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The Mettle of the Pasture

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though to intercept her should she attempt to cross the Meredith threshold, stood a peacock, expanding to the utmost its great fan of pride and love. It confronted her with its high-born composure and insolent grace, all its jewelled feathers flashing in the sun; then with a little backward movement of its royal head and convulsion of its breast, it threw out its cry,--the cry she had heard in the distance through dreaming years,--warning all who heard that she was there, the intruder. Then lowering its tail and drawing its plumage in fastidiously against the body, it crossed her path in an evasive circle and disappeared behind the pines. "Oh, Dent, why did you ever ask me to marry you!" thought Pansy, in a moment of soul failure. Mrs. Meredith was sitting on the veranda and was partly concealed by a running rose. She was not expecting visitors; she had much to think of this morning, and she rose wonderingly and reluctantly as Pansy came forward: she did not know who it was, and she did not advance. Pansy ascended the steps and paused, looking with wistful eyes at the great lady who was to be her mother, but who did not even greet her. "Good morning, Mrs. Meredith," she said, in a shrill treble, holding herself somewhat in the attitude of a wooden soldier, "I suppose I shall have to introduce myself: it is Pansy." The surprise faded from Mrs. Meredith's face, the reserve melted. With outstretched hands she advanced smiling. "How do you do. Pansy," she said with motherly gentleness; "it is very kind of you to come and see me, and I am very glad to know you. Shall we go in where it is cooler?" They entered the long hall. Near the door stood a marble bust: each wall was lined with portraits. She passed between Dent's ancestors into the large darkened parlors. "Sit here, won't you?" said Mrs. Meredith, and she even pushed gently forward the most luxurious chair within her reach. To Pansy it seemed large enough to hold all the children. At home she was used to chairs that were not only small, but hard. Wherever the bottom of a chair seemed to be in that household, there it was--if it was anywhere. Actuated now by this lifelong faith in literal furniture, she sat down with the utmost determination where she was bid; but the bottom offered no resistance to her descending weight and she sank. She threw out her hands and her hat tilted over her eyes. It seemed to her that she was enclosed up to her neck in what might have been a large morocco bath-tub--which came to an end at her knees. She pushed back her hat, crimson. "That was a surprise," she said, frankly admitting the fault, "but there'll never be another such." "I am afraid you found it warm walking, Pansy," said Mrs. Meredith, opening her fan and handing it to her. "Oh, no, Mrs. Meredith, I never fan!" said Pansy, declining breathlessly. "I have too much use for my hands. I'd rather suffer and do something else. Besides, you know I am used to walking in the sun. I am very fond of botany, and I am out of doors for hours at a time when I can find the chance." Mrs. Meredith was delighted at the opportunity to make easy vague comment on a harmless subject. "What a beautiful study it must be," she said with authority. "Must be!" exclaimed Pansy; "why, Mrs. Meredith, don't you _know_? Don't you understand botany?" Pansy had an idea that in Dent's home botany was as familiarly apprehended as peas and turnips in hers. "I am afraid not," replied Mrs. Meredith, a little coolly. Her mission had been to adorn and people the earth, not to study it. And among persons of her acquaintance it was the prime duty of each not to lay bare the others' ignorance, but to make a little knowledge appear as great as possible. It was discomfiting to have Pansy charge upon what after all was only a vacant spot in her mind. She added, as defensively intimating that the subject had another dangerous side: "When I was a girl, young ladies at school did not learn much botany; but they paid a great deal of attention to their manners." "Why did not they learn it after they had left school and after they had learned manners?" inquired Pansy, with ruthless enthusiasm. "It is such a mistake to stop learning everything simply because you have stopped school. Don't you think so?" "When a girl marries, my dear, she soon has other studies to take up. She has a house and husband. The girls of my day, I am afraid, gave up their botanies for their duties: it may be different now." "No matter how many children I may have," said Pansy, positively, "I shall never--give--up--botany! Besides, you know, Mrs. Meredith, that we study botany only during the summer months, and I do hope--" she broke off suddenly. Mrs. Meredith smoothed her dress nervously and sought to find her chair comfortable. "Your mother named you Pansy," she remarked, taking a gloomy view of the present moment and of the whole future of this acquaintanceship. That this should be the name of a woman was to her a mistake, a crime. Her sense of fitness demanded that names should be given to infants with reference to their adult characters and eventual positions in life. She liked her own name "Caroline"; and she liked "Margaret" and all such womanly, motherly, dignified, stately appellatives. As for "Pansy," it had been the name of one of her husband's shorthorns, a premium animal at the county fairs; the silver cup was on the sideboard in the dining room now. "Yes, Mrs. Meredith," replied Pansy, "that was the name my mother gave me. I think she must have had a great love of flowers. She named me for the best she had. I hope I shall never forget that," and Pansy looked at Mrs. Meredith with a face of such gravity and pride that silence lasted in the parlors for a while. Buried in Pansy's heart was one secret, one sorrow: that her mother had been poor. Her father wore his yoke ungalled; he loved rough work, drew his religion from privations, accepted hardship as the chastening that insures reward. But that her mother's hands should have been folded and have returned to universal clay without ever having fondled the finer things of life--this to Pansy was remembrance to start tears on the brightest day. "I think she named you beautifully," said Mrs. Meredith, breaking

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