I.

My story begins as a great many stories have begun within the last three

years, and indeed as a great many have ended; for, when the hero is

despatched, does not the romance come to a stop?

* * * * *

In early May, two years ago, a young couple I wot of strolled homeward

from an evening walk, a long ramble among the peaceful hills which

inclosed their rustic home. Into these peaceful hills the young man had

brought, not the rumor, (which was an old inhabitant,) but some of the

reality of war,--a little whiff of gunpowder, the clanking of a sword;

for, although Mr. John Ford had his campaign still before him, he wore a

certain comely air of camp-life which stamped him a very Hector to the

steady-going villagers, and a very pretty fellow to Miss Elizabeth

Crowe, his companion in this sentimental stroll. And was he not attired

in the great brightness of blue and gold which befits a freshly made

lieutenant? This was a strange sight for these happy Northern glades;

for, although the first Revolution had boomed awhile in their midst, the

honest yeomen who defended them were clad in sober homespun, and it is

well known that His Majesty's troops wore red.

These young people, I say, had been roaming. It was plain that they had

wandered into spots where the brambles were thick and the dews

heavy,--nay, into swamps and puddles where the April rains were still

undried. Ford's boots and trousers had imbibed a deep foretaste of the

Virginia mud; his companion's skirts were fearfully bedraggled. What

great enthusiasm had made our friends so unmindful of their steps? What

blinding ardor had kindled these strange phenomena: a young lieutenant

scornful of his first uniform, a well-bred young lady reckless of her

stockings?

Good reader, this narrative is averse to retrospect.

Elizabeth (as I shall not scruple to call her outright) was leaning upon

her companion's arm, half moving in concert with him, and half allowing

herself to be led, with that instinctive acknowledgment of dependence

natural to a young girl who has just received the assurance of lifelong

protection. Ford was lounging along with that calm, swinging stride

which often bespeaks, when you can read it aright, the answering

consciousness of a sudden rush of manhood. A spectator might have

thought him at this moment profoundly conceited. The young girl's blue

veil was dangling from his pocket; he had shouldered her sun-umbrella

after the fashion of a musket on a march: he might carry these trifles.

Was there not a vague longing expressed in the strong expansion of his

stalwart shoulders, in the fond accommodation of his pace to hers,--her

pace so submissive and slow, that, when he tried to match it, they

almost came to a delightful standstill,--a silent desire for the whole

fair burden?

They made their way up a long swelling mound, whose top commanded the

sunset. The dim landscape which had been brightening all day to the

green of spring was now darkening to the gray of evening. The lesser

hills, the farms, the brooks, the fields, orchards, and woods, made a

dusky gulf before the great splendor of the west. As Ford looked at the

clouds, it seemed to him that their imagery was all of war, their great

uneven masses were marshalled into the semblance of a battle. There were

columns charging and columns flying and standards floating,--tatters of

the reflected purple; and great captains on colossal horses, and a

rolling canopy of cannon-smoke and fire and blood. The background of the

clouds, indeed, was like a land on fire, or a battle-ground illumined by

another sunset, a country of blackened villages and crimsoned pastures.

The tumult of the clouds increased; it was hard to believe them

inanimate. You might have fancied them an army of gigantic souls playing

at football with the sun. They seemed to sway in confused splendor; the

opposing squadrons bore each other down; and then suddenly they

scattered, bowling with equal velocity towards north and south, and

gradually fading into the pale evening sky. The purple pennons sailed

away and sank out of sight, caught, doubtless, upon the brambles of the

intervening plain. Day contracted itself into a fiery ball and vanished.

Ford and Elizabeth had quietly watched this great mystery of the

heavens.

"That is an allegory," said the young man, as the sun went under,

looking into his companion's face, where a pink flush seemed still to

linger: "it means the end of the war. The forces on both sides are

withdrawn. The blood that has been shed gathers itself into a vast

globule and drops into the ocean."

"I'm afraid it means a shabby compromise," said Elizabeth. "Light

disappears, too, and the land is in darkness."

"Only for a season," answered the other. "We mourn our dead. Then light

comes again, stronger and brighter than ever. Perhaps you'll be crying

for me, Lizzie, at that distant day."

"Oh, Jack, didn't you promise not to talk about that?" says Lizzie,

threatening to anticipate the performance in question.

Jack took this rebuke in silence, gazing soberly at the empty sky. Soon

the young girl's eyes stole up to his face. If he had been looking at

anything in particular, I think she would have followed the direction of

his glance; but as it seemed to be a very vacant one, she let her eyes

rest.

