"The baby--where is he? I hope he lived."

"Yes, he is at last out of danger, and we have obtained a nurse for him.

He would only trouble you now; but it is very natural you should be

anxious about him."

"Yes, he was my principal care on the raft, and I do not wish to lose

sight of him. When I am better, you must let him share my room until we

reach our friends."

"Oh, certainly!" and again she smiled her evil smile. "No one, so far as

I know of, has any right or wish to separate you; but, for the present,

you are better alone."

"Yes, I am strangely weak--confused, even," and I passed my hand over my

blistered face and dishevelled hair with something of the feeling of the

little woman in the story who doubted her own identity. Alas! there was

not even a familiar dog to bark and determine the vexed question, "Is

this I?"

Helpless as an infant, flaccid as the sea-weed when taken from its

native element, feeble in mind from recent suffering, broken in body, I

was cast on the mercies of strangers, ignorant, until they saw me, of my

existence, yet not indifferent to it, as their care testified.

"You will take some food now," said the woman, kindly, "Your weakness is

not unfavorable, since it proves the fierce fever broken; but you must

hasten to gather strength for what lies before you. We shall be in port

to-morrow."

I put away the spoon with an impatient gesture. "I cannot; it nauseates

me but to see it, to think of it. Strength will come of itself."

"Oh, no; that is impossible. Besides, the doctor has ordered panada, and

I am responsible to him for your safety. Come, now, be reasonable. This

is very nice, seasoned with madeira and nutmeg."

Making a strong effort to overcome my repugnance, I received one

spoonful of the proffered aliment, then sank back on my pillow, soothed

and comforted, not more by the unexpectedly good effects of the

compound, than the associations it conjured up, of my sick childhood, of

Mrs. Austin, and of Dr. Pemberton.

"Ah! you smile; that is a good sign," said the woman; "favorable every

way. We shall have no more delirium now, I hope; no more 'bears and

serpents' about the berth; no more calls for 'Bertie' and 'Captain

Wentworth,' and you will soon be able to tell us all about yourself and

your people--all we want to know."

I must have lapsed again into reverie rather than slumber, from which I

was partly aroused by whispering voices at the door, one of which seemed

familiar to me. Yet this fact or fancy made little impression on me at

the moment, feeble and wretched as was my will, undiscriminating as were

my faculties.

And when the door opened, and a lady entered, I did not seek to inquire

about her interlocutor. Respectfully rising from her seat beside me, my

companion left it vacant for her, to whom she introduced me as her

mistress, and stood, work in hand, sewing beneath the skylight, while

the new-comer remained in the state-room.

A handsome woman, tall and fashionably attired, apparently between

thirty and forty years of age, square face, dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked, and

with curling hair, approached me with uplifted hands and eyebrows as I

lay gazing calmly upon her; for my food and slumber together had

strengthened and revived me wonderfully in the last few hours, and my

senses were again collected.

"Awake, and herself again, as I live, even if we cannot say yet

truthfully 'clothed and in her right mind.'--Eh, Clayton?" with a

sneering simper; "and what eyes, what teeth, to be sure! Then the

dreadful redness is going away, though the skin will scale, of course;

but no matter for that; all the fairer in the end. And what a special

mercy that her hair is saved!--You have to thank _me_ for that, young

lady. I would not let the ship's doctor touch a strand of it--not a

strand. 'One does not grow a yard and a half of hair in a month, or a

year, doctor,' I observed, 'and a woman might as well be dead at once,

or mad, or a man, as have cropped hair during all the days of her

youth.' I had a fellow-feeling, you see! I have magnificent hair myself,

child, as Clayton well knows, for it is her chief trouble on earth, and

I would almost as lief die as lose it."

"Yes, indeed, Lady Anastasia's hair is one of her chief attractions,"

observed the sympathizing Clayton, behind her chair.

"So Sir Harry Raymond thought, my dear "--addressing me--"when I married

him, ten years ago; and so somebody else thinks just now, for I am tired

of my widowhood, and intend taking on the conjugal yoke again as soon as

I reach--"

"New York," interpolated Mrs. Clayton, hastily and emphatically;

clearing her throat slightly, by way of apology, perhaps, for her

officiousness.

"And you shall stand bridesmaid, my dear. Yes, I am determined on it; so

never make great eyes at me. There is a little bit of romance about me

that will strike out in spite of all my worldliness; and it will be so

pretty to have an 'ocean-waif for an attendant--it will read so well in

the papers! I suppose, when you reach your friends, there will be no

difficulty about a dress, and all that sort of thing, meet for the

occasion--a very splendid one, I assure you--conducted without regard

to expense; for my _fiancé_ is very rich, I hear, and my own jointure

was a liberal one."

"You do me a great honor," I murmured, conventionally rebelling inwardly

at the suggestion.

"Oh, not at all!" was the gracious rejoinder. "I see at a glance, in

spite of your misfortunes, that you are one of us, which is not what I

say to everybody. True blood will show under all circumstances, though

there is such an improvement. Did any one ever see the like before? Why,

my dear, you were blistered and black when we picked you up, and

afterward sienna-colored; now you are almost a beauty!"

"I am better--much better, and have a great deal to be thankful for, I

feel," I contented myself with murmuring.

"Of course you have. It was just a chance with you between our ship and

death, you know. By-the-by, what name shall we give our

'treasure-trove?'"

"Miriam for the present, if you please. This is no time nor place for

ceremony."

"Well, Miriam it shall be," she repeated with laughing eyes (hers were

of that sort which close and grow Chinese under the pressure of

merriment and high cheekbones combined). "Miriam, I like the name--there

is something grand about it."

"But how shall we know where to find your friends when we get to port?"

asked my first attendant. "We _must_ know more than your Christian name

for such a purpose. You must place confidence in us, you must indeed!"

"Be patient with me," I entreated. "I am much too feeble yet to give you

the details that may be necessary. When we reach New York, you shall

know every thing: or is it, indeed, to that place this ship is bound?"

"I thought you knew all about your destination by this time," replied

Lady Anastasia Raymond. "Yes, yes, New York of course!" and again she

laughed. "Didn't you hear Clayton say so?"

Just then a sharp tap at the door was answered by Lady Anastasia, who

went quickly from beneath the curtain hung across it (in consideration,

no doubt, of the privacy my illness enjoined), but not before I had

caught once, and this time clearly, the tones of a voice that thrilled

to my life, the same that had haunted my delirious fancy, I now

remembered, through the last four-and-twenty hours.

I rose to my elbow impulsively, only to fall back again utterly

exhausted.

"Who was that speaking?" I asked, feebly; "can it be possible--" and I

wrung my hands.

"It was the ship's doctor," interrupted the woman I had heard called

Clayton by her mistress. "He had not time to do more than inquire about

you, I suppose, there are so many ill in the steerage; but he has been

very kind and will probably return."

"I hope so," I rejoined; "I should like to realize that voice as _his_.

It has haunted me very disagreeably in my dreams, and the tones are

those of an old, old acquaintance, one I should be sorry to see here."

"I do not believe you have an acquaintance on the ship," she said,

simply. "Under the circumstances any such person would certainly have

discovered himself; your situation would have moved a heart of stone."

"But it is sometimes wise for the wicked to lie _perdu_," I murmured,

and conjecture was busy in my brain. "I should be glad, too, to see the

captain of this vessel at his earliest convenience," I added, after a

pause. "Will you be so good as to apprise him in person of my earnest

wish? It would be a real charity."

"Oh, certainly; but I am afraid he cannot come to-night. It is nearly

evening now, and he never leaves the deck at this hour, nor until very

late."

"To-morrow, then, I must insist on this interview, since I reflect about

it, for several reasons."

"To-morrow he shall come," she said, sententiously; "and now try and

sleep again. It is very necessary you should gather strength, for we

shall be in port shortly, when all will be confusion."

I went to sleep, I remember, murmuring to myself: "The hands were the

hands of Jacob, but the voice was the voice of Esau;" and my bewildered

faculties found rest until the morning's dawn.

After a hasty toilet made by the careful hands of Mrs. Clayton, a

matutinal visit made by Mrs. or Lady Raymond, who always rose early as

she informed me, and a cup of tea, very soothing to my prostrated

nerves, the potentate of the Latona was duly announced.

Our ship's master was a tall, gaunt, sandy-haired man, with steady gray

eyes, hard features, and enormous hands and feet, the first freckled and

awkward, the last so long as very nearly to span the space between his

seat (a small Spanish-leather trunk) and the berth I reposed in. He

entered without his hat; and the swoop of the head he made to avoid the

entanglement of the curtain was supposed to do double duty, and serve as

a bow to the inmate of his state-room as well, for his I supposed it to

be at the time, and he did not contradict me.

"I hope you find yourself comfortable, marm, on board of my ship."

"And in your state-room, captain?" I interrupted promptly.

"Wall, you see it all belongs to me, kinder," he said, after seating

himself, as he rubbed his huge, projecting knees, plainly indicated

through his nankeen trousers, with his capacious, horny hands. "I'm not

very particular, though, where I sleep on shipboard, but at home there's

few more so."

"I thought a captain was more at home on shipboard than anywhere else,"

I pursued mechanically; "such is the theory at least."

"Oh, not at all, not at all; when he has a snug nest on land, with a

wife and children waiting to receive him. You might as well talk of a

man in the new settlements bein' more at home in his wagon than in his

neat, hewn-log cabin."

"A very good simile, captain, and one that kills the ancient theory

outright. Let me thank you, however, before we proceed further, for all

the kindness and attention I have received in this floating castle of

yours, both from you and others. I hope and believe that my companions

in misfortune have fared as well."

"Wall, they have not wanted for nothing as far as I knew--the poor baby

in particular;" and, as he spoke, he roughed his hair with one hand and

smiled into my face a huge, honest, gummy smile, inexpressibly

reassuring.

"The man is hideous and repulsive," I thought; "but infinitely

preferable, somehow, to the specimen of English aristocracy and her maid

who have constituted themselves so far my guardian angels"--a twinge of

ingratitude here, which I resented instantly by settling my patriotic

prejudices to be at the root of the thing, and rebuking my mistrust

sternly though silently. "Yet that voice--how could I be mistaken?" and

again I addressed myself to the task before me, having gotten through

all preliminaries.

While I sat hesitating as to what I should say, so as to both guard

against and conceal my suspicions from the captain's scrutiny, if,

indeed, he might be supposed to possess such a quality, I observed that

he drew from his pocket a long slip of newspaper, in which he appeared

to bury himself for a time, when not glancing furtively at me, as if

waiting impatiently for the coming revelation.

"I have sent for you, Captain Van Dorne," I said, at last, in very low

and even tones, not calculated to reach outside ears, however vigilant,

and yet not suppressed by any means to whispers--"I have sent for you,"

and my heart beat quickly as I spoke, "not merely to thank you for your

hospitable kindness, but because I wish, for reasons that I cannot now

explain, to place myself under your especial care until I reach my

friends."

"Certainly, certainly; but you _air_ among your friends already if you

could only think so," he answered, evasively, still caressing his potato

knees with large and outspread hands.

"Do not for one moment deem me unmindful of much kindness, or ungrateful

to those who have bestowed it," I hastened to explain. "Yet I cannot

deny that a fear possesses me that among your passengers may be found

one whom I esteem, not without sufficient cause, my greatest enemy."

"Poor thing! poor thing! what put such a strange fancy into your head?

An enemy in my ship! Why, there is not a man on board who would not cut

off his right hand rather than harm one hair of your poor, witless,

defenseless head! There was not a dry eye on the deck when you and the

rest wuz lifted from the raft!"

