event) — " when all was over, I was that exhausted I
just sat down in my parlor and dropped over to sleep.
I can't have been dozing for more than half an hour,
when who should walk in but Miriam, blowzed with
heat, poor girl, and looking very strange and excited.
I was going to ask her for her mother and the rest of
you, but she scarcely answered and just blurted out :
" ' I've come to ask you to help me, aunt ' ; and
really I was quite overset by her look as she said it."
The sisters almost stopped eating in their excite-
ment, but urged Aunt Pillar to go on.
** I asked her what about ? and she said * Knowledge,
learning, aunt ; I want more education.' Did you ever
hear an)rthing like it? "
" After two years with Miss Cumper ! " said Maggie.
"Yes, indeed, what more would anyone want?
Well, I just said, * No, Miriam, you've had more than
enough to ruin you.' And I'm sure I spoke the truth.
She gave me such a look as you never saw ; and, as I
sit here, she cried out : * Aunt, it's life and hope I ask
of you ! ' Well, my dears, my own thought was she
had had a touch of the sun, coming over the meadows
in the heat, and I was alarmed at the thought. But
as I was trying to collect myself, who should come in
but Miss Eve Joyce and Mr. Alan Gore."
She paused to let this startling item sink well in.
Her hearers held their breath.
" Mr. Gore, you know, is a wonderful distinguished
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man, unmarried yet, too, and I shouldn't wonder but
he and Miss Eve made a match of it, though they're
connections "
But this was an unpardonable error in the story-
teller's art; for it was as bad as drawing the prover-
bial red herring across the scent, to mention a possible
marriage before the Pillars. Their attention was at
once turned aside from the main heroine of the tale to
this subordinate character.
" Oh, do you think so? Have they been going about
much together? Tell us. Aunt Pillar," they exclaimed
in a breath.
But Aunt Pillar was bent on reaching the climax of
her story — she would not be drawn aside, but waived
these questions, and went on :
" They had come to see the old lead cistern. I gave
Miss Eve a chair, and she began to chat with me, and
then I saw Miriam and Mr. Gore were talking to-
gether, quite interested, it seemed. I heard him saying
a number of things to her that / couldn't understand,
for I was talking to Miss Eve and listening to him,
you see."
" Yes, exactly ; go on," the sisters cried.
" Well, I couldn't make out what they were saying,
but to make a long story short, they must have got
very intimate in those few minutes, for what was my
surprise yesterday to have another call from Mr. Gore
— ^alone this time — ^and it was to ask me about *my
niece, Miriam Sadler,' if you please ! "
" Never ! " they ejaculated. " What did he wish to
know about her?"
"Her circumstances, no less. Was she badly off?
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Where had she been educated? Was her father alive?
A great many questions^ I can assure you, and ended
with, 'You have a very remarkable young relative,
Mrs. Pillar, and you may live to be very proud of her
some day/ * I am sure, sir,' says I, * I'll be glad and
thankful if I don't live to be ashamed of her/ It seems
he had met her again in the fields on Wednesday even-
ing, and — " here Aunt Pillar leaned across the table,
and whispered the words — "and she had asked him
to give her some books! *'
There was a pause, followed by a babel of exclama-
tion : " She's crazy ! She's demented ! She's a shame-
less, impudent girl ! What will Aunt Sadler say ! Is
he going to send the books? "
" Well, as to that, he said he was very pleased to be
able to help her, and was going to send her the books
whenever he got home. But what your Aunt Sadler
will say I don't know, for Mr. Gore has the name of
being very easy in his beliefs "
This was all that was needed to give a climax to the
thrilling story.
" And Aunt Sadler such a leading member with Mr.
Hobbes ! No doubt but Miriam has taken up strange
views, too. I always thought there was something
very peculiar about her," said Maggie.
" We'll see what we'll see," said Aunt Pillar ; a safe
prophecy which had a sound of wisdom in it. She
leaned back in her chair and begged for another cup
of Matilda's excellent tea, while the sisters rained
conmients on the story, and reviewed it in all its pos-
sible and impossible bearings.
