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(Oxford University)

TRUE TO A TYPE

TRUE TO A TYPE

BY

R. CLELAND

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXXXVII

All Rights reserved

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

TRUE TO A TYPE.

CHAPTER I.

[PROLOGUE].

It was evening in New Orleans--the brief swift evening of the South, which links, with imperceptible graduation, the sultry glare of day to the cool of night. The narrow old streets were growing dim in the transparent dusk. The torpid houses, sealed up hermetically through all the afternoon to exclude the heated light and air, awoke from their siesta, throwing wide their doors and casements to the breeze. The inhabitants came forth, and sauntered up and down, or sat about their doors, drawing long, deep breaths of the evening air--coming back to life again, and throwing off their languor. It was the hour of rest for the toilers, of refreshment for all, and they were enjoying it in indolent content.

Only one among the many moving to and fro appeared animated by a purpose. He stepped briskly forward, brushing against an idler now and then, but was past before the other's eyes had turned in lazy inquiry to know the reason.

He was young. Twenty-one was his actual age, though he might have passed for some years older. His features and his skin were browned and sharpened by climate and vicissitude; but in his eye at that moment there was no sign of aught but youth and hope and blissful anticipation. Brushing his way swiftly through the sauntering throng, his gaze seemed fixed upon some joy beyond, heedless of nearer objects; and his eyes shone with a clearness like the rift in a moon-obscuring cloud, betraying the brightness and the light within; and a smile was lurking in the corners of his mouth, which waited only for a pretext to break forth in joyous laughter.

Threading his way through the older portion of the town, he arrived at last in the outskirts, where high blank walls overtopped by trees, and houses with their faces turned studiously from the street, preserved the sullen deadness which more populous neighbourhood had cast aside at sundown.

Before a garden door he stopped and knocked--knocked loudly, and with a peculiar tantarabulation, as if it were a well-remembered signal, and stood and waited impatiently. The shuffling of feet could be heard within, and there came whisperings and rustlings, but the door remained fast, and the young man stood and waited, and knocked again, more softly this time, and with a brightening smile as he stood and listened.

"They have gone to call her," he said to himself, "that she may come and open to me herself, as she used to do. Dear girl! It is three long years since last she let me in--three weary years. But why this long delay? She could not expect me, but she knows my knock. Can she be from home? Then why does not some one open?"

Again the footsteps could be heard within. Laggingly they drew near. Heavy unwillingness could be noted in their tread. The young man knocked again. A key turned gratingly in the stiff old lock, and bolts and fastenings creaked and rasped and yielded tardily, as to a hand which trembled while it pressed them. The door swung open, and the youth with arms extended leaped within the threshold; but the figure which admitted him was not the one he had expected; his arms fell by his side--it was not she.

The figure which had opened drew backward with a scream. It was a servant, and in the doubtful light the white-handkerchief about the head stood out against the dusky foliage of the magnolias, and defined the negro face.

"O Lordie, Lordie!" was her trembling exclamation, as she shrank away. She would have run, but her limbs were powerless. She stood staring at the visitor with starting eyes whose whites revealed the round dilated pupils, while her mouth hung open in helpless terror.

"Dinah! Is this your welcome to a returned sailor? Where are your mistresses? Did they hear my knock?"

Dinah cowered against the wall, subsiding gradually into a heap upon the ground, powerless to cry out, too dazed even to pray. Her scattered faculties seemed fumbling for a word of power wherewith to reinstate themselves, and avert some peril. "Jerusalem!" was the first which came to hand. Its utterance brought strength and some return of thought. It was followed by "Bress de Lord!" and then with speech restored, she clasped her hands above her head, and with all her strength cried out. "O Lordie! Take de drown man's spook away!"

The visitor turned on his heel and walked round to the front of the house, where doors and shutters stood wide open. Entering by a window open to the ground, he stood in the reception-room: it was empty, and its recesses were concealed in gloom. Nothing was clearly seen but the great white magnolia blossoms in the dim garden without, which burdened the air with their almost too luscious sweetness.

A door opened behind him and the mistress entered, followed by her daughter carrying a lamp. The young man turned eagerly, and the light falling on his features betrayed a shade of disappointment passing across them as he recognised the ladies.

"Is Lina from home?" he asked. "But, mother, at least you can welcome me home in the meantime. What! Not a word! No kiss even for your long-lost son-in-law! Surely that is carrying your New England reserve too far."

"Welcome if you will, then, lad! I wish you nought but good. I always liked you well; and you have done nothing to make me change. But oh! if it had been His will, I would fain you had never returned, seeing you have stayed so long."

She laid her hand upon his open palm. It was cold and nerveless, and her eyes were full of tears.

The young man would have clasped the fingers, but their dullness stole into his heart, and the tremor of her voice filled him with sickening forebodings.

"Lina! Where is Lina? Tell me quick! Has anything come to her?"

"She is gone."

"Dead, do you mean to say?"

"The same to you, lad, as if she were. She is gone from you for ever."

"Hush, mother!" said the daughter. "Remember we agreed to tell him nothing."

"Millicent! Is it you who say such things? What do you mean? Would you keep me from my wife?"

"She is gone; and you must never see her more," said Millicent.

"I must! and will! and shall!"

"You are not the man, then," cried the elder woman, "that I take you for. I tell you, lad, the sight of you would kill her!"

"Why so? What have you told her about me? What has she done? Or what do you say that I have done?"

"Neither of you has done aught amiss, lad--of that I am right sure."

"What then? What is the matter?"

"Let it rest, lad. It is God's will. Be brave. Be a man, and bear it."

"Bear what? What is it I must bear? You have no right to doubt my courage. Why will you not speak? I demand to be told all."

"Oh lad!--my poor, poor lad!" sobbed the old woman. "Why will you be so set? It is to save your own poor heart that we would keep you in the dark; for what we should have to tell can bring you nought but sorrow--a sorrow without a remedy."

"Have no fear for me. Speak! I can carry my load, whatever it may be. What is your mystery? Where is Lina?"

"Gone, lad! Have done with her."

"Gone?--dead? No! You do not mean that she is dead. You would have told me that at once. What is it that you mean? Say! Is my Lina not alive? Answer me."

"She lives," the mother answered, with a groan. "There! Nay, it is useless to press me. I tell you she is gone."

"Gone! Would you insinuate shame against my wedded wife? Unnatural!--against your own sweet daughter? Where has she gone?--and when?--and how?--I am after her. Tell me quick!"

"You cannot go to her, Joseph. She is far away. And"--laying her hand on his arm--"at least I can tell you this, and assure you with all my heart; there is nought to blush for. She was your faithful wife. No shame can light on her, or upon you."

"Was, you say?"

"Yes, lad; all's over now."

"What do you mean?"

"She is married--married again."

"Another man's wife? I do not believe you. What man would dare----? I'll have his life! But it is not true. Lina never would desert me."

"Word came that you were lost. Remember that. Pieces of the wreck were picked up at sea. And Lina--she nearly lost her reason. We thought that she would die."

"But I wrote--wrote several times. Do you mean that she did not get my letters?" and the young man paced the room in vehement disorder. "You knew I was alive! I can see that you did. You were expecting me! I can guess it from your delay in letting me in. You would have kept me out altogether if you had dared! I am sure of it by your behaviour. Only you were afraid of a public scandal."

"I did, and I was, lad; and it is yourself would grieve the most, if a word were to light on the good name of the woman you vowed to love and honour."

"The woman who deserts me for another man! But still she is mine! She cannot be another's. Give her back! Give up the name of her betrayer. Who is he? Where are they? Speak!"

The mother had sunk into a chair, her arms propped upon her knees, covering her face and sobbing wildly, while Millicent bent down and strove to soothe her.

"Speak, woman! speak!" he shouted.

"Have you no pity?" It was Millicent who spoke.

"What pity are you showing now to me? Give back my wife! Where have you hidden her? And this man----? She has left me, has she? But he shall not have her! If I had him by the throat----!" and he clenched his teeth in fury.

"Lina never left you. You might know it. You should blush to have thought it. If ever woman was devoted to a man, it was our Lina. When word came that you were lost, she fell senseless on the floor. It was weeks before she recovered her reason; and even then it seemed doubtful if she would survive. We took her North as soon as we dared move her, and in the bracing air and change of scene it seemed as if the vehemence of her grief had spent itself; but the old self seemed to have gone from her as well. She moved about a listless white-faced shadow, indifferent to life and everything. It was heartbreaking to see her--and she not yet eighteen! And mother and I, we were beside ourselves with anxiety. She appeared too feeble to bring back here, and we feared the sight of the familiar scenes would revive her grief, and drive her mad, or kill her. And so, when a gentleman grew interested in her, and slid into a kind of pitiful intimacy that seemed to soothe her, we thanked God for raising us up a consoler. And when, by-and-by, he asked her to marry him, mother and I persuaded her to listen, for we thought that new duties and a new life would draw her thoughts away from her great sorrow, and bring her peace. It was fifteen months, or more, from the time the news reached us of your loss, when she was married; so you have no call to say that her memory was short, or that her love was light to come and light to go. She loved you very truly, and she cherishes your memory yet."

"What did she say when she received my letters?"

"She has received none of them. When mother and I got home after her marriage, we found one awaiting us here. We opened it and we read it, and we burned it--though it went to our hearts to do so."

"What right had you to open a letter to my wife? what right to intercept it?"

