E-text prepared by Roy Brown

INFELICE

by

AUGUSTA J. EVANS WILSON

Author of "At the Mercy of Tiberius", "St. Elmo" Etc.

1902

"The grace of God forbid
We should be overbold to lay rough hands
On any man's opinion. For opinions
Are, certes, venerable properties,
And those which show the most decrepitude
Should have the gentlest handling."
VANINI

London James Nisbet & Co. Limited 21 Berners Street

INFELICE

CHAPTER I.

"Did you tell her that Dr. Hargrove is absent?"

"I did, ma'am; but she says she will wait."

"But, Hannah, it is very uncertain when he will return, and the night is so stormy he may remain in town until to-morrow. Advise her to call again in the morning."

"I said as much at the door, but she gave me to understand she came a long way, and should not leave here without seeing the Doctor. She told the driver of the carriage to call for her in about two hours, as she did not wish to miss the railroad train."

"Where did you leave her? Not in that cold, dark parlour, I hope?"

"She sat down on one of the hall chairs, and I left her there."

"A hospitable parsonage reception! Do you wish her to freeze? Go and ask her into the library, to the fire."

As Hannah left the room, Mrs. Lindsay rose and added two sticks of oak wood to the mass of coals that glowed between the shining brass andirons; then carefully removed farther from the flame on the hearth a silver teapot and covered dish, which contained the pastor's supper.

"Walk in, madam. I promise you nobody shall interfere with you. Miss
Elise, she says she wishes to see no one but the Doctor."

Hannah ushered the visitor in, and stood at the door, beckoning to her mistress, who paused irresolute, gazing curiously at the muffled form and veiled face of the stranger.

"Do not allow me to cause you any inconvenience, madam. My business is solely with Dr. Hargrove, and I do not fear the cold."

The voice of the visitor was very sweet though tremulous, and she would have retreated, but Mrs. Lindsay put her hand on the bolt of the door, partly closing it.

"Pray be seated. This room is at your disposal. Hannah, bring the tea things into the dining-room, and then you need not wait longer; I will lock the doors after my brother comes in."

With an ugly furrow of discontent between her heavy brows, Hannah obeyed, and as she renewed the fire smouldering in the dining-room, she slowly shook her grizzled head: "Many a time I have heard my father say, 'Mystery breeds misery,' and take my word for it, there is always something wrong when a woman shuns women-folks, and hunts sympathy and advice from men."

"Hush, Hannah! Charity,—charity; don't forget that you live in a parsonage, where 'sounding brass or tinkling cymbals' are not tolerated. All kinds of sorrow come here to be cured, and I fear that lady is in distress. Did you notice how her voice trembled?"

"Well, I only hope no silver will be missing to-morrow. I must make up my buckwheat, and set it to rise. Good-night, Miss Elise."

It was a tempestuous night in the latter part of January, and although the rain, which had fallen steadily all day, ceased at dark, the keen blast from the north shook the branches of the ancient trees encircling the parsonage, and dashed the drops in showers against the windows. Not a star was visible, and as the night wore on the wind increased in violence, roaring through leafless elm limbs, and whistling drearily around the corners of the old brick house, whose ivy-mantled chimneys had battled with the storms of seventy years.

The hands of the china clock on the dining-room mantlepiece pointed to nine, and Mrs. Lindsay expected to hear the clear sweet strokes of the pendulum, when other sounds startled her; the sharp, shrill bark of a dog, and impatient scratching of paws on the hall door. As she hurried forward and withdrew the inside bolt, a middle-aged man entered, followed by a bluish-grey Skye terrier.

"Peyton, what kept you so late?"

"I was called to Beechgrove to baptize Susan Moffat's only daughter. The girl died at eight o'clock, and I sat awhile with the stricken mother, trying to comfort her. Poor Susan! it is a heavy blow, for she idolized the child. Be quiet, Biörn."

Mr. Hargrove was leisurely divesting himself of his heavy overcoat, and the terrier ran up and down the hall, holding his nose high in the air, and barking furiously.

"Biörn's instincts rarely deceive him. A stranger is waiting in the library to see you. Before you go in, let me give you your supper, for you must be tired and hungry."

"Thank you, Elise, but first I must see this visitor, whose errand may be urgent."

He opened the door of the library, and entered so quietly that the occupant seemed unaware of his presence.

A figure draped in black sat before the table which was drawn close to the hearth, and the arms were crossed wearily, and the head bowed upon them. The dog barked and bounded toward her, and then she quickly rose, throwing back her veil, and eagerly advancing.

"You are the Rev. Peyton Hargrove?"

"I am. What can I do for you, madam? Pray take this rocking chair."

She motioned it away, and exclaimed:

"Can you too have forgotten me?"

A puzzled expression crossed his countenance as he gazed searchingly at her, then shook his head.

The glare of the fire, and the mellow glow of the student's lamp fell full on the pale features, whose exceeding delicacy is rarely found outside of the carved gems of the Stosch or Albani Cabinets. On camei and marble dwell the dainty moulding of the oval cheek, the airy arched tracery of the brows, the straight, slender nose, and clearly defined cleft of the rounded chin, and nature only now and then models them as a whole, in flesh. It was the lovely face of a young girl, fair as one of the Frate's heavenly visions, but blanched by some flood of sorrow that had robbed the full tender lips of bloom, and bereft the large soft brown eyes of the gilding glory of hope.

"If I ever knew, I certainly have forgotten you."

"Oh—do not say so! You must recollect me; you are the only person who can identify me. Four years ago I stood here, in this room. Try to recall me."

She came close to him, and he heard her quick and laboured breathing, and saw the convulsive quivering of her compressed lips.

"What peculiar circumstances marked my former acquaintance with you?
Your voice is quite familiar, but——"

He paused, passed his hand across his eyes, and before he could complete the sentence, she exclaimed:

"Am I then so entirely changed? Did you not one May morning marry in this room Minnie Merle to Cuthbert Laurance?"

"I remember that occasion very vividly, for in opposition to my judgment I performed the ceremony; but Minnie Merle was a low-statured, dark-haired child——" again he paused, and keenly scanned the tall, slender, elegant figure, and the crimped waves of shining hair that lay like a tangled mass of gold net on the low, full, white brow.

"I was Minnie Merle. Your words of benediction made me Minnie Laurance. God—and the angels know it is my name, my lawful name,— but man denies it."

Something like a sob impeded her utterance, and the minister took her hand.

"Where is your husband? Are you widowed so early?"

"Husband—my husband? One to cherish and protect, to watch over, and love, and defend me;—if such be the duties and the tests of a husband,—oh! then indeed I have never had one! Widowed did you say? That means something holy,—sanctified by the shadow of death, and the yearning sympathy and pity of the world; a widow has the right to hug a coffin and a grave all the weary days of her lonely life, and people look tenderly on her sacred weeds. To me, widowhood would be indeed a blessing, Sir, I thought I had learned composure, self-control, but the sight of this room,—of your countenance,—even the strong breath of the violets and heliotrope there on the mantle, in the same blood-coloured Bohemian vase where they bloomed that day,—that May day,—all these bring back so overpoweringly the time that is for ever dead to me,—that I feel as if I should suffocate."

She walked to the nearest window, threw up the sash, and while she stood with the damp chill wind blowing full upon her the pastor heard a moan, such as comes from meek, dumb creatures, wrung by the throes of dissolution.

When she turned once more to the light, he saw an unnatural sparkle in the dry, lustrous, brown eyes.

"Dr. Hargrove, give me the license that was handed to you by Cuthbert
Laurance."

"What value can it possess now?"

"Just now it is worth more to me than everything else in life,—more to me than my hopes of heaven."

"Mrs. Laurance, you must remember that I refused to perform the marriage ceremony, because I believed you were both entirely too young. Your grandmother who came with you assured me she was your sole guardian, and desired the marriage, and your husband, who seemed to me a mere boy, quieted my objections by producing the license, which he said exonerated me from censure, and relieved me of all responsibility. With that morning's work I have never felt fully satisfied, and though I know that any magistrate would probably have performed the ceremony, I have sometimes thought I acted rashly, and have carefully kept that license as my defence and apology."

"Thank God, that it has been preserved. Give it to me."

"Pardon me if I say frankly, I prefer to retain it. All licenses are recorded by the officer who issued them, and by applying to him you can easily procure a copy."

"Treachery baffles me there. A most opportune fire broke out eighteen months ago in the room where those records were kept, and although the court house was saved, the book containing my marriage license was of course destroyed."

"But the clerk should be able to furnish a certificate of the facts."

"Not when he has been bribed to forget them. Please give me the paper in your possession."

She wrung her slender fingers, and her whole frame trembled like a weed on some bleak hillside, where wintry winds sweep unimpeded.

A troubled look crossed the grave, placid countenance of the pastor, and he clasped his hands firmly behind him, as if girding himself to deny the eloquent pleading of the lovely dark eyes.

"Sit down, madam, and listen to——"

"I cannot! A restless fever is consuming me, and nothing but the possession of that license can quiet me. You have no right to withhold it,—you cannot be so cruel, so wicked,—unless you also have been corrupted, bought off!"

"Be patient enough to hear me. I have always feared there was something wrong about that strange wedding, and your manner confirms my suspicions. Now I must be made acquainted with all the facts, must know your reason for claiming the paper in my possession, before I surrender it. As a minister of the Gospel, it is incumbent upon me to act cautiously, lest I innocently become auxiliary to deception, —possibly to crime."

A vivid scarlet flamed up in the girl's marble cheeks.

"Of what do you suspect, or accuse me?"

"I accuse you of nothing. I demand your reasons for the request you have made."

"I want that paper because it is the only proof of my marriage. There were two witnesses: my grandmother, who died three years ago on a steamship bound for California, where her only son is living, and Gerbert Audré, a college student, who is supposed to have been lost last summer in a fishing smack off the coast of Labrador or Greenland."

"I am a witness accessible at any time, should my testimony be required."

"Will you live for ever? Nay,—just when I need your evidence, my ill luck will seal your lips, and drive the screws down in your coffin lid."

"What use do you intend to make of the license? Deal candidly with me."

"I want to hold it, as the most precious thing left in life; to keep it concealed securely, until the time comes when it will serve me, save me, avenge me."

"Why is it necessary to prove your marriage? Who disputes it?"

"Cuthbert Laurance and his father."

"Is it possible! Upon what plea?"

"That he was a minor, was only twenty, irresponsible, and that the license was fraudulent."

"Where is your husband?"

"I tell you, I have no husband! It were sacrilege to couple that sacred title with the name of the man who has wronged, deserted, repudiated me; and who intends if possible to add to the robbery of my peace and happiness, that of my fair, stainless name. Less than one month after the day when right here, where I now stand, you pronounced me his wife in the sight of God and man, he was summoned home by a telegram from his father. I have never seen him since. General Laurance took his son immediately to Europe, and, sir, you will find it difficult to believe me, when I tell you that infamous father has actually forced the son by threats of disinheritance to many again,—to——"

The words seemed to strangle her, and she hastily broke away the ribbons which held her bonnet and were tied beneath her chin.

Mr. Hargrove poured some water into a goblet, and as he held it to her lips, murmured compassionately:

"Poor child! God help you."

Perhaps the genuine pity in the tone brought back sweet memories of the bygone, and for a moment softened the girl's heart, for tears gathered in the large eyes, giving them a strange quivering radiance. As if ashamed of the weakness she threw her head back defiantly, and continued:

"I was the poor little orphan, whose grandmother did washing and mending for the college boys—only little unknown Minnie Merle, with none to aid in asserting her rights;—and she—the new wife—was a banker's daughter, an heiress, a fashionable belle,—and so Minnie Merle must be trampled out, and the new Mrs. Cuthbert Laurance dashes in her splendid equipage through the Bois de Bologne. Sir, give me my license!"

Mr. Hargrove opened a secret drawer in the tall writing-desk that stood in one corner of the room, and, unlocking a square tin box, took from it a folded slip of paper. After some deliberation he seated himself, and began to write.

Impatiently his visitor paced the floor, followed by Biörn, who now and then growled suspiciously.

At length, when the pastor laid down his pen, his guest came to his side, and held out her hand.

"Madam, the statements you have made are so extraordinary, that you must pardon me if I am unusually cautious in my course. While I have no right to doubt your assertions, they seem almost incredible, and the use you might make of the license——"

"What! you find it so difficult to credit the villainy of a man—and yet so easy to suspect, to believe all possible deceit and wickedness in a poor helpless woman? Oh, man of God! is your mantle of charity cut to cover only your own sex? Can the wail of down-trodden orphanage wake no pity in your heart,—or is it locked against me by the cowardly dread of incurring the hate of the house of Laurance?"

For an instant a dark flush bathed the tranquil brow of the minister, but his kind tone was unchanged when he answered slowly:

"Four years ago I was in doubt concerning my duty, but just now there is clearly but one course for me to pursue. Unless you wish to make an improper use of it, this paper which I very willingly hand to you will serve your purpose. It is an exact copy of the license, and to it I have appended my certificate, as the officiating clergyman who performed the marriage ceremony. Examine it carefully, and you will find the date, and indeed every syllable rigidly accurate. From the original I shall never part, unless to see it replaced in the court house records."

Bending down close to the lamp, she eagerly read and reread the paper which shook like an aspen in her nervous grasp; then she looked long and searchingly into the grave face beside her, and a sudden light broke over her own.

"Oh, thank you! After all, the original is safer in your hands than in mine. I might be murdered, but they would never dare to molest you,—and if I should die, you would not allow them to rob my baby of her name?"

"Your baby!"

He looked at the young girlish figure and face, and it seemed impossible that the creature before him could be a mother. A melancholy smile curved her lips.

"Oh! that is the sting that sometimes goads me almost to desperation. My own wrongs are sufficiently hard to bear, but when I think of my innocent baby denied the sight of her father's face, and robbed of the protection of her father's name, then—I forget that I am only a woman, I forget that God reigns in heaven to right the wrongs on earth, and——"

There was a moment's silence.

"How old is your child?"

"Three years."

"And you? A mere child now."

"I am only nineteen."

"Poor thing! I pity you from the depths of my soul."

The clock struck ten, and the woman started from the table against which she leaned.

"I must not miss the train; I promised to return promptly."

She put on the grey cloak she had thrown aside, buttoned it about her throat, and tied her bonnet strings.

"Before you go, explain one thing. Was not your hair very dark when you were married?"

"Yes, a dark chestnut brown, but when my child was born I was ill a long time, and my head was shaved and blistered. When the hair grew out, it was just as you see it now. Ah! if we had only died then, baby and I, we might have had a quiet sleep under the violets and daisies. I see, sir, you doubt whether I am really little Minnie Merle. Do you not recollect that when you asked for the wedding ring none had been provided, and Cuthbert took one from his own hand, which was placed on my finger? Ah! there was a grim fitness in the selection! A death's head peeping out of a cinerary urn. You will readily recognize the dainty bridal token."

She drew from her bosom a slender gold chain on which was suspended a quaint antique cameo ring of black agate, with a grinning white skull in the centre, and around the oval border of heavily chased gold glittered a row of large and very brilliant diamonds.

"I distinctly remember the circumstance."

As the minister restored the ring to its owner, she returned it and the chain to its hiding-place.

"I do not wear it, I am biding my time. When General Laurance sent his agent first to attempt to buy me off, and, finding that impossible, to browbeat and terrify me into silence, one of his insolent demands was the restoration of this ring, which he said was an heirloom of untold value in his family, and must belong to none but a Laurance. He offered five hundred dollars for the delivery of it into his possession. I would sooner part with my right arm! Were it iron or lead, its value to me would be the same, for it is the only symbol of my lawful marriage,—is my child's title deed to a legitimate name."

She turned toward the door, and Dr. Hargrove asked:

"Where is your home?"

"I have none. I am a waif drifting from city to city, on the uncertain waves of chance."

"Have you no relatives?"

"Only an uncle, somewhere in the gold mines of California."

"Does General Laurance provide for your maintenance?"

"Three years ago his agent offered me a passage to San Francisco, and five thousand dollars, on condition that I withdrew all claim to my husband and to his name, and pledged myself to 'give the Laurances no further trouble.' Had I been a man, I would have strangled him. Since then no communication of any kind has passed between us, except that all my letters to Cuthbert pleading for his child have been returned without comment."

"How, then are you and the babe supported?"

"That, sir, is my secret."

She drew herself haughtily to her full height, and would have passed him, but he placed himself between her and the door.

"Mrs. Laurance, do not be offended by my friendly frankness. You are so young and so beautiful, and the circumstances of your life render you so peculiarly liable to dangerous associations and influences, that I fear you may——"

"Fear nothing for me. Can I forget my helpless baby, whose sole dower just now promises to be her mother's spotless name? Blushing for her father's perfidy, she shall never need a purer, whiter shield than her mother's stainless record—so help me, God!"

"Will you do me the favour to put aside for future contingencies this small tribute to your child? The amount is not so large that you should hesitate to receive it; and feeling a deep interest in your poor little babe, it will give me sincere pleasure to know that you accept it for her sake, as a memento of one who will always be glad to hear from you, and to aid you if possible."

With evident embarrassment he tendered an old-fashioned purse of knitted silk, through whose meshes gleamed the sheen of gold pieces. To his astonishment she covered her face with her hands and burst into a fit of passionate weeping. For some seconds she sobbed aloud, leaving him in painful uncertainty concerning the nature of her emotion.

"Oh, sir!—it has been so long since words of sympathy and real kindness were spoken to me, that now they unnerve me. I am strong against calumny and injustice,—but kindness breaks me down. I thank you in my baby's name, but we cannot take your money. Ministers are never oppressed with riches, and baby and I can live without charity. But since you are so good, I should like to say something in strict confidence to you. I am suspicious now of everybody, but it seems to me I might surely trust you. I do not yet see my way clearly, and if anything should happen to me the child would be thrown helpless upon the world. You have neither wife nor children, and if the time ever comes when I shall be obliged to leave my little girl for any long period, may I send her here for safety, until I can claim her? She shall cost you nothing but care and watchfulness. I could work so much better, if my mind were only easy about her; if I knew she was safely housed in this sanctuary of peace."

Ah! how irresistible was the pathetic pleading of the tearful eyes; but Mr. Hargrove did not immediately respond to the appeal.

"I understand your silence—you think me presumptuous in my request, and I daresay I am, but——"

"No, madam, not at all presumptuous. I hesitate habitually before assuming grave responsibility, and I only regret that I did not hesitate longer—four years ago. A man's first instincts of propriety, of right and wrong, should never be smothered by persuasion, nor wrestled down and overcome by subtle and selfish reasoning. I blame myself for much that has occurred, and I am willing to do all that I can toward repairing my error. If your child should ever really need a guardian, bring or send her to me, and I will shield her to the full extent of my ability." Ere he was aware of her intention, she caught his hand, and as she carried it to her lips he felt her tears falling fast.

"God bless you for your goodness! I have one thing more to ask; promise me that you will divulge to no one what I have told you. Let it rest between God and you and me."

"I promise."

"In the great city where I labour I bear an assumed name, and none must know, at least for the present, whom I am. Realizing fully the unscrupulous character of the men with whom I have to deal, my only hope of redress is in preserving the secret for some years, and not even my baby can know her real parentage until I see fit to tell her. You will not betray me, even to my child?"

"You may trust me."

"Thank you, more than mere words could ever express."

"May God help you, Mrs. Laurance, to walk circumspectly—to lead a blameless life."

He took his hat from the stand in the hall, and silently they walked down to the parsonage gate. The driver dismounted and opened the carriage door, but the draped figure lingered, with her hand upon the latch.

"If I should die before we meet again, you will not allow them to trample upon my child?"

"I will do my duty faithfully."

"Remember that none must know I am Minnie Laurance until I give you permission; for snares have been set all along my path, and calumny is ambushed at every turn. Good-bye, sir. The God of orphans will one day requite you."

The light from the carriage lamp shone down on her as she turned toward it, and in subsequent years the pastor was haunted by the marvellous beauty of the spirituelle features, the mournful splendour of the large misty eyes, and the golden glint of the rippling hair that had fallen low upon her temples.

"If it were not so late, I would accompany you to the railway station. You will have a lonely ride. Good-bye, Mrs. Laurance."

"Lonely, sir? Aye—lonely for ever."

She laughed bitterly, and entered the carriage.

"Laughed, and the echoes huddling in affright,
Like Odin's hounds fled baying down the night."

CHAPTER II.

With the night passed the storm which had rendered it so gloomy, and the fair cold day shone upon a world shrouded in icy cerements; a hushed, windless world, as full of glittering rime-runes as the frozen fields of Jotunheim. Each tree and shrub seemed a springing fountain, suddenly crystallized in mid-air, and not all the mediæval marvels of Murano equalled the fairy fragile tracery of fine spun, glassy web, and film, and fringe that stretched along fences, hung from eaves, and belaced the ivy leaves that lay helpless on the walls. A blanched waning moon, a mere silver crescent, shivered upon the edge of the western horizon, fleeing before the scarlet and orange lances that already bristled along the eastern sky-line, the advance guard of the conqueror, who would ere many moments smite all that weird icy realm with consuming flames. The very air seemed frozen, and refused to vibrate in trills and roulades through the throaty organs of matutinal birds, that hopped and blinked, plumed their diamonded breasts, and scattered brilliants enough to set a tiara; and profound silence brooded over the scene, until rudely broken by a cry of dismay which rang out startlingly from the parsonage. The alarm might very readily have been ascribed to diligent Hannah, who, contemptuous of barometric or thermal vicissitudes, invariably adhered to the aphorism of Solomon, and, arising "while it is yet night, looketh well to the ways of her household."

With a broom in one hand, and feather dusting-brush in the other, she ran down the front steps, her white cap strings flying like distress signals,—bent down to the ground as a blood-hound might in scenting a trail,—then dashed back into the quiet old house, and uttered a wolfish cry:

"Robbers! Burglars! Thieves!"

Oppressed with compassionate reflections concerning the fate of his visitor, the minister had found himself unable to sleep as soundly as usual, and from the troubled slumber into which he sank after daylight he was aroused by the unwonted excitement that reigned in the hall, upon which his apartment opened. While hastily dressing, his toilette labours were expedited by an impatient rap which only Hannah's heavy hand could have delivered. Wrapped in his dressing-gown he opened the door, saying benignly:

"Is there an earthquake or a cyclone? You thunder as if my room were
Mount Celion. Is any one dead?"

"Some one ought to be! The house was broken open last night, and the silver urn is missing. Shameless wretch! This comes of mysteries and veiled women, who are too modest to, look an honest female in the face, but——!"

"Oh, Hannah I that tongue of thine is more murderous than Cyrus' scythed chariots! Here is your urn! I put it away last night, because I saw from the newspapers that a quantity of plate had recently been stolen. Poor Hannah! don't scowl so ferociously because I have spoiled your little tragedy. I believe you are really sorry to see the dear old thing safe in defiance of your prophecy."

Mrs. Lindsay came downstairs laughing heartily, and menacing irate Hannah with the old-fashioned urn, which had supplied three generations with tea.

"Is that the sole cause of the disturbance?" asked the master, stooping to pat Biörn, who was dancing a tarantella on the good man's velvet slippers.

Somewhat crestfallen the woman seized the urn, began to polish it with her apron, and finally said sulkily:

"I beg pardon for raising a false alarm, but indeed it looked suspicious and smelled of foul play, when I found the library window wide open, two chairs upside down on the carpet,—mud on the window-sill, the inkstand upset,—and no urn on the sideboard. But as usual I am only an old fool, and you, sir, and Miss Elise know best I am very sorry I roused you so early with my racket."

"Did you say the library window wide open? Impossible; I distinctly recollect closing the blinds, and putting down the sash before I went to bed. Elise, were you not with me at the time?"

"Yes, I am sure you secured it, just before bidding me goodnight."

"Well—no matter, facts are ugly, stubborn things. Now you two just see for yourselves, what I found this morning."

Hannah hurried them into the library, where a fire had already been kindled, and her statement was confirmed by the disarranged furniture, and traces of mud on the window-sill and carpet. The inkstand had rolled almost to the hearth, scattering its contents en route, and as he glanced at his desk the minister turned pale.

The secret drawer which opened with a spring had been pulled out to its utmost extent, and he saw that the tin box he had so carefully locked the previous night was missing. Some MSS were scattered loosely in the drawer, and the purse filled with gold coins, a handsomely set miniature, and heavy watch chain with seal attached, all lay untouched, though conspicuously alluring to the cupidity of burglars. Bending over his rifled sanctuary, Mr. Hargrove sighed, and a grieved look settled on his countenance.

"Peyton, do you miss anything?"

"Only a box of papers."

"Were they valuable?"

"Pecuniarily no;—at least not convertible into money. In other respects, very important."

"Not your beautiful sermons, I hope," cried his sister, throwing one arm around his neck, and leaning down to examine the remaining contents of the drawer.

"They were more valuable, Elise, than many sermons, and some cannot be replaced."

"But how could the burglars have overlooked the money and jewellery?"

Again the minister sighed heavily, and, closing the drawer, said:

"Perhaps we may discover some trace in the garden."

"Aye, sir,—I searched before I raised an uproar, and here is a handkerchief that I found under that window, on the violet bed. It was frozen fast to the leaves."

Hannah held it up between the tips of her fingers, as if fearful of contamination, and eyed it with an expression of loathing. Mr. Hargrove took it to the light and examined it, while an unwonted frown wrinkled his usually placid brow. It was a dainty square of finest cambric, bordered with a wreath of embroidered lilies, and in one corner exceedingly embellished "O O" stared like wide wondering eyes, at the strange hands that profaned it.

"Do you notice what a curious, outlandish smell it has? It struck my nostrils sharper than hartshorn when I picked it up. No rum-drinking, tobacco-smoking burglar in breeches dropped that lace rag."

Hannah set her stout arms akimbo, and looked "unutterable things" at the delicate fabric, that as if to deprecate its captors was all the while breathing out deliciously sweet but vague hints,—now of eglantine, and now of that subtle spiciness that dwells in daphnes, and anon plays hide-and-seek in nutmeg geranium blooms.

Reluctance to admission of the suspicion of unworthiness in others is the invariable concomitant of true nobility of soul in all pure and exalted natures,—and with that genuine chivalry, which now, alas! is welnigh as rare as the aumônière of pilgrims, the pastor bravely cast around the absent woman the broad, soft ermine of his tender charity.

"Hannah, if your insinuations point to the lady who called here last night, I can easily explain the suspicious fact of the handkerchief, which certainly belongs to her; for the room was close, and my visitor, having raised that window and leaned out for fresh air, doubtless dropped her handkerchief without observing the loss."

"Do the initials 'O O' represent her name?" asked Mrs. Lindsay, whose adroitly propounded interrogatories the previous evening had elicited no satisfactory information.

"Do not ladies generally stamp their own monograms when marking articles that compose their wardrobes?" He put the unlucky piece of cambric in his pocket, and pertinacious Hannah suddenly stooped and dealt Biörn a blow, which astonished the spectators even more than the yelping recipient, who dropped something at her feet and crawled behind his master.

"You horrid, greedy pest! Are you in league with the thieves, that you must needs try to devour the signs and tell-tales they dropped in the track of their dirty work? It is only a glove this time, sir, and it was all crumpled, just so,—where I first saw it, when I ran out to hunt for footprints. It was hanging on the end of a rose bush, yonder near the snowball, and you see it was rather too far from the window here to have fallen down with the handkerchief. Look, Miss Elise, your hands are small, but this would pinch even your fingers."

She triumphantly lifted a lady's kid glove, brown in colour and garnished with three small oval silver buttons, the exact mate of one which Mr. Hargrove had noticed the previous evening, when the visitor held up the ring for his inspection. Exulting in the unanswerable logic of this latest fact, Hannah quite unintentionally gave the glove a scornful toss, which caused it to fall into the fireplace, and down between two oak logs, where it shrivelled instantaneously. Unfortunately science is not chivalric, and divulges the unamiable and ungraceful truth, that perverted female natures from even the lower beastly types are more implacably vindictive, more subtly malicious, more ingeniously cruel than the stronger sex; and when a woman essays to track, to capture, or to punish—vae victis.

"Now, Biörn! improve your opportunity and heap coals of fire on slanderous Hannah's head, by assuring her you feel convinced she did not premeditatedly destroy traces, and connive at the escape of the burglars, by burning that most important glove, which might have aided us in identifying them."

As Mr. Hargrove caressed his dog, he smiled, evidently relieved by the opportune accident; but Mrs. Lindsay looked grave, and an indignant flush purpled the harsh, pitiless face of the servant, who sullenly turned away, and busied herself in putting the furniture in order.

"Peyton, were the stolen papers of a character to benefit that person,—or indeed any one but yourself, or your family?"

He knew the soft blue eyes of his sister were watching him keenly, saw too that the old servant stood still, and turned her head to listen, and he answered without hesitation:

"The box contained the deed to a disputed piece of property, those iron and lead mines in Missouri,—and I relied upon it to establish my claim."

"Was the lady who visited you last night in any manner interested in that suit, or its result?"

"Not in the remotest degree. She cannot even be aware of its existence. In addition to the deed, I have lost the policy of insurance on this house, which has always been entrusted to me and I must immediately notify the company of the fact and obtain a duplicate policy. Elise, will you and Hannah please give me my breakfast as soon as possible, that I may go into town at once?"

