3 THIS YOUR SON, 
 
 MY LORD F 
 
 MMtMMHMMMMMtHi 
 
THE GIFT OF 
 
 .A...ii.a.3.t i/^Z^' 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021987478 
 

IS THIS YOUE SON, MY LORD ? 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 HELEN H. GAEDENER. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'MEN, WOMEN AND GODS," "SEX IN BR-VIN," "A 
 THOUGHTLESS YES," ETC. 
 
 ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 1890. 
 
Copyright, 1800, 
 
 i;y 
 
 Heles H. Gabdenek. 
 
 The Barla Press, Boston. 
 
"Is this your son, my Lord ? " — Shakespeare. 
 
" The shame Itself doth call for instant remedy." — Shakespeare. 
 
 " I have told you what I have seen and heard but faintly ; nothing like 
 the image and horror of it." — Ibid. 
 
 " "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each 
 other ? "— George Eliot. 
 
 " Our English practice of excluding fi-ora literature subjects and refer- 
 ences that are unfit for boys and girls, has something to recommend it, but 
 it undeniably leans to a certain narrowness and thinness, and to some 
 most nauseous hypocrisy. All subjects are not to be discussed by all ; and 
 one result in our case is that some of the most important subjects in the 
 world receive no discussion whatever."— /oA« Morley. 
 
IS THIS YOUR SON, lY LOED? 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 "Put on what weary negligence you please, 
 You and your fellows; I 'd have It come to question : 
 If he dislike it, let him to my sister, 
 Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one. 
 Not to be overruled." — Shakespeare. 
 
 " Sir, I had thought by maicing this well Itiiown unto you. 
 To have found a safe redress." — Hid. 
 
 Soon after I began the practice of medicine, I 
 went to a milling town in the West. I had been 
 there several months, and numbered among my 
 patrons one of the wealthiest men of the place, a 
 large mill owner, whose standing in the community 
 was second to that of none. His older children had 
 been sent to the best Eastern schools ; but the son, 
 Preston, a well grown young fellow of seventeen, 
 had recently been transferred to a Military Academy 
 nearer home, where it was hoped by his parents 
 that the too evident tendency to shirk his studies 
 might be corrected, and at the same time a subduing 
 process put upon his inclination to play pranks on 
 the other boys. He was a big, good-natured, rather 
 slow-minded fellow, who had developed few if any 
 really bad traits, and was devotedly attached to 
 his sister and a cousin who had been brought up 
 as a sister in the family. These two girls were 
 
2 Is this your Son^ my Lord? 
 
 still at school in New York, and regretted deeply 
 that Preston had been taken away and put, as they 
 felt, under military discipline for his antics. 
 
 The boy had not been long in the new school, 
 when he ceased to write home with the usual 
 resrularitr, and in the letters which he did send his 
 mother thought that she discovered a different 
 tone. 
 
 The result was that his father went to see the 
 boy, and found him languid, unnerved, and evi- 
 dently in ill health. The little sprightliness he 
 had previously possessed seemed gone, and after a 
 vain endeavor to learn the cause of the trouble, 
 his father brought him home and to me. 
 
 It did not take me long to discover the origin of 
 his malady. He had fallen into certain unwhole- 
 some practices, — an epidemic of which appeared, 
 from his account, to have broken out in the school, 
 where the young fellows had been too intimately 
 crowded together, — the effects of which were pain- 
 fullj' apparent to a practiced eye. These facts, 
 together with the full history of his own case, I got 
 from the boy, by degrees, and then told his father 
 the whole story and what the ultimate outcome 
 might be in both his mental and physical nature, 
 if he were sent back to the school. 
 
 Mr. Mansfield was incredulous at first, then angry, 
 and finally, after he had stormed, threatened and 
 blustered, declared that he would disinherit the boy, 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 3 
 
 who could then, if he chose, proceed to make an 
 idiot of himself at his leisure. 
 
 I argued the case with him, as best I could, and 
 said that, since the young fellow had harmed no 
 one but himself, and had not understood what he, 
 was laying up for his own future, the moral side of 
 the question might be put quite aside and we could 
 proceed to treat him" intelligently for the physical 
 trouble already developed. Mr. Mansfield looked 
 at me for a moment as if he were somewhat 
 perplexed, and then, greatly to my astonishment, 
 brought his fist down on my desk with a thundering 
 whack, and exclaimed : — 
 
 " Moral side be hanged ! Harmed nobody else ! 
 That's the trouble — the little fool ! " 
 
 I confess that I was both puzzled and very greatly 
 surprised. I had never seen the man before in any 
 capacity but that of a mild, respectable patient, or 
 on Sundays, as he passed the contribution box 
 in the leading church of the town. At such times 
 his conduct and language had, of course, been above 
 reproach, and this was an introduction to a phase of 
 his character which was wholly unexpected by me. 
 
 " I do not quite iinderstand you," I said. 
 
 He stopped in his impatient walk up and down 
 the room, looked at me steadily for a moment and 
 then said quite deliberately : — 
 
 " How old are you, doctor ? Yes, yes, thirty- 
 two. 'M-m-m ! Married man, I think you told me? 
 
4 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Oh, yes, I remember now ; wife in Europe with her 
 mother, who is ill. Well, by Jove, you are the very 
 man to do it for me. I'll pay you well. Money is no 
 object in a case like this, and all expense to you both 
 of course I'll stand. I don't want, and by gad, I won't 
 have, an idiot for an only son. Close up your office 
 for a few weeks and take the boy off on a lark. 
 Paint things red. Go to New York. See the ele- 
 phant. Oh, you'll know how to pick out a good 
 dove, hang it! You understand." 
 
 " But I do not understand, Mr. Mansfield." 
 He sat down opposite, crossed his legs, drew his 
 eyes to a long narrow line, and looked through the 
 slit at me for a moment, with infinite disgust. 
 Then he said slowly : — 
 
 " What is the use for you to pretend not to know 
 what I want of you in this case ? You are no fool. 
 You've lived long enough to know that men are all 
 alike. What makes me mad is that the little idiot, 
 that boy, has come near ruining his health and 
 mind just for the need of some good, solid advice 
 and a chance. Now I don't care to take him on 
 his first round with the doves. He'd be — well, I 
 suppose I might be a sort of a restraint on the little 
 donkey; and if he goes by himself — well, you 
 know, he'd most likely get into trouble. He'd 
 fall into the hands of some low woman, who'd 
 bleed him, or worse. Now if you go with him, you 
 can arrange for him to meet a charmer, — one that 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 5 
 
 is as green as lie is, don't you see, — and if he 
 took a sort of romantic fancy to her, all the better, 
 for a while." He stopped to take breath. 
 
 "And then?" I asked. "When the romantic 
 fancy is over?" 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he replied, in astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " What is to become of the girl after you have 
 made an outcast of her — and of your son, after 
 you have made a libertine of him ? " I began, but 
 he broke in impatiently : — 
 
 " Oh, plague take the girl ! What do I care what 
 becomes of her ? ' Becomes of her ? ' What always 
 becomes of 'em ? They can look out for themselves. 
 Libertine ? I don't care how much of a libertine 
 Pres. is ; but what I won't stand — what makes me 
 mad — is for him to be a blamed little fool ; " and 
 Mr. Mansfield took up his hat, strode out of my 
 oiSce, and slammed the door viciously behind him. 
 
 When I pulled myself together, I walked to the 
 window just in time to see him turn the corner, on 
 his way to a meeting of the school board — of 
 which he was the honored president — the qualifi- 
 cations of whose teachers, mental, moral, and other- 
 wise, were subject to his requirements. 
 
 The next day I went about my duties, as usual. 
 In the afternoon the boy came to my office looking 
 almost cheerful, and appeared to be mentally more 
 alert than he had been since his return. He had 
 
6 Is this your /Son, my -Lord? 
 
 somewhat recovered from his shamefaced manner, 
 and said rather brightly : " Doctor, father says you 
 are going to travel with me for a while, and that 
 we are going to New York. I'm beastly glad of 
 that, and" — he caught my expression and suddenly 
 stopped. I had looked up in blank astonishment 
 when he made his first announcement ; but quickly 
 decided to rectify any mistake the father had made 
 as to the power of his money, when I should see 
 that sanguine gentleman himself. I made up my 
 mind, also, to find out how much Preston knew of 
 the object of the proposed journey, and how far 
 his father had seen fit to leave it for me to impart. 
 
 " "Why are you so glad to go to New York ? " I 
 asked. " I thought you said, the other day, that all 
 you wanted was to be let alone and not asked to 
 go anywhere or do anything." 
 
 " I did say that," he answered, flushing as he 
 recalled the circumstances under which it had 
 been said ; " but I'd like to see the girls — Alice 
 and Nellie. They don't nag a fellow, and besides — 
 well — I want to see Alice, that's all ; " he added 
 evasively. 
 
 " Is she your sister, or is Nellie ? " I asked. 
 
 " Both. That is, Nellie is a sort of double cousin ; 
 but she's always lived at our house, so we call 
 her a sister too. I didn't know that she wasn't a 
 real one till last year ; but as she is just my age I 
 asked one day why we weren't twins — how she 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 7 
 
 happened to have a birthday in April and I one in 
 May, don't you know; and then mother told me. I'm 
 not sure that Nellie knows yet. I guess she doesn't. 
 Mother doesn't want her to — and I don't. I guess 
 she never thought about that birthday business ; " he 
 added, smiling. 
 
 I had come rather to like the young fellow and 
 to feel an interest in his future. 
 
 " Preston," I said after a moment's reflection, " I 
 did not promise your father to take you to New 
 York ; but," — his face fell and began to assume 
 again the sallow under hue which the flush of in- 
 terest had driven from it for a few moments, — " but 
 if you would really like to go, and will say so to 
 your father, and tell him that I say I will not go 
 unless he goes too ; that I will not take all the 
 responsibility he wishes to throw upon me, but 
 only a part of it; he will understand what I mean, 
 and I think he will go. Then I will ; otherwise 
 no." 
 
 " All right," said Preston, but his face fell again. 
 The boy was beginning to be uncomfortable when 
 he thought of his father. He was on the verge of 
 realizing that their point of view was not the same, 
 and, for the first time, the wonder was dawning upon 
 him whether his father was just the man he had 
 taken him to be ; and the wonder was accompanied 
 by a distinct shock of fear, the source of which 
 was, as yet, unrecognized by the lad himself. 
 
8 -7s this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 " Yes, Preston," I said when I dismissed him, 
 " tell your father that I have agreed to go, on the 
 condition that he accompanies us. Tell him I have 
 an important reason for this. And, by the way, 
 Preston, don't write to the girls, your sisters. 
 Suppose we walk in on them unexpectedly at 
 — what school did you say they are attending?" 
 
 lie gave me the name of a fashionable school in 
 the city whore many of the daughters of wealthy 
 Western families are " finished," and went away 
 perce])tibly brightened by the idea that he would 
 create a sensation by appearing to the two girls 
 quite unexpectedly, a few days later, when they 
 were waiting anxiously to hear from their sick 
 brother hundreds of miles away. 
 
 On our way to New York I found, in the few 
 opportunities I had to talk alone with Mr. Mansfield, 
 that he had told the boy nothing of his plan ; but 
 dejiended wholly upon me to bring about what he 
 desired, in a manner which should seem to Preston 
 to be of his own motion. 
 
 " Take him to some variety show, or any place 
 where he can see good-looking girls ;" he said. " If 
 he hints that he is interested, or likes the looks of 
 one of them better than the others, find out who she 
 is, and, by Jove, doctor, money will fetch her." 
 
 " Suppose it doesn't ? " said I. 
 
 He looked at me for a moment, half in scorn and 
 half in suspicion. "You arrange a meeting with 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 9 
 
 me, if you are sosqvieamish. I gness Pres. won't find 
 a great deal of trouble with her after that. You 
 see that she is pretty, young, and if possible, doctor, 
 be absolutely sure that she is, — that she has, — that 
 this is her first experience. Oh, damn it, you know 
 what I want ! " He paused for a moment, then 
 got up, and, as he started for the smoking car, 
 said : " You see to that part. Find out, if you 
 can, who and what she is, and that she is, — 
 that she is all right. Arrange a meeting with 
 me, on some pretext or other, if she is too skittish 
 or too smart for you. That's all I want of you 
 in the matter. After that you can take Pres. to 
 see her, and — oh, show the little fool tlie elephant 
 generally ! Initiate him. Take him around. Get 
 him interested. Report progress to me. I'll foot 
 the bills." 
 
 Two days after we reached N'ew York, I called 
 at Mr. Mansfield's hotel. He had made excuse to 
 Preston that he had to go to Boston, and left us the 
 night we arrived. I informed him that I had 
 taken his son to several places of amusement, and 
 that while we were at the Casino matinee he had 
 turned to me and expressed a strong desire to go 
 nearer to a certain young girl whom he saw across 
 the house. I had succeeded in so placing him that 
 he had an opportunity to speak to her as she was 
 going out, and he had evidently taken a very great 
 pleasure in the meeting. 
 
10 Is this your Son, my Lordf 
 
 Mr. Mansfield was delighted and told me to follow 
 it up steadily. Shortly thereafter I was able to re- 
 port progress again. Preston had bought her a bunch 
 of flowers one day. Another day he had gone with 
 her to a store. I had learned that she was of unim- 
 peachable character, very pretty, and not very self 
 controlled. I made a point of this latter fact and of 
 her youth and unsuspecting character. 
 
 " She is a girl who would be easily led into temp- 
 tation by one she cared for, or frightened into 
 subjection by an older person;" I added. He 
 smiled, and his eyes twinkled merrily. 
 
 " She is with Preston now. We got her to go 
 into the hotel to see some pictures he had bought. 
 She seems to go about a good deal alone. We met 
 her in Broadway twice yesterday. She says she is 
 here with an aunt who is ill, and that her sister who 
 usually goes out with her has a swollen face, so she 
 goes alone now. Oh, yes, she is all right ; " I said 
 in answer to his shrug. " I have made quite sure 
 of that ; but I tell you frankly, I believe that Preston 
 will be as polite and reserved with her as if his 
 m^other were present. He will make no headway 
 with her in the way you desire, I am sure of that, 
 now I have watched him." 
 
 " Oh," he exclaimed, delighted, " if she is at the 
 hotel, it is easy enough. I'll meet her as she comes 
 out. I'll play the outraged j)arent act. I'll threaten 
 to ruin her reputation. I'll — oh, it is plain enough 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 11 
 
 sailing now. But how did you ever get that sort of 
 a girl to go into the hotel and to his parlor ? But 
 hurry, we must get there. She may think how it 
 will look, and leave. Lord ! what a fool she must 
 be ! And Pres., what a fool he is that he should need 
 us now ! " 
 
 He was so excited that he did not press me for 
 replies and we hastened to the hotel. I entered 
 the private parlor which opened into my room. It 
 was empty. Mr. Mansfield winked at me and took 
 a seat, motioning me to go into my own room, which 
 I did, passing on into the one used by the boy. 
 Presently I returned and said : " She will be out at 
 once; as soon as she gets her hat on, and — but I 
 tell you, Mansfield, I don't like this business and — " 
 
 " Oh ! " said he, significantly, pushing aside my 
 last remark, " had her hat off, hey ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " and what is more, Preston had 
 his arm around her." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha," laughed he, in an undertone ; " the 
 young scamp isn't such a hopeless dunce as he 
 looks, is he? Had his arm around her, did he? 
 Chip of the old block yet ! Gad, doctor, I guess 
 we've made a bad blunder in his case. He's all 
 right. Give him a chance, that's all." 
 
 Just then a small, stylishly dressed girl appeared 
 at the inner door. She had drawn a thick veil 
 over her face. She entered slowly, and bowed, 
 but said nothing. Mr. Mansfield stepped briskly 
 
12 Js this yoitr Son, my Lord? 
 
 forward, bowed, offered her a chair, and in closing 
 the door behind her, touched her shoulder as if by 
 accident, and apologized effusively. 
 
 The girl, who appeared to be struggling with 
 some emotion, silently took the chair, and waited 
 for us to speak. Presently Mr. Mansfield said : 
 " Had you ever met my son, before he saw you at 
 the Casino ? Did he know you when he was here 
 at school?" 
 
 There was a light laugh, quickly suppressed, and 
 she nodded her head. 
 
 "So — ho ! an old flame ! " said he. " Oh, well, 
 then it is all right — if — " and here he turned to 
 me, and made an inquiry under his breath. 
 
 "Do not ask her that," said I, hastily, and in 
 the same suppressed tone. " Wait. See her face 
 first. Let me go to Preston's room, and you can 
 talk to her better ; but first of all, make her take 
 off her veil. You will see her innocence in her 
 face." 
 
 « You bet I will," he said ; " I'll take it off myself, 
 and kiss her too, if she is pretty, before you fairly 
 get the door shut." Then aloud, to me, " Sorry you 
 must go, doctor, but I ■«'ill join you in Pres.'s room, 
 before long." 
 
 But as I opened the door, the boy bounded in 
 with a laugh, and then suddenly stopped, as he saw 
 that the girl had not removed her veil. I could 
 endure the situation no longer. I closed the door, 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 13 
 
 and reaching over slipped the veil from her hat. 
 She hastily clapped both hands to her face, with a 
 little cry : " Oh, how mean ! Why, Pres., you gave 
 me away. Papa hadn't guessed who I was yet. 
 And he — oh, papa, ^luid I ever met Pres. before 
 the other day at the Casino ' ? ha, ha, ha." 
 
 Mr. Mansfield was white with rage, and the 
 shock was so great that he staggered, and sat down 
 suddenly in the nearest chair. He was so over- 
 come, for the moment, that he did not remember to 
 visit his wrath upon me, and I silently withdrew 
 before he recovered himself, and while the two 
 children were still enjoying the excellent joke they 
 thought we had played on their unsuspecting 
 father. 
 
 That night, I wrote him a note, saying that I 
 should not see him again while in New York, and 
 that I now resigned to him his son's future training 
 in the direction he had mapped out. 
 
 "I have called your attention to what it may 
 mean from the other side — what it must mean to 
 some girl, and to her father, if she has one — if 
 your programme is carried out. If she has no 
 father, so much the worse." I ended my letter 
 thus: "My part is done. Allow me to say, that the 
 boy will recover from his great mistake, if he is 
 intelligently treated. As yet, to him, there is no 
 moral question involved. I have talked with him. 
 He now understands the folly, the physical, and 
 
14 7s this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 mental danger of his course. lie is not my son; 
 but if you — if anyone — were to take witli a l)oy 
 of mine the course whicli you propose to take 
 with Preston, I should kill the man who tried it; 
 that is all. I have written to the boy that I am 
 called home unexpectedly. Remember, that upon 
 j-our return, any unpleasant conduct toward me I 
 shall resent to the utmost." 
 
Js this your Sou, my Lord? 15 
 
 Chaptek II. 
 
 '* Sirs, 'tis my occupation to be plain : 
 I have seen better faces in my time. 
 Than stands on any shoulders that I see 
 Before me at this instant." — Shakespeare. 
 
 " Such wanton, wild and usual slips, 
 As are companions noted and most known 
 To youth and liberty." — I bid. 
 
 "When I reached my home in the West, I found 
 a message which called me to the bedside of my 
 wife's mother, then in Southern France, and I did 
 not return to America for nearly five years. 
 
 I had not been many weeks in New York, when 
 I met one day in Broadway a fashionably dressed, 
 rather dissipated looking young man, whose face 
 and bearing showed many marks of a fast life. lie 
 recognized me and lifted his hat. It was Preston 
 Mansfield. 
 
 " Why, what are you doing here, Preston ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Following my respected father's advice," he 
 replied scornfully, " Gad, how he hated you ! He 
 told me what the little scheme was afterward. 
 Poor little Alice ! she never so much as suspected 
 anything wrong. She thought the old man was 
 sick and blamed herself for helping to play a joke 
 that startled him. He had to cool down and pre- 
 tend that that was it. She actually bathed his feet 
 
16 Is this your Son^ my Lord? 
 
 in mustard water, put him to bed, and sat up with 
 him nearly all that night ; " and he laughed de- 
 lightedly. 
 
 " No danger of corrupting your morals now, 
 j'ou bifurcated young beast," thought I ; but I said 
 aloud : — 
 
 " Where is your father ? Here ? " 
 
 " Well, hardly ; " he drawled, " the governor 
 passed in his little checks over a year ago. I'm 
 head of the family now, and when I'm at home I 
 do the Board of Education racket, and cut off a big 
 slice of staid and respectable citizen business. I 
 haven't quite got the gall to go into the deacon act 
 yet ; but I'll get there. It paid the old man, big, 
 and I'm a chip of the old block nowadays, I do 
 assure you, doctor. He broke me in thoroughly, 
 after he made up his mind to it, and found he 
 couldn't trust you '' ; and he went off into a fit of 
 laughter. As soon as he recovered himself, he 
 rattled on : — 
 
 " But what an infernal game that was you played 
 on the old man, any wa}-. I believe he'd have 
 killed you if he'd had you that night — and if he 
 could have got rid of Alice long enough. What 
 did you do it for, any way, doctor ? N"ow, between 
 man and man, what was your little game? More 
 money ? " 
 
 I looked at the hopeless young rascal for a 
 moment and then said : — 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 17 
 
 "You are a chip of the old block, Preston. 
 Good afternoon." 
 
 As I walked away I heard him exclaim under his 
 breath, — 
 
 " Well, I'll be damned ! " 
 
 " No doubt of it, my boy, no sort of doubt about 
 it ; " said young Harmon, with a twinkle in his 
 handsome eyes, as he received Preston Mansfield 
 in his arms after that astonished young gentleman 
 had watched me turn the corner of Twenty-third 
 Street,' and was about to start on his way again. 
 " Of course you'll be damned in time, my boy, but 
 what's the use in standing here in front of the 
 Fifth Avenue Hotel, in broad daylight, in the 
 year of our blessed Lord, 1880, and telling people 
 about it in cold blood?" Both of the young men 
 laughed and started for the Hoffman House bar, 
 quite as a matter of course, and not at all because 
 either of them wanted anything to drink. 
 
 "What were you standing there for, glaring at 
 that precious old muff's back, and making remarks 
 about your future abode, when I ran into you ? " 
 asked young Harmon, expecting and waiting for 
 no reply. " What will you take ? " and he leaned 
 familiarly on the bar and made a signal to a waiter. 
 When the drinks were concocted, he went through 
 a great show of testing their quality, wiped his lips 
 daintily with a fine cambric handkerchief and set 
 his glass down with a resignedly superior air as if 
 
18 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 to say : " This is really not the sort of stuff a gen- 
 tleman accustomed to the best of evferything can 
 quite bring himself to drink ; but — no ma,tter. It 
 is not of sufficient importance for me to take the 
 trouble to speak about it and, indeed, it is doubtful 
 if these vulgarians could comprehend me if I did." 
 While the inside fact was that the young fellow's 
 healthy stomach loathed strong drinks of all kinds, 
 and he had schooled himself with patient care to be 
 able to hold up his end as he phrased it, and retain 
 his proud place as one of the leaders of the fast set at 
 Harvard. Nothing gave him greater pride in him- 
 self than the belief that his ready pronuncia- 
 tion of the names of wines and liqueurs ; his test 
 movement of lips and throat to indicate jserfect 
 familiarity with, and infallible judgment of their 
 quality, would convince even the most sceptical 
 that he was a man of the world, — of the fastidious, 
 rapid world which keeps its church pew, its English 
 cob, and its opera box quite as a matter of course, 
 and no less as a matter of course, frequents the 
 Parker House and the " Parsonage " to indulge in 
 Welsh rarebit, stimulants, and green-room gossip 
 at 2 o'clock A. SI. ; that externally immaculate, cul- 
 tured world which knows more or less of mixed 
 companies of women who smoke and men who drink 
 until daylight warns them that professors growl if 
 lessons are shirked and stage managers storm if 
 eyes are dull at morning rehearsal. 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 19 
 
 Preston Mansfield had left college, finally, a 
 year before, where even his lavish expenditure of 
 money could not blind outsiders to the fact that he 
 was learning next to nothing of those branches 
 for the teaching of which colleges are commonly 
 supposed to be sustained, and that he cared to 
 learn no more. The authorities, therefore, with 
 elaborate display of virtuous disapproval, advised 
 him not to return. Nothing could have more fully 
 harmonized with his own wishes, and he promptly 
 transferred his headquarters from Boston to New 
 York, and left Mr. Fred Harmon to take his place 
 as leader of the " fast set." Notwithstanding the fact 
 that that young gentleman's supply of cash was far 
 from limitless, he prided himself greatly because 
 he had, in one short year, been the means of elevat- 
 ing the tone of their debauches to a plane upon 
 which gentlemen should conduct such matters. 
 That is to say, they all gambled, of course, but 
 they did not talk about it openly a great deal, even 
 among themselves ; they continued to give suppers 
 at which there were hardly enough sober ones to 
 get the drunken ones home, and where those who 
 kept their legs and senses wished it distinctly 
 understood that they did it not at all because 
 they drank less, but solely because, being so 
 accustomed to it, the ability to be overcome had 
 long since been outgrown and they, therefore, 
 chaffed quite unmercifully the poor callow fellows 
 
20 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 who were still unable to " cany a few bottles " 
 of wine. 
 
 These deeply experienced youths were naturally 
 the admiration and envy of those whose capacity 
 still had its limits, and in whom Nature continued 
 to assert herself when the verge of endurance was 
 reached. They deceived young girls into com- 
 promising situations and patronized women as of 
 old ; but it was Mr. Fred Harmon's firm belief 
 that this was all done in so delicate a manner that 
 no one could object; and he, for his part, felt quite 
 dainty and looked down with something akin to 
 virtuous pity and scorn upon the crude, if not im- 
 moral, practices of his predecessor and friend, 
 Preston Mansfield. 
 
 Mr. Fred Harmon had no doubt whatever that 
 he was a fit associate and a most desii'able husband 
 for the sweetest, purest young girl in the world, 
 and he had heard with deep disgust, Mansfield's 
 remark one day, when they had chanced to meet 
 Nellie on the street. 
 
 " Gad, Fred, I wonder if there ever was a man 
 good enough to marry that girl ! I'd give half of 
 all the years of life left to me to be able to go to 
 her, and feel myself fit to ask her to marry me." 
 
 Fred Harmon had no qualms of conscience on 
 that score ; and indeed, in many ways he felt him- 
 self on quite a different plane from that which 
 naturally belonged to Mansfield, who had not had 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 2i 
 
 the good taste to connect himself with any fashion- 
 able church while he was at college, and had fre- 
 quently laughed outright at statements made by 
 Dr. Highchurch in his doctrinal sermons. 
 
 "Mansfield has no sense of convention. He is 
 destitute of traditions," Harmon would explain ; 
 " and then he clings to prejudices like a Hottentot. 
 The night I took him to call upon Dr. Highchurch, 
 he actually took issue with the Divine on the doc- 
 trines of original sin and vicarious atonement ; and 
 argued about it as if they were matters of vital 
 importance. He is really very difficult, don't you 
 know ? " Fred Harmon liked to use that expression. 
 The first time he had heard it, it had been used by 
 the most correct Englishman he had ever met, 
 and of course, a really correct Englishman was 
 beyond comparison the m.ost perfect specimen of 
 good form to be found on this earth. 
 
 " He is a good fellow, in the main ; first-rate 
 fellow, don't you know ? but, well, you know his 
 father was a sort of — made his shekels in lumber 
 or something of the kind, and his son's life and 
 training in the wild and woolly west naturally 
 makes one a little shy of going about with him a 
 great deal." 
 
 When Mr. Fred Harmon said this he did not mean 
 it to apply to hours between 12 midnight and 5 a. 
 M., during which portions of the day or night he 
 had never exhibited the least shyness or disinclina- 
 
"22 Is this yoxr Son, )iiy Lord? 
 
 tion to go about, as lie phrased it, in company with 
 Preston Mansfield, and many a night they had 
 made of it. The " prejudices " of which he spoke 
 as among the fatal weaknesses of Preston Mans- 
 field's character, were displayed by such silly and 
 threadbare remarks as the one aboiit wishing him- 
 self good enough to marry bis cousin Nellie. 
 
 " Such a cad ! " said Harmon to himself, as he 
 thought of it afterward : " Such an idiotic, senti- 
 mental, narrow minded cad ! As if he'd have to 
 tell her about his little sports."' 
 
 And it was certain that no one would ever have 
 cause to complain of similar prejudices in the mind 
 of Mr. Fred Harmon. His creed was short and 
 clear. " Do what you want to," it said ; " but do 
 it secretly, if it is not strictly in accord -with what 
 the rules of polite society pretend to demand. 
 We all know it is a pretence, and we have rather a 
 hard time to keep our faces straight when we pub- 
 licly look into one another's eyes and talk our 
 conventional platitudes ; but it must be done for 
 the edification of the common people and to con- 
 serve tradition, of course. The decencies of life 
 must be maintained." 
 
 By the decencies of life Mr. Fred Harmon did 
 not at all mean that one's actions must be honorable 
 and open, one's motives lofty, and one's record 
 clean. The demand for these old-fashioned virtues 
 where they did not touch money matters he 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 23 
 
 ranked as prejudices ; but he did demand as the 
 first requisite of a gentleman, that his coat of pre- 
 tence should be fur-lined, water-proof, and silk- 
 stitched. He had no doubt that he should marry, 
 one of these days, some lovely girl ; indeed, he was 
 now a victim of the grand passion, he assured 
 himself ; but he had not thought of such a ridiculous 
 thing as a desire to have his whole life and natu;'e 
 an open book to the girl he loved. It gave him 
 no qualms at all to pose and pretend to her as to 
 everyone else. So long as she did not discover 
 anvthing that would cause her to ask disconcerting 
 questions, he had no prejudice whatever in favor 
 of laying bare his soul and making her a partner in 
 all of his life. Indeed, he would have thought it 
 a very unwomanly thing for her to expect anything 
 of the kind ; and if she were to show a tendency 
 toward such unwholesome notions of what was due 
 to women, he had no doubt that he could bring her 
 to her senses easily enough ; and as he was quite 
 content to keep certain corners of his life wholly to 
 himself and to shut up a few of the rooms, not only 
 of the past but of the present and future as well, 
 and keep the keys in his own possession, he felt 
 perfectly secure, and therefore entirely virtuous. 
 
 No one could love a woman more fondly, of 
 course ; no one could respect her more truly ; but it 
 was not a part of his creed that perfect love carried 
 with it a " prejudice, " in favor of perftjct truth ; 
 
24 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 and as to respect, surely it was far greater evidence 
 of respect for a woman, to hide from her what she 
 would not like in your character and life, than to 
 hurt her feelings by letting her know it ! He 
 hoped that he had too much real respect for his 
 betrothed, and for womanhood in general, — and 
 that he would always retain too exalted an opinion 
 of his ^^•ife ever to tell her the bald truth, or even 
 let her so much as suspect it, either as it related to 
 life in general, or to his life in particular. 
 
 In short, he had absolutely no prejudice in favor 
 of facts where fiction was so much prettier, and 
 more truly suited to a woman's life, and to*a 
 gentleman's vocabulary. Indeed, he had glossed 
 over and dressed up ugly or inconvenient truths 
 ever since he was able to talk. His training 
 had all been in that direction. His charming 
 mother, whose ambition was always to appear well, 
 and to have her son do nothing that " they " — 
 meaning that social world she stood in awe of, — 
 would not understand at once andj^ronounce "good 
 form, " had begun tliis training at a very early age ; 
 so that at the present time, Fred was not at all 
 conscious of the least moral weakness on his own 
 part, nor of a shadow of cause for shame. 
 
 Public censure for any act of his would have 
 overwhelmed him with mortification, and covered 
 his mother 'with humiliation and anger ; but that 
 insidious foe of personal comfort, the loss of one's 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 25 
 
 own respect and approbation, had never attacked 
 Fred Harmon, nor was such a calamity ever likely to 
 overtake him. His conscience was absolutely easy. 
 If there existed cau.se for him to blush, he was 
 not aware of it. Had he not been taught in early 
 childhood to suppress the least hint of an inclination 
 to deviate from the paths of " good form" ? And 
 was not " good form " the only reliable moral stan- 
 dard? 
 
 He could remember having had certain scanda- 
 lous little desires to play marbles with the grocer's 
 boy, and to fight with the son of a butcher's cart 
 driver ; but he knew full well that, in giving the 
 account of these exploits, it would be necessary to 
 present his companions to his mother in the. guise 
 of " Judge Supurb's youngest," or as " Father Pligh- 
 church's nephew." Then his mother was satisfied. 
 She would a little rather that he would let them 
 get the best of it, too, about half of the time, because 
 in that case no hard feelings could ensue on the 
 part of the Judge and the Father if they found it 
 out, and it would be quite a humorous bit to touch 
 up daintily when they met. 
 
 When Fred was in his third year at college, one 
 of the seniors had invited him to spend a part of 
 the coming vacation at his home in the West, and 
 in talking it over, his mother had said : " Certainly, 
 my son, you may accept the invitation. It is Mr. 
 Ball's last term and he could not ask you to take 
 
26 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 him to call on any of our friends more than once 
 in that time, and you could make some reasonable 
 •way out of it then. Go, by all means, dearie, and 
 have a happy time. It will do you good. You are 
 not looking your best. This may be the very change 
 you need, and you can take it in the way of an ex- 
 perience. Xo doubt they are very honest, well- 
 meaning people, in their 'way." 
 
 It "swis while on this visit that Fred met Maiide 
 Stone, and fell in love with her, thereby causing his 
 mother to revise her views as to the honesty and 
 well-meaning characteristics of those Western bar- 
 barians. During Fred's first year at Harvard, he 
 had shown some symptoms of a lapse from the 
 worship of Father Highchurch (whose social jjosi- 
 tion was enviable in the extreme), and his mother 
 had sighed deeply, and met his arguments with a 
 sweetness and force which seemed to him at the 
 time charming and final. 
 
 " Certainly, my son, all you say is quite true. I 
 do not, myself, believe in those unpleasing religious 
 notions expressed in the creed of our beloved church. 
 You must remember tliat the progressive Church- 
 men explain them all quite satisfactorily. The 
 ethical beauty and exquisite taste of Dr. Broad- 
 church's explanation of the crucifixion, you surely 
 have not forgotten. I cannot rejiroduce it, of 
 course, but I know it was most charming. My 
 nerves were soothed and my artistic nature warmed 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 27 
 
 for days afterward. Ask him, some day, to explain 
 these points about the vicarious atonement theory, 
 as you call it (quite vulgarly, I think. You must 
 have gotten that form of expression from young 
 Ball. Be very careful not to use it again). Give 
 uj) looking at it in this literal way, and accept it as 
 the Broadchurchmen hold it, if you cannot take the 
 High Church view. Its justice and harmony with 
 natural laws ; its appeal to one's higher nature and 
 ideals ; its display of tenderness, are all quite a poem 
 as Dr. Broadohurch presents it. You can close 
 your eyes and drift into a realm of spiritual exalta- 
 tion where questions and doubts are impossible; 
 where the dear Christ touches your heart and illu- 
 mines your understanding. Don't ask your questions 
 in that pointed way, however, my son. That is — 
 don't be so — a — a — direct. Come at the point less 
 baldly. Language should be draped to a certain 
 extent when used to express spiritual things. Have 
 you been reading authorities on style as much as 
 usual lately ? Never allow a day to pass without 
 doing so, dear. Newspapers are so demoralizing 
 that even you show the effect of having read them. 
 It seems a dreadful thing to say of you ; but I am 
 afraid it is true. Be so very careful about it, my 
 son. 
 
 " Yes, I know, young Ball is very clever, after a 
 fashion : but he gives one the impression of absolute 
 nudity, mentally speaking. He is very bad form, 
 
28 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 poor fellow. His bearing proves him not well born. 
 What a shame that he should be an ' honor ' man 
 and that Edward Highchurch, with his exquisite 
 polish, should not. But of course every one will 
 understand it. It is brute force against grace and 
 refinement. I suppose, on examination, Mr. Ball 
 answered the questions and wrote his thesis with 
 a directness and force that struck the professors 
 like a trapeze performer shot directly at them from 
 a catapult ; while Eddie made some effort to clothe 
 the hard facts of science in a garb of poetry, and 
 the result was a lack of appreciation on the part of 
 the busy professors who fovmd the short cuts of 
 Mr. Ball far easier to follow. But, as I say, no 
 one is deceived as to the desirability of the two 
 methods ; nor, for that matter, as to the attainments 
 of the two men." 
 
 She wanted her son to take the theological 
 course ; but she yielded readily enough to his 
 desire to look about for a year or two after he 
 was graduated before he should make a final choice 
 of a profession. 
 
 " You say you do not believe the creeds and 
 doctrines ;" she had said. " Of course, you do 
 not in that literal sense, but there is an interpre- 
 tative meaning, in which you can accept them, and 
 be a clergyman in the dear old Mother Church, after 
 all. If you really cannot bring yourself to be a 
 Highchurch man, I am wilhng for you to follow the 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 29 
 
 Broadchurch men. Look at Dr. Phillips Brooks 
 and the Rev. Heber Newton. Very different 
 they are from each other ; but both explain all 
 those points you object to so entirely away, and 
 in such choice language that the most fastidious 
 can not fail to be satisfied. And then, always 
 remember, my son, that the social position of 
 the rector of a large parish is absolutely assured. 
 There is no question. A great lawyer may or may 
 not have an assured place. A distinguished physi- 
 cian's niche is open to question ; but the rector of a 
 fashionable parish stands firm on the top of the 
 social edifice, in virtue of that fact alone. You can- 
 not fail to see the enormous advantage this would 
 be. Think it all well over, dear, before you allow 
 yourself to drift too far, or commit yourself to any 
 other position than one consistent with a final ref- 
 uge in the bosom of the Church and as a ministrant 
 at her holy altar." 
 
 Shortly after this she wrote to a friend : " You 
 will know how delighted I am, and how thankful 
 that Fred, the dear noble fellow, has about decided 
 to give over his fancy for the law, or any other 
 secular career, and devote his really exceptional 
 talents to the uplifting of his fellowmen. From 
 your point of view I can readily see how you 
 advised the law, and if he were going to live for 
 himself alone, you would be right no doubt, my 
 dear. But his life is for others ; his aim in the 
 
30 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 world is to devote his splendid gifts to the service 
 of mankind ; and my gratitude is deep and keen 
 that he has about decided to give his whole energy 
 to the service of God and our blessed Church. Con- 
 gratulate me, dear, even though you do not believe 
 as I do. Surely you can be a wee bit glad when 
 my heart sings within me for very joy." 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 31 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 '* The wise sometimes from wisdom's ways depart; 
 Can youth, then, hush the mandates of the heart ?"—52/ron. 
 
 " What mortal is there of us, who would find his satisfaction enhanced 
 by an opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his 
 own doings, with the picture they mal^e on the mental retina of his neigh- 
 bors."— (7eo. Eliot, 
 
 So, as Mr. Fred Harmon leaned against the 
 Hoffman House bar that day, while his less gifted 
 and lowborn friend Mansfield drank with a relish, 
 while he assumed to look with deep disapprobation 
 upon the quality of the potation, Preston Mansfield 
 said : — 
 
 " Been in town long, Harmon ? Hear you've 
 decided to go into the ' Good Lord deliver us,' busi- 
 ness." He glanced significantly at the full glass 
 by Fred's elbow. " Suppose you've cut this sort of 
 thing and poker and the girls for good, then ; but, 
 by gad, I'll bet a shilling, Harmon, that you cut 
 your sleeve full of trumps on the last deal, with 
 all of 'em ; " and he winked and laughed at his 
 friend in what Mr. Fred Harmon felt to be a most 
 objectionable manner. He disliked to have people 
 take mental photographs when the background 
 was not properly arranged to produce artistic 
 effects. At the same time he did not feel equal to 
 allowing any young man about town to think he 
 
32 Is this your /So?i, mtj Lord? 
 
 was a muif. It may be looked upon as strange, 
 but it is nevertheless true, that no sense of shame 
 is more deep than that which results from a fear 
 that any man should suppose that you are unable 
 to hold up your end, as Fred would have phrased it ; 
 which, being freely translated, meant that he could 
 not bear the humiliation of having any other man 
 suppose that he knew more by practical experience 
 of those conditions of life, which are not usually 
 mentioned in the presence of ladies, than were 
 familiar to Mr. Fred Harmon himself. Therefore, 
 he smiled knowingly, glanced about him with an 
 air of deep weariness, as if to say, " I am beastly 
 tired of all this sort of thing, don't you know. And 
 what a barbaric hole this hostelry is." He had 
 heard several Boston men say that ; he knew it was 
 the thing expected of the cultured elect. The fact 
 was, however, that this was the third or fourth time 
 he had ever been within these gorgeous pre- 
 cincts, and he was exceedingly interested in, and 
 curious to examine its appointments. But to do 
 this openly would be a confession to all present 
 that he was not in the habit of drinking himself to 
 the verge of gentlemanly inebriety within its 
 hospitable walls, and Fred did not feel quite equal 
 to that bit of heroism. So he smiled wearily, and 
 said with a drawl : — 
 
 " Well, not exactly, my boy, there is more or less 
 ')lood left in me yet. Suppose we dine in this 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 33 
 
 bizarre caravansary, if it won't take your appetite. 
 Isn't it enough to make one despair of the human 
 race? Such taste ! What are you going to do to- 
 night ? How would you like to take in one or two 
 of the political speeches, just to see the free and in- 
 dependent voter roped in, and observe the kind of 
 oratory that does the business — and then make a 
 night of it ? What do you say ? Know any good 
 places to go? Tired of the theatres. Stupid lot 
 of heroics on now. Passion in tatters ; virtue its 
 own reward (and it doesn't get any other, I must 
 say ) and all that sort of thing. Wonder if the 
 stage will ever learn anything ? " and he strolled to 
 a table in the cafe, and began to order a dinner. 
 
