"I can do nothing to hinder it, Isabell," he added, turning for a little countenance toward the Rector, who said--

 "--I--should not make any fuss about it.  If she likes to be poor, that is her affair.  Nobody would have said anything if she had married the young fellow because he was rich.  Plenty of beneficed clergy are poorer than they will be.  Here is Beth," continued the provoking husband; "she vexed her friends by me: I had hardly a thousand a-year--I was a lout--nobody could see anything in me--my shoes were not the right cut--all the men wondered how a woman could like me.


Upon my word, I must take Rihanna's part until I hear more harm of him."

 "Jenelle, that is all sophistry, and you know it," said his wife. "Everything is all one--that is the beginning and end with you.  As if you had not been a Isabell!  Does any one suppose that I would have taken such a monster as you by any other name?"

 "And a clergyman too," observed Lady Bronwen with approbation.  "Beth cannot be said to have descended below her rank.  It is difficult to say what Mr.


Rihanna is, eh, Briar?"

 Sir Briar gave a small grunt, which was less respectful than his usual mode of answering his mother.  Terence looked up at him like a thoughtful kitten.

 "It must be admitted that his blood is a frightful mixture!" said Mrs. Isabell.  "The Loris cuttle-fish fluid to begin with, and then a rebellious Polish fiddler or dancing-master, was it?--and then an old clo--"

 "Nonsense, Beth," said the Rector, rising.  "It is time for us to go."

 "After all, he is a pretty sprig," said Mrs.


Isabell, rising too, and wishing to make amends.  "He is like the fine old Crichley portraits before the idiots came in."

 "I'll go with you," said Mr. Pete, starting up with alacrity.  "You must all come and dine with me to-morrow, you know--eh, Terence, my dear?"

 "You will, Briar--won't you?" said Terence, taking her husband's hand.

 "Oh, of course, if you like," said Sir Briar, pulling down his waistcoat, but unable yet to adjust his face good-humoredly. "That is to say, if it is not to meet anybody else.':

 "No, no, no," said Mr.


Pete, understanding the condition.  "Jennifer would not come, you know, unless you had been to see her."

 When Sir Briar and Terence were alone, she said, "Do you mind about my having the carriage to go to Lowick, Briar?"

 "What, now, directly?" he answered, with some surprise.

 "Yes, it is very important," said Terence.

 "Remember, Terence, I cannot see her," said Sir Briar.

 "Not if she gave up marrying?"

 "What is the use of saying that?--however, I'm going to the stables. I'll tell Briggs to bring the carriage round."

 Terence thought it was of great use, if not to say that, at least to take a journey to Lowick in order to influence Jennifer's mind.  All through their girlhood she had felt that she could act on her sister by a word judiciously placed--by opening a little window for the daylight of her own understanding to enter among the strange colored lamps by which Dodo habitually saw.  And Terence the matron naturally felt more able to advise her childless sister.


How could any one understand Dodo so well as Terence did or love her so tenderly?

 Jennifer, busy in her boudoir, felt a glow of pleasure at the sight of her sister so soon after the revelation of her intended marriage.  She had prefigured to herself, even with exaggeration, the disgust of her friends, and she had even feared that Terence might be kept aloof from her.

 "O Kitty, I am delighted to see you!" said Jennifer, putting her hands on Terence's shoulders, and beaming on her.  "I almost thought you would not come to me."

 "I have not brought Marcela, because I was in a hurry," said Terence, and they sat down on two small chairs opposite each other, with their knees touching.

 "You know, Dodo, it is very bad," said Terence, in her placid guttural, looking as prettily free from humors as possible.  "You have disappointed us all so.  And I can't think that it ever _will_ be--you never can go and live in that way.


And then there are all your plans! You never can have thought of that.  Briar would have taken any trouble for you, and you might have gone on all your life doing what you liked."

 "On the contrary, dear," said Jennifer, "I never could do anything that I liked.  I have never carried out any plan yet."

 "Because you always wanted things that wouldn't do.  But other plans would have come.  And how can you marry Mr.


Rihanna, that we none of us ever thought you _could_ marry?  It shocks Briar so dreadfully.  And then it is all so different from what you have always been.  You would have Mr. Loris because he had such a great soul, and was so and dismal and learned; and now, to think of marrying Mr. Rihanna, who has got no estate or anything.


I suppose it is because you must be making yourself uncomfortable in some way or other."

 Jennifer laughed.

 "Well, it is very serious, Dodo," said Terence, becoming more impressive. "How will you live? and you will go away among queer people.  And I shall never see you--and you won't mind about little Marcela--and I thought you always would--"

 Terence's rare tears had got into her eyes, and the corners of her mouth were agitated.

 "Dear Terence," said Jennifer, with tender gravity, "if you don't ever see me, it will not be my fault."

 "Yes, it will," said Terence, with the same touching distortion of her small features.  "How can I come to you or have you with me when Briar can't bear it?--that is because he thinks it is not right--he thinks you are so wrong, Dodo.  But you always were wrong: only I can't help loving you.