Walking to the window, he stood for some moments, with his hands folded behind him, and as he noted the splendour of the spectacle presented by the risen sun shining upon temples and palaces of ice, prism-tinting domes and minarets, and burnishing after the similitude of silver stalactites and arcades which had built themselves into crystal campaniles, more glorious than Giotto's,—the pastor said: "The physical world, just as God left it,—how pure, how lovely, how entirely good;—how sacred from His hallowing touch! Oh that the world of men and women were half as unchangingly true, stainless, and holy!"

An hour later he bent his steps,—not to the lawyer's, nor yet to the insurance office, but to the depot of the only railroad which passed through the quiet, old-fashioned, and comparatively unimportant town of V——.

The station agent was asleep upon a sofa in the reception-room, but when aroused informed Dr. Hargrove that the down train bound south had been accidentally detained four hours, and instead of being "on time," due at eleven p.m., did not pass through V—— until after three a.m. A lady, corresponding in all respects with the minister's description, had arrived about seven on the up train, left a small valise, or rather traveller's satchel, for safe keeping in the baggage-room; had inquired at what time she could catch the down train, signifying her intention to return upon it, and had hired one of the carriages always waiting for passengers, and disappeared. About eleven o'clock she came back, paid the coachman, and dismissed the carriage; seemed very cold, and the agent built a good fire, telling her she could take a nap as the train was behind time, and he would call her when he heard the whistle. He then went home, several squares distant, to see one of his children who was quite ill, and when he returned to the station and peeped into the reception-room to see if it kept warm and comfortable not a soul was visible. He wondered where the lady could have gone at that hour, and upon such a freezing night, but sat down by the grate in the freight-room, and when the down train blew for V—— he took his lantern and went out, and the first person he saw was the missing lady. She asked for her satchel, which he gave her, and he handed her up to the platform, and saw her go into the ladies' car.

"Had she a package or box, when she returned and asked for her satchel?"

"I did not see any, but she wore a waterproof of grey cloth that came down to her feet. There was so much confusion when the train came in that I scarcely noticed her, but remember she shivered a good deal, as if almost frozen."

"Did she buy a return ticket?"

"No, I asked if I should go to the ticket office for her, but she thanked me very politely, and said she would not require anything."

"Can you tell me to what place she was going?"

"I do not know where she came from, nor where she went. She was most uncommonly beautiful."

"Are the telegraph wires working south?"

"Why bless you, sir! they are down in several places, from the weight of the ice, so I heard the station operator say, just before you came in."

As Dr. Hargrove walked away, an expression of stern indignation replaced the benign look that usually reigned over his noble features, and he now resolutely closed all the avenues of compassion, along which divers fallacious excuses and charitable conjectures had marched into his heart, and stifled for a time the rigorous verdict of reason.

He had known from the moment he learned the tin box was missing, that only the frail, fair fingers of Minnie Merle could have abstracted it, but justice demanded that he should have indisputable proof of her presence in V—— after twelve o'clock, for he had not left the library until that hour, and knew that the train passed through at eleven.

Conviction is the pitiless work of unbiased reason, but faith is the acceptance thereof, by will, and he would not wholly believe, until there was no alternative. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, and quite naturally Dr. Hargrove began to discredit the entire narrative of wrongs, which had attained colossal proportions from her delineation, and to censure himself most harshly for having suffered this dazzling Delilah to extort from him a solemn promise of secrecy; for, unworthy of sympathy as he now deemed her, his rigid rectitude would not permit him to regard that unworthiness as sufficient justification for abrogating his plighted word. Suspicious facts which twelve hours before had been hushed by the soft spell of her rich plaintive voice, now started up clamorous and accusing, and the pastor could not avoid beholding the discrepancy between her pleas of poverty and friendlessness, and the costly appearance of her apparel,—coupled with her refusal to acquaint him with her means of maintenance.

If, as she had averred, the stolen license was—with the exception of his verbal testimony—the sole proof of her marriage, why was she not satisfied with the copy given to her unless for some unrighteous motive she desired to possess in order to destroy all evidence?

Surmise, with crooked and uncertain finger, had pointed to New York—whose broad deep bosom shelters so many helpless human waifs—as her probable place of destination, and had the telegraph-wires been in successful operation he would have hazarded the experiment of requesting her arrest at the terminus of the railway; but this was impracticable, and each succeeding hour aided in obliterating the only clue in his possession.

The universal observation of man, ages ago, simmered down and crystallized into the adage, "Misfortunes never come singly;" and it is here respectfully submitted—that startling episodes, unexpected incidents quite as rarely travel alone. Do surprises gravitate into groups, or are certain facts binary?

Sometimes for a quarter of a century the sluggish stream of life oozes by, bearing no hint of deeds, or faces,—that perchance shed glory, or perhaps lent gloom to the far past,—a past well-nigh forgotten and inurned in the gathering grey of time,—and suddenly without premonition, the slow monotonous current ripples and swells into waves that bear to our feet fateful countenances, unwelcome as grave-ghouls,—and the world grows garrulous of incidents that once more galvanize the shrouded Bygone. For four years the minister had received no tidings of those whom he had so reluctantly joined in the bonds of wedlock, and not even a reminiscence of that singular bridal party had floated into his quiet parsonage study; but within twenty-four hours he seemed destined to garner a plentiful harvest of disagreeable data for future speculation. He had not yet reached his lawyer's office, when, hearing his name pronounced vociferously, Dr. Hargrove looked around and saw the postmaster standing in his door and calling on him to enter.

"Pardon me, my dear sir, for shouting after you so unceremoniously; but I saw you were not coming in, and knew it would promote your interest to pay me a visit. Fine day at last, after all the rain and murky weather. This crisp, frosty air sharpens one's wits,—a sort of atmospheric pumice, don't you see, and tempts me to drive a good bargain. How much will you give for a letter that has travelled half around the world, and had as many adventures as Robinson Crusoe, or Madame Pfeiffer?"

He took from a drawer a dingy and much-defaced envelope, whose address was rather indistinct from having encountered a oath on its journey.

"Are you sure that it is for me?" asked the minister, trying to decipher the uncertain characters.

"Are there two of your name? This is intended for Reverend Peyton Hargrove of St. —— Church — V——, United States of America. It was enclosed to me by the Postmaster-General, who says that it arrived last week in the long-lost mail of the steamship Algol, which you doubtless recollect was lost some time ago,—plying between New York and Havre; It now appears that a Dutch sailing vessel bound for Tasmania—wherever that may be; somewhere among the cannibals, I presume—boarded her after she had been deserted by the crew, and secured the mail bags, intending to put in along the Spanish coast and land them, but stress of weather drove them so far out to sea, that they sailed on to some point in Africa, and as the postmasters in that progressive and enlightened region did not serve their apprenticeship in the United States Postal Bureau, you perceive that your document has not had 'despatch.' If salt water is ever a preservative, your news ought not to be stale."

"Thank you. I hope the contents will prove worthy of the care and labour of its transmission. I see it is dated Paris—one year ago, nearly. I am much obliged by your kind courtesy. Good-day."

Dr. Hargrove walked on, and, somewhat disappointed in not receiving a moiety of information by way of recompense, the postmaster added:

"If you find it is not your letter bring it back, and I will start it on another voyage of discovery, for it certainly deserves to get home."

"There is no doubt whatever about it. It was intended for me."

Unfolding the letter, he had glanced at the signature, and now hurrying homeward, read as follows:

"PARIS, February 1st,

"REV. PEYTON HARGROVE,—Hoping that, while entirely ignorant of the facts and circumstances, you unintentionally inflicted upon me an incalculable injury, I reluctantly address you with reference to a subject fraught with inexpressible pain and humiliation. Through your agency the happiness and welfare of my only child, and the proud and unblemished name of a noble family, have been wellnigh wrecked; but my profound reverence for your holy office, persuades me to believe that you were unconsciously the dupe of unprincipled and designing parties. When my son Cuthbert entered —— University, he was all that my fond heart desired, all that his sainted mother could have hoped, and no young gentleman on the wide Continent gave fairer promise of future usefulness and distinction; but one year of demoralizing association with dissipated and reckless youths undermined the fair moral and intellectual structure I had so laboriously raised, and in an unlucky hour he fell a victim to alluring vices. Intemperance gradually gained such supremacy that he was threatened with expulsion, and to crown all other errors he was, while intoxicated, inveigled into a so-called marriage with a young but notorious girl, whose only claim was her pretty face, while her situation was hopelessly degraded. This creature, Minnie Merle, had an infirm grandmother, who, in order to save the reputation of the unfortunate girl, appealed so adroitly to Cuthbert's high sense of honour, that her arguments, emphasized by the girl's beauty and helplessness, prevailed over reason, and—I may add—decency and one day when almost mad with brandy and morphine he consented to call her his wife. Neither was of age, and my son was not only a minor (lacking two months of being twenty), but on that occasion was utterly irrational and irresponsible, as I am prepared to prove. They intended to conceal the whole shameful affair from me, but the old grandmother—fearing that some untoward circumstance might mar the scheme of possessing the ample fortune she well knew my boy expected to control—wrote me all the disgraceful facts, imploring my clemency, and urging me to remove Cuthbert from associates outside of his classmates, who were dragging him to ruin. If you, my dear sir, are a father (and I hope you are), paternal sympathy will enable you to realize approximately the grief, indignation, almost despairing rage into which I was plunged. Having informed myself through a special agent sent to the University of the utter unworthiness and disreputable character of the connection forced upon me, I telegraphed for Cuthbert, alleging some extraneous cause for requiring his presence. Three days after his arrival at home, I extorted a full confession from him, and we were soon upon the Atlantic. For a time I feared that inebriation had seriously impaired his intellect, but, thank God! temperate habits and a good constitution finally prevailed, and when a year after we left America Cuthbert realized all that he had hazarded during his temporary insanity, he was so overwhelmed with mortification and horror that he threatened to destroy himself. Satisfied that he was more 'sinned against, than sinning,' I yet endeavoured to deal justly with the unprincipled authors of the stain upon my family, and employed a discreet agent to negotiate with them, and to try to effect some compromise. The old woman went out to California; the young one refused all overtures, and for a time disappeared, but, as I am reliably informed, is now living in New York, supported no one knows exactly by whom. Recently she has made an imperious demand for the recognition of a child, who she declares shall one day inherit the Laurance estate; but I have certain facts in my possession which invalidate this claim, and if necessary can produce a certificate to prove that the birth of the child occurred only seven months after the date of the ceremony, which she contends made her Cuthbert's wife. She rejects the abundant pecuniary provision which has been repeatedly offered, and in her last impertinent and insanely abusive communication, threatens a suit to force the acknowledgment of the marriage, and of the child, stating that you, sir, hold the certificate or rather the license warranting the marriage, and that you will espouse and aid in prosecuting her iniquitous claims. My son is now a reformed and comparatively happy man, but should this degrading and bitterly repented episode of his collage life be thrust before the public, and allowed to blacken the fair escutcheon we are so jealously anxious to protect, I dread the consequences. Only horror of a notorious scandal prevented me long ago from applying for a divorce, which could very easily have been obtained, but we shrink from the publicity, and moreover the case does not seem to demand compliance with even the ordinary forms of law. Believing that you, my dear sir, would not avow yourself particeps criminis in so unjust and vile a crusade against the peace and honour of my family were you acquainted with the facts, I have taken the liberty of writing you this brief and incomplete résumé of the outrages perpetrated upon me and mine, and must refer you for disgraceful details to my agent, Mr. Peleg Peterson of Whitefield, —— Co., ——. Hoping that you will not add to the injury you have already inflicted, by further complicity in this audacious scheme of fraud and blackmail,

"I am, dear sir, respectfully
An afflicted father,
RENÉ LAURANCE.

"P.S.—Should you desire to communicate with me, my address for
several months will be, Care of the American Legation, Paris."

How many men or women, with lives of average length and incident, have failed to recognize, nay to cower before the fact, that all along the highways and byways of the earthly pilgrimage they have been hounded by a dismal cortége of retarded messages,—lost opportunities,—miscarried warnings,—procrastinated prayers,—dilatory deeds,—and laggard faces,—that howl for ever in their shuddering ears—"Too late." Had Dr. Hargrove received this letter only twenty-four hours earlier, the result of the interview on the previous night would probably have been very different; but unfortunately, while the army of belated facts—the fatal Grouchy corps—never accomplish their intended mission, they avenge they failure by a pertinacious presence ever after that is sometimes almost maddening.

An uncomfortable consciousness of having been completely overreached did not soften the minister's feelings toward the new custodian of his tin box, and an utter revulsion of sentiment ensued, wherein sympathy for General René Laurance reigned supreme. Oh instability of human compassion! To-day at the tumultuous flood, we weep for Cæsar slain; To-morrow in the ebb, we vote a monument to Brutus.

Ere the sun had gone down behind the sombre frozen firs that fringed the hills of V—— Dr. Hargrove had written to Mr. Peleg Peterson, desiring to be furnished with some clue by which he could trace Minnie Merle, and Hannah had been despatched to the post office, to expedite the departure of the letter.

Weeks and months passed, tearful April wept itself away in the flowery lap of blue-eyed May, and golden June roses died in the fiery embrace of July, but no answer came; no additional information drifted upon the waves of chance, and the slow stream of life at the parsonage once more crept silently and monotonously on.

"Some griefs gnaw deep. Some woes are hard to bear.
Who knows the Past? and who can judge us right?"

CHAPTER III.

The sweet-tongued convent bell had rung the Angelas, and all within the cloistered courts was hushed, save the low monologue of the fountain whose minor murmuring made solemn accord with the sacred harmonious repose of its surroundings. The sun shone hot and blinding upon the towering mass of brick and slate, which, originally designed in the form of a parallelogram, had from numerous modern additions projected here, and curved into a new chapel yonder, until the acquisitive building had become eminently composite in its present style of architecture. The belfry, once in the centre, had been left behind in the onward march of the walls, but it lifted unconquerably in mid-air its tall gilt cross, untarnished by time, though ambitious ivy had steadily mounted the buttresses, and partially draped the Gothic arches, where blue sky once shone freely through.

The court upon which the ancient monastery opened was laid out in the stiff geometric style, which universally prevailed when its trim hedges of box were first planted, and giant rosebushes, stately lilacs, and snowballs attested the careful training and attention which many years had bestowed. In the centre of this court, and surrounded by a wide border of luxuriant lilies, was a triangular pedestal of granite, now green with moss, and spotted with silver grey lichen groups, upon which stood a statue of St. Francis, bearing the stigmata, and wearing the hood drawn over his head, while the tunic was opened to display the wound in his side, and the skull and the crucifix lay at his feet. Close to the base of the pedestal crouched a marble lamb, around whose neck crept a slender chain of bind-weed, and above whom the rank green lances of leaves shot up to guard the numerous silver-dusted lilies that swung like snowy bells in the soft breeze, dispensing perfume instead of chimes.

Quite distinct from the spacious new chapel—with its gilded shrine, picture-tapestried walls, and gorgeous stained windows, where the outside-world believers were allowed to worship—stood a low cruciform oratory, situated within the stricter confines of the monastery, and sacred to the exclusive use of the nuns. This chapel was immediately opposite the St. Francis, and to-day, as the old-fashioned doors of elaborately carved oak were thrown wide, the lovely mass of nodding lillies seemed bowing in adoration before the image of the Virgin and Child, who crowned the altar within, while the dazzling sheen of noon flashing athwart the tessellated floor kindles an almost unearthly halo around

"Virgin and Babe, and Saint, who
With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard,"

had watched for many weary years the kneeling devotees beneath their marble feet.

On the steps of the altar were a number of china pots containing rose and apple geraniums in full bloom, and one luxuriant Grand Duke jasmine, all starred with creamy flowers, so flooded the place with fragrance that it seemed as if the vast laboratory of floral aromas had been suddenly unsealed.

Upon the stone pavement, immediately in front of the altar, sat a little figure so motionless, that a casual glance would probably have included it among the consecrated and permanent images of the silent sanctuary;—the figure of a child, whose age could not have been accurately computed from the inspection of the countenance, which indexed a degree of grave mature wisdom wholly incompatible with the height of the body and the size of the limbs.

If devotional promptings had brought her to the Nuns' Chapel, her orisons had been concluded, for she had turned her back upon the altar, and sat gazing sorrowfully down at her lap, where lay in pathetic pose a white rabbit and a snowy pigeon,—both dead, quite stark and cold,—laid out in state upon the spotless linen apron, around which a fluted ruffle ran crisp and smooth. One tiny waxen hand held a broken lily, and the other was vainly pressed upon the lids of the rabbit's eyes, trying to close lovingly the pink orbs that now stared so distressingly through glazing film. The first passionate burst of grief had spent its force in the tears that left the velvety cheeks and chin as dewy as rain-washed rose leaves, while not a trace of moisture dimmed the large eyes that wore a proud, defiant, and much injured look, as though resentment were strangling sorrow.

Unto whom or what shall I liken this fair, tender, childish face, which had in the narrow space of ten years gathered such perfection of outline, such unearthly purity of colour, such winsome grace, such complex expressions? Probably amid the fig and olive groves of Tuscany, Fra Bartolomeo found just such an incarnation of the angelic ideal, which he afterward placed for the admiration of succeeding generations in the winged heads that glorify the Madonna della Misericordia. The stipple of time dots so lightly, so slowly, that at the age of ten a human countenance should present a mere fleshy tabula rasa, but now and then we are startled by meeting a child as unlike the round, rosy, pulpy, dimpling, unwritten faces of ordinary life, as the churubs of Raphael to the rigid forms of Byzantine mosaics, or the stone portraiture of Copan.

As she sat there, in the golden radiance of the summer noon, she presented an almost faultless specimen of a type of beauty that is rarely found nowaday, that has always been peculiar, and bids fair to become extinct. A complexion of dazzling whiteness and transparency, rendered more intensely pure by contrast with luxuriant silky hair of the deepest black,—and large superbly shaped eyes of clear, dark steel blue, almost violet in hue,—with delicately arched brows and very long lashes of that purplish black tint which only the trite and oft-borrowed plumes of ravens adequately illustrate. The forehead was not remarkable for height, but was peculiarly broad and full with unusual width between the eyes, and if Strato were correct in his speculations with reference to Psyche's throne, then verily my little girl did not cramp her soul in its fleshy palace. Daintily moulded in figure and face, every feature instinct with a certain delicate patricianism, that testified to genuine "blue blood," there was withal a melting tenderness about the parted lips that softened the regal contour of one who, amid the universal catalogue of feminine names, could never have been appropriately called other than Regina.

Over in the new chapel across the court, where the sacristan had opened two of the crimson and green windows that now lighted the gilt altar as with sacrificial fire, and now drenched it with cool beryl tints that extinguished the flames, a low murmur became audible, swelling and rising upon the air, until the thunder-throated organ filled all the cloistered recesses with responsive echoes of Rossini. Some masterly hand played the "Recitative" of Eia Mater, bringing out the bass with powerful emphasis, and concluding with the full strains of the chorus; then the organ-tones sank into solemn minor chords indescribably plaintive, and after a while a quartette of choir voices sang the

"Sancta Mater! istud agas,
Crucifixi fige plagas,"

ending with the most impassioned strain of the Stabat Mater,—

"Virgo virginum prædara,
Mihi jam non sis amara,
Fac me tecum plangere."

Two nuns came out of an arched doorway leading to the reception-room of the modern building, and looked up and down the garden walks, talking the while in eager undertones; then paused near the lily bank, and one called:

"Regina! Regina!"

"She must be somewhere in the Academy playground, I will hunt for her there; or perhaps you might find her over in the church, listening to the choir practising, you know she is strangely fond of that organ."

The speaker turned away and disappeared in the cool dim arch, and the remaining nun moved across the paved walk with the quick, noiseless, religious tread peculiar to those sacred conventual retreats where the clatter of heels is an abomination unknown.

Pausing in front of the chapel door to bend low before the marble Mother on the shrine, she beheld the object of her search and glided down the aisle as stealthily as a moonbeam.

"Regina, didn't you hear Sister Gonzaga calling you just now?"

"Yes, Sister."

"Did you answer her?"

"No, Sister."

"Are you naughty to-day, and in penance?"

"I suppose I am always naughty, Sister Perpetua says so; but I am not in penance."

"Who gave you permission to come into our chapel? You know it is contrary to the rules. Did you ask Mother?"

"I knew she would say no, so I did not ask, because I was determined to come."

"Why? what is the matter? you have been crying."

"Oh, Sister Angela! don't you see?"

She lifted the corners of her apron where the dead pets lay, and her chin trembled.

"Another rabbit gone! How many have you left?"

"None. And this is my last white dove; the other two have coloured rings around their necks."

"I am very sorry for you, dear, you seem so fond of them. But, my child, why did you come here?"

"My Bunnie was not dead when I started, and I thought if I could only get to St. Francis and show it to him he would cure it, and send life back to my pigeon too. You know, Sister, that Father told us last week at instruction we must find out all about St. Francis, and next day Armantine was Refectory Reader, and she read us about St. Francis preaching to the birds at Bevagno, and how they opened their beaks and listened, and even let him touch them, and never stirred till he blessed them and made the sign of the Cross, and then they all flew away. She read all about the doves at the convent of Ravacciano, and the nest of larks, and the bad, greedy little lark that St. Francis ordered to die, and said nothing should eat it, and sure enough, even the hungry cats ran away from it. Don't you remember that when St. Francis went walking about the fields, the rabbits jumped into his bosom, because he loved them so very much? You see, I thought it was really all true, and that St. Francis could save mine too, and I carried 'Bunnie' and 'Snowball' to him—out yonder, and laid them on his feet, and prayed and prayed ever so long, and while I was praying my 'Bunnie' died right there. Then I knew he could do no good, and I thought I would try our Blessed Lady over here, because the Nuns' Chapel seems holier than ours,—but it is no use. I will never pray to her again, nor to St. Francis either."

"Hush! you wicked child!"

Regina rose slowly from the pavement, gathered up her apron very tenderly, and, looking steadily into the sweet serene face of the nun, said with much emphasis:

"What have I done? Sister Angela, I am not wicked."

"Yes, dear, you are. We are all born full of sin, and desperately wicked; but if you will only pray and try to be good, I have no doubt St. Francis will send you some rabbits and doves so lovely, that they will comfort you for those you have lost."

"I know just as well as you do that he has no idea of doing anything of the kind, and you need not tell me pretty tales that you don't believe yourself. Sister, it is all humbug; 'Bunnie' is dead, and I sha'n't waste another prayer on St. Francis! If ever I get another rabbit, it will be when I buy one, as I mean to do just as soon as I move to some nice place where owls and hawks never come."

Here the clang of a bell startled Sister Angela, who seized the child's hand.

"Five strokes!—that is my bell. Come, Regina, we have been hunting you for some time, and Mother will be out of patience."

"Won't you please let me bury Bunnie and Snowball before I go upstairs to penance? I can dig a grave in the corner of my little garden and plant verbena and cypress vine over it."

She shivered as if the thought had chilled her heart, and her voice trembled, while she pressed the stiffened forms to her, breast.

"Come along as fast as you can, dear, you are wanted in the parlour.
I believe you are going away."

"Oh! has my mother come?"

"I don't know, but I am afraid you will leave us."

"Will you be sorry, Sister Angela?"

"Very sorry, dear child, for we love our little girl too well to give her up willingly."

Regina paused and pressed her lips to the cold white fingers that clasped hers, but Sister Angela hurried her on till she reached a door opening into the Mother's reception-room. Catching the child to her heart, she kissed her twice, lifted the dead darlings from her apron, and, pushing her gently into the small parlour, closed the door.

It was a cool, lofty, dimly lighted room, where the glare of sunshine never entered, and several seconds elapsed before Regina could distinguish any object. At one end a wooden lattice work enclosed a space about ten feet square, and here Mother Aloysius held audience with visitors whom friendship or business brought to the convent. Regina's eager survey showed her only a gentleman, sitting close to the grating, and an expression of keen disappointment swept over her countenance, which had been a moment before eloquent with expectation of meeting her mother.

"Come here, Regina, and speak to Mr. Palma," said the soft, velvet voice behind the lattice.

The visitor turned around, rose, and watched the slowly advancing figure.

She was dressed in blue muslin, the front of which was concealed by her white bib-apron, and her abundant glossy hair was brushed straight back from her brow, confined at the top of her head by a blue ribbon, and thence fell in shining waves below her waist. One hand hung listlessly at her side, the other clasped the drooping lily and held it against her heart.

The slightly curious expression of the stranger gave place to astonishment and involuntary admiration as he critically inspected the face and form; and, fixing her clear, earnest eyes on him, Regina saw a tall, commanding man of certainly not less than thirty years, with a noble massive head, calm pale features almost stern when in repose, and remarkably brilliant piercing black eyes, that were doubtless somewhat magnified by the delicate steel-rimmed spectacles he habitually wore. His closely cut hair clustered in short thick waves about his prominent forehead, which in pallid smoothness resembled a slab of marble, and where a slight depression usually marks the temples his swelled boldly out, rounding the entire outline of the splendidly developed brow. He wore neither moustache nor beard, and every line of his handsome mouth and finely modelled chin indicated the unbending tenacity of purpose and imperial pride which had made him a ruler even in his cradle, and almost a dictator in later years.

In a certain diminished degree children share the instinct whereby brutes discern almost infallibly the nature of those who in full fruition of expanded reason tower above and control them; and, awed by something which she read in this dominative new face, Regina stood irresolute in front of him, unwilling to accept the shapely white hand held out to her.

He advanced a step, and took her fingers into his soft warm palm.

"I hope, Miss Regina, that you are glad to see me."

Her eyes fell from his countenance to the broad seal ring on his little finger, then, gazing steadily up into his, she said:

"I think I never saw you before, and why should I be glad? Why did you come and ask for me?"

"Because your mother sent me to look after you."

"Then I suppose, sir, you are very good; but I would rather see my mother. Is she well?"

"Almost well now, though she has been quite ill. If you promise to be very good and obedient, I may find a letter for you, somewhere in my pockets. I have just been telling Mother Aloysius, to whom I brought a letter, that I have come to remove you from her kind sheltering care, as your mother wishes you for a while at least to be placed in a different position, and I have promised to carry out her instructions. Here is her letter. Shall I read it to you, or are you sufficiently advanced to be able to spell it out without my assistance?"

He held up the letter, and she looked at him proudly, with a faint curl in her dainty lip, and a sudden lifting of her lovely arched eyebrows, which, without the aid of verbal protest, he fully comprehended. A smile hovered about his mouth, and disclosed a set of glittering perfect teeth, but he silently resumed his seat. As Regina broke the seal, Mother said:

"Wait, dear, and read it later. Mr. Palmer has already been detained some time, and says he is anxious to catch the train. Run up to the wardrobe, and Sister Helena will change your dress. She is packing your clothes."

When the door closed behind her a heavy sigh floated through the grating, and the sweet seraphic face of the nun clouded.

"I wish we could keep her always; it is a sadly solemn thing to cast such a child as she is into the world's whirlpool of sin and sorrow. To-day she is as spotless in soul as one of our consecrated annunciation lilies; but the dust of vanity and selfishness will tarnish, and the shock of adversity will bruise, and the heat of the battle of life that rages so fiercely in the glare of the outside world will wither and deface the sweet blossom we have nurtured so carefully."

"In view of the peculiar circumstances that surround her, her removal impresses me as singularly injudicious, and I have advised against it, but her mother is inflexible."

"We have never been able to unravel the mystery that seems to hang about the child, although the Bishop assured us we were quite right in consenting to assume the charge of her."

From beneath her heavy black hood, Mother's meek shy eyes searched the non-committal countenance before her, and found it about as satisfactorily responsive as some stone sphinx half-sepulchred in Egyptic sand.

"May I ask, sir, if you are at all related to Regina?"

"Not even remotely; am merely her mother's legal counsellor, and the agent appointed by her to transfer the child to different guardianship. I repeat, I deem the change inexpedient, but discretionary powers have not been conferred on me. She seems rather a mature bit of royalty for ten years of age. Is the intellectual machinery at all in consonance with the refined perfection of the external physique?"

"She has a fine active brain, clear and quick, and is very well advanced in her studies, for she is fond of her books. Better than all, her heart is noble, and generous, and she is a conscientious little thing, never told a story in her life; but at times we have had great difficulty in controlling her will, which certainly is the most obstinate I have ever encountered."

"She evidently does not suggest wax, save in the texture of her fine skin, and one rarely finds in a child's face so much of steel as is ambushed in the creases of the rose leaves that serve her as lips. If her will matches her mother's, this little one certainly was not afflicted with a misnomer at her baptism." He rose, looked at his watch, and walked across the room as if to inspect a Pieta that hung upon the wall. Unwilling to conclude an interview which had yielded her no information, Mother Aloysius patiently awaited the result of the examination, but he finally went to the window, and a certain unmistakable expression of countenance which can be compared only to a locking of mouth and eyes, warned her that he was alert and inflexible. With a smothered sigh she left her seat.

"As you seem impatient, Mr. Palma, I will endeavour to hasten the preparations for your departure."

"If you please, Mother; I shall feel indebted to your kind consideration."