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CHAPTER VI
Miriam felt the consequences of the cousinly con-
clave next afternoon. Maggie Broadman had been in
to see Mrs. Sadler in the morning, and had sown the
seeds of difficulty. Mrs. Sadler never approached
any subject directly, she had not enough character
to do so, but started weakly at some point far off in
her mental horizon, and slowly directed her conversa-
tion onward from that point to the one she wished to
reach. So this afternoon she began in her hesitating
way:
" Miriam, IVe been reading a very sad article in the
Methodist Recorder on ' Some Books of the Day * ; I
wish you would read it."
"Which books is it about?" Miriam asked. She
had a deep distrust of the Methodist Recorder.
"Oh, my dear, I forget the names of the books;
but it was more the tendencies of the day," said Mrs.
Sadler, picking nervously at her work.
" Well ? " said Miriam. She could not imagine what
her mother was driving at.
"It said there were so many atheistical works
just now. I'm sure they shouldn't be allowed to be
printed."
" But you see, mother, that would scarcely do ; it
would infringe the liberty of the press," the girl sug-
gested. Mrs. Sadler shook her head; such general
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principles as the liberty of the subject and of the press
did not appeal to her.
*' I do hope they won't ever come your way," she
said, with an anxious look at her daughter.
A fear shot suddenly through Miriam's mind; was
it possible that her mother had somehow heard about
Mr. Gore's offer of the books?
Mrs. Sadler was really a little in awe of her daugh-
ter; already she felt the stress of a stronger nature
contending with her own at many points. She rose up
in a flutter, letting her work fall to the floor, and
found strength to speak directly at last.
" Maggie Broadman came to me with such a story
this morning, that it's quite overset me. It seems Aunt
Pillar was in to see her yesterday, and told her that
that freethinking Mr. Gore, who is at the Manor, has
been speaking to you, and offering you books— or you
asked him for them — and I can't believe it, that you
should do such a thing."
" Yes," said Miriam. " I did ask him for the books,
and he did say that he would send them to me."
" Oh, my dear ! and him a freethinker ! But maybe
he won't send them ; at least, if he does, you must send
them back unread, and not defile your mind with
them."
" In the first place," Miriam began, " perhaps you
are quite wrong to call Mr. Gore a freethinker; and
in the second place the books I asked for are not on
these subjects. I asked him for poems and histories
and novels."
"And what would any sensible girl do reading
poems of a morning, or of an afternoon either, for
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that matter? Surely you learnt all the history you want
to know at Miss Cumper's, and we all know what
novels are — ^just lies/'
It was hopeless to argue with such an antagonist.
Miriam sat silent, and her mother went on:
" I just hope he will forget all about them ; these
busy men often make promises and forget them. Mr.
Hobbes says that offers of this kind have to do with
the Elections always, though how you could have to
do with the Elections I don't see ; but Mr. Hobbes says
they get into the habit of making promises."
" Perhaps that was it," said Miriam, with a lurk-
ing smile about the comers of her mouth. She was
anxious to end the subject, and decided that, after
this, complete silence about the books must be main-
tained. She knew that when the books failed to ap-
pear, her mother would conclude that Mr. Gore's
promise had, whether owing to the Elections or not,
been an empty one ; and she must be allowed to believe
this. It would never occur to Mrs. Sadler for a mo-
ment that Miriam had given another address for the
books to be sent to ; she was safe to receive and read
them in comfort. Only how had Maggie Broadman
heard anything about them? Aunt Pillar must have
seen Mr. Gore. Well, Miriam decided, she would not
trouble herself more about that.
She got up and left the room to signify that the
subject was at an end between them, and went upstairs
to her own room, a little dormer-window chamber
looking out upon the street. A tree grew in the gar-
den below, and its topmost boughs swept against the
sill of the window. The tender green leaves of early
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summer had burst through their enclosing sheaths just
now^ soft and fresh;. but Miriam noticed that one of
the branches was growing too near the house, and
whenever a breath of wind came, the young leaves
were cruelly scraped against the rough brick wall.
She stood watching this, and thought how like her own
life it was— every shoot she put out toward the sky got
bruised by some hard wall of circumstance.
This may have been rather a morbid thought for a
young creature to indulge in ; but it was true enough.
Miriam's nature turned with passionate eagerness to
the things of the intellect ; she thirsted for knowledge
with a thirst that was almost pain. She wanted to
know, so that she might express ; but as yet she was
unaware that this was the reason of her longing for
knowledge. In her present environment, there was
about as much chance of satisfying these longings as if
she had been in the Desert of Sahara.
