16 глава Тит

CHAPTER XVI. TIT FOR TAT

With Faith, to decide was to act. She lost no time in carrying out the
idea. As soon as she came home from school the next day she left the
manse and made her way down the Glen. Walter Blythe joined her as she
passed the post office.

"I'm going to Mrs. Elliott's on an errand for mother," he said. "Where
are you going, Faith?"

"I am going somewhere on church business," said Faith loftily. She did
not volunteer any further information and Walter felt rather snubbed.
They walked on in silence for a little while. It was a warm, windy
evening with a sweet, resinous air. Beyond the sand dunes were gray
seas, soft and beautiful. The Glen brook bore down a freight of gold
and crimson leaves, like fairy shallops. In Mr. James Reese's buckwheat
stubble-land, with its beautiful tones of red and brown, a crow
parliament was being held, whereat solemn deliberations regarding the
welfare of crowland were in progress. Faith cruelly broke up the august
assembly by climbing up on the fence and hurling a broken rail at it.
Instantly the air was filled with flapping black wings and indignant
caws.

"Why did you do that?" said Walter reproachfully. "They were having such
a good time."

"Oh, I hate crows," said Faith airily. "The are so black and sly I feel
sure they're hypocrites. They steal little birds' eggs out of their
nests, you know. I saw one do it on our lawn last spring. Walter, what
makes you so pale to-day? Did you have the toothache again last night?"

Walter shivered.

"Yes--a raging one. I couldn't sleep a wink--so I just paced up and down
the floor and imagined I was an early Christian martyr being tortured
at the command of Nero. That helped ever so much for a while--and then I
got so bad I couldn't imagine anything."

"Did you cry?" asked Faith anxiously.

"No--but I lay down on the floor and groaned," admitted Walter. "Then
the girls came in and Nan put cayenne pepper in it--and that made
it worse--Di made me hold a swallow of cold water in my mouth--and I
couldn't stand it, so they called Susan. Susan said it served me right
for sitting up in the cold garret yesterday writing poetry trash. But
she started up the kitchen fire and got me a hot-water bottle and it
stopped the toothache. As soon as I felt better I told Susan my poetry
wasn't trash and she wasn't any judge. And she said no, thank goodness
she was not and she did not know anything about poetry except that it
was mostly a lot of lies. Now you know, Faith, that isn't so. That is
one reason why I like writing poetry--you can say so many things in it
that are true in poetry but wouldn't be true in prose. I told Susan
so, but she said to stop my jawing and go to sleep before the water got
cold, or she'd leave me to see if rhyming would cure toothache, and she
hoped it would be a lesson to me."

"Why don't you go to the dentist at Lowbridge and get the tooth out?"

Walter shivered again.

"They want me to--but I can't. It would hurt so."

"Are you afraid of a little pain?" asked Faith contemptuously.

Walter flushed.

"It would be a BIG pain. I hate being hurt. Father said he wouldn't
insist on my going--he'd wait until I'd made up my own mind to go."

"It wouldn't hurt as long as the toothache," argued Faith, "You've had
five spells of toothache. If you'd just go and have it out there'd be no
more bad nights. _I_ had a tooth out once. I yelled for a moment, but it
was all over then--only the bleeding."

"The bleeding is worst of all--it's so ugly," cried Walter. "It just
made me sick when Jem cut his foot last summer. Susan said I looked more
like fainting than Jem did. But I couldn't hear to see Jem hurt, either.
Somebody is always getting hurt, Faith--and it's awful. I just can't
BEAR to see things hurt. It makes me just want to run--and run--and
run--till I can't hear or see them."

"There's no use making a fuss over anyone getting hurt," said Faith,
tossing her curls. "Of course, if you've hurt yourself very bad, you
have to yell--and blood IS messy--and I don't like seeing other people
hurt, either. But I don't want to run--I want to go to work and help
them. Your father HAS to hurt people lots of times to cure them. What
would they do if HE ran away?"

"I didn't say I WOULD run. I said I WANTED to run. That's a different
thing. I want to help people, too. But oh, I wish there weren't any
ugly, dreadful things in the world. I wish everything was glad and
beautiful."

"Well, don't let's think of what isn't," said Faith. "After all, there's
lots of fun in being alive. You wouldn't have toothache if you were
dead, but still, wouldn't you lots rather be alive than dead? I would,
a hundred times. Oh, here's Dan Reese. He's been down to the harbour for
fish."

"I hate Dan Reese," said Walter.

"So do I. All us girls do. I'm just going to walk past and never take
the least notice of him. You watch me!"

Faith accordingly stalked past Dan with her chin out and an expression
of scorn that bit into his soul. He turned and shouted after her.

"Pig-girl! Pig-girl!! Pig-girl!!!" in a crescendo of insult.

Faith walked on, seemingly oblivious. But her lip trembled slightly with
a sense of outrage. She knew she was no match for Dan Reese when it
came to an exchange of epithets. She wished Jem Blythe had been with
her instead of Walter. If Dan Reese had dared to call her a pig-girl in
Jem's hearing, Jem would have wiped up the dust with him. But it never
occurred to Faith to expect Walter to do it, or blame him for not doing
it. Walter, she knew, never fought other boys. Neither did Charlie Clow
of the north road. The strange part was that, while she despised Charlie
for a coward, it never occurred to her to disdain Walter. It was
simply that he seemed to her an inhabitant of a world of his own, where
different traditions prevailed. Faith would as soon have expected a
starry-eyed young angel to pummel dirty, freckled Dan Reese for her as
Walter Blythe. She would not have blamed the angel and she did not blame
Walter Blythe. But she wished that sturdy Jem or Jerry had been there
and Dan's insult continued to rankle in her soul.

Walter was pale no longer. He had flushed crimson and his beautiful eyes
were clouded with shame and anger. He knew that he ought to have avenged
Faith. Jem would have sailed right in and made Dan eat his words with
bitter sauce. Ritchie Warren would have overwhelmed Dan with worse
"names" than Dan had called Faith. But Walter could not--simply could
not--"call names." He knew he would get the worst of it. He could never
conceive or utter the vulgar, ribald insults of which Dan Reese had
unlimited command. And as for the trial by fist, Walter couldn't fight.
He hated the idea. It was rough and painful--and, worst of all, it
was ugly. He never could understand Jem's exultation in an occasional
conflict. But he wished he COULD fight Dan Reese. He was horribly
ashamed because Faith Meredith had been insulted in his presence and he
had not tried to punish her insulter. He felt sure she must despise him.
She had not even spoken to him since Dan had called her pig-girl. He was
glad when they came to the parting of the ways.

Faith, too, was relieved, though for a different reason. She wanted
to be alone because she suddenly felt rather nervous about her errand.
Impulse had cooled, especially since Dan had bruised her self-respect.
She must go through with it, but she no longer had enthusiasm to sustain
her. She was going to see Norman Douglas and ask him to come back to
church, and she began to be afraid of him. What had seemed so easy and
simple up at the Glen seemed very different down here. She had heard a
good deal about Norman Douglas, and she knew that even the biggest boys
in school were afraid of him. Suppose he called her something nasty--she
had heard he was given to that. Faith could not endure being called
names--they subdued her far more quickly than a physical blow. But she
would go on--Faith Meredith always went on. If she did not her father
might have to leave the Glen.

At the end of the long lane Faith came to the house--a big,
old-fashioned one with a row of soldierly Lombardies marching past
it. On the back veranda Norman Douglas himself was sitting, reading a
newspaper. His big dog was beside him. Behind, in the kitchen, where
his housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, was getting supper, there was a clatter of
dishes--an angry clatter, for Norman Douglas had just had a quarrel with
Mrs. Wilson, and both were in a very bad temper over it. Consequently,
when Faith stepped on the veranda and Norman Douglas lowered his
newspaper she found herself looking into the choleric eyes of an
irritated man.

Norman Douglas was rather a fine-looking personage in his way. He had
a sweep of long red beard over his broad chest and a mane of red hair,
ungrizzled by the years, on his massive head. His high, white forehead
was unwrinkled and his blue eyes could flash still with all the fire of
his tempestuous youth. He could be very amiable when he liked, and he
could be very terrible. Poor Faith, so anxiously bent on retrieving the
situation in regard to the church, had caught him in one of his terrible
moods.

He did not know who she was and he gazed at her with disfavour. Norman
Douglas liked girls of spirit and flame and laughter. At this moment
Faith was very pale. She was of the type to which colour means
everything. Lacking her crimson cheeks she seemed meek and even
insignificant. She looked apologetic and afraid, and the bully in Norman
Douglas's heart stirred.

"Who the dickens are you? And what do you want here?" he demanded in his
great resounding voice, with a fierce scowl.

For once in her life Faith had nothing to say. She had never supposed
Norman Douglas was like THIS. She was paralyzed with terror of him. He
saw it and it made him worse.

"What's the matter with you?" he boomed. "You look as if you wanted to
say something and was scared to say it. What's troubling you? Confound
it, speak up, can't you?"

No. Faith could not speak up. No words would come. But her lips began to
tremble.

"For heaven's sake, don't cry," shouted Norman. "I can't stand
snivelling. If you've anything to say, say it and have done. Great
Kitty, is the girl possessed of a dumb spirit? Don't look at me like
that--I'm human--I haven't got a tail! Who are you--who are you, I say?"

Norman's voice could have been heard at the harbour. Operations in the
kitchen were suspended. Mrs. Wilson was listening open-eared and eyed.
Norman put his huge brown hands on his knees and leaned forward, staring
into Faith's pallid, shrinking face. He seemed to loom over her like
some evil giant out of a fairy tale. She felt as if he would eat her up
next thing, body and bones.

"I--am--Faith--Meredith," she said, in little more than a whisper.

"Meredith, hey? One of the parson's youngsters, hey? I've heard of
you--I've heard of you! Riding on pigs and breaking the Sabbath! A nice
lot! What do you want here, hey? What do you want of the old pagan,
hey? _I_ don't ask favours of parsons--and I don't give any. What do you
want, I say?"

Faith wished herself a thousand miles away. She stammered out her
thought in its naked simplicity.

"I came--to ask you--to go to church--and pay--to the salary."

Norman glared at her. Then he burst forth again.

"You impudent hussy--you! Who put you up to it, jade? Who put you up to
it?"

"Nobody," said poor Faith.

"That's a lie. Don't lie to me! Who sent you here? It wasn't your
father--he hasn't the smeddum of a flea--but he wouldn't send you to do
what he dassn't do himself. I suppose it was some of them confounded old
maids at the Glen, was it--was it, hey?"

"No--I--I just came myself."

"Do you take me for a fool?" shouted Norman.

"No--I thought you were a gentleman," said Faith faintly, and certainly
without any thought of being sarcastic.

Norman bounced up.

"Mind your own business. I don't want to hear another word from you. If
you wasn't such a kid I'd teach you to interfere in what doesn't concern
you. When I want parsons or pill-dosers I'll send for them. Till I
do I'll have no truck with them. Do you understand? Now, get out,
cheese-face."

Faith got out. She stumbled blindly down the steps, out of the yard gate
and into the lane. Half way up the lane her daze of fear passed away and
a reaction of tingling anger possessed her. By the time she reached
the end of the lane she was in such a furious temper as she had never
experienced before. Norman Douglas' insults burned in her soul, kindling
a scorching flame. Go home! Not she! She would go straight back and
tell that old ogre just what she thought of him--she would show him--oh,
wouldn't she! Cheese-face, indeed!

Unhesitatingly she turned and walked back. The veranda was deserted and
the kitchen door shut. Faith opened the door without knocking, and went
in. Norman Douglas had just sat down at the supper table, but he still
held his newspaper. Faith walked inflexibly across the room, caught the
paper from his hand, flung it on the floor and stamped on it. Then she
faced him, with her flashing eyes and scarlet cheeks. She was such a
handsome young fury that Norman Douglas hardly recognized her.

"What's brought you back?" he growled, but more in bewilderment than
rage.

Unquailingly she glared back into the angry eyes against which so few
people could hold their own.

"I have come back to tell you exactly what I think of you," said Faith
in clear, ringing tones. "I am not afraid of you. You are a rude,
unjust, tyrannical, disagreeable old man. Susan says you are sure to go
to hell, and I was sorry for you, but I am not now. Your wife never had
a new hat for ten years--no wonder she died. I am going to make faces at
you whenever I see you after this. Every time I am behind you you will
know what is happening. Father has a picture of the devil in a book in
his study, and I mean to go home and write your name under it. You are
an old vampire and I hope you'll have the Scotch fiddle!"

Faith did not know what a vampire meant any more than she knew what the
Scotch fiddle was. She had heard Susan use the expressions and gathered
from her tone that both were dire things. But Norman Douglas knew
what the latter meant at least. He had listened in absolute silence to
Faith's tirade. When she paused for breath, with a stamp of her foot, he
suddenly burst into loud laughter. With a mighty slap of hand on knee he
exclaimed,

"I vow you've got spunk, after all--I like spunk. Come, sit down--sit
down!"

"I will not." Faith's eyes flashed more passionately. She thought she
was being made fun of--treated contemptuously. She would have enjoyed
another explosion of rage, but this cut deep. "I will not sit down in
your house. I am going home. But I am glad I came back here and told you
exactly what my opinion of you is."

"So am I--so am I," chuckled Norman. "I like you--you're fine--you're
great. Such roses--such vim! Did I call her cheese-face? Why, she never
smelt a cheese. Sit down. If you'd looked like that at the first, girl!
So you'll write my name under the devil's picture, will you? But he's
black, girl, he's black--and I'm red. It won't do--it won't do! And you
hope I'll have the Scotch fiddle, do you? Lord love you, girl, I had
IT when I was a boy. Don't wish it on me again. Sit down--sit in. We'll
tak' a cup o' kindness."

"No, thank you," said Faith haughtily.

"Oh, yes, you will. Come, come now, I apologize, girl--I apologize. I
made a fool of myself and I'm sorry. Man can't say fairer. Forget and
forgive. Shake hands, girl--shake hands. She won't--no, she won't! But
she must! Look-a-here, girl, if you'll shake hands and break bread with
me I'll pay what I used to to the salary and I'll go to church the first
Sunday in every month and I'll make Kitty Alec hold her jaw. I'm the
only one in the clan can do it. Is it a bargain, girl?"

It seemed a bargain. Faith found herself shaking hands with the ogre and
then sitting at his board. Her temper was over--Faith's tempers never
lasted very long--but its excitement still sparkled in her eyes and
crimsoned her cheeks. Norman Douglas looked at her admiringly.

"Go, get some of your best preserves, Wilson," he ordered, "and stop
sulking, woman, stop sulking. What if we did have a quarrel, woman? A
good squall clears the air and briskens things up. But no drizzling and
fogging afterwards--no drizzling and fogging, woman. I can't stand that.
Temper in a woman but no tears for me. Here, girl, is some messed up
meat and potatoes for you. Begin on that. Wilson has some fancy name for
it, but I call lit macanaccady. Anything I can't analyze in the
eating line I call macanaccady and anything wet that puzzles me I call
shallamagouslem. Wilson's tea is shallamagouslem. I swear she makes it
out of burdocks. Don't take any of the ungodly black liquid--here's some
milk for you. What did you say your name was?"

"Faith."

"No name that--no name that! I can't stomach such a name. Got any
other?"

"No, sir."

