The Ordeal of Elizabeth

Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved. The book frequently omits punctuation before quotes. The punctuation has been retained as in the original. The length and spacing of ellipses (...) has also been retained as printed.

There is no Chapter IV.

The
ORDEAL OF
ELIZABETH

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY
J. F. TAYLOR AND
COMPANY, NEW YORK

The ORDEAL
OF
ELIZABETH

Chapter I

The Van Vorst Homestead stands close to the road-side; a dark, low-built, gloomy old place. The horse-shoe on the door, testifies to its age, and the devout superstition of the Van Vorst who built it. However effectual against witches, the horse-shoe cannot be said to have brought much luck otherwise. The Van Vorsts who lived there, a junior branch of the old colonial house, did not prosper in worldly matters, but sank more and more as time went on, in general respect and consideration.

There was a break in the deterioration, and apparently a revival of old glories, when Peter Van Vorst married his cousin, a brilliant beauty from town, who had refused, as tradition asserts, half the eligible men of her day, and accepted Peter for what seemed a sudden and mysterious caprice. The marriage was a nine days' wonder; but whatever the reasons that prompted her strange choice—whether love, indifference, or some feeling more complicated and subtle; Elizabeth Van Vorst made no effort to avert its consequences, but settled down in silence to a life of monotonous poverty. She did not even try, as less favored women have done under harder circumstances, to keep in touch with the world she had given up. She never wrote to her old friends, never recalled herself, by her presence in town, to her former admirers. As for the Homestead, it wore, under the inert indifference of her rule, the same neglected look which had prevailed for years. The foliage grew in rank profusion about the house till it shut out not only the sunlight, but all view of the river. Perhaps Madam Van Vorst, as people called her, disliked the idea of change; or perhaps she grudged the cost of a day's labor to cut the trees; or it might be that she liked the gloom and the feeling of confinement, and had no desire to feast her eyes on the river, after the fashion of the Neighborhood. It reminded her too much, perhaps, of the outside world.

She was a stately, handsome old lady, and made an imposing appearance when she came into church on Sunday, in the black silk gown which rustled with an old-time dignity, and her puffs of snow-white hair standing out against the rim of her widow's bonnet. Her daughters, following timidly behind her, seemed to belong to a different sphere; dull, faded women, in shabby gowns which the village girls would have disdained. If you spoke to them after church, when the whole Neighborhood exchanges greetings and discusses the news of the week, they would answer you shyly, in embarrassed monosyllables. Still, in some intangible way, you felt the innate breeding, which lurked behind all the uncouthness of voice and manner.

Their life, under their mother's training, had been one long lesson in self-effacement; they never even drove to the village without consulting her, or bought a spool of cotton without her permission. The stress of poverty, as time went on, grew less stringent at the Homestead; but with Madam Van Vorst the penury which had been first the result of necessity, had grown to be second nature. She let the money accumulate and made no change in their manner of life. Her daughters had no books, no teachers; no occupation but house-work; no interest beyond the petty gossip of the country-side.

With Peter, the son, the downward process was more evident and had taken deeper root. His voice was more uncouth than that of his sisters and his manner less refined; it was hard to distinguish him if you saw him in church, from any farmer, ill at ease in his Sunday clothes. He spent his days at work on the farm, and his evenings, more often than his mother dreamed of, at the bar in the village. Like his sisters, he bowed beneath her iron rod and lived in mortal fear of her displeasure. Yet he had his plans, well defined, and frequently boasted (at least at the village bar) of what he should do when he became his own master.

With the sisters a certain inborn delicacy of feeling prevented them from formulating, even to themselves, those hopes and aspirations which, nevertheless, lay dormant, needing only a sudden shock to call them into life. When that shock came, and it was known all over the Neighborhood that Madam Van Vorst was dead, the news brought a mild sense of loss, the feeling of a landmark removed; and people hastened at once to the Homestead with sincere condolences and offers of assistance to the daughters. Cornelia and Joanna were stunned, but not entirely with sorrow; rather with the sort of feeling that a prisoner might experience, who finds himself by a sudden blow, released from a chain which habit has rendered bearable, and almost second nature, yet none the less a chain.

It was not till the evening after the funeral that this stifled feeling found expression. The day had been fraught with a ghastly excitement that seemed to give for the moment to these poor crushed beings a fictitious importance. All the Neighborhood had come to the funeral; some grand relations even had journeyed up from town to do honor to the woman whom they had ignored in her lifetime; these last lingered for a solemn meal at the Homestead. The whole affair seemed to bring the Van Vorst women more in contact with the outside world than any event since their father's death, many years before. Sitting that evening, talking it all over, it might have been some festivity that they were discussing, were it not for their crape-laden gowns, and the tears they were still shedding half mechanically, though with no conscious insincerity.

"It was kind of the Schuyler Van Vorsts to come up," said Cornelia, wistfully. "I thought they had quite forgotten us—they are such fine people, you know—but they were really very kind, quite as if they took an interest."

"I'm glad the cake was so good," said the practical Joanna. "I took special pains with it, for I thought some of them might stay."

"It went off very nicely," said Cornelia, tearfully, "very nicely indeed. Mrs. Schuyler Van Vorst spoke of the cream being so good."

"She ate a good deal of it, I noticed."

"One thing I was sorry for," said Cornelia, reluctantly. "I saw her looking at the furniture. You know poor Mamma never would have anything done to it."

The sisters looked mechanically about the familiar room whose deficiencies had never been so glaringly apparent. The Homestead drawing-room had been re-furnished, with strict regard to economy many years ago, after a fashion too antiquated to be beautiful, and too modern to be interesting. The chairs and sofa were covered with horse-hair, and decorated, at intervals, with crochet anti-macassars. In the centre of the room stood a marble-topped table, upon which were ranged, at stiff angles, the Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, and several books of sermons. There were no other books and no pretty knick-knacks; but some perennially blooming wax flowers, religiously preserved beneath a glass case, contrasted with the chill marble of the mantel-piece. Above them hung one of the few relics of the past—a hideous sampler worked by a colonial ancestress. The room was much the worse for wear, the wall-paper was dingy, the carpet faded to an indefinite hue, some of the chairs were notoriously unsafe, and the sofa had lacked one foot for years.

"I think," said Cornelia, with sudden energy, as if roused at last to the truth of a self-evident proposition, "I think it is about time that the room was done over."

Joanna attempted no denial; but after a moment she remarked tentatively, as if balancing the claims of beauty against those of economy; "Some pretty sateen, I suppose, for a covering would not cost much."

Cornelia shook her head with melancholy decision. "It would be quite useless to do anything with the furniture," she declared, "if we didn't first change the carpet and the wall-paper."

Joanna was silent in apparent acquiescence; and Cornelia, after a moment's hesitation, brought out a still bolder proposition. "I've been thinking," she said "that we ought to have a piano. Of course I can't—we can't either of us play," she went on in hurried deprecation of Joanna's astonished looks, "poor Mamma would never let us take lessons; but people have them whether they play or not, and—it would give such a nice, musical look to the room."

Joanna sat lost for a moment in awe over this radical suggestion. "It would be very expensive," she said, practically "and—there are a great many things we need more."

But the more imaginative Cornelia refused to be daunted. "What if it is expensive!" she said boldly "and if we don't actually need it, that's all the more reason why it would be nice to have it. We've never spent money on a single thing in all our lives except for just what was necessary. Couldn't we for once have something that isn't necessary, that would be only—pleasant?"

Thus Cornelia struck the key-note of resistance to that doctrine of utility which had enslaved their lives, and Joanna, after the first shock of surprise, followed willingly in her lead. It was decided that the piano should be bought at once, and in discussing this and other changes, time passed rapidly, and they went to bed in a state of duly suppressed, but undoubted cheerfulness. It was altogether quite the pleasantest evening that they had spent for many years, though they would not have admitted this for the world, and sincerely believed themselves in great affliction. There was another being in the house who rejoiced in his freedom and meant to make the most of it.

The next morning at breakfast the sisters might have perceived had they been less engrossed in their own thoughts, that Peter was meditating some communication, which he found it hard to express. His words, when he spoke at last, chimed in oddly with his sisters' wishes. "I never," he said, speaking very deliberately and looking about him in great disgust, "I never saw a place that needed doing over so badly as this does."

There was a moment's pause of astonishment; and then Cornelia looked up in glad surprise. "Why, Peter," she said, "I had no idea that you would care"—

"Care!" said Peter, importantly. "Of course I care. I've always meant to have the place fixed up when—well, she couldn't live for ever, you know" he broke off half apologetically, as he caught the look of mute protest on his sisters' faces. "It did all very well for her and for you," he went on, coolly, "but it's not the sort of place I can bring my wife to." The last words came out with an air of indifference, that might have befitted the most commonplace announcement.

Upon Peter's hearers, however, they fell like a thunderbolt. It was several minutes before Cornelia repeated, in a very low voice:

"Your—your wife, Peter?"

"Yes, my wife." Peter rose and faced his sisters squarely, his hands in his pockets. He thrust out his under lip, and his florid Dutch face wore an expression of mingled defiance, exultation and embarrassment. "Why, I've been married some time," he said. "You didn't suppose I was going to stay single all my life, did you?"

"But who—who"—Cornelia's mind, moving with unusual rapidity, had already passed in review and rejected as improbable all the eligible young women of the Neighborhood, with none of whom she had ever seen Peter exchange two words. "Who can it be, Peter?" she concluded, lamely.

"Is it—any one we know?" chimed in Joanna, hopefully.

Peter looked them full in the face; he had always held his sisters in some contempt. "You know her well enough," he said, deliberately "or if you don't—you ought to. She's a young lady who lives near here, and her name is Malvina Jones."

There was a dead silence. The old Dutch clock on the mantel-piece, which had kept its place undisturbed through the trials and changes of several generations, seemed to beat in the stillness loudly and fiercely, almost as if it shared the consternation of Peter's sisters, who stared at him aghast. Cornelia was the first to speak. "Malvina Jones!" she repeated, slowly. "You don't mean the—the girl whose father keeps the bar?"

Peter flushed angrily. "There's only one Malvina Jones that I know of" he declared, "and she's my wife and will be the mistress of this house. And so, if you don't like it, you can leave—that's all I have to say."

With this conclusive remark Peter betook himself to his usual avocations, and his sisters were left to resign themselves to the situation as best they might.

"Malvina Jones!" Joanna repeated, still lost in astonishment.

"One of the village girls!" said Cornelia, bitterly, "a—a bar-keeper's daughter."

Joanna seemed to hesitate. "That isn't the worst of it," she said at last. "There are some very nice girls in the village, you know, but Malvina Jones is not—I'm afraid she really is not a very nice girl."