By her unlikeness to themselves, she had alienated
all her relatives; not even the mother that bore her
knew what Miriam felt on any subject.
Sometimes, in a sudden girlish craving for com-
panionship, she would try, awkwardly, to throw herself
into the interests of the young people about her. But
half an hour of their talk sent her home with a baffled
sense of defeat. After all, perhaps they had the right
of it, she would say to herself — with their flirtations
and their petty quarrels and pettier friendships; they
at least seemed to enjoy life, which was more than she
did, and they would marry and have husbands and
children of their own before long, and that actually
was life, wasn't it? while she — And then Miriam
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would smile, and look up to the sky with a sudden
quickening at her heart.
Not for her were these aims, these satisfactions.
Would it ever satisfy her, make life worth living for
her, that young Dr. Pratt should admire her? Yet
this seemed to give Emmie Pillar a satisfaction that
" Heaven itself is powerless to bestow." No ; not even
the life-long and whole-souled affection of such a man
as Dr. Pratt could ever please her. " Oh, I'm all
wrong somewhere," she would cry out to herself. " I
wish I could feel like other girls ! Emmie is so pleased
with Dr. Pratt's attentions, and Grace, though she
hasn't any admirers, was as pleased as possible all last
week because Maggie brought her a new dress from
London ! "
This afternoon Miriam sat looking out at the win-
dow for a long time and thought very deeply. T^hen
she took out a little blank book and a pencil and began
to write down her thoughts. This is what she wrote :
" I wish to enter into life profoundly, tasting the
bqst, the deepest, it has to give. How am I to do
this?"
She put the date beneath this aspiring sentence, and
sat down again to think. How, indeed, was she to
taste the best life had to offer ; and what was that, in
the first place ? She almost involuntarily took up her
pencil again to write down her thoughts — it seemed
to give them coherence.
" I wonder what the best of life really is ? I sup-
pose it is different for each person. Emmie's best of
life would not be mine. Hers would be to be admired
by a great lot of young men, whether she cared for
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them or not ; then to marry one of them, and live in a
house furnished very handsomely, and wear expensive
clothes, much finer than the other women she knows
could aflFord. She would put on these fine things
and go out to call on her poorer neighbors in them,
and be delightedly their admiration.
" I have never been admired ; men don't like me ; so
I do not know if that would please me much. I do not
think it would. But, oh, I do desire to find one person
who quite understands me, and whom I understand;
just now I am going through the world alone.
" Life just now consists of this for me : in the morn-
ing I do housework and cooking ; and in the afternoon
mother likes me to sit and sew with her, but I gener-
ally go out ; then I get alone for an hour or two and
can think interesting thoughts. But when I come in,
I perhaps find Mrs. Hobbes at tea with mother, and
they talk about the price of meat, or how Mrs. Hobbes's
little servant won't rise in the morning.
" Or perhaps it is one of the Pillar girls who has
come in, and she will talk about nothing but clothes,
or young men. Then in the evening mother sews
again, and talks, or takes me out with her to an even-
ing meeting of the Christian Institute; and so life
is lived, or what is called life here. Can I mend it?
Can I make anything out of it? I cannot leave home,
as Miss Foxe urges me to do, because I have no good
excuse for doing so. Mother is kind and means well
by me, and we have enough to live upon without my
earning anything. Oh, what am I going to do? "
The pencil fell from Miriam's fingers, and she hid
her face in her hands in one of those agonies of help-
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lessness, of impotence against Fate, that Youth is
prone to. After a little she looked up and wrote an-
other sentence into her book.
" I must put something into my life ; for there is
nothing in it! What shall it be? "
There rose in her troubled mind one word that
seemed to have some comfort in it — Effort. Let her
attempt something, whatever it was, however futile
the results might be. Better to try and fail even, than
not to try at all. But she must struggle and agonize
by herself, without a soul to help her or to understand
what she was striving after. How she envied Emmie
Pillar her preoccupation with dress and men. " If I
only could want something possible," she cried. But
she could not, and that was the end of the matter;
she was predestined to attempt the unattainable and
desire the impossible, and she had better make up
her mind that it would always be thus with her.
