CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CONCERNING SISSY.

Percival had announced the fact of the Lisles' presence in Bellevue

street to Sissy in a carefully careless sentence. Sissy read it, and

shivered sadly. Then she answered in a peculiarly bright and cheerful

letter. "I'm not fit for him," she thought as she wrote it. "I don't

understand him, and I'm always afraid. Even when he loved me best I

felt as if he loved some dream-girl and took me for her in his dream,

and would be angry with me when he woke. Miss Lisle would not be

afraid. It is the least I can do for Percival, not to stand in the way

of his happiness--the least I can do, and oh, how much the hardest!"

So she gave Thorne to understand that she was getting on remarkably

well.

It was not altogether false. She had fallen from a dizzy height, but

she had found something of rest and security in the valley below. And

as prisoners cut off from all the larger interests of their lives pet

the plants and creatures which chance to lighten their captivity, so

did Sissy begin to take pleasure in little gayeties for which she

had not cared in old days. She could sleep now at night without

apprehension, and she woke refreshed. There was a great blank in her

existence where the thunderbolt fell, but the cloud which hung so

blackly overhead was gone. The lonely life was sad, but it held

nothing quite so dreadful as the fear that a day might come when

Percival and his wife would know that they stood on different

levels--that she could not see with his eyes nor understand his

thoughts--when he would look at her with sorrowful patience, and she

would die slowly of his terrible kindness. The lonely life was sad,

but, after all, Sissy Langton would not be twenty-one till April.

Percival read her letter, and asked Godfrey Hammond how she really

was. "Tell me the truth," he said: "you know all is over between us.

She writes cheerfully. Is she better than she was last year?"

Hammond replied that Sissy was certainly better. "She has begun to go

out again, and Fordborough gossip says that there is something between

her and young Hardwicke. He is a good fellow, and I fancy the old man

will leave him very well off. But she might do better, and there

are two people, at any rate, who do not think anything will come of

it--myself and young Hardwicke."

Percival hoped not, indeed.

A month later Hammond wrote that there was no need for Percival to

excite himself about Henry Hardwicke. Mrs. Falconer had taken Sissy

and Laura to a dance at Latimer's Court, and Sissy's conquests were

innumerable. Young Walter Latimer and a Captain Fothergill were the

most conspicuous victims. "I believe Latimer rides into Fordborough

every day, and the captain, being stationed there, is on the spot. Our

St. Cecilia looks more charming than ever, but what she thinks of all

this no one knows. Of course Latimer would be the better match, as

far as money goes--he is decidedly better-looking, and, I should say,

better-tempered--but Fothergill has an air about him which makes his

rival look countrified, so I suppose they are tolerably even. Neither

is overweighted with brains. What do you think? Young Garnett cannot

say a civil word to either of them, and wants to give Sissy a dog. He

is not heart-whole either, I take it."

Hammond was trying to probe his correspondent's heart. He flattered

himself that he should learn something from Percival, let him answer

how he would. But Percival did not answer at all. The fact was, he did

not know what to say. It seemed to him that he would give anything to

hear that Sissy was happy, and yet--

Nor did Sissy understand herself very well. Her grace and sweetness

attracted Latimer and Fothergill, and a certain gentle indifference

piqued them. She was not sad, lest sadness should be a reproach to

Percival. In truth, she hardly knew what she wished. One day she came

into the room and overheard the fag-end of a conversation between Mrs.

Middleton and a maiden aunt of Godfrey Hammond's who had come to

spend the day. "You know," said the visitor, "I never could like Mr.

Percival Thorne as much as--"

Sissy paused on the threshold, and Miss Hammond stopped short. The

color mounted to her wintry cheek, and she contrived to find an

opportunity to apologize a little later: "I beg your pardon, my dear,

for my thoughtless remark just as you came in. I know so little that

my opinion was worthless. I really beg your pardon."

"What for?" said Sissy. "For what you said about Percival Thorne? My

dear Miss Hammond, people can't be expected to remember _that_. Why,

we agreed that it should be all over and done with at least a hundred

years ago." She spoke with hurried bravery.

The old lady looked at her and held out her hands: "My dear, is the

time always so long since you parted?"

Sissy put the proffered hands airily aside and scoffed at the idea.

They had a crowd of callers that afternoon, but the girl lingered

more than once by Miss Hammond's side and paid her delicate little

attentions. This perplexed young Garnett very much when he had

ascertained from one of the company that the old woman had nothing but

an annuity of three hundred a year. He hoped that Sissy Langton wasn't

a little queer, but, upon his word, it looked like it.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A WELSH WATERING-PLACE.

On the eastern shore of that stretch of land which forms the extreme

south-western point of Wales stands the stony little seaport town

of Tenby. It is an old, old town, rich in historical legends, an

important place in the twelfth century and down to Queen Elizabeth's

reign. Soon after her time it fell into woeful decay, and for years

of whose number there is no record Tenby existed as a poor

fishing-village and mourned its departed glories. That it would ever

again be a place of interest to anybody but people of fishy pursuits

was an idea Tenby did not entertain concerning itself; but, lo! in the

present century there arose a custom among genteel folk of going down

to the sea in bathing-machines. It was discovered that Tenby was a

spot favored of Neptune (or whatever god or goddess regulates the

matter of surf-bathing), and Tenby was taken down from the shelf, as

it were, dusted, mended and set on its legs again. The fashionables

smiled on it. Away off in the depths of wild Wales the knowing few set

up their select and choice summer abode, and vaunted its being so

far away from home; for Tenby was farther from London in those old

coaching days than New York is in these days of steamships. Even years

after railroads found their way into Wales, Tenby remained remote

and was approachable only by coach; but now you can step into your

railway-carriage in London and trundle to Tenby without change between

your late breakfast and your late dinner.

Probably no seaside watering-place known to the polite world contrasts

so strongly with the typical American watering-place as does this

Welsh resort. Not at Brighton, not at Biarritz, not at any German spa,

will the tourist find so complete a contrast in every respect to Long

Branch or Newport. Tenby is almost _sui generis_. A watering-place

without a wooden building in it would of itself be a novelty to an

American. Our summer cities consist wholly of wooden buildings, but

Tenby, from the point of its ponderous pier, where the waves break as

on a rock, to the tip of its church-spire, which the clouds kiss, is

every inch of stone. Welshmen will not build even so insignificant a

structure as a pig-sty out of boards if there are stones to be had. I

have seen stone pig-sties in Glamorganshire with walls a foot thick

and six hundred years old. There is not a wooden building in Tenby.

The station-buildings are "green" (as the Welsh say of a new house),

but they are solid stone.

Alighting from the railway-carriage in which you have come down from

London, you are greeted with no clamor of bawling hack-drivers and

hotel-omnibus men roaring in stentorian tones the names of their

various houses. Three or four quiet serving-men in corduroy

small-clothes and natty coats touch their hats to you and look in your

face inquiringly. They represent the various hotels in Tenby, and at

a gesture of assent from you one of them takes your bags, your wraps,

whatever you are burdened with, and conducts you to a somewhat

antiquated vehicle which bears you to your chosen inn through some

gray stony streets, under an ivy-green archway of the ancient

town-wall; and as the vehicle draws up at the inn-door the beauty of

Tenby lies spread suddenly before you--the lovely bay, the cliffs,

the sands, the ruined castle on the hill, the restless sea beyond. A

handsome young person in an elaborate toilet as regards her back hair,

but not otherwise impressive in attire, comes to the door of the hotel

to meet you, and gently inquires concerning your wishes: that you

have come to stay in the house is a presumption which no properly

constituted young person in Tenby would venture upon without express

warrant in words. Receiving information on this point from you, the

probability is that she imparts to you in return the information that

the house is full. Such, indeed, is the chronic condition of the

hotels at Tenby in the season; and unless you have written beforehand

and secured accommodations, you are not likely to find them. In the

life of a Welsh watering-place hotels do not fill the important place

they do in American summer resorts. Nobody lives at an hotel in Tenby.

If their stay be longer than a day or two (and very few indeed are

they who come to-day and are off to-morrow), visitors inevitably go

into lodgings. Such is the custom of the country, and there is no

provision for any other, no encouragement to a prolonged stay at an

hotel. The result is, that the hotels are in an incessant state of

bustle and change: there is a never-intermitting stream of arrivals,

who only ask to be made comfortable for a night or two while they are

looking for lodgings, and then make way for the next squad. Tenby

abounds in lodging-houses, the expenses of which are smaller than

hotel expenses, while their comforts are greater, their cares actually

less and their good tone unquestionable. The various lodging-house

quarters vie with each other in genteel cognomens and aristocratic

flavor. The Esplanade is but a row of lodging-houses. The various

Terraces, each with a prenomen more graceful than the other, are the

same. The windows of Tudor Square and Victoria street, Paragon Place

and Glendower Crescent, bloom with invitations to "inquire within." A

handsome parlor and bedroom may be had for two pounds a week, and the

cost of food and sundries need not exceed two pounds more for two

persons moderately fond of good living; which means, at Tenby, the

fattest and whitest of fowls, the freshest and daintiest salmon and

john dories, the reddest and sweetest of lobsters and prawns. Those

who prefer to take a house have every encouragement to do so. A bijou

of a furnished cottage, all overrun with vines and flowers, may be had

for three pounds a month, the use of plate and linen included. These

things are fatal to hotel ambition, for although the hotels are not

expensive, from an American point of view, they cannot compete with

such figures as these. Hence there is nothing to induce a change in

the customs of Tenby, which have prevailed ever since it became a

watering-place. Britons do not change their habits without good and

valid cause therefor, and no Americans ever come to Tenby, so far as I

can learn.

We are Americans ourselves, of course, and we are going to do as

Americans do--viz. make a very brief stay, and that in an hotel. We

obtain accommodations at last through a happy fortune, and presently

find ourselves installed in the grandest suite of hotel-apartments

at Tenby--a large parlor, handsomely furnished, with a piano, books,

_objets d'art_, etc., and a bedroom off it. At Long Branch, were there

such an apartment there--which there is not--twenty dollars a day

would be charged for it, without board and without compunction. Here

we pay nineteen shillings. There is a magnificent view from our front

windows. The hotel stands close to the cliff, with only a narrow

street between its doorstep and the edge of the precipice. The night

is falling, and the scene is like Fairy Land. We look from our windows

straight down upon the sands, a dizzy distance below (but to which it

were easy to toss a pebble), and out over the glassy waters, where

small craft float silently, with the gray old stone pier and the dark

ivy-hung ruin on Castle Hill, the one reflected in the waves, the

other outlined against the sky--a lovely picture. Tenby covers the

ridge of a long and narrow promontory rising abruptly out of the sea,

its stone streets running along the dizzy limestone cliffs. From the

highest point eastward--where is presented toward the sea a front

of rugged precipices which would not shame a mountain-range--the

promontory slopes gradually lower and lower till the streets of the

town run stonily down sidewise through an ancient gate and debouch

upon the south beach. Then, as if repenting its condescension, the

promontory takes a fresh start, and for a brief spurt climbs again,

but quickly plunges into the sea. This spurt, however, creates the

picturesque hill on which of old stood a powerful Norman fortress,

whose ruins we see. Local enterprise has now laid out the hill as a

public pleasure-ground, with gravelled paths and rustic seats, and

glorified it with a really superb statue of the late Prince Albert,

who, the Welsh inscription asserts, was _Albert Dda, Priod Ein

Gorhoffus Frenhines Victoria_.

