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OUT OF THE QUESTION 
 
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 TICKNOR AND COMPANY 
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 Copyright, 1877, 
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 iHt^Vaii'y of Supreme Council ^Ai"*^' 
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 ^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 — ♦— 
 
 I. In the Parlor op the Ponkwasset Hotel . 3 
 II. " In Fayke Forest " 37 
 
 III. A Slight Misunderstanding 65 
 
 IV. Mrs. Murray's Triumph 99 
 
 V. Blake's Saving Doubt 119 
 
 VI. Mr. Charles Bellingham's Diplomacy . . 131 
 
I. 
 
 IN THE PARLOR OF THE PONKWASSET 
 HOTEL. 
 
OUT OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 I. 
 
 Miss II^^aggie Wallace and Miss Lilly Roberts. 
 
 The Ponkwasset Hotel stands on the slope of a 
 hill and fronts the UTCgular mass of Ponkwasset 
 Mountain, on which the galleries and northern win- 
 dows of the parlor look out. The parlor is fur- 
 nished with two hair-cloth sofas, two hair-cloth easy- 
 chairs, and cane-seated chairs of divers patterns ; 
 against one side of the room stands a piano, near 
 either end of which a door opens into the corridor ; 
 in the center of the parlor a marble-topped table 
 supports a state-lamp of kerosene, — a perfume by 
 day, a flame by night, — and near this table sit two 
 young ladies with what they call work in their 
 hands and laps. 
 
6 Out of the Question. 
 
 Miss Maggie Wallace^ with her left wrist curved 
 in the act of rolling up a part of her work, at which 
 she looks down with a very thoughtful air and a 
 careworn little sigh : " I don't think I shall cut it 
 bias, after all, Lilly." 
 
 Miss Lilly Roberts, letting her work fall into her 
 lap, in amazement : " Why, Maggie ! " 
 
 Maggie : " No. Or at least I shan't decide to 
 do so till I 've had Leslie's opinion on it. She has 
 'perfect taste, and she could tell at a glance whether 
 it would do." 
 
 Lilly : " I wonder she is n't here, now. The 
 stage must be very late." 
 
 Maggie: "I suppose the postmaster at South 
 Herodias waited to finish his supper before he 
 ' changed the mail,' as they call it. I was so in 
 hopes she would come while they were at tea / It 
 will so disgust her to see them all strung along the 
 piazza and staritig their eyes out at the arrivals, 
 when the stage drives up," — a horrible picture 
 which Miss Wallace dreamily contemplates for a 
 moment in mental vision. 
 
 Lilly: "Why don't you go down, too, Maggie? 
 Perhaps she 'd find a familiar face a relief." 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 7 
 
 Maggie, recalled to herself by the wild sugges- 
 tion : " Thank you, Lilly. I 'd rather not be 
 thought so vulgar as that, by Leslie Bellingham, 
 if it 's quite the same to other friends. Imagine 
 her catching sight of me in that crowd ! I should 
 simply wither away." 
 
 Lilly, rebelliously : " Well, I don't see why she 
 should feel authorized to overawe people in that 
 manner. What does she do to show her immense 
 superiority ? " 
 
 3Iaggie : " Everything ! In the first place she 's 
 so refined and cultivated, you can't live ; and then 
 she takes your breath away, she 's so perfectly 
 lovely ; and then she kills you dead with her style, 
 and all that. She is n't the least stiff". She 's the 
 kindest to other people you ever saw, and the care- 
 fullest of their feelings ; and she has the grand- 
 est principles, and she 's divinely impulsive ! But 
 tomehow you feel that if you do anything that 's a 
 little vulgar in her presence, you 'd better die at 
 once. It was always so at school, and it always 
 will be. Why you would no more dare to do or 
 say anything just a little common, don't you know 
 
8 Out of the Question. 
 
 with Leslie Bellingham " — A young lady, tall, 
 slender, and with an air of delicate distinction, has 
 appeared at the door of the parlor. She is of that 
 type of beauty which approaches the English, with- 
 out losing the American fineness and grace ; she is, 
 fair, and her eyes are rather gray than blue ; her 
 nose is slightly aquiline ; her expression is serious, 
 but becomes amused as she listens to Miss "Wal- 
 lace. She wears one of those blonde traveling- 
 costumes, whose general fashionableness she some- 
 how subdues into character with herself; over her 
 arm she carries a shawl. She drifts lightly into 
 the room. At the rustling of her dress Miss Wal- 
 lace looks up, and with a cry of surprise and 
 ecstasy springs from her chair, scattering the con- 
 tents of her work-box in every direction over the 
 floor, and flings herself into Miss Leslie Belling- 
 ham's embrace. Then she starts away from her 
 and gazes rapturously into her face, while they 
 prettily clasp hands and hold each other at arm's 
 length : " Leslie ! You heard every word ! " 
 
II. 
 
 Miss Leslie Bellingham, Maggie, and Lilly. 
 
 Leslie : " Every syllable, my child. And when 
 you came to my grand principles, I simply said to 
 myself, ' Then listening at keyholes is heroic,' and 
 kept on eavesdropping without a murmur. Had 
 you quite finished ? " 
 
 Maggie : " O Leslie ! You know I never can 
 finish when I get on that subject ! It inspires 
 me to greater and greater flights every minute. 
 Where is your mother ? Where is Mrs. Murray ? 
 Where is the stage ? Why, excuse me ! This 
 is Miss Roberts. Lilly, it's Leslie Bellingham! 
 Oh, how glad I am to see you together at last ! 
 Didn't the stage " — 
 
 Leslie, having graciously bowed to Miss Rob- 
 erts : " No, Maggie. The stage did n't bring me 
 here. I walked." 
 
10 Out of the Question. 
 
 Maggie : " Why, Leslie ! How perfectly ghast- 
 
 Leslie : " The stas^e has done nothins: but dis- 
 grace itself ever since we left the station. In the 
 first place it pretended to carry ten or twelve 
 people and their baggage, with two horses. Four 
 horses ought n't to drag such a load up these prec- 
 ipices ; and wherever the driver would stop for me, 
 I insisted upon getting out to walk." 
 
 Maggie : " How like yon, Leslie ! " 
 
 Leslie : " Yes ; I wish the resemblance were not 
 BO striking. I 'm here in character, Maggie, if you 
 like, but almost nothing else. I 've nothing but a 
 nand-bag to bless me with for the next twenty-four 
 hours. Shall you be very much ashamed of me ? " 
 
 Maggie : " Why, you don't mean to say you 've 
 lost your trunks ? Horrors ! " 
 
 Leslie : " No. I meau that I was n't going to let 
 the driver add them to the cruel load he had al- 
 ready, and I made him leave them at the station 
 till to-morrow night." 
 
 Maggie, embracing her : " Oh, you dear, good, 
 grand, generous Leslie ! How — Why, but Les- 
 
In the Parlor of the Porikwasset Hotel. 11 
 
 lie ! He '11 have just as many people to-morrow 
 night, and your trunks besides theirs ! " 
 
 Leslie^ with decision : " Very well ! Then I shall 
 not be there to see the outrage. I will not have 
 suffering or injustice of any kind inflicted in my 
 presence, if I can help it. That is all." Never- 
 theless, Miss Bellingham sinks into one of the arm- 
 chairs with an air of some dismay, and vainly taps 
 the toe of her boot with the point of her umbrella 
 in a difficult interval of silence. 
 
 Maggie, finally : " But where is your hand-bag ? " 
 
 Leslie, with mystery , " Oh, he 's bringing it." 
 
 Maggie: "He?" 
 
 Leslie, with reviving spirits : " A young man, 
 the good genius of the drive. He 's bringing it 
 from the foot of the hill ; the stage had its final 
 disaster there ; and I left him in charge of mamma 
 and aunt Kate, and came on to explore and sur- 
 prise, and he made me leave the bag with him, too. 
 But that is n't the worst. I shall know what to 
 io with the hand-bag when it gets here, but I 
 ihan't know what to do with the young man." 
 
 Maggie : " With the young man ? Why, Leslie, 
 
12 Out of the Question. 
 
 a young man is worth a thousand hand-bags iu a 
 place like this ! You don't know what you *re talk- 
 ing about, Leslie. A young man " — 
 
 Leslie^ rising and going toward the window: 
 " My dear, he 's out of the question. You may as 
 well make up your mind to that, for you '11 see at 
 once that he '11 never do. He 's going to stop here, 
 and as he's been very kind to us it makes his never 
 doing all the harder to manage. He 's a hero, if 
 you like, but if you can imagine it he is n't quite 
 — well, what you 've been used to. Don't you see 
 how a person could be everything that was unself- 
 ish and obliging, and yet not — not " — 
 
 Maggie, eagerly : " Oh yes ! " 
 
 Leslie : " Well, he 's that. It seems to me that 
 he 's been doing something for mamma, or aunt 
 Kate, or me, ever since we left the station. To 
 begin with, he gave up his place inside to one of 
 us, and when he went to get on top, he found all 
 the places taken there ; and so he had to sit on the 
 trunks behind — whenever he rode ; for he walked 
 most of the way, and helped me over the bad 
 places ia the road when I insisted on getting out. 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 13 
 
 You know how aunt Kate is, Maggie, and how 
 many wants she has. Well, there was n't one of 
 them that this young man did n't gratify : he 
 handed her bag up to the driver on top because 
 it crowded her, and handed it down because she 
 could n't do without it ; he got her out and put her 
 back so that she could face the front, and then 
 restored her to her place because an old gentleman 
 who had been traveling a long way kept falling 
 asleep on her shoulder; he buttoned her curtain 
 down because she was sure it was going to rain, 
 and rolled it up because it made the air too close ; 
 he fetched water for her ; he looked every now 
 and then to see if her trunks were all right, and 
 made her more and more ungrateful every minute. 
 Whenever the stage broke down — as it did twice 
 before the present smash-up — he befriended every^ 
 body, encouraged old ladies, quieted children, and 
 shamed the other men into trying to be of some 
 use ; and if it had n't been for him, I don't see 
 how the stage would ever have got out of its 
 troubles ; he always -knew just what was the mat- 
 ter, and just how to mend it. Is that the window 
 
14 Out of the Questions 
 
 that commands a magiuficent prospect of Ponk- 
 wasset Mountain — in the advertisement ? " 
 
 Maggie : " The very window ! " 
 
 Leslie: "Does it condescend to overlook so 
 common a thing as the road up to the house? " 
 
 Maggie : " Of course ; but why ? " 
 
 Leslie^ going to the open window, and stepping 
 through it upon the gallery, whither the other 
 young ladies follow her, and where her voice is 
 heard : " Yes, there they come ! But I can't see 
 my young man. Is it possible that he 's riding ? 
 No, there he is ! He was on the other side of 
 the stage. Don't you see him ? Why he need n't 
 carrg my hand-bag ! He certainly might have let 
 that ride. I do wonder what he means by it ! Or 
 is it only absent-mindedness ? Don^t let him see 
 us looking ! It would be altogether too silly. Do 
 let 's go in ! " 
 
 Maggie, on their return to the parlor : " What 
 a great pity it is that he won't do ! Is he hand- 
 some, Leslie ? Why won't he do ? " 
 
 Leslie : " You can tell in a moment, when you ve 
 seen him, Maggie. He's perfectly respectful and 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponkw asset Hotel. 15 
 
 nice, of course, but he 's no more social perspec- 
 tive than — the man in the moon. He 's never ob- 
 trusive, but he 's as free and equal as the Declara- 
 tion of Independence ; and when you did get up 
 some little perspective with him, and tried to let 
 him know, don't you know, that there was such a 
 thing as a vanishing point somewhere, he was sure 
 to do or say something so unconscious that away 
 went your perspective — one simple crush." 
 
 Maggie : " How ridiculous ! " 
 
 Leslie: "Yes. It was funny. But not Justin 
 that way. He is n't in the least common or un- 
 couth. Nobody could say that. But he 's going 
 to be here two or three weeks, and it 's impossible 
 not to be civil ; and it 's very embarrassing, don't 
 you see ? " 
 
 Lilly: " Let me comfort you. Miss Bellingham. 
 It will be the simplest thing in the world. We 're 
 all on the same level in the Ponkwasset Hotel. 
 The landlord will bring him up during the evening 
 and introduce him. Our table girls teach school 
 in the winter and are as good as anybody. Mine 
 'Jails me ' Lilly,' and I 'm so small I can't help iU 
 
16 Out of the QuestioJi. 
 
 They dress up in the afternoon, and play the piano. 
 The cook 's as affable, when you meet her in so- 
 ciety, as can be." 
 
 Maggie : « Lilly ! " 
 
 Leslie, listening to Miss Roberts with whimsical 
 trepidation : " Well, this certainly complicates mat- 
 ters. But I think we shall be able to manage." 
 At a sound of voices in the hall without, Miss Bel- 
 lingham starts from her chair and runs to the cor- 
 ridor, where she is heard ; " Thanks ever so much. 
 So very good of you to take all this trouble. Come 
 into the parlor, mamma — there 's nobody there 
 but Maggie AYallace and Miss Roberts — and we '11 
 leave our things there till after tea." She reen- 
 ters the parlor with her mother and her aunt Kate, 
 Mrs. Murray ; after whom comes Stephen Blake 
 with Leslie's bag in his hand, and the wraps of the 
 other ladies over his arm. His dress, which is evi- 
 dently a prosperous fortuity of the clothing-store, 
 lakes character from his tall, sinewy frame ; a smile 
 of somewhat humorous patience lights his black 
 5yes and shapes his handsome moustache, as he 
 ivaits in quiet self-possession the pleasure of the 
 ladies. 
 
III. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, Mrs. Murray, and the 
 Young Girls. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, a matronly, middle-aged lady 
 of comfortable, not cumbrous bulk, taking Miss 
 Wallace by the hand and kissing her ; " My dear 
 child, how pleasant it is to see you so strong again ! 
 You 're a living testimony to the excellence of the 
 air ! How well you look ! " 
 
 Leslie : *« Mamma, — Miss Roberts." Mrs. Bel- 
 lingham murmurously shakes hands with Miss 
 Roberts, and after some kindly nods and smiles, 
 and other shows of friendHness, provisionally and 
 expectantly quiesces into a corner of the sofa, while 
 her sister-in-law comes aggressively forward to as- 
 sume the burden of conversation. 
 
 Mrs. Murray: "Well, a more fatiguing drive 
 I certainly never knew ! How do you do, Mag- 
 gie?" She kisses Miss Wallace in a casual, unin- 
 
18 Out of the Question, 
 
 terested way, and takes Lilly's hand. " Is n't this 
 Miss Roberts ? I am Mrs. INI urray. I used to 
 know your family — your uncle George, before 
 that dreadful business of his. I believe it all came 
 out right ; he was n't to blame ; but it was a shock- 
 ing experience." Mrs. Murray turns from Lilly, 
 and refers herself to the company in general : " It 
 seems as if I should expire on the spot. I feel as 
 if I had been packed away in my own hat-box for 
 a week, and here, just as we arrive, the land- 
 lord informs us that he did n't expect us till to- 
 morrow night, and he has n't an empty room in the 
 house ! " 
 
 Maggie : " No room ! To-morrow night ! What 
 nonsense ! Why it 's perfectly frantic ! How 
 could he have misunderstood ? Why, it seems to 
 me that I 've done nothing for a week past but tell 
 him you were coming to-night ! " 
 
 Mrs. Murray, sharply : " I have no doubt of it. 
 But it does n't alter the state of the case. You 
 may tell us to leave our things till after tea, Les- 
 lie. If they can't make up beds on the sofas and 
 the piano, I don't know where we 're going to pass 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 19 
 
 .he night." In the moment of distressful sensation 
 which follows Miss Wallace whispers something 
 eagerly to her friend, Miss Roberts. 
 
 Maggie, with a laughing glance at Leslie and 
 her mother, and then going on with her whisper- 
 ing : " Excuse the little confidence ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Conspiracy, I 'm afraid. 
 "What are you plotting, Maggie ? " 
 
 Maggie, finishing her confidence : " Oh, we 
 needn't make a mystery of such a little thing 
 "We 're going to ofFer you one of our rooms." 
 
 Mi'S. Bellingham : " My dear, you are going to 
 do nothing of the kind. We will never allow it." 
 
 Maggie : " Now, Mrs. Bellingham, you break 
 my heart ! It 's nothing, it 's less than nothing. 7 
 believe we can make room for all three of you." 
 
 Mrs. Murray, promptly : " Let me go with you, 
 young ladies. I 'm an old housekeeper, and I can 
 help you plan." 
 
 Maggie : " Oh do, Mrs. Murray. You can tell 
 which rooir you 'd better take, Lilly's or mine. 
 Lilly's is" — 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Oh ! I had forgotten that we 
 
iO Out of the Question. 
 
 were detaining you ! " Mrs. Murray is about to 
 .eave the room with. the two young girls, when her 
 eye falls upon Blake, who is still present, with his 
 burden of hand-bags and shawls. " Leave the 
 things on the table, please. We are obliged to 
 you." Mrs. Murray speaks with a certain finality 
 of manner and tone which there is no mistaking ; 
 Blake stares at her a moment, and then, without 
 replying, lays down the things and turns to quit' 
 the room ; at the same instant Leslie rises with a 
 grand air from her mother's side, on the sofa, and 
 sweeps towards him. 
 
 Leslie^ very graciously : " Don't let our private 
 afflictions drive you from a public room, Mr. — " 
 
 Blahe: "Blake." 
 
 Leslie : " Mr. Blake. This is my mother, Mr. 
 Blake, who wishes to thank you for all your kind- 
 ness to us." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, indeed, Mr. Blake, we 
 are truly grateful to you." 
 
 Leslie^ with increasing significance : " And my 
 aunt, Mrs. Murray ; and my friend. Miss Wallace ; 
 and Miss Roberts." Blake bows to each of the 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 21 
 
 ladies as they are named, but persists in his move- 
 ment to quit the room ; Leslie impressively offers 
 him her hand. " Must you go ? Thank you, ever, 
 ever so much ! " She follows him to the door in 
 his withdrawal, and then turns and confronts her 
 aunt with an embattled front of defiance. 
 
 Maggie, with an effort breaking the embarrassing 
 silence : " Come, Lilly. Let us go and take a 
 look at our resources. We '11 be back in a moment 
 Mrs. Bellinfijham." 
 
IV. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham and Leslie ; afterwards Mrs, 
 Murray and Maggie. 
 
 Leslie, coming abruptly forward as her aunt goea 
 out with the two young girls, and drooping meekly 
 in front of her mother, who remains seated on the 
 sofa : " Well, mamma ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, tranquilly contemplating her 
 for a moment: "Well, Leslie!" She pauses, and 
 again silently regards her daughter. " Perhaps you 
 may be said to have overdone it." 
 
 Leslie, passionately: " I can't help it, mother! 
 I could n't see him sent away in that insolent man- 
 ner, I don't care who or what he is. Aunt Kate's 
 tone was outrageous, atrocious, hideous ! And 
 after accepting, yes, demanding every service he 
 could possibly render, the whole afternoon ! It 
 made me blush for her, and I was n't going to 
 Uand it." 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponkwasset Hotel. 23 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " If you mean by all that that 
 your poor aunt is a very ungracious and exacting 
 woman, I shall not dispute you. But she.'s your 
 father's sister ; and she 's very much older than you. 
 You seem to have forgotten, too, that your mother 
 was present to do any justice that was needed. It 's 
 very unfortunate that he should have been able to 
 do us so many favors, but that can't be helped now. 
 It 's one of the risks of coming to these out-of-the- 
 way places, that you 're so apt to be thrown in with 
 nondescript people that you don't know how to ge\ 
 rid of afterwards. And now that he 's been so cor- 
 dially introduced to us all ! Well, I hope you 
 won't have to be crueller in the end, my dear, than 
 your aunt meant to be in the beginning. So far, 
 of course, he has behaved with perfect delicacy ; 
 but you must see yourself, Leslie, that even as a 
 mere acquaintance he 's quite out of the question ; 
 that however kind and thoughtful he 's been, and 
 ni one could have been more so, he is n't a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 Leslie, impatiently : " Well, then, mother, I am! 
 And so are you. And I think we are bound to 
 
24 Out of the Question, 
 
 behave like gentlemen at any cost. I did n't mean 
 to ignore you. I did n't consider. I acted as I 
 thought Charley would have done." 
 
 Mrs, Bellingham : " Oh, my dear, my dear 
 Don't you see there 's a very important difference ? 
 Your brother is a man, and he can act without ref- 
 erence to consequences. But you are a young lady, 
 and you can't be as gentlemanly as you like without 
 being liable to misinterpretation. I shall expect 
 you to behave very discreetly indeed from this time 
 forth. We must consider now how our new friend 
 can be kindly, yet firmly and promptly, dropped." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, it 's another of those embarrass- 
 ments that aunt Kate 's always getting me into ! I 
 was discreet about it till she acted so horridly. 
 You can ask Maggie if I did n't talk in the wisest 
 way about it ; like a perfect — owl. I saw it just 
 as you do, mamma, and I was going to drop him, 
 and so I will, yet ; but I could n't see him so un- 
 gratefully trampled on. It 's all her doing ! Who 
 wanted to come here to this out-of-the-way place ? 
 Why, aunt Kate, — when I was eager to go to 
 Conway ! I declare it 's too bad I " 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 25 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " That will do, Leslie." 
 
