The Diary of a Saint

e gone through with. It was not a comfortable time for any of us, I fancy; and I must own that George acted strangely. He was out of spirits, and was but barely civil to Tom. He has never l

fore Tom, and mad

said, "though why you should want to I can't conceive;

her dearly. He looked at me with an expressio

or her father's s

as they were, were le

erly. "I have been his friend fro

n his chai

o occasion to be offended because I h

what t

it is no use to argue with you; but I've made up my mind to be pl

, but I could not help it. I had certainly a right to be

at business it is of everybody's; and if

cowled, and got

he answered, "of course there

him an air plainly unfriendly. I do not understand why George should feel as he does about my adopting Thomasine, but in any case he has no right to behave as he did. I felt between the

desperation to speak brightly. "I've been over the papers, Tom, and I

strument read aloud, in order that I might realize what I was doing. I assured

emphatically. "There is not the sli

turally would not want any de

efore anything worse could be said, I hurried to ask Tom to ring for Rosa to act as a

th his brat," George muttered under his breath

y daughter," I answered him, with the

of his character before in all the years I have known him. For the moment he behaved like a cad, like nothing else than a cad

he wished to speak with me. Very likely he wished to apologize, but my nerves were not in tune

. "Tom of course will want to see the daughter he has given away. I

a mood truly angelic. George scowled at her as if the dear little thing had done him some wrong, and hurried away. I do not understand how he could resist

oman, indeed, while he could hardly be other than glad that Julia was not alive, he must have some feeling about her which goes very deep. I should think any man who was not wholly hard must have some tendernes

had been at prayer. Then Tom of his own accord kissed Tomine. He has never don

a minute, and looked into my eyes. "Make her as much like

. Before I could see clearly, he was gone. I hope he un

it seems almost as if I had really been unkind. I must do something to show him that I am the same as ever. Perhaps the best thing will be to have his wife to tea. M

on me in the wake of her usual telegram, determined to bear me away to Europe, despite, as she said, all the babies that ever were born. She had arranged my pas

ould go smoothly for you. I've done absolutely every earthly thing that I could think of, and now you won't go. Yo

my decision to stay at home long before she had made

t's nothing but that baby. I must say I think it's a pretty severe reflecti

but the tide of Cousin Mehitable'

ed. "Why don't you put up a sign? Twenty babies wouldn't be any worse than one, and you

doubt of the truth of her last statement; so then she

ve me up as incorrigible. Then she declared I should not triumph over her, and she would have me know t

n immoral; and so George and his wife found a more ceremonious repast than I had intended. I should have liked better to have things in their usual order, for I feared lest Mrs. Weston might not be entirely at her ease. I confess I had not supposed she mig

d I could see that Mrs. Weston was angered while she was apparently fascinated. George was taciturn, and I could not make t

had closed behind them, "of all the dowdy frumps I ever s

"but you behaved horribly. You fr

e shyness than a brass monkey. That's vulgar, of co

person. She is self-conscious, and somehow she does not seem to me to be very frank. Very li

"I'm sure I am not ashamed of it. To think of her saying that you evidently wanted to show Tuskam

for the comp

ose, with no sense at all. To think you once t

obably my face showed my feeling, fo

she cried. "All's well that ends well.

e required that I should pro

ry to humbug yourself. You're not a sentimental schoolgirl to moon after a man, especi

m," I asserted,

th her quick black eyes into mine so that I f

st for her pretty face? Can you fool yourself into thinking that you haven't had a lucky escape from a man that's in every way your in

ve borne to have her press her questions. I was suddenly conscious that George has changed or that my i

this morning, but her talk

cannot help knowing I fed his higher nature, and I helped him to grow, while his wife appeals to something lower, even if it is more natural and human. I felt that in some other possible existence he would see more clearly, and she would no longer satisfy him. Now I begin

