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CHAPTER VII
ALL, ALL IS VANITY

Meanwhile, at the farm little Doris grew under the protection of Mark and Patty, and yearly, as the day came round which was the anniversary of her arrival, Mark received a hundred pounds, in golden sovereigns, or in fresh, new Bank of England notes. And Mark, in his sturdy honesty, and far-seeing common sense, developed rare qualities as a guardian. Plain man as he was, he guessed at what a girl of good family or high social position should know, and preparing Doris for that position to which some day her unknown mother might call her, he resolved that she should receive accomplishments.

Fortune favored him. In Brakebury lived a Frenchman, a political exile, a gentleman of high accomplishments. Monsieur D'Anvers was held in great awe in the village; his courtly grace, the foreign tongues he spoke, the pictures that he drew, the water-color landscapes which he painted and sold in London, his playing on various instruments – all lifted him far above his neighbors.

To Monsieur D'Anvers went honest Mark, when Doris was eight years old, and offered him fifty pounds a year to tutor the two little girls, the brown and the fair.

"You will teach Mattie what she wants to learn, and what she can learn," said Mark; "but Doris can learn anything, and I want you to teach her all you know."

So Doris was taken daily to her tutor, as she had been to the school of the Misses Hopwell, and the old French courtier bowed down and worshiped her, as in all her life did all the men who were brought into contact with her. To teach her was a labor of love. Her aptitude was marvelous. She learned to speak French and German fluently; she drew and painted with taste and skill; her little fingers, with some inherited grace, flew over the ivory keys, or touched the shining cords of harp and guitar. Manners – the manners of courts – the banished Frenchman taught her, and she learned them intuitively.

"Mon Dieu!" cried the old gentleman; "but this child is lovely! She surpasses Ninon D'Enclos and Diana de Poitiers! She has spirit, wit, originality – everything that is admirable! A queen might be proud to be her mother!"

Doris swayed and enchanted her old preceptor. Mattie, quietly studying French, drawing, and English literature, was left far behind by her foster-sister, who was speedily learning all that the tutor could teach.

"You should have been born a princess, ma belle!" the old man would say, delighted with some flash of wit, some piquant performance. "What will you do with all your beauty here on a farm?"

"Am I very beautiful?" demanded Doris.

"More beautiful than Helen, for whom thousands died; than Cleopatra, who had the world's conquerors at her feet! What will you do with so much beauty?"

"Make the most of it!" and the words jarred on the aristocrat.

All men said the same. Even the rector unwisely cried:

"Little maid, you have beauty enough to turn your head. Do not let it make you proud."

"Who made me beautiful?" asked Doris.

"God, my child."

"Is it not right to be proud of God's work and gifts?"

"You have beauty enough to be a snare," said the doctor.

"God gave me my beauty, and God is good, and does not set snares," said Doris, quickly, making Mark and the doctor laugh at her ready wit.

"A beautiful body is nothing without a beautiful soul," said Mark, mindful of the letter saying, "Keep her soul white and pure."

"I would rather have a beautiful body than a beautiful soul," said Doris, promptly.

"Why, my dear?" demanded the good man, in amaze.

"Because my body is where people can see it. Who can see my soul?" said Doris, scornful of her best possession.

Mark was shocked.

"That comes from every one praising you so foolishly; you will be ruined!" he exclaimed.

"Mattie can have the beautiful soul, and I will have the beautiful body," retorted Doris. "Monsieur D'Anvers says wisdom is the best gift, the gift for kings. I say beauty is the best gift, the gift for queens; and queens have always ruled kings."

Mark shook his head. It is hard labor to rear an eagle in a sparrow's nest.

"Mother," said Doris, one day, when she was twelve, "this shall not go on longer – I'm sick of it."

"What, my child? Of what are you sick?"

"Of the village, of the farm, of our way of living. I hate it. If I am kept here longer I know I shall run away."

"My dear, are we not good to you?"

"Oh, yes, you are good, of course; but it is not goodness I want; it is change; I want something new – some more style."

"But how and where, Doris?"

"Send me to boarding-school. I want to know more of the way ladies do and live. We see no one here. If Mattie does not want to go, I ought not to be kept home. I have learned all Monsieur D'Anvers knows. I talk French and German as fast as he does – we go over the same old things."

"That is true, mother," said Mattie. "Doris is a great scholar. I cannot go away from home; I don't want to; I love to stay and help you; but let Doris go."

"I will ask your father," said Patty, hesitatingly.