 Leslie : " And now she 's gone off with those 
 poor girls to crowd them out of house and home, I 
 suppose. It 's a shame ! Why did you let her, 
 mamma ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : '*' For the same reason that I 
 let you talk on, my dear, when I 've bidden you 
 stop." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, you dear, kind old mamma, you ! 
 Yoii Ve a gentleman, and you always were ! I 
 only wish I could be half like you ! " She throws 
 her arms round her mother's neck and kisses her. 
 " I know you 're right about this matter, but you 
 mustn't expect me to acknowledge that aunt Kate 
 is. If you both said exactly the same thing, you 
 would be right and she would be wrong, you'd say 
 it so differently ! " 
 
 Mrs. Murray, who returns alone with signs of 
 discontent and perplexity, and flings herself into 
 a chair : " Their rooms are mere coops, and I don't 
 see how even two of us are to squeeze into one of 
 them. It 's little better than impertinence to offer 
 >t to us. I've been down to see the landlord again, 
 
26 Out of the Question. 
 
 and you'll be pleased to know, Marion, that the 
 only vacant room in the house had been engaged 
 by the person to whom we 've all just had the 
 honor of an introduction." Leslie makes an im- 
 petuous movement, as if she were about to speak, 
 but at a gesture from her mother she restrains her- 
 self, and Mrs. Murray continues : " Of course, if 
 he had been a gentleman, in the lowest sense of 
 the word, he would have offered his room to ladies 
 who had none, at once. As long as he could make 
 social capital out of his obtrusive services to us he 
 was very profuse with them, but as soon as it came 
 to a question of real self-sacrifice — to giving up his 
 own ease and comfort for a single night" — A 
 bell rings, and at the sound Mrs. Bellingham rises. 
 3Irs. Bellingham : " I suppose that's for supper. 
 I think a cup of tea will put a cheerfuller face on 
 our affairs. I don't at all agree with you about 
 Mr. Blake's obligation to give up his room, nor 
 about his services to us this afternoon ; I 'm sui-e 
 common justice requires us to acknowledge that he 
 was everything that was kind and thoughtful. Oli, 
 vou good child ! " — as Miss Wallace appears at 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 27 
 
 the door, — " have you come to show us the way 
 to supper ? Are you quite sure you Ve not gone 
 without tea on our account as well as given up 
 your room ? " She puts her arm fondly round the 
 young girl's waist, and presses her cheek against 
 her own breast. 
 
 Maggie, with enthusiasm; Oh, Mrs. Bellingham, 
 you know I would n't ask anything better than to 
 starve on your account. I wish I had rCt been 
 to tea ! I 'm afraid that you '11 think the room 
 is a very slight offering when you come to see it 
 — it is such a little room ; why, when I took Mrs. 
 Murray into it, it seemed all at once as if I saw it 
 through the wrong end of an opera-glass — it did 
 dwindle so ! " 
 
 Leslie : " Never mind, Maggie ; you 're only too 
 good, as it is. If your room was an inch bigger, 
 we couldn't bear it. I hope you may be without a 
 roof over your head yourself, some day ! Can 1 
 say anything handsomer than that ? Don't wait 
 for me, mamma ; I '11 find the dining-ioom myself. 
 r 'm rather too crumpled even for a houseless wan- 
 derer." She opens her bag where it stands on the 
 
28 Out of the Question. 
 
 table. " I am going to make a flying toilet at one 
 of these glasses. Do you think any one will come 
 in, Maggie ? " 
 
 Maggie : " There is n't the least danger. This is 
 the parlor of the " transients," as they call them, 
 — the occasional guests, — and Lilly and I have it 
 mostly to ourselves when there are no transients. 
 The regular boarders stay in the lower parlor. 
 Shan't I help you, Leslie ? " 
 
 Leslie^ rummaging through her bag: "No, in- 
 deed ! It 's only a question of brush and hair-pins. 
 Do go with mamma ! " As Maggie obeys, Leslie 
 finds her brush, and going to one of the mirrors 
 touches the blonde masses of her hair, and then re- 
 mains a moment, lightly turning her head from side 
 to side to get the effect. She suddenly claps her 
 hand to one ear. " Oh, horrors ! That ear drop 's 
 gone again ! " She runs to the table, reopens her 
 bag, and searches it in every part, talking rapidly 
 to herself. " Well, really, it seems as if sorrows 
 would never end ! To think of that working out a 
 third time ! To think of my coming away without 
 getting the clasp fixed ! And to think of my not 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponhw asset Hotel. 29 
 
 leaving them in my trunk at the station ! Oh 
 dear me, I shall certainly go wild ! What shall I 
 do ? It is n't in the bag at all. It must be on the 
 floor." Keeping her hand in helpless incredulity 
 upon the ear from which the jewel is missing, she 
 scrutinizes the matting far and near, with a coun- 
 tenance of acute anguish. Footsteps are heard 
 approaching the door, where they hesitatingly ar- 
 rest themselves. " Have you come back for me ? 
 Oh, I Ve met with such a calamity ! I 've lost 
 one of my ear-rings. I could cry. Do come and 
 help me mouse for it." There is no response to 
 this invitation, and Leslie, lifting her eyes, in a 
 little dismay confronts the silent intruder. " Mr. 
 Blake ! " 
 
V. 
 
 Leslie and Blake. 
 
 Blake : " Excuse me. I expected to find your 
 mother here. I did n't mean to disturb " — 
 
 Leslie, haughtily : " There 's no disturbance. It 's 
 a public room : I had forgotten that. Mamma 
 has gone to tea. I thought it was my friend Miss 
 Wallace. I " — With a flash of indignation : 
 *' When you knew it was n't, why did you let 
 me speak to you in that way ? " 
 
 Blake, with a smile : " I could n't know whom 
 you took me for, and I had n't time to prevent youi 
 speaking." 
 
 Leslie : " You remained." 
 
 Blake, with a touch of resentment tempering his 
 amusement : " I could n't go away after I had come 
 without speaking to you. It was Mrs. Bellingham 
 I was looking for. I 'm sorry not to find her, and 
 I '11 go, now." 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponhwasset Hotel. 3] 
 
 Leslie, hastily : " Oh no ! I beg your pardon. 
 I did n't mean " — 
 
 Blake, advancing toward her, and stooping to 
 pick up something from the floor, near the table : 
 " Is this what you lost ? — if I Ve a right to know 
 that you lost anything." 
 
 Leslie: " Oh, my ear-ring! Oh, thanks! How 
 did you see it ? I thought I had looked and felt 
 everywhere." A quick color flies over her face as 
 she takes the jewel from the palm of his handa 
 She turns to the mirror, and, seizing the tip of her 
 delicate ear between the thumb and forefinger of 
 one hand, hooks the pendant into place with the 
 other, and then gives her head a little shake ; the 
 young man lightly sighs. She turns toward him, 
 with the warmth still lingering in her cheeks. 
 " I 'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Blake. I 
 wish I had your gift of doing all sorts of services 
 . — favors — to people. I wish I could find some- 
 thing for you." 
 
 BlaJce : " I wish you could — if it were the key 
 to my room, which I came back in hopes of find- 
 ing. I 've mislaid it somewhere, and I thought I 
 
32 Out of the Question, 
 
 might have put it down with your shawls here on 
 the table." Leslie promptly lifts one of the 
 shawls, and the key drops from it. " That 's it 
 Miss Bellingham, I have a favor to ask : will you 
 give this key to your mother ? " 
 
 Leslie : " This key ? " 
 
 Blake : " I have found a place to sleep at a 
 farm-house just down the road, and I want your 
 mother to take my room ; I have n't looked into it 
 yet, and I don't know that it 's worth taking. But 
 I suppose it 's better than no room at all ; and I 
 know you .have none." 
 
 Leslie, with cold hauteur, after looking absently 
 at him for a moment : " Thanks. It 's quite im- 
 possible. My mother would never consent." 
 
 Blake : " The room will stand empty, then. I 
 meant to give it up from the first, — as soon as I 
 found that you were not provided for, — but I 
 hated to make a display of it before all the people 
 down there in the office. I '11 go now and leave 
 the key with the landlord, as I ought to have done, 
 without troubling you. But — I had hardly the 
 chance of doing so after we came here," 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponkwasset Hotel. 33 
 
 Leslie, with enthusiasm : " Oh, Mr. Blake, do 
 you really mean to give us your room after you 've 
 been so odiously — Oh, it 's too bad ; it 's too 
 bad ! You must n't ; no, you shall not." 
 
 Blahe : " I will leave the key on the table here 
 Good night. Or — I shall not see you in the 
 morning : perhaps I had better say good-by." 
 
 Leslie : " Good-by ? In the morning ? " 
 
 Blake : " I 've changed my plans, and I 'm going 
 away to-morrow. Good-by." 
 
 Leslie : " Going — Mamma will be very sorry 
 to — Oh, Mr. Blake, I hope you are not going 
 because — But indeed — I want you to be- 
 lieve " — 
 
 Blake, devoutly : " I believe it. Good-by ! " 
 He turns away to go, and Leslie, standing bewil- 
 dered and irresolute, lets him leave the room; 
 then she hastens to the door after him, and encoun- 
 ters her mother. 
 
 .. LIBRARY 
 
 ** OFTHE 
 
 8UP.'.C0UNCIL| 
 80.".JURISDICTI0N. 
 
VI. 
 
 Mrs. Belxingham and Leslie ; t^en Mrs. 
 Murray. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Well, Leslie. Are you 
 quite ready ? We went to look at Maggie's room 
 before going down to tea. It 's small, but we shall 
 manage somehow. Come, dear. She 's waiting 
 For us at the head of the stairs. Why, Leslie ! " 
 
 Leslie, touching her handkerchief to her eyes: 
 •* I was a little overwrought, mamma. I 'm tired." 
 After a moment : " Mamma, Mr. Blake " — 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, with a look at her daughter : 
 " I met him in the hall." 
 
 Leslie : " Yes, he has been here ; and I thought 
 I had lost one of my ear-rings ; and of course he 
 found it on the floor the instant he came in ; 
 and" — 
 
 Mrs. Murray, surging into the room, and going 
 op to the table : " Well, Marion, the tea — What 
 
In the Parlor of the Ponkwasset Hotel. 35 
 
 key is this ? What in the world is Leslie crying 
 about?" 
 
 Leslie, with supreme disregard of her aunt, and 
 adamantine self-control : " Mr. Blake had come " — 
 she hands the key to Mrs. Bellingham — " to offer 
 you the key of his room. He asked me to give 
 it." 
 
 Mrs. Bellinghayn : " The key of his room ? " 
 
 Leslie : " He offers you his room ; he had always 
 (neant to offer it." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, gravely : " Mr. Blake had no 
 right to know that we had no room. It is too great 
 n kindness. We can't accept it, Leslie. I hope 
 you told him so, my dear." 
 
 Leslie : " Yes, mamma. But he said he was going 
 lo lodge at one of the farm-houses in the neighbor- 
 Uood, and the room would be vacant if you did n't 
 take it. I could n't prevent his leaving tho key." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " That is all very well. But 
 U does n't alter the case, as far as we are concerned. 
 It is very good of Mr. Blake, but after what has oc- 
 ^<irred, it's simply impossible. We can't take it." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Occurred ? Not take it ? Of 
 
36 Out of the Question. 
 
 course we will take it, Marion ! I certainly am as- 
 tonished. The man will get a much better bed at 
 the farmer's than he's accustomed to. You talk 
 as if it were some act of self-sacrifice. I 've no 
 doubt he 's made the most of it. I 've no doubt 
 he's given it an effect of heroism — or tried to. 
 But that you should fall in with his vulgar con- 
 ception of the affair, Marion, and Leslie should be 
 affected to tears by his magnanimity, is a little too 
 comical. One would think, really, that he had im- 
 periled life and limb on our account. All this sen- 
 timent about a room on the third floor ! Give the 
 key to me, Marion." She possesses herself of it 
 from Mrs. Bellingham's passive hand. " Leslie will 
 wish to stay with you, so as to be near her young 
 friends. / will occupy this vacant room. " 
 
II. 
 
 "IN FAYRE FOREST." 
 
1. 
 
 Two Tramps. 
 
 Under the shelter of some pines near a lonely 
 by-road, in the neighborhood of the Ponkwasset 
 Hotel, lie two tramps asleep. One of them, hav- 
 ing made his bed of the pine-boughs, has pillowed 
 his head npon the bundle he carries by day ; the 
 other is stretched, face downward, on the thick 
 brown carpet of pine-needles. The sun, which 
 strikes through the thin screen of the trees upon 
 the bodies of the two men, is high in the heavens. 
 The rattle of wheels is heard from time to time 
 on the remoter highway ; the harsh clatter of a 
 kingfisher, poising over the water, comes from the 
 direction of the river near at hand. A squirrel de- 
 scends the trunk of an oak near the pines under 
 which the men lie, and at sight of them stops, 
 barks harshly, and then, as one of them stirs in hia 
 
40 Out of the Question. 
 
 sleep, whisks back into the top of tlie oak. It is 
 the luxurious tramp on the pine-boughs who stirs, 
 and who alertly opens his eyes and sits up in hia 
 bed, as if the noisy rush of the squirrel had startled 
 him from his sleep. 
 
 First Tramp, casting a malign glance at the top 
 of the oak : " If I had a fair shot at you with this 
 club, my fine fellow, I 'd break you of that trick of 
 waking people before the bell rings in the morning, 
 and I 'd give 'em broiled squirrel for breakfast when 
 they did get up." He takes his bundle into hia 
 lap, and, tremulously untying it, reveals a motlej 
 heajD of tatters ; from these he searches out a flask, 
 which he holds against the light, shakes at his ear, 
 and inverts upon his lips. " Not a drop ; not a 
 square smell, even ! I dreamt it." He lies down 
 with a groan, and remains with his head pillowed 
 in his hands. Presently he reaches for his stick, 
 and again rising to a sitting posture strikes his 
 sleeping comrade across the shoulders. " Get 
 up!" 
 
 Second Tramp, who speaks with a slight brogue, 
 oriskly springing to his feet, and rubbing his shoul- 
 ders : " And what for, my strange bedfellow ? " 
 
"^ Fayre Forest:' 41 
 
 First Tramp : " For breakfast. What do peo- 
 jple generally get up for in the morning ? " 
 
 Second Tramp : " Upon my soul, I 'd as soor 
 have had mine in bed ; I 've a day of leisure be- 
 fore me. And let me say a word to you, my 
 friend : the next time you see a gentleman dream- 
 ing of one of the most elegant repasts in the world, 
 and just waiting for his stew to cool, don't you in- 
 trude upon him with that little stick of yours. I 
 don't care for a stroke or two in sport, but when I 
 think of the meal I 've lost, I could find it in my 
 lieart to break your head for you, you ugly brute. 
 Have you got anything to eat there in your ward- 
 .TObe ? " 
 
 First Tramp : " Not a crumb." 
 
 Second Tramp : " Or to drink ? " 
 
 First Tramp : " Not a drop." 
 
 Second Tramp : " Or to smoke ? " 
 
 First Tramp : " No." 
 
 Second Tramp : " Faith, you 're nearer a broken 
 head than ever, me friend. Wake a man out of a 
 dream of that sort ! " 
 
 First Tramp : " I 've had enough of this. 
 What do you intend to do ? " 
 
42 Out of the Question. 
 
 Second Tramp : " I 'm going to assume the 
 character of an impostor, and pretend at the next 
 farm-house that I have n't had any breakfast, and 
 have n't any money to buy one. It 's a bare-faced 
 deceit, I know, but " — looking down at his broken 
 shoes and tattered clothes — "I flatter myself that 
 I dress the part pretty well. To be sure, the 
 women are not as ready to listen as they were 
 once. The tramping-trade is overdone ; there 's 
 too many in it ; the ladies can't believe we 're all 
 destitute ; it don't stand to reason." 
 
 First Tramp : " I 'm tired of the whole thing." 
 Second Tramp : " I don't like it myself. But 
 there 's worse things. There 's work, for example. 
 By my soul, there 's nothing disgusts me like these 
 places where they tell you to go out and hoe pota- 
 toes, and your breakfast will be ready in an hour. 
 I never could work with any more pleasure on an 
 empty stomach than a full one. And the poor 
 devils always think they 've done something so fine 
 when they say that, and the joke 's so stale ! I 
 can tell them I'm not to be got rid of so easy. 
 I'm not the lazy, dirty vagabond I look, at all; 
 
"iw Fayre Forest." 48 
 
 I'm the inevitable result of the conflict between 
 labor and capital; I'm the logical consequence of 
 the prevailing corruption. I read it on the bit of 
 newspaper they gave me round my dinner, yester- 
 day ; it was cold beef of a quality that you don't 
 often find in the country." 
 
 First Tramp, sullenly : " I 'm sick of the whole 
 thing. I 'm going out of it." 
 
 Second Tramp : " And what '11 you do ? Are ye 
 going to work ? " 
 
 First Tramp : " To work ? No ! To steal." 
 
 Second Tramp : " Faith, I don't call that going 
 out of it, then. It 's quite in the line of business. 
 You 're no bad dab at a hen-roost, now, as I know 
 very well ; and for any little thing that a gentle- 
 man can shove under his coat, while the lady of the 
 house has her back turned buttering his lunch for 
 him, I don't know the man I 'd call master." 
 
 First Tramp : "If I could get a man to tell me 
 the time of day by a watch I liked, I'd as lief 
 knock him over as look at him." 
 
 Second Tramp : " Oh, if it 's high-way robbery 
 jou mean, partner, I don't follow you." 
 
44 Out of the Question. 
 
 First Tramp : " What 's the difference ?" 
 
 Second Tramp : " Not much, if you take it one 
 way, but a good deal if you take it another. It 's 
 the difference between petty larceny and grand lar- 
 ceny ; it 's the difference between three months in 
 the House of Correction and ten years in the State's 
 Prison, if you 're caught, not to mention the risks 
 of the profession." 
 
 First Tramp : " I 'd take the risks if I saw my 
 chance." He lies down with his arms crossed under 
 his head, and stares up into the pine. His comrade 
 glances at him, and then moves stiffly out from the 
 shelter of the trees, and, shading his eyes with one 
 hand, peers down the road. 
 
 Second Tramp: " I did n't know but I might see 
 your chance, jjartner. You would n't like an old 
 gentleman with a load of potatoes to begin on, would 
 ye ? There 's one just gone up the cross-road. And 
 yonder goes an umbrella-mender. I'm afraid we 
 shan't take any purses to speak of, in this neighbor- 
 hood. Whoosh! Wait a bit — here's somebody 
 coming this way." The first tramp is sufficiently 
 Interested to sit up. " Faith, here 's your chance 
 
" In Fayre ForesV 45 
 
 at last, then, if you 're in earnest, my friend ; but it 
 stands six feet in its stockings, and it carries a stick 
 as well as a watch. I won't ask a share of the plun- 
 der, partner ; I 've rags enough of my own without 
 wanting to divide your property with the gentleman 
 coming." He goes back and lies down at the foot 
 of one of the trees, while the other, who has risen 
 from his pine-boughs, comes cautiously forward ; 
 after a glance at the approaching wayfarer he flings 
 away his cudgel, and, taking a pipe from his pocket 
 drops into a cringing attitude. The Irishman grins. 
 In another moment Blake appears from under the 
 cover of the woods and advances with long strides, 
 striking with his stick at the stones in the road as 
 he comes on, in an absent-minded fashion. 
 
n. 
 
 15LAKE and the Tramps. 
 
 I^irst Tramp : " I say, mister ! " Blake looks 
 up, and his eye falls upon the squalid figure of the 
 tramp ; he stops. " Could n't you give a poor fellow 
 a little tobacco for his pipe ? A smoke comes good, 
 if you don 't happen to know where you 're going 
 to get your breakfast." 
 
 Second Tramp, coming forward, with his pipe in 
 his hand : " True for you, partner. A little tobacco 
 in the hand is worth a deal of breakfast in the bush." 
 Blake looks from one to the other, and then takes 
 a paper of tobacco from his pocket and gives it to 
 the first tramp, who helps himself and passes it to 
 his comrade ; the latter offers to return it after fill- 
 ing his pipe ; Blake declines it with a wave of his 
 hand, and walks on. 
 
 Second Tramp, calling after him : " God bless 
 YOU ! May you never want it ! " 
 
^^ In Fayre Forest.'^ 47 
 
 First Tramp : " Thank you, mister. YouWe a 
 gentleman ! " 
 
 Blake : " All right." He goes out of sight under 
 the trees down the road, and then suddenly reap- 
 pears and walks up to the two tramps, who remain 
 where he left them and are feeling in their pockets 
 for a match. " Did one of you call me a gentle- 
 man ? " 
 
 First Tramp : " Yes, I did, mister. No offense 
 in that, I hope ? " 
 
 Blake : " No, but why did you do it ? " 
 
 First Tramp: "Well, you didn't ask us why 
 we did n't go to work ; and you did n't say that 
 men who had n't any money to buy breakfast had 
 better not smoke ; and you gave us this tobacco. 
 I '11 call any man a gentleman that '11 do that." 
 
