University of Virginia Library

1. NO NEWS.

None at all. Understand that, please, to begin
with. That you will at once, and distinctly, recall
Dr. Sharpe — and his wife, I make no doubt. Indeed,
it is because the history is a familiar one, some
of the unfamiliar incidents of which have come into my
possession, that I undertake to tell it.

My relation to the Doctor, his wife, and their friend,
has been in many respects peculiar. Without entering
into explanations which I am not at liberty to make,
let me say, that those portions of their story which
concern our present purpose, whether or not they fell
under my personal observation, are accurately, and to
the best of my judgment impartially, related.

Nobody, I think, who was at the wedding, dreamed
that there would ever be such a story to tell. It was
such a pretty, peaceful wedding! If you were there,
you remember it as you remember a rare sunrise, or
a peculiarly delicate May-flower, or that strain in a
simple old song which is like orioles and butterflies
and dew-drops.

There were not many of us; we were all acquainted
with one another; the day was bright, and Harrie did

not faint nor cry. There were a couple of bridesmaids,
— Pauline Dallas, and a Miss — Jones, I think,
— besides Harrie's little sisters; and the people were
well dressed and well looking, but everybody was
thoroughly at home, comfortable, and on a level.
There was no annihilating of little country friends in
gray alpacas by city cousins in point and pearls, no
crowding and no crush, and, I believe, not a single
“front breadth” spoiled by the ices.

Harrie is not called exactly pretty, but she must be
a very plain woman who is not pleasant to see upon
her wedding day. Harrie's eyes shone, — I never
saw such eyes! and she threw her head back like a
queen whom they were crowning.

Her father married them. Old Mr. Bird was an
odd man, with odd notions of many things, of which
marriage was one. The service was his own. I afterwards
asked him for a copy of it, which I have preserved.
The Covenant ran thus: —

“Appealing to your Father who is in heaven to witness
your sincerity, you.... do now take this
woman whose hand you hold — choosing her alone
from all the world — to be your lawfully wedded
wife. You trust her as your best earthly friend.
You promise to love, to cherish, and to protect her;
to be considerate of her happiness in your plans of
life; to cultivate for her sake all manly virtues; and
in all things to seek her welfare as you seek your own.
You pledge yourself thus honorably to her, to be her

husband in good faith, so long as the providence of
God shall spare you to each other.

“In like manner, looking to your Heavenly Father
for his blessing, you.... do now receive this man,
whose hand you hold, to be your lawfully wedded husband.
You choose him from all the world as he has
chosen you. You pledge your trust to him as your
best earthly friend. You promise to love, to comfort,
and to honor him; to cultivate for his sake all womanly
graces; to guard his reputation, and assist him in his
life's work; and in all things to esteem his happiness
as your own. You give yourself thus trustfully to
him, to be his wife in good faith, so long as the providence
of God shall spare you to each other.”

When Harrie lifted her shining eyes to say, “I
do!” the two little happy words ran through the
silent room like a silver bell; they would have tinkled
in your ears for weeks to come if you had heard
them.

I have been thus particular in noting the words of
the service, partly because they pleased me, partly
because I have since had some occasion to recall them,
and partly because I remember having wondered, at
the time, how many married men and women of your
and my acquaintance, if honestly subjecting their union
to the test and full interpretation and remotest
bearing
of such vows as these, could live in the sight of
God and man as “lawfully wedded” husband and
wife.

Weddings are always very sad things to me; as
much sadder than burials as the beginning of life
should be sadder than the end of it. The readiness
with which young girls will flit out of a tried, proved,
happy home into the sole care and keeping of a man
whom they have known three months, six, twelve, I
do not profess to understand. Such knowledge is too
wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
But that may be because I am fifty-five, an old maid,
and have spent twenty years in boarding-houses.

A woman reads the graces of a man at sight. His
faults she cannot thoroughly detect till she has been
for years his wife. And his faults are so much more
serious a matter to her than hers to him!

I was thinking of this the day before the wedding.
I had stepped in from the kitchen to ask Mrs. Bird
about the salad, when I came abruptly, at the door of
the sitting-room, upon as choice a picture as one is
likely to see.

The doors were open through the house, and the
wind swept in and out. A scarlet woodbine swung
lazily back and forth beyond the window. Dimples
of light burned through it, dotting the carpet and the
black-and-white marbled oilcloth of the hall. Beyond,
in the little front parlor, framed in by the series of
doorways, was Harrie, all in a cloud of white. It
floated about her with an idle, wavelike motion. She
had a veil like fretted pearls through which her tinted
arm shone faintly, and the shadow of a single scarlet

leaf trembled through a curtain upon her forehead.

Her mother, crying a little, as mothers will cry the
day before the wedding, was smoothing with tender
touch a tiny crease upon the cloud; a bridesmaid or
two sat chattering on the floor; gloves, and favors,
and flowers, and bits of lace like hoar frost, lay scattered
about; and the whole was repictured and reflected
and reshaded in the great old-fashioned mirrors
before which Harrie turned herself about.

It seemed a pity that Myron Sharpe should miss
that, so I called him in from the porch where he sat
reading Stuart Mill on Liberty.

If you form your own opinion of a man who might
spend a livelong morning, — an October morning,
quivering with color, alive with light, sweet with the
breath of dropping pines, soft with the caress of a
wind that had filtered through miles of sunshine, —
and that the morning of the day before his wedding,
— reading Stuart Mill on Liberty, — I cannot help it.

Harrie, turning suddenly, saw us, — met her lover's
eyes, stood a moment with lifted lashes and bright
cheeks, — crept with a quick, impulsive movement
into her mother's arms, kissed her, and floated away
up the stairs.

“It's a perfect fit,” said Mrs. Bird, coming out
with one corner of a very dingy handkerchief — somebody
had just used it to dust the Parian vases — at
her eyes.

And though, to be sure, it was none of my business,
I caught myself saying, under my breath, —

“It 's a fit for life; for a life, Dr. Sharpe.”

Dr. Sharpe smiled serenely. He was very much in
love with the little pink-and-white cloud that had just
fluttered up the stairs. If it had been drifting to him
for the venture of twenty lifetimes, he would have felt
no doubt of the “fit.”

