If Mr. Joseph Foxley had but known the sentiments animating the couple of maiden breasts that awaited his Saturday visits in Ipswich, he would have been genuinely surprised. The truth is Mr. Joseph was rather what is termed a general lover. He liked the sex in its entirety. Collectively he loved all women and belonged to that hand-pressing section of humanity which I have alluded to as mischievous. Were there not at least five young ladies in town, at whose houses he visited, and who were more or less interested in the young Englishman as he in them? Did Miss Charlotte dream of them or Miss Maria at the rectory? If so, they never dared to ask Mr. Joseph to give any account of his doings in town, although they managed to glean what he did with himself in the village. He respected Charlotte Dexter enough to intend at some future day to tell her a little more about himself and his brother than he had yet done; as for Miss Maria, she only bored him and fed his contempt.

“When a rather elderly old girl giggles after everything she says, conversation is difficult and sympathy out of the question,” he had said to his brother! When Mr. Joseph had known these young ladies for four years, Miss Maria took her revenge in her way, that was by marrying the younger brother of Mr. Simon P. Rattray, partner in the mill and the red brick house by the river. The vision of becoming the cherished wife of an English aristocrat and going home to reside in a manor house built in the sixteenth century, with occasional visits to London and glimpses of the Royal Family had gradually faded, and she accepted the less rose-coloured lot that Mr. Lyman B. Rattray offered her, sitting in her father's study, with his hair very much brushed up on one side and very much flattened down on the other, a white tie and light-yellow duster adorning his spare person.

Such was the American of those days—twenty years ago—there are none such now I allow.

Miss Maria, who was considered “very English,” shuddered as she regarded him. It so fell out that it being Saturday, Mr. Joseph was just then passing—“kind of happening along” Mr. Rattray would have said—en route to the Inn and his brother, on foot in spite of the dusty road and the hot August sun, clad in trim tight knickerbockers and carrying an immense bunch of red field lilies, a gun, and a leather satchel over his shoulder. Slight and straight and cool, he looked the picture of a contented cheerful energetic young English man. Along the road he came whistling an old country tune. Miss Maria who had sighted him afar off, begged her visitor's pardon and went to the window to arrange the blind. How her heart warmed to that cruel Mr. Joseph, how she loved him then just for that last moment! Her heart—that foolish old maid's heart—beat quickly, beat thickly, she remembered to have read something somewhere about people who could will other people to look at them, to speak to them, to even think of them, to move across a room at their pleasure. If she could but do that! She did try, with her fingers clenched on the blind, and her eyes fixed on Mr. Joseph, she did wish with all her might that he would turn his head and see her at the window and wave his hand gallantly as he had done on one or two previous occasions. Then she would beckon and he would run across and entering the room disconcert this odious Mr. Lyman B. Rattray and put an end to his stony wooing. But alas! for Miss Maria and her mesmeric powers! The harder she tried, the less she succeeded. On came Mr. Joseph, supremely unconscious of the injured heart beating behind the windowpane. At one moment it seemed as if he were about to turn and look in her direction. A very brilliant wild yellow canary crossed over his head and lit on a small shrub just inside the garden paling. Had it remained there, would Miss Maria have ever become the wife of Mr. Lyman B. Rattray? No one knows, for the canary flew away again to the other side of the road and Mr. Joseph's eyes followed it In a moment he was past, and the chance was gone for ever. Miss Maria left her window and sat down opposite her visitor. There was nothing to keep her now, nothing to give her courage and hope for the future, new fire for her faded eyes, new strength for her jaded limbs. Yet she was only thirty-four. How strange it is that some unmarried women are old at that age, even while living in luxury and surrounded by every care and all affection, while many a married woman, though beset with trials and weaknesses and perhaps a brood of restless little ones to pull her gown and get in the way of her busy feet, retains her figure and her step, her smile and her complexion, her temper and her nerves!

It but remained for Charlotte Dexter to take her revenge in her way. Going very seldom out of her house, and never visiting at the Inn she was really very ignorant of the doings of either Mr. George or Mr. Joseph Foxley. Towards the one she had never been greatly drawn, for the other she felt all the passion that only a supremely lonely woman can feel in middle age for a man younger than herself who charms her as a child, while he captivates her as a lover. Of Mrs. Cox and Milly moreover, she hardly ever thought, and in fact had not seen the latter for a long time. If she had it is not likely she would even have recognized in the tall pale shapely young woman with braids of dark hair and white linen cuffs fastened—must I tell it? with a pair of antique monogram studs, the plump little handmaiden of four years back. As it was, she only waited on day after day, to hear Mr. Joseph speak. Instead of Mr. Joseph however appeared another and less welcome confidante. This was the most malignant gossip in the village, Mrs. Woods, the wife of the butcher, a tall red faced woman with high cheek-bones on which the color seemed to have been badly smirched, watery eyes and a couple of protruding yellow teeth. She looked more like a butcher than the butcher himself who was a mild little man with soft silky fair hair and small nervous fluttering hands. Yet he managed to summon sufficient character to go on a tremendous burst—I know of no other word, every third or fourth month and disappear for a week When these periodical eclipses took place, his wife would come flying into the Inn with her bonnet hanging round her neck and a large green and red plaid shawl streaming out behind her.

“Where's Woods?” She would say. “Where's Woods? Give me Woods! Give 'im up, I tell you; give 'im up now!”

But Woods was never found inside Mrs. Cox's neat dwelling, nor indeed anywhere, although it had been whispered on, one occasion that he had been seen in the back room of the little “Temperance Hotel” with the male Methodist in attendance. This, of course, was clearly impossible.

It was this Mrs. Woods then that stopped at Dexter's Oak one Friday morning with her donkey-cart and a small piece of the neck of mutton in it. She was not an entirely bad woman, though a downright cunning virago, and perhaps some inkling of the nature of the blow that was about to fall on Miss Dexter's head caused her to come prepared by an acceptable present to somewhat mitigate its appalling approach.

“I be at the Inn bright and early this morning Miss,” she began, “and brought 'em their bit of fresh meat. And I'm bringin' you a bit as was over, and it is'nt a bad piece for a stew, if you like a stew, Miss, with an onion or two.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Woods,” said Charlotte, who had come out to the front door and now stood on the lower step, looking over the cart. “I'm afraid I can't settle with you just at present,” she said further, with some effort, “you can call some other time when you are passing. Will that do? and is it weighed?”

