Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance. Barr Amelia E.

and a half, and Sarah nearly a million. In these days, matrimony ought to mean money. My dear son, do not leave your mother just yet! And if you must engage yourself to a girl so unworthy your position, at any rate keep it a profound secret. Even Rose must not be told. Rose is subject to sentimental confidences, and she is a little conceited, and will not believe me, if I tell her she is asked out for your sake, and not for her own. Harry, I love you so much! Will you help me a little longer, my dear?”

      She was trembling with emotion, she was weeping very quietly; but Harry could see the tears dropping upon her clasped hands. But she did not for a moment let her feelings overstep her faculties; she knew right well that a woman ever so little beyond herself is a fool. She knew also that the modern gentleman is wounded in his self-esteem by a scene, and is not to be tenderly moved by any signs of mere pathological distress.

      Her self-restraint inspired Harry with respect; and he felt it impossible to throw off the habit of consideration for “mother above all others.” It had the growth of nearly thirty years; while his affection for Yanna was comparatively a thing of yesterday. He promised not to marry while his marriage would be injurious to his family; and he promised to keep his engagement a secret, if Yanna accepted him. Nor did he anticipate any difficulty in fulfilling these promises; while he told himself that, after all, it was only a little bit of self-denial, which would be amply repaid by his mother’s and sister’s happiness and welfare.

      He did not think of Yanna, nor of how a secret engagement and a delayed marriage might affect her; 61 but he was annoyed because these conditions had not been alluded to in his letter to her. Yanna might suppose that he had purposely ignored them until her consent was gained; and such a supposition would not place him in a very honorable light.

      The interview terminated in a decided victory for Mrs. Filmer, and there was something very like a tear in Harry’s eyes when he left his mother with a straight assurance of his continued help and sympathy. At the door he turned back and kissed her again; and then she went with him as far as the room which was being prepared for dancing. But she did not ask him to stay with her; she knew better than to push an advantage too far, and was wise enough to know that when necessary words have been spoken and accepted further exhortation is a kind of affront.

      At lunch time the subject was totally ignored. Mr. Filmer came out of his study, apparently for the very purpose of being excessively pleasant to Harry, and of giving his wife anxious warnings about exhausting herself, and overdoing hospitality, “which, by-the-by,” he added, “is as bad a thing as underdoing it. Two days hence, you will not be able to forgive Emma Filmer for the trouble she has taken,” he said.

      “I hope we have not annoyed you much, Henry.”

      “I have calmly borne the upset, because I know this entertainment will be the first and the last of the series.”

      He spoke to hearts already conscious; and Rose said petulantly, “The ball will, of course, be a failure; we have bespoken failure by anticipating it.”

      “I never really wanted it, Rose,” said Harry.

      “That is understandable,” she retorted. “Yanna does not dance; neither does she approve of dancing. 62 But all the sensible people are not Puritans, thank heaven! What are such ideas doing in an enlightened age? They ought to be buried with all other fossils of dead thought; and – ”

      “You are going too fast, Rose,” corrected Mr. Filmer. “You may scoff at Puritanism, but it is the highest form of life ever yet assumed by the world. Emma, my dear, if that tap, tap, tapping could be arrested this afternoon I should be grateful.” Then he bowed to his family, and went back to the Middle Ages.

      They watched his exit silently, and with admiration, and after it Rose sought the dressmaker, who in some upper chamber was composing a gown she meant to be astonishing and decisive; one that it would be impossible to imitate, or to criticise. Mrs. Filmer, knowing the value of that little sleep which ought to divide the morning from the afternoon, went into seclusion to accept it. Harry wandered about the piazzas smoking, but shivering and anxious, and longing for the hour at which he had told Yanna he would call for her answer.

      The day, pleasantly chill in the morning, had become damp and gray, and full of the promise of rain. And as he drove through the fallen leaves of the bare woods, and felt the depressing drizzle, he thought of the many lovely days and glorious nights he had let slip; though the question asked at the end of them was precisely the question he wished to ask at the beginning. He wondered if he had missed his hour. He wondered if he had misunderstood Yanna’s smiles and attitudes. He lost heart so far that he drove twice past the house ere he felt brave enough to take manfully the possible “No” Yanna might give him. “Men 63 understand so little about women,” he thought, “and all her pleasantness may have been mere friendship.”

      For the first time in all his acquaintance with the Van Hoosen family, the front door was shut. Usually it stood open wide, and he had been accustomed to walk forward to the sitting-room, and tap there with his riding whip, if it was empty; or to enter with a gay greeting, if Antony or Yanna was there to answer it. To be sure, the day was miserably damp and chill, but oh! why had he waited all the long summer for this uncomfortable sense of a closed door in his face?

      He drove to the stable, and when he went back to the house Peter was on the threshold to receive him. “Come in, Mr. Filmer,” he said. “Antony has gone to New York. I believe in my heart, he has gone for fineries for your ball; though he called it ‘business.’”

      “I am glad Antony is coming, although I fully respect Miss Van Hoosen’s scruples with regard to dancing.”

      “Yes, yes! On a road full of danger it is good to have scruples. They are like a pebble in the shoe, you cannot walk on it without a constant painful reminder; and if you lift the foot, then, you do not walk on it at all. Yanna has had no fight to make, no life and death issues to meet every day; and to those who live ordinary lives, a creed, and a straight creed, is necessary, yes, as much so as a wall is to a wheat field. Without external rules, and strong bonds, very few would remain religious. But with Antony it is different. He was churchless for ten years; but on many a battle field and in many a desert camp God met and blessed him. Such men have larger liberty than even I durst claim.”

      “I have talked much with Antony on religious subjects; I think it impossible to shake his faith.”

      “Antony’s principles stand as firm as a Gothic wall. Duty, Faithfulness, Honor, and Honesty, are qualities independent of creed. You see, I am no bigot.”

      “You read too much, and too widely, for that character, sir.”

      “If I read nothing but the Bible, I should read a book that is at once the most learned and the most popular of all books. But at present you find me reading politics.”

      “To be sure! The elections are coming on, and they will do, and cause to be done, all kinds of disagreeable things. I generally keep my eyes shut to their approach.” He had disliked to break in two a religious conversation with a personal question, but he had no such scruple about politics; and he added hurriedly, lest Peter should pursue the subject, “Where is Miss Van Hoosen? I hope she is well.”

      “She is in the dining-room. Once every year my cousin, Alida Van Hoosen, pays us a visit; and she came this morning, without any warning.” As he spoke, a buggy was driven to the door, and there was a stir of some one departing through the front hall. Then Peter rose quickly, and said:

      “Now you must excuse me, Mr. Filmer. Cousin always expects me to see her safely to the train. Yanna will be with you in a few minutes.”

      As Peter went out of the room, Harry rose. He could no longer sit still. His heart leaped to the light, quick steps of Yanna; and when she entered, smiling and rosy, her eyes dancing with the excitement of her visitor, her whole body swaying to the music of love in her heart, he met her in the middle of the room 65 with outstretched hands. She put her own hands in them, and her eyes met his, in a frank, sweet gaze, which he understood better than words.

      Who can translate the broken, kiss-divided sentences, in which two happy souls try to explain the joy of their meeting? All through the summer days, this love had been growing; and suddenly, in a moment, it had burst forth