Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - By the Light of the Soul

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"Well, I guess I'll step into the other side a minute," said Aunt
Maria. "Eunice went to the sewing-meeting this afternoon, and I want
to know what they put in that barrel for that minister out West. I
don't believe they had enough to half fill it. Of all the things they
sent the last time, there wasn't anything fit to be seen."

Maria seated herself in her own room, beside her tiny stove. She had
a pink shade on her lamp, which stood on her little centre-table. The
exercises were on the table, but she had not touched them when she
heard doors opening and shutting below, then a step on the stairs.
She knew at once it was Lily. Her room door opened, after a soft
knock, and Lily glided gracefully in.

"I knew you were up here, dear," she said. "I saw your light, and I
saw your aunt's sitting-room lamp go out."

"Aunt Maria has only gone in Uncle Henry's side. Sit down, Lily,"
said Maria, rising and returning Lily's kiss, and placing a chair for
her.

"Does she always put her lamp out when she goes in there?" asked Lily
with innocent wonder.

"Yes," replied Maria, rather curtly. That was one of poor Aunt
Maria's petty economies, and she was sensitive with regard to it. A
certain starvation of character, which had resulted from the lack of
material wealth, was evident in Aunt Maria, and her niece recognized
the fact with exceeding pity, and a sense of wrong at the hands of
Providence.

"How very funny," said Lily.

Maria said nothing. Lily had seated herself in the chair placed for
her, and as usual had at once relapsed into a pose which would have
done credit to an artist's model, a pose of which she was innocently
conscious. She cast approving glances at the graceful folds of
crimson cashmere which swept over her knees; she extended one little
foot in its pointed shoe; she raised her arms with a gesture peculiar
to her and placed them behind her head in such a fashion that she
seemed to embrace herself. Lily in crimson cashmere, which lent its
warm glow to her tender cheeks, and even seemed to impart a rosy
reflection to the gloss of her hair, was ravishing. To-night, too,
her face wore a new expression, one of triumphant tenderness, which
caused her to look fairly luminous.

"It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?" she said.

"Very pleasant," said Maria.

"Did you know I went sleigh-riding this afternoon?"

"Did you?"

"Yes; George took me out."

"That was nice," said Maria.

"We went to Wayland. The sleighing is lovely."

"I thought it looked so," said Maria.

"It is. Say, Maria!"

"Well?"

"He said things to me this afternoon that sounded as if he did mean
them. He did, really."

"Did he?"

"Do you want me to tell you?" asked Lily, eying Maria happily and yet
a little timidly.

Maria straightened herself. "If you want to know what I really think,
Lily," she said, "I think no girl should repeat anything a man says
to her, if she does think he really means it. I think it is between
the two. I think it should be held sacred. I think the girl cheapens
it by repeating it, and I don't think it is fair to the man. I don't
care to hear what Mr. Ramsey said, if you want the truth, Lily."

Lily looked abashed. "I dare say you are right, Maria," she said,
meekly. "I won't repeat anything he said if you don't think I ought,
and don't want to hear it."

"Is your new dress done?" asked Maria, abruptly.

"It is going to be finished this week," said Lily. "Do you think I am
horrid, proposing to tell you what he said, Maria?"

"No, only I don't care to hear any more about it."

"Well, I hope you don't think I am horrid."

"I don't, dear," said Maria, with an odd sensation of tenderness for
the other, weaker girl, whom she had handled in a measure roughly
with her own stronger character. She looked admiringly at her as she
spoke. "Nobody can ever really think you horrid," she said.

"If they did, I should think I was horrid my own self," said Lily,
with the ready acquiescence in the opinion of another which signified
the deepest admiration, even to her own detriment, and was the
redeeming note in her character.

Maria laughed. "I declare, Lily," said she, "I hope you will never be
accused of a crime, for I do believe even if you were innocent, you
would side with the lawyer for the prosecution."

"I don't know but I should," said Lily.

Then she ventured to say something more about George Ramsey,
encouraged by Maria's friendliness, but she met with such scanty
sympathy that she refrained. She arose soon, and said she thought she
must go home.

"I am tired to-night, and I think I had better go to bed early," she
said.

"Don't hurry," Maria said, conventionally; but Lily kissed Maria and
went.