"Don't like the name, don't like it. There's no smeddum to it. Besides,
it makes me think of my Aunt Jinny. She called her three girls Faith,
Hope, and Charity. Faith didn't believe in anything--Hope was a born
pessimist--and Charity was a miser. You ought to be called Red Rose--you
look like one when you're mad. I'LL call you Red Rose. And you've roped
me into promising to go to church? But only once a month, remember--only
once a month. Come now, girl, will you let me off? I used to pay a
hundred to the salary every year and go to church. If I promise to pay
two hundred a year will you let me off going to church? Come now!"

"No, no, sir," said Faith, dimpling roguishly. "I want you to go to
church, too."

"Well, a bargain is a bargain. I reckon I can stand it twelve times a
year. What a sensation it'll make the first Sunday I go! And old Susan
Baker says I'm going to hell, hey? Do you believe I'll go there--come,
now, do you?"

"I hope not, sir," stammered Faith in some confusion.

"WHY do you hope not? Come, now, WHY do you hope not? Give us a reason,
girl--give us a reason."

"It--it must be a very--uncomfortable place, sir."

"Uncomfortable? All depends on your taste in comfortable, girl. I'd soon
get tired of angels. Fancy old Susan in a halo, now!"

Faith did fancy it, and it tickled her so much that she had to laugh.
Norman eyed her approvingly.

"See the fun of it, hey? Oh, I like you--you're great. About this church
business, now--can your father preach?"

"He is a splendid preacher," said loyal Faith.

"He is, hey? I'll see--I'll watch out for flaws. He'd better be careful
what he says before ME. I'll catch him--I'll trip him up--I'll keep tabs
on his arguments. I'm bound to have some fun out of this church going
business. Does he ever preach hell?"

"No--o--o--I don't think so."

"Too bad. I like sermons on that subject. You tell him that if he wants
to keep me in good humour to preach a good rip-roaring sermon on hell
once every six months--and the more brimstone the better. I like 'em
smoking. And think of all the pleasure he'd give the old maids, too.
They'd all keep looking at old Norman Douglas and thinking, 'That's for
you, you old reprobate. That's what's in store for YOU!' I'll give an
extra ten dollars every time you get your father to preach on hell.
Here's Wilson and the jam. Like that, hey? IT isn't macanaccady. Taste!"

Faith obediently swallowed the big spoonful Norman held out to her.
Luckily it WAS good.

"Best plum jam in the world," said Norman, filling a large saucer and
plumping it down before her. "Glad you like it. I'll give you a couple
of jars to take home with you. There's nothing mean about me--never was.
The devil can't catch me at THAT corner, anyhow. It wasn't my fault that
Hester didn't have a new hat for ten years. It was her own--she pinched
on hats to save money to give yellow fellows over in China. _I_ never
gave a cent to missions in my life--never will. Never you try to
bamboozle me into that! A hundred a year to the salary and church once a
month--but no spoiling good heathens to make poor Christians! Why,
girl, they wouldn't be fit for heaven or hell--clean spoiled for either
place--clean spoiled. Hey, Wilson, haven't you got a smile on yet? Beats
all how you women can sulk! _I_ never sulked in my life--it's just one
big flash and crash with me and then--pouf--the squall's over and the
sun is out and you could eat out of my hand."

Norman insisted on driving Faith home after supper and he filled the
buggy up with apples, cabbages, potatoes and pumpkins and jars of jam.

"There's a nice little tom-pussy out in the barn. I'll give you that
too, if you'd like it. Say the word," he said.

"No, thank you," said Faith decidedly. "I don't like cats, and besides,
I have a rooster."

"Listen to her. You can't cuddle a rooster as you can a kitten. Who ever
heard of petting a rooster? Better take little Tom. I want to find a
good home for him."

"No. Aunt Martha has a cat and he would kill a strange kitten."

Norman yielded the point rather reluctantly. He gave Faith an exciting
drive home, behind his wild two-year old, and when he had let her out at
the kitchen door of the manse and dumped his cargo on the back veranda
he drove away shouting,

"It's only once a month--only once a month, mind!"

Faith went up to bed, feeling a little dizzy and breathless, as if she
had just escaped from the grasp of a genial whirlwind. She was happy
and thankful. No fear now that they would have to leave the Glen and
the graveyard and Rainbow Valley. But she fell asleep troubled by a
disagreeable subconsciousness that Dan Reese had called her pig-girl and
that, having stumbled on such a congenial epithet, he would continue to
call her so whenever opportunity offered.



CHAPTER XVII. A DOUBLE VICTORY

Norman Douglas came to church the first Sunday in November and made all
the sensation he desired. Mr. Meredith shook hands with him absently on
the church steps and hoped dreamily that Mrs. Douglas was well.

"She wasn't very well just before I buried her ten years ago, but I
reckon she has better health now," boomed Norman, to the horror
and amusement of every one except Mr. Meredith, who was absorbed in
wondering if he had made the last head of his sermon as clear as he
might have, and hadn't the least idea what Norman had said to him or he
to Norman.

Norman intercepted Faith at the gate.

"Kept my word, you see--kept my word, Red Rose. I'm free now till the
first Sunday in December. Fine sermon, girl--fine sermon. Your father
has more in his head than he carries on his face. But he contradicted
himself once--tell him he contradicted himself. And tell him I want that
brimstone sermon in December. Great way to wind up the old year--with
a taste of hell, you know. And what's the matter with a nice tasty
discourse on heaven for New Year's? Though it wouldn't be half as
interesting as hell, girl--not half. Only I'd like to know what your
father thinks about heaven--he CAN think--rarest thing in the world--a
person who can think. But he DID contradict himself. Ha, ha! Here's a
question you might ask him sometime when he's awake, girl. 'Can God make
a stone so big He couldn't lift it Himself?' Don't forget now. I want to
hear his opinion on it. I've stumped many a minister with that, girl."

Faith was glad to escape him and run home. Dan Reese, standing among the
crowd of boys at the gate, looked at her and shaped his mouth into
"pig-girl," but dared not utter it aloud just there. Next day in school
was a different matter. At noon recess Faith encountered Dan in the
little spruce plantation behind the school and Dan shouted once more,

"Pig-girl! Pig-girl! ROOSTER-GIRL!"

Walter Blythe suddenly rose from a mossy cushion behind a little clump
of firs where he had been reading. He was very pale, but his eyes
blazed.

"You hold your tongue, Dan Reese!" he said.

"Oh, hello, Miss Walter," retorted Dan, not at all abashed. He vaulted
airily to the top of the rail fence and chanted insultingly,

    "Cowardy, cowardy-custard
    Stole a pot of mustard,
    Cowardy, cowardy-custard!"

"You are a coincidence!" said Walter scornfully, turning still whiter.
He had only a very hazy idea what a coincidence was, but Dan had none at
all and thought it must be something peculiarly opprobrious.

"Yah! Cowardy!" he yelled gain. "Your mother writes lies--lies--lies!
And Faith Meredith is a pig-girl--a--pig-girl--a pig-girl! And she's
a rooster-girl--a rooster-girl--a rooster-girl! Yah!
Cowardy--cowardy--cust--"

Dan got no further. Walter had hurled himself across the intervening
space and knocked Dan off the fence backward with one well-directed
blow. Dan's sudden inglorious sprawl was greeted with a burst of
laughter and a clapping of hands from Faith. Dan sprang up, purple with
rage, and began to climb the fence. But just then the school-bell rang
and Dan knew what happened to boys who were late during Mr. Hazard's
regime.

"We'll fight this out," he howled. "Cowardy!"

"Any time you like," said Walter.

"Oh, no, no, Walter," protested Faith. "Don't fight him. _I_ don't mind
what he says--I wouldn't condescend to mind the like of HIM."

"He insulted you and he insulted my mother," said Walter, with the same
deadly calm. "Tonight after school, Dan."

"I've got to go right home from school to pick taters after the harrows,
dad says," answered Dan sulkily. "But to-morrow night'll do."

"All right--here to-morrow night," agreed Walter.

"And I'll smash your sissy-face for you," promised Dan.

Walter shuddered--not so much from fear of the threat as from repulsion
over the ugliness and vulgarity of it. But he held his head high and
marched into school. Faith followed in a conflict of emotions. She
hated to think of Walter fighting that little sneak, but oh, he had been
splendid! And he was going to fight for HER--Faith Meredith--to punish
her insulter! Of course he would win--such eyes spelled victory.

Faith's confidence in her champion had dimmed a little by evening,
however. Walter had seemed so very quiet and dull the rest of the day in
school.

"If it were only Jem," she sighed to Una, as they sat on Hezekiah
Pollock's tombstone in the graveyard. "HE is such a fighter--he could
finish Dan off in no time. But Walter doesn't know much about fighting."

"I'm so afraid he'll be hurt," sighed Una, who hated fighting and
couldn't understand the subtle, secret exultation she divined in Faith.

"He oughtn't to be," said Faith uncomfortably. "He's every bit as big as
Dan."

"But Dan's so much older," said Una. "Why, he's nearly a year older."

"Dan hasn't done much fighting when you come to count up," said Faith.
"I believe he's really a coward. He didn't think Walter would fight,
or he wouldn't have called names before him. Oh, if you could just have
seen Walter's face when he looked at him, Una! It made me shiver--with a
nice shiver. He looked just like Sir Galahad in that poem father read us
on Saturday."

"I hate the thought of them fighting and I wish it could be stopped,"
said Una.

"Oh, it's got to go on now," cried Faith. "It's a matter of honour.
Don't you DARE tell anyone, Una. If you do I'll never tell you secrets
again!"

"I won't tell," agreed Una. "But I won't stay to-morrow to watch the
fight. I'm coming right home."

"Oh, all right. _I_ have to be there--it would be mean not to,
when Walter is fighting for me. I'm going to tie my colours on his
arm--that's the thing to do when he's my knight. How lucky Mrs. Blythe
gave me that pretty blue hair-ribbon for my birthday! I've only worn it
twice so it will be almost new. But I wish I was sure Walter would win.
It will be so--so HUMILIATING if he doesn't."

Faith would have been yet more dubious if she could have seen her
champion just then. Walter had gone home from school with all his
righteous anger at a low ebb and a very nasty feeling in its place. He
had to fight Dan Reese the next night--and he didn't want to--he hated
the thought of it. And he kept thinking of it all the time. Not for a
minute could he get away from the thought. Would it hurt much? He was
terribly afraid that it would hurt. And would he be defeated and shamed?

He could not eat any supper worth speaking of. Susan had made a big
batch of his favourite monkey-faces, but he could choke only one down.
Jem ate four. Walter wondered how he could. How could ANYBODY eat? And
how could they all talk gaily as they were doing? There was mother, with
her shining eyes and pink cheeks. SHE didn't know her son had to fight
next day. Would she be so gay if she knew, Walter wondered darkly. Jem
had taken Susan's picture with his new camera and the result was passed
around the table and Susan was terribly indignant over it.

"I am no beauty, Mrs. Dr. dear, and well I know it, and have always
known it," she said in an aggrieved tone, "but that I am as ugly as that
picture makes me out I will never, no, never believe."

Jem laughed over this and Anne laughed again with him. Walter couldn't
endure it. He got up and fled to his room.

"That child has got something on his mind, Mrs. Dr. dear," said Susan.
"He has et next to nothing. Do you suppose he is plotting another poem?"

Poor Walter was very far removed in spirit from the starry realms of
poesy just then. He propped his elbow on his open window-sill and leaned
his head drearily on his hands.

"Come on down to the shore, Walter," cried Jem, busting in. "The boys
are going to burn the sand-hill grass to-night. Father says we can go.
Come on."

At any other time Walter would have been delighted. He gloried in the
burning of the sand-hill grass. But now he flatly refused to go, and no
arguments or entreaties could move him. Disappointed Jem, who did not
care for the long dark walk to Four Winds Point alone, retreated to his
museum in the garret and buried himself in a book. He soon forgot his
disappointment, revelling with the heroes of old romance, and pausing
occasionally to picture himself a famous general, leading his troops to
victory on some great battlefield.

Walter sat at his window until bedtime. Di crept in, hoping to be told
what was wrong, but Walter could not talk of it, even to Di. Talking
of it seemed to give it a reality from which he shrank. It was torture
enough to think of it. The crisp, withered leaves rustled on the maple
trees outside his window. The glow of rose and flame had died out of
the hollow, silvery sky, and the full moon was rising gloriously over
Rainbow Valley. Afar off, a ruddy woodfire was painting a page of glory
on the horizon beyond the hills. It was a sharp, clear evening when
far-away sounds were heard distinctly. A fox was barking across the
pond; an engine was puffing down at the Glen station; a blue-jay was
screaming madly in the maple grove; there was laughter over on the manse
lawn. How could people laugh? How could foxes and blue-jays and engines
behave as if nothing were going to happen on the morrow?

"Oh, I wish it was over," groaned Walter.

He slept very little that night and had hard work choking down his
porridge in the morning. Susan WAS rather lavish in her platefuls. Mr.
Hazard found him an unsatisfactory pupil that day. Faith Meredith's wits
seemed to be wool-gathering, too. Dan Reese kept drawing surreptitious
pictures of girls, with pig or rooster heads, on his slate and holding
them up for all to see. The news of the coming battle had leaked out
and most of the boys and many of the girls were in the spruce plantation
when Dan and Walter sought it after school. Una had gone home, but Faith
was there, having tied her blue ribbon around Walter's arm. Walter
was thankful that neither Jem nor Di nor Nan were among the crowd of
spectators. Somehow they had not heard of what was in the wind and had
gone home, too. Walter faced Dan quite undauntedly now. At the last
moment all his fear had vanished, but he still felt disgust at the idea
of fighting. Dan, it was noted, was really paler under his freckles than
Walter was. One of the older boys gave the word and Dan struck Walter in
the face.

Walter reeled a little. The pain of the blow tingled through all his
sensitive frame for a moment. Then he felt pain no longer. Something,
such as he had never experienced before, seemed to roll over him like
a flood. His face flushed crimson, his eyes burned like flame. The
scholars of Glen St. Mary school had never dreamed that "Miss Walter"
could look like that. He hurled himself forward and closed with Dan like
a young wildcat.

There were no particular rules in the fights of the Glen school boys. It
was catch-as-catch can, and get your blows in anyhow. Walter fought with
a savage fury and a joy in the struggle against which Dan could not
hold his ground. It was all over very speedily. Walter had no clear
consciousness of what he was doing until suddenly the red mist cleared
from his sight and he found himself kneeling on the body of the
prostrate Dan whose nose--oh, horror!--was spouting blood.

"Have you had enough?" demanded Walter through his clenched teeth.

Dan sulkily admitted that he had.

"My mother doesn't write lies?"

"No."

"Faith Meredith isn't a pig-girl?"

"No."

"Nor a rooster-girl?"

"No."

"And I'm not a coward?"

"No."

Walter had intended to ask, "And you are a liar?" but pity intervened
and he did not humiliate Dan further. Besides, that blood was so
horrible.

"You can go, then," he said contemptuously.

There was a loud clapping from the boys who were perched on the rail
fence, but some of the girls were crying. They were frightened. They had
seen schoolboy fights before, but nothing like Walter as he had grappled
with Dan. There had been something terrifying about him. They thought he
would kill Dan. Now that all was over they sobbed hysterically--except
Faith, who still stood tense and crimson cheeked.