 As they passed the speaker's stand in Union 
 Square, two hours later, one of the leading politi- 
 cians of the day was making an impassioned appeal 
 to the Germans not to allow themselves to be 
 hoodwinked by the mendacious Democratic bids for 
 their votes. The two young men stopped to listen. 
 
 " Why, gentlemen," the speaker was saying indig- 
 nantly, " the very terms in which they appeal to 
 you are an insult to every man in whose veins runs 
 one drop of the blood of the nation which leads 
 the civilized world to-day ! " There was a move- 
 ment of expectation and applause. Fred Harmon 
 smiled at Mansfield and said : " This is good. Bet- 
 ter than a dime museum. Wouldn't have missed it 
 for a fortune. There he goes again. Now just 
 
34 Is this your So77, my Lord? 
 
 watch the gentle Teuton swallow that bare hook 
 and take in a large share of the line.'' 
 
 " How does the Democratic party invariably ap- 
 proach you ? " exclaimed the irate orator, almost 
 choking with excess of emotion. "What does it 
 say to you ? How does it judge you ? What 
 is the standard by which it measures the g-r-e-a-t 
 German people? Always by the one standard 
 — beer ! " The orator, too much choked by his 
 indignation to proceed, paused with his arm up- 
 lifted and a deep frown upon his brow. There 
 was a round of applause and a ripple of laughter. 
 
 " Do not laugh ! " exclaimed the speaker. " It is 
 true I It is the s-h-a-m-e-f-u-1 truth ! And it is 
 the duty, as I am sure it will be the pleasure, of 
 every self-respecting German, who knows, as all of 
 you know, the magnificent history of the most 
 magnificent people on this globe " (great applause 
 and cheers), to resent it at the polls ! What does 
 the Democratic party know of Germany, or the 
 Germans? Nothing but — heer ! What does it 
 know of German history? Nothing, except that it 
 has heard that in that far-off country they drink — 
 heer ! 
 
 " They have the impudence to expect to catch 
 your votes by telling you that we, the Republicans, 
 are not friendly to your breweries, that we are for 
 high license, that we, the Republicans, are not 
 friendly to the Germans because Wliy ? why ? " he 
 
Js this your /Son, my Lord? 35 
 
 demanded in a perfect transport of virtuous 
 indignation. Then he went on, his voice tremulous 
 with suppressed scorn: "Why, indeed! Simply 
 and solely, my friends, because we do not agree 
 with them that all the German cares for, that all 
 he knows about, that all he wants, that all he 
 dreams of is — heer ! " 
 
 There was a decided sensation in the crowd, 
 and some evidences of righteous wrath on the part 
 of several rotund and red-faced gentlemen near the 
 stand, at so low an estimate of the German 
 character. The speaker's indignation waxed deeper, 
 and his voice swelled out in triumphant tones. 
 
 " They forget, gentlemen, that every one of you 
 knows the glorious, the unrivalled position that 
 Germany holds in Art, — in which she leads the 
 civilized w-o-r-l-d ! In Science, in which she leads 
 the civilized w-o-r-l-d ! In literature, in which, 
 with the finest encyclopedia known to man, with 
 her Von Humboldt, her Goethe, and her Schiller, 
 she leads the civilized w-o-r-l-d ! They forget, 
 gentlemen, that Germany and the Germans think 
 more of these then they do of — heer ! 
 
 " They have the brazen effrontery to insult the 
 representatives of a land which produced' a Wag- 
 ner, by talking to them eternally about — heer ! " 
 
 Great sensation, wild applause. Indignant men 
 who never before heard of Von Humboldt, and 
 were uncertain where Goethe's brewery was sit- 
 
36 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 uated, glared at their neighbors in a way that 
 boded no good to the Democratic nominee. The 
 orator saw his advantage and went rapidly on : — 
 " Which party honors you the most ? Which 
 party is most likely to deal fairly with you, the one 
 that cannot think of j'ou apart from iccr, or the 
 one whose leaders extol your unapproachable poets, 
 revere your unequalled savans, and worship your 
 incomjDarable musicians to such an extent that they 
 have given very little thought to the grosser — a — 
 ah — to the — er — incidents, as it were, of a cer- 
 tain phase of your national life ? Which, I say, 
 gentlemen, do you jjrefer, the party that gives you 
 nothing from morning till night but — heer ? or 
 the one that proposes to give you, is able to give 
 you, and now offers you unlimited — " 
 
 " Taffy!" yelled Preston Mansfield, and the 
 laugh that followed was at the orator's expense. 
 
 " Beer! Beer ! " shouted a dozen voices. 
 
 " Taffy's too sweet." 
 
 " Give us a rest ! " 
 
 " Beer, beer, Milwaukee l>eer ; " shouted some 
 one to the time of " Rum, rum, Jamaica rum," and 
 the tune caught the fancy of the crowd which pro- 
 ceeded to yell itself hoarse and thereby cover the 
 speaker still farther with confusion. He sat down 
 amidst uproarious laughter, -while Preston and 
 young Harmon, chuckling to themselves, stepped 
 into a cab and drove rapidly away. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 37 
 
 They were both Republicans,- but they enjoyed 
 the joke, and were in excellent spirits and on the 
 best of terms with themselves all the rest of the 
 evening. 
 
 That night, or rather the following morning, 
 when Fred Harmon reached his hotel he found a 
 letter from his mother, whose theory was that 
 Maude Stone, the sweetheart he had found in the 
 West, and her father, were making a violent at- 
 tempt to ensnare the young and tender feet of her 
 son. " Be careful to give neither her nor her 
 designing father, any hold upon you in writing; 
 then they can have none whatever upon you, either 
 in law or equity, and any talk wljich may have 
 passed falls to the ground without harming you. 
 . . . The girl can have no proper respect for her- 
 self, and your whole life would be utterly ruined 
 by such an alliance in any permanent way. . . 
 The only time I ever saw the girl she showed that 
 she had no respect for herself, and therefore none 
 for you. She allowed you to keep your hat on 
 out on the porch steps, you remember, and she 
 was dressed in evening toilet! When I spoke 
 of it to you afterward you said she did not care, 
 that she felt like standing with bare arms in the 
 cool air for a while ; but was willing for you to keep 
 your head covered if you felt chilly, and if you 
 wanted to. What sort of self respect is that? 
 What can such a girl think of herself ? Look at 
 
3s Js this your tSo)i, my Lord? 
 
 it reasonably, my son, and mount to a true man's 
 ideal of the stainlessness and dignity of a woman 
 — of wliat she must be who can hold the admira- 
 tion and homage of husband and sons through 
 a lifetime, and give no farther thought to the 
 matter. . . . You are too sensitive by far. 
 Xo conceivable compromise of the girl holds you 
 to anything. . . . Have no words in writing and 
 you are all right. If her father storms — as of 
 course he will, in the hope of capturing such a 
 matchless prize for his daughter — do not yield 
 by one hair's breadth." 
 
 Indeed, Fred's mother held the conventional 
 opinion that it was the duty of a young girl to 
 form and maintain, not only her own character and 
 basis of action, but that she must hold her lover to 
 a gi-s-en line of conduct, failing which he was privi- 
 leged to take advantage of her love and confidence, 
 with no shame whatever to himself. 
 
 If he were not a gentleman, it was her fault. If 
 he took advantage of her tenderness and con- 
 fidence in him, it was her fault. If he swore to 
 her by all that was holy, and she believed him, and 
 acted upon his word, and the results were dis- 
 astrous, it was her fault. In short, her son's stand- 
 ard of action toward the girl might be the limit of 
 possibility, and there was nothing to make him 
 blush ; but the girl must be too wise, too firm, too well 
 poised, too immaculate either to make a single mis- 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 39 
 
 take herself, or to " allow " him to make one in her 
 presence. 
 
 The one whom Mrs. Harmon was pleased to look 
 upon as the weaker and less perfect vessel, must 
 fail in nothing, while her son's standard of manli- 
 ness, of rectitude, of honor, for himself, might have 
 its limit only where possibility of accomplishment 
 ended. In short, Fred was aware that his mother 
 looked upon marriage as a sort of reform school 
 for men. Notwithstanding this fact, Fred had read 
 her letter with some displeasure. He was not yet 
 willing to give Maude Stone up, albeit he was not 
 unmindful of the great truths so forcefully set 
 forth by his mother, and he tried to look down the 
 vistas of time to see whether Maude would be able 
 to retain his full respect and devotion; and truth 
 to tell, he had his misgivings. She certainly did 
 lack finish, and she had allowed him to be very 
 familiar with her, indeed. And — well, he would 
 think it over very seriously before he married her. 
 
 Meantime, he wrote a note to Maude who was 
 visiting her aunt in Brooklyn : " I have slipped 
 over to JN^ew York for just one day to see you ; " 
 he wrote. " How long are you going to stay at 
 your aunt's ? When do you go back West ? Is 
 your father here? I have a thousand things to 
 ask you. Can you take a walk with me to-night? 
 The moonlight is glorious on the bridge. I hate 
 the house such nights. A stuffy city house would 
 
40 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 not seem like the cosy library or breezy parlor at 
 your pretty home out West. It would spoil the illu- 
 sion. ... If willing to go to-night, go to the corner 
 room at nine o'clock, light the gas, letting it burn 
 dimly, pull down all the window shades, except 
 that nearest the corner and leave it to within a foot 
 of the window sill. ..." "What a comical thing 
 to do," thought Maude, when she read the note ; 
 " sort of telegraphic communication by window 
 shade line," and she laughed at the idea. But her 
 heart beat baldly, for had not Fred come over 
 from Boston the moment he knew she was here ! 
 And she was to have a walk with him in the moon- 
 light ! It would be ever so much nicer than to stay 
 in the house. She did not think that her aunt 
 would care, only dear Fred always had said that 
 auntie did not like him, and no doubt that was the 
 reason he wanted her to slip out, so that their first 
 meeting might not be spoiled after so long a separa- 
 tion, by even the cloud of her aunt's mild dislike. 
 Anyway she would go with Fred. He was always so 
 " proper," as she called it, and he would not ask her 
 to do anything if it were not all right. He knew far 
 better than she how to make things easy, and what 
 was best. She would go. So after dinner Maude 
 went to the corner room. She pulled all of the shades 
 down except one, and that she left a few inches from 
 the sill. Then she ran to her room to put on a street 
 dress, and at nine slipped out of the side door. 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 41 
 
 " Fred," she said softly, and then there was a 
 mufQed sound of kisses and murmured words that 
 are not spelled with letters, and Fred Harmon 
 tucked her hand under his arm and they passed 
 quickly up the street. 
 
 If Maude Stone was indiscreet, it is only right to 
 say that she was very young and " in love " and 
 that she had been brought up where every one in 
 the town knew her and hers. She had had her 
 own way and was not exactly in " our set " ; though 
 the latter fact was due to no fault of her own and 
 many girls in " our set " were far less genuine, 
 perhaps. Maude's home was in a small town in the 
 West, where every one respected her and her 
 father and her mother for what they were ; where 
 no one thought it at all out of the way if the girls 
 met one, or a dozen, young men on the street and 
 stopped to talk and laugh over their various inno- 
 cent amusements ; as innocent on the part of the 
 girls as if they were babes in long gowns, and fully 
 understood to be so by all the young men who, while 
 far less innocent themselves, were still able to look 
 any honest girl in the face without an accusing con- 
 science so far as she and her type were concerned. 
 
 They thought. of these as quite apart, and of 
 totally different natures from " the other kind," and 
 any one of them would have fared badly enough 
 at the hands of his fellows if he had so much as 
 hinted at anything to the discredit of Maude Stone. 
 
42 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 They often laughed, it is true, at the absurdly 
 plain things she said, over the indiscreet things she 
 did, and at the oddly unsophisticated ways she had ; 
 but nothing short of her own declaration would 
 have convinced any one of them that Maude was 
 not, as they said, " all right, and the very best and 
 jolliest girl in the world." 
 
 " She is so chummy," said one ; " she never 
 expects a fellow to make love to her and she likes 
 all the things any other fellow does. I'd give ten 
 dollars to see her in the country, if she didn't know 
 anybody was about. She'd skin up a tree like a 
 cat. Last summer she sat on the fence and talked 
 with that boatman up at Lake Petosky, an hour at 
 a time, and she took in more legendary lore about 
 those wilds than would have filled a good sized 
 school history. She could tell the whole conversa- 
 tion, too, when she came back to the hotel. She 
 kept us all in a roar one evening rehearsing it. She 
 is the best mimic I ever saw, and she never misses 
 a point. But she wouldn't let any of us guy the 
 boatman. She said he was interesting and funny 
 to study ; but she wouldn't allow fun made of him 
 in any way that would hurt his feelings. She was 
 furious at me one day when I laughed at him be- 
 cause he asked her, with all the elaboration result- 
 ing from the most careful previous preparation ; 
 ' Will you have your eel skun, Miss ? ' She had 
 hooked an enormous eel while we were out fishing. 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 43 
 
 and he had evidently spent a good deal of careful 
 thought on his question so as to have it in the most 
 approved style. It sounded so deliciously absurd 
 that I burst out laughing. There he stood holding 
 up a great squirmy eel and inquiring gravely as to 
 her wishes in regard to depriving him of his ulster. 
 Maude looked at me with flre in her eyes, I tell 
 you ; and then she turned around and said deliber- 
 ately : ' Does he have to be skun ? Oh, yes, please, 
 if that is the way they fix eels ; do have him " skun " 
 for me and sent up to the hotel. I think papa eats 
 them. I don't know that I can, they look so dread- 
 fully snaky.' The boatman was delighted to be 
 able to serve her, and she hardly spoke to me 
 that evening. All next day she actually made 
 me giggle like a fool, to make the boatman think I 
 had fits of that kind and mustn't be held to account 
 for them. I think he made up his mind that I was 
 a little crazy. If I caught a fish I giggled, and if 
 I didn't catch one she'd glare at me to let me know 
 it was time to giggle again. If she said it was hot, 
 I laughed uproariously, and if her mother asked 
 me to bait her hook, I exploded. I knew it was 
 that, or war with Maude, for she was intent on 
 healing the lacerated feelings of that poor, abused, 
 insulted son of the oars. Mrs. Stone has set me 
 down as weak minded ever since ; but Maude and 
 I are chums again, so I don't care. I tell you she's 
 a brick." 
 
44 is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 "You bet," said one of her other admirers who 
 had heard the story ; " she's a whole hodf ul — 
 cream tinted, fresh Milwaukee bricks, at that ; " 
 and the young fellows laughed, with no sense of 
 discourtesy to the girl in their free handling of 
 her name, albeit there were several listeners on 
 the hotel veranda who were strangers to Maude 
 Stone. 
 
 One of these was Fred Harmon, who was spend- 
 ing a part of his vacation with Harvey Ball, and he 
 made up his mind, then and there, to have some 
 fun with that girl. All these village boys were 
 evidently in love with her. His spirit of investiga- 
 tion was aroused. It would be easy enough to meet 
 her. His host, Harvey Ball, had known her ever 
 since she was born, and an introduction was to be 
 had for the asking. 
 
 It did not take young Harmon long to fall in 
 love with her, himsell"', and honestly to feel that he 
 had met his fate. He had no intentions, either 
 honorable or otherwise, when he decided to ask 
 Harvey Ball to take him to call upon her. He 
 felt only the curiosity inspired by the talk he had 
 heard, and a glimpse of her fine figure and fresh, 
 young face, as she had passed the hotel. But he 
 prolonged his visit in the town, and by the end 
 of the summer they were betrothed, and as happy 
 and hopeful as two such children usually are when 
 they think that they have settled, for life, the most 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 45 
 
 momentous question of their existence, by the light 
 of their inexperience and faith. 
 
 Maude was i-ich in her own right, or would be 
 when she should be of age. An aunt had left her 
 a fortune, and her father, while he had made some 
 pretence of being a lawyer, was in point of fact a 
 collector of rents, and an owner of pine lands which 
 gave him a large income and promise of vast 
 wealth in the not far-distant future. It is only fair 
 to Sir. Fred Harmon to say, that he was not aware 
 of the fact, if the wealth of Maude, or that of her 
 father, had influenced him in the least. He believed 
 that he loved Maude for herself alone ; but it is not 
 always easy to say just what does or does not influ- 
 ence a young man who has been steadily trained 
 from his infancy to think first of all of results from 
 "their" point of view; to make new friends, or 
 to avoid knowing people, after due deliberation, on 
 these questions : " Will it be judicious ? Will they 
 be of advantage to me socially or otherwise ? Have 
 they a country place where I should like to be in- 
 vited ? If they have, can I afford to go ? That is 
 to say, will 'they' find it out, if I do, and will 
 ' they ' frown upon me ? Or, if it is where 
 'they' will know nothing about it, will there be 
 any danger that any member of this country 
 family will ever take it into his ridiculous head to 
 come to Boston, and expect me to go about with 
 him?" 
 
46 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 I say that it is very difficult to determine just 
 what considerations do or do not form the basis of 
 any action after twenty-four years of this sort of 
 training ; and so when I assert that Fred Harmon 
 firmly believed that he loved Maude for her own 
 dear, frank self alone, I am aware that I am run- 
 ning more or less risk of attributing to him a far 
 greater simplicity of motive than might be quite 
 fair to one of his complex and highly civilized 
 mental and moral condition. 
 
 Fred was poor. That was one reason why his 
 mother had trained him so carefully not to allow 
 himself to step one inch outside of the well-estab- 
 lished channels of thought and action. She held 
 that a rich man might possibly risk it, and recover 
 his ground afterward ; but a poor man, never. 
 Fred was conscious of certain rebellious ideas of 
 his own, which he would like very much, indeed, to 
 dare to express. Maude was rich. 
 
 In his inmost soul Fred had often chafed at the 
 repressions and eliminations to which his position 
 had always condemned him. Maude was rich. 
 
 Once or twice before he had been in the West, 
 where he was so situated that ha had dared to say 
 and do what he had liked best ; to express his real 
 thoughts and feelings ( so far as he could be sure 
 what they were in their embryonic and tentative 
 state), and it had been a great luxury. He 
 had felt like a new being, taller and stronger 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 47 
 
 and firmer on his feet, until his mother had con- 
 vinced him that he had been temporarily out of his 
 mind, andthat it would be utterly impossible for 
 any sane man of his position and culture to hold 
 such revolutionary views, none of which were in- 
 dorsed by Father Highchurch, or even by the eso- 
 teric Buddhists of her acquaintance. Fred had 
 therefore learned to distrust his mental opera- 
 tions, and really to question his own sanity, when 
 he found himself holding opinions on any subject 
 whatsoever which had not the indorsement and 
 seal of those whose intellectual garments had al- 
 ways been given to him, ready made, with the 
 injunction that not a stitch, not a button, not a ra- 
 velling could be altered without utterly ruining the 
 fit and bringing disgrace and shame upon his own 
 undraped and nude mentality. 
 
 One or two of their friends had taken the social 
 and religious bit in their teeth, it was true, and 
 they had come to no grief ; but Fred's mother had 
 pointed out that in each case they were rich, and, 
 well, Maude was rich ! 
 
48 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 This Is not right, is not just, is not true to the best that is in you. . . . 
 
 So the maiden went on, and little divined or imagined what was at 
 ■worlt in his heart. . . . 
 
 Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all 
 things 
 
 Keep ourselves loyal to truth. . . . 
 
 '"Twasbuta dream, — let it pass,— let it vanish like so many others I 
 What I thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is worthless ; 
 Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away." — Longfellow- 
 
 Xh, well ! ah well ! who is to say what Mr. Fred 
 Harmon's motives were, and what they were not, 
 when he sat down that delicious summer to think 
 it all over, and finally decided to ask Maude not to 
 expect him to announce their engagement to his 
 mother, just yet ? He asked her to keep it a 
 secret between themselves and her family. Maude's 
 father did not like this ; but he gave it no great 
 thought at first, and as the young fellow had come 
 very openly and said that he loved Maude, and 
 wanted his consent to marry her when he should 
 finish college and have a profession, Mr. Stone 
 had replied that it was for Maude to say whether 
 she was wilhng to be betrothed under those condi- 
 tions. That had settled it. Fred knew, of course, 
 what was right. His mother was an invalid, and 
 he did not want to trouble her just now. Of course, 
 a mother would dislike dreadfully to have her only 
 son love any giii and want to marry her, especially 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 49 
 
 if siie did. not know the girl beforehand. They 
 would wait until he had established himself in 
 something, if need be, though Maude told him that 
 she had enough for both and that he need not 
 worry about that. 
 
 " Yes, of course, Fred," she had said, " you will 
 want to do something. Any manly man would ; 
 but what I meant was that you need not worry 
 over it as if I had nothing. You can take time to 
 think and choose to suit yourself. Don't be a 
 clergyman, Fred," she had added. " I would be 
 such a guy as a clergyman's wife. I do so love to 
 dance and have fun; and then, Fred, I never could, 
 would, nor should keep my face straight to see you 
 trailing around in a Mother- Hubbard." 
 
 Fred laughed. He wondered what his mother 
 would say if she heard the gown she so worshipped) 
 on Father Highchurch, called a Mother-Hubbard 
 by the girl he loved. 
 
 " And then, Fred," Maude added, quite seri- 
 ously, " you say, yourself, that you don't believe 
 the creed and the thirty-nine articles, and you 
 believe that Christ was the son of Joseph, and 
 you don't believe in the justice of the vicarious 
 atonement, and — oh, I'm sure, Fred, from what 
 you said to father that night on the veranda, 
 that a man who had the least self-respect, couldn't 
 be an Episcopal clergyman and think as you do. 
 Why, Fred, there weren't three grains difference 
 
50 Ts this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 between your belief and father's, and he isn't even 
 a Unitarian. He's an Agnostic." 
 
 Fred beheld the vision of his mother again, 
 horrified and indignant. According to her belief 
 Agnostics and Anarchists were about the same 
 thing, and neither were persons one would ever 
 care to meet out on a dark night. 
 
 " You are so literal, Maude," he said, playing with 
 the ring on her finger. " You are such a downright 
 literal little sweetheart, don't you know, that you 
 don't see those things in exactly the same light that 
 I do — • that such men as Heber Newton and Phillips 
 Brooks, for example, see them ? They are broad 
 enough to please even you, I should think. If I 
 were to take orders, I should not be a High-church- 
 man, but a Broad- churchman such as they are. 
 Mother would agree to that so long as I wore the 
 vestments at all, although she will remain rigidly 
 High-church, herself." 
 
 " "What has your mother agreeing to it, or not 
 agreeing to it, to do with the case, Fred, if you 
 don't believe it ? " she asked quite simply. Fred 
 was astounded ; but she went on without noticing 
 his expression. " You have to be true to your ovn 
 opinions and conclusions, in a thing like that, don't 
 you ? You surely can't believe this and disbelieve 
 that because she or any one else tells you they will 
 agree to it — to your going just so far in your mind 
 and no farther, — can you ? " 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 51 
 
 She laughed. Her sense of humor always relieved 
 her intensity of conviction. 
 
 " I think I can see you, Fred, with your black 
 Mother-Hubbard on, skipping across the platform 
 to get at the m.iddle pulpit, and then shying out 
 through a door to take that one off and put on a 
 white polonaise with black trimmings — or is it the 
 other way ? — I always forget which costume comes 
 first, — and suddenly coming back and bobbing down 
 at the side pulpit. Oh dear ! I never can help want- 
 ing to laugh. A man looks so ridiculous. He al- 
 ways looks as if he felt like a fool, and I should 
 think he would, especially if he is large, like you. 
 But when you come to take orders, as you say, the 
 Bishop will ask you solemnly, ' Do you firmly be- 
 lieve that twice two are five, and that under theo- 
 logical conditions, three times five are twenty-one ? ' 
 If you are going to be a Broad-churchman, as you 
 call it, and answer him according to ' the higher 
 criticism,' you will say, devoutly, that you can agree 
 to both very readily, with certain mental reserva- 
 tions. Then the Bishop will look at you with 
 grave suspicions and request you to state those 
 reservations in italics, and to do it pretty quick, 
 at that." 
 
 She paused and looked at him in a quizzical way. 
 Then she said : " Young man, you're going to be 
 scared. You're going to discover that those 
 mental reservations take in the whole state. There 
 
52 Is this your Son, ray Lord? 
 
 won't be a county intact ; but you'll find one little 
 polling district, as they say, when they talk poli- 
 tics, and you will think it is a good one to bring 
 forward to show that you are orthodox ; but, my 
 son," said the girl with a shake of the head, " that 
 Bishop will go behind the returns. You will say 
 that what you really believe is that twice two are 
 four with the next number above it five." Fred 
 laughed and kissed her ; but she freed herself 
 from his detaining arm, and went on. 
 
 " After due deliberation the Bishop will tell you 
 that since you are a very desirable candidate, he is 
 willing for you to believe it that wz,j, provided you 
 keep it to yourself and teach your parishioners only 
 the — er — a — simpler formula, which is far better 
 suited to the ordinary mind ; but as for the other 
 proposition that three times five are twenty-one, it 
 is absolutely essential that you believe that person- 
 ally. You'll try to squirm out of it ; but he will be 
 obdurate. He will send you away to think it over. 
 He won't say so exactly, but he will mean just 
 about this : ' Young man, when you come back 
 here, you say that three times five are twenty-one, 
 and receive a good parish, honors, some money, 
 social position, and no end of praise ; but return to 
 me with any other statement, and you will not only 
 fail of these, but you will feel, besides, the heavy 
 hand of power laid somewhat ungently on your 
 youthful head.' " 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 53 
 
 She brought her hand down on his well kept 
 hair, and allowed it to rest there as she went on. 
 
 " Well, you will go off to think it over. You 
 like ease. Praise is a delight to j^ou. The pulpit 
 of a rich parish is the very easiest way on this earth 
 for average ability to get itself worshipped as 
 genius, papa says. N"ow, Fred, you have one weak- 
 ness, — oh, yes, you have ! You Uke to be wor- 
 shipped. I don't blame you," she laughed, " so do 
 I. — ISTo such thing. 'M-m-m ! — Oh, stop, Fred ! I'll 
 take your word for the rest of this particular dem- 
 onstration of the degree to which you adore me. 
 I really must finish my story. I've got you in an 
 awfully tight place, and I want to get you out. 
 Willing to stay there ? Why, Fred, you are not ! 
 It wouldn't be honest. Well, here you are, and 
 here is the Bishop." She struck an attitude and 
 looked very severe as she posed for that august 
 personage. When she was Fred, her meekness 
 and conciliatory tones and pose were very amus- 
 ing to the young fellow, who greatly enjoyed hef 
 power of mimicry. 
 
 " 'Your reverence,' say you, ' I am now prepared 
 to accept that other canon of belief. I believe, 
 fully, that if five were seven the result could not 
 fail to be exactly as you say, and that, since, — ' 
 ' Depart, ye cursed, until you make .u]3 your mind 
 that three times five are twenty-one, pure and simple, 
 without frills or tucks, sir ! ' — and you depart.'' 
 
54 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 She laughed gayly again, and held his hand to 
 her soft cheek, stroking it up and down slowly; 
 then she dropped it and began afresh, standing up 
 to emphasize the effect, while she again acted the 
 parts of the unrelenting Bishop and the ingenuous 
 applicant for holy orders. 
 
 " Well, as I remarked before, you depart. You 
 come to me. We get our little slates and we fig- 
 ure, we multiply, and we add, and we fail to get 
 his result. You go to the leaders of the Broad- 
 church. They put their whole minds on it for 
 awhile. By and by, they say : ' Simple as can be, 
 my son ; give it to the Bishop this way.' It reads: 
 three multiplied by five plus six are twenty-one. 
 When you show it to the Bishop, he waxeth wroth 
 and demandeth sternly : ' What does this mean, sir? 
 I thought I told you to get it without any extras.' " 
 
 Maude scowled fiercely, and then, suddenly 
 changing her manner to one of propitiation, went 
 meekly on : — 
 
 " If you please, sir, we of the Broad-church do 
 not count the six. It is thrown in for good 
 measure, and nobody ever notices it any way. I 
 do assure you that is my very best, Bishop, and 
 after learning to duplicate the explanation, as 
 made to me this morning, no one in my parish 
 will ever notice the six. We write it very small." 
 
 Fred had entered into the fun of it, and Maude 
 did act so well. He sprang to his feet, and caught 
 
Is this your. Son, my Lord? 55 
 
 her in his arms, covering her lovely face with 
 kisses. 
 
 " How comical you are, Maude ! " She broke 
 away laughing, and seated herself at the piano. 
 
 "All that you can do, Fred, if you choose to 
 eat humble pie ; but you cannot, you cantiot, you 
 cannot think their way if you don't, and that's all 
 there is of it ; " and she ran her fingers over the 
 keys, while their young voices simultaneously rang 
 out in a love song from Siegfried. Theology was 
 forgotten. From the stern orthodox Bishop with 
 his effort to maintain his mental integrity ; from 
 the Broad-church leaders with their bold elimina- 
 tions and substitutions, — their premises, which, as 
 Maude said, were not even blood relations to their 
 conclusions ; from the timid, eager, hoi^eful novi- 
 tiate, Maude had passed into the beautiful, loving, 
 trusting girl, happy in her splendid lover and 
 radiant in her happiness. 
 
 But the world is small, and Mr. Fred Harmon 
 had not reckoned on one thing. About this time 
 Harvey Ball wrote to a college chum, and lo ! the 
 engagement, which was to be kept for a time from 
 his mother, was the talk of Boston. 
 
 It was done quite innocently. Harvey knew of 
 no reason why he should not speak of it. It was 
 no secret here at Maude's home. All the boys 
 congratulated Fred and envied him, in a certain 
 sense. They were glad of Maude's good fortune ; 
 
56 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 for the glamour of " our set " quite surrounded the 
 young fellow from Beacon Hill, and his very- 
 reticence and caution told strongly upon their 
 more open, bluff, and simple natures. Fred's 
 mother heard. She called him home at once. 
 She sent for a doctor ; then she told Fred that he 
 was insane again. She reminded him of several 
 previous mistakes in his judgment, which he 
 could not deny. She bade him write to Maude and 
 break the engagement at once, on the ground 
 that he had not been in his right mind ; and — shall 
 I tell the truth ? — he promised, but did not do it. 
 
 It is true that he wrote to Maude, and appeared 
 to blame her because she had let-the engagement be 
 known. His letter conveyed to the girl's wounded 
 heart the impression that he thought she had 
 been so elated, that she had been unable to conceal 
 her exultation because of her supreme good fortune. 
 
 Once under the old spell again, he felt anew the 
 power of convention, and reflected that Maude 
 would gain a vast deal by her elevation to the 
 charmed circle of exclusive, social Boston. He 
 recalled her humorous representation of the Bishop 
 in his " Mother-Hubbard, " and of him, the young 
 novitiate, nimbly presenting his various evasions of 
 fact in the hope of hitting on one that would "take ; " 
 and, as he reflected, he decided to let his mother 
 believe what she had unhesitatingly announced 
 from the moment she had heard the dreadful news, 
 
Is this your Smi, tny Lord? 57 
 
 — that Maude and her people had deliberately laid 
 a trap to ensnare her son for their own glory 
 and aggrandizement. Fred did not say that she 
 ■was right in this version of the affair ; hut he let 
 her repeat it, and did not insist that she was wrong. 
 To his father, Fred had said nothing. Indeed, there 
 was scant need that he should say anything for 
 that gentleman had long ago made up his mind 
 — or whatever served him in ^that capacity — to 
 accept, without question, the social dictates of his 
 ambitious and socially skilful wife. He had taken 
 this course long before the marriage of their 
 daughter, and had not she been piloted into a most 
 brilliant and desirable union with a scion of the 
 house of one of the elect? It is true that Clara was 
 looking somewhat pale and sad, of late; but one could 
 not ask too much of matrimony — and happiness, it 
 is to be supposed, is not the sole aim of existence. 
 But all this trouble arising in Fred's betrothal to 
 his pretty western sweetheart had been long ago, and 
 Maude had covered her heartache and said nothing 
 to her father about it lest he blame Fred ; and 
 after all, Fred had written nothing to be blamed for. 
 He had seemed vexed, it is true, and his letters had 
 lacked the tone she had longed to find in them; 
 but he had said nothing unkind, and perhaps, — oh, 
 perhaps, — lovers did not write just the words and in 
 just the tone that her heart hungered for, especially 
 if the lover had had the advantage of training in good 
 
58 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 form. So Maude hid her pain, and by and by Fred's 
 letters were full of other things again, and he said 
 no more of the worry about their engagement be- 
 ing known at his home ; but she would have liked 
 very much to receive a kind letter from his parents. 
 She was glad that Fred had always been charming 
 with her father and mother ; but she would have 
 loved to show her heart to his people too. 
 
 Maude had always thought that she would never 
 allow her pride to stand as a barrier against a close 
 and loving relationship between herself and her 
 husband's family. 
 
 She would so enjoy conforming to their ways and 
 showing them how much she loved the man she 
 had married and those who were near to him in 
 blood and thought. But she waited and waited, 
 and no message came from his family and he said 
 no more about it. He only wrote charming letters. 
 Maude could not help feeling at times that they 
 would have been equally interesting and delightful 
 to anyone else, except for the " darling " at the 
 beginning, and " your Fred" at the end. 
 
 She put a good deal more than that in hers ; but 
 then, Fred had always been used to self-repression, 
 while she, oh, she had worn her heart on her sleeve 
 all her short life, and said what she felt and felt 
 what she said. So it was different, of course. 
 
 But all this, as I saj^, had been in the past, and 
 now Maude had gone to visit her aunt in Brooklyn, 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 59 
 
 anil FieiT had come to New York, as he told his 
 mother, to look about him and make up his mind 
 what to do next, now that he had been graduated. 
 His mother firmly believed that he had broken 
 with Maude, and wrote to her friend a letter which 
 ended thus : . . . " The girl has an uncle, I 
 am told, who is in disrepute, and she, herself, must 
 be an unwholesome creature, mentally. Fancy a 
 woman who buttons her gloves after she is on the 
 doorstep, married to Fred ! . . . But the 
 dear fellow has quite recovered from his infatua- 
 tion now, and I breathe again. Be thankful with 
 me ! Be grateful to our blessed Christ that He did 
 not permit this sacrifice. Oh, it seems to me that I 
 cannot thank Him enough that my splendid son has 
 escaped from the wiles of those designing people. 
 The girl — the — I can think of no word with 
 which I would willingly pollute . my tongue to 
 describe the bold creature — is, they tell me, very 
 pretty, and, of course, that goes a great way with 
 an inexperienced young fellow like Fred. And 
 equally of course, she knew how to play her 
 beauty off on him to the best advantage. 
 
 "Ah, well, he is safe again; but, dear, do you 
 know I thought, at one time, that I should be com- 
 pelled to have him adjudged insane by Dr. K ? 
 
 You know he did that for Father High-church when 
 Eddie married the poor, unpleasing creature he 
 did, and the court annulled the marriage on that 
 
60 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 ground. It was all done secretly ; but a few of us 
 knew of it. 
 
 " By the way, did I tell you that Eddie is to many 
 my niece in the fall? I am so glad and proud, for 
 Eddie is to take his uncle's place in the parish 
 when he is a little older, unless all signs fail. He 
 is only an assistant rector now ; but his place is 
 quite assured, and his abilities remarkable already. 
 It is really quite a feather in Dell's cap, too, for 
 the Forrest girls threw themselves at his head and 
 — well, let us draw a cloak of charity over Mrs. 
 C 's conduct with Kate." 
 
 Maude sent the note from Fred — the telegraphic 
 note as she called it — to her father. She never 
 thought of not sending it, poor child, for her first 
 idea was to have him know that Fred had come 
 to New York as soon as he had' learned that she 
 was there. She had found herself frequently, of 
 late, trying to defend Fred from thoughts she 
 sometimes had, and in her fear, imagined her father 
 might have also. But Fred's note produced quite 
 a different effect upon her father from anything 
 Claude had expected. He wrote a letter at once to 
 that young gentleman, and as he did not want to 
 send it to Maude, and did not know Fred's New 
 York address, he mailed it to Boston and marked 
 it " forward." A part of it read thus : — 
 
 "It may be Eastern style, it may be High-church, or 
 Broad-church, or bon-ton etiquette, to write to a girl 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 61 
 
 to fix her window shades so and so if she is willing to 
 go out with you for a walk ; but it isn't Western, and, 
 by Heaven, sir, you can't do it with my daughter ! 
 
 " If you can't treat her in the East as you treat her 
 at her own home ; if you can't walk in and show 
 yourself, and be open and above board, I'll send 
 Maude to Europe, or somewhere else, if it kills her 
 before you shall see her again. "What do you 
 mean, sir ? Window shades, indeed ! Don't try 
 any of yovir filagree-wcrk, comic opera business, on 
 my daughter, or you'll hear something drop — and 
 it won't be I, either. I've written to Maude that 
 in my opinion, she had better give you your walk- 
 ing papers ; but in the meantime, I'd like you to 
 explain this note to her and to me, and if you have 
 any prejudices, as you call them, in favor of a whole 
 skin, you'd better do it pretty damn quick, at that." 
 
 When Mrs. Harmon, Fred's mother, opened and 
 read this letter, — as I am bound to say she did, — 
 she decided not to send it to Fred ; but she wrote 
 him instead : 
 
 " Fred, dearie, I have received the most impu- 
 dent letter from that man, — the father of the 
 
 I don't know what to call her — who set that trap 
 for your dear feet. He has not given you up yet. 
 He dares to threaten you ! I told you how it would 
 be. They mean to try to force you to marry her. 
 Well, remember, my son, that you are a man now, and 
 remember, too, that you are a gentleman. . . . Such 
 
62 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 a letter ! Such a vulgar, low, blasphemous letter as 
 he wrote ! It would kill my refined, high-strung boy 
 to be associated with such common people. . . . 
 Now, my dear, don't pay the least attention. They 
 evidently don't know where you are. Don't let 
 them. Break off all communication, if you have 
 not. They cannot frighten me into teUing where 
 you are, and no one else knows. 
 
 " Take a trip out to St. Louis or Chicago and 
 don't allow any of them to get your address. . . 
 Let them have nothing in writing. If possible get 
 your letters from that — girl — and burn every 
 one of them. Never again sign anything. . . 
 They can't hold you in law. If they try it, or 
 
 even threaten to, Dr. K says he will say 
 
 that you were out of your mind, as of course you 
 were, or it never would have happened. . . 
 Now go, son, the moment you get this, and write 
 only to your loving mamma. 
 
 "P. S. Remember what a glorious future is 
 before one with your rare mental and social gifts, 
 if only you keep yourself free." 
 
 Fred read this letter, and then a note from 
 Maude. He was not particularly disturbed by 
 either. He was not sure that he fully understood 
 what was behind the words Maude wrote ; but his 
 guess came very near the truth. Her note began : 
 '' I had a cruel letter." Then she had drawn a line 
 over it and begun again : " I return all of your 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 63 
 
 letters and ring. I do not know what to think. 
 I am bewildered and pained. I leave town at 
 once. Papa has sent for my aunt to take me 
 away. I do not understand; but no doubt you 
 will — you and your mother. Good-by." 
 
 The fact was that Fred's mother had written to 
 Maude a long, cunningly-worded letter, in which 
 she had appealed to the girl to give her son his 
 freedom. She argued so effectively, and appealed 
 to the girl's pride in such a way, that Maude had 
 hastened to comply with her request, even to the 
 last detail that she say nothing to Fred of the 
 maternal letter. It is to be doubted whether 
 Maude would have complied so readily, without 
 first hearing from her lover, if she had not received 
 a note from her father which spoke rather severely 
 of Fred and of his recent conduct. It was all 
 rather blind to her ; but she could see that the 
 accompanying letter from her father to her aunt — 
 which was a long one, and which, contrary to the 
 family custom, had not been given her to read, — 
 had produced deep wrath in the bosom of that 
 lady ; and she announced that they would leave 
 at once, for Maude's home. 
 
 It had all taken such a little time. Aunt Stone was 
 a person of quick decision and prompt action, and 
 now the trunks were packed, and Maude locked her 
 door and flung herself, face down, on her bed, and 
 wept and moaned for all the dreams that were past. 
 
64 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Chaptee V. 
 
 *' And In the world, as in the school, 
 
 I'd say how fate may change and shift,— 
 The prize be sometimes with the fool. 
 
 The race not always to the swift; 
 The strong may yield, the good may fall. 
 
 The great man be a vulgar clown. 
 The knave he lifted over all, 
 
 The kind cast pitilessly down." — Thackeray. 
 
 *' It is probable that the great majority of voices that swell the clamor 
 against every book which is regarded as heretical, are the voices of those 
 who would deem it criminal even to open that book, or to enter into any 
 real, searching and impartial investigation of the subject to which it 
 relates." — Lecky. 
 