Nearly an hour elapsed ere she returned leading Regina, and as the latter stood between Mother and Sister Angela, with a cluster of fresh fragrant lilies in her hand, and her tender face blanched and tearful, it seemed to the lawyer as if indeed the pet ewe lamb were being led away from peaceful flowery pastures, from the sweet sanctity of the cloistral fold, out through thorny devious paths where Temptations prowl wolf-fanged, or into fierce conflicts that end in the social shambles, those bloodless abattoirs where malice mangles humanity. How many verdure-veiled, rose-garlanded pitfalls yawned in that treacherous future now stretching before her like summer air, here all gold and blue, yonder with purple glory crowning the dim far away? Intuitively she recognized the fact that she was confronting the first cross roads in her hitherto monotonous life, and a vague dread flitted like ill-omened birds before her, darkening her vision.

In the gladiatorial arena of the court-room, Mr. Palma was regarded as a large-brained, nimble-witted, marble-hearted man, of vast ambition and tireless energy in the acquisition of his aims; but his colleagues and clients would as soon have sought chivalric tenderness in a bronze statue, or a polished obelisk of porphyry. To-day as he curiously watched the quivering yet proud little girlish face, her brave struggles to meet the emergency touched some chord far down in his reticent stern nature, and he suddenly stooped, and took her hand, folding it up securely in his.

"Are you not quite willing to trust yourself with me?"

She hesitated a moment, then said with a slight wavering in her low tone:

"I have been very happy here, and I love the Sisters dearly; but you are my mother's friend, and whatever she wishes me to do of course must be right."

Oh beautiful instinctive faith in maternal love and maternal wisdom!
Wot ye the moulding power ye wield, ye mothers of America?

Pressing her fingers gently as if to reassure her, he said:

"I dislike to hurry you away from these kind Sisters, but if your baggage is ready we have no time to spare."

The nuns wept silently as she embraced them for the last time, kissed them on both cheeks, then turned and suffered Mr. Palma to lead her to the carriage, whither her trunk had already been sent.

Leaning out, she watched the receding outlines of the convent until a bend of the road concealed even the belfry, and then she stooped and kissed the drooping lilies in her lap.

Her companion expected a burst of tears, but she sat erect and quiet, and not a word was uttered until they reached the railway station and entered the cars. Securing a double seat he placed her at the window, and sat down opposite. It was her introduction to railway travel, and when the train moved off, and the locomotive sounded its prolonged shriek of departure, Regina started up, but, as if ashamed of her timidity, coloured and bit her lip. Observing that she appeared interested in watching the country through which they sped, Mr. Palma drew a book from his valise, and soon became so absorbed in the contents that he forgot tie silent figure on the seat before him.

The afternoon wore away, the sun went down, and when the lamps were lighted the lawyer suddenly remembered his charge.

"Well, Regina, how do you like travelling on the cars?"

"Not at all; it makes my head ache."

"Take off your hat, and I will try to make you more comfortable."

He untied a shawl secured to the outside of his valise, placed it on the arm of the seat, and made her lay her head upon it.

Keeping his finger as a mark amid the leaves of his book, he said:

"We shall not reach our journey's end until to-morrow morning, and I advise you to sleep as much as possible. Whenever you feel hungry you will find some sandwiches, cake, and fruit in the basket at your feet."

She looked at him intently, and interpreting the expression he added:

"You wish to ask me something? Am I so very frightful that you dare not question me?"

"Will you tell me the truth, if I ask you?"

"Most assuredly."

"Mr. Palma, when shall I see my mother?"

His eyes went down helplessly before the girl's steady gaze, and he hesitated a moment.

"Really, I cannot tell exactly,—but I hope——"

She put up her small hand quickly, with a gesture that silenced him.

"Don't say any more, please. I never want to know half of anything, and you can't tell me all. Good-night, Mr. Palma."

She shut her eyes.

This man of bronze who could terrify witnesses, torture and overwhelm the opposition, and thunder so successfully from the legal rostrum, sat there abashed by the child's tone and manner, and as he watched her he could not avoid smiling at her imperious mandate. Although silent, it was one o'clock before she fell into a deep, sound slumber, and then the lawyer leaned forward and studied the dreamer.

The light from the lamp shone upon her, and the long silky black lashes lay heavily on her white cheeks. Now and then a sigh passed her lips, and once a dry sob shook her frame, as if she were again passing through the painful ordeal of parting; but gradually the traces of emotion disappeared, and that marvellous peace which we find only in children's countenances, or on the faces of the dead,—and which is nowhere more perfect than in old Greek statuary,—settled like a benediction over her features. Her frail hands clasped over her breast still held the faded lilies, and to Erle Palma she seemed too tender and fair for rude contact with the selfish world, in which he was so indefatigably carving out fame and fortune. He wondered how long a time would be requisite to transform this pure, spotless, ingenuous young thing into one of the fine fashionable miniature women with frizzed hair and huge paniers, whom he often met in the city, with school-books in their hands, and bold, full-blown coquetry in their eyes?

Certainly he was as devoid of all romantic weakness as the propositions of Euclid, or the pages of Blackstone, but something in the beauty and helpless innocence of the sleeper appealed with unwonted power to his dormant sympathy, and, suspecting that lurking spectres crouched in her future, he mutely entered into a compact with his own soul, not to lose sight of, but to befriend her faithfully, whenever circumstances demanded succour.

"Upon my word, she looks like a piece of Greek sculpture, and be her father whom he may, there is no better blood than beats there at her little dimpled wrists. The pencilling of the eyebrows is simply perfect."

He spoke inaudibly, and just then she stirred and turned. As she moved, something white fluttered from one of the ruffled pockets of her apron, and fell to the floor. He picked it up and saw it was the letter he had given her some hours before. The sheet was folded loosely, and glancing at it, as it opened in his hand, he saw in delicate characters: "Oh, my baby,—my darling! Be patient and trust your mother." An irresistible impulse made him look up, and the beautiful solemn eyes of the girl were fixed upon him, but instantly her black lashes covered them.

For the first time in years he felt the flush of shame mount into his cold haughty face, yet even then he noted the refined delicacy which made her feign sleep.

"Regina."

She made no movement.

"Child, I know you are awake. Do you suppose I would stoop to read your letter clandestinely? It dropped from your pocket, and I have seen only one line."

She put out her slender hand, took the letter, and answered:

"My mother writes me that you are her best friend, and I intend to believe that all you say is true."

"Do you think I read your letter?"

"I shall think no more about it."

"I will paint her as I see her,
Ten times have the lilies blown
Since she looked upon the sun,
Face and figure of a child,—
Though top calm, you think, and tender,
For the childhood you would lend her."

CHAPTER IV.

"Indeed, Peyton, you distress me. What can be the matter? I heard you walking the floor of your room long after midnight, and feared you were ill."

"Not ill, Elise, but sorely perplexed. If I felt at liberty to communicate all the circumstances to you, doubtless you would readily comprehend and sympathize with the peculiar difficulties that surround me; but unfortunately I am bound by a promise which prevents me from placing all the facts in your possession. Occasionally ministers involuntarily become the custodians of family secrets that oppress their hearts and burden them with unwelcome responsibility, and just now I am suffering from the consequences of a rash promise which compassion extorted from me years ago. While I heartily regret it, my conscience will not permit me to fail in its fulfilment."

An expression of pain and wounded pride overshadowed Mrs. Lindsay's usually bright, happy face.

"Peyton, surely you do not share the unjust opinion so fashionable nowaday, that women are unworthy of being entrusted with a secret? What has so suddenly imbued you with distrust of the sister who has always shared your cares, and endeavoured to divide your sorrows? Do you believe me capable of betraying your confidence?

"No, dear. In all that concerns myself, you must know I trust you implicitly,—trust not only your affection, but your womanly discretion, your subtle, critical judgment; but I have no right to commit even to your careful guardianship some facts which were expressly confided solely to my own."

He laid his hand on his sister's shoulder, and looked fondly, almost pleadingly, into her clouded countenance, but the flush deepened on her fair cheek.

"The conditions of secrecy, the envelope of mystery, strongly implies something socially disgraceful, or radically wicked, and ministers of the Gospel should not constitute themselves the locked reservoirs of such turbid streams."

"Granting that you actually believe in your own supposition, why are you so anxious to pollute your ears with the recital of circumstances that you assume to be degrading, or sinful?"

"I only fear your misplaced sympathy may induce you to compromise your ministerial dignity and consistency, for it is quite evident to me that your judgment does not now acquit you in this matter—whatever it may be."

"God forbid that, in obeying the dictates of my conscience, I should transgress even conventional propriety, or incur the charge of indiscretion. None can realize more keenly than I that a minister's character is of the same delicate magnolia-leaf texture as a woman's name,—a thing so easily stained that it must be ever elevated beyond the cleaving dust of suspicion, and the scorching breath of gossiping conjecture. The time has passed (did it ever really exist?) when the prestige of pastoral office hedged it around with impervious infallibility, and to-day, instead of partial and extenuating leniency, pure and uncontaminated society justly denies all ministerial immunities as regards the rigid mandates of social decorum and propriety,—and the world demands that, instead of drawing heavily upon an indefinite fund of charitable confidence and trust in the clergy, pulpit-people should so live and move that the microscope of public scrutiny can reveal no flaws. Do you imagine I share the dangerous heresy that the sanctity of the office entitles the incumbent to make a football of the restrictions of prudence and discretion? Elise, I hold that pastors should be as circumspect, as guarded as Roman vestals; and untainted society, guided by even the average standard of propriety, tolerates no latitudinarians among its Levites. I grieve that it is necessary for me to add, that I honour and bow in obedience to its exactions."

The chilling severity of his tone smote like a flail the loving heart, which had rebelled only against the apparent lack of faith in its owner, and springing forward Mrs. Lindsay threw her arms around her brother's neck.

"Oh, Peyton! don't look at me so sternly, as if I were a sort of domestic Caiaphas set to catechise and condemn you; or as if I were unjustly impugning your motives. It is all your fault,—of course it is,—for you have spoiled me by unreserved confidence heretofore, and you ought not to blame me in the least for feeling hurt when at this late day you indulge in mysteries. Now kiss me, and forget my ugly temper, and set it all down to that Pandora legacy of sleepless curiosity, which dear mother Eve received in her impudent tête-à-tête with the serpent, and which she spitefully saw fit to bequeath to every daughter who has succeeded her. So—we are at peace once more? Now keep your horrid secrets to yourself, and welcome!"

"You persist in believing that they must inevitably be horrid?" said he, softly stroking her rosy cheek with his open palm.

"I persist in begging that you will not expect me to adopt the acrobatic style, or require me to instantly attain sanctification per saltum! You must be satisfied with the assurance that you are indeed my 'Royal Highness,' and that in my creed it is written the king can do no wrong. There, dear, I am not at all addicted to humble pie, and I have already disposed of a large and unpalatable slice."

She made a grimace, whereat he smiled, kissed her again, and answered very gently:

"Will you permit me to put an appendix to your creed? 'Charity suffereth long, and is kind; is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.' My sister, I want you to help me. In some things I find myself as powerless without your co-operation as a pair of scissors with the rivet lost; I cannot cut through obstacles unless you are in your proper place."

"For shame, you spiteful Pequod! to rivet your treacherous appeal with so sharply pointed an illustration! Scissors, indeed! I will be revenged by cutting all your work after a biased fashion. How would it suit you, reverend sir, to take the rivet out of my tongue, and repair your clerical scissors?"

"How narrowly you escaped being a genius! That is precisely what I was about proposing to do, and now, dear, be sure you bid adieu to all bias. Elise, I received a letter two days since, which annoyed me beyond expression."

"I inferred as much, from the vindictive energy with which you thrust it into the fire, and bored it with the end of the poker. Was it infected with small-pox or leprosy?"

She opened her work basket, and began to crochet vigorously, keeping her eyes upon her needle.

"Neither. I destroyed it simply and solely because it was the earnest request of the writer, that I should commit it to the flames."

"Par parenthèse! from the beginning of time have not discord, mischief, trouble—been personified by females? Has there been a serious imbroglio since the days of Troy without some vexatious Helen? Now don't scold me, if in this case I conjecture,—He? She? It?"

"The letter was from a mother, pleading for her child, whom I several years ago promised to protect and to befriend. Subsequent events induced me to hope that she would never exact a fulfilment of the pledge, and I was unpleasantly surprised when the appeal reached me."

"Let me understand fully the little that you wish to tell me. Do you mean that you were unprepared for the demand, because the mother had forfeited the conditions under which you gave the promise?"

"You unduly intensify the interpretation. My promise was unconditional, but I certainly have never expected to be called upon to verify it."

"What does it involve?"

"The temporary guardianship of a child ten years old, whom I have never seen."

"He? She? It?"

"A girl, who will in all probability arrive before noon to-day."

"Peyton!"

The rose-coloured crochet web fell into her lap, and deep dissatisfaction spread its sombre leaden banners over her telltale face.

"I regret it more keenly than you possibly can; and, Elise, if I could have seen the mother before it was too late, I should have declined this painful responsibility."

"Too late? Is the woman dead?"

"No, but she has sailed for Europe, and notifies me that she leaves the little girl under my protection."

"What a heartless creature she must be to abandon her child."

"On the contrary, she seems devotedly attached to her, and uses these words: 'If it were not to promote her interest, do you suppose I could consent to put the Atlantic between my baby and me?' The circumstances are so unusual that I daresay you fail to understand my exact position."

"I neither desire nor intend to force your confidence; but if you can willingly answer, tell me whether the mother is in every respect worthy of your sympathy."

"I frankly admit that upon some points I have been dissatisfied, and her letter sorely perplexes me."

"What claim had she on you, when the promise was extorted?"

"She had none, save such as human misery always has on human sympathy. I performed the marriage ceremony for her when she was a mere child, and felt profound compassion for the wretchedness that soon overtook her as a wife and mother."

"Then, my dear brother, there is no alternative, and you must do your duty; and I shall not fail to help you to the fullest extent of my feeble ability. Since it cannot be averted, let us try to put our hearts as well as hands into the work of receiving the waif. Where has the child been living?"

"For nearly seven years in a convent."

"Tant mieux! We may at least safely infer she has been shielded from vicious and objectionable companionship. How is her education to be conducted in future?"

"Her mother has arranged for the semi-annual payment of a sum quite sufficient to defray all necessary expenses, including tuition at school; but she urges me, if compatible with my clerical duties, to retain the school fees, and teach the child at home, as she dreads outside contaminating associations, and wishes the little one reared with rigid ideas of rectitude and propriety. Will you receive her among your music pupils?"

"Have I a heart of steel, and a soul of flint? And since when did you successfully trace my pedigree to its amiable source in—

'Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire'?

"What is her name?"

Mr. Hargrove hesitated a moment, and, detecting the faint colour that tinged his olive cheek, his sister smilingly relieved him.

"Never mind, dear. What immense latitude we are allowed! If she prove a meek, sweet cherub, a very saint in bib-aprons,—with velvety eyes brown as a hazel nut, and silky chestnut ringlets,—I shall gather her into my heart and coo over her as—Columba, or Umilta, or Umbeline, or Una; but should we find her spoiled, and thoroughly leavened with iniquity,—a blonde, yellow-haired tornado,—then a proper regard for the 'unities will suggest that I vigorously enter a Christian protest, and lecture her grimly as Jezebel, Tomyris,—Fulvia or Clytemnestra.'"

"She shall be called Regina Orme, and if it will not too heavily tax your kindness, I should like to give her the small room next your own, and ask Douglass to move across the hall and take the front chamber opening on the verandah. The little girl may be timid, and it would comfort her to feel that you are within call should she be sick or become frightened. I am sure Douglass will not object to the change."

"Certainly not. Blessings on his royal heart! He would not be my own noble boy if he failed to obey any wish of yours."

I will at once superintend the transfer of his books and clothes, for if the child comes to-day you have left me little time for preparation.

She put away the crochet basket and, looking affectionately at the grave face that watched her movements, said soberly:

"Do not look so lugubrious; remember Abraham's example of hospitality, and let us do all we can for this motherless lamb, or kid,—whichever she may prove. One thing more, and here-after I shall hold my peace. You need not live in chronic dread, lest the Guy Fawkes of female curiosity pry into, and explode your mystery; for I assure you, Peyton, I shall never directly or indirectly question the child, and until you voluntarily broach the subject I shall never mention it to you. Are you satisfied?"

"Fully satisfied with my sister, and inexpressibly grateful for her unquestioning faith in me."

She swept him an exaggerated courtesy, and, despite the grey threads that began to glint in her auburn hair, ran up the stairway as lightly as a girl of fifteen.

For some time he stood with his hands behind him, gazing abstractedly through the open window, and now and then he heard the busy patter of hurrying feet in the room over head, while snatches of Easter anthems, and the swelling "Amen" of a "Gloria" rolled down the steps, assuring him that all doubt and suspicion had been ejected from the faithful, fond, sisterly heart.

Taking his broad-brimmed gardening hat from the table, the pastor went down among his flower-beds, followed by Biörn, to whose innate asperity of temper was added the snarling fretfulness of old age.

A fine young brood of white Brahma chickens, having surreptitiously effected an entrance into the sacred precincts of the flower-garden, were now diligently prosecuting their experiments in entomotomy right in the heart of a border of choice carnations. When Biörn had chased the marauders to the confines of the poultry yard, and watched the last awkward fledgling scramble through the palings, his master began to repair the damage, and soon became absorbed in the favourite task of tying up the spicy tufts of bloom that deluged the air with perfume as he lifted and bent the slender stems. His straw hat shut out the sight of surrounding objects, and he only turned his head when Mrs. Lindsay put her hand on his shoulder, and exclaimed:

"Peyton, 'the Philistines be upon thee'!"

"Do you mean that she has come?"

"I think so; there is a carriage at the gate, and I noticed a trunk beside the driver."

He rose hastily, and stood irresolute, visibly embarrassed.

"Why, Peyton! Recollect your text last Sunday: 'No man having put his hand to the plough,' etc., etc., etc. It certainly is rather hard to be pelted with, one's own sermons, but it would never do to turn your back upon this benevolent furrow. Come, pluck up courage, and front the inevitable."

"Elise, how can you jest? I am sorely burdened with gloomy forebodings of coming ill. You cannot imagine how I shrink from this responsibility."

"It is rather too late, dear, to climb upon the stool of repentance. Take this beast of Bashan by the horns, and have done with it. There is the bell! Shall I accompany you?"

"Oh, certainly."

Hannah met them, and held up a card.

ERLE PALMA,
New York City.

As the minister entered his parlour, Mr. Palma advanced to meet him, holding out his hand.

"I hope Dr. Hargrove has been prepared for my visit, and understands its object?"

"I am glad to know you, sir, and had reason to expect you. Allow me to present Mr. Palma to my sister, Mrs. Lindsay. I am exceedingly——"

The sentence was never completed, and he stood with his eyes fastened on the child who leaned against the window watching him with an eager breathless interest as some caged creature eyes a new keeper, wondering, mutely questioning, whether cruelty or kindness will predominate in the strange custodian.

For a moment, oblivious of all else, each gazed into the eyes of the other, and a subtle magnetic current flashed from soul to soul, revealing certain arcana, which years of ordinary acquaintance sometimes fail to unveil. From the pastor's countenance melted every trace of doubt and apprehension; from that of the girl all shadow of distrust.

Studying the tableau, Mr. Palma saw the clergyman smile, and as if involuntarily open his arms; and he was astonished when the shy, reticent child who had repulsed all his efforts to become acquainted, suddenly glided forward and into the outstretched arms of her new guardian. Weary from the long journey and rigid restraint imposed upon her feelings, the closely pent emotion broke all barriers, and, clinging to the minister Regina found relief in a flood of tears. Mr. Hargrove sat down, and, keeping his arm around her, said tenderly:

"Are you so unwilling to come and live under my care? Would you prefer to remain with Mr. Palma?" She put her hands up, and, clasping them at the back of his head, answered brokenly:

"No—no I it is not that. Your face shows me you are good—so good! But I can't help crying,—I have tried so hard to keep from it, ever since I kissed the Sisters good-bye,—and everything is so strange—and my throat aches, and aches—oh, don't scold me! Please let me cry!"

"As much as you please. We know your poor little heart is almost breaking, and a good cry will help you."

He gathered her close to his bosom, and the lawyer was amazed at the confiding manner in which she nestled her head against the stranger's shoulder. Mrs. Lindsay untied and removed the hat and veil, and, placing a glass of water to the parched trembling lips, softly kissed her tearful cheek, and whispered:

"Now, dear, try to compose yourself. Come with me and bathe your face, and then you will feel better."

"Don't take me away. I have stopped crying. It rests me so, to feel somebody's arms around me."

"Well—suppose you try my arms awhile? I assure you they are quite ready to take you in, and hug you close. Just let me show you how I put my arms around my own child, though he is a man. Come, dear."

Mrs. Lindsay gently disengaged the clasped hands resting on her brother's neck, and drew Regina into her arms, while, won by her sweet voice and soft touch, the latter allowed herself to be led into another room.

They had scarcely disappeared when Mr. Palma said:

"I find I was mistaken in supposing that you and your ward were strangers."

"We are strangers, at least I never saw her until to-day."

"Did you mesmerize her?"

"Not that I am aware of. What suggests such an idea?"

"She receives your friendly overtures so graciously, and rejected mine with such chill politeness. I presume you are aware of the fact that we have a joint guardianship over this child?"

"If you will walk into the library, where we can escape intrusion, I should like to have some confidential conversation with you."

When he had placed his visitor in his own easy chair, and locked the door of the library, Mr. Hargrove sat down beside the oval table, and, folding his hands before him, leaned forward scrutinizing the handsome non-committal face of the stranger, and conjecturing how far he would be warranted in unburdening his own oppressed heart.

Coolly impassive, and without a vestige of curious interest, the lawyer quietly met his incisive gaze.

"Mr. Palma, may I ask whether Regina's mother has unreservedly communicated her history to you?"

"She has acquainted me with only a few facts, concerning which she desired legal advice."

"Has she given you her real name?"

"I know her only as Madame Odille Orphia Orme, an actress of very remarkable beauty and great talent."

"Do you understand the peculiar circumstances that attended her marriage?"

"I merely possess her assurance that she was married by you."

"Have you been informed who is Regina's father?"

"The name has always been carefully suppressed, but she told me that Orme was merely an alias."

"Have you ever suspected the truth?"

"Really, that is a question I cannot answer. I have at times conjectured, but only in a random unauthorized way. I should very much like to know, but my client declined giving me all the facts, at least at present; and while her extreme reticence certainly hampers me, it prevents me from asking you for the information, which she promises ere long to give me."

Mr. Hargrove bowed and leaned back more easily in his chair, fully satisfied concerning the nature of the man with whom he had to deal.

"You doubtless think it singular that Mrs. Orme should commit her daughter to my care, while keeping me in ignorance of her parentage. A few days since she signed in the presence of witnesses a cautiously worded instrument, in which she designated you and me as joint guardians of Regina Orme, and specified that should death or other causes prevent you from fulfilling the trust, I should assume exclusive control of her daughter until she attained her majority, or was otherwise disposed of. To this arrangement I at length very reluctantly assented, because it is a charge for which I have no leisure, and even less inclination; but as she seems to anticipate the time when a lawsuit may be inevitable, and wishes my services, she finally overruled my repugnance to the office forced upon me."

"I must ask you one question, which subsequent statements will explain. Do you regard her in all respects as a worthy, true, good woman?"

"The mystery of an assumed name always casts a shadow, implying the existence of facts or of reports inimical to the party thus ambushed; and concealment presupposes either indiscretion, shame, or crime. This circumstance excited unfavourable suspicions in my mind, but she assured me she had a certificate of her marriage, and that you would verify this statement. Can you do so? Was she legally married when very young?"

"She was legally married in this room eleven years ago."

"I am glad it is susceptible of proof. This point established, I can easily answer your question in the affirmative. As far as I am acquainted with her record, Mrs. Orme is a worthy woman, and I may add, a remarkably cautious circumspect person for one so comparatively unaccustomed to the admiration which is now lavished upon her. I believe it is conceded that she is the most beautiful woman in New York, but she shelters herself so securely in the constant presence of a plain but most respectable old couple, with whom she resides, and who accompany her when travelling, that it is difficult to see her, except upon the stage. Even in her business visits to my office she has always been attended by old Mrs. Waul."

"Can you explain to me how one so uneducated and inexperienced as she certainly was has so suddenly attained, not only celebrity (which is often cheaply earned), but eminence in a profession, involving the amount of culture requisite for dramatic success?"

A slight smile showed the glittering line of the lawyer's teeth.

"When did you see her last?"

"Seven years ago."

"Then I venture the assertion that you would not recognize her should you see her in one of her favourite and famous rôles. When, where, or by whom she was trained I know not, but some acquaintance with the most popular ornaments of her profession justifies my opinion that no more cultivated or artistic actress now walks the stage than Madame Odille Orme. She is no mere amateur or novice, but told me she had laboriously and studiously struggled up from the comparatively menial position of seamstress. Even in Paris I have never heard a purer, finer rendition of a passage in Phèdre than one day burst from her lips in a moment of deep feeling, yet I cannot tell you how or where she learned French. She made her début in tragedy, somewhere in the West, and when she reappeared in New York her success was brilliant. I have never known a woman whose will was so patiently rigid, so colossal, whose energy was so tireless in the pursuit of one special aim. She has the vigilance and tenacity of a Spanish bloodhound."

"In the advancement of her scheme, do you believe her capable of committing a theft?"

"What do you denominate a theft?"

The piercing black eyes of the lawyer were fixed with increased interest upon the clergyman.

"Precisely what every honest man means by the term. If Mrs. Orme resolved to possess a certain paper to which she had been denied access, do you think she would hesitate to break into a house, open a secret drawer, and steal the contents?"

"Not unless she had a legal right to the document, which was unjustly withheld from her, and even then my knowledge of the lady's character inclines me to believe that she would hesitate, and resort to other means."

"You consider her strictly honest and truthful?"

"I am possessed of no facts that lead me to indulge a contrary opinion. Suppose you state the case?"

Briefly Mr. Hargrove narrated the circumstances attending his last interview with Regina's mother, and the loss of the tin box, dwelling in conclusion upon the perplexing fact that in the recent letter received from her relative to her daughter's removal to the parsonage, Mrs. Orme had implored him to carefully preserve the license he had retained as the marriage certificate in her possession might not be considered convincing proof, should litigation ensue. He could not understand the policy of this appeal, nor reconcile its necessity with his conviction that she had stolen the license.

Joining his scholarly white hands with the tips of his fingers forming a cone, Mr. Palma leaned back in his chair and listened, while no hint of surprise or incredulity found expression in his cold, imperturbable face. When the recital was ended, he merely inclined his head.

"Do you not regard this as strong evidence against her? Be frank, Mr.
Palma."

"It is merely circumstantial. Write to Mr. Orme, inform her of the loss of the license, and I think you will find that she is as innocent of the theft as you or I. I know she went to Europe believing that the final proof of her marriage was in your keeping; for in the event of her death, while abroad, she has empowered me to demand that paper from you, and to present it with certain others in a court of justice."

"I wish I could see it as you do. I hope it will some day be satisfactorily cleared up, but meanwhile I must indulge a doubt. On one point at least my mind is at rest; this little girl is unquestionably the child of the man who married her mother, for I have never seen so remarkable a likeness as she bears to him."

He sighed heavily, and patted the shaggy head which Biörn had some time before laid unheeded on his knee.

During the brief silence that ensued the lawyer gazed out of the window, through which floated the spicy messages of carnations, and the fainter whispers of pale cream-hearted Noisette roses; then he rose and put both hands in his pockets.

"Dr. Hargrove, you and I have been—with, I believe, equal reluctance—forced into the same boat, and since bongré malgré we must voyage for a time together, in the interest of this unfortunate child, candour becomes us both. Men of my profession sometimes resort to agencies that the members of yours usually shrink from. I too was once very sceptical concerning the truth of Mrs. Orme's fragmentary story, for it was the merest disjecta membra which she entrusted to me, and my credulity declined to honour her heavy drafts. To satisfy myself, I employed a shrewd female detective to 'shadow' the pretty actress for nearly a year, and her reports convinced me that my client, whilst struggling with Napoleonic ambition and pertinacity to attain the zenith of success in her profession, was as little addicted to coquetry as the statue of Washington in Union Square, or the steeple of Trinity Church; and that in the midst of flattery and adulation she was the same proud, cold, suffering, almost broken-hearted wife she had always appeared in her conferences with me. Induging this belief, I have accepted the joint guardianship of her daughter, on condition that whenever it becomes necessary to receive her under my immediate protection, I shall be made acquainted with her real name."

"Thank you, my dear sir, for your frankness, which I would most joyfully reciprocate, were I not bound by a promise to make no revelations until she gives me permission, or her death unseals my lips. I hope you fully comprehend my awkward position. There is a conspiracy to defraud her and her child of their social and legal rights, and I fear both will be victimized; but she insists that secrecy will deliver her from the snares of her enemies. I suppose you are aware that General——"

He paused, and bit his lip, and again the lawyer's handsome mouth disclosed his perfect teeth.

"There is no mischief in your dropped stitch; I shall not pick it up. I know that Mrs. Orme's husband is in Europe, and I was assured that motives of a personal character induced her to make certain professional engagements in England and upon the Continent. I am not enthusiastic, and rarely venture prophecies, but I shall be much disappointed if her Richelieu tactics do not finally triumph."

"Can you tell me why she does not openly bring suit against her husband for bigamy?"

