The Conscious Amanda

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Title:     The Conscious Amanda
Author: Frank R Stockton [More Titles by Stockton]

THIS STORY IS TOLD BY

THE DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE

AND IS CALLED

THE CONSCIOUS AMANDA

 

One morning, as John Gayther was working in the melon-bed, the Daughter of the House came to him, and greeted him with such a glow on her face that John knew she had something pleasant to tell him.

"Yes, miss," John replied to her greeting; "it is a beautiful morning, and I know of something more beautiful than the morning."

"I do not see any very great beauty in muskmelons," said the Daughter of the House, demurely.

"Muskmelons are not in my mind at this minute," John replied, letting the hoe fall upon the ground as he looked at her pretty face, all aglow.

"I have something in my mind, John--a very original story. Papa said yesterday I must tell a story, and I have one all ready. I do not believe you ever heard one like it. Come to the summer-house; mamma and papa are already there."

She tripped away, and John followed her, stopping on the way to pick up a basket of seed-pods. He had just established himself on his stool, facing the family group, and had taken some pods to shell as he listened, when his hand was arrested and all the party silenced by a burst of song from the tall lilac-bushes near the hedge. They could not see the bird, but it was evident that he was enjoying his own melody. Such pure, sweet notes--now rippling softly, now with a gay little quiver of joy, now a tender prolonged note, now a succession of trills, high and low, that set the air throbbing, and every now and then a great burst of seraphic music, as if his little heart was so full of happiness he was compelled to pour it forth to all who chose to listen. Our party would gladly have listened for a long time, and have omitted the story altogether; but after some minutes of delicious song the strains suddenly ceased, and a little whirring noise in the lilacs indicated that the bird had flown away.

The Daughter of the House gave a deep sigh. "I was afraid to breathe," she said, "lest he might fly away."

"I have heard nothing like that this summer," said the Mistress of the House.

"It is the red thrush," said John Gayther, who had listened rapturously. "A pair of them were here in the early spring. I wonder why this one has come back."

"Perhaps," said the Daughter of the House, "it is one of the young ones come back to visit his birthplace. I am afraid, after that ravishing performance, that my story will sound tame enough."

"It will be a different sort of melody," said the Mistress of the House, looking fondly at her daughter.

"My heroine," began the young lady, "cannot appear in the first person, as if she were telling the story; nor in the second person, as if she were listening to one; nor in the third person, as if she were somewhere else; for, in fact, she was not anywhere. And as there is no such thing as a fourth person in grammar, she cannot be put into any class at all."

The captain turned and looked at his daughter. "There seems to be something very foggy about this statement," said he. "I hope the weather will soon clear up, so we can get our bearings."

"We shall see about that," said the young lady. "This heroine of mine, Miss Amanda, never went to sleep. To be sure, she sank into slumber about as often as most people; but when she spoke of having done so she always said she had 'lost consciousness.' She was very methodical about going to sleep and waking up; and at night, just as she was about to lose consciousness, she always said to herself, 'Seven o'clock, seven o'clock, seven o'clock,' over and over again until she was really asleep; and in the morning she woke up at seven precisely. She was not married, and so she was able to live her own life much more independently than if the case had been different. She liked to be independent; and she liked to know as much as she could about everything. In these two things she was generally very successful. But you must not think she was prying or too inquisitive; she was really a very good woman, and very fond of her family, which was composed entirely of brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces.

"She was a very active person, but she was not very strong; and when she was nearly forty years old something happened to her lungs, and her health gave way more and more, until at last there was no hope for her, and she knew she must die."

"Oh, this is an awful way to begin a story!" said the captain. "I don't like it. You ought not to kill your heroine just as you begin."

"If you want to make any remarks about this story, papa," said the Daughter of the House, "which shall be worth anything, you ought to wait until you hear more of it and begin to understand it. When Miss Amanda found she had a very little while to live, she composed herself comfortably, and began to repeat to herself the words, 'Fifty years, fifty years, fifty years,' over and over again. This she did until at last she died; and then there was her funeral; and she was buried; and there was a stone put up over her head with her name on it."

