Her mother's secret

Her

Mother’s Secret

A Novel

By

MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH

AUTHOR OF

“A Leap in the Dark,” “A Beautiful Fiend,” “Fair Play,”

“Em,” “Em’s Husband,” “David Lindsay,” Etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Popular Books

By MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH

In Handsome Cloth Binding

Price — — 60 Cents per Volume

For Sale by all Booksellers

or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price

A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

52 Duane Street New York

Copyright, 1882 and 1889

By ROBERT BONNER

Renewal granted to Mrs. Charlotte Southworth Lawrence

1910

Her Mother’s Secret

HER MOTHER’S SECRET

CHAPTER I

THE MISTRESS OF MONDREER

“Mother! Oh, mother! it will break my heart!” wailed Odalite, sinking at the lady’s feet, and dropping her head into her hands, face downward to the carpet.

The lady gently raised her child, took her in her arms and tenderly caressed her, murmuring, softly:

“No, my own! hearts never break, or one heart, I know, must have broken long ago. Besides,” she added, in a firmer tone, “honor must be saved, though hearts be sacrificed.”

“‘Honor,’ mother dear? I do not understand. I do not see what honor has to do with it. Or if it has, I should think that honor would be better saved by my keeping faith with Le than by breaking with him! Oh, mother! mother! it will kill me!” moaned Odalite.

“My child, my dear girl, hear me! Listen to reason! Leonidas Force has no claim to be remembered by you. You have never been engaged to him. You were but a little girl of thirteen when he went to sea on his first voyage, three years ago, and you have not seen him since. What possible claim can he have upon you, since no betrothal exists between you?” gently questioned the lady, tenderly running her fair fingers through the dark tresses of the young head that leaned upon her bosom.

“Oh, mother,” replied the girl, with a heavy sigh, “I know that there was no formal betrothal between Le and myself—but—but—we all knew, you and father and Le and I—all knew—and always knew that we two belonged to each other and would always belong to each other all our lives. Le and I never thought of any other fate.”

“Idle, childish fancies, my poor little girl! too trivial to cause you these tears. Wipe them away, and look clearly at the higher destiny, more worthy of your birth and beauty,” murmured the lady, pressing her ripe, red lips upon the pale brow of her darling.

“Oh, mother, I do not want a higher destiny! I do not want any destiny apart from Le. And these are not childish fancies, and not trivial to me! Oh, think, mother, Le and I were playmates as far back in my life as I can remember. We loved each other better than we loved any one else in the whole world. You and father used to laugh at us and pretend to be jealous; but we saw that you were pleased all the time; for you both intended us for each other, and we knew it, too, for father used to say when he saw how inseparable we two were: ‘So much the better; I hope their hearts will not be estranged when they grow up!’ And our hearts have never become estranged from each other!”

“Oh, yes, dearest, I know that there was some speculative talk when you were children of uniting you and Leonidas, so that the name of Force might not die out from Mondreer. But I never really approved of marrying cousins, Odalite, merely to keep the family name on the family estate.”

“But, mother, darling, Le and I never thought of the family name and estate; we only thought of one another. And, besides, we are such very, very distant cousins—only fourth or fifth, I think—that that objection could never be raised. Oh, mother! dear mother! do not compel me to break with Le! I cannot! I cannot! Oh, indeed, I cannot!” she cried, burying her face in the lady’s bosom.

Elfrida Force caressed her daughter in silence.

Presently Odalite lifted her head and pleaded:

“He is coming home so soon now, and so full of hope! He expects to be here by Christmas; and he expects—oh, yes, I know by his last letter that he expects to—to—to——” The girl’s eyes fell under the compassionate yet scrutinizing gaze of her mother, and her voice faltered into silence.

“To marry you early in the new year, I suppose you mean, dear.”

“Yes, mother.”

“He did not say so.”

“No, mother, dear, he did not say so, in so many words, but from the whole tone of his letter he evidently meant so. Father thought he did, and even tried to tease me about the New Year’s wedding—asking me how many hundreds I should need to buy my wedding clothes.”

“What was it he said in his letter that leads you to suppose he has any such expectations? I confess that I saw nothing of such an intention when I read the letter.”

“Only this, mother, but it was very significant. He wrote that now he had inherited Greenbushes and all his Aunt Laura’s money, he was rich enough to resign from the navy, and he need not go to sea any more, nor ever part with me again; but that he could stay home, repair and refurnish the house, improve the land, and farm it on all the new principles, and make the place a paradise for us to live in. He wrote, mother, dear, as of certain fixed facts.”

“He was very presumptuous, my dear little girl, for there is nothing certain in this world of changes,” gravely commented the lady.

“But Le’s heart has not changed, nor has mine.”

“My poor darling,” said Elfrida Force, smoothing her daughter’s dark hair with a gentle hand, “my precious child! It grieves me to do so, but I must prepare you for what seems inevitable. You must forget all this youthful folly, and think of Leonidas Force only as a cousin. You do not really love him as a betrothed maiden should love her affianced husband. You only fancy that you do. In reality you know nothing of such a love as that. Le was brought up in the house with you. You have no brother. Le has no sister. You therefore love each other as brother and sister. By and by you both may discover—but not for each other—the higher, deeper, stronger love which unites the husband and the wife in a true marriage—such a love as I could wish might crown my darling’s life with lasting joy—such a love as you might find in a union with Angus Anglesea, if you would but give him the opportunity of winning your heart.”

“Madam!” exclaimed the girl, starting to her feet, and gathering her black brows over black eyes that blazed with indignation, “I hate Col. Anglesea! I hate him and I fear him! And I would rather die this day and never behold the face of Le again, than listen to Col. Anglesea!”

“Odalite! Odalite, my child! You are talking to your mother. Come to my heart again, and calm your excitement,” said the lady, holding out her arms.

And the young girl fell weeping upon the bosom of her mother.

The lady allowed some time to pass in which the girl’s paroxysm of tears exhausted itself, and then caressing her gently, she began, in a soothing tone:

“My precious child, do you doubt your mother’s love or truth?”

“Oh, no, no, no! How could you ask such a question of your own child, mother?” earnestly protested Odalite.

“Do you doubt that duty is to be held above all other considerations?”

“No! Oh, no!”

“Well, then, I have something to tell you, my darling, which will make you forget all selfish aims, and even also the wishes of your old playmate. Come with me to your own bedchamber, where we shall be most secure from interruption. I will tell you of a fatal episode in my own youth, when I was younger even than you are now. Oh, that I should have to tell such a tale to my daughter! But, Odalite, when you have heard it you will learn just what you have to do in order to save us all, and especially to save your noble, generous, honorable father from ruin and disgrace. And then, Odalite, when you have learned all, you shall do exactly as you please. Not one word of coercion, not another word of persuasion, will I utter. I will leave our fate in your hands, and you shall be absolutely free to act. Come with me now.”

She took her daughter’s arm, and they arose from the sofa.

For a moment they stood, quite accidentally, facing a tall mirror, between two windows on the opposite side of the room, and that mirror for the moment reflected two beautiful forms, of which it would be difficult to decide the one to bear off the palm for beauty.

The elder lady, Elfrida Force, was a tall, stately blonde, with a superbly rounded form, a rich complexion, and an affluence of golden brown hair, rippling all over her fine head, and gathered into a mass at the nape of her graceful neck. She wore an inexpensive, closely fitting dress of dark blue serge, whose very plainness set off the perfection of her figure and enhanced the brilliancy of her complexion, showing to the best advantage that splendid beauty, which at the age of thirty-five had reached its zenith. Just now, however, the vivid brightness of her bloom had faded to a pale rose tint, and her lovely blue eyes seemed heavy with unshed tears.

Her young daughter, Odalite, equally beautiful in her way, was yet of an entirely opposite type. She was of medium height, and her form, though well rounded, was slender almost to fragility. Her head was small, and covered with rippling, jet black hair. Her eyes and eyebrows were black as jet; her features were delicate and regular; and her complexion was of a clear, ivory-white. She wore a crimson, merino dress, plainly made, closely fitting, and relieved only by narrow, white ruffles at throat and wrists.

Only for a moment they paused, and then they walked out of the room, and the pretty picture disappeared.

CHAPTER II

FAMILY MYSTERIES

Mondreer was one of the finest old places on the western shore of Maryland. The estate covered fifteen hundred acres of richly cultivated, heavily wooded and well-watered land, running back from the Chesapeake.

The manor house stood upon rising ground, facing the east, and commanding a fine sea view in front, while it was sheltered on the north and west by a heavy growth of trees.

Mondreer had been in the possession of the Forces from the year 1634, when Aaron Force came over with the flower of the British Catholic gentry who, with Leonard Calvert, founded the province of Maryland.

They had prospered in every generation, and now owned more land and money than they had possessed when they first settled on the soil.

Although there was no entail of the manor, yet the estate had, as a matter of custom, always come down through the eldest son of the family, though all the younger sons and daughters were almost equally well provided for.

Usually the Forces had married among their own people, according to the time-honored custom of the country. Indeed, they had invariably done so up to the present generation, when young Abel Force was master of Mondreer.

Great, therefore, was the consternation of the whole community when the heir of Mondreer, the handsomest, the wealthiest and the most accomplished among the young men of the county, if not of the whole State, instead of marrying some cousin or companion whom everybody knew all about, had, while on his travels abroad, forgotten all the venerable traditions of his native place, and “gone and wedded a stranger and foreigner” whom no one knew, or could find out anything about, except that she was as handsome as Juno, as haughty as Lucifer, and as poor as Lazarus.

However, as soon as it was ascertained that the newly married couple were quite established at Mondreer, the county people began to call on them—some from curiosity, some from etiquette, some from neighborly kindness, others because Mondreer was one of the pleasantest houses in the world to visit, and many from a mixture of several or of all these motives.

And every one who went to see the bride came back with such accounts of her grace, her beauty and her elegance that she became the standing theme of conversation at all the tea tables and bar rooms of the county.

They were certainly a very handsome couple. He was a tall, finely formed, stately man, with a Roman profile, brown complexion, dark eyes and jet-black hair and beard. She was a tall, elegant and graceful blonde, with Grecian features, a blooming complexion, dark blue eyes, and rich, sunny, golden-brown hair.

Theirs had evidently been a love match—a real, poetic, romantic, sentimental love match of the oldest-fashioned pattern.

He thought that he had found in her the very pearl, or rose, or star of womanhood—and so even thought many other men, when basking in her smiles, to be sure.

She thought that she had discovered in him the man of men.

In a word, they really adored one another. Each lived only for the other. Each would have suffered or died to save the other a single pang.

Even when, in time, children came to them, though they loved the little ones with more than usual parental affection, yet they loved them less than they loved each other.

Yet, with everything to make them blessed, it was cautiously whispered in the neighborhood that the household of Mondreer was not a happy one; that the beautiful mistress was subject to occasional periods of such profound depression—such intense gloom—as filled her husband’s heart with alarm, and shadowed even her physician’s mind with forebodings that these symptoms indicated the approach of that worst and most hopeless form of mental disease, melancholia.

Her devoted husband often proposed to take her, during the summer, to Saratoga or Newport; or, during the winter, to Washington or to Baltimore; he even urged her at all times to let him take her to Europe. But she firmly objected to leaving Mondreer, insisting that she was happier there than she could be anywhere else.

And, in truth, as years passed on, and children came, her melancholy seemed gradually to wear off, until in time it wholly disappeared.

Three children were born to them—all girls.

Odalite, the eldest, was thought to resemble both parents, having the Grecian profile and the fair complexion of her mother, and the black eyes and black hair of her father.

Wynnette, the second girl, was a perfect brunette, with a saucy snub nose, brown complexion, and black eyes and black hair.

Elfrida, or Elva, was all her mother—a faultless blonde—with fair complexion, blue eyes, and golden-brown hair.

Failing male heirs, Odalite, the eldest daughter of the house, would, not from any law of primogeniture, but merely by the custom of the country, be the heiress of the manor, though Wynnette and Elva would be very well endowed.

Very early in his married life, while his eldest daughter was still a babe in arms, and his younger ones were not yet in existence, Abel Force had been intrusted with the guardianship of a five-year-old boy—young Leonidas Force, the orphan son of his second cousin of the same name.

When several years had passed, and all hope of a male heir to send on the name with his old ancestral manor had faded away, it became the dearest wish of Abel Force’s heart to unite his eldest daughter and his orphan cousin in marriage, so that Mondreer should not pass into another family.

With this object in view, he encouraged the affection that soon began to show itself between the boy and girl who were being brought up and educated in his home together.

He even sought to lead them to believe that they were destined for each other.

It is true that such a plan very seldom succeeds, perhaps not more than once in a hundred times, since the boy and girl so trained will, through the very perversity of human nature, if from no other cause, fall in love with any other boy or girl whom he or she may happen to meet, rather than with each other.

But in the case of these two young ones, Leonidas and Odalite, the plan succeeded to perfection.

The two children were attracted to each other, grew very fond of each other, became inseparable companions—seemed to have but one life between them.

Even total strangers, who knew nothing whatever of the family arrangements in regard to these children, observing their devotion to each other, would say:

“This boy and girl were made for one another. It would be a sin ever to part them. They are a perfect pair.”

And Abel Force would smile and say nothing.

No one objected to his plan. But the faithful guardian, in justice to his ward, would not allow him to grow up with the demoralizing anticipation of marrying an heiress to live on her fortune.

After the boy had passed out of the hands of the family governess, and had taken a course in Charlotte Hall College, his guardian called on him to make choice of some profession.

Le unhesitatingly chose the navy.

So, after some considerable trouble and expense, Mr. Force succeeded in getting the youth sent to the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

It happened about the same time that Abel Force was elected as a State senator, and went with his family to spend the winter in the State capital. So the young people were not separated. The end of the legislative session was, also, so near the commencement of the long summer’s vacation of the Naval Academy, that Mr. Force, with his family, always remained over in the city for the exercises, at the close of which he took his ward with him to Mondreer.

This habit continued year after year, until Leonidas Force had completed his course at the academy, and had graduated with honors.

Then he accompanied his guardian and the family home for the last time, to spend a brief leave of absence before starting on his first long sea voyage.

Leonidas was now about eighteen years of age, and Odalite about thirteen.

During that short visit home the two young people became more inseparable companions than ever.

That they were destined for each other was well known to everybody, and so well understood by themselves that no formal word on the subject was spoken between them, or thought necessary to be spoken.

They seemed to know and feel that they belonged to each other forever and ever.

Only when the day of parting came—of parting “for three eternal years,” as they put it in their despair—Odalite cried as if her heart would break, and refused to be comforted; and Midshipman Leonidas Force, U. S. N., disgraced his uniform by crying a little for company. But then, “the bravest are the tenderest.”

This was just three years before the opening of our story.

After their separation the young pair corresponded as frequently as possible under the circumstances.

Their letters were not love letters, in the usual acceptation of that term. They were frank, outspoken, affectionate letters, such as might have passed between a brother and sister who loved one another faithfully, and knew no fonder ties; letters which Odalite read with delight to father and mother, governess and sisters.

All went on in this way for the first two years.

The third year was an eventful one in the destiny of the young pair.

Early in the spring of that year occurred the death of Miss Laura Notley, a very aged lady, great-aunt of young Leonidas Force, to whom by will she left her large plantation, known as Greenbushes, appointing Mr. Abel Force trustee of the estate during the minority of the heir.

This rich inheritance constituted the young midshipman a much more eligible parti for the youthful heiress of Mondreer than he had previously been considered.

Even Mrs. Force acknowledged that she was satisfied as she had never quite been before this.

The two plantations of Mondreer and Greenbushes joined, both fronting on the bay, and together would form perhaps the richest estate in the commonwealth.

And now, when Leonidas should return from his voyage, he might resign from the navy, and, as he would by that time have reached his majority, he might marry Odalite, after which the young couple might take up their residence at Greenbushes and live there during the lifetime of their parents.

This would certainly be a most delightful arrangement for all parties.

Letters were promptly written to Leonidas, both by his guardian and by his sweetheart, informing him of his good fortune and congratulating him on his happy prospects.

Odalite, in her crazy letter, wrote:

“I am so wild with delight that I am dancing when I am not writing, and the reason why is this—that now you need never go to sea again, and we shall never, never, never part more this side of heaven!

“You will give up your profession, but you need not be idle. You must not be, father says. You must look after the plantation, which has been neglected during the dear old lady’s life; you must reclaim the worn-out soil; farm the land on scientific principles, with the aid of chemistry and machinery and things, and improve the stock by importing new what’s-er-names. Oh, you will have plenty to do to keep you from moldering away alive, if you look after your estate as father does after his.

“And neither shall I be idle. I shall look after the house, the servants, the kitchen, the dairy, the poultry yard and the garden, as mother—no—as mother does not look after hers—but, then, I am a plain, country girl, and mamma is a grand duchess, or she ought to be. I must now stop to dance. I can’t keep still any longer. When I have done dancing I will finish this letter.”

