Hope Mills by Amanda Minnie Douglas (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📕

her, and read or rather dreamed of something in a dim, dazed way, the story of a bygone summer. Had it been more to her than any one thought? Miss Barry had hinted to his mother that Sylvie's decision in the matter was a great disappointment to her. There had been a decision, then, and one adverse to Fred Lawrence.

"I hate a false and cowardly man!" her cheeks were flaming now. "And when you were schoolboys together,--when Agatha and Gertrude were so afraid he would lower himself if he looked at any boy below his own social position,--he used to stand up for you,--yes, he did,--and fight; of course not in a brutal way with fists," and she laughed at her own conceit, "but in that higher, finer manner, with no shield or weapon save his love for you. I used to like to see you together,--you so sturdy and manful and true, and he delicate and handsome and adoring. And then"--

"Sylvie, I wonder if a woman can understand a man's friendship. We never had any quarrel. We just drifted apart. I don't believe we forgot each other. Circumstances took him out of my sphere, into a new one. If I had been there in college, going along with him step by step, don't you suppose he would have stood up for me in the face of his fine friends, just as he used to with his sisters?"

"I hope so: I would like to believe it."

"I am more just to him than you, Sylvie," said Jack, a little wounded. "I _know_ it. I don't doubt it any more than I doubt--well, myself. He might have come--I was always sorry to see him avoid me, and I think he was weak, but he never forgot."

"He _was_ weak, he was worse, Jack." There was a curious cry of anguish in her voice, and her shoulders swayed unconsciously, while her eyes looked out on the summer night he could not see.

"Don't get so excited over it, Sylvie," and the pleasant, cheery laugh seemed to bring healing on its wings. "Whatever it was, and we will let all that go, he made the _amende honorable_ the night we had tea together up there in the great house. We took up our friendship just where it had dropped. Men never go over those crooked and thorny steps of the past, they have so much work to do in the present and the future. I wanted then to make a position for him in the mill; but it was not possible, and would not have been the part of wisdom under _any_ circumstances. Yet it seemed as if I had stepped in his place. I was glad to hear of this other, though Fred would have been happier elsewhere. Sylvie, I do not believe you realize what it cost him to come back to Yerbury, to walk about, a working-man, where he had driven in his carriage. So down at the bottom there is the temper of the real blue steel, which _can_ bend."

"How generous you are, Jack!" There was something more than admiration in her tone, and yet she was wondering if she could ever forgive her fallen hero.

"See here, Sylvie, I don't mean to question any one's religion, but I've often thought about the rejoicing up above, over the one who went astray. I do not believe we rejoice with a very full heart: maybe we are not heavenly enough. We can never be sure of our own strength until some far-reaching test is applied, and yet it may not be an entirely true test. It may quiver about the weak spot in our souls; but, while there is any feeling, one cannot be entirely lost. That is why I say he never forgot. And you and I ought to rejoice that he _did_ come back instead of going off in that gloomy, diseased, Manfred style, and upbraiding the world. 'Whatever his hand found to do'--that was one of grandmother's texts, and he went bravely at it."

"I do believe you are a better Christian than I," she answered softly, her eyes limpid with emotion.

"No. Perhaps not even a better friend;" and a smile played about his mouth.

"A truer friend, a more generous one"--

"What were we talking of?" in a sudden change of tone. "Oh, the business at Garafield's! Fred is a good deal of an artist, an intellectual artist I should say; and, though he may not attain to fame by painting pictures, there are many other points coming to be appreciated. He is in the way for usefulness; and, if he wins the bays for beauty as well, I am sure we shall all rejoice. I heard he had been designing."

"You hear every thing." Sylvie made a capricious little _moue_. Her nods and gestures were so much a part of her, so piquant, decisive, and full of expression, when she did not intrench herself behind a studied dignity.

"I am glad you have heard it. I was wondering how best to tell you. I thought Garafield's might be a stepping-stone, these hard times, but it may prove the veritable ladder itself. Only"--

"Well!" with a trifle of impatience, as if she could not endure the suggestiveness of the tone.

"I wonder if you understand the courage it took for Fred Lawrence to make a home here in Yerbury, to bring his mother and sister; for you see he must endure for them as well as himself. Mrs. Lawrence will always be an invalid, I suppose. He thinks her quite changed and softened: evidently she clings to him. They see none of their old friends. Miss Lawrence never goes anywhere."

"As if one could help that!" almost passionately. "Auntie wrote a note to Mrs. Lawrence, and it was merely answered. They do not desire to receive any one. We can only let them alone, Jack."

