The Brown Study | Page 6

your special anxiety," he said. "Send him down
to see me. I'll make him some flapjacks. If there's any one who
appreciates good cookery it's Brainard."
"Don," said his sister slowly, studying the face before her, "what are
you trying to do?"
"Accomplish a little something while I'm marking time."
"You ought to be resting!"
"I am. This is child's play; compared with the parish of St. Timothy's.
And it's lots more fun!"
"You're an ascetic!"
"Never. No crusts and water for me--coffee and flapjacks every time."
Once more she bent toward him. "You are an ascetic. To live in this
place, and wear--What are you wearing? Old clothes and a--What on
earth is that scarf pin? A ten-cent piece?"
He put up his hand. "Benson, the little old watchmaker on the corner,
gave me that. No, it's not a dime. It pleases him immensely to see me
wear it. It's not bad, Sue. Nonsense!"
"It's not good--cheap!"
He sat smiling up at her, while she regarded him in silence for a minute.
Then she broke out again:
"Why--why do you do it? Haven't you worked hard enough in your
great parish, without allowing yourself to spoil this rest you so much
need?"
"Sue," said her brother, "the best cure for certain kinds of overwork is
merely more work, only of a different sort. I can't be idle and contented.
Can you?"
"Idle! I should like to be idle. I'm rushed to death, all the time. It's
killing me."

"Dressmakers and hairdressers--and dinners and bridge and the whole
routine of your set," said he. "It is indeed a hard life--I wonder you
stand it."
"Don't be ironic!"
"I'm not ironic. I realized, long ago, that it's the hardest life in the
world--and pays the least."
She flushed. "I have my charities," she reminded him. "I'm not utterly
useless. And my clubs--belonging to them is a duty I owe other women.
I try to fulfill it."
"But you're not happy."
"Happy! I've forgotten the meaning of the word. To tell the honest truth,
Don, I've been feeling for a long while that I didn't care--how soon it
ended."
"Poor little sister!"
A crashing blow upon the door startled Mrs. Breckenridge so that she
cried out under her breath. Brown went to the door. A furious gust of
wind hurled it wide open beneath his hand, but there was no one upon
the doorstep. No one? At his feet lay a bundle, from which sounded a
wailing cry. He picked it up, looked up and down a vacant street,
closed the door, and came back to Sue Breckenridge by the fire.
"I wonder if they chose the bachelor's doorstep by chance or by
intention," he said.

V
BROWN'S UNBORROWED BABY
"Don! Don't take it in! They'll come back for it if you don't--they're
watching somewhere. Put it back on the doorstone--don't look at it!"
"Why, Sue!" he answered, and for an instant his eyes flashed reproof
into hers. "On such a night?"
"But what can you do with it?"
"Make it comfortable, first."
He was unwrapping the bundle. The child was swathed none too
heavily in clean cotton comforters; it was crying frantically, and its
hands, as Brown's encountered them in the unwinding, were cold and
blue. There emerged from the wrappings an infant of possibly six
weeks' existence in a world which had used it ill.
"Will you take him while I get some milk?" asked Brown, as naturally

as if handing crying babies over to his sister were an everyday affair
with them both.
She shook her head, backing away. "Oh, mercy, no! I shouldn't know
what to do with it."
"Sue!" Her brother's tone was suddenly stern. "Don't be that sort of
woman--don't let me think it of you!"
He continued to hold out the small wailing bundle. She bit her lip,
reluctantly extended unaccustomed arms, and received the foundling
into them.
"Sit down close by the fire, my dear, and get those frozen little hands
warm. A bit of mothering won't hurt either of you." And Brown strode
away into the kitchen with a frown between his brows. He was soon
back with a small cupful of warm milk and water, a teaspoon, and a
towel.
"Do you expect to feed a tiny baby with a teaspoon?" Sue asked with
scorn.
"You don't know much about babies, do you, Sue? Well, I may have
some trouble, but it's too late to get any other equipment from my
neighbours, and I'll try my luck." She watched with amazement the
proceedings which followed. Brown sat down with the baby cradled on
his left arm, tucked the half-unfolded towel beneath its chin, and with
the cup conveniently at hand upon the table began to convey the milk,
drop by drop, to the