"Jack," said she, after a pause, "I wonder how you'll look when you get

back."

Ford's soberness gave way to a laugh.

"Uglier than ever. I shall be all incrusted with mud and gore. And then

I shall be magnificently sun-burnt, and I shall have a beard."

"Oh, you dreadful!" and Lizzie gave a little shout. "Really, Jack, if

you have a beard, you'll not look like a gentleman."

"Shall I look like a lady, pray?" says Jack.

"Are you serious?" asked Lizzie.

"To be sure. I mean to alter my face as you do your misfitting

garments,--take in on one side and let out on the other. Isn't that the

process? I shall crop my head and cultivate my chin."

"You've a very nice chin, my dear, and I think it's a shame to hide

it."

"Yes, I know my chin's handsome; but wait till you see my beard."

"Oh, the vanity!" cried Lizzie, "the vanity of men in their faces! Talk

of women!" and the silly creature looked up at her lover with most

inconsistent satisfaction.

"Oh, the pride of women in their husbands!" said Jack, who of course

knew what she was about.

"You're not my husband, Sir. There's many a slip"----But the young girl

stopped short.

"'Twixt the cup and the lip," said Jack. "Go on. I can match your

proverb with another. 'There's many a true word,' and so forth. No, my

darling: I'm not your husband. Perhaps I never shall be. But if anything

happens to me, you'll take comfort, won't you?"

"Never!" said Lizzie, tremulously.

"Oh, but you must; otherwise, Lizzie, I should think our engagement

inexcusable. Stuff! who am I that you should cry for me?"

"You are the best and wisest of men. I don't care; you _are_."

"Thank you for your great love, my dear. That's a delightful illusion.

But I hope Time will kill it, in his own good way, before it hurts any

one. I know so many men who are worth infinitely more than I--men wise,

generous, and brave--that I shall not feel as if I were leaving you in

an empty world."

"Oh, my dear friend!" said Lizzie, after a pause, "I wish you could

advise me all my life."

"Take care, take care," laughed Jack; "you don't know what you are

bargaining for. But will you let me say a word now? If by chance I'm

taken out of the world, I want you to beware of that tawdry sentiment

which enjoins you to be 'constant to my memory.' My memory be hanged!

Remember me at my best,--that is, fullest of the desire of humility.

Don't inflict me on people. There are some widows and bereaved

sweethearts who remind me of the peddler in that horrible murder-story,

who carried a corpse in his pack. Really, it's their stock in trade. The

only justification of a man's personality is his rights. What rights has

a dead man?--Let's go down."

They turned southward and went jolting down the hill.

"Do you mind this talk, Lizzie?" asked Ford.

"No," said Lizzie, swallowing a sob, unnoticed by her companion in the

sublime egotism of protection; "I like it."

"Very well," said the young man, "I want my memory to help you. When I

am down in Virginia, I expect to get a vast deal of good from thinking

of you,--to do my work better, and to keep straighter altogether. Like

all lovers, I'm horribly selfish. I expect to see a vast deal of

shabbiness and baseness and turmoil, and in the midst of it all I'm sure

the inspiration of patriotism will sometimes fail. Then I'll think of

you. I love you a thousand times better than my country, Liz.--Wicked?

So much the worse. It's the truth. But if I find your memory makes a

milksop of me, I shall thrust you out of the way, without ceremony,--I

shall clap you into my box or between the leaves of my Bible, and only

look at you on Sunday."

"I shall be very glad, Sir, if that makes you open your Bible

frequently," says Elizabeth, rather demurely.

"I shall put one of your photographs against every page," cried Ford;

"and then I think I shall not lack a text for my meditations. Don't you

know how Catholics keep little pictures of their adored Lady in their

prayer-books?"

"Yes, indeed," said Lizzie; "I should think it would be a very

soul-stirring picture, when you are marching to the front, the night

before a battle,--a poor, stupid girl, knitting stupid socks, in a

stupid Yankee village."

Oh, the craft of artless tongues! Jack strode along in silence a few

moments, splashing straight through a puddle; then, ere he was quite

clear of it, he stretched out his arm and gave his companion a long

embrace.

"And pray what am I to do," resumed Lizzie, wondering, rather proudly

perhaps, at Jack's averted face, "while you are marching and

countermarching in Virginia?"

"Your duty, of course," said Jack, in a steady voice, which belied a

certain little conjecture of Lizzie's. "I think you will find the sun

will rise in the east, my dear, just as it did before you were engaged."

