Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

“ Only that very morning Minnie had heard Emma remark to her mother, “That overcoat of Mr. Yale's will be eaten up by moths if he doesn't get it off before long, but I don't like to say anything.” “Moths were never in that closet in your father's time,” Mrs. Abbot had returned, giving Minnie the impression that the odor of sanctity might drive away moths.
Now Minnie got the odor of stale tobacco, which she loved, although the love puzzled her. It was rather well known that the minister smoked an occasional cigar out-of-doors, and many thought it unbefitting his profession. ”

“ Then she also repeated in a slightly different fashion an allusion which the minister had made earlier in the sermon to the double-faced shield and the dispute over the color, and the proving that each of the disputants was right.
“Let us not forget that double-faced shield,” typed Minnie, “the shield which has been one of the valuable object-lessons of humanity. Let us remember and understand that it is always possible for our wrong to be another's right, and be merciful and charitable, and humble our minds to a readiness of conviction as to our own mistakes. ”

“ Yale was nothing if not a hero of frankness. He only smoked out-of-doors, because he knew that the study of the former minister might be considered as desecrated if he smoked there. It involved much self-denial, and he often wondered if his sermons might not have been improved had he smoked while writing. He had been an inveterate smoker in college. Strangely enough, to-night for the very first time he had absently lit a cigar upon returning to his study after supper. He had almost immediately extinguished it, but Minnie had noticed the faint, fresh odor of tobacco in the room. ”

“ Minnie never had any voice in household arrangements. She was much younger than her sister Emma, and she had been the child of her mother's more than middle age. She had been a petted darling of her old father, who had died the year before, and for whom she was just leaving off mourning. She was always the petted darling of her mother and sister, but being a petted darling sometimes involves a slight underestimation, even unconscious contempt. Petting implies superiority; being petted may imply inferiority, although a beloved and graceful inferiority. ”

“ Minnie nodded. Her blue eyes looked black, her face was so pale.
“You know, of course, that he is head over ears in love with you.” Minnie gasped. “Didn't you know it? Well, I will tell you, because what you have done proves conclusively that you have no love for him.”
“But he said—”
Wilbur laughed. “That was nothing. I led him on. I was profaning his holy of holies, and he threw all his old boots in front of it to stop me. You can think yourself lucky that he said nothing worse. You women don't understand a man like Yale. ”

“ To be found here with Wilbur Bates! To have him tell the truth! And how many might come? There might be more than her mother and sister, Maria and the minister. She looked helplessly at Wilbur. He caught her arm, forced her out of the room into the hall to the stairs. “Run for your life,” he whispered. “Go into your room and lie down. Leave the door open and you can hear what I tell them. Then you can close it. Nobody will disturb you.”
Minnie obeyed. She fled up the stairs and into her room and flung herself on her bed, where she lay panting. She heard Wilbur's voice as through running water. ”

“ Then Minnie waited for the return of the minister, her mother, her sister, and also Maria. The church was near. They would come soon. Wilbur had not finished his work. The agony of waiting for one thing would soon be over, at all events. She would hear the front door flung open, the voices, the footsteps, then Edward Yale would enter the study and—she thought unreasoningly in a sudden panic—might rush at once to the closet and discover her. She did not stop to consider how very unlikely it was that he should be seized with a desire to inspect his winter coat upon this soft June night. ”

“ It was close to an inflammable duck suit of the minister's, and it was not her policy to be burned alive.
Wilbur had left the closet door open. Minnie reflected that men always left doors open, always threw lighted matches on floors. She reflected that women were superior, then that she loved the minister, though not in the way to induce her to marry him, partly because he had led her to love him in ancient ways and partly because he had injured her and she had injured him. The match went out. Minnie softly drew her eyes under the dark, tobacco-scented smother of the coat. ”

“ Yale had returned, with a puzzled look.
“Then that particular bootblack should have been tempted to pick up a bomb,” replied Bates. “The hauteur of the poor is more abominable than that of the rich, for it is not even the real thing. It is veneered, gilded.” Then he had continued stripping the cigars and replacing them carefully in their box.
Now as Minnie stood concealed in the coat, in a measure relieved, because it was hardly rational that Bates would investigate the minister's closet, he entered the study still singing. ”

“ Yale could not have finished his sermon, although it was Saturday afternoon. He had procrastinating habits. As for Wilbur, who was a man of leisure and wealth, he could remain if he chose, but she was sure that he would leave when Mr. Yale did. He would not choose that Minnie should know that he had been conducting this discussion for her benefit.
At last Edward Yale said, rising, “This will not finish my to-morrow's sermon,” and Wilbur, also rising, returned: “Well, Yale, you had better think over what I have said. There is nothing like a wife and a settled home for a man of your profession. ”

“ She heard and did not hear her sister Emma and Maria moving about below preparing the evening meal to the accompaniment of tinkling china and silver.
Presently she rose and went to the glass which surmounted her old-fashioned mahogany bureau and looked at herself. Her look was severe. She told herself, angrily, that there was no semblance of a doll in that face. Then she tipped the glass and surveyed her figure, and she felt cold. Minnie's lack of height had always been a sore affliction to her. She was much below the average height, and her little body was absolutely void of angularity. ”

“ She regarded the sermon, her chin dipped, intensifying her dimples; a peculiar tiny gleam like a bird's came into her eyes. The sermon was very neatly arranged. Edward Yale was an orderly man. The sheets of paper lay exactly placed, their edges meeting. Minnie could use the typewriter. She looked at the sheet thereon. It contained very little.
Minnie read: “We have now to remember carefully what has been before said, in order that the succeeding passages may be clearly understood. Sequence is a fundamental law of all human undertakings, as it may be of divine methods. ”

“ When the door was closed Minnie sank down in a little heap of weak collapse upon the suit-cases.
“Mice in your closet, too,” she heard Wilbur state.
“Very likely. Don't care if there are. My best clothes are up-stairs,” returned the minister, rather irascibly. Bates eyed him with malicious enjoyment, and yet his glance was kindly. Minnie, huddled upon the suit-cases, knowing that if the door were opened suddenly she would certainly be discovered, waited. ”

“ Her mind, always a very quick one, leaped to his purpose. The minister kept his cigars in the closet. Wilbur was coming for them in order to strip them of their labels.
Wilbur opened the closet door. Minnie held her breath. He fumbled. His fumbling hands actually touched her feet, but, strangely enough, he did not apparently realize it. He was intent upon cigar-boxes and not looking for a girl's feet, and Wilbur Bates's mind moved in straight lines when he had any definite end in view. He had thought the cigar boxes might be where the suit-cases were. ”

“ Who can even say, and be certain that he speaks the fundamental truth, that those gods of the heathen which were overthrown by the law and the prophets had not for their worshipers some meaning of good which we have never grasped? ”

“ I have never seen any human being in such a panic of terror.” Wilbur had been telling a tale of Minnie coming home from the house of one of her girl friends down a lonesome side street, of a following man, of a détour, a mad scamper to the shelter of some thick undergrowth until she encountered Wilbur. ”

“ Then Minnie heard the tick of the machine, and she could picture to herself the poor minister, with a worried face, striving to write a sermon under such difficulties. Wilbur Bates had the decency to refrain from his humming song while Yale continued with his work. Neither of the men spoke. Minnie was suffering tortures from standing so long in one position. She began to fear lest overwrought muscles and nerves should give way and she go down with a crash. After a while Bates finished his work and moved upon the closet with his cigar-boxes. ”