 Late that evening Fred stepped into a Club on 
 Fifth Avenue. He felt tired, unsteady, and 
 worn. He did not know what next to do, or 
 where to go. He assured himself that he had been 
 very badly treated and that he was most miserable. 
 He chewed his mustache, and scowled in melan- 
 choly silence as he took a seat where he could 
 hear without being expected to participate in the 
 conversation of a group of well-known men. Even 
 in his desolation, he did not forget that it was well 
 to be associated in the public mind with the lions 
 of the day, and the group was clearly seen from 
 the street. He had noticed that as he came in. 
 Early in the evening he had gone to the house in 
 Brooklyn to ask — so he told himself — for an ex- 
 planation of Maude's note ; but he had been met at 
 
Is this your /Son, my Lord? 65 
 
 the door by the butler, and told that the ladies were 
 at that moment on their way to Europe — that they 
 had sailed early in the afternoon. Ko, he could not 
 remember the name of the steamer, and no word 
 had been left for anyone. " How long ? " He really 
 did not know, but had heard some talk of a year 
 in France, and then a tour in some place or other ; 
 but really he did not know much about it. None 
 of which was true, and Fred was not at all sure 
 that he believed it ; but he went away, and Maude 
 did not know that he had made even this feeble 
 attempt to see her, and the night train for the West 
 had pulled out with much puffing, and backing, and 
 whistling, all of which tortured the girl who sat 
 with closed eyes, as if it were a part of her sorrow, 
 and contrived for her benefit alone. When Fred 
 Harmon entered the club room, several of the 
 younger men in the far corner bowed to him ; but, 
 as I say, he had selected his seat from the outside, 
 and he took it now with an easy assurance that 
 started little streams of envious thought in minds 
 less diplomatically gifted than his own. 
 
 The death of a novelist was the bit of news 
 under discussion by the distinguished group of 
 whom Fred was now — from the street, at least — a 
 member. The rightful place of the departed in 
 the world of letters aroused a warmth of expres- 
 sion which Fred felt was distinctly not of the Back 
 Bay. But then of course New York was not — 
 
66 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 that is, one could not expect the same degree of 
 culture — well, it was quite a distance from New 
 York to Harvard, and most of these men were 
 thorough New Yorkers. Indeed, one of them, at 
 least, was even more unfortunate. He was from 
 the West. Fred thought he held his own remark- 
 ably well, under the circumstances. He could not 
 help smiling, in spite of his forlornly unhappy state, 
 as he thought how lucky it was for this Western 
 man that none of his opponents were Bostonians. 
 
 " You cannot call that sort of writing Literature ;" 
 said a tall, fine looking man, whose rank as a 
 novelist was, as he felt, quite assured. "It would 
 be like calling a chromo Art, or the jingle of a hand- 
 organ Music." 
 
 " But he made more money than any of you 
 high-toned fellows," asserted one of the dead 
 author's admirers, " and after all, that is the main 
 thing with all of you. You'd do it quick enough 
 if you could. Don't talk to me about genius and 
 all that sort of thing ; if he had the genius to touch 
 the popular heart, you can't deny that he got away 
 with most of you, after all." 
 
 " Oh, when it comes to that," said another man 
 of letters, whose heavy articles charm a few, are 
 read as a duty by some, and avoided as a pestilence 
 by the many, — " when it comes to talk about touch- 
 ing the popular heart, that is best done with a pair 
 of shears and a paste pot. I know a publisher who 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 67 
 
 understood the trick perfectly. He knew that 
 anything that had Mother in the title — no matter 
 if it was the veriest twaddle on earth — would sell. 
 A certain number of idiots would have that book 
 or die. He estimated that about one hundred 
 thousand fools out of the sixty million in this 
 enlightened country would nibble at that bait. He 
 thought that about the same number A^'ould buy 
 anything ^-ith Home in the title. Heaven would 
 bring down a like number, and a combination of 
 the three would fascinate almost anybody." Fred 
 was getting interested, and a general smile of 
 amusement went around the circle and somewhat 
 dissipated the air of hostility that had begun to 
 show itself a moment before. 
 
 " Well, that man took a pair of shears and a pot 
 of paste, and he clipped and pasted and pasted and 
 clipped all the odds and ends he could find that he 
 could by the widest stretch of his fertile and 
 elastic imagination bring under any one of these 
 heads. He got a lot. Then he issued the book, 
 and put ' Mother, Home and Heaven,' in large 
 and duly impressive gilt letters on the cover ; and 
 what do you suppose was the result of his ven- 
 ture ? " 
 
 " Didn't sell ten copies," laughed a young 
 artist. 
 
 " Sold like hot cakes until the disjointed and 
 worthless nature of the work became known, 
 
68 Is this your /Son, my Lord? 
 
 and then some of his victims walked in one day and 
 scalped him ; " suggested a well-known army man 
 from Arizona, who was the guest of the evening. 
 
 " Died of remorse before the first edition of five 
 hundred was sold," ventured an actor who had 
 just made a hit in tragedy at a Broadway theatre. 
 
 " Not a bit of it ! " said the pessimist of the 
 heavy literature. " Not a bit of it ! He sold, for 
 hard cash, just four hundred thousand copies of 
 that unadulterated trash to a like number of de- 
 lighted imbeciles, who call it literature, and pride 
 themselves on the fact that they and theirs are 
 readers ! " 
 
 A general laugh mingled with his groan of dis- 
 gust, and then a tall, gray-bearded editor of kindly 
 heart and caustic pen, took up the cudgel for 
 suffering literature. 
 
 " Of course," said he. " What better could you 
 expect ? Look at the half educated idiots the public 
 schools turn loose every year on a long-suffering 
 and sorely-tried community ! It makes my hair 
 curl only to think of it. They are under the 
 impression that they are educated, and they know 
 just exactly enough to make them perfectly hope- 
 less cases to deal with. But the ' Mother, Home 
 and Heaven' crowd is not half so bad as the other 
 one ; " he added, and then paused. 
 
 " Which other ? " inquired the tragic actor. 
 " The Father, Club and Hell set?" 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 69 
 
 Every one laughed again except the gray-bearded, 
 sweet-natured editor, him of the trenchant pen. He 
 was in earnest, and as the army man remarked, 
 " on the war path." 
 
 " N'o ! " said he, indignantly ; " the ' Elmina 
 Stabbed the Count,' crowd. The woods are full of 
 them ! Don't talk to me about literature ! Why, 
 do you realize, my Christian friends of the book- 
 making fraternity, that there are sixty millions of 
 people in this enlightened land of ours, and that 
 only three millions of them ever read books, maga- 
 zines, or even newspapers ? Go to ! Literature, 
 indeed ! What we want in this country is what 
 people will read, isn't it ? Well, that is ' Mother, 
 Home and Pleaven,' two parts, and ' Elmina Stabbed 
 the Count,' three parts ; well shaken together, and 
 served hot. Oh, no, my friends, don't fret about 
 the dear departed. He knew what he was about ; " 
 and with a groan of pent up indignation for suffer- 
 ing literature with a very large L, he jammed his 
 hat on his fine, well-poised head, and started 
 for his office " to write," cynically remarked the 
 tragic actor, " a glowing editorial on the high grade 
 of intelligence possessed by the American people 
 in general, and the high-school graduate in par- 
 ticular." 
 
 Fred followed him somewhat aimlessly from the 
 room, and out into the street. Then he called a 
 cab and drove to his hotel. 
 
70 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 " Call me for the midnight train, on the Pennsyl- 
 vania Central ; " said he to the clerk, and went to 
 his room to pack his " traps," feeling that the world 
 was very hollow, indeed, and that women were at 
 the bottom of it all. 
 
 When Preston Mansfield, homeward bound, 
 reached the waiting-room in Jersey City, he was 
 surprised to see Fred Harmon strolling gloomily 
 up and down the platform. 
 
 " Hello, old man ! Chicago ? " said Preston. 
 
 " l&o. Yes. I don't know," repilied Fred, some- 
 what impatiently. " West, somewhere." 
 
 " Better drop in on us while you are cruising 
 around. Small place. Not a great deal to see 
 Nothing to do ; but I have to go home once in a 
 while, and look after the folks — and do the lead- 
 ing citizen act. Drop in on us if you're our way. 
 Take you hunting. Lots of game. By Jove, a 
 porcupine waddled into our back yard the last time 
 I was home ! " 
 
 " No ! " exclaimed Fred, deeply interested. He 
 was a born hunter. Bringing down game gave 
 him the keenest pleasure. 
 
 " Fact," said Preston. " Oh, we're primitive 
 out our way. Most of our callers are bear or 
 Indians. We like the bear best,, they don't smell 
 so bad. Wah ! did you ever get on the lee side of 
 an Indian in good and regular standing ? No ? 
 Well, don't. Good by ! this is my buggy ; " and 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 71 
 
 Preston sprang upon the step of the sleeping 
 coach just as the train pulled out. Fred, with his 
 usual reticence and caution, concluded quietly to 
 wait for the next train. And Maude never knew why 
 the section across from hers was left vacant, for 
 she had heard the conductor insist that it had been 
 taken and paid for. But New York has attractions 
 for even a broken-hearted young collegian, and it 
 was more than a month, before Fred stepped 
 aboard a west-bound train. 
 
 It was five weeks later when Harvey Ball took 
 his seat at the military dinner given in St. Louis 
 in honor of the arrival of General Sherman. He 
 did not know why it was, but he observed that a 
 feeling of bitterness hovered about the head of the 
 table, and that it was intensified the farther it 
 travelled toward the foot. 
 
 "Isn't it shocking ? " whispered the lady at his side. 
 
 " If you say so, yes, but what is it ? " laughed 
 young Ball. 
 
 The lady, somewhat mature in years, but with the 
 complexion of an infant and the manner of a school 
 girl, glared at him for a moment, but seemed to 
 remember that he was only an ordinary civilian, 
 and therefore not to be held accountable for an 
 otherwise inexcusable depth of ignorance. Then 
 she sighed and spoke across him to the lady on his 
 right, the poise of whose head and neck boded war 
 on the morrow. 
 
72 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 " How dared she seat the senator's wife above 
 Mrs. General C ?" 
 
 " Well,'' replied the irate matron ; " that is not 
 the worst of it. Did you notice that, as we came 
 
 in, jMrs. Captain D ■ preceded the colonel's 
 
 wife ? " 
 
 " Horrors, no ! Then she was ahead of me ! 
 Well, of course, that settles it. Somebody has got 
 to teach her her rank. Look at the bold creature 
 talking to General Sherman. But he only tolerates 
 her, as you can see. How on earth was such a 
 
 mistake made about seating Mrs. General C ? I 
 
 should think Mrs. Senator M would feel how 
 
 dreadfully out of place she is and offer to change." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, you forget that she is not of the 
 regular army ! I really doubt if she has the least 
 idea how outrageous it is. She probably feels 
 quite at her ease. Just fancy ! " 
 
 At this juncture the young captain opposite 
 Harvey Ball, who had been his schoolfellow in 
 years gone by, asked : — 
 
 " Do you keep up your interest in sociological 
 studies. Ball ? What did you thiiik of Herbert 
 Spencer's last? Don't you think he made a bad 
 break in that unknowable, with a big U, argument ? " 
 
 " Why, Captain, you don't read Spencer do you ? " 
 exclaimerl the major's irate sister, in shocked sur- 
 prise. " How dreadful ! But it is a loose age and 
 of course yoitr church has no views on literature." 
 
Ts this your tSo72, my Lord? 73 
 
 Harvey Ball was amused and curious. As a 
 civil engineer he felt that it was his duty to take a 
 survey of this new phase of mentality. He turned 
 to her and said : — 
 
 " I shall have to confess to the same breach of 
 decorum, I fear. I read Spencer at odd times too, 
 and I never before knew that it was looked upon 
 as an offence. Tell me about it. I am only a 
 poor, uninstructed civilian. Is Herbert Spencer be- 
 low the "alt in regular army circles?" But the 
 lady on his other side broke in : — 
 
 "How terrible! Do you know I heard two 
 women admit reading him not long ago. I can't 
 call them ladies, of course ; but — " 
 
 " Now don't say too miuch, my dear,'' said the jna- 
 jor's sister ; " for I had heard so much talk about 
 his writings — and of course our Church does not 
 approve of reading such things — but feeling myself 
 strong I made up my mind to read just one and 
 see if it would undermine my faith, and really and 
 truly, I think that the Church places too high an 
 estimate upon the power of his writings. I read 
 the book through carefully, and I do assure you 
 that it did not disturb my faith in the least ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " gasped the other lady, " I should not care 
 to try such a dangerous experiment. What a risk 
 to run, my dear, what an awful risk to run ! " 
 
 " Which one of his works did you read, may I 
 ask ? " inquired the young captain opposite, looking 
 
74 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 straight at Harvey Ball ■who was struggling with a 
 twinkle in his eye, and did not dare to look np. 
 
 " The Faerie Queene," she replied triumphantly. 
 
 The yonng captain looked suddenly at his plate, 
 and Harvey Ball searched in vain for a napkin in 
 his lap. Presently he said quite soberly : " You 
 did well, indeed, madam, if you read that incendi- 
 ary work all through and kept your faith in gods 
 or man intact. I congratulate you. I assure j'ou that 
 it is the man's very worst production. I have some- 
 times thought that he laid himself out on that 
 book." 
 
 " Did you confess after you read it, may I ask ? " 
 inquired the captain, dryly. " Yes, I did, and I 
 went into retreat the next time two days longer 
 than usual, too," she said. "Do not imagine. Cap- 
 tain, that it had power to corrupt me in any way 
 whatever. I am a Mountbuford. Xo one of them 
 ever slighted or left the true faith. Lydia, are you 
 
 sure that j\Irs. Captain D came in before me ? 
 
 Where is she now ? You know I am a trifle near- 
 sighted. Impossible ! "What does General Sherman 
 mean?" And she of the family of incorruptible 
 jMountbufords took Plai^'ey Ball's arm and strode 
 majestically out of the room — sad to relate, once 
 more, after the captain's wife, who was chatting 
 gaily with General Sherman, who had her on one 
 arm and on the other Maude Stone, interested if not 
 happy. 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 75 
 
 Maude's father stood near the door. She smiled 
 at him as she passed, and then puckered her pretty- 
 brows into a playful frown. He knew that she 
 wanted him te offer his arm to some lady ; but 
 looking over Harvey Ball's shoulder an hour later 
 as they waltzed past, Maude saw her father still 
 standing alone near the door, looking at her gloom- 
 ilj'. He brightened when he saw that she was 
 laughing. Harvey was rehearsing the precedence 
 incident to her and just ended with the Faerie 
 Queene faux pas. 
 
 " It isn't true, oh, it isn't true, Harvey," laughed 
 Maude; "but it is a good story, all the same, and I 
 shall tell it when I get home." 
 
 " I assure you it is true," said he. "I never did 
 come so near laughing in a lady's face in all my 
 life, never. That is the one, over there. That 
 one, who looks like a drum major. I pity the cap- 
 tain's wife to-morrow." 
 
 " What a petty life ! " said Maude, gravely, with 
 her eyes on the pretty young woman, who had 
 married the captain. " I should not care to marry 
 an army man, and be forced into it, should you ? " 
 
 Harvey smiled. " "Well, no, I don't think of any 
 army man just now that I would care to marry ; 
 but you — don't brass buttons and position in 
 society attract all young ladies? They say so." 
 
 " Which position ? Above or below the senator's 
 wife ? Oh, how comical ! " And they strolled out 
 
76 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 into the hall for fresh air and rest. But Harvey 
 Ball looked no cooler, certainly, when the young 
 captain found them a little later in a quiet corner 
 of the great rotunda, and Claude ivas flurried and 
 ready to leave. Harvey Ball had never tried to 
 make love to her before. Did he know of her 
 broken engagement ? Poor Maude, poor Maude ■ 
 she was glad enough that the captain came, and she 
 asked him to go with her to find her father. 
 
 "Even she likes brass buttons," thought young 
 Ball, bitterly, as she disappeared on the arm of the 
 captain, laughing as she had not laughed with him, 
 he thought, since they were children together. 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 77 
 
 Chaptbe VI. 
 
 " O wad some Pow'r the giftle gie us 
 To see oursels as others see us! "—Burns. 
 
 " It follows, that, until a man can be found who knows himself as his 
 Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him, there must be at 
 least six persons engaged in every dialogue between two."— O/jver Wendell 
 Holmes. 
 
 "Don't be deceived by a facile exterior." — Emerson. 
 
 " I'll make it fifty more, to draw cards." 
 
 " Raise you the limit." 
 
 " You drew one card ? Well, I'll see you. By 
 Jove ! if you didn't fill ! H-e-1-l-o ! There is Harvey 
 Ball, going in the elevator. What is all this infernal 
 noise in the hotel about, anyhow ? What is up ? " 
 demanded Fred Harmon of the bell boy, who had left 
 the door open, while depositing the wine on the table. 
 Fred had arrived on the late train, and was finishing 
 a little game with two commercial travellers whose 
 acquaintance he had formed en route. 
 
 " Military ball, sah. Gen'l Sherman heah, sah. 
 All de swells in de city, sah, an' fum de hole sur- 
 rounden' kentry. Some fum In'nap'lis an' some 
 fum Sain-Jo, an' all de small places aroun'. Dey's 
 two registed fum Chicago, even ; " said the bell 
 boy, with unconscious local sarcasm. 
 
 A moment later Maude passed the open door on 
 the arm of the young captain, closely followed by 
 her father. 
 
78 Is this your Son, mij Lord? 
 
 " "VVh — e — w ! " whistled Fred, and stepped back 
 while he pocketed his winnings. Maude j^aused oi^- 
 posite to say good-night to the captain, and then 
 Mr. Stone rang for the elevator. 
 
 " Had a good time, Maude ? " asked her father, 
 looking at her very hard. " Y-e-s," said Maude ; 
 "oh, yes, of course." 
 
 " You little jJrevaricator ; " said Mr. Stone, in the 
 most tenderly sympathetic tone, as he stooped to 
 kiss her forehead just as a big tear ran down her 
 cheek. He straightened up quickly and stepped in 
 front of her as the elevator stopped. 
 
 " Rather rude man ; " thought a lady inside, as 
 she moved back for Maude ; but the girl understood 
 her father, and while his broad back had shielded 
 her, she had regained her self-possession and the 
 trace of the tear was gone. 
 
 When they reached the door of her little parlor 
 she said, " Come in, Popsie," using the name she 
 had invented for him in her childish years. " Come 
 in. I'd rather talk to you than to anybody — you 
 dear old thing ! " and the girl pinched her father's 
 arm and laid her cheek against his sleeve. " It 
 isn't late, Popsie mine, and I'm not at all sleepy ; 
 come in for a while and make love to me. I'm 
 lonesome ; " she added, trying to laugh and look 
 saucy. 
 
 " All right, you little scamp," said her father. 
 " I'll come in ; but from the looks of things down- 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 79 
 
 stall's I don't think that you're exactly suffering for 
 anybody to make love to you ; " and he turned on 
 the gas and dropped into a chair by the table. 
 Maude had seated herself on the sofa. She began 
 taking off her gloves and pulling their long soft 
 ■wrinkles across her knees to smooth them. She did 
 not reply or look up and her father went on : — 
 
 " But I don't blame 'em. You were the prettiest 
 girl there and ," — Maude tried to look up and smile, 
 but only succeeded in starting a tremulous little 
 quiver which died on her lips. " And you're the 
 best, too, you dear child," added Mr. Stone. 
 
 The girl flung herself down, buried her face in 
 the pillow and began to sob convulsively. With 
 that astonishment which seems to be a part of all large 
 natured men, who think they understand the women 
 nearest them, her father looked at her a moment, 
 in half bewilderment, and then walked to the 
 window and stared helplessly out across the street 
 at the brilliantly lighted cigar store where young 
 men and old were moving about and puffing at 
 the weed. He stood there whistling softly and 
 wondering what to do next, and how to make 
 Maude believe that he did not know she was weep- 
 ing about Fred Harmon. 
 
 There was a rap at the door; but the noise of 
 the street drowned it for the ears of the father, and 
 Maude sobbed on unheeding. The door had not 
 been securely closed and had pushed open a mere 
 
80 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 crack ; then, suddenly, as the man who had rapped 
 heard the sound of -weeping within, he stepped 
 quickly inside and with long strides reached the 
 lounge and flung himself on his knees by the girl's 
 side and said, in a choked and penitent voice : — 
 
 " ]Maude, Maude, darling, may I come back?" 
 
 The girl sprang to her feet with wide, tear-stained 
 eyes, into which there came a sudden rush of ten- 
 derness and joy. 
 
 " Fred ! Fred ! Fred ! " she cried, and lifting his 
 face in her hands she kissed his forehead, and he 
 was forgiven ; and being forgiven felt that he had 
 acted sublimely. 
 
 j\Ir. Stone had turned from the window when 
 he first heard the young man's voice, with a face 
 white with anger. At sight of his daughter now, 
 he groaned aloud, and set his lips so firm and close 
 that they were but a purpling line in his unhappy 
 face. 
 
 " Forgive me, Maude ; it was not my fault. 
 Truly, as I live, it was not. I want to tell you 
 everything, everything, everything ; " the young 
 fellow said, still on his knees and with his arms 
 about her waist. There were tears in his fine eyes, 
 and he did not try to hide them. He felt that he 
 was a hero, and he was sincerely moved by the 
 contemplation of his own lofty conduct. Maude 
 took her dainty lace handkerchief and wiped his 
 eyes, with that reverent awe that women feel for 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 81 
 
 tears in men. Then she slipped the bit of lace, 
 made holy by his tears, into the bosom of her 
 gown and pressed it to her white and dimpled flesh 
 with something like the ecstasy and yearning with 
 which a mother holds her first-born child. Fred's 
 tears ! They were the first she had ever seen him 
 shed, and they should be the last. Her love should 
 make his splendid eyes the home of smiles and joy 
 forever, and she kissed them both reverently, to 
 consecrate the silent vow. 
 
 Fred had meant to tell her everything as he 
 said ; but when she took it for granted that he had 
 followed her here for that single purpose, his well 
 grounded habit of evasion and concealment deci- 
 ded him not to offer, just then, the explanation that 
 was on his lips when the first rush of tenderness 
 had swept over him, as he heard her sob and saw 
 her lying there, wretched, he knew for him. 
 
 He had seen her father kiss her, at the elevator; 
 he had seen hn w bravely she had tried to master 
 herself. He had heard her father's roughly tender 
 badinage. He had followed — and now ? His in- 
 stinct and training of caution and evasion were 
 beginning to overwhelm him again. He would not 
 tell her, just yet, the truth about why he had 
 come West, and that his heart had conquered only 
 when he saw her again and saw that she was not 
 happy. She believed that he had simply followed 
 her first to her home and then here. "Why tell 
 
82 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 her otherwise ? And then, her father might not 
 place so generous a construction on this sudden 
 change of purpose, if he told the simple truth. 
 Then, too, Fred knew that it was crude to be too 
 baldly direct — and to be crude was to be a cad. 
 No, he would not — he would omit that part of his 
 confession, just now. 
 
 Mr. Stone stepped toward them. Fred had not 
 before noticed him, and felt a distinct sense of relief 
 that he had not been too precipitate about that con- 
 fession. Taking Maude's hands from her lover's 
 face, he drew her to a seat beside him and putting 
 one arm about her said, in a voice that struck Fred 
 as peculiarly unsympathetic : — 
 
 " Well, sir ? " 
 
 It was like a cold plunge to Fred, and he hated 
 cold plunges. 
 
 There are several ways of saying " Well sir " ; but 
 Mr. Stone's voice did not lend itself to any of the 
 more attractive tones, and there was a distinctly 
 chilly note in it just now, Fred thought. Then 
 back in the shreds of ideas that crowded about 
 in his brain the absurd one occurred to him that 
 it was a very deep and unpromising " well " for this 
 particular " sir " to clamber out of. The notion 
 amused while it steadied him. He got upon his 
 feet rather shamefacedly and took a chair by the 
 table. He mshed that Mr. Stone would say some- 
 thing else, or that Maude would give him a start. 
 
Ts this your Son, ray Lord? 83 
 
 It would be easy enough to explain it all to her ; 
 but ber father — that was another thing, and Fred 
 ■was beginning to feel about as uncomfortable as he 
 had ever felt in his Ufe. He bit his mustache and 
 looked hard at the table and then at the floor. 
 
 " Well, sir ? " repeated Mr. Stone ; and in spite 
 of his distress, Fred could not keep the ridiculous 
 idea out of his mind that the well had been sunk 
 several feet deeper ; but he said very humbly, and 
 without looking up : — 
 
 " There has been a terrible misunderstanding, and 
 in one sense I was to blame ; but I have come to — 
 if — I — could — if I might talk to Maude alone I 
 am sure — I feel certain that she would forgive me, 
 and that I could make it all right with her." 
 
 He had brightened perceptibly, as this idea had 
 worked itself out in his mind. Maude made a 
 movement to release herself from her father, so that 
 he might go ; but he did not move. She looked 
 up and was surprised at the expression on his face. 
 She did not wonder that Fred was awkward and 
 confused — Fred who was always grace and ease 
 Itself. She began to speak, but her father checked 
 her. 
 
 " No, sir," said he, addressing Fred ; " you will 
 make your explanation to both of us. If you were 
 the man you ought to be, you would have tried to 
 make it first to me alone, instead of to her alone ; 
 but now that we are both here — go on." 
 
84 Js this your Son, my Lord 
 
 Fred flushed. This was a rather ungentle way 
 to behave and talk. " The man he ought to be," 
 indeed! And this uncultured Western man, who was 
 not even a graduate of a " one-horse " Ohio College, 
 had the presumption to say such a thing to Mr. 
 Fred Hannon, late of Harvard, idol of Beacon 
 Hill, highjjriest of culture ! But after all, how 
 could he expect anything better? His mother 
 had told him how it would be ; but his overwhelm- 
 ing love for Maude would undoubtedly enable him 
 to endure even this sort of thing ; but why couldn't 
 Maude have been born on the Back Bay, or at 
 least, on Murray Plill ? And why, oh, why need 
 she have a hopeless cad for a father? Fred felt 
 like a Christian martyr, and he even doubted 
 whether Maude could fully comprehend the depth 
 of sacrifice he was making for her dear sake. But 
 he would force himself to bear it all, for she was to 
 be the reward, and Maude was far more beautiful 
 in this exquisite ball dress than he had ever before 
 seen her. It was strange, Fred reflected, that these 
 Western girls knew how to dress so well. So he 
 told a very pretty story, indeed. He warmed to it 
 as he went on, and did not fail to blame himself in 
 this or that, with well chosen words, and as if the 
 pain of it were great. 
 
 Did he tell the truth ? Most assuredly. 
 
 The whole truth? Most assuredly not, nor the 
 half of it, nor the quarter, nor the tenth part ; but 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 85 
 
 the truth he did tell, as it behooves a gentleman, 
 and Maude and her father listened with widely di- 
 vergent emotions. She felt that the nobility of 
 soul that enabled him to lay bare his whole life, and 
 even seem to blame the mother he adored, was 
 magnificent. It thrilled her into silence. 
 
 Her father's silence was pitched in a different 
 mood. His keen eye saw, his shrewd sense com- 
 pared, his experience and observation lent wings to 
 an imagination already aroused by fear for his 
 daughter's future. 
 
 When Fred finished and dropped his head on his 
 arms, which were outstretched on the table in an 
 abandon of self reproach and supplication, Mr. 
 Stone spoke for the first time. 
 
 " Sit still, Maude. Wait. I have something to 
 say first. When I am done, if you want to go to 
 him and ' comfort ' him, you may." He laid rather 
 unpleasant stress on the word " comfort," Fred 
 thought. It was one of Mr. Stone's vulgar habits 
 to italicize his spoken words. People on the Back 
 Bay did not do that. They spoke of the last mur- 
 der, or even of a terrible calamity in their own 
 families, with the same placid sweetness of inflec- 
 tion as if it were a stage presentation for their en- 
 tertainment. Fred wondered vaguely how long 
 it would take Maude to learn that art. 
 
 " But, my daughter, my darling, I am afraid that 
 your blunt old father will hurt you a little. I have 
 
86 Js this your Soil, my Lord? 
 
 heard him, now he must hear me ; then j'ou may- 
 take your choice between the two stories. He has 
 told it his way. I will tell it mine." 
 
 ^Maude smiled up at her father. If that was all, 
 she could wait ; and Fred, too, — he could not object 
 to that. She pressed the bit of lace that had 
 touched her lover's tear-stained face, close to her 
 bosom, and did not struggle again to free herself 
 from her father's arm. Mr. Stone went on 
 bluntly. 
 
 " You were born of a mother whose ambition for 
 position for you has been the whole thought of her life. 
 She has sacrificed everything for it, even herself. 
 And you let her. You nursed it from her breast. 
 Before you could walk, you understood that you must 
 pretend to certain things, if you did not feel them, 
 that you must evade other things, if they were not 
 looked upon as good form, as you call it, that is, if 
 they were not strictly conventional, the way the 
 people acted whom you have been trained to 
 copy." 
 
 Fred made a movement to speak ; but Mr. Stone 
 checked him. 
 
 " Wait till I'm done. I'm not going to say 
 anything disrespectful of your mother. I have 
 no doubt she is a very good woman, from her 
 outlook. I don't blame her, and I don't blame 
 you." Maude stroked her father's hand and began 
 to brighten again. Fred cleared his throat and 
 
Is this your So7i, my Lord? 87 
 
 looked more cheerful than he had since he entered 
 the room. The sailing was not going to be so 
 rough after all. 
 
 Mr. Stone began again very calmly : " I say that I 
 do not blame your mother ; but that does not 
 change the result of the training on your character, 
 young man. You have laughed, and told me, your- 
 self, that when you had certain boyish desires to 
 play with the grocer's son, you either had to pretend 
 that you hadn't the desu-e, or else gratify it on the 
 sly. ^Vhy ? Not at all because he was a bad boy, and 
 v.-ould teach you to lie, or steal, or be unkind, or a 
 little imp, generally; but solely because his father 
 sold dried apples and codfish. You might play 
 with another boy all day, not because he was frank, 
 and kind, and honest, but because his people went 
 in a certain set. You learned, before you were ten 
 years old, two lessons that show in everything you 
 do or say, to-day. One was to evade all unpleasant 
 facts in your own nature by covering them from 
 the eyes of others, not at all by correcting the 
 fault. And the other was to value peoj)le wholly 
 by surface measures, and never by their real worth. 
 Another thing you have learned : to demand or 
 expect everything, and to return only so much as 
 j'ou see fit. You have no conception of reciprocity 
 in anything. The world is your fish, and you bait 
 your hook with a manufactured fly. Now, when 
 Maude was ten years old, she judged her playmates 
 
88 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 wholly by the way they behaved — by their truth- 
 fulness and kindness. If she wanted to play with the 
 washer- woman's girl, no one objected in the least, 
 after we were sure that the child was honest, and 
 kind, and good. Maude liked her playmates for 
 what they were. "Who they were had nothing what- 
 ever to do with it. So you see that at that early age 
 there was a basis of character formed in each of 
 you that is totally unlike — and not only that, but 
 wholly antagonistic." 
 
 Fred smiled across at Claude and she shook her 
 head ; but her father appeared not to notice either, 
 and went on. 
 
 " As you grew up, — you have told me many 
 things that show it, — all your valuations of charac- 
 ter, acts, and people were made on this basis : ' Are 
 they good form on the Back Bay ? ' Then there 
 was another test you learned to make a little l-ater 
 on : ' Will it be found out? If it is kept secret, or 
 found out, by the Back Bay men only, will it 
 make any difference in my social standing ? ' Even 
 after you loved my daughter, it never occurred to 
 you to be troubled because you could not offer her 
 as clean and pure and holy a life and love as she 
 was giving you." At the word " holy, " from Mr. 
 Stone's lips, Fred looked up. He had no concep- 
 tion of the word apart from certain phrases of 
 theological import, and he knew that Maude's 
 father gave scant heed to these. Had he, at last, 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 89 
 
 caught this man in the act of juggling with words 
 in regular conventional fashion ? 
 
 " You have absolutely no comprehension of 
 moral values apart from creeds, social require- 
 ments, or custom. You have no prejudices, as you 
 call them, in favor of one line of action rather than 
 another, unless it is laid down in the Blue Book, 
 and warranted to wear an evening coat, or go to 
 the Episcopal Church, in whose creed you have no 
 more belief than I have, and yet you are willing to 
 vow devotion to it, and profit by the result. In 
 any other business in this world, that would be 
 called obtaining money by false pretences." 
 
 Fred moved uneasily, and Maude said reproach- 
 fully : " Why, papa ! " 
 
 " Wait," said Mr. Stone, " I am not through yet. I 
 want to state the case fully, and in plain English. I 
 said awhile ago that I do not blame you. Neither do 
 I blame your mother who made you that way ; but 
 for all that, young man, I am compelled to say that 
 the more I've thought of it lately, — and I've thought 
 of very little else, you may be sure — the more I don't 
 like the job she turned out. I can't have a great 
 deal of confidence in a man whose character is all on 
 the surface. I like a little foundation. I'd like a 
 few prejudices in favor of the realities of life for 
 their own sakes. I should not object, if you were 
 an Episcopalian, mind you, or any other sort of a 
 Christian, if you were honest in it ; but I have no 
 
90 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 use for the layman who holds his creed for revenue 
 only ; and for the clergyman who accepts a salary 
 from honest believers for mystif^Ting and explain- 
 ing away all there is of real meaning in the plan of 
 salvation, my contempt is simply unbounded." 
 This was a new theory to Fred, and it struck him 
 as worthy of some thought ; but he smiled as he 
 thought how this man of uncouth sj^eech expressed 
 what he had been taught to call "the higher 
 criticism of progressive theology." Obtaining 
 money by false pretences, indeed ! 
 
 " I'd like to feel that the man who marries my 
 daughter will keep clear of dishonest and dishonor- 
 able people — whether in or out of the pulpit — 
 on some more important grounds than the sort of 
 coat they wear, or the brand of their cigars. I'd 
 like to go to sleep nights feeling confident that he 
 wasn't thrashing her, not simply because it isn't 
 good form, or might be found out. In short, I'd 
 like mj' daughter to marry a man who is honorable 
 and noble and true from the inside out and not from 
 the outside in. I'd like him to be his own severest 
 judge, and not do this or that to fit the opinions and 
 dictates of somebody else, simply because they are 
 the beliefs of somebody else who is fashionable. 
 Xo man, sir, is fit to get married, no man has 
 any right to ask a girl to believe in and rely on 
 him, until he believes in and relies on himself. I 
 don't want Maude to marry an echo, and more 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 91 
 
 than tliat, sir, she shall not until that echo has, at 
 least, a true ring ! " 
 
 He brought his fist down with a bang. Fred 
 made a mental note of the expression, which he 
 thought quite effective — from a purely artistic 
 outlook. He was not at all touched by its bear- 
 ing upon himself. Indeed, life was to him almost 
 entirely a succession of mental gymnastics ; but 
 he was missing the next act, — Mr. Stone was still 
 talking : — 
 
 " — and while the echo of a good man whose 
 own life rings clear and true to himself, might not 
 be so bad, by gad, the echo of an echo of a theo- 
 logical trimmer and a social shadow is more than I 
 can stand, and more than I will have ! " 
 
 He had grown excited as he talked, and now he 
 sprang to his feet and began pacing the floor, still 
 keeping his arm about Maude. He almost carried 
 her with him, and as she passed Fred her soft silk 
 drapery caught his knees and roused him far more 
 than her father's words had done. He had been 
 vaguely conscious that a wonderful photograph was 
 being taken ; but he did not think that there were 
 many features turned to the camera that were a 
 discredit to himself, after all. At least, he compre- 
 hended that there were angles from which Maude 
 might like the picture a good deal less if her father 
 had only known it and had turned the light that 
 way. As for himself, life was more or less given 
 
92 Is this your iSon, my Lord? 
 
 over to a contest of wits, and lie had not had his 
 trained for nothing. Knock-down fists were one 
 thing ; but the dexterous use of foils was quite 
 another, and Claude's father could not hope to cope 
 with him there — and Maude was very beautiful ; it 
 was worth while to — 
 
 ^Vs if reading the thought before it was formed, 
 Mr. Stone broke out again, as he turned to retrace 
 his stejis : — 
 
 " Do you know why you love jMaude ? Because 
 she is beautiful." 
 
 Fred smiled up at her with no sense of failure in 
 his valuation. " Simjsly and solely because she is 
 beautiful to look at. She pleases your artistic sense. 
 The soul of the girl, her honor and truth, her 
 mental and moral needs, her ideals and longings, are 
 nothing to you, less than nothing ; they are preju- 
 dices, to be got rid of. 
 
 " Her true ring on every subject means to you lack 
 of training. You think when she is your wife that 
 j'ou will show her how uncouth it is to be natural, 
 how vulgar to be real. Xo doubt you would, and 
 the result would be a blasted, wretched, disappointed 
 life for the poor child who, if she dropped her ideals 
 and followed your lead would scorn herself and you 
 at every step, or else she would learn to be as hollow, 
 and vapid, and characterless as you and your con- 
 ventional set are, and learn to blame her father and 
 be asham.ed of her mother for having made a true 
 
Js this ymtr Son, my Lord? 93 
 
 ■woman of her, instead of a fictitious copy of some- 
 body else." 
 
 Maude had taken his hand in hers, and she lifted 
 it to her lips and kissed the great palm tenderly, 
 and, with tears on her cheeks, laid her flushed face in 
 his hand as she had done years ago to sleep, and 
 said brokenly : — 
 
 " Father, please — please let Fred go now. I 
 want to think. You have put words to — I have 
 had thoughts, at times, — O, father, I am so tired 
 to-night, won't you both go now, and — No, not 
 together. Good-night, Fred," and she let him 
 kiss her cheek as he passed. 
 
 When she heard the elevator door close behind 
 him, she took her father's wretched face in her 
 hands and tried to comfort him. " Dear old father," 
 she said, " dear old father, go now. Good-night, 
 don't be afraid you have hurt me, I can talk to you 
 to-morrow ; but not now, not now." 
 
 He gathered her ujj in his arms as he used to do 
 and held her against his heaving breast. His voice 
 was husky, and had lost all the harshness that 
 vexed the ears of his would-be son-in-law. 
 
 " Little girl, I didn't want to hurt you ; but — oh, 
 it would break my heart, daughter, to see you 
 deceived and unhajspy. I thought it best to speak 
 now." 
 
 " Yes, yes, father," she said, with her great 
 eyes shining and intense. "Yes, yes ; but go to bed 
 
94 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 now — go. I must think. It is all so teiTible. I 
 must think, to-night." 
 
 Down stall's the last strains of music were heard, 
 as Mr. Stone closed the door of Maude's room be- 
 hind him, and the major was asking the j'oung 
 captain : " Whei-e is that lovely girl I saw with 
 you a while ago ? Miss Stone, wasn't her name ? 
 Where is she from? Oh, I see. She and her father 
 and Ball were all your guests then. You came 
 from Grand Rapids yourself, didn't you ? Well, I 
 envy you. It lightens one's heart only to see such 
 a girl, and hear her laugh. How happy and bright 
 she is ! The days of youth are the days of light 
 hearts, hey, captain?" 
 
 " Yes. Oh, of course," replied the captain, 
 somewhat abstractedly, "To be sure. I should 
 say so decidedly. Quite a success — the ball. Bril- 
 liant affair. Good-night." 
 
 As the captain turned to leave the rotunda, he 
 met Fred. 
 
 " Beg pardon," said that gentleman with a smile. 
 " I was looking for two gentlemen. I am a bit 
 short-sighted and I mistook you for one of them. 
 But perhaps you will go vsrith me, or at least put 
 me on the right track ; " and he asked for the most 
 fashionable gilded house in the city, quite as simply 
 as he inquired his way to the leading church two 
 days later. Fred had no prejudices. He went to 
 both. He Relieved in sustaining all well-estab- 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 95 
 
 lished institutions. He looked upon these two as 
 quite essential in a Christian civilization, and re- 
 gretted that our unformed American conditions 
 did not, as yet, recognize that both should be at- 
 tached to the State. He thought it was far better 
 in the countries where the devotees of the one and 
 the inmates of the other were required to take the 
 sacrament at stated intervals in order to retain 
 their status in the community. 
 
 " But no doubt America will come to it in due 
 time ; " thought he, " and one must not expect too 
 much from so young a country as ours." 
 
96 Js this yovr Son, my Lord? 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 "Surely, surely the only true knowledge of our fellowman is that which 
 enables us to feel wltli him — which gives us a flue ear for the heart-pulses 
 that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion. 
 Our subtlest analysis . . . must miss the essential truth, unless it be 
 lit up by the love that sees in all forms of human thought . . . the 
 life-and-death struggles of separate human beings." — George Eliot. 
 
 " How perilous, after all, is the state of man. It is the work of a life to 
 build a great and splendid character. It is the work of a moment to 
 destroy it utterly, from turret to foundation stone. How ci'uel hypocrisy 
 isl" — Robert G.Ingersolh 
 
 *'AU phenomena are necessary. No creature in the universe, in its 
 circumstances and according to its given property, can act otherwise than 
 as it does act." — John Morley. 
 
 When Preston Mansfield reached the little sta- 
 tion known as the " depot" at his old home, he 
 looked about to see if a carriage had been sent to 
 meet him. Presently he saw a smiling face lean 
 out of the family trap, as he called it, and in an- 
 other instant he was sitting beside his cousin Nellie 
 and had the reins in his hands. 
 
 He had not kissed her as he used to do, and Nellie 
 had not asked why he did not, nor offered to kiss 
 him as she would have done three years before ; but 
 they were unmistakably glad to see each other, and 
 Preston looked happier than he had looked for a 
 long time. 
 
 " How are the folks ? How'd you happen to come 
 alone, Nellie ? " he asked all in a breath, and then 
 regretted his last question; but she appeared not 
 to hear it, although her color rose somewhat. ;. 
 
7s this your .Son, my Lord? 97 
 
 " They are all well, except Julie. She, poor 
 child, seems half sick all the time. I think she 
 needs a change. I wish she could go to New 
 York with you next time, Preston." 
 
 " She can if you will go, too, Nellie ;" he said, 
 and then they both blushed furiously. He noticed, 
 with a sinking at his heart, that she changed the 
 subject immediately. 
 
