Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/687

Rh with enchanted islands. It is St. Stephen's that looks unreal to me now as I lie here. This is the only real place in the world. Miss Hart—isn't it?"

"I suppose if I should go to St. Stephen's the penalty I should pay would be that I could never enjoy 'holy days' as I have these three. But that is part of life. We are always putting things behind us, or at one side. Anyway, just now it's 'a-holidaying' we are. There's a star! Let's wish, as we did when boys and girls!" The girl herself had slipped down from the rail fence and stood looking down upon the valley, where the glimmering waters had taken upon themselves weird shapes in the vanishing twilight. The bishop-elect "wished," wished with all his heart for the moment, as the deaconess nodded and bowed three times before the first evening candle.

"I ought to go. Sister Katharine offered to help me get my trunk packed for the early morning stage. You will be here for five days longer. I envy you and Sister Katharine; yes, envy you, with downright envy."

Just before they parted at the jasmine gateway Mr. Archibald drew himself up with priestly dignity. They had walked through the sweetbrier path and up the second hill-slope with very few words between them. Whippoorwills were calling to each other; a belated song-sparrow rustled and piped a note as they pushed through the shrubbery in the lane. Night had fallen; the cool breeze from the west had braced the nerve of the bishop-elect. His good-by would have suited his ecclesiastical comrades, even if it was a trifle excessive:

"Dear Miss Hart, you will not decide definitely now. I feel that you need time to think it over. I shall write you. We have an important work to be done, and I feel that you are the one woman in the world to carry out the work. Good night, and God bless you!"

"Why, of course! I'm really very sorry, dear friend, if this affair complicates you in the least. However, I know I can manage it if you leave it to me!"

"I do not say that it complicates me. But I am distressed. I thought you wanted a deaconess. When I found one who answered more than ordinary requirements, I felt it advisable to negotiate with her, after first writing to you and having received your letter in reply, which was approving."

"Of course my letter was approving. You did right, you Reverend Father. The fault lies with me at that point. I ought to have written with less encouragement; more explicitly. I delayed all summer because I was making up my mind. Oh dear! I wish she had not changed her mind. That is where the difficulty arose. You wrote that you were working in vain to get her. Of course I thought she would remain convinced that her New Hampshire career was the only path of duty."

The Rev. Charles was sipping his coffee, looking straight into the cup. It was late September, but a night when summer returns with stifling heat. Now, at eight o'clock, twilight had shut in about them as they sat upon the great south veranda of "Lakeby." The after-dinner coffee service was in front of Mrs. Dorrs-Flathers. It was always a happy moment in this lady's life to engineer the coffee-pot while engineering a scheme.

"I've made up my mind, Charles Archibald. In the first place, whoever comes into this parish must come to stay. She must have no possibilities."

"Why, what do you mean, Mrs. Flathers?"

"I mean she must be a deaconess who belongs to a sisterhood. She must have taken vows, and all that. When I suggested a deaconess I thought, of course, they all took vows of eternal maidenhood. But they don't. Of course the parish would always be 'surmising.' So you see we must have a 'Sister.' Some one, too, who can start a school of embroidery. Why, if you are to be a bishop, you'll have to have embroidery galore, you great man! Besides the needlework to be done, we must have her affiliate herself with the Girls' Friendly more closely than it would be possible for so young a girl."

"Why, that's Miss Hart's forte—getting hold of young and old women; that's her greatest success," interposed her valiant ecclesiastical knight.

"Oh no! girls who are in any kind of