A Modern Instance

effect upon the hard-packed levels of the street, up the middle of which Bartley walked in a silence intensified by the muffled voices of exhortation that

He professed himself a great admirer of its literature, and, in the heat of controversy, he often found himself a defender of its doctrines when he had occasion to expose the fallacy of latitudinarian interpretations. For liberal Christianity he had nothing but contempt, and refuted it with a scorn which spared none of the worldly tendencies of the church in Equity. The idea that souls were to be saved by church sociables filled him with inappeasable rancor; and he maintained the superiority of the old Puritanic discipline against them with a fervor which nothing bu

led the visible church in Equity. It amused him to see Bartley lending the church the zealous support of the press, with an impartial patronage of the different creeds. There had been times in his own career when the silence of his opinions would have greatly advanced him, but he had not chosen to pay this price for success; he liked his freedom, or he liked the bitter tang of his own tongue too well, and he had remained a leading lawyer in Equity, when he might have ended

matter of his unbelief, her love was powerless. It became easier at last for her to add self-sacrifice to self-sacrifice than to vex him with her anxieties about his soul, and to act upon the feeling that, if he must be lost, then she did not care to be saved. He had never interfered with her church-going; he had rather promoted it, for he liked to have women go; but the time came when she no longer cared to go without him; she lapsed from her membership, and it was now many years since she had worshipped with the people of her faith, if, indeed, she were still of any faith. Her life was silenced in every way, and, as often happens with aging wives in country towns,

he young man, who was looking at the street while waiting for some one to come, confronted her with

morning," replied her mo

ered Bartley, in the irresolution of his di

a shelf in the corner. Mrs. Gaylord said, "Won't you take a chair?" and herself sank into the rocker, with a deep feather cushion in the seat, and a thinner feather cushion tied half-way up the back. After the more active duties of her housekeeping were done, she sat every day in this chai

Bartley. "I'm all out of sorts. I haven't

r Sabbath observance, though it was so long since she had worn it to church. "Mr. Gaylord used to have it when we we

ght, and I guess they didn't agree with me very well," said Bartley, who did not spare himself the confession of

ughtfully. "Mr. Gaylord used to eat it right along all through his dyspepsia

, "but I feel perfectly used up. Oh, I suppose I shall get over it, or forget all about it

er with him on this point.

, when I first woke

of tea would be the best thing

at Equity as much as his demands for sympathy endeared him: he gave trouble in li

ce to explain it. "I 'most always keep the pot on the stove hearth, Sunday morning, so's to have it ready if Mr. Gaylord ever wants a cup. He's a master hand for tea, and always was. There: I guess you better take

making a fool of myself," he added, when he had drained the cup. "No, no!" he cried, at her offering to take it from him. "I'll set it down. I know it will fret you to have it in here, and I'll carr

ous to do anything there but sit, I tell her. Not but what she knows how well enough. Mr. Gaylord, too, he's great for being round in the kitchen. If he gets up in the night, when he has his waking spells, he had rather take his lamp out there, if there's a fire left, and rea

ound at the different churches, as the school

know what Marcia will say to my letting her company stay in the sitting-room.

them, and leave them to order the social affairs of the family. Mrs. Gaylord was not much afraid of Bartley for himself, but as Marcia's company he made her more and more uneasy toward the end of the quarter of an hour in which she tried to entertain him with her simple talk, varying from Mr. Gaylord to Marcia, and from Marcia to Mr. Gaylord again. When she recognized the girl's quick

drew her toward him by the hand she had given. She mechanically yielded; and then, as if the recollection of some new resol

he said, "wha

," she a

use him now: it disappointed him in his expectation of finding her femininely soft and comforting, and he did not know just what to do. He stood staring at her in di

aven't don

een talking to

aid a word to

so cold-so strange

fere

last night," he answere

ntly by daylight," she lightly

ut unresentfully. "I think I had better b

re is anything wrong," she r

right, of course. I have no reason to complain; but I must say that I can't help being surprised." He saw her lips quiver and her bosom heave. "Marcia, do you blame me for feeling hurt at your coldness when I came here to tell you-to tell you

herself in his way. "Do you think I don't care fo

ed for joy and shame, while he suffered her caresses with a certain bewilderment. "I want to tell you now-I want to explain," she said, lifting her face and letting him from her as far as her arms, caught around his neck, would reach, and fervidly searching his eyes, lest some ray of what he would think should escape her. "Don't speak a word first! Father saw us at the door last night,-he happened to be coming downstairs, because he couldn't sleep,-just when you

w boldly confronting him with all-defying fondness while she lightly pushed him and pulled him here and there in the vehemence of her appeal. Perhaps such a man, in those fastnesses of his nature which psychology has not yet explored, never loses, eve