"And he'll say to let the child have her own way," said Doris, with a laugh.

"Well, I must consult your father."

"Consult my father!" said Doris, with wonderful scorn.

She had a singular contempt for all about her, though no hint that she was other than the child of the Braces had been given her.

She had her way; she went to a fashionable boarding-school. For her clothing and tuition honest Mark paid the entire hundred pounds each year. She elected to visit schoolmates at vacation, and for four years Brackenside Farm knew no more of the golden-haired mystery.

At sixteen she came home again, beautiful as a fairy, ripe for mischief, mad for display – a tireless reader of French novels.

She looked about that home of rustic goodness, and covert scorn dwelt in the violet eyes and sat lightly on the chiseled lips; her parents were "so plain," her sister Mattie "a country simpleton."

They on their part rose up to do her homage; they bowed down and worshiped at beauty's shrine. And was she not most beautiful?

 
"Beauty was hers in dower, such as earth
Doth rarely reckon 'mid her fading things:
A glory lit her tears, and in her mirth
Shook the sweet laughter of translucent springs."
 

Already an adept in coquetry, she sighed at once for a victim for her charms. Alas! she found him near.

"Are there any new people?" she asked of Mattie.

"Only Earle Moray."

"Eh? A decent sounding name. Who is he?"

"A poet and a gentleman," cried Mattie, enthusiastically.

"A poet? Poets live, I understand, in garrets."

"But Earle has some money," said Mattie, simply.

"Earle? So? You seem to know him rather well."

Poor Mattie blushed crimson.

CHAPTER VIII
THE YOUNG COQUETTE

 
"For some had perished in her stern neglect —
Fell on the sword of their own hope and died;
While she in triumph, scornfully erect,
Swept o'er their ashes with the skirts of pride."
 

Before returning to Brackenside, Doris had demanded a room for herself, and for this room certain furnishings. She did not know that Mark and Patty would say to each other:

"It is only fair, since we have for her a hundred pounds a year;" but she did know that her will would be law to them.

She brought with her, when she came back to the farm, many little adornments, purchases of her own, or gifts from her school friends; and these Mattie dutifully arranged for her, just as she had polished the windows and nailed down the carpet, and ironed the curtains before Doris came. Doris never thought of helping her. She perched herself, Turk fashion, on the foot of the bed, and issued her orders as a good-natured little mistress to her maid. There were knickknacks for the toilet-table, pictures for the wall, a little book-case of hanging shelves.

"Your room will be fit for a princess, Doris," said Mattie.

"For a princess!" said Doris, with scorn. "If I were half a princess, or only rich, I would clear out the rubbishy things at once. You might have them, Mattie, since you like them. I would have gold-mounted furnishings for my dressing-table, silk hangings, velvet carpets, upholstery in plush and satin, gold, white, pale-blue. I would have exquisite marbles, and pictures that cost a fortune each."

"But you never saw such things," said Mattie.

"No; only I have read of them, and find in myself a fitness for them. I would give anything for such luxury."

"Do not pine, dear, for what you can never have."

"I may have it some day," said Doris, defiantly.

"But how would you get it?"

"By my beauty. The world belongs to beauty."

Mattie was shocked. She was putting the books on the shelves, and her honest face clouded. She said to Doris:

"I fear your books are worse than none. How did you come to get such books? I have heard Monsieur D'Anvers say some of these were vile trash; and I notice sentences in the others that are not fit reading for a young maid."

"They are French," said Doris.

"That does not make them better. There are good books to be had in French; and you have Byron for your only poet. I have heard our rector say Byron is unfit reading for girls."

"You ridiculous, strait-laced creature!"

"And I don't quite like your pictures, dear. The subjects are not pleasant to me. These French beauties were famous for vice. La Pompadour, and Diana, and the rest. This Cleopatra is too scantily attired to suit my taste, and this Trojan Helen is not a nice picture. I would have chosen Joan of Arc, and tender Margaret More, and sad Hecuba, and martyr Margaret. Pictures should elevate our souls."

"My goodness, Mattie! have you been taking lessons of that gentleman poet you mentioned? Where does he live!"

"At Lindenholm – his mother owns it, and came there two years ago, when she was left a widow. Her husband was a curate."

"Then I don't believe your Earle Moray is very rich. He is just a farmer, if he has only Lindenholm. I remember the place, half villa, half farm-house, with great linden trees around it. Does he write books?"

