Beth Woodburn.

by Maud Pet.i.tt.

CHAPTER I.

_BETH AT EIGHTEEN._

In the good old county of Norfolk, close to the sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie, lies the pretty village of Briarsfield. A village I call it, though in truth it has now advanced almost to the size and dignity of a town. Here, on the brow of the hill to the north of the village (rather a retired spot, one would say, for so busy a man), at the time of which my story treats, stood the residence of Dr. Woodburn.

It was a long, old-fashioned rough-cast house facing the east, with great wide windows on each side of the door and a veranda all the way across the front. The big lawn was quite uneven, and broken here and there by birch trees, spruces, and crazy clumps of rose-bushes, all in bloom. Altogether it was a sweet, home-like old place. The view to the south showed, over the village roofs on the hill-side, the blue of Lake Erie outlined against the sky, while to the north stretched the open, undulating country, so often seen in Western Ontario.

One warm June afternoon Beth, the doctor's only daughter, was lounging in an att.i.tude more careless than graceful under a birch tree. She, her father and Mrs. Margin, the housekeeper--familiarly known as Aunt Prudence--formed the whole household. Beth was a little above the average height, a girlish figure, with a trifle of that awkwardness one sometimes meets in an immature girl of eighteen; a face, not what most people would call pretty, but still having a fair share of beauty. Her features were, perhaps, a little too strongly outlined, but the brow was fair as a lily, and from it the great ma.s.s of dark hair was drawn back in a pleasing way. But her eyes--those earnest, grey eyes--were the most impressive of all in her unusually impressive face. They were such searching eyes, as though she had stood on the brink scanning the very Infinite, and yet with a certain baffled look in them as of one who had gazed far out, but failed to pierce the gloom--a beaten, longing look.

But a careless observer might have dwelt longer on the affectionate expression about her lips--a half-childish, half-womanly tenderness.

Beth was in one of her dreamy moods that afternoon. She was gazing away towards the north, her favorite view. She sometimes said it was prettier than the lake view. The hill on which their house stood sloped abruptly down, and a meadow, pink with clover, stretched far away to rise again in a smaller hill skirted with a bluish line of pines. There was a single cottage on the opposite side of the meadow, with white blinds and a row of sun-flowers along the wall; but Beth was not absorbed in the view, and gave no heed to the book beside her. She was dreaming. She had just been reading the life of George Eliot, her favorite author, and the book lay open at her picture. She had begun to love George Eliot like a personal friend; she was her ideal, her model, for Beth had some repute as a literary character in Briarsfield. Not a teacher in the village school but had marked her strong literary powers, and she was not at all slow to believe all the hopeful compliments paid her. From a child her stories had filled columns in the Briarsfield _Echo_, and now she was eighteen she told herself she was ready to reach out into the great literary world--a nestling longing to soar. Yes, she would be famous--Beth Woodburn, of Briarsfield. She was sure of it. She would write novels; oh, such grand novels! She would drink from the very depths of nature and human life. The stars, the daisies, sunsets, rippling waters, love and sorrow, and all the infinite chords that vibrate in the human soul--she would weave them all with warp of gold.

Oh, the world would see what was in her soul! She would be the bright particular star of Canadian literature; and then wealth would flow in, too, and she would fix up the old home. Dear old "daddy" should retire and have everything he wanted: and Aunt Prudence, on sweeping days, wouldn't mind moving "the trash," as she called her ma.n.u.scripts. Daddy wouldn't make her go to bed at ten o'clock then; she would write all night if she choose; she would have a little room on purpose, and visitors at Briarsfield would pa.s.s by the old rough-cast house and point it out as Beth Woodburn's home, and--well, this is enough for a sample of Beth's daydreams. They were very exaggerated, perhaps, and a little selfish, too; but she was not a fully-developed woman yet, and the years were to bring sweeter fruit. She had, undoubtedly, the soul of genius, but genius takes years to unfold itself.