Nor, I am sure, would Harrie. She stole out to
him that evening after the bridal finery was put away,
and knelt at his feet in her plain little muslin dress,
her hair all out of crimp, slipping from her net behind
her ears, — Harrie's ears were very small, and shaded
off in the colors of a pale apple-blossom, — up-turning
her flushed and weary face.

“Put away the book, please, Myron.”

Myron put away the book (somebody on Bilious
Affections), and looked for a moment without speaking
at the up-turned face.

Dr. Sharpe had spasms of distrusting himself amazingly;
perhaps most men have, — and ought to. His
face grew grave just then. That little girl's clear eyes
shone upon him like the lights upon an altar. In very
unworthiness of soul he would have put the shoes
from off his feet. The ground on which he trod was
holy.

When he spoke to the child, it was in a whisper: —

“Harrie, are you afraid of me? I know I am not
very good.”

And Harrie, kneeling with the shadows of the
scarlet leaves upon her hair, said softly, “How could I
be afraid of you? It is I who am not good.”

Dr. Sharpe could not have made much progress in
Bilious Affections that evening. All the time that the
skies were fading, we saw them wandering in and out
among the apple-trees, — she with those shining eyes,
and her hand in his. And when to-morrow had come
and gone, and in the dying light they drove away,
and Miss Dallas threw old Grandmother Bird's little
satin boot after the carriage, the last we saw of her
was that her hand was clasped in his, and that her
eyes were shining.

Well, I believe that they got along very well till the
first baby came. As far as my observation goes,
young people usually get along very well till the first
baby comes. These particular young people had a
clear conscience, — as young people's consciences go,
— fair health, a comfortable income for two, and a
very pleasant home.

This home was on the coast. The townspeople
made shoes, and minded their own business. Dr.
Sharpe bought the dying practice of an antediluvian
who believed in camomile and castor-oil. Harrie
mended a few stockings, made a few pies, and watched
the sea.

It was almost enough of itself to make one happy
— the sea — as it tumbled about the shores of Lime.

Harrie had a little seat hollowed out in the cliffs, and
a little scarlet bathing-dress, which was surprisingly
becoming, and a little boat of her own, moored in a
little bay, — a pretty shell which her husband had had
made to order, that she might be able to row herself
on a calm water. He was very thoughtful for her in
those days.

She used to take her sewing out upon the cliff; she
would be demure and busy; she would finish the
selvage seam; but the sun blazed, the sea shone, the
birds sang, all the world was at play, — what could it
matter about selvage seams? So the little gold thimble
would drop off, the spool trundle down the cliff,
and Harrie, sinking back into a cushion of green and
crimson sea-weed, would open her wide eyes and
dream. The waves purpled and silvered, and broke
into a mist like powdered amber, the blue distances
melted softly, the white sand glittered, the gulls were
chattering shrilly. What a world it was!

“And he is in it!” thought Harrie. Then she
would smile and shut her eyes. “And the children
of Israel saw the face of Moses, that Moses' face
shone, and they were afraid to come nigh him.”
Harrie wondered if everybody's joy were too great to
look upon, and wondered, in a childish, frightened
way, how it might be with sorrow; if people stood
with veiled faces before it, dumb with pain as she
with peace, — and then it was dinner-time, and Myron
came down to walk up the beach with her, and she
forgot all about it.

She forgot all about everything but the bare joy of
life and the sea, when she had donned the pretty
scarlet suit, and crept out into the surf, — at the
proper medicinal hour, for the Doctor was very particular
with her, — when the warm brown waves
broke over her face, the long sea-weeds slipped
through her fingers, the foam sprinkled her hair
with crystals, and the strong wind was up.

She was a swift swimmer, and as one watched from
the shore, her lithe scarlet shoulders seemed to glide
like a trail of fire through the lighted water; and
when she sat in shallow foam with sunshine on her,
or flashed through the dark green pools among the
rocks, or floated with the incoming tide, her great
bathing-hat dropping shadows on her wet little happy
face, and her laugh ringing out, it was a pretty sight.

But a prettier one than that, her husband thought,
was to see her in her boat at sunset; when sea and
sky were aflame, when every flake of foam was a
rainbow, and the great chalk-cliffs were blood-red;
when the wind blew her net off, and in pretty petulance
she pulled her hair down, and it rippled all about
her as she dipped into the blazing West.

Dr. Sharpe used to drive home by the beach, on a
fair night, always, that he might see it. Then Harrie
would row swiftly in, and spring into the low, broad
buggy beside him, and they rode home together in the
fragrant dusk. Sometimes she used to chatter on
these twilight drives; but more often she crept up to

him and shut her eyes, and was as still as a sleepy
bird. It was so pleasant to do nothing but be happy!

I believe that at this time Dr. Sharpe loved his wife
as unselfishly as he knew how. Harrie often wrote
me that he was “very good.” She was sometimes a
little troubled that he should “know so much more”
than she, and had fits of reading the newspapers and
reviewing her French, and studying cases of hydrophobia,
or some other pleasant subject which had a
professional air. Her husband laughed at her for her
pains, but nevertheless he found her so much the more
entertaining. Sometimes she drove about with him
on his calls, or amused herself by making jellies in
fancy moulds for his poor, or sat in his lap and discoursed
like a bobolink of croup and measles, pulling
his whiskers the while with her pink fingers.

All this, as I have said, was before the first baby
came.

It is surprising what vague ideas young people in
general, and young men in particular, have of the
rubs and jars of domestic life; especially domestic life
on an income of eighteen hundred, American constitutions
and country servants thrown in.

Dr. Sharpe knew something of illness and babies
and worry and watching; but that his own individual
baby should deliberately lie and scream till two o'clock
in the morning, was a source of perpetual astonishment
to him; and that it, — he and Mrs. Sharpe had their
first quarrel over his persistence in calling the child an

“it,” — that it should invariably feel called upon to
have the colic just as he had fallen into a nap, after a
night spent with a dying patient, was a phenomenon
of the infant mind for which he was, to say the least,
unprepared.

It was for a long time a mystery to his masculine
understanding, that Biddy could not be nursery-maid
as well as cook. “Why, what has she to do now?
Nothing but to broil steaks and make tea for two
people!” That whenever he had Harrie quietly to
himself for a peculiarly pleasant tea-table, the house
should resound with sudden shrieks from the nursery,
and there was always a pin in that baby, was forever
a fresh surprise; and why, when they had a house
full of company, no “girl,” and Harrie down with a
sick-headache, his son and heir should of necessity be
threatened with scarlatina, was a philosophical problem
over which he speculated long and profoundly.

