"That is because you are _growing_," said Marjorie, with her wise air. "I haven't settled down into a real Marjorie yet. I shouldn't know my own picture unless I painted it myself."

"We are two rather dangerous people, aren't we?" laughed Hollis. "We will steer clear of each other, as Will would say, until we can come to an understanding."

"Unless we can help each other," Marjorie answered. "But I don't believe you need to be pulled apart, but only to be let alone to grow--that is, if the germ is perfect."

"A perfect germ!" he repeated. Hollis liked to talk about himself to any one who would help him to self-a.n.a.lysis.

But the slowly moving figures were approaching, the black figure with bent shoulders and a slouched hat, the tall slight figure at his side in light gray with a shawl of white wool across her shoulders and drawn up over her hair, the fleecy whiteness softening the lines of a face that were already softened.

"O, Prudence, how far ahead we are of those two," exclaimed the school-master, "and they are wiser than we, perhaps, because they do not know so much."

"They do not know so much of each other, surely," she replied with a low laugh. That very day Mr. Holmes had quoted to her, giving it a personal application: "What she suffered she shook off in the sunshine."

He had been arguing within himself all day whether or not to destroy that letter in his pocket or to show it to her. Would it give her something else to shake off in the sunshine?

Hollis was wondering if this Marjorie, with her sweet, bright face, her graceful step and air of ladyhood, with modest and quick replies, not at all intruding herself, but giving herself, unconsciously, could be the same half-bashful little girl that he had walked with on a country road four years before; the little girl who fell so far behind his ideal, the little girl so different from city girls; and now, who among his small circle of girlhood at home could surpa.s.s her? And she was dressed so plainly, and there were marks of toil upon her fingers, and even freckles hidden beneath the fresh bloom of her cheek! She would hunt eggs tomorrow and milk the cows, she might not only weed in the garden, but when the potatoes were dug she might pick them up, and even a.s.sist her father in a.s.sorting them. Had he not said that Marjorie was his "boy" as well as her mother's girl? Had she not taken the place of Morris in all things that a girl could, and had she not taken his place with the master and gone on with Virgil where Morris left off?

"Marjorie, I don't see the _need_ of your going to school?" he was saying when they joined the others.

"Hollis, you are right," repeated the master, emphatically, "that is only a whim, but she will graduate the first year, so it doesn't matter."

"You see he is proud of his work," said Marjorie, "he will not give any school the credit of me."

"I will give you into Miss Prudence's keeping for a term of years, to round you off, to make you more of a woman and less of a student--like herself."

Marjorie's eyes kindled, "I wish Morris might hear that! He has been scolding me,--but that would satisfy him."

After several moments of light talk, if the master ever could be said to encourage light talk, he touched Miss Prudence, detaining her with him, and Marjorie and Hollis walked on together.

Marjorie and Hollis were not silent, nor altogether grave, for now and then her laugh would ripple forth and he would join, with a ringing, boyish laugh that made her forget that he had grown up since that day he brought her the plate.

But the two behind them were altogether grave; Miss Prudence was speaking, for Mr. Holmes had asked her what kind of a day she had had.

"To-morrow is to be one of our anniversaries, you know," she replied; "twenty-four years ago--to-morrow--was to have been to me what to-day is to Linnet. I wonder if I _were_ as light hearted as Linnet."

"You were as blithe a maiden as ever trod on air," he returned smiling sadly. "Don't I remember how you used to chase me around that old garden.

When we go back let us try another chase, shall we?"

"We will let Marjorie run and imagine it is I."

"Prudence, if I regain my strength out there, I am coming home to tell you something, may I?"

"I want you to regain your strength, but I am trembling when I think of anything to be told. Is it anything--about--"

"Jerome? Yes, it is about him and about my self. It is about our last interview when we spoke of you. Do you still believe that he is living?"

"Yes, we are living, why should he not be alive?"

"Do yon know how old he would be?"

"He was just twenty years older than I."

"Then he must be sixty-four. That is not young, Prudence, and he had grown old when I said goodbye to him on the steamer--no, it was not a steamer, he avoided the publicity, he went in a merchant ship, there was not even one pa.s.senger beside himself. He had a fine const.i.tution and he knew how to take care of himself; it was the--worry that made him look old. He was very warm-hearted and lovable."

"Yes," escaped Miss Prudence's lips.

"But he was weak and lead astray--it seems strange that your silver wedding day might be almost at hand, and that tall boy and girl in front of you my brother's children to call me Uncle John."

"John," she sobbed, catching her breath.

"Poor child! Now I've brought the tears. I was determined to get that dead look out of your eyes that was beginning to come to-night. It shall go away to-night and you shall not awake with it in the morning. Do you know what you want? Do you want to tell me what you pray about on your wedding day?"

"Yes, and you can pray with me to-morrow. I always ask repentance and remission of sins for him and for myself that I may see him once more and make him believe that I have forgiven him."

"Did you ever wish that you had been his wife and might have shared his exile?"

"Not at first; I was too indignant; I did not forgive him, at first; but since I have wished it; I know he has needed me."

"But he threw you off."

"No, he would not let me share his disgrace."

"He did not love you well enough to keep the disgrace from you, it seems," said John Holmes, bitterly.

"No, I could not keep him from sin. The love of a woman is not the love of G.o.d. I failed as many a woman has failed. But I did not desert him; I went--but he would not see me."

"He was sorry afterward, he tried to write to you, but he always broke down and could not go on; you were so young and he had been a shame to you."

"You never told me this before."

"Because I hated him, I hated my brother, for disgracing you and disgracing my mother and myself; I have grown forgiving since, since G.o.d has forgiven me. He said that last day that you must not forget him."

"He knew I would not forget," said Miss Prudence, proudly.

"Did you ever hate him?"

"Yes, I think I did. I believed he hastened poor father's death; I knew he had spoiled all my life; yes, I hated him until my heart was softened by many sorrows--John, I loved that man who went away--so far, without me, but I held myself bound, I thought your brother would come back and claim [missing text] was while Jerome was in--before he went to Europe-- and I said the shame and horror was too great, I could not become anybody's happy wife with that man who was so nearly my husband in such a place."

"Have you regretted that decision since?" he questioned in a dry hard tone.

"Yes."

How quiet her voice was! "I was sorry--when I read of his sudden death two years ago--and I almost hated your brother again for keeping so much from me--it is so hard not to hate with a bitter hatred when we have been so wronged. How I have prayed for a forgiving heart," she sighed.

"Have you had any comfort to-day?"

"Yes, I found it in my reading this morning. Linnet was up and singing early and I was sitting at my window over her head and I learned a lesson of how G.o.d waits before he comforts in these words that were given new to me. 'And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.'"

"I cannot see any comfort in that."