University of Virginia Library

III--"THEY SAY--"

Although Luce had enjoined secrecy upon Charley, and protested against publicity being given by acts and manners any more than by words, she found Charley's society so pleasant that she had not the heart to forbid him to call frequently. She discouraged all attempts at effusive love- making; but she could not help being interested and cheered by the young man's enthusiasm, for the people of Brundy seldom found anything to be enthusiastic about, and as Luce was a great-hearted creature her lover's irrepressible spirits made good the lack of something which she often felt.

But how can any one keep a secret in a town where the people have only other people's affairs to occupy

their leisure moments? Within a week everybody was telling everybody else that Charley Wurring had been three times--some said four--to the Grews' since the night of the lecture, and that it must mean something; as Luce was the only adult girl in the family, and there were no young men among her brothers, public opinion was not long in determining what the something was. Luce was not the kind of girl of whom girls in general ask leading questions, but it needs not direct statements to establish anything which a lot of gossips desire to believe, so that in less than another week all Brundy, despite Charley's evasions, regarded the couple as fully engaged, and discussed them accordingly at shops, the post-office, and wherever else men and women chanced to meet.

"It seems too bad," said one of the village pastors at a grocer's, where he chanced to meet old Pruffett. "I am not given to romance--my calling forbids it, through the stern realities which I am obliged to encounter in the experiences of my flock; but that girl has always seemed to me to be worthy of far greater opportunities than our village affords, yet now she seems to have given herself to a young man who shows as few signs of rising as any one whom I know, and who has much, for which he is not responsible, to keep him down. Two young people more utterly unlike in nature I have seldom met."

"Ah, well," replied Pruffett, "let us hope that it is according to the designs of Providence. If like were always to marry like, the world would soon be full of petrified cranks, Dominie."

"I suppose," said the minister cautiously, "that you are right, on general principles, but I confess that the present application distresses me."

"Every one owes something to the community in which he lives," continued Pruffett. "If there is anything in this story which has no authority but common report--perhaps it accounts for the wonderful change that has come over the entire Wurring family. Charley is working as hard as any farmer in the county, and his father is working with him, and seems to be taking no liquor."

"Charley's mother looks happier than I have seen her for years," admitted the minister; "I noticed it from the pulpit only last Sunday, and it inspired me in both preaching and praying. All of her children were at church, too--an unusual occurrence."

"Wurring has picked up a good deal of manliness in some way," remarked the grocer. "I've had to refuse him credit very often of late years--I hated to do it, for he used to be a good customer of mine; still, a man can't conduct a grocery business on bygones if he expects to pay his own bills. The other day, though, when he bought a small bag of flour, I told him he might as well take a barrel, and pay me out of the wood that he and Charley are clearing from that marsh for Champ and his father, but Wurring flushed up and said rather grandly that he couldn't do it, for the wood belonged entirely to Charley. It wasn't so long ago that he used to beg me for small credits, to be paid when Charley got his pay from the school board."

"Luce herself certainly looks happier than she used to," said the minister.

"Then I guess that everybody ought to be happy," said old Pruffett, although he doubted his own words as he thought of Champney Bruff and his dismal secret. He could not help recalling the days, that strung out sadly into months and years, in which he himself had tried to live down his disappointment at losing Luce's mother.

As time went on, however, people began to whisper to one another that matters did not seem to be as they at first had been with Charley and Luce. The woodpiles multiplied rapidly in the Bruff marshland, and Charley himself grew more and more manly in appearance to those who saw him on his way to work in the morning or returning late at night. He went as often to the Grews', but Luce did not look as happy as usual when people chanced to see her. She certainly did not seem to have stopped liking Charley, for those church-goers who spent their time in looking at other people during service said that she had her eyes upon him almost all the while except during prayer time. Veteran gossips, experienced at cross-questioning in ways that would occasionally put the shrewdest and most self-contained natives off their guard, waylaid Luce's little brothers and sisters and asked many questions, but learned nothing; it was evident, therefore, that the young couple did not converse freely in the family circle. What could the matter be?

"Luce," Charley had said one evening, after the

girl had several times rallied him on his unusual solemnity, "you do love me, don't you? I don't ask you to say that you care as much for me as I for you, because there's not as much of me to care for, but--"

"Love you? Indeed I do," murmured Luce, "as much as I know how to. You must remember that it is something new to me, while you say you have loved me a long time. I've never been in love before, nor thought much about it, but you know I am very, very fond of you."

