CHAPTER XI.

NEXT DOOR TO THE EVERGREENS.

"Even her little mirror Bore witness to the change; For to love the face within it Was something; new and strange. She had looked before and seen it So thin and hard and grey; Looked, that her hair and collar Were smooth and in trim array." _Isa Craig-Knox._

"Cara, Dr. Stewart has come to see you."

It was Faith who spoke. It was the afternoon after Miss Cosie's tea party, and she had met her old acquaintance down the village and had brought him in at his solicitation to see her sisters. Matters were not quite satisfactory to-day. Faith had had a sleepless night after her excitement, and a racking headache had been the consequence. And Miss Charity had been in one of her trying moods. A fresh access of pain made her exacting and irritable. Faith's nervousness and pale looks met with scant sympathy. "If you were not quite so fond of gadding about and leaving other people to do your work you would not be so tired," was the severe comment; the truth being, that poor Miss Charity was having a bad time of it, and had missed Faith's soft voice and gentle manipulations.

It did not improve matters when Miss Hope came to the rescue, and took the book out of her sister's unwilling hands. "There, Faith, run along and put on your bonnet and get some air; I will read to Charity," she said, in her brusque, kindly way, and settled herself vigorously to her task; and Faith, who knew how Cara hated Hope's reading, hesitated and lingered, and then finally yielded to the temptation of the fresh air and sunshine.

It was a little trying that at this moment she should meet Dr. Stewart.

At thirty-five a sleepless night is no beautifier, one lacks youth's cosmetiques then. Faith knew her heavy half-extinguished eyes had black rings round them. The face under the close little Quaker bonnet looked older and more worn than it had last night.

"How do you do, Miss Faith? we can see each other more clearly than we could last evening. Well, we have neither of us grown younger," and Dr. Stewart scrutinized his pale companion with the utmost composure.

Faith glanced at him rather timidly; his manner troubled her, it was more brusque, a little rougher than it used to be. The shy young doctor had seen the world since then. Dr. Stewart certainly looked a little different this afternoon. He was much older and stouter than she had thought him yesterday; his whiskers were iron-grey, and his face had a brown, weather-beaten aspect, and the lines round the mouth were a trifle hard and sarcastic. She could see him more clearly than in Miss Cosie's dim room.

"You find me changed too, I dare say," he continued abruptly, reading her thoughts more shrewdly than of old. "You see I have knocked about the world for the last seven or eight years, and that makes a man old before his time."

"I don't think you look particularly old, Dr. Stewart."

"Well, forty is not exactly patriarchal," somewhat sarcastically. "On the whole I think I am rather proud of my grey hairs, they make me more important. You ought to have kept younger, Miss Faith, leading this quiet pastoral life of yours; you have not had all the hard hits and thumps that fate has dealt me."

"I think inaction is sometimes more trying," she answered faintly, for this absence of sympathy fretted her; and just then they met Cathy walking down the road with free easy gait, and carrying a basket of poppies and wild flowers. She nodded to them hurriedly and passed on. Dr. Stewart looked after her.

"That is a fine girl with a fine character, I will be bound," he said, "but I think I admire Miss Marriott more; I like her soft brunette coloring, and then she has such splendid eyes. Is that fine fellow, young Clayton, rather smitten with her?"

"I think, I am almost sure, that he cares for some one else; at least, one never knows," putting up her hand to her head.

"No, one never knows; there is a fate in these things, I believe. That elder Miss Clayton looks very worn, a story there I expect; most unmarried women have had their story,--one can read it in their faces,--and men too, for that matter. There is a skeleton in every one's cupboard they say. At forty we begin to wonder if life's worth having after all. Well, well, you have a headache, I see; this sunshine is making it worse. If you will allow me I will see you home and call on your sisters."

"They are all at home; they will be very glad to see you," she stammered, but her heart sank within her.

It was one of Cara's bad days, she might not receive him graciously; and then what would Dr. Stewart think of their humble little household? She was absent and nervous all the rest of the way. No wonder he found her changed.

"Cara, Dr. Stewart has come to see you," she said, in a deprecating voice, as though she were committing some solecism.

Miss Hope put down her book with a start, and Miss Charity looked up sharply from her knitting. "Whom did you say, Faith?" in an inflexible voice.

"An old hospital friend of hers, one of ten years' standing," observed Dr. Stewart, throwing himself into the breach with military promptness. In a moment he recognized the position; his shrewd, observant glance took in the little parlor and the occupants in a trice.