"I understand this prevalence of sympathy for misfortune perfectly, and

honor it; yet I have heard a voice since my immurement in this cabin

which must belong"--and I whispered the dreaded name--"to Mr. Basil

Bainrothe!"

As I spoke I eyed him steadily, and I fancied that his cheek flushed and

his eye wavered--that clear and honest eye which had given him a high

place in my consideration from the moment I met its' gaze.

"You must have been delirious-like when you conceited you heerd that

strange voice," he said, presently.

"I'll send you my passenger-list if you choose, and you can read it over

keerfully. I don't think you'll find _that_ name, though, in its

kolyums," shaking his head sagaciously.

"Captain Van Dome, do you mean to say there is no such passenger in your

ship's list as Basil Bainrothe?" I asked, desperately.

"That's what I mean to say."

"Give me your honor on this point. It is a vital one to me. Your honor!"

He hesitated and looked around. Just at this moment of apparent

uncertainty, a slight tap was heard on the ground-glass eye above us

that threw a sullen and unwilling light upon the scene of our interview.

It seemed to nerve him strangely.

"On my word of honor, as an American seaman, I assure you that the name

of Basil Bainrothe is not on the ship's list at this present speaking;"

and, as he spoke, he held up his right hand, adding, as he dropped it,

doggedly, "Ef the man's on board I don't know it!"

"It is enough--I believe you, Captain Van Dorne. And now I want to ask

you, as a parting grace, to convey me yourself to the Astor House, and

place my watch" (detaching it from my neck as I spoke) "in the hands of

the proprietors as a proof of my honest intentions. For yourself, I

shall seek another opportunity."

"Not at all--not at all!" he interrupted. "Keep your watch, young lady.

No such pledge will be required by them proprietors; and, as to myself,

if it had not been for this paper," drawing from his pocket, and

flattening on his knees as he spoke, the slip I had before observed,

then glancing at me sharply, "I could never have believed that such a

pretty-spoken, pretty-behaved young creetur could have been _non com_.

But pshaw! what am I talking about? This paper is as old as last year's

krout! You don't keer nothing about seeing of it, do you, now?" and he

crumpled it in his hand.

"Not unless it concerns me in some way, Captain Van Dorne," I said,

coldly. His manner had suddenly become offensive to me, and I longed to

see him depart, having 'transacted my affairs, as far, at least, as I

deemed it prudent to insist on such transaction.

"It may be," I added, "that, on reaching the port of New York, a friend

or friends who expected me on the Kosciusko may be in waiting to receive

me; that is, if the fate of that vessel be not already known. In that

case, I shall not be obliged to avail myself of your services, and will

acquaint you; but, otherwise, promise that you will conduct me from the

ship yourself, either to the hotel or to your wife, as you prefer."

"Wall, I promise you," he said, doggedly, as he prepared literally to

undouble his long frame before executing another dive beneath my

door-guarding drapery, and with this brief assurance I was fain to rest

content.

At all events, I was reassured on one subject--those honest eyes, that

frank if ugly mouth had no acquaintance with lies, or the father of

them, I saw at once; and the voice of the ship's doctor had for the

nonce deceived my practised ear, overstrung by suspicion--enfeebled by

suffering.

So I rested calmly until the afternoon, with Mrs. Clayton sewing

silently by my side, when with a little tap Lady Anastasia (or Mrs.

Raymond, as she declared she preferred to be called by "Americans")

entered, bearing a basket in her hand, and wearing on her head a

Dunstable bonnet simply trimmed, which she came, she said, to place,

along with other articles of dress, at my disposal.

It had not occurred to me before that, in order to go on shore

respectably clad, some attire very different from a bed-gown would be

essential, and I could but feel grateful for such proofs of unselfish

consideration on the part of strangers, pitying both my indigence and

imbecility, and so expressed myself.

In accordance with their generous intentions, I submitted myself to be

arrayed by Mrs. Clayton and her mistress: first, in the flimsy

black-silk gown now completed, on which I had seen my attendant working

when I first unclosed my eyes after long unconsciousness, and the

measure which she had taken, while I lay in this condition, as coolly in

all probability as an undertaker measures a corpse for its shroud;

secondly, in a cardinal of the same material, a wrapping cut in the

shape in vogue at that period; thirdly, in certain loosely-fitting boots

and gloves with which I was fain to cover up my naked feet and blistered

hands _in forma pauperis_ and, lastly, in the collarette and cuffs

provided by the economic and considerate Lady Anastasia, composed of

cotton lace! The Dunstable bonnet was hung upon a peg in readiness, and

I was kindly counseled to lie still, "accoutred as I was," and exhausted

by means of such accoutrement as I felt, until evening should find us

riding in our harbor.

Then there was a little, low consulting at the door with the renowned

"ship's doctor," who positively refused to approach me because he had

just come from a case of ship-fever in the steerage, which he feared to

communicate to one in my precarious state, but who sent in his

imperative orders that I should have soup and sherry-cobbler forthwith,

and try and build up my strength for the time of debarkation--speaking

in a low, growling voice divested of its former clearness, but still

strangely resembling that of Basil Bainrothe!

"The poor man is so fagged out," said Mrs. Clayton, as she brought in my

broth and wine, "that his very voice is changed. He is a good soul, and

has shown you great interest. Some day you must send him a present, that

is, if you are able; but just now all you have to think of is getting

safe ashore. Lady Anastasia will go to her friends, probably, or to

those of the gentleman she is engaged to; but I do not mean to forsake

you until I see you better, and in good hands."

I know not how it was that my heart sank so strangely at this

announcement. The woman was kind--tender, even--and had probably saved

my life, and yet her presence to me was a punishment worse than pain, a

positive evil greater than any other.

"I shall go to the Astor House," I faltered. "The captain has promised

me his escort thither."

"Yes, yes, I know, he has told me all about it; but your friends may not

be in waiting, and it is simply our duty to see you in their hands. And

now drink your sangaree. See, I have broken a biscuit in the glass, and

it is well seasoned with lemon and nutmeg. There, now, that is right; a

few spoonfuls of soup, and you will feel strengthened for your

undertaking. I will sit quietly in the corner until you have your rest."

"No, I prefer to see Christian Garth before I try to sleep--the man who

steered our raft--and the young girl he saved, and the baby--let them

all come to me, and we will go on shore together."

I spoke these words with a sort of desperation, as though they contained

my last hope of justice or protection from a fate which, however

obscurely, seemed to threaten me, as we feel the thunder-storm brooding

in the tranquil atmosphere of summer.

"Christian Garth!" she repeated, looking at me over her tortoise-shell

spectacles, and, quietly drawing out a snuffbox of the same material,

she proceeded to fill her narrow nostrils therewith. "Why, that

shaggy-looking old sailor, and the girl, and the old negro woman and

child, went on shore at daylight this morning. He hailed a Jersey craft,

and they all left together. It is perfectly understood, though, that the

child is to be returned to you if you desire its company, but, if I were

situated as you are, and sure of its safety, I would never want to see

it again. It would be better off dead than living anyhow, under the

circumstances, poor, deformed creature--better for both of you."

The words came to me distinctly, yet as if from an immense distance, and

I seemed to see the small chamber lengthening as if it had been a

telescope unfolding, and the sallow woman with her hateful smile and

tightly-knotted, brindled hair seated in diminished size and

distinctness at its farthest extremity.

So had I felt on that fearful night when Evelyn had made her revelation

and received mine, and I did not doubt, even in my sinking state, that I

was under the influence of a powerful anodyne.

"Call the ship's doctor--I am dying!" were the last words I remember to

have articulated; then all was dark, and hours went by, of deep,

unconscious sleep.

It was night when I felt myself drawn to my feet, and roused to life by

the repeated applications of cold water to my face. "The anodyne was

over-powerful," I heard Mrs. Raymond say. "It is a shame to tamper with

such strong medicines."

"Oh, she has strength for any thing!" was Clayton's rejoinder. "I never

saw such a constitution--and he knew what he was doing."

"No doubt of that.--But, dear Miss Miriam, do speak to me. I am so

frightened at your lethargic condition.--I declare I am sorry I ever

consented to have any thing to do with this matter! See how she stands.

I cannot think it was right, Clayton, I cannot, indeed; I dislike the

whole drama."

"Do be quiet! She is coming to herself fast, and what will she think of

such expressions? You never had any self-control in your life, and you

are playing for great stakes now." These last words in a hoarse whisper.

"Nonsense! mother."

"Again! How often must I warn you?"

"Well, Clayton, then, now and forever."

"Here! rouse up, little one! We are fast anchored in port, and the

captain is waiting for us, for we go part of the way together, and our

escorts have all failed us--yours and mine. Nice fellows, are they not?"

I sat up and looked about me bewildered; yet I had heard distinctly

every word spoken in the last few minutes, and remembered them for

future observance, without having had the power to move or articulate a

remonstrance.

"Now, drink this strong coffee, and all will be well again," said

Clayton, putting a cup of the smoking beverage to my lips, which I

swallowed eagerly, instinctively. The effect was instantaneous, and I

was able to speak and stand, as well as hear and comprehend, while my

bonnet was being tied on, and my throat muffled in a veil, by the

dexterous fingers of Lady Anastasia.

When this process was completed, she stooped down and kissed me, and I

felt a hot tear fall upon my cheek as she rose again. In the next moment

I was clinging to the captain's arm, with a spasmodic feeling of relief

for which I could ill account. We passed across the plank which

connected the ship with the shore in utter darkness, guided by a

twinkling light far ahead, borne by a seaman, reached the dusky quay,

with its few flaring lamps, made dim by drizzling rain and summer mist,

and before many minutes we paused before one of a long line of coaches.

The captain handed me in, then, standing before the open door, seemed to

await the coming of some other person before taking his own place--the

dreaded Clayton, I knew; but I could not remonstrate against what seemed

an ordinary courtesy, and perhaps a step suggested by his innate notions

of propriety.

At any other time I might have agreed with him; but, feeble as I was,

and still bewildered, my whole object seemed to be to escape from the

sphere and power of those women, who had been most kind to me, yet whom

I instinctively dreaded and abhorred.

They came together, the mother and daughter, in their travesty of

mistress and maid--enough of itself to excite suspicion of foul

play--and climbed up the rickety steps of the hackney-coach, rejoicing

over their victim. It mattered not; the captain would make the fourth

passenger, and in his shadow I felt there were strength and security.

"What are you waiting for, Captain Van Dorne?" I had just feebly asked,

as the door snapped-to, and the driver mounted his box. A hand was

thrust through the window for all reply, and a card dropped upon my lap,

which I hastened to secure in the depths of my pocket. By the merest

chance, I found it there on the morrow, and later I comprehended its

import, so mysterious to me at the moment of perusal.

"My poor young lady, you must forgive me for disappointing you, and

hidin' the truth, for your own sake. May God bless and restore you, and

bring you to a proper sense of his mercies, is the prayer of your

servant to command, JOSEPH VAN DORNE."

My frame of mind was a very different one when I read this scrawl, from

that which bewildered and oppressed me on that never-to-be-forgotten

night of suffering and distress, both mental and physical. Formed of

those elements which readily react, courage and calmness had returned to

me before I read the oracle of our worthy shipmaster; for, in spite of

his disastrous dealing with me on that occasion, misguided as he was by

others, I have reason to so consider him.

But now the influence of the drug that had been given me so recently,

doubtless through want of judgment, by the ship's doctor, was felt in

every nerve; and, as the carriage rolled up the stony quay, I clung

convulsively to Mrs. Raymond, and buried my face and aching forehead in

her shoulder, with a strange revulsion of feeling.

