"I think you must be very rich," said Draxy, gently.
Then, moved by some strange impulse in the presence of this pure, unworldly girl, Stephen Potter suddenly spoke out, for the first time since his boyhood, with absolute sincerity.
"Miss Miller, you are your father over again. I reverenced your father. I have wronged many men without caring, but it troubled me to wrong him. I would give you that money to-night, if I had it, or could raise it. I am not a rich man. I have not a dollar in the world. This house is not mine.
It may be sold over my head any day. I am deep in trouble, but not so deep as I deserve to be," and he buried his face in his hands.
Draxy believed him. And it was true. At that moment Stephen Potter was really a ruined man, and many others were involved in the ruin which was impending.
Draxy rose, saying gravely, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. We heard that you were rich, or I should not have come. We are very poor, but we are not unhappy, as you are."
"Stay, Miss Miller, sit down; I have a thing which might be of value to your father;" and Mr. Potter opened his safe and took out a bundle of old yellow papers. "Here is the t.i.tle to a lot of land in the northern part of New Hampshire. I took it on a debt years ago, and never thought it was worth anything. Very likely it has run out, or the town has taken possession of the land for the taxes. But I did think the other day, that if worst came to worst, I might take my wife up there and try to farm it.
But I"d rather your father should have it if it"s good for anything. I took it for three thousand dollars, and it ought to be worth something. I will have the legal transfer made in the morning, and give it to you before you leave."
This was not very intelligible to Draxy. The thin and tattered old paper looked singularly worthless to her. But rising again, she said simply as before, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter; and I thank you for trying to pay us! Will you let some one go and show me to the hotel where I ought to sleep?"
Stephen Potter was embarra.s.sed. It cut him to the heart to send this daughter of Reuben Miller"s out of his house to pa.s.s the night. But he feared Mrs. Potter very much. He hesitated only a moment.
"No, Miss Miller. You must sleep here. I will have you shown to your room at once. I do not ask you to see my wife. It would not be pleasant for you to do so." And he rang the bell. When the servant came, he said,--
"William, have a fire kindled in the blue room at once; as soon as it is done, come and let me know."
Then he sat down near Draxy and asked many questions about her family, all of which she answered with childlike candor. She felt a strange sympathy for this miserable, stricken, wicked man. When she bade him good-night, she said again, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter. My father would be glad if he could help you in any way."
Stephen Potter went into the parlor where his wife sat, reading a novel.
She was a very silly, frivolous woman, and she cared nothing for her husband, but when she saw his face she exclaimed, in terror, "What was it, Stephen?"
"Only Reuben Miller"s daughter, come two days" journey after some money I owe her father and cannot pay," said Stephen, bitterly.
"Miller? Miller?" said Mrs. Potter, "one of those old ca.n.a.l debts?"
"Yes," said Stephen.
"Well, of course all those are outlawed long ago," said she. "I don"t see why you need worry about that; she can"t touch you."
Stephen looked scornfully at her. She had a worse heart than he. At that moment Draxy"s face and voice, "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter,"
stood out in the very air before him.
"I suppose not," said he, moodily; "I wish she could! But I shall give her a deed of a piece of New Hampshire land which they may get some good of.
G.o.d knows I hope she may," and he left the room, turning back, however, to add, "She is to sleep here to-night. I could not have her go to the hotel.
But you need take no trouble about her."
"I should think not, Stephen Potter," exclaimed Mrs. Potter, sitting bolt upright in her angry astonishment; "I never heard of such impudence as her expecting"--
"She expected nothing. I obliged her to stay," interrupted Stephen, and was gone.
Mrs. Potter"s first impulse was to go and order the girl out of her house.
But she thought better of it. She was often afraid of her husband at this time; she dimly suspected that he was on the verge of ruin. So she sank back into her chair, buried herself in her novel, and soon forgot the interruption.
Draxy"s breakfast and dinner were carried to her room, and every provision made for her comfort. Stephen Potter"s servants obeyed him always. No friend of the family could have been more scrupulously served than was Draxy Miller. The man-servant carried her bag to the station, touched his hat to her as she stepped on board the train, and returned to the house to say in the kitchen: "Well, I don"t care what she come for; she was a real lady, fust to last, an" that"s more than Mr. Potter"s got for a wife, I tell you."
When Stephen Potter went into his library after bidding Draxy good-by, he found on the table a small envelope addressed to him. It held this note:--
"MR. POTTER:--I would not take the paper [the word "money" had been scratched out and the word "paper" subst.i.tuted] for myself; but I think I ought to for my father, because it was a true debt, and he is an old man now, and not strong.