"The right of her nearest to guard poor Lina's peace. What good would it have done you if we had given it to her? No doubt she would have left her husband; but that would not have given her back to you. You know her as well as I do. You know that she would not have looked you in the face after having given herself to another. She would have pined away for shame; or, more likely, she would have gone mad."

"Yes, lad," put in the mother, "you must take your trouble on your own back, unless you would destroy the woman you bound yourself to defend. You must go away and never let her know you are alive. I make no question but she would leave her present husband without a word; but think of yourself! Could you take her to your bosom out of another man's arms? Could she ever be the same to you as she was before?"

"Perhaps--perhaps--I do not know."

"And think of her! How could she live beneath your looks of always remembering reproach?"

"At least I can promise never to say a word. I would not reproach her."

"Not in words, I well believe, lad. But the reproach unspoken of a wounded love will out in many a tone and look, without our knowing. And then, there is the world. How could my girl hold up her head among honest women? Their pity would be harder even than their scorn to bear. Lina would die of shame. Oh, lad! be generous, as I know you are able to be. I know you for a brave true man; and when the first smart is past, you will have pity for the girl you loved, and who loved you well. You will spare her weakness, and let your own brave strong heart contain its grief in silence. You do not know her name or where she dwells, and you will not attempt to seek her."

The young man smothered a mighty sob, which nearly rent his breast asunder, and drew his hand roughly across his eyes to clear their gathering dimness. He turned and went, without a word of leave-taking. The elasticity was gone out of his step. His shoulders were bowed as though they bore a burden. His face was drawn, and aged, and faded. His very soul seemed crushed. Without another word he stole away out into the night, where no eye could pry into his sorrow.

Next day he left New Orleans, and forsook the sea. He returned to his native province, and, entering on a new career, strove to absorb himself in its new interests, and forget the past. He prospered, but he never forgot; or, if he did, the faculty of loving seemed to have died out of him in the meanwhile. In five-and-twenty years from the day he lost his wife, no other woman had been able to awaken even a passing interest in his mind.

CHAPTER II.

[CLAM BEACH].

The Chowder House at Clam Beach is not a giant among the hotels which line the Atlantic coast. It is designed to accommodate only a hundred guests, and even at the height of the season it refuses to stretch its capacity beyond a hundred and fifty. It stands upon a solitary shore, is some miles from the nearest railway, and shows nothing from its windows but the tumbling line of surf and the daily procession of cloud and sunshine across a boundless stretch of sea and sand.

It is a three-storeyed building encased in wooden galleries, which form outside corridors on the different floors; and it forms three sides of a square, enclosing to the back a sheltered tennis-lawn for those who would avoid the bluster of the keen sea-breeze.

The place is resorted to by families with a juvenile division, whose nurses and small fry burrow in the sand which comes up to the very doorsteps. It makes no pretence to fashion. The guests feel at liberty to be happy, each in his own favourite dress and manner, without fear of being compromised. The young bathe in the surf and walk or ride on the sands all day; and after the Yankee supper of meats, fruit, and tea, which takes place at seven, make themselves gay with dances and singing: while the seniors stroll together in groups, or sit apart, acquiescing in the American law of life, which gives the world to the young, and places the middle-aged with the elders on the shelf. The old may work, if so is their good pleasure, but it is only the lads and lasses who are to play.

It was early afternoon, in the very hottest of the day. The first bell for dinner had rung, and the guests were streaming towards the house from every point along the shore; while the most hungry, already arrived, loitered on the galleries, and counted the minutes till the dining-room should be thrown open.

The omnibus from the station, jolting round the corner, and drawing up before the door, afforded a pleasing diversion from the yearnings of appetite. It brought the newspapers of the day; and more, it brought new guests, who, busied in alighting and claiming their luggage, formed a subject for observation to the idle eyes above, unintroduced as yet, and therefore at liberty to stare their fill with all the impertinent curiosity at their disposal.

The ladies counted the boxes on the roof, and turned away with a sniff. Even at Clam Beach, with its freedom from dress parade, the number of trunks is taken as a criterion of "standing," and certain ladies of grand manner from Boston are even suspected of bringing empty ones to support their position.

The men, toothpick in mouth, continued to stare. There were two pretty faces visible beneath the flapping brims of broad seaside hats,--one violet-eyed, with masses of sunny brown hair; the other blond, with eyes like the forget-me-not,--and they could study them without prejudice or offence just then. Later, when they met in the parlours above, it would be different.

Presently the hotel cart trotted up with a number of trunks. A slight "Ah!" of satisfaction spread itself on the air, and the ladies resumed their attitude of observation. They were not going to be compromised after all, it seemed, by the presence of fellow-guests without ostensible movable property, and forthwith they began to note the value and fashion of each article of the feminine newcomers' wardrobe, and the general look of the men. One of these appeared about thirty, available for flirtation and social uses; while the other was older, with a suspicion of grey in the short close-cut whisker--a florid and well-fed man, and seemingly well to do, which was a point in favour of his female following: and a point of some sort is needed where available men to marriageable girls stand in the proportion of only two to five.

Two oldish ladies brought up the number of the arrivals to six; but as they were dressed in the ordinary manner of the period, nobody noticed them much. They were mere furniture, intended to remain in corners, and be sat beside when younger women, finding themselves neglected, chose to assume demureness under the wing of a chaperon.

"Two trunks. Those! Valise, handbag, rugs, and umbrellas." It was the younger man who was addressing the porter.

"Oh, Peter!" cried the oldest lady, "have you my parrysol?--and my book?--and my scent-bottle?--and my spectacle-case? Where can they all be?"

"You've just left them behind you, mother, as usual. You would have left yourself, I do believe, if I had not been at your elbow."

"What am I to do for want of my parrysol? Between the hot sun and the sea air, every bit of colour will be eaten out of my blue ribbons, and my face just brandered like a raw beef-steak. I wonder if the little things can have gotten into my pockets!" And so saying, she stepped forth upon the gravel, where elbow-room was free, shook out her skirts, and proceeded to dive down deep into apertures she wot of in all parts of her circumference.

"What's this?" she cried, sinking over the elbow into a pocket on the far-off side. "What can it be?" And the eyes and eyeglasses in the galleries were turned in her direction; while Peter, half wroth and half amused, stood waiting the end of her search.

"It's terrible hard to grip. But there! Now! I've cornered it at last. Can it be livin', I wonder? The way it runs about! And I canna just lay finger on it."

"A mouse, mother, is it?" He was growing cross and sarcastic under the observation of the loungers. "Out with it! Here's a terrier ready to snap it up."

"Peter Wilkie, hold your peace! Would ye make fun of your own mother, and all thae impident Yankees looking on? Think shame! Hey! here it is at last, the bothersome thing!" And out it came, proving to be only a large-sized peppermint-drop.

"Toot! that's not what I was looking for. Here, my dear!" and without more ado she popped it into the open mouth of a small boy who stood by gaping at her in her search, to his complete confusion and the increased diversion of the gallery.

"See there, Peter! If that's no' the parrysol after all, tied up with the umbrellies! Just where it should be! And me hunting for it everywhere! I wonder you didn't see it! And here's the specs and the scent-bottle all the time in the ridicule at my side! Wonders will never cease. As for the book, it'll turn up ere I want it; and if anybody took it, they'll be little made up, for it's just Beattie's Lectures on the Ten Commandments, and very hard upon the sin of stealing. And, Peter, be sure and make the landlord give us rooms upon the first floor. I can-not be climbing stairs--it brings on the palpitations."

Meanwhile the other tenants of the omnibus had alighted and entered the house. "A man with a sickly wife and a couple of daughters," was the verdict upon the party, which was only rectified by reference to the house-register after they had catalogued themselves--"Joseph Naylor, Mrs Caleb Naylor, and the Misses Naylor, all of Jones's Landing, Upper Canada."

"Oh, girls, I am exhausted! Open the windows and the trunks. Hartshorn and sal-volatile! I shall faint--I am sure I shall faint. Margaret, get ready to go down with your uncle. Lucy, my child, you must remain with me."

"Stuff and nonsense, Maria!" said the uncle. They were being shown their rooms up-stairs. "You have only to exert yourself. That's all you require to set you up. And of course you must come down to dinner. The sight of so many strangers will do you good, and we shall want your help to make up our minds about the company."

Mrs Naylor shook her head in plaintive toleration. It was not to be expected that coarse-fibred masculinity should comprehend the susceptibility of her delicate nerves. She half-closed her eyes and sank into a chair, with every appearance of taking up her quarters for good--unless, indeed, she should have to be laid upon the adjoining bed.

Joseph, standing impatiently without, grew uneasy, as perhaps was intended. He was of an anxious temper, fussy as well as kind. The responsibility of having a delicate lady on his hands oppressed him. He had groaned under the load for years, but he had not got used to it. It oppressed him ever the more, the longer he endured it, and he was overridden by the whims and complaints of this relict of his deceased brother, even more than if she had been wife of his own.

"Pray try, sister--try. It is for your health we are here, you know. It will be distressing if you begin by taking to your bed. I feel confident that a morsel of dinner and a glass of sparkling wine will do you good."

I will not say that it was the suggestion of the wine which induced Mrs Naylor to change her purpose; it may only have been willingness to yield to entreaty. At any rate, she let herself be persuaded, though not too easily, and eventually went downstairs with the rest.

At dinner they shared a table with their fellow-travellers of the omnibus, and found Mr Wilkie and his mother already placed when they entered.