 " Isn't that the doctor who used to live here, 
 Pres., when we were children ? The one you liked 
 so much ? I heard he was in town. I wonder if 
 he has come back to live." 
 
 " I don't know," said Preston, answering the 
 last question first. " Tes, it is the same old 
 chap. I saw him in New York a while ago. 
 He is a queer lot ; " and he bowed somewhat 
 moodily as he drove past, just as I was opening 
 the door of my new office ; for I had decided to 
 establish myself again in this town after my return 
 from France. 
 
 " How, ' queer' ? " asked Nellie, bent on keeping 
 the talk going ; but the question seemed portentous 
 to the young fellow, who was in no mood just then 
 to recall the past nightmares of his life. The pres- 
 ent was too perfect to mar with memories. 
 
 « Oh, I don't know," said he. " When I met 
 him in New York a while back he did not speak of 
 coming "West. How long has he been here? 
 What did he come for ? " 
 
98 Is this your Son, my lord? 
 
 " I don't know," said Nellie, " I only heard of 
 his return the other day. . I'm not sure I should 
 have recognized him. Did his wife die that time ? 
 Oh, no, I believe it was her mother. But there 
 is little Julie coming to meet us. Hop in, Julie. 
 Tou couldn't wait for him to get home, could 
 
 you?" 
 
 " Hello, old girl," said Preston, kissing her as she 
 put her foot on the step. "I hear you're not well. 
 "What does this mean ? Can't have that sort of 
 thing, you know. " 
 
 It might have been two weeks later when, as I 
 was driving alone one day, I took it into my head 
 to turn into the cemetery — a place I generally 
 avoid, on the ground that I shall no doubt be 
 obliged, later on, to pass quite enough time within 
 its quiet precincts. The place had greatly changed 
 in these last few years. Pretentious shafts had 
 taken the place of simple slabs, and everywhere 
 were evidences of the wealth that had come to 
 many of those who in the not very distant past 
 were fettered by poverty. I drew rein in front of 
 a magnificent monument, a-top of which was an 
 angel pointing heavenward, and on one si^e of the 
 tablet I read : " Xot dead, but gone before." On 
 another side : " He giveth His beloved sleep ; " and 
 then — could my eyes deceive me ? — the name of 
 Joe Furgison ! 
 
 In spite of myself I laughed aloud. 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 99 
 
 "I don't "n'onder you laugh, doctor;" said 
 Preston JMansiield, coming up from the other side 
 of the buggy. "Joe was shot by a woman 
 in a row at the Chippy Dance House. He was 
 buried from there; but the Furglson's are rich 
 now, and — oh, well, you know how those things 
 go." 
 
 " Yes, I know ; " said I, looking up at the angel ; 
 and I laughed again. Joe Furgison figuring as one 
 of " His beloved " struck me as peculiarly droll. 
 
 " But get in, Preston, and drive around with me. 
 If there is anything else as interesting as that, I 
 don't want to miss it. Show it to me." Then 
 with sudden compunction I added, " But what are 
 you doing here ? Perhaps you are in no mood for 
 •idle gossjp." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right ;" he replied without a tremor, 
 and climbing into the buggy, he took the reins. 
 " I"m just fixing up the old man's grave so it will 
 look as ridiculous as Joe Furgison's. We are all 
 alike — only in my case I have to do it to comfort 
 mother and the girls. Of course they believe in it 
 and in him, and God knows I Tvish I did ; but 
 every man in this town feels about father's tomb- 
 stone just as you and I do about that angel business 
 on Furgison's. If there's anything at all in religion, 
 it's an infernal outrage for the preachers to helj) 
 this sort of thing along as they do ; for there isn't 
 one in this town who doesn't know all about it. 
 
100 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 And if there isn't anything in religion — 'well — in 
 either case what do you think of the morals of it, 
 from your outlook ? " 
 
 " Your father had many good characteristics, 
 Preston ; " said I, evasively, "and it really seems — 
 Do you think you are quite fair to him ? " 
 
 He turned upon me almost savagely. 
 
 " 1 should think you would be about the last man 
 to ask that question, doctor. Fair to him ! Was 
 he fair to me ? Look what he has made of me 
 — look ! I don't know what your religious notions 
 are, doctor ; but at least I do know that you didn't 
 agree with him in his moral training of me. Well, 
 I don't, either. He has ruined my whole life, 
 deliberately." 
 
 I made a movement of protest, but he went on 
 bitterly : — 
 
 "You know that it was deliberate ; for you gave 
 him a pretty severe object lesson with Alice. Well, 
 he didn't take it. I wish to God he had, for I 
 really had no tendency to be a — to go to the devil. 
 Strange to say, I hadn't inherited a drop of that 
 kind of blood, and I believe that I might have 
 grown up so that I could look any decent woman 
 in the face without remembering that if I married 
 her I would have to lie to her every hour of my life 
 as long as we both lived. I hate to lie. I always 
 did. It gives me a sense of disgust and physical 
 discomfort. It may be silly ; but it is a fact, and 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 101 
 
 one reason I prefer to stay away from home 
 is that every act, every word, every look of mine 
 has to be a lie. Mother and my sisters and — 
 and the rest — believe in me. I know what they 
 think of other fellows who are not so bad as I 
 am, not half so bad as father was. Well, how do I 
 keep their respect and confidence ? How did he ? 
 By lying. Now, do you know, doctor, I've got a 
 prejudice, as Harmon says, against a marriage that 
 isn't equal ; that is built upon false pretences on 
 one side and ignorance on the other ; that de- 
 pends for future happiness wholly on the continued 
 and successful mendacity of one party to the con- 
 tract. I don't know where I ever got such an 
 idiotic prejudice ; but I seem to have been born 
 with it, and he — damn him ! " said the young fel- 
 low, with his face Uvid and his lips trembling as he 
 pointed to the grave of his father, — " he, damn 
 him ! has robbed me of myself ! " 
 
 " Preston, Preston ! " said I, shocked and sur- 
 prised beyond words to express, " give me the reins 
 again. Let us drive on. This is no place for you 
 just now." 
 
 " Just now ! " he exclaimed bitterly, still holding 
 the reins. "Do you suppose this feeling is new 
 to me ? I have cursed him with every breath I 
 have drawn, ever since I knew what love is. If I 
 had been differently made I suppose I wouldn't 
 care: but — I believe I was made to be an honest 
 
102 Is tilts your Son, my Lord? 
 
 man, doctor, and now, — look at me ! I know there 
 are at least two cliildren in New York that belong 
 to me. I know that their mother is as good — 
 better than I am — for all she makes her living on 
 the street now. I know that if any good girl in all 
 this world could see my whole life laid out bare and 
 true — just as it is, and has been — I know she 
 would as soon marry a leper. Whose fault is it ? 
 His ! Well, what is to be done ? I asked Harmon 
 that question the last night we spent together — 
 you remember Fred Harmon of Boston ? — ' Don't 
 tell her,' said he. ' Women don't understand such 
 things, anyhow. Then, if she ever finds it out — 
 which isn't likely — -it will be easy enough to con- 
 fess some little part of it and plead for mercy. 
 Women like to be merciful. It is their forte.' 
 Well, now, that satisfied Harmon. He would feel 
 no sense of degradation in living on the benefits of 
 deception. It doesn't hurt him in the least to pre- 
 tend and lie to the girl he says he loves. Talk 
 about striking a woman ! He'd call a man pretty 
 low down who would do that — if he used his fists. 
 Men generally would. They call it cowardly — tak- 
 ing advantage of her weakness and of his strength. 
 Well, suppose we just leave the fists out, what 
 then? Does he any the less take advantage of her? 
 Doesn't he take it in a thousand ways where she has 
 no defence, whatever, not even that of the police 
 court, which she would have in the other case V 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 103 
 
 " No, doctor, I don't want to marry any woman, 
 and know that I've got to take advantage of her. 
 I might be willing to steal from, or lie to, or 
 systematically deceive a woman I did riot love; 
 but — " He sprang out of the buggy and threw the 
 lines to me. Five feet away stood the splendid 
 granite shaft he had erected to the memory of his 
 father. He lifted his arm, and clinching his fist 
 shook it first at the monument, and then at the sod 
 beneath, and from between set teeth said with a 
 ferocity and intensity terrible to witness : — 
 
 " Damn him ! damn him ! damn him ! He has 
 robbed me of myself ! " 
 
 A moment later I heard the sound of weeping, and 
 of childish voices engaged in some sad argument. 
 
 " Get back into the buggy, Preston, " I said. 
 " Some one else is here and there are children cry- 
 ing." 
 
 But the young fellow stepped across the path, and 
 looked over a box-wood hedge from behind which the 
 voices came. I waited in silence, surprised that he 
 would listen. In a moment he turned and beckoned 
 to me. I went to him noiselessly. Lying behind 
 the hedge, flat on his back, with hands crossed on 
 his breast and eyes closed, was a small boy, and by 
 his side a smaller one, weeping and pleading. 
 
 " Oh-o-o-o, don't die, Willie, don't die ! Open 
 your eyes ! Oh-o-o-o, please, please, please don't 
 die ! Oh-o-o-o wah-o-o ! " 
 
104 Is this your Son, wiy Lord? 
 
 The corpse revived sufficiently to talk, but the 
 eyes remained closed and the hands clasped. 
 
 " I must. I have to, ah ! ahou-o-oh ! "said he 
 mournfully, and in utter hopelessness. He closed 
 his lips again, albeit in his vain effort to hold his 
 breath he puffed both cheeks out in a manner most 
 unseemly in one about to pass the golden gates, 
 \\hose body was even at that moment disposed for 
 the journey. 
 
 "Oh-o-o! ohou-o-o-o-o wh-o-o-o!" sobbed the 
 smaller boy, throwing himself across the body of the 
 would-be suicide whose superfluous breath refu- 
 sing to be held under such trying conditions, burst 
 from his lips explosively, letting the inflated cheeks 
 down with a sudden collapse. 
 
 " Uh-m-m-wah ! " he groaned, pushing the smaller 
 one off, and carefully disposing his limbs again, 
 meanwhile keeping an eye on his toes to be sure 
 that they pointed up in proper style. 
 
 " Uh-o-o-m-m-m, oh-o-o ! I must, I must ! Don't 
 bother me. I've got to die, oh-o-o, me ! " His 
 voice was very doleful, indeed, and his whole 
 appearance was indicative of the utmost dejection. 
 
 I glanced at Preston Mansfield. His face was 
 still very pale ; but a sense of the absurd twinkled 
 in his eyes, and held his attention in spite of the 
 recent storm within his own breast. Meantime the 
 smaller boy wept on and pleaded with his brother 
 to reconsider his ill-advised resolution prematurely 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 105 
 
 to withdraw from the joys and sorrows of this 
 life. He begged to know why he was tired of the 
 world. At last the six -year -old sat up and ex- 
 plained his case. 
 
 " Oh-o-o-o, dear, oh dear ! I can't live. I've got 
 to die, I'm so ashamed ! I didn't have but four 
 cents, and I tried to buy a five-cent pistol with it — 
 oh-oh-o-o ! " He threw himself face down on the 
 sod, unmindful for the moment which way his 
 toes should point. From within encircling arms, 
 his voice piped out again : — 
 
 " He thought I had another cent, oh-oh-o-o ! I 
 wouldn't mind it if he hadn't known me. But he 
 did, oh-oh-o-o-o ! And I had to tell him I didn't 
 have only four cents, oh-o-o ! And he said, I guess 
 you'd better run home, Willie White, and not try 
 any of your tricks on me, ' oh-o-o ! " 
 
 Overcome with shame, he once more stretched 
 himself out, and folding his hands on his breast, 
 essayed to hold his breath until death should re- 
 lieve him of his sorrow and disgrace, and the 
 three-year-old beside him began anew his plead- 
 ings that his unfortunate brother try to start in 
 life again, and not allow himself to be crushed by 
 his present calamities. 
 
 I glanced at Preston, and then pitched a cent 
 over the hedge. It fell on the face of the recum- 
 bent figure. Both children looked devoutly up to 
 heaven, said " Now I lay me," and scudded out of 
 
106 Js this your /Son, my Lord? 
 
 the enclosure to buy the coveted pistol and re- 
 establish their blasted reputations. 
 
 " I suppose that little devil was as unhappy as 
 any of us, while it lasted," said Preston, as we got 
 into the buggy. 
 
 " Xo doubt, no doubt," I replied ; " and is it not a 
 good thing, after all, that we can't hold our breath 
 long enough to stop it altogether, whenever we 
 take the notion ? If we could, there wouldn't be 
 people enough left to beg the others not to die." 
 
 " Do you mean that everybody is at times so 
 unhappy, doctor?" he inquired, presently. 
 
 " Ask them," said I, smiling. There was a long 
 pause. I drove rapidly up to the gate of his home. 
 As he took my hand to say good-by, he held it a 
 moment, and then said, as he dropped it suddenly, 
 " Are you ? " 
 
 Before I had time to reply, little Julie ran out and 
 clasping her brother about both legs vrith her short 
 fat arms tried to lift him from his feet. Before 
 he regained his equilibrium I drove away, asking 
 myself, "Ami?" 
 
Js this your So?i, my Lord? 107 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 *' Perfect scheming demands omniscience!"— £?eorffe SlUoU 
 
 " Of course tlie young lady Iiad beaux by the score, 
 All that slie wanted, — what girl could ask more ? 
 Lovers that sighed, and lovers that swore. 
 Lovers that danced, and lovers that played, 
 Men of profession, of leisure, and trade."— 5rei Harte. 
 
 "There was an idea in the olden time— and it is not yet dead— that who- 
 ever was educated ought not to work ; that he should use his head and not 
 his bands. Graduates were ashamed to be found engaged in manual labor 
 in ploughing fields, in sowing or in gathering grain. To this manly kind of 
 independence they preferred the garret and the precarious existence of an 
 unappreciated poet, borrowing their money from their friends, and their 
 ideas from the dead, The educated regarded the useful as degrading— 
 they were willing to stain their souls to keep their hands white." — Robert 
 G. Ingersoll. 
 
 Fred Harmon's mother believed that that gifted 
 young gentleman was travelling in the West vsdth 
 an eye single to two things : first, to free himself, 
 and keep his whereabouts a secret from a certain 
 designing girl and her family who looked upon him 
 as their prey, and, secondarily, to " look about " 
 as a prelude to a final settlement in life. Incident- 
 ally he would visit several people, more or less 
 desirable and useful to know. She had not given 
 up the hope that after he had had his fling, 
 he would return and study theology and take 
 orders ; but that part could wait. Meantime" she 
 economized and planned and figured in all conceiv- 
 able ways to make both ends meet and at the same 
 
108 Is this yotir Son, my Lord? 
 
 time supply him with money to make a creditable 
 appearance. Once or twice he had protested, 
 feebly. 
 
 " I have an offer to go into business with Bar- 
 low," he wrote. " You will remember he was a 
 senior when I was a soph. . . . He is, as he expresses 
 it, ' in leather,' here in Chicago. I don't see how 
 it is possible to keep this up, sail as near shore as 
 you and father may. You must need all the little 
 money you have, and father is too old to hope to 
 continue in practice many years. I am half inclined 
 m accept Barlow's offer. It would give me an im- 
 mediate income, and leather, you know, is looked 
 upon as respectable, even in Boston." 
 
 Then followed a description of a social call he 
 had made with Barlow the night before. The reply 
 came promptly. 
 
 " My son, do not think of such a thing as com- 
 mitting yourself to Mr. Barlow, or to anyone, in 
 any business, whatever. As you say, leather is an 
 exception, here ; but — oh, my son ! I so depend 
 upon you to distinguish yourself, and how could you 
 do that in leather? Do not give business a thought. 
 Not one. I cannot have you prostitute your splen- 
 did abilities and training to such base uses. . . 
 Your description of your call amused me greatly. 
 What uncouth people one does meet in those bor- 
 der places ! He was governor, or judge, or some- 
 thing from Illinois once, I think. Imagine it ! But 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 109 
 
 keep the full account to amuse me when you come 
 home. One cannot be too careful what one writes, 
 since the awful Carlyle revelations. Even family 
 letters take on an added horror. . . . And 
 now, my son, my gifted boy, have a good time. 
 Visit where you think it is judicious ; but remem- 
 ber, dear, not to accept many favors from anyone 
 who is likely to come here often. By the way, 
 dearie, Pauline Tyler of Madison Avenue, New 
 
 York, niece of Mrs. S , you know, is visiting 
 
 in Chicago ; I enclose her address. Call upon her. 
 You know she is recently back from abroad and is, 
 — never forget, son, who she is — her grandmother 
 was a Presidio. Be attentive. Your mother is 
 thankful — oh, so thankful to God, on her knees, 
 that you are free again from those terribly vulgar 
 people. Dear Pauline has not been in Boston 
 much of late, but she is never vulgar. Her mother 
 was a well born gentlewoman, and although her 
 father was a New Yorker, Pauline has had many 
 Boston advantages." 
 
 By all of which it will be seen that Mr. Fred 
 Harmon, late of Harvard, had so far improved 
 upon his early training as to keep a few things 
 even from his mother. He did not tell her of his 
 meeting in St. Louis with Maude and her father — 
 any more than he had told Maude that he had 
 dressed her father up in a new name when last he 
 wrote to his mother, and accentuated his attributes 
 
110 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 so as to make it a very funny sketcli indeed of 
 a Western man. He had made this gentleman 
 use bad English and angle openly for the atten- 
 tions of certain irresistible young college men 
 who had failed to pay court to his numerous 
 buxom daughters, several of whom stood near 
 the door and exclaimed " La, me ! " in very loud 
 tones to everything these same irresistible young 
 swells had said, as they stood with their legs 
 very wide apart, at approved Harvard angle, and 
 paralyzed the entire company by their exquisite 
 manners. 
 
 But then, Fred Harmon looked upon letter 
 Avriting as one form of fiction, and he meant to be 
 a master in fiction yet, whether he took holy orders 
 or not. The night after Fred received his mother's 
 letter, he, as became a dutiful son, called upon 
 Miss Pauline Tyler at the handsome residence of 
 her uncle on Michigan Avenue. He found that 
 young lady much annoyed and so tremulously dis- 
 turbed and vexed as to be almost on the verge of 
 tears. She was delighted to see some one who 
 could appreciate her emotions. Of course no one 
 in Chicago could be expected to do so. Her uncle 
 was kind and good, but — " it can hardly be neces- 
 sary, Mr. Harmon, for me to remind you that 
 this is not Boston, nor even New York, and my 
 unfortunate uncle has lived here for so many years 
 that he has grown to be like — ah, well, you can 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? Ill 
 
 fancy my distress, in my utter mental and social 
 isolation." 
 
 " What can it be, Miss Tyler ? If I may be per- 
 mitted to ask — if you are T^'illing to confide in me. 
 I trust that I do not need to assure you that I shall 
 be only too happy to serve you. My mother would 
 be delighted to know that I could be of even 
 trifling use to you in any way, and — " 
 
 " Oh, there is nothing one can do so far as I see," 
 she sighed. " That is the difficulty. That is one 
 reason it is so painful to me, for you must know 
 how painful, how shocking, such reports necessarily 
 are to a young girl, Mr. Harmon." 
 
 Fred had heard no reports at all, and was, there- 
 fore, in a position, as he believed, to conxfort her. 
 He told her she must be distressing herself need- 
 lessly, for he had not been away from Boston very 
 long ; he had stopped in New York, and in several 
 cities this side, and he assured her that no report of 
 any kind whatever had reached him, although he 
 had met old college fellows in each place, and had 
 had frequent interchange of communication with 
 friends in Boston, all the while. But she could not 
 be comforted. She was indignant, lofty, humili- 
 ated, crushed, or defiant by turns. 
 
 " And to think," she exclaimed, " just to think, 
 that it should of all persons, be I, who am always 
 so careful not to give the least clue, or hint, or 
 cause for such gossip — oh, it is cruel ! " And she 
 
112 Ts this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 held her feather fan up between them, until a 
 lace handkerchief found its way to her eyes, 
 and she could venture to take both down and go 
 on again. 
 
 " Marry Count Cioli, indeed ! I never dreamed 
 of such a thing. Why, he was never with me 
 once, without mamma being present, and he was only 
 ordinarily attentive to me, so far as I noticed. Of 
 course I did know toward the last that some of 
 those Americans (you know there are always 
 Americans that one does not remember over there) 
 
 — I did know that they noticed his attentions to 
 me ; but — " 
 
 " If that is all, Miss Tyler, I do not see that you 
 need be troubled; and beside, if you wish it, I shall 
 take it upon myself to deny the rumor upon all 
 sides." She was overcome with gratitude. 
 
 " Oh, if you would ! I — I do not know how to 
 thank you and — your mother — she knows every- 
 body. I wonder if — " 
 
 " Certainly," said Fred, " just let me know what 
 you want denied, and I am sure it can be done 
 quite effectively." 
 
 " But you see, I do not want to deny anything 
 myself," she pouted. " It would look • — people 
 might say — " 
 
 " Do not distress yourself," began Fred, " I " — 
 But she broke in : " If it were only the Count — but 
 
 — you know all that talk — about Prince Walsag — 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 113 
 
 was the cruellest, most dreadful gossip. There was 
 really no ground for it at all. The day he had us 
 dine at his castle he was more or less — he was 
 polite, of course ; but — " She tossed her head, 
 and moved her hands quite impatiently. Fred 
 looked at her sympathetically, but said nothing. 
 Presently she began again : — 
 
 " I do not like to put all this on you ; but I do 
 wish you would deny about Judge Vandergraft, too. 
 We were not betrothed before I went abroad and 
 that was not the reason I went. It must annoy the 
 Judge dreadfully, all this talk, and — " 
 
 Fred had heard no talk whatever about any one 
 of these three interesting cases ; but he began to 
 think that here was really a much sought after young 
 woman — and the color of her hair was pretty. He 
 took up a book and turned the leaves. Presently 
 he said : " It must annoy you greatly ; but why 
 be so beautiful? Why have such divine hair? 
 The wages of sin is death, they say, but no more 
 truly than that the wages of such glorious beauty 
 as yours is — well, let us say — distracted lovers 
 in all lands, and more or less talk. But I have 
 not heard a word of it, not a line, not a letter," 
 he added, with less sophistication than might have 
 been expected. This last was due to Fred's youth, 
 and Fred was young, although he tried to think 
 that his experiences covered vast areas of things 
 not down in books. 
 
114 Js this yotir Son, my Lord? 
 
 " You really haven't ? " she exclaimed. Then 
 she took a new tack. " Ah, but I know you 
 have. Your kind heart and courteous instincts 
 want to save my feelings. I understand. I know 
 you have heard ; and that I refused Governor 
 Tailor, too. Absurd! He — but why go into that 
 old story, or the one about Major Ben Gifford. 
 Why, I only met h'nii, three or four times and — 
 love at first sight is not fashionable in these days, 
 is it, Mr. Harmon ? " 
 
 The question surprised Fred, who was trying 
 to keep count of her lovers — that is of the ones 
 she wished to have him say something or other 
 about in connection with her. He evaded her 
 question somewhat dextrously, therefore, and smil- 
 ingly said : — 
 
 " I believe you are going to have to give me a 
 list, if you keep on. Write out their names and 
 titles. I'll forget half of them, and then my denial 
 of your engagement will not do the least good, will 
 it ? People wUl just say it is one of the others," 
 and the young fellow laughed outright : but Miss 
 Pauline took it quite seriously. 
 
 " Take this," she said, handing him an ivory 
 tablet. 
 
 " Count CioU." J'red wrote the name. " Prince 
 Walsag, Judge Vandergraft, Governor Talbor, 
 Major Gifford — Have you got Major Gifford?" 
 she asked, still quite seriously, and looked steadily 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 115 
 
 into the fire as if trying to collect farther evidence. 
 Then suddenly, as Fred was folding up the tablet : 
 
 "Oh, yes, I forgot about that horrid old affau- 
 that nearly broke my heart last year. They 
 actually coupled my name with Senator Baldy. 
 Just fancy ! "Why he only — but — no matter about 
 details. Put him down and deny that I am en- 
 gaged to any of them. And please have your 
 mother say how distressed I am by such reports. 
 She might say that I came West to get rid of — 
 but — she will know how, in her dainty way, to 
 say just the right thing in the right place without a 
 hint from me." 
 
 Fred thanked her for the compliment to his 
 mother and rose to go. 
 
 " But you have told me nothing about yourself, " 
 she said. " Don't go, or — What am I saying ? 
 I — " and she blushed and turned half away. 
 
 Fred promised to call again very soon, and with- 
 drew. Once in the street he smiled and bit his 
 mustache. 
 
 " Whew ! " " ' Considerable train load,' as the 
 brakeman said yesterday. But mother will believe 
 every word of it so long as it is dear Pauline, 
 and she will — oh, well, the Count and the Prince 
 and the Judge and the Governor and all the rest 
 will find themselves famous, soon, because they 
 are not going to be married to Miss Pauline 
 Tyler ; " and he laughed again. 
 
116 Js this your So7i, my Lord? 
 
 As he turned off the gas that night, after writing 
 a long letter to his mother, he chuckled to himself 
 in the darkness, and said : " And to think that I, 
 Fred Harmon, late of Boston, and of the D. K. E. 
 Club, actually swallowed it till she got to the Major ! 
 Frederick, my boy, you have one or more eye- 
 teeth to cut yet ; and ' dear Pauline,' do learn to be 
 more artistic and less comprehensive, as it were, 
 in your scope ; " and the young scamp rolled over 
 and slept as peacefully as a babe, and with as 
 comfortable an' estimate of himself. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lordf 117 
 
 Chaptee IX. 
 
 ' His soul to his soul is a law, and his miud is a light to his mind. 
 Tlie seal of his Itnowledge is sure, the truth and his spirit are wed; 
 Men perish, but man shall endure ; lives die, but the life is not dead. 
 He hath sight of the secrets of season, the roots of the years and 
 
 the fruits; 
 His soul is at one with the reason of things that is sap to the roots. 
 
 He can hear in their changes a sound as the conscience of consonant 
 
 spheres; 
 He can see through the years flowing round him the law lying under 
 
 the years. 
 Who are ye that would bind him with curses and blind him with 
 
 vapor of prayer ? 
 Tour might is as night that disperses when light is alive iu the air." 
 
 Swinburne. 
 
 " My dear father," — wrote Harvey Ball from 
 St. Louis, some weeks after th.e military dinner, 
 " when you ask me again to help decide on a pro- 
 fession for Albert, or at least on the college best 
 suited to develop him in a direction fitted to his 
 ability and tastes, I find myself at a loss. I do 
 not want to seem to lack interest. You will know 
 it is not that, and I am always glad to relieve you 
 and mother, if I can, of uncertainty and from per- 
 plexing questions ; but the choice of a life's training 
 or profession is a serious thing. You and mother 
 did so well by me, that I do not see how I could do 
 otherwise than say that Albert is in the best hands 
 in the world, and I am tempted to let it go at that. 
 But I know how earnest you are in wanting my 
 
118 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 opinion, and that I have no right to evade your 
 need of me as you grow older, by paying you 
 compliments however well deserved — I know 
 father. 
 
 " Tou seemed surprised that I wrote you so vig- 
 orously a while ago against "West Point, when Al. 
 took the soldiering craze ; and now that he is 
 nearly through his preparatory work, and thinking 
 about what next, you write me to cast a vote again, 
 and you say that his notion now is Theology. I 
 cast it against his choosing that, for the same reason 
 that I objected to the Army. 
 
 They are both dying professions. 
 
 I do not mean to indicate that I think either 
 one will be dead in my time, or in his ; but they 
 are on the down grade, looked at from a sociological 
 point of view. Training men for a life of battle — 
 to learn how to kill each other fastest and easiest 
 — is surely of the past. 
 
 "Of course there is the other side, — defence . But 
 after all, you see, the profession is that of warfare — 
 of fighting. Well, the days of warfare, let us hope, 
 are numbered. Did you ever stop to think what 
 an absurd contradiction of terms is the expression 
 " civilized warfare ? " Can you put two words to- 
 gether that are more antagonistic? Just in pro- 
 portion as we are civilized, we will not fight, — 
 and we are steadily approaching civilization. That 
 is why I said to Albert, ' Do not be a professional 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 119 
 
 soldier. A soldier is always a relic of barbarism. 
 Useful he may be, yet ; necessary he is, at times ; 
 but still he is a relic of barbarism. Don't join 
 a dying profession. Take one on the up grade. 
 Take one that you will have to hurry to keep up 
 with. Don't choose one that you must needs loiter 
 behind, and hold back, if you stay on speaking terms 
 with it. Select as a life's work something that is 
 of the present and the future ; don't nail your flag 
 to a sinking ship.' That is what I said to him 
 about the Army. 
 
 " Ifow as to his more recent notion, — Theology. 
 Here are exactly the same objections. War and 
 Theology belong to the same age. They belong 
 to the infancy of the race. The former is civilized 
 by progress to the extent of gatling guns and 
 torpedo boats ; the latter to the verge of sealing 
 hell over, and reading the vicarious atonement and 
 original sia out of good society. But in the nature 
 of things. Theology must get its light from the 
 past. It is based on a revelation long since closed. 
 It cannot say, ' We expect to revise this until it fits 
 our needs,' — as in law, or medicine, or journalism. 
 The religious law — revelation — is sealed. A 
 clergyman who is honest, — and let us hope Albert 
 will be that, no matter what he undertakes, — must 
 go to the records of the dead past for his light, his 
 inspiration, his guidance. The final appeal of any 
 Orthodox clergyman must be the Bible. He cannot 
 
120 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 doubt the Justice of Jehovah, and be an Orthodox 
 clergyman. He cannot question the goodness of the 
 Jewish God, and be true to his ordination vows. He 
 cannot throw over what may shock or pain him in 
 the New Testament ; he cannot maintain his mental 
 integrity in discussing the miracles, and be an hon- 
 orable minister. In short, father, if Albert ever 
 outgrows the creed of a dead age, he will either 
 have to stifle his manhood and his mental integrity, 
 or he will have to throw over his profession, — one 
 or the other. Every one knows how hard this last 
 is for a minister to do. It means a loss, a struggle, 
 a painful break with many years of his life, with 
 many loved and loving friends, and — often it 
 means a vast deal more than that to a man so un- 
 happily placed. 
 
 " This is true in no other profession. He could 
 take up Law, and if for any reason whatever his 
 maturer judgment should take issue with his youth- 
 ful choice, he could change without suffering con- 
 tumely and without moral or social violence, and 
 the training he had received would not unfit him 
 for other things, whereas a theological training does 
 — must. What I say of Law is true of Medicine, 
 or Journalism. All these are professions of the 
 present and the future. They all look brightly for- 
 ward. They acknowledge no final appeal. They 
 know no wall back or in front of which they may 
 not go. Faults they have. They say so, and every 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 121 
 
 man is at liberty to try to offer a better way, a 
 newer method, a truer system. These I say, are 
 professions of the future. They have not crystal- 
 lized. They acknowledge their need and intention 
 to learn more, to get nearer to the truth as knowl- 
 edge widens. A thousand years hence, they will 
 be stronger, better, firmer than they are to-day. 
 A thousand years hence War and Theology will be 
 dead. 
 
 " Talk about doing good ; look at Law. Where 
 has a man a better chance to serve his fellow-men ? 
 If his idea is to serve them singly, so to speak, he 
 has in his practice ample opportunity. He can take 
 the honest side. He can defend the weak. He can 
 throw his energies and influence on the side of the 
 honest administration of just laws. Or, if he seeks 
 a wider field, he can work to get better laws en- 
 acted, and bad ones repealed. He can discuss their 
 defects with legislators and judges ; call attention 
 to needed revisions ; in short, in a hundred ways he 
 can make this world better for his having lived in 
 it. He can leave his mark of progress on the age. 
 He can help push the car along. 
 
 " Or if he choose Medicine, what field could be 
 broader, what opportunity greater, what inspiration 
 grander, than to relieve those who suffer ? To help 
 them by all the methods known to-day, with always 
 an eye fixed on a better way, a newer discovery ; with 
 always an ear open to catch the first sound of hope 
 
122 Is this your Son, tny lord? 
 
 for the cripjDled, maimed, heredity-cursed CMatures 
 all about him ? 
 
 " Why, father, while people tdlk so much of the 
 clergy doing good to their fellows, living for 
 them and to save them, the honorable, progressive 
 physician is actually, quietly doing it. If there is 
 a heaven, and crippled souls go there, surely, surely, 
 there will be a Great Physician able to heal them 
 — if He made them. 
 
 " It is he)-e that sorrow, suffering, and pain need 
 looking after. Man's highest duty is here. Do 
 you know it is always an absurd idea to me that 
 people who really believe in a personal God — 
 and don't simply pretend to — seem to think that 
 the Almighty made a mistake in locating them ? 
 He put them here. It seems to me that is a pretty 
 strong hint that right here is the place where 
 their energies are needed. If He had wanted them 
 to look after some other world, don't you think 
 He would have put them nearer their post of duty? 
 But it is so much easier to attitudinize and pose 
 for some far-off place and time than it is to take 
 up the duties that are plain, and common, and 
 tedious, right here and now. In short, father, it 
 seems to me, that if a man is a good healer of 
 bodies, he is in a far nobler business than if he 
 is a talker about souls. 
 
 " N'ow I have come to Journalism, and, to be quite 
 frank, I think it is the greatest opening of them all, 
 
Is this your /Son, my Lord? 123 
 
 for ability and for progressive and far-reacliing 
 practical good. The field for all these is simply 
 immeasurable. For stimulating and rewarding the 
 weak and worthy, for succoring the helpless, for 
 defending the oppressed, for hunting down crime, 
 for restoring the lost, for giving credit to the virtu- 
 ous and blame to the vile, its opportunities are 
 boundless. 
 
 "The Press is the guardian of free speech, that 
 first and most important of all requisites of a true 
 manhood and a real civilization* In all these and 
 in a thousand other ways. Journalism is the best 
 field for the best energies of good men. And in 
 the main, the present tendency of the Press, aside 
 from politics, is upward and forward, and light 
 is ahead. A fearless Press is the hope of this na- 
 tion. No people can be free without it, and no 
 other agent on earth is so dreaded by wrong and 
 vice. What wrong-doer fears the Pulpit? All 
 wrong-doers fear a fearless Press. 
 
 " If Albert would be a progressive man, there is 
 no better, broader, surer way than this. If he 
 would be an inspiration to the weak, a guide and 
 guard, a comforter, a friend, where could he show 
 it as here ? How find such scope for his energies, 
 or so large an audience ? 
 
 " Or if he means to be a scholar only, a literary 
 man, to devote his life to the artistic rather than 
 to the progressive side of the profession — still 
 
124 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 here is a field which has its equal nowhere else, in 
 the matter of opportunity ; and, if he ever should 
 want to leave it, no harm is done. A kind good-by is 
 given, and he takes his way unmolested, and with a 
 training of incomparable value in any other walk 
 of life. 
 
 '' No, father, do not let him commit himself, in 
 his youth, to any calUng which will bully him if he 
 changes his mind, and hound him if he makes his 
 changes known. 
 
 " And as to West Point training, as I told you, 
 I have no doubt that it is good, as purely arbitrary 
 training, but unless he means to stay, I should not 
 advise him to go into the Army ; and I do not be- 
 lieve that Albert would ever be satisfied to be a 
 professional fighter. If not, then, at the end of 
 five years, he is adrift again with no practical ex- 
 perience and five good years gone. How strange 
 it is that almost every boy thinks first of these two 
 professions, — War and Theology, twins we have 
 inherited from the ignorance and brutality of the 
 past ! These two who were born of the same par- 
 entage and are destined to sleep in the same grave ! 
 Of the two, a soldier ; but of the two — neither. 
 That is my vote. 
 
 " Now, father, this is a long letter, and there is no 
 room for anything else ; but I shall be home again 
 soon and we can talk all the other things over. Kiss 
 the blessed mother for me, and give yourself a hug. 
 
Ts this your Son, iny Lord? 125 
 
 Good-by. Remember me cordially to the Stones. 
 Always tell me about them, — cdl of them. — 
 Harvey." 
 
 VV hen Harvey's father read this letter to his 
 wife, they decided to go over and read it to Mr. 
 Stone and take him into their counsel, as had been 
 their habit for years, in matters of moment. 
 
 " "What do you think of that letter, John ? " asked 
 Mr. Ball, abruptly, when they were comfortably 
 seated in the library of their neighbor. " It is 
 from Harvey, and it has a good deal in it that 
 makes mother feel uneasy ; and I can't say that I 
 like it myself." 
 
 Maude looked up surprised, and her father 
 started perceptibly. The girl was pale, and un- 
 like her old bright self. 
 
 "Maudie, I did not know you had been sick, 
 child," said Mrs. Ball, in a sweet motherly way. 
 " Come over here and tell me about it. I declare 
 you look right bad. If I had known, I would have 
 brought some of that calf's-foot jelly you are so 
 fond of. Dear me, how you and Harvey used to 
 eat that jelly ! I never could make enough ; but 
 this time Harvey has been away, and you have not 
 been very neighborly since you went East last 
 year." 
 
 Maude brought a hassock to Mrs. Ball's side and 
 sat down, laughing a little. She' knew what the 
 last sentence meant. 
 
126 Is this your Soil, my Lord? 
 
 " Now don't suppose I learned any new tricks in 
 the East, Auntie Ball. If I had I should not have 
 tried to utilize them here — certainly not with 
 you ; " and the girl stroked the old hand as she had 
 done hundreds of times before, and ended with a 
 little loving pinch at one finger. 
 
 Maude could not remember when Mrs. Ball 
 had not petted her, and exchanged household 
 recipes with her mother. " Uncle Ball," as she 
 had always called Harvey's father, had carried 
 ■her on his shoulder many a time when Albert 
 had objected, with more vigor than gallantry, to 
 the usurpation of his prerogative by this small 
 thing in jsetticoats.. Albert wore something very 
 like petticoats himself in those days ; but he knew 
 that they were a little different from hers and 
 that it would not be a great while until his would 
 develop into those wonderfully superior garments 
 worn by his brother Harvey. His emancipation, 
 therefore, was to be only a question of time, while 
 hers — well, her clothes would only grow larger, 
 not different. And this small pthilosopher, with 
 eyes fixed on his big brother, and heart set on 
 trousers, swelled with pride, and he consoled him- 
 self, even if his father did take delight in perching 
 Maude Stone on his broad shoulders, letting her 
 pick peaches from the tree, away up nearly in the 
 clouds. She wasn't going to have trousers by and 
 by, any how. Those days seemed very far away 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 127 
 
 now to Maude; but not so far to "Auntie Ball" 
 and "Uncle." 
 
 " Here, Maude," said her father, handing her 
 the letter, quite as a matter of course, " I 
 haven't nxy glasses. You read it aloud to us all. 
 Anything Harvey has to say interests you and 
 mother." 
 
 But a new feeling had begun to assert itself in 
 Maude. She was not so sure about reading the 
 letter. Harvey Ball had not written it with that 
 expectation, and since the night of the military 
 dinner in St. Louis, Maude had begun to feel that 
 Harvey might object to having her read his home 
 letters. She hesitated. 
 
 " Yes, yes, child, read it ; " said Mr. Ball ; " you 
 always could read his outrageous handwriting 
 better than anyone else. I declare I never saw 
 such pothooks. ^Yhy, in my time, if a young man 
 hadn't been able to write better than that before 
 he left the log schoolhouse, he would have been 
 kept in and perhajjs flogged eveiy night of his life. 
 Now look at that," said he, opening the letter; "just 
 look at that word there. I'd never have made it 
 out only by the sense, and that is a pretty uncer- 
 tain way to read letters, when you do not know 
 what sense they intend to convey. Now I called 
 that word ' practice ' when I read it ; but it looks a 
 great deal more like ' panics.' Now, where is the 
 ' t,' I should like to know ? Good deal more like 
 
128 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 an 'n.'" Maude looked over his shoulder and 
 laughed. 
 
 " Oh, uncle, there is the cross ; see ?" 
 
 "Where? Where? Away over there? Well, 
 what in the name of goodness does an ' h ' in the 
 next word want with a cross ? Go 'way, child, 
 don't try to defend Harvey's writing, even if it is 
 the same style as your own. You and Harvey 
 always were two of a kind, though ; " and the old 
 man laughed and pinched Maude's cheek, which 
 may have accounted for the sudden flush that came 
 into it. " Now, father," said Mrs. Ball, reproach- 
 fully, " don't abuse the boy's handwriting. If that 
 is the only thing that he does wrong, we ought to 
 be able to stand it ; " and the good, anxious soul 
 sighed heavily. Mr. Stone noticed that Maude 
 looked up, startled by this new note of anxiety in 
 the voice of Harvey's mother, and that she began 
 to re-fold the letter that had been left in her 
 hand. 
 
 " Well," said he, stretching his legs out under 
 the table and ramming his hands into the depths of 
 his pockets ; " well, if there ever was a boy that 
 hadn't anything wrong with him hut his handwrit- 
 ing, that boy is Harvey Ball. I'd be satisfied with 
 him if he was my son. Aunt Martha, I can tell you 
 that. He is one in a thousand. I — " 
 
 " Wait till you read that letter, John," sighed 
 Harvey's mother. " I don't know what to think. 
 
Js this y<nir Son, my Lord? 129 
 
 Father says it will be all right ; but — well we 
 never were very particular about sending him to 
 Sunday-school, and maybe it is our fault, But it 
 certainly is a queer letter. I think you will say so 
 yourself, John, and I'm not so sure that you will 
 want Maudie to read it, after all. Dear, dear, just 
 to think that I should ever say that about one of 
 Harvey's letters ;" and the perplexed mother shook 
 her head and looked at her husband. 
 