We find upon inquiry that our hotel so far infringes upon primitive

Welsh manners as to provide a _table-d'hote_ dinner at six. This is

most welcome news, and we become at once part of the company which

sits down to the table d'hote. There are ten people besides ourselves,

and not a commonplace or colorless character among them. My left-hand

neighbor is a somewhat slangy young gentleman in a suit of chequered

clothes, who carves the meats, being at the head of the table; and

my happy propinquity secures me the honor of selection by the young

gentleman as the recipient of his observations: a toughish round of

beef which he is called upon to carve evokes from him an aside to the

effect that it is "rather a dose." The foot of the table is held by an

old gentleman in a black stock, with a tuft of wiry hair on the front

part of his head, and none whatever on any other part, who carves

a fowl, and in asking the diners which part they severally prefer

accompanies the question with a brisk sharpening of his knife on his

fork, but without making the least noise in doing it. My chequered

neighbor having advertised the toughness of the beef, everybody

murmurs a purpose of indulging in fowl, at which my neighbor observes

aside to me that he is "rather jolly glad," and the butler takes the

beef away. The dish next set before him proving a matter of spoons

merely, his relief at not being obliged to carve finds vent in a

whispered "Hooray!" for my exclusive amusement. One unfortunate

individual has accepted a helping of beef, however--a bald-headed man

in spectacles, not hitherto unaccustomed to good living, if one

might judge by his rounded proportions. It is painful to witness his

struggles with the beef, which he maintains with the earnestness of a

man who means to conquer or perish in the endeavor. Opposite sits as

fair a type of a ripe British beauty of the middle class as I have

anywhere seen--with a complexion of snow, a mouth like a red bud and

eyes as beautiful and expressive as those of a splendid large wax

doll, her hair drawn tensely back and rolled into billowy puffs, with

a rose atop. It is sad, in looking on a picture like this--superb in

its suggestions of pure rich blood and abounding health--to reflect

that such a rose will develop into a red peony in ten years. I do not

say the peony will not have her own strong recommendings to the eye:

we may not despise a peony, but it is impossible not to regret that a

rose should turn into one. There is a very good example of the peony

sort near the foot of the table--quite a magnificent creature in her

way. Her husband, who sits next her, is a fiercely-bearded man, but

has a strange air of being in his wife's custody nevertheless. The

lady is apparently forty-five, red to a fault, full in the neck, and

with a figure which necessitates a somewhat haughty pose of the head

unless one would appear gross and piggish. There is much to admire

in this lady, peony though she be. The fiercely-bearded husband is

smaller than his wife, and, in spite of her commanding air and his

subdued aspect, I have not a doubt he rules her with a rod of iron.

Appearances are very deceptive in this direction. I have known so many

large ladies married to little men who (the ladies) carried themselves

in public like grenadiers or drum-majors, and in private doted on

their little lords' shoe-strings! Next the fiercely-bearded husband

sits a very pretty girl, whom he finds his entertainment in constantly

observing with the air of a connoisseur. She is modesty itself; her

eyes are never off her plate; and from the at-ease manner in which he

contemplates her it is clear he no more expects her to return his gaze

than he expects a torpedo to go off under his chair.

The dinner proceeds most decorously. If it were a funeral, indeed, it

could hardly be less given to anything approaching hilarity. There

is now and then a little conversation, but the gaps are

frightful--yawning chasms of silence of the sort in which you are

moved to wild thoughts of running away, for fear you may suddenly

commit some act of horrible impropriety, like whistling in church. In

one of these gaps--during which the whole company, having finished the

course, is waiting gloomily for the victim of tough beef (who is still

struggling) to have done--my chequered neighbor remarks, in an aside

which makes every one start as if a pistol had been fired off,

"Goodish-sized pause, eh?"

But with the dessert we begin to unbend. We are still exceedingly

decorous, but our tongues are loosened a little, and we exchange

amiable remarks, under whose genial influence we begin to feel that

the worst is over. Unfortunately, however, with the spread of sunshine

among us there is the muttering of a storm at our backs: the butler

pushes his female assistant aside with deep rumbling growls, and

presently explodes with open rage at her stupidity. The diners turn

and stare incredulous and amazed. The butler rushes madly from the

room. The female assistant, agitated but obstinate, seizes the

blanc-mange and the cream and proceeds to serve them. I shall not be

believed, I fear, but I am relating simple truth: in her agitation

this incredible female spills the cream in a copious shower-bath over

me and my chequered neighbor, and excitedly falls to mopping it off us

with her napkin, like a pantomime clown. Fortunately, we are in our

travelling suits, and come out of this baptism unharmed. The incident

nearly suffocates the company, for there is not a soul among them who

would not sooner suffer the pangs of dissolution than laugh outright.

As for me, I am nearly expiring with the merriment that consumes me

and my efforts to prevent indecorous explosion. The young woman, after

having wiped me dry, once more presents the cream-jug, this time with

both hands, but I can only murmur faintly in my trouble, "Thanks,

no--no _more_ cream." This appears to be quite too much for the young

person, who throws up her arms in despair and rushes after the butler.

What tragic encounter there may have been in the servants' hall I know

not. Another servant comes and carries the dinner through.

It is entertainment enough for the first morning of your stay at Tenby

just to sit at the windows and observe what is there before you--the

street with its passers, the beach with its strange rock-formations,

the ocean thickly dotted with fishing-craft. The tide is out, and the

huge black block of compact limestone called God's Rock, with its

almost perpendicular strata, lies all uncovered in the morning sun--a

vast curiosity-shop where children clamber about and search for

strange creatures of the sea. In the pools left here and there by

the receding tide are found not only crabs and periwinkles in great

number, but polyps, sea-anemones, star-fishes, medusae and the like in

almost endless variety. Naturalists--who are but children older grown,

with all a child's capacity for being amused by Nature--get rages of

enthusiasm on them as they search the crevices of this and other like

rocks at Tenby. A floor of hard yellow sand stretches away into the

distance, visible for miles, owing to the circular sweep of the beach

and the height from which we are looking out, and it is dotted with

strollers appearing like black mice moving slowly about. The

long stretch of the cliff, from its crescent shape, is clearly

seen--sometimes a sheer, bare stone precipice, sometimes a steep slope

covered with woods and hanging gardens and zigzag, descending walled

paths.

Among those who make up the human panorama of the street under your

window are types of character peculiar to Wales. One such is the

peddling fisher-woman who strolls by with a basketful of bright

pink prawns, which she holds out to you temptingly, looking up. The

fisher-women of Tenby wear a costume differing in some respects from

that of all other Welsh peasants. Instead of the glossy and expensive

"beaver" worn in other parts, the Tenby women sport a tall hat of

straw or badly-battered felt. Another favorite with them is a soft

black slouch hat like a man's, but with a knot of ribbon in front. One

of the neatest of the fisher-women is an old girl of fifty or so, who

haunts your windows incessantly, and greets you with a quick-dropped

courtesy whenever you walk out. She is never seen to stand still,

except for the purpose of talking to a customer, but trots incessantly

about; and either for this reason, or from her constant journeys to

and fro between her home and the town, is given the nickname of Dame

Trudge. She usually has on her back a coarse oyster-basket called a

"creel," and in her hands another basket containing cooked prawns,

lobsters or other temptation to the gourmand. Her dress, though it is

midsummer, is warm and snug, particularly about the head and neck,

as a protection against the winds of ocean; and her stout legs are

encased in jet-black woollen stockings (visible below her short check

petticoat), while her feet are shod with huge brogans whose inch-thick

soles are heavily plated with iron. She lives ten miles from Tenby,

walks to and fro always, and sleeps under her own roof every night,

yet you never fail to see her there in the street when you get up in

the morning. There are many other oyster-women to be seen at Tenby,

but none so trim as good Dame Trudge. Here and hereabout grow the

largest, if not the sweetest, oysters in Great Britain, and their

cultivation is chiefly the work of the gentler sex. They do not look

very gentle--or at least very frail--as you come upon a group of

oyster-women in their masculine hats and boots munching their bread

and cheese under a wall, but they are a good-natured race, and most

respectful to their betters. Anything less suggestive of Billingsgate

than the language of these Welsh fisher-women could hardly be,

considering their trade.

The tide of passers is setting toward the south sands. Foreigners are

almost unrepresented in this throng. There is one Frenchman, who would

be recognizable as far off as he could be seen by his contrast to the

prevailing British tone. It is a mystery why he should be here instead

of at Trouville, Boulogne, Dieppe or Etretat, where the habits of the

gay world are all his own. Nobody seems to know him at Tenby. Behind

him walks quite as pronounced a type of the Welsh country gentleman--a

character not to be mistaken for an Englishman, in spite of the family

resemblance. A shrewd simplicity characterizes this face--an open,

guileless sharpness, so to speak, peculiarly Welsh. An indifferent

judge of human nature might venture to attempt heathen games with this

old gentleman, but no astute rogue would think of such a thing. A man

of this stamp, however green and rural, is not gullible. This Welsh

simplicity of character is very deceptive to the unwary, and many

besides Ancient Pistol have eaten leeks against their will because of

their ignorance concerning it.

We join the throng in the street and stroll leisurely down the long

incline. The whole town tips that way. A variety of more or less

quaint vehicles move about--cabriolets drawn by donkeys and ponies;

sedan chairs; a species of easy-chair on wheels, with a wooden apron,

and propelled by a boy or a decayed footman in seedy livery with

bibulous habits written on his face. Something of a similar sort was

seen at the Centennial, yet utterly unlike this, notwithstanding a

resemblance in principle. These invalid go-carts are very convenient

at Tenby, as they may be trundled everywhere, even on the sands, which

are hard and flat. A peculiarity of all the vehicles, even those drawn

by two animals, is that they go slower, as a rule, than on-foot people

do. Briskly-walking couples and groups of English and Welsh ladies

pass us, carrying over their arms bathing-dresses or towels, with the

business-like alacrity of movement characteristic of most Britons on

their feet. No one saunters except ourselves. All are hastening to the

south sands, looking neither to the right nor the left; but for

us there are eye-lures in every direction. The town abounds with

antiquities calculated to awaken the liveliest interest in a stranger:

every street is rich with romantic story; every hill and rock for

miles around has its legend, its ruin of castle, abbey or palace, or

its mysterious cromlech,--all that can most charm the soul of the

antiquary; and Shakespeare has honored this corner of Wales beyond

others by putting it in one of his tragedies. Considerable portions

of the ancient town-wall are standing, with the mural towers and

gateways. In the parish church, which we pass, are some most

interesting monuments of the early half of the fourteenth century, but

the Tenbyites look upon their church as rather a modern structure,

as churches go in Wales. They point out the place where John Wesley

preached in the street in 1763, when the mayor threatened to read the

riot act. There is still a law in Wales against street-preaching, but

it is not often enforced, unless the preacher happens to be drunk--an

incident not altogether unknown.