Walter did not stay for any conqueror's meed. He sprang over the fence
and rushed down the spruce hill to Rainbow Valley. He felt none of the
victor's joy, but he felt a certain calm satisfaction in duty done and
honour avenged--mingled with a sickish qualm when he thought of Dan's
gory nose. It had been so ugly, and Walter hated ugliness.

Also, he began to realize that he himself was somewhat sore and battered
up. His lip was cut and swollen and one eye felt very strange. In
Rainbow Valley he encountered Mr. Meredith, who was coming home from an
afternoon call on the Miss Wests. That reverend gentleman looked gravely
at him.

"It seems to me that you have been fighting, Walter?"

"Yes, sir," said Walter, expecting a scolding.

"What was it about?"

"Dan Reese said my mother wrote lies and that that Faith was a
pig-girl," answered Walter bluntly.

"Oh--h! Then you were certainly justified, Walter."

"Do you think it's right to fight, sir?" asked Walter curiously.

"Not always--and not often--but sometimes--yes, sometimes," said John
Meredith. "When womenkind are insulted for instance--as in your case. My
motto, Walter, is, don't fight till you're sure you ought to, and THEN
put every ounce of you into it. In spite of sundry discolorations I
infer that you came off best."

"Yes. I made him take it all back."

"Very good--very good, indeed. I didn't think you were such a fighter,
Walter."

"I never fought before--and I didn't want to right up to the last--and
then," said Walter, determined to make a clean breast of it, "I liked it
while I was at it."

The Rev. John's eyes twinkled.

"You were--a little frightened--at first?"

"I was a whole lot frightened," said honest Walter. "But I'm not going
to be frightened any more, sir. Being frightened of things is worse
than the things themselves. I'm going to ask father to take me over to
Lowbridge to-morrow to get my tooth out."

"Right again. 'Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears.' Do you know
who wrote that, Walter? It was Shakespeare. Was there any feeling or
emotion or experience of the human heart that that wonderful man did not
know? When you go home tell your mother I am proud of you."

Walter did not tell her that, however; but he told her all the rest, and
she sympathized with him and told him she was glad he had stood up for
her and Faith, and she anointed his sore spots and rubbed cologne on his
aching head.

"Are all mothers as nice as you?" asked Walter, hugging her. "You're
WORTH standing up for."

Miss Cornelia and Susan were in the living room when Anne came
downstairs, and listened to the story with much enjoyment. Susan in
particular was highly gratified.

"I am real glad to hear he has had a good fight, Mrs. Dr. dear. Perhaps
it may knock that poetry nonsense out of him. And I never, no, never
could bear that little viper of a Dan Reese. Will you not sit nearer
to the fire, Mrs. Marshall Elliott? These November evenings are very
chilly."

"Thank you, Susan, I'm not cold. I called at the manse before I came
here and got quite warm--though I had to go to the kitchen to do it, for
there was no fire anywhere else. The kitchen looked as if it had
been stirred up with a stick, believe ME. Mr. Meredith wasn't home. I
couldn't find out where he was, but I have an idea that he was up at
the Wests'. Do you know, Anne dearie, they say he has been going there
frequently all the fall and people are beginning to think he is going to
see Rosemary."

"He would get a very charming wife if he married Rosemary," said Anne,
piling driftwood on the fire. "She is one of the most delightful girls
I've ever known--truly one of the race of Joseph."

"Ye--s--only she is an Episcopalian," said Miss Cornelia doubtfully. "Of
course, that is better than if she was a Methodist--but I do think Mr.
Meredith could find a good enough wife in his own denomination. However,
very likely there is nothing in it. It's only a month ago that I said to
him, 'You ought to marry again, Mr. Meredith.' He looked as shocked as
if I had suggested something improper. 'My wife is in her grave, Mrs.
Elliott,' he said, in that gentle, saintly way of his. 'I suppose so,'
I said, 'or I wouldn't be advising you to marry again.' Then he looked
more shocked than ever. So I doubt if there is much in this Rosemary
story. If a single minister calls twice at a house where there is a
single woman all the gossips have it he is courting her."

"It seems to me--if I may presume to say so--that Mr. Meredith is too
shy to go courting a second wife," said Susan solemnly.

"He ISN'T shy, believe ME," retorted Miss Cornelia.
"Absent-minded,--yes--but shy, no. And for all he is so abstracted and
dreamy he has a very good opinion of himself, man-like, and when he is
really awake he wouldn't think it much of a chore to ask any woman to
have him. No, the trouble is, he's deluding himself into believing that
his heart is buried, while all the time it's beating away inside of him
just like anybody else's. He may have a notion of Rosemary West and he
may not. If he has, we must make the best of it. She is a sweet girl
and a fine housekeeper, and would make a good mother for those poor,
neglected children. And," concluded Miss Cornelia resignedly, "my own
grandmother was an Episcopalian."



CHAPTER XVIII. MARY BRINGS EVIL TIDINGS

Mary Vance, whom Mrs. Elliott had sent up to the manse on an errand,
came tripping down Rainbow Valley on her way to Ingleside where she was
to spend the afternoon with Nan and Di as a Saturday treat. Nan and Di
had been picking spruce gum with Faith and Una in the manse woods and
the four of them were now sitting on a fallen pine by the brook, all,
it must be admitted, chewing rather vigorously. The Ingleside twins were
not allowed to chew spruce gum anywhere but in the seclusion of Rainbow
Valley, but Faith and Una were unrestricted by such rules of etiquette
and cheerfully chewed it everywhere, at home and abroad, to the very
proper horror of the Glen. Faith had been chewing it in church one day;
but Jerry had realized the enormity of THAT, and had given her such an
older-brotherly scolding that she never did it again.

"I was so hungry I just felt as if I had to chew something," she
protested. "You know well enough what breakfast was like, Jerry
Meredith. I COULDN'T eat scorched porridge and my stomach just felt so
queer and empty. The gum helped a lot--and I didn't chew VERY hard. I
didn't make any noise and I never cracked the gum once."

"You mustn't chew gum in church, anyhow," insisted Jerry. "Don't let me
catch you at it again."

"You chewed yourself in prayer-meeting last week," cried Faith.

"THAT'S different," said Jerry loftily. "Prayer-meeting isn't on Sunday.
Besides, I sat away at the back in a dark seat and nobody saw me. You
were sitting right up front where every one saw you. And I took the gum
out of my mouth for the last hymn and stuck it on the back of the pew
right up in front where every one saw you. Then I came away and forgot
it. I went back to get it next morning, but it was gone. I suppose Rod
Warren swiped it. And it was a dandy
chew."

Mary Vance walked down the Valley with her head held high. She had on
a new blue velvet cap with a scarlet rosette in it, a coat of navy blue
cloth and a little squirrel-fur muff. She was very conscious of her new
clothes and very well pleased with herself. Her hair was elaborately
crimped, her face was quite plump, her cheeks rosy, her white eyes
shining. She did not look much like the forlorn and ragged waif the
Merediths had found in the old Taylor barn. Una tried not to feel
envious. Here was Mary with a new velvet cap, but she and Faith had to
wear their shabby old gray tams again this winter. Nobody ever thought
of getting them new ones and they were afraid to ask their father for
them for fear that he might be short of money and then he would feel
badly. Mary had told them once that ministers were always short of
money, and found it "awful hard" to make ends meet. Since then Faith and
Una would have gone in rags rather than ask their father for anything
if they could help it. They did not worry a great deal over their
shabbiness; but it was rather trying to see Mary Vance coming out in
such style and putting on such airs about it, too. The new squirrel muff
was really the last straw. Neither Faith nor Una had ever had a muff,
counting themselves lucky if they could compass mittens without holes in
them. Aunt Martha could not see to darn holes and though Una tried to,
she made sad cobbling. Somehow, they could not make their greeting of
Mary very cordial. But Mary did not mind or notice that; she was not
overly sensitive. She vaulted lightly to a seat on the pine tree, and
laid the offending muff on a bough. Una saw that it was lined with
shirred red satin and had red tassels. She looked down at her own rather
purple, chapped, little hands and wondered if she would ever, EVER be
able to put them into a muff like that.

"Give us a chew," said Mary companionably. Nan, Di and Faith all
produced an amber-hued knot or two from their pockets and passed them to
Mary. Una sat very still. She had four lovely big knots in the pocket of
her tight, thread-bare little jacket, but she wasn't going to give one
of them to Mary Vance--not one Let Mary pick her own gum! People with
squirrel muffs needn't expect to get everything in the world.

"Great day, isn't it?" said Mary, swinging her legs, the better,
perhaps, to display new boots with very smart cloth tops. Una tucked HER
feet under her. There was a hole in the toe of one of her boots and both
laces were much knotted. But they were the best she had. Oh, this Mary
Vance! Why hadn't they left her in the old barn?

Una never felt badly because the Ingleside twins were better dressed
than she and Faith were. THEY wore their pretty clothes with careless
grace and never seemed to think about them at all. Somehow, they did not
make other people feel shabby. But when Mary Vance was dressed up she
seemed fairly to exude clothes--to walk in an atmosphere of clothes--to
make everybody else feel and think clothes. Una, as she sat there in the
honey-tinted sunshine of the gracious December afternoon, was acutely
and miserably conscious of everything she had on--the faded tam, which
was yet her best, the skimpy jacket she had worn for three winters, the
holes in her skirt and her boots, the shivering insufficiency of her
poor little undergarments. Of course, Mary was going out for a visit and
she was not. But even if she had been she had nothing better to put on
and in this lay the sting.

"Say, this is great gum. Listen to me cracking it. There ain't any gum
spruces down at Four Winds," said Mary. "Sometimes I just hanker after
a chew. Mrs. Elliott won't let me chew gum if she sees me. She says it
ain't lady-like. This lady-business puzzles me. I can't get on to all
its kinks. Say, Una, what's the matter with you? Cat got your tongue?"

"No," said Una, who could not drag her fascinated eyes from that
squirrel muff. Mary leaned past her, picked it up and thrust it into
Una's hands.

"Stick your paws in that for a while," she ordered. "They look sorter
pinched. Ain't that a dandy muff? Mrs. Elliott give it to me last week
for a birthday present. I'm to get the collar at Christmas. I heard her
telling Mr. Elliott that."

"Mrs. Elliott is very good to you," said Faith.

"You bet she is. And I'M good to her, too," retorted Mary. "I work like
a nigger to make it easy for her and have everything just as she likes
it. We was made for each other. 'Tisn't every one could get along with
her as well as I do. She's pizen neat, but so am I, and so we agree
fine."

"I told you she would never whip you."

"So you did. She's never tried to lay a finger on me and I ain't never
told a lie to her--not one, true's you live. She combs me down with her
tongue sometimes though, but that just slips off ME like water off a
duck's back. Say, Una, why didn't you hang on to the muff?"

Una had put it back on the bough.

"My hands aren't cold, thank you," she said stiffly.

"Well, if you're satisfied, _I_ am. Say, old Kitty Alec has come back to
church as meek as Moses and nobody knows why. But everybody is saying
it was Faith brought Norman Douglas out. His housekeeper says you went
there and gave him an awful tongue-lashing. Did you?"

"I went and asked him to come to church," said Faith uncomfortably.

"Fancy your spunk!" said Mary admiringly. "_I_ wouldn't have dared
do that and I'm not so slow. Mrs. Wilson says the two of you jawed
something scandalous, but you come off best and then he just turned
round and like to eat you up. Say, is your father going to preach here
to-morrow?"

"No. He's going to exchange with Mr. Perry from Charlottetown. Father
went to town this morning and Mr. Perry is coming out to-night."

"I THOUGHT there was something in the wind, though old Martha wouldn't
give me any satisfaction. But I felt sure she wouldn't have been killing
that rooster for nothing."

"What rooster? What do you mean?" cried Faith, turning pale.

"_I_ don't know what rooster. I didn't see it. When she took the butter
Mrs. Elliott sent up she said she'd been out to the barn killing a
rooster for dinner tomorrow."

Faith sprang down from the pine.

"It's Adam--we have no other rooster--she has killed Adam."

"Now, don't fly off the handle. Martha said the butcher at the Glen had
no meat this week and she had to have something and the hens were all
laying and too poor."

"If she has killed Adam--" Faith began to run up the hill.

Mary shrugged her shoulders.

"She'll go crazy now. She was so fond of that Adam. He ought to have
been in the pot long ago--he'll be as tough as sole leather. But _I_
wouldn't like to be in Martha's shoes. Faith's just white with rage;
Una, you'd better go after her and try to peacify her."

Mary had gone a few steps with the Blythe girls when Una suddenly turned
and ran after her.

"Here's some gum for you, Mary," she said, with a little repentant catch
in her voice, thrusting all her four knots into Mary's hands, "and I'm
glad you have such a pretty muff."

"Why, thanks," said Mary, rather taken by surprise. To the Blythe girls,
after Una had gone, she said, "Ain't she a queer little mite? But I've
always said she had a good heart."



CHAPTER XIX. POOR ADAM!

When Una got home Faith was lying face downwards on her bed, utterly
refusing to be comforted. Aunt Martha had killed Adam. He was reposing
on a platter in the pantry that very minute, trussed and dressed,
encircled by his liver and heart and gizzard. Aunt Martha heeded Faith's
passion of grief and anger not a whit.

"We had to have something for the strange minister's dinner," she said.
"You're too big a girl to make such a fuss over an old rooster. You knew
he'd have to be killed sometime."

"I'll tell father when he comes home what you've done," sobbed Faith.

"Don't you go bothering your poor father. He has troubles enough. And
I'M housekeeper here."

"Adam was MINE--Mrs. Johnson gave him to me. You had no business to
touch him," stormed Faith.

"Don't you get sassy now. The rooster's killed and there's an end of it.
I ain't going to set no strange minister down to a dinner of cold b'iled
mutton. I was brought up to know better than that, if I have come down
in the world."

Faith would not go down to supper that night and she would not go to
church the next morning. But at dinner time she went to the table, her
eyes swollen with crying, her face sullen.

The Rev. James Perry was a sleek, rubicund man, with a bristling
white moustache, bushy white eyebrows, and a shining bald head. He
was certainly not handsome and he was a very tiresome, pompous sort of
person. But if he had looked like the Archangel Michael and talked with
the tongues of men and angels Faith would still have utterly detested
him. He carved Adam up dexterously, showing off his plump white hands
and very handsome diamond ring. Also, he made jovial remarks all through
the performance. Jerry and Carl giggled, and even Una smiled wanly,
because she thought politeness demanded it. But Faith only scowled
darkly. The Rev. James thought her manners shockingly bad. Once, when
he was delivering himself of an unctuous remark to Jerry, Faith broke in
rudely with a flat contradiction. The Rev. James drew his bushy eyebrows
together at her.

"Little girls should not interrupt," he said, "and they should not
contradict people who know far more than they do."

This put Faith in a worse temper than ever. To be called "little girl"
as if she were no bigger than chubby Rilla Blythe over at Ingleside!
It was insufferable. And how that abominable Mr. Perry did eat! He even
picked poor Adam's bones. Neither Faith nor Una would touch a mouthful,
and looked upon the boys as little better than cannibals. Faith felt
that if that awful repast did not soon come to an end she would wind it
up by throwing something at Mr. Perry's gleaming head. Fortunately,
Mr. Perry found Aunt Martha's leathery apple pie too much even for his
powers of mastication and the meal came to an end, after a long grace in
which Mr. Perry offered up devout thanks for the food which a kind
and beneficent Providence had provided for sustenance and temperate
pleasure.

