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THE


LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
BY
W. D. HOWELLS,
AUTHOR OF "A FOREGONE CONCLUSION," "A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE,"
"VENETIAN LIFE," ETC.


BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY.
Cbe Riberttre i-prtes, ~8ambritbe.
1879.




COPYRIGHT, 1879,
By W. D. HOWELLS.
RIVERSIDE) CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED HEY
H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


I.
IN the best room of a farm-house on the skirts of
a village in the hills of Northern Massachusetts,
there sat one morning in August three people who
were not strangers to the house, but who had apparently assembled in the parlor as the place most
in accord with an unaccustomed finery in their
dress. One was an elderly woman with a plain,
honest face, as kindly in expression as she could be
perfectly sure she felt, and no more; she rocked
herself softly in the haircloth arm-chair, and addressed as father the old man who sat at one end
of the table between the windows, and drubbed
noiselessly upon it with his stubbed fingers, while
his lips, puckered to a whistle, emitted no sound.
His face had that distinctly fresh-shaven effect
which once a week is the advantage of shaving no
oftener: here and there, in the deeper wrinkles, a
frosty stubble had escaped the razor. He wore an
old-fashioned, low black satin stock, over the top
of which the linen of his unstarched collar contrived with difficulty to make itself seen; his highcrowned, lead-colored straw hat lay on the table
1




2


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


before him. At the other end of the table sat a
young girl, who leaned upon it with one arm, propping her averted face on her hand. The window
was open beside her, and she was staring out upon
the door-yard, where the hens were burrowing for
coolness in the soft earth under the lilac bushes;
from time to time she put her handkerchief to her
eyes.
"I don't like this part of it, father," said the
elderly woman,- " Lyddy's seeming to feel about
it the way she does right at the last moment, as
you may say." The old man made a noise in his
throat as if he might speak; but he only unpuckered his mouth, and stayed his fingers, while
the other continued: " I don't want her to go now,
no more than ever I did. I ain't one to think that
eatin' up everything on your plate keeps it from
wastin', and I never was; and I say that even if
you could n't get the money back, it would cost no
more to have her stay than to have her go."
"I don't suppose," said the old man, in a high,
husky treble, "but what I could get some of it
back from the captain; may be all. He didn't
seem any ways graspin'.  I don't want Lyddy
should feel, any more than you do, Maria, that
we 're glad to have her go. But what I look at is
this: as long as she has this idea -  Well, it's
like this - I d' know as I can express it, either."
He relapsed into the comfort people find in giving
up a difficult thing.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK..3


"Oh, I know!" returned the woman. "I understand it's an opportunity; you might call it a
leadin', almost, that it would be flyin' in the face of
Providence to refuse. I presume her gifts were
given her for improvement, and it would be the
same as buryin' them in the ground for her to stay
up here. But I do say that I want Lyddy should
feel just so about goin', or not go at all. It ain't
like goin' among strangers, though, if it is in a
strange land. They're her father's own kin, and if
they're any ways like him they're warm-hearted
enough, if that's all you want. I guess they'll
do what's right by Lyddy when she gets there.
And I try to look at it this way: that long before
that maple by the gate is red she '11 be with her
father's own sister; and I for one don't mean to let
it worry me." She made search for her handkerchief, and wiped away the tears that fell down her
cheeks.
" Yes," returned the old man; "and before the
leaves are on the ground we shall more 'n have got
our first letter from  her. I declare for't," he
added, after a tremulous pause, '" I was goin' to saty
how Lyddy would enjoy readin' it to us! I don't
seem to get it rightly into my head that she's goin'
away."
" It ain't as if Lyddy was leavin' any life behind
her that's over and above pleasant," resumed the
woman. "She's a good girl, and I never want to
see a more uncomplainin'; but I know it's duller




4


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


and duller here all the while for her, with us two
old folks, and no young company; and I d' know as
it's been any better the two winters she 's taught
in the Mill Village. That's what reconciles me,
on Lyddy's account, as much as anything. I ain't
one to set much store on worldly ambition, and I
never was; and I d' know as I care for Lyddy's advancement, as you may call it. I believe that as
far forth as true happiness goes she 'd be as well off
here as there. But I don't say but what she would
be more satisfied in the end, and as long as you
can't have happiness, in this world, I say you'd
better have satisfaction. Is that Josiah Whitman's
hearse goin' past?" she asked, rising from her
chair, and craning forward to bring her eyes on
a level with the window, while she suspended the
agitation of the palm-leaf fan which she had not
ceased to ply during her talk; she remained a moment with the quiescent fan pressed against her
bosom, and then she stepped out of the door, and
down the walk to the gate. " Josiah! " she called,
while the old man looked and listened at the window. " Who you be'n buryin'? "
The man halted his hearse, and answered briefly,
"Mirandy Holcomb."
" Why, I thought the funeral wa' n't to be till tomorrow! Well, I declare," said the woman, as she
reentered the room and sat down again in her rocking-chair, "I did n't ask him whether it was Mr.
Goodlow or Mr. Baldwin preached the sermon.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


5


I was so put out hearin' it was Mirandy, you might
say I forgot to ask him anything. Mirandy was
always a well woman till they moved down to the
Mill Village and began takin' the hands to board,
-so many of 'em. When I think of Lyddy's
teachin' there another winter, - well, I could almost rejoice that she was goin' away. She ain't a
mite too strong as it is."
Here the woman paused, and the old man struck
in with his quaint treble while she fanned herself in
silence: "I do suppose the voyage is goin' to be
everything for her health. She '11 be from a month
to six weeks gettin' to Try-East, and that'll be a
complete change of air, Mr. Goodlow says. And
she won't have a care on her mind the whole way
out. It '11 be a season of rest and quiet. I did wish,
just for the joke of the thing, as you may say, that
the ship had be'n goin' straight to Venus, and
Lyddy could 'a' walked right in on 'em at breakfast,
some morning. I should liked it to be'n a surprise.
But there wa'n't any ship at Boston loadin' for
Venus, and they did n't much believe I'd find one
at New York. So I just took up with the captain
of the Aroostook's offer. He says she can telegraph
to her folks at Venus as soon as she gets to TryEast, and she's welcome to stay on the ship till they
come for her. I didn't think of their havin' our
mod'n improvements out there; but he says they
have telegraphs and railroads everywheres, the same
as we do; and they're real kind and polite when




6


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


you get used to 'em. The captain, he's as nice a
man as I ever see. His wife's be'n two or three
voyages with him in the Aroostook, and he '11 know
just how to have Lyddy's comfort looked after. He
showed me the state-room she's goin' to have. Well,
it ain't over and above large, but it's pretty as a
pink: all clean white paint, with a solid mahogany
edge to the berth, and a mahogany-framed lookin'glass on one side, and little winders at the top, and
white lace curtains to the bed. He says he had it
fixed up for his wife, and he lets Lyddy have it all
for her own. She can set there and do her mendin'
when she don't feel like comin' into the cabin. The
cabin - well, I wish you could see that cabin, Maria!
The first mate is a fine-appearing man, too. Some
of the sailors looked pretty rough; but I guess it
was as much their clothes as anything; and I
d' know as Lyddy'd have a great deal to do with
them, any way." The old man's treble ceased, and
at the same moment the shrilling of a locust in one
of the door-yard maples died away; both voices,
arid, nasal, and high, lapsed as one into a common
silence.
The woman stirred impatiently in her chair, as if
both voices had been repeating something heard
many times before. They seemed to renew her discontent. " Yes, I know; I know all that, father.
But it ain't the mahogany I think of. It's the
child's gettin' there safe and well."
" Well," said the old man, "I asked the captain




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


7


about the seasickness, and he says she ain't nigh so
likely to be sick as she would on the steamer; the
motion's more regular, and she won't have the
smell of the machinery.  That's what he said.
And he said the seasickness would do her good, any
way. I 'm sure I don't want her to be sick any
more than you do, Maria." He added this like one
who has been unjustly put upon his defense.
They now both remained silent, the woman rocking herself and fanning, and the old man holding
his fingers suspended from their drubbing upon the
table, and looking miserably from the woman in the
rocking-chair to the girl at the window, as if a strict
inquiry into the present situation might convict him
of it in spite of his innocence. The girl still sat
with her face turned from them, and still from time
to time she put her handkerchief to her eyes and
wiped away the tears. The locust in the maple began again, and shrilled inexorably. Suddenly the
girl leaped to her feet.
" There 's the stage! " she cried, with a tumult
in her voice and manner, and a kind of choking
sob. She showed, now that she stood upright, the
slim and elegant shape which is the divine right of
American girlhood, clothed with the stylishness that
instinctive taste may evoke, even in a hill town,
from study of paper patterns, Harper's Bazar, and
the costume of summer boarders. Her dress was
carried with spirit and effect.
" Lydia Blood! " cried the other woman, spring

a




8


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


ing responsively to her feet, also, and starting toward the girl, " don't you go a step without you feel
just like it! Take off your things this minute and
stay, if you wouldn't jus' as lives go. It's hard
enough to have you go, child, without seemin' to
force you! "
"Oh, aunt Maria," answered the girl, piteously,
"it almost kills me to go; but I'm doing it, not
you. I know how you 'd like to have me stay.
But don't say it again, or I could n't bear up; and
I'm going now, if I have to be carried."
The old man had risen with the others; he was
shorter than either, and as he looked at them he
seemed half awed, half bewildered, by so much
drama. Yet it was comparatively very little. The
girl did not offer to cast herself upon her aunt's
neck, and her aunt did not offer her an embrace;
it was only their hearts that clung together as they
simply shook hands and kissed each other. Lydia
whirled away for her last look at herself in the
glass over the table, and her aunt tremulously
began to put to rights some slight disorder in the
girl's hat.
"Father," she said sharply, "are Lyddy's things
all ready there by the door, so's not to keep Ezra
Perkins waitin'? You know he always grumbles
so. And then he gets you to the cars so 't you have
to wait half an hour before they start." She continued to pin and pull at details of Lydia's dress, to
which she descended from her hat. "It sets real
nice on you, Lyddy. I guess you '11 think of the




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


9


time we had gettin' it made up, when you wear it
out there." Miss Maria Latham laughed nervously.
With a harsh banging and rattling, a yellow
Concord coach drew up at the gate where Miss
Maria had stopped the hearse.  The driver got
down, and without a word put Lydia's boxes and
bags into the boot, and left two or three light parcels for her to take into the coach with her.
Miss Maria went down to the gate with her father and niece. " Take the back seat, father! " she
said, as the old man offered to take the middle
place. "Let them   that come later have what's
left. You'll be home to-night, father; I'11 set up
for you.  Good-by again, Lyddy."   She did not
kiss the girl again, or touch her hand. Their decent and sparing adieux had been made in the
house. As Miss Maria returned to the door, the
hens, cowering conscience-stricken under the lilacs,
sprang up at sight of her with a screech of guilty
alarm, and flew out over the fence.
"Well, I vow," soliloquized Miss Maria, "from
where she set Lyddy must have seen them pests
under the lilacs the whole time, and never said a
word."   She pushed the loosened soil into place
with the side of her ample slipper, and then went
into the house, where she kindled a fire in the
kitchen stove, and made herself a cup of Japan
tea: a variety of the herb which our country people prefer, apparently because it affords the same
stimulus with none of the pleasure given by the
Chinese leaf.


A




II.


LYDIA and her grandfather reached Boston at
four o'clock, and the old man made a bargain, as he
fancied, with an expressman to carry her baggage
across the city to the wharf at which the Aroostook
lay. The expressman civilly offered to take their
small parcels without charge, and deliver them with
the trunk and large bag; but as he could not check
them all her grandfather judged it safest not to
part with them, and he and Lydia crowded into the
horse-car with their arms and hands full. The conductor obliged him to give up the largest of these
burdens, and hung the old-fashioned oil-cloth sack
on the handle of the brake behind, where Mr.
Latham with keen anxiety, and Lydia with shame,
watched it as it swayed back and forth with the
motion of the car and threatened to break loose
from its hand-straps and dash its bloated bulk to
the ground. The old man called out to the conductor to be sure and stop in Scollay's Square, and
the people, who had already stared uncomfortably
at Lydia's bundles, all smiled. Her grandfather
was going to repeat his direction as the conductor
made no sign of having heard it, when his neighbor
said kindly, "The car always stops in Scollay's
Square."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


11


" Then why could n't he say so?" retorted the
old man, in his high nasal key; and now the people
laughed outright. He had the nervous restlessness
of age when out of its wonted place: he could not
remain quiet in the car, for counting and securing
his parcels; when they reached Scollay's Square,
and were to change cars, he ran to the car they were
to take, though there was abundant time, and sat
down breathless from his effort. He was eager then
that they should not be carried too far, and was
constantly turning to look out of the window to ascertain their whereabouts. His vigilance ended in
their getting aboard the East Boston ferry-boat in
the car, and hardly getting ashore before the boat
started. They now gathered up their burdens once
more, and walked toward the wharf they were seeking, past those squalid streets which open upon the
docks. At the corners they entangled themselves
in knots of truck-teams and hucksters' wagons and
horse-cars; once they brought the traffic of the
neighborhood to a stand-still by the thoroughness
of their inability and confusion. They wandered
down the wrong wharf amidst the slime cast up by
the fishing craft moored in the dock below, and
made their way over heaps of chains and cordage, and through the hand-carts pushed hither and
thither with their loads of fish, and so struggled
back to the avenue which ran along the top of all
the wharves.  The water of the docks was of a
livid turbidity, which teemed with the gelatinous




12


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


globes of the sun-fish; and people were rowing
about there in pleasure-boats, and sailors on floats
were painting the hulls of the black ships. The
faces of the men they met were red and sunburned
mostly, - not with the sunburn of the fields, but
of the sea; these men lurched in their gait with
an uncouth heaviness, yet gave them way kindly
enough; but certain dull-eyed, frowzy-headed women seemed to push purposely against her grandfather, and one of them swore at Lydia for taking up
all the sidewalk with her bundles.  There were
such dull eyes and slattern heads at the open windows of the shabby houses; and there were gaunt,
bold-faced young girls who strolled up and down
the pavements, bonnetless and hatless, and chatted
into the windows, and joked with other such girls
whom they met. Suddenly a wild outcry rose from
the swarming children up one of the intersecting
streets, where a woman was beating a small boy
over the head with a heavy stick: the boy fell howling and writhing to the ground, and the cruel blows
still rained upon him, till another woman darted
from an open door and caught the child up with
one hand, and with the other wrenched the stick
away and flung it into the street. No words passed,
and there was nothing to show whose child the vietim was; the first woman walked off, and while the
boy rubbed his head and arms, and screamed with
the pain, the other children, whose sports had been
scarcely interrupted, were shouting and laughing all
about him again.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


13


"Grandfather," said Lydia faintly, "let us go
down here, and rest a moment in the shade. I'm
almost worn out."  She pointed to the open and
quiet space at the side of the lofty granite warehouse which they had reached.
Well, I guess I'll set down a minute, too," said
her grandfather. " Lyddy," he added, as they released their aching arms from their bags and bundles, and sank upon the broad threshold of a door
which seemed to have been shut ever since the
decay of the India trade, " I don't believe but what
it would have be'n about as cheap in the end to
come down in a hack. But I acted for what I
thought was the best. I supposed we'd be'n there
before now, and the idea of givin' a dollar for ridin'
about ten minutes did seem sinful. I ainl't noways
afraid the ship will sail without you. Don't you
fret any. I don't seem to know rightly just where
I am, but after we' ve rested a spell I '11 leave you
here, and inquire round. It's a real quiet place,
and I guess your things will be safe."
He took off his straw hat and fanned his face
with it, while Lydia leaned her head against the
door frame and closed her eyes. Presently she
heard the trampling of feet going by, but she did
not open her eyes till the feet paused in a hesitating way, and a voice asked her grandfather, in the
firm, neat tone which she had heard summer boarders from Boston use, " Is the young lady ill?" She
now looked up, and blushed like fire to see two hand.




14       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


some young men regarding her with frank compassion.
" No," said her grandfather; '" a little beat out,
that 's all.  We 've been trying to find Lucas
Wharf, and we don't seem somehow just to hit
on it."
"This is Lucas Wharf," said the young man.
He made an instinctive gesture of salutation toward
his hat, with the hand in which he held a cigar; he
put the cigar into his mouth as he turned from
them, and the smoke drifted fragrantly back to
Lydia as he tramped steadily and strongly on down
the wharf, shoulder to shoulder with his companion.
" Well, I declare for 't, so it is," said her grandfather, getting stiffly to his feet and retiring a few
paces to gain a view of the building at the base
of which they had been sitting. "Why, I might
known it by this buildin'! But where 's the Aroostook, if this is Lucas Wharf? " He looked wistfully in the direction the young men had taken, but
they were already too far to call after.
"Grandfather," said the girl, " do I look pale?"
Well, you don't now," answered the old man,
simply. " You 've got a good color now."
" What right had he," she demanded, " to speak
to you about me? "
" I d' know but what you did look rather pale,
as you set there with your head leaned back. I
d' know as I noticed much."
" He took us for two beggars, - two tramps!"




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


15


she exclaimed, " sitting here with our bundles scattered round us!
The old man did not respond to this conjecture;
it probably involved matters beyond his emotional
reach, though he might have understood them when
he was younger. He stood a moment with his
mouth puckered to a whistle, but made no sound,
and retired a step or two farther from the building
and looked up at it again. Then he went toward
the dock and looked down into its turbid waters,
and returned again with a face of hopeless perplexity. " This is Lucas Wharf, and no mistake," he
said. "I know the place first-rate, now. But what
I can't make out is, What's got the Aroostook? "
A man turned the corner of the warehouse from
the street above, and came briskly down towards
them, with his hat off, and rubbing his head and
face with a circular application of a red silk handkerchief. He was dressed in a suit of blue flannel,
very neat and shapely, and across his ample waistcoat stretched a gold watch chain; in his left hand
he carried a white Panama hat. He was short and
stout; his round florid face was full of a sort of
prompt kindness; his small blue eyes twinkled under shaggy brows whose sandy color had not yet
taken the grizzled tone of his close-clipped hair and
beard. From his clean wristbands his hands came
out, plump and large; stiff, wiry hairs stood up on
their backs, and under these various designs in tattooing showed their purple.




16       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


Lydia's grandfather stepped out to meet and
halt this stranger, as he drew near, glancing quickly
from the girl to the old man, and then at their bundles. " Can you tell me where a ship named the
Aroostook is, that was layin' at this wharf - Lucas
Wharf - a fortnight ago, and better?"
"Well, I guess I can, Mr. Latham," answered
the stranger, with a quizzical smile, offering one of
his stout hands to Lydia's grandfather. " You
don't seem to remember your friends very well, do
you?"
The old man gave a kind of crow expressive of an
otherwise unutterable relief and comfort. "Well,
if it ain't Captain Jenness! I be'n so turned
about, I declare for't, I don't believe I'd ever
known you if you had n't spoke up. Lyddy," he
cried with a child-like joy, "tthis is Captain Jenness! "
Captain Jenness having put on his hat changed
Mr. Latham's hand into his left, while he stretched
his great right hand across it and took Lydia's long,
slim fingers in its grasp, and looked keenly into her
face. "Glad to see you, glad to see you, Miss
Blood. (You see I've got your name down on my
papers.)  Hope you're well. Ever been a seavoyage before?  Little homesick, eh? " he asked,
as she put her handkerchief to her eyes. He kept
pressing Lydia's hand in the friendliest way. " Well,
that's natural. And you 're excited; that's natural, too. But we're not going to have any home



THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


17


sickness on the Aroostook, because we're going to
make her home to you."  At this speech all the
girl's gathering forlornness broke in a sob. " That's
right! " said Captain Jenness. "Bless you, I've
got a girl just about your age up at Deer Isle, myself! "  He dropped her hand, and put his arm
across her shoulders. " Good land, I know what
girls are, I hope! These your things?" He caught
up the greater part of them into his capacious hands,
and started off down the wharf, talking back at
Lydia and her grandfather, as they followed him
with the light parcels he had left them. " I hauled
away from the wharf as soon as I'd stowed my
cargo, and I'm at anchor out there in the stream
now, waiting till I can finish up a few matters of
business with the agents and get my passengers on
board. When you get used to the strangeness," he
said to Lydia, " you won't be a bit lonesome.
Bless your heart! My wife 's been with me many a
voyage, and the last time I was out to Messina I
had both my daughters."
At the end of the wharf, Captain Jenness
stopped, and suddenly calling out, " Here! " began,
as she thought, to hurl Lydia's things into the water.
But when she reached the same point, she found
they had all been caught, and deposited in a neat
pile in a boat which lay below, where two sailors
stood waiting the captain's further orders. He
keenly measured the distance to the boat with his
eye, and then he bade the men work round outside
2




18       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


a schooner which lay near; and jumping on board
this vessel, he helped Lydia and her grandfather
down, and easily transferred them to the small boat.
The men bent to their oars, and pulled swiftly out
toward a ship that lay at anchor a little way off. A
light breeze crept along the water, which was here
blue and clear, and the grateful coolness and pleasant motion brought light into the girl's cheeks and
eyes. Without knowing it she smiled. "L That's
right!" cried Captain Jenness, who had applauded
her sob in the same terms. "You 'll like it, firstrate. Look at that ship! That's the Aroostook.
Is she a beauty, or ain't shte? "
The stately vessel stood high from the water, for
Captain Jenness's cargo was light, and he was going out chiefly for a return freight. Sharp jibs and
staysails cut their white outlines keenly against the
afternoon blue of the summer heaven; the topsails
and courses dripped, half-furled, from  the yards
stretching across the yellow masts that sprang so
far aloft; the hull glistened black with new paint.
When Lydia mounted to the deck she found it as
clean scrubbed as her aunt's kitchen floor. Her
glance of admiration was not lost upon Captain
Jenness. " Yes, Miss Blood," said he, " one difference between an American ship and any other sort
is dirt. I wish I could take you aboard an English
vessel, so you could appreciate the Aroostook. But
I guess you don't need it," he added, with a proud
satisfaction in his laugh. " The Aroostook ain't in




TIE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


19


order yet; wait till we've been a few days at sea."
The captain swept the deck with a loving eye. It
was spacious and handsome, with a stretch of some
forty or fifty feet between the house at the stern
and the forecastle, which rose considerably higher;
a low bulwark was surmounted by a heavy rail supported upon turned posts painted white. Everythi'ng, in spite of the captain's boastful detraction,
was in perfect trim, at least to landfolk's eyes.
"Now come into the cabin," said the captain. He
gave Lydia's traps, as he called them, in charge of
a boy, while he led the way below, by a narrow
stairway, warning Lydia and her grandfather to
look out for their heads as they followed. "There!"
he said, when they had safely arrived, inviting their
inspection of the place with a general glance of his
own.
" What did I tell you, Lyddy? " asked her grandfather, with simple joy in the splendors about them.
"Solid mahogany trimmin's everywhere."   There
was also a great deal of milk-white paint, with
some modest touches of gilding here and there.
The cabin was pleasantly lit by the long low windows which its roof rose just high enough to lift
above the deck, and the fresh air entered with the
slanting sun. Made fast to the floor was a heavy
table, over which hung from the ceiling a swinging
shelf. Around the little saloon ran lockers cushioned with red plush. At either end were four or
five narrow doors, which gave into as many tiny




20       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


state-rooms. The boy came with Lydia's things,
and set them inside one of these doors; and when
he came out again the captain pushed it open, and
called them in. " Here!" said he. "Here's where
my girls made themselves at home the last voyage,
and I expect you 'll find it pretty comfortable.
They say you don't feel the motion so much,-I
don't know anything about the motion, -and in
smooth weather you can have that window open
sometimes, and change the air. It's light and it's
large. Well, I had it fitted up for my wife; but
she's got kind of on now, you know, and she don't
feel much like going any more; and so I always give
it to my nicest passenger." This was an unmistakable compliment, and Lydia blushed to the captain's
entire content. " That's a rug she hooked," he continued, touching with his toe the carpet, rich in its
artless domestic dyes as some Persian fabric, that
lay before the berth. " These gimcracks belong to
my girls; they left 'em." He pointed to various
slight structures of card-board worked with crewel,
which were tacked to the walls.  "Pretty snug,
eh?"
"Yes," said Lydia, "it's nicer than I thought it
could be, even after what grandfather said."
"Well, that's right! " exclaimed the captain.
" I like your way of speaking up. I wish you could
know my girls. How old are you now?"
"I 'in nineteen," said Lydia.
" Why, you're just between my girls!" cried the




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


21


captain. "Sally is twenty-one, and Persis is eighteen. Well, now, Miss Blood," he said, as they returned to the cabin, "you can't begin to make yourself at home too soon for me. I used to sail to
Cadiz and Malaga a good deal; and when I went
to see any of them Spaniards he'd say, ' This house
is yours.' Well, that's what I say: This ship is
yours as long as you stay in her. And I moan it,
and that's more than they did!"  Captain Jenness
laughed mightily, took some of Lydia's fingers in
his left hand and squeezed them, and clapped her
grandfather on the shoulder with his right. Then
he slipped his hand cown the old man's bony arm
to the elbow, and held it, while he dropped his head
towards Lydia, and said, "We shall be glad to
have him stay to supper, and as much longer as he
likes, heh?"
"Oh, no!" said Lydia; " grandfather must go
back on the six o'clock train. My aunt expects
him."   Her voice fell, and her face suddenly
clouded.
" Good! " cried the captain. Then he pulled out
his watch, and held it as far away as the chain
would stretch, frowning at it with his head aslant.
"i Well! " he burst out. " He has n't got any too
much time on his hands."  The old man gave a
nervous start, and the girl trembled. " Hold on!
Yes; there's time. It's only fifteen minutes after
fi"
" Oh, but we were more than half an hour get



22       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


ting down here," said Lydia, anxiously. " And
grandfather does n't know the way back. He '11 be
sure to get lost. I wish we 'd come in a carriage."
" Could n't 'a' kept the carriage waitin' on expense, Lyddy," retorted her grandfather. " But I
tell you," he added, with something like resolution,
"if I could find a carriage anywheres near that
wharf, I'd take it, just as sure! I would n't miss
that train for more'n half a dollar. It would cost
more than that at a hotel to-night, let alone how
your aunt Maria 'd feel."
" Why, look here! " said Captain Jenness, naturally appealing to the girl. "Let me get your
grandfather back. I've got to go up town again,
any way, for some last things, with an express
wagon, and we can ride right to the depot in that.
Which depot is it? "
"Fitchburg," said the old man eagerly.
"That's right! " commented the captain. "Get
you there in plenty of time, if we don't lose any
now. And I'11 tell you what, my little girl," he
added, turning to Lydia: "if it '11 be a comfort to
you to ride up with us, and see your grandfather
off, why come along! My girls went with me the
last time on an express wagon."
"No," answered Lydia. "I want to. But it
would n't be any comfort. I thought that out before I left home, and I 'm going to say good-by to
grandfather here."
"First-rate!" said Captain Jenness, bustling




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


23


towards the gangway so as to leave them alone. A
sharp cry from the old man arrested him.
"Lyddy! Where's your trunks?"
"Why!" said the girl, catching her breath in
dismay, " where can they be? I forgot all about
them."
"I got the checks fast enough," said the old man,
" and I shan't give 'em up without I get the trunks.
They'd ought to had 'em down here long ago; and
now if I 've got to pester round after 'em I 'm sure
to miss the train."
What shall we do? " asked Lydia.
"Let's see your checks," said the captain, with
an evident ease of mind that reassured her. When
her grandfather had brought them with difficulty
from the pocket visited last in the order of his
search, and laid them in the captain's waiting palm,
the latter endeavored to get them in focus. " What
does it say on 'em? " he asked, handing them to
Lydia. "My eyes never did amount to anything
on shore."  She read aloud the name of the express
stamped on them.   The captain gathered them
back into his hand, and slipped them *into his
pocket, with a nod and wink full of comfort. "I '11
see to it," he said. "At any rate, this ship ain't
a-going to sail without them, if she waits a week.
Now, then, Mr. Latham!"
The old man, who waited, when not directly addressed or concerned, in a sort of blank patience,
suddenly started out of his daze, and following the




24        TIE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


captain too alertly up the gangway stairs drove his
hat against the hatch with a force that sent him
back into Lydia's arms.
" Oh, grandfather, are you hurt? " she piteously
asked, trying to pull up the hat that was jammed
down over his forehead.
" Not a bit! But I guess my hat's about done
for,- without I can get it pressed over; and I
d' know as this kind of straw doos press."
"First-rate! " called the captain from  above.
"Never mind the hat."   But the girl continued
fondly trying to reshape it, while the old man
fidgeted anxiously, and protested that he would be
sure to be left. It was like a half-shut accordion
when she took it from his head; when she put it
back it was like an accordion pulled out.
" All ready! " shouted Captain Jenness from the
gap in the bulwark, where he stood waiting to descend into the small boat. The old man ran towards him in his senile haste, and stooped to get
over the side into the boat below.
" Why, grandfather!" cried the girl in a breaking voice, full of keen, yet tender reproach.
"I declare for 't," he said, scrambling back to
the deck. "I 'most forgot. I be'n so put about."
He took Lydia's hand loosely into his own, and
bent forward to kiss her.  She threw her arms
round him, and while he remained looking over
her shoulder, with a face of grotesque perplexity,
and saying, " Don't cry, Lyddy, don't cry!" she




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


25


pressed her face tighter into his withered neck, and
tried to muffle her homesick sobs. The sympathies
as well as the sensibilities often seem dulled by age.
They have both perhaps been wrought upon too
much in the course of the years, and can no longer
respond to the appeal or distress which they can
only dimly realize; even the heart grows old.
" Don't you, don't you, Lyddy!" repeated the old
man.   " You must n't.  The captain's waitin';
and the cars - well, every minute I lose makes it
riskier and riskier; and your aunt Maria, she's always so uneasy, you know! "
The girl was not hurt by his anxiety about himself; she was more anxious about him than about
anything else. She quickly lifted her head, and
drying her eyes, kissed him, forcing her lips into
the smile that is more heart-breaking to see than
weeping. She looked over the side, as her grandfather was handed carefully down to a seat by the
two sailors in the boat, and the captain noted
her resolute counterfeit of cheerfulness. " That 's
right! " he shouted up to her. " Just like my girls
when their mother left 'ern. But bless you, they
soon got over it, and so 'll you. Give way, men,"
he said, in a lower voice, and the boat shot from
the ship's side toward the wharf. He turned and
waved his handkerchief to Lydia, and, stimulated
apparently by this, her grandfather felt in his pockets for his handkerchief; he ended after a vain
search by taking off his hat and waving that.




26       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
When he put it on again, it relapsed into that likeness of a half-shut accordion from which Lydia had
rescued it; but she only saw the face under it.
As the boat reached the wharf an express wagon
drove down, and Lydia saw the sarcastic parley
which she could not hear between the captain and
the driver about the belated baggage which the
latter put off. Then she saw the captain help her
grandfather to the seat between himself and the
driver, and the wagon rattled swiftly out of sight.
One of the sailors lifted Lydia's baggage over the
side of the wharf to the other in the boat, and they
pulled off to the ship with it.




III.


LYDIA went back to the cabin, and presently the
boy who had taken charge of her lighter luggage
came dragging her trunk and bag down the gangway stairs. Neither was very large, and even a
boy of fourteen who was small for his age might
easily manage them.
"You can stow away what's in 'em in the drawers," said the boy. "I suppose you didn't notice
the drawers," he added, at her look of inquiry. He
went into her room, and pushing aside the valance
of the lower berth showed four deep drawers below
the bed; the charming snugness of the arrangement brought a light of housewifely joy to the girl's
face.
" Why, it's as good as a bureau. They will hold
everything."
" Yes," exulted the boy; "they're for two persons' things. The captain's daughters, they both
had this room. Pretty good sized too; a good deal
the captain's build. You won't find a better stateroom than this on a steamer. I 've been on 'em."
The boy climbed up on the edge of the upper
drawer, and pulled open the window at the top of
the wall. " Give you a little air, I guess. If you
want I should, the captain said I was to bear a




28       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


hand helping you to stow away what was in your
trunks."
"No," said Lydia, quickly. "I'd just as soon
do it alone."
"All right," said the boy. "If I was you, I 'd
do it now. I don't know just when the captain
means to sail; but after we get outside, it might
be rough, and it's better to have everything pretty
snug by that time.  I'll haul away the trunks
when you 've got 'em empty. If I should n't happen to be here, you can just call me at the top of
the gangway, and I '11 come. My name's Thomas,"
he said. He regarded Lydia inquiringly a moment
before he added: "If you'd just as lives, I rather
you 'd call me Thomas, and not steward. They
said you'd call me steward," he explained, in a
blushing, deprecating confidence; "and as long as
I've not got my growth, it kind of makes them
laugh, you know, - especially the second officer."
"I will call you Thomas," said Lydia.
"Thank you."    The boy glanced up at the
round clock screwed to the cabin wall. "I guess
you won't have to call me anything unless you
hurry. I shall be down here, laying the table for
supper, before you're done. The captain said I
was to lay it for you and him, and if he did n't get
back in time you was to go to eating, any way.
Guess you won't think Captain Jenness is going
to starve anybody."
"Have you been many voyages with Captain




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


29


Jenness before this? " asked Lydia, as she set open
her trunk, and began to lay her dresses out on the
locker.  Homesickness, like all grief, attacks in
paroxysms.   One gust of passionate regret had
swept over the girl; before another came, she could
occupy herself almost cheerfully with the details of
unpacking.
"Only one before," said the boy. "The last
one, when his daughters went out. I guess it was
their coaxing got mother to let me go. My father
was killed in the war."
"Was he?" asked Lydia, sympathetically.
"Yes.   I did n't know much about it at the
time; so little. Both your parents living? "
" No," said Lydia. "They're both dead. They
died a long while ago. I 've always lived with my
aunt and grandfather."
" I thought there must be something the matter,
-your coming with your grandfather," said the
boy. "I don't see why you don't let me carry in
some of those dresses for you. I 'm used to helping about."
" Well, you may," answered Lydia, "if you
want." A native tranquil kindness showed itself
in her voice and manner, but something of the habitual authority of a school-mistress mingled with
it. " You must be careful not to rumple them if I
let you."
"I guess not. I've got older sisters at home.
They hated to have me leave. But I looked at it




30       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


this way: If I was ever going to sea - and I was
— I couldn't get such another captain as Captain Jenness, nor such another crew; all the men
from down our way; and I don't mind the second
mate's jokes much. He don't mean anything by
them; likes to plague, that's all. He's a first-rate
sailor."
Lydia was kneeling before one of the trunks, and
the boy was stooping over it, with a hand on either
knee. She had drawn out her only black silk dress,
and was finding it rather crumpled. " I should n't
have thought it would have got so much jammed,
coming fifty miles," she soliloquized. " But they
seemed to take a pleasure in seeing how much they
could bang the trunks." She rose to her feet and
shook out the dress, and drew the skirt several times
over her left arm.
The boy's eyes glistened. "Goodness! " he said.
"Just new, ain't it? Going to wear it any on
board?"
"Sundays, perhaps," answered Lydia thoughtfully, still smoothing and shaping the dress, which
she regarded at arm's-length, from time to time,
with her head aslant.
"I suppose it's the latest style? " pursued the
boy.
"Yes, it is," said Lydia. "We sent to Boston
for the pattern. I hate to pack it into one of those
drawers," she mused.
"You needn't," replied Thomas. "There's a
whole row of hooks."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


31


"I want to know!" cried Lydia. She followed
Thomas into her state-room. "Well, well! They
do seem to have thought of everything!"
"I should say so," exulted the boy. "Look
here! " He showed her a little niche near the head
of the berth strongly framed with glass, in which a
lamp was made fast. " Light up, you know, when
you want to read, or feel kind of lonesome." Lydia
clasped her hands in pleasure and amaze. "Oh, I
tell you Captain Jenness meant to have things about
right. The other state-rooms don't begin to come
up to this." He dashed out in his zeal, and opened
their doors, that she might triumph in the superiority of her accommodations without delay. These
rooms were cramped together on one side; Lydia's
was in a comparatively ample corner by itself.
She went on unpacking her trunk, and the boy
again took his place near her, in the same attitude
as before. "I tell you," he said, "I shall like to
see you with that silk on. Have you got any other
nice ones?"
"No; only this I 'in wearing," answered Lydia,
half amused and half honest in her sympathy with
his ardor about her finery. " They said not to bring
many clothes; they would be cheaper over there."
She had now reached the bottom of her trunk. She
knew by the clock that her grandfather could hardly
have left the city on his journey home, but the interval of time since she had parted with him seemed
vast. It was as if she had started to Boston in a




32       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


former life; the history of the choosing and cutting
and making of these clothes was like a dream of
pre6xistence. She had never had so many things
new at once, and it had been a great outlay, but
her aunt Maria had made the money go as far as
possible, and had spent it with that native taste, that
genius for dress, which sometimes strikes the summer
boarder in the sempstresses of the New England hills.
Miss Latham's gift was quaintly unrelated to herself. In dress, as in person and manner, she was
uncompromisingly plain and stiff. All the more
lavishly, therefore, had it been devoted to the grace
and beauty of her sister's child, who, ever since she
came to find a home in her grandfather's house, had
been more stylishly dressed than any other girl in
the village. The summer boarders, whom the keen
eye of Miss Latham studied with unerring sense of
the best new effects in costume, wondered at Lydia's
elegance, as she sat beside her aunt in the family
pew, a triumph of that grim artist's skill. Lydia
knew that she was well dressed, but she knew that
after all she was only the expression of her aunt's inspirations. Her own gift was of another sort. Her
father was a music-teacher, whose failing health had
obliged him to give up his profession, and who had
taken the traveling agency of a parlor organ mannfactory for the sake of the out-door life. His business had brought him to South Bradfield, where he
sold an organ to Deacon Latham's church, and fell
in love with his younger daughter. He died a few




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


33


years after his marriage, of an ancestral consumption,
his sole heritage from the good New England stock of
which he came. His skill as a pianist, which was considerable, had not descended to his daughter, but
lier mother had bequeathed her a peculiarly rich and
flexible voice, with a joy in singing which was as
yet a passion little affected by culture. It was this
voice which, when Lydia rose to join in the terrible
hymning of the congregation at South Bradfield, took
the thoughts of people off her style and beauty; and
it was this which enchanted her father's sister when,
the summer before the date of which we write, that
lady had come to America on a brief visit, and heard
Lydia sing at her parlor organ in the old homestead.
Mrs. Erwin had lived many years abroad, chiefly in
Italy, for the sake of the climate. She was of delicate health, and constantly threatened by the hereditary disease that had left her the last of her generation, and she had the fastidiousness of an invalid.
She was full of generous impulses which she mistook
for virtues; but the presence of some object at once
charming and worthy was necessary to rouse these
impulses. She had been prosperously married when
very young, and as a pretty American widow she
had wedded in second marriage at Naples one of those
Englishmen who have money enough to live at ease
in Latin countries; he was very fond of her, and
petted her. Having no children she might long before have thought definitely of poor Henry's little
girl, as she called Lydia  but she had lived very
3




34       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


comfortably indefinite in regard to her ever since
the father's death. Now and then she had sent the
child a handsome present or a sum of money. She
had it on her conscience not to let her be wholly a
burden to her grandfather; but often her conscience
drowsed. When she came to South Bradfield, she
won the hearts of the simple family, which had
been rather hardened against her, and she professed
an enthusiasm for Lydia. She called her pretty
names in Italian, which she did not pronounce
well; she babbled a great deal about what ought
to be done for her, and went away without doing
anything; so that when a letter finally came, directing Lydia to be sent out to her in Venice, they
were all surprised, in the disappointment to which
they had resigned themselves.
Mrs. Erwin wrote an epistolary style exasperatingly vacuous and diffuse, and, like many women of
that sort, she used pencil instead of ink, always
apologizing for it as due now to her weak eyes, and
now to her weak wrist, and again to her not being
able to find the ink. Her hand was full of foolish
curves and dashes, and there were no spaces between the words at times. Under these conditions
it was no light labor to get at her meaning; but
the sum of her letter was that she wished Lydia to
come out to her at once, and she suggested that, as
they could have few opportunities or none to send
her with people going to Europe, they had better
let her come the whole way by sea. Mrs. Erwin




TIE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


35


remembered - in the space of a page and a half -
that nothing had ever done her so much good as a
long sea voyage, and it would be excellent for
Lydia, who, though she looked so strong, probably
needed all the bracing up she could get. She had
made inquiries, - or, what was the same thing, Mr.
Erwin had, for her, - and she found that vessels
from American ports seldom came to Venice; but
they often came to Trieste, which was only a few
hours away; and if Mr. Latham would get Lydia
a ship for Trieste at Boston, she could come very
safely and comfortably in a few weeks. She gave
the name of a Boston house engaged in the Mediterranean trade to which Mr. Latham could apply
for passage; if they were not sending any ship
themselves, they could probably recommend one to
him.
This was what happened when Deacon Latham
called at their office a few days after Mrs. Erwin's
letter came. They directed him to the firm dispatching the Aroostook, and Captain Jenness was
at their place when the deacon appeared there.
The captain took cordial possession of the old man
at once, and carried him down to the wharf to look
at the ship and her accommodations. The matter
was quickly settled between them. At that time
Captain Jenness did not know but he might have
other passengers out; at any rate, he would look
after the little girl (as Deacon Latham always said
in speaking of Lydia) the same as if she were his
own child.




36       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


Lydia knelt before her trunk, thinking of the re
mote events, the extinct associations of a few minutes and hours and days ago; she held some cuffs
and collars in her hand, and something that her
aunt Maria had said recurred to her. She looked
up into the intensely interested face of the boy,
and then laughed, bowing her forehead on the back
of the hand that held these bits of linen.
The boy blushed. "What are you laughing
at?" he asked, half piteously, half indignantly,
like a boy used to being badgered.
" Oh, nothing," said Lydia. "t My aunt told me
if any of these things should happen to want doing
up, I had better get the stewardess to help me."
She looked at the boy in a dreadfully teasing way,
softly biting her lip.
" Oh, if you're going to begin that way!" he
cried in affliction.
"I'm not," she answered, promptly. "I like
boys. I 've taught school two winters, and I like
boys first-rate."
Thomas was impersonally interested again.
"Time! You taught school?"
"Why not?"
"You look pretty young for a school-teacher! "
"Now you're making fun of me," said Lydia,
astutely.
The boy thought he must have been, and was
consoled. " Well, you began it," he said.
"' I ought n't to have done so," she replied with




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


37


humility  "and I won't any more. There! " she
said, "I 'm not going to open my bag now. You
can take away the trunk when you want, Thomas."
"Yes, ma'am," said the boy. The idea of a
school-mistress was perhaps beginning to awe him
a little. "Put your bag in your state-room first."
He did this, and when he came back from carrying
away her trunk he began to set the table. It was
a pretty table, when set, and made the little cabin
much cosier. When the boy brought the dishes
from the cook's galley, it was a barbarously abundant table. There was cold boiled ham, ham and
eggs, fried fish, baked potatoes, buttered toast, tea,
cake, pickles, and watermelon; nothing was wanting. " I tell you," said Thomas, noticing Lydia's
admiration, " the captain lives well lay-days."
" Lay-days? " echoed Lydia.
" The days we 're in port," the boy explained.
" Well, I should think as much! "  She ate with
the hunger that tranquillity bestows upon youth
after the swift succession of strange events, and the
conflict of many emotions. The captain had not
returned in time, and she ate alone.
After a while she ventured to the top of the
gangway stairs, and stood there, looking at the
novel sights of the harbor, in the red sunset light,
which rose slowly from the hulls and lower spars of
the slipping, and kindled the tips of the highshooting masts with a quickly fading splendor.  A
delicate flush responded in the east, and rose to




38        THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
meet the denser crimson of the west; a few clouds,
incomparably light and diaphanous, bathed themselves in the glow. It was a summer sunset, portending for the land a morrow of great heat. But
cool airs crept along the water, and the ferry-boats,
thrust shuttlewise back and forth between either
shore, made a refreshing sound as they crushed a
broad course to foam with their paddles. People
were pulling about in small boats; from some the
gay cries and laughter of young girls struck sharply
along the tide. The noise of the quiescent city
came off in a sort of dull moan. The lamps began to twinkle in the windows and the streets on
shore; the lanterns of the ships at anchor in the
stream showed redder and redder as the twilight
fell. The homesickness began to mount from
Lydia's heart in a choking lump to her throat;
for one must be very happy to endure the sights
and sounds of the summer evening anywhere. She
had to shield her eyes from the brilliancy of the
kerosene when she went below into the cabin.




IV.