 Blake : " Oh, that 's a gentleman, is it ? All 
 right." He turns to go away, when the second 
 tramp detains him. 
 
 Second Tramp : " Does your honor happen to 
 have ever a match about you ? " Blake takes out 
 his match-case and strikes a light. " God bless 
 your honor. You 're a real gentleman." 
 
48 Out of the Question. 
 
 Blake : " Then this makes me a gentleman past 
 a doubt?" 
 
 Second Tramp : " Sure, it does that." 
 
 Blake : " I 'm glad to have the matter settled." 
 He walks on absently as before, and the tramps 
 stand staring a moment in the direction in which 
 he has gone. 
 
 Second Tramp, who goes back to the tree where 
 he has been sitting and stretches himself out with 
 his head on one arm for a quiet smoke : " That *s 
 ,'i queer genius. By my soul, I 'd like to take the 
 icoad in his company. Sure, I think there is n't 
 the woman alive would be out of cold victuals and 
 old clothes when he put that handsome face of his 
 in at the kitchen window." 
 
 First Tramp, looking down the road : " I wonder 
 if that fellow could have a drop of spirits about 
 him ! I say, mister ! " calling after Blake. " Hello, 
 there, I say ! " 
 
 Second Tramp : " It 's too late, my worthy 
 friend. He '11 never hear you ; and it 's not likel;^ 
 »*ie 'd come back to fill your flask for you, if he did. 
 A gentleman of his character 'd think twice before 
 
"7^ Fayre Forest" 49 
 
 he gave a tramp whiskey. Tobacco 's another 
 thing." He takes out the half-paper of tobacco, 
 and looks at the label on it. " What an extrava- 
 gant dog! It's the real cut-cavendish; and it 
 smells as nice as it smokes. This luxury is what 's 
 destroying the country. ' With the present reck- 
 less expenditure in all classes of the population, 
 and the prodigious influx of ignorant and degraded 
 foreigners, there must be a constant increase of 
 tramps.' True for you, Mr. Newspaper. 'T woulc? 
 have been an act of benevolence to take his watcl 
 from him, partner, and he never could tell ho\i 
 fast he was going to ruin. But you can't always 
 befriend a man six feet high and wiry as a cat." 
 He offers to put the tobacco into his pocket again, 
 when his comrade slouches up, and makes a clutch 
 at it. 
 
 First Tramp : " I want that." 
 Second Tramp : " Why, so ye do ! " 
 First Tramp : " It 's mine." 
 Second Tramp : " I 'm keeping it for ye." 
 First Tramp : " I tell you the man gave it to 
 me." 
 
50 Out of the Question. 
 
 Second Tramp : " And he would n t take it 
 back from me. Ah, will you, ye brute ? " The 
 other seizes the wrist of the hand with which the 
 Irishman holds the tobacco ; they wrestle together, 
 when women's voices are heard at some distance 
 down the road. "Whoosh! Ladies coming." The 
 6rst tramp listens, kneeling. The Irishman springs 
 to his feet and thrusts the paper of tobacco into his 
 pocket, and, coming quickly forward, looks down 
 the road. " Fortune favors the brave, partner ! 
 Here comes another opportunity — three of them, 
 faith, and pretty ones at that ! Business before 
 pleasure ; I '11 put off that beating again ; it 's all. 
 Ihe better for keeping. Besides, it's not the thing, 
 quarreling before ladies." He is about to crouch 
 down again at the foot of the tree as before, when 
 his comrade hastily gathers up his bundle, and seiz- 
 ing him by the arm drags him back into the thicket 
 behind the pine-trees. After a moment or two, 
 three young ladies come sauntering slowly along 
 the road. 
 
III. 
 
 Leslie, Maggie, and Lilly •, then Leslie alone. 
 
 Lilly, delicately sniffing the air : " Fee, fi, fo, 
 fum ; I smell the pipe of an Irishman." 
 
 Leslie : " Never ! I know the flavor of refined 
 tobacco, thanks to a smoking brother. Oh, what a 
 lonely road ! " 
 
 Lilly: "This loneliness is one of the charms ot 
 the Ponkwasset neighborhood. When you 're once 
 out of sight of the hotel and the picnic-grounds 
 you'd think you were a thousand miles away from 
 civilization. Not an empty sardine-box or a torn 
 paper collar anywhere ! This scent of tobacco is 
 an unheard-of intrusion." 
 
 Maggie, archly : " Perhaps Mr. Blake went this 
 way. Does he smoke, Leslie?" 
 
 Leslie, coldly : " How should I know, Maggie ? 
 A gentleman would hardly smoke in ladies' com- 
 
52 Out of the Question. 
 
 pany — strange ladies." She sinks down upon a 
 log at the wayside, and gazes slowly about with an 
 air of fastidious criticism that gradually changes to 
 a rapture of admiration. " Well, I certainly think 
 that, take it all in all, I never saw anything more 
 fascinating. It 's wond-erful ! This little nook it- 
 self, with that brown carpet of needles under the 
 pines, and that heavy fringe of ferns there, behind 
 those trunks ; and then those ghostly birches 
 stretching up and away, yonder — thousands o 
 them ! How tall and slim and stylish, they are. 
 And how they do march into the distance ! I never 
 saw such multitudes ; and their lovely paleness 
 makes them look as if one saw them by moonlight. 
 Oh, oh ! How perfectly divine ! If one could 
 only have their phantom-like procession painted ! 
 But Corot himself could n't paint them. Oh, I 
 must make some sort of memorandum — I won't 
 have the presumption to call it a sketch." She 
 takes a sketch-book from under her arm, and lays 
 *t on her knees, and then with her pencil nervously 
 traces on the air the lines of the distant birches. 
 " Yes ; I must. I never shall see them so beauti- 
 
"/w Fayre Forest" 53 
 
 ful again ! Just jot down a few lines, and wash in 
 the background when I get to the hotel. But 
 girls ; you must n't stay ! Go on and get the flow- 
 ers, and I '11 be done by the time you 're back. I 
 could n't bear to have you overlooking me ; I 've 
 all the sensitiveness of a great artist. Do go ! 
 But don't be gone long." She begins to work at 
 her sketch, without looking at them. 
 
 Maggie : " I 'm so glad, Leslie. I knew you 'd 
 be perfectly fascinated with this spot, and so I 
 did n't tell you about it. I wanted it to burst upon 
 you." 
 
 Leslie, with a little impatient surprise, as if she 
 had thought they were gone : " Yes, yes ; never 
 mind. You did quite right. Don't stay long." 
 She continues to sketch, looking up now and then 
 at the scene before her ; but not glancing at her 
 companions, who walk away from her some paces, 
 when Miss Wallace comes back. 
 
 Maggie : " What time is it, Leslie ? Leslie ! " 
 
 Leslie, nervously : " Oh ! What a start you gave 
 •ne." Glancing at her watch : " It 's nine minutes 
 past ten — I mean ten minutes past nine." Still 
 without looking at her : " Be back soon." 
 
54 Out of the Question. 
 
 Maggie : " Oh, it is n't far. Again she turns 
 away with Miss Roberts, but before they are quite 
 out of sight Leslie springs to her feet and runs 
 after them. 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, girls — girls ! " 
 
 Maggie, anxiously, starting back toward her: 
 "What? What?" 
 
 Leslie, dreamily, as she returns to her place and 
 sits down : " Oh, nothing. I just happened to 
 think." She closes her eyes to a narrow line, and 
 looks up at the birches. " There are so many hor- 
 rid stories in the papers. But of course there can't 
 be any in this out-of-the-way place, so far from the 
 cities." 
 
 Maggie : " Any what, Leslie ? " • 
 
 Leslie, remotely ; " Tramps." 
 
 Maggie, scornfully : " There never was such a 
 thing heard of in the whole region." 
 
 Leslie : " I thought not." She is again absorbed 
 in study of the birches ; and, after a moment of 
 hesitation, the other two retreat down the road 
 once more, lingering a little to look back in admi- 
 ration of her picturesque devotion to art, and then 
 
" In Fay re For est. ^^ 55 
 
 vanishing under the flickering light and shadow. 
 Leslie works diligently on, humming softly to her- 
 self, and pausing now and then to look at the 
 birches, for which object she rises at times, and, 
 gracefully bending from side to side, or stooping 
 forward to make sure of some effect that she has 
 too slightly glimpsed, resumes her seat and begins 
 anew. " No, that won't do ! " — vigorously plying 
 her india-rubber on certain lines of the sketch. 
 " How stupid ! " Then beginning to draw again, 
 ttnd throwing back her head for the desired dis- 
 tance on her sketch : " Ah, that 's more like. Still, 
 nobody could accuse it of slavish fidelity. Well ! " 
 She sings : — 
 
 " Through starry palm-roofs on Old Nile 
 The full-orbed moon looked clear; 
 The bulbul sang to the crocodile, 
 ' Ah, why that bitter tear ? ' 
 
 * * With thy tender breast against the thorn, 
 Why that society-smile ? ' 
 The bird was mute. In silent scorn 
 Slow winked the crocodile." 
 
 •' How perfectly ridiculous ! Slow winked " — 
 
56 Out of the Question. 
 
 Miss Bellingham alternately applies pencil and 
 rubber — " slow winked the croco — I never shall 
 get that right ; it 's too bad ! — dile." While she 
 continues to sketch, and sing da capo, the tramps 
 creep stealthily from their covert. Apparently, in 
 accordance with some preconcerted plan, the sur- 
 lier and huger ruffian goes down the road in ther 
 direction taken by Leslie's friends, and the Irish- 
 man stations himself unobserved at her side and 
 supports himself with both hands resting upon the 
 top of his stick, in an attitude of deferential pa- 
 tience and insinuating gallantry She ceases sing< 
 ing and looks up. 
 
IV. 
 
 The Young Girls and the Tramps. 
 
 Second Tramp : " Not to be interrupting you, 
 miss," — Leslie stares at his grinning face in dumb 
 and motionless horror, — " would ye tell a poor 
 traveler the time of day, so that he need n't be eat- 
 ing his breakfast prematurely, if he happens to get 
 any?" 
 
 First Tramp, from his station down the road, 
 in a hoarse undertone : " Snatch it out of her 
 belt, you fool ! Snatch it ! He 's coming back. 
 Quick ! " Leslie starts to her feet. 
 
 Second Tramp : " Ye see, miss, my friend 's im- 
 patient." Soothingly : " Just let me examine your 
 watch. I give ye my honor I won't hurt you; 
 don't lose your presence of mind, my dear; don't 
 be frightened." As she shrinks back, he clutches 
 at her watch-chain. 
 
58 Out of the Question. 
 
 Leslie, in terror-stricken simplicity : " Oh, oh, 
 no ! Don't ! Don't take my watch. My father 
 gave it to me — and he 's dead." 
 
 Second Tramp : " Then he '11 never miss it, my 
 dear. Don't oblige me to be rude to a lady. 
 Give it here, at once, that 's a dear." 
 
 First Tramp : " Hurry, hurry ! He 's coming ! '' 
 As the Irishman seizes her by the wrist, Leslie 
 utters one wild shriek after another, to which the 
 other young girls respond, as they reappear under 
 the trees down the road. 
 
 Maggie : " Leslie, Leslie ! What is it ? " 
 
 LiUg, at sight of Leslie struggling with the 
 tramp : " Oh, help, help, help, somebody — do ! " 
 
 Maggie: "Murder!" 
 
 First Tramp, rushing past them to the aid of his 
 fellow : " Clap your hand over her mouth ! Stop 
 her noise, somehow ! Choke her ! " He springs 
 forward, and while the Irishman stifles her cries 
 with his hands, the other tears the watch-chain 
 loose from its fastening. They suddenly release 
 her, and as she reels gasping and swooning away, 
 some one has the larger villain by the throat, who 
 
"/?^ Fayre Forest." 59 
 
 Btruggles with his assailant backward into the un- 
 dergrowth, whence the crash of broken branches, 
 with cries and curses, makes itself heard. Follow- 
 ing this tumult comes the noise of a rush through 
 the ferns, and then rapid footfalls, as of flight and 
 pursuit on the hard road, that die away in the dis- 
 tance, while Maggie and Lilly hang over Leslie, 
 striving to make out from her incoherent moans 
 and laments what has happened. 
 
 Maggie : " Oh, Leslie, Leslie, Leslie, what was 
 it? Do try to think! Do try to tell! Oh, I 
 shall go wild if you don't tell what 's the matter." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, it was — Oh, oh, I feel as if I 
 should never be clean again ! How can I endure 
 it ? That filthy hand on my mouth ! Their 
 loathsome rags, their sickening faces ! Ugh ! Oh, 
 I shall dream of it as long as I live ! Why, why 
 did I ever come to this horrid place ? " 
 
 3Iaggie : " Leslie, — dear, good Leslie, — what 
 'vas it all ? " 
 
 Leslie, panting and sobbing : " Oh, two horrid, 
 disgusting men ! Don't ask me ! And they told 
 me to give them my watch, and I begged them not 
 
60 Out of the Question. 
 
 to take it. And one was a hideous little Irish 
 wretch, and he kept running all round me, and oh, 
 dear ! the other was worse than he was ; yes, 
 worse ! And he told him — oh, girls ! — to choke 
 me ! And he came running up, and then the other 
 put one of his hands over my mouth, and I 
 could n't breathe ; and I thought I should die ; but 
 I wasn't going to let the wretches have my watch, 
 if I could help it ; and I kept struggling ; and all 
 at once they ran away, and " — putting her hand 
 to her belt — " Oh, it's gone, it's gone, it 's gone ! 
 Oh, papa, papa ! The watch you gave me is 
 gone ! " She crouches down upon the lug, and 
 leaning her head upon her hands against the trunk 
 of a tree gives way to her tears and sobs, while 
 the others kneel beside her in helpless distress. 
 On this scene Blake emerges from the road down 
 which the steps were heard. His face is pale, and 
 he advances with his right arm held behind him, 
 while the left clasps something which he extends 
 as he speaks. 
 
V. 
 
 Blake and the Young Girls. 
 
 Blahe, after a pause in which he stands looking 
 at Leslie unheeded by the others : " Here is your 
 watch, Miss Bellingham." 
 
 Leslie^ whirling swiftly round to her feet : " My 
 watch? Oh, where did you find it?" She springs 
 towards him and joyfully seizing it from his hand 
 scans it eagerly, and then kisses it in a rapture. 
 " Safe, safe, safe ! Not hurt the least ! My pre- 
 cious gift ! Oh, how glad I am ! It 's even going 
 yet ! How did you get it ? Where did you get 
 it?" 
 
 jBlake, who speaks with a certain painful effort 
 while he moves slowly away backward from her : 
 '* I found it — I got it from the thief." 
 
 Leslie, looking confusedly at him: "How did 
 you know they had it ? " 
 
62 Out of the Question. 
 
 Maggie : " Oh, it was you, Mr. Blake, who came 
 flying past us, and drove them away ! Did you 
 have to fight them ? Oh, did they hurt you? " 
 
 Leslie : " It was you — Why, how pale you 
 look ! There 's blood on your face ! Why, where 
 were you ? How did it all happen ? It was you 
 that drove them away ? You ? And I never 
 thought of you ! And I only thought about my- 
 self — my watch! I never can forgive myself." 
 She lets fall the watch from her heedless grasp, 
 and he mechanically puts out the hand which he 
 has been keeping behind him ; she impetuously 
 seizes it in her own and, suddenly shrinking, he 
 subdues the groan that breaks from him to a sort 
 of gasp and totters to the log where Leslie has 
 been sitting. 
 
 Lilly : " Oh, see, Miss Bellingham ; they 've 
 broken his wrist ! " 
 
 Blake, panting : " It 's nothing ; don't — don't — '* 
 
 Maggie : " Oh dear, he 's going to faint ! What 
 shall we do if he does ? I did n't know they ever 
 fainted ! " She wrings her hands in despair, while 
 Leslie flings herself upon her knees at Blake's side. 
 
«/w Fayre Forest:' 63 
 
 '* Ought n't we to support him, somehow? Oh 
 yes do let 's support him, all of us ! " 
 
 Leslie^ imperiously : " Run down to the river as 
 fast as ever you can, and wet your handkerchiefs 
 to sprinkle his face with." She passes her arm 
 round Blake's, and tenderly gathers his broken 
 wrist into her right hand. " One can support him.'* 
 
III. 
 
 A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING. 
 
1. 
 
 Mrs. Murray and Mrs. Bellingham. 
 
 Three weeks after the events last represented 
 Mrs. Bellingham and her sister-in-law are once 
 more seated in the hotel parlor, both with sewing, 
 to which the latter abandons herself with an ap- 
 parently exasperated energy, while the former lets 
 her work lie in her lap, and listens with some lady- 
 like trepidation to what Mrs. Murray is saying. 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " From beginning to end it has 
 been quite like a sensation play. Leslie must feel 
 herself a heroine of melodrama. She is sojourn- 
 ing at a country inn, and she goes sketching in the 
 woods, when two ruffians set upon her and try to 
 rob her. Her screams reach the ear of the young 
 man of humble life but noble heart, who professed 
 to have gone away but who was still opportunely 
 hanging about; he rushes on the scene and dis- 
 
68 Out of the Question, 
 
 perses the brigands, from whom he rends their 
 prey. She seizes his hand to thank him for his 
 Bubhme behavior, and discovers that his wrist has 
 been broken by a blow from the bludgeon of one 
 of the wicked ruf&ans. Very pretty, very charm- 
 ing, indeed ; and so appropriate for a girl of Les- 
 lie's training, family, and station in life. Upon my 
 word I congratulate you, Marion. To think of 
 being the mother of a heroine ! It was fortunate 
 that you let her snub Mr. Dudley. If she had 
 married him probably nothing of this kind would 
 have happened." 
 
 Mrs. BelUnghaniy uneasily : " I ought to be glad 
 the affair amuses you, but I don't see how even you 
 can hold the child responsible for what has hap- 
 pened." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Responsible ! I should be the 
 last to do that, I hope. No, indeed. I consider 
 her the victim of circumstances, and since the hero 
 has been thrown back upon our hands, I 'in sure 
 every one must say that her devotion is most ex- 
 emplary. I don't hold her responsible for that, 
 «ven." As Mrs. Murray continues, Mrs. Belling- 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 69 
 
 ham's uneasiness increases, and she drops her hands 
 with a baffled look' upon the work in her lap. 
 "It's quite en regie that she should be anxious 
 about him ; it would be altogether out of character 
 otherwise. It 's a pity that he does n't lend himself 
 more gracefully to being petted. When I saw her 
 bringing him a pillow, that first day, after the doc- 
 tor set his wrist and she had got him to repose his 
 exhausted frame on the sofa, I was almost melted 
 to tears. Of course it can end only in one way." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Kate, I will not have any 
 more of this. It 's intolerable, and you have no 
 right to torment me so. You know that I 'm as 
 much vexed as you can be. It annoys me beyond 
 endurance, but I don't see what, as a lady, I can 
 do about it. Mr. Blake is here again by no fault 
 of his own, certainly, and neither Leslie nor I can 
 treat him with indifference." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " I don't object to your treating 
 him as kindly as you like, but you had better leave 
 as little kindness as possible to Leslie. You must 
 sooner or later recognize one thing, Marion, and 
 take your measures accordingly. I advise you lo 
 do it sooner.'* 
 
70 Out of the Question. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " What do you mean ? *' 
 
 Mrs. Murray: "I mean what you know well 
 enougli : that Leslie is interested in this Mr. Blake. 
 I saw that she was, from the very first moment. 
 He 's just the kind of man to fascinate a girl like 
 Leslie ; you know that. He 's handsome, and he 's 
 shown himself brave ; and all that unconvention- 
 ality which marks him of a different class gives 
 him a charm to a girl's fancy, even when she has 
 recognized, herself, that he is n't a gentleman. 
 She soon forgets that, and sees merely that he is 
 clever and good. She would very promptly teach 
 a girl of his traditions her place, but a young man 
 is different." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: "I hope Leslie would treat 
 even a woman with consideration." 
 
 3Trs. Murray : " Oh, consideration, consideration ! 
 You may thank yourself, Marion, and your impos- 
 sible ideas, if this comes to the worst. You be- 
 long to one order of things or you belong to an- 
 other. If you believe that several generations of 
 wealth, breeding, and station distinguish a girl so 
 that a new man, however good or wise he is, can 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 71 
 
 never be her equal, you must act on your belief, 
 and in a case like this you can't act too promptly." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " What should you do ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Do ? I should fling away all 
 absurd ideas of consideration, to begin with. I 
 should deal frankly with Leslie ; I should appeal 
 to her pride and her common sense ; and I should 
 speak so distinctly to this young man that he 
 couldn't possibly mistake my meaning. I should 
 (tell him — I should advise him to try change of 
 air for his wound ; or whatever it is." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, after a moment's dreary reflec- 
 tion: "That's quite impossible, Kate. I will 
 speak to Leslie, but I can never offer offense to 
 any one we owe so much." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Do you wish me to speak to 
 him?" 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " No, I can't permit that, 
 either." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Very well ; then you must 
 abide by the result." Mrs. Murray clutches her 
 work together, stooping to recover dropping spools 
 ^nd scissors with an activity surprising in a lady of 
 
72 Out of the Question. 
 
 her massive person, and is about to leave the room, 
 when the sound of steps and voices arrest her ; a 
 moment after Miss Bellingham and Blake, with his 
 right arm in a sling, enter the room, so intent 
 upon each other as not to observe the ladies in the 
 comer. 
 
n. 
 
