it, after his first concealment. He knew that,
to begin with, he would have to account for his mistake
in attempting to keep it from her, and would have
to bear some just upbraiding for this unmanly course,
and would then be miserably led to the distasteful
contemplation of the folly by which he had brought
this trouble upon himself. Sewell smiled to think
how much easier it was to make one’s peace with
one’s God than with one’s wife; and before
he had brought himself to the point of answering Barker’s
letter, there came a busy season in which he forgot
him altogether.
One day in the midst of this Sewell was called from
his study to see some one who was waiting for him
in the reception-room, but who sent in no name by
the housemaid.
“I don’t know as you remember me,”
the visitor said, rising awkwardly, as Sewell came
forward with a smile of inquiry. “My name’s
Barker.”
“Barker?” said the minister, with a cold
thrill of instant recognition, but playing with a
factitious uncertainty till he could catch his breath
in the presence of the calamity. “Oh yes!
How do you do?” he said; and then planting himself
adventurously upon the commandment to love one’s
neighbour as one’s-self, he added: “I’m
very glad to see you!”
In token of his content, he gave Barker his hand and
asked him to be seated.
The young man complied, and while Sewell waited for
him to present himself in some shape that he could
grapple with morally, he made an involuntary study
of his personal appearance. That morning, before
starting from home by the milk-train that left Willoughby
Pastures at 4.5, Barker had given his Sunday boots
a coat of blacking, which he had eked out with stove-polish,
and he had put on his best pantaloons, which he had
outgrown, and which, having been made very tight a
season after tight pantaloons had gone out of fashion
in Boston, caught on the tops of his boots and stuck
there in spite of his efforts to kick them loose as
he stood up, and his secret attempts to smooth them
down when he had reseated himself. He wore a
single-breasted coat of cheap broadcloth, fastened
across his chest with a carnelian clasp-button of
his father’s, such as country youth wore thirty
years ago, and a belated summer scarf of gingham, tied
in a breadth of knot long since abandoned by polite
society.
Sewell had never thought his wife’s reception-room
very splendidly appointed, but Barker must have been
oppressed by it, for he sat in absolute silence after
resuming his chair, and made no sign of intending
to open the matter upon which he came. In the
kindness of his heart Sewell could not refrain from
helping him on.
“When did you come to Boston?” he asked
with a cheeriness which he was far from feeling.
“This morning,” said Barker briefly, but
without the tremor in his voice which Sewell expected.
“You’ve never been here before, I suppose,”
suggested Sewell, with the vague intention of generalising
or particularising the conversation, as the case might
be.