LYDIA did not know when the captain came on
board. Once, talking in the cabin made itself felt
through her dreams, but the dense sleep of weary
youth closed over her again, and she did not fairly
wake till morning. Then she thought she heard
the crowing of a cock and the cackle of hens, and
fancied herself in her room at home; the illusion
passed with a pang. The ship was moving, with a
tug at her side, the violent respirations of which
were mingled with the sound of the swift rush of
the vessels through the water, the noise of feet on
the deck, and of orders hoarsely shouted.
The girl came out into the cabin, where Thomas
was already busy with the breakfast table, and
climbed to the deck. It was four o'clock of the
summer's morning; the sun had not yet reddened
the east, but the stars were extinct, or glimmered
faint points immeasurably withdrawn in the vast
gray of the sky. At that hour there is a hovering
dimness over all, but the light on things near at
hand is wonderfully keen and clear, and the air has
an intense yet delicate freshness that seems to
breathe from the remotest spaces of the universe,
-a waft from distances beyond the sun. On the
land the leaves and grass are soaked with dew;




40       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


the densely interwoven songs of the birds are like a
fabric that you might see and touch. But here,
save for the immediate noises on the ship, which
had already left her anchorage far behind, the'
shouting of the tug's escape-pipes, and the huge,
swirling gushes from her powerful wheel, a sort of
spectacular silence prevailed, and the sounds were
like a part of this silence. Here and there a small
fishing schooner came lagging slowly in, as if belated, with scarce wind enough to fill her sails;
now and then they met a steamboat, towering
white and high, a many-latticed bulk, with no one
to be seen on board but the pilot at his wheel,
and a few sleepy passengers on the forward promenade. The city, so beautiful and stately from
the bay, was dropping, and sinking away behind.
They passed green islands, some of which were
fortified: the black guns looked out over the neatly
shaven glacis; the sentinel paced the rampart.
"Well, well! " shouted Captain Jenness, catching sight of Lydia where she lingered at the cabin
door. "You are an early bird. Glad to see you
up! Hope you rested well! Saw your grandfather off all right, and kept him from taking the
wrong train with my own hand. He's terribly excitable. Well, I suppose I shall be just so, at his
age. Here!"   The captain caught up a stool and
set it near the bulwark for her. " There! You
ma:ke yourself comfortable wherever you like.
You're at home, you know."  He was off again in




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


41


a moment. Lydia cast her eye over at the tug.
On the deck, near the pilot-house, stood the young
man who had stopped the afternoon before, while
she sat at the warehouse door, and asked her grandfather if she were not ill. At his feet was a substantial valise, and over his arm hung a shawl. He
was smoking, and seated near him, on another
valise, was his companion of the day before, also
smoking. In the instant that Lydia caught sight
of them, she perceived that they both recognized
her and exchanged, as it were, a start of surprise.
But they remained as before, except that he who
was seated drew out a fresh cigarette, and without
looking up reached to the other for a light. They
were both men of good height, and they looked
fresh and strong, with something very alert in their
slight movements, - sudden turns of the head and
brisk nods, which were not nervously quick. Lydia
wondered at their presence there in an ignorance
which could not even conjecture. She knew too
little to know that they could not have any destination on the tug, and that they would not be making a pleasure-excursion at that hour in the morning. Their having their valises with them deepened
the mystery, which was not solved till the tug's
engines fell silent, and at an unnoticed order a
space in the bulwark not far from  Lydia was
opened and steps were let down the side of the
ship. Then the young men, who had remained, to
all appearance, perfectly unconcerned, caught up




42       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


their valises and climbed to the deck of the Aroostook. They did not give her more than a glance
out of the corners of their eyes, but the surprise of
their coming on board was so great a shock that
she did not observe that the tug, casting loose from
the ship, was describing a curt and foamy semicircle for her return to the city, and that the
Aroostook, with a cloud of snowy canvas filling
overhead, was moving over the level sea with the
light ease of a bird that half swims, half flies, along
the water. A sudden dismay, which was somehow
not fear so much as an overpowering sense of isolation, fell upon the girl. She caught at Thomas,
going forward with some dishes in his hand, with a
pathetic appeal.
"Where are you going, Thomas?"
"I 'm going to the cook's galley to help dish up
the breakfast."
" What 's the cook's galley?"
"Don't you know? The kitchen."
" Let me go with you. I should like to see the
kitchen." She trembled with eagerness. Arrived
at the door of the narrow passage that ran across
the deck aft of the forecastle, she looked in and
saw, amid a haze of frying and broiling, the short,
stocky figure of a negro, bow-legged, and unnaturally erect from the waist up. At sight of Lydia,
he made a respectful duck forward with his uncouth body. " Why, are you the cook?" she almost screamed in response to this obeisance.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


43


" Yes, miss," said the man, humbly, with a turn
of the pleading black eyes of the negro.
Lydia grew more peremptory: "Why - why -
I thought the cook was a woman!"
"Very sorry, miss," began the negro, with a
deprecatory smile, in a slow, mild voice.
Thomas burst into a boy's yelling laugh: " Well,
if that ain't the best joke on Gabriel! He '11 never
hear the last of it when I tell it to the second
officer! "
" Thomas!" cried Lydia, terribly, " you shall
not!"   She stamped her foot.  "Do you hear
me?"
The boy checked his laugh abruptly. "Yes,
ma'am," he said submissively.
"Well, then!" returned Lydia.   She stalked
proudly back to the cabin gangway, and descending
shut herself into her state-room.




V.


A FEW hours later Deacon Latham came into the
house with a milk-pan full of pease. He set this
down on one end of the kitchen table, with his straw
hat beside it, and then took a chair at the other end
and fell into the attitude of the day before, when he
sat in the parlor with Lydia and Miss Maria waiting
for the stage; his mouth was puckered to a whistle,
and his fingers were held above the board in act to
drub it. Miss Maria turned the pease out on the
table, and took the pan into her lap. She shelled at
the pease in silence, till the sound of their pelting,
as they were dropped on the tin, was lost in their
multitude; then she said, with a sharp, querulous,
pathetic impatience, " Well, father, I suppose
you're thinkin' about Lyddy."
"Yes, Maria, I be," returned her father, with
uncommon plumpness, as if here now were something he had made up his mind to stand to. " I
been thinkin' that Lyddy's a woman grown, as
you may say."
"Yes," admitted Miss Maria, "she's a woman,
as far forth as that goes. What put it into your
head? "
"Well, I d' know as I know. But it's just like
this: I got to thinkin' whether she might n't get




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


45


to feelin' rather lonely on the voyage, without any
other woman to talk to."
"' I guess," said Miss Maria, tranquilly, " she's
goin' to feel lonely enough at times, any way, poor
thing! But I told her if she wanted advice or help
about anything just to go to the stewardess. That
Mrs. Bland that spent the summer at the Parkers'
last year was always tellin' how they went to the
stewardess for most everything, and she give her
five dollars in gold when they got into Boston. I
should n't want Lyddy should give so much as that,
but I should want she should give something, as
long 's it's the custom."
"They don't have 'em on sailin' vessels, Captain
Jenness said; they only have 'em  on steamers,"
said Deacon Latham.
"Have what?" asked Miss Maria, sharply.
"Stewardesses. They've got a cabin-boy."
Miss Maria desisted a moment from her work;
then she answered, with a gruff shortness peculiar
to her, " Well, then, she can go to the cook, T suppose. It would n't matter which she went to, I
presume."
Deacon Latham looked up with the air of confessing to sin before the whole congregation. " The
cook's a man, - a black man," he said.
Miss Maria dropped a handful of pods into the
pan, and sent a handful of peas rattling across the
table on to the floor. " Well, who in Time " -
the expression was strong, but she used it without




46       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


hesitation, and was never known to repent it
" will she go to, then? "
"I declare for 't," said her father, "I don't
know. I d' know as I ever thought it out fairly
before; but just now when I was pickin' the pease
for you, my mind got to dwellin' on Lyddy, and
then it come to me all at once: there she was, the
only one among a whole shipful, and I - I did n't
know but what she might think it rather of a
strange position for her."
" Oh!" exclaimed Miss Maria, petulantly.  I
guess Lyddy 'd know how to conduct herself wherever she was; she's a born lady, if ever there was
one. But what I think is "- Miss Maria paused,
and did not say what she thought; but it was evidently not the social aspect of the matter which
/was uppermost in her mind. In fact, she had
/ never been at all afraid of men, whom she regarded
as a more inefficient and feebler-minded kind of
women.
" The only thing 't makes me feel easier is what
the captain said about the young men," said Deacon Latham.
"What young men? " asked Miss Maria.
"Why, I told you about 'em! " retorted the old
man, with some exasperation.
" You told me about two young men that stopped
on the wharf and pitied Lyddy's worn-out looks."
" Did n't I tell you the rest? I declare for 't, I
don't believe I did; I be'n so put about. Well, as




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


47


we was drivin' up to the depot, we met the same
two young men, and the captain asked 'em, 'Are
you goin' or not a-goin'?'- just that way; and
they said, ' We 're goin'.' And he said, 'When
you comin' aboard?' and he told 'em he was goin'
to haul out this mornin' at three o'clock. And
they asked what tug, and he told 'em, and they
fixed it up between 'em all then that they was to
come aboard from the tug, when she'd got the ship
outside; and that's what I suppose they did. The
captain he said to me he had n't mentioned it before, because he wa' n't sure 't they'd go till that
minute. He give 'em a first-rate of a character."
Miss Maria said nothing for a long while. The
subject seemed one with which she did not feel
herself able to grapple. She looked all about the
kitchen for inspiration, and even cast a searching
glance into the wood-shed. Suddenly she jumped
from her chair, and ran to the open window: "Mr.
Goodlow! Mr. Goodlow! I wish you'd come in
here a minute."
She hurried to meet the minister at the front
door, her father lagging after her with the infantile
walk of an old man.
Mr. Goodlow took off his straw hat as he mounted
the stone step to the threshold, and said goodmorning; they did not shake hands. He wore a
black alpaca coat, and waistcoat of farmer's satin;
his hat was dark straw, like Deacon Latham's, but
it was low-crowned, and a line of ornamental openwork ran round it near the top.




48       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" Come into the settin'-room," said Miss Maria.
"It's cooler, in there."  She lost no time in laying
the case before the minister. She ended by saying, " Father, he don't feel just right about it, and
I d' know as I 'm quite clear in my own mind."
The minister considered a while in silence before
he said, "I think Lydia's influence upon those
around her will be beneficial, whatever her situation in life may be."
" There, father! " cried Miss Maria, in reproachful relief.
" You're right, Maria, you're right!" assented
the old man, and they both waited for the minister
to continue.
" I rejoiced with you," he said, " when this opportunity for Lydia's improvement offered, and I
am not disposed to feel anxious as to the ways and
means. Lydia is no fool. I have observed in her a
dignity, a sort of authority, very remarkable in one
of her years."
" I guess the boys at the school down to the
Mill Village found out she had authority enough,"
said Miss Maria, promptly materializing the idea.
"Precisely," said Mr. Goodlow.
" That's what I told father, in the first place,"
said Miss Maria. " I guess Lyddy 'd know how to
conduct herself wherever she was, - just the words
I used."
"I don't deny it, Maria, I don't deny it,"
shrilly piped the old man.  " I ain't afraid of any




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


49


harm comin' to Lyddy any more'n what you be.
But what I said was, Would n't she feel kind of
strange, sort of lost, as you may say, among so
many, and she the only one? "
" She will know how to adapt herself to circumstances," said Mr. Goodlow. "I was conversing
last summer with that Mrs. Bland who boarded at
Mr. Parker's, and she told me that girls in Europe
are brought up with no habits of self-reliance whatever, and that young ladies are never seen on the
streets alone in France and Italy."
" Don't you think," asked Miss Maria, hesitating to accept this ridiculous statement, " that Mrs.
Bland exaggerated some?"
"She talked a great deal," admitted Mr. Goodlow. " I should be sorry if Lydia ever lost anything of that native confidence of hers in her own
judgment, and her ability to take care of herself
under any circumstances, and I do not think she
will. She never seemed conceited to me, but she
was the most self-reliant girl I ever saw."
"You've hit it there, Mr. Goodlow.    Such a
spirit as she always had! " sighed Miss Maria.
" It was just so from the first. It used to go to my
heart to see that little thing lookin' after herself,
every way, and not askin' anybody's help, but just
as quiet and proud about it! She 's her mother,
all over. And yest'day, when she set here waitin'
for the stage, and it did seem as if I should have
to give up, hearin' her sob, sob, sob,- why, Mr.
4




50       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
Goodlow, she had n't any more idea of backin' out
than -than " - Miss Maria relinquished the search
for a comparison, and went into another room for a
handkerchief. "I don't believe she cared over and
above about goin', from the start," said Miss Maria, returning, " but when once she'd made up her
mind to it, there she was. I d' know as she took
much of a fancy to her aunt, but you could n't told
from anything that Lyddy said. Now, if I have
anything on my mind, I have to blat it right out,
as you may say; I can't seem to bear it a minute;
but Lyddy's different. Well," concluded Miss Maria, "I guess there ain't goin' to any harm come
to her. But it did give me a kind of start, first off,
when father up and got to feelin' sort of bad about
it. I d' know as I should thought much about it, if
he had n't seemed to. Id' know as I should ever
thought about anything except her not havin' any
one to advise with about her clothes. It's the
only thing she ain't handy with: she won't know
what to wear. I'm afraid she '11 spoil her silk.
I d' know but what father 's been hasty in not lookin' into things carefuller first. He most always does
repent afterwards."
" Could n't repent beforehand! " retorted Deacon
Latham. " And I tell you, Maria, I never saw a
much finer man than Captain Jenness; and the
cabin's everything I said it was, and more. Lyddy
reg'larly went off over it; 'n' I guess, as Mr. Goodlow says, she '11 influence 'em for good. Don't you




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.       51
fret about her clothes any. You fitted her out in
apple-pie order, and she '11 soon be there. 'T ain't
but a little ways to Try-East, any way, to what it
is some of them India voyages, Captain Jenness
said. He had his own daughters out the last voyage; 'n' I guess he can tell Lyddy when it's
weather to wear her silk. I d' know as I'd better
said anything about what I was thinkin'. I don't
want to be noways rash, and yet I thought I
could n't be too partic'lar."
For a silent moment Miss Maria looked sourly
uncertain as to the usefulness of scruples that came
so long after the fact.  Then she said abruptly
to Mr. Goodlow, "Was it you or Mr. Baldwin
preached Mirandy Holcomb's fune'l sermon?"




VI.


ONE of the advantages of the negative part assigned to women in life is that they are seldom
forced to commit themselves. They can, if they
choose, remain perfectly passive while a great many
things take place in regard to them; they need not
account for what they do not do. From time to
time a man must show his hand, but save for one
supreme exigency a woman need never show hers.
She moves in mystery as long as she likes; and
mere reticence in her, if she is young and fair, interprets itself as good sense and good taste.
Lydia was, by convention as well as by instinct,
mistress of the situation when she came out to
breakfast, and confronted the young men again
with collected nerves, and a reserve which was perhaps a little too proud. The captain was there to
introduce them, and presented first Mr. Dunham,
the gentleman who had spoken to her grandfather
on the wharf, and then Mr. Staniford, his friend
and senior by some four or five years. They were
both of the fair New England complexion; but
Dunham's eyes were blue, and Staniford's dark
gray.  Their mustaches were blonde, but Dunham's curled jauntily outward at the corners, and
his light hair waved over either temple from the




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


53


parting in the middle. Staniford's mustache was
cut short; his hair was clipped tight to his shapely
head, and not parted at all; he had a slightly aquiline nose, with sensitive nostrils, showing the cartilage; his face was darkly freckled. They were both
handsome fellows, and fittingly dressed in rough
blue, which they wore like men with the habit of
good clothes; they made Lydia such bows as she
had never seen before. Then the Captain introduced Mr. Watterson, the first officer, to all, and
sat down, saying to Thomas, with a sort of guilty
and embarrassed growl, " Ain't he out yet? Well,
we won't wait," and with but little change of tone
asked a blessing; for Captain Jenness in his way
was a religious man.
There was a sixth plate laid, but the captain
made no further mention of the person who was not
out yet till shortly after the coffee was poured, when
the absentee appeared, hastily closing his state-room
door behind him, and then waiting on foot, with a
half-impudent, half-intimidated air, while Captain
Jenness, with a sort of elaborate repressiveness,
presented him as Mr. Hicks. He was a short and
slight young man, with a small sandy mustache
curling tightly in over his lip, floating reddish-blue
eyes, and a deep dimple in his weak, slightly retreating chin. He had an air at once amiable and
baddish, with an expression, curiously blended, of
monkey-like humor and spaniel-like apprehensiveness. He did not look well, and till he had swal



54


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


lowed two cups of coffee his hand shook. The captain watched him furtively from under his bushy
eyebrows, and was evidently troubled and preoccupied, addressing a word now and then to Mr. Watterson, who, by virtue of what was apparently the
ship's discipline, spoke only when he was spoken
to, and then answered with prompt acquiescence.
Dunham and Staniford exchanged not so much a
glance as a consciousness in regard to him, which
seemed to recognize and class him. They talked
to each other, and sometimes to the captain. Once
they spoke to Lydia. Mr. Dunham, for example,
said, " Miss - ah- Blood, don't yotu think we are
uncommonly fortunate in having such lovely weather
for a start-off? "
"I don't know," said Lydia.
Mr. Dunham arrested himself in the use of his
fork. "I beg your pardon? " he smiled.
It seemed to be a question, and after a moment's
doubt Lydia answered, "I did n't know it was
strange to have fine weather at the start."
" Oh, but I can assure you it is," said Dunham,
with a certain lady-like sweetness of manner which
he had. " According to precedent, we ought to be
all deathly seasick."
"Not at this time of year," said Captain Jenness.
" Not at this time of year, repeated Mr. Watterson, as if the remark were an order to the crew.
Dunham referred the matter with a look to his




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


friend, who refused to take part in it, and then he
let it drop. But presently Staniford himself attempted the civility of some conversation witl
Lydia. HIe asked her gravely, and somewhat severely, if she had suffered much from the heat of
the day before.
"Yes," said Lydia, " it was very hot."
"I 'm told it was the hottest day of the summer,
so far," continued Staniford, with the same severity.
" I want to know! " cried Lydia.
The young man did not say anything more.
As Dunham lit his cigar at Staniford's on deck,
the former said significantly, " What a very American thing! "
" What a bore! " answered the other.
Dunham nhad never been abroad, as one might
imagine from his calling Lydia's presence a very
American thing, but he had always consorted with
people who had lived in Europe; he read the Revue des Deux Mondes habitually, and the London
weekly newspapers, and this gave him the foreign
stand-point from which he was fond of viewing his
native world. " It 's incredible," he added. "Who
in the world can she be? '
"Oh, I don't know," returned Staniford, with a
cold disgust.  " I should object to the society of
such a young person for a month or six weeks under the most favorable circumstances, and with frequent respites; but to be imprisoned on the same




56       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


ship with her, and to have her on one's mind and
in one's way the whole time, is more than I bargained for. Captain Jenness should have told us;
though I suppose he thought that if she could stand
it, we might. There 's that point of view. But it
takes all ease and comfort out of the prospect.
Here comes that blackguard." Staniford turned
his back towards Mr. Hicks, who was approaching,
but Dunham could not quite do this, though he
waited for the other to speak first.
" Will you - would you oblige me with a light?"
Mr. Hicks asked, taking a cigar from his case.
" Certainly," said Dunham, with the comradery
of the smoker.
Mr. Hicks seemed to gather courage from his
cigar. " You did n't expect to find a lady passenger on board, did you?" His poor disagreeable
little face was lit up with unpleasant enjoyment of
the anomaly. Dunham hesitated for an answer.
" One never can know what one's fellow passengers are going to be," said Staniford, turning about,
and looking not at Mr. Hicks's face, but his feet,
with an effect of being, upon the whole, disappointed not to find them cloven. He added, to put
the man down rather than from an exact belief in
his own suggestion, "She's probably some relation
of the captain's."
" Why, that's the joke of it," said Hicks, fluttered with his superior knowledge. "I 've been
pumping the cabin-boy, and he says the captain




TIlE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


57


never saw her till yesterday. She 's an up-country
school-marmn, and she came down here with her
grandfather yesterday.  She 's going out to meet
friends of hers in Venice."  The little man pulled
at his cigar, and coughed and chuckled, and waited
confidently for the impression.
" Dunham," said Staniford, " did I hand you that
sketch-block of mine to put in your bag, when we
were packing last night?"
"Yes, I 've got it."
" I 'm glad of that. Did you see Murray yesterday?"
"No; he was at Cambridge."
" I thought he was to have met you at Parker's."
The conversation no longer included Mr. Hicks or
the subject he had introduced; after a moment's
hesitation, he walked away to another part of the
ship. As soon as he was beyond ear-shot, Staniford
again spoke: "Dunham, this girl is plainly one of
those cases of supernatural innocence, on the part
of herself and her friends, which, as you suggested,
would n't occur among any other people in the
world but ours."
" You 're a good fellow, Staniford!" cried Dunham.
" Not at all. I call myself simply a human
being, with the elemental instincts of a gentleman,
as far as concerns this matter. The girl has been
placed in a position which could be made very painful to her. It seems to me it's our part to prevent




58       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


it from being so. I doubt if she finds it at all
anomalous, and if we choose she need never do so
till after we've parted with her. I fancy we can
preserve her unconsciousness intact."
"Staniford, this is like you," said his friend, with
glistening eyes. "I had some wild notion of the
kind myself, but I 'm so glad you spoke of it first."
"' Well, never mind," responded Staniford. " We
must make her feel that there is nothing irregular
or uncommon in her being here as she is. I don't
know how the matter's to be managed, exactly; it
must be a negative benevolence for the most part;
but it can be done. The first thing is to cow that
nuisance yonder.  Pumping the cabin-boy! The
little sot! Look here, Dunham; it's such a satisfaction to me to think of putting that fellow under
foot that I '11 leave you all the credit of saving the
young lady's feelings. I should like to begin stamping on him at once."
" I think you have made a beginning already. I
confess I wish you had n't such heavy nails in your
boots!"
" Oh, they '11 do him good, confound him!" said
Staniford.
" I should have liked it better if her name had n't
been Blood," remarked Dunham, presently.
" It does n't matter what a girl's surname is. Besides, Blood is very frequent in some parts of the
State."
"She's very pretty, isn't she?" Dunham suggested.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


59


"Oh, pretty enough, yes," replied Staniford.
"Nothing is so common as the pretty girl of our
nation. Her beauty is part of the general tiresomeness of the whole situation."
"Don't you think," ventured his friend, further,
' that she has rather a lady-like air? "
"She wanted to know," said Staniford, with a
laugh.
Dunham was silent a while before he asked,
What do you suppose her first name is?
"Jerusha, probably."
" Oh, impossible!"
"Well, then,- Lurella. You have no idea of
the grotesqueness of these people's minds. I used
to see a great deal of their intimate life when I went
on my tramps, and chanced it among them, for bed
and board, wherever I happened to be. We cultivated Yankees and the raw material seem hardly of
the same race. Where the Puritanism has gone out
of the people in spots, there 's the rankest growth
of all sorts of crazy heresies, and the old scriptural
nomenclature has given place to something compounded of the fancifulness of story-paper romance
and the gibberish of spiritualism. They make up
their names, sometimes, and call a child by what
sounds pretty to them. I wonder how the captain
picked up that scoundrel."
The turn of Staniford's thought to Hicks was
suggested by the appearance of Captain Jenness,
\\ho now issued from the cabin gangway, and came




-   60


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


toward them with the shadow of unwonted trouble
in his face. The captain, too, was smoking.
" Well, gentlemen,' he began, with the obvious
indirectness of a man not used to diplomacy, "how
do you like your accommodations? "
Staniford silently acquiesced in Dunham's reply
that they found them excellent. "But you don't
mean to say," Dunham added, "that you 're going
to give us beefsteak and all the vegetables of the
season the whole way over?"
"No," said the captain; "we shall put you on
sea-fare soon enough. But you'll like it. You
don't want the same things at sea that you do on
shore; your appetite chops round into a different
quarter altogether, and you want salt beef; but
you '11 get it good. Your room's pretty snug," he
suggested.
"Oh, it's big enough," said Staniford, to whom
he had turned as perhaps more in authority than
Dunham. " While we're well we only sleep in it,
and if we're seasick it does n't matter where we
are."
The captain knocked the ash from his cigar with
the tip of his fat little finger, and looked down.
"I was in hopes I could have let you had a room
apiece, but I had another passenger jumped on me
at the last minute. I suppose you see what's the
matter with Mr. Hicks?"  He looked up from one
to another, and they replied with a glance of perfect intelligence.  "I don't generally talk my




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


61


passengers over with one another, but I thought
I 'd better speak to you about him. I found him
yesterday evening at my agents', with his fattler.
He's just been on a spree, a regular two weeks'
tear, aud the old gentleman did n't know wllat to do
with him, on shore, any longer. IHe tlought he 'd
send hIim to sea a voyage, and see wlat would come
of it, and he plead hard with me to take him. I
did n't want to take him, but lie worked away at
me till I could n't say no. I argued in my own
mind that le could i't get any)tlling to drink on
my ship, and that he 'd beltave himself well enough
as long as he was sober."  The captain added ruefully, "He looks worse this morning than lie did
last night. He looks bad. I told the old gentlemani that if he got into any trouble at Try-East, or
any of the ports where we touched, lhe should n't
set foot on my sllip again. But I guess le '11 keep
pretty straight.  ie llas n't got any money, for one
thing."
Staniford laughed.   " Ite stops drinking  for
obvious reasons, if for no others, like Artemus
Ward's destitute inebriate. Did you think only
of us in deciding whether you should take him?"
The captain looked up quickly at the young men,
as if touched in a sore place. "' Well, there again
I did n't seem to get my bearings just riglt. I
suppose you mean the young lady?"    Staniford
motionlessly and silently assented. "Well, she's
more of a young lady than I thought she was, when




62       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


her grandfather first come down here and talked of
sending her over with me. He was always speaking about his little girl, you know, and I got the
idea that she was about thirteen, or eleven, may be.
I thought the child might be some bother on the
voyage, but thinks I, I'm used to children, and I
guess I can manage. Bless your soul! when I first
see her on the wharf yesterday, it most knocked me
down! I never believed she was half so tall, nor
half so good-looking."  Staniford smiled at this
expression of the captain's despair, but the captain
did not smile. "Why, she was as pretty as a bird!
Well, there I was. It was no time then to back
out. The old man would n't understood. Besides,
there was the young lady herself, and she seemed
so forlorn and helpless that I kind of pitied her. I
thought, What if it was one of my own girls? And
I made up my mind that she should n't know from
anything I said or did that she was n't just as much
at home and just as much in place on my ship as
she would be in my house. I suppose what made
me feel easier about it, and took the queerness off
some, was my having my own girls along last voyage. To be sure, it ain't quite the same thing,"
said the captain, interrogatively.
"Not quite," assented Staniford.
"If there was two of them," said the captain, " I
don't suppose I should feel so bad about it. But
thinks I, A lady 's a lady the world over, and a
gentleman's a gentleman."  The captain looked




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


63


significantly at the young men. " As for that other
fellow," added Captain Jenness, "if I can't take
care of him, I think I'd better stop going to sea
altogether, and go into the coasting trade."
He resumed his cigar with defiance, and was
about turning away when Staniford spoke. " Captain Jenness, my friend and I had been talking this
little matter over just before you came up. Will
you let me say that I'm rather proud of having
reasoned in much the same direction as yourself? "
This was spoken with that air which gave Staniford a peculiar distinction, and made him the despair and adoration of his friend: it endowed the
subject with seriousness, and conveyed a sentiment
of grave and noble sincerity. The captain held
out a hand to each of the young men, crossing his
wrists in what seemed a favorite fashion with him.
"Good!" he cried, heartily. " I thought I knew
you."




VII.


STANIFORD and Dunham drew stools to the rail,
and sat down with their cigars after the captain
left them. The second mate passed by, and cast
a friendly glance at them; he had whimsical brown
eyes that twinkled under his cap-peak, while a
lurking smile played under his heavy mustache;
but le did not speak. Staniford said, there was a
pleasant fellow, and he should like to sketch him.
He was only an amateur artist, and he had been
only an amateur in life otherwise, so far; but he
did not pretend to have been anything else.
"Then you're not sorry you came, Staniford? "
asked Dunham, putting his hand on his friend's
knee. He characteristically assumed the responsibility, although the voyage by sailing-vessel rather
than steamer was their colmmon whim, and it had
been Staniford's preference that decided them for
Trieste rather than any nearer port.
" No, I'm  not sorry, -if you call it come, already.  I think a bit of Europe will be a very
good thing for the present, or as long as I 'm in this
irresolute mood. If I understand it, Europe is the
place for American irresolution. When I 've made
up my mind, I 'll come home again. I still think
Colorado is the thing, though I have n't abandoned




THII LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


6)


California altogether; it's a question of cattlerange and sheep-ranch."
You '11 decide against both," said Dunham.
"How would you like West Virginia?     They
cattle-range in West Virginia, too.  They may
sheep-ranch, too, for all I know, -no, that 's in Old
Virginia. The trouble is that the Virginias, otlherwise irreproachable, are not paying fields for such
enterprises. They say that one is a sure thing in
California, and the other is a sure thing in Colorado. They give you the figures."  Staniford lit
another cigar.
" But why should n't you stay where you are,
Staniford? You 've money enough left, after all."
Yes, money enough for one. But there's something ignoble in living on a small stated income,
unless you have some object in view besides living,
and I have n't, you know. It's a duty I owe to the
general frame of things to make more money."
"If you turned your mind to any one thing, I 'm
sure you 'd succeed where you are," Dunhlam urged.
"That's just tlhe trouble," retorted his friend.
"I can't turn my mlind to any one tlling, -I 'n
too universally gifted. I paint a little, I model a
little, I play a very little indeed; I can write a
book notice. The ladies praise my art, and the
editors keep my literature a long time before they
print it. This does n't seem the higlhest aim of being. I have the noble earth-hunger; I must get
upon the land. That's why I've got upon the
5




66


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


water." Staniford laughed again, and pulled comfortably at his cigar. "Now, you," he added, after
a pause, in which Dunham did not reply, " you have
not had losses; you still have everything comfortable about you. Du hast Alles was Menschen begehr, even to the schonsten Augen of the divine
Miss Hibbard."
"Yes, Staniford, that's it.  I hate your going
out there all alone. Now, if you were taking some
nice girl with you!" Dunham said, with a lover's
fond desire that his friend should be in love, too.
" To those wilds? To a redwood shanty in California, or a turf hovel in Colorado? What nice
girl would go? 'I will take some savage woman,
she shall rear my dusky race.'"
" I don't like to have you take any risks of degenerating," began Dunham.
" With what you know to be my natural tendencies? Your prophetic eye prefigures my pantaloons in the tops of my boots. Well, there is time
yet to turn back from the brutality of a patriarchal
life. You must allow that I 've taken the longest
way round in going West. In Italy there are many
chances; and besides, you know, I like to talk."
It seemed to be an old subject between them,
and they discussed it languidly, like some abstract
topic rather than a reality.
" If you only had some tie to bind you to the
East, I should feel pretty safe about you," said
Dunham, presently.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


67


" I have you," answered his friend, demurely.
"Oh, I'm nothing," said Dunham, with sincerity.
"Well, I may form some tie in Italy. Art may
fall in love with me, there. How would you like
to have me settle in Florence, and set up a studio
instead of a ranch,- choose between sculpture and
painting, instead of cattle and sheep? After all,
it does grind me to have lost that money! If I
had only been swindled out of it, I should n't have
cared; but when you go and make a bad thing of
it yourself, with your eyes open, there's a reluctance to place the responsibility where it belongs
that doesn't occur in the other case. Dunham, do
you think it altogether ridiculous that I should feel
there was something sacred in the money? When
I remember how hard my poor old father worked
to get it together, it seems wicked that I should
have stupidly wasted it on the venture I did. I
want to get it back; I want to make money. And
so I 'm going out to Italy with you, to waste more.
I don't respect myself as I should if I were on a
Pullman palace car, speeding westward. I'11 own
I like this better."
" Oh, it 's all right, Staniford," said his friend.
" The voyage will do you good, and you 'll have
time to think everything over, and start fairer when
you get back."
" That girl," observed Staniford, with characteristic abruptness, "is a type that is commoner than we




68       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


imagine in New England.   We fair people fancy
we are the only genuine Yankees. I guess that's
a mistake. There must have been a good many
dark Puritans. In fact, we always think of Puritans as dark, don't we?"
"I believe we do," assented Dunham.    "Perhaps on account of their black clothes."
Perhaps," said Staniford. " At any rate, I 'm
so tired of the blonde type in fiction that I rather
like the other thing in life. Every novelist runs a
blonde heroine; I wonder why. This girl has the
clear Southern pallor; she 's of the olive hue; and
her eyes are black as sloes, - not that I know what
sloes are. Did she remind you of anything in particular? "
"Yes; a little of Faed's Evanmgeline, as she sat
in the door-way of the warehouse yesterday."
"Exactly.  I wish the picture were more of a
picture; but I don't know that it matters. Sle 's
more of a picture."
"' Pretty as a bird,' the captain said."
"Bird is n't bad. But the bird is in her manner.
There 's something tranquilly alert in her manner
that's like a bird; like a bird that lingers on its
perch, looking at you over its shoulder, if you
come up behind. That trick of the heavily lifted,
half lifted eyelids, -I wonder if it 's a trick. The
long lashes can't be; she can't make them curl up
at the edges. Blood, -Lurella Blood. And she
wants to know."   Staniford's voice fell thoughtful.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


69


"She's more slender than Faed's Evangeline. Faed
painted rather too fat a sufferer on that tombstone.
Lurella Blood has a very pretty figure. Lurella.
Why Lurella? "
"      Oh, come, Staniford! " cried Dunham. " It is
n't f:air to call the girl by that jingle without some
ground for it."
" I 'm sure her name 's Lurella, for she wanted
to know. Besides, there 's as much sense in it as
there is in any name. It sounds very well. Lurella.
It is mere prejudice that condemns the novel collocation of syllables."
"I wonder what she 's tlinking of now, - what's
passing in her mind," mused Dunham aloud.
" Yoi want to know, too, do you?" mocked his
friend. " I '11 tell you what: processions of young
men so long that they are an hour getting by a
given point. That's what's passing in every girl's
mind - when she 's tlinking. It 's perfectly right.
Processsions of young girls are similarly passing in
our stately and spacious intellects. It's the chief
business of the youth of one sex to think of the
youth of the other sex."
" Oh, yes, I know," assented Dunham; " and I
believe in it, too" -
"Of course you do, you wicked wretch, you abandoned Lovelace, you bruiser of ladies' hearts! You
hope the procession is composed entirely of yourself. What would the divine Hibbard say to your
goings-on?"




70       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" Oh, don't, Staniford! It is n't fair," pleaded
Dunham, with the flattered laugh which the best of
men give when falsely attainted of gallantry. " I
was wondering whether she was feeling homesick,
or strange, or ""I will go below and ask her," said Staniford.
"I know she will tell me the exact truth. They
always do. Or if you will take a guess of mine instead of her word for it, I will hazard the surmise
that she is not at all homesick. What has a pretty
young girl to regret in such a life as she has left?
It's the most arid and joyless existence under the
sun. She has never known anything like society.
In the country with us, the social side must always
have been somewhat paralyzed, but there are monumental evidences of pleasures in other days that
are quite extinct now.  You see big dusty ballrooms in the old taverns: ball-rooms that have had
no dancing in them for half a century, and where
they give you a bed sometimes. There used to be
academies, too, in the hill towns, where they furnished a rude but serviceable article of real learning, and where the local octogenarian remembers
seeing something famous in the way of theatricals
on examination-day; but neither his children nor
his grandchildren have seen the like. There 's a
decay of the religious sentiment, and the church is
no longer a social centre, with merry meetings
among the tombstones between the morning and
the afternoon service. Superficial humanitarianism




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


71


of one kind or another has killed the good old orthodoxy, as the railroads have killed the turnpikes
and the country taverns; and the common schools
have killed the academies. Why, I don't suppose
this girl ever saw anything livelier than a township cattle show, or a Sunday-school picnic, in her
life. They don't pay visits in the country except at
rare intervals, and their evening parties, when they
have any, are something to strike you dead with
pity. They used to clear away the corn-husks and
pumpkins on the barn floor, and dance by the light
of tin lanterns. At least, that's the traditional
thing. The actual thing is sitting around four sides
of the room, giggling, whispering, looking at photograph albums, and coaxing somebody to play on
the piano. The banquet is passed in the form of
apples and water. I have assisted at some rural
festivals where the apples were omitted. Upon the
whole, I wonder our country people don't all go
mad. They do go mad, a great many of them,
and manage to get a little glimpse of society in the
insane asylums." Staniford ended his tirade with
a laugh, in which he vented his humorous sense and
his fundamental pity of the conditions he had caricatured.
" But how," demanded Dunham, breaking rebelliously from the silence in which he had listened,
"do you account for her good manner? "
"She probably was born with a genius for it.
Some people are born with a genius for one thing,




72       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


and some with a genius for another. I, for example, am an artistic genius, forced to be an amateur
by the delusive possession of early wealth, and n.ow
burning with a creative instinct in the direction of
the sheep or cattle business; you have the gift of
universal optimism; Lurella Blood has the genius
of good society. Give that girl a winter among
nice people in Boston, and you would never know
that she was not born on Beacon Hill."
"Oh, I doubt that," said Dunham.
" You doubt it? Pessimist! "
" But you implied just now that she had no sensibility," pursued Dunham.
" So I did! " cried Staniford, cheerfully. " Social
genius and sensibility are two very different things;
the cynic might contend they were incompatible,
but I won't insist so far. I dare say she may regret
the natal spot; most of us have a dumb, brutish
attachment to the cari tlogyhi; but if she knows
anything, she hates its surroundings, and must be
glad to get out into the world. I should like
mightily to know how the world strikes her, as far
as she 's gone. But I doubt if she 's one to betray
her own counsel in any way. She looks deep, Lurella does."  Staniford laughed again at the pain
which his insistence upon the name brought into
Dunham's face.




VIII.


AFTER dinner, nature avenged herself in the
young men for their vigils of the night before, when
they had stayed up so late, parting with friends,
that they had found themselves early risers without
having been abed. They both slept so long that
Dunham, leaving Staniford to a still unfinished
nap, came on deck between five and six o'clock.
Lydia was there, wrapped against the freshening
breeze in a red knit shawl, and seated on a stool in
the waist of the ship, in the Evangeline attitude,
and with the wistful, Evangeline look in her face,
as she gazed out over the far-weltering sea-line,
from which all trace of the shore had vanished.
She seemed to the young man very interesting, and
he approached her with that kindness for all other
women in his heart which the lover feels in absence
from his beloved, and with a formless sense that
some retribution was due her from him for the
roughness with which Staniford had surmised her
natural history. Women had always been dear and
sacred to him; he liked, beyond most young men,
to be with them; he was forever calling upon them,
getting introduced to them, waiting upon them, inventing little services for them, corresponding with
them, and wearing himself out in their interest. It




74       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


is said that women do not value men of this sort so
much as men of some other sorts. It was long, at
any rate, before Dunham - whom people always
called Charley Dunham — found the woman who
thought him more lovely than every other woman
pronounced him; and naturally Miss Hibbard was
the most exacting of her sex. She required all
those offices which Dunham delighted to render,
and many besides: being an invalid, she needed devotion. She had refused Dunham before going out
to Europe with her mother, and she had written to
take him back after she got there. He was now on
his way to join her in Dresden, where he hoped
that he might marry her, and be perfectly sacrificed
to her ailments. She only lacked poverty in order
to be thoroughly displeasing to most men; but
Dunham had no misgiving save in regard to her
money; he wished she had no money.
" A good deal more motion, is n't there? " he
said to Lydia, smiling sunnily as he spoke, and
holding his hat with one hand. " Do you find it
unpleasant?"
' No," she answered, " not at all. I like it."
" Oh, there is n't enough swell to make it uncomfortable, yet," asserted Dunham, looking about to
see if there were not something he could do for her.
" And you may turn out a good sailor. Were you
ever at sea before? "
" No; this is the first time I was ever on a ship."
"Is it possible!" cried Dunham; he was now




THE LADY OF 'HE AROOSTOOK.


75


fairly at sea for the first time himself, though by
virtue of his European associations he seemed to
have made many voyages. It appeared to him that
if there was nothing else he could do for Lydia, it
was his duty to talk to her. He found another
stool, and drew it up within easier conversational
distance. " Then you've never been out of sight
of land before? "
"No," said Lydia.
"That 's very curious - I beg your pardon; I
mean you must find it a great novelty."
" Yes, it's very strange," said the girl, seriously.
"It looks like the Flood. It seems as if all the
rest of the world was drowned."
Dunham glanced round the vast horizon. "It is
like the Flood. And it has that quality, which
I've often noticed in sublime things, of seeming tobe for this occasion only."
" Yes? " said Lydia.
" Why, don't you know? It seems as if it must
be like a fine sunset, and would pass in a few minutes. Perhaps we feel that we can't endure sublimity long, and want it to pass."
" I could look at it forever," replied Lydia.
Dunham turned to see if this were young-ladyish rapture, but perceived that she was affecting
nothing. He liked seriousness, for he was, with a
great deal of affectation for social purposes, a very
sincere person. His heart warmed more and more
to the lonely girl; to be talking to her seemed,




76       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


after all, to be doing very little for her, and he
longed to be of service. " Have you explored our
little wooden world, yet? " he asked, after a pause.
Lydia paused too.   " The ship? " she asked
presently. " No; I've only been in the cabin, and
here; and this morning," she added, conscientiously, i" Thomas showed me the cook's galley,the kitchen."
"You 've seen more than I have," said Dunham.
"Wouldn't you like to go forward, to the bow,
and see how it looks there? "
4' Yes, thank you," answered Lydia, " I would."
She tottered a little in gaining her feet, and the
wind drifted her slightness a step or two aside.
"Won't you take my arm, perhaps?" suggested
Dunham.
" Thank you," said Lydia, "I think I can get
along." But after a few paces, a lurch of the ship
flung her against Dunham's side; he caught her
hand, and passed it through his arm without protest
from her.
Is n't it grand?" he asked triumphantly, as
they stood at the prow, and rose and sank with the
vessel's careering plunges. It was no gale, but only
a fair wind; the water foamed along the ship's
sides, and, as her bows descended, shot forward in
hissing jets of spray; away on every hand flocked
the white caps. "You had better keep my arm,
here."  Lydia did so, resting her disengaged hand
on the bulwarks, as she bent over a little on that




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


77


side to watch the rush of the sea. " It really seems
as if there were more of a view here."
It does, somehow," admitted Lydia."
"Look back at the ship's sails," said Dunham.
The swell and press of the white canvas seemed
like the clouds of heaven swooping down upon
them from all the airy heights. The sweet wind
beat in their faces, and they laughed in sympathy,
as they fronted it. " Perhaps the motion is a little
too strong for you here? " he asked.
" Oh, not at all! " cried the girl.
He had done something for her by bringing her
here, and he hoped to do something more by taking
her away. He was discomfited, for he was at a loss
what other attention to offer. Just at that nmoment
a sound made itself heard above the whistling of
the cordage and the wash of the sea, which caused
Lydia to start and look round.
" Did n't you think," she asked, " that you heard
hens? "
"Why, yes," said Dunham. "What could it
have been? Let us investigate."
He led the way back past the forecastle and the
cook's galley, and there, in dangerous proximity to
the pots and frying pans, they found a coop with
some dozen querulous and meditative fowl in it.
" I heard them this morning," said Lydia.
"They seemed to wake me with their crowing, and
I thought — I was at home! "
"I 'm very sorry," said Dunham, sympathetically.




78       THE LADY OF TiHE, AROOSTOOK.


He wished Staniford were there to take shame to
himself for denying sensibility to this girl.
The cook, smoking a pipe at the door of his galley, said, " Dey won't trouble you much, miss. Dey
don't gen'ly last us long, and I '11 kill de roosters
first."
" Oh, come, now!" protested    Dunham.    "I
would n't say that! "  The cook and Lydia stared
at him in equal surprise.
" Well," answered the cook, "I '11 kill the hens
first, den. It don't make any difference to me
which I kill. I dunno but de hens is tenderer."
He smoked in a bland indifference.
4 Oh, hold on! " exclaimed Dunham, in repetition of his helpless protest.
Lydia stooped down to make closer acquaintance
with the devoted birds. They huddled themselves
away from her in one corner of their prison, and
talked together in low tones of grave mistrust.
"Poor things! " she said. As a country girl, used
to the practical ends of poultry, she knew as well
as the cook that it was the fit and simple destiny of
chickens to be eaten, sooner or later; and it must
have been less in commiseration of their fate than
in self-pity and regret for the scenes they recalled
that she sighed. The hens that burrowed yesterday under the lilacs in the door-yard; the cock that
her aunt so often drove, insulted and exclamatory,
at the head of his harem, out of forbidden garden
bounds; the social groups that scratched and des



THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


79


canted lazily about the wide, sunny barn doors; the
anxious companies seeking their favorite perches,
with alarming outcries, in the dusk of summer
evenings; the sentinels answering each other from
farm to farm  before winter dawns, when all the
hills were drowned in snow, were of kindred with
these hapless prisoners.
Dunham   was touched at Lydia's compassion.
"Would you like - would you like to feed them?"
he asked by a happy inspiration. He turned to the
cook, with his gentle politeness: "There's no objection to our feeding them, I suppose? "
" Laws, no! " said the cook. " Fats 'em up."
He went inside, and reappeared with a pan full of
scraps of meat and crusts of bread.
" Oh, I say!" cried Dunham. "Have n't you
got some grain, you know, of some sort; some seeds,
don't you know?"
" They will like this," said Lydia, while the cook
stared in perplexity. She took the pan, and opening the little door of the coop flung the provision
inside. But the fowls were either too depressed in
spirit to eat anything, or they were not hungry;
they remained in their corner, and merely fell silent,
as if a new suspicion had been roused in their unhappy breasts..
" Dey '11 come to it," observed the cook.
Dunham felt far from content, and regarded the
poultry with silent disappointment. " Are you fond
of pets? " he asked, after a while.