"God hadn't a single thing to do with providing Adam for you," muttered
Faith rebelliously under her breath.

The boys gladly made their escape to outdoors, Una went to help Aunt
Martha with the dishes--though that rather grumpy old dame never
welcomed her timid assistance--and Faith betook herself to the study
where a cheerful wood fire was burning in the grate. She thought she
would thereby escape from the hated Mr. Perry, who had announced his
intention of taking a nap in his room during the afternoon. But scarcely
had Faith settled herself in a corner, with a book, when he walked in
and, standing before the fire, proceeded to survey the disorderly study
with an air of disapproval.

"You father's books seem to be in somewhat deplorable confusion, my
little girl," he said severely.

Faith darkled in her corner and said not a word. She would NOT talk to
this--this creature.

"You should try to put them in order," Mr. Perry went on, playing with
his handsome watch chain and smiling patronizingly on Faith. "You are
quite old enough to attend to such duties. MY little daughter at home
is only ten and she is already an excellent little housekeeper and the
greatest help and comfort to her mother. She is a very sweet child. I
wish you had the privilege of her acquaintance. She could help you in
many ways. Of course, you have not had the inestimable privilege of a
good mother's care and training. A sad lack--a very sad lack. I have
spoken more than once to your father in this connection and pointed out
his duty to him faithfully, but so far with no effect. I trust he may
awaken to a realization of his responsibility before it is too late. In
the meantime, it is your duty and privilege to endeavour to take your
sainted mother's place. You might exercise a great influence over your
brothers and your little sister--you might be a true mother to them. I
fear that you do not think of these things as you should. My dear child,
allow me to open your eyes in regard to them."

Mr. Perry's oily, complacent voice trickled on. He was in his element.
Nothing suited him better than to lay down the law, patronize and
exhort. He had no idea of stopping, and he did not stop. He stood before
the fire, his feet planted firmly on the rug, and poured out a flood of
pompous platitudes. Faith heard not a word. She was really not listening
to him at all. But she was watching his long black coat-tails with
impish delight growing in her brown eyes. Mr. Perry was standing VERY
near the fire. His coat-tails began to scorch--his coat-tails began
to smoke. He still prosed on, wrapped up in his own eloquence. The
coat-tails smoked worse. A tiny spark flew up from the burning wood and
alighted in the middle of one. It clung and caught and spread into a
smouldering flame. Faith could restrain herself no longer and broke into
a stifled giggle.

Mr. Perry stopped short, angered over this impertinence. Suddenly
he became conscious that a reek of burning cloth filled the room.
He whirled round and saw nothing. Then he clapped his hands to his
coat-tails and brought them around in front of him. There was already
quite a hole in one of them--and this was his new suit. Faith shook with
helpless laughter over his pose and expression.

"Did you see my coat-tails burning?" he demanded angrily.

"Yes, sir," said Faith demurely.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded, glaring at her.

"You said it wasn't good manners to interrupt, sir," said Faith, more
demurely still.

"If--if I was your father, I would give you a spanking that you would
remember all your life, Miss," said a very angry reverend gentleman, as
he stalked out of the study. The coat of Mr. Meredith's second best suit
would not fit Mr. Perry, so he had to go to the evening service with
his singed coat-tail. But he did not walk up the aisle with his usual
consciousness of the honour he was conferring on the building. He never
would agree to an exchange of pulpits with Mr. Meredith again, and he
was barely civil to the latter when they met for a few minutes at the
station the next morning. But Faith felt a certain gloomy satisfaction.
Adam was partially avenged.



CHAPTER XX. FAITH MAKES A FRIEND

Next day in school was a hard one for Faith. Mary Vance had told the
tale of Adam, and all the scholars, except the Blythes, thought it quite
a joke. The girls told Faith, between giggles, that it was too bad, and
the boys wrote sardonic notes of condolence to her. Poor Faith went home
from school feeling her very soul raw and smarting within her.

"I'm going over to Ingleside to have a talk with Mrs. Blythe," she
sobbed. "SHE won't laugh at me, as everybody else does. I've just GOT to
talk to somebody who understands how bad I feel."

She ran down through Rainbow Valley. Enchantment had been at work
the night before. A light snow had fallen and the powdered firs were
dreaming of a spring to come and a joy to be. The long hill beyond was
richly purple with leafless beeches. The rosy light of sunset lay over
the world like a pink kiss. Of all the airy, fairy places, full of
weird, elfin grace, Rainbow Valley that winter evening was the
most beautiful. But all its dreamlike loveliness was lost on poor,
sore-hearted little Faith.

By the brook she came suddenly upon Rosemary West, who was sitting on
the old pine tree. She was on her way home from Ingleside, where she
had been giving the girls their music lesson. She had been lingering in
Rainbow Valley quite a little time, looking across its white beauty and
roaming some by-ways of dream. Judging from the expression of her face,
her thoughts were pleasant ones. Perhaps the faint, occasional tinkle
from the bells on the Tree Lovers brought the little lurking smile to
her lips. Or perhaps it was occasioned by the consciousness that John
Meredith seldom failed to spend Monday evening in the gray house on the
white wind-swept hill.

Into Rosemary's dreams burst Faith Meredith full of rebellious
bitterness. Faith stopped abruptly when she saw Miss West. She did not
know her very well--just well enough to speak to when they met. And she
did not want to see any one just then--except Mrs. Blythe. She knew her
eyes and nose were red and swollen and she hated to have a stranger know
she had been crying.

"Good evening, Miss West," she said uncomfortably.

"What is the matter, Faith?" asked Rosemary gently.

"Nothing," said Faith rather shortly.

"Oh!" Rosemary smiled. "You mean nothing that you can tell to outsiders,
don't you?"

Faith looked at Miss West with sudden interest. Here was a person who
understood things. And how pretty she was! How golden her hair was under
her plumy hat! How pink her cheeks were over her velvet coat! How blue
and companionable her eyes were! Faith felt that Miss West could be a
lovely friend--if only she were a friend instead of a stranger!

"I--I'm going up to tell Mrs. Blythe," said Faith. "She always
understands--she never laughs at us. I always talk things over with her.
It helps."

"Dear girlie, I'm sorry to have to tell you that Mrs. Blythe isn't
home," said Miss West, sympathetically. "She went to Avonlea to-day and
isn't coming back till the last of the week."

Faith's lip quivered.

"Then I might as well go home again," she said miserably.

"I suppose so--unless you think you could bring yourself to talk it over
with me instead," said Miss Rosemary gently. "It IS such a help to talk
things over. _I_ know. I don't suppose I can be as good at understanding
as Mrs. Blythe--but I promise you that I won't laugh."

"You wouldn't laugh outside," hesitated Faith. "But you might--inside."

"No, I wouldn't laugh inside, either. Why should I? Something has hurt
you--it never amuses me to see anybody hurt, no matter what hurts them.
If you feel that you'd like to tell me what has hurt you I'll be glad to
listen. But if you think you'd rather not--that's all right, too, dear."

Faith took another long, earnest look into Miss West's eyes. They were
very serious--there was no laughter in them, not even far, far back.
With a little sigh she sat down on the old pine beside her new friend
and told her all about Adam and his cruel fate.

Rosemary did not laugh or feel like laughing. She understood and
sympathized--really, she was almost as good as Mrs. Blythe--yes, quite
as good.

"Mr. Perry is a minister, but he should have been a BUTCHER," said Faith
bitterly. "He is so fond of carving things up. He ENJOYED cutting
poor Adam to pieces. He just sliced into him as if he were any common
rooster."

"Between you and me, Faith, _I_ don't like Mr. Perry very well myself,"
said Rosemary, laughing a little--but at Mr. Perry, not at Adam, as
Faith clearly understood. "I never did like him. I went to school with
him--he was a Glen boy, you know--and he was a most detestable little
prig even then. Oh, how we girls used to hate holding his fat, clammy
hands in the ring-around games. But we must remember, dear, that he
didn't know that Adam had been a pet of yours. He thought he WAS just a
common rooster. We must be just, even when we are terribly hurt."

"I suppose so," admitted Faith. "But why does everybody seem to think it
funny that I should have loved Adam so much, Miss West? If it had been a
horrid old cat nobody would have thought it queer. When Lottie Warren's
kitten had its legs cut off by the binder everybody was sorry for her.
She cried two days in school and nobody laughed at her, not even Dan
Reese. And all her chums went to the kitten's funeral and helped her
bury it--only they couldn't bury its poor little paws with it, because
they couldn't find them. It was a horrid thing to have happen, of
course, but I don't think it was as dreadful as seeing your pet EATEN
UP. Yet everybody laughs at ME."

"I think it is because the name 'rooster' seems rather a funny one,"
said Rosemary gravely. "There IS something in it that is comical. Now,
'chicken' is different. It doesn't sound so funny to talk of loving a
chicken."

"Adam was the dearest little chicken, Miss West. He was just a little
golden ball. He would run up to me and peck out of my hand. And he was
handsome when he grew up, too--white as snow, with such a beautiful
curving white tail, though Mary Vance said it was too short. He knew
his name and always came when I called him--he was a very intelligent
rooster. And Aunt Martha had no right to kill him. He was mine. It
wasn't fair, was it, Miss West?"

"No, it wasn't," said Rosemary decidedly. "Not a bit fair. I remember
I had a pet hen when I was a little girl. She was such a pretty little
thing--all golden brown and speckly. I loved her as much as I ever loved
any pet. She was never killed--she died of old age. Mother wouldn't have
her killed because she was my pet."

"If MY mother had been living she wouldn't have let Adam be killed,"
said Faith. "For that matter, father wouldn't have either, if he'd been
home and known of it. I'm SURE he wouldn't, Miss West."

"I'm sure, too," said Rosemary. There was a little added flush on her
face. She looked rather conscious but Faith noticed nothing.

"Was it VERY wicked of me not to tell Mr. Perry his coat-tails were
scorching?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh, terribly wicked," answered Rosemary, with dancing eyes. "But _I_
would have been just as naughty, Faith--_I_ wouldn't have told him they
were scorching--and I don't believe I would ever have been a bit sorry
for my wickedness, either."

"Una thought I should have told him because he was a minister."

"Dearest, if a minister doesn't behave as a gentleman we are not bound
to respect his coat-tails. I know _I_ would just have loved to see Jimmy
Perry's coat-tails burning up. It must have been fun."

Both laughed; but Faith ended with a bitter little sigh.

"Well, anyway, Adam is dead and I am NEVER going to love anything
again."

"Don't say that, dear. We miss so much out of life if we don't love. The
more we love the richer life is--even if it is only some little furry or
feathery pet. Would you like a canary, Faith--a little golden bit of a
canary? If you would I'll give you one. We have two up home."

"Oh, I WOULD like that," cried Faith. "I love birds. Only--would Aunt
Martha's cat eat it? It's so TRAGIC to have your pets eaten. I don't
think I could endure it a second time."

"If you hang the cage far enough from the wall I don't think the cat
could harm it. I'll tell you just how to take care of it and I'll bring
it to Ingleside for you the next time I come down."

To herself, Rosemary was thinking,

"It will give every gossip in the Glen something to talk of, but I WILL
not care. I want to comfort this poor little heart."

Faith was comforted. Sympathy and understanding were very sweet. She and
Miss Rosemary sat on the old pine until the twilight crept softly down
over the white valley and the evening star shone over the gray maple
grove. Faith told Rosemary all her small history and hopes, her likes
and dislikes, the ins and outs of life at the manse, the ups and downs
of school society. Finally they parted firm friends.

Mr. Meredith was, as usual, lost in dreams when supper began that
evening, but presently a name pierced his abstraction and brought him
back to reality. Faith was telling Una of her meeting with Rosemary.

"She is just lovely, I think," said Faith. "Just as nice as Mrs.
Blythe--but different. I felt as if I wanted to hug her. She did hug
ME--such a nice, velvety hug. And she called me 'dearest.' It THRILLED
me. I could tell her ANYTHING."

"So you liked Miss West, Faith?" Mr. Meredith asked, with a rather odd
intonation.

"I love her," cried Faith.

"Ah!" said Mr. Meredith. "Ah!"



CHAPTER XXI. THE IMPOSSIBLE WORD

John Meredith walked meditatively through the clear crispness of a
winter night in Rainbow Valley. The hills beyond glistened with the
chill splendid lustre of moonlight on snow. Every little fir tree in the
long valley sang its own wild song to the harp of wind and frost. His
children and the Blythe lads and lasses were coasting down the eastern
slope and whizzing over the glassy pond. They were having a glorious
time and their gay voices and gayer laughter echoed up and down the
valley, dying away in elfin cadences among the trees. On the right the
lights of Ingleside gleamed through the maple grove with the genial lure
and invitation which seems always to glow in the beacons of a home where
we know there is love and good-cheer and a welcome for all kin, whether
of flesh or spirit. Mr. Meredith liked very well on occasion to spend an
evening arguing with the doctor by the drift wood fire, where the famous
china dogs of Ingleside kept ceaseless watch and ward, as became deities
of the hearth, but to-night he did not look that way. Far on the western
hill gleamed a paler but more alluring star. Mr. Meredith was on his way
to see Rosemary West, and he meant to tell her something which had been
slowly blossoming in his heart since their first meeting and had sprung
into full flower on the evening when Faith had so warmly voiced her
admiration for Rosemary.

He had come to realize that he had learned to care for Rosemary. Not as
he had cared for Cecilia, of course. THAT was entirely different. That
love of romance and dream and glamour could never, he thought, return.
But Rosemary was beautiful and sweet and dear--very dear. She was the
best of companions. He was happier in her company than he had ever
expected to be again. She would be an ideal mistress for his home, a
good mother to his children.

During the years of his widowhood Mr. Meredith had received innumerable
hints from brother members of Presbytery and from many parishioners who
could not be suspected of any ulterior motive, as well as from some
who could, that he ought to marry again: But these hints never made any
impression on him. It was commonly thought he was never aware of them.
But he was quite acutely aware of them. And in his own occasional
visitations of common sense he knew that the common sensible thing for
him to do was to marry. But common sense was not the strong point of
John Meredith, and to choose out, deliberately and cold-bloodedly,
some "suitable" woman, as one might choose a housekeeper or a business
partner, was something he was quite incapable of doing. How he hated
that word "suitable." It reminded him so strongly of James Perry. "A
SUIT able woman of SUIT able age," that unctuous brother of the cloth
had said, in his far from subtle hint. For the moment John Meredith
had had a perfectly unbelievable desire to rush madly away and propose
marriage to the youngest, most unsuitable woman it was possible to
discover.

Mrs. Marshall Elliott was his good friend and he liked her. But when she
had bluntly told him he should marry again he felt as if she had torn
away the veil that hung before some sacred shrine of his innermost life,
and he had been more or less afraid of her ever since. He knew there
were women in his congregation "of suitable age" who would marry him
quite readily. That fact had seeped through all his abstraction very
early in his ministry in Glen St. Mary. They were good, substantial,
uninteresting women, one or two fairly comely, the others not exactly so
and John Meredith would as soon have thought of marrying any one of them
as of hanging himself. He had some ideals to which no seeming necessity
could make him false. He could ask no woman to fill Cecilia's place in
his home unless he could offer her at least some of the affection and
homage he had given to his girlish bride. And where, in his limited
feminine acquaintance, was such a woman to be found?