"You dread the darkness," she said, kindly, putting her arm around me as

she spoke; "but it is only for a time; we shall soon come out into the

open lamp-light of--"

"Broadway, New York," interrupted Clayton, sententiously; "a very poor

sight to see, to one who has lived abroad. Have you ever crossed the

waters, Miss Miriam? But I see you are quite faint and overcome. Here,

smell this ether, that the ship's doctor put up expressly for your use,

and recommended highly as a new restorative much in fashion in Paris."

Had the ship's doctor no name, then, that they never mentioned it, and

that he spoke in a demon's voice? His doses I had proved, and was

resolved to take no more of them, and I pushed away the phial, whose

cold glass nose was thrust obtrusively against my own--pushed it away

with all my strength, fast ebbing away as this was, even as I made the

effort.

The cruel potion had possession of me, and entered into every fibre of

my brain through the avenues prepared for it by the treacherous anodyne;

so that, enervated and intoxicated, I yielded passively, after a brief

struggle, to the power of the then newly-invented sedative, called

chloroform.

When the carriage stopped, or whither it transported me, or who lifted

my insensible form to the chamber prepared for me, I know not--never

knew. There was a faint reviving, I remember; a process of disrobing

gone through by the aid of foreign assistance (whose, I recognized

not), then I slumbered profoundly and securely through the entire night,

to recover no clearness of perception until a late hour on the following

morning.

CHAPTER VI.

I awoke, as I had done of old, after one of my lethargic seizures, from

a deep, unrefreshing slumber, with a lingering sense about me of

drowsiness and even fatigue.

I found myself lying on a broad, canopied bedstead, the massive posts of

which were of wrought rosewood, bare of draperies, as became the season,

save at the head-board, behind which a heavy curtain was dropped of

rose-colored damask satin.

Of the same rich material were composed the tester and the

lightly-quilted coverlet, thrown across the foot of the bed, over a fine

white Marseilles counterpane.

The chimney immediately opposite to me, as I lay, was of black marble,

and, instead of graceful Greek _caryatides_, bandaged mummies, or

Egyptian figures, supported the heavy shelf that surmounted the polished

grate. In the centre of this massive mantel-slab was placed a huge

bronze clock, and candelabra of the same material graced its corners.

In either recess of this chimney rosewood doors were situated, one of

which stood invitingly ajar, disclosing the bath-room, into which it

opened, with its accessories of white marble.

The other, firmly closed, seemed to be the outlet of the chamber--its

only one--with the exception of the four large Venetian windows, two on

either side of me as I lay, the sashes of which, warm as the season was,

were drawn closely down.

The furniture of this spacious chamber to which, as if by the touch of a

magician's wand, I found myself transported, was throughout solid and of

elegant forms, consisting as it did of _armoire_, toilet-table,

bookcase, _étagère_, writing and flower stands, tables and chairs, of

the richest rosewood.

At the foot of my bed was placed a console, supporting a huge Bible and

Prayer-book, bound alike in purple velvet, emblazoned with central suns

of gold--an arch-hypocrisy that was not lost on its object.

Freshly-gathered flowers were heaped in the vases of the floral stands,

filling the close, cool room with an overpowering fragrance. The carpet

of crimson and white seemed to the eye what it afterward proved to the

foot--thick, soft, and elastic; and harmonized well with the rich,

antique, and consistent furniture.

The sort of microscopic scrutiny that children manifest seemed mine--in

my unreasoning, half-convalescent state; and for a time I observed all

that I have described with a listless pleasure, difficult to analyze, a

sort of dreamy acceptance of my condition, the very memory of which

exasperated me, later, almost to self-contempt.

A crimson cord hung at one side of my bed, continued from a bell-wire at

some distance, the tassel of which I touched lightly, and, at the very

first signal, Mrs. Clayton appeared through the hitherto only unopened

door, to know and do my bidding.

The clock on the mantel-shelf struck nine as she stood beside me, and

made respectful inquiries concerning my wants and condition;

understanding which, she disappeared, to return a few minutes later,

followed by an ancient negress, bearing a silver waiter.

I recognized in this sable assistant (or thought I recognized at a

glance) my companion in shipwreck; but, upon making known my

convictions, was met with a prompt denial by the sable dame herself,

who, shaking her head, gave me to understand, in a few broken words,

that she "no understood English--only Spanish tongue!"

Her dress--handsome and Frenchified--her creole coiffure, and the long

gray locks that escaped from her crimson kerchief bound over her ears,

as well as her more refined deportment, did indeed seem to discredit my

first idea, which came at last (notwithstanding these discrepancies) to

be fixed, and proved one link in the long chain of duplicity I untangled

later.

At the time, however, I gave it little thought, but partook with what

appetite I might of the choice and delicate repast provided for me, in

this truly princely hotel, whose fame I discovered had not been

over-trumpeted. On my previous visits to New York, the Astor House had

been unfinished, and had made in its completion a new era certainly in

the "tavern-life" of that inhospitable city of publicans. When the

delicious coffee and snowy bread, the eggs of milky freshness, the

golden butter, the savory rice-birds, the appetizing fish, had each and

all been merely tasted and dismissed, and the exquisite China, in which

the breakfast was served, duly marveled at as an unprecedented

extravagance on the part even of John Jacob Astor, Mrs. Clayton came to

me with kindly offers of assistance in the performance of my toilet,

still a matter of difficulty in my feeble hands.

My long hair, yet tangled and clogged with sea-water, was to be at last

unbound and thoroughly combed, cleansed, and oiled, so that the black

and glossy braids, that had been my chief personal pride, might again be

wound about my head in the old classic fashion.

Then came the bath, with its reviving, rehabilitating process, and

lastly I assumed with the docility of a baby or a pauper the clean and

fragrant linen and simple wrapper that had been mysteriously provided

for me by the Lady Anastasia again, I could not doubt.

"All this must end to-day," I said, "when really clothed and in my right

mind." I requested writing-materials and more light to work by, and

composed myself to write to Dr. Pemberton (once again, I knew, in

Philadelphia), and request his assistance and protection in getting home

safely, and, if need be, in tracing Captain Wentworth.

"I suppose Captain Van Dorne has been too busy to call," I observed,

carelessly, as I prepared to commence my letter, "and Mrs. Raymond too

happy, probably, in getting safe to shore and her lover, to think of

me."

"They have both inquired for you," said Mrs. Clayton, as she arranged

pen, ink, and paper, before me, with her usual precision, while a grim,

sardonic smile lingered about her features; "several have called, but

none have been admitted."

"Who have called, Mrs. Clayton? Give me the cards immediately. I must,

must know," I rejoined, eagerly, pausing with extended hand to receive

them.

"Oh, there were no cards, and such as want to see you can come again.

There, now! write away, and never trouble your mind about strange

people. Have you sufficient light?"

And, as she spoke, she touched a cord which set at right angles with

the lower one the upper inside shutter of another window as she had

adjusted the first.

I wrote, two hasty notes, one on further consideration to Captain

Wentworth himself, who might, after all, be at that very time in that

same hotel--"_Quien sabe_?" as Favraud used to say with his significant

shrug, which no Frenchman ever excelled or Spaniard equalled (albeit

they shrug severally).

My spirits rose with every word I wrote, and, when I got up from my

chair after sealing and directing my letters, a new and subtle energy

seemed to have infused itself through my frame. "There, I have finished,

Mrs. Clayton," I said, putting aside the implements I had been using.

"Now go, if you please, and bring to me the proprietor of this hotel. I

will give him my letters myself, since I have other business to transact

with him," and I laid my watch and chain on the table before me, ready

for his hand, not having lost sight of my early resolution. "But,

stay--before you go, be good enough to open the lower shutters and throw

up the windows. Cool as the weather is in this climate, I stifle for

air, and this close atmosphere, laden with fragrance, grows oppressive.

Who sent these flowers, by-the-by, Mrs. Clayton? or do they belong to

the magnificence of this idealized hotel?" She made no reply to any

thing I had been saying.

By this time, however, she had lowered the upper sashes of the windows

about a foot, and the fresh air of morning was pouring in, curling the

paper on the centre table and dispersing the noisome fragrance of the

flowers, in which I detected the morbid supremacy of the tuberose and

jasmine.

"I want to see the streets, the people," I said, approaching one of the

windows; "this artistic light is not at all the thing I need. I have no

picture to paint, not even my own face;" and, finding her unmoved, I

undertook to do the requisite work myself.

The sashes were shut away below by inside shutters, which resisted all

my efforts to stir them. After a moment's inspection, I perceived that

they were secured by iron screws of great strength and size; not, in

short, meant to be moved or opened at all. Again I essayed to shake them

convulsively one after the other--as you may sometimes see a tiger, made

desperate by confinement, grapple with the inexorable bars of his cage,

though certain of failure and defeat.

Overpowered by a sudden dismay that took entire possession of me, I sank

into one of the deep _fauteuils_ that extended its arms very opportunely

to receive me, and sat mutely for a moment, while anguish unutterable,

and conjecture too wild to be hazarded in speech, were surging through

my brain.

"I am too weak, I suppose, to open these shutters," I said at last,

feebly. "Be good enough to do it for me, Mrs. Clayton, or cause it to be

done immediately."

Was it not strange that up to this very moment no suspicion had clouded

my horizon since I woke in that sumptuous room?

"I cannot transcend my orders by doing any thing of the kind," she said

quietly, yet resolutely, as she pursued her avocation, that of dusting

with a bunch of colored plumes the delicate ornaments of the _étagère_

carefully one by one.

"Your authority! Who has dared to delegate to you what has no existence

as far as I am concerned?" I asked indignantly. "I will go instantly."

"You cannot leave this chamber until you receive outside permission,"

she interrupted, firmly planting herself at once between me and the door

through which I had seen her enter. "You must not think to pass through

my chamber, Miss Miriam. It is locked without, and there is no other

outlet."

"Woman!" I said, grasping her feebly yet fiercely, by the arm. "Look at

me! Raise those feline eyes to mine, if you dare, and answer me

truthfully: What means this mockery? Why have you been forced on me at

all? Where is Captain Van Dorne? What becomes of his promises? What

house is this in which I find myself a prisoner? Speak!"

"You can do nothing to make me angry," she rejoined, calmly. "I know

your condition, and pity and respect it, but I shall certainly fulfill

my part of this undertaking. Captain Van Dorne recognized you as Miss

Monfort by the description in the newspaper, as did my mistress, and for

your own welfare we determined to secure you and keep you safe until the

return of Mr. Bainrothe and your sisters from Europe. They will be here

shortly, and all you have to do is to be patient and behave as well as

you can until the time comes for your trial;" and she cast on me a

menacing look from her green and quivering pupils, indescribably feline.

My trial! Great Heaven! did they mean to turn the tables, then, and

destroy me by anticipating my evidence? I staggered to a chair and again

sat down silent confounded. "Where am I, then?" I feebly asked at

length.

"In the establishment of Dr. Englehart," she made answer, "a private

madhouse."

"God of heaven! has it come to this?" I covered my eyes with my hands

and sobbed aloud, while tears of pride and passion rained hotly over my

cheeks. This outburst was of short duration. "I will give them no

advantage," I considered. "My violence might be perverted. There are

creatures too cold and crafty to conceive of such a thing as natural

emotion, and passion with them means insanity. Thank God, the very power

to feel bears with it the power of self-government, and is proof of

reason. I will be calm, and if my life endures put them thus to

shame."--"You say that I am in the asylum of Dr. Englehart?" I asked

after a pause, during which she had not ceased to dust the furniture and

arrange the bed in its pristine order, speckless, with lace-trimmings,

pillow-cases smooth as glass, and sheets of lawn, and counterpane of

snow. "If so, call my physician hither; I, his patient, have surely a

right to his prompt services."--"It is just possible," I thought, "that

interest or compassion may, one or both, still enlist him in my cause--I

can but try."

