Chapter I.

[Illustration: "My uncle followed his words with a brightening face,

and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It

is a great gift! a great gift!'"

The Victims of Dreams. Page 34.]

NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS, AND OTHER SHORT STORIES.

By

John Hay, Clara F. Guernsey, Margaret Hosmer, Harriet Prescott

Spofford, Lucy Hamilton Hooper, Etc.

Illustrated.

1872.

Contents.

Not Pretty, but Precious, _Margret Field_.

The Victims of Dreams, _Margaret Hosmer_.

The Cold Hand, _Clara F. Guernsey_.

The Blood Seedling, _John Hay_.

The Marquis, _Chauncey Hickox_.

Under False Colors, _Lucy Hamilton Hooper_.

The Hungry Heart, _J.W. De Forrest_.

"How Mother Did It," _J.R. Hadermann_.

The Red Fox, _Clara F. Guernsey_.

Louie, _Harriet Prescott Spofford_.

Old Sadler'S Resurrection, _R.D. Minor_.

Not Pretty, But Precious.

_Mille modi veneris!_

Part I.

Mr. Norval: It is now four weeks since your accident. I have made inquiry

of your physician whether news or business communications, however

important, brought to your attention, would be detrimental to you, cause

an accession of feverish symptoms or otherwise harm you. He assures me, On

the contrary, he is sure you have not been for years so free from disease

of any sort, with the sole exception of the broken bones, as now. This

being so, I venture to approach you upon a subject which I doubt not you

are quite as willing to have definitely arranged, and at once, as myself.

I can say what I mean, and as I mean it, so much better on paper than in

conversation--as I have so little self-possession, and am so readily put

out in the matter of argument--that I have determined to write to you,

thinking thus to be better able to make you understand and appreciate my

reasons and motives, since you can read them when and how you choose.

I have been your wife three weeks. The horrible strangeness of these words

is quite beyond me to compass; nevertheless, realize it or not, it is a

fact. I am your wife--you, my husband. Why I am your wife I wish simply to

rehearse here. Not that we do not both know why, but that we may know it

in the same way. You, a handsome, cultivated man, whose dictum is

considered law in the world of fashion in which you move and reign, with

an assured social position, a handsome fortune, and a popularity that

would have obtained for you the hand of any beautiful or wealthy woman

whom you sought, have deliberately chosen to make me, a poor, plain,

brown-faced little school-teacher, your wife. Not because you wanted _me_,

not because you thought or cared about _me_, one way or the other, but

simply because, in a time of urgent necessity, I was literally the only

available woman near you. It chanced, from many points of view and by a

chain of circumstances, that I was particularly available. So you married

me. The reasons for such a sacrifice of yourself were--you had behaved

badly, very badly, to a lady, compromising her name and causing a

separation between herself and her husband. Within a few months, her

husband having died, both herself and her father had determined to force

you to make her reparation by marriage. Going to work very warily, they

had taken an opportunity, after a very luxuriant and fast opera-supper,

when you were excited by your surroundings and flushed by the wine you had

been drinking, your head very light, your judgment very heavy, to draw

from you a promise of marriage at the expiration of the year of mourning

for her husband. As soon as you became aware of what you had done, you

ignominiously fled, and after a Western tour were about to sail for Europe

when this unfortunate accident overtook you. Your narrow escape from

death, upon having been thrown from the carriage of a distinguished

gentleman while driving with him behind a pair of celebrated racers, gave

such publicity to your adventure that your _amorata_ was at once aware of

your whereabouts. The fear of this had taken possession of you as soon as

you were able to think of anything, and the dread that she would follow

and marry you while you lay helpless was made a certainty by this telegram

from an intimate friend in New York, received the sixth day of your

illness:

"It's all up with you, old fellow. The R. has heard you're fast with a

broken leg, and she starts on Monday for Boston. Have the clergy ready,

for it's marriage."

Then in your bitter need you remembered having talked with me in this

hotel-parlor the very day of your accident. I had been a school-friend of

your dead sister, and for her sake, on the rare occasions of your seeing

me, you have always been polite and kindly patronized me. Now, lying

helpless and unable to extricate yourself from your dilemma, you recalled

the evident pleasure upon my foolish, tell-tale face at seeing you, the

delight I had betrayed in the attention you had shown me, such as finding

a seat at dinner for myself and my old lady friend, although some elegant

and fashionable girls were waiting with ill-suppressed eagerness for your

escort. Remembering all this, knowing as you did that I was poor, wearing

out my life in teaching, in your sore need you suddenly thought, "I wonder

if the girl wouldn't marry me? She'd make a good nurse, could look after

my traps, and, though she is as ugly as sin and a nobody, wouldn't be the

deuced disgrace to a fellow this Rollins woman will be. At all events,

she'll save me from that fate if she takes up with my offer. It's a choice

of evils, and this would be the least; and I'll try it." This, in plain,

unadorned speech, was what you thought. Then you sent for me, began very

pathetically to talk of your desolate state, your family all dead, and so

on; that it had been sadly brought home to you how alone you were while

lying sick, hour after hour, in this great hotel, with only your valet to

attend to you and take an interest in your well-being; and that, day after

day, as you lay thinking of your fate, my face had come before you,

recalling tender memories of your lost and dearly-loved sister. Then you

had remembered that as girl and boy we had been lovers, and really cared

very much for each other. As you got this far toward your _grande

dénouement_, something in my face, I suppose, made you realize that if you

were to compass your ends with me it must be by honesty only. Then you

blurted it all out--in, as I could not help thinking as I listened, as

school-boyish and abashed a way as if you had--well, as if you had not

been a consummate man of the world, rather noted for your _aplomb_.

It came across me (as I heard you in dumb amazement, with crimson face and

trembling frame) that even the best polish of years' laying on will crack

somewhere under very hard pressure. Well, you were honest and told me all,

never pretending, as you had at first essayed to do, that it was out of

any lingering regard for myself as your sister's friend that you sought me

now, but simply on account of my availability. Had there been some bright

young beauty with wealth and station at hand, no thought of me would ever

have entered your mind: all this I understood at once from your half

confessions--all this, I was glad to find, you had at least enough honor

to let me know, although you risked what to you in your actual situation

was very perilous--a refusal.

I asked until the next day to consider the matter--whether it would be

better to take service with you, exchange for my boarding, clothing and

incidental expenses the daily care of your comfort and pleasure, or earn

my bread in the old wearing way. And the second day after that we were

married. That is all. I believe that to be a simple statement of the facts

in your case: I am right, am I not?

The day after our marriage your lady-love and her paternal ancestor came.

At my own suggestion and with your eager consent I received them, and the

result you know.

Now for my own reasons for this strange marriage. You are aware that my

father was a professor of mathematics in various schools and colleges of

the city where he lived, teaching in the school, among others, in which

your sister and myself were pupils. I believe you know that when a young

man he had eloped with and married one of his scholars, the daughter of a

rich and proud family, who discarded her. For years she was a stranger to

them, until her husband had won a name and handsome fortune for himself:

then she was taken into favor again, her husband's distinction in the

scientific world being supposed to add lustre to the family name. Alas for

us! it was a favor that has cost us dear. I was their only child. When my

sweet, pretty mother lay dying she left to me, her sixteen-year-old child,

my dreamy, unworldly father as a legacy. "Take care of him: he knows no

guile, and your uncles will wrong him if they can," she said. And they

did, or one of them. Ere the bitter agony of my mother's death had enabled

him to return to his duties, it was discovered that one of her brothers

had forged his name and literally stripped him of everything.

Of course, then he went to work again to earn our daily bread--not with

his old love or ability, but in an inert, feeble way that was pitiful to

see. I think from the day my mother was buried he was dying. Some people,

you know, die hard--some part with life lightly, as if it was a faded robe

they shook off to don a brighter one. Others--my father was one, and I am

like him--see one by one their trusts, their hopes, their loves die: then

with a deathly throe sunder themselves from life. But pardon my

digression.

When I was twenty my father died. Since then, spite of expressions of

disapproval and offers of support from my mother's family, I have

maintained myself by teaching in the schools where my father had been

known, preferring to do without assistance so long as I had health. One of

my uncles desired to take me into his family, and thus wipe out the wrong

done my father by his brother, and my aunts proffered me an income out of

their private means. I mention this to do them every justice, but I think

even a man of fashion like yourself will acknowledge the impossibility of

my accepting, while I could avoid it, a life of dependence. I could not

accept favors from those who had treated my dear parents unkindly; so I

have e'en gone my own way for these last ten years, and led a not unhappy

life, if a busy and rather wearing one.

My gay cousins, all of whom you know well--the Wilber girls, Leta and

Jennie, pretty little Lou Barton, and another set of Wilbers whom I think

you do not know so well, who are married now--my gay cousins, then, most

of them beauties, all of them rich and fashionable, are somewhat ashamed

of me, and have let me feel it in every petty way that we women know so

well how to find. I am ugly and poor, my earning my own living is a spot

upon their gentility, and I have unfortunately, and quite against my will,

more than once given them cause for serious annoyance and apprehension.