"Mother," Peter had been saying, "you will have to behave here, or you will compromise me before all those Toronto people. If they carry back a tale of queer doings on our part, you will find it harder than ever to get into society when we go home. There is Mrs Judge Petty with her son and daughter, and there Colonel and Mrs Carraway, and the Vice-Chancellor Chickenpips! Mind what you are about. This is not the Gallowgate of Glasgow--remember that! If they see you biting your bread or eating with your knife, you're done for; and so am I."

"Peter Wilkie, I wonder ye can have the heart to be speaking like that to your dying mother!--bringing on the palpitations worse than ever. Oh, my heart! it's just thumping. If I did take lodgers at one time--ay, and turn the mangle with my own hands--whose sake was it done for? Tell me that. I wonder where the money would have come from to pay for your fine edication if I had chosen to sit and drink my tea in the afternoons like a feckless leddy, as I might have done! It wasn't your bankrupt father, danderin' about the doors hand-idle, that could have helped you. I just slaved with that mangle and the lodgers to bring up my boay; and now, when he is in a splendid way of doing, this is the thanks he gives me--to cast the Gallowgate up to me! As if it wasna you, and your father before you, that brought me down to that! Think shame of yourself, Peter Wilkie!" And the big round tears came rattling in a very hailstorm out of the old blue eyes, leaving watercourses among her ribbons, and mingling with the gravy in her plate, till the son felt like a brute--or at least he should have felt so; and he certainly feared that he must appear like one in the eyes of any fellow-guest who might observe him.

The entrance of the Naylors made a welcome diversion. As they took their places the old woman's tears dried up of themselves, her eyes being withdrawn from the inward contemplation of her own distresses to the lace cap of Mrs Naylor and the gowns of her daughters. Unconsciously she sat up more squarely in her chair, prinked out her cap-strings, and wondered if Mrs Naylor's hair could be all her own; while her son and the gentleman exchanged an observation on the journey they had made together.

Mrs Naylor was not only of the Provinces, but provincial at that. Like other "leading ladies" of Jones's Landing, she was wont to inform strangers that she was "very exclusive," with the gratifying result of taking away their breath; though perhaps, if she had but known, it was the stupendous conceit which could imagine herself or her circle in the smallest degree desirable, rather than the splendour of her position which astonished them. She had no small opinion of her "position," but, like other rural great ones, she bowed in her heart before the superiority of dwellers in the capital. There was a grandeur in their way of accepting her pretensions, while setting them calmly aside, which filled her with admiring awe on her rare visits to Toronto--made her rave about its elegance, and try to play off in Jones's Landing some of the mannerisms she had found so impressive. And here it may be observed that, in its way, Toronto is a capital, even as New York is, or London, and quite as accustomed as either to put on metropolitan airs, so far as circumstances permit; and seeing that all mankind are made of one kind of clay, there may be less difference in the spirit which animates the small community and the great one than would appear. A cock-boat is built of the same materials as a man-of-war, and it is floated and steered in accordance with the same laws of nature.

At a distant table Mrs Naylor descried Mrs Justice Petty, Mrs Vice-Chancellor Chickenpip, and Mrs Carraway--the very cream of Toronto society. Ice-cream, alas! they were likely to prove to Mrs Naylor, as she did not know them, and they made a point of not thawing to unknown fellow-country-women whom they met in American hotels--it being difficult to shake them off afterwards, especially the undesirable ones. So far, indeed, did those ladies' prudence carry them, that they would only bathe at eccentric hours and in secretly arranged parties. The very sea should not receive them in the same embrace with persons from Canada who were not in Society. As for Americans, it did not matter: they might never meet them again, and Americans are held to be a peculiar people, without social degrees or defined lines of demarcation. Everybody among them may be anybody, and each is expected to have a spice of everything. Among them, vulgarity, if they have any, is overlooked. They are generally amusing, often rich, and cannot compromise a Canadian.

Mrs Naylor's eye, surveying the company, lighted on her distinguished compatriots. She knew them, although she had not the happiness of being acquainted with them--a humbling thought, which made her approach with more meekness than otherwise she might have felt, the two people from Toronto who shared her table. If not the rose, they at least grew near it, and might--who knew?--be woven into a link of connection with the queen of flowers. She addressed a polite observation to the old lady, who, accepting it as a tribute to her clever son and her own good looks, responded affably, as not unwilling to confer the favour of her notice, though aware that it was a thing of value.

And so it came about that, when dinner was over, the Naylor party and the Wilkies had coalesced, and strolled together to a shady corner of the galleries, where broad awnings, flapping in fitful air-currents, lent a little freshness to the languor of the hot and drowsy afternoon.

CHAPTER III.

[THE FIRST EVENING].

When the sweltering hours of afternoon have passed on westward, and the shadows creep out to meet the coming twilight in the east, there is an arousing in the world comparable to the quickening which passes across it at the opening of each new day. The air, too languid, an hour since, to lift the drooping streamer on the flag-staff, awakens into flutterings which set the aspen-leaves in the shrubbery spinning gleefully upon their slender stalks. The watch-dog rattling his chain emerges from his kennel, stretching and blinking, and yawning his formidable jaws. The interest of living steals slowly back on him, and ere long he is amusing himself with a half-gnawed bone, his eyes fixed upon the kitchen-door, whence supper and the cook are wont to visit him.

There are stirrings and rustlings in the long silent passages and chambers of the hotel. The life of the inmates, which had burned low, like charcoal-embers in the thick hot stillness, lights up in the eddies of cooler air which flutter in, and brightens into flame. The sleepers draw themselves together where they lie on swing, in hammock, on couch, or deeply cushioned chair, and open their eyes and start and are awake, inhale the freshness of the sea-salt air, and the house is alive once more with the stirring of its inmates, like a clock which had run down, but is now wound up and set agoing.

Old Mrs Wilkie had been surprised by sleep as she lay back in a long cane chair, preliminary to getting up and seeking the privacy of her chamber. Her feet had been raised on the further end of the seductive invention for barely a second, when, with a sigh, her head fell backward, leaving the lips apart, and plunging her in deep sweet gurgling slumber, which echoed purlingly along the silent gallery, like sounds of hidden brooks in shady dells.

She started now, and, wheeling round, sat bolt-upright, in haste to hide among her skirts the broad prunella shoes which had stood up before her like a massive screen, concealing her foreshortened figure from intrusive eyes.

"Peter Wilkie! are you sleeping? Come here," were the first words she spoke on opening her eyes. There was crossness in her voice, and her face was aflush with anger, or perhaps with lingering sleep. "I wish you would speak to that impertinent Yankee woman over there. What business has she looking at me like that? It's my feet she's trying to see, I do believe."

"They're big enough to be plainly seen without much trying, mother. But never mind, I'll back them to gang their ain gate against hers or anybody's. Why did you not go to your room, as I advised you, instead of exhibiting yourself like a sleeping beauty before the whole house?"

"I just fell asleep before I knew; and it's like your father's son to be jawing and jeering when I'm too poorly to take my own part," and she pressed her side. "Sleeping beauty, quothy! It'll be telling ye, my man, if any scart of a wife ye may pick up in this unwholesome country keeps her looks half as well when she comes to my time of life;" and having secured the last word, she withdrew to smooth her tumbled hair and prepare for the next meal.

There was a general rolling up of awnings and opening of shutters all over the house. Doors and windows were thrown open, and whisperings from the sea stole in everywhere, bringing freshness and gaiety where sloth and prostration had brooded all the afternoon. The sounds of laughter and tripping feet echoed on the stairs, and presently the whole body of guests come out from supper were assembled in the parlours. There were three parlours, connected with each other by folding-doors. Only one was carpeted, to be ready for rainy days at the end of the season. The boards of the other two were bare, like the holystoned deck of a steamer; and, with their open windows descending to the floor, they had the appearance of sheltered continuations of the gallery without, rather than of rooms, they were so sweet and fresh and spacious.

Round the pianos, or rather one of them, the crowd gathered. A Bostonian, the pet of the ladies and the aversion of the other young men, seated himself before it and began to play. He played, as the male amateur is wont to play, with abundant sound--eliciting admiring whispers as to the energy of his touch, and acquitting himself successfully, though by no means with the brilliancy he himself supposed. Ere long he slid into a waltz, and then the crowd broke up into its component parts. Those who could find a partner began to dance, those who desired one looked about or waited to be asked, while the elders withdrew to the carpeted drawing-room.

Those first to reach it having secured the rocking-chairs, the remainder had to sit still,--all, that is, but Miss Maida Springer, a school-ma'am, the gossips said, from Vermont--a lady of questionable youth but indubitable independence of character, who tilted her chair till its back touched the wall, and swung her feet in a plenitude of sedentary exercise such as no rocker could afford.

Mrs Judge Petty was one of the first to reach the drawing-room and install herself in a comfortable place. Having done so, she had leisure to look round and consider how the places near her should be filled. Her eye lighted on Mrs Wilkie drifting doubtfully on the stream, and, fixing her with an encouraging smile, drew her forward, and landed her with a turn of the eyelid on a sofa at her elbow.

Mrs Naylor followed close upon her new acquaintance, and Mrs Petty, feeling no desire to know her, would fain have staved her off with a chilling stare; but Mrs Naylor could play burr on occasion, and knew how to disregard what it would be inconvenient to see. She stuck to her friend, and made small-talk whilst settling herself by her side; and Mrs Wilkie, though eager to meet the advances of the more worshipful lady, was too unskilful to refrain from answering her assiduous companion. It was tantalising. Circumstances through life had kept her far off from the judges and magnates of her native land; and now, when she was abroad, and at last in clover--when great ones were actually seeking her acquaintance--to think that a quite ordinary person should intrusively interfere! It made her cross, and her replies grew short and dry; but, alas! to no good purpose--for though Mrs Naylor could be silenced by taciturnity, Mrs Petty had turned away her head in the meantime, and was interesting herself in other things.

