nuiniiBjiiiuiiiiJj Jij i i>i>j. ' i i iii' i" ' ^ imm ^ j ^ mim GENTLE JULIA BOOTH TARKINGTON iwrwiiiMT¥gimmrm ' irrTrrsM CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM The 7-Day "jhelf DATE DUE -H4JI * 198'l"ll' ■ "^ ,1 rii 1 \ - '\ __iim no »»-»'i?I.™" University Library PS 2972.G33 1922a .Gentle Julia / 3 1924 022 184 703 Cornell University Library 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/cu31924022184703 GENTLE JULIA BOOKS BY BOOTH TARKINGTON AUCE ADAMS BEASIiET'S CHBISTMAB FABTT BEAUTT AND THE JACOBIN CHERKT CONQUEST OF CANAAN GENTIiB JTTIJA HABLEQUIN AND COLUMBINE HIS OWN FEOFIiB IN THE ABENA MONSIET7B BEAUCAIBB FENBOD FENBOD AND SAM SAMSET MIUHOLIiAND SEVENTEEN THE BEAT7TIFUL IiADT THE FLIRT THE GENTLEMAN FHOM INDIANA THE GIBSON trPHIQHT THE GUEST OP QUESNAT THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS THE MAN FBOM HOME THE TUBMOIL THE TWO VANBEVEIS GENTLE JULIA BY BOOTH TARKINGTON AUTHOR OF PENROD, PENROD AND SAM, THE TURMOIL, Etc. GROSSET & DUN LAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Made io the United Statei of Amelia hUzp y COPYRIGHT, I92S BT nonBLEDAT, PAGE ft COHPANT COPYRIGHT, IQtS BY P. F. COLLIER AND SON COMPANY COPYRIGHT, I919 BT THE PICTORIAL RBYIBn^ COHPAHY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES TO M. L. K. GENTLE JULIA "Rising to the point of order, this one said that since the morgue was not yet established as the central monument and inspiration of our settlement, and true philosophy was as well expounded in the convivial manner as in the miserable, he claimed for himself, not the license, but the right, to sing a ballad, if he chose, upon even so solemn a matter as the misuse of the town pump by witches." GENTLE JULIA CHAPTER ONE SUPERCILIOUSNESS is not safe after aU, be- cause a person who forms the habit of wearing it may some day find his lower lip grown permanently projected beyond the upper, so that he can't get it back, and must go through life looking like the TCing of Spain. This was once foretold as a probable culmination of Florence Atwater's still plastic profile, if Florence didn't change her way of thinking; and upon Florence's remarking dreamily that the "King of Spain was an awf'ly han'- some man, her mother retorted: "But not for a girl!" She meant, of course, that a girl who looked too much like the EIng of Spain would not be handsome, but her daughter decided to misunderstand her. "Why, mamma, he's my Very Ideal! I'd marry hi'wi to-morrow!" Mrs. Atwater paused in her darning, and let the 2 GENTLE JULIA stocking collapse flaccidly into the work-basket in her lap. "Not at barely thirteen, would you?" she said. "It seems to me you're just a shade too yoimg to be marrying a man who's already got a wife and several children. Where did you pick up that *I'd-marry-him-to-morrow,' Florence? " "Oh, I hear that everywhere!" returned the damsel, lightly. "Everybody says things like that. I heard Aunt JuUa say it. I heard Kitty Silver say it." "About the King of Spain?" Mrs. Atwater in- quired. "I don't know who they were saying it about," said Florence, "but they were saying it. I don't mean they were saying it together; I heard one say it one time and the other say it some other time. I think Kitty Silver was saying it about some coloured man. She proba'ly wouldn't want to marry any white man; at least I don't expect she would. She's been married to a couple of coloured men, anyhow; and she was married twice to one of 'em, and the other one died in between. Anyhow, that's what she told me. She weighed over two hunderd poimds the first time she was married, and she weighed over two hunderd-and-seventy the last time she was mar- GENTLE JULIA 8 ried to the first one over again, but she says she don't know how much she weighed when she was married to the one in between. She says she never got weighed all the time she was married to that one. Did Kitty Silver ever tell you that, mamma?" "Yes, often!" Mrs. Atwater replied. "I don't think it's very entertaining; and it's not what we were talking about. I was trying to tell you " "I know," Florence interrupted. "You said I'd get my face so's my underlip wouldn't go back where it ought to, if I didn't quit turning up my nose at people I think are beneath contemp'. I guess the best thing would be to just feel that way without letting on by my face, and then there wouldn't be any danger." "No," said Mrs. Atwater. "That's not what 1 meant. You mustn't let your feelings get their nose turned up, or their underlip out, either, because feelings can grow warped just as well as " But her remarks had already caused her daughter to follow a trail of thought divergent from the main road along which the mother feebly struggled to pro- gress. "Mamma," said Florence, "do you b'lieve it's true if a person swallows an apple-seed or a lemon-seed or a watermelon-seed, f'r instance, do 4 GENTLE JULIA you think they'd have a tree grow up inside of 'em? Henry Rooter said it would, yesterday." Mrs. Atwater looked a little anxious. "Did you swallow some sort of seed.''" she asked. "It was only some grape-seeds, mamma; and you needn't think I got to take anything for it, be- cause I've swallowed a million, I guess, in my time!" "In your time?" her mother repeated, seemingly mystified. "Yes, and so have you and papa," Florence went on. "I've seen you when you ate grapes. Henry said maybe not, about grapes, because I told him all what I've just been telling you, mamma, how I must have swallowed a million, in my time, and he said grape-seeds weren't big enough to get a good holt, but he said if I was to swallow an apple-seed a tree would start up, and in a year or two, maybe, it would grow up so't I couldn't get my mouth shut on account the branches." "Nonsense!" "Henry said another boy told him, but he said you could ask anybody and they'd tell you it was true. Henry said this boy that told him's uncle died of it when he was eleven years old, and this boy knew a grown woman that was pretty sick from it right now. GENTLE JULIA 5 I expect Henry wasn't telling such a falsehood about it, mamma, but proba'ly this boy did, because I didn't believe it for a minute ! Henry Rooter says he never told a lie yet, in his whole life, mamma, and he wasn't going to begin now." She paused for a moment, then added: "I don't believe a word he says!" She continued to meditate disapprovingly upon Henry Rooter. "Old thing!" she murmured gloom- ily, for she had indeed known moments of apprehen sion concerning the grape-seeds. "Nothing but aix old thing — ^what he is!" she repeated inaudibly. "Florence," said Mrs. Atwater, "don't you want to slip over to grandpa's and ask Axmt Julia if she has a very large darning needle.'* And don't forget not to look supercilious when you meet people on the way. Even your grandfather has been noticing it, and he was the one that spoke of it to me. Don't forget!" "Yes'm." Florence went out of the house somewhat mood- ily, but afternoon sunshine enlivened her; and, open- ing the picket gate, she stepped forth with a fair re- newal of her chosen manner toward the public, though just at that moment no public was in sight. Miss Atwater's imderlip resumed the position for 6 GENTLE JULIA which her mother had predicted that rega,! Spanish fixity, and her eyebrows and nose were all three per- ceptibly elevated. At the same time, her eyelids were half lowered, while the corners of her mouth somewhat deepened, as by a veiled mirth, so that this well-dressed child strolled down the shady sidewalk wearing an expression not merely of high- bred contempt but also of mysterious derision;' It was an expression that should have put any pedes- trian in his place, and it seems a pity that the long street before her appeared to be empty of human life. No one even so much as glanced from a window of any of the comfortable houses, set back at the end of their "front walks" and basking amid pleasant lawns; for, natiu-ally, this was the "best residence street" in the town, since all the Atwaters and other relatives of Florence dwelt there. Happily, an old gentleman turned a comer before she had gone a hundred yards, and, as he turned in her direction, it became certain that they would meet. He was a stranger — ^that is to say, he was unknown to Florence — ^and he was well dressed; while Ids appearance of age (proba'ly at least forty or sixty or something) indicated that he might have sense enough to be interested in other interesting persons. GENTLE JULIA 7 An extraordinary change took place upon the surface of Florence Atwater: all superciliousness and derision of the world vanished; her eyes opened wide, and into them came a look at once far-away and intently fixed. Also, a frown of concentration ap- peared upon her brow, and her lips moved silently, but with rapidity, as if she repeated to herself something of almost tragic import. Florence had recently read a newspaper account of the earlier strug- gles of a now successful actress : As a girl, this deter- mined genius went about the streets repeating the lines of various roles to herself — constantly rehears- ing, in fact, upon the public thoroughfares, so carried away was she by her intended profession and so set upon becoming famous. This was what Florence was doing now, except that she rehearsed no role in particular, and the words formed by her lips were neither sequential nor consequential, being, in fact, the following: "Oh, the darkness . . . never, never, never! • . . you couldn't ... he wouldn't . . . Ah, mother! . . . Where the river swings so slowly . . . Ahj not'* Never- theless, she was doing all she coidd for the elderly stranger, and as they came closer, encountered, and passed on, she had the definite impression that he 8 GENTLE JULIA did indeed tak6 her to be a struggling young actress who would some day be famous— and then he might see her on a night of triumph and recognize her as the girl he had passed on the street, that day, so long ago! But by this time, the episode was concluded; the footsteps of him for whom she was performing had become inaudible behind her, and she began to forget him; which was as well, since he went out of her life then, and the two never met again. The struggling young actress disappeared, and the pre- vious superiority was resumed. It became elabo- rately emphasized as a boy of her own age emerged from the "side yard" of a house at the next corner and came into her view. The boy caught sight of Florence in plenty of time to observe this emphasis, which was all too obvi- ously produced by her sensations at sight of himself; and, after staring at her for a moment, he allowed his own expression to become one of painful fatigue. Then he slowly swung abdut^ as if to return into that side-yard obscurity whence he had come; making clear by this pantomime that he reciprocally found the sight of her iristifferable. In truth, he did; for he was not only her neighbour but her first- eousin as well, and a short month older, though taller GENTLE JULIA 9 than she — tall beyond his years, taller than need be, in fact, and still in knickerbockers. However, his parents may not have been naistaken ui the matter, for it was plain that he looked as well in knicker- bockers as he could have looked in anything. He had no visible beauty, though it was possible to hope for him that by the time he reached manhood he would be more tightly put together than he seemed at present; and indeed he himself appeared to have some consciousness of insecurity in the fastenings of his members, for it was his habit (observable even now as he turned to avoid Miss Atwater) to haul at himself, to sag and hitch about inside his clothes, and to corkscrew his neck against the swath- ing of his collar. And yet there were times, as the most affectionate of his aunts had remarked, when, for a moment or so, he appeared to be almost know- ing; and, seeing him walking before her, she had almost taken him for a yoimg man; and sometimes he said somethiag in a settled kind of way that was al- most adult. This fondest aunt went on to add, how- ever, that of course, the next minute after one of these fleeting spells, he was sure to be overtaken by his more accustomed moods, when his eye would again fix itself with fundamental aimlessness upon 10 GENTLE JULIA nothing. In brief, he was at the age when he spent most of his time changing his mind about things, or, rather, when his mind spent most of its time changing him about things; and this was what happened now. After turning his back on the hateful sight well known to him as his cousin Florence at her freshest, he turned again, came forth from his place of resi- dence, and joining her upon the pavement, walked beside her, accompanying her without greeting or inquiry. His expression of fatigue, indicating her insufferableness, had not abated; neither had her air of being a duchess looking at bugs, "You are a pretty one!" he said; but his intention was perceived to be far indeed from his wra-ds. "Oh, am I, Mister Herbert Atwater?" Florence responded. "I'm awfly glad ycm think so!" "I mean about what Henry Rooter said," her cousin explained. "Henry Rooter told me he made you believe you were goia' to have a grapevine dimbin' up from inside of you because you ate some grapes with the seeds in 'em. He says you thought you'd haf to get a carpenter to biuld a little arbour so you could swallow it for the grapevine to grow on. He says " GENTLE JULIA 11 Florence had become an angry pink. "That little Henry Rooter is the worst falsehooder in this town; and I never believed a word he said in his life! Any- way, what affairs is it of yours, I'd like you to please be so kind and obliging for to tell me, Mister Her- bert lUingsworth Atwater, Exquire!" "What affairs?" Herbert echoed in plaintive satire. "What affairs is it of mine? That's just the trouble! It's got to be my affairs because you're my first-cousin. My goodness I didn't have anything to do with you being my cousin, did I?" "Well, I didn't!" "That's neither here nor there," said Herbert. "What I want to know is, how long you goin' to keep this up?" "Keep what up?" "I mean, how do you think I like havin' somebody like Henry Rooter comin' round me tellin' what they made a cousin of mine believe, and more than thir- teen years old, goin' on fourteen ever since about a month ago!" Florence shouted: "Oh, for goodness' sokes!" then moderated the volume but not the intensity of her tone. "KLudly reply to this. Whoever asked you to come and take a walk with me to-day?" 12 GENTLE JULIA Herbert protested to heaven. "Why, I wouldn't take a walk with you if every policeman in this town tried to make me! I wouldn't take a walk with you if they brought a million horses and " "I wouldn't take a walk with you" Florence in- terrupted, "if they brought a million million horses and cows and camels and — — " "No, you wouldn't," Herbert said. "Not if / could help it!" But by this time Florence had regained her deri- sive superciliousness. "There's a few things you could help," she said; and the incautious Herbert challenged her with the inquiry she desired. "What could I help?" "I should think you could help bumpin' into me every second when I'm takin' a walk on my own affairs, and walk along on your own side of the side- walk, anyway, and not be so awkward a person has to keep trippin' over you about every time I try to take a step!" Herbert withdrew temporarily to his own side of the pavement. "Who?" he demanded hotly. "Who says I'm awkward?" "All the fam'ly," Miss Atwater returned, with a light but infuriating laugh, "You bump into 'em GENTLE JUUA IS sideways and keep gettin' half in front of 'em when- ever they try to take a step, and then when it looks as if they'd pretty near fall over you " "You look here!" "And besides all that," Florence went on, undis- turbed, "why, you generally keepi kind of snorting, or somep'n, and then making all those noises in your neck. You were doin' it at grandpa's last Sunday dinner because every time there wasn't anybody talking, why, everybody could hear you plain as everything, and you ought to've seen grand- pa look at you! He looked as if you'd set him crazy if you didn't quit that chuttering and duckling!" Herbert's expression partook of a furious astonish- ment. "I don't any such thing!" he burst out. "I guess I wouldn't talk much about last Sunday dinner, if I was you neither. Who got caught eatin' off the ice cream freezer spoon out on the back porch, if you please? Yes, and I giiess you better study a little grammar, while you're about it. There's no such words ia the English language as 'duckling' and 'chuttering,'" "I don't care what language they're in," the stub- bom Florence insisted. "It's what you do, just the same: duckling and chuttering!" 