In all these ways the summer waned. And now changes of various kinds were pending. Harry Matthews was about closing his engagement with the telegraph company, to enter upon a secretaryship under his uncle—a position involving grave responsibilities and conscientious stewardship. What joy it was to remember that the new young man was equal to the trust. Bud was to be regularly entered as a pupil at the Academy, and his face was radiant. The Ansteds were to stay at South Plains all winter, and the girls were happy over the prospect of uniting with the little church at its coming communion. Mrs. Ansted had subscribed a hundred dollar addition to the minister's salary, and told the people that they ought to feel disgraced for not each giving doubly the original amount; that her son Louis, she felt sure, would have taken the matter up had he lived, and she could not rest until she saw it accomplished.

Meantime, there was more or less gossip in the town, of course, about affairs with which the people, if they had really stopped to think, had nothing to do. Among other things, there was wonderment as to why Harold Chessney came to South Plains so often. What business was there in this direction which could require so much attention? To be sure, he was one of the Directors of the railroad, but this branch of it had not heretofore been considered so important as to need constant looking after by its chief. Also there were some who thought it very strange that that Miss Benedict would receive so many attentions from him, when she was as good as Louis Ansted's widow! Of course that was so, for Mrs. Ansted herself had as good as said so dozens of times; and see how intimate she was with the entire family. Yes, they knew that Harold Chessney was a very particular friend of Louis Ansted; but they should think that would hardly account for such a degree of intimacy, when Louis had only been buried a few weeks.

Meantime, the central figures of this anxious talk went their busy ways, and seemed in no sense troubled by the tongues. Harold Chessney came often, and always visited the Ansteds and the Academy, and the intimacy between all parties seemed to increase instead of diminish.

It was about this time that Claire received an unusually lengthy letter from Dora; a letter over which she laughed much, and also shed some tears.

Dora had some family perplexities to ask advice about, and indulged rather more than was her wont over forebodings in regard to the coming winter. Then suddenly she launched into the main channel of her letter after this fashion:

"Oh, Claire, my dear, you are good! If I could be half like you, or even one third, it would be such a relief to mamma as well as to myself. But Claire (this next that I am going to say is mean, and small, and will serve to show you that I have a correct estimate of myself), I can not help thinking it would be much easier for me to be good if I were away off in South Plains, or North Mountains, or anywhere else than here, right around the corner from the old home. Do you have any conception of what a difference it makes to be around the corner from things, instead of being on the same street with them? I think it possible that I might throw myself intensely into plans for that North Mountain Church, you know, if I were there, and forget this one, and these people, and the old ways.

"Claire, part of the time I am pretty good; I am, indeed; but really and truly, it is hard. The girls try to be good, too, some of them. Occasionally I think if they did not try so hard, I could get along better. You see, they stop talking about things when I appear, for fear I will be hurt, and I am hurt; but it is because they think I will be foolish enough to care for what they have been saying. Do you understand that? It reads as though there were no sense in it; but I know what I mean. It is clothes, half of the time. Clothes are dreadful! I find I had no conception of their cost. Not that I am having any new ones. Don't be frightened, dear. I am not so lost to a sense of what has befallen us as such a proceeding would indicate. Why, even a pair of gloves is often beyond my means! Neither am I complaining. It is not the gloves; I am quite willing to go without them. If mamma could have the things which we used to consider necessities for her I would be willing to go bare-handed for the rest of my days.

"Well, what am I talking about? Let me see if I can put it into words. The girls, you know, are always arranging for this and that entertainment. I meet them oftener, now that you have insisted on my going back to the music class. To some of these entertainments I am invited, and to more of them I am not. I never go, on account of clothes and some other things.

"Imagine a party of girls gathered in the music-room or the hall, in full tide of talk about what they will wear, and how they will arrange their hair, and their ribbons, and all that sort of thing; and imagine a sudden silence settling over them because I have appeared in sight, as though I were a grim fairy before whom it was their misfortune to have to be forever silent about everything that was pretty, or cost money!

"Now I am going to make a confession, and I know it is just as silly as it can be, but sometimes I can not help rushing home, and running up to my room, and locking my door, and crying as though my heart would break.

"I am thoughtful, though, about choosing times and occasions for these outbreaks. I generally select an afternoon when mamma is out executing some of your numerous commissions; but even then I have to bathe my eyes for half an hour so that the poor, dear, sweet, patient woman will know nothing about it. I never do let her know, Claire. She thinks that I am good and happy, and occasionally she tells me that I am growing self-controlled like you, and then I feel like a hypocrite; but all the same, for her own good I don't enlighten her.