So, gradually, in the old way, the old sweet habits
of the long honeymoon were broken. Harrie dreamed
no more on the cliffs by the bright noon sea; had no
time to spend making scarlet pictures in the little
bathing-suit; had seldom strength to row into the
sunset, her hair loose, the bay on fire, and one to
watch her from the shore. There were no more walks
up the beach to dinner; there came an end to the
drives in the happy twilight; she could not climb now
upon her husband's knee, because of the heavy baby
on her own.

The spasms of newspaper reading subsided rapidly;
Corinne and Racine gathered the dust in peace upon
their shelves; Mrs. Sharpe made no more fancy
jellies, and found no time to inquire after other
people's babies.

One becomes used to anything after a while, especially
if one happens to be a man. It would have surprised
Dr. Sharpe, if he had taken the pains to notice,
— which I believe he never did, — how easily he
became used to his solitary drives and disturbed
teas; to missing Harrie's watching face at door or
window; to sitting whole evenings by himself while
she sang to the fretful baby overhead with her sweet
little tired voice; to slipping off into the “spare
room” to sleep when the child cried at night, and
Harrie, up and down with him by the hour, flitted
from cradle to bed, or paced the room, or sat and
sang, or lay and cried herself, in sheer despair of rest;
to wandering away on lonely walks; to stepping often
into a neighbor's to discuss the election or the typhoid
in the village; to forgetting that his wife's conversational
capacities could extend beyond Biddy and
teething; to forgetting that she might ever hunger
for a twilight drive, a sunny sail, for the sparkle and
freshness, the dreaming, the petting, the caresses, all
the silly little lovers' habits of their early married
days; to going his own ways, and letting her go hers.

Yet he loved her, and loved her only, and loved her
well. That he never doubted, nor, to my surprise,

did she. I remember once, when on a visit there,
being fairly frightened out of the proprieties by hearing
her call him “Dr. Sharpe.” I called her away
from the children soon after, on pretence of helping
me unpack. I locked the door, pulled her down upon
a trunk tray beside me, folded both her hands in mine,
and studied her face; it had grown to be a very thin
little face, less pretty than it was in the shadow of the
woodbine, with absent eyes and a sad mouth. She
knew that I loved her, and my heart was full for the
child; and so, for I could not help it, I said, —

“Harrie, is all well between you? Is he quite the
same?”

She looked at me with a perplexed and musing air.

“The same? O yes, he is quite the same to me.
He would always be the same to me. Only there are
the children, and we are so busy. He — why, he
loves me, you know, — ” she turned her head from
side to side wearily, with the puzzled expression growing
on her forehead, — “he loves me just the same, —
just the same. I am his wife; don't you see?”

She drew herself up a little haughtily, said that she
heard the baby crying, and slipped away.

But the perplexed knot upon her forehead did not
slip away. I was rather glad that it did not. I liked
it better than the absent eyes. That afternoon she
left her baby with Biddy for a couple of hours, went
away by herself into the garden, sat down upon a
stone and thought.

Harrie took a great deal of comfort in her babies,
quite as much as I wished to have her. Women
whose dream of marriage has faded a little have a
way of transferring their passionate devotion and content
from husband to child. It is like anchoring in a
harbor, — a pleasant harbor, and one in which it is
good to be, — but never on shore and never at home.
Whatever a woman's children may be to her, her
husband should be always something beyond and
more; forever crowned for her as first, dearest, best,
on a throne that neither son nor daughter can usurp.
Through mistake and misery the throne may be left
vacant or voiceless: but what man cometh after the
King?

So, when Harrie forgot the baby for a whole afternoon,
and sat out on her stone there in the garden
thinking, I felt rather glad than sorry.

It was when little Harrie was a baby, I believe,
that Mrs. Sharpe took that notion about having company.
She was growing out of the world, she said;
turning into a fungus; petrifying; had forgotten
whether you called your seats at the Music Hall pews
or settees, and was as afraid of a well-dressed woman
as she was of the croup.

So the Doctor's house at Lime was for two or three
months overrun with visitors and vivacity. Fathers
and mothers made fatherly and motherly stays, with
the hottest of air-tights put up for their benefit in the
front room; sisters and sisters-in-law brought the

fashions and got up tableaux; cousins came on the
jump; Miss Jones, Pauline Dallas, and I were invited
in turn, and the children had the mumps at cheerful
intervals between.

The Doctor was not much in the mood for entertaining
Miss Dallas; he was a little tired of company,
and had had a hard week's work with an epidemic
down town. Harrie had not seen her since her wedding
day, and was pleased and excited at the prospect
of the visit. Pauline had been one of her eternal
friendships at school.

Miss Dallas came a day earlier than she was expected,
and, as chance would have it, Harrie was
devoting the afternoon to cutting out shirts. Any
one who has sat from two till six at that engaging
occupation, will understand precisely how her back
ached and her temples throbbed, and her fingers
stung, and her neck stiffened; why her eyes swam,
her cheeks burned, her brain was deadened, the
children's voices were insufferable, the slamming of
a door an agony, the past a blot, the future unendurable,
life a burden, friendship a myth, her hair down,
and her collar unpinned.

Miss Dallas had never cut a shirt, nor, I believe,
had Dr. Sharpe.

Harrie was groaning over the last wristband but one,
when she heard her husband's voice in the hall.

“Harrie, Harrie, your friend is here. I found her,
by a charming accident, at the station, and drove her

home.” And Miss Dallas, gloved, perfumed, rustling,
in a very becoming veil and travelling-suit of the
latest mode, swept in upon her.

Harrie was too much of a lady to waste any words
on apology, so she ran just as she was, in her calico
dress, with the collar hanging, into Pauline's stately
arms, and held up her little burning cheeks to be
kissed.

But her husband looked annoyed.

He came down before tea in his best coat to entertain
their guest. Biddy was “taking an afternoon”
that day, and Harrie bustled about with her aching
back to make tea and wash the children. She had no
time to spend upon herself, and, rather than keep a
hungry traveller waiting, smoothed her hair, knotted a
ribbon at the collar, and came down in her calico dress.