A slight embarrassment was evidenced in her countenance as I made this

request. It vanished speedily.

"He is absent just at this time," she answered, quickly. "When he

returns I will make known your wish to him, if, indeed, he does not call

of his own accord."

"Be done with this shallow farce," I exclaimed, harshly. "It shames

humanity. Acknowledge yourself at once the faithful agent of a tyrant

and felon, or a pair of them, and I shall respect you more. Confess that

it was the voice of Basil Bainrothe I heard at my cabin-door, and that

Captain Van Dorne was imposed upon by that specious scoundrel, even to

the point of being conscientiously compelled to falsehood.

"I deny nothing--I acknowledge nothing," she said, deliberately. "You

and your friends can settle this between yourselves when they arrive.

Until then, you need not seek to tamper with me--it will be useless; and

I hope you are too much of a lady to be insulting to a person who has

no choice but to do her duty."

She could not more effectually have silenced me, nor more utterly have

crushed my hopes. Yet again I approached her with entreaties.

"I hope you will not refuse to mail my notes, even under these trying

circumstances,"! said, extending them to her.

"You can ask Dr. Englehart to do so when he comes," she answered,

gently; "for myself, I am utterly powerless to serve you beyond the

walls of this chamber."

"And how long is this close immurement to continue?" I asked again,

after another dreary pause. "Am I not permitted to breathe the external

air--to exercise? Is my health to be unconsidered?"

"I know nothing more than I have told you," she replied. "I am directed

to furnish you with every means of comfort--with books, flowers,

clothing, musical instrument, even, if you desire it; but, for the

present, you will not leave these walls, and you will see no society.

The doctor has decided that this is best."

"And whence did he derive his authority?"

"Oh, it was all arranged between him and Mr. Bainrothe, your guardeen"

(for thus she pronounced this word, ever hateful to me), "long ago;

before he went to France, I suppose. Captain Van Dorne had nothing to do

but hand you over."

"Captain Van Dorne! To think those honest eyes could so deceive me!" and

I shook my head wofully.

When I looked up again from reverie, Mrs. Clayton had settled herself to

work with a basket of stockings on her knees, which she appeared to be

assorting assiduously.

There she sat, spectacles on nose, thimble on twisted finger, ivory-egg

in hand, in active preparation for that work, woman's _par excellence_,

that alone rivals Penelope's. Surely that assortment of yellow,

ill-mated, half-worn, and holey hose, was a treasure to her, that no

gold could have replaced, in our dreary solitude (none the less dreary

for being so luxurious). I envied her almost the power she seemed to

have to merge her mind in things like these; and saw, for the first time

in my life, what advantages might lie in being commonplace.

It was now nearly the end of July. My birthday occurred in the middle of

September. I thought I knew that, as soon as possible after my majority,

Mr. Bainrothe's conditions would be laid before me.

I could not, dared not, believe that my captivity would be lengthened

beyond that time. I resolved that I would condone the past, and go forth

penniless, if this were exacted in exchange for liberty at the end of a

month and a half from this time.

Six weeks to wait! Were they not, in the fullness of their power, to

crush and baffle me? Six weary years! For, during all this time, I felt

that the unexplained mystery that weighed upon my life would gather in

force and inflexibility. Death would have seemed to have set its seal

upon it, in the estimation of Captain Wentworth, as of all others. He

would never know that the sea, which swallowed up the Kosciusko, had

spared the woman he loved, nor receive the explanation that she alone

could give him, of the mystery he deplored.

Before I emerged from my prison, he might be gone to the antipodes, for

aught I knew, and a barrier of eternal silence and absence be interposed

between us. So worked my fate! These reflections continued to haunt and

oppress me, by night and day, and life itself seemed a bitter burden in

that interval of rebellious agony, and in that terrible seclusion, where

luxury itself became an additional engine of torture.

Days passed, alternately of leaden apathy and bitter gloom, varied by

irrepressible paroxysms of despair. Whenever I found myself alone, even

for a few moments, I paced my room and wept aloud, or prayed

passionately. There were times when I felt that my Creator heard and

pitied me; others when I persuaded myself his ear was closed inexorably

against me.

I suffered fearfully--this could not last. The accusation brought

against me by my enemies seemed almost ready to be realized, when my

body magnanimously assumed the penalty the soul was perhaps about to

pay, and drifted off to fever.

Then, for the first time, came the man I had until then believed a myth,

and sat beside me in the shadow, and administered to me small, mystic

pellets, that he assured me, in low, husky whispers, and foreign accent,

would infallibly cure my malady--my physical one, at least; as for the

mind, its forces, he regretted to add, were beyond such influence!

For a moment, the wild suspicion intruded on my fevered brain that this

leech was no other than Basil Bainrothe himself, disguised for his own

dark purposes; but the tall, square, high-shouldered form that rose

before me to depart (taller, by half a head, than the man I suspected of

this fresh deception), and the angular movements and large extremities

of Dr. Englehart, dispelled this delusion forever. After all, might he

not be honest, even if a tool of Bainrothe's?

I took the sugared miniature pills--the novel medicine he had left for

me--faithfully, through ministry of Mrs. Clayton's, and was benefited

by them; and, when he came again, as before, in the twilight, I was able

to be installed in the great cushioned chair he had sent up for me, and

to bear the light of a shaded lamp in one corner of the large apartment.

Dr. Englehart approached me deferentially, and, without divesting

himself of the light-kid gloves which fitted his large hands so closely,

he clasped my wrist with his finger and thumb, and seemed to count my

pulses.

"Ver much bettair," was his first remark, made in that disagreeable,

harsh, and husky voice of his, while he bent so near me that the aroma

of the tobacco he had been smoking caused me to cough and turn aside.

Still, I could not see his face, for the immense bushy whiskers he wore,

nor his eyes, for the glasses that covered them, nor his teeth, even,

for the long, fierce mustache that swept his lips; and when, after a

brief visit, he rose and was gone again, there remained only in my mind

the image of a huge and hairy horror--a sort of bear of the Blue

Mountains, from the return of which or whom I fervently hoped to be

delivered.

"Send him word I am better, Mrs. Clayton," I entreated; "I cannot see

him again, he is so repulsive; and, if you have a woman's heart in your

breast, never leave me alone with him, or with Mr. Bainrothe, when he

calls, for one moment--they inspire me equally with terror,

indescribable," and I covered my face to hide its burning blushes.

"Look up, Miss Monfort, and listen to me," said Mrs. Clayton, at last,

regarding me keenly, with her warped forefinger uplifted in her usual

admonitory fashion, but with an expression on her face of interest and

sympathy such as I had never witnessed there before. "A new light has

broken just now upon my understanding; I can't tell how or whence it

came, but here it is," pressing her hand to her brow; "I believe you

have been misrepresented to me--but that is neither here nor there. I

shall watch you closely and faithfully until we part--all the more that

I do not believe you any more crazy than I am; I half suspected this

before, but I know it now." She paused, then continued: "I should have

to tell you my life's secret if I were to explain to you why Mr.

Bainrothe's interests are so dear to me, so vital even, and I will not

conceal from you that I knew your guardeen's good name depends on your

confinement here until you come of age. After that it will only be

necessary for you to sign a few papers, and all will be straight

again--no harm or insult is designed. To these I would never have lent

myself in any way--ill as you think of me. And as long as we continue

together I will guard your good name as I would do that of my own dear

daughter--that is, if I had one. You shall receive no visitor alone."

She spoke with a feeling and dignity of which I had scarcely believed

her capable, shrewd and sensible as I knew her to be, and far above the

woman she called her mistress, in a certain _retenu_ of manner and

delicacy of deportment, usually inseparable from good-breeding.

I could not then guess how acceptable, to her and the person she was

chiefly interested in, were these signs of my aversion for Basil

Bainrothe, and what sure means they were of access to the only tender

spot in the obdurate heart of Rachel Clayton.

Certain it is that, from these expressions, I derived the first

consolation that had come to me in my immurement, and from that hour the

solemn farce of keeper and lunatic ceased to be played between us two.

From such freedom of communication on my jailer's part, I began to hope

for additional information, which never came. It was in vain that I

conjured her to tell me where my prison was situated, whether at the

edge of the city, or far away in the country, or to suffer me to have a

glimpse from a window of my vicinity. To all such entreaties she was

pitiless, and I was left to that vague and vain conjecture which so

wears the intellect.

In the absence of all possibility of escape, it became a morbid and

haunting wish with me to know my exact locality. That it could be no

great distance from the city of New York, if not within its limits, I

felt assured, from the expedition with which my transit from the ship

had been effected.

During the first three weeks of my confinement the deep silence that

prevailed about me had led me to adopt the opinion that I was the

occupant of a _maison de santé_. I had once driven past one on Staten

Island, where a friend of my father's--about whose condition he came to

inquire personally--had been immured for years. I did not alight with

him when he left the carriage to make these inquiries, but I perfectly

remembered the old gray stone building, with its ancient elms, and the

impression of gloom and awe it had left on my mind. But this idea was

presently dispelled.

I was awakened one morning, in the fourth week of my sojourn in

captivity, by the sound of chimes long familiar to my ear, the duplicate

of which I had not supposed to be in existence. At first I feared it was

some mirage of the ear, so to speak, instead of eye, that reflected back

that fairy melody, which had rung its accompaniment to my whole

childhood and youth; but, when, after the lapse of seven days, it was

repeated, I became convinced that its reality was unquestionable, and

that neither impatience nor indignation had so impaired my senses as to

reproduce those sounds through the medium of a fevered imagination.

Were these delicious bells, a recent addition to the cupola of our grim

asylum, bestowed by some benevolent hand that sought to mark and lend

enchantment to the holy Sabbath-day--even for the sake of the

irresponsible ones within its walls--or was I indeed--? But of this

there could be no question--I dared not hazard such conjecture lest it

drive me mad in reality--I must not!

I groped in thick darkness, and time itself was only measured now by

those sweet chimes, so like our own, and yet so far away. My very clock

one morning was found to have stopped, and was not again repaired or set

in motion. Papers I never saw, had never seen since I came to dwell in

shadow, save that single one so ostentatiously spread before me,

announcing the loss of the Kosciusko and her passengers--a refinement of

cruelty, on the part of those who sent it, worthy of a Japanese.

Rafts had been launched and lost, the survivors stated (the men who had

seized the long-boat, to the exclusion of the women and children); the

sea had swallowed all the remainder. A later statement might refute the

first, but even then none could know the truth with regard to my

identity, for would not Basil Bainrothe control the publication as he

pleased, and make me dead if he listed--dead even after the rescue?

Yet Hope would sometimes whisper in her daring moods: "All this shall

pass away, and be as it had not been. Be of good heart, Miriam, and do

not let them kill you; live for Mabel--live for Wentworth!"

Then, with bowed head, and silent, streaming tears, my soul would climb

in prayer to the footstool of the Most High, and the grace, which had

never come to me before, fell over me like a mantle in this sad

extremity.

CHAPTER VI.

Unfaltering in her respectful demeanor toward me was Mrs. Clayton from

the time of the little scene I have recently described. What new and

sudden light had broken in upon her I never knew, but I supposed at the

time that the flash of conviction had gone home to her mind with regard

to the baseness of Bainrothe and the iniquity of his proceedings,

founded on the fear I had expressed of his solitary presence, and the

insight she had gained into my character.

Watching none the less strictly, she gradually relaxed that personal

surveillance that is ever so intolerable to the proud and

delicate-minded, and those suggestions that, however well intended, had

been so irritating to me from such a source. She no longer urged me to

read, or sew, or eat, or take exercise; but, retiring into her own work

(whence she could observe me at her pleasure, for her door was always

set wide open, and her face turned in my direction), she employed or

feigned to employ herself in her inexhaustible stocking-basket or

scollop-work, either one the last resource of idiocy, as it seemed to

me.