Maria knew that her manner had driven Lily away, but she did not feel
as if she could endure hearing her confidences, and Lily's
confidences had all the impetus of a mountain stream. Had she
remained, they could not have been finally checked. Maria moved her
window curtains slightly and watched Lily flitting across the yard.
She saw her enter the door, and also saw, quite distinctly the shadow
of a man upon the white curtain as he rose to greet her when she
entered. She wondered whether the man was Dr. Ellridge, or George
Ramsey. The shadow looked like that of the older man, she thought,
and she was not mistaken.

Lily, on entering the sitting-room, found Dr. Ellridge with her
mother, and her mother's face was flushed, and she had a conscious
simper. Lily said good-evening, and sat down as usual with her
fancy-work, after she had removed her wraps, but soon her mother said
to her that there was a good fire in her own room, and she thought
that she had better go to bed early, as she must be tired, and Dr.
Ellridge echoed her with rather a foolish expression.

"I don't think you ought to sit up late working on embroidery, Lily,"
he said. "You are looking tired to-night. You must let me prescribe
for you a glass of hot milk and bed."

Lily looked at both of them with wondering gentleness, then she rose.

"There is a good fire in the kitchen," said her mother, "and Hannah
will heat the milk for you. You had better do as Dr. Ellridge said.
You are going out to-morrow night, too, you know."

Lily said good-night, and went out with a smouldering disquiet in her
heart. When she asked Hannah out in the kitchen to heat the milk for
her, because Dr. Ellridge said she must drink it and then go to bed,
the girl, who had been long with the family and considered that she
in reality was the main-spring of the house, eyed her curiously.

"Said you had better go to bed?" said she. "Why, it isn't nine
o'clock!"

"He said I looked tired, Hannah," said Lily faintly.

Hannah, who was a large, high-shouldered Nova Scotia girl, with a
large, flat face obscured with freckles, sniffed. Lily heard her say
quite distinctly as she went into the pantry for the milk, that she
called it a shame when there were so many grown-up daughters to think
of, for her part.

Lily knew what she meant. She sat quite pale and still while the milk
was heating, and then drank it meekly, said good-night to Hannah and
went up-stairs.

She could not go to sleep, although she went at once to bed, and
extinguished her lamp. She lay there and heard a clock down in the
hall strike the hours. The clock had struck twelve, and she had not
heard Dr. Ellridge go. The whole situation filled her with a sort of
wonder of disgust. She could not imagine her mother and Dr. Ellridge
sitting up until midnight as she might sit up with George Ramsey. She
felt as if she were witnessing a ghastly inversion of things, as if
Love, instead of being in his proper panoply of wings and roses, was
invested with a medicine-case, an obsolete frock-coat, and elderly
obesity. Dr. Ellridge was quite stout. She wondered how her mother
could, and then she wondered how Dr. Ellridge could. Lily loved her
mother, but she had relegated her to what she considered her proper
place in the scheme of things, and now she was overstepping it. Lily
called to mind vividly the lines on her mother's face, her matronly
figure. It seemed to her that her mother had had her time of love
with her father, and this was as abnormal as two springs in one year.
Shortly after twelve, Lily heard a soft murmur of voices in the hall,
then the front door close. Then her mother came up-stairs and entered
her room.

"Are you asleep, Lily?" she whispered, softly, and Lily recognized
with shame the artificiality of the whisper.

"No, mother, I am not asleep," she replied, quite loudly.

Her mother came and sat down on the bed beside her. She patted Lily's
cheeks, and felt for her hand. Lily's impulse was to snatch it away,
but she was too gentle. She let it remain passively in her mother's
nervous clasp.

"Lily, my dear child, I have something to tell you," whispered Mrs.
Merrill.

Lily said nothing.

"Lily, my precious child," said her mother, in her strained whisper.
"I don't know whether you have suspected anything or not, but I am
meditating a great change in my life. I have been very lonely since
your dear father died, and I never had a nature to live alone and be
happy. You might as well expect the vine to live without its tree. I
have made up my mind that I shall be much happier, and Dr. Ellridge
will. He needs the sympathy and love of a wife. His daughters do as
well as they can, but a daughter is not like a wife."

"Oh, mother!" said Lily. Then she gave a little sob. Her mother bent
over and kissed her, and Lily smelled Dr. Ellridge's cigar, and she
thought also medicine. She shrank away from her mother, and sobbed
convulsively.

"My dear child," said Mrs. Merrill, "you need not feel so badly.
There will be no change in your life until you yourself marry. We
shall live right along here. This house is larger and more convenient
than the doctor's. He will rent his house, and we shall live here."

"And all those Ellridge girls," sobbed Lily.