 " Nonsense," said that gentleman, forgetting for 
 the moment his own position in the matter. " Stuff 
 and nonsense. Mebby we can't agree with him — 
 and he knew it when he wrote it, like as not — but 
 he knew that we asked for his honest opinion, and 
 he gave it. He doesn't make any explanations or 
 apologies to us, either, for writing as he does. He 
 seems to take it for granted that what we wanted to 
 know was what he really did think — and not what 
 we would expect him to think, necessarily. I take it 
 as a great compliment that he does not feel called 
 upon to apologize since he thinks that way ; but 
 what troubles me is that he seems to be so settled 
 in it, that he talks as if it was self-evident, and not 
 open to question even." 
 
 " Well, why should a man apologize for telling 
 the truth — for giving his honest opinions ? " asked 
 John Stone, combatively. 
 
 " That's what I always told Harvey," broke in 
 that gentleman's father, apparently on both sides of 
 
130 Is this your /Son, my Lord? 
 
 the question. " Say what you think, my boy, I'd 
 tell him ; and it don't make a mite of difference 
 if it isn't the way I think. Why, before he was 
 knee-high to a grasshopper we took different sides 
 in politics. Gad, it did me good to hear the little 
 imp argue ! Don't you remember, mother, that 
 time he got the best of me about the Chinese 
 question?" And the old gentleman slapped his 
 leg and laughed heartily at the recollection, albeit 
 with an unaccustomed note of uneasiness. " Read 
 it, Maude, read it," he added. " I guess you 
 don't want to force Harvey to think your way, or 
 else hide what he does think, hey, Miss ? " Mr. 
 Ball always appeared to take it for granted that 
 Maude had a part of the training of his son 
 Harvey, devolving upon her. The girl used to 
 accept the responsibility quite seriously, and dis- 
 pensed wisdom to the young man, either at first 
 or second hand, with the utmost freedom ; but 
 now — 
 
 "Shall I, aunty?" she asked, rather dubiously. 
 " Maybe Harvey would rather I shouldn't, if it is 
 about — if it is so important, and so — " 
 
 " I'll risk Harvey," broke in Mr. Stone. " Harvey 
 in full regimentals, Harvey in fatigue, or Harvey in 
 — in his shirt sleeves, mentally and morally speak- 
 ing, won't be far off the track, I'll stake a fortune on 
 that. We may not agree with him — and I do 
 • hink he is away off politically ; but, by Jove, you 
 
Ts this your So7i, my Lord? 131 
 
 can bet every time that he has got a good, sound, 
 clean, manly reason for his opinions, and that he 
 doesn't think it necessary to ask anybody's leave 
 to think his own way. Read it, Maude, and let's 
 see what is the matter." 
 
 Mrs. Ball sighed, but nodded to the girl, who 
 crossed the room and seated herself by the student 
 lamp. " 'M-m," said she, smiling a little, as she 
 opened and smoothed it out one page at a time. 
 "Regular American poet, this letter, isn't it? 
 Longfellow ! " 
 
 Everybody laughed, and Maude's father pre- 
 tended to faint. 
 
 " Maude, if you do that again, you sha'n't read it," 
 said her mother, looking proudly at Mrs. Ball. " I 
 thought you said you had reformed." 
 
 " Well, I have," said the girl, " but a little relapse 
 like that once in a while doesn't count. Hear ye ; 
 hear ye ; hear ye. Now if you speak again, 
 mamma, I'll clear the court. I shall now read the 
 evidence — deposition, or whatever you call it, 
 (isn't that, it papa ?) of the absent witness ; " and 
 the girl, struggling hard to be her natural self and 
 to make merry for the four older people who 
 loved her, struck what she assumed to be a heavy 
 legal tone and attitude, and began reading the 
 letter. 
 
 She had not read far when she dropped her 
 serio-comic manner and read on quite soberly, 
 
132 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 stopping from time to time to be sure of a word. 
 Once Mrs. Ball essayed to expalin and soften a 
 passage, but her husband checked her. 
 
 " Wait, mother, let Harvey present his whole 
 case first. Don't try to prejudice Maude's jury. 
 It is a good idea of hers to put it that way." 
 
 " We may hang, or we may disagree — " began 
 Mr. Stone. 
 
 " Or convict ? " asked Harvey's mother, a little 
 anxiously. 
 
 " No danger of that, I guess," laughed Mr. 
 Stone. 
 
 " If this jury does not stop disturbing the court, 
 I'll — I'll elect a new foreman," said Maude, reach- 
 ing over and poking her father with her fan. 
 
 " Oh, am I the foreman ? " asked he, straighten- 
 ing up and taking his long legs in. " Well, your 
 honor, — or whoever you are, who appoints foremen 
 to suit yourself, — now that your instructions are 
 more fully understood, proceed. We're dumb. 
 Let me see, you had got to ' of the past ' — go 
 on." 
 
 When she had finished and begun folding the let- 
 ter, Mr. Stone got up and deliberately took her in his 
 arms and kissed her. Then he went abruptly out 
 of the room and closed the door behind him. 
 
 "Your father always takes everything about 
 Harvey so to heart, Maude," said Mrs. Stone. 
 " Go after him." The girl left the room at once. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 133 
 
 " I am sure the boy meant no harm," began his 
 mother. " He did not think how it would sound. 
 It sounds a little harsher than he must have in- 
 tended ; but writing you know is not like talking. 
 It is always unsatisfactory. If he were talking 
 about it he could stop to explain points." 
 
 Mr. Ball had stepped to the window and was 
 looking ou.t into the night. He was deeply per- 
 plexed in spite of his talk of Harvey's honesty of 
 purpose. He saw Maude and her father walking 
 up and down the porch. He opened the window 
 and stepped out, closing it behind him. The two 
 figures were at the farther end now. Mr. Ball went 
 quickly to them. 
 
 " Are you disappointed in the boy, John ? " asked 
 he, feeHngly. 
 
 " Disappointed ! disappointed ! " exclaimed Mr. 
 Stone, more excited than his old friend had ever 
 seen him. " Disappointed ! why, Edward, if that 
 boy were mine — if — Edward — sometimes I've 
 thought that no man could have so great a curse in 
 this world in these days as a son, but — " 
 
 Old Mr. Ball began to protest, and Maude let her 
 father's hand drop. " But, Edward," he continued, 
 struggling to control his voice, " your son is enough 
 to redeem a regiment. I'm glad I've lived to 
 know him. He's pure gold through and through," 
 — and Mr. Stone took his old friend's hand in his 
 and each of them put an arm about Maude, — 
 
134 Is this your Son, mij Lord? 
 
 " and, Edward, he is the only young fellow I know 
 who is worth more than the powder and shot it would 
 take to kill him. By Jove, I wish he was my son. 
 I'd trust him with — I'd trust Harvey Ball with my 
 little girl," he said, lowering his voice tenderly and 
 drawing her up against his breast, " and be happy. 
 And, Edward, I'd rather see her dead than married 
 to any other young man I ever saw. There, that 
 is my verdict on Harvey." 
 
 « What is yours, Maudie ? " said Mr. Ball, tak- 
 ing the girl's hand from her father's shoulder and 
 using the pet name of her childhood. " What is 
 your verdict, little girl ? " 
 
 " About the letter ? Or about Har — about Mr. 
 Ball ? " asked she, slyly imprinting a kiss on the 1 appel 
 of her father's coat under cover of the darkness. 
 
 " Mr. Ball ! " exclaimed the old man in blank 
 amazement. " Mr. Ball!'''' but Maude had slipped 
 herself free and in through an open window, thread- 
 ing her way through the furniture in the dark and 
 on up the stairs to her own room. She locked the 
 door, and threw herself face down across her bed, 
 and buried her cheeks in her hands. 
 
 " O papa, papa," she remonstrated under her 
 breath, " O papa, how could you say that out 
 loud?" 
 
 " No, not that I necessarily agree with all that 
 he wrote," Mr. Stone was saying as he and Mr. 
 Ball re-entered the library. "It isn't that ; but it is 
 
Js this your iSo?i, my Lord? 135 
 
 the tone of all that Harvey says, and does, and is. 
 He doesn't pose. He's real. You want him to use 
 his own head, don't you ? Well, suppose what he 
 says does seem a little unusual to you and Aunt 
 Martha, you see the motive in it, don't you ? Don't 
 you see your good, true, open-minded son ? Xow 
 what is the object of training children ? To make 
 'em all alike ? Not a hit of it : but to make them 
 the best it is in them to be ; — or make them see 
 the importance of being earnest and honest, and 
 then let each one come out with a different plan of 
 salvation or system of government if he's a mind to. 
 That's what I say. That's been our plan with' 
 Maude." Mrs. Ball murmured something about 
 Maude being a girl. " Yes, that's so," assented Mr. 
 Stone. " It is some different. Girls don't have quite 
 so many temptations, — of course, I mean girls who 
 have good homes, — and there are more safeguards 
 kept about them. Everything holds them back 
 from going wrong, and pretty nearly everything 
 pushes boys to the devil, as if it had all been 
 planned beforehand. Why, the very fact that a girl 
 knows that any really wrong step made by her is her 
 ruin in the eyes of society, is a tremendous safeguard, 
 however unjust it may be ; and the very fact that a 
 boy knows that this is not true in his case, is a con- 
 stant temptation to him to do the prodigal son act, 
 just for the fun of it, even if he has no real inclina- 
 tion that way. That's why I've always said I am 
 
1S& Js t/u's your Son, my Lord? 
 
 glad I have no boys. I'd hate to have a blackguard 
 or a booby for a son, and the way things are, it's a 
 mighty slim chance that he wouldn't be one or the 
 other. You're in luck, Edward. You've got a boy 
 to be proud of, and by Jove, I'm glad to see that he 
 has backbone enough to base his opinions and his 
 splendid personal character on a firmer foundation 
 than the shifting sands of dogmatic belief and theo- 
 logical speculation." 
 
 " Why, John ! " exclaimed Mrs. Ball, but he 
 went on. 
 
 " Look at that college mate of his ; the one that 
 was here — Fred Harmon. He was trained to be- 
 lieve in traditional religion, as expounded by his 
 mother and her rector. Well, he was made to 
 base his actions on that belief. Good or bad was 
 weighed by their theological scales, and cut down 
 or trimmed off to fit their pattern. The scales, of 
 course, were hung on the Bible. Well, that boy 
 had not gone far in his college course, till he found 
 his science and his Scripture conflicting in places. 
 Six periods of time might go down as what was origi- 
 nally meant by six days, if it wasn't for the context. 
 Morning and evening of the first day — and all 
 that sort of thing — rather gave the professor away. 
 The boys who were bright, badgered him until he 
 showed pretty plainly that he was working for a 
 salary. Well, they inquired into the sun standing 
 still, and the Red Sea's antics, and the boys, who 
 
Is this your /Son, my Lord? 187 
 
 ■weren't fools, made up their minds that a salary- 
 was som.etimes compensation, not only for instruc- 
 tion in certain topics, but for the mental integrity 
 of the instructor as well. 
 
 " That was a lesson a good deal easier learned 
 than unlearned. 
 
 " It wasn't long until these promising young scep- 
 tics got to badgering their mothers. Then they 
 were turned over to the rector. If he happened 
 to be a ' reconciler ' he manipulated, evaded, and 
 patched up, and jumped over, and construed, until 
 a good many of the boys were completely mystified. 
 Well, when anybody is completely mystified by a 
 man, they think he is a small god. ' Great mind ! ' 
 they say ; ' wonderful insight ! ' They know that 
 they tried their level best, and could not follow his 
 arguments to the conclusions he reached. They 
 think that it is because they missed a link, and that 
 he had it all there, only they were not clever 
 enough to see it. Now, Fred Harmon wasn't built 
 that way. He saw very distinctly that the link 
 was gone. He followed it up, and chased it around, 
 until he settled in his mind that what are called the 
 advanced ministers didn't believe, and didn't have 
 to believe the creeds they had vowed to teach. 
 
 "The underpinning got knocked out from under 
 his morals right there. 
 
 " He knew that those men lead the Protestant 
 church to-day. He knew that the people followed 
 
138 Js this your Son, my Lordf 
 
 them like sheep. He knew that they liad sworn 
 to teach a creed that they did not believe in any 
 sense that carried par value to words. His morals 
 were based on those creeds. Well, the result was, 
 the moment his belief in dogmatic religion was 
 shaken, he had no foothold. Natural morality 
 had no meaning to him. Goodness had none, apart 
 from its creed-bound, society-defined limits. The 
 outcome is, that he absolutely doesn't know the 
 moral difference to-day between a lie and the truth. 
 He doesn't have the slightest prejudice, as he calls 
 it, in favor of one line of action above another, only 
 on a strictly commercial basis. ' Will it pay, 
 socially speaking?' that is his test of conduct, of 
 opinion, of morals. And he is one of thousands. 
 I tell you, Edward, it won't do, it isn't safe, to base 
 morality and goodness on such shifting sands. 
 Harvey is right. It belongs to the past, and its 
 jDresent pretence of readjustment to the needs of 
 tills generation is simply turning out a lot of Fred 
 Harmons — and worse — if that is possible." 
 
 Maude had pushed aside the portieres, and 
 entered the room a few moments before. She 
 stood behind her father. Her lips were whits' and 
 a little drawn. She slipped out again and sat 
 down on the porch. No one had noticed her. 
 Late that night she wrote to Fred. 
 
 " I promised you in the note I left for you, the 
 morning after the Military Ball in St. Louis, that 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 139 
 
 if I had anything definite to say to you at any 
 time in the future — after I had thought over 
 what my father said — I should write again. I have 
 something to say now. My father was right. Our 
 lives and training have been so unlike, our ideals 
 based upon such totally different, and, as he says, 
 antagonistic thoughts and needs that our, — that is, 
 if we are still engaged, — I wi-ite now to say, that it 
 is best to end our mistake at once. 
 
 " You were different from any one I had ever 
 known. I admired you, your polish and self-poise 
 and — all I saw of you and comprehended was 
 very pleasing. I thought that I loved you. Per- 
 haps I did — but — perhaps it was rather what you 
 represented to me, or what I thought you, or that I 
 so loved to be loved myself and was a little proud 
 that you should care for me. I am not able to say 
 now what it was. I — I do not understand it at all ; 
 but I do know now that I should be afraid to trust 
 myself to marry you and — I could not marry 
 without perfect trust. I had that. I have it no 
 more." 
 
 Maude wrote a little unsteadily, and she closed 
 her eyes and laid her head back wearily on the 
 chair, still holding the pen over the paper. She 
 was very pale. Presently she began again. 
 
 "I know that you will believe me when I say 
 that I hope you will be much happier in the love 
 of some one else, and — that she will be happy in 
 
140 Is this your Son, rny Lord? 
 
 your love. I shall send, this to the Chicago 
 address that you gave me four months ago. Please 
 let me know that you get it. Good-by. I am so 
 sorry, oh, so very sorry, that all of it — that any 
 of it — has happened. Good-hy again. Maude." 
 
 She folded the note and addressed it : then she 
 threw herself on the bed. After a long time the 
 door opened softly and her father's face peered 
 in. The gas was burning brightly, and he saw his 
 daughter lying face down with a handkerchief in the 
 hand which was thrown above her head. He 
 went in quietly, and closed the door behind him. 
 Then he seated himself in the chair which she had 
 left by the table and waited. A little sob came 
 from the bed. He saw the note, but he did not 
 touch it. After what seemed to him a very long 
 time, he stepped to the bed, and lifting the girl in 
 his arms, as he had done when she was a little 
 child, carried her to the chair and sat down, and 
 clasping her to his breast, kissed her hair, her 
 eyes, and lips, with tears on his own cheeks. 
 N"either of them spoke. At last Maude said : " Did 
 you read it?" He shook his head. 
 
 " Reach ; " she said, holding fast to his neck so 
 that he might free his arm. He took the note, and 
 holding it behind her shoulder read it through. 
 Then he sealed it, and put it in his breast pocket. 
 "I will mail it," he said softly, as one speaks at a 
 grave. Then with a great wave of feeling, — " O 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 141 
 
 my daughter, my precious daughter, your father's 
 heart is glad. I could give you to a good man and 
 bear it ; but darling, Maudie, my daughter — " He 
 pressed her closer to him, and tears dropped on 
 her shining hair. 
 
 Two hours later they were sitting there. . . . She 
 was asleep, and the gaslight fell on his rugged face 
 made radiant by its love and joy. John Stone felt 
 as one might Avho snatches from the jaws of death 
 his only treasure. 
 
142 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Chaptee X. 
 
 "Heaven forbid I should fetter my Impartiality by entertaining an 
 opinion " 
 
 " To have a mind well oiled with that sort of argument which prevents 
 any claim from grasping it, seems eminently convenient sometimes; only 
 the oil becomes objectionable when we find It anointing other minds on 
 which we want to establish a hold " 
 
 "Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking 
 their vague, uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, 
 and oftener still for a mighty love."— George Eliot. 
 
 Fred Harmon read Maude's note with conflicting 
 emotions. 
 
 " I should hope that she considered our engage- 
 ment — if it might ever have been dignified by 
 that name — ■ broken long ago. I certainly did. 
 But I suppose it is very hard for a girl like that to 
 give up a — " he did not say brilliant match, but 
 that is what he thought. He did not take the 
 trouble to let her know that the note had reached 
 him. Why should he ? Of course it would reach 
 him. She must have known that, and, after all, 
 his mother was right ; it was a good deal better to 
 put as little as possible in writing, especially with 
 people like that." He had fallen into his mother's 
 mode of thought again. 
 
 Then he began to have a sense of loss and of 
 moral collapse. He felt very hardly used indeed, 
 
Is this yoitr Son, my Lord? 143 
 
 and strolled along the Boulevard and took his hat 
 off in so impressive a manner and with such aban- 
 don of self abnegation that the ladies, as they drove 
 by, wondered if there had been a death in his 
 family or- whether perchance he had taken his or- 
 dination vows in secret. 
 
 Barlow noticed his abstraction and gloom and 
 chaffed him a little, but Fred let him see, at once, 
 that it was far too serious a matter to trifle with, 
 and Barlow changed the subject. 
 
 " Excuse me, Harmon ; " he said. " I did not 
 dream there was any real trouble. I thought you 
 were only mooning a little." 
 
 Fred sighed heavily ; presently he said, 
 
 " Yes, I am in serious trouble. Barlow. I have 
 had a terrible grief ; but — it is best not to talk of 
 it. Don't say anything more about it to me, or to 
 anyone ; it is always better to bear one's burdens 
 silently, I think." 
 
 Barlow promised and offered sympathy, which 
 Fred accepted gracefully, leaving the impression 
 that it was wholly inadequate, and that his heroic 
 sufferings had probably never been equalled. That 
 night he wrote to his mother. 
 
 " Of course I realized, long ago — when I broke 
 the engagement — how incompetent such a girl 
 would be to fill the position my wife will occupy — 
 especially if I take orders ; and the more I think of 
 it the more I am inclined to do so. . . . Your 
 
144 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Indian Princess must be very amusing ; but really, 
 mother, I do not see the need of so much fuss about 
 such people. A good enough fad, of course, and I 
 don't mean to discourage it ; but — such cattle ! 
 What difference can it make what becomes of their 
 girls ? I don't at all doubt that what she says is 
 true. From the little I saw last year in Alaska, — 
 and in the camps a good deal nearer home, for the 
 matter of that, — I should think her account not at 
 all overdrawn. The white men and soldiers certainly 
 do make them drunk, and carry the girls off. Ugh ! 
 Such taste — and I suppose they keep them as long 
 as they want to ; or as long as they can for their 
 own safety ; and what else can they do then but 
 send the disgusting creatures back to the tribe ? 
 They have to. How did you ever happen to get 
 interested in such a ridiculous fad, anyhow? Is 
 
 Mrs. W in it? I suppose so. Oh, well, of 
 
 course it can't do you any harm. . . . 
 
 " What a delightful girl your ' dear Pauline ' is ? 
 Don't be surprised, — but this is a little premature 
 just now. Whist ! " 
 
 Mrs. Harmon read the letter and smiled. Fred 
 in Holy Orders, and married to Pauline ! Ah, life 
 is very sweet, and compensations come to those 
 who plan and wait ! 
 
 As Mr. Fred Harmon, late of Harvard, stood before 
 his mirror the next evening in the Grand Pacific Hotel 
 and gave the last touches to his white cambric tie, 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 145 
 
 he smiled approvingly at the reflection, and decided 
 that even the splendid vigor of Barlow did not 
 appear to conspicuous advantage when contrasted 
 with the perfection of detail presented here. But 
 it was a little early to make a call. People in 
 the West took dinner at such heathenish hours, and 
 ate so fast, that it would be a long time before he 
 could present himself at the home of Miss Pauline 
 Tyler's uncle on Michigan Avenue. The question 
 now was how to put in the intervening hours. 
 Perhaps if he started out aimlessly he might have 
 the good fortune to run into a political meeting or 
 a Salvation Army band. Almost anything afforded 
 Mr. Fred Harmon entertainment. He was wont 
 to pride himself on this fact. It was the chief 
 distinction between the college-bred man and 
 another, he said. College training enabled you 
 to be interested in all things, from a bug to a 
 bombardment ; from the cry of the night-hawk 
 to that of a woman in distress, and it appeared 
 to be about the same sort of interest in each case. 
 It was the alert attention of the anatomist to his 
 subject. 
 
 Fortune favored the young man. He had not 
 strolled three blocks from the hotel until he saw an 
 arrest made. There had been a street fight. He 
 followed the officers to the station, and watched all 
 the proceedings with the attention of a trained 
 observer. 
 
146 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 One of the young men, a German, appeared to 
 be the victim of a brutal assault. He had received 
 a ghastly wound on the head and it was feared that 
 his skull was fractured. Fred's cambric tie, which 
 showed above his light top-coat, had led the officers 
 to think him a clergyman, and they had admitted 
 him without a question to the examination. When 
 the final collapse came and the young German sank 
 into a comatose state, one of the officers turned to 
 Fred and said : — 
 
 " It's your turn now ; we done our part ; doc- 
 tor's done hisen ; now you kin have your innin's if 
 you're a mineto." 
 
 Fred smiled, but kept his eyes on the figure 
 before him. He did not fully understand the police- 
 man's mistake ; but he saw at once that he was 
 supposed to have some right there and, putting his 
 faith in silence, he continued to smile vaguely and 
 watch the wounded man. Presently he turned 
 to the physician and said : — 
 
 " Extremely interesting, isn't it ? First case I 
 ever saw. Final breakup was like a climax in a 
 play. How long will he continue to breathe 
 now ? " 
 
 The physician looked at his questioner for a 
 moment before he rejjlied. "Possibly for several 
 hours; but probably not so long. The skull is un- 
 doubtedly fractured and — If you have any interest 
 in him, you best lose no time. Get his friends here. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 147 
 
 He will never be moved alive. Poor fellow, he 
 appears to be a victim of his inability to make his 
 broken English understood. It is really an unusu- 
 ally sad case, I infer from what the officer says." 
 
 " Very sad, very sad indeed," murmured Fred 
 abstractedly, and went his way, congratulating 
 himself on having had the good fortune to witness 
 the effects of a pistol-shot wound in the head, 
 fracture of the skull, and the various physical phe- 
 nomena which follow. 
 
 " Pore feller," said the policeman ; " I wish I had 
 got there a little sooner. I might'a helped him." 
 
 " Poor fellow," thought the surgeon, " all we 
 can do now is to quiet his pain. Poor fellow, he 
 has a good face." 
 
 '* Exceedingly interesting case," said Fred Harmon 
 to himself, as he strolled up the street. " Very 
 pleasing and well-ordered sequence indeed. The 
 way his legs tottered, the way he bore the pain 
 of examination at first, the giving way of his legs, 
 and then of his stomach, and then his nerves when 
 he began to cry — very interesting — quite a bit 
 of experimental knowledge added to my store. 
 Well, I am glad I started out aimlessly — and 
 above all I'm glad that I am able to engage ray 
 mind with all such little things. Intellectual train- 
 ing is a vast gain. Now those men — the officers, 
 for instance — took no intelligent interest whatever 
 in the development of the case as a means of edu- 
 
148 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 cation ; " and so Mr. Fred Harmon philosophized 
 and congratulated himself, until he came suddenly 
 to the entrance of a large hall into which numbers 
 of men wore pouring. 
 
 " No* women ; " thought he. " 'M-m-m " — then 
 stepping up to a gentleman he inquired what was 
 going on inside. 
 
 " Young men's prayer and experience meeting,' 
 he said, " won't you come in ? All are welcome." 
 Fred thanked him and went in. He took a seat 
 near the door, intending to go out again in ten 
 minutes ; but the hymns and prayers entertained 
 him, and when several got up and spoke one after 
 another, he found himself held and attracted by the 
 variety. He wondered each time if the " experi- 
 ence " would vary much from that of the man who 
 had gone before. Several had begun by saying 
 that they felt themselves the chief of sinners, and 
 had then gone on to develop the idea that since a 
 given date they had cared for nothing, loved noth- 
 ing, wanted nothing, but God. Fred noticed that 
 one of the men on the platform who had said some- 
 thing of this kind was the commercial traveller, 
 his erst- while companion at poker, the night of the 
 Military Ball in St. Louis. The thought sent a flood 
 of memories through his brain. He felt chastened 
 and depressed. Life had dealt hardly with him of 
 late. He was both lonely and aimless. It wag 
 suddenly borne in upon him that his name had 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 149 
 
 been spoken. He looked up. The commercial 
 traveller was standing and had evidently spoken 
 to him. There was a slight movement and a ripple 
 of curiosity in the house — " and if the gentleman, 
 our distinguished guest from Boston, who, with his 
 characteristic modesty, is near the door, will step 
 this way, we will be happy to give him a seat on 
 the platform. Come this way, Mr. Harmon." 
 
 Fred shook his head ; but his commercial friend 
 urged him. Fred thought this in^ very bad taste. 
 At last he arose, looked about him and said, " How- 
 ever much I should like to accept your cordial invi- 
 tation to occupy a seat upon the platform, I am 
 compelled to decline. Unfortunately I have 
 another engagement. I came in for only a few 
 moments. I shall have to go soon." 
 
 " Before you go, we shall be glad to have you 
 stand where you are and give your religious expe- 
 rience for the help and comfort and encouragement 
 of others who may be strangers and whose names 
 I may not know, all of whom are welcome here as 
 they will be welcome over there ; " and the chair- 
 man waved his hand toward the upper part of the 
 front of the house, in which he appeared to locate 
 a celestial abode of the future. Fred thought all 
 this very droll indeed. Pie ran hastily over what 
 he could best recall of his " experience " and noth- 
 ing that occurred to him at the moment appeared 
 to be especially suited to the occasion, or likely to 
 
150 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 help the strangers about him to a cheerful view of 
 the Christian life. He shook his head. He had 
 not had time to suspect that his friend on the plat- 
 form was having his little fun out of the situation. 
 This thought began to assert itself just as he heard 
 that gentleman's voice say solemnly, — " our mis- 
 fortune ; but I am sure that his eloquent voice will 
 not decline to lead us at the throne of grace. Let 
 us pray. Mr. Harmon, please lead us in prayer." 
 
 The whole audience arose. It was not the first 
 time that Fred Harmon had jjrayed in public. His 
 choice of language was rich and forceful. Indeed 
 he had been told that he was " gifted in prayer. " 
 He felt no sense of inappropriateness ; but the tinge 
 of humor that had begun to creep in caused him to 
 open his eyes as he went on, and as he did so he saw 
 that the gentleman who had urged him to offer the 
 prayer was shaking with some suppressed emotion, 
 and that his hand, which was over his eyes, had a 
 wide space open between two of the fingers where 
 an eye, which was not closed, appeared and distinctly 
 twinkled. Fred's voice shook a little. " Amen," 
 he said reverently. " Amen ! " went up from the 
 audience. " Amen," said Fred's friend from the 
 platform ; " Amen, praise the Lord ! Thank you, 
 brother Harmon. Come to our meetings again." 
 
 Fred bowed, and went out. In the lobby he 
 stopj)ed to button his coat, and light a cigar, A 
 hand fell on his arm. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 151 
 
 " I heard that j'ou Avere going to take Holy 
 Orders, and I thought you might as well get your 
 hand in on our crowd ; " said his commercial friend, 
 who had hastened out after him. " They Avill take 
 'most anything. They know that some of us are 
 more or less — irregular — don't you know, but they 
 don't mind it. .Stopping at the G. P.? Yes? 
 Well, so am I. Room 98. Come in any time, up 
 to three o'clock, and have a quiet little game. Ben 
 wOl be there, and — oh, well, if you rather, bring 
 your own deck, of course ; but — there, they need 
 me. That's my hymn, and then I have to give 
 them a little talk on the beauty of holiness. See 
 you later." He waved his hand, and disappeared. 
 He had no sooner re-entered the hall, than his 
 strong, inspiring voice swelled into the melody of 
 " Nearer My God to Thee " at the third line, and 
 so enthused the whole body, that they arose with 
 one accord, and gave forth a fresh volume of 
 ecstatic and enthusiastic vocalization. 
 
 Some of them believed that their emotions were 
 caused by religion ; some of them thought very 
 little about it, and simply went with the swim • 
 some of them knew that they were utilizing, for 
 business purposes, purely i^hysical sensations ; but 
 one and all went away feeling that the evening had 
 been well spent, and that at least no harm could 
 come to any man so long as he was in no worse a 
 place than that. If there was one man in the room 
 
152 Is this your Son, mu Lord? 
 
 who felt that he had added to the sum of human 
 misery, or degradation, or sorrow, it certainly was 
 not Mr. Fred Harmon, nor was it his friend, the 
 commercial traveller. 
 
 Later that night, they laughed over it a little, it 
 is true, but neither of them doubted for a moment 
 the wisdom of his own course, nor the wickedness 
 of those who openly questioned a morality built 
 upon conventional observances, and an eternal 
 reward contingent on faith. 
 
 If Mr. Fred Harmon was expert at poker, he was 
 not invariably a winner, and although he always 
 said that he played a very small game, as became a 
 gentleman who indulged in the sport merely for 
 pastime, still it sometimes came about, if jackpots 
 were shy, or flushes unduly abbreviated, that his 
 exchequer, at no time plethoric, became reduced to 
 the verge of collapse. At such trying times he re- 
 ported to his mother, as a dutiful son should, that 
 he had met with a misfortune. Once or twice 
 this had taken the shape of an ordinary pickpocket, 
 and the young man so blamed himself for his care- 
 lessness in carrying money where it could be so 
 easily abstracted from his pockets, and for his stu- 
 pidity for falling asleep on a street car in broad 
 daylight, that his devoted parent consoled and ex- 
 cused him, with ingenious thought of his active 
 brain, which she had no doubt needed the sleep, 
 and sent him all the money she could get from 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 153 
 
 the indulgent but far from opulent head of the 
 house. But just now it occurred to him that the 
 "street-car, overworked-brain, pickpocket racket," 
 as he smilingly called it in his own mind, could 
 hardly be presented so soon again. The impulsive 
 relieving of -a sad case of destitution was equally 
 threadbare. He thought of a public subscription 
 for Foreign Missions, but decided against it. Such 
 lists were published, — a vulgar and inconvenient 
 custom, but still so universal that he gave the plan 
 only a moment's consideration. 
 
 The leather trade presented attractions again ; 
 but after mature deliberation and a careful weigh- 
 ing of points for and against a step which might 
 smirch his whole future, even though temporarily 
 resorted to, he decided to accept the long-since for- 
 gotten, and now providentially recalled, invitation 
 of Preston Mansfield to drop in on him and take a 
 hunt or a rest in the quiet and seclusion of that 
 young gentleman's not far distant home. There 
 could be very few calls for money in such a place 
 as that. Hotel bills would cease and — well, Pres- 
 ton Mansfield was not a bad fellow to know — in the 
 West. So Mr. Fred Harmon made up his mind to 
 hibernate, as he phrased it to himself, until the next 
 regular time came around when he might expect 
 money from home. He could then bloom once more 
 afresh in the world he loved to grace, — the world 
 which rewarded his exceptional ability so poorly 
 
154 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 that he was barely enabled to live as became a 
 gentleman on the higher planes of thought and 
 action, giving scant heed to the grosser necessities 
 of life, such as money making, — where he could 
 devote his rare talents to those purely intellectual 
 processes, commonly called education, in which his 
 life had thus far been spent. 
 
 This training had resulted, as we have seen, in the 
 young man's proud ability to interest himself in any 
 thing, from a globule to a geological period, or a 
 gun-shot wound, without those distiirbing elements 
 of emotion, — love or sympathy or fear or regret, — 
 which militate so grievously against the unpre- 
 judiced planes of thought whereon civilized and 
 cultured collegians were at that time struggling 
 desperately to maintain themselves. It is true that 
 comparatively few of them succeeded. Their home 
 training in most cases was against it, and the rare 
 combination of home, church, and collegiate dis- 
 cipline which had focused in his case, and devel- 
 oped the nature of Mr. Fred Harmon into that 
 much envied being, — a successful conventional 
 leader, free from all sentiment and full of all 
 sentimentality, — had been almost perfect for the 
 purpose from his earliest infancy. He knew before 
 he \\'as ten years old, that it was vulgar to differ 
 from social and religious leaders in one's opinions 
 on any subject whatever, and that it was quite 
 unpardonable to give utterance to such differences. 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 155 
 
 He knew, too, that a gentleman might be wretch- 
 edly poor, might accept the bounty of those who 
 labored, but if he engaged in any kind of busi- 
 ness his claims to position were at once gone. He 
 had never forgotten the impressive lesson on this 
 point that he had received very early in life. 
 His uncle had come to talk a matter over with his 
 sister, Fred's mother. It was soon after the civil 
 war, and it appeared from the account that this 
 uncle had lost his all, and was left without means 
 of support. He had been offered a very fair and 
 tempting salary if he would take charge of certain 
 business matters for an elderly gentleman of his 
 acquaintance. The position was that of a sort of 
 upper clerk, or manager. 
 
 " You must not think of it," said his sister in- 
 dignantly. " It is an insult for him to suggest such 
 a thing to you. You manage his affairs, indeed! 
 Be a head clerk in a mercantile house ! Never ! 
 Go to the poorhouse like a gentleman, if you must, 
 Cuthbert ; but never forget, brother, that you are 
 a gentleman." 
 
 Fred had thought a great many times, in his brief 
 career, of going to the poorhouse like a gentleman, 
 and in his childhood had vaguely wondered who 
 supported the superior beings whose pride reduced 
 them to such straits as this. He learned later that 
 it was done chiefly by the cruder class, whose pride 
 and breeding and culture did not stand between 
 
156 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 tliem and money-producing ocoujsations of various 
 degrees of vulgarity. So, although Fred did not, 
 by any means, suppose that going to visit Preston 
 Mansfield would be quite lilse entering an elee- 
 mosynary institution, still he looked ujjon it some- 
 what as the genteel resort of a man of culture in 
 reduce. 1 circumstances, to tide over, — not at his own 
 expense, for he did not permit himself to think of 
 it in the affirmative formula — a jseriod of financial 
 depression, of greater or less duration. That it was 
 a very great compliment to Preston Mansfield, he 
 realized ; but he had his satirical doubts if that 
 young gentleman would comprehend it as fully as 
 he should. That Preston would be pleased to see 
 him, that he would be hospitable and cordial, he did 
 not doubt ; but would Preston have the insight to 
 appreciate the honor of it ? That was the question ; 
 and he smilingly decided that it was altogether 
 unlikely that so emotional and coarse-grained a 
 fellow would be endowed with sufficiently fine in- 
 stincts to do so. He decided to make a study of the 
 case, and had already thought out a humorous letter 
 he should write to his mother, giving the curious 
 details of life in such a family, and the relish with 
 which he discovered his own ability to keep himself 
 so well in hand that not one of them should discover 
 that he felt himseK to be doing an exceedingly 
 gracious thing in giving them the benefit of a social 
 example as simply g,s if he were on their own plane. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 157 
 
 He prided himself on the simplicity and charm of 
 his manner towards his inferiors. Pie thought it very 
 likely that servants were human, — from a strictly 
 anatomical outlook, — and he felt it only right to rec- 
 ognize that fact, from time to time. Never by taking 
 an interest in their affairs, of course ; but — well, 
 he had spoken distinctly to Thomas who served him 
 at the hotel, at least twice, in the weeks that he was 
 there, and he had stepped aside for the chamber- 
 maid one morning, in such a way that she must 
 have known that he saw her and therefore knew 
 that she existed. He thought such little things 
 kept servants devoted to their superiors, and it was 
 not a great sacrifice for a gentleman to make, if he 
 once made up his mind to it ; but the intolerable 
 impudence of the serving class, he felt, made even 
 such slight concessions somewhat dangerous, unless 
 one were really heroic in his devotion to prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 He had heard the Reverend Highchurch dis- 
 course upon the subject, " How shall we treat our 
 servants ? " And he knew that the entire congre- 
 gation had felt that the Christian beauty of his ad- 
 vice was the result of an exaltation almost di\'ine. 
 He had distinctly advised moderation in censure, 
 and said that even a word of praise judiciously 
 offered might not always be a bad plan where ser- 
 vants were faithful and devoted, and had grown 
 gray in one's service. But such as these were, of 
 
158 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 course, rare enough to make this radical advice 
 innocuous, even if followed. 
 
 It is due to Mr. Fred Harmon to say that he did 
 not give the thought that Preston Mansfield had 
 several pretty sisters any consideration whatever. 
 He knew that he could make himself agreeable to 
 almost anj' girl or woman, if he saw fit ; and if he 
 did not, — well, it was easy enough to drop a vague 
 hint of a wounded heart in such a way that gentle 
 sympathy and thoughtful kindness would be drawn 
 out, and no complications result ; for his new friends 
 would not know who the lady was, and no one could 
 doubt the ease of a role like that if he once tried it. 
 Fred smiled to think how often it had worked in 
 his o\^Ti brief career. Before he was fairly out of 
 knickerbockers, his mother had added jelly to his 
 toast, and sent it to his darkened room, with a 
 tender message for the stricken heart of her son. 
 Tnat time it was one of his teachers. She was a 
 very pretty girl indeed, and not more than ten 
 years his senior. She had married well, too, a man 
 much above her, Fred's mother thought, — the 
 young rector in a town near by. Fred was deso- 
 late, — and enjoyed the fruits of his woe in the 
 shape of jelly and long naps in the morning, and 
 gentle words and tones, until the sharp edge of his 
 heartbreak ^\'ore off. So with ageing melancholy 
 he cast his e}'es alternately upon Bertie Fairchild 
 and the Church. He was confirmed shortly there- 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 159 
 
 after. Then he felt better for a time. Fred always 
 thought of holy orders at such crises as these, and 
 had even gone the length of pondering over the 
 growing ranks of monks then attracting attention in 
 ritualistic Protestant circles because of the recent 
 conversion to their order of a certain conspicuous 
 young churchman Avho had taken the vows of chas- 
 t\Xy and poverty. Fred thought of this again when 
 his mother first objected to his betrothal to Maude 
 Stone, and he had read up on the requirements of 
 such a position in the English Church in America. 
 He knew it would give him great prestige to be a 
 convert, and renounce the world so conspicuously ; 
 but — it was uncouth to be in haste about anything, 
 and there was ample time to think it over. 
 
 The inclination had almost faded out, until his 
 last misfortune with the jackpot (whoever heard 
 of two such hands being beaten, one right after the 
 other?), and then it swept over him anew. It 
 was always a splendid possibility for the future. 
 But he decided against haste, as before. He would 
 visit Preston Mansfield, and give himself time to 
 think in dignified seclusion from the world. Then, 
 too, Pauline Tyler had left Chicago three days 
 before. 
 
 She confided to him, before she left, that there 
 was absolutely no truth in the report that she 
 was to marry Chicago's mayor-elect ; and as to 
 banker Hartley — A\ell — she had met him only 
 
160 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 three times, and the absurdity of such a thing was 
 quite manifest. Fred agreed with her perfectly, 
 and wrote for her a somewhat touching denial of 
 these rumors to the society columns of the papers, 
 whereupon the reporters called upon Miss Pauline, 
 who peremptorily refused to see them ; sending 
 down word that she was prostrated by the publicity 
 given to her affairs. 
 
 The postman's indignation was aroused the next 
 day and the next and the next, by the armful of 
 newspapers he was called upon to convey from the 
 house of Miss Tyler's uncle to the post-office. He 
 noticed that they were addressed in a feminine 
 hand and were sent to other newspapers, as well as 
 to private persons all over the country, and not a 
 few were sent abroad. He concluded that they 
 contained marked notices of a wedding or a death, 
 but he did not see why one of the servants might 
 not have made a large package of the whole lot 
 and gone with them himself to the post-office. 
 
 But Pauline was gone now, and those terrible 
 Chicago reporters would trouble her no more. 
 But stay — would it not be their fiendish work, 
 after all, which would follow her? And would not 
 all those other papers copy from them and bandy 
 her name about as if she were some vulgar woman 
 who had done something — written a play, or 
 acted one, or some such bold thing as that ? And 
 poor Pauline drew her veil down, laid her weary 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 161 
 
 head back on the car seat and sighed heavily. It 
 was the penalty of distinction. Pauline thought 
 how hard it must be for great men to bear it. And, 
 — women, — but the bold creatures who got their 
 names in the papers outside of the society columns 
 no doubt liked it. Of course, to be in the 
 society column was quite different. One's person- 
 ality was subordinated there to one's clothes ; but 
 to have one's name mentioned in print as having 
 been so pronounced as to do anything, or say or 
 think anything whatsoever, apart from costumes and 
 church charity, was outside the pale of serious 
 consideration by womanly women at least. Pauline 
 had said all this and more a great many times. 
 Pauline was orthodox in all things. 
 