 Leslie and Blake ; Mrs. Murray and Mrs. 
 Bellingham apart. 
 
 Leslie : " I 'm afraid you 've let me tire you. 
 I 'm such an insatiable walker, and I never thought 
 of your not being perfectly strong, yet." 
 
 Blake, laughing : " Why, Miss Bellingham, it 
 is n't one of my ankles that 's broken." 
 
 Leslie, concessively : " No ; but if you 'd only 
 let me do something for you. I can both play and 
 sing, and really not at all badly. Shall I play to 
 you ? " She goes up and strikes some chords on 
 the piano, and with her hand on the keys glances 
 with mock gravity round at Blake, who remains 
 undecided. She turns about. *^' Perhaps you'd 
 rather have me read to you ? " 
 
 Blahe : " Do you really wish me to choose ? " 
 
 Leslie : " I do. And ask something dijElicult and 
 disagreeable." 
 
74 Out of the Question. 
 
 Blake : " I 'd rather have you talk to me than 
 either." 
 
 Leslie : " Is that your idea of something difficult 
 and disagreeable ? " 
 
 Make : I hope you won't find it so/* 
 
 Leslie: "But I shan't feel that it's anything, 
 then ! Shall I begin to talk to you here ? Or 
 where ? " 
 
 Blake : " This is a good place, but if I 'm to 
 choose again, I should say the gallery would be 
 better." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, you 're choosing that because I 
 said I wondered how people could come into the 
 country and sit all their time in stuffy rooms ! " 
 
 Blake, going to the window and looking out: 
 " There are no seats." He returns, and putting 
 the backs of two chairs together, lifts them with 
 his left hand to carry them to the gallery. 
 
 Leslie, advancing tragically upon him and re- 
 proachfully possessing herself of the chairs : 
 *' Never ! Do you think I have no sense of 
 shame ? " She lifts a chair in either hand and 
 oarries them out, while Blake in a charmed embar- 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 75 
 
 rassment follows her, and they are heard speaking 
 without : " There ! Or no ! That 's in a draught. 
 You mustn't sit in a draught." 
 
 Blake : " It won't hurt me. I 'm not a young 
 lady." 
 
 Leslie : " That 's the very reason it will hurt 
 you. If you were a young lady you could stand 
 anything. Anything you liked." There are in- 
 distinct murmurs of further feigned dispute, broken 
 by more or less conscious laughter, to which Mrs. 
 Bellingham listens with alarm and Mrs. Murray 
 with the self-righteousness of those who have told 
 you so, and who, having thus washed their hands of 
 an aifair, propose to give you a shower-bath of the 
 water. 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Well, Marion ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, rising, with a heavy sigh : 
 " Yes, it 's quite as bad as you could wish." 
 
 Mrs. Murray: "As bad as /could wish? Thij 
 is too much, Marion. What are you going tG 
 do ? " Mrs. Bellingham is gathering up her work 
 IS if to quit the room, and Mrs. Murray's demand 
 is pitched in a tone ^of falling indignation and ris- 
 ing amazement. 
 
76 Out of the Question. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " We can't remain to over- 
 hear their talk. I am going to my room." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Why, Marion, the child is your 
 own daughter ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " That is the very rieason why 
 I don't wish to feel that she . has cause to be 
 ashamed of me ; and I certainly should if I stayed 
 to eavesdrop." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " How in the world should she 
 ever know it ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: "I should tell her. But that 
 is n't the point, quite." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " This is fantastic ! Well, let her 
 marry her — Caliban ! Why don't you go out and 
 join them ? That need n't give her cause to blush 
 for you. Remember, Marion, that Leslie is an 
 ignorant, inexperienced child, and that it 's your 
 duty to save her from her silliness." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " My daughter is a lady, and 
 will remember herself." 
 
 Mrs. 3furray : " But she 's a woman, Marion, 
 and will forget herself ! " 
 
 M7'S. Bellingham, who hesitates in a brief per- 
 
. A Slight Misunderstanding. 77 
 
 plexity, but abruptly finishes her preparations for 
 going out : " At any rate, I can't dog her steps, nor 
 play the spy upon her. I wish to know only what 
 she will freely tell me." 
 
 Mrs. Murray: "And are you actually going? 
 Well, Marion, I suppose I must n't say what I 
 think of you." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " It is n't necessary that you 
 should." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " If I were to speak, I should say 
 that your logic was worthy of Bedlam, and your 
 morality of— of — the millenium!" She whirls 
 furiously out of the parlor, and Mrs. Bellingham, 
 with a lingering glance at the door opening upon 
 the balcony, follows her amply eddying skirts. A 
 moment after their disappearance, Leslie comes to 
 the gallery door and looks exploringly into the 
 parlor. 
 
m 
 
 Leslie and Blake ; finally^ Mks. Bellingham. 
 
 Leslie^ speaking to Blake without : " I was sure 
 T heard voices. But there 's nobody." She turns, 
 and glancing at the hills which show their irregular 
 mass through the open window, sinks down into a 
 chair beside the low gallery rail. " Ah, this is a 
 better point still," and as Blake appears with his 
 chair and plants it vis-a-vis with her : " Why old 
 Ponkwasset, I wonder ? But people always say 
 old of mountains : old Wachusett, old Agamenticus, 
 old Monadnock, old Ponkwasset. Perhaps the 
 young mountains have gone West and settled down 
 on the prairies, with all the other young people 
 of the neighborhood. Would n't that explain it ? " 
 She looks with openly-feigned seriousness at Blake, 
 who supports in his left hand the elbow of his hurt 
 a-'m. " I 'm sure it 's paining you." 
 
A Slight Misunderstanavny. 79 
 
 Blahe : " No, no ; not the least. The fact is " 
 — he laughs lightly — " I 'm afraid I was n't think- 
 ing about the mountains just now, when you spoke." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, well, neither was I — very much." 
 They both laugh. " But why do you put your 
 hand under your arm, if it does n't pain you ? " 
 
 Blahe ; " Oh ! — I happened to think of the 
 scamp who broke it for me." 
 
 Leslie, shuddering : " Don't speak of it ! Or yes, 
 do ! Tell me about it ; I 've wanted to ask you. I 
 ought to know about it ; I hoped you would tell 
 without asking. I can never be thankful enough 
 that your walk happened to bring you back the 
 same way. Why must you leave me to imagine 
 all the rest ? " 
 
 Blake : Oh, those things are better imagined than 
 described. Miss Bellingham." 
 
 Leslie : " But I want it described. I must hear 
 it, no matter how terrible it is." 
 
 Blake : " It was n't terrible ; there was very 
 little of it, one way or the other. The big fellow 
 would n't give up your watch ; and I had to — r 
 arge him ; and the little Irishman came dancing 
 
80 Out of the Question. 
 
 up, and made a pass at us with his stick, and my 
 wrist caught it. That 's all." 
 
 Leslie, with effusion : " All ? You risked your 
 life to get me back my watch, and I asked about 
 that first, and never mentioned you." 
 
 Blake : " I had n't done anything worth men- 
 tioning." 
 
 Leslie : " Then getting my watch was n't worth 
 mentioning ! " 
 
 Blahe : " Where is it ? I have n't seen you wear 
 it." 
 
 Leslie : " I broke something in it when I threw 
 it down. It does n't go. Besides, I thought per- 
 haps you would n't like to see it." 
 
 Make : " Oh, yes, I should." 
 
 Leslie, starting up : "I '11 go get it." 
 
 Blake : " Not now ! " They are both silent. 
 Leslie falters and then sits down again, and folds 
 one hand over the other on the balcony rail, letting 
 her fan dangle idly by its chain from her waist. 
 He leans forward a little, and taking the fan, opens 
 and shuts it, while she looks down upon him with 
 a slight smile ; he relinquishes it with a glance at 
 ber, and leans back again in his chair. 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 81 
 
 Leslie: "Well, what were you thinking about 
 that hideous little wretch who hurt you ? " 
 
 Blake : " Why, I was thinking, for one thing, 
 that he did n't mean to do it." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh! Why did he do it, then ? " 
 
 Blake : " I believe he meant to hit his partner, 
 though I can 't exactly say why. It went through 
 my mind. And I was thinking that a good deal 
 might be said for tramps." 
 
 Leslie : " For tramps that steal watches and 
 break wrists? My philanthropy doesn't rise to 
 those giddy heights, quite. No decidedly, Mr. 
 Blake, I draw the line at tramps. They never 
 look clean, and why don't they go to work ? " 
 
 Blake : " Well they could n't find work just now, 
 if they wanted it, and generally I suppose they 
 don't want it. A man who 's been out of work 
 three months is glad to get it, but if he 's idle a 
 year he does n't want it. When I see one of your 
 big cotton mills standing idle, I know that it means 
 just so much tramping, so much starving and steal- 
 ing, so much misery and murder. We 're all part 
 6 
 
82 Out of the Question. 
 
 of the tangle ; we 're all of us to blame, we 're none 
 of us to blame." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, that 's very well. But if you pity 
 such wretches, what becomes of the deserving 
 poor ? " 
 
 Blake : " I 'm not sure there are any deserving 
 poor, as you call them, any more than there are de- 
 serving rich. So I don't draw the line at tramps. 
 The fact is, Miss Bellingham, I had just been doing 
 those fellows a charity before they attacked you, — 
 given them some tobacco. You don't approve of 
 that ? " 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, I like smoking ! " 
 
 Blake, laughing: "And I got their idea of a 
 gentleman." 
 
 Leslie, after a moment : "Yes ? What was that? " 
 
 Blake : " A man who gives you tobacco, and 
 does n't ask you why you don't go to work. A 
 real gentleman has matches about him to light your 
 pipe with afterwards. Is that your notion of a 
 gentleman ? " 
 
 Leslie, consciously : " I don't know ; not exactly." 
 
 Blake . " It made me think of the notion of a 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 83 
 
 gentleman I once heard from a very nice fellow 
 years ago : he believed that you could n't be a gen- 
 tleman unless you began with your grandfather. I 
 was younger then, and I remember shivering over 
 it, for it left me quite out in the cold, though I 
 could n't help liking the man ; he was a gentleman 
 in spite of what he said, — a splendid fellow, if 
 you made allowance fop him. You have to make 
 allowances for everybody, especially for men who 
 have had all the advantages. It 's apt to put them 
 wrong for life ; they get to thinking that the start 
 is the race. I used to look down on that sort of 
 men, once — in theory. But what I saw of them 
 in the war taught me better ; they only wanted an 
 emergency, and they could show themselves as 
 good as anybody. It is n't safe to judge people by 
 their circumstances ; besides, I 've known too many 
 men who had all the (i'wadvantage and never came 
 to anything. Still I prefer the tramp's idea — per- 
 haps because it 's more flattering — that you are a 
 gentleman if you choose to be so. What do you 
 think ? " 
 
 Leslie : " I don't know." After an interval long 
 
84 Out of the Question. 
 
 enough to vanquish and banish a disagreeable con- 
 sciousness : " I think it 's a very unpleasant sub- 
 ject. Why don't you talk of something else ? " 
 
 Blake : " Oh, I was n't to talk at all, as I under- 
 stood. I was to be talked to." 
 
 Leslie : " Well, what shall I talk to you about ? 
 You must choose that, too." 
 
 Blake : " Let us talk about yourself, then.'* 
 
 Leslie : " There is nothing about me. I 'm just 
 like every other girl. Glet Miss Wallace to tell 
 you about herself, some day, and then you '11 know 
 my whole history. I 've done everything that 
 she 's done. We had the same dancing, singing, 
 piano, French, German, and Italian lessons ; we 
 went to the same schools and the same lectures ; 
 we have both been abroad, and can sketch, and 
 paint on tiles. We 're as nearly alike as the same 
 experiences and associations could make us, and 
 we 're just like all the other girls we know. Is n't 
 it rather monotonous ? " 
 
 Blake : " I don't know all the other girls that 
 you know. If I can judge from Miss Wallace, I 
 don't believe you 're like them ; but they may be 
 like you." 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 85 
 
 Leslie, laughing : " That 's too fine a distinction 
 for me. And you have n't answered my question." 
 
 Blake, gravely : " No, it is n't monotonous to 
 me ; it 's all very good, I think. I 'm rather old- 
 fashioned about women ; I like everything in their 
 lives to be regular and ordered by old usage." 
 
 Leslie : " Then you don't approve of origi- 
 nality ? " 
 
 Blahe: ".I don't like eccentricity." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, I do. I should like to do all sorts 
 of odd things, if I dared." 
 
 Blake : " Well, your not daring is a great point. 
 If I had a sister, I should want her to be like all 
 the other girls that are like you." 
 
 Leslie : " You compliment ! She could n't be 
 like me." 
 
 Blalce: "Why?" 
 
 Leslie: " Why ? Oh, I don't know." She hes 
 itates, and then with a quick glance at him : " She 
 would have dark eyes and hair, for one thing." 
 They both laugh. 
 
 Blake : " Was that what you meant to say ? " 
 
 Leslie : " Is n't it enough to say what you mean, 
 without being obliged to say what you meant ? " 
 
86 Out of the Question. 
 
 Blake : " Half a loaf is better than no bread ; 
 beo:orars must n't be choosers." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, if you put it so meekly as that you 
 humiliate me. I must tell you now: I meant a 
 question." 
 
 Blahe : " What is it ? " 
 
 Leslie : " But I can't ask it, yet. Not till I 've 
 got rid of some part of my obligations." 
 
 Blake : " I suppose you mean what I — what 
 happened." 
 
 Leslie: "Yes." 
 
 Blake: "I'm sorry that it happened, then; and 
 I had been feeling rather glad of it, on the whole. 
 I shall hate it if it 's an annoyance to you." 
 
 Leslie: "Oh, — not annoyance, exactly." 
 
 Blake : " What then ? Should you like a receipt 
 in full for all gratitude due me ? " 
 
 Leslie : " I should like to feel that we Had done 
 something for you in return." 
 
 Blake : " You can cancel it all by giving me 
 leave to enjoy being just what and where I am." 
 
 Leslie, demurely, after a little pause : "Is a 
 broken wrist such a pleasure, then ? " 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 87 
 
 JBlake: "I take the broken wrist for what it 
 brings. If it were not for that I should be in New 
 York breaking my heart over some people I 'm 
 connected with in business there, and wondering 
 how to push a little invention of mine without their 
 help. Instead of that " — 
 
 Leslie, hastily : " Oh ! Invention ? Are you an 
 inventor, too, Mr. Blake ? Do tell me what it is.*' 
 
 Blake : " It 's an improved locomotive driving- 
 wheel. But you 'd better let me alone about that, 
 Miss Bellingham ; I never stop when I get on my 
 driving-wheel. That 's what makes my friends 
 doubtful about it ; they don't see how any brake 
 can check it. They say the Westinghouse air- 
 brake would exhaust the atmosphere of the planet 
 on it without the slightest effect. You see I am 
 rather sanguine about it." He laughs nervously. 
 
 Leslie : " But what have those New York people 
 to do with it ? " 
 
 Blake : " Nothing, at present. That 's the worst 
 of it. They were partners of mine, and they got 
 me to come on all the way from Omaha, and then 
 I found out that they had no means to get the 
 *.hing going." 
 
88 Out of the Question. 
 
 Leslie : " Oh ! How could they do it ? " 
 
 Blake : " Well, I used language to that effect 
 myself, but they did n't seem to know ; and I ran 
 up here to cool off and think the matter over for a 
 fresh start. You see, if I succeed it will be an 
 everlasting fortune to me ; and if I fail, — well, it 
 will be an everlasting misfortune. But I 'm not 
 going to fail. There ; I 'm started ! If I went on 
 a moment longer, no power on earth could stop me. 
 I suppose your 're not much used to talking about 
 driving-wheels, Miss Bellingham ? " 
 
 Leslie : " We don't often speak of them. But 
 they must be very interesting to those that under- 
 stand them." 
 
 Blake : " I can't honestly say they are. They 're 
 like railroads ; they 're good to get you there." 
 
 Leslie: "Where?" 
 
 Blake : " Well, in my case, away from a good 
 deal of drudgery I don't like, and a life I don't al- 
 together fancy, and a kind of world I know too 
 well. I should go to Europe, I suppose, if the 
 wheel succeeded. I 've a curiosity to see what the 
 apple is like on the other side ; whether it 's riper 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 89 
 
 or only rottener. And I always believed I should 
 quiet down somewhere, and read all the books I 
 wanted to, and make up for lost time in several 
 ways. I don't think I should look at any sort of 
 machine for a year." 
 
 Leslie, earnestly : " And would all that happen 
 if you had the money to get the driving-wheel 
 going ? " 
 
 Make, with a smile at her earnestness : " I 'm not 
 such a driving-wheel fanatic as that. The thing 
 has to be fully tested, and even after it's tested, 
 the roads may refuse to take hold of it." 
 
 Leslie, confidently: "They can't — when they 
 see that it 's better." 
 
 Blake : " I wish I could think so. But roads are 
 human, Miss Bellingham. They prefer a thing 
 that 's just as well to something that 's much bet- 
 ter — if it costs much to change." 
 
 Leslie : " Well, then, if you don't believe the 
 roads will take hold of it, why do you want to 
 test it? Why don't you give it up at once?" 
 
 Blake : " It won't give me up. I do believe in 
 ' t, you know, and I can't stop where I am with it 
 T must go on." 
 
90 Out of the Question. 
 
 Leslie : " Yes. I should do just the same. I 
 should never, never give it up. I know you '11 be 
 helped. Mr. Blake, if this wheel " — 
 
 Blake : " Really, Miss Bellingham, I feel 
 ashamed for letting you bother yourself so long 
 with that ridiculous wheel. But you wouldn't 
 stick to the subject : we were talking about you." 
 
 Leslie^ dreamily : " About me ? " Then ab- 
 ruptly : " Mamma will wonder what in the world 
 has become of me." She rises, and Blake, with an 
 air of slight surprise, follows her example. She 
 leads the way into the parlor, and lingeringly draw- 
 ing near the piano, she strikes some chords, and 
 as she stands over the instrument, she carelessly 
 plays an air with one hand. Then, without look- 
 ing up : " Was that the air you were trying to re- 
 member ? " 
 
 Make, joyfully : " Oh yes, that 's it ; that 's it, at 
 last!" 
 
 Leslie, seating herself at the piano and running 
 over the keys again : " I think I can play it for 
 you ; it 's rather old-fashioned, now." She plays 
 and sings, and then rests with her hands on the 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 91 
 
 keys, looking up at Blake where he stands leaning 
 one elbow on the corner of the piano. 
 
 Blake : " I 'm very much obliged." 
 
 Leslie, laughing : " And I 'm very much sur- 
 prised." 
 
 BlaJce : « Why ? " 
 
 Leslie : " I should think the inventor of a driv- 
 ing-wheel would want something a great deal more 
 stirring than this German sentimentality and those 
 languid, melancholy things from Tennyson that 
 you liked." 
 
 Blake: "Ah, that's just what I don't want. 
 I 've got stir enough of my own." 
 
 Leslie : " I wish I could understand you." 
 
 Blake: "Am I such a puzzle? I always 
 thought myself a very simple affair." 
 
 Leslie : " That 's the difficulty. 1 wish " — 
 
 Blake: "What?" 
 
 Leslie : " That I could say something wrong in 
 just the right way ! " 
 
 Blake, laughing: "How do you know it's 
 vrrong ? " 
 
 Leslie: "It isn't, if you don't think so.'* 
 
92 Out of the Question. 
 
 Blake: " I don't, so far." 
 
 Leslie : " Ah, don't joke. It 's a very serious 
 matter." 
 
 Blake : " Why should I think it was wrong ? " 
 
 Leslie : " I don't know that you will. Mr. 
 Blake" — 
 
 Blake : « Well ? " 
 
 Leslie : " Did you know — If I begin to say 
 something, and feel like stopping before I 've said 
 it, you won't ask questions to make me go on ? " 
 Very seriously. 
 
 Blake, with a smile of joyous amusement, look- 
 ing down at her as he lounges at the corner of the 
 piano : " I won't even ask you to begin." Leslie 
 passes her hand over the edges of the keys, with- 
 out making them sound ; then she drops it into her 
 lap and there clasps it with the other hand, and 
 looks up at Blake. 
 
 Leslie : " Did you know I was rich, Mr. 
 Blake?" 
 