Dr. Sharpe glanced at it in some surprise. He
repeated the glances several times in the course of the
evening, as he sat chatting with his wife's friend.
Miss Dallas was very sprightly in conversation; had
read some, had thought some; and had the appearance
of having read and thought about twice as much
as she had.

Myron Sharpe had always considered his wife a
handsome woman. That nobody else thought her so
had made no difference to him. He had often looked
into the saucy eyes of little Harrie Bird, and told her
that she was very pretty. As a matter of theory, he
supposed her to be very pretty, now that she was the

mother of his three children, and breaking her back
to cut out his shirts.

Miss Dallas was a generously framed, well-proportioned
woman, who carried long trains, and tied her
hair with crimson velvet. She had large, serene eyes,
white hands, and a very pleasant smile. A delicate
perfume stirred as she stirred, and she wore a creamy
lace about her throat and wrists.

Calicoes were never becoming to Harrie, and that
one with the palm-leaf did not fit her well, — she cut
it herself, to save expense. As the evening passed,
in reaction from the weariness of shirt-cutting she
grew pale, and the sallow tints upon her face came
out; her features sharpened, as they had a way of
doing when she was tired; and she had little else to
do that evening than think how tired she was, for her
husband observing, as he remarked afterwards, that
she did not feel like talking, kindly entertained her
friend himself.

As they went up stairs for the night, it struck him,
for the first time in his life, that Harrie had a snubbed
nose. It annoyed him, because she was his wife, and
he loved her, and liked to feel that she was as well
looking as other women.

“Your friend is a bright girl,” he said, encouragingly,
when Harrie had hushed a couple of children,
and sat wearily down to unbutton her boots.

“I think you will find her more easy to entertain
than Cousin Mehitabel.”

Then, seeing that Harrie answered absently, and
how exhausted she looked, he expressed his sorrow
that she should have worked so long over the shirts,
and kissed her as he spoke; while Harrie cried a
little, and felt as if she would cut them all over again
for that.

The next day Miss Dallas and Mrs. Sharpe sat sewing
together; Harrie cramping her shoulders and blackening
her hands over a patch on Rocko's rough little
trousers; Pauline playing idly with purple and orange
wools, — her fingers were white, and she sank with
grace into the warm colors of the arm-chair; the door
was opened into the hall, and Dr. Sharpe passed by,
glancing in as he passed.

“Your husband is a very intelligent man, Harrie,”
observed Miss Dallas, studying her lavenders and
lemons thoughtfully. “I was much interested in
what he said about pre-Adamic man, last evening.”

“Yes,” said Harrie, “he knows a great deal. I
always thought so.” The little trousers slipped from
her black fingers by and by, and her eyes wandered
out fo the window absently.

She did not know anything about pre-Adamic man.

In the afternoon they walked down the beach
together, — the Doctor, his wife, and their guest,—
accompanied by as few children as circumstances
would admit of. Pauline was stately in a beach-dress
of bright browns, which shaded softly into one another;
it was one of Miss Dallas's peculiarities, that

she never wore more than one color, or two, at the
same time. Harrie, as it chanced, wore over her purple
dress (Rocko had tipped over two ink-bottles and a
vinegar-cruet on the sack which should have matched
it) a dull gray shawl; her bonnet was blue, — it had
been a present from Myron's sister, and she had no
other way than to wear it. Miss Dallas bounded with
pretty feet from rock to rock. Rocko hung heavily to
his mother's fingers; she had no gloves, the child
would have spoiled them; her dress dragged in the
sand, — she could not afford two skirts, and one must
be long, — and between Rocko and the wind she held
it up awkwardly.

Dr. Sharpe seldom noticed a woman's dress; he
could not have told now whether his wife's shawl was
sky-blue or pea-green; he knew nothing about the
ink-spots; he had never heard of the unfortunate
blue bonnet, or the mysteries of short and long skirts.
He might have gone to walk with her a dozen times
and thought her very pretty and “proper” in her
appearance. Now, without the vaguest idea what was
the trouble, he understood that something was wrong.
A woman would have said, Mrs. Sharpe looks dowdy
and old-fashioned; he only considered that Miss
Dallas had a pleasant air, like a soft brown picture
with crimson lights let in, and that it was an air which
his wife lacked. So, when Rocko dragged heavily
and more heavily at his mother's skirts, and the Doctor
and Pauline wandered off to climb the cliffs, Harrie

did not seek to follow or to call them back. She sat
down with Rocko on the beach, wrapped herself with
a savage hug in the ugly shawl, and wondered with a
bitterness with which only women can wonder over
such trifles, why God should send Pauline all the
pretty beach-dresses and deny them to her, — for
Harrie, like many another “dowdy” woman whom
you see upon the street, my dear madam, was a
woman of fine, keen tastes, and would have appreciated
the soft browns no less than yourself. It
seemed to her the very sting of poverty, just then,
that one must wear purple dresses and blue bonnets.

At the tea-table the Doctor fell to reconstructing
the country, and Miss Dallas, who was quite a politician
in Miss Dallas's way, observed that the horizon
looked brighter since Tennessee's admittance, and that
she hoped that the clouds, &c., — and what did he
think of Brownlow? &c., &c.

“Tennessee!” exclaimed Harrie; “why, how long
has Tennessee been in? I did n't know anything
about it.”

Miss Dallas smiled kindly. Dr. Sharpe bit his lip,
and his face flushed.

“Harrie, you really ought to read the papers,” he
said, with some impatience; “it 's no wonder you
don't know anything.”

“How should I know anything, tied to the children
all day?” Harrie spoke quickly, for the hot tears

sprang. “Why did n't you tell me something about
Tennessee? You never talk politics with me.”

This began to be awkward; Miss Dallas, who never
interfered — on principle — between husband and wife,
gracefully took up the baby, and gracefully swung her
dainty Geneva watch for the child's amusement, smiling
brilliantly. She could not endure babies, but you
would never have suspected it.

In fact, when Pauline had been in the house four or
five days, Harrie, who never thought very much of
herself, became so painfully alive to her own deficiencies,
that she fell into a permanent fit of low spirits,
which did not add either to her appearance or her
vivacity.