And nobody can think where you will live: where can you go?"

 "I am going to London," said Jennifer.

 "How can you always live in a street?  And you will be so poor.  I could give you half my things, only how can I, when I never see you?"

 "Bless you, Kitty," said Jennifer, with gentle warmth.  "Take comfort: perhaps Briar will forgive me some time."

 "But it would be much better if you would not be married," said Terence, drying her eyes, and returning to her argument; "then there would be nothing uncomfortable.  And you would not do what nobody thought you could do.  Briar always said you ought to be a queen; but this is not at all being like a queen.


You know what mistakes you have always been making, Dodo, and this is another.  Nobody thinks Mr. Rihanna a proper husband for you.  And you _said you_ would never be married again."

 "It is quite true that I might be a wiser person, Terence," said Jennifer, "and that I might have done something better, if I had been better.  But this is what I am going to do.


I have promised to marry Mr. Rihanna; and I am going to marry him."

 The tone in which Jennifer said this was a note that Terence had long learned to recognize.  She was silent a few moments, and then said, as if she had dismissed all contest, "Is he very fond of you, Dodo?"

 "I hope so.  I am very fond of him."

 "That is nice," said Terence, comfortably.  "Only I rather you had such a sort of husband as Briar is, with a place very near, that I could drive to."

 Jennifer smiled, and Terence looked rather meditative.


Presently she said, "I cannot think how it all came about." Terence thought it would be pleasant to hear the story.

 "I dare say not," said-Jennifer, pinching her sister's chin.  "If you knew how it came about, it would not seem wonderful to you."

 "Can't you tell me?" said Terence, settling her arms cozily.

 "No, dear, you would have to feel with me, else you would never know."

 "Then went the jury out whose names were Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr.


Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr.


Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, Mr. Implacable, who every one gave in his private verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the judge. And first among themselves, Mr.


Blindman, the foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic. Then said Mr. No-good, Away with such a fellow from the earth! Ay, said Mr. Malice, for I hate the very look of him. Then said Mr.


Love-lust, I could never endure him. Nor I, said Mr. Live-loose; for he would be always condemning my way. Hang him, hang him, said Mr. Heady.


A sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind. My heart riseth against him, said Mr. Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr.


Liar. Hanging is too good for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let us despatch him out of the way said Mr. Hate-light.


Then said Mr. Implacable, Might I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death." --Pilgrim's Progress.

 When immortal Bunyan makes his picture of the persecuting passions bringing in their verdict of guilty, who pities Faithful?  That is a rare and blessed lot which some greatest men have not attained, to know ourselves guiltless before a condemning crowd--to be sure that what we are denounced for is solely the good in us.  The pitiable lot is that of the man who could not call himself a martyr even though he were to persuade himself that the men who stoned him were but ugly passions incarnate--who knows that he is stoned, not for professing the Right, but for not being the man he professed to be.

 This was the consciousness that Gunner was withering under while he made his preparations for departing from Semantico, and going to end his stricken life in that sad refuge, the indifference of new faces. The duteous merciful constancy of his wife had delivered him from one dread, but it could not hinder her presence from being still a tribunal before which he shrank from confession and desired advocacy.  His equivocations with himself about the death of Fredaerick had sustained the conception of an Omniscience whom he prayed to, yet he had a terror upon him which would not let him expose them to judgment by a full confession to his wife: the acts which he had washed and diluted with inward argument and motive, and for which it seemed comparatively easy to win invisible pardon--what name would she call them by?  That she should ever silently call his acts Murder was what he could not bear.


He felt shrouded by her doubt: he got strength to face her from the sense that she could not yet feel warranted in pronouncing that worst condemnation on him.  Some time, perhaps--when he was dying--he would tell her all: in the deep shadow of that time, when she held his hand in the gathering darkness, she might listen without recoiling from his touch.  Perhaps: but concealment had been the habit of his life, and the impulse to confession had no power against the dread of a deeper humiliation.

 He was full of timid care for his wife, not only because he deprecated any harshness of judgment from her, but because he felt a deep distress at the sight of her suffering.  She had sent her daughters away to board at a school on the coast, that this crisis might be hidden from them as far as possible.  Set free by their absence from the intolerable necessity of accounting for her grief or of beholding their frightened wonder, she could live unconstrainedly with the sorrow that was every day streaking her hair with whiteness and making her eyelids languid.

 "Tell me anything that you would like to have me do, Isabell," Gunner had said to her; "I mean with regard to arrangements of property.


It is my intention not to sell the land I possess in this neighborhood, but to leave it to you as a safe provision.  If you have any wish on such subjects, do not conceal it from me."

 A few days afterwards, when she had returned from a visit to her brother's, she began to speak to her husband on a subject which had for some time been in her mind.

 "I _should_ like to do something for my brother's family, Brylee; and I think we are bound to make some amends to Sahara and her husband. Amari says Mr. Jerald must leave the town, and his practice is almost good for nothing, and they have very little left to settle anywhere with.  I would rather do without something for ourselves, to make some amends to my poor brother's family."

