The Letter of Credit

her companion. He answered however indifferently in the negative.

  "I don't like his cough, though," he went on after a little interval. "Have you had advice for him?"

  There was a startled look of pain in the eyes which again met him, and the lips closed upon one another a little more firmly. They always had a firm though soft set, and the corners of the mouth told of long and patient endurance. Now the face told of another stab of pain, met and borne.

  "He would not call in anybody," she said faintly.

  That was not what Mr. Southwode had meant to talk about, though closely connected with the subject of his thoughts. He would try again.

  "I owe you a great debt of gratitude, Mrs. Carpenter," he said after a long enough pause had ensued, and beginning on another side. "I presume you have saved my life."

  "I am very glad we have been able to do anything," she said quietly. "There is no need of thanks."

  "But I must speak them, or I should not deserve to live. It astonishes me, how you should be so kind to an entire stranger."

  "That's why you needed it," she said with a pleasant smile.

  "Yes, yes, my need is one thing; that was plain enough; but if everybody took care of other people's needs--Why, you have done everything for me, night and day, Mrs. Carpenter. You have not spared yourself in the least; and I have given a deal of trouble."

  "I did not think it trouble," she said in the same way. "There is no need to say anything about it."

  "Excuse me; I must say something, or earn my own contempt. But what made you do all that for a person who was nothing to you? I do not understand that sort of thing, in such a degree."

  "Perhaps you do not put it the right way," she returned. "Anybody who is in trouble is something to me."

  "What, pray?" said he quickly.

  "My neighbour,"--she said with that slight, pleasant smile again. "Don't you know the gospel rule is, to do to others what you would wish them to do to you?"

  "I never saw anybody before who observed that rule."

  "Didn't you? I am sorry for that. It is a pleasant rule to follow."

  "Pleasant!" her guest echoed. "Excuse me; you cannot mean that?"

  "I mean it, yes, certainly. And there is another thing, Mr. Southwode; I like to do whatever my Master gives me to do; and he gave you to me to take care of."

  "Did he?"

  "I think so."

  "You did it," said the stranger slowly. "Mrs. Carpenter, I am under very great obligations to you."

  "You are very welcome," she said simply.

  "You have done more for me than you know. I never saw what religion can be--what religion is--until I saw it in your house."

  She was silent now, and he was silent also, for some minutes; not knowing exactly how to go on. He felt instinctively that he must not offer money here. The people were poor unquestionably; at the same time they did not belong to the class that can take that sort of pay for service. He never thought of offering it. They were quite his equals.

  "Mr. Carpenter was so good as to tell me something of his affairs as we walked this morning," he began again. "I am sorry to hear that his land is heavily encumbered."

  "Yes!" Mrs. Carpenter said with a sigh, and a shadow crossing her face.

  "That sort of thing cannot be helped sometimes, but it is a bother, and it leads to more bother. Well! I should like to be looked upon as a friend, by you and your husband; but I shall be a friend a good way off. Mrs. Carpenter, do not be offended at my plain speaking;--I would say, that if ever you find yourself in difficulties and need a friend's help, I would like you to remember me, and deliver that letter according to the address."

  He handed her as he spoke a letter, sealed, and addressed to "Messrs. Bell & Buckingham, 46 Barclay St., New York." Mrs. Carpenter turned the letter over, in silent surprise; looked at the great red seal and read the direction.

  "Keep it safe," Mr. Southwode went on, "and use it if ever you have' occasion. Do not open it; for I shall not be at the place where it is to be delivered, and an open letter would not carry the same credit. With the letter, if ever you have occasion to make use of it, enclose a card with your address; that my agent may know where to find you."

  "You are very kind!" Mrs. Carpenter said in a little bewilderment; "but nothing of this kind is necessary."

  "I hope it may not be needed; however, I shall feel better, if you will promise me to do as I have said, if ever you do need it."

  Mrs. Carpenter gave the promise, and looked at the letter curiously as she put it away. Would the time ever come when she would be driven to use it? Such a time could not come, unless after the wreck of her home and her life happiness; never could come while her husband lived. If it came, what would matter then? But there was the letter; almost something uncanny; it looked like a messenger out of the unknown future.

  CHAPTER II.

  MOVING.

  Mr. Southwode went away, his letter was locked up in a drawer, and both were soon forgotten. The little family he left had enough else to think of.

  As the warm weather turned to cold, it became more and more evident that the head of the family was not to be with it long. Mr. Carpenter was ill. Nevertheless, with failing strength, he continued to carry the burden that had been too much for him when well. He would not spare himself. The work must be done, he said, or the interest on the mortgages could not be paid. He wrought early and late, and saw to it that his hired people did their part; he wore himself out the quicker; but the interest on the mortgages was not paid, even so. Mrs. Carpenter saw just how things were going, saw it step by step, and was powerless to hinder.