The old stone pier abounds with seafaring characters in holiday rig,

very picturesque to American eyes. They knuckle their foreheads and

remove their pipes as we pass, and by attitudes and gestures which

would inform a deaf-mute invite us to take a sail on the bay. They do

not audibly offer their services, for the municipal laws forbid them

to, but their figureheads are mutely eloquent. Here is one who might

be put right on the stage as he stands as the typical jolly Jack Tar

of the nautical drama. He wears a red liberty-cap, and a nose which

matches it to a shade. His jersey is blue and low in the neck, and his

trousers are of that roominess supposed to be necessary for nautical

purposes. Other mariners about him are quite as interesting.

Occasionally one is seen whose rig is so neat he might have stepped

out of a bandbox, but, though he is an ornamental mariner, he is not a

Brummagem one. These fellows all know storm and danger and severe toil

as common acquaintances. The neatest of them are understood to be

residents here, with wives or mothers who strive hard to keep them

looking nice in the fashionable season; and in blue flannel shirt with

immense broad collar, another broad collar of white turned over that,

hat of neat straw or tarpaulin with upturned rim and bright blue

ribbon, they form a feature of attractiveness which has no counterpart

at American seaside resorts. The rougher mariners, if not so handsome,

are still most picturesque: they are chiefly fishermen from the

Devonshire coast, who sail over here to take the salmon, mackerel,

herrings, turbots, soles, etc. which so abound at Tenby. The spot

still bears out, in spite of its modern glories as a watering-place,

its ancient renown as a fishing-point, which was so great that the

old-time Britons called it _Denbych y Piscoed_ ("the hill by the place

of fishes").

On the Castle Hill we find a great company gathered, looking down

on the still greater company which is gathered on the yellow sands.

Children are climbing and rolling on the soft greensward of the

terraces, and adults are sprawling at full length, completely at their

ease. Men and women lounge to and fro on the sea-wall promenade, a

miniature of the Hyde Park throng at mid-season. Others sit reading or

chatting or looking out over the sparkling sea. The grass and crags

are dotted with azure and purple flowers, and cushions of pink and

white stone-crop abound. Higher up the hill stand the ivied ruins of

the Norman castle, and the white memorial monument to Prince Albert,

with its sculptured panels bearing the arms of Llewellyn the Great,

the red dragon of Cadwalader, the symbolical leek and the motto,

_Anorchfygol Ddraig Cymru_ ("The dragon of Wales is invincible"). The

air is very cool and bracing on this hill. But the greatest crowd is

on the sands and on the rocks of the cliff immediately backing the

beach. It is difficult for one who is familiar only with the beach at

Long Branch or Cape May to comprehend such a scene as this which I

am trying to picture. In the first place, the field is so entirely

different from that at home; and in the second place, the bathing

population of the town is not broken up into a number of hotel

communities and cottage communities, but is all gathered at one spot.

It is true some residents on the north cliff bathe on the north sands,

but they come to the south sands after they have had their dip, to

meet _le monde_. There is room here for _le monde_ too; and the groups

not only sprinkle the wide yellow plain, but they are perched about

on the face of the cliff in grottos and on jutting crags; they are

grouped in the cool shade of rocky caverns at the precipice's base;

they are leaning on the battlemented walls that crown its summit. The

water is a considerable distance from where the people sit, and minute

by minute, as the time passes, it recedes farther and farther, until

at last it is a long walk away. The gay hues of red-coated soldiers

assist feminine attire in enlivening the scene with color. Children in

great numbers are scampering about, and busying themselves, much as

they do at home, with toy pails and spades; but if you take notice

you will find that their sand-structures differ widely from those of

children in America: you may even see a perfect model of a feudal

castle grow into shape, with barbacan, gate, moat, drawbridge, towers,

bastions, donjon-keep and banqueting-hall complete. A brass band--the

members in full uniform of bright colors, with little rimless

red-and-gold caps--is playing under the battlemented garden-wall which

backs the sands in one place. Listen to the tunes! Heard you ever

these peculiar airs before? The "Bells of Aberdovey" jangle their

sweet chime over the wind-blown scene. The "March of the Men of

Harlech" fills all the air with its stirring scarlet strain. The

quaint melody of "Hob y deri dando" moves the feet of youth to

restlessness: not that it is a jig, in spite of the jiggy look of

the words to English eyes, but because it has been twisted into the

service of Terpsichore by a famous band-master in his "Welsh Lancers."

"Hob y deri dando" is a love-song:

All the day I sigh and cry, love,

Hob y deri dando!

All the night I say and pray, love,

Hob y deri dando![A]

[Footnote A: This phrase is sometimes supposed to be the original

of the English "Hey down, derry, derry down!" but the old Druidic

song-burden, "Come, let us hasten to the oaken grove," is in Welsh

"Hai down ir deri dando," which is nearer the English phrase.]

A hand-organ with monkey attachment is delighting a group of children

on another part of the sands. Yonder, too, is a balladist with a

guitar, bawling at the top of his lungs,

The dream 'as parst, the spell his broken,

'Opes 'ave faded one by one:

Th' w'isper'd words, so sweetly spoken,

Hall like faded flow'rs har gone.

Still that woice hin music lingers,

Loike er 'arp 'oose silver strings,

Softly swep' by fairy fingers,

Tell of hunforgotten things.

Nobody pays much attention to this wandering minstrel: he is happy if

at the close of his song a penny finds its way into the battered hat

he extends for largess. He is clearly a stranger to this part of the

world, and has probably tramped down here from London by easy stages,

and will have to tramp back again as he came, without much profit from

his provincial tour.

The fashionable world which is sunning itself on the sands is made up,

for the most part, of the usual types of a British watering-place--the

pea-jacketed swell with blase manner and one-eyed quizzing-glass; the

occasional London cad in clothes of painful newness and exaggeration

of style, such as no gentleman by any chance ever wears in Britain;

the young sprig of nobility with effeminate face and "fast"

inclinations, who smokes a cigarette and ogles the girls, and utters

sentiments of profound ennui in a light boyish tenor voice. He is

the son of an English nobleman who has a Welsh estate, upon which he

passes a portion of his time, and can trace his lineage back to one of

the Norman adventurers who came over with William the Conqueror. For

an example of an older aristocracy than this, however, observe the

ancient couple sitting near us in the shadow of a cliff-rock, the wife

with a high-bridged nose and puffs of gray hair on her temples, the

husband with an easy-fitting hat and a coat-collar which rolls so high

as to give the impression he has no neck. These are aristocrats who,

although untitled and owners only of a few modest acres back in

Carmarthenshire, descend from ancestors that looked down on William

the Conqueror as a plebeian upstart.

There are bathers in the surf, but they are so far away from the

throngs on this vast plain of beach that they are as unindividual

as if they were puppets. One's most intimate friend could not be

recognized without the aid of a glass. The bathing-machines, which

serve in lieu of the huts common at American seaside resorts, are

merely huts on wheels instead of huts in stationary rows. They are

cared for by women, who escort you to the door of an untenanted hut,

collect sixpence and retire. You enter, and disrobe at your leisure.

The machine proves to be a snug box lighted by one little unglazed

window not large enough for you to put your head through, and having a

solid shutter. If you close this shutter the box is as dark as night,

for it is well built, with hardly a crevice in wall or roof or floor.

A small and very bad looking-glass hangs on the wall, and there is a

bench to sit on: that is the extent of the furniture. You have been

provided with towels and with the regulation bathing-dress for

men--linen breeches, to wit. While you are contemplating this garment

and questioning of your modesty as to the propriety of donning it,

there is a sound of rattling iron outside, and a tap on your door as a

warning that your machine is about to start. The machine is dragged

in lumbering fashion out into the sea by an antediluvian horse with

a small boy astride, and there the boy unhitches the traces from the

machine and goes ashore, leaving you with the waves breaking on

the steps before your door. You peep out dubiously. A shoal of

naked-shouldered men are swimming and splashing in the surf. Some

fifty yards away is another school of bathers, whose back hair betrays

their sex, and who are clad in garments made like those worn by

feminine bathers at Long Branch, etc. There is no commingling of the

sexes in the water, as our American custom is, but on the score of

modesty I must confess to a prejudice in favor of the American plan,

nevertheless. The British theory evidently presumes that men have no

modesty among themselves. Custom regulates these matters, I suppose.

I have never felt disposed to blush for my naked feet and arms while

conversing with a lady on the beach at Long Branch, being snugly clad

from head to foot in a flannel costume. But I confess to a shrinking

sense of the incompleteness of the prescribed fig-leaves as I stand

in the door of the bathing-machine at Tenby. To cover myself with the

water as quickly as possible appears to be the only remedy, however,

and I take a header from the doorsill. Ugh! The water is like ice! To

one accustomed to the warm American bathing-suit the linen substitute

of Tenby is a most insufficient protection. At home I have on occasion

extended the revels of the surf for a full hour, being a pretty strong

swimmer and exceedingly fond of the exercise. I get enough at Tenby

in precisely two minutes, and hasten to don my customary clothing.

Nevertheless, it is contended that the surf at Tenby is pleasant for

bathers as late as Christmas, and I am told there really are Britons

who bathe daily in the sea here quite up to the first snow. It is

certain that the fashionable season does not end till November, and

some stay straight on through the winter.

Among the lions of Tenby none is more interesting than St. Catharine's

Island, a great rugged hill of solid limestone almost devoid of

verdure and rent into innumerable fissures, with a succession of dark

romantic coves and caverns and jagged projecting crags fringing its

sides completely round. At high tide this islet is separated from the

mainland by a deep rolling sea. At low tide its shores are left dry by

the receding waters. It is a curious sight to watch this daily advance

and retreat of the sea. To see the tides of ocean come and go is no

novelty, but it becomes a novelty under circumstances like these,

where every day a dry bridge of yellow sand is stretched forth from

the islet to the mainland, across which a stream of humanity pours the

moment the path is clear. At first only one person at a time can pass.

Ten minutes later the sand-bridge is a broad road. Ten later, and all

Tenby might cross in a crowd. There is an iron staircase built up the

rocky face of the islet, winding about among its crags and fissures,

and the isle is overrun with people during the time the tide is out.

It has many attractions. The view is grand from those heights. Yawning

gulfs fascinate you to look dizzily down into the secret heart of the

isle. On the highest point of rock stood, a few years ago, an ancient

chapel which had in Roman Catholic days been dedicated to St.

