"You'd better go to bed now," said her mother, with a meaning look; "you want to look bright to-morrow, and you've got a good deal before you."

The next day not a word was said to Jerome about Lawrence Prescott's expected call. He noticed vaguely that something unusual seemed to be going on in the parlor; then divined, with a careless dismissal of the subject, that it was house-cleaning. He had a secret of his own that day which might have rendered him less curious about the secrets of others. There were scarcely enough shoes finished to take to Dale, only a half-lot, but Jerome announced his intention of going, to Ozias Lamb, with a.s.sumed carelessness.

"Why don't ye wait till the lot is finished?" asked Ozias.

"Guess I'll take a half-lot this time," replied Jerome.

Ozias eyed him sharply, but said nothing.

Jerome had in his room a little iron-bound strong-box which had belonged to his father, though few treasures had poor Abel Edwards ever had occasion to store in it. After dinner that noon Jerome went up-stairs, unlocked the strong-box, took out some coins, handling them carefully lest they jingle, and put them in his leather wallet.

Then he went down-stairs and out the front door as stealthily as if he had been thieving. Elmira and her mother were at work in the parlor, and saw him go down the walk and disappear up the road.

"I'll tell you what 'tis," said Mrs. Edwards, with one of her sharp, confirmatory nods, "J'rome's been takin' out some of that money, an'

he's goin' to Dale to get him some new clothes."

"What makes you think so?"

"Oh, you see if he 'ain't. He 'ain't got a coat nor a vest fit to wear to that party, an' he knows it. If he's taken some of that money he's savin' up towards the mortgage I'm glad of it. Folks ought to have a little somethin' as they go along; if they don't, first thing they know they'll get past it."

Jerome did not start for Dale until it was quite late in the afternoon, working hard meanwhile in the shop. The day was another of those typical ones of early spring, which had come lately, drooping as to every leaf and bud with that hot languor which forces bloom.

The door and windows of the little shop were set wide open. The honey and spice-breaths of flowers mingled with the rank effluvia of leather like a delicate melody with a harsh ba.s.s. Jerome pegged along in silence with knitted brow, yet with a restraint of smiles on his lips.

Ozias Lamb also was silent; his old face bending over his work was a concentration of moody gloom. Ozias was not as outspoken as formerly concerning his bitter taste of life, possibly because it had reached his soul. Jerome sometimes wondered if his uncle had troubles that he did not know of. He started for Dale so late that it was after sunset when he returned with a great parcel under his arm. He felt strangely tired, and just before he reached Upham village he sat down on a stone wall, laid his parcel carefully at his side, and looked about him.

The spring dusk was gathering slowly, though at first through an enhanced clearness of upper lights. All the gloom seemed to proceed from the earth in silvery breathings of meadows and gradual stealings forth of violet shadows from behind forest trees. The sky was so full of pure yellow light that even the feathery spring foliage was darkly outlined against it, and one could see far within it the fanning of the wings of the twilight birds. The air was cooler. The breaths of new-turned earth, and rank young plants in marshy places and woodland ponds were in it, overcoming somewhat those of sun-steeped blossoms, which had prevailed all day.

The road from Dale to Upham lay through low land, and however dry the night elsewhere, there was always a damp freshness. The circling clamor of birds overhead seemed wonderfully near. In the village the bell had begun to ring for an evening prayer-meeting, and one could have fancied that the bell hung in one of the neighboring trees. The clearness of sight seemed to enhance hearing, and possibly also that imagination which is beyond both senses. Jerome had a vague impression which he did not express to himself, that he had come to a door wide open into s.p.a.ces beyond all needs and desires of the flesh and the earthly soul, and had a sense of breathing new air. Suddenly, now that he had gained this clear outlook of spirit, the world, and all the things thereof, seemed to be at his back, and grown dim, even to his retrospective thought. The image even of beautiful Lucina, which had dwelt with him since Sunday, faded, for she was not yet become of his spirit, and pertained scarcely to his flesh, except through the simplest and most rudimentary of human instincts. Jerome glanced at the parcel containing the fine new vest and coat which he had purchased, and frowned scornfully at this childish vanity, which would lead him to perk and plume and glitter to the sun, like any foolish bird which would awake the desire of the eyes in another.

"What a fool I am!" he muttered, and looked at the great open of sky again, and was half minded to take his purchases back to Dale.

However, when the clear gold of the sky began to pale and a great star shone out over the west, he rose, took up his parcel, and went home.

There was a light in the parlor. He thought indifferently that Paulina Maria Judd or his aunt Belinda might be in there calling on his mother; but when he went into the kitchen his mother sat there, and both the other women were with her.

The supper-table was still standing. "Where have you been, Jerome Edwards?" cried his mother. She cast a sharp look at his parcel, but said nothing about it. Jerome laid it on top of the old desk which had belonged to his father. "I have been over to Dale," he replied; "I didn't start very early."