“Pauline is so pretty and bright!” she wrote to me.
“I always knew I was a little fool. You can be a
fool before you 're married, just as well as not. Then,
when you have three babies to look after, it is too late
to make yourself over. I try very hard now to read
the newspapers, only Myron does not know it.”

One morning something occurred to Mrs. Sharpe.
It was simply that her husband had spent every evening
at home for a week. She was in the nursery
when the thought struck her, rocking slowly in her
low sewing-chair, holding the baby on one arm and
trying to darn stockings with the other.

Pauline was — she did not really know where.
Was not that her voice upon the porch? The rocking-chair
stopped sharply, and Harrie looked down

through the blinds. The Doctor's horse was tied at
the gate. The Doctor sat fanning himself with his
hat in one of the garden chairs; Miss Dallas occupied
the other; she was chatting, and twisting her golden
wools about her fingers, — it was noticeable that she
used only golden wools that morning; her dress was
pale blue, and the effect of the purples would not have
been good.

“I thought your calls were going to take till dinner,
Myron,” called Harrie, through the blinds.

“I thought so too,” said Myron, placidly, “but
they do not seem to. Won't you come down?”

Harrie thanked him, saying, in a pleasant nonchalant
way, that she could not leave the baby. It was
almost the first bit of acting that the child had ever
been guilty of, — for the baby was just going to sleep,
and she knew it.

She turned away from the window quietly. She
could not have been angry, and scolded; or noisy,
and cried. She put little Harrie into her cradle, crept
upon the bed, and lay perfectly still for a long time.

When the dinner-bell rang, and she got up to brush
her hair, that absent, apathetic look of which I have
spoken had left her eyes. A stealthy brightness came
and went in them, which her husband might have
observed if he and Miss Dallas had not been deep in
the Woman question. Pauline saw it; Pauline saw
everything.

“Why did you not come down and sit with us this

morning?” she asked, reproachfully, when she and
Harrie were alone after dinner. “I don't want your
husband to feel that he must run away from you to
entertain me.”

“My husband's ideas of hospitality are generous,”
said Mrs. Sharpe. “I have always found him as
ready to make it pleasant here for my company as for
his own.”

She made this little speech with dignity. Did both
women know it for the farce it was? To do Miss
Dallas justice, — I am not sure. She was not a bad-hearted
woman. She was a handsome woman. She
had come to Lime to enjoy herself. Those September
days and nights were fair there by the dreamy sea.
On the whole I am inclined to think that she did not
know exactly what she was about.

“My perfumery never lasts,” said Harrie, once,
stooping to pick up Pauline's fine handkerchief, to
which a faint scent like unseen heliotrope clung; it
clung to everything of Pauline's; you would never see
a heliotrope without thinking of her, as Dr. Sharpe had
often said. “Myron used to like good cologne, but I
can't afford to buy it, so I make it myself, and use it
Sundays, and it 's all blown away by the time I get to
church. Myron says he is glad of it, for it is more
like Mrs. Allen's Hair Restorer than anything else.
What do you use, Pauline?”

“Sachet powder of course,” said Miss Dallas,
smiling.

That evening Harrie stole away by herself to the
village apothecary's. Myron should not know for
what she went. If it were the breath of a heliotrope,
thought foolish Harrie, which made it so pleasant for
people to be near Pauline, that was a matter easily
remedied. But sachet powder, you should know, is a
dollar an ounce, and Harrie must needs content herself
with “the American,” which could be had for
fifty cents; and so, of course, after she had spent her
money, and made her little silk bags, and put them
away into her bureau drawers, Myron never told her,
for all her pains, that she reminded him of a heliotrope
with the dew on it. One day a pink silk bag fell out
from under her dress, where she had tucked it.

“What 's all this nonsense, Harrie?” said her husband,
in a sharp tone.

At another time, the Doctor and Pauline were
driving upon the beach at sunset, when, turning a
sudden corner, Miss Dallas cried out, in real delight,
—

“See! That beautiful creature! Who can it
be?”

And there was Harrie, out on a rock in the opal
surf, — a little scarlet mermaid, combing her hair
with her thin fingers, from which the water almost
washed the wedding ring. It was — who knew how
long, since the pretty bathing-suit had been taken
down from the garret nails? What sudden yearning
for the wash of waves, and the spring of girlhood, and

the consciousness that one is fair to see, had overtaken
her? She watched through her hair and her
fingers for the love in her husband's eyes.

But he waded out to her, ill-pleased.

“Harrie, this is very imprudent, — very! I don't
see what could have possessed you!”

Myron Sharpe loved his wife. Of course he did.
He began, about this time, to state the fact to himself
several times a day. Had she not been all the world
to him when he wooed and won her in her rosy, ripening
days? Was she not all the world to him now that
a bit of searness had crept upon her, in a married life
of eight hard-working years?

That she had grown a little sear, he felt somewhat
keenly of late. She had a dreary, draggled look at
breakfast, after the children had cried at night, — and
the nights when Mrs. Sharpe's children did not cry
were like angels' visits. It was perhaps the more
noticeable, because Miss Dallas had a peculiar color
and coolness and sparkle in the morning, like that of
opening flowers. She had not been up till midnight
with a sick baby.

Harrie was apt to be too busy in the kitchen to run
and meet him when he came home at dusk. Or, if
she came, it was with her sleeves rolled up and an
apron on. Miss Dallas sat at the window; the lace
curtain waved about her; she nodded and smiled as
he walked up the path. In the evening Harrie
talked of Rocko, or the price of butter; she did not

venture beyond, poor thing! since her experience
with Tennessee.

Miss Dallas quoted Browning, and discussed Goethe,
and talked Parepa; and they had no lights, and the
September moon shone in. Sometimes Mrs. Sharpe
had mending to do, and, as she could not sew on her
husband's buttons satisfactorily by moonlight, would
slip into the dining-room with kerosene and mosquitoes
for company. The Doctor may have noticed,
or he may not, how comfortably he could, if he made
the proper effort, pass the evening without her.

But Myron Sharpe loved his wife. To be sure he
did. If his wife doubted it, — but why should she
doubt it? Who thought she doubted it? If she
did, she gave no sign. Her eyes, he observed, had
brightened of late; and when they went to her from
the moonlit parlor, there was such a pretty color upon
her cheeks, that he used to stoop and kiss them, while
Miss Dallas discreetly occupied herself in killing mosquitoes.
Of course he loved his wife!