"They are very nice girls, dear. Florence and Amelia will room
together; they can have the southeast room. Mabel, I suppose, will
have to go in the best chamber. Perhaps, by-and-by, Dr. Ellridge will
finish off another room for her. I don't quite like the idea of
having no spare room. But you will keep your own room, and you will
be all the happier for having three nice sisters."

"I never liked them," sobbed Lily. It really seemed to her that she
was called upon to marry the Ellridge girls, and that was the main
issue.

"They are very nice girls," repeated Mrs. Merrill, and there was
obstinacy in her artificially sweet tone. "Everybody says they are
very nice girls. You certainly would not wish your mother to give up
her chance of a happy life, because you have an unwarrantable
prejudice against the poor doctor's daughters."

"You have been married once," said Lily, feebly. It was as if she
made a faint remonstrance because of her mother, who had already had
her reasonable share of cake, taking a second slice. She had too
sweet a disposition to say bitter things, but the bitterness of the
things she might have said was in her heart.

"I suppose you think because I am older it is foolish," said her
mother, in an aggressive voice. "Wait till you yourself are older and
you may know how I feel. You may find out that you cannot give up all
the joys of life because you have been a few years longer in the
world. You may not feel so very different from what you do now." Mrs.
Merrill's voice rang true in this last. There was even a pathetic
appeal to her daughter for sympathy. But Lily continued to sob
weakly, and did not say any more.

"Well, good-night, my dear child," Mrs. Merrill said finally. "You
will feel very differently about all this later on. You will come to
see, as I do, that it is for the best. You will be much happier."
Mrs. Merrill kissed Lily again, and went out. She closed the door
with a slight slam.

Lily knew that her mother was angry with her. As for herself, she
considered that she had never been so unhappy in her whole life. She
thought of living with the Ellridge girls, who were really of a
common cast, and always with Dr. Ellridge at the head of the table,
dictating to her as he had done to-night, in his smooth, slightly
satirical way, and her whole soul rose in revolt. She felt sure that
Dr. Ellridge was not at all in love with her mother, as George Ramsey
might be in love with herself. All the romance had been sucked out of
them both years before. She called to mind again her mother's lined
face, her too aggressive curves, her tightly frizzed hair, and she
knew that she was right. She remembered hearing that Dr. Ellridge's
daughters were none of them domestic, that he had hard work to keep a
house-keeper, that his practice was declining. She remembered how
shabby and mean his little house had looked when she had passed it in
the sleigh with George Ramsey, that very day. She said to herself
that Dr. Ellridge was only marrying her mother for the sake of the
loaves and fishes, for a pretty, well-kept home for himself and his
daughters. Lily had something of a business turn in spite of her
feminity. She calculated how much rent Dr. Ellridge could get for his
own house. That will dress the girls, she thought. She knew that her
mother's income was considerable. Dr. Ellridge would be immeasurably
better off as far as this world's goods went. There was no doubt of
that. Lily felt such a measure of revolt and disgust that it was
fairly like a spiritual nausea. Her own maiden innocence seemed
assaulted, and besides that there was a sense of pitiful grief and
wonder that her mother, besides whom she had nobody in the world,
could so betray her. She was like the proverbial child with its poor
little nose out of joint. She lay and wept like one. The next
morning, when she went down to breakfast, her pretty face was pale
and woe-begone. Her mother gave one defiant glance at her, then
spooned out the cereal with vehemence. Hannah gave a quick, shrewd
glance at her when she set the saucer containing the smoking mess
before her.

"Her mother has told her," she thought. She also thought that she
herself would give notice were it not for poor Miss Lily.

Lily's extreme gentleness, even when she was distressed, was
calculated to inspire faithfulness in every one. Hannah gave more
than one pitying, indignant glance at the girl's pretty, sad face.
Lily did not dream of sulking to the extent of not eating her
breakfast. She ate just as usual. She even made a remark about the
weather to her mother, although in a little, weeping voice, as if the
weather itself, although it was a brilliant morning, were a source of
misery. Mrs. Merrill replied curtly. Lily took another spoonful of
her cereal.

