to eat their luncheons. Alas, He was not there!

"Perhaps," said Lydia Wright, "he has gone to the tomb."

This, for the moment, was deliciously saddening; but, after all, real live love-making, even of very old people, is more fascinating than dead romance. Through the open window we could see Miss Ellen sitting at her desk, writing. There were some sheets of blue paper spread out in front of her, and she would glance at them, and then write a little, and then glance back again, and smile, and write. But she did not look troubled, or "cross," as the girls called it; so we knew it could not be an exercise that she was correcting. But when she came out to us, and said, in a sweet, fluttered voice, "Children, will one of you take this letter to the post-office?" we knew what it meant--for it was addressed to the Reverend Mr. Spangler. How we all ran with it to the post-office!--giggling and palpitating and sighing as our individual temperaments might suggest. In fact, I know one girl who squeezed a tear out of each eye, she was so moved. When we came back, there was Miss Baily still sitting at her desk, her cheek on one hand, her smiling eyes fastened on those sheets of blue paper. "Gracious," said the girls, "what a long recess!" and told each other to be quiet and not remind her to ring the bell.

Then suddenly something happened....

An old carry-all came shambling along the road; there were two people in it, and one of them leaned over from the back seat and said to the driver: "This is my house. Stop here, please." The girls, cl.u.s.tering like pigeons on the sunny doorstep, began to fold up their luncheon-boxes, and look sidewise, with beating hearts, towards the gate--for it was _He_! How graceful he was--how elegant in his manners! Ah, if our mothers had bidden us have manners like Mr.

David!--but they never did. They used to say, "Try and behave as politely as Miss Maria Welwood," or, "I hope you will be as modest in your deportment as Miss Sally Smith." And there was this model before our eyes. It makes my heart beat now to remember how He got out of that rattling old carriage and turned and lifted his hat to a lady inside, and gave her his hand (ah, me!) and held back her skirts as she got out, and bowed again when she reached the ground. She was not much to look at; she was only the lady who was visiting at the Stuffed-Animal House, and she was dressed in black, and her bonnet was on one side. They stood there together in the sunshine, and Mr. David felt slowly in all his pockets; then he turned to us, sitting watching him with beating hearts.

"Little girls," he said--he was near-sighted, and, absorbed as he always was with sorrow, we never expected him to know our names--"little girls, one of you, go in and ask my sister for two coach fares, if you please."

We rose in a body and swarmed back into the school-room--just as Miss Ellen with a start looked at the clock and put out her hand to ring the bell. "Mr. David says, please, ma'am, will you give him money for two coach fares?"

Miss Ellen, rummaging in her pocket for her purse, said: "Yes, my love.

Will you take this to my brother?" Just why she followed us as we ran out into the garden with her purse perhaps she hardly knew herself.

But as she stood in the doorway, a little uncertain and wondering, Mr.

David led the shabby, shrinking lady up to her.

"My dear Ellen," he said, "I have a present for you--a _sister_."

Then the little, shabby lady stepped forward and threw herself on Miss Ellen's shoulder.

"A sister?" Ellen Baily said, bewildered.

"We were married this morning in Upper Chester," said Mr. David, "and I have brought her home. Now we shall all be so happy!"

V

That evening Dr. Lavendar came home. Of course all the real Old Chester was on hand to welcome him.

When the stage came creaking up to the tavern steps, the old white head was bare, and the broad-brimmed shabby felt hat was waving tremulously in the air.

"Here I am," said Dr. Lavendar, clambering down stiffly from the box-seat. "What mischief have you all been up to?"

There was much laughing and hand-shaking, and Dr. Lavendar, blinking very hard, and flourishing his red silk pocket-handkerchief, clapped Mr. Spangler on the shoulder.

"Didn't I tell you about 'em? Didn't I tell you they were the best people going? But we mustn't let 'em know it; makes 'em vain," said Dr. Lavendar, with great show of secrecy. "And look here, Sam Wright!

You fellows may congratulate yourselves. Spangler here has had a fine business offer made him, haven't you, Mr. Spangler? and it's just your luck that you got him to supply for you before he left this part of the country. A little later he wouldn't have looked at Old Chester. Hey, Spangler?"

"Oh, that's settled," Mr. Spangler said. "I declined--"

"Oh," said Dr. Lavendar, "have you? Well, I'm sorry for 'em."

And Augustus Spangler smiled as heartily as anybody. He had a letter crushed up in his hand; he had read it walking down from the post-office to the tavern, and now he was ready to say that Old Chester was the finest place in the world. He could hardly wait to get Dr.

Lavendar to himself in the rectory before telling him his great news and giving him a little three-cornered note from Ellen Baily which had been enclosed in his own letter.

"Well, well, _well_," said Dr. Lavendar.

He had put on a strange dressing-gown of flowered cashmere and his worsted-work slippers, and made room for his s.h.a.ggy old Danny in his leather chair, and lighted his pipe. "Now tell us the news!" he said.

And was all ready to hear about the Sunday-school teachers, and the choir, and Sam Wright's Protestantism, and many other important things.