Playing With Fire. Barr Amelia E.

am afraid of Lord Cramer. He would have made love to her this afternoon – "

      "I will suppose you are right and then ask, what wrong there would have been in it?"

      "More than I can explain. For seven years he was in a fast cavalry regiment, and he kept its pace even to the embarrassing of the Cramer estate. He had reached the limit of his father's indulgence three years ago. His stepmother has been loaning him money ever since, and he is in honor bound to repay her as soon as possible. That duty comes before his marriage, unless he marries a rich woman. My daughter would be a most unwelcome daughter to Lady Cramer, and I will not have Marion put in such a position. Dislike spreads quickly, and from the mother to the son might well be an easy road. There is something else also – "

      "Pray let me hear the whole list of the young man's sins."

      "He is deeply influenced by the 'isms' of the day, and, though brought up strictly in the true church, Lady Cramer fears he never goes there; for she cannot get him to spend a Sabbath at home."

      "All this, Ian, is hearsay and speculation. We have no right to judge him out of the mouth of others. Speak to him yourself."

      "I cannot speak yet. But at once I wish you to speak to Marion. Tell her to hold her heart in her own keeping. The late Lord Cramer was my friend. He told me whom he wished his son to marry, and it would be a kind of treachery to the dead if I sanctioned the putting of my own daughter in her place. I would not only be humiliated in my own sight, but in the sight of the church, and of all who know me."

      "No girl can hold her heart in her own keeping if the right man asks for it. There was my little sister – "

      "We will not bring her name into the subject, Jessy. It is painful to me. I saw plainly this afternoon that Marion was pleased with Lord Cramer's attention."

      "Any girl would have been so. He is a handsome, good-natured man, full of innocent mirth, and Marion loves, as I do, the happy side of life – and is hungry – as I am – for its uplifting."

      "Marion has never seen the unhappy side of life. Her lines have fallen to her in pleasant places. A short time ago Allan Reid told me he loved her and asked my permission to win her love, if he could. I gave him it. She could not have a more suitable husband."

      "Girls like handsome, well-made men, Ian, men like yourself. Allan Reid is not handsome; indeed, he is very unhandsome. Marion spoke to me of his long neck and weak eyes, and – "

      "Girls are perfectly silly on that subject. A good man, and a rich man, is as much as a girl ought to expect."

      "Men are perfectly silly on the same subject. A good woman with a heart full of love is as much, and more than, any man ought to expect. But, before he thinks of these things, he is particularly anxious that she should be beautiful, and graceful, and money in her purse makes her still more desirable."

      "A man naturally wants a handsome mother for his children."

      "Girls are just as foolish. They want a handsome father for their children. I think, Ian, you might as well give up all hopes of Marion's marrying Allan Reid. She believes him to be as mean-hearted as he is physically unhandsome. She will never accept him."

      "I shall insist on this marriage. Say all you can in young Reid's favor."

      "Preach for your own saint, Ian. I have nothing to say in Allan Reid's favor."

      "Then say nothing in favor of Lord Cramer."

      "What I have seen of Lord Cramer I like. Do you want me to speak ill of him?"

      "I have told you what he has been."

      "His father's death has put him in a responsible position. That of itself often sobers and changes young men. Ian Macrae, leave your daughter's affairs alone. She will manage them better than you can. And what are you going to do about Donald?"

      "Donald is doing well enough."

      "He is not. I am afraid every mail that comes will tell us that he has taken the Queen's shilling, or gone before the mast."

      "What do you want me to do?"

      "Ask Donald what he wants, and give him his desire – whatever it is."

      "There is not a good father in Scotland that would do the like of that, Jessy."

      "Then be a bad father and do it. I am sure you may risk the consequences."

      "These children are a great anxiety to me. Something is wrong if they will not listen to their father. I am very much worried, Jessy. I will go and unpack those books and then read awhile."

      "Listen to me, Ian. You say that now you have perfect Faith. When you have gone through those books, your Faith will be in rags and tatters."

      "I do not fear. There is no danger but in our own cowardice. We are ourselves the rocks of our own doubt. The danger lies in fearing danger. I made a promise to the dead. I cannot break it, Jessy. Such a promise is a finality."

      "You made that promise by the special instigation of the devil, Ian."

      "Jessy, you never read these books. The men who wrote them were morally good men, seekers after truth and righteousness. I believe so much of them."

      "You are partly right. I have never read the books, but I have read long, elaborate, wearisome reviews of them. That was enough, and more than enough, for me."

      "Why did you read such reviews?"

      "Because I wanted to know whether Donald and Marion should be warned against them. I think they ought to be warned."

      "You can leave that duty to me. If I think it necessary, they will receive the proper instruction."

      "I wonder the government allows such books to be published. They will ruin the coming generations. The Romans had not much of a religion, but when they began to doubt it they went madly into vice and atheism and national ruin. If men have such wicked thoughts as are in the books you are going to read, they ought to keep them in their own hearts. If they could not do that, I would put them in prison, and take pen and ink from them."

      "Do be more charitable, Jessy. The Bible teaches – "

      "It teaches us to let such destructive books alone. God himself specially warned the Israelites not even 'to make inquiry' about the religion of the Canaanites; they did it, of course, and you know the result as well as I do. And men these days are so set up with their long dominion and the varieties of strange knowledge they have accepted that they do not require any Eve to pull this apple of disobedience and doubt of God. They manage it themselves."

      "Jessy Caird, you have no right to impute evil to either men or books that are only known to you through some critic's opinion." Then he rose and, standing with uplifted eyes, said with singular emotion:

      "'O God, that men would see a little clearer!

      Or judge less harshly where they cannot see.

      O God, that men would draw a little nearer

      To one another! They'd be nearer Thee!'"

      With these words he left Jessy and went to the room where the fateful books were waiting for him.

      And Jessy could say no more. But she threw her knitting out of her hands and let them drop hopelessly into her lap.

      "When men stop reasoning, they quote poetry," she mused angrily. "I never heard Ian quote a whole verse before, unless he was in the pulpit; well, I have warned him, and now I can only hope he will feel that sense of utter desolation in his soul that I always felt after a few sentences of Schopenhauer or Darwin. There! I hear him opening the box. Now begin the to-and-fro paths of Doubt and Persuasion, days full of anxious brooding, nights full of shadowy chasms, that nothing but Faith can bridge. But Ian has Faith – at least in his creed – and there are spiritual influences that no one can predict or resist, for the way of the Spirit is the way of the wind." Motionless she sat for a few minutes, and then rose hastily, saying softly as she did so, "Wherever is Marion? I wonder she was not seeking me ere this."

      She found Marion in her own room. She was kneeling at the open window with her elbows on the broad stone sill, and her cheeks were almost touching the sweet