should be disappointed in him. I should not have been disappointed if I had married him-I think! Yet now I see how he is under the influence of his wife-But no, it is not her influence only; I see him now, I fear, as he is when he is free to act his true self, unmoved by the desire to be what I would have had him. He was influenced by me. I knew it from the very first, and I see with shame how proud of it I was. Yet it gave me a chance to help him, to grow with him, to feel that we were together developing and advancing. Oh, dear, h

have tried him by my severe standards, and then judged him unworthy? I begin to think the Pharisees were modest and self-distrustful as compared to self-righteous me. It is terribly puzzling. If I were his wife I should surely feel that my highest duty was to help him, to bring out whatever is best in him. I think I should have been too absorbed

that it is for me to do still whatever I can for him. I confess that Cousin Mehitable is right. I am no longer

aying with Tomine, and hailed me as a mother in Israel. She

eak her, or forget she isn't a plant, and go to snipping her with my p

me to talk with me about Kathie. The poor child has been growing more and more morbid all summer, and I do not see wha

the woods,-"bushwhacking," as she calls it,-and found Kathie roaming abou

wild beasts and wild Indians, and all sorts of horrors. Then when I saw her, I didn't kno

peak to he

called to her. She'll end in a lunati

nly shake

sin and judgment, and things of that sort that I don't even believe in at all. What ca

ly, and regarded me with a l

t you have a fine wheedling way with you. Couldn't you

She is like a child out of an old memoir. She isn't of our time at all. We re

reat while. I think the girls of the memoirs were very much like the rest of us most of the time. They

her father," I s

ed. "He's such a

, and when she saw it Miss Charlotte c

tle black," she said, "but the Methodists do make such a busi

couldn't make some practical sugge

," she returned with a shrewd twinkle in her

y begun to doubt already, and needs to be helped to think fearlessly. She is a strange survival from another century. Our grandmothers used to agonize over sin, it is claimed, although I think Miss Charlotte is probably right when she says they were after all a good deal like us. At any rate they were brought up to dread eternal punishment, but it is astonishing to find anybody now who receives this as anything but a theory. Belief in the old creeds

ns, but she thought even a child ought, as she put it, instinctively falling into the conventional phraseology of the church,

ing. Evidently he thinks it foolish to waste time in this sort of s

ily to hint that he hoped I would not betray him. It was touching to see him, he was so much moved by the beauty and the daintiness of baby, and by all the thoughts he must have had about Tom. He said little, only that he sp

el in the same way toward him. Tom has always been a part of my life. We were boy and girl together long before I knew George. When the Westons moved here, I must have been ten or twelve years old; and I never knew George until Father took him into the office. It was the winter Father had first bee

mirable they were the more Tom would have insisted upon my knowing them. Dear old Tom! How many times he has told m

om's independence. Father used to declare that George would always be led by a woman, but would never own it to himself. I wonder

er father's honesty. If she have that, other things may be got over. Deacon Daniel spoke of

bly feels now that the moral welfare of baby is involved he must be especially act

er oddly interested in

uskamuck," he said. "Some folks thin

ion, and reminded him that baby made

o me rather blankly. "You mean, I presume

esponded. "Why, I

I did not credit the report. I suppose y

nswered; "

put him at his ease. But I should like to understand why eve

see her in her own house, for she seems to belong to the time of the antique furniture, so entirely is she in harmony with it. I get a fresh sense of virtue every time I look at her beautiful old laces. I wonder if the old masters ever painted angels in thread laces; if not it was

ed about baby, and we gossiped of her

bt about you at all except that I wondered whether you could really mother a baby. I knew you would

ed if she meant that she had tho

always makes me want to kiss her on the spot, "I shall n

moment as if questi

y the whole, "you have been for years making an intellectual inte

half understood, and I wished to hear more. She gr

n, and I am fond of you. May I say s

e impertinent. I could not think what was coming. She leaned forward, and pu

I'm so afraid you'll marry somebody out of charit

ed stupidly, not in the l

heeding my interrogation; "though it does seem to me, my dear, that you ar

o complete that she burst into a so

er now about the prodigal. I only wanted to suggest

I think, for the first time in my life. "Why,

I wanted to warn you so that he need not take you entirely by surprise. He i

w self-conscious he has seemed sometimes. I had not a word to say, even in protest, and old lady Andrews having, I suppose,