  "They will foreclose!" Mr. Carpenter said with a half groan. It was late in the winter; towards spring; his health had failed rapidly of late; and it was no secret either to him or his wile that his weeks were numbered. They were sitting together one evening before the fire; he in his easy chair, and she beside him; but not holding each other's hands, not touching, nor looking at one another. Their blood was of a genuine New England course; and people of that kind, though they would die for one another, rarely exchange kisses. And besides, there are times when caresses cannot be borne; they mean too much. Perhaps this was such a time. Mrs. Carpenter sat staring into the fire, her brow drawn into fine wrinkles, which was with her a sign of uncommon perturbation. It was after a time of silence that her husband came out with that word about foreclosing.

  "If I had been stronger," he went on, "I could have taken in that twenty acre lot and planted it with wheat; and that would have made some difference. Now I am behindhand--and I could not help it--and they will foreclose."

  "They cannot do it till next fall," said Mrs. Carpenter; and her secret thought was, By that time, nothing will matter!

  "No," said her husband,--"not until fall. But then they will. Eunice, what will you do?"

  "I will find something to do."

  "What? Tell me now, while I can counsel you."

  "I don't know anything I could do, but take in sewing." She spoke calmly, all the while a tear started which she did not suffer to be seen.

  "Sewing?" said Mr. Carpenter. "There are too many in the village already that do sewing--more than can live by it."

  "If I cannot here," his wife said after a pause, overcoming herself,--"I might go to New York. Serena would help me to get some work."

  "Would she?" asked her husband.

  "I think she would."

  "Your charity always goes ahead of mine, Eunice."

  "You think she would not?"

  "I wouldn't like to have you dependent on her.--This is what you get for marrying a poor man, Eunice!"

  He smiled and stretched out his hand to take the hand of his wife.

  "Hush!" she said. "I married a richer man than she did. And I have wanted for nothing. We have not been poor."

  "No," he said. "Except in this world's goods--which are unimportant. Until one is leaving one's wife and child alone!"

&nbs
p; I suppose she could not speak, for she answered nothing. The fingers clasped fingers fast and hard; wrung them a little. Yet both faces were steady. Mrs. Carpenter's eyes looked somewhat rigidly into the fire, and her husband's brow wore a shadow.

  "I wish your father had left you at least the old place at Tanfield. It would have been no more than justice. Serena might have had all the rest, but that would have given you and Rotha a home."

  "Never mind," said Mrs. Carpenter gently. "I am content with my share."

  "Meaning me!" And he sighed.

  "The best share of this world's goods any woman could have, Liph."

  "We have been happy," he said, "in spite of all. We have had happy years; happier I could not wish for, but for this money trouble. And we shall have happy years again, Eunice; where the time is not counted by years, but flows on forever, and people are not poor, nor anxious, nor disappointed."

  She struggled with tears again, and then answered, "I have not been disappointed. And you have no need to be anxious."

  "No, I know," he said. "But at times it is hard for faith to get above sense. And I am not anxious; only I would like to know how you are going to do."

  There was a silence then of some length.

  "Things are pretty unequal in this world," Mr. Carpenter began again. "Look at Serena and you. One sister with more than she can use; the other talking of sewing for a livelihood! And all because you would marry a poor man. A poor reason!"

  "Liph, I had my choice," his wife said, with a shadow of a smile. "She is the one to be pitied."

  "Well, I think so," he said. "For if her heart were as roomy as her purse, she would have shewn it before now. My dear, do not expect anything from Serena. Till next fall you will have the shelter of this house; and that will give you time to look about you."

  "Liph, you must not talk so!" his wife cried; and her voice broke. She threw herself upon her husband's breast, and they held each other in a very long, still, close embrace.

  Mr. Carpenter was quite right in some at least of his expectations. His own life was not prolonged to the summer. In one of the last days of a rough spring, the time came he had spoken of, when his wife and child were left alone.

  She had till fall to look about her. But perhaps, in the bitterness of her loneliness, she had not heart to push her search after work with sufficient energy. Yet Mrs. Carpenter never lacked energy, and indulged herself selfishly no more in grief than she did in joy. More likely it is that in the simple region of country she inhabited there was not call enough for the work she could do. Work did not come, at any rate. The only real opening for her to earn her livelihood, was in the shape of a housekeeper's situation with an old bachelor farmer, who was well off and had nobody to take care of him. In her destitution, I do not know but Mrs. Carpenter might have put up with even this plan; but what was she to do with Rotha? So by degrees the thought forced itself upon her that she must take up her old notion and go to the great city, where there were always people enough to want everything. How to get there, and what to do on first arriving there, remained questions. Both were answered.