Mrs Wilkie flushed and fretted; Mrs Naylor sat and bided her time. She had two girls to bring out and marry well--enterprises in which patience and ability to eat humble-pie speed better than more brilliant qualities. She sat by Mrs Wilkie, keeping her company, though neither spoke. Their eyes were occupied with the moving crowd of dancers in the distance, as they whirled and floated on the tide of sound.

After a while Mrs Petty turned round to her neighbour and observed, "I think I see Mr Wilkie--your son, is he not?--dancing with my daughter Ann. A good height, are they not, for each other? They really look very well."

"Most girls look well dancing with my Peter--Mr Wilkie, I ought to say, for we can't look on a young man in his fine position as just a boy; though, to be sure, he will always be a boy to me. Eh!--the trouble I had with him in his teething! I can never forget that, and the day we put on his first pair of little trousers. I made them myself out of a bit of black-and-red tartan. And now, to see him 'dancing in the hall,' as the song says, with all the finest girls in the room just scuffling to get a catch of him."

Mrs Petty was scarcely gratified at the remark, but she was amused; and as we grow older on this humdrum planet, to be amused befalls one so seldom that it compensates for much, even for a lack of proper respect--so she acquiesced.

"Yes," she said, "Mr Petty--Judge Petty, you know, my husband--says he thinks highly of your son, and expects him to do very well. I too have met him, and like the little I have seen; and now apparently he has made the acquaintance of Ann, and they seem to get on together very nicely."

"Oh yes," chuckled the mother, "he's a great boy with the girls, our Peter. They're all pulling caps to see who's going to get him. I just----"

"Hm!" coughed Mrs Petty, in haste to interrupt before anything worse had been said of the girls, among whom her own daughter seemed audaciously to be included. "Oh yes, an excellent young man. I have scarcely met him, but I hope to see more of him next winter, and I am very pleased to meet his mother."

Whereat the other bridled and was happy. How well it would read in her next letter to her husband--hid away somewhere in Scotland, and never alluded to--to mention Mr Justice Petty and his family among her intimate friends!

"Don't you think my daughter Ann is looking her best this evening?" the younger mother went on. "So animated. She is perhaps too tranquil in general. 'Statuesque' was how young Lord Norman described her, when he passed through Toronto last spring. And really she is clever, though ill-natured people say she has no conversation. When she gets hold of a clever man who can understand, see! she positively rattles."

"Oh yes, Peter generally makes the girls rattle. He's very quick about sounding them. Terrible empty, though, he says he generally finds them;" which was a remark she should have spared her new friend, in view of the elation she felt in making the acquaintance; but Peter was her monomania. With his name on her lips, the words would come of themselves, without judgment or consideration.

"There is my son Walter, too," Mrs Petty continued, taking no notice. "Dancing, I declare, instead of smoking out of doors. A positive achievement on the part of that young lady, if she only knew. A very handsome girl, and nicely dressed; but I do not seem to have observed her before--must have arrived to-day."

"So she did," answered Mrs Wilkie. "That's--dear me! how bad my memory is growing!"

"Miss Naylor," volunteered her mother. "Niece of Joseph Naylor of Jones's Landing."

"The great lumberman? In--deed!" said Mrs Petty, interested and impressed. "I did not hear of her arrival. I wonder if he is coming! The richest bachelor in Upper Canada, I understand. It is a risky business, but still----. One likes to see a celebrity."

"He is here," his sister-in-law observed. "We arrived this afternoon."

Mrs Petty turned her eyes, and for the first time permitted them to be seen resting on the stranger, addressing her with much politeness at the same time. "Then perhaps you are related to the beautiful girl who is dancing with my son?"

"She is my daughter Margaret. I am Mrs Caleb Naylor."

"So happy to know you, Mrs Naylor," and forthwith the mothers conversed freely across Mrs Wilkie and over her head, on subjects in which it was impossible for her to join, though many were her abortive attempts to put in an oar. Even Mrs Naylor, whose chit-chat she had stifled with her taciturnity half an hour before, was now grown deaf and unresponsive to anything she could say.

CHAPTER IV.

[THE PERILS OF SURF-BATHING].

When the day is young and the sky is blue, with just a flake or two of cloud low down on the horizon; when the sea, in purple slumber like a dreaming child, is brightened by the flickering glance and shadow on its rippling swell--and the surf, cresting itself in a wall of translucent green, leaps up and curls and topples over, crumbling in snow-white foam upon the sand; when the breeze, still gleeful with the memory of dew and starlit revels overnight, flits fresh and crisp beneath the early sunshine,--it is then that it is good to be a dweller by the shore: to spring from the unconsciousness of sleep into the luxury of sentient being, with softly fanning airs curling about the limbs, and wakening in them all their suppleness and strength.

Obeying the summons of the early gong, the young and vigorous of the guests of the hotel had hastened to the bathing-houses on the beach, and now came forth a gay and motley company. They were dressed in suits of red, blue, orange, green, and grey, with hats of straw or caps of oilskin, or only falling hair by way of head-dress. White ankles twinkled all along the sand, and the air was musical with laughter, as they scampered down and halted by the margin of the white sea-foam,--ladies and men distinguishable only by their hair or beard, or by less or greater bulk. They arranged themselves like a necklace of brightly coloured beads, where great and small alternated with each other. Each smaller figure was attended by one of the sturdy kind, as though they were about to dance. The surf along that coast breaks in such massive billows, that the little and the weak can scarce bear up alone against the whelming rush, or keep their footing. They are liable to be thrown down by an advancing roller, turned over when it breaks, sucked outward in the reflux, and carried beyond their depth.

The party joined hands, and then stepped out into the foam, a string of forty beads, to bind the bosom of the next big wave, so green and smooth and glassy; but as it yet came on, so huge and impressive with its crest of foam, like the tossing manes of Pharaoh's chariot-horses, the line outstepping stopped and wavered and bent, as one panic-stricken near the centre suddenly bounded back, and left the wings of the line turned sidewise and irresolute, while the wave was sweeping up indifferent to the doubts and fears of mortals. It swept upon the wings all unprepared to meet it, lifting them from their feet and throwing them down, and dabbling them in the wreck of foam and sand.

"Oh, Lucy Naylor! that was not fair!--to spring back suddenly and leave us in the lurch!" rang out from several pairs of feminine lips. "I will not bathe with you again, if you go on so." But the laughter of those who were amused at the disaster overbore the displeasure of the remonstrants; and it being Lucy's first morning, she was forgiven on promising to be more courageous.

The line formed up once more, and stepped out steadily to meet the next invader; and on he came, a smooth green hill, with the frothing and hissing water gathering on the summit like the gnashing teeth of an advancing monster. The line stood still, with spreading feet, bent knee, and breath held in. The monster was upon them, and with a little cry from here and there along the line, smothered and drowned and overwhelmed in the hissing deluge as it heaved above them, and with a thunderous roar, it broke up upon the shore behind them, and then drew back again in hurrying, seething foam, and left the line still standing. And then there was a sob or two, and a cry, followed by laughter and little screams of delight The cool sea water had drenched their shrinking frames, the saltness prickled exhilaratingly on the skin, and it was, as some one said, "just altogether too delightful."

Again the line was formed, and again. Even the timid ones had grown courageous. The least expert had learned to shoulder and resist the coming waves. The world was all coolness and freshness and sparkle, and each new wave was plunged into with a relish keener than the last, when came a new disturbance or alarm, more pressing and more vehement than even the onslaught of the billows upon the inexperienced. It sounded from the shore, a voice addressing them in accents shrill and clamorous. They ceased their sport and turned, and beheld a figure with flushed cheeks, no bonnet, her hair disordered, and her cap askew, with ribbons fluttering wildly in the breeze.

"Peter Wilkie!" it cried--"Peter Wilkie! Do ye not hear your mother crying to ye, fit to crack her voice? Let go that woman's hand, and come out ower this moment!--Peter! Do you hear me? Leave go, and come out ower. To think that I should live to see the proper up-bringing I have spared no pains to give ye, circumvented and brought to nothing by a set of shameless hempies like this!--and you just danderin' in the middle of them, like a fool goin' to the correction of the stocks!"

Mr Peter passed through many phases of feeling while he was being addressed. First, he was ashamed for his mother's sake. He would fain have taken no notice, and plunged with his companions into the coming wave, in hopes that others would do the same, and every one's attention be withdrawn. Then he grew angry, and endeavoured to laugh off the intrusion as a quaint absurdity; but as the old lady's voice rose higher, and an audible titter ran along the line on either side of him, he realised that he must close the scene at once, on any terms. To outface the clamour was manifestly impossible, while to yield would at least bring the scolding to an end. With a shrug and a scowl, which he strove to hide behind a cough, and an acid smile, he stepped ashore, took his mother's hand, all dripping as he was, and led her away behind the bathing-houses, where, let us hope, an understanding and a reconciliation were effected.

The interest of the bathers being thus disturbed, many began to feel chilly and to think they had had enough. Only the few who were good swimmers cared to remain, and these struck out beyond the ruin of breakers, to disport themselves above the placid depths beyond.