"So fond that no one else could take you away from me?"

"You silly boy," said the girl, with a merry laugh. "What a question to ask. Don't you think you had better drop it and the thought of it, until some one else shows some signs of asking me?"

Charley looked as if he were not entirely sure that the question would keep so long, and Luce succeeded in changing the subject; she had read of such forebodings of lovers--novels were full of them, and she detested most novels.

The next time he called, however, Charley reverted to the subject, and would not be diverted from it; by this time the girl's curiosity was aroused and she insisted upon knowing what the young man meant.

"Only this," was the reply. "There's a better man than I who has been in love with you a long time, and I don't believe he thinks of anything else."

"Then his mind might be better employed," promptly replied the girl. "But who is he?"

"His name is Champney Bruff," said Charley, looking

keenly into Luce's eyes as he spoke. To his infinite relief, yet somewhat to his pain also, Luce burst into hearty laughter as she exclaimed:

"How ridiculous!"

"But it isn't ridiculous, my dear," replied Charley very gravely. "It's serious--very serious."

"Why, Charley," said Luce, after another laugh--a long, melodious laugh, with a little wonder in it--"Champ Bruff never spoke to me more than twenty words in any one day in all his life. Whenever he was near me I felt uncomfortable, for he always looked--why, really he looked as if he was afraid I would bite him, which I solemnly assure you I never once thought of doing."

"What strange creatures you girls are," said Charley, rather pettishly. "There are some of you at whom a man can't look more than half a minute before they suspect him of being in love with them, while others can't see anything but--but what isn't."

"But what reason have you to be angry about it, you silly boy?" asked Luce. "One would think, to hear you talk, that you would like me to be grateful to Champ Bruff, and fall in love with him in return. If you really insist upon it, I suppose I could--"

"Stop! Stop, please--at once"' exclaimed Charley hastily. "Still, I'm awfully sorry for Champ."

"Why should you be?" the girl asked merrily; she scarcely knew what she said or why she said it, for the disclosure had amazed her greatly, and she was not accustomed to being amazed. "Hasn't some poet

--a man poet, too, written, ''Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'?"

"Has he? I didn't know it, and I don't exactly understand why he did it, but perhaps he had more experience than I in such matters. Don't make fun of Champ, though, please, because his disappointment has hurt him dreadfully."

"Disappointment? Why, he never said a word to me about anything of the kind, and if he had I--" Luce did not conclude the sentence, for she could not. Like all other women of the nobler order, she had not spent much time in dreaming about lovers and longing for them; she had supposed that some day, in the natural order of affairs, some man would propose to her, and she might love him and afterward marry him, but the idea of being loved by a man who, as she had said, had scarcely spoken to her except in the briefest manner, and with whom she had no interests in common--why, it seemed almost shocking. How could the man have come by so silly a fancy?

"How did you come to know all this?" she asked Charley. "You've been hearing some gossip at the shops or the post-office, I'll warrant--something said for the sole purpose of teasing you. Quite a lot of people are curious about us, and I'm rather uncomfortable about it. Who told you this ridiculous story?"

"Champ himself," replied Charley.

"What? Are you dreaming?"

"I never was wider awake in my life, dear girl; the thought of it frequently keeps me awake when I should be asleep."

"But you must have misunderstood him," insisted Luce, with the positive manner of an entirely honest and simple nature. "It is he who has given you the chance of work which you are improving so splendidly, according to every one. The best things I hear about you are always accompanied by the expression 'Champ says.' Any one would suppose that, if you were right, Champ must be crazy, for he seems to be doing just what a sane man wouldn't do if he were in love with the same woman as the man whom he is praising and helping. I've heard many strange things and read some others, but really, this is the most incomprehensible, nonsensical thing I ever heard of in my life."

"Do stop laughing!" exclaimed Charley. "Your laughter is the sweetest music in the world, but there's a time for everything, and no good man's troubles should be laughed at by a good woman."

"You're a noble-hearted fellow," exclaimed Luce, with the first look of hearty admiration which the young man had ever seen in her face. It pleased him greatly, but did not prevent what he wanted to say; so when Luce begged him to tell her what he knew, and how he learned it, and insisted upon hearing all the particulars, he told her everything which had happened between Champ and him. When he had finished Luce was silent a long time; finally she said:

"What a noble-hearted fellow he must be! Who would imagine, to look at that serious, matter-of-fact face of his, that there was a single spark of romance in him?"