Then, one of our uncles, who is a bachelor and very rich, has insisted

that I am never to be slighted--always to be invited to everything in the

shape of a party given by the family. If it lay with me, of course I would

never accept these invitations, but I have had it explained to me over and

over again that my not doing so is visited upon the party-givers in one

way or another by our masterful uncle Rufus. So, occasionally, very much

against my inclination, I leave my little third-story room, with its cozy

fire and humble adornments, and sit in the corner of their great rooms, a

"looker-on in Vienna" in every sense.

I have many kind friends: it would be strange if in all these years I had

not found some who did not care for outward advantages. I have dreamed my

sweet love-dream, and it is over, and the roses have grown above my buried

hopes.

Since then I have let one idea fill my life to the exclusion of everything

else, putting away from me all desires and thoughts of other needs; and

that too has left me. I call it an "idea" for lack of a better name. I had

put away all thought of marriage with my bright youth, but took into my

heart instead what I deemed would serve as well--a friendship for another

woman. For ten years we knew no separate life--I thought no separate

hopes. She had loved, been on the eve of marriage, her lover had died:

that was her heart's history, and henceforth the idea of love had fallen

out of both our lives--not the idea only, but the possibility of love. I

thought so--she _said_ so.

I trusted her and loved her with a perfect love. I wound my hopes about

her: I gave up all my life to her as if she had been my lover. I never

cared to form other friendships. I deprived myself of all possibilities of

making other ties of any sort, and with the first opportunity she whistled

me down the wind, and cared no more for me than if she had never professed

to love me. She had been my one bright thing--she was sweet and

winsome--the one golden gleam in my sombre life. My future was bound up in

her so completely that when she severed the fine, close cords (brittle,

yet so strong) which had bound us together for years, she cut into my

heart--nay more, wrested from me all my sweet trusts and faiths. If she is

false, who else in all God's earth is true? I pity myself very much. You,

of course, will not see why her marrying should make a difference if we

loved, and will call me selfish. Not so, not so! She might have married as

soon as it pleased her, and I should have been glad. It would have made a

difference, of course: she must in some sort have been parted from me, but

that I could have borne if it made her happy. But from her acceptance of

her lover--about whom we will say nothing, save that he was the sort of

man she had always held in abhorrence--she has coolly ignored my right to

any part or lot in her fate. She had told me (or I, poor fool! thought so)

every hope and fear of her life: now she told me what she chose, and was

astonished that I expected more--hurt that I seemed changed and did not

find my friendship flourish on crumbs after being nourished for years from

full loaves--was quite unhappy that I cared so little for the minor

concerns of her life, when, good lack! I did not know what I might or

might not ask and not be snubbed; for once she told me there were things

due to the man one is going to marry (at that time she had not got to the

extent of saying whom one loves) that could not be spoken of to me. Of

course she had only to mention the fact to me to make it perfectly plain,

and henceforth he and his doings, his belongings and himself, all of them

of the tamest sort at best, were a sealed book to me. And again she

quenched a feeble effort of mine to get back to my old place, by telling

me such topics she could discuss only with her sister, "her shadow sister"

she prettily called her. So I am desolate!

Knowing this, you may understand in some degree what could induce a little

waif like me to accept such an offer as yours. I think no one in all God's

earth is more desolate than I. In my heart I bear always that unforgotten

love in my life. I have only a barren waste to show. It is as if I had

started from a lovely, radiant garden in the fair morning of my life, in

which I had left the bright, sweet rose of my love, and walking along a

narrow, dark path, had clasped hands with, and drawn my light and warmth

from, a figure walking close beside me; and though from all sides as I

walked forms had come to me, offering me fair fruits and sweet flowers, I

declined them all without ever a word of thanks, being so content with my

one companion. And suddenly, when all my youth, all my prospects of other

things, had gone, this idealized one had withdrawn its hand-clasp, and

turning on me a face I did not know, faded into darkness, leaving me

nothing but my broken hopes, a wreath of withered flowers,

"Tangled down in chains about my feet."

You do not of course realize how the old French _émigré_ blood in my

veins, inherited from my father, makes this a very vital matter to me. We

cling to our hopes very tenaciously while they abide--then we are

distraught. We loved, my father and I, very few, but those with a clinging

oneness that is wellnigh pain: he loved my mother and myself--that was

all. Likewise I had my two: they having failed me, my life is a blank. I

have heard of empty-hearted people: I know now what the phrase means. I am

empty-hearted: I have not one hope, one particle of faith, one real,

honest desire, except to "drie my weir," as the Scotch say, doing my duty

as best I may, as it comes to me. But I have a woman's hatred of pity: my

cousins have long accorded me a contemptuous pity for being an old maid. I

laughed their pity to scorn while I had Esther Hooper. What more did I

need? We could enact over again the sweet old life of the Ladies of

Llangollen.

We had planned our lives a thousand times. Poor we both were, yet we would

put something away every year for our old age, and work cheerily on until

we could work no more, then creep to our nest like a couple of old

kittens, and cuddle down by our warm, pleasant fire--together, and

therefore content. Well, you see it was not to be: she had grown

affrighted, I suppose, at the thought of all that weary life with only me,

and has married a man who outrages all her delicate instincts and

traditions of an accordant husband. But why speak of him? He supports her,

and she has escaped the obloquy of old-maidism. She has married a

maintenance. She says she loves him, so of course she does.

For myself, my health, which has always been very rugged, has failed me

utterly this last year; but as my bread depends upon my ability to endure

daily and constant fatigue, I have forced myself to endeavor to get up the

amount of strength required for my winter's work by the present

expedition, planned for me by a friend. Bah! what do I talk of friendship

for? An old lady who was once a teacher in the school from which my father

had married my mother, and who, I think, had cared with more than

friendship for him, has in these last few years fallen heir to a small

property--not a very great deal, but enough to enable her to live in

comfort, and exercise her kindly heart in deeds of charity occasionally.

She has chosen for years to occupy rooms beneath my own, and has always

been a sort of mother to me. Most of the pretty things that have fallen

into my life, and most of its pleasures, have come to me through her. She

has many troublesome faults, as we all have, but she is old, and I have

always had Esther to talk them over and laugh them off with, so have borne

them easily. This year, because she saw I was dying, she took me with her

to the mountains of Vermont, and I have got a new lease of life, and new

capacities for suffering as well.

On our way back she was suddenly attacked with the illness which detained

us at this Boston hotel. Here your accident laid you up, and the rest came

as I have told.

You have married me to rid yourself of a union with a woman you detest,

being utterly indifferent to me. I have married you because I cannot bring

myself to go back to that old teaching-life, now so cold and gray. I think

I can earn my board in taking care of your belongings, and the having

saved you from a dreadful fate must compensate to you for the little of my

presence you will for the future be compelled to endure. It need not be

much or long continued if we start with a fair comprehension of each

other.

This brings me to the reason of all this long history. I have always

looked upon marriage without love as nothing more or less than legalized

vice. I think you, who are so intrinsically a man of the world, will have

imbibed the (so-called) sensible and popular views upon such subjects, and

will at once coincide with me that in such a union as ours--a literal

_mariage de convenance_ on both sides--my ideas are not unwise. Since upon

you will henceforth depend my maintenance (as I of course understand that

a wife who worked for her own support would be a disgrace to you: indeed,

I doubt whether the having married a girl who has already done so is not a

cause of shame), I ask that now, when Mrs. Keller is about to leave me,

and my arrangements as your wife must be finally made--when, in fact, her

giving up her room necessitates my coming to yours, her leaving compelling

me either to go with her, or come, as of course I must, to you--we may

have a definite understanding as to our future relations.

You have been kind enough to approve of the little I have been able to do

for you since our marriage--to say to Mrs. Keller you did not know what it

was to be taken care of in sickness; and to myself you have more than once

laughingly spoken of a wife as a good institution, adding, that had you

known how comfortable it was to have some one about you to think of and

care for you, you would have invested in the article before; and so on. I

am glad of this: I am pleased that my society has not proved repugnant to

you; for since it has been no annoyance in its first trial, I think we can

manage that it shall not be so in the future. I would ask, as an especial

piece of mercy to "your handmaiden," that you will grant her some favors

at the outset of our somewhat tangled fate. Please let me be your sister.