In the unbroken water outside, they could frolic at will, diving, floating, treading water, or swimming further seaward. Naylor, the uncle of his nieces, who have been mentioned, was one of the eagerest of all. A man no longer young, but with no sign of coming age save a thinning of the hair above his temples. Well nourished and prosperous of aspect, and five feet nine or so in height; broad-shouldered, muscular, and active, with cheery grey eyes, and a face burnt red by the sun. His spirits rose with the increasing coolness of the water, as he swam out and out; and from the sedate middle-aged person he had been on shore, he seemed changed into a hilarious youth among his new associates, challenging those near him to strange feats and gambols, laughing and shouting like a schoolboy.

Suddenly, with a cry, he threw up his hands, and sank beneath the surface.

"Not a bad imitation of a drowning man; but I wish he would not do it out here, where the water is deep. It isn't half funny. It spoils one's stroke, and makes me feel heavy and weak," some one said.

"I am not sure that it was imitation," answered another--a lady this one. "He may have a cramp. Watch when he rises."

Presently his head emerged gasping from the depths, and Miss Hillyard, the lady who had spoken, swam to him, and was able to get her fingers into his hair, just as he was beginning to sink again, and lifted his head an inch or two for a moment, calling wildly on the others at the same time to come to her assistance.

"Strike out!" she cried to the drowning man, tugging his hair again, and feeling her own poise seriously endangered by the effort. "What is the matter with you?"

"Cramp," he gasped. "Help me on my back. Perhaps I may manage to float."

"Help! Mr Sefton, help!" screamed the lady; and Mr Sefton, who was hurrying forward, was able to get a hand under the sinking man's chin on the other side, before he had drawn his other would-be rescuer under.

"Hold on now, Miss Hillyard! Don't hurry. Be calm. Steady yourself. Keep cool. We'll manage it. Trust to the water.... Good! He is up. Have a care, now. He may clutch without meaning it. Keep clear of his arms.... Steady, friend. Can't you do something for yourself?"

"I can't. Help me on my back. I cannot strike out one bit. I can hardly straighten my leg. Ugh!... Never fear, madam, I won't lay hold on you. Can you help me on my back, do you think? Never mind if you can't do it. Let go if you feel yourself sinking. One is enough to go to the bottom."

With teeth tight set, he straightened out his limbs, and held them motionless; and by-and-by they succeeded in getting him on his back, and began to tow and steer him to the shore.

Fortunately the tide had not yet turned. It was rising still; so the water helped them on their long and tardy voyage.

It was an arduous and a tedious task, and but for the tranquil coolness of the man they were trying to save, it would have been beyond their power, as they had been a long way out when the accident occurred. As they approached the surf-line, however, their labour grew lighter, and presently the heaving swell caught hold of them and swung them forward with accelerating speed, as though the hungry ocean, balked of his intended prey, had grown eager to reject the victim he had failed to drown. Surging and swinging on the translucent tide, they were borne forward more and more swiftly, and were shot at last through the curling and overarching bank of surf into shallow water, where the crowd, which had been watching on the beach, ran in and dragged the exhausted trio ashore.

"Uncle!" cried his nieces, laying hold on him, all dripping as he was, and bestowing hugs of congratulation. "You venturesome old man! How rash to go swimming out so far, this very first morning!"

"I should have been done for, if it had not been for this young lady. I would wish to thank you, madam, if I could find words; but when it is one's life that has been saved, one does not know how properly to express it."

"Pray say nothing," said Miss Hillyard, looking calm and handsome even in her dripping bathing-dress, her arms so white and strong and shapely folded on her breast, and the long dark hair hanging like a mantle down her back. "Do not say a word. Any one who was able to swim must have done the same. I am glad that I was near at the moment, and able to be of use."

And then the bathers dispersed to get dried and dressed, leaving the beach to the waves and the sea-birds undisturbed.

Joseph Naylor was an object of interest for the remainder of that day to all Clam Beach, as the man who had been all but drowned; but Miss Hillyard was the heroine for the rest of the season. She had saved a life, and the circumstances grew more marvellous from day to day, as each narrator in turn strove to give thrill to the only tale of peril he had ever assisted at; till at length the young lady, growing bored with the wondering respect it brought her, and which was far from being the form of admiration in which she took pleasure, began to deny the incident altogether, and assure people that it had never taken place.

CHAPTER V.

[ROSE AND LETTICE].

However indifferent or even nauseous applause become familiar may ultimately grow, it is intensely agreeable while it is yet new. Only with time and habitude does it begin, like other sweets, to pall upon the healthy appetite. Miss Hillyard, on the day of her exploit, distinctly enjoyed the feeling that all eyes followed her, and that other conversation was hushed whenever she chose to speak. It was an ovation with which she was favoured on coming down to breakfast. Every one who knew her was waiting with congratulations to extol her pluck, and those who did not, were striving to be introduced.

Her friends felt an accession of importance in belonging to her; and Mrs Senator Deane of Indiana, under whose wing she was travelling, secured a carriage for a drive along the shore, so soon as breakfast was over, to keep the distinction of the heroine's intimacy secure in her own party.

Notoriety in a hotel, or anywhere else, grows cheap when the noted one is to be met upon the stairs and on doorsteps all day long, and can be accosted and questioned by every comer, while a morning of privacy could not fail to increase general interest in the whole party. The exploit was sure to be talked over without reserve in their absence, and on their return each member of the community would be affected with the general enthusiasm which his own contribution had done something to augment.

"Tell us all about it now, Rose, from the very beginning," cried Lettice Deane, catching both her hands, as soon as they had driven from the door. "I am dying to hear everything, now we are out of that inquisitive crowd--Yankees with their straight out questions, and Canucks with that wooden British way of theirs, staring without a wink and saying nothing, but drinking in everything with their eyes. Give me Western folks after all, say I. One knows what they are and how to deal with them from the first. These down-Easters, with their intelligence, and their conceit, and their determination to know all about it, make me feel like a potato-bug on the end of a pin, under a microscope. I like folks that are smart, but the cultured intelligence of Boston is just something too awful."

"But decent Canadians do not ask questions."

"I wish they would. They are always looking them--with eyes made round, ears erect, and mouth ajar. I'd like to shake some of them."

"Stuff! Lettie. I am Canadian, please remember."

"You are different. You have lived in Chicago; and that cures most things. But tell us now!--all about it. How did it begin?"

"Begin? Let me see. We were all out together in the deep water, having a social swim, and showing each other what we could do. Mr Sefton had just picked up a shell from the bottom--quite a pretty one, too, it seemed--and was swimming up to give it me, when we heard a cry; and when I turned round, I was just in time to see a hand disappearing under water. You can scarcely fancy the uncomfortable thrill it gave me. At once I remembered the octopus they say was cast ashore last week at St John's, with arms a yard or two long, all covered with suckers, and I began to think of cold slimy things in the water, twisting about me and pulling me down. It took all my nerve, and the certainty that if I yielded to panic, I should sink, to compose me; when bobbing up to the surface came a head of hair, not five yards off. That calmed me. It gave me something to do."

"How brave you are, Rose! With me, now, the sight of a drowning man would have scared me out of my wits."

"You cannot swim, Lettie. That is why you think so."

"And then? What did you do next?"

"As soon as I could get near enough, I got my fingers into his hair, and pulled--just a little, then slipped my hand under his shoulder. He got his face above water then, and he began to paddle with his hands."

"And were you not afraid?"

"Well, just a little bit, perhaps, at first. I dreaded his clutching at me. That would have made a finish of us both."

"And did he not? And how could you have prevented it, if he had tried?"

"He did not once attempt to clutch--seemed most careful, indeed, to keep his hands away. Lettie! He is a perfect gentleman, that man!--and brave, I am sure, He thanked me so politely--by-and-by, when he got his face clear of the water for a bit--as politely as if we had both been on dry land--for attempting to assist him; but said he thought I had better let go, as I could not possibly swim ashore with him, and he could do nothing for himself, owing to cramp in his legs. Then Sefton joined us, and together we got him on his back. You cannot imagine how cheerful and composed he was, all through. He actually smiled when our eyes met. Not a struggle did he make, or an attempt to lay hold, which made it far more possible for us to deal with him. If he had struggled, you know, we should certainly have been drowned, all three."

"Don't talk of it, Rose. It is just splendid the way you managed it all, and I am glad to think the man must be a pretty good sort; for you will have to know him, I suppose, after saving his life, and you will be introducing him to mother and me and Fanny. Pity he is so old. Thirty or forty, is he not, mother?"

"More'n forty, I reckon. Rising forty-five, if he wears well. But even fifty ain't old for a marrying man--if he's well off, that is. My senator was not much younger when we made it up between us. I don't hold with very young men myself. They're real hard to break in for runnin' in double harness, and the money's still to make, ginnerally speakin'. And after the girl has slaved and pinched all through her best years, helping to make the fortune, she finds herself too old when it's made to get much good out of it. Don't you be a fool, Lettie, like my sister Barbara. She vowed she'd have a man to please her eye, even if he should vex her heart.... And she got him! And she never had a day's peace from the week their honeymoon ended. She died a brokenhearted woman, with nary bit of life or good looks left in five years' time."

"Pshaw, mother! If you've told that story once, you've told it fifty times. The fellow I agree to take will have to be well off, as well as young and good-looking. See if he isn't!"

"You'll have to look sharp then, Lettie. After twenty-five, a girl has to take what offers, or go without."

"You shut, Fan! School-girls are growing real forward, it seems to me."

CHAPTER VI.

