Mrs. Milton Caukins had her trials, but they were of a kind some people would call "blessed torments." The middle-aged mother of eight children, six boys, of whom Romanzo was the eldest, and twin girls, Elvira Caukins might with justice lay claim to a superabundance of a certain kind of trial. Every Sunday morning proved the crux of her experience, and Mrs. Caukins' nerves were correspondingly shaken. To use her own words, she "was all of a tremble" by the time she was dressed for church.

On such occasions she was apt to speak her mind, preferably to the Colonel; but lacking his presence, to her family severally and collectively, to 'Lias, the hired man, or aloud to herself when busy about her work. She had been known, on occasion, to acquaint even the collie with her state of mind, and had assured the head of the family afterwards that there was more sense of understanding of a woman's trials in one wag of a dog's tail than in most men's head-pieces.

"Mr. Caukins!" she called up the stairway. She never addressed her husband in the publicity of domestic life without this prefix; to her children she spoke of him as "your pa"; to all others as "the Colonel."

"Yes, Elvira."

The Colonel's voice was leisurely, but muffled owing to the extra heavy lather he was laying about his mouth for the Sunday morning shave. His wife's voice shrilled again up the staircase:

"It's going on nine o'clock and the boys are nowheres near ready; I haven't dressed the twins yet, and the boys are trying to shampoo each other—they've got your bottle of bay rum, and not a single shoe have they greased. I wish you'd hurry up and come down; for if there's one thing you know I hate it's to go into church after the beginning of the first lesson with those boys squeaking and scrunching up the aisle behind me. It makes me nervous and upsets me so I can't find the place in my prayer book half the time."

"I'll be down shortly." The tone was intended to be conciliatory, but it irritated Mrs. Caukins beyond measure.

"I know all about your 'shortlies,' Mr. Caukins; they're as long as the rector's sermon this very Whit-sunday—the one day in the whole year when the children can't keep still any more than cows in fly time. Did you get their peppermints last night?"

"'Gad, my dear, I forgot them! But really—", his voice was degenerating into a mumble owing to the pressure of circumstances, "—matters of such—er—supreme importance—came—er—to my knowledge last evening that—that—"

"That what?"

"—That—that—mm—mm—" there followed the peculiar noise attendant upon a general clearing up of much lathered cuticle, "—I forgot them."

"What matters were they? You didn't say anything about 'supreme importance' last night, Mr. Caukins."

"I'll tell you later, Elvira; just at present I—"

"Was it anything about the quarries?"

"Mm—"

"What was it?"

"I heard young Googe was expected next week."

"Well, I declare! I could have told you that much myself if you'd been at home in any decent season. It seems pretty poor planning to have to run down three miles to The Greenbush every Saturday evening to find out what you could know by just stepping across the bridge to Aurora's. She told me yesterday. Was that all?"

"N—no—"

"For mercy's sake, Mr. Caukins, don't keep me waiting here any longer! It's almost church time."

"I wasn't aware that I was detaining you, Elvira." The Colonel's protest was mild but dignified. There were sounds above of renewed activity.

"Dulcie," said Mrs. Caukins, turning to a little girl who was standing beside her, listening with erected ears to her mother's questions and father's answers, "go up stairs into mother's room and see if Doosie's getting ready, there's a good girl."

"Doosie is with me, Elvira; I would let well enough alone for the present, if I were you," said the Colonel admonishingly. His wife wisely took the hint. "Come up, Dulcie," he called, "father's ready." Dulcie hopped up stairs.

"You haven't said what matters of importance kept you last night." Mrs. Caukins returned to her muttons with redoubled energy.

"Champney came home unexpectedly last evening, and the syndicate has offered him a position, a big one, in New York—treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Company; and our Romanzo's got a chance too—"

"You don't say! What is it?" Mrs. Caukins started up stairs whence came sounds of an obstreperous bootjack.

"Paymaster, here in town; I'll explain in more propitious circumstances. Has 'Lias harnessed yet, Elvira?"

Without deigning to answer, Mrs. Caukins freed her mind.

"Well, Mr. Caukins, I must say you grow more and more like that old ram of 'Lias's that has learned to butt backwards just for the sake of going contrary to nature. I believe you'd rather tell a piece of news backwards than forwards any day! Why didn't you begin by telling me about Romanzo? If your own child that's your flesh and blood and bone isn't of most interest to you, I'd like to know what is!"

The Colonel's reply was partly inaudible owing to a sudden outbreak of altercation among the boys in the room below. Mrs. Caukins, who had just reached the landing, turned in her tracks and hurried to the rescue.

The Colonel smiled at the rosy, freshly-shaved face reflected in the mirror of the old-fashioned dressing-case, and, at the same time, caught the reflection of another image—that of his hired man, 'Lias, who was crossing the yard. He went to the window and leaned out, stemming his hands on the sill.

"There seems to be the usual Sunday morning row going on below, 'Lias. I fear the boys are shampooing each other's heads with the backs of their brushes from the sounds."

'Lias smiled, and nodded understandingly.

"Just look in and lend a hand in case Mrs. Caukins should be outnumbered, will you? I'm engaged at present." And deeply engaged he was to the twins' unspeakable delight. Whistling softly an air from "Il Trovatore," he rubbed some orange-flower water on his chin and cheeks; then taking a fresh handkerchief, dabbed several drops on the two little noses that waited upon him weekly in expectation of this fragrant boon. He was rewarded by a few satisfactory kisses.

"Now run away and help mother—coach leaves at nine forty-five pre-cisely. I forgot the peppermints, but—" he slapped his trousers' pockets significantly.

The twins shouted with delight and rushed away to impart the news to the boys.

"I wish you would tell me the secret of your boys' conduct in church, Colonel Caukins; it's exemplary. I don't understand it, for boys will be boys," said the rector one Sunday several years before when all the boys were young. He had taken note of their want of restlessness throughout the sermon.

The Colonel's mouth twitched; he answered promptly, but avoided his wife's eyes.

"All in the method, I assure you. We Americans have spent a generation in experimenting with the inductive, the subjective method in education, and the result is, to all intents and purposes, a dismal failure. The future will prove the value of the objective, the deductive—which is mine," he added with a sententious emphasis that left the puzzled rector no wiser than before.

"Whatever the method, Colonel, you have a fine family; there is no mistake about that," he said heartily.

The Colonel beamed and responded at once:

"'Blessed is the man that hath his quiver full'—"

At this point Mrs. Caukins surreptitiously poked the admonitory end of her sunshade between the Colonel's shoulder blades, and the Colonel, comprehending, desisted from further quotation of scripture. It was not his strong point. Once he had been known to quote, not only unblushingly but triumphantly, during a touch-and-go discussion of the labor question in the town hall:—"The ass, gentlemen, is worthy of his hire"; and in so doing had covered Mrs. Caukins with confusion and made a transient enemy of every wage-earner in the audience.

But his boys behaved—that was the point. What boys wouldn't when their heart's desire was conveyed to them at the beginning of the sermon by a secret-service-under-the-pew process wholly delightful to the young human male? Who wouldn't be quiet for the sake of the peppermints, a keen three-bladed knife, or a few gelatine fishes that squirmed on his warm moist palm in as lively a manner as if just landed on the lake shore? Their father had been a boy, and at fifty had a boy's heart within him—this was the secret of his success.

Mrs. Caukins appeared at last, radiant in the consciousness of a new chip hat and silk blouse. Dulcie and Doosie in white lawn did their pains-taking mother credit in every respect. The Colonel gallantly presented his wife with a small bunch of early roses—an attention which called up a fine bit of color into her still pretty face. 'Lias helped her into the three-seated wagon, then lifted in the twins; the boys piled in afterwards; the Colonel took the reins. Mrs. Caukins waved her sunshade vigorously at 'Lias and gave a long sigh of relief and satisfaction.

"Well, we're off at last! I declare I miss Maggie every hour in the day. I don't know what I should have done all these years without that girl!"

The mention of "Maggie" emphasizes one of the many changes in Flamsted during the six years of Champney Googe's absence. Mrs. Caukins, urged by her favorite, Aileen, and advised by Mrs. Googe and Father HonorÉ, had imported Margaret O'Dowd, the "Freckles" of the asylum, as mother's helper six months after Aileen's arrival in Flamsted. For nearly six years Maggie loyally seconded Mrs. Caukins in the care of her children and her household. Slow, but sure and dependable, strong and willing, she made herself invaluable in the stone house among the sheep pastures; her stunted affections revived and flourished apace in that household of well-cared-for children to whom both parents were devoted. It cost her a heartache to leave them; but six months ago burly Jim McCann, one of the best workmen in the sheds—although of unruly spirit and a source of perennial trouble among the men—began to make such determined love to the mother's helper that the Caukinses found themselves facing inevitable loss. Maggie had been married three months; and already McCann had quarrelled with the foreman, and, in a huff, despite his wife's tears and prayers, sought of his own accord work in another and far distant quarry.

"Maggie told me she'd never leave off teasing Jim to bring her back," said the fifth eldest Caukins.—"Oh, look!" he cried as they rumbled over the bridge; "there's Mrs. Googe and Champney on the porch waving to us!"

The Colonel took off his hat with a flourish; the boys swung theirs; Mrs. Caukins waved her sunshade to mother and son.

"I declare, I'd like to stop just a minute," she said regretfully, for the Colonel continued to drive straight on. "I'm so glad for Aurora's sake that he's come home; I only hope our Romanzo will do as well."

"It would be an intrusion at such a time, Elvira. The effusions of even the best-intentioned friends are injudicious at the inopportune moment of domestic reunion."

Mrs. Caukins subsided on that point. She was always depressed by the Colonel's grandiloquence, which he usually reserved for The Greenbush and the town-meeting, without being able to account for it.

"He'll see a good many changes here; it's another Flamsted we're living in," she remarked later on when they passed the first stone-cutters' shed on the opposite shore of the lake; and the family proceeded to comment all the way to church on the various changes along the route.

---

It was in truth another Flamsted, the industrial Flamsted which the Colonel predicted six years before on that memorable evening in the office of The Greenbush.

To watch the transformation of a quiet back-country New England village into the life-centre of a great and far-reaching industry, is in itself a liberal education, not only in economics, but in inherited characteristics of the human race. Those first drops of "the deluge," the French priest and the Irish orphan, were followed by an influx of foreigners of many nationalities: Scotch, Irish, Italians, Poles, Swedes, Canadian French; and with these were associated a few American-born.

Their life-problem, the earning of wages for the sustenance of themselves and their families, was one they had in common. Its solution was centred for one and all in their work among the granite quarries of The Gore and in the stone-cutters' sheds on the north shore of Lake Mesantic. These two things the hundreds belonging to a half-dozen nationalities possessed in common—these, and their common humanity together with the laws to which it is subject. But aside from this, their speech, habits, customs, religions, food, and pastimes were polyglot; on this account the lines of racial demarkation were apt, at times, to be drawn all too sharply. Yet this very fact of differentiation provided hundreds of others—farmers, shopkeepers, jobbers, machinists, mechanics, blacksmiths, small restaurant-keepers, pool and billiard room owners—with ample sources of livelihood.

This internal change in the community of Flamsted corresponded to the external. During those six years the very face of nature underwent transformation. The hills in the apex of The Gore were shaved clean of the thin layer of turf, and acres of granite laid bare to the drill. Monster derricks, flat stone-cars, dummy engines, electric motors, were everywhere in evidence. Two glittering steel tracks wound downwards through old watercourses to the level of the lake, and to the huge stone-cutting sheds that stretched their gray length along the northern shore. Here the quarried stones, tons in weight, were unloaded by the great electric travelling crane which picks up one after the other with automatic perfection of silence and accuracy, and deposits them wherever needed by the workmen.

A colony of substantial three-room houses, two large boarding-houses, a power house and, farther up beyond the pines, a stone house and a long low building, partly of wood, partly of granite waste cemented, circled the edges of the quarry.

The usual tale of workmen in the fat years was five hundred quarrymen and three hundred stone-cutters. This population of working-men, swelled to three thousand by the addition of their families, increased or diminished according as the years and seasons proved fat or lean. A ticker on Wall Street was sufficient to give to the great industry abnormal life and activity, and draw to the town a surplus working population. A feeling of unrest and depression, long-continued in metropolitan financial circles, was responded to with sensitive pulse on these far-away hills of Maine and resulted in migratory flights, by tens and twenties, of Irish and Poles, of Swedes, Italians, French Canucks, and American-born to more favorable conditions. "Here one day and gone the next"; even the union did not make for stability of tenure.

In this ceaseless tidal ebb and flow of industrials, the original population of Flamsted managed at times to come to the surface to breathe; to look about them; to speculate as to "what next?" for the changes were rapid and curiosity was fed almost to satiety. A fruitful source of speculation was Champney Googe's long absence from home, already six years, and his prospects when he should have returned. Speculation was also rife when Aurora Googe crossed the ocean to spend a summer with her son; at one time rumors were afloat that Champney's prospective marriage with a relation of the Van Ostends was near at hand, and this was said to be the cause of his mother's rather sudden departure. But on her return, Mrs. Googe set all speculation in this direction at rest by denying the rumor most emphatically, and adding the information for every one's benefit that she had gone over to be with Champney because he did not wish to come home at the time his contract with Mr. Van Ostend permitted.

Once during the past year, the village wise heads foregathered in the office of The Greenbush to discuss the very latest:—the coming to Flamsted of seven Sisters, Daughters of the Mystic Rose, who, foreseeing the suppression of their home institution in France, had come to prepare a refuge for their order on the shores of America and found another home and school among the quarrymen in this distant hill-country of the new Maine—an echo of the old France of their ancestors. This was looked upon as an undreamed-of innovation exceeding all others that had come to their knowledge; it remained for old Joel Quimber to enter the lists as champion of the newcomers, their cause, and their school which, with Father HonorÉ's aid, they at once established among the barren hills of The Gore.

"Hounded out er France, poor souls, just like my own great-great-great-granther's father!" he said, referring to the subject again on that last Saturday evening when the frequenters of The Greenbush were to be stirred shortly by the news they considered best of all: Champney Googe's unexpected arrival. "I was up thar yisterd'y an' it beats all how snug they're fixed! The schoolroom's ez neat as a pin, an' pitchers on the walls wuth a day's journey to see. They're havin' a room built onto the farther end—a kind of er relief hospital, so Father HonorÉ told me—ter help out when the quarrymen git a jammed foot er finger, so's they needn't be took home to muss up their little cabins an' worrit their wives an' little 'uns. I heerd Aileen hed ben goin' up thar purty reg'lar lately for French an' sich; guess Mis' Champney's done 'bout the right thing by her, eh, Tave?"

Octavius nodded. "And Aileen's done the right thing by Mrs. Champney. 'T isn't every young girl that would stick to it as Aileen's done the last six years—not in the circumstances."

"You're right, Tave. I heerd not long ago thet she was a-goin' on the stage when she'd worked out her freedom, and by A. J. she's got the voice for it! But I'd hate ter see her thar. She's made a lot er sunshine in this place, and I guess from all I hear there's them thet would stan' out purty stiff agin it; they say Luigi Poggi an' Romanzo Caukins purty near fit over her t' other night."

"You needn't believe all you hear, Joel, but you can believe me when I tell you there'll be no going on the stage for Aileen—not if I know it, or Father HonorÉ either."

He spoke so emphatically that his brother Augustus looked at him in surprise.

"What's up, Tave?" he inquired.