She remained in her own room the greater part of the day. In the
afternoon her mother, without saying anything to her, took the
trolley for Westbridge. Lily thought with a shiver that she might be
going over there to purchase some article for her trousseau. The
thought of her mother with a trousseau caused her to laugh a little,
hysterical laugh, as she sat alone in her chamber. That evening she
and her mother went to a concert in the town hall. Lily knew that Dr.
Ellridge would accompany her mother home. She wondered what she
should do, what she should be expected to do--take the doctor's other
arm, or walk behind. She had seen the doctor with two of his
daughters seated, when she and her mother passed up the aisle. She
knew that the two daughters would go home together, and the doctor
would go with her mother. She thought of George Ramsey. Now and then
as the concert proceeded she twisted her neck slightly and peered
around, but she saw nothing of him. She concluded that he was not
there. But when the concert was over, and she and her mother were
passing out the door, and Dr. Ellridge was pressing close to her
mother, under a fire of hostile glances from his daughters, Lily felt
a touch on her own arm. She turned, and saw George Ramsey's handsome
face with a quiver of unutterable bliss. She took his arm, and
followed her mother and Dr. Ellridge. When they were out in the
frosty air, under a low sky sparkling with multitudinous stars
traversed by its mysterious nebulous highway of the gods, this poor
little morsel of a mortal, engrossed with her poor little troubles,
answered a remark of George's concerning the weather in a trembling
voice. Then she began to weep unreservedly. George with a quick
glance around, drew her around a corner which they had just reached
into a street which afforded a circuitous route home, and which was
quite deserted.

"Why Lily, what in the world is the matter?" he said. There was
absolutely nothing in his voice or his heart at the time except
friendliness and honest concern for his old playmate's distress.

"Mother is going to be married to Dr. Ellridge," whispered Lily, "and
he and his three horrid daughters are all coming to live at our
house."

George whistled.

Lily sobbed quite aloud.

"Hush, poor little girl," said George. He glanced around; there was
not a soul to be seen. Lily's head seemed to droop as naturally
towards his shoulder as a flower towards the sun. A sudden impulse of
tenderness, the tenderness of the strong for the weak, of man for
woman, came over the young fellow. Before he well knew what he was
doing, his arm had passed around Lily's waist, and the pretty head
quite touched his shoulder. George gave one last bitter thought
towards Maria, then he spoke.

"Well," he said, "don't cry, Lily dear. If your mother is going to
marry Dr. Ellridge, suppose you get married too. Suppose you marry
me, and come and live at my house."

Chapter XXV

The next morning, before Maria had started for school, Lily Merrill
came running across the yard, and knocked at the side door. She
always knocked unless she was quite sure that Maria was alone. She
was afraid of her aunt. Aunt Maria opened the door, and Lily shrank a
little before her, in spite of the wonderful glowing radiance which
lit her lovely face that morning.

"Good-morning, Miss Stillman," said Lily, timidly.

"Well?" said Aunt Maria. The word was equivalent to "What do you
want?"

"Has Maria gone?" asked Lily.

"No, she is getting dressed."

"Can I run up to her room and see her a minute? I have something
particular I want to tell her."

"I don't know whether she'd want anybody to come up while she's
dressing or not," said Aunt Maria.

"I don't believe she'd mind me," said Lily, pleadingly. "Would you
mind calling up and asking her, please, Miss Stillman?"

"Well," said Aunt Maria.

She actually closed the door and left Lily standing in the bitter
wind while she spoke to Maria. Lily heard her faintly calling.

"Say, Maria, that Merrill girl is at the door, and wants to know if
she can come a minute. She's got something she wants to tell you."

Then Aunt Maria opened the door. "I suppose you can go up," she said,
ungraciously. The radiance in Lily's face filled her with hostility,
she did not know why.

"Oh, thank you!" cried Lily; and ran into the house and up the stairs
to Maria's room.

Maria was standing before the glass brushing her hair, which was very
long, and bright, and thick. Lily went straight to her and threw her
arms around her and began to weep. Maria pushed her aside gently.

"Why, what is the matter, Lily?" she asked. "Excuse me, but I must
finish my hair; I have no more than time. What is the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter," sobbed Lily, "only--Oh Maria I am so happy!
I have not slept a wink all night I was so happy. Oh, you don't know
how happy I am!"

Maria's face turned deadly white. She swept the glowing lengths of
her hair over it with a deft movement. "Why, what makes you so
happy?" she asked, coolly.

"Oh, Maria, he was in earnest, he was. I am engaged to George."

Maria brushed her hair. "I am very glad," she said, in an unfaltering
voice. She bent her head, bringing her hair entirely over her face,
preparatory to making a great knot on the top of her head. "I hope
you will be very happy."

"Happy!" said Lily. "Oh, Maria, you don't know how happy I am!"

"I am very glad," Maria repeated, brushing her hair smoothly from her
neck. "He seems like a very fine young man. I think you have made a
wise choice, Lily."

