Eunice smiled, and shook her head.

"I think not, doctor. My bread is not all baked yet."

"What is this I hear about the garden? Are you going to let Jabez have it, as he wishes it so much?"

"Hadn't I better, doctor? Without Fidelia it would be too much for me, I am afraid. I could work in it a little for exercise, even if Jabez had it."

"Yes, I see. I should not wonder," said the doctor; but his eyes were turned to the clouds that hung over the distant mountains, and he was thinking not at all of Jabez and the garden. His face was very grave.

"What a good face it is!" thought Eunice, as she watched it--"a true friend's face!"

It was a good face, strong and kindly--a face to inspire confidence. It was brown and weather-beaten, and showed many wrinkles, and the soft waving hair above it was as white as snow. But it was not an old face.

The eyes were soft and bright, and the smile that came and went so readily upon it gave it a look of youth. Eunice could not remember the time when he had not been good and kind to her, and she loved him dearly. But she was a little afraid of him to-day. In a little, his eyes returned to her, standing at the gate.

"Miss Eunice, what am I thinking about? You must not stand there in the wind. I will go in with you. I am not in haste to-day. What is this I hear about your garden?"

But Eunice knew that it was not of Jabez or the garden he was thinking, as he followed her into the house. She went out of the room, and returned with a gla.s.s of milk on a tray, and her hand trembled as she set it down.

It was of Jabez and the garden that they spoke first, however. Eunice told all that he had said, and the good reason he had for wishing to make money during the summer.

"And he'll do it too--school and college and all--I should not wonder!"

said the doctor. "There seems to be a terrible hunger for knowledge among our young people these days. I am not sure that I like it. I am afraid of it."

"Oh, doctor, you do not mean that?" said Eunice.

"In a way I do. Knowledge! No, I don't object to the knowledge. But I have a great respect for many of the tanned faces about us, and for the hands that have been hardened by the plough and the axe. 'The profit of the earth is for all. The king himself is served by the field.' And I have no respect at all for those lads who take to their books and to a profession because it seems a step upward, or because such a life seems to promise an easier time. I don't like to see our farmers' boys turning their backs on the fields their fathers have tilled."

"But there are more boys than there are farms, I doubt," said Eunice, with a smile.

"Yes, that is so. But there are farms enough in the country for them all. And there is no one to take the deacon's farm but Jabez. However, we may hope that 'the profit of the earth' will seem more to him after he has sowed and reaped for his own benefit."

"I think Jabez would make a scholar. It is in him to succeed."

"Possibly. Oh, yes, he is a smart boy! If he has got the notion, he'll go ahead with it. He's not a bad boy either, though the grandfather has had--or rather has dreaded--trouble with him!"

And so they talked on for a while about the garden and other things, till the doctor rose as if to go away; and then he said, speaking very gently, just what Eunice had all along known that he came to say--"Do you think you had better wait any longer, Eunice?"

"I suppose it will make me no worse to know just how it is," she said faintly.

"It will be far better to know all that can be known. I cannot but think you may be dreading what will never come to you. You have had a lonesome winter. And you have had a hard life, dear." Eunice smiled, but shook her head. "I don't think I have been very lonesome. And I have not had a hard life--taking it all together. Think how happy my life was till I was twenty!"

"Yes, dear, I know. And since then it has been more than happy. It has been a blessed life of help to others. But it has been a hard life too, in one way. Let us see now how it is with you."

"But first let me say one word," said Eunice, laying her hand on the doctor's arm. "I don't think I am afraid. I think I am willing that it shall be as G.o.d wills. But it may be long; and I will not, while I can help it, have my Fidelia know what is before me. And, doctor, I shall need your silence and your help--"

"To deceive her?"

The doctor sat down again and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.

"To deceive her," repeated he, "and to break her heart afterwards with unavailing regret?"

"Oh, she will have to know after a while, but--not as long as we can keep it from her!" There was silence for a minute or two. "Well, we will wait and see. I will not speak to her till you shall give me leave to do so."