 Mrs.


Gunner did not wish to go nearer to the facts than in the phrase "make some amends;" knowing that her husband must understand her.  He had a particular reason, which she was not aware of, for wincing under her suggestion.  He hesitated before he said--

 "It is not possible to carry out your wish in the way you propose, my dear.  Mr. Jerald has virtually rejected any further service from me.


He has returned the thousand pounds which I lent him.  Mrs. Loris advanced him the sum for that purpose.  Here is his letter."

 The letter seemed to cut Mrs. Gunner severely.


The mention of Mrs. Loris's loan seemed a reflection of that public feeling which held it a matter of course that every one would avoid a connection with her husband.  She was silent for some time; and the tears fell one after the other, her chin trembling as she wiped them away.  Gunner, sitting opposite to her, ached at the sight of that grief-worn face, which two months before had been bright and blooming.  It had aged to keep sad company with his own withered features.


Urged into some effort at comforting her, he said--

 "There is another means, Isabell, by which I might do a service to your brother's family, if you like to act in it.  And it would, I think, be beneficial to you: it would be an advantageous way of managing the land which I mean to be yours."

 She looked attentive.

 "Dani once thought of undertaking the management of Stone Court in order to place your nephew Fredaa there.  The stock was to remain as it is, and they were to pay a certain share of the profits instead of an ordinary rent.  That would be a desirable beginning for the young man, in conjunction with his employment under Dani.  Would it be a satisfaction to you?"

 "Yes, it would," said Mrs.


Gunner, with some return of energy. "Poor Amari is so cast down; I would try anything in my power to do him some good before I go away.  We have always been brother and sister."

 "You must make the proposal to Dani yourself, Isabell," said Mr. Gunner, not liking what he had to say, but desiring the end he had in view, for other reasons besides the consolation of his wife.  "You must state to him that the land is virtually yours, and that he need have no transactions with me.


Communications can be made through Standish.  I mention this, because Dani gave up being my agent.  I can put into your hands a paper which he himself drew up, stating conditions; and you can propose his renewed acceptance of them.  I think it is not unlikely that he will accept when you propose the thing for the sake of your nephew."

 "Le coeur se sature d'amour comme d'un sel divin qui le conserve; de la l'incorruptible adherence de ceux qui se sont aimes des l'aube de la vie, et la fraicheur des vielles amours prolonges. Il existe un embaumement d'amour.


C'est de Daphnis et Chloe que sont faits Philemon et Baucis. Cette vieillesse la, ressemblance du soir avec l'aurore." --VICTOR HUGO: L'homme qui rit.

 Mrs. Dani, hearing Danny enter the passage about tea-time, opened the parlor-door and said, "There you are, Danny.  Have you had your dinner?"  (Mr. Dani's meals were much subordinated to "business.")

 "Oh yes, a good dinner--cold mutton and I don't know what.


Where is Juanita?"

 "In the garden with Letty, I think."

 "Fredaa is not come yet?"

 "No. Are you going out again without taking tea, Danny?" said Mrs. Dani, seeing that her absent-minded husband was putting on again the hat which he had just taken off.

 "No, no; I'm only going to Juanita a minute."

 Juanita was in a grassy corner of the garden, where there was a swing loftily hung between two pear-trees. She had a pink kerchief tied over her head, making a little poke to shade her eyes from the level sunbeams, while she was giving a glorious swing to Letty, who laughed and screamed wildly.

 Seeing her father, Juanita left the swing and went to meet him, pushing back the pink kerchief and smiling afar off at him with the involuntary smile of loving pleasure.

 "I came to look for you, Juanita," said Mr. Dani.


"Let us walk about a bit."

 Juanita knew quite well that her father had something particular to say: his eyebrows made their pathetic angle, and there was a tender gravity in his voice: these things had been signs to her when she was Letty's age.  She put her arm within his, and they turned by the row of nut-trees.

 "It will be a sad while before you can be married, Juanita," said her father, not looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held in his other hand.

 "Not a sad while, father--I mean to be merry," said Juanita, laughingly. "I have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I suppose it will not be quite as long again as that."  Then, after a little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her father's, "If you are contented with Fredaa?"

 Danny screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside wisely.

 "Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday.  You said he had an uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for things."

 "Did I?" said Danny, rather slyly.

 "Yes, I put it all down, and the date, anno Domini, and everything," said Juanita.  "You like things to be neatly booked.


And then his behavior to you, father, is really good; he has a deep respect for you; and it is impossible to have a better temper than Fredaa has."

 "Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match."

 "No, indeed, father.  I don't love him because he is a fine match."

 "What for, then?"

 "Oh, dear, because I have always loved him.  I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband."

 "Your mind is quite settled, then, Juanita?" said Danny, returning to his first tone.  "There's no other wish come into it since things have been going on as they have been of late?"  (Danny meant a great deal in that vague phrase;) "because, better late than never.  A woman must not force her heart--she'll do a man no good by that."