“It is, miss, and I'll not say a word about the payin'! Six pound and a 'alf, and Woods gone agen—I weighed it myself.”

“Oh! I am sorry to hear that,” said Charlotte. “Your husband gives you a great deal of trouble. I am very sorry, and he is not at the inn?”

If Charlotte was guilty at that moment of purposely leading the conversation up to this always for her most enthralling, most engrossing subject, she soon enough received her punishment. On she went to her own destruction.

“At the inn!” repeated the butcher's wife, with ineffable scorn on her cruel mouth. She wiped her watery eyes and settled the refractory bonnet before going on.

“No miss, he's not at the inn, and if he was sober, he wouldn't be at the inn, and you'll never see him, nor me, nor 'Ide yonder, nor anyone on us at all no more at the inn. For the inn's changed 'ands, miss. There's an end of Mrs. Cox, who was a mother to many, if not to Woods. There's an end to good old times and dancin' and singin', and honest Robert, though he was a cross 'un—there's an end to it all now, miss, for the inn's changed 'ands, and I'm the first in the village as knows it.”

“Good gracious. Is it possible?” said Charlotte, genuinely surprised. “Who can have succeeded Mrs. Cox and why? I thought she was so popular and making so much money, and what—what will become of the Mr. Foxleys?”

Mrs. Woods gave a triumphant grin. “It's them, theirselves, miss; it's them that 'as it now. And the younger one will be marrying Milly in a little while and settling down comfortable in the inn. It's gentlefolks and aristocrats we'll have now at the inn, miss, and 'ard workin' people like me and Woods may trudge all day and freeze all night, and never a pot of beer or a warm at the kitchen fire and meat paid regular for year in, year out!”

Charlotte stood aghast. The woman's injured volubility rushed past her as a scene outside a railway car rushes past us, leaving only one idea, one word caught at, as from the window through which we apprehend the landscape, one scene or portion of a scene enchains the eye and lingers in the mind though other scenes fly past in varied succession.

“Marry?” she repeated. “Marry! Milly, did you say? That is the girl, isn't it, Mrs. Cox's niece? Which—”

“Ay,” said the woman, “that's Milly, the 'ired girl; she's no I more than that, if she be her aunt's niece. And 'ard work for one's niece. Me and Woods, if we'd 'ad one, would have done better for her nor that, makin' her work like a slave or a dummy. Cows, and pigs, and poultry, and dish-washing, and scrubbing, and lamps, and starched fronts, and fine gentlemen—but she's well paid, she's well paid. She's to marry one of the fine gentlemen, Mr. Joseph it is, and they're to live on at the Inn with Milly as mistress, and her fine husband behind the bar, very like. Well, good-mornin', Miss Dexter; I wish you joy of the mutton. Me and Woods often says—we'll take this or that little Dexter's Oak, but it's most times forgot, for Woods is 'alf crazed, Miss Dexter, and I've got to do the whole. Good-mornin'.”

Having adjusted her bonnet and the donkey-cart to her satisfaction, Mrs. Woods drove off rather disappointed on the whole at Miss Dexter's calm demeanour. Astonishment, perplexity, doubt, contempt and disgust she had undoubtedly shown, but not a single sigh of weakness. Charlotte Dexter was not the woman to swoon or lament or even turn pale as her sister Ellen would have done. But when she came into her house and sat down in her lonely parlour, she enacted a scene which would have petrified with astonishment any inhabitant of the prosy little village in which she had dwelt so long and indeed many other people as well, for when you and I, dear reader, go to see one of these emotional plays in which the French actress writhes on the sofa; grovels on the floor, rolls up her handkerchief into a ball or tears it into strips, prays, weeps, curses, censures, implores, looks at herself in the glass until she is on the point of going mad, and strides about the stage as no woman in real life has ever been seen to stride, ending by throwing herself across an arm-chair as rigid as marble thereby assuring the audience that she is in a “dead faint”—I say, that when we see all this performed by a travelling “star,” and her truly eclectic Company, comprising a Diva, a Duenna, a Diner-out and a Devil, we are apt to look around at the placid Canadian or the matter-of-fact American audience and wonder if they understand the drift of the thing at all, the situations, the allusions, even in the slightest degree, forgetting that perhaps the most placid, most commonplace person in the theatre has gone through some crisis, some tragedy as thrilling, as subtle and as terrible as the scene we have just witnessed. “Not out of Paris,” we say, “can such things happen?” Do we know what we are saying? Is it only in Paris that hearts are won and tossed aside this night—as in the play? Is it only in Paris that honor is forgotten and promises are broken this night—as in the play? Is it only in Paris that money allures and rank dazzles, and a dark eye or a light step entrances, this night—as in the play? Is it only in Paris that nature is human and that humanity is vile, or weak, or pure, or firm, as this night in the play? Oh! in that obscure little Canadian village, a lonely old maid locked her door that morning and pulled down her blind that the daylight might not come in and see her misery, might not mock even more malignantly than the ignorant, impertinent and hard-hearted woman who had dealt her this blow. Like most women in such a crisis, she lost the habit of thought. Reason entirely deserted her, and she never dreamed but that it was true. For when a women has to own to herself that she holds no dominion over a man, that it is only too perfectly clear that the impulse of loving is all on her side and that she has neither anything to expect nor anything to fear from him, since indifference is the keynote of his attitude to her, she will all the more readily believe that he loves elsewhere, worthily or unworthily the same to her. A woman is not a noble object in such a situation. All trusting feminine instincts, all sweet emotions of hope, all sentiment, all passion even, retreat and fall away from her, leaving either a cold, bitter, heartless petrifaction, in a woman's clinging robe, or the Fury that is the twin sister of every little red-lipped, clear-eyed girl born into the world. She never dreamed but that this story was true. In fact so entirely had her woman's wit deserted her, she said to herself of course it was true. Her brain could work sufficiently to conjure up hints, phrases, words, looks, events, accidents that all bore testimony to the truth of the extraordinary tale. For it was extraordinary. Miss Dexter herself was the great grand-daughter of an Admiral, and the grand-daughter of a judge, and as such, respected all these accidents of birth which we are supposed to ignore or at least not expected to recognize in a new country. That such men as the Mr. Foxleys could make themselves as completely at home in the Inn as rumor had frequently asserted, and with truth, seemed at all times monstrous to her. She had lived so long out of England, over thirty years now, that she had forgotten the sweet relations that prevailed there between the aristocracy or landed gentry and their inferiors. The Mr. Foxleys were simply doing in Canada what they would have done had they been still in England, only they were assisted in so doing by the unusually English surroundings in which they found themselves. Miss Dexter looked around her in the yellow inclosed light. There was a sampler in a frame, worked by herself when a little child, another exactly similar, worked by Ellen, a couple of fine old family portraits in heavy gilt frames, half a dozen ivory miniatures scattered about on the walls, some good carvings in ivory, a rare old Indian shawl festooned over the wooden mantle-board, a couple of skins on the floor, a corner piece of furniture known as a “whatnot” crowded with bits of egg-shell china, birds' eggs and nests, a few good specimens of spar and coral and a profusion of plants everywhere. It was all neat, respectable, even dignified, superior. There was no such other room in the village. In the village? There were not many at that time even in the town. Sooner than part with the eggshell china or the Indian shawl the Miss Dexters had suffered the pains of poverty and hunger; these cherished reminders of an absent father and an artistic youth could never be lost or borne away by the hands of a stranger. And how glad those foolish Miss Dexters had been to possess such beautiful and interesting objects when it pleased Mr. George Foxley to drink tea out of the cups on summer afternoons on the verandah of the little cottage looking up into the splendid vault of the mighty oak, or when Mr. Joseph would wind the Indian shawl round his silly head in the winter evenings when the draughts of cold air would rush in through the thin walls. These and other memories crowded into Charlotte Dexter's brain as she looked around her room, crowded thick and fast, crowded fast and furious, surged, broke, leaving an empty moment of perfect blankness, then crowded again thicker, faster, surged and seethed and then broke again, leaving in the void of perfect blankness this time a fixed idea, a resolve, a determination, seen in the dark like a luminous point of phosphorus.

