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 1891 
 
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A WOMAN'S EEASON 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM D. HOWELLS 
 
 AUTHOR OF " A MODERN INSTANCE," " DOCTOR BREBN's PRACTICE," 
 "a foregone conclusion," ETC. 
 
 m 
 
 BOSTON 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 
 1883 
 
 s 
 
M-7H-773 
 
 Copyri^U, 188Z, 
 Bt William D. Howells. 
 
 jli! nghu reserved. 
 
 drsmfitiSire: 
 
 PEINTID BT .TOHK WILSOH AND SON, 
 UNIYEBSITT PKESS. 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 The day had been very oppressive, and at half- 
 past five in the afternoon, the heat had scarcely 
 abated, to the perception of Mr. Joshua Harkness, 
 as he walked heavily up the Park Street mall in 
 Boston Common. When he came opposite the 
 Brewer Fountain, with its Four Seasons of severe 
 drouth, he stopped short, and stared at the bronze 
 group with its insufficient dribble, as if he had 
 never seen it before. Then he felt infirmly about 
 the ground with his stick, stepped aside, and sank 
 tremulously into one of the seats at the edge of the 
 path. The bench was already partly occupied by a 
 young man and a young woman ; the young man 
 had his arm thrown along the back of the seat 
 behind the young woman ; their heads were each 
 tilted toward the other, and they were making 
 love almost as frankly in that public place, as they 
 might in the seclusion of a crowded railway train. 
 They both glanced at the intruder, and exchanged 
 smiles, apparently of pity for his indecency, and 
 A 
 
2 A woman's reason. 
 
 then went on with their love-making, while Mr. 
 Harkness, unconscious of his offence, stared eagerly 
 out over the Common, and from time to time made 
 gestures or signals with his stick in that direction. 
 It 'was that one day of the week when people are 
 not shouted at by a multitude of surly sign-boards 
 to keep off the grass, and the turf was everywhere 
 dotted with lolling and lounging groups. Perhaps 
 to compensate for the absence of the sign-boards 
 (which would reappear over night like a growth of 
 disagreeable fungi), there was an unusual number of 
 policemen sauntering about, and it was one of these 
 whom Mr. Harkness was trying to attract with his 
 cane. If any saw him, none heeded, and he had to 
 wait till a policeman came down the mail in front of 
 him. This could not have been so long a time as it 
 seemed to Mr. Harkness, who was breathing thickly, 
 and now and then pressing his hand against his fore- 
 head, like one who tries to stay a reeling brain. 
 
 " Please call a carriage," he panted, as the officer 
 whom he had thrust in the side with his cane 
 stopped and looked down at him ; and then as the man 
 seemed to hesitate, he added : "My name is Hark- 
 ness ; I live at 9 Beacon Steps. I wish to go home 
 at once ; I 've been taken faint." 
 
 Beacon Steps is not Beacon Street, but it is of like 
 blameless social tradition, and the name, together 
 with a certain air of moneyed respectability in Mr. 
 Harkness, had its effect with the policeman. 
 
 " Sick 1 " he asked. " Well, you are pale. You 
 just hold on, a minute. Heh, there 1 heh !" he 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 3 
 
 shouted to a passing hackman, who promptly 
 stopped, turned his horses, and drew up beside the 
 curb next the Common. " Now you take my arm, 
 Mr. Harkness, and I'll help you to the carriage." 
 He raised the gentleman to his benumbed feet, and 
 got him away through the gathering crowd ; when 
 he was gone, the crowd continued to hang about the 
 place where he had been sitting in such numbers, 
 that the young man first took his arm down from 
 the back of the seat, and the young woman tilted 
 her head away from his, and then they both, with 
 vexed and impatient looks, rose and walked away, 
 seeking some other spot for the renewal of their 
 courtship. 
 
 The policeman had not been able to refrain from 
 driving home with Mr. Harkness, whom he patro- 
 nised with a sort of municipal kindness, on the way; 
 and for -whom, when he had got him in-doors, and 
 comfortably stretched upon a lounge in the library, 
 he wanted to go and call the doctor. But Mr. 
 Harkness refused, saying that he had had these 
 attacks before, and would soon be all right. He 
 thanked the officer by name, after asking him for it, 
 and the oificer went away, lea\'ing Mr. Harkness to 
 the care of the cook who, in that midsummer time, 
 seemed to have sole charge of the house and its 
 master. The policeman flipped the dust from the 
 breast and collar of his coat, in walking back to his 
 beat, with the right feeling of a man who would like 
 to be better prepared if summoned a second time to 
 befriend a gentleman of Mr. Harkness's standing, and 
 
4 A woman's reason. 
 
 to meet in coining out of his house a young lady of 
 such beauty and elegance as he had just encountered. 
 This young lady, as he closed the door behind him, 
 had run up the steps with the loop of her train in 
 one hand — after the fashion of ten years ago, and in 
 the other a pretty travelling-bag, carried with the 
 fearlessness of a lady who knows that people are out 
 of town. She glanced a little wonderingly, a little 
 defiantly, at the policeman, who, seeing that she 
 must drop one or other of her burdens to ring, politely 
 rang for her. 
 
 "Thank you!" said the young lady, speaking a 
 little more wonderingly, a little more defiantly than 
 she had looked. 
 
 " Quite welcome. Miss," returned the policeman, 
 and touched his hat in going down the steps, while 
 the young lady turned and stared after him; leaning 
 a little over the top step on which she stood, with 
 her back to the door. She was very pretty indeed, 
 with blue eyes at once tender and honest, and the 
 fair hair, that goes with their beauty, hanging loosely 
 upon her forehead. Her cheeks, in their young 
 perfection of outline, had a flush beyond their usual 
 delicate colour ; the heat, and her eager dash up the 
 steps had suffused them with a dewy bloom, that 
 seemed momently to deepen and soften. Her love- 
 liness was saved from the insipidity of faultless lines 
 by a little downward curve, a quirk, or call it dimple, 
 at one comer of her mouth, which, especially in 
 repose, gave it a touch of humorous feeling and 
 formed its final charm : it seemed less a trait of face 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 5 
 
 than of character. That fine positive grace, which 
 is called style, and which is so eminently the gift 
 of exquisite nerves, had not cost her too much ; she 
 was slim, but not fragile, and her very motionless- 
 ness suggested a vivid bird-like mobility ; she stood, 
 as if she had alighted upon the edge of the step. At 
 the opening of the door behind her she turned alertly 
 from the perusal of the policeman's retreating back, 
 and sprang within. 
 
 " How d' do, Margaret ?" She greeted the cook in 
 a voice whose bright kindness seemed the translation 
 of her girlish beauty into sound. " Surprised to see 
 me 1" She did not wait for the cook's answer, but 
 put down her bag, and began pulling off her gloves, 
 after shaking out her skirt, and giving Ihat pene- 
 trating sidelong downward look at it, which women 
 always give their drapery at moments of arrival or 
 departure. She turned into the drawing-room from 
 the hall, and went up to the long, old-fashioned 
 mirror, and glanced at the face which it dimly 
 showed her in the close-shuttered room. The face had 
 apparently not changed since she last saw it in that 
 mirror, and one might have fancied that the young 
 lady was somehow .surprised at this. 
 
 " May I ask vjhj/ policemen are coming and going 
 in and out of our house, Margaret?" she demanded of 
 the cook's image, which, further down in the mirror, 
 hesitated at the doorway. 
 
 "He come home with your father, Miss Helen," 
 answered, the cook, and as Helen tni-ned lound and 
 stared at her in the flesh, she continued : " He had 
 
6 A WOMAN S REASON. 
 
 one of his faint turns in the Common. He 's laying 
 down in the library now, Miss Helen." 
 
 " O, poor papa !" wailed the young lady, who knew 
 that in spite of the cook's pronoun, it could not be 
 the policeman who was then reposing from faintness 
 in the library. She whirled away from the miiTor, 
 and swooped through the doorway into the hall, and 
 back into the room where her father lay. " The 
 heat has been too much for him," she moaned, in 
 mixed self-reproach and compassion, as she flew ; 
 and she dropped upon her knees beside him, and 
 fondly caressed his grey head, and cooed and 
 lamented over him, with the irreverent tenderness 
 he liked her to use with him. " Poor old fellow," 
 she murmured. " It 's too bad ! You 're working 
 yourself to death, and I 'm going to stay with you 
 now, and put a stop to your being brought home by 
 policemen. Why, you ought to be ashamed, break- 
 ing down in this way, as soon as my back is turned ! 
 Has Margaret done everything for you ? Wouldn't 
 you like a little light 1" She started briskly to her 
 feet, flung up the long window, and raising and 
 lowering the shade to get the right level for her 
 father's eyes, stood silhouetted against the green 
 space without : a grass plot between high brick walls, 
 bn one of which clambered a grape-vine, and on the 
 other a wisteria, while a bed of bright-leafed plants 
 gave its colour in the centre of the yard. " There !" 
 she said, with a glance at this succinct landscape. 
 " That 's the prettiest bit of nature I 've seen since I 
 left Boston." She came back and sat down on a low 
 
A woman's reason. 7 
 
 chair beside her father, who smiled fondly upon her, 
 and took one of her hands to hold, while she pushed 
 back his hair with the other. 
 
 " Are you awfully glad to see me ?" 
 
 "Awfully," said Mr. Harkness, falling in with her 
 mood, and brightening with the light and her pre- 
 sence. " What brought you so suddenly 1 " 
 
 " Oh, that 's a long story. Are you feeling better, 
 nowl" 
 
 " Yes. I was merely faint. I shall be all right 
 by morning. I've been a little worn out." 
 
 " Was it like the last time 1" asked Helen. 
 
 " Yes,'' said her father. 
 
 " A little more like f 
 
 "I don't think it was more severe," said Mr. Hark- 
 ness, thoughtfully. 
 
 "What had you been doing? Honour bright, 
 now: was it accounts 1" 
 
 " Yes, it was accounts, my dear.'' 
 
 "The same old wretches 1" 
 
 " The same old ones ; some new ones, too. They 're 
 in hopeless confusion," sighed Mr. Harkness, who 
 seemed to age and sadden with the thought. 
 
 " Well, now, I '11 tell you what, papa," said Helen, 
 sternly : " I want you to leave all accounts, old and 
 new, quite alone till the cold weather comes, Will 
 you promise 1 " 
 
 Harkness smiled, as wearily as he had sighed. He 
 knew that she was burlesquing somewhat her ignor- 
 ance of affairs ; and yet it was not much burlesqued, 
 after all ; for her life, like that of other American 
 
8 A WOMAN S REASON. 
 
 girls of prosperous parentage, had been almost as 
 much set apart from the hard realities of bread-win- 
 ning as the life of a princess, as entirely dedicated to 
 society, to the studies that refine, and the accom- 
 plishments that grace society. The question of 
 money had hardly entered into it. Since she was a 
 little child, and used to climb upon her father's knee, 
 and ask him, in order to fix his status in her fairy 
 tales, whether he was rich or poor, she might be said 
 never to have fairly thought of that matter. Of 
 course, she understood that she was not so rich as 
 some girls, but she had never found that the differ- 
 ence was against her in society ; she could not help 
 perceiving that in regard to certain of them it was 
 in her favour, and that she might have patronised 
 them if she had liked, and that they were glad of 
 her friendship on any terms. Her father's great 
 losses had come when she was too young to see the 
 difference that they made in his way of living; ever 
 since she could remember they had kept to the same 
 scale of simple ease in the house where she was born, 
 and she had known no wish that there had not been 
 money enough to gratify. Pleasures of every kind 
 had always come to her as freely and with as little 
 wonder on her part as if they had been, like her 
 youth, her bounding health, her beauty, the direct 
 gift of heaven. She knew that the money came from 
 her father's business, but she had never really asked 
 herself how it was earned. It is doubtful if she 
 could have told what his business was ; it was the 
 India trade, whatever that was, and of late years he 
 
A woman's reason. 9 
 
 had seemed to be more worried by it than he used to 
 be, and she had vaguely taken this ill, as an ungrateful 
 return on the part of business. Once he had gone 
 so far as to tell her that he had been hurt by the 
 Great Fire somewhat. But the money for all her 
 needs and luxuries (she was not extravagant, and 
 really did not spend much upon herself) had come 
 as before, and walking through the burnt district, 
 and seeing how handsomely it had been rebuilt, she 
 had a comforting sense that its losses had all been 
 repaired. 
 
 " You look a little flushed and excited, my dear," 
 said her father, in evasion of the commands laid 
 upon him, and he touched her fair cheek. He was 
 very fond of her beauty and of her style; in the 
 earlier days of her young ladyhood, he used to go 
 about with her a great deal, and was angry when he 
 thought she did not get all the notice she ought, 
 and a little jealous when she did. 
 
 " Yes, I am flushed and excited, papa," she owned, 
 throwing herself back in the low chair she had pulled 
 up to his sofa, and beginning to pluck nervously at 
 those little tufts of silk that roughened the cob- 
 webby fabric of the grey summer stuff she wore. 
 " Don't you think," she asked, lifting her downcast 
 eyes, "that coming home and finding you in this 
 state is enough to make me look flushed and ex- 
 cited?" 
 
 "Not quite," said her father quietly. "It's not 
 a new thing.'' 
 
 Helen gave a sort of lamentable laugh. " I 
 
10 A woman's reason. 
 
 know I was humbugging, and I'm as selfish as I 
 can be, to think more of myself even now than I do 
 of you. But, oh papa ! I'm so unhappy !" She 
 looked at him through a mist that gathered and fell 
 in silent drops from her eyes without clearing them, 
 so that she did not see him carry the hand she had 
 abandoned to his heart, and check a gasp. "I 
 suppose we all have our accounts, one way or other, 
 and they get confused like' yours. Mine with — 
 with — a certain person, had got so mixed up that 
 there was nothing for it but just to throw them 
 away." 
 
 " Do yoiT mean that you have broken with him 
 finally, Helen 1 " asked her father gravely. 
 
 " I don't know whether you call it finally," said 
 Helen, " but I told him it was no use — not just in 
 those words — and that he ought to forget me; and 
 I was afraid I wasn't equal to it ; and that I couldn't 
 see my way to it clearly; and unless I could see 
 my way clearly, I oughtn't to go on any longer. 
 I wrote to him last week, and I thought — I thought 
 that perhaps he wouldn't answer it; perhaps he 
 would come over to Eye Beach — he could easily 
 have run over from Portsmouth — to see me — about it. 
 But he didn't — he didn't — he — wrote a very short 
 letter — . Oh, I didn't see llow he could write such a 
 letter; I tried to spare him in every way; and 
 yesterday he — he — s — s — sailed!" Here the storm 
 broke, and Helen bowed herself to the sobs with 
 which her slimness shook, like a tall flower beaten 
 in the wind. Then she suddenly stopped, and ran 
 
A woman's reason. 1 1 
 
 her hand into her pocket, and pulled out her hand- 
 kerchief. She wiped away her tears, and waited for 
 her father to speak ; but he lay silent, and merely 
 regarded her pitifully. "I couldn't bear it any 
 longer there with those geese of Merrills — I 'm sure 
 they were as kind as could be — and so I came home 
 to burden and afflict you, papa. Don't you think 
 that was like me ?" She gave her lamentable laugh 
 again, sobbed, laughed once more, dried the fresh 
 tears with her handkerchief, which she had mechani- 
 cally shaped into a rabbit, and sat plucking at her 
 dress as before. "What do people do, papa," she 
 asked presently, with a certain hoarseness in her 
 voice, " when they 've thrown away their accounts V 
 
 "I never heard of their doing it, my dear," said 
 her father. 
 
 " Well, but when they've come to the very end of 
 everything, and there's nothing to go on with, and 
 they might as well stop ? " 
 
 " They go into bankruptcy," answered the old 
 man, absently, as if the thought had often been in 
 his mind before. 
 
 " Well, that 's what I 've gone into — bankruptcy," 
 said Helen. " And what do they do after they 've 
 gone into bankruptcy i" 
 
 " They begin the world again with nothing, if they 
 have the heart," replied her father. 
 
 " That 's what I have to do then — begin the world 
 again with nothing ! There ! my course is clear, and 
 I hope I like it, and I hope I 'm satisfied !" 
 
 With these words of self-reproach, Helen again 
 
12 A woman's reason. 
 
 broke down, and bowed herself over the ruin she 
 had made of her life. 
 
 " I don't think you need despair," said her father, 
 soothingly, yet with a sort of physical effort which 
 escaped her self-centred grief. "Eobert is such a 
 good fellow that if you wrote to him — " 
 
 "Why, papa! Are you crazy ?" shouted the young 
 girl. " Write to him ? He 's off for three years, and 
 I don't think he 'd come posting back from China, if 
 I did write to him. And how could I write to him, 
 even if he were in the next room 1 " 
 
 " It wouldn't be necessary, in that case," said her 
 father. " I 'm sorry he 's gone for so long," he added, 
 rather- absently. 
 
 " If he were gone for a day, it couldn't make any 
 difference," cried Helen, inexorably. " I argued it all 
 out, — and it 's a perfect chain of logic — before I wrote 
 to him. I looked at it in this way. I said to myself 
 that it was no use having the affair off and on, any 
 longer. It would be perfect misery to a person of 
 my temperament to be an oflnccr's wife, and have my 
 husband with me to-day and at the ends of the earth 
 to-morrow. Besides, his pay wouldn't support us. 
 You told me that yourself, papa." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Harkness. "But I thought 
 Robert might leave the navy, and — '' 
 
 "I never would have let him!" Helen burst in. 
 " He would have been as unhappy as a fish out of 
 water, and I wouldn't have his wretchedness on my 
 conscience, and his idleness — you know how long that 
 splendid Captain Seymour was trying to get into 
 
A woman's reason. 13 
 
 business in Boston, after he left the service : and 
 then he had to go to California before he could find 
 anything to do ; and do you suppose I was going to 
 have Robert mooning round in that way, for ages?" 
 
 " He might have gone into business with me for the 
 time being,'' said Mr. Harkness, not very hopefully. 
 
 " Oh yes ! you could have made a placfe for him, 
 I know ! And we should both have been a burden 
 to you, then. But I shouldn't have cared for all that. 
 I would have met any fate with Robert, if I had 
 believed that I felt toward him just as I should. But, 
 don't you see, papa ? If I had felt towards him in 
 that way, I never should have thought of any — any 
 — prudential considerations. That was what con- 
 vinced me, that was what I couldn't escape from, 
 turn which way I would. That was the point I put 
 to Robert himself, and — and — oh, I don't see how 
 he could answer as he did ! I don't see how he could !" 
 Helen convulsively chitched something in the hand 
 which she had thrust into her pocket. " It isn't that 
 I care for myself; but oh, I am so sorry for him, 
 away off there all alone, feeling so hard and bitter 
 towards me, and thinking me heartless, and I don't 
 know what all, — and hating me so." 
 
 "What did he say, Helen?" asked her father, 
 tenderly. She snatched her hand from her pocket 
 and laid a paper, crumpled, bewept, distained, in the 
 hand he stretched towards her, and then bowed her 
 face upon her knees. 
 
 Helen and her father were old confidants, and she 
 had not more reluctance in showing him this letter 
 
14 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 than most girls would have had in trusting such a 
 paper to their mother's eyes. Her own mother had 
 died long ago, and in the comradeship of her young 
 life her father had entered upon a second youth, 
 happier, or at least tranquiller, than the first. She 
 adored him and petted him, as a wife could not, and 
 this worship did not spoil him as it might if it 
 had been a conjugal devotion. They had always a 
 perfect understanding ; she had not withdrawn her 
 childish intimacy of thought and feeling from him 
 to give it to her mother, as she would have done if 
 her mother had lived ; he knew all her small heart 
 affairs without asking, more or less in a tacit way ; 
 and she had an abidingly grateful sense of his 
 wisdom in keeping her from follies which she could 
 see she had escaped through it. He had never 
 before so directly sought to know her trouble ; but 
 he had never before seen her in so much trouble ; 
 besides, he had always been Robert Fenton's friend 
 at court with Helen ; and he had quietly kept his 
 hopes of their future through rather a stormy and 
 uncertain present. 
 
 He liked Robert for the sake of Robert's father, 
 who had been captain and supercargo of one of 
 Harkness and Co.'s ships, and had gone down in her 
 on her home voyage when he was returning to be 
 junior partner in the house, after a prosperous 
 venture of his own in Wenham ice. He left this 
 boy, and a young wife who died soon afterwards. 
 Then Mr. Harkness, who was the boy's guardian, 
 gave him and the small property that remained to 
 
A woman's keason. 15 
 
 him more than a guardian's care. He sent him to 
 school, but he made him at home in his own house 
 on all holidays and in vacation. These sojourns 
 and absences, beginning when Eobert was ten years 
 old, and continuing through his school-boy age, had 
 renewed alternately his intimacy and strangeness 
 with Helen, and kept her a mystery and enchant- 
 ment which grew with his growth, while to her 
 consciousness he was simply Eobert, a nice boy, who 
 was now at school, or now at home, and who was 
 often so shy that it was perfectly silly. When he 
 was old enough to be placed in some career he was 
 allowed to choose Harvar'd and a profession after- 
 wards, or any more technical training that he liked 
 better. He chose neither : the sea called him, as 
 the old superstition is, and every nerve in his body 
 responded. He would have liked to go into the 
 trade in which his father had died, but here his 
 guardian overruled him. He knew that the India 
 trade was dying out. If Eobert's soul was set upon 
 the sea, of which there seemed no doubt, it was 
 better that he should go into the navy ; at Annapolis 
 he would have a thorough schooling, which would 
 stand him in good stead, if future chance or choice 
 ever cast him ashore to live. 
 
 Helen was in the sophomore year of the class 
 with which she was dancing through Harvard when 
 Eobert came home from his first cruise. She was 
 then a very great lady, and she patronised the mid- 
 shipman with killing kindness as a younger brother, 
 though he was in fact half a year her senior. He 
 
16 A woman's reason. 
 
 now fell in love with her outright : very proud love, 
 very jealous, very impatient. She could not under- 
 stand it. She said to her father it was so queer. 
 She never thought of such a thing. Why, Robert! 
 It was absurd. Besides, he had such a funny name ; 
 Fenton ! Biit a passion like his was not to be 
 quenched with reasons even so good as these. He 
 went to sea again, bitterly, rapturously brooding 
 over her idea, and came home in the autumn after 
 Helen's class-day. All the fellows had scattered 
 "now ; and she was left much younger and humbler 
 in her feelings, and not so great a lady for all her 
 triumphs. Two of her class had proposed to her, 
 and lots had come near it ; but her heart had been 
 left untouched, and she perceived, or thought she 
 perceived, that these young gentlemen, who were 
 wise and mature enough for their age, though neither 
 Solomons nor Methuselahs, were all silly boys. In 
 herself, on the contrary, the tumult of feeling with 
 which she had first entered the world had been 
 succeeded by a calm, which she might well have 
 mistaken for wisdom. She felt that she now knew 
 the world thoroughly, and while she was resolved 
 to judge it kindly, she was not going to be dazzled 
 by it any longer. She had become an observer of 
 human nature ; she analysed her feelings ; sometimes 
 she made cutting remarks to people, and was dread- 
 fully sorry for it. She withdrew a great deal from 
 society, and liked being thought odd. She had 
 begun to take lessons in painting with a number of 
 ladies under an artist's criticism ; she took up 
 
A woman's reason. 1 7 
 
 courses of reading ; she felt that life was a serious 
 affair. On his return, Robert at first seemed to 
 her more boyish, more brotherly than before. But 
 in talking with him certain facts of his history 
 came out that showed him a very brave and manly 
 fellow, and good, too. This gave her pause; so 
 keen an observer of human nature at once dis- 
 cerned in this young man, who did not brag of his 
 experiences, nor yet affect to despise them as trifles, 
 but honestly owned that at one time he was scared, 
 and that at another he would have given everything 
 to be ashore, an object worthy of her closest and 
 most reverent study. She proceeded to idealise 
 him, and to stand in awe of him. Oh yes ! with a 
 deep sighing breath, and a long dreamy look at him 
 — he! What he had been through must have 
 changed the whole wmid to him. After that night 
 in the typhoon — well, nothing could ever have been 
 the same to her after that. He must find all the 
 interests at home sickeningly mean. This was the 
 tone she took with him, driving him to despair. 
 When he again urged his suit, she said that she 
 could not see why he should care for her. At the 
 same time she wanted to ask him why he did not 
 wear his uniform ashore, instead of that unnatural 
 •civil dress that he seemed so anxious to make him- 
 self ridiculous in. Being pressed for some sort of 
 answer, she said that she had resolved never to 
 marry. After this Eobert went off very melan- 
 choly upon his third cruise. But she wrote him 
 such kind and sympathetic letters that he came 
 B 
 
18 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 home from this cruise, which was a short one, more 
 fondly in love than ever, but more patiently, more 
 pleasingly iu love ; and he now behaved so sensibly, 
 with so much apparent consideration for her uncer- 
 tainty of mind, that she began to think seriously of 
 him. But though she liked him ever so much, and 
 respected him beyond anything, the very fact that 
 she was wondering whether she could ask him to 
 leave the navy or not, and where and how they 
 should live, seemed sufficient proof to her that she 
 did not care for him in the right way. Love, she 
 knew, did not consider ways and hieans ; it did not 
 stop to argue ; it found in itself its own reason and 
 the assurance of a future. It did not come after 
 years of shilly-shallying, and beating about the bush, 
 and weighing this and that, and scrutiny of one's 
 emotions. If she loved Eobert so httle as to care 
 what happened after they were married, she did 
 not love him at all. Something like this, but 
 expressed with infinite kindness was what she had 
 written from Rye Beach to Eobert stationed at 
 Portsmouth. She ended by leaving the case in his 
 hands. She forbade him to hope, but she told him 
 that there had been a time, a moment, when she 
 thought that she might have loved him. 
 
 Eobert took all this awry. He did not deign to 
 ask her when this mysterious moment was, far less 
 whether it might ever recur ; he did not answer one 
 of her arguments ; he did not even come over to 
 Rye Beach to combat and trample on her reasons. 
 He wrote her a furious, foolish reply, in which he 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 19 
 
 agreed with her that she had never loved him, and 
 never would, and he bade her farewell. He managed 
 to exchange with a friend who was bemoaning his 
 hard lot in being ordered away from his young wife 
 to the China station, and he sailed with their blessing 
 three days after getting Helen's letter. She only 
 learned of his departure by chance. 
 
 The old man held the letter in his hand, after 
 reading it, for so long a time, that at last Helen 
 looked up. " It seems to me you take it pretty 
 coolly, papa," she said, her lips quivering. 
 
 " Yes, yes. Poor Robert ! poor boy !" sighed her 
 father. Then while she bridled indignantly at his 
 misplaced compassion, he added, " I 'm sorry, Helen. 
 I think you would have come to like him. Well, 
 well ! If you are contented, my dear — " 
 
 "How can you ^ay such a thing, papa?" cried 
 Helen, astonished that he should have taken what 
 he understood of her letter just as Robert had done, 
 " when you know, — when you know I — " but Helen 
 could not finish what she was going to say. She 
 could not own that she thought her letter susceptible 
 of quite a different answer. She set her lips and 
 tried to stop their trembling, while her eyes filled. 
 
 Her father did not notice. " My dear," he said 
 presently, " will you ask Margaret to make me a cup 
 of tea] I feel unpleasantly weak." 
 
 "Why, papa!" cried Helen, flying to the bell, 
 " why didn't you tell me before, instead of letting 
 me worry you with all this foolishness t why didn't 
 you say you were not so well ?" 
 
20 A woman's reason. 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of it," said her father, meekly- 
 accepting her reproof. " It 's nothing. The wind 
 has changed, hasn't it ? I feel the east a little." 
 
 " You're chilly?" Helen was now tempted to be 
 really harsh with him for his remissness, but she did 
 not stay from running after the wrap, soft and light, 
 which she had brought back from the sea-side with 
 her, and had thrown down with her bag in the hall, 
 and though she bemoaned his thoughtlessness, as she 
 flung it over him, still she did not pour out upon 
 him all the self-reproach in her heart. She went 
 and hurried Margaret with the tea, and then set an 
 old-fashioned tea-poy beside the sofa, and when the 
 tea came, she drew np her chair, and poured it 
 for him. She offered to pull down the window, but 
 he made her a sign to let it be ; and in fact, it was 
 not cooler without than within, and no chill came 
 from the little yard, on whose lofty walls the sunset 
 was beginning to burn in tender red light. She 
 poured herself a cup of tea when she came back, 
 and when she had made her father repeat again and 
 again that he felt much better, she began to see the 
 absurdity of being tragic about Eobert at this late 
 day, when she had so often refused him before 
 without the least tragedy. This, to be sure, was 
 not quite like the other refusals ; not so one-sided ; 
 but really, except for Robert's own sake, what had 
 she to be sorry for, and why should she pity his 
 towering dudgeon ? An ache, faint and dull, made 
 itself felt deep in her heart, and she answered sadly, 
 " Well," to her father's tentative " Helen." 
 
A woman's reason. 21 
 
 He did not go on, and she asked presently, " What 
 is it, papa 1 " 
 
 " Oh, nothing. There was something I was going 
 to speak to you about. But it will do another time." 
 Helen recollected that once or twice before this her 
 father had begun in the same way, and postponed 
 whatever he had been going to say in the same fashion. 
 It was not a thing to be curious about, and she had 
 never pressed him to speak. She knew that he 
 would speak when he really thought best. But she 
 wondered now a little if his mind were still running 
 upon Robert. 
 
 " "Was it something in regard to — to — me, papa ?" 
 
 "Why, yes. Yes; indirectly." 
 
 " Well, then, don't think of it any more. I shall 
 not. I'm sorry I worried you about it." 
 
 " About what, my dear ? " asked her father, who 
 could not have followed her. 
 
 " Eobert !" said Helen, abruptly. 
 
 " Oh ! I wasn't thinking about Robert." 
 
 " Because, if you were, papa, I want to tell you 
 that I am quite reconciled to have everything end as 
 it has done. Robert and I will always be good friends. 
 You needn't be troubled about that." 
 
 "Oh yes, certainly," assented her father, closing 
 his eyes. 
 
 Helen sat looking at him, as if she would like to 
 go on. But she was a little ashamed, and a little 
 piqued that her father should shut his eyes in that 
 way while she was talking of Robert. He had taken 
 the whole affair rather oddly. She had been prepared 
 
22 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 to defend Eobert if her father were angry with him, 
 as she expected ; but instead of being angry, he had 
 really seemed to side with Eobert, and had somehow, 
 by his reticence, implied that he would have been 
 glad to have her humble herself to Kobert. 
 
 "If you wish to sleep, papa," she said with a 
 dignity wasted upon him, for he still lay with his 
 eyes closed, " I will go away." 
 
 " I 'm drowsy," said her father. " But don't go, 
 Helen. Sit down here." 
 
 He made a motion for her to sit beside him, and after 
 an instant's further resentment she drew up her chair, 
 and laid her beautiful head down upon the cushion by 
 his. She gave him a kiss, and dropped a large tear 
 against his withered cheek, and wiped it away with 
 her handkerchief, and then she hid her face again, and 
 wept peacefully till all her tears were gone. At last 
 she lifted her face, and dried her eyes, and sat 
 dreamily watching the red sunset light creeping up the 
 wall on which the wisteria clambered. It rose slowly, 
 leaf by leaf, till it lit an airy frond at top, that swayed 
 in it like a pennon. Suddenly it leaped from this and 
 left it dark, and a shiver coursed through the next 
 rank of foliage. It somehow made her think of a ship 
 going down below the horizon, and the waves running 
 along the sky where the streamers had just hung. 
 But Robert must have been out of sight of land for 
 two days and more before that. 
 
II. 
 
 Helen sat beside her father, while the solitude of 
 the house deepened from silence to silence. Then 
 Margaret came to the door, and looked in as if to 
 ask whether it was not time for her to fetch away 
 the tea-things. Helen gave her a nod of acquiescence, 
 and presently rose, and followed her out to the kitchen, 
 to tell her that she was going to her own room, and 
 to say that she must be called when her father woke. 
 But in the kitchen Margaret's company was a temp- 
 tation to her loneliness, and she made one little 
 pretext after another for remaining, till Margaret 
 set her a chair in the doorway. Margaret had been 
 in the house ever since Helen was born, and Helen 
 still used the same freedom with her that she had 
 in childhood, and gave herself the range of places to 
 which young ladyhood ordinarily denies its radiant 
 presence. She had indeed as much intimacy with 
 the cook as could consist with their different ages, and 
 she got on smoothly with the cook's temper, which 
 had not been so good as her looks in youth, and had 
 improved quite as little with age. Margaret was of 
 a remote sort of Irish birth ; but her native land 
 had scarcely marked her accent, and but for her 
 
24 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 church and her sense of place, which was sometimes 
 very respectful and sometimes very high and mighty 
 with those above her, she might have been mistaken 
 for an American ; she had a low voice which only 
 grew lower as she grew angry. A family in which 
 she could do all the work had been her ideal when 
 she first came to Boston, but she had failed of this 
 now for some thirty years, and there seemed little 
 hope that the chances would still turn in her favour. 
 In Helen's childhood, when she used to ask Margaret 
 in moments of tenderness, following the gift of dough 
 in unexpected quantity, whether she would come 
 and live with her after she got married, Margaret 
 had always answered, " Yes, if you won't have any- 
 one else bothering round," which was commonly too 
 much for the just pride of the actual second-girl. 
 She had been cook in the family so long ago as when 
 Mr. Harkness had kept a man ; she had pressed 
 upon the retreat of the last man with a broom in her 
 hand and a joyful sarcasm on her lips; and she 
 would willingly have kept vacant the place that she 
 had made too hot for a long succession of second- 
 girls. In the intervals of their going and coming, 
 she realised her ideal of domestic service for the 
 time being ; and in the summer when Helen was 
 away a good deal, she prolonged these intervals to 
 the utmost. She was necessarily much more the 
 housekeeper than Helen, though they both respected 
 a fiction of contrary effect, and Helen commonly 
 left her the choice of her helpers. She had not been 
 surprised to find Margaret alone in the house, but 
 
A woman's reason. 25 
 
 she thought it well to ask her how she was getting 
 on without anybody. 
 
 " Oh, very well, Miss Helen ! You know your 
 father don't make any trouble. " 
 
 " Well, I 've come now, and we must get somebody," 
 said Helen. 
 
 " Why, I thought you was going back on Monday, 
 Miss Helen," answered Margaret. 
 
 " No, I shall not leave papa. I think he 's not at 
 all well." 
 
 "He does seem rather poorly, Miss Helen. But I 
 don't see why you need any one, in the summer, this 
 way." 
 
 " Who 's to go to the door ?" asked Helen. 
 "Besides, you couldn't take care of both of us, 
 Margaret." 
 
 "Just as you say. Miss Helen; I^d just as lives," 
 answered Margaret, stubbornly. " It isn't for me to 
 say ; but I don't see what you want with anybody : 
 you won't see a soul." 
 
 " 0, you never can tell, Margaret. You 've had a 
 good rest now, and you must have somebody to help 
 you." Helen's sadness smiled at this confusion of 
 ideas, and its suitableness to Margaret's peculiar 
 attitude. " Get somebody that you know, Margaret, 
 and that you'll like. But we must have somebody." 
 She regarded Margaret's silent and stiff displeasure 
 with a moment's amusement, and then her bright 
 face clouded ; and she asked softly : " Did you know, 
 Margaret, that Robert,— that Lieutenant Teuton — 
 had sailed again 1 " 
 
26 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Why, no, Miss Helen ! You don't mean that 1 
 Why, I thought he was going to stay the summer at 
 Portsmouth." 
 
 "He was," said Helen, in the same low voice, 
 " but he changed his mind, it seems." 
 
 " Sailors is a roving set, anyway," Margaret 
 generalised. Then she added : " Did he come down 
 to say good-bye to your father?" 
 
 " Why, no," sadly answered Helen, who now 
 thought of this for the first time. Her heart 
 throbbed indignantly ; then she reflected that she 
 had kept him from coming. She looked up at the 
 evening blue, with the swallows weaving a woof of 
 flight across the top of the space framed in by the 
 high walls on every hand, and " He hadn't time, I 
 suppose," she said sadly. " He couldn't get oft'." 
 
 " Well, I don't call it very nice, his not coming,'' 
 persisted Margaret. "I'd 'a' deserted first." Her 
 associations with naval service had been through 
 gallant fellows who were not in a position to resign. 
 
 Helen smiled so ruefully at this that she would 
 better for cheerfulness have wept. But she recog- 
 nised Margaret's limitations as a confidant, and said 
 no more. She rose presently, and again asked Mar- 
 garet to look in pretty soon, and see if her father 
 were awake, and call her, if he were : she was going 
 to her room. She looked in a moment herself as 
 as she went, and listened till she heard him breath- 
 ing, and so passed on through the drawing-room, and 
 trailed heavily up-stairs. 
 
 The house was rather old-fashioned, and it was 
 
A woman's reason. 27 
 
 not furnished in the latest taste, but it made the 
 appeal with which things out of date, or passing out 
 of date, touch the heart. It was in fact beginning 
 to be respectable because it was no longer in the con- 
 test for effect, which the decorations of the newer 
 houses carried on about it, and there was a sort of 
 ugly keeping throughout. 
 
 In the very earliest days of Mr. Harkness's house- 
 keeping, the ornamentation of his home had reflected 
 the character of his business somewhat. There had 
 been even a time when the young supercargo brought 
 back — it was his first voyage — quaint and beautiful 
 shells from the East, for his wife to set about the 
 tables and mantels ; but these objects, so exquisite in 
 themselves, so unyielding in composition, had long 
 since disappeared. Some grotesque bronzes, picked 
 up in Chinese ports, to which his early ventures had 
 taken him, survived the expulsion of ivory carvings 
 and Indian idols and genre statuettes in terra cotta, 
 (like those you see in the East Indian Museum at 
 Salem) and now found themselves, with the new 
 feeling for oriental art, in the very latest taste. The 
 others were bestowed in neglected drawers and 
 shelves, along with boxes containing a wealth of 
 ghastly rich and elaborate white crape shawls from 
 China, and fantastically subtle cotton webs from India 
 which Helen had always thought she should use in 
 tableaux, and never had worn. Among the many 
 pictures on the walls (there were too many), there 
 were three Stuarts, the rest were of very indifierent 
 merit; large figure paintings, or allegorical landscapes. 
 
28 A woman's reason. 
 
 after the taste of Cole and Poussin, in great carved 
 and scrolly frames. Helen had once thought of 
 making a raid upon these enemies of art, and in fact 
 she had contemplated remodelling the whole equip- 
 ment of the parlours, in conformity to the recent 
 feeling in such matters ; but she had not got further 
 than the incomplete representation of some golden- 
 rod and mullein-stalks upon the panels of her own 
 chamber-door ; and now that the fervour of her first 
 enthusiasm had burnt itself out, she was not sorry 
 she had left the old house in peace. 
 
 " Oh, I should think you 'd be so rejoiced," said the 
 chief of her friends ; " it 's such a comfort to go into 
 one house where you don't have to admire the artistic 
 sentiment, and where every wretched little aesthetic 
 prig of a table or a chair isn 't asserting a principle 
 or teaching a lesson. Don't touch a cobweb, Helen ! " 
 It had never even come to a talk between her and 
 her father, and the house remained unmolested the 
 home of her childhood. She had not really cared 
 much for it since she was a child. The sense 
 of our impermanent relation to the parental roof 
 comes to us very early in life ; and perhaps more 
 keenly to a young girl than to her brothers. They 
 are of the world by all the conditions of their active, 
 positive being, almost fpom the first — a great world 
 that is made for them ; but she has her world 
 to create. She cannot sit and adorn her father's 
 house, as she shall one day beautify and worship her 
 husband's ; she can indeed do her duty by it, but 
 the restless longing remains, and her housewifeliness 
 
A woman's reason. 29 
 
 does not voluntarily blossom out beyond the precincts 
 of her own chamber, which she makes her realm of 
 fancy and of dreams. She could not be the heart of 
 the house if she would, as her mother is, or has 
 been ; and though in her mother's place, she can be 
 housekeeper, thrifty, wise, and notable, still some 
 mysterious essential is wanting which it is not in her 
 nature to supply to her father's house. 
 
 Helen went to her own room, and, flinging up the 
 windows, let in the noises of the streets. A few feet 
 went by in the secluded place, and a sound of more 
 frequent trampling came from the street into which 
 it opened. Further off rose the blurred tumult of 
 business, softened by the stretch of the Common, and 
 growing less and less with the lapse of the long 
 summer day. It was already a little cooler, and the 
 smell of the sprinkled street stole refreshingly in at 
 the window. It was still very light, and when Helen 
 opened her blinds, the room brightened cheerfully all 
 about her, and the sympathetic intimacy of her own 
 closest belongings tenderly appealed to her. After 
 something has happened, and we first see familiar 
 things about us as they were, there comes, just before 
 the sense of difference in ourselves returns to torment 
 us, a moment of blind and foolish oblivion, and this 
 was Helen's as she sat down beside the window, and 
 looked round upon the friendly prettiiiess of her room. 
 It had been her room when she was a child, and 
 there were childish keepsakes scattered about in odd 
 places, out of the way of young-ladyish luxuries, high- 
 shouldered bottles of perfume, and long-handled ivory 
 
30 A woman's reason. 
 
 brushes, and dainty boxes and cases, and starred and 
 bevelled hand-glasses, and other sacred mysteries of 
 toilet. Of the period when she had thought herself 
 wedded to art there were certain charcoal sketches 
 pinned against the wall, and in one corner, not very 
 definite at first glance under the draperies tossed upon 
 it from time to time, was her easel. On projections 
 of her mirror-frame hung souvenirs of Eobert's first 
 cruise, which had been in the Mediterranean : ropes of 
 Roman pearls ; nets and bracelets and necklaces of 
 shells and beads from Venice ; filigree silver jewellery 
 from Genoa ; strands and rosaries of black, barbari- 
 cally scented wooden beads from the Levant : not 
 things you could wear at all, but very pleasant to 
 have ; they gave a sentiment to your room when you 
 brought any one into it ; they were nice to have 
 lying about, and people liked to take them into their 
 hands : they were not so very uncommon, either, that 
 you had to keep telling what they were. She had 
 never thought that possibly Robert had expected her 
 to wear the absurd things. With an aching recurrence 
 to their quarrel (it could be called no less) and a 
 penitent self-pity, she thought of it now. It did not 
 seem to her that she could touch them, but she went 
 languidly to the mirror and took some of them down, 
 and then all at once fantastically began to array her- 
 self in them : like a mad girl, she reflected. She 
 threw the loops of Roman pearls and the black strands 
 of Levantine beads about her neck ; she set a net of 
 the Venetian shell-work on her hair, and decked her 
 wrists and her lovely ears with the Genoese filigree; a 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 31 
 
 perfectly frantic combination, she mused, as she shook 
 her head a little to make the ear-bobs dance. " Yes, 
 perfectly frantic," she said aloud, but not much think- 
 ing of the image confronting her from the mirror, 
 thinking rather of Robert, and poignantly regretting 
 that she had never put them on for him ; and think- 
 ing that if the loss of him had made her certain about 
 him too late for ever, how fatally strange that would 
 be. Again she went over all the facts of the affair, 
 and was able to make much surer of Robert's motives 
 than of her own. She knew that if he had under- 
 stood her saying that she might have loved him once 
 to be any encouragement for the future, he would not 
 have written as he did. She could imagine Robert's 
 being very angry at the patronising tone of the rest 
 of her letter ; she had entire faith in his stupidity ; 
 she never doubted his generosity, his magnanimous 
 incapability of turning her refusal of him into a refusal 
 of her ; his was not the little soul that could rejoice in 
 such a chance. She wondered if now, far out at sea, 
 sailing, sailing away, three years away, from her, he 
 saw anything in her letter but refusal ; or was he still 
 in that blind rage ? Did he never once think that 
 it had seemed such a great thing for her to make con- 
 fession, which meant him to come to her 1 But had 
 she really meant that? It seemed so now, but 
 perhaps then she had only thought of minghng a 
 drop of kindness in his bitter cup, of trying to spare 
 him the mortification of having loved a person who 
 had never thought for a moment of loving him? 
 From time to time, her image appeared to advance 
 
32 A woman's reason. 
 
 upon her from the depths of the mirror, decked in all 
 that incongruous frippery, and to say with trembling 
 lips, " Perfectly frantic, perfectly frantic,'' while the 
 tears ran down its face ; and she found a wild 
 comfort in regarding herself as quite an insane, 
 irresponsible creature, who did not know what she 
 was about. She felt that fate ought not to hold her 
 to account. The door-bell rang, and she snatched 
 the net from hor hair with a fearful shudder, and 
 flung down all the ornaments in a heap upon her. 
 dressing-table. Bumping sounds in the hall below 
 reminded her that in her trance before the glass, she 
 had remotely known of a wagon stopping at the 
 door, and presently she heard Margaret coming up 
 the stairs behind the panting express-man who was 
 fetching up her trunk. She fled into another room, 
 and guiltily lurked there till they went out again, 
 before she returned to unlock and unpack the box. 
 It was one of Helen's economies not to drive home 
 from the station, but to send her baggage by express 
 and come up in a horse-car. The sums thus saved 
 she devoted to a particular charity, and was very 
 rigid with herself about spending every half-dollar 
 coach-fare for that object. She only gave twenty- 
 five cents to the express, and she made a merit of the 
 fact that neither the coach-hire nor the charity ever 
 cost her father anything. Robert had once tried to 
 prove that it always cost him seventy-five cents, 
 but she had easily seen through the joke, and had 
 made him confess it. 
 
 She was still busy unpacking when Margaret came 
 
A woman's reason. 33 
 
 up to say that her father was awake now, and then 
 she left off at once to go to him. The gas had heen 
 Hghted in the hall and library, and that made life 
 another thing. Her father was in his arm-chair, and 
 was feeling decidedly better, he said ; he had told 
 Margaret to have tea there in the library. Helen 
 laughed at him for having two teas within two 
 hours ; he owned to being hungry, and that reminded 
 her that she had eaten nothing since an early dinner. 
 When the tea and toast came in, and the cloth was 
 laid half across the round table, in the mellow light 
 of the study lamp, they were very cosy. Helen, 
 who was always thinking of Robert, whatever else 
 she thought of, began to play in fancy at a long life 
 of devotion to her father, in which she should never 
 marry. She had always imagined him living with 
 her, but now she was living with him, and they were 
 to grow old together ; in twenty years, when he was 
 eighty, she would be forty-three, and then there 
 would not be much difference between them. She 
 now finally relinquished the very last idea of Eobert, 
 except as a brother. She did not suppose she should 
 ever quite like his wife, but she should pet their 
 children. 
 
 " Helen," said her father, breaking in upon these 
 ideas, " how should you like to live in the country 1 " 
 
 " Why, papa, I was just thinking of it ! That is, 
 not in the country exactly, but somewhere off by 
 ourselves, just you and I. Of course, I should like 
 it." 
 
 "I don't mean on a farm," pursued her father, 
 
 \ c 
 
34 A woman's reason. 
 
 " but in some of the suburban towns, where we could 
 have a bit of ground and breathing space. I think 
 it grows closer and closer in town ; at times it seems 
 as if I could hardly catch my breath. I believe it 
 would agree with me in the country. I can't get 
 away from business entirely for a few years yet — if 
 the times continue so bad, I must bend all my 
 energies to it, in fact — and I have a fancy that the 
 coming in and out of town would do me good. And 
 I have a notion that I should like to build. I should 
 like a new house — a perfectly new house. We could 
 live on a simpler scale in the country." 
 
 "0 yes, indeed!" said Helen. "I should come 
 into town to shop, with my initials worked in worsted 
 on the side of my bag, and I should know where the 
 bargains were, and lunch at Copeland's. / should 
 like it." 
 
 "Well, we must think about it. I daresay we 
 could let the house here without much trouble. I 
 feel it somehow a great burden upon me, but I 
 shouldn't like to sell it." 
 
 " no, papa ! We couldn't think of selling it. 
 I should just like to let it, and then never go near 
 it, or look in the same direction, till we were ready 
 to come back to it." 
 
 " I have lived here so long," continued her father, 
 making her the listener to his musings rather than 
 speaking to her, "that I should like a change. I 
 used to think that I should never leave the house, 
 but a place may become overcrowded with associa- 
 tions. You are too young, Helen, to understand 
 
A woman's reason. 35 
 
 how terrible it is to find one's own past grow into 
 the dumb material things about one, and become, as 
 it were, imprisoned in them." 
 
 " yes," sighed the girl, " there are some dresses 
 of mine that I can't bear the sight of, just because 
 I felt, or said, or did certain things when I wore 
 them.'' 
 
 " An old house like this," Mr. Harkness went on, 
 " gets to be your body, and usurps all your reality, 
 which doesn't seem to live in it either, while you 
 move round like a ghost. The past is so much more 
 than the present. Think how much more these 
 walls and .these old chairs and tables have known 
 of us than we now are !" 
 
 " No, no ! Don't think of it, papa, or we shall be 
 getting into the depths again," pleaded Helen. 
 
 " Well, I won't," consented her father, coming 
 back to himself with a smile, which presently faded. 
 "But it all makes me restless and impatient. I 
 should like to begin a new life somewhere else, in a 
 new house." He was silent a while, trifling with the 
 toast on his plate ; his appetite had passed at the 
 sight of the food, and he had eaten scarcely anything. 
 He looked at Helen, and then at a portrait on the 
 wall, and than at Helen again. 
 
 "I'm not much like mamma, am I, papa?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Not much in face," said Mr. Harkness. 
 
 "Do you wish I was more ?" she pursued timidly. 
 
 "No, I don't think I do," said her father. 
 
 " It would only make me more painful, if I looked 
 
36 A woman's reason. 
 
 more like her, such a helpless, selfish thing as I am," 
 morbidly assented Helen. " I should only make you 
 miss her the more." 
 
 " Why, Helen, you 're a very good girl — the best 
 child in the world," said her father. 
 
 "0 no, I'm not, papa. I'm one of the worst. 
 I never think of anybody but myself," said Helen, 
 who was thinking of Robert. " You don't know 
 how many times I 've gone down on my mental 
 knees to you and asked you to have patience with 
 me.'' 
 
 "Asked ine to have patience with you %" said her 
 father, taking her by the chin, and pressing against 
 his cheek the beautiful face which she leaned toward 
 him. " Poor child ! There 's hardly a day since you 
 were born that I haven't done you a greater wrong 
 than the sum of all your sins would come to. Papas 
 are dreadful fellows, Helen ; but they sometimes live 
 in the hope of repairing their misdeeds." 
 
 " Write them on a slip of paper, and hide it in a 
 secret drawer Ihat opens with a clasp and spring, 
 when you don't know they 're there," said Helen, 
 glad of his touch of playfulness. " We 've both been 
 humbugging, and we know it." 
 
 He stared at her and said, " Your voice is like 
 your mother's ; and just now, when you came in, 
 your movement was very like hers. I hadn't noticed 
 it before. But she has been a great deal in my 
 mind of late." 
 
 If he had wished to talk of her mother, whom Helen 
 could not remember, and who had been all her life 
 
A woman's reason. 37 
 
 merely the shadow of a sorrow to her, a death, a 
 grave, a name upon a stone, a picture on the wall, 
 she would not spare herself the duty of encouraging 
 him to do so. " Was she tall, like me 1" she asked. 
 
 "Not so tall," answered her father. "And she 
 was dark." 
 
 " Yes," said Helen, lifting her eyes to the picture 
 on the wall. 
 
 " She had a great passion for the country," con- 
 tinued Mr. Harkness, " and I liked the town. It 
 was more convenient for me, and I was born in 
 Boston. It has often grieved me to think that I 
 didn't yield to her. I must have been dreaming of 
 her, for when I woke a little while ago, this regret 
 was like a physical pang at my heart. As long as 
 we Hve, we can't help treating each other as if we 
 were to live always. But it 's a mistake. I never 
 refused to go into the country with her," he said as 
 if to appease this old regret. " I merely postponed 
 it. Now I should like to go." 
 
 He rose from the table, and taking the study-lamp 
 in his hand, he feebly pushed apart the sliding-doors 
 that opened into the drawing-room. He moved 
 slowly down its length, on one side, throwing the 
 light upon this object and that, before which he 
 faltered, and so returned on the other side, as if to 
 familiarise himself with every detail. Sometimes he 
 held the lamp above, and sometimes below his face, 
 but always throwing its age and weariness into relief. 
 Helen had remained watching him. As he came 
 back she heard him say, less to her as it seemed than 
 
38 A woman's reason. 
 
 to himself, " Yes, I should like to sell it. I 'm tired 
 of it." 
 
 He set the lamp down upon the table again, and 
 sank into his chair, and lapsed into a reverie which 
 left Helen solitary beside him. "Ah," she realised, 
 as she looked on his musing, absent face, " he is old 
 and I am young, and he has more to love in the 
 other world, with my mother and both my brothers 
 there, than he has in this. Oh, Robert, Robert, 
 Robert!" 
 
 But perhaps his absent mind was not so much 
 bent upon the lost as she thought. He had that 
 way fathers have of treating his daughter as an 
 equal, of talking to her gravely and earnestly, and 
 then of suddenly dropping her into complete 
 nothingness, as if she were a child to be amused for 
 a while, and then set down from his knee and sent 
 out of doors. Helen dutifully accepted this con- 
 dition of their companionship ; she cared for it so 
 little as never to have formulated it to herself ; when 
 she was set down she went out, and ordinarily she 
 did not think of it. 
 
 A peremptory ring at the door startled them both, 
 and when Margaret had opened it there entered all 
 at the same instant, a loud, kindly voice, the chirp 
 of boots, heavily trodden upon by a generous bulk, 
 that rocked from side to side in its advance, and 
 a fragrance of admirable cigars, that active and 
 passive perfume, which comes from smoking and 
 being smoked in the best company. " At home, 
 Margaret?" asked the voice, whose loudness was a 
 
A woman's reason. 39 
 
 husky loudness, in a pause of the boots. " Yes ? 
 Well, don't put me in there, Margaret," which was 
 apparently in rejection of the drawing-room. " I '11 
 join them in the library." 
 
 The boots came chirping down the hall in that 
 direction, with a sound of heavy breathing. Helen 
 sprang from her chair, and fled to meet the cheerful 
 sound ; there was the noise of an encountering 
 kiss, and a jolly laugh, and "Well, Helen!" and 
 "Oh, Captain Butler !" and later, " Harkness !" and 
 " Butler ! " as Helen led the visitor in. 
 
 " Well ! " said this guest, for the third time. He 
 straightened his tall mass to its full height, and 
 looked out over his chest with eyes of tender regard 
 upon Harkness's thin and refined face, now lit up 
 after the hand-shaking with cordial welcome. " Do 
 you know," he said, as if somehow it were a curious 
 fact of natural history, "that you have it uncom- 
 monly close in here ?" He went over to the window 
 that opened upon the little grassy yard, and put it 
 up for himself, while Harkness was explaining that 
 it had been put down while he was napping. Then 
 he planted himself in a large leathern chair beside 
 it, and went on smoking the cigar on the end of 
 which he had been chewing. He started from the 
 chair with violence, coughing and gesturing to forbid 
 Helen, who was hospitably whispering to Margaret. 
 "No, no; don't do it. I won't have anything. I 
 couldn't. I 've just dined at the club. Yes, you may 
 do that much," he added to Helen, as she set a little 
 table with an ash-holder at his elbow. " You 've 
 
40 A woman's reason. 
 
 no idea what a night it is. It 's cooler, and the air's 
 delicious. I say, I want to take Helen back with 
 me. I wish she 'd go alone, and leave us two old 
 fellows together here. There 's no place like Boston 
 in the summer, after all. But you haven't told me 
 whether you 're surprised to see me." Captain 
 Butler looked round at them with something of the 
 difficulty of a sea-turtle in a lateral inspection. 
 
 " Never surprised, but always charmed," said 
 Helen, with just the shade of mockery in her tone 
 which she knew suited this visitor. 
 
 " Charmed, eh 1 " asked Captain Butler. Appar- 
 ently he meant to say something satirical about the 
 word, but could not think of anything. He turned 
 again to her father : " How are you, Harkness ?" 
 
 " Oh, I 'm very well,'' said Harkness evasively. 
 " I 'm as well as usual." 
 
 " Then you have yourself fetched home in a hack 
 by a policeman every day, do you?" remarked Cap- 
 tain Butler, blowing a succession of white rings into 
 the air. " You were seen from the club window. 
 I '11 tell you what ; you 're sticking to it too close." 
 
 " yes. Captain Butler, do get him away,'' sighed 
 Helen, while her father, who had not sat down, began 
 to walk back and forth in an irritated, restless way. 
 
 " For the present I can't leave it," said Harkness, 
 fretfully. He added more graciously: "Perhaps in 
 a week or two, or next month, I can get off for a 
 few days. You know I was one of the securities for 
 Bates and Mather," he said, looking at Captain 
 Butler over Helen's head. 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 41 
 
 " I had forgotten that," answered Captain Butler 
 gravely. 
 
 " They left things in a domplete tangle. I can't 
 tell just where I am yet, and, of course, I've no 
 peace till I know." 
 
 " Of course," assented Captain Butler. "I won't 
 vex you with retroactive advice, Joshua," he added 
 affectionately, " but I hope you won't do anything of 
 that kind again." 
 
 " No, Jack, I won't. But you know under the 
 circumstances it would have been black ingratitude 
 to refuse." 
 
 " Yes," said Captain Butler. He smoked a while 
 in silence. Then he said, " I suppose it 's no worse 
 with the old trade than with everything else, at 
 present." 
 
 "No, we're all in the same boat, I believe," said 
 Harloiess. 
 
 " How is Marian ] " asked Helen, a little restive 
 under the cross firing. 
 
 " Oh, Marian 's all right. But if she were not, she 
 wouldn't know it." 
 
 " I suppose she 's very much engaged," said Helen, 
 with a faint pang of something like envy. 
 
 " Yes," said Captain Butler. " I thought you were 
 at Eye Beach, young lady." 
 
 " I thought you were at Beverley, old gentleman," 
 retorted Helen; she had been saucy to Captain 
 Butler from infancy. 
 
 " So I was. But I came up unexpectedly to-day." 
 
 " So did I." 
 
42 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 "Did you? Good! Now I'll tell you why I 
 came, and you shall tell me why you did. I came 
 because I got to thinking of your father, and had a 
 fancy I should like to see him. Did you ? " 
 
 Helen hung her head. " No," she said at length. 
 
 The Captain laughed. " Whom had you a fancy to 
 see here, then, at this time of year?" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't say I should tell. You made that 
 bargain all yourself," mocked Helen. "But it was 
 very kind of you to come on papa's account," she 
 added softly. 
 
 " What are you making there ?" asked the Captain, 
 bending forward to look at the work Helen had 
 taken into her lap. 
 
 "Who — I ?" she asked, as if she had perhaps been 
 asked what Robert was making. Her mind had 
 been running upon him since Captain Butler asked 
 her why she had come up to Boston. "Oh!" she 
 recovered herself " Why, this,'' she said, taking 
 the skeleton frame-work of gauze and wire on her 
 finger-tips, and holding it at arm's-length, with her 
 head aslant surveying it, "this is a bonnet for Mar- 
 garet." 
 
 "A bonnet, hey?" said the Captain. "It looks 
 like a Shaker cap." 
 
 " Yes ?" Helen clapped it on her head, and looked 
 jauntily at the captain, dropping her shoulders, and 
 putting her chin out. "Now, does it ?" 
 
 "No, not now. The Shaker sisters don't wear 
 crimps, and they don't smile in that wicked way." 
 Helen laughed, and took the bonnet-frame off. " So 
 
A woman's reason. 43 
 
 you make Margaret's bonnets, do you ? Do you 
 make your own 1 " 
 
 " Sometimes. Not often. But I like millinery. 
 It 's what I should turn to if I were left to take care 
 of myself." 
 
 " I 'm afraid you wouldn't find it such fun," said 
 the Captain. 
 
 " Oh, milliners make lots of money," returned 
 Helen. "They must. Why, when this bonnet is 
 done, you couldn't get it for ten dollars. Well, the ' 
 materials don't cost three." 
 
 " I wish my girls had your head for business," 
 said the Captain, honestly. Helen made him a 
 burlesque obeisance. " Yes, I mean it," he insisted. 
 "You know that I always admired your good sense. 
 I 'm always talking it into Marian." 
 
 " Better not," said Helen, with a pin between her 
 teeth. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I haven't got it, and it 'd make her hate 
 me if I had." 
 
 "' Do you mean to tell me that you 're not a sensible 
 girl ] " inquired the Captain. 
 
 Helen nodded, and made " Yes" with her lips, as 
 well as she could with the pin between her teeth. 
 She took it out to say, " You should have seen my 
 performances in my room a little while ago." She 
 was thinking of that rehearsal before the mirror. 
 
 " What were they 1" asked the Captain. 
 
 " Oh, as if I should tell !" Helen bowed herself 
 over the bonnet, and blushed, and laughed. Her 
 
44 A woman's reason. 
 
 father liked to hear the banter between her and his 
 old friend. They both treated her as if she were a 
 child, and she knew it and liked it; she behaved 
 like a child. 
 
 " Harkness," said the Captain, turning his fat head 
 half round toward his friend, who sat a little back 
 of him, and breaking oif his cigar-ash into the bronze 
 plate at his elbow, " do you know that your remain- 
 ing in the trade after all the rest of us have gone out 
 of it is something quite monumental ? " Captain 
 Butler had a tender and almost reverential love for 
 Joshua Harkness, but he could not help using a little 
 patronage toward him, since his health had grown 
 delicate, and his fortunes had not distinctly prospered. 
 
 "I am glad you like it. Jack," said Harkness quietly. 
 
 " The Captain is a mass of compliments to-night," 
 remarked Helen. 
 
 The Captain grinned his consciousness. " You are 
 a minx," he said admiringly to Helen. Then he 
 threw back his head and pulled at his cigar, uttering 
 between puffs, " No, but I mean it, Harkness. There's 
 something uncommonly fine about it. A man gets 
 to be noblesse by sticking to any old order of things. 
 It makes one think of the ancien regime somehow to 
 look at you. Why, you 're still of the oldest tradi- 
 tion of commerce, the stately and gorgeous traffic of 
 the orient ; you 're what Samarcand, and Venice, 
 and Genoa, and Lisbon, and London, and Salem have 
 come to." 
 
 "They've come to very little in the end then," 
 said Harkness as before. 
 
A woman's reason. 45 
 
 " Oh, I don't know about that ;" the Captain took 
 the end of his cigar out and lit a fresh one from it 
 before he laid it doini upon the ash-holder ; " I don't 
 know about that. We don't consider material things 
 merely. There has always been something romantic, , 
 something heroic about the old trade. To be sure, 
 now that it 's got down to telegraphing, it 's only fit 
 for New-Yorkers. They're quite welcome to it." 
 This was not very logical taken as a whole, but we 
 cannot always be talking reason. At the words 
 romantic and heroic Helen had pricked her ears, if 
 that phrase may be used concerning ears of such 
 loveliness as hers, and she paused from her milli- 
 nery. "Ah ha, young lady!" cried the Captain; 
 "you're listening, are you? You didn't know 
 there was any romance or heroism in business, did 
 you ]" 
 
 " What business 1" asked Helen. 
 
 " Your father's business, young woman ; my old 
 business, the India trade." 
 
 " The India trade 1 Why, were you ever in the 
 India trade. Captain Butler 'i " 
 
 "Was I ever in the India trade 1" demanded the 
 Captain, taking his cigar out of his mouth in order to 
 frown with more effect upon Helen. " Well, upon 
 my word ! Where did you think I got my title ? 
 I 'm too old to have been in the war." 
 
 " I didn't know," said Helen. 
 
 " I got it in the India trade. I was captain and 
 supercargo many an eleven months' voyage, just as 
 your father was." 
 
4:6 A woman's reason. 
 
 Helen was vastly amused at this. " Why, papa ! 
 were you ever captain of a ship ? " 
 
 "For a time," said Mr. Harkness, smiling at the 
 absurdity. 
 
 " Of course he was !" shouted the Captain. 
 
 "Then why isn't he captain, now V 
 
 " Because there 's a sort of captain that loses his 
 handle when he comes ashore, and there's a sort 
 that keeps it. I 'm one sort and your father 's the 
 other. It 's natural to call a person of my model 
 and complexion by some kind of title, and it isn't 
 natural to call such a man as your father so. Besides, 
 I was captain longer than he was. I was in the India 
 trade, young lady, and out of it before you were bom." 
 
 " I was born a great while ago," observed Helen, 
 warningly. 
 
 "I daresay you think so," said the Captain. "I 
 thought / was, at your age. But you '11 find, as you 
 grow older, that you weren't born such a very great 
 while ago after all. The time shortens up. Isn't 
 that so, Harkness 1 " 
 
 " Yes,'' said Mr. Harkness. "Everything happened 
 day before yesterday." 
 
 "Exactly," said the Captain. Helen thought how 
 young she must be to have already got that letter of 
 Eobert's so many centuries ago. " Yes," the Captain 
 pursued. " I had been in the India trade twenty- 
 five years when I went out of it in 1857 — or it went 
 out of me.'' He nodded his great, close-clipped 
 head in answer to her asking glance. " It went out 
 of a good many people at that time. We had a 
 
A woman's reason. 47 
 
 grand smash. We had overdone it. We had warn- 
 ings enough, but we couldn't realise that our world 
 was coming to an end. It hadn't got so low as 
 telegraphing, yet ; but it was mere shop then even, 
 compared with the picturesque traffic of our young 
 days. Eh, Harkness ? " 
 
 "Yes, it had lost all attraction but profit." 
 
 "Were you ever down at India Wharf, Helen ?" 
 demanded the Captain. " I don't blame you j neither 
 were my girls. But were you 1" 
 
 " Of course," said Helen, scorning to lift her eyes 
 from her work. " The Nahant boat starts from it." 
 
 "The Nahant boat!" repeated the Captain in a 
 great rage. "In my day there was no Nahant boat 
 about India Wharf, I can tell you, nor any other 
 steamboat; nor any dirty shanties -ashore. The 
 place was sacred to the shipping of the grandest 
 commerce in the world. There they lay, those 
 beautiful ships, clean as silver, every one of them, 
 and manned by honest Yankee crews." The Captain 
 got upon his feet for the greater convenience of his 
 eloquence. " Not by ruffians from every quarter of 
 the globe. There were gentlemen's sons before the 
 mast, with their share in the venture, going out for 
 the excitement of the thing; boys from Harvard, 
 fellows of education and spirit; and the forecastle 
 was filled with good Toms and Jims and Joes from 
 the Cape; chaps whose aunts you knew; good stock 
 through and through, sound to the core. The super- 
 cargo was often his own captain, and he was often a 
 Harvard man — you know what they are !" 
 
48 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Nicest fellows in the world," consented Helen. 
 
 The Captain blew a shaft of white smoke into the 
 air, and then cut it through with a stroke of his 
 cigar. " We had on a mixed cargo, and we might 
 be going to trade at eastern ports on the way out. 
 Nobody knew what market we should iind in Cal- 
 cutta. It was pure adventure, and a calculation of 
 chances, and it was a great school of character. It 
 was a trade that made men as well as fortunes ; it 
 took thought and forethought. The owners planned 
 their ventures like generals planning a campaign. 
 They were not going to see us again for a year; 
 they were not going to hear of us till we were 
 signalled outside on our return. When we sailed 
 it was an event, a ceremony, a solemnity ; and we 
 celebrated it with song from all the tarry throats on 
 board. Yes, the men used to sing as we dropped 
 down the bay." 
 
 "Oh, Captain Butler, it was fine!" cried Helen, 
 dropping her hands on her work, and looking up at 
 the Captain in his smoke-cloud, with rapture. " Papa, 
 why didn't you ever let me come down to see your 
 ships sail ? " 
 
 " It was all changed before you were born, Helen," 
 began her father. 
 
 "O yes, all changed," cried the Captain, taking 
 the word away from him. " The ships had begun, 
 long before that, to stop at East Boston, and we sold 
 their cargoes by sample, instead of handling, them 
 in our warehouses, and getting to feel some sort of 
 human interest in them. When it came to that, a 
 
A woman's reason. 49 
 
 mere shopman's speculation, I didn't much care for 
 the New-Yorkers getting it." The Captain sat down 
 and smoked in silence. 
 
 "How did the New-Yorkers get it?" asked 
 Helen, with some indignant stir in her local pride. 
 
 " In the natural course of things," said her father. 
 "Just as we got it from Salem. By being bigger 
 and richer." 
 
 " Oh, it was all changed anyway," broke iu the 
 Captain. " We used to import nearly all the cotton 
 goods used in this country, — fabrics that the natives 
 wove on their little looms at home, and that had the 
 sentiment you girls pretend to find in hand-made 
 things, — but before we stopped we got to sending 
 our own cottons to India. And then came the 
 telegraph, and put the finishing-stroke to romance 
 in the trade. Your father loads now according to 
 the latest despatches from Calcutta. He knows 
 just what his cargo will be worth when it gets there, 
 and he telegraphs his people what to send back." 
 The Captain ended in a very minor key : " I 'm 
 glad I went out of it when I did. You 'd have done 
 well to go out too, Harkness." 
 
 " I don 't know, Jack. I had nothing else in 
 view. You know I had become involved before the 
 crash came ; and I couldn't get out." 
 
 " I think you could," returned the Captain stub- 
 bornly, and he went on to show his old friend how ; 
 and the talk wandered back to the great days of 
 the old trade, and to the merchants, the supercargoes, 
 the captains, the mates of their youth. They talked 
 
 D 
 
50 A woman's reason. 
 
 of the historic names before their date, of Cleaveland 
 and his voyages, of Handasyde Perkins, of Bromfield, 
 of the great chiefs of a commerce which founded the 
 city's prosperity, and which embraced all climes and 
 regions. The Dutch colonies and coffee, the China 
 trade and tea, the North-west coast and furs ; the 
 Cape, and its wines and oil ; the pirates that used to 
 harass the early adventurers ; famous shipwrecks ; 
 great gains and magnificent losses ; the splendour 
 of the English nabobs and American residents at 
 Calcutta ; mutinies aboardship ; the idiosyncrasies of 
 certain sailors ; the professional merits of certain 
 black cooks : these varied topics and interests con- 
 spired to lend a glamour to the India trade as it 'had 
 been, that at last moved Captain Butler to argument 
 in proof of the feasibility of its revival It was the 
 explanation of this scheme that wearied Helen. . At 
 the same time she saw that Captain Butler did not 
 mean to go very soon, for he had already sunk the 
 old comrade in the theorist so far as to be saying, 
 "Well, sir," and "Why, sir," and "I tell you, sir." 
 She got up — not without dropping her scissors from 
 her lap, as is the custom of her sex — and gave him 
 her hand, which he took in his left, without rising. 
 
 " Going to bed t That 's right. I shall stay a bit, 
 yet. I want to talk with your father." 
 
 " Talk him into taking a little rest," said Helen, 
 looking at the Captain as she bent over her father to 
 kiss him good-night. 
 
 " I shall give him all sorts of good advice," returned 
 the Captain cheerily. 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 51 
 
 Her father held her hand fondly till she drew an 
 arm's-length away, and then relinquished it with a 
 very tender "Good-night, my dear." 
 
 Helen did not mean to go to bed, and when she 
 reached her own room, she sat a long time there, 
 working at Margaret's bonnet, and overhearing now 
 and then some such words of the Captain's as " dyes," 
 " muslins," " ice," " teak," " gunny-bags," " shellac," 
 "Company's choppers, "^ — a name of fearful note 
 descriptive of a kind of Cal6utta handkerchief once 
 much imported. She imagined that the Captain was 
 still talking of the India trade. Her father spoke so 
 low that she could not make out any words of his ; 
 the sound of his voice somehow deeply touched her, 
 his affection appealed to hers in that unintelligible 
 murmur, as the disembodied religion of a far-hea,rd 
 hymn appeals to the solemnity of the listener's soul. 
 She began to make a fantastic comparison of the 
 qualities of her father's voice and the Captain's, to the 
 disadvantage of the Captain's other qualities; she 
 found that her father was of finer spirit and of gentler 
 nature, and by a natural transition she perceived that 
 it was a grander thing to be sitting alone in one's 
 room with one's heart-ache than to be perhaps foolishly 
 walking the piazza, with one's accepted commonplace 
 destiny as Marian Butler was at that moment. At 
 this point she laughed at herself, said "Poor Marian " 
 aloud, and recognised that her vagaries were making 
 Captain Butler an ill return for his kindness in 
 dropping in to chat with her father ; she hoped he 
 would not chat too long, and tire him out ; and so her 
 
52 A woman's reason. 
 
 thoughts ran upon Eobert again, and she heard no 
 more of the talk below, till after what seemed to her, 
 starting from it, a prolonged reverie. Then she was 
 aware of Captain Butler's boots chirping out of the 
 library into the hall, toward the door, with several 
 pauses, and she caught fragments of talk again : " I 
 had no idea it was as bad as that, Harkness — 
 bad business, must see what can be done, weather 
 it a few weeks longer — confoundedly straitened 
 myself — pull you through,'' and faintly, "Well, 
 good-night, Joshua; I'll see you in the morning." 
 There was another pause, in which she fancied 
 Captain Butler lighting his cigar at the chimney 
 of the study-lamp with which her father would be 
 following him to the door ; the door closed and her 
 father went slowly back to the library, where she felt 
 rather than heard him walking up and down. She 
 wanted to go to him, but she would not ; she wanted 
 to call to him, but she remained silent ; when at last 
 she heard his step upon the stairs, heavily ascending, 
 and saw the play of his lamp-light on the walls with- 
 out, she stealthily turned down the gas that he might 
 not think her awake. Half an hour later, she crept 
 to his door, which stood a little ajar, and whispered, 
 "Papa!" 
 
 "What is it, Helen?" He was in bed, but his 
 voice sounded very wakefiil. " What is it, my 
 dear ! " 
 
 "Oh, I don't know!" — she flung herself on her 
 knees beside his bed in the dark, and put her arms 
 about his neck — " but I feel so unhappy !" 
 
A woman's reason. 53 
 
 " About — " began her father, but she quickly in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 " No, no ! About you, papa ! You seem so sad 
 and careworn, and I 'm nothing but a burden and a 
 trouble to you." 
 
 " You are nothing but a comfort and a help to me. 
 Poor child ! You mustn't be worried by my looks. 
 I shall be all right in the morning. Come, come !" 
 
 " But weren't you perplexed somehow about busi- 
 ness ? Weren't you thinking about those accoimts ?" 
 
 "No, my dear." 
 
 "What were you thinking of?" 
 
 " Well, Helen, I was thinking of your mother and 
 your little brothers.'' 
 
 " Oh !" said Helen, with the kind of recoil which 
 the young must feel even from the dearest dead. 
 " Do you often think of them?" 
 
 " No, I believe, not often. Never so much as to- 
 night, since I first lost them ; the house seemed full 
 of them then. I suppose these impressions must 
 recur." 
 
 "Oh, doesn't it make you feel strange?" asked 
 Helen, cowering a little closer to him. 
 
 " Why should it ? It doesn't make me feel strange 
 to have your face against mine." 
 
 " No, but — don't, don't talk of such things, 
 or I can't endure it ! Papa, papa ! I love you so, 
 it breaks my heart to have you talk in that way. 
 How wicked I must be not to like you to think of 
 them ! But don't, to night ! I want you to think 
 of me, and what we are going to do together, and 
 
54 A woman's reason. 
 
 ibout all our plans for next winter, and for that 
 lew house, and everything. Will you? Promise!" 
 Her father pressed her cheek closer against his, 
 md she felt the fond smile which she could not see 
 n the dark. He gave her his promise, and then 
 legan to talk about her going down to the Butlers', 
 vhich it seemed the Captain had urged further after 
 he had bidden him good-night. The Captain was 
 ;oing to stay in Boston a day or two, and Mr. Hark- 
 less thought he might run down with him at the 
 !nd of the week. Helen did not care to go, but 
 pith this in view she did not care to say so. She 
 et her father comfort her with caressing words and 
 ouches, as when she was a child, and she frankly 
 tayed her weak-heartedness upon his love. She 
 vas ashamed, but she could not help it, nor wish to 
 lelp it. As she rested her head upon his pillow she 
 leard his watch ticking under it ; in this sound all 
 he years since she was a little girl were lost. Then 
 lis voice began to sink drowsily, as it used to do in 
 emote times, when she had wearied him out with 
 ler troubles. He answered at random, and his talk 
 t^andered so that it made her laugh. That roused 
 tim to full consciousness of her parting kiss. "Good- 
 light,'' he said, and held her hand, and drew her 
 Lown by it again, and kissed her once more. 
 
III. 
 
 Helen woke the next morning with the overnight 
 ache still at her heart : she wondered that she could 
 have thought of leaving her father; but when she 
 opened her shutters and let in the light, she was 
 aware of a change that she could not help sharing. 
 It was the wind that had changed, and was now 
 east; the air was fresh and sparkling; the homi- 
 cidal sunshine of the day before lay in the streets 
 and on the house fronts as harmless as painted 
 sunshine in a picture. Another day might transform 
 all again ; the tidal wave of life that the sea had 
 sent from its deep cisterns out over the land might 
 ebb as quickly, and the world find itself old and 
 haggard, and suffering once more ; but while it lasted, 
 this respite was a rapture. 
 
 Helen came down with something of it in her face, 
 the natural unreasoned and unreasoning hopefulness 
 of young nerves rejoicing in the weather's mood; 
 but she began at breakfast by asking her father if he 
 did not think it was rather crazy for her to be 
 starting off for Beverley the very day after she 
 had got home for good, and had just unpacked 
 everything. She said she would go only on three 
 
56 A woman's reason. 
 
 conditions: — first, that he felt perfectly ■well; second, 
 that he would be sure to come down on Saturday ; 
 and third, that he would be sure to bring her back 
 with him on Monday. 
 
 " I don't think I could stand Marian Butler in her 
 present semi-fluid state more than three days ; and I 
 wouldn't consent to leave you, papa, except that 
 while you 're worrying over business you 'd really 
 rather not have me about. Would you ?" 
 
 Her father said he always liked to have her about. 
 
 " yes ; of course," said Helen. " But don't 
 you see, I 'm trying to make it a virtue to go, and I 
 can't go unless I do '! " 
 
 He laughed with her at her hypocrisy. They 
 agreed that this was Thursday the 15th, and that he 
 should come down on Saturday the 17th, and that 
 he would let nothing detain him, and that he would 
 come in time for dinner, and not put it off, as he 
 would be sure to do, till the last train. Helen gave 
 him a number of charges as to his health, and his 
 hours of work, and bade him, if he did not feel 
 perfectly well, to telegraph her instantly. When he 
 started down town she made him promise to drive 
 home. After the door closed upon, him, she won- 
 dered that she had ever allowed herself to think of 
 leaving him, and indignantly dismissed the idea of 
 going to Beverley ; but she went on and packed her 
 trunk so as to have it ready when the express-man 
 came for it. She could easily send him away, and 
 besides, if she did not go now, there was no hope of 
 getting her father off for a holiday and a little change 
 
A "WOMAN'S REASON. 57 
 
 of scene. She quitted the house in time to catch 
 the noon train, and rode drearily down to Beverley, 
 but not without the comfort of feeling herself the 
 victim of an inexorable destiny. All the way down 
 she was in impulse rushing back to Boston, and 
 astonishing Margaret by her return, and telling her 
 father that she found she could not go, and being 
 fondly laughed at by him. She was almost in tears 
 when the brakeman shouted out the name of the 
 station, and if Marian Butler had not been there 
 with her phaeton, in obedience to the Captain's 
 telegram announcing Helen's arrival, she would have 
 hidden herself somewhere, and taken the next train 
 back to town. As it was, she descended into the 
 embrace of her friend, who was so glad to see her 
 that she tried to drive through the train, just begin- 
 ning to move off, on the tiack that crossed their 
 road, and had to be stopped by the baggage-master, 
 who held the pony's nose till the train was well on 
 its way to Portland. At the door of the cottage, 
 when the pony had drawn up the phaeton there, 
 with a well-affected air of being driven up, Mrs. Butler 
 met Helen with tender and approving welcome, and 
 said that they could never have hoped to get her father 
 to come unless she had come first. "This change 
 in the weather will be everything for him, and you 
 mustn't worry about him," she said, laying a sooth- 
 ing touch upon Helen's lingering anxieties. " If he 
 has any business perplexities, you may be sure he 'd 
 rather have you out of the way. I have seen some- 
 thing of business perplexities in my time, my dear, 
 
58 A woman's reason. 
 
 and I know what they are. I shall telegraph to Mr. 
 Butler to bring your father in the same train with 
 him, and not give him any chance of slipping through 
 his fingers." 
 