John Gayther smiled with approbation. He felt sure he was going to hear a story to his liking. The captain smoked steadily. As he had been advised, he would wait until he felt firm ground beneath him before he made any further remarks. As for the Mistress of the House, she looked at her daughter, and wondered. The story continued:

"All this happened a few years before the middle of a century, and a few years before the end of a century Miss Amanda regained consciousness. That is to say, she woke up at the end of fifty years, exactly as she had been in the habit of waking up at seven o'clock in the morning. But although she was conscious she did not understand how it was possible she should be so. She did not see; she did not hear; she did not feel. She had no body; no hands or feet; no eyes or ears: she had nothing; and she knew she had nothing. She simply was conscious, and that was all there was about it. She was not surprised; she seemed to take her state and condition as a matter of course, and, to a certain degree, she comprehended it. She remembered perfectly well that she had lost consciousness as she was saying 'Fifty years, fifty years, fifty years' over and over again; and now she knew that, as she had regained consciousness, the fifty years must have passed; so, instead of wondering how things had come to be as they were, she, or rather her consciousness, set itself to work to observe everything around it and about it. This had always been Miss Amanda's habit of mind.

"Now I want to explain," said the young lady, "that in one way it will be troublesome for me to express myself exactly as I tell this story. Of course Miss Amanda did not exist; it was only her consciousness which observed things: but I think it will be a great deal less awkward for me if I speak of that consciousness as Miss Amanda. None of us really understands consciousnesses with their outsides all hulled off as John is doing with those seeds which he drops into the basin. Each one of those little seeds has within it a power which we do not understand. And that is the way with Miss Amanda's consciousness."

"There," said the captain; "I agree with you. Nobody can object to that."

"The first thing of which Miss Amanda became conscious was the smell of sweet peas. She had always been very fond of these flowers. The air was soft and warm, and that, too, was pleasant to her. She observed a good many other things, such as trees and grass; but she did not know where she was, and she did not see anything she could recognize. You must not forget that when I say she saw anything, I mean she became conscious of it. Presently, however, she did perceive something that was familiar, and if such a thing had been possible her face would have flushed with pleasure. This familiar object was a sun-dial in the middle of a wide grass-mound. The sun-dial was of brass. It was very old, and some of the figures on the round plate were nearly obliterated by time and weather; but Miss Amanda recognized it. It was the same sun-dial she had always known in the home where she had been born. But it was not mounted on a round brick pillar, as when she had known it: now it rested on a handsome stone pedestal; but it was the same sun-dial. She could see the place where the upright part had been mended after her nephew John, then only fourteen, had thrown a stone at it, being jealous of it because it would never do any work in bad weather, whereas he had to go to school, rain or shine.

"'Now,' thought Miss Amanda, 'if this is the old sun-dial, and if this is the mound in front of our house, although it is so much smaller than I remember it, the dear old house must be just behind it.' But when she became conscious in that direction, the dear old house was not there. There was a house, but it looked new and handsome. It had marble steps, with railings and a portico, but it was another house altogether, and everything seemed to be something else except the sun-dial, and even that did not rest on the old brick pillar with projections at the bottom, on which she used to stand, when she was a little girl, in order to see what time it was.

"Now Miss Amanda felt lonely, and a little frightened. She had never been accustomed to finding herself in places entirely strange to her. She felt, too, that she was there in that place, and could not be anywhere else even if she wanted to, and this produced in her a condition which, half a century before, would have been nervousness. But suddenly she perceived something which, although strange, was very pleasant. It was a young girl upon a bicycle coming swiftly toward her over a wide, smooth driveway. Miss Amanda had never been conscious of a bicycle; and as the girl swept rapidly on, it seemed as if she were skimming over the earth without support. At the foot of the marble steps the girl stopped and seemed to fall to the ground; but she had not fallen: she had only stepped lightly from the machine, which she leaned against a post, and then walked rapidly toward the place where the sweet peas grew.

"Miss Amanda greatly admired this girl. She was dressed in an extremely pretty fashion, with a straw hat and short skirts, something like the peasants in southern Europe. She began to pick the sweet-pea blossoms, and soon had a large bunch of them. Now steps were heard coming round the house, and the girl, turning her head, called out: 'Oh, grandpa, wait a minute. I am picking these flowers for you.' From around one end of the house, which was a large one, Miss Amanda saw approaching an elderly gentleman who was small, with short gray hair and a round, ruddy face. He walked briskly, and with a light switch, which he carried in his hand, he made strokes at the heads of a few fluffy dandelions which appeared here and there; but he never hit any of them.

"Instantly Miss Amanda knew him: it was her nephew John--the same boy who had broken the sun-dial! No matter what his age might happen to be, he had the same bright eyes, and the same habit of striking at things without hitting them. Yes, it was John. There could be no possible mistake about it. It was that harum-scarum young scapegrace John. If Miss Amanda had had a heart, it would have gone out to that dear old boy; if she had had eyes they would have been filled with tears of affection as she gazed on him. Of all her family he had been most dear to her, although, as he had often told her, there was no one in the world who found so much fault with him.