Catharine. Within the past six years this chapel has given way to a

fortress, its walls partly embedded in the solid rock. The people who

throng to the islet between tides roam about, loiter with breeze-blown

garments on the stairs and landings, peer into the fortress, or,

perching themselves in the sheltered nooks which are innumerable among

the crags, sit and sew, read, chat, make love and watch the pygmy

bathers in the sea far down below. As long as the tide is low the

tenants of the islet are safe to remain, but as soon as it turns those

who are wise begin to gather up their things and clear out. Now

and then incautious ones get caught; and then there are screaming,

hurrying and a terrible fright, especially if the trapped ones are of

the gentler sex, and still more especially if their proportions are

ample. Such women are, as a rule, the cowardliest. Probably, they feel

their amplitude a disadvantage in moments of peril, and know emotions

which their scrawnier sisters escape. A case in point greets us this

morning as we stand watching the rising of the tide. A roly-poly woman

of forty or so is caught on the islet by the closing of old Ocean's

drawbridge. She is a fair being with dark hair and eyes, a sweet

smile, a clear complexion, and some two hundred and fifty pounds

avoirdupois, richly dressed, pleasant-mannered, and in all respects

no doubt a lady to be admired and loved, as well as respected, in the

social circle. But at present she is at a sad disadvantage. I noticed

her a few minutes ago at the top of the iron staircase, and said to

myself that she would have just time enough to come down, for there

was an isthmus of sand some twenty feet wide as yet to be obliterated

by the crawling tide. A quickly-tripping foot would have accomplished

it, but the fair-fat-and-forty lady occupied one whole minute in

coming down. Now that she has reached the bottom step there is a wide

wash of sea between her and the mainland, and she raises her hands in

horror. How is she to get over? There is no boat in sight. Shall

she wade? There is a nervous motion of her fat white hands in the

direction of her gaiters, but she hesitates. The woman who hesitates

is lost: the water grows deeper and deeper every instant; in ten

minutes it will be over her head. A bathing-machine boy comes trotting

his horse through the water, and, backing up by the rock on which the

distressed lady stands, bids her get on. Get on the back of a horrid

bathing-horse! behind the back of a horrid boy! Had she been a

sylph the prospect would have been most untempting, but a

two-hundred-and-fifty-pounder! Nevertheless, the unhappy fair one

begins to prepare for the sacrifice with grief and consternation in

her face. "How can I do it?" her trembling lips whisper, and she looks

about her on the rocks as if to say, "Oh, is there _no_ other way out

of this wretched predicament?" The boy, as he sits astride, is

getting his feet wet by this time: the horse will have to swim for it

presently. Still she hesitates, and throws a shrinking glance over the

vast audience gathered on the sands silently attentive--the band, the

organ-grinder and the balladist all breathlessly awaiting the issue,

no doubt feeling that it would be mockery to indulge in music at such

a moment. Suddenly a bare-headed and shirt-sleeved man is seen to dash

through the water, regardless of danger and of wet trousers, who,

seizing the fat lady round the knees in spite of her screams, dumps

her on the horse's back all in a heap. Saved! saved! Such a giggling

(for joy) has seldom been seen to shake a large assemblage. The

emotion caused by the spectacle of beauty in distress is no doubt a

pain to every masculine mind not hopelessly vitiated by the cynical

tendencies of the age; but the pain produced by the emotion of mirth

at seeing a fellow-creature at a ridiculous disadvantage is greater

when you feel bound not to laugh.

There are four strange caves piercing St. Catharine's Island

completely through from side to side. In rough weather the storming

of the sea through these extraordinary tunnels creates a prodigious

uproar. When the weather is still it is possible to take boat and sail

quite through one of them: at low tide you may walk through. Marine

zoological riches abound in these caverns, which have been for many

years a real treasure-house for naturalists. The walls are studded

with innumerable barnacles, dogwinkles and other shells--not dead and

empty, but full of living creatures, requiring only the return of the

tide to awaken them to an active existence. There are simply myriads

of them: a random stone thrown against a wall will smash a whole

colony; and there are besides polyps and sea-anemones and other

strange animals of eccentric habits in unusual abundance. The visitors

to Tenby find great diversion in these and the other caves on the

coast: in fact, the whole coast as far as Milford Haven is one

succession of natural curiosities and antiquities. One cavern bears

the name of Merlin's Cave, and is hallowed by a legend of the

enchanter, who was born at Carmarthen in the next county.

WIRT SIKES.

NOCTURNE.

There'll come a day when the supremest splendor

Of earth or sky or sea,

Whate'er their miracles, sublime or tender,

Will wake no joy in me.

There'll come a day when all the aspiration,

Now with such fervor fraught,

As lifts to heights of breathless exaltation,

Will seem a thing of naught.

There'll come a day when riches, honor, glory,

Music and song and art,

Will look like puppets in a wornout story,

Where each has played his part.

There'll come a day when human love, the sweetest

Gift that includes the whole

Of God's grand giving--sovereignest, completest--

Shall fail to fill my soul.

There'll come a day--I will not care how passes

The cloud across my sight,

If only, lark-like, from earth's nested grasses,

I spring to meet its light.

MARGARET J. PRESTON.

THROUGH WINDING WAYS.

CHAPTER IV.

It was soon decided that I was to set out for The Headlands the first

week in October. I had studied too hard, and was growing so tall and

slight that Harry Dart used to draw caricatures of me, taking me in

sections, he declared, since no ordinary piece of paper would suffice

for a full-length. I was glad of a change, yet felt some sorrow about

it too. I knew nothing of what it was to miss the warm home-life and

the constant companionship which had filled every idle hour with

ever-recurring pleasures. I hated to part from my mother, who had

grown of late so inestimably dear to me; I should miss the boys; what

could make up to me for Georgy? I did not know that I was never again

to enjoy the old Belfield routine, with all my untamed impulses

making the wild, free physical life full of deep and passionate

delight--never again to stand the peer of all my mates, running the

familiar races, playing the familiar games. I did not know what a

changed life awaited me, and I looked forward to my opening vistas of

a bright future with longings inconceivably sweet.

I reached The Headlands one fine day in October a little past noon.

Mr. Raymond's carriage met me at the station, and a grave elderly

servant, who told me his name was Mills, put me inside and assumed

all responsibilities concerning my luggage. I had plenty of time to

remember with regret our homely, pleasant life at Belfield, and recall

Thorpe's words when he heard that I had been invited to The Headlands.

"It will be a glimpse of another life," he had remarked with his usual

air of consummate knowledge of the world. "Even I, who am used to

living on terms of intimacy with men of all ranks and positions, find

it difficult to adjust the balance in that quiet, stately house, where

everything goes on oiled wheels."

"But what makes it hard to get along?" I had inquired with a sort of

awe.

"Oh, I can't describe it," he had returned with a wave of his white

hand, "but you'll soon experience it for yourself."

But as I went on and the great sea opened before my eyes, I quite

forgot my fears in the pleasure of such wide horizons, such

magnificent scenery. The ocean was here in all its grandeur, yet there

was no bleakness or bareness in these rock-bound shores, softly veiled

in the haze of the October afternoon. The voices of the breakers

greeted me as something vaguely familiar: I seemed to have been

listening for them all my life. In such joys as I felt that day eyes

and ears do but little--imagination works most wonders.

I had not noticed, so raptly was I watching the fleeting tints of

opal, steel and blue which chased each other along the smooth slow

waves, that we had entered enclosed grounds, and when the carriage

stopped suddenly before a wide, pillared portico I was wholly taken by

surprise. Mills opened the carriage-door, and I got down with a blank,

dreamy feeling, and followed him up the steps through the wide portal

and along the hall. He ushered me into the library, and left me while

he went to announce my arrival.

I sat perfectly still in the lofty Gothic room. It was lined with

books except on the west side, where were long oriel windows of

stained glass, with figures of saints glorious in blue and gold and

crimson and purple, with aureoles of wonderful splendor above their

beautiful heads. The floor was of inlaid woods polished until it

shone, and over it was laid a Persian carpet thick and soft as moss.

The chimney-piece was of wonderful beauty, and extended into the room,

leaving a sort of alcove on each side, and a low fire was burning in a

quaintly-designed grate. Over the mantel hung a large picture which I

did not know, but which made my heart beat as I looked: it was a copy

of the Sistine Madonna. In front of the fire was an easy-chair piled

with cushions, and beside it a low stool, while on either hand were

painted screens: on one the field of brilliant azure was strewn with

flowers of dazzling hues; the other was crossed by a flight of birds

of gorgeous plumage.

I had looked at everything, had taken in every surprise of beautiful

form and color: then my eyes were lifted again to the windows, and I

was gazing at the meek saints with their shining raiment and radiant

hair when I was suddenly recalled to a recollection of where I was and

why I was there. A hand pushed aside the velvet curtain which hung

across the doorway--a child's hand--and then a little girl entered,

followed by a greyhound as tall as herself. I rose and stood waiting

while she advanced, the same sunshine which transfigured the saints in

the windows playing over her white dress in brilliant rainbow tints.

She was a very little girl, yet her large, serious dark eyes and her

lithe way of carrying her slim height impressed me with a sort of awe

which I might not have felt for a grown woman. When she neared me she

stood perfectly still, regarding me silently with a deliberate glance.

She was very pale, with a complexion like the inner leaves of a white

rose, but her eyes lent fire to a face otherwise proud and cold. Her

hair had evidently been cut short, and curled close to her head in

loose brown curls. When she had fairly taken me in she held out her

hand. "How do you do?" she asked in a clear, deliberate voice. "I am

very glad to see you."

"Did you expect me?" I inquired shyly.

"Of course we did," she answered with some imperiousness, "or we

should not have sent the carriage and servants to meet you."

Then we were both silent again, and went on mentally making up our

minds concerning each other.

"Yes," she said presently, putting her hand into mine again, "you look

just as I thought you did. I asked papa: he said you had brown hair

and gray eyes, and that you were good-looking when you smiled. And am

I like what you expected to see?"

I did not know, I told her. In fact, although I had heard much and

thought some about Helen, she had hitherto possessed no personality

for me except as Mr. Floyd's little girl. And now she impressed me

differently from any person I had ever seen before, and if I had

formed any previous conceptions, they all fled. She seemed, I will

confess, a haughty, aristocratic little creature, with her slight form

and somewhat imperious look, her deliberate, commanding voice and

intense eyes: still, I liked her at once. Mr. Floyd had begged me to

be kind to her, and it seemed easy for me to cherish and protect

her: she appeared to need being taken care of with both strength and

tenderness, for it was such a fragile little hand I held, and, with

all its beauty, such a wan little face I looked upon.

"I hope you will like me, Helen," said I bluntly, "for your father

wants you to enjoy my visit."

She smiled for the first time. "I like you very much already," she

said in the same distinct, melancholy voice; and without more words

she put up her little face to mine and kissed me softly on my lips. I

was unused to caresses, and my cheeks burned; but I followed her, at

her request, to the back lawn, where Mr. Raymond was waiting to see

me.

"Grandfather is not strong," she explained, "and we save him all the

steps we can. It is so sad to be old! Have you a grandfather?"

"No," I returned: "there is nobody in our family but mother and me."

"And I have got grandpa and papa too," said she thoughtfully. "Only

papa is so busy: he is never here but a week at a time."

We had passed through the hall, crossed the rear piazza and

descended the steps, and were advancing along the grassplat toward a

summer-house which faced the sea. I could now for the first time gain

an idea of the extent and grandeur of the place. The house towered

above us solemnly with its towers, pillared arches, cornices and

pediments, while, beyond, the glass roofs of numberless greenhouses

lifted their domes to the warm afternoon sun. All around the lawn

stood lofty trees, their foliage glorious with crimson, russet and

gold, and their shadows crept stealthily toward us as if they were

alive. And beyond house, lawns, gardens and tree-lined avenues was

a pine wood which extended its solemn verdure all round the place,

enclosing it almost to the edge of the bluff. All this on the right

hand: on the left the mysterious sea, whose music filled the fair

sunshiny world we two children were traversing hand in hand.

"There is grandpa," exclaimed Helen as we neared the summer-house;

and I saw an old man sitting in an arm-chair in the sunshine, looking

eagerly toward us as if in anxious expectation.

"You were gone a long time, Helen," he called out peevishly.

"Oh no, dear," she replied soothingly. "Here is Floyd, grandpa."