 Mrs. Butler was one of those pale, slight ladies, 
 not easily imaginable apart from the kind of soft 
 breakfast shawl which she wore, and which har- 
 monised with the invalid purple under her kind eyes, 
 the homes of habitual headache ; and the daughters 
 of the marriage Captain Butler had made rather late 
 in life with a woman fifteen years younger than 
 himself, were as unlike their mother as their father 
 was. These large, warm blondes invited all the 
 coolness they could with their draperies, and stood 
 grouped about her, so many statues of health and 
 young good looks and perpetual good-nature, with 
 bangs and frizzes over their white foreheads, and 
 shadowing their floating, heavily-lashed blue eyes. 
 When alone they often tended in behaviour to 
 an innocent rowdiness ; they were so amiable, and 
 so glad, and so strong, that they could not very well 
 keep quiet, and when quiet, especially in their 
 mother's presence, they had a knowingly quelled 
 look : in their father's presence they were not ex- 
 pected nor liked to be quiet. They admired Helen 
 almost as much as they admired their mother. She 
 was older than any of them, except Marian, and was 
 believed to be a pattern of style and wisdom, who 
 had had lots of off'ers, and could marry anyhodj. 
 While Helen and their mother talked together, they 
 listened in silence, granting their superiority, with 
 
A woman's reason. 69 
 
 the eager humility of well-bred younger girlhood; 
 and Marian went to see about lunch. 
 
 Mr. Eay was coming to lunch, and Helen was to 
 see him with Marian for the first time since their 
 engagement. He was a man she had not known very 
 well in Harvard, though he was of the class she had 
 danced through with. He was rather quiet, and she 
 had not formed a flattering opinion of him ; some of 
 the most brilliant fellows liked him, but she had 
 chosen to think him dull. That was some years ago, 
 and she had not often met him since ; he had been 
 away a great deal. 
 
 His quiet seemed to have grown upon him, when 
 he appeared, or it might have been the contrast of 
 his composure with the tumult of the young girls 
 that gave it such a positive effect. He seemed the 
 best of friends with them all, but in his own way. 
 He spoke little and he spoke low ; and he could not 
 be got to repeat what he said ; he always said some- 
 thing different the second time, and if he only looked 
 as if he were going to speak, his prospective sisters-in- 
 law fell helplessly silent. He was not quite so tall 
 as Marian, and he was much slighter ; she generously 
 prided herself upon being unable to wear his gloves, 
 which Jessie Butler could just get on. He was a 
 very scrupulously perfect man as to his gloves, and 
 every part of his dress, which the young ladies now 
 criticised in detail, after he had paid his duty to 
 Helen and their mother. They all used him with a 
 freedom that amused Helen, and that was not much 
 short of the frankness with which Marian came out 
 
60 A woman's reason. 
 
 and planted a large kiss upon his lips, and then, 
 without speaking to him, turned to her mother with 
 an air of housekeeperly pre-occupation to ask some- 
 thing about the lunch, and disappeared again. 
 
 Mr. Ray took everything with grave composure, a 
 little point of light in either of his brown eyes, and 
 the slightest curve of the small brown moustache that 
 curled tightly in over his upper lip, showing his sense 
 from time to time of what he must have found droll 
 if some one else had been in his place. He had an 
 affectionate deference for Mrs. Butler that charmed 
 Helen. He carved at lunch with a mastery of the 
 difficult art, and he was quite at ease in his character 
 of head of the family. It gave Helen a sort of shock 
 to detect him in pressing Marian's hand under the 
 table ; but upon reflection, she was not sure that she 
 disapproved of it. 
 
 She perceived that she must revise her opinion of 
 Mr. Ray. Without being witty, his talk was bright 
 and to the last degree sensible, with an edge of satire 
 for the young girls, to whom at the same time he was 
 alertly attentive. Helen thought his manner ex- 
 quisite, especially towards herself in her quality of 
 Marian's old and valued friend ; it was just what the 
 manner of a man in his place should be. He talked 
 a good deal to her, and told her lie had spent most of 
 the summer on the water, "Which accounts," she 
 mused, " for his brown little hands, not much bigger 
 than a Jap law-student's, and for that perfect mass of 
 freckles." He said he was expecting his boat round 
 from Manchester ; and he hoped that she would come 
 
A woman's reason. . 61 
 
 with the other young ladies and take a look at her 
 after lunch. He said " boat " so low that Helen could 
 just catch the word, and she smiled in consenting to 
 go and look at it, for she imagined from his depreca- 
 tory tone that it was something like a dory which 
 might have been bestowed upon Mr. Ray's humility 
 by some kindly fisherman. Walking to the shore by 
 Helen's side he said something further about running 
 down to Mt. Dessert in his boat, and about one of his 
 men knowing how to broil a, mackerel pretty well, 
 which puzzled her, and shook her in her error, just be- 
 fore they came upon a vision of snowy duck and paint, 
 and shining brasses, straight and slim and exquisite 
 as Helen herself in line, and light as a bird dipped for 
 a moment upon the water. A small boat put out for 
 them, and they were received on board the yacht with 
 grave welcome by Mr. Eay, whose simple dress— so 
 far hitherto from proclaiming itself nautical in cut or 
 colour — now appeared perfectly adapted to yachting. 
 He did not seem to do the host here any more than at 
 Captain Butler's table, but he distinguished Helen as 
 his chief guest, with a subtle accent in his politeness 
 that gave her quick nerves something of the pleasure 
 of a fine touch in music. She was now aware that she 
 admired Mr. Eay, and she wondered if he did not 
 look shorter than he really was. 
 
 She found it quite in character that he should have 
 a friend on board, whom he had not mentioned to 
 any of them, and whom he now introduced in his 
 most suppressed tones. The friend was a tall young 
 Englishman, in blue Scotch stufi"; and Helen decided 
 
62 A woman's reason. 
 
 at once that his shoulders sloped too much ; he talked 
 very far down in his throat, and he had a nervous 
 laugh ; Helen discovered that he had also a shy, 
 askance effect of having just looked at you. 
 
 Eay asked the ladies if they would fish, and when 
 they would not, he frankly tried to entertain them in 
 other ways. It came out that he could both play 
 and sing; and he picked on a banjo the air of a 
 Canadian boat-song he had learned at Gasp6 the 
 summer before. That made the girls ask him to 
 show his sketches of the habitans, and Helen thought 
 them very good, and very droll, done with vigour 
 and chic. He made the afternoon pass charmingly, 
 but what amused Helen most was Marian's having 
 already got his tone about his possessions and 
 accomplishments ; her instinct would not suffer her 
 to afilict him by any show of pride in them, proud 
 as she was of them ; and on the yacht there was no 
 approach to endearments between them. " Eeally," 
 thought Helen, " Marian will be equal to it, after 
 all," and began to respect her sex. After supper, 
 which Ray offered them on board, and which that 
 one of the men who could broil a mackerel pretty 
 well served with touches of exquisite marine cookery, 
 Helen felt that it would be mean to refrain any 
 longer. " Marian," she whispered to her friend 
 apart, "he is perfect /" and Marian looked gratefully 
 at her and breathed " Yes !" 
 
 Helen was generous, but the proximity of this 
 prosperous love made her feel very desolate and 
 left behind. The aching tenderness ior Eobert, 
 
A woman's reason. 63 
 
 which was at the bottom of all her moods, throbbed 
 sorer ; she must still it somehow, and she began to 
 talk with the Englishman. As she went on she 
 could not help seeing that the young Butler girls, 
 innocently wondering at her under their bangs, were 
 suffering some loss of an ideal, and that Marian's 
 averted eyes were reflecting Mr. Ray's disapproval, 
 otherwise hidden deeper than the sea over which 
 they sailed. 
 
 The Englishman, after a moment of awkward 
 hesitation and apparent self-question, seemed to fall 
 an easy prey. He presently hung about her quite 
 helplessly ; but his helplessness did not make her 
 pity him. " So nice,'' he said, as they sat a little 
 apart, after Eay had attempted a diversion with 
 another Canadian barcarole, " to be able to do some- 
 thing of that kind. But it isn't very common in the 
 States, is it, Miss — Harkness V 
 
 " I don't understand. Do you mean that we don't 
 commonly know Canadian boat-songs ? I don't 
 suppose we do." 
 
 " No, no ; I don't mean thai /" replied Mr. Rain- 
 ford ; if that was the name which Helen had caught. 
 " I meant being able to do something, you know, 
 to keep the ball rolling, as you say." 
 
 " Do we say ' keep the ball rolling' ?" Helen 
 affected to muse. 
 
 " I heard it was an Americanism," said Mr. Rain- 
 ford, laughing at the pretence she made, with her 
 downward look, of giving his words anxious thought. 
 "I was thinking of the Canadians when I spoke. 
 
64 A woman's reason. 
 
 They seem to be up to all sorts of things. I was at 
 a place last month — Old Beach or Old Orchard — 
 something like that— where the Montreal people 
 come ; and some of those fellows knew no end of 
 things. Songs, like Mr. Ray's ; and tricks ; and — 
 and — well, I don't know." 
 
 Helen shook her head. " No, we don't have those 
 accomplishments in the States, as you say. We 're a 
 serious people." 
 
 "I don't know," laughed Mr. Rainford. "You 
 have your own fun, I suppose." 
 
 "In our poor way, yes. We go to lectures, and 
 attend the public school exhibitions, and — yes, we 
 have our amusements." 
 
 Mr. 'Rainford seemed carried quite beyond himself 
 by these ironical impertinences. " Really, I can't 
 admit that they 're all of that kind. I saw a good 
 deal of an amusement at the sea-side that I was told 
 was not very serious." 
 
 " Indeed ! What could it have been 1 " asked 
 Helen, with the affectation of deep interest. 
 
 " Oh, surely now, Miss Harkness, you don't ex- 
 pect me to explain it. All the j'oung people seemed 
 to understand it ; the Canadian ladies said it was an 
 American institution." She did not help him on, 
 and he had to get out of the affair as he could. He 
 reddened with the effort. "I must say it seemed 
 very pleasant, at least for the two people concerned." 
 
 "Oh, only two !" cried Helen. 
 
 The poor young man laughed gratefully, and took 
 up the burden of silliness which she now left wholly 
 
A woman's reason. 65 
 
 to him. " Yes ; a young lady — always very charm- 
 ing — and — " 
 
 "A gentleman always very brilliant and inter- 
 esting. Oh, yes ! " She turned about on her 
 camp-stool with an unconscious air, and began to 
 talk to the young Butler girls. She had provoked 
 his recognition of the situation, if he had meant 
 his allusion to sea-side flirtations for that, but her 
 fretted nerves did not resent it the less because she 
 was in the wrong. She could have said that there 
 was nothing in her words, and afterwards she did 
 say so to herself; but, as if he found a personal edge 
 in them, Mr. Rainf ord sat quite blank for a moment ; 
 then after some attempts at self-recovery in talk with 
 the others, he rose and went below. 
 
 " Ned," said Marian, " where did you pick up that 
 particularly odious Englishman ? " In her vexation 
 with Helen, it was necessary to assail some one. 
 
 " He 's a very good fellow," said Ray quietly. 
 "I met him in Cairo, first. He's very clever; and 
 remarkably well up in Coptic — for a lord." 
 
 All the Butlers started, as if to pounce upon Ray. 
 "A lord!" they hoarsely breathed, with the bitter 
 sense of loss natural to girls who might never see a 
 nobleman again. 
 
 " Why did you introduce him as Mister?" de- 
 manded Marian, in accents expressive of the common 
 anguish; and somehow the revelation of her victim's 
 quality seemed to Helen to heighten the folly and 
 cruelty of her behaviour; it seemed to elevate it 
 into a question of international interest. 
 E 
 
66 A woman's reason. 
 
 " I said Lord Eainford," retorted Ray. 
 
 " You whispered it ! " cried Marian bitterly. 
 
 " Well, he won't mind your calling him Mr. Eain- 
 ford. I can explain," said Ray. " Don't change, 
 now," he added mischievously. 
 
 "As if we should !" indignantly retorted Marian. 
 " And let him know that we 'd been talking about 
 him ! No, he shall remain Mister to the end of 
 the chapter with us. Are you going to bring him 
 to the house 'i " 
 
 " I 'm going to Salem with him as soon as I put 
 you ashore. I 'd have asked you to let me bring him 
 to lunch if I 'd supposed he was on the boat. When 
 I left him at Manchester this morning, he talked of 
 going to Boston by the cars.'' 
 
 " I think he 's hideous," said Marian, for all com- 
 ment on the explanation. 
 
 " Not pretty, but precious," returned Ray tran- 
 quilly. " He 's a good fellow, but he knows he isn't 
 good-looking. He 's rather sensitive about it, and it 
 makes him nervous and awkward with ladies ; but he's 
 a very sensible fellow among men," Ray concluded. 
 
 There was a little unpleasant pause, and then Ray 
 and Marian began talking eagerly to Helen, as if they 
 felt a little ashamed, and a good deal sorry for her, 
 and were anxious to get her to do or say something 
 that would bring back their good opinion of her. 
 
 They dropped anchor in a sheet of sunset red off 
 Captain Butler's place, and Ray pulled them ashore 
 in his small boat. Some of them tried to sing the 
 
A woman's reason. 67 
 
 barcarole he had played, but the girlish voices thrilled 
 sadly over the glassy tide, which. v?as softly ebbing, 
 and leaving ipore and more bare the drowned-looking 
 boulders, heavily tressed with the dripping golden 
 brown seaweed. 
 
 Marian sat in the bow of the boat, and as she rose 
 and stood there, holding out one hand to Ray to be 
 helped ashore, and gathering her skirts with the 
 other, she glanced towards the house : " Why, who 
 is there with mamma on the verandah-? Why, it 
 can't be papa !" 
 
 Helen looked round over her shoulder where she 
 sat, and now they all looked, Ray turning his head 
 and mechanically clasping Marian's hand. 
 
 Captain Butler was walking up and down before 
 his wife, who sat listening to what he was saying. 
 He was talking very loud and very fast, with a sort 
 of passionate vehemence ; his tones reached them, but 
 they could not make out his words. He gesticulated 
 as if describing some scene, and then suddenly 
 stopped, and threw back his head, and seemed to 
 be laughing. 
 
 " What can amuse Captain Butler so much 1 " asked 
 Helen, with a smile. At the same time she saw him 
 draw out his handkerchief and hide his face in it, 
 and sit down with his face still hidden. The panto- 
 mime which they could see with such distinctnes-s, 
 and of which they yet remained so ignorant, some- 
 how began to overawe them. Ray quickly helped 
 them from the boat. " I am going up with you," he 
 said, and with a glance at Marian, " Miss Harkness,'' 
 
68 A woman's reason. 
 
 he added, "won't you take my arm over these 
 rocks?" 
 
 Helen clung heavily to him as she tottered up the 
 path. " I wonder what has brought Captain Butler 
 to-night," she said tremulously. " He wasn't to be 
 here till Saturday." 
 
 "I fancy he's persuaded your father to come 
 with him," answered Ray. " Look out for that 
 stone, Miss Harkness." 
 
 " Oh, I hope papa isn't worse again," said Helen, 
 stumbling over it. She hurt herself, and was glad 
 of the pain that let her give their way to the tears 
 that came into her eyes. 
 
 "No; I should think he was more likely to be 
 better," said Eay, refusing to see her trouble, and 
 really lifting her along. The 'others had fallen 
 behind a little, and these two had now reached the 
 gravel drive up to the piazza steps alone. 
 
 They saw a quick parley between the Captain and 
 Mrs. Butler, and he stepped in-doors through one of 
 the long windows, while she came forward to the 
 rail, and called out to Marian, " Your father wants 
 all of you to go to the other door, Marian." 
 
 "Why, mamma — " began Marian. 
 
 " Go, go ! " cried her mother. " Don't ask ! — 
 Edward, bring Helen here ! " 
 
 " Yes, it 's some little surprise," said Eay, be- 
 ginning to laugh. " Do you like surprises. Miss 
 Harkness ?" 
 
 "I don't believe I do," she answered, trying to 
 laueh too. 
 
A woman's reason. 69 
 
 Mrs. Butler came forward and took her from Ray, 
 motioning or rather looking him aside, as she clasped 
 the girl tight in her arms. At this moment she saw- 
 Captain Butler glance stealthily at them from within 
 the room ; his face was contorted and wet with tears. 
 "What — what is it, Mrs. Butler?" she gasped, 
 weakly pulling back a little from her close embrace, 
 and facing her. 
 
 There was an instant in which the elder woman 
 dwelt upon her with all of compassion and imploring 
 in her eyes. Then she said, " Death, Helen. Your 
 father is dead !" 
 
 Helen's strength came back. As if many days 
 had passed since she saw him, " To-day 1 " she asked, 
 still holding her hand against Mrs. Butler's breast, 
 where she had pressed it. 
 
 "At two o'clock." 
 
 Helen' softly loosed herself from Mrs. Butler's arms, 
 and sat down in the chair near which they stood, 
 and looked out upon the grounds sloping to the 
 water, the black rocks by the shore ; the huger rocks 
 that showed their backs like sleeping sea-beasts out 
 of the smooth water ; the yacht darkening against 
 the east; far beyond the rim of the sea, a light 
 just twinkling up in the invisible tower at the 
 horizon's verge. A thick darkness seemed to come 
 down out of the sky over all, but Helen would not 
 let it close upon her. She fought the swoon away, 
 and looked up at the pitying, suffering face above 
 her. 
 
 "I am glad you told me at once, Mrs. Butler. 
 
70 A woman's reason. 
 
 Thank you," she said, and sank back in her chair, 
 while the other fell on her knees beside her, and 
 gathered her to her heart again, and wept over her. 
 
 " O my poor, poor child ! It 's the one certain 
 thing in all the world. It will be known, and it will 
 be seen. What wouldn't I have given to keep it from 
 you for ever, Helen? You and my Marian were 
 babies together. I used to know your mother. You 
 are like a daughter to me." Helen passively sub- 
 mitted to the caresses, to the kisses, dropped with 
 tears upon her pale cheeks, but she did not say 
 anything, or try to reply. " But it was not to be 
 kept," Mrs. Butler went on. " It could not be 
 hidden, and it seemed the mercifullest and best way 
 not to try to keep it from you in foolish self-pity for 
 a moment, more or less." 
 
 " yes, yes," said Helen, like another person 
 hearing of her own case. "It was best," and she 
 found herself toying with the strings of her hat, 
 curling them round her finger, and running them out 
 in a long roll. 
 
 " It doesn't kill, my dear. It brings its own cure 
 with it. It 's sorrow, but it isn't trouble ! It passes 
 over us like a black wave, but it doesn't destroy us. 
 You don't realise it yet, Helen, my poor girl, but 
 even when you do, you will bear it. Put your head 
 down on my shoulder, dear, and I will tell you. It 
 was in his office, where he had spent so many years 
 at the work which had given him his honoured name 
 and place in the world. My husband was there 
 with him. They were turning over some books 
 
A woman's reason. 71 
 
 together. He saw your father put his hand over his 
 heart, and then your father sank down in his arm- 
 chair, and gave a little sigh, and — that was all." 
 
 Mrs. Butler hroke into a fresh sobbing on the girl's 
 neck, but Helen remained silent and still, letting 
 herseK be clutched tight to that loving breast. 
 " There was no pain, Helen, there was no suffering. 
 It was a falling into rest. But before he rested — 
 before he drew that last little sigh, my dear — he 
 spoke one word. Do you know what it was, Helen t " 
 She felt the girl tremble, and, as it were, lapse in 
 her arms. " It was just your name : it was, ' Helen.' 
 You were the last thing in his thoughts upon earth 
 — the first in heaven." 
 
 Helen broke into a long, low wail. She rose from 
 where she sat, and flung off the kind clinging arms, 
 as if their pity stifled her, and fled up and down the 
 verandah, a storm of grief that beat forth in thick 
 sobs, and escaped in desolate moans. 
 
 Mrs. Butler did not try to stay her, or even to 
 approach her, as she wavered to and fro, and wrung 
 her hands, or pressed them to her streaming eyes. 
 At last, after many moments, as long as hours of 
 common life, Helen suddenly checked herself, and 
 dried the tears that drenched her face. There had 
 come the lull which must succeed such a passion. 
 She stopped before Mrs. Butler, and asked in a 
 husky, changed voice, " Isn't there any train up to- 
 night?" 
 
 « Why, Helen—" 
 
 " Because if there is, I must take it. I know what 
 
72 A woman's reason. 
 
 you will say, but don't say it. If you try to stop 
 me, I will walk. I am going home." 
 
 It was too soon yet for her to realise that she 
 should never go home again, but the word went to 
 the mother-heart that ached for her with the full 
 measure of its tragic irony, and she perceived with a 
 helpless throe of compassion how alone in the world 
 this fair young stricken creature stood. 
 
 Eay had sent word to his English friend that he 
 should not join him again on board the yacht that 
 night, briefly explaining the trouble that kept him, 
 and promising to see him again on the morrow. He 
 directed the yacht to put in to Salem, as had been 
 arranged, and instructed his men to tell Lord Rain- 
 ford about the trains for Boston. He was with 
 Captain Butler and the awe-stricken girls in the 
 parlour, while Mrs. Butler kept Helen on the verandah, 
 and he had gathered from the captain such part of 
 the story as he had not already divined. 
 
 " Edward !" called Mrs. Butler from without, and 
 he went to her where she stood with Helen, now 
 perfectly silent and tearless. " Miss Harkness wishes 
 to go home to-night. I shall go with her. Mr. 
 Butler has just got home, and — " She hesitated to 
 say before Helen's affliction that he had had too 
 hard a day already, and she could not let him incur 
 the further excitement and fatigue ; but Eay seemed 
 to know. 
 
 " Captain Butler had better stay here," he said 
 promptly, " and let me go. We haven't time for the 
 seven o'clock at Beverley," he added, glancing at his 
 
A woman's reason. 73 
 
 watch, " but we can catch the eight o'clock express at 
 Salem if we start at once." 
 
 " I am ready," said Helen quietly. " My trunk 
 can com« to-morrow. I haven't even unlocked it." 
 
 Eay had turned away to ring the stable bell. 
 "Jerry, put my mare into the two-seated phaeton. 
 Don't lose any time," he called out, stopping Jerry's 
 advance up the walk for orders, and the phaeton was 
 at the steps a minute or two after Mrs. Butler 
 appeared in readiness to go. 
 
 Helen went into the lighted dining-room, where 
 Captain Butler and the girls had fearfully grouped 
 themselves, waiting what motion of farewell she 
 should make. Her face was pale, and somewhat 
 stern. She went round and kissed them, beginning 
 and ending with Marian, and she did not give way, 
 though they each broke out crying at her touch, or 
 at her turning from them. When she came to tlie 
 Captain she put out her arms, and took him into 
 them, and pressed herself to his breast in a succes- 
 sion of quick embraces, while he hid his face, and 
 could not look at her. 
 
 " Good-bye all," she said, in a firm tone, and went 
 out and got into the phaeton, where Mrs. Butler was 
 sitting. Ray sprang to the place beside the driver. 
 "Salem, Jerry. Quick!" and they flew forward 
 through the evening air, cold and damp in currents, 
 and warm in long stretches over the smooth road. 
 She smelt the heavy scent of the spiraea in the 
 swampy places, and of the milkweed in the sand. 
 She said no, she was not chilly, to Mrs. Butler; 
 
74 A woman's reason. 
 
 and from time to time they talked together : ahout 
 the days beginning to get a httle shorter now, and 
 its not being so late as it seemed. Once Eay 
 struck a match and looked at his watch, and the 
 driver looked at Ray, who said, " All right," and did 
 not say anything else during the drive. Again, 
 after silence, Helen spoke — 
 
 " You know I wouldn't let you come with me, if 
 I could help it, Mrs. Butler." 
 
 " You couldn't help it, dear," answered the other. 
 "Don't talk of it." 
 
 The station was a blur and dance of lights ; she 
 was pushed into the train as it moved away. She 
 sat next the window in the seat with Mrs. Butler, 
 and Eay in the seat before them. He did not look 
 round, nor did Mrs. Butler sit very^close, or take her 
 hand, or try in any futile way to oifer her comfort. 
 The train seemed to go forward into the night by 
 long leaps. Once it stopped somewhere on the track 
 remote from a station, and Eay went out with some 
 other passengers to see what had happened. Helen 
 was aware of a wild joy in the delay, and of a wish 
 that it might last for ever. She did not care to know 
 what had caused it. As the cars drew into the Boston 
 depot, she found her handkerchief, soaked with tears, 
 in her hand, and she pulled down her veil over 
 her swollen eyes. 
 
 At her own door, she said, " Well, Margaret," like 
 a ghostly echo of her wonted greetings, and found 
 Margaret's eyes red and swollen too. 
 
 " I knew you would come. Miss Helen," said Mar- 
 
A WOJrAN'S REASON. 75 
 
 garet. " I told them you never would let the night 
 pass over your head." 
 
 " Yes, I would come, of course," answered Helen. 
 She led the way back into the library, where there 
 were lights, and where the study-lamp burnt upon 
 the table at which last night she had sat with her 
 father. Then, while the others stood there, she took 
 up the lamp, and pushed open the drawing-room 
 doors, as she had seen him do, and, as she felt, with 
 something of his movement, and walked forward 
 under the dimly -burning gas to the place where she 
 had known he would be lying. Everything had been 
 done decorously, and he appeared, as they say, very 
 natural. She stood with the lamp lifted high, and 
 looked down at the face, slowly and softly wiping 
 the tears, and shaken now and then with a sob. 
 She did not offer to kiss or touch him. She turned 
 from the clay out of which he had departed, and 
 walked back to the library, where it seemed as if 
 he should meet her, and speak to her of what- had 
 happened. 
 
 There were Mrs. Butler and Mr. Eay, and behind 
 them there was Margaret. She felt how pitifully 
 she must be looking at them. Some one caught the 
 lamp, which had grown so Ught, from her hand, and 
 some one had thrown up the window. That was 
 right ; she should not faint now ; and now she was 
 opening her eyes, and Eay's arm was under her 
 neck, where she lay upon the floor, and Mrs. Butler 
 was dashing her face with cologne. 
 
IV. 
 
 In those days Helen came to understand what her 
 father had meant by saying, that after her mother 
 and her little brothers died, the house seemed full of 
 them, and that it did not make him afraid. Now 
 that he had died, the house seemed full of him, and 
 she was not afraid. She grew to be weak and sore, 
 and almost blind from weeping ; but even when she 
 cowered over the dead face, and cried and moaned to 
 it, it seemed something earthly and perishable in her 
 love bewailing only the earthly and perished part of 
 him, while what was really himself beheld her grief 
 with a high, serene compassion, and an intelligence 
 with- some immortal quiet in her own soul. Whatever 
 it was, whether the assurance of his life after death, or 
 the mere blind effect of custom, prolonging his pre- 
 sence, as the severed nerves refer sensation to the 
 amputated limb, and rehabilitate and create it anew, 
 this sense of his survival and nearness to her was so 
 vivid at times that she felt as if she might, could she 
 but turn quickly enough, see him there before her ; 
 that the inward voice must make itself audible — the 
 airy presence tangible. It was strongest with her that 
 first night, but it did not cease for long afterwards. 
 
 76 
 
A woman's reason. 77 
 
 He was with her as she followed him to the grave ; 
 and he came back with her to the house from which 
 they had borne him. 
 
 In this sense of his survival, which neither then nor 
 afterwards had any fantastic quality to her, she 
 seemed to draw nearer to him than ever before. 
 He understood now, he knew the depth and truth 
 of her love, through all her vanities and follies. 
 Something inexpressibly sweet and dear was in this 
 consciousness, and remained always, when its vivid- 
 ness had faded with the keen anguish of her grief. 
 Such things, the common experience of all bereave- 
 ment, are hard to put in words. Said, they seem 
 crude and boastful, and more than what is felt ; but 
 what is felt is more than can ever be said. 
 
 Captain Butler came up the morning after Helen's 
 return home, and he and Mrs. Butler remained in 
 the house with her till all was over. Marian came 
 up too, and Eay was there with his silent vigilance, 
 from which everything seemed done without his 
 agency. Helen had but to weep, to sorrow up and 
 down the house ; they gave her anguish way, and 
 did not mock it with words of comfort. When the 
 tempests of her grief swept over her, they left her 'to 
 herself ; when the calm that follows such paroxysms 
 came, they talked to her of her father, and led her to 
 talk of him. Then she was tranquil enough. At 
 some droll things that forced themselves into remem- 
 brance in their talk, she even laughed without feeling 
 it treason to her grief; and it was not what she 
 thought or recalled of him that touched the springs 
 
78 A woman's reason. 
 
 of her sorrow. It was meeting Margaret, downcast 
 and elusive on the stairs, and saying sadly to her, 
 " Well, Margaret ; " or catching sight of Captain 
 Butler sitting opposite her father's vacant chair in 
 the library, his grizzled head sunk on his breast, 
 and looking suddenly aged, and, at the same time, 
 awkward in his bereavement, like a great boy, that 
 moved her with intolerable pathos. 
 
 Mrs. Butler went home and had out the headache 
 which she had kept back while she must, by force of 
 will, but every "day some of them came up to see 
 Helen, and reminded her without urgenee that she 
 was to come to them soon. She said yes, she would 
 come very soon, and so remained without going 
 abroad, or looking into the light of the sun. At 
 night, when she lay down she wept, and in the 
 morning when she woke, but through the day her 
 tears were dried. She brooded upon what her father 
 had said and done in the last hours they had spent 
 together, his longing for change and for a new life 
 that now seemed to have been prophetic of death. 
 His weariness of the house that had been his home 
 took a new meaning ; he must long have been more 
 in the other world than in this, and but for his 
 pitying love for her, he must have been glad when 
 his swift summons came. She realised at last that 
 he had been an old man. She had known without 
 realising it that his ways were the ways of one who 
 has outlived himself, and who patiently remains in 
 the presence of things that no longer interest him. 
 She wondered if the tie by which she, who was so 
 
A woman's reason. 79 
 
 wholly of the earth, had bound her father to it, had 
 not sometimes been a painful one. She remembered 
 all the little unthinking selfishnesses of the past, and 
 worse than these, the consolations which she had 
 tried to offer him. She thought of the gentleness 
 with which he always listened to her and consented, 
 and ended by comforting her; and she bitterly 
 accused herself for not having seen all this long ago. 
 But she had not even seen that he had a mortal 
 disorder about him; she had merely thought him 
 wearied with work, or spent with the heat, in those 
 sinkings which had at first so much alarmed her. 
 The hand carried so often to his heart that she now 
 recognised it as an habitual gesture, had given her 
 no warning, and she blamed herself that it had not. 
 But in truth she was not to blame. The sources of 
 his malady were obscure, and even its nature had 
 been so dimly hinted to him that doubtless her 
 father had justified himself in keeping his fear of it 
 from her. Perhaps he had hoped that yet somehow 
 he could struggle to a better footing in other things, 
 before he need cloud her young life with the shadow 
 that hung upon his own ; perhaps the end of many 
 resolutions was that he could not do it. She won- 
 dered if he had himself known his danger, and if it 
 was of that which he so often began to speak to her. 
 But all now was dark, and this question and every 
 other searched the darkness in vain. 
 
 She seemed to stand somewhere upon a point of 
 time between life and death, from which either world 
 was equally remote. She was quite alien here. 
 
80 A woman's reason. 
 
 without the will or the fitness to be anywhere else ; 
 and she shrank, with a vague resentment, from the 
 world that bad taken him from her. 
 
 This terrible touchstone of death, while it revealed 
 the unimagined tenderness of many hearts, revealed 
 also to her the fact that no friendliness could supply 
 the love in which there was perfect unity of interest 
 and desire, and perfect rest. Every day, when the 
 Butlers came to her they brought her word from 
 some one, from people who had known her father 
 in business, from others who had casually met him, 
 and who all now spoke their regret for his death. 
 A rare quality of character had given him standing 
 in the world that vastly greater prosperity could not 
 have won him ; and men who were of quite another 
 stuff had a regard for him, which perhaps now and 
 then expressed itself in affectionate patronage, but 
 which was yet full of reverence. They found some- 
 thing heroic in the quiet constancy with which he 
 fought his long, losing battle, and now that he was 
 down at last, they had their honest regrets and spoke 
 their honest praises. It made Helen very proud of 
 her father to hear them ; she read with a swelling 
 heart the paragraphs about him in the newspapers, 
 and even the formal preambles and resolutions 
 which expressed the loss the commerce of the city 
 had suffered in the death of a merchant of his 
 standing and integrity. These things set Helen's 
 father in a new light to her ; but while they made 
 her prouder and fonder of his memory, they brought 
 her a pang that she should have known so little of 
 
A woman's reason. 81 
 
 what formed his life, and sliould never have cared 
 to know anything of it apart from herself. 
 
 This was not the only phase in which she seemed 
 to have been ignorant of him. She had always 
 believed him good and kind, without ' thinking of 
 him in that way. But now there came poor people 
 to the door, who sometimes asked to see her, or 
 who sometimes only sent by Margaret, to tell how 
 sorry they felt for her, and to say that her father 
 had at this time or that been a good friend to each 
 of them. They all seemed to be better acquainted 
 with him than she, and their simple stories set him 
 in a light in which she had never seen him before. 
 It touched Helen that they should frankly lament 
 her father's death as another of their deprivations, 
 more than if they had pretended merely to condole 
 with her, and she did not take it ill of them, that 
 they generally concluded their blessings on his 
 memory with some hint that further benefactions 
 would be gratefully received. The men accepted 
 her half-dollars in sign that their audience was 
 ended, and went away directly ; the women shed 
 tears over the old clothes she gave them, and stayed 
 to drink tea in the kitchen. 
 
 One day after she had already seen three or four 
 of these Adsitors, the bell rang, and Captain Butler's 
 boots came chirping along the hall, not with their 
 old cheerful hint of a burly roll in the wearer's gait, 
 but subdued and slow as if he approached with un- 
 naturally measured tread. Helen sprang into his 
 arms, and broke out crying on his breast. " Oh 
 
82 A woman's reason. 
 
 Captain Butler ! I felt just now that papa must he 
 here. Ever since he died he has been with me some- 
 how. It seems wild to say it ; but no words can 
 ever tell how I have felt it; and just before you 
 came in, I know that he was going to speak to me. " 
 
 The Captain held her away at arm's-length, and 
 looked into her face. "Poor child! They've sent 
 me to bring you home with me, and I see that I 
 haven't come a moment too soon. You have been 
 alone in this house quite long enough. My God, 
 if he only could speak to us !" The Captain con- 
 trolled himself as he walked up and down the library, 
 with his face twitching, and his hand knotting itself 
 into a fist at his side, and presently he came and sat 
 down in his accustomed chair near Helen. He 
 waited till she lifted her head and wiped her eyes 
 before he began to speak. 
 
 " Helen," said Captain Butler, " I told you that 
 they had sent me for you, and I hope that you will 
 come." 
 
 " Yes," answered Helen, " I shall be very glad to 
 go with you ; but I think it 's hard for Marian, 
 bringing my trouble there, to be a blot on her 
 happiness." 
 
 " We won't speak of that, my dear," said the 
 Captain. " If Marian can't find her happiness in 
 something besides gaiety, she 'd better not think of 
 getting married." 
 
 " I wouldn't come if I thought I could endure it 
 here any longer; I wouldn't come, if I had any- 
 where else to go," cried Helen. 
 
A woman's reason. 83 
 
 . " We wouldn't let you go anywhere else," returned 
 the Captain. " But we can talk of all that another 
 time. What I have to say to you now is something 
 for you to decide. Do you think you are equal 
 to talking a little business with me ? " 
 
 " yes. I should like to." 
 
 " Yes, it will take up your mind." 
 
 The Captain paused restively, and seemed at a loss 
 how to frame what he had next to say. " Helen," 
 he broke out abruptly, " did you know anything 
 about your father's affairs V 
 
 " Papa 's affairs V asked Helen, with a start. 
 
 " Oh, don't be troubled — don't be troubled," the 
 Captain hastened to say. " It 's all right ; perfectly 
 right ; but I want to speak to you about yourself, 
 and — it's all right. Don't you think we'd better 
 have one of these windows open 1 " 
 
 " Are they shut 1" asked Helen. " Yes, you can 
 open them, please." 
 
 " We shall be cheerfuller with a little light," said 
 the Captain, flinging back the shutters; but they 
 hardly looked so. Helen had dark rings round her 
 eyes, which were swollen with her long weeping ; 
 she was very pale, and looked old in that black 
 which, in a house of mourning, seems to grow upon 
 women in a single night. She thought the Captain 
 tremulous and broken ; these muscles at the sides of 
 his chin hung down, as if ten years had been added 
 to his age in the last fortnight. They made a feint 
 of finding nothing strange in each other, and the 
 Captain resumed as he sat down again : " I mentioned 
 
84 A woman's reason. 
 
 your father's affairs because there has to be some 
 settlement of the estate, you know ; and there are 
 circumstances that make it desirable to have an 
 early settlement. The business was left in a little 
 confusion ; it 's apt to be the case," Captain Butler 
 added quickly. 
 
 " Yes," Helen said, " papa sometimes spoke of the 
 perplexity he felt about his accounts.'' 
 
 "Did he?" asked the Captain with some relief. 
 " Then 1 suppose he gave you some idea of how he 
 stood." 
 
 " No ; he merely said they worried him." 
 
 "Well, well. I don't know that there was any 
 occasion to tell you, any occasion for alarm. There 
 seems to have been no will; but that makes no 
 difference. The law makes a will, and you get what 
 there is — that is, all there is." The Captain had a 
 certain forlorn air of disoccupation, which now struck 
 Helen more than what he was saying. 
 
 " Would you like to smoke. Captain Butler V she 
 asked. 
 
 "Why, yes, if you will let me, my dear," he 
 said, with an eager, humble gratitude, putting his 
 hand quickly into his breast-pocket. "I didn't 
 know — " 
 
 Helen rose, and placed the little table at his elbow, 
 and set the ash-holder on it, as she had done that 
 last night when he had sat there with her father. 
 They looked at each other without speaking. 
 
 The Captain struck his match, and said apologeti- 
 cally between the long whiffs with which he lit his 
 
A woman's reason. 85 
 
 cigar, " I talk better with, it, and I have some things 
 to explain." 
 
 He paused, and sinking back into his chair 
 with a sigh of comfort which brought a dim 
 smile into Helen's face, presently resumed : " As 
 there is no will, and no executor, there will have to 
 be an administrator. Whom should you like ap- 
 pointed 1 I believe the Court appoints any one you 
 wish." 
 
 " Oh, you, Captain Butler ! " replied Helen in- 
 stantly. 
 
 " I expected this,'' said the Captain, " and I sup- 
 pose I am as fit as any one. I 'm sure that no one 
 could care more for your father's interests and 
 honour, and I know rather more of his affairs than 
 anybody else. You will have to make your wishes 
 known in form ; but that 's easily managed. In the 
 meantime, you had better be away, don't you think, 
 while we are looking into things 1 I don't know 
 what there is to do, exactly ; but I suppose there 's 
 to be some sort of survey, or appraisal, and — yes, 
 you had better be away, when we are looking into 
 things." 
 
 "Do you mean — away from the house?" asked 
 Helen. 
 
 " Why, yes," the Captain reluctantly assented. 
 "It's a — form ; a necessary form." 
 
 " It 's quite right," said Helen positively. " And 
 — yes, — I had better be out of the way." 
 
 " I 'm glad you see it in that light, my dear," re- 
 turned Captain Butler. "You're a good girl, 
 
86 A woman's reason. 
 
 Helen, and you make it much easier for me. Pack 
 up everything that belongs to you, and go as if you 
 were going to stay." The Captain made a ghastly 
 show of heartiness, and smoked without looking at 
 Helen. " Run over the house, and put together all 
 the things that you would like to retain, and I '11 
 see that they come down." Helen was trying to 
 catch his eye, and he was keeping his gaze iixed 
 upon the ceiling. 
 
 "I don't think I need do that," said Helen; "I 
 should merely have to bring them back with me.'' 
 
 Captain Butler took his cigar from his mouth in 
 compassion, as he now looked at her puzzled face. 
 " We don't mean you should come back, my dear 
 child. We want you to stay with us." 
 " Oh, I can't do that," said Helen quickly. 
 "You can't go on Uving here alone," retorted the 
 Captain. 
 
 "No," Helen ruefully assented, and faced Captain 
 Butler in touching dismay. 
 
 "You see," he said, "that you must submit. 
 And, Helen," he said with a show of brisk, business- 
 like cheerfulness " J think you had better sell this 
 house. If I were you, I should sell it at once. 
 You 'II never get more for it." 
 
 " Why, what would become of Margaret ?" gasped 
 Helen. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Butler has been talking of that. 
 We want a cook, and we will take Margaret." 
 
 Helen simply looked bewildered. The Captain 
 apparently found it better to go on while she was in 
 
A woman's reason. 87 
 
 this daze than await her emergence from it. "And 
 if I were you, I would sell the furniture and pictures 
 and all the things that you have not some particular 
 association with ; everything of that sort I should 
 keep." Helen still made no comment, and the 
 Captain went on. " I know all this is very painful, 
 Helen—" 
 
 " It isn't painful," said Helen quietly. " It was 
 papa's wish to sell the house. We were talking of 
 it that night — the night before — He thought of 
 building in the country." 
 
 " Well, I 'm glad to hear it," said Captain Butler. 
 " Then we can push right ahead and do it." 
 
 "It's very sudden, though,'' faltered Helen. 
 " Poor Margaret ! What will she say 1" 
 
 " We will hear what she will say," cried the 
 Captain, ringing the bell before Helen could stop him. 
 Margaret answered it, drying her hands on her 
 apron, as she came in, and then with a prescience of 
 the coming interview, resting them folded upon that 
 prop with which nature in process of time provides 
 the persons of most cooks. "Margaret,'' said the 
 Captain, " Miss Helen is going to break up house- 
 keeping. She is coming to us. Mrs, Butler wished 
 me to ask you to come too." 
 
 Margaret pursed her mouth, and bent forward so 
 far over the natural provision as to catch sight of the 
 toe of her neatly shod small foot. " Should you 
 like to come 1 " asked the Captain. 
 
 " I 'm afraid I should feel the change," said Mar- 
 garet. 
 
88 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Of course," retorted the Captain shortly. " There 
 is going to be a change, and you would feel it. We 
 understand that. But you know me, and you know 
 Mrs. Butler, and you know whether you would have 
 a good place." 
 
 " It would be a good place," said Margaret, still 
 surveying her slipper. " But I think I should feel 
 the change more and more." 
 
 "Well," said the Captain impatiently, "do you 
 mean yes, or no 1" 
 
 " I think I should feel the change," replied Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 The Captain was nonplussed by this dry response 
 to his cordial advance, and he waited a moment 
 before he asked : " Have you any other place in 
 view?" 
 
 "I had arranged," said Margaret calmly, "to go 
 to a cousin's of mine that lives in the Port; and then 
 advertise for some small family in Old Cambridge 
 where they only keep one girl." 
 
 Helen had felt hurt by Margaret's cold foresight 
 in having already so far counted the chances as to 
 have looked out for herself; but at this expression of 
 Margaret's ruling passion, she could not help smiling. 
 
 The Captain gave an angry snort. " Very well, 
 then," he said, " there is nothing to do but to pay 
 you up, and let you go," and he took out his pocket- 
 book. " How much is it ? " 
 
 " There isn't anything coming to me," Margaret 
 returned with the same tranquillity ; " Mr. Harkness 
 paid me up." 
 
A WOMAN S REASON. 89 
 
 " But he didn't pay you up to the present time," 
 said the Captain. 
 
 " I should wish to consider Miss Helen my guest 
 for the past two weeks," said Margaret, in the neat- 
 ness of an evidently thought-out speech. 
 
 The Captain gave a laugh; but Helen, who knew all 
 Margaret's springs of action, and her insuperable pride, 
 interposed: "You 'may, Margaret," she said gently. 
 
 " Thank you. Miss Helen," said Margaret, lifting 
 her eyes now for the first to glance at Helen. She 
 turned with a little nod of self-dismissal, and went 
 back to the kitchen, leaving the Captain hot and 
 baffled. 
 
 It was some moments before he spoke again. 
 " Well, then," he said ; " about selling the house : 
 do you know, Helen, I think it had better be sold at 
 auction ] It might be tedious waiting for a private 
 sale, and real estate is such a drug, with the market 
 falling, that you might have to lose more on it after 
 waiting than if you forced it to a sale now. How do 
 you feel about it 1 " 
 
 The finesse that the Captain was using in all the 
 business, wreathing the hard legal exigencies of the 
 case in flowers of suggestion and counsel, and putting 
 on all a smiling air of volition, could never be fully 
 known, except to the goodness that inspired it ; but 
 he was rewarded by the promptness with which 
 Helen assented to everything. 
 
 "I shall be glad to have- you do whatever you 
 think is best. Captain Butler," she answered. "I 
 have no feeling about the house — it 's strange that I 
 
90 A woman's reason. 
 
 shouldn't have — and I don't care how soon it is sold, 
 nor how it is sold." 
 
 The Captain instantly advanced a step further. 
 " Perhaps you wouldn't care to come back to it at 
 all, any more t Perhaps you could put your hand 
 on what you 'd like to keep, and I could look after 
 it for you, and — " He stopped at seeing Helen 
 change countenance. "Well?" 
 
 " Did you think of selling the furniture too 1" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Why, yes," assented the Captain. " I said so just 
 now. I 'm afraid you 'd find it a burden after the 
 house was gone. You 'd have to store it, you know. 
 StUl, if you don't wish it — " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Helen, drawing a long breath, " it 
 had better go !" She spoke with a gentle submis- 
 siveness that smote the Captain to the heart. 
 
 " You can keep everything you want, my dear — 
 you can keep it all ! " he returned vehemently. 
 
 " That would be silly," said Helen. " Besides, 
 there are very few things I should want to keep. I 
 couldn't keep papa's things : they 're terrible. I 
 should like you to take everything that belonged to 
 him, Captain Butler — except his watch and his Bible 
 — and give them to some poor people that could use 
 them. Then I only want my own things ; and per- 
 haps his chair, and — " Helen stopped, and the 
 Captain, not to look at her, cast a roving eye about 
 the room. 
 
 " Those Copleys, of course, you would reserve," he 
 remarked presently. 
 
A woman's reason. 91 
 
 " No," said Helen, " I never saw the people. You 
 can sell them. But I shall keep my mother's incture, 
 because I think papa would like me to." 
 
 The sense of her father's presence expressed in 
 these words touched the Captain again. He cleared 
 his throat, but he was still hoarse in saying, " I think 
 the Museum would buy the Copleys." Helen seemed 
 too indifferent about their fate to make any reply. 
 
 The worst was now over. Captain Butler had 
 accomplished all that he wished without being obliged 
 to explain anything to Helen, or to alarm her fears 
 in any way, and he was unreasonably heartened by 
 the fact. He might, perhaps, have stated the whole 
 truth to her ignorance of affairs without being much 
 more intelligible than he had been with all these 
 skilful evasions. If he had said, " Your father died 
 with his business in -the utmost confusion, and pro- 
 bably insolvent," she would scarcely have realised 
 that life was not to go on just as before ; and if he 
 had said, " You are left a beggar," how could Helen 
 Harkness have conceived of herself in the figure of 
 one of the women who had dropped their tears into 
 their tea-cups in the kitchen, as they cried over the 
 old clothes she had given them 1 It had wrung the 
 Captain's heart to hear her talk of poor people, and 
 of giving; and yet, he rose from his chair, when he 
 saw Helen still safe in her ignorance, with something 
 like cheerfulness. 
 
 " You just make a memorandum of what you 'd like 
 reserved, Helen," he said, " and I '11 attend to it for 
 you. Put your own little traps together, and I'll 
 
92 A woman's reason. 
 
 send a carriage to take you down to the four o'clock 
 trcain. Anything you think of afterwards of course 
 will be kept for you." 
 
 He left her to this task. It was at least something 
 to do, and Helen went about it with an energy which 
 she was surprised to find in herself. At first the re- 
 proach with which the silent house seemed to use her 
 indifiference smote upon her, but it did not last long. 
 Home had died out of it, as life had gone out of her 
 father's dust ; and neither house nor grave was any- 
 thing to her. She passed from room to room, and 
 opened closets and drawers, and looked at a hundred 
 things. She ended in despair by choosing a very few. 
 If she could not keep all, why should she want any ? 
 Whatever it seemed desecration to sell she put on her 
 memorandum to be given away. She selected a large 
 number of things for Margaret, and when she sat down 
 at the old Bostonian half-past two o'clock dinner (to 
 which her father had always kept), she told Margaret 
 what she had done. Margaret took one or two little 
 trinkets which Helen offered her in her hand, and 
 declined the other gifts. 
 
 "Why, what do you mean, Margaret "!" asked 
 Helen. " Why don't you take them 1" 
 
 " I shouldn't wish to. Miss Helen," said Margaret, 
 pursing her mouth. 
 
 " Well, have your own way," returned Helen. " I 
 suppose this is another of your mysteries.'' 
 
 "I should wish to do everything properly, Miss 
 Helen." 
 
 " What do you mean by properly 1 Why do you 
 
A woman's reason. 93 
 
 Miss Helen me, all the time 1 What made you so 
 stiif with Captain Butler 1 and he so kind ! " 
 
 " Captain Butler is a very pleasant gentleman," said 
 Margaret, in her neatest manner, "but I shouldn't 
 wish him to think it was quite the same as going on 
 here." 
 
 " You 're very foolish. It would have been a nice 
 place." 
 
 " I wished him to understand that I felt it a 
 change.'' 
 
 " Well, well !" cried Helen impatiently. " You 
 must do as you please, but you needn't have been so 
 cross." 
 
 Helen's nerves were beginning to give way, and 
 she went on childishly. " You act just as if we were 
 going to be together always. Do you know that I 'm 
 going away now, and not coming back any more 1" 
 
 "Yes, Miss Helen." 
 
 " And do you think this is the way to treat me at 
 the last moment 1 Why don't you take the things ?" 
 
 "I shouldn't wish to be under a compliment, Miss 
 Helen." 
 
 " What do you mean by being under a compli- 
 ment ?" 
 
 "I shouldn't wish to be beholden." 
 
 " Oh, you shouldn't wish, you shouldn't wish ! 
 This is too bad!" whimpered Helen. "What ami 
 but under a compliment to you, as you call it ? I 
 didn't think you'd behave so at the last moment. 
 But I see. You 're too proud for anything, and you 
 never did care for me." 
 
94 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Helen !" 
 
 " Yes ! And go to your cousin's, — the quicker the 
 better — and have your own cross way. I 'm sure 1 
 don't care, if you '11 be the happier for it. I can tell 
 you what you are, Margaret : you 're a silly goose, 
 and you make every one hate you. The charm's 
 broken between us, — quite ; and I 'm glad of it." 
 
 Margaret went out without saying anything, and 
 Helen tried to go on with her dinner, but failed, and 
 began her inventory again, and at last went to her 
 room and dressed for her journey. She came down 
 into the library just before starting, and rang for 
 Margaret. When the cook appeared, the young girl 
 suddenly threw her arms round her neck. "Good- 
 bye," she sobbed out, "you good, old, wicked, foolish, 
 stuck-up Margaret. I 'm glad you didn't come to the 
 Butlers', it would have killed me to see you there ! 
 Good-bye, good-bye ! Remember your poor little 
 Helen, Margaret, and come to see me ! I can't bear 
 to look into the kitchen ! Say good-bye to it for me ! 
 Oh my poor old slighted happy home ! Oh my home, 
 my home, my home ! Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye !" 
 She ran wildly through the well-known rooms, and 
 bade them adieu with heart-breaking farewells ; she 
 stooped down and kissed the lounge, on which her 
 father used to lie, and spread out her empty arms 
 upon it, and laid her homeless head where his had 
 rested. At the sound of the bell she sprang up, and 
 opened the door herself, and fled down the steps, and 
 into the carriage, shrinking into the furthest corner, 
 and thickly hiding her face under her black veil. 
 
A woman's reason. 95 
 
 She seemed to herself part of a vast train of events, 
 without control, without volition, save the will to 
 obey. She did what she was bid, and the great 
 movement went on. Somewhere must be arrest, 
 somewhere repose, but as yet she could not foresee it, 
 and she could only yield herself to the forces carrying 
 her forward. She was going to the Butlers' because 
 Captain Butler had told her to come; she had 
 assented to everything he proposed because he had 
 seemed to wish it ; but she felt that he was as power- 
 less as she in the matter. If he had proposed every- 
 thing of contrary effect, she must still have yielded 
 the same. 
 
 Captain Butler joined her at the station half-an- 
 hour after she had left home, and just in time to step 
 aboard the train with her. He was hot and looked 
 vexed. When he got his breath a little, " Do you 
 know," said he, " that old fool hasn't made any bills 1" 
 
 " What old fool ?" asked Helen passively. 
 
 " Margaret !" replied the Captain, with a burst. 
 "Didn't you understand that she meant merely to 
 refuse her wages for the last two weeks, when she 
 said she wished to consider you her guest ?" 
 
 " Why, yes," said Helen. 
 
 "Well, she meant a great deal more," cried the 
 Captain. "I've been round to the butcher and 
 baker anS all the rest, to settle their accounts, and I 
 find that she 's paid for everything since we left you. 
 But I shall have it out with her. It won't do. It 's 
 ridiculous !" 
 
 " Poor Margaret !" said Helen softly. She under- 
 
96 A woman's reason. 
 
 stood now the secret of Margaret's intolerable state- 
 liness, and of her reluctance to mar her ideal of 
 hospitality by accepting a reciprocal benefit. It was 
 all very droll and queer, but so like Margaret that 
 Helen did not want so much to laugh as to weej) at it. 
 She saw that Captain Butler was annoyed at the way 
 she took the matter, and she thought he would have 
 scolded her at any other time. She said very gently : 
 " We must let her have her way about it. Captain 
 Butler. You couldn't get her to take the money 
 back, and you would only hurt her feelings if you 
 tried. Perhaps I can do something for her some 
 time." 
 
 " Do you mean that you 're actually going to stand 
 it, Helen?" 
 
 " Yes, why not 1 It isn't as if anybody else did it 
 for me — any equal, you know. I can't feel that it 's 
 a disgrace, from Margaret; and it will do her so 
 much good — you 've no idea how much. She 's been 
 with us ever since I was born, - and surely I may 
 accept such a kindness from an old servant, rather 
 than wound her queer pride." 
 
 The Captain listened to these swelling words with 
 dismay. This poor girl, at whose feet he saw desti- 
 tution yawning, was taking life as she had always 
 done, en princesse. He wondered what possible con- 
 ception she had formed of her situation. Sooner or 
 later he must tell'her what it was. 
 
Captain Butler believed that his old friend 
 had died a bankrupt ; he represented the estate as 
 insolvent, and the sale of the property took place at 
 the earliest possible day. A red flannel flag, on 
 which the auctioneer's name was lettered, was hung 
 out from the transome above the front door, and at 
 ten o'clock on a dull morning when the sea-turn was 
 beginning to break in a thin, chilly rain, a long 
 procession of umbrellas began to ascend the front 
 steps, where Helen had paused to cast that look 
 of haughty wonder after the retreating policeman. 
 The umbrellas were of all qualities, from the silk 
 that shuts into the slimness of a walking-stick, to 
 the whity-brown, whale-bone ribbed family umbrella, 
 under which the habitual auction-goer of a certain 
 size and age repairs to her favourite amusement. 
 Many of the people had a suburban look, and some 
 even the appearance of having arrived by the Fitch- 
 burg railroad ; but there was a large proportion of 
 citizens, and a surprising number of fashionably 
 dressed ladies, who, nevertheless, did not seem to 
 be of that neighbourhood ; they stared curiously 
 about them, as if they had now for the first time 
 G 
 
98 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 entered a house there. They sat down in the sad 
 old parlour, and looked up at the pictures and the 
 general equipment of the room with the satisfied air 
 of not finding it after all any better than their own. 
 One large and handsome woman, whose person 
 trembled and twinkled all over with black bugles, 
 stood in the middle of the floor, and had the effect 
 of stamping upon the supposed pride of the place. 
 People were prowling all over the house, from cellar 
 to garret, peering into closets and feeling of walls 
 and doors ; several elderly women in feeble health 
 were to be met at the turns of the stairways, pressing 
 their hands against their chests, and catching their 
 breath with difficulty. Few, apparently, of the con- 
 course had come to buy ; but when the sale began 
 they densely thronged the rooms in which the bidding 
 successively went on, and made it hard for one 
 another to get out of the packed doorways. The 
 whole morning long the auctioneer intoned his chant 
 of "A half, and a half and half, do-Ihear-the-three- 
 quarters^' varied with a quick "■Sold!" as from time 
 to time he knocked off this lot or that. The cheaper 
 carpets, chairs, beds, and tables were bought for the 
 most part by certain fading women who bid with a 
 kind of reluctant greed, and got together each her 
 store of those mismated moveables which characterise 
 furnished lodgings. They wore cheap camel's hair 
 wraps and thread gloves ; others, who seemed poor 
 mothers of families, showed their black stubbed 
 finger-tips, pressed anxiously together outside the 
 edges of imitation India shawls, and bid upon the 
 
A woman's reason. 99 
 
 kitchen crockery. The Copleys were bought, as 
 Captain Butler had expected, by the Museum of Fine 
 Arts ; the other paintings were bought by men who 
 got them low to sell again, and in whose ruinous 
 bazaars they were destined to consort with second- 
 hand refrigerators and strips of dusty carpeting. 
 
 Captain Butler would gladly have stayed away 
 from the auction, but his duty in the matter was not 
 to be avoided. Helen had given him a list of things 
 to be reserved from the sale, which she had made 
 out under two heads. The first was marked "For 
 self," and this was VBry short, and easily ma.naged 
 by setting the things aside before the sale began. 
 But the list of articles " To be given away,'' was on 
 a scale which troubled the Captain's conscience, while 
 it forlornly amused him, by its lavish generosity ; 
 the girl had done charity to an extent that wronged 
 the creditors of the estate, and that put it quite 
 beyond Captain Butler's power to humour her unwit- 
 ting munificence by purchasing the things to give 
 away. He used a discretion with which he invested 
 himself, to put all the valuable articles up at the sale, 
 and bestowed in charity only the cheaper matters on 
 Helen's list. Even then, the auction was an expen- 
 sive afiair to him. -He was unable to let certain 
 things, with which he intimately associated his old 
 friend, pass" into the hands of strangers, especially 
 things connected with the India trade. He bought 
 the Chinese vases and bronze monsters, the terra 
 cotta statues and ivory carvings, the outlandish 
 weapons, and Oriental bricabrac, which in the age 
 
100 A woman's reason. 
 
 of Eastlake mantel-shelves, then setting in with 
 great severity, he discovered to be in great request. 
 
 His dismay increased as these costly and worthless 
 treasures accumulated upon his hands, for his house 
 was already full of them, to the utmost cnpacity of 
 its closets and out-of-the-way corners. Besides, he 
 laid himself open to the suspicion of bidding in, and 
 remained under that doubt with many. He had 
 a haughty way of outbidding that stood him in no 
 good stead, and went far to convince the crowd that 
 all the sales to him were sham. 
 
 The, auction, which began in the basement, as- 
 cended through the several stories, wandering from 
 room to room till it reached the remotest attic 
 chamber. Then, all the personal property had been 
 sold, and it descended again to the first floor, where 
 the crowd was already much thinner than at first, 
 and was composed mainly of respectable-looking 
 citizens who had come to bid on the house, or to 
 see how much it would bring. The fashionably- 
 dressed women were gone ; it was not long before 
 the last auction-goer's whity-brown umbrella, ex- 
 panded after the usual struggle, went down the front 
 steps, and round the next corner. The auctioneer 
 took his stand in the parlour before the pier-glass, — 
 into which Helen looked that day to see whether 
 her trouble with Eobert had changed her, — with the 
 long windows of the swell-front on either side of 
 him. He was a young man, eager to win his 
 reputation. He had been praised to Captain Butler 
 as a frightfully vulgar wretch, who could get him 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 101 
 
 more for the property than any other auctioneer 
 in the city, and the Captain had taken him with 
 certain misgivings. As he now confronted his 
 respectable audience, he kept his hat a little aslant ; 
 he had an unlighted cigar in his left hand, which 
 he put into his mouth from time to time, and chewed 
 upon nervously ; his eyes shone with a gross, 
 humorous twinkle, and his whole face expr'essed 
 a reckless audacity, and a willingness to take other 
 people into the joke of life's being a swindle, anyway. 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " I feel honoured in being 
 the instrument, however humble, of offering this 
 property to your consideration ; this old family 
 mansion, rich in tradition and association, in the very 
 heart of the most select quarter of Boston. You 
 have already examined the house, gentlemen, from 
 attic to cellar, you have seen that it is in perfect 
 repair, and that it has no concealments to make — 
 ' nothing extenuate nor aught set down in malice,' 
 as our coloured brother says in the play. I will 
 not insult your intelligence, gentlemen, by dwelling 
 upon its entire soundness. Built forty years ago, 
 it is this day a better house than the day its founda- 
 tions were laid — better than nine-tenths of the 
 gaudy and meretricious conceptions of modem archi- 
 tecture. Plain, substantial, soberly elegant, — these, 
 gentlemen, are its virtues, which, like ' 
 
 ' A bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied.' 
 
 Gentlemen, I will not ask your attention to the eligible 
 
102 A woman's reason. 
 
 position of the house. I see none but Boston faces 
 here, and I am proud to take it for granted that you 
 need no instrrctions from me upon this point. When 
 I say that this is one of the best sites on Beacon 
 Hill, I say everything. You know the value of the 
 location, you know the character of the social sur- 
 roundings, — you know what I mean, and all that I 
 mean. I do not appeal to strangers here. I appeal 
 to the old Boston blood, animated by a generous 
 affection for our city and its history, and unwilling 
 to see dishonour cast upon her by the sale, even in 
 these ruinous times, of a property in her midst at 
 less than its full value. Gentlemen, I feel that you 
 will stand by me in this matter; and I have the 
 pleasure of opening the sale with a bid of |10,000. 
 Is this so, Mr. Wetherall ?" 
 
 The gentleman addressed, in the midst of the 
 laughing crowd, nodded slightly. 
 
 The auctioneer looked keenly at the faces in an 
 irregular semicircle before hira. " With a bid of 
 $10,000 from Mr. Wetherall," he resumed. "Mr. 
 Wetherall, gentlemen, does not want the property, 
 and he does not dream of getting it at a sixth or 
 seventh — in any other times I should say a tenth — 
 of its value. But he does not choose that it shall be 
 disgraced by the offer of anyignobler sum ; and, gentle- 
 men, if Mr. Wetherall had not made this bid I should 
 have made it myself in good faith. I am offered 
 ten thousand, ten thousand, ten thous — eleven, from 
 Mr. Wheeler. You don't want the property either, 
 Mr. Wheeler, but I thank you nevertheless. Eleven, 
 
A woman's reason. 103 
 
 eleven, eleven— do I hear the twelve 1 Twelve from 
 Mr. White. The W.'s are doing well, but we must 
 mount higher yet in the alphabet. Twelve, do I 
 hear the thirteen t Five hundred ! Thanks : twelve 
 five, twelve five — thirteen. Going at thirteen, at 
 thirteen — fourteen ! This is something like, gentle- 
 men ; this is very good as a genteel relaxation ; four- 
 teen has its merits as part of the joke ; but, gentle- 
 men, we must not give too much time to it. We 
 mitst come to business, before long ; we must indeed. 
 I am willing to accept these ironical bids for the 
 present, but — fifteen, did you say, Mr. Newell? 
 Thank — you for fifteen. I am off'ered fifteen, fifteen, 
 fifteen, by an eminent American humorist ; fifteen, 
 fifteen, going at fifteen 1 Oh come, gentlemen ! 
 Some one say twenty, and let the sale begin seriously." 
 Nobody had bidden twenty, but at that moment a 
 greedy-eyed, nervous little man, with a hot air of 
 having hurried to arrive, wedged his way through 
 the people who filled the doorway, and entered the 
 opener space inside with a bid of five hundred. A 
 roar of laughter rewarded his ardour, and the 
 auctioneer instantly went on : " Twenty thousand, 
 five ; twenty thousand, five. Now we are really 
 warming to the work. We have reached the point 
 at which blood begins to tell. Twenty thousand, 
 five from Mr. Everton — do I hear the twenty-one 1 
 Yes, right again ; I do hear the twenty-one, and 
 from Mr. Newell, who redeems his reputation from 
 the charge of elegant trifling, and twenty-two from 
 Mr. White, who also perceives that the time for 
 
104 A woman's reason. 
 
 jesting is past. Going at twenty-two, at tWenty-two, 
 twenty-two ! Do I hear twenty-three 1 No, only 
 twenty-two, three ; I regret to say it is only twenty- 
 two, three." 
 
 A quick succession of small bids now ran the sum 
 up to twenty-four thousand, at which point it hung 
 in spite of all the devices of the auctioneer to urge it 
 beyond. " Going, going, going," — he swung his right 
 hand threatingly above the open palm of his left — 
 " going to Mr. White at twenty-iowc thousand dollars ! 
 Are you all done?" He scanned the crowd, and 
 pierced it to the outer circle with his audacious glance. 
 "Going at twenty-four thousand dollars to Mr. 
 White. Are you all done, twice 1 Are you all done, 
 three times ? Going once, going twice, going — 
 Gentlemen," said the auctioneer, putting his cigar 
 in his mouth and his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, 
 and addressing them in a low, impassioned tone, 
 " Gentlemen, it 's no money for it ! I should feel 
 ashamed, personally disgraced, if this property went 
 for siich a sum. I should know that it was owing to 
 some fault of mine, some failure on my part to im- 
 press its value upon you. But I have trusted to your 
 own sagacity, to your own intelligence, to the fact 
 that you are all Boston men, and thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with the prices of adjacent property, and 
 the worth of this. I may have deceived myself; but 
 I appeal to you now, gentlemen, not to let me suffer 
 by the confidence I have reposed in you. My pro- 
 fessional repute is in your hands. If this estate goes 
 at $24,000 I am a ruined man." A general laugh, in 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 105 
 
 which the auctioneer himself joined so far as to smile, 
 met this appeal. He ran his eye over the assembly. 
 Suddenly he exclaimed, " Thank you, Mr. Everton ! 
 Was it twenty-six !" He leaned forward over his 
 desk, and beamed with a flattering gratitude upon 
 the new-comer. 
 
 " No, twenty -four, fifty," replied Mr. Everton in a 
 weak, dry voice. 
 
 " Thank you all the same, Mr. Everton. You are 
 none the less my preserver. Thank you for twenty- 
 four, fifty. We breathe again. Twenty-four, fifty, 
 — do I hear the five ? Twenty-four, fifty, — will 
 you give me the five % Twenty-five, very good, 
 twenty-five thousand, twenty-five, twenty-five — just 
 one-fourth of the worth of the estate in prosperous 
 times. Now let me hear the twenty-six ! Gentle- 
 men," said the auctioneer, again breaking from his 
 chant, and lowering his voice to the colloquial tone, 
 " you all know the old story of the sibyl and her 
 books : how, when she came with nine copies in the 
 first instance, she asked a sum which struck the 
 officials as a fancy price ; how she went away and 
 burnt three of the edition and then asked twice the 
 original price for the six ; and how, when she had 
 burnt three more, they were glad to take the rest off 
 her hands at her own terms. We have here a 
 parallel case." 
 
 " Don't see the parallel," said one of the crowd. 
 
 " Don't you, Mr. Kogers ? Well, you will, pre- 
 sently, when you 've failed to buy this property for 
 half the money that you 'd be glad to offer the pur- 
 
106 A woman's reason. 
 
 ■ chaser for his bargain. Do I hear twenty-six from 
 you, Mr. Rogers?" Mr. Eogers laughed and nodded. 
 "Twenty-six it is from Mr. Rogers. Twenty-six, 
 twenty-six, twenty-six, will you give me the seven V 
 He went on crying this sum in varying tones of exulta- 
 tion, reproach, and persuasion for several minutes. 
 Again and again he brought himself to the point of 
 knocking off the house at that price, and then retired 
 from it upon some fresh pretence of having heard a 
 higher bid. But none came, or could be made to 
 seem to have come ; every one to whom he turned 
 with a questioning look shook his head in prompt 
 denial. The auctioneer's mobile countenance took 
 on an air of deep discouragement. He threw aside 
 his mallet, and pulled down his waistcoat. " I won't 
 sell this property at that price. I suppose there are 
 men in this city who would do it, but / won't. Captain 
 Butler, I should like a word with you." He came 
 down from his perch, and retiring to a comer with 
 the Captain talked with him in a dumb show of bitter 
 and passionate appeal. When he again mounted to 
 his place, he wore a look of grim despair. " Well, 
 gentlemen, I have done my best to persuade Captain 
 Butler to withdraw the property, and stop this bloody 
 sacrifice." The crowd laughed and the auctioneer's 
 eye twinkled. " But he feels bound by the terms of 
 his notice to you to let the sale proceed. The pro- 
 perty will be sold without reserve. Now let us see 
 whether you will meet him in the same magnanimous 
 spirit." Captain Butler looked on in blank amaze 
 while this statement was making ; but an intenser 
 
A "WOMAN'S REASON. 107 
 
 surprise was painted upon the face of Mr. Wetlierall 
 as the auctioneer proceeded : " Twenty-seven, twenty- 
 seven." 
 
 " Twenty-six was the last bid," said a bystander. 
 
 " JExcuse me, sir,'' retorted the auctioneer severely, 
 "I don't think I deceived myself in a nod from my 
 friend Mr. Wetherall. Twentj-seven ! " 
 
 Mr. Wetherall seemed struggling to open his 
 petrified mouth in protest, when Mr. Everton quickly 
 bid twenty-seven five hundred. Mr. Wetherall 
 turned sharply upon him and bid twenty-eight. 
 The keen auctioneer scented their rivalry, and played 
 upon it so artfully that in five minutes the property 
 was going at thirty thousand, to Mr. Everton. He 
 came to the third going, in his thrice-repeated warn- 
 ing, when he once more paused, and leaning forward, 
 bent a look of pitying incredulity upon the faces 
 before him. " Gentlemen," he asked in an accent of 
 soft reproach, " is this Boston ? " 
 
 His audience again roared their pleasure, and the 
 auctioneer, leaving his place, stepped forward and 
 personally approached several gentlemen of the group 
 in a conversational tone. " Mr. Wetherall, am I 
 going to have nothing more from you 1 Mr. White, 
 what do you say 1 You know this house is worth 
 more than thirty thousand, and whoever buys it will 
 have a dozen people after him tomorrow offering to 
 take his bargain off his hands at an advance. Mr. 
 Merritt, we haven't heard from you at all yet, 
 I believe. You've been enjoying the show for 
 nothing : it isn't your custom to dead-head yourself 
 
108 A woman's reason. 
 
 on these occasions. And you, sir, — I can't call your 
 name, but I know your face ; I 've seen it in State 
 Street often — can't I get a bid out of you 1 " The 
 gentleman addressed coloured, and shrank further 
 back in the crowd. The auctioneer smiled in perfect 
 good-humour, and turned away for another word 
 with Captain Butler in private. 
 
 " Captain," he whispered, " Mr. Everton is going 
 to buy this property. Do you think he will stand 
 another five thousand 1" 
 
 Captain Butler, who seemed in a sort of daze, 
 said, " I don't believe he will. But if you — " 
 
 " I '11 get it," said the auctioneer briskly, and re- 
 turned to his woik, into which he struck with a sudden 
 and startling energy. "Going at thirty thousand, 
 go — . Thirty-one, thirty-one, thirty-one; at thirty- 
 two; thirty two, five; thirty-three, thirty-three — and 
 five ; thirty-four ! " He clashed off the bids with a 
 rapid confidence that would have inspired belief in the 
 most scepticaL Mr. Wetherall bid thirty-four thou- 
 sand five hundred, and was instantly topped by Mr. 
 Everton at thirty-five. " Thirty-five, thirty-five, 
 thirty-five," cried the auctioneer, "going at thirty- 
 five thousand, going, going, going, and sold — given 
 away — to Mr. Everton ! " 
 
 Mr. Everton came forward, with a half-frightened 
 look, and laid down the money necessary to secure 
 his purchase, and received a provisional deed of the 
 property. 
 
 "Look here !" said Captain Butler, as soon as he 
 could get the auctioneer aside, " I didn't hear any of 
 
A WOMANS REASON. 109 
 
 these bids till Wetherall's last." The Captain looked 
 troubled and unhappy. 
 
 The auctioneer laid a re-assuring hand upon his 
 shoulder. " You haven't got a practised ear, Captain 
 Butler. / have. Mr. Everton has got a great bar- 
 gain. But it was hard, working up to that final 
 point." 
 
VI. 
 
 " What perplexed me the most about it," said the 
 Captain to Mrs. Butler, when he came home the day- 
 after the sale, "was that the auctioneer had so 
 misrepresented his first talk with me. He never 
 asked me to withdraw the property at all ; he knew 
 I couldn't; he merely offered to bet me that he 
 would get thirty thousand for it. Well! I don't 
 see what I could do about it. I couldn't have 
 proved that the bids were fictitious, and the attempt 
 to try would have made a great scandal. That 's the 
 way Hibbard looks at it ; I went to him for advice ; 
 I put the case to him, and he says that there 's no 
 way of going back of the fact, for the auctioneer 
 would swear, to save himself, that he heard the bids, 
 or thought he did. Most probably he did ; it was all 
 confusion; and my not having heard them proves 
 nothing at all. Besides, Everton was not obliged 
 to bid thirty-five thousand, and he d-id get a great 
 bargain. The property is worth fifty, in any decent 
 times. And that extra five thousand is a perfect 
 godsend for Helen, poor girl ! It 's all she '11 have 
 in the world. I tell you, my dear, I haven't had 
 many things in life that gave me more satisfaction 
 
 110 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. Ill 
 
 than meeting the principal creditors to-day. You 
 see, when I looked into his aifairs with Joshua the 
 day he died I was very badly discouraged. They 
 were all in confusion ; he seemed to have lost his 
 grip of them; I suppose it was his failing health, 
 but he couldn't make head or tail of anything ; and 
 when I was appointed administrator I reported the 
 estate insolvent. It was precipitate — " 
 
 "It was like you, my dear," said Mrs. Butler. 
 " You never believe that anything is wrong till you 
 believe that everything is wrong." 
 
 " Well, well— very likely," returned the Captain. 
 "I had what I thought very good reasons for my 
 course. But afterwards I set a shrewd hand at work 
 on the books, and we found out that things were 
 very much better, as I told you at the time. When 
 a man's affairs are in such confusion as Joshua's, the 
 confusion is usually against him, but in this case it 
 was mostly for him. There wasn't a day after I 
 reported the estate insolvent that the case didn't 
 brighten. If it had been any other case, I should 
 have been mortified at the way things turned out. 
 To be sure, I didn't believe there 'd be anything for 
 Helen, but before the sale I saw that unless the 
 property went for nothing the estate would pay all 
 Joshua's debts, dollar for dollar. This morning we 
 called a meeting of the creditors. They had the 
 notion they were going to lose, and they were 
 prepared for that. When I told them how matters 
 really stood they were tremendously taken aback. 
 But they had behaved very handsomely all along. 
 
112 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 out of respect for Joshua's memory, and they came 
 out strong now about him, and said such things — 
 well, / can't tell you," said the Captain. "But," he 
 added confusedly, " I wish Harkness could have 
 been there !" 
 
 " Perhaps h^ was," said Mrs. Butler devoutly. 
 
 " Eh 1" cried the Captain sharply. "Ah! Yes! 
 Well, perhaps. Old Eogers asked me to wait a 
 minute, and they had a little confabulation among 
 themselves, and then Rogers came forward and asked 
 if there would be anything left for Helen. Then I 
 told them the estate had yielded |5000 more than 
 the indebtedness, so far as I knew of it ; and we had 
 congratulations all round, and if Joshua had been 
 alive to resume, he might have started business again 
 on a better basis than ever he had in his life. I wish 
 — confound it ! — I could be sure about those bids." 
 
 "Why, my dear ! " cried his wife, "you talk as if some 
 fraud had been really committed. Can't you look at 
 it as Mr. Hibbard does 1 Probably the man did hear 
 the bids. He wouldn't have dared to pretend that he 
 heard them ; it wouldn't have been safe for him." 
 
 "No," said the Captain thoughtfully. "Why, of 
 course not," he added briskly, after a moment. " Of 
 course you're right about it. He wouldn't have 
 dared. Where's Helen?" 
 
 He went down and found Helen on the rocks by 
 the sea, where she often strayed apart from the 
 others ; they did not follow her, they respected 
 her right to what solitude she would. Her sorrow 
 was no longer a thing of tears and sobs; but it 
 
A woman's reason. 113 
 
 was no more comprehensible than at first; her 
 bereavement still seemed the one great unreasoned 
 fact of the universe. She turned the pathos of 
 her bewildered smile upon the Captain, as she heard 
 him climbing the rocks behind her, and rose to 
 meet him. 
 
 " No, sit down," he said. " I want to have a little 
 talk with you, Helen, as your man of business." 
 
 "You're my man of business as — as — papa was,'' 
 said Helen, with a grateful look. 
 
 "Thank you, my dear, for that," answered the 
 Captain. " I 've only tried to do what he would 
 have done for my girls. I don't know, my dear, 
 whether I had ever given you the idea that your 
 father was in embarrassed circumstances 1 " 
 
 " yes; I knew that," said Helen. 
 
 " Well, we won't enlarge upon the fact. It isn't 
 necessary. Would you like me to go into particulars 
 about the settlement of the estate ? " 
 
 " No," answered Helen, "that isn't necessary either. 
 I shouldn't be any the wiser if you did. Tell me 
 whatever you think I ought to know, Captain 
 Butler." 
 
 "I was very much afraid, my dear," said the 
 Captain, " when I began to look into your father's 
 affairs that there would be nothing, or worse than 
 nothing, left." This did not seem to affect Helen as 
 a matter of personal concern, and the Captain went 
 on : " There was a time when I was afraid that the 
 creditors would not get more than seventy-five per 
 cent, of their money, and might be very glad to get 
 
 H 
 
114 A woman's REASON. 
 
 that." Helen looked round at the Captain with a 
 quick glance, as if here were something that touched 
 her. "But as I got along towards the bottom, 
 things looked better, and I saw that unless the sale 
 turned out very badly, we should save ourselves. 
 The sale turned out far beyond my expectations. — 
 Helen," cried the Captain, "the prospect now is that 
 I shall pay up every cent that your father owed in 
 the world, and have some five thousand dollars left 
 for you." 
 
 " Oh, Captain Butler !" 
 
 " It isn't a great sum — " 
 
 " It's more than I dared to dream of !" 
 
 " But if it 's carefully handled, it can be made to 
 go a great way." 
 
 " Oh, it 's ample, ample ! But I don't care for 
 that. What I think of — and I feel like going down 
 on my knees for it — is that no one \(j^T'\njthing 
 by papa. He would rather have died than\ ^ jnged 
 any one, and that any one should have 'Offered 
 by him after he was helpless to repair the wrong, 
 that would have been more than the bitterness 
 of death to me. Oh, I 'm so happy about this, 
 Captain Butler; you can't think how much more of 
 a comfort it is than anything else could have been ! " 
 
 " You 're a good girl, Helen," said the Captain, 
 with a reverent fondness ; " you 're your father's 
 girl, my dear. He would have died a rich man if 
 he had not stood by people whom he knew to bo in 
 a bad way, because they had helped him long ago, 
 when it was no risk for them to do so." 
 
A WOMAN S REASON. 115 
 
 "He was right!" cried Helen. "He would not 
 have been papa if he had done less." 
 
 " I should not have said he was right," said Cap- 
 tain Butler, "if he had not believed that he had 
 already put you beyond want. He had insured his 
 life for twenty-five thousand dollars in the Metro- 
 politan Reciprocal ; but that went to pieces two 
 years ago.'' 
 
 "That's nothing. I couldn't have managed so 
 much money," promptly answered Helen. " The five 
 thousand will be enough, and more than enough, for 
 my utmost desires. I 'm not extravagant. I can get 
 on with very little, and this is wildly abundant." 
 
 The Captain, from rejoicing in her mood, suddenly 
 looked aghast, as if a terrible idea had presented 
 itself. " You understand, Helen," he said, " that it 
 will be some time yet — six months at least — before I 
 can place, 'b money due you at your disposal. It 
 isn't Cc. linly due you till all the creditors have had 
 full notice to present their claims, and these have 
 been passed upon by the commissioners." 
 
 " Oh, that makes no difierence," said Helen. 
 "I 'm in no haste for the money." 
 
 " And you understand," pursued the Captain, as 
 if this were really the point he wished to insist on, 
 " that it is only five thousand 1" 
 
 "0 yes, I understand perfectly," quickly an- 
 swered the girl, and then she stopped, and cast a 
 keen glance at the Captain, without, however, seem- 
 ing to perceive his chopfallen aspect : she was, 
 perhaps, looking deeper. 
 
116 A woman's reason. 
 
 " You haven't brought any more letters for me, 
 I suppose 1 " she said. 
 
 "No, I must have got everything the last time," 
 replied the Captain. " I went carefully through all 
 the drawers again before the sale began." 
 
 " I shall ask you to take care of those law-papers 
 for me, Captain Butler ; I don't know what to do 
 with them. The letters were all recent ones. I 
 thought there might have been some old ones. Not 
 that I have missed any. But you did sometimes 
 lose home letters when you were off on those long 
 voyages of yours, didn't you 1 " 
 
 " No, very few," the Captain responded. " We 
 get them nearly all, sooijer or later." 
 