"The old gentleman sat down on a rustic seat beneath a walnut-tree, and his granddaughter came running to him, filling the air with the odor of sweet peas. She seated herself at the other end of the bench, and let the flowers drop into her lap. 'Grandpa,' said she, 'these are for you, but I am only going to give you one of them now for your buttonhole. The rest I will put in a vase in your study. But I wanted you to stop here anyway, for I have something to tell you.'

"'Tell on,' said he, when the girl had put a spray bearing three blossoms into his buttonhole. 'Is it anything you want me to do this afternoon?'

"'It isn't anything I want you to do ever,' she said. 'It is about something I must do, and it is just this: grandpa, there are two gentlemen who are about to propose to me, and I think they will do it very soon.'

"'How in the world do you know that?' he exclaimed. 'Have they sent you printed notices?'

"'How is it that anybody knows such a thing?' she answered. 'We feel it, and we can't be expected to explain it. You must have felt such things when you were young, for I have been told you were often in love.'

"'Never in my life,' said her grandfather, 'have I felt that a young woman was about to propose to me.'

"'Oh, nonsense!' said the girl, laughing. 'But you could feel that she would like you to propose to her. That's the way it would be in your case.'

"Miss Amanda listened with the most eager and overpowering attention. Often in love! That young scapegrace John! But she had no doubt of it. When she had last known him he was not yet eighteen, and he had had several love-scrapes. Of course he must have married, for here was his granddaughter; and who in the world could he have taken to wife? Could it have been that Rebecca Hendricks--that bold, black-eyed girl, who, as everybody knew, had tried so hard to get him? With all the strength of her consciousness Miss Amanda hoped it had not been Rebecca. There was another girl, Mildred Winchester, a sweet young thing, and in every way desirable, whom Miss Amanda had picked out for him when he should be old enough to think about such things, which at that time he wasn't. Rebecca Hendricks ought to have been ashamed of herself. Now she did hope most earnestly that she would hear something which would let her know he had married Mildred Winchester.

"'Well,' said the old gentleman, 'if they do propose, as you seem to have some occult reason for suspecting, have you made up your mind which of them you are going to take?'

"'That is the trouble,' said the girl, a very serious look coming over her face. 'I have not made up my mind what I ought to do. I know I ought to be prepared to give the proper answer to the one who speaks first, whichever one he may be; but I cannot come to a decision which satisfies me, and that is the reason, grandpa, I wanted to talk to you about it. Of course you know who they are--George and Mr. Berkeley.'

"'My dear Mildred,' said the old gentleman, turning quickly around so that he could face her, 'just listen to me.'

"'Mildred, Mildred!' thought Miss Amanda, and her consciousness was pervaded by a joyful thankfulness which knew no limits. 'She must have been named after her grandmother. He surely married Mildred.' And Miss Amanda gazed on the scapegrace John with more affection than she had ever known before. But in the midst of her joy she could not help wondering who it was that that Rebecca Hendricks had finally succeeded in getting. That she got somebody Miss Amanda had not the slightest doubt.

"'Mildred,' said the old gentleman, 'just listen to me. This is a most important thing you have told me, and I have only this to say about it: if you can't make up your mind which one of those young men you will take when they propose, make up your mind now, this minute, not to have either of them. If you love either one of them as you ought to love the man who shall be your husband, you will have no difficulty in deciding. Therefore, if you have a difficulty, you do not really love either of them.'

"For a few minutes the girl sat quietly looking down at the flowers in her lap, and then she said: 'But, grandpa, suppose I do not understand myself properly? Perhaps after a while I might come to a--'

[Illustration: Miss Amanda listened with the most eager and overpowering attention.]

"'After a while,' interrupted her grandfather. 'That will not do. You want to understand yourself before a lover proposes to you, not afterwards.'"

The captain sat up straight in his chair. "Now look here," he said; but he addressed the Mistress of the House, not the story-teller. "How does this daughter of ours come to know all these things about lovers, and the weather-signs which indicate proposals of marriage, and all that? Has she been going about in society, making investigations into the rudiments of matrimony, during my last cruise? And would you mind telling me if any young men have been giving her lessons in love-affairs? John Gayther, have you seen any stray lovers prowling about your garden of late?"