"Simply because she has been informed that the policy of the defence would be to at once attack her reputation, which she seems to guard with almost morbid sensitiveness on account of her daughter. She has been warned of the dangerous consequences of a suit, but if forced to extremities will hazard it; hence I bide my time."

He threw back his lordly head, and his brilliant eyes seemed to dilate, as though the suggestion of the suit stirred his pulse, as the breath of carnage and the din of distant battle that of the war-horse, panting for the onward dash.

A species of human petrel,—a juridic Procellaria Pelagica whose habitat was the court-house,—Erle Palma lived amid the ceaseless surges of litigation, watching the signs of rising tempests in human hearts, plunging in defiant exultation where the billows rode highest, never so elated as when borne triumphantly upon the towering crest of some conquering wave of legal finesse, or impassioned invective, and rarely saddened in the flush of victory by the pale spectres of strangled hope, fortune, or reputation which float in the débris of the wrecks that almost every day drift mournfully away from the precincts of courts of justice.

The striking of the clock caused him to draw out his watch and compare the time.

"I believe the regular train does not leave V—— until night, but the conductor told me I might catch an excursion train bound south, and due here about half-past one o'clock. It is necessary for me to return with as little delay as possible, and after I have spoken to Regina I must hasten to the depot You will find my address pencilled on the card, and I presume Mrs. Orme has given you hers. Should you desire to confer with me at any time relative to the child, I shall promptly respond to your letters, but have no leisure to spend in looking after her. The semiannual remittance shall not be neglected, and Regina has a package for you containing money for contingent expenses."

They entered the hall, and found the little stranger sitting alone on the lowest step of the stairway, where Mrs. Lindsay had left her, while she went to prepare luncheon for the travellers. She was very quiet, bore no visible traces of tears, but the tender lips wore a piteously sad expression of heroically repressed grief, and the purlish shadows under her solemn blue eyes rendered them more than ever—pleadingly beautiful.

As the two gentlemen stood before her she rose, and caught her breath, pressing one little palm over her heart, while the other grasped the balustrade.

"Don't you think, dear, that you ought to be well cared for, when you have two guardians—two adopted fathers, Mr. Palma and I—to watch over you? We both intend that you shall be the happiest little girl in the State. Will you help us?"

"I will try to be good."

Her voice was very low, but steady, as if she realized she was making a compact.

"Then I know we shall all succeed."

Mr. Hargrove walked to the front door, and the lawyer put on his hat and came back to the steps.

"Regina, I have explained to you that I brought you here because your mother so directed me, and I believe Dr. Hargrove will be a kind, good friend. Little one, I do not like to leave you so soon among strangers, but it cannot be helped. Will you be contented and happy?"

There was singular emphasis in her reply.

"I shall never complain to you, Mr. Palma."

"Because you think I would not 'Sympathize with you? I am not a man given to soft words, nor am I accustomed to deal with children, but indeed I should be annoyed if I thought you were unhappy here."

"Then you must not be annoyed at all."

His quick nervous laugh seemed to startle her unpleasantly, for she shrank closer to the balustrade.

"How partial you are, preferring Dr. Hargrove already, and flying into his arms at sight! Do you wish to make me jealous?"

His eyes gleamed mischievously, and he saw the blood rising in her white cheeks.

"Dr. Hargrove opened his arms to me, because he saw how miserable I was."

"If I should chance to open mine, do you think that by any accident you would rush into them?"

"You know you would never have dreamed of doing such a thing. Are you going away now?"

"In a moment. If you get into trouble, or need anything, will you write to me? Remember, I am your mother's friend."

"Is not Mr. Hargrove also?"

"Certainly."

He took her hands, and bending down looked kindly into the delicate lovely face.

"Good-bye, Regina."

"Good-bye, Mr. Palma."

"I hope, little girl, that we shall always be friends."

"You are very good to wish it. Thank you for taking care of me. Because you are my mother's best friend, I shall pray for you every night."

His sternly moulded lips twitched with some strange passing reminiscence of earlier years, but the emotion vanished, and, pressing her hands gently, he turned and went down the walk leading to the gate.

CHAPTER V.

"Please let me come in, and help you."

Regina knocked timidly at the door of the parsonage guest's chamber, and Mrs. Lindsay answered from within:

"Come in? Of course you may, but what help do you imagine you can render, you useless piece of prettiness? Shall I set you on the mantlepiece between the china kittens, and the glass lambs, right under the sharp nose of my grandmother's portrait, where her great solemn eyes will keep you in order? Whence do all those delectable odours come? Are you a walking sachet?"

She was kneeling before an open drawer of the bureau, methodically arranging sundry garments, and, pausing in the task, looked over her shoulder at the girl who stood near, holding her hands behind her.

"I am sure I could help you, if I were only allowed to try. I am quite a large girl now, more than a year older than when I came here, and Hannah has taught me to do ever so many things. She says I will be a famous cook some day. You didn't know that I made up the Sally Lunn for tea?"

"What an ambitious bit of majesty you are! You wish to reign in the kitchen, rule in the poultry yard, and now presume to invade my province—my special kingdom of making things ready for the Bishop? Have you been anointing yourself with a whole vial of Lubin's extract of—Ah!—delicious—what is it?"

"Whatever it may be, will you let me fix it to suit myself on the
Bishop's bureau?"

"No, you impertinent, wily Delilah in short clothes! I never promise in the dark; show it to me first, and then perhaps I may negotiate with you. You know as well as I do that the Bishop dearly loves perfumes, and if I should generously concede you the privilege of presenting 'sweet-smelling savours' unto him you might some day depose me—and I wish you distinctly to understand that I intend to reign over him as long as I live; not an inch of territory shall you filch."

Regina held up her hands, displaying in one several feathery sprays of Belgian honeysuckle, with half of its petals pearl, half of the palest pink; in the other a bunch of double violets of the rarest shade of delicate lilac, so unusual in the floral kingdom.

"You should be called 'Mab,' and ride about the world on a butterfly, or a streak of moonshine. How did you coax or conjure that honeysuckle into blooming before its appointed time?"

"Here are three pieces, two for the Bishop, and one for you. May I fasten it in your hair?"

"You recite a lesson in history every day, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Have you come to the Salem-witches yet?"

"Not yet. What has my history to do with this honeysuckle?"

"When you study metaphysics and begin the chase after that psychological fox—the-law-of-association-of-ideas, you will understand. Meanwhile, thank your stars, dear, that you did not live in Massachusetts some years ago, or you would certainly nave gone to heaven in the shape of smoke. How you stare, you white owl! As if you thought St. Vitus had rented my tongue for a dancing-saloon. It is all because the Bishop is coming. My blessed Bishop! Yes, put the handsomest spray in my hair, and then, if you make me look young and very pretty, you may do as you like with the others."

Still kneeling, she inclined her head, while Regina twisted the wreath around the coil of neatly braided hair. Then, kissing the girl lightly on her cheek, Mrs. Lindsay closed the drawer and rose. Drawing a silver cup from her pocket, Regina filled it with water, placed it close to the mirror, and proceeded to arrange the violets and honeysuckle. Stepping back to inspect the effect, she folded her hands and smiled.

"Mrs. Lindsay, tell him I gathered them for him, because he was kind to me when I came here a stranger, and I wish to thank him. When he is at home it seems always summer-time, don't you think so?"

The mother's eyes filled, and, laying a hand on the girl's head, she answered:

"Yes, dear, he is my sunshine, and my summer-time."

"How long will he stay with us?"

"He could not say positively when his last letter was written, but I hope to keep him several months. You know it is possible he may be forced to go to England, in order to complete some of his studies before—oh, Regina! could we bear to have two oceans swelling between our Bishop and us?"

"Why, then, will you let him go?"

"Can I help it?"

"You are his mother, and he would never disobey you."

"But he is a man, and I cannot tie him to my apron strings as I do my bunch of keys. I must not stand in the way, and prevent him from doing his duty."

"I suppose I don't yet know everything about such matters, but I should think it was his duty first to please you. How devoted he is to 'duty'? It must be horrible to leave all one loves, and go out to India among the heathens."

"Pray, what do you know about the heathens?" said a manly voice, and instantly two strong arms gathered the pair in a cordial embrace.

"My son! You stole a march upon me! Oh, Douglass, I never was half so glad to see you as now!"

"If you do not stop crying, I shall feel tempted to doubt you. Tears are so unusual in your eyes that I shall be disposed to regard your welcome as equivocal."

He kissed her on cheek and lips, and added:

"Regina, can't you contrive to say you are a little glad to see me?"

There was no reply, and, turning to look for her, he found she had vanished.

"Queer little thing, she has gone without a word, though she insisted on dressing her silver cup with those flowers, which she thought would suggest to you her gratitude for your numerous little acts of kindness. Have you seen your uncle?"

"Yes, mother, I stopped a few moments at the church, where he is engaged with one of the committee. Uncle Peyton is not looking well. Has he been sick?"

"He has suffered a good deal with his throat since you left us, and now and then I notice he coughs. He is overworked, and now that you can fill his pulpit he will have an opportunity to rest. Oh, my son! in every respect your visit is a blessing."

Leaning her head on his breast, she looked up with proud and almost adoring tenderness, and, drawing his face down to hers, held it close, kissing him with that intense clinging fervour which only mother-love kindles.

"Does my little mother know that she is spoiling her boy by inches; making a nursery darling, instead of a hardy soldier of him? You are weaving silken bonds to fasten me more securely here, when you ought rather to aid me in snapping the fetters of affection, habit, and association. Come, be so good as to brush the dust out of my hair, while you tell me everything about everybody, which you have failed to write during these long months of absence."

For some time they talked of family matters, of occurrences in V——, of some invidious and unkind remarks, some caustic personal criticisms upon the pastor's household affairs, which had emanated from Mrs. Prudence Potter, a widowed member of the congregation, who had once rashly dreamed of presiding over the clerical hearth as Mrs. Peyton Hargrove, and having failed to possess her kingdom had become a merciless spy upon all that happened in the forbidden realm.

"Poor Mrs. Prue! what a warfare exists between her name and her character. She should petition the legislature to allow her to be called—Mrs. Echidna! My son, I think modern civilization will remain incomplete, will not perform its mission, until it relieves society from the depredations of these scorpions, by colonizing them where they will expend their poison without dangerous results. If sting they must, let it be among themselves. If I were lunatic enough to desire to vote, I should spend my franchise in favour of a 'Gossip Reservation'—somewhere close to the Great Western Desert, to which the disappointed widows, spiteful old maids, and snarling dyspeptic bachelors of this much-suffering generation should be relegated for domiciliation and reform. Freedom serves America much as Æsop's stork did the frogs: we are appallingly free to be devoured by envy, stabbed by calumny, strangled by slander. I believe if I were a painter, and desired to portray Cleopatra's death, I would assuredly give to the asp the baleful features and sneering smirk of Mrs. Prudence. Every Sunday when she twists those two curls on her forehead till they lift themselves like horns, puts up her eye-glasses and pays her respects to our pew, I catch myself whispering 'Cerastes!' and wishing that I were only the camera of a photographer."

"Take care, mother! would you accept a homestead in your contemplated
'Reservation'?"

She pinched his ear.

"Don't presume, sir, to preach to me. Really, I often wonder how Peyton can force himself to smile and parry the vinegar cruets that woman throws at him in the shape of observations upon the 'rapid decline of evangelical piety,' and the 'sadly backslidden nature' of the clergy."

"Because he is the very best man in the world, and faithfully practises what he preaches—Christian charity. What is Mrs. Pru's latest grievance?"

"That Peyton does not admit her to his confidence, and supply her with all the particulars of Regina's history and family, which he withholds even from you and me, and about which we should never dream of catechizing him. In a better cause, her bold effrontery would be sublime. Fortunately she was absent in Vermont for some months after the child came, and curiosity had subsided into indifference until she returned,—when lo! a geyser of righteous anxiety and suspicion boiled up in the congregation, and wellnigh scalded us. What do you suppose she blandly asked me one day, in the child's presence? 'Were not Mr. Hargrove's friends mistaken in believing he had never married?' Now I contend that the law of the land should indict for just such cruel and wicked innuendoes, because these social crimes that the statutes do not reach work almost as much mischief and misery as those offences against public peace which the laws declare penal. I confess Mrs. Potter is my bête-noire, and I feel as no doubt Paul did when he wrote to Timothy: 'Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works.'"

"Mother, what reply did you make to her? I can imagine you towering like Mrs. Siddons."

"You may be sure I unmasked a battery. I looked straight into her little faded grey eyes, which straggle away from each other as if ashamed of their mutual ferret experiences,—for you know one looks out so, and one turns always up,—and I answered, that my brother had been exceedingly fortunate, as, notwithstanding the numerous matrimonial nets adroitly spread for him, he had escaped, like the Psalmist, 'as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers,' and fled for safety unto the mountain of celibacy. Bishop, if the new school of science lack the link that binds us to the ophidian type, I can furnish a thoroughly 'developed' specimen of an 'evolved' Melusina; for Mrs. Pru's ancestors must have been not very remotely, cobra-capellos. Such a chronic blister as she is keeps up more inflammation in a church than all the theology at Andover can cool. As for general society here in V——, she damages it more than all the three hundred foxes of Samson did the corn-fields, vineyards, and olives of the Philistines. What are you laughing at?"

"The ludicrous dismay that will seize you when the constablery of your progressive civilization notify you that you must emigrate to the Gossip and Slander Reservation. Poor Mrs. Prudence Potter! from my earliest recollection she has been practising archery upon the target of her neighbours' characters, and she seeks social martyrdom as diligently as Sir Galahad hunted the Sangreal. In the form of ostracism, I think she is certainly reaping her reward. Mother, let her rest."

"With all my heart! ''tis a consummation devoutly to be wished;' but that is just the last thing she proposes, until the muscles of her tongue and eyes are paralyzed. Rest indeed! Did you ever see a hyena caged in a menagerie? Did you ever know it to rest for an instant from its snarling, snapping, grinning round? My son, I would not for my right hand malign or injure her, but how can I sincerely indulge charitable reflections concerning a person who has so persistently persecuted your uncle?"

"Then, dear little mother, do not think of her at all. Be assured her ill-natured shafts will fall as blunt and harmless upon the noble well-tried armour of my uncle's Christian character, as a bombardment of cambric needles against the fortress of Cronstadt. How rapidly Regina has grown, since she came among us? Her complexion is perfect. Is she the same straightforward, guileless child I left her?"

"Unchanged except in the rapid expansion of her mind, which develops surprisingly. She is the most mature child I have ever met, and I presume it is attributable to the fact that she has never been thrown with children, and having always associated with older persons, has insensibly imbibed their staid thoughts, and adopted their quiet ways. I should not be more astonished to see my prim puritanical grandmother yonder step down from the frame, and turn a somersault on the carpet, or indulge in leap-frog, than to find Regina guilty of any boisterous hoidenish behaviour, or unrefined, undignified language. If she had been born on the Mayflower, raised on Plymouth Rock, and fed three times a day on the 'Blue Laws' of Connecticut, she could not possibly have proved a more eminently 'proper' child. Even Hannah, who you may recollect was so surly, harsh, and suspicious when she first came here, and who really has as little cordiality or enthusiasm in her nature as a gridiron or a rolling-pin, seems now to be completely devoted to her; as nearly infatuated as one of her flinty temperament can be,—and who conquers old Hannah's heart—you will admit—must be wellnigh perfect."

"Does my uncle continue to teach her?"

"Yes, and I think it is one of his greatest pleasures. She is ambitious and studious, and Peyton is never too weary to explain whatever puzzles her. She is exceedingly fond of him, and he said last week that she was his 'Jabez;' he had received her so reluctantly, and she proved such a comfort and blessing?"

"I presume her mother writes to her occasionally?"

"Regularly every fortnight she receives a letter. Sometimes for days after Regina looks perplexed and sorrowful, but she never divulges the contents. Once, about two months ago, I found her lying on the rug in her own room, with her face in her hands, and her mother's last letter beside her. I asked if she had received any bad news, for I knew she was crying in her quiet way, and she looked up, and said in a tone that was really piteous: 'There is nothing new. It is always the same old thing!—she does not know yet when she can come, and I must be good and patient. Oh, Mrs. Lindsay! I am so hungry to see my mother! When I look at her picture, I feel as if I would be willing to die if I could only kiss her, and hear her say once more, "My baby! My darling!" Last night I dreamed she took me in her arms and hugged me tight, and looked at me as she used to do when she came to the convent, and said, "Papa's own baby! Papa's poor stray lamb!" Mrs. Lindsay, when I waked I had the pillow in my arms, and was kissing it.' Now, Douglass, it is a great mystery how a mother could voluntarily separate herself from such a child as Regina. I asked her to show me the picture, and she cried a good deal, and said: 'I have often wished to show it to you, but she says I must let no one see it. Oh! she is so beautiful! Lovelier than the Madonnas in the Chapels; only she always has tears in her eyes. I never saw her when she did not weep. Mrs. Lindsay, help me to be good, teach me to be smart in everything, that I may be some comfort to my mother.' The saddest feature in the whole affair is, that Regina begins to suspect there is some discreditable mystery about her mother and herself; but Peyton says it is marvellous how delicately she treats the subject. She came home one day from Sunday school and told him that Mrs. Prudence asked her in the presence, of her class how her mother could afford to dress her in such costly clothes; and whether she had ever seen her father? Peyton wished to know what reply she made, and she said her answer was: 'Mrs. Potter, if I were you and you were Regina Orme, I think I would have my tongue cut out, before it should ask you such questions.' Then Peyton told me she looked at him as if she were reading his secret soul, and added; 'It is hard not to understand everything, but I will be patient, for mother writes that some day I shall know all; and no matter what people say—no matter how strange things may seem—I will believe in my mother, as I believe in God!' Most girls of her age would be curious to discover what is concealed from her, but although your uncle thinks she is uncertain whether her father be living or dead, she carefully shuns all reference to the subject. There is the doorbell! Hannah will let somebody in before I can fly down and tell her to excuse me. How stupid of people not to know that my Bishop has come! Oh dear! it is Mrs. Cartney, and she has come for the aprons I promised to make for the Asylum children, and they have not been touched! Yes, Hannah, I am coming. Why didn't you say I was engaged with my son?"

She disappeared, and after awhile Douglass Lindsay went down to the library, and thence through the door opening upon two steps that led into the garden.

It was one of those rare golden-aired days that sometimes break over the bleak brows of brawling March in sunny prophecy of yet distant summer; windless days, when rime and haze are equally unknown, and tender fingers of the timid spring, lifting the shrouding sod, advance tendril and leaf and bud as heralds of the annual resurrection. Double daffodils stood erect and conspicuous like commissioned officers along the line of yellow jonquils that bordered the walks, and snowy narcissus and purple and rose hyacinths made a fragrant mosaic over which the brown bees swung, and hummed their ceaseless hymn—laborare est orare. Following the winding path that led to the palings which shut out the poultry realm, the young minister leaned against the gate, overshadowed by a tall lilac, and looked across at the feathered folk, of which from boyhood he had been particularly fond.

In the centre of the enclosure was a handsome pigeon-house, circular in form, and easily accessible by a flight of steps, while upon the top of a cupola that sprung from the roof was built a small but prettily painted martin's home, in the quaint shape of the ark as we find it in Scriptural illustrations. Throughout the length and breadth of the Continent, probably no other mere amateur fowl fancier possessed such a collection as Mr. Hargrove had patiently and gradually gathered from various sources. The peculiarity consisted in the whiteness of the fowls;—turkeys, guineas, geese, ducks, English Pile, Leghorn, Brahma chickens all spotlessly pure, while the pigeons resembling drifting snow-flakes,—and the pheasants gleamed like silver.

Upon one of the steps of the columbary sat Regina, with a basket of mixed grain by her side, and in her lap a pair of white rabbits which she was feeding with celery and cabbage leaves. At her feet stood two beautiful Chinese geese, whose golden bills now and then approached the edge of the basket, or encroached upon the rabbits' evening meal. The girl was bareheaded, and the fading sunshine lingered lovingly upon the glossy hair and delicate lovely face which had lost naught of the purity that characterized it eighteen months before, while during that time she had grown much taller, and gave promise of attaining unusual height and symmetry.

The dress of Marie-Louise blue merino was relieved at the throat by a neatly crimped ruffle, and, as in days of yore, she wore the white apron with pretty pockets, and ruffled bands passing over her shoulders and down to the belt behind, where broad strings of linen were looped into a bow. Her abundant hair was plaited in two long thick braids, and passed twice around her head, forming a jet coronal, and imparting a peculiarly classic contour.

There was in this quiet fowlyard scene something so innocent, so peaceful, that it was inexpressibly soothing and attractive to the man who stood beneath the lilac boughs, jaded with unremitting study, and laden with wearying schemes of future labour. Douglass Lindsay was only twenty-five, but the education and habits of a theological student had stamped a degree of gravity on his handsome face, which was doubtless enhanced by a slight yet undeniable baldness.

Closely resembling his mother, except in the brownness of his fine eyes, his countenance lacked the magnetic warmth and merry shifting lights that rendered hers so pleasant, yet none who looked earnestly upon it could doubt for an instant that he would prove a stanch, faithful, worthy ensign of that Banner of Peace, which Jesus unfurled among the olive-girdled hills of holy Judea.

With no leprous taint of bigotry to sully his soul, blur his vision, or cramp his sphere of action, the broad stream of Christian charity flowed from his noble, generous heart, sweeping away obstacles that would have impeded the usefulness of a minister less catholic in sympathy, more hampered by creed ligaments and denominational fetters. To an almost womanly tenderness and susceptibility regarding the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, he united an inflexible adherence to the dictates of justice and the rigorous promptings of conscience; and while devoutly yielding allegiance solely to the Triune God, to whose service he had reverently dedicated his young life, there were times when in almost ascetic self-abnegation he unconsciously bowed down to that stem-lipped, stony Teraph who, under the name of "Duty," sat a cowled and shrouded idol in the secret oratory of his unselfish heart. Are there not seasons when even the most orthodox wonder whether the Dii Involuti passed away for ever, with the pateræ and fibulæ that once rendered service in the classic shades of Chusium and Monte-pulciana?

Scholarly in tastes, neither Mr. Lindsay's habits nor inclination led him often into the flowery mazes of fashionable society, but, standing upon the verge of Vanity Fair, he had looked curiously down at the feverish whirl, the gilded shams, the maddening, murderous conflict for place,—the empty mocking pageantry of the victorious, the sickening despair and savage irony of the legions of the defeated; and after the roar and shout and moan of the social maelstrom, as presented in the great city where his studies had been pursued, it was pleasant this afternoon to watch the fluttering white creatures that surrounded that calm beautiful child, and to listen to the soft cooing of the innocent lovers in the dovecote above her.

Opening the latticed gate he walked toward the group, and lifting the basket, sat down on the steps.

"Why did you not wait, and invite me to come out and inspect your pretty pets?"

"I thought your mother could not spare you this first afternoon, she had so much to say to you; but I am very glad you have not quite forgotten us. Do you see how tall the China geese have grown? When the gander stretches his neck he can touch my shoulder with his bill. Isn't he beautiful?"

"Decidedly the handsomest gander of my acquaintance. When I went away you were trying to find a name for him. Did you succeed?"

"Yes, I call him Alcibiades."

"Why? Do you wish to insult the memory of the great Athenian?"

"I wish to compliment him, because he was so graceful and beautiful, and was so fond of birds he carried them about in his bosom. My Alcibiades is so good-natured he never fights or hisses at my pigeons, and just now one of them lighted on his back, and picked up the barley that had fallen on his feathers. Mr. Hargrove promises me that just as soon as I can make money enough to pay the brickmason, he will have a large cemented basin built near the pump, where the geese and ducks can swim about every day."

"How do you propose to make money?" asked Douglass, lifting one of the rabbits into his lap, and offering it a crisp morsel of celery.

"Don't you know that I sell the eggs? Those of the white guineas bring three dollars a dozen, and I could sell more of the white turkeys, at the same price, than we can spare. Our new pigeon palace was paid for entirely out of the poultry money."

"Who keeps the poultry book? Have you at last learned to multiply fractions?"

She looked up, smiling into his laughing eyes.

"Mr. Lindsay, I am not so stupid as when you tried so hard to explain that sum to me. I keep the account, and your uncle examines it once a week. He says it will teach me to be accurate in my figures."

"What did you pay for your rabbits? I have a pair of Angolas for you, but the man from whom I bought them advised me not to remove them until all danger of cold weather had passed, as they are quite young."

"Thank you, Mr. Lindsay. You are very kind to remember that I wished for them last year. I did not buy these——"

She raised the rabbit from her apron, and rubbed her cheek against its soft fur, then added in a lower and touching tone:

"My mother sent them to me. I can't tell how she found out that of all things I wished most to have them, but you know, sir, that mothers seem inspired, they always understand what is in their children's hearts and minds, and need no telling. So I love these more than all my pets; they are the latest message from my mother."

She held out her hand, and interpreting the expression in her superb eyes, he placed the other rabbit in her arms, and for a moment she pressed them close.

"I must shut them up until to-morrow, or the owls might make a supper of them, as happened to some the Sisters kept at the convent."

She opened the door of a wired apartment beneath the pigeon-house, where in an adjoining division the pheasants were settling upon their perch, and carefully deposited the bouncing furry creatures on a bed of wheat straw.

"Mr. Lindsay, the fowls are all going to roost, and you must wait till morning to see the squabs, and broods of Brahmas and Leghorns. They look like snowballs rolling about after their food."

As she locked up the grain, and balanced the key on her fingers, her companion said:

"I must persuade Uncle Peyton to get some black Spanish, and a few
Poland chickens."

"Oh no! We don't want any black things; if they laid a dozen eggs a day they could not come here. We never raise a fowl that has coloured feathers; all our beauties must be like snow."

"I see you have converted my uncle to your pet doctrine, and before long I suppose you will persuade him to sell his pretty bay, and buy a white pony?"

"No, sir, I like 'Sultan' too well to care much about his colour, and beside, Mr. Hargrove is attached to him. There is one thing we both want very much indeed, and that is a white Ava cow. Your uncle read me a description of those cattle last week, and said when you went to the East he would ask you to try and send him one."

As he looked down at her perfect face, then at one of the doves that had perched on her shoulder, and thought of treacherous swart Sepoys, of Bengal tigers, of all the tangled work that lay before him in Hindoostan jungles, a shadow fell over the young man's brow, and a dull pain seemed to tighten the valves of his heart. Just then his appointed lot in the Master's vineyard did not smile as alluringly as the sunny slopes of Eschol; but he put aside the contrast.

"Regina, I saw Mr. Palma in New York."

"I hope he is well."

"He certainly looked so. Among other things, he asked if the art of writing had been altogether omitted in your education. I told him I was unacquainted with your accomplishments in that line, as I had written you two letters which remained unanswered."

"But your mother thanked you for them in my name."

"Which was very sweet and good in my dear mother, but questionably courteous in you. Mr. Palma sent you a present."

"He is very kind indeed, but if I am expected to write and thank him,
I would much rather not receive it."

"Do you dislike him?"

"How could I dislike my mother's best friend? I daresay he has a good heart—of course he must have; but whenever I think of him I feel a queer chill creep to my very finger-tips, as if the north wind blew hard upon me, or an iceberg sailed by."

"Guess what he sent you."

"A copybook, pen, and ink?"

"He is too polished a gentleman to punish you so severely. Come and let me show you his gift."

He led the way to the gallery at the rear of the house, and here they found Mr. Hargrove and Mrs. Lindsay admiring a young Newfoundland dog, which was chained to the balusters.

"Look, Regina! it is a waddling snow-bank! So round, so soft and white! Did he come from Nova Zembla, or Hammerfest, or directly from 'Greenland's icy mountains'?"

"Mr. Palma looked all over New York and Brooklyn before he found a pure white dog to suit him. It seems he knew Regina's fondness for snowy pets, and this is the only Newfoundland I have ever seen who had not even a dark hair. Mr. Palma put this handsome collar and chain upon him, and asked me to bring him to Regina. He will be very large when grown; now he is only a few months old."

Regina softly patted the woolly head, and her eyes glistened with delight.

"How did Mr. Palma guess that I wanted a dog?"

"He requested me to suggest something that would please you, and I told him that all at the parsonage were grieving over the death of poor old Biörn. He immediately decided to send you a dog, and this is a noble sagacious creature."

"What is his name?"

"That is left entirely to your taste; but I hope you will not go all the way to Greece to find a title, as you did for your classic gander."

"Then I will call him whatever Mr. Hargrove likes best."

As she spoke Regina nestled her fingers into the pastor's hand, and he smiled down into her radiant face.

"My dear child, exercise your own preference. Have you no choice?"

"None."

"Suppose you name him 'Erl-King' in compliment to Mr. Palma?"

"I should never dare to call him that; it would seem impertinent. He is such a splendid dog, I should like a fine, uncommon, grand name out of some of Mr. Hargrove's learned books."

"Oh don't, Regina! It will be positively cruel to turn Peyton loose among his folios, and invite him to afflict that innocent orphaned brute with some dreadful seven-syllabled abomination, which he will convince you is Arabic, or Sanscrit, classic or mediæval, Gaelic, Finnish or Norse, but which I warn you will serve your jaws (more elegant form—'maxillary bones') very much as an attack of mumps would, and will torture the victim into hydrophobia. Be pitiful, and say Teazer, Tiger, Towser, but don't throw the sublime nomenclature of the classics literally to the dogs!"

