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THE GREEN DOOR.

BY MARGUERITE CURTIS.

THIS story is as pretty as it is sad, and as sad as it is happy, and by the time you have mastered that paradoxical saying you will be quite ready to hear all about the Green Door.

I cannot tell you all about it the history is too long and too intimate, and not even the Green Door itself could be brought to divulge all the secrets and the passionate vows to love for ever which have been whispered within its shadow.

Nevertheless the part about the Rector of West Mendip and Mary Wethered is what I say -pretty and sad and happy.

You shall judge for yourselves.

It began long before the Rector was made rector of anywhere, before even he was ordained, and Mary Wethered in those days had no streaks of grey in her curly hair. Neither was she, perhaps, as beautiful, although her face was unlined and smooth, and her eyes shone only with the radiance of youth and not the steady flame of a tried and matured soul.

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"Is it a green or a black door?"

Amy the dwarf looked up with а slow smile at the questioner's ignorance.

""Tis a green door!" she said with a grin; "'tis allays called the green door."

"It looks black," said Mary Wethered.

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""Tid'n, then ; 'tis green 'Tis a'most like moss when the zun shines on 'en."

"I've never seen the sun shine on it," said Mary Wethered.

"Huh! you haven't been here long enough. There's days," Amy swept her arm in a comprehensive circle, "when the zun do start froliczome like up there beyond the church, and come round with the wind and strike full against the green door. Us do get some o' they days in January to times, but they're most certain to begin after the day o' Valentine; not o' nights tho'." Amy rocked herself to and fro in grotesque, inaudible mirth.

"Why?" said Mary curiously.

"That 'ud be tellin'," said Amy mysteriously.

""Tis at she said,

"Yes?" said Mary. Nonplussed, Amy looked up at her sideways. the green door," "that they do all meet!" "Who are 'they'?"

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She, too, rose from her pile of stones and turned to walk down the village street. terest had suddenly gone from the conversation for her, a little pin-prick of memory-the unconscious reminiscence, she told herself, of what had once been engraved so indelibly on her heart had whitened her cheek and darkened her eyes. When she reached the cottage where she lodged, her landlady met her with a concerned face.

"Amy, what have you bin doin' with Miss Wethered? Her do look completely worn out. Now then, Miss, what will 'ee have to take?"

She bustled into the sittingroom after her lodger, and saw her comfortably settled in a big arm-chair.

"The wind's nippy yet," she said, "you ought never to have gone out; you must wait till the zun do come."

Mary smiled.

"Amy tells me it is certain to be out after February 14th; it shines then on the green door. I've been teasing her -telling her 'twas black."

A spot of colour burnt on Mrs Shore's cheeks.

""Tis green, right enough," she said seriously. "I mind when 'twere painted, 'bout three years back; the Rector's mighty partic'lar 'bout havin' his place kep' in order."

"What is his name?" said Mary.

"Lor, Miss! you bin here a week an' never 'eard that? Mr Holmes we do call 'un-the Rev. Jonathan Holmes."

She rolled the full title round her tongue with unction.

VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MCXXVI.

"Not a very ordinary name,' said Mary, with a little gasp.

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"No, Miss, he b'aint an ordinary man neither-very kind and pitiful and lovin' to all young folks and children, but just a hater, Miss, of women! I zed to un' once,he did come and stand inside so friendly - like when Amy hurt her foot, inquiring for her, tho' Libby she's his fav'rite, as you might say, I zed to un': Mr Holmes,' I zed, 'Amy and Libby they'll be growin' up one of these days, and what'll you do then, zur ? Be you goin' to drop 'em like a hot coal?' He didn't say much, you know, Miss; just wrinkled up his eyes and kind o' laughed, and then he said politely, 'No need to talk about that yet, Mrs Shore. Good day!' An' 'e went shakin' off down the road laughin'."

"He still has that funny, shaky walk, then," said Mary.

The next instant she could have bitten out her tongue for using that word "still," but Mrs Shore passed it unnoticed.

"He do tremble when he's movin', Miss, like as if his feet was hung on wires; spite o' that, he's a fine, upstandin' gentleman."

Mrs Shore withdrew, and Mary was left by herself. She noticed, half unconsciously, yet with that intensity with which one does notice minor details in any time of stress, that the under part of the currant-bushes in the little garden was covered with green lichen, while the tops pointed upward with a certain gallant erectness, as if preparing for the coming of spring.

