He reached the cottage ere long. There were no signs of life about it as yet.

"I'm the first man up," Steve thought, smiling as he went on.

The little home put the finishing touch to the picture, and Steve looked at it so long and so intently that he might have been accused of rudeness had the occupants seen him. His thoughts, however, were anything but rude, for a home had always been sacred to him. Had he acted at the bidding of his fine instinct, he would have raised his hat and stood uncovered in its presence. Since his marriage a home had taken on a deeper meaning. Without losing a jot of its sacredness, it had come to stand for something of pain. On his walk that morning he had noted many things with new eyes--the flowers gladdening the face of nature; the trees rearing their proud heads and standing each in his own place--each doing his own work; the birds trilling their songs of praise and stirring in the soul those holy aspirations whose feet scarce touch the earth and whose face is set toward heaven--all these doing the Father's work and answering with the quick response of perfect obedience, perfect sympathy to the divine will. Viewing them now with a soul made receptive by the tender sadness of real life, Steve asked himself over and over again, Am I fulfilling the divine mission?

When he reached home his face wore a thoughtful look, and the question of the morning lay deep within his eyes as he walked into the garden and came upon Nannie's work. For a long time he stood there gazing at it. An ordinary man would have been intensely angry, and whatever good he might have felt or purposed during his walk would have taken wings.

But it did not occur to Steve just then to be angry. Up to this time, like most another really thoughtful person, he had done very little actual thinking, but now he was entered upon a life which is G.o.d's own school for the development of character, and in the mental and spiritual awakening of which he was only dimly conscious he began to see that many things which he had hitherto accepted as a matter of course were in reality the result of causes which could and should be removed. Pa.s.sion blurs the vision, and Steve was straining his eyes to see just then, so it was necessary above all things that he should hold himself in hand.

"What makes Nannie act so?"

This was the question he was asking as he stood by his despoiled garden, and the answer began to come to him in a shadowy sort of way.

It was not just what he imagined it would be--not just what he would have wished it to be. Few answers take on the shape we antic.i.p.ate or desire, but it was undeniably an answer, and he turned, possibly in obedience, to a cool, shady nook near by, and plucking a few late violets which were growing there, went into the house where Nannie sat alone at breakfast, and laying these gently on the table beside her, without a word went on his way to the station and took his usual train.

For a long time after he had left the house Nannie sat there, her breakfast untasted, her elbows resting on the table, her hands clasped under her chin. She was not looking at the violets, but their subtle fragrance permeated her thought as it were. Never in all her life before had she been treated in this way; never before had she known of anything of this kind outside the covers of a book. She was not conscious of shame, sorrow, or even regret; she was simply stupid with wonder.

She got up by-and-by and walked toward the parlor, but looking back to the table she saw the violets still lying beside her plate. She hesitated a moment, then took them up and carried them to a vase in the next room, but in the midst of arranging them there she impulsively turned to a magazine near at hand, slipped them into this, and then tucked the book away, coloring the while like a girl detected with her first love letter.

"It wasn't so dreadful what I did," she muttered, to reinstate herself. "It didn't matter about the radishes, anyhow. They were so old it would have been disrespectful to eat them."

But she felt badly, nevertheless, as she caught up her hat, which lay upon the sofa just where she had thrown it the night before, and started off to Constance Chance's.

Something was stirred within her, and she felt uneasy with a restlessness that inclined her to seek a friend.

A friend! She had not one in the world. Of all the women she knew, Constance Chance claimed the most of her respect and admiration, but Constance was wholly unaware of this feeling, and moreover, did not like Nannie. In old days she tolerated her and was even attracted by her beauty, but she had warmly resented her marriage to Steve--whom she regarded as deserving a wife far superior to Nannie. She had, as is the custom of women in such cases, leaped to the conclusion that either Nannie had made advances to Steve--which he was too delicate and kind-hearted to repel--or that she had in some way excited his pity, and he had married her in order to protect and care for her, and she held it as a grudge against her. That a man like Steve could be attracted by such a girl as Nannie was inconceivable to Constance, although Randolph regarded the matter differently.

When she found that the marriage really was to take place she resolved to make the best of it, but it was not long before she decided that Steve was unhappy, and then her smouldering dissatisfaction broke into such a lively flame that Randolph was obliged to interpose to prevent her from taking Nannie in hand.

"There, there, sweetheart," he said. "Don't get wrought up about it.

I'm afraid you'd only make matters worse. Better let them rest as they are. We're not certain that it's so. Steve's a queer fellow."

"I _know_ he's unhappy!" Constance exclaimed. "It's not necessary for him to speak. There is a silence that is eloquent; then his looks have changed. There's something so pathetic about his whole bearing."

"Yes, I've noticed that. Poor old man! Well, we can't help it. These aren't matters for outsiders, my sweetheart--you know that even better than I do."

"Yes, I know, but I'm so angry with that little minx! See how she has estranged him from us. He hardly ever comes here now."

"Oh, well, I don't think that we ought to put all the blame of that on Nannie. A man isn't apt to run around after he's married. Look at me--you can hardly get me out at all, and I used to be a great gad-about."

"I dare say, sir, I dare say," said Constance, nodding her head as one who knows.

Randolph laughed.

"I certainly was over at your house often enough," he said, "but now that I've run the race and won the prize, I can stay at home and enjoy it."

"Well, I wish poor Steve had a home to enjoy," murmured Constance as a last word.

As a matter of course this conversation and the reflections which followed it did not prepare Constance to give Nannie a very cordial greeting when she came over that day. Had she known Nannie's state of mind; had she guessed that the child-wife looked up to her and was so ready to be influenced by her, the older woman, she would have done altogether differently. It is the lack of this very knowledge that makes much of life a mere blundering about in the dark.