The remainder of Odalite’s epistle need not be quoted. It may be guessed.

Every one was perfectly satisfied. No one dreamed of suggesting or even desiring the slightest change in these perfect arrangements.

The spring passed in delightful anticipations.

CHAPTER III

OLD ACQUAINTANCES

But, unhappily, in the height of midsummer, Abel Force, believing that he acted from the purest motives of affection, but—no doubt—as the event proved, deceived and misled by the enemy of mankind, proposed to take all his family for a tour which should include the White Mountains, the Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, the Thousand Islands and Niagara Falls.

Mrs. Force, who had long lost her morbid dread of public resorts, willingly agreed to the proposed journey.

About the middle of July the party set out. They traveled very leisurely, enjoying every foot of land and every ripple of water they passed over.

It was late in August when at length they reached Niagara. They took rooms at the Cataract House, and spent a week in making excursions through the magnificent scenery around the Falls.

It was in the first days of September that something of very grave import to the future of the happy family occurred at their hotel.

The whole party, together with many of the guests of the house, were out on one of the grand piazzas overlooking the rapids. They remained out enjoying the sublime and almost terrific scene until the sun set and the moon arose.

Then Mrs. Force, dreading the dampness of the September evening over the water for her children, led the way into the house, followed by all her party.

They went into the brilliantly lighted public parlor.

As she was crossing the room, leaning on her husband’s arm and followed by her children and their governess, she suddenly started and turned pale.

Mr. Force, who felt her start, but did not see the sudden blanching of her cheek, looked up and saw a stranger approaching them from the opposite side of the parlor.

He was a short, stout, fair-haired, rosy-faced, blue-eyed man of middle age and pleasant aspect, in a fashionable evening dress.

He came up with a frank smile, holding out his hand, and exclaiming:

“Lady Elfrida Glennon! This is really a delightful surprise!”

The haughty beauty shuddered, but almost immediately commanded herself and received her accoster’s effusive address with cold politeness, and then said:

“Let me present you to my husband and daughters. Mr. Force—Col. Anglesea, of the Honorable East India Company’s Service. Col. Anglesea—my husband, Mr. Abel Force, of Mondreer, Maryland. Our daughters, Miss Force, Miss Wynnette, Miss Elva, Miss Meeke.”

While bows were being exchanged the lady quite recovered her self-possession. The party took seats near together, the colonel dropping into a lounging-chair immediately opposite the sofa on which Mrs. Force sat with her daughters—and saying something poetic and complimentary about a perfect rose surrounded by fresh buds, as he gazed upon the beautiful mother and children.

Mr. Force, who occupied another armchair near them, seemed the best pleased of all the group.

“I am really very happy to make your acquaintance, colonel. This is the first time in our rather long married life—look at those great girls!—that I have had the pleasure of meeting any of my wife’s English friends. I hope we shall see a great deal of you. I hope to persuade you to visit us at Mondreer for a few weeks before you return to your native land,” he said, with all his honest, friendly soul in every look and tone.

“Thanks, very much. I shall be but too well pleased. Yes! it is nearly twenty years since we saw each other last, yet the moment I entered this room I recognized Lady Elfrida,” he said.

“Pardon me,” coldly objected the lady. “When I married a citizen of this republic, to live in it, I took my husband’s style with his name, and am called Mrs. Force.”

“Ah! true! precisely! perfectly so! A thousand apologies! I will try to remember.”

And the colonel sank back in his chair.

He remained for about half an hour conversing with the family party, or rather, to report exactly, with Mr. Force, for neither Mrs. Force nor any other one of them contributed much to the conversation.

At length he arose, bowed and left them.

“A very agreeable man, indeed! A very entertaining companion! Well read and well traveled! Knows the world! Understands human nature! An old friend of yours, my dear?” said Abel Force, turning to his beautiful wife.

“An old acquaintance of my brother, rather. They were in the same regiment in India,” coldly replied the lady.

“Ah! but that is a strong bond of union between men. Your brother’s comrade in the Indian campaign! He is traveling now on a long furlough, he says. We must see more of him, good fellow! We must have him down for a few weeks at Mondreer.”

“No!” impulsively sprang from the lady’s heart; but the word did not pass her whitening lips. She suppressed the exclamation, sent back the strong objection to hide in her bosom among other heavy secrets there, and—kept silence.

The honest and honorable man, who had no mysteries of his own and never suspected them in another, did not observe his wife’s agitation. He was not looking toward her, in fact, he was looking down on his own clasped fingers and idly twirling thumbs, and thinking of the good time he was going to have with his wife’s old friend and his own new acquaintance.

“Yes,” he went dreaming on and murmuring half to himself, “we must certainly have him down to Mondreer for the autumn, and show him what Maryland country life is like! I reckon he will find it more like old England than anything he has seen in America. He is the first countryman of yours, my dear, who has ever fallen in our way since we left England, and we must make the most of him! Especially as he is not only a countryman, but an old friend.”

So saying, Abel Force arose and sauntered off to see if the evening mail had come in.

Mrs. Force had sent off her children to bed, in charge of their eldest sister and the governess, while she herself remained in the empty parlor, walking up and down its whole length, and trying to think what would be her best course in the present crisis.

She had, for the time being, the room all to herself. The other guests of the house were either in their own apartments, or on the piazzas, overlooking the rapids, or at tea, or abroad. At any rate, the lady was alone, until she was joined by the colonel, who came confidently, not to say impudently, up to her side.

“Angus Anglesea! how did you dare to recognize and accost me?” she demanded, her blue eyes blazing with indignation.

“Because I was so surprised and delighted to see you, Friday!” he replied, with gay defiance.

“I should think the sight of me would blast your eyes!”

“Don’t swear, Friday! At least, don’t swear in that way. ‘Blast your eyes’ is a low, seafaring phrase. I know it is provoking to have me come, when you had got away so far and felt so secure! Well, it was as great a shock to me! By Jove! we looked at each other for a moment like a pair of ghosts! Didn’t we? But talking of ‘blasts,’ I don’t mind confessing that the sight of you did nearly strike me blind, but it was through your dazzling beauty! By Jove, Friday, you are ten thousand times handsomer now than you were when you turned the head of His Royal——”

“Be silent! If you dare to name that devil to me again——”

“Quite so! I am dumb! I am mute. But don’t use strong language, Friday! It is bad form. You must have picked up the habit in America.”

“Look you here, Angus Anglesea! Mr. Force intends to invite you to visit us at our country house, down in Maryland.”

“He has invited me. Deuced kind of him! And I have accepted the invitation,” put in the colonel, twirling his light mustache.

“You will not go. You will have the decency to avoid the roof of an honorable man.”

The colonel’s face flushed crimson. His brow darkened with anger. For a moment he lost even the superficial semblance of a gentleman, and showed himself a ruffian in tone and manner.

“Look you, my Lady Elfrida! You take a dangerous tone toward me who holds your fate in the grip of his hand!” he exclaimed, stretching out his arm, and working his fingers. “Yes, and who would not hesitate, under provocation, to tighten that grip to your destruction. But there! We should serve, not ruin, each other. Now listen to me, Friday. If you will behave yourself, I will hold my tongue. Otherwise——But I need say no more. You understand me.”

“I understand you to be an unmitigated villain!” muttered the lady, fiercely, between her clenched teeth—“an incarnate fiend!”

“You flatter me; you do, really. You elevate my self-respect. How I shall enjoy your conversation at—at——What is the name of your principality or grand duchy down in Maryland? I am told that your great plantations down in the South are quite equal in wealth, population and extent of territory to our lesser European sovereignties. What is the name of the place to which I am invited, and where I intend to go?”

“Why do you wish to know the name of our happy home? Why do you wish to enter our Eden, like another serpent, to destroy it?” exclaimed the lady, beside herself with fear and wrath.

“There you go again, Friday! You will not drop that bad habit of flattering a modest man to his face. I declare you will make me vain.”

“Why do you wish to trouble me? Why do you wish to come to Mondreer?” she inquired, wringing her hands.

“Oh, ho! You have come down from your tragics. Mondreer, is it? And why do I go? Well, to be frank with you, I go to browse upon

“I understand. You think the simple, honest, country gentlemen will be easier prey for your gamester’s snares than are the men you meet at public resorts. And you mean to swindle and fleece them,” scornfully replied the lady.

Again the man’s face flushed with anger, but he controlled his temper, and laughed, saying:

“What a genius you have for compliment, Friday! You should have been a courtier, where your talents might have been turned to the best advantage; or a king’s favorite. Ah! but there we tread on delicate ground, do we not?”

“I warn you, Col. Anglesea, not to drive me too far! For sooner than submit to your insults, I will throw myself upon my husband’s mercy, and claim his protection against you.”

“Oh! You will go to him, and tell him that ‘tale of old times’ of which you were the heroine? And in his love he will forgive you. And so far so well. But, then, suppose I also should tell that little story to all and sundry? How would it be then?” sneered the man.

“Oh! fiend! fiend!” breathed the woman through her white lips and closed teeth.

“Quite so. You only do me justice. I shall enjoy your conversation at Mondreer.”

“And you go there to rob my husband and our unsuspicious neighbors at the card table. But you will be disappointed. Mr. Force does not know one card from another, and his friends seldom or never play.”

“What barbarians must be the people of your principality, Friday! I must really go there as a missionary to teach them the arts of civilized life. Ah! in good time. Here comes his serene highness. Let us smooth our ruffled plumage, else he may be asking inconvenient questions,” whispered the colonel, as Abel Force smilingly approached them.

“Ah! You here, colonel? That is right. We’ll all go down to tea together. I feel really so delighted to have met with an old friend of my wife that I cannot bear to lose sight of him. We must leave here on Monday. Now, my dear colonel, could you not arrange your affairs so as to accompany us? If your plan of travel would admit of your giving us the pleasure of your company on our return journey, we should be really delighted, you know. The hunting season will soon be on, and I could show you some fine sport,” said Mr. Force.

And then seeing his eldest daughter enter the room, he drew her arm within his own and smilingly waved his hand to the colonel to take Mrs. Force and lead the way to the tea room.

But the lady refused to see the signal, took the arm of her governess, Miss Meeke, and went on, the colonel walking persistently beside her.

“What do you hunt in your grand duchy, sir? Buffalo? Bears? Wolves?” inquired the colonel, when they were all seated at the table.

“No,” laughed Mr. Force, good-humoredly. “You would have to go a thousand miles to the west for that game, colonel. We hunt just what you do in England—with a difference—we hunt foxes and hares, and sometimes deer. Oh, we will show you! You will think yourself back in old England. Come. Shall we consider the matter settled?” cordially demanded Mr. Force.

“Thanks very much. I shall be too happy to make one of your traveling party. I will go.”

CHAPTER IV

A DANGEROUS GUEST

“Remember,” said the munificent Marylander to his new acquaintance, when they were about to start, “my wife’s old friend is my guest from the moment we leave this hotel.”

Which words being translated into practice, meant that Mr. Force, from the time the party left the Cataract House, paid all the colonel’s traveling expenses from Niagara to Mondreer—even though they lingered at several pleasant stopping places and took the Adirondacks on their way.

The frank and obliging colonel not being afflicted with any delicate sensibilities, made not the slightest objection to having all his bills paid by his host, nor felt the least hesitation in borrowing all the money he wanted, using various pretexts of delayed remittances, and so forth, all of which excuses the straightforward and unsuspicious Marylander believed, feeling well pleased to be his guest’s banker.

It was the first of October when the travelers finally reached Mondreer.

Arrived there, Col. Anglesea took possession of the mansion with the most engaging condescension and continued to borrow money of his host with the most charming affability.

He had, besides, a frank, bluff, soldierly manner, which pleased the country neighbors and won their confidence. He easily ran into debt at the country stores and pleasantly won money at cards from the simple, young men who thought it an honor to lose their cash to such a very great nabob and very fine gentleman.

Meanwhile he kept a sharp lookout for rich young men to fleece and some rich heiress to marry.

Abel Force, in his frank, cordial, unsuspicious hospitality, gave hunting breakfasts, dinner parties and oyster suppers in honor of his English guest, and invited all the best people in the county to meet him.

Col. Anglesea, from his pleasing person and agreeable manners, entertaining conversation, and fund of information and anecdote, became very popular in the neighborhood, and the county gentry feasted and lionized him to his heart’s content.

But the longed-for heiress did not seem to be forthcoming.

All the young ladies to whom he was introduced had fathers and mothers in the prime of life who bade fair to outlive the handsome colonel himself by many years, and ever so many brothers and sisters.

Indeed, large families seemed to be the rule in that neighborhood, and only daughters who were heiresses the exception that could nowhere be found.

It was strange that in all his search for a girl with expectations the colonel had never thought of Odalite.

But, then, she was only sixteen years of age, and she looked much younger. She seemed to be merely the eldest child among children.

One day early in December an event occurred that opened his eyes. A letter arrived from foreign parts that gave the whole family, and especially Odalite, the greatest pleasure. She ran about with it open in her hands, and read it to her parents, to her sisters, and even to her governess.

Col. Anglesea, in his self-absorption, took not the slightest interest in this family jubilee and felt not the least curiosity concerning the letter which had caused it.

But Mr. Force, in the generous exuberance of his nature, wished to share his pleasure with all others, and so, joining his guest in a walk over the frozen fields that winter morning, he smiled and said:

“We have just received a letter from my ward and cousin, Midshipman Leonidas Force, who has been at sea for the last three years, but is now homeward bound and is expected to arrive in time for Christmas; and then I should not wonder if we should have to celebrate a New Year’s wedding,” he added.

“Ah! So the young gentleman is engaged. And who is the young lady?” inquired the colonel, making an effort to appear interested.

“Why! is it possible you don’t know? I thought everybody knew!” exclaimed the father, looking surprised.

“But I, you must remember, am a comparative stranger, and I am ignorant.”

“Well, then, of course, the lady in question is my eldest daughter, a very little lady as yet.”

“Miss Force! Why, she is a mere schoolgirl! She must have been a little child when he went away, if he has been gone three years,” said Col. Anglesea, in surprise; and then he fell into musing.

“She is sixteen now, and she was thirteen when he sailed. Of course there was no formal engagement between them then—there could not have been, you know; but it was understood! You see, sir, it is a family matter! The children have been brought up together with a view to their future union. They are certainly very fond of each other. Their marriage is a very desirable one on every account. As I have no son, my eldest daughter will inherit this manor—one of the oldest and largest in Maryland, and one which has been in the family since the first settlement of the province, more than two hundred years ago, when Aaron Force, who came over with Leonard Calvert, received a grant of the land—a thousand acres, then. We have not lost an acre in all these generations, but rather gained a third more. There are fifteen hundred acres now. All this must ‘fall to the distaff’ and go out of the family unless my daughter should marry her cousin, Leonidas Force. He also has recently inherited a considerable estate, joining this, and, like this, with a long sea front. It is not always that young people submit to be guided by their elders in the matter of marriage, but I am happy to say that my boy and girl have very readily taken our views of the case and will follow them. So they will probably be married very early in the new year, and the old ancestral estate will not pass out of the old family name.”

“I see,” said the colonel, “and I heartily congratulate you on the prospect.”

Then he fell into deep thought. Presently he said:

“She has not seen her lover for three years, since she was a child?”

“No, not since she was thirteen.”

“When is he expected to return?”

“About Christmas.”

“Ah, yes! You told me! She is very young to be married.”

“Yes; but we do marry our girls very young when everything else is suitable—as in this case,” smiled Mr. Force.

“But after three years of separation from the youth whom she parted with in her childhood, may not your daughter have changed her mind?”

“Oh, no!” earnestly replied the father.

“But you cannot know this until the young pair meet again. Suppose now, for instance, that when Miss Force sees the youth she may not like the idea of marrying him? What, in such a case, would be your line of policy?”

“I should have no policy. My dear daughter’s happiness should be my first consideration, and the marriage could not go on.”

“Exactly. That is just what I should expect of you,” said the colonel, approvingly.

“Good fellow!” thought, honest Abel Force, admiringly.

“But such is not likely to be the case, colonel. She is quite fond of him as he is of her.”

“Quite so,” assented the colonel, as they turned and walked toward the house.

On reaching it, Mr. Force went in; but Col. Anglesea excused himself, and remained on the outside. He wanted to walk up and down.

Here was the very heiress he had been in search of right under his eyes all the time, and he had never seen her. He had thought her a child of about fourteen years of age, and here she was sixteen, and considered marriageable.

How precocious these young American girls were, to be sure! How very early they were married!

At this point the colonel lighted a fresh cigar, strolled out upon the frozen lawn, and sat down on a rustic seat, under the branches of an old yew tree, from which he had a view of the bay, that here spread out from the foot of the hill to the distant horizon.