 Blake : " No, Miss Bellingham, I did n't." His 
 smile changes from amusement to surprise, and he 
 colors faintly. 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 93 
 
 Leslie, blushing violently : " Well, I am, — if 
 being rich is having a great deal more money to do 
 what you please than you know what to do with." 
 Blake listens with a look of deepening mystifica- 
 tion ; she hurries desperately on : "I have this 
 money in my own right ; it 's what my uncle lefib 
 m(3, and I can give it all away if I choose." She 
 pauses again, as if waiting for Blake to ask her to 
 go on, but he remains loyally silent ; his smile has 
 died away, and an embarrassment increases upon 
 both of them. She looks up at him again, and im- 
 plores : " What will you think of what I 'm going 
 to say ? " 
 
 Blake, breaking into a troubled laugh : " I can't 
 imagine what you 're going to say." 
 
 Leslie : " Don't laugh ! I know you won't — 
 O Mr. Blake, you said you liked girls to be just 
 like everybody else, and old-established, and that ; 
 and I know this is as eccentric as it can be. It 
 is n't at all the thing, I know, for a young lady to 
 say to a gentleman ; but you 're not like the others, 
 and — Oh, it does n't seem possible that I should 
 have begun it ! It seems perfectly monstrous ! 
 
94 Out of the Question. 
 
 But I know you won't misinterpret ; I must, I 
 must go on, and the bluntest and straightforward- 
 est way will be the best way." She keeps wist- 
 fully scanning Blake's face as she speaks, but ap- 
 parently gathers no courage or comfort from it. 
 " Mr. Blake ! " 
 
 Blahe, passively : " Well ? " 
 
 Leslie^ with desperate vehemence : " I want — 
 Oh, what will you think of me ! But no, you 're 
 too good yourself not to see it in just the right 
 way. I 'm sure that you won't think it — unlady- 
 like — for me to propose such a thing, merely be- 
 cause — because most people wouldn't do it; but 
 I shall respect your reasons — I shall know you 're 
 right — even if you refuse me ; and — O Mr. 
 Blake, I want to go into partnership with you ! " 
 
 Blake, recoiling a pace or two from the corner of 
 the piano, as Leslie rises from the stool and stands 
 confronting him ; " To — to — go into " — 
 
 Leslie : " Yes, yes ! But how dreadfully you 
 take it ; and you promised — Oh, I knew you 
 would n't like it ! I know it seems dreadfully 
 queer, and not at all delicate. But I thought — 1 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding. 95 
 
 thought — from what you said — You said those 
 people had no money to push your invention, and 
 here I have all this money doing nobody any good 
 — and you 've done nothing but heap one kindness 
 after another on us — and why shouldn't you take 
 it, as much as you want, and use it to perfect your 
 driving-wheel ? I 'm sure I believe in it ; and " — 
 She has followed him the pace or two of his with- 
 drawal ; but now, at some changing expression of 
 his face, she hesitates, falters, and remains silent 
 and motionless, as if fixed and stricken mute 
 by the sight of some hideous apparition. Then 
 with a wild incredulity: "Oh!" and indignation. 
 " Oh ! " and passionate reproach and disappoint- 
 ment, " Oh ! How cruel, how shameless, how hor- 
 rid ! " She drops her face into her hands, and 
 sinks upon the piano-stool, throwing her burdened 
 arms upon the keys with a melodious crash. 
 
 Blake : " Don't, don't ! For pity's sake, don't, 
 my — Miss Bellingham ! " He stands over her in 
 helpless misery and abject self-reproach. " Good 
 heavens, I did n't — It was all " — 
 
 Leslie, springing erect : *' Don't speak to me. 
 
96 Out of the Question. 
 
 Your presence, your being alive in tlie same world 
 after that is an insufferable insult ! For you to 
 dare ! All ! No woman could say what you 
 thought. No lady " — 
 
 Blake : " Wait ! " He turns pale, and speaks 
 low and steadily : " You must listen to me now ; 
 you must hear what I never dreamt I should dare 
 to say. I loved you ! If that had not bewildered 
 me I could not have thought — what was impossi- 
 ble. It was a delusion dearer than life ; but I was 
 ashamed of the hope it gave me even while it 
 lasted. Don't mistake me, Bliss Belliiigham ; I 
 could have died to win your love, but if your words 
 had said what they seemed to say, I would not 
 have taken what they seemed to offer. But that's 
 past. And now that I have to answer your mean- 
 ing, I must do it without thanks. You place me 
 in the position of having told my story to hint for 
 your help " — 
 
 Leslie, in vehement protest : " Oh, no, no, no ! 
 I never dreamt of such a thing 1 I couldn't !" 
 
 Blake : " Thank you at least for that ; and — 
 Good-by ! " He bows and moves away toward the 
 door. 
 
A Slight Misunderstanding, 97 
 
 Leslie, wildly : " Oh, don't go, don't go ! What 
 have I done, what shall I do ?" 
 
 Blake, pausing, and then going abruptly back to 
 her : " You can forgive me. Miss Bellingham ; and 
 let everything be as '\\. was." 
 
 Leslie, after a moment of silent anguish : " No, 
 no. That 's impossible. It can never be the same 
 again. It must all end. I can forgive you easily 
 enough ; it was nothing ; the wrong was all mine. 
 I 've been cruelly to blame, letting you — go on. 
 Oh, yes, very, very much. But I did n't know it ; 
 and I did n't mean anything by anything. No, I 
 could n't. Good-by. _You are right to go. You 
 mustn't see me any more. I shall never forget 
 your goodness and patience." Eagerly : " You 
 would n't want me to forget it, would you ? " 
 
 Blake, brokenly : " Whatever you do will be 
 right. God bless you, and good-by." He takes 
 up her right hand in his left, and raises it to his 
 lips, she trembling, and as he stands holding it 
 Mrs. Bellingham enters with an open letter. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: "Leslie" — 
 
 Leslie, who withdraws her hand, and after a mo- 
 
98 Out of the Question. 
 
 mentary suspense turns unashamed to her mother : 
 " Mr. Blake is going away, mamma " — Mrs. 
 Bellingham faintly acknowledges his parting bow. 
 lieslie watches him go, and then turns away with 
 a suppressed sob. 
 
IV. 
 
 MRS. MURRAY'S TRIUMPH, 
 
i. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham and Leslie. 
 
 Leslie : *■ "Well, mamma, what will you say to me 
 now?" Without the inspiration of Blake's pres- 
 ence, she stands drearily confronting her mother in 
 Mrs. Bellingham's own room, where the latter, 
 seated in her easy-chair, looks up into Leslie's face. 
 
 Mrs. Beliingham : " Nothing, Leslie. I am wait- 
 ing for you to speak." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, I can't speak unless you ask me." 
 She drops into a chair, and hiding her face in her 
 handkerchief weeps silently. Her mother waits 
 till her passion is spent and she has wiped her 
 tears, and sits mutely staring toward the window. 
 
 Mrs. Beliingham : " Is he coming back again, 
 Leslie?" 
 
 Leslie: "No." 
 
 Mrs. Beliingham : " Was it necessary that you 
 should let him take leave of you in that way ? " 
 
102 Out of the Question. 
 
 Leslie, sighing : " No, it was n't necessary. But 
 — it was inevitable." 
 
 Mrs. BeUingham : " What had made it inev- 
 itable ? Remember, Leslie, that you asked me 
 to question you." 
 
 Leslie : " I know it, mamma." 
 
 Mrs. BeUingham : " And you need n't answer if 
 you don't like." 
 
 Leslie: "I don't like, but I will answer, all the 
 same, for you have a right to know. I had been 
 saying something silly to him." 
 
 Mrs. BeUingham, with patient hopelessness : 
 « Yes ? " 
 
 Leslie : " It seems so, now ; but I know that I 
 spoke from a right motive, — a motive that you 
 would n't disapprove of yourself, mamma." 
 
 Mrs. BeUingham : " I 'm sure of that, my dear." 
 
 Leslie : " Well, you see — Could n't you go on 
 and ask me, mamma ? " 
 
 Mrs. BeUingham : " I don't know what to ask, 
 Leslie." 
 
 Leslie : " It 's so hard to tell, without ! " Des- 
 perately : " Why, you see, mamma, Mr. Blake had 
 
Mrs, Murray's Triumph. 103 
 
 told me about a thing he had been inventing, and 
 how some people in New York had promised him 
 money to get it along, — push it, he said, — and 
 when he came on all the way from Omaha, he 
 found that they had no money ; and so — and so — 
 I — I offered him some." 
 
 Mts. BelUngham : " Oh, Leslie ! " 
 
 Leslie : " Yes, yes, it seems horrid, now, — per- 
 fectly hideous. But I did so long to do" something 
 for him because he had done so much for us, and I 
 think he is so modest and noble, and I felt so sorry 
 that he should have been so cruelly deceived. 
 Was n't that a good motive, mamma ? " 
 
 Mrs. BelUngham : " Oh, yes, my poor headlong 
 child ! But what a thing for a young lady to pro- 
 pose ! I can't imagine how you could approach the 
 matter." 
 
 Leslie : " That 's the worst of it, — the very 
 worst. Of course, I never could have approached 
 such a thing with any other young man ; but I 
 thought there was such a difference between us, 
 don't you know, in everything, that it would be 
 safe ; and I thought it would be better — he would 
 
104 Out of the Question. 
 
 like it better — if there was no beating about the 
 bush ; and so I said — I said — that I wanted to go 
 into partnership with him." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, with great trouble in her voice, 
 but steadily : " What answer did he make you, 
 Leslie?" 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, I was justly punished for looking 
 down upon him. At first he blushed in a strange 
 sort of way, and then he turned pale and looked 
 grieved and angry, and at last repeated my words 
 in a kind of daze, and I blundered on, and all at 
 once — I saw what he thought I had meant ; he 
 thought — Oh dear, dear, — he thought " — she 
 hides her face again, and sobs out the words be- 
 hind her handkerchief — " that I w-w-anted to — 
 to — to marry him ! Oh, how shall I ever en- 
 dure it ? It was a thousand times worse than the 
 tramps, — a thousand times.". Mrs. Bellingham 
 remains silently regarding her daughter, who con- 
 tinues to bemoan herself, and then lifts her tear- 
 stained face : " Don't you think it was ungrate- 
 fully, horridly, cruelly vulgar ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: ' Mr. Blake can't have the 
 
Mrs. Murray's Triumph. 105 
 
 refinement of feeling that you 've been used to in 
 the gentlemen of your acquaintance ; I 'm glad that 
 you 've found that out for yourself, though you 've 
 had to reach it throuo;h such a bitter mortifica- 
 ,tion. If such a man misunderstood you" — 
 
 Leslie, indignantly : " Mr. Blake is quite as good 
 as the gentlemen of my acquaintance, mamma ; he 
 could n't help thinking what he did, I blundered 
 so, and when I flew out at him, and upbraided 
 him for his — ungenerosity, and hurt his feelings 
 all I could, he excused himself in a perfectly satis- 
 factory way. He said " — 
 
 Mrs. Bellinghayn : " What, Leslie ? " 
 Leslie, with a drooping head : " He said — he 
 used words more refined and considerate than I 
 ever dreamt of — he said he was always thinking 
 of me in that way without knowing it, and hoping 
 against hope, or he could never have misunderstood 
 me in the world. And then he let me know that 
 he would n't have taken me, no matter how much 
 he liked me, if what he thought for only an instant 
 had been true ; and he could never have taken my 
 monev, for that would have made him seem like 
 
106 Out of the Question. 
 
 begging, by what he had told me. And he talked 
 splendidly, mamma, and he put me down, as I de 
 served, and he was going away, and I called him 
 back, and we agreed that we must never see each 
 other again ; and — and I could n't help his kiss- 
 ing my hand." She puts up her handkerchief and 
 sobs, and there is an interval before her mother 
 speaks in a tone of compassion, yet of relief. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Well, Leslie, I 'm glad that 
 you could agree upon so wise a course. This has 
 all been a terribly perplexing and painful affair ; 
 and I have had my fears, my dear, that perhaps it 
 had gone so far with you that " — 
 
 Leslie, vehemently : " Why, so it had ! I did n't 
 know I liked him so, but I do ; and I give him up 
 — I gave him up — because you all hate him, yes, 
 all ; and you shut your eyes, and won't see how 
 kind and brave and good he is ; and I can't hold 
 out against you. Yes, he must go ; but he takes 
 my broken heart with him." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, sternly: "Leslie, this is ab- 
 surd. You know yourself that he 's out of th© 
 question." 
 
Mrs. Murray's Triumph. 107 
 
 Leslie, flinging herself down and laying her head 
 in her mother's lap with a desolate cry : " 
 mamma, mamma, don't speak so harshly to me, or 
 I shall die. I know he 's out of the question ; yes, 
 yes, I do. But how ? How, mamma ? How is he 
 out of the question ? That 's what I can't under- 
 stand ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Why, to begin with, we 
 know nothing about him, Leslie." 
 
 Leslie, eagerly : " Oh yes, I do. He 's told me 
 all about himself. He 's an inventor. He 's a 
 genius. Yes, he knows everything, indeed he 
 does ; and in the war he was an engineer. If you 
 could only hear him talk as I do " — 
 
 Mr'S. Bellingham : " I dare say. But even a civilr 
 engineer " — 
 
 Leslie : " A civil engineer ! I should hope not. 
 I should be ashamed of a man who had been a 
 civilian during the war. He always had this great 
 taste for mechanics, and he studied the business of 
 a machinist — I don't know what it is, exactly ; 
 but he knows all about steam, and he can build a 
 whole engine, himself; and he happened to be 
 
/08 Out of the Question. 
 
 a private soldier going somewhere on a Missis- 
 sippi gunboat when the engineer was killed, and 
 he took charge of the engine at once, and was in 
 the great battles with the boat afterwards. He 's 
 a military engineer." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " He 's a steamboat engineer, 
 Leslie." 
 
 Leslie : " He was an officer of the boat — an 
 officer " — 
 
 3frs. Bellingham^ with a groan : " Oh, he was n't 
 an officer of the sort you think ; he had no mili- 
 tary rank ; he had the place of a clever artisan." 
 
 Leslie : " I don't understand." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " He looked after the machin- 
 ery, and saw that the boiler did n't burst, — I 
 don't know what. But you might as well marry 
 a locomotive-driver, as far as profession goes." 
 
 Leslie, aghast : " Do you mean that when Mr. 
 Blake was an engineer, he did n't wear any coat, 
 and had his sleeves rolled up, and went about with 
 a stringy wad of oily cotton in his hand ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes." 
 
 Leslie : " Oh ! " She excludes the horrible vision 
 Tjy clasping both hands over her eyes. 
 
Mrs. Murray's Triumph. 109 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, very gravely : " Now listen to 
 me, Leslie. You know tliat I am not like your 
 aunt Kate, — that I never talk in that vulgar way 
 about classes and stations, don't you?" 
 
 Leslie, still in a helpless daze : " Oh, yes, 
 mamma. I 've always been a great deal worse 
 than you, myself." 
 
 Mrs. BelUngham : " Well, my dear, then I hope 
 that you will acquit me of anything low or snob- 
 bish in what I have to say. There is a fitness in 
 all things, and I speak out of respect to that. It is 
 simply impossible that a girl of your breeding and 
 ideas and associations should marry a man of his. 
 Eecollect that no one belongs entirely to them- 
 selves. You are part of the circle in which you 
 have always moved, and he is part of the circum- 
 stances of his life. Do you see ? " 
 
 Leslie : " Yes." She lapses from a kneeling to 
 a crouching posture, and resting one elbow on her 
 mother's knee poises her chin on her hand, and 
 listens drearily. 
 
 Mrs. BelUngham : " We may say that it is no 
 matter what a man has been ; that we are only 
 
110 Oat of the Question, 
 
 concerned with what Mr. Blake is now. But 
 the trouble is that every one of us is what they 
 have been. If Mr. Blake's early associations have 
 been rude and his business coarse, you may be 
 sure they have left their mark upon him, no mat- 
 ter how good he may be naturally. I think he is 
 of a very high and sweet nature ; he seems so " — 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, he is, he is ! " 
 
 3Irs. Bellingham : " But he can't outlive his own 
 life. Is n't that reasonable ? " 
 
 Leslie, hopelessly : " Yes, it seems so." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " You can't. safely marry any 
 man whose history you despise. Marriage is a ter- 
 rible thing, my dear ; young girls can never under- 
 stand how it searches out the heart and tries and 
 tests in every way. You must n't have a husband 
 whom you can imagine with a wad of greasy cot- 
 ton in his hand. There will be wicked moments 
 in which you will taunt and torment each other." 
 
 Leslie : " mamma, mamma ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, it is so ! The truest 
 love can come to that. And in those moments it 
 18 better that all your past and present should be 
 
Mrs. Murray's Triumph. Ill 
 
 of the same level as his ; for you would n't hesitate 
 to throw any scorn in his teeth ; you would be mad, 
 and you must not have deadly weapons within 
 reach. I speak very plainly." 
 
 Leslie: "Terribly!" 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " But that is the worst. There 
 are a thousand lighter trials, which you must meet 
 Where would you live, if you married him ? You 
 have a fortune, and you might go to Europe " — 
 
 Leslie : " I never would sneak away to Europe 
 with him ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " I should hope not. But if 
 you remained at home, how would you introduce 
 him to your friends? Invention is n't a profession ; 
 would you tell them that he was a machinist or a 
 steamboat engineer by trade ? And if they found 
 it out without your telling ? " 
 
 Leslie, evasively : " There are plenty of girls 
 who marry men of genius, and it does n't matter 
 what the men have done, — how humble they have 
 been. If they 're geniuses " — 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Leslie, such men have 
 won all the honors and distinctions before they 
 
112 Out of the Question. 
 
 marry. Girls like you, my dear, don't marry gen- 
 iuses in their poverty and obscurity. Those men 
 spend years and years of toil and study, and strug- 
 gle through a thousand difficulties and privations, 
 and set the world talking about them, before they 
 can even be asked to meet the ordinary people of 
 our set in society. Wait till Mr. Blake has 
 shown " — 
 
 Leslie : " But he 'd be an old man by that time, 
 and then I should n't want him. If I know now 
 that he 's going to be great " — 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " My dear, you know nothing 
 whatever about him, except that his past life has 
 been shabby and common." 
 
 Leslie, with sudden spirit : " Well, then, mamma, 
 at least I don't know anything horrid of him, as 
 some girls must know of the young men they 
 marry, — and the old men, too. Just think of Vi- 
 olet Emmons's match with that count, there in 
 Paris ! And Aggy Lawson's, with that dreadful 
 old Mr. Lancaster, that everybody says has been 
 so wicked ! I 'd rather marry Mr. Blake, a thou- 
 sand times, if he had been a — I don't know 
 what!" 
 
Mrs. Murray's Triumph. 113 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: "You have no right to take 
 things at their worst, Leslie. E-emember all the 
 girls you know, and the accomplished men they 
 have married in their own set ; men who are quite 
 their equals in goodness as well as station and 
 wealth and breeding. That 's what I want you to 
 do."' 
 
 Leslie : " Do you wish me to marry somebody 
 I don't like?" 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : "Be fair, Leslie. I merely 
 wish you to like somebody you ought to marry, — 
 when the proper time comes. How do you know 
 that Mr. Blake is n't quite as bad as the count or 
 Mr. Lancaster ? " 
 
 Leslie, with a burst of tears : " Oh, mamma, you 
 just now said yourself that you believed he was 
 good and sweet, and you have seen the beautiful 
 delicacy he behaves towards women with. Well, 
 well," — she rises, and catches in her hand a long 
 coil of her hair which has come loose from the 
 mass, and stands holding it while she turns tragi- 
 cally toward her mother, — " let it all go. I will 
 never marry at all, and then at least I can't dis- 
 8 
 
114 Out of the Question. 
 
 please you. I give him up, and I hope it will 
 make you happy, mamma." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, rising : " Leslie, is this the 
 way you reward my anxiety and patience ? I 
 have reasoned with you as a woman of sense, and 
 the return you make is to behave as a petulant 
 child. I will never try to control you in such a 
 matter as this, but you know now what I think, 
 and you can have your own way if you like it 
 better or believe it is wiser than mine. Oh, my 
 poor child ! " — clasping Leslie's head between her 
 hands and tenderly kissing the girl's hair, — "don't 
 you suppose your mother's heart aches for you ? 
 Marry him if you will, Leslie, and I shall always 
 love you. I hope I may never have to pity you 
 more than I do now. All that I ask of you, after 
 all, is to make sure of yourself." 
 