 "But sometimes they had to wander about after 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes, sometimes. And sometimes they waited." 
 
 "It must have been terribly distressing," said 
 Helen, " to wait for them." 
 
 " Well," returned the Captain, " that depended a 
 good deal on whom the letter was from." Helen 
 flushed a little. " There were some letters that I 
 shouldn't have cared if I 'd never got. But, generally 
 speaking, the fellows in the navy had the advantage 
 of us in the merchant service." 
 
 " I don't see why," said Helen. 
 
 " Oh, their letters were addressed to them through 
 the Navy Department, and of course they came the 
 straightest and safest way. I recollect once at Singa- 
 pore," and the Captain went on with much circum- 
 stance to give a case in point. Helen had furnished 
 
A woman's reason. 117 
 
 him a thread of associations which the Captain 
 never willingly dropped. She listened at first 
 with interest, then patience, then respect. At last 
 she said it was getting a little chilly, and Captain 
 Butler agreed that it was. They went back to the 
 house together, and parted on the piazza, where 
 Helen paused a moment to say : " I haven't thanked 
 you, Captain Butler, because it seemed no use to try. 
 Where should I end?" 
 
 " Don't begin," said the Captain, with the smile 
 which he kept for Helen ; she was as dear to him as 
 his own daughters, and just strange enough to be a 
 colour of romance in his thoughts. It alwaj's 
 astonished him, and slightly aba,shed him that she 
 should be a young lady ; she had so long been a 
 little girl. 
 
 She looked fondly into his kind eyes. " It is too 
 much — too much !" she cried, and slipped away with 
 a fallen head. 
 
 The words made the Captain think of the money 
 again, and the smile went and the trouble came 
 back to his face, as he walked away to find his wife. 
 
 " WelH" said Mrs. Butler. 
 
 " Catharine,'' said the Captain, " I 'm afraid she 
 thinks it 's five thousand a year." 
 
 " no, she doesn't !" pleaded his wife. 
 
 " Yes, she does, my. dear. She spoke of it as an 
 enormous sum, and I hadn't the courage to make the 
 thing clear. I began to, and then gave it up. I 
 don't see what's to be done about it. I'm afraid 
 it's going to be a dreadful blow when she 'finds out 
 
118 A woman's reason. 
 
 what it really is." Captain Butler looked ruefully 
 at his wife. 
 
 "I think you're mistaken," said Mrs. Butler. " It 's 
 her ignorance of money that makes her think of five 
 thousand, and not the income from it ; but as you 've 
 raised the doubt she must be told that it is not five 
 thousand a year, and she must be told just how 
 much it is." The Captain groaned. " But you 
 needn't tell her, John. You 've gone through quite 
 enough. I will tell her." 
 
 Captain Butler looked ashamed, but relieved. 
 "Well, my dear, I must let you. It's shirking, but 
 I can't help it. You can manage it better than I 
 can. When I think of telling that poor child how 
 very little better than a beggar she is, my tongue 
 turns to a chip in my mouth." 
 
 " Yes, it 's hard. But suppose she 'd had nothing ?" 
 
 " Then something better than this might have 
 been done with the creditors. Some were old 
 friends. But you can't ask people to help a girl 
 who has five thousand dollars. It sounds pre- 
 posterous." 
 
 "I doubt whether Helen would have allowed herseK 
 to be helped in that way if she had known it, and how 
 could it have been kept from her ?" Mrs. Butler 
 rose to go to another room. 
 
 " Catharine," asked the Captain, "was it at Singa- 
 pore that I got that first letter of yours, after it 
 had chased me round so long ?" 
 
 "No; it was at Cape Town," said Mrs. Butler. 
 "Why?" 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 119 
 
 " I told Helen it was at Singapore." 
 
 "How in the world came you to be talking to 
 Helen of our old love-letters, my dear 1" 
 
 " Oh, she was asking if letters to the East didn't 
 often get lost. I don't know why she should have 
 happened to ask. But she did." 
 
 "I suppose," said Mrs. Butler simply, "she is 
 going to write to Eobert Fenton." 
 
 A light dawned upon Captain Butler ; he laughed 
 in a shamefaced way, and then he frowned a little. 
 "Wiy didn't she ask me outright which was the 
 best way to address him V 
 
 "How could she? She couldn't have asked her 
 own father. You wouldn't have wished your own 
 daughter to do it." 
 
 " Yes, I should," defiantly answered the Captain. 
 
 " Well, she wouldn't," replied Mrs. Butler. The 
 Captain was silenced, but not satisfied. He suflFered 
 Mrs. Butler to go, but remained still with that duped 
 smile, and did not half like it. 
 
 That night Helen came rather late and tapped at 
 Mrs. Butler's door. " It 's I — Helen — Mrs. Butlor. 
 Can I speak with you 1" 
 
 " Yes,' come in, Helen." 
 
 She pushed in impetuously. " I came to 'ask 
 Captain Butler's pardon for the mean little intriguing 
 way I got out of him how to address a letter to 
 Eobert Fenton. He must have told you !" 
 
 "He said you asked him if his letters from home 
 weren't lost sometimes," said Mrs. Butler, with a 
 little smile. "/ understood, my dear," she added. 
 
120 A woman's reason. 
 
 leaning forward to smooth Helen's hair, where she 
 had sunk on the cricket at her feet. " It was a 
 perfectly natural thing." 
 
 " yes, only too natural with me ! But I hate 
 and detest all that beating round the bush, in me, 
 even when I 'm doing it ; and what I came for now, 
 Mrs. Butler, is to ask you how I had better write to 
 Eobert.'' Neither found anything worthy of remark 
 in this second avowal of purpose, which might be 
 said in a manner to supersede the first. " If it 
 hadn't been for-my wretched shilly-shallying ways, I 
 shouldn't have to write to him at all. But now I 
 must. There is something — something — that I must 
 tell him for his own sake, and — for his peace of 
 mind. For if a person hates any one, especially if 
 it 's through a mistake, I don't think we ought to let 
 any foolish pride interfere ; do you, Mrs. Butler ?" 
 
 " No, Helen," said Mrs. Butler, with perfect intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 "That's what I think too, and it would be per- 
 fectly easy — more than easy — to write and tell him 
 that, and take the consequences, whatever they were. 
 You see it is just this : we had a quarrel before he 
 went away, — or not a quarrel, but a misunderstand- 
 ing ; that is, he misunderstood — and he was so vexed 
 with me that he wouldn't come to say good-bye. I 
 don't care for that. He did. perfectly right. But 
 what I can't forgive is his not trying to see papa, 
 and bid him good-bye. I can't bear to have him 
 think any longer that I was trifling with him, and 
 yet I can't write to him, when I think of the way he 
 
A woman's eeason. 121 
 
 treated papa. It seems very bad-hearted in him. 
 Of course, I didn't see how he covid have borne to 
 see papa under the circumstances, and feeling the 
 way he did towards me ; and, of course, if papa had 
 lived it would have been different, and if it hadn't 
 been for me, I know Robert wouldn't have done it, 
 for he's one of the best and kindest — " Helen 
 stopped, and Mrs. Butler waited a moment before 
 she answered. 
 
 "Did you ever think, Helen, that Eobert lored 
 your father like — not like you, not like a daughter — 
 but hke a son ? " 
 
 " Why, papa had always been a father to him !" 
 cried Helen. " Why shouldn't he ? " 
 
 " And were you never remiss with your father, 
 because you trusted that somehow, sometime, the 
 love you felt for him would more than make it up to 
 him?" 
 
 " Oh, a thousand times !" cried Helen, bowing her 
 head on Mrs. Butler's knees. 
 
 The pale hand continued to stroke her hair. 
 " That 's a risk we all take with those we love. It 's 
 an earnest of something hereafter, perhaps. But for 
 this world it isn't safe. Go, and write your letter, 
 my dear, and give Eobert all our love." 
 
 Mrs. Butler leaned forward, and kissed the beautiful 
 head good-night, and Helen, after a silent embrace, 
 went back to her room again. It was easy now to 
 write the letter which she had found so hard before, 
 and a deep peace was in her heart when she read it 
 over, and found no shadow of resentment or unkind- 
 
122 A woman's reason. 
 
 ness in it. She was glad to have abased herself so 
 utterly before him, to have put herself so completely 
 in his power. Now he might do as he pleased, but 
 he never could have it to say that he had misunder- 
 stood her, or that he had cause to think her proud 
 or cruel. 
 
 " Dear Robert," the letter ran, "it is five weeks 
 DOW since papa died. I wrote you a line to tell you 
 the sad news as soon as I could bring myself to put it 
 in words, and I suppose you will get that letter before 
 this reaches you. But for fear that it may fail (I 
 sent you a iiewspaper with the account, too), I will 
 tell you again, that it was very sudden, and while I 
 was away here at Beverley, where he expected to 
 join me in a day or two. It was at his ofiice ; 
 Captain Butler was there with him. I thought I 
 could tell you more about it; but I cannot. He 
 died of a disease of the heart. I will send a cutting 
 from another newspaper that will tell you more. 
 
 "The day before papa died I told him every- 
 thing about that last letter I wrote you, and he 
 took your part. The last words he spoke of you 
 were full of affection and sympathy. I thought you 
 would like to know this. You were mistaken about 
 that letter. Eead it again, and see if it doesn't mean 
 something different. But I 'm afraid you tore it up 
 in your disgust with me. Well, then, I must tell 
 you. I did love you all the time. There,^I don't 
 care what you think of me. You can't think less of 
 me than I do. 
 
 " The house has been sold, and everything in it. 
 
A woman's reason. 123 
 
 Papa did not leave a will, but I know he would have 
 liked you to have his watch, and I am keeping that 
 for you. 
 
 " I am with the Butlers at Beverley. They have 
 been everything to me, and are everything. 
 
 " Helen." 
 
 In Helen's tall hand it took three sheets of note- 
 paper to hold this letter ; the paper was very thin, 
 but she put on a double postage to make perfectly 
 sure, and she kept the letter till she went up to 
 Boston, and then posted it herself in the general 
 post-oflSce. 
 
VII. 
 
 Helen had been three weeks at the Butlers', and, 
 in spite of their goodness, which guarded her free- 
 dom, as well as all her wishes, she began to feel a con- 
 straint which she could not throw off. Life had 
 come to a pause with her, and when it should move 
 forward it must be seriously, and even sadly; and 
 she was morbidly conscious that she somehow 
 clogged the joyous march of Marian Butler's days. 
 There had been an effort to keep out of her sight 
 the preparations for the wedding, till she had pro- 
 tested against it, and demanded to see every dress. 
 But this very demand emphasised the dark difference 
 between her fate and her friend's, and Marian was 
 apologetically happy in Helen's presence, however 
 they both tried to have it otherwise. Once Marian 
 had explained with tears that she would like to put 
 it off for Helen's sake, if she could, but the time of 
 the marriage had been fixed with regard to so many 
 other matters that it could not be postponed. Helen 
 had answered that Marian made her very wretched 
 talking of such a thing, and that she must go at once 
 if Marian spoke of it again. They had embraced 
 with perfect tenderness and sympathy, and Helen 
 
A woman's reason. 125 
 
 had remained with the helpless feeling of her incon- 
 gruity in a house of rejoicing. It seemed to her 
 intolerable that she must bring her sorrow thither ; 
 she suffered till she could get away with it ; all they 
 did to make her feel at ease could only heighten her 
 trouble. She had waited with a painful patience till 
 the Captain should report to her on the settlement 
 of her father's affairs, and she could begin to shape 
 her future ; now that he had spoken she need wait 
 no longer. 
 
 She found Mrs. Butler in the parlour the morning 
 after she had written to Robert. 
 
 "Mrs. Butler," she said, "I want you to let me 
 go away next week." 
 
 "I can't bear to have you talk of leaving us, 
 Helen !" cried Mrs. Butler, with a wistful trouble in 
 her eyes and voice, yet as if she had expected this. 
 
 "Yes, I know," returned Helen, "but I must go. 
 It 's foolish and useless to keep staying on ; and now 
 that I 've made up my feeble mind about it, don't try 
 to stop me." 
 
 "Helen," said Mrs. Butler, "don't go! We all 
 want you to stay. We want you to go to Europe 
 with us — to be our guest, our child. Put away your 
 scruples, my dear — I understand them, and honour 
 them — and go with us.'' 
 
 " You know I can't, Mrs. Butler." 
 
 "But if your father had been living, you would 
 have felt free to accept our invitation." 
 
 " Perhaps. But it would have been different then. 
 Don't press me." 
 
126 A woman's reason. 
 
 " I 'm sorry, Helen," sighed Mrs. Butler. " I won't 
 press you. But stay with us, my dear. It does us 
 good to have you. Mr. Butler and I often talk of 
 it ; we all feel it. Say that j^ou '11 stay till we go 
 away, and then we '11 feel as if we had parted 
 because we must." Helen was standing before Mrs. 
 Butler, who had the girl's hands in hers, as she sat 
 in her easy-chair, and looked up into her evasive 
 face. 
 
 " No," said Helen, gently taking away her hands, 
 and sitting down near the other, "I couldn't. Don't 
 let us deceive ourselves. I 'm a shadow in the house ; 
 we all know it, and feel it. Nobody's to blame, 
 nobody can help it," she added quickly, to stay a 
 protest from Mrs. Butler, " but it 's true. You 
 see how I have to take my blackness out of tho 
 room when your friends come ; I give them a pain- 
 ful shock when they catch sight of me ; it checks 
 the pleasant things they would like to say ; and I 
 hate myself for glooming about the house in secret ; 
 I feel that I must cast a shadow on them even 
 through the walls and floors." 
 
 " Helen, dear, there 's no friend we have who is so 
 precious to us as you are !" 
 
 " yes — yes ! I know how kind you are. But 
 you see it can't be. I should have to go away at the 
 time of the wedding, and you had better let me go 
 before." 
 
 " Go away at the time of Marian's wedding ? Not 
 be— Why, Helen!" 
 
 "Yes. Think, Mrs. Butler! It couldn't be." 
 
A woman's reason. 127 
 
 Mrs. Butler was silent. " I shouldn't care for myself, 
 and I know you wouldn't care for yourselves ; but 
 the others have some rights which we mustn't over- 
 look. I should throw a chill over everything. I 
 couldn't endure that, and you can't persuade me, 
 Mrs. Butler ; you mustn't try." 
 
 Mrs. Butler looked really disconsolate. Helen 
 was right ; there was no possibility of gainsaying her, 
 much less of outreasoning her ; and Mrs. Butler was 
 one of those feminine temjDeraments, rather commoner 
 in New England than elsewhere, whom a good reason 
 absolutely silences : they may not often have it 
 themselves, but their reverence for truth and a clear 
 conclusion is such that they must bow to it in others. 
 The most that she could say was, " But you will 
 come back to us afterwards, Helen 1 You will come 
 after Marian is gone, to comfort iis, won't you? It 
 will be a month before we shall sail, and we should 
 so like to have you with us. We shall not be gay 
 ourselves, then, and you will feel more at home. I 
 won't oppose you now, dear, but you '11 promise me 
 that !" 
 
 " Yes," answered Helen, " I '11 come back, then, if 
 you want me." 
 
 " And where are you going, now 1 Where do you 
 mean to stay V 
 
 "I don't know. I thought I should go to the 
 Miss Amys — you remember them, don't you 1 — and 
 ask them to let me stay with them for the present. 
 I know they sometimes take people to board." 
 
 " yes, I remember them — on West Pomegranate 
 
128 A woman's reason. 
 
 Street ; one of those pleasant old houses, with the 
 threshold level with the side-walk. It will be a 
 good place," said Mrs. Butler, cheered with the 
 thought. "You must let Mr. Butler arrange for 
 you. He — " 
 
 " No," said Helen promptly ; " I am not going to 
 
 trouble Captain Butler any more. I must begin 
 
 taking care of myself now, and I can't begin too 
 
 ^soon. I have my own money, and I ought to know 
 
 how to use it." Human nature is such a very simple 
 
 vas well as complex thing, that Helen could feel a 
 
 '' childish pride in being absolute mistress of a certain 
 
 sum, and for the moment could forget the loss that 
 
 had endowed her with it. "I am going to be very 
 
 saving of it, Mrs. Butler." She smiled, but the 
 
 smile took away all hope from Mrs. Butler. She 
 
 looked at Helen in despair, and did not know how 
 
 to begin what she felt it on her conscience to say at 
 
 once. 
 
 " Oh, Helen ! " she broke out, and then checked 
 herself. 
 
 " What, Mrs. Butler 1" asked the girl, startled by 
 her accent. 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! I mean — ^has Mr. Butler told you 
 how much it is ?" Mrs. Butler was ashamed of her 
 flighty reluctance and indecision, and now took her- 
 self firmly in hand. 
 
 "Yes, it's five thousand dollars — so much more 
 than I ever — " 
 
 "Did you understand," interrupted Mrs. Butler, 
 " that it 's only five thousand in all ? Not — not five 
 
A woman's reason. 129 
 
 thousand a year?" Mrs. Butler was prepared for 
 the worst dismay that Helen could show, but Helen 
 showed none. On the contrary, she gave a little 
 laugh. 
 
 " Five thousand a year 1 No indeed ! Why, Mrs. 
 Butler, what have you been thinking of? That 
 would be insanity.'' 
 
 Mrs. Butler looked like one to whom the worst 
 dismay might have been welcomer than this cheer- 
 fulness : this might be a far more hopeless condition 
 than the realisation of the fact that the sum of 
 five thousand dollars was not a fortune ; Helen 
 might be thinking it was. Mrs. Butler felt obliged 
 to ask: "Do you know how much that wUI give 
 you to live on % " 
 
 "Not exactly," said Helen, "but not much, I 
 suppose." 
 
 Perhaps she thought a thousand a year. Mrs. 
 Butler must still go on. "Some of Mr. Butler's 
 Chicago mortgages bring him. nine per cent. That 
 would Tje five times ninety — four hundred and 
 fifty r 
 
 "Oh, I should never send my money away to 
 Chicago. I want it where I can put my hand on it 
 at once. I shall deposit it in savings-banks — like 
 Margaret— at six per cent., and then I shall get 
 three hundred a year from it.'' 
 
 " But, poor child ! you can't live upon that," 
 Mrs. Butler besought her. 
 
 " No, I must do something. I 'm determined never 
 to encroach upon the principal, whatever happens. 
 I 
 
130 A woman's reason. 
 
 Don't you think that 's the right way 1 I 've always 
 heard that it 's perfectly ruinous to live upon your 
 principal." 
 
 Mrs. Butler could not combat these just concep- 
 tions. " Have you thought what you shall do, 
 Helen V she asked. 
 
 " Yes, I 've been thinking about it nearly all night. 
 I couldn't sleep, and I thought I might as well think. 
 I couldn't decide. But one thing I have made up my 
 mind' I shall not do : I shall not paint holly-wood 
 boxes." They both laughed, the elder lady pityingly 
 and reluctantly. "In the first place, I paint 
 horridly; but that wouldn't make any difference. 
 What I couldn't do would be to ask the outrageous 
 prices which holly-wood boxes bring from sympathis- 
 ing friends when painted by young ladies in need. 
 Besides, I think the market must be overstocked. 
 Only consider, Mrs. Butler, how many holly-wood 
 boxes must have been painted by this time, and what 
 stores of them people must have laid by, that they 
 couldn't give away if Christmas came twice a year 
 from now till the millennium. And all so much alike, 
 too : a farm-house very deep in the snow ; the moon 
 monopolising the sky, and Santa Claus, very fuzzy 
 all over, and much too large for his sleigh, with his 
 reindeers and his pipe just of a size ; and fat robins 
 at each end of the box. No, you needn't be afraid 
 of holly-wood boxes fiom me, Mrs. Butler." 
 
 " Oh, Helen, you queer child !" laughed Mrs. Butler 
 helplessly. 
 
 "But I rcUl confess that when I thought of doing 
 
A woman's reason. 131 
 
 something for myself, holly- wood boxes popped into 
 my head the first thing. I suppose there 's really no 
 getting away from them. And, O yes ! I thought of 
 something else ; I thought of parlour-readings. AVhat 
 should you think of parlour-readings, Mrs. Butler?" 
 
 Mrs. Butler visibly cowered under the proposi- 
 tion, and Helen gave a wild laugh. " ' How they 
 brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix,' 
 don't you know 'i and Poe's ' Bells ; ' and ' Curfew 
 shall not ring to-night.' How would that do 1 
 Don't you believe that if it could be generally given 
 out, I might be handsomely bought off by public 
 subscription'! But I really needn't do anything at 
 once, Mrs. Butler,'' Helen went on seriously. "I've 
 got clothes enough to last me indefinitely, for I shall 
 expect to make over and make over, now; and I 
 shall take a very cheap little room at the Miss Amys', 
 and think it all over very carefully, and look about 
 before -I attempt anything. I 'm not afraid : I can 
 do all sorts of things. Don't — don't — sympathise 
 with me ! " she added, suddenly breaking. " That 
 kills me ! It disheartens me more than anything." 
 
 "She understands perfectly well how much she's 
 -got," Mrs. Butler reported to her husband. "She 
 had w.orked out just how much income it would be, 
 and she says she expects to do something to help 
 herself. But she is so cheerful about it that I don't 
 believe she does. There's something between her 
 and Robert Fenton." 
 
 "It would be the best thing that could happen," 
 said the Captain, with a sigh of relief. " I hope to 
 
132 A woman's reason. 
 
 the Lord it 's so ! But he 's off for three years ! " he 
 added, with dismay, 
 
 " She doesn't think of that. Or perhaps she hopes 
 he can get leave to come home — or something. 
 Besides, such a girl as Helen could wait thirty years," 
 said Mrs. Butler, viewing the affair in the heroical 
 abstract. " Her hope and her trust will support her." 
 "Morally, perhaps. But she would have to be 
 supported otherwise," said the Captain. He refused 
 to be wholly comforted by his wife's manner. Still, 
 its probability, in the absence of anything more sub- 
 stantial, afforded him a measure of consolation. At 
 any rate it was, to his thinking, the sole hopeful out- 
 look for Helen. Since the hard times began he had 
 seen so much futile endeavour by able and experi- 
 enced men, to get something to do for even a scanty 
 living, that he had grown sceptical of all endeavour 
 at self-help. Every year he was called upon to assist 
 at the disillusion of a score or more of bright young 
 spirits fresh from the University, with their academic 
 honours still green upon their brows, and eager for 
 victory in the battle of life. He knew the boys' fathers 
 and mothers, and of what excellent stock they came, 
 what honest fellows they were, and what good reason 
 ' there was to believe them capable of bearing their 
 " part with distinction in any place demanding quality 
 and talent, and training. But there seemed to be no 
 such place for them ; the world in which their sires had 
 I prospered did not want them, did not know what to 
 " do with them. Through the strange blight which had 
 fallen upon a land where there should be work for 
 
A woman's reason. 133 
 
 every one, and success for every one willing to work, 
 there seemed to be nothing but idleness and defeat 
 for these young men in the city of their ancestry 
 and birth. They were fit to lead in any common- 
 wealth, but the commonillness apparently would not 
 have them ; they were somehow anachronisms in 
 their own day and generation; they were too far 
 before or too far behind their time. The Captain 
 saw them dispersed in a various exile. Some tried 
 cattle-raising in Colorado ; some tried sheep-farming- 
 in Virginia, and some sheep-ranching in California. 
 There were others who tried cotton-planting in the 
 South and the orange-culture in Florida ; there were 
 others yet, bolder and more imaginative, who tried 
 the milk-farming in Massachusetts. The Captain 
 heard of their undertakings, and then he saw them 
 with their hats scrupulously on, at the club, which a 
 few of their comrades had in a superior wisdom never 
 abandoned. 
 
 They had got back, and they were not tO' blame. 
 Perhaps there was some error in the training of these 
 young gentlemen, which had not quite fitted them 
 to solve the simple yet exacting problem of making 
 a living. But then, people who had worked hard 
 all their lives were not now solving this problem. 
 Captain Butler thought of these nice fellows, and 
 how willing and helpless they were, and then he 
 thought, with compassion too keen for any expression 
 but grim laughter, of such a girl as Helen, and what 
 her training was for the task of taking care of herself. 
 It was probably the same as Marian's, and he knew 
 
134 A woman's reason. 
 
 what that was. They had in fact gone to the 
 same schools, and grown through the same circum- 
 stances into the same society, in which everything 
 they had been and had done fitted them to remain, 
 and which was very charming and refined, and good 
 in a good sense, and so very, very far from doing 
 anything for anything but culture's, or pleasure's, or 
 kindness' sake. 
 
 At five or six years of age, Helen had begun to 
 go with the other little girls of her station in life to 
 a school, in which the established language was 
 French, and in which she acquired a graceful and 
 ladylike use of that tongue. It stood her iri good 
 stead when she went abroad one summer with her 
 father, and she found that she spoke it as correctly 
 as most English girls she met, and a great deal more 
 readily. But she had too much sense to be sure of 
 her accent or her syntax; at Paris she found that 
 her French was good, but with a difference, and she 
 would not have dreamt of such a thing as teaching it. 
 In fact she had not thought of that at any time, and 
 she had no such natural gift for languages as would 
 have enabled her to master it without such a design. 
 
 From this school she went to others, where she 
 was taught what people must learn, with thorough- 
 ness and with an intelligence very different alike 
 from the old-fashioned methods of young ladies' 
 establishments, and from the hard, mechanical 
 processes of the public schools. She was made to 
 feel an enlightened interest in her studies; she 
 liked some of them very much, and she respected 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 135 
 
 those she did not like. Still she had not shown a 
 passionate preference for any particular branch of 
 learning; she had a ladylike ease and kindness 
 withal ; if she really hated anything it was mathe- 
 matics, but because she hated this she had been the 
 more conscientiously attentive to it. She had a good 
 taste in music, and fair skill. After she left school, 
 she had a musical enthusiasm, in the height of 
 which she devoted herself under her German in- 
 structor to many hours of practice every day, and 
 had her own ideas of becoming a great performer. 
 But these gave way to clearer conceptions of her 
 powers, and she remained an impassioned amateur 
 of musical genius in others. She went devotedly to 
 all the private musicales ; she was unfailing at the 
 rehearsals of the Symphony Concerts, and of the 
 Handel and Haydn Society. She made her father 
 join the Apollo Club for her, and she made him go 
 to some of the concerts with her. In those days 
 her talk was of Bach and Beethoven ; she thought 
 poorly of Italian music, though she was very fond of 
 the Italian operas. 
 
 It was to this period that her passion for the 
 German language also belonged. She had studied 
 German at school, of course, but it was not till after 
 leaving school that French was relegated to its true 
 place as something charming enough, but not serious ; 
 and German engrossed her. She read Goethe's and 
 Schiller's plays with her teacher, and Heine's songs 
 •with one of her girl-friends. She laid out a course 
 of reading in German, which was to include Schopen- 
 
136 A woman's reason. 
 
 hauer's philosophy, already familiar to her through 
 the talk of a premature Harvard man, who rarely 
 talked of anything else. But it never really came to 
 this ; German literature presently took the form of 
 drama, and after Helen's participation in a certain 
 number of German plays, it yielded to the pleasing 
 dance of the same name ; though not till it had 
 superseded Italian as well as French in her affections. 
 Dante, of course, one must always respect, but after 
 Dante, there was so little in Italian as compared 
 with German ! The soft throat from which the 
 southern vowels came so mellow roughed itself with 
 gutturals. But this, like music, was only for a time. 
 In the end, Helen was always a girl of sense. She 
 knew that she was not a German scholar, any more 
 than a great performer, and she would have shrunk 
 with astonished modesty from the notion of putting 
 such acquirements as she had in either to practical 
 use. She hid them away, when her frenzy for them 
 was past, as really so little that one ought to be 
 ashamed of them. 
 
 It was the same with painting — or Art, as she then 
 called it — in which it has a,lready been represented 
 that she at one time took a great interest. She 
 really liked it very much ; she had that feeling for 
 form and colour without which no dressmaker can 
 enable a young lady to dress exquisitely, and she 
 enjoyed form and colour in painting. But by and 
 by, as the class fanned itself down to the grains 
 of wheat in its large measure of amiable and well- 
 meaning chaff, Helen found that her place was with 
 
A woman's reason. 137 
 
 the chaff. It did not need the eye of the great 
 painter, glancing with a humorous gleam from her 
 work at her, to teach her this ; she had felt it 
 before, and she gave it up before she had conspicu- 
 ously disgraced herself. She was always very glad 
 to have taken to it ; the attempt to paint for herself 
 had cleared and defined her taste in painting, and 
 indefinitely enlarged the bounds of her knowledge 
 and enjoyment. But it had not done anything more, 
 and all that Helen had learnt and done had merely ( 
 had the effect that was meant : to leave her a 
 cultivated and agreeable girl, with bright ideas on 
 all sorts of pleasant subjects. She was, as the sum 
 of it, merely and entirely a lady, the most charming 
 thing in the world, and as regards anything but 
 a lady's destiny the most helpless. 
 
 It was the fact that Helen's life now seemed 
 wrenched and twisted so fai" from its rightful 
 destiny, which bowed Captain Butler over it in such 
 despair, and which well might strike pity into the 
 hardiest beholder. Her old friend saw no hope for 
 her but in the chance of there being something, as 
 his wife suggested, between her and Eobert Fenton. 
 Yet it was against this hope that Helen herself had 
 most strenuously steeled her heart. She had not 
 the least doubt of Robert. He was a gentleman, 
 and he would take what she had written in the 
 right way. She rested in such absolute faith in his 
 generosity, that she shrank from the possibility of 
 abusing it as from something like sacrilege. If 
 Eobert were that moment to come and ask her to 
 
138 A woman's reason. 
 
 marry him, she would not take him till she had 
 fairly won him again ; and if, when he had got her 
 letter, and thought it all over, he decided that she 
 was too light and flippant a girl to trust with his 
 happiness, she should know just how to take it. 
 She should not blame him; she should not think 
 him less kind and true ; he should be none the less 
 her hero. In fact, it seemed as if his willingness to 
 forget her folly would somehow mar the perfection 
 of her self-sacrifice. So, while she clung the most 
 fondly to the thought of him, it was with the 
 austerest readiness to give him up, and even a sort 
 of impatience. Women seldom reason, it is said ; 
 when they do so, it must be owned that it is with 
 passionate largeness. The sum of Helen's emotional 
 logic was that she must plan her future with as 
 much severity and seriousness, as much will to venture 
 and to endure, as if there were no Robert Fenton, 
 or ever had been, in the world. Her sole difficulty 
 was to imagine her future, and to begin to imagine 
 it, she must first escape from the affectionate restraint 
 of these kind friends of hers. She had no purpose 
 more definite than that. 
 
 When she went from Mrs. Butler to her own 
 room, the chamber did not seem spacious enough 
 for the tumult in her mind, and now that she had 
 resolved to go up to Boston that afternoon, and was, 
 as it were, already in motion, the inertness of the 
 place was intolerable. She put on a wrap and a hat, 
 and stole out to her accustomed place on the rocks. 
 It was a very still morning late in September, after 
 
A woman's reason. 139 
 
 the first autumn gales had blown themselves away, 
 and a glistening calm, with a deep heart of mellow 
 warmth, had followed. The sea sparkled and shone 
 with a thousand radiances in its nearer levels, and 
 in its distance was a blue that melted into a hardly 
 more ethereal heaven, a few white sails that might 
 have been wings showing palely at its confluence 
 with the sky. It washed languidly up the little 
 beach of the cove, and with a slow, sliouldering 
 action, softly heaved against the foot of the rocks 
 where the sea-weed flung up by the storm hung 
 drying its masses in the sun, and trailing its ribbons 
 in the tide. The air seemed to sparkle and burn 
 like the sea, and was full of the same pungent, 
 saline odours. 
 
 Helen came round a knot of twisted cedars that 
 hid her haunt from the house, and, climbing to the 
 perch where she was used to sit, found herself con- 
 fronted by a gentleman apparently in as great 
 trouble as herself at their encounter. She could not 
 mistake those sloping shoulders, that long neck, and 
 that inefifective chin : it was Lord Rainford, not now 
 in the blue yachting-stuff in which she had last seen 
 him, but in a morning costume which seemed to 
 make even less of him in point of personal attrac- 
 tiveness. Helen held the only pass by which he 
 could have escaped, and, much as she would have 
 liked to let him go, it was impossible for her to 
 yield without speaking. 
 
 "Ah — good-morning. I'm intiruding here, I'm 
 afraid, Miss — Harkness," he began. 
 
140 A woman's eeason. 
 
 " no,'' she said, and paused, not knowing just 
 wliat else to say. 
 
 "The fact is," the Englishman continued, " that I 
 had been calling with Mr. Ray, and he went back a 
 moment, and I stepped down here on the rocks, 
 and — " Helen perceived that he had taken in the 
 fact of her crapes, visiting them with a glance of 
 wistful pity, as if he would like to say something fit 
 and due about her bereavement. But he only asked, 
 after his abrupt pause, " Have you been always well 
 since I saw you 1" 
 
 She remembered Eay's praises of Lord Rainford, 
 and would have liked to put herself right with him. 
 She hated to have him thinking her flippant and 
 unfeeling, though she might have proved that it 
 was his fault she had been so. But she could think 
 of nothing more than "Thank you" to say; and 
 then she asked, " Have you been well 1 " 
 
 "Oh, very!" answered Lord Rainford; "my 
 American summer has quite set me up." 
 
 This seemed to imply that he had not been very 
 well when he came, but Helen did not ask. She 
 was thinking that when he should have a heavier 
 moustache and a beard to that feeble chin, his face 
 and neck might be helped ofi" a little, but nothing 
 could ever do anything for those shoulders. She 
 settled this in her mind before she said, rather 
 absently, " I am glad of that. You will be going 
 home soon, I suppose," she added, from mere dearth, 
 though it occurred to her that this might be set 
 down as an instance of the Yankee inquisitiveness 
 that Englishmen are always in quest of. 
 
A woman's reason. 141 
 
 " Yes ; I 'm going to sail to-morrow," said Lord 
 Rainford. "Your friends have promised to come 
 and see me in England." 
 
 "They told me," assented Helen. 
 
 " I 'm sure they owe me a revenge in that way," 
 continued the young man. "Mr. Eay has done 
 me no end of kindness. In fact everybody's been 
 most uncommonly kind. I couldn't say enough of 
 it!" 
 
 " I 'm glad you have enjoyed your stay here," said 
 Helen. " We Americans are rather weak about our 
 country. We like people to like it, and take it as a 
 personal favour when they do. I suppose none of 
 us,'' she added, "does anything to set even the least 
 important person in it before a stranger in a false 
 light, without feeling sorry." She examined Lord 
 Eainford's face for an instant before she dropped her 
 eyes, and saw it kindle with a delicate intelligence. 
 
 "I wish," he answered, "that I could be sure I 
 leave everybody in America as well pleased with me 
 as I am with all America." 
 
 " Good-bye,'' said Helen ; " we shall be making 
 international allusions to the language of Shake 
 speare and Milton in another minute." 
 
 "No," said Lord Rainford; "it seems to me you 
 don't care to do that any more. Very curious," he 
 added ; " I can't get the people I meet to say a good 
 word for their country. They all seem ashamed of 
 it, and abuse it, no end." 
 
 "That's because they want you to praise it," 
 suggested Helen. 
 
142 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Ah, but they won't let you praise it ! They '11 
 let you join them in crying it down." 
 
 " But you had better not." 
 
 "Ah, yes; very likely. I can't think that a 
 country where I 've met so many nice people, and 
 seen scarcely anything but order and comfort even 
 in these very bad times, can be going to the dogs ; 
 but I can't get anybody here to agree with me — that 
 is, in society. I don't understand it." 
 
 " I can't explain,'' said Helen, with a little smile, 
 " except by ' the settled opposition to our institutions 
 which pervades the British mind.'" 
 
 "Ah, Chuzzlewit ; I know. But you '11 excuse my 
 saying that I think your institutions have changed 
 for the worse in this respect since Mr. Pogram's time. 
 I think Pogramism is better than this other thing." 
 
 "What other thing?" asked Helen, not a great 
 deal interested. 
 
 " Why, this not talking of America at all. I find 
 your people — your best people, I suppose they are — 
 very nice, very intelligent, very pleasant — only talk 
 about Europe. They talk about London, and about 
 Paris, and about Rome ; there seems to be quite a 
 passion for Italy ; but they don't seem interested in 
 their own country. I can't make it out. It isn't as 
 if they were cosmopolitan ; that isn't quite the im- 
 pression, though — excuse my saying so — they try to 
 give it. They always seem to have been reading the 
 Fortnightly and the Saturday Review, and the Spectator, 
 and the Revue des Deux Mondes, and the last French 
 and English books. It 's very odd ! Upon my word, 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 143 
 
 at one dinner the Americans got to talking to one 
 another about some question of local finance in 
 pounds, shillings, and pence. I don't understand it. " 
 
 Lord Rainford seemed to find nothing ridiculous, 
 but only something mysterious in this, and reddened 
 a little when Helen laughed. 
 
 "Perhaps you're embittered because experience 
 has destroyed your ideal. You expected us all to call 
 you a Britisher, and to flaunt Bunker Hill Monument 
 in your face.'' 
 
 "Ah, now, do yo.u think that's quite fair, Miss 
 Harkness?" 
 
 Helen stooped a little sidewise and felt about her 
 skirts with her left hand for the loop of her train, in 
 that peculiar clawing and grappling manner which 
 once had its fascination for the idle spectator. "We 
 American women are accused of not caring any- 
 thing about our institutions," she said. She secured 
 the loop now, and, erecting herself, gave Lord Eain- 
 ford her right hand for good-bye. 
 
 A deeper red dyed the young man's face, as he 
 took her hand and detained it a moment. " Are 
 you going," he asked, and hesitated before he added, 
 with an abrupt change of tone : " I can't let you go, 
 Miss Harkness, without saying — withoiit saying — 
 without trying to say how very sorry I have felt at 
 — at — your bereavement. It came so soon after I 
 first saw you that — that I — ^thought you — thought 
 myself not altogether wrong to tell you. But, I 
 suppose, I shouldn't have spoken. I beg your 
 pardon !" 
 
144 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 "You are very, very kind, Lord Eainford," 
 answered Helen steadily, "and I thank you for 
 speaking of it. I know people usually avoid speak- 
 ing to others in — mourning — about it to spare them ; 
 but it 's better to recognise it ; I like it better than 
 trying to ignore it." 
 
 "I've always felt,'' pursued Lord Eainford, "that 
 I was painfully associated in your mind— I mean — I 
 don't know — 1 hope you won't always think of me 
 as a particularly disagreeable part of that day's ex- 
 perience." Lord Eainford still spoke with an awk- 
 ward halt and hesitation, but the genuine feeling 
 with which he seemed eager to leave Helen a better 
 impression dignified his manner. " If you won't 
 think it egotistical," he hastened to add, "I'll say 
 that I believe I 'm rather a serious man ; at least I 'm 
 a heavy one ; and when I attempt anything else, I — 
 I know I 'm disgusting — more disgusting than ordi- 
 narily. I was shocked — I can't tell you how much I 
 was shocked — to think I had followed you i:ip almost 
 to the moment of that — intelligence, with imbecilities 
 that must have been a — in distressing contrast. I 
 don't know whether I make myself clear — whether 
 I ought to speak — " 
 
 "0 yes!" cried Helen, touched at his assump- 
 tion of all the blame. " I 'm so glad you have spoken 
 of that, if only for the selfish reason that it gives me 
 a chance to say how ashamed I am of my own part 
 in it. I never thought of yours" — this was not 
 quite true, but we cannot be very generous and quite 
 true at the same time — " but it was the thought of 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 145 
 
 my own frivolity that sometimes helped to make 
 what followed so hard to bear. I was very rude.'' 
 
 "0 no, no!" answered the young man. "You 
 said nothing but what I richly deserved. If you 'd 
 only said more, I should have liked it much better 
 - — afterwards. But what I want you to think is, 
 that I shouldn't have done so badly, perhaps, if I 'd 
 been acting quite naturally, or in my own character. 
 That is—" 
 
 " I 'm afraid," said Helen, " that I can't ask you to 
 think that I was acting out of my character — or all 
 of my characters : I seem to have so many — " 
 
 " Yes,'' interrupted Lord Rainford,- " that 's what I 
 meant." 
 
 " It seems to me that it was only too much like 
 one of mine— the one I 'm most ashamed of. You 
 will have a pleasant time to cross, Lord Eainford," 
 she added, and took away her hand. 
 
 " Well, I don't know,'' said the other, accepting 
 the close of this passage of their interview, , and 
 answering from the conscientiousness in talk which 
 serves the English so well instead of conventional 
 politeness, and is not so pleasant, " there are apt to 
 be gales at this season, you know.'' 
 
 "0 yes, yes!" returned Helen, a little vexed at 
 herself. "Gales, yes. But I was thinking of the 
 equinoctial storm being past. They say it 's past now." 
 
 "I'm a good sailor," said Lord Eainford. "I 
 think I shall take a run over again, next year." 
 
 " You 've not got enough of America in three 
 months !" 
 
 K 
 
146 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 "No. I hope it hasn't got too much of me." 
 He looked at Helen as if he expected her to say 
 something civil on the part of her hemisphere. But 
 she refused to be the national voice, except very 
 evasively. 
 
 " Oh, we ought to be flattered that people care to 
 come back." 
 
 " You know," said Lord Rainford, " that I 've seen 
 almost nothing of the country yet. I 've not even 
 been in Washington, and I want to see Chicago and 
 San Francisco." Helen did not say that she could 
 not understand why, and Lord Eainford went 
 on. " I 'd only a few weeks in Canada, you 
 know, before I came down to Orchard Beach — I 
 think they call it — with some Montreal people, and 
 then I came to Boston, and I 've been about Boston 
 and Newport ever since. People have been extra- 
 ordinarily kind. I couldn't really get away, and as 
 I 'm going away rather prematurely now, I must come 
 back." 
 
 From this outline of his experience, Helen knew 
 quite accurately all its details. She could have 
 told just what had happened to him at Newport, 
 going thither with Boston introductions, what lawn- 
 parties, lunches, and dinners had been made for 
 him, and in whose carriage he had iirst driven to the 
 polo grounds. He had been perhaps once at the 
 Town and Country Club ; and he had been a good 
 deal at the bathing-beaches, although early assured 
 that nobody bathed there any more, and the Man- 
 hattan Yacht Club had sailed him over all the neigh- 
 
A WOMiN'S REASON. 147 
 
 bouring waters. He had seen the decay of the 
 custom of Fort Day, and had been told what 
 numbers of people used to go to the music in Fort 
 Adcams before polo began. When he returned to 
 Boston, it was too soon for society to have come 
 back in full force, but enough of it had got back to 
 show him with what intensity of hospitality the 
 sojourning Englishman, distinguished by rank, or 
 otherwise, or simply well accredited, is used among 
 us. Helen knew, without asking, the houses and 
 their succession, in which Lord Rainford had been 
 entertained, and she could have guessed pretty well 
 at what semi-civic feasts he had assisted. The 
 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 
 and Saturday Evening Clubs had all shared in 
 him, and he had listened to part of a lecture at the 
 Woman's Club. He had been taught much more 
 about the charitable, penal, and educational estab- 
 lishments of Boston, than any one Bostonian could 
 endure to know, and he had kept his original im- 
 pression that Boston reminded you of an English 
 town. If he was at all astonished, as a young man, 
 at the attentions heaped upon him, he must, as a 
 Lord, have been too much used to consideration in 
 his own country, to be surprised at it in ours. 
 Men vastly his superiors in everything but birth 
 liked to speak casually of him as that very nice 
 young Englishman, who had dined with them, and 
 to let the fact of his rank rather patronisingly escape 
 them in talk. People whose secret pride and dearest 
 prejudices he had unwittingly trodden into pulp in 
 
148 A woman's reason. 
 
 his plump expressions of crude opinion, professed 
 rather to like his frankness. They said that there 
 was something in his bearing — a simplicity, a direct- 
 ness, an unconsciousness — which showed the advan- 
 tage of a standard of manners. The fact that you 
 might often think him, at first glance, the most 
 plebeian-looking person in company, showed his ex- 
 traordinary qualities of race ; the persistence, through 
 so many hundred years, of the ancestral traits, 
 which, in the attrition of a democratic society 
 like our own must have been obliterated long 
 ago, was held to be a peculiar triumph of aristo- 
 cratic civilisation. One accomplished gentleman 
 had proved himself much better versed in the 
 Eainford pedigree than Lord Rainford himself. 
 ''Talked to me about my great-grandmother," said 
 the nobleman afterwards to Eay, " and my maiden 
 step-aunts." 
 
 " Good-bye," said Helen once more, and nodding, 
 she turned away, and went down the rocks. 
 
 Lord Eainford bowed, and said good-bye, too, 
 following her with his eyes, but not otherwise pur- 
 suing her. 
 
 " You 're back soon," he said to Mr. Eay, when 
 the latter presently joined him. 
 
 At Salem that afternoon he came into the car 
 where Helen sat. The place beside her was the 
 only vacant one, and he stood leaning against the 
 seat while he explained that he had been left by his 
 train at that station in the morning. He looked as 
 if he would like to be asked to take the vacant seat. 
 
A woman's reason. 14:9 
 
 Helen ttought ; but she was perturbed and preoccu- 
 pied, she could Jiot endure the -thought of talking all 
 the way to Boston, and she made no sign of invita- 
 tion. She was sorry, but she could not help it. He 
 hesitated an instant, and bidding her good-bye once 
 more, said he was going forward into the smoking- 
 car, and she did not see him again. 
 
 She went first to the post-ofBce, where she had never 
 been before, and which was so vast, and looked so hur- 
 ried and careless with those throngs of people sweep- 
 ing through its corridors, that she began to question 
 whether it could be safely intrusted with a letter 
 for Robert. Through one of the windows opening 
 in the long facade of glass above the stretch of brass 
 drawers, which people were unlocking and locking 
 up, all about, she saw a weary-looking clerk toss a 
 little package into the air for relaxation, and then 
 throw it into a distant corner, and she thought with 
 a shudder, what if that had been her letter, and it 
 had slipped under something and been lost 1 Be- 
 sides, now that she had come to the post-office, she 
 did not know in which of the many letter-holes to 
 trust, and she studied the neighbouring inscriptions 
 without being able to make up her mind. At last 
 she asked an old gentleman, who was unlocking his 
 box, and he showed her ; she feigned to drop her 
 letter according to his instructions, but waited till he 
 went away, and then asked the clerk at the nearest 
 window. He confirmed the statement of the old 
 gentleman, and Helen had almost allowed her letter 
 to go when , she bethought herself to say to the 
 
150 A woman's reason. 
 
 clerk that it was to the care of the Navy Depart- 
 ment. He smiled — sarcastically, Helen fancied — 
 and said it was quite the same thing. Then she 
 dedicated a final blush to the act, and posted her 
 letter, and found herself quite at a distance from the 
 post-office, walking giddily along, with a fluttering 
 heart full of delicious shame. She was horrified to 
 think she had done it, and so glad it was done. 
 
VIII. 
 
 The walk from the post-office to West Pome- 
 granate Street is not very short, but Helen was at 
 the Miss Amys' door before she knew. The elder 
 Miss Amy came herself to answer the bell. She 
 recognised Helen presently through her veil, and 
 welcomed her with a decayed-gentlewoman-polite- 
 ness, explaining that she and her sister kept no 
 servant when their lodgers were out of town. Helen 
 had begun to say, after the preliminary parley about 
 health and the weather, that she had come to see if 
 she could take board with them, when the younger 
 Miss Amy came in. She shook her head in response 
 to the elder Miss Amy's reference of the matter to 
 her, and said she was sorry, but it was a mistake : 
 they only let their rooms furnished now, and people 
 must find table-board at some of the neighbouring 
 houses. At Helen's look of disappointment, she 
 said she knew it was very disagreeable going out to 
 meals ; but their lodgers were nearly always gentle- 
 men, and they did not mind it. 
 
 " Is the lady who wishes the rooms a young 
 person 1" asked Miss Amy. 
 
 Helen saw that they thought she was looking up a 
 
152 A woman's reason. 
 
 place for some one else, and that they were far from 
 imagining her errand to be on her own behalf. They 
 saw in her an amiable young lady, interesting her- 
 self for some one who was out of town perhaps, and 
 wished to come in for the winter. It cost Helen more 
 to set them right than she could have believed ; the 
 first steps downward in the world are not so painful 
 from the surprise of your equals as from that of 
 people on the level to which you descend. 
 
 "It's for myself that I want the rooms," said 
 Helen, and both the Miss Amys said " Oh ! " and 
 then were silent, till Helen asked if they could 
 recommend her to some good place where she could 
 find both board and lodging under the same roof. 
 The Miss Amys thought a while. All the neighbour- 
 ing places were very large boarding-houses, and the 
 company very promiscuous. ' ' I don't think you would 
 like it. Miss Harkness," said the younger Miss Amy. 
 
 " I 'm afraid it isn't a question of what I shall like, 
 any more," said Helen bravely. " It 's necessary 
 that I should economise, and if I can get a room 
 there cheaply, I must not be fastidious.'' 
 
 "Oh !" said the younger Miss Amy a little more 
 expressively than before. 
 
 " Still," continued the young girl, " I should like it 
 better if I could find some place where there were 
 not many other boarders." 
 
 The elder Miss Amy looked at the younger with 
 a blankness for which the glare of her spectacles- 
 was mainly responsible, and asked, " How would 
 Mrs. Hewitt's do ? " 
 
A woman's reason. 153 
 
 " Mrs. Hewitt's might do," assented the younger 
 sister. " Her rooms are good, and the Smileys liked 
 her table. But Miss Harkness would find it very 
 different from what she's been used to." She 
 seemed to add this caution with a certain indefin- 
 able insinuation, that the change might be a useful 
 lesson. 
 
 "Oh, no doubt," said Helen, "but I shall not 
 mind, if — " 
 
 " It 's quite a proper place in every way,'' continued 
 the younger Miss Amy, " and the neighbourhood 
 unexceptionable. If you can get the use of the 
 parlour to see your friends in, it would be desir- 
 able." 
 
 " You won't keep all your acquaintance,'' she 
 added, " but some will remain true. We retained 
 all that we wished." 
 
 "Yes," said Helen drily, not choosing that Miss 
 Amy should assume their equality in that fashion. 
 The Miss Amys had, in fact, declined to their 
 present station from no great social eminence, 
 but the former position had been growing in dis- 
 tinction ever since they lost it, and they had so 
 long been spoken of as " such gentlewomen," that 
 they had come to look back upon it as something 
 quite commanding ; and there was a note of warning 
 for Helen in the younger Miss Amy's remark, as if 
 all persons must not expect to be so fortunate as 
 they. " I should like," said the young girl with 
 some stateliness, "very much to see Mrs. Hewitt. 
 Will you give me her address ?" 
 
154 A woman's reason. 
 
 " I will write it on one of our cards," said Miss 
 Amy, who found with difficulty, in a portable writ- 
 ing-desk on the table, a card inscribed with The 
 Misses Amy in the neat pencilling of a professional 
 card-writer. The reception-room of these ladies was 
 respectable in threadbare brussels, and green reps ; 
 a fire of English cannel coal, in the grate, seemed to 
 have been a long time laid, and the lumps of coal 
 would have been the better for dusting. The house 
 was clean, but it had the dusty smell, which small 
 city houses have at the end of summer before their 
 furnace fires are lit, and Helen had found the Miss 
 Amys not such nice Miss Amys as she had thought 
 them in former days, when she had come to their 
 house to call upon some friends there. When the 
 card was inscribed with Mrs. Hewitt's address, she 
 rose to receive it. 
 
 She felt strangely depressed, and the tears came 
 into her eyes as she pulled down her veil and 
 hurried away. She had packed a bag before 
 leaving Beverley, with the purpose of not going 
 back that night, for she had not thought but that 
 she should go at once to the Miss Amys, and had 
 resisted all entreaties that she would return and tell 
 the Butlers about it. She would not have gone to 
 the Miss Amys now on any account, and yet she felt 
 somehow hurt at not finding their house open to her 
 in the way she had imagined. She had a cowardly 
 satisfaction in thinking that she could easily get the 
 six o'clock train to Beverley after she had seen Mrs. 
 Hewitt. 
 
A woman's reason. 155 
 
 Like the elder Miss Amy, that lady answered her 
 door in person when Helen rang, and taking the card, 
 with the explanation that Helen gave her, led the 
 way to her reception room. It took shape from the 
 swell-front ; and the rocking-chair, into which Mrs. 
 Hewitt sank, stood between the two windows, by 
 which she could easily command the life without, up 
 street and down. What had been the fireplace was 
 occupied by a register; over the mantel hung the 
 faded photograph of an officer in uniform ; in the 
 corner was a whatnot, with shells and daguerreotypes 
 in cases, and baskets of sewing on its successive 
 shelves ; against the wall, opposite the windows, 
 stood a sewing-machine ; the carpet was a tapestry 
 of moss pattern in green colour ; the window shades 
 had a band of gilt around their edges, relieved in 
 green, and the reps of the sofa and chairs were green. 
 Simple and few as these appointments were, they 
 had an unreconciled look, as if they had not been 
 bought to match, but were fortuitous combinations 
 on which some one else had lost money. 
 
 Mrs. Hewitt asked her to sit down, but Helen 
 remained standing, and said that she was a little 
 pressed for time, and must ask at once if she could 
 have a room with board. 
 
 " I don't know as I Ve got anything 'twould suit 
 you, but we can look," said Mrs. Hewitt, apparently 
 disappointed in not being first allowed to talk it all 
 over. " Did you want something on suit, or singly V 
 she asked. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," said Helen. 
 
156 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Do you want more than one room ] " 
 
 " no ! I only want one." 
 
 The landlady preceded Helen up the stripe of 
 linen that covered half the narrow carpeting on the 
 cramped staircase. " Parlour," she announced on 
 arriving at the first landing, as she threw open the 
 door of a large room furnished in much-worn brown 
 plush. " Goes with the rooms on this floor; I always 
 let 'em on suit. Now, if you wanted anything on 
 suit — ■" 
 
 " I only want one room, and I don't care for a 
 private parlour," said Helen. 
 
 The landlady glanced up the next flight of stairs. 
 " That whole floor is let to one family — lady and 
 gentleman and little boy — and then there 's only a 
 room on the top floor besides," said Mrs. Hewitt. 
 
 " I '11 look at it, please," said Helen, and followed 
 the landlady up. The room had a pretty bed and 
 bureau ; it was very neat, and it was rather spacious. 
 " Is there any one else on this floor ?" asked Helen, 
 feeling sure that the cook and second-girl must be 
 her neighbours. 
 
 The landlady pushed open the door across the 
 little passage-way. " There's an art-student in this 
 room," she said. 
 
 " Art-student t " gasped Helen. 
 
 "Young lady from Nashua," said the landlady. 
 
 "Oh !" cried Helen, remembering with relief that 
 art-students in our time and country are quite as apt 
 to be of one sex as another, and thinking with a smile 
 that she had been surprised not to smell tobacco as 
 
A woman's reason. 157 
 
 soon as Mrs. Hewitt had said " art-student." She re- 
 flected that she had once been an art-student herself, 
 and wondered what the sketches of the young lady 
 from Nashua were like. " What would be the price 
 of this room?" 
 
 The landlady leaned against the side of the bed. 
 " Seven dollars," she said in an experimental tone. 
 " I used to get my ten and twelve dollars for it, right 
 after the war." 
 
 " I will take it," said Helen, who found it much 
 less than she feared. "And I should like to come 
 at once." 
 
 " To-night 1 " asked the landlady, looking at Helen. 
 
 " Yes, if the room 's ready." 
 
 " Oh, the room 's ready. But — did you bring a 
 trunk?" 
 
 " I forgot ! It ' 8 at the station. I can send for it." 
 
 " yes, the express is right round the corner 
 from here. You just give 'em your check. But you 
 better not lose any time. They 're late sometimes, 
 any way." 
 
 " Very well," said Helen, childishly pleased at 
 having transacted the business so successfully. " I 
 will take the room from to-day, and I will pay you 
 for the first week now." 
 
 " Just as you please," said Mrs. Hewitt. 
 
 Helen drew out her porte-monnaie, and said, "The 
 Miss Amys can tell you about me." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," answered Mrs. Hewitt, 
 politely. She had perhaps been perplexed to know 
 how she should hint anything about references to 
 
158 A woman's reason. 
 
 this young lady who took an attic room with such a 
 high and mighty air. " Their card was sufficient.'' 
 
 When Helen came back from her errand to the 
 express office, and went to her room, she laid aside 
 her things and made herself at home in it She did 
 not know in the least what her life was to be there ; 
 but she felt 'that this, whatever it was not, was 
 escape and independence, and beginning. A rapid 
 calculation had shown her that her payment of 
 seven dollars a week would not encroach much upon 
 her capital, and somehow she would earn enough 
 money to meet her other expenses. She could not 
 sit still ; she rose and opened her closet and found it 
 deep and convenient; she pulled out the bureau 
 drawers, and they were very sweet and clean. She 
 discovered a little cupboard with shelves where she 
 thought she would put her books. The room was 
 very complete ; there was even a hook in the ceiling 
 by the window where some one must have hung a 
 bird-cage. Helen was happy, without accusing her- 
 self, for the first time since her father died. She 
 smiled to herself at her landlady's queerness, and was 
 glad, as young people are, to be housed along with a 
 character. She wondered how the art-student looked, 
 and who the family could be. At the sound of the 
 tea-bell she felt the emotion of a healthful hunger. 
 
 There was a dish of cream toast, very hot and 
 fragrant ; hotter, and more fragrant still, there was a 
 dish of oysters, delicately stewed and flavoured ; in 
 a plated basket in the centre of the table was a 
 generous stack of freshly sliced lady-cake. " From 
 
A woman's reason. 159 
 
 Copeland's," Mrs. Hewitt explained, -when she passed 
 it. " Mr. and Mrs. Evans are out to tea, and I 
 thought we wouldn't wait for Miss Root. She 's late 
 sometimes. Did you like your oysters 1 " 
 
 "Delicious !" said Helen. 
 
 " Yes, I think there 's nothing like a drop — not 
 more than a drop — of sherry in your stew, just when 
 it comes to the stew. I don't believe in any thick- 
 enin', myself; but if you mnst have it, let it be 
 cracker crumbs : flour makes it so kind of slippy." 
 Mrs. Hewitt went on to enlarge upon many different 
 kinds of dishes, and then from whatever obscure 
 association of ideas, she said : " When you first 
 came in to-day, before I fairly looked at the Miss 
 Amys' card, I thought you 'd been buryin' a husband. 
 I don't see how I could took you if you had. Widows 
 are more trouble in a house ! Boston family 1 " 
 
 " fFhat?" cried Helen. 
 
 " Your folks Boston people V 
 
 " ye^," replied the girl, and she submitted 
 with what grace she could to the inquisition into her 
 past that followed. "I've never lived anywhere 
 else;" and nothing seemed stranger than this when 
 she came to think it over in her room. Here in the 
 heart of Boston, she was as remote from the Boston 
 she had always known as if it were a thousand miles 
 away ; from herself of the time when she lived in 
 that far-off Boston she seemed divided by centuries. 
 Into what a strange and undreamt-of world she had 
 fallen ! She did not dislike it. On the contrary, 
 she thought she should be rath«r content in it. 
 
160 A woman's reason. 
 
 Without definite aims as yet for the future, she 
 fancied that she should try to be wholly of her pre- 
 sent world, and ignore that in which she used to live. 
 Already she felt alien to it so far as to wish that the 
 Butlers would not send people to call on her, nor 
 come much themselves. She knew that she could 
 adapt herself to her circumstances, but she dreaded 
 the pain of their inability to realise her in them, and 
 felt that their unhappiness about her would be more 
 than she could bear. She planned a geographical 
 limit within which she could live a long time and 
 not meet any one whom she had known, and she 
 resolved next day to begin her exploration of her 
 solitude. The dark gathered into the room, and the 
 window showed a black frame against the sky before 
 she thought of lighting her gas. She was shaking 
 her match out, as women do, when a light tap at her 
 door standing ajar startled her, and then the door 
 was pushed open, and the figure of a tall girl stood 
 on the threshold. " Miss Eoot : Miss Harkness, I 
 believe," said the figure. " Will you lend me a match, 
 please t I waited for you to light your gas so as 
 to be sure you had matches before I bothered you. 
 It 's such a long journey down-stairs." 
 
 Helen smiled in her most radiant way, and got 
 the matches, saying as she held them forward, 
 " Won't you come in, please ?" 
 
 " No, I thank you," said Miss Eoot, taking one 
 match only. "I begin badly. But you won't find 
 me a great borrower. Have you got everything you 
 want in your room V 
 
A woman's reason. 161 
 
 "Yes, everything, I believe," said Helen, sweep- 
 ing it with a comprehensive glance. 
 
 "You'll find Mrs. Hewitt pretty prompt. You 
 won't have anything to complain of, unless you mind 
 being talked to death. Good-night," and drawing 
 the door to after her, Miss Root returned to her own 
 room. 
 
 Before she slept, Helen heard the street door open 
 and shut, and then voices ascending to the third 
 floor : a lady's voice, and a gentleman's voice, and a 
 sleepy little boy's voice. 
 
 " Well, this is the last time we shall take Tom to 
 the theatre," said the lady's voice — the voice of 
 spent nerves. 
 
 "Yes," said the gentleman's voice. "We shall 
 confine ourselves to the circus after this, Tom." 
 
 " Circuses are the best, any way," said the child's 
 voice. 
 
 "Hush ! Don't speak so !" cried the lady. 
 
 " Why, they are, mamma," insisted the boy. 
 
 "This is a question of morals, not of opinions, 
 Tom," said the father. " You 're not to prefer 
 circuses when they're inflicted as a punishment." 
 
 They had now reached their door, as it appeared, 
 for a light flashed into the hall below as from gas 
 turned up. 
 
 The lady's voice was heard again : " His forehead 's 
 burning hot ! If that child should have a fever — 
 Here, feel his forehead !" 
 
 "Forehead's all right!" responded the heavier 
 voice. 
 
 L 
 
162 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 " I shall give him three of aconite!" cried the 
 lady. 
 
 " Give him three thousand, but put him to bed," 
 assented the gentleman. 
 
 " Will you shut the door ? " implored the lady. 
 "Waking the whole house !" 
 
 "I haven't refused, my dear,'' said the gentleman. 
 " Why do you alvrays — " 
 
 The door closed, expressively, and not, as Helen 
 fancied, by the gentleman's hand. " The Evanses,'' 
 she inferred. She fell asleep wondering if she oould 
 indeed be the same girl who had talked that morning 
 to Lord Eainford on the rocks at Beverley. 
 
IX. 
 
 Helen saw the Evanses in going to breakfast. 
 They came down-stairs just after her, Mr. Evans 
 leading his boy by his extended forefinger, and Mrs. 
 Evans coming behind, and twitching something 
 about the child's dress into place, as mothers do. 
 
 " Mrs. Hewitt,'' said Mr. Evans, as they sat down 
 at table, " I have been some time in your house, but 
 you must have older friends than I, and I don't 
 understand why the law has honoured me as it 
 has." 
 
 " I 'm sure I don't know what you 're talkin' 
 about,'' said Mrs. Hewitt, pouring the coffee. 
 
 " Well, I don't, myself," returned Mr. Evans, "and 
 I thought I would get you to explain. You don't 
 find yourself unusually infirm of mind, do you 1 " 
 
 " No, I don't," replied Mrs. Hewitt candidly. 
 
 "And you haven't experienced anything like a 
 return of extreme youth 1 " 
 
 " What is the man after ? " cried Mrs. Hewitt. 
 
 " Then why should you be taken care of in any 
 special manner, and why should I, of all people, be 
 called upon to take care of you ? Here 's a paper," 
 Mr. Evans continued, taking a document from his 
 
164 A woman's reason. 
 
 pocket, "that I found slipped under my door this 
 morning. It makes a personal appeal to me, in the 
 name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to 
 to become your trustee. Of course, it 's very flatter- 
 ing and all that, but I 'd much rather not. You 
 must allow me to resign, Mrs. Hewitt. I never 
 did understand business vei?y well, and — " 
 
 " How 'd they ever get into this house without my 
 knowing if! That's what / should like to find 
 out ! " said Mrs. Hewitt, gazing absently at the paper 
 which Mr. Evans had given her. 
 
 " What does it mean V he asked. 
 
 "Pshaw!" cried his landlady. "You don't say 
 you never was trusteed before ? And boarded round 
 as much as you have !" 
 
 " Trusteed ! Is it so common a thing as to have 
 a participial form ? Then I needn't have any scruples 
 about resigning ? " 
 
 Mrs. Hewitt broke into a laugh. " Resigning ! 
 Bless you, you can't resign. There 's no such thing." 
 
 " Gracious powers ! Not resign an office for which 
 I don't feel myself competent — " 
 
 " Oh, come, now ! you know very well what it is. 
 It 's them curtains,'' said Mrs. Hewitt, pointing to the 
 green-and-gold-trimmed shades. 
 
 Mr. Evans rose and curiously examined the 
 shades ; his boy also slipped down out of his chair, 
 and joined in the inspection. 
 
 " Thomas, who gave you leave to quit the table ] 
 Come back ! " cried Mrs. Evans. 
 
 "My dear !" expostulated her husband, "the child 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 165 
 
 very naturally wishes to see what sort of window- 
 shade it is that thrusts an irresignable office of 
 honour and profit upon his father. Look carefully, 
 Tom. Regard the peculiarity of the texture; the 
 uncommon tone of the colours." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw, Mr. Evans ! You stop !" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Hewitt. "When they sent in their bill, I 
 told 'em 'twas too much, and I shouldn't pay it. 
 I didn't believe they 'd really go so far as to trustee 
 me." 
 
 "But what does it mean, Mrs. Hewitt?" asked 
 Mrs. Evans. " I don't believe Mr. Evans knows any 
 more than the rest of us." 
 
 " Why, Mrs, Evans, it means just this : that your 
 husband isn't to pay me any board till this bill is 
 settled, and if he does, he 's liable for it himself. 
 I presume they '11 be trusteein' all of you. I shall 
 have to pay it now." 
 
 "Is that the law?" demanded Mrs. Evans. "It 
 makes one long for a delinquent debtor of one's own. 
 So simple, yet so effective." 
 
 "Well, you have it to say,'' said Mrs. Hewitt, 
 surprisingly little ruffled by the incident, " that you 
 never was trusteed in my Louse before." 
 
 "I certainly have that to say,'' admitted Mr. 
 Evans. " I 'm sorry on your account that I can't resign 
 my trusteeship, and I 'm sorry on my own that it 's 
 such a very sordid affair. I never happened to be 
 appointed to office before, and I was feeling rather 
 proud of the confidence reposed in me." 
 
 Tliey all rose from the table together, and Helen 
 
166 A woman's reason. 
 
 went up- stairs with the Evanses. She and Mrs. Evans 
 exchanged a few words on the way, and stopped on 
 the first landing to glance into the large parlour. Mr. 
 Evans came after, bestriding his boy, who now had 
 hold of both his forefingers — like a walking Colossus 
 of Rhodes. He flung open the parlour door, which 
 stood ajar, in Mrs. Hewitt's manner. " Goes with 
 the rooms on this floor ; I always let 'em on suit ; 
 now, if you wanted anything rni suit — " He looked 
 Helen for sympathy, and she laughed. 
 
 " Yes, I know,'' she said. 
 
 " Mrs. Hewitt won't like your joking her so much," 
 said his wife. 
 
 " She won't know it, if I do it behind her hack. 
 And she seems to enjoy it to her face." 
 
 " Do you think she liked your coming out about 
 that trusteeing 1" 
 
 " She didn't mind it. But I have it on my con- 
 science to tell Miss Harkness that Mrs. Hewitt is, 
 for all I know, a very just person — and that I 'm 
 surprised she let those shade-people get the advan- 
 tage of .her. She has a passion, like all landladies, 
 for single gentlemen. She idealises them, I am 
 afraid. There haven't heen any single gentlemen 
 in the house since we came here, two years ago. 
 We sometimes fancy that her preference is founded 
 upon her experience of Mr. Hewitt as a married 
 gentleman, which was probably unpleasant." 
 
 "Is — is she a widow?" Helen ventured to Mrs. 
 Evans. 
 
 " Why, not exactly," said Mrs. Evans. 
 
A woman's reason. 167 
 
 "It's a very neat way of putting it," said Mr. 
 Evans. "She's a widow, Miss Harkness, of the 
 herbaceous variety." 
 
 "My dear, she'll hear you," cried Mrs. Evans. 
 
 " Very well, then, she won't understand me. I '11 
 venture to say Miss Harkness doesn't." 
 
 "No, I don't," said Helen, and looked at Mrs. 
 Evans for light. 
 
 " Her husband is living, I believe," explained Mrs. 
 Evans, "but — absent." 
 
 Mr. Evans laughed again. "Not lost, but gone 
 before. Come, Tom ! We must go to work !" He 
 led the way up to the next floor, and at her door 
 Mrs. Evans asked Helen if she would not come in. 
 
 Helen had a curiosity, which she thought harmless, 
 to see their apartment, and she accepted the invita- 
 tion in the drifting, indecisive manner which ladies 
 have when they do not mean to commit themselves 
 to the consequences of a self-indulgence. She did 
 not feel quite sure of these people ; she had a strong 
 impression that she was their social superior, but 
 thrown with them as she was, she had too much 
 good sense to hold stifHy aloof from them. She sat 
 down without, as it were, acknowledging that she 
 sat down; and she followed Mrs. Evans about 
 from room to room without seeming to do so, 
 as well as she could manage that difficult effect. It 
 was a very pretty little apartment of four tiny rooms, 
 of which the last was Mr. Evans's study : this was 
 just large enough to admit his desk and chairs, and 
 was packed with books on shelves to the ceiling, and 
 
168 A woman's reason. 
 
 Helen inferred that he was some sort of literary man. 
 She would not sit down again, but paid a frosty little 
 net-work of compliments to the souvenirs of travel that 
 she saw upon the tables and walls ; she praised the 
 balcony on which one of the windows opened, and 
 she smiled upon the flowers with which Mrs. Evans 
 had filled it. In fine she guarded her distance with 
 the skill that had kept the acquaintance at a stand- 
 still, and yet left it resumable on more cordial terms 
 at will. One is of one's world after all ; and even 
 in resigning her world, as she thought she had done, 
 Helen had not yet made up her mind to be of a 
 lower one. 
 
 She had promised to go down to Beverley on the 
 morrow, and tell her friends what she had done, as 
 the condition of their letting her come up to Boston 
 at all on that wild enterprise of hers ; and though 
 she would have been glad not to go, she kept her 
 word. But it was really not so hard meeting them 
 as she had feared. Mrs. Butler was forbearing, and 
 Marian was preoccupied ; the younger girls saw it 
 somewhat as Helen did, and thought it an enviable 
 adventure. She told them all that had happened in 
 detail, and made them laugh. She partly drama- 
 tised her interview with the Miss Amys, and they 
 said it was perfectly delightful to think of Helen 
 being patronised by such people. They wanted to 
 see Mrs. Hewitt, and the fellow-boarders; they 
 wished that somebody would trustee their mother ; 
 they said that the life Helen was leading was fas- 
 
A woman's reason. 169 
 
 "Perhaps you wouldn't find it so fascinating if 
 you were obliged to lead it," said Mrs. Butler. 
 
 " Helen leads it, and she finds it fascinating." 
 
 " Helen leads it out of the hardness of her heart, 
 because her friends don't wish her to," returned Mrs. 
 Butler fondly. 
 
 "Mrs. Butler! Eemember your promise!" said 
 Helen. 
 
 " I hope you '11 remember yours, my dear, — to 
 come back to us." 
 
 " Oh ! And what are you going to do, Helen 1 
 What are you going to do for a living?" demanded 
 Jessie Butler. 
 
 " Jessie !" cried her mother. " Don't be absurd ! 
 Do for a living !" 
 
 " I hope you won't think it absurd, Mrs. Butler," 
 said Helen, with serious dignity, " for I really want 
 to do something for a living." 
 
 "Poor child!" said Mrs. Butler, getting Helen's 
 hand between hers, and tenderly smoothing it. 
 " What could you do 1" 
 
 " I don't know what yet. But I know I could do 
 something." She felt dispirited by Mrs. Butler's 
 motherly kindness, and would have liked to take 
 her hand away. This was what she had dreaded, 
 this feeling on the part of such friends as the Butlers 
 that anything useful and practical was impossible to 
 her. For the moment this feeling seemed all that 
 stood between her and a prosperous career of self- 
 help ; it unnerved her so terribly 
 
 " Do tell us what you 've been thinking of trying," 
 
170 A woman's reason. 
 
 persisted Jessie. She was the youngest, and she 
 ventured on almost as great freedoms with her 
 mother and Helen as Marian herself did. 
 
 " Oh, I thought over a great many things as I 
 came down this morning," answered Helen. " But I 
 haven't settled upon anything yet. Indeed, indeed, 
 Mrs. Butler!" she exclaimed, "I'm very much in 
 earnest about it, and don't try to discourage me, 
 please!" 
 
 " I won't, dear !" Mrs. Butler assented soothingly, 
 as if Helen were a sick child, and must be humoured 
 in her little fancies. 
 
 " How would plain sewing do ?" suggested Jessie. 
 " Or, Wanted by a young lady, to have the care of 
 small children, where she would be received as one 
 of the family ; no objection to the country; wages not 
 so much of an object as permanent home, address 
 H. H., Transcript Office?" 
 
 They laughed at this, Helen forlornly and help- 
 lessly with the rest. They could not realise her 
 ambition, and they did not believe in her necessity : 
 Mrs. Butler because she felt that all Helen need 
 really do was to go to Europe with her, and return 
 to marry Eobert Fenton, as soon as he could get 
 leave to come home ; the young girls because they 
 had no experience of life, and could not imagine 
 Helen's case. They were merry about her projects 
 all through lunch, and Helen herself felt that she 
 was behaving very ridiculously in pretending to be 
 anything but the well-taken-care-of young lady that 
 she had always been. The world which she had 
 
A woman's reason. 171 
 
 touched yesterday became as unreal in its turn as it 
 had made her old life seem. 
 
 " I will tell you," said Marian, who had given the 
 subject less attention than the rest, and had laughed 
 at Helen with half her mind all the while on her 
 approaching marriage ; " I will tell you. In these 
 days Helen must take to some form of keramics. I 
 wonder that we didn't think of it before. How 
 could we discuss this subject in Beverley, of all 
 places, and not think of pottery 1 Helen must 
 decorate pottery for a living." 
 
 " yes ! and she can drive over to the pottery 
 this afternoon with us, and select the shapes !" 
 clamoured the younger sisters. 
 
 Their noise submerged Mrs. Butler's rebukes; 
 there was open rebellion to her voice. 
 
 " Mamma ! " cried Jessie, " you needn't try to put 
 us down about this. It 's an extraordinary case ! 
 We 've never had the opportunity before, to decide 
 the vocation of a young lady who wants a lucrative 
 employment. Bo say you '11 decorate pottery for a 
 living, Helen !" 
 
 "Do! do!" pleaded all the rest. They had left 
 their places and gathered round her in postures 
 of supplication. 
 
 Helen was swept along in the tide. " I don't 
 know anything about keramics," she laughed, turning 
 upon the group. 
 
 " That 's the beauty of the profession," they 
 shouted in reply. "You don't need to know any- 
 thing about it." 
 
172 A woman's reason. 
 
 " I can't draw !" 
 
 " Drawing 's the very last thing that 's wanted for 
 art-pottery. Say that you '11 drive over with us and 
 select the shapes !" 
 
 " You must first begin with a bean-pot, like that 
 pretty little Mrs. Gay," said Jessie Butler. "You 
 ought to have heard her talk about it : so colonial, 
 so in character with Beverley ! " The young girl gave 
 the tone and the languish. " She decorated it with 
 a flowering bean ; they say she thought that was the 
 kind they baked. Perhaps you '11 find that they 've 
 begun to give bean-pots an aesthetic shape. Miss 
 Harkness's bean-pots will become the fashion. We 
 shall have a course of beans in their native earthen- 
 ware, at dinners, and when the pot comes in, every- 
 body will put on their pince-nez, and crane over, and 
 ask, 'Is that a Harkness, Mrs. Jones ?'" 
 
 " No, no ! I can't go with you ! " cried Helen ; 
 " I 'm going back to Boston this afternoon." 
 
 They all protested, but Helen stood firm, 
 feeling that it was her one chance for life, or for 
 making a living. If she was ever to put in force 
 her resolutions to be something and to do something, 
 she could not get away too soon from an atmosphere 
 in which no one, not even herself, could regard them 
 seriously. It was a trying ordeal, this pity of Mrs. 
 Butler's, and this jocose incredulity of the young 
 girls ; yet as Helen rode back to town, she was more 
 and more satisfied that there was something possible 
 and practical in Marian's suggestion. She recalled 
 some pretty shapes of pottery which she had seen 
 
A woman's reason. 173 
 
 in a shop-window, and which seemed to her more 
 stupidly decorated than anything she could do if she 
 did her worst. They were there on sale, and some- 
 body had been paid for doing them, or expected to 
 be paid for it. The conclusion from the premises 
 was irresistible, and Helen found herself impatient 
 to arrive and begin work. She could really draw 
 very prettily, though she had denied her gift ; she 
 was even a clever copyist ; but she knew that she 
 lacked the imaginative impulse, and she had not 
 cared for what she could do, because so many others 
 could do it as well. 
 
 As soon as she left the train she hastened to this 
 shop, where, besides the decorated pots ar^d vases, 
 she had seen a good many uncontaminated examples 
 of the Beverley ware. She was vexed to find the 
 place already closed, and she could hardly wait for 
 the morning. 
 
 She hurried from her breakfast to the shop in the 
 morning ; when her purchase came home, and she 
 unpacked it on her bed (the largest and safest surface 
 in her room), she cowered a little to see it so great 
 in quantity. She blushed to find herself making 
 such an ambitious beginning, and though five dollars 
 had seemed a great deal to spend, she wished for the 
 moment that it had not bought quite so much. But 
 this was foolish ; of course she must spoil some of 
 the designs, and since she was going to try a variety 
 of decorations, she should want a variety of jars. 
 She set them all on the shelf of her closet, which 
 she locked ; she folded up the wrapping-paper and 
 
174 A woman's reason. 
 
 tucked it away ; she even concealed the string ; and 
 after putting on her hat and veil for the street, she 
 had to sit down and have a paroxysm of guilty con- 
 sciousness before she could summon courage to go 
 out on her next errand. 
 
 She was going to a shop where they sold artists' 
 materials, to get her colours, and to pick up any hints 
 they could give her there about her work. They 
 were not personally very well informed, but they 
 sold her several little books which had keramic 
 designs in them, and which would tell her all she 
 wished to know. After she had bought them, she 
 thought them rather poverty-stricken in their pat- 
 terns, and as she passed a print-shop window she 
 saw that pretty series of engravings, illustrative of 
 the old fable of the storks and the babies ; and the 
 keramic fitness of storks at once struck her. The 
 prints were rather expensive, and Helen thought 
 that she could not get on without the whole set. 
 Then, as the matter developed in her mind, a great 
 idea occurred to her : Flaxman's illustrations of 
 Homer. They were of course the only things to 
 copy in the classic shapes. The book cost more than 
 she sappnsed it would, but as she meant, to stop 
 with that, she believed she might afford it, and at 
 any rate she bought it. She was afraid to look the 
 whole sum in the face at first, but her hopes rose 
 with her rapid walk homeward, aud she finally con- 
 fronted the fifteen dollars with serene courage. 
 
 The next three weeks were given to very ardent' 
 if not very diligent labour. Helen had an insuper- 
 
A woman's reason. 175 
 
 able shyness about her enterprise ; she managed so 
 that she might put everything out of sight at a 
 moment's warning, if any one came to her room. 
 
 Before actually beginning upon the vases, Helen 
 schooled herself in reproducing on paper the designs 
 she meant to use, and this took time. She was also 
 interrupted by excursions to Beverley j but she did 
 not count this as loss altogether, for she was able to 
 make several studies in colour of the low blackberry 
 vine, now in its richest autumnal bronze, and of 
 certain sea-weeds, with which she meant to decorate 
 several pieces. She did three with stoiks, and had 
 a fourth half-done when she let it fall. She wrapped 
 the fragments in paper, and took them out at twUight, 
 and dropped them in the street some distance away, 
 that the pieces might not be traced to her, and 
 so proceeded to the Flaxm'ans. She chose three 
 subjects among these : The old nurse Euryclea recog- 
 nising Ulysses as she bathes his feet; Penelope 
 carrying the bow of Ulysses to the Suitors ; and the 
 meeting of Ulysses and Penelope. These all related 
 to the return of the wanderer, and they went very 
 prettily round the vases. Ulysses following the 
 homeward car of Nausicaa from the coast on which 
 she found him shipwrecked, was a subject which 
 Helen instinctively rejected, though the lines were 
 lovely, and she felt that she could do it easily. The 
 jar which she decorated with the seaweed had a 
 band of shells round the middle ; a slanting flight of 
 birds encircled the vases, over which she taught the 
 blackberry vine to wanton. 
 