It was not a very attractive scene to a man of the world; the details were homely and uninteresting. The bay window with its geraniums and fuchsias; the sharp little bright-eyed woman with her high cheek-bones and thin curls; Miss Hope, vigorous and loud-voiced; and Miss Prudence's ungainly figure hovering in the background. Faith, with her pale face and grey dress, looked like a soft speck of shadow in the sunlight. Dr. Stewart's masculine breadth and freedom of movement seemed to fill up the little room.

"Dr. Stewart! have we ever heard of him, sister?" asked Miss Charity, a little sarcastically, and appealing to Miss Hope.

"If you have I dare say you have forgotten it; ten years is a long time for ladies' memories. I was house-surgeon in the hospital at Carlisle, where your sister worked."

"Humph!" responded Miss Charity, dryly.

Dr. Stewart's eyes twinkled at the sight of Faith's despondent face; he was quite master of the position. Miss Charity's cool reception did not daunt him in the least. He placed himself leisurely by the side of the little square couch, and eyed its occupant curiously; he turned over the books that were piled on the narrow table beside her, and read their titles one after another, and then he began to talk. How he talked! Faith's downcast face brightened; after a time she became less nervous. Dr. Stewart did not address himself to her, he seemed to ignore her existence completely. He talked to Charity, who let her knitting fall out of her hot, dry fingers as she listened; to Miss Hope, sitting there erect and open-eyed; even to poor, grim Miss Prudence, to whom few people talked. Faith raised her soft eyes every now and then in surprise; she had no idea Dr. Stewart was such a clever, well-read man; his brusqueness did not jar on her now. To judge by his conversation he might have read half the books that were written. He swallowed up Miss Charity's little modicum of information in a moment, and left her high and dry, with all her long sentences unsaid. Miss Hope gasped and said, "There, now, would you have believed it!" to the stock of choice anecdotes with which he regaled them. Never were four maiden ladies so well entertained on a summer's afternoon.

Even Miss Prudence, the most rigid of housekeepers, counted over her scanty store of preserves mentally, and decided to ask him to tea. Faith almost held her breath for the next moment; but Dr. Stewart accepted the invitation with alacrity. While the tea was brewing and Miss Prudence hunted out a remnant of rich cake, he drew his chair a little closer to Miss Charity, and questioned her somewhat minutely on the subject of her accident.

"You suffer, of course, a great deal? It is a complicated case, I fear."

"Yes; I have had my share of pain," she answered cheerfully. The sharp angles had relaxed now.

"And your prospect of ease is small?"

"Ah, well! it might be worse," she returned resignedly; and somehow the restless bright eyes and thin ringlets were less repellant to him. "I have bad times and good times, and have to lie here and make the best of it. We need to have broken wills, Dr. Stewart."

"Cara is so very patient," interposed Faith, leaning over her sister's couch.

Miss Charity gave her an odd little push.

"No; I am dreadfully cross, and give heaps of trouble. One's pain gets into one's temper. Faith's been a good girl to me all these years; I don't know what I should have done without her."

"Oh, Cara! please don't speak so," whispered poor Faith with tears in her eyes.

It was Dr. Stewart who said "Humph!" now. He glanced curiously at the two women before him. Faith was considered quite a girl still by her sisters.

"I have a temper myself; I believe every one has, though he or she will not always own to it," he remarked coolly, as he placed himself by Miss Prudence, and helped himself liberally to seed cake.

It was getting quite dark when he rose at last to take leave. Faith accompanied him to the door.

"Well, is your headache better? you are not quite so pale," he asked, not unkindly, as they stood together.

"Yes; the walk and the tea has done it good," she answered evasively. What if he should guess at her sleepless night?

"I hoped I should have come in for a compliment, and that my conversation might have helped to charm it away. You used not to be so matter-of-fact, Miss Faith."

Such a rush of color answered him. "I wonder you recollect so long ago," she returned somewhat unsteadily.

"I wonder at it myself. Perhaps you have helped to jog my memory. Well, well, we were young and foolish once. So this has been your life for the last ten years?"

"Yes; just this, and nothing else," with a sigh.

"No wonder you are thin, and have forgotten how to smile. Ten years of this sort of thing! Well, you women beat us after all;" and then he turned on his heel and went down the little garden path bordered by Faith's roses.

In a very little while Dr. Stewart took up his position in Hepshaw, and buckled to his work in a stout, uncompromising manner that seemed natural to him. From his patients he reaped golden opinions, in spite of a deeply-rooted dislike of humbug, and a tendency to shrug his shoulders impatiently over feminine fads and fancies. He was soon a general favorite. He was prompt and kind-hearted; in cases of real suffering nothing could exceed his patience and watchfulness. People soon got over his little brusqueness, and said openly that Dr. Stewart was a real acquisition to the neighborhood.

He had taken temporary lodgings in the village; but report was already busy with the fact that Juniper Lodge, Dr. Morgan's old house, next door to the Misses Palmer, had been visited more than once by the new surgeon. By-and-bye suspicion became certainty, when painters and workmen arrived on the premises. Soon the forlorn exterior of Juniper Lodge began to wear a brighter look--the old green verandah was repainted, fresh papers and plenty of whitewash made the dark old rooms habitable, the evergreen shrubs were cut down or transplanted, the walks weeded and gravelled, a van-load of furniture made its appearance, and a tidy-looking woman with a pleasant Scotch face, answering to the name of Jean, took up her residence. The next day there was a brass plate up; and Dr. Stewart quietly walked into the Evergreens, and announced formally to the sisters that he was their next-door neighbor.

"And a very pleasant neighbor too," observed Miss Hope to her gossips; "so different to Dr. Morgan, with that slatternly housekeeper of his always down at heels and talking to the postman at the gate. That Jean must be a treasure; it is a treat to look at her caps and aprons. I have been all over the house, and you could eat your dinner off the floor, as the saying is. Dr. Stewart drops in to see us very often; it brightens Charity to have a good chat with him. They have fine long arguments sometimes, only he always gets the best of it. He makes a rare commotion when he comes, for he always pulls up the blinds and throws up the windows, though I tell him not to expose our shabby old carpet. He had Charity and her couch out on the lawn the other evening; just fancy! and the poor thing has never been out for years. She was so pleased and excited that we all had a cry over it, and then he scolded us all round."

It was quite true that the arrival of Dr. Stewart as their next-door neighbor made a great change in the little household at the Evergreens; the introduction of the masculine element diffused new life and activity. During his brief visits, for he seldom stayed long, it was wonderful how much Dr. Stewart contrived to effect. The close little parlor where Faith had toiled over weary books or sewn long seams by Cara's couch for ten monotonous years was a different place now. The obnoxious geraniums no longer blocked up the window, there was plenty of air and light; Faith no longer gasped with pale cheeks in the close oppressive atmosphere. On fine afternoons Miss Charity's couch was wheeled out under the apple-trees; the poor lady could watch the butterflies glancing round her, or the great brown bees humming round her neighbor's hive. Instead of Trench's 'Parables,' or D'Aubigné's 'Reformation,' suspicious green volumes in certain standard editions lay beside her. Faith had no need to stifle hardly-to-be-repressed yawns over Kingsley's 'Hypatia,' or 'Two Years Ago.' 'Laura Doone' and Black's 'Adventures of a Phaeton' held them enchained for hours.

"I am afraid our tastes are demoralized, we are getting very lax and dissipated over our reading. It is very nice, but there is no method in it," sighed Miss Charity.

"You have had solids for ten years, now your digestion needs a lighter form of nourishment; all work and no play dulls the brain as well as poor Jack," returned Dr. Stewart decidedly. He had come in for one of his brief, business-like visits; he was always dropping in somewhere, at the Vicarage, at Church-Stile House, at Elderberry Lodge, even at the Sycamores, where comely Mrs. Morris with her seven olive branches lived. He did not favor Brierwood Cottage often with his visits, but he constantly met Queenie going to and from her school, and walked beside her in animated conversation.

Faith met them sometimes as she went about her charitable errands among the cottages; she would turn a little pale and pass on somewhat hurriedly. Dr. Stewart never stopped her on these occasions; he would go on with his talk, casting shrewd kindly glances under the girl's shady straw hat. Poor Faith would look at them wistfully, with a shy, deprecating smile; she would have a certain sinking of heart for hours afterwards. "He admires her, I knew he would," she would say to herself a little sadly.

Poor Miss Faith! it may be doubted if this revival of an old intimacy were a source of unalloyed pleasure. True, the changeless monotony of her days was broken up; but the new interest and excitement had their draw-backs.

Time, after its usual kindly fashion, had to a certain extent healed her wound; the passionate yearning of ten years ago had merged into sad serenity. Faith treasured the remembrance of those few fleeting months, as women will treasure their one romance; those unfinished hopes and fears were buried tenderly in her breast. She had ceased to suffer, but she had not ceased to remember; the sacred impression had stamped her whole life.

And now, when the freshness of youth had passed, she had met her ideal again; but was the girl's ideal likely to be the woman's reality? did she fully recognize in Dr. Stewart the dark young surgeon in that Carlisle hospital, whose soft looks and words had won her heart?

Faith winced secretly at these questions, as she did at Dr. Stewart's brusque remarks. His experience, his knowledge of the world, his laxity and breadth of church views, daunted the simple woman; once or twice his roughness of argument hurt her.

"Ah, I am a poor creature!" she said to him once. "I am not one of the clever ones, like you and Cara."

"No; you are only so so, Miss Faith; your knowledge of the world is not in any way remarkable; you are not one of the strong-minded women," with a little dry chuckle, with which he would conclude his remarks.

But, though he hurt and disappointed her, there were times when a sudden softening of voice or look brought back the past with strange vividness. Now and then he let fall a word that showed that he too had not forgotten, some chance allusion to old scenes, some memory of her tastes. "Ah, you used to like this, Miss Faith," or some such speech, that brought a flush of pleasure to her face.

Dr. Stewart looked very benign as he glanced at the homely group before him on the afternoon in question.

"This is better than twenty feet by eighteen of stuffiness," he said in his concise way.

The sisterhood were all gathered on the lawn. Miss Charity's favorite--an enormous tabby--was purring underneath the old scarlet wrapper; Miss Hope's knitting-needles clicked busily; Miss Patience was occupied over some silk patch-work, the little squares and diamonds shone in the sunlight; Faith was reading aloud 'Westward Ho.' She put down the book with a bright, welcoming smile. The interest of the story had moved her, her eyes shone with soft, serious excitement; there was a scent of tall white lilies. Dr. Stewart's bees were humming noisily; a light wind stirred the long grass shadows; Miss Charity's curls were in disorder. Some fine white-heart cherries hung over Dr. Stewart's head; he commenced gathering some, "by way of dessert," he said coolly as he transferred them to his own pocket. "Why did they not call you Cherry, Miss Charity, instead of that affected Cara?"

"It is only one of Faith's whims," returned Miss Hope; "neither Prue nor I ever use it; she begun it as a child and never left off."

"Why should I not use it, it is far softer and prettier than Charity?" interposed Faith appealingly. Dr. Stewart gave one of his dry laughs.

"Every one has a right to their own fancies. I am prosaic enough to dislike pet names. Cara, when one is christened Charity!" with a contemptuous shrug; "why, it is a direct snub to one's sponsors."

Faith looked uncomfortable; she always did when Dr. Stewart was in one of his quizzical moods. At such times he was given to find fault with everything. But in another moment he became serious.

"What an odd fancy that was of Chester's calling his little girl Nan. She is a pretty little creature, and her father seems to dote on her. I was over there yesterday; Mrs. Chester had one of her attacks."

"Poor thing!" sighed Miss Charity, "she is very delicate. People are fond of calling her fanciful, and no doubt she is full of whimsies like the rest of us; but it is hard work having an ailing body and an ailing temper too."

"Yes," he assented; "she has her share of trouble, but she has got the blessing of a good husband." But here Miss Prudence shook her head grimly. She rarely joined in the conversation if a stranger were present; and, as her remarks were generally of a lugubrious nature, they were not greatly missed.

"An ill-assorted couple, doctor," smoothing her black mittens with sad satisfaction. Miss Prudence was much given to expatiate in the domestic circle on the evils of matrimony, and to thank Heaven that she and her three sisters had not fallen into the hands of the Philistines; a peculiarly happy state of resignation for an unattractive woman, with a rigid and cast-iron exterior, and endowed besides with a masculine appendage of the upper lip.

"Humph!" grunted the doctor laconically; for he had an ill-concealed antagonism to Miss Prudence, and disliked gossiping about his patients' affairs.

"If we were to add up all the ill-assorted marriages in the world, the sum would last us a long time," observed Miss Hope philosophically.

"Right, my dear madam," was the brisk answer; "but 'if folk, won't suit themselves properly it is not other people's fault,' as the old clerk said when--when the wrong couple got married."

"They say marriages are made in heaven," began Miss Charity, a little sentimentally; but Dr. Stewart interrupted her.

"They say so; but don't you think there is a good deal of human bungling and obstinacy at the bottom? One can't fancy the angels, for example, taking a very great interest in a _marriage de convenance_, or a ceremony where title-deeds and money-bags play too prominent a part! I have seen something of human nature, Miss Charity, and have often found occasion for astonishment at the sad mess men, and women too, make over their lives."

"I don't think women are often to blame," observed Faith in a low voice.

"Humph! so that is your experience," with an odd, inexplicable look as he rose from the grass. "Well, ladies, this is vastly entertaining, and one could learn a good deal, no doubt; but there is work waiting for me in the shape of Jemmy Bates' broken leg, which, by-the-bye, Miss Faith, is progressing most favorably," and, with a benevolent nod that included them all, Dr. Stewart walked off, still munching his cherries.