did also. But we are experienced ; others may not discover
you so soon. Mr. Head is anxious to pilot you through the
mountains to save you from danger."
" He is very kind ; disinterested, too."
"No," said Honor, fiushing again; "I assure you he
makes money by it also."
"But you have not told me what it is you take me for.
Miss Dooris ? "
" It is not necessary, is it ? " replied Honor in a whisper.
" You are one of the new revenue detectives, sent up here to
search out the stills."
"An informer— after the moonlight whisky-makers, you
mean?"
"Yes."
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Wainwright threw back his head and laughed out lou4
as he had not laughed for years.
** I am not sure but that it is a compliment/' he said at
last ; " no one has ever taken me for anything particular be-
fore in all my life/* Then, when he was sober, " Miss Doo-
ris," he said, '' I am a man of leisure, residing in New York ;
and I am sorry to say that I am an idle vagabond, with no
occupation even so useful as that of a revenue detective/'
In spite of himself, however, a touch of contempt filtered
into his voice. Then it came to him how the club-men would
enjoy the story, and again he laughed uproariously. When
he came to himself, Honor was crying.
III.
Yes, Honor was crying. The dire mistake, the contempt,
and, worse than all, the laughter, had struck the proud little
Southern giri to the heart.
" My dear child," ssdd Wainwright, all the gentleman in
him aroused at once, " why should you care for so small and
natural a mistake ? It is all clear to me now. I gave no ac-
count of myself coming over on the stage ; I remember, too,
that I spoke of the moonlight whisky-makers myself, and that
I made no effort to find out what Mr. Head was alluding
to when he talked on in his mysterious way. It is my usual
unpardonable laziness which has brought you to this error.
Pray forgive it."
Honor cried on, unable to stop, but his voice and words
had soothed her; he stood beside her, hat in hand, and after
a few moments she summoned self-control enough to dry her
eyes and put down her handkerchief. But her eyelashes were
still wet, her breath came tremulously, and there was a crim-
son spot on each cheek. She looked, at that moment, not
more than fifteen years old, and Wainwright sat down, this
time nearer to her, determined to make her feel easier. He
banished the subject of her mistake at once, and began talk-
ing to her about herself. He asked many questions, and she
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answered them humbly, as a Lenten penitent might answer a
father confessor. She seemed to feel as though she owed
him everything he chose to take. She let him enter and walk
through her life and mind, through all her hopes and plans ;
, one or two closed doors he noted, but did not try to open,
neither did he let her see that he had discovered them. He
learned how poor they were ; he learned her love for her un-
cle, her Switzer's attachment to the mountain-peaks about
her; he learned what her daily life was; and he came near-
enough to her religious faith, that faith which had first at-
tracted him, to see how clear and deep it was, like a still pool
in a shaded glen. It was years since Stephen Wainwright
had been so close to a young girls soul, and, to do him jus-
tice, he felt that he was on holy ground.
When at last he left her, he had made up his mind that he
would try an experiment. He would help this child out of
the quagmire of poverty, and give her, in a small way, a
chance. The question was, how to do it. He remained at
Ellerby, made acquaintances, and asked questions. He pre-
tended this, and pretended that. Finally, after some consid-
eration, he woke up the old library association, reopened the
building, and put in Honor as librarian, at a salary of two
hundred dollare a year. To account for this, he was obliged,
of course, to be much interested in Ellerby ; his talk was that"
the place must eventually become a summer resort, and that -K
money could be very well invested there. He therefore in-
vested it. Discovering, among other things, pink marble on
wild land belonging to the Colonel, he bought a whole hill-
side, and promptly paid for it. To balance this, he also
bought half a mile of sulphur springs on the other side of the
valley (the land comically cheap), and spoke of erecting a
hotel there. The whole of Ellerby awoke, talked, and re-
joiced ; no one dreamed that the dark eyes of one young girl
had effected it ail.
Honor herself remained entirely unconscious. She was
so openly happy over the library that Wainwright felt him-
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self already repaid. " It might stand against some of my
omissions/' he said to himself.
One thing detained him where he was; then another.
He could not buy property without pa)ring some attention to
it, and he did not choose to send for his man of business.