14 GENTLE JULIA Herbert's manners went to pieces. "Oh, dry up ! " he bellowed, " That's a nice way to talk! So gentlemanly- " "Well, you try be a lady, then!" "'Try!'" Florence echoed. "WeU, after that, I'll just poUtely thank you to dry up, yourself. Mister Herbert Atwater!" At this Herbert became moody. "Oh, pfuff!" he said; and for some moments walked in silence. Then he asked: "Where you goin', Florence?" The damsel paused at a gate opening upon a broad lawn evenly divided by a brick walk that led to the white-painted wooden veranda of an ample and honest old brick house. "Righ' there to grand- pa's, since you haf to know!" she said. "And thank you for your dehghtful comp'ny which I never asked for, if you care to hear the truth for once in your life!" Herbert meditated. "Well, I got nothin' else to do, as I know of," he said. "Let's go around to the back door so's to see if Kitty Silver's got any- thing." Then, not amiably, but at least inconsequently, they passed inside the gate together. Their brows W^ere fairly unclouded; no special marks of conflict GENTLE JI31IA" 15 remained; for they had met and conversed in a man- ner customary rather than unusual. They followed a branch of the brick walk and passed round the south side of the house, where a small orchard of apple-trees showed generouspromise. Hundreds of gay little round apples among the leaves glanced the high lights to and fro on their poUshed green cheeks as a breeze hopped through the yard, while the shade beneath trembled with coquettishly moving disks of sunshine like golden plates. A pattern of orange light and blue shadow was laid like a fanciful plaid over the lattice and the wide, slightly sagging steps of the elderly "back porch"; and here, taking her ease upon these steps, sat a middle- ■Iged coloured woman of continental proportions. Beyond all contest, she was the largest coloured wo- man in that town, though her height was not unusual, and she had a rather small face. That is to say, as Florence had once explained to her, her face was small but the other parts of her head were terribly wide. Beside her was a circular brown basket, of a type suggesting arts-and-crafts; it was made with a cover, and there was a bow of brown silk upon the handle. "What you been up to to-day, Kitty Silver?** 16 GENTLE JULIA Herbert asked genially. "Anything special?" Forthia was the sequel to his "so's we can see if Kitty Silver a got anything." But Mrs. Silver discouraged him. "No, I ain't," she relied. "I ain't, an' I ain't goin' to." "I thought you pretty near always made cookies on Tuesday," he said, "WeD, I ain't this Tuesday," said Kitty Silver. "I ain't, and I ain't goin' to. You might dess well g'on home ri' now. I ain't, an' I ain't goin' to." Docility was no element of Mrs. Silver's present mood, and Herbert's hopeful eyes became blank, as his gaze wandered from her head to the brown basket beside her. The basket did not interest him; the ribbon gave it a quality almost at once excluding it from his consciousness. On the contrary, the ribbon had drawn Florence's attention, and she stared at the basket eagerly. "What you got there, Kitty Silver?" she asked. "What I got where?" "In that basket." "Nemmine what I got 'n 'at basket," said Mrs. Silver crossly, but added inconsistently: "I dess vdsh ^somebody ast me what I got 'n 'at basket! / ain't no cat-washwoman fer nobody!" GENTLE JULIA 17 *' Cats ! " Florence cried. " Are there cats in that basket, Kitty Silver? Let's look at 'em!" The lid of the basket, lifted by the eager, slim hand of Miss Atwater, rose to disclose two cats of an age slightly beyond kittenhood. They were of a breed unfamiliar to Florence, and she did not obey the impjidse that usually makes a girl seize upon any yoimg cat at sight and caress it. Instead, she looked at them with some perplexity, and after a moment inquired: "Are they really cats, Kitty Silver, do you b'Ueve?" "Cats what she done tole me," the coloiu-ed woman replied. "You betta shet hd down, you don' wan' 'em run away, 'cause they ain't yoosta livin* 'n 'at basket yit; an' no matter whut kine o' cats they is or liiey isn't, one thing true: they vnle cats!" "But what makes their hair so long?" Florence asked. "I never saw cats with hair a couple inches long like that." "Miss Julia say they Berjum cats." "What?" "I ain't tellin' no mo'n she tole me. You' aunt say they Berjum cats." "Persian," said Herbert. "That's nothing. I've seen plenty Persian cats. My goodness, I should 18 GENTLE JULIA think you'd seen a Persian cat at yoiH" age. Thiiv teen goin' on fourteen!" "Well, I have seen Persian cats plenty times, I guess," Florence said. "I thought Persian cats were white, and these are kind of gray." At this Kitty Silver permitted herself to utter an embittered laugh. "You wrong!" she said. "These cats, they white; yes'm!" "Why, they aren't either! They're gray as " «i 'No'm," said Mrs. Silver. "They plum spang white, else you' Aunt JuUa gone out her mind; me or her, one. I say: 'Miss Julia, them gray cats.' 'White,' she say. 'Them two cats is white cats,' she say. 'Them cats been crated,' she say. 'They been Uvin' in a crate on a dirty express train f er th'ee fo' days,' she say. 'Them cats gone got aU smoke* up thataway,' she say. 'No'm, Miss Julia,' I say, 'No'm, Miss Julia, they ain't no train,' I say, 'they ain't no train kin take an' smoke two white cats up like these cats so's they hair is gray clean plum up to they hide.' You betta put the lid down, I tell you!" Florence complied, just in time to prevent one of the young cats from leaping out of the basket, but she did not fasten the cover. Instead, she GENTLE JUIIA 19 knelt, an(J, allowing a space of half an inch to inter- vene between the basket and the rim of the cover, peered within at the occupants. "I believe the one to this side's a he," she said. "It's got greenisher eyes than the other one; that's the way you can al- ways tell. I b'Ueve this one's a he and the other one's a she." "I ain't stedyin' about no he an' she!" "What did Aunt Juha say?" Florence asked. "Whut you' Aunt JuUa say when?" "When you told her these were gray cats and not white cats?" "She tole me take an' clean 'em," said Kitty Sil- ver. "She say, she say she want 'em clean' up spick an' spang befo' Mista Sammerses git here to call an' see 'em." And she added morosely: "I ain't no cat-washwoman!" "She wants you to bathe 'em?" Florence inquired, but Kitty Silver did not reply immediately. She breathed audibly, with a strange effect upon vasty outward portions of her, and then gave an incom- parably didcet imitation of her own voice, as she interpreted her use of it during the receut inter- view. "*Miss Julia, ma'am,' I say — ^"Miss Julia, ma'am. 20 GENTLE JULIA my bizniss cookin* vittles/ I say. 'Miss Julia, ma'am,' I tole her, 'Miss Julia, ma'am, I cook fer you' pa, an' cook fer you' f am'ly year in, year out, an I hope an' pursue, whiles some might make com- plaint, I take whatever I find, an' I leave whatever I find. No'm, Miss Julia, ma'am,' I say — 'no'm, Miss Julia, ma'am, I ain't no cat-washwoman!'" "What did Aunt Julia say then?" "She say, she say: 'Di'n I tell you take them cats downstairs an' clean 'em?' she say. I ain't no- body's cat-washwoman!" Florence was becoming more and more interested. "I should think that would be kind of fim," she said. "To be a cat-washwoman. I wouldn't mind tha£t at all: I'd kind of like it. I e^ect if you was a cat- washwoman, Kitty Silver, you'd be pretty near the only one was in the world. I wonder if they do have 'em any place, cat-washwomen." "I don' know if they got 'em some place," said Kitty Silver, "an' I don't know if they ain't got 'em no place; but I bet if they do got 'em any place, it's some place else from here!" Florence looked thoughtful. "Who was it you said is going to call this evening and see 'em?" " Mista Sammerses." GENTLE JULIA. 21 "She means Newland Sanders," Herbert ex- plained. "Aunt Julia says all her callers that ever came to this house in their lives, Elitty Silver never got the name right of a single one of 'em!" "Newland Sanders is the one with the Httle mous- tache/' Florence said. "Is that the one you mean by 'Sammerses,' Kitty Silver?" "Mista Sammerses who you' Aunt Julia tola me** Mrs. Silver responded stubbornly. "He ain't got no moustache whut you kin look at — dess some black- ish whut don' reach out mo'n halfway todes the bofe ends of his mouf." "Well," said Florence, "was Mr. Sanders the one gave her these Persian cats, Kitty Silver?" "I reckon." Mrs. Silver breathed audibly again, and her expression was strongly resentful. "When she go fer a walk 'long with any them callus she stop an' make a big fuss over any h'l ole dog or cat an' I don't know whut aU, an' after they done buy her all the candy from all the candy sto's in the livin' worl', an' all the flowers from aU the greenhouses they is, it's a wonder some of 'em ain't sen' her a mule fer a present, 'cause seem like to me they done sen* her mos' every kine of animal they is! Firs' come Airydale dog you' grampaw tuck an' give away to 82 GENTLE JULIA the milkman; 'n'en come two mo' pups; I don t know whut they is, 'cause they bofe had dess sense enough to nm away after you' grampaw try learn 'em how much he ain't like no pups; an' nex* come them two canaries hangin' in the dinin'-room now, an' nex* — di'n' I holler so's they could a-hear me all way down town? Di'n' I walk in my kitchen one mawnin' right slam in the face of ole warty allagatuh three foot long a-lookin' at me over the aidge o' my kitchen sink?" "It was Mr. Clairdyce gave her that," said Flor- ence. "He'd been to Florida; but she didn't care for it very much, and she didn't make any fuss at all when grandpa got the florist to take it. Grandpa hates animals." "He don' hate 'em no wuss'n whut I do," said Kitty Silver. "An' he ain't got to ketch 'em lookin" at him outen of his kitchen sink— an' he ain't fixin' to be no cat-washwoman neither!" "Are you fixing to?" Florence asked quickly. "You don't need to do it, Kitty Silver. I'd be will- ing to, and so'd Herbert. Wouldn't you, Herbert?" Herbert deUberated within himself, then bright- ened. "I'd just as soon," he said. "I'd kind of like to see how a cat acts when it's getting bathed." GENTLE JULIA 23 "I think it would be spesh'ly inter'sting to wash Persian cats," Florence added, with increasing en- thusiasm. "I never washed a cat in my hfe." "Neither have I," said Herbert. "I always thought th^y did it themselves." Kitty Silver snMed. "Ain't I says so to you* Aimt Julia.!' She done tole me, 'No,' she say. She say, she say Berjum cats ain't wash theyself; they got to take an' git somebody else to wash 'em!" "If we're goin' to bathe 'em," said Florence, "we ought to know their names, so's we can tell 'em to hold still and everything. You can't do much with an animal unless you know their name. Did Aunt Juha teU you these cats' names, Kitty Silver? " "She say they name Feef an' Meemuh. Yes'm! Feef an' Meemuh! "Whut kine o' name is Feef an' Meemuh fer cat name!" "Oh, those are lovely names ! " Florence assured her, and, turning to Herbert, explained: "She means Fifi and Mimi." "teei an' Meemuh," said Kitty Silver. "Them name don' suit me, an' them long-hair cats don' suit me neither." Here she lifted the cover of the basket a little, and gazed nervously within. "Look at there!" she said. "Lookattheway theylookin'atme! 34 GENTLE JUIIA Don't you look at me thataway, you Feef an' Mee» muh!" She clapped the lid down and fastened it. "Kxin' to jump out an' grab me, was you?" "I guess, maybcj" said Florence, "maybe I bettei go ask Aunt Julia if I and Herbert can't wash 'em. I guess I better go ask her anyhow." And she ran up the steps and skipped into the house by way of the kitchen. A moment later she ap- peared in the open doorway of a room upstairs. CHAPTER TWO IT WAS a pretty room, lightly scented with the pink geraniums and blue lobelia and coral fuchsias that poised, urgent with colour, in the window-boxes at the open windows. Sunshine paused delicately just inside, where forms of pale- blue birds and lavender flowers curled up and down the cretonne curtains; and a tempered, re- spectful light fell upon a cushioned chaise longue; for there fluflSly reclined, in garments of tender fabric and gentle colours, the prettiest twenty-year-old girl in that creditably supplied town. It must be said that no stranger would have taken ^orence at first glance to be her niece, though every- body admitted that Florence's hair was pretty. ("I'll say that for her," was the family way of putting it.) Florence did not care for her hair herself; it was dark and thick and long, like her Aunt Julia's; but Florence — even in the realistic presence of a mirror — preferred to think of herself as an ashen blonde, and also as about a foot taller than she was. 25 26 GENTLE JI3XIA Persistence kept this picture habitually in her mind, which, of course, helps to explain her feeling that she was justified in wearing that manner of su- perciliousness deplored by her mother. More middle- aged gentlemen than are suspected believe that they look like the waspen youths in the magazine ad- vertisements of clothes; and this impression of theirs accoimts (as with Florence) for much that is seem- ingly inexplicable in their behaviour. Florence's Aunt JuUa was reading an exquisitely made little book, which bore her initials stamped in gold upon the cover; and it had evidently reached her by a recent delivery of the mail, for wrappings Ijearing cancelled stamps lay upon the floor beside the chaise longue. It was a special sort of bool^ ance its interior was not printed, but all laboriously written with pen and ink — ^poems, in truth, contain- ing more references to a lady named Julia than have appeared in any other poems since Herrick's. So warmly interested m the reading as to be rather pink, though not always with entire approval, this JuKa nevertheless, at the sound of footsteps, closed the book and placed it beneath one of the cushions assisting the chaise longue to make her position a comfortable one. Her greeting was not enthusiastic GENTLE JULIA 27 "What do you want, Florence?" "I was going to ask you if Herbert and me— I mean: Was it Noble Dill gave you Fifi and Mimi» Aimt Julia?" "Noble Dill? No." "I wish it was," Florence said. "I'd like these cats better if they were from Noble Dill." "Why?" Julia inquired. "Why are you so par- tial to Mr. Noble Dill?" "I think he's so much the most inter'sting look- ing of all that come to see you. Are you sure it wasn't Noble Dill gave you these cats. Aunt Julia?'