Rosemary West had come into his life on that autumn evening bringing
with her an atmosphere in which his spirit recognized native air. Across
the gulf of strangerhood they clasped hands of friendship. He knew her
better in that ten minutes by the hidden spring than he knew Emmeline
Drew or Elizabeth Kirk or Amy Annetta Douglas in a year, or could know
them, in a century. He had fled to her for comfort when Mrs. Alec Davis
had outraged his mind and soul and had found it. Since then he had gone
often to the house on the hill, slipping through the shadowy paths of
night in Rainbow Valley so astutely that Glen gossip could never be
absolutely certain that he DID go to see Rosemary West. Once or twice he
had been caught in the West living room by other visitors; that was all
the Ladies' Aid had to go by. But when Elizabeth Kirk heard it she put
away a secret hope she had allowed herself to cherish, without a change
of expression on her kind plain face, and Emmeline Drew resolved that
the next time she saw a certain old bachelor of Lowbridge she would not
snub him as she had done at a previous meeting. Of course, if Rosemary
West was out to catch the minister she would catch him; she looked
younger than she was and MEN thought her pretty; besides, the West girls
had money!

"It is to be hoped that he won't be so absent-minded as to propose to
Ellen by mistake," was the only malicious thing she allowed herself
to say to a sympathetic sister Drew. Emmeline bore no further grudge
towards Rosemary. When all was said and done, an unencumbered bachelor
was far better than a widower with four children. It had been only the
glamour of the manse that had temporarily blinded Emmeline's eyes to the
better part.

A sled with three shrieking occupants sped past Mr. Meredith to the
pond. Faith's long curls streamed in the wind and her laughter rang
above that of the others. John Meredith looked after them kindly
and longingly. He was glad that his children had such chums as the
Blythes--glad that they had so wise and gay and tender a friend as Mrs.
Blythe. But they needed something more, and that something would be
supplied when he brought Rosemary West as a bride to the old manse.
There was in her a quality essentially maternal.

It was Saturday night and he did not often go calling on Saturday night,
which was supposed to be dedicated to a thoughtful revision of Sunday's
sermon. But he had chosen this night because he had learned that Ellen
West was going to be away and Rosemary would be alone. Often as he had
spent pleasant evenings in the house on the hill he had never, since
that first meeting at the spring, seen Rosemary alone. Ellen had always
been there.

He did not precisely object to Ellen being there. He liked Ellen
West very much and they were the best of friends. Ellen had an almost
masculine understanding and a sense of humour which his own shy, hidden
appreciation of fun found very agreeable. He liked her interest in
politics and world events. There was no man in the Glen, not even
excepting Dr. Blythe, who had a better grasp of such things.

"I think it is just as well to be interested in things as long as you
live," she had said. "If you're not, it doesn't seem to me that there's
much difference between the quick and the dead."

He liked her pleasant, deep, rumbly voice; he liked the hearty laugh
with which she always ended up some jolly and well-told story. She never
gave him digs about his children as other Glen women did; she never
bored him with local gossip; she had no malice and no pettiness. She
was always splendidly sincere. Mr. Meredith, who had picked up Miss
Cornelia's way of classifying people, considered that Ellen belonged to
the race of Joseph. Altogether, an admirable woman for a sister-in-law.
Nevertheless, a man did not want even the most admirable of women around
when he was proposing to another woman. And Ellen was always around. She
did not insist on talking to Mr. Meredith herself all the time. She let
Rosemary have a fair share of him. Many evenings, indeed, Ellen effaced
herself almost totally, sitting back in the corner with St. George in
her lap, and letting Mr. Meredith and Rosemary talk and sing and read
books together. Sometimes they quite forgot her presence. But if their
conversation or choice of duets ever betrayed the least tendency to what
Ellen considered philandering, Ellen promptly nipped that tendency in
the bud and blotted Rosemary out for the rest of the evening. But not
even the grimmest of amiable dragons can altogether prevent a certain
subtle language of eye and smile and eloquent silence; and so the
minister's courtship progressed after a fashion.

But if it was ever to reach a climax that climax must come when Ellen
was away. And Ellen was so seldom away, especially in winter. She found
her own fireside the pleasantest place in the world, she vowed. Gadding
had no attraction for her. She was fond of company but she wanted it at
home. Mr. Meredith had almost been driven to the conclusion that he must
write to Rosemary what he wanted to say, when Ellen casually announced
one evening that she was going to a silver wedding next Saturday night.
She had been bridesmaid when the principals were married. Only old
guests were invited, so Rosemary was not included. Mr. Meredith pricked
up his ears a trifle and a gleam flashed into his dreamy dark eyes.
Both Ellen and Rosemary saw it; and both Ellen and Rosemary felt, with a
tingling shock, that Mr. Meredith would certainly come up the hill next
Saturday night.

"Might as well have it over with, St. George," Ellen sternly told the
black cat, after Mr. Meredith had gone home and Rosemary had silently
gone upstairs. "He means to ask her, St. George--I'm perfectly sure of
that. So he might as well have his chance to do it and find out he can't
get her, George. She'd rather like to take him, Saint. I know that--but
she promised, and she's got to keep her promise. I'm rather sorry in
some ways, St. George. I don't know of a man I'd sooner have for a
brother-in-law if a brother-in-law was convenient. I haven't a thing
against him, Saint--not a thing except that he won't see and can't be
made to see that the Kaiser is a menace to the peace of Europe. That's
HIS blind spot. But he's good company and I like him. A woman can say
anything she likes to a man with a mouth like John Meredith's and
be sure of not being misunderstood. Such a man is more precious than
rubies, Saint--and much rarer, George. But he can't have Rosemary--and
I suppose when he finds out he can't have her he'll drop us both. And
we'll miss him, Saint--we'll miss him something scandalous, George. But
she promised, and I'll see that she keeps her promise!"

Ellen's face looked almost ugly in its lowering resolution. Upstairs
Rosemary was crying into her pillow.

So Mr. Meredith found his lady alone and looking very beautiful.
Rosemary had not made any special toilet for the occasion; she wanted
to, but she thought it would be absurd to dress up for a man you meant
to refuse. So she wore her plain dark afternoon dress and looked like a
queen in it. Her suppressed excitement coloured her face to brilliancy,
her great blue eyes were pools of light less placid than usual.

She wished the interview were over. She had looked forward to it all day
with dread. She felt quite sure that John Meredith cared a great deal
for her after a fashion--and she felt just as sure that he did not care
for her as he had cared for his first love. She felt that her refusal
would disappoint him considerably, but she did not think it would
altogether overwhelm him. Yet she hated to make it; hated for his sake
and--Rosemary was quite honest with herself--for her own. She knew she
could have loved John Meredith if--if it had been permissible. She
knew that life would be a blank thing if, rejected as lover, he refused
longer to be a friend. She knew that she could be very happy with him
and that she could make him happy. But between her and happiness stood
the prison gate of the promise she had made to Ellen years ago. Rosemary
could not remember her father. He had died when she was only three years
old. Ellen, who had been thirteen, remembered him, but with no special
tenderness. He had been a stern, reserved man many years older than his
fair, pretty wife. Five years later their brother of twelve died also;
since his death the two girls had always lived alone with their mother.
They had never mingled very freely in the social life of the Glen or
Lowbridge, though where they went the wit and spirit of Ellen and the
sweetness and beauty of Rosemary made them welcome guests. Both had what
was called "a disappointment" in their girlhood. The sea had not given
up Rosemary's lover; and Norman Douglas, then a handsome, red-haired
young giant, noted for wild driving and noisy though harmless escapades,
had quarrelled with Ellen and left her in a fit of pique.

There were not lacking candidates for both Martin's and Norman's places,
but none seemed to find favour in the eyes of the West girls, who
drifted slowly out of youth and bellehood without any seeming regret.
They were devoted to their mother, who was a chronic invalid. The three
had a little circle of home interests--books and pets and flowers--which
made them happy and contented.

Mrs. West's death, which occurred on Rosemary's twenty-fifth birthday,
was a bitter grief to them. At first they were intolerably lonely.
Ellen, especially, continued to grieve and brood, her long, moody
musings broken only by fits of stormy, passionate weeping. The old
Lowbridge doctor told Rosemary that he feared permanent melancholy or
worse.

Once, when Ellen had sat all day, refusing either to speak or eat,
Rosemary had flung herself on her knees by her sister's side.

"Oh, Ellen, you have me yet," she said imploringly. "Am I nothing to
you? We have always loved each other so."

"I won't have you always," Ellen had said, breaking her silence with
harsh intensity. "You will marry and leave me. I shall be left all
alone. I cannot bear the thought--I CANNOT. I would rather die."

"I will never marry," said Rosemary, "never, Ellen."

Ellen bent forward and looked searchingly into Rosemary's eyes.

"Will you promise me that solemnly?" she said. "Promise it on mother's
Bible."

Rosemary assented at once, quite willing to humour Ellen. What did it
matter? She knew quite well she would never want to marry any one. Her
love had gone down with Martin Crawford to the deeps of the sea; and
without love she could not marry any one. So she promised readily,
though Ellen made rather a fearsome rite of it. They clasped hands over
the Bible, in their mother's vacant room, and both vowed to each other
that they would never marry and would always live together.

Ellen's condition improved from that hour. She soon regained her normal
cheery poise. For ten years she and Rosemary lived in the old house
happily, undisturbed by any thought of marrying or giving in marriage.
Their promise sat very lightly on them. Ellen never failed to remind her
sister of it whenever any eligible male creature crossed their paths,
but she had never been really alarmed until John Meredith came home that
night with Rosemary. As for Rosemary, Ellen's obsession regarding that
promise had always been a little matter of mirth to her--until lately.
Now, it was a merciless fetter, self-imposed but never to be shaken off.
Because of it to-night she must turn her face from happiness.

It was true that the shy, sweet, rosebud love she had given to her
boy-lover she could never give to another. But she knew now that she
could give to John Meredith a love richer and more womanly. She knew
that he touched deeps in her nature that Martin had never touched--that
had not, perhaps, been in the girl of seventeen to touch. And she must
send him away to-night--send him back to his lonely hearth and his empty
life and his heart-breaking problems, because she had promised Ellen,
ten years before, on their mother's Bible, that she would never marry.

John Meredith did not immediately grasp his opportunity. On the
contrary, he talked for two good hours on the least lover-like of
subjects. He even tried politics, though politics always bored Rosemary.
The later began to think that she had been altogether mistaken, and her
fears and expectations suddenly seemed to her grotesque. She felt flat
and foolish. The glow went out of her face and the lustre out of her
eyes. John Meredith had not the slightest intention of asking her to
marry him.

And then, quite suddenly, he rose, came across the room, and standing
by her chair, he asked it. The room had grown terribly still. Even St.
George ceased to purr. Rosemary heard her own heart beating and was sure
John Meredith must hear it too.

Now was the time for her to say no, gently but firmly. She had been
ready for days with her stilted, regretful little formula. And now
the words of it had completely vanished from her mind. She had to say
no--and she suddenly found she could not say it. It was the impossible
word. She knew now that it was not that she COULD have loved John
Meredith, but that she DID love him. The thought of putting him from her
life was agony.

She must say SOMETHING; she lifted her bowed golden head and asked him
stammeringly to give her a few days for--for consideration.

John Meredith was a little surprised. He was not vainer than any man has
a right to be, but he had expected that Rosemary West would say yes.
He had been tolerably sure she cared for him. Then why this doubt--this
hesitation? She was not a school girl to be uncertain as to her own
mind. He felt an ugly shock of disappointment and dismay. But he
assented to her request with his unfailing gentle courtesy and went away
at once.

"I will tell you in a few days," said Rosemary, with downcast eyes and
burning face.

When the door shut behind him she went back into the room and wrung her
hands.



CHAPTER XXII. ST. GEORGE KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT

At midnight Ellen West was walking home from the Pollock silver wedding.
She had stayed a little while after the other guests had gone, to help
the gray-haired bride wash the dishes. The distance between the two
houses was not far and the road good, so that Ellen was enjoying the
walk back home in the moonlight.

The evening had been a pleasant one. Ellen, who had not been to a party
for years, found it very pleasant. All the guests had been members of
her old set and there was no intrusive youth to spoil the flavour, for
the only son of the bride and groom was far away at college and could
not be present. Norman Douglas had been there and they had met socially
for the first time in years, though she had seen him once or twice in
church that winter. Not the least sentiment was awakened in Ellen's
heart by their meeting. She was accustomed to wonder, when she thought
about it at all, how she could ever have fancied him or felt so badly
over his sudden marriage. But she had rather liked meeting him again.
She had forgotten how bracing and stimulating he could be. No gathering
was ever stagnant when Norman Douglas was present. Everybody had been
surprised when Norman came. It was well known he never went anywhere.
The Pollocks had invited him because he had been one of the original
guests, but they never thought he would come. He had taken his second
cousin, Amy Annetta Douglas, out to supper and seemed rather attentive
to her. But Ellen sat across the table from him and had a spirited
argument with him--an argument during which all his shouting and banter
could not fluster her and in which she came off best, flooring Norman so
composedly and so completely that he was silent for ten minutes. At
the end of which time he had muttered in his ruddy beard--"spunky as
ever--spunky as ever"--and began to hector Amy Annetta, who giggled
foolishly over his sallies where Ellen would have retorted bitingly.

Ellen thought these things over as she walked home, tasting them with
reminiscent relish. The moonlit air sparkled with frost. The snow
crisped under her feet. Below her lay the Glen with the white harbour
beyond. There was a light in the manse study. So John Meredith had gone
home. Had he asked Rosemary to marry him? And after what fashion had
she made her refusal known? Ellen felt that she would never know this,
though she was quite curious. She was sure Rosemary would never tell
her anything about it and she would not dare to ask. She must just be
content with the fact of the refusal. After all, that was the only thing
that really mattered.

"I hope he'll have sense enough to come back once in a while and be
friendly," she said to herself. She disliked so much to be alone that
thinking aloud was one of her devices for circumventing unwelcome
solitude. "It's awful never to have a man-body with some brains to talk
to once in a while. And like as not he'll never come near the house
again. There's Norman Douglas, too--I like that man, and I'd like to
have a good rousing argument with him now and then. But he'd never dare
come up for fear people would think he was courting me again--for fear
I'D think it, too, most likely--though he's more a stranger to me now
than John Meredith. It seems like a dream that we could ever have been
beaus. But there it is--there's only two men in the Glen I'd ever want
to talk to--and what with gossip and this wretched love-making business
it's not likely I'll ever see either of them again. I could," said
Ellen, addressing the unmoved stars with a spiteful emphasis, "I could
have made a better world myself."

She paused at her gate with a sudden vague feeling of alarm. There was
still a light in the living-room and to and fro across the window-shades
went the shadow of a woman walking restlessly up and down. What was
Rosemary doing up at this hour of the night? And why was she striding
about like a lunatic?

Ellen went softly in. As she opened the hall door Rosemary came out of
the room. She was flushed and breathless. An atmosphere of stress and
passion hung about her like a garment.

"Why aren't you in bed, Rosemary?" demanded Ellen.

"Come in here," said Rosemary intensely. "I want to tell you something."