It is for your well-being the world should know me as your wife, and, the

Lord helping me, I will be a willing, faithful helpmeet to you, caring

most for your comfort and happiness, spending and being spent in your

service; never demanding or desiring your attention, except so much as is

due me in outward seeming; interfering with none of your pleasures or

pursuits, or thrusting my needs or feelings never before you. I have no

expectation of winning your love: it has been an understood thing from the

first--that is something neither expects from the other--therefore any

show of caressing fondness upon your part would be quite out of keeping

with our position. I have watched with some amusement, and a little pain

that you should imagine it requisite, your attempts at petting me during

these last two weeks. Poor, helpless man! it was a little hard to have to

pretend an interest and tenderness you did not feel. Will you let this

cease, with every other demonstration of affection, in our private

relations?

For the rest, claiming nothing from you, giving you nothing but the

services for which you render me a full equivalent, I grant you, as far as

I have a right to do so, the largest liberty of action. We are only

jealous of those we love: therefore all women will be as free to you as

they have hitherto been or their will accords, save that you have debarred

yourself for a time from offering any one of them marriage. I hope to be

so little trouble to you, and so serviceable to you in many ways, that you

shall realize to the full that if an unloving union could be so much more

comfortable than a bachelor's life, a life passed with a loving and

beloved wife would be bliss indeed, and so when my life has ended you will

not be sorry that I stopped in your path a few years. For I shall not

trouble you very long. I am a poor little perfumeless flower, having no

sweetness or beauty with which to charm the eye or senses, only fit to

grow among the kitchen herbs--rue and thyme, and such old-fashioned

things. But I need a great deal of sunshine, spite of my plainness, to

keep life in me. And now that all the heat and passion of love, all the

sunny hopes and glow of friendship, have left me, I shall just fade and

fade until some day you will find the poor little weed has dropped to

earth for ever.

I am but two years younger than yourself, and women, especially women with

a great sorrow, age cruelly fast. I look and feel older than I am--you

wear your years like a crown, and appear younger than you are. I have made

my little venture on life's ocean--made and failed: my barque, freighted

with a few cherished hopes, has been wrecked, and though I have reached a

rock to which I can cling for a time, yet I am terribly hurt, the waves

have buffeted me cruelly, and in a little while I shall let go my hold and

float out--out into the ocean of eternity. Ah! there is comfort after all:

life _is_ hard, but afterward there is peace and rest!

I am nearly through this long tirade. Pardon its length: it is my first,

and shall be my last, heart-outpouring to you; and if it make you

comprehend me, I shall not have written or you have read in vain.

Your income will not support the establishment your position in society

would require if we went to housekeeping; besides, you would feel as if

you must then be more stationary, more in your own home, than is at

present your custom, therefore in a degree in bondage. And a hotel-life is

very expensive and very cheerless. You have kindly said you intended

dividing your income with me, giving me half. At first I was indignant at

the idea, but now I think I see that it will be in every way the best. One

of my cousins has been occupying a very elegantly-appointed suite of rooms

on Twenty-fourth street. Harry writes me he is going very suddenly to

Europe. His rooms will of course be vacant: he talks of renting them

furnished. I have thought, if you would not object to it, we might take

them off his hands. I have calculated that the part of your means you

intend for me will meet all our expenses of every sort if you permit me to

have the arranging, of our daily affairs. I will pay the rent and meet all

the expenses of our living out of this sum, leaving you your reserved

funds to meet your ordinary requirements and pleasures. By this

arrangement, you see, I shall get my living free, and I am sure shall have

a surplus over and above our expenses, as I am a good manager and used to

making the most of everything.

There is one sacrifice which, do we enter into this arrangement, I must

ask of you--that when we return to New York you give up your valet. For

more than one reason: I cannot have a spy upon the mode of life we are to

lead. I am foolishly sensitive of the position of a neglected wife, and I

feel assured your gentlemanly instincts will prevent your ever offering

any observable slight to the woman who bears your name. Besides, in the

apartments I propose our taking there will be no room for a man-servant,

and one of the maids connected with the house will be all the assistant I

shall require. When you are away on your frequent excursions to all parts

of the world it will be very easy to provide yourself a servant. Will you

try for a few weeks how well I can supply, or have the place supplied, of

this man, whom you intend in any case to dismiss? This is all. Next week,

the doctor thinks, you may be moved to a lounge, and perhaps the week

after be able to travel, or at farthest the week following.

I acknowledge to the womanish feeling of being exultant at the idea of the

envy I shall awaken in the breasts of your adoring circle of lady

friends--my lady cousins among them--in having, spite of my

unattractiveness, secured the husband they have long striven by every wile

to win. Ah! they little know, and I trust never may, why I, without

seeking, have ensnared their _rara avis_ to be my legal bondsman. Rather a

contradiction in terms!

The pretty fiction of our sudden marriage being a renewal of an old

love-affair is more of an untruth than I am used to letting pass, and yet

has enough truth in it to make it reality, since you were the hero of my

girlish dreams. So we will let the explanation thus worded, which you have

written to my uncles and stated verbally to Mrs. Keller, stand; also, that

the undue haste was caused by your pressing need of me during your

accident. I think, indeed, from my cousin Harry's letter yesterday, and

one from Shelton last week, they have taken the idea that we have been

spending the summer together, and that you were following me home when you

were stayed in your mad career by a broken leg.

I am done; are you not thankful? There have been some things in this

letter very hard to say, which, if I were braver or knew you better, I

should have liked to be more outspoken about. But enough has, I think,

been said to make you appreciate my earnest desires and my reasons for

them. I am most truly,

PERCY.

And he, prone upon his back this warm September day, read this long

epistle from his new wife, then laid it down and closing his eyes murmured

softly, "What a strange little puss it is!" Lying in the dim light her

hand had created for him, he thought of his own troubles and hers, just as

she had stated them. The blood would flush up to his brow as her cool

ignoring of his surpassing attractions, to which all other women accorded

their full meed of praise, rose up before him. He of whom it had been said

if he beckoned with his finger women left their duties, gave up their very

life to do his pleasure!--he to have the girl he had honored by making his

wife, a little brown woman, plain and almost _passé_ (he was man enough

not to care for her poverty), show she cared no more for his love than he

did for hers I--was as indifferent to him as he to her! Indifference from

a woman was a new experience to him, and annoyed him.

Yet her quaint, frank letter touched him. What did she mean by dying soon

and letting him be free again? Poor little midge! was she dying of a

broken heart because a treacherous woman had fooled her out of a part of

her life? Poor little robin! she was his wife now, and he could heal the

worst heartache in any woman's breast. He had tried that thing before, and

succeeded, even if he broke the heart afterward. Die, indeed! Not if he

knew it: even Death should not have a little woman he meant to be good to.

And as he remembered all her faithfulness to him during these weary weeks

of pain, he thought, "By Jove! beauty's not all, for no woman, had her

face been like that of Phryne of Thebes, or her charms as entrancing as

the bewitching Dudu's, could have been more lovely in her kindness to me.

How brave and strong she has been! What a faithful little soul it is!

Always ready, day and night, to do just what I want done and in the way I

want it, never knocking things about or fidgeting round, but just

ready-handed, neat and bright. God knows, a handsome woman wouldn't have

risked the spoiling her beauty by all these weary, sleepless nights,

especially for a man she did not love." And then to think she was actually

willing to work and slave for him, and support him out of her share of the

booty, and let him fool away his own on other women! "Wonder what the

little dame means to buy her own fine things with, for even robins must

get clothing? I'll ask her that. Bless the little woman's soul! she makes

me think of her so much that I believe I'm half in love with her. Um!" and

he stopped: "I'm getting sentimental and poetic, I swear! But if it were

in me to love anything that was not beautiful, I believe I could love this

little girl, who has come into my life so strangely. She owns up to having

loved, and is done with all the stale farce. Some fools," and he felt very

indignant, "slighted her because she had no beauty, though, upon my soul,

now I think of it, I'm not so certain about that. There's a something in

her face takes a man's breath--something that one would rather die than

lose if he once loved it, and which once loved would be better than any

beauty. What's that Spenser says?--

'A sweet, attractive kind of grace,...

The lineaments of gospel books,'

That's just it: it's a look that makes one think about one's prayers, if

one only knew them. But whether the man slighted her or not, he missed

it--confound him!--in losing such a love. I'll make her tell me his name.

And as for being my sister, that's all nonsense, of course, as she's my

wife." Then more thoughtfully, "Well, maybe not: a household where there

is no love is cruel--I knew that in my early home--and children are a

beastly trouble, and as expensive as a man's wines. She's a brick, this

wife of mine, and as sensible as steel. I'll put myself in her hands for

better or for worse, I vow I will!