[WITH THE SMOKERS].

Joseph Naylor found himself a notoriety for that day, as much as the heroine who had saved his life. It was notoriety, however, with a difference, as compared with hers--less incense-like and intoxicating, though perhaps more tonic.

The Hebrew prophetess makes it the culmination of Sisera's overthrow that he, a warrior, should have been done to death by a woman; and even for the non-combatant there is something ungrateful to manly pride in owing life to a member of the weaker sex. The debt is too heavy to be repaid; and it is conventionally settled that obligation between the sexes should lie the other way. It could scarcely be agreeable to his self-love to feel himself pointed out among his fellows as the man who had gone in swimming that morning, and who would have drowned himself, if a brave young lady had not gone to his rescue and fished him out.

Mrs Carraway surveyed him through her glasses in the interval between her omelet and the robin-on-toast which constituted her breakfast. The sight of a should-have-been drowned gentleman communicated a marine flavour to the little bird, suggestive of oyster-sauce with boiled turkey,--a dish which was not on the bill of fare, and therefore the more delicious. She sent her colonel, after breakfast, to make friends with the interesting creature, and get exact particulars of how it had occurred, at first hand,--rather to the botheration of that tranquil warrior, who, since he had made his home in the Colonies, had for the most part practised an affable silence. If natives who approached him were to his liking, he accepted their advances, and graciously permitted himself to be courted; if they were not, he kept stolidly oblivious of their existence, no matter how pressing their overtures of friendship might be.

It is by no means a bad way of getting easily through life, provided you can persuade people that you are worth courting. That is the difficulty. People worth knowing can generally find better sport than cultivating your Worship; but even if they do attempt it, the game will grow monotonous ere long, on the one side as well as the other. One can fancy that Royalty itself must yawn behind a fan at times, in weariness of uninterrupted adulation.

It was a bore to so reserved a gentleman as Colonel Carraway to break through his own ice; however, he lighted a cigar and strolled away to the gallery facing the north, and always shady, where inmates addicted to tobacco were wont to smoke. Naylor had arrived there before him, and stood the centre of a group in which Judge Petty and Vice-Chancellor Chickenpip vied with each other in displaying their forensic gift of unwearied question-asking--a talent which they made it manifest had not grown rusty from disuse since their elevation to the bench.

"I never experienced the sensation of drowning," the Judge was observing. "Being unable to swim, I never was in danger of it."

"And yet," said the Vice-Chancellor, with a shrug at the little paradox, and eyeing the perpetrator with condescending superiority through his spectacles, as the self-constituted wit is apt to do when his neighbour attempts a sally, "we teach our boys to swim in order to prepare them against such dangers."

"And they rashly tempt them in consequence, and so, not unfrequently, get drowned. For myself, I have all my life had a cat's antipathy to water--always excepting, of course, my morning tub."

"So your lordship's detractors of the blue-ribbon sect have sometimes insinuated," chuckled the other, delighted to be disagreeable by way of jest, however threadbare in form the jest might be. The Vice-Chancellor owed his reputation for smartness to his talent for ill-nature. The dullest can appreciate malice, while wit which is merely sportive requires a sense of humour to understand it.

The Judge was familiar with the idiosyncrasy of his learned brother. "What need one expect from a pig but a grunt!" was his inward exclamation; but he was wise enough not to give it utterance. He merely moved nearer to Naylor, thereby half turning his back upon the other.

"I have always felt curious," he said, "to know what drowning, or, indeed, dying in any form, could be like--without personal experiment, that is. How did it feel, Mr Naylor? What were your sensations?"

"It did not get the length of drowning with me this time. I was a deal too busy struggling for my life, I can tell you, to take much heed of sensations. When at last I got my nose above water, and felt the young lady's fingers twisted in my hair, she was behaving in such splendid style that I could think of nothing but her efforts to help me. If she had not kept cool, you know, instead of drawing me up she would have been drawn down herself; and, crippled and sinking as I was, I could have done nothing to save her. My mind was completely absorbed in watching her efforts, admiring her nerve, and wondering if she would really succeed in keeping afloat. As for saving me, I did not think it possible; for, all the time, that racking cramp kept dragging my leg together, in spite of my straining efforts to stretch it, and drawing me to the bottom like tons of lead. Those cramps are hideous things; and then, after she and Mr Sefton had taken me in tow, and the anxiety for her safety grew less absorbing, the drowning man's instinct of clutching came upon me, and it was all I could do to keep still, and let myself be saved. You are perfectly right, Judge, to keep clear of the possibility of such an experience; but still, this experience was quite different from the feeling of drowning--the helpless struggling and sinking down and away, the yielding of what sustains you on every side, till the idea of up and down is lost in dizziness, while the held-in breath seems bursting you asunder. You bear it for hardly a minute, but that minute lasts an age; and then--and then--no one can describe what follows. You are confused, and benumbed, and melting into nothing. I have gone through it.

"A ship I sailed in, when I was a young man, was run down one foggy night off the coast of Cuba. It was my watch on deck, and that is how I am here to tell the tale. The look-out gave no warning till we were close under the bow of a Spanish man-of-war bearing straight down on us. I shouted to port the helm. It was too late. The Spaniard was into us with a crash. He stove in our quarter, and sent us to the bottom. I was knocked down by the falling rigging, and found myself in the water, entangled among cordage, and drowning as I have described. I know nothing more--nothing till I found myself coming to, on board that foreign ship. The deathly sickness! The longing to sink back into unconsciousness! The dim dull misery and tingling in every limb! as the stagnant blood began once more to circulate. I hope you will never know them. It is bad to drown, but it is far, far worse to be brought to. It was days before I was myself again; but I had plenty of time to recruit. The ship was bound for the Philippines, and it was not till she reached Manilla that I was set ashore."

"Ah! then you have travelled, sir," said the Vice-Chancellor, scrutinising him with the condescension of a superior person recognising an interesting trait in an ordinary mortal. "Yet you have had time to make your fortune at home, and now you are embarking in politics, I hear. You deserve credit for the comprehensiveness of your energy, and will no doubt bring unusual information to bear on public affairs; but politics is as stormy a sea, and one more difficult to navigate than the one you know. It would be a pity, after weathering so many dangers, to make shipwreck there. We want good men in Parliament, but we want them on the right side."

"Is that the side of the patriots, Chancellor?--the men who went into office to save the country, and who made their own fortunes instead? The tide has turned, and left them high and dry on the bank, or in the offices they appointed themselves to fill."

It was a young man who spoke--fair-haired and broad-shouldered, with a complexion burnt to the colour of bricks by the exposure of outdoor life. His clothes were not new, but they fitted him, and there was that look of rest and balance in his limbs which leisure and exercise alone can give,--so different from the smug constraint with which life in chambers and offices stamps the man of affairs.

The Vice-Chancellor turned with the haughty stare of a schoolmaster on the urchin who has spoken out of turn. Colonel Carraway looked disgusted at the bad taste which could drag politics into social intercourse; and politics flavoured with personality as well, to judge by the thrill in the speaker's voice. Senator Deane rolled his cigar round to the other cheek, and--never mind, it is a dirty habit.

"Those Canadians," he observed to his neighbour, "get as hot over their politics as we do. 'What can there be to quarrel about in their small concerns?' say you? The same as in our big affairs--place and plunder, you may be sure. That's about all."

Joseph Naylor turned round to see who it was whose remark had brought the Chickenpip oration to a halt. "What! Walter Blount! You here! Where have you dropped from? The very last man I expected to see. And yet no one but you would have let his political zeal break out on so slight provocation. That comes of not being a native. You take the fever of politics the hotter for being new to it."

"But you are contesting our Riding just now."

"The more need to let alone for the present moment, so as to come fresh to the conflict. Party bickerings grow stale to the mind if one is always harping on them. Time enough to let out when I get back there. This is the seaside. But what brings you here?" resting his eyes admiringly on the other's sturdy limbs. "I see no sign of the relaxed system which is said to need bracing sea-air."

The young man did not change colour. The dusky vermilion of his sunburnt skin was incapable of a heightened tint; but he looked confused under the twinkling laughter of the other's eye. "I shall be selling out this Fall, so I thought I might run down here to the sea before moving West."

"West? Are you dreaming of making a fortune on the prairies?--turning farmer in earnest. Have you killed all the bears in your present neighbourhood, and exterminated the deer?"

"There will be neither bear nor deer within twenty miles before two years are over. The new railway runs right across my farm, and the speculators are prospecting all over the neighbourhood. I am offered a good price for my land. I shall sell, and go West somewhere, where settlers are fewer and game more abundant. No! prairie farming would not suit me. Even an improved farm in a good part of Ontario would be better than that; but I prefer the woods."

The circle round Naylor had now broken into groups occupied with their own talk, leaving him free to pursue his private gossip with his friend. He settled himself on a bench, buried his hands in his pockets, pushed out his feet in front, and blew a mighty cloud of smoke from his German pipe. "I declare I'm tired, Walter, with so much talking this morning. Now for a good old smoke! Where's your pipe?"

Walter sat down beside him and filled his pipe slowly and absently, as if his thoughts were on other things. Then he cleared his voice, lighted the pipe, and with as much off-handness as he could assume observed between the whiffs--

"Your family are with you, Mr Naylor?"

"My family is always with me. I carry the whole of it under my hat," he answered, looking his questioner straight in the eye, with a twinkle which plainly said, "Speak out if you have anything to say. I do not intend to help you."