Cornelia was silent. She knew enough of the petty gossip of the village to be aware that Joanna was stating the case mildly. Before her mental vision there rose a picture of Malvina as she had often seen her on Sunday, with her glaring red hair, her smart attire and her look of bold assurance, undisturbed by the disapproving eyes of the congregation. Then she thought of her mother, the stately old dame whom they had been so proud of, even while they feared her. She looked at the breakfast-table, at the quaint, old-fashioned shapes of the glistening silver and the Dutch willow-ware which had been in the family since time immemorial; she thought with affection even of the old horsehair furniture, which must surely be preferable to such improvements as Malvina might suggest, and she pictured the bar-keeper's daughter entertaining her friends in the room where Madam Van Vorst had received with old-world stateliness the visits of the Neighborhood. To poor Cornelia the family dignity—what little there was left of it—seemed to be crumbling to ashes.

"I don't think we need to bother now about—about the piano," she said, and the words died away in a sob.

Chapter II

It was a June morning twenty years later, and Elizabeth's hands were full of June roses.

"Look," she said, holding them out "how beautiful!" She placed them in a flat china dish and proceeded to arrange them, humming, as she did so, a gay little tune from some favorite opera of the day. The Misses Van Vorst, her aunts, who had been talking rather seriously before the girl entered, broke off in their conversation and brightened as they watched her.

There had been times in Elizabeth's childhood when the heart of each sister had been contracted by a secret fear, which they concealed even from one another, when they had offered up in seclusion fervent prayers that certain hereditary characteristics might not be revived in this treasure which fortune had unexpectedly bestowed upon them. These prayers had been to all appearance more than answered. Elizabeth did not look like her mother. It was true that the beautiful, wavy hair, which grew in soft ripples on her forehead, showed in the full glare of the sunshine or the firelight a trace, a suspicion of the deep red which in her mother's locks had been unpleasantly vivid; but with Elizabeth, it was a warm Titian shade which would delight an artist. In other respects, it was her grandmother whom she resembled, as very old people in the Neighborhood would sometimes inform you, wondering to see the beauty and distinction which had perversely skipped one generation, reproduced in this bar-maid's daughter. Certainly it was from Madam Van Vorst that the girl inherited the haughty turn of the head and the instinctive pride of carriage. The older woman's beauty may have been more perfect. Elizabeth's features were admittedly far from classical. Her nose tilted slightly, the chin was too square, the red, pouting lips were perhaps a trifle too full. But her skin was dazzlingly fair and fresh, and there was a glow of color and wealth of outline about her which disarmed criticism. The eyes, under their long lashes, were large and lustrous. Like her hair, they varied in different lights, or perhaps it was in different moods. They seemed a clear gray when she was thoughtful, blue when she smiled, and they grew, in moments of grief or acute emotion, singularly deep and dark. But such moments had, at this period of her life, been rare.

To her aunts, as they watched her that morning, she was the visible embodiment of all those stifled aspirations, to which Peter's marriage had apparently given a fatal blow. They could think now without bitterness of that great humiliation, and if they spoke of their brother's wife, it was with due propriety as "poor Malvina." They owed her after all, a debt of gratitude, since she was Elizabeth's mother, who had died most opportunely when Elizabeth was a baby.

The girl had been their sole charge from the first, for Peter concerned himself little about his motherless child. His death, when she was still very young, could hardly be considered an unmitigated affliction. As for Elizabeth, it was chiefly remarkable in being the occasion of her first black frock, on the strength of which she gave herself airs towards her less afflicted playmates.

Thus the Misses Van Vorst were free to carry out certain cherished plans in regard to their niece's future, which they had formed when, hanging over her cradle, they had fondly traced a resemblance to the grandmother after whom she had been named, through some odd, remorseful freak of Peter's. Impelled, as she grew older, by a wistful consciousness of all that they had missed, they heroically resigned themselves to part with her for a while that she might enjoy the advantages of a very select and extremely expensive school in town. And after five years she returned to them, not over-burdened by much abstruse knowledge, but with a graceful carriage, a charming intonation, a considerable stock of accomplishments, and the prettiest gowns of any girl in the Neighborhood.

Her return was the signal for the changes at the Homestead, which now made the old house a cheerful place to live in. The sunlight, no longer excluded by the overgrown foliage, flooded the drawing-room, and from the long French windows, opening out on the well-kept lawn, you caught a charming glimpse of the river. The fire-place was decorated in white and gold, the polished floor was strewn with rugs. Amid the profusion of modern chairs and tables and bric-à-brac were old heirlooms which had mouldered in the attic for generations, un-thought of and despised, till Elizabeth routed them out and placed them, rather to her aunts' surprise, in a conspicuous position. The walls were hung with fine engravings, books and magazines were scattered here and there. Across one corner stood the much-coveted piano.

The improvement was not confined to the furniture. The Misses Van Vorst, too, seemed to have progressed and assumed a more modern air, in harmony with their present surroundings. They were old women now, and people of the present generation placed carefully the prefix "Miss" before their Christian names; but in many ways, they were younger and certainly far happier than they were twenty years before. It was Elizabeth who had made the change, it was she who had filled their narrow lives with a wonderful new interest. And yet, it was on her account that they felt just then the one anxiety which disturbed their satisfaction in the warmth of her youth and beauty, nay, was rather intensified because of it.

"We were saying, dear," Miss Cornelia could not help observing after a moment "just as you came in, that it is a pity the Neighborhood is so dull. There is so little amusement for a young girl."

"We used to think it quite gay when we were young," said Miss Joanna, her knitting-needles clicking cheerfully as she talked. "There was always a lawn-party at the Van Antwerps', and Mrs. Courtenay was at home every Saturday, and then the fair for the church."

"But Mrs. Courtenay doesn't stay at home any longer," said Miss Cornelia, dejectedly, "and the Van Antwerps haven't given a thing for ever so long, and as for the fair—the church has everything it needs now—steeple, font, everything, so there is no object in having a fair."

"And so few people to buy if there were," sighed Miss Joanna, becoming despondent in her turn. "I quite miss it—I used to enjoy making things for it. Really now, if it were not for knitting socks for Mrs. Anderton's new babies, I should be quite at a loss for something to do."

Elizabeth, who had turned and stared from one to the other, as if in surprise at the introduction of a new subject, here broke in with a soft little laugh. "Well, auntie, Mrs. Anderton certainly keeps you busy," she said, consolingly "and as for the fair—why, I don't know that it would be such wild dissipation." Insensibly at the last words, her mouth drooped at the corners, the eyes, which an instant before had sparkled with amusement, grew thoughtful. A slight cloud of discontent seemed to drift over the buoyant freshness of her mood.

Miss Cornelia observed it and continued to lament. "Well, at least, a fair would be something," she insisted "and then in old times there used to be dances. If you went out to tea—oftener, my dear—even that would be a diversion."

The cloud on Elizabeth's face deepened. She bent down with elaborate care to place the last rose in position. "Oh, I don't know that it matters much," she said, and there was a sudden hardness in her tone. "There are no men for a dance, and as for the tea-parties—they don't amuse me very much. There are always the Andertons, or Johnstons, or both; and they talk about Mrs. Anderton's babies, of Mrs. Johnston's rheumatism, or the way the village girls dress; and the Rector asks me to take a class in Sunday-school, and looks shocked when I refuse; and—and it is all stupid and tiresome. I—I s-sometimes—I hate this place, and all the people in it," Elizabeth broke off, with a sound not unlike a sob.

Her aunts were paralyzed. This outburst of revolt was to them an entirely new phase in the girl's development. They did not attempt any response, or rebuke, and Elizabeth, after a moment, went over and kissed them each remorsefully. "There, don't mind me," she said. "I'm a horrid, discontented wretch." Then, as if to put an end to the subject, she added quickly: "I'm going to drive to Bassett Mills. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Her aunts gladly accepted the change of mood.

"It's a lovely morning for a drive, dear," said Miss Joanna, "and will do you good. But I wish, if you go, you would stop at the Rectory—the baby is ill, so the butcher tells me, and I have some beef-tea I'd like you to take."

Elizabeth's smile again lit up her face into its former brilliance. "What would you do without the butcher, Aunt Joanna?" she asked. "He's a perfect mine of information. Did he have any other news this morning?"

"Only that he had just come from the Van Antwerps'—they are up at last for the summer."

"Are they," said Elizabeth, carelessly. "Ah, well, they don't make much difference, one way or the other." She seemed to reflect a moment, while again her face clouded. "If I go to the Rectory," she said abruptly, "I suppose I must stop to see Aunt Rebecca. She will see me pass, and she is always complaining that I neglect her."

The Misses Van Vorst again looked distressed. The aunt of whom Elizabeth spoke, Malvina's sister-in-law, kept a small dry-goods shop, much patronized by the Neighborhood, and had risen considerably above the original position of the family. Yet the older ladies of the Homestead could never be reminded of her existence without a sharp recollection of a painful chapter in the family history. Had they consulted only their wishes, Elizabeth would never have been informed of the connection. They were just women, however, and admitted the claims of Elizabeth's only relation on her mother's side, and one who had a daughter, too, of about the girl's own age.

"Of course, my dear," Miss Cornelia said at last, reluctantly, "we wouldn't have you neglect your aunt."

"No, poor thing," said Joanna "we wouldn't have you hurt her feelings for the world. So perhaps you would better stop there, my dear; and if you do, will you get me some sewing-silk from the store?"

This proved by no means the only commission with which Elizabeth was burdened when she started, half an hour later; for Miss Joanna had had time to remember several other things she wanted from the store, to say nothing of the beef-tea for the Rector's wife, and numerous messages of advice and sympathy, which the girl was earnestly charged not to forget. Miss Cornelia had no commissions, and merely asked Elizabeth to remember, when she came home, every one whom she had seen, to inquire of the Johnstons, if she met them, how their grandmother was, and to notice, if she saw the Van Antwerps, if they had their new carriage, and what Mrs. Bobby had on. At last Elizabeth drove off, in the old-fashioned pony-chaise, behind the fat white pony whose age was wrapped in obscurity, and who trod, with the leisurely indifference of a well-bred carriage-horse, the road which he knew by heart.