The gardener smiled, and said he had seen no such persons. But he said nothing about a very true friend of the Daughter of the House, who lived in a small house in the garden, and who would have been very well pleased to break the head of any stray lover who should wander into his precincts.

"You don't know girls, my dear," said the Mistress of the House, "and you don't know what comes to them naturally, and how much they have to learn. So please let the story go on."

"'Of course,' said the old gentleman, 'I know who they are. Considering how often they have been here of late, I could not well make a mistake about that; and although I am not in favor of anything of the sort, and feel very much inclined to put up a sign, "No lovering on these premises," still, I am a reasonable person' ('You must have changed very much if you are, you dear boy!' thought Miss Amanda), 'and know what is due to young people, and I am obliged to admit that these young men are good enough as young men go. But the making a choice! That is what I object to. I would advise you, my dear, not to think anything more about it until the time shall come when you feel there is no need of making a choice because the thing has settled itself.'

"'But, grandpa,' she said, 'what am I to say if they ask me? I am bound to say something.'

"The old gentleman did not reply, but began switching at some invisible dandelions. 'What you tell me,' he said presently, 'reminds me of my Aunt Amanda. She was a fine woman, and she had two lovers.' ('You little round-faced scamp!' thought Miss Amanda. 'Are you going to tell that child all my love-affairs? And what do you know about them, anyway? I never confided in you. You were nothing but a boy, although you were a very inquisitive one, always wanting to know things, and what you have found out is beyond me to imagine.')

"'Your Aunt Amanda,' said Mildred. 'That's the one in the oval frame in the parlor. She must have been very pretty.'

"'Indeed she was,' said the old gentleman. 'That portrait was painted when she was quite a young girl; but she was pretty until the day of her death. I used to be very fond of her, and thought her the most beautiful being on earth. She always dressed well, and wore curls. Even when she was scolding me I used to sit and look at her, and think that if such a lady, a little bit younger perhaps, but not much, were shut up in a castle with a window to it, I would be delighted to be a knight in armor, and to fight with retainers at the door of that castle until I got her out and rode away with her sitting on the crupper of my saddle, the horse being always, as I well remember, a gray one dappled with dark spots, with powerful haunches and a black tail.' ('You dear boy,' murmured Miss Amanda, 'if I had known that I could not have scolded!') 'Well, as I said before, she had two lovers. One was a handsome young fellow named Garrett Bridges.'

"'It seems to me I have heard that name,' said Mildred.

"'Very likely, very likely,' said her grandfather. 'It has been mentioned a great many times in our family. Garrett had been intended for the army, but he did not get through West Point, and at the time he was making love to my Aunt Amanda his only business was that of expecting an inheritance. But he was so brave and gay and self-confident, and was so handsome and dashing, that everybody said he would be sure to get along, no matter what line of life he undertook.' ('I wonder,' thought Miss Amanda, 'what he did do, after all. I hope I shall hear that.') 'Her other lover,' said the old gentleman, 'was Randolph Castine, a very different sort of young man.' ('You unmitigated little story-teller!' ejaculated Miss Amanda. 'He never made love to me for one minute in his whole life. I wish I could speak to John--oh, I wish I could speak to John!') 'So, then,' continued the old gentleman, 'here were the two young men, both loving my Aunt Amanda; and here was I, intensely jealous of them both.'

"'Oh, grandfather,' laughed Mildred, 'how could you be that?'

"'Easily enough,' said he. 'I was very impressionable and of a very affectionate turn of mind.' ('You had very queer ways of showing it, you young scamp!' said Miss Amanda.) 'And I remember, when I was about ten years old, I once asked my mother if it were wicked to marry aunts; and when she told me it would not do, I said I was very sorry, for I would like to marry Aunt Amanda. I liked her better than anybody else except my mother, and I was sure there was no other person who would take more from me, and slap back less, than Aunt Amanda.' ('I remember that very well,' thought the happy consciousness; 'and when your mother told me about it, how we both laughed!')

"'Well, the better I liked my Aunt Amanda, the less I liked anybody who made love to her; and one night, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed,--it must have been nearly eleven o'clock,--I vowed a vow, which I vowed I would never break, that no presumptuous interloper, especially Garrett Bridges, should ever marry my Aunt Amanda. As to Randolph Castine or any other suitor, I did not think them really worthy of consideration. Garrett Bridges was the dangerous man. He was at our house nearly every day, and, apart from his special obnoxiousness as a suitor to my Aunt Amanda, I hated him on my own account, for he treated me as if I were nothing but a boy.' ('And why shouldn't he?' murmured Miss Amanda. 'You were nearly grown up at that time, but you really behaved more like a boy than a man, and that was one reason I was so fond of you.')