"I mean Aileen's got a level head and isn't going to leave just as things are beginning to get interesting. She's stood it six year and she can stand it six more if she makes up her mind to it, and I'd ought to know, seeing as I've lived with her ever since she come to Flamsted."

"To be sure, Tave, to be sure; nobody knows better'n you, 'bout Aileen, an' I guess she's come to look on you, from all I hear, as her special piece of property." His brother spoke appeasingly.

Octavius smiled. "Well, I don't deny but she lays claim to me most of the time; it's 'Octavius' here and 'Octavius' there all day long. Sometimes Mrs. Champney ruffs up about it, but Aileen has a way of smoothing her down, generally laughs her out of it. Is that the Colonel?" He listened to a step on the veranda. "Don't let on 'bout anything 'twixt Romanzo and Aileen before the Colonel, Joel."

"You don't hev ter say thet to me," said old Quimber resentfully; "anybody can see through a barn door when thar's a hole in it. All on us know Mis' Champney's a-breakin'; they do say she's hed a shock, leastwise I heerd so, an' Aileen'll look out for A No. 1. I ain't lived to be most eighty in Flamsted for nothin', an' I've seen an' heerd more'n I've ever told, Tave; more'n even you know 'bout some things. You don't remember the time old Square Googe took Aurory inter his home to bring up an' Judge Champney said he was sorry he'd got ahead of him for he wanted to adopt her for a daughter himself; them's his words; I heerd him. An' I can tell more'n—"

"Shut up, Quimber," said Octavius shortly; and Joel Quimber "shut up," but, winking knowingly at Augustus Buzzby, continued to chuckle to himself till the Colonel entered who, beginning to expatiate upon the subject of Champney Googe's prospects when he should have returned to the home-welcome awaiting him, was happily interrupted by the announcement of that young man's unexpected arrival on the evening train.

---

II

Champney Googe was beginning to realize, as he stood on the porch with his mother and waved to his old neighbors, the Caukinses, the changed conditions he was about to face. He was also realizing that he must change to meet these conditions. On his way up from the train Saturday evening, he noted the power house at The Corners and the substantial line of comfortable cottages that extended for a mile along the highroad to the entrance of the village. He found Main Street brilliant with electric lights and lined nearly its entire length with shops, large and small, which were thronged with week-end purchasers. An Italian fruit store near The Greenbush bore the proprietor's name, Luigi Poggi; as he drove past he saw an old Italian woman bargaining with smiles and lively gestures over the open counter. Farther on, from an improvised wooden booth, the raucous voice of the phonograph was jarring the night air and entertaining a motley group gathered in front of it. Across the street a flaunting poster announced "Moving Picture Show for a Nickel." Vehicles of all descriptions, from a Maine "jigger" to a "top buggy," were stationary along the village thoroughfare, their various steeds hitched to every available stone post. In front of the rectory some Italian children were dancing to the jingle of a tambourine.

On nearing The Bow the confusion ceased; the polyglot sounds were distinguishable only as a murmur. In passing Champ-au-Haut, he looked up at the house; here and there a light shone behind drawn shades. Six years had passed since he was last there; six years—and time had not dulled the sensation of that white pepper in his nostrils! He smiled to himself. He must see Aileen before he left, for from time to time he had heard good reports of her from his mother with whom she had become a favorite. He thought she must be mighty plucky to stand Aunt Meda all this time! He gathered from various sources that Mrs. Champney was growing peculiar as she approached three score and ten. Her rare letters to him, however, were kind enough. But he was sure Aileen's anomalous place in the household at Champ-au-Haut—neither servant nor child of the house, never adopted, but only maintained—could have been no sinecure. Anyway, he knew she had kept the devotion of her two admirers, Romanzo Caukins and Octavius Buzzby. From a hint in his aunt's last letter, he drew the conclusion that Aileen and Romanzo would make a match of it before long, when Romanzo should be established. At any rate, Aileen had wit enough, he was sure, to know on which side her bread was buttered, and from all he heard by the way of letters, Romanzo Caukins was not to be sneezed at as a prospective husband—a steady-going, solid sort of a chap who, he was told, had a chance now like himself in the quarry business. He must credit Aunt Meda with this one bit of generosity, at least; Mr. Van Ostend told him she had applied to him for some working position for Romanzo in the Flamsted office, and not in vain; he was about to be put in as pay-master.

As he drove slowly up the highroad towards The Gore, he saw the stone-cutters' sheds stretching dim and gray in the moonlight along the farther shore. A standing train of loaded flat-cars gleamed in the electric light like a long high-piled drift of new-fallen snow. Here and there, on approaching The Gore, an arc-light darkened the hills round about and sent its blinding glare into the traveller's eyes. At last, his home was in sight—his home!—he wondered that he did not experience a greater thrill of home-coming—and behind and above it the many electric lights in and around the quarries produced hazy white reflections concentrated in luminous spots on the clear sky.

His mother met him on the porch. Her greeting was such that it caused him to feel, and for the first time, that where she was, there, henceforth, his true home must ever be.

---

"It will be hard work adjusting myself at first, mother," he said, turning to her after watching the wagonload of Caukinses out of sight, "harder than I had any idea of. A foreign business training may broaden a man in some ways, but it leaves his muscles flabby for real home work here in America. You make your fight over there with gloves, and here only bare knuckles are of any use; but I'm ready for it!" He smiled and squared his shoulders as to an imaginary load.

"You don't regret it, do you, Champney?"

"Yes and no, mother. I don't regret it because I have gained a certain knowledge of men and things available only to one who has lived over there; but I do regret that, because of the time so spent, I am, at twenty-seven, still hugging the shore—just as I was when I left college. After all these years I'm not 'in it' yet; but I shall be soon," he added; the hard determined ring of steadfast purpose was in his voice. He sat down on the lower step: his mother brought forward her chair.

"Champney," she spoke half hesitatingly; she did not find it easy to question the man before her as she used to question the youth of twenty-one, "would you mind telling me if there ever was any truth in the rumor that somehow got afloat over here three years ago that you were going to marry Ruth Van Ostend? Of course, I denied it when I got home, for I knew you would have told me if there had been anything to it."

Champney clasped his hands about his knee and nursed it, smiling to himself, before he answered:

"I suppose I may as well make a clean breast of the whole affair, which is little enough, mother, even if I didn't cover myself with glory and come out with colors flying. You see I was young and, for all my four years in college, pretty green when it came to the real life of those people—"

"You mean the Van Ostends?"

"Yes, their kind. It's one thing to accept their favors, and it's quite another to make them think you are doing them one. So I sailed in to make Ruth Van Ostend interested in me as far as possible, circumstances permitting—and you'll admit that a yachting trip is about as favorable as they make it. You know she's three years older than I, and I think it flattered and amused her to accept my devotion for a while, but then—"

"But, Champney, did you love her?"

"Well, to be honest, mother, I hadn't got that far myself—don't know that I ever should have; any way, I wanted to get her to the point before I went through any self-catechism on that score."

"But, Champney!" She spoke with whole-hearted protest.

He nodded up at her understandingly. "I know the 'but', mother; but that's how it stood with me. You know they were in Paris the next spring and, of course, I saw a good deal of them—and of many others who were dancing attendance on the heiress to the same tune that I was. But I caught on soon, and saw all the innings were with one special man; and, well—I didn't make a fool of myself, that's all. As you know, she was married the autumn after your return, three years ago."

"You're sure you really didn't mind, Champney?"

He laughed out at that. "Mind! Well, rather! You see it knocked one of my little plans higher than a kite—a plan I made the very day I decided to accept Mr. Van Ostend's offer. Of course I minded."

"What plan?"

"Wonder if I'd better tell you, mother? I'd like to stand well in your good graces—"

"Oh, Champney!"

"Fact, I would. Well, here goes then: I decided—I was lying up under the pines, you know that day I didn't want to accept his offer?"—she nodded confirmatorily—"that if I couldn't have an opportunity to get rich quick in one way, I would in another; and, in accepting the offer, I made up my mind to try for the sister and her millions; if successful, I intended to take by that means a short cut to matrimony and fortune."

"Oh, Champney!"

"Young and fresh and—hardened, wasn't it, mother?"

"You were so young, so ignorant, so unused to that sort of living; you had no realization of the difficulties of life—of love—."

She began speaking as if in apology for his weakness, but ended with the murmured words "life—love", in a voice so tense with pain that it sounded as if the major dominant of youth and ignorance suddenly suffered transcription into a haunting minor.

Her son looked up at her in surprise.

"Why, mother, don't take it so hard; I assure you I didn't. It brought me down to bed rock, for I was making a conceited ass of myself that's all, in thinking I could have roses for fodder instead of thistles—and just for the asking! It did me no end of good. I shall never rush in again where even angels fear to tread except softly—I mean the male wingless kind—worth a couple of millions; she has seven in her own right.—But we're the best of friends."

He spoke without bitterness. His mother felt, however, at the moment, that she would have preferred to hear a note of keen disappointment in his explanation rather than this tone of lightest persiflage.

"I don't see how—" she began, but checked herself. A slight flush mounted in her cheeks.

"See how what, mother? Please don't leave me dangling; I'm willing to take all you can give. I deserve it."

"I wasn't going to blame you, Champney. I'm the last one to do that—Life teaches each in her own way. I was only thinking I didn't see how any girl could resist loving you, dear."

"Oh, ho! Don't you, mother mine! Well, commend me to a doting—"

"I'm not doting, Champney," she protested, laughing; "I know your faults better than you know them yourself."

"A doting mother, I say, to brace up a man fallen through his pride. Do you mean to say"—, he sprang to his feet, faced her, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his face alive with the fun of the moment,—"do you mean to say that if you were a girl I should prove irresistible to you? Come now, mother, tell me, honor bright."

She raised her eyes to his. The flush faded suddenly in her cheeks, leaving them unnaturally white; her eyes filled with tears.

"I should worship you," she said under her breath, and dropped her head into her hands. He sprang up the steps to her side.

"Why, mother, mother, don't speak so. I'm not worthy of it—it shames me. Here, look up," he took her bowed head tenderly between his hands and raised it, "look into my face; read it well—interpret, and you will cease to idealize, mother."

She wiped her eyes, half-smiling through her tears. "I'm not idealizing, Champney, and I didn't know I could be so weak; I think—I think the telegram and your coming so unexpectedly—"

"I know, mother," he spoke soothingly, "it was too much; you've been too long alone. I'm glad I'm at home at last and can run up here almost any time." He patted her shoulder softly, and whistled for Rag. "Come, put on your shade hat and we'll go up to the quarries. I want to see them; do you realize they are the largest in the country? It's wonderful what a change they've made here! After all, it takes America to forge ahead, for we've got the opportunities and the money to back them—and what more is needed to make us great?" He spoke lightly, expecting no answer.

She brought her hat and the two went up the side road under the elms to the quarry.

Ay, what more is needed to make us great? That is the question. There comes a time when a man, whose ears are not wholly deafened by the roar of a trafficking commercialism, asks this question of himself in the hope that some answer may be vouchsafed to him. If it come at all, it comes like the "still small voice" after the whirlwind; and the man who asks that question in the expectation of a response, must first have suffered, repented, struggled, fought, at times succumbed to fateful overwhelming circumstance, before his soul can be attuned so finely that the "still small voice" becomes audible. Youth and that question are not synchronous.

---

"I've not been so much alone as you imagine, Champney," said his mother. They were picking their way over the granite slopes and around to Father HonorÉ's house. "Aileen and Father HonorÉ and all the Caukinses and, during this last year, those sweet women of the sisterhood have brought so much life into my life up here among these old sheep pastures that I've not had the chance to feel the loneliness I otherwise should. And then there is that never-to-be-forgotten summer with you over the ocean—I feed constantly on the remembrance of all that delight."

"I'm glad you had it, mother."

"Besides, this great industry is so many-sided that it keeps me interested in every new development in spite of myself."

"By the way, mother, you wrote me that you had invested most of that twenty thousand from the quarry lands in bank stock, didn't you?"

"Yes; Mr. Emlie is president now; he is considered safe. The deposits have quadrupled these last two years, and the dividends have been satisfactory."

"Yes, I know Emlie's safe enough, but you don't want to tie up your money so that you can't convert it at once into cash if advisable. You know I shall be on the inside track now and in a position to use a little of it at a time judiciously in order to increase it for you. I'd like to double it for you as Aunt Meda has doubled her inheritance from grandfather—Who's that?"

He stopped short and, shading his eyes with his hat, nodded in the direction of the sisterhood house that stood perhaps an eighth of a mile beyond the pines. His mother, following his look, saw the figure of a girl dodge around the corner of the house. Before she could answer, Rag, the Irish terrier, who had been nosing disconsolately about on the barren rock, suddenly lost his head. With one short suppressed yelp, he laid his heels low to the slippery granite shelves and scuttled, scurried, scrambled, tore across the intervening quarry hollow like a bundle of brown tow driven before a hurricane.

Mrs. Googe laughed. "No need to ask 'who' when you see Rag go mad like that! It's Aileen; Rag has been devoted to her ever since you've been gone. I wonder why she isn't at church?"

The girl disappeared in the house. Again and again Champney whistled for his dog but Rag failed to put in an appearance.

"He'll need to be re-trained. It isn't well, even for a dog, to be under such petticoat government as that; it spoils him. Only I'm afraid I sha'n't be at home long enough to make him hear to reason."

"Aileen has him in good training. She knows the dog adores her and makes the most of it. Oh, I forgot to tell you I sent word to Father HonorÉ this morning to come over to tea to-night. I knew you would like to see him, and he has been anticipating your return."

"Has he? What for I wonder. By the way, where did he take his meals after he left you?"

"Over in the boarding-house with the men. He stayed with me only three months, until his house was built. He has an old French Canadian for housekeeper now."

"He's greatly beloved, I hear."

"The Gore wouldn't be The Gore without him," Mrs. Googe spoke earnestly. "The Colonel"—she laughed as she always did when about to quote her rhetorical neighbor—"speaks of him to everyone as 'the heart of the quarry that responds to the throb of the universal human,' and so far as I know no one has ever taken exception to it, for it's true."

"I remember—he was an all round fine man. I shall be glad to see him again. He must find some pretty tough customers up here to deal with, and the Colonel's office is no longer the soft snap it was for fifteen years, I'll bet."

"No, that's true; but, on the whole, there is less trouble than you would expect among so many nationalities. Isn't it queer?—Father HonorÉ says that most of the serious trouble comes from disputes between the Hungarians and Poles about religious questions. They are apt to settle it with fists or something worse. But he and the Colonel have managed well between them; they have settled matters with very few arrests."

"I can't imagine the Colonel in that rÔle." Champney laughed. "What does he do with all his rhetorical trumpery at such times? I've never seen him under fire—in fact, he never had been when I left."

"I know he doesn't like it. He told me he shouldn't fill the office after another year. You know he was obliged to do it to make both ends meet; but since the opening of the quarries he has really prospered and has a market right here in town for all the mutton he can raise. I'm so glad Romanzo's got a chance."

They rambled on, crossing the apex of The Gore and getting a good view of the great extent of the opened quarries. Their talk drifted from one thing to another, Champney questioning about this one and that, until, as they turned homewards, he declared he had picked up the many dropped stitches so fast, that he should feel no longer a stranger in his native place when he should make his first appearance in the town the next day. He wanted to renew acquaintance with all the people at Champ-au-Haut and the old habituÉs of The Greenbush.