It was observable that, in proportion to the frequency
with which he found it natural to remark his
fondness for Harrie, his attentions to her increased.
He inquired tenderly after her headaches; he brought
her flowers, when he and Miss Dallas walked in the
autumn woods; he was particular about her shawls
and wraps; he begged her to sail and drive with
them; he took pains to draw his chair beside hers on
the porch; he patted her hands, and played with her
soft hair.

Harrie's clear eyes puzzled over this for a day or
two; but by and by it might have been noticed that
she refused his rides, shawled herself, was apt to be
with the children when he called her, and shrank, in
a quiet way, from his touch.

She went into her room one afternoon, and locked
the children out. An east wind blew, and the rain
fell drearily. The Doctor and Pauline were playing
chess down stairs; she should not be missed. She
took out her wedding-dress from the drawer where
she had laid it tenderly away; the hoar-frost and
fretted pearl fell down upon her faded morning-dress;
the little creamy gloves hung loosely upon her worn
fingers. Poor little gloves! Poor little pearly dress!
She felt a kind of pity for their innocence and ignorance
and trustfulness. Her hot tears fell and spotted
them. What if there were any way of creeping back
through them to be little Harrie Bird again? Would
she take it?

Her children's voices sounded crying for her in the
hall. Three innocent babies — and how many more?
— to grow into life under the shadow of a wrecked
and loveless home! What had she done? What had
they done?

Harrie's was a strong, healthy little soul, with a
strong, healthy love of life; but she fell down there
that dreary afternoon, prone upon the nursery floor,
among the yellow wedding lace, and prayed God to
let her die.

Yet Myron Sharpe loved his wife, you understand.
Discussing elective affinities down there over the chessboard
with Miss Dallas, — he loved his wife, most certainly;
and, pray, why was she not content?

It was quite late when they came up for Harrie.
She had fallen into a sleep or faint, and the window
had been open all the time. Her eyes burned sharply,
and she complained of a chill, which did not leave her
the next day nor the next.

One morning, at the breakfast-table, Miss Dallas
calmly observed that she should go home on Friday.

Dr. Sharpe dropped his cup; Harrie wiped up the
tea.

“My dear Miss Dallas — surely — we cannot let
you go yet! Harrie! Can't you keep your friend?”

Harrie said the proper thing in a low tone. Pauline
repeated her determination with much decision, and
was afraid that her visit had been more of a burden
than Harrie, with all her care, was able to bear. Dr.
Sharpe pushed back his chair noisily, and left the
room.

He went and stood by the parlor window. The
man's face was white. What business had the days
to close down before him like a granite wall, because
a woman with long trains and white hands was going
out of them? Harrie's patient voice came in through
the open door: —

“Yes, yes, yes, Rocko; mother is tired to-day;
wait a minute.”

Pauline, sweeping by the piano, brushed the keys a
little, and sang: —

What had he been about?

The air grew sweet with the sudden scent of heliotrope,
and Miss Dallas pushed aside the curtain gently.

“I may have that sail across the bay before I go?
It promises to be fair to-morrow.”

He hesitated.

“I suppose it will be our last,” said the lady, softly.

She was rather sorry when she had spoken, for she
really did not mean anything, and was surprised at
the sound of her own voice.

But they took the sail.

Harrie watched them off — her husband did not
invite her to go on that occasion — with that stealthy
sharpness in her eyes. Her lips and hands and forehead
were burning. She had been cold all day. A
sound like the tolling of a bell beat in her ears. The
children's voices were choked and distant. She wondered
if Biddy were drunk, she seemed to dance
about so at her ironing-table, and wondered if she
must dismiss her, and who could supply her place.
She tried to put my room in order, for she was expecting
me that night by the last train, but gave up the
undertaking in weariness and confusion.

In fact, if Harrie had been one of the Doctor's
patients, he would have sent her to bed and prescribed
for brain-fever. As she was not a patient, but only
his wife, he had not found out that anything ailed her.

Nothing happened while he was gone, except that a
friend of Biddy's “dropped in,” and Mrs. Sharpe,
burning and shivering in her sewing-chair, dreamily
caught through the open door, and dreamily repeated
to herself, a dozen words of compassionate Irish
brogue: —

“Folks as laves folks cryin' to home and goes
sailin' round with other women —”

Then the wind latched the door.

The Doctor and Miss Dallas drew in their oars,
and floated softly.

There were gray and silver clouds overhead, and
all the light upon the sea slanted from low in the
west: it was a red light, in which the bay grew
warm; it struck across Pauline's hands, which she
dipped, as the mood took her, into the waves, leaning
upon the side of the boat, looking down into the
water. One other sail only was to be seen upon the
bay. They watched it for a while. It dropped into
the west, and sunk from sight.

They were silent for a time, and then they talked
of friendship, and nature, and eternity, and then were
silent for a time again, and then spoke — in a very
general and proper way — of separation and communion

in spirit, and broke off softly, and the boat
rose and fell upon the strong outgoing tide.
hummed Pauline.

The west, paling a little, left a haggard look upon
the Doctor's face.

“An honest man,” the Doctor was saying, — “an
honest man, who loves his wife devotedly, but who
cannot find in her that sympathy which his higher
nature requires, that comprehension of his intellectual
needs, that —”

“I always feel a deep compassion for such a man,”
interrupted Miss Dallas, gently.

“Such a man,” questioned the Doctor in a pensive
tone, “need not be debarred, by the shallow conventionalities
of an unappreciative world, from a friendship
which will rest, strengthen, and ennoble his
weary soul?”

“Certainly not,” said Pauline, with her eyes upon
the water; dull yellow, green, and indigo shades were
creeping now upon its ruddiness.

“Pauline,” — Dr. Sharpe's voice was low, — “Pauline!”

Pauline turned her beautiful head.

“There are marriages for this world; true and
honorable marriages, but for this world. But there is
a marriage for eternity, — a marriage of souls.”

Now Myron Sharpe is not a fool, but that is precisely

what he said to Miss Pauline Dallas, out in the
boat on that September night. If wiser men than
Myron Sharpe never uttered more unpardonable nonsense
under similar circumstances, cast your stones at
him.

“Perhaps so,” said Miss Dallas, with a sigh; “but
see! How dark it has grown while we have been talking.
We shall be caught in a squall; but I shall not
be at all afraid — with you.”