  As Mr. Carpenter had foreseen, the mortgages came in the fall to foreclosure. The sale of the land, however, what he had not foreseen, brought in a trifle more than the mortgage amount. To this little sum the sale of household goods and furniture and stock, added another somewhat larger; so that altogether a few hundreds stood at Mrs. Carpenter's disposal. This precisely made her undertaking possible. It was a very doubtful undertaking; but what alternative was there? One relation she would find, at the least; and another Mrs. Carpenter had not in the wide world. She made her preparations very quietly, as she did everything; her own child never knew how much heart-break was in them.

  "Shall we go first to aunt Serena's, mother?" Rotha asked one day.

  "No."

  The "no" was short and dry. Rotha's instinct told her she must not ask why, but she was disappointed. From a word now and then she had got the impression that this relation of theirs was a very rich woman and lived accordingly; and fancy had been busy with possibilities.

  "Where then, mother?"

  "Mr. Forbes," he was the storekeeper at the village, "has told me of the boarding house he goes to when he goes to New York. We can put up there for a night or two, and look out a quiet lodging."

  "What is New York like, mother?"

  "I have never been there, Rotha, and do not know. O it is a city, my child; of course; it is not like anything here."

  "How different?"

  "In every possible way."

  "_Every_ way, mother? Aren't the houses like?"

  "Not at all. And the houses there stand close together."

  "There must be room to get about, I suppose?"

  "Those are the streets."

  "No green grass, or trees?"

  "Little patches of grass in the yards."

  "No trees?"

  "No. In some of the fine streets I believe there are shade trees."

  "No _gardens_, mother?"

  "No."

  "But what do people do for vegetables and things?"

  "They are brought out of the country, and sold in the markets. Don't you know Mr. Jones sends his potatoes and his fruit to the city?"

  "Then if you want a potato, you must go to the market and buy it?"

  "Yes."

  "Or an apple, mother?"

  "Yes, or anything."

  "Well I suppose that will do," said Rotha slowly, "if you have money enough. I shouldn't think it was pleasant. Do the houses stand _close_ together?"

  "So close, that you cannot lay a pin between them."

  "I should want to have very good neighbours, then."

  Rotha was innocently touching point after point of doubt and dread in her mother's mind. Presently she touched another.

  "I don't think it sounds pleasant, mother. Suppose we should not like it after we get there?"

  Mrs. Carpenter did not answer.

  "What then, mother? Would you come back again, if we did not like it there?"

  "There would be no place to come to, here, any more, my child. I hope we shall find it comfortable where we are going."

  "Then you don't know?" said Rotha. "And perhaps we shall not! But, mother, that would be dreadful, if we did not like it!"

  "I hope you would help me to bear it."

  "I!" said Rotha. "You don't want help to bear anything; do you, mother?"

  An involuntary gush of tears came at this appeal; they were not suffered to overflow.

  "I should not be able to bear much without help, Rotha. Want help? yes, I want it--and I have it. God sends nothing to his children but he sends help too; else," said Mrs. Carpenter, brushing her hand across her eyes, "they would not last long! But, Rotha, lie means that we should help each other too."

  "I help you?"

  "Yes, certainly. You can, a great deal."

  "That seems very funny. Mother, what is wrong about aunt Serena?" said Rotha, following a very direct chain of ideas.

  "I hope nothing is wrong about her."

  And Mrs. Carpenter, in her gentle, unselfish charity, meant it honestly; her little daughter was less gentle and perhaps more logical.

  "Why, mother, does she ever do anything to help you?"

  "Her life is quite separate from mine," Mrs. Carpenter replied evasively.

  "Well, it would be right in her to help you. And when people are not right, they are wrong."

  "Let us take care of our own right and wrong, Rotha. We shall have enough to do with that."

  "But, mother, what _is_ the matter with aunt Serena? Why doesn't she help you? She can."

  "Our lives went different ways, a long time ago, my child. We have never been near each other since."

  "But now you are going to be where she is, mother?"

  "Rotha, did you rip up your brown merino?"

  "Not yet."

  "Then go and do it now. I want it to
make over for you."

  "You'll never make much of that," said the girl discontentedly. But she obeyed. She saw a certain trait in the lines of her mother's lips; it might be reserve, it might be determination, or both; and she knew no more was to be got from her at that time.

  The brown merino disappointed her expectation; for when cleaned and made over it proved to be a very respectable dress. Rotha was well satisfied with it. The rest of Mrs. Carpenter's preparations were soon accomplished; and one day in November she and her little daughter left what had been home, and set out upon their journey to seek another in the misty distance. The journey itself was full of wonder and delight to Rotha. It was a very remarkable thing, in the first place, to find the world so large; then another remarkable thing was the variety of the people in it. Rotha had known only one kind, speaking broadly; the plain, quiet, respectable, and generally comfortable in habitants of the village and of the farms around the village. They were not elegant specimens, but they were solid, and kindly. She saw many people now that astonished her by their elegance; few that awakened any feeling of confidence. Rotha's eyes