162 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 " Durable morality had been associated with a transitory faith. The 
 faith fell into intellectual discredit, aud . . . morality shared its 
 decline for a season. This must always be the natural consequence of 
 building sound ethics on the shifting sands and rotting foundations of 
 theology." — John Morley. 
 
 "Men talk of * mere morality/ — which is much as If one should say, 
 'Poor God, with nobody to help him.' "—Emerson. 
 
 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send 
 peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his 
 father, and the daughter against her mother."— /e^ui Christ. 
 
 When Harvey Ball came home he was greatly 
 surprised to find his mother still somewhat disturbed 
 by the letter he had written about Albert's choice 
 of a profession. She had never been a very strict 
 church-member, but had usually gone to hear a 
 sermon, each week, all her life, and her husband 
 frequently went with her. There had been but 
 little talk about it in the family, and it was simply 
 taken for granted that the liberal teachings of the 
 broad-minded, cheerful, kind man who filled their 
 pulpit, were axiomatically correct, and that Harvey 
 and Albert were mentally in accord with it all. 
 
 Harvey had always been such an upright fellow. 
 From his very infancy his sense of justice had 
 been strong, and any inclination to be untruthful that 
 he may originally have had, or imbibed from others, 
 had nothing to feed upon at home, for he feared no 
 one. If he made a " bad break," as he called it, he 
 
Is this your Soti, my Lord? 163 
 
 usually told his father or mother quite frankly, and 
 they helped him out of it. Not by trying to 
 conceal or distort the fact that it was a mistake, or 
 even a wi'ong; but by explaining tlie other side 
 to him, meanwhile keeping a fast hold of the boy's 
 love of their approbation. He had lied one day, 
 when only a very little fellow, about the quantity 
 of candy he had. It seemed to him that it would 
 be easier to do that than to give up any more of 
 the sweet s"tuff ; so he had hid it,, and said there 
 was no more, when his mother asked him. His 
 father had seen him slyly abstracting a piece from 
 the box which he had concealed behind a trunk. 
 
 " Bring it all out, Harvey," he had said, with not 
 the slightest hint of -disapproval in his voice ; " you 
 can get at it better out here, and you won't feel 
 so uncomfortable. Telling what is not true to your 
 mother, or me, makes you feel rather uneasy, I 
 notice. It is always that way. When I have 
 tried it I always feel worse afterward ; and then it 
 does not pay to let other people get the idea that 
 you do not tell, an-d do not care for, the truth. 
 Would it make you uncomfortable or unhappy if 
 you thought that what I say to you is not true ? " 
 
 " No sir," said Harvey promptly, with a mouth- 
 ful of candy. His imagination was too weak just 
 then to grasp the idea. 
 
 That afternoon Mr. Ball promised his son a 
 drive in the country. Harvey was filled with 
 
1(34 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 delight. Shortly afterward, as the little fellow 
 stood on tip-toe watching for his father, he saw 
 him drive past and disappear. The boy ran out to 
 the gate, but his father did not come back. He 
 wept, and raged, and sulked within himself. That 
 night his father said, " Oh, did you expect me to 
 take you ? " 
 
 " You know you promised me ; " sobbed Harvey, 
 " and there was room, and you said you would take 
 me." 
 
 " So I did, so I did," said his father ; " and you 
 believed me, didn't you? "Well, Harvey, I told 
 you a lie just to show you that it would hurt 
 somebody. Now it hurt you, didn't it, son ? 
 and it hurt me too. Then it did another thing : 
 the next time I tell you I will do anything, you 
 will not know whether to believe me or not, will 
 you?" 
 
 "No sir," said Harvey, with wide eyes and a 
 sense of loss. 
 
 " You would a great deal rather f^el sure, would 
 you not?" 
 
 " Yes, I would, papa." 
 
 " Well, that's the way it is," said Mr. Ball, taking 
 the boy up in his arms. " It is just that way about 
 everything. Unless people know that a man tells 
 the truth, as a rule, nobody will know whether to 
 believe anything at all that he says. Very 
 soon they will not believe him, even when he 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 165 
 
 is honest. Nobody will deal with him, and he will 
 cause so much confusion and want of confidence, 
 that he will harm a good many people beside him- 
 self. So, don't you see, Harvey, people must tell 
 the truth for the safety and happiness of them- 
 selves as well as of others ? Don't you see that it 
 is a great deal to one's own advantage to be truth- 
 ful, and that it is necessary for children to learn 
 the lesson pretty early? That is the reason why 
 there are laws against lying. Did you know there 
 is a law — " 
 
 " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
 neighbor," piped up the boy, who had gone to 
 Sunday-school from time to time. 
 
 " Yes," said his father, " that was built on the 
 very experience I tell you about. Men found out 
 that it would not do to lie; it would interfere 
 with everything ; and so, long after they found that 
 out, some one stated it in that way. But, after all, 
 that is only one side of it. That is the perjury 
 side, — the side the law takes hold of. But just 
 suppose it was the rule to lie. You would take 
 ten cents and go to a store to buy marbles. The 
 man would tell you they were two cents each. 
 How many would you get ? " 
 
 " Five," said Harvey, promptly. 
 
 « Well now, suppose you handed him your 
 money, and when you got out of the door you 
 found that he had given you only four ? " 
 
166 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 " I would go back and make him give me the 
 other," said the boy, savagely. 
 
 " But suppose j'ou could not ? He is the 
 larger." 
 
 " Then I would tell you ! " Harvey was trium- 
 phant. 
 
 " Well, but suppose I myself had lied to that 
 man the day before — had sold him a horse as 
 good and sound, when he was blind in one eye ? 
 Don't you see, Harvey, it would not work ? Don't 
 you see that people could not get along ? Don't you 
 see that everything would get so tied up and con- 
 fused that business would stop, and nobody would 
 believe a word that anybody else said ? Don't you 
 think that would be pretty bad ? Business would 
 be impossible ; homes would be impossible. Every- 
 thing would go to pieces. It could not be done. 
 Well, now, that fact became known by exjjerience, 
 and so, for self-protectioji, peoi^le had to tell the 
 truth, don't you see ? " 
 
 " I thought it was because God said — " began 
 the boy, with his catechism still in his mind. 
 
 " Oh, to be sure, to be sure, they say God said it. 
 That is, some people do — and no doubt He did — 
 but don't you see how they got the idea first ? " 
 asked his father, quite inconsistently. " They 
 found out how it was — what was necessary — and 
 you know when men find that out they always 
 think and say that it is God's way. Their necessi- 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 167 
 
 ties are God's •ndshes, and so God's wishes are 
 different in different countries, and at different 
 times." 
 
 This was rather deep, and rather puzzling 
 theology to the boy ; and very inconsistent religion 
 in the father ; but neither of them knew the latter 
 fact, and the lesson went home to the boy's mind 
 strictly as a rational and utilitarian A'iew of the 
 command to be truthful. 
 
 Mr. Ball himself had no idea that his explana- 
 tion was a trifle unorthodox. He had based his 
 life on reason, and then he had gone occasionally to 
 an Orthodox church, because it was the custom, and 
 he liked the preacher personally. 
 
 He did not think it exactly right or safe, how- 
 ever, to have Harvey base his ideas of right and 
 wrong on the catechism, and so he took him out of 
 Sunday-school. At the same time he had intended 
 the boy to return later on, when his moral ideas 
 should be founded on reason, so he had told him- 
 self. But Harvey had never asked to go back. 
 He had liked to stay at home or take a drive, far 
 better, and as a consequence, his religious instruc- 
 tion had never gone very far. Sometimes he had 
 attended church with his mother ; but he usually 
 went to sleep, or got so interested in watching the 
 people and thinking about them that ^\'hatever of 
 dogmatic theology the Rev. Carr had preached, had 
 escaped Harvey. He liked Mr. Carr very much 
 
168 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 indeed. They always had a merry chat when they 
 met in the street. The clergyman seemed to take 
 a deep interest in marbles, and later on in base- 
 ball, so they were the best of friends, and neither of 
 them realized how wide apart their points of view 
 had grown as the years went by. Even in Harvey's 
 college days, in the vacations, when he was at home, 
 he had always enjoyed meeting Mr. Carr. 
 
 When Harvey first entered college, he found his 
 father's lessons and character a firm foundation. 
 All about him was different. Temptations had 
 new forms, pleasures and vices new faces. Some 
 of the boys lost their heads. The boundary line 
 of moral actions wavered or got rubbed out. To 
 those who lost their absolute faith, the belief in a 
 certain phase of life as the only right or decent 
 one ; to those who found for the first time con- 
 flicting dogmas held as equally good ; to those 
 who met new questions and scientific facts with 
 undeveloped and illogical minds ; to those who 
 were suddenly awakened to the knowledge that 
 their religion was not universal, or even approxi- 
 mately so, — to the fact that more millions were 
 without it than with it, and that morality had no 
 necessary connection ynth religion, — to all these, 
 college life was a dangerous awakening. Some of 
 them kept their feet fairly well ; but for the most 
 part they became, either openly or in secret, ad- 
 dicted to vices which they no longer measured as 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 169 
 
 such, because their standards of measurement had 
 ceased to be useful. These boys had no other moral 
 standards, and they found themselves adrift with- 
 out square or compass. Some of them added to 
 their other vices that of duplicity. They professed 
 to accept and use their old creeds ; they concluded 
 that this was universal ; that no one believed what 
 he pretended to, on any subject whatever. Virtue 
 and candor were for women and children — to be 
 talked about in public ; but the men, who believed 
 in either, were ignorant fools or milk-sops. Edu- 
 cated men knew better. It was all a gigantic, 
 roaring farce, and they took their cues with spirit. 
 A few kept their feet, but were discouraged and 
 dazed. A small number underwent no revolution. 
 A wider view they saw ; but it was part and parcel 
 of the well-known field of natural experiences, — 
 the same measurements lengthened, the same 
 calculations multiplied, the same rules developed, — 
 that was all. 
 
 Fred Harmon had gone down with those who 
 still outwardly conformed. In him duplicity and 
 reticence, in all things, had held such sway that he 
 did not himself know their boundary lines. 
 
 Preston Mansfield flung everything to the winds 
 with the first revelation made to him by his father, 
 and was openly and boldly a man of the rapid 
 world, who did not care to hide the fact except from 
 those of his own household. Even at home he made 
 
170 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 no pretence. He simply held his tongue and rested 
 on that miraculous capacity which each man's 
 women-folks have for accepting him at, or even above, 
 his own valuation, while a certain discount system is 
 applied to every other man of their acquaintance. 
 Preston's mother had sometimes had vague doubts of 
 her husband, in spite of his conspicuous position in 
 her beloved church. Of Preston she had no doubts 
 at all. To her he was still a lad, pure, simple, direct 
 and clean-minded. Plis sisters estimated him even 
 higher, nor had a quaver of doubt ever come to 
 them of the absolute moral integrity of their 
 father. All this hurt Preston Mansfield, and he 
 chafed under it ^^-hencver he was at home. He 
 said that he hated to cheat women. It went 
 against him to be the receiver of stolen goods — 
 whether these were the confidences of those who 
 loved him, or the proceeds of a less material, more 
 dangerous, and more manly robbery. 
 
 " I always feel Hke a thief at home," he said ; " a 
 sneak-thief in an orphan asylum at that ; not a 
 brave highwayman, who takes his chances and 
 risks his own skin with men." So Preston stayed 
 away from home all he could. 
 
 Fred Harmon had no such inconveniently primi- 
 tive prejudices. His mother knew that he did not 
 believe — " in that sense " — many of the things to 
 which he subscribed outwardly ; but she did not 
 know that he had still a third set of opinions and 
 
Ts this your Son, my Lord? 171 
 
 actions which he did not care to submit e^-en to her 
 lenient inspection. The basis of his moral and 
 mental attitude she knew, and had helped, she 
 proudly felt, to form ; but the full development of 
 her teachings she did not suspect, nor could she 
 have believed, if the results had been pointed out 
 to her, that ther were anything short of the imag- 
 inings of a madman, or the machinations of an 
 enemy. 
 
 Duplicity she had translated into tact, and had 
 lived the translation. Her son "reverted," as they 
 say in evolution, to the original type. 
 
 Selfishness she framed and draped as the just 
 sense of one's duties in ideal self- development. 
 She always held that this was for the benefit of 
 others, for the Race. Fred wrote " race " with a 
 small r and " Self " with a large S, and he elimi- 
 nated " others " altogether. 
 
 His mother believed that the Episcopal Church 
 held the highest ideals in morals, religion, art, and 
 music, to be found in this world. Fred believed 
 that it was the organization of greatest power and 
 influence to which a gentleman of culture could 
 belong, and that it was a social lever and a moral 
 screen that no man in his senses could afford to 
 ignore. Fred was under the impression that his 
 mother secretly agreed with this opinion. He had 
 no doubt that the Broad Churchmen all did, and 
 that the High Churchmen were cUnging to the old 
 
172 Js this your >So?i, my Lord? 
 
 beliefs, either through fear, or ignorance of the 
 tendency of the times. In short, it simply was not 
 within Mr. Fred Harmon's comprehension that any 
 one was ever real, and frank, and direct in any- 
 thing whatsoever, unless he were either weak- 
 minded or without the adequate culture to cover 
 his tracks. Therefore Mr. Fred Harmon did not 
 feel in the least like a sneak-thief in an orphan 
 asylum, nor at a disadvantage morally with any one. 
 When his artificial ethical legs were once knocked 
 from under him, he had no doubt whatever that 
 everybody else had stood on exactly the same kind, 
 and that they, too, had cast them in due season. 
 
 Preston Mansfield looked upon himself as the 
 victim of a deliberate piece of peculiar and un- 
 accountable villainy. He hated his father dead, 
 as he would have hated him living, and he believed 
 that few other sons had ever been so cursed. He 
 thought that he had been deliberately crippled in 
 life, maimed in his self-esteem, and robbed of the 
 chance to be honest. 
 
 " I don't doubt I'd have made a fool of myself 
 often," he would say, grinding his teeth ; " but I 
 don't believe that I would have turned out a 
 brute." 
 
 He was talking to Harvey Ball about it, once, 
 and Harvey had said : " Oh, well, Pres., so long as 
 you look at it that way, what is to hinder you from 
 turning over a new leaf, as they say ? Start over," 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord.- 173 
 
 " Start over ? "Where ? New leaf ! Look here, 
 Ball, you're not a hypocrite, at least. Now tell me 
 frankly, openly, squarely ; if you had a sister whom 
 you loved, would you be willing for her to marry 
 me?" 
 
 " I'd a great deal rather she would marry you 
 than a good many other fellows that I know ; " said 
 Harvey, evasively, thinking of Maude Stone. 
 
 " Humph ! " said Preston. " In other words, you 
 prefer Mephistopheles to the Devil. You do not 
 want to be killed ; but if you have got to be, why 
 you would take to a gun-shot rather than to a 
 hempen rope. Well, so should I, but I did not 
 ask you any such question. I asked " — He paused. 
 Presently he said : — 
 
 " Never mind that ; that is the view of her 
 brother or father. Now, suppose we take her per- 
 sonally. What do you think she would say or feel, 
 if she knew the truth ? Well, do you know, Ball, 
 I've got a prejudice somehow," — -he pronounced 
 the word " prejudice " scornfully, ■ — " against trick- 
 ing a good woman into marrying me. I think it is 
 a damned low piece of business to deliberately 
 deceive a girl to her ruin, whether it is for once or 
 for a Ufetime. If a grown-up woman, who knows 
 what she is about and what it all means, makes up 
 her mind to go to the devil, I suppose my con- 
 science is as easy as anybody's about helping her 
 along ; but I'll be hanged if I've got the heart to 
 
174 Is this your So)}, my Lord? 
 
 cheat a young girl into a liason — whether it is 
 temporary or permanent, in or out of marriage — 
 when she thinks it means one thing and I know 
 that it means another. Well, if any decent woman 
 knew the truth about me, do you suppose I could 
 get her to hve with me ? Then my married bliss 
 would have to depend upon my cheating her suc- 
 cessfully all my life, wouldn't it ? Now look here. 
 Ball, how do you think you would feel, to wake up 
 and remember, every morning of your life, that 
 you had got to deceive that woman all day — about 
 things that would break her heart ? " 
 
 "I don't beheve that I'd like it," acquiesced 
 Harvey. 
 
 "Like it!" exclaimed Preston, bringing his fist 
 down with a bang. " Like it ! If you had any 
 respect for her, — not to mention love, — if you had 
 a decent instinct, — not to mention self-respect, — 
 you simply could not do it, that's all. And I have 
 been robbed of my chance in life — Damn him ! " 
 
 He said the last so fiercely, — he said it with such 
 bitter vehemence, that Harvey Ball stood up 
 startled. 
 
 " You wonder who it is I hate like that, Ball ; " 
 said the young man, ramming his hands into his 
 pockets and pacing up and down the floor. " Well, 
 I'll tell you. I'll tell you because you read me that 
 letter from your home, and I just thought if I had 
 had your chance, by gad, I would have been your — " 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 175 
 
 equal, he was going to say, but he stopped and 
 then said : " I'd have been able to feel as you do. 
 It was my father I was talking about just now." 
 
 Harvey stared at him in consternation. 
 
 " I do not wonder you are shocked and sur- 
 prised. I know the kind of father you've got and 
 what you think of him. Well, mine's dead. I'm 
 glad of that at least, for I believe I would kill him 
 if he wasn't." 
 
 "Don't, Preston," said Harvey Ball, putting a 
 hand on his shoulder. " Don't say that. You're 
 aU worked up about something. You'll regret it 
 after a while." 
 
 " No, I shall not," said Preston, savagely ; " but I 
 just tell you what it is. Ball, you don't know what 
 you owe your father. It seems to me if I had had 
 such a one, I'd rather die than hurt him. My God, 
 I wanted to love my father ;- but you do not under- 
 stand it, and I can't tell you any more." 
 
 The memory of this conversation swept over 
 Harvey Ball the day he came home to talk over 
 Albert's career, and his recent letter which seemed 
 — he could not imagine why — to have caused such 
 a commotion. 
 
 " Don't you believe in the Bible, son ? " his 
 father had asked, and his mother's face was troubled 
 and anxious. " Don't you think your mother's 
 religion and mine is good enough for you and for 
 Albert?" 
 
176 . Ts this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 "Don't put it that way, father," said Harvey, 
 touched and surprised. "I do not believe in the 
 Bible in any sense that means it is different from 
 any other old book, and as to the religion of you 
 and mother being good enough for me " — the 
 young fellow paused. Then he went on slowly, 
 " Father, did you ever have a University education? 
 Did mother?" 
 
 " Tou know, my son, that I never saw the inside 
 of a school after I was fifteen ; " said his mother a 
 little reproachfully, and old Mr. Ball looked at his 
 son with surprised eyes in which a shadow of disap- 
 pointment began to find place. 
 
 " Well, then, mother, do you think it would be 
 fair to ask me, because I wanted to go to college, 
 and father could afford to send me — do you think 
 it would be fair to reproach me by asking if the 
 education which was good enough for you and 
 father, was not good enough for me ? I do not be- 
 lieve that you and father think that I have shown 
 disrespect to you because I learned geometry and 
 you did not. Certainly I never looked at it that 
 way." 
 
 " Of course not, son," said his mother, puzzled. 
 Harvey turned to his father. 
 
 " ISTow, father, why not put it the same way in 
 religion ? I have not come to the same conclusions 
 you say that you have, — though from your life and 
 training I am sure I can't see that we can be very 
 
Ts this ymir Son, my Lord' 177 
 
 far apart in reality. But suppose we are, — suppose 
 I have drawn wholly different conclusions from 
 yours and mother's ; suppose I do not believe what 
 you and mother do about the Bible, is that disre- 
 spect to you ? Is it fair to state it as you did ? 
 Look here, father, I would rather do almost any- 
 thing than hurt you or mother. I think you are 
 the two very best people in this world, and I love 
 you the best, you know ; " he did not think it 
 necessary to mention Maude Stone just then ; "but 
 father, I don't believe as you seem to expect me to, 
 and I am sure you cannot want me to lie about it. 
 You have given me a good many advantages that 
 you never had yourself. I have read and studied 
 and thought in new lines and channels that were 
 not open to you. I have tried to make good use of 
 the opportunities you gave me, and, father, it really 
 seems to me that this is a far higher compliment to 
 you and to mother, than for me to have stopped 
 where you did, — where you were forced to stop, — 
 because you had no further opportunities to go 
 on." 
 
 Mr. Stone moved the book in front of him, but 
 said nothing, and Harvey began again : — " Would 
 you think it showed more respect to you if I had 
 refused to go to school after I was fifteen, on the 
 grpund that I thought my mother's education was 
 good enough for me ? Now, what you taught me 
 of religion — if we can call it that — I think was 
 
178 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 the very best part of your belief. ' Be lionest and 
 kind ' -was the creed. And, father, yon know it was 
 alwayis on natural grounds you taught me this.'' 
 
 The okl man moved a trifle uneasily, and Mrs. 
 Ball murmured something about its being all their 
 fault. 
 
 " Fault ! " exclaimed H.arvey. " Why, mother, it 
 was right. Your love and instinct led you to give 
 us the very best training that two boys ever had. 
 I never realized it until I went to college. Then 
 I knew the worth of it, and thanked you both 
 every day I lived. I was master of myself, no 
 matter what changes of opinion swept about me. 
 I had a solid footing, and, father, I'm sorry to say 
 that very few of the fellows had. I owed it all to 
 you and mother. I knew that, and I thank you 
 now, on my knees, that you trained me as you did ; " 
 and the young fellow slipped down beside his 
 mother, put his arms about her waist, and kissed 
 her forehead, lips, and hand. His father reached 
 over and laid a hand gently upon his shoulder. 
 Presently Harvey went on : — 
 
 " My reasoning and information led me to form 
 certain conclusions about the Bible and religion. 
 Was that disrespect to you ? Or was it only that 
 I told you what I thoiight ? You taught me to 
 tell the truth. Which would have shown more 
 respect to you : to refuse to use the brains and 
 opportunities you gave me, or to use them and 
 
Ts this your iSo77, my Lord? 179 
 
 then refuse to tell the truth about my conclusions, or 
 to have striven to blind myself and you to what I 
 grew to think? Does it show more respect for 
 one's parents, more love for them, to decline to go 
 beyond them in education, prosperity, or religion ? 
 Father, I cannot believe that you think so. Do 
 the men who talk about holding this or that belief, 
 because their mother's religion is good enough for 
 them, talk the same way about her education, her 
 financial condition, her views on politics, or any 
 other subject on earth ? Don't you think, father, as 
 you recall the men who talk that way, that you 
 recognize some other motive than that of simple 
 devotion to their mothers' belief that goes the 
 length of identical thought ? Do you want me to 
 think exactly the same thoughts you do ? If I 
 cannot, do you want me to pretend to ? " 
 
 The young fellow's lips were white, and he still 
 held his mother about the waist. She bent forward 
 and kissed him. 
 
 There was a long pause. The old man moved 
 uneasily in his chair, but no word escaped his lips. 
 At last Harvey's voice broke the strained silence 
 again. 
 
 " I cannot understand this change, father. You 
 have always expected me to be simply and openly 
 frank with you. It is not — it never has been — a 
 question of whether we agreed in opinion. Since 
 we differ — if we differ — am I to be untrue to 
 
180 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 myself ? Am I to pretend to hold your exact views, 
 if I do not? Such, servility as that is demanded 
 no^vhere else in life except in religion, and only 
 in the one religion that claims to make men true to 
 themselves, to the highest that is in them, — the 
 religion that claims to bring peace and goodwill 
 on earth. Peace ! " he added, sorrowfully, " Peace, 
 and goodwill, and joy, and unity! Is it peace that 
 simply seeks to silence opposition by force, physi- 
 cal or mental? The kind of peace that demands 
 subjection on one hand, and asserts the right of 
 arrogant authority on the other, is not worth having. 
 It is not peace at all. It is the most abject slavery. 
 It is tyranny unspeakable. I cannot think you 
 want that, father ; it is not like you. It is opposed 
 to your whole life and your splendid character. 
 Father ! father ! what does it all mean ? Are we 
 to wreck our confidence and unity, and wound our 
 love for the sake of this shadow? Suppose you 
 are right and I am Avrong, still, what is it you want ? 
 Silence ? Deception ? Why ? What is gained by 
 either? And think — oh, think, father, of all that 
 is lost ! Is it well to build a wall between us on 
 any subject ? Is a religion, — can anything be good 
 that demands either silence or subjection ? O 
 father, I am stunned, and perhaps I am talking 
 wildly. Perhaps I shall wound you. Perhaps I 
 have said too much, and yet — forgive me. I love 
 you too well to be able to give up, without a 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 181 
 
 struggle, our life-long confidence and harmonj', our 
 frank and open comradeship. 
 
 " We have differed often, — always in politics — 
 but this is our first " — he was going to say " break," 
 then " quarrel " came to his mind ; but after a pause 
 he said, with unsteady voice, " misunderstanding. 
 And it is like a blow in the face. It staggers and 
 blinds me." His mother drew his head up against 
 her breast and held her trembling hand on his cheek, 
 kissing his hair. 
 
 " My son, my blessed boy," she said, trying vainly 
 to check the tears as they fell from her eyes, " I am 
 sure your father was wrong to say that. I do not want 
 the husk of your devotion to me and to what I think, 
 or believe. I want my honest son. I want the boy 
 who shows his love not by talking about my religion 
 being good enough for him and so shifting the duty 
 he owes liimself to think for himself on one who has 
 had far less training in thought. I want my brave, 
 honest, candid boy. He will think nobly, although 
 he thinks differently from his mother." She ended 
 with a little sob and kissed him again. Harvey 
 sprang to his feet and went rapidly out of the room. 
 His father followed him. He found him in the hall, 
 with his hat on, leaning against the stairs. 
 
 The son looked at his father doubtfully. 
 
 " Harvey," said the old man huskily, " Harvey ! " 
 and he held out both his arms. " I was wrong. I 
 was not fair to you, my boy." 
 
182 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 " Hush, father, hush," said Harvey, from his 
 father's shoulder ; " do not blame yourself. I un- 
 derstand. Let me go now. It makes me feel as 
 though I had quarrelled with you and mother. O 
 father, could anything on earth do that, but reli- 
 gion ? Isn't it all wrong some way ? Isn't it cruel, 
 this forcing people to think one way, or else sacri- 
 fice either candor, or confidence and harmony? I'm 
 going to see Uncle Stone, father. I feel sore and 
 strained. Will you go ? " 
 
 The old man put on his hat and took Harvey's 
 arm, and they passed out of the door. 
 
 " I shall talk to John," he thought, " and let 
 Maude cheer Ilarvey up. I'm an old fool. I have 
 shut the door of the boy's heart toward me for the 
 first time in all our lives. For what ? For what ? " 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 183 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 " The first condition of human i^oodness is something to love." — George 
 Eliot. 
 
 " There is a sort of wrong that can never be made up for."— Ibid, 
 
 " We wretches cannot tell out all our wi-ong 
 Without offence to decent happy folk. 
 I know that we must scrupulously hint 
 With half-words, delicate reserves, the thing 
 Which no oue scrupled we should feel in full. 
 Let pass the rest, then; only leave my oath 
 
 . . . man's violence— 
 Not man's seduction, made me what I am." 
 
 — Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 " Truth's a dog that must to ^Lennel."— Shakespeare. 
 
 " Doctor," said Preston Mansfield, coming into 
 my office suddenly, one day, " doctor, I'm a pretty 
 fellow to be playing the role of virtuous protector 
 of endangered innocence ; but I suppose a man 
 never gets so low down that he doesn't j)lume him- 
 self on that noble quality in his nature, provided 
 the endangered innocent happens to be a member 
 of his own family, or if he isn't the man from 
 whom she needs protection. The most expert 
 horse thief makes a good lyncher, and the only 
 member of a vigilance committee I over knew had 
 committed murder in another State." He flung 
 himself into a deep armchair and put one leg over 
 the arm. Then he went on satirically: — 
 
 " Not that we care a fig for justice to girls, not 
 that we feel for the woes of the outraged ; but 
 
184 Is this your Son, ivy Lord? 
 
 simply and solely that, being a part of our own 
 families, wrong to them will cause us personal dis- 
 tress and inconvenience." 
 
 I began to protest, but he held his hand up to 
 cheek me and wont rapidly on : — 
 
 " Hold on a minute till I give you my proofs. 
 Don't make up your mind that I'm a dime museum 
 freak until I state my case. I try to protect my 
 sisters from other fellows ; other fellows are trying 
 to shield theirs from each other — even Fred Har- 
 mon would fight to the death for his if he had one ; 
 well now, why ? If it were a manly deire, honestly 
 felt, to protect the helpless and innocent or inex- 
 pei'ienced; if it were from a sense of fairness; if it 
 were innate honor ; if it were because we believe 
 that we have no right to allow the ruin of the life 
 of another being whom it is in our power to 
 shield, why, don't you see, doctor, we wouldn't 
 have to watch each other at all ? Our sisters would 
 all be safe ; because every man would do his level 
 best to see that every girl had a fair chance to grow 
 up and make her own choice of her own life when 
 she was old enough to understand ; but you know 
 that it isn't so. You know that nine-tenths of the 
 girls that go wrong are tricked or bullied into it, 
 in the first place, by some scoundrel who knows 
 perfectly well what he is about. What does he 
 care for her ruined life ? "What does he care for 
 justice or honor toward the helpless ? She isn't 
 
Is this your /Son, my Lord? 185 
 
 his sister. It won't react on him if she is dis- 
 graced. I tell you, doctor, men are a bad lot. 
 You know perfectly well that there is a tacit under- 
 standing among them not to give each other away. 
 They all watch women and shield each other. 
 They don't even want a woman to tell the truth in 
 books. They pretend the conditions do not exist, 
 that women are morbid and erotic. I don't believe 
 that they know the meaning of unselfishness. 
 Every act of their lives is for themselves. They 
 howl about wanting their families to be happy ; 
 but it is all because it would be less comfortable for 
 themselves if they were not. My proof? Why, we 
 all constantly do the things secretly that we know 
 would make our families most unhappy if they knew 
 it. Don't we ? No evasion, now ; donH we ? 
 My God, doctor, I'm beginning to wish that I'd 
 been born a decent horse or a good dog. I'm 
 disgusted with the human race. One half knaves 
 and the other half .fools. I'm ashamed to be- 
 long to either one, and the worst of it is, in my 
 case, that I don't belong to the fools — and I don't 
 want to." 
 
 "What is the matter, now, Preston?" I asked. 
 " Can I do anything for you ? " The young fellow's 
 bitterness had, in these days, become quite familiar 
 to me, and he appeared to take comfort in coming 
 to me from time to time to berate himself and men 
 in general. 
 
186 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 " Matter enough," he replied, savagely ; " but I 
 don't see that you can do anything about it. I don't 
 know why I came to you — only — it is a little 
 habit I have," he added, laughing. Then looking 
 steadily at me for a moment, his eyes actually filled 
 with tears as he said, huskily : " I wish to heaven 
 you had been my father ! " 
 
 He got up and went quickly to the window. 
 Presently I went to him and taking his arm led him 
 back into the room. 
 
 " Tell me what it is, Preston, " I said. " If I 
 can help you I shall be very glad. You know 
 that." Still he was silent. Presently I said, 
 " Preston, let me tell you one thing. It is only fair 
 that I should. When I came home from abroad, I 
 made up my mind that I had been mistaken in you 
 when you were a boy. The day I met you in front 
 of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, I decided that you were 
 a bad lot, as you say, and that your case was simply 
 hopeless." 
 
 He laughed a little bitterly at the memory, and 
 then broke in : — 
 
 " Of course you did ; you're not an idiot." 
 
 Then he turned to me with his face flushed : " Do 
 you remember what I asked you that day ? I have 
 hoped since that you had forgotten it or, better 
 still, that you had not heard what I said. I might 
 have known better. You always notice, and — • 
 Hell ! what a brute I was ! Why didn't you knock 
 
Is this your Son, my Lordf 187 
 
 me down ? " I made no reply. Presently he went 
 on. " I wonder you didn't kick me. I deserved it 
 richly ; but the fact is, doctor, I had made up my 
 mind then, that there were only two kinds of men. 
 I knew you weren't a fool and — and — I had 
 often wondered — to tell the truth, I'm glad you 
 came back, or — ... I'm glad I know you, doctor. 
 It gives me — it makes me doubt — oh, hang it, I 
 can't talk ! " and, struggling with his emotions, he 
 began pacing up and down the room. 
 
 " Don't try to express it, Pres.," said I. " I think 
 I understand about what you mean ; but don't set 
 me up on a pedestal. I suppose I've done a good 
 many things in my life that your sensitive con- 
 science would revolt at, and — " 
 
 He stopped short in his walk, and laughed up- 
 roariously. 
 
 " My ' sensitive conscience ' is good ! O Lord, doc- 
 tor, but you are a droll bird when you make up your 
 mind to it," and he went off into a fit of laughter 
 again. Suddenly he stopped and came close up to 
 me. He put his hand out and I took it. I was 
 surprised at the revelation. It was as cold as the 
 hand of a corpse. His voice trembled when he 
 tried to speak. "Doctor," he said, closing his 
 fingers firmly over mine ; " for God's sake don't 
 tell me if you are like the rest of us. I watched 
 you, at first, hoping, and confidently expecting, to 
 find you out. After a while I began to fear that I 
 
188 Is this your Son, mij Lord? 
 
 might, and now — " he paused to steady his 
 voice ; — " and now I believe that it would half 
 kill me if I did. Let me believe in one man. Let 
 me believe wholly, absolutely, fervently, in you. 
 I must, or I shall go mad. Lie out of it, go away, 
 or send me away ; do anything ! but for God's sake 
 don't ever let me find out that you are just a great, 
 big male brute like the rest of us ! " 
 
 He was so much moved and excited that I said : 
 " Sit down, Preston ; do you know that you are 
 on the verge of hysterics ? No, hysterics are not 
 confined to women, by any means ; and, my boy," 
 said I, laying my hand on his shoulder, " they are 
 not always a sign of weakness, either. In your 
 case they are the accompaniment of a mental exal- 
 tation that has made me your friend again, and 
 convinced me that my early estimate of you as a 
 boy was quite right. You were made for a splen- 
 did fellow, Preston. You were caught in the 
 awful meshes of fate ; you were not strong enough 
 to stem the tide. First, your own ignorance was 
 against you, and later on, the training by — " I 
 paused to think of a mild word to apply to his 
 father ; but before I had found it, he had flung him- 
 self, full length, on my lounge, and looking up at 
 me like a caged creature, said through his set 
 teeth : — 
 
 " Don't mention him to me, doctor. I've tried 
 not to curse him, openly, since that day at his 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 189 
 
 grave. I know how that shocked you; but — but 
 — now, when my little sister is in danger, it all 
 comes back to me with renewed force. I have 
 never told you what he did. I want to tell you 
 now. May I? I want you to know it. No one 
 else does, and — and I want you to understand what 
 makes me almost a madman at times. I did not 
 sleep last night ; I could not. I had been posing 
 all day to myself as little Dell's guardian and 
 protector, and was planning to send her away until 
 she should forget the handsome face and attractive 
 voice of my friend, Fred Harmon." 
 
 He laid satirical emphasis on the word friend, 
 and I looked up startled, for I had seen the 
 child, — she was no more than this, with her fourteen 
 years of utter inexperience, — walking with their city 
 guest only yesterday. He noticed my changed 
 expression. 
 
 "No," he said, "no great harm is done yet, 
 only the poor child is in love with him and just in a 
 frame of mind to believe anything he says or do any- 
 thing he asks. He knows it. Well," — he broke off 
 suddenly, and then began again in a bitter tone. 
 " "Well, I know Fred Harmon. You don't. If he 
 thinks he can have a pleasant time, increase his 
 comfort or happiness, or serve any purpose whatso- 
 ever, by tearing out the heart of a rabbit or a girl, 
 from time to time, he would give it no more serious 
 thought than just enough to make sure that he 
 
190 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 wouldn't be found out — or if he was found out, to 
 be moderately certain he was in a position to makt 
 it look as if he were on the right side, at least on 
 the popular side. It wouldn't give him a pang, so 
 long as he had the best of it, so long as society 
 smiled upon him. Well, you know what society is. 
 A good surface appearance is all it wants of a man, 
 so far as character goes. But just let a breath of 
 pollution touch a girl's cheek and she is hunted 
 down and howled at, until she commits suicide — or 
 worse." 
 
 He covered his eyes with his hands for a moment, 
 and then went on. 
 
 " I have driven at least one girl to that ; — fa — 
 the man in the grave out there, — and I. I can't 
 marry her. There is no way that I can repair the 
 crime — none whatever — and yet she is an outcast, 
 to-day, and I am welcomed by those who pass her 
 by. It was not her fault — at any time ! " This was 
 a new phase of it. He noticed my changed expres- 
 sion. 
 
 " Wait," he said, " till I tell you. I had a letter 
 from her yesterday, just when I was posing as Dell's 
 defender and was beginning to feel quite virtuous." 
 He ground his teeth. " ISTellie was with me when 
 I got it. I think you know, doctor, that I love 
 Nellie and wish that I could marry her ; but — " 
 
 " Does Nellie care for you, Preston ? " I asked, 
 struck with an idea of helping him out, if I found 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 191 
 
 that his cousin loved him. But he took the question 
 as a sort of accusation. 
 
 " I'm afraid she does," he groaned, and yet with 
 a warmth of happy emotion in his voice. "I'm 
 afraid she does, doctor, and that she thinks 
 strangely of me that I do not say something. Yes- 
 terday she looked at the letter I so hastily put in 
 my pocket, very curiously indeed, and I — I lied to 
 her." He put his hand up to his eyes again as if 
 shading them from a memory. 
 
 "Oh, I hate to lie! Most of all to her!" he 
 exclaimed vehemently. 
 
 " Why don't you tell her the whole truth, Pres. ?" 
 I asked. He shrank back as if I had struck him. 
 
 " The whole hare ugly truth. Give her your 
 side. Tell her the extenuating cu-cumstances — " 
 
 " Humph ! " he said with a curled lip. 
 
 " Tell her that an older man — perhaps j^ou need 
 not say who he was — " He sprang to his feet and 
 took two or three hasty steps. Then he faced me 
 like a chained tiger. 
 
 " Don't ! Leave Nellie out, just now. Let me 
 tell you the whole damnable story first. Then 
 j'Oii may tell me if you think it one calculated to 
 win the confidence and love of a girl, or to keep 
 it after it is won," he added tremblingly. 
 
 I saw that he dared not marry her with his secret 
 untold, and that he dreaded lest he should lose her 
 love if he told her. 
 
192 Is this your Son, my -Lord? 
 
 " Well, tell me, Preston, if you think it will help 
 you ; and if I can do anything for you afterward, 
 you know I shall be glad to. I believe in you, Pres., 
 old fellow," I added, putting my hand on his arm 
 " I believe that you have never had half a chance. 
 Perhaps it isn't too late yet to make a fresh start. 
 Your inclinations and conscience have never fallen 
 in with your training. That is a good beginning." 
 
 " No, I haven't had a fair show," he said, despair- 
 ingly ; " but it is too late now. Read that." He 
 handed me the letter he had received the day 
 before. 
 
 " I was beginning almost to forget and be happy. 
 I was driving with Nellie, and was going to ask her 
 what to do about Dell — I was a great fool ever to 
 have asked Harmon here, — when this was handed 
 out at the post-oiRce. I had to hold the horse, 
 and so Nellie got out and went in. She got it and 
 handed it to me ; " and he breathed hard at the 
 recollection. I read the letter in silence. 
 
 " Mr. Mansfield, I have learned your right 
 address at last," it said ; " and unless you send me 
 a thousand dollars at once I shall come there to see 
 you. The children are both well, God help me ! I 
 asked at the school yesterday. I saw them for a 
 moment. They did not know me, and I only said 
 that I had been sent to ask if they were well, and if 
 they needed anything. I am glad, at least, that 
 you do not forget them so far as money goes." 
 
Js this your /So??, my Lord? 193 
 
 I handed the letter back to him, and tried to 
 think of something to say that would not seem 
 cruel ; but he spoke first. 
 
 " Do you think that is a promising letter to give 
 Nellie to read ? Well, I will not marry any girl, 
 and lie to her either about my past, or my present, 
 or my future. I've had enough of the humiliation 
 of deception, and I will not disgrace myself, or the 
 girl I love, by comj)elling her to live with a man 
 she would not live with if she knew the truth about 
 him, even if that man does happen to be myself. 
 We'd say any man was a brute, we'd say the law 
 was cruelly unjust, to force a woman to marry a 
 man whose character she loathed ; who required of 
 her honor, and gave her dishonor ; who demanded 
 all of her life, but gave only a scrap of his — thrown 
 to her as a bone is thrown to a dog — after he is 
 done with it ; who demanded of her that she be 
 good, and pure, and noble, and honorable toward 
 him, while he made no pretence to offer her more 
 than the mere shell of these. I'm pretty low, 
 doctor, but, by gad, I'm not quite down to that 
 yet. I won't do it. I won't deliberately cheat a 
 woman I love. Look here," he demanded, " I'm 
 not a very good talker, but I know I'm right in the 
 idea. Don't you think a good woman is as good as 
 a good man, — is worth as much ? Suppose we put 
 it as a matter of merchandise. The value is equal, 
 isn't it ? Well, now, suppose a fellow makes the 
 
194 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 trade. Pie pretends to give value for value, doesn't 
 he ? Well, the fact is, he simply deliberately 
 cheats. Pie stacks the cards. lie uses a marked 
 deck. We say he isn't fit for decent society, if he 
 does that at poker, or misrepresents in a horse 
 trade, or a land sale, where there are other men, 
 capable and experienced enough to take care of 
 themselves ; but when it is a young girl, and her 
 whole life is at stake, it is all right to deceive 
 her into making the bargain." Pie got up and 
 stood by the grate, with his elbow resting on the 
 mantel. 
 