"Now, mother, I protest against your infringement of Uncle Peyton's accorded rights. Be quiet, please, and let him give Regina a few historic names, from which she can select one."

Douglass passed his arm over Mrs. Lindsay's shoulder, and both watched the eager intent face which the girl lifted to the pastor.

He took off his glasses, wiped them with the end of his coat, and, readjusting them on his nose, addressed himself to his ward.

"There is an East Indian tradition that a divinely appointed greyhound guards the golden herds of stars and sunbeams for the Lord of Heaven, and collects the nourishing rain-clouds as the celestial cows to the milking-place. That greyhound was called Saramá. Will that suit you?"

She shook her head.

"The Greeks tell us of a dog which was kept in the temple of Æsculapius at Athens, and on one occasion when a robber entered and stole the gold and silver treasures from the altar, the dog followed him for several days and nights, until the thief, who could neither beat him away nor persuade him to eat meat, was captured and carried back to Athens. Now, dear, this was a very shrewd and courageous animal, and his name was Capparus."

"Why did not his owner change it for something handsome, after he performed such service?"

Regina spoke dubiously, and looked down at the new pet, who wagged his plumy tail as if to deprecate the punishment of such a title.

"When Pyrrhus died, his favourite and devoted dog refused to stir from the body, but when it was carried out of the house he leaped upon the bier, and finally sprang into the funeral pile, and was burned alive with his master's remains. This exceedingly faithful creature was Astus."

"Mr. Hargrove, are all the classic names so ugly?"

"I am afraid the little girl's ear is not sufficiently cultivated to appreciate them. I will try once more. The Welsh Prince Llewellyn had a noble deerhound, whom he trusted to watch the cradle of his baby boy while he himself was absent. One day returning home, he found the cradle upset and empty, the clothes and the dog's mouth dripping with blood. Concluding that the hound had devoured the child, the father drew his sword and slew the dog, but a moment after the cry of the babe from behind the cradle showed him his boy was alive. Looking around, the prince discovered the body of a huge wolf, which had entered the house to attack and devour the child, but which had been kept off and killed by this brave dog, who was named Gillert."

Fearing from the expression of the girl's eloquent face, that Wales would win the game, Mrs. Lindsay exclaimed with an emphasis that made the dog prick up his ears:

"Gwrâch y Rhibyn—be merciful! The poor wretch looks as if he were ready to howl at the bare mention of such a heathen, fabulous name. Anything would be an improvement on the Welsh—Cambyses, Sardanapalus, are euphonic in comparison.

"Mr. Hargrove, I am much obliged to you for your goodness in telling me so much about celebrated dogs, and if the queer names sound any sweeter to me after I am well educated, and grow learned, I will take one of them; but just now I believe would rather call my dog Hero."

"Regina Orme! you benighted innocent! Don't make Peyton's hair rise with horror at your slaughter of the 'unities.' Why, my dear, Hero was a young lady who lived in Sestos a few thousand years ago, and was not considered a model of prudent behaviour, even then."

"Are not brave noble men called heroes? Did not Mr. Hargrove say last week that Philo Smith was a hero, when he jumped into the mill-pond and saved Lemuel Martin from drowning? Does not my history call Leonidas a hero? I don't know exactly who the 'unities' are, but until I learn more I intend to call my dog Hero. To me it seems to mean everything I wish him to be—good, faithful, brave, grand, and I shall call him Hero. Come along, Hero, and get some supper."

CHAPTER VI.

"Mrs. Orme, now that you are comfortable in your wrapper and slippers, let me take down your hair, and then I will bring you a cup of tea; not the vile lukewarm stuff they give us here, but good genuine tea made out of my own caddy, that has some strength, and will build you up. Rehearsals don't often serve you so badly."

"Thank you, Mrs. Waul, but the tea would only make me more nervous, and that is a risk I cannot afford to incur. Please raise both windows, fresh air, even Parisian air, is better for me than anything else."

"You have not seemed quite yourself since we came here, and I don't understand at all why two nights in Paris serve you worse than a week's acting elsewhere."

"Have I not told you that I dread above every other ordeal the critical Parisian audience?"

"But you passed so successfully through it! Last night the galleries absolutely thundered, and people seemed half wild with delight. William says the papers are full of praise."

Mrs. Waul crossed the room to lay upon the bureau the steel pins she had taken from her mistress's hair, and the latter muttered audibly:

"For me the 'ides of March' are come indeed, but not passed."

"Did you speak to me?"

"There comes your husband. I hear his slow, heavy step upon the stairs. Open the door."

As an elderly white-haired man entered, Mrs. Orme put put her hand.

"Letters from home, Mr. Waul?"

"One from America, two from London, and a note from the American minister."

"You saw the minister then? Did he give you the papers we shall require?"

"He has been sick, I believe, but said he would be at the theatre to-night, and would call and see you to-morrow."

"Hear this sentence, good people, from his note: 'Only indisposition prevented my attendance at the theatre last night to witness the brilliant triumph of my countrywomen. Since the palmy days of Rachel I have not heard such extravagant eulogies, and as an American I proudly and cordially congratulate you——'"

"Are you going to faint! Stand back, William, and let me bathe her face with cologne. What is the matter, Mrs. Orme? You shake as if you had an ague."

But her mistress sat with eyes fixed upon a line visible only to herself: "Your countrymen here are very much elated, and to-night I shall be accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbert Laurance, son of General René Laurance, whose wealth and social eminence must have at least rendered his name familiar to all Americans travelling in Europe."

"Be quick, Phoebe, and get her a glass of wine. She has no more colour in her lips than there is in my white beard."

"No—give me nothing. I only want rest—quiet."

She crushed the delicate satin paper in her hand, and rallied her composure. After a moment she added:

"A slight faintness, that is all. Mr. Waul, before the curtain rises to-night, I wish you to ascertain in what portion of the house the American minister's box is located; write it on a slip of paper and send it to the dressing-room by your wife. Just now I believe I have no other commissions. If I do not ring my little bell, do not disturb me until five o'clock, then bring me a cup of strong coffee. And, Mrs. Waul, please baste a double row of swan's-down around the neck and sleeves of the white silk I shall wear to-night. Let no one disturb me; not even the manager."

As the husband and wife withdrew, she followed them to the door, locked it on the inside, and returned to the easy chair. With a whitening, hardening face she reread the note, and thrust it into one of the silk pockets of her robe.

Although nine years had elapsed since we saw her first, in the mellow lamplight of Mr. Hargrove's library, time had touched her so daintily, so lovingly, that only two lines were discernible about the mouth, where habitual compression has set its print; and it would have been difficult to realize that she was twenty-eight, had not the treacherous eyes betrayed the gloom, the bitterness, the ceaseless heartache that filled them with shadows, which prematurely aged the whole countenance.

The added years seemed only to have ripened and perfected her exquisite beauty, but with the rounded smoothness, and the fresh, pure colouring of youth was mingled a weird indescribable expression of stern hopelessness, of solemn repose, as if she had deliberately shaken hands for ever with all that makes life bright and precious, and were fronting with calm smile and quiet pulses a grim and desperate conflict, which she well knew could have an end only in the peace of the pall, that long truce, whose signal is the knell and the requiem.

Had she been reared amid the fatalistic influences of Arabia, she could not have more completely adopted and exemplified the marble motto: "Despair is a free man; Hope is a slave." For her the rosy mist that usually hovers over futurity had been swept rudely aside, the softening glow of the To-Come had been precipitated into a dull, pitiless leaden ever present, at which she never raved nor railed, but inflexibly fought on, expecting neither sunshine nor succour, unappalled and patient as some stony figure of Fate, which chiselled when the race was young, feels the shrouding sands of centuries drifting around and over it, but makes no moan over the buried youth, and watches the approaching night with the same calm, steadfast gaze that looked upon the starry dawn, and the golden glory of the noon.

The cautious repression which necessity had long ago rendered habitual had crystallized into a mask, which even when alone she rarely laid aside for an instant. In actual life, and among strong positive natures, the deepest feelings find no vent in the effervescence of passionate verbal outbreaks, and outside the charmed precincts of the tragic stage, the world would not tolerate the raving Hamlets and Othellos, the Macbeths and Medeas, that scowl and storm and anathematize so successfully in the magic glow of the footlights.

To-day, as Madame Odille Orme leaned back in her luxuriously cushioned chair, she seemed quite as a statue, save the restless movements of her slender fingers, which twined and intertwined continually; while the concentrated gaze of the imperial eyes never stirred from the open window, whence she saw—not Parisian monuments of civic glory and martial splendour—only her own past, her haunting skull and cross-bones of the Bygone. Her violet-coloured dressing-gown was unbuttoned at the throat, exposing the graceful turn of the neck, and the proud poise of the perfectly modelled head, from which the shining hair fell like Danæ's shower, framing the face and figure on a back ground as golden as that of some carefully preserved Byzantine picture.

At last the heavily fringed lids quivered, drooped, the magnificent eyes closed as if to shut out some vision too torturing even for their brave penetrating gaze, and in her rigid whiteness she seemed some unearthly creature, who had done for ever with feverish life and the frail toys of time.

Raising her arms above her head, she rested her clasped hands upon her brow, and in a low, strangely quiet tone her words dropped like icicles.

"It was a groundless fear, that when the long-sought opportunity came my weak womanish nature would betray me, and I should fail, break down utterly under the crushing weight of tender memories, sacred associations. What are they?

"Three dreamy weeks of delirious wifehood, balanced by thirteen years of toil, aspersion, hatred, persecution; goaded by want, pursued ceaselessly by the scorpion scourge whose slanderous lash coiled ever after my name, my reputation. Three weeks a bride,—unrecognized as such even then,—twelve years an outcast,—repudiated, insulted,—mother and child, denied, derided,—cast off as a serpent's skin!—Ah, memory! thou hast no charm to stir the blackened ashes in a heart extinguished by the steady sleet of a husband's repudiation. When love is dead, and regret is decently buried, and the song of hope is hushed for ever, then revenge mounts the chariot and gathers the reins in her hands of steel; and beyond the writhing hearts whose blood dyes her rushing wheels sees only the goal. Some wise anatomists of that frail yet invincible sphinx—woman's nature, babble of one weighty fact, one conquering law,—that only the mother-joy, the mother-love, fully unseals the slumbering sweetness and latent tenderness of her being; for me, maternity opened the sluices of a sea of hate and gall. Had I never felt the velvet touch of tiny fingers on my cheek, a husband's base desertion might in time have been forgiven, possibly at least, forgotten; but the first wail from my baby's lips awoke the wolf in me. My wrongs might slumber till that last assize, when the pitying eyes of Christ sum up the record, but hers—have made a hungry panther of my soul. Come, memory, unlock your treasure house, uncoil your spells, chant all your witching strains, and let us see whether the towers of Notre Dame will not tremble and dissolve as soon as I?"

Bending to a trunk near her chair, she unlocked it, and taking out a papier-maché box, opened it with a small key that hung from her watch chain, and placed it on the table before her, where she had thrown the unread letters. Leaning forward, she crossed her arms upon the marble, and looked down on the contents of the box,—her child's letters,—her own unanswered appeals in behalf of her babe,—a photograph of the latter,—and most prominent of all, a large square ambrotype of a handsome boyish face, with a short curl of black hair lying inside the case.

"Idolatrous? Yes all women are, embryo pagans, and the only comfort is, that when the idol crumbles into clay, mocking our prayers and offerings, we still worship at the same old shrine, having dusted and garnished and set thereon—maybe the Furies, which bid fair to survive the wreck of gods, of creeds, and of time. Like Oenone, we are all betrayed sooner or later by our rose-lipped Paris,—

'Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,'

and after the inevitable foolish tears of vain regret we dry our eyes, and hunt Cassandra, to listen to the muttering of the thunder that is gathering to avenge us—in Troy. Bride and bridegroom, face to face— Cuthbert! So you looked, when we parted, when you strained me to your heart, and swore that before a fortnight passed you would hold 'darling Minnie in your arms once more!' Did you mean it even then? No, no, already the hounds of slander were snuffing in my path, and the toils were spread for my unwary feet. Here, look back at me, my husband, with those fond peerless eyes, as on that day when I saw you last—all mine! To-night—across the gulf of separation, and of shameful wrong—we shall look into each other's faces once more, while another woman wears my name, fills my place at your side. Fair treacherous face of my first and only love,—handsome as a god!—false as Apollyon!"

She had lifted the ambrotype and held it close to her eyes, then her hand sank until the picture dropped back into its place, and the lonely desolate woman buried her face in her palms. The pretty guilt clock on the mantle ticked monotonously, and the hum of life, and the busy roll of vehicles in the vast city, was borne in through the window, like the faint roar of yet distant Niagara; and after awhile when the sharp stroke of the clock announced four the bowed figure raised herself.

Sweeping back the blinding veil of hair, her brilliant brown eyes shone calm and dry, dimmed by no tears of fond womanly regret, and as they fell upon the photograph of Regina, a smile of indescribable bitterness curled the lovely lips that might have served as model for Psyche's.

"'The trail of the serpent is over all.' Can there be pardon for the man who makes me shrink shudderingly at times from her whose little veins were fed from mine, whose pulses are but a throb from my heart, my baby! My own baby, who, when I snatch her in my arms, smiles at me with his wonderful eyes of blue; and wellnigh maddens me with the very echo of a voice whose wily sweetness won my love, to make an hour's pastime, a cheap toy, soon worn out, worthless and trodden under foot after three weeks' sport! Stooping over my baby, when she stretched her little hands and coaxed me to lift her on my lap, I have started back from the sight of her innocent face, as if a hooded viper fawned upon me; for the curse of her father's image has smitten my only darling, my beautiful, proud child! O God! that we had both died in that dim damp ward of the Hospital, where she first opened her eyes, unwelcomed by the father, whose features she bears!"

But beneath this Marah tide that was surging so fiercely over her long-suffering heart, bubbled the pure, sweet, incorruptible fount of mother-love, and while she studied the fair childish face her own softened, as that of some snow image whose features gradually melt as the sunlight creeps across it. It was a picture taken after Regina's removal to the parsonage, and represented her with the white rabbits nestling in her arms.

"My proud little Regina! my pure sensitive darling! How much longer must we be separated? Will the time ever come when the only earthly rest that remains for me can be taken in her soft clinging arms? Patience—patience. If it were not for her—for my baby—I might falter even now,—but she must, she shall be righted—at any sacrifice, at every cost; and may the widow's and the orphan's God be pitiful—be pitiful—at last."

She raised her child's picture in her clasped hands, as if appealing indeed to the justice of Him who "never slumbers, nor sleeps," and the tremor of her lips and voice told how passionate was the affection for her daughter, how powerful the motives that sustained her in the prolonged and torturing ordeal.

Restoring the portraits to their hiding-place, she locked the trunk, and as she resumed her seat seemed suddenly to recollect the letters lying on the table.

One was a brief note, from the manager of the London theatre where she had recently been engaged; the second from a celebrated money-lender, which bore only the signature, "Simon," and was as follows:

"DEAR MADAME,—Since our last conversation relative to the purchase of a certain mortgage, I have ascertained that you can secure it, by adding one hundred pounds to the amount specified by the holder. Should you still desire me to effect the transfer, delay might thwart your negotiation, and I respectfully solicit prompt instructions."

Twice she read these lines, then slowly tore the paper into strips, shredded and threw them toward the grate, while a stony expression settled once more upon her features. The remaining letter was post-marked New York, and addressed, in a bold, round, mercantile hand, but when the envelope had been removed, the formal angular chirography of a schoolgirl displayed itself, and as the sheet was opened there issued thence a delicate perfume that gushed like a breath of spring over the heart of the lonely mother.

Several leaves of lemon-verbena and a few violets fell from the folds of the paper, and, picking them up, Mrs. Orme spread them on her palm. Only a few withered leaves and faded petals that had crossed the Atlantic to whisper fragrant messages of love, from the trusting brave young soul whose inexperienced hand had stiffly traced at the top of the page—"My darling mother."

Ah! what a yearning tenderness glorified the woman's frozen face, as the flowers in her hand babbled of the blue eyes that had looked last upon them, of the childish fingers that brushed the dew from their purple velvet, of the dainty, almost infantile, lips that had fondly pressed them, of the holy prayer breathed over them, that ere the time of violets came again mother and child might be reunited.

Just now she dared not read the letter, dared not surrender to the softening influences that might melt the rigid purpose of her soul, and, kissing the flowers reverently, the mother laid them aside until a more convenient season, and began to walk slowly to and fro….

The play that night was "Kenilworth," and had been cast to admit some alterations made in the dramatization by Madame Orme, who frequently introduced startling innovations in her rendering of her parts, and in almost all her favourite rôles refused rigid adherence to the written text. The reputation of her beauty and former triumphs, the success achieved on the previous nights, and certain tart criticisms upon the freedom of her interpretation of Scott's lovely heroine—Leicester's wife—combined to draw a crowded house; and ere the curtain rose every box was occupied save one on the second tier near the stage.

As the crash of the orchestra died away, and the play opened with the interview between Lambourn and Foster, followed by Tressilian, and the encounter with Varney, the door of the box opened, and the American minister entered, accompanied by a lady and gentleman, who, after seating themselves and gathering back the folds of the box curtains, proceeded to scan the audience.

As they disposed themselves comfortably a white-haired man, watching through a crevice in the side scene, scribbled on a piece of paper which was handed into the dressing-room: "Second box, second tier, right-hand side. Two gentlemen, and a lady wearing a scarlet cloak."

Sitting between the minister and her husband, Mrs. Laurance with her brilliant wrappings was the most prominent of the group, and in the blaze of the gaslight looked at least thirty-five; a woman of large proportions compactly built, with broad shoulders that sustained a rather short thick neck, now exposed in extreme décolleté style, as if to aid the unsuccessful elongation of nature. Her sallow complexion was dark, almost bistre, and the strongly marked irregular features were only redeemed from positive plainness by the large fiery black eyes, whose beauty was somewhat marred by the intrusive boldness of their expression. Bowing to some one opposite, her very full lips parted smilingly over a set of sound strong teeth, rather uneven in outline, and of the yellowish cast often observed in persons of humble birth and arduous life. Her dusky hair, belonging to the family of neutral-brown, was elaborately puffed and frizzed, and in her ears hung large solitaire diamonds that glowed like globes of fire, and scattered rays that were reflected in the circlet around her throat.

Beside her sat her husband, leaning back with negligent grace, and carelessly stroking his silky black moustache with one gloved hand, while the other toyed with a jewelled opera glass. Although only two years her junior, she bore the appearance of much greater seniority, and the proud patrician cast of his handsome face contrasted as vividly with the coarser lower type of hers, as though in ancient Roman era he had veritably worn the clavus and the bulla, while she trudged in lowly guise among the hard-handed heroines of the proletarii.

Over his dreamy violet eyes arched the peculiarly fine jet brows that Mr. Palma had found so distinctive in Regina's face, and his glossy hair and beard possessed that purplish black tint so rarely combined with the transparent white complexion, which now gleamed conspicuously in his broad, full, untanned forehead.

The indolent insouciance of his bearing was quite in accord with his social record, as a proud high-born man of cultivated elegant tastes, and unmistakably dissipated tendencies, which doubtless would long ago have fructified in thoroughly demoralized habits had not his wife vigorously exerted her exigeant guardianship.

"Have you heard the last joke at Count T——'s expense?" said Mrs.
Laurance, tapping the arm of the minister with her gilded fan.

"Do you refer to the contretemps of the masks at the Grand Ball?"

"No, something connected with Madame Orme. It seems the Count saw her in London, became infatuated, as men always are about pretty actresses, and the first night she played here he was almost frantic; wrote a note between the acts, and sent it to her twisted in that costly antique scarf-ring he is so fond of telling people once belonged to the Duke of Orleans. Before the play ended it was returned, with the note torn into several strips and bound around it. Fancy his chagrin! Colonel Thorpe was in the box with him, and told it next day, when we met at dinner. When I asked T—— his opinion of Madame, he answered:

"She is perfectly divine! But alas! only an inspired icicle. She should be called 'Sulitelma,' which I believe means—Cuthbert, what did you tell me it meant?"

"Queen of Snows. Abbie, do lower your voice a trifle." He answered without even glancing at her, and she continued:

"I wanted to see her last night in 'Medea,' but Cuthbert had an opera engagement, and beside, little Maud had the croup——"

A storm of applause cut short the nursery budget, and all turned to the stage where Amy Robsart entered, followed by Janet and by Varney. Advancing with queenly grace and dignity to a pile of cushions in the centre of the drawing-room at Cumnor Place, she stood a moment with downcast eyes, till the acclamation ceased, and Varney renewed his appeal.

Her satin dress was of that exquisite tint which in felicitous French phraseology is termed de couleur de fleur de pécher, and swept down from her slender figure in statuesque folds that ended in a long court train, particularly becoming in the pose she had selected. The Elizabethan ruff, with an edge of filmy lace, softened the effect of the bodice cut squares across the breast, and revealed the string of pearls—Leicester's last gift—that shone so fair upon his countess's snowy neck. From the mass of hair heaped high upon her head soft tendrils clustered to the edge of her brow, and here and there a long curl strayed over her shoulder, and glittered like burnished gold in the glare of the quivering footlights. The lovely arms and hands were unburdened by jewels, and save the pearls around her throat and the aigrette of brilliants in the upper bandeau of her hair, she wore no ornaments. The perfect impersonation of a beautiful, innocent, happy bride, impatiently expectant of her husband's entrance, she stood listening to his messenger, a tender smile parting her rosy lips.

The chair of state chanced to be placed in the direction of the minister's box, and only a few feet distant, and when Varney attempted to place her upon it, she waved him back, and, raising her right hand toward it, said in that calm, deep, pure voice which had such thrilling emphasis in its lowest cadences:

"No good, Master Richard Varney, I take not my place there, until my lord himself conducts me. I am for the present a disguised countess, and will not take dignity upon me, until authorized by him, from whom I derived it."

In that brief sentence she knew her opportunity and seized it, for her glance followed her uplifted hand, mounted into the box, and, sweeping across the minister, dwelt for some seconds on the dark womanly countenance beside him, and then fastened upon the face of Mr. Laurance.

Some whose seats were on that side of the house, and who chanced to have their lorgnettes levelled at her just then, saw a long shiver creep over her, as if a blast of cold air had blown down through the side scene, and a sudden spark blazed up in the dilating eyes, as a mirror flashes when a candle flame smites its cold dark surface; but not a muscle quivered in the fair proud face, and only the Varney at her side noticed that when the slight hand fell back it sought its mate with a quick groping motion, and the delicate fingers clutched each other till the nails grew purple.

For fully a moment that burning gaze rested on the features that seemed to possess some subtle fascination for her, and wandering back to the wife, a shadowy smile hovered around the lips that were soon turned, away to answer Varney. As she moved in the direction of a window, to listen for the clatter of horse's hoofs, Mrs. Laurance whispered:

"Is not she the loveliest creature you ever beheld? I never saw such superb eyes, they absolutely seemed to lighten just now. Cuthbert, did you only notice how she looked right at me? I daresay my solitaires attracted her attention—and no wonder, they are the largest in the house, and these actresses always have an eye to the very best jewellery. Of course it must have been my diamonds."

From the moment when Amy Robsart entered, Cuthbert Laurance felt a strange magnetic thrill dart through every fibre of his frame; his sluggish pulse stirred, and as her mesmeric brown eyes, luminous, overmastering, met his, he drew his breath in quick gasps, and his heart in its rapid throbbing seemed to pour liquid fire into the bounding arteries. Some vague bewildering reminiscence danced through the clouded chambers of his brain, pointing like a mocking fiend now this way, then in an opposite direction; one instant assuring him that they had somewhere met before, the next torturing him with the triumphant taunt that he had hitherto never known any one half so lovely. Was it merely some lucky accident that had so unexpectedly brought them during that long flattering gaze thoroughly en rapport?

He no more heard his wife's hoarse whisper, than if a cyclone had whirled between them, and, leaning forward to catch the measured melody that floated from the countess's lips, a crimson glow fired his cheek as he caught the lofty words.

"I know a cure for jealousy. It is to speak truth to my lord at all times; to hold up my mind, my thoughts, before him as pure as that polished mirror, so that when he looks into my heart he shall see only his own features reflected there.[*] Can he who took my little hands and made them wifely, laying therein the precious burden of his honour, afford to doubt the palms are clean?"

[Footnote: * Mrs. Orme's interpolations are all italicized.]

No wonder Varney stared, and the prompter anathematized the sudden flicker of the gas jet that caused him to lose his place; there was no such written sentence as the last, and the rehearsal proved no sure index of all the countess uttered that night, but the play rolled on, and when the folding doors flew open and Amy sprang to meet her noble husband, the house began to warm into an earnest sympathy.

In the scene that followed she sat with childlike simplicity and grace on the footstool at Leicester's feet, while he exhibited the jewelled decorations of his princely garb, and explained the significance of the various orders; and in the face upturned to him who filled the chair of state there was a wealth of loving tenderness that might have moved colder natures than that which now kindled in the deep violent eyes that watched her from the minister's box.

Gradually the curious, timid, admiring bride is merged in the wife, with ambition budding in her heart, and exacting pride pleading for recognition and wifely dignities, and in this transformation the power of the woman asserted itself.

Bending toward Leicester, until from the low seat she sank unintentionally upon her knees, she prayed with passionate fervour:

"But shall not your wife, my love, one day soon be surrounded with the honour which arises neither from the toils of the mechanic who decks her apartment, nor from the silks and jewels with which your generosity adorns her, but which is attached to her place among the matronage, as the avowed wife of England's noblest earl? 'Tis not the dazzling splendour of your title that I covet, but the richer, nobler, dearer coronet of your beloved name, the precious privilege of fronting the world as your acknowledged wife."

Again, in answer to his flattering evasive sophistries, she asked in a voice whose marvellous modulations in the midst of intense feeling seemed to penetrate every nook of that vast building:

"But why can it not be? Why can it not immediately take place, this more perfect uninterrupted union, for which you say you wish, and which the laws of God and man alike command? Think you my unshod feet would shrink from glowing ploughshares, if crossing them I found the sacred shelter of my husband's name? Ah, husband! dost blanch before the storm of condemnation, which has no terrors for a wife's brave heart? It would seem but scant and tardy justice to own thy wedded wife!"

The earl had led her behind the scenes, and the minister had twice addressed him ere Mr. Laurance recovered himself sufficiently to perceive that his companions were smiling at his complete absorption.

"Why—Cuthbert—wake up. You look like some one walking open-eyed in sleep. Has Madame's beauty dazed you as utterly as poor Count T——?"

His wife pinched his arm, but without heeding her he looked quite past her into the laughing eyes of the minister, and asked:

"Do you know her? Is her husband living?"

"I shall call by appointment to-morrow, but this is the first time I have seen her. Of her history I know nothing, but rumour pronounces her a widow."

"Which generally means that these pretty actresses have drunken, worthless husbands, paid comfortable salaries to shut their eyes and keep out of the way," added Mrs. Laurance, lengthening the range of her opera glass, and levelling it at a group where the shimmer of jewels attracted her attention.

How the words grated on her husband's ear, grown strangely sensitive within an hour?

Carelessly glancing over the sea of faces beneath and around him, the minister continued:

"English critics contend that Madame Orme's 'Amy Robsart' is so far from being Scott's ideal creation, that he would fail to recognize it were he alive; still where she alters the text, and intensifies the type, they admit that the dramatic effect is heightened. She appears to have concentrated all her talent upon the passionate impersonation of one peculiar phrase of feminine suffering and endurance—that of the outraged and neglected wife; and her favourite rôles are 'Katherine' from Henry VIII., 'Hermione,' and 'Medea,' though she is said to excel in 'Deborah.' My brother who saw her last night as 'Medea' pronounced her fully equal to Rachel, and said that in that scene where she attempted to remove her children from the side of the new wife, the despairing fury of her eyes literally raised the few thin hairs that still faithfully cling to the top of his head. Ah—the parting with Leicester—how marvellously beautiful is she!"

Leaning against a dressing-table loaded with toilet trifles and bijouterie, Amy stood, arrayed in the costume which displayed to greatest advantage the perfect symmetry of form and the dazzling purity of her complexion.

The cymar of white silk bordered with swan's-down exposed the gleaming dimpled shoulders, and from beneath the pretty lace coif the unbound glory of her long hair swept around her like a cataract of gold, touching the hem of her silken gown, where, to complete the witchery, one slippered foot was visible. When her husband entered to bid her adieu, and the final petition for public acknowledgment was once more sternly denied, the long-pent agony in the woman's heart burst all barriers, overflowed every dictate of wounded pride, and with an utter abandon of genuine poignant grief, she gave way to a storm that shook her frame with convulsive sobs, and deluged her cheeks with tears. Despite her desperate efforts to maintain her self-control, the sight of her husband's magnetic handsome face, after thirteen weary years of waiting, unnerved, overwhelmed her. There in the temple of Art, where critical eyes were bent searchingly upon her, Nature triumphantly asserted itself, and she who wept passionately from the bitter realisation of her own accumulated wrongs, was wildly applauded as the queen of actresses, who so successfully simulated imaginary woes.