"Claire, dear, don't you suppose it is the silly parties to which I do not go which trouble me. I have not the slightest desire to go, and I don't think of them often; I don't, really. Well, that about having no desire, needs qualifying. I mean I would not have, if I could go; I mean I should like to be perfectly able to go if I chose, and then to choose to remain at home. Do you understand?

"If the girls would only be free and social, and talk with me as though nothing had happened, I should learn not to care. But it is so hard to always feel that people are saying: 'Hush! there she comes, poor thing, don't talk about it now, or we shall hurt her feelings!' I would rather have them drop me entirely, I believe, as Estelle Mitchell has done. She doesn't bow to me any more, even when we meet face to face; doesn't see me, you know, but she does even that politely. I don't know how she manages. Claire, do you remember the time papa signed that ten thousand dollar note for her father? Well, never mind. I am writing a silly and, a wicked letter. I haven't written so to you before, have I? I'll tell you what has stirred me so, lately, everybody is in a flutter about the house. Claire, it is sold. You know what house I mean; the dear old one on the avenue, every separate stone of which speaks of papa. That Mr. Chessney bought it, who spends half of his time abroad. There is a rumor that he is to be married some time—nobody seems to know just when—and bring his bride there to live. It is well for me that I shall not have a chance to move in her circle, for I feel almost certain that I should have to hate her a little.

"It is very absurd, of course, but the girls are actually beginning already to talk about the possible reception, though they don't even know who the prospective bride is. Some have located her in Chicago, and some in Europe. I can not discover that there is an absolute certainty about there being any bride, and yet some of the young ladies are planning what would be pretty and unique to wear.

"Estelle Mitchell is sure of being invited, because her brother Dick used to be quite intimately acquainted with one of the Chessney family; and Dora Benedict is sure of not being invited, because she is not intimately acquainted with anybody any more. I wonder who will have our rooms—our dear old rooms? Yes, that largest blot is a tear. I couldn't help it, and I haven't time to copy, and could not afford to waste the paper, if I had. I don't cry very often, but I was foolish enough to walk by the blessed old home this morning, and look up at the open window in papa's study!

"Oh, Claire, darling, I wish you could come home, if it is only for a little while, and we could go away from here. Don't you think mamma might be made comfortable in South Plains for the winter?

"Oh, that is foolish, I know; and you are a dear, brave, self-sacrificing sister, to give up your vacation and work away all summer to help support us. To-morrow I shall not care anything about this, only to be dreadfully ashamed that I sent you this wicked letter.

"I am going down now to make tea, and a bit of cream toast for mother, and I shall be as bright as a gold eagle, and hover around her like a moth-miller in the gaslight, and tell her all sorts of pleasant nothings, and never a word of the house, or the sale, or the possible new mistress for the old home. I am learning, dear, though from this letter you might not think it. But I live such a pent-up, every-day life that I have to say things to you once in a while, else what would become of me?"

Claire laughed a great deal over this letter, pitiful as the undertone in it must have been to a sympathetic heart. The tears came once or twice; but after all, the predominant feeling seemed to be amusement. It was not answered promptly; in fact, she waited three days; then came Mr. Chessney for one of his brief visits, and she read the letter aloud to him.

What Dora would have thought, could she have seen that proceeding, passes my imagination.

What would she have thought of human sympathy, could she have heard the bursts of laughter over parts of it; albeit Mr. Chessney did once or twice brush away a tear!

What would she have thought could she have heard the conversation which followed:

"Now, my dear Claire, I hope you are convinced of your hard-heartedness. Poor Dora ought not to have this strain kept on her during the autumn, especially when it is so utterly unnecessary.

"The house will be in complete order in a few weeks' time, and Dora's reception is just the thing. I can write to Phillips, and put every arrangement into his hands and we can appoint Dora manager-in-chief.

"Claire, I have a plan worth a dozen of yours. Let us have the mother and Dora here for a visit. They want to see the little church which they have helped to build. Nothing could be pleasanter. Then all your girls, and all your boys, could be present at the ceremony. Think what that would be for Bud! He would never forget it. Neither would this struggling minister; it would afford an excuse for doing for him just what we want to do. The law does not regulate the amount of marriage fees, you know."

Mr. Chessney was an eloquent pleader; and Dora's letter, it must be confessed, plead against the delay that Claire had thought was wise. Of course, she demurred; of course, she hinted at the plans that she had formed for getting ready; but the party on the opposite side had an answer for every argument. He was sure that the way to do would be to get ready afterward, when she would have leisure and his invaluable presence and advice, instead of being hampered with music-scholars, and he miles away, alone, waiting, and Dora waiting and suffering, and the mother thinking her sad thoughts. Happy surprises were all very well; they were delightful. He was entirely in sympathy with her desire to tell mamma and Dora the story of the new home in person, only he believed with all his heart that it would be cruel, and therefore wrong, to burden that young heart with the question of ways and means a moment longer than was necessary. As for Mrs. Foster, she could supply Claire's place quietly, and thereby make some poor music-teacher's heart unexpectedly glad.