"'I had a good many plans for freeing my Aunt Amanda from the clutches of Mr. Bridges; but the best of them, and the one I finally determined upon, pleased me very much because it was romantic and adventurous. It seemed to me the best way to prevent Mr. Bridges from marrying my Aunt Amanda was to make him marry some one else, and I thought I could do this. There was a girl named Rebecca Hendricks, who lived about a mile from our house, with whom I was very well acquainted. She was a first-class girl in many ways.' ('I would like to know what they were!' exclaimed Miss Amanda. 'I think she was about sixth-class, no matter how you looked at her.') 'For one thing, she was very plucky, and ready for any kind of fun. I knew she liked Mr. Bridges, because I had heard her say so, and her praise of him had frequently annoyed me very much; for I did not want a friend of mine, as she professed to be, to think favorably in any way of such a man as Garrett Bridges. But things were now getting serious, and I did not hesitate to sacrifice my feelings for the sake of my Aunt Amanda. I was always ready to do that.' ('Not always, my boy,' thought Miss Amanda; 'not always, I am afraid.') 'So I resolved to get up a match between Rebecca and Garrett Bridges. As I thought over the matter, it seemed to me that they were exactly suited to each other.' ('That's queer!' thought Miss Amanda. 'I always supposed you thought she was exactly suited to you.') 'Of course I could not say anything to Bridges about the matter, but I went over to Rebecca, and told her the whole plan. She laughed at me, and said it was all pure nonsense, and that if she were going to marry at all she would a great deal rather marry me than Mr. Bridges. But I told her seriously it was of no use to think of me. In the first place, I was four years younger than she was; and then, I had made up my mind never to marry, no, never, as long as my Aunt Amanda lived. I was going to take care of her when she grew elderly, and I wanted nobody to interfere with that purpose.' ('You dear boy!' said Miss Amanda, with a sort of choke in her affectionate consciousness. 'That is so like you--so like you! And yet I thought you were in love with that Rebecca.') 'Of course I did not give up my plan because she talked in that way,' continued the old gentleman. 'I knew her; I had studied her carefully. Like most boys of my age, I was a deep-minded student of human nature, and could see through and through people.'

"'Of course,' laughed Mildred. 'I have known boys just like that.'

"'But I was about right in regard to Rebecca,' said her grandfather. 'I kept on talking to her, and it was not long before she agreed to let me bring Mr. Bridges to see her--they were not acquainted. I had no trouble with him, for he was always glad to know pretty girls, and he had seen Rebecca. There never was a piece of match-making which succeeded better than that, and it delighted me to act as prompter of the play, while those two were the actors, and I was also the author of the piece.'

"'Grandpa,' said Mildred, 'don't you think all that was rather wrong?'

"'I did not think so then,' he answered, 'and I am not sure I think so now; for really they were very well suited to each other, and there did seem to be danger that the man might marry my Aunt Amanda, and that, as it seemed to me then, and seems to me now, would have been a deplorable thing.' ('If you had known a little more, you scheming youngster,' said Miss Amanda, 'you would have understood that there was not the least danger of anything of the kind--that is to say, I am not _sure_ there was any danger.') 'It was not long after these two people became acquainted before I had additional cause for congratulating myself that I had done a wise and prudent thing. Bridges came to see my Aunt Amanda every afternoon, just the same as he had been in the habit of doing, and yet he spent nearly every evening with Rebecca; and that proved to me he was not a fit lover for my Aunt Amanda, no matter how you looked at it.'

"'But the young girl,' said Mildred. 'Didn't you think he was also too fickle for her?'

"'Oh, no,' said the old gentleman; 'I was quite positive that Rebecca could manage him when she got him. She would make him walk straight. I knew her; she was a great girl. Every morning I went to see her to inquire how things were coming on, and she told me one day that Mr. Bridges had proposed to her, and that she had accepted him, and that it was of no use to say anything about it to her father, because he would be sure to be dead set against it. Her mother was not living, and she kept house for her father, who was a doctor, and he had often said he would not let her marry anybody who would not come there and live with him; and, judging from what she had heard him say of Garrett Bridges on one or two occasions, she did not feel encouraged to propose this arrangement for him.