He staid on, therefore, all summer. And he sent books to
the library now and then during the winter that followed-—
packages which the librarian, of course, was obliged to ac-
knowledge, answering at the same time the questions of the
letters which accompanied them. Stephen's letters were al-
ways formal ; they might have l>een nailed up on the walls of
the library for all comers to read. He amused himself, how-
ever, not a little over the carefully written, painstaking an-
swers, in which the librarian remained " with great respect "
his " obliged servant. Honor Dooris."
The second summer began, and he was again among the
mountains ; but he should leave at the end of the month, he
said. In the mean time it had come about that he was teach-
ing the librarian. She needed instruction, certainly ; and the
steps that led up to it had been so gradual that it seemed
natural enough now. But no one knew the hundred little
things which had been done to make it seem so.
What was he trying to do ?
His cousin, Adelaide Kellinger, determined to find out that
point, was already domiciled with her maid at the inn. There
had been no concealment about Honor ; Wainwright had told
Adelaide the whole story. He also showed to her the libra-
rian's little letters whenever they came, and she commented
upon them naturally, and asked many questions. ** Do you
know, I feel really interested in the child myself ? " she said to
him one day ; and it was entirely true.
When he told her that he was going to the mountains
again, she asked if he would not take her with him. " It will
be a change from the usual summer places ; and, besides, I
find I am lonely if long away from you," she said frankly.
She always put it upon that ground. She had learned that
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nothing makes a man purr more satisfactorily than the hear-
ing that the woman in whose society he finds himself particu-
larly comfortable has an especial liking for and dependence
upon himself ; immediately he makes it all a favor and kind-
ness to her, and is happy. So Adelaide came with Stephen,
and did make him more comfortable. His barren room
bloomed with fifty things which came out of her trunks and
her ingenuity ; she coaxed and bribed the cook ; she won the
landlady to a later breakfast. She arranged a little parlor, and
was always there when he came home, ready to talk to him a
little, but not too much ; ready to divine his mood and make
the whole atmosphere accord with it at once. They had
been there tl^ee weeks, and of course Adelaide had met the
librarian.
For those three weeks she remained neutral, and studied
the ground ; then she began to act. She sent for John Royce.
And she threw continuous rose-light around Honor.
After the final tableau of a spectacle-play, a second view
is sometimes given with the nymphs and fairies all made
doubly beautiful by rose-light. Mrs. Kellinger now gave this
glow. She praised Honor's beauty.
Stephen had not observed it. How could he be so blind ?
Why, the girl had fathomless eyes, exquisite coloring, the
form of a Greek statue, and the loveliest mouth ! Then she
branched off.
" What a beautiful thing it would be to see such a girl as
that fall in love !— a girl so impulsive, so ignorant of the
world. That is exactly the kind of girl that really could die
of a broken heart."
" Could she ? " said Stephen.
" Now, Stephen, you know as well as I do what Honor
Dooris is," said Adelaide warmly. "She is not awakened
yet, her prince has not made himself known to her; but,
when he does awaken her, she will take him up to the seventh
heaven."
" That is— if she loves him."
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** She has seen so few persons ; it would not be a difficult
matter," said Adelaide.
A few days later, when she told him that she was thinking
of sending for John Royce, he made no comment, although
she looked at him with undisguised wistfulness, a lingering
gaze that seemed to entreat his questions. But he would
not question, and, obedient as always to his will, she remained
silent.
John Royce came. He was another cousin, but a young
one, twenty-five years old, blue-eyed and yellow-haired. He
kept his yellow hair ruthlessly short, however, and he frowned
more or less Over his blue eyes, owing to much yachting and
squinting ahead across the glaring water to gain an inch's
length on the next boat. He was brown and big, with a
rolling gait ; the edge of a boat tilted at one hair's-breadth
from going over entirely, was his idea of a charming seat ;
under a tree before a camp-fire, with something more than a
suspicion of savage animsds near, his notion of a delightful
bed. He did not have much money of his own ; he was go-
ing to do something for himself by and by ; but Cousin Ade-
laide had always petted him, and he had no objection to a
hunt among those Southern mountains. So he came.