80       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" Yes, I used to have pet chickens when I was a
little thing."
"You ought to adopt one of these," suggested
Dunham. " That white one is a pretty creature."
"Yes," said Lydia.  "He looks as if he were
Leghorn. Leghorn breed," she added, in reply to
Dunham's look of inquiry. "He's a beauty."
" Let me get him out for you a moment! " cried
the young man, in his amiable zeal. Before Lydia
could protest, or the cook interfere, he had opened
the coop-door and plunged his arm into the tumult
which his manoeuvre created within. He secured
the cockerel, and drawing it forth was about to
offer it to Lydia, when in its struggles to escape it
drove one of its spurs into his hand. Dunham suddenly released it; and then ensued a wild chase
for its recapture, up and down the ship, in which it
had every advantage of the young man. At last it
sprang upon the rail; lie put out his hand to seize
it, when it rose with a desperate screech, and flew
far out over the sea. They watched the suicide till
it sank exhausted into a distant white-cap.
"Dat's gone," said the cook, philosophically.
Dunham looked round. Half the ship's company,
alarmed by his steeple-chase over the deck, were
there, silently agrin.
Lydia did not laugh. When he asked, still with
his habitual sweetness, but entirely at random,
Shall we - ah - go below?" she did not answer
definitely, and did not go. At the same time she




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


81


ceased to be so timidly intangible and aloof in manner. She began to talk to Dunham, instead of letting him talk to her; she asked him questions, and
listened with deference to what he said on such matters as the probable length of the voyage and the
sort of weather they were likely to have. She did
not take note of his keeping his handkerchief wound
round his hand, nor of his attempts to recur to the
subject of his mortifying adventure. When they
were again quite alone, the cook's respect having
been won back through his ethnic susceptibility
to silver, she remembered that she must go to her
room.
In other words," said Staniford, after Dunham
had reported the whole case to him, "she treated
your hurt vanity as if you had been her pet schoolboy. She lured you away from yourself, and got
you to talking and thinking of other things. Lurella is deep, I tell you. What consummate tacticians the least of women are! It's a pity that they
have to work so often in such dull material as men;
they ought always to have women to operate on.
The youngest of them has more wisdom in human
nature than the sages of our sex. I must say, Lurella is magnanimous, too. She might have taken
her revenge on you for pitying her yesterday when
she sat in that warehouse door on the wharf. It
was rather fine in Lurellat not to do it. What did
she say, Dunhlam? What did she talk about? Did
she want to know? "




82


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"No!" shouted Dunham. "She talked very
well, like any young lady."
" Oh, all young ladies talk well, of course. But
what did this one say? What did she do, except
suffer a visible pang of homesickness at the sight of
unattainable poultry? Come, you have represented
the interview with Miss Blood as one of great brilliancy."
" I have n't," said Dunham. " I have done nothing of the kind. Her talk was like any pleasant
talk; it was refined and simple, and -unobtrusive."
"r Tliat is, it was in no way remarkable," observed
Staniford, with a laugh. " I expected something
better of Lurella; I expected something salient.
Well, never mind. She's behaved well by you,
seeing what a goose you had made of yourself.
She behaved like a lady, and I've noticed that she
eats with her fork. It often happens in the country
that you find the women practicing some of the arts
of civilization, while their men folk are still sunk in
barbaric uses. Lurella, I see, is a social creature;
she was born for society, as you were, and I suppose
you will be thrown a good deal together. We're
all likely to be associated rather familiarly, under
the circumstances. But I wish you would note
down in your mind some points of her conversation.
I 'm really curious to know what a girl of her traditions thinks about the world when she first sees it.
Her mind must be in most respects an unbroken




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


83


wilderness. She's had schooling, of course, and she
knows her grammar and algebra; but she can't
have had any cultivation. If she were of an earlier
generation, one would expect to find something biblical in her; but you can't count upon a Puritanic
culture now among our country folks."
"If you are so curious," said Dunham, "  hy
don't you study her mind, yourself? "
" No, no, that would n't do," Staniford answered.
" The light of your innocence upon hers is invaluable. I can understand her better through you.
You must go on. I will undertake to make your
peace witlh Miss Hibbard."
The young men talked as they walked the deck
and smoked in the starlight. They were wakeful
after their long nap in the afternoon, and they
walked and talked late, with the silences that old
friends can permit themselves. Staniford recurred
to his loss of money and his Western projects,
which took more definite form now that he had
placed so much distance between himself and their
fulfillment. With half a year in Italy before him,
he decided upon a cattle-range in Colorado. Then,
"I should like to know," he said, after one of the
pauses, " how two young men of our form strike
that girl's fancy. I have n't any personal curiosity
about her impressions, but I should like to know,
as an observer of the human race. If my conjectures are right, she 's never met people of our sort
before."




84       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" What sort of men has she been associated
with? " asked Dunham.
"Well, I'm not quite prepared to say. I take it
that it is n't exactly the hobbledehoy sort. She has
probably looked high, - as far up as the clerk in
the store. He has taken her to drive in a buggy
Saturday afternoons, when he put on his readymade suit, - and looked very well in it, too; and
they've been at picnics together. Or may be, as
she's in the school-teaching line, she's taken some
high-browed, hollow-cheeked high-school principal
for her ideal. Or it is possible that she has never
had attention from any one. That is apt to happen
to self-respectful girls in rural communities, and their
beauty doesn't save them. Fellows, as they call
themselves, like girls that have what they call go,
that make up to them. Lurella does n't seem of
that kind; and I should not be surprised if you were
the first gentleman who had ever offered her his
arm. I wonder what she thought of you. She's
acquainted by sight with the ordinary summer
boarder of North America; they penetrate everywhere, now; but I doubt if she's talked with them
much, if at all. She must be ignorant of our world
beyond anything we can imagine."
" But how do you account for her being so well
dressed? "
" Oh, that's instinct. You find it everywhere.
In every little village there is some girl who knows
how to out-preen all the others. I wonder," added




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


85


Staniford, in a more deeply musing tone, "if she
kept from laughing at you out of good feeling, or
if she was merely overawed by your splendor."
" She did n't laugh," Dunham answered, " because she saw that it would have added to my annoyance. My splendor had nothing to do with it."
Oh, don't underrate your splendor, my dear
fellow! " cried Staniford, with a caressing ridicule
that he often used with Dunham. " Of course, I
know what a simple and humble fellow you are;
but you've no idea how that exterior of yours
might impose upon the agricultural imagination;
it has its effect upon me, in my pastoral moods."
Dunham made a gesture of protest, and Staniford
went on: "Country people have queer ideas of us,
sometimes. Possibly Lurella was afraid of you.
Think of that, Dunham, - having a woman afraid
of you, for once in your life! Well, hurry up your
acquaintance with her, Dunham, or I shall wear
myself out in mere speculative analysis. I have n't
the aplomb for studying the sensibilities of a young
lady, and catchin hi chickens for her, so as to produce a novel play of emotions. I thought this voyage was going to be a season of mental quiet, but
having a young lady on board seems to forbid that
kind of repose. I shouldn't mind a half dozen,
but one is altogether too many. Poor little thing!
I say, Dunham! There's something rather pretty
about having her with us, after all, is n't there? It
gives a certain distinction to our voyage. We shall




86        THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
not degenerate. We shall shave every day, wind
and weather permitting, and wear our best things."
They talked of other matters, and again Staniford
recurred to Lydia: " If she has any regrets for her
mountain home, -though I don't see why she
should have, - I hope they have n't kept her awake.
My far-away cot on the plains is not going to interfere with my slumbers."
Staniford stepped to the ship's side, and flung the
end of his cigarette overboard; it struck, a red spark
amidst the lurid phosphorescence of the bubbles that
swept backward from the vessel's prow.




TX.


THE weather held fine. The sun shone, and the
friendly winds blew out of a cloudless heaven; by
night the moon ruled a firmament powdered with
stars of multitudinous splendor. The conditions
inspired Dunham with a restless fertility of invention in Lydia's behalf. He had heard of the game
of shuffle-board, that blind and dumb croquet, with
which the jaded passengers on the steamers appease
their terrible leisure, and with the help of the ship's
carpenter he organized this pastime, and played it
with her hour after hour, while Staniford looked on
and smoked in grave observance, and Hicks lurked
at a distance, till Dunham felt it on his kind heart
and tender conscience to invite him to a share in
the diversion. As his nerves recovered their tone,
Hicks showed himself a man of some qualities that
Staniford would have liked in another man: he was
amiable, and he was droll, though apt to turn sulky
if Staniford addressed him, which did not often
happen. He knew more than Dunham of shuffleboard, as well as of tossing rings of rope over a peg
set up a certain space off in the deck,-a game
which they eagerly took up in the afternoon, after
pushing about the flat wooden disks all the morning. Most of the talk at the table was of the vary



88       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


ing fortunes of the players; and the yarn of the
story-teller in the forecastle remained half-spun,
while the sailors off watch gathered to look on, and
to bet upon Lydia's skill. It puzzled Staniford to
make out whether she felt any strangeness in the
situation, which she accepted with so much apparent serenity. Sometimes, in his frequently recurring talks with Dunham, he questioned whether
their delicate precautions for saving her feelings
were not perhaps thrown away upon a young person who played shuffle-board and ring-toss on the
deck of the Aroostook with as much self-possession
as she would have played croquet on her native
turf at South Bradfield.
" Their ideal of propriety up country is very
different from ours," he said, beginning one of his
long comments. " I don't say that it concerns the
conscience more than ours does; but they think
evil of different things. We 're getting Europeanized,-I don't mean you, Dunham; in spite of
your endeavors you will always remain one of the
most hopelessly American of our species, - and we
have our little borrowed anxieties about the free
association of young people.  They have none
whatever; though they are apt to look suspiciously
upon married people's friendships with other people's wives and husbands. It's quite likely that
Lurella, with the traditions of her queer world, has
not imagined anything anomalous in her position.
She may realize certain inconveniences. But she




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


89


must see great advantages in it. Poor girl! How
she must be rioting on the united devotion of cabin
and forecastle, after the scanty gallantries of a hill
town peopled by elderly unmarried women! I 'm
glad of it, for her sake.  I wonder which she
really prizes most: your ornate attentions, or the
uncouth homage of those sailors, who are always
running to fetch her rings and blocks when she
makes a wild shot. I believe I don't care and
shouldn't disapprove of her preference, whichever
it was." Staniford frowned before he added: "But
I object to Hicks and his drolleries. It's impossible for that little wretch to think reverently of a
young girl; it's shocking to see her treating him
as if he were a gentleman." Hicks's behavior
really gave no grounds for reproach; and it was
only his moral mechanism, as Staniford called the
character he constructed for him, which he could
blame; nevertheless, the thought of him gave an
oblique cast to Staniford's reflections, which he cut
short by saying, " This sort of worship is every
woman's due in girlhood; but I suppose a fortnight
of it will make her a pert and silly coquette. What
does she say to your literature, Dunham?"
Dunham had already begun to lend Lydia books,
— his own and Staniford's, - in which he read
aloud to her, and chose passages for her admiration;
but he was obliged to report that she had rather a
passive taste in literature. She seemed to like what
he said was good, but not to like it very much,




90       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


or to care greatly for reading; or else she had never
had the habit of talking books. He suggested this
to Staniford, who at once philosophized it.
" Why, I rather like that, you know. We all
read in such a literary way, now; we don't read
simply for the joy or profit of it; we expect to talk
about it, and say how it is this and that; and I've
no doubt that we 're sub-consciously harassed, all
the time, with an automatic process of criticism.
Now Lurella, I fancy, reads with the sense of the
days when people read in private, and not in public, as we do. She believes that your serious books
are all true; and she knows that my novels are all
lies- that's what some excellent Christians would
call the fiction even of George Eliot or of Hawthorne; she would be ashamed to discuss the lives
and loves of heroes and heroines who never existed.
I think that 's first-rate. She must wonder at your
distempered interest in them. If one could get at
it, I suppose the fresh wholesomeness of Lurella's
mind would be something delicious,- a quality
like spring water."
He was one of those men who cannot rest in regard to people they meet till they have made some
effort to formulate them. He liked to ticket them
off; but when he could not classify them, he remained content with his mere study of them. His
habit was one that does not promote sympathy with
one's fellow creatures. He confessed even that it
disposed him to wish for their less acquaintance




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


91


when once he had got them generalized; they became then collected specimens. Yet, for the time
being, his curiosity in them gave him a specious
air of sociability.  He lamented the insincerity
which this involved, but he could not help it. The
next novelty in character was as irresistible as the
last; he sat down before it till it yielded its meaning, or suggested to him some analogy by which he
could interpret it.
With this passion for the arrangement and distribution of his neighbors, it was not long before he
had placed most of the people on board in what he
called the psychology of the ship. He did not care
that they should fit exactly in their order.  He
rather preferred that they should have idiosyncrasies which differentiated them from their species,
and he enjoyed Lydia's being a little indifferent
about books for this and for other reasons. " If
she were literary, she would be like those vulgar
little persons of genius in the magazine stories.
She would have read all sorts of impossible things
up in her village. She would have been discovered
by some Aesthetic summer boarder, who had happened to identify her with the gifted Daisy Dawn,
and she would be going out on the assthetic's money
for the further expansion of her spirit in Europe.
Somebody would be obliged to fall in love with her,
and she would sacrifice her career for a man who
was her inferior, as we should be subtly given to
understand at the close. I think it's going to be




92       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


as distinguished by and by not to like books as it
is not to write them. Lurella is a prophetic soul;
and if there's anything comforting about her, it's
her being so merely and stupidly pretty."
"She is not merely and stupidly pretty!" retorted Dunham. " She never does herself justice
when you are by. She can talk very well, and on
some subjects she thinks strongly."
" Oh, I 'm sorry for that!" said Staniford.
"But call me some time when she 's doing herself
justice."
"I don't mean that she's like the women we
know.   She doesn't say witty things, and she
hasn't their responsive quickness; but her ideas
are her own, no matter how old they are; and
what she says she seems to be saying for the first
time, and as if it had never been thought out before."
" That is what I have been contending for," said
Staniford; " that is what I meant by spring water.
It is that thrilling freshness which charms me in
Lurella." He laughed. " Have you converted her
to your spectacular faith, yet? " Dunham blushed.
"You have tried," continued Staniford. "Tell
me about it!"
" I will not talk with you on such matters," said
Dunham, "till you know how to treat serious
things seriously."
"I shall know how when I realize that they
are serious with you. Well, I don't object to a




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


93


woman's thinking strongly on religious subjects:
it's the only safe ground for her strong thinking,
and even there she had better feel strongly. Did
you succeed in convincing her that Archbishop
Laud was a saint incompris, and the good King
Charles a blessed martyr."
Dunham did not answer till he had choked down
some natural resentment. He had, several years
earlier, forsaken the pale Unitarian worship of his
family, because, Staniford always said, he had such
a feeling for color, and had adopted an extreme tint
of ritualism. It was rumored at one time, before
his engagement to Miss Hibbard, that he was going to unite with a celibate brotherhood; he went
regularly into retreat at certain seasons, to the
vast entertainment of his friend; and, within the
bounds of good taste, he was a zealous propagandist of his faith, of whiclh he had the practical virtues in high degree. " I hope," he said presently,
"that I know how to respect convictions, even
of those adhering to the Church in Error."
Staniford laughed again. " I see you have not
converted Lurella. Well, I like that in her, too.
I wish I could have the arguments, pro and con.
It would have been amusing. I suppose," lie pondered aloud, "' that she is a Calvinist of the deepest
dye, and would regard me as a lost spirit for being
outside of her church. She would look down upon
me from one height, as I look down upon her from
another. And really, as far as personal satisfac



94       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


tion in superiority goes, she might have the advantage of me. That's very curious, very interesting."
As the first week wore away, the wonted incidents of a sea voyage lent their variety to the life
on board. One day the ship ran into a school of
whales, which remained heavily thumping and lolling about in her course, and blowing jets of water
into the air, like so many breaks in garden hose,
Staniford suggested. At another time some flyingfish came on board. The sailors caught a dolphin,
and they promised a shark, by and by. All these
things were turned to account for the young girl's
amusement, as if they had happened for her. The
dolphin died that she might wonder and pity his
beautiful death; the cook fried her some of the
flying-fish; some one was on the lookout to detect
even porpoises for her. A sail in the offing won
the discoverer envy when he pointed it out to her;
a steamer, celebrity. The captain ran a point out
of his course to speak to a vessel, that she might
be able to tell what speaking a ship at sea was
like.
At table the stores which the young men had
laid in for private use became common luxuries,
and she fared sumptuously every day upon dainties
which she supposed were supplied by the ship, -
delicate jellies and canned meats and syruped fruits;
and, if she wondered at anything, she must have
wondered at the scrupulous abstinence with which




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


95


Captain Jenness, seconded by Mr. Watterson, refused the luxuries which his bounty provided them,
and at the constancy with which Staniford declined
some of these dishes, and Hicks declined others.
Shortly after the latter began more distinctly to be
tolerated, he appeared one day on deck with a
steamer-chair in his hand, and offered it to Lydia's use, where she sat on a stool by the bulwark.
After that, as she reclined in this chair, wrapped
in her red shawl, and provided with a book or
some sort of becoming handiwork, she was even
more picturesquely than before the centre about
which the ship's pride and chivalrous sentiment revolved. They were Americans, and they knew how
to worship a woman.
Staniford did not seek occasions to please and
amuse her, as the others did. When they met, as
they must, three times a day, at table, he took his
part in the talk, and now and then addressed her
a perfunctory civility. He imagined that she disliked him, and he interested himself in imagining
the ignorant grounds of her dislike. " A woman,"
he said, " must always dislike some one in company; it's usually another woman; as there 's none
on board, I accept her enmity with meekness."
Dunham wished to persuade him that he was mistaken. " Don't try to comfort me, Dunham," he
replied. " I find a pleasure in being detested which
is inconceivable to your amiable bosom."
Dunham turned to go below, from where they




96       THE LADY OF THE AROOSrOOK.


stood at the head of the cabin stairs. Staniford
looked round, and saw Lydia, whom they had kept
from coming up; she must have heard him. He
took his cigar from his mouth, and caught up a
stool, which he placed near the ship's side, where
Lydia usually sat, and without waiting for her concurrence got a stool for himself, and sat down with
her.
"Well, Miss Blood," he said, "it's Saturday
afternoon at last, and we 're at the end of our first
week. Has it seemed very long to you?"
Lydia's color was bright with consciousness, but
the glance she gave Staniford showed him looking
tranquilly and honestly at her. "Yes," she said,
"it has seemed long."
"That 's merely the strangeness of everything.
There's nothing like local familiarity to make the
time pass, — except monotony; and one gets both
at sea. Next week will go faster than this, and
we shall all be at Trieste before we know it. Of
course we shall have a storm or two, and that will
retard us in fact as well as fancy. But you would
n't feel that you 'd been at sea if you had n't had a
storm."
He knew that his tone was patronizing, but he
had theorized the girl so much with a certain slight
in his mind that he was not able at once to get the
tone which he usually took towards women. This
might not, indeed, have pleased some women any
better than patronage: it mocked while it caressed




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


97


all their little pretenses and artificialities; he addressed them as if they must be in the joke of
themselves, and did not expect to be taken seriously. At the same time he liked them greatly,
and would not on any account have had the silliest
of them different from what she was. He did not
seek them as Dunharn did; their society was not a
matter of life or death with him; but he had an
elder-brotherly kindness for the whole sex.
Lydia waited awhile for him to say something
more, but he added nothing, and she observed, with
a furtive look: " I presume you 've seen some very
severe storms at sea."
"No," Staniford answered, "I have n't.  I've
been over several times, but I've never seen anything alarming.  I 've experienced the ordinary
seasickening tempestuousness."
"Have you- have you ever been in Italy?"
asked Lydia, after another pause.
" Yes," he said," twice; I 'm very fond of Italy."
He spoke of it in a familiar tone that might well
have been discouraging to one of her total unacquaintance with it. Presently he added of his own
motion, looking at her with his interest in her as a
curious study, " You're going to Venice, I think
Mr. Dunham told me."
"Yes," said Lydia.
"Well, I think it's rather a pity that you should
n't arrive there directly, without the interposition
of Trieste." He scanned her yet more closely, but
7




98       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


with a sort of absence in his look, as if he addressed
some ideal of her.
"Why?" asked Lydia, apparently pushed to
some self-assertion by this way of being looked and
talked at.
"It's the strangest place in the world," said
Staniford; and then he mused again. " But I suppose" - He did not go on, and the word fell again
to Lydia.
" I'm going to visit my aunt, who is staying
there. She was where I live, last summer, and she
told us about it. But I could n't seem to understand it."
"No one can understand it, without seeing it."
"I 've read some descriptions of it," Lydia ventured.
" They 're of no use, - the books."
"Is Trieste a strange place, too? "
"It's strange, as a hundred other places are,and it's picturesque; but there 's only one Venice."
" I 'm afraid sometimes," she faltered, as if his
manner in regard to this peculiar place had been
hopelessly exclusive, " that it will be almost too
strange."
" Oh, that 's another matter," said Staniford.
"I confess I should be rather curious to know
whether you liked Venice. I like it, but I can imagine myself sympathizing with people who detested it,- if they said so. Let me see what will




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


99


give you some idea of it. Do you know Boston
well?"
"No; I've only been there twice," Lydia acknowledged.
" Then you 've never seen the Back Bay by
night, from the Long Bridge. Well, let me see"" I 'm afraid," interposed Lydia, " that I 'e not
been about enough for you to give me an idea from
other places. We always go to Greenfield to do
our trading; and I 've been to Keene and Springfield a good many times."
" I 'm sorry to say I have n't," said Staniford.
" But I'11 tell you: Venice looks like an inundated town. If you could imagine those sunset
clouds yonder turned marble, you would have Venice as she is at sunset. You must first think of the
sea when you try to realize the place. If you don't
find the sea too strange, you won't find Venice so."
" I wish it would ever seen half as home-like!"
cried the girl.
" Then you find the ship- I 'm glad you find
the ship - home-like," said Staniford, tentatively.
" Oh, yes; everything is so convenient and pleasant. It seems sometimes as if I had always lived
here."
" Well, that's very nice," assented Staniford,
rather blankly. "Some people feel a little queer
at sea —in the beginning. And you have n'tat all? "  He could not help this leading question,
yet he knew its meanness, and felt remorse for it.




100


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"Oh, I did, at first," responded the girl, but
went no farther; and Staniford was glad of it.
After all, why should he care to know what was in
her mind?
" Captain Jenness," he merely said, " understands
making people at home."
"Oh, yes, indeed," assented Lydia. "And Mr.
Watterson is very agreeable, and Mr. Mason. I
did n't suppose sailors were so. What soft, mild
voices they have! "
"That's the speech of most of the Down East
coast people."
"Is it?  I like it better than our voices. Our
voices are so sharp and high, at home."
" It's hard to believe that," said Staniford, with
a smile.
Lydia looked at him. "Oh, I was n't born in
South Bradfield. I was ten years old when I went
there to live."
"Where were you born, Miss Blood? " hle asked.
"In California. My father had gone out for his
health, but he died there."
"Oh!" said Staniford. He had a book in his
hand, and he began to scribble a little sketch of
Lydia's pose, on a fly-leaf. She looked round and
saw it. " You 've detected me," he said; " I have n't
any right to keep your likeness, now. I must make
you a present of this work of art, Miss Blood."
He finished the sketch with some ironical flourishes,
and made as if to tear out the leaf.




TIlE LADY OF TIIE AROOSTOOK.


101


" Oh!" cried Lydia, simply, "you will spoil the
book!"
"Then the book shall go with the picture, if
you '11 let it," said Staniford.
"Do you mean to give it to me? " she asked,
with surprise.
" That was my munificent intention. I want to
write your name in it. What 's the initial of your
first name, Miss Blood?"
" L, thank you," said Lydia.
Staniford gave a start. "No!" he exclaimed.
It seemed a fatality.
"My name is Lydia," persisted the girl. " What
letter should it begin with? "
"Oh —oh, I knew Lydia began with an L,"
stammered Staniford, "but I - I - I thought your
first name was " -
" What?" asked Lydia sharply.
"I don't know. Lily," he answered guiltily.
"Lily Blood!" cried the girl. "Lydia is bad
enough; but Lily Blood! They could n't have been
such fools I"
"I beg your pardon. Of course not. I don't
know how I could have got the idea. It was one
of those impressions -hallucinations " -  Staniford
found himself in an attitude of lying excuse towards
the simple girl, over whom he had been lording it
in satirical fancy ever since he had seen her, and
meekly anxious that she should not be vexed with
him. He began to laugh at his predicament, and




102


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


she smiled at his mistake. "What is the date? "
he asked.
" The 15th," she said; and he wrote under the
sketch, Lydia Blood. Ship Aroostook, August 15,
1874, and handed it to her, with a bow surcharged
with gravity.
She took it, and regarded the picture without
comment.
"Ah!" said Staniford, "I see that you know
how bad my sketch is. You sketch."
" No, I don't know how to draw," replied Lydia.
"You criticise."
" No."
" So glad," said Staniford. He began to like this.
A young man must find pleasure in sitting alone
near a pretty young girl, and talking with her about
herself and himself, no matter how plain and dull
her speech is; and Staniford, though he found Lydia
as blankly unresponsive as might be to the flattering irony of his habit, amused himself in realizing
that here suddenly he was almost upon the terms of
window-seat flirtation with a girl whom lately he
had treated with perfect indifference, and just now
with fatherly patronage. The situation had something more even than the usual window-seat advantages; it had qualities as of a common shipwreck, of
their being cast away on a desolate island together.
He felt more than ever that he must protect this
helpless loveliness, since it had begun to please his
imagination. " You don't criticise," he said. " Is




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


103


that because you are so amiable? I'm sure you
could, if you would."
"No," returned Lydia; "I don't really know.
But I 've often wished I did know."
"Then you didn't teach drawing, in your
school?"
"How did you know I had a school?" asked
Lydia quickly.
He disliked to confess his authority, because he
disliked the authority, but he said, " Mr. Hicks
told us."
" Mr. Hicks! " Lydia gave a little frown as of
instinctive displeasure, which gratified Staniford.
" Yes; the cabin-boy told him. You see, we are
dreadful gossips on the Aroostook, - though there
are so few ladies "-  It had slipped from him, but
it seemed to have no personal slant for Lydia.
"Oh, yes; I told Thomas," she said. " No;
it's only a country school. Once I thought I
should go down to the State Normal School, and
study drawing there; but I never did. Are you
-are you a painter, Mr. Staniford?"
He could not recollect that she had pronounced
his name before; he thought it came very winningly
from her lips. "No, I'm not a painter. I'm not
anything."  He hesitated; then he added recklessly,
" I'm a farmer."
"A farmer?"    Lydia looked incredulous, but
grave.
"Yes; I'm   a horny-handed son of the soil.




104


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


I 'in a cattle-farmer; I'm a sheep-farmer; I don't
know which. One day I'm the one, and the next
day I'm the other."  Lydia looked mystified, and
Staniford continued: " I mean that I have no profession, and that sometimes I think of going into
farming, out West."
"Yes? " said Lydia.
"How should I like it?   Give me an opinion,
Miss Blood."
" Oh, I don't know," answered the girl.
"You would never have dreamt that I was a
farmer, would you? "
" No, I should n't," said Lydia, honestly. "It's
very hard work."
"And I don't look fond of hard work?"
"I did n't say that."
"And I 'e no right to press you for your meaning."
"What I meant was - I mean -  Perhaps if you
had never tried it you did n't know what very hard
work it was. Some of the summer boarders used
to think our farmers had easy times."
" I never was a summer boarder of that description. I know that farming is hard work, and I'm
going into it because I dislike it. What do you
think of that as a form of self-sacrifice?"
" I don't see why any one should sacrifice himself uselessly."
" You don't? You have very little conception of
martyrdom. Do you like teaching school? "




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


105


" No," said Lydia promptly.
" Why do you teach, then?"    Staniford had
blundered. He knew why she taught, and he felt
instantly that he had hurt her pride, more sensitive
than that of a more sophisticated person, who
would have had no scruple in saying that she did
it because she was poor. He tried to retrieve himself. " Of course, I understand that school-teaching
is useful self-sacrifice."  IIe trembled lest she
should invent some pretext for leaving him; he
could not afford to be left at a disadvantage. " But
do you know, I would no more have taken you for a
teacher than you me for a farmer."
" Yes?" said Lydia.
He could not tell whether she was appeased or
not, and he rather feared not. " You don't ask
why. And I asked you why at once."
Lydia laughed. "Well, why?"
" Oh, that 's a secret. I '11 tell you one of these
days."  He had really no reason; he said this to
gain time. He was always honest in his talk with
men, but not always with women.
" I suppose I look very young," said Lydia. "I
used to be afraid of the big boys."
" If the boys were big enougll," interposed Staniford, "they must have been afraid of you."
Lydia said, as if she had not understood, " I had
hard work to get my certificate. But I was older
than I looked."
" That is Lmuch better," remarked Staniford,




106


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" than being younger than you look. I am twentyeight, and people take me for thirty-four. I 'm a
prematurely middle-aged man. I wish you would
tell me, Miss Blood, a little about South Bradfield.
I 've been trying to make out whether I was ever
there. I tramped nearly everywhere when I was a
student. What sort of people are they there?"
"Oh, they are very nice people," said Lydia.
"Do you like them? "
"I never thought whether I did.    They are
nearly all old. Their children have gone away;
they don't seem to live; they are just staying.
When I first came there I was a little girl. One
day I went into the grave-yard and counted the
stones; there were three times as many as there
were living persons in the village."
" I think I know the kind of place," said Staniford. " I suppose you're not very homesick? "
"Not for the place," answered Lydia, evasively.
" Of course," Staniford hastened to add, " you
miss your own family circle."  To this she made no
reply. It is the habit of people bred like her to
remain silent for want of some sort of formulated
comment upon remarks to which they assent.
Staniford fell into a musing mood, which was
without visible embarrassment to the young girl,
who must have been inured to much severer silences in the society of South Bradfield. He remained staring at her throughout his reverie, which
in fact related to her. He was thinking what sort




TIlE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


107


of an old maid she would have become if she had
remained in that village. He fancied elements of
hardness and sharpness in her which would have
asserted themselves as the joyless years went on,
like the bony structure of her face as the softness
of youth left it. She was saved from that, whatever was to be her destiny in Italy. From South
Bradfield to Venice, - what a prodigious transition! It seemed as if it must transfigure her.
"Miss Blood," he exclaimed, 1" I wish I could be
with you when you first see Venice! "
" Yes? " said Lydia.
Even the interrogative comment, with the rising
inflection, could not chill his entlhusiasm. " It is
really the greatest sight in the world."
Lydia had apparently no comment to make on
this fact. She waited tranquilly a while before she
said, "My father used to talk about Italy to me
when I was little. He wanted to go. My mother
said afterwards -after she had come home with
me to South Bradfield -that she always believed
he would have lived if he had gone there. He had
consumption."
" Oh! " said Staniford softly. Then he added,
with the tact of his sex, " Miss Blood, you must n't
take cold, sitting here with me. This wind is
chilly. Shall I go below and get you some more
wraps? "
"No, thank you," said Lydia; " I believe I will
go down, now."




108


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


She went below to her room, and then came out
into the cabin with some sewing at which she sat
and stitched by the lamp. The captain was writing in his log-book; Dunham and Hicks were playing checkers together. Staniford, from a corner of
a locker, looked musingly upon this curious family
circle. It was not the first time that its occupations had struck him oddly. Sometimes when they
were all there together, Dunham read aloud. Hicks
knew tricks of legerdemain which he played cleverly.  The captain told some very good stories,
and led off in the laugh. Lydia always sewed and
listened. She did not seem to find herself strangely
placed, and her presence characterized all that was
said and done with a charming innocence. As a
bit of life, it was as pretty as it was quaint.
" Really," Staniford said to Dunham, as they
turned in, that night, "she has domesticated us."
"Yes," assented Dunham    with  enthusiasm;
"is n't she a nice girl? "
" She 's intolerably passive.  Or not passive,
either. She says what she thinks, but she does n't
seem to have thought of many things. Did she
ever tell you about her father?"
"No," said Dunham.
"I mean about his dying of consumption?"
"No, she never spoke of him to me. Was he"" Um. It appears that we have been upon terms
of confidence, then."  Staniford paused, with one
boot in his hand. "I should never have thought
it."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.      109
What was her father? " asked Dunham.
" Upon my word, I don't know. I did n't seem
to get beyond elemental statements of intimate fact
with her. He died in California, where she was
born; and he always had a longing to go to Italy.
That was rather pretty."
"It's very touching, I think."
"Yes, of course. We might fancy this about
Lurella: that she has a sort of piety in visiting the
scenes that her father wished to visit, and that -
Well, anything is predicable of a girl who says so
little and looks so much.  She's certainly very
handsome; and I '  bound to say that her room
could not have been better than her company, so
far."




X.


THE dress that Lydia habitually wore was one
which her aunt Maria studied from the costume of
a summer boarder, who had spent a preceding summer at the sea-shore, and who found her yachtingdress perfectly adapted to tramping over the South
Bradfield hills. Thus reverting to its original use
on shipboard, the costume looked far prettier on
Lydia than it had on the summer boarder from
whose unconscious person it had been plagiarized.
It was of the darkest blue flannel, and was fitly set
off with those bright ribbons at the throat which
women know how to dispose there according to
their complexions. One day the bow was scarlet,
and another crimson; Staniford did not know which
was better, and disputed the point in vain with
Dunham. They all grew to have a taste in such
matters. Captain Jenness praised her dress outright, and said that he should tell his girls about it.
Lydia, who had always supposed it was a walking
costume, remained discreetly silent when the young
men recognized its nautical character. She enjoyed
its success; she made some little changes in the hat
she wore with it, which met the approval of the
cabin family; and she tranquilly kept her black
silk in reserve for Sunday. She came out to breakfast in it, aid it swept the narrow spaces, as she




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


Ill


emerged from her state-room, with so rich and deep
a murmur that every one looked up. She sustained
their united glance with something tenderly deprecatory and appealingly conscious in her manner,
much as a very sensitive girl in some new finery
meets the eyes of her brothers when she does not
know whether to cry or laugh at what they will say.
Thomas almost dropped a plate. "Goodness! " he
said, helplessly expressing the public sentiment in
regard to a garment of which he alone had been in
the secret. No doubt it passed his fondest dreams
of its splendor; it fitted her as the sheath of the
flower fits the flower.
Captain Jenness looked hard at her, but waited
a decent season after saying grace before offering
his compliment, which lie did in drawing the carving-knife slowly across the steel.  "Well, Miss
Blood, that's right! "  Lydia blushed richly, and
the young men made their obeisances across the
table.
The flushes and pallors chased each other over
her face, and the sight of her pleasure in being
beautiful charmed Staniford. "If she were used to
worship she would have taken our adoration more
arrogantly," he said to his friend when they went
on deck after breakfast. "I can place her; but
one's circumstance does n't always account for one
in America, and I can't make out yet whether she's
ever been praised for being pretty. Some of our
hill-country people would have felt like hushing up




112


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


her beauty, as almost sinful, and some would have
gone down before it like Greeks.   I can't tell
whether she knows it all or not; but if you suppose her unconscious till now, it's pathetic. And
black silks must be too rare in her life not to be
celebrated by a high tumult of inner satisfaction.
I'm glad we bowed down to the new dress.'
"Yes," assented Dunham, with an uneasy absence; "but-Staniford, I should like to propose
to Captain Jenness our having service this morning.
It is the eleventh Sunday after ""Ah, yes!" said Staniford.   "It is Sunday,
is n't it? I thought we had breakfast rather later
than usual. All over the Christian world, on land
and sea, there is this abstruse relation between a
late breakfast and religious observances."
Dunham looked troubled. "I wish you would n't
talk that way, Staniford, and I hope you won't say
anything "" To interfere with your proposition? My dear
fellow, I am at least a gentleman."
" I beg your pardon," said Dunham, gratefully.
Staniford even went himself to the captain with
Dunham's wish; it is true the latter assumed the
more disagreeable part of proposing the matter to
Hicks, who gave a humorous assent, as one might
to a joke of doubtful feasibility.
Dunham gratified both his love for social management and his zeal for his church in this organization of worship; and when all hands were called




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


113


aft, and stood round in decorous silence, he read the
lesson for the day, and conducted the service with a
gravity astonishing to the sailors, who had taken
him for a mere dandy. Staniford bore his part in
the responses from the same prayer-book with Captain Jenness, who kept up a devout, inarticulate
under-growl, and came out strong on particular
words when he got his bearings through his spectacles. Hicks and the first officer silently shared
another prayer-book, and Lydia offered half hers to
Mr. Mason.
When the hymn was given out, she waited while
an experimental search for the tune took place
among the rest. They were about to abandon the
attempt, when she lifted her voice and began to
sing. She sang as she did in the meeting-house at
South Bradfield, and her voice seemed to fill all the
hollow height and distance; it rang far off like a
mermaid's singing, on high like an angel's; it
called with the same deep appeal to sense and soul
alike. The sailors stood rapt; Dunham kept up a
show of singing for the church's sake. The others
made no pretense of looking at the words; they
looked at her, and she began to falter, hearing herself alone. Then Staniford struck in again wildly,
and the sea-voices lent their powerful discord, while
the girl's contralto thrilled through all.
L Well, Miss Blood," said the captain, when the
service had ended in that subordination of the spiritual to the artistic interest which marks the process
8




114


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


and the close of so much public worship in our
day, "you've given us a surprise. I guess we shall
keep you pretty busy with our calls for music, after
this."
"She is a genius! " observed Staniford at his
first opportunity with Dunham. "I knew there
must be something the matter. Of course she's
going out to school her voice; and she hasn't
strained it in idle babble about her own affairs! I
must say that Lu- Miss Blood's power of holding
her tongue commands my homage. Was it her little coup to wait till we got into that hopeless hobble
before she struck in?"
" Coup? For shame, Staniford! Coup at such
a time!"
"Well, well! I don't say so. But for the theatre one can't begin practicing these effects too soon.
Really, that voice puts a new complexion on Miss
Blood. I have a theory to reconstruct. I have
been philosophizing her as a simple country girl.
I must begin on an operatic novice. I liked the
other better. It gave value to the black silk; as a
singer she'll wear silk as habitually as a cocoon.
She will have to take some stage name; translate
Blood into Italian. We shall know her hereafter
as La Sanguinelli; and when she comes to Boston
we shall make our modest brags about going out. to
Europe with her. I don't know; I think I preferred the idyllic flavor I was beginning to find in
the presence of the ordinary, futureless young girl,




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


115


voyaging under the chaperonage of her own innocence, - the Little Sister of the Whole Ship. But
this crepusculant prima donna - no, I don't like it.
Though it explains some things. These splendid
creatures are never sent half equipped into the
world.  I fancy that where there s an operatic
voice, there 's an operatic soul to go with it. Well,
La Sanguinelli will wear me out, yet! Suggest
some new topic, Dunham; talk of something else,
for heaven's sake! "
" Do you suppose," asked Dunham, "that she
would like to help get up some rmusicales, to pass
away the time?"
"Oh, do you call that talking of something else?
What an insatiate organizer you are! You organize
shuffleboard; you organize public worship; you
want to organize musicales. She would have to do
all your music for you."
"I think she would like to go in for it," said
Dunham. " It must be a pleasure to exercise such
a gift as that, and now that it's come out in the
way it has, it would be rather awkward for us not
to recognize it."
Staniford refused point-blank to be a party to the
new enterprise, and left Dunham to his own devices
at dinner, where he proposed the matter.
"If you had my Persis here, now," observed Captain Jenness, "with her parlor organ, you could get
along."
"I wish Miss Jenness was here," said Dunham,




116


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


politely. "But we must try to get on as it is.
With Miss Blood's voice to start with, nothing
ought to discourage us."  Dunham had a thin and
gentle pipe of his own, and a fairish style in singing, but with his natural modesty he would not offer himself as a performer except in default of all
others. " Don't you sing, Mr. Hicks?"
"Anything to oblige a friend," returned Hicks.
"But I don't sing - before Miss Blood."
" Miss Blood," said Staniford, listening in ironic
safety, " you overawe us all. I never did sing, but
I think I should want to make an effort if you were
not by."
" But don't you - don't you play something, anything?" persisted Dunham, in desperate appeal to
Hicks.
"Well, yes," the latter admitted, "I play the
flute a little."
" Flutes on water! " said Staniford. Hicks looked
at him in sulky dislike, but as if resolved not to be
put down by him.
" And have you got your flute with you?" demanded Dunham, joyously.
Yes, I have," replied Hicks.
"Then we are all right. I think I can carry a
part, and if you will play to Miss Blood's singing""Try it this evening, if you like," said the other.
"Well, ah -   I don't know. Perhaps -   we
had n't better begin this evening."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


117


Staniford laughed at Dunham's embarrassment.
"You might have a sacred concert, and Mr. Hicks
could represent the shawms and cymbals with his
flute."
Dunham looked sorry for Staniford's saying this.
Captain Jenness stared at him, as if his taking the
names of these scriptural instruments in vain were
a kind of blasphemy, and Lydia seemed puzzled and
a little troubled.
" I did n't think of its being Sunday," said Hicks,
with what Staniford felt to be a cunning assumption of manly frankness, " or any more Sunday
than usual; seems as if we had had a month of
Sundays already since we sailed. I'm not much on
religion myself, but I should n't like to interfere
with other people's principles."
Staniford was vexed with himself for his scornful
pleasantry, and vexed with the others for taking it
so seriously and heavily, and putting him so unnecessarily in the wrong. He was angry with Dunham, and he said to Hicks, "Very just sentiments."
"I am glad you like them," replied Hicks, with
sullen apprehension of the offensive tone.
Staniford turned to Lydia. " I suppose that in
South Bradfield your Sabbath is over at sundown
on Sunday evening."
"That used to be the custom," answered the
girl. " I 've heard my grandfather tell of it."
" Oh, yes," interposed Captain Jenness. " They




118


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


used to keep Saturday night down our way, too. I
can remember when I was a boy. It came pretty
hard to begin so soon, but it seemed to kind of
break it, after all, having a night in."
The captain did not know what Staniford began
to laugh at. " Our Puritan ancestors knew just
how much human nature could stand, after all.
We did not have an uninterrupted Sabbath till the
Sabbath had become much milder. Is that it? "
The captain had probably no very clear notion of
what this meant, but simply felt it to be a critical
edge of some sort. "I don't know as you can have
too much religion," he remarked.  "I 've seen
some pretty rough customers in the church, but I
always thought, What would they be out of it! "
" Very true! " said Staniford, smiling.  He
wanted to laugh again, but he liked the captain
too well to do that; and then he began to rage in
his heart at the general stupidity which had placed
him in the attitude of mocking at religion, a thing
he would have loathed to do. It seemed to him
that Dunham was answerable for his false position.
" But we shall not see the right sort of Sabbath till
Mr. Dunham gets his Catholic church fully going,"
he added.
They all started, and looked at Dunham as good
Protestants must when some one whom they would
never have suspected of Catholicism turns out to
be a Catholic. Dunham cast a reproachful glance
at his friend, but said simply, " I am a Catholic, -




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


119


that is true; but I do not admit the pretensions of
the Bishop of Rome."
The rest of the company apparently could not
follow him in making this distinction; perhaps
some of them did not quite know who the Bishop
of Rome was. Lydia continued to look at him in
fascination; I-icks seemed disposed to whistle, if
such a thing were allowable; Mr. Watterson devoutly waited for the captain. " Well," observed
the captain at last, with the air of giving the devil
his due, " I 've seen some very good people among
the Catholics."
" That 's so, Captain Jenness," said the first officer.
" I don't see," said Lydia, without relaxing her
gaze, " why, if you are a Catholic, you read the
service of a Protestant church."
" It is not a Protestant church," answered Dunham, gently, " as I have tried to explain to you."
"The Episcopalian?" demanded Captain Jenness.
"The Episcopalian," sweetly reiterated Dunham.
" I should like to know what kind of a church it
is, then," said Captain Jenness, triumphantly.
"An Apostolic church."
Captain Jenness rubbed his nose, as if this were
a new kind of church to him.
"Founded by Saint Henry VIII. himself," interjected Staniford.




120


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" No, Staniford," said Dunham, with a soft repressiveness. And now a threatening light of zeal
began to burn in his kindly eyes. These souls had
plainly been given into his hands for ecclesiastical
enlightenment. "If our friends will allow me, I
will explain "Staniford's shaft had recoiled upon his own head.
" O Lord! " he cried, getting up from the table,
"I can't stand that!"  The others regarded him,
as he felt, even to that weasel of a Hicks, as a
sheep of uncommon blackness. He went on deck,
and smoked a cigar without relief. He still heard
the girl's voice in singing; and he still felt in his
nerves the quality of latent passion in it which had
thrilled him when she sang.  His thought ran
formlessly upon her future, and upon what sort of
being was already fated to waken her to those possibilities of intense suffering and joy which he imagined in her. A wound at his heart, received
long before, hurt vaguely; and he felt old.




XI.