"He has written one small one – 'Songs of the Country-side.' I have it here. You can read it; it is like music."

"Ta, ta! I hate poetry. What does the man look like?"

"Why, he looks as he is, a gentleman, a good man."

"I foresee I shall have a surfeit of goodness here. If the man is neither rich nor handsome, he will hardly pay to flirt with, unless one is desperate."

"To flirt with!" cried Mattie, aghast. "You would not flirt, Doris?"

"And why wouldn't I?"

"Why, it is wicked. It is cruel, it is deceitful."

"Hear the girl talk!" cried Doris, flinging herself back on the bed with peals of musical laughter. "Why, goosey, I flirted with every male creature I set eyes on at school."

"But I thought they did not allow such things."

"Allow? You will undoubtedly be the death of me, with your simplicity," said Doris, sitting up, her golden hair distractingly rumpled, her eyes shining with glee, her dimples dancing like tricky sprites among the deepened roses on her cheeks. "Don't you understand that it was our chief aim to do what we were not allowed? Men, I admit, were scarce. The writing-master was engaged to one of the teachers; but I flirted with him until she nearly cried her eyes out; and after he withstood me three months he surrendered at discretion, and I laughed at him. The French master vowed he would kill himself on my behalf; the music-master fell so conspicuously into my power that the preceptress dismissed him, and got a gorgon of a woman in green spectacles in his place. As for the dancing-master, he played the fool and erred exceedingly whenever I was in sight; so the girls said it was better than any theater."

"Doris, I am ashamed of you."

"What odds does that make, so long as I am not ashamed of myself?"

"But you will not act in that way with Earle?"

"Why won't I? Are you afraid of losing him?"

"He doesn't belong to me," said Mattie, blushing.

"How soon am I likely to see him?" demanded Doris.

"To-morrow. Every day. His mother wants him to be a farmer. She manages Lindenholm now, and sends him to take farming lessons of father. Father thinks everything of Earle, and so does mother."

"A farmer! The game is not worth the candle. I wouldn't be a farmer's wife for anything. I loathe being a farmer's daughter."

"I don't," said Mattie, with spirit. "I'm proud of my home, my honest race, my good, sweet mother, my dear father."

"How queer!" said Doris, meditatively. "Now, I couldn't see anything to be proud of in all that. I should be proud of a coach and grays, and men in livery – of suits of jewels, of a French maid, of velvet, satin, lace, brocade dresses."

"Doris," said Mattie, anxiously, "have you any soul?"

"Soul? If we cannot live without one, and soul makes the heart go, I suppose I have; otherwise, I don't feel aware of the property you mention."

"I believe you are only jesting, to tease me. You were always brighter than I am, and a real rogue. You have higher ideas and better intentions and wishes than you say."

"No, really I haven't – not one bit."

"Why, then," said poor Mattie, deeply distressed, "it must be your moral nature that is lacking."

"Moral nature? That's just it," said Doris, with infinite satisfaction. "Moral nature – I haven't any. I think all the nature I have must be immoral; I always side with the sinners in all stories."

Mattie had finished arranging the pretty little room. Doris jumped from her place on the bed.

"Really you have made it look very well, considering what you have to do it with. A sort of household fairy, you, Mattie; your name should be Brownie. Now we will play you are my maid. I am going to bed, and I like to have my hair brushed a long time. It is good for my nerves, and good for my hair. Will you be my maid?"

"With great pleasure," said Mattie, letting down the golden flood of Doris' silken hair. "How beautiful it is!"

"I think I am beautiful every way," said Doris, calmly.

"You are, indeed," said Mattie, without the least envy.

"Your hair will not brush straight! It is all in wavy clusters."

"You will brush it every night, and then I shall like you."

"Surely I will brush it, when you wish. But I like you in all cases," said Mattie. "And I want you to be good, dear."

"And not flirt with Earle Moray? Or other men? I'll not promise that. Flirting is my nature. I will flirt with this Earle until he puts his heart in my hands, and I will crush it up so– as I do this rosebud – and drop it —so! You watch and see how it is done, Mattie."

Tears rushed to Mattie's eyes. She hurriedly left the room.

"In love with him! Jealous! Oh, delightful! Here is something to amuse me. I thought I must surely die of dullness here, but I can flirt with the 'gentleman and poet,' and drive this preaching little puritan mad with envy, and that may fill up a year for me. Then, if the prince has not come along to woo, I shall go out somewhere to seek my fortune. Anything but stagnation. I will go where no one of the name of Brace shall follow me."