It was a pleasant, shady road, that ran between stone fences, across which you caught the scent of honey-suckle. Beyond were fine places, once the pride of the Neighborhood, now for the most part neglected, or turned into pasturage for cows. The trees interlacing, formed an arch over-head, through which the sunlight flickered in long, slanting rays; the air was very still, except for the soft hum of bees, and a gentle wind that occasionally rustled the foliage and caressed the petals of the wild-roses, which grew in careless profusion along the road-side. Here and there, in sheltered nooks, wild violets still lingered, and the fresh green grass in the fields was thickly strewn with buttercups and daisies. But for all this beauty of the early summer Elizabeth seemed to have no eyes. Her brows were knit and her face clouded, and now and then she gave a vicious pull to the white pony's reins more as a relief to her own feelings than from any hope of hastening the movements of that dignified animal.

Her thoughts matched the day as little as her looks. Her mind still reverted with remorse to the outburst of an hour before. Why had she displayed that childish petulance, and given audible expression to the discontent which had smouldered unsuspected for many months? To speak of it was useless and only distressed her aunts; it was not their fault if the place was dull. And then she could, as a rule, amuse herself well enough. There were always drives and walks, the garden and the flowers, her books and her music, a hundred resources in which she found unceasing pleasure. There was even to her warm vitality a delight just then in the mere physical fact of living. And yet the times were growing more frequent day by day, when all this would fail her, when she would long passionately for novelty, for excitement, for something—she hardly knew what. There were desperate moments when it seemed to her that she would welcome any change whatsoever, when she thought that even storm and stress might be preferable to dull monotony.

After all, it was not the dullness of the place which lay at the root of her discontent. There was another trouble which went far deeper of which she never spoke; yet it affected her whole attitude towards the world, and more especially the Neighborhood. She did not feel at home in the small, charmed circle of those who knew each other so well, not even with the girls with whom she had played as a child. There had always been a tacit assumption of superiority on their part, which Elizabeth instinctively felt and resented. The most disagreeable episode in her life was a quarrel with one of her playmates, in which the latter had won the last word by an angry taunt against Elizabeth's mother, who was "a horrid, common woman, whom no one in the Neighborhood, would speak to—her mother had said so." Elizabeth, paralyzed, could think of no retort, but walked home in silence, shedding bitter tears of rage and mortification. She did not repeat the remark to her aunts—it was too painful and she somehow suspected too true; but that night she cried herself to sleep and had consoling dreams of a time when she should be a great personage, and able to turn the tables on her tormentors. This was a long time ago; but the old wound still rankled, and she held herself proudly aloof from her former playmates. They, on their part pronounced her hard to get on with, and their mothers made no effort to encourage the intimacy. In the conservative society of the Neighborhood, Peter's marriage was still vividly remembered, and could not easily be forgiven. Elizabeth was pretty and to all appearance, well-bred, but still people thought of her antecedents and maintained towards her an attitude of doubt. It was the perception of this fact, the consciousness of having begun life at a disadvantage, which embittered Elizabeth's thoughts as she drove through the country lanes that June morning.

The sun was high in the heavens when she reached Bassett Mills, a nondescript place, neither town nor village, and much over-shadowed by the glories of Cranston, not ten miles away. "The Mills" is not very prosperous, but it has its factory, and the mill-stream, dashing precipitously through its midst, lends some picturesqueness to the squalid houses on its banks. There was a certain life and movement this morning about the steep High Street, down which the white pony took his leisurely way. A stream of factory people passed by to their noon-day dinner; the street was full of wagons and carriages from the Neighborhood. Elizabeth saw the Van Antwerp dog-cart standing in front of the hardware shop, and caught a smile and bow from Mrs. Bobby, which surprised her by their graciousness. Later on she met the Courtenays, whom she knew better, but who greeted her more coldly. Elizabeth's own bow was stiff, and the cloud which Mrs. Bobby's cordiality had dispelled, again darkened her face.

She went on to the Rectory, but here she found that the baby's illness had developed into measles, and she could deposit her beef-tea at the door and take her leave with a clear conscience. Outside she stood in the hot sun debating if she should or should not stop to see her aunt and cousin. It was a long time since she had been there, and her aunt would be sure to assail her with reproaches. Amanda, too, would feel injured, and look the spiteful things which she never actually said. But then Elizabeth could usually rise superior to any spitefulness that Amanda might display. She felt on the whole very kindly towards her cousin, she liked to show her pretty gowns, and her good-nature had even stood the test of several bungling attempts on Amanda's part to imitate them. There were moments when, in the dearth of society, Elizabeth would turn with a certain affection to this uncongenial cousin, who at other times jarred upon her greatly.

It was the remembrance of Miss Joanna's commissions that on this occasion turned the scale in favor of the intended visit. Elizabeth left the white pony, who would stand an indefinite time, and entered the small dry-goods shop, where her aunt or Amanda generally presided. It was empty. Elizabeth hesitated a moment, then she crossed the hall that led to the living-rooms of the family. Here she paused in astonishment. From behind the closed door of the parlor came the sound of a man's voice; a rich, barytone voice singing from Tannhäuser the song of the Evening Star. Elizabeth waited till it was over; then she opened the door and went in.

Chapter III

The young man who had just sung was still at the piano, softly playing variations on the same air. She gave him one hurried glance. He was tall and fair, with blue eyes and a silky blonde moustache, and he wore a velveteen coat, much the worse for wear, and a turn-down collar that showed to advantage the fine outlines of his throat and the graceful poise of his head. These details Elizabeth grasped at once before her gaze wandered to her aunt and Amanda, who were sitting idle as she had never before seen them in the morning, with eyes intent on the young man at the piano. Elizabeth noticed that Amanda had on her Sunday frock and her hair very much frizzed.

The girl had entered so softly that the three people already in the room did not at first notice her presence. When they at last did so, it seemed to cause something of a shock. Her aunt and Amanda stared at her in silence, and Amanda turned a trifle pale. The young man rose from the piano and looked at her intently for a moment with his bright blue eyes; then he re-seated himself and went on playing, but much more softly, and as if hardly conscious of what he did.

Elizabeth's aunt was the first to recover herself, and upon second thought it occurred to her that her niece had arrived at an opportune moment—when she and Amanda had on their best clothes, and were entertaining company. This reflection tempered the usual austerity of her greeting. "Why, Elizabeth, is that you? You're quite a stranger. It isn't often you honor us with your company."

"You know," said Elizabeth, quite used to the formula of reproach and excuse, with which these visits invariably opened "the white pony has been lame, and I have driven out very little."

"And you couldn't come on your wheel, I suppose? Nothing short of a carriage would do for you. I wonder you don't insist on a groom in top-boots. But well, never mind," Aunt Rebecca went on, feeling that she had sufficiently maintained her dignity "you're very welcome now, I'm sure, and you're just in time to hear some music. This is Paul Halleck, who has been kind enough to sing for us. Mr. Halleck, this is Amanda's cousin Elizabeth, whom you've heard us speak of." There was an odd note of grudging satisfaction in her voice as she made the introduction. Mrs. Jones's feeling towards her niece was a complex one, characterized on the one hand, by an involuntary sense of resentment at the elevation of Malvina's girl, on the other, by an equally involuntary pride in the connection. The latter sensation predominated when she introduced Elizabeth to a stranger whom she wished to impress.

Elizabeth's chief feeling was one of annoyance, and it brought an angry flush to her cheek. Then she caught the look in the young man's eyes, as he rose and bowed with much deference; and her own eyes fell and again she blushed, but not with anger.

"I have had the pleasure of seeing Miss Van Vorst before," said Paul Halleck, "though she has not, of course, noticed me."

"Why, yes, of course," said Elizabeth's aunt, still in high good humor, "you've seen her when you were out sketching. You see, Elizabeth, he's a painter as well as a singer; he's quite a genius, altogether. We find him a great acquisition to our parties here at The Mills. And to think that he was born here, and lived here part of his life! You remember the Hallecks that went West when you were a child? They settled in Chicago, you know. He only came to New York awhile ago, and thought he'd look up his folks in this place. But there, Elizabeth, sit down, and perhaps Mr. Halleck will give us another tune."

Elizabeth silently took the chair the young man placed for her, while her aunt still talked on volubly. The girl was bewildered by what she heard. She could not imagine this handsome young singer, with his air of picturesque Bohemia, as an acquisition to the parties of Bassett Mills; nor did he seem at home in her aunt's parlor. She glanced about the commonplace, gaudy little room, every detail of which impressed itself upon her with a new sense of its crudeness; the plush-covered furniture, staring wall-paper, the lace anti-macassars, the photographs of the family, the men in high hats, the women simpering in their Sunday clothes. It did not seem the fit atmosphere for an artist. And then, with a sudden, sharp misgiving, Elizabeth looked at Amanda, and asked herself for a moment if she could be the attraction. The doubt vanished instantly. Poor Amanda was not pretty at the best of times, and there was a sullen look on her face just then that made her appear at her worst. She had a dull, pasty skin and very light eyes. All the color seemed to be concentrated in her hair, which was a deep, dark red, all the more striking for the contrast to her pale face. The gown she wore, of a bright yellow, was peculiarly successful in bringing out the faded tints of her complexion and the jarring vividness of her hair.

Amanda at that moment felt to the full the unkindness of fate. She had not shared for an instant her mother's gratification at Elizabeth's entrance. It was hard, she thought, that, having arrayed herself in her best, and struggled long to look beautiful, she should be completely over-shadowed by Elizabeth in the cool white gown and shady hat, which had a provoking air of not being her best, but merely her natural and everyday attire. Amanda had seen, as well as Elizabeth, the look in Paul's eyes. Was it fair, she asked herself, that she should share her good things with Elizabeth, who had so many of her own? And so Amanda sat silent and sullen, while her mother talked on, and Halleck ran his fingers over the keys, as if he would fain be playing.

"What shall I sing?" he asked abruptly, in the first pause, and looking at Elizabeth as if her wishes alone were of any consequence.

"Oh, the Evening Star again," she responded eagerly. "I only heard the end of it, and it brought up so many delightful memories."

So Halleck sang the song again. A voice, artistically modulated, filled the little room, which vanished for Elizabeth. She saw pilgrims filing past in slow procession, Tannhäuser struggling against the power of the Venusberg, Elizabeth kneeling in her penitent's dress before the cross. The whole Wagnerian drama unrolled itself before her eyes while the song lasted. And then, as the last note died away, she came back to the present with a start, and realized that the young man who had just afforded her this pleasure was handsomer far than any Wolfram she had ever seen before.

"Ah, thank you," she said, drawing a long breath. "That is so beautiful. It is so long since I have heard any music."

"You are fond of it?" said Halleck, eagerly.

"Yes," she responded, earnestly.

"Ah, I saw it—I was sure of it," he declared. "You have the artistic temperament. I saw it in your face at once."

Elizabeth blushed for the third time that morning, and now with a distinct sense of pleasure. Amanda, too, flushed a dull red. She was not quite certain what the artistic temperament might be, but it was clearly one of those good things of which Elizabeth had an unfair monopoly.