---

III

He walked down to Champ-au-Haut the next afternoon. Here and there on the mountain side and along the highroad he noticed the massed pink and white clusters of the sheep laurel. Every singing bird was in full voice; thrush and vireo, robin, meadow lark, song-sparrow and catbird were singing as birds sing but once in the whole year; when the mating season is at its height and the long migratory flight northwards is forgotten in the supreme instinctive joy of the ever-new miracle of procreation.

When he came to The Bow he went directly to the paddock gate. He was hoping to find Octavius somewhere about. He wanted to interview him before seeing any one else, in regard to Rag who had not returned. The recalcitrant terrier must be punished in a way he could not forget; but Champney was not minded to administer this well-deserved chastisement in the presence of the dog's protectress. He feared to make a poor first impression.

He stopped a moment at the gate to look down the lane—what a beautiful estate it was! He wondered if his aunt intended leaving anything of it to the girl she had kept with her all these years. Somehow he had received the impression, whether from Mr. Van Ostend or his sister he could not recall, that she once said she did not mean to adopt her. His mother never mentioned the matter to him; indeed, she shunned all mention, when possible, of Champ-au-Haut and its owner.

In his mind's eye he could still see this child as he saw her on the stage at the Vaudeville, clad first in rags, then in white; as he saw her again dressed in the coarse blue cotton gown of orphan asylum order, sitting in the shade of the boat house on that hot afternoon in July, and rubbing her greasy hands in glee; as he saw her for the third time leaning from the bedroom window and listening to his improvised serenade. Well, he had a bone to pick with her about his dog; that would make things lively for a while and serve for an introduction. He reached over to unlatch the gate. At that moment he heard Octavius' voice in violent protest. It came from behind a group of apple trees down the lane in the direction of the milking shed.

"Now don't go for to trying any such experiment as that, Aileen; you'll fret the cow besides mussing your clean dress."

"I don't care; it'll wash. Now, please, do let me, Tave, just this once."

"I tell you the cow won't give down her milk if you take hold of her. She'll get all in a fever having a girl fooling round her." There followed the rattle of pails and a stool.

"Now, look here, Octavius Buzzby, who knows best about a cow, you or I?"

"Well, seeing as I've made it my business to look after cows ever since I was fifteen year old, you can't expect me to give in to you and say you do."

Her merry laugh rang out. Champney longed to echo it, but thought best to lie low for a while and enjoy the fun so unexpectedly provided.

"Tavy, dear, that only goes to prove you are a mere man; a dear one to be sure—but then! Don't you flatter yourself for one moment that you, or any other man, really know any creature of the feminine gender from a woman to a cow. You simply can't, Tavy, because you aren't feminine. Can you comprehend that? Can you say on your honor as a man that you have ever been able to tell for certain what Mrs. Champney, or Hannah, or I, for instance, or this cow, or the cat, or Bellona, when she hasn't been ridden enough, or the old white hen you've been trying to force to sit the last two weeks, is going to do next? Now, honor bright, have you?"

Octavius was grumbling some reply inaudible to Champney.

"No, of course you haven't; and what's more you never will. Not that it's your fault, Tavy, dear, it's only your misfortune." Exasperating patronage was audible in her voice. Champney noted that a trace of the rich Irish brogue was left. "Here, give me that pail."

"I tell you, Aileen, you can't do it; you've never learned to milk."

"Oh, haven't I? Look here, Tave, now no more nonsense; Romanzo taught me how two years ago—but we both took care you shouldn't know anything about it. Give me that pail." This demand was peremptory.

Evidently Octavius was weakening, for Champney heard again the rattle of the pails and the stool; then a swish of starched petticoat and a cooing "There, there, Bess."

He opened the gate noiselessly and closing it behind him walked down the lane. The golden light of the June sunset was barred, where it lay upon the brilliant green of the young grass, with the long shadows of the apple-tree trunks. He looked between the thick foliage of the low-hanging branches to the milking shed. The two were there. Octavius was looking on dubiously; Aileen was coaxing the giant Holstein mother to stand aside at a more convenient angle for milking.

"Hold her tail, Tave," was the next command.

She seated herself on the stool and laid her cheek against the warm, shining black flank; her hands manipulated the rosy teats; then she began to sing:

The milk, now drumming steadily into the pail, served for a running accompaniment to the next verses.

What a voice! And what a picture she made leaning caressingly against the charmed and patient Bess! She was so slight, yet round and supple—strong, too, with the strength of perfect health! The thick fluffed black hair was rolled away from her face and gathered into a low knot in the nape of her neck. Her dress cut low at the throat enhanced the white purity of her face and the slim round grace of her neck which showed to advantage against the ebony flank of the mother of many milky ways. Her lips were red and full; the nose was a saucy stub; the eyes he could not see; they were downcast, intent upon her filling pail and the rising creamy foam; but he knew them to be an Irish blue-gray.

---

"What a picture she made leaning caressingly against the charmed and patient Bess"

---

The song ceased; the singer was giving her undivided attention to her self-imposed task. Octavius took a stool and began work with another cow. Champney, nothing loath to prolong the pleasure of looking at the improvised milkmaid, waited before making his presence known until she should have finished.

And watching her, he could but wonder at the ways of Chance that had cast this little piece of foreign flotsam upon the shores of America, only to sweep it inland to this village in Maine. He could not help comparing her with Alice Van Ostend—what a contrast! What an abyss between the circumstances of the two lives! Yet this one was decidedly charming, more so than the other; for he was at once aware that Aileen was already in possession of her womanhood's dower of command over all poor mortals of the opposite sex—her manner with Octavius showed him that; and Alice when he saw her last, now nearly six months ago, would have given any one the impression of something still unfledged—a tall, slim, overgrown girl of sixteen, and somewhat spoiled. This was indeed only natural, for her immediate world of father, aunt, and relations had circled ever since her birth in the orbit of her charming wilfulness. Champney acknowledged to himself that he had done her bidding a little too frequently ever since the first yachting trip, when as a little girl she attached herself to him, or rather him to her as a part of her special goods and chattels. At that time their common ground for conversation was Aileen; the child was never tired of his rehearsing for her delight the serenade scene. But in another year she lost this interest, for many others took its place; nor was it ever renewed.

The Van Ostends, together with Ruth and her husband, had been living the last three winters in Paris, Mr. Van Ostend crossing and recrossing as his business interests demanded or permitted. Champney was much with them, for their home was always open to him who proved an ever welcome guest. He acknowledged to himself, while participating in the intimacy of their home life, that if the child's partiality to his companionship, so undisguisedly expressed on every occasion, should, in the transition periods of girlhood and young womanhood, deepen into a real attachment, he would cultivate it with a view to asking her in marriage of her father when the time should show itself ripe. In his first youthful arrogance of self-assertion he had miscalculated with Ruth Van Ostend. He would make provision that this "undeveloped affair"—so he termed it—with her niece should not miscarry for want of caution. He intended while waiting for Alice to grow up—a feat which her aunt was always deploring as an impossibility except in a physical sense—to make himself necessary in this young life. Thus far he had been successful; her weekly girlish letters conclusively proved it.

While waiting for the milk to cease its vigorous flow, he was conscious of reviewing his attitude towards the "undeveloped affair" in some such train of thought, and finding in it nothing to condemn, rather to commend, in fact; for not for the fractional part of a second did he allow a thought of it to divert his mind from the constant end in view: the making for himself a recognized place of power in the financial world of affairs. He knew that Mr. Van Ostend was aware of this steadfast pursuit of a purpose. He knew, moreover, that the fact that the great financier was taking him into his New York office as treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries, was a tacit recognition not only of his six years' apprenticeship in some of the largest banking houses in Europe, but of his ability to acquire that special power which was his goal. In the near future he would handle and practically control millions both in receipt and disbursement. Many of the contracts, already signed, were to be filled within the next three years—the sound of the milking suddenly ceased.

"My, how my wrists ache! See, Tave, the pail is almost full; there must be twelve or fourteen quarts in all."

She began to rub her wrists vigorously. Octavius muttered: "I told you so. You might have known you couldn't milk steady like that without getting all tuckered out."

Champney stepped forward quickly. "Right you are, Tave, every time. How are you, dear old chap?" He held out his hand.

"Champ—Champney—why—" he stammered rather than spoke.

"It's I, Tave; the same old sixpence. Have I changed so much?"

"Changed? I should say so! I thought—I thought—" he was wringing Champney's hand; some strange emotion worked in his features—"I thought for a second it was Mr. Louis come to life." He turned to Aileen who had sprung from her stool. "Aileen, this is Mr. Champney Googe; you've forgotten him, I dare say, in all these years."

The rich red mantled her cheeks; the gray eyes smiled up frankly into his; she held out her hand. "Oh, no, I've not forgotten Mr. Champney Googe; how could I?"

"Indeed, I think it is the other way round; if I remember rightly you gave me the opportunity of never forgetting you." He held her hand just a trifle longer than was necessary. The girl smiled and withdrew it.

"Milky hands are not so sticky as spruce gum ones, Mr. Googe, but they are apt to be quite as unpleasant."

Champney was annoyed without in the least knowing why. He was wondering if he should address her as "Aileen" or "Miss Armagh," when Octavius spoke:

"Aileen, just go on ahead up to the house and tell Mrs. Champney Mr. Googe is here." Aileen went at once, and Octavius explained.

"You see, Champney—Mr. Googe—"

"Have I changed so much, Tave, that you can't use the old name?"

"You've changed a sight; it don't come easy to call you Champ, any more than it did to call Mr. Louis by his Christian name. You look a Champney every inch of you, and you act like one." He spoke emphatically; his small keen eyes dwelt admiringly on the face and figure of the tall man before him. "I thought 't was better to send Aileen on ahead, for Mrs. Champney's broken a good deal since you saw her; she can't stand much excitement—and you're the living image." He called for the boy who had taken Romanzo's place. "I'll go up as far as the house with you. How long are you going to stay?"

"It depends upon how long it takes me to investigate these quarries, learn the ropes. A week or two possibly. I am to be treasurer of the Company with my office in New York."

"So I heard, so I heard. I'm glad it's come at last—no thanks to her," he added, nodding in the direction of the house.

"Do you still hold a grudge, Tave?"

"Yes, and always shall. Right's right and wrong's wrong, and there ain't a carpenter in this world that can dovetail the two. You and your mother have been cheated out of your rights in what should be yours, and it's ten to one if you ever get a penny of it."

Champney smiled at the little man's indignation. "All the more reason to congratulate me on my job, Tave."

"Well, I do; only it don't set well, this other business. She ain't helped you any to it?" He asked half hesitatingly.

"Not a red cent, Tave. I don't owe her anything. Possibly she will leave some of it to this same Miss Aileen Armagh. Stranger things have happened." Octavius shook his head.

"Don't you believe it, Champney. She likes Aileen and well she may, but she don't like her well enough to give her a slice off of this estate; and what's more she don't like any living soul well enough to part with a dollar of it on their account."

"Is there any one Aunt Meda ever did love, Tave? From all I remember to have heard, when I was a boy, she was always bound up pretty thoroughly in herself."

"Did she ever love any one? Well she did; that was her husband, Louis Champney, who loved you as his own son. And it's my belief that's the reason you don't get your rights. She was jealous as the devil of every word he spoke to you."

"You're telling me news—and late in the day."

"Late is better than never, and I'd always meant to tell you when you come to man's estate—but you've been away so long, I've thought sometimes you was never coming home; but I hoped you would for your mother's sake, and for all our sakes."

"I'm going to do what I can, but you mustn't depend too much on me, Tave. I'm glad I'm at home for mother's sake although I always felt she had a good right hand in you, Tave; you've always been a good friend to her, she tells me."

Octavius Buzzby swallowed hard once, twice; but he gave him no reply. Champney wondered to see his face work again with some emotion he failed to explain satisfactorily to himself.

"There's Mrs. Champney on the terrace; I won't go any farther. Come in when you can, won't you?"

"I shall be pretty apt to run in for a chat almost anytime on my way to the village." He waved his hand in greeting to his aunt and sprang up the steps leading to the terrace.

He bent to kiss her and was shocked by the change in her that was only too apparent: the delicate features were sharpened; the temples sunken; her abundant light brown hair was streaked heavily with white; the hands had grown old, shrunken, the veins prominent.

"Kiss me again, Champney," she said in a low voice, closing her eyes when he bent again to fulfil her request. When she opened them he noticed that the lids were trembling and the corners of her mouth twitched. But she rallied in a moment and said sharply:

"Now, don't say you're sorry—I know all about how I look; but I'm better and expect to outlive a good many well ones yet."

She told Aileen to bring another chair. Champney hastened to forestall her; his aunt shook her finger at him.

"Don't begin by spoiling her," she said. Then she bade her make ready the little round tea-table on the terrace and serve tea.

"What do you think of her?" she asked him after Aileen had entered the house. She spoke with a directness of speech that warned Champney the question was a cloak to some other thought on her part.

"That she does you credit, Aunt Meda. I don't know that I can pay you or her a greater compliment."

"Very well said. You've learned all that over there—and a good deal more besides. There have been no folderols in her education. I've made her practical. Come, draw up your chair nearer and tell me something of the Van Ostends and that little Alice who was the means of Aileen's coming to me. I hear she is growing to be a beauty."

"Beauty—well, I shouldn't say she was that, not yet; but 'little.' She is fully five feet six inches with the prospect of an additional inch."

"I didn't realize it. When are they coming home?"

"Early in the autumn. Alice says she is going to come out next winter, not leak out as the other girls in her set have done; and what Alice wants she generally manages to have."

"Let me see—she must be sixteen; why that's too young!"

"Seventeen next month. She's very good fun though."

"Like her?" She looked towards the house where Aileen was visible with a tea-tray.

"Well, no; at least, not along her lines I should say. She seems to have Tave pretty well under her thumb."

Mrs. Champney smiled. "Octavius thought he couldn't get used to it at first, but he's reconciled now; he had to be.—Call her Aileen, Champney; you mustn't let her get the upper hand of you by making her think she's a woman grown," she added in a low tone, for the girl was approaching them, slowly on account of the loaded tray she was carrying.

Champney left his seat and taking the tea-things from her placed them on the table. Aileen busied herself with setting all in order and twirling the tea-ball in each cup of boiling water, as if she had been used to this ultra method of making tea all her life.

"By the way, Aileen—"

He checked himself, for such a look of amazement was in the quickly lifted gray eyes, such a surprised arch was visible in the dark brows, that he realized his mistake in hearing to his aunt's request. He felt he must make himself whole, and if possible without further delay.

"Oh, I see that it must still be Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-you-forget-it!" he exclaimed, laughing to cover his confusion.

She laughed in turn; she could not help it at the memories this title called to mind. "Well, it's best to be particular with strangers, isn't it?" Down went the eyes to search in the bottom of a teacup.

"I fancied we were not wholly that; I told Aunt Meda about our escapade six years ago; surely, that affair ought to establish a common ground for our continued acquaintance. But, if that's not sufficient, I can find another nearer at hand—where's my dog?"

This brought her to terms.

"Oh, I can't do anything with Rag, Mr. Googe; I'm so sorry. He's over in the coach house this very minute, and Tave was going to take him home to-night. Just think! That seven-year-old dog has to be carried home, old as he is!"

"If it's come to that, I'll take him home under my arm to-night—that is, if he won't follow; I'll try that first."

"But you're not going to punish him!—and simply because he likes me. That wouldn't be fair!"

She made her protest indignantly. Champney looked at his aunt with an amused smile. She nodded understandingly.

"Oh, no; not simply because he likes you, but because he is untrue to me, his master."