 " I am Nellie's guardian and trustee since — he 
 died. What would people think of me if I hed to 
 her about her money, and kept back and pocketed 
 and turned to my own advantage her property, 
 simply because I have the power to do it, and she 
 trusts me ? The more she relies on my honor, the 
 meaner it would be, wouldn't it ? Well, a woman 
 has to trust wholly to a man's honor in marriage, 
 and men think it is smart to deceive them. They 
 have no sense of shame about it. Look at my 
 mother ! Father would have murdered her if she 
 had done half what he did. He demanded all of 
 her life to be true to him, and he gave her, in ex- 
 change, a miserable, beggarly, warped corner of a 
 deceitful, underhanded, unclean nature in exchange 
 for it. And he thought it was good enough for 
 her. He had no sense of shame about it. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 105 
 
 " What did lie give her in exchange for her honor 
 and loyalty? Dishonor. What did he give her 
 for her truth? Lies. What did he take home to 
 her every day of his life ? A mere shred of his 
 nature, patched up and stuffed out and dressed to 
 look i-eal, and he depended entirely on her not find- 
 ing it out — on her strong faith in him to carry 
 him through. He traded on her tenderest emotions 
 and then pretended to love and respect her ! Bah ! 
 That kind of love and respect wouldn't go down 
 with him. Why should it with her? I tell you, 
 doctor, I don't believe the man lives who loves 
 his wife enough to be absolutely true to her ; to 
 let her see every corner of his heart and life, 
 both before and after marriage." Then suddenly 
 facing me, " Do you ? " 
 
 I opened my lips to reply ; but he checked me. 
 
 " No, don't tell me yet what you think, for it 
 will — it might — put yourself in with the rest. 
 Wait till I tell you the story of the girl who wrote 
 that letter." 
 
 " She seems to be one who threatens ; who is 
 willing to — " 
 
 " Stop ! " he said. " She ought to threaten. She 
 ought to force me to tell it all. She ought to 
 demand that I take her up to the plane I live on. 
 What right have I to let her be an outcast, socially, 
 and I stay where I am ? — Where I was ? Where 
 she was before I — before he — " 
 
196 Js this your /Son, my Lord? 
 
 He stopped, with his voice shaking. After he 
 regained control of it, he went on. 
 
 " When you left us in New York that time, he 
 tried all sorts of schemes with me. He took me 
 to two or three gilded houses. Well, you know I 
 was pretty shy of women and — well, he didn't 
 feel sure that I was properly started on the road to 
 hell, so he took me to board in a house where there 
 was a widow with a pretty little girl two years 
 younger than I. You know I was seventeen." He 
 began pacing the room again. 
 
 " The widow was of good family, but poor, and 
 she had gone to New York with the confidence of 
 ignorance, to make a living for herself. The girl 
 was large, well formed, and very pretty. I liked 
 her ; but I was shy and she did most of the talking. 
 My father was kind to the girl's mother, — told her 
 he would get her a better position . — she was writ- 
 ing in a law office. He won her confidence, and after 
 a while he asked her to let her little girl go to the 
 matinee with us. Once or twice we took the 
 mother, too ; but she could not go often. She was 
 pleased that her child had met with so safe and 
 good a chance to have a little pleasure and catch 
 a glimpse of the brighter side of life. 
 
 " One day we took her to drive in Central Park. 
 She had never driven there before and was en- 
 chanted. She looked very pretty. I remember 
 having an impulse to kiss her and the mere thought 
 
Is this your Son, vii/ Lord? 107 
 
 made me blnsh. After "we left the Park — it was 
 along in the afternoon — wq. drove into a side street 
 that I kne-H' nothing about. It i\'as not A-ery closely- 
 built up, and there was a large circular building of 
 some kind. I remember that, because of some- 
 thing I will tell you of later on. We stopped oppo- 
 site that, and fa — he told me to hold the horses 
 vmtil he came back. lie said he had an errand 
 near by. He laughingly told the girl — her name 
 was Minnie Kent — to get out and go with 
 him. ' I can't trust you two youngsters here 
 alone,' he said. ' Pres. might get to making love to 
 you and let the horses run away.' This so discon- 
 certed me that I got the color of a beet, and she 
 jumped out as if she had been pushed. She turned 
 her ankle a little, and went away limping, but 
 laughing to hide her embarrassment. She was a 
 nice little girl, though she was n't so very bright 
 and she — but no matter, I must stick to my story, 
 now that I am wound up to the point of telling it." 
 The ^eins stood out on his forehead ; but he 
 steadied his voice and went on. 
 
 " They went around the circular building and 
 disappeared. It seemed to me that they would 
 never come back. I drove up and down and 
 around and across ; but as I did not know just 
 where they had gone, I went back and sat holding 
 the horses where fa — where he had left me. At 
 last he came back alone and said that the girl had 
 
198 Is this yonr Son, my Lord? 
 
 hurt her ankle so badly when she got out of the 
 carriage that he had taken her to a doctor, near by, 
 and that I was to drive the horses back to the stable, 
 and then go to our boarding house. He would 
 bring Minnie home A'ery soon. He told me not to 
 tell any one of her mishap, because the doctor said 
 that it would amount to very little, and there was 
 no need to have it talked over by the people in the 
 boarding house. I did exactly as he told me, and 
 was at the window, two hours later, when he re- 
 turned. Minnie was with him, and I saw that she 
 had been crying. I thought the doctor had hurt or 
 frightened her. He unlocked the door and let her 
 in, and came directly up to our rooms. 
 
 " That night at the dinner table Minnie fainted. 
 It was my father who carried her upstairs and 
 quieted her mother's fears. He sat by the girl until 
 she fell asleep, after they had worked over her and 
 given her some powders and a little champagne. 
 Then he came to our rooms again. He was a little 
 uneasy, but I did not notice it much. I was uneasy 
 myself. I was afraid she had hurt herself seri- 
 ously, and I thought her mother ought to know 
 about it. But my fa — he told me to mind my own 
 business ; that the girl was a little frightened and a 
 good deal hysterical (I have never heard the word 
 since without feeling actually sick), and that she 
 would be all right in the morning. He twitted me 
 a little, and said he guessed I was in love with her, 
 
Is this your Son, mi/ Lord? 199 
 
 or I wouldn't be so anxious. That silenced me 
 effectually, as he knew it ^\'ould. She had promised 
 to go with me alone to the matinee next day ; but 
 when the time came she said she was not well 
 enough to go. She seemed to avoid me, and treated 
 my fa — him very strangely, I thought ; but I fan- 
 cied it was all because he had teased her about me. 
 I suppose boys are never too young to be egotisti- 
 cal. Her mother was very busy in those days and 
 was at home but little. Then she was tired — being 
 unused to such steady work — and kept her room 
 to herself most of the time. By and by I noticed 
 that my fa — that he had gained complete control 
 over Minnie. He asked her mother if the girl 
 might again go with us to drive. Minnie began to 
 protest almost teai-fuUy ; but her mother said : 
 'Nonsense, child, you are not afraid of horses at all. 
 It will do you good. I want you to go ; you are 
 looking pale.' Then she thanked us for all our 
 kind attentions, and closing the door behind her 
 went off smiling to her task, which was to take her 
 to Philadelphia for two days to copy some legal 
 papers. She called back to Minnie to be sure to 
 do as my fa — as he told her, Avhile she was away. 
 Well, of course he found some way to make her go. 
 When we were near the circular building he again 
 told m.e to wait while he took Minnie with him. 
 She had worn a thick veil, this time (she said it was 
 to keep the wind from her face), and I thought I 
 
200 Is this your /Son, mij Lord? 
 
 saw a tear LtOiind it as she got out ; but, little fool 
 that I was, I never dreamed what it all meant, and 
 I was glad enough that he did not poke any more 
 fun at me about love making, but just took her with 
 him as a matter of course. After a Avhile he came 
 back saying that he would be delayed a good deal 
 longer than he had expected, and for me to tie the 
 horses and come with him. I went. I shall never 
 forget the shock of A\'hat I saw, and the girl's wild 
 despair when she saw me." 
 
 Preston clinched his fists and walked several 
 times across the room before he could control 
 himself sufficiently to go on. "My f — 7ie unlocked 
 the street door as if he were used to the place, and 
 went straight upstairs. The room he stopped at 
 was in the back of the house, two flights up. He 
 unlocked that door, too, pushed me in, and hastily 
 closed and locked it behind me. The room was so 
 dimly lighted that at first I could see nothing, and 
 I was so surprised by my f — , by his actions, that I 
 stood j)erfectly still. Presently I saw some one 
 move, and said, ' Minnie ? ' At the sound of my 
 voice there was a wild cry, and she flew to the 
 far end of the room. I went hastily toward her, 
 and saw that hhe was only partially dressed. I 
 was so shocked and frightened that I did not 
 know what to do. I realized then, for the first 
 time, something of what it all meant, and that he 
 had locked us in and gone away ! I learned the 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 201 
 
 rest from her, by degrees, after I made her under- 
 stand that I had not been, at any time, a party to 
 the plot." He ground his teeth. "She sobbed, and 
 sobbed. I tried to comfort her. I blamed my f — 
 Mm, and I cursed him, for the first time in my life. 
 I have repeated that curse a thousand times since, 
 but, my God, doctor, it was terrible then ! " 
 
 " Sit down, Preston. You are — " 
 
 " Wait ! Let me finish ! Here is where my own 
 devilment comes in. While I sat there with that 
 girl in my arms, trying to comfort her, calling 
 down the wrath of heaven on his head, the devil 
 got the best of me. We were locked up there for 
 hours together, and in promising to avenge her, 
 in swearing to take her part against him, in the 
 helplessness of our youth and ignorance, clinging 
 to each other for mutual comfort, I added my 
 infamy to his, and the girl was doubly damned, 
 before we realized that sympathy could lead to 
 crime ! " 
 
 He sat down and wiped the beads of perspiration 
 from his forehead. There was a long silence. 
 
 " She told me that the first day he took her there 
 he locked the door, and after trying to coax her 
 to yield to him, had taken a revolver from his 
 pocket and threatened her. She was too inexperi- 
 enced and young to doubt for a moment that he 
 meant to shoot her. Then he told her that no 
 one would ever know it if she kept quiet. If she 
 
202 Is this your iSoii, mt/ Lord? 
 
 made a fuss about it she was lost anyway, for 
 everyone knew the kind of house it was, and they 
 had seen her go in willingly. Nobody would be- 
 lieve her if she said she did not know. Oh, he used 
 all the damnable arguments and threats and devices 
 familiar to civilized savages, and afterward kept 
 her quiet by promises and threats, and now I had 
 added my crime to his, and the girl threatened to kill 
 herself. She tried to jump out of the window. I 
 caught her and — well, I promised to marry her 
 and — I — I meant it then. 
 
 " There is no need to tell the rest — not to you. 
 You will know how it went on after that with such 
 a teacher as my f — , as that devil, to manage us. 
 He did not let me marry her, of course. The girl 
 was sacrificed, utterly, and I — well, here I am! " 
 
 He dropped both arms by his sides as he stood 
 before me like a criminal waiting for his sentence. 
 I was too much sui-priscd and shocked to trust 
 myself to speak. I had known his father as a 
 thoroughly selfish man, with an undeveloped eth- 
 ical nature ; as one of that great class of success- 
 ful business men who think, in all sincerity, that 
 all is grist that comes to their mill ; who are 
 thorough believers in religion, and who do not know 
 the meaning of morality ; who are honestly shocked 
 by a declaration of disbelief in a vicarious atone- 
 ment which shall purge themselves of any lapse 
 from rectitude, which lapse they believe, with the 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 203 
 
 faith of childhood, is a necessary part and parcel 
 of depraved human nature. I was sure that Mr. 
 Mansfield had died as confident of salvation for 
 himself as he was that he had sinned. Had not 
 the blessed Christ atoned for all the sins of frail 
 humanity ? He believed this to be the truth, the 
 fairest, most fortunate truth in all the world, for 
 tempted, depraved humanity ; and he thanked God 
 not as a hypocrite, but as a devout believer 
 whose faith was too real and too complete ever to 
 admit of a single doubt. 
 
 He knew, did he not, that all men were tempted 
 to do wrong? He knew, did he not, that most of 
 them yielded? He believed that this was the 
 result of original sin in Adam. He believed im- 
 plicitly that Eve was the active agent in that sin. 
 Therefore it was only just that Eve's sinful daugh- 
 ters should suffer most and be the victims of men, 
 since all men were first her victims. If men could 
 do right, if they could redeem themselves from 
 their own debased tendencies, then why had Christ 
 died? If man is his own redeemer, what need of 
 the plan of salvation ? The vicarious atonement 
 became a hollow mockery if man could do right of 
 his own motion — if he could be taught that he 
 must be his own redeemer. If he cannot, if he 
 must yield to his passions, if he is totally depraved 
 . — and, as I say, Mr. Mansfield did not doubt it, — 
 then there was but the one way. Let Christ bear 
 
204 Is this your /Son, my Lord? 
 
 the burden as he had vohinteered to do. Accept 
 the redemption thankfullj', humbly, without question 
 and without reservation. Mr. Mansfield had always 
 done this in perfect sincerity, and he daily prayed to 
 be forgiven for any wrong he believed himself to have 
 done. He believed that his prayers for pardon should 
 be addressed to God, and that the plea upon which 
 he should base the claim for forgiveness, was the 
 love and death for his sins of the only begotten Son. 
 He believed that a God could, and would have the 
 right to, relieve him of all consequence of any 
 crime or wrong he might commit (even though that 
 wrong was toward other hum.an beings), and that 
 He would do it. Had He not promised ? Would 
 not the Almighty redeem His pledge ? Had Christ 
 died in vain ? Mr. Mansfield had settled all these 
 points finally, in his own mind, and to his own sat- 
 isfaction ^■cry early in life, and he was wont to say 
 to his class in Sunday-school that he thanked God 
 that he had never wavered in his absolute belief 
 and consoling faith from that time on. And he 
 spoke the simple truth. This faith had ever been 
 a solace and support to him. He often confessed 
 that he was the chief of sinners — that his feet had 
 slipped, again, — and he felt better after the con- 
 fession. " But though my sins are as scarlet they 
 shall be whiter than snow. It is for such as I that 
 Christ died, — for poor weak humanity, unable to 
 save itself, incapable of resisting temptation, whose 
 
Js this your Son, iiuj Lord? 205 
 
 feet slip by the way, whose sinful passions overcome 
 them. ' Believe on me and ye shall have everlast- 
 ing life.' Cast your burdens on the sinless One who 
 gave Himself a willing sacrifice that whosoever 
 bdieveth on him shall have everlasting life." 
 
 Mr. Mansfield had no doubt that everlasting Ufe 
 would be a blessing and a joy to him. If he ever 
 thought of Minnie Kent exactly in this connection, 
 he knew that she could gain the same priceless boon 
 by a simple act of faith, and he thought that God 
 would undoubtedly soften her heart before she died, 
 so that she might accept salvation. If she did not, 
 — and he was deprived of the pleasure of seeing 
 her in the next world, — it would be her own delib- 
 erate refusal, and she must choose her way for 
 eternity. No one could do that for her. I knew 
 so well how he had argued to himself, when he 
 had thought about it at all. I knew so well that 
 his faith had comforted and upheld him all his 
 life long. He had not used his religion as a cloak. 
 His religion was his cloak. I looked at his son, 
 standing before me now with both arms by his 
 sides and with hands clinched, waiting for me to 
 speak, and I found myself dumb. 
 
 " Did your father ever realize and try to atone for 
 his crime ? " arose to my lips ; but a flood of mem- 
 ories of the man checked me before I gave utter- 
 ance to the words. "I did not think he was 
 capable of that," shaped itself in my mind, and 
 
206 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 then I remembered that it was very nearly this 
 that he had asked me to do, or help him to accom- 
 plish, years ago. The minutes stretched out, and 
 still I had not spoken. Nothing that I could think 
 of seemed suitable to say. At last the young fellow 
 shook himself as if trying to be freed from bonds, 
 and raised his ej'es to mine. 
 
 " I don't wonder that you are silent, doctor," he 
 said slowly, " but — oh, say something ! Say any- 
 thing ! I have borne it alone as long as I can, and 
 you are my only hope. Say something, say some' 
 thing, doctor, or I shall go mad ! " 
 
 " Have you ever thought that it may not be too 
 late to marry her yet, Preston? — to sacriiice your- 
 self, and your love for another, in an effort to do all 
 you can to undo this terrible double wrong? Has it 
 occurred to you that you have no right to think of 
 your own happiness, and that you should make her 
 your honored wife?" I asked. 
 
 He burst into a laugh as mirthless as it was dis- 
 cordant. " And so even you think that by marry- 
 ing her I could give her respectability, if I cannot 
 give her love, and that by giving her a loveless hus- 
 band I can make reparation to her ! Let me tell 
 you something, doctor. I spent about two years 
 making up my mind to do that. I felt perfectly 
 heroic and virtuous when the time came. I pitied 
 myself. I went to her, one day, and presented 
 the case from that outlook." He paused and I 
 
Is this your >Soii, my Lord? 207 
 
 said: "I am glad you did that, Preston. She was 
 grateful and pleased, no doubt, even if some cause 
 prevented you, later on, from doing it. " 
 
 " O Lord, yes, she was pleased and grateful ! " 
 he said with a dry sarcasm that was steeped in gall. 
 " Her gratitude and pleasure were beautiful to 
 behold. She waited until I had finished .my gener- 
 ous offer and was expecting the fruits of my hero- 
 ism to envelope us both in a perfect sea of tender 
 self abnegation, when she inquired calmly, but with 
 scorn unspeakable, — 
 
 " ' How could you make me respectable ? How can 
 you give me that which you do not possess yourself ? 
 How could a permanent connection with you con- 
 fer upon me anj'thing admirable ? Make an honest 
 woman of me, indeed ! You have more than you 
 can do, Preston, to make an honest man of your- 
 self. I am, and always have been, far more than 
 your equal. You and your fiend of a father once 
 had the power to commit a crime against me and 
 against those two helpless children who will always 
 bear the curse of your blood ; but you have never 
 - — since I was old enough to understand — had the 
 power to make me commit the worst of all crimes 
 against myself. No, I will not marry you. 1 am 
 low enough already. For the sake of the children ? 
 How can it benefit them to know that they have 
 two such parents ? One is quite enough ; but they 
 are to have neither. Thank God ! illegitimate chil- 
 
208 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 dren belong to the mother who suffered for them. 
 It is only the married mother who suffers the deg- 
 radation of not owning her own child.' All this was 
 when she had made up her mind to place the chil- 
 dren at school and have them educated as orphans. 
 She watches them from afar, and if my cheques do 
 not reach them in time — if she fears I may neglect 
 their support — I get a letter like that." He still 
 held the crumpled paper in his hand. lie wiped the 
 beads of dampness from his brow, and I offered 
 hfln a glass of wine. He swallowed it at a gulp. 
 Presently he faced me again with the same calm 
 desperation with which he had just spoken. 
 
 " No, doctor, there doesn't seem to be any way 
 out of it at all. Consequences are unrelenting. 
 This is the very reason I so hate my father. He 
 has placed me where I can neither repair the past 
 for others nor for myself. And I cannot begin 
 anew with that burden on my soul — that stain on 
 my life. I want Nellie to know that I love her too 
 well to ask her to marry the moral leper who was 
 scorned by a woman who spoke only the truth when 
 she said : ' You cannot give what you do not possess 
 yourself. You cannot make me respectable.' All 
 she said was perfectly true. Her position in the 
 matter is beyond argument. It is the impudent 
 arrogance of power that enables men who have 
 injured women, to talk about making their victims 
 ' respectable ' afterward. It is not the beggar who 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 209 
 
 offers alms. It is not the thief's prerogative to sit 
 on the bench. She was right. It was a greater 
 insult for me to assume that I could lift her up, than 
 if I had struck her. If I had asked her to marry 
 me, to make me respectable, to make me reparation 
 for all that was lost out of my life, there might 
 have been some sense in it. It might be possible 
 for a woman (if she loved a man well enough) to 
 give Mm respectability by marrying him after he 
 had seduced or injured her ; but for him to pretend 
 or assume that he can give it to her — that is im- 
 possible. Minnie Kent is not, and never has been, 
 a bad woman. She makes her living now in the 
 only way that Christian society leaves open to her ; 
 but she still has too much self-respect to marry a 
 man she does not love and cannot respect — 
 especially the one who injured her. If she had 
 loved me, it would be different, perhaps. She is a 
 brave woman. She might have forgiven me if her 
 heart had been on my side, for she knows as well 
 as I do that in the beginning I was but little more 
 to blame than she. She always says that she does 
 not blame me particularly. She looks upon me as 
 almost as much of a victim at the start as she was. 
 Oh, she is fair enough, doctor ; but that doesn't 
 help matters out much. She said — " His lips 
 trembled and he waited to command himself. 
 "She says that I — that she — never looked at me, 
 or thought of me, as — as Z I only represent 
 
9 
 
 210 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 him to her. I stand for— I am little or nothing 
 to her, in my own person ; but I am everything 
 devilish to her as — as /u's representative. As her 
 eternal curse from him — through him. ... I do 
 not tell it very well; but T thought I could quite 
 understand her that day. I can't make you see how 
 it looked to her — how she made it look to me." 
 
 " Yes, Preston," I said ; " you do make me see. 
 But don't try to. Don't — " 
 
 He lifted his hand to stop me and went on. 
 
 " Oh, heavens, doctor, why prolong the agony ? 
 Don't you see that it is all quite hopeless — quite 
 Do you wonder that I hate my father with a hatred 
 that is woven into every fibre of my being? Do 
 you wonder that I am glad he died before I 
 awoke to the deeper meanings of life, for fear that 
 my own hand would have been the one to take his 
 life ? Great God ! do you wonder at anythiny in a 
 world where fathers commit such crimes against 
 their sons — where daughters are hunted of men 
 who are taught to believe that they can bestow re- 
 spectability upon their victims or withhold it from 
 them at their pleasure ? What an infamous train- 
 ing it all is that teaches that the injured is the dis- 
 graced, and that the villain who wrongs a girl stands 
 on a pedestal to which he can lift her if he sees fit ! 
 And then they have the impudence to say that men 
 do not look down upon women, that it is only 
 women who scorn the degraded of their sex ! Bah! 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 2ll 
 
 I haven't any patience with the kind of narcotics 
 we men use to deaden the little sense of justice and 
 honor we were born with." 
 
 He arose and stood in front of me again as he 
 ceased speaking, and seemed to expect me to reply. 
 
 "Have you ever thought that you might tell 
 Nellie the whole truth, just as you have told it to 
 me, and that it might be a wise thing for you to 
 do ? " I asked, trying to speak quite naturally. 
 
 " Have I thought of it ? " he exclaimed bitterly, 
 and with a desperation that forced itself out on 
 neck and forehead in great cords of tense muscles. 
 " Have I thought of food when I am hungry ? But 
 I dare not! I dare not! And then, look; I would 
 have to tell of — I would have to tell all of it from 
 the first, and of your part — about sister Allie. 
 Of that object lesson you tried to give him ; of 
 his infamous life, and she — he — he was always 
 kind to her. He was like a father to her. She never 
 knew any other. She would not be able to believe 
 me, even if she wanted to, and she would not 
 want to — not against him. Then if she did, just 
 look at it, doctor, just look at the whole thing as I 
 have, a thousand times. She believes in him, not 
 only because she loved him, but he did all the 
 things that women are taught to beUeve are neces- 
 sary in the life of a good man — that is, he did 
 outwardly, and as far as she ever knew. Now I 
 don't. I refused to be made deacon in his place. 
 
212 Is this your So?i, my lord? 
 
 Nellie knows that I swear, and — don't you see, 
 the weight of evidence is all on his side even his 
 death ? 
 
 " If he were alive I could do it better. I might 
 risk it then, for I could force him to tell her that 
 I was not lying, or I would tell — no, I couldn't 
 tell mother. It would kill her, and I could not do 
 that, even to gain my own life. My God, doctor, 
 don't you see that it is quite hopeless ? " He 
 broke off suddenly and threw himself into a chair. 
 In a moment he was up again and pacing the floor 
 nervously. 
 
 " But suppose she did believe me ? Suppose I 
 were to tell that story to Nellie, and suppose she 
 forgave me (and there is very little a woman will 
 not forgive if she loves a fellow ; I've learned 
 that, and men trade on it — the cowards ! ). Sup- 
 pose she held him responsible for all that part, 
 even then what can I do? Who is to shoulder 
 the rest of my devilment ? And you, naturally, 
 could not take much stock in my general morals, 
 after I was once fairly launched, could you ? Why, 
 I outdid the old man in a couple of years. No," 
 he added hastily, as he saw my look of inquiry. 
 
 " Oh, no ; I never got quite so low as to dupli- 
 cate his particular piece of villany. I never 
 deliberately laid a trap to catch a young girl, and 
 I never took part in but one thing that struck me 
 as being based on the same kind of cold-blooded. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 213 
 
 cruel-hearted brutality. I assisted once at a rabbit 
 coursing. It made me sick. A lot of well-dressed 
 brutes on two legs cheered themselves hoarse 
 at the sight of a few timid, panic-stricken, defense- 
 less little rabbits running in the wildest, most 
 hopeless flight from trained dogs that were urged 
 on by the shouts of their high-bred owners. 
 There was absolutely no chance, for the defenseless 
 little beast. All means of escape by flight were 
 cut off ; but it wa^ a noble sight to see a rabbit 
 dash wildly here and there with its eyes starting 
 from its head, and its Iieart beating like a trip- 
 hammer, until the dogs finally ran it down and 
 crushed its spine between their cruel teeth, when 
 it was already about to die of fright! Do yoa 
 know I couldn't help thinking of those rabbits as 
 girls — they are about as utterly defenseless — 
 and of the trained dogs as men who hunt them 
 down, with as little mercy and about as little 
 danger to themselves ? 
 
 " I believe I could stand it to see them course cats 
 or rats, or any kind of animal that can fight, that 
 has a chance, but the grade of brute enjoyment 
 to be obtained in rabbit coursing strikes me as 
 admirably adapted to the men who hunt down little 
 girls, and use their money and their piety and 
 position as a shield. 
 
 " The fellows all guyed me unmercifully because 
 I said, after the first heat, that it made me sick. 
 
214 is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Fred Harmon said it was noble sport, and if I'd 
 only stay till I got used to it, I'd enjoy it hugely. 
 I told him I might be able to stay at a bull fight 
 until the arena looked like a Chicago slaughter 
 house, but I didn't believe that I'd ever get old 
 enough, or experienced enough, or cultured enough, 
 in this world, not to retain a prejudice against 
 seeing grown men beat the brains out of babies 
 just for the fun of hearing the babies yell, and 
 witnessing the anguish of the mothers. Now, Har- 
 mon looks on me as a cad, because I talk that way. 
 He thinks it is a lack of culture — that it is crude. 
 Well, maybe it is ; but somehow I've got a preju- 
 dice against getting my manhood all cultured out 
 of me. Whenever I get so refined and exquisite 
 and polished that the terror and suffering of any 
 living thing affords me amusement, I hope to God, 
 doctor, that you, or some other good friend, will 
 have me put in a madhouse, or give me a dose 
 of cold lead. I'm pretty low, I know, and my 
 tastes are not at all fashionable, but I'd rather be 
 out of the swim than deliberately to cultivate the 
 tiger within me, or rather the jackal, for it is that 
 noble animal, I believe, that depends on the help- 
 lessness of its prey for success." 
 
 I was glad that he had taken this channel of 
 conversation to relieve his pent-u]) feelings, and I 
 had led him on and on, farther and farther from 
 the subject of his recent confession, and had begun 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 215 
 
 to congratulate myself upon the success of my 
 plan to divert him, and so gain time, when he 
 suddenly turned to me : — 
 
 " Well, doctor, haven't you made up your mind 
 what to say yet ? I'm about talked out. I've been 
 running emptyings, as they say in the maple sugar 
 camps, for the last half hour, to give you a chance 
 to grapple with my charming little story in all its 
 bearings ; but I see you're a trifle short yet in the 
 matter of congratulations. Well, I'll come again. 
 This is your office hour. Good-bye." 
 
 " I would rather think it over, Preston, before I 
 say much to you. Come in to-morrow at the same 
 hour. I shall be alone." 
 
 " All right," said he, and passed out. He had 
 not reached the hall door before he turned and re- 
 entered my office. He came straight up to me and 
 took my hand. 
 
 " Don't worry over me, doctor," he said. "Hell 
 is full of my kind, and I'll only be one more." 
 
 He dropped my hand as suddenly as he had taken 
 it, and was gone before I could utter a word. 
 
 " Poor Preston," I said to myself, " what can I 
 say to you to-morrow ? " 
 
216 Is this your /So?i, my Lord? 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 
 "Knowing at last the unstudied gesture of esteem, the reverent eyes 
 made rich with lionest thought, and hoiding high above all other things- 
 high as hope's great throhbing star above the darkness of the dead— the 
 love of wife and child and friend." — Robert G. ItigersoU. 
 
 " Now what could artless Jeanie do ? 
 She had nae will to say him na; 
 At length she blush'd a sweet consent. 
 And love was ay between them twa." 
 
 — Robert Bums. 
 
 When Maude Stone received no reply to her 
 note of final dismissal, addressed to Mr. Fred Har- 
 mon in Chicago, she at first grieved a little, then 
 feared that he might not have received it. At last 
 when six months had passed, she confided this fear 
 to her father. He assured her that her note had been 
 recisived and receipted for by Mr. Fred Harmon 
 himself ; for Mr. Stone had taken the precaution to 
 send it registered. 
 
 " How did you ever happen to think of that, 
 papa?" asked Maude, in astonishment. 
 
 Her father drew her down upon his knee, and 
 pushing the light curls back about her fine forehead 
 in the ugly way that the best intentioned men usually 
 manage to achieve when handling a woman's hair, 
 said softly : — 
 
 " I thought I knew Fred Harmon, daughter. I 
 did not believe that he would reply, and I meant 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 217 
 
 that you should have no doubts about his having 
 received the note. Here is the post-office receipt." 
 He took the worn paper out of his pocket and 
 placed it in her hand ; then he pushed the curls 
 back from her face again. He noticed that a sud- 
 den dampness covered her brow, and he mistook 
 its meaning. Her hand trembled a little, then she 
 deliberately tore the paper into bits, laid her head 
 on his shoulder, and put one soft little palm against 
 his cheek, pushing his face down on her own. 
 They were silent for a long time, when Maude said 
 softly : — 
 
 " You blessed old papa, I wonder if any other 
 girl ever had such a wise, loving friend." 
 
 Mr. Stone rubbed his smooth cheek gently up 
 and down on the velvet one of his daughter, but 
 said nothing. It was dark in the heavily curtained 
 library, and Mr. Stone rocked back and forth with 
 the girl as if she were still a child. 
 
 " If I could make my little girl happy," he said 
 presently, " if I only could defend her against her 
 own generous, loving heart, I would be content; 
 but — " he sighed and pressed her closer to him. 
 
 She freed herself so that she could sit upright, 
 and taking his face in her hands looked steadily, 
 unflinchingly into his eyes. The light had faded 
 so that only the outlines of their faces were clear 
 to each other ; but her great, fine eyes looked lu- 
 minous and clear. 
 
218 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 " Papa," she said slowly, " you have defended me 
 against my own heart. You have made me see 
 clearly in Fred, what I had always blamed myself 
 for catching glimpses of at times. I could not be 
 happy with a man who was not true to himself 
 as well as to me. I could not long love a man 
 who had no basis of character that was his own — 
 his very own. Fred was so different from any 
 one I Ivnew. He was so — nice — on the surface, 
 and at first I did not dream that it was not real. 
 I admired him, and thought I loved him ; but I 
 believe now that I never did. You are so real, 
 so genuine ; Uncle Ball is, and — and — " she was 
 going to say Harvey, but she did not. " Perhaps 
 I was old enough to have known that all men are 
 not to be measured by you ; but I think I have 
 always done that, and — I — never knew how 
 terribly short of good weight a man can come when 
 brought to that test, until that awful night of the 
 Military Ball, nearly a year ago now, popsie. Did 
 you know that it was so long as that ? Since then, 
 papa, I think nothing on this earth could have made 
 me want to marry Fred. I felt so ashamed /or him 
 that night as I measured him by you, and — and — 
 saw that he was not even capable of recognizing the 
 disparity. Such differences as he saw he very 
 clearly thought were to his advantage." 
 
 Mr. Stone's hands clasped themselves back of 
 the gii-l's waist. She was stroking his cheeks now 
 
7s this your Son, my Lord? 219 
 
 as if he were the one to be shielded and dealt 
 gently with. Presently she went on steadily but 
 in a low tone : — 
 
 " I am not at all a broken-hearted girl, papa. 
 Don't worry about me. I am — I shall be — it 
 was a great revelation to me. I feel years and 
 years older; oh, ever so many years older, and as 
 if I had come through a very great change ; but 
 I am not unhappy as you fear, and as I would 
 have expected to be — as I would surely have 
 been — if I had really loved him, papa. It just 
 seems to me all the while now as if some one — a 
 friend or neighbor — had died, and I have to keep 
 quiet and step softly, and — and not laugh very 
 much or very often." 
 
 Her father groaned a little, and kissed her hand 
 as it came near his lips. He liked her to laugh 
 very often indeed. 
 
 " But truly, papa, I am not — it just seems as if 
 — each morning now when I wake up I have to 
 try to think what it is that presses upon my spirits, 
 and just what it is that I have lost. And truly, 
 papa, I do not believe that it is my happiness. I 
 kfiow that it is not that ; but only my confidence 
 in and ignorance of — of — other kinds of men. 
 I was very young, you know, last year, very young 
 indeed, for my age." 
 
 Her father snatched her to his heart again and 
 a half sob escaped him. She was quite still for a 
 
220 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 time, and then said softly : " I am not so young a 
 girl now, papa, but that it is time I should learn one 
 of the hard lessons of life. All women must, I sup- 
 pose, and as to men — how could you have read 
 Fred as you did, if you had not learned long ago 
 to measure, and sift, and distrust people? I wish 
 we did not have to do it. I wish we could take 
 what people seem to be for what they are and not 
 be cheated ; but if we cannot, papa mine, is it not 
 time that your great, big girl should know it ? " 
 
 She was trying to cheer him up now by her old 
 ways and tones. " Why, you see, popsie, I am get- 
 ting pretty old — not exactly gray and toothless, " 
 she said laughingly, and her fine teeth gleamed out 
 for a moment ; " but quite old enough, for all that, 
 and I ought to be more experienced and wise. You 
 have told me yourself that nothing teaches one like 
 sorrow. I never understood it until now. It is 
 true, and in spite of all, I guess it was a lesson I 
 needed pretty badly. I was too childish and too 
 happy. Even love did not mean what it ought to 
 have meant. It did not go deep enough — and 
 then I was very thoughtless of other people. " 
 
 "You were never that, daughter," said her 
 father ; " you were always thinking of others. " 
 
 " Oh yes," she broke in, " perhaps I was as to 
 whether they had this or that to eat or to wear ; 
 but I never thought much about whether they them- 
 selves were, or only seemed to be. In spite of the 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 221 
 
 pain, I am glad I had that lesson, for your sake, 
 papa, if for nothing else. I never half appre- 
 ciated you before, — and some other men like — 
 Uncle Ball." 
 
 Her father had both her hands in one of his now, 
 and he was holding them to his lips just where 
 the inside of the round little wrists came close 
 together. " All the knowledge I had was just 
 pitched helter-skelter into my brain. I've been 
 making out a sort of table of contents from time to 
 time this past year. I've tried to stop long enough 
 to let the sediment settle. I used to suppose most 
 people had parents like mine. Poor Fred! What 
 a training, what weak examples, what soulless 
 friends he must have had ! How much he has lost 
 and — and how much I have to be glad about." 
 She sat up suddenly and laughed. " I am happy 
 to have made your acquaintance," she said mock- 
 ingly. " That expression always amused me so 
 when I have heard people use it; but, papa, I uiii 
 glad to have made your acquaintance, and I never 
 knew you before until this last year." 
 
 " John ! " called out Mrs. Stone, pushing aside 
 the portiere and stepping into the room. " John ! " 
 
 Maude put her hand over her father's lips, and 
 they remained silent in the darkness. 
 
 " Maude, Maud-i-e ! I don't know where they 
 are. They are sure to be together concocting 
 some mystery. Maud-i-e ! " 
 
222 Js this your Son, mi/ Lord? 
 
 Mrs. Stone had dropped the portiere, and was 
 going down the hall again when Maude's clear 
 laugh rang out. 
 
 " "VVhat-e-e ? " She called after her mother. 
 " The two old hardened conspirators are here in 
 the dark, mama-chen. What is wanted of them? 
 They are a bad lot. Come in gingerly — Wah ! 
 go slow there ! " And the girl laughed again as 
 the sound reached her of some one in the darkness 
 walking against a chair. 
 
 " Stand still now and wait until I whistle, and 
 then you follow the whis, mama-chen. Now — 
 wh — e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e ! We're both over here. 
 Wh — e-e-e-e-e-erC-e-e-e-e-e ! " She whistled again. 
 "Where the head conspirator is, there will the 
 small fry be found also. Selah ! " 
 
 " I am not mama-chen, but I have found you 
 by your whis, as you call it, — and by her conniv- 
 ance," said Harvey Ball; "and now it is her turn, 
 and mine, to laugh." 
 
 Mrs. Stone's merry voice called out from the 
 drapery, — she was always very happy to hear Maude 
 talk in her old, flippant, rollicking way, — "Ah, ha, 
 Miss, you are not the only one to play tricks in the 
 dark. But for goodness' sake, light the gas, John. 
 Harvey's father is out here. Ko, he has gone in 
 search of you. He is out in the dining room," and 
 Mrs. Stone started to join their old friend, and to 
 say that her husband would be out at once. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 223 
 
 Maude sprang to her feet and was on the other 
 side of her father in a flash, with a hand on each 
 of his shoulders, when Harvey Ball's voice had 
 made known his presence. He was so near now 
 that he could see the outline of the two figures. 
 He put one hand on John Stone's shoulder and 
 under it he felt the warm soft hand of the girl. It 
 sent a thrill of almost painful pleasure through his 
 -veins. It was a good omen he thought — and she 
 did not take her hand away. He was not sure hut 
 she had a vague idea that if she let it lie perfectly 
 still he would not know that it was there and 
 would remove his own. He wondered if he dared 
 close his fingers over it. Would she he angry? It 
 seemed strange to think of it in that way. Maude's 
 hand had lain in his a thousand times in the past ; 
 but — dared he to take it up now ? He pressed a 
 little more firmly so that it could not slip out, but 
 he did not close his fingers. 
 
 " Well, between you two youngsters I do not see 
 how I am going to get Up ;" said Mr. Stone, resign- 
 edly. " Maude is holding me down on one side 
 and you on the other. But such is life. The old 
 folks have to take a seat and give the floor to the 
 rising generation. When did you come home, 
 Harvey?" 
 
 He made a pretence of sinking hopelessly into 
 the chair. The movement lowered his shoulder 
 so that Harvey's fingers slipped naturally under 
 
224 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Maude's hand, and still she made no effort to draw 
 it away. Harvey forgot the object of liis visit. 
 He forgot the sore heart with which he had started 
 from home to see his old friend John Stone, to tell 
 him about the new fear that had come into his 
 life — the fear to be open and frank, and truthful 
 at home. 
 
 His heart beat wildly, for surely, surely, Maude's 
 silent acquiescence meant something for him. Not 
 long ago she would have slyly pinched his fingers 
 or openly made comment on the situation, claiming 
 to be a prisoner in common with her father ; but 
 now — 
 
 " What will you give us to let you up ? " she 
 asked her father. 
 
 " Us ! " Harvej' pressed her hand a little more 
 firmly ; but kept the weight of his own upon her 
 father's shoulder. Maude bore down a trifle more 
 heavily on the other side and made elaborate pre- 
 tense to be so occujjied there that she was wholly 
 unaware of the location of the hand that Har- 
 vey held. The young fellow wondered if she 
 could be unconscious of it, and his heart sank ; but 
 he could not believe it. It was not like Maude. 
 She would have noticed. She was keeping a secret 
 with him. Her heart was beating like his, too ! 
 It was almost too delicious to believe, but — 
 
 She had put the side of her face down by her 
 father's and asked again : " What will you give if 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 225 
 
 we let you up ? " She rubbed her soft cheek 
 against his, but that other hand still lay in Har- 
 vey's and it ^vas deliciously flexible and warm. 
 
 " Give ? " blustered Mr. Stone ; " give ? why I won't 
 give anything. I do not propose to buy or beg 
 my liberty. I believe in a man taking what he 
 wants in this world, especially if it belongs to him by 
 rights," and he suddenly shook his great frame free 
 and stood up ; but in the general movement, Hai'vey 
 had cai-ried Maude's hand to his lips, and pressed 
 it there one long, rapturous moment. Did she 
 know ? She did not say a word to indicate it, if 
 she did. Was she so merrily occupied in this little 
 contest with her father, that even that eager kiss 
 had not made her sure of a hidden meaning in 
 their clasped hands ? Harvey did not believe it, and 
 when he dropped her hand, his heart was singing 
 a new song, and he could not struggle back to the 
 unhappiness that had brought him there to-night. It 
 had all taken such a little while, and yet how every- 
 thing was changed ! Why did any one want to go 
 to a lighter room ? This one was brilliant. 
 
