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CHAPTER X
A WASTED WARNING

While Earle Moray watched Doris, and lost himself in delicious fancies of a soul fair as the body that shrined it, Doris, on her part, gazed on him with awakening interest. She had expected to see a young countryman, a rhymster who believed himself a poet, one with whom she could "flirt to pass away the time," and "to keep in practice" – not this gentleman in air and dress, with the cultivated musical voice, the noble face, the truthful, earnest eye.

Said Doris in her heart, "I did not know that little dairy-maid Mattie had such good taste;" and in proportion as the value of Mattie's love increased before her, so increased her joy in winning it away. Not that Doris had any malice toward Mattie personally; but she had a freakish love of triumphing in the discomfiture of others. Slowly she yielded to the fascination of Earle's presence. She told herself that "the detestable country" could be endurable with him to play lover at her feet. To her, mentally arraigning "the detestable country," spoke Earle:

"I love this scene; fairer is hardly found in any book of nature. What is more lovely, more suggestive, than a wheat field with golden sheaves?"

"I am a true child of the cities," said Doris, "despite my country birth and rural name. I was just thinking how superior are the attractions of paved streets, filled with men and women, and lined with glittering windows. But if you will tell me some of the suggestions of the wheat field, no doubt I shall learn from you to think differently."

How charming was this docile frankness!

"It suggests earth's millions filled daily with bread. It suggests that gracious Providence, by long and lovely processes, forestalling man's needs. It brings to mind the old-time stories of Joseph's dream of bowing sheaves, of Ruth gleaning in the field of Boaz."

The stories of Ruth, Rebecca and Esther were the three Bible stories that Doris knew; the face of Doris lighted as she answered:

"Oh, I like that! I have imagined Boaz – tall, grave, stately, dark; and Ruth – young, and fair, and tender. I cannot quite fancy how Naomi looked – like other old women with a sad history, I suppose – but the words are lovely."

"'Whither thou goest I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.'"

His voice took a deep, passionate tone, and his eyes filled with the light of love.

"Mattie says you are a poet!" cried Doris. "Are you?"

"I wish I could say 'I am.' Time will prove me. I have the poet's longing. Shall I ever reach the poet's utterance?"

"Why, I think you have it now," said Doris, sweetly.

"It is because you inspire me, perhaps. As I came toward you, I wondered whether you were Tennyson's 'Dora' or 'The Gardener's Daughter.'"

"Oh, neither! I am very different! They were content with trees and flowers, and humble ways. Was it not Dora who 'dwelt unmarried till her death?' I shall not do that. I shall marry and fly from the country-side. I can live among people in the city."

"What! cannot you live the truest life where wind, and rain, and water-fall, and birds make music? the flowers mark the sweet procession of seasons – all is calm, and security, and innocence."

"Tell me," said Doris, bending forward, glee in her sapphire eyes, her small hand thrilling him as she touched his arm; "tell me, poet, are you content? Do you not long for fame? To sway your fellows, to be rich, to make money?"

"Oh, money is the lowest of all objects. What is money to love?" demanded Earle.

"Money, just as metal, may be a low object, but money as money, as getting what we want most, is a high object. Think of what it can buy. Think of gorgeous pictures lighting your walls with beauty, of flashing jewels and gleaming marbles, of many-fountained gardens, of homes fit to live in, not stuffy little farm-houses, with windows under the eaves. Tell me, are you content? Will you live and die a farmer? Is not this money a thing worth winning to lay at the feet of love? Will you not spread the wings of your soul for a wider life? Have you not ambition?"

"Yes!" cried Earle; "I have ambition."

The dimpling smile showed the shining pearly line of little teeth; the soft fingers of the little hand touched his hand as she withdrew them; and, leaning back against her oak tree, she laughed joyously:

"I have found a fellow-sinner."

"Ambition can be noble, rather than evil, and to aspire is not to sin. Who could help being ambitious, with you as the apostle of ambition? You enforce with your beauty each word that you utter!"

"You think me beautiful?" said Circe, in sweetest wonderment, as if she had not studied dress, look, pose, gesture, minutely to enhance her wonderful and rich endowments of nature.

"Words cannot tell how fair. A verse keeps singing through my brain; it is this:

 
"'And she, my Doris, whose lap incloses
Wild summer roses of sweet perfume,
The while I sued her, smiled and hearkened,
Till daylight darkened from glow to gloom.'"
 

Ah, this was something like, thought Doris, to be wooed and flattered in poetry. She dropped her dainty lids, the rose pink deepened in her cheeks, and she gave a slow, sweet sigh.