176 A woman's reason. 
 
 She had many alternating moods of exaltation 
 and despair while upon this work, but when it was 
 all done, and the pots set out in a fair row on her 
 window-shelf, and she retired a pace or two with her 
 pencil at her lip to get their entire effect, she could 
 not but own that they seemed very successful. At 
 that distance certain defects of drawing — such as 
 that which gave Penelope bearing the bow rather a 
 pert and mincing look — and other blemishes were 
 subdued, but even when taken up severally and 
 scrutinised merely at arm's length, the vases bore 
 the ordeal of critical inspection very well. "And 
 no one," thought Helen, "will ever look at them 
 more severely than I have." 
 
 She sank into her chair, which she drew up in 
 front of her work, and indulged a long reverie. In 
 this she dramatised her appearance at one of those 
 charming shops where they deal in such things ; she 
 set little scenes in which the proprietors called one 
 another up to look at her vases ; and she dialogued 
 their compliments and her own evasive acceptance of 
 them. They ended by asking very respectfully if 
 she could not be persuaded to employ a part of her 
 leisure in doing something of the kind for them; 
 and on her replying that these were for sale, they 
 had instantly offered her a price for them that passed 
 her wildest hopes ; that seemed so much too much, 
 indeed, that she insisted upon abating something 
 from it. Struck by this nobleness in her, they had 
 conversed in low tones together ; and then the senior 
 member of the firm had confessed that they had 
 
A woman's reason. 177 
 
 some hesitation in asking her to design certain friezes 
 which they were to do for a cottage at Newport, and 
 their admiration for her work must be their excuse 
 if they were proposing something quite out of the 
 way; but they begged her to remember that two 
 ladies in London had taken up decorative archi- 
 tecture as a profession, and they trusted they were 
 not wrong. Then Helen had replied, no, indeed ! 
 She was only too much flattered by their confidence 
 in her, and she would be very glad to think it over ; 
 all that she feared was that she would not be able 
 to meet their expectation ; at which they had laughed, 
 and said they had no such fear, and had drawn her a 
 check for her vases, and had added a few hundreds 
 as a sort of retainer in the matter of the friezes. At 
 this point Helen broke from her reveries with " What 
 silly, silly nonsense ! What a simpleton I am !" 
 
 While she was in good humour with them, she 
 resolved to pack her vases in the basket that she had 
 got for that purpose, and when each was carefully 
 wrapped, and put in, she laughed to find the basket 
 looking like that of an old Jew who used to. come to 
 the kitchen door to sell Bohemian glass, when she 
 was a child. The matter of transportation was one 
 that she did not consider till the next morning, when 
 it flashed upon her that she could not go carrying 
 that basket about. She must drive, and though 
 this did not accord with her severe ideas of economy, 
 she had to own that she had been rather lavish in 
 her preparations for work, and that it would be 
 foolish to try now to scrimp at an impossible point. 
 
 M 
 
178 A woman's reason. 
 
 She would take a coup6 by the hour, and perhaps 
 get it cheaper, if she had it several hours ; though 
 when she went out for the carriage, she found the 
 driver inflexible, and she had to take it at the usual 
 rate. She bade him drive her to Mrs. Hewitt's door, 
 and she wanted him to go up with her and carry- 
 down her basket ; but he, seeing, her a single defence- 
 less woman, boldly answered that he could not leave 
 his horse ; and Helen, indignant, and trembling for 
 her secret, was forced to bring it down herself. 
 Happily, Miss Root had gone out ; the Evanses' door 
 was closed ; and she encountered Mrs. Hewitt neither 
 in going up nor in coming down. When she lifted 
 the basket on the carriage seat she was out of 
 breath, but exultant at her escape, and with unbroken 
 courage she ordered the driver to go to the address 
 given him. But it now occurred to her that she 
 could not lug that great hamper across a crowded 
 pavement into a shop-door, and she must sell her 
 wares by sample. She employed the drive in taking 
 out the best of the stork vases; one of the most 
 characteristic Flaxmans ; and the blackberry and 
 bird-banded jar. She scarcely dared look at them 
 now, but as she gathered them to her bosom with 
 one hand, while she caught up her skirt with the 
 other to alight from the coup6, it was with quite as 
 much hope as fear that her heart palpitated against 
 those classic shapes. She pulled down her veil, how- 
 ever, for she knew that she was blushing violently, 
 and when she stepped upon the ground, she found 
 herself giddy. 
 
— A WOMAN'S REASON. 179 
 
 The people were all busy -when she entered the 
 store, and the gentleman to whom she hoped to 
 speak was occupied with a lady whom Helen knew : 
 a lady who gave proof of having lived abroad by the 
 loud and confident voice which she had succeeded in 
 managing, not like an Englishwoman but like an 
 Englishman. Helen shrank from her recognition, 
 and lurked about, pretending to be interested in 
 distant bricabrac, and growing momentarily more 
 faint and tremulous, but when the lady went out and 
 the gentleman turned from closing the door after 
 her, Helen came quickly forward. She plucked up 
 an excited gasp from somewhere, and waiving the 
 respectful kindness with which he bent to listen, 
 said, " I 've something here I'd like to show you," 
 and she unfolded one of her vases, and as he took it 
 up, with " Ah, yes ! Something in keramics," she 
 unwrapped the others and set them on the shelf near 
 which they stood. " Why, this is very nice, Miss 
 Harkness," said the dealer, " very nice indeed." He 
 carried all three of the vases to the light and re- 
 turned with them, holding out the bird-banded jar. 
 " I like this one best. You 've managed these birds 
 and this vine in quite the Japanese spirit : they 're 
 the only people who understand the use of uncon- 
 ventionalised forms. The way your blackberry 
 climbs into the neck of your vase is thoroughly 
 Japanese. These storks are good, too, very effec- 
 tively handled. The classic subject — well, I don't 
 think that 's quite so successful, do you 1" 
 
 " No, I don't know that it is," said Helen, so 
 
180 A woman's reason. 
 
 grateful for his praise of the others that she would 
 willingly have allowed this to be a disgraceful 
 failure. 
 
 " Have you ever done anything of this kind be- 
 fore t " asked the dealer. 
 
 " No," replied Helen. 
 
 " Very remarkable," said the dealer. He had set 
 the vases back on the shelf again, and now gazed at 
 them somewhat absently. " It shows what can be 
 done with this sort of thing. See here !" he called 
 to his partner, who was also disengaged. " Here 's 
 something pretty, and rather new 1" 
 
 "Your work, Miss Harkness?" asked the other 
 partner politely, coming up. He said much the 
 same things that the first had said ; he even stojjped 
 a young lady assistant who was passing, and made 
 her admire the jars. Then he also fell into a musing 
 silence, while Helen waited with a thickly beating 
 heart for the rest of her reverie to come true, and 
 stayed herself against a counter, till these amiable 
 partners should formulate some offer for her wares. 
 The young lady assistant ebbed noiselessly away, 
 and went to writing at a high desk ; the second 
 partner shifted from his right foot to his left, turned 
 his head abruptly, and feigned to be called suddenly 
 by some duty in the direction to which he looked. 
 His going roused the first partner. " Yes !" he said 
 with a deep, nasal sigh, in coming to himself, and 
 was sinking again into his abstraction, when he 
 seemed to think of something. " Excuse me a 
 moment," he said, and went and looked into the 
 
A woman's reason. 181 
 
 show window, and then into a dark corner in the 
 back part of the room. "I thought we had some of 
 that Cambridge pottery," he called out to his 
 partner. 
 
 " No," said the other, remaining aloof, " we only- 
 had a few pieces." 
 
 " Well !" said the first, coming back to Helen. 
 " I supposed we had some of it left. I was going to 
 suggest. Miss Harkness, if you 're interested in this 
 sort of thing, that you ought to see that North 
 Cambridge ware. Have you ever seen it 1" 
 
 "No," answered Helen faintly. 
 
 "It isn't so naiive quite in sentiment as this 
 Beverley ware, but it 's much more refined in form. 
 It 's beautifully finished. Eeally, I don't see how it 
 falls short of that Copenhagen pottery in finish. - If 
 you have plenty of time on your hands, you couldn't 
 do a better thing than go out to see them making it. 
 I think it would interest you." 
 
 "Thank you," said Helen; her head whirled, but 
 she resolved to speak steadily if it killed her. "I 
 shall certainly go. I 'm glad you mentioned it. I 
 never saw any of it." She fumbled piteously at the 
 papers which she had taken off her vases, and 
 the dealer brought some softer stuff, and skilfully 
 wrapped them up for her. 
 
 "These things are quite worthy of Japanese 
 paper," he said, indicating the silky texture of the 
 fabric he had used. "I'm sure I'm very much 
 obliged to you for letting us see your work, Miss 
 Harkness. It 's charming. I hope you '11 keep on at 
 
182 A woman's reason. 
 
 it. I'm interested business-wise, you know," he 
 added, " in having you ladies take up these graceful 
 arts. And be sure and go to see that Cambridge 
 ware. We can get some of it for you, if you wish." 
 He had followed her to the door, and now opened it 
 for her, with a bow. 
 
 " Thanks," said Helen. "I won't forget. Good- 
 morning.'' 
 
 " Good-morning.'' 
 
 She got into the coupe, and put her vases carefully 
 back in the basket, and sat down on the seat beside 
 it. She quivered with the intense and bitter disap- 
 pointment, and she burnt with shame, as every 
 particular of her interview blazoned itself upon her 
 consciousness, and she realised that she had no one 
 but herself to blame for the precise result. The 
 people had been thoroughly kind and sympathetic ; 
 they had praised her work, and had been far more 
 interested in it than she had any right to expect ; 
 but their taking her on her old social plane had 
 made it impossible for her to meet them on any 
 other. Apparently, they had never once imagined 
 that she wished to sell these things, and she had not 
 known how to approach the fact. They had thought 
 she wished merely to show them as matters of 
 sesthetic interest, but if they had not supposed she 
 came for advice, what could they think of her con- 
 ceit in making such a display, and of staying and 
 staying till she had all but to be turned out of 
 doors ! All that about the Cambridge ware must 
 have been a polite ruse to get rid of her, — to spare 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 183 
 
 her feelings while they relieved their own. What 
 had kept her from telling them honestly and bravely 
 what she had come for 1 Did she really expect them 
 to ask her if her work was for sale, as in her reverie ; 
 and then offer her that frieze to do in Newport ? It 
 was intolerable ! She literally bowed herself down 
 in self-contempt, while her heart ached with the 
 sickening defeat of her hopes. 
 
 " Where to 1" asked a gruff voice. 
 
 She had been sitting still in her coup6, and this 
 was the voice of the driver, as he leaned over from 
 his seat, and projected the demand in at the win- 
 dow. 
 
 "Oh!" cried Helen. Then she -hesitated in a 
 flutter. She had never thought where she should go 
 next; she had not taken any next place into account. 
 "Oh! Drive — drive — " She hesitated again, and 
 then she gave the address of the street where she 
 had bought her pottery. She remembered the 
 decorated pieces there ; and they might like hers. 
 At any rate the people did not know her, and she 
 should have the courage to offer them her work. 
 
 She began somewhat as at the other place : " I 
 thought you might like to see — ," and then corrected 
 herself, and said, "I wished to show you my decora- 
 tion of some of the Beverley ware I got here the 
 other day." 
 
 "0 yes," said the shopman, — warily, Helen 
 thought. But she undid her vases, and saw him 
 smile in approval. "They've come out very well," 
 he added, as if they had been subjected to a process. 
 
184 A woman's reason. 
 
 "Here are some new shapes, which we've just got 
 ill to-day." 
 
 Helen only glanced at the vases he indicated. " I 
 see you have some decorated pieces here," she said 
 hastily. " Would you like to buy these 1 " 
 
 The man's smile gave place to a look of something 
 like anguish. He took off' his hat, and scratched his 
 head. " Well — well — not this morning, I think. 
 The fact is, it 's a new thing, you know ; and these 
 decorated pieces are principally to show what may 
 be done with the ware. We do sell them, but we 
 don't — we don't buy. By and by, I hope we shall 
 be able to do so, but as yet we only expect to supply 
 the plain ware to ladies who wish to paint it. There 
 are places where — " He looked still more distressed, 
 and stopped. 
 
 Helen hastily wrapped her jars up again, and 
 turned to go. The man followed her a few paces. 
 
 " Your own work 1 " he asked. 
 
 " Yes," said Helen shortly, without looking round. 
 " Drive slowly along Washington Street," she 
 ordered, and as the coap6 started she blamed herself 
 for not re-opening the parley at the man's last ques- 
 tion, and trying to learn of him something about 
 those other places he had begun to mention. She 
 was too much bewildered to do that, but it must 
 have looked like pride. Helen resolved now that 
 she would be not only bold but meek. 
 
 She had a plan of stopping at various little shops, 
 in whose windows she remembered seeing artistic 
 caprices, like pictures in birch-bark, and comic 
 
A WOMAN S REASON. 185 
 
 designs jig-sawed out of white-wood. They might 
 somewhere take a fancy to her vases. She stopped 
 accordingly wherever bricabrac sliowed itself in any 
 sort. The street was full of people, that is to say of 
 women, thronging in and out of the shop-doors, and 
 intent upon spending the money of their natural 
 protectors. It is always a wonderful spectacle, and 
 in the circuit of a quarter of a mile, about the con- 
 fluence of Washington and Winter Streets, it enforces 
 itself with incomparable vividness. 
 
 There is doubtless more shopping in New York or 
 London, or Paris, but in those cities it is dispersed 
 over a larger area, and nowhere in the world per- 
 haps has shopping such an intensity of physiognomy 
 as in Boston. It is unsparingly sincere in its expres- 
 sion. It means business, and the sole business of 
 the city seems to be shopping. The lovely faces of 
 the swarming crowd were almost fierce in their pre- 
 occupation, as they pressed into the shop-doors ; as 
 they issued from them, and each lady stooped and 
 caught the loop of her train in one hand, while she 
 clasped half-a-dozen paper parcels to her heart with 
 the other, those faces exhibited no relaxation of 
 their eager purpose. Where do they all come from, 
 and where does the money all come from ? It is a 
 fearful problem, and the imagination must shrink 
 from following these multitudinous shoppers to their 
 homes, in city and suburb, when they arrive frayed 
 and limp and sore, with overspent allowances, and the 
 hard task before them of making the worse appear 
 the better reason. 
 
186 A woman's reason. 
 
 Helen was dismayed to realise herself the only one 
 of all her sex who wished to sell, and not to buy, 
 and at the shops which she entered they were 
 puzzled to conceive of her in that unique character. 
 They were busy with the buyers, and when she had 
 waited about patiently, and had at last found a 
 moment to show her work, they only considered it 
 in various patterns of indifference and refusal. For 
 the most part they scarcely looked at it, and Helen 
 found her scantest toleration at those places where 
 she was obliged to deal with women. Commonly 
 they could not put her errand and her coup6 intel- 
 ligibly together ; the conjunction seemed to raise 
 suspicion. In one shop it raised laughter, which 
 followed her from the young lady behind the counter, 
 who said quite audibly to the young lady at the 
 desk : "Actually in a coup6 ! Think I should walk, 
 myself ! " Helen, who had now hardened her sensi- 
 bilities to everything, took the hint, and let the 
 carriage come after her from shop to shop. But 
 that served no purpose except perhaps to excite the 
 fears of the driver lest she should try to escape from 
 him. When every place had been tried, she still 
 had her vases on her arm, which, when she got them 
 back into the basket, she perceived was sore with 
 carrying them. 
 
 " Home," she said to the driver, and leaned back 
 against the cushions, and closed her hot dry eyes. 
 She was so benumbed by what she had undergone, 
 that she did not feel very keenly, and her physical 
 fatigue helped off the mental pain. ^^ Presently the 
 
A woman's reason. 187 
 
 carriage slopped, and she saw that they were in a 
 jam of vehicles in front of a large jewelry store. 
 There had been something the matter with her 
 watch, and now she thought she would have it looked 
 at ; and she dismounted and went in. She gave her 
 watch to a man behind one of the counters, and 
 while he screwed a glass into his eye, and began to 
 peer and blow into the works, Helen cast a listless 
 look into a window where there were some jars of 
 limoges and plates of modern majolica. A gentle- 
 man, who did not look quite like a clerk, came 
 forward. Helen carelessly asked him the price of 
 some of the faience. It seemed very little, and he 
 explained that it was merely earthenware painted in 
 imitation of the faience, and began to praise it, and 
 to tell who did it. Helen did not listen very atten- 
 tively ; she was thinking of her own work, and 
 wondering if she should have courage to ask him to 
 look at it, and how, if she should, she could get it 
 from the coup6 without awkwardness, when he said, 
 "I see you have something there in the way of our 
 business." Then she saw that she had mechanically 
 gathered up her three vases and brought them in 
 with her on her arm ; she had long ceased to wrap 
 and unwrap them. She looked at them stupidly, but 
 said, "Yes, this is something I've been doing;" and the 
 gentleman politely took them, and admired them with 
 a civility that was so cordial to her after the ordeal she 
 had passed through that the tears came behind her veil. 
 " Do you think," she asked very timidly, " you 
 would like to buy something of the kind 1 " 
 
188 A woman's reason. 
 
 "M — m — no," said the gentleman musirtgly, as he 
 turned one of the vases over in bis hand. 
 
 Helen's breath came again, and she turned to get 
 her watch, which the workman said was ready ; one 
 of the wheels had caught, merely ; and there was no 
 charge. She took back her vase, and nodded to the 
 gentleman. He did not bow very definitively in 
 return, but followed her to the door. 
 
 "The fact is," he said, " there 's very little sale for 
 these things now. The whole decoration business 
 has been overdone. However,'' he added, after a 
 pause in which he seemed to take in the fact of 
 Helen's black, "we might chance to dispose of them 
 for you. If you like, you can leave them here on 
 sale." Helen promptly handed him the vases. 
 
 "You mustn't form any expectations," he cautioned. 
 " It will be a chance. WTiat shall I ask for them 1 " 
 
 " Oh, anything — anything you can get," cried 
 Helen desperately. " Nobody wants them." 
 
 " Well, we '11 see," said the other, and he now set 
 the vases in the window between the jars of imitation 
 faience. 
 
 Helen timidly offered him her card, and she stole 
 a glance at the vases from the outside, and thought 
 they looked very common, and dreadfully personal. 
 Their being there gave her neither hope nor plea- 
 sure. 
 
 The door of the coup6 stuck fast, and while she 
 stood tugging at it, a policeman stepped up and 
 opened it for her. " See here, my man," he said to 
 the driver, " you 'd better get down and wait on your 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 189 
 
 passengers decently, or give up the business. What 's 
 your number 1 " and, while the man mumbled some- 
 thing in explanation and excuse, Helen looked up 
 into the face of her champion. She failed at first to 
 recognise the civil fellow who had come home with 
 her father the day of his seizure, and whom she had 
 met on the steps; but the ofiB.cer knew her, and 
 touched his hat. 
 
 Then she remembered him. " Oh, is it you 1" she 
 cried, as if it were some old friend. 
 
 " Yes,'' said the officer, very much pleased. 
 
 " I 've always wanted to see you again and thank 
 you," began Helen. 
 
 " Oh, that 's all right," answered the officer. " Your 
 father was a man, I can tell you. I — I — I was 
 awfully sorry for you. Miss Harkness." He spoke 
 with such simple and honest cordiality that Helen 
 felt it nothing odd to be shaking hands with a 
 policeman at high noon in Washington Street. 
 
 'Thank you, you are very kind. Good-bye. I 
 shall never forget your goodness to him that day." 
 
 " Oh, don't mention it," said the policeman. He 
 touched his hat again, and vanished in the crowd ; 
 and she reflected that she had not asked his name. 
 As she looked in the direction he had gone, she saw 
 not him but herself. She saw herself standing on 
 the threshold of her old, lost home, and turning to 
 look after this man with the stare of amused, haughty 
 wonder, that a girl bred in ease and fashion, and 
 fondly shielded from all that was rude or was abrupt 
 in life, might fitly bend upon such a curious piece 
 
190 A woman's reason. 
 
 of the social mechanism, unexpectedly and incon- 
 ceivably related to herself. Her attitude implied 
 secure possession in perpetuity of whatever was 
 gracefully supreme in the world, of whatever was 
 prosperously fastidious and aloof. It was enough 
 to remember this attitude now. 
 
 The coup6 stopped at Mrs. Hewitt's narrow door, 
 and the man got down and helped her out. " I 
 guess the horse is tired enough to stand while I carry 
 this basket up for you," he said. 
 
 Helen had no gratitude to express, and she did 
 not thank him for this service when she took out 
 her purse to pay him. She had kept the carriage 
 two hours and a half, and he said they never counted 
 less than an hour, but he would call it four dollars. 
 As he folded the bills, he said he hoped she did 
 not blame him for not opening the coup6 door for 
 her; she got out and in so often, and his horse 
 always started up so when he left the box. 
 
 " no, no ! " cried Helen. " Only go, please." 
 She closed the door behind him, and she flung herself 
 upon the bed, and hid her face in her pillow, and 
 drenched it with her rushing tears. Her head ached, 
 and her heart was sore in her breast. All that had 
 happened repeated itself with ceaseless iteration in her 
 mind ; all the looks, all the tones, all the words ; they 
 burnt, and rang, and hummed in her brain ; the 
 long ordeal of her disappointment dramatised itself 
 to the inner sense in thousand-fold swift reverbera- 
 tion ; the disappointment was as bitter as if starvation 
 were before her, and the shock to her pride was even 
 
A woman's reason. 191 
 
 greater. She had fancied, as she now realised, that 
 she should succeed because she was she ; while warn- 
 ing herself that she must not expect anything but 
 failure, she had secretly cherished an ideal of triumph 
 that made the future a matter of fortunate inspira- 
 tions and jielightful toil This was what she had 
 really hoped ; and now, to her defeat was added the 
 stinging sense of having been a fool. She had pro- 
 bably set to work quite in the wrong way ; and she 
 had been not only a fool, but such a coward as to be 
 afraid to say that she wished to sell her work to 
 the only people who could take a special interest in 
 it. Yet they might not have cared for it either, and 
 if she had spoken she would have had only one 
 ignominy the more to remember. For, what puzzled 
 and surprised Helen most of all was that when she 
 had taken the humblest mien, and approached those 
 shop-people on their own level, as it were, without 
 pretension and without pride, they should have shown 
 no sense of the sacriiice she had made, but should 
 have trampled upon her all the same. 
 
 The glamour was gone from her experiment. She 
 was in the mood to accept any conditions of depend- 
 ence ; she wondered at the vain courage with which 
 she had refused the idleness and uselessness of the 
 home offered her by the Butlers. 
 
 The dinner bell rang, but she remained with her 
 face in the pillow ; after a while some one tapped at 
 her door, and then pushed it softly open and looked 
 in, but she did not stir. Whoever it was must have 
 thought her asleep, and so left her ; yet when Helen 
 
192 A woman's reason. 
 
 opened her eyes there was still some one in her 
 room. A shawl had been flung over her, and Miss 
 Eoot was sitting at the window looking at her, and 
 apparently waiting for her to wake up. 
 
 "Not going to be sick, are you?" she asked. 
 "You Ve been sleeping ever since before pinner, and 
 Mrs. Hewitt asked me to look in and see how you 
 were getting along. I guess you haven't taken cold; 
 she put the shawl on you." 
 
 " no !" said Helen, rising briskly, in the first free 
 moment of waking, when care has not yet dropped 
 back upon the heart. " I came in with a headache, 
 and threw myself on the bed to rest." 
 
 "That some of your work?" Miss Eoot indicated 
 with a nod the basket which stood in the middle of 
 the floor where the man had set it. The paper had 
 come off one of the jars, and showed its decoration. 
 
 " Yes," said Helen. " I did them— I—" A thought 
 flashed into her mind : " They are for a wedding 
 present ! " 
 
 " May I look at it ?" asked Miss Eoot. 
 
 " Certainly," said Helen, feeling bolder, now that 
 she was protected by this little outwork of unreality 
 against the invasion of Miss Boot's sympathy. She 
 unwrapped two or three of the jars and set them on 
 the window seat. 
 
 Miss Eoot did not trouble herself to take them up, 
 but stood at a little distance and glanced at them 
 with an eye that Helen saw understood and classed 
 them, and that made her feel like the amateur she 
 was. The girl turned away without comment. 
 
A woman's reason. 193 
 
 " I saw some just like them in a window as I came 
 along Washington Street. I pity any poor wretch 
 that expects to live by painting and selling them." 
 
 Miss Root could not have meant her equivocal 
 speech in unkindness, for she added, looking back as 
 she went out, " Don't you come down if you don't 
 feel just right ; I '11 bring up your supper to you." 
 
 Helen said she was going down, and arming her- 
 self with the courage of her despair, she confronted 
 the questioir of the tea-table with gaiety even, and 
 made light of her long nap. She said she had been 
 shopping all the morning, and the irony of the phrase 
 in this application flattered her bitter mood. It was 
 a stroke of the finest sarcasm, could they but know 
 it; and in her heart she mocked at their simple 
 acceptance of her statement. 
 
 Mr. Evans said he was surprised she could sleep 
 after shopping. When his wife went shopping it 
 kept the whole family awake for the next twenty- 
 four hours, and careworn for a week. Mrs. Hewitt 
 asked about the fashions, and said that she always 
 found things just as cheap and a good deal better at 
 the large stores, and you spent more time and laid 
 out as much money running round to the little places. 
 It seemed to Helen the height of the sardonic to 
 answer, " Yes, it was quite useless to go to the little 
 places." 
 
 " D'you find your letters all right, Miss Harkness?" 
 asked the landlady, when this talk had taken its 
 course ; " I put 'em on the corner of your mantel" 
 
 "No,'^ said Helen; "I didn't look." 
 
 N 
 
194 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Well, you '11 see 'em when you go back They 
 came after you went to sleep. The most curious 
 stamps on /.ever saw !" 
 
 Helen's heart stood still with fear and hope, and 
 " Oh, papa, get them for my collection," pleaded the 
 little boy. 
 
 " Here," she said, rising, and making this oppor- 
 tune prayer her shelter, " come up with me, and you 
 shall have them;" and after due reproach from his 
 mother, he was suffered to go with her. 
 
 It was Eobert Fenton's handwriting on the en- 
 velopes. " It 's my answer — it 's my sentence, — and 
 I deserve it," she said under her breath, as she stood 
 with the letters in her hand, trying to detach one of 
 the stamps with her trembling fingers. 
 
 "There," cried the boy, "you're tearing it !" 
 
 "Never mind," said Helen; "they're bothalike. 
 I '11 cut this other off for you ;" but her hand shook 
 so that she chopped into the letter a little with the 
 scissors. 
 
 "If I couldn't cut better than that!" roared the 
 boy, anxious for the integrity of his stamp. " What 
 makes you get so white, and then get so red ? " 
 
 "Oh, nothing, nothing!" answered Helen, inco- 
 herently. " Here's your stamp," she stooped to 
 give it. The child was pretty, with still grey eyes 
 and full lips. " Will you kiss me, Tom," she asked 
 in a very soft trembling voice, " for good luck ?" 
 It seemed as if her fate hung upon his will, but 
 when he hastily kissed her, and ran out, she still 
 had not courage to open the letters. She flung 
 
A woman's reason. 195 
 
 them on the bed, and locked the door, and then 
 came back and looked at them. She could see a 
 little of the writing in one through the hole where 
 she had cut away the stamp, and she tried to make 
 out the words ; they were such words as " from," and 
 "for," and "with." 
 
 If there had been but one letter, she thought, she 
 should not have been afraid of it ; but this mystery 
 of there being two ! She tried putting one out of 
 sight under the pillow, but that did no good. Her 
 sole comfort was that while they were still unopened 
 she did not know the worst ; but in the meantime 
 she was consumed with a terrible curiosity. She 
 studied them hard, and then walked away to the 
 furthest comer. 
 
 " Oh, what is it in them 1 Indeed, I couldn't bear 
 anything after to-day, indeed I couldn't !" she 
 whimpered. "I can't open them!" and then she 
 pounced upon one of them in a frenzy and tore it 
 open. 
 
X. 
 
 The character of no man is fixed till it has been 
 tried by that of the woman he loves. Till then he 
 has only the materials of character, and they are all 
 to be shaped and ordered I as newly as if he had 
 never had them before. 'The thousand and one 
 mysteries of Helen's girlish uncertainty, her fantastic 
 waverings, her sesthetic coquetries with the idea of 
 being in love, were as unintelligible to Fenton as 
 his headlong and outspoken passion was to her. 
 But while she thought his bluntness charming, in a 
 way, and constantly trembled nearer and nearer 
 to him in her heart, Penton was far too simple a 
 fellow to feel anything but trouble at the misgivings 
 and delays which she enjoyed. When at last he 
 made what he felt must be his last offer, and she 
 met it with all those freshly alarmed ideals and 
 metaphysical scruples, which a wiser and worse man 
 would have trampled under foot, — tearing her from 
 herself, as she unconsciously meant, and making her 
 his in her own despite, as she reluctantly wished, 
 Fenton lost his head in a delirium of angry and 
 wounded pride. 
 
 When he awoke from it, irretrievably committed 
 
A woman's reason. 197 
 
 to three years' exile, it was in a self-abhorrence and 
 despair, and a sort of stupefaction that he should 
 have done what he had done. His repentance came 
 before he had forgiven Helen, and long before he had 
 begun to conceive that the letter might have another 
 meaning than that which he had first taken from it. 
 Of his own light, perhaps, he never saw more in it 
 than it seemed to say. It was withcnlt reading it 
 again, without having the heart to look at it, that 
 he hated himself for what he had done, and loathed 
 himself for his futile desire to make reparation. It 
 was impossible to repair his fault, and if it were 
 possible, it would be despicable to attempt it. 
 
 He went haggardly about his duty, a machine that 
 did its work, but with no more mind upon it than a, 
 machine. There came long spaces of time in which 
 he afterwards recognised that he had not known 
 what he was doing ; that he had been altogether 
 absent without having been anywhere else; he awoke 
 from these absences as from a profound, dreamless 
 torpor, and with a start of fear and amaze, to find 
 that all had been going well in the meantime, that 
 he had been talking, eating, and drinking, and 
 shrewdly attentive to whatever immediately con- 
 cerned him. It would have been hard for him to 
 say whether the time when he was on duty, and no 
 one spoke to him, or the leisure in which he was 
 intimately thrown with his brother officers was the 
 more terrible : his solitude was dense with piercing 
 regrets, that stung for ever in the same place ; his 
 association with others was tormented by an un- 
 
198 A woman's reason. 
 
 forgettable remorse, which, if it seemed to grant him 
 a moment's oblivion, awoke him presently, from 
 somebody's joke or story, to the consciousness that 
 it had only been more deeply and inwardly gnawing 
 his soul. 
 
 Some sort of action was indispensable, but action 
 which did not relate to Helen, was none. He began 
 to write letters to her. He had no idea of sending 
 them, but it had grown insufferable to be perpetually 
 talking to her as he was in those airy dramas within 
 himself; and since his words could not be made 
 audible, he must let them take visible shape. This 
 became his daily habit ; and before the ship reached 
 Rio de Janeiro he had accumulated a score of letters, 
 which he bitterly amused himself by reading over, 
 and considering, and putting by without destroying. 
 He kept them, and found a sort of miserable relief 
 in communing with them instead of his intangible 
 thoughts. His industry did not escape the idle 
 vigilance of the ship's comradery ; but at sea every 
 one must be suffered his whim, and after laughing 
 at Fenton's, they left him to it, in the feigned belief 
 that it was a book he was writing : a marine novel, 
 they decided. Each thought it in the way of 
 his rightful joke to say, "Don't put me into it, 
 Fenton," till Fenton, who worked up slowly to his 
 repartees, found presence of mind at last to answer^ 
 " No ; I can't afford to make it dull, you know,'' and 
 then they left him quite alone, with a roar at the 
 expense of the chance victim. Before the laugh was 
 over, Fenton had almost ceased to know what it was 
 
A woman's reason. 199 
 
 about, and had wholly ceased to care. He was quite 
 too miserable to be glad of the immunity he had 
 won. 
 
 He went on with his letter-writing; but on the 
 eve of arrival g,t , Rio de Janeiro he destroyed all his 
 work, and set about writing one letter, which should 
 be his last. It was his' purpose to post this without 
 reference to consequences, as an act of final expia- 
 tion. He was not without some trembling illusion 
 that there might be a letter awaiting him : he did not 
 dare to think from Helen, and he could not think 
 from whom else. But his letter was to go before he 
 knew what was in that, or even whether it existed. 
 He had no reason to suppose it did exist ; it was in 
 fact as purely a figment of his distempered fancy as 
 a starving man's visions of feasting ; and when he 
 had faithfully posted his letter before going to the 
 consul to ask if there were anything for him, he 
 could not make out that it was disappointment that 
 sickened him to find there was nothing. But a mail 
 was expected the following day, and he kept his 
 wrecked hopes adrift upon its possibilities during the 
 night. 
 
 The mail brought him no letter, but it brought 
 the consul a copy of The Boston Advertiser, which he 
 politely offered to Lieutenant Fenton unopened, not 
 having the leisure just then for the newspaper. 
 Fenton unfolded it with indifference, and mechani- 
 cally glanced at the marriages. The paper was of a 
 date four or five days after he had sailed, and the 
 name of Helen Harkness did not appear in the mar- 
 
200 A woman's reason. 
 
 riage list He had not expected that it would, 
 nevertheless he had looked at the marriages on her 
 account; and he was about laying the paper aside 
 when the record of a single death caught his eye. It 
 was the death of Helen's father, with a dozen lines 
 of mortuary praise. He dropped the paper. 
 
 "Nothing in the Advertiser?" asked the consul, 
 who was busy about some letters, without looking 
 up. 
 
 " Too much !" said Fenton, pulling his cap over 
 his eyes. 
 
 The consul thought this was a joke, and laughed 
 in a companionable, uninterested way. Fenton 
 looked at him and saw his innocence, and then he 
 sat a long time in silence, with his arms folded, and 
 his head down. At last he asked the consul if he 
 could give him a sheet of paper and an envelope, and 
 brieiiy wrote the second of the two letters which had 
 reached Helen together. In her desperation, she 
 had found no resource but to open them according 
 to the order of the dates in their postmarks, and she 
 had seized first upon that of the 9th. It began 
 simply, Helen, and it ran in this way : — 
 
 " I hope you will have patience to read this letter 
 through, though I have forfeited all right to a hear- 
 ing from you. I am not going to make an appeal 
 for your forgiveness, because I know I ought not to 
 have it. I have suffered, not all that I ought to 
 suffer, but all that human nature can suffer for that 
 letter I sent you from Portsmouth. But I shall not 
 try to work upon j'our pity ; I believe that I have 
 
A woman's reason. 201 
 
 that already. I only wish you to understand that in 
 again renouncing all pretensions to your regard, I do 
 it with a full approval of your conduct to me. I do 
 not blame you in the least thing. I see that I was 
 altogether to blame. I see what I did not see before : 
 that you never cared for me, and that you tried 
 with all your heart, to be kind to me, and yet not to 
 give me hope. I thank you for your goodness, and 
 I beg you to believe, when you have read this letter, 
 that my eyes are open at last, and that if I keep on 
 loving you, it is because my love of you has become 
 my life, and that I know I am no more worthy to 
 love you than I am to live. I cannot help one or the 
 other, but I can keep either from being troublesome 
 to you, and I will. So I do not ask you to admit 
 any of my former pretensions, but only to let me be 
 your friend, in whatever humble and useful way I 
 can. I consider myself a disgraced man, and I shall 
 expect nothing of you but the kind of forbearance 
 and patience you would show some repentant criminal 
 who was depending upon your countenance for 
 strength to reform himself. 
 
 "I know you have told Mr. Harkness of my 
 Portsmouth letter, and that he must be very much 
 incensed with me. But though I do not ask your 
 forgiveness, Helen, I do beseech you to try to get 
 me his. I owe him all the little good there is in me, 
 and I owe him all that I am and have done in this 
 world. I could not tell you how dearly and truly I 
 honour and love him. The thought that I came 
 away without trying to take leave of him chokes 
 
202 A woman's reason. 
 
 me; but after writing you that fatal letter, every- 
 thing that was right and decent became impossible. 
 " Good-bye, Helen. 
 
 '' Robert Fenton." 
 
 When Helen had finished this letter, which, in- 
 deed, she seemed instantly to divine rather than to 
 read, she not only kissed it but pressed it to her 
 breast and locked her arms upon it, clasping it close, 
 as if it were some living thing and could feel the 
 wild, happy tumult of her heart. She wept long 
 and sweetly over it. It might not have been the 
 perfection of reason to another, but to her all the 
 parts were linked together by an impenetrable and 
 infrangible logic. Nay, it was not that, it was not 
 eloquence ; it was the sum of everything, it was 
 love, and however hapless love to the writer, it was 
 heaven-prospered passion to Helen, who seemed in 
 that fond embrace to implore, to forgive, to console 
 Robert, as if he were there present and she had 
 fallen upon his neck. They were happy, and they 
 were happy together ; it was so much to know that 
 she need never wish to know more. 
 
 For some time, in the rush of her emotion, she did 
 not realise that it was not an answer to her own 
 letter. But it was infinitely more. It forestalled 
 and anticipated her letter, as that, when it came 
 to his hand, would in its turn be both appeal and 
 response to him. Best of all, his letter "made the 
 first advance towards reconciliation, and assumed for 
 Robert the blame for what she had suffered. She 
 
A woman's reason. 203 
 
 knew that he was not wholly to blame, but as a 
 woman she liked to have him say that he was, and 
 she liked him to be generously first in owning him- 
 self wrong — that always seems a man's part. 
 
 She had almost forgotten the letter of later date, 
 the letter of the 10th, which still lay unopened 
 ■ before her. That, too, would be precious, but never 
 so dear as this of the 9th, which should always be 
 first in the history of their love; the other, no matter 
 how sweet it proved, must always remain second. It 
 was, in fact, not a fortunate inspiration. In his grief 
 at the news which he had just read, Fenton's mind 
 had reverted to the< old relation in which he had 
 first known Helen, and in the presence of the 
 bereavement that they had both suffered in the loss 
 of one who had been no less a father to him than to 
 her, he addressed her as a sister, and signed himself 
 as her brother Eobert. These words, coming upon 
 the different tenderness his other letter had evoked, 
 seemed to push her coldly from him, to disown their 
 love and to ignore it, to take her at a certain disad- 
 vantage with respect to the soitow in which they 
 humbly asked a brother's share; they made her 
 jealous in a wild sort of her sorrow, they inde- 
 scribably wounded her so that she threw the letter 
 from her and wept bitter tears for the happy ones 
 she had shed. It was such a letter as no woman 
 would have written if she had been a man ! She 
 should not know which letter to answer now, nor 
 how to answer either ; for if she answered the first 
 as she would have done, might not Eobert think her 
 
204 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 bold and unfilial 1 and if she answered the second as 
 she ought, would she not appear reserved and cold 
 with him upon whom her heart had just thrown itself 
 with such tender abandon 1 The letters made two 
 Roberts of him, and left her to despair between them. 
 
 She passed a hapless night, and in the morning 
 she took the first train after breakfast for Beverley, 
 where she appeared at the Butlers' before ten o'clock, 
 asking in such a high hysteric key for Mrs. Butler, 
 who was not yet down, that they led her at once to 
 her room. There she threw up her veil, revealing 
 eyes tragic with tears and want of sleep, and gave 
 the two letters into Mrs. Butler's hand while she hid 
 her face in Mrs. Butler's pillow. 
 
 "0 Helen, Helen!" said the elder lady, when 
 she had spelled through these documents in the dim 
 light, " how glad I am for you ! Come, look at me, 
 my dear, and let me see your happy face ! This 
 makes up your quarrel, and you are — Why, 
 Helen!" she cried, when the girl obeying, bent 
 those eyes of tragedy upon her, " what is the matter? 
 Don't you — didn't you — " 
 
 " yes, I care for him — all the world !" Helen 
 broke out " But the more I care for him the worse 
 it is, and unless you can help me out of this trouble, 
 Mrs. Butler, I shall surely go crazy. Oh, how in- 
 delicate it is of me to come to you ! But I don't 
 know what to do — I don't know what to do ; I 'm 
 so horribly alone ! And it 's such a very strange, 
 ridiculous thing !" She did not suffer herself to 
 pause, while Mrs. Butler stared compassionately at 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 205 
 
 her, till she had put her in full possession of her 
 perplexity, and explained how it had poisoned all 
 her joy. 
 
 Mrs. Butler did not laugh at her ; she was one of 
 those high spirits who perceive the sacred rather 
 than the absurd, and amidst the girl's wild talk, she 
 saw the reasonableness of pain that to a coarser 
 sense would only have been ludicrous. " You must 
 not think of this second letter at all, Helen,'' she said 
 seriously. " Shall I tear it up 1 " 
 
 "Oh, oh!" said Helen, half-reaching for it, and 
 yet holding her hand. " It 's about papa, and — it 's 
 from/wm .'" She caught her breath, and trembled for 
 Mrs. Butler's decision. 
 
 " I didn't think of destroying it,'' said the other, 
 " but I 'm not going to let yoU have it back. This is 
 the only letter you've got, Helen, for the present,'' 
 she added, handing the girl the first, and putting the 
 second under her pillow. " The letter that you sent 
 him the other day — wouldn't that be a kind of 
 answer to this'!" 
 
 "Why, yes !" cried Helen with electrical perception. 
 
 " Well, then, answer the first. I want you to let me 
 keep this till — till I can give it back to Mrs. Fenton." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Helen. 
 
 " And kiss me, my dear," said Mrs. Butler fondly ; 
 " and bathe your eyes yonder. And if you touch the 
 left hand-bell, Marian will come up." 
 
 "Oh!" said Helen in the same shaken tone as 
 before. " Shall you — shall you tell her ?" 
 
 " No ; you shall," replied Mrs. Butler. But when 
 
206 A woman's reason. 
 
 Marian came, it was Mrs. Butler who had to explain 
 the embrace in which Helen seized her, and which, 
 first returning with mechanical affection, she now 
 returned with rapturous intelligence. 
 
 "Engaged?" she exulted. "Oh, Helen, Helen, 
 Helen !" 
 
 " Why," cried Helen, laughing from her happy 
 heart, and pulling away from her friend, " I don't 
 know what you call it. I 've written him a making- 
 up letter, and he's written me one, and they've 
 crossed on the way." 
 
 " Oh, tliat 's an engagement,'' said Marian, with 
 the authority of a connoisseur. 
 
 "But he hasn't got my letter yet, and I'm not 
 engaged till he has." 
 
 " That 's nothing. He 's engaged, because you 've 
 got his, and in an engagement the man counts for 
 everything ; the girl goes without saying." Marian 
 Butler was at that period full of those airs of self- 
 abnegation with which women adorn themselves in 
 the last days of betrothal, and the first of marriage, 
 and never afterwards. 
 
 They talked Helen's whole affair over, in the 
 light of the full candour which she was able to bring 
 to bear upon it now for the first time. As to feelings 
 she must still have her reseiTes ; but as to facts, she 
 made them little by little all theirs ; it helped her to 
 realise Robert to be talking of him by his name, and 
 to hear others doing so. At the sound of approach- 
 ing footsteps without, Marian said — 
 
 "Now mother, those children are not to know 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 207 
 
 about this. They 're too forthputting now, especially 
 Jessie." 
 
 Ignorant of this supreme interest, the younger 
 sisters were richly content with Helen's further 
 account of her boarding-house life, which she con- 
 tinued to them like an instalment of some intoxica- 
 ting romance. When she came to the end of her 
 chapter, she stopped with a manner that roused their 
 worst suspicions. 
 
 " Oh, she 's keeping something back ! " complained 
 Jessie, and " Oh, oh !" went up from the others. 
 
 "Yes !" cried Helen, "I'm keeping back the best 
 of all, because it doesn't seem as if I could tell it.'' 
 
 While they all stared, she abruptly began the 
 confession of her experiment iu decorative keramics. 
 She was by this time in high spirits, and she poured 
 it all out, illustrating, mimicking, not sparing her- 
 self in the minutest particular of conceited expecta- 
 tion or forlorn reality. It was all past now, far past, 
 and was part of a former existence which she had 
 suddenly outlived by an untraversable period of 
 time. It made them laugh, Marian with amusement, 
 and Mrs. Butler with a sort of grieving compassion ; 
 as for the young girls, it seemed to them the wildest 
 and most enviable adventure that ever was known 
 out of a book. 
 
 " And you didn't meet a soul^ — not a soul you 
 knew?" asked Mrs. Butler. 
 
 "0 no; no one shops in Boston now, you know; 
 and I was perfectly safe. But I shouldn't have 
 cared." 
 
208 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 "I should have been glad of it!" cried Jessie 
 Butler. " I should have liked to lug my basket up 
 and poke it into their carriage-doors, and offer to 
 sell them the things, and see how they would look!" 
 
 " Jessie !" said her mother. 
 
 " Well, never mind. Go on, go on, Helen !" 
 
 " That 's all," said Helen, who had brought them 
 back to the period of her return to her room and her 
 long desperate slumber. " No, the worst is to come! 
 Miss Root came in while I was asleep, and discovered 
 them ; and what do you think I told her ? I told her 
 I had been doing them for a wedding present ! " 
 
 There was fresh sensation at this, but Jessie ex- 
 claimed, "Marian Butler shall never have those 
 vases in the world. They shall be sold ! The idea ! 
 / will go up and sell them !" 
 
 " No," said Helen soberly ; " she must take them, 
 Jessie, to save me from fibbing, if nothing else. 
 Besides, you suggested painting pottery, Marian, and 
 they're Beverley ware — all very appropriate, you 
 see. And some of them are not so bad. And I 
 can't give you anything better till — my ship comes 
 home I" 
 
 At this- idea of a ship, and of its coming home, 
 Helen and Marian simultaneously pressed each other's 
 hands, where they sat side by side on the lounge, 
 with delicious intelligence. Marian said that she 
 should prize Helen's present more than anything else 
 that could be given her, and that its history, which 
 could not be known out the family, would make it all 
 the more precious ; the legend would be something 
 
A woman's reason. 209 
 
 to tell the future age. It would be great to say, 
 " Only think of your great-grandmother going about 
 the whole day with these beautiful things, and not 
 being able to sell them for a crust of bread to keep 
 her from starving." 
 
 " Marian," said her mother, " I can't let you make a 
 joke of it. I can't help thinking how wretched it would 
 have been if poor Helen had really been in need." 
 
 " Indeed I was in need, Mrs. Butler," said Helen, 
 "while I was doing those things. I felt just as 
 destitute I And I worked at them, early and late, as 
 if my life depended upon it.'' 
 
 "Oh, that's a very different thing, my dear," said 
 Mrs. Butler. "It was only play poverty, after all. 
 Think if you had really been some poor girl, with 
 nothing, and had met with such a disappointment !" 
 
 " I don't believe I could have suffered more," said 
 Helen, confidently. 
 
 " I 'm glad you 've no means of knowing certainly. 
 But now that you 've tried your experiment, Helen, 
 hadn't you better end this little escapade, and come 
 back to us ? Things have come about very fortu- 
 nately," she added quickly, at a look of refusal in 
 Helen's eye, " and your failure to earn a living makes 
 it easier for me to tell you something that's been 
 rather weighing upon my mind." 
 
 She spoke with a double sense to Helen, who 
 understood that it was not her failure, but the letter 
 from Robert which made it easy for Mrs. Butler to say 
 what followed. 
 
 "We have concluded not to wait a month after 
 O 
 
210 A woman's reason. 
 
 Marian is married, before we sail, but to go the next 
 week. We shall not try to run them down — ■ Girls," 
 she broke off, and speaking with the tone of authority 
 which they knew when they heard it, " go and see 
 where your father is," and when they were gone, she 
 resumed, — "but we shall follow them up pretty 
 closely, and we shall meet them in Venice just before 
 they start from Trieste for Egypt. Now, Marian !" 
 
 "And there," said Marian, "Miss Harkness, who 
 has come to that point with the bride's family, will 
 join the happy couple, and make one of their party 
 up the Nile. It 's to be a trusteeship, Helen," 
 she cried, " it can't be resigned ; you must come. 
 We are going to take a dahabeiah at Cairo, with some 
 Philadelphia friends of Ned's, very quiet people whom 
 he took a great fancy to ; and I want you along to 
 do the correct, and elegant, and superior thing for 
 Boston, and leave me to uninterrupted enjoyment of 
 the sillies. Yes, Helen, you must come. Ned wishes 
 it as much as I, and I can't tell you how much that 
 is. We want to take you away from yourself, and 
 we promise to bring you back in a year — " She 
 hesitated : "I was pausing for want of an idea, but 
 say — improved in every way." 
 
 " Oh, I oan't !" lamented Helen. She leaned back 
 upon the lounge, and brooded upon the matter in a 
 silence to which the others left her unmolested. " It 
 isn't because it doesn't seem the loveliest and kindest 
 thing in the world, Marian, and I 've no peasant- 
 pride that would prevent me from accepting it ; and 
 it isn't because I think I should do better to go on 
 
A woman's reason. 211 
 
 trying to take care of myself, Mrs. Butler. I know 
 that I 'm a distinct failure in that way, and I haven't 
 any heart or conceit for further experiments. But — 
 I must stay ! He will come back — I know he will 
 come back, as soon as he gets that letter of mine — 
 and he must find me here waiting for him. It would 
 be a shocking kind of treachery if I were away." 
 
 " You could write to him now that you were going 
 with us," said Marian, a good deal shaken by the 
 heroism of Helen's position, " and he could meet you 
 somewhere abroad." 
 
 Mrs. Butler said nothing. 
 
 " The second letter might miss," replied Helen, as 
 if the first letter could not. 
 
 " You could keep writing," urged Marian, " before 
 you sailed, and then from Europe." 
 
 " No ; it wouldn't do. He must iind me here 
 waiting for him ; and I mustn't stir from the spot 
 till he gets back. I don't know how to explain it 
 exactly. But it would look very queer and light- 
 minded, wouldn't it, if I went off junketing up the 
 Nile, while he was thinking all the time that I was 
 forlornly waiting for him in Boston, and was as un- 
 happy as he till we met 1 Besides, I feel this way 
 about it, after what has passed between us : I ought 
 not to be on a high horse of any sort when Robert 
 comes back. I feel that it is his right and his due 
 to be able to stoop to me a little ; and it would only 
 be a just reparation for me to be in very humble 
 circumstances when I met him. Doesn't that seem 
 like a kind of reason to you, Mrs. Butler?" 
 
212 A woman's reason. 
 
 "Yes," assented Mrs. Butler Soubtfullyj "a little 
 romantic !" 
 
 " Do you think so ? " asked Helen, rather hurt ; 
 "I hoped you would think it sensible." 
 
 "I do, my dear, I do," Mrs. Butler hastened to 
 reply, "from your point of view." 
 
 "There's this, too," Helen added, not quite 
 appeased, after a hesitation. "Robert hasn't any 
 money, but his pay ; and I only have such a very little, . 
 that we couldn't begin living like rich people ; and 
 the question is whether I had better keep on living 
 as I used to do, or whether I hadn't better get 
 accustomed to something very plain and simple at 
 once." 
 
 "Yes,"' said Mrs. Butler, while Marian fidgeted 
 in protest, but said nothing. 
 
 " I try to look at it quite dispassionately, and in 
 the light of common sense, without any foolishness, 
 and it seems to me that I shouldn't be doing right 
 unless I were making some sacrifice for Robert, and 
 suffering, don't you know, in some way ; I should 
 not be happy unless I were. You know," she said 
 softly, " that I don't think I always used Robert very 
 well. I don't mean that I meant to ; but I didn't 
 understand myself ; and now that I do, and under- 
 stand him, I should be detestable, if I went off to be 
 pleased and diverted,' while he was hurrying home 
 with his mind burning upon the thought that I was 
 waiting here in perfect wretchedness till he came- 
 Don't you see 1 I must be here, and I must be 
 wretched, to be perfectly true to him !" 
 
A woman's reason. 213 
 
 " You are right, Helen !" cried Mrs. Butler, deeply- 
 moved by this divine logic of the heart. "Hush, 
 Marian, don't speak ! You know she is right. 
 Come here, Helen !" The matron embraced the girl 
 in the fervour of that youth vs'hich women of all ages 
 have in common. " We won't say anything more of 
 this, matter, Marian, and we will just tell your father 
 that Helen can't go. You won't mind my letting out 
 a little of your secret to him 1 " 
 
 " O no !" blushed Helen. " I had expected you to 
 tell him." 
 
 Captain Butler would once have teased the girl 
 about her happiness. But since her father's death he 
 seemed not to have been able to treat her lightly ; 
 her loss and her uncertain future made her a serious 
 affair to him; and now that her father was gone, 
 Helen was startled at times to iind how much his old 
 friend was like him. There were tones and move- 
 ments of strange resemblance ; perhaps the impression 
 came partly from Captain Butler's impaired health ; 
 he was certainly not well, and that made her think 
 of her father. He took what Mrs. Butler told him 
 very much as her father would have done, she thought, 
 and he expressed his satisfaction almost as quietly. 
 His only revenge was to ask : — 
 
 " Shall you answer in care of the Navy Department, 
 or would you like to telegraph a reply I " 
 
 " Oh, Captain Butler," cried Helen, " could I tele- 
 graph f" 
 
 " Yes," said the Captain. " How would you word 
 your despatch 'i " 
 
214 A woman's keason. 
 
 "Mr. Butler !" said his wife in reproach. 
 
 "I — I don't know !" gasped Helen. 
 
 "It wouldn't reach him, now, any sooner than 
 your letter of three weeks ago. He 'II find that at 
 Hong Kong when he gets there, and you wouldn't 
 know where to hit him with a telegram on the way. 
 If your letter was posted at Eio, the Muskingum — " 
 
 " Messasauga," Helen softly corrected him. 
 
 " Was it Messasauga ? — is going round the Cape 
 of Good Hope, and she must have passed that point 
 a week ago, and she won't stop at any other tele- 
 graphic port, probably. Here," said the Captain, 
 with rising interest, "111 show you his course." 
 
 He got a chart out of the library, and Helen began 
 to study navigation with the impassioned devo- 
 tion which love lends to intellectual pursuits. One 
 observes this ardour in two young persons of opposite 
 sexes who take up some branch of literature or science 
 together, which they might not perhaps have thought 
 of, if they had not thought of each other. It has been 
 known to cast a purple light upon metaphysics. 
 Helen borrowed the chart and brought it away with 
 her. 
 
 It was a happy day, and its memory remained to 
 sweeten the days in the increasing bustle of pre- 
 paration for Marian's wedding, when Helen saw 
 her friends less and less, and then the days when 
 she saw them no more. 
 
XL 
 
 Helen's letter, crossing the letter Eenton wrote 
 at Eio de Janeiro, reached him at Hong-Kong. It 
 added, after the first hours of rapture, the anguish of 
 a hopeless longing to the remorse he had been suffer- 
 ing. It was no longer a question of her forgiveness ; 
 but he did not find it easier, now that he had the 
 assurance of her love, to forgive himself for his rash- 
 ness ; he thought of her alone in her sorrow, without 
 the instant sympathy and support which she had a 
 right to expect from him, even if there had been no 
 tie but their common affection for her father between 
 them ; and his whole life centred in an impulse to 
 return to her somehow from the banishment he had 
 inflicted upon himself. But he had himself made 
 return impossible — for the present at least — by the 
 terms on which he had sought exile ; he must wait 
 and he must suffer — that would have been simple 
 enough — and he must also make her wait and suffer. 
 When he came to this conclusion, as he always must, 
 it was with a mental shock that was like a veritable 
 concussion of the brain, that left him weaker day by 
 day, and that broke him at last. He fell sick of a 
 disorder that baffled the science of the surgeon when 
 he visited him in his room. 
 
216 A woman's reason. 
 
 " What the devil is the matter with you 1 I 
 believe in my soul you 're trying to make a die of it," 
 said the doctor, a cheerful, elderly man, tight in his 
 uniform. 
 
 " No man ever wanted to live as I do," answered 
 Fenton. 
 
 " Well, then, you must brace up. I '11 give you a 
 tonic. Make you up a bottle and send it to you." 
 The doctor felt his pulse again and said, "You're 
 either down with the climate, and that affects your 
 spirits, or else it 's your spirits that affect your health. 
 But in any case you must brace up." As Fenton lay 
 perfectly still with his face turned away. Dr. Simmons 
 passed his hand over the top of his head where a per- 
 spiration of perplexity had gathered in the scattering 
 down. " I can't minister to a mind diseased, you 
 know," he suggested. 
 
 " No," said Fenton. 
 
 " You must go to some other shop." 
 
 He got himself with difficulty out of Fenton's door 
 into the ward-room, and presently sent him the 
 bottle. It seemed to make him worse, and the 
 doctor visited him again in renewed mystification. 
 After the usual inspection, he sat looking at Fenton 
 as before, and then said casually, " What a lucky 
 chap Nixon is, going home on leave so soon ! " 
 
 Feilton sat up. " Going home ! my God !" He 
 fell back on his pillow, and the doctor nodded his 
 head. 
 
 "I thought so. You're homesick. Nixon isn't 
 going home ; but if you keep on in this way, you are 
 
A woman's reason. 217 
 
 — in a box. This thing will kill you as sure as you 
 live, if you don't fight it, and if you've got particular 
 reasons for living, as you intimated the other day, 
 you 'd better make the most of them. Get leave and 
 go off somewhere for a while. Amuse yourself ; try 
 to forget about it. You can worry it off somehow. 
 You must; and so I tell you." 
 
 " Two days after I sailed the man who had taken 
 care of me all my life, and been more than a father 
 to me, died suddenly, and left his only child alone in 
 the world," said Fenton desperately. " How am I to 
 worry that off ? I ought to be there — to help her, to 
 take care of her, to show the gratitude that common 
 decency — " 
 
 " Well, that is bad," assented the doctor. " But 
 she 's got friends, of course ?" 
 
 " Oh, friends, yes !" 
 
 " And of course she '11 be looked after. You must 
 try to see the bright side of it,'' added the doctor. 
 "There 's a bright side to everything." 
 
 " Do you think so 1 Then I '11 tell you the bright 
 side to this. ^ I came away in a quarrel with them — 
 a quarrel where I was to blame — without seeing them 
 or saying a word to them ; and I can't ask leave to 
 go home, because I made a point of getting ordered 
 here. That 's the bright side of it !" 
 
 "It isn't very dazzling," admitted the doctor, with 
 the smile that men put on at other men's troubles 
 of sentiment. "But it isn't a thing to be morbid 
 about. You can write home and explain. You 're 
 a little under the influence of the climate here ; you '11 
 
218 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 see all these things differently when you're used 
 to it. I 'd better give you some quinine. There 's 
 no use in giving way ; you '11 only make bad worse." 
 
 1 he shame of having confessed to an anxiety that 
 another seemed to lind so slight was a powerful 
 auxiliary in the effort of will that Fenton made to 
 overcome its physical effects. He succeeded so far 
 that he was able to go on duty again, after a week 
 or two, and to live doggedly on from day to day in 
 that double consciousness where the secret trouble 
 remains a dull, incessant ache underneath all the out- 
 ward conditions. It began to be a superstition with 
 him that something must happen, some chance of 
 escape must offer ; he could not yet bring himself to 
 the thought of the last resort, though the knowledge 
 that at the end of all he could resign and go home 
 continually tempted him. 
 
 Helen's letters, as they came, were brave and hopeful, 
 and Fenton only wrote of the time when they should 
 meet ; he instinctively wrote as if this time must be 
 near. Then the mere lapse of days and weeks began 
 to have its effect as it does in every human affliction ; 
 it lessened his burden by making it a thing of custom, 
 to which his life adjusted itself. He had not less to 
 bear, but he had learned better how to bear it ; and 
 the pride and joy which he had felt in Helen's love, 
 even when he felt himself least worthy of it, seemed 
 more and more his right, and less and less his unlaw- 
 ful possession. Apparently she was pleasantly placed 
 in the house which she amusingly described to him, 
 and she was living quietly and trustfully on there, 
 
A woman's reason. 219 
 
 waiting for his return. She wrote him very freely 
 about everything else, but she shrank from telling 
 him. of her experiment in decorating pottery for 
 sale, because she would not let him know that she 
 had ever thought herself in need. She never spoke 
 of any need in her life except his return ; she only 
 spoke of that in answer to his letters saying that he 
 would use every effort to get back, and then she said 
 that they must both have patience, and that she 
 would be content to wait all her days for him, rather 
 than have him do anything that he would not have 
 done if she had not wished. She said something 
 that made Fenton smile, about her knowing that he 
 would not dream of deserting his post of duty ; and 
 then she begged his forgiveness if she had seemed to 
 express any fear of such a thing ; and again she said 
 that she was very well and very contented, and that 
 he must not worry about her, and she only wished 
 that he could look into her little room at Mrs. 
 Hewitt's, and see how comfortable she was. 
 
 To the next letter, which reached him a month 
 later, she put a postscript in which she offered to 
 give him back' every word that bound him to such 
 a helpless and foolish creature as she was, but told 
 him that it would kill her if he consented. " If it 
 were not for thinking of you, Eobert, I should 
 hardly have the courage to keep up.- If you were 
 ever to be unkind to me again, no matter if it were 
 entirely my fault, I could not forgive you, but I 
 should die in the attempt. There are some things," 
 she added, with subtle relevancy, "about my everyday 
 
220 A woman's reason. 
 
 life, and its cares and difficulties, that make me wish 
 for your advice, but you are too far away for that ; 
 and if you were here, I should not have the troubles, 
 and should not need the advice. It all comes from 
 my not having any head for figures, and not calcu- 
 lating beforehand instead of afterwards, when it 
 does no good ; and then I have to pay a poor girl's 
 penalty for flinging money away as no rich girl 
 ought." 
 
 The day she wrote, Helen had met in the street 
 one of the women whom she had put down on her 
 list of the things "To be given away" before the 
 auction, for certain tables, chairs, and bedsteads, 
 which Captain Butler, in the use of a wise discretion, 
 had ordered to be sold for the benefit of the estate. 
 Mrs. Sullivan, though poor, was not proud, and she was 
 one of those who had formerly profited by the sums 
 which Helen saved from hack-hire. She now thanked 
 her for a small present of old clothes, which, being 
 sent her before Captain Butler's agency in Helen's 
 charities began, had really reached her. Helen 
 saw the expectation of future old clothes in the 
 woman's eye, and thought it right to cut off her vain 
 hope. 
 
 "I'm afraid I shall not have any more clothes 
 for you very soon," she said coldly. "I must wear 
 my old things myself after this." Then, with some 
 exasperation at being invited to an impossible bene- 
 ficence, where she had already done so much, she 
 added : " I hope you found the furniture useful, 
 Mrs. Sullivan f 
 
A woman's reason. 221- 
 
 " What f oornitoor, Miss ] " quavered the poor 
 woman, reduced to destitution by the idea of the 
 prosperity that had evaded her; and it came out 
 that she had never received the things intended for 
 her. 
 
 Helen did not pause to inquire how this had 
 happened. " There has been some misunderstanding, 
 Mrs. Sullivan," she said loftily ; " but I don't intend 
 that you shall be the sufferer by it." She gave Mrs. 
 Sullivan everything she had in her porte-monnaie 
 except some horse-car tickets. "It may not be so 
 much as the furniture was worth, but it's ready 
 money, and no doubt you can buy things with it that 
 you would rather have." 
 
 Mrs. Sullivan was apparently not inclined to this 
 opinion ; the loss because uncertain seemed greater ; 
 but she did not fail to invoke God's favour upon 
 Helen, and she asked for her washing, as an amend 
 for the unmerited deprivation which the Sullivan 
 family had undergone through her. Helen hurried 
 home, and found that she had given Mrs. Sullivan 
 all her money but ten dollars, and that now she 
 must encroach upon her capital at last. She must 
 go to the lawyer in whose hands Captain Butler had 
 left her money, and ask him for some of it. She 
 could have wept for vexation at her rashness, and 
 shame for the necessity to which it had brought her; 
 but the sum of her varying moods was the mood of 
 self-pity in which she wrote that postscript to Eobert. 
 She was sorry for it as soon as she had posted the 
 letter, but even then she merely regretted it as the 
 
222 A woman's reason. 
 
 expression of a mood, which she had always said was 
 foolish in writing a letter. 
 
 Fenton had never imagined her poor, or in need 
 of any kind ; the fancy of a lover does not deal with 
 material circumstances ; but he now made ample 
 amends for past failure. He took unsparing blame 
 to himself for the false delicacy that had kept him 
 from asking in what state her father's affairs had 
 been left, for not making her tell him how much or 
 how little she had. At this first vague hint of cares 
 and difficulties,— of the necessity of saving, — which 
 she had allowed to escape her, he saw her in a 
 poverty that scarcely stopped short of the municipal 
 soup-kitchen. With the distance which he had put 
 between them, how could he hope to help her? 
 How could he even intimate his longing to do so, 
 without wounding her 1 He wore himself out in vain 
 contrivance for getting his pay to her in some 
 secret and anonymous way. 
 
 Her next letter was cheerful and happy, with no 
 hint of trouble ; but he could see nothing in it but 
 a feint of gaiety, a pretence to keep him in heart 
 about her; and the efi"ect of time and will were 
 undone in him. 
 
 " I don't understand all this bother of yours, 
 Fenton," said the doctor, to whom he applied once 
 more. " But I guess you 've got to go home. You 're 
 dying here." 
 
 " Going home doesn't follow,'' replied Fenton. 
 
 "You're useless, and worse than useless, as you 
 are, here," continued the doctor. " I know how you 
 
A woman's reason. 223 
 
 feel about it ; you feel that it 's a disgrace to give 
 up ; but you 're sick, and you 're as irresponsibly 
 sick as if you had the consumption. You have got 
 to look at it in that light.'' 
 
 " I can't go," said Fenton. 
 
 "Oh, very well," retorted the doctor. "I can't 
 force a man to live.'' 
 
 That night, as Fenton sat in the wardroom with 
 two or three others, who were smoking and reading, 
 while he pretended to read, the figure of Helen sud- 
 denly glided out of the empty air, and paused full 
 form before him ; it melted by slow degrees away, 
 her face vanishing last, and leaving him with a sense 
 of her strange look : it was neither sad nor reproach- 
 ful, but of a peculiarly sweet and gentle archness. 
 
 He turned a ghastly countenance on the doctor, 
 whom he found looking at him across the table. He 
 trembled to his feet, and the doctor ran round and 
 helped him to his room. "Well?" he impatiently 
 demanded, when they were alone in his room. 
 
 "She's dead! I saw her ghost!" whispered 
 Fenton. The perspiration, which stood in drops on 
 his forehead, bathed the clammy hand with Avhich 
 he clutched the doctor's warm hairy fist. 
 
 " I agree to the ghost,'' the doctor answered cheer- 
 fully, " but I guess she isn't dead, all the same." 
 
 " You think not ?" queried Fenton with a childish 
 submissiveness. " But — but I saw her !" 
 
 " Oh, no doubt,'' replied Simmons. " If you keep 
 on at this rate, you '11 see a ball-room full of her ! 
 It 's a phenomenon of your condition. You' turn in, 
 
224 A woman's reason. 
 
 now, and I '11 make you up a bottle that will keep 
 her away till to-morrow night, anyway." 
 
 The surgeon had the professional humanity, and 
 he would have pitied Fenton as the doctor pities his 
 patient, even if he had felt no personal kindness for 
 him. But he really had a liking for the young fellow; 
 he respected him as the most striking case of 
 nostalgia that had ever come under his notice. The 
 case was all the more interesting from the character 
 of the man, which was one of stubborn endurance in 
 everything; his pride was as evident as his quick 
 temper ; and yet here he was, beaten down, perfectly 
 broken up, by a purely moral disorder. " If I had 
 not got that man away,'' Doctor Simmons could say 
 in imaginable boastings that were to hold future 
 wardrooms in awe, "he would have died, sir; died 
 of sheer home-sickness ! " 
 
 Of any other sort of sickness with which the 
 nostalgia was complicated, nd intimation seemed to 
 have penetrated to the doctor's thickened conscious- 
 ness ; it was long since he had Tiad any love affairs of 
 his own ; the passion, as he had observed -it later in 
 life, was not apt to manifest itself in any such con- 
 dition as Fenton's ; he ascertained that the apparition 
 was that of the lieutenant's adoptive sister, and he 
 rested in that knowledge. But the fact that patients 
 suffering from nostalgia were sometimes haunted by 
 visions of absent friends was an incident of the 
 malady noted in the books, and upon its occurrence 
 every possible means should be made to secure their 
 return home. 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 225 
 
 It was upon this authority and this conviction 
 that Doctor Simmons approached the Admiral in 
 Fenton's behalf. He explained the case with scien- 
 tific zeal, and then dwelt upon the peculiar circum- 
 stances which rendered it impossible for Mr. Fenton 
 to apply for leave to return, while he was at the 
 same time in such a condition of mind that to con- 
 demn him for service by medical survey, and send 
 him home in that way, would be simply sentencing 
 him to death. The doctor acknowledged the irre- 
 gularity of his own proceeding in making this appeal j 
 but he urged the extremity and the delicacy of the 
 case in justification : Mr. Fenton would certainly 
 not survive if he remained in the station; Doctor 
 Simmons staked his professional reputation upon 
 that, and without presuming to suggest anything, he 
 begged the Admiral to consider whether some public 
 interest could not be served by Mr. Fenton's return 
 on duty. The next day Fenton received orders to 
 sail by the first steamer from Yokohama with de- 
 spatches for Washington. It was at the time of the 
 war between Japan and Corea, in which, as is well 
 known, certain eventualities threatened to compro- 
 mise American interests. 
 
 When Doctor Simmons visited his patient after 
 the orders reached him, he was rewarded for the tact 
 with which he had accomplished his difficult task by 
 Fenton's accusation that he had brought the result 
 about. He expected this, and in the interest of 
 science, he met the accusation with lies so prompt 
 that they would have carried conviction to any mind 
 p 
 
226 A -woman's reason. 
 
 less sore and disordered than Fenton's He told him 
 that his orders were a god- send, and advised him 
 not to trouble himself about how or why they had 
 been given. In fact the situation admitted of 
 nothing but obedience ; upon the face of it there was 
 no point that the most self-accusing scruples could 
 lay hold of; and Fenton discovered with helpless 
 shame that all the natural forces in him were fighting 
 against his broken will. He was quite ready for the 
 steamer that hailed in a few days for Yokohama and 
 San Francisco ; and he accepted his good fortune 
 upon the best terms he could. When it was too late 
 he began to realise his obligation to the man who 
 had saved his life, and given it back to him with 
 such hope as now rioted in his heart at every thought 
 of Helen and of home. He was a week out from 
 Yokohama, and he could do nothing but write a 
 letter to the surgeon, trying to make up for his past 
 thanklessness by a vain and remote profusion of 
 gratitude. 
 
 He was, as he figured it, only a fortnight from 
 San Francisco, and unless he suffered some detention 
 at Washington, only a little over three weeks from 
 Helen. The possibility that he might be ordered 
 away upon some other service before he saw her 
 occurred to him, but only as one of those disasters 
 which each of us regards as too cruel and monstrous 
 ever to happen to himself. He bet on the highest 
 figures in the pools formed to guess at the run of the 
 ship from day to day ; and the lady who held the 
 pools was not long in divining the cause of his 
 
A woman's reason. 227 
 
 sanguine faith in a short passage. Mrs. Bowers was 
 going to join her husband iu San Francisco; the 
 similarity of their objects gave them a natural 
 interest in each other, and a man of Fenton's ordi- 
 nary good sense and reserve was capable of confiding 
 in this sympathising listener, with the lover's in- 
 genuous egotism, so incredible to us later in life. 
 He talked continually of Helen to her, when perhaps 
 she would much rather have had him talk about 
 himself, as they walked up and down the deck to- 
 gether; he told her everything but Helen's name, 
 which she threatened she would have yet before they 
 got to San Francisco. In the meantime they always 
 spoke of Helen as the Mystery. It was folly, but it 
 made Fenton transcendently happy; these confidences 
 brought Helen nearer, they realised her ; they almost, 
 in the spiritualists' phrase, materialised her. The 
 time came when, the moonless night being propitious, 
 he told Mrs. Bowers of the apparition of Helen, and 
 asked her what she thought of it. She said that she 
 thought it the most wonderful thing she had ever 
 heard of : but she owned that she did not know what 
 it meant. She added that she should always stand 
 in awe of a person who had had such a thing happen 
 to him ; and then she pressed the arm on which 
 she hung, and giggled; and the next moment she 
 shrieked. There had been a sudden, violent wrench 
 and shock ; her cry was answered, after a moment's 
 deathly silence, by a confused clamour from all 
 parts of the ship; and the passengers came rush- 
 ing up from below, where they had been playing 
 
228 A woman's reason. 
 
 euchre, and singing hymns, and eating bacon and 
 Welsh-rabbit, and implored one another to say what 
 had happened. According to usage everywhere in 
 cases of accident, there was no authority to turn to 
 for information ; the officers of the ship were each 
 about his duty, and they severally and collectively 
 underwent severe criticism from the passengers for 
 their absence from the scene of the common dismay 
 and curiosity. 
 
 Fenton was the first, in virtue of his office and 
 mission, to learn that the ship had broken her shaft, 
 and must put back to Yokohama. He received his 
 sentence with desperate fortitude. 
 
 " I think we might get you back in time for the 
 next boat," said the captain, considerate of the haste 
 of a bearer of despatches, " but it would be only a 
 chance. This is a sailing craft now. With a fair 
 wind all the way, we might do it ; but that 's almost 
 too much to hope for. Of course we might meet the 
 next boat on her way home before we make Yoko- 
 hama, but that would be still more of a chance." 
 
 "Well, I must go back with you, that's all," 
 replied Fenton. 
 
 "Yes, there 's nothing else for it, that I see." 
 
 The passengers in the saloon were divided between 
 two minds, and inclined in about equal numbers to 
 hold a service of song and thanksgiving for their 
 delivery from danger, and to organise an indignation 
 meeting for the adoption of resolutions condemning 
 the captain for snubbing a committee of inquiry, 
 which had presented a just interrogation as to his 
 
A woman's reason. 229 
 
 purposes, in view of the accident. It appeared, from 
 the best informed, that the captain had at once put 
 his ship about, not only without consulting the pas- 
 sengers' wishes, but evidently without considering 
 whether it was not quite as feasible to push on to 
 San Francisco as to return to Yokohama. There 
 were attempts to commit some of the stewards to 
 the former hypothesis. 
 
 About noon the next day, the captain spoke a ship, 
 which, under a full press of canvas, was making 
 speed eastward that mocked the laggard reluctance 
 of the steamer on her backward course. She proved 
 to be the clipper Meteor, bound for San Francisco, 
 for a freight of wheat to Europe. The captain invited 
 Fenton on to the bridge. 
 
 " There 's your chance," he said, " if you want to 
 risk it. But you must be quick about it." 
 
 " How much of a chance is it 1" asked Fenton. 
 
 ' ' Those clippers often make very quick runs. She 's 
 bound strnight for where you want to go. I can't 
 advise, and I don't know whether they '11 take you." 
 
 "I'll risk it!" said Fenton. If he had been 
 given more time to hesitate he might have refused 
 the risk ; but he was not given the time. He 
 scratched a line to Helen, telling her what had 
 happened, for the captain of the steamer to post 
 in Yokohama when he got back, so that she might 
 have some intelligence of him in case of further 
 delay; but, when he had finished his letter, he 
 decided that it would distress her with needless 
 anxiety if it reached her before his arrival, and that 
 
230 A woman's reason. 
 
 it would in all probability come after him ; and so he 
 put it into his pocket, instead of giving it to the 
 captain. In the meantime, there was further un- 
 intelligible parley with the clipper; she shortened 
 sail and hove-to, and before the other passengers 
 had well realised the fact, Fenton and his baggage 
 were in the boat which the steamer had lowered, 
 and was rising and sinking on the long swells that 
 stretched between her and the other ship. Mrs. 
 Bowers had parted from him with effusion : "I know 
 you'll find her alive and well," she whispered in 
 generous sympathy; and he volunteered to look 
 Mr. Bowers up in San Francisco, and tell him all 
 about everything. 
 
 The other passengers received the adieux which 
 he waved and bowed them, in that awe which 
 Americans like to feel for any representative of the 
 national dignity : we see so little of it. Fenton had 
 put on his uniform to afiect as powerfully as possible 
 the imagination of the captain of the clipper, who 
 was quite master to refuse him passage, after all; 
 the captain of the steamer had not thought it best 
 to make too plain his purpose in sending out a boat 
 to the hasty stranger. 
 
 Both his precaution and Fenton's had been well 
 taken. When Captain Rollins of the Meteor came 
 to understand the reason why his ship had been 
 stopped, he discharged a blast of profanity of a range 
 that included nearly everything in animated nature, 
 except Lieutenant Fenton, who stood sternly patient 
 before him, until he should finish ; perhaps it devoted 
 
A woman's reason. 231 
 
 him the more terribly by this exception. When the 
 captain stopped for breath, Fenton leaned over the 
 raU, and motioned off the steamer's boat which lay 
 rocking on the sea by the ship's side ; he had taken 
 the precaution to have his baggage brought on board 
 with himself. 
 
 " I am bearer of despatches to Washington from 
 the flag-ship at Hong-Kong. Of course, you expect 
 to take me on to San FranciscOj and I expect to pay 
 you for the best quarters you can give me. I am 
 Lieutenant Fenton of the Messasauga. What is your 
 name 1" 
 
 "Eollins," growled the captain. 
 
 " Here, my man," said Fenton to one of the sea- 
 men, "take these things to Captain Eollins's room." 
 
 The uniform and the secure bearing had their 
 effect ; few men knew just what is the quality and 
 the authority of a bearer of despatches ; the sailor 
 obeyed, and the skipper submitted. He was by no 
 means a bad fellow ; he belonged to the old school 
 of sea-captains, now almost as extinct as the pirates 
 whose diction they inherited ; his furious blasphemies 
 were merely what in another man would have been 
 some tacit reflections upon the vexatious nature of 
 the case. 
 
 Fenton found himself neither uncomfortable nor 
 really unwelcome on the Meteor. Upon the hint 
 given him, the captain turned out of his room for 
 the lieutenant, and he caused some distinct improve- 
 ments to be made in the ship's fare. There were a 
 number of Chinese in the steerage, and among the 
 
232 A woman's keason. 
 
 passengers in the cabin a young American lady re- 
 turning with her mother from a visit to her brother 
 in China, and a man from Kankakee, Illinois, who 
 had been out looking up the sorghum-culture in its 
 native land. The sea-monotony which Fenton's 
 coming had broken for the moment promptly returned 
 upon this company. The young lady had not Mrs. 
 Bowers's art of making attentions to herself appear 
 an act of devotion to Helen, and Fenton offered her 
 only the necessary politeness. What companionship 
 he had was with the Kankakee man, a small, meagre, 
 melancholy figure, full of an unembittered discourage- 
 ment. Continual failure in life had apparently sub- 
 dued him into acquiescence in whatever happened, 
 without destroying his faith in the schemes he pro- 
 jected ; he was disheartened with himself, not with 
 them, and he had the gentleness of a timid nature 
 which curiously appealed to the gentleness of Fen- 
 ton's courage. He confessed that the first encounter 
 between the lieutenant and the captain of the ship 
 had given him apprehensions, and he insinuated a 
 deep admiration for Fenton's behaviour in that 
 difficult moment. He attached himself to the stronger 
 man, and accepted him in detail with a simple devo- 
 tion, which seemed to refer as much to Fenton's 
 personal presence as to his moral qualities ; and, in 
 fact, the lieutenant was then a gallant figure. The 
 oval of his regular face had been chiselled by his 
 sickness into something impressively fine ; with his 
 good nose and mouth, his dark moustache and im- 
 perial, and his brown tint, he was that sort of young 
 
A woman's reason. 233 
 
 American whom you might pronounce an Italian, 
 before you had seen the American look in his grey 
 eyes. His slight figure had a greater apparent height 
 than it really attained. 
 
 " You see,'' explained the Kankakee man, whose 
 named proved to be Giflfen, " my idea was that if I 
 could go right in among the Chinese people, and find 
 out how the thing was carried on, and mebbe talk 
 with some of their leading agriculturists about it, I 
 could do more to get the sorghum culture going 
 among us in six months than the agricultural depart- 
 ment of Washington could in six years. It 's bound 
 to come. It won't come in my time, nor through 
 anything I've done, but that sorghum interest is 
 bound to be a big thing with us yet. "We 've got 
 the climate, and we 've got the soil for it. I '11 allow 
 I 've had sorghum on the brain ever since I first saw 
 it ; but that 's no reason I 'm mistaken about it. I 
 IcTWW it 's got to come, and if I could have hit it the 
 way I expected, I could have done more good, and 
 made more money in two years after I got home 
 than I 'd known what to do with." 
 
 "And how was it you didn't hit itT' asked 
 Fenton. 
 
