The Forerunner, vol 1 | Page 9

lady of changeless aspect and incessant activity.
Mrs. Morrison was alone, and while living in the Welcome House she was never unhappy. Her father had built it, she was born there, she grew up playing on the broad green lawns in front, and in the acre of garden behind. It was the finest house in the village, and she then thought it the finest in the world.
Even after living with her father at Washington and abroad, after visiting hall, castle and palace, she still found the Welcome House beautiful and impressive.
If she kept on taking boarders she could live the year through, and pay interest, but not principal, on her little mortgage. This had been the one possible and necessary thing while the children were there, though it was a business she hated.
But her youthful experience in diplomatic circles, and the years of practical management in church affairs, enabled her to bear it with patience and success. The boarders often confided to one another, as they chatted and tatted on the long piazza, that Mrs. Morrison was "certainly very refined."
Now Sally whisked in cheerfully, announcing supper, and Mrs. Morrison went out to her great silver tea-tray at the lit end of the long, dark mahogany table, with as much dignity as if twenty titled guests were before her.
Afterward Mr. Butts called. He came early in the evening, with his usual air of determination and a somewhat unusual spruceness. Mr. Peter Butts was a florid, blonde person, a little stout, a little pompous, sturdy and immovable in the attitude of a self-made man. He had been a poor boy when she was a rich girl; and it gratified him much to realize--and to call upon her to realize--that their positions had changed. He meant no unkindness, his pride was honest and unveiled. Tact he had none.
She had refused Mr. Butts, almost with laughter, when he proposed to her in her gay girlhood. She had refused him, more gently, when he proposed to her in her early widowhood. He had always been her friend, and her husband's friend, a solid member of the church, and had taken the small mortgage of the house. She refused to allow him at first, but he was convincingly frank about it.
"This has nothing to do with my wanting you, Delia Morrison," he said. "I've always wanted you--and I've always wanted this house, too. You won't sell, but you've got to mortgage. By and by you can't pay up, and I'll get it--see? Then maybe you'll take me--to keep the house. Don't be a fool, Delia. It's a perfectly good investment."
She had taken the loan. She had paid the interest. She would pay the interest if she had to take boarders all her life. And she would not, at any price, marry Peter Butts.
He broached the subject again that evening, cheerful and undismayed. "You might as well come to it, Delia," he said. "Then we could live right here just the same. You aren't so young as you were, to be sure; I'm not, either. But you are as good a housekeeper as?ever--better--you've had more experience."
"You are extremely kind, Mr. Butts," said the lady, "but I do not wish to marry you."
"I know you don't," he said. "You've made that clear. You don't, but I do. You've had your way and married the minister. He was a good man, but he's dead. Now you might as well marry me."
"I do not wish to marry again, Mr. Butts; neither you nor anyone."
"Very proper, very proper, Delia," he replied. "It wouldn't look well if you did--at any rate, if you showed it. But why shouldn't you? The children are gone now--you can't hold them up against me any more."
"Yes, the children are both settled now, and doing nicely," she admitted.
"You don't want to go and live with them--either one of them--do you?" he asked.
"I should prefer to stay here," she answered.
"Exactly! And you can't! You'd rather live here and be a grandee--but you can't do it. Keepin' house for boarders isn't any better than keepin' house for me, as I see. You'd much better marry me."
"I should prefer to keep the house without you, Mr. Butts."
"I know you would. But you can't, I tell you. I'd like to know what a woman of your age can do with a house like this--and no money? You can't live eternally on hens' eggs and garden truck. That won't pay the mortgage."
Mrs. Morrison looked at him with her cordial smile, calm and non-committal. "Perhaps I can manage it," she said.
"That mortgage falls due two years from Thanksgiving, you know."
"Yes--I have not forgotten."
"Well, then, you might just as well marry me now, and save two years of interest. It'll be my house, either way--but you'll be keepin' it just the same."
"It is very kind