He had looked, when I first saw him from a distance, like a very old

man, but when I was shaking hands with him I was surprised to discover

that his face had little appearance of age. Even his thin dark hair

was but sprinkled with gray at the curly ends on the temples: his

eyebrows were a black silky thread, his eyes dark and full of a

peculiar glitter. His features were finely formed and feminine in

their delicacy, but the expression of his face was marred by the

restlessness of his eyes, and made almost pathetic by the dejected,

melancholy lines about his thin scarlet lips.

He shook hands with me gracefully, and made inquiries about my

journey, then sank back into his chair listlessly, and allowed Helen

to pull the tiger-skin which formed his lap-robe over his knees.

There was a peculiar feebleness about his whole attitude as he

sat--something almost abased in the sinking of his chin upon his

breast. It was hard for me to realize that he was the owner of all

this magnificence, and, dressed although he was with faultless

elegance, and although luxurious appurtenances filled the

summer-house, waiting for his momentary convenience, I was certain

that his great wealth brought him no pleasure, and that, except for

his little grandchild, he was comfortless in the world. He was full of

complaints toward her. He was sure, he said, that now when I had come

she would have no thought of him; that taking care of an old man was a

dreary and thankless task; that only the young could be beloved by the

young. And her way of listening and answering made me suspect that she

was but too used to such querulousness. I was perhaps too young to

understand mainsprings of action, yet nevertheless I seemed to know at

once that her calm, mature manner and precocious imperiousness were

the result of his weakness and wavering, of his selfish and morbid

doubts.

"You are older than I thought," Mr. Raymond said to me, regarding

me for the first time with languid curiosity. "I expected to see a

velvet-coated little fellow of Helen's size. What is your age, my

boy?"

I told him I should be fifteen the next spring, counting, as most

young people do, by the milestone ahead of me, instead of the one I

had passed.

"Oh, that is quite an age," said he with an air of relief. "Do not

expect to make a playmate of Mr. Floyd Randolph, Helen: he is quite

too old to care for a mere child like yourself."

"He is not nearly as old as papa." returned Helen quickly, "and papa

will play with me all day long."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Raymond, sinking back among his cushions and

tiger-skins, "all the world can play but me. I must be content to sit

outside the joy and the sunshine. I have lived too long. Only the

young, bright people of the world are welcome even to my own little

grandchild."

Helen threw her arm about his neck and stroked his cheek with her slim

hand. "You know, grandpa," she said simply, "that I do not care for

play, and I love our quiet times together; but you forget what Dr.

Sharpe says--that I must run about out of doors and be as merry as I

can, or else--"

He stopped her with a quick, shuddering gesture. "Oh no," said he, "I

do not forget. Do not make me out worse than I am to Floyd, Helen." He

rang a hand-bell on the table by his side, and began feebly to adjust

the wrappings about his shoulders.--"I will go in, Frederick," he

murmured to the servant, who advanced at once as if he had been

waiting close by--"I will go in and sit by the fire.--Helen, you must

show Floyd the place.--There are greenhouses, and the stables are

worth seeing too," he added to me apologetically. "I hear that

Robinson has some rare fowls, and Helen has dogs of all kinds, and a

few deer. It will do her good to go about, you know." He broke off

suddenly, a spasm crossing his face, and without more words he turned

abruptly to his valet, took his arm and walked feebly toward the

house.

We stood together looking after him--I a little shy and perplexed in

my new position, Helen thoughtful and melancholy.

"Poor grandpa!" she said presently with a sigh: "he has only me, you

know, Floyd. He has nothing else in the whole wide world, and it

worries him to think that he cannot be with me always, that he

cannot--"

She broke off, and the small face twitched as if she were about to

cry, but she controlled herself.

The splendid house, with its gleaming windows and stately pillars, the

wide grounds, the air of quiet magnificence which reigned over the

whole place, had so much impressed me that I could not resist uttering

an exclamation at her words. She spoke of Mr. Raymond as having

nothing in the wide world but herself, yet he was rich enough to be

master of what appeared to me the pomp of kings; and I told her so.

She regarded me curiously. "Is grandpa rich?" she asked. "He says

sometimes that the greenhouses cost so much money that they will send

him to the poorhouse. I do not think grandpa can be rich. But if he

were rich," she cried out indignantly, "that makes no difference: he

has nothing but me--nothing to care about. There was poor grandmamma:

she died--oh so long ago!--and my uncles died when they were little

boys not so old as I. And mamma--she stayed the longest: then she

died. No, grandpa has nothing left but me."

"Your father too: he has only you. I wonder you do not live with your

father, Helen."

She shook her head. "Oh, you don't know," she returned. "I couldn't

leave grandpa. Oh, Floyd, if you knew how it hurts me to tell papa

that I must stay here! He does not understand. He will say, 'I want my

little girl: you can't guess how badly I want my little girl.'" She

finished with a great sob which shook her from head to foot. I pitied

her very much, and I could easily comprehend that she was too delicate

still to be allowed to have any sort of trouble. So I asked her to go

down to the shore with me, and while we went I told her all the funny

things I could remember until I made her laugh. She was quick and

sympathetic; and her spirit was so strong, yet so repressed, that

the moment she was really glad it seemed to have the exuberance of a

bird's joy at freedom after imprisonment.

I have reason, beyond that of mere admiration for its admirable

picturesqueness, to remember and note down the form of the shore at

The Headlands. The house stood on the highest part of the promontory,

and there was a gradual descent to the end of the bluff, which

terminated in a line of black rocks, some of which were firmly

embedded in the soil, while others lay piled above each other as they

had been tossed by some horrible convulsion of the sea. In one place

there was a perpendicular precipice of eighty feet, washed by the

waves at its base; but the beach was easily accessible from every

other point, although in some places the descent needed sure feet and

agile limbs. But I had always been the best climber in Belfield, and I

ran up and down the rocks now with the ease of a monkey, until Helen

begged me not to terrify her by any new exploits. Under the frowning

citadel of rocks the beach was particularly fine, well pebbled below

watermark and above a strip of shining sand. The tide was coming

in with a strong dull roar, and every wave broke on the shore with

curling cataracts of foam and a voice like thunder. It was hard for me

to realize that above us on the headland the mild October sunshine was

gilding and reddening the trees, for here we were in shadow, and the

cry of storm and the din of tempest were in our ears. Yet beyond the

bar opaline tints were playing along the sunlit sea, and the luminous,

shifting-hued swell of crested waves merged into the iridescent sky.

There was a secret and a mystery about the scene to me. I could not

understand its influence upon me, and felt under a spell as I gazed at

the distant white sails and listened to the roar of the waves as if I

could never hear it enough.

After Helen had shown me all the strange, beautiful places of the

beach, I helped her up the precipitous bank, where steps had been

carefully cut in the rock or laid upon the crumbling sods. She took me

to the stables, and I saw the horses, her pony and the blooded colt in

training for her: her dogs had followed us about, leaping and fawning

upon her and smelling suspiciously at me. Mr. Raymond disliked

animals, and it was to the stables or the gardener's cottage that the

child came to pet her hounds, her sheep-dog and her snowy Pomeranian:

not even Beppo, the Italian greyhound, was domesticated at the house.

Some shy deer peered out at us from their paddock, and a doe, less

timid than the rest, approached us and gave me a good look out of

her meek, beautiful eyes. Gold and silver pheasants lurked in the

shrubberies, and peacocks spread their tails and paraded before us on

the greensward. Everything seemed to be Helen's, and not a flower that

bloomed or a bird that flew but she gave it an ample tenderness.

We did not talk much, but stood together hand in hand, I gazing with

ardent delight and curiosity at all these beautiful expressions of

life which filled the place.

"Do you like it?" she inquired anxiously from time to time, and when

I answered her gravely that I liked it, she would smile a contented

little smile. She asked me if I rode, and carefully selected the

horse she considered suitable for me, and gave the groom orders

about exercising him regularly. The man took her instructions with

a respectful air: she was evidently mistress of the place, and the

centurion in the Gospel had not his servants better under his command

than had she. It was a quaint sight to see the child knitting her

brows over some complaint of Robinson's against McGill the gardener:

she settled it promptly with but half a dozen words. She had energy

enough and to spare for her duties, but she had nothing of that eager

bubbling up of light thoughts and bright hopes which other children

know and use in endless chatter and playful gambollings, like puppies

and kittens and other happy young things. There was always shrewd

purpose behind her few words, and she seemed always on her guard,

always ready to act promptly and with decision.

"Why don't you send those men to Mr. Raymond?" I burst out finally.

"You ought not to be bothered. What do you know about such things?"

"I know all about them," she returned gravely. "I never let anybody

trouble poor grandpapa."

"My mother would not let anything trouble me if she could help it, yet

I am a boy and almost fifteen years old."

She looked at me wistfully and smiled her peculiar indefinable smile,

then put her hand in mine, and we went toward the house together. Just

as night fell dinner-time came. I had gone to my room to dress at five

o'clock, but finding that all my windows looked out upon the water,

I had forgotten everything else in watching the sea, which took hue

after hue as the sun sank, growing black and turbid as it settled into

a bank of gray cloud, then, when the last beams reddened every rift,

lighting up into a brief splendor of crimson and gold, absorbing all

the glory of the firmament. I felt rather homesick and dreary. I knew

that in the dusky streets of Belfield the boys were walking up and

down beneath the russet elms, wondering about me while they talked. I

knew that my mother was sitting in the bay-window with the light of

the sunset in her face, and that she was longing to have me with her

again. When, finally, I roused myself to dress, and went along the dim

halls and down the great staircase lined with niches where calm-faced

statues stood regarding me with a fixed and solemn air, I was quite

dull and dreary, and needed all the cheerful influences of the warmed

and lighted rooms to brighten me up.

At dinner Mr. Raymond seemed more what I had expected him to be than

I had found him at first sight. He was dressed with scrupulous

propriety, and wore a ceremonious and precise air which better

accorded with his position as master of the house. He talked well, and

asked me many questions about our life in Belfield, made inquiries

about George Lenox, and was interested when I told him about Georgina.

And about Georgina I found myself presently talking with a freedom

which amazed myself, for my habits were reserved, and of all that I

felt and thought about Georgy I had never yet said anything except

to my mother. But in this beautiful house, which seemed so fitting a

place for my lovely princess, and which was of late the object of her

dreams, I felt moved to be her ambassador and to plead her cause as

well as I might. I spoke not only of her beauty and her cleverness,

but of the drawbacks to her success in life. I anticipated criticism,

and disarmed it. "Oh, Helen!" I burst out at length, "you would love

her so dearly--I am sure you would!"

Helen's eyes were shining, and her color came and went. "Oh, grandpa,"

said she softly, "why may I not ask her to come here? Floyd will like

it, and I--"

She could not finish, she was so glad and excited, and she ran around

the table and laid her cheek against Mr. Raymond's shoulder in mute

entreaty.

"Oh, do whatever you please," rejoined the old gentleman impatiently:

"you know very well that you must have your own way in everything."

The glad little face fell at once, and she went back to her chair

slowly and climbed into it. It was a high-backed, crimson velvet

chair, with a footstool for the child's feet to rest upon. She looked

very slight and young as she sat there, her baby face thrown into

clear outline and startling pallor by the ruby-colored cushions. She

filled the place well, however, helping to the soup and fish, and even

the meats after Mills had carved them at the sideboard. I noticed too,

with some surprise, that the decanter of sherry stood at her elbow,

and was not passed, but that she herself poured out Mr. Raymond's

glass of wine, and once replenished it. He sent it to her to be filled

for the third time, but she shook her head.