 " Well, you see," said the Kankakee man, whose 
 name was Giffen, "I found I couldn't talk the lan- 
 guage, for one thing. And then I couldn't seem to get 
 anybody interested. I did try to get into the country 
 districts, but I couldn't make any great headway; 
 such a pr-ejudice against foreigners amongst the 
 Chinese ; and I hadn't very much money with me, 
 
234 A woman's reason. 
 
 and I concluded to give it up. But I found out 
 enough to know that our people can't grow sorghum 
 on the Chinese plan and make it pay; labour's too 
 dear and we 've got to employ machinery. I 've got 
 the idea of a sorghum-planter, that, if I can get any 
 one to take hold of it, is going to make somebody's 
 fortune. Have you ever been to Alaska 1" 
 
 " No," said Fenton. 
 
 " They say there 's good soil in Alaska, and there 's 
 nothing to prevent It 's being a great agricultural 
 country except the frost four or five feet down. Sun 
 can't get at it on account of the moss. But you 
 scrape that moss off once, and let the sun have a fair 
 show for one summer, — well, I believe the thing can 
 be done, if any one had the sense to go about it the 
 right way. And I've got my eye on a kind of 
 coffee they grow on the Sandwich Islands, that I 
 believe can be introduced with us, if the right parties 
 can be got to take hold of it." 
 
 The good weather continued for another week, 
 with westerly winds that carried the Meteor on her 
 course till she had made nearly three thousand miles 
 since leaving Shanghai. Each day took him two 
 hundred or two hundred and fifty nearer home, and 
 Fenton looked forward to a prosperous run all the 
 way to San Francisco with hopes that he dutifully 
 disguised to himself as fears. Towards the end of 
 the week, the wind began to haul back to the south- 
 ward, and fell till it scarcely stirred a ripple on the 
 sea, but he did not lose courage. He explained to 
 the other passengers that they could afford to lose 
 
A woman's reason. 235 
 
 a few days' time and still make one of the greatest 
 runs on record. They heard him with the trust due 
 a man of his experience and profession, and when 
 the wind again sprang up in the west, they paid him 
 the honours of a prophet with the idle zeal of people 
 at sea, glad even of the distraction which respect for 
 another's wisdom afforded them. But the wind 
 suddenly backed from the west to the south, a 
 strange yellow tinge spread over the purple sky, 
 and faded to a dull grey, through which the sun 
 burnt only the space of its rayless ball. The 
 mercury fell, and the wind dropped again to a dead 
 calm, from which it rose in sharp gusts that settled, 
 as the day closed, into a heavy gale from the north- 
 west. The ship drove before the storm for three 
 days and nights. When the fourth morning broke 
 she seemed to have been blown beyond its track; 
 but one of her masts was gone ; the sails hung in 
 ribbons from the yards ; the tangled and twisted 
 shrouds swept her deck, and all but two of her boats 
 had been carried away. The first observation pos- 
 sible since the storm began showed that she had 
 been driven nearly a thousand miles to the south- 
 east; but she was put upon her course again, and 
 laboured on till night-fall. At nine o'clock the pas- 
 sengers huddled together in the cabin heard a cry 
 of "Hard down your helm!" and the ship struck 
 with a violence that threw them to the floor; then 
 recoiling, she struck again, with a harsh, grating 
 force, and ceased to move. In this instant of arrest 
 Fenton found his feet, and scrambled to the deck. 
 
236 A woman's reason. 
 
 The Meteor huug upon a coral reef, that defined itself 
 under the starlight in the curving line of breakers 
 on either hand. The seas swept over her where she 
 lay on her beam-ends, and at every rush of the 
 breakers she pounded heavily on the reef. Beyond 
 it was a stretch of smoother water, from which 
 seemed to rise a low irregular mass of rock, forming 
 with the reef a rude quadrangle. There was no hope 
 for the ship, and no hope for her people unless they 
 could somehow reach this rock. It was useless 
 to launch the boats in such a sea; they tried 
 one, but it filled as soon as it touched the water, 
 and nothing remained but to carry a line, if it could 
 be done, to the island beyond the reef. The captain 
 called for volunteers, but the men hung back. It 
 was not the time to parley ; Fenton passed one end 
 of the line round his waist, and plunged into the 
 gulf under the lee of the ship. When he reached 
 the rock, he found that two sailors had followed 
 him, and these now helped him to pull in the heavier 
 line attached to the cord, which he had made fast to a 
 point of the rock. A hauling rope was carried along 
 this line, and in the glare of the lights burned on 
 the ship, they began to bring her peoj)le away one 
 by one. A sailor mounted into the sling running 
 upon the rope, with a woman or child in his arms, 
 and was hauled to the rock and back again to the 
 ship ; and all the women and children were set 
 ashore, even some poor creatures among the Chinese, 
 before any of the men were suffered to land. These 
 followed, till none of the passengers but the China- 
 
A woman's reason. 237 
 
 men were left. They stood huddled together at the 
 bow, which had shifted round under the blows of 
 the surf, and was hanging seaward, and the lights, 
 burning now green, now crimson, now purple, showed 
 them tossing their arms into the air, as if in some 
 weird incantation, as they tried to free the wet 
 joss-papers that clung to their fingers; their shrill 
 Supplications pierced through the roar of the 
 breakers. The captain reported that he tried to 
 make them understand how they were to reach the 
 reef ; but they would not or could not understand. 
 He and his officers then flung themselves upon 
 the line, straining under the seaward lapse of the 
 wreck ; and at the same moment the vessel parted 
 amidships, and the bow where the Chinese were 
 grouped weltered back with them into the sea. The 
 lights died out, and the ship's bell, which had been 
 tolling dismally as she pounded on the reef, suddenly 
 ceased to sound. The broken hulk grew up once 
 more in the dark, and the roar of the breakers rushed 
 loud again upon the moment of horror that had been 
 like a moment of silence. 
 
 When Fenton first touched the rock where all the 
 survivors of the wreck were now gathered, it rose 
 scarcely a foot above the water at the highest point, 
 and by the time the captain reached it, they stood 
 knee-deep in the rising tide. An hour after midnight 
 it was high-tide, and it was only by holding fast to 
 each other that they could keep their footing. 
 
 The moon broke from the clouds, and one of the 
 sailors whipped out his knife, with a cry of " Look 
 
238 A woman's reason. 
 
 out for yourselves !" and made a cut at something 
 in the water. Fenton looked, and saw that the sea 
 around them was full of sharks. He helped the 
 captain form the men about the women and children, 
 and they fought the fish away with cries, and 
 thrusts of their knives, and blows of the splinters 
 and fragments of the wreck which the breakers had 
 flung them over the reef, till the tide turned, and 
 the most hideous of their dangers had passed for the 
 time. 
 
 With the' first light of day came their first gleam 
 of hope. One of the ship's boats, which must have 
 been carried around the line of their reef, came 
 floating to them, bottom up, on the refluent tide from 
 the other quarter. It proved to be so little injured 
 that the captain and some of his men were able to 
 put off in it to the wreck, where they found tools for 
 repairing it, and abundant stores. When they 
 returned to the rock, they had a mast with its sail 
 ready to be stepped, lying in the boat, and several 
 pairs of mismated oars, which they had picked up 
 outside. But it was the smallest of the boats, and 
 the castaways counted each other with cruel eyes as 
 it drew near. The rock where they stood was one of 
 those dead atolls in which the Pacific abounds : a tiny 
 coral isle, once tufted with palms, and gay with per- 
 petual green, which the sinking of the ocean's floor 
 had dropped below the tide, and left lurking there 
 with its guardian reef, a menace and a deadly peril to 
 navigation. Somewhere within a day's sail there must 
 be other islands of kindred origin, but with a certain 
 
A woman's reason. 239 
 
 area of dry and habitable land, which the boat might 
 reach. But who should go, and who should wait 
 her uncertain return 1 It was not a question of the 
 women and children, nor of their husbands and 
 fathers, but when all these had crowded into the 
 boat, seven men remained upon the rock. 
 
 "Captain Rollins, there isn't room for us all in 
 that boat," Fen ton heard his voice saying: "I ask 
 no man to share my risk, but I 'm going to stay here, 
 for one,'' 
 
 " I don't ask any man to stay," said Captain 
 Rollins. " I 've left sixteen thousand dollars in gold, 
 — all I've got in this world, — on the ship, so as to 
 keep the boat as light as 1 could ; but, as you say, 
 lieutenant, she can't hold us all." 
 
 There was a little pause ; then three sailors, with 
 a shame-faced avoidance of Fenton's eye, pushed past 
 him toward the boat. 
 
 One of the passengers— an Englishman — rose up. 
 " My good men," he said, " you 're surely not coming.'' 
 
 " Yes, we are," replied one of them surlily. " Why 
 shouldn't we come as well as you ? " 
 
 " But the boat is too full already I " he expostulated. 
 " You endanger the lives of the passengers J" he cried, 
 with that respect for the rights of the travelling 
 public which fills the Englishman when he writes to 
 the Times of the inattention of the railway company's 
 servants. 
 
 " Let the passengers get out, then," said the sailor. 
 " We don't want 'em here." His joke raised a laugh 
 among his fellows. " Come along, John; come along, 
 
240 A woman's reason. 
 
 Jake," he called to the seamen who still remained 
 with Fenton. 
 
 " No ; guess not," said one of them quietly. 
 
 The matter-of-fact, every-day character of the 
 details of the calamity, the unchanged nature of the 
 actors in this tragedy of life and death, robbed it of 
 reality to Fenton's sense, and made it like some 
 crudely represented fiction of the theatre. 
 
 The figure of Giflfen interposed itself between him 
 and the captain who stood at the bow of the boat, in 
 the act of offering his hand in farewell. "Excuse 
 me," he said, answering Fenton's look, "I 'm going to 
 stay. But I want Captain Rollins, if he gets back, 
 to write to my brother, George Giffen, at Kankakee." 
 
 The harsh name, so grotesquely unrelated to any- 
 thing that was there or then, awoke Fenton from his 
 maze. Was there a world beyond these seas where 
 there were towns and fields, chimneys and trees, the 
 turmoil of streets, the quiet of firesides 1 His heart 
 seemed to close upon itself, and stand still, as the 
 image of Helen sewing beside the little table in the 
 library, in the way he always saw her, possessed him. 
 The next moment, this in its turn was the theatrical 
 vision, and he was standing on a point of rock in a 
 wilderness of waters, the boat at his feet, and the 
 broken wreck upon the reef a stone's-cast away. He 
 took from his breast the water-tight packet in which 
 he carried his despatches, and wrote upon the back 
 of one of them a line to Helen ; with her address, and 
 a request that it might be forwarded to her. " Here 
 are some letters," he said, handing the packet to the 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 241 
 
 captain, with a light-headed sense of sending them 
 to some one in another life. 
 
 "Why, bless you, man!" cried Captain Eollins, 
 " I shall find land before night, and I shall be back 
 for you here by this time to-morrow morning ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes !" returned Fenton. " Don't stay, now," 
 he added impatiently. " Good-bye." 
 
 The four men on the rock watched the boat till she 
 showed so small in the distance that they could no 
 longer be sure whether they saw her or not ; then 
 they turned their eyes upon each other. Whatever 
 the two seamen left behind with Fenton may have 
 thought of his looks, he could not congratulate him- 
 self upon theirs. But he said, "You are the men who 
 followed me with the line last night." 
 
 " Yes, sir,'' answered one of them. 
 
 " You 're not afraid, any way," said Fenton, as if 
 this were the most that could be said for them. 
 
 " I guess we get along," said the man, " I rather be 
 on this rock, than that boat, with so much people." 
 
 " What are you 1 " asked Fenton ; for the man spoke 
 with a certain accent and a foreigner's hesitation. 
 
 " I 'm Fayal man ; I live at Gloucester, Massa- 
 chusetts; John Jones." 
 
 Fenton recognised the name under which most 
 Portuguese sailors ship. "And who are youV he 
 asked of the other, who was as tall and fair as the 
 Portuguese was dark and short. 
 
 He grinned, and the latter answered for him. " He 
 don't speak much English. He 's some Dutchman ; 
 Icelander, I guess." 
 
 Q 
 
242 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 "Very well," said Fenton. "You know where 
 we are, and what the chances are." 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " I reckon," said GifFen, " we can make out to 
 worry along somehow till the boat gets back." The 
 sailors had begun to breakfast on the stores the 
 boat had brought off from the wreck and left for them 
 on the rock, and Giffen turned to with them. 
 
 "It won't do to count too much upon the boat's 
 coming back,'' replied Fenton, suddenly hungry at 
 sight of the others eating. " They may find land 
 before night, and they may not find it for two w^eeks. 
 At any rate, the sharks will be back before they 
 are." 
 
 Giffen's jaw dropped, with a large morsel bulging 
 his cheek. 
 
 "Come, man!" cried Fenton sharply, ''you'd 
 better have crowded into the boat with the others, 
 if you're sorry you stayed." 
 
 "I don't suppose I've got any great physical 
 courage," said Giffen, in his slow weak voice. " But 
 I 'm not sorry I stayed. I 'm ready to do whatever 
 you say. I 'm a born high-private, if ever there was 
 one.'' 
 
 " I beg your pardon," Fenton began, ashamed of 
 his petulant outburst. 
 
 " Oh, that 's all right," said Giffen quietly. " But 
 I 'm in earnest, I 'd rather follow some other man's 
 luck, any time." 
 
 " I shall not ask you to do anything that I 'm not 
 ready to do myself," returned Fenton. " We must 
 
A woman's reason. 243 
 
 get out to the wreck," he added, including the Portu- 
 guese, " and see what we can make of it. And the 
 sooner we get to it the better." 
 
 " I 'm ready," said the sailor, closing the clasp 
 knife with which he had been eating; and the 
 Icelander, who seemed to understand everything 
 through him, pocketed his knife also. 
 
 They waded into the shoal water, and swam round 
 the stern of the ship where it overhung the reef, and 
 tried to board her. But there was no means of 
 doing this, unless they passed the reef, and ventured 
 into the sea beyond, where they knew the sharks were 
 waiting. They returned to their rock, and began 
 to gather up the pieces of shattered spars and planks, 
 that the rising tide was bringing in, and with such 
 odds and ends of cordage and rags of sail as clung 
 to these fragments, they contrived a raft, on which 
 they hoped to float out to the wreck when the tide 
 turned once more. After the raft was finished and 
 made fast to the rock, they climbed upon it, and, 
 launching upon the ebb, drifted out through a break 
 in the reef, and contrived to clamber up her broken 
 timbers. They could see that this fragment of a 
 ship must soon go to pieces, under the incessant 
 blows of the waves ; and Fenton and Giffen made 
 all haste in their search for tools and materials to 
 strengthen their float so that they might put to sea 
 on it if the worst came to the worst. The sailors 
 began ransacking the wreck with a purpose of their 
 own, and in the end, they all owed their lives to the 
 rapacity which left no part of the ship unsearched ; 
 
244 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 for it was the Portuguese who found wedged in 
 among the shattered timbers of the hulk, where some 
 caprice of the waves had lodged it, the boat that 
 had foundered the night before. Every blow of the 
 sea had driven it tighter into the ruin, and it was an 
 hour's struggle in the dark, waist-deep in water, 
 amid the bodies of the drowned Chinamen, and just 
 within the line of the sharks that were preying upon 
 them, before the boat could be cut out. When they 
 pulled it up on the deck at last, it was in a condition 
 that must have seemed desperate to less desperate 
 men ; but in this extremity Giffen developed the 
 shiftiness of a dabbler in many trades, and his rude 
 knack with the saw and hammer rendered the 
 battered boat seaworthy. Fenton found a bag of 
 flour, water-soaked without, but fresh and dry within ; 
 a few biscuit and some peas and beans, with which 
 he provisioned her; and a shot gun, with a store 
 of water-proof cartridges, with which he armed her. 
 With Giffen's help he fashioned a mast out of 
 one of the broken yards, and patched together 
 a sail from the shreds and tatters of canvas hang- 
 ing about it. The wreck was settling more and 
 more deeply into the sea when they launched their 
 boat at sunset, and returned to the rock where they 
 made her fast. 
 
 The last man to come over the side of the ship 
 was the Portuguese, who carried in either hand a 
 buckskin bag. 
 
 " That 's Captain RoUins's money," said Fenton. 
 " Take good care of it " 
 
A woman's reason. 245 
 
 "All right. I look out for it,"- answered the 
 sailor. 
 
 With the refluent tide the sharks came hack again. 
 The dead Chinamen came with them, and seemed to 
 join in beleaguering the castaways, crouching in 
 their boat, which pulled at her moorings, as if strug- 
 gling to escape the horrors that hemmed them round. 
 They had found no water on the wreck, and a con- 
 suming thirst parched them. When the morning 
 broke it showed them the surf beating over the reef 
 where the ship had hung, and the sea strewn with its 
 fragments. 
 
 "We can't stay here," said Fenton. "We must 
 find land for ourselves somewhere — and water." 
 
 " That 's so," admitted Giffen, with feeble acquies- 
 cence. 
 
 " I know they never come back for us," said the 
 Portuguese. " I goin' tell you that, yesterday." 
 
 They cut their boat from her moorings, and ran 
 lightly away before the breeze that carried them 
 where it would. 
 
 The sky was again of the blue of the weather that 
 had prospered the first weeks of the Meteor's voyage ; 
 again its vast arch was undimmed by a cloud from 
 horizon to horizon ; and it only darkened to a deeper 
 blue, filled with large southern stars, when the sun 
 dropped below the sea, and the swift tropical night 
 closed round them. 
 
 The castaways, voyaging none of them knew 
 where, and trusting for rescue to whatever chance of 
 land or passing sail befriended them, with the danger 
 
246 A woman's reason. 
 
 of tempest, and the certainty of starvation after a 
 given time, before them, had already divided them- 
 selves into two camps, tacitly distrustful if not 
 hostile ; the sailors guarded between them the booty 
 that they had brought from the wreck, and Fenton 
 and Giffen watched by turns with the gun in their 
 hands. But at daybreak, a common joy united 
 them. On the edge of the sea a line of dark points 
 printed itself against the sky, and, as they approached, 
 these points rounded into tufts, and then opened into 
 the feathery crests of cocoa palms, with broken 
 stretches of delicious verdure between the stems. 
 The long white wall beneath, that glistened in the 
 rising sun, like a bank of snow, expanded into a 
 smooth, sloping beach , the deep surf flashed and 
 thundered along the outer reef; and then the little 
 coral isle, encircling its slumbrous lagoon, took shape 
 before their eyes. They tacked and wore to find a 
 passage through the reef, and so, between the islets 
 of the palm-belt, over smooth depths of delicate 
 yellow and apple-green, they slipped into the still 
 waters of the lake, and ran across to the white coral 
 beach. They fell upon the sand, and scooped with 
 their hands a hollow into which oozed a little water 
 that they could drink ; and then they kindled a fire 
 with some matches that Giffen had brought from the 
 wreck, and roasted the shell-fish the sailors found 
 among the rocks. 
 
 " I think this goin' to be nice place, Cap'n," said 
 the Portuguese, stretching himself face downwards on 
 the clean sand, when he had eaten and drunken his 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 247 
 
 fill. "Plenty to eat, plenty to drink, nothin' to do. 
 By-'n'-hy some ship goin' to come here. We 're all 
 right, heigh?" 
 
 The little brown-faced man lifted to Fenton's face 
 his black eyes, sparkling like a rat's with the content 
 of a full stomach. 
 
 The Icelander laughed as if he had understood his 
 shipmate, and while the Portuguese luxuriously 
 dropped off to sleep; he wandered away, leaving 
 Fenton and Giffen to prospect for the best place to 
 put the hut they must build. " I don't like the way 
 those fellows take it, exactly," said the latter. " They 
 let themselves up pretty easy when it comes to a 
 question of work," he added, with a mild sense of 
 injury in his tone. 
 
 But the Icelander returned after a while with a 
 large turtle he had caught, and with his hat full of 
 turtles' eggs, which he had found in the sand. The 
 Fayal man, when he awoke, joined him in a second 
 foraging expedition, and they came back laden with 
 fish and birds. John Jones showed himself skilled 
 in primitive methods of roasting and broiling on hot 
 stones. He opened the bag of flour, and made a 
 store of bread, which he baked in the ashes ; and by 
 the time Fenton and Giffen had finished the rude 
 shelter they had been knocking together for the 
 night, in the cocoa grove, he called them to a supper 
 which a famine far less fastidious than theirs must 
 have found delicioas. 
 
 " Well, you are a cook," said Giffen, with the 
 innate disrespect for his art, which our race feels. 
 
248 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 " But you 've got enough here for a regiment," he 
 added, looking round on the store of provisions, 
 cooked and uncooked, which was heaped up on the 
 sand. 
 
 " Oh, plenty more where that come from," said the 
 Portuguese. "They all good cold. I don't like 
 cookin' to-morrow; want to eat and sleep for a 
 week." 
 
 The Icelander had strayed away again, and they 
 saw him climbing the palms, and strewing the earth 
 beneath with cocoa-nuts. "Jake seems to be laying 
 out for a week's rest too," said Giffen. 
 
 The Portuguese laughed at the joke. " You better 
 take that money up to your house, Cap'n," he said 
 to Fenton. 
 
 "Where is itf" asked Fenton. 
 
 The Portuguese showed the two bags, where he 
 had placed them, in a tuft of grass. 
 
 Fenton hesitated a moment. " You can bring it up 
 with you when you get through here," he said finally. 
 
 The Portuguese and his ship-mate came carrying 
 up the provision to the hut, after Fenton and Giffen 
 had stretched themselves on their beds of grass. 
 
 "Cap'n," he said, waking Fenton, "here's the 
 money. What we goin' do with that boat 1 " 
 
 " Let her be where she is ; nothing can happen to 
 her," answered Fenton, heavy in heart and soul, and 
 sodden with sleep, as he placed his hand on the 
 bags the sailor had put down beside him. 
 
 " Yes," chuckled the Portuguese, " I guess nobody 
 goin' steal her." 
 
A woman's reason. 249 
 
 The sailors did not come into the hut ; they began 
 to build a shelter of their own, and the noise of their 
 work followed Fenton into his sleep. He had 
 watched for three days and nights; he could not 
 rouse himself from the deathly slumber into which 
 he dropped again in spite of a formless fear that 
 beset him ; but he woke toward morning, with this 
 terror, which proved more potent than the fatigue 
 that drugged him. The money was still there; 
 the sailors were peacefully snoring in their hut ; and 
 Giffen lay asleep across the gun. He staggered down 
 to look at the boat. It was safe where they had left 
 it, and he returned to their shelter, where he watched 
 an hour, as he thought; then he woke Giffen, and 
 bidding him call him in his turn, when he could no 
 longer keep awake, he fell asleep once more. It 
 must have been his visit to the boat that suggested 
 the dream which seemed to begin as soon as he closed 
 his eyes. He dreamed that they were at sea again 
 in the boat, and that they saw a sail in the offing, so 
 near that those on board, who did not see them, 
 must hear them if they united in one loud cry. They 
 rose up together for the effort, but their voices died 
 in a gasp on their lips. Fenton burst into a groan 
 of despair. 
 
 "My Lm-df what's the matter?" cried Giffen, 
 shaking the dreamer. Fenton scrambled to his feet ; 
 the money-bags were still there, but the sailors were 
 gone ; he tore open the bags ; they were filled with 
 shells and sand. He rushed down to the beach ; 
 the boat had disappeared; on the horizon a sail, 
 
250 A woman's reason. 
 
 no bigger than the petal of a flower, flickered and 
 faded. 
 
 It was sunset, and they had slept through the 
 night and the whole day. 
 
 Fenton turned a look on his fellow-captive, which 
 Giffen met with a face of ghastly self-upbraiding. 
 "My God," he said, "I fell asleep! I hated to 
 wake you, and I fell asleep before I knew it !" 
 
 "It doesn't matter," replied Fenton, with the 
 nerveless quiet of his despair. "Sooner or later, 
 they meant to do it.'' 
 
 They turned blankly from the fact; it was days 
 before they could confront it in speech; and then, 
 with the conjecture that the sailors had set out in 
 search of some inhabited land, where they could 
 enjoy the spoil of the ship, their desertion remained 
 incredible, unimaginable. 
 
XIT. 
 
 It has been intimated that Helen entered upon 
 her new life at Mrs. Hewitt's with social pre- 
 occupations in her own favour which she was by 
 no means prepared to surrender; and she did not 
 think of yielding them, even in the abjectest 
 moments of her failure and humiliation. In the in- 
 terval of idleness that followed, she was again purely 
 and simply a young lady, not attached by any sort 
 of sympathy to the little boarding-house world, though 
 she had always meant to treat it with consideration. 
 But it is impossible that one who has been bred to 
 be of no use should not feel an advantage over all 
 those who have been bred to be of some use; and if for 
 no other reason Helen must have confessed, wittingly 
 and unwittingly, by a thousand little recoils and 
 reserves, that her fellow-boarders and herself 
 could never meet on a level. It was perfectly easy, 
 however, to keep aloof. After the first necessary 
 civilities with the Evanses, she only met them on the 
 stairs or at the table, where the talk ivas mainly be- 
 tween Mr. Evans and Miss Eoot, the art-student. It 
 
252 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 appeared from the casual confidences of the landlady 
 that Miss Eoot was studying to be a painter, and that 
 some of her work was beautiful. Mrs. Hewitt owned 
 that she was no judge of painting, but she said that 
 she knew what she liked. She told Helen also that 
 Mr. Evans was one of the editors of Saturday After- 
 noon, a paper which she praised because she said it 
 gave you the news about everybody, and kept you 
 posted, so that you could tell just where they were 
 and what they were doing, all the while ; she believed 
 that Mr. Evans was not connected with this admir- 
 able part of the paper : he wrote mostly about the 
 theatres and the new books. 
 
 Helen was amused by some of his talk at the table ; 
 but she was not at all sure about the Evanses. She 
 could not tell exactly why ; one never can tell exactly 
 why, especially if one is a lady. Mrs. Evans seemed 
 ■well enough educated and well enough dressed ; she 
 had been abroad the usual term of years ; she neither 
 unduly sought nor repelled acquaintance ; but from 
 the iirst, Helen was painfully aware of not having 
 heard of her ; and one is equally uncertain of people 
 of whom one has heard nothing, or heard too much. 
 As soon as she learned what Mr. Evans's business 
 was, she understood, of course, that they could never 
 have been people that people knew ; and, Were they 
 not a little Bohemian 1 she asked, rather tepidly, one 
 day, when an old friend of hers, whom she happened 
 to meet, broke into effusive praise of them, on hearing 
 that Helen was in the same house with them. 
 
 " My dear," said Miss Kingsbury, summing up in 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 253 
 
 a word the worst that a New England woman can say 
 of a man, "he is easy-going! But he is very kind; 
 and she is the salt of the earth." 
 
 " And some of the pepper f suggested Helen, 
 
 " A little of the pepper, without doubt. But not 
 a grain more than is good for him. He would be 
 nothing without her,'' she added, in the superstition 
 ladies love to cherish concerning the real headship 
 of the family. " She makes up all her own things, 
 and teaches that boy herself. And you have another 
 person there who is really a character : Miss Root. 
 If you see any of her work, you '11 see that she is an 
 artist ; but you '11 have to see a great deal of her 
 before you find out that she 's the best soul in the 
 world. With her little time, and her little money, 
 she does more good I She 's practical, and she knows 
 just how to help people that want to help themselves : 
 poor girls, you know, trying to learn things, and get 
 into occupations. And so rectangular she is !" 
 
 Miss Kingsbury ran off, professing an instant and 
 pressing duty. "I'm coming to see you very soon. 
 Good-bye, Helen dear ! You know how I feel for 
 you," she added tenderly. 
 
 Many other people, returning to town, looked 
 Helen up, and left cards, and messages of friendly 
 interest. She did not see any one that she could 
 help seeing ; she was doubly exiled by her bereave- 
 ment and her poverty from the gay and jjrosperous 
 world they belonged to ; she knew that they were 
 kind, and meant well, but she knew that hencefor- 
 ward she could have few interests in common with 
 
254 A woman's reason. 
 
 them. She was happiest when she was quite alone 
 with her sorrow and with her love, which seemed to 
 have sprung from it, and to be hallowed by it. Their 
 transmutation gave her memories and her hopes a 
 common sweetness, which was sometimes very 
 strange ; it seemed as if Kobert were present with 
 her when she thought of her father, and that her 
 father came to share all her thoughts of Robert. 
 
 Her old life had otherwise almost wholly dropped 
 away from her. After her return from Beverley, Mar- 
 garet came often to see her, but the visits were a 
 trial to Helen ; and perhaps Margaret saw this, for she 
 came at longer and longer intervals, and at last came 
 no more. Helen supposed that she had taken a place, 
 but waited patiently till she should reappear. 
 
 She spent a great part of each day in writing to 
 Robert and thinking about him, and trying to con- 
 trive their common future, and she made over all 
 her bonnets and dresses, She saved a good deal of 
 money by not buying anything new for the winter, 
 and after her benefaction to Mrs, Sullivan, she found 
 that even with these economies, she had nothing to 
 buy spring dresses. But that mattered very little ; 
 she had not cared, after she first put on black, to 
 mark the degrees of mourning punctiliously; she had 
 always dressed quietly, and now she could wear 
 what she wore last year without treason to her grief. 
 The trouble was that she would soon need money 
 for other things, before any interest would be due 
 from the money in Mr. Hibbard's hands, and she 
 spent several days in trying to put into dignified 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 255 
 
 and self-respectful terms the demand she must make 
 upon him for part of her capital. She felt rather 
 silly about it, and the longing to do something to 
 earn a little money for herself revived. At the 
 bottom of her heait was the expectation, always 
 disowned and silenced, that Robert would somehow 
 soon return; she had told Mrs. Butler that she 
 knew he would come back as soon as he got her 
 letter ; but after the first keen pang of disappoint- 
 ment and surprise with which she realised that he 
 could not at once ask leave of absence, or resign 
 without a sort of ignominy, she heroically accepted 
 the fact of a prolonged separation. She had caused 
 it, she said to herself, and she must bear it; she 
 must do everything she could to help him bear it. 
 She idealised him in his devotion to duty, and 
 worshipped him as if he had been the first man to 
 practise it. She was more than ever determined 
 not to be a burden to him in any way; she deter- 
 mined to be a help to him, and she had planned a 
 pretty scene in which, she brought out a little hoard 
 of earnings, in addition to her five thousand dollars, 
 and put them into Robert's hand the day after their 
 marriage. It would be doubly sweet to toil for 
 Robert ; in the meantime it was sweet to dream for 
 him ; and she had not yet decided how the sum she 
 intended to bestow upon him was to be earned, 
 when she found herself obliged to borrow of the 
 future rather than able to lend to it. But she 
 resolved all the more severely to replace with in- 
 terest what she borrowed; she would not leave a 
 
256 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 stone unturned ; and she forced herself, in going to 
 Mr. Hibbard's office, to pass the store where she 
 had left her painted vases on sale six months before. 
 She said to herself that they would be all in the 
 window still; but when she dared to lift her eyes 
 to it there were none. Then slie said that they 
 must have been taken out, and stuck away in some 
 corner as too hopelessly ugly and unsaleable. 
 
 The proprietor of the store came forward with 
 a smile of recognition, and of something more. 
 " This is really a coincidence,'' he said. " We have 
 just sold your vases, and I was beginning to wonder 
 where I should send you the money; I find there 
 is no address on the card you gave me." 
 
 He filliped her card with one hand against the 
 other, and looked at her with friendly pleasure, 
 while she stayed herself against a show-case with 
 a faintness which he could not see. 
 
 " Sold them ! " she whispered. 
 
 "Yes, all three. Mr. Trufitt was looking at 
 them yesterday, and asked me who did them. This 
 morning he called and took them." 
 
 " How dared he 1 " cried Helen in a tumult of 
 indignation, none the less appalling because wholly 
 unintelligible to the person of whom she made the 
 demand. At the mere name of Trufitt a series of 
 odious facts had flashed without sequence into her 
 thought : his obtuse persistence in love ; his bald- 
 ness; his stinginess; the fit of his pantaloons; his 
 spiritual aridity, and his physical knobbiness. She 
 liardly knew for which of his qualities she disliked 
 
A woman's reason. 257 
 
 liim the most, but she recognised with perhaps 
 superior disdain that after learning that the vases 
 were her work, he had turned over for a whole day 
 in his frugal mind the question of buying them. 
 After presuming to think of owning her vases, he 
 had also presumed to hesitate ! It was intolerable. 
 
 "What right — " she began on the innocent 
 means of the offence, but corrected herself so far as to 
 ask instead, " WTiy did you tell him who did them V 
 
 " Really," said her victim, with just pique, " I saw- 
 no reason why I shouldn't. You gave me no charges 
 on that point, and I gave the matter no reflection. 
 I seized the first chance that offered to sell them 
 for you." He looked hurt and vexed; perhaps he 
 had made his little romance about serving this very 
 pretty young lady in her trouble and need. 
 
 Helen would not consider his kindness ; in her 
 own vexation she continued to treat him de haut en 
 las. "I can't allow him to keep my vases," she 
 said. " You must send for them." 
 
 "The vases were on sale," returned the proprietor, 
 " and I sold them in good faith. I can't ask them 
 back." 
 
 "J will ask them back," said Helen grandly. 
 " Good-morning." When she put her hand on the 
 bell-pull at Mrs. Hewitt's, she remembered that the 
 shopman had not given her the money for her vases, 
 and that she had again left him without her address. 
 This was some satisfaction, but it was not enough ; 
 she would not rest till she had her vases back again, 
 and had broken them into a thousand pieces. 
 R 
 
258 A woman's reason. 
 
 But she found that the first thing she must do was 
 to ■write to the people who had sold them, and 
 apologise for the strange return she had made for 
 the interest they had taken in her, recognising the 
 justice of their position and the absurdity of her 
 own. It was not an easy note to write, but she 
 contrived it at last, and that gave her courage to 
 think how she should get her vases back from Mr. 
 Trufitt, who had bought them, and had certainly a 
 right to keep them. She knew why he had bought 
 them, and this enraged her, but it did not help her ; 
 she felt that it would be putting herself in an asking 
 attitude, however imperiously she demanded them 
 again. If he yielded, it would be in grace to her ; 
 and he might refuse — very likely he would refuse. 
 She had not decided in her own mind what she 
 should do in this event, when she received a reply 
 from Messrs. Pout & Lumley, enclosing Mr. Trufitt's 
 money for her vases, less their commission. Messrs. 
 Pout & Lumley regretted that their Mr. Lumley had 
 not clearly understood Miss Harkness's wishes in 
 regard to the vases she had left with them ; but 
 finding themselves unable to ask their return from 
 the gentleman who purchased them, they had no 
 course open to them but to send her the money for 
 them. 
 
 Helen saw that she must have written her address 
 at the top of her letter of apology, and that she must 
 have seemed to them to have repented of her mag- 
 nificent behaviour on another ground, and to have 
 tacitly asked for the money. 
 
A woman's reason. 259 
 
 She broke into a laugh at the hopeless complica- 
 tion. 
 
 " Eeally," she mused, " I don't know whether I 'd 
 better be put into the Home for Little Wanderers 
 or into the Insane Hospital," and for the present 
 there seemed no safety but in entire inaction. She 
 was so much abashed at the result of her yester- 
 day's work, that she remained with Messrs. Pout & 
 Lumley's letter in her hand, wondering when she 
 should have courage to go out again and renew her 
 attempt to see Mr. Hibbard. At first she thought 
 she would write to him, but there seemed something 
 fatal about her writing to people on business, and 
 she hesitated. It was impossible to use this money 
 of Mr. Trufitt's ; she was quite clear as to that, 
 and, with various little expenses, her money had 
 dwindled to less than three dollars since her inter- 
 view with Mrs. Sullivan. She let the morning slip 
 away in her irresolution, and then she decided to 
 put the whole affair off till the next day. She felt 
 a comfort in the decision, merely as a decision, 
 and she began to enjoy something like the peace of 
 mind which moral strength brings. Perhaps the 
 weather had something to do with her willingness 
 to postpone any duty that must take her out of 
 doors; it was a day that would scarcely have invited 
 her to an errand of pleasure. For almost a week the 
 weather had been relenting, and the warmth of 
 yesterday had brought a tinge of life to the b.are 
 slopes of the Common, where for three months past 
 the monumental dumpings of the icy streets had 
 
260 A woman's reason. 
 
 dismally accumulated ; and along the base of these 
 heaps, a thin adventurous verdure showed itself, 
 like that hardy vegetation which skirts the snow- 
 line on the Alps. As Helen walked across the 
 planking on her way to Mr. Hibbard's office, she 
 had heard a blue-bird in the blue soft air high 
 through the naked boughs of the elms, making 
 querulous inquiry for the spring ; and there had 
 seemed a vernal respite even in the exasperation of 
 the English sparrows. The frozen year, in fact, was 
 awaking to consciousness, with secret pangs of 
 resuscitation that now declared themselves in an 
 easterly storm of peculiar spitefulness, driving 
 against the umbrellas, which she saw ascending the 
 narrow hillside street, in gusts that were filled from 
 moment to moment with sleet and rain and snow. 
 
 In the little grate in her room the anthracite had 
 thrown off its first gaseous malice, and now lay a 
 core of brownish-red under a soft, lurid blur of flame; 
 and she stood before it thinking to herself that, 
 rather than go out in that weather, she would spend 
 some of Mr. Trufitt's money, as she called it, and 
 smiling faintly at the demoralisation which had 
 succeeded her. heroics, when some one rapped at her 
 door. She turned away from the fire, where she had 
 stood smoothing the front of her dress in the warmth, 
 with a dreamy eye on the storm outside, and opened 
 the door rather resentfully. Mrs. Hewitt was there 
 with a card in her hand, which she had apparently 
 preferred to bring in person, rather than send up by 
 the general housework girl. Before she gave Helen 
 
A woman's reason. 261 
 
 the card, she said, with a studied indifference of 
 manner that might well have invited confidence — 
 
 " I heard him askin' for you, and I showed him 
 into the parlour on the second floor, till I could find 
 out whether you wanted to see company.'' 
 
 Mrs. Hewitt made her own inferences from the 
 flush and then the pallor with which Helen received 
 the card; and while Helen stood staring at it, she 
 added suggestively, "Seemed to have some kind of a 
 passel, or something, 't he brought with him in the 
 carriage." 
 
 "Oh!" said Helen, as if this idle detail had 
 clinched the matter, " then will you tell him, please, 
 that I'll be down in a minute." 
 
 She hastily made a woman's imperceptible changes 
 of hair and ribbon, and descended to the parlour, 
 with her line of behaviour distinctly drawn in her 
 mind. After a first impulse to refuse to see her 
 visitor, and then a full recognition of the stupidity 
 of such a thing, she saw that she must be frankly 
 cordial. Mrs. Hewitt had hospitably put a match to 
 the soft-coal fire laid in the grate, and it was now 
 lustDy snapping in the chilly air of the parlour ; but 
 Lord Eainford was not standing before it. He stood 
 with his back to the door, with his hat in his hand, 
 and his overcoat on, looking out into the storm, whose 
 national peculiarities might well have interested him; 
 he turned when Helen came in, and she greeted him 
 with a welcome which she felt must have the same 
 effect of being newly-kindled as the fire in the grate. 
 He did not seem to notice this, but began a huddled 
 
26'2 A woman's reason. 
 
 and confused explanation of his presence, as if it 
 ought to be accounted for and justified upon special 
 grounds. Helen pulled the wrap she had flung on 
 tightly round her, and concealing the little shiver 
 that the cold air struck through her, asked him to 
 sit down. 
 
 "The fact is," he said, "that I was anxious to 
 put this little parcel into your own hands, Miss 
 Harkness, and to make sure that it had reached you 
 in safety." He gave her the package he had been 
 holding, and then offered to relieve her of it. 
 
 " Oh, thank you,'' said Helen, ignoring it as well 
 as she could, while refusing to give it up. She had 
 gathered from the fact that Lord Eainford would 
 not have felt authorised to present himself to her at 
 that moment, if he had not this commission from the 
 Rays, that the Rays had sent her the parcel by him, 
 and she began to unravel the maze, in which he was 
 involving them both, by that clew. There had been 
 something in what he said about London, and Nice, 
 and Rome, and Alexandria; but whether he had 
 been with her friends at any or all of these points, 
 she had not made out. 
 
 "Where did you see the Rays last ?" she asked. 
 "Were the Butlers with them, or — " 
 
 Lord Rainford laughed. " Why, the fact is," he 
 exclaimed, " I haven't seen them at all ! They made 
 no stop in England, through some change of plans." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Helen. 
 
 "And later, I gave up my winter in Egypt. I 
 found that I couldn't go up the Nile, and get back 
 
A woman's reason. 263 
 
 in time, — in time for the visit I had intended to 
 make to America ; and — and I had decided to come 
 to America, and — so I came ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Helen, a little dazed still. She 
 added, to gain time for reflection rather than to 
 seek information, " And you are fond of the Atlantic 
 in the middle of March 1 " 
 
 " It -wasn't so bad. We 'd a very good passage. I 
 found myself so well here, last year, that I 've been 
 impatient ever since to come back." 
 
 " I 'm glad America agrees with you," returned 
 Helen vaguely. 
 
 "Why, I'm not here for my health, exactly," 
 said Lord Eainford. " I 'd some other objects, and 
 Mr. Ray asked me to bring the little box from his 
 wife for you." 
 
 " yes, I understand ! They sent it to you 
 from Egypt." 
 
 " Precisely. I assure you it wasn't an easy 
 matter to get it through your Custom House un- 
 opened." 
 
 " How did you manage ? By bribery and corrup- 
 tion f ' 
 
 " No. I won't say I wasn't tempted to try it. 
 But I don't altogether like that sort of thing even in 
 countries where they naturally expect it; and I 
 couldn't feel that the inspector whose hands I fell 
 into did quite expect it. I told him that it con- 
 tained a present from one lady to another, and that 
 I would rather deliver it unopened, if he could trust 
 me to come back and pay the duty in case it proved 
 
264 A woman's reason. 
 
 to be anything subject to duty. I gave him my 
 card and address, and I did go so far as to offer 
 to deposit a sum of money with him as surety." 
 
 " How very, very kind of you !" cried Helen, begin- 
 ning to be charmed. 
 
 " Oh, not at all," said Lord Eainford, colouring a 
 little. " I merely mentioned it because it led up to 
 something that interested me. He looked at my 
 card, and then he looked at me, and said, ' That it 
 wasn't necessary between gentlemen!'" 
 
 Helen laughed at the man's diverting assumption 
 of a community of feeling with Lord Eainford. 
 " You must have been edified," she said, " with such 
 an early example of American equality." 
 
 Lord Eainford looked rather mystified and a little 
 troubled. " I don't know. I rather liked it, I believe," 
 he said tentatively ; as one does who has not been 
 taken in quite the way he expected. 
 
 " You are easily pleased," cried Helen ; and he 
 seemed still more perplexed. 
 
 But as if he set these speeches down finally to 
 some ironical intention in her, he went on : " He 
 said I could ' take the box along,' and then he 
 looked at the address on it, and said, ' Oh, 't 's all 
 right ! I know Miss Harkness.'" 
 
 " Who in the world could it have been ?" wondered 
 Helen. " I never dreamt that I had a friend at 
 court — or the Custom-House." 
 
 Lord Eainford took out his pocket-book, and, to 
 do this, he had to unbutton his overcoat. "Won't 
 you lay off your coat?" asked Helen. "I believe 
 
A woman's reason. 265 
 
 we shall not freeze to death here, now. The fire is 
 really making an impression." 
 
 " Thank you," he said, obeying. " He gave me his 
 card. I have it here somewhere. Ah, here it is !" 
 
 Helen received it and gazed at the name. " No!" 
 she said, returning it with a shake of the head, 
 "it doesn't throw any light on my acquaintance, and 
 I don't exactly understand it." 
 
 "Perhaps it was some other lady of the same 
 name." 
 
 " Perhaps. But I haven't asked you yet when 
 you arrived ; and that ought to have been the first 
 question.'' 
 
 He seemed willing to evade it ; but he said gravely 
 that he had arrived that morning. " The fact is," 
 he added, " I had them send the luggage to the hotel, 
 and I — took the liberty of driving directly here." 
 
 " Why, this is zeal in stewardship ! " cried Helen. 
 She felt a girl's thrill of pleasure in it. To see Lord 
 Eainford was like meeting an old friend ; she had 
 parted from the Rays and Butlers long since he had ; 
 but his coming on an errand from them seemed like 
 news from them, and she found herself at home with 
 him, and truly touched by his kindness. She had 
 been too little abroad to consider whether she was 
 behaving like an English girl under the circum- 
 stances, and she ended by behaving like an American 
 girl. " Now, Lord Eainford," she said, " I'm going 
 to do all I can to reward you, and if you were a 
 woman you would feel very lavishly rewarded ; I 'm 
 going to open this box at once in your presence." 
 
266 A woman's reason. 
 
 " I 'm sure you 're very good," said Lord Eainford. 
 
 She put the box on a little table near them, 
 and "I hope it isn't the kind that opens with a 
 screw-driver," she continued, breaking the line of 
 barbaric seals which held the edge of the paper 
 covering, and then coming to a second wrapper tied 
 with an oriental cord of silk, for which she required 
 the aid of Lord Eainford's penknife. " What a 
 pity to break and cut such things !" she sighed. 
 
 "Why, I don't know," said the young man, not 
 feeling the occidental strangeness to which the paper 
 and the cord were poetry. " It 's the way they put 
 things up, there. I dare say their dragoman had it 
 done at a bazaar.'' 
 
 " Their dragoman ! At a bazaar!" cried Helen, 
 and now he dimly sympathised with her mood, 
 and said, "0 yes! yes!" while she tore away 
 wrapper after wrapper, vaguely fragrant of musk 
 or sandal, and came at last to a box, inlaid with 
 mother-of-pearl in the Persian fancy. She opened 
 this, and found, under a note from Marian Eay, a 
 set of gold jewelry, — ear-rings, bracelets and neck- 
 lace rich in the colour of the unalloyed metal, and 
 fascinating in their fantastic ndiveU of design ; as 
 old as man, as young as childhood. 
 
 " Ah, yes," said Lord Eainford, smiling back her 
 rapture in the trinkets. " Those goldsmith's things. 
 They're very pretty. And it's amusing to see those 
 fellows work. They set up their little .forge in the 
 street before their doors, and make the things you 've 
 ordered while you're waiting.'' 
 
A woman's reason. 267 
 
 " And the high, white house-walls, and the yellow 
 sun, and the purple shadows all round them V cried 
 Helen, dangling the necklace from her fingers. 
 
 "Well — ah — yes; you're quite right," said Lord 
 Rainford. But he added conscientiously, " There 
 isn't much sun, you know. The street is very 
 narrow ; and I don't know about the walls being 
 white; they're apt to be coloured." 
 
 "Oh !" deeply sighed the girl, as she dropped the 
 pretty things back into their box. " Marian has cer- 
 tainly outdone herself," she said, shutting the lid. 
 She re-opened it, and took out the necklace again, 
 and one by one the bracelets and the ear-rings, and 
 stood absently regarding them, held a little way off, 
 with her head on one side. She was thinking of the 
 night before her father died, when she put on that 
 silver filigree of Robert's, and she had forgotten the 
 young man before her. He made a little movement 
 that recalled her to herself. " Oh, I beg your pardon," 
 she said softly. He had his hat in his hand, and she 
 saw that he had taken up his overcoat. " Must you 
 go 1 I can never thank you enough for all the trouble 
 you have taken." She stopped, for she had a sudden 
 difficulty. It seemed savagely inhospitable, after 
 what Lord Rainford had done, in the way he had 
 done it, not to attempt some sort of return. But 
 she felt sure he must see at a glance that she was not 
 in her own house : the bare spectacularity of the keep- 
 ing ; the meagre decoration of the mantelpiece and 
 whatnot ; the second-hand brown plush furniture ; the 
 fire, burning on the hearth, as in a scene set for some 
 
268 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 home of virtuous poverty on the stage, must all be 
 eloquent of a boarding-house, even to unpractised 
 eyes ; and Helen was in doubt what she ought to do 
 under all the circumstances. She decided upon a bold, 
 indefinite course, and asserted that they would see 
 each other again before he left Boston. 
 
 " Thank you," he said. But he did not go. He 
 looked vaguely round the room. 
 
 " Your umbrella 1 " she suggested, joining actively 
 in the search. 
 
 " Ah, I don't think I brought one," he said 
 speciously. 
 
 When he was gone, Helen put on the trinkets, 
 and found them very becoming, though, as she 
 frankly owned to her reflection in the glass, a dark 
 girl would have carried them off better. "That 
 comes," she mused, "from Marian's want of feeling 
 for colour. I 'm sure sfie chose them." She smiled 
 a little superiority at the mirrored face, and then 
 she started away from it in dismay. Of course Lord 
 Eainford had hesitated in that way, because he 
 promised the Customs' officer to come back and pay 
 duty on the box ; and she had not offered to let him 
 take it, and he could not ask for it. There seemed 
 no end to this day's contretemps. He had not given 
 her his address, and there was no telling, after that 
 sort of parting, when she should see him again, if 
 she ever saw him again. She had placed him in a 
 cruelly embarrassing position, for he had given his 
 card to that Mr. Kimball. The name was inspirar 
 tion; she could at least go to the Custom-House, 
 
A WOMAN S REASON. 269 
 
 and pay the duty herself, and trust to some future 
 chance of telling Lord Rainford that she had saved 
 his honour with Mr. Kimball. Kimball ! She only 
 wondered that she should have remembered the 
 name. 
 
 She had no idea where the Custom-House was, but 
 she wrapped herself against the storm, ani took 
 a carriage at the nearest hack-stand. The janitor 
 and messengers, who passed her from one to another 
 in the Custom-House, were of opinion that Mr. Kim- 
 ball was on duty in East Boston, but the last who 
 asserted this immediately added, "Oh, here he is 
 now !" and called after a figure retreating down a 
 corridor, '' Kimball ! Here ! You 're wanted ! " and 
 Helen found herself, box in hand, confronted with 
 her old friend, the policeman. 
 
 " Why, is it youf she cried, as joyously as if she 
 had met him in some foreign land. 
 
 " Well, I thought it must be you," he said, with 
 the half-shy, half-jocose respect of that sort of 
 Americans in the presence of a fashionable woman. 
 It amuses them to see the women putting on style, 
 as they would say ; but they revere them as ladies 
 all the same. Kimball touched his hat, and then 
 pushed it back on his head in token of standing un- 
 covered while they talked. 
 
 Helen could not wait till she had transacted her 
 own business before she said, " But I thought you 
 were a policeman !" 
 
 " Well, so I was the last time I saw you," returned 
 Kimball. " I left the force about two months ago. 
 
270 A woman's reason. 
 
 Got kind of sick of it myself, and my wife -was always 
 in a tew about the danger, and bein' out so much 
 nights, and the new collector was a friend of mine, 
 and he gave me this place," said Kimball briefly, 
 putting the case into Helen's hands. " That fellow 
 behave himself after that 1 " 
 
 " yes," answered Helen, knowing that Kimball 
 meant the hackman whom he had rebuked in her 
 behalf; " he was very civil." 
 
 " I thought I could fetch him," said Kimball. " I 
 don't know as anything, while I was on the force, 
 done me so much good as a chance like that now and 
 then." He dropped his eyes suggestively to the box 
 in Helen's hands ; but he did not otherwise manifest 
 any consciousness of it, and he left Helen to take her 
 own time to say how glad she was to see him again, 
 and how grateful she had always been to him. 
 When she arrived, in due course, at the box, he 
 merely permitted himself a dry smile. "I told him 
 I knew you,'' and this time Helen understood Lord 
 Rainford, and not the hackman. " I knew it would 
 be all right." 
 
 "It was very kind of you, Mr. Kimball, and it's 
 only a chance that it wasn't all wrong. Lord Eain- 
 ford told me all about it, and I forgot to let him have 
 the box to bring back to you till after he had gone, 
 and then I hurried off with it myself, at once. I 
 couldn't endure that you should think for a moment 
 he hadn't kept his word." 
 
 "Of course not," said Kimball sympathetically. 
 "Full of diamonds?" he asked jokingly, as he 
 
A woman's reason. 271 
 
 received it from her. He opened the lid, and then 
 frowned regretfully at the trinkets. " Gold, do you 
 suppose 1 " 
 
 "0 yes, they must be gold," said Helen. "It's 
 a present." 
 
 " Just so. And of course you don't know what 
 they cost. "Well, now, I 'm sorry, Miss Harkness," 
 said Kimball, with a deep-drawn sigh of reflection. 
 "I guess I've got to have these things valued." 
 
 " Of course," said Helen, with a beating heart, 
 at the bottom of which, perhaps, she accused the 
 punctilious folly of forcing the jewels to official 
 knowledge. She had her feminine limitations of 
 conscience in regard to smuggling, and did not see 
 why it could be wrong to bring in dutiable goods if 
 the Customs' officers did not know it ; she had come 
 out of regard to Lord Eainford, and not at all from 
 tenderness for the public revenue ; and she had a 
 sort of vague expectation that the Government would 
 politely decline to levy any impost in recognition of 
 her exemplary integrity. " You just sit here," said 
 Kimball, finding her a chair which one of the 
 messengers had temporarily vacated, " and I '11 see 
 about it for you. I '11 be back in half a minute." 
 He was gone much longer, and then he returned 
 "with an official paper in his hand, and a fallen coun- 
 tenance. "Well, I done everything I could. Miss 
 Harkness," he said in strong disgust. He was a man 
 who had enjoyed official consequence largely as a 
 means of doing people unexpected favours, and he 
 was deeply mortified at the turn this affair had 
 
272 A woman's reason. 
 
 taken. "You've got to pay fourteen dollars and 
 seventy-five cents on this box. I wouldn't say it to 
 every one, and I shouldn't want it reported, but / 
 think it's a regular swindle." 
 
 "0 no," said Helen sweetly, but with a deep 
 inward bitterness, and finding her pocket with that 
 difficulty which ladies seem always to have, she found 
 her pocket-book, and in it two dollars and a half. 
 " I shall have to leave the box with you and come 
 again," she said : after resolving to borrow Mr. 
 Trufitt's money for the payment of possible but im- 
 probable duties, she had come away and left it at 
 home in the letter enclosing it. 
 
 " No, take the box along," said Kimball, measur- 
 ably consoled at this unexpected turn. " It 's just 
 the way with my wife. Never knows how much 
 money she takes with her, and comes back with her 
 bank-bills balled up into little balls like gun-wads, 
 and her silver layin' round all over the bottom of 
 her bag — what there is to lay round. Never gets 
 home 'th more than sixty-two and a half cents. 
 Don't you fret. Miss Harkness ; I'll make it all right, 
 and you can make it all right with me, any time." 
 
 He would not listen to Helen's protests, but forced 
 the box back into her hands, and walked along the 
 corridor to the vestibule with her, largely waiving 
 each return of her self-reproach and gratitude, and 
 at the door resolutely changing the subject, as 
 he took a card from his waistcoat-pocket. " Lord 
 Rainford I Curious chap. Lord Eainf ord ! Don't 
 know as I ever saw many lords before," he said with 
 
A woman's reason. 273 
 
 Yankee caution. " Don't know as I ever saw any," he 
 added with Yankee conscientiousness. He pondered 
 the 'card with a sarcastic smile, as if amused that any 
 fellow-creature should seriously call himself a lord, and 
 then broke out in a sort of repentance : " Well, he 's 
 a gentleman, I guess. Had his declaration made out 
 fair and square, and opened up all his traps, first off, 
 like a man. Forced 'em on to your notice, as you may 
 say. No hangin' back about Mm. Well !" he added, 
 after a final inspection of the card, " it wa'n't quite 
 regular, as you may say, to let him take the box 
 along without openin' it ; but a man has some discre- 
 tion, I suppose ; and — well, the fact is, I took a 
 fancy to the fellow. Seemed kind of hitman, after 
 all." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Kimball," cried Helen, deeply enjoying 
 the inspector's condescension, but with a sudden 
 superficial terror at the thought that she had not 
 Lord Rainford's address, and should not know how to 
 inform him that his word had been kept for him, 
 " let me see his card, please !" 
 
 " Why, certainly, take it along," said Kimball. " Or 
 I don't know," he added sheepishly. "I thought 
 my wife might like to see it — kind of a novelty, you 
 know." 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! I don't want to keep it/' said 
 Helen, returning it after a swift glance. " I merely 
 wanted to look at it. Thank you, ever so much !" 
 
 When she reached home she wrote two letters : 
 one to Kimball, enclosing the money he had lent her, 
 and another to Lord Rainford, telling him what she 
 S 
 
274 A woman's reason. 
 
 had done. She felt that finally the whole affair was 
 very funny, and she suffered herself to run into a 
 sprightly little account of her adventure, which she 
 tore up. She wrote it all out fully in the letter to 
 Eobert, to which she gave up the whole afternoon ; 
 but to Lord Rainford she merely said that she 
 thought he would have been amused at Mr. Kimball's 
 remarks. 
 
XIII. 
 
 The next day Lord Eainford came to acknowledge 
 her note in person, and he excused himself for coming 
 rather early on the ground of an intolerable im- 
 patience to know what Mr. Kimball had said. 
 
 " Oh, did I promise to tell you 1 " asked Helen, 
 not well remembering just what she had written. 
 
 " No, I can't say that you did," said he with a 
 candour which she began to see was unfailing. " But 
 I thought, perhaps, you might." 
 
 " I 'm not sure about that. But I was thinking 
 that if you were disappointed when you were here 
 before not to find any of us aggressively American, 
 you might be consoled by studying Mr. Kimball ; he 's 
 so absolutely and wholly American, that he takes 
 every other condition of things as a sort of joke." 
 
 " Ah, yes," said Lord Eainford, " I understand. 
 I think I observed something of the sort in that 
 class of people. But I didn't meet it in — society." 
 He looked at her inquiringly, as if he spoke under 
 correction. 
 
 Helen laughed. " Oh, society has all been to 
 Europe, and has lost the old American point of view 
 — or thinks it has." 
 
276 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Thinks it has 1 " he repeated with interest. 
 
 " "Why, I mean that, with all that acquiescence 
 which you found so monotonous, there wasn't one of 
 those people — except a very few sophisticated in- 
 stances — who looked at you at all as people in Euro- 
 pean society would. You were hopelessly improbable 
 to them, no niatter how hard they tried to realise 
 you, as a — nobleman. Excuse me !" cried Helen, " I 
 didn't intend to be personal ! " 
 
 '■' Oh, not at all, not at all. It's very interesting, 
 I 'm sure. It 's quite a new view of the matter. And 
 you — " 
 
 " Now 1/ou are personal ! " 
 
 " No, no, I don't mean that. Or, yes, perhaps I 
 did." 
 
 " Well, then, even I, although I 'm able to lecture 
 so clearly and dispassionately about it, I 'm not sure 
 that I 'm able to take the social state of Europe 
 seriously, either." 
 
 " Eeally ? I didn't find you such deeply-dyed 
 democrats." 
 
 "We're not — in our opinions; you found that 
 out ; nor in our practice, I suppose. But in our tradi- 
 tions and — ■ I've been talking so bookishly already — " 
 
 "Oh, it's quite what they told me to expect in 
 Boston!" 
 
 " Then you won't mind my saying — in our environ- 
 ment," said Helen, with a laugh, "we are. For in- 
 stance — and now I 'm going to be horribly personal — 
 as long as we supposed that Mr. Ray had introduced 
 you as Mr. Rainford, you were real enough ; but as 
 
A woman's reason. 277 
 
 soon as we found that you were Lord Eainford, you 
 vanished back into the stage-plays and the story- 
 books." 
 
 " Oh, I 'm very sorry," he said, with an accent of 
 so much earnestness that she laughed again, and 
 now with a mischievous pleasure, which he must 
 have perceived : for he added more lightly, " It 's 
 really very uncomfortable, you know, to be going 
 about as a fictitious character.'' 
 
 "You can't help it, and we can't,'' said Helen. 
 " But I suppose if you were to live here a very long 
 while, and were to be very, very good, we might begin 
 to believe a little in your probability." 
 
 They talked of other matters, and she let her 
 visitor go, with an uneasy misgiving which haunted 
 her throughout the morning, and still lingered 
 about her when Clara Kingsbury came later in the 
 afternoon to beg her to lunch with her the next 
 day. 
 
 "I know you've not been going out, but this will 
 be an errand of charity. Last night I picked up, of 
 all things in the world, a live lord, and before I 
 knew it, I had asked him to lunch with me, and he 
 had accepted. I suppose that lords are lunched 
 very much like other mortals, — if lords are mortal — 
 but really when he told me that he had met you, I 
 was ready to weep on the first person's neck for joy. 
 You do know him, don't you : Lord Eainford, whom 
 you met last fall at the Butlers ?" 
 
 " yes," said Helen, " he brought me a message 
 from them yesterday.'' 
 
278 A woman's reason. 
 
 " How very odd ! " cried Miss Kingsbury, " I 
 wonder lie didn't mention meeting you yester- 
 day." 
 
 " He didn't mention going to lunch with you to- 
 morrow," said Helen defensively, betraying the fact 
 that she had seen him since. 
 
 Miss Kingsbury ignored it. " Then it must be his 
 English reticence. How droll they are I I should 
 think it would worry them to keep things on their 
 minds the way they do. You must let me send the 
 coup6 for you ! Lord Eainford, and Miss Harkness 
 for the first time in many months, as the play-bills 
 say : really, for a lunch in Lent — " 
 
 " Oh ! I think you must excuse me, Clara," Helen 
 began. " You know I can't meet people." 
 
 " I quite understand, dear," said Miss Kingsbury. 
 " There are not going to be people, or I shouldn't 
 have ventured to ask you. There are only to be 
 Professor and Mrs. Eraser : Lord Eainford wanted 
 especially to talk over Aztec antiquities with him, 
 and I promised to get him to come. But I must 
 have some other young lady besides myself; I can't 
 let it be all Aztecs and antiquities. You must come 
 to keep me in countenance, sitting up there behind 
 the tea-pot like a — a — teocallis." 
 
 Helen laughed, and Clara immediately kissed her. 
 If it were to be such a mild little affair, she felt 
 that she could certainly go ; she could see how Clara 
 would hate to seem to have paired herself off with 
 Lord Eainford, and she said, " Well, Clara, I will go ; 
 but I believe that, so far as Lord Eainford is con- 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 279 
 
 cerned, I shall go as an act of penance. He was 
 here this morning again." 
 
 " Oh ! " popped out of Miss Kingsbury's mouth. 
 
 " And I 'm afraid I said something inhospitable 
 to him — something, at any rate, that 1 'd like to do 
 away the impression of." 
 
 " Oh ! do tell me what it was, Helen dear ! I 'm 
 always saying such hideous things to people ! " 
 
 Helen explained, and Miss Kingsbury silently 
 reflected. " I suppose my joking about it annoyed 
 him." 
 
 " What did he a&jl" pleaded Miss Kingsbury. 
 
 " He said it was very uncomfortable going about 
 as a fictitious character." 
 
 " But you didn't make him a iictitious character, 
 Helen !" 
 
 " No ; but I can see how he might misunder- 
 stand — " 
 
 "They're very sensitive," assented Miss Kings- 
 bury, with a sigh. "Eeally," she continued more 
 briskly, "for people who have gone tramping about 
 the world ever since they could walk — and they 
 began to walk very early — and crushing other people's 
 feelings quite into the mire, they're extraordinarily 
 sensitive. One would think that they had always 
 behaved themselves with the utmost delicacy and 
 consideration, instead of scolding and criticising and 
 advising wherever they went." 
 
 " Yes,'' said Helen. " But all that doesn't excuse 
 me, if I said too much." 
 
 " Well, then," said Miss Kingsbury, "come and take 
 
280 A woman's reason. 
 
 some of it back ; or all. Tell him that the British 
 aristocracy is the one only solid and saving fact of 
 the universe ! Good-bye, dear ! Don't worry about 
 it. I daresay he was delighted ! " 
 
 Helen was afterwards sorry that they had not 
 dressed a little more. She was necessarily in mourn- 
 ing, and Lord Rainford was dipped in the gloom of 
 her crape, and of three black silks : Mrs. Fraser's 
 best black silk. Miss Kingsbury's Vermont aunt's only 
 black silk, and the black silk which Miss Kingsbury 
 herself wore, in some mistaken ideal of simplicity. 
 Helen longed to laugh, but remained unnaturally 
 quiet. 
 
 Perhaps the black silks were too much for the 
 Aztecs. Lord Rainford had the Englishman's stiff- 
 ness, and Professor Praser had the professor's stiff- 
 ness ; they seemed unable to get upon common 
 ground, or to find each other's point of view. They 
 became very polite and deferential, and ended by 
 openly making nothing of each other. The Frasers 
 were obliged to go early, and Helen shortly after- 
 wards made a movement towards departure. 
 
 Miss Kingsbury laid imploring hands on her. 
 " Don't go ! " she tragically breathed. " Stay, and 
 try to save the pieces ! " and Helen magnanimously 
 remained; under the circumstances it would have 
 been inhuman to go. She brightened at Miss 
 Kingsbury's imploring appeal ; and they had a gay 
 afternoon. When she said at last that now she 
 really must go, she was scared to find that it was 
 half-past four. She hurried on her sack and bonnet 
 
A woman's reason. 281 
 
 and rubbers, and when she came down-stairs, Lord 
 Eainford, of whom she had dehberately taken leave, 
 was there, hospitably followed out of the drawing- 
 room by Miss Kingsbury. 
 
 " I forgive your not taking the coup6," she said 
 subtly, seizing Helen's hand for a grateful pressure 
 at parting. 
 
 " I much prefer to walk, I assure you," said Helen, 
 " after being mewed up in the house all day yester- 
 day. Good-bye." 
 
 Miss Kingsbury's man opened the door, and Lord 
 Eainford stood aside for Helen to pass out. But he 
 hurried after her. 
 
 " If you 're walking. Miss Harkness," he said, with 
 an obvious effort to continue the light strain in which 
 they had been laughing and talking, "I really wish 
 you'd let me walk with you." 
 
 " Why, certainly," said Helen. " I shall be very 
 glad." 
 
 But they walked away together rather soberly, 
 as people do after a merry time indoors. There was 
 a constraint on them both which Helen had to make 
 a little effort to break. Whatever caused it on his 
 part, on hers it was remotely vexation that she had 
 allowed the afternoon to slip away without going to 
 see Mr. Hibbard about her money. She must wait 
 again till the morning. 
 
 "I'm afraid," she said, "that you found Professor 
 Fraser rather an unsatisfactory Aztec." 
 
 "0 no. Not at all! He's extremely well in- 
 formed, I daresay, But we approach the subject 
 
282 A woman's reason. 
 
 from very different points. He is interested mainly 
 in the pottery, as the remains of an arrested indigen- 
 ous civilisation ; and I, as an amateur Egyptologist, 
 was rather hoping to — ah — hear something new 
 about the monuments — the architectural evidences. 
 But the ground has been pretty thoroughly traversed 
 in Mexico, and we can only look for fresh results 
 now in Yucatan and Central America." 
 
 He hurried off the statement without apparent 
 interest in the matter, and with something of present 
 impatience. The effect was to make Helen laugh a 
 little, at which he seemed grateful. 
 
 "I suppose you have come over to look up the 
 ground for yourself," she began ; but he hastily 
 interrupted. 
 
 " No, I can't say I came for that, exactly. I can't 
 say I came for that. I should like extremely to see 
 those things for myself; but I didn't come for 
 that." 
 
 Helen was amused at his scrupulous insistence on 
 the point, and had a mischievous temptation to ask 
 him just why he had come, then ; but she contented 
 herself with saying, " I always wonder that English 
 people care to come to America at all. I 'm afraid 
 that if we had Germany and Italy at our doors, we 
 shouldnt care to cross the Atlantic for a run to 
 Colorado and back." 
 
 " The Continent is rather an old story with us, 
 you know. Of course the towns are a good deal 
 alike here, after you leave Boston, and there is 
 nothing to see in the usual sight-seeing way; but 
 
A woman's reason. 283 
 
 the conditions are all new, and they 're interesting ; 
 yes, they 're interesting. But I can't say exactly — " 
 
 Helen felt a nervous inability to let him define, as 
 he clearly intended, that it was not exactly the new 
 conditions either that had brought him to America, 
 and she turned a smiliiig face from the anguish of 
 sincerity that was urging him on, and looked about 
 her with the hope that something in their surround- 
 ings would suggest escape for them both. 
 
 "I suppose," she said, "that you know Boston 
 very well by this time ? " 
 
 "No, I don't know it very well," replied Lord 
 Rainford. " But I believe I know something about 
 this quarter of it. This is where your principal people 
 live — professional people, and large merchants 1" 
 
 "All sorts of people live everywhere, now," said 
 Helen, with a little touch of her superiority ; " and 
 I can't say that Beacon Street is any better than 
 Commonwealth Avenue. Papa was in the India 
 trade," she continued, " and we lived just here in 
 Beacon Steps." She remembered what Captain 
 Butler had said of the India trade and its splendour, 
 and she had a tender filial pride in speaking of it. 
 
 Lord Eainford had not caught the word. "In 
 trade?" he repeated. 
 
 "His business was with Indian products of all 
 sorts," Helen explained. 
 
 " Ah, yes," said Lord Rainford. He walked on 
 in a silence which Helen did not heed particularly. 
 He must have been pondering the complications of 
 American society, through which he was walking 
 
284 A woman's reason. 
 
 about the most exclusive quarter of Boston with the 
 daughter of a person who had bartered beads and 
 whisky to the aborigines for peltries ; for, " Really," 
 he said at last, " I didn't suppose there were enough 
 of them left iu this region to make it worth any one's 
 while. But perhaps he carried on the business at a 
 distance — in the West?" 
 
 They came to an involuntary pause together, in 
 which they stared at each other. " What — do you 
 mean ] " cried Helen. 
 
 " Upon my word I don't know whether I ought 
 to say," returned Lord Rainford. 
 
 " You didn't — you didn't suppose," Helen con- 
 tinued, "that papa traded with our Indians?" 
 Lord Eainford's silence confessed his guilt, and she 
 added with a severity which she could not mitigate, 
 "Papa's business was with India; he sent out ships 
 to Calcutta ! " 
 
 " Oh — oh ! " said her companion. " I beg your 
 pardon." 
 
 Helen made a polite resijonse, and began to talk 
 of other things ; but in her heart she was aware of 
 not pardoning him in the least; and she had an 
 unworthy satisfaction in leaving him in evident 
 distress when they parted. 
 
 The next morning, at the earliest permissible 
 hour, Mrs. Hewitt brought her his card, with a 
 confidential impressiveness that vexed Helen almost 
 to the point of asking Mrs. Hewitt to say that 
 Miss Harfcness was not well, and begged to be 
 excused; but she repented of the intention before 
 
A WOMAN S REASON. 285 
 
 it was formed, and went down to receive her 
 guest. 
 
 She received him coldly, and his manner confessed 
 the chill by an awkward constraint in the common- 
 places that passed before he broke out abruptly 
 with, " I 'm afraid I must have annoyed you, Miss 
 Harkness. I 'm not ready — I don't suppose I 've 
 any tact at all — but it would grieve me to think 
 that I had misunderstood you yesterday in a way to 
 vex you." 
 
 "Oh, don't speak of it!" cried Helen, with the 
 generosity which his frankness evoked. " There 
 was never anything of it, and now it's all gone." 
 She began to laugh at the droll side of his blunder, 
 and she said, " I was afraid that I must have seemed 
 very rude the other day, in openly reducing you 
 to a fairy prince." 
 
 " No, I rather liked that,'' said Lord Eainford. 
 " It interested me, and it explained some things. 
 I 'm sure people get on better in the end by being 
 frank." 
 
 " Oh," said Helen, " there 's nothing like frank- 
 ness," and at the same moment she felt herself an 
 intricate and inextricable coil of reservations. 
 
 " I think the Americans particularly like it," he 
 suggested. 
 
 " We expect it," said Helen, with a subtlety which 
 he missed. 
 
 He went on to say, with open joy in the restora- 
 tion of their good understanding : " The distinctions 
 you make in regard to diiferent kinds of trade rather 
 
286 A woman's reason. 
 
 puzzle me. I don't see why cotton-spinning should 
 be any better than shoe-manufacturing ; but I 'm told 
 it is." 
 
 " Why, certainly," said Helen. 
 
 " But I don't see the ' certainly ' ! " he protested, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 " Oh, but it is ! " she explained. 
 
 " Ah," he returned, with the air of desisting, 
 " it 's my defective education, I suppose. But if 
 people go into trade at all, I don't see why they 
 shouldn't go into one thing as well as another. It 
 appears all the same to — us." 
 
 The little word slipped out ; and neither of them 
 thought of it at the time. He went away, happy 
 in having made his peace ; she parted from him 
 with sufficient cordiality, and as soon as he was 
 gone, this word by which he had unconsciously dis- 
 tinguished between them and classed her, began to 
 rankle and to sting. When it came to herself, she 
 had the national inability to accept classification, 
 which seems such a right and wise arrangement to 
 Europeans, and which some Americans uphold — till 
 it comes to themselves. 
 
 She could not get rid of her resentment by asking 
 herself wl.at Lord Eainford's opinions and prejudices 
 were to her, and resolving not to see him if he came 
 again ; and she was so hot with it, when she went out 
 in the afternoon to Mr. Hibbard's office at last, that 
 she must have seemed to the clerk, who told her he 
 was not in, to have some matter of personal question 
 with the delinquent lawyer. 
 
A woman's reason. 287 
 
 She stopped a moment on her way home at the 
 window of a picture-store, attracted by some jars of 
 imitation faience, and she went in to ask about them; 
 the sight of them suddenly revived her beHef that 
 she could still do something of the kind, and spare 
 herself the shame of encroaching upon her capital. 
 
 A gentleman turned round from looking at them 
 on the inside of the window, and she confronted 
 Lord Eainford. "Ah, Miss Harkness!" he said. 
 " "Was it you who were spell-bound outside there by 
 these disagreeable shams f " 
 
 His words struck her new hopes dead. "They 
 are ghastly," she said, with society hardness. Then 
 Miss Eoot's words came involuntarily to her lips, 
 " I pity the poor wretch that expects to live by 
 painting and selling them." That door, she felt, 
 was for ever closed against her, even if she starved 
 on the outside. The shock brought the tears into 
 her eyes behind her veil, and she remained staring at 
 the fictitious faience without seeing it. 
 
 "Frankly, now," said Lord Eainford, "don't you 
 think that all effort in that direction is misdirected, 
 and that the world was better before people set 
 about prettifying it so much V 
 
 "Frankly," said Helen hysterically, "I don't be- 
 lieve I like frankness as much as you do." 
 
 He laughed. "If you have ever decorated pottery. 
 Miss Harkness, I take it all back.'' 
 
 "Oh, it isn't a question of that," said Helen 
 breathlessly. " It -s a question of what else the poor 
 girl, who probably did the things, shall turn to if she 
 
288 A woman's reason. 
 
 stops doing them." She had a kind of dire satisfac- 
 tion in dramatising her own desperation; and the 
 satisfaction was not diminished by the fact that these 
 ideas had come into her head since she had denounced 
 frankness, to which they had no relation whatever. 
 She had meant — if she meant anything hy that 
 denunciation — to punish him for the tone of his talk 
 in the morning. She had not forgotten his patri- 
 cian us. But the talk was now far from that, and 
 he had not been punished. 
 
 " Ah," he said, with feeling that she respected in 
 spite of her resentment, " I should be sorry if I 
 seemed indifferent to that side of the question. It 
 was only that I hadn't thought of it." 
 
 "I didn't mean that," she returned, with an aim- 
 lessness from which she thought to escape by asking, 
 " Is there anything up-stairs ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " a very beautiful picture — I 
 fancy a very American picture.'' 
 
 " The two things ought to tempt me," said Helen, 
 passing on as if to terminate their casual inter- 
 view. 
 
 She mounted the thickly-carpeted stairs, which 
 silenced the steps behind her ; but she was not 
 surprised to find the poriihre held back for her to 
 enter the pretty little gallery, or to find Lord Eain- 
 ford beside her, when she stood within. There was 
 a gentleman there with his hat off, after our fashion 
 in picture-galleries at home, and two suburban ladies 
 with a multiplicity of small paper parcels, in awe- 
 stricken whisper; but they all presently went out, 
 
A woman's reason. 289 
 
 and left her alone with Lord Eainford before the 
 pamting. 
 
 A yellow light fell rich into an open space in the 
 primeval New England forest, and revealed the 
 tragedy of an arrest for witchcraft, — an old woman 
 haled away in the distance by the officers, with her 
 withered arms flung upward in prayer or impre- 
 cation ; and in the foreground a young girl cower- 
 ing at the door of the cabin, from which her mother 
 has just been torn. The picture was an intense ex- 
 pression of the i)athos of the fact, which seemed as 
 wholly unrelated to canvas or pigment, in the painter's 
 poetic treatment, as if it were his perfect dream of 
 what he had meant to do. 
 
 " Yes ! " said Helen, with a deep sigh of the 
 impassioned admiration with which she always 
 devoted her being for the moment to the book or 
 picture she liked. 
 
 "One of your Boston painters?" asked the 
 Englishman. 
 
 " The one," answered Helen, and she launched out 
 in a fury of praise, while he continued attentive to 
 her rather than to her words. 
 
 "I suppose you can't understand how it afflicts 
 me," he said finally, " to find any of the errors and 
 sufferings of Europe repeated here." 
 
 Helen laughed as people do at mysterious griev- 
 ances. "Why, no; as. far as such things are 
 historical, I believe we 're rather proud of them. 
 They do something to satisfy the taste for the 
 picturesque, though after all they 're such a mere 
 T 
 
290 A woman's reason. 
 
 morsel that we land in Europe perfectly raven- 
 ous." 
 
 "If they were all historical, I shouldn't mind," 
 said the young man. "It was finding our current 
 superstitions accepted here that surprised and dis- 
 appointed me." 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me that you find any 
 imperfections — domestic or foreign — in us now ?" 
 
 " Ah, you get beyond my joking depth very soon," 
 he protested. " I told you once that I was a serious 
 person." 
 
 "I didn't believe you could be serious about it !" 
 
 " I was, I assure you. I suppose it was my habit 
 of taking things very seriously that put me at odds 
 with matters at liome, and that puts me at odds 
 with matters here, where I fancied that I might be 
 rather more of the regular order." 
 
 " I don't understand," said Helen ; and being 
 curious, and being fatigued, she dropped into one of 
 the chairs that the suburban ladies had vacated. 
 
 " I mean that this morning I was trying to express 
 the feeling which has made me a sort of white crow 
 among my own people, and which doesn't seem even 
 credible here. I was very far indeed from wishing 
 to imply disrespect for any sort of usefulness — which 
 is the only thing I really respect in the world. Did 
 you understand me to do so 1 " 
 
 "Not exactly that," said Helen, with a reserve 
 which he must have seen was as yet inexpugnable. 
 
 " I daresay it was one of the misfortunes of my 
 being a sickly boy, bred at home, apart from other 
 
A woman's reason. 291 
 
 boys, and indulging himself in all sorts of fancies ; 
 but I used to imagine that in America our distinc- 
 tions — criterions — didn't exist. When I began to 
 know Americans, at home as well as here, it seemed 
 to me that they were often rather more subser- 
 vient — more eager to get on with people of rank, 
 than Englishmen even. I confess it baffled .me, and 
 you 're the only American — if you '11 excuse my being 
 so personal, as you say — -who has at all explained it 
 to me. I can see now how they may have a romantic 
 — an historical — interest in knowing such people, and 
 that they are not merely tuft-hunters in the ordinary 
 sense." 
 
 Helen could not tell whether he was speaking in 
 irony or in earnest ; she dropped the glance she was 
 lifting to his face, in a little fear of him. 
 
 " I daresay I 've been mistaken about other 
 matters — appearances ; and I 'm vexed that I should 
 have said something this morning that I saw put 
 me further than ever in the wrong witli you. I 
 assure you that I don't think better of myself for 
 belonging to an order of things that I believe to be 
 founded and perpetuated in ignorance and injustice. 
 I would really rather have been one of the pilgrims 
 who came over in the May-Blossom — " 
 
 " Flower," said Helen, helplessly correcting him. 
 
 "Flower — I beg your pardon — than one of the 
 robbers who came over with the Conqueror ! " 
 
 He seemed to think this a prodigious tribute ; but 
 Helen could not even make a murmur of grateful 
 acceptance. Those radical ideas, in which he expected 
 
292 A woman's reason. 
 
 her to sympathise, were ridiculous to her; she had 
 always heard them laughed at, and she could not 
 imagine how an Englishman of rank could entertain 
 them, though she had heard that such Englishmen 
 sometimes did, for a while. To hear him talking in 
 that way made him seem not so much unnatural as 
 impossible ; it was so unexpected from him that she 
 felt a little uneasy, as if he were not quite in his right 
 mind ; but she had so far a compassion for his mania 
 that she could not find it in her heart to tell him 
 that he had totally misconceived her, and he went on 
 to explain further. 
 
 " And I was merely trying to say that I thought 
 it odd in a society where you are all commoners 
 together — " 
 
 " Commoners ! " cried Helen, in astonished recogni- 
 tion of the fact. 
 