"You play or sing yourself, of course?" Halleck went on.

"Oh, I play a little," Elizabeth pouted out her full under-lip, in charming deprecation of her own powers. "I am ashamed, before a real musician, to say that I play at all."

"I am not a real musician, alas!" said Halleck, "only a dabbler in music, as I am in art." A thoughtful look came into his blue eyes, and he went on absently playing fragments from Tannhäuser. "I am glad you like that," he said, abruptly. "You remember the heroine was called Elizabeth."

"Yes," said Elizabeth, "I remember." It gave her an odd little thrill of pleasure to hear him pronounce her name, and yet she wondered if his remark were not too personal to be in good taste. "But I don't think I am at all like that Elizabeth," she added, after a moment, following out his suggestion in spite of this doubt.

"No, perhaps not," said Halleck, regarding her with a calm scrutiny, in which he seemed to appraise her no longer as a woman, but purely from an artistic point of view. "You are not exactly that type; you have more life and color, less spirituality, perhaps; but you are fair, and your hair would do admirably. You would make a beautiful picture with your hair unbound, kneeling before the cross."

"I have never had my picture painted," Elizabeth murmured, trying to imagine herself in a penitent's garb.

"Will you let me try it?"

Elizabeth smiled and assented, deciding that no long acquaintance was necessary, when it was a question of having her picture painted, in a costume which she was quite determined should be becoming. She sat mentally reviewing the resources of her wardrobe, while Halleck struck sonorous chords on the piano, and asked if she recognized this or that Wagnerian theme, upon which he proceeded to extemporize. Amanda and her mother were distinctly left out, and the latter began to repent of her first satisfaction in her niece's visit. She broke in at last, brusquely, upon the very midst of the love-music from "Tristan and Isolde." "Well, I don't think much of this Wagner," she said. "His music all sounds the same—a lot of queer noises, with no tune to them. What I like now is 'Home, Sweet Home,' or 'Nancy Lee'—something real nice and catchy."

"I can play those, too," said Halleck, good-humoredly, and immediately played the first mentioned air, with variations of his own improvisation. At the end of it he rose from the piano. "Won't you play for me now," he said to Elizabeth.

"Oh, no, not after you." Elizabeth shook her head and rose to her feet, with a sudden recollection of the white pony and her aunt's dinner-hour. "Some other day," she said, "I'll be very glad to play for you, but really now I have not the time—or the courage." She spoke with a pretty, smiling deference, and she held out her hand, which he took in a long, lingering grasp. There was a soft glow of color in her cheeks, her eyes were cast down till he could see only her long lashes. "Thank you so much," she said "for the music." Then she drew her hand away from his and kissed her aunt and Amanda, with an unwonted display of affection. She felt an odd sense of excitement, a wish to be friendly with all the world.

Neither her aunt nor Amanda seemed to share it. They did not try to detain her, and Halleck, though he looked disappointed, said nothing. They all three escorted her to the door of the shop, where the white pony stood patiently enduring the heat and the flies. Elizabeth lingered over her farewells. She wished to ask her new acquaintance to come to see her, but disliked doing so before her aunt and cousin. It was he who finally said, leaning over her as he placed the reins in her hand: "And—a—how about that picture? May I come to see you about it?"

Elizabeth's eyes were still hidden as she answered demurely: "I am sure I—we shall be very glad to see you at the Homestead."

And then she drove off, and the others stood for a moment and looked after her in silence.

"She—she's pretty—isn't she," said Amanda, suddenly speaking for the first time since Elizabeth had appeared. Her voice, even to herself, sounded harsh and grating. Her lips were very dry.

Halleck started and looked at her as if reminded of her existence. Then a smile stole over his face and sparkled in his handsome blue eyes.

"Yes, she's rather pretty," he answered, carelessly "but—a little disappointing on a close view. However, she'll do very well as a model—she's picturesque, at least."

Amanda drew a long breath of sudden and intense relief.

Chapter V

"And so you say this young man lives at The Mills, my dear?" Miss Cornelia paused, the heavy, elaborately chased tea-pot suspended in her hand. Her gentle, near-sighted eyes looked anxiously across the table at Elizabeth.

It was the first time that the girl had spoken of her new acquaintance, though it was now some time since her return from Bassett Mills, and she had told at once of the measles at the Rectory. This piece of news, however, had lasted them well through dinner, and in the country it is improvident to use up all one's information at once. Perhaps Elizabeth thought of this; or it might be that the other item did not strike her as of any special importance. She only mentioned it very casually at tea-time; but her aunts' anxiety was easily aroused at any suggestion of new acquaintances at Bassett Mills.

"I don't think he lives at The Mills," Elizabeth made answer now reluctantly to Miss Cornelia's question. "I think he—he is just staying there—I believe Aunt Rebecca said something about his coming from Chicago. But his family used to live at The Mills."

"You don't mean those Hallecks who went West a long time ago?" exclaimed Miss Joanna. "Do you remember, sister?—the man was in jail the most of the time. The children used to play on the road behind the church—poor little neglected things, I was quite worried about them. It was a relief, I remember, when they all went away."

Elizabeth found this piece of ancient history peculiarly inopportune.

"Well, that was a long time ago, Aunt Joanna," she said. "It doesn't matter, I suppose, so much what people's parents were like. Mr. Halleck is very nice himself. He is an artist, and he wants to paint my picture." She brought out this last information, which she had been longing to tell for some time, with a certain triumph; but it fell unexpectedly flat.

"An artist!" Miss Joanna repeated. "Dear me! One of those little Hallecks who used to play in the road."

"To paint your picture, my dear?" repeated Miss Cornelia still more doubtfully. "When he has only met you once! I am afraid he is rather a pushing young man. But of course, dear, you won't encourage him."

Elizabeth's eyes were fixed on her plate; her cheeks were painfully flushed and she bit her lips to keep back the scalding tears that rose to her eyes. "I don't think he is pushing," she murmured, but she said no more. How could she explain to her aunts the vast difference that existed between this young man and any other friend of Amanda's? They were dear, good women, but so hopelessly narrow and antiquated, with their little old-fashioned ideas of propriety, their distinctions founded on the conventional laws of the Neighborhood. Elizabeth, too, was not without an involuntary respect for these distinctions. She had her full share of the pride of birth which was instinctive in every Van Vorst, even in the most ignorant country lout that had ever borne the family name and lowered the family credit. With Elizabeth it was only intensified, perhaps, by a doubt of her own position. But then she belonged to the new generation; and there was a side of her nature that recognized the futility of these old traditions. Elizabeth did not analyze her feelings; she was only conscious of a vague sense of revolt, a desire to beat her wings as it were, against the cages of conventional distinctions, and test her powers of flight.

But she did not put all this into words. Her aunts would not have understood. She did not understand herself. She rose from the tea-table presently, with a murmured excuse, leaving the food on her plate untasted, to Miss Joanna's great distress, and wandered into the drawing-room and sat down at the piano. The keys seemed to respond with unusual readiness to her touch, the music expressed in some vague way what she could not put into words. She played on restlessly, feverishly, for more than an hour, passing from one thing to another; Chopin nocturnes, waltzes, Hungarian dances, fragments from Wagner; anything she could remember.

The drawing-room remained dim for the sake of coolness; it was unlighted except for a lamp at a corner-table, beside which Miss Joanna sat with her knitting. As Elizabeth played she nodded comfortably and presently fell asleep. This was always the effect of Elizabeth's playing; she said she found it very soothing. Miss Cornelia sat upright in an old-fashioned, high-backed chair close to the piano. She moved her head in time to the music, and the thin little silvery curls that framed in her worn, delicate face seemed to sway in unison with the melody. She wore a black gown, a trifle antiquated in fashion but falling about her in graceful folds, and some rich old lace softened the outlines of her throat. There was a gentle, tremulous dignity about her nowadays. Miss Cornelia was very happy in moments like these. It was touching to see the pride she took in Elizabeth's music. But after awhile this evening the girl let her hands drop on the keys, and said impatiently: "Oh, it's no use, I can't say what I want to say. The music's in me, but it won't come out. If you could have heard that man to-day at Aunt Rebecca's."

"Do you mean that young Halleck, my dear?" said Miss Cornelia in surprise, and pronouncing his name with evident distaste. "I didn't know that he played."

"He can do anything," Elizabeth declared. "He paints, he can improvise by the hour, he sings as well as any opera-singer, and—he is very handsome. He would make a superb Lohengrin or Tristan," she added, thoughtfully "only, unfortunately, his voice is barytone. I wonder why Wagner showed such partiality to tenors."

"But he is not—going on the stage, is he, my dear?" asked Miss Cornelia, tentatively. She felt more anxiety than pleasure at hearing of this paragon.

"I don't know," said Elizabeth, "and it doesn't much matter. I am not to know him, you see, because his people used to live in the village years ago, and Aunt Joanna saw him playing on the road." She spoke bitterly.

"But, my dear, I—we never meant anything of the kind," protested Miss Cornelia. But Elizabeth went on without heeding her.

"Of course I know the rules of the Neighborhood. They would no more think of knowing a young man from Bassett Mills than they would a convict. But I don't really belong to the Neighborhood; I'm only on the outskirts, as it were—tolerated for your sake and for Grandmamma's. I'm tired of being a sort of nondescript—neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring." The girl's face was hard, but she spoke quietly, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if stating inevitable truths.

Miss Cornelia sat mute, bewildered, her whole soul wrung by a powerless resentment against fate. If by any sacrifice on her part she could have provided for Elizabeth congenial society—the charming young girls and attractive young men of whom she and her sister had often dreamed—she would have made it thankfully; but with all her love, there was nothing—or there seemed to her nothing that she could do. They had given Elizabeth every advantage, she was beautiful and charming; and the result of it all was that she felt herself to be "a sort of nondescript, neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring." It was a very bitter thought for Miss Cornelia.

Elizabeth, seeing this, felt remorseful for the second time that day. "Don't look so unhappy, auntie," she said, quickly. "It's not your fault—no, nor mine either; and, I suppose, it's not the fault of the Neighborhood. People can't help being narrow and conservative; they were born so. But then, Aunt Cornelia, when—when I don't have so many friends, you can't expect me to draw the line so awfully closely." Something like a sob crept into the girl's voice, but she went on with hardly a pause: "You mustn't think that I would want to know—any one. This man isn't like the rest of Amanda's friends. Only wait till you hear him sing—you would lose your heart, I'm sure, on the spot. And now, confess, auntie, you would like me to have my picture painted. The girls at school used to say that I would make a glorious picture. Do you think I would make a pretty picture, auntie?" She went over to Miss Cornelia and put her arms around her, looking up into her face with laughing, brilliant eyes, from which all bitterness had disappeared.