"But that isn't fair!" she exclaimed again, her cheeks flushing rose red; "you've been away so long that the dog has forgotten."

"Oh, no, he hasn't; or if he has I must jog his memory. He's Irish, and the supreme characteristic of that breed is fidelity."

"Well, so am I Irish," she retorted pouting; she began to make him a second cup of tea by twirling the silver tea-ball in the shallow cup until the hot water flew over the edge; "but I shouldn't consider it necessary to be faithful to any one who had forgotten and left me for six years."

"You wouldn't?" Champney's eyes challenged hers, but either she did not understand their message or she was too much in earnest to heed it.

"No I wouldn't; what for? I like Rag and he likes me, and we have been faithful to each other; it would be downright hypocrisy on his part to like you after all these years."

"How about you?" Champney grew bold because he knew his aunt was enjoying the girl's entanglement as much as he was. She was amused at his daring and Aileen's earnestness. "Didn't you tell me in Tave's presence only just now that you couldn't forget me? How is that for fidelity? And why excuse Rag on account of a six years' absence?"

"Well, of course, he's your dog," she said loftily, so evading the question and ignoring the laugh at her expense.

"Yes, he's my dog if he is a backslider, and that settles it." He turned to his aunt. "I'll run in again to-morrow, Aunt Meda, I mustn't wear my welcome out in the first two days of my return."

"Yes, do come in when you can. I suppose you will be here a month or two?"

"No; only a week or two at most; but I shall run up often; the business will require it." He looked at Aileen. "Will you be so kind as to come over with me to the coach house, Miss Armagh, and hand my property over to me? Good-bye, Aunt Meda."

Aileen rose. "I'll be back in a few minutes, Mrs. Champney, or will you go in now?"

"There's no dew, and the air is so fresh I'll sit here till you come."

The two went down the terrace steps side by side. Mrs. Champney watched them out of sight; there was a kindling light in her faded eyes.

"Now, we'll see," said Champney, as they neared the coach house and saw in the window the bundle of brown tow with black nose flattened on the pane and eyes filled with longing under the tangled topknot. The stub of a tail was marking time to the canine heartbeats. Champney opened the door; the dog scurried out and sprang yelping for joy upon Aileen.

"Rag, come here!" The dog's day of judgment was in that masculine command. The little terrier nosed Aileen's hand, hesitated, then pressed more closely to her side. The girl laughed out in merry triumph. Champney noted that she showed both sets of her strong white teeth when she laughed.

"Rag, dear old boy!" She parted with caressing fingers the skein of tow on the frowsled head.

"Come on, Rag." Champney whistled and started up the driveway. The terrier fawned on Aileen, slavered, snorted, sniffed, then crept almost on his belly, tail stiff, along the ground after Champney who turned and laid his hand on him. The dog crouched in the road. He gently pulled the stumps of ears—"Now come!"

He went whistling up the road, and the terrier, recognizing his master, trotted in a lively manner after him.

Champney turned at the gate and lifted his hat. "How about fidelity now, Miss Armagh?" He wanted to tease in payment for that amazed look she gave him for taking a liberty with her Christian name.

"Well, of course, he's your dog," she called merrily after him, "but I wouldn't have done it if I'd been Rag!"

Champney found himself wondering on the homeward way if she really meant what she said.

---

IV

It was a careless question, carelessly put, and yet—Aileen Armagh, before she returned to the house, was also asking herself if she meant what she said, asking it with an unwonted timidity of feeling she could not explain. On coming in sight of the terrace, she saw that Mrs. Champney was still there. She hesitated a moment, then crossed the lawn to the boat house. She wanted to sit there a while in the shade, to think things out with herself if possible. What did this mean—this strange feeling of timidity?

The course of her life was not wholly smooth. It was inevitable that two natures like hers and Mrs. Champney's should clash at times, and the impact was apt to be none of the softest. Twice, Aileen, making a confidant of Octavius, threatened to run away, for the check rein was held too tightly, and the young life became restive under it. When the child first came to Champ-au-Haut, its mistress recognized at once that in her mischief, her wilfulness, her emphatic assertion of her right of way, there was nothing vicious, and to Octavius Buzzby's amazement, she dealt with her, on the whole, leniently.

"She amuses me," she would say when closing an eye to some of Aileen's escapades that gave a genuine shock to Octavius in the region of his local prejudices.

There had been, indeed, no "folderols" in her education. Sewing, cooking, housework she was taught root and branch in the time not spent at school, both grammar and high. During the last year Mrs. Champney permitted her to learn French and embroidery in a systematic manner at the school established by the gentle Frenchwomen in The Gore; but she steadily refused to permit the girl to cultivate her voice through the medium of proper instruction. This denial of the girl's strongest desire was always a common subject of dissension and irritation; however, after Aileen was seventeen a battle royal of words between the two was a rare occurrence.

At the same time she never objected to Aileen's exercising her talent in her own way. Father HonorÉ encouraged her to sing to the accompaniment of his violin, knowing well that the instrument would do its share in correcting faults. She sang, too, with Luigi Poggi, her "knothole boy" of the asylum days; and, as seven years before, Nonna Lisa often accompanied with her guitar. The old Italian, who had managed to keep in touch with her one-time protÉgÉe, and her grandson Luigi, made their appearance in the village one summer after Aileen had been two years in Flamsted. Luigi, now that his vaudeville days were over, was in search of work at the quarries; his grandmother was to keep house for him till he should be able to establish himself in trade—the goal of so many of his thrifty countrymen.

These two Italians were typical of thousands of their nationality who come to our shores; whom our national life, through naturalization and community of interests, is able in a marvellously short time to assimilate—and for the public good. Intelligent, business-like, keen at a bargain, but honest and graciously gentle and friendly in manner, Luigi Poggi soon established himself in the affections of Flamsted—in no one's more solidly than in Elmer Wiggins', strange to say, who capitulated to the "foreigner's" progressive business methods—and after three years of hard and satisfactory work at the quarries and in the sheds, by living frugally and saving thriftily he was able to open the first Italian fruit stall in the quarry town. The business was flourishing and already threatened to overrun its quarters. Luigi was in a fair way to become fruit capitalist; his first presidential vote had been cast, and he felt prepared to enjoy to the full his new Americanhood.

But with his young manhood and the fulfilment of its young aspirations, came other desires, other incentives for making his business a success and himself a respected and honored citizen of these United States. Luigi Poggi was ready to give into Aileen's keeping—whenever she might choose to indicate by a word or look that she was willing to accept the gift—his warm Italian heart that knew no subterfuge in love, but gave generously, joyfully, in the knowledge that there would be ever more and more to bestow. He had not as yet spoken, save with his dark eyes, his loving earnestness of voice, and the readiness with which, ever since his appearance in Flamsted he ran and fetched and carried for her.

Aileen enjoyed this devotion. The legitimate pleasure of knowing she is loved—even when no response can be given—is a girl's normal emotional nourishment. Through it the narrows in her nature widen and the shallows deepen to the dimensions that enable the woman's heart to give, at last, even as she has received,—ay, even more than she can ever hope to receive. This novitiate was now Aileen's.

As a foil, against which Luigi's silent devotion showed to the best advantage, Romanzo Caukins' dogged persistence in telling her on an average of once in two months that he loved her and was waiting for a satisfactory answer, served its end. For six years, while Romanzo remained at Champ-au-Haut, the girl teased, cajoled, tormented, amused, and worried the Colonel's eldest. Of late, since his twenty-first birthday, he had turned the tables on her, and was teasing and worrying her with his love-blind persistence. That she had given him a decided answer more than once made no impression on his determined spirit. In her despair Aileen went to Octavius; but he gave her cold comfort.

"What'd I tell you two years ago, Aileen? Didn't I say you couldn't play with even a slow-match like Roman, if you didn't want a fire later on? And you wouldn't hear a word to me."

"But I didn't know, Tave! How could I think that just because a boy tags round after you from morning till night for the sake of being amused, that when he gets to be twenty-one he is going to keep on tagging round after you for the rest of his days? I never saw such a leech! He simply won't accept the fact once for all that I won't have him; but he's got to—so now!"

Octavius smiled at the sudden little flurry; he was used to them.

"I take it Roman doesn't think you know your own mind."

"He doesn't! Well, he'll find out I do, then. Oh, dear, why couldn't he just go on being Romanzo Caukins with no nonsense about him, and not make such a goose of himself! Anyway, I'm thankful he's gone; it got so I couldn't so much as tell him to harness up for Mrs. Champney, that he didn't consider it a sign of 'yielding' on my part!" She laughed out. "Oh, Tavy dear, what should I do without you!—Now if I could make an impression on you, it might be worth while," she added mischievously.

Octavius would have failed to be the man he was had he not felt flattered; he smiled on her indulgently. "Well, I shouldn't tag round after you much if I was thirty year younger; 't ain't my way. But there's one thing, Aileen, I want to say to you, and if you've got any common sense you'll heed me this time: I want you to be mighty careful how you manage with Luigi. You've got no slow-match to play with this time, let me tell you; you've got a regular sleeping volcano like some of them he was born near; and it won't do, I warn you. He ain't Romanzo Caukins—Roman's home made; but t'other is a foreigner; they're different."

"Oh, don't preach, Octavius." She always called him by his unabbreviated name when she was irritated. "I like well enough to sing with Luigi, and go rowing with him, and play tennis, and have the good times, but it's nonsense for you to think he means anything serious. Why, he never spoke a word of love to me in his life!"

"Humph!—that silent kind's the worst; you don't give him a chance."

"And I don't mean to—does that satisfy you?" she demanded. "If it doesn't, I'll tell you something—but it's a secret; you won't tell?"

"Not if you don't want me to; I ain't that kind."

"I know you're not, Tave; that's why I'm going to tell you. Here, let me whisper—"; she bent to his ear; he was seated on a stool in the coach house mending a strap; "—I've waited all this time for that prince to come, and do you suppose for one moment I'd look at any one else?"

"Now that ain't fair to fool me like that, Aileen!"

Octavius was really vexed, but he spoke the last words to empty air, for the girl caught up her skirt and ran like a deer up the lane. He could hear her laughing at his discomfiture; the sound grew fainter and fainter; when it ceased he resumed his work, from time to time shaking his head ominously and talking to himself as a vent for his outraged feelings.

But Aileen spoke the truth. Her vivid imagination, a factor in the true Celtic temperament, provided her with another life, apart from the busy practical one which Mrs. Champney laid out for her. All her childish delights of day-dreaming and joyous romancing, fostered by that first novel which Luigi Poggi thrust through the knothole in the orphan asylum fence, was at once transferred to Alice Van Ostend and her surroundings so soon as the two children established their across-street acquaintance. Upon her arrival in Flamsted, the child's adaptability to changed circumstances and new environment was furthered by the play of this imagination that fed itself on what others, who lack it, might call the commonplace of life: the house at Champ-au-Haut became her lordly palace; the estate a park; she herself a princess guarded only too well by an aged duenna; Octavius Buzzby and Romanzo Caukins she looked upon as life-servitors.

Now and then the evidence of this unreal life, which she was leading, was made apparent to Octavius and Romanzo by some stilted mode of speech. At such times they humored her; it provided amusement of the richest sort. She also continued to invent "novels" for Romanzo's benefit, and many a half-hour the two spent in the carriage house—Aileen aglow with the enthusiasm of narration, and Romanzo intent upon listening, charmed both with the tale and the narrator. In these invented novels, there was always a faithful prince returning after long years of wandering to the faithful princess. This was her one theme with variations.

Sometimes she danced a minuet on the floor of the stable, with this prince as imaginary partner, and Romanzo grew jealous of the bewitching smiles and coquetries she bestowed upon the vacant air. At others she would induce the youth to enter a box stall, telling him to make believe he was at the theatre, and then, forgetting her rÔle of princess, she was again the Aileen Armagh of old—the child on the vaudeville stage, dancing the coon dance with such vigor and abandonment that once, when Aileen was nearly sixteen, Octavius, being witness to this flaunting performance, took her severely to task for such untoward actions now that she was grown up. He told her frankly that if Romanzo Caukins was led astray in the future it would be through her carryings-on; at which Aileen looked so dumbfoundered that Octavius at once perceived his mistake, and retreated weakly from his position by telling her if she wanted to dance like that, she'd better dance before him who understood her and her intentions.

At this second speech Aileen stared harder than ever; then going up to him and throwing an arm around his neck, she whispered:

"Tave, dear, are you mad with me? What have I done?—Is it really anything so awful?"

Her distress was so unfeigned that Octavius, not being a woman, comforted her by telling her he was a great botcher. Inwardly he cursed himself for an A No. 1 fool. Aileen never danced the "coon" again, but thereafter gave herself such grown-up and stand-off airs in Romanzo's presence, that the youth proceeded in all earnest to lose both head and heart to the girl's gracious blossoming womanhood. Octavius, observing this, groaned in spirit, and henceforth held his tongue when he heard the girl carolling her Irish love songs in the presence of the ingenuous Caukins.

After this, the girl's exuberance of spirits and the sustaining inner life of the imagination helped her wonderfully during the three following years of patient waiting on a confirmed invalid. Of late, Mrs. Champney had come to depend more and more on the girl's strong youth; to demand more and more from her abundant vitality and lively spirits; and Aileen, although recognizing the anomalous position she held in the Champ-au-Haut household—neither servant nor child, neither companion nor friend—gave of herself; gave as her Irish inheritance prompted her to give: ungrudgingly, faithfully, without reward save the knowledge of a duty performed towards the woman who, in taking her into her household and maintaining her there, had placed her in a position to make friends—such friends!

---

When the soil is turned over carefully, enriched and prepared perfectly for the seed; when rain is abundant, sunshine plenteous and mother-earth's spring quickening is instinctive, is it to be wondered at that the rootlet delves, the plantlet lifts itself, the bud forms quickly, and unexpectedly spreads its petal-star to the sunlight which enhances its beauty and fructifies its work of reproduction? The natural laws, in this case, work to their prescribed end along lines of favoring circumstance—and Love is but the working out of the greatest of all Nature's laws. When conditions are adverse, there is only too often struggle, strife, wretchedness. The result is a dwarfing of the product, a lowering of the vital power, a recession from the type. But, on the contrary, when all conditions combine to further the working of this law, we have the rapid and perfect flowering, followed by the beneficent maturity of fruit and seed. Thus Life, the ever-new, becomes immortal.

Small wonder that Aileen Armagh, trying to explain that queer feeling of timidity, should suddenly press her hand hard over her heart! It was throbbing almost to the point of suffocating her, so possessed was it by the joy of a sudden and wonderful presence of love.

The knowledge brought with it a sense of bewildering unreality. She knew now that her day dreams had a substantial basis. She knew now that she had not meant what she said.

For years, ever since the night of the serenade, her vivid imagination had been dwelling on Champney Googe's home-coming; for years he was the central figure in her day dreams, and every dream was made half a reality to her by means of the praises in his behalf which she heard sounded by each man, woman, and child in the ever-increasing circle of her friends. It was always with old Joel Quimber: "When Champ gits back, we'll hev what ye might call the head of a fam'ly agin." Octavius Buzzby spent hours in telling her of the boy's comings and goings and doings at Champ-au-Haut, and the love Louis Champney bore him. Romanzo Caukins set him on the pedestal of his boyish enthusiasm. The Colonel himself was not less enthusiastic than his first born; he never failed to assure Aileen when she was a guest in his house—an event that became a weekly matter as she grew older—that her lot had fallen in pleasant places; that to his friend, Mrs. Googe, and her son, Champney, she was indebted for the new industrial life which brought with it such advantages to one and all in Flamsted.