Ellen composedly removed her wraps and overshoes, and followed her
sister into the warm, fire-lighted room. She stood with her hand on
the table and waited. She was looking very handsome herself, in her own
grim, black-browed style. The new black velvet dress, with its train and
V-neck, which she had made purposely for the party, became her stately,
massive figure. She wore coiled around her neck the rich heavy necklace
of amber beads which was a family heirloom. Her walk in the frosty air
had stung her cheeks into a glowing scarlet. But her steel-blue eyes
were as icy and unyielding as the sky of the winter night. She stood
waiting in a silence which Rosemary could break only by a convulsive
effort.

"Ellen, Mr. Meredith was here this evening."

"Yes?"

"And--and--he asked me to marry him."

"So I expected. Of course, you refused him?"

"No."

"Rosemary." Ellen clenched her hands and took an involuntary step
forward. "Do you mean to tell me that you accepted him?"

"No--no."

Ellen recovered her self-command.

"What DID you do then?"

"I--I asked him to give me a few days to think it over."

"I hardly see why that was necessary," said Ellen, coldly contemptuous,
"when there is only the one answer you can make him."

Rosemary held out her hands beseechingly.

"Ellen," she said desperately, "I love John Meredith--I want to be his
wife. Will you set me free from that promise?"

"No," said Ellen, merciless, because she was sick from fear.

"Ellen--Ellen--"

"Listen," interrupted Ellen. "I did not ask you for that promise. You
offered it."

"I know--I know. But I did not think then that I could ever care for
anyone again."

"You offered it," went on Ellen unmovably. "You promised it over our
mother's Bible. It was more than a promise--it was an oath. Now you want
to break it."

"I only asked you to set me free from it, Ellen."

"I will not do it. A promise is a promise in my eyes. I will not do it.
Break your promise--be forsworn if you will--but it shall not be with
any assent of mine."

"You are very hard on me, Ellen."

"Hard on you! And what of me? Have you ever given a thought to what my
loneliness would be here if you left me? I could not bear it--I would go
crazy. I CANNOT live alone. Haven't I been a good sister to you? Have I
ever opposed any wish of yours? Haven't I indulged you in everything?"

"Yes--yes."

"Then why do you want to leave me for this man whom you hadn't seen a
year ago?"

"I love him, Ellen."

"Love! You talk like a school miss instead of a middle-aged woman. He
doesn't love you. He wants a housekeeper and a governess. You don't love
him. You want to be 'Mrs.'--you are one of those weak-minded women who
think it's a disgrace to be ranked as an old maid. That's all there is
to it."

Rosemary quivered. Ellen could not, or would not, understand. There was
no use arguing with her.

"So you won't release me, Ellen?"

"No, I won't. And I won't talk of it again. You promised and you've got
to keep your word. That's all. Go to bed. Look at the time! You're all
romantic and worked up. To-morrow you'll be more sensible. At any rate,
don't let me hear any more of this nonsense. Go."

Rosemary went without another word, pale and spiritless. Ellen walked
stormily about the room for a few minutes, then paused before the chair
where St. George had been calmly sleeping through the whole evening. A
reluctant smile overspread her dark face. There had been only one time
in her life--the time of her mother's death--when Ellen had not been
able to temper tragedy with comedy. Even in that long ago bitterness,
when Norman Douglas had, after a fashion, jilted her, she had laughed at
herself quite as often as she had cried.

"I expect there'll be some sulking, St. George. Yes, Saint, I expect
we are in for a few unpleasant foggy days. Well, we'll weather them
through, George. We've dealt with foolish children before, Saint.
Rosemary'll sulk a while--and then she'll get over it--and all will be
as before, George. She promised--and she's got to keep her promise. And
that's the last word on the subject I'll say to you or her or anyone,
Saint."

But Ellen lay savagely awake till morning.

There was no sulking, however. Rosemary was pale and quiet the next day,
but beyond that Ellen could detect no difference in her. Certainly, she
seemed to bear Ellen no grudge. It was stormy, so no mention was made of
going to church. In the afternoon Rosemary shut herself in her room and
wrote a note to John Meredith. She could not trust herself to say "no"
in person. She felt quite sure that if he suspected she was saying "no"
reluctantly he would not take it for an answer, and she could not face
pleading or entreaty. She must make him think she cared nothing at
all for him and she could do that only by letter. She wrote him the
stiffest, coolest little refusal imaginable. It was barely courteous;
it certainly left no loophole of hope for the boldest lover--and
John Meredith was anything but that. He shrank into himself, hurt and
mortified, when he read Rosemary's letter next day in his dusty study.
But under his mortification a dreadful realization presently made itself
felt. He had thought he did not love Rosemary as deeply as he had
loved Cecilia. Now, when he had lost her, he knew that he did. She
was everything to him--everything! And he must put her out of his life
completely. Even friendship was impossible now. Life stretched before
him in intolerable dreariness. He must go on--there was his work--his
children--but the heart had gone out of him. He sat alone all that
evening in his dark, cold, comfortless study with his head bowed on his
hands. Up on the hill Rosemary had a headache and went early to bed,
while Ellen remarked to St. George, purring his disdain of foolish
humankind, who did not know that a soft cushion was the only thing that
really mattered,

"What would women do if headaches had never been invented, St. George?
But never mind, Saint. We'll just wink the other eye for a few weeks.
I admit I don't feel comfortable myself, George. I feel as if I had
drowned a kitten. But she promised, Saint--and she was the one to offer
it, George. Bismillah!"



CHAPTER XXIII. THE GOOD-CONDUCT CLUB

A light rain had been falling all day--a little, delicate, beautiful
spring rain, that somehow seemed to hint and whisper of mayflowers
fields had been dim with pearl-gray mists. But now in the evening the
rain had ceased and the mists had blown out to sea. Clouds sprinkled the
sky over the harbour like little fiery roses. Beyond it the hills were
dark against a spendthrift splendour of daffodil and crimson. A great
silvery evening star was watching over the bar. A brisk, dancing,
new-sprung wind was blowing up from Rainbow Valley, resinous with the
odours of fir and damp mosses. It crooned in the old spruces around
the graveyard and ruffled Faith's splendid curls as she sat on Hezekiah
Pollock's tombstone with her arms round Mary Vance and Una. Carl and
Jerry were sitting opposite them on another tombstone and all were
rather full of mischief after being cooped up all day.

"The air just SHINES to-night, doesn't it? It's been washed so clean,
you see," said Faith happily.

Mary Vance eyed her gloomily. Knowing what she knew, or fancied she
knew, Mary considered that Faith was far too light-hearted. Mary had
something on her mind to say and she meant to say it before she went
home. Mrs. Elliott had sent her up to the manse with some new-laid eggs,
and had told her not to stay longer than half an hour. The half hour
was nearly up, so Mary uncurled her cramped legs from under her and said
abruptly,

"Never mind about the air. Just you listen to me. You manse young ones
have just got to behave yourselves better than you've been doing this
spring--that's all there is to it. I just come up to-night a-purpose to
tell you so. The way people are talking about you is awful."

"What have we been doing now?" cried Faith in amazement, pulling her arm
away from Mary. Una's lips trembled and her sensitive little soul shrank
within her. Mary was always so brutally frank. Jerry began to whistle
out of bravado. He meant to let Mary see he didn't care for HER tirades.
Their behaviour was no business of HERS anyway. What right had SHE to
lecture them on their conduct?

"Doing now! You're doing ALL the time," retorted Mary. "Just as soon
as the talk about one of your didos fades away you do something else
to start it up again. It seems to me you haven't any idea of how manse
children ought to behave!"

"Maybe YOU can tell us," said Jerry, killingly sarcastic.

Sarcasm was quite thrown away on Mary.

"_I_ can tell you what will happen if you don't learn to behave
yourselves. The session will ask your father to resign. There now,
Master Jerry-know-it-all. Mrs. Alec Davis said so to Mrs. Elliott. I
heard her. I always have my ears pricked up when Mrs. Alec Davis comes
to tea. She said you were all going from bad to worse and that though
it was only what was to be expected when you had nobody to bring you
up, still the congregation couldn't be expected to put up with it much
longer, and something would have to be done. The Methodists just laugh
and laugh at you, and that hurts the Presbyterian feelings. SHE says you
all need a good dose of birch tonic. Lor', if that would make folks good
_I_ oughter be a young saint. I'm not telling you this because I want
to hurt YOUR feelings. I'm sorry for you"--Mary was past mistress of
the gentle art of condescension. "_I_ understand that you haven't
much chance, the way things are. But other people don't make as much
allowance as _I_ do. Miss Drew says Carl had a frog in his pocket in
Sunday School last Sunday and it hopped out while she was hearing the
lesson. She says she's going to give up the class. Why don't you keep
your insecks home?"

"I popped it right back in again," said Carl. "It didn't hurt anybody--a
poor little frog! And I wish old Jane Drew WOULD give up our class. I
hate her. Her own nephew had a dirty plug of tobacco in his pocket and
offered us fellows a chew when Elder Clow was praying. I guess that's
worse than a frog."

"No, 'cause frogs are more unexpected-like. They make more of a
sensation. 'Sides, he wasn't caught at it. And then that praying
competition you had last week has made a fearful scandal. Everybody is
talking about it."

"Why, the Blythes were in that as well as us," cried Faith, indignantly.
"It was Nan Blythe who suggested it in the first place. And Walter took
the prize."

"Well, you get the credit of it any way. It wouldn't have been so bad if
you hadn't had it in the graveyard."

"I should think a graveyard was a very good place to pray in," retorted
Jerry.

"Deacon Hazard drove past when YOU were praying," said Mary, "and he saw
and heard you, with your hands folded over your stomach, and groaning
after every sentence. He thought you were making fun of HIM."

"So I was," declared unabashed Jerry. "Only I didn't know he was going
by, of course. That was just a mean accident. _I_ wasn't praying in
real earnest--I knew I had no chance of winning the prize. So I was just
getting what fun I could out of it. Walter Blythe can pray bully. Why,
he can pray as well as dad."

"Una is the only one of US who really likes praying," said Faith
pensively.

"Well, if praying scandalizes people so much we mustn't do it any more,"
sighed Una.

"Shucks, you can pray all you want to, only not in the graveyard--and
don't make a game of it. That was what made it so bad--that, and having
a tea-party on the tombstones."

"We hadn't."

"Well, a soap-bubble party then. You had SOMETHING. The over-harbour
people swear you had a tea-party, but I'm willing to take your word. And
you used this tombstone as a table."

"Well, Martha wouldn't let us blow bubbles in the house. She was awful
cross that day," explained Jerry. "And this old slab made such a jolly
table."

"Weren't they pretty?" cried Faith, her eyes sparkling over the
remembrance. "They reflected the trees and the hills and the harbour
like little fairy worlds, and when we shook them loose they floated away
down to Rainbow Valley."

"All but one and it went over and bust up on the Methodist spire," said
Carl.

"I'm glad we did it once, anyhow, before we found out it was wrong,"
said Faith.

"It wouldn't have been wrong to blow them on the lawn," said Mary
impatiently. "Seems like I can't knock any sense into your heads.
You've been told often enough you shouldn't play in the graveyard. The
Methodists are sensitive about it."

"We forget," said Faith dolefully. "And the lawn is so small--and so
caterpillary--and so full of shrubs and things. We can't be in Rainbow
Valley all the time--and where are we to go?"

"It's the things you DO in the graveyard. It wouldn't matter if you just
sat here and talked quiet, same as we're doing now. Well, I don't know
what is going to come of it all, but I DO know that Elder Warren is
going to speak to your pa about it. Deacon Hazard is his cousin."

"I wish they wouldn't bother father about us," said Una.

"Well, people think he ought to bother himself about you a little more.
_I_ don't--_I_ understand him. He's a child in some ways himself--that's
what he is, and needs some one to look after him as bad as you do. Well,
perhaps he'll have some one before long, if all tales is true."

"What do you mean?" asked Faith.

"Haven't you got any idea--honest?" demanded Mary.

"No, no. What DO you mean?"

"Well, you are a lot of innocents, upon my word. Why, EVERYbody is
talking of it. Your pa goes to see Rosemary West. SHE is going to be
your step-ma."

"I don't believe it," cried Una, flushing crimson.

"Well, _I_ dunno. I just go by what folks say. _I_ don't give it for
a fact. But it would be a good thing. Rosemary West'd make you toe
the mark if she came here, I'll bet a cent, for all she's so sweet and
smiley on the face of her. They're always that way till they've caught
them. But you need some one to bring you up. You're disgracing your pa
and I feel for him. I've always thought an awful lot of your pa ever
since that night he talked to me so nice. I've never said a single
swear word since, or told a lie. And I'd like to see him happy and
comfortable, with his buttons on and his meals decent, and you young
ones licked into shape, and that old cat of a Martha put in HER proper
place. The way she looked at the eggs I brought her to-night. 'I hope
they're fresh,' says she. I just wished they WAS rotten. But you just
mind that she gives you all one for breakfast, including your pa. Make
a fuss if she doesn't. That was what they was sent up for--but I don't
trust old Martha. She's quite capable of feeding 'em to her cat."

Mary's tongue being temporarily tired, a brief silence fell over the
graveyard. The manse children did not feel like talking. They were
digesting the new and not altogether palatable ideas Mary had suggested
to them. Jerry and Carl were somewhat startled. But, after all, what did
it matter? And it wasn't likely there was a word of truth in it. Faith,
on the whole, was pleased. Only Una was seriously upset. She felt that
she would like to get away and cry.

"Will there be any stars in my crown?" sang the Methodist choir,
beginning to practise in the Methodist church.

"_I_ want just three," said Mary, whose theological knowledge had
increased notably since her residence with Mrs. Elliott. "Just
three--setting up on my head, like a corownet, a big one in the middle
and a small one each side."

"Are there different sizes in souls?" asked Carl.

"Of course. Why, little babies must have smaller ones than big men.
Well, it's getting dark and I must scoot home. Mrs. Elliott doesn't like
me to be out after dark. Laws, when I lived with Mrs. Wiley the dark was
just the same as the daylight to me. I didn't mind it no more'n a gray
cat. Them days seem a hundred years ago. Now, you mind what I've said
and try to behave yourselves, for you pa's sake. I'LL always back you
up and defend you--you can be dead sure of that. Mrs. Elliott says she
never saw the like of me for sticking up for my friends. I was real
sassy to Mrs. Alec Davis about you and Mrs. Elliott combed me down for
it afterwards. The fair Cornelia has a tongue of her own and no mistake.
But she was pleased underneath for all, 'cause she hates old Kitty Alec
and she's real fond of you. _I_ can see through folks."

Mary sailed off, excellently well pleased with herself, leaving a rather
depressed little group behind her.

"Mary Vance always says something that makes us feel bad when she comes
up," said Una resentfully.

"I wish we'd left her to starve in the old barn," said Jerry
vindictively.

"Oh, that's wicked, Jerry," rebuked Una.

"May as well have the game as the name," retorted unrepentant Jerry. "If
people say we're so bad let's BE bad."

"But not if it hurts father," pleaded Faith.

Jerry squirmed uncomfortably. He adored his father. Through the unshaded
study window they could see Mr. Meredith at his desk. He did not seem
to be either reading or writing. His head was in his hands and there was
something in his whole attitude that spoke of weariness and dejection.
The children suddenly felt it.