He sunk into his chair again, and, putting his arms a

t before it seems as if we had always been engaged, and everything was as right th

d again. "I lik

uld let any one else, yo

e. "I shouldn't have liked

n his shoulder, and seemed to be struggling with herself.

in the world are not worth a hair of your head,

lock of yours," she said, as if they had hithert

nt all of yours

face. "How funny to have a mole in your eyebrow!"

re's a scar at the corner of your

ntly. "Well, you have got good eyes! Th

he even believed that she made some murmurs of excuse for her intrusion. Bartley was equally abashed, but Marcia rose with the coolness of her sex in the intimate emergencies which confound a man. "Oh, mother, it's you! I forgot about you. Come

blushing defencelessness as he did. A confused sense of the extraordinary nature and possible impropriety of the proceeding may have suggested he

?" she asked of either, or neither,

en't yet. We've only just found it out ourselves. I guess father can wai

a headache when he first came in," and she appealed to him for corroboration, while she vainly endeavore

w what he thinks of Bartley,-or Mr. Hubbard, as I presume you'll want me to call him! Now, mother, you just run up stairs, and put on your best cap, and leave me to set the table and get up the dinner. I guess I can get Bartle

for her to leave Marcia alone with Mr. Hubbard, far more so now than when he was merely company; she felt that, and she fumbled over the dressing she was sent about, and once she looked out of her chamber window at the office where Mr. Gaylord sat, and wondered what Mr. Gaylo

doubt, "you must help me to set the table. Put up that leaf and I'll put up this. I'm going to do more for mother than I used to,

nives and forks at right angles beside the plates. When it came to some heavier dishes, they agreed to carry them turn about;

a crash. "Poor mother!" she exclaimed. "I know she hear

f in her chamber, and quaked with an an

avered, down the stairs,

his mouth to stifle his laughter. "She'll hear you, Bartley, and think you're laughing at her." But she laughed herself at his struggles, and ended by taking him by the hand and pulling

ever saw you car

all girls act-if they get the chance. Don't you

!" he r

and I didn't suppose I should ever let myself go in this way. But there is something about this that lets me be as silly as I

subtleties which she had tried to express: it was more like a man. He had his arm a

his surprise at her frolic mood, "I don

ted; "but how

re for you because I know you know a great deal more than I do, and because I res

of the general expectation, though he probably could not see the relation of these cold abst

lding it a little way off, to secure attention as impersonal as might be under

me when you were trying to make me tell you the

e you compliment me; I'm not going to deny it. But I must say I got my come-uppanc

. W

ou told me that my influence ha

he added, carelessly, "it's every

to the dust with shame. And it seemed to me that you had just been laughing at me, and amusing yourself with me, and I was so furious I didn't know what to do. Do you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to run downstairs to father, and tell him what you had said, and ask him if he believed you had ever like

an I am at present, and I don't believe anybod

let her head, for fondness, fall upon his shoulder, whil

a while. "Who gave you

d," she murmured, in a lower voice, full of pride in the maiden love she could give him. "

and if she had not caught the lid off and stirred it down with her spoon, it would have been spoil

inner, except potatoes. But the coffee will make up, and I shall need a cup to keep m

when I got back to the hotel, and I couldn't find anything but a piece of mince-pie and some old cheese,

m, in pity and derision of him. "Poor Bartley!" she cried. "And you came up here for a litt

at first,

divine possibility in all, came out in her; the sweetness, kept back by the whole strength of her pride, overflowed that broken barrier now, and she seemed to lavish this revelation of herself upon him with a sort of

I was the first. I should have thought you'd

en a great flirt yourself," she answered, auda

been held in arrest, and impressions, ideas, feelings, fears, desires, released themselves simultaneously, and sought expression with a rush that defied coherence. "Oh, why do we

y, "I guess it must have be

ust have always cared for you, and that I only found it out when I saw you going

el

o myself, 'Why, of course he doesn't! How can he? He's been everywhere, and he's seen so many girls. He corresponds with lots of them. Altogether likely he's engaged to some of the young ladies he's met in Boston; and he just goes with me here for a blind.' And then when you would praise me, sometimes, I would just say, 'Oh, he's complimented plenty of girls. I know he's thinking this instant of the young lady he's engage

ay?" he

ou-did you put off telling me that you cared for me so long because you thought, you dreaded-Oh, I

and he seized her arms, pinioning them to her side, and holding her helpless, while he

d; "let me go,-let me go, this instant!

y made no eff