Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/688

"I have made up my Mind, Charles Archibald"

trouble would like to go to a Sister so much better than to a young person like themselves, only of a different class socially. Don't you think so yourself, Mr. Archibald?"

"I don't know just what I do think," the man replied. His face was white and drawn in spite of the good dinner and leisurely hour following, on the veranda.

"You look troubled, you poor man, with such a tender heart! We are going to have a Sister at St. Stephen's. It will give you dignity. But this Miss Hart shall come out here at my expense. She shall see the ground. After she's seen it through my eyes, I doubt if she herself will feel it wise to stay."

"That is all very well, dear Mrs. Mathers,—but don't you see, although I did not settle every detail, I did say that the work would be her work; that she should create the position. That was why she finally agreed to come. It will be curiously inconsequential to find, on her arrival, that a plan of work is mapped out, as you suggest, which is not in accord with her ideals and which will immediately change the whole situation."

"Why, my dear man, you are so simple! I mean divinely simple and Christlike. Now don't worry one bit about it, or make mountains out of molehills. I sha'n't say that things must be so and so. She knows, doesn't she, that I am behind the enterprise? She would wish to consult my advice if she came? She will, in case she blames any one, exonerate you, because you are not Mrs. Dorrs-Flathers. I shall be free from all blame because I have had nothing to do with the affair until now."

It was well that twilight had given place to the shadows of night. Sitting with his back to the lighted hallway,