 Leslie : " I will, mamma, I will. He must go ; 
 oh, yes, he must go ! I see that it would n't do. 
 It would be too unequal, — I 'm so far beneath him 
 in everything but the things I ought to despise. 
 No, I 'm not his equal, and I never can be, and so 
 I must not think of him any more. If he were 
 
Mrs. Murray's Triumph, 115 
 
 ricli, and had been brouglit up like me, and 1 were 
 Bome poor girl with nothing hut her love for him, 
 he would never let the world outweigh her lo\e, as 
 I do his. Don't praise me, mother ; don't thank 
 me. It is n't for you I do it ; it is n't for anything 
 worthy, or true, or good ; it 's because I 'm a cow- 
 ard, and afraid of the opinions of people I despise. 
 You 've shown me what I am. I thought I was 
 brave and strong ; but I am weak and timid, and I 
 shall never respect myself any more. Send him 
 away ; tell him what an abject creature I am ! It 
 will kill me to have him think meanly of me, but 
 oh, it will be a thousand times better that he 
 should have a right to scorn me now, than that I 
 should ever come to despise myself for having 
 been ashamed of him, when — when — That I 
 could rCt bear ! " She drops into a chair near the 
 table and lets fall her face into her hands upon it, 
 sobbing. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: "Leslie, Leslie! Be your- 
 self ! How strangely you act ! " 
 
 Leslie, lifting her face, to let it gleam a moment 
 upon her mother before she drops it: " Oh, yes, I 
 
116 Out of the Question. 
 
 feel very strangely. But now I won't distress you 
 any more, mother," lifting her face again and im- 
 petuously drying her eyes with her handkerchief ; 
 " I will be firm, now, and no one shall ever hear a 
 murmur from me, — not a murmur. I think that 's 
 due to you, mamma ; you have been so patient 
 with me. I 've no right to grieve you by going on 
 in this silly way, and I won't. I will be firm, firm, 
 firm ! " She casts herself into her mother's arms, 
 and as she hangs upon her neck in a passion of 
 grief, Mrs. Murray appears in the door-way, and in 
 spite of Mrs. Bellingham's gesticulated entreaties 
 to retire, advances into the room. 
 
n. 
 
 Mrs. Murray, Mrs. Bellingham, anc? Leslie. 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Why, what in the world does 
 all this mean?" 
 
 Leslie, raising her head and turning fiercely 
 upon her : " It means that I 'm now all you wish 
 me to be, — quite your own ideal of ingratitude 
 and selfishness, and I wish you joy of your suc- 
 cess ! " She vanishes stormily from the room and 
 leaves Mrs. Murray planted. 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Has she dismissed him ? Has 
 she broken with him ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, coldly: "I think she meant 
 you to understand that." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Very well, then, Charles can't 
 come a moment too soon. If things are at this 
 pass, and Leslie ' s in this mood, it 's the most dan- 
 gerous moment of the whole affair. If she should 
 meet him now, everything would be lost." 
 
118 Out of the Question, 
 
 Ifrs. BelKngham : " Don't be troubled. She 
 won't meet him ; he 's gone." 
 
 Mrs. Murray: "I shall believe that when I see 
 him going. A man like that would never leave her, 
 in the world, because she bade him, — and I should 
 think him a great fool if he did." 
 
V. 
 
 BLAKE'S SAYING DOUBT. 
 
I. 
 
 Leslie and Maggie. 
 
 Leslie: "But it's all over, — it's all over. I 
 shall live it down j but it will make another girl of 
 me, Maggie." Along the road that winds near the 
 nook where the encounter with the tramps took 
 place, Leslie comes languidly pacing with her 
 friend Maggie Wallace, who listens, as they walk, 
 with downcast eyes and an air of reverent devo- 
 tion, to Leslie's talk. Her voice trembles a little, 
 and as they pause a moment Maggie draws Leslie's 
 head down upon her neck, from which the latter 
 presently lifts it fiercely. " I don't wish you to 
 pity me, Maggie, for I don't deserve any pity. 
 I 'm not suiFering an atom more than I ought. It 's 
 all my own fault. Mamma really left me quite 
 free, and if I cared more for what people would 
 Bay and think and look than I did for him, I'm 
 
122 Out of the Question. 
 
 rightfully punished, and I 'm not going to whimper 
 about it. I 've thought it all out." 
 
 Maggie : " Leslie, you always did think things 
 out so clearly ! " 
 
 Leslie: "And I hope that I shall get my reward, 
 and be an example. I hope I shall never marry at 
 all, or else some horrid old thing I detest ; it 
 would serve me right and I should be glad of it ! " 
 
 Maggie : " Oh no, no ! Don't talk in that way, 
 Leslie. Do come back with me to the house and 
 lie down, or I 'm sure you '11 be ill. You look per- 
 fectly worn out." 
 
 Leslie, drooping upon the fallen log where she 
 had sat to sketch the birch forest: "Yes, I'm tired. 
 I think I shall never be rested again. It 's the 
 same place," — looking wistfully round, — " and 
 yet how strange it seems. You know we used 
 to come here, and sit on this log and talk. What 
 long, long talks ! Oh me, it will never be again ! 
 How weird those birches look ! Like ghosts. I 
 wish I was one of them. Well, well ! It 's all 
 over. Don't wait here, Maggie, dear. Go back 
 to the house ; I will come soon ; you must n*t let 
 
Blaize s Saving Doubt. 123 
 
 me keep you from Miss Roberts. Excuse me to 
 her, and tell her I '11 go some other time. I can't, 
 now. Go, Maggie ! " 
 
 Maggie : " Leslie ; I hate to leave you here ! 
 After what 's happened, it seems such a dreadful 
 place." 
 
 Leslie : " After what 's happened, it 's a sacred 
 place, — the dearest place in the world to me. 
 Come, Maggie, you must n't break your appoint- 
 ment. It was very good of you to come with me 
 at all, and now you inust go. Say that you left me 
 behind a little way ; that I '11 be there directly." 
 
 Maggie: "Leslie!" 
 
 Leslie : " Maggie ! " They embrace tenderly, 
 and Maggie, looking back more than once, goes on 
 her way, while Leslie sits staring absently at the 
 birches. She remains in this dreary reverie till she 
 is startled by a footfall in the road, when she rises 
 in a sudden panic. Blake listlessly advances to- 
 ward her ; at the sight of her he halts, and they 
 both stand silently regarding each other. 
 
n. 
 
 Leslie and Blake. 
 
 Leslie : " Oh ! You said you were going away/ 
 
 Blalce : " Are you in such haste to have me 
 gone ? I had to wait for the afternoon stage ; I 
 could n't walk. I thought I might keep faith with 
 you by staying away from the house till it was time 
 to start." 
 
 Leslie, precipitately : " Do you call that keeping 
 faith with me ? Is leaving me all alone keeping — 
 Oh, yes, yes, it is ! You have done right. It 's I 
 who can't keep faith with myself. Why did you 
 come here ? You knew I would be here ! I 
 did n't think you could be guilty of such duplicity." 
 
 Blake : " I had no idea of finding you here, but 
 if I had known you were here perhaps I could n't 
 bave kept away. The future does n't look very 
 bright to me, Miss Bellingham. I had a crazy 
 
Blake's Saving Doubt. 125 
 
 notion that perhaps I might somehow find some- 
 thing of the past here that I could make my own. 
 I wanted to come and stand here, and think once 
 more that it all really happened — that here I saw 
 the pity in your face, that made me so glad of my 
 hurt." 
 
 Leslie : " No ; stop ! It was n't pity ! It was 
 nothing good or generous. It was mean regret 
 that I should be under such an obligation to you ; 
 it was a selfish and despicable fear that you would 
 have a claim upon my acquaintance which I must 
 recognize." Blake makes a gesture of protest and 
 disbelief, and seems about to speak, but she hurries 
 on : " You must n't go away with one good thought 
 of me. Since we parted, three hours ago, I have 
 learned to know myself as I never did before, and 
 now I see what a contemptible thing I am. I flat- 
 tered myself that I had begged you to go away 
 because I did n't like to cross the wishes of my 
 family, but it was n't that. It was — oh, listen ! and 
 try if you can imagine such vileness : I 'm so much 
 afraid of the world I 've always lived in, that no 
 matter how good and brave and wise and noble 
 
126 Out of the Question. 
 
 you were, still if any one should laugh or sneer at 
 you because you had been — what you have been 
 — I should be ashamed of you. There ! I 'm so 
 low and feeble a creature as that ; and that 's the 
 real reason why you must go and forget me ; and I 
 must not think and you must not think it 's from 
 any good motive I send you away." 
 
 Blake : " I don't believe it ! " 
 
 Leslie : « What ! " 
 
 Blake : " I don't believe what you say. Nothing 
 shall rob me of my faith in you. Do you think 
 that I 'm not man enough to give up what I 've no 
 right to because it 's the treasure of the world? 
 Do you think I can't go till you make me believe 
 that what I 'd have sold my life for is n't worth a 
 straw ? No ! I '11 give up my hope, I '11 give up 
 my love, — poor fool I was to let it live an in- 
 stant! — but my faith in you is something dearer 
 yet, and I '11 keep that till I die. Say what you 
 will, you are still first among women to me: the 
 most beautiful, the noblest, the best ! " 
 
 Leslie, gasping, and arresting him in a movement 
 to turn away : " Wait, wait ; don't go ! Speak ; 
 
Blake's Saving Doubt. 127 
 
 Bay it again ! Say that you don't believe it ; that 
 it is n't true ! " 
 
 Blake : " No, I don't believe it. No, it is n't 
 true. It 's abominably false ! " 
 
 Leslie,^ bursting into tears : " Oh yes, it is. It 's 
 abominable, and it 's false. Yes, I will believe in 
 myself again. I know that if I had cared for — 
 any one, as — as you cared, as you said you cared 
 for me, I could be as true to them as you would be 
 through any fate. Oh, thank you, thank you ! " 
 At the tearful joy of the look she turns on him he 
 starts toward her. " Oh ! " — she shrinks away — 
 " you must n't think that I " — 
 
 Blake : " I don't think anything that does n't 
 worship you ! " 
 
 Leslie : " Yes, but what I said sounds just like 
 the other, when you misunderstood me so heart 
 lessly." 
 
 Blake : " I don't misunderstand you now. You 
 do tell me that you love me, don't you ? How 
 should I dare hope without your leave?" 
 
 Leslie : " You said you would n't have taken me 
 as a gift if I had. You said you 'd have hated me. 
 You said " — 
 
128 Out of the Question. 
 
 Blake : " I was all wronoj in what I thonsrht. 
 I'm ashamed to think of that; but I was right in 
 what I said." 
 
 Leslie: "Oh, were you! If you could misunder- 
 stand me then, how do you know that you 're not 
 misunderstanding me now ? " 
 
 Blake : " Perhaps I am. Perhaps I 'm dream- 
 ing as wildly as I was then. But you shall say. 
 Ami?" 
 
 Leslie, demurely : " I don't know ; I " — staying 
 his instantaneous further approach with extended 
 arm — " No, no ! " She glances fearfully round 
 '' Wait ; come with me. Come back with me — 
 that is, if you will." 
 
 Blake, passionately : " If I will ! " 
 
 Leslie, with pensive archness: "I want you to 
 help me clear up my character." 
 
 Blake, gravely : " Leslie, may I " — 
 
 Leslie : " I can't talk with you here." 
 
 Blake, sadly : " I will not go back with you 
 to make sorrow for you and trouble among your 
 friends. It 's enough to know that you don't for- 
 bid me to love you." 
 
Blake's Saving DouhL 129 
 
 Leslie : " Oh no, it is n't enough — for every- 
 body." 
 
 Blake : « Leslie " — 
 
 Leslie : •" Miss Bellingham, please ! " 
 
 Blake : " Miss Bellingham " — 
 
 Leslie: "Well?" 
 
 Blake, after a stare of rapturous perplexity: 
 « Nothing ! " 
 
 Leslie, laughing through her tears : " If you 
 don't make haste you will be too late for the stage, 
 and then you can't get away till to-morrow." 
 
VI. 
 
 MR. CHARLES BELLINGHAM'S DIPLOMACY. 
 
I. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, Mrs. Murray, and Mr. 
 Charles Bellingham. 
 
 In the parlor with Mrs. Bellingham and Mrs. 
 Murray sits a gentleman no longer young, but in 
 the bloom of a comfortable middle life, with blonde 
 hair tending to baldness, accurately parted in the 
 middle, and with a handsome face, lazily shrewd, 
 supported by a comely substructure of double chin, 
 and traversed by a full blonde mustache. He is 
 simply, almost carelessly, yet elegantly dressed in a 
 thin summer stuff, and he has an effect of recent 
 arrival. His manner has distinction, enhanced and 
 refined by the eye-glasses which his near-sighted- 
 ness obliges him to wear. He sits somewhat pon- 
 derously in the chair in which he has planted a 
 person just losing its earlier squareness in the lines 
 of beauty ; his feet are set rather wide apart in the 
 feshion of gentlemen approaching a certain weight ; 
 
134 Out of the Question. 
 
 and he lias an air of amiable resolution as of a 
 man who having dined well yesterday means to 
 dine well to-day. 
 
 Charles Bellingham^ smiling amusement and in- 
 dolently getting the range of his aunt through his 
 glasses : " So I have come a day after the fair." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " That is your mother's opinion." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, Charles, Leslie had 
 known what to do herself, and had done it, even 
 before I spoke to her. I 'm sorry we made you 
 drag all the way up here, for nothing." 
 
 Bellingham : " Oh, I don't mind it, mother. 
 Duty called, and I obeyed. My leisure can wait 
 for my return. The only thing is that they 've got 
 a new fellow at the club now, who interprets one 's 
 ideas of planked Spanish mackerel with a senti- 
 ment that amounts to genius. I suppose you 
 plank horn-pout, here. But as to coming for noth- 
 ing, I 'd much rather do that than come for some- 
 thing, in a case like this. You say Leslie saw 
 herself that it would n't do ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Yes, she had really behaved 
 admirably, Charles ; and when I set the whole 
 matter before her, she fully agreed with me." 
 
Mr. Charles BellingharrCs Diplomacy. 136 
 
 Bellingham : " But you think she rather liked 
 him?" 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, sighing a little : " Yes, there is 
 no doubt of that." 
 
 Bellingham, musingly : " Well, it 's a pity. Be- 
 haved rather well in that tramp business, you 
 said?" 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Nobly." 
 
 Bellingham : " And has n't pushed himself, at 
 all?" 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: "Not an instant." 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, I 'm sorry for him, poor 
 fellow, but I 'm glad the thing 's over. It would 
 have been an awkward affair, under all the circum- 
 stances, to take hold of. I say, mother," — with a 
 significant glance at Mrs. Murray, — " there has n't 
 been anything — ah — abrupt in the management 
 of this matter? You ladies sometimes forget the 
 limitations of action in your amiable eagerness to 
 have things over, you know." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " I think your mother would 
 not forget herself in such a case.'* 
 
 Bellingham : " Of course, of course ; excuse my 
 
136 (Jut of the Question. 
 
 asking, mother. But you're about the only 
 woman that would n't." 
 
 Mrs. Murray, bitterly : "Oh, your mother and 
 Leslie have both used him with the greatest tender- 
 ness." 
 
 Bellingham, dryly : " I 'm glad to hear it ; I 
 never doubted it. If the man had been treated 
 by any of my family with the faintest slight after 
 what had happened, I should have felt bound as 
 a gentleman to offer him any reparation in my 
 power, — to make him any apology. People of 
 our sort can't do anything shabby." Mrs. Murray 
 does not reply, but rises from her place on the sofa 
 and goes to the window. " Does Leslie know I 'm 
 here ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, with a little start : " Really, I 
 forgot to tell her you were coming to-:day ; we had 
 been keeping it from her, and " — 
 
 Bellingham : " I don't know that it matters. 
 Where is she ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: "I saw her going out with 
 Maggie Wallace. I dare say she will be back 
 Boon." 
 
Mr. Charles Bellingharrts Diplomacy. 137 
 
 Bellingham: "All right. Where is the young 
 man ? Has he gone yet? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " No, he could n't go till the 
 afternoon stage leaves. He 's still here." 
 
 Bellingham: "I must look him up, and make 
 my acknowledgments to him." He rises. " By 
 the way, what 's his name ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray^ standing with her face toward the 
 window, leans forward and inclines to this side and 
 that, as if to make perfectly sure before speaking 
 of some fact of vivid interest which seems to have 
 caught her notice, and at the moment Bellingham 
 puts his question summons her sister-in-law in a 
 voice of terrible incrimination and triumph : " Mar- 
 ion, did you say Leslie had gone out with Maggie 
 Wallace ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham., indifferently : " Yes." 
 Mrs. Murray: "Will you be kind enough to 
 step here ? " Mrs. Bellingham, with a little lady-like 
 surprise, approaches, and Mrs. Murray indicates 
 with a stabbing thrust of her hand, the sight which 
 Vas so much interested her : " Does that look as if 
 t were all over ? " 
 
138 Out of the Question, 
 
 Bellingham, carelessly, as Mrs. BelliDgham with 
 great evident distress remains looking in the direc- 
 tion indicated : " "What 's the matter now ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray: "^Nothing. I merely wished your 
 mother to enjoy a fresh proof of Leslie's discre- 
 tion. She is returning to tell us that it 's out of 
 the question in company with the young man him- 
 self." 
 
 Bellingham : " Wha — ha, ha, ha ! — What ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " She is returning with the young 
 man from whom she had just parted forever." 
 
 Bellingham, approaching : " Oh, come now, aunt." 
 
 Mrs. Murray, fiercely : " Will you look for your- 
 self, if you don't believe me ? '* 
 
 Bellingham : " Oh, I believe you, fast enough, 
 but as for looking, you know I could n't tell the 
 man in the moon at this distance, if Leslie hap- 
 pened to be walking home with him. But is the 
 — ah — fat necessarily in the fire, because " — 
 Mrs. Murray whirls away from Bellingham where 
 he remains with his hands on his hips peering 
 over his mother's shoulder, and pounces upon a 
 large opera-glass which stands on the centre-table, 
 
Mr. Charles BellingJiam^s Diplomacy, 139 
 
 and returning with it thrusts it at him. " Eh ? 
 What?" 
 
 Mrs. Murray .1 excitedly : " It 's what we watch 
 the loons on the lake with." 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, but I don't see the applica- 
 tion. They 're not loons on the lake." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " No ; but they 're loons on the 
 land, and it comes to the same thing." She vehe- 
 mently presses the glass upon him. 
 
 Bellingham, gravely : " Do you mean, aunt, that 
 you actually want me to watch my sister through 
 an opera-glass, like a shabby Frenchman at a 
 watering-place ? Thanks. I could never look Les 
 in the face again. It 's a little too much like eaves- 
 dropping." He folds his arms, and regards his 
 aunt with reproachful amazement, while she dashes 
 back to set the glass on the table again. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, in great trouble : " Wait, Kate. 
 Charles, dear, I — I think you must." 
 
 Bellingham : " W^hat ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham: "Yes, you had better look. 
 You will have to proceed in this matter now, and 
 vou must form feome conclusions beforehand." 
 
 Bellingham : " But mother " — 
 
140 Out of the Question. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, anxiously : " Don't worry me, 
 Charles. I think you must." 
 
 Bellingham : " All right, mother." He unfolds 
 his arms and accepts the glass from her. " I never 
 knew you to take an unfair advantage, and I '11 
 obey you on trust. But I tell you I don't like it. 
 I don't like it at all," — getting the focus, with 
 several trials ; " I 've never stolen sheep, but I think 
 I can realize, now, something of the self-reproach 
 which misapprojjriated mutton might bring. Where 
 did you say they were ? Oh, over there ! / was 
 looking off here, at that point. They 're coming 
 this way, aren't they?" With a start: "Hollo! 
 She 's got his arm ! Oh, that won't do. I 'm sur- 
 prised at Les doing that, unless " — continuing to 
 look — " By Jove ! He 's not a bad-looking fel- 
 low, at all. He — Why, confound it ! No, it 
 can't be ! Why, yes — no — yes, it is, it is — 
 by Heaven, it is — by all that 's strange it is — 
 Blake ! " He lets the glass fall ; and stands glar- 
 ing at his aunt and mother, who confront him in 
 speechless mystification. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Blake ? Why, of course it *8 
 Blake. We told you it was Mr. Blake ! " 
 
Mr Charles Bellingham! s Diplomacy. 141 
 
 Bellingham : " No, I beg your pardon, mother 
 you did n't ! You never told me it was anybody 
 — by name." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Well ? " 
 
 Bellingham : " Why, don't you understand, 
 mother ? It 's mg Blake ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Your Blake ? Your — 
 Charles, what do you mean ? " 
 
 Bellingham : " Why, I mean that this is the 
 man " — giving his glasses a fresh pinch on his nose 
 with his thumb and forefinger — " that fished me 
 out of the Mississippi. I flatter myself he could n't 
 do it now. 'The grossness of my nature would 
 have weight to drag him down,' — both of us down. 
 But he 'd try it, and he 'd have the pluck to go 
 down with me if he failed. Come, mother, you see 
 / can't do anything in .this matter. It 's simply 
 impossible. It 's out of the question." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Why is it out of the question ? " 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, I don't know that I can ex- 
 plain, aunt Kate, if it is n't clear to you, already." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, recovering from the dismay 
 c\ which her son's words have plunged her: 
 
142 Out of the Question. 
 
 " Charles, Charles ! Do you mean that this Mr 
 Blake is the person who saved you from " — 
 
 Bellingham : " From a watery grave ? I do, 
 mother." 
 
 Mi^s, Bellingham : " There must be some mistake. 
 You can't tell at this distance, Charles." 
 