"I'm sure I didn't suppose it wouldn't," says Lizzie.

"By duty I don't mean anything disagreeable, Liz," pursued the young

man. "I hope you'll take your pleasure, too. I wish you might go to

Boston, or even to Leatherborough, for a month or two."

"What for, pray?"

"What for? Why, for the fun of it: to 'go out,' as they say."

"Jack, do you think me capable of going to parties while you are in

danger?"

"Why not? Why should I have all the fun?"

"Fun? I'm sure you're welcome to it all. As for me, I mean to make a new

beginning."

"Of what?"

"Oh, of everything. In the first place, I shall begin to improve my

mind. But don't you think it's horrid for women to be reasonable?"

"Hard, say you?"

"Horrid,--yes, and hard too. But I mean to become so. Oh, girls are such

fools, Jack! I mean to learn to like boiled mutton and history and plain

sewing, and all that. Yet, when a girl's engaged, she's not expected to

do anything in particular."

Jack laughed, and said nothing; and Lizzie went on.

"I wonder what your mother will say to the news. I think I know."

"What?"

"She'll say you've been very unwise. No, she won't: she never speaks so

to you. She'll say I've been very dishonest or indelicate, or something

of that kind. No, she won't either: she doesn't say such things, though

I'm sure she thinks them. I don't know what she'll say."

"No, I think not, Lizzie, if you indulge in such conjectures. My mother

never speaks without thinking. Let us hope that she may think favorably

of our plan. Even if she doesn't"----

Jack did not finish his sentence, nor did Lizzie urge him. She had a

great respect for his hesitations. But in a moment he began again.

"I was going to say this, Lizzie: I think for the present our engagement

had better be kept quiet."

Lizzie's heart sank with a sudden disappointment. Imagine the feelings

of the damsel in the fairy-tale, whom the disguised enchantress had just

empowered to utter diamonds and pearls, should the old beldame have

straightway added that for the present mademoiselle had better hold her

tongue. Yet the disappointment was brief. I think this enviable young

lady would have tripped home talking very hard to herself, and have been

not ill pleased to find her little mouth turning into a tightly clasped

jewel-casket. Nay, would she not on this occasion have been thankful for

a large mouth,--a mouth huge and unnatural,--stretching from ear to ear?

Who wish to cast their pearls before swine? The young lady of the pearls

was, after all, but a barnyard miss. Lizzie was too proud of Jack to be

vain. It's well enough to wear our own hearts upon our sleeves; but for

those of others, when intrusted to our keeping, I think we had better

find a more secluded lodging.

"You see, I think secrecy would leave us much freer," said Jack,--"leave

_you_ much freer."

"Oh, Jack, how can you?" cried Lizzie. "Yes, of course; I shall be

falling in love with some one else. Freer! Thank you, Sir!"

"Nay, Lizzie, what I'm saying is really kinder than it sounds. Perhaps

you _will_ thank me one of these days."

"Doubtless! I've already taken a great fancy to George Mackenzie."

"Will you let me enlarge on my suggestion?"

"Oh, certainly! You seem to have your mind quite made up."

"I confess I like to take account of possibilities. Don't you know

mathematics are my hobby? Did you ever study algebra? I always have an

eye on the unknown quantity."

"No, I never studied algebra. I agree with you, that we had better not

speak of our engagement."

"That's right, my dear. You're always right. But mind, I don't want to

bind you to secrecy. Hang it, do as you please! Do what comes easiest to

you, and you'll do the best thing. What made me speak is my dread of the

horrible publicity which clings to all this business. Nowadays, when a

girl's engaged, it's no longer, 'Ask mamma,' simply; but, 'Ask Mrs.

Brown, and Mrs. Jones, and my large circle of acquaintance,--Mrs.

Grundy, in short.' I say nowadays, but I suppose it's always been so."

"Very well, we'll keep it all nice and quiet," said Lizzie, who would

have been ready to celebrate her nuptials according to the rites of the

Esquimaux, had Jack seen fit to suggest it.

"I know it doesn't look well for a lover to be so cautious," pursued

Jack; "but you understand me, Lizzie, don't you?"

"I don't entirely understand you, but I quite trust you."

"God bless you! My prudence, you see, is my best strength. Now, if ever,

I need my strength. When a man's a-wooing, Lizzie, he is all feeling, or

he ought to be; when he's accepted, then he begins to think."

"And to repent, I suppose you mean."