She received her coolly, and Nannie was sensitive enough to feel this so deeply that Randolph's hearty welcome could but partially heal the hurt. This pain, however, was not without its resultant benefit, although the lesson for which it opened the way might have come more gently. Stung to the quick, aching with loneliness, and with a yearning which she did not understand, the young wife was roused as never before and her eyes opened to things heretofore unseen. She noticed the orderliness of the home she was in, its air of thrift and good management, and its artistic beauty. Nor was this all, for the best of a home is that which is too elusive, too subtile to remain under any of these heads, and this indefinite something attracted and touched Nannie to-day. Fog and mist, cloud and rain had softened the soil into which these seeds fell. Pain is a strong note in the prelude to life.

It was characteristic of Nannie's crude resentful type of pride that she prolonged her stay at Constance's, even though she realized she was unwelcome. She would not allow any one the satisfaction of seeing that she felt hurt.

As far as possible, Randolph tried to atone for his wife's lack of cordiality, and in pursuance of this aim he made an essential point of taking Nannie around the little place and showing her the latest arrivals in the vegetable line. He had considerable to show, for his tiny plantation was a model of thrift and comeliness. Many varieties of vegetables were holding out their succulent wares, all ready for table use, and many more were absorbing sunshine and balmy air in preparation for future calls. Near the house cheery and fragrant flowers gladdened the pretty beds in which no weed was allowed to rear its vicious crest. There was, it is true, one ugly, uncivilized portion of the place, in which the primitive, the barbaric reigned supreme. As yet Randolph had not found time to attack this spot and bring it within the pale of garden orthodoxy. Secretly he had for a time been hoping that Constance would take it in hand, although he would have been ashamed to let her know he dreamed of this. Certainly he would have been shocked at the idea of setting her at any such task, but he would as certainly have winked at her own voluntary performance of it. To be entirely frank, he had a little scene all ready in his imagination, in which this unsightly corner was found clothed and in its right mind--the noxious weeds having been cast out by Constance's gentle hands. In this delightful scene Constance always stood by smiling in a deprecatory way, and he was always gently upbraiding her--"Now, Constance! Why, this is shameful! The idea of your doing such a thing! It wasn't right of you! You must promise me you will never, never do anything of this sort again!" and so forth, and so on.

But alas! this scene, like many another, remained in the author's possession, Constance giving no occasion to act it out, but going circ.u.mspectly and quietly on her way, ignorant of this delightful little fancy of her husband's. Just now she was busy, very busy, and very happy indoors. She sat sewing in the cool, beautiful library, and the house door was open.

When Randolph excused himself from Nannie by-and-by to talk with a man who called on business, the latter started toward the house. On the gallery she paused, for she heard Constance's voice within, and she did not care to go to her. There was a hammock, shaded by a vine, near at hand, and she crept into this, and lying there the waves of Constance's low, sweet voice, mingled with the perfume of the honeysuckle, stole out to her and stirred new longings. Nannie leaned forward and caught a glimpse of Constance, who was at work, doing some of that fine sewing which gentlewomen love to put upon things of sweet value. Nannie could not discern what it was, but as Constance shifted the contents of her work basket a little article came in sight, and all at once Nannie felt, as it were, an imprisoned soul within her fluttering against the bars of its cage.

d.i.c.kens tells of a character whose unworthy life had apparently extinguished the divine spark, and yet, down deep within her, at the end of a tortuous pa.s.sage, there was a door, and over this door was the word womanhood. Nannie had such a door, and at sight of that tiny article of clothing it opened. The girl's heart--the woman's heart was crying out now, and her eyes were dim with tears she did not understand.

All unconscious of the pathos of the scene, Constance plied her dainty needle, and in a sweet low voice talked with a young girl (Gertrude Earnest) who sat at her feet.

"A story?"

"Yes, please, Mrs. Chance."

Constance, you must know, was a story teller--not of a reprehensible sort, but a legitimate, orthodox one, and locally she was not without honor on this account.

"Well, then, long, long ago," she began, "in the dim dawn of creation, the G.o.ds looked down upon man whom they had made, and realized that he was but a poor piece of work.

"'He needs other gifts,' said one.

"'Yea, verily,' murmured another, 'but they are fraught with such peril!'

"'Nevertheless he must have at least one more. He must not continue unconscious even of what is taking place around him--the acts of which he himself is a part.'

"And so they sent a spirit whose eyes were large and somber, and mankind received her with open arms, not knowing that her name was Realization. Endowed with this immortal gift, they no longer groveled, for they knew what was pa.s.sing around them--knew what part they were playing in the great drama, Life. And when she turned her happy face toward them they waxed merry, but when they saw her sterner visage they wept.

"Still they lacked painfully, living as they did wholly in the present, sending never a backward glance along the echoing corridors of the past--never a swift shaft of sight along the dim shadowy vistas of the future. And the G.o.ds noted this lack.

"'It must be remedied,' said one.

"'Nay! nay!' pleaded another. 'Let them be as they are. They are spared so much of grief.'

"'They are also denied so much of joy,' said the first with gentle firmness. 'They must receive their gift and must pay its price.'

"'Ah the price! So heavy!' still pleaded the other.

"'The end is worth the pain,' was the reply.

"And so another spirit was sent to earth, and she too had a double aspect. One face was lighted by a happy, dreamy smile; the other was lined with sharpest pain, for her name was Memory.

"'One more gift and the trio is complete,' the G.o.ds decreed.

"'Let them alone; in mercy let them alone!' pleaded the pitying spirit. 'They have enough to bear--enough of joy; enough of grief.'

"'Nay, nay. They are but imperfectly endowed. They look about them at the waves that lap the beach on which they stand, and look backward o'er the sands of Time, but send never a glance forward over the great misty ocean of the Future.'