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CHAPTER Vn
It occurred to Miriam the next afternoon that she
should go and warn Miss Foxe of the possible arrival
of a box of books at The Old House. Mrs. Sadler en-
tered her usual feeble protest against this afternoon
walk.
"You would be far better sewing, my dear; Mrs.
Hobbes is very anxious for more workers at her guild ;
she says there's scarcely a young woman nowadays
can cut out and make a flannel petticoat. I felt quite
ashamed that such a thing should be said of my daugh-
ter, for I was always a good needlewoman myself.
I don't know where you got your dislike for your
needle ; won't you just stay in this afternoon, and show
Mrs. Hobbes you can do it ? "
If Miriam had been better than she was, this pa-
thetic appeal must have touched her heart; but, alas,
it did not.
" Oh, mother, I can't stay in and sew flannel petti-
coats to-day," she cried impatiently ; and Mrs. Sadler
gave a disheartened little sigh, and said no more.
The walk to The Old House was a very pleasant one
— away from the town ; and the irritations of home life
seemed to fall off from the girl as she walked along.
Miriam loved even the curious fusty smell which hung
about The Old House ; it seemed to breathe something
uncommon and unlike the rest of Hindcup ; it was really
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the smell of damp, and old furniture, but she did not
believe this. A dark, steep stair led up to the drawing-
room, and as she came up it, the drawing-room door
opened and a man went into the next room. A man
was not a common sight in Miss Foxe's house, and
Miriam could not think who he could be. She hesitated
whether to go in or not; but the maid assured her
that Miss Foxe was quite able to see her, so she
went on.
The old lady gave the girl her usual welcoitie, and
said it was too long since she had been there.
" What have you been doing? Has anything been
wrong with you ? " she asked.
There and then Miriam poured out the whole story
of the books. Miss Foxe nodding and smiling at every
pause in the narrative.
" Quite right, quite right. I suppose most old peo-
ple would say you were quite wrong, but I don't ; you
have done quite wisely.'*
" Oh, thank you, thank you I " Miriam cried. She
was so accustomed to an atmosphere of disapproval,
that Miss Foxe's words warmed her like sunshine.
" Then you don't think I was wrong, and I may
come and read here every day, if the books come? "
"Every day, as long as you please. Though, of
course, your mother will wonder why you come here ;
it will have to be done openly before long." This diffi-
culty had not occurred to Miriam. " I could keep the
books here, and take them to read at home one by
one," she suggested.
" Yes, till your mother found you reading them at
home."
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"And then?"
" Then, as I have always told you, you must remind
your mother that you are of a reasonable age, and
must be allowed to exercise your reason; but delay
this scene as long as you can — try gentle measures."
In the meantime the books had not yet arrived,
and there was time to consider the subject carefully ; so
Miss Foxe thought she might introduce another topic.
" Max Courteis is here — ^my nephew — 111 send for
him. I want him to see you," she said.
" I have heard you speak about, him," said Miriam.
" Is he not very clever? He has something to do with
writing, has he not?"
"Yes, with other people's writing; that's why I
wish him to see you. He can sample talent as some
men can sample tea or wine. It is his profession ; he
has a special talent for it — a special insight. To be
quite frank with you, I asked him down here very
much because of you."
"O Miss Foxe!"
" I thought he might assist you. Don't be afraid of
him, or mind his absent manner, or his bullying man-
ner; he has both, and I cannot say which he will as-
sume to you, most likely the absent one, unless he takes
a sudden liking for you." Miriam shook in her shoes ;
she did not feel equal to meeting such a formidable
person.
Miss Foxe went into the next room, and through
the open door came the sound of her voice and that
of the man she spoke to, though what they said was
inaudible. In a few minutes she returned, bringing
her nephew with her. Max Courteis was a tall, gray-
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haired man, who came in looking as if he did not know
where he was going. He did not seem to direct his
course toward any special chair, or, indeed, to see
anything in the room, but sat down in a haphazard
kind of way on the first seat that presented itself.
What then was Miriam's surprise, almost terror, a
minute later, to look up and find herself the subject
of a scrutiny the most intense she had ever undergone.
She started in alarm, but the next minute Mr. Cour-
teis seemed to be looking blankly at the opposite wall,
as if he did not know she was in existence.