Then there were a few grave questions, and a few quiet replies; and then the doctor said,--

"Take courage, Eunice! I would say to almost any one else, 'There is no cause for anxiety.' But having known so well the last years of your grandmother's life, I can hardly say you have nothing to fear from the disease that was fatal to her; but I do say that, as far as I can judge from your present condition, you may reasonably hope for a good many years of comfortable health. You should have spoken to me sooner, and spared yourself a time of anxiety."

He did not see the look of relief on which he had counted--at least he did not see it for a moment.

"Thank you, Dr Everett," she said at last. "And now nothing need be said to Fidelia."

"Why do you fear for Fidelia? Your sister is braver and stronger than you think."

"Oh, I think she is brave and strong! It is not that. But I want her to have two or three untroubled years before the work of her life begins; and then--"

"And what is the work of her life to be? Is she to choose it for herself, or is it to be chosen for her, as your work has been? Eunice, don't you think you may be too tender with your sister? Don't you think that the Lord has her and her life in His keeping, and that you need not take that burden on you?"

Eunice smiled. "We are bidden to 'bear one another's burdens,' you know."

"Yes; and we are told that 'every one shall bear his own burden.' You cannot shield your sister from all the troubles of life, and it is not well that she should be so shielded. However, all this will keep for another time; and I am more than thankful that there is nothing specially painful to tell her now." And then he asked--"Will you come down with me, as I promised the girls you should?"

"Not to-day, I think. I will rest, and be ready for Fidelia."

She was very tired, the doctor knew by the wavering colour on her cheek; and he shrank from the thought of telling her something which he wished no one but himself to tell. Afterwards, when he had spoken, he said to himself that he need not have been so much afraid.

"Eunice, I heard from my brother Justin lately. He is coming home. He is on his way. He may be here any day."

"Is he coming home at last? I am glad--for you especially. All his friends will be glad to see him again."

She spoke quietly and cordially, just as any of his friends might have spoken. Then there were a few more words, and then he went away.

Eunice waited till she heard the latch of the gate fall, and waited still till the sounds of his wheels died away in the distance. Then she rose and took her last loaves from the oven, and carried them away to their own place. Then she went slowly upstairs and laid herself down on her bed to rest. And there Fidelia found her sleeping, with the traces of tears on her face, but with G.o.d's own peace resting upon it also.

CHAPTER THREE.

EUNICE.

Eunice Marsh might well say that the first seventeen years of her life had been happy years. Her father, a man useful and much beloved, had during that time been minister of the only church in Hopeville, a town in the southern part of the state. She had lost her mother when she was a little child, but her loss had been well supplied by the love and care of her mother's mother, with whom she had lived, in the house that was now her home, till the time of her father's second marriage.

Her new mother did not love her own little daughter, when she came, more dearly than she loved Eunice, and so the happy years moved on to a sorrowful ending. Suddenly, in the midst of happiness and usefulness, with no warning which those who loved him could understand, the minister died. Then Eunice returned to her grandparents home on the hill, and her stepmother, with her little daughter, came there also, to stay for a little while; and they never went away again.

It was not a very large house, and the old people were far from being rich, but they offered the widow a home while she needed one. She did not need it long. She never quite recovered from the shock of her husband's death, and she died within the year, leaving her little girl to her sister Eunice, "to love and care for always--to be her very own."

"And, dear, I am not afraid to leave my little darling with you," said the dying mother with a smile.

After a while happy days came again to Eunice. Why should she not be happy? Those who had gone from her had only "gone before," and those who remained were very dear; and life was before her--a mystery!--but a mystery of gladness and blessing, as she believed.

Dr Everett had been the minister's cla.s.smate in college, and his life-long friend; and when the minister died, he became the guardian and the life-long friend of his daughters. In his house they found a second home, and from him Eunice had the counsel and the guidance which in their old age, and with their failing powers, her grandparents could no longer give her.