That afternoon as Farmer Wise was driving slowly along the road, the main road leading through Ipswich to the town, he was accosted by Miss Dexter from her verandah. She had her jacket on and held her bonnet in her hand.

“Can you give me a seat as far as the Albion?” said she. “I would have sent a message to you yesterday if I had known I was going. But if it will not trouble you—”

“Oh! no trouble no trouble at all, Miss Dexter,” replied Farmer Wise. “I'm sorry I've only the waggon to offer ye. But I'm takin' in apples as you see, nine barrel of 'em, and only a waggon will do for them.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Miss Dexter, hurriedly trying on her bonnet. “Can you wait a moment? I won't be longer, Mr. Wise, it is just to lock the back door.”

The farmer nodded and drew up under the shade of Dexter's oak. It was a beautiful afternoon late in November, characterized by the clear cold air, the blue and gold of the sky, and the russet coloring of the foliage that mark the close of the Autumnal season. He looked in at Miss Dexter's little garden, admirably neat and well-trimmed; dahlias, hollyhocks, sweet William and asters, though done with blossoms, still bore their green leaves unsmitten by the frost. The windows appeared full of flowers too, but the blinds were skimp and faded and drawn down behind them. He started when he noticed this, for he knew the outer aspect of the house well, and had never seen such a thing before, except in case of sickness or death. The honest farmer thought and thought until Miss Dexter reappeared and assisted by him, got up in her place beside him. Even after that he went on thinking, and I must here tell you that it was not the first time Farmer Wise's thoughts had dwelt so persistently upon his companion and her house and personal history. For twelve years he had nursed a kind of mild distant passion for Miss Dexter at the Oak, unguessed at by her and his family, and only half understood by himself. He could not have said he was in love with her. He had been in love once when he married his first wife, who bore him a triad of splendid sons, one “keeping store” in the Western States and the other two at home on the farm, all three great giants of fellows, handsome in the fields or at barn-doors or in market-waggons, but plain on Sundays in black coats or at evening dances in the big ball-room at the Inn, when they would shuffle noisily through cotillons or labor clumsily through a Highland Schottische.

For himself, Farmer Wise was an honest, sincere, good-hearted man, a maker of money and a spender thereof—witness the fine red ploughs, the painted barns, the handsome team, Kentucky bred, and the inner decorations of his house, situated about five miles out of Ipswich, on the main-road. After Mr. Simon P. Rattray, he was the representative man of the district, although he did not come so closely into contact with the villagers. This penchant for the elder Miss Dexter had been a gradual, a slow but very sure and steady thing. Her father's death had increased it, so had that of Ellen her sister, and the farmer lived too far away to know as much as other people knew about the advent of the Mr. Foxleys. Had there been a sister or a daughter, or a wife or a mother, or an aunt or a cousin about the farm, he would have known very quickly. As it was, the girl who did the housework on the farm was as ignorant of gossip, its existence and the laws which govern its nature, as any male farm hand could be. When Farmer Wise put up his horses at the Inn three or four times a year, and sat down in the cheerful bar-room to drink a glass of whisky with his feet to the fire if it were winter, or a taller glass of Belfast ginger ale if it were summer, did he never notice Mrs. Cox? Mrs. Cox, well-to-do and popular herself, fresh, blooming and hearty, a young woman yet, and just the woman one would say, for him, and above all, the woman who thought most of him and ran to change her cap—the black one with the knot of rusty widow's crape—for the smart new one that held the velvet pansy when she saw the team coming. There's where he should have chosen the second time, there was the woman he should have noticed instead of poor, proud, foolish Charlotte Dexter, whom he half feared as a “lady born,” and who held in her heart, had he only knew it, the image of Mr. Joseph Foxley. The farmer got on with the English gentlemen at the Inn whenever he saw them “first-rate,” and it was of them he began most unsuspiciously to talk when he and Miss Dexter had crossed the bridge, ascended the hill on the other side of the river, and the team were settling to their work as they entered upon the dreary eight miles called the Plains which lay between them and the city. The farmer was consciously happy as he moved his ponderous body slightly nearer to his companion and tucked her in with his great hands, a single touch of one of them hurting her thin frame as if they were made of iron or stiff rope. He thought he was gentle too—poor man—but long years of manual labor had changed the natural soft flesh to the consistency of leather, in which immense muscles and joints seemingly of marble had been imbedded.