"Romance?" echoed Charley. "The romance isn't

near so wonderful to me as his heroism. If you'd seen him standing there in the woods, his axe upraised, and his face looking as if he wanted to kill me--you wouldn't have thought there was anything romantic about him."

"And he is doing all this for me," said Luce, who had gone into a reverie.

"He certainly is," was the reply. "He certainly doesn't do it for me. He never speaks to me unless I compel him; he passes me in the street with the merest nod, and with a look as if he were charging me with the basest form of theft. In fact, he has succeeded in making me feel the same way a great deal of the time."

"I'm sure I don't see why," said Luce, roused by her sense of justice. "You can not have robbed him of what he never had, nor of what he had any good reason to believe he ever would have. The idea of my marrying Champney Bruff!"

"It really doesn't seem possible to you?" asked Charley eagerly and with an intent expression of face.

"Utterly impossible," the girl replied. "Don't you too go crazy. What a strange world this is!"

"But you will try to be polite to him hereafter, when you chance to meet him?"

"I shall not only try; I shall be so, for all that he has done for you, and also for what you say he has suffered. I wish, though, that I hadn't heard of it."

"Why so?"

"Because--oh, because I'm sorry to be the cause of unhappiness to any one, even if the fault is not at all

mine. The affair will appear like a nightmare to me; I wish you hadn't told me of it."

"Then so do I; it seems to be my luck to say and do things at unexpected times."

"Don't blame yourself, you poor boy!" exclaimed Luce; then, for the first time in their acquaintanceship, she kissed him, and the kiss took an immense load from Charley's heart.

After that, however, there was a strange change in the ways of the two young people; Charley never again alluded voluntarily to Champney Bruff, but Luce persisted in asking questions about the unhappy man. Did he seem as solemn as ever? Did he still look and act as if he had been robbed? Did he make any more threats?

The subject finally became unspeakably unpleasant to Charley, for Luce slowly lost the cheerful manner which she had displayed toward him from the beginning of their engagement. She never had acted as sweethearts did in the hundreds of romances Charley had read, but she had made him feel entirely welcome, and this seemed a promise of something better in sweeter days to come. Now, however, she began to greet him inquiringly and anxiously; she said she was in constant fear of trouble between him and Champ, and if there should be anything of the kind she would wish she never had been born. She wished, and said so without a blush, that they were able to marry and go away--anywhere, to any degree of poverty, if only she might not have to be in the same town with a man who was feeling as Champ was said

to feel. Charley had read somewhere of a malady called monomania; he knew the meaning of the word, and he felt sure that it described Luce's condition. He tried to dispose of such wood as he had cut, that he might bravely marry on the proceeds; marriages at Brundy were simple and inexpensive affairs, and a wedding trip was an indulgence of which no happy couples dared to think. But winter was still two or three months away; the natives had ample time in which to haggle and chaffer about the price of their winter supply of fuel, so Charley was obliged to delay.

And all the while he was so sorry for Luce. She, the grandest-natured young woman in the village--she, who never had been subject to the "nerves" of which even young men were occasionally obliged to hear--became pale, timorous, and sometimes tearful. Her parents blamed Charley, but the girl declared that he was the dearest fellow in the world, and had never said an unkind word to her; if only she could feel at ease about his future she did not care what might become of her. She no longer tried to keep secret her promise to Charley; she announced, almost defiantly, some sage women thought, that they were engaged to be married, and that he was the best man she ever had known or heard of. The family physician was called in, but he could make nothing of the case; the family's pastor talked with her and prayed with her, but went home afterward in a most bewildered frame of mind. Indeed, no one seemed able to give her any cheer but old Pruffett, who shrewdly timed a call upon her mother at an hour when he knew well the good

woman was not at home. He was as kind-hearted and tender as he was shrewd, so, almost before she knew what she was doing, Luce was unburdening her heart to him.

"There will be no trouble between them; drop that thought from your mind," said the old man; "but if both of you are as anxious as you say that Charley and he shall be separated, suppose I send Charley out West for me on a little matter of business? It will put some money into his pocket, and take a great load from your heart. In the meantime I will talk to Champ; I happen to be the only person besides Charley who knows how the poor fellow is feeling, and perhaps I can comfort him a little. No one is fitter to do it, for I've been through a similar experience myself.