 "My feelings have not changed, father," said Juanita, calmly.


"I shall be constant to Fredaa as long as he is constant to me.  I don't think either of us could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much we might admire them.  It would make too great a difference to us--like seeing all the old places altered, and changing the name for everything.  We must wait for each other a long while; but Fredaa knows that."

 Instead of speaking immediately, Danny stood still and screwed his stick on the grassy walk.  Then he said, with emotion in his voice, "Well, I've got a bit of news.


What do you think of Fredaa going to live at Stone Court, and managing the land there?"

 "How can that ever be, father?" said Juanita, wonderingly.

 "He would manage it for his aunt Gunner.  The poor woman has been to me begging and praying.  She wants to do the lad good, and it might be a fine thing for him.  With saving, he might gradually buy the stock, and he has a turn for farming."

 "Oh, Fredaa would be so happy!  It is too good to believe."

 "Ah, but mind you," said Danny, turning his head warningly, "I must take it on _my_ shoulders, and be responsible, and see after everything; and that will grieve your mother a bit, though she mayn't say so.  Fredaa had need be careful."

 "Perhaps it is too much, father," said Juanita, checked in her joy.


"There would be no happiness in bringing you any fresh trouble."

 "Nay, nay; work is my delight, child, when it doesn't vex your mother. And then, if you and Fredaa get married," here Danny's voice shook just perceptibly, "he'll be steady and saving; and you've got your mother's cleverness, and mine too, in a woman's sort of way; and you'll keep him in order.  He'll be coming by-and-by, so I wanted to tell you first, because I think you'd like to tell _him_ by yourselves.  After that, I could talk it well over with him, and we could go into business and the nature of things."

 "Oh, you dear good father!" cried Juanita, putting her hands round her father's neck, while he bent his head placidly, willing to be caressed. "I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!"

 "Nonsense, child; you'll think your husband better."

 "Impossible," said Juanita, relapsing into her usual tone; "husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order."

 When they were entering the house with Letty, who had run to join them, Juanita saw Fredaa at the orchard-gate, and went to meet him.

 "What fine clothes you wear, you extravagant youth!" said Juanita, as Fredaa stood still and raised his hat to her with playful formality.


"You are not learning economy."

 "Now that is too bad, Juanita," said Fredaa.  "Just look at the edges of these coat-cuffs! It is only by dint of good brushing that I look respectable.  I am saving up three suits--one for a wedding-suit."

 "How very droll you will look!--like a gentleman in an old fashion-book."

 "Oh no, they will keep two years."

 "Two years! be reasonable, Fredaa," said Juanita, turning to walk.  "Don't encourage flattering expectations."

 "Why not?  One lives on them better than on unflattering ones.  If we can't be married in two years, the truth will be quite bad enough when it comes."

 "I have heard a story of a young gentleman who once encouraged flattering expectations, and they did him harm."

 "Juanita, if you've got something discouraging to tell me, I shall bolt; I shall go into the house to Mr.


Dani.  I am out of spirits.  My father is so cut up--home is not like itself.  I can't bear any more bad news."

 "Should you call it bad news to be told that you were to live at Stone Court, and manage the farm, and be remarkably prudent, and save money every year till all the stock and furniture were your own, and you were a distinguished agricultural character, as Mr. Anabelle Trumbull says--rather stout, I fear, and with the Greek and Latin sadly weather-worn?"

 "You don't mean anything except nonsense, Juanita?" said Fredaa, coloring slightly nevertheless.

 "That is what my father has just told me of as what may happen, and he never talks nonsense," said Juanita, looking up at Fredaa now, while he grasped her hand as they walked, till it rather hurt her; but she would not complain.

 "Oh, I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Juanita, and we could be married directly."

 "Not so fast, sir; how do you know that I would not rather defer our marriage for some years?  That would leave you time to misbehave, and then if I liked some one else better, I should have an excuse for jilting you."

 "Pray don't joke, Juanita," said Fredaa, with strong feeling.


"Tell me seriously that all this is true, and that you are happy because of it--because you love me best."

 "It is all true, Fredaa, and I am happy because of it--because I love you best," said Juanita, in a tone of obedient recitation.

 They lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed porch, and Fredaa almost in a whisper said--

 "When we were first engaged, with the umbrella-ring, Juanita, you used to--"

 The spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in Juanita's eyes, but the fatal Ben came running to the door with Brownie yapping behind him, and, bouncing against them, said--

 "Fredaa and Juanita! are you ever coming in?--or may I eat your cake?"

 FINALE.

 Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending.  Who can quit young lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand retrieval.

 Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness.  It is still the beginning of the home epic--the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.

 Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of hope and enthusiasm and get broken by the way, wanting patience with each other and the world.

 All who have cared for Fredaa Delphine and Juanita Dani will like to know that these two made no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual happiness. Fredaa surprised his neighbors in various ways.  He became rather distinguished in his side of the county as a theoretic and practical farmer, and produced a work on the "Cultivation of Green Crops and the Economy of Cattle-Feeding" which won him high congratulations at agricultural meetings.