No one said anything more of the musicales, and
the afternoon and evening wore away without general talk. Each seemed willing to keep apart from
the rest. Dunham suffered Lydia to come on deck
alone after tea, and Staniford found her there, in
her usual place, when he went up some time later.
He approached her at once, and said, smiling dowii
into her face, to which the moonlight gave a pale
mystery, " Miss Blood, did you think I was very
wicked to-day at dinner?"
Lydia looked away, and waited a moment before
she spoke. "I don't know," she said. Then, impulsively, " Did you? " she asked.
"No, honestly, I don't think I was," answered
Staniford. " But I seemed to leave that impression
on the company. I felt a little nasty, that was all;
and I tried to hurt Mr. Dunham's feelings. But I
shall make it right with him before I sleep; he
knows that. He 's used to having me repent at
leisure. Do you ever walk Sunday night?"
"Yes, sometimes," said Lydia interrogatively.
" I'm glad of that. Then I shall not offend against
your scruples if I ask you to join me in a little ramble, and you will refuse from purely personal considerations. Will you walk with me? "




122


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"Yes."  Lydia rose.
" And will you take my arm? " asked Staniford,
a little surprised at her readiness.
" Thank you."
She put her hand upon his arm, confidently
enough, and they began to walk up and down the
stretch of open deck together.
" Well," said Staniford, " did Mr. Dunham convince you all? "
"I think he talks beautifully about it," replied
Lydia, with quaint stiffness.
" I am glad you see what a very good fellow he
is. I have a real affection for Dunham."
L" Oh, yes, he's good. At first it surprised me.
I mean "" No, no," Staniford quickly interrupted, "why
did it surprise you to find Dunham good?"
" I don't know. You don't expect a person to be
serious who is so- so "" Handsome?"
" No, - so - I don't know just how to say it:
fashionable."
Staniford laughed. "Why, Miss Blood, you're
fashionably dressed yourself, not to go any farther,
and you're serious."
" It's different with a man," the girl explained.
"' Well, then, how about me?" asked Staniford.
"Am I too well dressed to be expected to be serious? "
"Mr. Dunham always seems in earnest," Lydia
answered, evasively.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


123


" And you think one can't be in earnest without
being serious? " Lydia suffered one of those silences
to ensue in which Staniford had already found himself helpless. He knew that he should be forced to
break it: and he said, with a little spiteful mocking, "C I suppose the young men of South Bradfield
are both serious and earnest."
How? " asked Lydia.
"The young men of South Bradfield."
"I told you that there were none. They all go
away."
"Well, then, the young men of Springfield, of
Keene, of Greenfield."
" I can't tell. I am not acquainted there."
Staniford had betgun to have a disagreeable suspicion that her ready consent to walk up and down
with a young man in the moonlight might have come
froin a habit of the kind. But it appeared that her
fearlessness was like that of wild birds in those desert islands where man has never come. The discovery gave him pleasure out of proportion to its
importance, and he paced back and forth in a silence
that no longer chafed. Lydia walked very well,
and kept his step with rhythmic unison, as if they
were walking to music together. " That 's the time
in her pulses," he thought, and then he said, " Then
you don't have a great deal of social excitement, I
suppose, - dancing, and that kind of thling?
Though perhaps you don't approve of dancing? "
" Oh, yes, I like it. Sometimes the summer
boarders get up little dances ait the hotel."




124


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" Oh, the summer boarders! " Staniford had
overlooked them. " The young men get them up,
and invite the ladies? " he pursued.
'" There are no young men, generally, among the
summer boarders. The ladies dance together. Most
of the gentlemen are old, or else invalids."
"Oh! " said Staniford.
"At the Mill Village, where I've taught two
winters, they have dances sometimes, - the mill
hands do."
"And do you go?"
"No. They are nearly all French Canadians
and Irish people."
"Then you like dancing because there are no
gentlemen to dance with?"
" There are gentlemen at the picnics."
"The picnics? "
"The teachers' picnics. They have them every
summer, in a grove by the pond."
There was, then, a high-browed, dyspeptic highschool principal, and the desert-island theory was
probably all wrong. It vexed Staniford, when he
had so nearly got the compass of her social life, to
find this unexplored corner in it.
" And I suppose you are leaving very agreeable
friends among the teachers? "
"Some of them are pleasant. But I don't know
them very well. I've only been to one of the picnics."
Staniford drew a long, silent breath. After all,




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


125


he knew everything. He mechanically dropped a
little the arm on which her hand rested, that it
might slip farther within. Her timid remoteness
had its charm, and he fell to thinking, with amusement, how she who was so subordinate to him was,
in the dimly known sphere in which he had been
groping to find her, probably a person of authority
and consequence. It satisfied a certain domineering
quality in him to have reduced her to this humble
attitude, while it increased the protecting tenderness he was beginning to have for her. His mind
went off further upon this matter of one's different
attitudes toward different persons; he thought of
men, and women too, before whom he should instantly feel like a boy, if he could be confronted
with them, even in his present lordliness of mood.
In a fashion of his when he convicted himself of
anything, he laughed aloud. Lydia shrank a little
from him, in question. "I beg your pardon," he
said. "I was laughing at something I happened
to think of. Do you ever find yourself struggling
very hard to be what you think people think you
are? "
" Oh, yes," replied Lydia. "But I thought no
one else did."
" Everybody does tie thing that we think no one
else does," said Staniford, sententiously.
"I don't know whether I quite like it," said
Lydia. "It seems like hypocrisy. It used to worry
me. Sometimes I wondered if I had any real self.




126


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


I seemed to be just what people made me, and a
different person to each."
"I 'm glad to hear it, Miss Blood. We are companions in hypocrisy. As we are such nonentities
we shall not affect each other at all."  Lydia
laughed. " Don't you think so?  What are you
laughing at? I told you what I was laughing at! "
"But I did n't ask you."
"You wished to know."
"Yes, I did."
"Then you ought to tell me what I wish to
know."
" It's nothing," said Lydia. "I thought you
were mistaken in what you said."
" Oh! Then you believe that there's enough of
you to affect me?"
No."
"The other way, then?"
She did not answer.
" I'm delighted! " exclaimed Staniford. " I hope
I don't exert an uncomfortable influence. I should
be very unhappy to think so." Lydia stooped sidewise, away from him, to get a fresh hold of her
skirt, which she was carrying in her right hand,
and she hung a little more heavily upon his arm.
"I hope I make you think better of yourself,very self-satisfied, very conceited even."
"No," said Lydia.
"You pique my curiosity beyond endurance.
Tell me how I make you feel."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.      127
She looked quickly round at him, as if to see
whether he was in earnest. " Why, it's nothing,"
she said. " You made me feel as if you were laughing at everybody."
It flatters a man to be accused of sarcasm by the
other sex, and Staniford was not superior to the
soft pleasure of the reproach. "Do you think I
make other people feel so, too?"
" Mr. Dunlham said ""Oh! Mr. Dunham has been talking me over
with you, has he?  What did he tell you of me?
There is nobody like a true friend for dealing an
underhand blow at one's reputation. Wait till you
hear my account of Dunham! What did he say?"
" He said that was only your way of laughing at
yourself."
"The traitor! What did you say?"
"I don't know that I said anything."
"You were reserving your opinion for my own
hearing? "
" No."
"Why don't you tell me what you thought? It
might be of great use to me. I'm in earnest, now;
I 'm serious. Will you tell me?"
"Yes, some time," said Lydia, who was both
amused and mystified at this persistence.
"When? To-morrow?"
"Oh, that's too soon. When I get to Venice!"
"Ah!    That's a subterfuge.  You know we
shall part in Trieste."




128


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" I thought," said Lydia, " you were coming to
Venice, too."
" Oh, yes, but I should n't be able to see you
there."
"Why not?"
"Why not?   Why, because" -   He was near
telling the young girl who hung upon his arm, and
walked up and down with him in the moonlight,
that in the wicked Old World towards which they
were sailing young people could not meet save in
the sight and hearing of their elders, and that a
confidential analysis of character would be impossible between them there. The wonder of her being
where she was, as she was, returned upon him with
a freshness that it had been losing in the custom of
the week past. "Because you will be so much
taken up with your friends," he said, lamely. He
added quickly, "T There's one thing I should like to
know, Miss Blood: did you hear what Mr. Dunham and I were saying, last night, when we stood
in the gangway and kept you from coming up? "
Lydia waited a moment. Then she said, " Yes.
I could n't help hearing it."
" That's all right. I don't care for your hearing
what I said. But- I hope it was n't true? "
"I could n't understand what you meant by it,"
she answered, evasively, but rather faintly.
" Thanks," said Staniford. "I did n't mean anything. It was merely the guilty consciousness of a
generally disagreeable person." They walked up




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


129


and down many turns without saying anything.
She could not have made any direct protest, and it
pleased him that she could not frame any flourishing generalities. "Yes," Staniford resumed, "I
will try to see you as I pass through Venice. And
I will come to hear you sing when you come out at
Mlilan."
"Come out? At Milan?"
"Why, yes! You are going to study at the conservatory in Milan? "
"How did you know that? " demanded Lydia.
"From hearing you to-day. May I tell you how
much I liked your singing?"
" My aunt thought I ought to cultivate my voice.
But I would never go upon the stage. I would
rather sing in a church. I should like that better
than teaching."
" I think you're quite right," said Staniford,
gravely. "It's certainly much better to sing in a
church than to sing in a theatre. Though I believe
the theatre pays best."
Oh, I don't care for that. All I should want
would be to make a living."
The reference to her poverty touched him. It
was a confidence, coming from one so reticent, that
was of value. He waited a moment and said,
"It's surprising how well we keep our footing
here, is n't it? There 's hardly any swell, but the
ship pitches. I think we walk better together than
alone."
9




130


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"Yes," answered Lydia, " I think we do."
"You must n't let me tire you. I 'm indefatigable."
" Oh, I'm not tired. I like it,-walking."
" Do you walk much at home? "
"Not much. It's a pretty good walk to the
school-house."
" Oh! Then you like walking at sea better than
you do on shore? "
" It is n't the custom, much. If there were any
one else, I should have liked it thr^e. But it's
rather dull, going by yourself."
" Yes, I understand how that is," said Staniford,
dropping his teasing tone. "It's stupid. And I
suppose it's pretty lonesome at South Bradfield
every way."
" It is, - winters," admitted Lydia. "In the
summer you see people, at any rate, but in winter
there are days and days when hardly any one passes.
The snow is banked up everywhere."
He felt her give an involuntary shiver; and he
began to talk to her about the climate to which she
was going. It was all stranger to her than he could
have realized, and less intelligible. She remembered
California very dimly, and she had no experience by
which she could compare and adjust his facts. He
made her walk up and down more and more swiftly,
as he lost himself in the comfort of his own talking
and of her listening, and he failed to note the little
falterings with which she expressed her weariness.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


131


All at once he halted, and said, "Why, you're out
of breath! I beg your pardon. You should have
stopped me. Let us sit down." He wished to walk
across the deck to where the seats were, but she
just perceptibly withstood his motion, and he forbore.
"I think I won't sit down," she said. "I will
go down-stairs." She began withdrawing her hand
from his arm. He put his right hand upon hers,
and when it came out of his arm it remained in his
hand.
"I 'm afraid you won't walk with me again,"
said Staniford. " I 've tired you shamefully."
"Oh, not at all! "
"And you will? "
"Yes."
"Thanks. You 're very amiable." He still held
her hand. He pressed it. The pressure was not
returned, but her hand seemed to quiver and throb
in his like a bird held there. For the time neither
of them spoke, and it seemed a long time. Staniford found himself carrying her hand towards his
lips; and she was helplessly, trustingly, letting
him.
He dropped her hand, and said, abruptly, " Goodnight."
" Good-night," she answered, and ceased from his
side like a ghost.




XII.


STANIFORD sat in the moonlight, and tried to
think what the steps were that had brought him
to this point; but there were no steps of which he
was sensible. He remembered thinking the night
before that the conditions were those of flirtation;
to-night this had not occurred to him. The talk
had been of the dullest commonplaces; yet he had
pressed her hand and kept it in his, and had been
about to kiss it. He bitterly considered the disparity between his present attitude and the stand
he had taken when he declared to Dunham that it
rested with them to guard her peculiar isolation
from anything that she could remember with pain
or humiliation when she grew wiser in the world.
He recalled his rage with Hicks, and the insulting
condemnation of his bearing towards him ever
since; and could Hicks have done worse? He had
done better: he had kept away from her; he had
let her alone.
That night Staniford slept badly, and woke with
a restless longing to see the girl, and to read in her
face whatever her thought of him had been. But
Lydia did not come out to breakfast. Thomas reported that she had a headache, and that he had
already carried her the tea and toast she wanted.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


133


"T Well, it seems kind of lonesome without her,"
said the captain. "It don't seem as if we could
get along."
It seemed desolate to Staniford, who let the talk
flag and fail round him without an effort to rescue
it. All the morning he lurked about, keeping out
of Dunham's way, and fighting hard through a
dozen pages of a book, to which he struggled to
nail his wandering mind. A headache was a little
matter, but it might be even less than a headache.
He belated himself purposely at dinner, and entered the cabin just as Lydia issued from her stateroom door.
She was pale and looked heavy-eyed. As she
lifted her glance to him, she blushed; and he felt
the answering red stain his face. When she sat
down, the captain patted her on the shoulder with
his burly right hand, and said he could not navigate
the ship if she got sick. He pressed her to eat of
this and that; and when she would not, he said,
well, there was no use trying to force an appetite,
and that she would be better all the sooner for
dieting. Hicks went to his state-room, and came
out with a box of guava jelly, from his private
stores, and won a triumph enviable in all eyes when
Lydia consented to like it with the chicken. Dunham plundered his own and Staniford's common
stock of dainties for her dessert; the first officer
agreed and applauded right and left; Staniford
alone sat taciturn and inoperative, watching her




134


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


face furtively. Once her eyes wandered to the side
of the table where he and Dunham sat; then she
colored and dropped her glance.
He took his book again after dinner, and with his
finger between the leaves, at the last-read, unintelligible page, he went out to the bow, and crouched
down there to renew the conflict of the morning.
It was not long before Dunham   followed.  He
stooped over to lay a hand on either of Staniford's
shoulders.
"What makes you avoid me, old man?" he demanded, looking into Staniford's face with his frank,
kind eyes.
"And I avoid you?" asked Staniford.
"Yes; why?"
"Because I feel rather shabby, I suppose. I
knew I felt shabby, but I did n't know I was avoiding you."
"Well, no matter. If you feel shabby, it's all
right; but I hate to have you feel shabby." He got
his left hand down into Staniford's right, and a
tacit reconciliation was transacted between them.
Dunham looked about for a seat, and found a stool,
which he planted in front of Staniford. "'Was n't
it pleasant to have our little lady back at table,
again?"
"Very," said Staniford.
"I could n't help thinking how droll it was that
a person whom we all considered a sort of incumbrance and superfluity at first should really turn




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


135


out an object of prime importance to us all. Isn't
it amusing? "
"Very droll."
"Why, we were quite lost without her, at breakfast. I could n't have imagined her taking such a
hold upon us all, in so short a time. But she's a
pretty creature, and as good as she 's pretty."
" I remember agreeing with you on those points
before." Staniford feigned to suppress fatigue.
Dunham observed him. " I know you don't take
so much interest in her as - as the rest of us do,
and I wish you did. You don't know what a lovely
nature she is."
"No?"
"No; and I'm sure you'd like her."
"Is it important that I should like her? Don't
let your enthusiasm for the sex carry you beyond
bounds, Dunham."
"No, no.   Not important, but very pleasant.
And I think acquaintance with such a girl would
give you some new ideas of women."
" Oh, my old ones are good enough. Look here,
Dunham," said Staniford, sharply, " what are you
after? "
" What makes you think I 'm after anything?"
"Because you're not a humbug, and because I
am. My depraved spirit instantly recognized the
dawning duplicity of yours. But you'd better be
honest.  You can't make the other thing work.
What do you want?"




136


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" I want your advice. I want your help, Staniford."
" I thought so! Coming and forgiving me in
that - apostolic manner."
" Don't! "
"Well. What do you want my help for? What
have you been doing? "  Staniford paused, and
suddenly added: " Have you been making love to
Lurella?"  He said this in his ironical manner,
but his smile was rather ghastly.
"For shame, Staniford!" cried Dunham. But
he reddened violently.
4 Then it is n't with Miss Hibbard that you want
my help. I'm glad of that. It would have been
awkward. I 'm a little afraid of Miss Hibbard. It
is n't every one has your courage, my dear fellow."
" I have n't been making love to her," said Dunham, "but-I" -
" But you what?" demanded Staniford sharply
again. There had been less tension of voice in his
joking about Miss Hibbard.
" Staniford," said his friend, " I don't know
whether you noticed her, at dinner, when she
looked across to our own side?"
" What did she do?"
"Did you notice that she - well, that she blushed
a little? "
Staniford waited a while before he answered,
after a gulp, " Yes, I noticed that."
" Well, I don't know how to put it exactly, but




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


137


I'm afraid that I have unwittingly wronged this
young girl."
"1 Wronged her? What the devil do you mean,
Dunham? " cried Staniford, with bitter impatience.
" I 'm1 afraid - I 'nm afraid -  Why, it's simply
this: that in trying to amuse her, and make the
time pass agreeably, and relieve her mind, and all
that, don't you know, I've given her the impression
that I 'm - well - interested in her, and that she
may have allowed herself - insensibly, you knowto look upon me in that light, and that she may have
begun to think - that she may have become " -
"Interested in you?" interrupted Staniford
rudely.
" Well - ah -well, that is - ah -well - yes!"
cried Dunham, bracing himself to sustain a shout
of ridicule.  But Staniford did not laugh, and
Dunham had courage to go on.   "Of course, it
sounds rather conceited to say so, but the circumstances are so peculiar that I think we ought to
recognize even any possibilities of that sort."
"Oh, yes," said Staniford, gravely.  " Most
women, I believe, are so innocent as to think a
man in love when he behaves like a lover. And
this one," he added ruefully, "seems more than
commonly ignorant of our ways, -of our infernal
shilly-shallying, purposeless no-mindedness.  She
could n't imagine a man - a gentleman - devoting
himself to her by the hour, and trying by every art
to show his interest and pleasure in her society,




138


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


without imagining that he wished her to like him,
- love him; there's no half-way about it.  She
could n't suppose him the shallow, dawdling, soulless, senseless ape he really was."  Staniford was
quite in a heat by this time, and Dunham listened
in open astonishment.
" You are hard upon me," he said. " Of course,
I have been to blame; I know that, I acknowledge
it. But my motive, as you know well enough, was
never to amuse myself with her, but to contribute
in any way I could to her enjoyment and happiness. I "" You!" cried Staniford. " What are you talking about? "
" What are you talking about? " demanded Dunham, in his turn.
Staniford recollected himself. "I was speaking
of abstract flirtation. I was firing into the air."
"In my case, I don't choose to call it flirtation,"
returned Dunham. " My purpose, I am bound to
say, was thoroughly unselfish and kindly."
"My dear fellow," said Staniford, with a bitter
smile, "there can be no unselfishness and no kindliness between us and young girls, unless we mean
business, - love-making. You may be sure that
they feel it so, if they don't understand it so."
"I don't agree with you.  I don't believe it.
My own experience is that the sweetest and most
generous friendships may exist between us, without
a thought of anything else. And as to making




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


139


love, I must beg you to remember that my love has
been made once for all. I never dreamt of showing Miss Blood anything but polite attention."
" Then what are you troubled about? "
"' I am troubled "- Dunham stopped helplessly,
and Staniford laughed in a challenging, disagreeable way, so that the former perforce resumed:
"I 'm troubled about - about her possible misinterpretation."
" Oh! Then in this case of sweet and generous
friendship the party of the second part may have
construed the sentiment quite differently! Well,
what do you want me to do? Do you want me to
take the contract off your hands?"
You put it grossly," said Dunham.
"And you put it offensively! " cried the other.
"My regard for the young lady is as reverent as
yours. You have no right to miscolor my words."
" Staniford, you are too bad," said Dunham, hurt
even more than angered. "If I've come to you
in the wrong moment -if you are vexed at anything, I 'll go away, and beg your pardon for boring
you."
Staniford was touched; he looked cordially into
his friend's face. " I was vexed at something, but
you never can come to me at the wrong moment,
old fellow. I beg your pardon. I see your difficulty plainly enough, and I think you 're quite
right in proposing to hold up, -for that 's what
vou mean, I take it?"




140


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" Yes," said Dunham, "it is. And I don't know
how she will like it. She will be puzzled and
grieved by it. I had n't thought seriously about
the matter till this morning, when she did n't come
to breakfast. You know I 've been in the habit of
asking her to walk with me every night after tea;
but Saturday evening you were with her, and last
night I felt sore about the affairs of the day, and
rather dull, and I did n't ask her. I think she
noticed it. I think she was hurt."
" You think so? " said Staniford, peculiarly.
"I might not have thought so," continued Dunham, " merely because she did not come to breakfast; but her blushing when she looked across at
dinner really made me uneasy."
" Very possibly you 're right."  Staniford mused
a while before he spoke again. " Well, what do
you wish me to do? "
"I must hold up, as you say, and of course she
will feel the difference. I wish - I wish at least
you would n't avoid her, Staniford. That's all.
Any little attention from you -I know it bores
you -would not only break the loneliness, but it
would explain that - that my - attentions did n't
- ah - had n't meant anything."
"Oh!"
"Yes; that it's common to offer them. And
she 's a girl of so much force of character that when
she sees the affair in its true light — I suppose
I 'm to blame! Yes, I ought to have told her at




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


141


the beginning that I was engaged. But you can't
force a fact of that sort upon a new acquaintance:
it looks silly."  Dunham hung his head in selfreproach.
" Well? " asked Staniford.
"Well, that's all!  No, it isn't all, either.
There's something else troubles me.  Our poor
little friend is a blackguard, I suppose?"
"Hicks?"
"Yes."
"You have invited him to be the leader of your
orchestra, have n't you? "
"Oh, don't, Staniford!" cried Dunham in his
helplessness. "I should hate to see her dependent
in any degree upon that little cad for society." Cad
was the last English word which Dunham had got
himself used to. "That was why I hoped that you
would n't altogether neglect her. She's here, and
she's no choice but to remain. We can't leave
her to herself without the danger of leaving her to
Hicks. You see?"
" Well," said Staniford gloomily, "I I 'm not sure
that you could n't leave her to a worse cad than
Hicks."  Dunham looked up in question. "To
me, for example."
" Oh, hallo! " cried Dunham.
"I don't see how I 'm to be of any use," continued the other. "I'm not a squire of dames; I
should merely make a mess of it."
"You're mistaken, Staniford,- I'm sure you




142


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


are, -in supposing that she dislikes you," urged
his friend.
"Oh, very likely."
" I know that she 's simply afraid of you."
"Don't flatter, Dunham. Why should I care
whether she fears me or affects me?  No, my dear
fellow. This is irretrievably your own affair. I
should be glad to help you out if I knew how. But
I don't. In the mean time your duty is plain, whatever happens. You can't overdo the sweet and the
generous in this wicked world without paying the
penalty."
Staniford smiled at the distress in which Dunham
went his way. He understood very well that it
was not vanity, but the liveliness of a sensitive conscience, that had made Dunham search his conduct
for the offense against the young girl's peace of
heart which he believed he had committed, and it
was the more amusing because he was so guiltless
of harm. Staniford knew who was to blame for the
headache and the blush. He knew that Dunham
had never gone so far; that his chivalrous pleasure
in her society might continue for years free from
flirtation. But in spite of this conviction a little
poignant doubt made itself felt, and suddenly became his whole consciousness. "Confound hiln!"
he mused. " I wonder if she really could care anything for him!" He shut his book, and rose to
his feet with such a burning in his heart that he
could not have believed himself capable of the






THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.     143
greater rage he felt at what he just then saw. It
was Lydia and Hicks seated together in the place
where he had sat with her. She leaned with one
arm upon the rail, in an attitude that brought all
her slim young grace into evidence. She seemed
on very good terms with him, and he was talking
and making her laugh as Staniford had never heard
her laugh before -so freely, so heartily.




XTIT.


THE atoms that had been tending in Staniford's
being toward a certain form suddenly arrested and
shaped themselves anew at the vibration imparted
by this laughter. He no longer felt himself Hicks's
possible inferior, but vastly better in every way,
and out of the turmoil of his feelings in regard to
Lydia was evolved the distinct sense of having been
trifled with. Somehow, an advantage had been
taken of his sympathies and purposes, and his forbearance had been treated with contempt.
The conviction was neither increased nor diminished by the events of the evening, when Lydia
brought out some music from her state-room, and
Hicks appeared, flute in hand, from his, and they.began practicing one of the pieces together. It was
a pretty enough sight. Hicks had been gradually
growing a better-looking fellow; he had an undeniable picturesqueness, as he bowed his head over
the music towards hers; and she, as she held the
sheet with one hand for him to see, while she noiselessly accompanied herself on the table with the
fingers of the other, and tentatively sang now this
passage and now that, was divine. The picture
seemed pleasing to neither Staniford nor Dunham;
they went on deck together, and sat down to their




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


145


cigarettes in their wonted place. They did not talk
of Lydia, or of any of the things that had formed
the basis of their conversation hitherto, but Staniford returned to his Colorado scheme, and explained
at length the nature of his purposes and expectations. He had discussed these matters before, but
he had never gone into them so fully, nor with
such cheerful earnestness. He said he should never
marry, -he had made up his mind to that; but he
hoped to make money enough to take care of his
sister's boy Jim handsomely, as the little chap had
been named for him. He had been thinking the
matter over, and lie believed that he should get
back by rail and steamer as soon as he could after
they reached Trieste. He was not sorry he had
come; but he could not afford to throw away too
much time on Italy, just then.
Dunham, on his part, talked a great deal of Miss
Hibbard, and of some curious psychological characteristics of her dyspepsia. He asked Staniford
whether he had ever shown him the photograph of
Miss Hibbard taken by Sarony when she was on to
New York the last time: it was a three-quarters
view, and Dunham thought it the best she had had
done. He spoke of her generous qualities, and of
the interest she had always had in the Diet Kitchen,
to which, as an invalid, her attention had been particularly directed: and he said that in her last letter she
had mentioned a project for establishing diet kitchens
in Europe, on the Boston plan. When their talk
10




146


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


grew more impersonal and took a wider range, they
gathered suggestion from the situation, and remarked
upon the immense solitude of the sea. They agreed
that there was something weird in the long continuance of fine weather, and that the moon had a strange
look. They spoke of the uncertainty of life. Dunham regretted, as he had often regretted before, that
his friend had no fixed religious belief; and Staniford gently accepted his solicitude, and said that he
had at least a conviction if not a creed. He then
begged Dunham's pardon in set terms for trying to
wound his feelings the day before; and in the silent
hand-clasp that followed they renewed all the cordiality of their friendship. From time to time, as
they talked, the music from below came up fitfully,
and once they had to pause as Lydia sang through
the song that she and Hicks were practicing.
As the days passed their common interest in the
art brought Hicks and the young girl almost constantly together, and the sound of their concerting
often filled the ship. The musicales, less formal
than Dunham had intended, and perhaps for that
reason a source of rapidly diminishing interest with
him, superseded both ring-toss and shuffle-board, and
seemed even more acceptable to the ship's company
as an entertainment. One evening, when the performers had been giving a piece of rather more than
usual excellence and difficulty, one of the sailors,
deputed by his mates, came aft, with many clumsy
shows of deference, and asked them to give March



THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


147


ing through Georgia. Hicks found this out of his
repertory, but Lydia sang it. Then the group at
the forecastle shouted with one voice for Tramp,
Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching, and so beguliled her through the whole list of war-songs. She
ended with one unknown to her listeners, but better
than all the rest in its pathetic words and music,
and when she had sung The Flag's come back to
Tennessee, the spokesman of the sailors came aft
again, to thank her for his mates, and to say they
would not spoil that last song by asking for anything else. It was a charming little triumph for
her, as she sat surrounded by her usual court: the
captain was there to countenance the freedom the
sailors had taken, and Dunham and Staniford stood
noar, biit Hicks, at her right hand, held the place
of honor.
The next night Staniford found her alone in the
waist of the ship, and drew up a stool beside the
rail where she sat.
' We all enjoyed your singing so much, last
night, Miss Blood.   I think Mr. Hicks plays
charmingly, but I believe I prefer to hear your
voice alone."
" Thank you," said Lydia, looking down, demurely.
"It must be a great satisfaction to feel that you
can give so much pleasure."
"I don't know," she said, passing the palm of
one hand over the back of the other.




148


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" When you are a prima donna you must n't forget your old friends of the Aroostook. We shall
all take vast pride in you."
It was not a question, and Lydia answered nothing. Staniford, who had rather obliged himself to
this advance, with some dim purpose of showing
that nothing had occurred to alienate them since
the evening of their promenade, without having
proved to himself that it was necessary to do this,
felt that he was growing angry. It irritated him
to have her sit as unmoved after his words as if he
had not spoken.
" Miss Blood," he said, " I envy you your gift of
snubbing people."
Lydia looked at him. "Snubbing people? " she
echoed.
"Yes; your power of remaining silent when you
wish to put down some one who has been wittingly
or unwittingly impertinent."
"I don't know what you mean," she said, in a
sort of breathless way.
" And you did n't intend to mark your displeasure at my planning your future?"
" No! We had talked of that. I "
" And you were not vexed with me for anything? I have been afraid that I - that you " -
Staniford found that he was himself getting short
of breath. He had begun with the intention of
mystifying her, but matters had suddenly taken
another course, and he was really anxious to know




TIHE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


149


whether any disagreeable associations with that
night lingered in her mind. With this longing
came a natural inability to find the right word.
" I was afraid " - lie repeated, and then he
stopped again. Clearly, he could not tell her that
he was afraid he had gone too far; but this was
what he meant. " You don't walk with me, any
more, Miss Blood," he concluded, with an air of
burlesque reproach.
" You have n't asked me -since," she said.
He felt a singular value and significance in this
word, since. It showed that her thoughts had
been running parallel with his own; it permitted,
if it did not signify, that he should resume the
mood of that time, where their parting had interrupted it. He enjoyed the fact to the utmost, but
he was not sure that he wished to do what he was
permitted. " Then I did n't tire you? " he merely
asked. He was not sure, now he came to think of
it, that he liked her willingness to recur to that
time. He liked it, but not quite in the way he
would have liked to like it.
"No," she said.
"The fact is," he went on aimlessly, "that I
thought I had rather abused your kindness. Besides," he added, veering off, "I was afraid I should
be an interruption to the musical exercises."
"Oh, no," said Lydia. " Mr. Dunham has n't
arranged anything yet." Staniford thought this
uncandid. It was fighting shy of Hicks, who was




150


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


the person in his own mind; and it reawakened a
suspicion which was lurking there. " Mr. Dunham seems to have lost his interest."
This struck Staniford as an expression of pique;
it reawakened quite another suspicion. It was evident that she was hurt at the cessation of Dunham's attentions. He was greatly minded to say
that Dunham was a fool, but he ended by saying,
with sarcasm, " I suppose he saw that he was superseded."
"Mr. Hicks plays well," said Lydia, judicially,
" but he does n't really know so much of music as
Mr. Dunham."
" No? " responded Staniford, with irony. " I will
tell Dunllam. No doubt he's been suffering the
pangs of professional jealousy. That must be the
reason why he keeps away."
" Keeps away? " asked Lydia.
"Now I've made an ass of myself!" thought
Staniford. " You said that he seemed to have lost
his interest," he answered her.
"Oh! Yes!" assented Lydia. And then she
remained rather distraught, pulling at the ruffling
of her dress.
"Dunham    is a very accomplished man," said
Staniford, finding the usual satisfaction in pressing
his breast against the thorn. " He 's a great favorite
in society. He's up to no end of things."  Staniford uttered these praises in a curiously bitter tone.
" He 's a capital talker. Don't you think he talks
well?"




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


151


" I don't know; I suppose I have n't seen enough
people to be a good judge."
"Well, you've seen enough people to know that
he 's very good looking?"
"Yes?"
"You don't mean to say you don't think him
good looking?"
"No, - oh, no, I mean - that is - I don't know
anything about his looks. But he resembles a lady
who used to come from Boston, summers. I thought
he must be her brother."
" Oh, then you think he looks effeminate! " cried
Staniford, with inner joy. " I assure you," he added
with solemnity, " Dunham is one of the manliest
fellows in the world! "
" Yes? " said Lydia.
Staniford rose. He was smiling gayly as he looked
over the broad stretch of empty deck, and down
into Lydia's eyes. "Would n't you like to take a
turn, now? "
"Yes," she said promptly, rising and arranging
her wrap across her shoulders, so as to leave her
hands free. She laid one hand in his arm and
gathered her skirt with the otller, and they swept
round together for tle start and confronted Hicks.
"Oh! " cried Lydia, with what seemed dismay,
"I promised Mr. Hicks to practice a song with
him."  She did not try to release her hand from
Staniford's arm, but was letting it linger there
irresolutely.




152       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
Staniford dropped his arm, and let her hand fall.
He bowed with icy stiffness, and said, with a
courtesy so fierce that Mr. Hicks, on whom he
glared as he spoke, quailed before it, "I yield to
your prior engagement."




XIV.


IT was nothing to Staniford that she should have
promised Hicks to practice a song with him, and no
process of reasoning could have made it otherwise.
The imaginary opponent with whom he scornfully
argued the matter had not a word for himself.
Neither could the young girl answer anything to
the cutting speeches which he mentally made her
as he sat alone chewing the end of his cigar; and
he was not moved by the imploring looks which his
fancy painted in her face, when he made believe
that she had meekly returned to offer him some
sort of reparation. Why should she excuse herself? he asked. It was he who ought to excuse
himself for having been in the way. The dialogue
went on at length, with every advantage to the
inventor.
He was finally aware of some one standing near
and looking down at him. It was the second mate,
who supported himself in a conversational posture
by the hand which he stretched to the shrouds
above their heads. "Are you a good sailor, Mr.
Staniford?" lhe inquired. He and Staniford were
friends in their way, and had talked together before this.




154


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"Do you mean seasickness? Why?"    Staniford
looked up at the mate's face.
"Well, we 're going to get it, I guess, before long.
We shall soon be off the Spanish coast. We 've had
a great run so far."
"If it comes we inust stand it. But I make it a
rule never to be seasick beforehand."
"Well, I ain't one to borrow trouble, either.
It don't run in the family. Most of us like to
chance things. I chanced it for the whole war, and
I come out all right. Sometimes it don't work so
well."
" Ah? " said Staniford, who knew that this was
a leading remark, but forbore, as he knew Mason
wished, to follow it up directly.
"One of us chanced it once too often, and of
course it was a woman."
"The risk?"
" Not the risk. My oldest sister tried tamin' a
tiger. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a tiger
won't tame worth a cent. But her pet was such a
lamb most the while that she guessed she 'd chance
it. It did n't work. She's at home with mother
now, - three children, of course, - and he's in
hell, I s'pose. He was killed 'long-side o' me at
Gettysburg. Ike was a good fellow when he was
sober. But my souls, the life he led that poor
girl! Yes, when a man's got that tiger in him,
there ought to be some quiet little war round for
puttin' him out of his misery." Staniford listened




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


155


silently, waiting for the mate to make the application of his grim  allegory. "I s'pose I 'm prejudiced; but I do hate a drunkard; and when I
see one of 'em makin' up to a girl, I want to go
to her, and tell her she'd better take a real tiger
out the show, at once."
The idea which these words suggested sent a
thrill to Staniford's heart, but he continued silent,
and the mate went on, with the queer smile, which
could be inferred rather than seen, working under
his mustache and the humorous twinkle of his
eyes evanescently evident under his cap peak.
" I don't go round criticisin' my superior officers,
and I don't say anything about the responsibility
the old man took. The old man 's all right, accordin' to his lights; he ain't htad a tiger in the family.
But if that chap was to fall overboard, - well, I
don't know how long it would take to lower a boat,
if I was to listen to my conscience. There ain't
really any help for him. He 's begun too young
ever to get over it. He won't be ashore at TryEast an hour before he 's drunk. If our men had
any spirits amongst 'em  that could be begged,
bought, or borrowed, he'd be drunk now, right
along. Well, I'm off watch," said the mate, at the
tap of bells.  "Guess we'll get our little gale
pretty soon."
" Good-night," said Staniford, who remained pondering. He presently rose, and walked up and down
the deck. He could hear Lydia and Hicks trying




156


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


that song: now the voice, and now the flute; then
both together; and presently a burst of laughter.
He began to be angry with her ignorance and inexperience. It became intolerable to him that a
woman should be going about with no more knowledge of the world than a child, and entangling herself in relations with all sorts of people. It was
shocking to think of that little sot, who had now
made his infirmity known to all the ship's company,
admitted to association with her which looked to
common eyes like courtship. From the mate's insinuation that she ought to be warned, it was evident that they thought her interested in Hicks;
and the mate had come, like Dunham, to leave the
responsibility with Staniford. It only wanted now
that Captain Jenness should appear with his appeal, direct or indirect.
While Staniford walked up and down, and scorned
and raged at the idea that he had anything to do
with the matter, the singing and fluting came to a
pause in the cabin; and at the end of the next
tune, which brought him to the head of the gangway stairs, he met Lydia emerging. He stopped
and spoke to her, having instantly resolved, at sight
of her, not to do so.
" Have you come up for breath, like a mermaid? " he asked. "Not that I 'm sure mermaids
do."
" Oh, no," said Lydia. " I think I dropped my
handkerchief where we were sitting."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


157


Staniford suspected, with a sudden return to a
theory of her which he had already entertained,
that she had not done so. But she went lightly by
him, where he stood stolid, and picked it up; and
now he suspected that she had dropped it there on
purpose.
"You have come back to walk with me?"
"No!" said the girl indignantly. " I have not
come back to walk with you! " She waited a moment; then she burst out with, " How dare you
say such a thing to me? What right have you to
speak to me so? What have I done to make you
think that I would come back to "The fierce vibration in her voice made him know
that her eyes were burning upon him and her lips
trembling. He shrank before her passion as a man
must before the justly provoked wrath of a woman,
or even of a small girl.
" I stated a hope, not a fact," he said in meek
uncandor. " Don't you think you ought to have
done so?"
" I don't- I don't understand you," panted
Lydia, confusedly arresting her bolts in mid-course.
Staniford pursued his guilty advant:age; it was
his only chance. "I gave way to Mr. Hicks when
you had an engagement with me. I thought- you
would come back to keep your engagement."  He
was still very meek.
" Excuse me," she said with self-reproach that
would have melted the heart of any one but a man




158


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


who was in the wrong, and was trying to get out of
it at all hazards. "I did n't know what you meant
- I"
"If I had meant what you thought," interrupted
Staniford nobly, for he could now afford to be generous, "I should have deserved much more than
you said. But I hope you won't punish my awkwardness by refusing to walk with me."
He knew that she regarded him earnestly before
she said, "I must get my shawl and hat."
"Let me go!" he entreated.
"You could n't find them," she answered, as she
vanished past him. She returned, and promptly
laid her hand in his proffered arm; it was as if she
were eager to make him amends for her harshness.
Staniford took her hand out, and held it while he
bowed low toward her. " I declare myself satisfied."
"I don't understand," said Lydia, in alarm and
mortification.
" WVhen a subject has been personally aggrieved
by his sovereign, his honor is restored if they
merely cross swords."
The girl laughed her delight in the extravagance.
She must have been more or less than woman not
to have found his flattery delicious. " But we are
republicans! " she said in evasion.
"To be sure, we are republicans. Well, then,
Miss Blood, answer your free and equal one thing:
is it a case of conscience? "




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


159


" How? " she asked, and Staniford did not recoil
at the rusticity. This how for what, and the interrogative yes, still remained. Since their first walk,
she had not wanted to know, in however great surprise she found herself.
" Are you going to walk with me because you
had promised? "
"Why, of course," faltered Lydia.
"That is n't enough."
" Not enough? "
"Not enough. You must walk with me because
you like to do so."
Lydia was silent.
"Do you like to do so?"
"I can't answer you," she said, releasing her
hand from him.
"It was not fair to ask you. What I wish to do
is to restore the original status. You have kept
your engagement to walk with me, and your conscience is clear. Now, Miss Blood, may I have
your company for a little stroll over the deck of the
Aroostook? " He made her another very low bow.
"What must I say? " asked Lydia, joyously.
"That depends upon whether you consent. If
you consent, you must say, ' I shall be very glad.'
" And if I don't?"
" Oh, I can't put any such decision into words."
Lydia mused a moment. "I shall be very glad,"
she said, and put her hand again into the arm he
offered.




160


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


As happens after such a passage they were at
first silent, while they walked up and down.
If this fine weather holds," said Staniford, "and
you continue as obliging as you are to-night, you
can say, when people ask you how you went to Europe, that you walked the greater part of the way.
Shall you continue so obliging? Will you walk
with me every fine night? " pursued Staniford.
"Do you think I 'd better say so? " she asked,
with the joy still in her voice.
" Oh, I can't decide for you. I merely formulate
your decisions after you reach them, - if they 're
favorable."
" Well, then, what is this one?
"Is it favorable? "
" You said you would formulate it." She laughed
again, and Staniford started as one does when a
nebulous association crystallizes into a distinctly remembered fact.
"What a curious laugh you have!" he said.
"It's like a nun's laugh. Once in France I lodged
near the garden of a convent where the nuns kept
a girls' school, and I used to hear them laugh. You
never happened to be a nun, Miss Blood?"
" No, indeed! " cried Lydia, as if scandalized.
" Oh, I merely meant in some previous existence.
Of course, I did n't suppose there was a convent in
South Bradfield."  He felt that the girl did not
quite like the little slight his irony cast upon South
Bradfield, or rather upon her for never having been




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


161


anywhere else.  He hastened to say, "I'm  sure
that in the life before this you were of the South
somewhere."
"Yes? " said Lydia, interested and pleased again
as one must be in romantic talk about one's self.
"Whly do you think so? "
He bent a little over toward her, so as to look
into the face she instinctively averted, while she
could not help glancing at him from the corner of
her eye. " You have the color and the light of the
South," he said. "When you get to Italy, you
will live in a perpetual mystification. You will go
about in a dream of some self of yours that was
native there in other days. You will find yourself
retrospectively related to the olive faces and the
dark eyes you meet; you will recognize sisters and
cousins in the patrician ladies when you see their
portraits in the palaces where you used to live in
such state."
Staniford spiced his flatteries with open burlesque; the girl entered into his fantastic humor.
"But if I was a nun? " she asked, gayly.
" Oh, I forgot. You were a nun. There was a
nun in Venice once, about two hundred years ago,
when you lived there, and a young English lord
who was passing through the town was taken to
the convent to hear her sing; for she was not only
of 'an admirable beauty,' as he says, but sang ' extremely well.' She sang to him through the grating of the convent, and when she stopped he said,
11




162


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


' Die whensoever you will, you need to change
neither voice nor face to be an angel!'  Do you
think-do you dimly recollect anything that makes
you think —it might —   Consider carefully: the
singing extremely well, and "- He leant over
again, and looked up into her face, which again she
could not wholly withdraw.
" No, no! " she said, still in his mood.
" Well, you must allow it was a pretty speech."
" Perhaps," said Lydia, with sudden gravity, in
which there seemed to Staniford a tender insinuation of reproach, " he was laughing at her."
" If he was, he was properly punished. He went
on to Rome, and when he came back to Venice the
beautiful nun was dead. He thought that his words
' seemed fatal.' Do you suppose it would kill you
now to be jested with? "
" I don't think people like it generally."
" Why, Miss Blood, you are intense! "
"I don't know what you mean by that," said
Lydia.
" You like to take things seriously. You can't
bear to think that people are not the least in earnest, even when they least seem so."
Yes," said the girl, thoughtfully, "perhaps
that's true. Should you like to be made fun of,
yourself? "
"I shouldn't mind it, I fancy, though it would
depend a great deal upon who made fun of me. I
suppose that women always laugh at men, - at




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


163


their clumsiness, their want of tact, the fit of their
clothes."
"I don't know. I should not do that with any
one I ""You liked? Oh, none of them do!" cried
Staniford.
"I was not going to say that," faltered the girl.
"What were you going to say? "
She waited a moment. "Yes, I was going to
say that," she assented with a sigh of helpless veracity. "What makes you laugh?" she asked, in
distress.
" Something I like. I'm different from you: I
laugh at what I like; I like your truthfulness,it 's charming."
"I did n't know that truth need be charming."
"It had better be, in women, if it's to keep even
with the other thing."  Lydia seemed shocked;
she made a faint, involuntary motion to withdraw
her hand, but he closed his arm upon it. "Don't
condemn me for thinking that fibbing is charming.
I should n't like it at all in you. Should you in
me?"
" I should n't in any one," said Lydia.
"Then what is it you dislike in me? " he suddenly demanded.
"I did n't say that I disliked anything in you."
"But you have made fun of something in me?"
"No, no!"
" Then it was n't the stirring of a guilty con



164


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


science when you asked me whether I should like


to be made fun of? I took
been doing it."
"You are very suspicious."
" Yes; and what else?"
"Oh, you like to know
thinks and feels."
"Go on! " cried Staniford.
ulate me! "
" That 's all."
"All I come to?"
"All I have to say."


it for granted you 'd
just what every one
"Analyze me, form

"That's very little. Now, I '11 begin on you.
You don't care what people think or feel."
"Oh, yes, I do. I care too much."
"Do you care what I think?"
" Yes."
"Then I think you're too unsuspicious."
"Ought I to suspect somebody?" she asked,
lightly.
"Oh, that's the way with all your sex. One
asks you to be suspicious, and you ask whom you
shall suspect. You can do nothing in the abstract.
I should like to be suspicious for you. Will you
let me?"
" Oh, yes, if you like to be."
"Thanks. I shall be terribly vigilant, - a perfect dragon.  And you really invest me with
authority?"
" Yes."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" That 's charming."  Staniford drew a long
breath. After a space of musing, he said, " I
thought I should be able to begin by attacking
some one else, but I must commence at home, and
denounce myself as quite unworthy of walking to
and fro, and talking nonsense to you. You must
beware of me, Miss Blood."
"Why?" asked the girl.
"I am very narrow-minded and prejudiced, and
I have violent antipathies. I should n't be able to
do justice to any one I disliked."
" I think that 's the trouble with all of us," said
Lydia.
" Oh, but only in degree. I should not allow, if
I could help it, a man whom I thought shabby, and
coarse at heart, the privilege of speaking to any
one I valued,- to my sister, for instance.  It
would shock me to find her have any taste in common with such a man, or amused by him. Don't
you understand?"
" Yes," said Lydia. It seemed to him as if by
some infinitely subtle and unconscious affinition
she relaxed toward him as they walked. This was
incomparably sweet and charming to Staniford, -
too sweet as recognition of his protecting friendship to be questioned as anything else. He felt
sure that she had taken his meaning, and he rested
content from further trouble in regard to what it
would have been impossible to express. Her tacit
confidence touched a kindred spring in him, and he




166


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


began to talk to her of himself: not of his character or opinions, - they had already gone over them,
— but of his past life, and his future.  Their
strangeness to her gave certain well-worn topics
novelty, and the familiar project of a pastoral career in the far West invested itself with a color of
romance which it had not worn before. She tried
to remember, at his urgence, something about her
childhood in California; and she told him a great
deal more about South Bradfield. She described
its characters and customs, and, from no vantageground or stand-point but her native feeling of their
oddity, and what seemed her sympathy with him,
made him see them as one might whose life had
not been passed among them. Then they began to
compare their own traits, and amused themselves
to find how many they had in common. Staniford
related a singular experience of his on a former
voyage to Europe, when he dreamed of a collision,
and woke to hear a great trampling and uproar on
deck, which afterwards turned out to have been
caused by their bare escape from running into an
iceberg.  She said that she had had strange
dreams, too, but mostly when she was a little girl;
once she had had a presentiment that troubled her,
but it did not come true. They both said they did
not believe in such things, and agreed that it was
only people's love of mystery that kept them noticed. He permitted himself to help her, with his
disengaged hand, to draw her shawl closer about




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


167


the shoulder that was away from him. He gave
the action a philosophical and impersonal character
by saying immediately afterwards: " The sea is
really the only mystery left us, and that will never
be explored.  They circumnavigate the whole
globe," - here he put the gathered shawl into the
fingers which she stretched tllrough his arm to take
it, and she said, " Oh, thank you!" —"but they
don't describe the sea. War and plague and famine submit to the ameliorations of science," - the
closely drawn shawl pressed her against his shoulder; his mind wandered; he hardly knew what he
was saying, - " but the one utterly inexorable calamity - the same now as when the first sail was
spread- is a shipwreck."
"Yes," she said, with a deep inspiration. And
now they walked back and forth in silence broken
only by a casual word or desultory phrase. Once
Stanifordhad thought the conditions of these promenades perilously suggestive of love-making; another time he had blamed himself for not thinking of this; now he neither thought nor blamed
himself for not thinking. The fact justified itself,
as if it had been the one perfectly right and wise
thing in a world where all else might be questioned.
"Is n't it pretty late? " she asked, at last.
"If you're tired, we '11 sit down," he said.
"     Vhat time is it? " she persisted.
"'Must I look?" he pleaded. They went to a
lantern, and he took out his watch and sprang the




168


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


case open. " Look! " he said. " I sacrifice myself
on the altar of truth."  They bent their heads low
together over the watch; it was not easy to make
out the time. " It's nine o'clock," said Staniford.
" It can't be; it was half past when I came up,"
answered Lydia.
"One hand 's at twelve and the other at nine,"
he said, conclusively.
" Oh, then it's a quarter to twelve." She caught
away her hand from his arm, and fled to the gangway. " I did n't dream it was so late."
The pleasure which her confession brought to his
face faded at sight of Hicks, who was turning the
last pages of a novel by the cabin lamp, as he followed Lydia in. It was the book that Staniford
had given her.
" Hullo! " said Hicks, with companionable ease,
looking up at her. "Been having quite a tramp."
She did not seem troubled by the familiarity of
an address that incensed Staniford almost to the
point of taking Hicks from his seat, and tossing
him to the other end of the cabin. " Oh, you 've
finished my book," she said. "You must tell me
how you like it, to-morrow."
" I doubt it," said Hicks. "I 'm going to be
seasick to-morrow. The captain's been shaking his
head over the barometer and powwowing with the
first officer. Something's up, and I guess it's a
gale. Good-by; I shan't see you again for a week
or so."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.      169
He nodded jocosely to Lydia, and dropped his
eyes again to his book, ignoring Staniford's presence. The latter stood a moment breathing quick;
then he controlled himself and went into his room.
His coming roused Dunham, who looked up from
his pillow. " What time is it?" he asked, stupidly.
"Twelve," said Staniford.
Had a pleasant walk? "
"If you still think," said Staniford, savagely,
"that she's painfully interested in you, you can
make your mind easy. She does n't care for either
of us."
"Either of us?" echoed Dunham. He roused
himself.
" Oh, go to sleep; go to sleep! " cried Staniford.




xv.