" I came down to the country for solitude,*' he said
abruptly, "and now my aunt brings me in here to
talk to you."
Miriam looked up. " I have nothing to talk with
you about," she said gravely. " I know nothing about
anything."
Courteis turned quickly at her words and looked at
her again.
"I wonder who does know anything?" he said in
an amused voice.
" I think that a number of learned people know
about things," she ventured to say.
"Learning?" said Courteis, with inexpressible con-
tempt in his voice. " What does learning matter ?
Ideas are the rub."
"Do not ideas spring from learning?" Miriam
asked timidly.
Courteis jumped up and began to walk about the
room in his blundering way, as if he would knock
down the furniture.
" O Lord ! " he said, with a sudden laugh.
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" Ideas spring from learning ! It's evident you have
met few learned persons ! "
Miriam was a little rebuflFed by his rough manner ;
she shrank up into herself.
" I have met none at all," she said.
"Well, take my advice, and avoid them like the
plague; they are the very death of originality," he
replied.
" I had supposed it was quite the other way," said
Miriam. She became primmer and expressed herself
in more stilted language, as she was more frightened
by Courteis's manner.
" Well, then, you were quite wrong," he said, paus-
ing beside her chair ; he seemed to be looking out at
the window, not at her, so Miriam found courage to
say, with her funny little lurking smile at the comers
of her mouth, that Hindcup should be a very original
place, by his showing.
" No doubt it is ; we are all getting rubbed down to
hateful uniformity in towns," he said; "you, for in-
stance, would never grow in London. When would
a town young woman say she knew nothing, and want
to be in the society of learned people? Oh, no; you
get fine fresh stuff in the provinces."
Miriam was really amused now; she laughed natu-
rally and heartily, and forgot to feel afraid.
" You should come and live in Hindcup, Mr. Cour-
teis," she said. " I think it would very soon cure you
of these ideas."
" I am going to do something for my nephew's sake
that I have not done for years," said Miss Foxe, who
had listened to their conversation with some amuse-
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ment. " I am going to take him to the fete at Hindcup
Manor next week/*
" Why do you wish to go there ? " Miriam asked.
" I always find these fetes so painful."
" Ah, you see them the right way, then," said Cour-
teis. "Of course they are. painful — painful and ridic-
ulous. One class making believe to be friendly with
another for one day, and all for its own ends. I want
to see it for ends of my own, too, you may be sure.
You are going. Miss Sadler?"
" Oh, yes, of course I am," said Miriam, with an
earnestness that surprised her hearers. She rose sud-
denly, and held out her hand to Miss Foxe, saying
she must be home before six o'clock.
" Why, it is not nearly six o'clock yet," Miss Foxe
said. But Miriam seemed to wish to go, and no per-
suasions would make her change her mind.
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CHAPTER VHI
Miriam found her mother talking with Mrs. Hobbes
on this very subject of the fete at the Manor, when she
came home.
" Mrs. Hobbes has come in to arrange with us about
Thursday," she said. " Mr. Hobbes has engaged a
char-d-bancs for the choir, so that they may have a
little music on the road, and they have two vacant
seats, and Mr. Hobbes kindly says will we come with
them?"
" Music on the road " was not a very attractive
thought to Miriam. She was silent for a minute, won-
dering how to evade the unwelcome invitation.
" Don't you wish to go to the fete at all ? " asked
Mrs. Hobbes.
" Oh, yes, of course I wish to go," the girl exclaimed
with the same surprising earnestness she had shown
to Miss Foxe about the fete.
" Then surely we couldn't do better than go in the
char-d'bancs," Mrs. Sadler pleaded. There was no pos-
sible escape, so it was agreed that in the char-i-bancs
they would go. After all, Miriam thought, what would
it matter — what would anything matter — if only she
might catch a glimpse again of Mr. Alan Gore's face,
or perhaps — if Heaven was kind — hear an echo of that
golden voice I
" They say it will be a very fine affair this year,"
Mrs. Sadler pursued. "The band from Goodhamp-
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ton is to be there, and there are to be races for the
youths, with prizes, and the gardens are to be open
to the public, and tea in a tent for all — altogether very
fine. I had it all from my sister, Susan Pillar." Mrs.
Sadler took her pleasures sadly, but she seemed to find
a certain lackluster satisfaction in retailing all these