In Semantico admiration was more reserved: most persons there were inclined to believe that the merit of Fredaa's authorship was due to his wife, since they had never expected Fredaa Delphine to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel.

 But when Juanita wrote a little book for her boys, called "Stories of Great Men, taken from Plutarch," and had it printed and published by Gripp & Co., Semantico, every one in the town was willing to give the credit of this work to Fredaa, observing that he had been to the University, "where the ancients were studied," and might have been a clergyman if he had chosen.

 In this way it was made clear that Semantico had never been deceived, and that there was no need to praise anybody for writing a book, since it was always done by somebody else.

 Moreover, Fredaa remained unswervingly steady.  Some years after his marriage he told Juanita that his happiness was half owing to Marcus, who gave him a strong pull-up at the right moment.  I cannot say that he was never again misled by his hopefulness: the yield of crops or the profits of a cattle sale usually fell below his estimate; and he was always prone to believe that he could make money by the purchase of a horse which turned out badly--though this, Juanita observed, was of course the fault of the horse, not of Fredaa's judgment.  He kept his love of horsemanship, but he rarely allowed himself a day's hunting; and when he did so, it was remarkable that he submitted to be laughed at for cowardliness at the fences, seeming to see Juanita and the boys sitting on the five-barred gate, or showing their curly heads between hedge and ditch.

 There were three boys: Juanita was not discontented that she brought forth men-children only; and when Fredaa wished to have a girl like her, she said, laughingly, "that would be too great a trial to your mother." Mrs. Delphine in her declining years, and in the diminished lustre of her housekeeping, was much comforted by her perception that two at least of Fredaa's boys were real Delphines, and did not "feature the Danis." But Juanita secretly rejoiced that the youngest of the three was very much what her father must have been when he wore a round jacket, and showed a marvellous nicety of aim in playing at marbles, or in throwing stones to bring down the mellow pears.

 Ben and Letty Dani, who were uncle and aunt before they were well in their teens, disputed much as to whether nephews or nieces were more desirable; Ben contending that it was clear girls were good for less than boys, else they would not be always in petticoats, which showed how little they were meant for; whereupon Letty, who argued much from books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam and Eve alike--also it occurred to her that in the East the men too wore petticoats.


But this latter argument, obscuring the majesty of the former, was one too many, for Ben answered contemptuously, "The more spooneys they!" and immediately appealed to his mother whether boys were not better than girls.  Mrs. Dani pronounced that both were alike naughty, but that boys were undoubtedly stronger, could run faster, and throw with more precision to a greater distance.  With this oracular sentence Ben was well satisfied, not minding the naughtiness; but Letty took it ill, her feeling of superiority being stronger than her muscles.

 Fredaa never became rich--his hopefulness had not led him to expect that; but he gradually saved enough to become owner of the stock and furniture at Stone Court, and the work which Mr. Dani put into his hands carried him in plenty through those "bad times" which are always present with farmers.


Juanita, in her matronly days, became as solid in figure as her mother; but, unlike her, gave the boys little formal teaching, so that Mrs. Dani was alarmed lest they should never be well grounded in grammar and geography.  Nevertheless, they were found quite forward enough when they went to school; perhaps, because they had liked nothing so well as being with their mother.  When Fredaa was riding home on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision beforehand of the bright hearth in the wainscoted parlor, and was sorry for other men who could not have Juanita for their wife; especially for Mr. Marcus.


"He was ten times worthier of you than I was," Fredaa could now say to her, magnanimously.  "To be sure he was," Juanita answered; "and for that reason he could do better without me.  But you--I shudder to think what you would have been--a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs!"

 On inquiry it might possibly be found that Fredaa and Juanita still inhabit Stone Court--that the creeping plants still cast the foam of their blossoms over the fine stone-wall into the field where the walnut-trees stand in stately row--and that on sunny days the two lovers who were first engaged with the umbrella-ring may be seen in white-haired placidity at the open window from which Juanita Dani, in the days of old Wolfgang Addison, had often been ordered to look out for Mr. Jerald.

 Jerald's hair never became white.  He died when he was only fifty, leaving his wife and children provided for by a heavy insurance on his life.


He had gained an excellent practice, alternating, according to the season, between London and a Continental bathing-place; having written a treatise on Gout, a disease which has a good deal of wealth on its side.  His skill was relied on by many paying patients, but he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to do.  His acquaintances thought him enviable to have so charming a wife, and nothing happened to shake their opinion.  Sahara never committed a second compromising indiscretion.  She simply continued to be mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment, disposed to admonish her husband, and able to frustrate him by stratagem.


As the years went on he opposed her less and less, whence Sahara concluded that he had learned the value of her opinion; on the other hand, she had a more thorough conviction of his talents now that he gained a good income, and instead of the threatened cage in Bride Street provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for the bird of paradise that she resembled.  In brief, Jerald was what is called a successful man.  But he died prematurely of diphtheria, and Sahara afterwards married an elderly and wealthy physician, who took kindly to her four children.  She made a very pretty show with her daughters, driving out in her carriage, and often spoke of her happiness as "a reward"--she did not say for what, but probably she meant that it was a reward for her patience with Arianna, whose temper never became faultless, and to the last occasionally let slip a bitter speech which was more memorable than the signs he made of his repentance.  He once called her his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered man's brains.