THE foreboded storm did not come so soon as had
been feared, but the beautiful weather which had
lasted so long was lost in a thickened sky and a sullen sea. The weather had changed with Staniford,
too. The morning after the events last celebrated,
he did not respond to the glance which Lydia
gave him when they met, and he hardened his
heart to her surprise, and shunned being alone with
her. He would not admit to himself any reason
for his attitude, and he could not have explained to
her the mystery that at first visibly grieved her,
and then seemed merely to benumb her. But the
moment came when he ceased to take a certain
cruel pleasure in it, and he approached her one
morning on deck, where she stood holding fast to
the railing where she usually sat, and said, as if
there had been no interval of estrangement between
them, but still coldly, " We have had our last walk
for the present, Miss Blood.  I hope you will
grieve a little for my loss."
She turned on him a look that cut him to the
heart, with what he fancied its reproach and its
wonder. She did not reply at once, and then she
did not reply to his hinted question.
" Mr. Staniford," she began. It was the second




THE LADY OF TIIE AROOSTOOK.


171


time he had heard her pronounce his name; he
distinctly remembered the first.
"Well?" lie sid.
"I want to speak to you about lending that
book to Mr. Hicks. I ought to have asked you
first."
" Oh, no," said Staniford. " It was yours."
"You gave it to me," she returned.
" Well, then, it was yours, - to keep, to lend, to
throw away."
" And you did n't mind my lending it to him?"
she pursued. " I " -
Slie stopped, and Staniford hesitated, too. Then
he said, " I did n't dislike your lending it; I disliked his having it. I will acknowledge that."
She looked up at him as if she were going to
speak, but checked herself, and glanced away. The
ship was plunging heavily, and the livid waves
were racing before the wind. The horizon was lit
with a yellow brightness in the quarter to which
she turned, and a pallid gleam defined her profile.
Captain Jenness was walking fretfully to and fro;
lhe glanced now at the yellow glare, and now cast
llis eye aloft at the shortened sail. While Stniford stood questioning whether she meant to saiy
anything more, or whether, having discharged her
conscience of an imagined offense, she had now
reached one of her final, precipitous silences, Captain Jenness suddenly approached them, and said to
him, "I guess you 'd better go below with Miss
Blood."




172


1THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


The storm that followed had its hazards, but
Staniford's consciousness was confined to its discomforts. The day came, and then the dark came, and
both in due course went, and came again. Where
he lay in his berth, and whirled and swung, and
rose and sank, as lonely as a planetary fragment
tossing in space, he heard the noises of the life without. Amidst the straining of the ship, which was
like the sharp sweep of a thunder-shower on the
deck overhead, there plunged at irregular intervals
the wild trample of heavily-booted feet, and now
and then the voices of the crew answering the
shouted orders made themselves hollowly audible.
In the cabin there was talking, and sometimes even
laughing. Sometimes he heard the click of knives
and forks, the sardonic rattle of crockery. After
the first insane feeling that somehow he must get
ashore and escape from his torment, he hardened
himself to it through an immense contempt, equally
insane, for the stupidity of the sea, its insensate
uproar, its blind and ridiculous and cruel inischievousness. Except for this delirious scorn he was a
surface of perfect passivity.
Dunham, after a day of prostration, had risen,
and had perhaps shortened his anguish by his resolution. He had since taken up his quarters on a
locker in the cabin; he looked in now and then
upon Staniford, with a cup of tea, or a suggestion
of something light to eat; once he even dared to
boast of the sublimity of the ocean.  Staniford




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


173


stared at him with eyes of lack-lustre indifference,
and waited for him to be gone. But he lingered to
say, " You would laugh to see what a sea-bird our
lady is! She has n't been sick a minute.  And
Hicks, you 'l be glad to know, is behaving himself
very well. Really, I don't think we 've done the
fellow justice. I think you 've overshadowed him,
and that le 's needed your absence to show himself
to advantage."
Staniford disdained any comment on this except
a fierce " Hlumph! " and dismissed Dunham by
turning his face to the wall. He refused to think
of what he had said. He lay still and suffered indefinitely, and no longer waited for the end of the
storm. There had been times when he thought
with acquiescence of going to the bottom, as a probable conclusion; now lhe did not expect anything.
At last, one night, he felt by inexpressibly minute
degrees something tllat seemed surcease of his misery. It might have been the end of all things, for
all he cared; but as the lull deepened, he slept
without knowing what it was, and when he woke
in the morning he found the Aroostook at anchor
in smooth water.
She was lying in the roads at Gibraltar, and before her towered the embattled rock. He crawled
on deck after a while. The captain was going
ashore, and had asked such of his passengers as
liked, to go with him and see the place. When
Staniford appeared, Dunham was loyally refusing




174


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


to leave his friend till he was fairly on foot. At
sight of him they suspended their question long
enough to welcome himl back to animation, with the
patronage with which well people hail a convalescent. Lydia looked across the estrangement of the
past days with a sort of inquiry, and Hicks chose
to come forward iand accept a cold touch of the
hand from him. Staniford saw, with languid observance, that Lydia was very fresh and bright;
she was already equipped for the expedition, ald
could never have had any doubt in her mind as
to going. She had on a pretty walking dress
which he had not seen before, and a hat with the
rim struck sharply upward behind, and ler masses
of dense, dull black hair pulled up and fastened
somewhere on the top of her head. Her eyes shyly
sparkled under the abrupt descent of the hat-brim
over her forehead.
His contemptuous rejection of the character of
invalid prevailed with Iunham; and Staniford
walked to another part of the ship, to cut short tlle
talk about himself, and saw them row away.
VWell, you've had a pretty tough time, they
say," said the second nmate, lounging near him.
" I don't see any fun in seasickness myself."
" It 's a ridiculous sort of misery," said Staniford.
" I hope we shan't have anything worse on board
when that chap gets back. The old man thinks he
can keep an eye on him."  The mate was looking
after thle boat.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


175


" The captain says he has n't any money," Staniford remarked carelessly.  The mate went away
without saying alything more, and Staniford returned to the cabin, where he beheld without abhorrence the preparations for his breakfast. But he
liad not a gre.at appetite, in spite of his long fast.
Ile found hlimself rather light-headed, and came
on deck again after a while, and stretched himself
in Hicks's steamer chair, where Lydia usually sat
in it.  He fell into a dull, despairing reverie, in
which lie blamed himself for not having been more
explicit with ler.  He had merely expressed his
dislike of Hicks; but expressed without reasons it
was a groundless dislike, which she hlad evidently
not understood, or had not cared to heed; and since
that night, now so far away, when lie had spoken
to her, lie had done everything he could to harden
her against himself. He lhad treated her with a
stupid cruelty, which a girl like her would resent
to the last; le had forced her to take refuge in the
politeness of a man from whom he was trying to
keep her.
His heart paused when he saw the boat returning in the afternoon without Hicks. The others
reported that they had separated before dinner, and
that they had not seen him since, though Captain
Jenness had spent an hour trying to look him up
before starting back to the ship. Tlhe captain wore
a look of guilty responsibility, mingled with intense
exasperation, the two combining in as much hag



176


T'HE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


gardness as his cheerful visage could express. "If
he 's here by six o'clock," he said, grimly, "all well
and good. If not, the Aroostook sails, any way."
Lydia crept timidly below. Staniford complexly
raged to see that the anxiety about Hicks had
blighted the joy of the day for her.
" How the deuce could he get about without any
money? " he demanded of Dunham, as soon as they
were alone.
Dunham vainly struggled to look him in the eye.
"Staniford," he faltered, with much more culpability than some criminals would confess a murder,
I lent him five dollars! "
"You lent him five dollars! " gasped Staniford.
" Yes," replied Dunham, miserably; "he got me
aside, and asked me for it. What could I do?
What would you have done yourself?"
Staniford made no answer. He walked some
paces away, and then returned to where Dunham
stood helpless. "He 's lying about there deaddrunk, somewhere, I suppose. By Heaven, I could
almost wish he was. He could n't come back, then,
at any rate."
The time lagged along toward the moment appointed by the captain, and the preparations for the
ship's departure were well advanced, when a boat
was seen putting out from shore with two rowers,
and rapidly approaching the Aroostook. In the
stern, as it drew nearer, the familiar figure of Hicks
discovered itself in the act of waving a handkerchief.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


177


He scrambled up the side of the ship in excellent
spirits, and gave Dunham a detailed account of his
adventures since they had parted. As always happens with such scapegraces, he seemed to have had
a good time, however he had spoiled the pleasure
of the others. At tea, when Lydia had gone away,
he clapped down a sovereign near Dunham's plate.
"Your five dollars," he said.
"Why, how " - Dunham began.
"How did I get on without it? My dear boy, I
sold my watch! A ship's time is worth no more
than a setting hen's, —eh, captain? — and why
take note of it? Besides, I always like to pay my
debts promptly: there's nothing mean about me.
I 'm not going ashore again without my pocketbook, I can tell you."  He winked shamelessly at
Captain Jenness.  "If you hadn't been along,
Dunham, I could n't have made a raise, I suppose.  You would n't have lent me five dollars,
Captain Jenness."
"No, I would n't," said the captain, bluntly.
"And I believe you 'd have sailed without me, if
I had n't got back on time."
"[ I would," said the captain, as before.
licks threw back his head, and laughed. Probably no human being llad ever before made so free
with Captain Jenness at his own table; but the captain must have felt that this contumacy was part of
the general risk which he liad taken in taking Hicks,
and he contented himself witl maintaining a silence
12




178


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


that would have appalled a less audacious spirit.
Hicks's gayety, however, was not to be quelled in
that way.
" Gibraltar would n't be a bad place to put up at
for a while," he said. " Lots of good fellows among
the officers, they say, and fun going all the while.
First-class gunning in the Cork Woods at St. Roque.
If it had n't been for the res angusta domi, - you
know what I mean, captain, - I should have let you
get along with your old dug-out, as the gentleman
in the water said to Noah."  His hilarity had something alarmingly knowing in it; there was a wildness in the pleasure with which he bearded the captain, like that of a man in his first cups; yet he had
not been drinking. He played round the captain's
knowledge of the sanative destitution in which he
was making the voyage with mocking recurrence;
but he took himself off to bed early, and the captain
came through his trials with unimpaired temper.
Dunham disappeared not long afterwards; and Staniford's vague hope that Lydia might be going on
deck to watch the lights of the town die out behind
the ship as they sailed away was disappointed.
The second mate made a point of lounging near
him where he sat alone in their wonted place.
"Well," he said, "he did come back sober."
"Yes," said Staniford.
"Next to not comin' back at all," the mate continued, " I suppose it was the best thing he could
do."  He lounged away. Neither his voice nor his




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.     179
manner had that quality of disappointment which
characterizes those who have mistakenly prophesied
evil. Staniford had a mind to call him back, and
ask him what he meant; but he refrained, and he
went to bed at last resolved to unburden himself of
the whole Hicks business once for all. He felt that
he had had quite enough of it, both in the abstract
and in its relation to Lydia.




XVI.


HICKS did not join the others at breakfast.
They talked of what Lydia had seen at Gibraltar, where Staniford had been on a former voyage.
Dunham had made it a matter of conscience to
know all about it beforehand from his guide-books,
and had risen early that morning to correct his
science by his experience in a long entry in the
diary which he was keeping for Miss Hibbard.
The captain had the true sea-farer's ignorance, and
was amused at the things reported by his passengers of a place where he had been ashore so often;
Hicks's absence doubtless relieved him, but he did
not comment on the cabin-boy's announcement that
he was still asleep, except to order him let alone.
They were seated at their one o'clock dinner before the recluse made any sign. Then he gave note
of his continued existence by bumping and thumping sounds within his state-room, as if some one
were dressing there in a heavy sea.
" Mr. Hicks seems to be taking his rough weather
retrospectively," said Staniford, with rather tremulous humor.
The door was flung open, and Hicks reeled out,
staying himself by the door-knob. Even before he
appeared, a reek of strong waters had preceded




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


181


him. He must have been drinking all night. His
face was flushed, and his eyes were bloodshot. He
had no collar on; but he wore a cravat and otherwise he was accurately and even fastidiously dressed.
He balanced himself by the door-knob, and measured the distance he had to make before reaching
his place at the table, smiling, and waving a delicate handkerchief which he held in his hand:
"Spilt c'logne, tryin' to scent my hic - handkerchief. Mlakes deuced bad smell-too much c'logne;
smells —alcoholic. Thom's, bear a hand, 's good
f'low. No? All right, go on with your waitin'.
B-ic - business b'fore pleasure, 's feller says.
Play it alone, I guess."
The boy had shrunk back in dismay, and Hicks
contrived to reach his place by one of those precipitate dashes with which drunken men attain a
point, when the luck is with them. He looked
smilingly round the circle of faces. Staniforc and
the captain exchanged threatening looks of intelligence, while Mr. Watterson and Dunham subordinately waited their motion. But the advantage,
as in such cases, was on the side of Hicks.  He
knew it, with a drunkard's subtlety, and was at his
ease.
" No app'tite, friends; but thought I'd come
out, keep you from feeling lonesome." He laughed
and hiccuped, and smiled upon them all. "VWell,
cap'n," he continued, " 'covered from 'tigues day,
'sterday? You look blooming's usual. Thom's,




182


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


pass the- pass the - victuals lively, my son, and
fetch along coffee soon. Some the friends up late,
and want their coffee. Nothing like coffee, carry
off 'fec's." He winked to the men, all round; and
then added, to Lydia: "Sorry see you in this state
-I mean, sorry see mee-   Can't make it that
way either; up stump on both routes. What I
mean is, sorry had n't coffee first. But you 're all
right —all right! Like see anybody offer you disrespec', 'n I 'm around. Tha 's all."
Till he addressed her, Lydia had remained motionless, first with bewilderment, and then with
open abhorrence. She could hardly have seen in
South Bradfield a man who had been drinking.
Even in haying, or other sharpest stress of farmwork, our farmer and his men stay themselves with
nothing stronger than molasses-water, or, in extreme
cases, cider with a little corn soaked in it; and the
Mill Village, where she had taught school, was
under the iron rule of a local vote for prohibition.
She stared in stupefaction at Hicks's heated, foolish face; she started at his wild movements, and
listened with dawning intelligence to his hiccupbroken speech, with its thickened sibilants and its
wandering emphasis. When he turned to her, and
accompanied his words with a reassuring gesture,
she recoiled, and as if breaking an ugly fascination
she gave a low, shuddering cry, and looked at Staniford.
"Thomas," he said, "Miss Blood was going to
take her dessert on deck to-day. Dunham? "




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


183


Dunham sprang to his feet, and led her out of
the cabin.
The movement met HIiclks's approval. " Tha's
right; 'sert on deck, 'joy landscape and pudding together, - Rhine steamer style. All right. Be up
there m'self soon 's I get my coffee."  He winked
again with drunken sharpness. " I know wha's
what. Be up there m'self, 'n a minute."
" If you offer to go up," said Staniford, in a low
voice, as soon as Lydia was out of the way, " I '11
knock you down!"
" Captain," said Mr. Watterson, venturing, perhaps for the first time in his whole maritime history, upon a suggestion to his superior officer,
" shall I clap him in irons?"
"Clap him in irons!" roared Captain Jenness.
"Clap him in bed! Look here, you! " He turned
to Hicks, but the latter, who had been bristling
at Staniford's threat, now relaxed in a crowing
laugh -
" Tha 's right, captain. Irons no go, 'cept in case
mutiny; bed perfectly legal 't all times. Bed is
good. But trouble is t' enforce it."
" Where 's your bottle? " demanded the captain,
rising from tle seat in which a paralysis of fury
had kept him hitherto. " I want your bottle."
" 01, bottle 's all right! Bottle 's under pillow.
Empty, - empty 's Jonah's gourd; 'nother sea-faring party, - Jonah. S'cure the shadow ere the
substance fade. Drunk all the brandy, old boy.




184


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


Bottle's a canteen; 'vantage of military port to
houseless stranger. Brought the brandy on board
under my coat; nobody noticed, - so glad get me
back. Prodigal son's return,-fatted calf under
h.is coat."
The reprobate ended his boastful confession with
another burst of hiccuping, and Staniford helplessly
laughed.
"Do me proud," said Hicks. "Proud, I 'sure
you. Gentleman, every time, Stanny. Know good
thing when you see it - hear it, I mean."
"Look here, Hicks," said Staniford, choosing to
make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness,
if any good end might be gained by it. " You know
you 're drunk, and you 're not fit to be about. Go
back to bed, that's a good fellow; and come out
again, when you 're all right. You don't want to
do anything you '11 be sorry for."
"No, no! No, you don't, Stanny. Coffee '11
make me all right. Coffee always does. Coffee -
Heaven's lash besh gift to man. 'Scovered subsesubs'quently to grape. See?  Comes after claret
in course of nature. Captain does n't understand
the 'lusion. All right, captain.  Little learning
dangerous thing." He turned sharply on Mr. Watterson, who had remained inertly in his place.
" Put me in irons, heh! You put me in irons, you
old Triton. Put me in irons, will you? "  His amiable mood was passing; before one could say so, it
was past. He was meditating means of active of



THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


185


fense. He gathered up the carving-knife and fork,
and held them close under Mr. Watterson's nose.
Smell that! " he said, and frowned as darkly as
a man of so little eyebrow could.
At this senseless defiance Staniford, in spite of
himself, broke into another laugh, and even Captain
Jenness grinned. Mr. Watterson sat with his head
drawn as far back as possible, and with his nose
wrinkled at the affront offered it. "Captain," he
screamed, appealing even in this extremity to his
superior, " shall I fetch him onle? "
"No, no!" cried Staniford, springing from his
chair; "don't hit him! He is n't responsible. Let 's
get him into his room."
"Fetch me one, heh? " said Hicks, rising, with
dignity, and beginning to turn up his cuffs. " One!
It'll take more than one, fetch me. Stan' up, 'f
you 're man enough."   He was squaring at Mr.
Watterson, when he detected signs of strategic approach in Staniford and Captain Jenness. He gave
a wild laugh, and shrank into a corner. "No! No,
you don't, boys," he said.
They continued their advance, one on either side,
and reinforced by Mr. Watterson hemmed him in.
The drunken man has the advantage of his sober
brother in never seeming to be on the alert. Hicks
apparently entered into the humor of the affair.
" Sur-hic-surrender! " he said, with a smile in his
heavy eyes. He darted under the extended arms of
Captain Jenness, wlho was leading the centre of the




186


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


advance, and before either wing could touch him he
was up the gangway and on the deck.
Captain Jenness indulged one of those expressions, very rare with him, which are supposed to be
forgiven to good men in moments of extreme perplexity, and Mr. Watterson profited by the precedent to unburden his heart in a paraphrase of
the captain's language. Staniford's laugh had as
much cursing in it as their profanity.
He mechanically followed Hicks to the deck,
prepared to renew the attempt for his capture there.
But Hicks had not stopped near Dunham and Lydia.
He had gone forward on the other side of the ship,
and was leaning quietly on the rail, and looking
into the sea. Staniford paused irresolute for a
moment, and then sat down beside Lydia, and they
all tried to feign that nothing unpleasant had happened, or was still impending. But their talk had
the wandering inconclusiveness which was inevitable, and the eyes of each from time to time furtively turned toward Hicks.
For half an hour he hardly changed his position.
At the end of that time, they found him looking
intently at them; and presently he began to work
slowly back to the waist of the ship, but kept to
his own side. He was met on the way by the second mate, when nearly opposite where they sat.
" Ain't you pretty comfortable where you are? "
they heard the mate asking. " Guess I would n't
go aft any further just yet.'




THE LADY OF TIIE AROOSTOOK.


187


" You 're all right, Mason," Hicks answered.
"Going below - down cellar, 's feller says; go to
bed."
" Well, that 's a pious idea," said the mate.
You could n't do better than that. I'11 lend you
a hand."
"Don't care 'f I do," responded Flicks, taking
the mate's proffered arm. But he really seemed to
need it very little; he walked perfectly well, and
he did not look across at the others again.
At the head of the gangway lhe encountered Captain Jenness and Mr. Watterson, who had completed
the perquisition they had remained to make in his
state-room. Mr1. Watterson came up empty-handed;
but the captain bore the canteen in which the common enemy had been so artfully conveyed on board.
He walked, darkly scowling, to the rail, and flung
the canteen into the sea. Hicks, who had saluted
his appearance with a glare as savage as his own,
yielded to his whimsical sense of the futility of this
vengeance. He gave his fleering, drunken laugh:
"Good old boy, Captain Jenness. Means wellmeans well. But lacks- lacks -forecast. Pounds
of cure, but no prevention. Not much on bite, but
death on bark.  Heh? "  He waggled his hand
offensively at the captain, and disappeared, loosely
floundering down the cabin stairs, holding hard by
the hand-rail, and fumbling round with his foot for
the steps before he put it down.
"As soon as he 's in his room, Mr. Watterson,




188


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


you lock him in." The captain handed his officer
a key, and walked away forward, with a hang-dog
look on his kindly face, which he kept averted from
his passengers.
The sound of Hicks's descent had hardly ceased
when clapping and knocking noises were heard
again, and the face of the troublesome little wretch
reappeared. He waved Mr. Watterson aside with
his left hand, and in default of specific orders the
latter allowed him to mount to the deck again.
Hicks stayed himself a moment, and lurched to
where Staniford and Dunham sat with Lydia.
" What I wish say Miss Blood is," he began," what I wish say is, peculiar circumstances make
no difference with man if man 's gentleman. What
I say is, everybody 'spec's -  What I say is, circumstances don't alter cases; lady 's a lady -
What I want do is beg you fellows' pardon -beg
her pardon —if anything I said that firs' morning"" Go away! " cried Staniford, beginning to whiten
round the nostrils. " Hold your tongue!"
Hicks fell back a pace, and looked at him with
the odd effect of now seeing him for the first time.
" What you want?" he asked. " What you mean?
Slingin' criticism ever since you came on this ship!
What you mean by it? Heh? What you mean?"
Staniford rose, and Lydia gave a start. He cast
an angry look at her. "Do you think I'd hurt
him? " he demanded.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


189


Hicks went on: " Sorry, very sorry, 'larm a lady,
- specially lady we all respec'. But this particular
affair. Touch -touches my honor. You said," he
continued, "'f I came on deck, you 'd knock me down.
Why don't you do it?    Wha 's the matter with
you? Sling criticism ever since you been on ship,
and 'fraid do it! 'Fraid, you hear? 'F-ic —'fraid,
I say." Staniford slowly walked away forward, and
Hicks followed him, threatening him with word and
gesture. Now and then Staniford thrust him aside,
and addressed him some expostulation, and Hicks
laughed and submitted. Then, after a silent excursion to the other side of the ship, he would return and renew his one-sided quarrel. Staniford
seemed to forbid the interference of the crew, and
alternately soothed and baffled his tedious adversary, who could still be heard accusing him of slinging criticism, and challenging him to combat. He
leaned with his back to the rail, and now looked
quietly into Hicks's crazy face, when the latter
paused in front of him, and now looked down with
a worried, wearied air. At last he crossed to the
other side, and began to come aft again.
'  r. Dunhalm I" cried Lydia, starting up. " I
know what Mlr. Staniford wants to do. He,wants
to keep him away from me. Let me go down to
the cabin. I can't walk; please help me! "  Her
eyes were full of tears, and the hand ttembled that
she laid on Dunham's arm, but she controlled her
voice.




190


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


He softly repressed her, while he intently watched
Staniford. " No, no! "
"But he can't bear it much longer," she pleaded.
"And if he should "" Staniford would never strike him," said Dunham, calmly.  "Don't be afraid.  Look! He 's
coming back with him; he 's trying to get him below; they '11 shut him up there. That's the only
chance. Sit down, please."  She dropped into her
seat, hid her eyes for an instant, and then fixed
them again on the two young men.
Hicks had got between Staniford and the rail.
He seized him by the arm, and, pulling him round,
suddenly struck at him. It was too much for his
wavering balance: his feet shot from under him,
and he went backwards in a crooked whirl and tumble, over the vessel's side.
Staniford uttered a cry of disgust and rage.
" Oh1, you little brute! " he shouted, and with what
seemed a single gesture he flung off his coat and the
low shoes he wore, and leaped the railing after him.
The cry of " Man overboard!" rang round the
ship, and Captain Jenness's order, " Down with
your hellm! Lower a boat, Mr. Mason!" came,
quick as it was, after the second mate had prepared
to let go; and' he and two of the men were in the
boat, and she was sliding from her davits, while the
Aroostook was coming up to the light wind and
losing headway.
When the boat touched the water, two heads




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


191


had appeared above the surface terribly far away.
" Hold on, for God's sake! We'll be there in a
second."
"All right! " Staniford's voice called back. "Be
quick." The heads rose and sank with the undulation of the water. The swift boat appeared to
crawl.
By the time it reached the place where they had
been seen, the heads disappeared, and the men in
the boat seemed to be rowing blindly about. The
mate stood upright. Suddenly he dropped and
clutched at something over the boat's side. The
people on the ship could see three hands on her gunwale; a figure was pulled up into the boat, and
proved to be Hicks; then Staniford, seizing the
gunwale with both hands, swung himself in.
A shout went up from the ship, and Staniford
waved his hand. Lydia waited where she hung
upon the rail, clutching it hard with her hands, till
the boat was along-side.  Then from white she
turned fire-red, and ran below and locked herself in
her room.




XVII.


DUNHAM followed Staniford to their room, and
helped him off with his wet clothes.  He tried
to say something ideally fit in recognition of his
heroic act, and he articulated some bald commonplaces of praise, and shook Staniford's clammy
hand.  "Yes," said the latter, submitting; "but
the difficulty about a thing of this sort is that you
don't know whether you have n't been an ass. It
has been pawed over so much by the romancers that
you don't feel like a hero in real life, but a hero of
fiction. I've a notion that Hicks and I looked
rather ridiculous going over the ship's side; I know
we did, coming back. No man can reveal his greatness of soul in wet clothes.  Did Miss Blood
laugh? "
" Staniford! " said Dunham, in an accent of reproach. "You do her great injustice.  She felt
what you had done in the way you would wish, -
if you cared."
"What did she say? " asked Staniford, quickly.
"Nothing. But ""That's an easy way of expressing one's admiration of heroic behavior. I hope she '11 stick to
that line. I hope she won't feel it at all necessary
to say anything in recognition of my prowess; it




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193


would be extremely embarrassing. I 've got Hicks
back again, but I could n't stand any gratitude for
it.  Not that I 'm ashamed of the performance.
Perhaps if it had been anybody but Hicks, I should
have waited for them to lower a boat. But Hicks
had peculiar claims. You could n't let a man
you disliked so much welter round a great while.
Where is the poor old fellow? Is he clothed and
in his right mind again? "
'" He seemed to be sober enough," said Dunham,
"when he came on board; but I don't think he's
out yet."
"We must let Thomas in to gather up this bathing-suit," observed Staniford. " What a Newportish flavor it gives the place! " He was excited, and
in great gayety of spirits.
He and Dunham went out into the cabin, where
they found Captain Jenness pacing to and fro.
"Well, sir," he said, taking Staniford's hand, and
crossing his right with his left, so as to include Dunham in his congratulations, "you ought to have
been a sailor! "  Then he added, as if the unqualified praise might seem fulsome, " But if you'd been
a sailor, you would n't have tried a thing like that.
You'd have had more sense. The chances were ten
to one against you."
Staniford laughed. "Was it so bad as that? I
shall begin to respect myself."
The captain did not answer, but his iron grip
closed hard upon Staniford's hand, and he frowned
13




194


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


in keen inspection of Hicks, who at that moment
came out of his state-room, looking pale and quite
sobered. Captain Jenness surveyed lim from head
to foot, and then from foot to head, and pausing at
the level of his eyes he said, still holding Staniford
by the hand: "The trouble with a man aboard
ship is that he can't turn a blackguard out-of-doors
just when lie likes. The Aroostook puts in at Messina. You'll be treated well till we get there, and
then if I find you on my vessel five minutes after
she comes to anchor, I '11 heave you overboard, and
I '11 take care that nobody jumps after you. Do
you hear? And you won't find me doing any such
fool kindness as I did when I took you on board,
soon again."
Oh, I say, Captain Jenness," began Staniford.
"He 's all right," interrupted Hicks. " I 'm a
blackguard; I know it; and I don't think I was
worth fishing up. But you've done it, and I must
n't go back on you, I suppose." He lifted his poor,
weak, bad little face, and looked Staniford in the
eyes with a pathos that belied the slang of his
speech. The latter released his hand from Captain
Jenness and gave it to Hicks, who wrung it, as he
kept looking him in the eyes, while his lips twitched
pitifully, like a child's. The captain gave a quick
snort either of disgust or of sympathy, and turned
abruptly about and bundled himself up out of the
cabin.
"I say!" exclaimed Staniford, "a cup of coffee




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195


would n't be bad, would it? Let's have some coffee, Thomas, about as quick as the cook can make
it," he added, as the boy came out from his stateroom with a lump of wet clothes in his hands.
"You wanted some coffee a little while ago," he
said to Hicks, who hung his head at the joke.
For the rest of the day Staniford was the hero of
the ship. The men looked at him from a distance,
and talked of him together. Mr. Watterson hung
about whenever Captain Jenness drew near him, as
if in the hope of overhearing some acceptable expression in which he could second his superior officer. Failing this, and being driven to despair,
"Find the water pretty cold, sir? " he asked at
last; and after that seemed to feel that he had discharged his duty as well as might be under the extraordinary circumstances.
The second mate, during the course of the afternoon, contrived to pass near Staniford. "' Why,
there wa' n't no need of your doing it," he said, in
a bated tone. "I could ha' had him out with the
boat, soon enough."
Staniford treasured up these meagre expressions
of the general approbation, and would not have had
them different. From this time, within the narrow bounds that brought them all necessarily together in some sort, Hicks abolished himself as
nearly as possible. He chose often to join the second mate at meals, which Mr. Mason, in accordance
with the discipline of the ship, took apart both




196


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


from  the crew and his superior officers. Mason
treated the voluntary outcast with a sort of sarcastic compassion, as a man whose fallen state was not
without its points as a joke to the indifferent observer, and yet might appeal to the pity of one who
knew such cases through the misery they inflicted.
Staniford heard him telling Hicks about his brotherin-law, and dwelling upon the peculiar relief which
the appearance of his name in the mortality list
gave all concerned in him. Hicks listened in apathetic patience and acquiescence; but Staniford
thought that he enjoyed, as much as he could enjoy
anything, the second officer's frankness. For his
own part, he found that having made bold to keep
this man in the world he had assumed a curious responsibility towards him. It became his business to
show him that he was not shunned by his fellowcreatures, to hearten and cheer him up. It was
heavy work. Hicks with his joke was sometimes
odious company, but he was also sometimes amusing; without it, he was of a terribly dull conversation.  He accepted Staniford's friendliness too
meekly for good comradery; he let it add, apparently, to his burden of gratitude, rather than lessen
it. Staniford smoked with him, and told him stories; he walked up and down with him, and made
a point of parading their good understanding, but
his spirits seemed to sink the lower. " Deuce take
him! " mused his benefactor; "he 's in love with
her!"   But he now had the satisfaction, such as it




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197


was, of seeing that if he was in love he was quite
without hope. Lydia had never relented in her
abhorrence of Hicks since the day of his disgrace.
There seemed no scorn in her condemnation, but
neither was there any mercy. In her simple life
she had kept unsophisticated the severe morality
of a child, and it was this that judged him, that
found him unpardonable and outlawed him. He
had never ventured to speak to her since that day,
and Staniford never saw her look at him except
when Hicks was not looking, and then with a repulsion which was very curious. Staniford could
have pitied him, and might have interceded so far
as to set him  nearer right in her eyes; but he
felt that she avoided him, too; there were no more
walks on the deck, no more readings in the cabin;
the checker-board, which professed to be the History of England, In 2 Vols., remained a closed
book. The good companionship of a former time,
in which they had so often seemed like brothers
and sister, was gone. " Hicks has smashed our
Happy Family," Staniford said to Dunham, with
little pleasure in his joke.  " Upon my word, I
think I had better have left him in the water."
Lydia kept a great deal in her own room; sometimes when Staniford came down into the cabin he
found her there, talking with Thomas of little
things that amuse children; sometimes when he
went on deck in the evening she would be there in
her accustomed seat, and the second mate, with




198


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


face and figure half averted, and staying himself
by one hand on the shrouds, would be telling her
something to which she listened with lifted chin
and attentive eyes. The mate would go away when
Staniford appeared, but that did not help matters,
for then Lydia went too. At table she said very
little; she had the effect of placing herself more
and more under the protection of the captain. The
golden age, when they had all laughed and jested
so freely and fearlessly together, under her pretty
sovereignty, was past, and they seemed far dispersed in a common exile. Staniford imagined she
grew pale and thin; he asked Dunham if he did
not see it, but Dunham had not observed. " I think
matters have taken a very desirable shape, socially,"
he said.  "Miss Blood will reach her friends as
fancy-free as she left home."
" Yes," Staniford assented vaguely; "that's the
great object."
After a while Dunham asked, " She's never said
anything to you about your rescuing Hicks? "
" Rescuing? What rescuing? They'd have had
him out in another minute, any way," said Staniford, fretfully. Then he brooded angrily upon the
subject: "But I can tell you what: considering all
the circumstances, she might very well have said
something. It looks obtuse, or it looks hard. She
must have known that it all came about through
my trying to keep him away from her."
" Oh, yes; she knew that," said Dunham; ' she
spoke of it at the time. But I thought " -




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199


"t Oh, she did! Then I think that it would be
very little if she recognized the mere fact that
something had happened."
" Why, you said you hoped she would n't. You
said it would be embarrassing.  You 're hard to
please, Staniford."
"I shouldn't choose to have her speak for my
pleasure," Staniford returned. " But it argues a
dullness and coldness in her " -
" I don't believe she 's dull; I don't believe she's
cold," said Dunham, warmly.
" What do you believe she is?'
" Afraid."
"Pshaw! " said Staniford.
The eve of their arrival at Messina, he discharged
one more duty by telling Hicks that he had better
come on to Trieste with them. " Captain Jenness
asked me to speak to you about it," he said. " He
feels a little awkward, and thought I could open
the matter better."
"The captain's all right," answered Hicks, with
unruffled humility, " but I 'd rather stop at Messina. I 'n going to get home as soon as I can, -
strike a bee-line."
" Look here! " said Staniford, laying his hand.on his shoulder. "How are you going to manage
for money?"
"Monte di Pieta," replied Hicks. " I 've been
there before. Used to have most of my things in
the care of the-state when I was studying medi



200


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


cine in Paris. I've got a lot of rings and trinkets
that'll carry me through, with what's left of my
watch."
"Are you sure?"
" Sure."
"Because you cal draw on me, if you're going to
be short."
"Thanks," said Hicks. "There's something I
should like to ask you," he added, after a moment.
" I see as well as you do that Miss Blood is n't the
same as she was before. I want to know- I can't
always be sure afterwards - whether I did or said
anything out of the way in her presence."
'' You were drunk," said Staniford, frankly, " but
beyond that you were irreproachable, as regarded
Miss Blood. You were even exemplary."
" Yes, I know," said Hicks, with a joyless laugh.
"Sometimes it takes that turn. I don't think I
could stand it if I had shown her any disrespect.
She 's a lady, -a perfect lady; she 's the best girl
I ever saw."
"Hicks," said Staniford, presently, "I have n't
bored you in regard to that little foible of yours.
Are n't you going to try to do something about
it?"
"I'm going home to get them to shut me up
somewhere," answered Hicks. " But I doubt if anything can be done. I 've studied the thing; I am
a doctor, -or I would be if I were not a drunkard, - and I 've diagnosed the case pretty thor



THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


201


oughly. For three months or four months, now, I
shall be all right. After that I shall go to the bad
for a few weeks; and I'11 have to scramble back the
best way I can. Nobody can help me. That was
the mistake this last time.  I should n't have
wanted anything at Gibraltar if I could have had
my spree out at Boston. But I let them take me
before it was over, and ship me off. I thought I 'd
try it.  Well, it was like a burning fire every
minute, all the way. I thought I should die. I
tried to get something from the sailors; I tried to
steal Gabriel's cooking-wine.  When I got that
brandy in Gibraltar I was wild. Talk about heroism! I tell you it was superhuman, keeping that
canteen corked till night! I was in hopes I could
get through it, -sleep it off, - and nobody be any
the wiser. But it would n't work. O Lord, Lord,
Lord!"
Hicks was as common a soul as could well be.
His conception of life was vulgar, and his experience of it was probably vulgar. He had a good
mind enough, with abundance of that humorous
brightness which may hereafter be found the most
national quality of the Americans; but his ideals
were pitiful, and the language of his heart was a
drolling slang. Yet his doom lifted him above his
low conditions, and made him tragic; his despair
gave him the dignity of a mysterious expiation,
and set him apart with all those who suffer beyond
human help. Without deceiving himself as to the




202


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


quality of the man, Staniford felt awed by the darkness of his fate.
" Can't you try somehow to stand up against it,
and fight it off?  Your 're so young yet, it
can't "The wretched creature burst into tears. " Oil,
try, -try! You don't know what you're talking
about. Don't you suppose I 've had reasons for trying? If you could see how my mother looks when
I come out of one of my drunks, - and my father,
poor old man! It's no use; I tell you it's no use.
I shall go just so long, and then I shall want it,
and will have it, unless they shut me up for life.
My God, I wish I was dead! Well!" He rose from
the place where they had been sitting together, and
held out his hand to Staniford. " I 'm going to be
off in the morning before you 're out, and I'11 say
good-by now. I want you to keep this chair, and
give it to Miss Blood, for me, when you get to
Trieste."
I will, Hicks," said Staniford, gently.
"I want her to know that I was ashamed of myself. I think she '11 like to know it."
" I will say anything to her that you wish," replied Staniford.
c' There 's nothing else. If ever you see a man
with my complaint fall overboard again, think
twice before you jump after him."
He wrung Staniford's hand, and went below,
leaving him with a dull remorse that he should ever




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203


have hated Hicks, and that he could not quite like
him even now.
But he did his duty by him to the last. He rose
at dawn, and was on deck when Hicks went over
the side into the boat which was to row him to the
steamer for Naples, lying at anchor not far off. He
presently returned, to Staniford's surprise, and
scrambled up to the deck of the Aroostook. " The
steamer sails to-night," he said, " and perhaps I
could n't raise the money by that time. I wish
you'd lend me ten napoleons. I'11 send 'em to you
from London. There 's my father's address: I'm
going to telegraph to him."  He handed Staniford
a card, and the latter went below for the coins.
" Thanks," said Hicks, when he reappeared with
them. " Send 'em to you where? "
" Care Blumenthals', Venice. I'm going to be
there some weeks."
In the gray morning light the lurid color of tragedy had faded out of Hicks. He was merely a
baddish-looking young fellow whom Staniford had
lent ten napoleons that he might not see again.
Staniford watched the steamer uneasily, both from
the Aroostook and from the shore, where he strolled
languidly about with Dunham  part of the day.
When she sailed in the evening, he felt that Hicks's
absence was worth twice the money.




XVIII.