"The jolly way she manged that Rollins affair was proof poz of her

ability. Her cool assumption of wifely dignity--her actually bringing them

up to see me without announcing their coming to me, and never letting them

have one bout at me, was beyond anything! It's like a dip in the sea to

recall it all. Her breezy voice coming in before them was all the warning

I had: 'Oh certainly, you can come up and look at him, but not talk to

him: he's nervous and feverish, and I cannot permit even such old friends

as you doubtless are to say anything to him. You know, of course, the

doctor thought he needed constant attention, and caused us to hurry our

marriage in a most Gretna-Green style; but I could not nurse him unless we

were married. And it did not matter so much, after all, since we had

loved'--and she hesitated with the prettiest affectation of having said

something she ought not--'we had cared for each other since we were quite

children. Ross's sister Bell was my school-friend.' Then she brought them

straight to the bed, and stooping down gave me the only kiss with which

she has honored me--her show kiss, I call it--saying, 'My darling' (how

soft she said it, too, with a little trilling cadence upon the sweet old

word!)--'My darling, you are not to speak, or even look, save this once:

now I must cover up my dearie's eyes;' and she laid her cool hand over my

eyes and held it there while they stayed. 'These are some kind New York

friends, Mr. Rollins and his good wife'--and a faint pressure on my face

emphasized the joke--'who are come to see you. I cannot understand all

they mean, except that you have been behaving badly, making these good

people's daughter believe you meant to marry her, when of course you were

only going to marry your little, ugly Percy. Oh, my bad boy, what shall I

ever do with you? Oh the hearts you have broken while you have been

waiting for me! Ah! dear, bad boy!'--and, as if overcome with tenderness,

she laid her cheek down on mine. I clasped my arms about her--the first

and last time I've had a chance, by George!--but she sprang away with a

laugh: 'No, you shall not be petted for being bad. Why, Ross, these dear

people came to take you and marry you to their beautiful daughter, for I

know she's a beauty, since her mother is still so handsome.'

"Oh, it was gorgeous, to see the Rollins standing there in all her

Cleopatra-like splendor, utterly upset and put down by my little brown

berry! And the impossibility of correcting such a mistake without putting

herself in an absurd position actually stopped the Rollins speech,

and--Lord help me!--I thought that mouth could only be closed by bon-bons

and a man's kisses--any man's, _par exemple_. And her poor old catspaw of

a _pater_ stood helpless before my little hurricane--a very reed shaken by

the wind. Then my sea-breeze spoke again: 'But the doctor will shed vials

of wrath upon me for letting you see strangers.' (It must have cut the

Rollins sore to be called a stranger to me!) 'But these kind friends could

not realize your being ill, so I was fain to let them see my Apollo in his

box; but we will go now if you please;' and she positively ushered them

out in wordless dismay, bidding them good-bye at once, and seeing them no

more. I thought she would have rushed back to laugh the scene over with

me, but that shows how little I know her. When, in the course of an hour,

she did come, it was with such an utter ignoring of having done a smart

thing, waving aside my admiration of her _finesse_, that I was taken

aback. She said sadly, 'I am unused to falsehood, and _finesse_ of any

sort is distasteful to me. I quenched this woman this time, but, in spite

of her bad, hard face, I pity her very much. You, and such men as you,

have, I suppose, made her what she is, God help her!' So by this good

little girl's management I am rid of my troubles. I declare I'll do just

what she wishes, and be thankful my follies have worked me no more harm."

Then he began to wish she'd come in, and to feel aggrieved and neglected

because she did not come--to feel an eager desire to see her and talk the

matter of the letter over with her. But he had read it through again twice

ere she appeared, and then, to his dismay, equipped for a journey, and

saying, in the most matter-of-fact, nonchalant manner possible, "Ross,

Mrs. Keller has come to say good-bye. I am going with her to Newport,

where she makes the only perilous part of the trip--the, to her, dreadful

change from cars to boat. So I shall be away all night, of course."

Then Mrs. Keller came forward with--"I hope you don't mind my taking her

off, Mr. Norval?"

"But I do mind it deucedly, madam," he said. "Why, Percy, I don't like

your traveling alone this way at all. Why can't James go with Mrs.

Keller?"

"Not for the world, Ross, thank you. I'm used to taking care of myself,

and of Mrs. Keller too, for that matter. I'm not much of a traveler,

because I have not had much of a chance--none, indeed, except what she's

given me--but somehow I always manage to come out right. You are very kind

to offer to spare James, but he's your necessity. I have told him about

the medicines, and how to loosen the bandages at night. So I expect to

find you better than usual when I get back. He knows your ways so much

better than I, and I sha'n't be here to interfere;" and she went about

arranging little matters as she spoke, and not looking at him.

But Mrs. Keller saw the look of annoyance upon his face, and said, "But,

Percy, Mr. Norval dislikes your going, and you're bound to stay."

"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Keller! Of course he don't care particularly, as I am

going to be away but one night, and he's got to spend all my life with

me;" and her face saddened, he thought. "I'm sure to come back to-morrow:

my cousin Shelton says, 'Percy always manages to be at hand when she's

wanted.' Am I to write to Harry that we will take the rooms? I must do it

at once, or he may let some one have them;" and she came and stood beside

him.

He answered, sullenly, "Do just as you like about it: it's no concern of

mine."

"Of course I shall do nothing of the kind. If you had liked the idea, been

very much pleased with it, it would have been different. I only threw out

the suggestion as a mere suggestion. But we will think of it no more." All

this in her quick, bright way, without a shade of annoyance visible, and

she began talking of something else as if the matter was settled: "The

hotel-keeper will put a sofa-bed into your dressing-room for me to-morrow,

so I shall be quite out of the way when your callers are here. I have told

them about bringing my trunk in there from Mrs. Keller's room: James will

attend to it all for me. So, as long as you are a 'prisoner of hope' in

here, I'll reign supreme in the dressing-room. Now say 'Good-bye,' Mrs.

Keller: James will put you in the coach while I finish my adieux."

"But, Percy, you mistake," he said, quite humbly, when her old friend was

gone: "you do talk a fellow down so confoundedly," with a laugh. "I like

your idea about the rooms most heartily: indeed, I like all your ideas,

all your letter, except where you are so deucedly severe upon me; but even

that is true, and I like it when you tell me of it. I think your

management the best in everything, and I expect to be as happy as a king,

or rather a good subject, with my little queen to rule over me and keep me

in order in our new domain."

She clasped her hands in a quick, passionate sort of way at his words, as

if they gave her a pang. He saw that, but her calm face and voice made him

half doubt if it meant anything. "Are you quite sure, or are you only

saying it because you think I have a wish to go there? I thought you did

not seem to like it just now, and indeed I do not care: I shall be quite

content with whatever you arrange when you are well."

"No, Percy: write and say we will take the rooms from the time he leaves

them. I"--with a half-abashed laugh--"I was only cross because you are

going away. I shall miss you sorely, dear, and I'm sorry you're going and

are so glad to go--that's all."

Her face turned crimson to the very temples, and she said, "I'm sorry I

made my arrangements without consulting you: I will not do so in future. I

did not think you would care one way or the other."

"You've been so good to me, little one, and I'm so unused to being cared

for except as a society ornament, that I think I shall never be able to

get along without you again."

Her eyes filled with tears which she would not let fall, and she said,

"You are very kind to say so: I will be more careful in future. But I must

go now." He waited in quite an eager expectancy to see if she would kiss

him. "Take good care of yourself, and be sure I shall come by the first

train;" and she started to leave the bedside.

He caught her dress and drew her toward him, holding her hands: "Is that

all, Percy? Is there nothing else?"

"I think not, Ross," she said, doubtingly, but coloring painfully.

"Kiss me good-bye, Percy." She held down her face instantly, and when he

had kissed her, drew herself away without a word; but he clasped his arm

about her: "You have not kissed me after all, my darling."

"My kisses are nothing worth now, Ross: their sweetness died out years

ago. Yours are good enough for both;" and she laughed and left him.

He was bitterly chagrined: it seemed a little thing to make him feel so

mortified. That she should leave him willingly, that doing so she should

refuse to grant him so small a favor, when almost all other women--her own

pretty cousins among them--had denied nothing he chose to ask, it was

incomprehensible!

"By Jove! I never cared so much for a little thing in my life as her

leaving me and not caring to kiss me. I swear, I'm a perfect baby about

her! Little, truthful, honest soul! I believe she could make another

creature of me if she cared enough for me to try. There is something

restful in truth and honest purity, after all: one feels safe, and

grounded on a sure place. It's good to have a little fairy lying close in

one's bosom; and I vow I'll have my little brownie there yet, though I

have to go as suitor on a regular courting expedition to my own wife

before I win her heart. Curse this old lover of hers, who bars her heart

against me! And curse my own past follies, which make a good woman fear to

trust me! Marriage is a sell generally, even when a vast amount of

so-called love is brought to the sacrificial altar; so perhaps I shall not

make a bad thing of it if I win my wife's heart after she knows me _au

fond_, instead of in the glamour of gas-light flirtations. Poor little

heart! What a pitiful story it is! How quaintly she writes her pathetic,

desolate history! What a ready pen the little woman holds!" and he took

out her letter again. "I declare, the child has better attractions than

beauty--a lovely, faithful soul."