* A look of weariness became plainly visible upon Miss Julia Atwater's charming face. "I do wish you'd hurry and grow up, Florence," she said. " I do, too ! What for. Aunt Julia? " "So there'd be somebody else in the family of an eUgible age. I really think it's an outrageous po- sition to be in," Julia continued, with languid ve- hemence — ="to be the only girl between thirteen and forty-one in a large connection of near relatives, in- cluding children, who all seem to think they haven't anything to think of but Who comes to see her, and Who came to see her yesterday, and Who was here the day before, and Who's coming to-morrow, and 38 GENTLE JULIA Who's she going to marry! You really ought to grow up and help me out, because I'm getting tired of it. No. It wasn't Noble Dill but Mr. Newland Sanders that sent me Fifi and Mimi — and I want you to keep away from 'em." "Why?" asked Florence. "Because they're very rare cats, and you aren't or- dinarily a very careful sort of person, Florence, if you don't mind my saying so. Besides, if I let you go near them, the next thing Herbert would be over here mussing around, and he can't go near anylhing with- out ruining it ! It's just in him ; he can't help it." Florence looked thoughtful for a brief moment; then she asked: "Did Newland Sanders send 'em with the names already to them?" "No," said Julia, emphasizing the patience of her tone somewhat. "I named them after they got here. Mr. Sanders hasn't seen them yet. He had them shipped to me. He's coming this eve- ning. Anything more to-day, Florence?" "Well, I was thinking," said Florence. "What do you think grandpa'U think about these cats?" "I don't believe there'll be any more outrages," Juha returned, and her dark eyes showed a mo- ment's animation. "I told him at breakfast that GENTLE JULIA 29 &e Reign of Terror was ended, and he and every- body else had to keep away from Fifi and Mimi. Is that about all, Florence?" "You let Kitty Silver go near 'em, though. She says she's fixing to wash 'em." Juha smiled faintly. "I thought she would! I had to go so far as to tell her that as long as I'm housekeeper in my father's house she'd do what I say or find some other place. She behaved out- rageously and pretended to believe the natiural colour of Fifi and Mimi is gray ! " "I expect," said Florence, after pondering seri- ously for a little while — "I expect it would take quite 3ome time to dry them." " No doubt. But I'd rather you didn't assist. I'd rather you weren't even around looking on,Florence." A shade fell upon her niece's face at this. "Why, Aunt Julia, I couldn't do any harm to Fifi and Mimi just hoMn' at 'em, could I?" Julia laughed. "That's the trouble; you never do 'just look' at anythiag you're interested in, and, if you don't mind my saying so, you've got rather a record, dear ! Now, don't you care : you can find lots of other pleasant things to do at home — or over at Herbert's, or Aunt Fanny's. You run along now and " so GENTLE JULIA "Well " Florence said, moving as if to de- part. "You might as well go out by the front door, child," Julia suggested, with a little watchful urgency. "You come over some day when Fifi and Mimi have got used to the place, and you can look at them all you want to." "Well, I just " But as Florence seemed disposed still to linger, her aunt's manner became more severe, and she half rose from her reclining position. "No, I really mean it! Fifi and Mimi are royal- bred Persian cats with a wonderful pedigree, and I ■don't know how much trouble and expense it cost Mr. Sanders to get them for me. They're entirely ■different from ordinary cats; they're very fine and his reason!" "Which one?" "Noble Dill." At this, the slender form of Florence underwent a spasmodic seizure in her chair, but as the fit was short and also noiseless, it passed without being noticed. "Yes," said Mr. Atwater thoughtfully. "I sup- pose he will." "He certainly will!" Mrs. Atwater declared. "Noble's mother told me last week that he'd got so he was just as liable to drop a fountain-pen in his cofiFee as a lump of sugar; and when any one speaks to him he either doesn't know it, or else jumps. When he says anything, himself, she says they can scarcely ever make out what he's talking about. He was trying enough before JuUa went away; but since she's been gone Mrs. Dill says he's like nothing GENTLE JULIA 289 in her experience. She says he doesn't inherit it; Mr. Dill wasn't anything like this about her." Mr. Atwater smiled faintly. "Mrs. Dill wasn't anything like Julia." "No," said his wife. "She was quite a sensible girl. I'd hate to be in her place now, though, when she tells Noble about this" "How can Mrs. Dill tell him, since she doesn't know it herself? " "Well — perhaps she ought to know it, so that she could tell him. Somebody ought to tell him, and it ought to be done with the greatest tact. It ought to be broken to him with the most delicate care and sympathy, or the consequences " "Nobody could foretell the consequences," her husband interrupted: — "no matter how tactfully it's broken to Noble." "No," she said, "I suppose that's true. I think the poor thing's likely to lose his reason unless it is done tactfully, though." "Do you think we really ought to tell Mrs. DUl, Mollie? I mean, seriously : Do you? " For some moments she considered his question, then replied, "No. It's possible we'd be following a Christian course in doing it; but still we're rather 290 GENTLE JULIA bound not to speak of it outside the family, and when it does get outside the family I think we'd better not be the ones responsible — especially since it might easily be traced to us. I think it's usually better to keep out of things when there's any doubt," "Yes," he said, meditating. "I never knew any harm to come of people's stiddng to their own affairs." But as he and his wife became silent for a time, musing in the firelight, their daughter's special con- victions were far from coinciding with theirs, al- though she, likewise, was silent — a singularity they should have observed. So far were they from a true comprehension of her, they were unaware that she had more than a casual, young-cousinly interest in Julia Atwater's engagement and in those possible consequences to Noble Dill just sketched with some intentional exaggeration. They did not even notice her expression when Mr. Atwater snapped on the light, in order to read; and she went quietly out of the library and up the stairs to her own room. On the floor, near her bed, where Patty Fairchild had left her coat and hat, Florence made another discovery. Two small, folded slips of paper lay GENTLE JULIA 291 there, dropped by Miss Fairchild when she put on her coat in the darkening room. They were the replies to Patty's whispered questions in the game on the steps — the pledged Truth, written by Henry Rooter and Herbert Atwater on their sacred words and honours. The infatuated pair had either over- estimated Patty's caution, or else each had thought she would so prize his little missive that she would treasure it in a tender safety, perhaps pinned upon her blouse (at the first opportunity) over her heart. It is positively safe to say that neither of the two VCTacities would ever have been set upon paper had , Herbert and Henry any foreshadowing that Patty might be careless; and the partners would have been seized with the utmost horror could they have con- ceived the possibiUty of their trustful messages ever falling into the hands of the relentless creature who now, without an instant's honourable hesitation, im- folded and read them. " Yes if I got to tell the truth I know I have got pretty eyes," Herbert had unfortunately written. "I am glad you think so too Patty because your eyes are ioo Herbert Illingsworth Atwater, Jr." And Mr. Henry Rooter had likewise ruined him- self in a coincidental manner: 29? GENTLE JULIA " Well Patty my eyes are pretty but suppose I would like to trade vdth yours because you have beautiful eyes also, sure as my name is Henry Rooter." Florence stood close to the pink-shaded electrie drop-light over her small white dressing-table, read- ing again and again these pathetically honest Httle confidences. Her eyeUds were withdrawn to an un- precedented retirement, so remarkably she stared; while her mouth seemed to prepare itself for the attempted reception of a bulk beyond its capacity. And these plastic tokens, so immoderate as to be ordinarily the consequence of nothing short of horror, were overlaid by others, subtler and more gleaming, which wrought the true significance of the contortion — a joy that was dumfounding. Her thoughts were first of Fortune's kindness in selecting her for a favour so miraculously dovetailing into the precise need of her life; then she considered Henry and Herbert, each at this hour probably brushing his hair in preparation for the Sunday evening meal, and both touchingly imconscious of the calamity now befalling them; but what even- tually engrossed her mind was a thought about WaUie Torbm. This Master Torbin, foiorteen years of age, was in GENTLE JULIA 29S all the town the boy most dreaded by his fellow-boys, and also by girls, including many of both sexes who knew him only by sight — and hearing. He had no physical endowment or attainment worth mention; but boys who could "whip him with one hand" became sycophants in his presence; the terror he inspired was moral. He had a special over-develop- ment of a faculty exercised dumsily enough by most human beings, especially in their youth; in other words, he had a genius — ^not, however, a genius haviog to do with anything generally recognized as art or science. True, if he had been a violinist prodigy or mathematical prodigy, he would have had some respect from his fellows — about equal to that he might have received if he were gifted with some pleasant deformity, such as six toes on a foot — but he would never have enjoyed such deadly prestige as had actually come to be his. In brief, then, Wallie Torbin had a genius for mockery. Almost from his babyhood he had been a child of one purpose: to increase by burlesques the sufferings of unfortunate friends. If one of them wept, Wallie incessantly pursued him, yelping in horrid mimicry; !f one were chastised he could not appear out-of- Joors for days except to encounter Wallie and a 294 GENTLE JULIA complete rehearsal of the recent agony. "Quit, Papa! Pah-pvih, quee-yet! I'll never do it again, Pah-puh! Oh, lemme alone, Vaih.-'puh!" As he grew older, his insatiate curiosity enabled him to expose unnumbered weaknesses, indiscretions, and social misfortunes on the part of acquaintances and schoolmates; and to every exposure his noise and energy gave a hideous publicity: the more his victim sought privacy the more persistently he was |followed by WalUe, vociferous and attended by ihilarious spectators. But above all other things, what most stimulated the demoniac boy to prodigies of satire was a tender episode or any symptom con- nected with the dawn of love. Florence herself had suffered at intervals throughout her eleventh sum- mer because Wallie discovered that Georgie Beck had sent her a valentine; and the humorist's many, many squealings of that valentine's affectionate quatrain finally left her unable to decide which she hated the more, Wallie or Georgie. That was the worst of Wallie: he never "let up"; and in Florence's circle there was no more sobering threat than, "I'll tell Wallie Torbin!" As for Henry Rooter and Her- bert niingsworth Atwater, Jr., they would as soon have had a Head-himter on their trail as Wallie GENTLE JUMA 295 Torbin in the possession of anything that could in- criminate them in an impKcation of love — or an acknowledgment (in their own handwriting!) of their own beauty. The fabric of civilized life is interwoven with blackmail: even some of the noblest people do favours for other people who are depended upon not to tell somebody something that the noblest people have done. Blackmail is born into us all, and our nurses teach us more blackmail by threatening to tell our parents if we won't do this and that— and our parents threaten to tell the doctor^and so we learn! Black- mail is part of the daily life of a child. Displeased, his first resort to get his way with other children is a threat to "tell," but by-and-by his experience discovers the mutual benefit of honour among blackmailers. Therefore, at eight it is no longer the ticket to threaten to tell the teacher; and, a little later, threat- ening to tell any adult at all is considered something of a breakdown in morals. Notoriously, the code is more liable to infraction by people of the physically weaker sex, for the very reason, of course, that their inferiority of muscle so frequently compels such a sin, if they are to have their way. But for Florence there was now no such temptation. Looking to the 296 GENTLE JULIA demolition of Atwater & Rooter, an exposure before adults of the results of "Truth" would have been an effect of the sickliest pallor compared to what might be accomplished by a careful use of the catastrophic WallieTorbin. On Sunday evening it was her privileged custom to go to the house of fat old Great-Uncle Joseph and remain until nine o'clock, in chatty companionship with Uncle Joseph and Aunt Carrie, his wife, and a few other relatives (including' Herbert) who were in the habit of dropping in there, on Sunday evenings. In summer, lemonade and cake were frequently provided; in the autumn, one still found cake, and perhaps a pitcher of clear new cider: apples were a certainty. This evening was glorious: there were apples and cider and cake, with walnuts, perfectly cracked, and a large open-hearted box of candy; for Uncle Joseph and Aunt Carrie had foreseen the coming of several more Atwaters than usual, to talk over the new affairs of their beautiful relative, Julia. Seldom have any relative's new affairs been more thoroughly talked over than were Julia's that evening; though all the time by means of symbols, since it was GENTLE JULIA 297 thought wiser that Herbert and Florence should not yet be told of Julia's engagement; and Florence's parents were not present to confess their indiscretion. Julia was referred to as "the traveller"; other make- shifts were employed with the most knowing caution, and all the while Florence merely ate inscrutably. The more sincere Herbert was placid; the foods ab- sorbing his attention. "Well, all I say is, the traveller better enjoy herself on her travels," said Aijnt Fanny, finally, as the subject appeared to be wearing toward exhaustion. "She certainly is in for it when the voyaging is over and she arrives in the port she sailed from, and has to show her papers. I agree with the rest of you: she'll have a great deal to answer for, and most of all about the shortest one. My own opinion is that the shortest one is going to burst like a balloon." ''The shortest one," as the demure Florence had understood from the first, was none other than her Very Ideal. Now she looked up from the stool where she sat with her back against a pilaster of the mantelpiece. "Uncle Joseph," she said; — "I was just thinking. What is a person's reason? " The fat gentleman, rosy with firelight and cider, finished his fifth glass before responding. "Well, 398 GENTLE JULIA there are persons I never could find any reason for at all. 'A person's reason'? What do you mean, 'a person's reason,' Florence?" "I mean: like when somebody says, 'They'll lose their reason,'" she explamed. "Has everybody got a reason, and if they have, what is it, and how do they lose it, and what would they do then? " "Oh! I see!" he said. "You needn't worry. I suppose since you heard it you've been hunting all over yourself for your reason and looking to see if there was one hanging out of anybody else, some- where. No; it's something you can't see, ordinarily, Florence. Losing your reason is just another way of saying, 'going crazy'!" "Oh!" she murmured, and appeared to be dis- turbed. At this, Herbert thought proper to offer a witticism for the pleasure of the company. " You know, Florence," he said, " it only means act- ing like you. most always do." He applauded himself with a burst of changing laughter ranging from a bull- frog croak to a collapsing soprano; then he added: "Espeshually when you come aroimd my and Hen- ry's Newspaper Building! You cert'nly 'lose your reason' every time you come around thxd ole place!" ^GENTLE JULIA m "Well, course I haf to act like the people that's already there," Florence retorted, not sharply, but in a musing tone that should have warned him. It was not her wont to use a quiet voice for repartee. Thinking her humble, he laughed the more rau- cously. "Oh, Florence!" he besought her. "Say not so! Say not so!" "Children, children!" Uncle Joseph remonstrated. Herbert changed his tone; be became seriously plaintive. "Well, she does act that way. Uncle Joseph! When she comes around there you'd think we were runnin' a lunatic asylum, the way she takes on. She hollers and bellers and squalls and squawks. The least Kttle teeny thing she don't like about the way we run our paper, she comes flappin' over there and goes to screechin' around you could hear her out at the Poor House Farm ! " "Now, now, Herbert," his Aunt Fanny interposed. "Poor little Florence isn't saying anything impolite to you — ^not right now, at any rate. Why don't you be a little sweet to her just for once?" Her unfortunate expression revolted all the man- liness in Herbert's bosom. "Be a little sweet to her? " , he echoed with poignant incredulity, and then in 300 GENTLE JULIA candour made plain how poorly Aunt Fanny inspired him. "I just exackly as soon be a little sweet to an aUigator." he said. " Oh, oh ! " said Aunt Carrie. "I would!" Herbert insisted. "Or a mosquito^ I'd rather, to either of 'em, 'cause anyway they don't make so much noise. Why, you just ought to hear her," he went on, growing more and more severe. "You ought to j'ust come around our Newspaper Building any afternoon you please, after school, when Henry and I are tryin' to do our work in anyway some peace. Why, she j'ust squawks and squalls and squ -" "It must be terrible," Uncle Joseph interrupted. "What do you do all that for, Florence, every after' ?99 "Just for exercise," she answered dreamily; and her placidity the more exasperated her j'oumalist cousin. "She does it because she thinks she ought to be ruhnin' our own newspaper, my and Henry's; that's why she does it! She thinks she knows more about how to run newspapers than anybody alive; but there's one thing she's goin' to find out; and that is, she don't get anything more to do with my and Ilenry's newspaper. We wouldn't have another single GENTLE JULIA 301 one of her ole poems in it, no matter how much she offered to pay us! Uncle Joseph, I think you ought to tell her she's got no business around my and Henry's Newspaper Building." "But, Herbert," Aunt Fanny suggested; — "ygu might let Florence have a little share in it of some sort. Then everything would be all right." "It would.?" he said. "It woo-wud? Oh, my goodness. Aunt Fanny, I guess you'd like to see our newspaper just utterably ruined ! Why, we wouldn't let that girl have any more to do with it than we would some horse!" "Oh, oh!" both Aunt Fanny and Aunt Carrie exclaimed, shocked. "We wouldn't," Herbert insisted. "A horse would know any amount more how to run a news- paper than she does. Soon as we got our printing- press, we said right then that we made up our minds Florence Atwater wasn't ever goin' to have a single thing to do with our newspaper. If you let her have anything to do with anything she wants to run the whole thing. But she might just as well learn to stay away from our Newspaper Building, because after we got her out yesterday we fixed a way so's she'll never get in there again!" 