"I am very sorry for you, Mr. Potter, and I hope you will become happy again. DRAXY MILLER."
Draxy had intended to write, "I hope you will be "good" again," but her heart failed her. "Perhaps he will understand that "happy" means good,"
she said, and so wrote the gentler phrase. Stephen Potter did understand; and the feeble outreachings which, during the few miserable years more of his life, he made towards uprightness, were partly the fruit of Draxy Miller"s words.
Draxy"s journey home was uneventful. She was sad and weary. The first person she saw on entering the house was her father. He divined in an instant that she had been unsuccessful. "Never mind, little daughter," he said, gleefully, "I am not disappointed; I knew you would not get it, but I thought the journey "d be a good thing for you, may be."
"But I have got something, father dear," said Draxy; "only I"m afraid it is not worth much."
""Taint likely to be if Steve Potter gave it," said Reuben, as Draxy handed him the paper. He laughed scornfully as soon as he looked at it.
""Taint worth the paper it"s writ on," said he, "and he knew it; if he hain"t looked the land up all these years, of course "twas sold at vendue long ago."
Draxy turned hastily away. Up to this moment she had clung to a little hope.
When the family were all gathered together in the evening, and Draxy had told the story of her adventures, Reuben and Captain Melville examined the deed together. It was apparently a good clear t.i.tle; it was of three hundred acres of land. Reuben groaned, "Oh, how I should like to see land by the acre once more." Draxy"s face turned scarlet, and she locked and unlocked her hands, but said nothing. "But it"s no use thinking about it,"
he went on; "this paper isn"t worth a straw. Most likely there"s more than one man well under way on the land by this time."
They looked the place up on an atlas. It was in the extreme northeast corner of New Hampshire. A large part of the county was still marked "ungranted," and the township in which this land lay was bounded on the north by this uninhabited district. The name of the town was Clairvend.
"What could it have been named for?" said Draxy. "How pleasantly it sounds."
"Most likely some Frenchman," said Captain Melville. "They always give names that "re kind o" musical."
"We might as well burn the deed up. It"s nothing but a torment to think of it a lyin" round with it"s three hundred acres of land," said Reuben in an impulsive tone, very rare for him, and prolonging the "three hundred"
with a scornful emphasis; and he sprang up to throw the paper into the fire.
"No, no, man," said Captain Melville; "don"t be so hasty. No need of burning things up in such a roomy house"s this! Something may come of that deed yet. Give it to Draxy; I"m sure she"s earned it, if there"s anything to it. Put it away for your dowry, dear," and he s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from Reuben"s hands and tossed it into Draxy"s lap. He did not believe what he said, and the attempt at a joke brought but a faint smile to any face. The paper fell on the floor, and Draxy let it lie there till she thought her father was looking another way, when she picked it up and put it in her pocket.
For several days there were unusual silence and depression in the household. They had really set far more hope than they knew on this venture. It was not easy to take up the old routine and forget the air castle. Draxy"s friend, Mrs. White, was almost as disappointed as Draxy herself. She had not thought of the chance of Mr. Potter"s being really unable to pay. She told her husband, who was a lawyer, the story of the deed, and he said at once: "Of course it isn"t worth a straw. If Potter didn"t pay the taxes, somebody else did, and the land"s been sold long ago."
Mrs. White tried to comfort herself by engaging Draxy for one month"s steady sewing, and presenting her with a set of George Eliot"s novels. And Draxy tried steadily and bravely to forget her journey, and the name of Clairvend.
About this time she wrote a hymn, and showed it to her father. It was the first thing of the kind she had ever let him see, and his surprise and delight showed her that here was one way more in which she could brighten his life. She had not thought, in her extreme humility, that by hiding her verses she was depriving him of pleasure. After this she showed him all she wrote, but the secret was kept religiously between them.
Draxy"s Hymn.
I cannot think but G.o.d must know About the thing I long for so; I know He is so good, so kind, I cannot think but He will find Some way to help, some way to show Me to the thing I long for so.
I stretch my hand--it lies so near: It looks so sweet, it looks so dear.
"Dear Lord," I pray, "Oh, let me know If it is wrong to want it so?"
He only smiles--He does not speak: My heart grows weaker and more weak, With looking at the thing so dear, Which lies so far, and yet so near.
Now, Lord, I leave at thy loved feet This thing which looks so near, so sweet; I will not seek, I will not long-- almost fear I have been wrong.
I"ll go, and work the harder, Lord, And wait till by some loud, clear word Thou callest me to thy loved feet, To take this thing so dear, so sweet.