Left thus to myself in some degree, I unclosed the leaves of the

bookcase, and surveyed its grim array of "classics"--all new and

unmarked by any name, or sign of having been read--and from them I

selected a few worthies, through whose pages I delved drearily and

industriously, and most unprofitably it must be confessed. The only

living sensations I received from the contents of that bookcase were, I

am ashamed to acknowledge, from a few odd volumes of memoirs, and

collections of travels that I had happened to find stowed away behind

the others. The rest seemed sermons from the stars.

Captain Cook's voyages and Le Vaillant's descriptions did stir me very

slightly with their strong reality, and make me for a few hours forget

myself and my captivity; but all the rest prated at me like parrots,

from stately, pragmatical Johnson down to sentimental, maudlin Sterne.

I found them intolerable in the mood in which I was, nothing so

exhausting as the abstract! and closed the book desperately to resume my

diary, neglected since the awful events of Beauseincourt, but always to

me a resource in time of trouble and of solitude. Of pens, ink, paper,

there was no lack, and I wrote one day, Penelope-wise, what I destroyed

the next. Yet this very "jotting down" impressed upon my brain the few

incidents of my prison-house recorded here, that might otherwise have

faded from my memory in the twilight of monotony.

I had no need to sew. Fair linen and a sufficiency of other plain

wearing-apparel, including summer gowns, I found laid carefully in my

drawers, and the Creole negress brought in my clothes well ironed and

carefully mended, to be laid away by the orderly hands of Mrs. Clayton.

Once, during the temporary illness of this dragon (whose bed or lair was

placed absolutely across the door of egress from her closet, so as to

block the way or make it difficult of access), the Creole, in an

unavoidable contingency like this, came with a pile of clothing in her

arms to lay the pieces herself in the bureau, by direction of my jailer,

and thus revealed herself.

By the merest accident I had found in the lining of my purse two pieces

of gold (the rest of my money had been spirited away with the belt that

contained it, or the leather had been destroyed by the action of the

saltwater), and one of these I hastened to bestow on the attendant,

signifying silence by a gesture as I did so.

I knew this wretch to be wholly selfish and mercenary, from my

experience of her on the raft--for that she was the same negress I had

long ceased to doubt--and I determined, while I had an opportunity of

doing so, to enter a wedge of confidence between us in the only possible

way.

"Sabra," I whispered, "what became of the young girl, Ada Lee, and the

deformed child? It surely can do no harm to tell me this, and I know you

understand me perfectly."

"No, honey, sartinly not; 'sides, I is tired out of speakin' Spanish,"

in low, mumbling accents. "Well, den, dat young gal gone to 'tend on

Mrs. Raymond, and, as fur de chile, dey pays me to take kear of dat in

dis very house ware you is disposed of. Dat boy gits me a heap of

trouble and onrest of nights, dough, I tells you, honey; but I is well

paid, and dey all has der reasons for letting him stay here, I

spec'"--shaking her head sagaciously--"dough dey may be disappinted yit,

when de time comes to testify and swar! De biggest price will carry de

day den, chile; I tells you all," eying the gold held closely in her

palm.

I caught eagerly at the idea of the child's presence, though the rest

was Greek to my comprehension until long afterward, when, in untangling

a chain of iniquity difficult to match, it formed one important but

additional link.

"Poor little Ernie! I would give so much to see him," I said. "Ask Dr.

Englehart to let him come to see me, Sabra, and some day I will reward

you"--all this in the faintest whisper. "But Mrs. Raymond--where is she?

Does she never come here? I desire earnestly to speak with her. Can't

you let her know this? Try, Sabra, for humanity's sake."

At this juncture the head of Mrs. Clayton was thrust forth from its

shell, turtle-wise, and appeared peering at the door-cheek.

"You have been there long enough to make these clothes instead of

putting them away, old woman," was the sharp rebuke that startled the

pretended Dinah to a condition of bustling agitation, and induced her to

shut up one of her own shrivelled hands in closing the drawer, with a

force that made her cry aloud, and, when released, wring it with agony,

that drew some words in the vernacular. "What makes you suppose Miss

Monfort wants to hear your chattering, old magpie that you are?"

continued Mrs. Clayton, throwing off her mask. "Now walk very straight,

or the police shall have you next time you steal from a companion.

Remember who rescued you on the Latona, and on what conditions, and take

care how you conduct yourself in the future. Do you understand me?"

After this tirade, which sorely exhausted her, Mrs. Clayton relapsed

into silence; and now it was my time to speak and even scold. I said:

"Now that the Spanish farce is thrown aside, it is hard indeed that I

cannot even be allowed to exchange a few words with a laundress in my

solitary condition--hard that I should be pressed to the wall in this

fiendish fashion. This woman was telling me of the presence of a little

child in the house, and I have desired permission to see it by way of

diversion and occupation. I have asked her to apply to Dr. Englehart."

"The child shall come to you, Miss Monfort, whenever you wish," said

Mrs. Clayton, with ill-disguised eagerness. "This woman is not the

proper person to apply to, however, and it is natural you should feel

concerned about it, now that you are able to think and feel again. You

know, of course, it is the boy of the wreck."

"Yes, very natural. Its mother died in my arms, if I am not mistaken in

the identity of the child; and fortunately--" I paused here, arrested by

some strange instinct of prudence, and decided not to show further

interest in his fate.

He might be inquired for, and traced even, I reflected, and thus my own

existence be brought to light. Selfishly, as well as charitably, would I

cherish him. Little children had ever been a passion with me, but this

poor, repulsive thing was the "_dernier ressort_ of desolation."

That very evening I heard the husky and guttural voice of Dr. Englehart

in the adjoining chamber, or rather in the closet of Mrs. Clayton, a

mere anteroom originally, as it seemed, to the large apartment I

occupied.

It was very natural that in her ill condition my dragon should seek

medical aid, and I paid no further attention to the propinquity of this

unpleasant visitor than I could help--sitting quietly by my shaded lamp,

absorbed in the Psalter, in which I found nightly refuge.

He came in at last, after tapping very lightly on the door-panel,

unsolicited and unexpected, to my presence--the same inscrutable,

hirsute horror I had seen before, with his trudging, scraping walk, his

square and stalwart frame, his gloved extremities, his light,

blue-glasses, hat and cane in hand, a being as I felt to chill one's

very marrow.

"Is it true vat I hear," he asked, pausing at some distance, "dat you

vant to have dat leetle hompback chilt for a companion, Miss Monfort?"

"It is true, Dr. Englehart."

"And vat can your motif be? Heh? I must study dat for a leetle before I

can decide de question, or even trost him as a human being in your

hands."

"Lunatics are rarely governed by motives at all," I replied, "only

impulses. I want human companionship, however, that is all. I sicken in

this solitude--I am dying of mental inanition."

"It is true, you look delicate indeed, I am pained to see." The accent

was forgotten here for a moment, and an expression of real sympathy was

perceivable in his low, husky voice. "Command me in any way dat accords

wid my duty," he continued, "yes! de boy shall come! To interest, to

amuse you, is perhaps--to cure!"

"Thank you; I shall await his advent anxiously; be careful not to

disappoint me."

"Oh, not for vorlds!"

"You are very kind; I believe, though, that is all we have to say to one

another, Dr. Englehart."

"You are bettair, then?" he said, advancing steadily toward me in spite

of this dismissal. "You need no more leetle pill? Are you quite sure of

dat?"

"Not now, at least, Dr. Englehart."

"Permit me, then, to feel your pulse vonce more. I shall determine den

more perfectly dis vexing subject of your sanity."

"Thank you; I decline your opinion on a matter so little open to

difference. Be good enough to retire. Dr. Englehart. Let me at least

breathe freely in the solitude to which I am consigned."

"I mean no offence, yonge lady," he said, meekly, falling back to the

centre-table on which was burning my shaded astral lamp--for I had left

it as he approached, instinctively to seek the protection of an

interposing chair, on the back of which I stood leaning as I spoke.

He, too, remained standing, with one hand pressed firmly backward on the

top of the table, in front of which he poised himself, gesticulating

earnestly yet respectfully.

His position was an error of mistaken confidence in his own make-up,

such as we see occur every day among those even long habituated to

disguise.

As he stood I distinctly saw a line of light traced between his cheek

and one of his bushy side-whiskers.

That line of light let in a flood of evidence. The man was an impostor,

a tool, as criminal as his employer--not the footprint on the sand was

more suggestive to Robinson Crusoe than that luminous streak to me, nor

the cause of wilder conjecture.

Yet I betrayed nothing of my amazement I am convinced, for, after

standing silently for a time and almost in a suppliant attitude before

me, Dr. Englehart departed, and for many days I saw him not again.

An object that looked not unlike a small, solemn owl, stood in the

middle of the floor, regarding me silently when I awoke very early on

the following morning.

At a glance I recognized poor little Ernie, and singularly enough, he

knew and remembered me at once.

"Ernie good boy now," he said as he came toward me with his tiny claw

extended. "Lady got cake in pocket, give Ernie some?" Not only did he

recall me, it was plain, but the incident that saved his life, and the

rebukes he had received on the raft for his refusal to partake of briny

biscuit, which no persuasion, it may be remembered, had availed to make

him taste--even when devoured by the pangs of hunger. I tried in vain,

however, to recall him to some remembrance of his poor mother. On that

point he was invulnerable; the abstract had no charm for him or meaning.

He dealt only in realities and presences.

A new element was infused into my solitude from this time. In this child

I lived, breathed, and had my being, until later events startled my

individuality once more into its old currents of existence. Not that I

merged myself entirely in Ernie, sickly, wayward, fitful, ugly little

mite that he was undeniably. Nay, rather did I draw him forcibly into my

own sphere of being and find nutrition in this novel element.

So grudgingly had Nature fulfilled her obligations in the case of this

poor stunted infant, that, at two and a half years of age, he had not

the usual complement of teeth due a child of eighteen months, and was

suffering sorely from the pointing up of tardy stomach-teeth through

ulcerated gums.

To attend to and heal his bodily ailments occupied me entirely at first,

and finally, finding him ill cared for, I made him a little pallet on my

sofa and kept him with me by night and day. Surely such devotion as he

manifested in return for my scant kindness to him few mothers have

received from their offspring. To sit silently at my feet while I talked

to him, or do my bidding, seemed his chief pleasures, as they might not,

could not have been, had he been strong, and active, and more soundly

constituted. As it was, no more loyal creature existed, nor did the

Creator ever enshrine deeper affections or quicker perceptions in any

childish frame. Weird, and wise, and witty as Aesop was this child, like

him deformed; and to draw out his quaint remarks, read him fresh from

his Maker's hand--this warped, and tiny, imperfect volume of

humanity--was to me an ever-new puzzle and delight. Severity he had been

used to of late, I saw plainly. He shrank with winking eyes from an

uplifted hand, even if the gesture were one of mere amazement, or

affection, and sat patiently, like a little well-trained dog, when he

saw food placed before me, until invited to partake thereof. His manner

was wistful and deprecating even to pathos, and I longed for one burst

of passion, one evidence of self-will, to prove to myself that I, like

others he had been recently thrown with, was not the meanest of all

created creatures--a baby's despot!

Oh, better than this the cap and bells, and infant tyranny forever, and

the wildest freaks of baby folly. He suffered silently, as I have seen

no other child do, uncomplainingly even, and at such times would sink

into moods of the blackest gloom, like those of an old, gouty subject.

Hypochondria, baby as he was, seemed already to have fixed his fangs

upon him. He had days of profound melancholy, when nothing provoked a

smile, and others of bitter, silent fretting, inconceivably distressing;

again there were periods of the wildest joy, only restrained by that

reticence which had become habitual, from positive boisterousness.