"You?" said the girl wonderingly. To her, all love was the exclusive property of young people.

"Yes, I. It was a long time ago, but I shall never forget it. Your mother may perhaps tell you something about it if you ask her."

The very next day all Brundy knew that Charley Wurring had taken the stage for the nearest railway station, and what to make of it no one knew, for Charley had bluntly told inquirers that it was nobody's business where he went or what he went for. When Champ heard this his usual reticence deserted him, and he used language so severe about the young man that the town soon had it that Charley had borrowed a lot of money from Champ, and left town to avoid paying it.

No business man, no matter how great his experience or how perfect his methods, ever finds his time entirely equal to all the demands upon it, so old Pruffett did not reach Champney Bruff until that very volcanic person had heard all that the village could tell him about the departure of Charley Wurring. Pruffett was going to break the news to him in a masterly manner and then force upon Champ some counsel which he did not doubt would have the proper effect.

He found Champ in the marsh forest, and also in a state of wrath. No sooner did the younger man see who it was that was intruding upon the solitude which he had sought for himself than he roared:

"A nice end your advice has brought things to, hasn't it? Luce is miserable, and that young scoundrel gone to no one knows where, while I--"

"Excuse me a moment," interrupted the older man. "Some one knows where Charley is; it is I. Charley isn't a scoundrel either; he's far more a man than I supposed. Still more, Luce isn't miserable; I called there this morning, and found her looking and feeling better than at any time in the last two or three weeks. As to you--but I interrupted you."

"She's looking and feeling better?" asked Champ. "Are you sure?"

"I've the evidence of my own eyes and ears, and her mother is of my opinion."

"Thank heaven!" exclaimed Champ, smoothing his brow somewhat.

"You were saying something about yourself," persisted old Pruffett.

"Never mind about me, if the girl is feeling better," was the reply. "You know very well, if what you told me a few weeks ago about her mother was true, that I don't care what happens to me if she can be happy."

"You've really learned to feel that way, have you?" The old man accompanied his question with a look so keen, despite the age of his eyes, that Champ winced a bit; but he pulled himself together and looked very manly when he finally said:

"Yes! It's been an awful fight, and one that's by no means over. There isn't an unhappier man on the face of the earth than I; I've thought all manner of dreadful things toward that youngster Charley, but I've been true to the girl in my heart all the while. I shall be ready, all my life long, to do anything in my power that will make her happy in any way."

"Good boy! You'll get your reward for it, as I got mine. You may not believe it--I didn't for a long while--indeed, I didn't think such a thing possible; but 'twas none the less comforting when it came. But let's see; you said just now that you'd be willing to do anything to make her happy; well, now's your chance."

"Now! What do you mean?"

"I think it would comfort her greatly if you would call and have a chat with her about Charley."

"Call?" gasped Champ, turning pale. "Why, Mr.

Pruffett, I--really, I never made a call on a young woman in my life!"

"Indeed? That's an awful confession. I don't wonder you are in your present condition of mind. The best way to atone is to begin to make amends as soon as possible. That poor girl has been haunted by the fear that you had some dangerous designs against Charley, and I don't believe that any one but you can disabuse her mind of this very painful impression. Do you intend to allow her to go on suffering?"

"How can I? Do go to her and tell her from me--"

"Second-hand news is poor stuff to send to a woman you profess to regard so highly."

"Then I'll write to her--at once."

"A person can't say much in a letter, at best; he can say wretchedly little to one who wishes to hear a great deal--and has an undoubted right to."

Champ looked like a criminal being led to execution, but he finally gasped:

"I'll--call."

"Promise me," said Pruffett, "that you'll go this very evening."

"I--I promise."

"Good! Now, don't be a coward, Champ. Girls are not ogres, as a rule; even when they are, they have a fair share of manners when meeting respectable young men who they know have put them under obligations. She knows all that you have done for Charley, and she therefore thinks that you are one of the finest fellows in the world. There are thousands of

great men and brilliant ones who would be delighted to call on such a woman, with such a welcome awaiting them. Don't be afraid that you won't know what to say; a girl can make any man talk, unless he chances to have lost the use of his tongue. Don't hurry, either; talk all you can about Charley, and say all the good you can of him; if there are some things about him which you're not entirely sure about, give him the benefit of the doubt; it will please her, and you'll feel the better for it afterward."