"Did you make that poetry?"

"No: but would I could make immortal verses, for your sake," said Earle. "The world should hear of you."

The world! Oh, rare delight! Had she not dreamed of driving men mad for love, of making poets sing, and artists paint her charms? And these conquests were begun.

She looked up archly. She knew when to check the tides of enthusiasm and adoration, that they might grow stronger for the repression.

"Away with poetry, my singer, here comes prose."

Over the field toward them strode honest Mark Brace, looking for his neophyte in rural toils. Mark's round face was crimson with heat and exertion, but a broad smile responded to the pretty picture these two young lovers made under the tree. He cried, heartily:

"A deal you are learning this morning, Master Earle. Will you put off your lessons in wheat-stacking till next year? Lindenholm farm, at this rate, will be a model farm to the county when the madam turns it over to you."

"I was not in working humor," said Earle.

"Work won't wait for humors," quoth Mark. "And for you, my pretty miss, I don't doubt your sister is making butter and your mother cooking dinner, while you are playing shepherdess under a tree."

"Do I look as if I could work?" laughed Doris, springing to her feet and extending a wee rose-leaf hand. "I am only for ornament, not use. But I will leave Mr. Moray, for 'evil communications corrupt good manners,' and I have made him lazy. Good-bye, poet. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight;' so I expect to look more and more charming as I depart homeward."

The minx knew that she had done enough that day to turn Earle Moray's head, and it would be well to let the effect deepen in absence. She danced off homeward, and Earle whispered under his breath:

 
"Against her ankles as she trod,
The lucky buttercups did nod;
I leaned upon the gate to see —
The sweet thing looked, but did not speak —
A dimple came in either cheek,
And all my heart was gone from me!"
 

Mark Brace looked after his Fairy Changeling in dire perplexity. To him work, honest labor – winning bread from the soil, was noble and happy; in all the words of Doris rang some delicate undertone of irony and scorn, of what he most esteemed. Fair, fair, indeed, but was it not selfish of her to let those whom she deemed her blood, work, and she stay idle? Yes, there was the hundred pounds, and she was not really their blood, but of some idle never-toiling strain.

More and more his hands were bound concerning the beauty, as she grew up in his care. He wished he could explain her to Moray, but he could not. Honor held him to silence. He could warn. He spoke suddenly, laying a hand on the lad's arm.

"Earle, I like you vastly. You are honest, good, a gentleman. I should be sorry indeed to see you giving your time, and mind, and setting your heart on that pretty, idle lass of mine."

"Sorry, Mark? Why sorry? She is sweet and lovely!"

"If it were Mattie, now," said honest Mark, speaking, not as a father or match-maker, but as a man. "Well and good. I'd not say a word. A man's heart may rest in Mattie – Heaven bless her! But Doris is of quite a different strain. In her there is no rest. One could never find rest in her. Never – never."

Earle tried to smile, but the words struck home, and were fixed in his heart beside the thought of Doris.

Meanwhile Doris danced off home, and framed her lovely countenance in the vines about the kitchen window.

"And what have you been doing?" asked Patty, reprovingly.

"Turning Earle Moray's head," responded Doris, promptly.

Mattie started and paled a little.

"He thinks I'm lovely!" cried Doris, with a laugh.

"So you may be, but no thanks to you," said Patty, "and if you set yourself to head-turning, mark my words, child, there will some terrible evil overtake you both."

CHAPTER XI
THE FOSTER-SISTERS

Summer day glided silently after summer day, and at Brackenside Farm Earle Moray was re-telling for himself the story of Eden – the love of one man for one woman, to him the only woman in the world. Alas, that his had not been a more guileless Eve! The love-making was patent to every one, and the family at the farm wondered where it would end. Mark Brace was truly sorry that Earle had set his heart on the lovely, fantastic Doris; and yet, honest man, he did not wonder that any young fellow should be beguiled by so fair a face, and he could not but be heartily amused at the queenly airs with which the farm foundling, believing herself a tenant-farmer's child, received the homage of Earle Moray, poet and gentleman, owner of the little estate of Lindenholm.

Good Patty Brace was, on her part, greatly perplexed. With woman's keen intuition in love, she perceived the intense sincerity of Earle's passion for Doris, and saw as well that Doris was entirely without heart for him. The girl admired him, loved his flattery, desired to be some one's chief object, but would have tossed him aside as easily as an old glove if a more dashing adorer had made his appearance. Besides, if Doris gave consent to Earle's wooing, would Mrs. Moray be well pleased with her son's choice? Mrs. Moray of Lindenholm was a thoroughly practical woman, and would see at a glance that the idle young beauty would be a very unreliable wife for any man, especially for one of moderate means.