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The carrier's cart lumbering by on the turnpikeroad, and after it the sound of a bicycle-bell, muffled on the misty, dank air, was carried to her faintly.

On other days, with the delightful and petty curiosity to which she had given herself up on first coming to West Mendip, she would have gone to the little window and looked down the road to see the rider, but now the sound drew her back to the thoughts she had unconsciously evaded.

went the shrubs outside a cottage threw a black and purple patch of shadow on to the road. Mary's eyes sought hungrily for these darkened patches. When she came to them she paused and walked slowly, then sped onward, a frail, black-garbed shadow herself, through the moonlight. She walked quickly, passing the green door almost at a run, but with heightened senses she was aware of a blotch of deeper darkness within its overhanging shadow. Some village lovers already occupied its friendly shade. She walked on and on down the winding lane, her heart beating quickly, but not more quickly than it had beaten all the afternoon, as her daring plan had been thought of, deliberated, resolved upon. When she retraced her steps, her light and delicate footsteps ringing out with a subtle difference from those of other wayfarers, the lovers near the green door shrank back breathlessly, then once more continued their low-toned conversation as she passed from sight and mind. Perhaps the ears of love are slightly deafened; had the two listened they would have known that she had paused just twenty yards beyond them and walked on tiptoe to the bit of wall of which Amy had spoken.

She had come in sanctuary from the first stages of a mortal illness to the very village over which her old lover was spiritual president. She had half guessed it in that moment when Amy had imitated the Rector's walk, but who would have imagined that Jonathan would end his days in a house of the appearance of Rectory!

In the old days they had planned either a city livinga house outwardly gloomy and grimy, within full of colour and delight-or some sweet old rectory away in the country, under the brow of a hill swept by gentle winds, covered with creepers coloured by the sun. No great, grim house on wind-swept hill-top.

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She sighed perhaps here he had merged their two ideals gloom without, gaiety within. Then she remembered that, although his eyes still twinkled, Jonathan hated women.

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It overhung the corner by the school - house, and somewhere Amy had said she had climbed it. What had been done could be done again. Mary searched anxiously for some foothold in the wall, and finding a loosened stone commenced the ascent with in

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trepid courage. When she denly the church bells rang
reached the top, breathless, out. What for? She had been
more bruised and battered in West Mendip less than a
than she would have consid- week, she did not know if the
ered possible, she sat still for bell-ringers were practising or
an instant and looked with ringing for a week-night ser-
troubled eyes down the road. vice. She huddled herself a
Lights gleamed from the win- little closer together trying to
dows. A man crossed the keep the wind from her chest.
green carrying buckets of And as she did so she was
water. One of them clinked aware of another sound,
against the hard ground as rasping and scraping and
he put it down to talk to grinding in the wall beneath
a friend. The oilman's voice, her feet. Some one else was
loud and raucous, filled the coming up, that was certain.
neighbourhood with noise as It was equally certain that it
he advertised his wares. But was impossible for her to hide.
up here all was quiet. Mary She turned apprehensive eyes
realised that in the shade of upon the determined face of
the trees, uncovered now and Amy the dwarf.
bare, but still drooping over
the top of the wall on which
she sat, she could not be seen.
She drew a long breath of
relief and looked about her

with interest. A few yards
away on her right the wall
ended in the green door which
had had so much to do with
village history. Beneath her
a broad path, little more than
a path, but yet giving the
impression somehow of stateli-
ness and dignity, ran up a
gentle slope between the trees
that sheltered her to another
wall. She could see nothing
but that, and the roof-tops of
the Rectory. Beyond the wall
she could imagine trim lawns,
sloping banks, flower beds,
empty now, but in the spring
filled to overflowing. Around
the house a low verandah per-
haps, on to which uncurtained
windows threw a ruddy light,
but none of this could she see.
Now that she was on the top
of the wall she almost repented
her temerity; and then sud-

"I zee'd you," said Amy briefly, and she too huddled down watching beside her mother's lodger.

Mary regarded her coolly. Of course in an unenviable position it was well she was ready to take the upper hand. 'Why did you follow me?" she said.

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"Because I thought you'd fall off," said Amy.

But Mary probed the inconsistency of the speech with sharpness.

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"That was not the reason, she said; "you wanted to know why I came. Well, I came to watch, to see what you saw."

"Hush!" said Amy.

What appeared to be a hole in the wall at the other end opened. Mary saw now that it was a door, that second green door of which Amy had spoken; and for a moment she had a glimpse of those things which she had imagined,-lighted windows, sloping lawns. Then the light was

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