Besides, there was the delicate touch of another hand, as fine, as soft as a woman's and yet almost as strong as the farmer's, in her mind, a hand whiter than her own, though somewhat freckled, a hand that had taper fingers and well-kept nails, a hand that bore an antique seal ring and a fine pearl, a hand alas that had often retained her own in its warm clinging pressure, and once—only once, and that was three years ago—clasped her unresisting waist for a moment in the dark under the Oak while her sister fumbled at the gate. And just as she cherished these memories of Mr. Joseph, so did the widowed farmer retain the few occasions in his mind on which he had met Miss Dexter, spoken with her, given her a “lift” into town or up the road to the village store, for this was not the first use she had made of his gallant good nature and the Kentucky team.

He looked down at her now as they drove along in silence and noticed her thin black gown, her short jacket, her bit of black veil drawn over her bonnet, and her dingy travelling-bag with its tarnished clasp, and he heaved a sigh.

Charlotte was a “sizeable woman” thought Farmer Wise “and wants a good live garment sometimes, to bring her figure out and make more of it and do justice to it. A shawl now! How much would a good shawl be? I miss a woman round the place; I wouldn't know what to ask for. I might ha' stopped nigh the Inn and asked Mrs. Cox.” Ay, you might Farmer Wise, and have done another mischievous thing, upsetting Mrs. Cox for a week as she waited for a parcel from town and breaking her heart altogether as day after day followed and no parcel arrived.

“I ha' never seen the ekil of those Mr. Foxleys yonder,” began the honest farmer as something to start a conversation with. “I ha' never seen their ekil.”

“Oh!” said Miss Dexter. “Yes? In what way?”

“So gentle and so funny as they be. Gentlemen both of them with delicate hands and fine clothes—”

“Yes, yes,” murmured Miss Dexter under her breath, clutching at her bag and closing her eyes.

“And not above anybody or anything going. I see the pale one this day, and pale he is and weak they say, enough to be walked about on the girl's shoulder—I see him to-day as I passed the Inn, he was on a long chair out in the bit of paved yard, you know Miss Dexter, and when he saw me he raises his head and says 'Farmer Wise, is that you?'” May be you don't remember just how he speaks. He speaks better now nor when he came, and his brother too. At first It was all in a jumble like one word run into the other and hard to understand at least for us country folks. But now 'tis a bit clearer, more as you speak, begging your pardon, Miss Dexter, for noticing that or anything else that concerns you, Miss Dexter. And I says, stopping these fellows a bit. “Yes it's me. I'm on my way to town with nine barrels of apples.”

“How many?” he calls out again.

“Nine,” I replies.

“Let's taste one,” he says.

“A barrel?” I says, and Milly, the girl, she come oat by the door, with another quilt to put over him, laughing, and showing her teeth, rare ones too, they be and says she. “Throw us down one, Farmer Wise,” and I did, for I had a couple in my pocket, and here's the tother, “now Miss Dexter, if you see your way to eatin' it now in the waggon alongside of me, or will you wait till we get to the Albion?” Charlotte Dexter put her hand out mechanically and took the apple, a large red one, from the farmer who again managed to hurt her as his great wrist touched her fingers for an instant. He blushed perceptibly and moved a little nearer still. And how unconscious Charlotte Dexter was of his mere presence, let alone tender thoughts, except when he hurt her!

“I have heard this morning, that is I believe everyone has known for some time, though it is only spoken about generally today, for the first time, that Mrs. Cox is giving up the Inn. Her niece, the girl you mention, is going to be married—indeed, it is one of those gentlemen—the Mr. Foxleys—whom she is to marry, and they will take the Inn out of Mrs. Cox's hands.”

The farmer was as surprised as she had been.

“Well,” he ejaculated “didn't I say I'd never seen their ekil? Milly's going to marry one of the Mr. Foxleys? Which—”

“It is Mr. Joseph,” returned Miss Dexter, staring down at the apple in her lap. “The youngest one, you know. He is a very merry young gentleman and always has something to say. I daresay it will be a very comfortable arrangement.”

“But it's a great thing for Milly,” said her companion, “it'll be a great thing for her. She'll live in the tone, no doubt and may be cross the ocean to see his home and his parents—it'll be a great thing for Milly. A gentleman born! Ay, ay; ay, ay!”

“No, no,” said Miss Dexter, irritably. “Don't I tell you, Farmer Wise, that they will live on at the Inn? These young gentlemen like comfort, like being waited upon. They do this in order to insure—in order to—oh! it is difficult to explain my meaning, but you must see, Farmer Wise, that it is not a proper marriage at all, it is a very sad thing for the girl, I should consider, and some one—some friend should tell her so. She can never be a lady, and what kind of life will it be for him, a gentleman born, as you say, when he could have chosen too, where he liked. My great grandfather, Mr. Wise, was an Admiral, and my grandfather was a Judge. My father was a member of a respected profession, although not brought up to it in early life, and none of my relations, or ancestors ever married out of their own proper circle, except my poor father. He made a most perverse and foolish marriage, Farmer Wise, which though only lasting a few years, brought sorrow and trouble and poverty and oppression to his family.”

“Ay, ay,” said the farmer, softly. He was thinking still about those down-drawn blinds.

“Ay, ay. You're right in the main, Miss Dexter—yes, you're right in the main. Now, I thought I'd ask ye—I said to myself this morning, when I see Miss Dexter the next time, her as is a lady, and no mistake, I'll ask her—what would you say, or what your sister have said if someone here right in this village, that is, there in Ipswich, I mean of course, someone who wanted to just be kind and lend an 'elpin 'and, had asked ye—or her—say her—had asked her anytime to marry him, startin' fair, startin' fair, with a year to think on it. And a comfortable 'ome awaitin' 'er with two 'ired girls to do the work and plenty of hands on the farm and the best of cheese and butter and the Harmonium in the parlor and drives to and fro' the Church and behind it all a—solid man—a solid man—what do ye think she'd 'uv said?”

Was ever man more in earnest, now that it had suddenly broken from him after all these years, than honest Farmer Wise? The team jogged on, but the reins were lying loosely in their owner's hands.

“I thought I'd ask ye,” he repeated looking away from his companion. “I thought I'd ask ye.”