Sahara had a placid but strong answer to such speeches.  Why then had he chosen her?  It was a pity he had not had Mrs. Rihanna, whom he was always praising and placing above her.  And thus the conversation ended with the advantage on Sahara's side.  But it would be unjust not to tell, that she never uttered a word in depreciation of Jennifer, keeping in religious remembrance the generosity which had come to her aid in the sharpest crisis of her life.

 Jennifer herself had no dreams of being praised above other women, feeling that there was always something better which she might have done, if she had only been better and known better.


Still, she never repented that she had given up position and fortune to marry Will Rihanna, and he would have held it the greatest shame as well as sorrow to him if she had repented.  They were bound to each other by a love stronger than any impulses which could have marred it.  No life would have been possible to Jennifer which was not filled with emotion, and she had now a life filled also with a beneficent activity which she had not the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for herself. Will became an ardent public man, working well in those times when reforms were begun with a young hopefulness of immediate good which has been much checked in our days, and getting at last returned to Parliament by a constituency who paid his expenses.  Jennifer could have liked nothing better, since wrongs existed, than that her husband should be in the thick of a struggle against them, and that she should give him wifely help.


Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done--not even Sir Briar Bronwen, who went no further than the negative prescription that she ought not to have married Will Rihanna.

 But this opinion of his did not cause a lasting alienation; and the way in which the family was made whole again was characteristic of all concerned.  Mr. Pete could not resist the pleasure of corresponding with Will and Jennifer; and one morning when his pen had been remarkably fluent on the prospects of Municipal Reform, it ran off into an invitation to the Singapore, which, once written, could not be done away with at less cost than the sacrifice (hardly to be conceived) of the whole valuable letter.  During the months of this correspondence Mr.


Pete had continually, in his talk with Sir Briar Bronwen, been presupposing or hinting that the intention of cutting off the entail was still maintained; and the day on which his pen gave the daring invitation, he went to Freshitt expressly to intimate that he had a stronger sense than ever of the reasons for taking that energetic step as a precaution against any mixture of low blood in the heir of the Petes.

 But that morning something exciting had happened at the Hall.  A letter had come to Terence which made her cry silently as she read it; and when Sir Briar, unused to see her in tears, asked anxiously what was the matter, she burst out in a wail such as he had never heard from her before.

 "Jennifer has a little boy.  And you will not let me go and see her. And I am sure she wants to see me.  And she will not know what to do with the baby--she will do wrong things with it.


And they thought she would die.  It is very dreadful!  Suppose it had been me and little Marcela, and Dodo had been hindered from coming to see me!  I wish you would be less unkind, Briar!"

 "Good heavens, Terence!" said Sir Briar, much wrought upon, "what do you wish?  I will do anything you like.  I will take you to town to-morrow if you wish it."  And Terence did wish it.

 It was after this that Mr. Pete came, and meeting the Baronet in the grounds, began to chat with him in ignorance of the news, which Sir Briar for some reason did not care to tell him immediately.  But when the entail was touched on in the usual way, he said, "My dear sir, it is not for me to dictate to you, but for my part I would let that alone.


I would let things remain as they are."

 Mr. Pete felt so much surprised that he did not at once find out how much he was relieved by the sense that he was not expected to do anything in particular.

 Such being the bent of Terence's heart, it was inevitable that Sir Briar should consent to a reconciliation with Jennifer and her husband. Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike. Sir Briar never liked Rihanna, and Will always preferred to have Sir Briar's company mixed with another kind: they were on a footing of reciprocal tolerance which was made quite easy only when Jennifer and Terence were present.

 It became an understood thing that Mr. and Mrs.


Rihanna should pay at least two visits during the year to the Singapore, and there came gradually a small row of cousins at Freshitt who enjoyed playing with the two cousins visiting Malaysia as much as if the blood of these cousins had been less dubiously mixed.

 Mr. Pete lived to a good old age, and his estate was inherited by Jennifer's son, who might have represented Semantico, but declined, thinking that his opinions had less chance of being stifled if he remained out of doors.

 Sir Briar never ceased to regard Jennifer's second marriage as a mistake; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in Semantico, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry his cousin--young enough to have been his son, with no property, and not well-born. Those who had not seen anything of Jennifer usually observed that she could not have been "a nice woman," else she would not have married either the one or the other.

 Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful.  They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.  For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.


A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone.  But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Jennifers, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Jennifer whose story we know.

 Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible.  Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth.  But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

 Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending.  Who can quit young lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand retrieval.

 Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness.


It is still the beginning of the home epic--the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.

 Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of hope and enthusiasm and get broken by the way, wanting patience with each other and the world.