It was not, however, to look at the prospect of nature before his eyes, but to contemplate the prospect of the future in his imagination, that he sat there, and smoked and reflected.

“The game is in my own hands,” he said to himself. “The daughter is governed entirely by the mother, whom she adores. And she must appear to act from her own free will and for her own pleasure, in order to obtain the consent of her father, who, forsooth, will sacrifice his own family ambition to his child’s happiness.

“This is the third of December,” he mused, “and the young fellow is expected to be home at Christmas. There is no time to be lost. I must turn the screws on my lady. There shall be a New Year’s wedding at Mondreer, but Mr. Leonidas Force shall not be the happy bridegroom.”

CHAPTER V

GREENBUSHES

Glad voices broke in upon Anglesea’s brooding.

He looked up, and saw coming toward him the three young daughters of the house—Odalite, Wynnette and Elva, attended by their governess, Miss Meeke.

They were all equipped in their warm, brown cloth coats, buttoned up before, and their brown, beaver poke bonnets tied under their chins. They carried little baskets in their hands and dragged along sticks after them.

“Will you take a walk with us through the woods this morning, Col. Anglesea? Father has gone into town to attend court, you know; and mother has a little headache, and has locked herself up in her room to lie down and sleep. And we are going for a walk. Will you go?” inquired Odalite, as graciously as she could force herself to do; for the girl secretly detested the interloper, though her native good breeding prevented her from ever betraying her feelings to their object. She had not failed to perceive, through her own fine sympathies rather than through any expression from Mrs. Force, that the lady was very much annoyed and distressed by the presence of this intruder into the privacy of her domestic circle; and so Odalite often quietly relieved her mother by taking charge of the visitor’s entertainment, as she did on this occasion by inviting him to join their walking party.

Col. Anglesea looked at her with an amused smile, yet with more attention than he had ever regarded her before.

“Will you come with us?” she inquired again, seeing that he hesitated to reply.

“Thanks, very much! It is a temptation. Miss Force. In what direction do you propose to walk?”

“Down the hill to the shore—then along the shore for three miles to Greenbushes,” replied the young lady.

“And then through the house, which is to be Le’s and Odalite’s home after New Year, when they are married,” volunteered Wynnette, a pretty, saucy little brunette of fourteen years.

“Wynnette! Wynnette! Hush!” exclaimed Odalite, blushing vividly.

“Why must I hush? Everybody knows Le is coming home to marry you at Christmas!” retorted the second sister.

“And what do you think, Col. Anglesea?” whispered Elva, a gentle, little blonde of twelve.

“What, my elf?” playfully inquired the colonel.

“Why, when Le and Odalite get married and go to live at Greenbushes, Wynnette and I will live there just as much as we shall at home here.”

“Indeed! and what will Mr. Brother-in-law say to that?”

“Who, Le? Why, Le will say he is very glad. Le loves us all dearly. Le would give us anything we want, or do anything in the world for us. Especially now I should think he would, when we are going to let him have our sister and take her away.”

“Elva, my dear, you are talking too much,” whispered Miss Meeke, a small, demure young woman, with a pale face, gray eyes and smooth brown hair.

“Why? When he wants to pretend that our Le will not be glad to have us all three to live with him? I must take Le’s part, you know, Miss Meeke, especially in his absence,” pleaded Elva.

“Shall we walk on, Col. Anglesea?” suggested Odalite, to put an end to an embarrassing conversation.

“Certainly, if you please. What are these sticks for?” inquired the colonel, referring to the wands the girls dragged behind them.

“Oh! these are to thresh the chincapin bushes, when we get there! And we expect to fill our baskets!” answered Wynnette.

“Can I not carry them for you?” he inquired; and without waiting for an answer, collected the sticks from the children, who not unwillingly gave them up.

“And now I think of it,” suggested the colonel, “you will require but one stick, and that I will use and thresh the bushes while you gather the nuts. See, I will leave these three here, and take this thickest one. Now give me the four baskets; I will hang them on my stick and sling them over my shoulder, thus,” he said, suiting the action to the word.

The two children laughed at the figure he cut.

“Now! Right face! Forward! March!” he cried, stepping out in front.

They left the lawn by the east gate and passed through an orchard where a few late winter apples still clung to the nearly leafless branches of the trees; opened another gate and entered a narrow path leading down through the thick woods to the shore.

Then they turned southward and walked by the side of the bay, the children chattering as they went.

“What do you think, Col. Anglesea?” inquired Elva.

“I don’t know. What ought I to think?” laughingly inquired their escort.

“Well, I’ll tell you. Although Greenbushes is only three miles off, we have never seen it in our lives.”

“Really, now?”

“No, never! Miss Notley, Le’s great-aunt, who owned the place and who left it to Le in her will, never lived here at all. She left the place in the care of old Mr. Beever, her overseer, and he and the negroes worked the land and raised the crops, and Mr. Copp, her lawyer, attended to the sale and shipping of the tobacco and—and all that, you know.”

“I see.”

“And Miss Notley lived on her other place down in Florida. At least, she lived there all the year round except the summer months, when she always went to Europe. She died in Florida, and left Felicia—her estate there—to her Florida relations.”

“Ah!” said the colonel, trying to seem interested, while really brooding over his own schemes.

“And she left Greenbushes to Le, who is the only relative by her mother’s side.”

“Quite so.”

“And it is a great thing for Le and Odalite, for now they can marry and settle at once.”

“Precisely.”

“And as Wynnette and I shall spend half our time at Greenbushes, we mean to pick out our room and choose the paper and furniture for it.”

“In—deed!”

“Oh, yes! Mr. Copp sent to New York and got illustrated catalogues from the furniture dealers and books of patterns from the paper hangers, and samples from the—the—the—oh! what do you call them, Wynnette?—the people who color the walls that are not papered, you know?”

“The kalsominers?”

“Yes, that is what I mean! And all sorts of things! And we are going to choose our room and have it fixed!”

“Without consulting Mr. Brother-in-law?”

“Of course! Why, it is all to be done at once—at once! It is to be completed and quite ready by the time Le gets home! Won’t that be jolly? Le wrote to Odalite to do just as she pleased with the house, and wrote to Mr. Copp to advance all the money that was necessary and give her all the advice and assistance that he could. So father wrote to Mr. Copp to meet us here to-day, and he is to do it. Father would have been here, too, but he was subpœnaed this very morning to attend court. Oh! do look at that flock of wild geese, colonel! I’m glad you haven’t got your gun and dogs this time!”

So chattering and letting their tongues run before their wit, the children, with their companions, reached Greenbushes, and turning from the shore, began to ascend the hill going toward the house, which stood on the summit a few hundred yards back from the bay, and in the midst of a grove of pines, cedars, yews, firs and every description of evergreens that would grow on the soil; so that winter, as well as summer, the mansion was sheltered, and the lawn was heavily shaded by a canopy of green trees; hence its name of Greenbushes, given when these same trees were but saplings.

The house, in the midst of this evergreen grove, was a building of hard, dark red bricks, and so irregular in construction as to defy all description; it had so many gable ends, tall chimneys, little dormer windows and latticed windows, as to confuse the spectator; and so many great doors, each with its own portico, as to make a strange visitor utterly uncertain concerning the whereabouts of the main entrance.

Two old men, standing on a three-cornered portico in an angle of the wall, drew the steps of the visitors thither, where they were met by Mr. Copp, a tall, thin, fair-faced, gray-haired lawyer, and Mr. Beever, a short, round, red-faced and bald-headed farmer.

Both were plainly dressed in business suits of heavy, black cloth.

“Do you know those persons?” inquired the colonel of Odalite.

“No, but I know who they are, and I have come to see them.”

“Then let me speak to them first,” he suggested, going up to the two men.

He addressed them in a low tone, and then brought them to the spot where Odalite and her companions waited.

“Miss Force,” he said, “this is Mr. Copp, legal steward of the late Miss Laura Notley. This is Mr. Beever, manager of the plantation. They wish to speak to you on business, and will show you into the house,” he said.

The two men bowed very deferentially.

Odalite received them politely, and at Mr. Copp’s invitation, followed them into the building, accompanied by her sisters, their governess and Col. Anglesea, who regarded all these proceedings with a sarcastic smile.

The lawyer led the whole party into a small, old-fashioned, oak-paneled parlor, with a chimney in the angle of the wall, in which a large, wood fire had been kindled, and near which a table and a few chairs had been placed.

On this table lay various books of samples, and patterns, and catalogues of prices.

“Will you sit down and look over these, or will you go through the house first? I have had fires built in all the rooms, but still I think the place is not thoroughly aired and dried yet,” said Mr. Copp.

“We will look over these first, and then take them through the house for reference,” replied Odalite.

And the whole party sat down around the table, and began to examine patterns, samples and prices.

A great chattering as of many magpies ensued.

There was a difference of opinion. For kalsomine, and for the ground work of wall paper, as well as for window curtains, and chair and sofa colors, Odalite and Miss Meeke preferred olive, sage, lavender and other delicate, neutral tints, while Wynnette and Elva loudly advocated, pink, blue and yellow, or crimson, purple and orange.

At length, without arriving at any mutual understanding, but being rested from their long walk, they all arose to go through the house. Such a rambling house! with stairs going up and stairs going down in such out-of-the-way places; doors opening into rooms in such unexpected quarters; when they thought they were going to look into a small closet they found a large chamber; and when they walked through a side passage, which they thought led outdoors on a porch, behold! it led into some wing containing more rooms.

Wynnette and Elva chose at least half a dozen different rooms in succession—this, because it had such a lovely little fireplace and mantelpiece; that, because it had such funny little cupboards; the other, because it had such quaint little windows.

Finally they gave up in despair, saying that they must think it over at home before they could choose among so many.

Odalite, who thought that there was no time to lose if the house was to be ready for Leonidas on his return, selected the wall paper and the suits of furniture for all the rooms from the patterns before her, and having carefully marked them and written her directions, she requested Mr. Copp to set the mechanics to work at once, and to hurry on the repairs as fast as justice to the business would permit.

And Col. Anglesea, watching these proceedings, smiled sarcastically.

Having done their errand at Greenbushes, the little party left the house.

“Mr. Beever! Oh! please, where are the big chincapin thickets we have heard so much about?” inquired Elva, in whose ideas these nuts were, after all, the most immediately important item in their errand to the farm.

“Yes, honey, you’ll find ’em all along both sides of the footpath through the woods betwixt here and your place, but ’specially where you cross Chincapin Creek.”

“The woods! There! We’ll have to go back that way. Ah, Col. Anglesea, how lovely it will be when Odalite and Leonidas live here! There are so many lovely ways of going between the two places. Just listen now while I tell you. We may walk by the shore, as we did this morning, or we may walk through the woods, as we shall this afternoon. We may ride horseback along the shore or through the woods, or we may drive in a carriage along the shore or along the turnpike road through the woods; or, best of all, we may row in a boat from the landing at the foot of our hill to the landing at the foot of this hill. Oh, it will be perfectly delightful!”

Col. Anglesea looked at the child with his sinister smile, but she was too happy to notice anything evil in it.

They took leave of the lawyer and the farmer, and started to walk home through the woods, chattering all the way of the beauty of Greenbushes even now, and the delight of the prospect ahead.

“It is too late this season; but mind, Odalite, next spring you are to have a mansard roof, and bay windows, and—balconies, and—and—towers and things,” said Elva.

“Perhaps,” quietly replied Odalite.

“Why, there is no ‘perhaps’ about it! Le said you were to do just as you please with the house,” suggested Wynnette.

“But that did not mean I should burn it down,” said Odalite.

“Of course it did not. What do——”

“And he did not mean I should tear it down either, as I should have to do to make all the improvements our ambitious little Elva suggests. Why, darling, we might as well talk of putting a mansard on the top of that clump of Scotch firs as on that irregularly built farmhouse.”

“The top is about as uneven in height as a set of dinner casters, so we will give up the mansard roof. But do have a bay window and some balconies,” said Elva.

“Perhaps,” repeated Odalite.

So talking they reached the bridge crossing Chincapin Creek, with its fringe of richly laden bushes, and stopped to gather the nuts.

It took but a little while to fill all their baskets, after which they continued their homeward walk.

They reached Mondreer late in the afternoon.

Their father had returned from the courthouse. Their mother had recovered from her headache. And the delayed dinner was served.

During the meal, which at Mondreer was always a merry one, the talk still ran upon Greenbushes and its present and prospective attractions.

Col. Anglesea took little part in the conversation, but he listened and smiled.

After dinner, and during the long winter evening that followed, he vainly sought an opportunity of speaking alone with Mrs. Force.

He did not fail because she shunned him, but because the little party kept together in the most persistent way, and he certainly could not ask Mrs. Force in the presence of all her family, to give him a private interview. He must wait his opportunity.

CHAPTER VI

“IN MY LADY’S CHAMBER”

The next morning Col. Anglesea resolved to have a decisive conversation with Mrs. Force before the day should be over.

After breakfast he seated himself in the family parlor to await events.

Soon Mr. Force came in to him. He was booted and spurred for a ride.

“I am sorry to have to leave you again to-day, but you know a subpœna is a thing not to be defied,” he said.

“Oh, don’t mind me. Sorry to lose your company, but shall find something to do, no doubt,” replied the colonel.

“I fear it would be quite useless to ask you to ride with me?”

“To court? To spend the day there? Yes, quite. I never permit myself to be bored if I can help it.”

“Good-day, then.”

“Good-day. I wish you a pleasant ride.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Force. And he left the room.

Anglesea kept his seat, and waited for the entrance of Mrs. Force.

There was her workstand, her workbox, her easy-chair and her footstool, in their cozy corner between the open fire and the side window, but she did not come to occupy them.

He knew at length that she was voluntarily absenting herself, in order to avoid a tête-à-tête with him, to which, if she should come into the sitting room at this time of day, she would be obliged to subject herself, for at this hour all the children were in the schoolroom with their governess, and Odalite with them, helping their German lesson.

As soon as Col. Anglesea divined the reason of Mrs. Force’s absence he resolved to lay a trap for her and catch her.

So he went out into the hall, loudly called on one of the men servants to saddle a horse for him, saying he was going to ride to the post office, made a great fuss putting on his overcoat, cap and gloves, and finally, when the horse was brought around to the door, threw himself into the saddle, and galloped away with so much clatter and bang that the lady, wherever she might be lurking, could not fail to hear and know that he had left the house.

And she did not fail to hear and know it; but she was so astonished at the unusual noise and confusion he made that she asked herself a question which she would not have asked another:

“Is the man intoxicated at this early hour of the morning, that he behaves in this very disorderly manner? Well, I am glad he is gone. I hope it is for all day.”

So saying, she went downstairs to the sitting room, feeling secure against his intrusion.

She took up her work, a piece of silk embroidery, and began to trace the outline of the pattern, humming a little air to herself.

Less than half an hour had the lady sat at her needlework, when the door opened softly.

She heard the slight sound through the silence of the house, looked up, and saw Col. Anglesea enter the room and walk toward her.

She started as if she had seen an apparition, and impulsively exclaimed:

“I thought you were miles away! I thought you had gone out for the day!”

“You heard me gallop off? Doubtless. I took a brisk ride along the turnpike as far as Chincapin Creek, turned down its banks to the shore, cantered along until I reached the bridle path leading up to your stables, and then dismounted, leaving my horse with the groom, and walked to the house. It was a brisk run, but it has done me good,” Col. Anglesea explained, as, uninvited, he drew a chair toward the fire and seated himself at Mrs. Force’s worktable, facing her.

The lady gave her attention to the pattern of her embroidery, and made no reply.

“If you had foreseen my quick return—certainly, if you had foreseen my errand—I should not have found you here; you would have kept out of my way; and even if I had sent a message requesting to speak with you, you would have made some excuse to decline or to defer the interview.”

“Perhaps I should. Why do you intrude upon my privacy, Col. Anglesea? What is it that you want now?” she inquired, with that blending of fear and defiance in her tone and manner which fatally betrayed the weakness of her defenses.

“Friday, I wonder that you should dare to assume such airs toward me—a man who with one word could destroy you!” he answered.

“Knave and coward that you are! Brute and demon as you are! you will not speak that word here!” she muttered, intensely, under her breath, as she fixed her blazing blue eyes upon him.

“There you go with your extravagant compliments again. You always were such a fascinating flatterer, Friday,” said the man, coolly taking up one of her spools of silk and unwinding and rewinding it. “But as to that ‘one word,’ I certainly shall whisper it into Abel Force’s ear, and also into the ears of that many-headed, mighty magician known to us all as ‘Our Reporter,’ when he shall come to me, notebook and lead pencil in hand, to interview me, and hear all the particulars, after the explosion shall be over.”