 Bellingham : " There 's no mistake, mother. I 
 should know Blake on the top of Ponkwasset. 
 He was rather more than a casual acquaintance, 
 you see. By Jove, I can't think of the matter 
 with any sort of repose. T can see it all now, just 
 as if it were somebody else : I was weighted down 
 down with my accoutrements, and I went over the 
 side of the boat like a flash, and under that yellow 
 deluge like a bullet. I had just leisure to think 
 what a shame it was my life should go for nothing 
 at a time when we needed men so much, when I 
 felt a grip on my hair," — rubbing his bald spot, — 
 " it could n't be done now ! Then I knew I was 
 all right, and waited for developments. The only 
 development was Blake. He fought shy of me, if 
 you '11 believe it, after that, till I closed with him 
 one day and had it out with him, and convinced 
 
3Ir. Charles BeWmgliarrC s Diplomacy. 143 
 
 nim that lie had done rather a handsome thing by 
 me. But that was the end of it. I could n't get 
 him to stand anything else in the way of gratitude. 
 Blake had a vice : he was proud." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " And what became of him ? " 
 Bellingham : " Who ? Blake ? He was the 
 engineer of the boat, I ought to explain. He was 
 transferred to a gunboat after that, and I believe 
 he stuck to it throughout the fighting on the Mis- 
 sissippi. It's — let me see — it's five years now 
 since I saw him in Nebraska, when I went out 
 there to grow up with the country, and found I 
 could n't wait for it." After a pause : " I don't 
 know what it was about Blake ; but he somehow 
 made everybody feel that there was stuff in him. 
 In the three weeks we were together we became 
 great friends, and I must say I never liked a man 
 better. Well, that 's why, aunt Kate." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " I don't see that it has anything 
 whatever to do with the matter. The question is 
 whether you wish Leslie to marry a man of his 
 Rtation and breeding, or not. His goodness and 
 greatness have nothing to do with it. The fact re- 
 
144 Out of the Question. 
 
 mains that he is not at all her equal — that he 
 is n't a gentleman " — 
 
 Bellingham : " Oh, come now, aunt Kate. 
 You 're not going to tell me that a man who saved 
 my life is n't a gentleman ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " And you 're not going to tell 
 me that a steamboat engineer is a gentleman ? " 
 
 Bellingham, disconcerted : " Eh ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " The question is, are you going 
 to abandon that unha^Dpy girl to her fancy for a 
 man totally unfit to be her husband simply because 
 he happened to save your life ? " 
 
 Bellingham : " Why, you see, aunt Kate" — 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " Do you think it would be gen- 
 tlemanly to do it ?" 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, if you put it that way, no, 
 1 don't. And if you want to know, I don't see 
 my way to behaving like a gentleman in this con- 
 nection, whatever I do." He scratches his head 
 ruefully : " The fact is that the advantages are all 
 on Blake's side, and he '11 have to manage very 
 badly if he does n't come out the only gentleman 
 m the business." After a moment: "How was it 
 
Mr, Charles BellinghawHs Diplomacy. 145 
 
 you did n't put the name and the — a — profession 
 together, mother, and reflect that this was my 
 Blake?" 
 
 Mrs. Bellinghamy with plaintive reproach : 
 " Charles, you know how uncommunicative you 
 were about all your life as a soldier. You never 
 told me half so much about this affair before, and 
 you never — it seems very heartless now that I 
 didn't insist on knowing, but at the time it was 
 only part of the nightmare in which we were liv- 
 ing — you never told me his name before." 
 
 Bellingham : " Did n't I ? Well ! I supposed I 
 had, of course. Um ! That was too bad. I say, 
 mother, Blake has never let anything drop tha,t 
 made you think he had ever known me, or done 
 me any little favor, I suppose ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " No, not the slightest hint. 
 If he had only " — 
 
 Bellingham : " Ah, that was like him, confound 
 
 him!" Bellingham muses again with a hopeless 
 
 air, and then starts suddenly from his reverie : 
 
 ■* Why, the fact is, you know, mother, Blake is 
 
 10 
 
146 Out of the Question. 
 
 really a magnificent fellow ; and you know — well, 
 I like him ! " 
 
 3frs. Murray : " Oh ! That 's Leslie's excuse ! " 
 
 BeUingham: "Eh?" 
 
 Mrs. Murray: "If you are going to take 
 Leslie's part, it's fortunate you have common 
 ground. LiJce him ! " 
 
 BeUingham : " Mother, what is the unhallowed 
 hour for dinner in these wilds ? One o'clock ? I 've 
 a fancy for tackling this business after dinner." 
 
 Mrs. BeUingham : " I 'm afraid, my dear, that it 
 can't be put off. They must be here, soon." 
 
 BeUingham, sighing : " Well ! Though they 
 didn't seem to be hurrying." 
 
 Mrs. Murray, bitterly : " If they could only 
 know what a friendly disposition there was towards 
 him here, I 'm sure they 'd make haste ! " 
 
 BeUingham : " Um ! " 
 
 Mrs. BeUingham, after a pause : " You don't 
 know anything about his — his — family, do you, 
 Charles ? " 
 
 BeUingham : " No, mother, I don't. My im- 
 pressiou is that he has no family, any more than 
 
Mr. Charles BellingJianC s Diplomacy. 147 
 
 — Adam; or — protoplasm. All I know about 
 him is that he was from first to last one of those 
 natural gentlemen that upset all your preconceived 
 notions of those things. His associations must 
 have been commoner than — well it's impossible 
 to compare them to anything satisfactory ; but I 
 never saw a trait in him or heard a word from 
 him that was n't refined. He gave me the impres- 
 sion of a very able man, too, as I was just saying, 
 but where his strength lay, I can't say." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Leslie says he 's an in- 
 ventor." 
 
 Bellingham: «Well, very likely. I remember, 
 now : he was a machinist by trade, I believe, and 
 he was an enlisted man on the boat when the engi- 
 neer was killed ; and Blake was the man who 
 could step right into his place. It was considered 
 a good thing amongst those people. He was a 
 reader in his way, and most of the time he had 
 Bome particularly hard-headed book in his hand 
 when he was off duty, — about physics or meta- 
 physics ; used to talk them up now and then, very 
 \fe\\. I never had any doubt abo-at his coming 
 
148 Out of the Question. 
 
 out all right. He 's a baffler, Blake is, — at least 
 he is, for me. Now I suppose aunt Kate, here, 
 does n't find him baffling, at all. She takes our lit- 
 tle standards, our little weights and measures, and 
 tests him with them, and she 's perfectly satisfied 
 with the result. It 's a clear case of won 't do." 
 Mrs. Murray : " Do you say it is n't ? " 
 BelUngham : " No ; I merely doubt if it is. 
 You don't doubt, and there you have the advantage 
 of me. You always were a selected oyster, aunt 
 Kate, and you always knew that you could n't be 
 improved upon. Now, I 'm a selected oyster, too, 
 apparently, but I 'm not certain that I 'm the best 
 choice that could have been made. I 'm a huitre 
 de mon siecle ; I am the ill-starred mollusk that 
 doubts. Of course we can't go counter to the 
 theory that God once created people and no-people, 
 and that they have nothing to do but to go on re- 
 producing themselves and leave him at leisure for 
 the rest of eternity. But really, aunt Kate, I have 
 Been some things in my time — and I don't mind 
 saying Blake is one of them — that made me think 
 the Creator was still — active. I admit that i* 
 
Mr. Charles Bellingham' s Diplomacy. 149 
 
 sounds" — fitting his glasses on — "rather absurd 
 for an old diner-out like myself to say it." 
 
 Mrs. Murray, with energy : " All this is neither 
 here nor there, Charles, and you know it. The 
 simple question is whether you wish your sister to 
 marry a man whose past you'll be ashamed to be 
 frank about. I '11 admit, if you like, that he 's 
 quite our equal, — our superior ; but what are you 
 going to do with your ex-steamboat engineer in so- 
 ciety ? " 
 
 Bellingham, dubiously: "Well, it would be 
 rather awkward." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " How will you introduce him, 
 and what will you say to people about his family 
 and his station and business ? Or do you mean to 
 banish yourself and give up the world which you 
 find so comfortable for the boon of a brother-in- 
 law whom you don't really know from Adam ? " 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, I must allow the force of 
 your argument. " Yes," — after a gloomy little 
 reverie, — " you 're right. It won't do. It is out 
 of the question. I '11 put an end to it, — if it 
 '}oes n't put an end to me. That ' weird seizure ' 
 
150 Out of the Question. 
 
 as of misappropriated mutton oppresses me again. 
 Mother, I think you 'd better go away, — you and 
 aunt Kate, — and let me meet him and Leslie here 
 alone, when they come in. Or, I say: if you 
 could detach Les, and let him come in here by 
 himself, somehow ? I don't suppose it can bo 
 done. Nothing seems disposed to let itself bo 
 done." 
 
 Mrs. BelUngham : " Charles, I 'm sorry this dis- 
 agreeable business should fall to you." 
 
 BelUngham : " Oh, don't mind it, mother 
 What's a brother for, if he can't be called upon to 
 break off his sister's love affairs ? But I don't 
 deny it 's a nasty business." 
 
 Mrs. Murray, in retiring : " I sincerely hope he '11 
 make it so for you, and cure you of your absurdi- 
 ties.'* 
 
Bellingham and Mrs. Bellingham; Leslie and 
 Blake, without. 
 
 Bellingham : " O Parthian shaft ! Wish me 
 well out of it, mother ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, sighing : " I do, Charles ; I do 
 with all my heart. You have the most difficult 
 duty that a gentleman ever had to perform. I don't 
 see how you 're to take hold of it ; I don't, indeed." 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, it is embarrassing. But it 's 
 a noble cause, and I suppose Heaven will befriend 
 me. The trouble is, don't you know, I have n't 
 got any — any point of view, any tenable point 
 of view. It won't do to act simply in our own in- 
 terest ; we can't do that, mother ; we 're not the 
 sort. I must try to do it in Blake's behalf, and 
 that 's what I don't see my way to, exactly. What 
 I wish to do is to make my interference a magnani- 
 mous benefaction to Blake, — something that he 'U 
 
152 Out of the Question. 
 
 recognize in after years with gratitude as a — a 
 mysterious Providence. If I 've got to be a snob, 
 mother, I wish to be a snob on the highest possible 
 grounds." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Don't use that word, 
 Charles. It's shocking." 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, I won't, mother. I say : 
 can't you think of some disqualifications in Leslie, 
 that I could make a point d'oppui in a conscien- 
 tious effort to serve Blake ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles !" 
 Bellingham : " I mean, is n't she rather a 
 worldly, frivolous, fashionable spirit, devoted to 
 pleasure, and incapable of sympathizing with — 
 with his higher moods, don't you know .'' Som6- 
 thing like that ? " Bellingham puts his thumbs in 
 his waistcoat pockets and inclines towards his 
 mother with a hopeful smile. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham. : " No, Charles ; you know she 
 is nothing of the kind. She 's a girl and she likes 
 amusement, but I should like to see the man whose 
 moods were too lofty for Leslie. She is every- 
 thing that 's generous and true and high-minded.** 
 
Mr. Charles BellingharrC s Diplomacy, 153 
 
 Bellingham, scratching his head : " That 's bad ! 
 Then she is n't — ah — she has n't any habits of 
 extravagance that would unfit her to be the wife of 
 a poor man who — ah — had his way to make in 
 the world?" 
 
 Mrs. Bellinyham : " She never spends half her 
 allowance on herself; and besides, Charles, (how 
 ridiculously you talk ! ) she has all that money 
 your uncle left her, and if she marries him, he 
 won't be poor any longer." 
 
 Bellingham, eagerly : " And that would ruin his 
 career ! Still " — after a moment's thought — "I 
 don't see how I 'm to use that idea, exactly. No, I 
 shall have to fall back on the good old ground that 
 it 's simply — out of the question. I think that 's 
 good ; it has a thorough, logical, and final sound. 
 I shall stick to that. Well, leave me to my fate ! 
 — Hollo ! That 's Blake's voice, now. I don't 
 wonder it takes Leslie. It's the most sympathetic 
 voice in the world. They 're coming up here, 
 are n't they ? You 'd better go, mother. I wish 
 you could have got Leslie away " — 
 
 Leslie, without : " Wait for me, there. I must 
 
154 Out of the Question. 
 
 go to mamma's room at once, aud tell her every- 
 thing." 
 
 BlaJce, without : " Of course. And say that I 
 wish to see her." 
 
 Leslie: " Good-by." 
 
 Blake: " Good-by." 
 
 Leslie : " We won't keep you long. Good-hj." 
 
 Blake : " Good-hj" As he enters one of the 
 parlor doors, flushed and radiant, Mrs. Bellingham 
 retreats through the other. 
 
m. 
 
 Blake and Bellingham. 
 
 JBellingham, coming promptly forward to greet 
 Blake, with both hands extended : " Blake ! " 
 
 Blake, after a moment of stupefaction : " Bel- 
 lingham ! " 
 
 Bellingham : " My dear old fellow ! '* He wrings 
 Blake fervently by the left hand. " This is the 
 most astonishing thing in the world ! To find you 
 here — in New England — with my people ; it 's 
 the most wonderful thing that ever was ! They 've 
 been — ah — been telling me all about you, my 
 mother has ; and I want to thank you — you look 
 uncommonly well, Blake, and not a day older ! 
 Do you mean to go through life with that figure ? 
 — thank you for all you 've done for them ; and — 
 I don't know : what does a man say to a fellow 
 who has behaved as vou did in that business with 
 
156 Out of the Question. 
 
 the tramps?" — wringing Blake's left hand again 
 and gently touching his right arm in its sling. 
 " By Jove, old fellow ! I don't know what to say, 
 to you ; I — Do you think it was quite the thing, 
 though, not to intimate that you 'd known me ? 
 Come, now ; that was n't fair. It was n't frank. 
 It was n't like you, Blake. Hey ? " He affection- 
 ately presses Blake's hand at every emphatic 
 word. 
 
 Blake, releasing himself: " I did n't like it : but 
 I could n't help it. It would have seemed to 
 claim something, and I should have had to allow 
 — they would have found out " — 
 
 Bellingham : " That you happened to save my 
 life, once. Well, upon my word, I don't think it 
 was a- thing to be ashamed of; at least, at that 
 time ; I was in the army, then. At present — I 
 don't know that I should blame you for hushing 
 the matter up." 
 
 Blake, who has turned uneasily away, and has 
 apparently not been paying the closest attention 
 to Bellingham's reproaches, but now confronts 
 him: "I suppose you're a gentleman. Belling* 
 ham." 
 
Mr, Charles BellinghcmCs Diplomacy. 157 
 
 Bellingham, taking the abruptness of Blake's 
 question with amiable irony : " There have been 
 moments in which I have flattered myself to that 
 degree ; even existence itself is problematical, to 
 my mind, at other times : but — well, yes, I sup- 
 pose I am a gentleman. The t^rm 's conventional. 
 And then ? " 
 
 Blake : " I mean that you 're a fair-minded, 
 honest man, and that I can talk to you without the 
 risk of being misunderstood or having any sort of 
 meanness attributed to me ? " 
 
 Bellingham : " I should have to be a much 
 shabbier fellow than I am, for anything of that 
 sort, Blake." 
 
 Blake : " I did n't expect to find you here ; I 
 was expecting to speak with your mother. But 
 I don't see why I should n't say to you what 
 I have to say. In fact, I think I can say it better 
 to you." 
 
 Bellingham : " Thanks, Blake ; you '11 always 
 find me your — That is — well, go ahead ! " 
 
 Blake : " You don't think I 'm a man to do any- 
 thing sneaking, do you ? " 
 
158 Out of the Question. 
 
 Belliagham: " Again? My dear fellow, that goes 
 tvithout saying. It's out of the question." 
 
 Blake, walking up and down, and stopping from 
 time to time while he speaks in a tone of pas- 
 sionate self-restraint : " Well, I 'm glad to hear 
 that, because I know that to some the thing might 
 have a different look." After a pause, in which 
 Blake takes another turn round the room and ar- 
 rives in front of Bellingham again : " If youi 
 people have been telling you about me, I suppose 
 they 've hinted — but I don't care to know it — 
 that they think I 'm in love with Miss Bellingham, 
 your sister. I am ! " lie looks at Bellingham, 
 who remains impassive behind the glitter of his 
 eye-glasses : " Do you see any reason why I 
 should n't be?" 
 
 Bellingham, reluctantly : " N-no.'* 
 
 Blahe : " I believe — no, I ca7i't believe it ! — 
 but I know that Miss Bellingham permits it ; that 
 she — I can't say it ! Is there any — any reason 
 why I should n't ask her mother's leave to ask 
 her to be my wife? Why, of course, there is ! — • 
 a thousand, million reasons in my unworthiness ; 
 r know that. But is there " — 
 
Mr. Charles Bellingham's Diploinacy. 159 
 
 Bellingham, abruptly : "Blake, my dear fellow 
 — my dear, good old boy — it won't do ; it 's out 
 of the qnestion ! It is, it is indeed ! It won't do at 
 all. Confound it, man ! You know I like you, 
 that I 've always wanted to be a great deal more 
 your friend than you would ever let me. Don't 
 ask me why, but take my word for it when I tell 
 you it 's out of the question. There are a thou- 
 sand reasons, as you say, though there is n't one of 
 them in any fault of yours, old fellow. But I can't 
 give them. It won't do ! " Bellingham in his 
 turn begins to walk up and down the room with 
 a face of acute misery and hopelessness, and at the 
 last word he stops and stares helplessly into 
 Blake's eyes, who has remained in his place. 
 
 Blake.y with suppressed feeling: "Do you ex- 
 pect me to be satisfied with that answer ? " 
 
 Bellingham^ at first confused and then with a 
 burst of candor : " No ; I would n't, myself." His 
 head falls, and a groan breaks from his lips : " This 
 is the roughest thing I ever knew of. Hang it, 
 Blake, don't you see what a — a — box I 'm in ? 
 People pulling and hauling at me, and hammering 
 
160 Out of the Question. 
 
 awaj on all sides, till I don't know which end I'm 
 standing on ! You would n't like it yourself. Why 
 do you ask ? Why must you be — ah — satisfied ? 
 Come ! Why don't you let it all — go ? " 
 
 Blake : " Upon my word, Bellingham, you 
 talk " — 
 
 Bellingham : " Like a fool ! I know it. And 
 it 's strictly in character. At the present moment 
 I feel like a fool. I am a fool ! By Jove, if I 
 ever supposed I should get into such a tight place 
 as this ! Why, don't you see, Blake, what an ex- 
 tremely unfair advantage you have of me ? Deuce 
 take it, man, / have some rights in the matter, 
 too, I fancy ! " 
 
 Blake, bewildered ; " Rights ? Advantage .'' I 
 don't understand all this." 
 
 Bellingham : " How not understand ? " 
 
 Blake, gazing in mystified silence at Belling- 
 ham for a brief space, and then resuming more 
 steadily : " There 's some objection to me, that 'a 
 clear enough. I don't make any claim, but you 
 would think I ought to know what the matter is 
 Ivould n't you ? " 
 
Mr. Gharles BeUingham' s Diplomacy. 161 
 
 BeUingham : " Y-yes, Blake." 
 
 Blake : " I know that I 'm ten years older than 
 Miss BeUingham, and that it might look as if " — 
 
 BeUingham, hastily: "Oh, not in the least — not 
 in the least ! " 
 
 Blake : " Our acquaintance was n't regularly 
 made, I believe. But you don't suppose that I 
 urged it, or that it would have been kept up if it 
 had n't been for their kindness and for chances that 
 nobody foresaw ? " 
 
 BeUingham : " There is n't a circumstance of the 
 whole affair that is n't perfectly honorable to you, 
 Blake ; that is n't like you. Confound it " — 
 
 Blake : " I won't ask you whether you think I 
 thought of her being rich ? " 
 
 BeUingham. : " No, sir ! That would be offen- 
 sive." 
 
 Blake : " Then what is it ? Is there some per- 
 sonal objection to me with your family ? " 
 
 BeUingham, : " There is n't at all, Blake, I as- 
 sure you." 
 
 Blake : " Then I don't understand, and " — with 
 rising spirit — "I want to say once for all that 1 
 11 
 
162 Out of the Question. 
 
 think your leaving me to ask these things and put 
 myself on the defensive in this way, begging you 
 for this reason and for that, is n't what I 'm used 
 to. But I 'm like a man on trial for his life, and I 
 stand it. Now, go on and say what there is to say. 
 Don't spare my feelings, man ! I have no pride 
 where she is concerned. What do you know 
 against me that makes it impossible ? '* 
 
 Bellingham : " O Lord ! It is n't against you. 
 It 's nothing personal ; personally we 've all rea- 
 son to respect and honor you ; you 've done us 
 nothing but good in the handsomest way. But it 
 won't do for all that. There 's an incompatibility 
 — a — a — /don't know what to call it! Con- 
 found it, Blake ! You know very well that 
 there 's none of that cursed nonsense about me. 1 
 don't care what a man is in life ; I only ask what 
 he is in himself. I accept the American plan in 
 good faith. I know all sorts of fellows ; devilish 
 good fellows some of them are, too ! Why, I had 
 ihat Mitchell, who behaved so well at the Squat- 
 tick Mills disaster, to dine with me ; went down 
 tnd looked him up, and had him to dine with me. 
 