"My darling." Miss Cornelia, bewildered by the quick change of mood, could not find words. She thought that Elizabeth would make the prettiest picture in the world; but to have told her so would have been to run counter to all her ideas of propriety. So she finally said, with due regard for accepted formulas: "You shouldn't think so much about looks, Elizabeth. If you are good, that's the main thing."

"Of course, it's the main thing," Elizabeth assented, "but I'm afraid if it came to a choice, I'd rather be pretty, auntie, and so would most people." She ended with a light little laugh, and Miss Cornelia, in spite of her principles, attempted no rebuke.

The look of gaiety soon faded from Elizabeth's face. With a quick, impatient little sigh, she walked over to the window, and looked out into the night. It was still and sultry; heavy storm clouds were gathering and obscured the sky. The old elm trees, growing close about the house, cast sombre shadows; they seemed to keep out what little air there was. Elizabeth, as she leaned her hot cheek against the cool glass of the window-pane, felt again a sense of stifling, of being in a cage. It was useless to beat her wings; life was outside, but she could not reach it. "Oh, I would give anything in the world," she thought "just to breathe, to be free, to know what life is."

Suddenly she turned around with a start. There was a voice in the hall; some one spoke her name. A moment later a young man was advancing towards her across the dimly-lighted room. Mechanically she went to meet him. She did not think of her aunts, she did not think of anything but his presence.

"Have I—come too soon?" Paul Halleck asked, as he took her hand.

Chapter VI

Elizabeth drove again, a few weeks later, through shady, fragrant lanes, on her way to Bassett Mills. It was early in the morning, but the sun was already hot. The wild-roses along the road-side had mostly departed, the grass in the fields had a parched look. It was a long time since any rain had fallen, and the roads were thick with dust. All the freshness of the early summer had faded. But for these signs of premature blight and the scorching effect of the sun, Elizabeth seemed to have no eyes.

She drove along in a happy dream. There was a brilliant color in her cheeks, a radiant light in her eyes. She bloomed like a rose that has unfolded every petal to the summer sunshine. The fields through which she passed were not the familiar pasture-lands and "places" that skirted the road to Bassett Mills; they were the flowery meadows of poetic Arcadia, on the road that led to Paradise.

It was something of a bore, under the circumstances, that she must first of all go to Bassett Mills, but Miss Joanna had intrusted her with numerous commissions, that she could not very well refuse to discharge. That was the reason why she had started so early. There was a brook in a meadow near by; a brook shaded by weeping willow trees, under which nowadays a young artist sat sketching for many hours at a time. Elizabeth's drives, or walks had for the last few weeks led no further. But to-day she had decided to go first to Bassett Mills, and be back in time for the usual engagement, of which her aunts knew nothing.

The affair was not really so clandestine. There was no reason why she should have kept it secret beyond a vague embarrassment, an unwillingness to speak about the one subject that occupied her thoughts. Miss Cornelia and Miss Joanna had, after the one protest, yielded to the inevitable; they had not even discouraged young Halleck's visits to their niece. They had gone so far as to admit, when he had come to tea at the Homestead, and sung and played for them afterwards for hours, that he was an extremely talented young man. It had been a most successful evening, Miss Joanna had not even gone to sleep. And yet, with it all, in both sisters there was some innate distrust, some lingering prejudice perhaps, that prevented them from succumbing entirely to the charm of his handsome face and beautiful voice. They were civil to him—painfully civil; but they did not welcome him as they would have welcomed young Frank Courtenay, who used to stare at Elizabeth in church every Sunday, but had never apparently mustered up courage to come and see her. He was much under the influence of his mother, who considered Elizabeth's hair "conspicuous" and had remarked that it was bad taste for a young girl to be too well dressed—a fault that could not in justice be alleged against her own daughters.

Elizabeth, too, might have welcomed the visits of young Courtenay. There had been times when she had doubted, sadly, if she were really so pretty as the girls at school had seemed to think. But these times were past, and she had not a thought to spare for Frank Courtenay's heavy, commonplace good looks. Paul Halleck had assured her many times that she was beautiful, and had sketched her in every variety of pose, in that impressionistic style which Elizabeth had secretly thought rather ugly, before she learned to regard it as the last word in Art.

Elizabeth had learned many other things in the last few weeks. Halleck undertook her education in all artistic and literary matters, showing her how little she had hitherto known of this or that great light. He quoted Swinburne and Rossetti; he read her extracts from Maeterlinck and Ibsen; he opened for her the treasures of that school which Nordau calls degenerate. He had all the intellectual and artistic jargon of the day at his tongue's end. She sat at his feet and devoutly learned it all.

She knew his history, now. It was very romantic, and it lost nothing in the telling. He had a keen eye for artistic effect, and spared not one sordid detail of his early surroundings which served to throw into more brilliant relief his subsequent career. He told how the possession of a lovely childish soprano had raised him literally from the gutter, and procured him a position as boy soloist in a Chicago church, and how, later on, a patron was found, who sent him abroad to study. He had wandered from one European centre to another; learned to play in Dresden and to paint in Paris, and developed a fine barytone voice, of which great things were prophesied. In fact, he was a universal genius, and could do anything, except apparently earn a living, which indeed has been always hard for genius. And so at last he drifted back to Chicago, where he sang for a while in the same church where he had begun his career; but finally left for some reason or another, and tried his fortune in New York. He was debating now whether to go abroad again to study in earnest for the stage, and meanwhile he was on a walking tour, sketching about the country. He had come to Bassett Mills for the sake of old associations, and had stayed—well, he left it to Elizabeth to imagine why he stayed.

All this was very interesting and romantic; far more so, Elizabeth thought, than any ordinary affair could have been, with some commonplace youth of the neighborhood. She had only one regret; she could not help wishing in her heart that Paul's early surroundings had been, if not more exalted, less familiar. She would have preferred him to have no associations with, no friends at, Bassett Mills. The place seemed to her, as she drove through it that morning, so hopelessly common, so unusually prosaic. The ugly, sordid houses, the people with their faces of dull stolidity, jarred upon the ecstatic tone of her mood. She could not imagine that genius could be born in such surroundings.

The discordant note was still more striking when, having discharged the greater part of her commissions, she entered the dry-goods shop, and found Aunt Rebecca in her most trying humor.

"So that's you, Elizabeth," she said, looking her niece severely up and down, while her thin lips moved at the corners. "It seems to me you're very much dressed up, driving round these dusty roads. The way you wear white is a caution! But I suppose for a millionaire like you it don't matter about the washing."

Elizabeth bit her lip. "I'm not a millionaire, you know Aunt Rebecca," she said, "but I like to wear white, and it's as cheap as anything in the end. Is Amanda in?" she added quickly, anxious to stave off further criticism. "I'll go back and see her if she is."

"She's in the parlor," said Amanda's mother, shortly. "She's got a headache. I guess she don't feel like seeing company," she added hastily, but the words came too late. Elizabeth had already left the shop, and was crossing the narrow, dark little hall that led to the parlor. Her heart beat rapidly as she did so. She felt an odd, utterly irrational desire to feast her eyes on the spot where she had first experienced such new and delightful sensations.

There was no music in the room now, no air of festivity. The atmosphere was close and musty, the sun poured in at the window beside which Amanda sat sewing. She bent closely over her work, her skin was more pasty than ever and her eyes were red and swollen. Elizabeth remembered her aunt's words about the headache; otherwise she might have thought that her cousin had been crying. She went over and kissed her with a friendliness born of her own superabundant joy. The lips she touched were dry and hot. Amanda did not respond to the caress. She stared stupidly at Elizabeth, as if half dazed by her sudden entrance.

"How are you, Amanda?" Elizabeth said. "I'm sorry you have a headache. Perhaps it's the heat. It's a terribly hot day, and the roads are so dusty. Aunt Rebecca implied that my dress showed that very plainly. It was clean this morning—does it really look so badly?" She walked over to the mirror and inspected herself critically, setting her hat straight and adjusting the white ribbon about her throat. It was a long narrow glass, framed in black walnut, and there was a shelf underneath it, which supported a large sea-shell. The whole thing reminded her of a similar arrangement at her dressmaker's in town, and seemed in some way the crowning feature of the prosaic, painfully respectable character of the room. She hated to look at herself there—the glass brought out all one's defects. But to-day, in spite of the trying glare of the sunshine, her own image flashed back at her, so brilliantly fresh, in her white dimity gown, so redolent of health and beauty, that she could not help smiling back at it, as at some delightful apparition. Ah, yes, it was good to be young and pretty, and to have a lover waiting for one near by. Her eyes brightened unconsciously, and she gave a little caressing touch to the shining masses of wavy hair which stood out, like red molten gold, against the broad brim of her shady white hat.

The other girl sat and watched her.

"You like to look at yourself, don't you?" The words rang out harshly, suddenly. Elizabeth started and turned around. It seemed to her for a moment as if some third person had spoken—some one with a strange, mocking voice that she had never heard before. But there was no one else in the room.

"Yes, you like to look at yourself." Amanda went on after a pause, more quietly, "you think yourself a beauty, and a good many people, perhaps, might agree with you. He tells you so, I suppose. I daresay he tells you your hair's picturesque—he used to tell me that about mine. He was going to paint my picture, but it went out of his head when he saw you. Most things did, I guess. He—he hasn't been here since." The girl's voice broke in a quick, convulsive sob, and she stopped for a moment, but went on almost immediately: "If you hadn't come in that day, it would have been all right. We were keeping company; every one in The Mills knew we were. All the girls were jealous of me—as if he'd have looked at them! Some of them work in the factory, there's many of them don't even have a piano and sit in their kitchens. I know what's genteel, even if I can't talk all that rubbish about music and Wagner that you learned at school. And what good will all that do you when you're married? What do you know about mending and sewing and cooking? What sort of a wife would you make him? You'd ruin him in a month with your fine clothes. But men are such fools!" She gave a short mirthless laugh, her eyes glittered strangely. Elizabeth stared at her paralyzed, glued to the spot in helpless fascination. She had never heard Amanda talk so much before. Her words came quickly, fiercely, one upon another, like some overwhelming torrent that had been suddenly let loose.