“And do you presume to suppose that you will be suffered to live after that?” demanded the lady.

“Possibly not. In which case somebody else would have to be interviewed; but that would not help your cause. Come, Friday; the only possible salvation for you will be your full agreement to my terms of silence.”

“Oh! you unmitigated villain!”

“Quite so. I am no halfway weakling, as you know perfectly well—for there are no secrets between us, Friday. You know, and therefore I need not remind you, that I never stop at any means to gain an end. I have an end in view just now. It is the price of my silence.”

“I wonder what new felonies you can possibly be meditating now?” bitterly demanded the lady, in spite of her fears.

“‘What new’—what was the word?”

“Felonies! you ruthless fiend!”

“Ah! Certainly! Thanks! You are too good to say so! Ah—the—enterprise I have in hand just now is one in which you will promptly and zealously give me all the help you possibly can—such effectual assistance, in point of fact, as shall insure its success.”

“And if I do not?”

“‘If you do not?’ I have already told you the consequences. But you are slow to believe them. You do not really believe me to be so thorough-going as you have been good enough to say that I am. You think that at the last there will be some relenting on my part. Disabuse yourself of that illusion. Friday, listen to me: No condemned criminal standing on the trapdoor of a scaffold ever occupied a more dangerous position than you do now. Refuse to co-operate with me in my purpose, and I give the signal that seals your fate—I spring the trap that lets you drop at once into perdition. That is all, my lady.”

“And yet,” groaned Elfrida Force, clasping her hands convulsively together—“and yet neither I nor any one related to me have ever broken any law of the land, or have ever been accused or even suspected of breaking one.”

“That should be a most precious and comforting reflection, Friday, especially if I should be obliged to spring that trap. Many unhappy victims have met their doom with fortitude and resignation under such circumstances.”

“Cease! you dastard, cease!” cried the lady, wringing her hands. “Be silent! or tell me what it is you want, so I may know the worst at once!”

“Quite so. I will not only be silent now, but I will be mute henceforth. Yea, I will be dumb forever!—that is, on certain conditions.”

“What conditions? Why can’t you name them? Are they so infamous that even you shrink from telling me? In a word, what do you want?”

“‘In a word,’ then: I want—Odalite,” coolly replied the colonel.

The lady gazed at the man with eyes slowly dilating with horror.

“Odalite!” she gasped, under her breath.

“Yes, if you please. I hear that the girl is considered marriageable. I hear also a rumor to the effect that she may possibly be married to that young midshipman who is expected home at Christmas—unless I supplant him, which I hope to do, for she cannot care for him really, you know, since they parted when they were boy and child.”

“But she does care for him. She loves him as he loves her. They have always been devoted to each other,” indignantly retorted Elfrida Force.

The colonel laughed insolently.

“Boy and girl love! Puppy love! Pigeon love! We will soon change all that.”

“If she did not care at all for Leonidas Force, still I know it is utterly impossible she should ever care for you.”

“I would make her love me—or pretend to do so.”

“Even if she were to become so deranged in mind, so demoralized in heart as to love you, I should never consent to such a monstrous marriage!” passionately declared Elfrida Force.

“Oh, yes you would! You will, when you realize that unless you do, your family peace and honor, your social position and prosperity—all you prize and pride yourself upon—must suddenly fall and bury you and yours under their ruins. Are you prepared to meet such a catastrophe? Indeed, to pull down destruction upon yourself, your husband, your daughters—all whom you love and cherish? Are you prepared to see your name blazoned all over the world as the subject of an unexampled scandal in high life? Are you prepared to see your husband and daughters—die of——Who can foresee their fate? Are you willing that this discovery should wreck and destroy your home and your family, root and branch, and leave nothing of you but the memory of one dishonored name behind? Are you ready to incur all this irremediable woe and ruin? For be sure that in refusing me your daughter’s hand, you do incur it.”

“Do you think, reckless knave as you are! do you think, even if I were so lost to every sense of honor and decency as to wish to sacrifice my dear daughter, that she would ever be persuaded to become your wife?” said the lady, and her voice sounded hollow from the depths of her distress.

“Oh, yes! certainly! when she hears, as she must hear, if necessary, all that depends upon her consent.”

“She would die rather than be faithless to her betrothed.”

“Possibly, supposing that she cares for him—which is doubtful under the circumstances—she might die rather than discard him; but do you not see that she would discard him rather than bring upon her family unutterable misery and degradation?”

“Do you not see—ruthless fiend that you are! do you not know, even if I and my daughter were mad enough to favor your pretensions, that her father, who alone has the disposal of her hand, would never, never consent to forego his cherished plan of uniting his heiress with one of her own name, so that the family name may go down with the family estate to posterity—to give her to you, a stranger, an adventurer for aught he knows?”

“Most certainly he would—and he will, when he should believe, as he must be made to believe, that his dear daughter has ceased to care for that sailor whose very face she has almost forgotten, and that she has learned to love a certain gay and gallant soldier—has left the navy for the army, so to speak! And when he hears that her happiness, if you please—her happiness, depends upon her marriage with him! And so on and so on! You know how to manage both father and daughter! I leave the matter entirely in your hands! But understand this—Odalite must be my wife before that young midshipman returns home to make trouble. And the marriage must be made to appear to everybody to be her own choice. You may give the girl as much or as little of your confidence as you see fit, only make her clearly comprehend the consequences of her refusal. When she accepts, as she must accept, my proposal, let her know and feel the absolute necessity of her seeming to wish the marriage, especially when in the presence of her father. You understand. It is useless to prolong a painful interview. I leave you to carry out my instructions,” said the colonel; and rising, with a low bow, he left the room.

As soon as he was gone the miserable woman started up from her seat, clasped her hands above her head, and walked wildly up and down the room, muttering to herself like any maniac:

“Oh, wretch! wretch! wretch! to stretch me upon such a rack! to put me to such straits! If it were not for Abel! If it were not for my dear, noble, generous husband, I could brave the worst for myself—and, yes, even for my children! I could take them and go away into exile, poverty, obscurity. I could meet any fate for myself, or for them, rather than sacrifice my child to such a beast as Angus Anglesea! But—but—I cannot see Abel’s noble head bowed in grief and shame! I cannot! I cannot! So if the Minotaur persists in demanding the maiden, she must be thrown to him. There is no deliverance—no deliverance!”

CHAPTER VII

THE WOOD-WALK

The “Minotaur” did persist, you may be sure! A beautiful girl and a rich inheritance were not to be given up by him for any scruples of conscience or movements of pity.

He wooed Odalite in the face of her evident aversion, which soon grew to detestation.

He followed her about, joined her in her walks, surprised her in her solitude; he would take no hint from her avoidance, no offense at her coldness, no rebuff from her rudeness; but would take her hand with such a pressure, look at her with such a gaze, speak to her in such a tone as would make the girl’s blood run cold with a horrible abhorrence which she could not comprehend.

This went on for a week before the affair came to a crisis.

She had stolen out of the house to avoid him. It was a splendid winter day, and very mild for the season.

She resolved to take a long walk through the woods, even so far as Chincapin Creek, a mile and a half away.

Calling the bulldog, Joshua, after her, she set out with a brisk step over the frozen ground, dry with stubble and shining with frost, and through the bare wood, still glittering with icicles, that were, however, fast melting under the sun’s rays.

When she reached Chincapin Creek she sat down on a large stone, over which she had thrown an extra shawl, and she rested in the thought that there at least she might remain for a little time without being disturbed either by the intrusion of her “black beast” or by a summons to attend him.

But she was mistaken.

He, who had watched her every movement, and even by some devilish inspiration seemed to know her every intention beforehand—he, lurking in the shade of the curtain, and looking from his chamber window, had seen her come out of the house, warmly dressed in her quaint walking suit of a brown cloth winter cloak “all buttoned up before,” and brown beaver poke bonnet tied down under her chin, cross the lawn and pass out of the south gate toward the woods beyond—followed by the faithful house dog.

He knew instinctively why she had left the house and where she was going.

He waited until she had entered the wood, and then he left his hiding place, drew on his overcoat, took his hat and gloves, went downstairs and left the house in pursuit of her.

He walked fast until he came into the woods, where he heard her voice a few rods ahead of him talking to her dog.

Then he slackened his pace and walked softly behind her. The closeness of the undergrowth prevented him from catching even a glimpse of her little poke bonnet; but he still heard her talking to her dog.

Presently these sounds ceased, and he crept cautiously on and found her sitting on a stone at the further end of the rustic bridge that crossed Chincapin Creek, with the dog lying at her feet.

Joshua never could abide Anglesea, and his threatening growl was the first warning that Odalite had of the approach of her natural enemy.

“You should not walk alone in these woods, my dear Miss Force,” he said, coming up to her side and leaning on the railing of the bridge as he bent over her.

“I am not alone. The dog is with me, and he would not let any one injure or even annoy me. See! if I had not now his head on my lap and my hands around his neck, he would fly at you even. Easy—easy, Joshua, good fellow!” she added, softly caressing the guardian who was showing his teeth and muttering low thunder.

“I hope I do not annoy you. Miss Force,” he pleaded, in a persuasive tone, as he bent nearer to her.

“If I speak the truth, Col. Anglesea, I must say that you certainly do,” replied the girl, drawing the short ears of her dog through her fingers and watching the process as if it required care.

“In what way am I so unfortunate?”

“You know very well; you follow me wherever I go, and intrude on me when I wish to be alone. I am sorry to speak so to my dear father’s guest; but you should remember that you are his guest and not his daughter’s, and should give him a little of your society, instead of pressing it all upon me!”

“The steel must follow the magnet! The moth must fly to the flame! And I, beautiful Odalite, must follow you! I have no choice.”

“You are talking absurdities, quite unworthy of a man of your age, Col. Anglesea,” replied Odalite, without looking up, and unconsciously pulling her dog’s ears so hard that even Joshua’s great patience gave way, first in a deprecating whine that produced no effect; and then in a despairing howl that quickly brought his mistress to a sense of her cruelty. She apologized to the victim so earnestly and caressed him so tenderly that Joshua grew ashamed of his want of doghood, and began to assure his mistress, in eloquent dumb show, that it was all a misapprehension on her part; that he wasn’t hurt at all; that she never did hurt him and never could; that, in face, he was howling at—well, at the squirrel over yonder on the tree; or, yes, at the turkey buzzard flying overhead.

Meanwhile Col Anglesea looked on in disgust.

“And do you think, my dear young lady, that this childish play is quite worthy of your years?” he inquired.

“Yes! quite!” she answered, gravely.

“Will you listen to me for a moment?”

“I would rather not, Col. Anglesea; but perhaps, after all, I had better hear what you have to say and get it over. Then, probably, I shall have some peace.”

He seated himself on the railing of the bridge, above and a little behind her. And then he made an ardent declaration of his love and an offer of his hand.

Odalite grew pale and cold as she listened to him, not in fear, but in wrath, disgust and abhorrence.

“Has my father authorized you to speak to me on this subject, Col. Anglesea?” she inquired, in a freezing tone, without looking at him.

“No, my dearest one; but your mother has.”

Odalite shook her head with derisive incredulity. Col. Anglesea continued as if he had not seen her gesture:

“And I want your authority to speak to your father of these my most cherished hopes.”

“Then, sir, you need not trouble him on the subject. I suppose, sir, that I ought to thank you for the honor you have done me by this offer, but I have to assure you that it is utterly impossible for me to accept it,” she said, in the same icy tone, and without glancing toward him.

“Oh, why, my dear Miss Force?” he inquired, with an insinuating smile, as he bent down to look in her face.

But she kept her eyes averted, as she answered, coldly:

“Because I have long been engaged to my cousin, Mr. Leonidas Force, who is coming home at Christmas, when we shall be married and go to live at Greenbushes, as you know very well, Col. Anglesea, for you have heard the whole matter freely discussed. You know this so well that I am surprised at the inconsistency of your action in offering me your hand.”

“That childish engagement, made so long ago—if it was ever formally made at all, which is doubtful—really amounts to nothing whatever! It could form no obstacle to your union with me.”

“You mistake, sir. Although the engagement was not formal, it was so well understood that all the preparations have been ordered and begun by both parties. But that you may clearly understand me, Col. Anglesea, and that you may drop this matter at once and forever, I must assure you that if I were entirely free I could never accept your offer, because I could never like you well enough.”

Notwithstanding her decided refusal and frank explanation, Anglesea would take no denial, but continued to press his odious suit, until at length Joshua, seeing his mistress’ distress, and knowing who caused it, started up and made a spring at the man’s throat. Quick as lightning Odalite seized the dog by the collar and drew him down.

“You see,” she said, “if you continue to persecute me, I shall not be able to keep the dog off you. I think you had better go home.”

“And I think you had better quiet that brute! For if he should attack me again, I shall shoot him dead,” exclaimed Anglesea, savagely, drawing a small revolver from his pocket and holding it in his hand.

The girl looked up at the man for the first time since they had met in the wood, but it was with a gaze so fearless, so full of scorn, that the ruffian’s eyes fell beneath it.

“Come, Joshua, good dog, let us go home. We have ‘fallen among thieves’ this morning. Our woods are no longer safe for you and me. They are infested with brigands! Do you know what a brigand is, Joshua? A brigand is a fine, brave, terrible soldier, who is not afraid of anything! Not even afraid of insulting young ladies and shooting their faithful dogs. When armed to the teeth, he is the terror of little boys and baby girls. Come, Joshua!”

She arose, and keeping her hand on the dog’s collar, recrossed the bridge, and walked leisurely along the woodland path.

Col. Anglesea left his perch on the railing, and, with a mocking smile, sauntered after her.

She turned upon him with flashing eyes.

“Keep your distance, sir! If you presume to come near me, as I live, I will go to my father as soon as I get home, and appeal to him for protection from you!” she said, still holding a firm grip upon the collar of Joshua, who was grimly showing his teeth and growling

of the intruder on his mistress’ company.

Now that Mr. Force should hear of Angus Anglesea’s suit to his daughter from herself, and at this stage of the proceedings, was a misfortune that Col. Anglesea would most earnestly have deprecated. So he bowed with mock submission and replied:

“Pardon me, I will say no more. Your mother must be my advocate with you. I must send her to you to plead my cause.”

And with another and a deeper bow he stepped to the side of the path and let the girl and her dog pass on before him.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE CRUCIBLE

He promptly kept his word. He struck into the woods, made a short detour, and came out again upon the path some yards in front of Odalite and her guardian. Walking rapidly, he arrived at home before her.

He went immediately in search of Mrs. Force, whom he found at her piano in the drawing room.

“I must have a few moments uninterrupted conversation with you. Where can I best secure it?”

“Here,” she answered, wearily. “No one is likely to enter and disturb you.”

“Very well, then. Here be it,” he assented, walking down the room to a group of chairs near the open fire.

She arose and followed him.

As soon as they were seated he said:

“I have just left your daughter. I have made her an offer of my hand.”

“Well?”

“She refused it.”

“Just what you might have expected.”

“Thank you.”

“What next?”

“I am not a man to be repulsed. I pressed my suit with some earnest persistency.”

“And then?”

“She threatened to appeal to her father for protection against me.”

“Poor Odalite! Poor child!” murmured the unhappy mother.

“Poor idiot!” brutally exclaimed the man. “See here, madam, I shall insist upon this marriage. If she is permitted to appeal to her father at this point I shall be disappointed, but you will be lost. You must see the girl at once, before the return of her father this evening. You must induce her to accept me for her husband. She must be made to do so, or pretend to do so, willingly, joyfully. You know best what arguments to use with her. You must also persuade your husband to consent to the marriage, for the sake of his dear daughter’s happiness, you understand.”

“For the sake of his dear daughter’s ‘happiness’!” moaned Elfrida Force, in mournful irony.

“Yes. I repeat it. For the sake of her happiness. How, under existing circumstances, should her happiness be best preserved, do you think? By marrying that young naval officer, and seeing, as a consequence, the ruin and dishonor of her whole family, and, bitterest of all, being made to feel the shame and regret of her own young husband for having married her, the daughter of——”

“Wretch! hold your tongue!” exclaimed Elfrida Force, clasping her head with both hands.

“Or,” relentlessly continued the man, “would her happiness be best secured by marrying me, who, knowing the skeleton in the closet, accepts it with other family incumbrances, and keeps it closely locked up from the knowledge of all, since his honor is then also concerned in its concealment, and in the social rank and domestic peace of his new relations? Now, then, answer me. Which fate is to be preferred for your daughter?”

“Oh, demon! I think a marriage with you the worst possible fate that could befall my child. If she only were in question I would—oh, my Lord, how gladly!—lay her in her coffin rather than give her to you. But it is not of her that I am thinking most,” moaned the lady, almost unconsciously, as she bowed her weary head upon her hand.