To Aurora Googe, the mother of her imaginative ideal, Aileen, attracted from the first by her beauty and motherly kindness towards an orphan waif, gave a child's demonstrative love, afterwards a girl's adoration. In all this devotion she was abetted by Elvira Caukins to whom Aurora Googe had always been an ideal of womanhood. Moreover, Aileen came to know during these years of Champney Googe's absence that his mother worshipped in reality where she herself worshipped in imagination.

Thus the ground was made ready for the seed. Small wonder that the flowering of love in this warm Irish heart was immediate, when Champney Googe, on the second day after his home-coming, questioned her with that careless challenge in his eyes:

"You wouldn't?"

---

The sun set before she left the boat house. She ran up the steps to the terrace and, not finding Mrs. Champney there, sought her in the house. She found her in the library, seated in her easy chair which she had turned to face the portrait of her husband, over the fireplace.

"Why didn't you call me to help you in, Mrs. Champney? I blame myself for not coming sooner."

"I really feel stronger and thought I might as well try it; there is always a first time—and you were with Champney, weren't you?"

"I? Why no—what made you think that?" Mrs. Champney noticed the slight hesitation before the question was put so indifferently, and the quick red that mounted in the girl's cheeks. "Mr. Googe went off half an hour ago with Rag tagging on behind."

"Then he conquered as usual."

"I don't know whether I should call it 'conquering' or not; Rag didn't want to go, that was plain enough to see."

"What made him go then?"

Aileen laughed out. "That's just what I'd like to know myself."

"What do you think of him?"

"Who?—Rag or Mr. Googe?"

She was always herself with Mrs. Champney, and her daring spirit of mischief rarely gave offence to the mistress of Champ-au-Haut. But by the tone of voice in which she answered, Aileen knew that, without intention, she had irritated her.

"You know perfectly well whom I mean—my nephew, Mr. Googe."

Aileen was silent for a moment. Her young secret was her own to guard from all eyes, and especially from all unfriendly ones. She was standing on the hearth, in front of Mrs. Champney. Turning her head slightly she looked up at the portrait of the man above her—looked upon almost the very lineaments of him whom at that very moment her young heart was adoring: the fine features, the blue eyes, the level brows, the firm curving lips, the abundant brown hair. It was as if Champney Googe himself were smiling down upon her. As she continued to look, the lovely light in the girl's face—a light reflected from no sunset fires over the Flamsted Hills, but from the sunrise of girlhood's first love—betrayed her to the faded watchful eyes beside her.

"He looks just like your husband;" she spoke slowly; her voice seemed to linger on the last word; "when Tave saw him he said he thought it was Mr. Champney come to life, and I think—"

Mrs. Champney interrupted her. "Octavius Buzzby is a fool." Sudden anger hardened her voice; a slight flush came into her wasted cheeks. "Tell Hannah I want my supper now, let Ann bring it in here to me. I don't need you; I'm tired."

Aileen turned without another word—she knew too well that tone of voice and what it portended; she was thankful to hear it rarely now—and left the room to do as she was bidden.

"Little fool!" Almeda Champney muttered between set teeth when the door closed upon the girl. She placed both hands on the arms of her chair to raise herself; walked feebly to the hearth where a moment before Aileen had stood, and raising her eyes to the smiling ones looking down into hers, confessed her woman's weakness in bitter words that mingled with a half-sob:

"And I, too, was a fool—all women are with such as you."

---

V

Although Mrs. Champney remained the only one who read Aileen Armagh's secret, yet even she asked herself as the summer sped if she read aright.

During the three weeks in which her nephew was making himself familiar with all the inner and outer workings of the business at The Gore and in the sheds, she came to anticipate his daily coming to Champ-au-Haut, for he brought with him the ozone of success. His laugh was so unaffectedly hearty; his interest in the future of Flamsted and of himself as a factor in its prosperity so unfeigned; his enjoyment of his own importance so infectious, his account of the people and things he had seen during his absence from home so entertaining that, in his presence, his aunt breathed a new atmosphere, the life-giving qualities of which were felt as beneficial to every member of the household at The Bow.

Mrs. Champney took note that he never asked for Aileen. If the girl were there when he ran in for afternoon tea on the terrace or an hour's chat in the evening,—sometimes it happened that the day saw him three times at Champ-au-Haut—her presence to all appearance afforded him only an opportunity to tease her goodnaturedly; he delighted in her repartee. Mrs. Champney, keenly observant, failed to detect in the girl's frank joyousness the least self-consciousness; she was just her own merry self with him, and the "give and take" between them afforded Mrs. Champney a fund of amusement.

On the evening of his departure for New York, she was witness to their merry leave-taking. Afterwards she summoned Octavius to the library.

"You may bring all the mail for the house hereafter to me, Octavius; now that I am feeling so much stronger, I shall gradually resume my customary duties in the household. You need not give any of the mail to Aileen to distribute—I'll do it after to-night."

"What the devil is she up to now!" Octavius said to himself as he left the room.

But no letter from New York came for Aileen. Mrs. Champney tried another tack: the next time her nephew came to Flamsted, later on in the autumn, she asked him to write her in detail concerning his intimacy with her cousins, the Van Ostends, and of their courtesies to him. Champney, nothing loath—always keeping in mind the fact that it was well to keep on the right side of Aunt Meda—wrote her all she desired to know. What he wrote was retailed faithfully to Aileen; but the frequent dinners at the Van Ostends', and the prospective coming-out reception and ball to be given for Alice and scheduled for the late winter, called forth from the eagerly listening girl only ejaculations of delight and pleasant reminiscence of the first time she had seen the little girl dressed for a party. If, inwardly she asked herself the question why Alice Van Ostend had dropped all her childish interest in her whom she had been the means of sending to Flamsted, why she no longer inquired for her, her common sense was apt to answer the question satisfactorily. Aileen Armagh was keen-eyed and quick-witted, possessing, without actual experience in the so-called other world of society, a wonderful intuition as to the relative value of people and circumstances in this ordinary world which already, during her short life, had presented various interesting phases for her inspection; consequently she recognized the abyss of circumstance between her and the heiress of Henry Van Ostend. But, with an intensity proportioned to her open-minded recognition of the first material differences, her innate womanliness and pride refused to acknowledge any abyss as to their respective personalities. Hence she kept silence in regard to certain things; laughed and made merry over the letters filled with the Van Ostends' doings—and held on her own way, sure of her own status with herself.

Aileen kept her secret, and all the more closely because she was realizing that Champney Googe was far from indifferent to her. At first, the knowledge of the miracle of love, that was wrought so suddenly as she thought, sufficed to fill her heart with continual joy. But, shortly, that was modified by the awakening longing that Champney should return her love. She felt she charmed him; she knew that he timed his coming and going that he might encounter her in the house or about the grounds, whenever and wherever he could—sometimes alone in her boat on the long arm of the lake, that makes up to the west and is known as "lily-pad reach"; and afterwards, during the autumn, in the quarry woods above The Gore where with her satellites, Dulcie and Doosie Caukins, she went to pick checkerberries.

Mrs. Champney was baffled; she determined to await developments, taking refuge from her defeat in the old saying "Love and a cough can't be hidden." Still, she could but wonder when four months of the late spring and early summer passed, and Champney made no further appearance in Flamsted. This hiatus was noticeable, and she would have found it inexplicable, had not Mr. Van Ostend written her a letter which satisfied her in regard to many things of which she had previously been in doubt; it decided her once for all to speak to Aileen and warn her against any passing infatuation for her nephew. For this she determined to bide her time, especially as Champney's unusual length of absence from Flamsted seemed to have no effect on the girl's joyous spirits. In July, however, she had again an opportunity to see the two together at Champ-au-Haut. Champney was in Flamsted on business for two days only, and so far as she knew there was no opportunity for Aileen to see her nephew more than once and in her presence. She managed matters in such a way that Aileen's services were in continual demand during Champney's two days' stay in his native town.

But after that visit in July, the singing voice was heard ringing joyfully at all times of the day in the house and about the grounds of The Bow. Sometimes the breeze brought it to Octavius from across the lake waters—Luigi's was no longer with it—and he pitied the girl sincerely because the desire of her heart, the cultivation of such a voice, was denied her. Mrs. Champney, also, heard the clear voice, which, in this the girl's twentieth year, was increasing in volume and sweetness, carolling the many songs in Irish, English, French and Italian. She marvelled at the light-heartedness and, at the same time, wondered if, now that Romanzo Caukins could no longer hope, Aileen would show enough common sense to accept Luigi Poggi in due time, and through him make for herself an established place in Flamsted. Not that she was yet ready to part with her—far from it. She was too useful a member of the Champ-au-Haut household. Still, if it were to be Poggi in the end, she felt she could control matters to the benefit of all concerned, herself primarily. She was pleasing herself with the idea of such prospective control of Aileen's matrimonial interests one afternoon, just after Champney's flying visit in July, when she rose from her chair beneath the awning and, to try her strength, made her way slowly along the terrace to the library windows; they were French casements and one of them had swung outwards noiselessly in the breeze. She was about to step through, when she saw Aileen standing on the hearth before the portrait of Louis Champney. She was gazing up at it, her face illumined by the same lovely light that, a year before, had betrayed her secret to the faded but observant eyes of Louis Champney's widow.

This was enough; the mistress of Champ-au-Haut was again on her guard—and well she might be, for Aileen Armagh was in possession of the knowledge that Champney Googe loved her. In joyful anticipation she was waiting for the word which, spoken by him when he should be again in Flamsted, was to make her future both fair and blest.

---

VI

In entering on his business life in New York, Champney Googe, like many another man, failed to take into account the "minus quantities" in his personal equation. These he possessed in common with other men because he, too, was human: passions in common, ambitions in common, weaknesses in common, and last, but not least, the pursuance of a common end—the accumulation of riches.

The sum of these minus quantities added to the total of temperamental characteristics and inherited traits left, unfortunately, in balancing the personal equation a minus quantity. Not that he had any realization of such a result—what man has? On the contrary, he firmly believed that his inherited obstinate perseverance, his buoyant temperament, his fortunate business connection with the great financier, his position as the meeting-point of the hitherto divided family interests in Flamsted, his intimacy with the Van Ostends—the distant tie of blood confirming this at all points—plus his college education and cosmopolitan business training in the financial capitals of Europe, were potent factors in finding the value of x—this representing to him an, as yet, unknown quantity of accumulated wealth.

He had not yet asked himself how large a sum he wished to amass, but he said to himself almost daily, "I have shown my power along certain lines to-day," these lines converging in his consciousness always to monetary increment.

He worked with a will. His energy was tireless. He learned constantly and much from other men powerful in the world of affairs—of their methods of speculation, some legitimate, others quite the contrary; of their manipulation of stocks, weak and strong; of their strengthening the market when the strengthening was necessary to fill a threatened deficit in their treasury and of their weakening a line of investment to prevent over-loading and consequent depletion of the same. He was thoroughly interested in all he heard and saw of the development of mines and industries for the benefit of certain banking cliques and land syndicates. If now and then a mine proved to have no bottom and the small investor's insignificant sums dropped out of sight in this bottomless pit, that did not concern him—it was all in the game, and the game was an enticing one to be played to the end. The two facts that nothing is certain at all times, and that everything is uncertain at some time, added the excitement of chance to his business interest.

At times, for instance when walking up the Avenue on a bracing October day, he felt as if he owned all in sight—a condition of mind which those who know from experience the powerful electro-magnetic current generated by the rushing life of the New York metropolis can well understand. He struck out into the stream with the rest, and with overweening confidence in himself—in himself as master of circumstances which he intended to control in his own interests, in himself as the pivotal point of Flamsted affairs. The rapidity of the current acted as a continual stimulus to exertion. Like all bold swimmers, he knew in a general way that the channel might prove tortuous, the current threaten at times to overpower him; but, carried rapidly out into mid-stream with that gigantic propulsive force that is the resultant of the diverse onward-pressure of the metropolitan millions, he suddenly found himself one day in that mid-stream without its ever having occurred to him that he might not be able to breast it. Even had he thought enough about the matter to admit that certain untoward conditions might have to be met, he would have failed to realize that the shore towards which he was struggling might prove in the end a quicksand.

Another thing: he failed to take into account the influence of any cross current, until he was made to realize the necessity of stemming his strength against it. This influence was Aileen Armagh.

Whenever in walking up lower Broadway from the office he found himself passing Grace Church, he realized that, despite every effort of will, he was obliged to relive in thought the experience of that night seven years ago at the Vaudeville. Then for the first time he saw the little match girl crouching on the steps of the stage reproduction of this same marble church. The child's singing of her last song had induced in him then—wholly unawares, wholly unaccountably—a sudden mental nausea and a physical disgust at the course of his young life, the result being that the woman "who lay in wait for him at the corner" by appointment, watched that night in vain for his coming.

In reliving this experience, there was always present in his thought the Aileen Armagh as he knew her now—pure, loyal, high-spirited, helpful, womanly in all her household ways, entertaining in her originality, endowed with the gift of song. She was charming; this was patent to all who knew her. It was a pleasure to dwell on this thought of her, and, dwelling upon it too often at off-times in his business life, the desire grew irresistible to be with her again; to chat with her; to see the blue-gray eyes lifted to his; to find in them something he found in no others. At such times a telegram sped over the wires, to Aurora Googe, and her heart was rejoiced by a two days' visit from her son.

Champney Googe knew perfectly well that this cross current of influence was diametrically opposed to his own course of life as he had marked it out for himself; knew that this was a species of self-gratification in which he had no business to indulge; he knew, moreover, that from the moment he should make an earnest effort to win Alice Van Ostend and her accompanying millions, this self-gratification must cease. He told himself this over and over again; meanwhile he made excuse—a talk with the manager of the quarries, a new order of weekly payments to introduce and regulate with Romanzo Caukins, the satisfactory pay-master in the Flamsted office, a week-end with his mother, the consideration of contracts and the erection of a new shed on the lake shore—to visit Flamsted several times during the autumn, winter, and early spring.

At last, however, he called a halt.

Alice Van Ostend, young, immature, amusing in her girlish abandon to the delight of at last "coming out", was, nevertheless, rapidly growing up, a condition of affairs that Champney was forced rather unwillingly to admit just before her first large ball. As usual he made himself useful to Alice, who looked upon him as a part of her goods and chattels. It was in the selection of the favors for the german to be given in the stone house on the occasion of the coming-out reception for its heiress, that his eyes were suddenly opened to the value of time, so to say; for Alice was beginning to patronize him. By this sign he recognized that she was putting the ten years' difference in their ages at something like a generation. It was not pleasing to contemplate, because the winning of Alice Van Ostend was, to use his own expression, in a line coincident with his own life lines. Till now he believed he was the favored one; but certain signs of the times began to be provocative of distrust in this direction.

He asked boldly for the first dance, for the cotillon, and the privilege of giving her the flowers she was to wear that night. He assumed these favors to be within his rights; she was by no means of his way of thinking. It developed during their scrapping—Champney had often to scrap with Alice to keep on a level with her immaturity—that there was another rival for the cotillon, another, a younger man, who desired to give her the special flowers for this special affair. The final division of the young lady's favors was not wholly reassuring to Mr. Googe. As a result of this awakening, he decided to remain in New York without farther visits to Flamsted until the Van Ostends should have left the city for the summer.