His aunt Belinda looked at him amiably. She had not changed much. Her face, shaded by her long curls, had that same soft droop as of a faded flower. Once past her bloom of the flesh, there was, in a woman so little beset by storms of the spirit as Belinda Lamb, little further change possible until she dropped entirely from her tree of life. She looked at Jerome with the amiable light of a smile rather than a smile itself, and said, with her old, weak, but clinging pounce upon disturbing trifles, "Why, Jerome, you 'ain't been all this time gettin' to Dale an' back?"

"I didn't hurry," replied Jerome, coldly, drawing a chair up to the supper-table. He had always a sensation of nervous impatience with this mild, negatively sweet woman which he could not overcome, though he felt shamed by it. He preferred to see Paulina Maria, though between her and himself a covert antagonism survived the open one of his boyhood--at least, he could dislike her without disliking himself.

The candle-light fell full upon Paulina Maria's face, which was even more transparent than formerly; so transfused was her clear profile by the candle-light that the outlines seemed almost to waver and be lost. She was knitting a fine white cotton stocking in an intricate pattern, and did not look at Jerome, or speak to him, beyond her first nod of recognition when he entered.

Presently, however, Jerome turned to her. "How is Henry?" he inquired.

"About the same," she replied, in her clear voice, which was unexpectedly loud, and seemed to have a curious after-tone.

"His eyes are no worse, then?"

"No worse, and no better."

"Can't he do any more than he did last year?" asked Mrs. Edwards.

"No, he can't. He hasn't been able to do a st.i.tch on shoes since last Thanksgiving. He can't do anything but sit at the window and knit plain knittin'. I don't know how he would get along, if I hadn't showed him how to do that. I believe he'd go crazy."

"Don't you think that last stuff Doctor Prescott put in his eyes did him any good?" asked Mrs. Edwards.

"No, I don't. He didn't think it would, himself. He said all there was to do was to go to Boston and see that great doctor there and have an operation, an' it's goin' to cost three hundred dollars.

Three hundred dollars!--it's easy enough to talk--three hundred dollars! Adoniram has been laid up with jaundice half the winter.

I've bound shoes, and I've knit these fine stockin's for Mis' Doctor Prescott. They go towards the doctor's bill, but they're a drop in the bucket. She'd allow considerable on them, but it ain't _her_ say.

Three hundred dollars!"

"It's a sight of money," said Belinda Lamb. "I s'pose you could mortgage the house, Paulina Maria, and then when Henry got his eyesight back he could work to pay it off."

A deep red transfused Paulina Maria's transparent pallor, but before she could speak Ann Edwards interposed. "Mortgage!" said she, with a sniff of her nostrils, as if she scented battle. "Mortgage! Load a poor horse down to the ground till his legs break under him, set a baby to layin' a stone wall till he drops, but don't talk to me of mortgages; I guess I know enough about them. My poor husband would have been alive and well to-day if it hadn't been for a mortgage. It sounds easy enough--jest a little interest money to pay every year, an' all this money down; but I tell you 'tis like a leech that sucks at body and soul. You get so the mortgage looks worse than your sins, an' you pray to be forgiven that instead of them. I know. Don't you have a mortgage put on your house, Paulina Maria Judd, or you'll rue the day. I'd--steal before I'd do it!"

Paulina Maria made no response; she was quite pale again.

"I should think you'd be afraid Henry would go entirely blind if you didn't have something done for him," said Belinda Lamb.

"I be," replied Paulina Maria, sternly. She rose to go, and Belinda also, with languid response of motion, as if Paulina Maria were an upstirring wind.

When Paulina Maria opened the outer door there was a rush of dank night air.

"Don't you want me to walk home with you and Aunt Belinda?" asked Jerome. "It's pretty dark."

"No, thank you," replied Paulina Maria, grimly, looking back, a pale, wavering shape against the parallelogram of night; "the things I'm afraid of walk in the light as much as the dark, an' you can't keep 'em off."

"You make me creep, talkin' so," Belinda Lamb said, as she and Paulina Maria, two women of one race, with their souls at the antipodes of things, went down the path together.

"I hope Paulina Maria won't put a mortgage on her house; Henry 'd better be blind," said Ann Edwards, when they had gone.

Jerome, finishing his supper, said nothing, but he knew, and Paulina Maria knew that he knew, there was already a mortgage on her house.

When Jerome rose from the table his mother pointed at the parcel on the desk.

"What's that?" she asked.

"I had to buy a coat and vest if I was going to that party," replied Jerome, with a kind of dogged embarra.s.sment. He had never felt so confused before his mother's sharp eyes since he was a child. If she had blamed him for his purchase, he would have been an easy victim, but she did not.

"What did you get?" she asked.

"I'll show you in the morning--you can see them better."

"Well, you needed them, if you are goin' to the party. You've got to look a little like folks. Where you goin'?" for Jerome had started towards the door.

"Into the parlor to get a book." He opened the door, but his mother beckoned him back mysteriously, and he closed it softly.

"What is it?" he asked, wonderingly. "Who is there? Has Elmira got company?"

"Belinda Lamb begun quizzin' as soon as she got in here; said she thought she heard a man talkin', an' asked if it was you; an' when I said it wa'n't, wanted to know who it was. I told her right to her face it was none of her business."