No, nor was it over the child, but over the husband she was mourning—the adored husband—the proud, sensitive, honorable man, whose head would be bowed to the dust with shame at any reproach, however undeserved, that might fall upon his wife.

Who cannot foresee the result of such a contest? Before the end of the interview the mother had consented to offer up her child, that the wife might save her husband.

Angus Anglesea left the room triumphant.

Elfrida Force crept up to her bedchamber, opened a little medicine chest, took from it a small vial containing a colorless liquid, poured out a few drops in a wineglass half full of water, and drank off the sedative.

This was not the first occasion on which the unhappy lady had felt herself obliged to resort to deadening drugs to enable her to bear the presence of Angus Anglesea in the house.

Then she locked her medicine chest, and went down to the sitting room, and, calling a servant, said:

“Watch for Miss Odalite. She is out walking. As soon as she returns ask her to come immediately to me.”

“Miss Odalite is comin’, ma’am. I seen her just now a-comin’ froo de souf gate,” replied the negro boy.

“Then go and meet her, and ask her to come to me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the boy, darting out to do his errand.

In a few moments Odalite came in, looking anxiously at her mother.

“You sent for me, mamma. You are not well. Have you a headache?” she inquired, tenderly.

“No, darling, a heartache, rather. Lay off your bonnet and coat, Odalite, and come here and sit beside me on this sofa.”

Odalite obeyed, still full of vague forebodings.

“I hear, my love,” said the lady, putting her arm around the girl’s slight waist, as they sat together, “that a great honor has been offered you this morning.”

Odalite looked up, uneasily.

“Do you understand me, darling?” the lady inquired, gently pressing the form of her child, and gazing fondly in her face.

“I—I—think I know what you allude to, mamma; but—I did not consider it an honor,” faltered the girl, dropping her eyes.

“Col. Anglesea has offered you his hand. Is it not so?”

“Yes, mamma.”

“Col. Anglesea is a gentleman of the highest social position. I congratulate you, my darling.”

“But, mother! mother!” Odalite exclaimed in alarm. “I have declined Col. Anglesea’s offer!”

“Have you, my dear? Then you acted very hastily and inconsiderately. You will think better of it and accept it,” said the lady, very gravely.

“Oh, no, no, mamma! Never! never! How could I think of doing such a thing, when I am on the very eve of marriage with Le?”

“My daughter, you were too hasty in that matter also. That childish engagement—which was no binding one, after all—need not and must not prevent your forming a more desirable union with Col. Anglesea,” urged the lady, almost in the very words used by the colonel himself when pressing his suit with Odalite.

“Oh, mother! mother! surely you do not advocate——Oh, mother! mother! Spare me! Do not urge me into such a dreadful act!” exclaimed the girl, starting up in a wild excitement.

“Sit down and calm yourself, my dear child, and listen to me.”

Odalite threw herself on the sofa, and buried her face in its cushions.

“Col. Anglesea belongs to one of the noblest families in the north of England,” continued the lady. “He is a neighbor and friend of my father. He can give you a high position among the landed gentry of England.”

“But, oh, mother! dear mother! dear mother! I do not want a high position anywhere! and especially in a foreign country, where I should be separated from you and father and my little sisters!” sobbed the girl, with her face down in the cushions.

“But, my dear, you are very young, and you do not know what is good for you. I, your mother, so much older, so much more experienced, surely do know what is best for your happiness. And, Odalite, I have set my heart on your marriage with this gentleman. If you should persist in your rejection of his suit I should be more than disappointed; I should be deeply grieved; yes, grieved beyond measure, Odalite.”

This, and much more to the same purpose, was strongly and persistently urged by the mother, until Odalite, frightened, distressed and overwhelmed by her vehemence, earnestness and persistence, fell half conquered at the lady’s feet, with the cry that opened this story:

“Mother! oh, mother! it will break my heart!”

Yet not for that would the lady yield. And not for that did she pause. But after more caressings, more persuasion, and more arguments—seeing that nothing less than the knowledge of the dread secret which had blighted her own bright youth could ever win Odalite to consent to the only sacrifice through which that secret would be kept—the mother, as has been already told, drew her daughter off to the seclusion of her own bedchamber, where they remained shut up for two hours.

At the end of that time Odalite came out alone, looking, oh! so changed, as if the bright and blooming girl of sixteen had suddenly become a sad and weary woman.

With her face pale and drawn, her forehead puckered into painful furrows, her eyes red and sunken, her lips shrunken down at the corners, her head bent, her form bowed, her steps feeble, she went like a woman walking in her sleep, straight down the stairs, down the hall and through the front door to the piazza, where she found Col. Anglesea walking slowly up and down the floor and smoking.

At her approach he threw away his cigar and turned to meet her, eager expectation on his face.

She went and stood before him, and said, with a strange, cold steadiness:

“Col. Anglesea, I have come to tell you that you may go to my father and ask his permission for you to marry me. You may also say to him, from me, that I hope he will give his consent, because—it will be a fiendish falsehood; but never mind that; you can tell it—because the marriage will secure my happiness.”

CHAPTER IX

SUITOR AND FATHER

When Odalite had signified her acceptance of the suit of Anglesea, although she had expressed herself in not too flattering language, the gallant colonel would have assumed the rôle of a favored lover and advanced to embrace her; but she lifted both hands and turned away her head with a look of repulsion calculated to cool the ardor of the warmest suitor, as she cried, sternly:

“Stand back! Do not dare to lay a finger on me! I do not belong to you! I am not yet your property! You are not my owner! You have not received my father’s permission to take possession of me! Go to him and tell him the falsehood you first suggested! Oh! how I hate you!”

And pale and cold and hard as she always was in his presence, with a loathing that was too deep for flush of cheek or flash of eye, she turned and re-entered the house.

He looked after her with a perfectly demoniacal expression of mingled longing and malignity, muttering:

“Oh, very well, my lady! It is your day now! But it will be mine soon! And then I shall know how to reduce you to submission.”

He took another cigar from his pocket case, lighted it and recommenced his slow walk up and down the porch, smoking as before.

So far his plan had succeeded. The mother’s consent to his marriage with the heiress had been wrung from her through her fears for her husband. The daughter’s consent had been wheedled from her through her love for her mother. These certainly seemed the most important steps toward ultimate triumph. But yet there remained the father’s consent to be obtained. And this, which at first seemed of little moment, now grew into something of grave consideration.

To be sure, he could easily go to Mr. Force and tell him that he loved his daughter, and that he wished to marry her; also that he had been so fortunate as to win such an interest in her heart as to make this marriage a matter in which her life’s happiness was concerned.

He could say all this and more, without troubling himself about its truthfulness; and so far, well.

But how should he justify himself to his host for having taken advantage of opportunity and abused hospitality by seeking the affections of the young daughter of his host, when he knew that her father cherished other matrimonial intentions for her, in which she also had perfectly coincided, until allured from her fidelity by the trusted guest of the house?

Ay! how should he explain all this to Mr. Force?

Not so very easily; but, then, Col. Anglesea was a very plausible person, and Mr. Force was one of the least suspicious among men.

Anglesea, walking up and down the porch, and puffing away at his cigar, resolved to put on an air of blunt, soldierly frankness; tell Mr. Force—what he chose to call—the state of the case, and leave the affair in her father’s hands, to be dealt with as he should see fit—knowing full well what the event would be.

Now that the girl’s consent to the marriage was secured, and her lips were sealed as to her own feelings on the subject, Col. Anglesea had no fears of the final result; nor was he in such special haste as to think it necessary to trouble Mr. Force with his suit on this same night, when the good gentleman should return, weary from his day’s attendance at court.

Therefore he resolved to defer the important interview until the next morning, when his own method of procedure might also be more matured.

Mr. Force, in fact, came home rather late that evening. Tea had been kept waiting for him so long that it was nearly nine o’clock when the family assembled around the table.

There were Mr. and Mrs. Force, Col. Anglesea, Miss Meeke, Wynnette and Elva; but there was one absentee.

“Where is Odalite?” inquired her father, looking around the table.

“She has gone to bed with a nervous headache,” replied her mother.

“Nothing serious, I hope,” said the father, uneasily.

“Oh, no, nothing at all serious,” answered the mother.

“I never knew Odalite to have a headache in her life before,” said Mr. Force.

“No, but then—

quoted the lady, with a forced smile.

Col. Anglesea engaged Mr. Force in conversation to draw off his attention from Mrs. Force, who seemed to have some difficulty in maintaining her self-possession.

After tea his host proposed a game of whist, and the party of four grown people sat down to a rubber.

Col. Anglesea and Mrs. Force played against Mr. Force and Miss Meeke.

The colonel and the hostess beat the rubber. And soon afterward the circle separated and retired to rest.

It was just after breakfast the next morning when Col. Anglesea said to his host:

“Force, can you give me a few moments private conversation before you go away this morning?”

“Certainly. Come in here,” said the master of the house, leading the way to the vacant drawing room, and wondering much what Anglesea could possibly have to say to him in private.

“You will be very much surprised, and, I fear, very much displeased at what I am about to say to you; and yet, Force, I must say it. No other course is open to me, as a man of honor!” began Col. Anglesea, when the key was turned in the door and both men were seated.

“Whatever can you have to say to me that requires such deep solemnity of introduction?” demanded Mr. Force, with a light laugh, and yet with some uneasiness.

“It is this, then. Do not be offended. But I cannot help it—I love your daughter!” said the colonel, with that affectation of bluntness he had determined upon.

Mr. Force, with hands on knees, bent forward and stared at the speaker.

“You—love—my—daughter!” he slowly repeated.

“Yes! I cannot help it. If it be a crime, I cannot help it! If I were to be shot for it, I could not help it!”

“But, man alive! she is only sixteen, and you must be near forty! Quite old enough to be her father!”

“Yes, quite! You are right, and that is the worst of it! And doubtless I am a fool! But there! I love her! I cannot help it, I say!”

“But, dear me, Anglesea, you know it is of no sort of use your loving Odalite. She is to marry her cousin, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I am very sorry for this, Anglesea.”

“If it were only myself that is concerned I pledge you my word of honor that I would go away at once and bear my disappointment like a man. But, oh! Force, it is not only myself. I am not the only one whose happiness is at stake in this matter,” said the colonel, solemnly.

Mr. Force stared at him uneasily.

“You do not mean—you do not mean—— What do you mean, man?” he demanded at length.

“Let me be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Force. Nothing was further from my—from our—intention than that which has happened. We drifted into this. When I discovered that my heart was irrevocably given to your daughter, and remembered that you had other views for her than my poor alliance, I was shocked and disgusted with myself, and I would have finished my long visit here, and would have gone away to distract my sorrow in extended travel; but when, too late, I also discovered that—well, it seems strange—but there is no accounting for such occurrences.”

“In a word, what do you mean?” demanded Mr. Force, more and more disturbed.

“I mean that this attachment is reciprocal; that your lovely daughter returns my affection. Seeing that—as a man of honor, not to say a man in love—what could I do? I have made your daughter an offer of my hand, subject to your approval. She bids me say to you that her happiness is dependent on your consent to our marriage, and then to give the matter entirely in your hands, where I now place it, and leave it.”

“Good heavens, Anglesea! this is a great shock to me! a very great shock!” exclaimed Mr. Force.

“I am sorry for it—very sorry. We place ourselves absolutely at your disposal, and submit ourselves to your will. We can do no more.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“I think I must have begun to love your daughter from the first hour in which I saw her; but I think the growth of the interest was so gradual that I was not conscious of it until it was too late.”

“When you put it to me as a hypothetical case, whether, if my daughter’s happiness were involved in some other marriage, I would consent to forego my cherished plan of marrying her to her cousin, had you this case of yours and hers in view?”

“Not consciously. But we are such ‘self-deceivers ever’ that I may have had this at the bottom of my heart.”

“My girl has been looking ill and out of spirits lately. Poor child!” said the father, reflectively. “Now, is her loss of bloom and cheerfulness caused by this affair between you?”

“I will tell you as truly as I can what has been on her mind,” said the colonel, with a show of the most perfect candor. “She is struggling between her sense of duty to you and her affection for me. She thinks she ought to marry the young midshipman because you have set your heart on her doing so; and yet she does not wish to marry any one except your unworthy servant here present. This terrible struggle has been too much for her. Yesterday I proposed that we should end it all by coming to you, making a full confession for both of us, and leaving our fate in your hands.”

“It is a terrible shock! a terrible shock! Have you spoken to her mother?”

“Yes; but she very properly referred me to you.”

There was a pause of some moments, during which Mr. Force arose from his seat and walked uneasily up and down the whole length of the drawing room several times. Finally he stopped before the colonel, and said:

“Anglesea, this has been so sudden—so utterly unexpected—that I feel bewildered by it all. I cannot trust myself to give you an answer this morning. I must have a talk with her mother—yes, and with herself. I must try and get at the bottom of this change of sentiment in my daughter. I must leave you now.”

“I thank you, Force, for the indulgence with which you have heard me. I feel like a very villain to have come into your house, accepted your princely hospitality and used the opportunity and abused the trust so viciously as to have won the heart of your daughter, and to have disappointed all your cherished hopes of another alliance for her. All I can say is——”

“Say no more, my dear Anglesea. These things cannot be prevented. ‘The demands of the heart are absolute.’ The fault—the presumption—was mine, in daring to think that any human being could make a match for another. In daring to try to make a match between my daughter and her cousin merely to gratify my ambition of sending the family name down to posterity with the family estate. There should be no ‘parental’ or other interference in such sacred matters. You and my daughter have become attached to each other. It is enough. I must speak to her mother, and, if need be, we must both bear our disappointment as we best can.”

“But, my dear Force, if you feel this so deeply, there need be no final disappointment. Your fair daughter is very young. She may soon be able to forget me in the attractive society of some other and more favored suitor. As for me, I can go away; and though it is not likely that one of my age, loving for the first time in my life, will ever be able to forget my love, yet I hope I am man enough to bear my sorrow without complaint. Come, my kind host, the case is really at your disposal,” said the colonel, with an air of frank generosity that would have deceived an angel.

“You are a noble fellow, Anglesea! A noble, open-minded fellow! I must consider my daughter. I must consider my daughter! And I have no doubt that this affair will end as you wish.”

“You are really too good—too self-sacrificing! I, too, should consider your dear daughter’s welfare above all other interests. But, see here, Force, in the event of my ever becoming the happy husband of your eldest child, what should there be to hinder me from taking the family name? I am the younger son of such a long line of younger sons that the marquisate must be at least a hundred removes from me, or I from the marquisate, whichever you like. So your cherished hope may yet be fulfilled in me.”

“You are generous, Anglesea! I had not thought of such a concession from you. I should not have presumed to suggest it.”

“What possible concession would I not make in order not only to win the daughter, but to satisfy the father?”

“Thank you, thank you, Anglesea! I will speak to you further on the subject when I have conferred with my wife. There is my horse,” he said, glancing through the front window, “and I must be off now to meet my engagement. Good-morning.”

And Mr. Force warmly shook the hand of his guest, and left the room.

He paused in the front hall for a few moments, and seemed to fumble a good deal with his overcoat, gloves and hat before he finally appeared on the outside equipped for his journey.

Then he hastily threw himself into his saddle, and rode off, attended by his mounted groom.

Col. Anglesea walked leisurely down to the stables, chose a horse to his mind, ordered him to be saddled and brought up to the house, and then he returned to prepare himself for a “constitutional” gallop along the highroad.

Mrs. Force confined herself to her own room that day.

Odalite walked out into the woods, and then down to the seashore, followed by her faithful companion, Joshua.

The two younger children remained shut up in the schoolroom with Miss Meeke, diligently preparing for their home examination, that was to earn for them, if satisfactorily passed, many Christmas premiums and a long Christmas holiday.

And so the bright and kindly winter day passed.

When Col. Anglesea came home to dinner he found only Miss Meeke and the two little girls in the dining room.

Miss Meeke apologized for the absence of the ladies, pleading that Mrs. Force was suffering from indisposition, and that Miss Force was attending her; and with this explanation the governess took the head of the table.

Col. Anglesea politely expressed his regret, and then made himself as agreeable as possible to the remaining party.

It was so very late when Mr. Force returned that, finding the family had already taken tea, he declined the refreshment offered by Miss Meeke, and pleading fatigue, excused himself and retired, expressing his satisfaction, however, that the trial which had occupied so much of his time was at length happily concluded.

CHAPTER X

HUSBAND AND WIFE

Mr. Force was not obliged to ride to town the next day, for which he was thankful.

All the family met around the breakfast table in high spirits, with the exception of Mrs. Force and her daughter, Odalite, both of whom were pale and almost silent, trying to overcome their depression of spirits and to take a lively part in the conversation, but failing signally.

Col. Anglesea kept the ball rolling, however, by talking gayly to Miss Meeke, Wynnette and Elva, and sometimes gravely to Mr. Force or others.