But though he was tender of her in his thoughts, he was a hard master that

night: everything went wrong, nothing pleased or contented him, and the

sullen, much-tried servant at last announced that with the morning he

would leave his master to his own devices.

"Go, and be damned to you!" was the savage reply; and the man took him at

his word, decamping, after making a few necessary arrangements, as soon

after breakfast as he could.

"And I have been as good to that fellow the year he has lived with me as I

could," thought Ross Norval as hour after hour he lay alone wanting

everything--water, the papers, a handkerchief. There was nothing he did

not want, and he could reach nothing but those nauseous medicines.

"Service cannot be bought: in very truth, love and patience must be a free

gift. However, now even love and patience seem to have fled from me. I

want my wife--I want her awfully."

Percy, with her sad little heart lying as heavy as a plummet in her

breast, was just as bright and useful and entertaining to her cranky old

friend as if life was a boon instead of a bane to her. You know from her

letter how bitter life was to her; and I think if you have ever known

sorrow and a great disappointment, you will comprehend how it was possible

for her, with the fear of God before her, and a desire to be His faithful

child, to make this match for herself. Anything was better than the dull

stagnation into which she had fallen: she had felt this year, unless some

great change came to her to take her out of this weary groove in which she

was set, she must go melancholy mad. She had laid out a hundred schemes,

all of them, she knew, impracticable; and now, in a strange, providential

way, this chance to change every thought and action of her whole life had

come to her. Do you wonder much she accepted it? I think it was not

strange.

That night after his offer (the night she had asked for in which to

decide, although she said to herself, with a bitter little shrug as she

made the request, "A woman who hesitates is lost"), as she lay awake

pondering the whole matter, she thought: "It can't be worse than it is,

and it won't be very long either way, I think. I can be faithful to him,

make and mend, dig and delve, if needs be, for his benefit, in return for

the honor he does me in giving me his name and protection. I shall expect

nothing, literally nothing, from him that wives usually demand. I, who

have borne for years with the caprice of school-girls, can surely bear the

humors of one man, especially when his name shields me from other sorts of

ills. I have rather plumed myself these last few months upon having

learned the depth of meaning and force of truth there is in that

expression from _Sartor Resartus_ I used to think so wicked: 'Say to

happiness, I can do without you--in self-renunciation life begins,' I can

try it now. I need not be a spaniel or fawn upon my lord, and yet I can

obey and honor, if he will let me, this man to whom I shall vow myself for

life. For life! Can I endure it all the years I may have to live an

unloved wife--so near and yet so far from him to whom I am bound? Will it

not be a death in life? Will it be better than this dead, cold monotony I

now bear? Better or worse? Ah, there's the rub! I can never hope to win

his faithful, abiding love. Even did use make me acceptable to him, I

could not trust its continuance. And yet who knows whether, if I try to

keep a pure life and an honest purpose to walk before him worthily every

day, I may not win from him at last a sort of respect and friendship that

will be next to love? I will some time let him know of the friends my

literary efforts have brought me. I know he will be proud of the judgment

that scholarly men, whose opinions he honors, have placed upon the

heirloom of intellectual ability that has been my sole dower from my dear

father and his learned ancestors. And when I am Ross Norval's wife I will

reveal myself to these letter-friends of my inner life, and, meeting them

no longer in the spirit only, let them see eye to eye their hidden sister,

their 'nebulous child,' as they have half playfully, half angrily, called

me. A husband's hand shall rive the rock in which their crystal has been

for years embedded.

"Oh, Ross, I shall be glad to come to my inheritance through you; to

gather my band of chosen ones into my actual, as I have long held them in

my inner, life; to know those at last whom my unprotected woman's state

has hitherto forbidden me to know. And if I take him, if I give myself to

him, I shall at last have the desire of my life. Ah, Ross! you will never

know that your boyish flattering, which meant nothing to you, and should

have meant nothing to me, did really mean so much that it simply broke my

heart, leaving me at sixteen so utterly incapable of loving any man but

yourself that since then no hand has ever touched the seal which closed

the fountain of love and passion in my heart for ever. Ah! I wonder what

penalty there is for those who carelessly destroy our hopes and blot out

all possibilities of love from us? What would you say, Ross Norval, if you

knew that the last kiss I ever gave to any man was given you that cold,

dark day they buried my father? You came with a note from Bell--she was

dying, she said; after to-day no one but her family would be admitted to

her: would I come and say good-bye to her, even from my father's grave? I

went with you, and stayed an hour with her. Then you brought me, more dead

than alive, back to my desolate home, and taking me in your arms carried

me from the carriage to my bed. As you laid me down you said, 'My sister's

little friend, I am glad to have seen you once again. Bell tells me all

these years I have been absent you have been pleasant friends to each

other. You are dear and sweet because she loved you. I shall never see you

again perhaps, for when she dies I shall have no ties here and shall go

elsewhere. Kiss me good-bye,' and I did.

"For a year after that I was alone: then Esther Hooper came, and I was not

wretched. I have had my share of lovers and friends--what girl has

not?--have had rare treats of music, of books and paintings, and shared

their pleasant harmonies with an appreciative soul; and I have been very

contented.

"But now I am desolate again, and out of the darkness you have come and

beckoned me to follow you and stand near you all the rest of my life. It

will be happiness enough, as much as is good for me, to live with you,

even if I am nothing to you, for, oh, I love you very faithfully!"

And so, you know, they were married, with only the doctor and Mrs. Keller

to witness the ceremony; and at once, with her little decided way, the

sort of certainty that years of self-dependence give, she became his

nurse, attending to him as persistently and indefatigably as if the sole

purpose for which she had been born was that. From the first service she

rendered him--bathing his head and face through an intense August day with

iced water delicately perfumed, arranging the curtains so that the air,

when there was a breeze, blew freely to him, though the glare of the sun

was gone, and his room in dim, soothing shadow--she seemed a blessing to

him. Some hours after she came with her bright, quick ways, arranging his

disordered room, bringing order out of chaos on his dressing-table, never

peeping into things, and yet getting them into beautiful order, and,

wonderful to relate, keeping them so: the air seemed to grow cooler, his

medicine less bitter, the time shorter, and his broken leg and weary back

to ache less acutely.

One day she said in a shy way, "Mr. Norval, if you will let James lay out

your things, I will see what mending they need, and will sit here and do

them, so you sha'n't spend so many hours alone. Mrs. Keller has made some

friends in the house, and they kindly sit with her so much that she does

not need me."

"But, Percy, what's the use of James having a hand in it? Here are my

keys," with a laugh as he handed them to her: "you know they are a part of

the worldly goods with which I did thee endow; and the keys always belong

to the female department by right, don't they?"

She took them with a vivid blush. "Shall I look over your trunks and

bureau, then?" she asked.

"Certainly, while I go to sleep and dream what a jolly thing it is to have

you here." Then, pretending to sleep, he watched her with careful hands

examine his belongings, with a contemptuous little smile at this piece of

bungling mending or an anxious frown over that frayed place. Then how

neatly she folded and laid back all the good, and seated herself with a

pile before her and began to sew! When he opened his eyes she handed him

the keys.

"No, Percy, keep them: I make all right and title to them over to you," he

said.

From that day he seemed to feel delight in her companionship, reading to

her hour after hour while she sewed, always choosing some poetical or

light bit of reading--"To suit my capacity," she thought.

So they had gone on week after week--with the single exception of the

Rollins episode--without any change. He was a rare favorite in society,

and every day received a host of calls from gentlemen, baskets of fruits

and flowers from ladies. Always, when a card was sent up, she would gather

all her womanish "traps" together and go to Mrs. Keller--this, too, in

spite of his earnest invitation to her to remain.

"No: you can have a pleasanter call with no ladies present, and Mrs.

Keller needs me. I'll be back in time for your medicine."

Once or twice some one, more intimate or free than usual, would run up

unannounced and catch her there. Her acceptation of the situation was, he

thought, perfect. Without a shadow of embarrassment she acknowledged the

introduction, "My wife," did the honors of the occasion, said a few words

regarding his state, and with some such words as "I will be back in an

hour or so, Ross," would leave the room.

Thus he was utterly unaware of what her abilities were. Whether she was

capable of holding a conversation, or could hold her own in society, he

could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most

society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular

woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant

conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an

intelligent thinker for a woman, he did not dream.

Nevertheless, the mere having her about him day after day, with her dainty

little ways, grew to be a pleasure to him: the making her grave little

face, with its haunting look of sorrow, break into smiles, the light come

into her soft gray eyes, became a real delight to him. Then the color

flushed over her cheek at his lightest word, and he found a real interest

in watching it glow and fade from her pale face.