"What fools men are in love matters," quoth Patty to herself – "at least most men!" with a thought backward to Mark's sensible choosing. "This dreamer and verse-writer would have done well to choose our Mattie, who would help him on and make him happy his life-long. But Doris is only fit to marry a lord, as no doubt she sprung from a lord; but where a lord is to come from as a suitor goodness knows, not I."

And, of all who saw the summer wooing, Mattie was the most deeply touched, but gave no sign. When she felt the sharpness of the pain when Doris asserted empire over Earle, then Mattie first guessed that she had set her love upon him; and she gave herself the task of rooting out lover's love, and planting sisterly affection in its stead. Her gentle face grew graver, her soft brown eyes had a more wistful light, but not a thought of jealousy, or anger, or envy. God was good to Mattie in that no ill weeds throve in her maiden soul. Doris did not find the sweetness she had expected in tormenting her, for Mattie gave no signs of torment – rather for Earle than for herself she was sad, and that with reason.

It is sad to see a young man love absorbingly, madly, giving up all for love. Doris became his one idea. Even his mother, while she knew he was attracted by a pretty daughter of Mark Brace, did not guess his infatuation. Scarcely an hour in the day were the young pair parted.

Earle had told Doris of the poet's old recipe for a lovely complexion, washing in morning dew; and Doris, to preserve the most exquisite complexion in the world, went out, when the sun rose, to bathe her cheeks and brow with the other lilies and roses in the dews of the dawning. Earle met her and rambled with her through flowery lanes. When his supposed studies in farming began, he was rather lounging at the feet of Doris than learning of Mark Brace; yet so eagerly did he hurry off to the farm, that his mother blessed his unwonted attention to his duty.

He dined at home, not to leave his mother lonely, then off again, and his farm studies consisted in reading poetry or tales to Doris, under trees, or wandering far into the gloaming with her in Brackenside garden. His heart poured itself out in Herrick's grand old song "To Anthea:"

 
"Thou art my life, my soul, my heart,
The very eyes of me —
Thou hast command of every part,
To live and die for thee."
 

His rich young voice rolled forth these words with deep feeling.

Doris laughed at the song at first, but his earnestness in singing it touched her a very little.

"I shall always think of you when I hear that song," she said.

"Think of me! Yes, but if it means that we are to be parted, and you think – just to remember – Doris, I should die!"

He was fervid, handsome, romantic, brilliant in love's first golden glow, hard to resist.

She smiled at him.

"Let us fancy we will not be parted," she said sweetly.

Earle came hurrying up one day after dinner.

"Now for a long evening in the garden!" he cried. "I have brought a new drama; the poetry is exquisite. We will sit in the arbor under the honeysuckle, and while the summer wind is full of the breath of flowers, I will read you the sweeter breathing of a poet's soul. Come, Doris – come, Mattie – let us off to the garden."

Mattie's face flushed with joy; it was so sweet to find some pleasure she could share with him.

Earle read; his voice was full of fire and music. Mattie listened entranced. Doris half forgot her favorite dreams of herself in gorgeous crowds, the center of admiration. The gloaming fell as he read the last lines.

"It is beautiful, in its poetry," said Mattie, "but not in its idea. I cannot love the heroine, though her face is fair. Beauty should be united to goodness, and goodness has not this cruel pride. To think of a woman who would let a brave man die, or risk death, to win a smile! I always hated the lady who threw the glove, and I think the knight served her well, to leave her when he returned the glove, for she had no idea of true love."

"Beauty has a right to all triumphs," cried Doris, "and men have always been ready to die for beauty's smile."

"A good man's life is worth more than any woman's smile," said Mattie. "The man's life, the woman's life, are Heaven's gifts, to be spent in doing good. We have no right to throw them idly away, or demand their sacrifice. I never liked these stories of wasted affection. They are too pitiful. To give all and get nothing is a cruel fate."

"Oh, you little silly country girl," laughed Doris, "you do not think that beautiful women are queens, and hearts are their rightful kingdom, and they can get as many as they like, and do what they please with them."

"You talk to amuse yourself," said Earle, "that sweet smile and voice fit your cruel words as little as they would suit an executioner's sword."

"What is slaying by treachery in love better than murder?" asked Mattie, eagerly.

"It is a very exciting, piquant, interesting form of murder," retorted her wicked little sister.