nly I should be intellectually starved if I had to live with him. He is not naturally a man of much power of thinking, I suppose, and he has never cultivated the habit. One cannot help seeing that whatever his original capabilities they have been spoiled by his profession. A minister, Father said to me once, must either be so spiritual that his creed has no power to restrain him, or a poor crippled thing, pathetic because the desire of rising has

ic, with what is perhaps a Western energy. She has been married only about fou

r ill at ease, I thought. "The house is big enough fo

aeton and pony for her. I hope that he is not going beyond his means. As for a larg

jealousy of baby. She refuses to stay in the house if I have Thomasine with me. This afternoon I had sent for her to come over and stay to tea. She came in about five, with a wild look

here roses grew wild and there were no rugs. Instead of answering me, o

brought down here this after

t that I expected them in soon, as

me in here?"

reply. "You will s

erved this astounding child, rising,

mean?" I cried out, comple

ith her again," Kathie responded

only sta

like me, but now it's all that baby. I'm much obliged to you for

t it was idle to try to do anything. It seemed to me it would be a pity to treat the matter too seriously, and I tried to act as if I thought she was merely joking. I laughingly told her that

table, but which in some indefinable way gave me for the first time in all my dealings wit

upted he

aid. "Don't talk nonsense. What time ha

s for a moment with Rosa and baby to see if everything was right, and when I went back to the parlor my guest had taken herself off. She had gone without her supper as she had said she should. I confess my first feeling was that she needed to be soundly shaken; but after all when a c

think of them with less inclination to laugh. If he could for a single minute know how fun

ed to talk about commonplace things, but could get practically no response. For half an hour by the clock we went stumbling on with intervals of silence when I could

I would mention to you that I came

, and that it was too late to stop him. I did make a desperate effort

f he were repeating a lesson, "that I ent

a laugh which was principally nerves, "you

of gallantry I should not have thought him capabl

be lacking in a sense of humor. I laughed aloud before I realiz

ly; "of course you wouldn't be mod

so like comic opera that in sp

y modesty, please. We'll take it for granted. Have you seen Aun

plosively, not in the least diverted by

blurt out his name lik

vidently relieved to have got the first plunge over with

g him uncomfortable; but this return to my modesty was too funny, and nearly sent me off int

ll as not to feel the honor you have done me, but such a thing

rnest, Miss Pri

m that I was

alities; our ages are suitable; and I think I am right in saying that we both find our highest sa

unity, "you forget that I am not a sharer in your beliefs. A clergyman

lergyman's wife should be a helpmeet in his religious work; but I hoped that for the

he spoke almost made me for the moment doubt myself. Unfortunately for him, a most wickedly absurd remembrance came into my mind of a sentimental story in an old red and gold annual that was grandmother's. A noble Christian chieftain has falled in love with a Moorish

that I should change my views or that I should marry you. We will, if you please, consi

ous to him than I had ever been in my life. He did not stay long. As he was going I said I was sure he would not let anything I had said wound him, for I had not m

appens not to be there still. I think the clasp of her soft little fingers on his would somehow take the ache out of his heart. Poor Tom! I wonder how far being sorry for a thing makes one better. Repentance is more than half discomfort, Mother used to say. I always told her that to me it seemed like a sort of moral indigestion which warned us not to eat any more of th

I do think a good deal about Tom, however, and wonder what the effect on his character will be. He is of a pretty stubborn fibre when once he has taken a determination; and now that he has made up his mind to fight down public opinion here he will do it. The question is what it will cost him. Sometim

a until she was on her deathbed; and that will have to do. Dear little soft baby! The idea of her being grown up is too preposter