THE young men did not come back to the ship at
night, but went to a hotel, for the greater convenieice of seeing the city. They had talked of offering to show Lydia about, but their talk had not
ended in anything.  Vexed with himself to be
vexed at such a thing, Staniford at the bottom of
his heart still had a soreness which the constant
sight of her irritated. It was in vain that he said
there was no occasion, perhaps no opportunity, for
her to speak, yet he was hurt that she seemed to
have seen nothing uncommon in his risking his own
life for that of a man like Hicks. He had set the
action low enough in his own speech; but he knew
that it was not ignoble, and it puzzled him that it
should be so passed over. She had not even said a
word of congratulation upon his own escape. It
might be that she did not know how, or did not
think it was her place to speak. She was curiously
estranged. He felt as if he had been away, and she
had grown from a young girl into womanhood during his absence. This fantastic conceit was strongest when he met her with Captain Jenness one
day. He had found friends at the hotel, as one
always does in Italy, if one's world is at all wide,
— some young ladies, and a lady, now married,




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


205


with whom he had once violently flirted. She was
willing that he should envy her husband; that
amused him in his embittered mood; he let her
drive him about; and they met Lydia and the captain, walking together. Staniford started up from
his lounging ease, as if her limpid gaze had searched
his conscience, and bowed with an air which did
not escape his companion.
" Ah! Who's that? " she asked, with the boldness which she made pass for eccentricity.
"A lady of my acquaintance," said Staniford, at
his laziest again.
" A lady?" said the other, with an inflection
that she saw hurt. "' Why the marine animal, then?
She bowed very prettily; she blushed prettily, too."
"She's a very pretty girl," replied Staniford.
"Charming! But why blush? "
" I've heard that there are ladies who blush for
nothing."
"Is she Italian?"
"Yes, - in voice."
Oh, an American prima donna!" Staniford did
not answer. " Who is she? Where is she from? "
"South Bradfield, Mass." Staniford's eyes twinkled at her pursuit, which he did not trouble himself
to turn aside, but baffled by mere impenetrability.
The party at the hotel suggested that the young
men should leave their ship and go on with them to
Naples; Dunham was tempted, for he could have
reached Dresden sooner by land; but Staniford over



206


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


ruled him, and at the end of four days they went
back to the Aroostook. They said it was like getting home, but in fact they felt the change from the
airy heights and breadths of the hotel to the small
cabin and the closets in which they slept; it was not
so great alleviation as Captain Jenness seemed to
think that one of them could now have Hicks's stateroom. But Dunham took everything sweetly, as his
habit was; and, after all, they were meeting their
hardships voluntarily. Some of the ladies came with
them in the boat which rowed them to the Aroostook; the name made them laugh; that lady who
wished Staniford to regret her waved him her handkerchief as the boat rowed away again. She had
with difficulty been kept from coming on board by
the refusal of the others to come with her. She
had contrived to associate herself with him again
in the minds of the others, and this, perhaps, was
all that she desired. But the sense of her frivolity
-her not so much vacant-mindedness as vacantheartedness —was like a stain, and he painted in
Lydia's face when they first met the reproach which
was in his own breast.
Her greeting, however, was frank and cordial; it
was a real welcome. Staniford wondered if it were
not more frank and cordial than he quite liked, and
whether she was merely relieved by Hicks's absence,
or had freed herself from that certain subjection in
which she had hitherto been to himself.
Yet it was charming to see her again as she had




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


207


been in the happiest moments of the past, and to
feel that, Hicks being out of her world, her trust of
everybody in it was perfect once more. She treated
that interval of coldness and diffidence as all women
know how to treat a thing which they wish not to
have been; and Staniford, a man on whom no pleasing art of her sex was ever lost, admired and gratefully accepted the effect of this. He fell luxuriously
into the old habits again. They had still almost
the time of a steamer's voyage to Europe before
them; it was as if they were newly setting sail from
America. The first night after they left Messina
Staniford found her in her place in the waist of the
ship, and sat down beside her there, and talked; the
next night she did not come; the third she came, and
he asked her to walk with him. The elastic touch
of her hand on his arm, the rhythmic movement of
her steps beside him, were things that seemed always
to have been. She told him of what she had seen
and done in Messina. This glimpse of Italy had
vividly animated her; she had apparently found a
world within herself as well as without.
With a suddenly depressing sense of loss, Staniford
had a prevision of splendor in her, when she should
have wholly blossomed out in that fervid air of art
and beauty; he would fain have kept her still a
wilding rosebud of the New England wayside. He
hated the officers who should wonder at her when
she first came into the Square of St. Mark with her
aunt and uncle.




208


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


Her talk about Messina went on; he was thinking
of her, and not of her talk; but he saw that she was
not going to refer to their encounter. " You make
me jealous of the objects of interest in Messina," he
said. " You seem to remember seeing everything
but me, there."
She stopped abruptly. "Yes," she said, after a
deep breath, " I saw you there; " and she did not
offer to go on again.
" Where were you going, that morning?"
"Oh, to the cathedral. Captain Jenness left me
there, and I looked all through it till he came back
from the consulate."
"Left you there alone!" cried Staniford.
"Yes; I told him I should not feel lonely, and I
should not stir out of it till he came back. I took
one of those little pine chairs and sat down, when I
got tired, and looked at the people coming to worship, and the strangers with their guide-books."
"Did any of them look at you? "
"They stared a good deal. It seems to be the
custom in Europe; but I told Captain Jenness I
should probably have to go about by myself in Venice, as my aunt's an invalid, and I had better get
used to it."
She paused, and seemed to be referring the point
to Staniford.
" Yes, - oh, yes," he said.
"Captain Jenness said it was their way, over
here," she resumed; " but he guessed I had as much
right in a church as anybody."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


209


" The captain's common sense is infallible," answered Staniford. He was ashamed to know that
the beautiful young girl was as improperly alone in
church as she would have been in a cafe, and he began to hate the European world for the fact. It
seemed better to him that the Aroostook should put
about and sail back to Boston with her, as she was,
-better that she should be going to her aunt in
South Bradfield than to her aunt in Venice. " We
shall soon be at our journey's end, now," he said,
after a while.
" Yes; the captain thinks in about eight days, if
we have good weather."
" Shall you be sorry?"
"Oh, I like the sea very well."
"But the new life you are coming to, - does n't
that alarm you sometimes? "
" Yes, it does," she admitted, with a kind of reluctance.
"So much that you would like to turn back from
it?"
"Oh, no!" she answered quickly. Of course
not, Staniford thought; nothing could be worse than
going back to South Bradfield. " I keep thinking
about it," she added. " You say Venice is such a
very strange place. Is it any use my having seen
Messina? "
"'Oh, all Italian cities have something in common."
"' I presume," she went on, " that after I get there
14




210


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


everything will become natural. But I don't like
to look forward. It-scares me. I can't form any
idea of it."
"You needn't be afraid," said Staniford. "It's
only more beautiful than anything you can imagine."
"Yes- yes; I know," Lydia answered.
"And do you really dread getting there?"
"Yes, I dread it," she said.
"Why," returned Staniford lightly, "so do I;
but it's for a different reason, I'm afraid. I should
like such a voyage as this to go on forever. Now
and then I think it will; it seems always to have
gone on. Can you remember when it began? "
"A great while ago," she answered, humoring
his fantasy, "but I can remember."  She paused a
long while. "I don't know," she said at last,
"whether I can make you understand just how I
feel. But it seems to me as if I had died, and this
long voyage was a kind of dream that I was going
to wake up from in another world. I often used to
think, when I was a little girl, that when I got
to heaven it would be lonesome-I don't know
whether I can express it. You say that Italy -
that Venice - is so beautiful; but if I don't know
any one there "-  She stopped, as if she had gone
too far.
" But you do know somebody there," said Staniford. "Your aunt" -
"Yes," said the girl, and looked away.
"But the people in this long dream,- you 're




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


211


going to let some of them appear to you there," he
suggested.
"Oh, yes," she said, reflecting his lighter humor,
"I shall want to see them, or I shall not know I
am the same person, and I must be sure of myself,
at least."
"And you would n't like to go back to earthto South Bradfield again? " he asked presently.
" No," she answered.  " All that seems over
forever.' I could n't go back there and be what I
was. I could have stayed there, but I could n't go
back."
Staniford laughed. " I see that it is n't the other
world that's got hold of you! It's this world! I
don't believe you '11 be unhappy in Italy. But it's
pleasant to think you 've been so contented on the
Aroostook that you hate to leave it. I don't believe
there 's a man on the ship that would n't feel personally flattered to know that you liked being here.
Even that poor fellow who parted from us at Messina was anxious that you should think as kindly of
him as you could. He knew that he had behaved
in a way to shock you, and he was very sorry. He
left a message with me for you. He thought you
would like to know that he was ashamed of himself."
"I pitied him," said Lydia succinctly. It was
the first time that she had referred to Hicks, and
Staniford found it in character for her to limit herself to this sparse comment. Evidently, her com



212


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


passion was a religious duty. Staniford's generosity came easy to him.
" I feel bound to say that Hicks was not a bad
fellow. I disliked him immensely, and I ought to
do him justice, now he 's gone. He deserved all
your pity. He's a doomed man; his vice is irreparable; he can't resist it." Lydia did not say
anything: women do not generalize in these matters; perhaps they cannot pity the faults of those
they do not love. Staniford only forgave Hicks
the more. " I can't say that up to the last moment
I thought him anything but a poor, common little
creature; and yet I certainly did feel a greater
kindness for him after- what I -after what had
happened. He left something more than a message
for you, Miss Blood; he left his steamer chair
yonder, for you."
"For me?" demanded Lydia. Staniford felt
her thrill and grow rigid upon his arm, with refusal. " I will not have it. He had no right to
do so. He —he —was dreadful! I will give it to
you!" she said, suddenly.  "He ought to have
given it to you. You did everything for him; you
saved his life."
It was clear that she did not sentimentalize
Hicks's case; and Staniford had some doubt as to
the value she set upon what he had done, even now
she had recognized it.
He said, "I think you overestimate my service to
him, possibly. I dare say the boat could have
picked him up in good time."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


213


" Yes, that's what the captain and Mr. Watterson and Mr. Mason all said," assented Lydia.
Staniford was nettled. He would have preferred
a devoted belief that but for him Hicks must have
perished. Besides, what she said still gave no clew
to her feeling in regard to himself. He was obliged
to go on, but he went on as indifferently as he
could. "However, it was hardly a question for
me at the time whether he could have been got out
without my help. If I had thought about it at
all - which I did n't - I suppose I should have
thought that it would n't do to take any chances."
" Oh, no," said Lydia, simply, "you could n't
have done anything less than you did."
In his heart Staniford had often thought that he
could have done very much less than jump overboard after Hicks, and could very properly have
left him to the ordinary life-saving apparatus of
the ship. But if he had been putting the matter
to some lady in society who was aggressively praising him for his action, he would have said just
what Lydia had said for him, —that he could not
have done anything less. He might have said it,
however, in such a way that the lady would have
pursued his retreat from her praises with still
fonder applause; whereas this girl seemed to think
there was nothing else to be said. He began to
stand in awe of her heroic simplicity. If she drew
every-day breath in that lofty air, what could she
really think of him, who preferred on principle the




214


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


atmosphere of the valley? " Do you know, Miss
Blood," he said gravely, "that you pay me a very
high compliment?"
"How?" she asked.
"You rate my maximum as my mean temperature." He felt that she listened inquiringly. " I
don't think I'm habitually up to a thing of that
kind," he explained.
" Oh, no," she assented, quietly; " but when he
struck at you so, you had to do everything."
" Ah, you have the pitiless Puritan conscience
that takes the life out of us all! " cried Staniford,
with sudden bitterness. Lydia seemed startled,
shocked, and her hand trembled on his arm, as if
she had a mind to take it away. " I was a long
time laboring up to that point. I suppose you are
always there! "
"I don't understand," she said, turning her head
round with the slow motion of her beauty, and looking him full in the face.
" I can't explain now. I will, by and by, - when
we get to Venice," he added, with quick lightness.
" You put off everything till we get to Venice,"
she said, doubtfully.
"I beg your pardon. It was you who did it the
last time."
"Was it?"   She laughed. " So it was! I was
thinking it was you."
It consoled him a little that she should have confused them in her thought, in this way. " What
was it you were to tell me in Venice? " he asked.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


215


"I can't think, now."
"Very likely something of yourself -or myself.
A third person might say our conversational range
was limitec."
" Do you think it is very egotistical? " she asked,
in the gay tone which gave him relief from the
sense of oppressive elevation of mind in her.
"It is in me, - not in you."
"But I don't see the difference."
"I will explain sometime."
"When we get to Venice?"
They both laughed.  It was very nonsensical;
but nonsense is sometimes enough.
When they were serious again, "Tell me," he
said, " what you thought of that lady in Messina,
the other day."
She did not affect not to know whom he meant.
She merely said, " I only saw her a moment."
"But you thought something. If we only see
people a second we form some opinion of them."
" She is very fine-appearing," said Lydia.
Staniford smiled at the countrified phrase; he
had observed that when she spoke her mind she
used an instinctive good language; when she would
not speak it, she fell into the phraseology of the
people with whom she had lived. " I see you don't
wish to say, because you think she is a friend of
mine. But you can speak out freely. We were
not friends; we were enemies, if anything."
Staniford's meaning was clear enough to himself;




216


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


but Lydia paused, as if in doubt whether he was
jesting or not, before she asked, Why were you
riding with her then? "
" I was driving with her," he replied, " I suppose,
because she asked me."
" Asked you! " cried the girl; and he perceived
her moral recoil both from himself and from a
woman who could be so unseemly.     That lady
would have found it delicious if she could have
known that a girl placed like Lydia was shocked at
her behavior. But he was not amused. He was
touched by the simple self-respect that would not
let her suffer from what was not wrong in itself,
but that made her shrink from a voluntary semblance of unwomanliness. It endeared her not only
to his pity, but to that sense which in every man
consecrates womanhood, and waits for some woman
to be better than all her sex. Again he felt the
pang he had remotely known before. What would
she do with these ideals of hers in that depraved
Old World, - so long past trouble for its sins as to
have got a sort of sweetness and innocence in them,
-where her facts would be utterly irreconcilable
with her ideals, and equally incomprehensible?
They walked up and down a few turns without
speaking again of that lady. He knew that she
grew momently more constrained toward him; that
the pleasure of the time was spoiled for her; that
she had lost her trust in him; and this half amused,
half afflicted him. It did not surprise him when,




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.     217
at their third approach to the cabin gangway, she
withdrew her hand from his arm and said, stiffly,
" I think I will go down."  But she did not go at
once. She lingered, and after a certain hesitation
she said, without looking at him, "I did n't express what I wanted to, about Mr. Hicks, and -
what you did. It is what I thought you would do."
" Thanks," said Staniford, with sincere humility.
He understood how she had had this in her mind,
and how she would not withhold justice from him
because he had fallen in her esteem; how rather
she would be the more resolute to do him justice
for that reason.




XIX.


HE could see that she avoided being alone with
him the next day, but he took it for a sign of relenting, perhaps helpless relenting, that she was in
her usual place on deck in the evening. He went
to her, and, " I see that you have n't forgiven me,"
he said.
"Forgiven you?" she echoed.
Yes," he said, " for letting that lady ask me
to drive with her."
" I never said " - she began.
" Oh, no! But I knew it, all the same. It was
not such a very wicked thing, as those things go.
But I liked your not liking it. Will you let me
say something to you?"
" Yes," she answered, rather breathlessly.
" You must think it's rather an odd thing to say,
as I ask leave. It is; and I hardly know how to
say it. I want to tell you that I 've made bold to
depend a great deal upon your good opinion for
my peace of mind, of late, and that I can't well do
without it now."
She stole the quickest of her bird-like glances at
him, but did not speak; and though she seemed,
to his anxious fancy, poising for flight, she re



THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.     219
mained, and merely looked away, like the bird that
will not or cannot fly.
" You don't resent my making you my outer conscience, do you, and my knowing that you're not
quite pleased with me?"
She looked down and away with one of those
turns of the head, so precious when one who beholds them is young, and caught at the fringe of
her shawl. " I have no right," she began.
" Oh, I give you the right! " he cried, with
passionate urgence. " You have the right. Judge
me!" She only looked more grave, and he hurried
on. "It was no great harm of her to ask me;
that's common enough; but it was harm of me to
go if I did n't quite respect her, -if I thought
her silly, and was willing to be amused with her.
One has n't any right to do that. I saw this when
I saw you."  She still hung her head, and looked
away. "I want you to tell me something," he
pursued. "Do you remember once -the second
time we talked together-that you said Dunham
was in earnest, and you would n't answer when I
asked you about myself? Do you remember?"
" Yes," said the girl.
"I did n't care, then. I care very much now.
You don't think me- you think I can be in earnest when I will, don't you? And that I can regret - that I really wish "- He took the hand
that played with the shawl-fringe, but she softly
drew it away.




220


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"Ah, I see!" he said. "You can't believe in
me. You don't believe that I can be a good man
- like Dunham! "
She answered in the same breathless murmur,
" I think you are good." Her averted face drooped
lower.
"I will tell you all about it, some day! " he cried,
with joyful vehemence. " Will you let me?"
"Yes," she answered, with the swift expulsion
of breath that sometimes comes with tears. She
rose quickly and turned away. He did not try to
keep her from leaving him. His heart beat tumultuously; his brain seemed in a whirl. It all meant
nothing, or it meant everything.
" What is the matter with Miss Blood?" asked
Dunham, who joined him at this moment. "I just
spoke to her at the foot of the gangway stairs, and
she would n't answer me."
"Oh, I don't know about Miss Blood   I don't
know what's the matter," said Staniford. " Look
here, Dunham; I want to talk with you - I want
to tell you something -I want you to advise me
-I -    There's only one thing that can explain
it, that can excuse it. There 's only one thing that
can justify all that I 've done and said, and that
can not only justify it, but can make it sacredly
and eternally right, - right for her and right for
me. Yes, it 's reason for all, and for a thousand
times more. It makes it fair for me to have let
her see that I thought her beautiful and charming,




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


221


that I delighted to be with her, that I- Dunham,"
cried Staniford, "' I 'm in love! "
Dunham started at the burst in which these ravings ended. ' Staniford," he faltered, with grave
regret, "I hope not! "
"You hope not? You- you -      What do you
mean? How else can I free myself from the selfreproach of having trifled with her, of "Dunham shook his head compassionately. "You
can't do it that way. Your only safety is to fight
it to the death, -to run from it."
"But if I don't choose to fight it?" shouted
Staniford, - "if I don't choose to run from it? If
I "
" For Heaven's sake, hush! The whole ship
will hear you, and you ought n't to breathe it in
the desert. I saw how it was going! I dreaded
it; I knew it; and I longed to speak. I 'm to
blame for not speaking! "
"I should like to know what would have authorized you to speak? " demanded Staniford, haughtily.
" Only my regard for you; only what urges me
to speak now! You must fight it, Staniford, whether
you choose or not. Think of yourself, - think of
her! Think - you have always been my ideal of
honor and truth and loyalty - think of her husband ""Her husband! " gasped Staniford.  "Whose
husband?  What the deuce - who the deuceare you talking about, Dunham?"




222


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"Mrs. Rivers."
"Mrs. Rivers?   That flimsy, feather-headed,
empty-hearted- eyes-maker! That frivolous, ridiculous-  Pall! And did you think that I was
talking of her? Did you think I was in love with
her? "
"Why," stammered Dunham, " I supposed - I
thought -  At Messina, you know ""Oh! " Staniford walked the deck's length
away.  " Well, Dunham," he said, as he came
back, " you've spoilt a pretty scene with your rot
about Mrs. Rivers. I was going to be romantic!
But perhaps I'd better say in ordinary newspaper
English that I 've just found out that I'm in love
with Miss Blood."
" With her " cried Dunham, springing at his
hand.
" Oh, come now! Don't you be romantic, after
knocking my chance."
" Why, but Staniford! " said Dunham, wringing
his hand with a lover's joy in another's love and his
relief that it was not Mrs. Rivers. "I never should
have dreamt of such a thing! "
"Why? " asked Staniford, shortly.
"Oh, the way you talked at first, you know,
and""I suppose even people who get married have
something to take back about each other," said
Staniford, rather sheepishly. " However," he added,
with an impulse of frankness, "I don't know that I




THE LADY OF- THE AROOSTOOK.


223


should have dreamt of it myself, and I don't blame
you. But it's a fact, nevertheless."
" Why, of course.  It's splendid!   Certainly.
It's magnificent "   There was undoubtedly a
qualification, a reservation, in Dunham's tone. He
might have thought it right to bring tlhe inequalities of the affair to Staniford's mind. With all his
effusive kindliness of heart and manner, he had a
keen sense of social fitness, a nice feeling for convention.  But a man does not easily suggest to
another that the girl with whom he has just declared himself in love is his inferior. What Dunham finally did say was: ' It jumps with all your
ideas - all your old talk about not caring to marry
a society girl " -
" Society might be very glad of such a girl!
said Staniford, stiffly.
"Yes, yes, certainly; but I mean "
"Oh, I know what you mean. It's all right,"
said Staniford. " But it is n't a question of marrying yet. I can't be sure she understood me, -I 've
been so long understanding myself. And yet, she
must, she must! She must believe it by this time,
or else that I 'm the most infamous scoundrel alive.
When I think how I have sought her out, and followed her up, and asked her judgment, and hung
upon her words, I feel that I ought n't to lose a
moment in being explicit. I don't care for myself;
she can take me or leave me, as she likes; but if
she does n't understand, she must n't be left in sus



224


THE LADY OF TH.E AROOSTOOK.


pense as to my meaning." He seemed to be speaking to Dunham, but he was really thinking aloud,
and Dunham waited for some sort of question before he spoke. " But it's a great satisfaction to
have had it out with myself. I have n't got to
pretend any more that I hang about her, and look
at her, and go mooning round after her, for this
no-reason and that; I 've got the best reason in the
world for playing the fool, -I 'm in love! "  He
drew a long, deep breath. "It simplifies matters
immensely to have reached the point of acknowledging that.  Why, Dunham, those four days at
Messina almost killed me! They settled it. When
that woman was in full fascination it made me
gasp. I choked for a breath of fresh air; for a
taste of spring-water; for- Lurella! "  It was a
long time since Staniford had used this name, and
the sound of it made him laugh. "It's droll -
but I always think of her as Lurella; I wish it
was her name! Why, it was like heaven to see her
face when I got back to the ship. After we met
her that day at Messina, Mrs. Rivers tried her best
to get out of me who it was, and where I met her.
But I flatter myself that I was equal to that emergency."
Dunham said nothing, at once. Then, "Staniford," he faltered, " she got it out of me."
"Did you tell her who Lu-   who Miss Blood
was?"
" Yes."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


225


"And how I happened to be acquainted with
her?"
" Yes."
"And that we were going on to Trieste with
her?"
" She had it out of me before I knew," said
Dunham. " I did n't realize what she was after;
and I did n't realize how peculiar the situation
might seem "" I see nothing peculiar in the situation," interrupted Staniford, haughtily. Then he laughed consciously. " Or, yes, I do; of course I do! You
must know   her to appreciate it, though."  He
mused a while before he added: "No wonder Mrs.
Rivers was determined to come aboard! I wish
we had let her, - confound her!  She '11 think
I was ashamed of it.   There 's nothing to be
ashamed of! By Heaven, I should like to hear any
one " -  Staniford broke off, and laughed, and then
bit his lip, smiling. Suddenly lie burst out again,
frowning: "I won't view it in that light. I refuse
to consider it from that point of view. As far as
I 'm concerned, it's as regular as anything else in
life. It 's the same to me as if she were in her
own house, and I had come there to tell her that
she has my future in her hand. She 's such a lady
by instinct that she's made it all a triumph, and
I thank God that I have n't done or said anything
to mar it. Even that beast of a Hicks did n't; it's
no merit. I 've made love to her, - I own it; of
15




226


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


course I have, because I was in love with her; and
my fault has been that I have n't made love to her
openly, but have gone on fancying that I was
studying her character, or some rubbish of that
sort. But the fault is easily repaired." He turned
about, as if he were going to look for Lydia at
once, and ask her to be his wife. But he halted
abruptly, and sat down. " No; that won't do," he
said.  "That won't do at all."   He remained
thinking, and Dunham, unwilling to interrupt his
reverie, moved a few paces off. " Dunham, don't
go. I want your advice. Perhaps I don't see it
in the right light."
" How is it you see it, my dear fellow? " asked
Dunham.
"I don't know whether I 've a right to be explicit with her, here. It seems like taking an advantage. In a few days she will be with her
friends ""You must wait," said Dunham, decisively.
You can't speak to her before she is in their care;
it wouldn't be the thing.  You 're quite right
about that."
" No, it would n't be the thing," groaned Staniford. " But how is it all to go on till then?" he
demanded desperately.
" Why, just as it has before," answered Dunham,
with easy confidence.
"But is that fair to her?"
" Why not? You mean to say to her at the




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


227


right time all that a man can. Till that time
comes I have n't the least doubt she understands
you."
"Do you think so?" asked Staniford, simply.
Ile had suddenly grown very subject and meek to
Dunham.
" Yes," said the other, with the superiority of a
betrothed lover; "women are very quick about
those things."
"I suppose you 're right," sighed Staniford, with
nothing of his wonted arrogant pretension in regard to women's moods and minds, "I suppose
you're right. And you would go on just as before?"
I would, indeed. How could you change without making her unhappy - if she's interested in
you? "
i That's true. I could imagine worse things
than going on just as before. I suppose," he added,
" that something more explicit has its charms; but
a mutual understanding is very pleasant, - if it is
a mutual understanding."  He looked inquiringly
at Dunham.
" Why, as to that, of course I don't know. You
ought to be the best judge of that. But I don't
believe your impressions would deceive you."
"Yours did, once," suggested Staniford, in suspense.
" Yes; but I was not in love with her," explained
Dunham.




228       THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
"Of course," said Staniford, with a breath of
relief. "And you think —  Well, I must wait!"
he concluded, grimly.  "But don't -don't mention this matter, Dunham, unless I do.  Don't
keep an eye on me, old fellow. Or, yes, you must!
You can't help it. I want to tell you, Dunham,
what makes me think she may be a not wholly uninterested spectator of my - sentiments."  He
made full statement of words and looks and tones.
Dunham listened with the patience which one lover
has with another.




XX.


THE few days that yet remained of their voyage
were falling in the latter half of September, and
Staniford tried to make the young girl see the sur,
passing loveliness of that season under Italian skies;
the fierceness of the summer is then past, and at
night, when chiefly they inspected the firmament,
the heaven has begun to assume something of the
intense blue it wears in winter. She said yes, it
was very beautiful, but she could not see that the
days were finer, or the skies bluer, than those of
September at home; and he laughed at her loyalty
to the American weather. " Don't you think so,
too? " she asked, as if it pained her that he should
like Italian weather better.
" Oh, yes, - yes," he said. Then he turned the
talk on her, as he did whenever he could. " I like
your meteorological patriotism. If I were a woman,
I should stand by America in everything."
"' Don't you as a man? " she pursued, still anxiously.
" Oh, certainly," he answered. " But women owe
our continent a double debt of fidelity. It's the
Paradise of women, it's their Promised Land,
where they've been led up out of the Egyptian
bondage of Europe. It's the home of their free



230


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


dom. It is recognized in America that women have
consciences and souls."
Lydia looked very grave. " Is it - is it so different with women in Europe?" she faltered.
"Very," he replied, and glanced at her halflaughingly, half-tenderly.
After a while, " I wish you would tell me," she
said, "just what you mean. I wish you would tell
me what is the difference."
" Oh, it 's a long story. I will tell you - when
we get to Venice." The well-worn jest served its
purpose again; she laughed, and he continued:
By the way, just when will that be? The captain says that if this wind holds we shall be in
Trieste by Friday afternoon.  I suppose your
friends will meet you there on Saturday, and that
you '11 go back with them to Venice at once."
"Yes," assented Lydia.
"Well, if I should come on Monday, would that
be too soon? "
" Oh, no! " she answered. He wondered if she
had been vaguely hoping that he might go directly
on with her to Venice.  They were together all
day, now, and the long talks went on from early
morning, when they met before breakfast on deck,
until late at night, when they parted there, with
blushed and laughed good-nights. Sometimes the
trust she put upon his unspoken promises was terrible; it seemed to condemn his reticence as fantastic and hazardous. With her, at least, it was clear




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


231


that this love was the first; her living and loving
were one. He longed to testify the devotion which
lie felt, to leave it unmistakable and safe past accident; he thought of making his will, in which he
should give her everytiling, and declare her supremely dear; he could only rid himself of this by
drawing up the paper in writing, and then he easily
tore it in pieces.
They drew nearer together, not only in their talk
about each other, but in what they said of different
people in their relation to themselves. But Staniford's pleasure in the metaphysics of reciprocal appreciation, his wonder at the quickness with which
she divined characters he painfully analyzed, was
not greater than his joy in the pretty hitch of the
shoulder with which she tucked her handkerchief
into the back pocket of her sack, or the picturesqueness with which she sat facing him, and leant upon
the rail, with her elbow wrapped in her shawl, and
the fringe gathered in the hand which propped her
cheek. He scribbled his sketch-book full of her
contours and poses, which sometimes he caught unawares, and which sometimes she sat for him to
draw. One day, as they sat occupied in this, " I
wonder," he said, "if you have anything of my
feeling, nowadays. It seems to me as if the world
had gone on a pleasure excursion, without taking
me along, and I was enjoying myself very much at
home."
"Why, yes," she said, joyously; "do you have
that feeling, too?"




232


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"I wonder what it is makes us feel so," he ventured.
" Perhaps," she returned, " the long voyage."
" I shall hate to have the world come back, I believe," he said, reverting to the original figure.
"Shall you?"
"You know I don't know much about it," she
answered, in lithe evasion, for which she more than
atoned with a conscious look and one of her dark
blushes. Yet he chose, with a curious cruelty, to
try how far she was his.
"How odd it would be," he said, "if we never
should have a chance to talk up this voyage of ours
when it is over! "
She started, in a way that made his heart smite
him. "Why, you said you "-      And then she
caught herself, and struggled pitifully for the selfpossession she had lost.  She turned her head
away; his pulse bounded.
" Did you think I wouldn't?  I am living for
that." He took the hand that lay in her lap; she
seemed to try to free it, but she had not the strength
or will; she could only keep her face turned from
him.




XXI.


THEY arrived Friday afternoon in Trieste, and
Captain Jenness telegraphed his arrival to Lydia's
uncle as he went up to the consulate with his ship's
papers.  The next morning the young men sent
their baggage to a hotel, but they came back for a
last dinner on the Aroostook. They all pretended
to be very gay, but everybody was perturbed and
distraught. Staniford d  anDunlham had paid their
way handsomely with the sailors, and they had returned with remembrances in florid scarfs and jewelry for Thomas and the captain and the officers.
Dunham had thought they ought to get something
to give Lydia as a souvenir of their voyage; it was
part of his devotion to young ladies to offer them
little presents; but Staniford overruled him, and
said there should be nothing of the kind. They
agreed to be out of the way when her uncle came,
and they said good-by after dinner. She came on
deck to watch them ashore. Staniford would be the
last to take leave. As he looked into her eyes, he
saw brave trust of him, but he thought a sort of
troubled wonder, too, as if she could not understand his reticence, and suffered from it. There
was the same latent appeal and reproach in the
pose in which she watched their boat row away.




234


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


She stood with one hand resting on the rail, and
her slim grace outlined against the sky. He waved
his hand; she answered with a little languid wave
of hers; then she turned away. He felt as if he
had forsaken her.
The afternoon was very long. Toward night-fall
he eluded Dunham, and wandered back to the ship
in the hope that she might still be there. But she
was gone. Already everythingwas changed. There
was bustle and discomfort; it seemed years since
he had been there. Captain Jenness was ashore
somewhere; it was the second mate who told Staniford of her uncle's coming.
" What sort of person was he? " he asked vaguely.
" Oh, well! Dum an Englishman, any way,"
said Mason, in a tone of easy, sociable explanation.
The scruple to which Staniford had been holding
himself for the past four or five days seemed the
most incredible of follies, - the most fantastic, the
most cruel. He hurried back to the hotel; when
he found Dunham coming out from the table d'hote
he was wild.
" I have been the greatest fool in the world,
Dunham," he said. " I have let a quixotic quibble
keep me from speaking when I ought to have
spoken."
Dunham looked at him in stupefaction. " Where
have you been? " he inquired.
"Down to the ship. I was in hopes that she
might be still there. But she 's gone."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


235


"The Aroostook gone? "
" Look here, Dunham," cried Staniford, angrily,
" this is the second time you 've done that! If you
are merely thick-witted, much can be forgiven to
your infirmity; but if you've a mind to joke, let
me tell you you choose your time badly."
"I 'm not joking. I don't know what you're
talking about. I may be thick-witted, as you say;
or you may be scatter-witted," said Dunham, indignantly. " What are you after, any way?"
"What was my reason for not being explicit
with her; for going away from her without one
honest, manly, downright word; for sneaking off
without telling her that she was more than life to
me, and that if she cared for me as I cared for her
I would go on with her to Venice, and meet her
people with her? "
" Why, I don't know," replied Dunham, vaguely.
"We agreed that there would be a sort of - that
she ought to be in their care before " -
" Then I can tell you," interrupted Staniford,
"that we agreed upon the greatest piece of nonsense
that ever was. A man can do no more than offer
himself, and if he does less, after he's tried everything to show that he 's in love witll a woman, and
to make her in love with him, he's a scamp to refrain
from a bad motive, and an ass to refrain from a good
one. Why in the name of Heaven should n't I have
spoken, instead of leaving her to eat her heart out
in wonder at my delay, and to doubt and suspect




236


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


and dread-    Oh!" he shouted, in supreme selfcontempt.
Dunham had nothing to urge in reply. He had
fallen in with what he thought Staniford's own mind
in regard to the course he ought to take; since he
had now changed his mind, there seemed never to
have been any reason for that course.
" My dear fellow," he said, " it is n't too late yet
to see her, I dare say. Let us go and find what
time the trains leave for Venice."
" Do you suppose I can offer myself in the salle
d'attente?" sneered Staniford. But he went with
Dunham to the coffee-room, where they found the
Osservatore Triestino and the time-table of the railroad. The last train left for Venice at ten, and it
was now seven; the Austrian Lloyd steamer for
Venice sailed at nine.
" Pshaw!" said Staniford, and pushed the paper away. He sat brooding over the matter before
the table on which the journals were scattered, while
Dunham waited for him to speak. At last he said,
"I can't stand it; I must see her. I don't know
whether I told her I should come on to-morrow
night or not. If she should be expecting me on
Monday morning, and I should be delayed -  Dunham, will you drive round with me to the Austrian
Lloyd's wharf? They may be going by the boat,
and if they are they '11 have left their hotel. We '11
try the train later. I should like to find out if they
are on board. I don't know that I '11 try to speak
with them; very likely not."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


237


" I '11 go, certainly," answered Dunham, cordially.
"I'11 have some dinner first," said Staniford.
" I 'm hungry."
It was quite dark when they drove on to the wharf
at which the boat for Venice lay. When they arrived, a plan had occurred to Staniford, through the
timidity which had already succeeded the boldness
of his desperation. " Dunham," he said, " I want
you to go on board, and see if she 's there. I don't
think I could stand not finding her.  Besides, if
she's cheerful and happy, perhaps I'd better not
see her. You can come back and report. Confound
it, you know, I should be so conscious before that
infernal uncle of hers. You understand! "
"Yes, yes," returned Dunham, eager to serve
Staniford in a case like this. "I '11 manage it."
" Well," said Staniford, beginning to doubt the
wisdom of either going aboard, " do it if you think
best. I don't know ""Don't know what?" asked Dunham, pausing
in the door of the fiacre.
" Oh, nothing, nothing! I hope we're not making fools of ourselves."
"You're morbid, old fellow! " said Dunham,
gayly. He disappeared in the darkness, and Staniford waited, with set teeth, till he came back. He
seemed a long time gone. When he returned, he
stood holding fast to the open fiacre-door, without
speaking.
"Well! " cried Staniford, with bitter impatience.




238


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"Well what? " Dunham asked, in a stupid voice.
"Were they there? "
"I don't know. I can't tell."
" Can't tell, man? Did you go to see?"
"I think so. I 'm not sure."
A heavy sense of calamity descended upon Staniford's heart, but patience came with it. " What's
the matter, Dunham? " he asked, getting out tremulously.
" I don't know. I think I 've had a fall, somewhere. Help me in."
Staniford got out and helped him gently to the
seat, and then mounted beside him, giving the order
for their return. " Where is your hat?" he asked,
finding that Dunham was bareheaded.
" I don't know. It does n't matter. Am I bleeding?"
"It's so dark, I can't see."
"Put your hand here." He carried Staniford's
hand to the back of his head.
"There's no blood; but you've had an ugly
knock there."
"Yes, that's it," said Dunham. "I remember
now; I slipped and struck my head.  He lapsed
away in a torpor; Staniford could learn nothing
more from him.
The hurt was not what Staniford in his first
anxiety had feared, but the doctor whom they called
at the hotel was vague and guarded as to everything but the time and care which must be given




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


239


in any event. Staniford despaired; but there was
only one thing to do. He sat down beside his friend
to take care of him.
His mind was a turmoil of regrets, of anxieties,
of apprehensions; but he had a superficial calmness
that enabled him to meet the emergencies of the
case. He wrote a letter to Lydia which he somehow
knew to be rightly worded, telling her of the accident. In terms which conveyed to her all that he
felt, he said that he should not see her at the time
he had hoped, but promised to come to Venice as
soon as he could quit his friend. Then, with a deep
breath, he put that affair away for the time, and
seemed to turn a key upon it.
He called a waiter, and charged him to have his
letter posted at once. The man said he would give
it to the portier, who was sending out some other
letters. He returned, ten minutes later, with a
number of letters which he said the portier had
found for him at the post-office. Staniford glanced
at them. It was no time to read them then, and he
put them into the breast pocket of his coat.




XXII.


AT the hotel in Trieste, to which Lydia went
with her uncle before taking the train for Venice,
she found an elderly woman, who made her a
courtesy, and, saying something in Italian, startled
her by kissing her hand.
" It 's our Veronica," her uncle explained; "she
wants to know how she can serve you."  He gave
Veronica the wraps and parcels he had been carrying. " Your aunt thought you might need a maid."
"Oh, no!" said Lydia. "I always help myself."
"Ah, I dare say," returned her uncle. "You
American ladies are so -up to snuff, as you say.
But your aunt thought we'd better have her with
us, in any case."
"And she sent her all the way from Venice?"
" Yes."
"Well, I never did " said Lydia, not lightly,
but with something of contemptuous severity.
Her uncle smiled, as if she had said something
peculiarly acceptable to him, and asked, hesitatingly,
" When you say you never did, you know, what is
the full phrase?"
Lydia looked at him. "Oh! I suppose I meant
I never heard of such a thing."




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


241


Ah, thanks, thanks! " said her uncle. HIe was
a tall, slender man of fifty-five or sixty, with a
straight gray mustache, and not at all the typical
Englishman, but much more English-looking than
if he had been. His bearing toward Lydia blended
a fatherly kindness and a colonial British gallantry,
such as one sees in elderly Canadian gentlemen
attentive to quite young Canadian ladies at the provincial watering-places. He had an air of adventure, and of uncommon pleasure and no small astonishment in Lydia's beauty. They were already
good friends; she was at her ease with him; she
treated him as if lie were an old gentleman. At
the station, where Veronica got into the same carriage with them, Lydia found the whole train very
queer-looking, and he made her describe its difference from an American train. He said, " Oh, yes
- yes, engine," when she mentioned the locomotive,
and he apparently prized beyond its worth the word
cow-catcher, a fixture which Lydia said was wanting
to the European locomotive, and left it very stubby.
He asked her if she would allow him to set it down;
and he entered the word in his note-book, with
several other idioms she had used. He said that he
amused himself in picking up these things from his
American friends. He wished to know what she
called this and that and the other thing, and was
equally pleased whether her nomenclature agreed
or disagreed with his own. Where it differed, he
recorded the fact, with her leave, in his book. He
16




242


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


plied her with a thousand questions about America,
with all parts of which he seemed to think her familiar; and she explained with difficulty how very
little of it she had seen. He' begged her not to let
hin bore her, and to excuse the curiosity of a Britishler, " As I suppose you'd call me," he added.
Lydia lifted her long-lashed lids half-way, and
answered, " No, I should n't call you so."
" Ah, yes," he returned, " the Americans always
disown it. But I don't mind it at all, you know.
I like those native expressions."  Where they
stopped for refreshments he observed that one of
the dishes, which was flavored to the national taste,
had a pretty tall smell, and seemed disappointed by
Lydia's unresponsive blankness at a word which a
countryman of hers -from Kentucky- had applied
to the odor of the Venetian canals. He suffered in
like measure from a like effect in her when he lamented the complications that had kept him the
year before from going to America with Mrs. Erwin,
when she revisited her old stamping-ground.
As they rolled along, the warm night which had
fallen after the beautiful day breathed through the
half-dropped window in a rich, soft air, as strange
almost as the flying landscape itself. Mr. Erwin
began to drowse, and at last he fell asleep; but
Veronica kept her eyes vigilantly fixed upon Lydia,
always smiling when she caught her glance, and offering service. At the stations, so orderly and yet
so noisy, where the passengers were held in the




THE LADY OF TIIIE AROOSTOOK.


243


same meek subjection as at Trieste, people got in
and out of the carriage; and there were officers, at
first in white coats, and after they passed the Italian
frontier in blue, who stared at Lydia. One of the
Italians, a handsome young hussar, spoke to her.
She could not know what he said; but when he
crossed over to her side of the carriage, she rose and
took her place beside Veronica, where she remained
even after he left the carriage. She was sensible of
growing drowsy. Then she was aware of nothing
till she woke up with her head on Veronica's shoulder, against which she had fallen, and on which she
had been patiently supported for hours. " Ecdo
Venezia!" cried the old woman, pointing to a swarm
of lights that seemed to float upon an expanse of
sea. Lydia did not understand; she thought she
was again on board the Aroostook, and that the
lights she saw were the lights of the shipping in
Boston harbor. The illusion passed, and left her
heart sore. She issued from the glare of the station
upon the quay before it, bewildered by the ghostly
beauty of the scene, but shivering in the chill of the
dawn, and stunned by the clamor of the gondoliers.
A tortuous course in the shadow of lofty walls, more
deeply darkened from time to time by the arch of a
bridge, and again suddenly pierced by the brilliance
of a lamp that shot its red across the gloom, or
plunged it into the black water, brought them to a
palace gate at which they stopped, and where, after
a dramatic ceremony of sliding bolts and the reluc



244


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


tant yielding of broad doors on a level with the
water, she passed through a marble-paved court and
up a stately marble staircase to her uncle's apartment. "You 're at home, now, you know," he said,
in a kindly way, and took her hand, very cold and
lax, in his for welcome. She could not answer, but
made haste to follow Veronica to her room, whither
the old woman led the way with a candle. It was
a gloomily spacious chamber, with sombre walls and
a lofty ceiling with a faded splendor of gilded paneling. Some tall, old-fashioned mirrors and bureaus
stood about, with rugs before them on the stone
floor; in the middle of the room was a bed curtained
with mosquito-netting. Carved chairs were pushed
here and there against the wall. Lydia dropped
into one of these, too strange and heavy-hearted to
go to bed in that vastness and darkness, in which
her candle seemed only to burn a small round hole.
She longed forlornly to be back again in her pretty
state-room on the Aroostook; vanishing glimpses
and echoes of the faces and voices grown so familiar
in the past weeks haunted her; the helpless tears
ran down her cheeks.
There came a tap at her door, and her aunt's
voice called, " Shall I come in? " and before she
could faintly consent, her aunt pushed in, and caught
her in her arms, and kissed her, and broke into a
twitter of welcome and compassion. " You poor
child! Did you think I was going to let you go to
sleep without seeing you, after you 'd come half
~




THE LADY OF TIE AROOSTOOK.


245


round the world to see me? "  Her aunt was dark
and slight like Lydia, but not so tall; she was still
a very pretty woman, and she was a very effective
presence now in the long white morning-gown of
camel's hair, somewhat fantastically embroidered in
crimson silk, in which she drifted about before Lydia's bewildered eyes. "Let me see how you look!
Are you as handsome as ever? "  She held the candle she carried so as to throw its light full upon Lydia's face. " Yes! " she sighed. " How pretty you
are! And at your age you '11 look even better by
daylight! I had begun to despair of you; I thought
you could n't be all I remembered; but you are,
you're more! I wish I had you in Rome, instead
of Venice; there would be some use in it. There's
a great deal of society there, - English society; but
never mind: I 'm going to take you to church with
me to-morrow, - the English service; there are lots
of English in Venice now, on their way south for
the winter. I 'm crazy to see what dresses you 've
brought; your aunt Maria has told me how she
fitted you out. I've got two letters from her since
you started, and they're all perfectly well, dear.
Your black silk will do nicely, with bright ribbons,
especially; I hope you have n't got it spotted or
anything on the way over."   She did not allow
Lydia to answer, nor seem to expect it. " You 've
got your mother's eyes, Lydia, but your father had
those straight eyebrows: you're very much like
him. Poor Henry! And now I 'lhaving you got


I




246


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


something to eat. I 'm not going to risk coffee on
you, for fear it will keep you awake; though you
can drink it in this climate with comparative impunity. Veronica is warming you a bowl of bouillon,
and that's all you 're to have till breakfast! "
"Why, aunt Josephine," said the girl, not knowing what bouillon was, and abashed by the sound
of it, " I'm not the least hungry. You ought n't
to take the trouble ""You '11 be hungry when you begin to eat. I'm
so impatient to hear about your voyage! I am
going to introduce you to some very nice people,
here, - English people. There are no Americans
living in Venice; and the Americans in Europe are
so queer! You've no idea how droll our customs
seem here; and I much prefer the English. Your
poor uncle can never get me to ask Americans. I
tell him I 'm American enough, and he'11 have to
get on without others. Of course, he 's perfectly
delighted to get at you. You 've quite taken him
by storm, Lydia; he's in raptures about your looks.
It's what I told him before you came; but I could
n't believe it till I took a look at you. I could n't
have gone to sleep without it. Did Mr. Erwin talk
much with you? "
" He was very pleasant. He talked - as long as
he was awake," said Lydia.
"I suppose he was trying to pick up Americanisms
from you; he's always doing it. I keep him away
from Americans as much as I can; but he will




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


247


get at them on the cars and at the hotels. He 's
always asking them such ridiculous questions, and I
know some of them just talk nonsense to hlimn."
Veronica came in with a tray, and a bowl of
bouillon on it; and Mrs. Erwin pulled up a light
table, and slid about, serving her, in her cabalistic
dress, like an Oriental sorceress performing her incantations. She volubly watched Lydia while she
ate her supper, and at the end she kissed her again.
" Now you feel better," she said. " I knew it would
cheer you up more than any one thing. There's
nothing like something to eat when you 're homesick. I found that out when I was off at school."
Lydia was hardly kissed so much at home during
a year as she had been since meeting Mrs. Erwin.
Her aunt Maria sparely embraced her when she
went and came each week from the Mill Village;
anything more than this would have come of insincerity between them; but it had been agreed that
Mrs. Erwin's demonstrations of affection, of which
she had been lavish during her visit to South Bradfield, might not be so false. Lydia accepted them
submissively, and she said, when Veronica returned
for the tray, "I hate to give you so much trouble.
And sending her all the way to Trieste on my account, -I felt ashamed. There was n't a thing for
her to do."
" Why, of course not!" exclaimed her aunt.
"But what did you think I was made of? Did you
suppose I was going to have you come on a night



248      THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
journey alone with your uncle?  It would have
been all over Venice; it would have been ridiculous.
I sent Veronica along for a dragon."
"A   dragon?  I don't understand," faltered
Lydia.
"Well, you will," said her aunt, putting the
palms of her hands against Lydia's, and so pressing
forward to kiss her. " We shall have breakfast at
ten. Go to bed! "




XXIII.