"'So the plan they agreed upon--which, in fact, I suggested, although Rebecca would never have admitted it--was to go off quietly and get married. Then she could write to her father and tell him all about it, and when his anger had cooled down they could make him a visit, and it would depend on him what they should do next. I worked out the whole plan of operation, which Rebecca afterwards laid before Mr. Bridges as the result of her own ingenuity, for which he commended her very much. They both agreed--and you may be sure I did not disagree with them--that the sooner they were married the better. The equinoctial storms were expected before very long, and then a wedding-trip would be unpleasant and sloppy. So they fixed on a certain Wednesday, which suited me very well because my father and mother would then be away from home on a visit, and that would make it easier for me to do my part.' ('You little schemer!' said Miss Amanda. 'Of course you suggested that Wednesday.')

"'This place was quite in the country then, and eight miles from a station, and there was only one train to town, at seven o'clock in the morning. If they could get to the village where the station was at quarter-past six, they would have time to get married before the train came. Old Mr. Lawrence, the Methodist minister, was always up at six o'clock, and he could easily marry them in twenty minutes, and that would give them lots of time to catch the train. I would furnish the conveyance to take them to the village, and would also attend to Rebecca's baggage. Mr. Bridges could have his trunk taken to the station without exciting suspicion. At five o'clock in the morning, I told Rebecca, I would have a horse and buggy tied to a tree by the roadside at a little distance from the doctor's house where the lovers were to meet.

"'The night before, Rebecca was to put all the clothes she wanted to take with her in a pillow-case, which she was to carry to a woodshed near the house. Soon after they started in the buggy I would arrive with a spring-wagon and an empty trunk. I would then get the pillow-case, put it into the trunk, and drive to the station by another road.

"'Mr. Bridges approved of this plan, and thought she was very clever to devise it. So everything was settled, and I went to the stable the day before, and told Peter I wanted him to get up very early the next morning, and put old Ripstaver in the buggy, and drive him over to Dr. Hendricks's. I told him he must be there before five o'clock, and that he was to tie the horse to a maple-tree this side of the front yard. I said one of the doctor's family had to get to the village very early because there were some things to be done before the train came, and it had been agreed we should lend our buggy. Peter was not quite pleased with the arrangement, and asked why we did not send the old mare--we only kept two horses; but I said she was too slow, and it had been specially arranged that the buggy, with Ripstaver, should be sent. Peter was a great friend of mine, so he agreed to do what I asked, and said he did not mind walking back.' ('I never would have believed,' said Miss Amanda, 'that the boy had such a mind. If I had only known what he was planning to do! If I had only known! But even if I had, it is so hard to tell what is right.')

"'My Aunt Amanda was not in the habit of meddling with anything about the barn or stable; but that afternoon--and I never knew why--she went to the barn, and found Peter dusting off the buggy. He told me she asked if anybody was going to use the buggy that evening, and he replied he was getting it ready to take over to the Hendrickses' in the morning, as some one there wanted to go to the village before the train started for the city. Then she asked what horse he was going to put to it, and he told her old Ripstaver. Then she said she did not think that was a good plan, because Ripstaver was hard to drive, and it would be a great deal better to send the old mare. Peter agreed to this, and so it happened that when I went to the barn the next morning, as soon as I had seen Peter drive away in the buggy, I found the only horse in the stable was old Ripstaver. I was mad enough, I can tell you; for if Rebecca made any noise and woke her father he could overtake that old mare long before she could get to the village. I never did understand how my Aunt Amanda happened to meddle that afternoon.'

"('Of course you couldn't,' said Miss Amanda. 'You were a fine little manager; but when I looked out of my window that afternoon and saw a boy carrying a trunk to the barn I was very likely to suspect something; and when I went down to the barn myself and found Peter getting the buggy ready to go away early the next morning, I suspected a great deal more. I did not know what to do, for I did not want to make a scandal by letting Peter know anything was out of the way, and all I could think of was to have a slow horse put in the buggy instead of a fast one. I thought that might help, anyway.')

"'Well,' continued the old gentleman, 'there was nothing for me to do but to take Ripstaver and the spring-wagon and go after Rebecca's baggage. When I reached the doctor's house, and found the buggy had gone, I got the pillow-case, put it into the trunk, and started off on a back road which joined the turnpike a couple of miles farther on. Near the junction of the two roads was a high hill from which I hoped I might be able to see the buggy, and, if so, I would follow it at a safe distance. As soon as I got to the top of this hill I did see the buggy; but I saw more than that--I saw another buggy not far behind it. There was a roan horse in this one which I knew to belong to the doctor. Bridges was whipping our old mare like everything, and she was doing her best, and galloping; but the doctor's roan was a good one, and he was gaining on them very fast. It was a beautiful race, and I felt like clapping and cheering the doctor, for, although he was spoiling my game, it was a splendid thing to see him driving his roan so fast and so steadily, never letting him break out of a regular trot, and I hated Bridges so much I was glad to see anybody getting the better of him.