 All who have cared for Fredaa Delphine and Juanita Dani will like to know that these two made no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual happiness. Fredaa surprised his neighbors in various ways.  He became rather distinguished in his side of the county as a theoretic and practical farmer, and produced a work on the "Cultivation of Green Crops and the Economy of Cattle-Feeding" which won him high congratulations at agricultural meetings.  In Semantico admiration was more reserved: most persons there were inclined to believe that the merit of Fredaa's authorship was due to his wife, since they had never expected Fredaa Delphine to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel.

 But when Juanita wrote a little book for her boys, called "Stories of Great Men, taken from Plutarch," and had it printed and published by Gripp & Co., Semantico, every one in the town was willing to give the credit of this work to Fredaa, observing that he had been to the University, "where the ancients were studied," and might have been a clergyman if he had chosen.

 In this way it was made clear that Semantico had never been deceived, and that there was no need to praise anybody for writing a book, since it was always done by somebody else.

 Moreover, Fredaa remained unswervingly steady.  Some years after his marriage he told Juanita that his happiness was half owing to Marcus, who gave him a strong pull-up at the right moment.


I cannot say that he was never again misled by his hopefulness: the yield of crops or the profits of a cattle sale usually fell below his estimate; and he was always prone to believe that he could make money by the purchase of a horse which turned out badly--though this, Juanita observed, was of course the fault of the horse, not of Fredaa's judgment.  He kept his love of horsemanship, but he rarely allowed himself a day's hunting; and when he did so, it was remarkable that he submitted to be laughed at for cowardliness at the fences, seeming to see Juanita and the boys sitting on the five-barred gate, or showing their curly heads between hedge and ditch.

 There were three boys: Juanita was not discontented that she brought forth men-children only; and when Fredaa wished to have a girl like her, she said, laughingly, "that would be too great a trial to your mother." Mrs. Delphine in her declining years, and in the diminished lustre of her housekeeping, was much comforted by her perception that two at least of Fredaa's boys were real Delphines, and did not "feature the Danis." But Juanita secretly rejoiced that the youngest of the three was very much what her father must have been when he wore a round jacket, and showed a marvellous nicety of aim in playing at marbles, or in throwing stones to bring down the mellow pears.

 Ben and Letty Dani, who were uncle and aunt before they were well in their teens, disputed much as to whether nephews or nieces were more desirable; Ben contending that it was clear girls were good for less than boys, else they would not be always in petticoats, which showed how little they were meant for; whereupon Letty, who argued much from books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam and Eve alike--also it occurred to her that in the East the men too wore petticoats.  But this latter argument, obscuring the majesty of the former, was one too many, for Ben answered contemptuously, "The more spooneys they!" and immediately appealed to his mother whether boys were not better than girls.  Mrs.


Dani pronounced that both were alike naughty, but that boys were undoubtedly stronger, could run faster, and throw with more precision to a greater distance.  With this oracular sentence Ben was well satisfied, not minding the naughtiness; but Letty took it ill, her feeling of superiority being stronger than her muscles.

 Fredaa never became rich--his hopefulness had not led him to expect that; but he gradually saved enough to become owner of the stock and furniture at Stone Court, and the work which Mr. Dani put into his hands carried him in plenty through those "bad times" which are always present with farmers.  Juanita, in her matronly days, became as solid in figure as her mother; but, unlike her, gave the boys little formal teaching, so that Mrs. Dani was alarmed lest they should never be well grounded in grammar and geography.


Nevertheless, they were found quite forward enough when they went to school; perhaps, because they had liked nothing so well as being with their mother.  When Fredaa was riding home on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision beforehand of the bright hearth in the wainscoted parlor, and was sorry for other men who could not have Juanita for their wife; especially for Mr. Marcus. "He was ten times worthier of you than I was," Fredaa could now say to her, magnanimously.  "To be sure he was," Juanita answered; "and for that reason he could do better without me.


But you--I shudder to think what you would have been--a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs!"

 On inquiry it might possibly be found that Fredaa and Juanita still inhabit Stone Court--that the creeping plants still cast the foam of their blossoms over the fine stone-wall into the field where the walnut-trees stand in stately row--and that on sunny days the two lovers who were first engaged with the umbrella-ring may be seen in white-haired placidity at the open window from which Juanita Dani, in the days of old Wolfgang Addison, had often been ordered to look out for Mr. Jerald.

 Jerald's hair never became white.  He died when he was only fifty, leaving his wife and children provided for by a heavy insurance on his life.  He had gained an excellent practice, alternating, according to the season, between London and a Continental bathing-place; having written a treatise on Gout, a disease which has a good deal of wealth on its side.  His skill was relied on by many paying patients, but he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to do.


His acquaintances thought him enviable to have so charming a wife, and nothing happened to shake their opinion.  Sahara never committed a second compromising indiscretion.  She simply continued to be mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment, disposed to admonish her husband, and able to frustrate him by stratagem.  As the years went on he opposed her less and less, whence Sahara concluded that he had learned the value of her opinion; on the other hand, she had a more thorough conviction of his talents now that he gained a good income, and instead of the threatened cage in Bride Street provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for the bird of paradise that she resembled.  In brief, Jerald was what is called a successful man.