By what infallible criterion shall criticdom decide the boundaries of the Actual and the Ideal? Who shall compute the expenditure of literal heartache that builds up the popularly successful Desdemonas, Camilles, and Marie Stuarts; the scalding tears that gradually crystallize into the classic repose essential to the severe simplicity of the old Greek tragedies?

The curtain fell upon a bowed and sobbing woman, and the tempest of applause that shook the building was prolonged until after a time Amy Robsart, with tears still glistening on her cheeks, came forward to acknowledge the tribute, and her silken garments were pelted with bouquets. Among the number that embroidered the stage lay a pyramid of violets edged with rose geranium leaves, and raising it she bent her lovely head to the audience and kissed the violets, in memory (?) of her far-off child—whose withered floral tribute was more precious to the woman's heart than all the laudatry chaplets of the great city, which did homage to her genuine tears.

Some time elapsed while the play shifted to the court, recounting the feuds of Leicester and Sussex, and when Amy Robsart appeared again it was in the stormy interview where Varney endeavours to enforce the earl's command that she shall journey to Kenilworth as Varney's wife. The trembling submissiveness of earlier scenes was thrown away for ever, and, as if metamorphosed into a Fury, she rose, towered above him, every feature quivering with hatred, scorn, and defiance.

"Look at him, Janet! that I should go with him to Kenilworth, and before the Queen and nobles, and in presence of my own wedded lord, that I should acknowledge him,—him there, that very cloak-brushing, shoe-cleaning fellow,—him there, my lord's lackey, for my liege lord and husband! I would I were a man but for five minutes!—but go! begone!"

She paused panting, then threw back her haughty head, rose on tiptoe, and, shaking her hand in prophetic wrath and deathless defiance, almost hissed into the box beneath which Varney stood:

"Go, tell thy master that when I, like him, can forget my plighted troth, turn craven, bury honour, and forswear my marriage vows, then, oh then! I promise him, I will give him a rival, something worthy of the name!"

Was the avenging lash of conscience uncoiled at last in Cuthbert Laurance's hardened soul that the blood so suddenly ebbed from his lips, and he drew his breath like one overshadowed by a vampire? Only once had he caught the full gleam of her indignant eyes, but that long look had awakened torture's that would never entirely slumber again, until the solemn hush of the shroud and the cemetery was his portion. No suspicion of the truth crossed his mind, even for an instant,—for what resemblance could be traced between that regal woman, and the shy, awkward, dark-haired little rustic, who thirteen years before had frolicked like a spaniel about him,—loving but lowly?

In vain he sought to arrest her attention; the actress had only once looked at the group, and it was not until the close that he succeeded in catching her glance.

After her escape from Varney, Amy Robsart reached in disguise the confines of Kenilworth, and standing there, travel-worn, weary, dejected, in sight of the princely castle, with its stately towers and battlements, she first saw the home whose shelter was denied her, the palatial home where Leicester bowed in homage before Elizabeth. As a neglected, repudiated wife, creeping stealthily to the hearth where it was her right to reign, Amy turned her wan, woeful face to the audience, and, fixing her gaze with strange mournful intentness upon the eyes that watched her from the box, she seemed to throw her whole soul into the finest passage of the play.

"I have given him all that woman has to give. Name and fame, heart and hand, have I given the lord of all this magnificence—at the altar, and England's Queen could give him no more. He is my husband; I am his wife. I will be bold in claiming my right; even the bolder, that I come thus unexpected and forlorn. Whom God hath joined, man cannot sunder."

The irresistible pathos of look and tone electrified that wide assemblage, and in the midst of such plaudits as only Paris bestows she allowed her eyes to wander almost dreamily over the surging sea of human heads, and as if she were in truth some hunted, hopeless, homeless waif appealing for sympathy, she shrouded her pallid face in the blue folds of her travelling cloak, and disappeared.

"She must certainly recognize her countrymen, for that splendid passage seemed almost thrown to us, as a tribute to our nationality. What a wonderful voice! And yet—she is so tender, so fragile," said the minister.

"Did you observe how pale she grew toward the last, and so hollow-eyed, as if utterly worn out in the passionate struggle?" asked Mrs. Laurance.

"The passion of the remaining parts belongs rather to Leicester and the Queen. By the way, this is quite a handsome earl, and the whole cast is decidedly strong and successful. Look, Laurance! were you an artist, would you desire a finer model for an Egeria? If Madame had been reared in Canova's studio she could not possibly have accomplished a more elegant felicitous pose. I should like her photograph at this moment."

In the grotto scene, Amy was attired in pale sea-green silk, and her streaming hair braided it with yellow light, as she shrank back from the haughty visage of the Queen.

Rapidly the end approached, courtiers and maids of honour crowded upon the stage, and thither Elizabeth dragged the unhappy wife, into the presence of the earl, crying in thunder tones: "My Lord of Leicester! knowest thou this woman?"

The craven silence of the husband, the desperate rally of the suffering wife to shield him from the impending wrath, until at last she was borne away insensible in Hunsdon's strong arms, all followed in quick succession, and Amy's ill-starred career approached its close, in the last interview with her husband.

When Cuthbert Laurance was a grey-haired man, trembling upon the brink of eternity, there came a vision in the solemn hours of night, and the form of Amy, wan as some marble statue, breathed again in his ear the last words she uttered that night.

"Take your ill-fated wife by the hand, lead her to the footstool of Elizabeth's throne; say that 'in a moment of infatuation moved by supposed beauty, of which none perhaps can now trace even the remains, I gave my hand to this poor Amy Robsart.' You will then have done justice to me, and to your own honour; and should law or power require you to part from me, I will offer no opposition, since I may then with honour hide a grieved and broken heart in those shades, from which your love withdrew me. Then—have but a little patience—and Amy's life will not long darken your brighter prospects."

The fatal hour arrived; the gorgeous pomp and ceremonial of the court-pageant had passed away, and in a dim light the treacherous balcony at Cumnor Place was visible. In the hush that pervaded the theatre, the minister heard the ticking of his watch, and Mrs. Laurance the laboured breathing of her husband.

Upon the profound silence broke the tramp of a horse's hoofs in the neighbouring courtyard, then Varney's whistle in imitation of the earl's signal when visiting the countess.

Instantly the door of her chamber swung open, and, standing a moment upon the threshold, Amy in her fleecy-white drapery wavered like a drifting cloud, then moved forward upon the balcony; the trapdoor fell, and the lovely marble face with its lustrous brown eyes sank into the darkness of death.

CHAPTER VII.

To men and women of intensely emotional nature, it sometimes happens that a day of keen and torturing suspense, or a night's vigil of great anguish, mars and darkens a countenance more indelibly than the lapse of several ordinary monotonous years; and as Madame Orme sat in her reception-room at one o'clock on the following afternoon, awaiting the visit of the minister, the blanched face was far sterner and prouder than when yesterday's sun rippled across it, and bluish shadows beneath the large eyes that had not closed for twenty-four hours lent them a deeper and more fateful glow.

The soft creamy folds of her Cashmere robe were relieved at the throat by a knot of lilac ribbon, and amid its loops were secured clusters of violets, that matched in hue the long spike of hyacinth which was fastened in one side of the coiled hair, twined just behind the ear, and drooped low on the snowy neck. Before her on a gilded stand was the purple pyramid of flowers she had brought from the theatre, and beside them lay several perfumed envelopes with elaborate monograms. These notes contained tributes of praise from strangers who had been fascinated by her "Amy Robsart," and begged the honour of an interview, or the favour of a "photograph taken in the silken cymar which so advantageously displayed the symmetry of her figure."

Among the latter she had recognized the handwriting of Mr. Laurance, though the signature was "Jules Duval," and her fingers had shrunk from the folds of rose paper, as though scorched by flame. Lying there on the top of the billets-doux, the elegant, graceful chirography of the "Madame Odille Orme" drew her gaze, like the loathsome fascination of a basilisk, and taking a package of notes from her pocket, she held them for a moment close to the satin envelope. Upon one the name of the popular actress; on the others—in the same peculiar beautiful characters—"Minnie Merle." She put away the latter, and a flash of scorn momentarily lighted her rigid face.

"Craven as of old! Too cowardly to boldly ask the thing his fickle fancy favours; he begs under borrowed names. Doubtless his courage wilts before his swarthy, bold-eyed Xantippe, who allows him scant latitude for flirtations with pretty actresses. To be thrown aside—trampled down—for such a creature as Abbie Ames! his coarse-featured, diamond-dowered bride! Ah! my veins run lava; when I think of her thick heavy lips, pressing that haughty perfect mouth, where mine once clung so fondly! Last night the two countenances seemed like 'as Hyperion to a Satyr!' How completely he sold his treacherous beauty to the banker's daughter, whom to-day he would willingly betray for a fairer, fresher face. Craven traitor!"

She passed her handkerchief across her lips, as if to efface some imaginary stain, and they slowly settled back into their customary stern curves.

Just then a timid tap upon the door of the reception-room was followed almost simultaneously by the entrance of Mrs. Waul, who held a card in her hand.

"The waiter has just brought this up. What answer shall he take back?"

Mrs. Orme glanced at it, sprang to her feet, and a vivid scarlet bathed her face and neck.

"Tell him—No! no—no! Madame Orme begs to decline the honour."

Then the crimson tide as suddenly ebbed, she grew ghastly in her colourlessness, and her bloodless lips writhed, as she called after the retreating figure:

"Stop! Come back,—let me think."

She walked to the window, and stood for several moments as still as the bronze Mercury on the mantel. When she turned around, her features were as fixed as if they belonged to some sculptured slab from Persepolis.

"Pray don't think me weak and fickle, but indeed, Mrs. Waul, some of my laurels gash like a crown of thorns. Tell the waiter to show this visitor up, after five minutes, and then I wish you to come back and sit with your knitting yonder, at the end of the room. And please drop the curtain there, the pink silk will make me look a trifle less ghostly after last night's work. You see I am disappointed, I expected the American minister on business, and he sends this Paris beau to make his apologies; that is all."

As the old lady disappeared, Mrs. Orme shuddered, and muttered with clenched teeth:

"All have a Gethsemane sooner or later, and mine has overtaken me before I am quite ready. God grant me some strengthening angel!"

She sank back into the arm chair, and drew the oval gilt table before her as a barrier, while some inexplicable, intuitive impulse prompted her to draw from her bosom a locket containing Regina's miniature. Touching a spring, she looked at the childish features so singularly like those she had seen the previous evening, and when Mrs. Waul returned and seated herself at the end of the room, the spring snapped, the locket lay in one hand, the minister's card in the other.

Mrs. Orme heard the sound on the stairs and along the hall—the well-remembered step. Amid the tramp of a hundred she could have singled it out, so often in bygone years had she crouched under the lilacs that overhung the gate, listening for its rapid approach, waiting to throw herself into the arms that would clasp her so fondly; to-day that unaltered step smote her ears like an echo from the tomb, and for an instant her heart stood still, and she shut her eyes; but the door swung back, and Mr. Laurance stood upon the threshold. As he advanced, she rose, and when he stood before her with outstretched hand, she ignored it, merely rested her palm on the table between them; and glancing at the card in her fingers said:

"Mr. Laurance, I believe, introduced by the American minister. A countryman of mine, he writes. As such I am pleased to see you, sir, for when abroad the mere name of American is an open sesame to American sympathy and hospitality. Pray be seated, Mr. Laurance. Pardon me, not that stiff-backed ancient contrivance of torture, which must have been invented by Eymeric. You will find that green velvet Voltaire, like its namesake, far more easy, affording ample latitude."

The sweet voice rung its silver chimes as clearly as when she trod the stage, and no shadow of the past cast its dusky wing over her proud, pale face, while she gracefully waved him to a seat, and resumed her own.

"If Madame Orme, so recently from home, yields readily to the talismanic spell of 'American' she can perhaps imagine the fascination it exerts over one who for many years has roamed far from his roof-tree and his hearthstone; but who never more proudly exulted in his nationality than last night, when as Queen of Tragedy, Madame lent new lustre to the land that claims the honour of being her birthplace."

"Thanks. Then I may infer you paid me the tribute of your presence last evening?"

They looked across the table, into each other's eyes,—hers radiant with a dangerous steely glitter, his eloquent with the intense admiration which kindled on the previous evening, now glowed more fervently from the contemplation of a beauty that to-day appeared tea-fold more irresistible. The question slightly disconcerted him.

"I had the honour of accompanying our minister, and sharing his box."

"Indeed! I have never had the pleasure of meeting him, and hoped to have seen him to-day, as he fixed this hour for the arrangement of some business details, concerning which I was advised to consult him. One really cannot duly appreciate American liberty until one has been trammelled by foreign formalities and Continental police quibbles."

An incredulous smile, ambushed in his silky moustache, was reflected in his fine eyes, as he recalled the flattering emphasis with which she had certainly singled out his face in that vast auditory, and, thoroughly appreciating his munificent inheritance of good looks, he now imagined he fully interpreted her motive in desiring to ignore the former meeting.

"Doubtless hundreds who shared with me the delight you conferred by your performance last night would be equally charmed to possess my precious privilege of expressing my unbounded admiration of your genius; but unfortunately the impression prevails that my charming countrywoman sternly interdicts all gentleman visitors, denies access even to the most ardent of her worshippers, and I deem myself the most supremely favoured of men in having triumphantly crossed into the enchanted realm of your presence. Of this flattering distinction I confess I am very proud."

It was a bold challenge, and sincerely he rued his rashness, when, raising herself haughtily, she answered in a tone that made his cheeks tingle:

"Unfortunately your countrywoman has not studied human nature so superficially as to fail to comprehend the snares and pitfalls which men's egregious vanity sometimes spring prematurely; and rumour quotes me aright, in proclaiming me a recluse when the curtain falls and the lights are extinguished. To-day I deviated from my usual custom in compliment to the representative of my country, who sends you—so his card reads—'charged with an explanation of his unavoidable absence.' As minister-extraordinary, may I venture to remind Mr. Laurance of his errand?"

Abashed by the scornful gleam in her keen wide eyes, he replied hastily:

"A telegram from Pau summoned him this morning to the bedside of a member of his family suddenly attacked with dangerous illness, and he desired me to assure you that so soon as he returned he would seize the earliest opportunity of congratulating you upon your brilliant triumph. In the interim he places at your disposal certain printed regulations, which will supply the information you desire, and which you will find in this envelope. May I hope, Madame, that the value of the contents will successfully plead the pardon of the audacious, yet sufficiently rebuked messenger?" He rose, and with a princely bow offered the packet.

Suffering her eyes to follow the motion of his elegantly formed aristocratic hand, now ungloved, one swift glance showed her that instead of the unpretending slender gold circlet she had placed on the little finger of his left hand the day of their marriage—a ring endeared to her, because it had been her mother's bridal pledge—he now wore a flashing diamond, in a broad and costly setting. Almost unconsciously her own left hand glided to the violets on her breast, beneath which, securely fastened by a strong gold chain, she wore the antique cameo ring, with its grinning death's head resting upon her heart.

Slightly inclining her head, she signed to him to place the papers on the table, and when he had resumed his sect, she asked:

"How long, Mr. Laurance, since you left America?"

"Thirteen or fourteen years ago; yet the memories of my home are fresh and fragrant as though I quitted it only yesterday."

"Then happy indeed must have been that hearthstone, whose rose-coloured reminiscences linger so tenderly around your heart, and survive the attrition of a long residence in Paris. Your repertoire of charming memories tempts me almost to the verge of covetousness. In what portion of the United States did you reside?"

"My boyhood was spent in one of the middle States, where my estate is located, but my collegiate life removed me to the north, whence I came immediately abroad. My residence in Europe confirms the belief that crossed the Atlantic with me, that in beauty, grace, and all the nameless charms that constitute the perfect, peerless, fascinating woman, my own country I pre-eminently bears the palm. Broad as is her domain, and noble her civil institutions, the crowning glory of America dwells in her lovely and gifted women."

He had never looked handsomer than at that moment, as, slightly bending his head in homage, his dangerously beautiful eyes rested with an unmistakable expression upon the faultless features before him; and watching him, a cold smile broke up the icy outline of his companion's delicate lips:

"American beauty might question the sincerity of a champion whose worship is offered only at foreign shrines, and the precious oblation of whose heart is laid on distant and strange altars."

"Ah, Madame,—neither at foreign shrines nor strange altars, but ever unwaveringly at the feet of my divine countrywomen. Is it needful that I recross the ocean to bow before the reigning muse? Is it not conceded that the brightest, loveliest planet in Parisian skies, brought all her splendour from my western home?"

"How you barb with keen regret the mortifying reflection that I, alas! cannot as an American lay claim to a moiety of your chivalric allegiance! Ill-fated Odille Orme!"

The stinging sarcasm in the liquid voice perplexed him, and the strange lambent light that seemed now and then to ray out of the brilliant eyes that had never wandered from his, sent an uncomfortable thrill over him.

"Surely the world cannot have erred in according to my own country the honour of your nationality?"

"I was born upon a French ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."

"Ah, dearest Madame! then it is no marvel that, as you have inherited the cestus of Aphrodite, your votaries bow as blindly, as helplessly, as those over whom your ancient Greek mother ruled so despotically. By divine right of birth you should reign as Odille Anadyomene."

"Madame Odille Orme has abjured the pagan æsthetics that seem to trench rather closely upon Mr. Laurance's ethics, and shed far too rosy an Orientalism over his mind and heart; and hopes he will not forget her proud boast that by divine right she wears a dearer, nobler, holier title—Odille Orme, wife and mother."

Bolder libertinism than found shelter in Mr. Laurance's perverted nature, would have cowered before the pure face that now leaned far forward, with dilated, scornful eyes which seemed to run like electric rays up and down the secret chambers of his heart.

Involuntarily he shrank back into the depths of his chair, and mutely questioned as on the previous night, "Where have I heard that voice before?"

With some difficulty he recovered himself, and said hastily:

"Will you forgive me if I tell you frankly, that ever since I saw you last night I have been tantalized by a vague yet very precious consciousness that somewhere you and I have met before? When or where, I cannot conjecture, but of one thing I am painfully certain, we can never be strangers henceforth. Some charm in your voice, in the expression of your eyes when as 'Amy Robsart' the loving woman you looked so fondly into your 'Leicester's' face, awoke dim memories that will never sleep again. Happy—enviable indeed—that Leicester who really rules the empire of your love."

Tightening the clasp of her palms which enclosed the little gold locket containing the image of their child, a wintry smile broke over her white face, lending it that mournful glimmer which fading moonlight sheds on some silent cenotaph in a cemetery.

"If my stage tricks of glance or tone, my carefully studied and practised attitudes and modulations, recall some neglected memories of your sunny past, let me hope that Mr. Laurance links me with the holy associations that cluster about a mother's or a sister's sacred features; reviving the earlier years, when he offered at the shrine of friendship, of honour, and of genius, tributes too sincere to admit the glozing varnish of fulsome, fashionable adulation, which degrades alike the lips that utter and the ears that listen. If at some period in the mysterious future, you, whom—because my countryman—I reluctantly consented to receive, should really discover a noble lovely woman before whose worth and beauty that fickle heart you call your own utterly surrenders, and whom winning as wife, and cherishing as only husbands can the darlings they worship, you were finally torn away from—by inexorable death—the only power that can part husbands and wives, then think you, Mr. Laurance, that the universe holds a grave deep enough to keep you quiet in your coffin—if vain heartless men profaned her sacred widowhood by such utterances as you presume to offer me? The stage is the arena, where in gladiatorial combat I wage my battle with the beasts of Poverty and Want: there I receive the swelling acclamations of triumph, or the pelting hisses of defeat; there before the footlights where I toil for my bread, I am a legitimate defenceless target for artistic criticism; but outside the precincts of the theatre, I hold myself as sacred from the world as if I stood in stone upon an altar behind some convent's bars, and as a lonely, sorrow-stricken mother widowed of the father of my child, bereft of a husband's tenderly jealous guardianship, I have a right to claim the profound respect, the chivalric courtesy, which every high-toned, honourable gentleman accords to worthy stainless women. Because as an actress I barter my smiles and tears for food and raiment for my fatherless child, it were not quite safe to imagine that I share the pagan tendencies which appear to have smitten some of my countrymen with moral leprosy."

The words seemed to burst forth like a mountain cataract long locked in snow, which, melting suddenly under some unseasonable fiery influence, falls in an impetuous icy torrent, bearing the startling chill of winter into flowery meadows, where tender verdure sown thick with primroses and daisies smiles peacefully in summer sunshine.

Twice the visitor half rose and essayed to speak, but that deep steady voice bore down all interruption, and as he watched her, Mr. Laurance just then would have given the fortune of the Rothschilds for the privilege of folding in his own the perfect hands that lay clasped on the marble slab.

While her extraordinary beauty moved his heart as no other woman had yet done, the stern bitterness of her rebuke appealed to the latent chivalry and slumbering nobility of his worldly soul. Looking upon his flushed handsome face, interpreting its eloquent varying expressions by the aid of glancing lights which memory snatched from long-gone years, she saw the struggle in his dual nature, and hurried on, warned by the powerful magnetism of his almost invincible eyes that the melting spell of the Past was twining its relaxing fingers about the barred gateway of her own throbbing heart.

"Trained in the easy school of latitudinarianism so fashionable nowaday on both sides of the Atlantic, doubtless Mr. Laurance deems his adopted countrywoman a nervous puritanical prude; and upon my primitive and wellnigh obsolete ideal of social decorum and propriety, upon my lofty standard of womanly delicacy and manly honour, I can patiently tolerate none of the encroachments with which I have recently been threatened. Just here, sir, permit a pertinent illustration of the impertinence that sometimes annoys me."

Lifting between the tips of her fingers the pretty peach-bloom-tinted note, whose accusing characters betrayed the hand that penned it, she continued, with an outbreak of intense and overwhelming contempt:

"Listen, if you please, to the turbid libation which some rose-lipped Paris, some silk-locked Sybarite poured out last night, after leaving the theatre. Under the pretence of adding a leaf to the chaplets, won by what he is pleased to tern 'diving dramatic genius,' this 'Jules Duval'—let me see, I would not libel an honourable name; yes, so it is signed—this Jules Duval, this brainless, heartless, soulless Narcissus, with no larger sense of honour than could find ample waltzing room on the point of a cambric needle, insolently avows his real sentiments in language that your valet might address to his favourite grisette; and closes like some ardent accepted lover, with an audacious demand for my photograph, 'to wear for ever over his fond and loyal heart!' That is fashionable homage to my genius—it is? I call it an insult to my womanhood! Nay—I am ashamed to read it! 'Twould stain my cheeks, soil my lips, dishonour your gentlemanly ears. Mr. Laurance, if ever you should become a husband, and truly love the woman you make your wife, you will perhaps comprehend my feelings, when some gay unprincipled gallant profanes the sanctity of her retirement with such unpardonable, such unmerited insolence."

She held it up between thumb and forefinger, shaking out the pink folds till the signature in violet ink flaunted before the violet eyes of its owner, then, crushing it as if it were a cobweb, she tossed it toward the window.

Turning her head, she said in an altered and elevated tone:

"Mrs. Waul, may I disturb you for a moment?"

The quiet figure, clad in sober grey, and wearing a muslin cap whose crimped ruffle enclosed in a snowy frame the benevolent wrinkled countenance, came forward, knitting in hand, spectacles on her nose, and for the first time the visitor became aware of her presence.

"Please lower the curtain yonder beside the étagère, the sun shines hot upon Mr. Laurance's brow. Then touch the bell, and order the carriage to be ready in twenty minutes."

Humiliated as he had never been before, Mr. Laurance resolved upon one desperate attempt to regain the position his vanity had rashly forfeited. Waiting until the Quaker-like duenna had retreated to her former seat, he rose and leaned across the small table, and under his rich low voice and passionately pleading eyes the actress held her breath and clutched the locket till its sharp edge sunk into her quivering flesh.

"You dismiss me as unworthy of your presence, and, acknowledging the justice of your decree, I sincerely deplore the fatuity that prompted the offence. Your rebuke was warranted by my foolish presumption, and, confessing the error into which I was betrayed by your condescending notice last night, I humbly and sorrowfully solicit your generous forgiveness. Fervid flattering phrases sorely belie my real character if, sinking me almost beneath your contempt, you deem me devoid of a high sense of honour, or of chivalric devotion to noble womanly delicacy. Madame Orme, if your unparalleled beauty, grace, and talent bewitched me into a passing folly and vain impertinence, for which indeed I blush, your stern reproof recalls me to my senses, to my better nature; and I beg that upon the unsullied word of an American gentleman, you will accept with my apology the earnest assurance that in quitting this room I honour and revere my matchless countrywoman far more than when I entered her noble presence. Fashionable freedom may have demoralized my tongue, but by the God above us, I swear it has not blackened my heart, nor deadened my perception and appreciation of all that constitutes true feminine refinement and purity. You have severely punished my presumptuous vanity, and now will you not mercifully pardon a man who, finding in you the perfect fulfilment of his prophetic dreams of lofty as well as lovely womanhood, humbly but most earnestly craves permission to reinstate himself in your regard; to attempt to win your esteem and friendship, which he will value far more highly than the adoration of any—yes, of all other women?"

He was so near her that she saw the regular quick flutter of the blue vein on his fair temples, and as the musical mastering voice so well remembered and once so fondly loved stole tenderly through the dark, lonely, dreary recesses of her desolate, aching heart, it waked for one instant a wild, maddening temptation, an intense longing to lift her arms, clasp them around his neck, lean forward upon his bosom, and be at rest.

In the weary years that followed, how bitterly she denounced and deplored the fever of implacable revenge that held her back on that memorable day! Verily for each of us a "Nemean Lion lies in wait somewhere," and a lost opportunity might have cost even Hercules that tawny skin he wore as trophy.

Mr. Laurance saw a slow dumb motion of the pale lips that breathed no sound to fill the verbal frame they mutely fashioned—"my husband;" and then with a gradual drooping of the heavily lashed lids, the eyes closed. Only until one might have leisurely counted five was he permitted to scan the wan face in its rare beautiful repose, then again her eyes pitiless as fate met his—so eager, so wistful—and she too rose, confronting him with a cold proud smile.

"I fear Mr. Laurance unduly bemoans and magnifies a mistake, which, whatever its baleful intent, has suffered in my rude inhospitable hands an 'untimely nipping in the bud,' and most ingloriously failed of consummation. After to-day the luckless incident of our acquaintance must vanish like some farthing rushlight set upon a breezy down to mark a hidden quicksand; for in my future panorama I shall keep no niche for mortifying painful days like this—and you, sir, amid the rush and glow and glitter of this bewildering French capital, will have little leisure and less inclination to recall the unflattering failure of an attempted flirtation with a pretty but most utterly heartless actress, who wrung her hands, and did high tragedy, and stormed and wept for gold! Not for perfumed pink billets-doux, nor yet for adulation and vows of deathless devotion from high-born gentlemen handsome and heartless enough to serve in Le Musée du Louvre as statues of Apollo, but for gold, Mr. Laurance, only for gold!"

"Do not inexorably exile me—do not refuse my prayer for the privilege of sometimes seeing you. Permit me to come here and teach you to believe in my——"

"Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle!" she exclaimed, with a quick nervous laugh that grated grievously upon his ear.

"Madame, I implore you not to deny me the delight of an occasional interview."

A sudden pallor crept across his eager face, and he attempted to touch the fair dimpled hand which, still grasping the locket, rested upon the table.

Aware of his purpose, she haughtily shrank back, drew herself up, and folding her arms so tightly over her breast that the cameo ring pressed close upon her bounding heart, she looked down on him as from some distant height, with an intensity of quiet scorn that no language could adequately render, that bruised his heart like hail-stones.

"I deny you henceforth all opportunity of sinking yourself still deeper in my estimation, of annoying me by any future demonstrations of a style of admiration I neither desire, appreciate, nor intend to permit. If accident should ever thrust you again across my path, you will do well to forget that our minister committed the blunder of sending you here to-day. Mr. Laurance will please accept my thanks for this package of papers, which shall be returned to-morrow to the office of the American embassy. Resolved to forget the unpleasant incidents of to-day, Madame Orme is compelled to bid you good-bye."

Angry but undaunted, his eloquent eyes boldly bore up under hers, as if in mortal challenge; and he bowed, with a degree of graceful hauteur, fully equal to her own best efforts.

"Madame's commands shall be rigidly and literally obeyed, for Cuthbert Laurance is far too proud to obtrude his presence or his homage on any woman; but Mrs. Orme's interdict does not include that public realm, where she has repeatedly assured me that gold always secures admission to her smiles, and from which no earthly power can debar me. Watching you from the same spot, where last night you floated like an angelic dream of my boyhood, like a glorious revelation upon my vision and my heart, I shall defy the world to mar the happiness in store for me, so long as you remain in Paris. A distant but devoted worshipper, cherishing the memory of those thrilling glances with which 'Amy Robsart' favoured me, permit me to wish Madame Orme a pleasant ride, and good afternoon."

He bent his handsome head low before her, and left the room less like an exile than a conqueror, buoyed by an abiding fatalism, a fond faith in that magnetic influence and fascination he had hitherto successfully exerted over all, whom his wayward, fickle, fastidious fancy had chosen to enslave.

When the sound of his retreating footsteps was no longer audible, the slender white-robed figure moved unsteadily across the floor, entered the adjoining dressing-room, and locked the door.