He had met Honor almost immediately. Mrs. Kellinger
was a welcome visitor at the Eliot home ; she seemed to make
the whole ravine more graceful. The Colonel's wife and all
the children clustered around her with delight every time she
came, and the old Colonel himself renewed his youth in her
presence. She brought John to call upon them at once, and
she took him to the library also ; she made Honor come and
dine with them at the inn. She arranged a series of excur-
sions in a great mountain-wagon shaped like a boat, and
tilted high up behind, with a canvas cover over a framework,
like a Shaker bonnet, and drawn by six slow-walking horses.
The wagoner being a postilion, they had the wagon to them-
selves; they filled the interstices with Eliot children and
baskets, and explored the wilder roads, going on foot up the
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steep banks above, drinking from the ice-cold spring, looking
out for rattlesnakes, plucking the superb rhododendrons and
the flowers of the calico-bush, and every now and then catch-
ing a new glimpse of the unparalleled crowd of peaks over to-
ward the Tennessee line. Stephen went everywhere patiently ;
Honor went delightedly; John Royce went carelessly; Mrs.
Kellinger went as the velvet string which held them all to-
gether ; she was so smooth that they slid easily.
But, in the intervals, Wainwright still taught his librarian.
Mrs. Eliot had become Adelaide's warm friend. The
sweet-voiced Southern wife, with her brood of children, and
her calm, contented pride, confided to the Northern stranger
the one grief of her life, namely, that she was the Colonel's
second wife, and that he had dearly loved the first ; anxiety
as to the uncertain future of her children weighed far less
upon her mind than this. The old-time South preserved the
romance of conjugal love even to silver hairs ; there may have
been no more real love than at the North, but there was more
of the manner of it. The second month came to its end ; it
was now August. Mrs. Kellinger had sent many persons to
the library ; she had roused up a general interest in it ; vil-
lagers now went there regularly for books, pa)ring a small
subscription-fee, which was added to Honor's ssAary. Honor
thanked her for this in a rather awkward way. Mrs. Eliot,
who was present, did not consider the matter of consequence
enough for thanks. She had never even spoken to Wain-
wright of Honor's office of librarian, or the salary which came
out of his pocket. Money-matters were nothing; between
friends they were less than nothing. Stephen had two hours
alone with his librarian every morning, when there was no
excursion ; Mrs. Kellinger had arranged that, by inventing a
rule and telling it to everybody in a decided tone : no one was
expected at the library before eleven o'clock.
"Did you do this ? " said Stephen, when he discovered it.
"I did."
"Why?"
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" Because I thought you would like it," replied Adelaide.
He looked at her questioningly ; she answered immediately to
the look. " You are interested in a new study of character,
Stephen ; you are really doing the child a world of good too ;
although, as usual, I confess that my interest in the matter is
confined principally to your own entertainment." She spoke
good-humoredly, and almost immediately afterward left him
to himself.
His mind ran back over a long series of little arrange-
ments made for his pleasure on all sorts of occasions. " She
is the best-hearted woman in the world," he thought. And
then he took his note-book and went over to the library.
Their lessons would have amused a looker-on ; but there
was no looker-on. Honor was interested or absent-minded,
irritable or deeply respectful, humble or proud, by turns ; she
regarded him as her benefactor, and she really wished to
learn ; but she was young, and impulsive, and — a girl. There
was little conversation save upon the lessons, with the excep-
tion of one subject. The man of the world had begun his
study of this girl's deep religious faith. " If you can give it to
me also, or a portion of it," he had said, " you will be confer-
ring a priceless gift upon me. Miss Honor."
Then Honor would throw down her books, clasp her
hands, and, with glowing cheeks, talk to him on sacred sub-
jects. Many a time the tears would spring to her eyes with
her own earnestness ; many a time she lost herself entirely
while pleading with her whole soul. He listened to her,
thanked her, and went away. Only once did he show any
emotion : it was when she told him that she prayed for him.
" Do you really pray for me } " he said in a low tone ;
then he put his hand over his eyes, and sat silent.
Honor, a little frightened, drew back. It seemed to her a
very simple act, praying for any one : she had prayed for peo-
ple all her life.