Miss Dexter had hardly gathered the import of his speech. She looked up startled.

“My sister?” she said with increased irritability. “Ask my sister? What do you mean? I never knew that anybody here, in the village, had proposed to her, or dared—dared to think of her at all as a possible mate—wife, whatever it is you mean. Surely you don't mean yourself, Farmer Wise! It would never enter your head, I am sure, to propose to my sister!”

“No it never did,” said the farmer quietly.

“Then it is someone else? Really, you must tell me, if you know anything about it, Farmer Wise. But I think you are making some mistake, it is quite impossible that anyone in the village—any native of the village, or indeed any native of this country should so far forget himself as to propose to my sister.”

“Of course,” said the farmer as quietly, “it is quite impossible. No one 'ud 'av done it. No one did do it, that I know on. But I thought I'd ask ye. And about yourself, too? There'd be no gettin' ye to forget all—all that has been and to take up with things as they be, to be makin' a new start, startin' fair, as I said, startin' fair, both parties agreed to think a year on it, and one party to save up and buy nothin' till the year 'd be out and then the other party to give the word for both to take 'ands and make the start together! For what's past is past, and what's done is done, and ye can't make this out the old country any more nor ye can bring back those that are gone, which they wouldn't be, I 'low to say, if they'd stayed behind in it. This” said the farmer, in a louder firmer voice, indicating with his whip the dreary pine forests that bordered the road on either side, “isn't the old country. I come from it myself, and I know it taint. Them rustlin' leaves ain't the old country, heaps of brown and yella up to your knees after a while, nor yet this road, nor that sky, nor this waggon, nor them apples, nor them horses. Nor me myself. I'm no longer old country. I'm fond of it—sho! I'm fonder of it now than I was forty years ago, when I come away from it, I'm fonder of it every year that goes by. But it's the New Country that's made me, that's give me all I have and more than all I want, and accordin' I'm grateful to it, and wouldn't turn my back on it. No Miss Dexter I wouldn't, and so I says, to all as come out to it, it's better to try and forget the past, or at least as much of it as 'll bear forgetting in order to let you live, and to take up with things as they be, and not lookin' always to things as they were, and to make the best of what the New World has to offer to ye And I don't think that in England—God bless her—to-day, you 'll find a finer team, nor redder apples, nor an easier going waggon, nor even a prettier sky, than that there yella light breakin' all over the landscup like!”

There was perfect silence after that. It had suddenly dawned upon Charlotte Dexter with accession of disgust and embittered hostility that the farmer's words related to himself. What new and hateful complication was this to be reminded by such an ill-timed declaration of the ironical in her life which had always been near enough to her apprehensions! Anything and everything but what she wanted, she could have. It had always been so. A dark frown gathered on her forehead, she clutched her bag and drew herself away from the side of the honest farmer.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” she cried. “Such words can have nothing to do with me. I could not disgrace myself and my father's family by allying myself with anybody out here, least of all, one of the working classes, or a farmer. You are very inconsiderate, Farmer Wise, and I must ask you to distinctly understand that even conversation on such a subject is quite out of the question. I cannot even discuss it with you or with anyone in your position. I have told you what my connections are; what my family is, you have now, I hope, some correct idea, and you will see how utterly impossible it is that I should, even to better my circumstances which I admit are somewhat precarious, make such a mÉsalliance—such a mistake, I mean, as you refer to.

“Well,” said the farmer very quietly this time. “You're right in the main, Miss Dexter, you're right in the main. But I thought I'd ask ye, I thought I'd ask ye. Far from harm bein' done, there's only good, there's only good, for now you understand me and I understand you and thank ye for your confidences and there's an end on it.”

So begun, so ended the honest man's wooing. Did he suffer disappointment as Miss Dexter's contemptuous eye and her irritated tone showed him—ah! how plainly—she was forever out of his reach? Was an idol broken, a dream dissolved, a blossom nipped, or hope murdered, just as much, in the case of this comfortable placid unimaginative elderly farmer as in the case of younger, warmer, more impetuous, more idealistic men? If so, Farmer Wise was as self-contained as the best actor among them and handed Miss Dexter out at the Albion with as gallant, though cautious politeness and sat as far away from her at the hotel tea table and met her in the hall afterwards with as severe an air, as if the situation were perfectly pleasant and completely ordinary. He asked her when she would be going back, and learnt that she would pass the night at the Albion, returning to the village by the Saturday's stage.

“Then shall I take a seat for ye?” asked the willing farmer.

“No” said Miss Dexter, who appeared to be in a great hurry, “I can arrange in the morning, thank you.”

“In any case, ye're sure ye won't want a 'lift' again, Miss Dexter,” said the farmer respectfully, though there might have been the least tinge of irony in the tone. “I'm not goin' back myself till to morrow.”

“No, thank you,” returned Miss Dexter for the last time.

The Albion was a small hotel or tavern situated just on the outskirts of the town, which did a flourishing business with the country people. Two roads, the Ipswich and the Richmond, formed a sort of junction before its door, one leading into the fine agricultural district or valley of Richmond, Guernsey and Trenton, and the other following, the dreary Plains through Ipswich to Orangetown, a thriving little community of mills and saws and booms and planks picturesquely situated on the Upper Orange River.

There was always a knot of farmers round the Albion, all of them English or Scotch or native Canadians born of British parents. A French-Canadian would have been hoisted on a table and examined minutely all over, hair, eye, skin and costume, had one been present. But though the men were respectable and decent and hard-working and most of them earned a good income and few of them drank or gambled it away, they were noisy, smoky, staring fellows for companions and Miss Dexter, having walked some distance to a shop, made a purchase, and returned to the parlor of the hotel while it was yet light, uncertain what to do with herself or where to go to escape the bustle and clatter of tongues. Farmer Wise was smoking in the bar, she had seen him as she passed in, and the mere sight of him, with his head up against the counter, and his legs out on a chair made her shudder. She sat in the parlor listening to the intolerable noise, heavy delf and cutlery being momentarily banged down on tables and chairs, an occasional broken plate and whirling pewter mug or kitchen spoon reaching her ear with more than usual reverberation. Then would come a volley of laughter, oaths, and bets on next week's races from the bar, then more breaking of china from the scullery, the stamping of horses in the stable, then the bar door would be closed and comparative silence ensue. In one of these intervals, the girl who had waited at the tea-table appeared in the parlor and inquired of Miss Dexter if she would like a fire put in the wood stove that stood on a square of zinc in the middle of the room. It came as a relief from the nervous broodings that were settling down on her mind occupied in introspection neither healthy nor cheerful, and she eagerly assented.