"I dare say somebody's been worrying him about us to-day," said Faith.
"I wish we COULD get along without making people talk. Oh--Jem Blythe!
How you scared me!"

Jem Blythe had slipped into the graveyard and sat down beside the girls.
He had been prowling about Rainbow Valley and had succeeded in finding
the first little star-white cluster of arbutus for his mother. The manse
children were rather silent after his coming. Jem was beginning to grow
away from them somewhat this spring. He was studying for the entrance
examination of Queen's Academy and stayed after school with the older
pupils for extra lessons. Also, his evenings were so full of work that
he seldom joined the others in Rainbow Valley now. He seemed to be
drifting away into grown-up land.

"What is the matter with you all to-night?" he asked. "There's no fun in
you."

"Not much," agreed Faith dolefully. "There wouldn't be much fun in you
either if YOU knew you were disgracing your father and making people
talk about you."

"Who's been talking about you now?"

"Everybody--so Mary Vance says." And Faith poured out her troubles to
sympathetic Jem. "You see," she concluded dolefully, "we've nobody to
bring us up. And so we get into scrapes and people think we're bad."

"Why don't you bring yourselves up?" suggested Jem. "I'll tell you what
to do. Form a Good-Conduct Club and punish yourselves every time you do
anything that's not right."

"That's a good idea," said Faith, struck by it. "But," she added
doubtfully, "things that don't seem a bit of harm to US seem simply
dreadful to other people. How can we tell? We can't be bothering father
all the time--and he has to be away a lot, anyhow."

"You could mostly tell if you stopped to think a thing over before doing
it and ask yourselves what the congregation would say about it," said
Jem. "The trouble is you just rush into things and don't think them over
at all. Mother says you're all too impulsive, just as she used to be.
The Good-Conduct Club would help you to think, if you were fair and
honest about punishing yourselves when you broke the rules. You'd have
to punish in some way that really HURT, or it wouldn't do any good."

"Whip each other?"

"Not exactly. You'd have to think up different ways of punishment
to suit the person. You wouldn't punish each other--you'd punish
YOURSELVES. I read all about such a club in a story-book. You try it and
see how it works."

"Let's," said Faith; and when Jem was gone they agreed they would. "If
things aren't right we've just got to make them right," said Faith,
resolutely.

"We've got to be fair and square, as Jem says," said Jerry. "This is a
club to bring ourselves up, seeing there's nobody else to do it. There's
no use in having many rules. Let's just have one and any of us that
breaks it has got to be punished hard."

"But HOW."

"We'll think that up as we go along. We'll hold a session of the club
here in the graveyard every night and talk over what we've done through
the day, and if we think we've done anything that isn't right or that
would disgrace dad the one that does it, or is responsible for it,
must be punished. That's the rule. We'll all decide on the kind of
punishment--it must be made to fit the crime, as Mr. Flagg says. And
the one that's, guilty will be bound to carry it out and no shirking.
There's going to be fun in this," concluded Jerry, with a relish.

"You suggested the soap-bubble party," said Faith.

"But that was before we'd formed the club," said Jerry hastily.
"Everything starts from to-night."

"But what if we can't agree on what's right, or what the punishment
ought to be? S'pose two of us thought of one thing and two another.
There ought to be five in a club like this."

"We can ask Jem Blythe to be umpire. He is the squarest boy in Glen St.
Mary. But I guess we can settle our own affairs mostly. We want to keep
this as much of a secret as we can. Don't breathe a word to Mary Vance.
She'd want to join and do the bringing up."

"_I_ think," said Faith, "that there's no use in spoiling every day by
dragging punishments in. Let's have a punishment day."

"We'd better choose Saturday because there is no school to interfere,"
suggested Una.

"And spoil the one holiday in the week," cried Faith. "Not much! No,
let's take Friday. That's fish day, anyhow, and we all hate fish. We may
as well have all the disagreeable things in one day. Then other days we
can go ahead and have a good time."

"Nonsense," said Jerry authoritatively. "Such a scheme wouldn't work at
all. We'll just punish ourselves as we go along and keep a clear slate.
Now, we all understand, don't we? This is a Good-Conduct Club, for the
purpose of bringing ourselves up. We agree to punish ourselves for bad
conduct, and always to stop before we do anything, no matter what, and
ask ourselves if it is likely to hurt dad in any way, and any one who
shirks is to be cast out of the club and never allowed to play with the
rest of us in Rainbow Valley again. Jem Blythe to be umpire in case
of disputes. No more taking bugs to Sunday School, Carl, and no more
chewing gum in public, if you please, Miss Faith."

"No more making fun of elders praying or going to the Methodist prayer
meeting," retorted Faith.

"Why, it isn't any harm to go to the Methodist prayer meeting,"
protested Jerry in amazement.

"Mrs. Elliott says it is, She says manse children have no business to go
anywhere but to Presbyterian things."

"Darn it, I won't give up going to the Methodist prayer meeting," cried
Jerry. "It's ten times more fun than ours is."

"You said a naughty word," cried Faith. "NOW, you've got to punish
yourself."

"Not till it's all down in black and white. We're only talking the club
over. It isn't really formed until we've written it out and signed
it. There's got to be a constitution and by-laws. And you KNOW there's
nothing wrong in going to a prayer meeting."

"But it's not only the wrong things we're to punish ourselves for, but
anything that might hurt father."

"It won't hurt anybody. You know Mrs. Elliott is cracked on the subject
of Methodists. Nobody else makes any fuss about my going. I always
behave myself. You ask Jem or Mrs. Blythe and see what they say. I'll
abide by their opinion. I'm going for the paper now and I'll bring out
the lantern and we'll all sign."

Fifteen minutes later the document was solemnly signed on Hezekiah
Pollock's tombstone, on the centre of which stood the smoky manse
lantern, while the children knelt around it. Mrs. Elder Clow was going
past at the moment and next day all the Glen heard that the manse
children had been having another praying competition and had wound it up
by chasing each other all over the graves with a lantern. This piece of
embroidery was probably suggested by the fact that, after the signing
and sealing was completed, Carl had taken the lantern and had walked
circumspectly to the little hollow to examine his ant-hill. The others
had gone quietly into the manse and to bed.

"Do you think it is true that father is going to marry Miss West?" Una
had tremulously asked of Faith, after their prayers had been said.

"I don't know, but I'd like it," said Faith.

"Oh, I wouldn't," said Una, chokingly. "She is nice the way she is. But
Mary Vance says it changes people ALTOGETHER to be made stepmothers.
They get horrid cross and mean and hateful then, and turn your father
against you. She says they're sure to do that. She never knew it to fail
in a single case."

"I don't believe Miss West would EVER try to do that," cried Faith.

"Mary says ANYBODY would. She knows ALL about stepmothers, Faith--she
says she's seen hundreds of them--and you've never seen one. Oh, Mary
has told me blood-curdling things about them. She says she knew of one
who whipped her husband's little girls on their bare shoulders till they
bled, and then shut them up in a cold, dark coal cellar all night. She
says they're ALL aching to do things like that."

"I don't believe Miss West would. You don't know her as well as I do,
Una. Just think of that sweet little bird she sent me. I love it far
more even than Adam."

"It's just being a stepmother changes them. Mary says they can't help
it. I wouldn't mind the whippings so much as having father hate us."

"You know nothing could make father hate us. Don't be silly, Una. I dare
say there's nothing to worry over. Likely if we run our club right and
bring ourselves up properly father won't think of marrying any one. And
if he does, I KNOW Miss West will be lovely to us."

But Una had no such conviction and she cried herself to sleep.



CHAPTER XXIV. A CHARITABLE IMPULSE

For a fortnight things ran smoothly in the Good-Conduct Club. It seemed
to work admirably. Not once was Jem Blythe called in as umpire. Not once
did any of the manse children set the Glen gossips by the ears. As for
their minor peccadilloes at home, they kept sharp tabs on each other and
gamely underwent their self-imposed punishment--generally a voluntary
absence from some gay Friday night frolic in Rainbow Valley, or a
sojourn in bed on some spring evening when all young bones ached to be
out and away. Faith, for whispering in Sunday School, condemned herself
to pass a whole day without speaking a single word, unless it was
absolutely necessary, and accomplished it. It was rather unfortunate
that Mr. Baker from over-harbour should have chosen that evening for
calling at the manse, and that Faith should have happened to go to
the door. Not one word did she reply to his genial greeting, but
went silently away to call her father briefly. Mr. Baker was slightly
offended and told his wife when he went home that that the biggest
Meredith girl seemed a very shy, sulky little thing, without manners
enough to speak when she was spoken to. But nothing worse came of it,
and generally their penances did no harm to themselves or anybody else.
All of them were beginning to feel quite cocksure that after all, it was
a very easy matter to bring yourself up.

"I guess people will soon see that we can behave ourselves properly as
well as anybody," said Faith jubilantly. "It isn't hard when we put our
minds to it."

She and Una were sitting on the Pollock tombstone. It had been a cold,
raw, wet day of spring storm and Rainbow Valley was out of the question
for girls, though the manse and the Ingleside boys were down there
fishing. The rain had held up, but the east wind blew mercilessly in
from the sea, cutting to bone and marrow. Spring was late in spite of
its early promise, and there was even yet a hard drift of old snow and
ice in the northern corner of the graveyard. Lida Marsh, who had come
up to bring the manse a mess of herring, slipped in through the gate
shivering. She belonged to the fishing village at the harbour mouth and
her father had, for thirty years, made a practice of sending a mess from
his first spring catch to the manse. He never darkened a church door;
he was a hard drinker and a reckless man, but as long as he sent those
herring up to the manse every spring, as his father had done before him,
he felt comfortably sure that his account with the Powers That Govern
was squared for the year. He would not have expected a good mackerel
catch if he had not so sent the first fruits of the season.

Lida was a mite of ten and looked younger, because she was such a small,
wizened little creature. To-night, as she sidled boldly enough up to
the manse girls, she looked as if she had never been warm since she was
born. Her face was purple and her pale-blue, bold little eyes were
red and watery. She wore a tattered print dress and a ragged woollen
comforter, tied across her thin shoulders and under her arms. She had
walked the three miles from the harbour mouth barefooted, over a road
where there was still snow and slush and mud. Her feet and legs were
as purple as her face. But Lida did not mind this much. She was used to
being cold, and she had been going barefooted for a month already, like
all the other swarming young fry of the fishing village. There was no
self-pity in her heart as she sat down on the tombstone and grinned
cheerfully at Faith and Una. Faith and Una grinned cheerfully back. They
knew Lida slightly, having met her once or twice the preceding summer
when they had gone down the harbour with the Blythes.

"Hello!" said Lida, "ain't this a fierce kind of a night? 'T'ain't fit
for a dog to be out, is it?"

"Then why are you out?" asked Faith.

"Pa made me bring you up some herring," returned Lida. She shivered,
coughed, and stuck out her bare feet. Lida was not thinking about
herself or her feet, and was making no bid for sympathy. She held
her feet out instinctively to keep them from the wet grass around the
tombstone. But Faith and Una were instantly swamped with a wave of pity
for her. She looked so cold--so miserable.

"Oh, why are you barefooted on such a cold night?" cried Faith. "Your
feet must be almost frozen."

"Pretty near," said Lida proudly. "I tell you it was fierce walking up
that harbour road."

"Why didn't you put on your shoes and stockings?" asked Una.

"Hain't none to put on. All I had was wore out by the time winter was
over," said Lida indifferently.

For a moment Faith stated in horror. This was terrible. Here was a
little girl, almost a neighbour, half frozen because she had no shoes
or stockings in this cruel spring weather. Impulsive Faith thought of
nothing but the dreadfulness of it. In a moment she was pulling off her
own shoes and stockings.

"Here, take these and put them right on," she said, forcing them into
the hands of the astonished Lida. "Quick now. You'll catch your death of
cold. I've got others. Put them right on."

Lida, recovering her wits, snatched at the offered gift, with a sparkle
in her dull eyes. Sure she would put them on, and that mighty quick,
before any one appeared with authority to recall them. In a minute
she had pulled the stockings over her scrawny little legs and slipped
Faith's shoes over her thick little ankles.

"I'm obliged to you," she said, "but won't your folks be cross?"

"No--and I don't care if they are," said Faith. "Do you think I could
see any one freezing to death without helping them if I could? It
wouldn't be right, especially when my father's a minister."

"Will you want them back? It's awful cold down at the harbour
mouth--long after it's warm up here," said Lida slyly.

"No, you're to keep them, of course. That is what I meant when I gave
them. I have another pair of shoes and plenty of stockings."

Lida had meant to stay awhile and talk to the girls about many things.
But now she thought she had better get away before somebody came and
made her yield up her booty. So she shuffled off through the bitter
twilight, in the noiseless, shadowy way she had slipped in. As soon as
she was out of sight of the manse she sat down, took off the shoes and
stockings, and put them in her herring basket. She had no intention of
keeping them on down that dirty harbour road. They were to be kept good
for gala occasions. Not another little girl down at the harbour mouth
had such fine black cashmere stockings and such smart, almost new
shoes. Lida was furnished forth for the summer. She had no qualms in the
matter. In her eyes the manse people were quite fabulously rich, and
no doubt those girls had slathers of shoes and stockings. Then Lida ran
down to the Glen village and played for an hour with the boys before Mr.
Flagg's store, splashing about in a pool of slush with the maddest of
them, until Mrs. Elliott came along and bade her begone home.

"I don't think, Faith, that you should have done that," said Una, a
little reproachfully, after Lida had gone. "You'll have to wear your
good boots every day now and they'll soon scuff out."

"I don't care," cried Faith, still in the fine glow of having done a
kindness to a fellow creature. "It isn't fair that I should have two
pairs of shoes and poor little Lida Marsh not have any. NOW we both have
a pair. You know perfectly well, Una, that father said in his sermon
last Sunday that there was no real happiness in getting or having--only
in giving. And it's true. I feel FAR happier now than I ever did in my
whole life before. Just think of Lida walking home this very minute with
her poor little feet all nice and warm and comfy."

"You know you haven't another pair of black cashmere stockings," said
Una. "Your other pair were so full of holes that Aunt Martha said she
couldn't darn them any more and she cut the legs up for stove dusters.
You've nothing but those two pairs of striped stockings you hate so."

All the glow and uplift went out of Faith. Her gladness collapsed like a
pricked balloon. She sat for a few dismal minutes in silence, facing the
consequences of her rash act.

"Oh, Una, I never thought of that," she said dolefully. "I didn't stop
to think at all."

The striped stockings were thick, heavy, coarse, ribbed stockings of
blue and red which Aunt Martha had knit for Faith in the winter. They
were undoubtedly hideous. Faith loathed them as she had never loathed
anything before. Wear them she certainly would not. They were still
unworn in her bureau drawer.

"You'll have to wear the striped stockings after this," said Una. "Just
think how the boys in school will laugh at you. You know how they laugh
at Mamie Warren for her striped stockings and call her barber pole and
yours are far worse."

"I won't wear them," said Faith. "I'll go barefooted first, cold as it
is."

"You can't go barefooted to church to-morrow. Think what people would
say."

"Then I'll stay home."

"You can't. You know very well Aunt Martha will make you go."

Faith did know this. The one thing on which Aunt Martha troubled herself
to insist was that they must all go to church, rain or shine. How they
were dressed, or if they were dressed at all, never concerned her. But
go they must. That was how Aunt Martha had been brought up seventy years
ago, and that was how she meant to bring them up.