The young man coughed. The smoke of his pipe had lost its way, and seemed trying for an outlet down his throat. "Mrs Naylor and her daughters are here, I understand?" he said at last.

"Yes."

There was a lengthened silence. "Yes" is not an answer to which the next observation can readily be attached. The questioner removed his pipe, and began nervously to examine what could be making it draw so badly; while the other watched him in silent amusement, tempered with a touch of good-natured pity.

"I wonder," Blount said at last, digging the charge carefully out of his pipe, and so making it unnecessary to raise his eyes to the other's face,--"I wonder what they will say to see me here?"

"Difficult to imagine," came the answer from the thickest of a bank of smoke.

"I fear I am not a favourite with Mrs Naylor."

"She told you not to call any more, I believe? That was pretty plain."

"Was it not too bad of her? What can she have against me? She has known me ever since I came to the country, and she used to be like a mother to me."

"That was imprudent. Now she sees it, I suppose. A mother of girls may become mother-in-law to some young fellow one day, and Mrs Naylor may feel that she ought to reserve herself for that. When girls leave school, you see, circumstances alter."

"I am sure I showed no unwillingness to take her for my mother-in-law."

"That was the trouble. She could have taken you for a son--a full son, understand--and you might have been brother to the girls, if that would have pleased you. But it didn't."

"How could it? Would it have satisfied you--to take a nice girl to picnics, and hold her shawl while another fellow danced with her?"

"Put it that way, and it does seem hard. But what is a mother to do? Her daughters' prospects ought to be her chief care."

"Do you think it is right to be mercenary, then? Is money to stand for everything? Is the fellow to count for nothing?"

"By no means! A good fellow it must be--a nice fellow and a gentleman if possible, or the girl's life is spoiled. No amount of money could make her happy with a ruffian or a cad. But you must remember that Mrs Naylor's girls are young yet, and I cannot blame her for wishing to look about before fixing their position for life."

"It is hard to be passed over merely for being the first comer. And they may happen on worse subjects as well as better."

"Quite true. There is a proverb about a girl who was so particular about the stick she went to cut, that she came to the end of the wood before she could make up her mind, and then she had to content herself with a crooked one, or go without. However, proverbial philosophy goes for nothing, you know; people like to try for themselves. Still, there is excuse for a mother wishing not to bury her accomplished daughter in the backwoods, as wife to a wild huntsman. One can understand that it would be pleasant for you, after being out all day with your gun and your dog, to find your dinner laid, and a pretty young wife beside a cosy fire waiting for you; but you cannot call it unreasonable if the lady's friends wish to secure her a less solitary home. When you are out, what will she have to amuse her but needle and thread? the chickens and the cows? You would not like to think of her sitting in the kitchen talking to the help; and yet you know they will be the only human creatures she will have to speak to when you are away."

"I told you I was selling out. She can choose her home anywhere between Gaspé and Vancouver."

"You would not like to live in a town, and a girl must have been bred on a farm to live happily on one afterwards."

"You leave the husband out of the calculation. Do you think she could be happy even in London or New York with a fellow she did not care for?"

"That is true; but she need not marry unless she cares."

"While even in the bush, if she liked the fellow, and he was fond of her, I think they might both be completely happy."

"I am with you there, my lad. Not a doubt of it,"--and he buried his hands deeper in his pockets, and bent his head forward to look at his boots, drawing a deep breath, and smoking harder than ever.

"Then why--Do you not think, Mr Naylor, you could bring your sister-in-law to see it in that light? You have always been a friend to me, since the first day I met you."

"Always your friend. Be sure of it. But I doubt my influence with Mrs Naylor; and, if I had any, I doubt if I ought to interfere. Girls cannot know their own minds till they have seen something of the world. They may mistake a passing fancy for real regard; and if they have married in the meantime, there are two lives spoiled, instead of one just a little scorched--and that only for the moment, perhaps," he added, after a pause. Then pulling himself together,--"But what makes you talk like this to a crusty old bachelor? You cannot expect sympathy in your love-affairs from one who has resisted the illusions of sentiment as successfully as I have, surely?"

"I don't know. People are not bachelors and old maids for being harder than their neighbours, I suspect. I often fancy it is the other way. But at least you are not against my trying, are you? You will not do anything to make my chances less than they are already?"

"No, Blount; I'll do nothing against you. I could almost wish the girl took a fancy to you, for I believe you are real; and if she does, I will do nothing to dissuade her. Money and position are not everything, by any means."

CHAPTER VII.

[A TABLEAU].

Mrs Deane and her party returned early from their drive. The loungers on the galleries saw them alight. They also saw Naylor come hurriedly forward, uncovered beneath the penetrating glare of noon, which singled out the scattered hairs of white among the brown about his temples, and made them glitter in a way not grateful to the feelings of a well-preserved bachelor in middle life--if he had but known it.

Why can a man not stick fast at five-and-thirty?--at least till he marries? He is at his best then physically, though mentally--if he has a mind worth mentioning--he may go on improving for another decade, if not longer. There is so much in life, and in one's self, worth knowing, and which is not found out till after the time when the knowledge would have been most precious has slidden by. The soul grows slower than the body, and may only be coming into bloom when those weariful crow-feet are beginning to gather round the eyes. But girls cannot be expected to see all this. How should they, when youth in themselves is held the crown and perfume of all their charm?

Still Naylor passed fairly well beneath the scrutiny of curious eyes--"the man who had been all but drowned that morning." He looked active, and even athletic, if somewhat gone to flesh. There was honesty in the steadfast grey eye, and modest self-possession in the fresh-coloured face. There was an earnestness, too, at the moment, which lent his bearing the dignity which is seldom attainable by the well-fed man of middle age and medium stature.

"Miss Hillyard," he said, "I have not had the happiness of being introduced to you; but surely, under the debt I owe you from this morning, you will allow me to offer you my grateful thanks."

"Mr Naylor," she answered, holding out her hand, "pray say nothing more about it. You have thanked me already, you know. But I am happy to make your acquaintance. I only did what any bather must have done who was near enough. I feel a little proud, I acknowledge, of my success, and pleased to have been of use; but do not talk of debts and gratitude: it sounds oppressive."

"I cannot take it so easily as that, Miss Hillyard. If you had not laid hold on me as you did, I should have gone under. I felt myself sinking when you touched me. I should have been down before Sefton reached me--I am sure of that. You saved my life: it is an obligation which I never can repay."

Rosa flushed a little, and looked down. There were a good many pair of female eyes in the gallery turned upon her, as she felt, with interest, and just a suspicion of envy, which could not but be gratifying. Still, it was embarrassing to stand out there on the gravel when the carriage had driven off, a cynosure for the eyes of all the people above; and just a trifle stagey, with this bareheaded gentleman presenting his acknowledgments with demonstrative respect. Queen Elizabeth would have liked it; but then, she was a public character: and besides, we prefer nowadays to keep our theatricals and our private life apart. At the same time, it was pleasant to hear this earnest and respectful gentleman assure her that she had saved his life: he looked so manly and so strong. It made her think well of herself to have been able to help him; and his clear grey eyes looked so truthful and brave in their level gaze, that she wondered how their parts in the morning's episode should have been so strangely reversed, and felt how safe she would have been in his company had the accident happened to herself.

As for him, standing before her and looking in her face, it seemed as if the years must have rolled back upon themselves,--the long savourless years since his youth,--the years which had been so bitter when first he had passed through his sore probation of sorrow; and then, when the lacerated spirit had learned to endure, had grown dull and insipid. He had felt himself alone, and that the joy of life was not for him; that others might love, but he must stand aside, an onlooker at the feast at which no place was laid for him. This new stirring in his benumbed emotions seemed like the summers he remembered long ago in the South, when the plants, made torpid by the arid heat, forget to grow, waiting through rainless weeks beneath a brazen sky. Then come the showers at last, and the roses put out buds and bloom anew, till winter comes to nip them.

He could not withdraw his eyes from the beautiful face before him. As he looked, it seemed transformed into another--another, yet still the same. This was more mature and strong; but that other might have been so too, if it had been given him to see it later. The soft brown eyes were the same, which lighted when she spoke, with the same blueness in the white, a lingering remainder from the freshness and purity of childhood. The hair was less dark than hers whom he remembered so well, and it had a crisper wave, which caught the falling sunbeams here and there, and flashed them brightly back like burnished bronze. There was rich warm colour, too, in the cheek, while that other had been pale; but the difference accorded with the change of scene between the bracing airs of the North and the thick hot languor of Louisiana. This face had vigour and maturity; the other had been more tender and more frail. Its charm had lain in a drooping softness claiming support, and promises for the future as yet unfulfilled; while this was in the glory of all her beauty, sufficient for herself in her supple strength--a companion for manhood, as the other had been the clinging cherished one for youth.

The silence had now lasted for nearly a minute. Rosa became uneasily aware that she was contributing a tableau for the entertainment of her fellow-guests, which might be interpreted as "Love at first sight," or a modern and burlesque rendering of "Pharaoh's daughter and the infant Moses," according to their several humours. She looked up in her companion's face, with rising colour in her own, and the flicker of a smile about her lips, while she held out her hand.

"You are staying here, Mr Naylor, are you not?" she said. "We shall see each other again. I am pleased to know you. Now I must follow Mrs Deane," and she turned and went up the stairs.