 He did not heed this effect in her, but went 
 on — "That there should be any such distinctions 
 as ours. I '11 go further, and say that I thought it 
 preposterous ; and the other day, when I fell into 
 that unaccountable blunder in regard to the India 
 trade, I had no such feeling as you — as you — 
 might have supposed. If I venture to speak of 
 something that Mr. Eay let drop in one of his 
 letters about your determination to trust to your- 
 self and your own efforts, rather than accept any 
 sort of dependence, it 's because I wish to tell you 
 how much I revere and — and — honour it. It only 
 endeared you to me the more ! Miss Harkness ! " 
 he cried, while she began to look about her with a 
 
A woman's reason. 293 
 
 wild hope of escape, " it was for your sake that I 
 came back ! " 
 
 They were quite alone, and if it were to come to 
 this, it might as well have come to it here as any- 
 where else : Helen realised the fact with a superficial 
 satisfaction, following her superficial terror of the 
 publicity of the place. " Ever since I first saw you — " 
 
 " Oh, don't say any more ! Indeed, you mustn't ! 
 Didn't the Eays— didn't they tell you — " 
 
 " I haven't seen them. Before I went home I 
 knew that your father's circumstances — But I beg 
 you to do me at least the kindness to believe that it 
 made no difference at all. God knows I never con- 
 sidered the circumstances or made them an instant's 
 question." 
 
 " You are very kind, Lord Eainford ; generous — 
 but—" 
 
 " No. It pleased me to think you had nothing. 
 I would rather have found you as I have than in the 
 best house in your town; I don't like people of 
 fashion at home ; and when it comes to what is called 
 position, or loss of it, here — " 
 
 Helen tried to interpose again, but he would not 
 let her speak. 
 
 " What Ray told me only made me the more impa- 
 tient to see you again, and to assure you — to tell you 
 how wholly I sympathised with your — ideas ; and to 
 prove my sincerity in any way you choose. If you 
 dislike going to England — and. I could very well 
 imagine you might, for some reasons— I will come 
 here. It 's indifferent to me where I live, so that I 
 
294 A woman's reason. 
 
 honestly live out my opinions. I love you for what 
 you are, — for your courage, your sincerity, your truth 
 to yourself ; and if you think that your having — 
 your being — " 
 
 " Oh, it isn't that at all !" cried Helen piteously, 
 compassionately. To a girl who had never dreamt of 
 being loved for anything but herself, and, in her 
 quality of well-born and well-bred American, could 
 not imagine herself less than the equal of princes. 
 Lord Eainford's impassioned misconceptions con- 
 tained as many offences as could have been put into 
 as many words ; but she forgave them all to the 
 pain that she saw that she must inflict. He had 
 misunderstood everything : all her assumptions of 
 equality, on his own plane, had been thrown away 
 upon him ; she had only been his equal as he ordained 
 it, and condescended to her level. But she could not 
 be angry with him, since she was to crush him with 
 the word she must speak. She had never forgiven 
 herself for her reckless behaviour the iirst time they 
 met ; and now he must have taken all her kind suf- 
 ferance, all her hospitable goodwill of the past week 
 — which she had shown in atonement — as invitation 
 for him to hope, even to expect. She hung her 
 head, but she must stop him at once, and, " Oh ! 
 Lord Rainford," she murmured, " L'm engaged !" 
 
 He turned very white. " I beg your pardon," he 
 said, simply and quietly. 
 
 " I've been very greatly to blame from the begin- 
 nings I see it now, and I ought to have seen it before. 
 But that first day, when I met you, I was very unhappy 
 
A woman's reason. 295 
 
 — I hardly knew what I did ; I 'm afraid I didn't care. 
 I had driven away the dearest friend I had by my 
 foolishness ; and he had left me, hating me ; it made 
 me desperate ! But it all came right very soon 
 again ; and it 's he — It 's cruel of me to be telling 
 you this ; but I want you to believe that I do prize 
 your regard, and that since you've been here this 
 time, I 've only tried to do what I could to remove 
 that first impression, and to — to — to — You must 
 forgive me !" 
 
 " yes," said the young man with a bewildered 
 look. 
 
 "I do see how good you are, and I respect — Any 
 girl might be proud and glad, if she were not 
 bound—" 
 
 "Good-bye," said Lord Rainford abruptly. She 
 took his hand in a clinging, pitying pressure ; she 
 would have liked to detain him, and say something 
 more, to add those futilities with which women vainly 
 seek to soften the blow they deal a man whom they 
 value, but do not love. But the useless words would 
 not come to her lips, and slie must let him go with- 
 out them. 
 
XIV. 
 
 Helen hurried home, and ran up to her room. 
 She had thought she wanted to hide ; but now she 
 found that she wanted to walk, to run, to fly, to get 
 into the open air again, to escape from herself some- 
 how. She was frantic with the nervous access of 
 which, now that Lord Rainford was gone, she had 
 fallen the prey. She was pulling on her gloves, as 
 she rushed down-stairs, and she almost ran over the 
 servant, who was coming up with a card in her hand. 
 She stopped short, and the girl gave her the card. 
 
 "For me!" she cried in wild exasperation. "I 
 can't see anybody ! Say that I 'm going out. I 
 can't see any one !" 
 
 A little old gentleman, with his overcoat on, and his 
 hat in his hand, who must have overheard lier, came 
 out of the reception-room, and stood between the 
 foot of the stairs and the street-door. 
 
 " I wish to see you. Miss Harkness, on very im- 
 portant business." 
 
 " I can't see you now. I can't see any one ! I 
 don't know you, sir ! Why do you come to me ?" 
 she demanded indignantly, and quivering with im- 
 patience. 
 
A woman's reason. 297 
 
 " My name is Everton. I bought your father's 
 house when it was sold last fall at auction, and I 
 came to see you in regard to some circumstances 
 connected with that purchase." 
 
 " I don't know anything about the circumstances,'' 
 cried Helen. "You must wait till Captain Butler 
 gets home." 
 
 "I was sure,'' said Mr. Everton, with insinuation 
 that arrested her in spite of herself, " that you knew 
 nothing of the circumstances, and from what I knew 
 of your father, I felt certain that his daughter would 
 like to know of them." 
 
 " Please tell me what you mean," said Helen, and 
 with a glance at the gaping servant-girl she pushed 
 open the reception-room door. Mr. Everton politely 
 refused to enter first, and he softly closed the door 
 when they were both within. 
 
 " It is simply this. Miss Harkness,'' said Mr. 
 Everton, who had a small, hard neatness of speech, 
 curiously corresponding to his small, hard neatness of 
 person. " I have reason to believe — in fact, I have 
 evidence — that I was the victim of a fraud on the part 
 of the auctioneer ; and that I was induced to outbid, 
 by five or six thousand dollars, bids that were cried 
 by the auctioneer, but that had never been made at 
 all." 
 
 " I don't understand," faltered Helen. 
 
 Mr. Everton explained, but she shook her head. 
 
 "This is all a mystery to me. Why don't you 
 wait till Captain Butler returns ? Why do you come 
 to me 1" She suddenly added : " Or, no ! I am fflad 
 
298 A woman's reason. 
 
 you came to me. I can't suffer any doubt to rest 
 in your mind for an instant : if you have been 
 wronged, thcat's quite enough. Thank you for com- 
 ing." She rose with a splendour which seemed to 
 increase her stature, and diminish Mr. Everton's. 
 "I was just going out, and if you will come with 
 me I will go at once to Mr. Hibbard's office with 
 you. He has charge of my affairs in Captain 
 Butler's absence. If there has been any mistake, 
 I am sure that he will have it corrected imme- 
 diately." 
 
 She started out with Mr. Everton at her side, and 
 swept haughtily on for several squares. Then she 
 found herself trembling. " I wish you would call a 
 carriage, please," she said faintly. 
 
 When they arrived at Mr. Hibbard's oifice, Mr. 
 Everton allowed her to pay for the carriage he had 
 shared with her. Slie could not quell her excite- 
 ment when she entered the lawyer's private room 
 with him. " Mr. Hibbard," she began, in a key 
 which she knew sounded hysterical, and which she 
 despised, but was helpless to control, " Mr. Everton 
 thinks that he was cheated in the purchase of our 
 house ; and I wish you to hear his story, please, and 
 if it is so, I wish him to be righted, no matter what 
 it costs." 
 
 "Sit down," said the lawyer. He placed a chair for 
 Helen, and allowed Mr. Everton to find one for him- 
 self, and then wailed for him to begin. Mr. Everton 
 was not embarrassed. He behaved like a man secure 
 of. his right, and told his story over again, straight- 
 
A woman's reason. 299 
 
 forwardly and clearly. Mr. Hibbard smiled so lightly 
 and carelessly at the end, that Helen felt at once 
 that it must be all rubbish, and that it would be 
 perfectly easy for him to undeceive Mr. Everton. 
 
 " Why didn't you eomo to me directly with this 
 story, Mr. Everton 1" asked the lawyer. 
 
 " I don't know, Mr. Hibbard," returned the old 
 in an keenly, "that I'm obliged to account to you 
 for my motives. I don't know but that I should 
 have preferred to communicate with you through my 
 lawyer, if it had not been for this young lady, who 
 felt sure that you would see justice done." 
 
 The lawyer smiled at an assertion which was 
 evidently not made to weigh with him. " You ought 
 to know by this time, Mr. Everton, that justice is an 
 aifair of the Courts, and that lawyers look after their 
 clients' interests." 
 
 "I don't want you to look after mine at the ex- 
 pense of justice, Mr. Hibbard," said Helen nervously, 
 pulling herself back to the point from which she had 
 lapsed at Mr. Hibbard's smile. 
 
 " We will try to do what is right," said the lawyer, 
 in a way that made her ieel rather silly. " But we 
 won't do anything rashly because two romantic young 
 people have decided that it is right without con- 
 sulting any one else." 
 
 If Mr. Hibbard expected Mr. Everton to enjoy 
 this joke he was mistaken. " I am quite willing," 
 said the old gentleman grimly, " to leave the affair 
 to the Courts." 
 
 "If I hadn't your word for that, Mr. Everton," 
 
300 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 returned the lawyer briskly, " I should doubt your 
 willingness to do anything of the kind." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because you know as well as I do, that you 
 have no case, that all your suspicions and impressions, 
 and conjectures and hearsay, wouldn't amount to 
 that in Court." The lawyer snapped his fingers. 
 " You know very well that you went to Miss Harkness 
 to fortify yourself at the expense of the weakness 
 you hoped to find in her, and that you have done an 
 irregular and ungentlemanly thing in annoying her 
 with this matter. I am sorry to say it to so old a 
 man as you. Did you expect to extort money from 
 her? Probably you were surprised that she chose 
 to consult me at all. — Miss Harkness, I advise you 
 to go home, and think no more about this matter. 
 There 's nothing of it !" 
 
 The lawyer rose, as if to end the interview, but 
 Mr. Everton remained seated, looking through the 
 papers of a long pocket-book he had taken from his 
 coat, and unfolded upon his knee, and Helen re- 
 mained seated too, fascinated by the old man's 
 quiet self-possession. 
 
 "I have something here to show you," he said 
 tranquilly, offering the lawyer the paper which he 
 had found. "And I wish you to understand," he 
 added, " that I am not here to be instructed as to 
 the conduct of a gentleman, or to account for my 
 conduct in any way. I prefer that you should 
 not attempt to account for my possession of this 
 paper ; and if you ask me any questions in regard to 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 301 
 
 it, I shall not answer them. It is sufficient for you 
 to consider whether it is worth while for you to 
 go into Court against it. I was willing, and am 
 still so, to spare the scandal attending such an affair 
 in Court, but I am determined to have the sum out 
 of which I have been defrauded." 
 
 The lawyer was reading the paper without apparent 
 attention to what Mr. Everton was saying, but 
 when he had gone through the paper again, he 
 turned to Helen, and said reluctantly, " Miss Hark- 
 ness, it 's my duty to tell you what this paper is : 
 it 's a confession from the auctioneer that he did 
 invent a series of bids by which he ran the price of 
 the house up from thirty to thirty-five thousand 
 dollars. I haven't the slightest idea that the case, 
 if brought into Court, would be decided in Mr. 
 Everton's favour on any such evidence as this; in 
 fact, I think it would not be easy to bring the case 
 into Court at all. But Mr. Everton hasn't obtained 
 the paper for any such purpose. He has obtained 
 it with a view of frightening you into the pay- 
 ment of a sum — I don't know what figure he 
 has fixed on in his mind — to keep the matter still. 
 Now, I advise you not to pay anything to keep it 
 still — not a cent." He folded up the paper and 
 handed it back to Mr. Everton, who put it into his 
 pocket-book again. 
 
 "Will you let me see it, please?" said Helen 
 gently. He gave her the paper, and she read it, 
 and then restored it to him. After a while she said, 
 " I am trying to think what_ papa would have done. 
 
302 A woman's reason. 
 
 Wasn't Captain Butler at the auction — wouldn't he 
 have suspected, if anything had gone wrong f " 
 
 " Yes, certainlj-," said the lawyer. 
 
 " And if he had had any misgivings — " 
 
 "He would have come to me with them, and I 
 should have told him not to pay the slightest atten- 
 tion to them," said Mr. Hibbard promptly. " My dear 
 Miss Harkness, the whole thing is preposterous. That 
 fellow Mortimer is a scamp, but he isn't such a scamp 
 as he professes to be. If Mr. Everton will excuse 
 my frankness, I will say that I believe this is purely 
 a financial transaction between himself and Mortimer. 
 The fellow had heard of Mr. Everton's suspicions, 
 and when he wanted money very badly, he went to 
 him, and sold out — for a sum which Mr. Everton's 
 delicacy would prevent him from naming ; but pro- 
 bably something handsome, though Mortimer has 
 been going to the dogs lately, and he may have sold 
 out cheap." 
 
 Mr. Everton, having folded up his paper and put 
 it back into his pocket-book, and restored that to his 
 breast-pocket, rose, and buttoned his coat over it. 
 " I 'm sorry, Miss Harkness," he said, " that you 
 haven't a better adviser. I can't expect you to act 
 independently of him, and that 's your misfortune. 
 I knew your father, and he was a very honest man. 
 Good-morning." 
 
 "He was too honest," cried the lawyer, "to make 
 any difficulty about paying you your cut-throat 
 usury." 
 
 " My loan came at a time, Miss Harkness, when 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 303 
 
 your father oould get money nowliere else, and it 
 saved him from bankruptcy. Good-afternoon." 
 
 He took no notice of the lawyer in quitting the 
 room, and when he was gone the latter broke out 
 with, "I hope he will press this to an issue! I 
 think I could give him something to think of if I 
 could get a chance at him in open Court. The old 
 scoundrel, to come to you with this tiling ! But he 
 knew better than to come to me first. I wonder he 
 dared to coine at all ! Miss Harkness, don't be 
 troubled about it ; there 's nothing of it, I assure 
 you ; nothing that need give you a moment's anxiety 
 as to the result. You may be absolutely certain that 
 this is the end of the whole affair ; he would never dare 
 to go into Court with that paper in the world. It 
 was given to him, you may rest satisfied, for the sole 
 purpose of extorting money from us privately, and 
 with the agreement — which Mortimer would know 
 how to make perfectly safe for himself- — that it was 
 never to be used in any public or legal way. Mr. 
 Everton has made his attempt, and has failed ; that 's 
 all. You '11 hear no more of it." 
 
 "Is it true," asked Helen gently, and with an 
 entire absence of the lawyer's resentful excitement, 
 "that he lent papa money when he could get it 
 nowhere else 1 " 
 
 "In any ordinarily disastrous time your father 
 could always have got money, Miss Harkness. But 
 the time that Everton alluded to was one when it 
 could be got only of usurers like himself. He made 
 your father pay three or four times what any man 
 
304 A woman's reason. 
 
 ■with a Christian conscience would have asked for 
 it." 
 
 " And did it save papa from bankruptcy 1 " 
 
 "Everybody was in difficulties at that time; 
 and—" 
 
 "Do you think," pursued Helen, as if it were a 
 branch of the same inquiry, " that he really supposes 
 the auctioneer cheated 1 " 
 
 " Very likely he had his suspicions. He 's full of 
 all sorts of suspicions. I daresay he suspects that 
 you and I were in collusion in regard to this matter, 
 and prepared for him if he should ever come upon 
 such an errand." 
 
 "Oh !" murmured Helen. 
 
 "Why should you worry yourself about it, 
 Miss Harkness t As it was, he bought the house at 
 a ruinously low figure, and it 's worth now a third 
 more than he paid for it six months ago." 
 
 " But you don't think it is possible the auctioneer 
 could have done such a thing?" 
 
 " Oh, possible — yes, but extremely improbable." 
 
 "It makes me unhappy, very unhappy," said 
 Helen. " I can't bear to have any doubt about it. 
 It seems a kind of stain on j)apa's memory." 
 
 '■' Bless my soul, my dear young lady ! " cried the 
 lawyer, " what has it to do with your father's 
 memory?" 
 
 " Everything, if I don't see the wrong righted." 
 
 " But if there hasn't been any wrong ? " 
 
 "Ah, that's the worst : we can't find out. Mr. 
 Hibbard, you never heard any one else express any 
 
A woman's reason. 305 
 
 misgivings about the sale?" The lawyer shifted a 
 little in his chair, and betrayed a fleeting uneasiness, 
 which he tried to hide with a laugh. Helen was 
 instantly upon him : " Oh, who was it V 
 
 " I haven't admitted that it was anybody." 
 
 " But it was ! You must tell me !" 
 
 "There 's no reason why I shouldn't. It was as in- 
 nocent a person as yourself: it was Captain Butler!" 
 
 "Captain Butler!" 
 
 " And I can tell you, for your entire satisfaction, I 
 hope, that he went to the auctioneer and laid his 
 doubts before him, and the auctioneer solemnly 
 assured him that the bids were all bona fide, just as 
 he now solemnly assures Mr. Everton that they were 
 fictitious. But Captain Butler was not so shrewd as 
 Mr. Everton — he didn't make the auctioneer put 
 himself in writing.'' 
 
 Helen pulled her veil over her face. " And is 
 — is there no way of solving the doubt?" she made 
 out to ask. 
 
 " There is no doubt to solve, in my mind," said 
 Mr. Hibbard. " I advised Captain Butler to dismiss 
 the matter altogether, as I now advise you. I tell 
 you that you 've heard the last of Mr. Everton in 
 this connection." 
 
 Helen did not answer. But presently she said, 
 "Mr. Hibbard, I was going to come to you for 
 some money. I understood from Captain Butler 
 that you had charge of what was left for me, and that 
 I could get it of you whenever I wanted it." 
 
 " Yes, certainly." 
 
 U 
 
306 A woman's reason. 
 
 " In such sums as I like 1" 
 
 The lawyer laughed. " In any sums short of the 
 amount of Mr. Everton's claim." 
 
 Helen was daunted to find herself unmasked ; but 
 she only put on the bolder front. " But if I wish to 
 pay that claim 1 " 
 
 " Then I should intervene, and say the claim did 
 not exist.'' 
 
 " But if the money is mine ?" she urged. 
 
 " If you insisted upon taking up all your money, 
 I should, as Captain Butler's friend, and as the old 
 friend of your father, refuse to let you have it, unless 
 you explicitly promised me that you would not give 
 it to Mr. Everton. For it would literally be giving 
 it to him." 
 
 " And if I said that you had no right to refuse 
 it ? If I told you that I was of age, and that I was 
 determined to have it without conditions 1" 
 
 " Then I should make bold to defy you at any 
 risk till I had laid the whole matter before Captain 
 Butler, and heard from him in reply. Now, my dear 
 Miss Harkness," said the lawyer, " I know just how 
 you feel about this matter, and I want you to believe 
 that if I thought it was just, I should not only be 
 willing to have you pay Mr. Everton's claim, but 
 should urge you to pay it, even if it beggared 
 you." 
 
 " "Would it — would it take all the money ?" faltered 
 Helen. 
 
 " Yes, alL But it isn't to be thought of ; the 
 whole thing 's in the air ; it 's preposterous." The 
 
A woman's reason. 307 
 
 lawyer went carefully and judicially into the whole 
 case, and clearly explained the points and principles 
 to Helen, who listened silently, and to all appearance 
 with conviction. At the end he asked cheerfully, as 
 he prepared to write a cheque, " And now, how 
 much money shall I let you have to-day ^ " 
 
 " None !" said Helen, " I couldn't bear to touch 
 it. I know that you feel as you say ; and it seems 
 as if you must be right. But if I spent a cent of 
 that money I could never be happy again unless I 
 knew absolutely that there was nothing in this 
 claim." 
 
 The lawyer smiled despairingly. " But you never 
 can know absolutely !" 
 
 " Then I will never touch the money." 
 
 " Eeally, really," cried the lawyer, " this is too 
 bad. Do you want me to give you this money to 
 throw into the street 1 I honestly believe that the 
 first man who picked it up there would have as much 
 right to it as Mr. Everton." 
 
 " Yes, but nobody knows,'' said Helen, rising. " I 'm 
 sorry to give you all this trouble, and take up your 
 time ; and I wish that I needn't seem so obstinate 
 and imreasonable ; but indeed, indeed I can't 
 help it." 
 
 " Confound the old rascal ! " exclaimed Mr. Hib- 
 bard. " I wish I 'd indulged myself in kicking him 
 out of doors. Miss Harkness, I '11 inquire into this 
 matter, and in the meantime I '11 write to Captain 
 Butler. Do you think that I can do more 1 " 
 
 " No." 
 
308 A AVOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 " And now I shall be glad to give you any money 
 on account." 
 
 " I can't take any,'' said Helen ; " it would be 
 quite the same thing. I never could pay it back, 
 and if it turned out that it belonged to him, I should 
 be either a beggar or a thief." 
 
 The lawyer gave a roar of expostulation. " But 
 if you are out of money what will you do 1" 
 
 "I have a little yet. Captain Butler supplied me 
 with money before he went away, and I have still 
 some of it left." This was true. She had been 
 using what she called Mr. Trufitt's money, and she 
 had a dollar and seventy-five cents left of the sum 
 that Captain Butler had made her believe was hers. 
 
 The lawyer, on his part, forbore to explain that 
 the nioney Captain Butler gave her must have been 
 in -anticipation of interest on the five thousand 
 dollars lie held for her. He only said, " But you 
 will accept a loan from me 1" 
 
 " No ; I shouldn't feel that I was making any 
 sacrifice, then." 
 
 "But why, under heaven, nhould you make a 
 sacrifice 1 " demanded the business man of the girl. 
 
 " I must — to feel true to myself," she answered ; 
 and something like this absurdity she repeated in 
 answer to all his prayers and reasons, and went 
 away empty-handed at the end. 
 
XV. 
 
 That evening Helen tapped at Miss Root's door, 
 and entered in response to the girl's invitation to 
 "Come in!" When she showed herself within, 
 "Oh, excuse me!" cried Miss Root, in the reedy 
 note which ladies make when they have pins in their 
 mouths. She had her lap full of sewing, and she 
 obviously could not get up. " I thought it was 
 Bridget." 
 
 "Bridget wouldn't be coming to you on my 
 errand," said Helen with a bluntness which at once 
 made its way with Miss Root. 
 
 " What is your errand ?" she asked, taking three 
 pins out of her mouth for the purpose. 
 
 " I must earn some money, somehow. I thought 
 perhaps you could tell me — advise me — " 
 
 " I can tell you, but I can't advise you," said Miss 
 Root, bending bver her work, and treating Helen's 
 extremity as one of the most natural things in life. 
 " I earned money enough to come to Boston and 
 study Art" — she pronounced it with the conventional 
 capital rather disdainfully, as if she would have chosen 
 a-homelier expression if she could have thought of 
 one — " by helpin' mother take boarders. . We took 
 
310 A woman's reason. 
 
 'em our summers, and I taught winters. That's the 
 way I earned some money. But I suppose you don't 
 want to take boarders.'' 
 
 Helen hardly knew how to interpret the gleam in 
 Miss Root's eye. But, " No," she answered simply, 
 " I shouldn't know how to do that." 
 
 " Well, neither do most of the boardin'-house 
 keepers." She stopped here so definitively that Helen 
 was obliged to take the word if the conversation was 
 to go on. 
 
 " I thought," she faltered, " that perhaps you could 
 tell me how to do something with my pencil that 
 would sell. I can sketch a little." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Root, non-committally ; " I re- 
 member." 
 
 " And it seems to me, that if I knew how to go 
 about it, I ought to be able to turn the study I have 
 given it to some account." 
 
 " I suppose," said Miss Eoot, " that it 's for some 
 charity." 
 
 " For some charity ! " cried Helen. " No, indeed ! 
 it's for myself." 
 
 "Oh," said the other. "Then if I were you, I 
 wouldn't throw my time away. You '11 never succeed. " 
 
 " I don't want to succeed — as an artist," retorted 
 Helen with a little pique. "But I have really come 
 to the point where I must either earn some money, 
 or else borrow or beg it. There are plenty of people 
 who would be ready to give it or lend it, but I can't 
 let them, and I hoped that you might be able to tell 
 me how to earn it." 
 
A woman's reason. 311 
 
 Miss Eoot shook her head. "Of course, I like 
 your spirit ; it 's the right spirit ; but I can't help you 
 in that way. I've never sold a thing yet, and I 
 don't know when I shall, if I ever shall. If I didn't 
 love to paint, I should quit and go home by the first 
 train. But I do love it, and I 'm goin' to stick to it 
 till I begin to starve. I don't ever expect to get 
 married— <Aa/was finished up long ago ! — and mother's 
 married again, and here I am without a chick or a 
 child to trouble me, or trouble about me. But if I 
 had a cat to keep, I shouldn't try to keep it on Art. 
 Oh, I presume that after years and years, I can sell 
 a picture, maybe ; but I know painters in this city — 
 real artists " — she put the words unsparingly, as with 
 a conscience against letting Helen suppose herself 
 for a moment anything of the kind — " that would be 
 glad to give all they do for a regular income of a 
 thousand dollars a year. If you 've a mind to paint 
 gimcracks," she added, and this was the only way in 
 which she deigned to acknowledge her privity to 
 Helen's previous performance, " you can sell 'em if 
 some simpleton sets the fashion of buying 'em, or if 
 people know you did 'em. But I presume that ain't 
 what you want." 
 
 " No, indeed," said Helen, shuddering at the 
 thought of Mr. Trufitt, and helplessly loathing her- 
 self for being at that moment a pensioner on his 
 bounty ; "it would be better to starve." 
 
 "Or," pursued Miss Eoot, "you might teach 
 drawing. People have to throw away their money 
 somehow. But, if I understand, you don't want to 
 
312 A woman's reason. 
 
 go to people that have money to throw away for that 
 anj' more than the other thing." 
 
 "No," murmured Helen. She knew that Miss 
 Root had at once divined that she had come to her 
 instead of going to any friends of her former life 
 because she did not choose to let them pity her, and 
 help her to any sort of trivial work out of pity. In 
 the girl's straightforward sincerity she felt the com- 
 fort that the feminine soul finds in the frankness of 
 a man, and she subtly perceived that, for all her show 
 of indifference, Cornelia liked her, and was touched 
 by the advance she had made in coming to her. In 
 fact. Miss Eoot prided herself on her large-minded- 
 ness, a quality which she applied more impartially 
 to people about her than is generally done. Her 
 liberality was not merely for people of her own origin 
 and experience, but for others who had known better 
 fortunes, and had lost them, or who had them still 
 and were unhappy in them ; and the severity which 
 accompanied her large-mindedness began with her- 
 self, and extended only to envious and detracting 
 spirits. If the secrets of Miss Root's soul could be 
 unveiled, it would be seen that she had been obliged 
 from the beginning to discipline herself into accepting 
 Helen as worthy her esteem and regard, in spite 
 of her beauty, her style, and her air of a finer world 
 than Cornelia Root had known, except at a distance.- 
 The struggle was sharp, but it had ended in the 
 interest of large-mindedness. When Mrs. Hewitt 
 assumed, in Helen's absence from dinner, while she 
 was lunching at Miss Kingsbury's, to be confidentially 
 
A woman's REASON. 313 
 
 speculative about the English lord who seemed to be 
 coming to see Miss Harkness pretty often, and 
 spending a good deal of time when he did come, and 
 so tittered, Cornelia led off a generous opposition. 
 " I don't know,'' she said, " how much a lord's time 
 is worth ; but if it ain't worth any more than some 
 of the fellows' time that used to come flirtin' round 
 with our summer boarders, I don't see how he could 
 put it in much better. I guess he ain't after her 
 fortune, any way ; and I guess he ain't goin' to find 
 much more of a lady anywhere. If he wants to 
 marry her, I shan't object, even if they don't ask 
 me to the weddin'. I shouldn't want much to marry 
 a lord for my own pleasure ; but I don't believe 
 but what if Miss Harkness does she '11 be a credit 
 to him." 
 
 Cornelia had steadfastly set her face against know- 
 ing or caring anything about the affair, and such was. 
 now her discipline that she believed she could keep 
 it up till the end, whenever that was. . She had not 
 only snubbed Mrs. Hewitt the day before, but this 
 evening, when Helen early withdrew from tea, pale, 
 and with the evidence of having passed a day of great 
 nei-vous excitement, she refused even to enter into 
 discussion of what Mr. Evans called the phenomena, 
 in the light of philosophico-economic speculation. 
 
 "Here," he contended, "are a most interesting 
 series of facts. I suppose that never, since the 
 earliest settlement of Boston, has a member of the 
 British aristocracy called three times, on three suc- 
 cessive days, upon a young lady resident in a board- 
 
314 A woman's reason. 
 
 ing-house, even of such acknowledged gentility as 
 ours. If Mrs. Hewitt will excuse me, I will assume 
 that it is not the merits of her establishment which 
 have attracted him, but that he has been drawn here 
 by that charm in Miss Harkness which we all feel. He 
 knew her in other days — in better days — and nobly, 
 and like a nobleman, he has sought her out in our 
 humble midst — if that is a correct expression — and 
 laid his coronet — if it is a coronet — which he keeps 
 somewhere concealed about his person, at her feet. 
 As no human girl of the American persuasion was 
 ever known to refuse a lord, if she got the chance, 
 the inference is irresistible that our noble friend was 
 instantly accepted, and has already written home to 
 have his ancestral halls whitewashed up for the recep- 
 tion of his bride." 
 
 " Well, you may twist it and you may turn it as 
 much as you please, Mr. Evans, and call it philosophico- 
 economic speculation, or anything you want to," re- 
 turned Miss Root. " I call it gossip ; and I never 
 did gossip, and I never will. I don't care if she 
 was goin' to marry twenty lords; it's none of my 
 business. All I know is that she has behaved her- 
 self like a perfect lady ever since she 's been in the 
 house." 
 
 "New Hampshire for ever!" cried Mr. Evans. 
 " The granite ribs of your native State speak in every 
 syllable, Miss Eoot. But you will acknowledge that 
 you did hate her just a little, won't you, for her 
 superiority to us all — which she can't conceal — and 
 that you would recognise the hand of Providence in 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 315 
 
 the dispensation, if his lordship had jilted her to- 
 day?" 
 
 " No, I wouldn't !" retorted Cornelia, all the more 
 vehemently for her perception of the malicious truth 
 in the insinuation. 
 
 "Why, that 's exactly what my wife said, when I 
 taxed her with the same thing. It must be so. 
 Now don't," said her tormentor, as Cornelia rose from 
 the table, "let her see any change in your manner 
 because you think she's going to marry a lord." 
 
 It was the insinuation in this charge that made 
 it extremely difficult for Cornelia Root to adjust her 
 behaviour to the occasion: if Miss Harkness was 
 going to marry that lord — and Cornelia Eoot was 
 principled against inquiring — she was not going to 
 make the slightest change, and yet she was aware 
 that some extra internal stiffness, which she must be 
 careful not to show, would be requisite for this Tini- 
 formity. When it appeared from Helen's application 
 that she could not be going to marry the lord, at least 
 for the present, Cornelia had to guard against self- 
 betrayal in a too precipitate relaxation. The note of 
 despair in Helen's confession that she could not go to 
 people to ask pupils for the same reason that she could 
 not ask them to buy her gimcracks, touched Cornelia, 
 or as she would have said, it made her feel for the 
 girL But feeling was the last thing, according to her 
 belief, that any honest person ought to show. She 
 was going to help her, but she was not going to let 
 her see that she was capable of any such weakness 
 as sympathy; and she had before her the difficult 
 
316 A woman's reason. 
 
 task of treating Helen just as she would have 
 treated a girl who had always been poor, and of not 
 treating her any worse. " There are a good many 
 things that women take up nowadays," she said, 
 with an aspect of hard indifference. " Some of 'em 
 learn telegraphin' — that must pay almost a cook's 
 wages ; some of 'em go into the hospitals, and learn 
 to be professional nurses — that takes you about two 
 years before you caji get a certificate, and then it 's a 
 killin' life ; there are the public schools, but there are 
 so few vacancies, and you have to wait and wait for 
 months, even after you 're prepared." 
 
 She looked at Helen as if she thought that Helen 
 was probably not prepared, and Helen shook her 
 head assentingly. "No," she sighed, "I couldn't 
 wait. But perhaps I shouldn't want to do anything 
 for a great length of time," she said innocently, with 
 the thought of Robert's return in her mind. " It 
 might only be for a limited period." 
 
 " That 's what I supposed," said Miss Eoot. 
 " That 's the great trouble. If a man takes a thing 
 up, he takes it up for life, but if a woman takes it up, 
 she takes it up till some fellow comes along and tells 
 her to drop it. And then they 're always complainin' 
 that they ain't paid as much as men are for the same 
 work. I'm not speakin' of you. Miss Harkness," she 
 said, with a glance at Helen's face, " and I don't 
 know whether I want to join in any cry that '11 take 
 women's minds off of gettin' married. It 's the best 
 thing /or 'em, and it 's about all they 're fit for, most. 
 of 'em, and it's nature: there's- no -denyin' 
 
A woman's reason. 31 7 
 
 But if women are to be helped along independent of 
 men— and I never was such a fool as to say they 
 were — why, it's a drawback. And so most of 'em 
 that can't wait to prepare themselves for anything, 
 because they don't expect to stick to anything, 
 they turn book-agents, or sell some little paytented 
 thing ; or they try to get a situation in a store.'' 
 
 Cornelia began to sew furiously, as if in an exas- 
 peration with her sex, that she could not otherwise 
 express. " And you may be sure/' she said, after a 
 silence, " that every one of 'em tries to do something 
 better than she's iit for, and that she despises her 
 work, and thinks she ain't paid half enough for it." 
 
 Helen did not heed this last outburst. She was 
 trying, with a sickening chill at heart, to realise her- 
 self in the character of those resolute young women 
 who had sometimes won a furtive access to her by 
 asking at the door for Miss Harkness, and sending 
 up their names as if they were acquaintances, and 
 then suddenly developing their specimen copy of the 
 book for which they were taking subscriptions, or 
 the needle-threader or thimble-case, or convertible 
 pen- wiper and boot-buttoner which they were selling. 
 She could as little imagine herself behind the counter 
 of a Washington Street fancy or variety store, stand- 
 ing all day in the hot, dry air, and shrilly piping 
 "Ca-ish!" as she had heard those poor shop-girls 
 doing, while they rapped on the counter with their 
 pencils for the cash-boy, and munched a surreptitious 
 lunch of crackers and chocolate creams. If it must 
 come to thiSj she did not know what she should do. 
 
318 A woman's reason. 
 
 She was as firm as ever that she would not touch the 
 money in Mr. Hibbard's hands as long as the least 
 doubt tainted it ; but she began to be frightened at 
 herself, and at the prospect before her. 
 
 " And is there— is there nothing else 1" she asked, 
 in a voice which she tried to make steady, and only 
 succeeded in making almost as low as a whisper. 
 
 " yes," said Miss Root ; " there 's the theatre." 
 
 Helen's heart gave a throb of hope. She used to 
 play a good deal in private theatricals ; she had acted 
 a French monologue once, and she had taken a part 
 in a German vaudeville ; everybody had praised her, 
 and she had unquestionably borne the palm from all 
 her dramatic competitors. A brief but brilliant 
 future dazzled before her : an actress who was 
 evidently a lady, and carried the air and tone of 
 good society with her on the stage ; triumphs and 
 gains in cities distant from Boston in an incognito 
 strictly preserved ; and then a sudden but inexorable 
 retirement after a given time : it was easy work for 
 Helen's lively fancy to contrive all this, with a 
 shining amplification, as rapid and full as if she had 
 dreamed it in sleep. " Yes 1 " she said with an interest 
 which she could not at once forbid herself. 
 
 " I had a friend," pursued Miss Eoot, " a friend — 
 well, she was a kind of connection, — and she came up 
 to Boston the same time I did — crazy to go on the 
 stage. . She used to act in the school exhibitions, 
 and I guess she got her head turned ; anyway 
 nothing else would do her. But she was real modest 
 about it ; they all are ; she only wanted to play little 
 
A woman's reason. 319 
 
 parts like Juliet, and Ophelia, and Lady Macbeth. 
 Well, she went to a manager, and he was very kind 
 and pleasant, and I guess he saw what a simple 
 goose she was, and he told her he would let her 
 have a chance to show what she could do, and he 
 gave her a place in the ballet." 
 
 " In the ballet 1 " palpitated Helen. The colours 
 had already begun to fade from her vision of his- 
 trionic success, and the crazy structure now trembled 
 to its fall. 
 
 "She thought," resumed Cornelia, "just as I 
 presume you do, that it was dancin'. She said she 
 couldn't dance any ; her folks had always been 
 strict orthodox, and wouldn't let her learn ; and he 
 laughed and said most of the ballet never danced at 
 all. She 'd have to go on as a peasant, or something 
 like that, with a lot of others, first off; and as soon 
 as he could he 'd give her a few words to say, and 
 she could see how she got along. It wa'n't playing 
 Ophelia exactly, but she was dead set on going on 
 to the stage, and so she took up with his offer, and 
 glad enough, and she got six dollars a week from 
 the start." 
 
 " And has she ever — ever got on 1 " asked Helen 
 faintly. 
 
 " Well, the only time I ever saw her was one 
 night when she had the part of a page. I guess she 
 must have been on the stage as much as a minute, 
 and she said at least a dozen words. But I couldn't 
 seem to stand it, to see any friend of mine up before 
 all those people in boy's clothes; and she seemed 
 
320 A woman's reason. 
 
 pretty long for a page, and kind of bony, and I went 
 away after the first act ; I was afraid she might 
 come on again." 
 
 Helen smiled and shuddered; the idea of boy's 
 clothes was final, even in a reverie, and she hung her 
 head in innocent shame. 
 
 " Now," said Cornelia, with a keen glance at her 
 abasement, and apparently convinced that she had 
 brought her low enough, " if you really do want to 
 do something, I can get you a chance to try." 
 
 Helen started. " In the theatre 1 Oh, I couldn't." 
 
 Cornelia laughed. " No, not in the theatre. But; 
 there 's a friend of mine — well, he 's a kind of a con- 
 nection too — used to have a photograph saloon down 
 in our place ; used to have it on wheels, and get it 
 dragged round from one village to another ; and he 's 
 got Boston-bit too ; and so he 's come up, and he 's 
 opened a gallery down in Hanover Street ; well, it 's 
 pretty far down. Well, he hain't got a very high 
 class of custom, that 's a fact ; and if he had lie 
 wouldn't have this work to do, I presume." 
 
 " What is it 1" asked Helen. 
 
 " It 's colourin' photographs." 
 
 " yes ; I 've seen them," said Helen, remem- 
 bering some examples of the art, hung aloft in oval 
 frames, in country parlours, of which they were 
 cherished ornaments. 
 
 " It ain't a very high kind of art," said Miss Eoot,. 
 as if she found something to reprove in Helen's tone, 
 " but it ain't every one that can do it, low as it is." • 
 
 " I'm sure I dbn't depreciate it," returtted :Helen.: 
 
A" woman's reason. 32 r 
 
 "I should be only too glad if you thought / could 
 do it." 
 
 "I guess I can get you the chance to try," said 
 Cornelia ; and now, as if she wished to leave the 
 subject and prevent the premature acknowledgments 
 which she felt she had not yet earned, she unpinned 
 her sewing from her knee, and stood up holding it 
 at arm's-length from her. 
 
 " The trouble is," she mused aloud, " that you 
 can't tell how it's going to hang, after all your 
 worry." 
 
 " Why don't you let me drape it on you ?" asked 
 Helen. 
 
 Cornelia dropped the lifted arm, and let the skirt 
 trail on the floor. " Well, if you think. Miss Hark- 
 ness, that I've been hintin' round for anything of 
 that kind !" 
 
 " I don't," said Helen. " Honestly ! But I like to 
 fit dresses. I used to help our cook with hers." 
 
 Cornelia Root had to discipline with uncommon 
 severity the proud spirit that revolted at having the' 
 same hands drape its corporeal covering which had 
 draped the person of an Irish cook. She subdued 
 it, but it was not in human nature that she should 
 yield gracefully. " I guess I better go to a dressmaker 
 with it,'' she said. " I don't want to trouble you." ' 
 
 "It won't be any trouble, indeed," said Helena 
 taking the dress from her. 
 
 After fifteen minutes of lively discussion, of pin- 
 ning back and pulling forward, and holding up land 
 letting drop, during which Cornelia twisted her neck- 
 
 X 
 
S-2-2 A woman's reason. 
 
 half off, as she said, looking at her own back, she 
 mounted a chair and surveyed herself in the glass. 
 " Well, you Jmve got a touch, Miss Harkness," she said. 
 
 " yes," returned Helen simply. "I know that." 
 
 "Well, why in the world — " Cornelia began. But 
 she checked herself. 
 
 "Why what?" asked Helen. 
 
 " Oh, nothing," returned Cornelia, with the outward 
 hauteur which was apt to mark a spiritual struggle 
 with her. " I '11 see Zenas Pearson to-morrow about 
 those photographs." 
 
 " That will be very kind of you," said Helen. 
 
 The next day Cornelia brought her three of the 
 unsparing likenesses in which the art of photography 
 sometimes unmasks its objects. One was a gentleman 
 in what he would have called chin-whiskers, with 
 his hair gathered in a puff over his forehead, and 
 a gold watch-chain wandering across his bulging 
 shirt-front. The other was a lady in middle life, 
 with her small features losing themselves in the 
 obese contour out of which her eyes looked over 
 little cushions of fat. The gentleman was to be 
 painted of a fair complexion, and the lady as a 
 brunette. The third picture was the likeness of this 
 lady's child, which was to be coloured in accordance 
 with her present appearance in the spirit-life as 
 reported by a writing-medium. 
 
 " I don't envy you the job, any," said Cornelia 
 Root. " Zenas apologised for not havin' any place 
 for you to work in his gallery, but I told him I 
 guessed you 'd rather work a while at home first." 
 
A woman's reason. 323 
 
 "0 yes," murmured Helen, lost in a heart-sick 
 contemplation of her subjects. 
 
 "He can allow you two dollars apiece for 'em. 
 It 's better than nothin', and it ain't much better, and 
 so I told him," said Cornelia. 
 
 " Oh, it 's quite enough ; quite,'' returned Helen. 
 
 After her first despair, she resolved to be very faith- 
 ful and conscientious in her work, and try to make 
 the poor things look as well as she could. She had 
 finished them all by the end of the week, but when 
 Cornelia carried her work to Mr. Pearson, he was 
 critical of it. " Of course," he said, " she 's done her 
 best, and so far forth she 's earned her money ; but 
 anybody can see with half an eye that she ain't a 
 natural artist. There ain't any ioiich about it." 
 
 "Good gracious, Zenas Pearson !" cried Cornelia. 
 " Do you expect to get an artist to paint up those 
 scarecrows of yours]" 
 
 She put Zenas down, but he offered her no more 
 work, and she was too proud, in Helen's behalf, to 
 ask for it. She was more deeply hurt and dis- 
 couraged than Helen herself appeared. The latter, 
 in fact, professed a sense of relief when Cornelia, 
 with a blunt reluctance, owned the truth. 
 
 " I couldn't do any more, if he had given them to 
 you for me. I know that I don't do them well, and 
 tliey 're so hideous, that if I were the greatest artist 
 in the world I couldn't help making them wooden 
 and staring. I mmt try something else ; and I 've 
 been thinking — I 've been wondering — if I couldn't 
 write something and sell it. Do you know any 
 
324 A woman's reason. 
 
 people — women — who write for the magazines, or 
 the newspapers, rather 1 " 
 
 " Well, I know one girl : she 's an art-student, 
 and she helps herself out by correspondin' ; writes 
 for two or three papers up-country, and out West ; 
 but I never saw any of her stuff, and I don't want 
 to ; for of all the perfect simpletons — !" Cornelia was 
 expressively silent ; she added thoughtfully : " Yes, 
 1 guess it must be pretty easy to do, if that girl can 
 do it. I wonder I didn't think of it before. Why 
 don't you ask that ridic'lous Mr. Evans 1 He 's the 
 literary editor of Saturday Afternoon, and I guess he 
 could tell you all about it." 
 
 " I don't like to trouble him," said Helen. 
 
 "Well, I do, then," retorted Cornelia. "What's 
 he here for?" 
 
 " I can't let you," said Helen, thoughtfully folding 
 the dollar-bills that Cornelia had brought her. 
 " This money will last a little while, and perhaps — ■ 
 perhaps," she concluded rather faintly, " I can think 
 of something to do by the time it 's gone I know 
 I 'm very weak and silly," she said, lifting her suf- 
 fused eyes to Cornelia's. 
 
 " Not at all !" cried Cornelia ; and that evening 
 she cornered Mr. Evans, as she said, and attacked 
 him about some sort of newspaper work for a friend 
 of hers. 
 
 He was sitting before his fire in a deep chair, 
 with his feet on the hearth of the open soap-stone 
 stove ; Cornelia assailed him from a higher chair at 
 a little distance. " Some young man you 're trying 
 
A woman's eeason. 323 
 
 to help along 1" he asked, smiling up into Cornelia's 
 eyes. 
 
 "You know it ain't any young man !" cried the 
 girl. 
 
 " Oh ! You didn't say," returned Mr. Evans 
 coolly. He asked presently, "Why does Miss Hark- 
 ness want to write for the papers 1" 
 
 " Mr. Evans ! I think you 're too bad ! I never 
 said it was Miss Harkness." 
 
 "But you won't say it isn't." 
 
 " I won't say anything about it. There ! And if 
 you can't give me any advice without askin' who 
 it is—" 
 
 " Oh, that isn't necessary now. But what I do 
 wish to ask. Miss Root — and I think you owe it to 
 yourself to answer frankly — is simply this : are you 
 sure that you are trying to befriend-Miss Harkness 
 from the highest motive ? " 
 
 " Highest motive 1 " demanded Cornelia, whom such 
 an appeal must always arrest. " What does tlie man 
 mean?" She was on such terms of offence and de- 
 fence with Mr. Evans, that she often cast aside all 
 formalities of speech in dealing with him and came 
 down to sincerities that seemed to afford him the 
 purest delight. 
 
 " What do I mean ? Why, I mean this — and a 
 person who pretends to keep such a conscience as 
 you do, always dusted off and ready for use in any 
 emergency, ought to be able to -answer without pre- 
 varication. Are you sure that you are not doing 
 more to help this Miss Harkness because she is a 
 
326 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 lady of fallen fortunes, than you would do for some 
 poor girl who was struggling up, and trying to sup- 
 port inebriate parents, and pay a younger brother's 
 way through college 1 " Cornelia opened her mouth 
 to protest, but he hastened to prevent her. " Wait! 
 Don't commit yourself ! Are you sure that her 
 being visited by a lord has nothing to do with your 
 beneficent zeal ? Are you sure that you are not 
 indulging a native disposition to curry favour with 
 worldlings and vanities, generally ? Are you certain 
 that at the best you are seeking anything better than 
 the self-flattery that comes through the ability to 
 patronise a social superior ? I merely ask you to 
 reflect." 
 
 These were precisely the doubts which Cornelia had 
 already exorcised ; but they all sprang into new life 
 at the touch of the laughing malice that divined 
 them. 
 
 " I declare," she said, " you are enough to provoke 
 a saint !" 
 
 "I'm glad to see it," said Mr. Evans. "Now, 
 I 'm not a saint, and I can be frank and open about 
 a great many things that I observe saints like to 
 fight shy of. A saint — especially a female one — is 
 about as difficult a party to bring to book as any I 
 know. Now I don't mind acknowledging all these 
 shameful motives which you feel that you must blink. 
 I don't mind saying that the notion of throwing 
 something in the way of a young lady who has 
 moved in the first circles, and still associates with 
 lords and ladies on equal terms, is quite intoxicating 
 
A woman's reason. 327 
 
 to me, and that I will help you in this work with far 
 more pleasure than if she were a mechanic's or farmer's 
 daughter." He smiled at the rueful misgiving painted 
 in Cornelia's countenance. " Come, Miss Root, what 
 kind of newspaper work does your patrician pro- 
 Ug4e think she can do ? " 
 
 " I don't know as I want to talk with you about 
 it," said Cornelia. " You had no business to find out 
 who it was." 
 
 " I know — I know. It was my fatal gift of divina- 
 tion. A random guess, and your own guilty soul 
 did the rest. Well, go on, Miss Eoot. You know 
 that you 're not going to let a selfish pique interfere 
 with an opportunity to do good — to one above us," 
 he added. 
 
 " I should suppose," said Cornelia grimly, " that you 
 would know a great deal better than I do what she 'd 
 best try. I presume she could do most any kind of 
 writin'." 
 
 " That is the presumption in regard to all refined 
 and cultivated people till they prove the con- 
 trary, — which they usually do at the first oppor- 
 tunity." 
 
 " I should think," pursued Cornelia, whose courage 
 always rose in view of any but moral obstacles, " that 
 she could write notices of books. Seems as if almost 
 anybody could write them." 
 
 "Yes," assented the journalist. "It seems as if 
 anybody did write the greater part of them. " He 
 took up some books from his tables. " Here are 
 three novels, if she wants to try her hand on them, 
 
328 A woman's reason. 
 
 and she can review the batch together. That is the 
 way we do. There 's quite a range in these : one is 
 an old writer of established fame, one has not quite 
 proved himself yet, and one is unknown. You 
 would naturally think that if such books are works 
 of art they would go to people of experience and 
 reflection for review, but that is a mistake : they 
 go to people who can be the most flippant and im- 
 pertinent about them, and we find, as a general rule, 
 that the young ladies who write for us can be more 
 flippant and impertinent than the young men." He 
 laughed as he handed the books -to Miss Eoot, and 
 .watched her face. 
 
 " If I could ever tell," she said, taking them from 
 him, "how much you believed of what you said, it 
 would be one satisfaction." 
 
 " No, no, that isn't it. Miss Root : what yoii 
 would like to know is how much you believe of what 
 I say. Very little, I imagine. The philanthropist's 
 ability to reject any truth that tells against him — or 
 her — is unbounded." 
 
 " Well," said Cornelia, "I don't know as I care, so 
 long as you give her this chance." 
 
 " Oh, it 's perfectly safe : she '11 be sure to fail," 
 said the editor. "Tell her I want the notices next 
 week, sometime. In the meantime, I don't know 
 who's writing them.'' 
 
 He did not betray himself in any way during the 
 ensuing week, and he left Cornelia unmolested with 
 a secret which she did not know whether she ought 
 Drought not-to-keepi Hel«n worked very -hard at 
 
A woman's reason. 329 
 
 the criticisms; she had it on her conscience to do 
 them very fairly and justly, because when she had 
 read the books carefully through she perceived for 
 the first time how much thought and labour must 
 go to the construction of even indifferent stories; 
 and she felt that it would be a sin not to do justice 
 to all this in the case of novels which were certainly 
 not first-rate. She thought that she ought to be 
 careful about her style, and not say anything in a 
 slipshod or slovenly way. She wrote out her 
 reviews in her neatest hand, and then she copied 
 them all, so that there was not one blot or erasure. 
 She determined that if Mr. Evans accepted them. 
 Miss Eoot should tell him who had done them, for 
 there were some points which she was doubtful 
 about, and on which she would like his instruction. 
 She was very simple and humble in the matter, and 
 in her own mind looked up to the journalist in his 
 professional quality with an awe that she had not 
 hitherto felt for anything connected with Saturday 
 Afternoon. Her father used sometimes to buy that 
 paper, and send it to her when she was away from 
 home, and she had read its social gossip with a high- 
 minded disapproval of the entertainment it gave her. 
 She never thought of looking at the notices of books 
 in it, and when she first heard that Mr. Evans was 
 connected with it she had resolved to be very careful 
 what she said before him, and she had partly with- 
 drawn from anything like intimacy with Mrs. Evans 
 for that reason. It .was very well for Clara Kings- 
 bury ; Clara Kingsbury was a kind of public character 
 
330 A woman's reason. 
 
 herself, with her charities and enterprises, her Homes 
 and her Fairs, which were always needing newspaper 
 mention ; but for Helen it was another affair. Even 
 now, while the question of the acceptance of her 
 work was pending, Helen asked herself whether she 
 would like to have the Butlers know that she wrote 
 for the Saturday Afternoon, and was quite sure that she 
 would not. " If he should take them, and you tell 
 him who did them, please ask Mr. Evans not to 
 mention it to any one," she said in giving her manu- 
 script to Cornelia Root, who had suffered everything 
 in the guilty consciousness that he knew already 
 who had done them. 
 
 " I ain't afraid," she said to Mr. Evans, in discharg- 
 ing herself of the business, "that you'll mention itj 
 but if you should have to refuse them, and then if you 
 should show out any way that you knew, it would 
 about kill me." 
 
 " Rely upon me. Miss Root," returned the editor. 
 " I have rejected such loads of young-lady literature, 
 that I have become perfectly hardened, and never show 
 out in any way that I know there are young ladies or 
 literature in the world. Ah !" he added, carelessly 
 opening the manuscript, " the bold, free hand of 
 fashion ; pages neatly pierced at the upper right-hand 
 corner, and strung upon a narrow red ribbon with 
 notched edges ; faint odour of the young person's 
 favourite perfume. Yes, this is the real thing !" 
 He laughed in the way that Cornelia Root had more 
 than once said she could not stand when talking with 
 him about serious things. 
 
A woman's reason. 331 
 
 She went out after leaving the manuscript with 
 him in the morning, and shortly afterwards Helen 
 received the card of Mr. Hibbard, who was waiting 
 for her in the reception-room. It was rather a shock 
 at iirst, and then she found a sort of relief in the 
 second anxiety, as people do in playing one care off 
 against the other. She said to herself, in putting 
 her ear-rings in before the glass, that he must have 
 heard from Captain Butler, and that if Captain Butler 
 sided with Mr. Hibbard, she should not know what 
 to do ; she would have to yield, or at least let the 
 whole matter rest tUl she had heard from Eobert, to 
 whom she had written all about it. 
 
 " Good-morning, Miss Harkness," said the lawyer, 
 absently dropping her proffered hand, "I have a 
 cablegram here from Captain Butler." 
 
 " Oh, I thought you must have," said Helen, 
 in the pause which he suflTered to take place before 
 he went on, with a frown at the paper in his 
 hand. 
 
 " He telegraphs me from Naples, in answer to my 
 letter, and directs me to obey your wishes as to pay- 
 ing Mr. Everton's claim." 
 
 The lawyer lifted his eyes and looked into Helen's 
 face, as if to wait her orders ; and her heart sank. 
 This was what she had been eager and urgent to do 
 when they last met : it had seemed to her then that 
 she could not rest till Mr. Everton's claim, just or 
 unjust, was paid, since its existence involved a doubt 
 of fraud. But, in fact, she had, not being able to 
 help herself, rested very well, and she had begun to 
 
332 A woman's reason. 
 
 hope that the doubt could be somehow cleared away 
 without the cost of everything to her. 
 
 "Is that all he says'!" she asked feebly. 
 
 " No ; he says he will write." He handed her the 
 despatch, which she mechanically read, and then 
 twisted round her finger. 
 
 " What do you think, Mr. Hibbard 1 " she asked 
 at last pitifully. 
 
 The lawyer must have seen so many people halt 
 between their interest and their sense of abstract 
 right, and gladly take advantage of any doubt in 
 their own favour, that he could not have wondered 
 at her hesitation. But he was obliged to say, " I 
 can do nothing now but receive your instructions. I 
 will contest the claim to the last, or I will pay it." 
 He again explained the matter, and put the points 
 clearly before her. 
 
 "And there must always be this doubt about it, 
 even if we gained the case ] " she asked. 
 
 " Always. Even if that scamp himself were to 
 declare in our favour, and acknowledge that he had 
 played upon Everton's suspicion, the doubt would 
 remain." 
 
 " Then, I can't bear it ! You must pay Mr. 
 Everton ! " cried Helen. "Anything, anything is 
 better than living upon stolen money !" At the 
 same time that she pronounced this heroic truth, 
 which indeed came from her inmost heart, she burst 
 into human tears for the loss of all that she could 
 call her own. 
 
 " Miss Ha.vkness," said the old lawyer, " I would 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 333 
 
 not let you do this — I would take the responsibility 
 of disobeying you and Captain Butler both ; but — but 
 I must tell you that my inquiries into the matter have 
 not been satisfactory. I have talked confidentially 
 with several of the gentlemen who were present at 
 the sale, and I find that they all carried away the 
 impression that there was something queer about the 
 bidding towards the last. Now, as I said before, I 
 don't believe that Everton's understanding with 
 Mortimer will ever allow him to press the question 
 to an issue, and that you could rest legally secure in 
 the possession of this money ; but this, as I conceive, 
 isn't the point with you." 
 
 " no, no, no ! And thank you, thank you, 
 Mr. Hibbard, for letting me decide the matter — and 
 thank God for helping me to decide it rightly — before 
 you told me this. Whatever happens now, I shall 
 have the consolation of knowing that I wasn't 
 influenced by the fear of what people would think 
 or say. I know that I should have been, but I know 
 that I wasn't." She dried her eyes, and controller^ 
 her quivering lips. " Don't lose an instant, pleasfi" 
 about paying him, and pay him every cent. An'' 
 oughtn't I — oughtn't I — to say something, do some- 
 thing to show that I was sorry that he was kept out 
 of the money so long ?" 
 
 "I don't think Mr. Everton will care for that,'' 
 said Mr. Hibbard. " The money is what he wants. 
 I will pay it ; and then what will you do, Miss 
 Harkness ? You were coming to me for money, you 
 said ; you mustn't allow any mistaken feeling — " 
 
334 A woman's reason. 
 
 "Ono, I won't." 
 
 " I am sure that Captain Butler will wish me to 
 be your banker till he comes home." 
 
 " Yes, certainly ; but I have a little money yet,'' 
 said Helen, following Mr. Hibbard to the door. 
 
XVI. 
 
 The lawyer was mistaken in supposing that Mr. 
 Everton cared for nothing in the affair except the 
 money. He came that afternoon to make his ac- 
 knowledgments to Helen, who felt it her duty to 
 receive him when he called, and he showed himself 
 capable of responding generously to her own action. 
 
 ''I am well aware," he said, "that I owe this 
 reparation to you. Miss Harkness, and I wished you 
 to understand that I could appreciate your conduct. 
 The original claim is now fully satisfied, but the 
 interest on the money that I have been kept out of 
 would have amounted during the past seven months 
 to something like two hundred dollars — a little short 
 of two hundred dollars. I have written to your 
 attorney that we -will say nothing about this sum, 
 that we will consider it paid." 
 
 "Thank you," said Helen blankly. It was not, 
 perhaps, that she was insensible to Mr. Everton's 
 magnanimity, but just then she was studying his 
 personal appearance with a strange fascination. 
 She found something horrible in the neatness of this 
 little old man's dress, in the smug freshness of his 
 newly-shaven face, which had the puckered bloom 
 
336 A woman's reason. 
 
 of an apple that hangs upon the tree far into the 
 winter's cold, and even in the smoothness and clean- 
 ness of his conspicuous linen. 
 
 He returned her absent gaze, winking his little, 
 red-lidded eyes. He presently said, " I have had to 
 lay out a great deal of money on the house, and I 
 thought this might as well go into the general account. 
 The structure was very good, but there were many 
 things that needed going over, the plumbing espe- 
 cially. I have had the plumbing put into perfect 
 order. Mrs. Everton was very particular about it — 
 the ladies are, I believe. I think you would be 
 pleased to see the improvement." 
 
 " Yes," said Helen. 
 
 " I have had brass pipes put in nearly everywhere ; 
 Mrs. Everton had heard that they were very much 
 superior, and I was willing to do anything to gratify 
 her : she was very low at the time." 
 
 He coughed behind his hand, and Helen awoke 
 from her daze to say gently, " Oh, I hope she's better." 
 
 " Thank you," returned the old man. " But she 
 is dead." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " Yes, she was so far gone that she could not be 
 moved from our old house. I never expected she 
 could, but I made the changes to please her, and 
 she went over them all in the architect's plans. I 
 spared no expense. I don't suppose," said Mr. 
 Everton, with a sort of brisk appeal to Helen, "that 
 you would know the place now : the old cornices all 
 down, and fresh paint and paper everywhere." 
 
A woman's reason. 337 
 
 Helen did not reply ; but she looked at the man 
 with a pathetic wonder, which he apparently did not 
 feel. 
 
 " I think," he continued, with a certain insinuation, 
 -" it would interest you to see the changes." 
 
 " no !" Helen broke out. 
 
 Mr. Everton looked at her and passed his tongue 
 over his red lips, fringed with dry cuticle at their 
 edges, in apparent perplexity. " I don't mean to say," 
 he resumed, " that the general plan of the house is 
 changed ; that couldn't be done ; Mrs. Everton saw 
 that herself. In many respects she was a woman you 
 could reason with. It was a great blow to lose her." 
 
 " It must have been," said Helen, relenting again ; 
 but wondering a little why Mr. Everton should speak 
 to her of these matters. 
 
 He explained for himself. " Your burying your 
 father such a short time before I buried Mrs. Everton 
 ■ — it seems a sort of coincidence, a kind of bond, as 
 one may say, and makes" me feel as if — as if — you 
 could appreciate my feelings." 
 
 " I am sorry for you with all my heart," said Helen. 
 " I didn't know,'' she added vaguely, " that you had 
 met with any bereavement." 
 
 " Yes ; she 's dead," sighed the old man. " It isn't 
 as if I were broken, or hadn't kept my health. I 'm 
 as well as ever I was. And as strong. I'm as good 
 for business as any two young men I know of. But 
 it's when I come home from business that I feel it ; 
 that's where the rub comes in ; it's lonely. Yes, it 's 
 lonely." 
 
 Y 
 
338 A woman's reason. 
 
 " yes," said Helen, surprised into sympathetic 
 confidence by the simple words. " I often felt it in 
 my father's case, especially towards the end, when 
 he seemed to live so much in the recollection of the 
 past, and I knew that I was scarcely any companion- 
 ship for him." , 
 
 "Your father,'' said Mr. Everton dryly, "was a 
 much older man than I am, and he was all broken 
 up before he died ; I used to notice it. I don't be- 
 lieve," he went on, " but what you'd like the house 
 as well as ever, if you saw it. I should be very sorry 
 to think I'd done anything to it that you didn't 
 like." 
 
 " It's very, very kind of you to say So, Mr. Everton." 
 returned Helen cordially. "And you mustn't 
 think at all about it. When I made up my mind to 
 part with it, I made up my mind never to care what 
 became of it." 
 
 " Well, that was the right spirit," said Mr. Ever- 
 ton. 
 
 " And if the changes you have made in it gratified 
 your wife in her last days, I can only be glad of them. 
 I shall always think of my old home as it used to 
 be ; if it were burned to the ground, it would remain 
 there, just as I left it, as long as I live." 
 
 " Well, I 'm pleased to hear you say so,'' said the 
 old man. " I like to see a young lady sensible — " 
 
 " Oh, I 'm not sensible,'' protested Helen ; " but I 
 like what you 've done because you did it to gratify 
 your wife in her last days ; that makes it sacred." 
 
 " I was always on good terms with her," said the 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 339 
 
 widower ; " and I always determined to wait a proper 
 time, if I should want to marry again. But if you 
 believe you 've found the right one, there 's no sense 
 in waiting too long." 
 
 He looked inquiringly at Helen, who was some- 
 what mystified at the turn the conversation had taken. 
 But she said politely, " no." 
 
 " I should want you should like the house on your 
 own account," he continued, still more irrelevantly. 
 
 " On my own account ? " faltered Helen. 
 
 " Because I want it to be yours," cried the old man, 
 with a sort of violence. " I appreciate the course you 
 have taken in regard to the fraud that was practised 
 upon me at the sale, and I say that you have acted 
 nobly. Yes, nobly ! And I should wish to give the 
 house to you as a mark of — of — my esteem ; that, and 
 everything else I have. I 'm alone in the world, and 
 nobody has any real claim on me, no matter what 
 her relations may expect, and I will deed the house 
 to you to-day, if you say so ! " 
 
 It all seemed like a dream of romance to Helen ; it 
 was fabulous, it was incredible, it must be impossible. 
 She began to think that the old man was insane, and 
 involuntarily left her chair. But there was nothing 
 abnormal about him, unless it was the repressed 
 excitement in which he sat blinking at her, as he went 
 on : " The house can be your home to-morrow — to- 
 day, if you like. You have only to say the word." 
 He seemed to form some sort of hope or expectation 
 from her continued silence, and now he rose. " If 
 you 're willing, there 's nobody to interfere, and I 
 
340 A woman's reason. 
 
 should soon teach them to attend to their own busi- 
 ness if they attempted it. My mind is as clear and 
 my health is as good as ever it was, and I would do 
 everything I could for you. I admire you, and I 
 respect you. I think you have right principles, and 
 that 's a very important thing. I should be proud of 
 you. To be sure, we haven't been much acquainted ; 
 and I suppose it 's only reasonable you should want 
 time to think it over. I 'm in no hurry; though, as 
 I said, my own mind is made up." 
 
 " I don't understand what you mean," gasped 
 Helen. " What Ao you mean % Why should you 
 give me your property % and why — " 
 
 Her eyes dwelt hopelessly upon his face, in which 
 a smirk of cunning insinuation struggled with an 
 anxious perplexity. He again passed his tongue over 
 his dry, red lips, and then cleared his throat, and 
 breathed hard : "I mean — all I have ; not that house, 
 but half-a-dozen houses, and everything I 'm worth. 
 I 'm not afraid of what people would say. If we 're 
 both of one mind, the difference in age is nothing." 
 At a sign of renewed impatience from Helen, he 
 added desperately : "I want you to be my wife ! " 
 
 She recoiled, with a shudder, and her teeth closed 
 in a nervous paroxysm. " Oh ! " she uttered, in 
 abhorrence far beyond rejection ; and, creeping softly 
 by the wall to the door, with her eyes fixed warily 
 upon him, as if he were some nightmare spider that 
 might spring upon her, she vanished out of it, and 
 ilftd up-stairs to her own room, where she bolted her- 
 self in. 
 
A woman's ri;ason. 341 
 
 The half-ho'ir of self-loathing that she passed, with 
 her burning face in her pillow, could not have been 
 more cruel if what had happened were some shame- 
 ful deed of her own. She searched her soul for cause 
 of blame, but she could find nothing worse there 
 than the consciousness of having suffered herself for 
 one inappreciable instant to dream of her home com- 
 ing back to her by the wild poetic chance which the 
 old man's words had intimated. This point of time, 
 fine and tenuous as it was, had ,been vast enough for 
 her to paint a picture on, where she and Robert, dim 
 figures of grateful reverence, had seemed piously to 
 care for the declining years of their benefactor, and 
 to comfort his childless solitude at their fireside. 
 But the silly vision, for which she grieved and blushed, 
 was innocent, as she felt even in the depths of her 
 self-abasement, and the thought of it ended in the 
 reaction through which she rose from the bed, and 
 dashed off a letter commanding Mr. Hibbard to pay 
 the interest on the money due Mr. Everton, to the 
 last cent, and not to accept any sort of concession 
 from him. But the horror of his offer survived, an 
 incredible fact, which she could not reject. His age, 
 in asking to mate itself with her youth, had seemed 
 to dishonour both, and had become unspeakably ugly 
 and revolting to her. She wondered what kind of 
 young girl it could be that would marry an old man, 
 and what he had seen in her that made him think 
 she could be such a gid. Nothing, she was sure ; 
 and therefore this humiliation, when she was so 
 blameless, must be her punishment for sins from the: 
 
342 A woman's eeason. 
 
 consequence of which she had seemed to escape ; for 
 the way in which she had tortured Robert ; for her 
 flirting, as she did that first day, with Lord Eainford ; 
 for liking to be admired, and for, perhaps, trying to 
 make people admire her. Yes, that must be it; and 
 as soon as she had fitted the burden to her spirit, she 
 rose up with strength to bear it. Whatever men 
 have contrived to persuade themselves, in these latter 
 days, as to the relations of cause and effect in the 
 moral world, there are yet few women who do not 
 like to find a reason for their sufferings in their sins, 
 and they often seem still to experience the heroic 
 satisfaction in their penalties, which nothing but the 
 old-fashioned Christian's privity to the designs of 
 Providence can give. 
 
 When Cornelia Eoot came home to tea she 
 knocked at Helen's door, and passed in round the 
 jamb a hand with which she produced the effect of 
 rejecting all responsibility for the letter it conveyed. 
 " I guess it's from Mr. Evans,'' she said, refusing to 
 look in. " I don't know what 's in it." 
 
 Helen was ready, in her penitence, almost to wel- 
 come the worst ; but the envelope only conveyed a 
 printed slip from the publishers of the Saturday 
 Afternoon, in which they thanked her for her 
 contribution, and begged to enclose their cheque in 
 payment. She rapped in her turn at Miss Koot's 
 door. " Just to tell you the good news," she ex- 
 plained to Cornelia's inquiring face, while a laugh 
 fluttered out of her throat, which just failed of being 
 a sob. " They 've accepted them ! " She escaped 
 
A woman's reason. 343 
 
 again into her own room, before Cornelia could 
 formulate that strictly truthful expression of lier 
 feelings without which she would not speak at all. 
 She joined Helen a little later, and underwent the 
 pangs of remorse in arranging with her to call on 
 Mr. Evans that evening and confess the authorship of 
 the reviews preparatory to asking his candid criticism 
 and his advice about future work. Cornelia's heart 
 smote her iu the presence of Helen's unsuspicious 
 rejoicings ; she languished for the moment when she 
 could own that Mr. Evans had wickedly divined their 
 secret from the first, and she found no relief, but 
 rather an added anguish in the skilful duplicity with 
 which he received Helen's avowal. 
 
 He was alone when they knocked at his door, for 
 Mrs. Evans was putting their boy to bed after the 
 usual conflict with his entreaties and stratagems. 
 " Is it possible ■?" he demanded with a radiant deceit. 
 " Why, this is delightful. Miss Harkness. We are 
 quite an aesthetic colony here, under Mrs. Hewitt's 
 hospitable roof — with Miss Eoot's art-work and your 
 literature and my journalism. Really!" He deepened 
 Cornelia's sense of nefarious complicity by the smile 
 aside which she could not reject. " Have you written 
 much for publication ? " 
 
 " I 'm afraid you must see that I haven't,'' said 
 Helen, with a straightforward honesty that Cornelia 
 felt ought to have made Mr. Evans ashamed of him- 
 self ; " and I wished you to tell me just where I 
 have failed iu my work, and, if you will be so good, 
 how I can improve it." 
 
344 A woman's reason. 
 
 This seemed to Helen a perfectly simple and natural 
 request, and she was not, perhaps, altogether without 
 the feeling that Mr. Evans ought to be gratified at 
 her approaching him for instruction. 
 
 "Well, there you set me rather a difficult task, 
 Miss Harkness," he said evasively. "We usually 
 expect the fact that we are willing to print a con- 
 tribution to suffice as criticism in its favour." 
 
 " Yes," pursued Helen, " but you want beginners 
 to do better and better, don't you? I 'm not saying it 
 to fish up a compliment from you ; but I wish really 
 and truly that you would tell me what my faults 
 are. Please specify something," she said with an 
 ingenuous sweetness which smote Cornelia to the 
 soul, but which apparently glanced effectlessly from 
 the editor's toughened spirit. He laughed, as if 
 other ladies had said the like to him before. 
 "Indeed, I shall not be hurt at anything you say !" 
 cried Helen. 
 
 "It's a little academic," said the editor. "But 
 that 's a good fault. It had better be that than be 
 smart." 
 
 " yes ! I detest smartness in everything." 
 She wondered just what Mr. Evans meant by 
 academic, but she did not like to ask, and she 
 consoled herself by reflecting that he had said it 
 was a good fault to be academic. 
 
 "I don't know," he continued, "that it is the 
 best plan to tell the plots and explain the char- 
 acters so fully as you've done; but that can be 
 easily remedied. " 
 
A woman's reason. 345 
 
 "I see," said Helen. ''It destroys the reader's 
 interest in the story." 
 
 "Yes,'' assented the editor, "and in the review a 
 little. And I don't think it 's best to sum up very 
 deliberately at the end, and to balance considera- 
 tions so foimally." 
 
 " No ?" said Helen. She had thought it was well ; 
 and she began to wonder why it was not. 
 
 "But that part can be easily omitted. And I 
 shouldn't quote from the book unless I could give 
 something very significant or characteristic. Your 
 sentences are a little long. And it is rather late in 
 the day to open with an essay, however brief, on the 
 general effect and tendency of fiction. I think I 
 should always begin directly with the book in hand, 
 and let those ideas come in incidentally.'' 
 
 "Yes, to be sure," said Helen eagerly. 
 
 Mr. Evans put down her manuscript, which he had 
 taken up from the table, and added lightly, " I shall 
 have to work it over a little before it goes to the 
 printers, and then when you have it in the proof 
 you will see what I've done, and get a better 
 notion of what I mean than I could give you in 
 words." 
 
 " Oh, thank you very much. That will be so 
 kind of you!" exclaimed Helen. She added: "I 
 was careful to write only on one side of the paper. 
 I heard that the printers preferred it." 
 
 "Quite right," said Evans with a smile at this 
 innocence. Cornelia Root felt the irony of it, but it 
 was simply amiable to Helen. "They do, very 
 
346 A woman's reason. 
 
 much. It 's beautiful copy. By the way, here is the 
 Afternoon for this week, if you want to look it over. 
 You're one of us now, you know." 
 
 "Thank you, I shall be very glad of it," said 
 Helen, taking the paper he offered her. 
 
 Mr. Evans seemed to have all his work about 
 him, and she thought that she ought not to- keep 
 him any longer. She said good-night, but Cornelia 
 lingered a little ; she could not help it ; she could 
 not rest till she knew from the editor, taken alone 
 and defenceless, whether he thought Helen would 
 ever be able to help herself by writing, and she told 
 him so in as many words. 
 
 " I saw you attempting to pierce my inmost soul 
 all the time, Miss Eoot," said the editor. "And I 
 tell you frankly, you won't get the truth out of me. 
 Miss Harkness is a very cultivated young lady." 
 He bent over her MS., which he had again drawn 
 towards him. " She possesses a neat and polished 
 style. I could imagine that in letter-writing she 
 would have all the charm that tradition attributes 
 to your sex in that art. In addressing the object 
 of her affections" — Cornelia gave a start of indignant 
 protest and disclaimer, which had no effect upon Mr. 
 Evans, who went smoothly on — " she must be 
 fascinating, and I have no doubt the fashionable 
 friends to whom she describes our humble boarding- 
 house manage think she writes delightfully. But 
 in appealing to the general reader through the 
 medium of the public prints. Miss Harkness seems 
 to think it advisable to present her ideas and im- 
 
A WOMAN S REASON. 347 
 
 pressions in the desiccated form. Her review has 
 all the fixed and immovable grace, all the cold and 
 dignified slipperiness, of a literary exercise." He 
 looked up, and laughed out his enjoyment of the 
 righteous despair in Cornelia's face. 
 
 She dropped upon the corner of a chair. "She's 
 got to do something," she said. 
 
 " no, she hasn't," returned Mr. Evans cheerily. 
 " She hasn't kept her secret so well as you have, Miss 
 Root ; and yesterday a fashionable friend of hers 
 stopped her coup6 at the pavement, and called me 
 up to the window to say that she was so glad I 
 was giving Miss Harkuess a chance to write for 
 Saturday Afternoon, and was sure that I would find 
 her very clever. She was always such a brilliant 
 girl, and said such delightful things ! Miss Kings- 
 bury asked me if I didn't think it was dreadful, her 
 having lost everything, and being thrown upon her 
 own resources in this way, and I said I did ; but 
 I don't. And then Miss Kingsbury explained that 
 of course she, and numerous other persons of wealth 
 and respectability, would be only too glad to have 
 Helen Harkness come and spend her days with them, 
 but she could not bear the idea of dependence ; and 
 wasn't her trying to do something for herself splen- 
 did 1 And I said that I thought it was ; but I 
 don't. And Miss Kingsbury said she knew it would 
 appeal to me, and I said that it did ; but it doesn't. 
 Why should it appeal to me, — why should I think it 
 splendid that a healthy young woman refuses to be 
 a loafer and a pauper ? Why, under heaven, shouldn't 
 
348 A woman's reason. 
 
 yj & 
 
 she do something for herself 1 The town is full of 
 young women who are obliged to do something for 
 hemselves. That 's the kind of splendour that 
 appeals to me — the involuntary kind, — like my own. 
 Is it any worse for Miss Harkness to work for a 
 living than for the tens of thousands of other girls 
 who are- doing it 1 You have worked for a living 
 yourself, Miss Root. Do you want me to regard you 
 as splendid % " 
 
 Cornelia examined her just spirit in silence for a 
 moment. "It's different with us," she answered, 
 " because we were brought up to work. We never 
 expected anything else, and it isn't so much of a 
 hardship for us, as it is for a girl like her who is used 
 to being taken care of, and never had to do or think 
 for herself." 
 
 ■ " Ah, my dear Miss Root, it is the princess in exile 
 who appeals to us both ! But is she more to be 
 praised for refusing to eat the buttered roll of others' 
 prosperity than the peasant-maids who have never 
 had the chance of refusing V 
 
 " She 's more to be pitied !" 
 
 " Eight again. Miss Root ! You are always right. 
 By the way, why didn't you urge Miss Harkness to 
 attempt something in art ? Miss Kingsbury asked 
 me if I couldn't get her some book to illustrate ! 
 She said that Miss Harkness's sketches were exqui- 
 site, and she asked me if I had ever seen any of 
 them. Have you 1 " 
 
 " Yes," Cornelia reluctantly admitted. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
A woman's reason. 349 
 
 "They're hopeless!" cried Cornelia, with an in- 
 voluntary vehemence that delighted Evans. 
 
 " And you thought that if she couldn't draw she 
 could write ! That was quite natural." 
 
 " It was her own idea," urged Cornelia. 
 
 "And it was your idea that she should write for 
 me ! Very good, very right, very like a philan- 
 thropist !" 
 
 " Now, you know well enough, Mr. Evans," began 
 Cornelia, " that you were perfectly free to refuse 
 Miss Harkness's writin' ; and I ain't goin' to praise 
 you up for takin' it, if that 's what you 're after." , 
 
 " That 's what I 'm after j but I knew I shouldn't 
 get it before you told me. Who praises an editor 
 for anything ? You and Miss Kingsbury will only 
 think I 've done my duty when I 've sat up 
 till midnight putting this pretty rubbish into 
 shape." 
 
 "Is it so bad as that?" asked Cornelia, aghast. 
 " Why didn't you give it back to her, and tell her it 
 was rubbish t It would have been the best for her 
 in the end !" 
 
 " Because I have a timid and truckling spirit. Miss 
 Root, and you know it. Because I have scarcely the 
 heart to refuse the rubbish of ladies who tell me they 
 have produced it in the interest of some worthy 
 charity, or for the purpose of eking out their pin- 
 money ; and I 'm naturally helpless in the presence 
 of a lady who has written it for bread — as I am given 
 to understand." Cornelia was silent, and the editor 
 continued gleefully : " A woman can sometimes do 
 
350 A woman's reason. 
 
 something without damaging others. But when a 
 lady undertakes to help herself, some man has to 
 suffer for it ; and why shouldn't I be the victim 1 I 
 usually devote Saturday night to working on a little 
 play I 'm trying to write, but I daresay the time will 
 be much better employed in rewriting Miss Hark- 
 ness's reviews." 
 
 He watched the travail of Miss Eoot's soul in her 
 honest eyes with a smile of unrelenting enjoyment. 
 " Besides, I like to befriend gentility in adversity as 
 well as you do. Miss Eoot. The thought that I am 
 actually earning money, without her knowing it, for 
 a young lady of Miss Harkness's condescension, does 
 my mean and servile little soul more good than I 
 can well describe." 
 
 Cornelia burst forth with a sort of groan, " Oh, it 's 
 all wrong, I know it is ! But what is a girl fit for 
 that 's been brought up just as a lady ? If there 's 
 anything under the sun that she can honestly do, 
 without imposing upon other people, and putting 
 them to twice the trouble she takes for herself, for 
 goodness' sake, let her do it !" 
 
 " Very just sentiments ; but what is it V 
 
 " Well, one thing it tsn't ; and that 's writing for 
 the papers, and I shall tell her so !" 
 