"How can any one enjoy giving pain," cried Mattie. "I have read of such women, but to me they seem true demons, however fair. Think of destroying hope, life, genius, morals – for what? For amusement, and yet these sons all had mothers."

"You are in earnest, Mattie," said Earle, admiringly.

"I feel in earnest," said Mattie, passionately.

"Pshaw, there is much spider and fly in men and women," laughed Doris. "Women weave silvery nets in the sun, and the silly men walk straight in. Who's to blame?"

"You talk like a worn-out French cynic," cried Mattie.

"Well, who is to blame?" persisted Doris; "pretty women for just amusing themselves according to their natures? or silly men for walking into danger, being warned?"

"It should not be a woman's nature to set traps for hearts or souls. You know better, Doris," urged Mattie.

"If I could be rich and great, and go to London, and live in society, you'd see if I would do better," retorted Doris.

"You two remind me of verses of a poem on two sisters," said Earle. "Their lives lay far apart.

 
"'One sought the gilded world, and there became
A being fit to startle and surprise,
Till men moved to the echoes of her name,
And bowed beneath the magic of her eyes.'"
 

"Yes, that means me," said Doris, tranquilly.

 
"'But she, the other, with a happier choice,
Dwelt 'mong the breezes of her native fields,
Laughed with the brooks, and saw the flowers rejoice;
Brimmed with all sweetness that the summer yields.'"
 

"That, then, is Mattie."

Mattie looked up in gratified surprise.

"If you are complimenting Mattie, I won't stay and hear it; I reign alone!" cried Doris, half laughing, half petulant, and darting away she sought her own room, and refused to return that night.

It was often so. When she had sunned Earle with her smiles she withdrew her presence, or changed smiles to frowns; so he was never cloyed with too much sweetness. When Doris withdrew, in vain he sang under the window, or sent her love-full notes. The summer sun of his love had its settings, its shadows, its thunder-clouds, yet Earle loved and was happy.

CHAPTER XII
BEAUTY BECOMES IMMORTAL

It was the good custom of Mark Brace to close the day with prayer; and sometimes a word or two of the psalms for the day penetrated the sedulously deaf ears of Doris.

Such happened to be the case one August night, and set the beauty thinking. She was perched on the sill of the dairy window, next morning, watching Mattie make butter, but her brow wore a perplexed frown, and a look of curiosity not provoked by butter-making was in her blue eyes.

"What is the matter? What are you thinking of, Doris?"

"I am thinking that I am an example of Scripture truth."

"In what particular?" asked Mattie.

"In the particular of tumbling into the pit, or catching in the net, duly set forth by me for other people."

"I don't quite understand you."

"Then you are even duller than usual, and, as I may no more speak in parables, I will expound myself clearly. I deliberately endeavored to entrap and entangle Earle Moray into loving me, for my summer pastime. I did not duly consider that I might fall in love with him myself."

"Why not, if you desired him to love you?"

"That was merely part of beauty's dues, child. Why not? He is not rich enough, or great enough; he cannot take me to London, and make me a society queen."

"Certainly not. You did not expect that."

"True. And I did not expect to fall in love with him."

"But you have? Surely you have, he loves you so much."

"Eh? Do you want me to love him? I thought you wanted him."

"I only want him to be happy," said Mattie, turning away, with a blush.

"Perhaps I love him a little. I am not capable of loving much," said Doris, with exceeding frankness. "My chief affections are set upon the pomps and vanities of this life, which I presume were renounced for me in my baptism."

"Don't be so wicked," cried the scandalized Mattie.

"And yet I don't know that I could say 'yes,' if Earle asked me to marry him. I might, and then repent, and take it back. I suppose, if he asked father and mother, they would say 'yes,' and be fearfully awkward about it."

"You shall not talk so about them!" said Mattie, indignantly.

"I don't feel to them as you do – why is it? I don't feel a part of the Brace family. I like you, Mattie; father amuses me with his outspoken, homely ways; I don't consider mother much. She is good, but commonplace, like brown bread. In fact, you are all too rustic, and homely, and pious, and common-sensical for wicked me. Are you done with that butter? Why don't it grow made? I am sick of life. Earle is off to Brakebury for his mother. It is only half-past eight, and I feel as if I had been up a century. Come with me to get blackberries."

"I cannot. I have much dairy work to do yet," said Mattie.

"I wish you would go for blackberries for supper," said Patty Brace, coming in. "You don't seem disposed to do anything useful, Doris – suppose you try that."