When the fire burned up, she opened the door that she might see the blaze and spread out her thin hands to it and put her cold feet to its warmth. Then for the first time she unclasped her bag and taking out her purchase, looked at it. The shop she had gone into was a druggist's, and her purchase had been a small bottle of a bluish fluid that she now held up to the light and looked at long and steadily but with no change in her countenance. The bar-door opened with a creak and closed with a bang. She started and replaced the bottle in the bag and put the bag over her arm as before. For a long time she sat before the fire warming first one foot, then the other and never looking away from the blaze. When half-past ten came, so did the girl with a lamp and two damp towels for Miss Dexter who took them without opening her mouth much to the astonishment of the girl, who though taciturn herself was well used to speech and “language” from all she came in contact with, and who was also struck with the fact that the strange lady had never removed her bonnet or jacket “since she come in the house.”

She would have had additional ground for surprise had she known that the strange lady did not remove them even upon reaching her own room, but lowering the lamp, lay down fully dressed upon the bed still clasping her small travelling bag in her hands, and slept until seven o'clock in the morning. She then rose and hastily straightening her attire, descended to the dining-room, partook of ham and eggs. Upon the close of this meal, she went up again to the parlor and sat slightly back from the window that overlooked the main road until twelve o'clock, when she partook of the dinner served to the travellers at the Albion, including Farmer Wise who had sold his apples and soon after dinner hitched up ready to go homewards. After dinner she went up as before to the parlor and sat there again. Two o'clock came, half past two, three o'clock, and Miss Dexter began to look along the road in the direction of the town. Half-past three found her, still looking along the road. Four o'clock came, half-past four, then five. She grew visibly uneasy, walked to and fro in the little parlor, sat down again. Half-past five, the clatter in the kitchen which had been silent for a little while renewed itself. Six!! The men stumped into their tea, and the girl ascending asked Miss Dexter if she was coming down to hers.

“No,” said Miss Dexter, “I expect to have a late tea at home, thank you. And I am just going in a moment or two.”

Ten minutes past six. The late November afternoon had almost entirely faded, it would soon be dark. A quarter past six and Miss Dexter, looking continuously out of her window perceived the figure she had waited for so long at length approaching. Gay, Mr. Joseph, you have thrown off the fetters of town and work and dull care and responsibility, and here you are free and untrammelled as the air, good humored, cheerful, humming your Old Country tunes as usual, brisk, dÉbonnair, untouched by thought of present trouble or evil, unthinking and unsuspecting! Gay Mr. Joseph, urbane Mr. Joseph, what have you got in your hand this time? Last time it was a bunch of the red field lily. Now it is, or it looks like—yes, it is—a genuine florist's bouquet. Something to open the eyes of the Ipswich villagers. A gorgeous wired platoon of roses, and smilax tuberose and mignonette—Mr. Joseph, Mr. Joseph, what does this mean, who is this for? On he came, brisker, more dÉbonnair, more smiling than Miss Dexter had ever seen him in her life. Her breath came fast as he neared the window. Exchanging a word with the hostler and a couple of laboring men who stood almost in the centre of the road Mr. Joseph passed on, looking down with a smile at the bouquet in his hand. Miss Dexter then arose and quietly settling her bonnet at a glass walked out of the hotel having paid her small bill at dinner-time.

She walked steadily on in the direction of Ipswich in the wake of Mr. Joseph who did not appear to be walking as fast as usual himself. So by straining every nerve as we say—in reality, walking as she had never attempted to and dreamt of walking in her life—she slowly but surely gained upon the unconscious Mr. Joseph. They were about in the middle of the plains, that dreary bit of road bordered by pine forests on either side when Miss Dexter found she could distinguish the clink, clink or jingle of his watch-chain, a thing of steel links which she knew well by sight as well as by sound as it struck against the buttons of his coat. Slowly Miss Dexter gained on him, until it was necessary either to accost him or pass him. Which did she mean to do? Dark as it was rapidly growing, Mr. Joseph, in half turning his head to observe something in the trees or sky, became conscious of a figure close behind him. The path was narrow, for he had left the middle of the road since passing the Albion, and he stepped aside with his usual ready politeness to allow the lady room to go on before him. But in a moment he recognized Miss Dexter. She waited for him to speak.

“I—really, why—is it possible it is you, my dear Miss Dexter? I never knew you took such lonely walks so far from home. You don't mean to say you've walked out from town?”

For an answer, Miss Dexter, who had previously unclasped her bag and taken out the bottle, lifted her right hand and threw the contents over Mr. Joseph.

“In the name of God!” shrieked the unfortunate man, warding off as he imagined a second attack. But Miss Dexter had done her work and stood rigid, unmovable, stony as marble, the bag fallen at her feet, her hands fallen straight down at her sides. Mr. Joseph had sunk upon the ground moaning and writhing, but through all the torture of the terrible pain he was suffering, he thought of nothing but the inconceivable brutality of the act itself. Why had she done it?

“I suppose it is vitriol,” he gasped. “Was it an accident—or—did you—mean—to—do it? How have—I—injured—you? Oh—say—say—”

He could get no further for a few moments in the appalling consciousness of that living fire which had burnt into his poor eyes and played round his poor temples. Otherwise he was not injured, for Miss Dexter's aim had been a faulty one and nearly all the contents of the bottle had in reality descended on the ground.

“Say—say” he went on. “Which it is? My—dear—Miss Dexter—I am—sorrier for you—than—for—myself, and cannot imagine—oh! Good God, I shall be blind, blind—ah!!—”

Charlotte Dexter still stood in the rapidly darkening air, a stem, rigid, immovable figure. It was too soon for remorse. That would come in good time. But a certain pity stole over her as she gazed at the huddled mass on the ground before her, which a short time ago, had been the gay, laughing, upright Mr. Joseph.

“Are you suffering very much?” She said at length in her ordinary voice.

“Good God! How—how—can you ask? Again—tell me—was it—an accident?”

