The Alchemists Secret

Alchemist's Secret, by Isabel
Cecilia Williams

Project Gutenberg's The Alchemist's Secret, by Isabel Cecilia Williams
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Alchemist's Secret
Author: Isabel Cecilia Williams
Release Date: September 9, 2006 [EBook #19224]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ALCHEMIST'S SECRET ***

Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE ALCHEMIST'S SECRET BY ISABEL CECILIA WILLIAMS
P. J. KENEDY & SONS 44 BARCLAY STREET, NEW YORK

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY P. J. KENEDY & SONS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS PAGE
THE PASSING OF TONY 11 THE TRAMP 27 "HE HATH PUT
DOWN THE MIGHTY" 42 A MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS
MORNING 58 NANCY'S TALE 72 PATSY 88 THREE EVENINGS
IN A LIFE 103 THE ELEVENTH HOUR 116 THE STORY OF
JULIE BENOIT 130 PETER 150 GOD'S WAY 165
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

THE PASSING OF TONY.
"Last mail in, Mis' Bascomb?"
"Last mail's in, Tony."
"Be there anything for me to-night?"
Widow Bascomb knew perfectly well there was not, but she reached
for a small pile of letters in a pigeonhole on her right and glanced over
them rapidly. Her sour visage and rasping voice softened perceptibly as
she smiled on the little old man before her.
"Sorry, Tony, there's nothing for you to-night."
"Thank you, Mis' Bascomb, p'raps it'll come to-morrow," and Tony
turned away with a sigh and moved towards the door.
A group of men were gathered around the stove, smoking and
exchanging the gossip of the town. These greeted him kindly as he
passed and he returned the greetings half absently. Before opening the

door, the old man stopped to give his woolen muffler one more turn
around his neck.
"Purty cold snap, this," he remarked to the company in general. "Looks
as if we'd have snow 'fore mornin' and a white Christmas after all.
Good-night, Mis' Bascomb; good-night boys. A merry Christmas to
you all!" and Tony stepped out into the frosty air of the December
evening.
He sighed again as he turned up over the hill to the left and started for
home. It had been a long, cold walk down to the village, and it would
be equally long and even colder on the way back, for a sharp wind was
blowing directly in his face. It was a bad night for an old man like Tony
to be abroad and he was almost sorry that he had ventured out. But
there was his promise to Martha; it would never do to break that.
Martha had always been of a more hopeful turn of mind than he,
anyway. While she was still alive she had imparted to him the same
spirit of trust and hopefulness which shone in her steady gray eyes, but
since God had taken Martha and left him all alone in the world of care
and trouble, life had been hard indeed.
He had promised Martha never to omit the daily visit to the post-office
to inquire for the letter which, thus far, had failed to arrive. Martha had
been so sure that Sallie would write to them some day; Sallie, their
handsome, wilful daughter, who had passed out of their lives nearly
fifteen years before. He never blamed Sallie for wanting to leave them;
what could a tiny village like this offer to one as clever, as pretty, as
ambitious as Sallie had been? The neighbors had said many unkind
things of Sallie but he heeded them not. They had called her vain, idle
and silly; they said the folks at the big house had spoiled her and put
notions into her head. They told him he did a foolish thing when he
allowed her to go as maid to the lady of the big house over on the
shores of the lake, and to go down to the city with the family when they
moved home in the autumn. To tell the truth, poor Tony had little voice
in the matter. Sallie, as usual, had taken affairs into her own hands and
decided for herself.
Nearly fifteen years! It was a long, long time; and never a word from

the truant since the day she had left the village. Martha had waited, at
first impatiently, then anxiously, and finally with a pathetic hopefulness
that was more than half assumed. It was she who had insisted that Tony
must go to the office every day, and during those long years, every
evening, rain or shine, the same little scene was enacted in the village
post-office. Every evening he had the same