"No, no, grandpa," she said with a queer little smile: "you have had

two already."

He looked angry, and affirmed that she had given him but one glass,

appealing to Mills, who corroborated the words of his young mistress.

Helen said no more, but gave the decanter to the butler, who took it

away, and I heard him lock the door of the wine-closet and saw him

drop the key in his pocket. Then, presently, when coffee came on,

Helen and I went into the library, and left Mr. Raymond alone, with

his easy-chair turned toward the fire. I knew that something in the

house was wrong, and experienced a vague humiliation out of sympathy

for Helen, but what my fears were I did not name to myself.

"Promise me," said she, clasping my hand suddenly--"promise me to say

nothing to papa. Remember that grandpa is very old, and that he has

nothing in the world but me."

I gave the promise eagerly, more to avoid the subject than because I

understood as to what I was to be silent and why the subject should be

interdicted.

"You see," said she, her clear eyes meeting mine with their peculiarly

wistful, melancholy gaze, "this is why I cannot go away. Papa thinks I

do not love him: he does not know that it would not be safe for me to

leave grandpa all alone. If papa did know--"

"You ought to tell your papa everything," I said gravely.

"I wish I could," she cried in a trembling voice. "But I can't. He

would not let me stay here, and I could not go away. You must never

tell papa, Floyd--never!"

I said I would not tell with the air of one who never discloses a

secret; and she believed in me, and we were soon bright and happy

again, and wrote a letter to Georgy Lenox inviting her to The

Headlands on a visit.

With all his faults and weaknesses, I soon found there were good and

lovable traits in Mr. Raymond. He had been in early life a successful

merchant, and the habit of controlling widespread interests had given

him a broad and sympathetic insight into men and their ideas. He

possessed a graceful and comprehensive culture, and had embodied his

conceptions of the fitness of things in the arrangement of his home,

making it beautiful in all ways. He was an old man now, yet had not

lost the thirst for knowledge, and could talk, when inspiration was

upon him, generously and eloquently. He had been a part of the busy

great world; he understood society and social ways: all these talents

and acquirements made him a pleasant old gentleman when at his best,

but it needed only a touch of suspicion or jealousy to put him at his

worst. It was easy enough to see that Helen did not exaggerate when

she told me he had nothing to care for but herself; and his care for

her was so mixed with morbid fears that he was not first in her heart,

so embittered by a distrust of her love for her father, that she could

gain small comfort from all his overweening devotion and pride.

The child and I were constantly together in those October days. I do

not think it would have been so but for the fact that Mr. Floyd wrote

daily concise and peremptory orders that Helen was to be out of doors

from morning till night, and that Dr. Sharpe, a brisk, keen-eyed old

gentleman, came every morning at breakfast-time to feel the little

girl's pulse, order her meals and command Mr. Raymond to let her have

all the play she could get before the cold weather came.

"You see," Helen would explain to me as we tramped the meadows and the

uplands gorgeous with every mellow hue of autumn's glorious time--"you

see, Floyd, I was going to die in September when papa came. Oh, I felt

so tired I wanted just to go to sleep. But papa came, took me in his

arms and held me there. Whenever I woke up, there he was, his strong

arms holding me tight. He wouldn't let me go, you know, so I couldn't

die. I couldn't have lived for grandpa: I knew that he would die too,

and that perhaps it would all be best."

"But now you are getting strong," I said: "your cheeks are quite rosy

now."

"Oh yes," she answered. "I like to live now. I love you so dearly,

Floyd, and I have such good times."

I loved her dearly too, after a boy's fashion. It was easy for me to

talk to her, and I told her many things that lay near my heart and far

from my tongue--much about my mother and my worship of her--about our

home and its surroundings--about my father and my brother Frank, and

my grief when they died. I had never expected to tell any one these

memories, but I told them all to Helen.

One day we came in a little later than usual. We had carried our

luncheon down to the beach, and had eaten it there: we had never been

quite so happy together before, for everything had conspired to make

our enjoyment perfect. We had made up stories about the people on

board the ships that went up and down in the offing; strange and

beautiful things had looked at us from out the sea; a fisherman had

offered us some oysters as he coasted about the bar in his boat, and I

had bought some and opened them for Helen with my knife, every blade

of which I broke in the effort. Altogether, we had had a blissful

experience.

But as, upon returning, we neared the house, Mills met us on the

terrace with a grave face. "You'd better go to your grandfather, Miss

Floyd," said he--"you had, indeed, or it will be all over with him.

You must not blame me, miss--it was none of my fault--but some

gentlemen came here for lunch, and he's been a-drinking and a-drinking

ever since they went away, and will not let either decanter go out of

his hand."

Helen's little face had been warm with color, but it froze into pallor

while I looked at her. We entered the door, and she took off her

things slowly and gave them to Mills, smoothing her hair mechanically

with her little trembling hands.

"What shall I do?" I whispered, quaking as much as she. "Let me help

you somehow, Helen."

"You can't," she returned quietly: "nobody can help me."

She bade Mills go about his work: then went into the dining-room and

shut the door.

The man had tears in his eyes as he turned to me as soon as we were

alone. "I declare, Mr. Randolph," said he, "it's enough to break

anybody's heart to see that child a-bowed down at her age with the

care of an old man who can't be kept from drunkenness unless her eye

is on him every minute."

"Is he violent when he's--" I tried to ask the question, but could not

form the horrible word upon my tongue.

Mills did not flinch from facts. "When he's drunk?" he said. "He is

ready to break my head, but he's never anything but tender with her.

She's naught but a baby, but I have seen him, in a regular fury,

just fall a-whimpering when she came in and said, 'Oh, grandpa! oh,

grandpa! I'm so sorry!' Oh, it is a burning shame! And to think that

that splendid gentleman, her father, does not know it!"

"He ought to know it," I cried.

"And if he did, sir," said Mills solemnly, "he would take Miss Floyd

away, and the old gentleman would drink himself to death, and that

would kill the little girl too. It's hard to see the right of it, Mr.

Randolph. But," he added with a complete change of manner, "she would

be vexed to see me stand gossiping here."

He went up stairs with the cloak and hat, smoothing them with his big

hand as if to comfort somebody in need of comfort. I stole across the

hall and stood at the dining-room door, wishing to go in, yet fearing

to vex Helen by my intrusiveness. She opened the door presently, as if

she knew I was there, and beckoned me, and I entered. The old man

sat at the table in his usual place, looking half defiant and half

ashamed. She had removed both decanters and glasses to the sideboard,

and stood by him with her arm about his neck, urging him to go into

the library, kissing him now and then softly on the forehead.

"What do you think, Floyd," he said to me in a thick, unnatural

voice--"what do you think of the way my only grandchild treats me? She

despises me."

"No, no, grandpa! I love you dearly."

He went on with vehemence: "A few years ago I was living among the

finest ladies and gentlemen in the world: I was admired and sought. I

have been called the most accomplished of hosts, the most perfect of

gentlemen. Look about this house. Where in this entire country will

you find a more liberal patron of the arts than I? Yet this little

girl treats me like a servant. For a year she has not permitted me to

have even a few friends to dine with me. Because to-day I extended

hospitality to half a dozen gentlemen who drove over from the Point,

she fumes at me: she treats me as if I had committed a deadly sin.--By

and by, Miss Floyd, you can have it all your own way here: I shall be

dead."

She never flinched, nor did her face change as he glared at her, but

she went on smoothing his hair and softly putting her lips to his

temples. "Dear grandpa," said she, "come into the library now. It is

getting late, and Mills wants to set the table for dinner."

"Very well," he exclaimed with a sort of petulant dignity, and,

pushing back his chair, half rose. Helen gave me a swift glance, and

with our united strength we barely kept him from falling on his face.

He staggered to his feet, looking at us angrily, and not releasing

our hold we steadied him into the library and seated him in the great

chair before the fire. He sank down with some inaudible exclamation

not unlike a groan, and in five minutes he had fallen asleep with loud

breathings. Helen rang the bell and told Mills to send for Dr. Sharpe,

then came back and drew two low seats opposite the sleeper, and we sat

down together hand in hand. She was as pale as death, and her great

eyes dilated as she gazed steadily at her grandfather. From time

to time she felt his pulse and looked with painful scrutiny at the

temples and forehead, which grew every moment more and more crimson.

The half hour before the doctor came appeared to me endless. Inside it

was almost dark but for the firelight, and outside the twilight glooms

slowly gathered: a storm was coming on, and the waves bellowed against

the rocks. Mills lit the candles and drew the curtains, but could

not shut out the roar of the angry sea. I could see that Helen was

miserably anxious, but she said nothing, only sighed and set her lips

tight against each other, and seemed to listen. Presently we could

hear the gravel crunched under a horse's hoofs outside, then the sound

of wheels, and in another moment Dr. Sharpe came in.

"How is this?" said he without any salutation. "Somebody to lunch, eh?

---- luncheons! Where were you, Miss Chicken?"

"I am so sorry!" she faltered painfully. "But I was playing down on

the beach, and I did not know. You told me to play about out of doors,

doctor--you know you did," she added deprecatingly.

"Of course I told you to play about out of doors. You need it bad

enough, God knows! Now run away, both of you."

"Is there any danger?" she whispered.

"Not a bit," said Dr. Sharpe, adding, under his breath, "A good thing

for her if there were.--Run away, I say," he said, hustling us both

out of the door, "and send Mills and Frederick here."

We were shut away from the dim luxurious library with its blazing

fire, and the old man asleep before it, but we did not feel free to

move, and stood awed and speechless outside, listening and waiting.

Helen, who had been so brave, gave way now: her face was piteously

convulsed and the tears streamed down her cheeks. I made clumsy

attempts to soothe her, and finally took her in my arms and carried

her into the great lighted drawing-room and laid her on the sofa. She

uttered nothing of her impotent childish despair, but I could read

well enough her humiliation and her shame. Mills came in presently and

whispered to me that dinner was ready. She heard him and sprang up

with the air of a baby princess. "I will come to dinner in five

minutes, Mills," said she imperiously: then, when she met the honest

sympathy of his glance, she ran up to him and thrust her little slim

hand into his. "I trust you, Mills," she murmured, her lips quivering

again, "but you must never let papa know and never let the servants

suspect." And presently, with the outward indifference of a woman

of the world, the child took her place at table and entertained me

through dinner with an account of what we should do for Georgy Lenox.

CHAPTER V.

For Georgy was coming next day, and in spite of my unhappiness on

Helen's account I woke up the following morning with my pulses all

astir with joy. It would be something for me to have her here, away

from her mother, who always frowned upon me--away from Jack, whose

claim upon her time and attention made mine appear presumptuous and

intrusive--away from Harry Dart, with his teasing jokes, his wholesale

contempt for any weakness or romantic feeling. I had never declared to

myself that I was in love with Georgina, nor had I formed my wishes

to my own heart in distinct thoughts. Still, young although I was, I

should hardly dare to write down here how far above every other idea

and object on earth Georgina appeared to me. I never thought of her

then, I never looked upon her, without the blood thickening around my

heart as if I stood face to face with Fate: my every impulse toward

the future was blended with my desire to be something to her. I had

not dared to dream then that she could be anything to me.