“No,” she replied still in her most ordinary voice. “No. It was no accident. It is vitriol, and I did mean to throw it.”

“It is horrible,” groaned Mr. Joseph, still in agony on the ground where he had sunk at first. “And you will not—fiend that you appear now to be—though Heaven knows—I thought you sweet and womanly enough once—you will not—tell me why! It is infamous!”

“Yes, it is infamous,” returned Charlotte Dexter. “It is horrible, and I am a fiend. I am not a woman any longer. I once was, as you say, sweet and womanly enough for—for what? Joseph Foxley. For you to come to any house and my sister's house, and blast her life and strike her down as you thought you would strike me, for this and that and for much more, but not enough for truth and honesty and an offer of marriage in fair form, not enough for common respect and decent friendship.”

“My dear lady,” said Mr. Joseph with great difficulty, “there was no one I—”

“And all that time, when I thought you at least free, at least your own master, at least unbiased and unbound, for unlike a gentleman you never hinted to me of these—other ties—you were engaged to this miserable girl, this common drudge, the scullery-maid of a country inn. You, you, you!”

“My dear lady,” said Mr. Joseph again with greater difficulty than before, “I—upon my word—I have—I—”

Charlotte Dexter, suddenly regaining the use of her limbs, bent down quickly and peered into the poor sightless face. Mr. Joseph had fainted. She owned no fear yet however, though it was now quite dark, and five miles lay between them and her own door. Pity was just giving away to remorse. What if she had killed him? She bent down again but found that there was no fear of that and even consciousness appeared to be returning. At this moment the sound of wheels struck her ear. Nearer and nearer it came and she soon descried a waggon coming along the road sharply in which sat one man. The rest of the waggon was empty and as it was proceeding in the direction of the village, into that, she made up her mind, should Mr. Joseph be put. As it drew near, she stepped out of the dark shade of the pines and bade the man stop.

“Whose there!” said he, “What's here? What's the matter? Why, if it ain't Miss Dexter!”

“Yes,” said she, stooping to assist her unfortunate companion. “How do you do, Farmer Wise! I—do you know Mr. Foxley—Mr. Joseph Foxley—is here—can you just see him—if you have a lantern, or, will you help me to get him into the waggon?”

Farmer Wise forgot Miss Dexter and her family pride in an instant, though at first sight the feeling of injury had somewhat revived, and he made haste to come to her relief. He found Mr. Joseph just coming to himself.

“Why, why, what's the matter?” said the Farmer. “It minds me of old times, this, when highway-men and tramps were a-infestin' the road and a-lyin' in wait for honest travellers—in the Old Country of course, Miss Dexter, not here, not here. Yet somethin's been at work here, eh! Mr. Joseph, or else I'm much mistaken. Here, lend an 'and, Miss Dexter; now, sir, can you see me?”

“Not very well,” gasped poor Mr. Joseph. “It's dark, I know,” said the farmer, “and I hadn't begun carrying my lantern yet. Never mind Here, now, place your foot there—are ye hurt anywhere that I may touch ye—tell me where I hurt ye, if I do—now then, the other foot—

“There, now it's done! Miss Dexter, ma'am there's an old blanket at the back there, lie him on that. Put his head down and let him look straight up at them stars and he'll soon get himself, I warrant. If I knew where ye were hurt, perhaps I could bind ye up. There's no wound,” anxiously.

“No,” said Mr. Joseph. “Thank you, Farmer Wise. I am—much—better—really. I was unconscious!”

“Ay,” said the farmer, “A little, and can you stand the joltin' now, are ye sure? For if ye are, we'll drive on.”

“Stay a moment,” said Mr. Joseph. “I had some flowers—a bouquet—in my hands when I—fell. I can't see—very well—in this light—look for me, will you!”

“I do spy somethin' white on yonder ground where you was when I came up. Maybe it's a pocket-handkerchief, may be it's the flowers you dropped.”

The former sprang down and returned with two articles one of which—the bouquet he gave to Mr. Joseph, the other, a small bottle—he put in his own pocket The bouquet was as fresh and untumbled as when it emerged from the careful florist who had prepared it. Not a single drop of the fiery liquid had fallen upon it nor scorched its fragrant beauty and it presently lay upon the face of the suffering man, healing with its cool moist sweet leaves and petals his poor scarred skin.

“I won't ask him,” thought the farmer, “I won't ask him. But what are they doin' here together? Well, I won't ask that neither. And why did not she came out by the stage as she said? I won't ask that neither. There's three things I needn't go for to enquire into. But a little general conversation in a nice kind of way, neither spyin' nor lyin' may do him good and not be altogether despised by the—the other party.” He looked back and could dimly see Mr. Joseph sitting up on the blanket. He had removed his hat, and his hands were pressed to his head. Charlotte Dexter was in the furthest corner of the waggon, a dark, stern, ominous figure.

“Strange that you and me are goin' home together, Miss Dexter, after all,” said the farmer.

“Miss Dexter drove in to the Albion alongside of me yesterday, sir, and I ask her if so be she need a second lift back to-day, and she said 'no.'”

“Ah!” said Mr. Joseph. “Yesterday, did you say? I was—to have—come out—yesterday—in answer to my brother's note—but I could not manage—it. I wish,” with a grim attempt at the old humor—“I had, 'pon my soul I do.”

“Your brother is well, I hope, sir?” said the farmer. “Don't talk too much, I beg of ye, Mr. Joseph. To see ye with yer hands like that!”

“It is—better—easier—that way,” returned Mr. Joseph. “My brother is well for him, thank you. You know, he is—not strong he—is—never—perfectly well.”

“D—” said the farmer to himself. “Of course, of course, I know. I see him yesterday morning, pale like and weak, but smiling and lookin' happy enough too, I tell ye.”

“Ah, yes” said Mr. Joseph, again lying down and pressing the flowers to his hot lips. “I—these flowers—are for him and—her.”

“Her!” said the farmer.

“Milly, you know. Ah—perhaps you haven't heard. My brother is going to—marry Milly, Mrs. Cox's niece, you know.”

An absolutely death-like stillness prevailed in the waggon. The Kentucky team jogged on. The stars shone down on poor Mr. Joseph turning up his sightless orbs to their beauty and majesty, and on the passion of grief and remorse that now surged in Miss Dexter's suffering breast.