 "Can't we stay here and not have a light?" 
 Harvey asked, and his voice trembled with happi- 
 ness. " I like to sit in the dark. The moonlight 
 is enough. It is getting in here now, see?" And 
 stepping to the window he held back the drapery. 
 
 " There is Lyra," Maud said, from the window. 
 "Do you know, I like Lyra best of all the constella- 
 
226 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 tions. Why ? Oh, 1 do not know, only I do. I 
 always look for her when I am at the window, or 
 if I am outdoors at night. I always think of her 
 as mine." 
 
 " I'll go and get a match to light this gas, and 
 hring your father back with me, Harvey," said 
 John Stone. " I must say it is a little dark for my 
 eyes, but I suppose you children can read almost 
 anything by the light of the moon, or Lyra, hey, 
 Maude ? " And her father slipped out from behind 
 the curtain where she had dragged him to investi- 
 gate her favorite constellation. Plarvey's heart 
 gave a wild leap. Could he, dared he, leave his 
 window and go to where she stood? Would she 
 care ? Would he have time before her father came 
 back ? Was her heart as wildly, as madly ecstatic 
 as his own ? Had his any reason ? 
 
 "Harvey?" said a soft voice beside him. He 
 turned, and the moonlight fell full on the upturned 
 face and shining eyes of Maude. She was holding 
 the heavy curtains back with both upstretched 
 arms, and the soft folds of her gown almost touched 
 him. 
 
 " Maude, my darling ! " and their lips met in a 
 long, eager kiss. 
 
 " Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you! " burst 
 from the girl's lips, and her arms clung about his 
 neck. "I love you, Harvey, I love you!" There 
 were happy tears in her eyes. 
 
Is this your Son, vii/ Lord? 227 
 
 Harvey was beyond speech. He pressed her to 
 his breast in a transport, and kissed her eyes, her 
 hair, her lips, her throat. There was a long silence. 
 Then a great sob broke from his lips and he un- 
 clasped her hands from his neck, and suddenly sank 
 at her feet. 
 
 " Oh, my God, Maude, darling, do not touch me 
 again — not just now — or I shall go mad with joy. 
 Darling, darling, darling, you love me ! " 
 
 She took his hands from his face and kissed them 
 madly — their palms and wrists — and holding one 
 against her neck, she drew him up to the window 
 seat beside her, and taking his head against her 
 bosom, murmured softly, " Dear boy, dear boy, 
 dear boy, are you as happy as I ? " 
 
 No words, no thoughts, would come to either of 
 these young hearts, stirred for the first time to 
 their depths, where the birth of love's rapture 
 had crowded all else out. Endearing names, 
 soft tones, cooing inflections, murmured inarticu- 
 late caresses made speech a useless thing. Their 
 hearts understood, and sang with a joy that was 
 pain and rapture, that deadened all capacity to 
 think. 
 
 " Kiss my other eye ; it feels so lonely," she 
 said presently. " You have kissed that one three 
 times, and the other one loves you too." 
 
 Harvey broke into a rapturous laugh, and with 
 his lips against the neglected orb whispered : — 
 
228 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 " It loves me too, the precious, beautiful darling. 
 Did I neglect it ? " and he made that inarticulate, 
 consolatory sound in his throat that mothers and 
 lovers use when words will not express the strug- 
 gling emotions of the heart. Maude laughed a 
 happy little peal. 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh, don't put it out ! I shall need it 
 to look at you. I could not see enough of you 
 with only one. There — there — oh, don't put 
 the other one out too ! I never dreamed that one 
 could be so hajjpy and live. I, who have known 
 so little except happiness, have never seen its face 
 before ! " 
 
 Then standing with his face between her palms 
 she said softly, reverently : — 
 
 " My darling ! " She closed her eyes as if to shut 
 out all the world, but the one thought, and sight, 
 and touch. 
 
 " My darling, oh, my darling ! " 
 
 " Mau-die ! Mau-die ! Har-vie ! Where are those 
 children ? Mau-die ! " called Mrs. Stone, from the 
 doorway. " They aj-e not here, Mr. Ball. I guess 
 they have gone out for a walk. I must say it is a 
 splendid night. Almost too fine to be in doors. 
 Don't go. They will be back soon I am sure, 
 and Harvey won't know what to make of your 
 leaving so early and without him." 
 
 But old Mr. Ball was restless and unhappy. He 
 wanted to be with his son again and yet he dreaded 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 229 
 
 it. Pie wondered if he could take down the 
 barriers between tlicm. He liad confided his 
 trouble to John Stone, and John had taken Har- 
 vey's side of course. " But Harvey won't hold any 
 ill-will about it, Edward," he had said. " He will 
 understand." 
 
 " Understand, yes," said the old man forlornly, 
 "but can he forget? It must look to him as if I 
 had deliberately tried to bully him into saying one 
 thing when he thought another. I'm afraid John, 
 I have thrown away the best pearl on the string, to 
 make room for a conch- shell — sound, not value. 
 I've been a pitiful old fool. It is not a question as to 
 whether Harvey would hold malice, or whether he 
 will want to feel estranged, and as if there was a 
 barrier between us — of course he won't want to — 
 but can he help it, now ? That is the question. 
 And can I ? What did I do it for ? I can't see 
 now myself. I did feel as if I must warn him and 
 check him ; but I cannot see for the life of me now 
 what put it into my head. He is good. That is 
 what I Avant. He is honest. That is what I want. 
 Well, what in God's name was I after any way? 
 What did I want him to do or say ? " 
 
 " You wanted his honest opinion, Edward," said 
 John Stone, with a twinkle in his eye, "but with 
 the usual consistency of the theological devotee you 
 wanted him to be just honest enough to hide his 
 doubts, if he had any, and make his opinions fit the 
 
230 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 prevailing fashion, or j'ou would know the reason 
 why." 
 
 "John ! " said Mrs. Stone, reprovingly. 
 
 Her husband laughed. He took hold of his old 
 friend's overcoat, and held it uj^ for him to put on. 
 
 "Taken all in all, Edward, you are the least 
 tyrannical of believers and the most reasonable 
 of those who reject reason as their guide. If you 
 had not been born with a certain belief in your 
 veins, you would talk just as Harvey does to-day. 
 But in the day when you were born, faith, belief, 
 dogma was born in people. Their mothers had no 
 doubts at all, and their fathers kept such as they 
 may have had, to themselves. It was a good deal 
 safer to do it, in those good old days," he added 
 dryly. " Well, it is different now. In fact it is 
 exactly turned round. The mothers doubt and 
 keep quiet for the most part, and the fathers disbe- 
 lieve and speak out. The birthmark is no longer 
 faith ; it is doubt, more or less open. It is agnosti- 
 cism plain or on the half-shell — that is about the 
 size of it these days. Well, Harvey takes his 
 straight. So do I. The Broad-churchmen and 
 Christian Evolutionists serve theirs with a dash of 
 Judaism, a pinch of Paulinism, a hint of Buddhism, 
 and now and then a thimbleful of good, old-fash- 
 ioned orthodox Christianity ; but the latter variety 
 is served to country customers only, and the man 
 who passes it sprays himself afterward with more 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 231 
 
 or less Ethical Culture and Nineteenth Century 
 Platonism." He laughed and slapped Mr. Ball on 
 the back with a sounding whack that raised a little 
 dust. 
 
 " Why, Edward, you say yourself that you do 
 not know anything about any other life than this; 
 you say yourself, that you. would not like to swear 
 to there being another world ; you admit that you 
 are not at all sure that a prayer was ever answered, 
 in any theological sense. You confess that the 
 only kind of beings you personally know anything 
 about are residents of this world ; well, that is the 
 whole field. You are an agnostic, but you do not 
 know it. You have certain little frills and bows 
 that you tack on in the shape of church attendance 
 and forms of expression ; but when it comes to 
 real, solid facts, you do not pretend to go one step 
 farther than I do. Well, Harvey stands right 
 where you do, — in point of fact, — only he takes a 
 calm outlook, plants his feet and takes the con- 
 sequences of his premises. He does not try to eat 
 his jam and keep it, too, and when it is all gone, does 
 not put the cover on the dish and try to make other 
 
 folks believe that it is full. Now the 'reconcilers' 
 
 • 
 
 do just that. They give away their whole case, and 
 then they vow they have got it, only it is covered up. 
 Beecher did that. Heber Newton does it, and so 
 does Phillips Brooks and Dr. Thomas and all those 
 progressive fellows over at Andover. 
 
232 Js this your Son, mi/ Lord? 
 
 "Wh}-, great Scott, Edward, when tliey lay 
 down their premises, argue their case and then 
 begin to draw their conclusions, it is enough to 
 make a dog laugh. Their premises and conclusions 
 are not even blood relations ; " and John Stone 
 chuckled over his comparison. " If you believe 
 without a doubt, the story of the creation, the 
 Garden of Eden legend, the snake tale, — which is 
 necessary to the fall of man, — and the ' In Adam 
 all men died ' theory ; if you accept the possi- 
 bility of vicarious atonement, and can think it not 
 a vicious idea ; if you believe Christ was a God 
 and had no human father, and that his death could 
 in any way relieve you of your own responsibility, 
 or make an All-wise God change his mind about 
 damning you ; if you are sure of such a God, such 
 a creation, such a temptation, such a fall, such a 
 Christ, such an atonement, and that it could have 
 the results claimed, — then you are able to argue 
 with some show of consistency. But drop one 
 single link, admit one single doubt or question, 
 and you are gone. Your whole system is worthless. 
 The Catholics are the only consistent Christians. 
 They do not try to use both faith and reason. 
 They scout reason altogether, and they are right, 
 unless you let it have full sway. The old-time 
 Protestants — and there are precious few of them 
 left — tried to take three parts faith and one part 
 reason, but it did not stop there. It could not. 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 233 
 
 The Catholic Church understood that perfectly. 
 To-day, the Broad- churchman and ' reconciler ' ele- 
 ment — those who 'reconcile' science and religion, 
 or evolution and creation — try to work it with one 
 part faith and three parts reason ; but it is fatal to 
 both. The result is that it is boiled down to just 
 this — Rome or Reason. Now, you would make a 
 pretty Catholic, wouldn't you ? " And he laughed 
 jovially. 
 
 " John," again remonstrated his wife, " you are 
 such a tease. Let Uncle Ball go in peace if he 
 will not stay any longer. I wonder where those 
 •children are? Maudi-e-e!" 
 
234 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 
 " You never need think you can turn over any old falsehood, without a 
 terrible squirmingr and scattering of the horrid littie population that 
 dwells under it.— Every real thought on every real subject Knocks the 
 wind out of somebody or other."— 0/irer Wendell Holmes. 
 
 When Mr. Fred Plarmon returned to Boston from 
 his prolonged Western tour — an incident of which 
 was his unfortunate "call" of a plethoric jack- 
 pot when his opponent hajDpened to hold a straight 
 flush, and his subsequent- six weeks' " hibernation " 
 at the home of Preston Mansfield — he was the lion 
 of the season. It was jsretty generally understood 
 that this heroic young man had come through a 
 number of hair-breadth escapes, matrimonially 
 speaking, in which scheming Western mothers and 
 Indian hunting, crack-shot frontier fathers had 
 figured somewhat actively. 
 
 There was very little doubt in the minds of his 
 admirers that nothing short of his phenomenal 
 finesse and aplomb could ever have brought him 
 safely back to them, unaccompanied by a follow- 
 ing and a household, who would have spread 
 dismay on Beacon street, and carried ruin to the 
 very base of Bunker Plill. But an overruling Prov- 
 idence had saved the scion of culture, and con- 
 founded the Philistines. Fred Harmon was back 
 again, was matrimonially free, and was seriously 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 235 
 
 considering once more whether he would bestow 
 the favor of his society and the wealth of his 
 accomplishments and abilities upon the Almighty, 
 or whether he would endow some other profession 
 than that of theology with his exceptional genius. 
 It was argued that the great divine who cast a 
 lustre over Boston could not live always. He was 
 not so young as he once had been, and who was 
 to fill his place? Who could? No living man, 
 now known to fame, would be tolerated by those 
 who had been blest for years by his ministrations. 
 Who else could lull their restless thoughts and 
 questioning minds by so deliciously musical a voice, 
 such intrepidity of tongue and facility of utterance ? 
 Who else could command language so graceful and 
 ornate, that no break need be felt between the 
 intonations ~of the sermon, the service, and the 
 song? 
 
 In Fred Harmon there was hope; but if he 
 failed them, -where was Boston to turn, when the 
 awful day should come and the place that knew 
 its idol should know him no more forever ? Serious 
 as the question was, fatal as would be the result if 
 he failed them, it is nevertheless true, that Fred 
 still felt that it was an open question whether he 
 would better sacrifice himself on this altar of duty 
 and worship, or whether he would not do well to 
 continue to temper poker with the prayer book and 
 revive the traditions of Daniel Webster while he 
 
'236 Is this your tSon, my Lord? 
 
 eclipsed that gentlemen's fame in oratory and law 
 and statesmanship. But this latter involved a 
 somewhat longer purse than was at the young man's 
 command. He figured that it would take as much 
 as two years, after he should be admitted to the 
 bar, before he could hope to be in a commanding 
 financial position. Five years might elapse before 
 his fame would be world-wide ; and five years is 
 a long look ahead to a genius of twenty-four. 
 
 In the ministry it would be different. He would 
 not have to compete directly. His jury would be 
 all on his side beforehand. If his pleadings were 
 badly drawn, or if his arguments were faulty, 
 there would be no opposing counsel at his elbow 
 to take advantage of his blunder. His finances 
 would not depend on his winning the case; but 
 only on pleasing the taste of those who were 
 already of his way of thinking. And while Mr. 
 Fred Harmon had a very elastic and expansive 
 opinion of his own abilities, still he did not lose 
 sight of the fact that nowhere else on earth was 
 mediocrity so safe from criticism and comparison 
 of a discomposing order — and proximity — as in 
 a calling where the line of argument is all laid 
 out beforehand, and all parties concerned have 
 previously accepted the conclusions which are to be 
 drawn. There were times, therefore, when Mr. 
 Fred Harmon felt that the security and ease and 
 certainty of such a position would compensate for 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 237 
 
 a good deal. So the scales balanced back and 
 forth, and Beacon Street trembled. 
 
 Fred's mother was ecstatically terrified. She 
 would have been extremely happy to see the young 
 man burst upon a dazzled nation as a statesman, 
 whose voice should drown the memory of a Wash- 
 ington, a Webster, and a Lincoln ; but in these days, 
 politics were somewhat vulgar, and he would be 
 tnrown with men of — well, — to put it mildly, — an 
 inferior order. They would not be able to appre- 
 ciate him, and, indeed, she doubted very much if 
 anybody could, — outside of Boston. 
 
 But in the church ! Ah, how delightful it would 
 be to see him wield the power and receive the wor- 
 ship of all those cultured souls ; and then the re- 
 flected glory that would fall upon her — that, too, 
 was a delicious anticipation. What a vast deal of 
 good he would do, this lovely son of hers, with 
 his exquisitely fine nature. How he would exalt 
 the people. How he would free them from all lin- 
 gering traces of Philistinism. How he would spirit- 
 ualize and decorate and beautify their religion. 
 How the touch of his fancy, the sheen of his taste, 
 would tone down and glorify orthodox creeds. 
 How he would read new meanings into them and 
 read the last remnants of the old meanings out. 
 Mrs. Harmon had two friends who were Unitari- 
 ans, and she felt sure when Fred should wear 
 the surplice and stole, these dear ones would be 
 
238 Is this your Soti, my Lord? 
 
 redeemed too. They had once told her that they 
 could look upon the ceremony of communion with 
 nothing short of horror. 
 
 " If you really believe that it is the body and 
 blood of Christ, why do you eat and drink it, dear ? " 
 one of them had asked. " It seems to me horrible, 
 beyond words to express. I can see how you might 
 want to take it home and keep it as a sacred thing 
 — but eat it ; " and she held her hands up in token 
 of abhorrence. 
 
 " How literal you are," Fred's mother had 
 replied. " You take all the poetry, and spiritual 
 meaning, and lofty ethical significance out of a 
 beautiful and holy service, and then you hold it to 
 account for your own lack of sympathy with its 
 deeper meaning. Of course one would not want 
 to eat the body, and drink the blood of a dead 
 man, or a dead god, as you say. Even more 
 truly would one shudder to do so, if one had loved 
 or revered the lost ; but — " 
 
 " Then why do you say that you do it ? Why 
 do you go through the form which you admit 
 would be abhorrent, if it were not wholly form, 
 if it were fact ? Have words absolutely no par 
 value in your creeds ? Why do you not say what 
 you mean ? In other matters you are hypercritical 
 as to mere shades of difference in your use of 
 words. So is your clergyman ; but he says, ' This 
 is the body and the blood of Christ.' Now, if he 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 239 
 
 does not mean that, why does he say it ? and what 
 does he mean ? What are words for in theology ? 
 If he means that it is a symbol of that, why does 
 he not say so ? And why eat it even then ? "Why 
 eat a symbol of the flesh and blood of the dead? 
 No, no, my dear, you cannot make it appear to me 
 either honest to call a thing by one name, and 
 mean that it is a totally different thing, nor can 
 you convince me that it is elevating to teach 
 people even to say, in a Pickwickian sense, that 
 they eat dead gods or men. It is shocking, be- 
 yond words to express, and when explained away 
 from its original literal meaning, which the Cath- 
 olics still insist upon, it adds dishonesty as well. 
 The Catholics, at least, are honest. They mean 
 what they say. However I may object to the 
 meaning, I respect their sincerity. When they 
 say ' this is so and so,' they don't turn around and 
 explain it away, and finally end up by declaring 
 that it is something totally different. They have 
 the courage and mental integrity of their convic- 
 tions. When they tell their devotees to believe 
 that a certain relic is a piece of the true cross, they 
 don't add, ' that is to say, it is made of a tree that 
 once stood in the same forest from which the wood 
 for the true cross was obtained ; or, if you prefer 
 to look at it another way, we will allow you to 
 believe it in this form : It was cut in another 
 country altogether; but it happened to fall with 
 
240 Ts this your Soti, my Lord? 
 
 its top pointing eastward, which, taken in its true 
 spiritual sense, amounts to exactly the same thing.' 
 Oh, no, they don't trim their requirements to catch 
 the ethical agnosticism of the day. They, at least, 
 are honest, direct, and firm in their demands on 
 absolute faith ; and mental reservations that reserve 
 the whole fabric, are not accepted by them. No, no, 
 my dear, if I should ever accept any of it, I should 
 have to accept it all, absolutely, without mental 
 reservation, evasion, or lapse, and then I would not 
 join a Protestant church. I should go to the 
 cathedral at once and finally." 
 
 Mrs. Harmon had given her friend up for the 
 time ; but when Fred should present the case, 
 when he should stand before them in all his vest- 
 ments, and clothe in prismatic tints the bald facts 
 and undraped creeds of Protestant orthodoxy, as 
 elaborated and refined by the ethical leaders of the 
 Broad Church ; when her gifted son should once 
 vitalize the exquisite statue of revealed religion, 
 Beacon Street, as one man, would become Pygma- 
 lions and the divine Galatea would have, not only 
 the old lovers at her feet, but even these devotees 
 of the King's Chapel should be lured by her incom- 
 parable charms. Not a night, not a day passed that 
 she did not pray, long and fervently, to a god 
 (which in conversation she translated into a Great 
 First Cause) to bring about this transcendent bless- 
 ing through her wonderful boy, and for the sake 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 241 
 
 of Jesus Christ her Saviour ^ — whom she sometimes 
 admitted slie believed to be the son of a carpen- 
 ter in Nazareth. 
 
 " In which case, why do you ask for things in his 
 name and for his salce ? " a sceptical friend had 
 asked. " Why do you call him your Saviour ? 
 Do you not think that any explanation on that 
 basis makes your petition, in his name and for 
 his sake, quite meaningless and absurd ? " But 
 Fred's mother had laughed the question aside and 
 insisted that no one could talk seriously with such 
 an absurdly literal person. 
 
 "You have no spirituality, dear," she had said. 
 "Why, it is just as natural to me to go to Christ 
 for help in the things of to-day, as if he were in the 
 next room, and yet when you pin me down in that 
 energetic fashion, of course I believe that he was 
 the son of Joseph, and that he is dead in the same 
 sense that all of us are, or will be dead ; but really 
 dear, if you will excuse me for saying so, I fail 
 to see what that has to do with it." Indeed, 
 Mrs. Harmon had no more doubt that when her 
 gifted son should explain the plan of salvation 
 to these sceptical friends they would thenceforth 
 believe in its efficacy, than had that unfortunate 
 young gentleman in the sufficiency of a "king full " 
 when stakes were heavy and luck his way. " The 
 Rector was explaining just that point to Fred the 
 other day," she had said ; " I wish you could have 
 
242 Ts this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 heard him. It -n-as beautiful. He told F)-ed that 
 a literal belief that Christ was a god and had no 
 human father — or that he arose from the dead 
 in any material sense — in any sense that all the 
 dead are not arisen — is not at all vital. He does 
 flot accept that view, and he explained to Fred 
 that it was quite unnecessary — and Fred saw it 
 clearly. I did, too, but you know I am such a 
 poor sieve of a creature. It all slipped through 
 my mind. I cannot make it clear to you now ; 
 but it was like crystal as they talked it, and dear 
 Fred" — and here Mrs Harmon's eyes filled with 
 tears as she took her friend's hand. "You must 
 not breathe it, dear, — not just yet — bnt my 
 boy has promised to take holy orders ! Oh, my 
 heart is so full of joy and thankfulness to God 
 that I cannot talk, and yet I could not keep it from 
 you a moment longer. It is settled ! I am to 
 give my talented son to the service of the Church. 
 There are far more brilliant and showy, and 
 (from a personal and selfish outlook) advantageous 
 positions open to such as he, I know ; but think 
 of the blessedness of devoting one's whole life to 
 othei's under the direct hand and will of Almighty 
 God ! " Ilcr friend wondered vaguely how an 
 impersonal Great First Cause was going to give 
 special directions to jMr. Fred Harmon, of Boston, 
 TJ. S. A. ; but she said nothing and only smiled 
 inwardly a little. 
 
Is this your Son, my lord? 243 
 
 " I am so happy, so happy, so happy ! I pray 
 that I may keep my reason ! " continued Fred's 
 mother, covering her face with her dainty lace 
 handkerchief. When her friend withdrew, she 
 sank softly by her couch and prayed long and fer- 
 vently. As she knelt she had noticed that the 
 pillow sham on the opposite side of the bed had 
 slipped a trifle from its place. When she arose she 
 rang for her maid. 
 
 " Mary, you are getting more and more careless 
 about your duties. I shall be compelled to dismiss 
 you, if you are not able to do better. That sham 
 disturbed me at my devotions. It is far from 
 straight." 
 
 " Yis, mum," said Mary humbly, " they is thet 
 slick, mum — " 
 
 "Never mind explaining, Mary. How often 
 have I told you that a servant's place is to keep 
 such perfect order that explanations are unneces- 
 sary ? Whenever a servant has to tell why a thing 
 is not right, that is proof enough that it is wrong, 
 and the apology comes too late. The only apology 
 I accept from my servants is such perfect attention 
 to their duties, that apologies are rendered un- 
 necessary. This is a warning, Mary. Do not let 
 it occur again." 
 
 " Yis, mum," said Mary, somewhat irrelevantly, 
 and forthwith departed to readjust the offending 
 sham. 
 
244 Is this your S072, my Lord? 
 
 " Oupoligy," said she, as soon as the door was 
 closed, " Oupoligy, indade ! an' mesilf havin' no 
 toim to so much as listhen to me b'y, Tummus, ex- 
 hplainin' the purtictive turruff to thim shtupid 
 ghrocery men ! Uv curse, Oi'v got no immegit 
 inthrust in poUythicks, mesilf bein' a lady — but 
 Oi'd loik to know if it ishent every mother's juthy 
 to incourahg her b'y to thake an inthrest in publick 
 affairhs ? An' ish'ent Tummus good f er the School 
 Boarhd if he wance gits elechted this toim anto the 
 commithee av eleohtion inspechtors ? " And the 
 proud mother of Thomas, the prospective election 
 inspector, re-arranged the couch of the proud 
 mother of Frederick, the prospective divine, each 
 feeling that her duty lay in sinking her individual- 
 ity, and scheming for sons who accepted it as the 
 natural and merited homage paid to exceptional 
 ability by those who should keenly feel the reflected 
 honor of the close relationship. 
 
 When Mary returned to the dining-room, she 
 found her son far along in his address. As she 
 entered the door, however, she was privileged to 
 hear his closing, eloquent remarks : — 
 
 " And thet is the raashon Oi so perthiculerly 
 want ye both t' cahst yer franchoises fer Misther 
 Blaine. Oi want the mon best calcuZathed to per- 
 tect the turruff agin thim low Oitalians a-comin' 
 ovher here an' ruhinin' the ontoir counthry at the 
 behist av Aingland — bad 'cess t' her ! " 
 
Is this your Son, my Lordf 245 
 
 "What air they a-goiii' t' do to the tur-ruff, 
 Tummus ? " inquired his admiring mother, from her 
 place by the door. 
 
 " Chyart it all aff, av course," responded the ready 
 politician, promptly scowling upon her feminine 
 incapacity to grasp a question so comprehensive as 
 that of the protective tariff. 
 
 " The murtherin scoundrels ! " exclaimed she, and 
 the three prospective voters scowled fiercely out of 
 the window at an organ-grinder, and Thomas 
 went on. 
 
 " You musthent interrhupt a politichal spaach," 
 said he, addressing the disturbing element by the 
 door. " You'll git me thet nervhous thet Oi sha'n't 
 be able to egsplahin the pints ; but what Oi do 
 know ish this ; thim thet knows do say thet af the 
 tur-ruff ish nat purtheoted they'll chayart the whole 
 av it aff to build ap the tur-ruff av Aingland thet 
 ish almost tothally disthroied already.'' Ahn Oi 
 say, be jabbers, let them build ap their own tur-ruff 
 with their own sod, and nat be afther a rhuinin 
 the looks av Americka by a cayartin aff hern. 
 Amerioky fer the Americans, sez Oi, und Oi'll foit 
 to purtect her sod again a aignerent furren poperla- 
 tion ! " 
 
 Mary's enthusiasm became so great at this point, 
 that she forgot her warning and applauded loudly. 
 " Och, but you're the beautiful polithical spaakher, 
 Tummus," said she. " An' so thet is what all this 
 
246 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 thalk about the tur-ruff is ovher, is it ? Well, if 
 they're short av sod, sez Oi, let 'em thake some an 
 welcum. It'll ghrow agin an' Oi'd jist loik t' 
 show um thet Ameriky hev plenthy an' to shpare." 
 
 " Dhry w^ ! " said Thomas, who saw signs of 
 defection in his two recent converts. 
 
 " Dhry up ! phwat do a woman know abhout 
 pollyiic/fs f They air nat well enough inforhmed 
 an the thopics av the toims, to undhersthand 
 pwhat we leadhers air thalkin' about, much less the 
 mainin' av it; and an intilligent vother, that's got 
 any sinse at all, won't so much as listhen to wan 
 av ye gabble. Here, help shpread this thable- 
 cloth an' kape shtill ! " 
 
 The butcher's boy and the grocer's clerk with- 
 drew to ponder over the tariff, and to deliver their 
 wares next door. 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 247 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 
 " But, Lady Clare Vere de Vere, 
 
 You make your wares by far too cheap; 
 Your net claims all as fish that comes 
 
 ■Within the limit of its sweei). 
 You sit beside me here to-day; 
 
 You try to nialcc me love again ; 
 But I am safe the while I think 
 
 You've sat thus with a score of m^Ti."—Tennymn. 
 
 " The moment you attempt to find a base for morals outside of human 
 nature, you go wrong; no other is solid and sure. The aid of the so-called 
 sanctions of theology is not only needless, but mischievous. The alliance 
 of the realities of duty with theological phantoms, exposes duty to the 
 same ruin which daylight brines to tlie superstition that has been associ- 
 ated with duty." — John Morley, 
 
 When Miss Pauline Tyler received a proposal 
 of marriage from Mr. Fred Harmon, her emotions 
 almost overcame her. She assured him that she 
 had never dreamed of such a thing, and that 
 she really must have time to think it all over. 
 Meantime she wanted him to understand, fully, 
 that she was absolutely not betrothed to either the 
 Envoy from Russia or the Senator from Michigan. 
 How such cruel and foundationless reports got 
 started in the first place, and how any one could 
 be found to credit them, was beyond her compre- 
 hension. 
 
 Fred agreed with her in regard at least to a 
 part of this statement ; but he hinted that it was 
 no wonder such gossip found ready believers, 
 
248 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 for slander, like death, loved a shining mark and 
 who else shone as she? "I "wonder who will be 
 next," he thought, while he talked. " There are 
 really comparatively few left, and she will surely 
 not descend to captains in the regular army, or 
 unofficial men of wealth. I never but once knew 
 her to shoot below a colonel. Of course she looks 
 upon me as a bishop in embryo. She would be a 
 great help to a man in his career. Her money, 
 her untamed ambition, and her extensive blood 
 relationship with everybody who is anybody, in 
 both Boston and New York, would all be incom- 
 parable advantages to a rising man. When she is 
 married to me she will naturally drop the habit of 
 denying her engagement to other men, and — 
 well, — after all, only a very few people appear to 
 see through it, and it is a slight foible, and not 
 confined to her. I suppose it would be unreason- 
 able for me to expect absolute perfection in taste 
 and judgment." 
 
 Fred sighed as he thought that no one in this 
 world was likely to secure these when they married, 
 unless, forsooth, it might be the fortunate woman 
 who should one day become his bride. There was 
 one point of difference between them. Pauline 
 preferred that he should be a High Churchman ; 
 and then it occurred to her that she might like 
 it better if he did not go so far as to receive 
 confessions from Henrietta Dangerfield and Lucy 
 
Js this your Son, my Lord? 249 
 
 Fairfax ; so, after all, it might be best for him not 
 to go the length of having a confessional. To be 
 just high enough to come below, that was her idea. 
 But Fred demurred. He said that if he were not 
 a Broad Churchman he should feel it his duty to 
 take the vows of celibacy and poverty and join 
 either an Episcopal or a Catholic Brotherhood. In- 
 deed, he hinted gloomily, that his inner conscience 
 told him that this was his highest ideal ; but that 
 his heart pleaded for her. He was not at all sure 
 that in the end he should not awake to realize that 
 she was the beautiful temptress of old who should 
 keep a struggling soul back from the loftiest attain- 
 ment of which it was capable. The struggle had 
 been a hard one but she — love of her — had won, 
 and he had chosen the less holy way for her dear 
 sake. 
 
 Miss Pauline Tyler would have thought all this 
 the noblest of sentiment if she had heard it or read 
 it as applied to any one else ; but she was not 
 prepared to look upon herself as a wholly sinful 
 indulgence, which should make a man think he 
 was giving up an altogether higher mission in a 
 descent to her. Somehow it did not impress her 
 as so entirely complimentary as Fred appeared to 
 think. Of course it was beyond dispute that a 
 Brotherhood was far higher and holier than 
 marriage ; but — Pauline, for the first time in her 
 life, questioned the taste of saying so. She put it 
 
250 Is this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 on the ground of taste. So Mr. Fred Harmon was 
 not the only party to the tacit engagement who 
 pondered over certain little changes it would be 
 desirable to make in the outward expression, if 
 not in the inward thought, after they should be 
 married. 
 
 Pauline told him that she wanted time to exam- 
 ine her heart. She appeared to look upon that 
 important member as a detached article, which had 
 to be taken from an orris perfumed drawer and 
 spread out before her for inspection to discover if 
 the moths had gotten into it since last summer. 
 This looked perfectly reasonable to Fred and he 
 consented. He expressed the hope, however, that 
 she would be able to go all over it carefully in a 
 week's time, as he did not think that he could 
 endure the suspense for a longer period. She 
 thought that a week would give her ample time 
 for the minutest investigation — and then she 
 hinted that she would like to lay the matter before 
 her confessor. Fred saw no objection to this, and 
 he did not at all comprehend why she seemed a 
 little hurt over it. He supposed that it was not 
 that in reality. He had doubtless mistaken her 
 manner and tone. It was most likely due to 
 her deep spiritual preoccupation. 
 
 But Pauline was thinking that she would not like 
 to know that Lucy and Henrietta were confessing 
 in private to him. Why was he so indifferent 
 
Is this your Son, my Lord? 251 
 
 about her confessions to another man ? She was 
 unable to solve the mystery, so she took another 
 method. 
 
 " If I say yes, can we not have a iniblio, solemn, 
 sacred betrothal ? I think I should be dressed in 
 simple white, Avith a rosary about my waist, and 
 we should kneel before Father High-church and 
 have a betrothal service. We could invite a select 
 few, and it could be very quiet indeed, and very 
 effective." 
 
 It impressed Fred as a charming idea. He at 
 once pictured such service as a part of his future 
 work. He thought she was right in thinking it 
 could be raade very effective. He saw himself in 
 full vestments blessing a young couple kneeling 
 before him, and then and there plighting their 
 troth in a solemn way and in set terms. The more 
 he thought of it the more firmly was he convinced 
 that a betrothal should be a sacrament, and under 
 the control of the clergy. He wondered if it would 
 be easy to have a law passed to that effect. A 
 M'ide field opened before him, and he felt that the 
 duties and responsibilities of a servant of the altar 
 were vastly greater and more varied than he had 
 ever before realized. He wondered vaguely if he 
 would be equal to it; but he put such thoughts 
 from him as unworthy. His vows would sustain 
 him when once they were taken. Men failed or 
 fell, he thought, because they did not 0f)enly 
 
252 Is this your Son, my Lordf 
 
 commit themselves to a given course. When once 
 his vows were taken, it would be easy enough. 
 His liberty to browse on other fields ^\-ould be 
 surrendered. He felt very serious indeed, and the 
 burdens of the new life seemed already almost upon 
 him. He sighed. 
 
 " I do not wonder you feel your position so 
 keenly," Pauline said, sympathetically. " That is 
 one reason I want time to think. As your wife, 
 my life too would be necessarily devoted to the 
 altar and the cross. It is almost like taking the 
 veil to marry a man in holy orders, don't you think 
 so ? It is very solemn. That is what I was think- 
 ing of in the church betrothal. That could sym- 
 bolize the white veil ; then the marriage could 
 represent the black veil. "*0f course I could not 
 wear black, but we could translate it to mean that. 
 Interjjretation is everything, don't you think? It 
 would mean only a marriage to other jjeople, but 
 to those who understood the true higher signifi- 
 cance, I could be the bride of the church, and dead 
 to the world henceforth." 
 
 Fred glanced at the handsome bronze clock, and 
 said that he must leave her now. Both, he said, 
 needed to be alone — to think. He would not 
 attempt to see her again until that day week. He 
 stood with his legs very wide apart and gazed at 
 her a moment, and then wrung her hand and bowed 
 himself out. 
 
7s this your Son, my Lord? 253 
 
 As he bvittoned his great coat over his evening 
 dress, he said to himself : " By Jove, I believe I am 
 late, don't you know ! What a cad to stay over 
 time. The fellows won't ■^\'ait, and I shall miss the 
 game altogether." Then he consoled himself with 
 the memory that in that case he could still drop in 
 for the last act of the comic opera, and see one of 
 the plump beauties, in tights, home. The Parker 
 House or even the " Parsonage " would not be 
 much out of her way — actresses were always hun- 
 gry. He supposed this sort of thing would have 
 to be stopped after he took his vows ; but, mean- 
 time — 
 
 " Dri-\e faster," he called out, " I am beastly late 
 now ! " 
 
254 Js this your Son, nnj Lord? 
 
 Chaptek XVI. 
 
 " strange Is the heart of man, with its quick, mysterious Instlnctsl 
 Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are moments, 
 Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall adamantine ! " 
 
 — Longfellow, 
 
 " The conduct that issues from a moral conflict has often so clnpe a 
 resemblance to vice, that the distinction escapes all outward judgnieuts, 
 founded on a mere comparison of actions." — George £!iot. 
 
 *' Oh, here will I set up my everlasting rest; 
 And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars 
 From this world-wearied flesh.— Eyes, look your last! 
 Arms, take your last embrace ! and lips, O you. 
 The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss 
 A dateless bargain to engrossing death I "—Shakspeare. 
 
 The next day I sat waiting for Preston Mansfield. 
 I had made up my mind to advise him to tell Nellie 
 the truth, at all hazards. I was surprised to find 
 that he was late. I looked at my watch. It 
 wanted a quarter to three, and my office hour began 
 in thirty minutes. The door was flung open and 
 Preston burst into the room like a madman. 
 
 "Doctor, for God's sake let me bring her in 
 here ! " he exclaimed, breathlessly. His face was 
 set and wild, and his lips pressed each other, until 
 the instant after he had spoken, they were thin and 
 white. I had never seen such wild despair, fight- 
 ing with hope, on any human face. " She is dying, 
 I think ! It was all my fault ! I — " 
 
 He had rushed back to the carriage which stood 
 at my door, and I had followed him. 
 
Is this your Son, ray Lord? 255 
 
 " Here, let her alone, there ! Don't you touch 
 her. Nellie ! Nellie ! " he murmured, with his lips 
 close to her ear ; but she did not move, nor open 
 her eyes, and he turned to me with a groan. 
 
 " It takes the strength all out of me to see her 
 like that. I thought I could carry her alone ; but — 
 you help me, doctor. I don't want that fellow to 
 touch her, and two of us can make it easier for her, 
 can't we ? There, now, so ? No, under this way. 
 Is that right, doctor ? I'm so — Won't that hurt 
 her ? Is there any danger of holding her so as to 
 miss a chance of getting her heart to beat again ? 
 On the floor? Oh, doctor, why not on your 
 lounge ? No pillow ? Nellie, Nellie ! Oh, do some- 
 thing, doctor, do something for God's sake, do 
 something to save her ! " He chafed her hands, and 
 watched her lips with an eagerness born of despair. 
 
 " Do you think she will ever speak again, doctor ? 
 Is it — it is not — death? My God! she will 
 speak again, once ? Once ? " 
 
 " Wait, Preston," I said, " I am trying to learn 
 if it is — if she will breathe again. Sit there. 
 Tell me how it happened, while I work. Here, 
 hold this — now help. No, not that way — so. 
 Yes, that is right. Let her lie so. Now hold this, 
 and tell me how it happened." 
 
 He groaned aloud, " It was all my fault. I took 
 her to drive. You know that colt of mine ? Well, 
 I took it — like a damned fool. I had no business 
 
256 Js this your Son, my Lord? 
 
 to risk her life. This way? Oh, did her eyelid 
 move ? Look ! Oh, doctor, won't that hurt her ? 
 Nellie ! Nellie ! Great God ! Is she dead ? My 
 darling, my darling, speak to me — just once ! 
 just once ! Oh, God, have mercy ! Just once ! " 
 
 The tears were rolling down his cheeks and fall- 
 ing unheeded. He would not dry them lest a sign 
 that she might move or speak would be lost by the 
 movement. His eyes were strained and set upon 
 her face which was but little whiter than his own, 
 He had looked so long at her eyes that the waver- 
 ing of his own deceived him. 
 
 " Oh, doctor, she is alive ! Her eyelids moved. 
 I am snre ! Oh, I am sure ! Nellie, Nellie, can you 
 hear me ? I love you, I love you, I love j'ou, darling ! 
 Do you liear me, darling? Don't die and not know. 
 Oh, my God, it is no use ! There — did you see that ? 
 She did move that time. — Her lips, — listen ! " 
 
 He put his ear to the voiceless lips and strained 
 to hear the tones that were silent forever. Presently 
 he looked up at me and then slowly gathered her in 
 his arms and staggered to a chair. 
 
 " Lock the door, doctor," he said hoarsely, " and 
 go away. She is mine, now, and I want to be all 
 alone with her just a little while. Nellie, Nellie, 
 darling, I love you, oh, I loved you too truly to de- 
 ceive you ! I could not ask you to marry me as it 
 was. Do you understand now ? Do you ? Do 
 you? OGodl" 
 
Ts t/iis your Son, rny I^ord? .257 
 
 He strained the lifeless form to his breast, and 
 kissed the parted lips as one starving and ncsv in 
 l-eaeh of food. 
 
 " I shall be back, Preston," I said, " in just fifteen 
 minutes. Try to be calmer, my boy," and I laid 
 ray hand on his head. He looked \ip, with the 
 tears still streaming from his ej'es, and slowly 
 shook his head. Five minutes later I looked into 
 the room through a glass j)artition. He had turned 
 with his face to the clock, and was holding the 
 dead girl in his arms, as when I left hira. Presently 
 I heard a movement within, and I stepped to the 
 door again. He was laying her on the lounge. 
 He placed her gently there, and kissed her lips and 
 hands. Then he knelt beside her, and laid his 
 head upon her feet, and as the hands of the clock 
 pointed to the time I said I should return, a shot 
 rang out through the silent house. I burst through 
 the door, and knelt beside him. 
 
 " Forgive me, doctox'," he whispered. " It was the 
 only way. You — you — will understand. I — told 
 
 — her — and — she turned — from me. She tried 
 -^ to jump — from — the — buggy, and the — colt — 
 saw her — and — ran . I — ought — to — have known 
 
 — better. It — was — all — my fault." 
 
 Two hours later P7-eston Mansfield was dead. 
 Dead by his own hand. Or staj', — was it by the 
 hand of his father ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE ARENA FOR 1891. 
 
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