308 GENTLE JULIA Florence looked at him demurely. "Are you sure, Herbert?" she inquired. "Just you try it!" he advised her, and he laughed tauntingly. "Just come around to-morrow and try it; that's all I ask! " "I cert'nly intend to," she responded with dignity. "I may have a slight supprise for you." "Oh, Florence, say not so! Say not so, Florence! Say not so!" At this, she looked full upon him, and already she had something in the nature of a surprise for him; for so powerful was the still balefulness of her glance (that he was slightly startled. "I might say not so," she said. "I might, if I was speaking of what pretty eyes you say yourself you know you have, Herbert." It staggered him. "What — what do you mean?" "Oh, nothin'," she replied airily. Herbert began to be mistrustful of the solid earth: somewhere there was a fearful threat to his equipoise. "What you talkin' about?" he said with an effort to speak scornfully; but his sensitive voice almost failed him. "Oh, nothin'," said Horence. "Just about what pretty eyes you know you have, and Patty's being GENTLE JULIA 308 pretty, too, and so you're glad she thinks yours are pretty, the way you do — and everything!" Herbert visibly gulped. He believed that Patty had betrayed him; had betrayed the sworn con- fidence of "Truth!" "That's all I was taUdn' about," Florence added. "Just about how you knew you had such pretty eyes. Say not so, Herbert! Say not so!" "Look here!" he said. "When'd you see Patty again between this afternoon and when you came over here?" "What makes you think I saw her?" "Did you telephone her?" "What makes you think so?" Once more Herbert gulped "Well, I guess you're ready to believe anything anybody tells you," he said, with palsied bravado. "You don't believe everything Patty Fairchild says, do you?" "Why, Herbert! Doesn't she always tell the truth?" "Her? Why, half the tune," poor Herbert babbled, "you can't tell whether she's just makin' up what she says or not. K you've gone and be- lieved everything that ole girl told you, you haven't got even what little sense I used to think you had!" 304 GENTLE JULIA So base we are under strain, sometimes — so base when our good name is threatened with the truth of us! "I wouldn't believe anything she said," he added, in a sickish voice, "if she told me fifty times and crossed her heart!" "Wouldn't you if she said you wrote down how pretty you knew your eyes were, Herbert? Wouldn't you if it was on paper in your own handwrit< ing?" "What's this about Herbert having 'pretty eyes'?" Uncle Joe inquired, again bringing general atten» tion to the yoimg cousins; and Herbert shuddered. This fat uncle had an unpleasant reputation as a joker. The nephew desperately fell back upon the hope« less device of attempting to drown out his op- ponent's voice as she began to reply. He became vociferous with scornful laughter, badly cracked. "Florence got mad!" he shouted, mingling the pur- ported information with hoots and cacklings. "She got mad because I and Henry played some gd.mes with Patty and wouldn't let her play! She's tryin' to make up stories on us to get even. She made it up! It's all made up! She " "No, no," Mr. Atwater interrupted. "Let Flor- GENTLE JULIA 305 ence tell us. Florence, what was it about Herbert's knowing he had 'pretty eyes'?" Herbert attempted to continue the drowning out. He bawled. "She made it wpl It's somep'n she made up herself! She " "Herbert," said Uncle Joseph; — "if you don't keep quiet, I'll take back the printing-press." Herbert substituted a gulp for the continuation of his noise. "Now, Florence," said Uncle Joseph, "teU us what you were sayiog about how Herbert knows he has such 'pretty eyes'." Then it seemed to Herbert that a miracle befell. Florence looked up, smiling modestly. "Oh, it wasn't anything. Uncle Joseph," she said. "I was just trying to tease Herbert any way I could think of." "Oh, was that aU?" A hopeful light faded out of Uncle Joseph's large and inexpressive face. "I thought perhaps you'd detected him in some in- discretion." Florence laughed, "I was just teasin' him. It wasn't anything, Uncle Joseph." Hereupon, Herbert resumed a confused breathing. Dazed, he remained uneasy, profoundly so: and 306 GENTLE JULIA gratitude was no part of his emotion. He well understood that in conflicts such as these Florence was never susceptible to impulses of compassion; in fact, if there was warfare between them, experi- ence had taught him to be wariest when she seemed kindest. He moved away from her, and went into another room where his condition was one of increas- ing mental discomfort, though he looked over the pictures in his great-uncle's copy of "Paradise Lost." These illustrations, by M. Gustave Dore, failed to aid in reassuring his troubled mind. When Florence left the house, he impulsively ac- companied her, maintaining a nervous silence as they walked the short distance between Uncle Joseph's front gate and her own. There, however, he spoke. "Look here! You don't haf to go and, believe everything that ole girl told you, do you.? " "No," said Florence heartily. "I don't haf to." "Well, look here," he urged, helpless but to repeat. "You don't haf to believe whatever it was she went and told you, do you?" "What was it you think she told me, Herbert?" "All that guff— you know. Well, whatever it was you said she told you." GENTLE JULIA 307 "I didn't," said Florence. "I didn't say she told me anything at all." "Well, she did, didn't she?" "Why, no," Florence replied, lightly. "She didn't say anything to me. Only I'm glad to have your opinion of her, how she's such a story-teller and all — if I ever want to tell her, and everything!" But Herbert had greater alarms than this, and the greater obscured the lesser. "Look here," he said, "if she didn't tell you, how'd you know it then?" "How'dlknowwhat?" "That — that big story about my ever writin' I knew I had" — ^he gulped again — "pretty eyes." "Oh, about that!" Florence said, and swung the gate shut between them. "Well, I guess it's too late to tell you to-night, Herbert; but maybe if you and that nasty little Henry Rooter do every single thing I tell you to, and do it just exacJcly like I tell you from this time on, why maybe — ^I only say 'may- be' — ^well, maybe I'll tell you some day when I feel like it." She ran up the path and up the veranda steps, but paused before opening the front door, and called back to the waiting Herbert: "The only person I'd ever think of tellin' about it 308 GENTLE JULIA before I tell you would be a boy I know," She coughed, and added as by an afterthought, "He'd just love to know all about it; I know he would. So, when I tell anybody about it I'll only tell just you and this other boy." "What other boy?" Herbert demanded. And her reply, thrilling through the darkness, left him demoralized with horror. "WalUe Torbin!" CHAPTER NINETEEN THE next afternoon, about four o'clock, Her- bert stood gloomfly at the main entrance of Atwater & Rooter's Newspaper Building awaiting his partner. The other entrances were not only nailed fast but massively barricaded; and this one (consisting of the ancient carriage-house doors, opening upon a driveway through the yard) had re- cently been made eflFective for exclusion. A long and heavy plank leaned against the wall, near by, ready to be set in hook-shaped iron supports fastened to the inner sides of the doors; and when the doors were closed, with this great plank in place, a person inside the building might seem entitled to count upon the enjoyment of privacy, except in case of earthquake, tornado, or fire. In fact, the size of the plank and the substantial quality of the iron fastenings could be looked upon, from a certain viewpoint, as a real compliment to the energy and persistence of Florence Atwater. Herbert had been in no complimentary frame of 309 310 GENTLE JDLIA mind, however, when he devised the obstnieti(Mis, nor was he now in such a frame of mind. He was pessimistic in regard to his future, and also embar- rassed in anticipation of some explanations it would be necessary to make to his partner. He strongly hoped that Hrairy's regular after-school appearance at the Newspaper Building would precede Florence's, because these explanations required both deliberation and tact, and he was convinced that it would be almost impossible to make them at all if Florence got there first. He understood that he was unfortunately within her power; and he saw that it would be dangerous to place in operation for her exclusion from the Build- ing this new mechanism contrived with such hopeful care, and atacost of two dollars and twenty-five cents taken from the Oriole's treasury. What he wished Henry to beUeve was that for some good reason, which Herbert had not yet been able to invent, it would be better to show Florence a little poUteness. He had a desperate hope that he might find some diplomatic way to prevail on Henry to be as sub- servient to Florence as she had seemed to demand, and he was detemained to touch any extremity of unveracity, rather than permit the details of his GENTLE JUIIA 311 answer in "Truth" to come to his partner's knowl- edge. Henry Rooter was not Wallie Torbin; but in possession of material such as this he could easily make himself intolerable. Therefore, it was in a flurried state of mind that Herbert waited ; and when his friend appeared, over the fence, his perturbation was not decreased. He even failed to notice the imusual gravity of Henry's manner. "Hello, Henry! I thought I wouldn't start in working till you got here. I didn't want to haf to come all the way downstairs again to open the door and hi'st our good ole plank up again." "I see," said Henry, glancing nervously at their good ole plank. "Well, I guess Florence'U never get 'in this good ole door — ^that is, she won't if we don't let her, or something." This final clause would have astonished Herbert if he had been less preoccupied with his troubles. "You bet she won't!" he said mechanically. "She couldn't ever get in here again — ^if the family didn't go intafering around and give me the dickens and everything, because they think — they say they do, anyhow — ^they say they think — ^they think " He paused, disguising a little choke as a cough of GCom for the family's thinking. 312 GENTLE JULIA "What did you say your faniily think?" Henry asked absently. "Well, they say we ought to let her have a share in our newspaper." Again he paused, afraid to continue lest his hypocrisy appear so bare-faced as to invite suspicion. "Well, maybe we ought," he said finally, his eyes gxiiltily upon his toe, which slowly scuffed the ground. "I don't say we ought, and I don't say we oughtn't." He expected at the least a sharp protest from his partner, who, on the contrary, surprised him. "Well, that's the way I look at it," Henry said. "I don't say we ought and I don't say we oughtn't." And he, likewise, stared at the toe of a shoe that scuffed the ground. Herbert felt a little better; this particular subdivision of his difficidties seemed to be working out with unexpected ease. "I don't say we will and I don't say we won't," Henry added. "That's the way I look at it. My father and mother are always talkin' to me: how I got to be polite and everything, and I guess maybe it's time I began to pay some 'tention to what they say. You don't iiave your father and mother for always, you know, Herbert." Herbert's mood at once chimed with this unpre- GENTLE JULIA 313 cedented filial melancholy. "No, you don't, Henry. That's what I often think about, myseU. No, sir, a feUow doesn't have his father and mother to advise him our whole life, and you ought to do a good deal what they say while they're still alive." "That's what I say," Henry agreed gloomily; and then, without any alteration of his tone, or of the dejected thoughtfulness of his attitude, he changed the subject in a way that painfully startled his companion. "Have you seen Wallie Torbin to- day, Herbert?" "What!" "Have you seen Wallie Torbin to-day?" Herbert swallowed. "Why, what makes — ^what makes you ask me that, Henry?" he said. "Oh, nothin'." Henry still kept his eyes upon his gloomily scuffing toe. "I just wondered, be. cause I didn't happen to see him in school this after- noon when I happened to look in the door of the Eight-A when it was open. I didn't want to know on account of anything particular. I just happened to say that about him because I didn't have any- thing else to think about just then, so I just happened to think about him,the way you do when you haven't §at anything much on your mind and might get to 314 GENTLE JULIA thinkin' about you can't tell what. That's all the way it was; I just happened to kind of wonder if he was around anywhere maybe." Henry's tone was obviously, even elaborately, sincere; and Herbert was reassured. "Well, I didn't see him," he responded. "Maybe he's sick." "No, he isn't," his friend said. "Florence said she saw him chasin' his dog down the street about noon." At this Herbert's uneasiness was uncomfortably renewed. "Florence did? Where'd you see Flor- ence?" Mr. Rooter swaUpwed. "A little while ago," jile said> and again swallowed. "On the way home from school." "Look — ^look here!" Herbert was flurried to the point of panic. "Henry — did Florence — did she go and tell you — did she tell you -?" "I didn't hardly notice what she was talkin' about," Henry said doggedly. "She didn't have anything to say that I'd ever care two cents about. She came up behind me and walked along with me a ways, but I got too many things on my mind to hardly pay the least attention to anything she evel GENTLE JULIA SIS talks about. She's a girl what I think about her the less people pay any 'tention to what she says the better off they are." "That's the way with me, Henry," his partner assured him earnestly. "I never pay any notice to what she says. The way I figure it out about her, Henry, everybody'd be a good deal better off if nobody ever paid the least notice to anything she says. I never even notice what she says, myself.'