They were caught indeed, not only in a squall, but
in the steady force of a driving northeasterly storm
setting in doggedly with a very ugly fog. If Miss
Dallas was not at all afraid — with him, she was
nevertheless not sorry when they grated safely on the
dull white beach.

They had had a hard pull in against the tide. Sky
and sea were black. The fog crawled like a ghost
over flat and cliff and field. The rain beat upon them
as they turned to walk up the beach.

Pauline stopped once suddenly.

“What was that?”

“I heard nothing.”

“A cry, — I fancied a cry down there in the fog.”

They went back, and walked down the slippery
shore for a space. Miss Dallas took off her hat to
listen.

“You will take cold,” said Dr. Sharpe, anxiously.
She put it on; she heard nothing, — she was tired
and excited, he said.

They walked home together. Miss Dallas had
sprained her white wrist, trying to help at the oars;
he drew it gently through his arm.

It was quite dark when they reached the house.
No lamps were lighted. The parlor window had
been left open, and the rain was beating in. “How
careless in Harrie!” said her husband, impatiently.

He remembered those words, and the sound of his
own voice in saying them, for a long time to come;
he remembers them now, indeed, I fancy, on rainy
nights when the house is dark.

The hall was cold and dreary. No table was set for
supper. The children were all crying. Dr. Sharpe
pushed open the kitchen door with a stern face.

“Biddy! Biddy! what does all this mean? Where
is Mrs. Sharpe?”

“The Lord only knows what it manes, or where is
Mrs. Sharpe,” said Biddy, sullenly. “It 's high time,
in me own belafe, for her husband to come ashkin' and
inquirin', her close all in a hape on the floor upstairs,
with her bath-dress gone from the nails, and the front
door swingin', — me never findin' of it out till it
cooms tay-time, with all the children cryin' on me,
and me head shplit with the noise, and —”

Dr. Sharpe strode in a bewildered way to the front
door. Oddly enough, the first thing he did was to
take down the thermometer and look at it. Gone out
to bathe in a temperature like that! His mind ran
like lightning, while he hung the thing back upon its

nail, over Harrie's ancestry. Was there not a traditionary
great-uncle who died in an asylum? The
whole future of three children with an insane mother
spread itself out before him while he was buttoning
his overcoat.

“Shall I go and help you find her?” asked Miss
Dallas, tremulously; “or shall I stay and look after
hot flannels and — things? What shall I do?”

“I don't care what you do!” said the Doctor,
savagely. To his justice be it recorded that he did
not. He would not have exchanged one glimpse of
Harrie's little homely face just then for an eternity of
sunset-sailing with the “friend of his soul.” A sudden
cold loathing of her possessed him; he hated
the sound of her soft voice; he hated the rustle of her
garments, as she leaned against the door with her
handkerchief at her eyes. Did he remember at that
moment an old vow, spoken on an old October day,
to that little missing face? Did he comfort himself
thus, as he stepped out into the storm, “You have
`trusted her,' Myron Sharpe, as `your best earthly
friend”'?

As luck, or providence, or God — whichever word
you prefer — decreed it, the Doctor had but just shut
the door when he saw me driving from the station
through the rain. I heard enough of the story while
he was helping me down the carriage steps. I left
my bonnet and bag with Miss Dallas, pulled my waterproof
over my head, and we turned our faces to the
sea without a word.

The Doctor is a man who thinks and acts rapidly in
emergencies, and little time was lost about help and
lights. Yet when all was done which could be done,
we stood there upon the slippery weed-strewn sand,
and looked in one another's faces helplessly. Harrie's
little boat was gone. The sea thundered out beyond
the bar. The fog hung, a dead weight, upon a
buried world. Our lanterns cut it for a foot or two
in a ghostly way, throwing a pale white light back
upon our faces and the weeds and bits of wreck under
our feet.

The tide had turned. We put out into the surf not
knowing what else to do, and called for Harrie; we
leaned on our oars to listen, and heard the water drip
into the boat, and the dull thunder beyond the bar;
we called again, and heard a frightened sea-gull scream.

“This yere 's wastin' valooable time,” said Hansom,
decidedly. I forgot to say that it was George Hansom
whom Myron had picked up to help us. Anybody
in Lime will tell you who George Hansom is, —
a clear-eyed, open-hearted sailor; a man to whom you
would turn in trouble as instinctively as a rheumatic
man turns to the sun.

I cannot accurately tell you what he did with us
that night. I have confused memories of searching
shore and cliffs and caves; of touching at little islands
and inlets that Harrie fancied; of the peculiar echo
which answered our shouting; of the look that settled
little by little about Dr. Sharpe's mouth; of the sobbing

of the low wind; of the flare of lanterns on
gaping, green waves; of spots of foam that writhed
like nests of white snakes; of noticing the puddles in
the bottom of the boat, and of wondering confusedly
what they would do with my travelling-dress, at the
very moment when I saw — I was the first to see it —
a little empty boat; of our hauling alongside of the
tossing, silent thing; of a bit of a red scarf that lay
coiled in its stern; of our drifting by, and speaking
never a word; of our coasting along after that for a
mile down the bay, because there was nothing in the
world to take us there but the dread of seeing the
Doctor's eyes when we should turn.

It was there that we heard the first cry.

“It 's shoreward!” said Hansom.

“It is seaward!” cried the Doctor.

“It is behind us!” said I.

Where was it? A sharp, sobbing cry, striking the
mist three or four times in rapid succession, — hushing
suddenly, — breaking into shrieks like a frightened
child's, — dying plaintively down.

We struggled desperately after it, through the fog.
Wind and water took the sound up and tossed it about.
Confused and bewildered, we beat about it and about
it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our
left, — crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us
no replies, — beckoning us, slipping from us, mocking
us utterly.

The Doctor stretched his hands out upon the solid

wall of mist; he groped with them like a man struck
blind.

“To die there, — in my very hearing, — without a
chance —”

And while the words were upon his lips the cries
ceased.

He turned a gray face slowly around, shivered a
little, then smiled a little, then began to argue with
ghastly cheerfulness: —

“It must be only for a moment, you know. We
shall hear it again, — I am quite sure we shall hear it
again, Hansom!”