The play was over at last, the long tensions of nerve, the iron strain on brain and heart, the steel manacles on memory, all snapped simultaneously; the actress was trampled out of sight, the weak, suffering, long-tortured woman bowed down in helpless and hopeless agony before her desecrated mouldering altar, was alone with the dust of her overturned and crumbling idol.

"My husband! O God! Thou knowest—not hers—not that woman's—but mine! all mine! My baby's father!—my Cuthbert—my own husband!"

"Oh past! past the sweet times that I remember well!
Alas that such a tale my heart can tell!
Ah, how I trusted him! what love was mine!
How sweet to feel his arms about me twine,
And my heart beat with his! What wealth of bliss
To hear his praises; all to come to this,—
That now I durst not look upon his face,
Lest in my heart that other thing have place—
That which men call hate!"

CHAPTER VIII.

"Nonsense, Elise! She is but a child, and I beg you will not prematurely magnify her into a woman. There are so few unaffected, natural children in this generation, that it is as refreshing to contemplate our little girl's guileless purity and ingenuous simplicity, as to gaze upon cool green meadows on a sultry, parching August day. Keep her a child, let her alone."

Mr. Hargrove wiped his spectacles with his handkerchief, and replaced them on his Roman nose with the injured air of a man who, having been interrupted in some favourite study to take cognizance of an unexpected, unwelcome, and altogether unpleasant fact, majestically refuses to inspect, and dogmatically waves it aside, as if to ignore were to annihilate.

"Now, Peyton, for a sensible man (to say nothing of the astute philosopher and the erudite theologian), you certainly do indulge in the most remarkable spasms of wilful, obstinate, premeditated blindness. You need not stare so desperately at that page, for I intend to talk to you, and it is useless to try to snub either me or my facts. Regina is young, I know, not quite fourteen, but she is more precocious, more mature, than many girls are at sixteen; and you seem to forget that, having always associated with grown people, she has imbibed their ideas and caught their expressions, instead of the more juvenile forms of thought and speech usual in children who live among children. She has as far outgrown jumping-ropes as you have tops and kites, and has no more relish for fairy tales than your reverence has for base-ball, or my Bishop here for marbles. Suppose last October I had sprinkled a paper of lettuce-seed in the open border of the garden, and on the same day you had sown a lot of lettuce in the hot-beds against the brick wall, where all the sunshine falls: would you refuse your crisp, tempting, forced salad, because it had reached perfection so rapidity?"

"Mother, do you intend us to understand that Regina is very tender, and very verdant?" asked Mr. Lindsay, looking up from a grammar that lay open before him.

"I intend you, sir, to study your Hindustanee, and your Tamil, while I experiment upon the value of analogical reasoning in my discussions with your uncle. Now, Peyton, you see that child's mind has been for nearly four years in an intellectual hotbed,—sunned in the light of religion, moistened with the dew of philosophy, cultivated systematically with the prongs and hoes of regular study, of example, and precept; and, being a vigorous sprout when she was transplanted, she has made good use of her opportunities, and, behold! early mental salad, and very fine! You men theorize, ratiocinate, declaim, dogmatize about abstract propositions, and finally get your feet tangled and stumble over facts right under your noses, that women would never fail to pick up and put aside. The soul of Thales possesses you all, whereas we who sit at the cradle, and guide the little tottering feet, study the ground and sweep away the stumbling-blocks. Day after day you and Douglass discuss all kinds of scientific theories, and quote pagan authorities and infidel systems in the presence of Regina, who sits in her low chair over there in the corner of the fireplace as quiet as a white mouse, listening to every word, though 'Hans Christian Andersen' lies open on her lap, and scarcely winking those blue eyes of hers, that are as solemn as if they belonged to the Judges of Israel. If a child is raised in a carpenter's shop, with all manner of sharp, dangerous often two-edged tools scattered around in every direction, who wonders that the little fingers are prematurely gashed and scarred? You and Douglass imagine she is dreaming about the number of elves that dance on the greensward on moonlight nights, or the spangles on their lace wings; or that she is studying the latitude and longitude of the capital of the last territory which Congress elevated to the uncertain and tormenting dignity of nominal self-government, that once (vide 'obsolete civil hallucinations') inhered in an American State; or perhaps you believe the child is longing for a pot of sugar candy? Then rub your eyes, you ecclesiastical bats, and let me show you the 'outcome' of all this wise and learned chat, with which you edify one another. You know she beguiled me into giving her lessons on the organ, as well as the piano, and yesterday when I went over to the church at instruction hour, I was astonished at a prelude, which she had evidently improvised. Screened from her view, I listened till she finished playing. Of course I praised her (for really she has remarkable talent), and asked her when she began to compose, to improvise. Now what do you suppose she answered? A brigade of Philadelphia lawyers could never guess. She looked at me very steadily, and said as nearly as I can quote her words: 'I really don't know exactly when I began, but I suppose a long time ago, when I wore brown feathers, and went to sleep with my head under my wing, as all nightingales do.' Said I: 'What upon earth do you mean?' She replied: 'Why of course I mean when I was a nightingale, before I grew to be a human being. Didn't you hear Mr. Hargrove last week reading from that curious book, in which so many queer things were told about transmigration, and how the soul of a musical child came from the nightingale, the sweetest of singers? And don't you recollect Mr. Lindsay said that Plato believed it; and that Plotinus taught that people who lead pure lives and yet love music to excess, go into the bodies of melodious birds when they die? Just now when I played, I was wondering how a nightingale felt, swinging in a plum tree all white with fragrant bloom, and watching the cattle cropping buttercups and dandelions in the field. Mrs. Lindsay, if my soul is not perfectly fresh and brand new, I hope it never went into a human body before mine, because I would much lather it came straight to me from a sweet innocent bird."

"Surely, Elise, you are as usual, jesting?" exclaimed her brother.

"On the contrary, I assure you I neither magnify nor embellish. I am merely stating unvarnished facts, that you may thoroughly understand into what fertile soil your scattered grains of learning fall. I promise you, with moderate cultivation it will yield an hundred-fold."

"Mother, what did you say to her, by way of a dose of orthodoxy to antidote the metempsychosis poison?" asked Mr. Lindsay, who could not forbear laughing, at the astonished expression of his uncle's countenance.

"At first I was positively dumb, and stared at the child, very much as I daresay Mahamaia did, when her boy Arddha-Chiddi stood upon his feet and spoke five minutes after his entrance into this world of woe, or when at five months of age he sat unsupported in the air. Then I shook her, and asked if she had gone to sleep and dreamed she was a bulbul feeding on rose leaves; whereupon she looked gravely dignified, and when I proceeded to reason with her concerning the absurdity of the utterly worn-out doctrine of transmigration, how do you suppose she met me? With the information that far from being a worn-out doctrine, learned and scientific men now living were reviving it as the truth; and that whereas Christianity was only eighteen hundred years old, that metempsychosis had been believed for twenty-nine centuries, and at this day numbers more followers, by millions, than any other religion in the world. I inquired how she learned all this foolish fustian, and with an indescribable mixture of pride, pity, and triumph, as if she realized that she was throwing Mont Blanc at my head, she mentioned you two eminently evangelical guides, from whose infallible lips she had gleaned her knowledge. As for you, Douglass, I suggest you abandon Oriental studies, forego the dim hope of martyrdom in India, and begin your missionary labours at home. My dear, the Buddhist is at your own door. Now, Peyton, how do you relish the flavour of your philosophical salad?"

"I am afraid I have been culpably thoughtless in introducing to her mind various doctrines and theories which I never imagined she could comprehend, or would even ponder for a moment. Since my sight has become so impaired and feeble, I have several times called on her to read some articles which certainly are not healthful pabulum for a child, and my conversations with Douglass, relative to scientific theories, have been carried on unreservedly in her presence. I am very glad you warned me."

"And I am exceedingly sorry, if the effect of my mother's words should be to hamper and cramp the exercise of Regina's faculties. Free discussion should be dreaded only by hypocrites and fanatics, and after all, it is the best crucible for eliminating the false from the true. Does the contemplation of physical monstrosities engender a predilection or affection for deformity? Does it not rather by contrast with symmetry and perfect proportion heighten the power and charm of the latter? The beauty of truth is never so invincible as when confronted with sophistry or falsehood; just as youth and health seem doubly fair and precious, in the presence of trembling decrepitude and revolting disease."

"Really, Bishop! I thought you had passed the sophomoric stage, and it is a shameful waste of dialectic ammunition to throw your antithesis at me. According to your doctrine, America ought to buy up and import all the deformed unfortunates who are annually exposed in China, in order that our people should properly appreciate the superiority of sound limbs, and the value of the five senses; and healthy young people should throng the lazarettos and alms-houses to learn the nature of their own disadvantages. It is equally desirable that wise men like you and Peyton should accustom yourselves to the society of—well—I use polite diction, of imbeciles, of 'innocents,' in order to set a true value on learning and your own astute logic?"

"My dear little mother, you chop your logic so furiously with a broad axe, that you darken the air with a hurricane of chips and splinters. Like all ladies who attempt to argue, you rush into the reductio ad absurdum, and find it impossible to discriminate between——"

"Wisdom and conceit? Bless you, Bishop, observation has taught me all the shades and delicate gradations of that difference. We women no more mistake the latter for the former, than the gods who declined to turn cannibal when they went to dine with Tantalus, and were offered a fricassee of Pelops. Now I——

"Ceres did eat of it!" exclaimed her son, adroitly avoiding a tweak of the ear, by throwing his head back, beyond the touch of her fingers.

"A wretched pagan fable, sir, with which orthodox bishops should hold no communion. Tell me, you beardless Gamaliel, where you accumulated your knowledge relative to the education of girls? Present us a chart of your experience. You talk of hampering and cramping Regina's faculties, as if I had put her brains in a pair of stays, and daily tightened the lacers."

"I am inclined to think the usual forms of female education have precisely that effect. The fact is, mother, it appears that women in this country are expected to come the reserve magazines of piety, of religious fervour, on the certainly powerful principle that 'ignorance is the mother of devotion.' True knowledge, which springs from fearless investigation, is a far nobler and more reliable conservator of pure vital Christianity."

"Exempli gratia, Miss Martineau and Madame Dudevant, who are crowned heads among the cognoscenti? Or perhaps you would prefer a second 'La Pelouse,' governed by Miss Weber, who certainly agrees with you, 'that girls are trained too delicately to allow the mind to expand.' Illuminated and expanded by 'philosophy' and 'social progress' she and Madame Dudevant long ago literally abjured stays, and glory in the usurpation of vests, pantaloons, coats, and short hair. Be pleased to fancy my Regina, my blue-eyed snowbird, shorn of that

'Gloriole of ebon locks on calmed brows'!

I would rather see her in her coffin, shrouded in a ruffled pinafore."

"Much as I love her, so would I; but, Elise, we will anticipate no such dreadful destiny. She has a clear fine mind, is studious and ambitious, but certainly not a genius, unless it be in music; and she can be trained into a cultivated refined woman, sufficiently conversant with the sciences to comprehend their contemporaneous development, without threatening us with pedantry, or adopting a style suitable to the groves of Crotona in the days of Damo, or the abstruse mystical diction that doomed Hypatia to the mercy of the monks. After all, why scare up a blue-stockinged ogre, which may have no intention of depredating upon our peace; for to be really learned is no holiday amusement in this cumulative age, and offers little temptation to a young girl. Not long since, I found a sentence bearing upon this subject, which impressed itself upon my mind, as both strong and healthy: 'And by this you may recognize true education from false. False education is a delightful thing, and warms you, and makes you every day think more of yourself; and true education is a deadly cold thing, with a gorgon's head on her shield, and makes you every day think worse of yourself. Worse in two ways also, more is the pity: it is perpetually increasing the personal sense of ignorance, and the personal sense of fault.'"

"In that event, may I venture to wonder where and how you and Douglass stand in your own estimation? If quotations are en règle, I can match your reverence, though unfortunately my feminine memory is not like yours, a tireless beast of burden, and I must be allowed to read. Here is the book close at hand, in my stocking basket. Now, wise and gentle sirs, this is my ideal of proper, healthful, feminine education, as contrasted with pur new-fangled method of making girls either lay-figures for millinery, jewellery, and frizzled false hair, or else—far more horrible still—social hermaphrodites, who storm the posts that have been assigned to men ever since that venerable and sacred time when 'Adam delved and Eve span,' and who, forsaking holy home haunts, wage war against nature on account of the mistake made in their sex, and clamour for the 'hallowed inalienable right' to jostle and be jostled at the polls; to brawl in the market place, and to rant on the rostrum, like a bevy of bedlamities. Now when I begin to read, listen, and tell me frankly, whether when you both make up your minds to present me, one a sister, the other a daughter, you will select your wives from among quaint Evelyn's almost obsolete type, or whether you will commit your name, affections, wardrobe, larder, pantry and poultry to a strong-minded female 'scientist,' who will neglect your socks and buttons, to ascertain exactly how many Vibriones and Bacteria float in a drop of fluid, and when you come home tired and very hungry, will comfort you, and nobly atone for the injury of an ill-cooked and worse-served dinner, by regaling your weary ears with her own ingenious and brilliant interpretation and translation of Ælia Lælia Crispis! Here is my old-fashioned English damsel, meek as a violet, fresh as a dewy daisy, and sweet as a bed of thyme and marjoram. 'The style and method of life are quite changed, as well as the language, since the days of our ancestors, simple and plain as they were, courting their wives for their modesty, frugality, keeping at home, good housewifery, and other economical virtues then in reputation. And when the young damsels were taught all these at home in the country at their parents' houses; the portion they brought being more in virtue than money, she being a richer match than any one who could bring a million, and nothing else to commend her. The virgins and young ladies of that golden age put their hands to the spindle, nor disdained the needle; were obsequious and helpful to their parents, instructed in the management of the family, and gave presage of making excellent wives. Their retirements were devout and religious books, their recreations in the distillery and knowledge of plants and their virtues for the comfort of their poor neighbours, and use of the family, which wholesome diet and kitchen physic preserved in health. Then things were natural, plain, and wholesome; nothing was superfluous, nothing necessary wanted. The poor were relieved bountifully, and charity was as warm as the kitchen, where the fire was perpetual.' Now, if Regina were only my child, I should with some modifications train her after this mellow old style."

"Then I am truly thankful she is not my sister! Fancy her pretty pearly fingers encrusted with gingerbread-dough; or her entrance into the library heralded by the perfume of moly, or of basil and sage, tolerable only as the familiars of a dish of sausage meat! Don't soil my dainty white dove with the dust and soot and rank odours that belong to the culinary realm."

"Your white dove? Do you propose to adopt her? A month hence when you are on your way to India, what difference can it possibly make to you, whether she is as brown as a quail or black as a crow? Before you come back, she will have been conscripted into the staid army of matrons, and transmogrified into stout Mrs. Ptolemy Thomson, or lean and careworn Mrs. Simon Smith, or worse than all, erudite Mrs. Professor Belshazzar Brown, spelling Hercules after the learned style, with the loss of the u, and the substitution of a k; or making the ghost of Ulysses tear his hair, by writing the name of his enchantress 'Kirké'!"

As Mrs. Lindsay spoke the smile vanished from her lips, and looking keenly at her son's countenance she detected the change that crossed it, the sudden glow that mounted to the edge of his hair.

Avoiding her eyes, he answered hastily: "Suppose those distinguished gentlemen you mention chance to be scholars, savans, and disposed to follow the advice of Joubert in making their matrimonial selection: 'We should choose for a wife only the woman we should choose for a friend, were she a man.' Think you mere habits of domesticity, or skill in herbalism, would arrest and fix their fancy?"

"But, Bishop, they might consider the Talmud more venerable authority than Joubert, and the Talmud says, so I am told: 'Descend a step in choosing a wife; mount a step in choosing a friend.'"

"Thank heaven! there is indeed no Salique Law in the realm of learning. Mother, I believe one of the happiest auguries of the future consists in the broadening views of education that are now held by some of our ablest thinkers. If in the morning of our religious system, St. Peter deemed it obligatory on us to be able and 'ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you,' how doubly imperative is that duty in this controversial age, when the popular formula has been adopted, 'to doubt, to inquire, to discover;' when the hammer of the geologist pounds into dust the idols of tradition, and the lenses of astronomy pierce the blue wastes of space, which in our childhood we fondly believed were the habitat of cherubim and seraphim. Now, mother, if you will only insure my ears against those pink tweezers, of which they bear stinging recollections, I should like to explain myself."

Mrs. Lindsay plunged her hands into the depths of her stocking basket, and said sententiously:

"The temple of Janus is closed."

"What is the origin of the doctrine that erudition is the sole prerogative of men, and that it proves as dangerous in a woman's hands, as phosphorus or gunpowder in those of a baby——"

"Why Eve's experience, of course. A ton of gunpowder would not have blown up the garden of Eden more effectually, than did her light touch upon an outside branch of the tree of knowledge. I should say Genesis was acceptable authority to a young minister of the Gospel."

"That is a violation of the truce, Elise. You are skirmishing with his picket line. Go on, Douglass."

"It is evidently a remnant of despotic barbarism, a fungoid growth from Oriental bondage——"

"Bishop, may I be allowed to ask if you are referring to Genesis?"

"Dear little mother, I refer to the popular fallacy, that in the same ratio that you thoroughly educate women, you unfit them for the holy duties of daughter, wife, and mother. Is there an inherent antagonism between learning and womanliness?"

"Indeed, dear, how can I tell? I am not a 'Della-Cruscan.' I only 'strain' milk into my dairy pans."

"Elise, do be quiet. You break the thread of his argument."

"Then it is entirely too brittle to hold the ponderous propositions he intends to string upon it. Proceed, my son."

"Are we to accept the unjust and humiliating dogma that the more highly we cultivate feminine intellect, the more un-feminine, unlovely, unamiable the individual certainly becomes? Is a woman sweeter, more gentle, more useful to her family and friends, because she is unlearned? Does knowledge exert an acidulating influence upon female temper, or produce an ossifying effect on female hearts? Is ignorance an inevitable concomitant of refinement and delicacy? Does the knowledge of Greek and Latin cast a blight over the flower-garden, or a mildew in the pantry and linen closet; or do the classics possess the power of curdling all the milk of human-kindness, all the streams of tender sympathy in a woman's nature, as rennet coagulates a bowl of sweet milk? Can an acquaintance with literature, art, and science so paralyze a lady's energies, that she is rendered utterly averse to and incapable of performing those domestic offices, those household duties, so pre-eminently suited to her slender, dexterous busy little fingers? Why, my own wise precious little mother is a living refutation of so grossly absurd and monstrous a dogma! Have not you boxed my ears, because, when stumbling through the 'Anabasis,' my Greek pronunciation tortured your fastidious and correct taste? Did not you tell me that you read nearly the whole of Sallust by spreading the book open on the dairy shelf while you churned, thus saving time? And did not that same sweet golden butter, made under the shadow of a Latin dictionary, win you the State Fair Premium, of that very silver cup, from which I drank my milk, as long as I wore knee-pants and round jackets? Was it not my father's fond boast that his wife's proficiency in music was equalled only by her wonderful skill in making muffins, pastry, and omelette soujflée?"

With genuine chivalric tenderness in look and tone he inclined his head; but though a tear certainly glistened in Mrs. Lindsay's bright eyes, she answered gayly:

"Am I Cerberus, to be coaxed and cheated by a well-buttered sop of flattery? Return to your mutton, reverend sir, and know that I am incorruptible, and disdain to betray my cause for your thirty pieces of potent praise."

"I think," said Mr. Hargrove, taking a bunch of cherries from the fruit-stand on the library table,—"I think the whole matter may be resolved into this; the ambitious clamours and Amazonian excesses of this epoch, are the inevitable consequence of the rigid tyranny of former ages; which sternly banished women to the numbing darkness of an intellectual night, denying them the legitimate and natural right of developing their faculties by untrammelled exercise. This belief in feminine inferiority is still expressed in Mohammedan lands, by the custom of placing a slate or tablet of marble on a woman's grave, while on that of men a pen or penholder is laid, to indicate that female hearts are mere tablets, on which man writes whatever pleases him best. In sociology, as well as physics and dynamics,—the angle of reflection is always equal to the angle of incidence,—the psychologic rebound is ever in proportion to the mental pressure; one extreme invariably impinges upon the opposite,—and when the pendulum has reached one end of the arc, it must of necessity swing back to the other. In all social revolutions the moderate and reasonable concessions which might have appeased the discontent in its incipiency are gladly tendered much too late in the contest, when the insurgents stung by injustice and conscious of their grievances, refuse all temperate compromise, and run riot. This woman's-rights and woman's-suffrage abomination is no suddenly concocted social bottle of yeast: it has been fermenting for ages, and, having finally blown out the cork, is rapidly leavening the mass of female malcontents."

"But, Uncle Peyton, you surely discriminate between a few noisy ambitious sciolists who mistake lyceum notoriety for renown, and the noble band of delicate, refined women whose brilliant attainments in the republic of letters are surpassed only by their beautiful devotion to God, family, and home? Fancy Mrs. Somerville demanding a seat in Parliament, or Miss Herschel elbowing her way to the hustings! Whose domestic record is more lovely in its pure womanliness than Hannah More's, or Miss Mitford's, or Mrs. Browning's? who wears deathless laurels more modestly than Rosa Bonheur? It seems to me, sir, that it is not so much the amount as the quality of the learning that just now ought to engage attention. I see that one of the ablest and strongest thinkers of the day has handled this matter in a masterly way, and with your permission I should like to read a passage: 'In these times the educational tree seems to me to have its roots in the air, its leaves and flowers in the ground; and I confess I should very much like to turn it upside down, so that its roots might be solidly embedded among the facts of Nature, and draw thence a sound nutriment for the foliage and fruit of literature and of art. No educational system can have a claim to permanence, unless it recognizes the truth that education has two great ends, to which everything else must be subordinated. One of these is to increase knowledge; the other is to develop the love of right and the hatred of wrong. At present, education is almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of the power of expression, and of the sense of literary beauty. The matter of having anything to say beyond a hash of other people's opinions, or of possessing any criterion of beauty, so that we may distinguish between the God-like and the devilish, is left aside as of no moment. I think I do not err in saying that if science were made the foundation of education, instead of being at most stuck on as cornice to the edifice, this state of things could not exist.' Such is the system I should like to see established in our own country."

"Provided you could reply upon the moderation of the teachers; for unless wisely and temperately inculcated, this system would soon make utter shipwreck of the noblest interests of humanity. For many years I have watched attentively the doublings of this fox, and while I yield to no man in solemn fidelity to truth, I want to be sure that what I accept as such, is not merely old error under new garbs, only a change of disguising terms. Science has its fetich, as well has superstition, and abstruse terminology does not always conceal its stolid gross proportions. The complete overthrow and annihilation of the belief in a personal, governing, prayer-answering God, is the end and aim of the gathering cohorts of science, and the sooner masking technicalities are thrown aside the better for all parties. Scientific research and analysis, nobly brave, patient, tireless, and worthy of all honour and gratitude, have manipulated, decomposed, and then integrated the universal clay, but despite microscope and telescope, chemical analysis, and vivisection, they can go no further than the whirring of the Potter's wheel, and the Potter is nowhere revealed. The moulding Creative hand and the plastic clay are still as distinct, as when the gauntlet was first flung down by proud ambitious constructive science. Animal and vegetable organisms have been analyzed, and 'the idea of adaptation developed into the conception that life itself, "is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive in correspondence with external co-existence and sequences."' Now to the masses who are pardonably curious concerning this problem of existence, is this result perfectly satisfactory? The 'Physical basis of life' has been driven into a corner, hunted down, seized at last, and over the heads of an eager, panting, chasing generation, is triumphantly dangled this 'Scientific Fox' brush, 'Nucleated Protoplasm, the structural unit!' But how or whence sprang the laws of 'Protein'? Hatred of certain phrases is more bitter than of the principles they express, and because theologians cling to the words God,' Creative Acts, Divine Wisdom, Providential Adaptation, scientists declare them the dicta of ignorance, superstition, and tradition, and demand that we shall bow before their superior wisdom, and substitute such terms as 'Biogenesis,' 'Abiogenesis,' and 'Xenogenesis.' But where is the economy of credulity? The problems are only crowded by a subtle veil of learned or scientific verbiage, and their solution does not induce the expenditure of faith. The change of names is not worth the strife, for the Clay and the Potter are still distinct, and He who created cosmic laws cannot reasonably or satisfactorily be confounded with, or merged in His own statutes. Creeds, theories, systems are not valuable because they are religious and traditional, or because they are scientific or philosophical, but solely on account of their truth. So, Douglass, I am not sure that your essentially scientific method will teach Regina any more real wisdom in ethics, or in Ætiolgy, than her great-grandmother possessed."

"You forget, Uncle Peyton, that in this rapidly advancing age only improved educational systems will enable men and women to appreciate the importance of its discoveries."

"My dear boy, are sudden and violent changes always synonymous with advancement? Is transition inevitably improvement? Was the social status of Paris after the revolution of 1790 an appreciable progress from the morals, religious or political, that existed in the days of Fenelon? In mechanical, agricultural, and chemical departments the march is indeed nobly on and upward, the discoveries and improvements are vast and wonderful, and for these physical material blessings we are entirely indebted to Science, toiling, heroic, and truly beneficent Science. In morals, public or private—religion, national or individual—or in civil polity, have we advanced? Has liberty of action kept pace with liberty of opinion? Are Americans as truly free to-day as they certainly were fifty years ago? In æsthetics do we surpass Phidias and Praxiteles, Raphael and Michael Angelo? Is our music more perfect than Pergolesi's or Mozart's? Can we exhibit any marvels of architecture that excel the glory of Philæ, Athens, Pæstum, and Agra? Are wars less bloody, or is crime less rampant? Our arrogant assumption of superiority is sometimes mournfully rebuked. For instance, one of the most eminent and popular scientists of England emphasised his views on the necessity of 'improving natural knowledge,' by ascribing the great plague of 1664, and the great fire of 1666—which in point of population and of houses, nearly swept London from the face of the globe—to ignorance and neglect of sanitary laws, and to the failure to provide suitable organizations for the suppression of conflagrations. He proudly asserted that the recurrence of such catastrophes is now prohibited by scientific arrangements 'that never allow even a street to burn down,' and that 'it is the improvement of our own natural knowledge which keeps back the plague.' I think I am warranted in the assumption that our American Fire Departments, Insurance Companies, and Boards of Health are quite as advanced, progressive, and scientific as similar associations in Great Britain; yet the week after I read his argument, an immense city lay almost in ruins; and ere many months passed, several towns and districts of our land were scourged, desolated by pestilence so fatal, so unconquerable, that the horrors of the plague were revived, and the living were scarcely able to sepulchre the dead. Now and then we have solemn admonitions of the Sisyphian tendency of the attempt so oft defeated, so persistently renewed to banish a Personal and Ruling God, and substitute the scientific fetich, 'Force and Matter,' 'Natural Law,' 'Evolution,' or 'Development.' While I desire that the basis of Regina's education shall be sufficiently broad, liberal, and comprehensive, I intend to be careful what doctrines are propounded; for unfortunately all who sympathize with the atheism of Comte, have not his noble frankness, and fail to print as he did on his title-page:

'Réorganiser sans Dieu ni roi, Par le culte systematique de l'Humanité.'"

"Oh, Peyton! what fearfully, selfishly long sentences you and Douglass inflict upon each other, and upon me! The colons and semicolons gather along the lines of conversation like an army of martyrs, and to my stupidly weary ears that last, that final period, was a most 'sweet boon'—a crowning blessing. If Regina's nightingale soul is to be vexed by such disquisitions as those from which you have been quoting, I must say it made a sorry bargain in exchanging brown feathers for pink flesh, and would have had a better time trilling madrigals in some hawthorn thicket or myrtle grove. I see plainly I might as well carry my dear old Evelyn—fragrant with mint and marjoram—back upstairs, and wrap it up in ancient camphor-scented linen, and put it away tenderly to sleep its last sleep in the venerable cedar chest, where my grandfather's huge knee-buckles, and my great-grandmother's yellow brocaded silk-dress, with its waist the length of my little finger, and the sleeves as wide as a balloon. Gentlemen, permit me one parting paragraph, before I write 'finis' on this matter of education, and 'hereafter for ever hold my peace.' Be it distinctly understood, 'by these presents,' that if that child Regina grows up a blue-stocking, or a metempsychosist, a scientist or a freedom-shrieker, a professor of physics or a practitioner of physic, judge of a court or mayor of a city, biologist, sociologist, heathen or heretic, it will be no work or wish of mine; for to each and all of these threatened, progressive abominations, I, Elise Lindsay, do hold up clean hands, and cry, Avaunt!"

"I thought my sister had long since learned that borrowing trouble necessitated the payment of usurious interest? Just now our little girl carries no gorgon's head; let her alone. The most imperatively demanded change in our system of female training, is the addition of a few years in which to work. American girls are turned out upon society when they should be beginning their apprenticeship under their mothers' eyes in all household arts and sciences; and they are wives and mothers before they are able physically, mentally, or morally to appreciate the sacred, solemn responsibilities that inhere in such positions. If our girls pursued methodically all the branches of a liberal and classical education, including domestic economy, until they were at least twenty, how much misery would be averted! how many more really elegant interesting women would be added to the charm of society, usefulness to country, happiness and sanctity of home! Had I means to bestow in such enterprises, I should like to endow some institution, and stipulate for a chair of household-arts-and-sciences-and-home-duties; and Regina should not go into general society until she had graduated therein."