All this I could have compelled into subservience, of course, by

substituting fear for affection. It is not a difficult matter for the

strong and cunning to cow and crush the spirit of a little child; no

great achievement, after all, nor proof of power, though many boast of

it as such. Strength and hardness of heart are all one requires for

this external victory; but human souls are not to be so governed (God be

praised for this!), and love and respect are not to be compelled.

It is the error of all errors to suppose that, because a child has a

sickly frame or imperfect animal organization, it is just or profitable

to give it over to its own devices, and consign it to indolence and

ignorance. Alas! the vacancy that begets fretfulness, and crude,

capricious desires, the confusion of images that arises from partial

understanding, are far more wearing to the nerves of an intelligent

infant than the small labor the brain undertakes, if any, indeed, be

needed, in mastering ideas properly presented, and suitable to the

condition of the sufferer. One might as well forbid the hand to grasp,

the eye to see, nay, more, it will not do to confound the child of

genius with the fool, or to suppose that the one needs not a mental

aliment of which the other is incapable. Feed well the hungry mind, lest

it perish of inanition. It is a sponge in infancy that imbibes ideas

without an effort; it is a safety-valve through which fancy and poetry

conduct away foul vapors; it is an alembic, retaining only the pure and

valuable of all that is poured into it, to be stored for future use. It

is a lightning-rod that conducts away from the body all superfluous

electricity. It does not harm a sensible child to put it to study early,

but it destroys a dull one. Let your poor soil lie fallow, but harvest

your rich mould, and you shall be repaid, without harm to its fertility.

Ideas were balm to Ernie, even as regarded his physical suffering. His

enthusiasm rose above it and carried him to other spheres.

Some illustrated volumes of "Wilson's Ornithology," which I found in

the bookcase, proved to be oil on troubled waters in Ernie's case; and

before long he knew, without an effort, the name of every bird in the

two folios of prints, and would come of his own accord to repeat and

point them out to me.

I found, to my amazement, that, when a cage of canaries was brought in

and hung in the bath-room at my request for his amusement, he

discriminated and gravely averred that no birds like those were to be

found in his big book, though yellow hammers and orioles were there in

their native colors, that might have deceived a less observant eye into

a delusion as to their identity with our pretty importation.

Verses, remarkable for rhyme and rhythm both, when repeated to him a few

times with scanning emphasis, took root in that fertile brain which

piled his compact forehead so powerfully above his piercing, deep-set

eyes, and fell from his infant lips in silvery melody as effortless and

spontaneous as the trickling of water or the singing of birds in the

trees.

Day by day I saw the little, wistful face relaxing from the hard-knot

expression, so to speak, of sour and serious suffering, and assuming

something akin to baby joyousness, and the small, warped figure, so low

that it walked under my dropped and level hand, acquiring security of

step and erectness of bearing. I knew little of the treatment required

for spinal disease, but common-sense taught me that, in order to effect

a cure, the vertebral column must be relieved as much as possible from

pressure, and allowed to rest. So I persuaded him to lie down a great

part of the time, and contrived for him a little sustaining brace to

relieve him when he walked.

I fed him carefully; I bathed him tenderly, and rubbed his weary,

aching limbs to rest, so that before many weeks the change was

surprising, and the success of my treatment evident to all who saw

him--the comprehensive "all" being myself and two attendants.

Dr. Englehart had been suggested in the beginning by Mrs. Clayton, as

his medical attendant, but rejected by me with a shudder, that seemed

conclusive; yet one evening, unsummoned by me, and as far as I knew by

any other, he walked calmly into my apartment, ostensibly to see the

little invalid--his charge as well as mine.

For a moment the extravagant idea possessed me that, in spite of

appearances, I had done this man injustice, and that he came in reality

for humane purposes alone; wore his disguise for these.

This delusion was soon dissipated, as with audacity (no doubt

characteristic, though not before evidenced to me), he seated himself

complacently and uninvited, and, disposing of his hat and stick, settled

himself down for a _tête-à-tête_, an affair which, if medical, usually

partakes of the confidential.

"Your little _protégé_, Miss Monfort," he said, huskily, "seems to be a

serious sufferer," and for a moment dropping his accent while he rubbed

his gloved hands together as with an ill-repressed self-gratification;

"come, tell me now what you are doing for his benefit," again

artistically assuming a foreign accentuation.

In a few words I described my course of treatment and its success.

"All very well," he responded, hoarsely, "as far as it goes; but I am

convinced that much severer treatment will be necessaire--"

"I think not," I replied, curtly; "and certainly nothing of the kind

will be permitted by me while I have charge of this poor infant."

"A few leetle pills, then, for both mother and child;" he suggested,

humbly.

"You are mistaken if you imagine any relationship to exist between Ernie

and myself," I answered, calmly, never dreaming at the moment of covert

or intended insult. "I might as well inform you at once, that I am Miss,

not Mrs. Monfort; you should be guarded how you make mistakes of that

nature."

And my eye flashed fire, I felt, for I now heard him chuckling low in

the shadow, in which he so carefully concealed himself.

"I shall remembair vat you say," he observed, "and try to do bettair

next visit; but all dis time I delay in de execution of my mission here.

See, I have brought you von lettair; now vat will you do to reward me?"

Holding it high above my head, in a manner meant, no doubt, to be

playful, and to suggest a game of snatch, perhaps, such as his peers

might have afforded him, he displayed his treasure to my longing eyes,

but I sat with folded arms.

"If the letter brings me good news, I shall thank you warmly, Dr.

Englehart; if not, I shall try to believe you unconscious of its

contents."

"Tanks from your lips would, indeed, seem priceless," he remarked,

courteously, as with many bows and shrugs he laid it on the table before

me, bringing his shaggy head by such means much closer to my hand than I

cared to know it should be, under any circumstances.

With a gesture of inexpressible disgust, regretted the next moment, as I

reflected that, to bring me this letter, he might be overstepping common

rules, I raised the envelope to the light and recognized, to my intense

disappointment, the well-known characters of Bainrothe's--small, rigid,

neat, constrained.

My heart, which a moment before had beat audibly to my own ear, sank

like a stone in my breast, and I sat for a time holding the letter

mutely, uncertain how to proceed. Should I return it unread, and thus

hurl the gauntlet in the traitor's face, or be governed by expedience

(word ever so despised by me of old), and trace the venom of the viper,

by his trail, back to his native den?

After a brief conflict of feeling, I determined on the wiser

course--that of self-humiliation as a measure of profound policy.

I broke the seal, the well-known "dove-and-vulture" effigy which he

called in heraldry "The quarry" and claimed as his rightful crest. Very

significantly, indeed, did it strike me now, though I had jested on the

subject so merrily of old with Evelyn and George Gaston.

The letter was of very recent date, and ran as follows--I have the

original still, and this is an exact copy:

"On September 1st, or as soon thereafter as feasible, I shall call to

see you, Miriam, in your retirement, which I am glad to hear has so far

been beneficial. Should I find you in a condition to _make_ conditions,

I shall lay before you a very advantageous offer of marriage I had

received for you before your shipwreck. Should you accept this offer,

and attach your signature to a few papers that I shall bring with me

(papers important to the respectability of your whole family as well as

my own), I shall at once resign to you your father's house and the

guardianship of Mabel. The chimera that alarmed you to frenzy can have

no further existence, either in fact or fancy. I am about to contract an

advantageous marriage with a foreign lady of rank, wealth, and beauty,

to whom I hope soon to introduce you.. I need not mention her name, if

you are wise. Be patient and cheerful; cultivate your talents, and take

care of your good looks--no woman can afford to dispense with these,

however gifted; and you will soon find yourself as free as that

'chartered libertine' the air, for which last two words I am afraid you

will be malicious enough to substitute the name you will not find

appended, of your true friend and guardian, B.B."

Had Wentworth spoken, then? Did he know of my immurement? Was it his

beloved presence, his dear hand, that were to be made the prize of my

silence and submission? Was the bitter pill of humiliation I was now

swallowing to be gilded thus? No, no--a thousand times, no! He was not

the man with whom to make such conditions--the man I loved--nay

worshiped almost. He was of the old heroic mould, that would have

preferred any certainty to suspense, and death itself to an instant's

degradation.

He deemed me dead, and the obstacle that had risen between us needed no

explanation now. The waves had swallowed all necessities like this. But,

had he known me the inmate of a mad-house, no bolts or bars would have

withheld him from my presence. His own eyes could alone have convinced

him of such ruin as was alleged against me by these friends.

From this survey of my utter helplessness I turned suddenly to confront

the deep, dark, salient eyes of the disciple of Hahnemann, real or

pretended, fixed upon me with a glance that even his blue spectacles

could not deprive of its subtle intensity.

Where had I seen before orbs of the same snake-like peculiarity of

expression, or caught the outline of the profile which suddenly riveted

my gaze as the light partially revealed it, then subsided into shadow

again? I pondered this question for a moment while Dr. Englehart,

silent, expectant perhaps, stood with his hand tightly grasping the back

of a chair, on the seat of which he reposed one knee, in a position such

as defiant school-boys often assume before a pedagogue.

As I have said, his head and body were again in shadow, as was, indeed,

most of the chamber, for the rays which struggled through the thick

ground glass of my astral lamp were as mild as moonbeams, and as

unsatisfactory. But the light fell strong and red beneath the shade, and

the full glare of the astral lamp seemed centred on that pudgy hand, in

its inevitable glove, that had fixed so firm a gripe on the back of the

mahogany chair as to strain open one of the fingers of the tight, tawny

kid-glove worn by Dr. Englehart. This had parted slightly just above the

knuckle of the front-finger, and revealed the cotton stuffing within.

Nay, more, the ruby ring with its peculiar device was thus exposed,

which graced the slender finger of the charlatan! I do not apply this

term as concerned the profession he affected at all, but merely (as

shall be seen later) as one appropriate to himself individually.

There must be beings of all kinds to constitute a world, philosophers

tell us, and he, no doubt, so long in ignorance of it, had stumbled

suddenly on his proper vocation at last. The _rôle_ he was playing (so

far successfully) had doubtless been the occasion of an exquisite

delight to him, unknown to simpler mortals, who masquerade not without

dread misgivings of detection. I for one, when affecting any costume not

essentially belonging to me, or covering my face even with a paper-mask

for holiday diversion, have had a feeling of unusual transparency and

obviousness, so to speak, which precluded on my part every thing like a

successful maintenance of the part I was attempting to play. It was as

if some mocking voice was saying: "This is Miriam Monfort, the true

Miriam; the person you have known before as such was only making

believe--but the Simon-pure is before you, a volume of folly that all

who run may read! Behold her--she was never half so evident before!"

But to digress thus in the very moment of detection, of recognition,

seems irrelevant. The flash of conviction was as instantaneous in its

action in my mind as that of the lightning when it strikes its object. I

stood confounded, yet enlightened, all ablaze!--but the subject of this

discovery did not seem in the least to apprehend it, or to believe it

possible, in his mad, mole-like effrontery of self-sufficiency, that by

his own track he could be betrayed.

"Vat ansair shall I bear to Mr. Bainrothe from his vard?" asked the

Mercury of my Jove, clasping his costumed hands together, then dropping

them meekly before him. "I vait de reply of Miss Monfort vid patience.

Dere is pen, and ink, and papair, I perceive, on dat table. Be good

enough to write at once your reply to de vise conditions of your

excellent guardian."

"You know them, then?" I said, quickly, glancing at him with a derisive

scorn that did not escape his observation.

"I have dat honnair," was the hypocritical reply, accompanied by a

profound bow.