Of course, Claire was overruled. She had really not one sensible reason to offer why she should remain exiled from mamma and Dora any longer.

There was a little feeling of pride, it is true, about the "getting ready afterward;" but as she looked it over carefully and prayerfully, it seemed, even to herself, a mean pride, unworthy of the woman who was to be Harold Chessney's wife.

Then there was a fascination in the thought of Dora planning for that reception—really being the one to invite whom she would among "the girls," instead of being the one left out in the cold.

Also it was pleasant to think what an event it would be to her girls, and to Bud; and her cheeks glowed over the thought of the marriage-fee that would find its way into the lean pocket-book of the overburdened minister.

I would like to tell you the whole story in detail: what Dora said when the letter came imploring her mother and herself to come to South Plains for a few weeks' visit; how the mother demurred on the ground of expense, and yet confessed that it made her heart beat wildly to think of getting her arms around Claire again.

"But I can not think what has become of the dear child's good sense," she would add, with a sigh. "Why, Dora dear, she did not come home, you know, because the trip would cost so much, and here she is planning for two of us to take it."

"Never mind, mamma," would Dora reply, for Dora was desperately determined on this trip to South Plains, "Claire has planned a way; and we shall save our food if we stay two weeks, and that will be something; and she has sent us the tickets, so the money is spent. Oh, mamma, let us go anyway."

And of course they went. Yes, I would delight to tell you all about it. What a sensation there was in South Plains, and how full the little church was, and how well Bud looked walking down the aisle as one of the ushers, and how people said the Ansteds certainly would not come, they would feel it a family insult, but how the Ansteds not only came, but took almost entire charge of everything.

Above all, I should like to have you look in with me at the parsonage, in the study, where the minister and his wife stopped to break the seal of that special envelope after it was all over; how he rubbed his eyes, and looked, and looked again, and turned pale, and said, huskily:

"There is some mistake here, Mary; he has given me the wrong paper."

And how she came and looked over his shoulder, and said:

"Why, it has your full name. How can there be a mistake?" And then she read, "Pay to Rev. Henry Ramsey, or order, one thousand dollars. —— ——."

Who ever heard of such a marriage-fee as that!

Oh, now, I have; there have been just such marriage-fees as that, really and truly. There had been such before Harold Chessney and Claire Benedict were married, and there will be such again. There are poor ministers and grand, rich men, and there will be, I presume, while the world stands. More things than some people dream of are going on in this world of ours.

There is one thing which it gives me great pleasure to record. There was a reception given in the old home. It was after mamma and Dora had been established for several days in their old rooms, and it was the evening after the arrival of the bride and groom, and Estelle Mitchell was invited to the reception. Not because her brother Dick had been intimate with one of the Chessneys, but because because—

"My brother Harold gave me liberty to invite whoever I pleased among my classmates, and it would give me pleasure to see you there."

Dora spoke truth. It really gave her great pleasure to see Estelle Mitchell at the wedding reception of the Chessneys, and to realize that she was her guest!

"Oh, you wicked, wicked Dora!" some of them said, when the excitement caused by the reception cards was at his height, "there you heard us talking about the new furniture, and wondering as to who was the bride, and you never gave us so much as a hint!"

Dora laughed, and kept her own counsel. She did not choose to tell them that during those trying days no hint of it had come to her. That was their pretty family secret, with which outsiders were not to intermeddle.

They agreed, every one of them, that Dora made a charming young hostess, and Estelle Mitchell said she was glad she was back in her old home, for she just fitted.

There are but two things which remain to tell you. One grew out of Ruth Jennings' farewell words to her beloved music-teacher, spoken while she was half-laughing, half-crying, and wholly heart-broken:

"But the organ does squeak horribly; you know it does; and it is always getting out of tune."

Mr. Chessney heard it, and during their wedding-trip he said to his wife:

"There is one thing I want you to help me select. I have not made my thank-offering yet to that blessed little church where I found you. It must have an organ that will keep in tune, and that will worthily commemorate the harmony that was begun there."

Imagine, please, for I shall not attempt to tell you, the delight, to say nothing of the unspeakable wonder, of the girls, and of the entire community, when the beautifully-finished, exquisitely-toned bit of mechanism was set up in the church.

Accompanying it were two organ stools, one for the church and one for Ruth Jennings' home; so she sits on dictionaries and Patent Office Reports no more.

