The Letters

I

UP the long hill from the station at St.-Cloud, Lizzie West climbed
in the cold spring sunshine. As she breasted the incline, she
noticed the first waves of wistaria over courtyard railings and the
high lights of new foliage against the walls of ivy-matted gardens;
and she thought again, as she had thought a hundred times
before, that she had never seen so beautiful a spring.

She was on her way to the Deerings' house, in a street near the
hilltop; and every step was dear and familiar to her. She went there
five times a week to teach little Juliet Deering, the daughter of
Mr. Vincent Deering, the distinguished American artist. Juliet had
been her pupil for two years, and day after day, during that time,
Lizzie West had mounted the hill in all weathers; sometimes with her
umbrella bent against a driving rain, sometimes with her frail
cotton parasol unfurled beneath a fiery sun, sometimes with the snow
soaking through her patched boots or a bitter wind piercing her thin
jacket, sometimes with the dust whirling about her and bleaching the
flowers of the poor little hat that _had_ to "carry her through"
till next summer.

At first the ascent had seemed tedious enough, as dull as the trudge
to her other lessons. Lizzie was not a heaven-sent teacher; she had
no born zeal for her calling, and though she dealt kindlyand
dutifully with her pupils, she did not fly to them on winged feet.
But one day something had happened to change the face of life, and
since then the climb to the Deering house had seemed like a
dream-flight up a heavenly stairway.

Her heart beat faster as she remembered it--no longer in a tumult of
fright and self-reproach, but softly, peacefully, as ifbrooding over
a possession that none could take from her.

It was on a day of the previous October that she had stopped, after
Juliet's lesson, to ask if she might speak to Juliet's papa. One had
always to apply to Mr. Deering if there was anything to be said
about the lessons. Mrs. Deering lay on her lounge up-stairs, reading
greasy relays of dog-eared novels, the choice of which she left to
the cook and the nurse, who were always fetching them forher from
the _cabinet de lecture;_ and it was understood inthe house that she
was not to be "bothered" about Juliet. Mr. Deering's interest in his
daughter was fitful rather than consecutive; but at least he was
approachable, and listened sympathetically, if a little absently,
stroking his long, fair mustache, while Lizzie stated her difficulty
or put in her plea for maps or copy-books.

"Yes, yes--of course--whatever you think right," he would always
assent, sometimes drawing a five-franc piece from his pocket, and
laying it