"Disgrace, rather," I substituted. "But you have your own stand-point of

view, of course. The shield that to you is white, to me is black as

Erebus. You remember the knights of fable?"

"Always the same--always indomitable!" I heard him murmur, so low that

it was marvelous how the words reached my ear, tense as was every sense

with disdainful excitement. Yet he simply said aloud, after his

impulsive stage-whisper: "Excuse me! I understand not your allusions. I

pretend not to de classics; my leetle pills--" and he hesitated, or

affected to do so.

"Enough--I waive all apologies; they only prolong an interview

singularly distasteful to me for many reasons. You are behind the

curtain, I cannot doubt, and understand not only the contents of that

absurd letter, but its unprincipled references. To Basil Bainrothe I

will never address one line; but you may say to him that I scorn him and

his conditions. Yet, helpless as I am, and in his hands, tell him to

bring his emancipation papers, and I will sign them, though they cost me

all I possess of property. My sister I will not surrender any longer to

his care, nor my right in her, which, with or without his consent, is

perfect when I reach my majority. As to the suitor to whom he alluded,

he had better be allowed to speak for himself when this transaction is

over. I shall then decide very calmly on his merits, tarnished, as these

might seem, from such recommendation."

"He is one who has loved you long, lady," said the man, sadly, speaking

ever in that made and husky voice (wonderful actor that he was by

nature!), which he sustained so well that, had I not unmistakably

identified him, it might have imposed on my ear as real. "Hear what has

been written on this subject: When others have forsaken you and left you

to your fate, he has continued faithful to your memory. The revelation

of your immurement was made simultaneously to two men who called

themselves your lovers, and its sad necessity explained by your

ever-watchful guardian. One of these lovers repudiated your claims upon

him, and turned coldly from the idea of uniting his fate to that of one

who had even for an hour been a suspected lunatic; the other declared

himself willing to take her as she was to his arms, even though her own

were loaded with the chains of a mad-house! Penniless and abandoned by

all the world, and with a clouded name, he woos her as his wife--the

woman he adores!"

And, as he read, or seemed to read, these words, with scarce an accent

to mar their impetuous flow, Dr. Englehart drew in his breath with the

hissing sound of passion, and folded his arms tightly across his padded

breast, as if they enfolded the bride he was suing for in another's

name.

"And who, let me ask, is this Paladin of chivalry?" I inquired,

derisively. "Give me his name, that I may consider the subject well and

thoroughly before we meet at last."

"Excuse me if I refuse to give the name of eider of dese gentlemen at

dis onhappy season," he rejoined. "Wen de brain is all right

again"--tapping his own forehead--"your guardian will conduct the

faithful knight to kneel at de feet of her he loves so well."

"And the other--where is he?" fell involuntarily from my lips--my

heaving heart--an inquiry that I regretted as soon as it was uttered;

for, affecting sorrowful mystery, the man inclined himself toward me and

whispered in my ear confidentially:

"Plighted to another, and gone where no eyes of yours shall rest on him

again."

"Pander--liar--spy!" burst from my passionate lips as in all the fury of

desperation I turned from the creature who had so wantonly wounded my

self-respect, and waved to him to begone. Another name quivered on my

lips, but I checked it on their threshold after that first burst of

indignation instantly subdued.

I was not brave enough nor strong enough to hazard a shaft like that

which might have been returned to me so deathfully. I would let the

barrier stand which he had erected between us, and which to demolish

would be to lay myself open, perhaps, to insult of the darkest

description.

Let the ostrich with his head in the sand still imagine himself unseen;

the masquerader still conceive himself secure beneath his paper

travesty; the serpent still coil apparently unrecognized beside the

bare, gray stone that reveals him to the eye--I was too cowardly, too

feeble, to cope with strategy and double-dyed duplicity like this!

So the man went his way with his silly secret undiscovered, as he

deemed, and that it might remain so to the end, as far as he could know,

I devoutly prayed. For I knew of old the unscrupulous lengths to which,

when nerved by hate or disappointment or passions of any kind, he could

go, without a particle of mercy for his victims or remorse for his

ill-doing.

When Dr. Englehart was gone--for so I still choose to call him for some

reasons, although I give my reader credit for still more astuteness than

I possessed myself, and believe that he has long ago recognized, through

this cloud of mystery and travesty thrown about him, an old

acquaintance--the child Ernie rose from the bed on which he had lain

tremulous and observant, with his small hands clinched, his eyes on

fire. "Ernie kill bad man!" he exclaimed, ferociously, "for trouble

missy. Give Ernie letter--he carry it away and hide it; bad letter--make

poor Mirry cry."

"No, Ernie, I will keep it," I said, as I laid it carefully aside. "It

shall stand as a sign and testimony of treachery to the end. Go to

sleep, little child; but first say your prayers, so that the good angels

may sit by you all night. Don't you hear Mrs. Clayton groaning? Poor

Clayton! I must go and comfort her and soothe her pains, as Dinah cannot

do. And, now that the bad doctor is gone home, and we are all locked up

again securely, we shall rest peacefully, I trust; and so, good-night!"

CHAPTER VII.

From being the most silent of children, a perfect creep-mouse in every

way, Ernie had become fearfully loquacious under my care, and was now as

talkative as he had ever been observant.

The action that most children develop through exercise of limb had been

reserved for his untiring tongue. He had literally learned to talk from

hearing me read aloud, which I did daily, much to Mrs. Clayton's delight

and edification, for the benefit of my own lungs, which suffered from

such confirmed silence, as I had at first indulged in. His exquisite

ear--his prodigious memory--aided him in the acquirement of words, and

even long and difficult sentences, of which he delivered himself

oracularly when engaged with his blocks and dominoes.

He told himself wonderful stories in which the "buful faiwry" and

"hollible" giant of the story-books figured largely. I am almost ashamed

to acknowledge that I would hold my breath and strain my ear at times to

listen to these murmured stories, self-addressed, as I have never done

to receive the finest ebullitions of eloquence or the veriest marvels of

the _raconteur_. There was something so sweet, so wondrous to me in this

little, ever-babbling baby-brain fountain, content with its own music,

having no thought of auditors or effect, no care for appreciation,

totally self-addressed and self-absorbed, that I was never weary of

giving it my ear and interest. Had the child known of or perceived this,

the effect would have been destroyed, and a fatal self-consciousness

have been instituted instead of this lotus-eating infantile

_abandon_--the very existence of which mood indicated genius. What poor

Ernie's father might have been I could only surmise from his own

qualities, which, after all, may have flowed from a far-off source; but

that his mother had been gentle, simple, and inefficient, I knew full

well, from my slight acquaintance with her, and observation of her

non-resisting organization. Ernie, on the contrary, grappled with

obstacles uncomplainingly, and was only outspoken in his moments of

gratification. His was the temperament that is the noblest and the most

magnanimous in its very moulding. Whining children are selfish, as a

rule, and petty-minded, and most often incapable of enjoyment--which

last is a gift of itself that goes not always with possession.

Among other accomplishments self-acquired, Ernie had the power of

mimicry to a singular degree. Mrs. Clayton had a slight hitch in her

gait of late from rheumatic suffering, which he simulated solemnly,

notwithstanding every effort on my part to restrain him.

Without a smile or any effort of mirth, he would limp behind as she

walked across the floor, unconscious of his close attendance, and when

she would turn suddenly and detect him, and shake her clinched fist at

him, half in jest, he would retaliate by a similar gesture, and scowl,

and stamp of the foot, that so nearly resembled her own proceedings as

to cause me much internal merriment. But of course for his own

advantage, as well as from regard for her feelings, it was necessary for

me on such occasions to assume a gravity of deportment bordering on

displeasure.

It may be supposed, then, that when, on the morning after Dr.

Englehart's visit, before my chamber had been swept and garnished, and

while Mrs. Clayton was busy in her own, Ernie brought me a letter and

laid it on the table before me, as Dr. Englehart had done the night

before in his presence, I was infinitely amused.

What, then, was my surprise in stooping over it to find this letter

addressed to myself in the unfamiliar yet never-to-be-forgotten

character of Wardour Wentworth!

After the first moment of bewilderment I opened the already-fastened

letter--closed, as was the fashion of the day, without envelope, and

sealed originally with wax, of which a few fragments still remained

alone.

The date, the subject, the earnest contents, convinced me that I now

held the clew of that mystery which had baffled me so long, and that the

missing letter said to have been lost at Le Noir's Landing was at last

in my possession. It needed not this additional proof of treachery to

convince me that my suspicions had been correct, and that, next to the

arch-fiend. Bainrothe, I owed the greatest misery of my life to him who,

in his ill-adjusted disguise, had dropped this letter from his pocket on

the preceding evening--my evil genius, Dr. Englehart--_alias_ Luke

Gregory.

It was a gracious thing in God to permit me to owe the great happiness

of this discovery to the little crippled child he had cast upon my care

so mysteriously, and I failed not to render to him with other grateful

acknowledgments "most humble and hearty thanks" for this crowning grace.

Henceforth Hope should lend her torch to light my dearth--her wings to

bear me up--her anchor wherewith to moor my hark of life wherever cast,

and to the poor waif I cherished I owed this immeasurable good. Had Mrs.

Clayton anticipated him with her infallible besom--that housewifely

detective, that drags more secrets to light than ever did paid

policeman--I should never have grasped this talisman of love and hope,

never have waked up as I did wake up from that hour to the endurance

which immortalizes endeavor, and renders patience almost pleasurable.

On the back of this well-worn letter was a pencil-scrawl, which,

although I read it last, I present first to my reader, that he may trace

link by link the chain of villainy that bound together my two

oppressors.

It was in the small, clear calligraphy of Basil Bainrothe, before

described; characterized, I believe, as a back-hand--and thus it ran:

"You are right--it was a master-stroke! Keep them in ignorance of each

other, and all will yet go well. I sail to-morrow, and have only time to

inclose this with a pencilled line. Try and head them at New York. My

first idea was the best--my reason I will explain later.

"Yours truly, B.B.

"N.B.--The man could not have played into our hands better than by

taking up such an impression. There is no one there to undeceive him."

THE LETTER.

"My Miriam: Your note, through the hands of Mr. Gregory, has been

received--read, noted, pondered over with pain and amazement. The avowal

of your name so uselessly withheld from me, lets in a whole flood of

light, blinding and dazzling, too, on a subject that fills me with

infinite solicitude.

"There have been strange reserves between us that never ought to have

existed, on my part as well as yours. I should have told you that I once

had a half-sister, called Constance Glen--older than myself by many

years--who married during my long absence from our native land a

gentleman much older than herself, an Englishman by the name of Monfort,

and, after giving birth to a daughter, died suddenly. These particulars

I gathered from strangers, but there were many wanting which you can

best supply. I know that this gentleman had a daughter, or daughters, by

an earlier marriage--and I can find no clew to the date of my sister's

marriage--which might in itself determine the possible age of her own

daughter. That this child survived I have painful cause to remember. I

had sustained shipwreck, and was in abeyance for clothes and money both,

when it occurred to me to call on my brother-in-law, present to him my

credentials, and remain a few days at his house as his guest, in the

enjoyment of my sister's society, until my needs could be supplied from

certain resources at a distance. The reception I met with from his elder

daughter, and the information she haughtily gave me, determined my

course. I sought no more the inhospitable roof of Mr. Monfort, to find

shelter beneath which I had forfeited all claim by the death of my

sister, then first suddenly revealed to me. Her child, I was told, had

been recently injured by burning and could not be seen, even by so near

a relative, and the manner of the young lady, whom I now identify as

Evelyn Monfort, was such as to lead me at the time to believe this a

mere excuse or evasion, which I did not seek to oppose.