"She's the sort of _brune_ that colors well," he thought. "Old Sir John's

fancy of--

'Her cheek was like a Cathrine pear,

The side that's next the sun'--

suits her exactly. And her hair, with the glint of gold in the chestnut

hue, would be a glory in a beautiful woman. Every motion of her heart

shows in her face. She'd never make a woman of the world: she cannot hide

her feelings, but lets one read them like an open book." Which was all he

knew about it, since, spite of her treacherous color, those years of hard

duty had trained her into the most perfect self-control on all needful and

great occasions and matters.

How he missed her light step! how he had wanted her all these two days!

for, though it was scarcely past noon, and she had gone late the day

before, he was sure it was that--"And seems like six, by George!" But, as

he lay feverish and famished for a drink, a very ill-used man, she opened

the door, and the air seemed lightened of its troubles at once.

Part II.

"Shall we go to Niagara for our wedding-trip?" Mr. Norval asked when the

doctor had taken his last fee, pronouncing his patient cured.

"Unless you care particularly about it, I would rather go straight to New

York. I have canceled all my school-engagements by letter, having taken a

new service"--and she bowed to him--"and Mrs. Keller promised to see to my

little rooms and their belongings; but I should like to see Harry before

he sails."

"Want to make him promise to be a good boy while he's away?" said he with

a smile.

"Something like it," she answered, laughingly. "But Harry's not a bad

fellow, at all."

"Well, then, let's start for home to-morrow;" and they made their

arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an

unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel

to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in

Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams and made up a

large part of the talks between herself and her lost friend, Esther

Hooper. He felt that her indifference to seeing the glories of Niagara and

the sublimities of the White Mountains was caused by his companionship not

being her heart's choice (which was all he knew about it!), and the idea

gave him angry pain and a passionate desire to win her in spite of all.

As they stood the next morning ready equipped for their journey, he put

his arm around her, saying, "I've been very happy, little wife, here with

you. Are you glad you happened to be here that August day, and that I saw

you?"

"I have had no cause to regret it," she said quietly.

"But you are not glad," he said, taking his arm away.

"As glad, Ross, as I can be for anything--more glad than I am for most

things."

He looked at her with a sigh. "My father--and I am like him--loved only

once." Her words came constantly into his mind. "I came too late," he

thought; and it seemed to him this little plain woman, looking wan and

pale in the early morning light, was better worth winning than any other

earthly thing he had ever known. He had left her side, and was standing

looking with a frown out of the window as they awaited the summons to

breakfast. After a while she came and stood beside him, leaning her head

against his arm. He turned slightly toward her, but took no further notice

of the action. She stayed so for a while, then said, softly stealing her

hand in his as it lay upon the window-ledge, "Dear Ross, I _am_ glad: I am

happier than I ever dreamed it possible for me to be. I would not undo the

deed we have done so long as you are content. I like being with you

dearly, and I like to think that so long as I live I shall be your

wife--your little girl to whom you are so very tender and good."

"My Preciosa"--and he drew her into his arms--"so long as we both shall

live, you mean. I want no life without you now." Then turning her, face

up, he scanned it hastily: "You are so white, my pet, so deathly pale! Are

you ill, my Percy?"

"No, no," she said quickly. "I think I need my breakfast: I have been up a

couple of hours, and I did not sleep very much all night."

"My poor little girl; when I get you safely home in those famous rooms of

ours, perhaps you'll get some rest. But you talk in this strange way of

dying: just now you did, and once before in your letter. What makes you do

it? Is there anything the matter of which you have not told me?"

"Nothing--only my life seemed ended, Ross, as if all my places were filled

and I was no more needed, so that I had got in the way of hoping for death

as a boon which God would send me soon."

"But you do not now?--you don't want to die and leave me desolate?"

"No, dear! indeed, no! though I don't think you'd care really." He clasped

her in a closer embrace and kissed her reproachfully. "Well, yes, just at

first, perhaps. Yet so long as you want me, I want to stay and be your

willing, working wife. I've got a new reason and aim now: I have you, dear

old Ross."

"Oh, Percy, I _do_ care. God knows even the thought of it gives me a

bitter agony, I know you cannot trust me yet, because I married you so

carelessly, and because you think I can't be true to one woman with my

battered old heart. But that's because you judge me by what my long,

unloved life has made me. No good woman ever made me love her before. I

never knew how beautiful a pure life was, my darling, until I knew it

through watching yours. When I think of all you have saved me from, which

would have caused my undying gratitude had I learned to hate you--as if I

ever could!" and he paused to kiss her--"when I think of all the new and

better hopes you have awakened in my heart, I feel--God knows I do--as if

He had sent my angel, and let her drag me out of a hell into which I was

plunged, and year after year sinking deeper. Stay with me, dear: I will be

true. I never cared for any woman in the way--in the deep, absorbing

way--I do for you. I wish you would believe me."

"I do, Ross--you are so good to me, so good! Oh, Ross, Ross!" and she held

up her face to his, "you are so good to me!" She clung to him one moment,

then suddenly, as soon as she could trust her voice, said gayly, "But it's

breakfast-time, and your wife is so unromantically hungry;" and with a

sigh that nothing more ever came of their talks he took her down.

When they reached New York the next afternoon, they drove at once to the

rooms they had engaged. Percy's cousin, Harry Barton, was there to welcome

them, having come round from his hotel for the purpose.

"Why, Norval," said he--they were old acquaintances--"you've won our bone

of contention, after all. I wonder what we shall do, now that Percy's

safely landed out of our reach? You're a brave man to dare our rage."

"Don't, Harry!" said Percy, putting her hand on his arm.

"I won't, dear, if you say not;" and he covered her hand with his own. "I

always did do your lightest bidding, little girl, didn't I?"

"Yes, you're a dear old cousin. Ross knows how much I appreciate your

kindness to me always. Why, I gave up what he calls my 'bridal tour,'

partly because I wanted to come back and say 'good-bye' to you."

His face flushed crimson at her words, and, all his careless, fashionable

manner gone, he said, "Did you, Percy? You always were good."

"That, and because--because I shall be so sorry if you join this African

expedition."

"Don't ask me not to, Percy--don't ask me to stay now you have broken my

hope for ever. I shall go to the dogs, dear, if I stay here now."

"I don't want you to, Harry. Only your mother is so delicate and getting

old, and she loves you beyond all the rest of the world, though you think

she don't because she has been cruel to me. It will break her heart if you

join this dangerous enterprise. Stay in Europe, go to Heidelberg and

finish the course you so foolishly broke up. They'll blame me, Harry, for

all the evil that comes to you."

"Well, I'll think about it, dear." Then to Ross; "Does she kiss you,

Norval?"

"Well, I can't say she does," said that gentleman, who had been a

surprised listener to their talk, and it annoyed him to have to confess

she did not.

"Nor let you kiss her, either?"

"Well, yes," with a laugh. "She can't very well help that, you know."

"Don't you believe it: if she didn't want you to, you'd never kiss her, I

know. Why, we three cousins, Sheldon, Mac and I, have tried every way to

get her to kiss us for years, and never succeeded. You're a lucky dog!"

"He's my husband, Harry;" and she laid her head down on Ross's arm.

"Don't, Percy!" said her cousin with a quick motion of his hand: "I'll be

gone soon;" then hurriedly and gayly: "Let me do the honors of your new

domains. And, Norval, I have a great favor to ask of you. My little

cousin's _amour propre_ won't be touched, or herself involved now she's a

married woman, by taking an honest gift from me, and all brides take

bridal gifts, you know. I want you to let me give her all the traps I've

left in the rooms. It isn't much grace to ask, old fellow, seeing you're

to have her always and I not at all."

"Why, certainly, Barton, I have no objections if she has none."

"Percy, you've never let me give you anything all these years, you proud

little soul, nor any of the rest of us: you've come scot-free from all our

endeavors to snare you through all your hard-working life. You won't go

quite empty-handed to your husband's arms, just to plague me, will you?"

"No, indeed! I'm delighted to have all your pretty things. I saw them

once, you know, when you gave your mother her birth-night party;" and they

began their round of inspection. "But, Harry, you've refurnished the whole

suite!"

"You didn't think I was going to make you and Norval (I can't call you

Cousin Ross yet, old fellow--I hate you too bad, you know) cast your lines

among my smoke-and-wine-scented traps, did you?"

As she saw how exquisitely he had chosen everything, how delicately he had

regarded every one of her tastes in his selection, and thought how little

reason he had to be good to her, she turned quickly and put her arms about

him. With a shuddering sob he held his own out as if to clasp her, saying,

"May I, Ross?" The answering nod was scarcely given ere he had gathered

her to his breast, murmuring, "Percy! Percy! my lost darling!"

As he held her thus, she said softly, "Promise me, Harry--dear old

Hal--promise me this!"

"Anything, everything, Percy," he said.

"That you will give up Africa and go to Heidelberg."

"I will, I will, since you wish it."

She drew his face down and kissed him on his mouth, two long, sweet

kisses, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, cousin!"