* "I don't either," said Henry. "All I think about is what my father and mother say, because I'm not goin' to have their advice all the rest o' my life, after they're dead. If they want me to be polite, why, I'll do it and that's all there is about it." "It's the same way with me, Henry. If she comes flappin' around here blattin' and blubbin' how she's goin' to have somep'n to do with our newspaper, why, the only reason Td ever let her would be be- cause my family say I ought to show more polite- ness to her than up to now. I wouldn't do it on any other account, Henry." "Neither woxdd I. That's just the same way I look at it, Herbert. If I ever begin to treat her any better, she's got my father and mother to thank, not me. That's the only reason I'd be willing to say 316 GENTLE JULIA we better leave the plank down and let her in, if she comes around here like she's liable to." "Well," said Herbert. "I'm wiUing. I don't want to get in trouble with the family." And they mounted the stairs to their editorial, reportorial, and printing rooms; and began to work in a manner not only preoccupied but apprehensive. At intervals they would give each other a furtive glance, and then seem to reflect upon their fathers' and mothers' wishes and the troublous state of the times. Florence did not keep them waiting long, however. She might have been easier to bear had her manner of arrival been less assured. She romped up the stairs, came skipping across the old floor, swinging her hat by a ribbon, flung open the gate in the sacred railing, and, flouncing into the principal chair, im- modestly placed her feet on the table in front of that chair. Additionally, such was her lively hu- mour, she affected to light and smoke the stub of a lead pencil. "Well, men," she said heartily, "I don't want to see any loafin' around here, men. I expect I'll have a pretty good newspaper this week; yes, sir, a pretty good newspaper, and I guess you men got to jump around a good deal to do every- GENTLE JULIA 317 thing I think of, or else maybe I guess I'll have to turn you off. I don't want to haf to do that, men." The blackmailed partners made no reply, on ac- count of an inability that was perfect for the mo- ment. They stared at her helplessly, though not kindly; for in their expressions the conflict between desire and policy was almost staringly vivid. And such was their preoccupation, each with the bitter- ness of his own case, that neither wondered at the other's strange complaisance. Florence made it clear to them that henceforth she was the editor of The North End Daily Oriole. (She said she had decided not to change the name.) She informed them that they were to be her printers; she did not care to get all inky and nasty herself, she said. She would, however, do all the writing for her newspaper, and had with her a new poem. Also, she would furnish all the news and it would be printed just as she wrote it, and printed nicely, too, or else She left the sentence unfinished. Thus did this cool hand take possession of an established industry, and in much the same fashion did she continue to manage it. There were im- suppressible protests; there was covert anguish; there was even a strike — ^but it was a short one. 318 GENTLE JTLIA When the printers remained away from their late Newspaper Building, on Wednesday afternoon, Florence had an interview with Herbert after dinner at his own door. He explained coldly that Henry and he had grown tired of the printing-press and had decided to put in all their spare time buildiag a theatre in Henry's attic; but Florence gave him to understand that the theatre could not be; she pre- ferred the Oriole. Henry and Herbert had both stopped "speaking" to Patty Fairchild, for each believed her treacherous to himself; but Florence now informed Herbert that far from depending on mere hearsay, she had in her own possession the confession of his knowledge that he had ocular beauty; that she had discovered the paper where Patty had lost it; and that it was now in a secure place, and in an envelope, upon the outside of which was already written, "For Wallie Torbin. £indness of Florence A." Herbert surrendered. So did Henry Rooter, a little later that evening, after a telephoned conversation with the slave-driver. Therefore, the two miserable printers were back in their places the next afternoon. They told each other that the theatre they had planned wasn't so GENTLE JULIA 319 much after all; and anyhow your father and mother didn't last all your life, and it was better to do what they wanted, and be polite while they were alive. And on Saturday the new Oriole, now in every jot and item the inspired organ of feminism, made its undeniably sensational appearance. A copy, neatly folded, was placed in the hand of Noble Dill, as he set forth for his place of business, after lunching at home with his mother. Florence was the person who placed it there; she came hm:- riedly from somewhere in the neighbourhood, out of what yard or alley he did not notice, and slipped the little oblong sheet into his lax fingers. "There!" she said breathlessly. "There's a good deal about you in it this week, Mr. Dill, and I guess — ^I guess " "What, Florence?" "I guess maybe you'll " She looked up at him shyly; then, with no more to say, turned and ran back in the direction whence she had come. Noble walked on, not at once examining her Uttle gift, but carrying it absently in fingers still lax at the end of a dangling arm. There was no life in him for any- thing. Julia was away. Away! And yet the dazzling creature looked at 320 GENTLE JULIA him from sky, from earth, from air; looked at him with the most poignant kindness, yet always shook her head! She had answered his first letter by a kind little note, his second by a kinder and littler one, and his third, foiu'th, fifth, and sixth by no note at all; but by the kindest message (through one of her aimts) that she was thinking about him a great deal. And even this was three weeks ago. Since then from Julia — ^nothing at all! But yesterday something a little stimulating had happened. On the street, downtown, he had come face to face, momentarily, with Julia's fathar; and for the first time in Noble's life Mr. Atwater nodded to him pleasantly. Noble went on his way, elated. Was there not something almost fatherly in this strange greeting? An event so singular might be interpreted in the happiest way: What had Julia written her father, to change him so toward Noble? And Noble was still dreamily interpreting as he walked down the street with The North End Daily Oriole idle in an idle hand. He foimd a use for that hand presently, and, hav- ing sighed, lifted it to press it upon his brow, but did not complete the gesture. As his hand came within GENTLE JULIA 32f the scope of his gaze, levelled on the unfathomable distance, he observed that the fingers held a sheet of printed paper; and he remembered Florence. Instead of pressing his brow he imfolded the journal she had thrust upon him. As he began to read, his eye was lustreless, his gait slack and dreary; but soon his whole demeanour changed, it cannot be said for the better. THE NORTH END DAILY ORIOLE Atwater & Co., Owners & Propietors Subscribe NOW 25 cents Per. Year. Sub- scriptions should be brought to the East Main Entrance of Atwater & Co., News- paper Building every afternoon 430 to VI 25 Cents POEMS My Soul by Florence Atwater When my heart is dreary Then my soul is weary As a bird with a broken wing Who never again will sing Like the sound of a vast amen That comes from a church of men. When my soul is dreary It could never be cheery But I think of my ideal And everything seems real Like the sovmd of the bright church bells peal. 322 GENTLE JULIA Poems by Florence Atwater will be in the paper each and every Sat. Advertisements 4Sc. each Up Joseph K. Atwater Co. 127 South Iowa St. Steam Pumps The News of the City Miss Florence Atwater of tHis City received a mark of 94 in History Examination at the concusion of the school Term last June. Blue hair ribbons are in style again. Miss Patty Fairchild of this City has not been d(nng as well in Declamation lately as formerly. MR. Noble Dill of this City is seldom seen on the streets of the City without smoking a dgarette. Miss Julia Atwater of this City is out of the City. The MR. Rayfort family of this City have been presentde with the present of a new Cat by Geo. the man employeD by Balf 8g CO. This cat is perfectly baeutiful and still quit young. Miss Julia Atwater of this City is visiting friends in the Soth. The family have had many letters from her that are read by each and all of the famild. GENTLE JULIA 323 Mr. Noble Dill of this City is in buaness with his Father. There was quite a vAad storm Thursday dcnng damage to shade trees in many parts of our beautiful City. From Letters to the family Miss Julia Atwater of this City is enjoying her vi^t in the south a greadeal. Miss Patty Fairchild of the 7 A of this City, will probably not pass in ARithmetiC — unless great improvement takes place before Examination. Miss Julia Atwater of this City wrote a letter to the family stating while visiting in the SOuth she has made an engagement to be married to MR. Crum of that City. The family do not know who this MR. Crum is but It is said he is a widower though he has been diVorced vdth a great many children. The new ditch of the MR. Henry D. Vance, backyard of this City is about through now as little remain to be done and it is thought the baghborhood will son look better. Subscribe NOW 25c. Per Year Adv. 4Sc. up. Atwater 8e Co. Newspaper Building 25 Cents Per Years. It may be assumed that the last of the news items was wasted upon Noble Dill and that he never knew of the neighbom-hood improvement believed to be imminent as a result of the final touches to the ditch of the Mr. Henry D. Vance backyard. CHAPTER TWENTY THROUGHOUT that afternoon adult mem- bers of the Atwater family connection made futile efforts to secure aU the copies of the week's edition of The North End Daily Oriole. It could not be done. It was a trying time for "the family." Grea#- Aunt Carrie said thiat she had the "worst afternoon of any of 'em," because young Newland Sanders came to her house at two and did not leave until five; all the time counting over, one by one, the hours he'd spent with Julia since she was seventeen and turned out, unfortunately, to be a Beauty. Newland had not restrained himself. Aunt Carrie said, and long before he left she wished Julia had never been bom — and as for Herbert Illingsworth Atwater, Junior, th^ only thing to do with him was to send him to some strict Military School. Florence's father telephoned to her mother from downtown at three, and said that Mr. George Plum and the ardent vocalist, Clairdyce, had just left his GENTLE JULIA 32S office. They had not called in company, however, but coincidentally; and each had a copy of The North End Daily Oriole, already somewhat worn with folding and imfolding. Mr. Clairdyce's con- dition was one of desperate calm, Florence's father said, but Mr. Plimi's agitation left liini rather un- presentable for the street, though he had finally gone forth with his hair just as he had rumpled it, and with his hat in his hand. They wished the truth, they said: Was it true or was it not true? Mr. Atwater had told them that he feared Julia was indeed engaged, though he knew nothing of her fiance's previous marriage or marriages, or of the number of his children. They had responded that they cared nothing about that. This man Crum's; record was a matter of indifference to them, they said. All they wanted to know was whether Julia was engaged or not — and she was! "The odd thing to me," Mr. Atwater continued to his wife, "is where on earth Herbert could have got his story about this Cram's being a widower, and divorced, and with all those children. Do you know if Julia's written any of the family about these things and they haven't told thte rest of us?*' "No," said Mrs. Atwater. "I'm sure she hasn't. see GENTLE JULIA Every letter she's written to any of us has passed all through the family, and I know I've seen every one of 'em. She's never said anything about him at all, except that he was a lawyer. I'm sure I can't imagine where Herbert got his awful information; I never thought he was the kind of boy to just make up such things out of whole clotk" Florence, sitting quietly in a chair near by, with a copy of "Sesame and Lilies" in her lap, listened to her mother's side of this conversation with an ex- pression of impersonal interest; and if she could have reaUzed how completely her parents had forgotten (naturally enough) the details of their first rambling discussion of Juha's engagement, she might really have felt as little alarm as she showed. "Well," said Mr. Atwater, "Fm glad our branch of the family isn't responsiUe. That's a comfort, anyhow, especially as people are reading copies of Herbert's dreadful paper all up and down the town, my clerk says. He tells me that over at the Unity Trust Company, where young Murdock Hawes is cashier, they only got hold of one copy, but type- wrote it and multigraphed it, and some of 'em have already learned it by heart to recite to poor young Hawes. He's the one who sent Julia the three five- GENTLE JDUA S27 pound boxes of chocolates from New York all at the same tune, you remember." "Yes," Mrs. Atwater sighed. "Poor thing!" "Florence is out among the family, I suppose?'* he inquired. "No; she's right here. She's just started to read Buskin this afternoon. She says she's going to begin and read all of him straight through. That's very nice, don't you think? " He seemed to muse before replying. "I think: that's very nice, at her age especially,** Mrs. Atwater urged. "Don't you?" "Ye-es! Oh, yes! At least I suppose so. Ah — ^you don't think — of course she hasn't had any- thing at all to do with this?" "Well, I don't see how she could. You know Aunt Fanny told us how Herbert declared before them all, only last Sunday night, that Florence should never have one thing to do with his printing-press, and said they wouldn't even let her come near it." "Yes, that's a fact. I'm glad Herbert made it so clear that she can't be implicated. I suppose the family are all pretty well down on Uncle Joseph?" "Uncle Joseph is being greatly blamed," said Mrs. Atwater primly. "He really ought to have 328 GENTLE JULIA known better than to put such an instrument as a printing-press into the hands of an irresponsible boy of that age. Of course it simply encouraged Tn'm to print all kinds of things. We none of us think Uncle Joseph ever dreamed that Herbert would pubKsh aiiything exactly like this, and of course Uncle Joseph says himself he never dreamed such a thing; he's said so time and time and time again, all afternoon. But of course he's greatly blamed." "I suppose there' ve been quite a good many of 'em over there blaming him?" her husband in- quired. "Yes — ^until he telephoned to a garage and hired a car and went for a drive. He said he had plenty of money with him and didn't know when he'd be back." "Serves him right," said Mr. Atwater. "Does anybody know where Herbert is?" "Not yet!" "Well " and he returned to a former theme. "I am glad we aren't implicated. Florence is right there with you, you say?" "Yes," Mrs. Atwater replied. "She's right here, reading. You aren't worried about her, are you?" she added. GENTLE JULIA 329 "Oh, no; I'm sure it's all right. I only thought " "Only thought what?" "Well, it did strike me as curious," said Mr. Atwater; "especially after Aunt Fanny's telling us how Herbert declared Florence could never have a single thing to do with his paper again " "Well, what?" "Well, here's her poem right at the top of it, and a very friendly item about her history mark of last June. It doesn't seem like Herbert to be so com- plimentary to Florence, aU of a sudden. Just struck me as rather curious; that's all." "Why, yes," said Mrs. Atwater, "it does seem a little odd, when you think of it." "Have you asked Florence if she had anything to do with getting out this week's Oriole?" "Why, no; it never occurred to me, especially after what Aunt Fanny told us," said Mrs. Atwater. "I'll ask her now." But she was obliged to postpone putting the in- tended question. "Sesame and Lilies" lay sweetly upon the seat of the chair that Florence had occupied; but Florence herself had gone somewhere else. She had gone for a long, long ramble; and pedes- S30 GENTLE JULIA trians who encountered her, and happened to notice her expression, were interested; and as they went on their way several of them interrupted the course of their meditations to say to themselves that she was the most thoughtful looking young girl they had ever seen. There was a touch of wistfulness about her, too; as of one whose benevolence must renounce all hope of comprehension and reward. Now, among those who observed her imusual expression was a gentleman of great dimensions dis- posed in a closed automobile that went labouring among mudholes in an unpaved outskirt of the town. He rapped upon the glass before him, to get the driver's attention, and a moment later the car drew up beside Florence, as she stood in a deep reverie at the intersection of two roads. Uncle Joseph opened the door and