Meanwhile, Mattie, in her own neat, snug room, sat in the moonlight, mourning over the perverseness of this beautiful beloved sister, and trembling for Earle Moray, whom she called her friend, and held far dearer, without knowing it. How could any man help loving such a dazzling creature as this Doris? And his manly, noble heart must then be crushed and flung away like that ruined rose? She looked up to the moon-lit sky. There was her helper and her friend. She prayed:

"God keep poor Earle."

Then, comforted, she sought her bed and slept the sleep of faith. Doris slept the sleep of youth and abounding health, until Mrs. Brace awoke her.

"It is almost seven, dear. I let you sleep late this morning."

"This late? Now, mother, you might as well know I made my own hours for rising, and I will never rise at seven!"

Patty sighed, and left her; she knew Doris would always have her own way.

CHAPTER IX
POET AND GENTLEMAN

 
"I sat with Doris, beloved maiden,
Her lap was laden with wreathed flowers:
I sat and wooed her, through sunlight wheeling,
And shadows stealing, for hours and hours."
 

Rose the sun over an idyllic day; the white clouds floated softly over the summer blue; the poppies blazed in scarlet splendor through the grass; the bearded barley stood in sheaves, and through the meadows of Brackenside, that prosperous farmer, Mark Brace, led his men to their work.

Earle Moray, whose mother looked on poesy as the macadamizing of the road to ruin, and desired nothing better for her son than the safe estate and healthful, honest life of a farmer, had come to take a lesson in stacking corn.

It is true that farm work was not especially attractive to Earle the poet, but pleasing his mother was attractive to Earle the son; the friendship of honest Mark was attractive to Earle the man; and Earle had common sense to know that every man is better off for knowing how to win his bread from the field. Therefore, came Earle to his lesson.

"My sister has come!" said Mattie, meeting him with a boding heart. "She has grown more lovely than ever in these four years. You will write poems about her when you see her. Her face is a poem, her voice and laugh are poems!"

"And where is the phœnix of girls?" demanded Earle.

"Down there under the great elm, watching the reapers. I will introduce you to her," said Mattie, who thought this fatal introduction should be well over with, the sooner the better.

Perhaps Doris was in a less impish mood to-day. Frank Mattie did not dream how Doris had meditated all the morning on the new situation, and had dressed for conquest. In rustic surroundings she would play the rural queen. Her dress was a simple print, a white ground with little green sprays of maiden-hair traced on it. At her neck a knot of pale green, through which was carelessly drawn a flower; in her gleaming hair a cluster of hop blossoms; her wide straw hat at her feet was trimmed with a wreath of hop-vine; over her shoulders fell her wonderful hair. She held a book in her lap; one white hand rested on the page, the other brushed back a truant curl; and she lifted her lovely eyes in innocent, pleased expectation, as Mattie and Earle drew near.

The heart of Earle Moray stood still with surprise, then it leaped as if it would break its bounds, and a flood of passionate admiration fired his whole being. Oh, how divine a thing she was, this naiad in the meadow-land; all poetry should wait as handmaid at her feet. Why was one born to sing, unless to sing. Those shining eyes, those dimpling smiles, that flush of dawn upon her cheeks, well becoming the young morning of her maiden life. Oh, daughter of the gods of Hellas! Oh, "being fit to startle and surprise," looking at her, this boy-poet, whose soul had until now only stirred in its sleep, and murmured in its dreams, awoke to full and perfect life.

Mattie looked into his flushing face, his kindling eyes, and saw that words, if she had dared to utter them, would now be fruitless to warn him of Doris. She could only in her secret soul hope that Doris was less cruel than she had said, and so send up in silence to the ear of Heaven, that prayer:

"God save Earle Moray!"

Earle looked at her.

"Mattie! What is on your mind? Do you want to say something to me?"

"No – yes – only – that you must remember that my sister is only a child, and takes nothing seriously. You will not mind any nonsense that she says."

"Surely she will speak as she looks, like an angel."

They drew near the elm. With what consummate art were the violet eyes drawn down from contemplation of their native skies to comprehension of earth's lower things! With what a sudden start at the abandon of her own position on the grass did Doris greet Mattie and the "gentleman-poet!" She saw the flush on his cheek, the ardent flame lighting his dark eyes. She said to herself:

"I shall have no trouble here; he is at my feet already. Thank fortune the man is handsome; and what an air he has! I shall not waste time on him, as it would be wasted on a clod-hopper. He will be good practice for better times."