"Even then we can hardly fail to appreciate what he is doing, possibly suffering. I think he will come in time to win back all the regard his friends ever gave him," Jack Darcy said in a steady tone.

Was he pleading for him? Sylvie was somewhat puzzled, the most so, perhaps, about herself. How much had she cared for Fred in that old time? If not at all, why did this feeling of shame over a fallen idol continually haunt her? She compared the two men in every thing, and sometimes was vexed to admit that Jack was the nobler.

Their walk had come to an end. They paused at the gate; and a third person striding up Larch Avenue took in the drooping, attentive, and pliant figure, the strong, protecting, powerful personality of the other,--and wondered, as he had more than once before. Were they friends merely? It was not possible for a woman to see so much of Jack Darcy's noble, manly life, and not admire, not love, Dr. Maverick admitted. She showed in many ways that she did care for him. Oddly enough she sheltered herself under his friendly care when other admirers came too near. Could not Darcy see! What a blind, stupid mole he must be in this respect! and the doctor kicked a stone in his path with such force that the two turned in the midst of their good-bys, and waited with smiling faces for him to reach them. Not a shade of annoyance in look or tone at the interruption.

"The queerest lovers," he thought to himself. "If I stood in that man's place"--

Jack went homeward in a curiously speculative mood. He has always fancied for Sylvie some handsome, spirited knight, whose mental intuitions would be as delicate and refined as hers, whose enjoyment as intense. Little as he knew of love, he understood their friendship too thoroughly to be betrayed into any mistake. And he wondered now if he held the key to Sylvie's spiritual enfranchisement of all other men? If she had not loved Fred Lawrence, she had come too dangerously near it ever to free herself entirely from whatever thrall his soul had thrown over hers. She _had_ been disappointed in him, he read that from her tone; but surely, if he brought himself up to a finer and truer standard than any known in that enervating atmosphere of luxury, would she still be implacable? How could he best serve these two people, whom he loved so entirety?

He had many other things to busy himself about beside love and friendship. March came on apace, and the balance-sheet for the six months had to be put in shape. The accounts had been systematically kept: that he had insisted upon in the beginning. Cameron knew every gallon of oil, every pound of wool, every penny spent for repairs and stock; Hurd and Yardley had kept account of every yard of cloth, and what quality, that had passed through their hands; Winston, of travelling, advertising, commissions, &c.; and Jack went over every thing. They had done wonderfully. There was actually a balance of profit to every man, woman, and child. The forms were printed, and distributed to every employee, and there was a great rejoicing time. They engaged the Cooking Club to provide them a supper, and the young people had a merry dance afterward.

"It's hardly safe to halloo until you are out of the woods," said some of the solid old men of Yerbury, who were living snugly on the interest of government-bonds. "Six months is no test at all. Wait until there is a hard pull, and you will not be so jubilant."

"No," answered Jack with a humorous twinkle in his eye: "it's right to have the rejoicing now, when we have fairly earned it. The man who croaks when Providence has smiled upon him, deserves the frown; and he who is unthankful for small successes hardly has a right to great ones. I do not expect all fair sailing, but we will weather the storms together."

"It _is_ rather unfortunate," commented another wise-acre. "I have observed these wonderful beginnings seldom end well. If you should have a run of bad luck now, your men will be dissatisfied, and likely blame you for not keeping up to that mark. I shouldn't have made such a great effort, and then there would have been a chance for improvement."

"A new broom sweeps clean, but it _will_ get worn out," with sundry mysterious nods.

"I declare," said Jack to his friend and comforter, Maverick, "half the town looks at me as if I must have robbed a bank, or falsified accounts, told a lie, or cheated, or maybe murdered some rich old don, and made merry on his money. Why can't people rejoice with you when there is any thing to rejoice about,--an event which does not happen so often in these evil days? I do believe Boyd, and a lot of the others, would be glad to see the scheme fail; but I'll work night and day to make a success of it. It shall not go down," and Jack set his lips together in a way that spoke volumes for his resolve.

"I have observed before that some people are fond of disparaging plans that they have no hand in," returned the doctor coolly.

"And philanthropy is a much-derided virtue. If the old Athenian had been a stock-broker or a bank-director, he might not have been sent into exile, eh?" and Darcy laughed good-humoredly. "If I have kept a few people from starvation this winter, I ought surely to have as much credit as to have dealt around alms. As for the success, we had the reputation of Hope Mills in our favor, and every man had his own fortune at