"Nay, to devise means to keep his sweetheart from repenting. Let me be

frank. Is it the greatest fools only that are the best lovers? There's

no telling what may happen, Lizzie. I want you to marry me with your

eyes open. I don't want you to feel tied down or taken in. You're very

young, you know. You're responsible to yourself of a year hence. You're

at an age when no girl can count safely from year's end to year's end."

"And you, Sir!" cries Lizzie; "one would think you were a grandfather."

"Well, I'm on the way to it. I'm a pretty old boy. I mean what I say. I

may not be entirely frank, but I think I'm sincere. It seems to me as if

I'd been fibbing all my life before I told you that your affection was

necessary to my happiness. I mean it out and out. I never loved any one

before, and I never will again. If you had refused me half an hour ago,

I should have died a bachelor. I have no fear for myself. But I have for

you. You said a few minutes ago that you wanted me to be your adviser.

Now you know the function of an adviser is to perfect his victim in the

art of walking with his eyes shut. I sha'n't be so cruel."

Lizzie saw fit to view these remarks in a humorous light. "How

disinterested!" quoth she: "how very self-sacrificing! Bachelor indeed!

For my part, I think I shall become a Mormon!"--I verily believe the

poor misinformed creature fancied that in Utah it is the ladies who are

guilty of polygamy.

Before many minutes they drew near home. There stood Mrs. Ford at the

garden-gate, looking up and down the road, with a letter in her hand.

"Something for you, John," said his mother, as they approached. "It

looks as if it came from camp.--Why, Elizabeth, look at your skirts!"

"I know it," says Lizzie, giving the articles in question a shake. "What

is it, Jack?"

"Marching orders!" cried the young man. "The regiment leaves day after

to-morrow. I must leave by the early train in the morning. Hurray!" And

he diverted a sudden gleeful kiss into a filial salute.

They went in. The two women were silent, after the manner of women who

suffer. But Jack did little else than laugh and talk and circumnavigate

the parlor, sitting first here and then there,--close beside Lizzie and

on the opposite side of the room. After a while Miss Crowe joined in his

laughter, but I think her mirth might have been resolved into articulate

heart-beats. After tea she went to bed, to give Jack; opportunity for

his last filial _épanchements_. How generous a man's intervention makes

women! But Lizzie promised to see her lover off in the morning.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Ford. "You'll not be up. John will want to

breakfast quietly."

"I shall see you off, Jack," repeated the young lady, from the

threshold.

Elizabeth went up stairs buoyant with her young love. It had dawned upon

her like a new life,--a life positively worth the living. Hereby she

would subsist and cost nobody anything. In it she was boundlessly rich.

She would make it the hidden spring of a hundred praiseworthy deeds. She

would begin the career of duty: she would enjoy boundless equanimity:

she would raise her whole being to the level of her sublime passion. She

would practise charity, humility, piety,--in fine, all the virtues:

together with certain _morceaux_ of Beethoven and Chopin. She would walk

the earth like one glorified. She would do homage to the best of men by

inviolate secrecy. Here, by I know not what gentle transition, as she

lay in the quiet darkness, Elizabeth covered her pillow with a flood of

tears.

Meanwhile Ford, down-stairs, began in this fashion. He was lounging at

his manly length on the sofa, in his slippers.

"May I light a pipe, mother?"

"Yes, my love. But please be careful of your ashes. There's a

newspaper."

"Pipes don't make ashes.--Mother, what do you think?" he continued,

between the puffs of his smoking; "I've got a piece of news."

"Ah?" said Mrs. Ford, fumbling for her scissors; "I hope it's good

news."

"I hope you'll think it so. I've been engaging myself"--puff,--puff--"to

Lizzie Crowe." A cloud of puffs between his mother's face and his own.

When they cleared away, Jack felt his mother's eyes. Her work was in her

lap. "To be married, you know," he added.

In Mrs. Ford's view, like the king in that of the British Constitution,

her only son could do no wrong. Prejudice is a stout bulwark against

surprise. Moreover, Mrs. Ford's motherly instinct had not been entirely

at fault. Still, it had by no means kept pace with fact. She had been

silent, partly from doubt, partly out of respect for her son. As long as

John did not doubt of himself, he was right. Should he come to do so,

she was sure he would speak. And now, when he told her the matter was

settled, she persuaded herself that he was asking her advice.

"I've been expecting it," she said, at last.

"You have? why didn't you speak?"

"Well, John, I can't say I've been hoping it."

"Why not?"

"I am not sure of Lizzie's heart," said Mrs. Ford, who, it may be well

to add, was very sure of her own.