He stood like a blind man as she gently drew herself from his embrace,

then wringing Ross's hand in a grasp that made him wince, he strode out of

the house without a word.

Percy, going to where her husband sat, said humbly, "I was so sorry for

him, I could not help it. You do not care--very much?"

"Harry Barton loved you and wanted to marry you?"

"Yes, Ross. I've been very unhappy about it for years, he's wasted his

life so, and angered his family. Indeed, it was not my fault: I never gave

him reason."

"Yet you married me without a pretence of love, and he's richer and

handsomer and a better man than I, every way? I don't understand it,

child."

"Yes, I married you, knowing you did not love me." His arms almost crushed

her at that truth. "He may be richer: he is no better, I think,

and"--holding his face between her hands with a quizzical survey for an

instant--"it's barefaced scandal to assert that he is as handsome, by one

half. Poor, handsome Ross, to think that all your manifold charms should

have purchased you only ugly little me!" and she laughed a merry, mocking

laugh at his protesting hug. "It's true, though--it's the very climax of

opposites, a perfection of contrasts." Then, her light manner gone, she

added: "You are very, very good to me, Ross. He would never have been so

patient of my old griefs and lost loves. I told you my masculine cousins

were always crying for the grapes that hung out of their reach, you know."

Then suddenly growing grave: "Oh, Ross, it was not my fault: I could not

help it. I think the boys got to pitying me because they thought my life

was hard, and because their sisters treated me very cruelly sometimes.

Then my uncles very foolishly ordained that I should teach their sons

their Latin and help them with their studies. So out of school-hours my

time was mostly spent with one or the other, or all of them. Sheldon

Wilber and I are of the same age, and having been my father's constant

companion, I was better up in all his studies than he was himself; so I

used to do his college lessons with him, until he got to thinking, as he

used to say, I was his very breath. Then afterward I gave the other two

the benefit of what we had studied, got them out of scrapes, and indeed,

being with them so much, kept them out. Don't let's talk about them any

more, Ross: I have 'fessed' all now."

"Not all, my sweet: you have not told me who it is that has shut your

heart from us all."

"Don't, Ross!" and she shrank away from him as if he had struck her a

blow.

"Ah, well, my wife, keep your secret: I'll not touch your sacred past.

I'll try to learn to be content with my little sister, thankful I have so

much."

"Oh, Ross, my good, kind Ross!" and she clasped her arms around his neck

in passionate, longing regret, "if I might tell you all--if I might!"

"Tell me nothing, dear, you would rather keep. I am infinitely content to

even have you thus, and know you love me somewhat. Yes, I know, sweet," he

said with a sad smile as she kissed his hand in passionate regret--"the

very best you can, with all the heart you have. I know, I know!"

Quite late in the evening, Sheldon Wilber came. After sitting an hour or

so, talking gayly, he rose to go. When they were standing he said, "Percy,

I had just left the Flemmings before I came in here."

"Had you? I hope they are all well, especially Miss Lizzie, who is so

pretty."

"They're all well enough. She--Miss Lizzie the pretty--is going to be

married."

"To be married!--to whom?" she asked.

"To my honorable self: don't you congratulate her?"--with a bitter laugh.

"I asked her to-night if she'd have me, and she said 'Yes.'"

"I am so glad, Sheldon--so very glad!" and she held out her hand.

"Are you? It's more than anyone else is but my mother. Well, no--I suppose

the Flemmings are, to get another daughter off their hands, and she to

have a safe man to pay her bills. And of course all our cousins and

sisters will be glad to have another house to dance the German in; so it

is rather a jubilee occasion, taking it all in all."

"Oh, Sheldon, how hard and bitter you are! She loves you, I know, and the

rest think you will be happier with a good wife to care for."

"Yes, the wife I cared for would have made me supremely happy, but _vive

la bagatelle!_ I want to know when I am to tie this knot?"

"Whenever she wishes, of course," she answered.

"By the Lord, no! If she gets me, she's got to take me when _I_ choose."

Percy went up to him and put her hands in his: "She'll be a good wife,

and, dear Sheldon, you'll be a good husband to her."

He looked at her curiously, then answered, "I'll try: I'll begin by

letting her set the hanging--no, I mean the wedding--day. Norval, I know

you'll be good to our little girl--better, likely as not, than the rest of

us would have been had we got possession of her. Only remember, old

fellow, the shadows must never come to her through you, or some of us will

make a shadow of you. Would you mind my coming around sometimes to see the

little woman? If you'll let me come and spend an evening now and then with

you both, it will keep me from getting utterly down-hearted, and maybe

will make me a better husband to the future Mrs. Sheldon Wilber. I'll

never come without sending word to know if I may." And the poor fellow

took himself away.

"How they love you, dear! It's strange you took me, and I thought I was

conferring a favor on you! I'm ashamed to remember it now, but it was so."

"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman

would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women.

And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one

choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a

second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you."

She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate

from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said

hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly.

If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's

early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere,

because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first.

It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way."

"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to

go anywhere where you are not."

"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go

to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I

feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm

unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home

with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this

talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and

her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep

from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed

emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs,

while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross!

please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove

by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at

length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had

appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as

a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist

his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them.

The next day, when he returned from what he and his friends, by an

agreeable fiction, called an "office," where he generally spent as many

hours as served to give him a flavor of business and a figurative title as

a businessman--where were to be found the best cigars and choicest wines,

and generally a pleasant circle of good fellows congregated--he found

Percy with the most charming little dinner awaiting him; the table

exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling

in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and

the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly

air that he could hardly realize the scene of the last night's misery.

"Tears all gone, Ross, tragedy played out, and the little woman who keeps

house for you is herself again, and has been as busy as a nailer. Are

nailers busier than other men, I wonder? All your boxes came. Such bliss

as it was to us poor women to feast our eyes upon all that heritage of

linen and silver, and china and glass! Your mother must have been a famous

manager, Ross, to leave you such a store. I'm so glad we've got that old

place on the Harlem stored with all this beautiful array. Do you know,

Ross, I think I've discovered my especial calling to-day? It's

housekeeping, and I elect myself to go some time to that lovely old

mansion and expend myself in hospitality. I'll invite you to come and

visit me."

Flying about the room, then making him seat himself in the cozy chair

which was placed for him at the table--"the side that's next the fire,"

she said--rattling gayly on of all her day's employment, she caught the

look upon his face and came to his side. "What were you thinking of,

Ross?" she asked, anxiously.

"What a little tornado you were, for the first thing, and how I liked

seeing you busy among our household gods; also and moreover, that you had

not given me a chance to say a word; and worst of all, that you had never

given me my kiss of welcome, my rightful perquisite." Instantly she held

up her face. "Ah, pet, you are always submissive; but never aggressive:

still, this is sweet. And I was wondering what had become of the weeping

willow I left."

"Wasn't I a silly goose, Ross?" she said, a little breathlessly.

"Well, no, dear: you were very nervous and worn-out."

"I hate nervous, fidgety women so: they're detestable with their whims."

"I did not find you so, but I'm glad you're over it, all the same."

"And so am I. You could not make me cry like that again, Ross, if you were

to pinch me."

"But I did not make you cry."

"Yes you did, though. In truth, I was unstrung, and you were so kind and

unlike what any one had ever been to me before, so different from what I

had expected when we were married "--and her lips quivered--"that it

touched me to the quick."

"Why, darling, did you think I was going to be a brute to you?"

"I thought you would be nothing to me, one way or the other--simply forget

me, and be utterly indifferent so long as I kept your clothes made and

mended, and did not bother you about my wants or tastes or opinions."

A flush came over his face at the truth of her words. It would have been

just so had he found her what he expected her to be; but he said, "I don't

think any one could treat you like that, little girl." Then, while they

ate their dinner, he told her of his day's doings and of his determination

for the future: "I have a good opening--no man better. I mean to attend to

my practice hereafter, make a name and fortune for my sweetheart, and in a

few years we'll go to Europe and see the sights. Ah, Percy, such a vista,

such a new life, such a bright future, as I see opening before me! But,

first of all, I am going shopping with you, young lady, to-morrow. I have

ordered a carriage at eleven, and we'll buy all those pretty fixings you

women doat on. Do you know, little bride, I think all my vanity is going

to take the form of having you more prettily dressed than your cousins,

mine ancient flames when I was a bad boy?"

"Oh, Ross," with a little laugh, "you can't do it: you can't make a rival

specimen out of your bad bargain. Nothing will make me a beauty."

"Don't, Percy! I do like beauty. I have run after and made a fool of

myself for years over pretty women, but I like your face, just as it is,

better than any other woman's face I ever knew. If I could change you any

way, I would not do it. Your face is beautiful to me, though I know it is

not a pretty one: you are like sunlight to me." His voice shook, and he

strained her slight form to him with a clasp that was positive pain. "I

said I would not change you, but I would if I might put that old love out

of your heart for ever. Why, in those far-off years when we were childish

friends, did I not know my truest life lay in winning you? It is strange!