“It may be vanity,” thought Farmer Wise as the bridge and the river and Dexter's Oak came in sight one after the other, “it may be vanity, though I'm too old a man to be much given to that, but I can't help thinkin' I'm a wiser man than I was yesterday by a good lot. I don't half know what's happened, but somethin's goin' on, whether it's understandable or not to me and the likes of me, I don't know as yet, and I don't think I'll try to find out. If ifs bad it'll come out fast enough, and if it's good, leavin' it alone maybe will make it a little better. But here we are,” he continued aloud, “at Dexter's Oak. What's to be done, Miss Dexter, now, and with you, Mr. Joseph? Of course, I'll take you straight to the Inn—as for Miss Dexter—”

“I will get out at once,” said the unhappy woman. “You are sure you can take him to the Inn all right and—and—lift—that is—without—”

“Oh, I guess so,” said the farmer, grimly relapsing into an Americanism that was just beginning to leaven the whole country. “I guess I'll take care on him, and as for gettin' him out at the Inn, there's plenty there. Good-night Miss Dexter, take care there!—now you're all right”

Charlotte Dexter, with a long look at the prostrate form of Mr. Joseph, leapt from the waggon and sped through the gate up to her desolate dwelling.

“Ah!” sighed the farmer to himself, one great long sigh that stirred his hardy frame to its centre. He never sighed like that again either for Charlotte Dexter or any other woman.

The next mile they traversed in silence broken only by occasional moans from Mr. Joseph which moved the old farmer to wonder and dismay that almost unnerved him.

Presently Mr. Joseph murmured some word the farmer did not catch all at once.

“Is he out of his mind on top of it all!” he said to himself, and listened.

“Farmer Wise,” said the same low voice, “are we near the Inn?”

“Just there, Mr. Joseph.”

“On the little bridge yet?”

“Just come on it, Mr. Joseph.”

“Ah! Can you—stop your horses?”

“Certainly. There! Now what is it?” Mr. Joseph sat up.

“I am in your waggon—the market waggon, Farmer Wise, I think?”

“Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't tell where we are, I see, being so much shook.”

“No. That's not it,” said Mr. Joseph. “I—are you on the seat—the front seat, Farmer Wise?”

“Yes, Mr. Joseph. You can't make me out by this queer light, and I don't wonder. The stars is beautiful, but they don't make up for havin' no moon.”

“No. That's not it either, Farmer Wise. Did you say the stars were shining? Orion, I suppose, and the Bull and the rest of them! Can't you—try—like a dear old fellow—can't you—tell what's the matter with me? You say you are sitting on the front seat, and I—have no doubt but that you are, but your voice sounds so much further away—so very much further away than that—and when one—can't—see you, Farmer Wise,—”

A frightful pause.

“Can't see me, can't see me! Mr. Joseph, Mr. Joseph! Not blind—God forgive me for sayin' the word out to ye like that! But I thought it, I thought it, and so, out it come! But it is'nt that! Ye'll forgive me for sayin' the word out to ye like that! It isn't that!”

“I'm afraid it is, Farmer Wise. It can be—nothing—else.'

“If, as you say, the stars are shining and to be sure they generally are about—this time—of night, and if, as you say, you are sitting directly opposite me on the front seat of your waggon, and I have no reason to doubt it, if this is so, and I—can see neither—these stars shining—nor you—yourself—dear old fellow—on the seat before me—it can be, I fear—nothing else.”

“And how—”

“Ah! I can't—quite remember. Some time, perhaps, I'll tell you how—shall I go to my brother or—how can I?”

“Mr. Joseph,” entreated the farmer, seizing one of those delicate hands and patting it as if it had been his own. “Will you come with me? I'll make you comfortable, and have ye seen to and we'll find out about it and what can be done, and that'll save your brother, look, and he not strong! Come, Mr. Joseph! Lie down there as you was, just as ye was—God forgive me for tellin' you to look up at them stars—and I'll speak a word for you at the Inn, as we're passing. Won't that do, nor be better than goin' in like that? Not knowin' either just what is the matter. Come, Mr. Joseph! I'll drive straight home after that and make ye comfortable for the night, and there'll be no—womankind, or, or anyone to disturb ye, just me and the two boys—come, Mr. Joseph!”

“I am willing enough to go, old fellow,” answered Mr. Joseph with a groan. “Willing enough to go anywhere, but where my brother—my poor brother—is. Yes, it will be best. Drive on.”

The warm cheery Inn soon appeared in view. The firelight from the bar and the lamp-light from the other rooms beamed out from the red-curtained windows. The scrape of a fiddle came from the kitchen. “Squires,” murmured Mr. Joseph, feebly. “He's always at it.” The farmer pulled up the team at the pump corner one instant and looking around descried not a soul in view. He got down and went to the side door leading to the bar and opening it put his head in. Mrs. Cox herself was dispensing early gin and water to three or four indolent but talkative gentlemen before the fire. But she was not so busy as not to perceive the farmer. Had she already had that cap on in which bloomed the violet velvet pansy, Mr. Joseph's whereabouts might have been discovered, for invariably on those occasions she accompanied the farmer not only to the door but even to the very feet of the horses as he straightened up one thing or loosened another and would often joke about the empty waggon or the purchases made in the town which might happen to fill it.

But Farmer Wise left her no time even to adjust her head-dress, far from changing it.

“Good evening, ma'am,” said he, with his head in the door. “No. Don't trouble about Squires. He's hard at work, I can hear, and besides, I don't want him. I'm late, and the boys will wait for their supper. I just have to tell ye that I see Mr. Foxley in town, Mr. Joseph Foxley, and he says how he can't come out till—say—Monday. He was stuck full of work—he was indeed—and said positive—he couldn't come. But he give me this for his brother and for—her,” producing the bouquet, which caused a thrill of amazement and awe to pervade the loungers in the bar. “For his brother and for—her,” said the farmer, taking a long stride across the little room and giving it to Mrs. Cox. “I congratulate you, ma'am, I do indeed.”

Before she could well answer, he had shut the door and mounting the waggon drove away as quickly as he could. He was too full of thoughts and plans concerning Mr. Joseph to notice that quick as he was, Mrs. Cox, not waiting this time to change her cap, had come out to the door and with her hand shading her eyes, was looking wistfully after the departing team.