But in the course of the spring and summer he found it one thing to call a halt and quite another to make one. The cross current of influence, which had its source in Flamsted, was proving, against his will and judgment, too strong for him. He knew this and deplored it, for it threatened to carry him away from the shore towards which he was pushing, unawares that this apparently firm ground of attainment might prove treacherous in the end.

"Every man has his weakness, and she's mine," he told himself more than once; yet in making this statement he was half aware that the word "weakness" was in no sense applicable to Aileen. It remained for the development of his growing passion for her to show him that he was wholly in the wrong—she was his strength, but he failed to realize this.

Champney Googe was not a man to mince matters with himself. He told himself that he was not infatuated; infatuation was a thing to which he had yielded but few times in his selfish life. He was ready to acknowledge that his interest in Aileen Armagh was something deeper, more lasting; something that, had he been willing to look the whole matter squarely in the face instead of glancing askance at its profile, he would have seen to be perilously like real love—that love which first binds through passionate attachment, then holds through congenial companionship to bless a man's life to its close.

"She suits me—suits me to a T;" such was his admission in what he called his weak moments. Then he called himself a fool; he cursed himself for yielding to the influence of her charming personality in so far as to encourage what he perceived to be on her part a deep and absorbing love for him. In yielding to his weakness, he knew he was deviating from the life lines he had laid with such forethought for his following. A rich marriage was the natural corollary of his determination to advance his own interests in his chosen career. This marriage he still intended to make, if possible with Alice Van Ostend; and the fact that young Ben Falkenburg, an old playmate of Alice's, just graduated from college, the "other man" of the cotillon favors, was the first invited guest for the prospective cruise on Mr. Van Ostend's yacht, did not dovetail with his intentions. It angered him to think of being thwarted at this point.

"Why must such a girl cross my path just as I was getting on my feet with Alice?" he asked himself, manlike illogically impatient with Aileen when he should have lost patience with himself. But in the next moment he found himself dwelling in thought on the lovely light in the eyes raised so frankly to his, on the promises of loyalty those same eyes would hold for him if only he were to speak the one word which she was waiting to hear—which she had a right to hear after his last visit in July to Flamsted.

If he had not kissed her that once! With a girl like Aileen there could be no trifling—what then?

He cursed himself for his heedless folly, yet—he knew well enough that he would not have denied himself that moment of bliss when the girl in response to his whispered words of love gave him her first kiss, and with it the unspoken pledge of her loving heart.

"I'm making another ass of myself!" he spoke aloud and continued to chew the end of a cold cigar.

The New York office was deserted in these last days of August except for two clerks who had just left to take an early train to the beach for a breath of air. The treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Company was sitting idle at his desk. It was an off-time in business and he had leisure to assure himself that he was without doubt the quadruped alluded to above—"An ass that this time is in danger of choosing thistles for fodder when he can get something better."

Only the day before he had concluded on his own account a deal, that cost him much thought and required an extra amount of a certain kind of courage, with a Wall Street firm. Now that this was off his hands and there was nothing to do between Friday and Monday, when he was to start for Bar Harbor to join the Van Ostends and a large party of invited guests for a three weeks' cruise on the Labrador coast, he had plenty of time to convince himself that he possessed certain asinine qualities which did not redound to his credit as a man of sense. In his idle moments the thought of Aileen had a curious way of coming to the surface of consciousness. It came now. He whirled suddenly to face his desk squarely; tossed aside the cold cigar in disgust; touched the electric button to summon the office boy.

"I'll put an end to it—it's got to be done sometime or other—just as well now." He wrote a note to the head clerk to say that he was leaving two days earlier for his vacation than he intended; left his address for the next four days in case anything should turn up that might demand his presence before starting on the cruise; sent the office boy off with a telegram to his mother that she might expect him Saturday morning for two days in Flamsted; went to his apartment, packed grip and steamer trunk for the yacht, and left on the night express for the Maine coast.

---

VII

"I just saw Mr. Googe driving down from The Gore, Aileen, so he's in town again."

Octavius was passing the open library window where Aileen was sitting at her work, and stopped to tell her the news.

"Is he?"

The tone was indifferent, but had she not risen quickly to shake some threads of embroidery linen into the scrap-basket beneath the library table, Octavius might have seen the quick blood mount into her cheeks, the red lips quiver. It was welcome news for which she had been waiting already six weeks.

Octavius spoke again but in a low voice:

"You might mention it to Mrs. Champney when she comes down; it don't set well, you know, if she ain't told everything that's going on." He passed on without waiting for an answer.

The girl took her seat again by the window. Her work lay in her lap; her hands were folded above it; her face was turned to the Flamsted Hills. "Would he come soon? When and where could she see him again, and alone?" Her thoughts were busy with conjecture.

Octavius recrossing the terrace called out to her:

"You going up to Mrs. Caukins' later on this afternoon?"

"Yes; Mrs. Champney said she didn't need me."

"I'll take you up."

"Thank you, Tave, not to-day. I'm going to row up as far as the upper shed. I promised the twins to meet them there; they want to see the new travelling crane at work. We'll go up afterwards to The Gore together."

"It's pretty hot, but I guess you're all three seasoned by this time."

"Through and through, Tave; and I'm not coming home till after supper—it's lovely then—there's Mrs. Champney coming!"

She heard her step in the upper hall and ran upstairs to assist her in coming down.

"Will you go out on the terrace now?" she asked her on entering the library.

"I'll wait a while; it's too warm at this hour."

Aileen drew Mrs. Champney's arm chair to the other casement window. She resumed her seat and work.

"How are you getting on with the napkins?" the mistress of Champ-au-Haut inquired after a quarter of an hour's silence in which she was busied with some letters.

"Fine—see?" She held up a corner for her inspection. "This is the tenth; I shall soon be ready for the big table cloth."

"Bring them to me."

Aileen obeyed, and showed her the monogram, A C, wrought by her own deft fingers in the finest linen.

"There's no one like a Frenchwoman to teach embroidery; you've done them credit." Aileen dropped a mock courtesy. "Which one taught you?"

"Sister Ste. Croix."

"Is she the little wrinkled one?"

"Yes, but I've fallen in love with every wrinkle, she's a perfect dear—"

"I didn't imply she wasn't." Mrs. Champney was apt to snap out at Aileen when, according to her idea, she was "gushing" too much. The girl had ceased to mind this; she was used to it, especially during her three years of attendance on this invalid. "Who designed this monogram?"

"She did; she can draw beautifully."

Mrs. Champney put on her glasses to examine in detail the exquisite lettering, A C.

Aileen leaned above her, smiling to herself. How many loving thoughts were wrought into those same initials! How many times, while her fingers were busy fashioning them, she had planned to make just such for her very own! How often, as she wrought, she had laid her lips to the A C, murmuring to herself over and over again, "Aileen—Champney, Champney—Aileen," so filling and satisfying with the sound of this pleasing combination her every loving anticipation!

She was only waiting for the "word", schooling herself in these last six weeks to wait patiently for it—the "word" which should make these special letters her legitimate own!

The singing thoughts that ring in the consciousness of a girl who gives for the first time her whole heart to her lover; the chanted prayers to her Maker, that rise with every muted throb of the young wife's heart which is beating for two in anticipation of her first motherhood—who shall dare enumerate them?

The varied loving thoughts in this girl's quick brain, which was fed by her young pulsing heart—a heart single in its loyalty to one during all the years since her orphan childhood, were intensified and illumined by the inherent quickening power of a vivid imagination, and inwrought with these two letters that stood, at present, for their owner, Almeda Champney. Aileen's smile grew wonderfully tender, almost tremulous as she continued to lean above her work. Mrs. Champney looking up suddenly caught it and, in part, interpreted it. It angered her both unreasonably and unaccountably. This girl must be taught her place. She aspiring to Champney Googe! She handed her back the work.

"Ann said just now she heard Octavius telling you that my nephew, Champney Googe, is in town—when did he come?"

"I don't know—Tave didn't say."

"I wonder Alice Van Ostend didn't mention that he was coming here before going on the yachting cruise they've planned. I had a letter from her yesterday—I know you'd like to hear it."

"Of course I should! It's the first one she has written you, isn't it?—Where is it?" She spoke with her usual animated interest.

"I have it here."

She took up one of several letters in her lap, opened it, turned it over, adjusted her glasses and began to read a paragraph here and there. Aileen listened eagerly.

"I suppose I may as well read it all—Alice wouldn't mind you," said Mrs. Champney, and proceeded to give the full contents. It was filled with anticipations of the yachting cruise, of a later visit to Flamsted, of Champney and her friends. Champney's name occurred many times,—Alice's attitude towards the possessor of it seemed to be that of private ownership,—but everything was written with the frankness of an accepted publicity of the fact that Mr. Googe was one of her social appendages. Aileen was amused at the whole tone of the rather lengthy epistle; it gave her no uneasiness.

Mrs. Champney laid aside her glasses; she wanted to note the effect of the reading on the girl.

"You can see for yourself from this how matters stand between these two; it needn't be spoken of in Flamsted outside the family, but it's just as well for you to know of it—don't you think so?"

Aileen parried; she enjoyed a little bout with Champney Googe's aunt.

"Of course, it's plain enough to see that they're the best of friends—"

"Friends!" Mrs. Champney interrupted her; there was a scornful note in her voice which insensibly sharpened; "you haven't your usual common sense, Aileen, if you can't read between these lines well enough to see that Miss Van Ostend and my nephew are as good as engaged."

Aileen smiled, but made no reply.

"What are you laughing at?" The tone was peremptory and denoted extreme irritation. Aileen put down her work and looked across to her interrogator.

"I was only smiling at my thoughts."

"Will you be so good as to state what they are? They may prove decidedly interesting to me—at this juncture," she added emphatically.

Aileen's look of amusement changed swiftly to one of surprise.

"To be honest, I was thinking that what she writes about Mr. Googe doesn't sound much like love, that was all—"

"That was all!" Mrs. Champney echoed sarcastically; "well, what more do you need to convince you of facts I should like to know?"

Aileen laughed outright at this. "Oh, Mrs. Champney, what's the use of being a girl, if you can't know what other girls mean?"

"Please explain yourself."

"Won't you please read that part again where she mentions the people invited for the cruise."

Mrs. Champney found the paragraph and re-read it aloud.

"Falkenburg—that's the name—Ben Falkenburg."

"How did you ever hear of this Ben Falkenburg?"

"Oh, I heard of him years ago!" The mischief was in her voice and Mrs. Champney recognized it.

"Where?"

"When I was in New York—in the asylum; he's the one that danced the minuet with the Marchioness; I told you about it years ago."

"How do you know he was the boy?"

"Because Alice told me his name then, and showed me the valentine and May-basket he sent her—just read the postscript again; if you want to crack a letter for its kernel, you'll generally find it in a postscript, that is with girls of Alice's age."

She spoke as if there were years of seniority on her part. Mrs. Champney turned to the postscript again.

"I see nothing in this—you're romancing again, Aileen; you'd better put it aside; it will get you into trouble sometime."

"Oh, never fear for me, Mrs. Champney; I'll take care of all the romancing as well as the romances—but can't you see by those few words that it's Mr. Ben Falkenburg who is going to make the yachting trip for Miss Van Ostend, and not your nephew?"

"No, I can't," Mrs. Champney answered shortly, "and neither could you if your eyes weren't blinded by your infatuation for him."

Aileen rolled up her work deliberately. If the time had come for open war to be declared between the two on Champney Googe's account, it was best to fight the decisive battle now, before seeing him again. She rose and stood by the window.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Champney?" Her temper was rising quickly as it always did when Mrs. Champney went too far. She had spoken but once of her nephew in a personal way to Aileen since she asked that question a year ago, "What do you think of him?"

"I mean what I say." Her voice took on an added shrillness. "Your infatuation for my nephew has been patent for a year now—and it's time you should be brought to your senses; I can't suppose you're fool enough to think he'll marry you."

Aileen set her lips close. After all, it was not best to answer this woman as she deserved to be answered. She controlled the increasing anger so far as to be able to smile frankly and answer lightly:

"You've no need to worry, Mrs. Champney; your nephew has never asked me to be his wife."

"His wife!" she echoed scornfully; "I should say not; and let me tell you for your own benefit—sometime you'll thank me for it—and mark my words, Aileen Armagh, he never will ask you to be his wife, and the sooner you accept this unvarnished truth the better it will be for you. I suppose you think because you've led Romanzo Caukins and young Poggi a chase, you can do the same with Champney Googe—but you'll find out your mistake; such men aren't led—they lead. He is going to marry Alice Van Ostend."

"Do you know this for a fact, Mrs. Champney?" She turned upon her sharply. She was, at last, at bay; her eyes were dark with anger; her lips and cheeks white.

"It's like you to fly off at a tangent, Aileen, and doubt a person's word simply because it happens to contain an unpleasant truth for you—here is the proof," she held up a letter; "it's from my cousin, Henry Van Ostend; he has written it out in black and white that my nephew has already asked for his daughter's hand. Now disabuse your mind of any notion you may have in regard to Champney Googe—I hope you won't disgrace yourself by crying for the moon after this."

The girl's eyes fairly blazed upon her.

"Mrs. Champney, after this I'll thank you to keep your advice and your family affairs to yourself—I didn't ask for either. And you've no need to tell me I'm only Aileen Armagh—for I know it perfectly well. I'm only an orphan you took into your home seven years ago and have kept, so far, for her service. But if I am only this, I am old enough to do and act as I please—and now you may mark my words: it's not I who will disgrace you and yours—not I, remember that!" Her anger threatened to choke her; but her voice although husky remained low, never rising above its level inflection. "And let me tell you another thing: I'm as good any day as Alice Van Ostend, and I should despise myself if I thought myself less; and if it's the millions that make the difference in the number of your friends—may God keep me poor till I die!" She spoke with passionate earnestness.

Mrs. Champney smiled to herself; she felt her purpose was accomplished.

"Are you going up to Mrs. Caukins'?" she asked in a matter-of-fact voice that struck like cold iron on the girl's burning intensity of feeling.

"Yes, I'm going."

"Well, be back by seven."

The girl made no reply. She left the library at once, closing the door behind her with a force that made the hall ring. Mrs. Champney smiled again, and proceeded to re-read Alice Van Ostend's letter.

Aileen went out through the kitchen and across the vegetable garden to the boat house. She cast loose one of the boats in the float, took her seat and rowed out into the lake—rowed with a strength and swiftness that accurately gauged her condition of mind. She rounded the peninsula of The Bow and headed her boat, not to the sheds on the north shore, but towards the west, to "lily-pad reach". To get away from that woman's presence, to be alone with herself—that was all she craved at the moment. The oars caught among the lily-pads; this gave her an excuse for pulling and wrenching at them. Her anger was still at white heat—not a particle of color as yet tinged her cheeks—and the physical exertion necessary to overcome such an obstacle as the long tough stems she felt to be a relief.

"It isn't true—it isn't true," she said over and over again to herself. She kept tugging and pulling till by sheer strength she forced the boat into the shallow water among the tall arrowhead along the margin of the shore.

She stepped out on the landing stones, drew up the boat, then made her way across the meadow to the shade of the tall spreading willows. Here she threw herself down, pressing her face into the cool lush grass, and relived in thought that early morning hour she had spent alone with him, only a few weeks ago, on the misty lake among the opening water lilies.

She had been awakened that morning in mid-July by hearing him singing softly beneath her open window that same song which seven years ago made such an unaccountable impression on her child's heart. He had often in jest threatened to repeat the episode of the serenade, but she never realized that beneath the jest there was any deeper meaning. Now she was aware of that meaning in her every fibre, physical and spiritual.