took his cigar from his mouth. "Get in, Florence," he said. "I'll take you for a ride." She started violently; where- upon he restored the cigar to his mouth, puflf^d upon it, breathing heavily the while as was his wont, and added, "I'm not going home. I'm out for a nice long ride. Get in." "I was takin' a walk," she said dubiously. "I hal to take a whole lot of exercise, and I ought to walk GENTLE JULIA S31 and walk and walk. I guess I ought to keep on walkin'." "Get in," he said. "I'm out riding. I don't know when I'll get home!" Florence stepped in. Uncle Joseph closed the door, and the car slowly bimiped onward. "You know where Herbert is?" Uncle Joseph inquired. "No," said Florence, in a gentle voice. "I do," he said. "Herbert and your friend Henry Rooter came to our house with one of the last copies of the Oriole they were distributing to sub- scribers; and after I read it I kind of foresaw that the feller responsible for their owning a printing- press was going to be in some sort of family trouble or other. I had quite a talk with 'em and they hinted they hadn't had much to do with this number of the paper, except the mechanical end of it; but they wouldn't come out right full with what they meant. They seemed to have some good reason for pro- tecting a third party, and said quite a good deal about their fathers and mothers being but mortal and so on; so Henry and Herbert thought they oughtn't to expose this third party — whoever she may happen to be. Well, I thought they better not stay 332 GENTLE JULIA too long, because I was compromised enough already, without being seen in their company; and I gave 'em sonlething to help *em out with at the movies. You can stay at movies an awful long time, and if you've got money enough to go to several of 'em, why, you're fixed for pretty near as long as you please. A body ought to be able to live a couple o' months at the movies for nine or ten dollars, I should think." He was silent for a time, then asked, "I don't suppose your papa and mamma will be worrying about you, will they, Florence?" "Oh, no!" she said quickly. "Not in the least! There was nothin' at all for me to do at our house this afternoon." "That's good," he said, "because before we go, back I was thinking some of driving around by way of Texas." Florence looked at him trustfully and said nothiog. It seemed to her that he suspected something; she was not sure; but his conversation was a Uttle pecu- liar, though not in the least sinister. Indeed she was able to make out that he had more the air of an ac- complice than of a prosecutor or a detective. Never- theless, she was convinced that fa.r, far the best course for her to pursue, during the next few days, would GENTLE JULIA 8S3 be one of steadfast reserve. And such a course was congenial to her mood, which was subdued, not to say apprehensive; though she was sure her recent conduct, if viewed sympathetically, would be found at least Christian. The trouble was that probably it would not be viewed sympathetically. No one would understand how carefully and tactfully she had prepared the items of the Oriole to lead suavely up to the news of Aunt Julia's engagement and break it to Noble Dill in a manner that would save his reason. Therefore, on account of this probable lack of comprehension on the part of the family and public, it seemed to her that the only wise and good course to follow would be to claim nothing for herself, but to allow Herbert and Henry to remain undisturbed in full credit for publishing the Oriole, This in- volved a disappointment, it is true; nevertheless, she decided to bear it. She had looked forward to surprising "the family" delightfully. As they fluttered in exclamation about her, she had expected to say, "Oh, the poem isn't so much, I guess — I wrote it quite a few days ago and I'm writing a couple new ones now — ^but I did take quite a lot o' time and trouble with the rest of 384 GENTLE JULIA the paper, because I had to write every single word of it, or else let Heniy and Herbert try to, and 'course they'd just of ruined it. Oh, it isn't so much to talk about, I guess; it just sort of comes to me to do things that way." Thirteen attempts to exercise a great philanthropy, and every grown person in sight, with the possible exception of Great-Uncle Joseph, goes into wholly unanticipated fits of horror. Cause and effect have no honest relation: Fate operates without justice or even rational sequence; life and the universe appear to be governed, not in order and with system, but by Chance, becoming sinister at any moment without reason. And while Florence, thus a pessimist, sat beside fat Uncle Joseph during their long, long drive, rela- tives of hers were indeed going into fits; at least, so Florence would have described their gestures and in- coherences of comment. Moreover, after the movies, straight into such a fitful scene did the luckless Her- bert walk when urged homeward by thoughts of food, at about six that evening. Henry Rooter had strongly advised him against entering the house. "You better not," he said earnestly. "Honest, you better not, Herbert!" GENTLE JULIA 335 "Well, we got apple dumplings for dinner," Her- bert said, his tone showing the strain of mental uncertainty. "Eliza told me this morning we were goin' to have 'em. I kind of hate to go in, but I guess I better, Henry." "You won't see any apple dumplings," Henry predicted. "Well, I believe I better try it, Henry." "You better come home with me. My father and mother'!! be perfectly willing to have you." "I know that," said Herbert. "But I guess I better go in and try it, anyhow, Henry. I didn't have anything to do with what's in the Oriole. It's every last word ole Florence's doing. I haven't got any more right to be picked on for that than a child." "Yes," Henry admitted. "But if you go and tell 'em so, I bet she'd get even with you some way that would probably get me in trouble, too, before we get through with the job. / wouldn't tell 'em if I was you, Herbert!" "Well, I wasn't intending to," Herbert responded gloomily; and the thought of each, unknown to the other, was the same, consisting of a symbolic like- ness of Wallie Torbin at his worst. "I ought to tell 336 GENTLE JULIA on Florence; by rights I ought," said Herbert; "but I've decided I won't. There's no tellin' what she wouldn't do. Not that she could do anything to me, particyourly — -^" "Nor me, either," his friend interposed hurriedly. "I don't worry about anything like that! Still, if I was you I wouldn't tell. She's only a girl, we got to remember." "Yes," said Herbert. "That's the way I look at it, Henry; and the way I look at it is just simply this: long as she is a girl, why, simply let her go. You can't tell what she'd do, and so what's the use to go and tell on a girl?" "That's the way I look at it," Henry agreed. "What's the use? If I was in your place, I'd act just the same way you do." "Well," said Herbert, "I guess I better go on in the house, Henry. It's a good while after dark." "You're makin' a big mistake!" Henry Rooter called after him. " You won't see any apple duinp- lings, I bet a hunderd dollars! You better come on home with me." Herbert no more than half opened his front door before he perceived that his friend's advice had been excellent. So clearly Herbert perceived this, GENTLE JULIA 337 that he impulsively decided not to open the door any farther, but on the contrary to close it and retire; and he would have done so, had his mother not reached forth and detained him. She was, in fact, just inside that door, standing in the hall with one of his great-aimts, one of his aunts, two aunts-by- marriage, and an elderly unmarried cousin, who were all just on the point of leaving. However, they changed their minds and decided to remain, now that Herbert was among them. The captive's father joined them, a few minutes later, but it had already become clear to Herbert that The North End Daily Oriole was in one sense a thing of the past, though in another sense this former owner and proprietor was certain that he would never hear the last of it. However, on account of the life of blackmail and slavery now led by the members of the old regime, the Oriole's extinction was far less painful to Herbert than his father sup- posed; and the latter wasted a great deal of severity, insisting that the printing-press should be returned that very night to Uncle Joseph. Herbert's heartiest retrospective wish was that the ole printing-press had been returned to Uncle Joseph long ago. "K you can find him to give it to!" Aunt Harriet 338 GENTLE JULIA suggested. "Nobody knows where he 'goes when he gets the way he did this afternoon when we were dis- cussing it with him! I only hope he'll be back to- night!" "He can't stay away forever," Aunt Fanny re- marked. "That garage is charging him five dollars an hour for the automobile Jie's in, and surely even Joseph will decide there's a limit to wildness some time!" "I don't care when he comes back," Herbert's father declared grimly. " Whenever he does he's got to take that printing-press back — and Herbert will be let out of the house long enough to carry it over. His mother or I will go with him." Herbert bore much more than this. He had seated himself on the third step of the stairway, and maintained as much dogged silence as he could. Once, however, they got a yelp of anguish out of him. It was when Cousin Virginia said: "Oh, Herbert, Herbert! How could you make up that terrible falsehood about Mr. Crum? And, thinJe of it; right on the same page with your cousin Florence's pure little poem!" Herbert uttered sounds incoherent but loud, and expressive of a supreme physical revulsion. The GENTLE JULIA. S39 shocked audience readily understood that he liked neither Cousin Virginia's chiding nor Cousin Flor- ence's pure little poem. "Shame!" said his father. Herbert controlled himself. It could be seen that his spirit was broken, when Aunt Fanny mourned, shaking her head at him, smiling ruefully: "Oh, if boys could only be girls!" Herbert just looked at her. "The worst thing," said his father; — "that is, if there's any part of it that's worse than another — ^the worst thing about it all is this rumour about Noble Dill." "What about that poor thing?" Aunt Harriet asked. "We haven't heard." "Why, I walked up from downtown with old man Dill," said Mr. Atwater, "and the Dill family are all very much worried. It seems that Noble started downtown after lunch, as usual, and pretty soon he came back to the house and he had a copy of this awful paper that little Florence had given him, and " "Who gave it to him?" Aunt Fanny asked. "Who?" "Little Florence." 340 GENTLE JULIA "Why, that's curious," Cousin Virginia mur- mured. "I must tdephone and ask her mother about that." The brooding Herbert looked up, and there was a gleam in his dogged eye; but he said nothing. " Go on," Aunt Harriet urged. "What did Noble do?" "Why, his mother said he just went up to his room and changed his shoes and necktie " " I thought so," Aunt Fanny whispered. " Crazy ! " "And then," Mr. Atwater continued, "he left^ the house and she supposed he'd gone down to the office; but she was imeasy, and telephoned his father.' Noble hadn't come. He didn't come aU afternoon, and he didn't go back to the house; and they tele- phoned around to every place he could go that they know of, and they couldn't find him or hear any- thing about him at all — ^not anywhere." Mr. At- water coughed, and paused. "But what," Aunt Harriet cried; — "what do they think's become of him?" "Old man Dill said they were aU pretty anxious," said Mr. Atwater. "They're afraid Noble has— ' they're afraid he's disappeared." Aunt Fanny screamed. GENTLE JULIA 341 Then, in perfect accord, they all turned to look at Herbert, who rose and would have retired up- stairs had he been permitted. As that perturbing evening wore on, word grad- ually reached the most outlying members of the Atwater family connection that Noble Dill was miss- ing. Ordinarily, this bit of news would have caused them no severe anxiety. Noble's person and in- tellect were so commonplace — "insignificant" was the term usually preferred in his own circle — that he was considered to be as nearly negligible as it is charitable to consider a fellow-being. True, there .was one thing that set him apart; he was found .worthy of a superlative when he fell in love with Julia; and of course this distinction caused him to ^become better known and more talked about than he had been in his earher youth. However, the eccentricities of a person in such an extremity of love are seldom valued except as comedy, and even then with no warmth of heart for the comedian, but rather with an incredulous disdain; 80 it is safe to say that under other circumstances, Noble might have been missing, indeed, and few of the Atwaters would have missed him. But as matters stood they worried a great deal about him. 342 GENTLE JULIA fearing that a rash act on his part might reflect notoriety upon themselves on accoimt of their beau- tiful relative — and The North End Daily Oriole. And when nine o'clock came and Mrs. Dill reported to Herbert's father, over the telephone, that nothing had yet been heard of her son, the pressure of those who were blaming the Oriole more than they blamed Julia became so wearing that Herbert decided he would rather spend the remaining days of his life running away from Wallie Torbin than put in any more of such a dog's evening as he was putting in. Thus he defined it. He made a confession; that is to say, it was a proclamation. He proclaimed his innocence. He began history with a description of events distinctly subsequent to Sunday pastimes with Patty Fair- child, and explained how he and Henry had felt that their parents would not always be with them, and as their parents wished them to be polite, they had resolved to be poUte to Florence. Proceeding, he related in detail her whole journalistic exploit. Of the matter in hand he told the perfect and ab- solute truth — and was immediately refuted, confuted, and demonstrated to be a false witness by Aimt Fanny, Aunt Carrie, and Cousin Virginia, who had GENTLE JULIA 343 all heard him vehemently declare, no longer ago than the preceding Sunday evening, that he and his partner had taken secure meiasures to prevent Florence from ever again setting foot within the Newspaper Building. In addition, he was quite showered with definitions; and these, though so various, all sought to phrase but the one subject: his conduct in seeking to drag Florence into the mire, when she was absent and could not defend herself. Poor Florence would answer later in the evening, he was told severely; and though her cause was thus championed against the slander, it is true that some of her defenders felt stirrings of curiosity in regard to Florence. In fact, there was getting to be some- thing almost like a cloud upon her reputation. There were several things for her to explain; — among them, her taking it upon herself to see that Noble received a copy of the Oriole, and also her sudden departure from home and rather odd protrac- tion of absence therefrom. It was not thought she was in good company. Uncle Joseph had tele- phoned from ^ suburb that they were dining at a farmhouse and would thence descend to the general region of the movies. "Nobody knows what that man'U do, when he S44 GENTLE JULIA decides to!" Aunt Carrie said nervously. "Letting the poor child stay up so late! She ought to be in bed this minute, even if it is Saturday night! Or else she ought to be here to listen to her own bad little cousin trying to put his terrible responsibihty on her shoulders." One item of this description of himself the badgered Herbert could not bear in silence, although he had just declared that since the truth was so ill-respected among his persecutors he would open his mouth no more until the day of his death.. He passed over "bad," but furiously stated his height in feet, incheSt and fractions of inches. Aunt Fanny shook her head in mourning. "That may be, Herbert," she said gently. "But you must try to realize it can't bring poor young Mr. Dill b?xjk to his family." Again Herbert just looked at her. He had no indifference more profound than that upon whidi her strained conception of the relation between cause and effect seemed to touch; — ^from his point of view, to be missing should be the lightest of calami- ties. It is true that he was concerned with the res- toration of Noble Dill to the rest of