Mr. Charles BelUngham' s Diplomacy. 163 
 
 Some of the men did n't think it was the thing ; 
 but I can assure you that he talked magnificently 
 about the affair. I drew him out, and before we 
 were done we had the whole room about us. I 
 would n't have missed it on any account. That 's 
 my way." 
 
 Blake, dryly : " It 's a very magnanimous way. 
 The man must have felt honored." 
 
 BelUngham : " What ? — Oh, deuce take it ! I 
 don't mean any of that patronizing rot, you know 
 I don't. You know I think such a man as that 
 ten times as good as myself. What I mean is that 
 it's different with women. They haven't got the 
 same — what shall I say ? — horizons, social ho- 
 rizons, don't you know. They can't accept a man 
 for what he is in himself. They have to take him 
 for what he is n't in himself. They have to have 
 their world carried on upon the European plan, 
 in short. I don't know whether I make myself 
 understood " — « 
 
 Blake, y^\\\\ hardness: "Yes, you do. The ob- 
 jection is to my having been " — 
 
 BelUngham, hastily interposing : " Well — ah — 
 
1 64 Out of the Question. 
 
 no ! I can't admit that. It is n't the occupation. 
 We 've all been occupied more or less remotely in 
 ■ — in some sort of thing ; a man's a fool who tries 
 to blink that. But I don't know that I can make 
 it clear how our belonging, now, to a different 
 order of things makes our women distrustful — I 
 won't say skeptical, but anxious — as to the in- 
 fluence of — ah — other social circumstances. 
 They 're mere creatures of tradition, women are, 
 and where you or I, Blake," — with caressing good 
 comradeship and the assumption of an impartial 
 high-mindedness, — " would n't care a straw for a 
 man's trade or profession, they are more disposed 
 to — ah — particularize, and — don't you know — 
 distinguish ! " 
 
 Blahe, gravely : " I tried to make Miss Belling 
 ham understand from the first just what I was and 
 had been. I certainly never concealed anything. 
 Do you think she would care for what disturbs the 
 other ladies of your family ? " 
 
 Bellingham : " Leslie ? Well, she 's still a very 
 young girl, and she has streaks of originality that 
 father disqualify her for appreciating — ah — 
 
Mr, Charles BelUngham' s Diplomacy. 165 
 
 She 's romantic ! I 'm sure I'm greatly obliged to 
 you, Blake, for taking the thing in this reasonable 
 way. You know how to sympathize with one's 
 extreme reluctance — and — ah — embarrassment 
 in putting a case of the kind." 
 
 Blake, with a sad, musing tone : " Yes, God 
 knows I 'm sorry for you. I don't suppose you 
 like to do it." 
 
 BelUngham : " Thanks, thanks, Blake. It was 
 quite as much on your own account that I spoke. 
 They would make it deucedly uncomfortable for 
 you in the family, — there 's no end to the aunts 
 and grandmothers, and things, and you 'd make 
 them uncomfortable too, with your — history." 
 Mopping his forehead with his handkerchief : 
 " You have it infernally hot, up here, don't you ? " 
 
 Blake, still musingly: "Then you think that 
 Miss Bellingham herself would n't be seriously dis- 
 tressed ? " 
 
 BelUngham : " Leslie 's a girl that will go 
 through anything she 's made up her mind to. 
 And if she likes you well enough to marry 
 you" — 
 
 Blake : " She says so." 
 
166 Oat of the Question. 
 
 BeUingham : " Then burning plowshares would n't 
 have the smallest effect upon her. But " — 
 
 Blake, quietly : " Then I won't give her up." 
 
 Bellingharn : " Eh ? " 
 
 Blake : " I won't give her up. It 's bad enough 
 as it is, but if I were such a sneak as to leave the 
 woman who loved me because my marrying her 
 would be awkward for her friends, I should be ten 
 thousand times unworthier than I am. I am going 
 to hold to my one chance of showing myself wor- 
 thy to win her, and if she will have me I will have 
 her, though it smashes the whole social structure. 
 BeUingham, you 're mistaken about this thing ; 
 her happiness won't depend upon the success of 
 the aunts and cousins in accounting for me to the 
 world ; it '11 depend upon whether I 'm man 
 enough to be all the world to her. If she thinks 
 I am, I will be ! " 
 
 BeUingham : " Oh, don't talk in that illogical 
 way, Blake. Confound it ! I know ; I can ac- 
 count for your state of feeling, and all that; but I 
 do assure you it's mistaken. Let me put it to you. 
 You don't see this matter as I do ; you cari'fc 
 The best part of a woman's life is social " — 
 
Mr, Charles BelhnghanCs Diplomacy. 167 
 
 Blahe : " I don't believe that." 
 
 Bellingham: "Well, no matter: it's so; and 
 whether you came into Leslie's world or took her 
 out of it, you'd make no end of -^ of — row. 
 She 'd suffer in a thousand ways." 
 
 Blake : " Not if she loved me, and was the kind 
 of girl I take her to be." 
 
 Bellingham : " Oh, yes, she would, my dear fel- 
 low; Leslie's a devilish proud girl; she'd suffer 
 in secret, but it would try her pride in ways you 
 don't know of. Why, only consider : she 's taken 
 by surprise in this affair ; she 's had no time to 
 think " — 
 
 Blake : " She shall have my whole lifetime to 
 make up her mind in ; she shall test me in every 
 way she will, and she may fling me away at any 
 moment she will, and I will be her slave forever. 
 She may give me up, but I will not give her up." 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, well ! We won't dispute 
 about terms, but I '11 put it to you, yourself, Blake, 
 — yourself. I want you to see that I 'm acting for 
 /our good ; that I 'm your friend." 
 
 Blake: "You're her brother, and you're my 
 
168 Out 'f the Question. 
 
 friend, whatever you say. I 've borne to have you 
 insinuate that I 'm your inferior. Go on ! " 
 Blake's voice trembles. 
 
 Bellingham : " Oh, now ! Don't take that tone ! 
 It is n't fair. It makes me feel like — like the 
 very devil. It does, indeed. I don't mean any- 
 thing of the kind. I mean simply that — that — 
 ah — remote circumstances over which you had — 
 ah — no control have placed you at a disadvan- 
 tage, — social disadvantage. That 's all. It is n't 
 a question of inferiority or superiority. And I 
 merely put it to you — as a friend, mind — 
 whether the happiness of — ah — all concerned 
 could n't be more promptly — ah — secured by 
 your refusing to submit to tests that might — 
 Come now my dear fellow ! She 's flattered — 
 any woman might be — by your liking her ; but 
 when she went back to her own associations " — 
 
 Make: "If she sees any man she likes better 
 than me, I won't claim her. But I can't judge hei" 
 by a loyalty less than my own. She will never 
 change." Bellingham essays an answer, but after 
 Bome preliminary ahs and ums, abruptly desists, 
 
Mr. Charles BeUingharri's Diplomacy. 169 
 
 and guards an evidently troubled silence, which 
 Blake assails with jealous quickness : " What do 
 you mean ? Out with it, man ! " 
 
 Bellingham : " Don't take it in that way ! My 
 dear fellow " — 
 
 Blake : " If I 'm her caprice and not her choice, 
 I w^nt to know it ! I won't be killed by inches. 
 Speak!" 
 
 Bellingham : " Stop ! 1 owe you my life, but 
 you must n't take that tone with me." 
 
 Blake : " You owe me nothing, — nothing but 
 an answer. If you mean there has been some one 
 before me — She has told me that she never 
 cared for any one but me ; I believe her, but I 
 want to know what you mean." 
 
 Bellingham : " She 's my sister ! What do you 
 mean ? *' 
 
TV. 
 
 Leslie, Blake, and Bellingham. 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, what does it mean ? " She enters 
 the room, as if she had been suddenly summoned 
 by the sound of their angry voices from a guiltless 
 ambush in the hall. At the sight of their flushed 
 faces and defiant attitudes she flutters, electrically 
 attracted, first toward one and then toward the 
 other, but at last she instinctively takes shelter at 
 Blake's elbow : " Charles, what are you saying ? 
 What are you both so angry for? Oh, I hoped 
 to find you such good friends, and here you are 
 quarreling ! Charles, what have you been doing ? 
 O Charles, I always thought you were so gen- 
 erous and magnanimous, and have you been 
 joining that odious conspiracy against us ? For 
 shame ! And what have you found to say, I 
 should like to know ? I should like to know 
 what you 've found to say — what a gentlemar 
 
Mr. Charles BelHngham's Diplomacy. 171 
 
 COULD say, under the circumstances ! " She grows 
 more vehement as their mutual embarrassment in- 
 creases upon the men, and Bellingham fades into a 
 blank dismay behind the glitter of his eyeglasses. 
 " Have you been saying something you 're ashamed 
 of, Charles ? You could n'4 say anything about 
 him, and so you 've been trying to set him against 
 me. What have you said about your sister, 
 Charles ? — and always pretending to be so fond 
 of me ! Oh, oh, oh ! " Miss Bellingham snatches 
 her handkerchief from her pocket and hides her 
 grief in it, while her brother remains in entire pet- 
 rifaction at her prescience. 
 
 Bellingham, finally: "Why, Leslie — Deuce 
 take it all, Blake, why don't you say something ? 
 I tell you, I have n't said anything against you, 
 Les. Blake will tell you himself that I was 
 merely endeavoring to set the thing before him 
 from different points of view. I wanted him to 
 consider the shortness of your acquaintance " — 
 
 Leslie, in her handkerchief: "It's fully three 
 weeks since we met, — you hiow it is." 
 
 Bellingham : "And I wanted him to reflect upon 
 
172 Out of the Question. 
 
 how very different all your associations and — 
 traditions — were " — 
 
 Leslie^ still in her handkerchief: " Oh, that was 
 delicate — very ! " 
 
 Belliagham : " And to — ah — take into consid- 
 eration the fact that returning to another — atmos- 
 phere — surroundings, you might — ah — change." 
 
 Leslie, lifting her face : " You did ! Charles, 
 did I ever change ? " 
 
 Bellingham : " Well, I don't know. I don't 
 know whether you 'd call it changing, exactly ; but 
 I certainly got the impression from aunt Kate 
 that there was some hope on Dudley's part last 
 summer " — 
 
 Leslie, quitting her refuge and advancing fiercely 
 upon the dismayed but immovable Bellingham 
 with her right hand thrust rigidly down at her side, 
 and her left held behind her clutching her handker- 
 chief : " Charles, have you dared to intimate that I 
 ever cared the least thing about that — that — hor- 
 rid — little — reptile ? When you knew that my 
 life was made perfectly ghastly by the way aunt 
 Kate forced him on me, and it was as much as I 
 
Mr. Charles BellinghanCs Diplomacy. 173 
 
 could ever do to treat him decently ! I never en- 
 couraged him for an instant, and you know it. Oh, 
 Charley, Charley, how could you ? It is n't for 
 myself I care ; it 's for you, for you 're a gentle- 
 man, and you let yourself do that ! How painfully 
 strange that low, mean, shabby feeling must have 
 been to you ! I don't wonder you could n't face 
 me or speak to me. I don't " — 
 
 BelUngham, desperately : " Here ; hold on ! Good 
 Lord! I can't stand this! Confound it, I'm not 
 made of granite — or gutta-percha. I '11 allow it 
 was sneaking, — Blake will tell you I looked it, — 
 but it was a desperate case. It was a family job, 
 and I had to do my best — or my worst — as the 
 head of the family ; and Blake would n't hear rea- 
 son, and " — 
 
 Leslie : " And so you thought you 'd ivy fraud ! " 
 Bellingham : " Well, I should n't use that word. 
 But it 's the privilege of your sex to call a spade a 
 pitchfork, if you don't like the spade. I tell you I 
 never professed to know anything personally about 
 the Dudley business and I did n't say anything 
 fl-bout it ; when Blake caught me up so, I was em- 
 
174 Out of the Question. 
 
 barrassed to think how I might have mentioned it 
 in — in the heat of argument. Come, Blake" — 
 
 Leslie, turning and going devoutly up to Blake : 
 " Yes, he will defend you. He must save your 
 honor since he saved your life." 
 
 Bellinyham, with a start : " Eh ? " 
 
 Leslie : " Oh, I know about it ! Mamma told 
 me. She thinks just as I do, now, and she has 
 been feeling dreadfully about this shabby work 
 she 'd set you at ; but I comforted her. I told her 
 you would never do it in the world; that you 
 would just shuffle about in your way " — 
 
 Bellingham : " Oh, thanks ! " 
 
 Leslie : " But that you had too good a heart, too 
 high a spirit, to breathe a syllable that would 
 wound the pride of a brave and generous man to 
 whom you owed life itself : that you would rather 
 die than do it ! " To Blake : " Oh, I 've always 
 been a romantic girl, — you won't mind it in me, 
 will you ? — and I 've had my foolish dreams a 
 thousand times about the man who risked his life 
 to save my brother's ; and I hoped and longed 
 that some day we should meet. I promised my- 
 
Mr. Charles Bellingham!s Diplomacy. 175 
 
 self that I should know him, and I always thought 
 how sweet and dear a privilege it would be to 
 thank him. I want to thank you for his life as I 
 used to dream of doing, but I cannot yet. I can- 
 not till you tell me that he has not said one word 
 unworthy of you, — unworthy of a gentleman ! " 
 
 Blahe, smiling : " He 's all right ! " 
 
 Leslie, impetuously clinging to him: "Oh, 
 thanks, thanks, thanks ! " 
 
 Bellingham, accurately focusing the pair with 
 freshly adjusted glasses : " If you '11 both give me 
 your blessing, now, I '11 go away, feeling perfectly 
 rehabilitated, in the afternoon stage." 
 
V. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, and Leslie, Blake, and Bel- 
 lingham; afterwards M.B.S. Murray. 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, entering the parlor door 
 " Stage ? Why, Mr. Blake is n't going away ! " 
 
 Bellingham : " Oh, no, Mr. Blake has kindly 
 consented to remain. It was I who thought of 
 going. I can't bear to be idle ! " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham, apart from the others: 
 " Charles, dear, I'm sorry I asked you to under- 
 take that disagreeable business, and I 'd have come 
 back at once with Leslie to relieve you, — to tell 
 you that you need n't speak after all, — but she felt 
 sure that you would n't, and she insisted upon leav- 
 ing you together and then stealing back upon you 
 and enjoying " — 
 
 Bellingham, solemnly : " You little knew me, 
 mother. I have the making of an iron-hearted 
 
Mr, Charles Belliii gharri's Diplomacy. 177 
 
 parent in me, and I was crushing all hope out of 
 Blake when Leslie came in." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles, you don't mean that 
 you said anything to wound the feelings of a man 
 to whom you owed your life, — to whom we all 
 owe so much ? " 
 
 Bellingham: ^' I don't know ahout his feelings. 
 But I represented pretty distinctly to him the 
 social incompatability." 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles, I wonder at you ! " 
 
 Bellingham : " Oh, yes ! So do I. But if 
 you '11 take the pains to recall the facts, that 's ex- 
 actly what you left me to do. May I ask what has 
 caused you to change your mind ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham^ earnestly : " I found that Les- 
 lie's happiness really depended upon it ; and in 
 fact, Charles, when I came to reflect, I found that 
 I myself liked him." 
 
 Bellingham: " The words have a familiar sound, 
 — as if I had used them myself in a former exist- 
 ence." Turning from his mother and looking 
 
 about : " I seem to miss a — a support — moral 
 12 
 
178 Out of the Question, 
 
 support — in those present. Where is aunt 
 Kate ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray, appearing at the door : " Marion ! 
 Ma " — She hesitates at sight of the peaceful 
 grouping. 
 
 Bellingham : " Ah, this is indeed opportune ! 
 Come in, aunt Kate, come in ! This is a free 
 fight, as they say in Mr. Blake's section. Any one 
 can join." Mrs. Murray advances wonderingly 
 into the room, and Bellingham turns to his sister, 
 where she stands at Blake's side : " Leslie, you 
 think I Ve behaved very unhandsomely in this mat- 
 ter, don*t you ? " 
 
 Leslie, plaintively : " Charley, you know I hate 
 to blame you. But I never could have believed it 
 if any one else had told me." 
 
 Bellingham: " All right. Mother, I understand 
 that you would have been similarly incredulous ? " 
 
 3frs. Bellingham : " I know that you acted from 
 1 good motive, Charles, but you certainly went to 
 an extreme that I could never have expected." 
 
 Bellingham: "All right, again. Blake, if the 
 persons and relations had all been changed, could 
 you have said to me what I said to you ? " 
 
Mr. Charles BellinghanC s Diplomacy. 179 
 
 Blake : " That is n't a fair question, Belling- 
 tiam." 
 
 Bellingham : " All right, as before. Now, aunt 
 Kate, I appeal to you. You know all the circum- 
 stances in which I was left here with this man who 
 saved my life, who rescued Leslie from those 
 tramps, who has done you all a thousand kind- 
 nesses of various sorts and sizes, who has behaved 
 with the utmost delicacy and discretion throughout, 
 and is in himself a thoroughly splendid fellow. Do 
 you think I did right or wrong to set plainly be- 
 fore him the social disadvantages to which his mar- 
 rying Leslie would put us ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray, instantly and with great energy : . 
 " Charles, /say — and every person in society, ex- 
 cept your mother and sister, would say — that you 
 did exactly right ! " 
 
 Bellingham : " That settles it. Blake, my dear 
 old fellow, I beg your pardon with all my heart ; 
 and I ask you to forget, if you can, every word T 
 said. Confound society ! " He offers his hand to 
 Blake, who seizes it and wrings it in his own. 
 
 Leslie, as she flings her arms round his neck, 
 
180 Out of the Question. 
 
 with a fluttering cry of joy : " Oh, Charley, 
 Charley, I 've got my ideal back again ! " 
 
 Bellingham, disengaging her arms and putting 
 her hand into Blake's : " Both of them." Turning 
 to Mrs. Murray : " And now, aunt, I beg your 
 pardon. What do you say ? " 
 
 Mrs. Murray, frozenly : " Charles, you know 
 my principles." 
 
 Bellingham : " They 're identical on all points 
 with my own. Well ? " 
 
 M7:s. Murray, grimly : " Well, then, you know 
 that I never would abandon my family, whatever 
 happened ! " 
 
 Bellingham : " By Jove, that is n't so bad. We 
 must be satisfied to take your forgiveness as we 
 get it. Perhaps Leslie might object to the formula- 
 tion of"— 
 
 Leslie, super-joyously : " Oh, no ! I object to 
 nothing in the world, now, Charles. Aunt Kate 
 is too good ! I never should have thought of ask- 
 ing her to remain with us.'* 
 
 Bellingham: That isn't so bad, either! You 
 are your aunt's own niece. Come, Blake, we 
 
Mr. Gharles BelUngham's Diplomacy. 181 
 
 can't let this go on. Say something to allay the 
 ill feeling you 've created in this family." 
 
 Blahe : " I think I 'd better not try. But if 
 you '11 give me time, I '11 do my best to live down 
 the objections to me." 
 
 BelHngham : " Oh, you 've done that. What 
 we want now — as I understand aunt Kate — is 
 that you should live down the objections to us. 
 One thing that puzzles me " — thoughtfully 
 scratching the sparse parting of his hair — " is 
 that our position is so very equivocal in regard to 
 the real principle involved. It seems to me that 
 we are begging the whole question, which is, if 
 Blake" — 
 
 Leslie : " There, there ! I hnew he would ! " 
 
 Bellingham^ severely : " Mother, you will allow 
 that I have been left to take the brunt of this 
 little affair in a — well, somewhat circuitous man- 
 ner?" 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles, I am very, very 
 ifOrry " — 
 
 Bellingham: "And that I am entitled to some 
 «ort of reparation ? " 
 
182 Out of the Question. 
 
 Leslie: "Don't allow that, mamma! I know 
 he's going to say something disagreeable. He 
 looks just as he always does when he has one of 
 his ideas." 
 
 Bellingham : " Thanks, Miss Bellingliam. I am 
 going to have this particular satisfaction out of 
 you. Then I will return to my habitual state of 
 agreeable vacancy. Mother " — 
 
 Leslie : " Mamma, don't answer him ! It 's the 
 only way." 
 
 Bellingham : " It is not necessary that I should 
 be answered. I only wish to have the floor. The 
 question is, if Blake were merely a gentleman 
 somewhat at odds with his history, associations, 
 and occupation, and not also our benefactor and 
 preserver in so many ways, — whether we should 
 be so ready to — ah " — 
 
 Mrs. Bellingham : " Charles, dear, I think it is 
 unnecessary to enter into these painful minutiae." 
 
 Mrs. Murray : " I feel bound to say that I know 
 
 we should not." 
 
 Bellingham : " This is the point which I wished 
 to bring out. Blake, here is your opportunity 
 ^enounce us ! " 
 
Mr. Charles BellinghanrCs Diplomacy. 183 
 
 Blake : " What do you say, Leslie ? " 
 Leslie: "I say that I don't believe it, and I 
 know that I like you for yourself, — not for what 
 you've done for us. I did from the first moment, 
 before you spoke or saw me. But if you doubt 
 me, or should ever doubt me " — 
 
 Blake, taking in his left both the little hands 
 that she has appealingly laid upon his arms : 
 •* That 's out of the question ! "