And hearing that, realizing that the voice was calling for her alone in all the world, she rose; dressed herself quickly; beckoned joyously to him from the window; noiselessly made her way down the back stairs; softly unbolted the kitchen porch door—

He was there with hands outstretched for hers; she placed them in his, and again, in remembrance of their fun and frolic seven years before, he raced with her down the slate-laid garden walk, across the lawn to the boat house where his own boat lay moored.

It was four o'clock on that warm midsummer morning. The mists lay light but impenetrable on the surface of the lake. The lilies were still closed.

They spoke but little.

"I knew no one could hear me—they all sleep on the other side, don't they?"

"Yes, all except the boy, and he sleeps like a log—Tave has to wake him every morning; alarm clocks are no good."

"Have you ever seen the lilies open, Aileen?"

"No, never; I've never been out early in the morning, but I've often seen them go to sleep under the starlight."

"We will row round then till they open—it's worth seeing."

The sun rose in the low-lying mists; it transfused them with crimson. It mounted above them; shot them through and through with gold and violet—then dispersed them without warning, and showed to the girl's charmed eyes and senses the gleaming blue of the lake waters blotched with the dull green of the lily-pads, and among them the lilies expanding the fragrant white of their corollas to its beneficent light and warmth....

---

When she left the boat his kiss was on her lips, his words of love ringing in her ears. One more of her day dreams was realized: she had given to the man she loved with all her heart her first kiss—and with it, on her part, the unspoken pledge of herself.

A movement somewhere about the house, the lowing of the cattle, the morning breeze stirring in the trees—something startled them. They drew apart, smiling into each other's eyes. She placed her finger on her lips.

"Hush!" she whispered. She was off on a run across the lawn, turning once to wave her hand to him.—And now this!

How could this then that she had just been told be true?

Her whole being revolted at the thought that he was tampering with what to her was the holiest in her young life—her love for him. In the past six weeks it never once occurred to her that he could prove unworthy of such trust as hers; no man would dare to be untrue to her—to her, Aileen Armagh, who never in all her wilfulness and love of romance had given man or boy occasion to use either her name or her lightly! How dared he do this thing? Did he not know with whom he had to deal? Because she was only Aileen Armagh, and at service with his relation, did he think her less the true woman?

Suspicion was foreign to her open nature; doubt, distrust had no place in her young life; but like a serpent in the girl's Eden the words of the mistress of Champ-au-Haut, "He never will ask you to be his wife," dropped poison in her ears.

She sat up on the grass, thrust back her hair from her forehead—

"Let him dare to hint even that what he said was love for me was not what—what—"

She buried her face in her hands.

"Aileen—Aileen—where are you?"

That voice, breaking in upon her wretched thought of him, brought her to her feet.

---

VIII

"Mother, don't you think Aunt Meda might open her purse and do something for Aileen Armagh now that the girl has been faithful to her interests so long?"

He had remained at home since his arrival in the morning, and was now about to drive down into the town.

His mother looked up from her sewing in surprise.

"What put that into your mind? I was thinking the same thing myself not a week ago; she has such a wonderful voice."

"It seems unjust to keep her from utilizing it for herself so far as an income is concerned and to deprive others of the pleasure of hearing her voice after it is trained. But, of course, she can't do it herself."

"I only wish I could do it for her." His mother spoke with great earnestness. "But even if I could help, there would be no use offering so long as she remains with Almeda."

"Perhaps not; anyway, I'm going down there now, and I shall do what I can to sound Aunt Meda on this point."

"Good luck!" she called after him. He turned, lifted his hat, and smiled back at her.

---

He found Mrs. Champney alone on the terrace; she was sitting under the ample awning that protected her from the sun but was open on all sides for air.

"All alone, Aunt Meda?" he inquired cheerfully, taking a seat beside her.

"Yes; when did you come?"

"This morning."

"Isn't it rather unexpected?" She glanced sideways rather sharply at him.

"My coming here is; I'm really on my way to Bar Harbor. The Van Ostends are off on Tuesday with a large party and I promised to go with them."

"So Alice wrote me the other day. It's the first letter I have had from her. She says she is coming here on her way home in October, that she's 'just crazy' to see Flamsted Quarries—but I can read between the lines even if my eyes are old." She smiled significantly.

Champney felt that an answering smile was the safe thing in the circumstances. He wondered how much Aunt Meda knew from the Van Ostends. That she was astute in business matters was no guaranty that she would prove far-sighted in matrimonial affairs.

"I've known Alice so long that she's gotten into the habit of taking me for granted—not that I object," he added with a glance in the direction of the boat house. Mrs. Champney, whom nothing escaped, noticed it.

"I should hope not," she said emphatically. "I may as well tell you, Champney, that Mr. Van Ostend has not hesitated to write me of your continued attentions to Alice and your frankness with him in regard to the outcome of this. So far as I see, his only objection could be on account of her extreme youth—I congratulate you." She spoke with great apparent sincerity.

"Thank you, Aunt Meda," he said quietly; "your congratulations are premature, and the subject so far as Alice and I are concerned is taboo for three years—at Mr. Van Ostend's special request."

"Quite right—a girl doesn't know her own mind before she is twenty-five."

"Faith, I know one who knows her own mind on all subjects at twenty!"—he laughed heartily as if at some amusing remembrance—"and that's Aileen; by the way, where is she, Aunt Meda?"

"She was going up to Mrs. Caukins'. I suppose she is there now—why?"

"Because I want to talk about her, and I don't want her to come in on us suddenly."

"What about Aileen?" She spoke indifferently.

"About her voice; you've never been willing, I understand, to have it cultivated?"

"What if I haven't?"

"That's just the 'what', Aunt Meda," he said pleasantly but earnestly; "I've heard her singing a good many times, and I've never heard her that I didn't wish some one would be generous enough to such talent to pay for cultivating it."

"Do you know why I haven't been willing?"

"No, I don't—and I'd like to know."

"Because, if I had, she would have been on the stage before now—and where could I get another? I don't intend to impoverish myself for her sake—not after what I've done for her." She spoke emphatically. "What was your idea in asking me about her?"

"I thought it was a pity that such a talent should be left to go to seed. I wish you could look at it from my standpoint and give her the wherewithal to go to Europe for three or four years in order to cultivate it—she can take care of herself well enough."

"And you really advise this?" She asked almost incredulously.

"Why not? You must have seen my interest in the girl. I can't think of a better way of showing it than to induce you to put her in the way of earning her livelihood by her talent."

Mrs. Champney made no direct reply. After a moment's silence she asked abruptly:

"Have you ever said anything to her about this?"

"Never a word."

"Don't then; I don't want her to get any more new-fangled notions into her head."

"Just as you say; but I wish you would think about it—it seems almost a matter of justice." He rose to go.

"Where are you going now?"

"Over to the shed office; I want to see the foreman about the last contract. I'll borrow the boat, if you don't mind, and row up—I have plenty of time." He looked at his watch. "Can I do anything for you before I go?" he asked gently, adjusting an awning curtain to shut the rays of the sun from her face.

"Yes; I wish you would telephone up to Mrs. Caukins and tell her to tell Aileen to be at home before six; I need her to-night."

"Certainly."

He went into the house and telephoned. He did not think it necessary to return and report Mrs. Caukins' reply that Aileen "hadn't come up yet." He went directly to the boat house, wondering in the mean time where she was.

One of the two boats was already gone; doubtless she had taken it—where could she be?

He stepped into the boat, and pulled slowly out into the lake, keeping in the lee of the rocky peninsula of The Bow. He was fairly well satisfied with his effort in Aileen's behalf and with himself because he had taken a first step in the right direction. Neither his mother nor Aunt Meda could say now that he was not disinterested; if Father HonorÉ came over, as was his custom, to chat with him on the porch for an hour or two in the evening, he would broach the subject again to him who was the girl's best friend. If she could go to Europe there would be less danger—

Danger?—Yes; he was willing to admit it, less danger for them both; three years of absence would help materially in this matter in which he felt himself too deeply involved. Then, in the very face of this acknowledgment, he could not help a thought that whitened his cheek as it formulated itself instantaneously in his consciousness: if she were three years in Europe, there would be opportunity for him to see her sometime.

He knew the thought could not be uttered in the girl's pure presence; yet, with many others, he held that a woman, if she loves a man absorbingly, passionately, is capable of any sacrifice—would she? Hardly; she was so high-spirited, so pure in thought—yet she loved him, and after all love was the great Subduer. But no—it could never be; this was his decision. He rowed out into the lake.

Why must a man's action prove so often the slave of his thought!

He was passing the arm of Mesantic that leads to "lily-pad reach". He turned to look up the glinting curve. Was she there?—should he seek her?

He backed water on the instant. The boat responded like a live thing, quivered, came to a partial rest—stopped, undulating on the surface roughened by the powerful leverage of the oars. Champney sat motionless, the dripping blades suspended over the water. He knew that in all probability the girl was there in "lily-pad reach". Should he seek her? Should he go?—Should he?

The hands that held the steady oars quivered suddenly, then gripped them as in a vise; the man's face flushed; he bent to the right oar, the craft whirled half way on her keel; the other oar fell—swiftly and powerfully the boat shot ahead up "lily-pad reach".

Reason, discretion, judgment razed in an instant from the table of consciousness; desire rampant, the desire of possession to which intellect, training, environment, even that goodward-turning which men under various aspects term religion, succumb in a moment like the present one in which Champney Googe was bending all his strength to the oars that he might be the sooner with the girl he loved.

He did not ask himself what next? He gave no thought to aught but reaching the willows as soon as he could. His eye was on the glinting curve before him; he rounded it swiftly—her boat was there tied to the stake among the arrowhead; his own dragged through the lily-pads beside it; he sprang out, ran up the bank—

"Aileen—Aileen—where are you?" he called eagerly, impatiently, and sought about him to find her.

Aileen Armagh heard that call, and doubt, suspicion, anger dropped away from her. Instead, trust, devotion, anticipation clothed her thought of him; he was coming to speak the "word" that was to make her future fair and plain—the one "word" that should set him forever in her heart, enthrone him in her life. That word was not "love", but the sacrament of love; the word of four letters which a woman writes large with legitimate loving pride in the face of the world. She sprang to her feet and waited for him; the willows drooped on either side of her—so he saw her again.

He took her in his arms. "Aileen—Aileen," he said over and over again between the kisses that fell upon her hair, forehead, lips.

She yielded herself to his embrace, passionately given and returned with all a girl's loving ardor and joy in the loved man's presence. Between the kisses she waited for the "word."

It was not forthcoming.

She drew away from him slightly and looked straight into his eyes that were devouring her face and form. The unerring instinct of a pure nature warned her against that look. He caught her to him—but she stemmed both hands against his breast to repulse him.

"Let me go, Champney," she said faintly.

"Why should I let you go? Aileen, my Aileen, why should I ever let you go?" A kiss closed the lips that were about to reply—a kiss so long and passionate that the girl felt her strength leaving her in the close embrace.

"He will speak the 'word' now surely," she told herself. Between their heart-throbs she listened for it.

The "word" was not spoken.

Again she stemmed her hands against him, pressing them hard against his shoulders. "Let me go, Champney." She spoke with spirit.

The act of repulsion, the ring in her voice half angered him; at the same time it added fuel to desire.

"I will not let you go—you love me—tell me so—"

He waited for no reply but caught her close; the girl struggled in his arms. It was dawning on her undaunted spirit that this, which she was experiencing with Champney Googe, the man she loved with all her heart, was not love. Of a sudden, all that brave spirit rose in arms to ward off from herself any spoken humiliation to her womanhood, ay more, to prevent the man she loved from deepening his humiliation of himself in her presence.

"Let me go" she said, but despite her effort for control her voice trembled.

"You know I love you—why do you repel me so?"

"Let me go," she said again; this time her voice was firm, the tone peremptory; but she made no further struggle to free herself from his arms.—"Oh, what are you doing!"

"I am making the attempt to find out if you love me as I love you—"

"You have no right to kiss me so—"

"I have the right because I love you—"

"But I don't love you."

"Yes you do, Aileen Armagh—don't say that again."

"I do not love you—let me go, I say."

He let her go at last. She stood before him, pale, but still undaunted.

"Do you know what you are saying?" he demanded almost fiercely under his breath. He took her head between his hands and bent it back to close her lips with another kiss.

"Yes, I know. I do not love you—don't touch me!" She held out her hands to him, palm outwards, as if warding off some present danger.

He paid no heed to her warning, but caught her to him again. "Tell me now you don't love me, Aileen," he whispered, laying his cheek to hers.

"I tell you I do not love you," she said aloud; her voice was clear and firm.

He drew back then to look at her in amazement; turned away for a moment as if half dazed; then, holding her to his side with his left arm he laid his ear hard over her heart. What was it that paled the man's flushed cheeks?

The girl's heart was beating slowly, calmly, even faintly. He caught her wrist, pressing his fingers on her pulse—there was not the suspicion of a flutter. He let her go then. She stood before him; her eyes were raised fearlessly to his.

"I'm going to row back now—no, don't speak—not a word—"

She turned and walked slowly down to the boat; cast it off; poled it with one oar out of the tall arrowhead and the thick fringe of lily-pads; took her seat; fitted the oars to the rowlocks, dipped them, and proceeded to row steadily down the reach towards The Bow.

Champney Googe stood where she had left him till he watched her out of sight around the curve; then he went over to the willows and sat down. It took time for him to recover from his debauch of feeling. He made himself few thoughts at first; but as time passed and the shadows lengthened on the reach, he came slowly to himself. The night fell; the man still sat there, but the thoughts were now crowding fast, uncomfortably fast. He dropped his head into his hands, so covering his face in the dark for very shame that he had so outraged his manhood. He knew now that she knew he had not intended to speak that "word" between them; but no finer feeling told him that she had saved him from himself.

In that hour he saw himself as he was—unworthy of a good woman's love.

He saw other things as well; these he hoped to make good in the near future, but this—but this!

He rowed back under cover of the dark to Champ-au-Haut. Octavius, who was wondering at his non-appearance with the boat, met him with a lantern at the float.

"Here's a telegram just come up; the operator gave it to me for you. I told him you was out in the boat and would be here 'fore you went up home."

"All right, Tave." He opened it; read it by the light of the lantern.

"I've got to go back to New York—it's a matter of business. It's all up with my vacation and the yachting cruise now,"—he looked at his watch,—"seven; I can get the eight-thirty accommodation to Hallsport, and that will give me time to catch the Eastern express."

"Hold on a minute and I'll get your trap from the stable—it's all ready for you."

"No, I'll get it myself—good-bye, Tave, I'm off."

"Good-bye, Champney."

---

"Champ's worried about something," he said to himself; he was making fast the boat. "I never see him look like that—I hope he hasn't got hooked in with any of those Wall Street sharks."

In a few minutes he heard the carriage wheels on the gravel in the driveway. He stopped on his way to the stable to listen.

"He's driving like Jehu," he muttered. He was still listening; he heard the frequent snorting of the horse, the rapid click of hoofs on the highroad—but he did not hear what was filling the driver's ears at that moment: the roar of an unseen cataract.

Champney Googe was realizing for the first time that he was in mid-stream; that he might not be able to breast the current; that the eddying water about him was in fact the whirlpool; that the rush of what he had deemed mere harmless rapids was the prelude to the thunderous fall of a cataract ahead.