Mr. Force watched his wife and daughter very anxiously, and drew his own conclusions from the false premises laid down by Col. Anglesea.

“My dear wife is troubled about Odalite, and Odalite is troubled about herself. They both think that I shall forbid the attentions of Anglesea, and insist on the claims of Leonidas Force. Strange that my dear ones should imagine that I, of all people, could forbid anything they wish, or insist on anything they dislike. I must set their dear hearts at ease without delay.”

Immediately after breakfast, leaving the other members of the family to disperse and pursue their various avocations, he followed his wife into her sitting room, where he found her at her worktable, in her usual corner between the fireplace and the side window.

He closed the door, turned the key, and came and sat beside her.

She looked up in his face uneasily.

He took her hand gently within his own and said:

“Elfrida, dear, why can’t you trust me? Why have you troubled yourself for days with a question that should have been settled satisfactorily on its first arising? Tell me.”

She started slightly, and looked at him intently.

Had he discovered anything? Did he suspect anything?

But no! The honest black eyes fixed on hers had no expression but perfect love and faith.

“Why didn’t you tell me, wife, that Odalite had given her heart to Anglesea? Did you think that I was so selfish as to sacrifice my own child—your child—to my private ambition? No, Elfrida! No, dear! Never think so hardly of me.”

She could not reply. She burst into tears, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed convulsively.

“Don’t! Don’t, Elfrida! You distress yourself with thinking that I am disappointed in my plans for our dear girl. But I am not, really. It came upon me quite suddenly, you see, and I was not prepared for the thought of such a change. And so, you see, just at first, perhaps, I might have expressed more feeling of disappointment at the time than the matter justified. And——Well, I suppose Anglesea has told you, and you distress yourself on my account.”

“Anglesea has told me nothing that passed in his interview with you, dear Abel. Indeed, we have not exchanged a word on the subject since he spoke to you of it,” said Mrs. Force, trying to suppress her sobs and calm her emotion.

“Then why should you grieve so, dear? I am really not so much disappointed, after all; for, indeed, Anglesea behaved in such a frank, noble, generous manner, confessing the whole case to me, telling me how they—himself and Odalite—drifted into this attachment unawares, until it was too late to recede; and how, when he perceived that he loved her with all his heart and soul, he would have gone away rather than have sought to win her from the youth her parents had chosen for her husband; but how, when he discovered that his love was returned by her, he felt himself bound as a man of honor to declare his affection and offer her his hand, subject to her father’s approval.”

“He—told you this?” demanded the lady, in a husky tone, turning away her head to conceal the look of scorn and hatred she could not entirely suppress.

“Yes, dear! he told me this; and then—he left the case in my hands with perfect submission. Could any action have been more manly and straightforward? And she, too—Heaven bless her, she, too! She sent me word, through him, that though her heart was fixed on Angus Anglesea, yet she submitted herself entirely to my will, and would obey my commands. Did ever father have such a daughter, so gentle, so dutiful, so obedient as Odalite? Or did ever girl have such a lover, so noble, generous and magnanimous as Anglesea? Why—fine fellow—he felt for my disappointment as if it had been his own; and he exaggerated it, as I have told you! And he offered—dear fellow—to merge his own name in ours, so that my cherished wish to send the patronymic down with the estate might be carried out.”

“But that will not be necessary,” said the lady, recovering from her emotion, and with a grim smile arising out of her own thoughts.

“How, not necessary, my dear?”

“In this way: Leonidas Force, who is but twenty-one, can afford to wait two years and marry Wynnette, who will then be of marriageable age. They can live at Greenbushes, and in due course of time they can succeed us here at Mondreer.”

“But Mondreer is the heritage of our eldest daughter.”

“Not necessarily; not by entail, only by tradition and custom. You can leave your estate to whom you please; though, of course, you need not think of leaving it to any one; for you may hold it yourself for fifty years to come. You are not forty, and you may live to be ninety. But when you do leave it, it would be better to leave it to Wynnette.”

“And—Odalite?”

“You lose sight of one matter, dear Abel—the future possibilities of our eldest daughter.”

“I—do not quite understand. Anglesea, I know, has no very great expectations from any quarter, and so if he should marry Odalite they may need Mondreer; and Anglesea has promised to take the family name that it may go down with the estate.”

“I think I can show you that the estate of Mondreer can be secured to the Forces by the marriage of Leonidas Force with our second daughter, much better than it ever could be by the marriage of any one, whether Leonidas Force, Angus Anglesea, or another, with our eldest daughter.”

“I wish you would tell me, then, dear, for I am in a maze.”

“Have you forgotten that the Earldom of Enderby, failing male heirs, descends to the female line? ‘falls to the distaff,’ as old writers call it?”

“No, I have not forgotten it, for I never knew it,” replied honest Abel, lifting his eyebrows.

“Know it now, then! I have never spoken of this matter to you before; because, indeed, I have seldom thought of it at all, and nothing has occurred until now to recall it to my mind; but it is a fact of too serious importance to be overlooked at this crisis. Reflect now, that there is only one frail life between me and the heirship of my father’s earldom—the life of my epileptic half-brother Francis, who, inheriting the malady of his beautiful young mother who perished in her youth, has declared that he will never marry to perpetuate such a misfortune.”

“We will not, dear, speculate on the possible early death of your brother,” said Abel Force, gravely and tenderly, but without the slightest shade of rebuke in his tones.

“No, we will not speculate; but we cannot avoid thinking of the possible, and, indeed, the very probable future of our eldest daughter, and guide ourselves accordingly,” replied the lady.

“In what way?” gently inquired her husband.

“In this way, then: We must admit that it is not at all unlikely that our eldest daughter may live to inherit her grandfather’s earldom and become Countess of Enderby in her own right. In which case, should she be living here, the wife of an American citizen, she must either lose all the privileges of her rank and title or else go to England and reside upon her estates there, leaving this place in the hands of strangers. I do not say that she would be legally obliged to take this alternative, but she would be conventionally and practically constrained to do so. Whereas, if she should marry an English gentleman, all would be well with her; she would then in any case make her home in England, and when she should inherit the Earldom of Enderby she could enter upon her new dignities without any disturbance of her domestic or social life. And if, in addition to this, Le should wed Wynnette, all would be well with them and with Mondreer; the old estate would remain in the old name. Don’t you see?”

“Yes, I see. It is all for the best, of course. All for the best. So I shall tell my little girl. I long to tell her, face to face, how well satisfied I am, and should be in any event, that she should please herself. I want to tell her how well I think of her choice—how nobly I think he has acted, and—many things that will bring back the roses to her cheeks and the laughter to her lips. But I will not tell her of her future brilliant possibilities in England, and I hope that you have not done so.”

“No, never!”

“Quite right. I would have her build her hopes of happiness on better foundations. Where can I find her?”

“She is in her own room; but I would not talk to her to-day. She is so shaken. Her little, tender heart is so pained—now that she has decided to please herself—to think of the suffering she may cause Le.”

“Oh, that is what is the matter with her, is it? Well, tell her Le must console himself with Wynnette! Oh, it will all come right! I am quite confident that it will all come right!” happily concluded the honest squire, rising to leave the room.

He stooped and kissed his wife and then went out whistling an old hunting tune.

CHAPTER XI

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

He went to the stables, mounted his cob and ambled all over his plantation, looking after such work as could only go on at this season of the year—mending of fences, repair of outbuildings, of agricultural implements, and so forth.

Then he came back to the house and hung about it in hope of meeting his daughter.

At length, about noon, he saw her out on the lawn, warmly clothed in her close-fitting brown cloth coat, and her quaint brown beaver poke bonnet tied down tightly as if for a walk in the wind on this bright, breezy December day.

He quickly slipped on his overcoat, snatched his hat and gloves, and hurried after her.

He overtook her just as she reached the east gate opening upon the path that led down to the shore.

he sang, gayly, as he came up with her.

She started, looked around and recognized her father.

“I am going down to the shore, papa,” she answered, as prosaically as if he had not sung his question. But he was not put down.

he continued, taking her hand and drawing it through his arm.

But she was not be won to any frivolity, so she replied, gravely:

“I should be very glad to have you, papa.”

he continued, in a tone of mock gravity.

“What is the matter with you to-day, papa, dear?” she inquired, uneasily regarding him.

“Why do you ask? Because I quote old poetry? My dear, it is to convince you that I am in excellent humor with all the world, and that you have no cause to complain of me. I do not intend to enact the rôle of a ‘cruel parent,’ in order to make you a persecuted heroine. I do not even intend to reproach you with your inconstancy!—though I do hope it is not going to be a chronic complaint!—because it would be embarrassing, for instance, if while we were in the midst of the preparations for your wedding with Anglesea, young Herriott, the new minister, were to come and beg my indulgence to explain to me how you never really cared for the colonel, but found your salvation depend on your union with him—Herriott! And by the time we have adapted ourselves to the new situation, young Dr. Ingle should solicit a private interview and inform me that you——”

“Oh, papa! don’t! don’t!” exclaimed the girl, almost surprised into a smile.

“Well, I will ‘don’t,’ until we get down this hill, which is rather rugged!” said Mr. Force, as he passed his daughter, and went before her down the declivity, clearing away the branches of tall bushes that crowded and obstructed the narrow path.

When they reached the foot of the hill he once more gave her his arm, and they walked along the sands toward the north—Mr. Force purposely taking that direction, because it was the opposite one from that which led toward Greenbushes.

“Now, my darling,” he continued, “laying all jokes aside, I wished to talk to you to-day, to assure you that you need not distress yourself, either about my fancied disappointment or about Le’s fancied despair, when he shall hear of your change of mind.”

“Papa——”

“Hear me out, my darling! Hi! look at that rise of blue necks! If Anglesea were only here with his gun and dogs! He is a famous shot, my dear! Where was I? Oh! I say, as for myself, I am quite satisfied to receive Anglesea as my son-in-law. He is of noble race—there is a marquisate in the family, though too far removed to do him much good, except in the honor of the connection. He is of moderate fortune, very moderate; but wealth should not be the first consideration, you know! He is a fine, noble, generous, chivalrous fellow, and I like and admire him. And more than this—more than all else, he is my dear daughter’s choice, and as such I shall welcome him into the family circle.”

“Oh, papa, papa!” moaned Odalite, pierced through the heart by the thought of how little her father knew of the real character of the man, the real circumstances of the case, and how impossible it was for her to enlighten him.

“Still so grave, my little one? It is of Leonidas you are thinking! Do not fret your tender heart about him, my darling girl! If you, after three years separation from your boyish lover, have changed toward him—of which, in your secluded home, there was about one chance in a hundred of your doing—be sure that he, in his long absence from his childish sweetheart, on his long cruise around the world, has half forgotten the baby girl he left behind—as there must have been a hundred chances to one that he would. I think he will in time be able to console himself with your sister. It is all in the family, you know!” he said, looking down quizzically at the young face by his side.

But, somehow, the expression of that face did not convey the idea of any great satisfaction. Quite the contrary. Odalite looked ready to cry.

“I do believe girls, with their lovers, are like dogs in the manger; they can’t marry them all, and yet they are not willing that any other girl should have any of the rejected ones! Sweet angel!—the girl of the nineteenth century!”

“I do not think,” murmured Odalite, breaking in upon her father’s silent criticism—“I do not think, judging from Le’s letters, that he has ever changed toward me. No, papa, I do not wish to justify myself by accusing Le.”

“Le’s letters, my dear! Why, they afford the strongest proofs to my mind that he is not, and never has been, the least bit in love with you.”

Odalite looked up in surprise.

“My dear, you have no experience, or you would never mistake Le’s practical epistles for love letters. Why, you let all the family read them! You could not if they were love letters.”

“Why, papa?”

“Because, my dear, if they were, they would be much too silly to be shown. You would not think so; but you would have sense enough left to know that other people would; and so you would hide them. But Le’s letters are laudably practical and fit to be shown to a deacon, as, for instance, this:

“‘Tell Beever he can stay on as overseer as long as you please; so he must look out and please you. Tell him I don’t know anything about the relative merits of Durham or Alderney breeds of cattle, or Southdown sheep, or anything of that sort. I took my degree at a naval academy, not at an agricultural college. So you just buy what stock you like best, and if you don’t know any better than I do, ask your father. He does.’

“That’s the sort of love letters Le writes to you, my dear! A letter that he might have written to his attorney or to his overseer!”

“And yet, showing in every line, in every word, his constant consideration for me, his wish to defer everything to me,” sighed Odalite.

“Showing the carelessness of the sailor, rather than the devotion of the lover! But look you here, my little girl! How is this? Grieving—actually grieving for Le, while you are loving and engaging to marry Anglesea? I do not understand it!”

“Oh, papa! It is only that I wish to be just to Le! And I wish you to be just to him. However you may blame my fickleness, do not blame him; he has not changed!”

“Tut, tut, my dear! Young naval officers sailing all over the world, seeing all sorts of beautiful and attractive women of all races and nations, do not break their hearts about little, childish sweethearts left in their country homes, and whom they have not seen for years! Midshipman Leonidas Force, if he aspires to marry one of my daughters, must put up with the second Miss Force! Ay, and must wait until she is of suitable age! Now let us talk about the wedding! The colonel—he is something like a lover!—wants it to come off as soon as may be, before Christmas, if possible! What do you say, my dear?” inquired the squire, just to divert his daughter’s mind from what he considered a morbid and painful compassion for the discarded lover’s wrongs.

“It shall be just as my mother pleases, sir! I should like to leave everything to her,” replied Odalite.

“That is quite right. The mother is the proper one, of course. Well, talk to her, my precious, and whatever arrangements you two agree upon I shall indorse. It seems to be clouding up. I should not wonder if we were to have snow before night. Shall we turn homeward?”

“Yes, if you please, papa.”

“Oh! look at those wild turkeys! What a splendid chance for a shot, if I only had my fowling piece. Strange that I only have such chances when I have no gun—and consequently no chance at all!” laughed the squire, as they turned to go up the hill.

They reached the house just as the first fine flakes of snow began to fall.

“It will be a white Christmas, with fine sleighing, after all, perhaps,” said the squire, cheerily, as they entered the house.

“Dinner has been waiting full half an hour, papa. And I would like to know where you and Odalite have been gadding to without saying a word to anybody. And I would like also to know—oh! how I should like to know—what has come to everybody in the house, that nobody but Elva and I and Miss Meeke have any common sense left!” exclaimed Wynnette, meeting the returning couple.

“Whereas the simple and exact truth is, that you three are the real and only lunatics in the house, and, like all lunatics, think everybody else but yourselves mad,” laughed the squire, as he led his eldest daughter straight to the dining room.

CHAPTER XII

ODALITE AND LEONIDAS

Before the week was ended Wynnette, as well as every other member of the family, knew “what was the matter.”

Beever, the overseer of Greenbushes, came to consult Miss Force about the size and quality of the Persian rugs to be bought for the bedrooms of the farmhouse.

And Mr. Force, in the presence of the whole family, said that henceforth all these consultations were to be suspended, as Miss Force had nothing further to do with the fitting up of the house.

This caused much surprise, not only to the overseer, but to Wynnette and Elva, who became importunate in their inquiries, and in a manner compelled an explanation.

Great was the indignation of those two young ladies on learning that their dear Le was to be “thrown over” for the sake of that “big, yellow dog,” Col. Anglesea.

Wynnette and Elva went off to take secret counsel together.

Wynnette declared that she meant to talk to Odalite about it, and also to Col. Anglesea, and to tell him, if need were, that he was no gentleman to come into the house to cut out—

“No, I won’t say ‘cut out,’ either, for it is vulgar; I will say supplant—that is the word, and I will say something better than I first thought of, too! I will stand straight up before him and lift up my head and look him straight in the face, and I will say to him:

“‘Col. Angus Anglesea, do you consider it conduct becoming an officer and a gentleman to come into this house to supplant a gallant young midshipman, who is serving his country, in the affections of his betrothed bride?’”

“Oh! that will be splendid, Wynnette! What book did you get it out of?” innocently inquired Elva.

“‘Book?’ No book! Every good thing I say you think comes out of a book; but it came out of my own head.”

“What a splendid head you have, Wynnette!”

“Yes. I guess people will find that out some of these days.”

“Col. Anglesea will, won’t he? Now you say that to him, Wynnette! Just as you said it to me!”

“That will fetch him! No, not ‘fetch him’—that is vulgar, too. Make an impression on him—that is what I mean, Elva.”

“Yes; and I do just think that he would feel so ashamed of himself that he would turn right around and go home!”

“I hope he may!” said Wynnette.

“But if he should stay and marry Odalite, in spite of all, oh! what will poor Le do?” said compassionate little Elva.

“Don’t know, I’m sure; but I know what I would do.”

“What would you do, Wynnette?”

“Have the satisfaction of a gentleman.”