Before I was out of bed that morning, Frederick, Mr. Raymond's valet,

came to me with the request that I should go to his master's room

before I went down stairs. It was in the wing, and the third chamber

of a handsome suite comprising study, dressing-room and bedroom.

It was hung and curtained with red; a wood-fire was burning on the

hearth; the chairs were covered with red; even the silken coverlet of

the bed was red, and the only place where living, brilliant color was

not seemed to be the pale shrunken face on the pillow, a little paler

and more delicate than usual: the hands, too, clutching each other on

the red blanket, had a look of languor and waste.

"Good-morning, Floyd," Mr. Raymond said, and then dismissed Frederick.

"But you ought not to talk, sir," expostulated the valet, "until you

have had your breakfast."

The sick man made a gesture for him to leave the room, watched him go

out, and then fastened his piercing black eyes on me and looked at me

long and fixedly. "You saw me yesterday?" said he at last, breaking

the silence.

I nodded, finding it a difficult task to speak.

"Are you a babbling child?" said he with considerable force and

earnestness, "or have you enough of a man's knowledge to have learned

to respect the infirmities of other men?"

"I tell no one's secrets, sir: they are not mine to tell."

He quite broke down, and lay there before me strangling with sobs and

cries. "Should Mr. Floyd know," he murmured, "should Mr. Floyd even

guess, that I am the wretched wreck of a man that I am, he would not

let Helen stay with me another moment. He would extenuate, he would

pity, nothing: he does not know what it is for a man like me, once

proud, witty, gay, to bear seclusion and depression and decay. I long

at times for some of the inspiration of my youth: it comes with a

terrible penalty."

I could believe it, for his face expressed such abasement and despair

as I had never dreamed of.

"I know," he continued, his voice broken and husky, "that I shadow

Helen's life. I know that if I had died last night she would be a

luckier girl to-day than she is now. But I sha'n't last long, Floyd.

Put your finger on my pulse."

I did so, and was obliged to grope for the uncertain, slow beating at

his wrist. It seemed as if so little life was there it might easily

flicker and go out at any moment.

"I may die at any time," said he, putting my unspoken thought into

words. "Dr. Sharpe tells me not to count on the morrow. What cruelty

it would be, then, to deprive me of my grandchild! What could I do

without her? What would become of me, living alone, with no company

but the gibbering shapes mocking at me out of the corners?" He cowered

all in a heap and looked up at me with clasped hands. "Let her stay,"

he went on imploringly. "It is only for a little while, and then

everything will be hers--this house and these grounds, my house in New

York and blocks of stores, all my pictures, my statues, my books.

Why, I tell you, Floyd, I am worth more than a million of dollars in

invested property that brings me in a return of ten per cent. It is

all for her. I save half my income every year to buy new mortgages

and stocks, that she may be the richer. I think," he exclaimed with a

sudden burst of feeling, "that such wealth as I shall give her might

atone for a great deal. Remember, Floyd, it is only a little while

that I shall burden her: let her stay."

He was pleading with me as if I were the arbiter of his fate. He had

grasped my arm, and his glittering eyes were fastened on me with the

intensity of despair in their expression.

"Why, Mr. Raymond," said I gently, "I have nothing to do with Helen's

going or staying. If you fear that I shall inform Mr. Floyd about

what--what happened yesterday, you do me injustice. I shall tell him

nothing. I have no right to say a word about anything that takes place

in your house."

"You are a good boy," said Mr. Raymond, with an expression of relief

relaxing his convulsed features. "I do not wonder that James loves you

as his own son--that it is the wish of his heart that you should grow

up with Helen, learn to love her, and marry her at last."

I listened doubtfully: it did not occur to me that his words had

any foundation in fact; yet, all the same, the newly-suggested idea

burdened me. "I think you are mistaken," said I gently. "Nothing of

that kind could ever possibly happen."

"Not for years--not until I am dead," returned Mr. Raymond peevishly.

"It was nothing--nothing at all. All that occurred I will tell you,

since I was foolish enough to speak of it in the first instance. James

said he wanted Helen to be much with you. 'You know how those childish

intimacies end,' I replied to him--'in deep attachment and desire for

marriage.'--'I ask nothing better for Helen,' James exclaimed. 'She

will grow up like other girls, and love, and finally become a wife;

and if she became Floyd's wife I should have no fears for her.'" Mr.

Raymond's eyes met mine. "You will never tell Mr. Floyd I spoke of

this to you," he said under his breath. "I am not quite myself this

morning, or I should not have suggested a thought of it to you."

I was very sure that I should never mention it, for I found the idea

of my marrying Helen so painfully irksome that it went with me all the

day, casting a shadow across our intercourse. I told myself over and

over that the idea was absurd--that such a thing could never, never

come to pass. She was so mere a child. I studied her face with its

baby contours, where nothing showed the dawn of womanhood yet except

the great melancholy eyes; I took her hand in mine, where it lay like

a snowflake on my brown palm; and I laughed aloud at the grotesqueness

of the fancy that I should ever put a ring on that childish finger.

"Why do you laugh?" she asked me wonderingly.

"To think," I rejoined, "how funny it is to remember one day you will

be grown up and have rings upon your fingers."

"Is that funny?" she asked. "Of course, if I live I shall grow up and

be a woman. My mamma was married when she was only seventeen, and in

seven years I shall be seventeen." I dropped her hand as if it had

stung me. "I have all mamma's rings," she went on: "I have a drawerful

of trinkets that mamma used to wear. When Georgy Lenox comes I shall

give her a locket and a chain that are so very, very pretty they will

be just right for her. Tell me more about her, Floyd."

It was easy enough for me to grow eloquent in talking of Georgina, and

Helen was as anxious to hear as I to tell. The little girl had had few

friends of her own sex and age: every summer had brought the New

York and Boston Raymonds to The Headlands, and when the neighboring

watering-place was in its season numerous flounced and gloved little

misses had been introduced to the shy, quaint child, who felt strange

and dreary among them all. In fact, the little heiress's position, so

unique in every respect, had isolated her from the joys of commonplace

childhood, and she found more companionship in her dumb pets, in the

sumptuous silence of the blossoming gardens, in the voices of the

shore, than among girls of her own age with their chatter about

their teachers or governesses, their dancing-steps and their games.

Nevertheless, she was both ardent and affectionate, and ready to love

all the world; and no sooner had Georgy appeared than she lavished

upon her all the passion of girlish fondness for her own sex which

had hitherto lain dormant within her. Georgy had always been used to

adulation and to lead others by her capricious will and her radiant

smile, and within a day after her coming had established almost a

dangerous supremacy over the child. It was at once fascinating and

disappointing to be under the same roof with Georgy: every morning

when I awoke it seemed a miracle of happiness that I had but to dress

and go out of my room to have a chance of meeting her, of perpetually

recurring smiles and conversation such as I had never enjoyed before

at Belfield. But the reality never bore out the promise of my vague

but delicious reveries. Mr. Raymond at once took an active, almost

virulent, dislike to his young guest, and pointed out her faults to

me with clear and concise words, each one of which pierced me like a

rapier; and the certainty of his condemnation gave me a keen, and at

times almost inspired, vision for her weaknesses.

Nothing could exceed her rapture at being in the beautiful house

which she had so long wished to see, and which she loudly asserted

a thousand times surpassed all her expectations. And she fitted

admirably into her costly surroundings: the sheen of her golden

hair made the dark velvet cushionings and hangings a more beautiful

background than before; she gave expression to the stately, silent

rooms; and what had at first been almost, despite its luxury, a

desert to me, became a fairy land. Little Helen was so burdened with

possessions that it was a pleasure for her to give them away. Still,

I wished that Georgy had not been so willing to accept all that the

lavish generosity of the child prompted her to offer. But Georgy was

no Spartan: she wanted everything that could minister to her comfort.

She was a natural gourmand, hungry for sweets and fruits all day long:

she coveted ornaments, and found Helen's drawer of trinkets almost too

small for her; she liked velvets and furs, silks and plushes, and wore

the child's clothes until Mr. Raymond sent his housekeeper to Boston

to purchase her a complete outfit of her own. But all these faults

I could have pardoned in Georgy, and ascribed them to her faulty

education and false influences at home, had she been grateful to

little Helen.

"She hates Helen for being luckier than herself," Mr. Raymond

affirmed: "she would do her a mischief if she could."

I could not believe that, yet I could see that she loved to torture

the child, whose acute sensibilities made her suffer from the

slightest coldness or suspicion.

"If you really loved me, Helen," Georgy would say, "you would do this

for me;" and sometimes the task would be to slight or openly disobey

Mr. Raymond, to outrage me or to make one of the dumb, loving pets

which filled the place suffer. And if at sight of the child's tears I

remonstrated, I was punished as it was easy enough for Georgy Lenox to

punish me.

She would melt Helen too by drawing a picture of her own poverty and

state of dreary unhappiness beside the good fortune of the heiress,

until the little girl would search through the house to find another

present for her, which she besought her beautiful goddess almost on

her knees to accept. All these traits, which showed that Georgina was

far from perfect, caused me a misery proportionate to my longing to

have her all that was lovely and excellent. It is indeed unfair to

write of faults which are so easy to portray, and to say nothing of

the beauty of feature and charm of manner, which might have been

enough to persuade any one who looked into her face that she was one

of God's own angels. What does beauty mean if it be not the blossoming

of inner perfection into outward loveliness? And Georgina Lenox was

beautiful to every eye. Let every one who reads my story know and feel

that she had the beauty which can stir the coldest blood--the eyes

whose look of entreaty could melt the most implacable resolution--the

smile which could lure, the voice which could make every man follow.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Floyd had again entered upon active life in Washington, and his

duties were so absorbing that it was almost impossible for him to find

any opportunity of joining me at The Headlands, as he had promised.

But just as my visit was drawing to an end he came, and kept me on for

the week of his stay. I had become used to the routine of life at Mr.

Raymond's, and had again and again wondered if Mr. Floyd's presence

there would make any difference; but the change in the entire aspect

of the household after the advent of my guardian absolutely startled

me. Mr. Raymond was again master of the house, and little Helen

was left free of all care and responsibility. There seemed a tacit

understanding between Mills and the child and her grandfather that Mr.

Floyd was to gain not the faintest idea of the usual state of things.

Mr. Raymond wore a dignity which was not without its pathetic side: he

no longer touched wine, although a different vintage was offered with

every course, and his selfish, peevish ways seemed entirely forgotten.

Helen had grown steadily stronger every week of my stay, and now that

her father was with her she rallied at once into a happy, careless

state of mind which made her almost as light-hearted a child as one

could wish. She had none of Georgy's gay boisterousness, but her

blitheness of heart seemed like a lambent fire playing over profound

depths of gladness and security.

Mr. Floyd was scarcely well pleased to find Georgy at The Headlands,

and at once observed with solicitude the influence she had gained over

his little girl. Georgy's idea of power was to put her foot on the

neck of her subjects and hold them at her mercy; and Mr. Floyd showed

his displeasure at her course by at once withdrawing Helen almost

entirely from her society. Georgy rebelled defiantly at this; and I

too felt keenly the injustice of leaving her so utterly alone as we

did day after day when Mr. Floyd, Helen and I went riding through the

woods together. Directly after breakfast my guardian and I mounted our

horses, and Helen her pony, and off we started for the hills, where

the keen autumn winds would put color into the little girl's pale

cheeks. Far below us we could see the curving reaches of beach and

promontory, the sparkling fall of the low surf, and in the offing

the white-winged ships bringing all the wonders of the East and the

richness of the tropics to our barren New England shores. What wonder

if I have never forgotten a single incident of those too swiftly

succeeding days? The glow, the enthusiasm, the wild gush of free,

untrammelled enjoyment, were to go from me presently, and to return no

more.

When Mr. Floyd first came he had shaken me roughly by the shoulder,

laughing in my face as he told me he had just come from Belfield,

where he had spent six hours with my mother. I felt ashamed to look

him in the eyes when I remembered my interference, and I began to

debate the question in my own mind whether I had not better yield my

boyish whim of pride and exclusive, domineering affection to this

noble, splendid gentleman, whom I loved better and better every day.

The week appointed for his visit at The Headlands had almost passed.

It was a Thursday morning, and we were to set out early the ensuing

day, when he asked me to walk with him an hour on the bluff, as he had

something to speak to me about. It was a lovely day: the fogs were

rolling off the water, and disclosed a sea of chrysoprase beneath.

"In my old courting-days," began Mr. Floyd at once, "I used to walk

here with Alice. We were engaged six weeks, and looking back

now eleven years the days seem all like this. It was the Indian

summer-time."

I was dumb, but stared into his face, which showed emotion, and

pressed his arm bashfully.

"I was thirty-four when I first met her," he went on, "and she was

just half my age. She was an heiress and I was poor, yet the world

called me no bad match for her. Still, I felt as if I could not marry

a rich woman: I went away, and tried to forget her, but stole back to

the Point, hoping to get one glimpse of her sweet face by stealth.

Then when I saw her I could not go away again, nor did she want me to

go. Mr. Raymond hated me in those days, yet we were so strong against

him that he gave his consent, and we were married on just such a

November day as this. It seems like a dream, Floyd, that I, so long a

lonely man, without a private joy, could ever have been so happy as I

was then. I loved her--the light of her eyes and the white lids that

covered them when I looked at her; the smile on her parted lips; the

way her hair curled away from her temples; the little dimples all over

her hands; her voice, her little ways. And while I loved her like

that, before the first year of my happiness had passed she was dead. I

hope you will never know what that means. That she had left me a child

was nothing to me: I was only a rapturous lover, and had not begun to

long for baby voices and upturned children's faces. When, finally,

I did turn to Helen, it was as you see now: to part her from her

grandfather would be to wrench body from soul."

"Mr. Raymond is a very old man," I suggested.

"He has a surer life than mine: I doubt if anybody would insure mine

at any price."

We were silent. I felt awkward and ashamed: I knew what was in his

thoughts.

"You wise young people!" said he presently, throwing his arm over my

shoulder--"oh, you wise young people!" Then turning me square about,

he looked into my face: "Oh, you foolish, foolish young people!"

I felt foolish indeed--so foolish I could not meet his eyes.

"Why begrudge us a few years of happiness together?" he asked in his

deliberate gentle voice. "Your mother is still young, and so beautiful

that she deserves to shine in a sphere worthy of her. I will say

nothing of my profound and respectful love for her. My love for Alice

was my passionate worship of a singularly charming child: your mother

commands a different feeling. But of that I will say nothing. Think,

Floyd, what a life I can offer her! It seems to me that in marrying me

she will gain much: what can she lose?"

What, indeed, could she lose? My doubt and dread shrank into

insignificant and petty proportions: it seemed to me the noblest fate

for any woman alive to gain the love of this man into whose face I was

looking earnestly. Yet I could find no words to utter, and he went on

as if trying to convince me against my will.

"You do not appear to entertain any aversion for me," he pursued,

smiling, "and in our new relation I will take care that you do not

like me less. You are dear to me now, yet when your mother is my wife

you will be much dearer."

My self-control vanished: my lip trembled. "What does mother say?" I

asked almost in a whisper.

He put his hands on my shoulders, laughing softly: "She says she has a

son whose love and respect she so highly prizes she will do nothing to

forfeit them."

"Does she love you, Mr. Floyd?" I questioned bluntly.

"I think she does--a little," he answered, dropping his eyes. "But,"

he went on more hurriedly, "in such a marriage love is not everything,

Floyd, although it is much. There is sympathy, constant close

companionship: of these both your mother and I have bitterly felt the

need."

"Don't say any more, sir," I cried, humbled to the dust. "When I first

saw what was coming I suppose I thought only of myself: now--"

"Now you think of two other people, and withdraw your opposition. I

confess I can't see how you will be worse off. Come now, give me your

hand, you young rascal! I shall go home with you to-morrow, and--"

"Will it take place at once?" I asked with a pang at my heart.

"What? our marriage? You are hurrying matters charmingly. Mrs.

Randolph has not yet accepted me. But I will confess to you, my boy,

that I shall be more than happy, more than proud, if I can persuade

her to allow me to introduce her to my friends in Washington in

December."

We walked about for more than an hour after, but said no more about

the matter, although it was stirring below every thought and word of

each of us. I felt the weariness of soul which succeeds a struggle,

and my guardian tried, but unsuccessfully, to conceal the elation

which follows victory. Yet subdued and unhappy though I was, haunted

by a sense of terrible loss, I was proud and glad to have contented

him. He talked to me intimately, and discussed my plans for the

future. I was to enter college the next year, and he pointed out

the fact, to which I was not insensible, that our old life at home

would necessarily have been broken up when I left Belfield. He spoke

of my pecuniary means, and frankly informed me that his property

amounted to three hundred thousand dollars, and that this amount he

had divided into thirds--one for my mother, one for Helen and one

for me.

"Oh, sir," I burst out, "you must not be so generous to me."

"And why not? My little girl has too much already: it has always been

one of the discomforts of my life that she is so rich, so raised above

all human wants, that I have had it in my power to do nothing for

her. I have seen poor men buying clothes and shoes for their little

sunburned children, and envied them."

We had been lounging toward the house, and now had reached the

terrace, where we found Mr. Raymond pacing feebly up and down in the

mild sunshine leaning on Frederick's arm. Mr. Floyd stepped forward

and took the valet's place, investing the slight courtesy with the

charm of his grand manner.

"Where is Helen?" asked Mr. Raymond. "I supposed that she was with

you, James."

"I have not seen her since breakfast.--Suppose you look her up, Floyd?

I am afraid she is with Miss Georgy, and in mischief, no doubt.--I

object, sir," Mr. Floyd added to his father-in-law, "to Helen's having

too much of the society of Miss Lenox. She is a pretty little devil

enough, but then I don't like pretty little devils."

"I have written to Mrs. Lenox to recall her," returned Mr. Raymond

stiffly. "She is no favorite of mine. There is a look in her eyes at

times that makes me shudder at the thought of the harm she is pretty

sure to do. Floyd here is her only partisan."

I had already sprung along the terrace, and quickly crossed the lawn

and garden to the rocks. I remembered having seen a blue and a scarlet

jacket going toward the shore during my talk with Mr. Floyd; and, sure

enough, on the rocks I found traces of the girls--a ribbon, the rind

of Georgy's oranges which she was always nibbling, and Helen's book.

Supposing they were on the beach, I descended the stone steps leading

to the sands. There was a faint plashing and lisping of the waves, but

otherwise no sound and no sight but the great rocks and the smooth sea

lustrous and glittering like steel. I had no doubt but that Helen and

Georgy were somewhere near me, and sat down to wait. My mind was full

of thoughts that came and went, bringing clear but swiftly-shifting

pictures of our old life and the new, which rose suddenly fresh and

vivid before me. I could see my mother's face, the color coming and

going like a young girl's, and the movement of her little hands

clasping and unclasping in her lap. I could see her, too, by the side

of Mr. Floyd in a bright, wonderful world of which I knew nothing. For

a moment I felt already parted from her, and the pang of separation

wrenched body from soul. I threw myself face downward on the sand and

declared myself profoundly miserable.

Suddenly I started to my feet. I was vaguely terrified, yet could not

tell what had aroused me from my brooding thoughts. I seemed conscious

of having heard a cry, but so faint and inarticulate as hardly to

differ from the distant note of a sea-bird. But as I ran frantically

along the sands I distinctly heard my name, and knew that the entreaty

was for help.

"I am coming!" I screamed at the top of my voice--"I am coming as fast

as I can." The rocks gave back so many deceitful echoes that I was not

certain from what point the imploring cry came; but I knew every inch

of the beach for a mile up and down, and knew, too, that there was but

one place in which with ordinary prudence there could be the slightest

danger. So with unerring instinct I flew along the wet shingle to

"Raymond's Cliff." At this point the beetling line of rocks which

coiled and frowned along the coast terminated abruptly in precipitous

crags. On one side it was sheer precipice, but on the other the cliff,

exposed both to wind and wave, washed by the rains and gnawed at its

base by ever-advancing and receding tides, had gradually been worn

away in the centre by the constant crumbling of the sandy soil, so as

to form a sort of ravine. It was a dangerous and gloomy place, and

I had received many a warning from Mr. Raymond never to take Helen

there.

"Helen!" I cried--"Helen! if you are here, answer me. I cannot see

you." A gull flew away from the cliff with a scream, and I could hear

no other sound. "Tell me, Helen, if you are here."

I heard a cry from above--almost inaudible it was so spiritless and

faint--yet, gaze as I might toward the top, I could see nothing. I

skirted the main rock and climbed as far as I easily could up the

ravine. Here my attention was arrested by a dot of scarlet against the

grim, bare face of the basalt. Yes, there she was, about forty feet

above me, hanging on to a shelving rock with her little Italian

greyhound in her arms. She was peering down, disclosing a pallid face.

I saw at once that she had hung there until her strength was almost

gone.

"Listen to me, Helen," said I, calmly and very gently, for I had a

ghastly dread that she would fall before my very eyes. "Don't look

down: just keep your eyes fixed on the rock, and hold on tight until I

reach you." She obeyed me. "Now," I went on authoritatively, "drop the

dog--drop him, I say!--Here, Beppo! here!"

She again obeyed me, and the dog scrambled down and fell--scratched

and bruised, no doubt, yet otherwise unhurt--at my feet. "Helen,

answer me one question," said I. "Can you wait until I go round up to

the top and get a rope?"

She gave a little scream of pitiful anguish: I saw her slight figure

sway, and some loose stones came rattling down. "I feel so sick, so

dizzy!" she cried.

"I will climb up, then. Hold on tight for a few minutes more. Keep

perfectly still, and don't look down: you know how well I can climb."

I was a capital climber, and could hold on like a cat where there was

a crevice to fasten my feet or my hands. Still, I was anything but

certain about these hollow, worn sides, which in places were as smooth

as glass. But it had to be done, and done quickly. If the child

fell she was dead or maimed to a certainty. She had crawled in some

unheard-of way down from the top, and must go back the way she had

come; and since I had no time to help her from above, I must go up

to her. A spar had been washed up among the debris upon which I had

mounted, and this helped me up a little way. Then I managed to creep a

trifle farther, hand over hand: whenever I could take breath I called

out to her that it was all right and I should be up in another minute.

The necessity of keeping up her courage endowed me with miraculous

strength, and in a little while I stood beside Helen on the narrow

shelf, and waited for a moment to breathe freely and see what was yet

beyond me. I smiled at her, and she looked steadily into my face, but

said not a word.