"'It was not long before the doctor's buggy caught up with the other one, and then they both stopped; everybody got out, and there must have been a grand talk, but of course I could not hear any of it. The doctor shook his fist, and I could see they were having a lively time. After a bit they stopped talking, the doctor took Rebecca into his buggy and drove back, and Garrett Bridges got into our buggy and went slowly toward the station--to see about his trunk, I suppose. I did not lose any time after that, but drove to the doctor's as fast as old Ripstaver could travel, and I had Rebecca's pillow-case in the woodshed before the doctor arrived. Now I never was able to imagine how the doctor found out that Rebecca had gone. She did not know herself. She said she got out of the house without making any more noise than a cat; and as for her father waking up at the sound of wheels in the public road, that was ridiculous; if he had heard them he would not have paid any attention to them. That was one of the queer things neither of us ever found out.'

"Miss Amanda was amused. ('Of course you didn't; it was not intended that you should. How could you know that, being greatly troubled, I woke up very early that morning, and when I found you were not in your room I put on my overshoes and walked across the fields to Dr. Hendricks's. I did not get there as soon as I hoped I would; but when I rang the door-bell, and the doctor himself came to the door, and I told him I did not want to see him but Rebecca, and he went to look for her and found her gone, and I confided to him as a great secret what I was sure had happened, it did not take him long to get his horse and buggy and go after her. And how glad I was she had our old mare, and not Ripstaver! But I thought all the time it was you she had run away with, and I never knew until now that it wasn't. The doctor told me afterwards that he and his daughter had agreed not to say anything about it, and he advised me to do the same; but the sly old fellow never told me it was Mr. Bridges and not you. But if I had only known who really was running away with her, I would not have walked across those wet pasture-fields that chilly morning--that is, I do not think I would have done it.')

"'But one thing I did know,' said the old gentleman, 'which I often regretted; and that was that if my Aunt Amanda had not meddled with the horses and so spoiled my plan, Rebecca Hendricks would have married Mr. Bridges, and several evil consequences would have been avoided.' ('I wonder what they were?' thought Miss Amanda.) 'Well, things went on pretty much as they had been going on, and that Garrett Bridges came every day, just as bold as brass, to see my Aunt Amanda, who, of course, knew nothing of his trying to run away with Rebecca. Sometimes I thought of telling her, but that would have made a dreadful mess, and I was bound in honor not to say a word about Rebecca.

"'Mr. Randolph Castine sometimes came to our house, but not often, and I began to wish he would court my Aunt Amanda and marry her. If she had to marry, he would be a thousand times better than Garrett Bridges, and I thought I could go to his house--which was a beautiful one, with hunting and fishing--to see her, and perhaps make long stays in the summer-time, which would have been utterly impossible in the case of Garrett Bridges.' ('You would have been welcome enough in any home of mine,' said Miss Amanda. 'But you are utterly mistaken about Mr. Castine. Alas! he was no lover at all.') 'But although Mr. Castine was a splendid man in every way, he was not a bold lover like Garrett Bridges, and after a while he seemed to get tired and went off to travel. Not very long after that Bridges went off, too. I think perhaps he had received part of the inheritance he was expecting; but I am not sure about that. Anyway, he went. And then my Aunt Amanda had no lover but me.

"'Very soon her health began to fail, and this went on for some time, and nothing did her any good. At last she took to her bed. It seemed to me the weaker and thinner she got the more beautiful she became, and I did everything I could for her, which, of course, was not any good. I remember very well that at this time she never lectured me about anything; but she sometimes mentioned Rebecca Hendricks, always to the effect that she was a very strange girl, and that she could not help thinking her husband, if she ever got one, would be a man who ought to be pitied. I think she was afraid I might marry her; but she need not have worried herself about that--I never had the slightest idea of any such nonsense.' ('But I had every reason to suppose you had such an idea,' said Miss Amanda, 'considering I thought you had tried to run away with her.')