“And what is that?”

“Call the rapscallion—no, I mean the diabolical villain—out and shoot him!”

“Oh, Wynnette! Is that the satisfaction of a gentleman? To commit so great a sin?”

“I’d do it, and face the music afterward. No—I mean I would take the consequences.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t, Wynnette. And you must not, for all the world, put such a thing in poor Le’s head. He will be in trouble enough when he comes home, poor fellow, to find his sweetheart taken away from him without having—oh! I can’t speak the dreadful word, Wynnette. Poor Le! I tell you what I’ll do, Wynnette.”

“What?”

“Well, if the worst comes to the worst, and that colonel does take Odalite away from Le——”

“Of course he will take Odalite away from Le. There is not a doubt of it. I shall have the pleasure of speaking my mind to the scalawag—I mean the wretch—but that is all I shall get; and he, he will feel ashamed of himself, perhaps, and that is all he will do. He is not a man to give up anything he wants; and he wants Odalite, and he means to have her—the brute!”

“Well, if it comes to that, I tell you what I will do. I will marry poor dear Le myself—that is, when I am big enough. I always did like Le.”

“You! You marry Le!” exclaimed Wynnette, opening her black eyes to their widest capacity.

“Yes, when I am big enough—that is, I mean, unless you would take him. That would be ever so much better.”

“I! Why, I wouldn’t have Le Force if every hair on his head was hung with a diamond as big as a hazel nut, and he would give them all to me. No, I thank you.”

“Well, then, I would. So there now! Not only if he hadn’t a diamond to his name, but if he hadn’t a hair on his head. Poor Le! Poor dear Le! I do love him so dearly!”

Wynnette had made no vain boast of “bearding the lion.” She watched her opportunity, and on the very first occasion on which she found him alone, sitting and reading in the drawing room, she—to use her own expression—“went for him.”

She stood right up before the great soldier of India, and astonished him by addressing him in the very words she had rehearsed to Elva.

Col. Anglesea threw himself back in his chair, and gave way to a peal of laughter. And when he recovered his breath, patted her on the head and said, mockingly:

“You will forgive me, and thank Odalite, when you discover that we have got married on purpose to leave the gallant young middy to you, so that you shall not be an old maid.”

“Thank you, sir. No one shall make a match for me. And since my peaceful mission to you has failed, I must leave you to be taken in hand by the gentleman you have robbed. He will call you to a strict account.”

So saying, the small young lady threw up her head, and with great dignity marched out of the room.

Her next effort in the absent lover’s cause was with Odalite herself.

She found her eldest sister in their mother’s room, where a colored maidservant was engaged in unpacking a case just arrived from New York, and carefully extricating from its interior a rich white dress of velvet and swansdown, garnished with orange blossoms, and which was elaborately folded, with white tissue paper between every surface.

“Be careful, Net. The veil must be somewhere there,” said Mrs. Force, who was standing over the case, watching the work.

“I reckon it is in this square bandbox at the bottom,” suggested the woman.

“Get it up very carefully, then.”

Odalite, sitting back in an easy chair, seemed languid and indifferent to what was going on before her.

“Is that the wedding dress?” inquired Wynnette, when the elegant structure was laid out at length upon the bed, the train hanging from the foot far down on the carpet.

“Yes, that is the wedding dress. What do you think of it? Is it not beautiful?” inquired Mrs. Force, gazing admiringly on the bridal robes.

“No! I think it is horrid! Perfectly horrid! I wouldn’t wear it if I were Odalite!” exclaimed Wynnette, turning her back on the finery, and going straight up to where her sister sat alone in her sadness.

Disregarding the presence of others in the room, the impetuous little lady struck at once into the middle of her subject.

“Odalite! It is not true—it cannot be true—that you are going to throw over your own dear true love—our own darling Le, whom we have known all our lives—just to marry that foreign beat, whom nobody knows anything about—I mean that British colonel, who is almost a stranger to us?”

Wynnette was terrified at the result of her question.

Odalite bent forward, threw her arms around her sister’s neck, and burst into a storm of sobs and tears.

Mrs. Force wisely forbore to interfere.

The colored woman looked on philosophically. She had seen hysterical brides before now.

Wynnette clasped her sister close to her bosom, and cried for company.

Presently Odalite raised her head, wiped the traces of tears from her face, and taking the hands of her sister, looked earnestly up to her, and speaking more solemnly than she had ever done before, said:

“Father and mother have consented that I may. Wynnette, if you love me, never, never speak to me of this again.”

The little girl kissed her sister in perfect silence, saying to herself:

“He has bewitched her—there’s where it is! He must have learned magic when he was in India, and he has bewitched her!”

A joyful commotion in the hall below, a chorus of voices in glad surprise, and of dogs in eager welcoming barks, attracted the instant attention of all who were present in the room.

“Oh, mother! what is it? What is it? Has—has——Oh, mother!” exclaimed Odalite, half rising, then sinking back and grasping the arm of her chair, pale as death.

But before Mrs. Force could go to her daughter, the door was unceremoniously burst open by an excited negro girl, who, with her eyes starting, and her hair bristling, not with horror, but with delight, burst into the room, exclaiming:

“Marse Le is come home! Marse Le is come home! ’Deed he is, missus! ’Deed he is, Miss Odalite!”

And in another instant the young sailor rushed into the room with a joyous bound, almost whooping:

“Here I am, auntie! Here I am, cousins! Ship reached New York yesterday morning, and here I am to-day! And old Joshua knew me! Indeed he did, after three years. Where is she? Where is she! Where is my pet?” he asked eagerly, after hastily kissing and hugging everybody who had put themselves in the way between him and the fainting girl, and looking eagerly all around for her, he caught sight of her reclining in her easy chair.

He made an impetuous dash forward, caught her in his arms, strained her to his heart, and covered her face with kisses, before he perceived her condition.

Then he lifted the lifeless form, hurried with it across the room and laid it on the bed, crushing the orange blossoms on the beautiful bridal dress, in careless disregard of everything but his sweetheart, and crying out in dismay:

“Oh, auntie! she has fainted! I took her too suddenly by surprise! And oh! my darling has fainted for joy!”

CHAPTER XIII

LEONIDAS AND ODALITE

“Dear Leonidas, leave her to me. You know your room, dear boy! Go to it and call for whatever you want. Jake will wait on you as before you went away,” said Mrs. Force, gently putting the young officer aside and taking his place next her daughter.

“But Odalite? I—I feel so worried about Odalite!” urged Le.

“Oh, she will rally soon! But you see, dear, we must remove her tight clothing, and you must leave the room.”

“Oh, I see,” assented the youth, and he went out.

Wynnette and Elva were waiting for him in the upper hall. They had held council together and decided not to tell him anything about Col. Anglesea’s and Odalite’s engagement.

“For,” said canny Wynnette, “perhaps now that Le has come back Odalite may return to her first love.”

And Elva agreed with her.

Now as soon as Le appeared in the hall the two children fell upon him with the most extravagant welcomes and caresses, and, refusing to be shaken off, went up with him to his room.

In the meanwhile, in her bedchamber, Mrs. Force was doing all that she could to restore her daughter.

In a little while Odalite opened her eyes and fixed them full of unutterable anguish and reproach upon her mother’s bending face.

She did not mean to do so. It was the first involuntary expression of her waking consciousness.

“Oh, do not look at me so, my child! You will break my heart!” moaned Elfrida Force.

Odalite took her mother’s hand and kissed it tenderly; then closed her eyes and turned away her head.

Presently she said:

“Let no one tell him, mother, until I see him again. I must be the one to tell him.”

“Oh, Odalite! Oh, my child! Would you—would you——” began the lady, in alarm; but her daughter hastened to allay her fears.

“No, mother, I would not! But send every one from the room so that we may talk together,” she whispered.

Mrs. Force gave the order, and Luce, the colored woman, dropped a bridesmaid’s dress that she was unpacking, and went out, followed by all the others, leaving the mother and daughter alone together.

“No, mother, dear, your secret is as safe with me as with the dead; for I seem dead. I must tell Le myself that I wish to break with him to marry Col. Anglesea; and that is true so far as it goes, because I do wish to marry him to save you and my dear father and my little sisters from evils much greater than my marriage with Col. Anglesea could bring me. I need not tell Le why, but simply that I do. Le will believe that I am false to him. And that will be true also, for I am false to him, no matter what my excuse may be! And it will be best for him to believe it; for it will help him to get over any disappointment he may feel now, or any remaining affection for me. That is the reason why I myself must be the one to tell him.”

“Oh, Odalite! Oh, my dear! Can you do so?”

“Yes, I can compel myself to do so. And now, mother, I must get up and see Le, without delay. No! do not try to prevent me! I am strong enough in mind and body! I was only overcome for the moment by the sudden coming of Le so full of hope and joy, and the knowing what a shock of disappointment was in store for him. That was all. I am stronger now.”

So saying, the girl arose from the bed, stood up and took hold of her long, black hair, which had fallen down. She walked to the dressing bureau and secured the roll with pins, and then proceeded to smooth the folds of her disordered dress.

When all this was done she left the room.

“Odalite! Odalite! where are you going, my child?”

“To my interview with Le! Don’t hinder me, mother, dear! I can go through the ordeal now! I am nerved for it. I may not be able to meet the trial on another day, or even in another hour,” said the girl, looking back for a minute, and then closing the door and passing downstairs.

Mrs. Force threw herself back in her easy chair, covered her face with both hands, and moaned.

Meanwhile Odalite went downstairs, opened the front door, and passed out upon the porch, on which the winter sun was shining, and through which a fresh breeze was blowing.

She was immediately followed by Luce, who had seen her leave the hall, and who now came out, bearing the girl’s coat and bonnet on her arm, and saying:

“Yer want to ketch yer deff, doan yer, Miss Odylit? Goin’ out in de cole widout nuffin on yer! Yer musn’ gib yerse’f dat habit. ’Deed yer musn’. Here, put on yer coat an’ bonnet.”

The girl turned, and let the woman help her on with her outer garments, and when they were fastened, said:

“Aunt Lucy, will you go up to Mr. Le’s room, and ask him to come down and join me here?”

“Yes, honey, sure I will. Didn’ he put a s’prise on to us all? Whip you horses! how we was all took aback! Lor’! no wonder you fainted dead away. But look yere, chile. Dat was de fus time as yer ebber fainted in yer life, an’ let it be de las’. Doan gib yerse’f a habit ob it. I know it tuk yer onawares dis time, bein’ de fus time, an’ you knowin’ nuffin ’bout it. But you be on de watch out nudder time, an’ if yer feel it a-comin’ on, you ’sist it wid all yer might. Doan yer faint no mo’. Ef yer gibs yerse’f de habit, yer’ll jes be like one ob dese yere po’, mis’able, faintyfied creetures as can’t stand nuffin. Dey’s allus faintn’. It’s a habit dey gibs deirselves.”

So talking, Luce went into the house and up the stairs to give her message.

In a few moments Le came bounding down the steps, three or four at a bound, and out of the door with a shout of joy, to join his sweetheart, little thinking of what he was to meet.

“Luce tells me that you are all right now!” he exclaimed, suddenly clasping her in his arms and pressing her to his bosom, while he covered her face with kisses.

“Little mistress of Greenbushes! Little lady of the manor! Have they done everything to please you over there? If they have not—if any man has failed to please my little lady—that man must march. How soon will our wedding be? Before Christmas? Let it be before Christmas. Let us keep our Christmas at Greenbushes, and have uncle and aunt and all the family there to keep it with us. Won’t that be jolly? For you and me to entertain our friends at our own home! I was thinking of all this, and a lot more, all the homeward voyage. Odalite, why don’t you answer me? Why, Odalite! Odalite! What is the matter?” he anxiously inquired, seeing at length how pale and cold and silent she was—how utterly irresponsive to his enthusiasm.

She struggled out of his embrace, and stood leaning for support against the railings of the porch.

He followed her in surprise and alarm.

“Odalite! what is the matter, dear? Are you—are you going to be ill?”

“No!” she answered, in a hollow, far-off sounding voice. “No! But come with me—somewhere—where I can—breathe! Come down to the shore, Le. I have something to tell you.”

He stepped back into the hall, hastily drew on his overcoat, seized his hat and gloves, and rejoined her, still in some anxiety, but without the least suspicion of the blow that was about to fall upon him.

He drew her arm within his own, and holding and fondling her hand, led her down the steps, across the lawn to the east gate, and down the wooded hill to the shore.

“No; I do not wish to walk further. We will rest here,” she said, as soon as they had reached the sands. And she sank wearily upon the rude wooden bench that stood on the beach just above the water mark.

He sat down beside her, took her hand, looked into her pale face, and tenderly questioned:

“What has happened to distress you, darling? Is anyone you care for sick or in trouble? Can I help you, then? You know I would aid to my last dollar if it were any one you cared for,” he said, caressing the little fingers he toyed with.

“Oh, Le! Le!” she moaned.

“Odalite!” he whispered, in an access of anxiety, “is any one—dead? Tell me! I have just come, and know nothing. Is any one—dead?”

“Oh, no! No, Le! No one is dead. I—I wish to Heaven some one were!”

“Odalite!”

“Not any one we love, Le. Oh, Le! I will tell you as soon as I can. Something has happened. I—I brought you out here to tell you. But, oh, Le! Le! dear Le! how shall I tell you?”

“My darling Odalite, what?”

“Don’t speak to me, Le! Don’t speak! Listen! Le, hate me! scorn me! I deserve that you should. Oh, no! no! Don’t! don’t! I should go mad if you did. But—try not to mind me; try not to care for me at all. I am not worth it, Le. Not worth a regret—not worth a thought. I am such a poor thing! Such a very poor thing! And I shall not last long. That is the best of it.” She breathed these last words out in a low, long-drawn sigh, dropping her head upon her bosom and her arms upon her lap.

“Oh, my dear Odalite, what is the meaning of all this? What ails you? What misfortune has happened to you? Have you lost your health? Oh, my own, own darling! is it so? You are so pale and cold and faint! That must be it. You have lost your health. But do you think I would give you up for that? Oh, no, no, no, my precious! That would make me only more your own devoted Le than ever before. I would care for you, and wait on you, and nurse you more tenderly than ever a mother did her baby. For are you not my own—my very own?” he said, putting his arms around her and drawing her close to his heart.

“Oh, Le, Le! No, no, no! I am no longer your own! No longer your Odalite,” she exclaimed, struggling out of his embrace, and bursting into a tempest of tears and sobs.

“Not my Odalite! Nonsense, dearest dear! Not my own Odalite? Whose else should you be, I wonder? Why, you have been my own Odalite all your little life. What can be the matter with you? I know now! I have read and heard about hysterics in young girls, and that is what has come over you, darling! I took you too much by surprise! You fainted, and now you are hysterical! What can I do for you, Odalite? I wish I knew just what to do! Do you know? No! you shake your head. Well! let us go back to the house! We had certainly better do that!” said the youth, rising and offering his arm.

“No! no, Le! not to the house! It is here that I must tell you! here by the sea! Yes! it is a fitting place for such a confession! here by the treacherous sea!” she said, trying to suppress the sobs that still shook her bosom.

CHAPTER XIV

TOLD BY THE WINTRY SEA

The young man said no more, but simply stood before her and waited in wonder for her words.

“I am not hysterical, Le! I am not hysterical; but I am false—faithless! Despise and forget me, Le! for I am not worthy of your remembrance. I am false and faithless!”

“No, no! Odalite, it cannot be true!” cried the young man, in a sharp tone of anguish.

“Yes, yes! it is true! it is true! it is shameful, but it is true!” exclaimed the desperate girl.

“Oh, my Lord, my Lord! Can this be possible? You false to me, Odalite! You—you!” cried the youth, growing deathly pale, while great drops of cold sweat started from his forehead.

The girl strove to speak, but failed, and nodded with a choking sob.

“Who is the man?” demanded the youth, throwing himself again on the bench, since indeed he was scarcely able to stand.

“I—I—I—am engaged to Col. Anglesea,” gasped and faltered Odalite.

“‘Col. Anglesea!’ And who, in the foul fiend’s name, is Col. Anglesea? Satan fly away with him!”

“He is—is an—an officer in the—the East India Service.”

“How did you come to know him? May the——”

“Oh, don’t, don’t, Le! He was an old—old friend of my mother, and—we met him at Niagara.”

“I wish to Heaven he was at the foot of the falls!”

“So do I with all my heart!—oh, no, I don’t either!—I—I don’t know what I am talking about! My head is wild!” said Odalite, putting her hand to her forehead.

Le looked at her wistfully.

“An old friend of your mother, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Rich? Of high rank?”

“I—I believe so.”

“Where is the man?”

“He is here at Mondreer, where he has been staying ever since he came down with us at my father’s invitation from Niagara.”

“And you are going to marry him?”

