longed to commit to paper; but her delicacy forbade. She was even ashamed to have found a passing amusement at the expense of Simeon’s mother, and she tried to make her mind a blank and go to sleep. Toward morning she must have lost consciousness, for she dreamed – or thought she dreamed – that old Mrs. Ponsonby sat in her hard wooden rocking-chair by the window – the chair with the patchwork cushion fastened by three tape bows to the ribs of its back; the chair Simeon had often told her was “mother’s favorite.” The old lady rocked slowly, and her large head and heavy figure were silhouetted against the transparent window shade. A sound of wheels came from the street, and she raised the shade and looked out, leaning back, in order to follow the disappearing object till it was out of range, and then she buried her face in her hands and sobbed the low, hopeless sobs of old-age.
Deena found herself sitting up in bed, the early daylight making “the casement slowly grow a glimmering square.” The impression of her dream was so vivid that the depression weighed upon her like something physical. It was impossible to sleep, and at seven o’clock she got up to dress, having heard the servant go downstairs. On her way to her bath she passed the rocking-chair, and lying directly in her path was a little card, yellow with age. Deena picked it up and read: “From Mother to Simeon.” The coincidence worked so on her imagination that she sank into the nearest chair trembling from head to foot, and then she reflected that she must have pulled the card out of the table drawer when she went to fetch the portfolio the night before, and she called herself a superstitious silly, and made her bath a little colder than usual, as a tonic to her nerves. Cold water and hot food work wonders, and after breakfast young Mrs. Ponsonby forgot she had ever had a predecessor.
Her family paid her flying visits during the day, with a freedom unknown in Simeon’s reign, and she worked hard at her preparations for renting, but in the evening, when the house was quiet, she settled herself at the study table and made her first attempt at story writing, this time steering clear of the personal note that had brought such swift reprisal the night before. The occupation was absorbing; she neither desired nor missed companionship. She was not the first person to find life’s stage amply filled by the puppets of her own imagination.
At the end of the week two things had happened. The Illuminator had accepted her poem, and her story was finished. She determined to submit it to Stephen, and yet when he looked in at five o’clock, she was ashamed to ask him; what she had thought so well of the night before, in the excitement of work, suddenly seemed to her beneath contempt.
He lingered later than usual, for he mistook her preoccupation for unhappiness, and hated to leave her alone.
“When do you move to your mother’s?” he asked, for he thought anything better than her present desolation; the genteel poverty brought about by Mr. Shelton’s habits, the worldliness of Mrs. Shelton, and the demands upon time and temper made by the younger brothers and sisters, were only the old conditions under which she had grown up.
“Next week,” she said, sadly. “I shall be sorry to leave here.”
“You are not lonely, then, poor little lady?” he said, kindly, while he searched her face to see whether she told the whole truth.
His eyes were so merry, his smile so encouraging, that Deena blurted out her request.
“I haven’t felt lonely,” she said, “because I have been writing a foolish story, and my characters have been my companions. I am sure it is no good, and yet my head is a little turned at having expressed myself on paper. Like Dr. Johnson’s simile of the dog walking on its hind legs, the wonder isn’t to find it ill done, but done at all. I am trying to screw my courage to the point of asking you – ”
“To be sure I will,” he interrupted, eagerly, “and what is a great deal stronger proof of friendship, I’ll tell you what I think, even if my opinion is nihilistic.”
He followed her into the study, and she laid her manuscript on the table and left him without a word.
The story was the usual magazine length, about five thousand words, and Deena’s handwriting was as clear and direct as her character. At the end of half an hour she heard his voice calling her name, and she joined him.
“It is very creditable,” he said. “It fairly glows with vitality. Without minute description, you have conveyed your story in pictures which lodge in the imagination; but in construction it is poor – your presentment of the plot is amateurish, and you have missed making your points tell by too uniform a value to each.”
“I understand you,” said Deena, looking puzzled, “and yet, somehow, fail to apply what you say to what I have written.”
He drew a chair for her beside his own, and began making a rapid synopsis of her story, to which he applied his criticism, showing her what should be accentuated, what only hinted, what descriptions were valuable, what clogged the narrative. She was discouraged but grateful.
“You advise me to destroy it?” she asked.
“I advise you to rewrite it,” he answered. Then, after a pause, he asked: “Why do you want to write?”
“For money,” she answered.
“But Simeon told me,” French remonstrated, “that he had left you the rent of this house as well as part of his salary, and a power of attorney that makes you free of all he possesses. Why add this kind of labor to a life that is sober enough already? Amuse yourself; look the way you did that day at Wolfshead; be young!”
“Simeon is very generous,” she said, loyally, silent as to the restrictions put upon his provisions for her maintenance, as well as the fact that his salary only covered the letter of credit he took with him for such expenses as he might incur outside the expedition. “In spite of his kindness, can’t you understand that I am proud to be a worker? Have you lived so long in the companionship of New England women without appreciating their reserves of energy? I have to make use of mine!”
“Then use it in having ‘a good time.’ I conjure you, in the name, as well as the language, of young America.”
Deena shook her head, and French stood hesitating near the door, wondering what he could do to reawaken the spirit of enjoyment that had danced in her eyes the day at Wolfshead.
“Will you dine with me to-morrow if I can get Mrs. McLean to chaperon us?” he asked.
The phrase “chaperon us” was pleasant to him; it implied they had a common interest in being together, and her companionship meant much to him. He smiled persuasively – waiting, hat in hand, for her answer.
Deena felt an almost irresistible desire to say yes – to follow the suggestions of this overmastering delightful companion who seemed to make her happiness his care, but she managed to refuse.
“Thank you very much,” she murmured, “it is quite impossible.”
It was not at all impossible, as Stephen knew, and he turned away with a short good-night. He wondered whether his friend’s wife were a prude.
Undoubtedly the refusal was prudent, whether Mrs. Ponsonby were a prude or no, but it had its rise in quite a different cause. She had no dress she considered suitable for such an occasion. Her wedding dress still hung in ghostly splendor in a closet all by itself, but that was too grand, and the others of her trousseau had been few in number and plain in make, and would now have been consigned to the rag bag had she seen any means of supplying their place. They were certainly too shabby to grace one of Stephen’s beautiful little dinners, which were the pride of Harmouth.
Deena’s ideas of French in his own entourage as opposed to him