Champ promised everything asked of him, but he did it all with the manner of a man talking in a dream. The agonies of his preparations for the call need not be dwelt upon, for they were too serious to be laughed over, although the reader could do nothing else. Suffice it to say, that he received a cordial welcome, for old Pruffett had sent the girl word that Champ was to be expected, and that as the affair was very embarrassing to him womanly pity should see to it that he should not be obliged to feel uncomfortable.

Within five minutes after entering the Grews' door Champ felt quite as much at ease as if he were at home, so he had little trouble in asking after Charley.

"He has gone out West, for a little while, on business for Mr. Pruffett," said Luce.

"I heartily hope there is as much money in it for him as there was for Pruffett himself when he went West," said Champ. "I don't know of any one whom I'd rather see make a fortune in a hurry than Charley. There's splendid stuff in that young man, Miss Grew."

"Do you really think so?" the girl asked, with a

look from which she could not keep a sign of curiosity. Champ met it as coolly as if it were a man's glance about a matter of business, and continued:

"Indeed I do. I'm personally proud of it, too, for I have had a little to do with bringing it out."

"Indeed you have," replied Luce heartily. "He has told me of all you have done for him, and I want to thank you, myself, for your manly friendship."

"Oh, don't say that, please!" exclaimed Champ, shading his eyes to keep the girl from seeing some thoughts which he feared might betray themselves.

"Then you are not friends, despite what you say about each other?" asked Luce anxiously. The tone of her voice compelled him to drop his hand and say:

"Miss Grew, I would do more for that young man than for any other man on the face of the earth. Can I make that any stronger?"

"No," murmured Luce, although she looked as if there was something else she would like to know. Champ wondered what it was. He was not accustomed to study women's faces, but he was sure that he knew what was in Luce's mind, so he continued:

"If he doesn't come back as soon as you want him to, I'll beg Mr. Pruffett to hurry him home; I'll offer to go out there in his place, if the old man thinks I can do the work as well as he, I'll--"

"No, no, no!" exclaimed Luce. "I don't want him to come back--not at present, at least. He is--he doesn't exactly know how, and it is better for both of us that he should be away for the present--unless your work is suffering through his absence?"

"My work?" echoed Champ. This was a strange place in which to be reminded of that marshland forest! His work, indeed! What would Luce say if she knew how that work had come about? What a gulf there seemed between him and her, although they were sitting face to face, and not three feet apart! The strangeness of the situation affected Champ so strongly that he lapsed into absent-mindedness, and it took several questions to recall him.

After that the delicate subject was avoided for a little while, and Champ was so rejoiced to find that it really was not hard to talk to an intelligent young woman that he soon felt quite at ease--nay, proud of himself. Besides, as he told himself, he had earned the right to chat with Luce Grew. Well, the right had been accorded him, most unexpectedly, and he was going to enjoy it to the best of his ability. The evening should be one which he would remember for years, and the recollection of it would help him through many a lonesome hour. He would never forget her face either; it had been in his mind for years, but never as it appeared that evening--never so handsome, animated, so full of cheer and yet full of soul. What a fool he had been to have delayed his pleasure so long!

Had he been more of a "company man" earlier in life, he might at least have numbered Luce among his friends, and who knows what better might have happened if he had enjoyed the stimulus which her face, her eyes, her manner, her voice, her entire presence, now gave him? He tried to analyze it, but he succeeded

only in informing himself that it was solely because she was Luce Grew.

Time flew rapidly, but Champ took no note of it. The old clock in the kitchen struck loudly, but Champ did not hear it. For the time being he was in Elysium; yet really they talked only of village affairs and church matters and the doings of the various farmers. How different common subjects did appear when there was such a person as Luce to talk them over with!

Suddenly one of the children entered and handed Luce a letter.

"How strange!" she exclaimed. Letters delivered by hand were as rare during Brundy evenings as snowflakes in May. Suddenly she turned pale and exclaimed:

"Why, it's from Charley!"

With trembling hands she tore the envelope; Champ frowned and arose to go. Even from a distance, and on this one evening of all evenings, that bane of his existence was still active in making trouble for him.