“Oh, yes,” replied Odalite, with a heartrending sigh. “It cannot be helped. It is all settled.”

“I see how it is! A friend of your mother, rich, and of high position; and so they have yielded to the temptation of wealth and rank, and they have forced or coaxed you into compliance with their wishes in consenting to this dishonorable marriage! I did not think so of my uncle and aunt. But this cannot, shall not go on! I shall insist upon my prior rights. Take heart, my precious. I shall not let them destroy our happiness by parting us. No, not for all the wealth and rank in the world!”

“Oh, Le! Le! you mistake! you mistake! Nobody forced me! Nobody persuaded me! I am going to marry Col. Anglesea of my own free will! Indeed I am! Oh, Le! Le!” wailed the unhappy girl.

The youth stared at her in speechless astonishment and bitter misery.

“Oh! don’t look so, Le!—don’t look so! I am not worth it, Le! Indeed I am not!”

“Do I understand you to say that you break your engagement to me, and marry this foreigner, of your own free, unbiased will?” he asked, at last, in cold, hard, restrained tones.

“Yes, yes, yes! that is what I am going to do!” replied Odalite, with the firmness of despair.

“Then you are false to me—to me, your lover, who had never a thought that was false to you!—to me, your mate of many years!—to me, your almost husband!” cried the youth, losing all self-command in the sharpness of his pain, and bursting into a tempest of grief and rage, and launching fierce reproaches upon her.

She raised her hands in piteous deprecation, and then held them up before her head as if to shield it from the storm.

But as he flashed the lightnings of scorn and hurled the thunder of condemnation upon her, she cowered lower and lower, holding by the bench on which she sat, until at length, utterly overwhelmed, she sank to the ground, rolled over, and lay with her face downward on the sand at his feet.

But she uttered no word in self-defense; she only wept and sobbed as if her heart were bursting.

By this time the frenzy of passion had spent itself, and there came a reaction that brought him to his senses. He looked down at Odalite in her misery. He saw in her now, not the faithless sweetheart, but the child of his boyish love and care.

He stooped and raised her up, and set her on the bench again, laying her head upon his shoulder, and supporting her form with his arm around her waist.

She made no resistance, but continued to weep convulsively.

As soon as he was able to command himself he spoke to her in a quiet tone.

“Odalite, why do you cry so hard? If you are going to marry this man to please yourself you should be happy, in spite of anything that I should say about it. Now, why do you grieve so much?”

“Oh! I have been so faithless to you, Le! I have been—so base to you! Oh! I wish I were dead! I wish I had died before I betrayed your trust in me, Le!”

These words came in spasmodic gasps and sighs from the white and quivering lips.

He looked at her searchingly, incisively; he could not understand her.

“Odalite,” he said, suddenly, “I am full of doubt. I ask you again, and I charge you in the name of all that is pure and holy, to answer me truly: Was it of your own free will that you engaged yourself to Col. Anglesea?”

“Yes, yes! I repeat it: No one forced me, no one persuaded me. My father and my mother let me do just as I pleased,” she sobbed.

“And yet, though you say this, you seem so miserable over it all! I cannot comprehend it!” muttered Leonidas Force, carrying his hand to his forehead and trying to reflect on the situation. “But—yes—I think I do now,” he said, suddenly, as a light seemed to break on his mind.

Odalite raised her pale and tearful face from his shoulder and looked at him.

“I think I understand now, my dear; and it shall all come right yet.”

She sorrowfully shook her head.

“Oh, yes; it shall come right. Confess now, Odalite. When your boy lover had been gone away so long that you had almost forgotten him, this foreign officer comes along and fascinates you with his splendor, as the rattlesnake fascinates the humming bird, and you were drawn in. Now, however, that I have come back, the old-time love has revived, and you are sorry that you mistook your heart and engaged yourself to this brilliant stranger. Is it not so? Tell me, Odalite. If it is so—as I feel sure it must be—then I will put in my prior claim and stop the marriage, send the interloping foreigner back to his own country, and you and I will marry and go to housekeeping at Greenbushes, according to our lifelong engagement. That is, if the old love has revived, as of course it has,” he concluded, looking eagerly in her face.

She did not answer him. She could not.

Was the old, true love revived, indeed?

No! for the sweet, sacred love of childhood had never died, never failed, but burned now a pure fire that wasted her life.

Was she sorry that she had engaged herself to that man?

So sorry, at least, stern necessity had compelled her to do so, that now death would have been a welcome release.

But she could not tell Leonidas this.

He waited for her answer for a few moments, and then continued:

“Does that grave silence give consent, my Odalite? You are sorry? While your sailor sweetheart was so far off and so long away that you had almost forgotten what he looked like, you let your fancy be taken by this fine foreigner, with his fine social position and his wealth. But now your sailor lad has come home again, and you see him, and you know whom it is you really love, you are sorry for what you were misled into doing. But don’t cry any more. You shall not be compelled to marry that man, since you do not wish to, even though you did accept him of your own free will! for you had no right to accept him, you know; you were engaged to me. But to think that he has kissed you!” exclaimed the youth, with a jealous pang, as he remembered the usual manner of sealing such an acceptance.

“Oh, no, no, Le! He has never kissed me—never, never kissed me—and he never shall until I cease to be myself and become his property, a body without a soul, which cannot help itself,” said Odalite, with a woeful, wintry smile of triumph and defiance breaking through the cold rain of her tears.

“You—you—you have never let him kiss you—not even when you accepted him!” exclaimed Le, in pleased surprise.

“No; not then; nor ever! No; nor ever shall, until I become his slave in marriage!” exclaimed the girl, with a dangerous sparkle in her eyes.

“But that shall never be! Why, Odalite, you speak not only as if you do not like the man, but as if you really hate him; and that being so, you shall not marry him! I will put a stop to that at once! I have the first right to you by a long distance—the only right to you, indeed—and—and I’ll throttle him—confound him!—before he shall have a hair of your head!”

“Oh, Le, hush! hush! You don’t know! You mistake! Le, I must marry him! Do you understand? I must, I say!” wailed Odalite, wringing her hands.

“And you shall not, I say, because you do not want to. Your promise to him goes for nothing beside my claims,” said the youth, in a tone of gay defiance.

“But, Le! Le! I—I—I want to marry him! I do indeed!” she cried, again bursting into tears and weeping violently.

He drew back from her in amazement, staring at her, while she repeated and reiterated her words, that she really wished to marry Col. Anglesea.

“I cannot comprehend you at all, Odalite. My heart aches for your evident suffering; but I cannot comprehend it. I almost fear that you are not quite sane! If you really please yourself in marrying Anglesea—as you insist that you do—why should you be so miserable over it all?”

“Oh, Le! as I told you before, it is because—because I feel that I am acting so basely by you!—oh, my dear! the thought almost maddens me!” she sobbed.

“And is it indeed for me that the gentle heart suffers so much?” questioned Le, utterly subdued by her sorrow and humility. “Do not cry, Odalite. I was cruel, and brutal, and most unmanly to blame you so much a while ago. I am sorry and ashamed of having done so, Odalite. I have no excuse to offer, unless it is that the suddenness and the bitterness of my disappointment threw me off my balance. Forgive me, Odalite. And do not spend another thought or shed another tear over me. Poor, little, tender Odalite! Do not mind me, little one! I—I—I shall get over this when I feel sure that you are happy. Do not grieve so! I shall never blame you any more, dear! I mourn that I ever could have been such a wretch as to blame you, for you could not help what has happened. I was away at the antipodes—had been there for years. He was in the house with you for three months. And—and—I have noticed—even I—what a fascination some of these handsome, brilliant soldiers exercise over young girls! You were fascinated, and your affections were won before you knew it. You did not mean to be drawn away from me any more than the boat means to be sucked into the whirlpool! You could not avert your fate any more than the boat could. I do not condemn you, Odalite. And I shall always—always love—no! I must not love another man’s bride, even though he has stolen her from me; but I will always care for you as for a dear and only sister. There! there! do not cry any more. It is all for the best! All for the best!” he concluded, in a broken voice, that all his effort failed to steady.

“Le! oh, Le! I am so miserable—so miserable! Oh, Le!” she cried, looking wildly up into his eyes and then staring fixedly down upon the sea at their feet—“oh, Le! I wonder would the merciful Lord forgive me if—if——” She paused and pointed downward.

Leonidas shuddered, but controlled himself. He now believed the girl to be laboring under a temporary fit of insanity. He took her hand, raised her up, and drawing her arm within his own, said, gently:

“Come, dear, let me take you home to your mother.”

She silently assented, and he led her up the hill, through the wood to the lawn gate, and across the lawn to the house.

They had not spoken a word since leaving the shore.

Le took her into the house, and into the sitting room usually occupied by Mrs. Force.

That lady sat, as was her custom, in her low sewing chair beside her worktable in the angle of the fireplace and the side window.

She arose as they entered and looked anxiously from one to the other.

Le led his companion up to her and said, in a broken voice:

“She has told me all about it. And yet I do not understand it in the least. See! she wants attention.”

Mrs. Force received the half-fainting girl in her arms, and guided her to a large, cushioned chair, which Le hastened to push forward.

When Odalite was seated and reclining against the high, cushioned back, Le lifted her hand, pressed it to his lips, and turned to leave the room.

Mrs. Force followed him into the hall.

“Where are you going, Le?” she inquired.

“I don’t know—I don’t know! I feel lost! Like Adam turned out of Eden! And without my Eve—without my Eve!” he groaned.

“Bear it like a man, Le! You are very young, and—there are many lovely girls in the world in your reach.”

“Oh, don’t. Aunt Elfrida! don’t! Never mind me! Go in to Odalite—she needs you.”

“Le, do not leave the house—at least, till you see your uncle,” pleaded the lady.

“Oh, no, I shall not go away at once. I shall do nothing hastily, to hurt her. I hurt her enough this morning, the Lord knows!” said the youth, with a heavy sigh.

Mrs. Force looked up inquiringly.

“Oh, yes,” continued Le, “I behaved like a brute! I went out of my head, I think—when she first told me—and I raged at her! raged at the tender, defenseless, little creature—like the wild beast that I was!”

“Oh, Le, it was natural, my poor lad!”

“I was a savage! brutal! beastly! devilish!—but I was out of my mind! And she never defended herself, only cried—cried for me! I wish I had dropped dead before I spoke a word to hurt her! But the devil took me unawares, and drove me out of my senses.”

“I do not wonder, Le.”

“But there, Aunt Elfrida. Go to her! I will walk on the porch for a while.”

Le’s appearance on the porch was the signal for such a reception, or, rather, such an ovation, as could only be seen on a Southern plantation, and upon some such occasion as the present.

The news of the young midshipman’s return—or “the young master’s,” as they chose to call him, in view of his relations, present and prospective, to the family of Mondreer—had spread far and wide among the negroes, and they came flocking up, men, women and children, to shake hands with him and welcome him home.

Some of the elder negroes, with “itching palms,” belabored him with begging questions of—

“Wot yer got fur yer ole Aunt Mole, honey?”

“Wot yer done home f’om furrin’ parts fur yer ole Uncle Bob?”

And so forth and so forth.

Le promised one and all a present as soon as ever his sea chest should arrive.

And yet they might have stayed there all day but for the opportune appearance of Aunt Lucy on the scene.

She had watched from an upper window the gathering of the crowd, and now she swooped down upon them.

“Shame o’ yerselbes!” she said. “Come yere bodderin’ the young marse fust minute as eber he get in de house! Whar’s yer manners?”

“Don’t scold them, Aunt Lucy,” pleaded Le. “They came to welcome me home.”

“Dey come to beg, dat’s wot dey come for—to beg. It’s a habit dey gibs deirselves,” said the unrelenting Lucy.

“It is a habit they cannot indulge in more than once in three years, where I am concerned. I do not come home every day.”

“An’ a werry good fing, too, for it’s a werry bad habit.”

“What, coming home?”

“No, sah. Dem niggahs is a werry bad habit as oughtn’t to be ’dulged in once—no, not once. Now cl’ar out wid yer all, an’ go ’bout yer work.”

This order was addressed to the negroes, who, overawed by the authority of the chief house servant, began to steal away from the house.

CHAPTER XV

LE’S FIERY TRIAL

Le was still walking up and down on the porch, when Mr. Force rode up, followed by his mounted groom.

He did not see Le, who was partly shaded by the bare tangle of the climbing rose vines on the trelliswork.

He threw himself out of his saddle, threw his bridle to his groom, and came up the steps.

“Ho, my boy!” he shouted, as he caught sight of the youth. “Is that you, really? Welcome! welcome! I am delighted to see you!”

And he seized Le by both hands, and shook them heartily.

“When did you get home?” he continued, in the same cordial tone.

“Only this morning,” answered Le, trying to command himself, for the sudden sight of Odalite’s father and the jubilant cordiality of his address nearly upset the poor fellow’s balance.

Had his uncle no feeling, knowing, as he must know, that he, Le, had come home joyfully expecting to marry Odalite, only to meet with a bitter disappointment?

“Come into the parlor! Come into the parlor! It is too cold out here! You look quite blue! Come in, and let’s get a better view of you!” continued Mr. Force, leading the way into the house, followed by Le.

In the hall he threw off his riding coat, drew off his long, India rubber boots, and then entered the parlor, which was on the opposite side from Mrs. Force’s sitting room.

It was a medium-sized, wainscoted room, with two front windows and one side window. It was carpeted and upholstered in dark crimson, and had a large, open wood fire burning in the ample chimney.

“Take that chair! I’ll take this,” said Mr. Force, pushing one armchair toward Le with his foot, and throwing himself into the other.

Thus they sat in opposite corners.

“Now tell me! When did your ship get into port?”

“Yesterday morning, and I hurried immediately down here to see—to see my—to—to—meet the bitterest disappointment of my life, Uncle Abel!” said the youth, faltering, hesitating, but determined to come to the point at last.

“Oh, come, come! Tut, tut, tut! She was only a child when you went away, if you are referring to Odalite!” said Mr. Force, in a cheery tone.

“Yes, Uncle Abel, I am referring to Odalite, and speaking of the most heartbreaking disappointment that ever crushed a man,” said the youth.

“Nonsense, dear lad! You know nothing of heartbreaking troubles of any sort, or you would not magnify this one! You will get over it in a month.”

“It was the cherished love and hope and faith of years.”

“A dream, my boy, of which this is the awakening. A dream, in which I, too, shared! Le, lad, you must know that I am just as much disappointed as you can be! It was the desire of my life that you and Odalite should marry, and in time succeed us here, and make the two great manors of Mondreer and Greenbushes into one mammoth estate. I am disappointed in this. And if I ever permitted myself to grieve over the inevitable, I should feel very sorry for myself as well as for you!”

“It was so sudden, so unexpected! Why, her last letter to me, received at Spezzia, and written not two months ago, was so kind! She must have changed very quickly,” said poor Le.

“No, I think it must have been gradually. I think she was deeply infatuated before she realized her state. And then I know she struggled, poor, dear child!—struggled until she nearly broke her heart—to keep faithful to you and to please me. It was only from her suitor that I heard at last of her distress. Then, as she meekly left her fate entirely in my hands, I conquered my own ambition and told the child to follow the dictates of her own heart. What else could a father do? But even now, though she has her own way in this matter, she is not content! She frets about you, Le!”

“Oh! and this is the gentle, tender creature whom I could reproach so fiercely—dog that I was!” said Le, who seemed to feel the necessity of confession to poor Odalite’s parents.

“You, Le?”

“Yes, I! When she made me understand that she had broken her engagement with me and had promised to marry that Englishman, I tell you, Uncle Abel, I went on at her like a raving maniac! Satan took possession of me! I—could bang out my own brains against the wall, when I think of it!”

“Don’t! It would spoil the paper, and do nobody any good but the coroner and the undertaker! It was inevitable that you should have gone into a passion, Le! Your provocation would have upset a doctor of divinity, if it had taken him by surprise. Think no more of it, my boy! I dare say she has forgiven it!”

“She! the blessed child! She never once resented it—that is what kills me! She never opened her lips in self-defense, or self-excuse! Oh, I could beat my——”

“Pray, don’t, I say! It would make a mess in a tidy parlor! I dare say she thought she was without any excuse for disappointing you and me of our pet plan, and all for the sake of that puncheon of an Englishman! But girls are weak vessels. I never knew one worth having, except my own noble wife! But perhaps she has spoiled me for appreciating any other woman, even my own daughter.”

“Yes, Aunt Elfrida is the most excellent of the earth, I do believe,” assented Le; but without the interest in the subject which the words might have implied.

“The most perfect woman in person, soul and spirit that ever was created!”

“Who is ‘the most perfect woman in person, soul and spirit that ever was created’?” inquired a voice behind them.

Mr. Force turned and saw Col. Anglesea approaching them.