Then a soft expression crossed the face of the dreamer. She leaned back, her eyes closed and a light smile played about her lips. She was thinking of one who had encouraged her so earnestly--a tall, slender youth, with light curly hair, blue eyes and a fair, almost girlish, face--too fair and delicate for the ideal of most girls: but Beth admired its paleness and delicate features, and Clarence Mayfair had come to be often in her thoughts. She remembered quite well when the Mayfairs had moved into the neighborhood and taken possession of the fine old manor beside the lake, and she had become friends with the only daughter, Edith, at school, and then with Clarence. Clarence wrote such pretty little poems, too. This had been the foundation of their friendship, and, since their tastes and ambitions were so much alike, what if--

Her eyes grew brighter, and she almost fancied he was looking down into her face. Oh, those eyes--hush, maiden heart, be still. She smiled at the white cloud drifting westward--a little boat-shaped cloud, with two white figures in it, sailing in the summer blue. The breeze ruffled her dark hair. There fell a long shadow on the gra.s.s beside her.

"Clarence--Mr. Mayfair! I didn't see you coming. When did you get home?"

"Last night. I stayed in Toronto till the report of our 'exams' came out."

"I see you have been successful," she replied. "Allow me to congratulate you."

"Thank you. I hear you are coming to 'Varsity this fall, Miss Woodburn.

Don't you think it quite an undertaking? I'm sure I wish you joy of the hard work."

"Why, I hope you are not wearying of your course in the middle of it, Mr. Mayfair. It is only two years till you will have your B.A."

"Two years' hard work, though; and, to tell the truth, a B.A. has lost its charms for me. I long to devote my life more fully to literature.

That is my first ambition, you know, and I seem to be wasting so much time."

"You can hardly call time spent that way wasted," she answered. "You will write all the better for it by and by."

Then they plunged into one of their old-time literary talks of authors and books and ambitions. Beth loved these talks. There was no one else in Briarsfield she could discuss these matters with like Clarence. She was noticing meanwhile how much paler he looked than when she saw him last, but she admired him all the more. There are some women who love a man all the more for being delicate. It gives them better opportunities to display their womanly tenderness. Beth was one of these.

"By the way, I mustn't forget my errand," Clarence exclaimed after a long chat.

He handed her a dainty little note, an invitation to tea from his sister Edith. Beth accepted with pleasure. She blushed as he pressed her hand in farewell, and their eyes met. That look and touch of his went very deep--deeper than they should have gone, perhaps; but the years will tell their tale. She watched him going down the hill-side in the afternoon sunshine, then fell to dreaming again. What if, after all, she should not always stay alone with daddy? If someone else should come--And she began to picture another study where she should not have to write alone, but there should be two desks by the broad windows looking out on the lake, and somebody should--

"Beth! Beth! come and set the tea-table. My hands is full with them cherries."

Beth's dream was a little rudely broken by Mrs. Martin's voice, but she complacently rose and went into the house.

Mrs. Martin was a small grey-haired woman, very old-fashioned; a prim, good old soul, a little sharp-tongued, a relic of bygone days of Canadian life. She had been Dr. Woodburn's housekeeper ever since Beth could remember, and they had always called her "Aunt Prudence."

"What did that gander-shanks of a Mayfair want?" asked the old lady with a funny smile, as Beth was bustling about.

"Oh, just come to bring an invitation to tea from Edith."

Dr. Woodburn entered as soon as tea was ready. He was the ideal father one meets in books, and if there was one thing on earth Beth was proud of it was "dear daddy." He was a fine, broad-browed man, strikingly like Beth, but with hair silvery long before its time. His eyes were like hers, too, though Beth's face had a little shadow of gloom that did not belong to the doctor's genial countenance.

It was a pleasant little tea-table to which they sat down. Mrs Martin always took tea with them, and as she talked over Briarsfield gossip to the doctor, Beth, as was her custom, looked silently out of the window upon the green sloping lawn.

"Well, Beth, dear," said Dr. Woodburn, "has Mrs. Martin told you that young Arthur Grafton is coming to spend his holidays with us?"

"Arthur Grafton! Why, no!" said Beth with pleased surprise.

"He is coming. He may drop in any day. He graduated this spring, you know. He's a fine young man, I'm told."