"'Well,' said the old gentleman, 'there is not much more of the story. My Aunt Amanda died, and our family was in great grief for a long time; but none of them grieved as much as I did.' (If Miss Amanda could have embraced her dear nephew John, she would have done so that minute.) 'Then, greatly to our surprise, Randolph Castine suddenly came home. He had heard of my Aunt Amanda's dangerous condition, and he had hurried back to see her and to tell her something before she died. He told my mother, to whom he confided everything, that he had been passionately in love with my Aunt Amanda for a long time, but that he had been so sure she was going to marry Mr. Bridges that he had never given her any reason to suppose he cared for her, which I said then, and I say now, was a very poor way of managing love business. If he had spoken, everything would have been all right, and my Aunt Amanda might have been living now; there are plenty of people who live to be ninety. I am positively sure, now, that she was just as much in love with him as he was with her.'

"Miss Amanda now suffered a great and sudden pain: she seemed to exist only in her memory of her great love for Randolph Castine, and in this present knowledge that he had loved her. Oh, why had she been told that in life she had been dreaming, and that only now she had come to know what had been real! Nothing that was said, nothing that was visible, impressed her consciousness just then; but presently some words of her nephew John forced themselves upon her attention.

"'So she never knew, and he never knew, and two lives were ruined; and she died,' the old gentleman continued, 'my mother thought, as much from disappointed love as from anything else.'

"'And what became of Mr. Castine?' asked Mildred, who had been listening with tears in her eyes.

"'He went away again,' said her grandfather, 'and stayed away a long time; and at last he married a very pleasant lady because he thought it was his duty, having such a fine estate, which ought to be lived on and enjoyed.'

"'Did he have any children?' asked Mildred.

"'Yes; one daughter, who married a Mr. Berkeley of Queen Mary County. It was considered a good match.'

"'Berkeley!' exclaimed the young girl, moving so suddenly toward her grandfather that all the sweet peas in her lap fell suddenly to the ground. 'Berkeley! Why, Arthur Berkeley comes from Queen Mary County! Do you mean he is the grandson of Mr. Castine?'

"'Exactly; that is who he is,' said the old gentleman.

"Mildred sat for a few minutes without saying a word, looking at the ground. 'Grandpa,' she said presently, 'do you know I believe all the time my mind was made up, and I did not know it. And after what you have told me of Arthur Berkeley, grandpa, and your Aunt Amanda, I really think I know myself a great deal better than I did before; and if Arthur should ask me--that is, if he ever does--'

"'And he surely will,' said her grandfather, 'for he came to me this morning, like the honorable fellow he is, and obtained permission to do so.'

"'Grandpa!' exclaimed Mildred; and as she looked up at him there was no beauty in any sweet-pea blossom, or in any other flower on earth, which could equal the brightness and the beauty of her face.

"The pain faded out of the consciousness of Miss Amanda. 'And this is the way it ends!' she murmured. 'This is the way it ends. John's granddaughter and his grandson.' And now it was not pain, but a quiet happiness, which pervaded her consciousness.

"The grandfather and granddaughter rose from the rustic bench and walked slowly toward the house. Miss Amanda looked after them, and blessed them; then she gazed upon the sweet peas on the ground; then she looked once more upon the old dial, still bravely marking each sunny hour; and then, slowly and gradually, Miss Amanda lost consciousness, without saying to herself, 'Seven o'clock' or 'Fifty years' or any other period of time.

"That is the end," said the young lady.

"And quite time!" exclaimed the Master of the House. "Madam," he said, turning to his wife, "did you know of all this knowledge of which your daughter seems possessed--of boy's nature, and woman's love, and the human heart, and all the rest of it? I can't fathom her with my longest line!"

"You may as well give up all idea of that sort of sounding," said the Mistress of the House. "There is no line long enough to fathom the human heart."

"I am thinking," said John Gayther, as he rattled the seeds in the pan, "whether it was worth while for Amanda to become conscious for so short a time, and just to hear a tale like that."

"Was it worth while to learn that the man she had wanted to love her had really loved her?" asked the Daughter of the House, eagerly.

"It doesn't seem the sort of love to wait fifty years to hear about," said John. "I don't like the way they have in novels of making folks keep back things that men and women couldn't help telling."

"Then you don't like my story, John," said the Daughter of the House, in a disappointed tone.

"Indeed, but I do, miss," he replied quickly. "As a story it is just perfect; but as real doings it doesn't pan out square. But then, it is meant for a story, and it couldn't be better or more unlike other stories told here. Nobody could have thought that out that hadn't a deep mind."

The young lady looked critically at John, but she saw he really meant what he said, and she was satisfied.

[The end]
Frank R Stockton's short story: Conscious Amanda

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