Lily flung herself into a chair and looked at Maria. "Oh, Maria
dear," she said, "I wish you were as happy as I. I hope you will be
some time."

Maria laughed, and there was not a trace of bitterness in her laugh.
"Well, I shall not cry if I never am," she said. "What a little goose
you are, Lily, to cry!" She swept the hair back from her face, and
her color had returned. She looked squarely at Lily's reflection in
the glass, and there was an odd, triumphant expression on her face.

"I can't help it," sobbed Lily. "I always have cried when I was very
happy, and I never was so happy as this; and last night, before
he--before George asked me--I was so miserable I wanted to die. Only
think, Maria, mother is going to marry Dr. Ellridge, and he and his
three horrid girls are coming to live at our house. I don't know how
I could have stood it if George hadn't asked me. Now I shall live
with him in his house, of course, with his mother. I have always
liked George's mother. I think she is sweet."

"Yes, she is a very sweet woman, and I should think you could live
very happily with her," said Maria, twisting her hair carefully.
Maria had a beautiful neck showing above the lace of her underwaist.
Lily looked at it. Her tears had ceased, and left not a trace on her
smooth cheeks. The lace which Maria's upward-turned hair displayed
had set her flexible mind into a new channel.

"Say, Maria," she said, "it is to be a very short engagement. It will
have to be, on account of mother. A double wedding would be too
ridiculous, and I want to get away before all those Ellridges come
into our house. Dr. Ellridge can't let his house before spring, and
so I think in a month, if I can get ready." Lily blushed until her
face was like the heart of a rose.

"Well, you have a number of very pretty dresses now," said Maria. "I
should think you could get ready."

"I shall have to get a wedding-dress made, and a tea-gown, and one
besides for receiving calls," said Lily. "Then I must have some
underwear. Will you go shopping with me in Westbridge some Saturday,
Maria?"

"I should be very glad to do so, dear," replied Maria.

"That is a very pretty lace on your waist," Lily said, meditatively.
"I think I shall get ready-made things. It takes so much time to make
them one's self, and besides I think they are just as pretty. Don't
you?"

"I think one can buy very pretty ready-made things," Maria said. She
slipped on her blouse and fastened her collar.

"I shall be so much obliged to you if you will go," said Lily. "I
won't ask mother. To tell you the truth, Maria, I think it is
dreadful that she is going to marry again--a widower with three
grown-up daughters, too."

"I don't see why," Maria said, dropping her black skirt over her head.

"You don't see why?"

"No, not if it makes her happy. People have a right to all the
happiness they can get, at all ages. I used to think myself that
older people were silly to want things like young people, but now I
have changed my mind. Dr. Ellridge is a good man, and I dare say your
mother will be happier, especially if you are going away."

"Oh, if she had not been going to get married herself, I should
rather have lived at home, after I was married," said Lily. She
looked reflectively at Maria as she fastened her belt. "It's queer,"
she said, "but I do believe my feeling so terribly about mother's
marrying made George ask me sooner. Of course, he must have meant to
ask me some time, or he would not have asked me at all."

"Of course," said Maria, getting her hat from the closet-shelf.

"But he walked home with me from the concert last night, and I
couldn't help crying, I felt so dreadfully. Then he asked me what the
matter was, and I told him, and then he asked me right away. I think
maybe he had thought of waiting a little, but that hastened him. Oh,
Maria, I am so happy!"

Maria fastened on her hat carefully. "I am very glad, dear," she
said. She turned from the glass, and Lily's face, smiling at her,
seemed to give out light like a star. It might not have been the
highest affection which the girl, who was one of clear and limpid
shadows rather than depths, felt; it might have had its roots in
selfish ends; but it fairly glorified her. Maria with a sudden
impulse bent over her and kissed her. "I am very glad, dear," she
said, "and now I must run, or I shall be late. My coat is
down-stairs."

"Don't say anything before your aunt Maria, will you?" said Lily,
rising and following her.

"No, of course, if you don't want me to."

"Of course it will be all over town before night," said Lily, "but
someway I would rather your aunt Maria did not hear it from me. She
doesn't like me a bit." Lily said the last in a whisper.

Both girls went down-stairs, and Maria took her coat from the rack in
the hall.

Aunt Maria opened the sitting-room door. She had a little satchel
with Maria's lunch. "Here is your luncheon," said she, in a hard
tone, "and you'd better hurry and not stop to talk, or you'll be
late."

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