---

IX

For several weeks after her nephew's visit, Mrs. Champney occupied many of her enforced leisure half-hours in trying to put two and two together in their logical combination of four; but thus far she had failed. She learned through Octavius that Champney had returned to New York on Saturday evening; that in consequence he was obliged to give up the cruise with the Van Ostends; from Champney himself she had no word. Her conclusion was that there had been no chance for him to see Aileen during the twelve hours he was in town, for the girl came home as requested shortly before six, but with a headache, and the excuse for it that she had rowed too far in the sun on the way up to the sheds.

"My nephew told me he was going to row up to the sheds, too—did you happen to meet him there?" she inquired. She was studying the profile of the girl's flushed and sunburned face. Aileen had just said good night and was about to leave Mrs. Champney's room. She turned quickly to face her. She spoke with sharp emphasis:

"I did not meet your nephew at the sheds, Mrs. Champney, nor did I see him there—and I'll thank you, after what you said to me this morning, to draw no more conclusions in regard to your nephew's seeing or meeting me at the sheds or anywhere else—it's not worth your while; for I've no desire either to see or meet him again. Perhaps this will satisfy you." She left the room at once without giving Mrs. Champney time to reply.

A self-satisfied smile drew apart Mrs. Champney's thin lips; evidently the girl's lesson was a final and salutary one. She would know her place after this. She determined not to touch on this subject again with Aileen; she might run the risk of going too far, and she desired to keep her with her as long as possible. But she noticed that the singing voice was heard less and less frequently about the house and grounds. Octavius also noticed it, and missed it.

"Aileen, you don't sing as much as you did a while ago—what's the matter?" he asked her one day in October when she joined him to go up street after supper on an errand.

"Matter?—I've sung out for one while; I'm taking a rest-cure with my voice, Tave."

"It ain't the kind of rest-cure that'll agree with you, nor I guess any of us at Champo. There ain't no trouble with her that's bothering you?" He pointed with a backward jerk of his thumb to the house.

"No."

"She's acted mad ever since I told her Champney had to go back that night and tend to business; guess she'd set her heart on his making a match on that yachting cruise—well, 't would be all in the family, seeing there's Champney blood in the Van Ostends, good blood too,—there's no better," he added emphatically.

"Oh, Tave, you're always blowing the Champneys' horn—"

"And why shouldn't I?"—he was decidedly nettled. "The Champneys are my folks, my townspeople, the founders of this town, and their interests have always been mine—why shouldn't I speak up for 'em, I'd like to know? You won't find no better blood in the United States than the Champneys'."

Aileen made no reply; she was looking up the street to Poggi's fruit stall, where beneath a street light she saw a crowd of men from the quarries.

"Romanzo said there was some trouble in the sheds—do you know what it is?" she asked.

"No, I can't get at the rights of it; they didn't get paid off last week, so Romanzo told me last night, but he said Champney telegraphed he'd fix it all right in another week. He says dollars are scarce just at this time—crops moving, you know, and market dull."

She laughed a little scornfully. "You seem to think Mr. Googe can fix everything all right, Tave."

"Champney's no fool; he's 'bout as interested in this home work as anybody, and if he says it'll be all right, you may bet your life it will be—There's Jo Quimber coming; p'raps he's heard something and can tell us."

"What's that crowd up to, Uncle Jo?" said Aileen, linking her arm in the old man's and making him right about face to walk on with them.

"Talkin' a strike. I heerd 'em usin' Champ's name mighty free, Tave, just now—guess he'd better come home an' calm 'em down some, or there'll be music in the air thet this town never danced to yet. By A. J., it riles me clear through to hear 'em!"

"You can't blame them for wanting their pay, Uncle Jo." There was a challenge in the girl's voice which Uncle Jo immediately accepted.

"So ye've j'ined the majority in this town, hev ye, Aileen? I don't say ez I'm blamin' anybody fer wantin' his pay; I'm jest sayin' it don't set well on me the way they go at it to get it. How's the quickest way to git up a war, eh? Jest keep talkin' it up—talkin' it up, an' it's sure to come. They don't give a man like Champ a chance—talkin' behind his back and usin' a good old Flamsted name ez ef 't wuz a mop rag!" Joel's indignation got the better of his discretion; his voice was so loud that it began to attract the attention of some men who were leaving Poggi's; the crowd was rapidly dispersing.

"Sh—Joel! they'll hear you. You've been standing up for everything foreign that's come into this town for the last seven years—what's come over you that you're going back on all your preaching?"

"I ain't goin' back on nothin'," the old man replied testily; "but a man's a man, I don't keer whether he's a Polack or a 'Merican—I don't keer nothin' 'bout thet; but ef he's a man he knows he'd oughter stop backbitin' and hittin' out behind another man's back—he'd oughter come out inter the open an' say, 'You ain't done the right thing by me, now let's both hev it out', instead of growlin' and grumblin' an' spittin' out such all-fired nonsense 'bout the syndicaters and Champ—what's Champ got to do with it, anyway? He can't make money for 'em."

The crowds were surging past them; the men were talking together; their confused speech precluded the possibility of understanding what was said.

"He's no better than other men, Uncle Jo," the girl remarked after the men had passed. She laughed as she spoke, but the laugh was not a pleasant one; it roused Octavius.

"Now, look here, Aileen, you stop right where you are—"

She interrupted him, and her voice was again both merry and pleasant, for they were directly opposite Luigi's shop: "I'm going to, Tave; I'm going to stop right here; Mrs. Champney sent me down on purpose to get some of those late peaches Luigi keeps; she said she craved them, and I'm going in this very minute to get them—"

She waved her hand to both and entered the shop.

Old Quimber caught Octavius by the arm to detain him a moment before he himself retraced his steps up street.

"What d'ye think, Tave?—they goin' to make a match on't, she an' Poggi? I see 'm together a sight."

"You can't tell 'bout Aileen any more'n a weather-cock. She might go farther and fare worse."

"Thet's so, Tave; Poggi's a man, an' a credit to our town. I guess from all I hear Romanzo's 'bout give it up, ain't he?"

"Romanzo never had a show with Aileen," Octavius said decidedly; "he ain't her kind."

"Guess you're right, Tave—By A. J. there they go now!" He nudged Octavius with his elbow. Octavius, who had passed the shop and was standing on the sidewalk with old Quimber, saw the two leave it and walk slowly in the direction of The Bow. He listened for the sound of Aileen's merry laugh and chat, but he heard nothing. His grave face at once impressed Joel.

"Something's up 'twixt those two, eh, Tave?" he whispered.

Octavius nodded in reply; he was comprehending all that old man's words implied. He bade Quimber good night and walked on to The Greenbush. The Colonel found him more taciturn than usual that evening....

"I can't, Luigi,—I can't marry you," she answered almost irritably. The two were nearing the entrance to Champo; the Italian was pleading his cause. "I can't—so don't say anything more about it."

"But, Aileen, I will wait—I can wait; I've waited so long already. I believe I began to love you through that knothole, you remember?"

"I haven't forgotten;" she half smiled at the remembrance; "but that seems so long ago, and things have changed so—I've changed, Luigi."

The tone of her voice was hard. Luigi looked at her in surprise.

"What has changed you, Aileen? Tell me—can't you trust me?"

"Luigi!"—she faced him suddenly, looking straight up into his handsome face that turned white as he became aware that what she was about to say was final—"I'd give anything if I could say to you what you want me to—you deserve all my love, if I could only give it to you, for you are faithful and true, and mean what you say—it would be the best thing for me, I know; but I can't, Luigi; I've nothing to give, and it would be living a lie to you from morning till night to give you less than you deserve. I only blame myself that I'm not enough like other girls to know a good man when I see him, and take his love with a thankful heart that it's mine—but it's no use—don't blame me for being myself—" Her lips trembled; she bit the lower one white in her effort to steady it.

For a moment Luigi made no reply. Suddenly he leaned towards her—she drew away from him quickly—and said between his teeth, all the long-smouldering fire of southern passion, passion that is founded on jealousy, glowing in his eyes:

"Tell me, Aileen Armagh, is there another man you love?—tell me—"

Rag who had been with her all the afternoon moved with a quick threatening motion to her side and a warning gurr—rrrr for the one who should dare to touch her.

"No." She spoke defiantly. Luigi straightened himself. Rag sprang upon her fawning and caressing; she shoved him aside roughly, for the dog was at that moment but the scapegoat for his master; Rag cowered at her feet.

"Ah—" It was a long-drawn breath of relief. Luigi Poggi's eyes softened; the fire in them ceased to leap and blaze; something like hope brightened them.

"I could bear anything but that—I was afraid—" He hesitated.

"Afraid of what?" She caught up his words sharply, and began to walk rapidly up the driveway.

He answered slowly: "I was afraid you were in love with Mr. Googe—I saw you once out rowing with him—early one morning—"

"I in love with Mr. Googe!" she echoed scornfully, "you needn't ever be afraid of that; I—I hate him!"

Luigi stared at her in amazement. He scarce could keep pace with her rapid walk that was almost a run. Her cheeks were aflame; her eyes filled with tears. All her pent up wretchedness of the last two months, all her outraged love, her womanhood's humiliation, a sense of life's bitter injustice and of her impotence to avenge the wrong put upon her affections, found vent in these three words. And Luigi, seeing Aileen Armagh changed into something that an hour before he would not have believed possible, was gripped by a sudden fear,—he must know the truth for his own peace of mind,—and, under its influence, he laid his hand on her arm and brought her to a standstill.

Rag snarled another warning; Aileen thrust him aside with her foot.

"What has he done to you to make you hate him so?"

Because he spoke slowly, Aileen thought he was speaking calmly. Had she not been carried away by her own strength of feeling, she would have known that she might not risk the answer she gave him.

"Done to me?—nothing; what could he do?—but I hate him—I never want to see his face again!"

She was beside herself with anger and shame. It was the tone of Luigi's voice that brought her to her senses; in a flash she recalled Octavius Buzzby's warning about playing with "volcanic fires." It was too late, however, to recall her words.

"Luigi, I've said too much; you don't understand—now let's drop it." She drew away her arm from beneath his hand, and resumed her rapid walk up the driveway, Rag trotting after her.

"And you mean what you say—you never want to see him again?" He spoke again slowly.

"Never," she said firmly.

Luigi made no reply. They were nearing the house. She turned to him when they reached the steps.

"Luigi,"—she put out her hand and he took it in both his,—"forget what I've said about another and forgive me for what I've had to say to yourself—we've always been such good friends, that now—"

She was ready with the smile that captivated him, but it was a tremulous one for she smiled through tears; she was thinking of the contrast.

"And always will be, Aileen, when we both know for good and all that we can be nothing more to each other," he answered gently.

She was grateful to him; but she turned away and went up the steps without saying good-bye.

---

X

"'Gad, I wish I was well out of it!"

For the first time within the memory of Elmer Wiggins and Lawyer Emlie, who heard the Colonel's ejaculation, his words and tone proclaimed the fact that he was not in his seemingly unfailing good spirits. He was standing with the two at the door of the drug shop and watching the crowds of men gathered in groups along the main street.

It was Saturday afternoon and the men were idle, a weekly occurrence the Colonel had learned to dread since his incumbency as deputy sheriff and, in consequence of his office, felt responsible for the peace of the community at large until Monday morning.

Something unusual was in the air, and the three men were at once aware of it. The uneasiness, that had prevailed in the sheds and at The Gore during the past month, was evidently coming to a crisis now that the men's pay was two weeks overdue.

Emlie looked grave on replying, after a pause in which the three were busy taking note of the constantly increasing crowd in front of the town hall:

"I don't blame you, Colonel; there'll be the deuce to pay if the men don't get paid off by Monday noon. They've been uneasy now so long about the piece work settlement, that this last delay is going to be the match that fires the train—and no slow match either from the looks; I don't understand this delay. When did Romanzo send his last message?"

"About an hour ago, but he hasn't had any answer yet," replied the Colonel, shading his eyes with his hat to look up street at the town hall crowd. "He has been telephoning and telegraphing off and on for the last two weeks; but he can't get any satisfaction—corporations, you know, don't materialize just for the rappings."

"What does Champney say?" inquired Mr. Wiggins.

"State of the market," said the Colonel laconically.

The men did not look at one another, for each was feeling a certain degree of indignation, of humiliation and disappointment that one of their own, Champney Googe, should go back on Flamsted to the extent of allowing the "market" to place the great quarry interests, through non-payment of the workers, in jeopardy.

"Has Romanzo heard direct from him to-day?" asked Emlie.

"No; the office replied he was out of the city for Saturday and Sunday; didn't give his address but asked if we could keep the men quiet till the middle of next week when the funds would be forwarded."

"I wired our New York exchange yesterday," said Emlie, "but they can't give us any information—answered things had gone to pot pretty generally with certain securities, but Flamsted was all right,—not tied up in any of them. Of course, they know the standing of the syndicate. There'll have to be some new arrangement for a large reserve fund right here on home soil, or we'll be kept in hot water half the time. I don't believe in having the hands that work in one place, and the purse that holds their pay in another; it gets too ticklish at such times when the market drops and a plank or two at the bottom falls out."

"Neither do I;" Mr. Wiggins spoke emphatically. "The Quarries Company's liabilities run up into the millions on account of the contracts they have signed and the work they have undertaken, and there ought to be a million of available assets to discount panics like this one that looks pretty threatening to us away off here in Maine. Our bank ought to have the benefit of some of the money."

"Well, so far, we've had our trouble for nothing, you might say. You, as a director, know that Champney sends up a hundred thousand say on Thursday, and Romanzo draws it for the pay roll and other disbursements on Saturday morning; they hold it at the other end to get the use of it till the last gun is fired." He spoke with irritation.

"It looks to me as if some sort of a gun had been fired already," said Mr. Wiggins, pointing to the increasing crowd before the hall.

"Something's up," said Emlie, startled at the sight of the gathering hundreds.

"Then there's my place," said the Colonel—the other two thought they heard him sigh—and started up the street.

Emlie turned to Mr. Wiggins.

"It's rough on the Colonel; he's a man of peace if ever there was one, and likes to stand well with one and all. This rough and tumble business of sheriff goes against the grain; his time is up next month; he'll be glad enough to be out of it. I'll step over to the office for the paper, I see they've just come—the men have got them already from the stand—"

Elmer Wiggins caught his arm.

"Look!" he cried under his breath, pointing to the crowd and a man who was mounting the tail of an express wagon that had halted on the outskirts of the throng. "That's one of the quarrymen—he's ring-leader every time—he's going to read 'em something—hark!"

They could hear the man haranguing the ever-increasing crowd; he was waving a newspaper. They could not hear what he was saying, but in the pauses of his speechifying the hoarse murmur of approval grew louder and louder. The cart-tail orator pointed to the headlines; there was a sudden deep silence, so deep that the soft scurrying of a mass of fallen elm leaves in the gutter seemed for a moment to fill all the air. Then the man began to read. They saw the Colonel on the outside of the crowd; saw him suddenly turn and make with all haste for the post-office; saw him reappear reading the paper.

The two hurried across the street to him.

"What's the matter?" Emlie demanded.

The Colonel spoke no word. He held the sheet out to them and with shaking forefinger pointed to the headlines:

BIG EMBEZZLEMENT BY FLAMSTED QUARRIES CO. OFFICIAL

GUILTY MAN A FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE

SEARCH WARRANTS OUT

DETECTIVES ON TRAIL

"New York—Special Despatch: L. Champney Googe, the treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Co.—" etc., etc.