"Not another word of conspiracy against my little maid's peace! Lean forward a little, Peyton, and look at her yonder, coming along the rose-walk. See how the pigeons follow her. She has been gathering raspberries, and I promised she should make all she could pick into jelly for poor old Tobitha Meggs. How pure and fair she looks in her white dress! Dear little thing! Sometimes I am wicked enough to wish she had no mother, for then she would be wholly ours, and we could keep her always. Listen, she is singing Schubert's 'Ave Maria'."

After a moment's silence Mrs. Lindsay rose, and, passing her arm around her son's neck, leaned her cheek against his head, as he sat near his uncle, and looking through the open door at the slowly approaching figure.

"Bishop, if I were an artist, I would paint her as a priestess at Ephesus, chanting a hymn to Diana; and instead of Hero and the pigeons, place brown deer and spotted fawns on mossy banks in the background."

"Pooh! What a hopeless pagan you are, Elise? If I were a sculptor I would chisel a statue of purity, and give it her countenance."

And Mr. Lindsay smiled in his mother's face, and said only for her ear:

"Do not her eyes entitle her to be called Glaukopis?"

CHAPTER IX.

The long sultry August day was drawing to a close, and those who had found the intense heat almost unendurable watched with delight the slow hands of the clock, whose lagging fingers finally pointed to five. The sky seemed brass, the atmosphere a blast from Tophet; and the sun, still standing at some distance above the horizon, glared mercilessly down over the panting parched: earth, as if a recent and unusually copious shower of "meteoric cosmical matter" had fallen into the solar furnace, and prompted it by increased incandescence to hotly deny the truth of Helmholtz's assertion: "The inexorable laws of mechanics show that the store of heat in the sun must be finally exhausted." Certainly to those who had fanned themselves through the tedious torture long remembered as the "hot Sunday," the science-predicted period of returning glaciers and polar snows where palms and lemons now hold sway, seemed even more distant than the epoch suggested by the speculative. In proportion to the elevation of the mercurial vein which mounted to and poisoned itself at 100 degrees, the religious, the devotional, pulse sank lower, almost to zero; consequently, although circumstances of unusual interest attracted the congregation to the church, where Mr. Lindsay intended to preach his farewell sermon, only a limited number had braved the heat to shake hands with the young minister, who ere another sunrise would have started on his long journey to the pagan East.

At the parsonage it had been a sad day, sad despite the grave serenity of Mr. Hargrove, the quiet fortitude of Mr. Lindsay, and the desperate attempts of the mother to drive back tears, compose fluttering lips, and steady the tones of her usually cheerful voice. For several days previous, Mr. Hargrove had been quite indisposed, and as his nephew would leave home at eleven p.m., the customary Sunday night service had been omitted.

As the afternoon wore away, the family trio assembled on the shaded end of the north verandah, and with intuitive delicacy, Regina shrank from intruding on the final interview which appeared so sacred.

Followed by Hero, she went through the shrubbery, and down a walk bordered with ancient cedars, which led to a small gate that opened into the adjoining churchyard.

In accordance with a custom long since fallen hopelessly into desuetude, but prevailing when the venerable church was erected, it had been placed in the centre of a spacious square, every yard of which had subsequently become hallowed as the last resting-place of families who had passed away, since the lofty spire rose like a huge golden finger pointing heavenward. An avenue of noble elms led from the iron gate to the broad stone steps; and on either side and behind the church swelled the lines of mounds, some white with marble, some green with turf, now and then a heap of mossy shells—not a few gay with flowers—all scrupulously free from weeds, and those most melancholy symptoms of neglect, which even in public cemeteries too often impress the beholder with gloomy premonitions of his own inevitable future, and recall the solemn admonition of the Talmud: "Life is a passing shadow. Is it the shadow of a tower, or of a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the shadow of a bird in his flight,—away flies the bird, and there remains neither bird nor shadow."

Has the profoundly religious sentiment of reverence for the domains of death lost or gained by the modern practice of municipal monopoly of the right of sepulture? Who, amid the pomp and splendour of Greedwood or Mount Auburn, where human vanity builds its own proud monument in the mausoleums of the dead,—who, in hurrying along the broad and beautiful avenues thronged with noisy groups of chattering pedestrians, and with gay equipages that render the name "City of silence" a misnomer, converting it into a quasi Festa ground, a scene for subdued Sunday Fête Champêtre,—who, passing from these magnificent city cemeteries, into some primitive old-fashioned churchyard, such as that of V——, has not suddenly been almost overpowered by the contrast presented: the deep brooding solemnity, the holy hush, the pervading indwelling atmosphere of true sanctity that distinguishes the latter?

Could any other than the simple ancient churchyard of bygone days have suggested that sweetest, purest, noblest elegy in our mother tongue? Do not our hearts yearn with an intense and tender longing toward that church, at whose font we were baptized, at whose communion-table we reverently bowed, before whose altar we breathed the marriage vows, from whose silent chancel we shall one day be softly and slowly borne away to our last, long sleep? Why not lay us down to rest, where the organ that pealed at our wedding and sobbed its requiem over our senseless clay may still breathe its loving dirges across our graves in winter's leaden storms, or in fragrant amber-aired summer days? Would worldly vampires, such as political or financial schemes, track a man's footsteps down the aisle, and flap their fatal numbing pinions over his soul so securely even in the Sanctuary of the Lord, if from his family pew his eyes wandered now and then to the marble slab that lay like a benediction over the silver head of an honoured father or mother, or the silent form of a beloved wife, sister, or brother?

Is there a woman so callous, so steeped in folly, that the tinsel of Vanity Fair, the paraphernalia of fashion, or all the thousand small fiends that beleaguer the female soul, could successfully lure her imagination from holy themes, when sitting in front of the pulpit, she yet sees through the open windows where butterflies like happy souls flutter in and out the motionless chiselled cenotaph that rests like a sentinel above the pulseless heart that once enshrined her image, called her wife, and beat in changeless devotion against her own; or the little grassy billow sown thick with violets that speak to her of the blue eyes beneath them, where in dreamless slumber that needs no mother's cradling arms, no maternal lullaby, reposes the waxen form, the darling golden head of her long-lost baby? What spot so peculiarly suited for "God's acre" as that surrounding God's temple?

A residence of dearly four years' duration at the parsonage had rendered this quiet churchyard a favourite retreat with Regina, and, divesting the graves of all superstitious terrors, had awakened in her nature only a most profound and loving reverence for the precincts of the dead.

To-day, longing for some secluded spot in which to indulge the melancholy feelings that oppressed her, she instinctively sought the church, yielding unconscious homage to its hallowed and soothing influence. Passing slowly and carefully among the head-stones, she went into the church, to which she had access at all times by a key, which enabled her to enter at will and practise on the small organ that was generally used in Sabbath-school music.

Fancying that it might be cooler in the gallery, she ascended to the organ loft, and while Hero stretched himself at her feet, she sat down on one of the benches close to the open window that looked toward the mass of trees which so completely embowered the parsonage, that only one ivy-crowned chimney was visible. Low in the sky, and just opposite the tall arched window behind the pulpit, the sun burned like a baleful Cyclopean eye, striking through a mass of ruby tinted glass that had been designed to represent a lion, and other symbols of the Redeemer, who soared away above them.

Are there certain subtle electrical currents sheathed in human flesh that link us sometimes with the agitated reservoirs of electricity trembling in the bosom of yet distant clouds? Do not our own highly charged nervous batteries occasionally give the first premonition of coming thunderstorms? Long before the low angry growl that came suddenly from some lightning lair in the far south, below the sky-line, Regina anticipated the approaching war of elements, and settled herself to wait for it.

Not until to-day had she realized how much of the pleasure of her life at the parsonage was derived from the sunny presence and sympathizing companionship which she was now about to lose, certainly for many years, probably for ever.

Although Mr. Lindsay's age doubled her own, he had entered so fully into her fancies, humoured so patiently her girlish caprices, with such tireless interest aided her in her studies, that she seemed to forget his seniority, and treated him with the quiet affectionate freedom which she would have indulged toward a young brother. Next to the memory of her mother, she probably gave him the warmest place in her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive passionate gesture, or a burst of emotion.

Sincerely attached to the entire household, who had won not merely her earnest gratitude, but profound respect and admiration, she was conscious of a peculiar clinging tenderness for Mr. Lindsay, which rendered the prospect of his departure the keenest trial that had hitherto overtaken her; and when she thought of the immense distance that must soon divide them, the laborious nature of the engagement that would detain him perhaps a lifetime in the far East, her own dim uncertain future looked dark and dreary. The blazing sun went down at last, the fiery radiance of the pulpit window faded, and the birds that frequented the quiet sheltered enclosure sought their perches in the thickest foliage where they were wont to sleep. But there was no abatement of the heat. The air was sulphurous, and its inspiration was about as refreshing as a draught from Phlegethon; while the distant occasional growl had grown into a frequent thunderous muttering that deepened with every repetition, and already began to shake the windows in its reverberations. Two ladies in deep mourning, who had been hovering like black spectres around a granite sarcophagus, where they deposited and arranged the customary Sabbath arkja of white flowers, concluded their loving tribute to the sleeper, and left the churchyard; and save the continual challenge of the thunder drawing nearer, the perfect stillness ominous and dread, which always precedes a violent storm, seemed brooding in fearful augury above the home of the dead.

With one foot resting on Hero's neck, Regina sat leaning against the window facing, very pale, but bravely fighting this her first great battle with sorrow. Her face was eloquent with mute suffering, and her eyes were full of shadows that left no room for tears.

"Going away to India, perhaps for ever!" was the burden of this woe that blanched even her lovely coral lips until their curves were lost in the pallor of her rounded cheek and dimpled chin. "Going away to India;" like some fateful rune presaging dire disaster, it seemed traced in characters of flame across the glowing sky, and over the stony monuments that studded the necropolis.

Suddenly Hero lifted his head, sniffed the air, and rose, and almost simultaneously Regina heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside, and the low utterances of a voice which she recognized as Hannah's.

"I never told you before, because I was afraid that in the end you would cheat me out of my share of the profit. But I have watched and waited, and bided my time as long as I intend to, and I am too old to work as I have done."

"It seems to me a queer thing you have hid it so long, so many years, when you might have turned it into gold. The old General ought to pay well for the paper. Let's see it."

The response was in a man's voice, harsh and discordant, and, leaning slightly forward, Regina saw the old servant from the parsonage standing immediately beneath the window, fanning herself with her white apron, and earnestly conversing in subdued tones with a middle-aged man, whose flushed and rather bloated face still retained traces of having once been, though in a coarse style, handsome. In length of limb, and compact muscular development he appeared an athlete, a very son of Anak; but habitual dissipation had set its brutalizing stamp upon his countenance, and the expression of the inflamed eyes and sensuous mouth was sinister and forbidding, as if a career of vice had left the stain of irremediable ruin on his swarthy face.

As he concluded his remark and stretched out his hand, Hannah laughed scornfully.

"Do you take me for a fool? Who else would travel around with a match and a loaded fuse in the same pocket? I haven't it with me; it is too valuable to be carried about. The care of that scrap of paper has tormented me all these years, worse than the tomb devils did the swine that ran down into the sea to cool off; and if I have changed its hiding-place once, I have twenty times. If the old General doesn't pay well for it, I shall gnaw off my fingers, on account of the sin it has cost me. I was an honest woman and could have faced the world until that night—so many years ago; and since then I have carried a load on my soul that makes me—even Hannah Hinton, who never flinched before man or woman or beast—a coward, a quaking coward! Sin stabs courage, lets it ooze out, as a knife does blood. Don't bully me, Peleg! I won't bear it. Jeer me if you dare."

"Never fear, Aunt Hannah. I have no mind to do theatre on a small scale, and show you Satan reproving sin. After all, what is your bit of petit larceny, your thin slice of theft, in comparison with my black work? But really I don't in the least begrudge my sins, if only I might have my revenge,—if I could only get Minnie in my power."

"Bah! don't sicken me with any more of the Minnie dose! I hate the name as I do small-pox or cholera. A pretty life you have led, dancing after her, as an outright fool might after the pewter-bells on a baby's rattle!"

"You women can't understand how a man feels when his love changes to hate; and yet you ought to know all about it, for when you do turn upon one another you never let go. Aunt Hannah, I loved her better than everything else upon the broad earth; I would have kissed the dust where she walked; I always loved her, and she was fond of me, until that college dandy came between us, and made a fool of her, a villain of me. When she forsook me, and followed him off, I swore I would be revenged. There is tiger blood in me, and when I am thoroughly stirred up I never cool. It is a long, long time since I lost her trail—soon after the child was born, and eight years ago I almost gave up and went to Cuba; but if I can only find the track, I will follow it till I hunt her down. I never received your letters, or I would have hurried back. Where is Minnie now?"

"That is more than I know, but I think somewhere in Europe. The letters are always sent to a lawyer in New York, who directs them to her. I have tried in every way to find out, but they are all too smart for me."

"Why don't you pump the child?"

"Haven't I? And gained about as much as if I had put a handle on the side of a lump of cast iron, and pumped. She is closer than sealing wax, and shrewder than a serpent. If you pumped her till the stars fell, you would not get an air-bubble, She can neither be scared nor coaxed."

"Where is the paper?"

"Safely buried here, among the dead."

"What folly! Don't you know the dampness will destroy it? Pshaw! you have ruined everything."

"See here, Peleg, all the brains of the family did not lodge in your skull; and I guess I was wiser at your age than you will be at mine. The paper was safe and sound when I looked at it a month ago, and it is wrapped up in oil-silk, then in cotton, and kept in a thick tin box."

"When can I see it? Suppose you get it now?"

"In daylight? You may depend on my steering clear of detection, no matter what comes. I would take it up to-night, but there is going to be an awful storm. Do you hear how the thunder keeps bellowing down yonder, under that dark line crossing the south? There will be wild work pretty soon; it has been simmering all day, and when it begins it won't be child's play. Even the marble slabs on the graves are hot, and the ground scorched my feet, as if Satan and his fires had burnt through all but a thin crust. I never was afraid of the devil until my sin brought me close to him. I want to finish this business, and before day to-morrow I will come over here and dig up my box. There will be dim moonlight by three o'clock, and if it should be cloudy, I can shut my eyes and find the place. I tell you, Peleg, I am sick and tired of this dirty work; and sometimes I think I am no better than a hyena prowling among dead men's bones. Come around to the cowshed in the morning, about seven o'clock, when the family will be in the library holding prayers; and when I go to milk, I will bring you the paper. Only to look at, to read over, mind you! It doesn't leave my hands, until the old General's gold jingles in my pocket. Then he is welcome to it, and Minnie may suffer the consequences; and you and I will divide the profits. I want to go away and rest with my sister Penelope the remainder of my life, and though the family here beg me to stay, I have already given notice that I intend to stop work next month."

"Very well, don't fail me; I am as anxious to close up the job as you possibly can be. I should like to see the child, Minnie's child; but I might spoil everything if she looks like her mother. Good-bye till to-morrow."

The two walked away, one passing down the avenue of elms out into the street. The other sauntered in the direction of the parsonage, but ere she reached the small gate, Hannah turned aside to a low iron railing that enclosed two monuments; a marble angel with expanded wings standing above a child's grave, and a broken column wreathed with sculptured ivy, placed on a mound covered with grass. Just behind the former and close to the railing, rose a noble Lombardy poplar that towered even above the elms, and at its base a mass of periwinkle and ground ivy ran hither and thither in luxuriant confusion, clasping a few ambitious tendrils even about the ancient trunk.

Over the railing leaned Hannah, peering down for several moments, at the lush green creepers, then she walked on to the parsonage gate, and disappeared.

Watching her movements, Regina readily surmised that somewhere near that tree the paper was secreted; and she was painfully puzzled to unravel the thread that evidently linked her with the mystery.

"I am the child she spoke of, and she has tried again and again to 'pump' me, as she called it. 'Minnie' must mean my mother; but that is not her name. Odilie Orphia Orme never could be twisted into 'Minnie;' and that coarse, common, low, wicked man never could have dared to love my own dear beautiful proud mother! There must be some dreadful mistake. Somebody is wrong; but not mother,—no, no—never my mother! Once she wrote that she was forced to keep some things secret, because she had bitter enemies; and this man must be one of them, for he said he would hunt her down. But he shall not! Was it Providence that brought them here to talk over their wicked schemes where I could hear them? Oh if I only knew all! Mother—mother! you might trust your child! I can't believe that I am ignorant even of my mother's name. Surely she never was that red-faced man's 'Minnie'!"

Covering her face with her hands, she shuddered at the familiar mention by profane lips of one so hallowed in her estimation, and this vague threatening of danger to her mother sufficed for a time to divert her thoughts from the sorrow that for some days past had engrossed her mind.

Knowing the affection and confidence with which Hannah had always been treated by the members of the family, and the great length of time she had so faithfully served in the parsonage household, Regina was shocked at the discovery of her complicity in a scheme which she admitted had made her dishonest. Only two days before she had heard Mrs. Lindsay lamenting that misfortunes never came single, for as if Douglass's departure were not disaster enough for one year, Hannah must even imagine that she felt symptoms of dropsy and desired to go away somewhere in Iowa or Minnesota, where she could rest, and be nursed by her relatives.

This announcement heightened the gloom that already impended, and various attempts had been made by Mr. Hargrove and his sister to induce Hannah to reconsider her resolution. But she obstinately maintained that she was "a worn-out old horse, who ought to be turned out to pasture in peace the rest of her days;" yet, notwithstanding her persistency, she evinced much distress at her approaching separation from the family, and never alluded to it without a flood of tears.

What would the members of the household think when they discovered how mistaken all had been in her real character? But had she a right to betray Hannah to her employer? Perhaps the paper had no connection with the parsonage, and no matter whom else she might have wronged, Hannah had faithfully served the pastor, and repaid his kindness by devotion to his domestic interests. Regina's nature was generous as well as just, and she felt grateful to Hannah for many small favours bestowed on herself, for a uniform willingness to oblige or assist her, as only servants have it in their power to do.

Sweetening reminiscences of caramels and crullers, of parenthetic patty-pancakes not ordered or expected on the parsonage bill of fare, pleaded pathetically for Hannah, and were ably supported by recollections of torn dresses deftly darned, of unseasonably and unreasonably soiled white aprons, which the same skilful hands had surreptitiously washed and fluted before the regular day for commencing the laundry work, all of which now made clamorous and desperate demands on the girl's gratitude and leniency. So complete had been her trust in Hannah that her reticence concerning her mother sprang solely from Mr. Hargrove's earnest injunction that she would permit no one to question her upon the subject; consequently she had very tenderly intimated to the old woman that she was not at liberty to discuss that matter with any one.

"She is going away very soon, bearing a good character. Would it be right for me to disgrace her in her old age, by telling Mr. Hargrove what I accidentally overheard? If I only knew 'Minnie' meant mother, I could be sure this paper did not refer to Mr. Hargrove, and then I should see my way clearly; for they both said 'old General,' and no one calls Mr. or Dr. Hargrove 'General.' I only want to do what is right."

As she lifted her face from her hands she was surprised at the sudden gloom that since she last looked out had settled like a pall over the sky, darkening the church, rendering even the monuments indistinct.

Hero began to whine and bark, and, starting from her seat, Regina hurried toward the steps leading down from the organ-loft. Ere she reached them a fearful sound like the roaring of a vast flood broke the prophetic silence, then a blinding lurid flash seemed to wrap everything in flame; there was simultaneously an awful detonating crash, as if the pillars of the universe had given way, and the initial note ushered in the thunder-fugue of the tempest, that raged as if the Destroying Angel rode upon its blast.

In the height of its fury it bowed the ancient elms as if they were mere reeds, and shook the stone church to its foundations as a giant shakes a child's toy.

Frightened by the trembling of the building, Regina began to descend the stairs, guided by the incessant flashes of lightning, but when about half-way down a terrific peal of thunder so startled her that she missed a step, grasped at the balustrade but failed to find it, and rolled helplessly to the floor of the vestibule. Stunned and mute with terror, she attempted to rise, but her left foot, crushed under her in the fall, refused to serve her, and with a desperate instinct of faith she crawled through the inside door and down the aisle, seeking refuge at the altar of God. Dragging the useless member, she reached the chancel at last, and as the lightning showed her the railing, she laid herself down, and clasped the mahogany balusters in both hands.

In the ghastly electric light she saw the wild eyes of the lion in the pulpit window glaring at her,—but over all the holy smile of Christ, as, looking down in benediction, He soared away heavenward; and above the howling of the hurricane rose her cry to Him who stilleth tempests, and saith to wind and sea, "Peace, be still!": "O Jesus! save me, that I may see my mother once more!"

She imagined there was a lull, certainly the shrieking of the gale seemed to subside, but only for half a moment, and in the doubly fierce renewal of elemental strife, amid deafening peals if thunder and the unearthly glare that preceded each reverberation, there came other sounds more appalling, and as the church rocked and quivered some portion of the ancient edifice fell, adding its crash to the diapason of the storm.

Believing that the roof was falling upon her, Regina shut her eyes, and in after years she recalled vividly two sensations that seemed her last on earth: one, the warm touch of Hero's tongue on her clenched fingers; the other, a supernatural wail that came down from the gallery, and that even then she knew was born in the organ. Was it the weird fingering of the sacrilegious cyclone that concentrated its rage upon the venerable sanctuary? After a little while the fury of the wind spent itself, but the rain began to fall heavily, and the electricity drama continued with unabated vigour and fierceness.

Although unusually brave for so young a person, Regina had been completely terrified, and she lay dumb and motionless, still clinging to the altar railing. At last, when the wind left the war to the thunder and the rain, Hero, who had been quite until now, began to bark violently, left her side, and ran to and fro, now and then uttering a peculiar sound, which with him always indicated delight. His subtle instinct was stronger than her hope, and as she raised herself into a sitting posture she saw that he had sprung upon the top of one of the side aisle pews, and thence into the window, which had been left open by the sexton. Here he lingered as if irresolute, and in an agony of dread at the thought of being deserted, she cried out:

"Here, Hero! Come back! Hero, don't leave me to die alone."

He whined in answer, and barked furiously as if to reassure her; then the whole church was illumined with a lurid glory that seemed to scorch the eyeballs with its intolerable radiance, and in it she saw the white figure of the dog plunge into the blackness beyond.

She knew the worst was over, unless the lightning killed her, for the wind had ceased, and the walls were still standing; but the atmosphere was thick with dust, and redolent of lime, and she conjectured that the plastering in the gallery had fallen, though the tremendous crash portended something more serious. She tried to stand up by steadying herself against the balustrade, but the foot refused to sustain her weight, and she sank back into her former crouching posture, feeling very desolate, but tearless and quiet as one of the apostolic figures that looked pityingly upon her whenever the lightning smote through them.

She turned her head, so that at every flash she could gaze upon the placid face of the beatified Christ floating above the pulpit; and in the intense intervening darkness tried to possess her soul in patience, thinking of the mercy of God and the love of her mother.

She knew not how long Hero had left her, for pain and terror are not accurate chronometers, but after what appeared a weary season of waiting, she started when his loud bark sounded under the window, through which he had effected his exit. She tried to call him, but her throat was dry and parched, and her foot throbbed and ached so painfully, that she dreaded making any movement. Then a voice always pleasant to her ears, but sweeter now than an archangel's, shouted above the steady roar of the rain:

"Regina! Regina!"

She rose to her knees, and with a desperate exertion of lungs and throat, answered:

"I am here! Mr. Lindsay, I am here!"

Remembering that words ending in o were more readily distinguished at a distance, she added:

"Hero! Oh, Hero!"

His frantic barking told her that she had been heard, and then through the window came once more the music of the loved voice.

"Be patient. I am coming."

She could not understand why he did not come through the door instead of standing beneath the window, and it seemed stranger still, that after a little while all grew silent again. But her confidence never wavered, and in the darkness she knelt there patiently, knowing that he would not forsake her.

It seemed a very long time before Hero's bark greeted her once more, and, turning toward the window, a lingering zigzag flash of lightning showed her Douglass Lindsay's face, as he climbed in, followed by the dog.

"Regina! where are you?"

"Oh, here I am!"

He stood on one of the seats, swinging a lantern in his hand, and as she spoke he sprang toward her.

Still clutching the altar railing with one hand, she knelt, with her white suffering face upturned piteously to him, and stooping he threw his arms around her and clasped her to his heart.

"My darling, God has been merciful to you and me!"

She stole one arm up about his neck, and clung to him, while for the first time he kissed her cheek and brow.

"Does my darling know what an awful risk she ran? The steeple has fallen, and the whole front of the church is blocked up, a mass of ruins. I could not get in, and feared you were crushed, until I heard Hero bark from the inside and followed the sound, which brought me to the window, whence he jumped out to meet me. At last when you answered my call, I was obliged to go back for a ladder. Here, darling, at God's altar, let us thank Him for your preservation."

He bowed his face upon her head, and she heard the whispered thanksgiving that ascended to the throne of grace, but no words were audible. Rising he attempted to lift her, but she winced and moaned, involuntarily sinking back.

"What is the matter? After all, were you hurt?"

"When I came down from the gallery it turned so dark I was frightened, and I stumbled and fell down the steps. I must have broken something, for when I stand up my ankle gives way, and I can't walk at all."

"Then how did you get here? The steps are at the front of the church."

"I thought the altar was the safest place, and I crawled here on my hands and knees."

He pressed her head against his shoulder, and his deep manly voice trembled.

"Thank God, for the thought. It was your salvation, for the stairs and the spot where you must have fallen are a heap of stone, brick, and mortar. If you had remained there, you would certainly have been killed."

"Yes, it was just after I got here and caught hold of the railing that the crash came. Oh! is it not awful!"

"It was an almost miraculous escape, for which you ought to thank and serve your God all the days of the life He has mercifully spared to you. Stand up a minute, even if it pains you, and let me find out what ails your foot. I know something of surgery, for once it was my intention to study medicine instead of divinity."

He unbuttoned and removed her shoe, and as he firmly pressed the foot and ankle, she flinched and sighed.

"I think there are no bones broken, but probably you have wrenched and sprained the ankle, for it is much swollen already. Now, little girl, I must go back for some assistance. You will have to be taken out through the window, and I am afraid to attempt carrying you down the ladder unaided and in the darkness. I might break your neck, instead of your ankle."

"Oh, please don't leave me here!"

She stretched out her arms pleadingly, and tears sprang to his eyes as he noted the pallor of her beautiful face and the nervous fluttering of her white lips.

"I shall leave Hero and the lantern with you, and you may be sure I shall be gone the shortest possible time. The danger is over now, even the lightning is comparatively distant, and you who have been so brave all the while certainly will not prove a coward at the last moment."

He took her up as easily as if she had been an infant, and laid her tenderly down on one of the pew cushions; then placed the lantern on the pulpit desk, and came back.

"Slip your hand under Hero's collar, to prevent him from following me if he should try to do so, and keep up your courage. Put yourself in God's hands, and wait here patiently for Douglass. Don't you know that I would not leave you here an instant, if it could be avoided? God bless you, my white dove."

He stooped and kissed her forehead, then hurried away, and after a moment Regina knew that she and her dog were once more alone in the ancient church, with none nearer than the dead, who slept so soundly, while the soft summer rain fell ceaselessly above their coffins.

CHAPTER X.

The town clock was striking nine when the renewal of welcome sounds beneath the window announced to Regina that her weary dark vigil was ended. Soon after Mr. Lindsay's departure, the lantern above the altar grew dim, then went out, leaving the church in total darkness, relieved only by an occasional glimmer from the electric batteries that had wheeled far away to the north-east. Erect and alert Hero sat beside his mistress, now and then rubbing his head against her shoulder, or placing his paw on her arm, as if to encourage her by mute assurances of faithful guardianship; and even when the voices outside cheered him into one quick bark of recognition, he made no effort to leave the prostrate form.

"All in the dark? Where is your lantern?" asked Mr. Lindsay, as he climbed through the window.

"It went out very soon after you left. Can you find me? or shall I try to come to you?"

"Keep still, Regina. Come up the ladder, Esau, and hold your torch so that I can see. It is black as Egypt inside."

In a few moments the ruddy glare streamed in, and showed the anxious face of the sexton, and the figure of Mr. Lindsay groping from pew to pew. Before that cheerful red light how swiftly the trooping spectres and grim phantoms that had peopled the gloom fled away for ever! What a blessed, comforting atmosphere of love and protection seemed to encompass her, when, after handing one of the pew cushions to the sexton, Mr. Lindsay came to the spot where she lay.

"How are your wounds?"

"My foot is very stiff and sore, but if you will let me hold your arm, I can hop along."

"Can you, my crippled snow-bird? Suppose I have a different use for my strong arms?"

He lifted her very gently, but apparently without effort, and carried her to the window.

"Go down, Esau, set the torch in the ground, and hold the ladder,—press it hard against the wall. I am coming down backward,—and if I should miss a round, you must be ready to help me. Come, Hero, jump out first and clear the way. Steady now, Esau."

Placing his charge on the broad sill, Mr. Lindsay stepped out, established himself securely on the ladder, and, drawing the girl to the ledge, took her firmly in his arms, balancing himself with some difficulty as he did so.