 "You have no right to abuse my confidence, Miss 
 Eoot," said the editor with superficial gravity, 
 through which his laughter broke when she turned 
 desperately upon him. " Miss Harkness's failure is 
 my secret. If it is a failure. I supposed it was a 
 shining success ! There are very few young ladies 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 351 
 
 who can get editors to write their -articles for them, 
 and then let them pocket the proceeds." 
 
 " I should think," said Cornelia, " that you would 
 be ashamed to make fun of everything the way you 
 do. It seems as if you didn't have a morsel of com- 
 passion for the poor thing." 
 
 " Ah, there it is again ! Accept her inefficiency 
 and applaud her failure because you pity her ! Do 
 you think the ladies are ever going to do anything 
 for themselves as long as the world is asked and 
 expected to take that attitude 1 Did you tell her that 
 she was an artist, and then work up her sketches for 
 her] Have a morsel of compassion yourself, Miss 
 Root ! I 'm going to have large masses of it. I 'm 
 going rewrite Miss Harkness's whole review !" 
 
 His laugh followed Cornelia as she climbed the 
 stairs in slow and heavy perplexity to her room. 
 
 Helen in her room was light-heartedly writing to 
 Eobert, and telling him that though she had now 
 absolutely nothing in the world, she had never felt 
 so happy since her father died, for now she had 
 found at last that she could do something and be 
 of some use. She could not grieve, even for his sake, 
 for the loss of the money paid back to Mr. Ever- 
 ton ; the thought of it now was such a perfect horror. 
 She said that some time she should tell him why, 
 but not now ; and she turned from the odious sub- 
 ject to describe her interview with Mr. Evans, who 
 had been so frankly kind and encouraging. She had 
 not said anything to Robert about Lord Eainford 
 yet, and she wondered whether she ought. Some 
 
352 A woman's reason. 
 
 time, of course, she must do so ; but she was afraid 
 it might be difficult to make the whole affair clear to 
 Robert at that distance. It was something that could 
 be much better spoken than written; she resolved 
 at least to leave her letter open till morning, and 
 decide then what she should do. 
 
 She was not sleepy, but she felt a pleasant languor, 
 such as comes after the fortunate close of a period of 
 strong excitements, and she sat down before the fire, 
 which was giving out its last delicious glow, to 
 indulge her fatigue a little more luxuriously. She 
 looked back over what had happened during the 
 week with satisfaction, now that it was past ; she 
 was glad not only that she had paid that horrible old 
 man his money, but that she had been right, and not, 
 as she had sometimes feared, morbid and conceited 
 about wishing him to be paid. She felt that she had 
 behaved in a sensible and business-like manner ; that 
 Captain Butler's action proved this ; and that all the 
 events sustained her in her first instinctive impulse. 
 At this safe removal in time and space, Mr. Everton's 
 proposal did not seem so simply horrible ; it began 
 to reveal some amusing aspects; she broke into 
 a little murmur of laughter when she thought of 
 certain moments of perplexity for him. 
 
 As for the money, it was a little matter : it was 
 five thousand dollars in the abstract, but in reality 
 it was only six dollars a week; and with the pro- 
 spect of literary work from Mr. Evans, and perhaps 
 other editors, she could easily make that up : she 
 had earned ten dollars by her pen already. 
 
A woman's reason. 353 
 
 She unfolded the paper that Mr. Evans had given 
 her, and the crepitation of its leaves sent a light 
 shiver through her. What would the Butlers say 
 when she sent them the next number with her 
 reviews marked in it ? She knew from her own 
 fine reluctance that it would surprise them disagree- 
 ably ; and she fancied Jessie Butler supporting, and 
 Mrs. Butler forgiving, while Marian Eay denounced 
 her new attempt. But, she reflected, she would 
 often have to disagree with Marian Eay ; and what- 
 ever people said of the society gossip in the Saturday 
 Afternoon, it was a good literary paper ; everybody 
 acknowledged that. She heard herself defending it 
 to Marian, and, in the rapid process of reverie, it 
 had come to her saying plainly to Marian that she 
 saw no disgrace in writing for the newspapers, and 
 that the only disgrace could be in writing dishonestly 
 and vulgarly for them. She had said she had Clara 
 Kingsbury's approval, and Marian had laughed and 
 answered, " Oh, if she had Clara Kingsbury's ap- 
 proval ! " and had retreated again to Naples ; for 
 Helen now had the newspaper quite open, and 
 was looking for the book-reviews occupying the place 
 which hers would have the next Saturday. They 
 were rather appallingly well written ; she could see 
 that they were indefinitely better done than hers ; 
 she wondered if they were Mr. Evans's, and she gave 
 a little sigh of dismay ; while her eye wandered idly 
 to the next column, where a name arrested it. 
 
 The name was Fenton's ; and the paragraph in 
 which it occurred seemed to become alive and sentient 
 
354 A woman's eeason. 
 
 under her eyes. It was a despatch from Washington, 
 rehearsing, with telegraphic brevity, the facts of 
 the wreck of the Meteor, as furnished to the State 
 Department by the Consul at Tahiti, from the state- 
 ments of the survivors. 
 
 Five days after the disaster the French ship 
 Belle Paysanne, which brought them to that port, had 
 fallen in with an open boat containing Captain Rollins 
 and a number of the Meteor's crew and passengers, 
 who reported that Lieutenant Fenton and three 
 others had volunteered to remain on the reef where 
 the Meteor struck till the overladen boat could find 
 land and return to them. The Belle Paysanne 
 altered her course, and visited the scene of the 
 catastrophe; but the wreck had then disappeared, 
 and there were no traces of the men left behind. 
 A week later, however, the ship picked up another 
 of the Meteor's boats, with the two sailors who had 
 remained with Lieutenant Fenton. From the narra- 
 tive of these men it seemed that the wreck had 
 broken up the day after Captain Rollins abandoned 
 her, and that Lieutenant Fenton, who had lingered 
 on board after helping to launch the boat, was 
 caught in the wreck and carried down with her. His 
 companion, a passenger named Giffen, was rescued 
 by the seamen ; but he had been so badly bruised by 
 the floating timbers that he died the following day. 
 
 They confirmed the statements of Captain Rollins 
 and all the other survivors, concerning the heroic 
 behaviour of Lieutenant Fenton, who had chosen to 
 remain on the rock rather than imperil the lives 
 
A woman's reason. 355 
 
 of the passengers in Captain Rollins's boat, and 
 who had been most efficient throughout the events 
 that followed the striking of the ship. The boat 
 in which the men were found was in a ruinous 
 condition, and was set adrift after their rescue. A 
 large sum of money, belonging to Captain Eollins, 
 which they had recovered from the wreck before 
 it broke up, was restored to him. 
 
XVII. 
 
 Helen did not come down to her breakfast, and 
 Cornelia Eoot, who was finishing hers about the 
 time there began to be question at Miss Hark- 
 ness's absence, said she would step in and see what 
 the matter was after she got on her things. She 
 found Helen sitting before the empty grate ; the gas 
 was burning, and the bed untouched ; and a thrill 
 of terror went through her lest Helen should be 
 sitting there dead. When, after bidding her good- 
 morning in vain, she ventured to touch her on the 
 shoulder, Helen looked round, with a stare that, for 
 the moment, made Cornelia repent being so bold. 
 " For the good Lord's sake !" cried the girl, " what is 
 itj Miss Harkness t " 
 
 "Oh, nothing,'' said Helen. She began to laugh, and 
 tried to hide under her hands the newspaper she had in 
 her lap, and then, as if at her failure in this, she began 
 to weep piteously. " Look !" she exclaimed, opening 
 the paper, and pointing to the story of the shipwreck, 
 " he 's dead ! And those men killed him. Oh, I 've 
 thought it all out !" 
 
 Cornelia took the paper, and, after a swift glance 
 at the paragraph, put it aside without questioning 
 
A woman's reason. 357 
 
 her. "I guess you better lie down, Miss Hark- 
 ness, and try to get some rest. I 'm going to have 
 your fire made up." 
 
 She got her to bed, and then she conferred with the 
 landlady outside the door ; she ended by sacrificing her 
 own preference for a female physician, and calling in 
 the doctor who, Mrs. Hewitt recollected hearing Miss 
 Harkness once say, had taken care of her father. 
 
 She sent a note to Miss Kingsbury telling her 
 that she was afraid Miss Harkness was going to 
 be sick, and asking her to come to see herj but 
 word was returned that Miss Kingsbury was in New 
 York, and would not be home till the latter part of 
 the week. It was then too late to move the sick 
 girl to her friend's house. 
 
 It did not need the light which Miss Kingsbury 
 threw on her relation to Lieutenant Fenton to enable 
 Helen's fellow-boarders to understand what had 
 happened. Cornelia Root had understood it at 
 once, with austere resolution not to recognise her 
 own privity to the fact even to herself ; Mrs. Evans 
 had divined it, and talked it over with her husband, 
 who halted between remorse for having laughed at 
 Helen's contributions and secret question whether he 
 would not be justifiable in using a parallel incident 
 in his play ; Mrs. Hewitt guessed it out, in a hungry 
 inability to talk it over with anybody, and got her 
 first real comfort out of the expansive desolation in 
 which Miss Kingsbury confided to them all her 
 grief for what had happened, and stated the facts as 
 fully as she knew them. 
 
358 A woman's keason. 
 
 "Well, it didn't stand to reason," said Mrs. 
 Hewitt, " that she would care so much for a brother, 
 and an adopted one, at that.'' 
 
 "Ono!" cried Clara. "It was much more than 
 that!" 
 
 She got a professional nurse to relieve the devotion 
 of all Helen's volunteer nui::ses ; and from this young 
 woman Mrs. Hewitt at first hoped everything, hut 
 only to be the more keenly disappointed ; for, so far 
 from reporting the tenor of Helen's delirium, the 
 nurse wholly refused to talk of her patient. She 
 would sit at Mrs. Hewitt's own table, and blink at 
 Mrs. Hewitt through her glasses, and never say a 
 word, morning, noon, or night, until Mrs. Hewitt did 
 not know what would become of her. Mrs. Hewitt's 
 disgust with the nurse authorised the first full laugh 
 which Evans had permitted himself since Helen's 
 sickness began. It was after a favourable turn had 
 taken place ; nevertheless Cornelia Root bent upon 
 him a look of keen reproof. 
 
 " Oh, come now, Miss Root ! " he protested, " I 'm 
 not going to stand that. I 've just succeeded, after 
 infinite pains and argument, in convincing Mrs. 
 Evans that / didn't cause Miss Harkness's fever by 
 laughing at her literature whilst I was putting it into 
 shape that night ; and I still believe that if she had 
 died my wife would have required me to deliver 
 myself up to justice. But I am an innocent man, 
 and I won't have you going "round and lookirig as 
 though this never would have happened if it hadn't 
 been for me." 
 
A woman's reason. 359 
 
 Cornelia opened her mouth to deny the accusation, 
 but Evans hastily interposed. "Do you mean to 
 say that you haven't thought — that you haven't felt — 
 that I was somehow to blame for the whole thing 1 " 
 She refused to answer, with a dignity that did not 
 avail her. "Don't fall back upon the fact that I 
 lent her the newspaper ! I didn't invent the facts, 
 at any rate; but I've suffered under the ban of, 
 public opinion quite as if I had, and now I 'm going 
 to stop it." 
 
 "What nonsense!" said Cornelia. "But if your 
 conscience pricks you for anything, I'm not going to 
 comfort you.'' 
 
 " Oh, it isn't my conscience that pricks me ! It 's 
 your conscience, and Mrs. Evans's conscience, that 
 have goaded me to desperation. I can get on very 
 well with my own conscience." 
 
 As soon as Helen could be safely taken away, 
 Clara had her carried to her house, where she com- 
 pleted her convalescence amidst every superfluity of 
 luxury. For many weeks she remained gathering 
 strength, and listlessly accepting service and favour 
 that she never could repay ; but at last the day came 
 when the tide of life rose high enough in her veins 
 to beat in feeble revolt. 
 
 " You know," she said, " this must end some 
 time, Clara. I 'm not your mother or sister. You 
 can't keep on taking care of me, as if I belonged to 
 you." 
 
 " You do belong to me, Helen dear," cried her 
 friend, with a rush of generous tenderness. " Don't 
 
360 A woman's reason. 
 
 talk of anything ending, but just stay on and on. 
 Why shouldn't you "i What would you do 1" 
 
 "Ah, that 's the old question !" 
 
 " I didn't mean that ! I meant, why should you 
 try to do anything 1" 
 
 " I suppose, because I 'm not a lily of the field, for 
 one thing." Clara laughed gratefully for the gleam 
 of gaiety from Helen, whose sadness had been heavy 
 on her heart. " I should be glad enough never to 
 do anything, or even be anything again. You 
 understand, Clara, what I 've been through ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "You hinted something once, and I could guess 
 the rest." 
 
 " Then we won't speak of it. It 's such a mercy 
 we needn't ! But you can see that all the past is 
 swept away from me. There 's nothing left ; I have 
 to begin everything new, with, new ideas and new 
 objects. I used to be ambitious about helping my- 
 self, but I 'm not now ; even my pride in that is 
 broken." The tears of self-pity started to her eyes. 
 " Yes, I would be humbly grateful if I needn't do 
 anything. But I must. And the old question comes 
 back: what?" 
 
 "Oh, Helen," said her friend devoutly, "if you 
 would only stay and be a companion to me — 
 anything !" 
 
 Helen smiled. " To cheer you up — read to you — 
 keep you interested — go pleasure journeys with you ? 
 Yes, I should be a gay companion." 
 
 "Well, then, my housekeeper, if you ivill insist 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 361 
 
 upon usefulness— and I don't blame you for it ; I 
 should myself. Why shouldn't you be my house- 
 keeper t I have heard of girls trying that ! " 
 
 " I should be glad to learn housekeeping of you, 
 Clara. You know I don't know anything about it, 
 and that you know everything. I used to pretend 
 to keep house for papa ; but Margaret really did it 
 all. I must be fit for something ; but I can't tell 
 what it is, yet." 
 
 "I can't bear to hear you talk so, Helen. Why 
 don't you try writing again! I'm sure Mr. Evans 
 would be glad to have you." 
 
 "Don't!" cried Helen. "I couldn't think of any- 
 thing I tried before — that." She touched her 
 calamity with the word, and then struggled to get 
 away from it with a curious effort of her broken 
 spirit, which Clara said afterwards made her think of 
 a crippled bird trying to fly. "I 'm a fearful problem, 
 Clara. But don't worry over me any longer, now. 
 There must be some very simple answer to me if we 
 take time to think it out ; and I 'm afraid I 'm willing 
 to take all the time you '11 let me. I 'Jl accept any 
 sort of disguised charity at present ; and if you want 
 to start a subscription for me, Clara, you may. Only, 
 don't let me know about it." 
 
 A thought seemed to strike Miss Kingsbury, 
 which kept her silent for a moment. " There was a 
 Hungarian lady here last year, who had a plan of 
 gardening for girls — vegetable and flower gardening. 
 I wonder if you met her." 
 
 « No," said Helen. 
 
362 A woman's reason. 
 
 " She was at the Kelloggs'. She was Mrs. Kellogg's 
 religion for the time being." Helen did not catch 
 hopefully at the gospel of the Magyar prophetess, 
 but looked with a rueful surprise at her friend, who 
 went on : " Then there has been a good deal of talk 
 about farming for women, — small fruits, and poultry.'' 
 She threw out the suggestion diffidently, but 
 gathered courage when once it was projected from 
 her. " I suppose one becomes interested in it, and 
 gets very fond of the poor little things." 
 
 "Which, Clara — the berries or the chickens?" 
 asked Helen, with a lifeless laugh. " I should want 
 to eat the berries ; but I can't imagine eating poultry 
 of one's personal acquaintance." 
 
 " Oh, I meant having an affection for the chickens ; 
 you 'd have to let other people eat them." She 
 joined in Helen's laugh at the futility of her sugges- 
 tions ; but she added : "Well, we must think out the 
 answer to you. There 's no hurry.'' 
 
 " no." 
 
 That afternoon Margaret came with a heart full 
 of proud contrition to blame herself for having been 
 in Ireland for the past three months, and for having 
 just learned of Helen's sickness and whereabouts. 
 She wept over Helen's sorrows, and over her wasted 
 looks and hollow eyes ; and the girl was freer to 
 talk with her of what had happened than she had 
 yet felt with any one else. 
 
 She told her about the shipwreck, of which 
 Margaret had not heard before, and she showed her 
 a scrap of paper, the cover of an official despatch. 
 
A woman's reason. 363 
 
 "Here are his last words. He wrote them to mc- 
 while he was standing on that rock in the middle of 
 the sea, and they came from Washington after I was 
 taken sick." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Helen, Miss Helen, how did you ever 
 live to tell the tale 1" 
 
 Helen did not answer. " We were engaged, and 
 he was coming home,'' she said, with a sort of crazy 
 satisfaction in the poignancy of Margaret's sym- 
 pathy. She threw the burden of suffering upon her 
 for the time, and talked with an unsparing hardness 
 for herself. " But I deserved it — I deserved it all." 
 Her thin hands trembled in her lap, and her head 
 shook. "Where are you living now, Margaret!" 
 she broke off abruptly. 
 
 " Why, Miss Helen," answered Margaret, with a 
 blush, " I 'm living in the Port, in a house of my 
 own." 
 
 " In a house of your own ?" 
 
 " Yes, Miss Helen." Margaret hesitated. "You 
 see, there was an old fellow on the ship coming 
 back, that had been out to Ireland too, and he kept 
 talking so much about it all the way, and never 
 leaving me a moment's peace, that I thought maybe, 
 I 'd better. And so, I did — three weeks ago." 
 
 "Did what?" 
 
 "Married him. Miss Helen." Margaret seemed 
 doubtful of the effect of the intelligence upon Helen; 
 she hastened to add in excuse, " He 's a very quiet 
 bodj', and he works at the glass-works in East 
 Cambrid;;e. We have a nice little house, and I 
 
364: A woman's keason. 
 
 should be much pleased to have you come out some 
 day and see it, Miss Helen. The worst of it is, that 
 there isn't enough to keep a person busy, and I 'm 
 thinking that maybe I '11 take a boarder. There 's 
 a spare room. He 'd like to see you, Miss Helen. 
 I 've told him a good deal about you.'' 
 
 " Thank you, Margaret, I will come out some day. 
 I should like to see your husband." 
 
 " Oh, he 's no great things. But he 's a very quiet 
 body.'' 
 
 Helen was looking at the bonnet on Margaret's 
 head, and she answered rather absently, " Yes.'' 
 The bonnet was a combination of purple fruits and 
 magenta flowers, caught in a net of lace, as if to 
 protect them from the depredations of birds and 
 insects. " Where did you get your bonnet, 
 Margaret?" 
 
 " In Hanover Street, Miss Helen," said Margaret. 
 "I don't think it's very good; do you? I paid 
 enough for it ; but money won't buy the like of the 
 bonnets that you used to make me. Miss Helen." 
 
 "You'd better let me see what I can do with this. 
 The shape isn't bad," said Helen critically. 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't. Miss Helen. After what I've 
 said to you ! I should feel as if I 'd hinted." 
 
 "You needn't 'be under a compliment' for it, 
 Margaret," said Helen, with a sudden inspiration ; 
 " You may pay me for making over the bonnet !" 
 
 "Oh, Miss Helen!" 
 
 " Yes. I need the money. I must work for my 
 living now." 
 
A woman's reason. 365 
 
 " How good of you !" said Clara, when she found 
 Helen with the bonnet in hex* hands the next day, 
 and learned whose it was. 
 
 "It's good /or me," returned Helen. "Margaret 
 pays me for doing it. Perhaps this is the solution.'' 
 
 Clara permitted herself a silence in which her 
 imagination kindled with the idea. " Helen," she 
 cried, " it is splendid ! Why shouldn't you do some- 
 thing of the sort 1 There 's nothing disgraceful 
 about it, and with your taste, your genius, you could 
 make every -bonnet a work of art — as they do those 
 picture-dresses in London." 
 
 They talked the scheme over, and as soon as 
 Helen was strong enough to attempt it, they put it 
 in practice. Clara wanted her to set up a shop in 
 her drawing-room, but tliey devolved upon some- 
 thing more modest in the end, and Helen took Mrs. 
 Hewitt's parlour floor. Clara advanced the capital ; 
 a tasteful and richercM stock of frames and feathers 
 and ribbons was chosen, and Helen embarked in the 
 enterprise under the favouring smiles of a world at 
 once fashionable and sympathetic and high-minded. 
 It would not be easy to say just how the scheme 
 came to final ruin. But when once a lively lady 
 had said Miss Harkness's bonnets had so much touch, 
 and another had answered, "0 yes, they were all 
 touch," and both had then tittered in tacit recogni- 
 tion of a certain amateurish lack in them, it was 
 well on the way to failure. By the time that a 
 visiting New York lady had said Miss Harkness 
 seemed to be quite a Boston fashion, and had 
 
3G6 A woman's reason. 
 
 been answered, "0 no ; a Boston passion,'^ she was 
 no longer so. Clara Kingsbury wore her Harkness 
 bonnet to the bitter end (as some one phrased 
 it), but she was notoriously interested, and her 
 heroic devotion counted for nothing. All Helen's 
 gains went to pay the assistant whom she had taken 
 from a well-known milliner's shop, with a just 
 conviction of her own unfitness for practical details ; 
 and when her stock was exhausted, and the ladies 
 had given away her bonnets to their second-girls, 
 she had nothing but her debt to Clara for her pains. 
 They cried over the failure together when they had 
 to face it at last, and Clara inveighed against the 
 hollowness and ingratitude of the world. But Helen 
 took the blame upon herself. " It was arrogant in 
 me to suppose that I could succeed in any business 
 without serving an apprenticeship to it — without 
 beginning at the bottom. It was like those silly 
 women who go on the stage, and expect to "begin at 
 the very top, over the heads of people who have 
 faithfully worked all their lives learning to be actors. 
 It's just!" 
 
 "That doesn't make it any the easier to bear," 
 Clara repined. 
 
 " It does for me,'' said Helen. " If the things that 
 have happened to me were not just, I couldn't endure 
 them." 
 
 Clara took her in her arms, vowing that she was 
 the best and bravest creature in the world, and that 
 she had never done anything except suffer unmerited 
 wrong. She would not hear any talk of the money 
 
A woman's reason. 367 
 
 she had advanced ; she professed that if their under- 
 taking had succeeded, she had always intended to 
 take her share of the profits, and that she was more 
 than willing to take her share of the loss. How 
 little it was, compared to Helen's, who had lost time 
 and labour, and everything but courage ! She did 
 not understand how Helen kept up. 
 
 "Because I must," Helen explained. "You can 
 bear things that you must bear. I suppose that's 
 what makes death endurable to those that have to 
 live on." Clara was silent in awe of her sad wisdom, 
 and she went on more lightly : " Besides, this hasn't 
 been altogether a loss to me, this experience. I 've 
 learnt a good many things. I 've really learnt how to 
 make bonnets, for one thing, and I believe I can be 
 of some little use to others as well as myself. I 've 
 got a new idea, and I 'm going out to talk with 
 Margaret about it." 
 
 " With Margaret ! Oh, Helen, dear, what is it ? 
 I 'm afraid—" 
 
 " That it 's something foolish ? It isn't. It 's only 
 something distasteful — something very humble. It 's 
 something Miss Eoot suggested." 
 
 Clara was only partly comforted. " Miss Root is 
 terribly severe. She doesn't know how to spare 
 people's sensibilities." 
 
 " She 's had to do with people who have no business 
 to have any sensibilities — like me. I 've thought it 
 all out, Clara." A woman instinctively respects 
 another woman who says this, and believes her; 
 Clara listened attentively. " I 've thought it all out, 
 
368 A woman's reason. 
 
 and I see that I haven't talent enough to be first-rate 
 in anything. I couldn't endure to be a second-rate 
 artist or writer ; but I don't mind being a second- 
 rate milliner ; and that 's what I 'm going to be, if I 
 can. And now I won't tell you anything more about 
 my scheme till I see whether it 's practicable. People 
 will laugh, but they won't sneer, and if they pity me, 
 I shall be glad and grateful for their pity." 
 
 Clara tried to get from her some details of her 
 plan, but she would not give them ; she would not 
 leave her any comfort but the fact that she could not 
 say or do anything to prevent her trying to carry out 
 her plan. 
 
 She went out to Margaret's in the horse-cars, and 
 walked down the little side street to the end of the 
 row of French-roof cottages, in the last and poorest 
 of which Margaret was so proud of living. Helen's 
 sickness and convalescence, and her subsequent ex- 
 periment in aesthetic millinery, had carried her through 
 the summer and the early fall ; the young elms along 
 the side-walk had dropped their last yellow leaves, 
 and the grass in the narrow door-yards lay limp and 
 flat after the heavy November frosts ; around, the 
 open lots stretched brown and bare, swept by au east 
 wind that brought the salt savour of the bay rank 
 across them. A few slatternly goats, lank and 
 heavy-uddered, wandered over the dismal expanse, 
 as if to crop the battered tomato-cans and old boots in 
 which it abounded. 
 
 Margaret's house had never had more than one 
 coat of pinkish-brown paint, and it looked rather 
 
A woman's reason. 369 
 
 thinly clad for the season ; but within, a pungent 
 heat from the furnace, which did more than anything 
 else to make Margaret feel that she was an American 
 householder, struck into the parlour where she re- 
 ceived Helen. It was curious and amusing to see 
 how little Margaret had profited by her life in 
 Beacon Steps, in arranging and decorating her best 
 room. There were no evidences of the better taste 
 to which she had been accustomed half her days ; she 
 had simply tried to make her parlour as like all the 
 other parlours in that row as she could, with a wood- 
 coloured ingrain carpet, tan terry furniture, and a 
 marble-topped centre-table ; if she had been a Pro- 
 testant, she would have had a large gilt-edged Bible 
 on this ; as it was, she had an infant Jesus in wax 
 under a glass bell. 
 
 Helen stopped her in her ceremonious preparations 
 for making company of her. '■ Margaret," she said 
 abruptly, " I want to come and live with you, — if you 
 think you can trust me for my board a while." 
 
 "Indeed, Miss Helen," said Margaret with a splen- 
 dour that was worth more than money to her, "I 
 don't know what you mean, exactly ; but if you do 
 mean to come and live with me, there '11 be no talk 
 of board." 
 
 "Well, well," returned Helen, "we'll talk of that 
 later; we're both pretty headstrong." Margaret 
 deprecated this, as far as Helen was concerned, with 
 a flattered simper. "But now I'll tell you what I 
 want to do. You know I 've been trying to set up 
 for a fashionable milliner in Boston." 
 
 2 A 
 
370 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Yes, Miss Helen," sighed Margaret.' 
 
 " And I 've made a failure of it. The fashionable 
 people don't want my bonnets." 
 
 "They 're a set of hateful things. Miss Helen," cried 
 Margaret, "and the best of them isn't fit to scrub 
 your floors for you.'' 
 
 Helen laughed at the unmeasured zeal of Mar- 
 garet's loyalty, expressed in terms so little fit for the 
 polite ears of those they devoted to condemnation. 
 " No, no, Margaret ; they were quite right, and I was 
 all wrong. I didn't know how to make bonnets 
 when I began." 
 
 "Miss Helen, if there 's been one person spoke to 
 me on this very street about that last bonr.et you 
 done over for me, there 's been a hundred ! Every- 
 body says it 's the becomingest bonnet, with more 
 real Beacon Street style to it than any they ever saw 
 me have on ! " 
 
 "Well, I 'ra very glad," answered Helen patiently; 
 " and that brings me to what I wanted to say. " If I 
 didn't know how to make bonnets before I began, I 
 did know when I got through — perhaps by spoiling 
 so many." Margaret sniffed a disdainful denial of 
 the premises, and remained with inflated nostrils, 
 while Helen went on. " And what I think is this : 
 that if I could come out here, and take your spare 
 room, you might tell your friends — those poor girls 
 that sometimes waste so much on bonnets — that I 
 could do their work for them just as well, and a 
 great deal cheaper — " 
 
 "Pom work for them good-for-nothing hussies, Miss 
 
A woman's reason. 371 
 
 Helen ! No, indeed ! It 's bad enougli having you 
 work for ladies — if they choose to call themselves 
 such after they throw your bonnets back on your 
 hands — but as for them trollops of general house- 
 work and second-girls, let them fling their money 
 away ; they 're soon enough parted from it ; but you 
 shan't take a stitch for them." 
 
 " Margaret, Margaret !" cried Helen. " I 'm not 
 strong enough to talk to you, if you go on in that 
 silly way. I haven't a cent of my own in the world, 
 and I must work, or I must beg. The question is 
 whether you will let me have your spare room to 
 live and work in, or whether you will turn me out 
 of doors." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Helen, how can you say such a thing?" 
 
 "Well, then, don't talk so !" 
 
 " You can have the whole house, and all that we 
 can do for you, and you shall not pay a penny 
 for it." 
 
 Helen rose. " Very well, then, I shall not take it. 
 You don't want me to have the room, and that 's your 
 way of putting me off. I understand you, Margaret. 
 But I did suppose that after all these years you 'd 
 lived with us, you wouldn't turn me into the streets.'' 
 
 She sank weakly into her chair again, and Mar- 
 garet called to all the saints to witness if she did not 
 wish to do in every particular exactly what Helen 
 desired. 
 
 "Well, then," demanded Helen tragically, "will 
 you let me pay you five dollars a week, and make all 
 your bonnets for you ? " 
 
372 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! Indeed I will, Miss Helen !" 
 
 "And never let your horrid, wicked, foolish old 
 pride interfere with your taking the money — if I 
 ever get it to pay you 1 " 
 
 Margaret solemnly promised, and Helen said, 
 " Let me go to the room at once, then. I 'm so 
 tired !" and suffered herself to be helped up-stairs to 
 the little chamber, which Margaret had adorned in 
 the worst taste of Limekiln Avenue, with chromos 
 over the chimneypiece, and a set of painted furni- 
 ture, grained to match the oak-paper on the wall. 
 It was like the inside of an ugly box; but Helen 
 fell upon the clean bed, and slept a sleep which 
 carried her well through the afternoon, and left her 
 refreshed and encouraged to begin the long fight, in 
 which she forced Margaret from one stand after an- 
 other in her determination to treat her as a lady 
 guest. But she understood Margaret well enough 
 to know where to hold her hand, and when Margaret 
 sent him to eat his supper in the kitchen, and sat stiffly 
 down in fresh linen cuffs and collar to pour the tea 
 for her in the dining-room, and would not touch 
 anything on the table herself, Helen knew better than 
 to interfere. 
 
 When work began to come to her, she resolutely 
 set her face against the indignant majesty with which 
 Margaret would have treated the poor girls her 
 customers. It was clearly Margaret's intention to 
 make them feel that it was an honour and a privilege 
 to have their bonnets made by her Miss Helen ; at 
 first she remained present at their interviews, brow 
 
A woman's reason. 373 
 
 beating them by her haughty silence into acquiescence 
 with every suggestion of Miss Helen's, and reducing 
 them to a submission so abject that Helen was sure 
 some of them ordered just the ribbons and flowers 
 they did not want, and others bought bonnets when 
 they had merely come to talk them over. Margaret 
 followed to the door one hapless creature who had 
 failed, in her confusion, to give any order, with allu- 
 sions to people who wasted other people's time for 
 nothing so cuttingly sarcastic, that Helen revolted, 
 and positively forbade her to interfere ; after that 
 she was obliged to content herself with a haughty 
 reception and dismissal of the customers. 
 
 Helen did her best to serve the simple, stupid 
 things cheaply and well. She knew that she saved 
 them money, and she made their mistaken tastes her 
 own, and in that way sometimes corrected them, 
 without their knowing it, and launched them 
 upon the world a little less formidable in shape 
 and crude in colour than they had intended. But 
 she instinctively studied to obey one of the first laws 
 of business, and that was to supply an existing 
 demand till she had created another. She did not 
 attempt to make her shop — for finally it was nothing 
 more nor less — a school of aesthetics, as she had in 
 first attempting millinery ; she advised and suggested, 
 but she decided nothing. She put both her pride and 
 her preferences into the pocket where she bestowed 
 her customers' money, and kept only a conscience 
 about giving them the material worth of it. They 
 were a great variety of poor girls and women, begin- 
 
374 A woman's reason. 
 
 ning with tlie cooks and second-girls of Margaret's 
 acquaintance, whose patronage founded Helen's pro- 
 sperity, and rising through economical mothers of 
 families to the upper ranks of seamstresses and 
 "sales-ladies." One day there came a young coloured 
 girl, when luckily Helen was alone ; Margaret would 
 never have "demeaned" herself by receiving her, but 
 Helen received her, and in due time sent her forth 
 resplendent in a white hat trimmed in orange and 
 purple. 
 
 This incident of her new career seemed to give it an 
 ultimate stamp of authenticity, and it afforded her 
 such saddened satisfaction as could come to her 
 through a sense of recognised usefulness. She spoke 
 of it to Miss Kingsbury and Cornelia Eoot, who 
 equally approved; the former because she admired 
 everything Helen did, and the latter because she 
 found it, as Helen Jierself did, a final testimony to 
 her practicality. 
 
 "It's all very well in that way," said Mr. Evans, 
 whom Cornelia had not been able to refrain from 
 triumphing over with a fact that refuted all his 
 predictions of renewed failure for Helen. " So is 
 any one who caters to a depraved popular taste of 
 any sort, practical. But what I want you to consider 
 is whether there is not something immoral in 
 allowing a savage preference for purple and orange 
 to indulge itself. If I read my Euskin aright, I 
 understand that there is some sort of occult con- 
 nection between a feeling for colour and righteousness. 
 Now you say that Miss Harkness allows her customers 
 
A woman's reason. 375 
 
 to array themselves in whatever hue of the rainbow 
 they like best; that she daily and hourly violates 
 her own sense of right in colour for the sake of 
 money. Don't you call that immoral ? " 
 
 " What do you have anything to do for with a 
 paper that publishes all those personals and society 
 gossip?" demanded Cornelia in her turn. 
 
 " Oh, I 'm a poor, weak, erring male man ! But 
 I've frequently been taught that when Woman 
 entered the arena of business, it would be in some 
 way that would elevate and ennoble affairs. I 
 shudder to think what will become of us when 
 women go into politics, if they show themselves so 
 ready in business at all the tricks of trade. But 
 I 've noticed that when Ladies — I 'm not speaking of 
 women now — determine to be practical, they let no 
 consideration stand in their way : they aim to suc- 
 ceed. Look at the unprincipled way they conduct 
 their faii-s for benevolent objects ! What prices ! 
 What swindling lotteries of all sorts ! No, your 
 Miss Harkness is like the rest ; and it appears to me 
 that at the present moment she is pandering to a 
 very depraved taste in ribbonry, and I see nothing 
 to admu-e in the mere fact that she is making a 
 living by it. Lots of people make a living by selling 
 crooked whisky." 
 
 Cornelia Koot disdained to reply. She only said : 
 "You talked very differently when she was lyin' 
 sick here in the house ; you couldn't pity and praise 
 her enough, then." 
 
 Evans laughed shamelessly. " Well, I was afraid 
 
376 A woman's reason. 
 
 she was going to die, and we always try to make 
 interest with the other world by being kind to 
 people about to go into it. But we never keep it up 
 after if they turn back." 
 
 He succeeded no better than he meant in un- 
 settling Cornelia Root's mind in regard to Helen. 
 He wished his wife, who usually made her own 
 bonnets, to go out to the Port and order them of 
 Helen, and in turn suffered much the same sort of 
 reproach which he was fond of addressing to Cornelia. 
 Mrs. Evans said he had never before wished her to get 
 her bonnets in Cambridgeport, and she understood 
 that Miss Harkness had quite all the work she could 
 do. She had helped to take care of Helen during 
 her sickness, and had been devotedly kind to her, 
 like every one else in the house ; but a woman likes 
 to place her own limits to her benevolence, especially 
 towards other women ; and the husband will commit 
 an error who attempts to extend them. She asked 
 him why he did not wish her to get her bonnets of 
 some of the common milliners in Hanover Street, 
 and he was unable to say why. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 The world of fashion, on whose bonnets Helen had 
 experimented in learning her business, accepted the 
 hearsay of her success in a humbler way with self- 
 satisfaction, and attributed far greater things to her 
 than she achieved. It understood that she was 
 making money, and several fictions in regard to the 
 sums she had amassed had a ready currency. The 
 world intended to look her up, when it had time ; 
 it was neither hard-hearted nor indifferent, but it 
 was preoccupied. There were ladies who meant 
 almost every day to drive out and see Helen ; there 
 were others who refrained because they fancied she 
 would rather not have them come j but all were un- 
 feignedly glad that the poor thing had found some- 
 thing at last that she could do. Her experiment 
 in aesthetic millinery had thrown a great deal of 
 light on her former endeavours ; people said there 
 was hardly anything she had not tried. In fine, 
 they practically left her acquaintance and her memory 
 in the keeping of Clara Kingsbury, who remained 
 faithful to both, and perhaps did the best thing for 
 them in. r.ather hushing them up. She was herself a 
 little sensitive about Helen's first experiment, and 
 
378 A woman's reason. 
 
 she was aware that many people held her indirectly 
 responsible for the enthusiasm with which they had 
 encouraged it. She always answered inquiries about 
 Helen in an elusive Avay ; she generalised her, and 
 passed her over as quickly as possible, so that 
 really the world had it to say that, so far from 
 having dropped Helen, she had dropped herself. 
 It was certainly not to blame for having heard 
 nothing of her failing health, which began to break 
 some six months after she had established herself at 
 Margaret's. She had worked very hard, for she had 
 incurred expenses during her fever at Mrs. Hewitt's, 
 for which she was still in debt to Clara Kingsbury, 
 and she had cherished the secret determination 
 to reimburse her for all her losses through her. 
 She had not earned enough to do this, but she had 
 worn herself thin and pale by the time the advancing 
 spring made it a year since she had heard of Robert's 
 death. Her friend wished her to give up and go 
 down to her cottage with her ; but Helen refused to 
 do more than spare herself a little, and she was still 
 at Margaret's when the Butlers and Rays arrived 
 from Europe. 
 
 They had been abroad longer than they had in- 
 tended, because Captain Butler had continued in 
 feeble health ; but now they had come home to stay, 
 as Marian wrote from London before they sailed. 
 They were all going to be in Beverley together till 
 Ray could decide whether to buy or to build in 
 Boston, and Marian said that the first thing must 
 be an indefinite visit from Helen. There was a 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 379 
 
 tone of peremptory hospitality in her letter, which 
 made Helen, in spite of her affection for them, 
 dread the return of her old friends. She was much 
 more comfortable with Clara Kingsbury, who had 
 become the friend of her adversity, who realised it, 
 and took it seriously ; and she could see that it was 
 still a freakish piece of wilfulness to the Butlers. 
 Marian somehow treated her as if she were a little 
 girl, and rather an absurd little girl. She knew that 
 she could right herself against Marian's assumptions 
 of sincerity and wisdom, but she shrank weakly from 
 the effort, and she foresaw that she should not have 
 the physical strength to make it. 
 
 In fact she yielded at once when Marian drove out 
 to Cambridgeport and took possession of her. She 
 was not even to be allowed to wait till they were 
 settled at Beverley, but was to go down with them ; 
 and Marian came from the hotel where they were 
 stopping for the day to fetch her. 
 
 Marian had always been large and blonde; she 
 now showed a tendency to stoutness ; she was very 
 Enghsh in dress, and she had the effect of feeling as 
 if she looked very English. In fact, she had visited 
 so much at great English houses that she was ex- 
 periencing the difficulty, which sometimes besets 
 American sojourners in England, of distinguishing 
 herself from the aristocracy, or at least the landed 
 gentry. The illusion shortly yields to American air, 
 but it is very perfect while it lasts. 
 
 Marian had a nurse for her little boy, and she 
 called this nurse by her surname simply ; she was 
 
380 A woman's reason. 
 
 quite English in her intonation, and she was at the 
 same time perfectly honest and unaffected in these 
 novel phases, <and as thoroughly good and kind- 
 hearted as ever. But her handsome bulk and her 
 airs of a large strange world made Helen feel 
 undersized and provincial ; in spite of all she could 
 do, and in spite of her accurate knowledge of just 
 what Marian Ray was and had always been, her 
 friend made her feel provincial. She had been 
 almost two years out of society, and for the last 
 six months her relations had been with inferior 
 people; she asked herself if she might not really 
 have retrograded in mind and manners, and she 
 gladly escaped from Marian to the others ; to the ex- 
 uberant welcome of the younger girls ; to the pitying 
 tenderness of Mrs. Butler ; to the quiet and cordial 
 simplicity of Eay,^ — his quiet seemed to have been 
 intensified by absence. But what went most to her 
 heart was Captain Butler's tremulous fondness, and 
 the painful sense that the others were watching, 
 whether they would or not, for the effect of his 
 broken health upon her. He brightened at meeting 
 Helen ; they said afterwards that he had not seemed 
 for a long time so much like himself ; and they left 
 him to entertain her while they made a show of 
 busying themselves about other aifairs. It was pro- 
 bably an indulgence they had agreed to grant his 
 impatience. He kept her little worn hands' in his, 
 and looked at her forefinger, roughed with the needle, 
 and deeply tinted with the stuffs in which she worked, 
 and it seemed to be this sight that suggested his words: 
 
A woman's reason. 381 
 
 " I managed very badly for you, my dear ! If it 
 hadn't been for my hesitation when I first doubted 
 that rascal, I could have made terms for you with 
 the creditors. I don't wonder you would never accept 
 help from me ! It 's very good of you to come to us 
 now." 
 
 " Oh, Captain Butler, you break my heart ! Did 
 you think that was the reason 1 I only wished to 
 help myself. Indeed, indeed, that was all. I 
 wouldn't have accepted any provision from the 
 creditors." 
 
 " You need never have known it. That could 
 have been arranged," said Captain Butler. 
 
 "It's been a mercy, the work — my only mercy !" 
 cried the girl. " Oh, Captain Butler !" She caught 
 her hands away and hid her face in them, and let the 
 black wave of her sorrow go over her once more. 
 When it was jiast, she lifted her dim eyes to those of 
 the old man. " Did you read about it — all about it?" 
 
 " Yes, my dear, and many a night I 've lain awake 
 and thought about it !" 
 
 "Did you ever think that he might still be alive — 
 that perhaps those men came away and left him, and 
 he escaped somehow % Don't tell me that you did 
 if you never did !" 
 
 The old man remained silent. 
 
 " Then they must have killed him — to get that 
 money — " 
 
 " No ; probably they told the truth. It might 
 very well have happened as they said," pleaded 
 Captain Butler. 
 
382 A WOMAN'S REASOK. 
 
 "All, you know it couldn't !" 
 
 Again his hopeless silence assented, and Helen 
 said, with a long, deep sigh, "That is all. You 
 know how I must have felt. There is no use talking 
 of it. I only wanted to see you and speak of it just 
 once, because I knew you would know. Thank you ! " 
 she said, with a wandering pitifulness that forced a 
 groan from her old friend's lips. 
 
 "For crushing your last hope, Helen V 
 
 " Ah ! it 's better not to have false hopes." 
 
 She stole her hands back into his, and after a while 
 she began to tell him quietly of her life, and what 
 she had done and expected to do ; and he gave her 
 the comfort of his fatherly praise, in which there was 
 no surprise or foolish admiration, such as afflicted 
 her in most people's knowledge of her efforts. 
 
 "I don't have to work very hard," she explained, 
 in answer to a question of his; "not harder than I 
 wish; and I haye got to working at last as other 
 people do who earn their living, without thinking at 
 all that it 's I that am doing it. That 's a comfort, — 
 a great comfort. And I know my trade, and I'm 
 sure that I do good work. Do you remember when 
 I told you that I should be a milliner if I were ever 
 left to take care of myself 1 " 
 
 "I remember, Helen." 
 
 They were both silent ; then she said, with a light 
 sigh, " I 'm only feeling a little fagged now." 
 
 " You must stay with us, Helen," began Captain 
 Butler. 
 
 "I shall be glad enough to stay a while,", she 
 
A woman's reason. 383 
 
 answered evasively, and in her own mind she had 
 already fixed the term. 
 
 It was inevitable, perhaps, that she should extend 
 the term. The summer was a vacant time, at best, 
 and she could let the luxury cf Captain Butler's 
 house flatter her feeble health into strength again 
 without such a bad conscience as she would have had 
 if she felt that she was spoiling her future, or if she 
 had got back her strength very rapidly. The family 
 did not see many people, and only saw them in a 
 quiet informal way in which Helen could share. The 
 world, with which she had never had any quarrel; 
 took her back kindly enough ; it discreetly suppressed 
 its curiosity ; it spoke of bonnets and ribbons in her 
 presence with a freedom that was wiser and politer 
 than an avoidance of such topics would have been; 
 it sent her invitations to little limcheons and low 
 teas, and accepted her excuses gracefully, and always 
 renewed the invitations, just as if she had come. 
 
 The old affection enfolded and enfeebled her. It 
 was quite as bad as she had feared. She said to her- 
 self sometimes that it would be better to break off at 
 once and go back to Margaret's ; but she did not do 
 so. The thought of the little wooden house baking 
 beside the dust of Limekiln Avenue, and her own 
 low chamber gathering heat and mosquitoes from 
 day to day under the slope of the slated mansard, 
 opposed itself to the actuality of the Butler cottage, 
 with its wide verandahs that looked seaward through 
 cool breaks of foliage on the lawn dropping smoothly 
 to the boulders on the beach ; with its orderly succes- 
 
384 A woman's reason. 
 
 sion of delicate meals ; with the pretty chintzed and 
 muslined room in which she seemed to drowse her 
 life away, safe from the harms that had hunted her 
 so long ; and she felt how easy it would be to accept 
 indefinitely the fond hospitality that claimed her. 
 She said that she must not; but in the meantime 
 she did. She had the soft, feline preference for 
 sunny exposures and snug corners which is to blame 
 for so much frailty of purpose, or so much purpose- 
 less frailty in wdmen ; and now she was further 
 weakened by ill-health. She stayed on and on, in 
 spite of the feeling that they all regarded her as a 
 poor, broken thing, who could no longer be the ideal 
 of the young girls, or the equal friend of Marian. 
 
 Mrs. Ray was much preoccupied with her baby, 
 with the house that Ray had decided to build, with 
 the friends abroad from whom she heard and to 
 whom she' wrote. She carried with her an impres- 
 sion of wealth, an odour of opulence, which accorded 
 well with her affluent personality ; she accepted her 
 lot of rich woman with a robust satisfaction which 
 would have been vulgar except for her incorruptible 
 good-heartedness. She never talked of money, but 
 she was a living expression of large expenditure ; 
 and in discussing the plans of her new house with 
 Helen, she had an unconsciousness of cost, as related 
 to questions of convenience or beauty, which went 
 further to plunge Helen into hopeless poverty than 
 any boast of riches could have done. Her manner 
 was none the less effective for her assumption that 
 Helen was equally able to pay for such a house. She 
 
A woman's reason. 385 
 
 was not planning altogether for her own comfort and 
 splendour, though these were duly provided for ; but 
 she was looking after the wellbeing of everybody in 
 her household, and she was as willing to lavish upon 
 the servants' quarters as her own. 
 
 "I think it's barbaric,'' she said, "to make those 
 poor creatures, because they do our work, pass their 
 days in holes in the ground and coops under the roof, 
 and I 'm determined that they shall be decently 
 housed with me, at least. I 'm making the architect 
 work out this idea — it was something I talked over 
 — with" — she added, with the effect of feeling it 
 absurd to shrink from saying it — "Lord Eainford." 
 
 They both continued quietly looking at the plan, 
 but the word had been spoken, and they no longer 
 talked of the servants' quarters in Marian's house. 
 Helen leaned back in her chair, with her listless hands 
 in her lap, and Marian took up the work she had 
 laid down before unfolding the plan. 
 
 "When did you see him last?" asked Helen. 
 
 " Oh, he came to see us off at Liverpool," returned 
 Marian. 
 
 "Was he— well?" 
 
 " Yes, as well as he usually is. I believe he 's 
 never very strong, though he 's never in a bad way. 
 He 's much better than he used to be." 
 
 Helen was silent. Then she began, as if in- 
 voluntarily : " Marian " — and stopped. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 She was forced to go on. "Did you know — " 
 
 " He told Ned. Now, Helen,'' she added quickly, 
 
 2b 
 
386 A woman's reason. 
 
 "I promised Ned not to open this subject with 
 you ! " 
 
 " You haven't," returned Helen with quiet sadness, 
 "/opened it. I knew that we should have to speak 
 of it some time. I feel that I was not to blame, and 
 I have never felt sorry for anything but his — disap- 
 pointment." 
 
 " He never blamed you. He understood just how 
 it happened, and how he had mistaken you. He is 
 the soul of delicate appreciation." 
 
 " Yes, I know that." 
 
 " And his only trouble was, that he should have 
 forced you to say that you were engaged." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And I don't believe that any of us grieved more 
 sincerely for you than he did." 
 
 " Oh, I believe it." 
 
 " Well," said Marian, breaking her needle in ex- 
 pression of her resolution, "I won't talk with you 
 about Lord Eainford, Helen • for I can only talk 
 with you in one way about him, and I promised Ned 
 not to do that ! " 
 
 " What way 1 " asked Helen. 
 
 "You know!" 
 
 "Now," cried Helen, "you must tell me all about 
 it ! If I didn't believe that I had suflFered as much as 
 he, I couldn't forgive myself. How did he find out 
 about — about — Eobert 1 " She whispered the last 
 word. 
 
 "We told him!" 
 
 " And he was sorry for me — he — 
 
A woman's reason. 387 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " How kind he is !" 
 
 " Yes, he is kind,'' said Marian. " He 's a good deal 
 changed since he was here." Helen looked the 
 interest which she did not otherwise express, and 
 Marian continued : " He 's giving up a good many of 
 his wild Utopian ideas ahout democracy, and all that 
 kind of thing. You know, at one time — before he 
 first came out to America — he thought of dividing 
 up his estates amongst the labourers on them." 
 
 " What a strange idea !" 
 
 " Yes. But there was some legal obstacle to that 
 — I don't know what — and now he 's devoting him- 
 self to making his people comfortable in the station 
 where he finds them. He conforms a great deal more 
 than he used to, in every way. I think his acquaint- 
 ance with America did him good : he saw what a 
 humbug democracy and equality really were. He 
 must have seen that nobody practically believed in 
 them ; and we must say this for the English, that 
 they 're too honest to get any pleasure merely from 
 the names of things. He must have found that 
 people here were just as anxious about position and 
 occupation as they are in England." 
 
 " He seemed very much puzzled by it," said Helen. 
 " I couldn't understand why." 
 
 " Because he was very sincere ; the English are all 
 sincerer than we are. They accept rank and royalty, 
 and carry it out in good faith ; and we accept de- 
 mocracy, and then shirk the consequences. That's 
 what Ned says. I wonder that the Englishmen who 
 
388 A M'oman's reason. 
 
 have been here, or seen us running after titles 
 abroad, can keep from laughing in our faces ! And I 
 dojiH wonder that Lord Rainford was cured of his 
 fancies in America. Why, he actually, at one time, 
 was a sort of republican !" 
 
 "A very curious sort," said Helen. "He said 
 that Americans were all commoners.'' 
 
 Marian paused. "Did he say that f Well," she 
 added with heroic resolution, " I suppose we are." 
 
 "I don't think so," said Helen. "Or at least it 
 wasn't delicate of him to say so." 
 
 " I don't believe he meant anything by it. He 
 gave us to understand — or Ray at least — that he 
 particularly admired you for your courage in earning 
 your own living, and being no more ashamed of your 
 work than if you were noble." 
 
 "Yes," said Helen thoughtfully, "I suppose it 
 might be natural for him, if he had those notions, to 
 idealise us here, just as it would be for one of us to 
 idealise them : it would be his romance." 
 
 "Certainly," said Marian, with eager assent, as if 
 this mood ought to "be encouraged in Helen, " that is 
 just the way." 
 
 "And, perhaps," Helen went on, "it would have 
 been better for me if I had been such a girl as he 
 supposed — trying to help myself because I respected 
 work, and all that. But I wasn't." 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 " I was merely doing it because I couldn't bear to 
 be a burden to any cue ; and I 've never had any 
 higher motive. " 
 
A woman's reason. 389 
 
 "And I'm sure it's high enough," said Marian. 
 "And crazy enough to suit any one," she added. 
 " He would like it all the better when he found out 
 what it really was ; especially now that his own ideas 
 have changed a little." 
 
 "He was an aristocrat at heart all the time," 
 returned Helen. " If I had been born to work for 
 my Uving, like the poor girls whom I make bonnets 
 for—" 
 
 " It would have been another thing, quite. We 're 
 aU inconsistent. I don't deny it. There 's no merit 
 in working for a living, whatever disgrace there is 
 in not doing it. You don't find your Bridgets and 
 Norahs, or your Sadies and Mamies so very superior 
 to human weaknesses that you wish the rest of us to 
 form ourselves on the pattern of working girls.'' 
 
 "O no," said Helen, with humorous sadness. 
 "They're poor silly things, most of them, and as 
 full of prejudice and exclusiveness as any one. I 've 
 never seen distinctions in society so awful as the 
 distinction between shop-girls and parlour-girls. 
 Their differences seem such a burlesque of ours, that 
 sometimes I can hardly help laughing at the whole 
 thing. I supposed once that all work-people were 
 on a level; but really I had no idea of inequality 
 till I came down to them. I daresay," she added, 
 " Lord Rainford's experience in coming down to ns 
 must have been something like it. But it didn't 
 make it any pleasanter to have him suggest his sur- 
 prise. And I don't know that I need feel particularly 
 flattered at his singling me out for praise because I 
 
390 A woman's reason. 
 
 choose to help myself rather than be wholly depen- 
 dent — I 've always been partly so. It isn't a thing, 
 as you say, that I deserve the least credit for." 
 
 " I never said that about you,'' protested Marian, 
 " and I do think it 's a credit to you — or would be, 
 if there were any necessity for it." 
 
 "Any necessity for it 1" 
 
 " I ivill speak now," cried Marian, " hospitable or 
 inhospitable ; and I don't see how it has anything to 
 do with it." Helen understood perfectly that these 
 enigmatical sentences were the report, so far as they 
 went, of some discussion between Marian and her 
 husband, and that she was now about to break some 
 promise she had made him out of half- conviction. 
 " Do you expect, Helen Harkness, to go back to that 
 horrid shanty, and spend the rest of your life in 
 making servants' bonnets 1 " 
 
 " Yes — till I have learnt how to do better work." 
 
 "Well, then, I think it 's a shame !" Helen drew 
 herself up, but Marian did not quail. " I think that 
 you might have had some little consideration for us 
 — for all your friends, if you had none for yourself. 
 Why should it have been any more disgraceful to 
 accept help from papa— from your father's old friend, 
 who felt towards you just as he does towards his 
 own children — than to take up such work as that ? 
 If it comes to that, why shouldn't you be dependent 
 upon us, as well as dependent on them 1" 
 
 " I 'm not dependent on them," said Helen, " and 
 you have no right, to say such a thing, Marian." 
 But she felt herself physically unable to cope with 
 
A woman's reason. 391 
 
 Marian's misrepresentation, or the no-reasons with 
 which she supported it. 
 
 " I say it for your good, and to let you see how it 
 appears to others. It will kill you to go back there. 
 I can't bear to think of it." 
 
 " It won't kill me," answered Helen sadly, " but I 
 shouldn't be frightened by that if it were true. 
 Why do you think I should be so anxious to live ? " 
 
 "Helen!" 
 
 "Yes, — seriously. What is there left for me in 
 this world?" 
 
 " There 's everything — if you would see it so." 
 
 " Everything f 
 
 " Helen," said Marian, dropping her hands, with 
 the sewing in them, into her lap, " you force me to 
 break one of the most solemn promises I ever made 
 in my life. But I don't care ; if I can do any good 
 by it, I will break it. And I want you to understand 
 that I speak entirely on my own responsibility, and 
 quite against Ned's advice and orders. We saw a 
 great deal of Lord Kainford while we were in 
 England, and everything we saw made us like him 
 more and more." 
 
 Helen feebly put herself on the defensive, but 
 without saying anything, and -Marian continued — 
 
 " He 's very greatly improved, in every way. He 's 
 better, and he's better-looking." 
 
 "I thought him improved the last time he was 
 here," said Helen impartially. 
 
 " He 's the kind of man who doesn't show to advan- 
 tage out of his own surroundings," returned Marian, 
 
392 A woman's reason. 
 
 pursuing her apparent advantage. " We visited him 
 at one of his places, in the country : an old house of 
 the fifteenth century, that kings and queens had 
 slept in, and that had been in his family almost as 
 long as it had been built. You never saw such a 
 place, Helen ! There wasn't much of a park, but 
 there were groups and avenues of beautiful old trees 
 all about, and lawns so fine and close, that it seemed 
 as if they had been woven and laid down there just 
 for our visit; ivy all over the front of the house, 
 and such gardens, with peaches and pears and roses 
 trained along their high walls — ^just like Tennyson's 
 poems ; and an exquisite keeping about everything that 
 I never could make you understand unless you had 
 been there. But everything was so fit that you felt 
 as if that low English sky was part of the place, 
 and the arrangement of the clouds had been studied 
 for it. There wasn't a jar or a hitch in anything, 
 and Lord Rainford himself came in in such a way that 
 you would have thought he was as much a guest as 
 ourselves." 
 
 "Yes," assented Helen; " I suppose they've brought 
 the art of all that to perfection." 
 
 " It isn't an art with them ; it 's nature — second 
 nature. This was only one of his places — the smallest 
 of them, — but there wasn't the least effect of owner- 
 ship about him ; and it wasn't from him, you may be 
 sure, that we found out the good he was doing !" 
 
 '■' No ; I could imagine that. He must find a great 
 happiness in it. I 'm glad — " 
 
 " Oh, he didn't seem very happy. Not that he 
 
A woman's reason. 393 
 
 made any parade of melancholy. But you can tell 
 whether such a man is happy or not, without his 
 saying so, or looking so, even." 
 
 Helen was silent, and Marian made a bold push. 
 "You know what I mean, Helen, perfectly well. 
 He didn't speak to me about it, but he told Ned 
 everything, and Ned told me ; and I don't believe 
 he 's forgotten you, or ever will.'' 
 
 " He had better, then," said Helen, with a momen- 
 tary firmness. " He must." 
 
 " Didn't you tell him that if you were not en- 
 gaged—" 
 
 " Oh, did he say that 1 Then don't talk to me of 
 his delicacy, Marian ! It was shameful to repeat it." 
 
 " What nonsense ! Mightn't he say it, if he were 
 asking Ned whether he thought you really would 
 have cared for him if you hadn't been V 
 
 "Did he ask that?" 
 
 "I don't know. But if he had, would it have 
 been anything so very strange 1 Not half so strange 
 as your saying it if you didn't mean it. Why did 
 you say it, Helen ?" 
 
 " You know well enough, Marian. Because I felt 
 sorry for him; because I had to say something. 
 Did Ned — did Mr. Ray encourage him to think that 
 I meant — " 
 
 " Of course he didn't. He never ventured a word 
 about it. He seems to think, like all the rest of us, 
 except me, that you 're a very peculiar kind of porce- 
 lain, with none of the flaws of common clay, and I 
 can't persuade him you're a girl like other girls. 
 
394 A woman's reason. 
 
 But if you come to the common sense of the matter, 
 I don't see why Lord Rainford shouldn't have sup- 
 posed you meant what you said, and that when it 
 was all over — " 
 
 "Marian!" 
 
 " — Why he shouldn't have begun to have some 
 hopes again. I'm speaking for your good, Helen, 
 and I'm going to speak plainly. I don't see why 
 you shouldn't marry him now ! If you have no pity 
 for yourself, if you prefer to go on with the wretched 
 life you 've planned, I don't see why you shouldn't 
 have a little compassion for him. You're spoiling 
 his life as well as your own." 
 
 Helen had to struggle from under the crushing 
 weight of this charge by an effort that resulted in 
 something like levity. - " Oh, I don't know that it 's 
 spoiling his life. He seemed to care for me as an 
 element of social and political reform, and wanted 
 to marry me because I illustrated a theory. Per- 
 haps, if you told him I didn't really illustrate it, 
 he would be quite willing to accept the situa- 
 tion ! " 
 
 She left Marian where she was sitting, and the 
 subject — for that day. But the next week Hay went 
 off to town by a train earlier than usual one morn- 
 ing, and Marian went restlessly about the house. 
 The moment she found herself alone with Helen, she 
 began abruptly : " Helen, I won't have you thinking 
 it 's the same thing, my talking to you the other day 
 about Lord Rainford, as it would be if Robert 
 Fenton had lived." 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 395 
 
 " No," said Helen, recognising the fact that it had 
 seemed so to her. 
 
 " I wish to talk as if he never had lived." 
 
 "You can't do that!" 
 
 " Yes, I can ; for now it is the same, so far as Lord 
 Eainford is concerned. If you said anything to make 
 him believe that it would have been different if you 
 had not been engaged, then you owe him another 
 chance. If you ever did or said anything to en- 
 courage him — ' 
 
 " Encourage him !" 
 
 "Without knowing it — But you can't deny that 
 he might have thought you encouraged him deliber- 
 ately that first day — " 
 
 "No," said Helen, with a guilty sense that did not 
 suffer her to protest against Marian's cruelty in going 
 back to that. 
 
 "Then I say you must listen to him. Helen, I'm 
 speaking entirely for your good. I didn't like him 
 at first, either ; but now I know how nice he really 
 is. I do want you to reconsider ! You would be 
 happy with him ; he would make any woman happy, 
 and he would be simply in heaven with you. And 
 you 're adapted to the life you would lead in England. 
 You could be fashionable or unfashionable, just as 
 you liked ; and if you wanted to be useful, to do 
 good, and that sort of thing, you 'd have every chance 
 in the world. You 'd be a great success, Helen, in 
 every way. I do want America to be well represented 
 over there ! And don't you see what a great thing 
 his offering himself to you is 1 It 's almost unprece- 
 
396 A woman's reason. 
 
 dented ! I hardly know any other American girl 
 who hasn't been married for her money in Europe ; 
 they're always married for their money, even by 
 cheap little continental counts and barons ; and for 
 an English lord to marry a poor American girl, why, 
 it's like an American man marrying a woman of 
 rank, and that never was heard of ! I want you to 
 look at it on all sides, Helen ; and that 's the reason 
 I 'm almost perjuring myself in talking to you of it 
 at all. I did promise Ned so solemnly ; but if I didn't 
 speak now, I shouldn't have another chance before — " 
 
 She suddenly stopped herself, and Helen, who 
 had been borne down by her tide of words, lifted 
 her head again : '' Before what, Marian ? " 
 
 "Before he comes!" cried Marian hysterically. 
 " He 's coming here to-day !" 
 
 Helen rose. "Then I must go," she said quietly. 
 " It would be indelicate, it would be indecent, for 
 me to be here. I wonder, Marian, you could set 
 such a trap for me." 
 
 Marian forgave the offensive charge to Helen's 
 excitement. " Trap," she repeated. " Do you call it 
 a trap, when I might have let him come without 
 saying a word to you 1 I wanted to do it ! And I 
 should have had a perfectly good excuse ; for we didn't 
 know ourselves that he was coming, till this morning. 
 He wrote us from New York, and he started for 
 Boston last night. I didn't even know he was in 
 the country — indeed I didn't ! " she added, beginning 
 to quail, woman as she was, under the awfulness of 
 the reproach in Helen's eyes. " We couldn't tell 
 
A woman's reason. 397 
 
 him not to come ! -How could we tell him not to 
 come t There wasn't even time ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Helen brokenly, "I know. I don't 
 blame you. But you see that I can't stay." 
 
 "No, I don't," retorted Marian, "I don't see any- 
 thing of the kind." 
 
 "It would be shameful — it would be a trap for 
 him.'' 
 
 " He 's a man, and he '11 never dream of such a 
 thing; he's a gentleman, and he ivon't think so !" 
 
 " But J shall," returned Helen definitively. " It 
 will look as if I had been waiting for him here; 
 as if I wished to see him. It leaves me no freedom ; 
 it binds me hand and foot. If he spoke to me again, 
 what could I say ? Don't you see, Marian 1 " 
 
 " No, I don't," said Marian. But she denied with 
 her lips only. 
 
 " No matter ; it 's quite time I was back with 
 Margaret. I will get ready, and go up to Boston at 
 once. " 
 
 " Helen ! And when he 's crossed the ocean to 
 see you "i " 
 
 " If he 's done that, it 's all the more reason why I 
 shouldn't see him. He had no right to come. It 
 was very presumptuous ; it was unfeeling." 
 
 " You encouraged him to believe that if you had 
 not been engaged to Eobert Fenton you would have 
 accepted him. "What was he to think ? Perhaps he 
 felt that, as a gentleman, he was 'hound to come." 
 
 Helen panted breathless. " I must go away," 
 was all she could say at last. 
 
398 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Oh, very well ! " cried Marian. " You see how- 
 awkward you make it for us." 
 
 " I know. I 'm very sorry. But I can't help it. 
 How soon do you expect him 1 " 
 
 " Ned went up to Boston to meet him. I don't 
 know which train they '11 be down on," returned 
 Marian coldly. 
 
 "Then there isn't a moment to be lost," said 
 Helen, hurrying to the door. "Will you let Jerry 
 take me to the station 1 " she asked formally. 
 
 " Oh, certainly," replied Marian, with equal state. 
 
 A few minutes later Mrs. Butler came to Helen's 
 room, her gentle eyes full of sympathetic trouble. 
 " Marian is feeling terribly. Must you go, dear '?" 
 
 " Why, yes, Mrs. Butler. Don't you see that I 
 must ]" returned Helen, without desisting from her 
 packing, while Mrs. Butler sank upon a chair near 
 the trunk. 
 
 " Yes, of course ; Marian sees it too ; if you are fully 
 resolved not to — to give him any hope. But she 
 thought — we all thought — that perhaps — . Helen, 
 dear, I don't wish to pry into your affairs ; I have 
 no right — " 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Butler!" cried Helen, dropping an 
 armful of clothes chaotically into her trunk, in order 
 that she might give the tears, with which she was 
 bedewing them, free course upon Mrs. Butler's neck, 
 " you have all the right in the world. Say anything 
 you please to me ; ask anything ! How should I 
 take it wrong 1 " 
 
 "There's nothing I wish to ask, dear. If you're 
 
A woman's reason. 399 
 
 quite firm — if your mind is entirely made up — there's 
 nothing to say. I wouldn't urge you to anything. 
 But we all have such a regard for him that if you 
 should — . It seemed such a fortunate way out of all 
 your struggles and sorrows — " 
 
 " And Eohert ? Do you ask me to forget him, 
 Mrs. Butler, so soon ? " 
 
 "Oh, no, my dear ! I should be the last to do 
 that ! But wives lose their husbands and husbands 
 their wives, and marry again. They don't forget 
 their dead ; but in this world we can't live for the 
 dead ; we must live for the living. Don't look at it 
 as if it were forgetting him or betraying him in any 
 way. As long as you live — you must understand 
 that — he can be nothing to you !" 
 
 " Oh, I do understand it," sobbed the girl. " My 
 heart has ached it all out, long ago, and night and 
 day I know it. And that 's what makes me wish I 
 were dead too." 
 
 Mrs. Butler ignored this outburst. "And this 
 young man is so good — and he is so true to you — " 
 
 "Oh, is that the reason I should be untrue to 
 myself?" 
 
 "No, dear, it isn't any question of that. It's 
 merely a question of examining yourself about it, of 
 making sure of your own mind Avhen you see him 
 again. The children are all romantic about it be- 
 cause it 's a title, and they like to think of a splendid 
 marriage for you ; but if it were only that, I should 
 be very sorry. I 've seen enough of splendid mar- 
 riages, and I know what risks American girls take 
 
400 A woman's reason. 
 
 when they marry out of their own country, and their 
 own kind of thinking and living. But this isn't the 
 same thing, Helen — indeed it isn't. He likes you 
 because you 're American, and because you 're poor ; 
 and the last thing he thinks of is his title. No, dear. 
 If he were some penniless young American, he 
 couldn't be any better or simpler. Mr. Butler and I 
 both agreed about that." 
 
 "Captain Butler!" cried Helen, with the tragedy 
 of Ut tu. Brute, in her tones, and the effect of pre- 
 paring to fall with dignity. 
 
 "Yes. He says he never saw any young man 
 whom he liked better. They formed quite a friend- 
 ship. He was very sweet and filial with Mr. Butler ; 
 and was always making him talk about you !" 
 
 A throe of some kind passed through Helen, and 
 the arm round Mrs. Butler's neck tightened convul- 
 sively. 
 
 " I never approved," continued the elder lady, " of 
 what people call marrying for a home ; but I thought 
 — we all thought — that if, when you saw him again, 
 you felt a little differently about everything, it would 
 be such an easy way out of all your difficulties. We 
 approve — all of us — of your spirit, Helen ; we quite 
 understand how you shouldn't wish to be dependent, 
 and we admire your courage and self-respect, and all 
 that ; but we don't like to see you working so hard — 
 wearing your pretty young life away, wasting your 
 best days in toil and sorrow." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Butler ! the sorrow was sent, I don't 
 know why ; but the work was sent to save me. If 
 
A woman's reason. 401 
 
 it were not for that I should have gone mad long 
 ago !" 
 
 " But couldn't anything else save you, Helen ? 
 That's what we want you to ask yourself. Can't 
 you let the sunlight come back to you — " 
 
 "No, no !" cried Helen, with hysterical self-pity; 
 " I must dwell in the valley of the shadow of death 
 all my life. There is no escape for me. I 'm one 
 of those poor things that I used to wonder at — people 
 always in black, always losing friends, always carry- 
 ing gloom and discouragement to every one. You 
 must let me go. Let me go back to my work and 
 my poverty. I will never leave it again. Don't ask 
 me. Indeed, indeed, it can't be ; it mustn't be ! For 
 pity's sake, don't speak of it any more !" 
 
 Mrs. Butler rose and pressed the girl to her heart 
 in a motherly embrace. " I won't, dear," she said, 
 and went out of the room. 
 
 Helen heard her encounter some one who had just 
 come up the stairs, at the head of which a briefly- 
 murmured colloquy took place, and she heard in 
 Jessie Butler's penetrating whisper: " Will she stay ? 
 Will she accept him 1 Is she going to be Lady Eain- 
 ford ] Oh, I hope—" 
 
 " Hush, Jessie !" came in Mrs. Butler's whisper, 
 and then there was a scurry of feet along the matting, 
 and a confusion of sujjpressed gaiety, as if the girls 
 were running off to talk it over among themselves. 
 
 Helen would not make allowance for the innocent 
 romance it was to them. She saw it only as a family 
 conspiraey. that the Butlers ought all to have been 
 
 2g 
 
402 A woman's reason. 
 
 ashamed of, and she hegan again to pack her trunk 
 with a degree of hauteur which, perhaps, never before 
 attended such a task. Her head was in a whirl, but 
 she worked furiously for a half-hour, when she found 
 herself faint, and was forced to lie down. She would 
 have liked to ring and ask for a biscuit and a glass 
 of wine ; but she would not, she could not consent to 
 add the slightest thing to that burden of obligation 
 towards the Butlers which she now found so odious, 
 and on which they had so obviously counted, to 
 control her action and force her will. 
 
 She lay on the bed, growing more and more bitter 
 against them, and quite helpless to rise. She heard 
 a carriage grate up to the door on the gravel outside, 
 and she flung a shawl over her head to shut out the 
 voices of Ray and Lord Eainford ; she felt that if 
 she heard them she must shriek ; and she cried to 
 herself that she was trapped, trapped, trapped ! 
 
 Some one knocked lightly at her door, and Marian 
 entered in answer to a reckless invitation from the 
 pillow. It seemed an intolerable piece of effrontery, 
 and Helen wondered that Marian was able to put on 
 that air of cold indifference in proposing to ask her 
 to come down and meet Lord Rainford before he 
 had been in the house ten minutes. 
 
 " Helen," said Marian, in a stiff tone of offence, 
 "Mrs. Wilson is here, and wants you to come over 
 and take lunch with her. I couldn't do less than 
 promise to give you her message. Shall I say that 
 you 're lying down with a headache 1" 
 
 "Oh, not at all, Marian," said Helen; "there's 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 403 
 
 nothing the matter with me. I'm perfectly well 
 Please tell Mrs. Wilson that I shall be very glad to 
 come, and that I '11 be down directly." 
 
 She was already twisting up her hair before the 
 glass with a vigour of which she could not have 
 believed herself capable. But the idea of flight, of 
 escape, inspired her ; in that moment she could 
 have fought her way through overwhelming odds 
 of Butlers ;. her lax nerves were turned to steel. 
 " Marian," she said, " I will ask Mrs. Wilson to drive 
 me to the station this afternoon, and I'll be very 
 glad if you can send my trunk there." 
 
 " Oh, certainly,'' said Marian. 
 
 "I know I'm making it horrid for you," added 
 Helen, beginning to relent a little, now that she felt 
 herself safe, " but I can't help it. I must go, and I 
 must go at once. But Mrs. Wilson is such a kind 
 old thing, and she 's asked me so often, and I can 
 easily make her understand that I must come now or 
 not at all, and if she knows that you 're expecting 
 other people your letting me go to her for lunch the 
 last day won't seem strange.'' 
 
 " Oh, not at all," said Marian, with a slight laugh, 
 whose hoUowness was lost upon Helen. 
 
 Mrs. Butler said she was to come and visit them 
 as soon as they got back to town ; she kissed her as 
 lovingly as ever, and the Captain was affectionately 
 acquiescent ; but the young girls were mystified, and 
 Marian was cold. Helen tried to make it up to her 
 by redoubled warmth in parting ; but this was not 
 to be done, and as soon as she was out of the house 
 
404 A woman's reason. 
 
 she began to feel how ungracious she had been to 
 Marian, who liad certainly done everything she 
 could, and had behaved very honourably and can- 
 didly. In the undercurrent of reverie which ran 
 along evenly with Mrs. Wilson's chat, she atoned to . 
 Marian with fond excuses and explanations, and 
 presently she found herself looking at the affair 
 from the Butlers' point of view. It did not then 
 appear so monstrous ; she relented so far as to 
 imagine herself, for their sake and for Lord Rain- 
 ford's, consenting to what seemed so right and fit 
 to them. She saw herself, in pensively luxurious 
 fancy, the lady of all that splendid circumstance 
 at which Marian had hinted, moving vaguely on 
 through years of gentle beneficence and usefulness, 
 chivalrously attended in her inalienable sadness by 
 her husband's patient and forbearing devotion; 
 giving him, as she could from a heart never his, and 
 now broken, respect and honour that might warm 
 before her early death to something like tenderness. 
 It was a picture that had often been painted in 
 romance, and it satisfied her present mood as well as 
 if its false drawing and impossible colour were true 
 to any human life that had ever been or could be. 
 
 By the time she reached Mrs. Wilson's cottage 
 Ray drove up to the Butlers', and met the surmise 
 of his wife and sisters-in-law with monosyllabic 
 evasion till he could be alone with Marian. " I 
 didn't bring him," he explained then, " because the 
 more I thought of it the less I liked our seeming to 
 trap Helen into meeting him." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said Marian. " Tliat was her own 
 word ! " 
 
A woman's keason. 405 
 
 "Then you told her? I might have expected 
 that. Well, it was quite right. What did she 
 say?" 
 
 " Everything unpleasant that she very well could. 
 You would have thought that really we had taken 
 the most unfair advantage of her, and had placed 
 her where she couldn't say no, if she wished." 
 
 '• I could see how it might look that way to her," 
 said Ray, " and that 's what I was afraid of. It was 
 extremely awkward, every way. We couldn't very 
 well tell him not to come, and we couldn't very well 
 tell her to go ; the only thing I was clear of was 
 that we must tell her he was coming, and let her 
 decide upon her own course." 
 
 " That 's what I did, and she decided very quickly 
 — she 's gone." 
 
 Eay looked worried. " It 's tantamount to turn- 
 ing her out of doors, I suppose, and yet I don't 
 know what else we could have done. Well ! I 
 might as well have brought him straight here, and 
 saved myself all the diplomacy of getting old Wilson 
 to take him home for the night." 
 
 Marian did not for the present ask what was the 
 diplomacy which Eay had used. " Mr. Wilson ! " 
 she shrieked. " You got Mr. Wilson to take him 
 home for the night 1 " 
 
 " Yes," returned her husband quietly. " What is 
 so very remarkable about my getting Wilson to do 
 it?" 
 
 She did not answer, but burst from her door 
 with a cry for Mrs. Butler that brought all her sisters 
 also. " Mother, Lord Rainford has gone home with 
 Mr. Wilson ! " 
 
406 A woman's reason. 
 
 Mrs. Butler was duml) with sensation tliat silenced 
 all her daughters but Jessie. This young lady, not 
 hitherto noted in the family for her piety, recog- 
 nised a divine intention in the accident : " I call 
 it a special Providence !" she exclaimed ecstatic- 
 ally. 
 
 " What is it all about '! " inquired Eay. 
 
 " Oh, nothing," replied his wife. " Nothing at 
 all ! Merely that Helen was in such haste to get 
 away that she accepted an invitation to lunch with 
 Mrs. Wilson, and has just driven over there with 
 her. I suppose she '11 accuse us of having plotted 
 with the Wilsons to ' trap ' her, as she calls it." 
 
 "Marian!" said Mrs. Butler, with grave reproach. 
 
 "I don't care, mother!" retorted Marian, with 
 tears of vexation in her eyes. " Can't you see that 
 she '11 accept him over there, and that I shall be 
 cheated out of having brought them together, when 
 I had set my heart on it so much ? I didn't sup- 
 pose Helen Harkness could be such a goose, after all 
 she 's been through ! " 
 
 " My dear," said her mother, " I don't wish you to 
 speak so of Helen ; and as for her accepting him — 
 Children," she broke off to the younger girls, " run 
 away ! " and they obeyed as if they had really been 
 children. " Edward," she resumed, " how in the 
 world did you contrive with Lord Eainford ' " 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Butler," said Eay, " with men, there 
 was only one way. He had told me so much, you 
 know, that I could take certain things for granted, 
 and I made a clean breast of it at last, on the way 
 home. I told him she was here, and that I thought 
 it wasn't quite fair bringing him into the house 
 
A woman's reason. 407 
 
 without giving her some chance to protest — or 
 escape." 
 
 "It was terrible," said Mrs. Butler, "but I see 
 that you had to do it. Go on." 
 
 " And he quite agreed with me, that it wouldn't 
 be fair to either of them. I don't know that I 
 should have spoken if I had not seen old Wilson in 
 the car. I asked him if he wouldn't give Rainford 
 a bed for the night ; and he was only too glad. 
 That 's all. I told him he could walk over here 
 this evening, and meet her on equal terms." 
 
 " That won't be necessary now," said Marian 
 bitterly. " I congratulate you on the success of your 
 diplomacy, Ned ! " 
 
 " Perhaps it is providential, as Jessie says," mur- 
 mured Mrs. Butler. 
 
 "Oh, very providential!" cried Marian. "It's 
 as if it had all been arranged by the providence of 
 the theatre. I hate it ! Instead of taking place 
 romantically and prettily, among her old friends, 
 she 's obliged it to take place fancically, by a vulgar 
 accident, where there can be nothing pleasant about 
 it." 
 
 " Why, Marian," said her mother. " Do you 
 think she will accept him 1 " 
 
 " Accept him 1 Of course she will ! She is dying 
 to do it — I could see that all the time — and I could 
 hardly have patience with her for not seeing it her- 
 self. She 's old enough." 
 
 " Well, never mind about that," said Ray, authori- 
 tatively. " We have done what we all saw to be 
 right, and we must let the consequences take care of 
 themselves." 
 
408 A woman's reason. 
 
 " Oh, it 's very easy to say that," cried Marian. 
 " But, for my part, I 'ni sorry I did right." 
 
 " Well, your doing wrong in this case wouldn't 
 have helped. My doing right alone was enough to 
 put everything at sixes and sevens." 
 
XIX. 
 
 A SERIES of trivial chances brought Helen and 
 Lord Kainford together alone, before she could get 
 away from the Wilsons' after lunch. The first 
 train for town did not start till three, and it was 
 impossible that she should shut herself up in her 
 room and avoid him until that time. In fact she 
 found that there was nothing in his mere presence 
 that forced her to any such defensive measure, "while 
 there was much in the fatal character of the situa- 
 - tion, as there is in every inevitable contingency, to 
 calm if not to console her ; and the sense of security 
 that came from meeting him by accident, where she 
 ■was perfectly free to say no, and could not seem by 
 the remotest possible implication to have invited an 
 advance from him, disposed her in his favour. They 
 met certainly with open surprise, but their surprise 
 •was not apparently greater than that of the Wilsons 
 in bringing their guests together; and when Mr. 
 Wilson explained that he owed the pleasure of 
 Lord Eainford's company for the night to a domestic 
 exigency at the Butlers', Helen divined that Eay's 
 thoughtfulness had given her this chance of escape, 
 and wondered if Lord Rainford was privy to it. 
 But he was listenino; with his head down to Mrs. 
 