Naylor awoke from his reverie, and found himself alone. He felt how few and bald had been his expressions of obligation; and he had come forward prepared to deliver himself so fully, and in such carefully chosen words, when the near view of her face had raised long-buried recollections, and confused him with a sense of doubleness in the presence before him, and left his memory blank. The tender girl he had been parted from long ago, seemed associated and blended with the personality of this beautiful deliverer before him; and in an effort to disentangle the old impressions from the new, the precious moment for uttering his little speech had slipped away. Now he was alone, feeling how tongue-tied and thankless he must have appeared, and how impossible it would be to make another opportunity for delivering his speech.

And yet the speech might not be necessary now. She had received him very graciously, and had even said that she was pleased to know him--said it twice--and that they would meet again. "What more could he want?" he thought; "and was he not an ass to fancy that any set phrases of his could give pleasure to so glorious a creature?--and shabby at heart, to think that any string of words could lessen the obligation under which he stood? He must never forget the debt, or dream that by word or act it could be lessened; rather, he must treasure the recollection, and watch and be ready, if haply he might, some day, be privileged to serve or succour in return."

So thinking, he turned on his heel and went his way, leaving the spectators in the gallery to find some other object to divert their leisure.

CHAPTER VIII.

[MRS WILKIE'S POWDER].

Rose left Naylor standing on the gravel, and went into the house, making her way leisurely up to her room.

The parlour door stood ajar, disclosing only darkness within, to eyes coming straight from the outer glare of sunshine. It seemed cool in there, with the rustling sea-breeze sifting fitfully through the closed Venetians; and there were gurglings of smothered laughter, which told that the place was not deserted. She stepped within the gloom, and, as her eyes grew used to it, she became able to make out the tenants.

A cheerful crew of girls, standing and seated in a ring, occupied the centre of the floor. In their midst sat old Mrs Wilkie on a low ottoman, which she occupied by herself, like a kind of throne, fanning herself industriously till the short grey curls upon her temples danced and fluttered in the artificial gale. The new blue ribbons in her cap and the old blue eyes in her head danced in unison and elation, and a proud self-satisfied smile played about her lips, and deepened the creases in her cheeks, which looked round and rosy like an overkept winter apple. She was in her glory, and she gave yet a more energetic flap to the palm-leaf fan, as she pursed her lips together, and prepared to speak again.

"Yes, my dears," were her words as Rose joined the circle, "blue was always my colour. You see I am fair--'like a lily,' the young men used to tell me I was," and she made a flourish with her fan. "But that was years ago," and she blew a sigh which made her chest heave like a portly bellows. "And then I had a colour--like a Cheeny-rose, the haverels would have it; but the Scotch gentlemen are great hands to blaw in the lugs of silly girls. Not that I was ever the wan to let my head be turned with their nonsense--but still they had grounds for what they said."

"You were a beauty," said Lettice Deane--"I can see that;" and the girls exchanged glances brimming with amusement and incredulity, such as those feel whose bloom is still in the present tense, when one of the have-beens puts in her claim to personal charms.

"Yes, my dear, I was admired--in my day," and the double chin went up with a snap, to join the rest of the self-complacent countenance.

"Don't say was, Mrs Wilkie," Lettice answered. "You are a dangerous woman still. It is well that mamma is with us here, to look after the old man, or--or---- Nobody knows what might happen. These old gentlemen are very susceptible."

"I don't think I am acquainted with your papaw, my dear," said the old woman, looking round the tittering circle with rising colour, and bridling as if the jest perhaps contained more truth than the scoffer wot of. "But I never was a flirt; and now, in my poseetion, one has to be careful, and set an example of propriety. But, as I was saying--and it's well for young people to know these things--you don't take proper care of yourselves in this country. You should see our Scotch complexions when we're young. Strawberries and crame--that's what we look like. But then we take a hantle care of our chairms; and we live healthy. It would be good for some Yankee girls if they were put through a course of proper conduck"--and she looked straight at Lucy Naylor, the most flagrant of the titterers--"and simple living, by one of our old Scotch grandmothers. You're for ever drinking icewater and hot tea, out here; and how can you expeck your insides to be healthy after that? And you're all the time at candies or pickles, not to speak of hot bread, and beef-steaks and pitaities for breakfast, as if ye had a day's ploughing before you--and you just lounging on soffies and easy-chairs the whole forenoon, with some bit silly novel in your hands, and nothing to exercise either the body or the intelleck. My son, the Deputy Minister of Edication, says you're just destroying yourselves."

"Tell us about him, dear Mrs Wilkie," said Lettice, cutting short the prelection. "We know our faults already, though I fear we are not likely to mend them. Tell us about the young man. That will be far more interesting. What do you call his profession? Something very long-winded and grand, I know."

"He is the Deputy Minister of Edication, for the Province. And it is a grand poseetion for so young a man, or for any man--whatever you may think. And as for being 'long-winded,' you don't understand. He doesna preach, my dear--though he could do that too, if there was occasion. It was that I bred him to. But this pays better. He has his handsome income for just sitting still in his chair and seeing that his inferiors work hard enough. And then, there's what the opposeetion papers, with their ill-scrapet tongues, call pickin's! Oh yes! there's fine pickin's. But I mustna be telling tales out o' school."

"He must be a bishop, then, Mrs Wilkie, if he does not preach. We call boss ministers bishops. Do you call them deputies in Canada? How odd of you! And yet I danced with him last night. Think of dancing with a bishop! It sounds positively profane. What a country Canada must be!"

"The lassie's in a creel! My Peter's no that kind of minister avaw. I bred him for a minister, it's true--a minister of the Gospel, and very far from the same kind with your bishops, and their white gowns, and red things hanging down their backs. It's a U.P. he would have been, if I had had my way. But Peter preferred being a minister of the Crown; and there's no denying it pays better. There's no vows laid on a minister of the Crown. They may dance, or do anything they like--and very queer things some of them do like, it seems to me. But Mis-ter Wilkie's very circumspeck. He's Deputy Minister, you see. 'Deputy' means that all the pickin's"--and she winked, poor soul--"go to him; though sometimes he has to give a share to the chief--quietly, you understand, my dears, for the chief is responsible to Parliament, and there would be a scandal if it came out. They're fond of having a scandal in Canada when politics are dull. Then the chief has to resign, but the deputy just sits still. He's a servant of the Crown, you see; so he goes on drawing his pay just the same, whatever chief the politeetians may appint over him. That comes of our having a Crown in Canada. It's a fine institution, and troubles nobody. It would be telling you Yankees if you had wan. Ye wouldn't be turned out of your comfortable offices every four years, then; and more, it would keep you steady. Ye have no respeck and no reverence here, and no nothing;" and again she looked severely in Lucy Naylor's face--that ill-regulated young person having fallen a-laughing worse than ever.

"It must be nice to be married to a Deputy Minister of the Crown," Lettice observed, demurely.

"Ye may say that; and there's more than you thinks it, I can tell you, my dear. The young girls where we come from are just pulling caps to see who is to be the wan. It's really shameless the way they behave, and many's the good laugh me and Mis-ter Wilkie has at their ongoings."

"I suppose you are to choose the successful candidate?"

"A mother must know the kind that will suit her boay best. But it's a sore responsibeelity, my dears. It would be terrible if the expurriment didn't answer; and he's very hard to please, and terrible fond of his own way."

"Couldn't you say a good word for one of us here, dear Mrs Wilkie?" asked Lettice with her most winning smile. "Just see what a lot of us there are!--and we have all to find husbands yet: every variety of girl you can think of--tall and short, dark and fair. Surely one of us might answer. It would be a gain to all. If one were provided for, the chance would be better, by so much, for all the rest when the next parti came along."

"Peter must have intelleck, he says, and high culture. I'm fear'd ye wouldn't just answer, my dear--though you're a nice girl, I'll allow, and--well--and comely."

Lettice coloured to the temples, and her well-arched eyebrows contracted into something approaching to a frown. It is eminently provoking, when one fancies one has been rather successful in drawing out an oddity, and making sport, to find the tables suddenly turned, and one's self made the butt.

"I was not thinking of myself," she said, and there was a tremor of crossness in her voice, which made her discomfiture more amusingly evident to the rest--"or any one else, for that matter. I know I would not take a gift of the fellow, with his washy grey eyes, and stiff priggish pomposity."

"The grapes are sour, my dear. Did you never hear tell of the story of the fox? But never you mind. There's a man appinted for you, I make no doubt; and if there is, ye'll get him, for as long as he is about appearing."

There was a scream of laughter, and Lettice, too angry to trust her voice with a retort, turned on her heel and went out, while the old lady sniffed vindictively and pursed her lips, as if she could have said much more, had the offender allowed her time.

"The impident monkey!" she muttered at last. "Does she think she is to make sport of me, without getting as good as she gives?" "That's a forward girl," she added aloud. "It isn't becoming for a young woman to be putting in for a gentleman in that barefaced way. And ye needn't laugh, my dears; some of you are not much better. As for Mis-ter Wilkie, ye may keep your minds easy; he can get better than any of you where we come from, just for the raising of his finger."

"Poor Lettice!" said Rose. "Are you not a little hard on her? I am sure she did not mean to be provoking."

"If you say that, my dear, I am willing to suppose it. But really, I'm just bothered with young girrls trying to catch my son, every place I go. It's like the way bees come bizzing round a sugar-bowl; or wasps, I might say," and she flung an angry glance at Lucy Naylor, caught laughing again. "You are the young lady, if I'm not mistaken, that saved the man's life this morning? It was a noble ack; and you're an example to us women, that are more given to hang about a man till he sinks, than to bear him up when he's in trouble. You'll be staying here, like the rest of us?"