A Modern Instance

nd ran up to her room to put on her wraps for the drive. Her mother cleared away the dinner things; she pushed the table to the side of the room, and then sat down in her feather

ff his forehead as he tilted his chair back on its hind legs, a

ever so little under his own roof. While he was in more active business life, he had kept an office in the heart of the village, where he spent all his days, and a great part of every night; but after he had

ad now and then of a little glimpse of the world, but she never said so, and her social life had ceased, like her religious life. Their house was richly furnished according to the local taste of the time; the parlor had a Brussels carpet, and heavy chairs of mahogany and hair-cloth; Marci

, "I don't know as you can say but

e to the subject, but she let it take th

t too well, if anything." He rasped first one unshaven

gh," said Mrs. G

s smart enough, even if she wasn't, to see from the start that she was crazy to have

rly jump, every knock she'd hear at the door; and I know sometimes, when she was afraid he wa' n't coming, she used to

kes a fool of herself about a fellow, it's a matter of life and

een him with some the other girls. She used to look so! And then I'd hear her up in her room, cryin' and cryin'. I shouldn't cared so

er with his whole soul. "M-well!" he deeply sighed, "all that part's over, anyway," but he tingled in an anguish of sympathy with what she had suffered. "Yo

I se

er his cavernous eyes, and wo

herself, so 's t' not show out her f

They were both silent; after a while he added, throwing at the stove a minute fragment of the cane he had pulled off the seat

's single, but when he's got a wife to look after, he'd better get down to work. My business is in just such a shape now that I could hand it over to him in a lump; but come to wait a year or two longer, and this young man and that one 'll eat into it, and it won't be the same thing at all. I shall want Bartley to push right along, and get admitted at once. He can do it, fast enough. He's bright enough," added the old man, wi

self with one hand on her father's knee. There had been no formal congratulations upon her engagement from either of her parents; but this was not requisite, and would have been a little affected;

er that sorrel colt of

rtness. "I guess Bartley can manage the so

to him before," said the Squire. He gave Marci

ked up at the clock, and then turned and pulled her father's watch out

d having gone as far as he intended in this d

to rub her lips against his bristly cheek. "By, mother," she said, over her shoulder, and went out of the room. She let her muff hang as far down in front of her

en the Squire rose, and went to the wood-shed beyond the kitchen, whence he reappeared

in the parlor stove. I guess they won't want

turned from the parlor, she added, "I suppose some folks'd

e half as happy, do you? Why, old Jonathan Edwards himself used to allow 'all proper opportunity' fo

ow it on the Sabbath,"

t. You know that as well as I do." In saying this, Squire Gaylord gave way to his repressed emotion in an extravagance. He suddenly s

level, it was narrowed to a single track, with turn-outs at established points, where the drivers of the sleighs waited to be sure that the stretch beyond was clear before going forward. In the country, the winter which held the village in such close siege was an occupation under which Nature seemed to cower helpless, and men made a desperate and ineffectual struggle. The houses, banked up with snow almost to the sills of the windows that looked out, blind with frost, upon the lifeless world, were dw

self only when the swift current of a ripple broke through the white surface in long, irregular, grayish blurs. It was all wild and lonesome, but to the girl alone in it with her lover, the solitude was sweet, and she did not wish to speak even to him. His hands were both busy with the reins, but it was a

e of his rapture. "How do you like it, Marsh?" he asked, trying a

getting bac

ed forward at a wilder speed, flinging his hoofs out before him with the straight thrust of the h

ated. "That would d

upposed you would be so free to let a

hat I don't know how to let him know." She gave his arm to which she clung

int, too," said Bartley, "though I

rth expressing to which he could not give a monumental utterance. Her adoration flattered his self-

o be all you expect of me. And I hope I sha

eechless joy, but she said to herself th

over one of the naked stretches of the plain,-a white waste swept by the blasts that sucked down through a gorge of the mountain, and flattened the snow-drifts as the torna

f those sidings where a sleigh approaching from the other quarter must turn o

oming?" as

e woods yonder, they'd better wait till I get across.

met any one beyond the turn-out, I don't

like an edge of steel, and, catching the powdery snow that their horse's hoofs beat up, sent it spinning and swirling far along the glistening levels on their lee. They felt the thrill of the go as if they were in some light boat leaping over a swift current. Marcia disdained to cover her face,

king his horse as he could. "They don't seem to know how to manage-It's a couple

ckless snow at the roadside, in spite of Bartley's frantic efforts to arrest them. They sank deeper and deeper into t

"Still, Jerry! Don't be afraid, Marcia,"-he put th

lready gathered herself up, and stood crying and wringing her han

feet; he was old and experienced in obedience, and he now stood waiting orders, patiently enough. Bartley seized the cutter and by an effort

when it was lifted, and, plunging some paces away, faced round upon her rescuer with the hood pull

t of them, and flinging them back into the cutter, while she laughed in the wild tumult of her spirits. Bartley helped her pick up the fragments of the

tley, as he and the girl stood on opposite sid

urn out well enough. You

y one past the turn-out, you be

the woods to get past than t

s more

r young health, and laughed, and before she dropped her eyes, she included Marcia in her glance. Th

er, tumbled herself in. The girl, from her side, began to climb in, but h

in; the girl called to her horse,

as he took the reins from Marcia's passive hold, and let the colt out. "That girl is the pluckiest fool, yet! Wouldn't let me turn out because I had the right of way! And she wasn't going to let anybody else have a hand in getting that old ark of

h of the seat would permit. "It would have been better for you to lead their horse up i

; at last she ceased to resist, and her head fell passively to its former place on his shoulder. He did not try to speak any word of comfort; h

she looked him searchingly in the eyes. "I wonder

wered, with a jesti

For not even trying to pretend

your trying: I should kn

But I can't help it,-I can't help it! And if-if you think I'm always going to be so,-and that I'm going to keep on get

about, I should like to know? I thou

was so afraid of the colt I didn't know what to do; and I had been keeping up my courage on your account; and you seemed so long about it all; and she c

d it a bit. I knew what the trouble was, at the time; but I wasn't going to say anything. I knew you w

ou didn't have anything to do with her. I

ut making me unhappy. If anything, I rather liked it. It showed how much you did care for me." He bent toward her,