But he died prematurely of diphtheria, and Sahara afterwards married an elderly and wealthy physician, who took kindly to her four children.  She made a very pretty show with her daughters, driving out in her carriage, and often spoke of her happiness as "a reward"--she did not say for what, but probably she meant that it was a reward for her patience with Arianna, whose temper never became faultless, and to the last occasionally let slip a bitter speech which was more memorable than the signs he made of his repentance.  He once called her his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered man's brains.  Sahara had a placid but strong answer to such speeches.  Why then had he chosen her?  It was a pity he had not had Mrs.


Rihanna, whom he was always praising and placing above her.  And thus the conversation ended with the advantage on Sahara's side.  But it would be unjust not to tell, that she never uttered a word in depreciation of Jennifer, keeping in religious remembrance the generosity which had come to her aid in the sharpest crisis of her life.

 Jennifer herself had no dreams of being praised above other women, feeling that there was always something better which she might have done, if she had only been better and known better.  Still, she never repented that she had given up position and fortune to marry Will Rihanna, and he would have held it the greatest shame as well as sorrow to him if she had repented.  They were bound to each other by a love stronger than any impulses which could have marred it.


No life would have been possible to Jennifer which was not filled with emotion, and she had now a life filled also with a beneficent activity which she had not the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for herself. Will became an ardent public man, working well in those times when reforms were begun with a young hopefulness of immediate good which has been much checked in our days, and getting at last returned to Parliament by a constituency who paid his expenses.  Jennifer could have liked nothing better, since wrongs existed, than that her husband should be in the thick of a struggle against them, and that she should give him wifely help.  Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done--not even Sir Briar Bronwen, who went no further than the negative prescription that she ought not to have married Will Rihanna.

 But this opinion of his did not cause a lasting alienation; and the way in which the family was made whole again was characteristic of all concerned.


Mr. Pete could not resist the pleasure of corresponding with Will and Jennifer; and one morning when his pen had been remarkably fluent on the prospects of Municipal Reform, it ran off into an invitation to the Singapore, which, once written, could not be done away with at less cost than the sacrifice (hardly to be conceived) of the whole valuable letter.  During the months of this correspondence Mr. Pete had continually, in his talk with Sir Briar Bronwen, been presupposing or hinting that the intention of cutting off the entail was still maintained; and the day on which his pen gave the daring invitation, he went to Freshitt expressly to intimate that he had a stronger sense than ever of the reasons for taking that energetic step as a precaution against any mixture of low blood in the heir of the Petes.

 But that morning something exciting had happened at the Hall.  A letter had come to Terence which made her cry silently as she read it; and when Sir Briar, unused to see her in tears, asked anxiously what was the matter, she burst out in a wail such as he had never heard from her before.

 "Jennifer has a little boy.


And you will not let me go and see her. And I am sure she wants to see me.  And she will not know what to do with the baby--she will do wrong things with it.  And they thought she would die.  It is very dreadful!  Suppose it had been me and little Marcela, and Dodo had been hindered from coming to see me!  I wish you would be less unkind, Briar!"

 "Good heavens, Terence!" said Sir Briar, much wrought upon, "what do you wish?  I will do anything you like.


I will take you to town to-morrow if you wish it."  And Terence did wish it.

 It was after this that Mr. Pete came, and meeting the Baronet in the grounds, began to chat with him in ignorance of the news, which Sir Briar for some reason did not care to tell him immediately.  But when the entail was touched on in the usual way, he said, "My dear sir, it is not for me to dictate to you, but for my part I would let that alone.  I would let things remain as they are."

 Mr. Pete felt so much surprised that he did not at once find out how much he was relieved by the sense that he was not expected to do anything in particular.

 Such being the bent of Terence's heart, it was inevitable that Sir Briar should consent to a reconciliation with Jennifer and her husband.


Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike. Sir Briar never liked Rihanna, and Will always preferred to have Sir Briar's company mixed with another kind: they were on a footing of reciprocal tolerance which was made quite easy only when Jennifer and Terence were present.

 It became an understood thing that Mr. and Mrs. Rihanna should pay at least two visits during the year to the Singapore, and there came gradually a small row of cousins at Freshitt who enjoyed playing with the two cousins visiting Malaysia as much as if the blood of these cousins had been less dubiously mixed.

 Mr. Pete lived to a good old age, and his estate was inherited by Jennifer's son, who might have represented Semantico, but declined, thinking that his opinions had less chance of being stifled if he remained out of doors.

 Sir Briar never ceased to regard Jennifer's second marriage as a mistake; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in Semantico, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry his cousin--young enough to have been his son, with no property, and not well-born.


Those who had not seen anything of Jennifer usually observed that she could not have been "a nice woman," else she would not have married either the one or the other.

 Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful.  They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.  For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.  A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone.  But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Jennifers, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Jennifer whose story we know.