"Why should you have so much more than me? Why should you have fine clothes, and a carriage, and go to school in New York, and have the swells in the neighborhood call on you? Was your mother any better than mine, or a hundredth part as good? She wasn't even respectable; no decent people at The Mills would speak to her before your father married her—I know that for a fact. And then to give yourself airs!" Amanda stopped short, panting, exhausted by her own vehemence. Elizabeth still stood before her powerless. When Amanda spoke of her mother the color rushed into her white face, and she made an effort to speak; but the words seemed to die away on her lips. Amanda, after a moment's pause, went on.

"It isn't that I care so much about that; you might have had everything else, if you hadn't taken—him. Why did you come in that day looking like a dressed-up doll? You hadn't been here for weeks, and I was glad. I didn't want him to know you—I wasn't afraid of the other girls. But you who've got so much—couldn't you have had the decency to leave him alone? Couldn't you see that he was mine?"

"Amanda," Elizabeth gasped out. "I—I didn't know. I—I never thought"—Her brain reeled, she stammered painfully, trying in vain for words to vindicate herself from this shameful charge. Amanda brushed her aside contemptuously.

"You didn't think?—no, you never do, of anything but yourself, your pretty face and pretty clothes! You're selfish and spoiled—every one knows it; you've had every wish granted till you want everything, and you won't be satisfied with less. But what's the good of saying all this to you?" she broke off suddenly, with a sharp change of tone. "I must be crazy; I've felt so, I'm sure, these last weeks. It won't make any difference—nothing I say can bring him back. And yet he'd have married me—if you hadn't come." She went to Elizabeth and gripped her by the wrist. "He kissed me once," she said. "Has he kissed you yet?"

"No," said Elizabeth, mechanically, "no." She shrank away a little and set her teeth. Amanda's grasp was painful, but she would not have cried out for worlds.

"Well, when he does," Amanda said, "remember this—he kissed me first. You can't take that away from me—I have the first claim." She let go of Elizabeth's hands and fell back a step. There were two deep red marks from her grasp. "Now go," she said, "go to him. I knew you were going to him—I saw you thinking of it, and it made me hate you. Go to him and tell him that I hope his love for you will last as long as it did for me." She laughed again harshly and then suddenly burst into violent weeping. "Oh, it's ignominious," she said, "it's contemptible. No one can despise me more than I do myself. I haven't any pride. I hate him—I hate him; yet I'd take him back now, if he'd come to me." She sank down on the sofa and hid her face in the red plush cushions, while her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs.

Elizabeth stood still in the middle of the floor. Mechanically she glanced at her reflection in the mirror; white, distraught, with startled eyes—a ghastly parody of the brilliant vision which had smiled back at her only a few minutes before. The hot sunlight, flooding the commonplace little room, seemed to bring out, with glaring vividness, all the tragic, sordid elements of the scene. A quarrel between two women about a lover! Could anything be more hopelessly vulgar and grotesque?

It was the sting of this thought that finally roused Elizabeth to speech. She raised her head with sudden haughtiness, and her words came clearly and fluently. "I don't know what you mean, Amanda," she said "by this scene. If there is any one whom you—you think I have taken from you, you can have him back to-morrow so far as I am concerned. I don't want any other woman's lover. It—it would be base. Whatever else you think me, I'm not—that. If it is Paul Halleck whom you mean, you can marry him, if you wish, to-morrow. At least you may be sure of one thing, that I never will." Her low, vehement voice died away, and she waited for an answer; but none came. Amanda only sobbed on hysterically, her face buried in the sofa-cushions.

Elizabeth stood looking at her for a moment, with a feeling in which pity, anger and repulsion were strangely mingled; then she hastily left the room by the door that led directly to the street. She had presence of mind enough to avoid the shop and her aunt's unfriendly eyes. She reached the carriage, and—un-heard-of thing—touched the white pony with the whip.

Chapter VII

They had left the last house behind; they were out in the open country. Elizabeth dropped the reins and let her tears flow unchecked—hot, blinding tears, the bitterest she had ever shed. At each familiar tree and landmark she sobbed with redoubled violence. Only an hour before she had driven along this same road in the ecstatic glow of her first romance. Now all the bloom had been rubbed from that romance, all the glory faded from the hero of her dreams; she herself was a woman who had been insulted, humiliated, dragged in the dust.

By degrees a few coherent phrases detached themselves from the confused mass of painful recollections, and stung more sharply than the rest. "My mother better than yours—she wasn't even respectable; no decent people would speak to her" ... Oh, it was too bad—too bad; she had not thought it was so bad as that. Amanda must have exaggerated—she would ask her aunts; but no, no she would never speak of that interview to a soul. It was humiliating enough as it was.... "He kissed me once. Has he kissed you yet?" No, thank Heaven! that indignity had been spared her. They had hovered as yet on the borderland of love; she had put off the inevitable declaration with instinctive coquetry, a vague unwillingness to be won too easily. She was glad now—glad and thankful; he did not know that she cared,—he should never know. She had no love for the man who had kissed Amanda.... "Selfish and spoiled—thinking only of herself?" Yes, she might be all that; but at least she would not take another woman's lover. The words "it would be base," rang in her ears. Had she spoken them, or Amanda? At all events, they were true. It would be base to marry Halleck now. In fact, she did not wish to marry him. It was he who had involved her in this horrible, sordid misery. Her aunts were right; there must be distinctions of classes. Had her father remembered this, people would not have it in their power to insult his daughter now.

Through all her complex feelings ran a sharp sense of anger against Amanda, mingled strangely with an involuntary pity, almost with an understanding of her point of view. It was not based on justice, but on fellow feeling. Amanda had resented her superiority; she, Elizabeth, knew what that was. She had felt the same herself, when smarting impotently under the patronizing friendliness of the other girls in the Neighborhood, and then had turned, with unconscious snobbery, to play the same part towards Amanda. The incongruous, grotesque humor of the situation struck her suddenly, and she laughed out loud in bitter irony. She had envied the other girls of the Neighborhood, Amanda had envied her, the girls at Bassett Mills had envied Amanda. Strange net-work of classes in a democratic country, of distinctions the more galling for their intangibility. Of one thing Elizabeth was convinced, that she could never herself "put on airs" as Amanda had said, again; there was not a girl in the whole countryside, blessed with a good mother, who could not look down on her, if she pleased.

Her tears were falling now so fast and blinding that she could not see the road; she was not even conscious that they had reached the spot where the white pony stopped now of his own accord. And even as he did so, a young man stepped forward and grasped the reins which had fallen from Elizabeth's nerveless hand; a tall, fair young man who had been standing for the last half hour, scanning anxiously, with his bright blue eyes, the glaring dusty road.

"Elizabeth," said Halleck (he had called her that for five happy days) "Elizabeth, why are you so late? And, for Heaven's sake, what's the matter?"

Elizabeth looked up and with great effort, stopped crying; but otherwise she made no sign of pleasure in his presence or even of recognition. She put up one hand, indeed, and straightened her hat, but this was a purely mechanical concession to the force of habit. She knew that her face was flushed and tear-stained, her eyes red and swollen; she was sure that she looked an absolute fright, and she did not care. She was past caring, at least for the moment.

"Elizabeth," Halleck repeated, more and more bewildered, "what is the matter? I've been waiting for you an hour. You've been crying," he added, stating unnecessarily an obvious fact. "Won't you tell me what it is?"

"Nothing—nothing," Elizabeth answered at last, in a voice that was still thick and choked with sobs. "I haven't been crying or," struck by the futility of denial, she added hastily "if I have it—it's no matter. Will you please let me pass?" She tried to take the reins from his hands, but he grasped them firmly, and laid the other hand on the bar of the wagon.

"Won't you let me pass?" she repeated stubbornly.

"Not till you tell me what's the matter."

He eyed her coolly, determinedly, all the habit of power depicted on the lines of his handsome face. She stared back at him defiantly, with her tear-swollen eyes. Her whole attitude breathed the spirit of rebellion; a spirit new in their intercourse. Halleck saw it, at the same time that he noted the disfiguring marks of tears on her face. Oddly enough, he had never admired her so much.

Nevertheless, he was determined to remain master of the situation. He glanced up and down the road; there were never many people passing, but it was not safe to rely on this fact.

"We can't talk here," he said. "Come into the field."

"I don't wish to," she said, stubbornly. "I'm going home."

He fixed his eyes upon her. "You shall not go home," he said quietly, "till you have told me all about it." She sat immovable, her pouting under lip thrust out in a way that she had sometimes, in moments of obstinacy and displeasure. She did not meet his eyes. "Don't be childish," Paul said, pleasantly, after a moment. "You know you must tell me what it is."

She looked up reluctantly, and met his steady gaze, under which she turned first white, then red, and slowly, as if fascinated, rose from her seat. Yet still her words were unyielding. "We may as well have it out at once," she said, coldly.

Halleck could not repress a thrill of triumph. It was sweet to test his power over this beautiful, high-spirited girl, to feel her will, her intellect, like wax in his hands. But he tried not to show this consciousness in his face. She was in a strange mood; he did not understand her. Gravely and respectfully he helped her to scale the stone wall, which separated the meadow from the road. Her hand barely rested on his, and her eyes were averted carefully, but he paid no heed. He fastened the white pony to a tree, then slowly and thoughtfully followed Elizabeth across the field.

The noon-day sun beat down upon them in all its scorching brilliancy; it was pleasant to gain the shade of their usual trysting-place. Here the little brook, which had rippled and sparkled over stones and moss all the way from the mill-stream, formed itself into a quiet pool, over which weeping willows spread out long branches, and seemed to admire their own reflection in the cool green mirror beneath. Elizabeth took her usual seat on a fallen moss-covered log, drawing, as she did so, her white skirts about her, with what seemed an involuntary gesture of repulsion, and Halleck, who was about to place himself beside her, flushed and bit his lip. After a moment's hesitation, he threw himself down sullenly on the grass a little way off.

"Tell me," he said, in a tone that was the more determined for this little episode "tell me now what the matter is."

Elizabeth's eyes were fixed upon the cool, green water at her feet. "I don't know why you think," she said, slowly "that it has anything to do with you."

"Not when you are a full hour late for our appointment? Not when you treat me like an outcast? Oh, Elizabeth,"—the young man's voice softened suddenly, skillfully—"how can you trifle with me so, when I love you?"

He caught, or thought he did, a quiver in her face, although her eyes were still resolutely bent upon the pool. "Yes, I love you," he repeated. "I've loved you, I believe, ever since the day you came into that horrid, stuffy little room, looking like an angel—with that hair and that skin—so different from Amanda."—

He stopped as an indignant wave of color flamed in Elizabeth's cheeks. "How can you speak of Amanda—like that?" she broke out passionately, "when you loved her too, or told her so at least, when you said the same things no doubt to her that you are saying now to me?"

