The Earth Trembled. Edward Payson Roe

which it is of the province of this story to reveal. To poor Mary Wallingford, the death of her father and of her husband had been the unspeakable tragedy and wrong which had destroyed her life; and the long agony of the mother had deprived her offspring of the natural and joyous impulses of childhood and youth. If Mara had been left to the care of a judicious guardian—one who had sought by all wholesome means to counteract inherited tendencies, a most cheerful and hopeful life would have been developed, but in this respect the girl had been most unfortunate. The mind grows by what it feeds upon, and Mrs. Hunter's spirit had become so imbittered by dwelling upon her woes and losses that she was incapable of thinking or speaking of much else. She had never been a woman of warm, quick sympathies. She had seen little of the world, and, in a measure, was incapable of seeing it, whatever advantages she might have had. This would have been true of her, no matter where her lot had been cast, for she was a born conservative. What she had been brought up to believe would always be true; what she had been made familiar with by early custom would always be right, and anything different would be viewed with disapproval or intoleration. Too little allowance is often made for characters of this kind. We may regret rigidity and narrowness all we please, but there should be some respect for downright sincerity and the inability to see both sides of a question.

      It often happens that if natures are narrow they are correspondingly intense; and this was true of Mrs. Hunter. She idolized her husband dead, more perhaps than if he had been living. Her brother and nephew were household martyrs, and little Mara had been taught to revere their memories as a devout Catholic pays homage to a patron saint. Between the widow and all that savored of the North, the author of her woes, there was a great gulf, and the changes wrought by the passing years had made no impression, for she would not change. She simply shut her eyes and closed her ears to whatever was not in accord with her own implacable spirit. She grew cold toward those who yielded to the kindly influences of peace and the healing balm of time; she had bitter scorn for such as were led by their interests to fraternize with the North and Northern people. In her indiscrimination and prejudice they were all typified by the unscrupulous adventurers who had made a farce of government and legally robbed the South when prostrate and bleeding after the War. She and her niece had been taxed out of their home to sustain a rule they loathed. Not a few women in Boston, in like circumstances, would be equally bitter and equally incapable of taking the broad views of an historian.

      The influence of such a concentrated mind warped almost to the point of monomania, upon a child like Mara, predisposed from birth to share in a similar spirit, can be readily estimated. Peace and time, moreover, had not brought the ameliorating tendencies of prosperity, but rather a continuous and hopeless pressure of poverty.

      Mrs. Hunter had been incapable of doing more than save what she could out of the wreck of their fortunes. There were no near relations, and those remaining, with most of their friends and acquaintances who had not been alienated, were struggling like themselves in straitened circumstances. Yet out of this poverty, many open, generous hands would have been stretched to the widow and her ward had they permitted their want to be known. But they felt that they would rather starve than do this, for they belonged to that class which suffers in proud silence. Although they had practiced an economy that was so severe as to be detrimental to both health and character, their principal had melted away, and their jewelry and plate, with the exception of heirlooms that could not be sold without a sense of sacrilege, had been quietly disposed of. The end of their resources was near, and they knew not what to do. Mara had tried to eke out their means by fancy-work, but she had no great aptitude for such tasks, and her education was too defective and old-fashioned for the equipment of a modern teacher. She was well read, especially in the classics, yet during the troubled years of her brief life she had not been given the opportunity to acquire the solid, practical knowledge which would enable her to instruct others. The exclusiveness and seclusion, so congenial to her aunt, had been against her, and now reticence and a disposition to shrink from the world had become a characteristic of her own.

      She felt, however, that her heart, if not her will, was weak toward Owen Clancy. In him had once centred the hope of her life, and from him she now feared a wound that could never heal.

      She underrated his affection as he did hers. He felt that she should throw off the incubus of the past for his sake; she believed that any depth of love on his part should render impossible all intercourse with the North beyond what was strictly necessary for the transaction of business. In order to soften her prejudices, he had told her of his social experiences in New York, and, as a result, had seen her face hardened against him. … She had no words of bitter scorn such as her aunt had indulged in when learning of the fact. She had only thought in sorrow that since he was "capable of accepting hospitality from the people who had murdered her kindred and blighted the South, there was an impassable gulf between them."

      Now, however, the imperative questions of bread and shelter were uppermost. She believed that Clancy could and would solve these questions at once if permitted, and it was characteristic of her pride and what she regarded as her loyalty, that she never once allowed herself to think of this alternative. Yet what could she and her aunt do? They were in the pathetic position of gentlewomen compelled to face the world with unskilled hands. This is bad enough at best, but far worse when hands are half paralyzed by pride and timidity as well as ignorance. The desperate truth, however, stared them in the face. Do something they must, and that speedily.

      They were contemplating the future in a hopeless sort of dread and perplexity on the evening when Aunt Sheba and young Clancy's thoughts were drawn toward them in such deep solicitude. This fact involves no mystery. The warm-hearted colored woman had seen and heard little things which suggested the truth, and the sympathetic lover had seen the face of the young girl when she was off her guard. Its expression had haunted him, and impelled him to see her at once, although she had chilled his hopes of late.

      When compelled to leave the old home, Mrs. Hunter had taken the second floor of a small brick house located on a side street. In spite of herself Mara's heart fluttered wildly for a moment when the woman who occupied the first story brought up Clancy's card.

      "You can't see him to-night," said her aunt, frowning.

      Mara hesitated a moment, and then said firmly, "Yes, I will see him. Please ask him to come up." When they were alone, she added in a low voice, "I shall see him once more, probably for the last time socially. We cannot know what changes are in store for us."

      "Well, I won't see him," said Mrs. Hunter, frigidly; and she left the room.

CHAPTER V

       Table of Contents

      PAST AND FUTURE

      Under the impulses of his solicitude and affection Clancy entered quickly, and took Mara's hand in such a strong, warm grasp that the color would come into her pale face. In spite of her peculiarities and seeming coldness, she was a girl who could easily awaken a passionate love in a warm, generous-hearted man like the one who looked into her eyes with something like entreaty in his own. She had a beauty peculiar to herself, and now a strange loveliness which touched his very soul. The quick flush upon her cheeks inspired hope, and a deep emotion, which she could not wholly suppress, found momentary expression. Even in that brief instant she was transfigured, for the woman within her was revealed. As if conscious of a weakness which seemed to her almost criminal, her face became rigid, and she said formally, "Please be seated, Mr. Clancy."

      "You must not speak to me in that way and in that tone," he began impetuously, and then paused, for he was chilled by her cold, questioning gaze. Her will was so strong, and found such powerful expression in her dark, sad eyes, that for a moment he was dumb and embarrassed. Then his own high spirit rallied, and a purpose grew strong that she should hear him, and hear the truth also. His gray eyes, that had wavered for a moment, grew steady in their encounter with hers.

      Seating himself on the opposite side of the table, he said quietly, "You think I have no right to speak to you in such a way."

      "I fear we think differently on many subjects, Mr. Clancy."