"It is just possible that there may be a third sister, yet I think I

have heard you say you had but one, and this reminiscence is anguish to

my mind. Even more, the careless and unwarrantable allusions of Mr.

Gregory to certain scars, evidently from burns that he had the insolence

to observe on your neck and arms, and remark upon as mere foils to their

beauty, in my first acquaintance with you and before I had a right to

silence him, recurred to me as a partial confirmation of my fears.

Without explaining to him my motives, I questioned him on this subject

again soon after he handed me your note, a proceeding that I should have

shrunk from as gross and unworthy of a gentleman under any other

circumstances. I did not stop to think what impression my inquiries

would leave upon his mind, ever prone to levity and suspicion; but he

must have seen that I was deeply moved, and that no impertinent

curiosity could sway me to such a course with regard to the woman I

loved and had openly declared my plighted wife. You will understand all

this and make allowance for me. Write to me immediately, and relieve, if

possible, my intense solicitude. At all events, let me know the truth,

and look it in the face as soon as may be. Any reality is better than

suspense. Yet I must 'hope against hope,' or surrender wholly. I have

not time to write another line. My business is imperative, or I should

certainly retrace my steps.

"Yours eternally, Wentworth."

The man who wrote this letter was capable of condensing in a few calm

words a world of passion, whether he spoke or wrote them; but he had

governed his pen carefully in his agonizing uncertainty. It was yet to

be determined when he penned these lines whether he should be

considered a lover addressing his mistress, or an uncle writing to his

niece, and in this bitter perplexity he commanded his inclinations to

the side of principle.

I wept with tears of joy and thankfulness above this constrained

epistle--I pressed it to my heart, my lips, a thousand times, in the

quiet hours of night, in the moments of retirement my jailer granted me.

The child Ernie alone saw and wondered at these manifestations of which

I first saw the extravagance through his solemn imitations thereof,

which yet made me catch him rapturously in my arms and kiss him a

thousand times, until he put me aside, at last, with decorous dignity,

as one transcending privilege.

By some vicarious process, best understood by lovers, I lavished on

little Ernie a thousand terms of endearment, meant only for another, and

by the light of my own happiness he seemed transfigured. He was

identified with the lifting away of a burden more bitter than captivity

itself. They could but kill my body now--my soul was filled with a new

life that nothing could extinguish; and believing in Wentworth, I felt

that I could die happy, let death come when and how it would. I knew now

that in the course of time, whether I lived or died, Wentworth would

know that I was not his niece, and claim Mabel as his own, remembering

my estimate of those who held her in charge. Then would the tide of love

and passion, so long repressed, roll back in its old channel, and he

would leave no stone unturned, no path unexplored, whereby to trace my

fate.

To this, as yet, he held no clew. The sea had seemed to swallow Miriam

Harz, by which name I had been registered in the ship's books and known

to the passengers; nor could it be surmised that the young "mad girl,"

since spoken of, as I had been told, in the papers, as having been

restored to her friends by the accident of meeting the Latona, and

Miriam Monfort, were one and the same person. But if the time should

come when all should be explained, either by my own lips or the

revelations of others, good cause might Basil Bainrothe and his

confederate have to tremble!

Like all cold, patient, deeply-feeling men, there were untold reserves

of power and passion in the nature of Wardour Wentworth which might, for

aught I knew to the contrary, tend naturally to and culminate in

revenge. The wish to retaliate was, I knew, a fundamental fault in my

own character, one I had often occasion to struggle with even in

childhood, when Evelyn, my despot, was also my dependant, and generosity

had been called to the aid of forbearance. Vengeance was a fierce thirst

in my Judaic heart which only Christian streams could ever allay or

quench, and I judged the man I loved by self--not always a fitting

standard of comparison.

And Gregory! I could imagine well the fiendish delight with which he had

seen me day by day writhing uncomplainingly beneath the unexplained and

as I had deemed unsuspected alienation of Wentworth, the cause of which

his act had wrapped in mystery! Afraid to tamper with the note I gave

him for the cool, discerning eye of Wentworth, curiosity had at first

led him to break the seal of that intrusted to his care in return, and

dark malevolence to retain it rather than destroy, for the eye of his

confederate. That he had dispatched it at once for Paris was very

evident from the pencilling on the back of the letter; and that the

snare was set for me already, in which the accident of the encountered

raft proved an assistant, I could not doubt.

I fell into the hands of Bainrothe on shipboard instead of into those

of Gregory in New York; this was the only difference, for subterfuge

could have done its work as well, if not as daringly, on land as on sea;

and the league of iniquity was made before I sailed from Savannah.

How perfectly I could comprehend, for the first time since this

revelation, what Wentworth must have suffered beneath his burden of

unrelieved doubt and conjecture! I could see how, day by day, as no

answer came to change the current of his thoughts, conviction slowly

settled down like a cloud upon his heart, his reason; and what stern

confirmation of all he dreaded most, my silence must have seemed to him!

All this I saw in my mental survey with pity, with concern, with wild

desire to fly to him, and whisper truth and consolation in his arms; for

I loved this man as it is given to passionate, earnest natures to love

but once, be it early or late; loved him as Eve loved Adam, when the

whole inhabited earth was given to those two alone.

"You seem in very good spirits to-day, Miss Monfort," said Mrs. Clayton,

with unusual asperity on one occasion, when, holding Ernie in my arms, I

lavished endearments upon him; "your king, indeed! your angel! I really

believe you admire as well as love that hideous little elf."

"Of course I do, Mrs. Clayton; all things I love are beautiful to me;"

and I remembered how Bertie's plain face had grown into touching

loveliness in my sight from the affection I bore her.

"And do you really love this child?"

"Most certainly, and very tenderly too; is he not my sweetest

consolation in this dreary life?"

"What if they remove him?"

"Ah! what, indeed!" and, relaxing my grasp, I clasped my hands together

patiently; that thought had occurred to me before.

"It is a very strong affection to have sprung up from a short

acquaintance on a raft," she remarked, sententiously.

"I saved his infant life, you know; and the benefactor always loves the

thing he benefits. It is on this principle alone God loves his erring

creatures, Mrs. Clayton, rest assured."

"If you had loved the child with true friendship, you would have pushed

him into the sea, rather than have held him in your arms above it."

"Do you suppose he is less near to God than you or I--to Christ the

all-merciful?" I questioned, sternly. "Much rather would I have that

infant's yet unconscious hope of heaven than either yours or mine, Mrs.

Clayton!"

"But his earthly hope--it was that I alluded to; what chance for him?

Poor, weakly, deformed; he had better be at rest than knocked from

pillar to post, as he must be in this hard, cold world of chance and

change."

"And that shall never be while I live, Ernie," I said, taking him again

in my lap, at his silent solicitation. "Why, Mrs. Clayton, with such a

noble soul, such intelligence as this child possesses, he may fill a

pulpit, and save erring souls, or write such beautiful poems and

romances as shall thrill the heart, or draw from an instrument sounds as

divine as De Beriot's, or paint a picture, and immortalize his name;

there is nothing too good, too great for Ernie to do, should God grant

him life to achieve; and, as surely as I am spared to be enfranchised,

shall I make this gifted child my charge."

"You are perfectly infatuated, Miss Monfort; I declare, I shall begin

to believe--"

"No, you shall not begin to believe any such, thing," I interrupted her,

smiling; "you are surely too sensible and just a woman to begin to

believe fallacies thus late in the day."

"Have it your own way," she said, sharply; "you always get the better of

me at last."

"Not always," I pursued, "or I should not be here, you know. It rests

with you to keep or let me go--"

"To ruin my child's husband! There, now! you have my life-secret," she

said, with a desperate gesture; "use it as you will."

I understood more than ever the hopelessness of my case from the moment

of that impulsive revelation, to which I made no answer.

"What is more," she said, huskily, "I, too, am watched; I never knew

this until two days ago: a negro man, an attendant of the house, an old

servant of your guardian's, I believe, guards the doors below, and

refuses to let me pass to and fro. Dinah, even, is employed to dog my

steps. This is not exactly what I bargained for; yet, in spite of all,

on her account I shall be faithful to the end." And for a time she

busied herself in that careful dusting of the ornaments of the chamber,

which seemed mechanical, so habitual was it to her sense of order and

tidiness.

Her hand was on the gold-emblazoned Bible, I remember, and her

party-colored bunch of plumes lifted above it, as if for immediate

action, when her arm fell heavily to her side, and she heaved a bitter

sigh, so deep, it sounded like a long-suppressed sob, rather, to my ear.

"If I could only think you did not hate me, Miss Miriam," she said, "I

believe I could be better satisfied to lead the life I do."

"Hate you! Why should I hate you, Mrs. Clayton? You are only a tool in

the hands of my persecutor, I know, from your own confession, and I

understand your motive better in the last few moments than I did before

(inadequate as it seems to my sense of justice), for aiding this

oppressor. You have been very kind to me in some respects; an inferior

person could have tortured in a thousand ways, where you have shown

yourself considerate, delicate even, and for all this I thank you more

than I can express. I should be very ungrateful, indeed, were I to hate

you. The word is strong."

"Yet you prefer even that hump-backed child to me or my society," she

said, peevishly.

"The comparison cannot be instituted with any propriety," I responded,

gravely, turning away and dismissing the boy to his blocks and books, as

I did so, which made for him, I knew, a fairy kingdom of delight,

through the aid of his splendid imagination.

A commonplace infant will tire of the choicest toys; they are to such

minds but effigies and delusion, which last, the delight of imaginative

infancy, to the cut and dried, dull, childish understanding is

impossible.

I once overheard one little girl at a theatre--a splendid spectacle,

calculated to dazzle and delight imaginative childhood--say to another:

"It is nothing but make-believe! That house and garden are only painted.

See how they shake! And the women are dressed in paste jewelry, like

that our cook-maid wears to parties, and no jeweler would give a cent

for them; and the fairies are poor girls, dressed up for the occasion;

and the whole play is made up as they go. You see, I know all about it,

father says."

I heard no more, but had a glimpse of a little, eager face suddenly

dashed in its expression, and of small fingers pressed to unwilling ears

to shut out unwelcome truths.

The discriminating child seemed a little monster in my eyes, who ought

to have been sent out of the way at once of all companions capable of

_abandon_ and enjoyment; and, as to the "father" she quoted from, I

could imagine him as the embodiment of asinine wisdom, so to speak--the

quintessence of the practical, which so often, I observe, inclines its

devotees to idiocy!

I knew very well that Wattie was not of the stamp to doubt the truth and

splendor of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," or "Cinderella," as

surveyed from the stage-box, in his confiding infancy, any more than to

believing in baubles when the time came to justly discriminate. Woe for

the incredulous child, too matter-of-fact to be enlisted in the

creations of fancy, and who tastes in infancy the chief bitterness of

age--the incapability of surrendering life to the ideal!

How fresh imagination keeps the heart--how young! What a glorious gift

it is when rightly used and governed! Hear Charlotte Bronté's testimony,

as recorded by her biographer: "They are all gone," she says, "the

sisters I so loved, and I have only my imagination left to comfort me.

But for this solace I should despair or perish." The words are not

exact--the book is not beside me, but such is their substance. He who

lists can seek them for himself in the pages of that wondrous spell

woven by Mrs. Gaskell--that tragic and strange biography which once in a

season of deep despondency did more to reconcile me to my own condition,

through my pity and admiration for another, than all the condolences

that came so freely from lip and pen. Every fabric that love had

erected crumbled about her or turned to Dead-Sea ashes on her lip. See

what a world of passion those French letters and themes of hers betray!

The brand of suffering and suffocating sorrow is on every one of them,

plain to the eye of the initiated alone, they who have gazed on the

wonders of the inner temple--the holy of holies--and gone forth

reverently to dream of the revelation evermore in silence.