The other item can be told more briefly. It is embodied in a sentence which the gentle mother spoke one morning at the breakfast-table:

"By the way, Claire, the committee about the Mission Band entertainment was here yesterday while you and Harold were out, to see if you would help them. I told them I thought you would."

The face of the bride flushed deeply, and a peculiarly tender light shone in her eyes as she said:

"How very strange that is! It is the same Band which was preparing for that exercise about which I told you. We were to have had it on the day in which papa was buried."

"It is the same exercise," Dora said, speaking gently. "The girls dropped it entirely, and could never persuade themselves to take hold of it again, until last week they voted to attempt it."

"You were only interrupted in your work, you see," Mr. Chessney said, smiling down on eyes that were filling with tears. "Interrupted, that you might set some wheels in motion that had been clogged; now you are called back to finish the other, and I am here to help you."

[444]
[445]

"Mrs. Alden's writings are so pure, earnest, and hopeful that a daily absorption of her pithiest thoughts must prove an enriching process."—N. Y. Witness.

• 54. Dr. Deane's Way.
• 55. Miss Priscilla Hunter.
• 56. Mrs. Deane's Way.
• 57. What She Said.

• 58. At Home and Abroad.
• 59. Bobby's Wolf and other Stories.
• 60. Couldn't Be Bought.
• 61. Five Friends.
• 62. In the Woods and Out.
• 63. Jessie Wells.
• 64. Modern Sacrifice (A).
• 65. Mrs. Harry Harper's Awakening.
• 66. New Year's Tangles.
• 67. Next Things.
• 68. Older Brother (The).
• 69. Pansy's Scrap Book.
• 70. Some Young Heroines.
• 71. Worth Having.
• 72. Young Folks Worth Knowing.

• 73. Bernie's White Chicken.
• 74. Docia's Journal.
• 75. Getting Ahead.
• 76. Helen Lester.
• 77. Mary Burton Abroad.
• 78. Monteagle.
• 79. Pansies.
• 80. Six Little Girls.
• 81. Stories Told for a Purpose.
• 82. That Boy Bob.
• 83. Two Boys.

• 84. Browning Boys (The).
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• 86. Exact Truth (The).
• 87. Gertrude's Diary.
• 88. Glimpses of Boyhood.
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• 90. Grace Holbrook.
• 91. Hedge Fence.
• 92. Helen the Historian.
• 93. Her Mother's Bible.
• 94. Kaleidoscope (The).
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• 96. Side by Side.
• 97. Six o'Clock in the Evening.
• 98. Stories from the Life of Jesus.
• 99. Stories of Great Men.
• 100. Stories of Remarkable Women.
• 101. Story of Puff.
• 102. Their Vacation.
• 103. We Twelve Girls.
• 104. World of Little People (A).

"There is something so pure and earnest and elevating in all Mrs. Alden's writings that no young reader can absorb them without being morally and spiritually bettered by them."—Christian Work.

• 1. As in a Mirror.
• 2. Aunt Hannah, Martha and John.
• 3. Chautauqua Girls at Home.
• 4. Chrissy's Endeavor.
• 5. Christie's Christmas.
• 6. Eighty-Seven.
• 7. Endless Chain (An).
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• 9. Ester Ried Yet Speaking.
• 10. Four Girls at Chautauqua.
• 11. Hall in the Grove (The).
• 12. Her Associate Members.
• 13. Household Puzzles.
• 14. Interrupted.
• 15. John Remington, Martyr.
• 16. Judge Burnham's Daughters.
• 17. Julia Ried.
• 18. King's Daughters.
• 19. Links in Rebecca's Life.
• 20. Little Fishers and Their Nets.
• 21. Making Fate.
• 22. Man of the House.
• 23. Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking On.
• 24. New Graft on the Family Tree (A).
• 25. One Commonplace Day.
• 26. Overruled.
• 27. Pocket Measure (The).
• 28. Prince of Peace (The).
• 29. Randolphs (The).
• 30. Ruth Erskine's Crosses.
• 31. Sevenfold Trouble (A).
• 32. Spun from Fact.
• 33. Stephen Mitchell's Journey.
• 34. Those Boys.
• 35. Three People.
• 36. Tip Lewis and His Lamp.
• 37. Twenty Minutes Late.
• 38. Wanted.
• 39. What They Couldn't.
• 40. Wise and Otherwise.
• 41. Yesterday Framed in To-day.

• 42. Cunning Workmen.
• 43. Divers Women.
• 44. Echoing and ReËchoing.
• 45. From Different Standpoints.
• 46. Grandpa's Darlings.
• 47. Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant.
• 48. Modern Exodus (A).
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• 50. Only Ten Cents.
• 51. Profiles.
• 52. Reuben's Hindrances.
• 53. Sidney Martin's Christmas.