410 A woman's reason. 
 
 Wilson's explanation of the chance that had given 
 them the pleasure of Miss Harkness's company ; she 
 wondered if he were wondering whether she knew 
 that he was coming and had fled on that account ; 
 but it was impossible to guess from anything he said 
 or looked, and she began to believe that Eay had 
 not told him she was with them. With impartial 
 curiosity she took note of the fact that his full-grown 
 beard had unquestionably improved his chin ; it 
 appeared almost as if something had been done for 
 his shoulders ; certainly his neck was not so long ; or 
 else she had become used to these traits, and they 
 did not affect her so much as formerly. More than 
 once during the lunch she thought him handsome ; 
 it was when his face lighted up in saying something 
 pleasant about seeing America again. He pretended 
 that even twenty-four hours of American air had 
 made another man of him. Mr. Wilson said that 
 he did not know that there had been any American 
 air for a week, and Lord Eainford said that he did 
 not mind the heat ; he believed he rather liked it. 
 
 " But you certainly haven't got it to complain of 
 here," he added. 
 
 " Oh, no, it 's always cool on the North Shore," 
 Mrs. Wilson explained. " We shall not let you go 
 home this afternoon, Miss Harkness," she turned to 
 say to Helen; "you would certainly perish in 
 Cambridge." 
 
 " Port," added Helen, with inflexible conscience ; 
 she never permitted herself or any one else the 
 flattering pretence that she lived in Old Cambridge. 
 "You must," she continued quietly. "I've made 
 all my preparations." This fact was final with a 
 
A woman's reason. 411 
 
 woman, and Mrs. Wilson could only make a murmur 
 of distress, and beg her at least to go by a later 
 train, but Helen was firm also about the train ; she 
 said her trunk would be at the station, and she 
 must go then. If she had her formless intention 
 that this should be discouraging to Lord Rainford, 
 she could see no such effect in him ; he remained 
 unmoved, and she began to question whether at 
 sight of her he might not have lost whatever illusion 
 he had cherished concerning her. She said to her- 
 self that she knew she had changed, that she had 
 grown older and thinner, and plainer every way. 
 If this were so, it was best; she hoped — with a 
 pang — that it was so. She ought to have thought 
 of it before ; it might have saved her from giving 
 Marian pain. Of course he had entirely ceased to 
 care for her. 
 
 After lunch Mr. Wilson betrayed signs of heavi- 
 ness, which obliged his wife to the confession that 
 nothing could keep Mr. Wilson awake after lunch. 
 She sent him away for his nap, arid she was going 
 to lead her guests down over the lawn for a look at 
 the sea from the rocks by the shore, when a servant 
 came with some inexorable demand upon her. 
 
 " You know the way. Miss Harkness," she said. 
 "-Take Lord Eainford down there, and I will be 
 with you in a moment." 
 
 She hurried away with the maid, and Helen 
 descended the piazza steps and sauntered past the 
 beds of foliage-plants across the grass with her charge. 
 He did not leave her in a moment's doubt of his 
 mind or purpose after they were beyond hearing. 
 
 " Do you know why I have come back ? " he 
 
412 A woman's reason. 
 
 asked abruptly, and striving to catch the eyes she 
 averted. 
 
 " How should I — " she began, but he spared her 
 the sin of even an insinuated ignorance. 
 
 " I came back for you," he said with a straight- 
 forward sincerity that shamed her out of all evasion. 
 
 " Then I am sorry for that," she replied frankly, 
 " for you had better have forgotten me." 
 
 " That wasn't possible. I couldn't have forgotten 
 you when I knew you were not free ; how could I 
 forget you now 'i For the last year my life has been 
 a count of days, hours, minutes. If I have come 
 too soon, tell me, and I will go away till you let me 
 come again. I can wait !" 
 
 He spoke with the strength but not the vehemence 
 of his passion, and she stayed her fluttered nerves 
 against his quiet. If it were to be I'easonably talked 
 over, and dismissed like any other impossibility, it 
 would be very simple ; she liked him for making 
 it so easy ; she felt humbly grateful to him ; she 
 imagined that she could reconcile him to his fate. 
 
 " You must forgive me," he added, " if what I say 
 is painful. I will spend my life in atoning for it." 
 
 " There is nothing to forgive on my part. If you 
 can have patience with me." 
 
 "Patience?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't mean what you think !" 
 
 " I hope I haven't seemed impatient. I couldn't 
 excuse myself if I had. No one could have re- 
 spected, revered your bereavement more than I ; and 
 if I thought that I had sinned against it in coming 
 now — " 
 
 "No— no— " 
 
A woman's reason. 413 
 
 " It seemed to me that I had a kind of warrant 
 — permission^in something you said — something, 
 nothing — that took away all hope and then became 
 my hope — " 
 
 " Oh," she trembled, "what did 1 say f 
 
 "Nothing," he said, "if you remember nothing. 
 I abide by what you say now." 
 
 She was thrilled with an aesthetic delight in his 
 forbearance, and with a generous longing to recognise 
 it. " I know what you mean, and I blame myself 
 more than any words can say for letting you sup- 
 pose — It was my culpable weakness — I only 
 meant to save you — to spare you all I could ! " A 
 dismay came into his face that she could not endure 
 to see. " Oh, don't look so ! Did you — did you 
 really come back on account of that?" 
 
 "I misunderstood you — I see. Not perhaps at 
 first ; but afterwards. I came back because I thought 
 you told me that if you had been free you might 
 have answered me differently then." 
 
 " Yes, that 's what the words said ; but not what 
 they meant!" She silently grieved for him, walking 
 a little apart, and not daring to lift her eyes to his 
 face. He would not speak, and she had perforce to 
 go on. " Why did you ever care for me?" she 
 implored at last, rushing desperately at the question, 
 as if there might be escape on that side. 
 
 "Why?" he echoed. 
 
 "Surely, the first time we met — what was there 
 to make you even endure me ?" 
 
 "Endure?" He seemed to reflect. "I don't 
 think you were to blame. But it never was a ques- 
 tion of that. You — you were my fancy. I can't 
 
414 A woman's reason. 
 
 tell you better than that. And you have always 
 been so. It isn't for what you did ; it isn't for what 
 you said." 
 
 It seemed hopeless. They walked on, and they 
 only ceased from walking because they had reached 
 the brink of the rocks beyond which lay the sea. 
 She stood there looking on its glassy levels, which 
 shivered against the rocks at her feet in impulses 
 that were like her own feeble and broken purposes. 
 In a certain way life was past with her ; there could 
 be no more of what had been, no longer the romantic 
 tenderness, the heroic vision of love ; but there 
 could be honour, faith, aflFection. The sense of this 
 passed vaguely through her heart, and exhaled at 
 her lips in a long, hopeless sigh. 
 
 At the light sound he spoke again. " But I didn't 
 come back to make good any claim upon you. I 
 came to see you again because I must, and because 
 it seemed as if I had the privilege of speaking once 
 more to you. But perhaps I haven't." 
 
 " Oh, certainly, you have that !" she weakly 
 assented. 
 
 " I don't urge you to anything. I only tell you 
 again that I love you, and that I believe I always 
 shall. But I don't ask your answer now or at any 
 given time. I can wait your will, and I can abide 
 hy it then, whatever your answer is." 
 
 A heavy weight was on her tongue, which hin- 
 dered her from making her answer " No." A ship 
 lagging by in the offing as if it panted with full 
 sails for every breath of the light breeze, the whole 
 spectacle of the sea, intimated a reproach, poignant 
 as fleeting and intangible. She felt herself drifting 
 
A woman's reason. 415 
 
 beyond her own control, and any keeping -would be 
 better than none ; she longed for rest, for shelter ; 
 she no longer cared for escape. There was no 
 reason why she should refuse the love offered her. 
 She could not doubt its truth ; its constancy even 
 charmed her a little; she was a little in love, — 
 pensively, reluctantly, — with a love for herself so 
 steadfast, so patient, so magnanimous. The sense 
 of her own insufficiency to herself, the conviction 
 that after all, and at the very most, she was a half 
 success only even in the sordid and humiliating 
 endeavour which was the alternative, unnerved 
 her. 
 
 " Oh, what shall I say?" she asked herself; and 
 then looked up in terror lest she had uttered the 
 words. But she had not. He met her inquiring 
 glance only with a look of sympathy, in which per- 
 haps the hope suggested by her hesitation was be- 
 ginning to dawn. She appealed to him against 
 himself. 
 
 " I wish you had not come back. You have 
 made a great mistake." 
 
 His countenance fell again. 
 
 "A mistake?" 
 
 " Yes, you are mistaken in me. I 'm not at all 
 what you think me. If I were that, I shouldn't 
 be here, now, begging you for mercy. If I were 
 not so foolish, so fickle-minded, that no words can 
 describe me, he would never have left me ; he would 
 have been alive and with me. Oh ! " she cried, " I 
 can't let any one else trust me or believe in me for 
 an instant. It isn't as if I were bereft in any 
 common way ; it 's as if I had killed him !" 
 
416 A woman's reason. 
 
 Lord Rainford remained so little moved by this 
 assumption of guilt that she added, " Ah, I see you 
 won't believe me ! " 
 
 " No," he said. " I understood something of that 
 from Ray ; and if I hoped only to be your friend — 
 if I knew I was never to see you again — I should 
 still say that you were wrong in blaming yourself 
 now ; that you were right then in wishing to make 
 sure of yourself before you married him. It would 
 have been unjust to him to have done less." 
 
 "Oh, does it seem so to you?" she implored. 
 " That was the way it seemed to me then." 
 
 " And it ought always to seem so. If you 've 
 made it my privilege to speak to you of this matter — " 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes!" 
 
 " Then I say that I think what you did in that 
 matter ought to be your greatest consolation now. 
 It may be one of those eccentricities which people 
 have found in my way of thinking, but 1 can't 
 feel less reverently towards marriage than that." 
 
 He had never seemed so noble, so lovable even, 
 as at that moment. Her heart turned toward him 
 in a fervent acceptance of the comfort, the support 
 he offered her; it thanked him and rejoiced in 
 him; but it was heavy again with its former 
 dismay when he said, '" I don't urge you to any 
 decision. Remember I am always yours, whether 
 you refuse nie or not." 
 
 She perceived then that it was not really a ques- 
 tion of her and Robert, but of her and Lord Rain- 
 ford, and that the decision to which he did not 
 urge her must rest finally with her. If she could 
 have been taken from herself without her own 
 
A woman's reason. 417 
 
 consent, passively, negatively, it would have been 
 another affair. 
 
 She gathered herself together as best she could. 
 " I, am acting very weakly, very wrongly. I 've 
 no excuse but that this is all a surprise to me. I 
 didn't know you were in this country. I didn't 
 dream of ever meeting j'^ou again till three hours 
 ago, when Mrs. Eay told me you were coming. 
 Then I ran away from her to avoid meeting you. 
 Yes, I had better be frank ! It seemed horrible to 
 me that I should meet you in her house ; you could 
 never have believed that I hadn't wished to meet you." 
 
 " That 's what I should be glad to believe, if I 
 could. But I saw — I agreed with Eay — that it 
 might not be leaving you quite free in every way ; 
 and so I was glad to accept his suggestion that I 
 should come here first till something could be 
 arranged — till you could be told." 
 
 "That was like Mr. Eay," interrupted Helen. 
 "I see how it has all happened; and oh, I'm so 
 sorry it 's happened ! " 
 
 The young man turned pale. But he answered 
 courageously, " I 'm not. I had to know whether 
 there was any hope for me ; I had to know it from 
 you. 
 
 " Yes," she assented, moved by his courage. 
 
 " And I should not have gone away without at 
 least making sure that there is none, and that is all 
 I ask you now." 
 
 " But if I can 't tell you 1 I must wait — I must 
 think. You must give me time." 
 
 "Did I seem to be impatient T"' he asked with 
 exquisite deference and protest. 
 
 2 D 
 
418 A woman's reason. 
 
 "No. It must have been my own impatience — • 
 I don't 'know what — and you mustn't try to see 
 me again — unless — " A deep blush dyed her face. 
 She had put some paces between them, with a sort 
 of nervous dread that he might ofTer his hand in 
 parting. She now said abruptly, " Good-bye," and 
 turned and ran up toward the house, leaving him on 
 the rocks by the sea. 
 
 Mrs. Wilson met her half-way across the lawn. 
 " I was coming to join you," she began. 
 
 " Lord Eainford is there," said Helen. " Mrs. 
 Wilson, I -find that I must see Mrs Eay again 
 before I go to town. Could you let them drive 
 me across, and then to the station 1" 
 
 " Why, certainly," said Mrs. Wilson in the 
 national terms of acquiescence. 
 
XX. 
 
 At first Fenton's arrival on the island had seemed, 
 like the breaking of the steamer's shaft, the storm, 
 the shipwreck, the escape to the reef, and the voyage 
 in the open boat, one step in a series in which there 
 was no arrest, and in which there was at least the 
 consolation of movement from point to point. But 
 this consolation ceased with his last glimpse of the 
 sail, in which all hope of escape fainted and died; 
 and it did not revisit him when he gathered courage 
 to explore the fairy solitude of the atoll. It was 
 so small as to have been abandoned even by 
 the savages of those seas, who forsake their over- 
 peopled islands, and wander from reef to reef 
 in search of other homes, and it would never be 
 visited from the world to which he had belonged. 
 The whalers that sometimes stop for water at the 
 coral islands would not touch at this little point of 
 land, lifted, like a flower among its thorns, above 
 those perilous rocks. It had probably never been 
 laid down on any chart; in a century which had 
 explored every part of the globe, it must be a spot 
 unknown to civilised men. The soil showed like 
 snow through the vegetation that thinly covered 
 it, and the perpetual green on white repeated itself 
 
420 A woman's eeason. 
 
 ill the trailing vines that overran the coral blocks, 
 ■with narrow spaces of sea between, which Fenton 
 leaped, in his round of the island, to find himself 
 again and again on the white soil of the groves, 
 through which the palm struck its roots, and anchored 
 itself fast to the reef. At the highest point the land 
 rose fifteen feet above the sea ; at the widest place 
 it measured a hundred yards ; and if he had fetched 
 a compass of the whole, he would have walked less 
 than two mUes. They should not starve ; the palms 
 would yield them abundant fruit through the un- 
 varying year ; the sea, he knew, was full of fish. As 
 he emerged from the grove at the point at which he 
 had started, GifFen called out to him, " What 's that 
 on the tree right by your shoulder 1 " Fenton looked 
 round, and the bright blossom near him turned into 
 a bird. He put out his hand ; it did not move ; and 
 when he lifted it from its perch, it rested fearlessly 
 on his palm. He flung it from him with a sickening 
 sensation, and Giffen came running towards him. 
 
 "Hallo! what 's the matter ? " demanded Fenton. 
 
 " I thought mebbe it was poison ! " 
 
 " There 's nothing to kill us here," Fenton replied. 
 "Come, we must begin to live." 
 
 The sailors had left behind the remnant of the 
 bag of flour, and the peas and beans. Giflfen had 
 carried them uj) to the hut, and one day Fenton 
 found that he had made a garden and planted it with 
 them. They came up quickly, and then, as if the soil 
 lacked vitality, they withered away, all but a vine 
 sprung from a seed that Giffen found among the peas. 
 
A woman's reason. 421 
 
 He tenderly cherished this vine, which he hoped 
 would prove a musk-melon, or at least a cucumber ; 
 in due time it turned out a gourd. " My luck," he 
 said, and gathered his gourds, for drinking-cups. 
 
 In the maze which had deepened upon Fenton, 
 the whole situation had an unreality, as of some- 
 thing read long ago, and half-forgotten, and now 
 slowly recalled, point by point ; and there were 
 moments of the illusion in which it was not he who 
 was imprisoned there on that unknown island, but 
 the hero of adventures whom he had envied and 
 admired in boyhood, or known in some romance of 
 later life. The gun and the cartridges which they 
 treasured so carefully after they found traces of 
 a former savage habitation ; the tools which they 
 had brought from the wreck, and which tliey used 
 in shaping the timbers for their hut ; the palm- 
 leaves they plucked for its thatch ; the nuts they 
 gathered for their food and drink; the fishing- 
 lines they twisted from the fibre of the cocoa-bark ; 
 the hooks they carved from the bones of the birds 
 they ate, and the traps they set for game when the 
 wild things once so tame began to grow wary ; their 
 miserable economies of clothing ; the rude arts by 
 which they fashioned plates from shells, and cooking 
 utensils from the clay they found in sinking their 
 well ; the vats they made to evaporate the sea-water 
 for its salt : all these things seemed the well-worn 
 properties and stock experiences of the castaways of 
 fiction; he himself the figment of some romancer's 
 brain, with which the author was tqying for the 
 
422 A woman's reason. 
 
 purposes of his plot, to be duly rescued and restored 
 to the world when it should serve the exigency of 
 the tale. Once when this notion was whimsically 
 repeating itself to Fenton in the silence and solitude, 
 it brought a smile to his haggard face, and when 
 Giffen asked him what the matter was, he told him. 
 " No," said Giffen, " it ain't much like us." 
 That two modern men should be lost out of a 
 world so knit together with telegraphs and railroads 
 and steamships, that it seemed as if a whisper at any 
 point must be audible at all others, was too grotesque 
 a fact, too improbable for acceptance. It was not 
 like them, and it was not like any one he could 
 think of, and when he tried to imagine some con- 
 temporary and acquaintance in his case, it became 
 even more impossible than when he supposed it of 
 himself. 
 
 There were ironical moods in which he amused 
 himself with the carefully ascertained science of the 
 story-tellers as he recalled it, and in which he had a 
 fantastic interest in noting how near and yet how far 
 from the truth their study came. But there were 
 other times when the dreary sense of the hackneyed 
 character of the situation overpowered him, and he 
 dropped his work and lay with his face in the sand, 
 helpless and hopeless for hours, sick of the re- 
 petition of such stale inventions. There was no 
 greater reality in it all, when he recalled the narra- 
 tives of men actually cast away on desert islands, 
 though there were moments when the sum of what 
 they had suffered seemed to accumulate itself upon 
 
A woman's reason. 423 
 
 liis soul, and his heart and hand were heavy with 
 their sorrows. 
 
 Yet in spite of all, the simple and wholesome con- 
 ditions of his life were restoring him to physical 
 health, which reacted upon his mind at last ; and one 
 morning he woke with a formless, joyful expectation 
 that was like a hope. It was merely the habit of 
 hope, reviving from a worn-out despair, but he sprang 
 to his feet with a buoyancy of soul that he had not 
 known since the storm first began to close round the 
 Meteor. 
 
 Hitherto, the thought of Helen had been fruitless 
 torment, which he banished when he could, but now, 
 all at once, he found it an inspiration and an incen- 
 tive ; he thought of her gladly ; she seemed to call 
 him. 
 
 He left Giffen to kindle the fire for their breakfast, 
 and ran down to the lagoon for a morning bath. 
 The sun shone on a long black object that stretched 
 across the main channel from the sea, and swimming 
 out to it, he found it the trunk of a tree which had 
 drifted to their island. With Giffen's help he got 
 it inside of the reef, and floated it to their beach, 
 and he could not rest till they had dragged it up 
 out of the water. It was a ihe^sage from the world 
 they had lost, and the promise of rescue and return 
 to it. At the bottom of his heart he knew that it 
 might have drifted a thousand miles before it reached 
 them, but it was as easy to believe that it came from 
 land within a day's sail ; it was of a timber unknown 
 to the atolls ; the pebbles that it held in the net- 
 
424 A WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 work of its roots were from shores where there were 
 hills and rivers, from peopled shores that they might 
 reach if they had any craft in which they could 
 venture to sea. 
 
 Giffen walked up and down beside the log, and 
 examined it critically, stooping aside, and glancing at 
 it as if to make sure of its soundness iii every part. 
 
 " Well V demanded Fenton. 
 
 " Chop it along the top, and shape it up at the ends, 
 and dig it out ; and maybe we can fix some sort of 
 outrigger to it, like they use on their canoes around 
 here. I've seen pictures of 'em." 
 
 He made the suggestion with melancholy diffidence • 
 but Teuton caught at it eagerly. The wood was very 
 hard, and it cost them weeks of labour, with the 
 tools they had, before they were ready to launch their 
 canoe upon the lagoon. But even in those placid 
 waters, it proved hopelessly unseaworthy. Some 
 fatal defect of construction, which their skill could 
 not remedy, disabled it, and it capsized with Giffen, 
 w'ho was caught in the outrigger, and with difficulty 
 saved from drowning by Fenton. 
 
 " Well, sir," he said, a^ he walked dripping to their 
 hut, " we've got a lot of good firewood in that thing. 
 I believe if you hadn't had me around, you could have 
 made it go." 
 
 But the idea of escape had taken full possession of 
 Fenton's mind, and the failure of the canoe turned it 
 all upon another scheme which had begun to haunt 
 it. They had kept a fire burning night and day ever 
 since they had landed on the island, to attract the 
 
A woman's reason. 425 
 
 notice of any ship that came in sight; but now 
 Fenton determined to build a tower on the highest 
 point, and light a beacon on it, so that no lookout on 
 those seas could fail of the smoke by day or the 
 flame by night. 
 
 "All right," assented Giflfen, "it will kind of 
 occupy our minds any way." 
 
 " Don't say that ! " cried Fenton, with a pang. 
 
 "Well, I won't," returned Giffen penitently. 
 
 The tower was to be not only a beacon for friendly 
 sail, but a refuge from wandering savages who 
 caught sight of it. They must make it the centre 
 of defences to which they could resort if they were 
 attacked, and which they could hold against any 
 such force as would probably land on their atoll. 
 
 Fenton drew a plan, and by nightfall they had dug 
 the foundations of their fortress. They burnt some 
 of the coral blocks, which they brought from the 
 reef, for lime, and laid their walls strongly in 
 mortar. 
 
 The days passed, and as they toiled together, Fen- 
 ton had at last the heart to talk to his fellow-castaway 
 of the world to which they were preparing to return. 
 He found that to speak of his affairs in that world made 
 it not only credible again, but brought it very near. 
 He told Giffen that he was going to be married as 
 soon as he got back to Boston, and that he was going 
 to leave the navy, and try to get into some sort of 
 business ashore. He described Helen to his comrade, 
 and what she wore when he saw her last ; and then 
 he added, that she must be in black now, for she 
 
426 A woman's reason. 
 
 had lost her father, who died very suddenly a few 
 days after he sailed. 
 
 " I behaved badly," he added, with the feeling 
 that always struggled for utterance when he thought 
 of this, and which it was a relief to sjjeak out now. 
 " We had a misunderstanding, and I came off with- 
 out saying good-bye to him." 
 
 "That was pretty rough," said Giffen. "But you 
 can make it all right when you get back." 
 
 "Oh, it's all right now — with her," rejoined Fenton 
 quickly. 
 
 "And with him too, I reckon," suggested his 
 comrade. 
 
 " Yes, it must be," sighed Fenton. If the situation 
 was in anywise incomprehensible to Giff'en, he did not 
 try to explore it. He remained deferentially content 
 with what Fenton had volunteered, and he was 
 sympathetically patient when Fenton tried to make 
 him understand where Mr. Harkness's house was, by 
 a plan of the Common, which he drew on a smooth 
 surface of the plastered wall, with Park Street running 
 up one side, and .Beacon Street along the other, and 
 Beacon Steps ascending from it into the quiet Place, 
 where the house stood. He made a plot of the house, 
 up-stairs and down, with the different rooms marked 
 off : Helen's room at the front, Mr. Harkness's 
 room ; the room that he used to have when he 
 came home from school; the parlours, and the 
 library. He lingered fondly on the details; and 
 then he mapped the whole town for Giffen, ac- 
 curately placing the principal streets and squares and 
 
A woman's keason. 427 
 
 public buildings. He marked the lines of railroad 
 running out of the city, and the different depots. 
 "This," he said, placing the Albany Station, "is 
 where you would have to start for Kankakee. It 's 
 a little south of Chicago, isn't it 1 — on one of the 
 lines from Chicago to St. Louis 1 There 's a Kanka- 
 kee line, isn't there ?" He laughed for joy in the 
 assent which seemed to confirm the existence of the 
 places ; the sound of the names alone re-established 
 them. At times he stealthily glanced from this work 
 at the rim of the sea, where, as he had been silently 
 making-believe while he talked, there must be a sail. 
 But he bore the inevitable disappointment patiently, 
 and returned enthusiastically to his map ; he pro- 
 jected another map in sections, on a larger scale, 
 where the details could be more fully given. 
 
 Giffen did not speak much of his own life ; it was 
 nothing worth speaking of, he said ; but sometimes 
 at night he would drop a hint or scrap of his history 
 from which Fenton could infer what remained un- 
 spoken. It was the career of a feeble nature, con- 
 stantly pushed to the wall in the struggle of a 
 new country. All his life, Giffen had failed; he 
 had always had bad crops, bad partners, bad luck, 
 hard times ; if he went away from home to better 
 his condition, he made it worse ; when he came 
 back he found that he would have done better 
 to stay away. He bought on a rising market, and 
 sold with the first fall in prices. When a crash 
 came, it found him extended; the return of prosperity 
 overtook him without money or credit. He had 
 
428 A woman's reason. 
 
 tried all sorts of things with equal disaster : he had 
 farmed, he had kept store, he had run a sawmill, 
 he had been a book-agent, and agent for many patent 
 rights. In any other country he would have remained 
 quietly in some condition of humble dependence ; 
 but the unrest of the new world had infected him ; 
 he had spent his life in vain experiments, and his 
 last venture had been the most ruinous of all. He 
 had sold everything to get the means of going to 
 China, and when the common calamity, that could 
 scarcely be said to have blasted any hopes of his, 
 overtook him, he was coming home little better than 
 a beggar. 
 
 Even in that solitude he made Fenton his ideal, 
 with the necessity that is in such natures to form 
 themselves upon some other, and appreciated his 
 confidence and friendship as gratefully as if they 
 had been offered in the midst of men where he must 
 have been chosen out of a multitude for Fenton's 
 kindness. On his part, Fenton learned to admire 
 the fineness of spirit which survived all circumstance 
 in this poor fellow ; and when his hopes were highest, 
 he formed plans of doing something for Giffen in 
 the world. 
 
 When they had finished their tower, and removed 
 into it, he bade him make one more errand to the 
 hut they had abandoned, and get fire to light the 
 beacon. 
 
 Giffen refused. " No, sir ; better not have any of 
 my luck about it." 
 
 But he was off, early in the day that followed, to 
 
A woman's reason. 429 
 
 cut wood for their beacon ; and it was he who dis- 
 covered that they could make the densest smoke by 
 day in drying the fuel for the flame by night. 
 
 " Don't you think we ought to do something with 
 that canoe again ?'' he asked one day. 
 
 "No, not yet," answered Fenton. "There'll 
 be time enough for that if the beacon doesn't suc- 
 ceed. But it will succeed." He formlessly felt the 
 need of economising all the materials of hope within 
 him. If he turned so soon from the beacon to some 
 other device for escape, he knew that he must lose 
 his faith in it, and he could not bear the thought of 
 this loss. He was passionately devoting himself to 
 the belief that it must bring a ship to their rescue. 
 He divided the day and night into regular watches, 
 and whenever he came to relieve Giflfen, he questioned 
 him closely as to every appearance of the sea ; when 
 he lay down to sleep he hastened to take upon him- 
 self the burden of disappointment with which he 
 must wake, by saying to himself, " I know that he 
 will not see anything.'' He contrived to postpone 
 the anguish of his monotonous failure to conjure 
 any sail out of the empty air by saying, as each 
 week began, that now they must not expect to see 
 anything for at least three days, or five days, or 
 ten days to come. He invented reasons for these re- 
 peated procrastinations, but he was angry with Giffen 
 for acquiescing in them ; he tried to drive him into 
 some question of them, by making them fantastic, 
 and he was childishly happy when Giffen disputed 
 them. Then he urged other and better reasons : if 
 
430 A woman's reason. 
 
 it were fine, he said that nothing but stress of 
 weather would bring them a ship, and that they 
 could only hope for some vessel blown out of her 
 course, like the Meteor ; when it was stormy, he 
 argued that any vessel sighting their beacon would 
 keep away from it till the storm was past, but would 
 be sure to come back then, and see what their fire 
 meant. 
 
 " Yes," said GifFen, "but if we are going to keep 
 that fire up at the rate we have for the last three 
 months, we must begin to cut our cocoa palms.'' 
 
 " It isn't three months ! " cried Fenton. 
 
 Giffen proved the fact by the reckoning he had 
 kept on a block of coral in the tower : the tale of 
 little straight marks, one for each day, was irrefutable. 
 
 " Why did you keep that count 1" cried Fenton 
 desperately. '■' Let the time go, I say, and the 
 quicker it goes, and the sooner we are both dead, the 
 better ! Put out the fire ; it 's no use." 
 
 He left Giffen in the tower, and wandered away, 
 as far away as the narrow bounds of his prison 
 would permit. He stopped at a remote point of the 
 island, which he had not visited since the first day 
 when he had hastened to explore the atoll. The 
 hoarse roaring of the surf, that beat incessantly upon 
 the reef, filled the air ; the sea was purple all round 
 the horizon, and the sky blue above it ; flights of tern 
 and petrel wheeled and shrieked overhead : the sun 
 shone, tempered by the delicate gale, and all things 
 were as they had been half a year ago, as they must 
 be half a year hence, and for ever. In a freak of the 
 
A woman's reason. 431 
 
 idle curiosity that sometimes plays on the surface of 
 our deepest and blackest moods, he descended the 
 low plateau to look at a smoother and darker rock 
 which showed itself at the point where the reef 
 began to break away from the white sand. A growth 
 of soft sea-mosses clothed the rock, and it had a 
 fantastic likeness to a boat in shape. The mosses 
 waved back and forth in the water ; the rock itself 
 appeared to move, and Fenton fell upon it, and 
 clutched it, as if it had been some living thing 
 struggling to escape him. He pulled it up on the 
 sand, and then he sank down beside it, too weak to 
 stir, too weak to cry out ; the tears ran down his 
 face, like the tears of a sick man's feebleness. 
 
 Giffen found him beside the boat, which they 
 righted together without a word. 
 
 " Well, sir," he said at last, " I 'm glad you found 
 her." He went carefully over the places where it 
 had been patched, with a solemn and critical 
 scrutiny. " That 's our boat," he added. 
 
 " Yes, I thought so," assented Fenton. 
 
 " And those fellows — " 
 
 Neither of them put into words his conjecture as 
 to the fate of the men who had abandoned them : 
 they accepted in silent awe the chance of escape 
 which this fate, whatever it was, had given them; 
 but late that night, when they lay hopefully sleepless 
 in their tower, Giffen said, " I don't know as they 
 meant to leave us for good. I reckon, if they 'd got 
 through all right, they'd have come back for us." 
 
 " Yes, we must believe that," replied Fenton. 
 
432 A woman's reason. 
 
 How the boat had reached their atoll, and when, 
 remained the secret of the power that had given it 
 back to them. It was enough for them that the little 
 craft was not beyond repair; it was thoroughly water- 
 logged, and it must be some time before they could 
 begin work upon it ; but they spent this time in 
 preparing material, and gathering provision for their 
 voyage. They stocked it with nuts, and dried and 
 salted fish sufficient to last them for six weeks ; they 
 filled Giffen's crop of gourds with water. "More of 
 a tank than cucumbers or musk-melons would have 
 been, after all ; and better than cocoa-nuts," he 
 quietly remarked. They were of one mind, what- 
 ever happened, never to return to their atoll ; they 
 had no other definite purpose ; but they talked now 
 as if their escape were certain. 
 
 " It stands to reason," said Giffen, "that it's meant 
 for us to get back, or else this boat wouldn't have 
 been sent for us;" and he began to plan a life as 
 remote from the sea as he could make it. "When 
 I put my foot on shore, I ain't going to stop walking 
 till I get where salt water is worth six dollars a 
 quart; yes, sir, I'm going to start with an oar on 
 my shoulder ; and when some fellow asks me what 
 that thing is, I 'm going to rest, and not before ! " 
 
 They built a fire on the tower that would last all day 
 and night, and then they set sail out of the lagoon, 
 and through the breakers beyond the reef. The 
 breeze was very light, but the sky was clear, with 
 the promise of indefinite good weather ; and before 
 nightfall they saw the plumes of their palms form 
 
A woman's reason. 433 
 
 themselves into the tufts into which they had grown 
 from the points they had first discovered on the 
 horizon; they became points again, and the night 
 softly blotted them from the verge of the ocean. 
 
 They had neither compass nor sextant ; under 
 strange stars and alien constellations they were 
 wandering as absolutely at the will of the winds and 
 waves as any savages of those seas. For a while 
 they saw the light of their beacon duller and paler 
 on the waters where their island had been. This, 
 too, died away, and the night fell round them on the 
 illimitable sea. 
 
 Fenton stood the first watch, and when he gave 
 the helm to Giffen, he simply bade him keep the 
 boat before the wind. In the morning, when he 
 took it, he asked if the wind had shifted or freshened, 
 and still kept the boat before it. Toward sunset they 
 sighted a series of points on the horizon, which, 
 as they approached, expanded into the plumage of 
 palms ; the long white beach of an atoll grew from 
 the water, and they heard faintly the thunder of the 
 surf along the reef. It looked larger than their 
 own island, and they scanned it anxiously for some 
 sign of human life. But there were no huts under 
 the palms, and no smoke rose above their fronds. 
 
 The breeze carried their boat toward the shore, 
 and Fenton decided to pass the night on the atoll. 
 If it were, as it looked, larger than the atoll they 
 had abandoned, it must be known to navigation, and 
 sooner or later it might be visited by ships for water; 
 or the hkhe-de-Tmr, which abounds in the larger 
 
 2 E 
 
434 A woman's reason. 
 
 reefs, miglit bring American traders for a freight 
 of the fish for China. They miglit find traces of 
 European sojourn on the island, _and perhaps some 
 hint by which they could profit when they set sail 
 again. 
 
 In the failing light, they stove their boat on the 
 reef, but the breaker that drove them upon it carried 
 them beyond, and once in the smooth lagoon, they 
 managed to reach the shore before the boat filled. 
 They pulled her up on the sand, and climbed to the 
 top of the low plateau on which the palms grew ; 
 but it was now so dark that they could see nothing, 
 and they waited for the morning to show them the 
 familiar paths and trees of their own atoll, and their 
 tower gleaming white through the foliage in the dis- 
 tance. They walked slowly towards it in silence, 
 and when Giffen reached it, he busied himself in 
 searching the ashes of the beacon for some spark of 
 fire. He soon had a blaze ; he brought water from 
 the well, and boiled the eggs of the sea-birds, which 
 he gathered from their nests in the sedge. He broke 
 some young cocoa-nuts, and poured the milk into 
 the shells they had made for drinking-cups, and then 
 he approached Fenton, where he sat motionless and 
 vacant-eyed, and begged him to eat, humbly, as if he 
 expected some outbreak from him. 
 
 " No," said Fenton quite gently. " But you eat. 
 I 'm not hungry." 
 
 " I reckon," said Giffen piteously, " the wind must 
 have changed in the night without my knowing it, 
 and brousiht us risfht back." 
 
A woman's REASON. 435 
 
 " Very likely," answered Fenton. " But it makes 
 no difference. It was to be, any way." 
 
 He hardly knew how the days began to pass 
 again ; he no longer thought of escape • but a 
 longing to leave some record of himself in this 
 prison, since he was doomed never to quit it, grew 
 up in his heart, and he wrote on the walls of his 
 tower a letter to Helen, which he conjured the 
 reader, at whatever time he came, to transcribe and 
 send to her. He narrated the facts of his ship- 
 wreck, and the barren history of his sojourn on the 
 island, his attempt to escape, and his return to it. 
 He tenderly absolved her from all ties and iiromises, 
 and prayed for her ,happiness in whatever sort she 
 could find it. In this surrender he felt the pang 
 which the dead may be supposed to know, when the 
 soul passes into the exile of eternity, and sees those 
 it leaves behind inevitably committed to other affec- 
 tions and other cares. Sometimes it seemed to him 
 as if he might really be dead, and all his experience 
 of the past year a nightmare of the everlasting 
 sleep. 
 
 The tern that were nesting on the atoll when he 
 first landed, and that visited it every six months to 
 rear their young, were now a third time laying their 
 eggs in the tufts of coarse thin grass. He thought 
 these visits of the birds were annual, and there was 
 nothing in the climate to correct his error, or group 
 in fixed periods the lapse of his monotonous days. 
 There was at times more rain, and again less rain ; but 
 the change scarcely divided the year into seasons ■ 
 
436 A woman's reason. 
 
 flower and fruit were there at all times, and spring, 
 summer, autumn, and winter, with their distinct 
 variety, were ideas as alien as hills, and valleys, and 
 streams, in this little land, raised for the most part 
 scarcely a man's height above the sea, where there could 
 never even be the names of these things in any native 
 tongue. Once or twice the atoll felt the tremor of 
 an earthquake, that perhaps shook continental shores, 
 or perhaps only sent its vibrations along the ocean 
 floor, and lifted, or let fall beneath the waves, some 
 tiny point of land like their own ; and once there had 
 fallen a shower of ashes from the clear sky, which 
 must have been carried by a wind-current from some 
 far-off volcano. This, with the log that had drifted 
 to their reef, was their sole message from beyond the 
 wilderness that weltered around them from horizon 
 to horizon, and knew no change but from calm to 
 storm, and then to calm again. The weather was 
 nearly always fair, with light winds or none; and 
 often they saw an approaching cloud divide be- 
 fore it reached their atoll and pass on either hand, 
 leaving it serenely safe between the two paths of 
 the tempest. At last, how long after their return 
 Fenton could not tell, in his indifference to the 
 passage of the weeks and days, — a change came over 
 the sky different from any that had portended other 
 storms, and before night a hurricane broke from it 
 that heaped the sea around their island, and drove it 
 across the lagoon and high over the plateau. For 
 two days and nights it beat against the walls of their 
 tower ; then the waters went down, and the ravaged 
 
A woman's reason. 437 
 
 atoll rose from the sea again. But when Fenton 
 clambered to the top of the tower, and looked out, he 
 saw that it could no longer be a refuge to them. 
 The trees of the cocoa groves were blown down and 
 flung hither and thither ; their tops were twisted off 
 and tossed into the lagoon ; their trunks lay tangled 
 and intertwisted, as if they had been straws in the 
 froHc of a whirlwind. The smooth beach of the 
 lagoon was strewn with fragments of coral, torn from 
 the reef and tossed upon it ; the grassy level where 
 the sea-birds nested was scattered with their dead 
 bodies, caught among the coarse herbage and beaten 
 into the white sand. 
 
 He left Giffen cowering within, and ran down 
 from the tower to look for the boat. He found it 
 lodged in a heap of cocoa fronds, and wedged fast 
 among some blocks of coral; and he hurried back 
 with his good news. He met Giifen at the door. 
 "All right," he said to the anxious face. "The boat 
 is safe, and we must get her afloat. You see we can't 
 stay here." 
 
 "No," said Giflfen, "we can't stay." He looked 
 drearily out over the wreck of their fairy isle, and 
 then with a sigh he turned into the tower again, 
 and crouched down in the corner where Fenton had 
 left him. 
 
 "What's the matter? Are you sick, Giffen?" 
 demanded Fenton. 
 
 Giffen did not answer, but rose with a stupid air, 
 and came out into the sun. He shivered, but 
 gathered himself together, and in a dull mechanical 
 
438 A woman's reason. 
 
 ■way set about his usual work of getting breakfast. 
 He ate little, but when Fenton had finished, he went 
 with him, and helped him to cut the boat free. It 
 was hard getting it out of the mass of rocks and 
 boughs, and it was noon before they had dragged 
 her back from the point where the sea had carried her 
 to a free space where they could begin to repair her. 
 
 At the end of a week they had her afloat in the 
 lagoon once more, and provisioned from the stores 
 accumulated in the tower. 
 
 The morning when they were to set sail, Giffen 
 could not rise from his bed of grass. " I can't go," 
 he said ; " I 'm sick." 
 
 Fenton had s«en that he was ailing with a fear 
 from which he revolted in a frenzy of impatient exer- 
 tion. If they were but once at sea again, he had 
 crazily reasoned with himself, then they could not 
 help themselves, and, sick or well, they must make 
 the best of it. This illusion failed him now, and he 
 abandoned himself to a cynical scorn of all that had 
 hitherto supported and consoled him. Every act of 
 self-sacrifice, every generous impulse, seemed to him 
 the part of a fool or a madman. Till now he had 
 thought that he had somehow endured and dared all 
 things for Helen's sake, that anything less than he 
 had done would have been unworthy of her; but 
 now the devil that was uppermost in him mocked 
 him with the suggestion that the best he could ever 
 have done for her was to live for her, and do his 
 utmost to return to her. As he stood looking at the 
 face of the poor wretch who had twice betrayed him 
 to despair, and who, at last, in this supreme moment, 
 
A woman's reason. 439 
 
 had fallen helpless across the only avenue of escape 
 that remained to him, he trembled with a strong temp- 
 tation. He turned away, and went down to the lagoon- 
 beach, where the boat swung at anchor, and the sail, 
 on which he had worked late the night before, lay 
 on the sand, ready to be stepped. The boat lightly 
 pulled at its moorings on the falling tide, and he felt 
 .the strain as if it had been anchored in his heart. 
 He drew it to the shore ; he stepped the mast, and 
 ran up the sail, which filled and tugged in the 
 morning breeze. He dropped it again, and went 
 back to GiflFen. 
 
 As the days passed, he watched with the sick man, 
 and brought him the water he craved, and the food 
 he loathed ; there was nothing else to be done. One 
 night Giffen roused himself from the torpor in which 
 he remained sunken, for the most part, and asked : 
 " Did you ever hear that people were not afraid to 
 die when they came to if?" 
 
 " 1 've heard that — yes," said Fenton. 
 
 " I just happened to think of it ; because this is the 
 first time, since I can remember, that I wasn't afraid. 
 I was awfully afraid to stay with you on that rock 
 when the captain's boat went away ; but I ain't sorry 
 for it now. No, sir, you 've behaved to me like a 
 white man from the start ; and now, I '11 tell you 
 what I want you to do. I 'm all right here, — or I 
 will be, pretty soon, I reckon — and I don't want you 
 to lose any more time. The boat 's ready, and now 's 
 your last chance. Don't you mind me ; I' d only 
 bring you bad luck, any way. If you find land, or 
 a ship picks you up, you can come back and see how 
 I 'm getting along." 
 
440 A -WOMAN'S REASON. 
 
 What had been Fenton's temptation became the 
 burden of the sick man's delirium, and he frantically 
 urged him to go while there was still time. He 
 seemed to wear this notion out through mere iter- 
 ation ; and at last, when he awoke one day, " I 
 dreamt," he said, "that there was a ship!" That 
 night, sleeping or waking, he raved of a ship that 
 had come to take them away. The third morning 
 after, he opened his eyes, and looked into his com- 
 rade's face with ominous recovery of intelligence. 
 " Has it come 1" he asked eagerly. " The ship 1" 
 
 "No, you dreamed it, Giffen," returned Fenton, 
 with a tender compassion unalloyed by self-pity. 
 
 " My luck," said Giffen. He gasped, and made a 
 mechanical effort to rise. He gave a sort of cry, 
 and fixed a stare of wild demand on Fenton, who 
 caught him in his arms. 
 
 Fenton covered up the dead face with a branch of 
 palm, and walked giddily out into the sun. It was 
 rising a red, rayless ball, and against this disk the 
 figure of a ship seemed printed. He passed his hand 
 over his eyes, but when he took it away, the spectre 
 remained. He thought he saw a boat lying at the 
 lagoon-beach, and her crew advancing up the sand 
 toward him, men with friendly, home-like faces. 
 They wavered and glided in the vision his watch- 
 worn eyes reported to his reeling brain. 
 
 Then one of them called out to the strange figure, 
 with matted hair, and long beard, and haggard eyes, 
 that had stopped as if with the impulse to turn and 
 fly,—" Hallo ! ' 
 
A woman's reason. 441 
 
 A shudder went through Fenton as he stayed him- 
 self, and faced the men again. He could not speak, 
 but the men waited. At last, " For God's sake," he 
 gasped, "are you something in a dream 1" 
 
 " No," replied the leader with slow gentleness, as 
 if giving the idea consideration. " We 're a boat's 
 crew from the whale-ship Martha Brigham of New 
 Bedford, come ashore to see what that smoke means. 
 Who are you ?" 
 
XXI. 
 
 " I WISH to speak with you, Marian — instantly !" 
 cried Helen, re-appearing at the Butlers'. Marian 
 was alone in her room ; Mrs. Butler was lying down, 
 and the younger sisters were on the rocks by the 
 sea, looking across the cove to the rocks on the 
 Wilson place, as if they might hope to rend from 
 them the secret of what had happened when Helen 
 and Lord Eainford met in the Wilson cottage. With 
 the inhumanity of their youth and inexperience they 
 thought it very funny, and they had come away 
 where they could enjoy this sense of it, apart from 
 those to whom it seemed a serious affair. 
 
 It had become so serious to Marian, that she 
 quaked in rising to meet Helen, as if she had been 
 rising to meet Helen's ghost, and she no more 
 thought of asking her to sit down than of offering a 
 chair to an apparition. 
 
 " I didn't know he was to be there, Helen, indeed 
 I didn't," she made out to say, after the moment in 
 which she had remained fascinated by the intensity 
 of the girl's face. 
 
 " Oh, it 's long past, that !" cried Helen. " What 
 I wish you to tell me is simply this, Marian Eay : Is 
 your husband part of your whole life, and was he 
 from the very first instant?" 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 443 
 
 "From the very first instant?" 
 
 "That you were married — so that you couldn't 
 think, couldn't consider — whether you cared for him 
 — loved him 1" 
 
 " Of course ! It was all settled long before. 
 Did—" 
 
 " I knew it ! And if it isn't settled before, it 's no 
 time afterwards?" 
 
 "What an idea ! What do you mean, Helen ?" 
 
 " And it 's all false about girls that marry a man 
 because they respect and honour him, and then have 
 a romantic time finding out that they love him 1 " 
 
 " What nonsense ! It 's the most ridiculous thing 
 in the world ! But — " 
 
 " I was sure of it ! If there 's anything sacred about 
 marrying, it 's the love that makes it s.o ; and they 
 might as well marry for money or position ! " She hid 
 her face in her hands, and then burst out again : " But 
 I will never have such a hideous thing on my con- 
 science — such a ghastly wrong to Mm 1 He said 
 himself that if I wasn't sure that I cared for Kobert, 
 it would have been unjust to marry him-; and now 
 how is it better with him ? It 's worse ! He said 
 it to comfort me, and it seems monstrous to turn his 
 words against him ; but if the truth kills him he had 
 better die ! Yes, a thousand times ! And don't 
 suppose I didn't see all the advantages of accepting 
 him that you did ; and that I wasn't tempted to 
 persuade myself that I slwuld care for him. I only 
 blush and burn to think that I saw them, and that 
 I 've come away, even now, without crushing every 
 spark of hope out of him ! I do respect and honour 
 him — ^yes, he is high-minded and good every way; but 
 
444 A woman's reason. 
 
 if I don't love him, his being so good is all the more 
 reason why I shouldn't marry him. Hush ! Don't 
 say a word, Marian !" she cried, hastening to spoil 
 her point, as women will, with hysterical insistence. 
 " That dreadful old man who bought our house came, 
 while you were gone, and offered himself to me one 
 day : it makes me creep ! How would it be any 
 better to marry Lord Rainford, if I didn't love him, 
 than to marry Mr. Everton ? " 
 
 She did not wait for the indignant protest that 
 was struggling through Marian's bewilderment at 
 this extraordinary revelation and assumption. "I 
 shall always say that you meant the kindest and 
 best ; but if you try to argue with me now, I shall 
 never forgive you ! Good-bye, dear !" She flew at 
 her friend, and catching her round the neck, convul- 
 sively kissed her, and ran out of the house, without 
 seeing any one else. " To the station," she gasped, 
 climbing into the Wilson phaeton. "And, do 
 hurry, please ! " 
 
 Mrs. Butler came into Marian's room as soon as 
 Helen had driven away. " Well 1" she said. 
 
 " Oh, she's refused him,- — or just the same thing ! 
 How shall we meet him ? What shall we do V 
 
 " I'm not concerned about that. What will she 
 do, poor thing ? That 's what wrings my heart. 
 She has thrown away the greatest chance that a 
 girl ever did : wealth, position, devoted goodness, 
 the truest and noblest heart! — Marian!" cried 
 Mrs. Butler, abandoning herself for a moment to 
 her compassionate impatiehce, " why did she do 
 it?" 
 
 "She said she didn't love him," answered 
 
A woman's reason. 445 
 
 Marian shortly, with a cast of contempt in the 
 shortness. 
 
 " Well, well," said Mrs. Butler, with resignation. 
 She had found, as every woman must, who lives to 
 her age, that life has so many great interests besides 
 love, that for the time she was confused as to the 
 justice of its paramount claim in a question of mar- 
 riage. 
 
 In fact, Helen found her champions in two men. 
 When Mrs. Butler stated the case to the Captain, 
 he promptly approved of Helen's decision. 
 
 Mrs. Butler stood surprised. " Why, do you think 
 that people ought to marry from a fancy?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " I hope my girls will never marry without it," 
 said the Captain. 
 
 Marion reported the result to Ray, with a vexation 
 at Helen's ridiculous behaviour, which he allowed 
 her to vent freely before he answered her a word, 
 chewing the end of his cigarette, as they walked to 
 the house together from the beach, where she found 
 him pulling his dory up on the sand. " It 's not 
 only that she 's thrown away such a splendid chance, 
 but she 's thrown it away for the mere memory of a 
 man who couldn't compare with Lord Rainford in 
 any way — even if he were alive. And when Robert 
 Fenton was alive, she wasn't certain, till it was too 
 late, that she cared for him ; and kept him waiting 
 for years and years, till she could make up her mind, 
 and had to quarrel with him then before she was 
 sure of it. And now for her to pretend that she 
 never can care for any one else, and that she can't 
 many Lord Rainford because she doesn't love him — 
 
446 A woman's reason. 
 
 as if she were a girl of seventeen, instead of twenty- 
 five ! Oh ! I've no patience with her ! " 
 
 Ray said nothing for a moment. Then, " There 's 
 some diiference between not being sure you do, and 
 being sure you don't," he remarked quietly, " and 
 the difference doesn't seem to be in Eainford's 
 favour." After a moment, he asked, without look- 
 ing at her, " What did you marry me for % " 
 
 " What nonsense ! You know ! " 
 
 "Yes, I always thought it was for love. How 
 would you like to have me think it wasn't ?" 
 
 "Don't be absurd!" cried his wife. But his 
 words went deep, and at the bottom of her heart she 
 felt in them a promise of the perpetual reconsecra- 
 tion of their marriage. 
 
 A story was at one time current (and still has its 
 adherents among those who knew vaguely something 
 of Helen's romance) to the effect that Fenton returned 
 at a moment when his presence seemed a miracle 
 opportunely wrought to save her from further 
 struggle, and to reward her for all her suffering and 
 self-sacrifice in the past. It fixed with much accu- 
 racy of date and circumstance the details of their 
 dramatic meeting at the little house in the Port, 
 where she found him waiting for her one hot, dusty 
 afternoon in the summer, when she came back, 
 broken in health and spirit, from a visit with some 
 friends at the sea-side. If the story had been true, 
 it would have brought them together the very day 
 Helen refused Lord Eainford. 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, she went back to her work 
 of making bonnets for cooks and second-girls in 
 
A woman's reason. 447 
 
 Margaret's cottage on Limekiln Avenue, under con- 
 ditions that would have caused an intelligent witness 
 of it to wonder whether she were not expiating an 
 error rather than enjoying the recompense of devotion 
 to a high ideal. The rewards of principle are often 
 scarcely distinguishable from penalties, and the 
 spectator is confounded between question of the 
 martyr's wisdom and a dark doubt of the value of 
 living out any real conviction in a world so badly 
 constituted as this. Helen, however, was harassed 
 by neither of these misgivings. She never regretted 
 her refusal of Lord Eainford, except for the pain it 
 inflicted ; she never blamed herself for anything but 
 the hesitation in which she was tempted to accept 
 him without loving him. Her sense of self-ap- 
 proval grew only the stronger and clearer with 
 the trials which gathered upon her in what might 
 have seemed to others a sort of malign derision. 
 Her custom fell off, and the patrons who remained 
 to her grew inevitably more and more into an odious 
 mastery; their exactions increased as her health 
 failed, and she could not always keep her promises 
 to them ; they complained that other people's bon- 
 nets were better made, and " more in the style." 
 
 One night she overheard through the thin parti- 
 tion that separated her chamber from Margaret's a 
 tipsy threat from Margaret's husband that he was 
 going to be master in his own house ; and that he 
 was going to turn that girl and her bonnets into the 
 street. He went off to his work in the morning, 
 sullen and lowering, and she and Margaret could 
 not look at each other. She fled to Boston for the 
 day, which she passed in incoherent terror at Clara 
 
448 A woman's reason. 
 
 Kingsbury's ; when she turned from this misery the 
 next morning and ventured back to Margaret's, an 
 explosion at the glass-works, so opportune that it 
 seemed to her for a black instant as if she were 
 guilty of the calamity through which she escaped, 
 had freed her from all she had to dread from Mar- 
 garet's husband. 
 
 But quite the same end of her experiment had 
 come. Margaret could not live upon the little 
 sum that Helen paid her for board ; in spite of her 
 impassioned devotion to her darling, and her good 
 intention (witnessed again and again to all the 
 saints), she was forced to break up her little 
 establishment and find a servant's place ; and Helen 
 did not know where else to go. 
 
 In her extremity she appealed, of course, neither 
 to the Butlers nor to Clara Kingsbury, but to Cor- 
 nelia Koot, and this proved to be the most fortunate 
 as well as the most natural course. Zenas Pearson 
 had just moved his photographic establishment up 
 from Hanover Street to the fashionable quarter of the 
 town, and had applied to Cornelia for some pretty- 
 appearing, respectable girl, to stay in the front room 
 and receive people, and show them the different 
 styles of photographs, and help them to decide in 
 what shape and size they would be taken. There 
 was nothing mean about Zenas Pearson, and he was 
 willing, he told Cornelia, to pay the right girl ten 
 dollars a week as a start-off, and to put it up to 
 twelve within the year if she behaved herself, and 
 showed any sconce for the business. 
 
 Cornelia trembled with excitement and eagerness 
 in laying the proposition before a person so perfectly 
 
A woman's reason. 449 
 
 adapted to the place iu every respect as Helen, and 
 they did not lose an instant in going to Zenas and 
 closing with him. Did she want to come right 
 off? he asked Helen, and at a little hesitation on her 
 part he looked more closely at her worn face and 
 said, " Well, take a week to recuperate, and come 
 the 20th. I don't know as I '11 he ready for you 
 much before that time, any way." 
 
 She spent the week with the Butlers, who were 
 now too well used to her eccentricity to attempt any 
 protest against this new phase of it. They had all 
 reconciled themselves to her refusal of Lord Eain- 
 ford ; even Marian Eay had accepted the inevitable, 
 and she and Helen had a long quiet talk about the 
 matter, in which they fully made up what had 
 almost been a quarrel between them about it, and 
 Marian told her the latest news of him, and how 
 splendidly he had behaved about her, justifying 
 and applauding her with a manly self-abnegation 
 which permitted no question of her conduct through- 
 out. 
 
 " Yes, he is very generous," said Helen, with a 
 sigh ; and something happened that day which made 
 her feel that the word was hardly adequate. She 
 had gone with Marian, who wished to give some 
 instructions about a picture she was having framed, 
 to the shop where Helen had her memorable meet- 
 ing with Lord Eainford j and when the business 
 was finished the proprietor said with a certain hesi- 
 tation : " Miss Harkness, you remember being in 
 our place about a year ago with an English gentle- 
 man who was looking at some imitation limoges 
 in the window 1 " 
 
 2 F 
 
450 A woman's reason. 
 
 Helen looked an amazed, and perhaps alarmed, 
 assent. 
 
 " He came back and bought them after you went 
 away, and said he would send his address ; but 
 we 've never heard of him from that day to this, 
 and we don't want his jars and his money. I 
 thought perhaps you could tell me who he was." 
 
 '• Yes," said Helen, " it was Lord Eainford. But 
 he 's in England now." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the proprietor. And as she said 
 nothing more, he presently bowed himself apolo- 
 getically away. 
 
 " Why didn't you let me give his address 1 " 
 asked Marian, who had been checked in a wish to 
 do so by a glance from Helen. 
 
 " I don't believe he ever intended to take them 
 away ; he thought they were hideous," Helen an- 
 swered. She added presently, " He must have gone 
 back to buy them because I said that the poor 
 wretch who painted them was to be pitied ! " 
 
 Marian had now been at home more than six 
 months, and her Anglo-mania had in some degree 
 abated. She no longer expected to establish an 
 hereditary aristocracy and a State Church among 
 us, whatever she secretly wished to do. She had 
 grown resigned to the anomalies of our civilisation 
 in some degree. She had rediscovered certain traits 
 of it that compared favourably even with those of 
 England ; but she cherished a conviction that an 
 English noble was the finest gentleman in the world ; 
 that her own husband was still finer was a mystery 
 of faith, easily tenable, though not susceptible of 
 
A woman's reason. 451 
 
 She now preserved the silence of one whose point 
 has been sufficiently made for her, and left Helen to 
 recognise it. Helen was not reluctant to do so. 
 " Yes, Marian," she said fervently, " considering 
 what had just happened, that was very magnani- 
 mous in him. It was exquisite ! " 
 
 " Oh, it was merely what he owed to himself as a 
 gentleman," said Marian, with well-concealed triumph. 
 
 It seemed to be a day of trial for Helen. A 
 gaunt, shabby man, coming down the pavement 
 towards them, lifted his hand half-way to his hat 
 at sight of her, and then, as if seeing himself 
 unrecognised, dropped it to his side again, and 
 slunk by. Helen turned and stopped him. " Mr. 
 Kimball ! Is that you 1" 
 
 " Yes, what there is left," answered Kimball, with 
 a ghost of his old quizzical smile, and the spectre 
 of his municipal, office-holding patronage of manner, 
 as he took Helen's extended hand. 
 
 " Why— why — what 's the matter V 
 
 " Well, I 've been sick for a spell back. Just 
 got to knocking round again," said Kimball eva- 
 sively. " You don't look over and above well your- 
 self, Miss Harkness." 
 
 " No, no, I 'm not well. But I 'm better now. 
 Are you — " She stopped, with her eyes upon his 
 conspicuous shabbiness, and, through an irresistible 
 association of ideas, she added — " Mr. Kimball, I 
 hope you got the money that I returned to you 
 safely ? " 
 
 Kimball hung his head, and kicked the pave- 
 ment with his toe. "Well, no," he answered re- 
 luctantly, " I didn't." 
 
452 A woman's reason. 
 
 " You didn't get it r' 
 
 " It 's all right. I told my wife at the time that 
 I knew you sent it. But I guess somebody in the 
 Post-Office got the start of me." 
 
 " Why didn't you tell me 1 " demanded Helen. 
 
 " Well, you know, I couldn't do that," said Kim- 
 ball. 
 
 Helen took out her purse. There were only twelve 
 dollars in it, and Marian had walked on, so that she 
 could not borrow of her, and make up the whole sum 
 at once. But she put the money in Kimball's hand, 
 and said, " I will brincf you the rest this very day.- 
 Shall I bring it to the Custom-House 1 " 
 
 "0 no ; there 's been a change, you know. My 
 collector was kicked out, and all our heads went 
 into the basket together. I ain't there any more. 
 I guess we '11 call this square now. I don't feel 
 just right.' about taking this money, Miss Hark- 
 ness. But I 've been sick, and my wife ain't very 
 well herself; and — well, I guess it's a godsend." 
 His lips twitched. " I feel kind of mean about it, 
 but I '11 have to stand it. There ain't a thing in 
 the house, or I wouldn't take it. My wife and me 
 both said we knew you sent it." 
 
 " Who in the world is your shabby friend, Helen 1 " 
 demanded Marian when Helen had o\ertaken her at 
 last. 
 
 " Oh, he used to be in the Custom-House. He 's 
 a character. He's the one who told Lord Rain- 
 ford, when he offered to deposit money for the duties 
 on those Egyptian things he brought me from you, 
 that it wasn't necessary between gentlemen ! " 
 
 " How amusing !" 
 
A woman's reason. 453 
 
 " Yes, I thought it was amusing too. But I don't 
 think I can ever laugh at him again." She shut 
 her lips till she could command her voice sufficiently 
 to tell what had just passed between her and Kim- 
 ball. 
 
 Marian continued to be amused by it. In the 
 flush of her re-Anglicisation, she said it was a very 
 American affair. But she added that something 
 ought really to be done for the chivalric simple-- 
 ton, and that she was going to tell Ray about 
 him. 
 
 During the week that Helen spent with the 
 Butlers, before she was to take her place in Zenas 
 Pearson's Photographic Parlours, as he called them, 
 the wisdom of her decision was tested by another 
 incident or accident — one of those chances of real 
 life which one must hesitate to record because they 
 have so much the air of having been contrived. 
 From her life in the Port she had contracted the 
 suburban habit of lunching at restaurants, so alien 
 to the Bostonian lady proper ; and one day, when 
 she was down town alone, she found herself at a 
 table in Parker's, so near that of two other ladies 
 that she could not help hearing what they said. 
 They were both dressed with a certain floridity, and 
 one was of a fearless, good-humoured beauty, who 
 stared a great deal about the room and out of the 
 window, and, upon the whole, seemed amused to 
 realise herself in Boston, as if it were a place whose 
 peculiarities she had reflected much upon, without 
 being greatly awed or dazzled by them. " We used 
 to see a great many Bostonians in California when 
 the Pacific road was first opened. They came out 
 
454 A WOMAN S REASON. 
 
 there in shoals, and I afterwards met them in Japan, 
 — men, I mean, of course. I had quite a flirtation 
 with one — ^the pleasantest one I ever met." The 
 lady breathed, above the spoil of the quail-on-toast 
 before her, a sigh to the memory of this agreeable 
 passage of her life. " Yes, a regular flirtation. It 
 was on the steamer coming to San Francisco ; and 
 he was on his way home to be married, poor fellow, 
 and I suppose he thought, Now or > never ! The 
 steamer broke her shaft, and had to put back to 
 Japan, and he took passage home on a sailing vessel 
 that we hailed, and she was lost, and the last that 
 was known of him he was left on a reef in the 
 Pacific with three others, while a boatful of people 
 went off to prospect for land. When the boat came 
 back they were gone, and nobody ever knew what 
 became of them." 
 
 " And whatever became of the girl, Mrs. Bowers t " 
 
 " Oh, as to that this deponent saith not. Con- 
 soled herself, I suppose, in the usual way." 
 
 The two women laughed together, and began to 
 pull up their sacks, which had dropped from their 
 shoulders into their chairs behind them. 
 
 Helen tried to speak, but she could not. She 
 tried to rise and seize the woman before she left 
 the room, to make her render some account of her 
 words. But the shame of a terrible doubt crushed 
 her with a burden under which she could not 
 move. When the waiter, respectfully hovering near, 
 approached at last- and, viewing her untouched plate, 
 suggestively asked if he could bring her anything 
 more, she said "No," and paid her check and came 
 out. 
 
A woman's reason 455 
 
 It was a beautiful day, but she walked spiritlessly 
 -ilong in the sunshine that seemed to smile life into 
 everything but her ; and she feebly sought to adjust 
 the pang of this last blow to some misdeed of her 
 own. But she could not. She could only think 
 how she should once have contrasted Lord Rain- 
 ford's nobleness with Robert's folly, and indignantly 
 preferred him. But now she was aware of not 
 liavipg the strength to do this — of not being able 
 to pluck her heart from the idea to which love and 
 loss had rooted it ; and she could not even wish to 
 wish anything but to die. In another world, per- 
 haps — if there were any other world — Robert could 
 explain and justify the weakness for which she could 
 not do other than pity him here. 
 
 Her brain was so dull and jaded withal, that when 
 she dragged . herself wearily up the steps at the 
 Butlers' door, she felt no surprise that it should be the 
 old Captain who opened it to her, or that he should 
 seek to detain her in the drawing-room alone with 
 him. At last she found something strange in his 
 manner, something mysterious in the absence of all 
 the others, and she asked, " What is it. Captain 
 Butler?" 
 
 He seemed troubled, as though he felt himself 
 unequal to the task before him. " Helen," he began, 
 " do you still sometimes think that those men's story 
 about Robert wasn't true 1 " 
 
 "I know it wasn't true. I always knew they 
 killed him. Why do you ask me that 1 " 
 
 " I didn't mean that," returned the Captain, with 
 increasing trouble, " but that perhaps he — " 
 
 She turned upon him in awful quiet. " Captain 
 
456 A woman's reason. 
 
 Butler, don't try to soften or break any bad news 
 to me ! What is it I haven't borne that you think 
 I must be spared now ? You will make it worse, 
 whatever you are keeping back. Did they leave 
 him there to starve on that rock 1 Did — " 
 
 " No — no. It isn't that. Mrs. Butler thought 
 that I could prepare — we 've had news — " 
 
 " News t — prepare 1 Oh, how can you mock me 
 so ? For pity's sake, what is it ?" 
 
 The Captain's poor attempt to mediate between 
 her arid whatever fact he was concealing broke down 
 in the appeal with which he escaped from Helen 
 through the open door, and called his wife. She 
 came quickly, as if she had been waiting near ; and 
 as on that day when she had told the girl of her 
 father's death, she took her fast in her arms. Per- 
 haps the thoughts of both went back to that hour. 
 
 " Helen— Helen— Helen ! It 's life this time ! 
 You have borne the worst so bravely, I know you 
 can bear the best. Eobert is here ! " 
 
 The papers of that time gave full particulars of 
 Teuton's rescue from the island on which he was 
 cast away, and the reader can hardly have forgotten 
 them. It is unnecessary even to record the details 
 of his transfer, after several months, from the whaler 
 which took him off, to another vessel homeward 
 bound, and of his final arrival in San Francisco. 
 When the miracle of his resurrection had become 
 familiar enough for Helen to begin to touch it at 
 here and there a point, she asked him why he 
 did not telegraph her from San Francisco as soon 
 as he landed, aud instantlj'^ answered herself that 
 
A woman's reason. 457 
 
 it would have killed her if he had done so ; and 
 that if he had not been there at once to help her 
 bear the fact of his being alive, she could not have 
 borne it. 
 
 They were married, and went to live in a little 
 house in a retired street of Old Cambridge, and 
 Margaret came to live with them. She sacrificed 
 to this end an ideal place in an expressman's family 
 in East Somerville, where she had the sole charge 
 of the housework for twelve persons ; but it was 
 something that Miss Helen kept no other girl ; and 
 it was everything that she could be with her when 
 Lieutenant Fenton should be ordered away to sea 
 again. He had six months' leave, and he tried to 
 find some occupation which would justify him in 
 quitting the navy. He found nothing, and in the 
 leisure of this time Helen and he concerned them- 
 selves rather with their past than their future. 
 They rehabilitated every moment of it for each other ; 
 and, as their lives came completely together again, 
 he developed certain limitations which at first 
 puzzled her. She did not approach that passage 
 which related to Lord Rainford without trying to 
 establish defences from which, if necessary, she 
 could make reprisals; and she began by abruptly 
 asking one day, " Robert, who is Mrs. Bowers ? " 
 
 " Did she turn up 1 " he asked in reply, with a 
 joyous guiltlessness that at once defeated and utterly 
 consoled his wife. "That was very kind of her! 
 But how did she find you out ? I never told her 
 your name ! " 
 
 " She never turned up^ — directly,'' said Helen ; 
 
45§ A woman's reason. 
 
 and then she told him how she happened to know 
 of Mrs. Bowers, and of the bad half-hour that lady 
 had given her. 
 
 " Well, she might call it a flirtation," said Fenton, 
 " but I didn't know it was one. / thought it was 
 just walking up and down the deck and talking 
 about you." 
 
 "I'd rather you wouldn't have talked to that kind 
 of people about me," returned Helen, with a retro- 
 spective objection which she tried in vain to make 
 avail her. 
 
 " How should / know what kind of person she 
 was ? I never took the least notice of anything she 
 did or said." 
 
 This was heavenly hopeless, and Helen resolved 
 that for the present at least she would not inculpate 
 herself But she found herself saying, " Well, then, 
 I'm going to tell you about something that all came 
 from my being desperate about you, and flirting a 
 little one day just after you sailed." She went on 
 to make a full and free confession, to which her 
 husband listened with surprisingly little emotion. 
 He could not see anything romantic in it at all. 
 He could not see anything remarkable in Lord 
 Rainford. 
 
 " You can't," he said finally, " expect me to admire 
 a man who came so near making an Enoch Arden of 
 me." 
 
 " Oh, you know he never came near doing any- 
 thing of the kind, Robert." 
 
 " He came as near as he could. Do you wish me 
 to admire him because you refused him ? You 
 refused me three times." , 
 
A woman's eeason. 459 
 
 " I wish you to — to — appreciate him." 
 Fenton laughed. " Oh, ■well, I do that, of course. 
 I 've no doubt he was a very good fellow ; and I 
 daresay he 's behaving more sensibly than I did. 
 From what you tell me, I think he '11 get over his 
 disappointment. Perhaps he '11 end by marrying 
 some one who will help him to complete his reaction, 
 and cure him of all his illusions about us over here. 
 But his buying that pottery was nothing. He would 
 have been a very poor creature if he had resented 
 your refusal ; I know that from my own experience." 
 He would not be serious about Lord Rainford ; he 
 made her share in the good-natured slight with which 
 husband and wife always talk over the sorrows of un- 
 lucky pretendants. He professed to find something 
 much more admirable in Kimball's quiet acceptance 
 of the loss he had incurred through Helen : that, he 
 said, was fine, for Kimball was supported by no 
 sentimental considerations, and had no money to 
 back his delicacy. He looked Kimball up, and made 
 friends with him ; and a man who could do nothing 
 to advance his own fortunes had the cheerful auda- 
 city to suppose that he might promote another's. 
 He wrote to "Washington, and tried to get Kimball 
 appointed assistant-keeper of one of the lighthouses 
 on Cape Ann ; but, pending the appointment of a 
 gentleman who had " worked " for the newly-elected 
 Congressman, Kimball found a place as night-watch- 
 man in a large clothing-house, where he distinguished 
 himself, when off duty one day, by quelling a panic 
 among the sewing-girls at an alarm of fire, and getting 
 them safely out of the building. The newspaper 
 idat following this affair seemed to have silently 
 
460 A woman's reason. 
 
 wrought upon the imagination of a public-spirited 
 gentleman, who about that time was maturing his 
 plans for the establishment of our well-known Ever- 
 ton Institute of Industrial Arts for Young Ladies. 
 The Institute was opened on a small scale in the resi- 
 dence of Mr. Everton at Beacon Steps, which he 
 devoted to it during his life, and at his death it 
 was removed to the new building at West Newton; 
 but from the first Kimball was put in charge as 
 janitor, and still holds his place from the trustees. 
 
 He came rather apologetically to announce his 
 appointment to the Fentons. " I don't seem to feel." 
 he said, " as if it was quite the thing to go in there 
 without saying ' By your leave ' to you, Mrs. Fenton. 
 I hain't forgot the first time I was in the house ; 
 and I don't suppose I ever passed it without lookin' 
 up at them steps and thinkin' of you, just how you 
 appeared that day when you came runnin' up witli 
 your bag in your hand, and I let you in." 
 
 " Yes, I remember it too, Mr. Kimball. But you 
 mustn't think of it as my old home, and you mustn't 
 feel as if you were intruding. If the place could be 
 anything to me after Mr. Everton had lived there, I 
 should be glad to think of you and Mrs. Kimball in 
 it, looking after those poor girls, as I know you will." 
 
 " I guess we shall do the best we know how by 
 'em. And whatever Mr. Everton is — -and I guess 
 least said 's soonest mended, even amongst friends, 
 about him in some respects — you can't say but what 
 it's a good object. If he can have girls without 
 any dependence but themselves taught how to do 
 something for their own livin', I guess it's about 
 equal to turnin' the house into a church. And I 
 
A WOMAN'S REASON. 461 
 
 guess the old gentleman 's about right in confinin' it 
 to girls brought up as ladies. I ain't much on caste 
 myself, as I know of, but I guess that 's the class of 
 girls that need help the most." 
 
 " yes, indeed ! " cried Helen fervently. " Of 
 all helpless creatures in the world, they are the 
 most to be pitied. I know you '11 be kind to them, 
 Mr. Kimball, and save their poor, foolish feelings as 
 much as you can, and not mind their weak, silly little 
 pride, if it ever shows itself." 
 
 " I guess you can depend upon me for that," said Kim- 
 ball. " I understand girls pretty well — or I ought to, 
 by this time. And once a lady, always a lady, I say." 
 
 Helen even promised to come with her husband 
 to see the Kimballs in her old home. She cour- 
 ageously kept her promise, and she was rewarded 
 by meeting Mr. Everton there. He received her 
 very cordially, showing no sort of pique or resent- 
 ment, — no more, Fenton suggested, than Lord Eain- 
 ford himself, — and took her over the house, and 
 explained all his plans to her with a flattering con- 
 fidence in her interest. There were already some 
 young ladies there, and he introduced Helen to 
 them, and, in the excess of his good feeling, hinted 
 at the desirability of her formally addressing them 
 as visitors to schools are expected to do. She 
 refused imperatively ; but to one of the girls with 
 whom she found herself in sympathy she opened 
 her heart and told her own story. " And oh !" she 
 said at the end, " do learn to do something that 
 people have need of, and learn to do it well and 
 humbly, and just as if you had been working for 
 your living all your life. Try to notice how men do 
 
462 A woman's reason. 
 
 things, and when you 're at work, forget that you 're 
 a woman, and, above all, a young lady." 
 
 After she came away, she said there was one 
 more thing she wished to say to that girl. 
 
 "What was that?" asked Fenton. 
 
 " Not to omit the first decent opportunity of 
 marrying any one she happened to be in love with." 
 
 " Perhaps it wasn't necessary to say that," sug- 
 gested her husband. 
 
 "No," sighed Helen; "and that's what undoes 
 all the rest." 
 
 When the Butlers heard of this visit of hers to 
 her old home, it seemed to them but another in- 
 stance of that extraordinary fortitude of spirit which 
 they had often reason to admire in her. Marian 
 Hay could not suffer it to pass, however, without 
 some expression of surprise that Fenton should have 
 allowed her to go : she was a little his rival on 
 behalf of Lord Eainford still, and she seized what 
 occasions she could for an unfavourable comparison of 
 their characters. In fact, now that he had really 
 come back, she had not wholly forgiven him for 
 doing so ; but the younger sisters rejoiced in him 
 as a thoroughly satisfactofy equivalent for the 
 romance they had lost in the nobleman. If Helen 
 was not to be Lady Eainford, it was consoling to 
 have her the wife of a man who had been cast away 
 on a desert island, and had been mourned for dead 
 a whole year and more. They were disappointed, 
 however, that he should not be always telling the 
 story of his adventures, but should only now and 
 then drop bits of it in a scrappy way, and once 
 — but once only — when he and Helen were at 
 
A woman's reason. 463 
 
 Beverley, they pinned him down to a full and minute 
 narration. 
 
 " Ah, but," said Jessie Butler, when all was told, to 
 the very last moment of his meeting Helen after his re- 
 turn, " you haven't said how yon felt, aty of the time." 
 
 " Well, you know," answered Fenton, rising, and 
 going over to where Helen sat dwelling on him with 
 sUning eyes, " I can look back and see how I ought 
 to have felt at given points." 
 
 " But — but how did you feel," pursued one of his 
 rapt auditors, " when — " 
 
 "No, no," said Fenton, "that will do! I've 
 given you the ■ facts ; you must make your own 
 fiction out of them. And I think, while you're 
 at it, you 'd better get another hero." 
 
 "Never!" exclaimed Jessie Butler. "We want 
 you. And we want you to behave something like a 
 hero, nov). You can, if you will. Can't he, Helen V 
 
 " I never can make him," said his wife fondly. 
 
 "Then that's because he doesn't appreciate his 
 own adventures properly. Now — " 
 
 " Why," explained Fenton, " the adventures were' 
 merely a lot of things that happened to me." 
 
 " Happened to you !" cried his champion against 
 himself in generous indignation. "Did it merely 
 happen to you to put that Tope round yon and swim 
 ashore with it when the ship struck 1 Did it merely 
 happen to you to stay there, and let the others go 
 off in the boat 1" 
 
 Fenton affected to give the arguments serious 
 thought. " Well, you know, I couldn't very well 
 have done otherwise under the circumstances." 
 
 " You needn't try to get out of it in that way! 
 
464 A woman's keason. 
 
 You have every attribute of a real hero," persisted 
 his worshipper. 
 
 The hero laughed, and did his best to bear the 
 part like a man. Another of the young girls took 
 up the strain. 
 
 " Yes, you would be entirely satisfactory if you 
 had only had some better companion in misfortune." 
 
 « Who,— Giffen V 
 
 " Yes. He seems so hopelessly commonplace,'' 
 sighed the gentle connoisseur of castaways. 
 
 "He was certainly not more than an average 
 fellow-being," said Fenton, preparing to escape. 
 " But he was equal to his bad luck." 
 
 When he and Helen were alone, he was a long 
 time silent. 
 
 " W^hat is the matter, Robert 1 " she asked 
 tenderly at last. 
 
 " Oh, nothing," he said. " But whenever it comes 
 to that point, I'm afraid that Giffen knew I wanted 
 to leave him to die alone there ! " 
 
 " You didn't want to ! " she protested for him. 
 
 "Ah, don't put it that way!" he cried. "The 
 best you can say for me is that I didn't do it." 
 
 She could only tell him that she loved him more 
 dearly for the temptation he confessed, than if there 
 had been no breach in his armour. He had a simpli- 
 city in dealing with all the incidents of his experience 
 which seemed to her half divine. When she hotly 
 invoked justice upon the wretches who had stolen 
 the boat and abandoned him and Giffen on the 
 island, he said, " Oh, what could atone for a thing 
 like that ? The only way was for them to escape 
 altogether." He would not even let her denounce 
 
A woman's reason. 465 
 
 tliem as cowards ; lie contended that they had shown 
 as much mere courage in remaining to rifle the ship 
 as he had in anything. Gifi'en, he said, was the only 
 one to be admired, for Giffen was afraid all the time, 
 and yet remained to share his fate. But Helen con- 
 tended that this was nothing wonderful ; and again 
 she wished to praise him for what he had suffered. 
 
 "Ah, don't !" he said, with tragic seriousness. 
 " There 's nothing in all that. It might all have 
 happened to a worse man, and it has happened to 
 many a better one. It hurts me to have you 
 value me for it. Let it go, and give me a little 
 chance for the future." He was indeed eager to 
 escape from all that related to that passage of his 
 life, and Helen learned to believe this. At certain 
 moments he seemed to be suffering from some 
 strange sort of mental stress, which he could not 
 explain, but which they both, thought must be the 
 habit of anguish formed in his imprisonment on the 
 atoll. It sometimes woke him from his sleep — 
 the burden, but not the drama, of nightmare — a 
 mBre formless horror, which they had to shape and 
 recognise for themselves. 
 
 It grew less and less as the time passed, and when 
 his orders came to report for duty at Washington, 
 they had strength for the parting. He supposed 
 that he was to be sent to sea again, but he found that 
 hewastobeput in charge for the present of the revenue 
 cutter for provisioning the lighthouses on the Rhode 
 Island coast ; and when removed from this service, 
 he was appointed commandant at the Narragansett 
 Navy Yard. It is there that Helen still finds her 
 home in a little house overlooking the Bay, on the 
 
 2 o 
 
466 A woman's reason. 
 
 height behind the vast sheds in which two frigates 
 of obsolete model, began in Polk's time, are slowly 
 rotting on the stocks, in a sort of emblematic ex- 
 pression of the present formidable character of the 
 American navy. 
 
 Fenton is subject to be ordered away at any 
 moment upon other duty ; but till his orders come 
 he rests with Helen in as much happiness as can 
 fall to the share of people in a world of chance and 
 change. The days of their separation have already 
 faded into the incredible past : and if her experi- 
 ence ever had any peculiar significance to her, it is 
 rapidly losing that meaning. 
 
 She remains limited in her opinions and motives 
 by the accidents of tradition and circumstance that 
 shape us all ; at the end she is neither more nor less 
 than a lady, as she was at the beginning. She has 
 acquired no ideals of woman's work or woman's des- 
 tiny ; she is glad to have solved in the old way the 
 problems that once beset her ; and in all that has 
 happened she feels as if she had escaped, rather than 
 achieved. She is the same, and yet not quite the 
 same ; for one never endures or endeavours to one's- 
 self alone ; she keeps her little prejudices, but she 
 has accumulated a stock of exceptions to their appli- 
 cation ; her sympathies, if not her opinions, have 
 been enlarged ; and, above all, her unconsciousness 
 has been trained to meet bravely and sweetly the 
 duties of a life which she is content should never be 
 splendid or ambitious.