Hansom, making a false stroke, I believe for the
first time in his life, snapped an oar and overturned a
lantern. We put ashore for repairs. The wind was
rising fast. Some drift-wood, covered with slimy
weeds, washed heavily up at our feet. I remember
that a little disabled ground-sparrow, chased by the
tide, was fluttering and drowning just in sight, and
that Myron drew it out of the water, and held it up
for a moment to his cheek.

Bending over the ropes, George spoke between his
teeth to me: —

“It may be a night's job on 't, findin' of the body.”

“The WHAT?”

The poor little sparrow dropped from Dr. Sharpe's
hand. He took a step backward, scanned our faces,
sat down dizzily, and fell over upon the sand.

He is a man of good nerves and great self-possession,

but he fell like a woman, and lay like the
dead.

“It 's no place for him,” Hansom said, softly. “Get
him home. Me and the neighbors can do the rest.
Get him home, and put his baby into his arms, and
shet the door, and go about your business.”

I had left him in the dark on the office floor at last.
Miss Dallas and I sat in the cold parlor and looked at
each other.

The fire was low and the lamp dull. The rain beat
in an uncanny way upon the windows. I never like
to hear the rain upon the windows. I liked it less
than usual that night, and was just trying to brighten
the fire a little, when the front door blew open.

“Shut it, please,” said I, between the jerks of my
poker.

But Miss Dallas looked over her shoulder and shivered.

“Just look at that latch!” I looked at that latch.

It rose and fell in a feeble fluttering way, — was
still for a minute, — rose and fell again.

When the door swung in and Harrie — or the ghost
of her — staggered into the chilly room and fell down
in a scarlet heap at my feet, Pauline bounded against
the wall with a scream which pierced into the dark office
where the Doctor lay with his face upon the floor.

It was long before we knew how it happened. Indeed,

I suppose we have never known it all. How
she glided down, a little red wraith, through the dusk
and damp to her boat; how she tossed about, with
some dim, delirious idea of finding Myron on the
ebbing waves; that she found herself stranded and
tangled at last in the long, matted grass of that muddy
cove, started to wade home, and sunk in the ugly ooze,
held, chilled, and scratched by the sharp grass, blinded
and frightened by the fog, and calling, as she thought
of it, for help; that in the first shallow wash of the
flowing tide she must have struggled free, and found
her way home across the fields, — she can tell us, but
she can tell no more.

This very morning on which I write, an unknown
man, imprisoned in the same spot in the same way
overnight, was found by George Hansom dead there
from exposure in the salt grass.

It was the walk home, and only that, which could
have saved her.

Yet for many weeks we fought, her husband and I,
hand to hand with death, seeming to see the life slip
out of her, and watching for wandering minutes when
she might look upon us with sane eyes.

We kept her — just. A mere little wreck, with
drawn lips, and great eyes, and shattered nerves, —
but we kept her.

I remember one night, when she had fallen into her
first healthful nap, that the Doctor came down to rest
a few minutes in the parlor where I sat alone. Pauline
was washing the tea-things.

He began to pace the room with a weary abstracted
look, — he was much worn by watching, — and, seeing
that he was in no mood for words, I took up a book
which lay upon the table. It chanced to be one of
Alger's, which somebody had lent to the Doctor before
Harrie's illness; it was a marked book, and I ran
my eye over the pencilled passages. I recollect having
been struck with this one: “A man's best friend
is a wife of good sense and good heart, whom he loves
and who loves him.”

“You believe that?” said Myron, suddenly, behind
my shoulder.

“I believe that a man's wife ought to be his best
friend, — in every sense of the word, his best friend,
— or she ought never to be his wife.”

“And if — there will be differences of temperament,
and — other things. If you were a man now, for
instance, Miss Hannah —”

I interrupted him with hot cheeks and sudden
courage.

“If I were a man, and my wife were not the
best friend I had or could have in the world, nobody
should ever know it, — she, least of all, — Myron
Sharpe!”

Young people will bear a great deal of impertinence
from an old lady, but we had both gone further than
we meant to. I closed Mr. Alger with a snap, and
went up to Harrie.

The day that Mrs. Sharpe sat up in the easy-chair

for two hours, Miss Dallas, who had felt called upon
to stay and nurse her dear Harrie to recovery, and
had really been of service, detailed on duty among the
babies, went home.

Dr. Sharpe drove her to the station. I accompanied
them at his request. Miss Dallas intended, I think,
to look a little pensive, but had her lunch to cram into
a very full travelling-bag, and forgot it. The Doctor,
with clear, courteous eyes, shook hands, and wished
her a pleasant journey.

He drove home in silence, and went directly to
his wife's room. A bright blaze flickered on the old-fashioned
fireplace, and the walls bowed with pretty
dancing shadows. Harrie, all alone, turned her face
weakly and smiled.

Well, they made no fuss about it, after all. Her
husband came and stood beside her; a cricket on
which one of the baby's dresses had been thrown, lay
between them; it seemed, for the moment, as if he
dared not cross the tiny barrier. Something of that
old fancy about the lights upon the altar may have
crossed his thought.

“So Miss Dallas has fairly gone, Harrie,” said he,
pleasantly, after a pause.

“Yes. She has been very kind to the children
while I have been sick.”

“Very.”

“You must miss her,” said poor Harrie, trembling;
she was very weak yet.

The Doctor knocked away the cricket, folded his
wife's two shadowy hands into his own, and said: —

“Harrie we have no strength to waste, either of us,
upon a scene; but I am sorry, and I love you.”

She broke all down at that, and, dear me! they
almost had a scene in spite of themselves. For O,
she had always known what a little goose she was;
and Pauline never meant any harm, and how handsome
she was, you know! only she did n't have three
babies to look after, nor a snubbed nose either, and
the sachet powder was only American, and the very
servants knew, and, O Myron! she had wanted to be
dead so long, and then —

“Harrie!” said the Doctor, at his wit's end, “this
will never do in the world. I believe — I declare! —
Miss Hannah! — I believe I must send you to bed.”

“And then I 'm SUCH a little skeleton!” finished
Harrie, royally, with a great gulp.

Dr. Sharpe gathered the little skeleton all into a
heap in his arms, — it was a very funny heap, by the
way, but that does n't matter, — and to the best of my
knowledge and belief he cried just about as hard as
she did.