"Oh! Beth ain't got time to think about anything but that slim young Mayfair, now-a-days," put in Mrs. Martin. "He's been out there with her most of the afternoon, and me with all them cherries to tend to."

Beth saw a faint shadow cross her father's face, but put it aside as fancy only and began to think of Arthur. He was an old play-fellow of hers. An orphan at an early age, he had spent his childhood on his uncle's farm, just beyond the pine wood to the north of her home. Her father had always taken a deep interest in him, and when the death of his uncle and aunt left him alone in the world, Dr. Woodburn had taken him into his home for a couple of years until he had gone away to school. Arthur had written once or twice, but Beth was staying with her Aunt Margaret, near Welland, that summer, and she had seen fit, for unexplained reasons, to stop the correspondence: so the friendship had ended there. It was five years now since she had seen her old play-fellow, and she found herself wondering if he would be greatly changed.

After tea Beth took out her books, as usual, for an hour or two; then, about eight o'clock, with her tin-pail on her arm, started up the road for the milk. This was one of her childhood's tasks that she still took pleasure in performing. She sauntered along in the sweet June twilight past the fragrant clover meadow and through the pine wood, with the fire-flies darting beneath the boughs. Some girls would have been frightened, but Beth was not timid. She loved the still sweet solitude of her evening walk. The old picket gate clicked behind her at the Birch Farm, and she went up the path with its borders of four-o'clocks. It was Arthur's old home, where he had pa.s.sed his childhood at his uncle's--a great cheery old farm-house, with morning-glory vines clinging to the windows, and sun-flowers thrusting their great yellow faces over the kitchen wall.

The door was open, but the kitchen empty, and she surmised that Mrs.

Birch had not finished milking; so Beth sat down on the rough bench beneath the crab-apple tree and began to dream of the olden days. There was the old chain swing where Arthur used to swing her, and the cherry-trees where he filled her ap.r.o.n. She was seven and he was ten--but such a man in her eyes, that sun-browned, dark-eyed boy. And what a hero he was to her when she fell over the bridge, and he rescued her! He used to get angry though sometimes. Dear, how he thrashed Sammie Jones for calling her a "little snip." Arthur was good, though, very good. He used to sit in that very bench where she was sitting, and explain the Sunday-school lesson to her, and say such good things. Her father had told her two or three years ago of Arthur's decision to be a missionary. He was going away off to Palestine. "I wonder how he can do it," she thought. "He has his B.A. now, too, and he was always so clever. He must be a hero. I'm not good like that; I--I don't think I want to be so good. Clarence isn't as good as that. But Clarence must be good. His poetry shows it. I wonder if Arthur will like Clarence?"

Mrs. Birch, with a pail of fresh milk on each arm, interrupted her reverie.

Beth enjoyed her walk home that night. The moon had just risen, and the pale stars peeped through the patches of white cloud that to her fancy looked like the foot-prints of angels here and there on the path of the infinite. As she neared home a sound of music thrilled her. It was only an old familiar tune, but she stopped as if in a trance. The touch seemed to fill her very soul. It was so brave and yet so tender. The music ceased; some sheep were bleating in the distance, the stars were growing brighter, and she went on toward home.

She was surprised as she crossed the yard to see a tall dark-haired stranger talking to her father in the parlor. She was just pa.s.sing the parlor door when he came toward her.

"Well, Beth, my old play-mate!"

"Arthur!"

They would have made a subject for an artist as they stood with clasped hands, the handsome dark-eyed man, the girl, in her white dress, her milk-pail on her arm, and her wondering grey eyes upturned to his.

"Why, Beth, you look at me as if I were a spectre."

"But, Arthur, you're so changed! Why, you're a man, now!" at which he laughed a merry laugh that echoed clear to the kitchen.

Beth joined her father and Arthur in the parlor, and they talked the old days over again before they retired to rest. Beth took out her pale blue dress again before she went to sleep. Yes, she would wear that to the Mayfair's next day, and there were white moss roses at the dining-room window that would just match. So thinking she laid it carefully away and slept her girl's sleep that night.

CHAPTER II.

_A DREAM OF LIFE._