A light broke in upon Paul. In his relief he laughed out loud. "Amanda," he said. "Amanda! So she has been talking to you? And you believed all the nonsense she told you? And that is why you acted so strangely. I thought it was something serious!" And he laughed again in sheer light-heartedness. So all this had been only jealous pique, after all.

The gloom on Elizabeth's face did not lighten. "You seem to find the idea amusing," she said, coldly. "I do not."

"Because you don't understand how absurd it is. I never made love to Amanda—if she made love to me"—Paul stopped, warned by a curious stiffening in Elizabeth's attitude that he was on dangerous ground. She was not like other girls whom he had known—he had noticed this before; she required special treatment. "My dear child," he said, in a calm, argumentative tone "really you are a little hard on me. A man can't measure every word he says to a girl. I may have paid Amanda a few compliments, flirted with her a little, if you insist upon it, but—that's not a crime, is it? And I never gave her a thought, I hardly remembered her existence, after I had once—seen you." There was unmistakable sincerity in his voice. "Look at me, Elizabeth," he went on anxiously, "look at me, and tell me that you believe me."

Elizabeth raised her troubled eyes to his. "I—I don't know," she said, slowly. She did believe him—to some extent, at least. But what he told her did not alter the fact that it was she who had taken him away from Amanda, that, but for her, he might have been her cousin's admirer still. And that, after all, had been the substance of Amanda's accusation.

"Tell me the truth," she said, suddenly "if I had not come in that day—if you had never seen me, would you—would you have married Amanda?" She fixed her eager eyes upon his face, and waited breathless for his answer. He gave it with a light laugh.

"Marry Amanda!" he declared, "well, hardly! Such an idea never entered my head."

"Then," said Elizabeth, slowly "you deceived her."

He shrugged his shoulders. "She deceived herself, I think," he said. "It's not my fault if she—imagined things. Why should I marry a girl like that? She's not pretty, she's stupid, ignorant. Bah, don't talk to me of Amanda." He disposed of the matter with a wave of the hand and another light laugh. Elizabeth felt a sudden conviction of the absurdity of her own behavior. The painful, scorching flush in her cheeks was beginning to cool; the burning, angry shame in her heart was dying away. The remembrance of Amanda's words grew fainter; Paul's handsome face, his air of triumphant health and life, were again in the ascendent.

He saw the yielding in her eyes and brought out his most effective argument. He took boldly the seat beside her on the log and though she shrank away, it was not, he thought, entirely with aversion. "My darling," he said, "don't let trifles come between us. I love you, you love me; isn't that enough? Elizabeth, you are the most beautiful woman in the world. Elizabeth, dearest" ... He put out his arm and drew her towards him. She still shrank away, fascinated yet trembling, frightened at this new delight, this thrill of pleasure in his touch.

"Don't," she gasped out, "Amanda"—He stopped her protest with a kiss.

And it was not till later, when she reached home, that she thought again of Amanda's words: "Remember, he kissed me first."

Chapter VIII

Miss Cornelia and Miss Joanna sat at the breakfast-table and looked aghast at Elizabeth, who had just informed them of her engagement. The old Dutch clock on the mantel-piece ticked loudly, the sunlight fell in shining bars upon the snowy table-cloth, the old Dutch china, the glistening silver. Miss Cornelia was reminded forcibly, painfully, of a morning in that same room many years ago, when Peter had announced his marriage. Now the shock was not so great, was not unexpected, perhaps; but it brought with it, if less horror, an even greater disappointment.

"Well," Elizabeth said, after a moment, when her important announcement had produced no response, and she looked proudly, yet half wistfully, from one to the other. "Well," she repeated, "have you nothing to say? Can't you—congratulate me?" Her voice faltered over the last words.

"My dear," Miss Cornelia tried bravely to respond to the appeal in the girl's tone. "Of course, we—we wish you every happiness," she stammered out. She stopped, for tears choked her voice. She looked despairingly at her sister. Was this the moment that they had so often talked of together, planning with delicious thrills of pleasure all they would say and do? "This china must be Elizabeth's when—when she marries, you know." "We must lay by a little for—for Elizabeth's trousseau." This in demure whispers to each other, for they would not for the world have suggested such a possibility to the girl herself. Nice girls, of course, must not think of getting married till the time came, but—with Elizabeth's beauty, that time could not be long delayed, not even in the Neighborhood. The fairy prince would appear some day; though he had never come to them, they believed devoutly that he would come to Elizabeth. And now—and now—the fairy prince had come, or Elizabeth thought so; but they were only conscious of an overwhelming sense of doubt.

"You know so little about him, my dear," Miss Cornelia could not help at last protesting.

Elizabeth opened her eyes wide in genuine surprise. "So little of him," she repeated. "Why, I—I know everything, Aunt Cornelia." And she smiled to herself in silent amusement. Had she not seen him, every day and twice a day, for a matter of four weeks. How long did they think, these older women, that it took to know a man? "I know that he loves me," she said, after a moment, descending to further particulars "and I love him, and that's enough."

"But you can't live on love," urged Miss Joanna, practically. "You must have some money, you know, and I shouldn't think he, poor young man, had anything—at least, judging by his clothes. Those artists never have, they say. And meat, and everything indeed, never was so dear as it is now."

"I didn't know you were so worldly, Aunt Joanna," said Elizabeth, loftily. "Do you want me to marry for money?" Miss Joanna was crushed. But as she reflected in her own justification, one had to have something to eat, let lovers say what they would.

"My dear," said Miss Cornelia, coming to the rescue with the little air of dignity that she could sometimes assume "we certainly wouldn't want you—not for the world—to marry for money. But one has to be—to be prudent. We have brought you up in a way—perhaps it was unwise—poor Mother would have thought so. But at any rate you know nothing about economy, and—and you have only a little money, my dear, and he, I suppose, has nothing."

"He—he expects to make a great deal of money soon," faltered Elizabeth, coming down a little from her heights of romance. All this prudence was like a dash of cold water in the face. She felt disconcerted, indignant, and yet conscious, through it all of some reason in her aunts' objections. Yes, it was true—she had not been brought up to economy, she was fond of luxury and pretty things. In all her wishes for change, she had never thought that it would be amusing to miss any of these.

Miss Cornelia saw that she had produced some effect. "I think," she went on, still speaking with unusual decision, "that the most important thing is to find out something about him. You can't marry a man whom we know nothing about, except that—that he was born at The Mills. We must investigate his character." Miss Cornelia felt, as she brought out this last sentence, that it sounded eminently practical, and it received from Miss Joanna, indeed, its full meed of respectful admiration. Elizabeth only smiled superior.

"You can investigate as much as you like, Aunt Cornelia," she said. "I know all about him." And so the matter rested.

But how could two elderly and innocent spinsters, who had never in their lives stirred two hundred miles from home, investigate the character of a young man who had lived in Chicago and Paris and Vienna and all the four quarters of the world apparently? They had no idea how to set about it. In this perplexity Miss Cornelia again rose to the occasion, and suggested that the Rector might be a fit substitute for that invaluable possession "a man in the family," who is always supposed to accomplish so much. And the Rector, when consulted, proved unexpectedly resourceful. He had made Paul's acquaintance, and learned the name of the church in Chicago where he had sung for so many years. He had discovered, too, that the Rector of this church was an old college friend of his, and he wrote to him at once, requesting full and confidential information as to the young man's character, antecedents, and prospects.

The answer seemed to the poor ladies a long time in coming; as a matter of fact, it arrived very promptly. The Rector of St. Anne's at Chicago regretted to inform his old friend and colleague the Rector of St. Mary's, at Bassett Mills, that he had no good account to give of Paul Halleck, who had not long ago been dismissed from the choir of his church, and had left behind him in Chicago many debts and a bad reputation. The young man was believed to have, as the Rector added, genuine musical talent; but like many artists and musicians, he was morally irresponsible, dissipated and reckless.

The Rector of St. Mary's repeated the verdict, as gently as he could, to the older ladies at the Homestead. They bore it better than he expected. There were compensations indeed in the very extent of its severity. Had Halleck been less evidently and irredeemably a black sheep, there might have been some doubts as to their own duty; but, as it was, they felt that they must break off the dreadful match at once, and at any cost.

Yet the heart of each sister misgave her as they sat in a solemn conclave, and summoned Elizabeth before it. She came, rosy, bright-eyed, fresh from talks with her lover and happy dreams of a brilliant future, which they were to share together. She stood listening in apparent indifference, while Miss Cornelia faltered out the painful result of their inquiries. And when the worst was told, she had turned perhaps a trifle pale, but otherwise she seemed unmoved.

"I don't know why you tell me all this, auntie," she said, slowly. "I—I am sorry to hear it, but it can make no difference."

"No difference!" Miss Cornelia repeated, stupefied. "No difference, Elizabeth?"

"No, it can't change my love for him," she said, defiantly. "He told me that he has enemies at Chicago, and that you would probably unearth a lot of old scandals; and I promised that it should make no difference. Perhaps some of them are true; I don't care. Auntie, I can't—I can't give him up," she went on with a sudden change of tone and clasping her hands appealingly. "I tried to once before, and—I couldn't. If he were to go away now and leave me, I—I should die. I couldn't bear to go on living without him." The girl's face was flushed, her voice tremulous with feeling; it was evident that she fully meant—or thought that she meant—what she said. Her aunts looked at her in helpless perplexity.

"My darling," Miss Cornelia faltered at last, "think how much better it is to give him up now than to—to marry him and be unhappy. You don't know—men are very bad;—one reads such things in the newspapers. If he were to ill-treat you, desert you."

"Ah, but he won't," said Elizabeth, smiling incredulously. "You needn't worry, Aunt Cornelia; we shall be very happy. But even if we were not," she concluded, with a sudden burst of defiance. "If I thought that he would beat me, treat me like a dog—I don't care; I should marry him to-morrow."

And she thrust out her full under lip, and stood facing them, with a look of obstinacy on her fair, girlish face, that for the moment bore a strong resemblance to her father.

To Miss Cornelia's mind there rose again, with startling vividness, the events of twenty years before. The recollection seemed to endow her with an unwonted and unnatural strength. She went over to where Elizabeth stood and took both the girl's hot hands in hers.

"Elizabeth," she said, desperately, "you don't know what you're saying. You will be miserable if you marry that man. You don't know what it is to live with a person who is beneath you, who—who drags you down. We know, my darling, we have seen it. Be warned by us, and give him up."

Miss Cornelia had never in all her gentle life spoken with so much vehemence. Elizabeth, in her astonishment, stood for a moment absolutely passive. She stole a glance at Miss Joanna; she was weeping quietly. Elizabeth's own face worked, her lip quivered. "I know whom you mean," she broke out, suddenly, in a quick hard voice. "You're thinking of my mother." And then, in the dismayed pause that followed, she dragged her hands away from Miss Cornelia's grasp and fled from the room.

