The Barrier: A Novel. French Allen

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      Many people thought him odd; some called him "poor Mr. Pease," with such pity as is given to the struggling artist or the ambitious novelist, for Pease had never been even to the high-school, and it seemed foolish for him to try to cultivate his mind. They did not consider that the grace of humility was not denied him, with just a touch of that saving quality, humour. He knew himself fairly well, he guarded himself successfully, only one person really knew his heart, and for the opinion of the rest he had a smile. Let them laugh or pity, they had nothing so fine as he, they were not so happy as he, and his kind of a fool was not the worst.

      And so we must acknowledge that he was thoroughly complacent. None of Judith Blanchard's discontent stirred him, none of Mather's anger at the world, and none of Ellis's desire to advance. This little room gave him all that he wanted: intellectual improvement, the feeling of progress, mental satisfaction. Pease went beyond cherishing an ideal of happiness; he believed that he was happy, and that no one could take his happiness from him.

      And thinking so at this minute, his eye rested fondly on a motto on the wall.

      It was from Goethe; it was lettered in old German characters, framed in passe-partout, and hung above the mantel. Pease had dug it out of "Faust"; it embodied so completely his notion of existence that he resolved to keep it before him always. No mere translation could do it justice; "Gray, dear friend, is all theory, and green the golden tree of life" – that was too tame. No; the sonorous German could best express it:

      "Grau, theurer Freund, ist aller Theorie,

      Und Gruen des Lebens goldner Baum."

      Pease whispered the words to himself. Gray indeed were the lives of all others; he alone dwelt beneath life's green tree and ate its golden fruit. This house, this room, these books – ah, Paradise!

      There came a knock at the door. "Peveril?"

      "Yes, Cynthia."

      "Don't forget, little Miss Blanchard is coming to dinner."

      "No, Cynthia."

      She was not requesting him to "dress." He always did. She was not asking him to be on time; he always was. Being on the safe side of the door, however, his cousin meant to remind him of her hardihood in inviting to his table some one young and pretty.

      Not, Miss Cynthia sighed, that it would make any difference to him. When her visitor arrived a little early, and sat chatting in the parlour, Miss Pease reflected that Peveril, upstairs, was dressing no more carefully for this charming girl than he would have done for old Mrs. Brown. Charming – but he knew nothing of the real, the true, the living best!

      Thus we may briefly record that Miss Cynthia Pease, who was the one person that understood her cousin, was not wholly in sympathy with his pursuits. Not that she would have acknowledged it to him, nor to anyone else, not even to "little Miss Blanchard," Judith's sister Beth, who was questioning her in a spirit of fun.

      "I'm so afraid of dining with your cousin!" Beth exclaimed.

      "No, you're not!" contradicted Miss Cynthia grimly.

      "If I should make some slip in statement, or spot the table-cloth! He is so accurate, they all say."

      "You may depend on him to be polite under all circumstances," responded Miss Cynthia, glaring.

      "But I should know what he would think," persisted the young lady.

      Miss Cynthia advanced to fury, scarcely repressed. "No, you wouldn't!" she denied emphatically. "I won't have you laugh at him."

      "Why, you laugh at him yourself," said Beth. "You know you do."

      "And if I do?" retorted Miss Pease. "Let me tell you he's the dearest, kindest man that ever – "

      "Why, Miss Cynthia," cried the other, "don't I know?"

      "Nobody knows," was the response.

      Now all grades of opposition, from caustic irony to smothered denunciation, were habitual in Miss Pease's manner, but as she said "Nobody knows," lo! there were tears in her voice, if not in her eyes.

      "Miss Cynthia!" cried Beth.

      Miss Pease was gaunt and grewsome, so that her manner fitted her perfectly, but now as she sat winking her eyes and twisting her face she became pathetic. The girl rose quickly and came to her side.

      "Have I hurt you?" she inquired anxiously.

      "No, child, no," answered Miss Pease, recovering herself. "You didn't know what a sentimental old fool I am, did you? There, sit down again. You see," (she hesitated before committing herself further) "I was thinking, just before you came, of what Peveril has been to me. Your talk roused me again."

      "He has done a great deal for you?" asked Beth with sympathy.

      "Everything in the world!" answered Miss Cynthia warmly, not having resumed her manner. "Since our grandfather died Peveril has been my protector, though he is two years younger. You know we were very poor at first."

      "Very poor?"

      "We had nothing but debts," stated Miss Cynthia. "We lived in boarding-houses for seven years before Peveril could buy the homestead and get the strangers out of it. It was a proud day when he brought me here, and told me this was mine to live in until the end of my life. And yet for two years more I went daily to my work – I was in Benjamin's great dry-goods store, my dear – until when they asked me to be the head of the linen department Peveril said I should work no more, and insisted on my staying at home."

      "I never heard of that," cried Beth. "That you were ever in Benjamin's!"

      "And a very good saleswoman I was," said Miss Cynthia. "But after that the money began to come in to us, and Peveril sold the land where the Security Building now is. I have not done a piece of work since then, except for Peveril or for charity. I am a rich woman, my dear."

      "But you do so much for charity!" exclaimed Beth with enthusiasm.

      When it came to praise, Miss Pease became grim at once. "I've got to keep busy with something," she snapped.

      "But tell me more," begged Beth.

      "There is nothing more," declared Miss Cynthia. "And now I hear him coming, five minutes before the hour, just as he always does. Don't be afraid of him; he has the softest heart in the world, as you ought to discover, since you had the skill to find mine."

      Beth had only the time to squeeze her friend's hand as the two stood up together. She had discovered Miss Pease's heart; it was an unconscious specialty of Beth's to find the weak points in the armour of forbidding persons, and she had on her list of friends more of the lonely and unknown than had many a worker in organised charity. She was, in fact, a worker in her own special field, the well-to-do, bringing them the sympathy and affection which they needed as much as do the poor. She had neither shrewdness nor experience; what she did was quite unconscious, but her value was unique. Mr. William Fenno, who had no love for his wife's pleasures and whose daughters took after their mother, loved to have the girl with him. Judge Harmon, not quite at home by his own gas-log, felt more comfortable if Beth were spending the evening with him – for she made no pretense of coming to see his wife. Quite unconsciously, a similar bond had been growing up between Beth and Miss Pease, and took open recognition on that day when Miss Cynthia, allowing her eyes to be pleased by the girl's freshness, blurted her feeling and said: "I like you. You are so unlike your sister."

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