WHEN Lydia came to breakfast she found her
uncle alone in the room, reading Galignani's Messenger. He put down his paper, and came forward
to take her hand. " You are all right this morning,
I see, Miss Lydia," he said. "You were quite up
a stump, last night, as your countrymen say."
At the same time hands were laid upon her
shoulders from  behind, and she was pulled half
round, and pushed back, and held at arm's-length.
It was Mrs. Erwin, who, entering after her, first
scanned her face, and then, with one devouring
glance, seized every detail of her dress —the black
silk which had already made its effect-before she
kissed her. "You are lovely, my dear! I shall
spoil you, I know; but you're worth it! What
lashes you have, child! And your aunt Maria made
and fitted that dress? She 's a genius! "
Miss Lydia," said Mr. Erwin, as they sat down,
"is of the fortunate age when one rises young every
morning."  He looked very fresh himself in his
clean-shaven chin, and his striking evidence of
snowy wristbands and shirt-bosom. " Later in life,
you can't do that. She looks as blooming," he
added, gallantly, "as a basket of chips, - as you
say in America."




250


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"Smiling," said Lydia, mechanically correcting
him.
"Ah! It is? Smiling, - yes; thanks. It's very
good either way; very characteristic. It would be
curious to know the origin of a saying like that. I
imagine it goes back to the days of the first settlers.
It suggests a wood-chopping period. Is it - ah -
in general use? " he inquired.
' Of course it is n't, Henshaw! " said his wife.
"You 've been a great while out of the country,
my dear," suggested Mr. Erwin.
" Not so long as not to know that your Americanisms are enough to make one wish we had held
our tongues ever since we were discovered, or had
never been discovered at all. I want to ask Lydia
about her voyage. I have n't heard a word yet.
Did your aunt Maria come down to Boston with
you?"
" No, grandfather brought me."
"And you had good weather coming over?  Mr.
Erwin told me you were not seasick."
"We had one bad storm, before we reached
Gibraltar; but I was n't seasick."
"Were the other passengers? "
"One was."  Lydia reddened a little, and then
turned somewhat paler than at first.
" What is it, Lydia?" her aunt subtly demanded.
"Who was the one that was sick? "
" Oh, a gentleman," answered Lydia.
Her aunt looked at her keenly, and for whatever




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


251


reason abruptly left the subject.  "Your silk,"
she said, " will do very well for church, Lydia."
"Oh, I say, now! " cried her husband, "you 're
not going to make her go to church to-day!"
" Yes, I am! There will be more people there
to-day than any other time this fall. Slie must
go."
" But she 's tired to death, -quite tuckered, you
know."
" Oh, I 'm rested, now," said Lydia. "I should n't
like to miss going to church."
"Your silk," continued her aunt, "will be quite
the thing for church."  She looked hard at the
dress, as if it were not quite the thing for breakfast. Mrs. Erwin herself wore a morning-dress of
becoming delicacy, and an airy French cap; she
had a light fall of powder on her face. "What
kind of overtlhig have you got? " she asked.
" There 's a sack goes with this," said the girl,
suggestively.
" That's nice I What is your bonnet?"
"I have n't any bonnet. But my best hat is
nice. I could "" No one goes to church in a hat! You can't do
it. It's simply impossible."
"Why, my dear," said her husband, " I saw some
very pretty American girls in hats at church, last
Sunday."
" Yes, and everybody knew they were Americans
by their hats! " retorted Mrs. Erwin.




252


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"I knew they were Americans by their good
looks," said Mr. Erwin, "and what you call their
stylishness."
" Oh, it's all well enough for you to talk. You 're
an Englishman, and you could wear a hat, if you
liked. It would be set down to character. But in
an American it would be set down to greenness. If
you were an American, you would have to wear a
bonnet."
"I 'm glad, then, I'm not an American," said her
husband; "I don't think I should look well in a
bonnet."
" Oh, stuff, Henshaw! You know what I mean.
And I'm not going to have English people thinking we're ignorant of the common decencies of life.
Lydia shall not go to church in a hat; she had
better never go. I will lend her one of my bonnets.
Let me see, which one."  She gazed at Lydia in
critical abstraction. "I wear rather young bonnets," she mused aloud, "and we're both rather
dark.  The only difficulty is I 'm so much more
delicate " - She brooded upon the question in a
silence, from which she burst exulting. " The very
thing! I can fuss it up in no time. It won't take
two minutes to get it ready. And you '11 look just
killing in it."  She turned grave again.  "Henshaw," she said, I wish you would go to church
this morning! "
" I would do almost anything for you, Josephine;
but really, you know, you ought n't to ask that. I




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


253


was there last Sunday; I can't go every Sunday.
It's bad enough in England; a man ought to have
some relief on the Continent."
" Well, well. I suppose I ought n't to ask you,"
sighed his wife,-" especially as you're going with
us to-night."
"I '11 go to-night, with pleasure," said Mr. Erwin. He rose when his wife and Lydia left thle
table, and opened tile door for them with a certain
courtesy he had; it struck even Lydia's uneducated
sense as something peculiarly sweet and fine, and it
did not overawe her own simplicity, but seemed of
kind with it.
The bonnet, when put to proof, did not turn out
to be all that it was vaunted. It looked a little
odd, from the first; and Mrs. Erwin, when she was
herself dressed, ended by taking it off, and putting
on Lydia the hat previously condemned. " You're
divine in that," she said. "And after all, you are
a traveler, and I can say that some of your things
were spoiled coming over, - people always get
things ruined in a sea voyage, - and they'll think
it was your bonnet."
" I kept my things very nicely, aunt Josephine,"
said Lydia conscientiously. "I don't believe anything was hurt."
" Oh, well, you can't tell till you 've unpacked;
and we 're not responsible for what people happen
to think, you know. Wait! " her aunt suddenly
cried. She pulled open a drawer, and snatched




254


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


two ribbons from it, which she pinned to the sides
of Lydia's hat, and tied in a bow under her chin;
she caught out a lace veil, and drew that over the
front of the hat, and let it hang in a loose knot behind. "Now," she said, pushing her up to a mirror, that she might see, "it's a bonnet; and I
need n't say anything! "
They went in Mrs. Erwin's gondola to the palace in which the English service was held, and
Lydia was silent, as she looked shyly, almost fearfully, round on the visionary splendors of Venice.
Mrs. Erwin did not like to be still. " What are
you thinking of, Lydia? " she asked.
"Oh! I suppose I was thinking that the leaves
were beginning to turn in the sugar orchard," answered Lydia faithfully. "I was thinking how
still the sun would be in the pastures, there, this
morning. I suppose the stillness here put me in
mind of it. One of these bells has the same tone
as our bell at home."
"Yes," said Mrs. Erwin. "Everybody finds a
familiar bell in Venice. There are enough of them,
goodness knows. I don't see why you call it still,
with all this clashing and banging. I suppose this
seems very odd to you, Lydia," she continued, indicating the general Venetian effect. " It 's an old
story to me, though. The great beauty of Venice is that you get more for your money here than
you can anywhere else in the world. There is n't
much society, however, and you must n't expect to
be very gay."




TIlE LADY OF TIlE AROOSTOOK.


255


"I have never been gay," said Lydia.
Well, that's no reason you should n't be," returned her aunt. " If you were in Florence, or
Rome, or even Naples, you could have a good time.
There! I 'in glad your uncle did n't hear me say
that!"
"What? " asked Lydia.
" Good time; that's an Americanism."
"Is it?"
"Yes. He's perfectly delighted when he catches
me in one. I try to break myself of them, but I
don't always know them myself. Sometimes I feel
almost like never talking at all. But you can't do
that, you know."
"No," assented Lydia.
" And you have to talk Americanisms if you're
an American.   You must n't think your uncle
is n't obliging, Lydia. He is. I ought n't to have
asked him to go to church, - it bores him so much.
I used to feel terribly about it once, when we were
first married. But things have changed very much
of late years, especially with all this scientific talk.
In England it's quite different from what it used
to be. Some of the best people in society are
skeptics now, and that makes it quite another
thing."  Lydia looked grave, but she said nothing,
and her aunt added, "I would n't have asked him,
but I had a little headache, myself."
" Aunt Josephine," said Lydia, " I'm  afraid
you 're doing too much for me. Why did n't you
let me come alone? "




256


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"' Come alone?  To church! "  Mrs. Erwin addressed her in a sort of whispered shriek. " It
would have been perfectly scandalous."
"To go to church alone? " demanded Lydia, astounded.
"Yes.   A  young girl must n't go anywhere
alone."
Why? "
"I'll explain to you, sometime, Lydia; or rather,
you '11 learn for yourself. In Italy it 's very different from what it is in America."  Mrs. Erwin suddenly started up and bowed with great impressiveness, as a gondola swept towards them. The
gondoliers wore shirts of blue silk, and long crimson sashes. On the cushions of the boat, beside a
hideous little man who was sucking the top of an
ivory-handled stick, reclined a beautiful woman,
pale, with purplish rings round the large black eyes
with which, faintly smiling, she acknowledged Mrs.
Erwin's salutation, and then stared at Lydia.
" Oh, you may look, and you may look, and you
may look! " cried Mrs. Erwin, under her breath.
"You 've met more than your match at last! The
Countess Tatocka," she explained to Lydia. "That
was her palace we passed just now, - the one with
the iron balconies. Did you notice the gentleman
with her?  She always takes to those monsters.
He's a Neapolitan painter, and ever so talented, -
clever, that is. He's dead in love with her, they
say."




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257


"Are they engaged?" asked Lydia.
"Engaged! " exclaimed Mrs. Erwin, with her
shriek in dumb show. e " Why, child, she's married! "
To him?" demanded the girl, with a recoil.
"No! To her husband."
"To her husband?" gasped Lydia.      "And
she "
T Why, she is n't quite well seen, even in Venice," Mrs. Erwin explained. " But she's rich, and
her conversazioni are perfectly brilliant.  She's
very artistic, and she writes poetry, - Polish poetry. I wish she could hear you sing, Lydia! I
know she '11 be frantic to see you again. But I
don't see how it's to be managed; her house is n't
one you can take a young girl to. And I can't ask
her: your uncle detests her."
"Do you go to her house? "    Lydia inquired
stiffly.
" Why, as a foreigner, I can go. Of course,
Lydia, you can't be as particular about everything
on the Continent as you are at home."
Tlhe former oratory of the Palazzo Grinzelli,
which served as the English chapel, was filled with
travelers of both the English-speaking nationalities, as distinguishable by tlheir dress as by their
faces. Lydia's aunt affected the English style, but
some instinctive elegance betrayed her, and every
Englishwoman there knew and hated her for an
American, though she was a precisian in her lit17




258


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


urgy, instant in all the responses and genuflexions.
She found opportunity in the course of the lesson to
make Lydia notice every one, and she gave a telegrammic biography of each person she knew, with
a criticism of the costume of all the strangers, managing so skillfully that by the time the sermon began she was able to yield the text a statuesquely
close attention, and might have been carved in
marble where she sat as a realistic conception of
Worship.
The sermon came to an end; the ritual proceeded; the hymn, with the hemming and hawing
of respectable inability, began, and Lydia lifted her
voice with the rest. Few of the people were in
their own church; some turned and stared at her;
the bonnets and the back hair of those who did not
look were intent upon her; the long red neck of
one elderly Englishman, restrained by decorum
from turning his head toward her, perspired with
curiosity. Mrs. Erwin fidgeted, and dropped her
eyes from the glances which fell to her for explanation of Lydia, and hurried away with her as
soon as the services ended.  In the hall on the
water-floor of the palace, where they were kept
waiting for their gondola a while, she seemed to
shrink even from the small, surly greetings with
which people whose thoughts are on higher things
permit themselves to recognize fellow-beings of their
acquaintance in coming out of church. But an old
lady, who supported herself with a cane, pushed




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


259


through the crowd to where they stood aloof, and,
without speaking to Mrs. Erwin, put out her hand
to Lydia; she had a strong, undaunted, plain face,
in which was expressed the habit of doing what she
liked. "L My dear," she said, " how wonderfully you
sing! Where did you get that heavenly voice?
You are an American; I see that by your beauty.
You are Mrs. Erwin's niece, I suppose, whom she
expected. Will you come and sing to me?  You
must bring her, Mrs. Erwin."
She hobbled away without waiting for an answer, and Lydia and her aunt got into their gondola. " Oh! How glad I am!" cried Mrs. Erwin,
in a joyful flutter. " She 's the very tip-top of the
English here; she has a whole palace, and you
meet the very best people at her house. I was
afraid when you were singing, Lydia, that they
would think your voice was too good to be good
form, - that 's an expression you must get; it
means everything,- it sounded almost professional.
I wanted to nudge you to sing a little lower,
or different, or something; but I could n't, everybody was looking so. No matter. It's all right
now. If she liked it, nobody else will dare to
breathe. You can see that she has taken a fancy
to you; she '11 make a great pet of you."
" Who is she?" asked Lydia, bluntly.
"Lady Fenleigh. Such a character, - so eccentric! But really, I suppose, very hard to live
with. It must have been quite a release for poor
Sir Fenleigh Fenleigh."




260


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"She did n't seem  in mourning," said Lydia.
"Has he been dead long? "
"Why, he is n't dead at all! He is what you
call a grass-widower. The best soul in the world,
everybody says, and very, very fond of her; but
she couldn't stand it; he was too good, don't you
understand? They 've lived apart a great many
years. She 's lived a great deal in Asia Minor, -
somewhere. She likes Venice; but of course there's
no telling how long she may stay. She has another
house in Florence, all ready to go and be lived in at
a day's notice. I wish I had presented you! It
did go through my head; but it did n't seem as if
I could get the Blood out. It is a fearful name,
Lydia; I always felt it so when I was a girl, and I
was so glad to marry out of it; and it sounds so
terribly American. I think you must take your
mother's name, my dear. Latham is rather flattish,
but it's worlds better than Blood."
" I am not ashamed of my father's name," said
Lydia.
" But you '11 have to change it some day, at any
rate, - when you get married."
Lydia turned away. "I will be called Blood till
then. If Lady Fenleigh ""Yes, my dear," promptly interrupted her aunt,
"I know that sort of independence. I used to
have whole Declarations of it. But you '11 get over
that, in Europe. There was a time - just after
the war - when the English quite liked our stick



THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


261


ing up for ourselves; but that's past now. They
like us to be outlandish, but they don't like us to
be independent.  How did you like the sermon?
Did n't you think we had a nicely-dressed congregation? "
"I thought the sermon was very short," answered
Lydia.
" Well, that's the English way, and I like it.
If you get in all the service, you must make the
sermon short."
Lydia did not say anything for a little while.
Then she asked, "Is the service the same at the
evening meeting?"
' Evening meeting?" repeated Mrs. Erwin.
Yes,- the church to-night."
"Why, child, there isn't any church to-night!
What are you talking about?"
' Did n't uncle - did n't Mr. Erwin say he would
go with us to-night? "
Mrs. Erwin seemed about to laugh, and then she
looked embarrassed. " Why, Lydia," she cried at
last, " he did n't mean church; he meant — opera! "
" Opera! Sunday night! Aunt Josephine, do
you go to the theatre on Sabbath evening?"
There was something appalling in the girl's stern
voice. Mrs. Erwin gathered herself tremulously
together for defense. " Why, of course, Lydia, I
don't approve of it, though I never was Orthodox.
Your uncle likes to go; and if everybody's there
that you want to see, and they will give the best
operas Sunday night, what are you to do? "




262


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


Lydia said nothing, but a hard look came into
her face, and she shut her lips tight.
"Now you see, Lydia," resumed her aunt, with
an air of deductive reasoning from the premises,
" the advantage of having a bonnet on, even if it's
only a make-believe. I don't believe a soul knew
it. All those Americans had hats. You were the
only American girl there with a bonnet. I 'm sure
that it had more than half to do with Lady Fenleigh's speaking to you. It showed that you had
been well brought up."
"But I never wore a bonnet to church at home,"
said Lydia.
" That has nothing to do with it, if they thought
you did. And Lydia," she continued, "I was thinking while you were singing there that I wouldn't
say anything at once about your coming over to
cultivate your voice.  That's got to be such an
American thing, now. I '11 let it out little by little,
- and after Lady Fenleigh 's quite taken you under
her wing. Perhaps we may go to Milan with you,
or to Naples, - there 's a conservatory there, too;
and we can pull up stakes as easily as not. Well! "
said Mrs. Erwin, interrupting herself, "I'm glad
Henshaw wasn't by to hear that speech. He'd
have had it down among his Americanisms instantly. I don't know whether it is an Americanism; but he puts down all the outlandish sayings
he gets hold of to Americans; he has no end of
English slang in his book. Everything has opened




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


263


beautifully, Lydia, and I intend you shall have the
best time! "  She looked fondly at her brother's
child. " You've no idea how much you remind me
of your poor father. You have his looks exactly.
I always thought he would come out to Europe before he died. We used to be so proud of his looks
at home! I can remember that, though I was the
youngest, and he was ten years older than I. But
I always did worship beauty. A   perfect Greek,
Mr. Rose-Black calls me: you '11 see him; he 's an
English painter staying here; he comes a great
deal."
" Mrs. Erwin, Mrs. Erwin! " called a lady's voice
from a gondola behind them. The accent was
perfectly English, but the voice entirely Italian.
" Where are you running to?"
"Why, Miss Landini! " retorted Mrs. Erwin,
looking back over her shoulder. "Is that you?
Where in the world are you going? "
" Oh, I've been to pay a visit to my old English
teacher. He's awfully ill with rheumatism; but
awfully! He can't turn in bed."
"Why, poor man! This is my niece whom I
told you I was expecting! Arrived last night!
We've been to church! "   Mrs. Erwin exclaimed
each of the facts.
The Italian girl stretched her hand across the
gunwales of the boats, which their respective gondoliers had brought skillfully side by side, and took
Lydia's hand.  "I'm glad to see you, my dear.




264


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


But my God, how beautiful you Americans are!
But you don't look American, you know; you look
Spanish! I shall come a great deal to see you, and
practice my English."
" Come home with us now, Miss Landini, and
have lunch," said Mrs. Erwin.
"No, my dear, I can't. My aunt will be raising
the devil if I 'm not there to drink coffee with her;
and I 've been a great while away now. Till tomorrow!"   Miss Landini's gondolier pushed his
boat away, and rowed it up a narrow canal on the
right.
"I suppose," Mrs. Erwin explained, "that she 's
really her mother, - everybody says so; but she
always calls her aunt. Dear knows who her father
was.  But she 's a very bright girl, Lydia, and
you 'll like her. Don't you think she speaks English wonderfully for a person who's never been out
of Venice?"
"Why does she swear?" asked Lydia, stonily.
" Swear? Oh, I know what you mean. That's
the funniest thing about Miss Landini. Your uncle
says it's a shame to correct her; but I do, whenever I think of it. Why, you know, such words as
God and devil don't sound at all wicked in Italian,
and ladies use them quite commonly. She understands that it is n't good form to do so in English,
but when she gets excited she forgets. Well, you
can't say but what she was impressed, Lydia! "
After lunch, various people came to call upon




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


26~5


Mrs. Erwin. Several of them were Italians who
were learning English, and they seemed to think it
inoffensive to say that they were glad of the opportunity to practice the language with Lydia. They
talked local gossip with her aunt, and they spoke
of an approaching visit to Venice from the king;
it seemed to Lydia that the king's character was
not good.
Mr. Rose-Black, the English artist, came. He
gave himself the effect of being in Mrs. Erwin's
confidence, apparently without her authority, and
he bestowed a share of this intimacy upon Lydia.
He had the manner of a man lwho had been taken
up by people above him, and the impudence of a
talent which had not justified the expectations
formed of it. He softly reproached Mrs. Erwin for
running away after service before he could speak to
her, and told her how much everybody had been
enchanted by her niece's singing. "At least, they
said it was your niece."
" Oh, yes, Mr. Rose-Black, let me introduce you
to Miss" - Lydia looked hard, even to threatening, at her aunt, and Mrs. Erwin added, "Blood."
"' I beg your pardon," said Mr. Rose-Black, witl
his picked-up politeness, " I did n't get the name."
"Blood," said Mrs. Erwin, more distinctly.
" Aoh! " said Mr. Rose-Black, in a cast-off accent of jaded indifferentism, just touched with displeasure. " Yes," he added, dreamily, to Lydia,
"it was divine, you know. You might say it




266


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


needed training; but it had the naive sweetness
we associate with your countrywomen. They're
greatly admired in England now, you know, for
their beauty. Oh, I assure you, it's quite the
thing to admire American ladies. I want to arrange a little lunch at my studio for Mrs. Erwin
and yourself; and I want you to abet me in it,
Miss Blood."  Lydia stared at him, but he was not
troubled. "I 'm going to ask to sketch you. Really, you know, there's a poise - something birdlike - a sort of repose in movement " - He sat
in a corner of the sofa, with his head fallen back,
and abandoned to an absent enjoyment of Lydia's
pictorial capabilities. He was very red; his full
beard, which started as straw color, changed to red
when it got a little way from his face. He wore a
suit of rough blue, the coat buttoned tightly about
him, and he pulled a glove through his hand as he
talked. He was scarcely roused from his reverie
by the entrance of an Italian officer, with his hussar jacket hanging upon one shoulder, and his
sword caught up in his left hand. He ran swiftly
to Mrs. Erwin, and took her hand.
"Ah, my compliments! I come practice my
English with you a little. Is it well said, a little,
or do you say a small?"
" A little, cavaliere," answered Mrs. Erwin, anliably. "But you must say a good deal, in this
case."
" Yes, yes, - good deal. For what?"




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


267


"Let me introduce you to my niece, Colonel
Pazzelli," said Mrs. Erwin.
" Ah! Too much honor, too much honor!"
murmured the cavaliere. He brought his heels together with a click, and drooped towards Lydia till
his head was on a level with his hips. Recovering
himself, he caught up his eye-glasses, and bent them
on Lydia. "Very please, very honored, much "He stopped, and looked confused, and Lydia turned
pale and red.
" Now, won't you play that pretty barcarole you
played the other night at Lady Fenleigh's? " entreated Mrs. Erwin.
Colonel Pazzelli wrenched himself from the fascination of Lydia's presence, and lavished upon Mrs.
Erwin the hoarded English of a week. "Yes,
yes; very nice, very good. With much pleasure.
I thank you. Yes, I play." He was one of those
natives who in all the great Italian cities haunt
English-speaking societies; they try to drink tea
without grimacing, and sing for the ladies of our
race, who innocently pet them, finding them  so
very like other women in their lady-like sweetness and softness; it is said they boast among their
own countrymen of their triumphs. The cavaliere
unbuckled his sword, and laying it across a chair
sat down at the piano. He played not one but
many barcaroles, and seemed loath to leave the instrument.
" Now, Lydia," said Mrs. Erwin, fondly, " won't
you sing us something?"




268


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


" Do! " called Mr. Rose-Black from the sofa,
with the intonation of a spoiled first-cousin, or halfbrother.
"I don't feel like singing to-day," answered
Lydia, immovably. Mrs. Erwin was about to urge
her further, but other people came in, -some Jewish ladies, and then a Russian, whom Lydia took at
first for an American. They all came and went,
but Mr. Rose-Black remained in his corner of the
sofa, and never took his eyes from Lydia's face.
At last he went, and then Mr. Erwin looked in.
" Is that beast gone? " he asked. " I shall be
obliged to show him the door, yet, Josephine.
You ought to snub him. He's worse than his pictures. Well, you've had a whole raft of folks today, - as your countrymen say."
" Yes, thank Heaven," cried Mrs. Erwin, "and
they 're all gone. I don't want Lydia to think
that I let everybody come to see me on Sunday.
Thursday is my day, Lydia, but a few privileged
friends understand that they can drop in Sunday
afternoon." She gave Lydia a sketch of the life
and character of each of these friends. "And
now I must tell you that your manner is very good,
Lydia. That reserved way of yours is quite the
thing for a young girl in Europe: I suppose it's a
gift; I never could get it, even when I was a girl.
But you must n't show any hauteur, even when you
dislike people, and you refused to sing with rather
too much aplomb. I don't suppose it was noticed,




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


269


though, - those ladies coming in at the same time.
Really, I thought Mr. Rose-Black and Colonel
Pazzelli were trying to outstare each other! It
was certainly amusing. I never saw such an evident case, Lydia! The poor cavaliere looked as if
he had seen you somewhere before in a dream, and
was struggling to make it all out."
Lydia remained impassive. Presently she said
she would go to her room, and write home before
dinner. When she went out Mrs. Erwin fetched a
deep sigh, and threw herself upon her husband's
sympathy.
" She 's terribly unresponsive," she began.  I
supposed she'd be in raptures with the place, at
least, but you would n't know there was anything
at all remarkable in Venice from anything she 's
said.  We have met ever so many interestin:g
people to-day, - the Countess Tatocka, and Lady
Fenleigh, and Miss Landini, and everybody, but I
don't really think she's said a word about a soul.
She 's too queer for anything."
" I dare say she has n't the experience to be
astonished from," suggested Mr. Erwin easily.
"She 's here as if she 'd been dropped down from
her village."
"Yes, that's true," considered his wife. "But
it's hard, with Lydia's air and style and self-possession, to realize that she is merely a village girl."
" She may be much more impressed than she
chooses to show," Mr. Erwin continued. " I re



270


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


member a very curious essay by a French writer
about your countrymen: he contended that they
were characterized by a savage stoicism through
their contact with the Indians."
"Nonsense, Henshaw! There has n't been an
Indian near South Bradfield for two hundred years.
And besides that, am I stoical?"
"I'm bound to say," replied her husband, "that
so far as you go, you 're a complete refutation of the
theory."
"I hate to see a young girl so close," fretted
Mrs. Erwin.   " But perhaps," she added, more
cheerfully, " she '11 be the easier managed, being so
passive. She doesn't seem at all willful. -that's
one comfort."
She went to Lydia's room just before dinner, and
found the girl with her head fallen on her arms
upon the table, where she had been writing. She
looked up, and faced her aunt with swollen eyes.
" Why, poor thing! " cried Mrs. Erwin. " What
is it, dear? What is it, Lydia? " she asked, tenderly, and she pulled Lydia's face down upon her
neck.
"Oh, nothing," said Lydia. "I suppose I was'a
little homesick; writing home made me."
She somewhat coldly suffered Mrs. Erwin to kiss
her and smooth her hair, while she began to talk
with her of her grandfather and her aunt at home.
" But this is going to be home to you now," said
Mrs. Erwin, " and I'm not going to let you be sick




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


271


for any other. I want you to treat me just like a
mother, or an older sister. Perhaps I shan't be the
wisest mother to you in the world, but I mean to
be one of the best. Come, now, bathe your eyes,
my dear, and let 's go to dinner. I don't like to
keep your uncle waiting."  She did not go at once,
but showed Lydia the appointments of the room,
and lightly indicated what she had caused to be
done, and what she had done with her own hands,
to make the place pretty for her. "A And now shall
I take your letter, and have your uncle post it this
evening? " She picked up the letter from the table.
" Had n't you any wax to seal it? You know
they don't generally mucilage their envelopes in Europe."
Lydia blushed. "I left it open for you to read.
I thought you ought to know what I wrote."
Mrs. Erwin dropped her hands in front of her,
with the open letter stretched between them, and
looked at her niece in rapture.  " Lydia," she
cried, " one would suppose you had lived all your
days in Europe!  Showing me your letter, this
way, - why, it's quite like a Continental girl."
" I thought it was no more than right you should
see what I was writing home," said Lydia, unresponsively.
"Well, no matter, even if it wzas right," replied
Mrs. Erwin. "It comes to the same thing. And
now, as you've been quite a European daughter,
I'm going to be a real American mother."  She




272


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


took up the wax, and sealed Lydia's letter without
looking into it. " There! " she said, triumphantly.
She was very good to Lydia all through dinner,
and made her talk of the simple life at home, and
the village characters whom she remembered from
her last summer's visit. That amused Mr. Erwin,
who several times, when his wife was turning the
talk upon Lydia's voyage over, intervened with
some new question about the life of the queer little
Yankee hill-town. He said she must tell Lady
Fenleigh about it, -she was fond of picking up
those curios; it would make any one's social fortune
who could explain such a place intelligibly in London; when they got to having typical villages of the
different civilizations at the international expositions, - as no doubt they would, - somebody must
really send South Bradfield over. He pleased himself vastly with this fancy, till Mrs. Erwin, who
had been eying Lydia critically from time to time,
as if making note of her features and complexion,
said she had a white cloak, and that in Venice,
where one need not dress a great deal for the opera,
Lydia could wear it that night.
Lydia looked up in astonishment, but she sat
passive during her aunt's discussion of her plans.
When they rose from table, she said, at her stiffest
and coldest, "Aunt Josephine, I want you to excuse me from going with you to-night. I don't feel
like going."
"Not feel like going!" exclaimed her aunt in
dismay. " Why, your uncle has taken a box! "




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


273


Lydia opposed nothing to this argument. She
only said, " I would rather not go."
"Oh, but you will, dear," coaxed her aunt.
"You would enjoy it so much."
" I thought you understood from what I said today," replied Lydia, "that I could not go."
" Why, no, I did n't! I knew you objected; but
if I thought it was proper for you to go " -
"I should not go at home," said Lydia, in the
same immovable fashion.
" Of course not. Every place has its customs, and
in Venice it has always been the custom to go to
the opera on Sunday night." This fact had no visible weight with Lydia, and after a pause her aunt
added, " Did n't Paul himself say to do in Rome as
the Romans do-?"
"No, aunt Josephine," cried Lydia, indignantly,
"he did not!"
Mrs. Erwin turned to her husband with a face of
appeal, and he answered, " Really, niy dear, I
think you 're mistaken. I always had the impression that the saying was - an Americanism of some
sort."
" But it doesn't matter," interposed Lydia decisively. " I could n't go, if I did n't think it was
right, whoever said it."
1 Oh, well," began Mrs. Erwin, "if you would
n't mind what Paul said "-  She suddenly checked
herself, and after a little silence she resumed,
kindly, " I won't try to force you, Lydia. I did n't
18




274


TIHE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


realize what a very short time it is since you left
holne, and how you still have all those ideas. I
would n't distress you about them for the world,
my dear. I want you to feel at home with me, and
I'11 make it as like home for you as I can in everything. Henshaw, I think you must go alone, this
evening. I will stay with Lydia."
"Oh, no, no! I couldn't let you; I can't let
you! I shall not know what to do if I keep you at
home. Oh, don't leave it that way, please! I shall
feel so badly about it " -
"Why, we can both stay," suggested Mr. Erwin,
kindly.
Lydia's lips trembled and her eyes glistened, and
Mrs. Erwin said, "I '11 go with you, Henshaw. I '11
be ready in half an hour. I won't dress much."
She added this as if not to dress a great deal at the
opera Sunday night might somehow be accepted as
an observance of the Sabbath.




XXIV.


THE next morning Veronica brought Lydia a
little scrawl from her aunt, bidding the girl come
and breakfast with her in her room at nine.
" Well, my dear," her aunt called to her from
her pillow, when she appeared, "you find me flat
enough, this morning. If there was anything wrong
about going to the opera last night, I was properly
punished for it. Such wretched stuff as I never
heard! And instead of the new ballet that they
promised, they gave an old thing that I had seen till
I was sick of it. You did n't miss much, I can tell
you. How fresh and bright you do look, Lydia! "
she sighed. " Did you sleep well? Were you
lonesome while we were gone? Veronica says you
were reading the whole evening. Are you fond of
reading? "
"I don't think I am, very," said Lydia. "It was
a book that I began on the ship. It's a novel."
She hesitated. "I wasn't reading it; I was just
looking at it."
"What a queer child you are! I suppose you
were dying to read it, and would n't because it was
Sunday. Well! "   Mrs. Erwin put her hand undev
her pillow, and pulled out a gossamer handkerchief,
with which she delicately touched her complexion




276


TIE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


here and there, and repaired with an instinctive
rearrangement of powder the envious ravages of a
slight rash about her nose. "I respect your high
principles beyond anything, Lydia, and if they can
only be turned in the right direction they will never
be any disadvantage to you." Veronica came in
with the breakfast on a tray, and Mrs. Erwin added,
"Now, pull up that little table, and bring your
chair, my dear, and let us take it easy. I like to
talk while I'm breakfasting. Will you pour out my
chocolate?  That's it, in the ugly little pot with
the wooden handle; the copper one's for you, with
coffee in it. I never could get that repose which
seems to come perfectly natural to you. I was
always inclined to be a little rowdy, my dear, and
I've had to fight hard against it, without any help
from either of my husbands; men like it; they
think it's funny. When I was first married, I was
very young, and so was he; it was a real love
match; and my husband was very well off, and
when I began to be delicate, nothing would do but
he must come to Europe with me. How little I
ever expected to outlive him!"
"You don't look very sick now," began Lydia.
"Ill," said her aunt. " You must say ill. Sick
is an Americanism."
"It's in the Bible," said Lydia, gravely.
Oh, there are a great many words in the Bible
you can't use," returned her aunt. "No, I don't
look ill now, and I 'm worlds better.  But I




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could n't live a year in any other climate, I suppose.
You seem to take after your mother's side. Well,
as I was saying, the European ways didn't come
natural to me, at all. I used to have a great deal
of gayety when I was a girl, and I liked beaux and
attentions; and I had very free ways. I could n't
get their stiffness here for years and years, and all
through my widowhood it was one wretched failure
with me. Do what I would, I was always violating the most essential rules, and the worst of it was
that it only seemed to make me the more popular.
I do believe it was nothing but my rowdiness that
attracted Mr. Erwin; but I determined when I had
got an Englishman I would make one bold strike
for the proprieties, and have them, or die in the
attempt. I determined that no Englishwoman I
ever saw should outdo me in strict conformity to
all the usages of European society. So I cut myself off from all the Americans, and went with nobody but the English."
"Do you like them better? " asked Lydia, with
the blunt, child-like directness that had already
more than once startled her aunt.
"Like them! I detest them! If Mr. Erwin
were a real Englishman, I think I should go crazy;
but he's been so little in his own country -all his
life in India, nearly, and the rest on the Continent,
-that he's quite human; and no American husband was ever more patient and indulgent; and
that 's saying a good deal. He would be glad to




278


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


have nothing but Americans around; he has an enthusiasm for them, - or for what he supposes they
are. Like the English! You ought to have heard
them during our war; it would have made your
blood boil! And then how they came crawling
round after it was all over, and trying to pet us
up! Ugh!"
"If you feel so about them," said Lydia, as before, " why do you want to go with them so
much? "
"My dear," cried her aunt, " to beat them with
their own weapons on their own ground, - to show
them that an American can be more European than
any of them, if she chooses! And now you've
come here with looks and temperament and everything just to my hand. You're more beautiful
than any English girl ever dreamt of being; you're
very distinguished-looking; your voice is perfectly
divine; and you're colder than an iceberg. Oh,
if I only had one winter with you in Rome, I think
I should die in peace! " Mrs. Erwin paused, and
drank her chocolate, which she had been letting
cool in the eagerness of her discourse. "But, never
mind," she continued, " we will do the best we can
here. I 've seen English girls going out two or
three together, without protection, in Rome and
Florence; but I mean that you shall be quite
Italian in that respect. The Italians never go out
without a chaperone of some sort, and you must
never be seen without me, or your uncle, or




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279


Veronica. Now I '11 tell you how you must do at
parties, and so on. You must be very retiring;
you 're that, any way; but you must always keep
close to me. It does n't do for young people to
talk much together in society; it makes scandal
about a girl. If you dance, you must always hurry
back to me. Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Erwin,
"I remember how, when I was a girl, I used to
hang on to the young men's arms, and promenade
with them after a dance, and go out to supper with
then, and flirt on the stairs,  such times! But
that would n't do here, Lydia. It would ruin a
girl's reputation; she could hardly walk arm in
arm with a young man if she was engaged to him."
Lydia blushed darkly red, and then turned paler
than usual, while her aunt went on. "You might
do it, perhaps, and have it set down to American
eccentricity or under-breeding, but I'm not going
to have that. I intend you to be just as dull and
diffident in society as if you were an Italian, and
more than if you were English. Your voice, of
course, is a difficulty. If you sing, that will make
you conspicuous, in spite of everything. But I
don't see why that can't be turned to advantage;
it's no worse than your beauty. Yes, if you're
so splendid-looking and so gifted, and at the same
time as stupid as the rest, it's so much clear gain.
It will come easy for you to be shy with men, for I
suppose you 've hardly ever talked with any, living
up there in that out-of-the-way village; and your




280


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


manner is very good. It's reserved, and yet it
is n't green. The way," continued Mrs. Erwin,
"to treat men in Europe is to behave as if they
were guilty till they prove themselves innocent.
All you have to do is to reverse all your American
ideas. But here I am, lecturing you as if you had
been just such a girl as I was, with half a dozen
love affairs on her hands at once, and no end of
gentlemen friends. Europe won't be hard for you,
my dear, for you have n't got anything to unlearn.
But some girls that come over! —it's perfectly
ridiculous, the trouble they get into, and the time
they have getting things straight. They take it for
granted that men in good society are gentlemen, -
what we mean by gentlemen."
Lydia had been letting her coffee stand, and had
scarcely tasted the delicious French bread and the
sweet Lombard butter of which her aunt ate so
heartily. "Why, child," said Mrs. Erwin, at last,
"where is your appetite?  One would think you
were the elderly invalid who had been up late.
Did you find it too exciting to sit at home looking
at a novel? What was it? If it's a new story I
should like to see it. But you did n't bring a novel
from South Bradfield with you? "
" No," said Lydia, with a husky reluctance. " One
of the - passengers gave it to me."
" Had you many passengers? But of course not.
That was what made it so delightful when I came
over that way. I was newly married then, and




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281


with spirits- oh dear me! - for anything. It was
one adventure, the whole way; and we got so well
acquainted, it was like one family. I suppose your
grandfather put you in charge of some family. I
know artists sometimes come out that way, and
people for their health."
" There was no family on our ship," said Lydia.
" My state-room had been fixed up for the captain's
wife "" Our captain's wife was along, too," interposed
Mrs. Erwin. " She was such a joke with us. She
had been out to Venice on a voyage before, and
used to be always talking about the Du-cal Palace.
And did they really turn out of their state-room
for you? "
"She was not along," said Lydia.
"Not along? " repeated Mrs. Erwin, feebly.
"Who - who were the other passengers? "
"There were three gentlemen," answered Lydia.
"Three gentlemen? Three men? Three- And
you - and " -  Mrs. Erwin fell back upon her pillow, and remained gazing at Lydia, with a sort of
remote bewildered pity, as at perdition, not indeed
beyond compassion, but far beyond help. Lydia's
color had been coming and going, but now it settled
to a clear white. Mrs. Erwin commanded herself
sufficiently to resume: " And there were -there
were- no other ladies?"
"No. "
"And you were" -




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THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"I was the only woman on board," replied Lydia.
She rose abruptly, striking the edge of the table in
her movement, and setting its china and silver jarring. "Oh, I know what you mean, aunt Josephine, but two days ago I could n't have dreamt it!
From the time the ship sailed till I reached this
wicked place, there was n't a word said nor a look
looked to make me think I was n't just as right and
safe there as if I had been in my own room at
home. They were never anything but kind and
good to me. They never let me think that they
could be my enemies, or that I must suspect them
and be on the watch against them. They were
Americans! I had to wait for one of your Europeans to teach me that, -for that officer who was
here yesterday ""The cavaliere? Why, where""He spoke to me in the cars, when Mr. Erwin
was asleep! Had he any right to do so?"
"He would think he had, if he thought you were
alone," said Mrs. Erwin, plaintively. "I don't see
how we could resent it. It was simply a mistake
on his part. And now you see, Lydia " -
" Oh, I see how my coming the way I have will
seem to all these people! " cried Lydia, with passionate despair. " I know how it will seem to that
married woman who lets a man be in love with her,
and that old woman who can't live with her husband because he's too good and kind, and that girl
who swears and does n't know who her father is,




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283


and that impudent painter, and that officer who
thinks lie has the right to insult women if he finds
them alone! I wonder the sea does n't swallow up
a place where even Americans go to the theatre on
the Sabbath!"
"Lydia, Lydia! It isn't so bad as it seems to
you," pleaded her aunt, thrown upon the defensive
by the girl's outburst. "There are ever so lmany
good and nice people in Venice, and I know them,
too, - Italians as well as foreigners. And even
amongst those you saw, Miss Landini is one of the
kindest girls in the world, and she had just been to
see her old teacher when we met her, - she half
takes care of him; and Lady Fenleigh's a perfect
mother to the poor; and I never was at the Countess Tatocka's except in the most distant way, at a
ball where everybody went; and is it better to let
your uncle go to the opera alone, or to go with
him? You told me to go with him yourself; and
they consider Sunday over, on the Continent, after
morning service, any way! "
" Oh, it makes no difference!" retorted Lydia,
wildly. "I am going away. I am going home. I
have money enough to get to Trieste, and the ship
is there, and Captain Jenness will take me back
with him. Oh! " she moaned. " He has been in
Europe, too, and I suppose he 's like the rest of
you; and he thought because I was alone and helpless he had the right to -  Oh, I see it, I see now
that he never meant anything, and -  Oh, oh, oh! "




284


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


She fell on her knees beside the bed, as if crushed
to them by the cruel doubt that suddenly overwhelmed her, and flung out her arms on Mrs. Erwin's coverlet - it was of Venetian lace sewed
upon silk, a choice bit from the palace of one of
the ducal families- and buried her face in it.
Her aunt rose from her pillow, and looked in
wonder and trouble at the beautiful fallen head,
and the fair young figure shaken with sobs.  "He
- who- what are you talking about, Lydia?
Whom do you mean? Did Captain Jenness "" No, no! " wailed the girl, " the one that gave
me the book."
" The one that gave you the book? The book
you were looking at last night? "
" Yes," sobbed Lydia, with her voice muffled in
the coverlet.
Mrs. Erwin lay down again with significant deliberation. Her face was still full of trouble, but
of bewilderment no longer. In moments of great
distress the female mind is apt to lay hold of some
minor anxiety for its distraction, and to find a certain relief in it. " Lydia," said her aunt in a
broken voice, " I wish you would n't cry in the coverlet: it does n't hurt the lace, but it stains the
silk." Lydia swept her handkerchief under her
face but did not lift it. Her aunt accepted the
compromise.  "How came he to give you the
book? "
"Oh, I don't know. I can't tell. I thought it




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285


was because - because -  It was almost at the
very beginning. And after that he walked up and
down with me every night, nearly; and he tried to
be with me all he could; and he was always saying
things to make me think - Oh dear, oh dear, oh
dear! And he tried to make me care for him! Oh,
it was cruel, cruel! "
"You mean that he made love to you? " asked
her aunt.
" Yes -no-    I don't know. He tried to make
me care for him, and to make me think he cared for
mle."
"Did he say he cared for you? Did he ""No!"
Mrs. Erwin mused a while before she said, " Yes,
it was cruel indeed, poor child, and it was cowardly,
too."
" Cowardly? " Lydia lifted her face, and flashed
a glance of tearful fire at her aunt. " He is the
bravest man in the world! And the most generous
and high-minded! He jumped into the sea after
that wicked Mr. Hicks, and saved his life, when he
disliked him worse than anything!"
" Who was Mr. Hicks?"
"He was the one that stopped at Messina. He
was the one that got some brandy at Gibraltar, and
behaved so dreadfully, and wanted to fight him."
" Whom?
"This one. The one who gave me the book.
And don't you see that his being so good makes it




286


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


all the worse? Yes; and he pretended to be glad
when I told him I thought he was good,-he got
me to say it! " She had her face down again in
her handkerchief. " And I suppose you think it
was horrible, too, for me to take his arm, and talk
and walk with him whenever he asked me! "
"No, not for you, Lydia," said her aunt, gently.
"And don't you think now," she asked after a
pause, "that he cared for you?"
"Oh, I did think so,- I did believe it; but
now, now  -
"Now, what?"
"Now, I'm afraid that may be he was only playing with me, and putting me off; and pretending
that he had something to tell me when he got to
Venice, and he never meant anything by anything."
" Is he coming to "- her aunt began, but Lydia
broke vehemently out again.
"If he had cared for me, why could n't he have
told me so at once, and not had me wait till he got
to Venice? He knew I"" There are two ways of explaining it," said Mrs.
Erwin. " He may have been in earnest, Lydia, and
felt that he had no right to be more explicit till
you were in the care of your friends. That would
be the European way which you consider so bad,"
said Mrs. Erwin. "Under the circumstances, it
was impossible for him to keep any distance, and
all he could do was to postpone his declaration till
there could be something like good form about it.