the Dills so far as siich an event might affect his own incompara" GENTLE JULIA 345 ble misfortunes, but not otherwise. He regarded Noble and Noble's disappearance merely as unfair damage to himself, and he continued to look at this sorrowing great-aunt of his until his thoughts made his strange gaze appear to her so hardened that she shook her head and looked away. "Poor yoimg Mr. Dill!" she said. "If someone could only have been with him and kept talldng to him until he got used to the idea a little!" Cousin Virginia nodded comprehendingly. "Yes, it might have tided him over," she said. "He wasn't handsome, nor impressive, of course, nor anything like that, but he always spoke so nicely^ to people on the street. I'm sure he never harmed even a kitten, poor soul!" "I'm sure he never did," Herbert's mother agreed gently. "Not even a kitten. I do wonder where he is now." But Aunt Fanny uttered a little cry of protest. "I'm afraid we may hear!" she said. "Any mo- ment!" CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE THESE sympathetic women had unanimously set their expectation in so romantically pessi- mistic a groove that the most tragic news of Noble would have surprised them little. But if the truth of his whereabouts could have been made known to them, as they sat thus together at what was developing virtually into his wake, with Herbert as a compulsory participant, they would have turned the session into a riot of amazement. Noble was in the very last place (they would have said, when calmer) where anybody in the world could have 8ven madly dreamed of looking for him! They would have been right about it. No one could have expected to find Noble to-night inside the old, fourrsquare brick house of H. I. Atwater, Senior, chief of the Atwaters and father of too gentle Julia. Moreover, Mr. Atwater himself was not at present in the house; he had closed and locked it the day be- fore, giving the servants a week's vacation and telling them not to return till he sent for them; and he had S46 GENTLE JULIA 847 then gone out of town to look over a hominy-mill he thought of buying. And yet, as the wake went on, there was a light in the house, and under that light sat Noble Dill. Returning home, after Florence had placed the shat- tering paper within his hand. Noble had changed his shoes and his tie. He was but a mechanism; he had no motive. The shoes he put on were no better than those he took off; the fresh tie was no lovelier than the one he had worn; nor had it even the lucidity to be a purple one, as the banner dt grief. No; his action was, if so viewed, "crazy," as Aunt Fanny had called it. Agitation first took this form; that was all. Love and change of dress are so closely allied; and in happier days, when Noble had come home from work and would see Julia in the evening, he usually changed his clothes. No doubt there is some faint tracery here, probably too indistinct to repay contemplation. , When he left the house he walked rapidly down- town, and toward the end of this one-mile journey he ran; but as he was then approaching the railway station, no one thought biTn eccentric. He was, however, for when he entered the station he went to a bench and sat \ooking upward for more than 348 GENTLE JULIA ten minutes before he rose, went to a ticket win- dow and asked for a time-table. "What road?" the clerk inquired. "All points South," said Noble. He placed the time-table, still folded, in his pocket* rested an elbow on the brass apron of the window, and would have given himself up to reflections, though urged to move away. Several people, wish- ing to buy tickets, had formed a line behind him; thfey perceived, that Noble had nothing more to say to the clerk, and the latter encouraged their pro- tests, even going so far as to inquire: "For heaven's sakes, can't you let these folk buy their tickets?" And since Noble still did not move: "My gosh, haven't you got no feet 9" "Feet? Oh, yes," said Noble gently. "I'm going away." And went back to his seat. Afterwhile, he sought to study his time-table. Ordinarily, his mind was one of those able to decipher and comprehend railway time-tables; he had few gifts, but this was one of them. It failed him now; so he wandered back to the ticket-window, and, after urgent coaching, eventually took his place at the end instead of at the head of the line that waited there. In his turn he came again to the window, and ^Ja* GENTLE JULIA 34» parted from it after a conversation with the clerk that left the latter in accord with Aunt Fanny At- water's commiserating adjective, though the clerk'a own pity was expressed in argot. "The poor nut!" he explained to his next client. "Wants to buy a ticket on a train that don't pull out until ten thirty- five to-night; and me fiUin' it all out, stampin' it and everything, what for? Turned out all his pock- ets and couldn't come within eight dollars o' the price! Where you want to go?" Noble went back to his bench and sat there for a long time, though there was no time, long or short, for him. He was not yet consciously suffering; nor was he thinking at all. True, he had a dim, persistent impulse to action — or why should he be al the station? — ^but for the clearest expression of his condition it is necessary to borrow a culinary symbol; he was jelling. But the state of shock was slowly dispersing, while a perception of approaching anguish as slowly increased. He was beginning to swallow nothing at intervals and the intervals were growing shorter. Dusk was misting down, outdoors, when with dragging steps he came out of the station. He looked hazily up and down the street, where the 350 GENTLE JULIA comer-lamps and shop-windows now were lighted; and, after dreary hesitation, he went in search of a pawn-shop, and found one. The old man who oper- ated it must have been a philanthropist, for Noble was so fortunate as to secure a loan of nine dollars upon his watch. Surprised at this, he returned to the station, and went back to the same old bench. It was fully occupied, and he stood for some time looking with vague reproach at the large family of coloured people who had taken it. He had a feeling that he lived there and that these coloured people were trespassers; but upon becoming aware that part of an orange was being rubbed over his left shoe by the yoimgest of the children, he groaned abruptly and found another bench. A little after six o'clock a clanging and commotion ia the train-shed outside, attending the arrival of a "through express," stirred him from his torpor, and he walked heavily across the room to the same ticket-window he had twice blocked; but there was no queue attached to it now. He rested his elbow upon the apron and his chin upon his hand, while the clerk waited until he should state his wishes. This was a new clerk, who had just relieved the other. GENTLE JULIA 351 "Well! Well!" he said at last. "I'll take it now," Noble responded. "What'll you take now?" "That ticket." "What ticket?" "The same one I wanted before," Noble sighed. The clerk gave him a piercing look, glanced out of the window and saw that there were no other clients, then went to a desk at the farther end of his compartment, and took up some clerical work he had in hand. Noble leaned upon the apron of the window, wait- ing; and if he thought anything, he thought the man was serving him. The high, vaulted room became resonant with voices and the blurred echoes of mingling footsteps on the marble floor, as passengers from the express hurried anxiously to the street, or more gaily strag- gled through, shouting with friends who came to greet them; and among these moving groups there walked a youthful fine lady noticeably enlivening to the dullest eye. She was preceded by a brisk porter who carried two travelling-bags of a rich sort, as well as a sack of implements for the game of golf; and she was warm in dark furs, against which the vasty , 362 GENTLE JUUA clump of violets she wore showed dewy gleamings of blue. At sight of Noble Dill, more than pensive at the ticket-window, she hesitated, then stopped and ob- served him. That she should observe anybody was in a way a coincidence, for, as it happened, she was herself the most observed person in all the place. She was veiled in two veils, but she had been seen in the train without these, and some of her fellow- travellers, though strangers to her, were walking near her in a hypocritical way, hoping still not to lose sight of her, even veiled. And although the shroud- ings permitted the most meagre information of her features, what they did reveal was harmfully pi- quant; moreover, there was a sweetness of figure, a disturbing grace; while nothing could disguise her air of wearing that many violets casually as a daily perquisite and matter of course. So this observed lady stopped and observed Noble, who in return observed her not at all, being but semi-conscious. Looked upon thoughtfully, it is a coincidence that we breathe; certainly it is a mighty coincidence that we speak to one another and com- prehend; for these are true marvels. But what petty iuterlacings of human action so pique our sense of GENTLE JULIA $53 the theatrical that we call them coincidences and are astonished! That Julia should arrive during Noble's long process of buying a ticket to go to her was stranger than that she stopped to look at him, though still not comparable in strangeness to the fact that either of them, or any living creature, stood upon the whirling earth; — ^yet when Noble Din comprehended what was happening he was amazed. She spoke to him. "Noble!" she said. He stared at her. His elbow sagged away from the window; the whole person of Noble DiU seemed near collapse. He shook; he had no voice. "I just this minute got off the train,*' she said. "Are you going away somewhere.'*" "No," he whispered; then obtained command of a huskiness somewhat greater in volume. "I'm just standing here." "I told the porter to get me a taxicab," she said. "If you're going home for dinner I'll drop you at your house." "I — ^I'm — ^I " His articulation encountered unsurmountable difficulties, but Julia had been with him through many such trials aforetime. She said 354 GENTLE JULIA briskly, "I'm awfully hungry and I want to gel home. Come on — ^if you like?" He walked waveringly at her side through the station, and followed her into the dim interior of the cab, which became fragrant of violets — ^an emanation at once ineffable and poisonous. "I'm so glad I happened to run across you," she said, as they began to vibrate tremulously in unison with the fierce little engine that drew them. "I want to hear all the news. Nobody knows I'm home. I didn't write or telegraph to a soul; and I'll be a complete surprise to father and every- body — ^I don't know how pleasant a one! You didn't seem so frightfully glad to see me. Noble!" "Am I?" he whispered. "I mean — ^I mean — I mean: Didn't I?" "No!" she laughed. "You looked — ^you looked shocked! It couldn't have been because I'm ill or anything, because I'm not; and if I were you coiddn't have told it through these two veils. Possibly I'd better take your expression as a com- pliment." She paused, then asked hesitatingly. "Shall I?" This was the style for which the Atwaters held Julia responsible; but they were mistaken: she wa^ GENTLE JUIIA 355 never able to control it. Now she went chcCTfly on: "Perhaps not, as you don't answer. I shouldn't be so bold! Do you suppose anybody at all will be glad to see me?" " I — ^I " He seemed to hope that words-would come in their own good time. "Noble!" she cried. "Don't be so glum!" And she touched his arm with her muflF, a fluffy contact causing within him a short convulsion, naturally invisible. "Noble, aren't you going to tell me what's all the news? " "There's — some," he managed to inform her. "Some — some news." "What is it?" "It's— it's " "Never mind," she said soothingly. "Get your breath; I can wait. I hope nothing's wrong in youi family. Noble." "No. Oh, no." "It isn't just my turning up imexpectedly that's upset you so, of course," she dared to say. "Nat- urally, I know better than to think such a thing as that." "Oh. JuHa!" he said. "Oh, Julia!" "What is it. Noble?" 356 GENTLE JULIA "Nbth-ing," he mtirmured, disjointing the word. "How odd you happened to be there at the sta- tion," she said, "just when my train came in! You're sure you weren't going away anywhere?" "No; oh, no." She was thoughtfid, then laughed confidentially. "You're the only person in town that knows I'm home. Noble." "I'm glad," he said humbly. She laughed again. "I came all of a sudden — on an impulse. It's a httle idiotic. I'll tell you all about it. Noble. You see, ten or twelve days ago I wrote the family a more or less indiscreet letter. That is, I told them something I wanted them to be discreet about, and, of course, when I got to thinking it over, I knew they wouldn't. You see, I wrote them something I wanted them to keep a secret, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw I'd better hurry back. Yesterday it got into my head that I'd better jump on the next train for home!" She paused, then added, "So I did! About ten or twelve days is as long as anybody has a right to expect the Atwater family connection to keep the deadliest kind of a secret, isn't it?" And as he did not respond, she explained, modestly, "Of course, it GENTLE JULIA 357 wasn't a very deadly secret; it was really about Bomething of only the least importance." The jar of this understatement restored Noble's voice to a sudden and startling loudness. '"Only the least importance'!" he shouted. "With a man named Crum!" "What!" she cried. "Crum!" Noble insisted. "That's exactly what it said his name was ! " "What said his name was?" " The North End Daily Oriole " "What in heaven's name is that?" "It's thechildren's paper, Herbert's and Florence's: your own niece and nephew, Julia! You don't mean you deny it, do you, Julia?" She was in great confusion: "Do I deny what?" "That his name's Crum!" Noble said passion- ately. "That his name's Crum and that he's a widower and he's been divorced and's got nobody knows how many children!" Julia sought to collect herself. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "If you mean that I happened to meet a very charming man while I was away, and that his name happened to be Crum, I don't know why I should go to the trouble of 358 GENTLE JULIA denying it. But if Mr. Cnun has had the expe- riences you say he has, it is certainly news to me! I think someone told me he was only twenty-sii years old. He looked rather younger." "You 'think someone told' you!" Noble groaned. "Oh, Jidia! And here it is, all down in black and white, in my pocket!" "I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about." Julia's tone was cold, and she drew herself up haughtily, though the gesture was ineffective in the darkness of that quivering interior. The quivering stopped just then, however, as the taxi- cab came to a rather abrupt halt before her house. "Will you come in with me a moment, please?" Julia said as she got out. "There are some things I want to ask you — and I'm sure my father hasn't come home from downtown yet. There's no light in the front part of the house." CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO THERE was no light in any other part of the house, they discovered, after abandoning the front door bell for an excursion to the rear. "That's disheartening to a hungry person," Julia remarked: and then remembered that she had a key to the front door in her purse. She opened the door, and lighted the hall chandelier while Noble brought in her bags from the steps where the taxicab driver had left them. "There's nobody home at all," Julia said thought- fully. "Not even Gamin." "No. Nobody," hier sad companion agreed, shaking his head. "Nobody at all, JuUa. Nobody at all." Rousing himself, he went back for the golf tools, and with a lingering gentleness set them in a corner. Then, dumbly, he tm-ned to go. "Wait, please," said Juha. "I want to ask you a few things — especially about what you've got 'all down in black and white' in your pocket. Will you shut the front door, if you please, and go into 359 360 GENTLE JULIA the library and turn on the lights and wait there while I look over the house and see if I can find why it's all closed up like this?" Noble went into the library and found the con- trol of the' lights. She came hurrying in after him. "It's chilly. The furnace seems to be off," she said. "I'll -" But instead of declaring her intentions, she enacted them; taking a match from a little white porcelain trough on the mantelpiece and striking it on the heel of her glittering shoe. Then she knelt before the grate and set the flame to paper beneath the kindling-wood and coal. "You mustn't freeze," she said, with a thoughtful kind- ness that killed him; and as she went out of the room he died again; — for she looked back over her shoulder. She had pushed up her veils and this was his first sight of that disastrous face in long empty weeks and weeks. Now he realized that aU his aching reveries upon its contours had shown but pallid likenesses; for here was the worst thing about Julia's looks; — even her most extravagant suitor, in ab- sence, could not dream an image of her so charming as he found herself when he saw her again. Thus, seeing Julia again was always a discovery. And this glance over her shoulder as she left a room— GENTLE JULIA 361 not a honeyed glaiice but rather inscrutable, yet implying that she thought of the occupant, and might continue to think of him while gone from him — • this was one of those ways of hers that experience could never drill out of her. "I'm Robinson Crusoe, Noble," she said, when she came back. "I suppose I might as well take off my furs, though." But first she unfastened the great bouquet she wore and tossed it upon a table. Noble was standing close to the table, and he moved away from it hurriedly-^a revulsion that she failed to notice. She went on to explain, as she dropped her cloak and stole upon a chair: ; "Papa's gone away for at least a week. He's taken his ulster. It doesn't make any difference what the weather is, but when he's going away for a week or longer, he always takes it with him, except in summer. If he's only going to be gone two or three days he takes his short overcoat. And imless I'm here when he leaves town he always gives the servants a holiday till he gets back; so they've gone and even taken Gamin with 'em, and I'm all alone in the house. I can't get even Kitty Silver back until to-morrow, and then I'll probably have to hunt from house to house among her relatives. Papa left yesterdayr 862 GENTLE JULIA because the numbers on his desk calender are pulled off up to to-day, and that's the first thing he does when he comes dovm for breakfast. So here I am, Robinson Crusoe for to-night at least." "I suppose," said Noble huskily, "I suppose you'll go to some of your aunts or brothers or cousins oi something," "No," she said. "My trunk may come up from the station almost any time, and if I close the house they'll take it back." "You needn't bother about that, Julia. I'll look after it." "How?" "I could sit on the porch till it comes," he said. "I'd tell 'em you wanted 'em to leave it." He hesitated, painfully. "I — ^if you want to lock up the house I — ^I could wait out on the porch with your trunk, to see that it was safe, until you come back to-morrow morning." She looked full at him, and he plaintively endured the examination. "Noble!" Undoubtedly she had a moment's shame that any creature should come to such a pass for her sake. "What crazy nonsense!" she said; and sat upon a stool before the crackling fire. "Do GENTLE JULIA S63 at do\ra. Noble — ^unless your dinn^ will be waiting for you at home?" "No," he murmured. "They never wait for me. Don't you want me to look after your trunk?" "Not by sitting all night with it on the porch!" she said. "I'm going to stay here myself. I'm not going out; I don't want to see any of the family to-night." "I thought you said you were hungry?" "I am; but there's enough in the pantry. I looked." "Well, if you don't want to see any of 'em," he suggested, "and they know your father's away and think the house is empty, they're liable to notice the lights and come in, and then you'd have to see em. "No, you can't see the lights of this room from the street, and I lit the lamp at the other end of the hall. The light near the front door," Julia added, "I put out." "You did?" **! can't see any of 'em to-night," she said reso- lutely. "Besides, I want to find out what you meant by what you said in the taxicab before I do any- thing else." 364 GENTLE JULIA " What I meant in the tasdcab? " lie echoed. "Oh, JuHa! Julia!" She frowned, first at the fire, then, turning hei head, at Noble. "You seem to feel reproachful about something," she observed. "No, I don't. I don't feel reproachful, Julia. I don't know what I feel, but I don't feel reproachful." She smiled faintly. "Don't you.? Well, there's something perhaps you do feel, and that's hungry. Will you stay to dinner with me — if I go and get it?*^ "What?" "You can have dinner with me — ^if you want to? You can stay till ten o'clock — ^if you want to? Wait!" she said, and jumped up and ran out of the room. Half an hour later she came back and called softly to him from the doorway; and he followed her to the dining-room. "It isn't much of a dinner. Noble," she said, a little tremulously, being for once (though strictly as a cook) genuinely apologetic; — ^but the scrambled eggs, cold lamb, salad, and coflfee were quite as "much of a dinner" as Noble wanted. To him everything OQ that table was hallowed, yet excruciating. "Let's eat first and talk afterward," Julia pro- GENTLE JULIA 365 posed; but what she meant by "talk" evidently did not exclude interchange of information regarding weather and the health of acquaintances, for she spoke freely upon these subjects, while Noble mur- mured in response and swallowed a little of the sacred food, but more often swallowed nothing. Bitterest of all was his thought of what this imex ampled seclusion with Julia could have meant to him, were those poisonous violets not at her waist — for she had put them on again — and were there no Crum in the South. Without these fatal obstruc tions, the present moment would have been to him a bit of what he often thought of as "dream life"; but all its sweetness was a hurt. "Now we'll talk!" said Julia, when she had brought him back to the library fire again, and they were seated before it. "Don't you want to smoke?" He shook his head dismally, haviug no heart for what she proposed. "Well, then," she said briskly, but a little ruefully, "let's get to the bottom of things. Just what did you mean you had *in black and white' in your pocket.'*" Slowly Noble drew forth the historic copy of The North End Daily Oriole; and with face averted, placed it in her extended hand. S66 GENTLE JULIA "What in the world!" she exclaimed, unfolding it; and then as its title and statement of own- ership came into view, "Oh, yes! I see. Aunt Carrie wrote me that Uncle Joseph had given Herbert a priating-press. I suppose Herbert's the editor?" "And that Rooter boy," Noble said sadly. "I think maybe your little niece Florence has some- thing to do with it, too." "'Something' to do with it? She usually has all to do with anything she gets hold of! But what's it got to do with me?" "You'll see!" he prophesied accurately. She began to read, laughing at some of the items as she went along; then suddenly she became rigid, holding the small journal before her in a transfixed hand. "Oh!" she cried. "Oh!" "That's — that's what — ^I meant," Noble ex- plained. Julia's eyes grew dangerous. "The little fiends!" she cried. "Oh, really, this is a long-suffering family, but it's time these outrages were stopped!" She jumped up. "Isn't it frightful?" she de- manded of Noble. GENTLE JULIA 367 "Yes, it is," he said, with a dismal fervour. "No- body knows that better than I do, Julia!" "I mean this!" she cried, extending the Oriole toward him with a vigorous gesture. "I meaa this dreadful story about poor Mr. Cnmi!" "But it's true," he said. "Noble Dill!" "JuHa?" "Do you dare to say you believed it?" He sprang up. "It isn't true?" "Not one word of it! I told you Mr. Crum is only twenty-six. He hasn't been out of college more than three or four years, and it's the most terrible slander to say he's ever been married at all!" Noble dropped back into his chair of misery. "I thought you meant it wasn't true." "I've just told you there isn't one word of tr " "But you're — engaged," Noble gulped. "You're engaged to him, JuUa!" She appeared not to hear this. "I suppose it can be hved down," she said. "To think of Upcle Joseph putting such a thing into the hands of those awful children!" "But, Julia, you're eng-^ — " 368 GENTLE JULIA "Noble!" she said sharply. "Well, you are eng " Julia drew herself up. "Different people mean different things by that word," she said with sever- ity, like an annoyed school-teacher. "There are any number of shades of meaning to words; and if I used the word you mention, in writing home to the family, I may have used a certain shade and they may have thought I intended another." "But, Juha " "Mr. Crum is a charming young man," she con- tinued with the same primness. "I liked him very much indeed. I hked him very, very much. I hked him very, very " "I understand," he interrupted. "Don't say it any more, Juha." "No; you don't understand! At first I liked him very much — ^in fact, I still do, of course — ^I'm sure he's one of the best and most attractive young men in the world. I think he's a man any girl ought to be happy with, if he were only to be considered by himself. I don't deny that. I liked him very much indeed, and I don't deny that for several days after he — after he proposed to me — ^I don't deny I thought something serious migM come of it. But at that GENTLE JULIA 369 time. Noble, I hadn't— hadn't really thought of what it meant to give up living here at home, with all the family and everything— and friends — friends like you. Noble. I hadn't thought what it would mean to me to give all this up. And besides, there was something very important. At the time 1 wrote that letter mentioning poor Mr. Crum to the family. Noble, I hadn't— I hadn't " She paused, visibly in some distress. "I hadn't " "You hadn't what?" he cried. "I hadn't met his mother!" Noble leaped to his feet. "JuHa! You aren't — ^you aren't engaged?" "I am not," she answered decisively. "If I ever was — ^in the slightest — ^I certainly am not now." Poor Noble was transfigured. He struggled; mak- ing half -formed gestures, speaking half -made words. A rapture glowed upon him. "Juha — ^Juha " He choked. "Julia, promise me something. Will you promise me something? Julia, promise to promise me something." "I will," she said quickly. "What do you want me to do?" Then he saw that it was his time to speak; that S70 GENTLE JULIA this was the moment for him to dare everjrthing and ask for the utmost he could hope from her. "Give me your word!" he said, still radiantly struggling. "Give me your word — ^your word — your word and your sacred promise, Julia — ^that you'U never be engaged to anybody at all!" CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE AT SIX minutes after four o'clock on the second /\ afternoon following Julia's return, Noble -^ -^ Dill closed his own gate behind him and set forth upon the four-minute walk that woidd bring him to Juha's. He wore a bit of scarlet geranium in the buttonhole of his new light overcoat; he flom-ished a new walking-stick and new grey gloves. As for his expression, he might have been a bride- groom. Passing the mouth of an alley, as he swung along ihe street, he was aware of a commotion, of missiles hurled and voices clashed. In this alley there was a discord: passion and mockery were here inimicaUy intermingled. Casting a glance that way. Noble could see but one person; a boy of fourteen who looked through a crack ia a board fence, steadfastly keeping an eye to this aperture and as continuously calling through it, holding his head to a level for this purpose, but at the same time dancing — ^and dancing tauntingly, 871 372 GENTLE JULIA it was conveyed — with the other parts of his body. His voice was now sweet, now piercing, and again far too dulcet with the overkindness of burlesque; and if, as it seemed, he was unburdening his spleen, his spleen was a powerful one and gorged. He ap- peared to be in a torment of tormenting; and his success was proved by the pounding of bricks, parts of bricks and rocks of size upon the other side of the fence, as close to the crack as might be. "Oh, dolling!" he wailed, his tone poisonously amorous. "Oh, dolling Henery! Oo's dot de mos' booful eyes in » dray bid nasty world, Henery! Oh, has 1 dot booful eyes, doUing Pattywatty? Yes, I has! I has dot pretty eyes!" His voice rose unbearably. "Oh, what pj-ettiest eyes I dot! Me and Herbie Atwater! Qh, my booful eyes! Oh, my booful " But even as he reached this apex, the head, shoul' ders, and arms of Herbert Atwater rose momentarily above the fence across the alley, behind the tor- mentor. Herbert's expression was implacably re- sentful, and so was the gesture with which he hurled . an object at the comedian preoccupied with the opposite fence. This object, upon reaching its goal, as it did more with a splash than a thud,, GENTLE JULIA 373 was revealed as ia tomato, presumably in a useless state. The taunter screamed in astonishment, and after looking vainly for an assailant, began necessar- ily to remove his coat. Noble, passing on, thought he recognized the boy as one of the Torbin family, but he was not sure, and he had no idea that the episode was in any possible manner to be connected with his own recent history. How blindly we walk our ways! As Noble flourished down the street, there appeared a wan face at a prison window; and the large eyes looked out upon him wistfully. But Noble went on, as imwitting that he had to do with this prison as that he had to do with Master Torbin's tomato. The face at the window was not like Charlotte Corday's, nor was the window barred, though the prisoner knew a little solace in wondering if she did not suggest that famous picture. For all purposes, except during school hours, the room was certainly a cell; and the term of imprisonment was set at three days. Uncle Joseph had been unable to remain at the movies forever: people do have to go home eventually, especially when accompanied by thir- teen-year-old great-nieces. Florence had finally to face the question awaiting her; and it would fea.v« S74 GENTLE JUUA been better for her had she used less unaginatlon In her replies. Yet she was not wholly despondent as her eyes followed the disappearing figure of Noble Dill. His wholesome sprightliness was visible at any dis- tance; and who would not take a little pride in having been even the mistaken instnmient of saving so gay a young man from the loss of his reason? No; Florence was not cast down. Day-after-to-morrow she would taste Freedom again, and her profoundest regret was that after aU her Aunt Juha was not tc be married. Florence had made definite plans for the wedding, especially for the principal figmre at the ceremony. This figure, as Florence saw things, would have been that of the "Flower Girl," nat- urally a niece of the bride; but she was able to dismiss the bright dream with some philosophy. And to console hev for everything, had she not a star in her soul? Had she not discovered that she could write poetry whenever she felt like it? Noble passed from her sight, but nevertheless continued his radiant progress down Julia's Street. Life stretched before him, serene, ineflFably fragrant, unending. He saw it as a flower-strewn sequence of calls upon Julia, walks with Julia, talks with Julia GENTLE JULIA 375 by the library fire. Old Mr. Atwater was to be away four days longer, and Julia, that great-hearted bride-not-to-be, had given him her promise. Blushing, indeed divinely, she had promised him upon her sacred word, never so long as she lived, to be engaged to anybody at all. THE END BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS May ba had wtieraver books art sold. Ask for Graiset & Ounlap's list. Ever since 1899 when Booth Tarkington, a young gentleman of leisure, first began to spend his days "fiissin' with Uterature," he has been concerned with the interpret- ation of American life. His books catch the spirit of America as no other author has caught it. His brilliant etreer as a writer, each year bringing more remarkable suc- cesses, has seldom been equalled. Below is a list of Booth Tarldngton's books now available in the Grosset & Dunlap edition : MIRTHFUL HAVEN CLAIRE AMBLER AUCE ADAMS THE MAGNinCENT AMBERSONS PENROD PENROD AND SAM PENROD JASHBER THE TURMOIL SEVENTEEN THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK