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  CHAPTER XXVII.

  THE SUMMER'S STORY.

  AFTER this Louis Ansted steadily failed. It had seemed as though hesummoned all the strength left in his worn-out body for that oneinterview wherein he had resolved that his mother should know the truthfrom his lips.

  After that the lamp of life burned lower and lower. He rallied again,two days afterward, and was locked in with his lawyer, and gavecritical attention to business.

  "I imagine that he made important changes in his will," Mr. Chessneysaid to Claire. "I do not know of what character, though I was calledin as a witness. I hope he made special provision for his sister Alice.I think that she is likely to disappoint her parents in their schemes,and it might be greatly to her comfort to be independent, so far asproperty is concerned. But Louis kept his own counsel. His lawyer toldme that he might be failing in body, but he had never seen him clearerin brain. So there will be no trouble about carrying out whatever hehas planned."

  "I did not know," Claire said, "that he had property to leave,independent of his parents."

  "Oh, yes; a large estate, willed to him from his grandfather,absolutely in his own right. It is what has helped to ruin him."

  "How good it would be if he could make his money undo, so far as moneycould, some of the mischief he has done."

  "How could money undo it, my friend?"

  "Oh, it couldn't. Still, it might relieve the misery which comes fromwant. I was thinking just then of poor little Mrs. Simpson and herfatherless baby. I have heard that her husband drank his first glasswhile in Louis Ansted's employ, and that Louis offered it to him, andhe did not like to refuse for fear of giving offense. He died with thedelirium tremens, and his wife sold her bedclothes and her shoes to buyfood for him at the last. Perhaps she would rather starve than takemoney from poor Louis. Haven't I heard that he was connected with oneof the distilleries?"

  "Some of his property is invested in that way," Mr. Chessney answered,startled with the remembrance. "I had not thought of it. Poor Alice!I am afraid there is great trouble for her in whatever direction onelooks. If Louis leaves his property to her, her father and mother willviolently oppose what her intense temperance principles would advocate.I wish Louis had felt like talking these things over with me a little."

  Well, the day came when they followed the ruined body to the grave. Itrested in a costly coffin, and the funeral appointments were such asbecame large wealth and the habit of lavish expenditure.

  Later, when the will was read, it appeared that the poor heart hadtaken counsel of One who makes no mistakes. He had done what he couldto undo wrong. The income from valuable investments was large, andwas left in trust to his sister Alice, to be used at her discretionin relieving the woes of those who had been brought low through theinfluence of intoxicants. As for the distillery from which half of hisincome was derived, its business was immediately to cease, its stockwas to be destroyed, and its buildings to be made into tenement-housesfor the poor.

  "The poor boy was not in his right mind when he made such a will,"the father said. "Why, it is a sinful waste; it is simply throwingthousands of dollars into the river."

  "It is all the influence of that Benedict girl," the mother said, inbitterness of spirit.

  But the will stood, and its directions were obeyed with all thepromptness that the sister to whose trust the work was left, couldforce her lawyers. She seemed in feverish haste to have the work ofdestruction go on. And when her mother accused her of being hopelesslyunder the influence of "that Benedict girl," and having no mind of herown, her answer was:

  "Mamma, you are mistaken. At last I am under the influence of One whohas a right to own me, body and soul. Poor Louis found Him at last, andyielded to his power, and followed his direction, and it was throughClaire Benedict's influence that he did; and, mamma, if he had knownClaire Benedict a few years earlier, we should have him with us to-day.Mamma, the time has come for me to speak plainly. Religion has beennothing but a name to me until lately. I have not believed in itspower. It is Claire Benedict who has shown me my mistake, and helpedme to see Christ as a sufficient Saviour. I belong to him now for timeand eternity, and, mamma, I will never marry a man who does not withhis whole heart own Christ as his Master, and who is not as intense andfanatical on the temperance question as my brother became."

  She had always been strong-willed. The mother had been wont to say,somewhat boastfully, that her oldest daughter resembled her in strengthof purpose.

  Human nature is a curious study. What Mrs. Ansted would do, had been amatter of extreme solicitude to several people. Mr. Chessney believedthat she would make Alice's life miserable; that she would becomeClaire Benedict's enemy, and injure her if she could, and that shewould withdraw her younger daughters from not only Claire's, but theireldest sister's influence, and from the church to which they had becomeattached.

  "I do not mean that she will do this in revenge," he said to Claire,"or that she will really intend to injure anybody. She is one of thosepersons who can make herself believe that she is doing God's serviceby just such management as this. I am sorry for Alice and for theyoung girls. It gives me a sense of relief and joy to remember thatLouis is forever safe from pitfalls, and yet sometimes I can not helpwishing that he could have lived for a few months longer. He had greatinfluence over his mother. She tried to manage him, and his indolentwill allowed himself to be influenced in a wonderful manner, but whenhe did really rouse, he had great power over his mother."

  Mrs. Ansted did none of the things which were feared. Instead, sheturned suddenly, and with apparent loathing, from the life which shehad heretofore lived. She sent for Claire one morning, greeted herwith a burst of tears as her dear child, and declared that had sheunderstood the feeling between Louis and herself nothing would havegiven her greater joy than to have welcomed her into the family.

  Claire opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. Ifthis were the form of cross that she was to bear, it was peculiar,certainly; but why not bear it as well as any other? Of what use toexplain again, what the son's own lips had told, that she had utterlyrefused the honor offered her--that she had never for a moment desiredto be received into this family? If the bereaved mother had reallysucceeded in making herself believe such folly as this, why not letit pass--the grave had closed over the possibility of its ever beingrealized?

  It was a strange part to play--to accept without outward protest theposition of one who would have been a daughter of the house, to hearherself mentioned as Louis Ansted's intended wife; to ride, and walk,and talk with the mother, and help her make believe that she would notfor the world have thwarted her son's desires; but Claire, after a fewattempts at explanation, dropped the effort. The mother did not wishto believe the truth about this, or many other things, and thereforeclosed her eyes to them.

  She wished also to impress herself and others with the belief thatLouis had been in every respect an exemplary, and, indeed, a remarkableyoung man. She withdrew her connection with the church in town andunited by letter with the one at South Plains; avowedly, because "dearLouis was interested in it more than in any other church in the world."She imagined plans that he might have had for the church, and calledthem his, and eagerly worked them out. She adopted the minister, andhis wife and his children, because she had often heard Louis say thathe would rather hear that man preach than to hear Doctor Archer; andonce he told her that the minister's little girl had a very sweet face,and was a cunning little witch whom he liked to tease. She turned withsomething like disgust from the very name of VanMarter, protesting that"poor Louis had had a great deal to bear from their advances," and thatshe had no desire to cultivate their acquaintance further.

  On all these strange changes in her mother Alice looked withbewilderment.

  "She frightens me," she said to Claire one evening, "I don't knowwhat to think. She contradicts every theory of life I ever heard herexpress. She attributes to Louis graces that he did not possess. Sheaccuses people of injuring him, who really tried to h
elp him, and sheadopts as plans of his, things of which I know he had not even thought.I do not know my mother at all; and as I said, it frightens me. Is shelosing her mind?"

  Claire had no ready reply to these questionings, for she, too, waspuzzled. But Mr. Chessney, as they walked slowly down from the house onthe hill, discussing once more the strange change in the woman of theworld, advanced a theory which Claire adopted, but which was hardly theone to explain to Alice.

  "I think," said Mr. Chessney, "that she is hushing her conscience. Itwould like to speak loudly to her, and tell her that she is responsiblefor a ruined life, and she does not mean to listen to it. She isimagining a life she believes Louis might have lived, after the changethat came to him on his sick-bed, and is making herself believe thathe did live it, and that she was, and is, in hearty accord with it.It is a strange freak of the bewildering human mind, but unless I ammistaken, the woman will not find the peace in it that she is seeking.I think she will have to cry, 'God be merciful to me a sinner,' beforeher heart will find rest."

  And then he added one sentence which set Claire's heart into a strangeflutter:

  "Claire, when I see the energy with which she carries out one of herimaginings, connected with you, I am very grateful that Louis insistedon my being present at that first interview between you and him, andthat I heard the truth from his own lips, for the mother is succeedingin deceiving every one else."

  "And I do not know how to help it," Claire said, with troubled voice."It seems a strange thing to be living a falsehood; but when I try toexplain to her, she puts me gently aside, and acts as though I had notspoken; and others have no right to question me about the truth of hertheories."

  "Except myself. Have I the right? Was it as emphatic a refusal as poorLouis understood it? Believe me, I am not asking merely to gratify idlecuriosity."

  "There never was anything in it, Mr. Chessney, and there never couldhave been."

  The passage of all these and many other events not chronicled here,consumed the greater portion of the summer vacation. For ClaireBenedict was letting the summer slip from her without going home. Sorehad been the trial at first; but a few weeks before the term closed,opportunity had been offered her to teach a summer class of citypupils, at prices that were almost equal to her year's salary. Whatright had she, who wanted to bestow so many luxuries on her mother,to close her eyes to such an opportunity as this, merely because shewas homesick for a sight of that mother's face? It had been hard toreconcile the sister, especially, to this new state of things. Thegentle mother had long ago learned the lesson that what looked likemanifest duty must not be tampered with, no matter how hard to bear;but the hot-hearted young sister refused to see anything in it exceptan added trial too great to be borne. Many letters had to be writtenbefore there was a final reluctant admission that two hundred dollarsmore to depend on, paltry sum though it was, would make a greatdifference with the mother's winter comforts. The letter in which poorDora admitted this was blistered with tears; but the sacrifice wasmade, and the extra term had been well entered upon.

  There was much outside of the class and the life being lived on thehill to occupy Claire's thoughts. I hope you do not suppose that thework on the part of "the girls" had been accomplished during a sortof "spasm," and that now they were ready to drop back into inaction.Nothing was farther from their thoughts. If you have imagined so, youhave not understood how thoroughly some of them had sacrificed in orderto do. We never forget that for which we sacrifice.

  Besides, the habit of thinking first of the church, and the variouscauses which are the tributaries of the church, was formed. That thework was to go on, was demonstrated in many ways; not the least by therandom remarks which came so naturally from the lips of the workers.

  "Girls," had Ruth Jennings said, when they lingered one evening afterprayer-meeting, "when we cushion these seats, we shall have to sendsomebody after the material who can carry the carpet and wall paper inhis mind's eye. It will never do to have a false note put in here tojar this harmony."

  "When we cushion the seats!" Claire heard it, and laughed softly. Whohad said that the seats were ever to be cushioned? But she knew theywould be, and that before very long.

  On another evening, Mary Burton had said:

  "Look here! don't you think our very next thing, or, at least, one ofthe next, ought to be a furnace? I _don't_ like those stove pipes, ifthey are Russia. A furnace would heat more evenly, and with less dust,and Bud could manage a furnace as well as he can these stoves."

  How naturally they talked about their future sacrifices! What wouldhave utterly appalled them a few months before, were spoken ofcarelessly now as "next things."

  Ruth Jennings readily assented to the necessity for a furnace, butadded:

  "I don't believe we shall have Bud for engineer. He wants to go toschool, did you know it? And what is more, Mrs. Ansted intends to sendhim. Fanny told me about it last night. She says her mother thinksLouis intended that Bud should have an education, and she wants tocarry out all his plans. I did not know that Louis Ansted ever had anysuch plans, did you?"

  Then Nettie Burdick, after a thoughtful pause:

  "Oh, well, girls, if we can't have Bud for engineer, perhaps we canhave him to preach for us some day. He told me last night that if helived he meant to preach; and I believe he will, and preach well, too.Just think of it: Bud a minister!"