"Ah," she said, as Earle asked permission to sit on the grass at her feet, "I don't know that you belong there. Are you a worker or an idler? Mattie is a worker; if you are industrious and good, you must go with her or my father. I am an idler; if you are naughty and idle, you belong with me."

"I am of still a third class – I am a dreamer. Here let me sit and dream of heaven."

Mattie turned away, fearful and sick of heart; the mischief was done.

"Dreaming is even better than idling," said Doris. "And here is a real land of dreams. See how the poppies bend, sleepy with sunshine; the sunshine is a flood of refined gold; the bees fly slowly, drunk with perfume; the butterflies drift up and down like beautiful, happy, aimless thoughts. Let us dream, and live to be happy."

"One could not do better," cried Earle. "Here shall be our lotus-land, and you are a fit genius for the place, Miss Brace."

"Now, at the very beginning, I must make a treaty with you. Are you coming here often?"

"I hope so."

"Then, unless I am to hate you on the spot, you must not call me Miss Brace. I detest the name! If there is one name above another that I hate, it is that name Brace! It is so common, so mean – a wretched monosyllable!"

"But you would grace any name!" cried Earle.

"I don't mean to grace that very long!" exclaimed Doris.

Earle opened his eyes in uncontrollable amazement.

"You don't know what it is to suffer from a wretched, short, commonplace name. Look at me, and consider that I am called, above all things, Doris Brace! Horrors! Now, your name is fairly good. Earle Moray. There is a savor of gentility, of blood, of breeding, about that. You can venture to rise with such a name. I can only rise by dropping mine, and that I mean to do."

Earle laughed. This was, after all, the pretty, captious nonsense of a little child.

"But Doris is a sweet name. It fits this sweet, home-like landscape. Doris, the lovely shepherdess, has been sung and painted for centuries."

"But I have no genius for woods or fields, and I am afraid of sheep. However, Miss Doris is better than – Miss Brace."

She reached for a poppy growing in the grass, and the book fell from her knee. Earle picked it up, and saw what it was.

"This!" he exclaimed, in genuine consternation.

Now, Doris absolutely lacked the moral sense that would make her ashamed of the book, or revolt at anything she found therein. But she had native wit, and she saw that she was on the point of instantly losing caste with Earle Moray on account of this literature.

"Eh? What kind is it?" she said, with enchanting simplicity. "I bought it on the train late yesterday, and since I came out here I have been too happy to read it. Isn't it a nice book?"

"I should say not," said Earle.

"How do you know, unless you have read it?"

"I know the author's reputation; and then, the title!"

"Dear me! And so I must not read it? – and my one-and-six-pence gone! Whenever I try to do particularly right, I do wrong. Unlucky, isn't it? Now the last word my French teacher said to me was, 'By all means keep up your French; you have such a beautiful accent.'"

Earle looked relieved. Here was an explanation of exquisite simplicity. There was no spot on this sweet, stainless lily.

Mattie came back.

"Doris, mother thinks you had better unpack your trunk. Your dresses will be rumpled lying in it so long."

"You unpack it, like a dear! I shall ruin my things taking them out; and then, I can't go in, it is so lovely out-of-doors."

"Did you not put the things in, to begin with?" asked Mattie.

"No, dear; one of the girls did. The girls loved to wait on me, Mattie!" This with sweet reproach.

"But mother thinks you are keeping Earle from work."

"Go away, Earle!" said Doris, giving him a dainty little push. "If you stay idle here, I am to be called in and set to work. After that stuffy old school this four years, I cannot stay indoors. Go, Mattie, and tell mother if she insists on my coming in, I shall appeal at once to my fairy godmother to turn me into a butterfly."

Mattie walked slowly away.

"That's all right," said Doris, with satisfaction. "They all end by letting me have my own way."

"And how does that work?"

"Well. Don't you suppose it is always a very nice way?"

"It must be, indeed," said Earle, heartily.

He thought to himself that so charming a form must shrine only the tenderest of hearts, the sweetest of souls, and her way must always be a good way.

The girl was infinitely more lovely than one could look for in the child of Mark and Patty Brace, the sister of gentle Mattie; but being the child of Mark and Patty, and sister of Mattie, she must be a sharer in their goodness, that sterling honesty, that generous unselfishness, that made these three everywhere beloved and respected, patterns of domestic and neighborly virtues.

Thus thinking, Earle sunned himself in the radiance of her smiles.