"I take care of my room, and my clothes," pouted Doris, "and that nearly kills me. I wish I had a maid!"

Patty laughed.

"Well, child, the woods are cool and beautiful, and you are tired of doing nothing. Take this basket, and try and fill it with blackberries."

Fearful of being asked to do some more practical duty if she rejected this, Doris picked up the basket, put on a pair of gloves, tied her sun-hat down under her distracting little chin, and set forth toward the knoll, a place famous for blackberries. The grass was long and thick, the aftermath of clover loaded the air with fragrance, scarlet creepers ran along the hedges, and at the knoll, with purple stems and green and orange leaves, grew the blackberries in globules of polished jet. An inspiration of industry seized Doris, and she filled her basket; the soft little tips of her fingers were dyed crimson with the fruit. She lingered over her task. Earle might return, and it would be pleasant under the trees, birds singing and grass rustling about them, while Earle talked poetry to her.

But Earle did not come, and something in the silence of nature set this thoughtless creature to thinking.

It was one of those solemn hours of life when our fate hangs in the balance. What of her future? What should she do with herself? Should she give up her frantic ambition, her intense desire after excitement, riches, and splendor, and, accepting an honest man, settle in a simple, comfortable home, and grace it as a good wife and mother all her days? Could she do that?

Should she refuse Earle Moray, on whose lips an offer of himself and his all was trembling? Should she send him away? She scarcely felt ready for that. She had grown to love him a little – just a little – but more than any one – except herself. Should she fly this homely, quiet life, these good, uncongenial people, fly to the great city, and set out under a feigned name to make her own way in the world, as singer, actress – any wild, adventurous path that might find her at least a lord for a husband? Should she?

"Can I give him up? Can I leave him to Mattie? Will he ever be famous and rich enough to make it worth while to nourish my little bit of love for him into real love, if I can ever love? Oh, for some good fairy to rise up and tell me what to do!"

She started in sudden fear, for surely a step was coming close to her, some one from the other side of the coppice, who had watched her unseen. Not a fairy. A gentleman. A very presentable gentleman, who said:

"I beg pardon. Do not let me alarm you."

Then the two looked at each other.

Doris saw a handsome, middle-aged man, palette on his thumb, box of paints under his arm, portable easel in his hand; wide-awake hat, velveteen suit. She promptly summed him up – "artist."

He saw – Doris; Doris, mold of beauty; naiad in grace; innocence in her startled eyes; face of an angel; mien of a wood nymph. He began to believe in the gods of old. He said to himself, "Maid or spirit? Mortal or vision?"

"Forgive me for startling you," he said; "but I have been watching you as you stood under this tree – "

"I hate to be watched," interrupted Doris.

"As a man I was guilty; as an artist, guiltless, for an artist, above all things, loves and serves his art, and considers all he sees as subservient to it. I came to Downsbury in quest of studies in still life. For years I have had an ideal of a face that I wished to paint in my best mood: a face after which all should wonder. I have searched cities and country; I have wandered in my quest for that face through other lands; and when I saw you under the tree, I was all the artist – all lost in art – for yours is the face I have been seeking for my canvas."

"Why, do you mean I would make a picture – a real picture?" demanded Doris, with studied simplicity.

"Yes; ten thousand times yes! Under this greenwood tree, your basket at your feet, your hat swinging in your hand, your eyes lifted – yes, a picture to be known and praised forever. Child, I will make your beauty immortal."

This was what she had dreamed.

A poet was singing her praises, and would do so, whether she played him false or not; and here was an artist to paint her for a world to admire.

Could she who so inspired men tie herself to the narrow bounds of one humble, rustic hearth? Never!

"May I paint you?" demanded the artist. "May I set you in canvas, in immortal youth and loveliness, to live years, perhaps centuries hence, in deathless beauty?"

"The picture – the face – will live! Where, in those far off ages, shall I be?" asked Doris, earnestly.

Gregory Leslie thought the word and mood strange.

"The best part of you is immortal," he said, gently.

"And what would you call my picture?"

"'Innocence.' Yes, 'Innocence' should be its name!"

"But what in me seems to you the image of 'Innocence?'"

Stranger question still. But he answered as an artist:

"You have an ideal brow, rounded at the temples as the old masters painted their angels. Your eyes are large, bright, clear, as seeing more of heaven than earth. Your lips have the most exquisite curve. The form of your face, its coloring, your hair, are all simply perfect!"

"You shall paint my picture!" cried Doris, joyously, changing her mood. "You need ask no consent but mine!"