Luce took from the envelope two inclosures, looked at them, and said:

"Why, one of them is for you!"

"Ah, something about that wood-chopping, I suppose," said Champ, opening his letter. It did not take him long to read it, for Charley wrote a large, round, schoolboy hand. The letter ran thus:

Champ looked up, startled by a slight exclamation from Luce. The girl was leaning against the table, upon which she had dropped her letter. Champ did not mean to read it; but the letter itself was so short and the penmanship so large that he could not help getting its entire contents at a glance.

"Miss Grew," said he quickly, although his voice trembled, "I've accidentally seen your letter. It's only fair, therefore, that you should read mine."

He extended it toward her. She took it slowly took a long, long time, it seemed to Champ, to read it, but finally she looked up, smiled timidly, and said:

"Well?"

"Luce!" exclaimed Champ, taking the girl's hands. What either of them said afterward was entirely their own affair.

"I saw how things were going pretty soon after they began to go wrong between Luce and Charley," said old Pruffett to Champ the next day; "and when the boy admitted to me that he had told her all about your confession to him, I made up my mind that it was all up with him, because well, I knew her mother, and it's grand good stock. Eh? Then why didn't her mother take me? Because the other man was the better man, my boy, just as you are the better man than Charley. I doubted her being able--doubted Luce, I mean, being able--to give her heart entirely to a youth like Charley, though there are a lot of good points about him; and I hoped that it might turn out in time, as it has, that both he and she would learn their mistake, and that your chance would come. In

the meantime, what I said to you, and you acted upon, was just what you needed to make you search your heart and find out for whom you really loved Luce--for yourself, or for her. That's something that the best men sometimes fail to find out until it is too late, my boy, and they have a world of unhappiness about it."

"But how did you come to send Charley away at just the right time?"

"How? Because the right time had come. I had been giving my own entire time to watching for it. I wonder if those two young people could possibly imagine how closely their affairs interested an old man who was supposed to do nothing but gossip about town and read the newspapers. Charley made a clean breast to me about his trouble. I went to see the girl's mother--I've already told you about her--and found things about as I supposed. Then I talked with the girl herself. The rest of it was easy enough."

"Yes, to a man who had business in the West; but suppose there had been no such help for me?'"

"My dear boy," said the old man, "there's an old Western saying that may do you good to bear in mind: 'Never cross a stream until you reach it.' There was a man here to send Charley to the West, so you can afford to drop that part of the subject."

"But everything worked as well as if it had been managed by Heaven itself," said Champ.

"I don't for a moment doubt that it was," replied the old man, reverently dropping his head for a moment.

Such things usually are--when the parties deserve special attention.

"I don't see, though, how Charley timed those letters to arrive just right," persisted Champ. "He must be a thousand miles away by this time. He didn't know that I would ever call at the Grews' in the course of my life."

Old Pruffett looked embarrassed; then he said:

"I've heard that new-made lovers are very slow of perception. Why, you stupid fellow, Charley wrote those letters and gave them to me before he left; he did it, willingly enough, at my own suggestion. I personally made you promise to call last night; then I stood in the night air for nearly an hour, a few rods from your house, to make sure that you did it, even if I had to drag you out and carry you there. Then I followed you, hung about the Grews' for a while, with my heart In my throat, for fear you'd come away soon--you seemed so scared at the idea of going, you know. Finally I slipped across the street into the yard--I'm glad the Grews don't own one of those annoying small dogs that bark at every one who ventures upon the premises--I slipped into the yard, and peeped through one of the windows. Yes, sir, I did. I know it wasn't exactly mannerly, but business is business, and the whole affair was very serious business to me, I can tell you. I saw you both getting along pretty well together, so I thought it would make matters all the easier afterward to let you go on. Finally the night air began to make me so chilly that I had to hurry matters in self-defence, so I slipped round to the back

door and got one of the children to deliver the note, first making him promise not to tell who left it. Then I looked through the window again; I really didn't feel comfortable about doing it, Champ, but it was a matter of business with me. I hope your heart didn't thump as mine did while you two were reading those letters I waited until I saw you take Luce's hand, and then--don't blush--then I went home, got down on my knees, and thanked God that I had known Luce's mother."

"And poor Charley!" said Champ, with a sigh.

"Ah, well, 'tis better for him to have lost Luce than not to have been in love with her. I loved her mother, and I know."