TIE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


287


Yes, it might have been that." She was silent, but
the troubled look did not leave her face. "I am
sorry for you, Lydia," she resumed, "but I don't
know that I wish he was in earnest." Lydia looked
up at her in dismay. "It might be far less embarrassing the other way, however painful.  He
may not be at all a suitable person." The tears
stood in Lydia's eyes, and all her face expressed a
puzzled suspense. " Where was he from?" asked
Mrs. Erwin, finally; till then she had been more
interested in the lover than the man.
" Boston," mechanically answered Lydia.
"What was his name?"
"Mr. Staniford," owned Lydia, with a blush.
Her aunt seemed dispirited at the sound. " Yes,
I know who they are," she sighed.
" And are n't they nice? Is n't he - suitable?"
asked Lydia, tremulously.
"Oh, poor child! He's only too suitable. I
can't explain to you, Lydia; but at home he
wouldn't have looked at a girl like you. What
sort of looking person is he?"
" He 's rather - red; and he has-light hair."
" It must be the family I 'm thinking of," said
Mrs. Erwin. She had lived nearly twenty years in
Europe, and had seldom revisited her native city;
but at the sound of a Boston name she was all
Bostonian again. She rapidly sketched the history
of the family to which she imagined Staniford to
belong. "I remember his sister; I used to see her




288


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


at school. She must have been five or six years
younger than I; and this boy ""Why, he 's twenty-eight years old! " interrupted Lydia.
"How came he to tell you? "
" I don't know. He said that he looked thirtyfour."
"Yes; she was always a forward thing too,with her freckles," said Mrs. Erwin, musingly, as
if lost in reminiscences, not wholly pleasing, of Miss
Staniford.
" He has freckles," admitted Lydia.
"Yes, it's the one," said Mrs. Erwin. "He
could n't have known what your family was from
anything you said?"
"We never talked about our families."
" Oh, I dare say!   You talked about yourselves? "
"Yes."
"All the time?"
"Pretty nearly."
"And he did n't try to find out who or what you
were?"
"He asked a great deal about South Bradfield."
"Of course, that was where he thought you had
always belonged." Mrs. Erwin lay quiescent for a
while, in apparent uncertainty as to how she should
next attack the subject.  " How did you first
meet? "
Lydia began with the scene on Lucas Wharf,




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289


and little by little told the whole story up to the
moment of their parting at Trieste. There were
lapses and pauses in the story, which her aunt was
never at a loss to fill aright. At the end she said,
"If it were not for his promising to come here and
see you, I should say Mr. Staniford had been flirting, and as it is he may not regard it as anything
more than flirtation. Of course, there was his being jealous of Mr. Dunham and Mr. Hicks, as he
certainly was; and his wanting to explain about
that lady at Messina-yes, that looked peculiar;
but he may not have meant anything by it. His
parting so at Trieste with you, that might be either
because he was embarrassed at its having got to be
such a serious thing, or because he really felt badly.
Lydia," she asked at last, " what made you think
he cared for you?"
" I don't know," said the girl; her voice had sunk
to a husky whisper. "I didn't believe it till he
said he wanted me to be his - conscience, and tried
to make me say he was good, and ""That 's a certain kind of man's way of flirting.
It may mean nothing at all. I could tell in an
instant, if I saw him."
"He said he would be here this afternoon," murmured Lydia, tremulously.
" This afternoon! " cried Mrs. Erwin. " I must
get up!"
At her toilette she had the exaltation and fury
of a champion arming for battle.


19




XXV.


MR. ERWIN entered about the completion of her
preparations, and without turning round from her
glass she said, " I want you to think of the worst
thing you can, Henshaw. I don't see how I 'm ever
to lift up my head again."  As if this word had
reminded her of her head, she-turned it from side
to side, and got the effect in the glass, first of one
ear-ring, and then of the other.  Her husband
patiently waited, and she now confronted him.
"You may as well know first as last, Henshaw,
and I want you to prepare yourself for it. Nothing can be done, and you will just have to live
through it. Lydia - has come over - on that
ship — alone, - with three young men, - and not
the shadow- not the ghost - of another woman -
on board!"   Mrs. Erwin gesticulated with her
hand-glass in delivering the words, in a manner at
once intensely vivid and intensely solemn, yet somehow falling short of the due tragic effect. Her
husband stood pulling his mustache straight down,
while his wife turned again to the mirror, and put
the final touches to her personal appearance with
hands which she had the effect of having desperately washed of all responsibility. He stood so
long in this meditative mood that she was obliged




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


291


to be peremptory with his image in the glass.
"Well? " she cried.
" Why, my dear," said Mr. Erwin, at last, " they
were all Americans together, you know."
"And what difference does that make?" demanded Mrs. Erwin, whirling from his image to
the man again.
" VWhy, of course, you know, it is n't as if they
were - English." Mrs. Erwin flung down three
hair-pins upon her dressing-case, and visibly despaired. "Of course you don't expect your countrymen"-     His wife's appearance was here so
terrible that he desisted, and resumed by saying,
" Don't be vexed, my dear. I - I rather like it, you
know. It strikes me as a genuine bit of American
civilization."
"American civilization! Oh, Henshaw! " wailed
Mrs. Erwin, " is it possible that after all I 've said,
and done, and lived, you still think that any one but
a girl from the greenest little country place could
do such a thing as that? Well, it is no use trying
to enlighten English people. You like it, do you?
Well, I'nm not sure that the Englishman who misunderstands American things and likes them is n't
a little worse than the Englishlan who misunderstands them and dislikes them. You all misunderstand them. And would you like it, if one of the
young men had been making love to Lydia? "
The amateur of our civilization hesitated and was
serious, but he said at last, " Why, you know, I 'm




292


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


not surprised. She 's so uncommonly pretty. I - I
suppose they 're engaged? " he suggested.
His wife held her peace for scorn. Then she said,
"The gentleman is of a very good Boston family,
and would no more think of engaging himself to a
young girl without the knowledge of her friends
than you would. Besides, he 's been in Europe a
great deal."
" I wish I could meet some Americans who had
n't been in Europe," said Mr. Erwin. "I should
like to see what you call the simon-pure American.
As for the young man's not engaging himself, it
seems to me that he did n't avail himself of his national privileges. I should certainly have done it in
his place, if I 'd been an American."
" Well, if you'd been an American, you would
n't," answered his wife.
"Why?"
Because an American would have had too much
delicacy."
"I don't understand that."
"I know you don't, Henshaw. And there's
where you show yourself an Englishman."
" Really," said her husband, "you're beginning
to crow, my dear. Come, I like that a great deal
better than your cringing to the effete despotisms
of the Old World, as your Fourth of July orators
have it. It's almost impossible to get a bit of good
honest bounce out of an American, nowadays, - to
get him to spread himself, as you say."




THE LADY OF TIE AROOSTOOK.


293


"All that is neither here nor there, IHenshaw,"
said his wife. " The question is how to receive Mr.
Staniford-that 's his name-whlen he comes. How
are we to regard hin? He 's coming here to see
Lydia, and she thinks he 's coming to propose."
" Excuse me, but how does she regard him?"
Oh, there 's no question about that, poor child.
'She's dead in love with him, and can't understand
why he did n't propose on shipboard."
" And she is n't an Englishman, either!" exulted
Mr. Erwin. " It appears that there are Americans
and Americans, and that the men of your nation
have more delicacy tlan the women like."
"Don't be silly," said his wife. "Of course,
women always think wlhat they would do in such
cases, if they were men; but if men did what women
think they would do if they were men, the women
would be disgusted."
" Oh! "
"Yes. Her feeling in the matter is no guide."
" Do you know his family? " asked Mr. Erwin.
"I think I do. Yes, I 'i sure I do."
" Are they nice people? "
"Have 'nt I told you they were a good Boston
family? "
" Then upon my word, I don't see that we've to
take any attitude at all. I don't see that we 've to
regard him in one way or the other. It quite remains for him to make the first move."
As if they had been talking of nothing but dress




294


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


before, Mrs. Erwin asked: "Do you think I look
better in this black mexicaine, or would you wear
your 6cru? "
" I think you look very well in this. But why -
He is n't going to propose to you, I hope? "
" I must have on something decent to receive him
in.  What time does the train from Trieste get
in?"
" At three o'clock."
"It's one, now.   There's plenty of time, but
there is n't any too much.  I '11 go and get Lydia
ready. Or perhaps you 'll tap on her door, Henshaw,
and send her here. Of course, this is the end of her
voice, - if it is the end."
"It's the end of having an extraordinarily pretty
girl in the house. I don't at all like it, you know,
- having her whisked away in this manner."
Mrs. Erwin refused to let her mind wander from
the main point. "He '11 be round as soon as he can,
after he arrives. I shall expect him by four, at the
latest."
" I fancy he '11 stop for his dinner before he comes,"
said Mr. Erwin.
" Not at all," retorted his wife, haughtily. And
with his going out of the room, she set her face in
a resolute cheerfulness, for the task of heartening
Lydia when she should appear; but it only expressed
misgiving when the girl came in with her yachtingdress on. " Why, Lydia, shall you wear that? "
Lydia swept her dress with a downward glance.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


295


"I thought I would wear it.  I thought he —I
should seem - more natural in it. I wore it all the
time on the ship, except Sundays. He said — he
liked it the best."
Mrs. Erwin shook her head. " It would n't do.
Everything must be on a new basis now. He might
like it; but it would be too romantic, would n't it,
don't you think?"  She shook her head still, but
less decisively. "Better wear your silk. Don't
you think you d better wear your silk?   This
is very pretty, and the dark blue does become
you, awfully. Still, I don't know- I don't know,
either! A great many English wear those careless
things in the house. Well, wear it, Lydia! You
do look perfectly killing in it. I '11 tell you: your
uncle was going to ask you to go out in his boat;
he 's got one he rows himself, and this is a boating
costume; and you know you could time yourselves
so as to get back just right, and you could come in
with this on "Lydia turned pale. " Ought n't I - ought n't I
-to be here? " she faltered.
Her aunt laughed gayly. " Why, he'll ask for
me, Lydia."
' For you?" asked Lydia, doubtfully.
"Yes. And I can easily keep him till you get
back. If you 're here by four ""The train," said Lydia, " arrives at three."
"How did you know? " asked her aunt, keenly.
Lydia's eyelids fell even lower than their wont.




296


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


"I looked it out in that railroad guide in the parlor."
Her aunt kissed her. " And you've thought the
whole thing out, dear, have n't you? I 'm glad to
see you so happy about it."
" Yes," said the girl, with a fluttering breath, "I
have thought it out, and 1 believe him. I " -  She
tried to say something more, but could not.
Mrs. Erwin rang the bell, and sent for her husband.  " He knows about it, Lydia," she said.
"He's just as much interested as we are, dear, but
you needn't be worried. He's a perfect post for
not showing a thing if you don't want him to.
IIe's really quite superhuman, in that, - equal to
a woman. You can talk Americanisms with him.
If we sat here staring at each other till four o'clock,
- he must go to his hotel before he comes here;
and I say four at the earliest; and it's much more
likely to be five or six, or perhaps evening,- I
should die! "
Mr. Erwin's rowing was the wonder of all Venice. There was every reason why he should fall
overboard at each stroke, as he stood to propel the
boat in the gondolier fashion, except that he never
yet had done so. It was sometimes his fortune to
be caught on the shallows by the falling tide; but
on that day he safely explored the lagoons, and returned promptly at four o'clock to the palace.
His wife was standing on the balcony, looking
out for them, and she smiled radiantly down into




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297


Lydia's anxiously lifted face.  But when she met
the girl at the head of the staircase in the great
hall, she embraced her, and said, with the saLme gay
smile, "' He has n't come yet, dear, and of course he
won't come till after dinner. -If I had n't been as
silly as you are, Lydia, I never should have let you
expect him sooner.  He '11 want to go to his hotel;
and no matter how impatient he is, he '11 want to
dress, and be a little ceremonious about his call.
You know we 're strangers to him, whatever you
are."
" Yes," said Lydia, mechanically. She was going
to sit down, as she was; of her own motion she
would not have stirred from the place till he came,
or it was certain lie would not come; but her aunt
would not permit the despair into which she saw
her sinking.
She laughed resolutely, and said, " I think we
must give up the little sentimentality of meeting
him in that dress, now. Go and change it, Lydia.
Put on your silk, - or wait: let me go with you.
I want to try some little effects with your complexion. We've experimented with the simple and familiar, and now we '11 see what can be done in the
way of the magnificent and unexpected. I 'm going
to astonish the young man with a Venetian beauty;
you know you look Italian, Lydia."
1" Yes, he said so," answered Lydia.
" Did he? That shows he has an eye, and he '11
appreciate what we are going to do."




298


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


She took Lydia to her own room, for the greater
convenience of her experiments, and from that moment she did not allow her to be alone; she scarcely
allowed her to be silent; she made her talk, she
kept her in movement. At dinner she permitted no
lapse. " Henshaw," she said, t" Lydia has been telling me about a storm they had just before they
reached Gibraltar. I wish you would tell her of
the typhoon you were in when you first went out
to India." Her husband obeyed; and then recurring to the days of his civil employment in India,
he told stories of tiger-hunts, and of the Sepoy
mutiny. Mrs. Erwin would not let them sit very
long at table. After dinner she asked Lydia to
sing, and she suffered her to sing all the American
songs her uncle asked for. At eight o'clock she
said with a knowing little look at Lydia, which included a sub-wink for her husband, "You may go
to your cafe alone, this evening, Henshaw. Lydia
and I are going to stay at home and talk South
Bradfield gossip. I 've hardly had a moment with
her yet." But when he was gone, she took Lydia
to her own room again, and showed her all her jewelry, and passed the time in making changes in the
girl's toilette.
It was like the heroic endeavor of the arctic voyager who feels the deadly chill in his own veins, and
keeps himself alive by rousing his comrade from the
torpor stealing over him. They saw in each other's
eyes that if they yielded a moment to the doubt in
their hearts they were lost.






THE LADY OF TIHE AROOSTOOK.


299


At ten o'clock Mrs. Erwin said abruptly, " Go to
bed, Lydia! " Then the girl broke down, and abandoned herself in a storm of tears. " Don't cry, dear,
don't cry," pleaded her aunt. "He will be here in
the morning, I know he will. He has been delayed."
"No, he's not coming," said Lydia, through her
sobs.
'' Something has happened," urged Mrs. Erwin.
"No," said Lydia, as before. Her tears ceased
as suddenly as they had come. She lifted her head,
and drying her eyes looked into her aunt's face.
"Are you ashamed of me? " she asked hoarsely.
"Ashamed of you? Oh, poor child "I can't pretend anything. If I had never told
you about it at all, I could have kept it back till I
died. But now —    But you will never hear me
speak of it again. It 's over."  She took up her
candle, and stiffly suffering the compassionate embrace with which her aunt clung to her, she walked
across the great hall in the vain splendor in which
she had been adorned, and shut the door behind
her.




XXVI.


DUNHAM lay in a stupor for twenty-four hours,
and after that he was delirious, with dim intervals
of reason in which they kept him from talking, till
one morning he woke and looked up at Staniford
with a perfectly clear eye, and said, as if resuming
the conservation, "I struck my head on a pile of
chains."
"Yes," replied Staniford, with a wan smile,
" and you 've been out of it pretty near ever since.
You must n't talk."
"Oh, I'mi all right," said Dunham.  ' I know
about my being hurt. I shall be cautious. Have
you written to Miss Hibbard? I hope you have n't!"
"Yes, I have," replied Staniford.  " But I
have n't sent the letter," he added, in answer to
Dunham's look of distress. "I thought you were
going to pull through, in spite of the doctor, - he 's
wanted to bleed you, and I could hardly keep his
lancet out of you, - and so I wrote, mentioning
the accident and announcing your complete restoration. The letter merely needs dating and sealing.
I '11 look it up and have it posted." He began a
search in the pockets of his coat, and then went to
his portfolio.
"What day is this? " asked Dunham.




I




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


301


"Friday," said Staniford, rummaging his portfolio.
"Have you been in Venice? "
"Look here, Dunham! If you begin in that
way, I can't talk to you. It shows that you 're still
out of your head. How could I have been in Venice?"
"But Miss Blood; the Aroostook " -
"Miss Blood went to Venice with her uncle last
Saturday. The Aroostook is here in Trieste. The
captain has just gone away. He's stood watch and
watch with me, while you were off on business."
"But did n't you go to Venice on Monday?"
"Well, hardly," answered Sttaniford.
"No, you stayed with me, -I see," said Dunham.
" Of course, I wrote to her at once," said Staniford, huskily, " and explained the matter as well as
I could without making an ado about it. But now
you stop, Dunham. If you excite yourself, there '11
be the deuce to pay again."
"I'm not excited," said Dunham, "but I can't
help thinking how disappointed-  But of course
you 've heard from her? "
" Well, there 's hardly time, yet," said Staniford,
evasively.
" Why, yes, there is. Perhaps your letter miscarried."
"Don't! " cried Staniford, in a hollow undervoice, which he broke through to add, "Go to sleep,
now, Dunham, or keep quiet, somehow."






302


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


Dunham was silent for a while, and Staniford
continued his search, which he ended by taking the
portfolio by one corner, and shaking its contents
out on the table. "I don't seem to find it; but
I 've put it away somewhere. I'11 get it." He
went to another coat, that hung on the back of a
chair, and fumbled in its pockets. " Hollo! Here
are those letters they brought me from the postoffice Saturday night, - Murray's, and Stanton's,
and that bore Farrington's. I forgot all about
them." He ran the unopened letters over in his
hand. "Ah, here's my familiar scrawl"-   He
stopped suddenly, and walked away to the window,
where he stood with his back to Dunham.
" Staniford! What is it? "
"It's -it's my letter to her," said Staniford,
without looking round.
"Your letter to Miss Blood -not gone?" Staniford, with his face still from him, silently nodded.
" Oh! " moaned Dunham, in self-forgetful compassion. "How could it have happened? "
" I see perfectly well," said the other, quietly,
but he looked round at Dunham with a face that
was haggard. "I sent it out to be posted by the
portier, and he got it mixed up with these letters
for me, and brought it back."
The young men were both silent, but the tears
stood in Dunham's eyes. "If it had n't been for
me, it would n't have happened," he said.
"No," gently retorted Staniford, "if it had n't




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


303


been for me, it would n't have happened. I made
you come from Messina with me, when you wanted
to go on to Naples with those people; if I'd had
any sense, I should have spoken fully to her before
we parted; and it was I who sent you to see if she
were on the steamer, when you fell and hurt yourself. I know who's to blame, Dunham. What day
did I tell you this was?"
" Friday."
"A week! And I told her to expect me Monday afternoon. A week without a word or a sign
of any kind! Well, I might as well take passage
in the Aroostook, and go back to Boston again."
" Why, no! " cried Dunham, "you must take
the first train to Venice. Don't lose an instant.
You can explain everything as soon as you see
her."
Staniford shook his head. "If all her life had
been different, if she were a woman of the world, it
would be different; she would know how to account for some little misgivings on my part; but as
it is she would n't know how to account for even the
appearance of them. What she must have suffered
all this week- I can't think of it! " He sat down
and turned his face away. Presently he sprang up
again. "But I'm1 going, Dunham. I guess you
won't die now; but you may die if you like. I
would go over your dead body! "
"Now you are talking sense," said Dunham.
Staniford did not listen; he had got out his rail



304


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


road guide and was studying it. " No; there are
only those two trains a day. The seven o'clock has
gone; and the next starts at ten to-night. Great
heavens! I could walk it sooner! Dunham," he
asked, "do you think I'd better telegraph?"
"What would you say? "
"Say that there 's been a mistake; that a letter
miscarried; that I '11 be there in the morning;
that "
"Would n't that be taking her anxiety a little
too much for granted? "
" Yes, that's true. Well, you've got your wits
about you now, Dunham," cried Staniford, with
illogical bitterness. "Very probably," he added,
gloomily, " she does n't care anything for me, after
all."
" That's a good frame of mind to go in," said
Dunham.
" Why is it?" demanded Staniford. "Did I ever
presume upon any supposed interest in her?"
" You did at first," replied Dunham.
Staniford flushed angrily. But you cannot quarrel with a man lying helpless on his back; besides,
what Dunham said was true.
The arrangements for Staniford's journey were
quickly made, - so quickly that when he had seen
the doctor, and had been down to the Aroostook
and engaged Captain Jenness to come and take his
place with Dunham for the next two nights, he had
twelve hours on his hands before the train for




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


805


Venice would leave, and he started at last with but
one clear perception, - that at the soonest it must
be twelve hours more before he could see her.
He had seemed intolerably slow in arriving on
the train, but once arrived in Venice he wished
that he had come by the steamboat, which would
not be in for three hours yet. In despair he went
to bed, considering that after he had tossed there
till he could endure it no longer, he would still
have the resource of getting up, which he would
not have unless he went to bed.  When he lay
down, he found himself drowsy; and while he wondered at this, he fell asleep, and dreamed a strange
dream, so terrible that he woke himself by groaning in spirit, a thing which, as he reflected, he had
never done before. The sun was piercing the crevice between his shutters, and a glance at his watch
showed him that it was eleven o'clock.
The shadow of his dream projected itself into
his waking mood, and steeped it in la gloom which
he could not escape.  He rose and dressed, and
meagrely breakfasted. Without knowing how he
came there, he stood announced in iMrs. Erwin's
parlor, and waited for her to receive him.
His card was brought in to her where she lay
in bed. After supporting Lydia through the first
sharp shock of disappointment, she had yielded to
the prolonged strain, and the girl was now taking care of her. She gave a hysterical laugh as
she read the name on the card Veronica brought,
20




306


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


and crushing it in her hand, "He's come!" she
cried.
" I will not see him!" said Lydia instantly.
"No," assented her aunt. "It wouldn't be at
all the thing. Besides, he's asked for me. Your
uncle might see him, but he's out of the way; of
course he would be out of the way. Now, let me
see! "  The excitement inspired her; she rose in
bed, and called for the pretty sack in which she
ordinarily breakfasted, and took a look at herself in
a hand-glass that lay on the bed. Lydia did not
move; she scarcely seemed to breathe; but a swift
pulse in her neck beat visibly. "If it would be
decent to keep him waiting so long, I could dress,
and see him  myself. I'm  well enough."  Mrs.
Erwin again reflected. " Well," she said at last,
" you must see him, Lydia."
" I "- began the girl.
"Yes, you. Some one must. It will be all
right. On second thought, I believe I should send
you, even if I were quite ready to go myself. This
affair has been carried on so far on the American
plan, and I think I shall let you finish it without
my interference. Yes, as your uncle said when I
told him, you 're all Americans together; and you
arc. Mr. Staniford has come to see you, though he
asks for me. That's perfectly proper; but I can't
see him, and I want you to excuse me to him."
"What would you- what must I"-Lydia
began again.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


307


"'No, Lydia," interrupted her aunt. "I won't
tell you a thing. I might have advised you when
you first came; but now, I —  Well, I think I've
lived too long in Europe to be of use in such a case,
and I won't have anything to do with it. I won't
tell you how to meet him, or what to say; but
oh, child," - here the woman's love of loving
triumphed in her breast, -" I wish I was in your
place! Go!"
Lydia slowly rose, breathless.
"Lydia! " cried her aunt.  "Look at me!"
Lydia turned her head. "Are you going to be
hard with him? "
"I don't know what he 's coming for," said Lydia
dishonestly.
"But if he's coming for what you hope?"
"I don't hope for anything."
"But you did. Don't be severe. You're terrible when you 're severe."
"I will be just."
" Oh, no, you must n't, my dear. It won't do at
all to be just with men, poor fellows. Kiss me,
Lydia! "  She pulled her down, and kissed her.
When the girl had got as far as the door, " Lydia,
Lydia!" she called after her.   Lydia turned.
" Do you realize what dress you've got on?"
Lydia look down at her robe; it was the blue
flannel yachting-suit of the Aroostook, which she
had put on for convenience in taking care of her
aunt. " Is n't it too ridiculous? "  Mrs. Erwin




308


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


meant to praise the coincidence, not to blame the
dress. Lydia smiled faintly for answer, and the
next moment she stood at the parlor door.
Staniford, at her entrance, turned from looking
out of the window and saw her as in his dream, with
her hand behind her, pushing the door to; but the
face with which she looked at him was not like the
dead, sad face of his dream. It was thrillingly
alive, and all passions were blent in it,- love,
doubt, reproach, indignation; the tears stood in
her eyes, but a fire burnt through the tears. With
his first headlong impulse to console, explain, deplore, came a thought that struck him silent at
sight of her. He remembered, as he had not till
then remembered, in all his wild longing and fearing, that there had not yet been anything explicit
between them; that there was no engagement; and
that he had upon the face of things, at least, no
right to offer her more than some formal expression of regret for not having been able to keep his
promise to come sooner.  While this stupefying
thought gradually filled his whole sense to the exclusion of all else, he-stood looking at her with
a dumb and helpless appeal, utterly stunned and
wretched. He felt the life die out of his face and
leave it blank, and when at last she spoke, he knew
that it was in pity of him, or contempt of him.
iMrs. Erwin is not well," she said, "and she
wished me "But he broke in upon her: "Oh, don't talk to




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


309


me of Mrs. Erwin! It was you I wanted to see.
Are you well? Are you alive? Do you "-  He
stopped as precipitately as he began; and after another hopeless pause, he went on piteously: " I
don't know where to begin. I ought to have been
here five days ago. I don't know what you think
of me, or whether you have thought of me at all;
and before I can ask I must tell you why I wanted
to come then, and why I come now, and why I
think I must have come back from the dead to see
you. You are all the world to me, and have been
ever since I saw you. It seems a ridiculously unnecessary thing to say, I have been looking and
acting and living it so long; but I say it, because I
choose to have you know it, whether you ever
cared for me or not. I thought I was coming here
to explain why I had not come sooner, but I need
n't do that unless- unless "-  He looked at her
where she still stood aloof, and he added: " Oh,
answer me something, for pity's sake! Don't send
me away without a word. There have been times
when you would n't have done that! "
" Oh, I did care for you! " she broke out. " You
know I did "
He was instantly across the room, beside her.
" Yes, yes, I know it! " But she shrank away.
"1 You tried to make me believe you cared for
me, by everything you could do. And I did believe you then; and yes, I believed you afterwards,
when I did n't know what to believe. You were




310


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


the one true thing in the world to me. But it
seems that you did n't believe it yourself."
" That I did n't believe it myself? That I - I
don't know what you mean."
"You took a week to think it over!  I have
had a week, too, and I have thought it over, too.
You have come too late."
"Too late?   You don't, you can't, meanListen to me, Lydia; I want to tell you ""No, there is nothing you can tell me that would
change me. I know it, I understand it all."
" But you don't understand what kept me."
"I don't wish to know what made you break
your word. I don't care to know. I could n't go
back and feel as I did to you. Oh, that's gone!
It is n't that you did not come- that you made
me wait and suffer; but you knew how it would
be with me after I got here, and all the things I
should find out, and how I should feel! And you
stayed away! I don't know whether I can forgive
you, even; oh, I'm afraid I don't; but I can never
care for you again. Nothing but a case of life and
death""It was a case of life and death!"
Lydia stopped in her reproaches, and looked at
him with wistful doubt, changing to a tender fear.
"Oh, have you been hurt?    Have you been
sick? " she pleaded, in a breaking voice, and made
some unconscious movement toward him. He put
out his hand, and would have caught one of hers,
but she clasped them in each other.




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


311


" No, not I, - Dunham " -
"Oh!" said Lydia, as if this were not at all
enough.
"He fell and struck his head, the night you left.
I thought he would die." Staniford reported his
own diagnosis, not the doctor's; but he was perhaps in the right to do this. "I had made him go
down to the wharf with me; I wanted to see you
again, before you started, and I thought we might
find you on the boat." He could see her face relenting; her hands released each other. "He was
delirious till yesterday. I could n't leave him."
" Oh, why didn't you write to me? "  She ignored Dunham as completely as if he had never
lived. "You knew that I"-     Her voice died
away, and her breast rose.
I did write ""But how, - I never got it."
" No, - it was not posted, through a cruel blunder. And then I thought - I got to thinking that
you did n't care "" Oh," said the girl. " Could you doubt me?"
"You doubted me," said Staniford, seizing his
advantage.  "I brought the letter with me to
prove my truth." She did not look at him, but she
took the letter, and ran it greedily into her pocket.
"It's well I did so, since you don't believe my
word."
"Oh, yes, - yes, I know it," she said; " I never
doubted it! "  Staniford stood bemazed, though he




312


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


knew enough to take the hands she yielded him;
but she suddenly caught them away again, and set
them against his breast. "I was very wrong to
suspect you ever; I 'm sorry I did; but there's
something else. I don't know how to say what I
want to say. But it must be said."
" Is it something disagreeable? " asked Staniford,
lightly.
"It 's right," answered Lydia, unsmilingly.
" Oh, well, don't say it! " he pleaded; " or don't
say it now, - not till you 've forgiven me for the
anxiety I've caused you; not till you 've praised
me for trying to do what I thought the right thing.
You can't imagine how hard it was for one who
has n't the habit! "
" I do praise you for it. There's nothing to forgive you; but I can't let you care for me unless I
know - unless " -  She stopped, and then, "Mr.
Staniford," she began firmly, "since I came here,
I've been learning things that I didn't know before. They have changed the whole world to me,
and it can never be the same again."
"I 'm sorry for that; but if they have n't
changed you, the world may go."
"No, not if we 're to live in it," answered the
girl, with the soberer wisdom women keep at such
times. "It will have to be known how we met.
What will people say? They will laugh."
"I don't think they will in my presence," said
Staniford, with swelling nostrils. " They may use
their pleasure elsewhere."




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313


"And I should n't care for their laughing, either,"
said Lydia.  But oh, why did you come?"
" Why did I come? "
"Was it because you felt bound by anything
that 's happened, and you would n't let me bear the
laugh alone? I 'm not afraid for myself. I shall
never blame you. You can go perfectly free."
"But I don't want to go free!"
Lydia looked at him with piercing earnestness.
"Do you think I 'm proud?" she asked.
"Yes, I think you are," said Staniford, vaguely.
"It is n't for myself that I should be proud with
other people. But I would rather die than bring
ridicule upon one I - upon you."
"I can believe that," said Staniford, devoutly,
and patiently reverencing the delay of her scruples.
" And if - and"-   Her lips trembled, but she
steadied her trembling voice. "If they laughed at
you, and thought of me in a slighting way because "
-   Staniford gave a sort of roar of grief and pain
to know how her heart must have been wrung before she could come to this. " You were all so good
that you did n't let me think there was anything
strange about it "" Oh, good heavens! We only did what it was
our precious and sacred privilege to do! We were
all of one mind about it from the first. But don't
torture yourself about it, my darling.  It's over
now; it's past - no, it's present, and it will al



314


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


ways be, forever, the dearest and best thing in life.
Lydia, do you believe that I love you?"
"Oh, I must! "
"And don't you believe that I'mi telling you the
truth when I say that I would n't, for all the world
can give or take, change anything that's been? "
" Yes, I do believe you. Oh, I have n't said at
all what I wanted to say! There was a great deal
that I ought to say. I can't seem to recollect it."
He smiled to see her grieving at this recreance of
her memory to her conscience. " Well, you shall
have a whole lifetime to recall it in."
"No, I must try to speak now. And you must
tell me the truth now, — no matter what it costs
either of us." She laid her hands upon his extended arms, and grasped them intensely. "' There's
something else.  I want to ask you what you
thought when you found me alone on that ship with
all of you." If she had stopped at this point, Staniford's cause might have been lost, but she went on:
" I want to know whether you were ever ashamed
of me, or despised me for it; whether you ever felt
that because I was helpless and friendless there,
you had the right to think less of me than if you
had first met me here in this house."
It was still a terrible question, but it offered a
loop-hole of escape, which Staniford was swift to
seize. Let those who will justify the answer with
which he smiled into her solemn eyes: " I will leave
you to say." A generous uncandor like this goes as




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


315


far with a magnanimous and serious-hearted woman
as perhaps anything else.
" Oh, I knew it, I knew it! " cried Lydia. And
then, as he caught her to him at last, " Oh - oh -
are you sure it 's right? "
"I have no doubt of it," answered Staniford.
Nor had he any question of the strategy through
which he had triumphed in this crucial test. He
may have thought that there were always explanations that had to be made afterwards, or he may
have believed that he had expiated in what he had
done and suffered for her any slight which he had
felt; possibly, he considered that she had asked
more than she had a right to do. It is certain that
he said with every appearance of sincerity, " It began the moment I saw you on the wharf, there, and
when I came to know my mind I kept it from you
only till I could tell you here. But now I wish I
had n't! Life is too short for such a week as this."
"No," said Lydia, "you acted for the best, and
you are - good."
4 I '11 keep that praise till I 've earned it," answered Staniford.




XXVII.


IN the Campo Santi Apostoli at Venice there
stands, a little apart from the church of that name,
a chapel which has been for many years the place
of worship for the Lutheran congregation. It was
in this church that Staniford and Lydia were married six weeks later, before the altar under Titian's
beautiful picture of Christ breaking bread.
The wedding was private, but it was not quite a
family affair. Miss Hibbard had come down withl
her mother from Dresden, to complete Dunham's
cure, and she was there with him perfectly recovered; he was not quite content, of course, that the
marriage should not take place in the English chapel, but he was largely consoled by the candles burning on the altar. The Aroostook had been delayed
by repairs which were found necessary at Trieste,
and Captain Jenness was able to come over and represent the ship at the wedding ceremony, and at
the lunch which followed. He reserved till the moment of parting a supreme expression of good-will.
When he had got a hand of Lydia's and one of
Staniford's in each of his, with his wrists crossed,
he said, " Now, I ain't one to tack round, and stand
off and on a great deal, but what I want to say is
just this: the Aroostook sails next week, and if you




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


317


two are a mind to go back in her, the ship's yours,
as I said to Miss Blood, here, - I mean Mis' Staniford; well, I hain't had much time to get used to
it!- when she first come aboard there at Boston.
I don't mean any pay; I want you to go back as
my guests. You can use the cabin for your parlor;
and I promise you I won't take any other passengers this time. I declare," said Captain Jenness,
lowering his voice, and now referring to Hicks for
the first time since the day of his escapade, "I did
feel dreadful about that fellow "
1Oh, never mind," replied Staniford.  "If it
hadn't been for Hicks perhaps I might n't have
been here."  He exchanged glances with his wife,
that showed they had talked all that matter over.
The captain grew confidential. " Mr. Mason told
me le saw you lending that chap money. I hope
he did n't give you the slip?"
" No; it came to me here at Blumenthals' the
other day."
"Well, that's right! It all worked together for
good, as you say. Now you come! "
"What do you say, my dear?" asked Staniford,
on whom the poetic fitness of the captain's proposal
had wrought.
Women are never blinded by romance, however
much they like it in the abstract. " It's coming
winter. Do you think you would n't be seasick? "
returned the bride of an hour, with the practical
wisdom of a matron.




318


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


Staniford laughed. " She's right, captain. I 'n
no sailor. I '11 get home by the all-rail route as far
as I can.".
Captain Jenness threw back his head, and laughed
too. "Good     That's about it."  And he released
their hands, so as to place one hairy paw on a shoulder of each. " You'll get along together, I guess."
l But we 're just as much obliged to you as if we
went, Captain Jenness. And tell all the crew that
I 'm homesick for the Aroostook, and thank all for
being so kind to me; and I thank you, Captain
Jenness! "  Lydia looked at her husband, and then
startled the captain with a kiss.
He blushed all over, but carried it off as boldly
as he could. " Well, well," he said, "that's right!
If you change your minds before the Aroostook sails,
you let me know."
This affair made a great deal of talk in Venice,
where the common stock of leisure is so great that
each person may without self-reproach devote a much
larger share of attention to the interests of the others than could be given elsewhere. The decorous
fictions in which Mrs. Erwin draped the singular
facts of the acquaintance and courtship of Lydia
and Staniford were what unfailingly astonished and
amused him, and he abetted them without scruple.
He found her worldliness as innocent as the unworldliness of Lydia, and he gave Mrs. Erwin his
hearty sympathy when she ingenuously owned that
the effort to throw dust in the eyes of her European




TIlE LADY OF TIlE AROOSTOOK.


819


acquaintance was simply killing her. He found
endless refreshment in the contemplation of her attitude towards her burdensome little world, and in
her reasons for enslaving herself to it. He was very
good friends with both of the Erwins. When he
could spare the time from Lydia, he went about with
her uncle in his boat, and respected his skill in rowing it without falling overboard. He could not see
why any one should be so much interested in the
American character and dialect as Mr. Erwin was;
but he did not object, and he reflected that after all
they were not what their admirer supposed them.
The Erwins came with the Stanifords as far as
Paris on their way home, and afterwards joined them
in California, where Staniford bought a ranch, and
found occupation if not profit in its management.
Once cut loose from her European ties, Mrs. Erwin
experienced an incomparable repose and comfort in
the life of San Francisco; it was, she declared, the
life for which she had really been adapted, after all;
and in the climate of Santa Barbara she found all
that she had left in Italy. In that land of strange
and surprising forms of every sort, her husband has
been very happy in the realization of an America
surpassing even his wildest dreams, and he has richly
stored his note-book with philological curiosities.
He hears around him the vigorous and imaginative
locutions of the Pike language, in which, like the
late Canon Kingsley, he finds a Scandinavian hugeness; and pending the publication of his Hand-Book




820


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


of Americanisms, he is in confident search of the
miner who uses his pronouns cockney-wise.  Like
other English observers, friendly and unfriendly, he
does not permit the facts to interfere with his preconceptions.
Staniford's choice long remained a mystery to his
acquaintances, and was but partially explained by
Mrs. Dunham, when she came home.     "( Why, I
suppose he fell in love with her," she said. " Of
course, thrown together that way, as they were, for
six weeks, it might have happened to anybody; but
James Staniford was always the most consummate
flirt that breathed; and he never could see a woman,
without coming up, in that metaphysical way of his,
and trying to interest her in him. He was always
laughing at women, but there never was a man who
cared more for them. From all that I could learn
from Charles, he began by making fun of her, and
all at once he became perfectly infatuated with her.
I don't see why. I never could get Charles to tell
me anything remarkable that she said or did. She
was simply a country girl, with country ideas, and
no sort of cultivation. Why, there was nothing to
her. He's done the wisest thing he could by taking
her out to California. She never would have gone
down, here. I suppose James Staniford knew that
as well as any of us; and if he finds it worth while
to bury himself with her there, we've no reason to
complain. She did sing, wonderfully; that is, her
voice was perfectly divine. But of course that's




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


321


all over, now. She did n't seem to care much for
it; and she really knew so little of life that I don't
believe she could form the idea of an artistic career,
or feel that it was aly sacrifice to give it up. James
Staniford was not worth any such sacrifice; but she
could n't know that either. She was good, I suppose. She was very stiff, and she had n't a word
to say for herself. I think she was cold. To be
sure, she was a beauty; I really never saw anything like it, - that pale complexion some brunettes
have, with her hair growing low, and such eyes and
lashes!"
" Perhaps the beauty had something to do with
his falling in love with her," suggested a listener.
The ladies present tried to look as if this ought not
to be sufficient.
"Oh, very likely," said Mrs. Dunham. She
added, with an air of being the wreck of her former
self, " But we all know what becomes of beauty
after marriage."
The mind of Lydia's friends had been expressed in
regard to her marriage, when the Stanifords, upon
their arrival home from Europe, paid a visit to
South Bradfield. It was in the depths of the winter
following their union, and the hill country, stern and
wild even in midsummer, wore an aspect of savage
desolation. It was sheeted in heavy snow, through
which here and there in the pastures, a craggy
bowlder lifted its face and frowned, and along the
woods the stunted pines and hemlocks blackened
21




32,2


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


against a background of leafless oaks and birches.
A northwest wind cut shrill across the white wastes,
and from the crests of the billowed drifts drove a
scud of stinging particles in their faces, while the
sun, as high as that of Italy, coldly blazed from a
cloudless blue sky. Ezra Perkins, perched on the
seat before them, stiff and silent as if he were frozen
there, drove them from Bradfield Junction to South
Bradfield in the long wagon-body set on bob-sleds,
with which he replaced his Concord coach in winter. At the station he had sparingly greeted Lydia,
as if she were just back from Greenfield, and in the
interest of personal independence had ignored a
faint motion of hers to shake hands; at her grandfather's gate, he set his passengers down without a
word, and drove away, leaving Staniford to get in
his trunk as he might.
" Well, I declare," said Miss Maria, who had
taken one end of the trunk in spite of him, and was
leading the way up through the path cleanly blocked
out of the snow, "that Ezra Perkins is enough to
make you wish he'd stayed in Dakoty! "
Staniford laughed, as he had laughed at everything on the way from the station, and had probably thus wounded Ezra Perkins's susceptibilities.
The village houses, separated so widely by the one
long street, each with its path neatly tunneled from
the roadway to the gate; the meeting-house, so
much vaster than the present needs of worship, and
looking blue-cold with its never-renewed single coat




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


323


of white paint; the graveyard set in the midst of
the village, and showing, after Ezra Perkins's disappearance, as many signs of life as any other locality, realized in the most satisfactory degree his
theories of what winter must be in such a place as
South Bradfield. The burning smell of the sheetiron stove in the parlor, with its battlemented top
of filigree iron work; the grimness of the horsehair-covered best furniture; the care with which
the old-fashioned fire-places had been walled up,
and all accessible character of the period to which
the house belonged had been effaced, gave him an
equal pleasure. He went about with his arm round
Lydia's waist, examining these things, and yielding
to the joy they caused him, when they were alone.
" Oh, my darling," he said, in one of these accesses
of delight, "when I think that it's my privilege
to take you away from all this, I begin to feel not
so very unworthy, after all."
But he was very polite, as Miss Maria owned,
when Mr. and Mrs. Goodlow came in during the
evening, with two or three unmarried ladies of the
village, and he kept them from falling into the
frozen silence which habitually expresses social enjoyment in South Bradfield when strangers are
present. He talked about the prospects of Italian
advancement to an equal state of intellectual and
moral perfection with rural New England, while
Mr. Goodlow listened, rocking himself back and
forth in the hair-cloth arm-chair. Deacon Latbam,




324


THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


passing his hand continually along the stove battleIments, now and then let his fingers rest on the
sheet-iron till he burnt them, and then jerked them
suddenly away, to put them back the next moment,
in his absorbing interest. Miss Maria, amidst a
murmur of admiration from   the ladies, passed
sponge-cake and coffee: she confessed afterwards
that the evening had been so brilliant to her as to
seem  almost wicked; and the other ladies, who
owned to having lain awake all night on her coffee,
said that if they had enjoyed themselves they were
properly punished for it.
When they were gone, and Lydia and Staniford
had said good-night, and Miss Maria, coming in from
the kitchen with a hand-lamp for her father, approached the marble-topped centre-table to blow out
the large lamp of pea-green glass with red woollen
wick, which had shed the full radiance of a sunburner upon the festival, she faltered at a manifest
unreadiness in the old man to go to bed, though the
fire was low, and they had both resumed the drooping carriage of people in going about cold houses.
He looked excited, and, so far as his unpracticed
visage could intimate the emotion, joyous.
"XWell, there, Maria!" he said.  " You can't
say but what he's a master-hand to converse, any
way. I d' know as I ever see Mr. Goodlow more
struck up with any one. He looked as if every word
done him good; I presume it put him in mind of
meetin's with brother ministers: I don't suppose but




THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.


325


what he misses it some, here. You can't say biut
what he 's a fine appearin' young man. I d' know
as I see anything wrong in his kind of dressin' up
to the nines, as you may say.   As long's he's
got the money, I don't see what harm it is. It's
all worked for good, Lyddy's going out that way;
though it did seem a mysterious providence at the
time."
"Well! " began Miss Maria. She paused, as if
she had been hurried too far by her feelings, and
ought to give them   a check before proceeding.
"Well, I don't presume you 'd notice it, but she 's
got a spot on her silk, so 't a whole breadth's got
to come out, and be let in again bottom side up. I
guess there's a pair of 'em, for carelessness."  She
waited a moment before continuing: "I d' know
as I like to see a husband puttin' his arm round his
wife, even when he don't suppose any one's lookin';
but I d' know but what it's natural, too. But it's
one comfort to see 't she ain't the least mite silly
about him. He 's dreadful freckled."  Miss Maria
again paused thoughtfully, while her father burnt
his fingers on the stove for the last time, and took
them definitively away. "I don't say but what he
talked well enough, as far forth as talkin' goes; Mr.
Goodlow said at the door 't he did n't know 's he
ever passed many such evenin's since he 'd been in
South Bradfield, and I d' know as I have. I presume he has his faults; we ain't any of us perfect;
but he doos seem terribly wrapped up ini Lyddy.




326      THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
I don't say but what he'll make her a good husband, if she must have one. I don't suppose but
what people might think, as you may say, 't she 'd
made out pretty well; and if Lyddy's suited, I
d' know as anybody else has got any call to be over
particular."




















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