One Sunday afternoon Mrs. Eliot and Honor were sitting
in Adelaide's parlor at the inn, whither she had brought them
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\
on their way home from service. Royce and Stephen had
been discovered, upon their entrance, in two chairs at the
windows ; the former surrounded by a waste of newspapers,
magazines, and novels, thrown down on the. floor, a general
expression of heat and weariness on his face. His compan-
ion was reading a small, compact volume in his usual neat
way. Big Royce was sprawled over three chairs; Stephen \
did not fin one. Big Royce was drumming on the window-
sill ; Stephen was motionless. Yet Royce, springing up and
smiling, his blue eyes gleaming, and frank gladness on his
face, was a picture that women remember ; while Stephen,
rising without change of expression, was a silent contradic-
tion to their small power, which is never agreeable. They all
sat talking for an hour, Mrs. Eliot and Mrs. Kellinger con-
tributing most of the sentences. Royce was in gay spirits ;
Honor rather silent. Suddenly there came a sharp, cracking
sound ; they all ran to the window. Through the main street
of the village a man was running, followed by another, who,
three times in their sight and hearing, fired at the one in ad-
vance. One, two, three times they saw and heard him fire,
and the sickening feeling of seeing a man murdered in plain
sight came over them. Royce rushed down to the street.
The victim had fallen ; the other man was himself staggering,
and in the hands of a crowd which had gathered in an in-
stant. After a short delay the two men were borne away, one
to his home, one to the jail. Royce returned hot and breath-
less.
" Oh, how is the poor man who was shot ? " exclaimed
Mrs. Eliot.
"Poor man, mdeedl The other one is the man to be
pitied," said Royce angrily. " He is a revenue detective, and
was knocked down from behind with a club by this fellow,
who is a liquor-seller here in the village. The blow was on
the skull, and a murderous one. Half blinded and maddened,
he staggered to his feet, drew his revolver, and fired for his
Ufe."
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Honor had g^wn white as ivory. She shook in every
limb, her lips trembled, and her chin had dropped a little.
Wainwright watched her.
" But what does it all mean ? '* asked Adelaide.
" Moonlight whisky, of course. The detective has been
hunting for the stills, and these outlaws will kill the man as
they have killed half a dozen before him."
" What an outrage ! Are there no laws ? '*
" Dead letters."
" Or officers to execute them ? "
" Dead men."
Royce was excited and aroused. He was young, and had
convictions. The laws should not be over-ridden and men
murdered in broad daylight by these scoundrels while he was
on the scene. He took charge of the detective, who, with his
bruised head, was put in jail, while the liquor-seller was al-
lowed to have his illness out in his own house, one of the
balls only having taken effect, and that in a safe place in the
shoulder. Royce, all on fire for the side of justice, wrote and
telegraphed for troops, using the detective's signature; he
went himself fifteen miles on horseback to send the dispatch.
There were troops at the State capital ; they had been up to
the mountains before on the same business ; they were, in-
deed, quite accustomed to going up ; but they accomplished
nothing. The outlaws kept themselves carefully hidden in
their wild retreats, and the village looked on as innocently as
a Quaker settlement. A detective was fair game: two of
them had been shot in the neighborhood within the previous
year, and left bleeding in the road. Would they never learn,
then, to keep out of the mountains ?
" But is it not an extraordinary state of things that a vil-
lage so large as Ellerby should be so apathetic?" asked
Adelaide.
" The villagers can do little : once off the road, and you
are in a trackless wilderness," said Stephen. " Custom makes
law in these regions : moonlight whisky has always been
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made, and the mountaineers think they have a right to make
it. They look upon the revenue-men as spies."
" Yes ; and they are government officials and Northerners )
too," added Royce hotly—" mind that ! " ^
He had taken the matter in hand vigorously. He wrote
and sent off a dozen letters per day. The Department at
Washington had its attention decisively called to this district
and the outlawry rampant there. It was used to it.
In a week the troops came — part of a company of infantry
and a young lieutenant, a tall stripling fresh from West Point.
