A Fountain Sealed

from the hall table as she and Jack passed on their way up-stairs af

glish stamp and masculine handwriting a dusky rose-color mounted to her face. Indeed, in taking the letter from her d

. He was able, in a moment, to see that it might have been the fire, or the tea, or the mere suddenness of an unexpected qu

te and rose in the glass while she questioned. "I remember him in your letters, but remember him so little-a dull, kind

ugh Jack's sympathy guessed at some pretty decisive irritation under it, he could but fee

y letters, Imogen, though not in those terms. H

sked, ignoring the cooln

articu

es he do

care of hi

hilanthropy, I supp

s. Upton answered, pourin

al intercourse, monogamous, and he couldn't feel the bond between Mrs. Upton and a feudal country squire as a matter of much importance. But, on the other hand, Mrs. Upton had said "friend" with decision, and though the word, for her, could not mean what it meant to people like himself and Imogen-a grave, a beautiful bond of mutual help, mutual endeavor, mutual rejoicing in the wonder and splendor of life-even a trivial relationship was not a fit subject for playful patronage. It was with sharp disap

ring myself, I will ask

Mrs. Upton, and, makin

unfolded two stout sheet

ead

Jack fancied in the steadiness of the gaze th

" Mrs. Wake now observed. Her bonnet, as usual, on one side, and her

Jack that Mrs. Wake's dry aggressiveness did not blind her for a moment to Mrs. Wake's noble qualities. Mrs. Wake was a brave, a splendid person, and she had the greatest admiration for her; but, beneath

rld's work, dear Mrs. Wake," she now said. "Mary, we have tickets for Carnegie

ing, as it were, another pebble, "if one fil

ime to do that. One's place in life is a growing thing, It doesn't remain fixed and cha

idn't produce more men like him over here-simple, unselfconscious men

n smiled, sugaring h

"Because I see the good qu

ts defects with a

instinct what we have not yet

is that you merge the individual in the function. When function becomes instinctive it

ame our defect is that we have so li

est can any one

ccumulated interest of the deep background, the l

interest of

nt. The individual is sacrificed to the future, but the past is, in a sense,

Jack's over-lenient dealing with them. She picked up a review, turning th

he depth of our background, the length of our past, you would find, in Jack and Mary and me, for ins

ghtly awkward silence that followed Imogen's speech, with the decisiveness that had subtly animated her manner since Imogen's entrance. She remarked that the past, in that sense of hereditary tradition handed on by hereditary power, didn't exist at all in America; it was just that fact

to Mary; but that the calm was assumed she showed him presently when the

ons, that is so influenced by the European thing; you saw the little sop mama threw to her-she an aristocrat!-

said that he hadn't felt that; it seemed to him that she did see

future, acco

nt. Any little advantage that you or I may have in our half-dozen or so generations of respecta

here, and in the European sense, even if without the European power. But that's no matter. It's the pressing down on me of

ation on Mrs. Wake's account. You didn't mean it,

pportunity. Didn't you f

n its air of serious and

re a little tactless about her

g to the window and looking out silently for some moments, Imog

Jack asked,

ke it," Imo

you dislike it? What do

ow-"I've never told you. It seemed unfair to her. But again and again I've caught her whispers, hints, about the sentimental attachments mama inspires. You may imagine how I've felt, living here with him, in his loneliness. I don't say, I

ed he would, gazed now with frowning int

e sanctity of love, and of late I've wondered more. He writes to her constantly. What can the bond betw

t he, at all events, was blushing. "I can't bea

that I must lock everything, everything I have to suffer, into

se, dear. Only don'

hing but accepting t

ght to spy upon them; it's almost as if you had laid a trap for her and

I only want

, well, rather off

eat it lightly, humorously, as I did. She ought to be laughed out of tolerating such a

l with his deep flush, J

u take too much

iten. She fixed her eyes

ting, appropriate, that a widow of barely four months should encourage the infatuation of a stupid old Englishman, then I have no mo

that were the case, Imogen.

see if it isn't the

t, turned from him again and looking out into the evening, her answers were so vague and chill, that

se to call out to him, run after him, beg him not to go with a misunderstanding unresolved between them, for she was right and he was wrong. She had told him to wait and

old deserted home not a touch of penitence and the incense of absurd devotions. Friends of that sort, middle-aged, dull Englishmen, didn't, Imogen had wisely surmised, write to one every week. It wasn't as if they had uniting interests to bind them. Even a literary, a political, a philanthropic, correspondence Imogen would have felt as something of an affront to her father's memory, now, at this time; such links with the life that had

ng, and desolation filled her heart. On the table beside her stood a tall vase of lilies that he had sent her, and as she stood, thinking sad and bitter thoughts, she passed her

nothing, indeed,-it was, indeed, only to be expected,-that her mother should not recognize the spiritual fragrance; that Jack should be so insensible to it pierced her. And feeling herself alone in a blind and hostile world, she sobbed and sobbed, finding a sad relief in tears. She was able to think, while she wept, that though it was a relief she mustn't let it become a weakness; mustn't let herself

know that Imogen knew it. These were trivial matters, not to be recognized between them; and how completely indifferent they were to her her present grief would demonstrate. Such tears fell only for great sorrows. Holding the flowers to her cheek, she wept on, turning her face away. She knew that her mother had paused, startled, at a loss; and, gravely, without one word,

s shoulder, she could not feel that the physical contact in any way bridged the chasm between them. She felt, presently, from her mother's inarticulate murmurs of com

ed. "Have I seemed cross this afternoon? I wa

rance, like that from a bank of violets, seemed to breathe upon her, Imogen found it a little difficult to control the discomfort that the contact aroused in her. "Of course I

ave you cry and not kn

said Imogen, with a faint smile, lifting he

but it would help me

" Her mother held her, not speaking, though Imogen now felt that she, too, wept, and a greater bitterness rose in her at the thought that it was not for her dead father that the tears fell but in pure weak sympathy

e failed, in so much. But I want so to make up for things, if I can; to be ne

't you felt that?" Imogen drew herself away to look her grieved

the mother's fault if she can't make herself needed. Only you can't know how it all began, from so far back-that sense that you didn't need me. But I shirked; I know that I shirked. Things seemed too hard for me-I didn't know how to bear them.

o gather her thoughts into a keen, moral concentration upon her actual words. She was accustomed, in moments of moral stress, to a quick lifting of her heart and mind for help and insight toward the highest that she knew, and she felt herself pray now, "Help me to be true, to her, for her." The

as still too great to be thr

think that I expect any change in myself,-I am not asking for any place in your heart that is his, dear child; I know that that can't be, should not be. But peop

our life is confused, uncertain of any goal. If you are to be near me in the way you crave, you must change.

, dear child. You're my goal!" Va

st toy, mama darling. You have come over here to see if you can make me happy, just a

hard on m

ently about life. I think that our love for others is only sound and true when it helps them to power of service to some shared ideal. Your

looked away from her and around the room wi

er." She was sad; her ardor had dropped from her. She was not at all convicted

, "it is just the poetry, the reality of life, in all its stern glory,-because it is and must be stern if it is t

the ground she stood silent for some moments. Presently she said, not raising her eyes, "I have won no right, I

ion; her sad relapse into grave kindliness, a kindliness, too, not without its touch of severity, showed that she possessed, or t

hat I long for the time when any strength and insight I may have gained through my long fight, by his side, may be of use to you. Trust your o

derstanding would not have been so clear had it not been fed by all the springs of baffled tenderness that only so could find their uses. Giving her daughter's hands a final shake, as if over some compact, perhaps over that of growt

onishing commonplace. "You've only time. I've kept you so lon