The two older women looked at one another in silence.

"I didn't know," Miss Joanna said at last in a low, awe-struck tone "that the child knew anything about—about poor Malvina."

Chapter IX

"And so you let all this nonsense influence you?" Halleck asked this bitterly, staring up with moody eyes into Elizabeth's face. They were sitting under a wide-spreading tree, in a field not far from the Homestead. It was late afternoon and the shadows were long and peaceful. A ray from the sinking sun shot through the foliage overhead lighting up the red tints of Elizabeth's hair. Halleck's artistic eye rested upon them fascinated. He had never, as he told himself, been so much in love before.

"You give me up because of a little opposition?" he went on bitterly, roused to increased irritation by the thought of losing her.

"Why, what can I do?" The girl's voice was weary, and she threw out her hands with a helpless gesture. "They will give in to me, I suppose, if I insist; but it makes them too unhappy. I believe it would kill them. If they were unkind, I shouldn't care; but they only cry, and are so wretched, and I can't stand it. It makes me feel so ungrateful."

"And yet," said Halleck, anxiously, "you think they will give in in the end?"

"Oh, yes, they'll give in," said Elizabeth, wearily. "They'll give in, if I insist; and that's the very reason why I—what makes it so hard, you see."

"No, I don't see," said Paul, bluntly. "If you think they will give in, why are you so unhappy? But I understand how it is" he went on, harshly, "you don't love me. I'm too far beneath you—a Bohemian and an outcast. You are glad of an excuse to throw me over."

"Paul!" The indignant color flushed into Elizabeth's face. "How can you say such things," she asked reproachfully. "You know they are not true. I told my aunts that I would never give you up; I told them that—that I would marry you to-morrow, if I could."

"You told them that?" Paul exclaimed exultantly. He put his arm around her and drew her towards him. "Then keep your word, darling," he said. "Marry me to-morrow."

Elizabeth shrank away, startled. "Marry you," she repeated. "To-morrow, how could I?"

"Why not," said Paul, quietly. "Come up to Cranston and we will be married. Then let them say what they please."

Elizabeth was very pale. "I couldn't do that," she said in a low voice. "I don't want to be married so soon; and besides—it would kill my aunts."

He laughed. "Nonsense! People soon resign themselves to what they can't help. And then they needn't know—yet awhile. Listen, darling, this is my plan. You know that I want to go abroad—well, I have had a letter offering me a position in an opera company in Munich. If I accept it I start this week."

He stopped as Elizabeth gave a little cry and stared up at him with reproachful eyes. "This week," she said. "You go away this week?"

"Why, I can't stay here forever, you know," Paul said. "I've idled away my time unconscionably already—but that is your fault, Elizabeth. Now it is time I went to work. And that is why I say—marry me before I go. Then, while I am away, nothing can separate us."

Elizabeth, pale and thoughtful, seemed to ponder the suggestion. "Marry you," she repeated, slowly. "Marry you—now at once?"

"Yes, to-morrow," said Paul, boldly.

"And—and keep it secret?" she went on, with a troubled look.

"Yes, for a little while," said Paul, "for a few months, till I come back. I shall have made my name and my fortune, darling, I hope, by that time, and your aunts will be quite reconciled to me."

"Then wouldn't it be better," said Elizabeth, with much reason, "to wait till then?"

"Are you willing to wait—in uncertainty all this time?" he asked, reproachfully. "Ah, Elizabeth, it is evident that you don't love me as I love you. Such an absence would be unbearable to me, if I felt that some lover was likely to come along at any time and take you from me."

Elizabeth could not help reflecting that the danger of such a catastrophe did not seem imminent, in the present condition of the Neighborhood; but she did not put the thought into words. She only said, with some dignity: "I don't think that I am the sort of girl to change so easily."

"Ah, you can't tell," said Paul. "Women are fickle beings. I don't trust you, Elizabeth. I have a feeling that, if you don't marry me now, you never will. And why should you hesitate?" he went on eagerly. "It isn't so much that I ask. I don't even say—come abroad with me now; only give me the certainty that when I come back, I shall be able to claim you."

"You would have that certainty now," she still insisted. "I promise that I will marry you when you come back."

"Then why not marry me now," he asked, triumphantly.

Elizabeth could give no good reason to the contrary. The idea was vaguely alarming, yet it held for her a certain fascination. She sat listening in troubled uncertainty, while Paul discoursed with enthusiasm over the many advantages of his plan. He was exceedingly anxious, as he had said, to make sure of this beautiful girl, who was, he vaguely felt, a little above him—of a grade superior to that of the other girls whom he had known and made love to, for the space of a fortnight perhaps. He had been true to Elizabeth, now, for more than double that time. He really believed that he should be true to her always. There were other things that attracted him besides her beauty. The thought that Elizabeth was Miss Van Vorst of the Homestead was not unpleasant to him; the old house, the family silver, the family traditions, appealed to his artistic sense of fitness. And then though he was no fortune-hunter, and certainly would have made love to no girl whom he did not for the moment at least sincerely admire, he admitted to himself, frankly, that it was by no means inconvenient that Elizabeth should have a little money of her own and the prospect of more in the future. The Van Vorst property, while it was insignificant enough when measured by the standard of the Van Antwerps and other rich people in the Neighborhood, seemed by no means contemptible to Paul, who measured it by the standard of poverty-stricken Bohemia.

Elizabeth's feelings were more complex, less frankly selfish, much more anxious and uncertain. The money question did not enter into them to any great extent, though she had an instinctive dread of poverty, and she was convinced that, if once married to Paul, she would not be able to have the pretty gowns, and other luxurious trifles, which had hitherto seemed a necessity of life. But she was young and romantic, and this thought did not weigh with her very much. What most distressed her, and made her feel in some way vaguely in the wrong, was the trouble this, her first love affair, seemed to bring to others; to her aunts, to Amanda. She loved her aunts, and hated to run counter to their wishes; she did not love Amanda, and yet the thought of having injured her, though unconsciously, brought with it an uncomfortable sense of guilt.

She had not seen her since that terrible interview, which she still could not recall without a feeling of humiliation; but she had seen her aunt, who told her that Amanda was ill with some low fever—typhoid malaria, probably; there was always a good deal of that at The Mills. It was not considered wise that Elizabeth should see her; and besides, Amanda was delirious, and did not recognize any one. Elizabeth was more relieved than sorry to hear it. No doubt, she told herself, Amanda was already out of her head when she uttered that extraordinary outburst, and it was foolish to attach any importance to what she said in her feverish excitement. Still, Elizabeth did not like to think of it, much less of the promise she herself had given, voluntarily, in such forcible words. She had been so absolutely sincere in making it; she had broken it so completely within the hour. The whole affair was unpleasant, and weighed upon her more than those more serious charges against Paul, which had fallen vaguely upon her ear, not seeming to make any deep impression. His conduct to Amanda was at its worst a mere trifle in comparison.

Still she could not give him up. That broken promise to Amanda only proved this the more strongly. She could not face the prospect of life without him. And yet she could not face without terrible misgivings the prospect of further tears and remonstrances from her aunts. The two claims struggled for the mastery; on the one hand, the claims of the women who had brought her up, whose every thought for twenty years had centred in her; on the other, the claims of the man who had loved her in his light way some five weeks. Under these circumstances, it was inevitable that the claims of the man should predominate. And yet Elizabeth longed to satisfy them both.

Paul's plan seemed to suggest a compromise. And Elizabeth had not yet learned that compromise is never satisfactory to either side.

"Listen," she said, looking at him intently, with eyes that seemed to hold, even in the moment of yielding, a certain defiance of his power, "If I do as you wish, if I—I marry you to-morrow, I am free to—to come home at once, to go on with my life as if nothing were changed—not to tell my aunts, not to tell any one, till you come back? Do you promise this, on your word of honor?"

For a moment Paul hesitated. He had hardly expected her to yield so easily; perhaps if he pressed the matter she might be persuaded even to go abroad with him at once. But there were financial reasons which made that inexpedient just then. On the whole, Paul decided not to test his power too far.

"Upon my word of honor," he said, looking her steadily in the face "I promise that you shall be free as air, to go on with your life as you please, till I come back to claim you."

And so the thing was settled. Paul was to go to Cranston early the next morning to make all necessary arrangements; Elizabeth was to follow him a little later. They were to be married at once. Then Paul was to take an afternoon train for New York, Elizabeth was to return home, the whole affair should remain a secret.

Then Paul, radiantly triumphant, clasped Elizabeth in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers.

"To-morrow," he whispered, "to-morrow, my darling, at this time—though the world won't know it—still you will be my wife."

A strange feeling thrilled Elizabeth. She could not have told if it were pleasure, or some involuntary presentiment. But aloud she repeated mechanically: "Yes, I shall be your wife."

"You won't fail me, dearest," he said, scanning her face eagerly. "You won't break your word? You have promised—you won't fail me?"

"No," Elizabeth answered, "I have promised—I won't fail you."

And yet the thought crossed her mind irrelevantly, that she had broken a promise once already.

She left him and went home through the stillness and the fast gathering shadows of the evening. The days were already growing shorter. She noted the fact mechanically; noted too that the deep glowing crimson of the sunset foretold a hot day for the morrow. She entered the house and looked in at the dining-room; the table was set out for tea with all the wonted care. Her aunts sat each at one end; they were neither of them eating and both had red eyes. In the centre of the table stood Elizabeth's favorite cake—the kind with the raisins in it, which she used to beg for as a child, and which was reserved either as a reward for virtue, or for consolation in some childish trouble. Now in this trouble that was so far from childish, poor Miss Joanna had bethought herself of the old attention, and brought out the favorite cake as the only means of comfort within her power. Elizabeth could not see it without a lump in her throat.

She smoothed her ruffled hair before the glass and came in quietly to her usual place at the table. They looked up nervously at her entrance, but neither spoke; they did not reproach her with being late or ask where she had been. Miss Joanna pressed upon her the various dainties, reminding her that she had eaten no dinner; otherwise the meal was a silent one. It was not till near the end of it that Elizabeth spoke in a strained harsh voice unlike her own.

"Paul is going away." That was what she said. "He—has an engagement to go abroad. He goes to New York to-morrow. I—I hope you are satisfied."

And then she stopped, for the look of tremulous relief on both their faces was almost more than she could bear. The raisins in her favorite cake seemed suddenly to choke her. She began to doubt, after all, whether she would go to Cranston the next day.