"Haven't you got a pair you can lend me, Una?" said poor Faith
piteously.

Una shook her head. "No, you know I only have the one black pair. And
they're so tight I can hardly get them on. They wouldn't go on you.
Neither would my gray ones. Besides, the legs of THEM are all darned AND
darned."

"I won't wear those striped stockings," said Faith stubbornly. "The feel
of them is even worse than the looks. They make me feel as if my legs
were as big as barrels and they're so SCRATCHY."

"Well, I don't know what you're going to do."

"If father was home I'd go and ask him to get me a new pair before
the store closes. But he won't be home till too late. I'll ask him
Monday--and I won't go to church tomorrow. I'll pretend I'm sick and
Aunt Martha'll HAVE to let me stay home."

"That would be acting a lie, Faith," cried Una. "You CAN'T do that. You
know it would be dreadful. What would father say if he knew? Don't
you remember how he talked to us after mother died and told us we must
always be TRUE, no matter what else we failed in. He said we must never
tell or act a lie--he said he'd TRUST us not to. You CAN'T do it, Faith.
Just wear the striped stockings. It'll only be for once. Nobody will
notice them in church. It isn't like school. And your new brown dress is
so long they won't show much. Wasn't it lucky Aunt Martha made it big,
so you'd have room to grow in it, for all you hated it so when she
finished it?"

"I won't wear those stockings," repeated Faith. She uncoiled her bare,
white legs from the tombstone and deliberately walked through the wet,
cold grass to the bank of snow. Setting her teeth, she stepped upon it
and stood there.

"What are you doing?" cried Una aghast. "You'll catch your death of
cold, Faith Meredith."

"I'm trying to," answered Faith. "I hope I'll catch a fearful cold and
be AWFUL sick to-morrow. Then I won't be acting a lie. I'm going to
stand here as long as I can bear it."

"But, Faith, you might really die. You might get pneumonia. Please,
Faith don't. Let's go into the house and get SOMETHING for your feet.
Oh, here's Jerry. I'm so thankful. Jerry, MAKE Faith get off that snow.
Look at her feet."

"Holy cats! Faith, what ARE you doing?" demanded Jerry. "Are you crazy?"

"No. Go away!" snapped Faith.

"Then are you punishing yourself for something? It isn't right, if you
are. You'll be sick."

"I want to be sick. I'm not punishing myself. Go away."

"Where's her shoes and stockings?" asked Jerry of Una.

"She gave them to Lida Marsh."

"Lida Marsh? What for?"

"Because Lida had none--and her feet were so cold. And now she wants to
be sick so that she won't have to go to church to-morrow and wear her
striped stockings. But, Jerry, she may die."

"Faith," said Jerry, "get off that ice-bank or I'll pull you off."

"Pull away," dared Faith.

Jerry sprang at her and caught her arms. He pulled one way and Faith
pulled another. Una ran behind Faith and pushed. Faith stormed at Jerry
to leave her alone. Jerry stormed back at her not to be a dizzy idiot;
and Una cried. They made no end of noise and they were close to the road
fence of the graveyard. Henry Warren and his wife drove by and heard
and saw them. Very soon the Glen heard that the manse children had been
having an awful fight in the graveyard and using most improper language.
Meanwhile, Faith had allowed herself to be pulled off the ice because
her feet were aching so sharply that she was ready to get off any way.
They all went in amiably and went to bed. Faith slept like a cherub
and woke in the morning without a trace of a cold. She felt that she
couldn't feign sickness and act a lie, after remembering that long-ago
talk with her father. But she was still as fully determined as ever that
she would not wear those abominable stockings to church.



CHAPTER XXV. ANOTHER SCANDAL AND ANOTHER "EXPLANATION"

Faith went early to Sunday School and was seated in the corner of her
class pew before any one came. Therefore, the dreadful truth did not
burst upon any one until Faith left the class pew near the door to walk
up to the manse pew after Sunday School. The church was already half
filled and all who were sitting near the aisle saw that the minister's
daughter had boots on but no stockings!

Faith's new brown dress, which Aunt Martha had made from an ancient
pattern, was absurdly long for her, but even so it did not meet her
boot-tops. Two good inches of bare white leg showed plainly.

Faith and Carl sat alone in the manse pew. Jerry had gone into the
gallery to sit with a chum and the Blythe girls had taken Una with them.
The Meredith children were given to "sitting all over the church" in
this fashion and a great many people thought it very improper. The
gallery especially, where irresponsible lads congregated and were known
to whisper and suspected of chewing tobacco during service, was no
place, for a son of the manse. But Jerry hated the manse pew at the
very top of the church, under the eyes of Elder Clow and his family. He
escaped from it whenever he could.

Carl, absorbed in watching a spider spinning its web at the window, did
not notice Faith's legs. She walked home with her father after church
and he never noticed them. She got on the hated striped stockings before
Jerry and Una arrived, so that for the time being none of the occupants
of the manse knew what she had done. But nobody else in Glen St. Mary
was ignorant of it. The few who had not seen soon heard. Nothing else
was talked of on the way home from church. Mrs. Alec Davis said it was
only what she expected, and the next thing you would see some of those
young ones coming to church with no clothes on at all. The president of
the Ladies' Aid decided that she would bring the matter up at the next
Aid meeting, and suggest that they wait in a body on the minister and
protest. Miss Cornelia said that she, for her part, gave up. There was
no use worrying over the manse fry any longer. Even Mrs. Dr. Blythe felt
a little shocked, though she attributed the occurrence solely to Faith's
forgetfulness. Susan could not immediately begin knitting stockings for
Faith because it was Sunday, but she had one set up before any one else
was out of bed at Ingleside the next morning.

"You need not tell me anything but that it was old Martha's fault,
Mrs. Dr. dear." she told Anne. "I suppose that poor little child had no
decent stockings to wear. I suppose every stocking she had was in holes,
as you know very well they generally are. And _I_ think, Mrs. Dr. dear,
that the Ladies' Aid would be better employed in knitting some for them
than in fighting over the new carpet for the pulpit platform. _I_ am not
a Ladies' Aider, but I shall knit Faith two pairs of stockings, out of
this nice black yarn, as fast as my fingers can move and that you may
tie to. Never shall I forget my sensations, Mrs. Dr. dear, when I saw
a minister's child walking up the aisle of our church with no stockings
on. I really did not know what way to look."

"And the church was just full of Methodists yesterday, too," groaned
Miss Cornelia, who had come up to the Glen to do some shopping and run
into Ingleside to talk the affair over. "I don't know how it is, but
just as sure as those manse children do something especially awful the
church is sure to be crowded with Methodists. I thought Mrs. Deacon
Hazard's eyes would drop out of her head. When she came out of church
she said, 'Well, that exhibition was no more than decent. I do pity the
Presbyterians.' And we just had to TAKE it. There was nothing one could
say."

"There was something _I_ could have said, Mrs. Dr. dear, if I had heard
her," said Susan grimly. "I would have said, for one thing, that in my
opinion clean bare legs were quite as decent as holes. And I would have
said, for another, that the Presbyterians did not feel greatly in
need of pity seeing that they had a minister who could PREACH and the
Methodists had NOT. I could have squelched Mrs. Deacon Hazard, Mrs. Dr
dear, and that you may tie to."

"I wish Mr. Meredith didn't preach quite so well and looked after his
family a little better," retorted Miss Cornelia. "He could at least
glance over his children before they went to church and see that they
were quite properly clothed. I'm tired making excuses for him, believe
ME."

Meanwhile, Faith's soul was being harrowed up in Rainbow Valley. Mary
Vance was there and, as usual, in a lecturing mood. She gave Faith
to understand that she had disgraced herself and her father beyond
redemption and that she, Mary Vance, was done with her. "Everybody" was
talking, and "everybody" said the same thing.

"I simply feel that I can't associate with you any longer," she
concluded.

"WE are going to associate with her then," cried Nan Blythe. Nan
secretly thought Faith HAD done a awful thing, but she wasn't going to
let Mary Vance run matters in this high-handed fashion. "And if YOU are
not you needn't come any more to Rainbow Valley, MISS Vance."

Nan and Di both put their arms around Faith and glared defiance at Mary.
The latter suddenly crumpled up, sat down on a stump and began to cry.

"It ain't that I don't want to," she wailed. "But if I keep in with
Faith people'll be saying I put her up to doing things. Some are saying
it now, true's you live. I can't afford to have such things said of me,
now that I'm in a respectable place and trying to be a lady. And _I_
never went bare-legged in church in my toughest days. I'd never have
thought of doing such a thing. But that hateful old Kitty Alec says
Faith has never been the same girl since that time I stayed in the
manse. She says Cornelia Elliott will live to rue the day she took me
in. It hurts my feelings, I tell you. But it's Mr. Meredith I'm really
worried over."

"I think you needn't worry about him," said Di scornfully. "It isn't
likely necessary. Now, Faith darling, stop crying and tell us why you
did it."

Faith explained tearfully. The Blythe girls sympathized with her, and
even Mary Vance agreed that it was a hard position to be in. But Jerry,
on whom the thing came like a thunderbolt, refused to be placated. So
THIS was what some mysterious hints he had got in school that day meant!
He marched Faith and Una home without ceremony, and the Good-Conduct
Club held an immediate session in the graveyard to sit in judgment on
Faith's case.

"I don't see that it was any harm," said Faith defiantly. "Not MUCH of
my legs showed. It wasn't WRONG and it didn't hurt anybody."

"It will hurt Dad. You KNOW it will. You know people blame him whenever
we do anything queer."

"I didn't think of that," muttered Faith.

"That's just the trouble. You didn't think and you SHOULD have thought.
That's what our Club is for--to bring us up and MAKE us think. We
promised we'd always stop and think before doing things. You didn't and
you've got to be punished, Faith--and real hard, too. You'll wear those
striped stockings to school for a week for punishment."

"Oh, Jerry, won't a day do--two days? Not a whole week!"

"Yes, a whole week," said inexorable Jerry. "It is fair--ask Jem Blythe
if it isn't."

Faith felt she would rather submit then ask Jem Blythe about such
a matter. She was beginning to realize that her offence was a quite
shameful one.

"I'll do it, then," she muttered, a little sulkily.

"You're getting off easy," said, Jerry severely. "And no matter how we
punish you it won't help father. People will always think you just did
it for mischief, and they'll blame father for not stopping it. We can
never explain it to everybody."

This aspect of the case weighed on Faith's mind. Her own condemnation
she could bear, but it tortured her that her father should be blamed. If
people knew the true facts of the case they would not blame him. But how
could she make them known to all the world? Getting up in church, as she
had once done, and explaining the matter was out of the question. Faith
had heard from Mary Vance how the congregation had looked upon that
performance and realized that she must not repeat it. Faith worried over
the problem for half a week. Then she had an inspiration and promptly
acted upon it. She spent that evening in the garret, with a lamp and an
exercise book, writing busily, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. It
was the very thing! How clever she was to have thought of it! It would
put everything right and explain everything and yet cause no scandal. It
was eleven o'clock when she had finished to her satisfaction and crept
down to bed, dreadfully tired, but perfectly happy.

In a few days the little weekly published in the Glen under the name of
_The Journal_ came out as usual, and the Glen had another sensation. A
letter signed "Faith Meredith" occupied a prominent place on the front
page and ran as follows:--

"TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

"I want to explain to everybody how it was I came to go to church without
stockings on, so that everybody will know that father was not to blame
one bit for it, and the old gossips need not say he is, because it is
not true. I gave my only pair of black stockings to Lida Marsh, because
she hadn't any and her poor little feet were awful cold and I was so
sorry for her. No child ought to have to go without shoes and stockings
in a Christian community before the snow is all gone, and I think the W.
F. M. S. ought to have given her stockings. Of course, I know they are
sending things to the little heathen children, and that is all right and
a kind thing to do. But the little heathen children have lots more warm
weather than we have, and I think the women of our church ought to look
after Lida and not leave it all to me. When I gave her my stockings I
forgot they were the only black pair I had without holes, but I am
glad I did give them to her, because my conscience would have been
uncomfortable if I hadn't. When she had gone away, looking so proud and
happy, the poor little thing, I remembered that all I had to wear were
the horrid red and blue things Aunt Martha knit last winter for me
out of some yarn that Mrs. Joseph Burr of Upper Glen sent us. It was
dreadfully coarse yarn and all knots, and I never saw any of Mrs. Burr's
own children wearing things made of such yarn. But Mary Vance says Mrs.
Burr gives the minister stuff that she can't use or eat herself, and
thinks it ought to go as part of the salary her husband signed to pay,
but never does.

"I just couldn't bear to wear those hateful stockings. They were so ugly
and rough and felt so scratchy. Everybody would have made fun of me. I
thought at first I'd pretend to be sick and not go to church next day,
but I decided I couldn't do that, because it would be acting a lie, and
father told us after mother died that was something we must never, never
do. It is just as bad to act a lie as to tell one, though I know some
people, right here in the Glen, who act them, and never seem to feel a
bit bad about it. I will not mention any names, but I know who they are
and so does father.

"Then I tried my best to catch cold and really be sick by standing on the
snowbank in the Methodist graveyard with my bare feet until Jerry pulled
me off. But it didn't hurt me a bit and so I couldn't get out of going
to church. So I just decided I would put my boots on and go that way. I
can't see why it was so wrong and I was so careful to wash my legs just
as clean as my face, but, anyway, father wasn't to blame for it. He was
in the study thinking of his sermon and other heavenly things, and I
kept out of his way before I went to Sunday School. Father does not look
at people's legs in church, so of course he did not notice mine, but all
the gossips did and talked about it, and that is why I am writing this
letter to the _Journal_ to explain. I suppose I did very wrong, since
everybody says so, and I am sorry and I am wearing those awful stockings
to punish myself, although father bought me two nice new black pairs as
soon as Mr. Flagg's store opened on Monday morning. But it was all my
fault, and if people blame father for it after they read this they are
not Christians and so I do not mind what they say.

"There is another thing I want to explain about before I stop. Mary
Vance told me that Mr. Evan Boyd is blaming the Lew Baxters for stealing
potatoes out of his field last fall. They did not touch his potatoes.
They are very poor, but they are honest. It was us did it--Jerry and
Carl and I. Una was not with us at the time. We never thought it was
stealing. We just wanted a few potatoes to cook over a fire in Rainbow
Valley one evening to eat with our fried trout. Mr. Boyd's field was the
nearest, just between the valley and the village, so we climbed over his
fence and pulled up some stalks. The potatoes were awful small, because
Mr. Boyd did not put enough fertilizer on them and we had to pull up a
lot of stalks before we got enough, and then they were not much bigger
than marbles. Walter and Di Blythe helped us eat them, but they did not
come along until we had them cooked and did not know where we got them,
so they were not to blame at all, only us. We didn't mean any harm, but
if it was stealing we are very sorry and we will pay Mr. Boyd for them
if he will wait until we grow up. We never have any money now because we
are not big enough to earn any, and Aunt Martha says it takes every cent
of poor father's salary, even when it is paid up regularly--and it isn't
often--to run this house. But Mr. Boyd must not blame the Lew Baxters
any more, when they were quite innocent, and give them a bad name.

"Yours respectfully,

"FAITH MEREDITH."