His name was Allison ; he lisped and wore kid-gloves ; he
was as dainty as a girl, and almost as slender. To see the
short, red-faced, burly detective, with his bandaged head and
stubbed fingers ; Royce, with his eagle eyes and impatient
glance ; and this delicate-handed, pink-cheeked boy, confer-
ring together, was like a scene from a play. The detective,
slow and cautious, studied the maps ; Royce, in a hot hurry
about everything, paced up and down ; Allison examined his
almond-shaped nsuls and hummed a tune. The detective had
his suspicions concerning Eagle Knob ; the troops could take
the river-road, turn off at Butter Glen, and climb the moun-
tain at that point. In the mean while all was kept quiet ; it
was given out that the men were to search South Gap, on the
other side of the valley.
On the very night appointed for the start, an old lady, who
had three granddaughters from the low country spending the
summer with her, opened her house, lit up her candles, and
gave a ball, with the village fiddlers for musicians and her
old black cook's plum-cake for refreshments. Royce was to
accompany the troops ; Adelaide had not been able to pre-
vent it. She went to Stephen in distress, and then Stephen
proposed to Royce to send halt a dozen stout villagers in his
place — he, Stephen, paying all expenses.
"There are some things, Wainwright, that even your
money can not do," replied Royce.
"Very well," said Stephen.
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Royce now announced that they must all go to the ball to
divert suspicion ; Allison too. But Allison had no invitation.
Royce went to Mrs. Eliot, and begged her influence ; Mrs.
Eliot sent Honor to the old lady, and the invitation came.
" If he could avoid wearing his uniform — " suggested
Mrs. Eliot to Adelaide, a little nervously.
"But he has nothing else with him, I fear," answered
Adelaide.
It turned out, however, that the lieutenant had a full even-
ing-suit in his valise, with white tie and white gloves also.
Royce surveyed these habiliments and their owner with won-
der. He himself, coming from New York, with all the bag-
gage he wanted, had only a black coat His costume must
be necessarily of the composite order ; but the composite or-
der was well known at Ellerby.
Allison was the belle of the ball. He danced charmingly,
and murmured the most delightful things to all his partners
in rapid succession. He was the only man in full evening-
dress present, and the pink flush on his cheeks, and his tall,
slender figure swaying around in the waltz, were long remem-
bered in Ellerby. Honor was there in a white muslin which
had been several times washed and repaired ; there was no
flow to her drapery, and she looked awkward. She was pale
and silent Mrs. Kellinger, clothed to the chin and wrists,
with no pronounced color about her, was the one noticeable
woman present. Royce did not dance. He found the rooms
hot and the people tiresome ; he was in a fever to be off.
Stephen sat on the piazza, and looked in through the window.
At one o'clock it was over. Allison had danced every dance.
He went back to the inn with his pockets stuffed with gloves,
withered rose-buds, knots of ribbon, and even, it was whis-
pered, a lock of golden hah*. The next hour, in the deep
darkness, the troops started.
At five minutes before eleven the next morning, Stephen
was bringing his algebra-lesson to a close, when a distant
clatter in the gorge was heard, a tramping sound ; men were
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running out of the mill opposite and gazing curiously up the
road. Honor was at the window in a flash, Stephen beside
her. The troops were returning. They had laid hands upon
a mountain-wagon and marched upon each side of it like a
g^ard of honor. Royce sat in the wagon, his face hidden in
his hands.
" Where is Mr. Allison ? " said Honor, and her voice was
but a whisper. She stood back of the curtain, trembling vio-
lently.
Royce did not look up as the procession passed the libra-
ry ; without a word Wainwright and Honor went out, locked
the door behind them, and followed the wagon toward the
village. Everybody did the same ; the houses were emptied
of their dwellers. The whole village came together to see
the body of the boy-officer lifted out and carried into the inn. -ri
Allison was dead. P
The buttons on his uniform gleamed as they bore him in,
and his white hands hung lifelessly down. He had fought
like a tiger, they said, and had led his men on with the most
intrepid, daring courage to the very last. It seemed that they
had fallen into an ambuscade, and had accomplished nothing.
Singularly enough, the young lieutenant was the only one
killed ; Royce was sure that he had seen one of the outlaws
deliberately single him out and fire — ^a daric, haggard-looking
fellow.
Stephen took Honor up to Adelaide's parlor. Adelaide
was there wringing her hands. She had fastened the boy's
collar for him at two o'clock the night before, when he had