I have never failed to gain the love I wanted until now, when I want the

only one that would complete my life. Dear Percy, love me all you can. If

there are things in me--and I know there are many--which turn you from me,

tell me of them and I will change them if I can."

"Oh, Ross, don't, don't! I am not worthy of such words."

"Oh, little Preciosa, I am glad to have even a little of your heart: the

half of your love has come to be more to me than the love of all the world

besides."

Do you think it was not agony for her to hear such words as these and make

no response to them, fearing lest with assurance should come satiety? And

yet the knowledge of his growing love was very sweet to her, and worth the

agony.

They settled down in their new home, and were purposely "out" to all

callers during the next month--then returned the cards that had been left

for them. As they grew accustomed to their new life, she thought to see

his pleasure and interest in it wane as the novelty wore away, but it was

not so. That love of home which is, after all, the truest test of a really

manly nature, seemed to grow upon him. It was always so bright and cheery

by their cozy fire, the glare of public rooms, the noise and glitter of

theatres and concert-rooms, struck him with a feeling akin to disgust,

after the soft, subdued light of his home, and his wife's merry, breezy

voice. He sang and played for her, never giving a thought to her having

any musical ability, since she never touched the instrument. He read to

her hour after hour, having at last discovered her taste and ability to

understand the kind of books he relished, perfectly content if she would

favor him by sitting near enough to him to let him pull down that wealth

of "tresses brown," a glossy cloud about her.

Of course this Arcadian life could not continue in the very heart of

Sodom. Society was not going to lose Ross Norval if he _had_ made a fool

of himself and married a little nobody. So callers flowed in upon them,

and Ross, having in boyish glee arrayed himself in purple and fine linen,

took her in state to see his friends.

Of course her cousins and their friends hated her: she had won their

_bonne louche_, and the crimson of her plainness and poverty, of the

having to "have Percy always around to please Uncle Rufus," was pink to

the enormity of her being Ross Norval's wife. And "why he married her,"

and "of course he's dead tired of her by this time," were their politest

surmises.

One morning they paid a cousinly visit--a triple call. "And, by Jove!"

thought Ross as he watched her haughty little face and _nonchalant_

manner, "she's no milk-and-water nature, though she's always so

sweet-tempered with me. She's got all the temper a true nature ought to

have."

"To think of your ever getting married, Percy, and to Mr. Norval, of all

men!" said Miss Leta Wilber. "Why, we thought him engaged to the beauty

and belle of last winter, Miss Agnes Lorton."

"Well, yes, Leta, old girls like you and I are rather off the cards: we

don't expect to catch the prizes generally--we leave that for these

younger ones, like Jennie and Lucille," said Percy, coolly.

"A Roland for your Oliver, Leta!" laughed Jennie Wayne. "I never venture

to break a lance with Percy: she always has an arrow in reserve to pierce

you with. I suppose you've found that out, Mr. Norval?"

"Found what out? I fear I don't follow you, Miss Jennie," said he.

"That she's very able to take her own part, this little cousin of ours,"

said she, her beautiful face scarlet at his manner.

"Is she, though? Well, I like that amazingly, do you know?"

"Like ill-tempered people?" said Miss Leta, snappishly. "Is it possible?"

"Ill-tempered people?" with a wellbred stare. (Is there such a thing?)

"No, indeed! Why, birdie"--and he leaned over, and, taking her hand,

raised it to his lips--"to think of any one calling you ill-tempered!"

"You silly boy!" laughed she. "I'll take my hand if you please, and don't

you believe but what you've married a termagant."

The girls said afterward, in recounting the scene, it was simply

disgusting. Leta vowed, "The little baggage must be a witch and throw

spells over people. Look what fools she's made of our boys for years, and

Ross Norval, with all his splendid endowments, is just as bad."

"And he did use to admire your form, Leta," said Jennie, maliciously.

"I've seen him waltz you until it was hard to tell which face that long

blonde moustache belonged to."

"Ditto, cousin, and worse, if gossips speak the truth. But don't let's say

ugly things to each other. We both hoped to win him once, and we have both

lost him. The little wretch will watch him like a hawk, and never let him

come near a body."

"Oh dear!" said her sister Laura, "if I only knew I was to do a German

with him to-night, I'd be happy: he holds one better than any man I know;

and if Percy will let him dance with a body occasionally, I'd as leave she

should have him as the rest of you."

"Unless he'd chosen yourself, Laura, I suppose?"

"Well, yes, that would have made a difference, even to my laziness,

especially if she'd have made dear old Harry stay at home by marrying

him."

That's the way they talked, yet in a couple of weeks after each house had

sent her an invitation to a large party--"for you and Mr. Norval, dear

Percy"--and the invitation-cards stated the fact.

"It's my Viking they want," laughed she: "they take his mouse in for the

sake of securing him. He's such a credit to the family!"

"Well, it's your Viking they won't get," said he.

"Now, Ross, don't be a bother, dear, and complicate matters. They will

say--and be glad of the chance--that it's my fault. You've such a passion

for dancing, they will say I prevented your coming. And besides, as I

dance so little, you'll ask them as much as ever?"

"How do you know I am so fond of it, Percy?"

"I've watched you too many years not to know that. You forget that, though

a flower unnoticed and unseen--a very wall-flower in fact--I have been a

looker-on in Vienna. I might have made a point of that, Ross, if I'd

thought in time, and 'hung i' the walls of Venice, a sightly flower.' You

were the bright particular star, or sun, in whose light all the fairest

flowers disported themselves. Why, I could tell you every woman--that is,

of your own set--you've been what Jennie calls 'bad about,' for years." He

held up his hand deprecatingly: she laughed gayly. "Never fear. I don't

intend to name them: I have not time to go over such a thing of shreds and

patches. Ah! the hopes I've watched you raise to heaven and then dash to

earth!"

"Oh, Percy, I don't wonder that you are afraid to trust me now: I am

paying the penalty of my years of folly."

"That's nonsense, Ross. I don't believe in fashionable women's hearts. You

were too good for them, and they led you on always," she said, almost

passionately.

"That's my good darling trying to excuse her sinner. But how was it you

never danced at any of those parties? Harry and Mac are both good dancers,

and Sheldon's the best waltzer I ever saw. How is it you never danced with

them?"

"With them, indeed! Why, that would have been an aggravation past enduring

to my rich relations. Sheldon had actually the insolence to tell his

sister Leta that I was the best waltzer in society. Think of the prize

you've got, young man!"

"I do always, sweetheart," he said, answering her gay tone with a grave

one. "Did you waltz much with Sheldon and the others?"

"I never waltzed with any of them in my life. Why, Ross, I never let them

speak to me at parties, except by turns to take me out to supper and

home."

"But how have you managed to keep up your waltzing then?"

"Oh, Mr. Vanity, men are not all. Esther and I waltzed constantly: then I

used to help Lucille, who is my favorite cousin, 'along in her paces;' and

the children at our school-parties doat on me as a partner. Would you like

to know who was the last man, and indeed almost the only one, I ever went

round a room with?" and her face turned crimson, though she laughed.

"Indeed I should--curse him!" he said under his breath.

"Your honorable self, at Madame's school-party;" and she sprang away from

his outstretched hands with a mocking laugh.

The day of the party she wrote a few little violet-perfumed notes, and

sent them off. This is a specimen:

"DEAR DOCTOR: You have so often wanted to know your 'nebulous child,'

and been indignant that she hid her face from you behind her veil of

clouds, you will be pleased to know that the sunshine has dispelled the

clouds, and made her at last able to meet the starry train of which you

are the sun. Will you greet Ross Norval's bride at the Wilber party

to-night as the child you have trained and been so good to in the past,

and who, ever honoring you, is still your loving child for the future?

If you'll ask me prettily to-night, I'll sing the foolish words I made

for the sweet, tripping Languedoc air you sent me last year. I am, now

and ever,

"MIRA CANAM."

In consequence of these notes, when Ross led his wife into the room,

arrayed in a crimson cloud of his choosing, which made even her brown face

a picture, all her bronze hair, her husband's glory, floating round her

far below her waist, confined lightly here and there by diamond clusters,

which sparkled like stars amidst its creped luxuriance--"Daring to dress

in the very height of the fashion," said Leta, "and all those diamonds on

her--his mother's, of course;" and of course they were--the consequence, I

say, was, that first one distinguished man and then another met her with a

warm greeting--"deucedly warm," thought the jealous fellow, who was so

uncertain of her yet, and wanted all of her--and were introduced to "my

husband." Taking for granted that "my husband" was glad to get her off his

hands, they took possession of her, to his infinite disgust.

These were the men with whom she could talk, whose minds struck diamond

flashes from her own, whose thoughts she had followed for years, and who

looked upon her as their peer, and deferred to her opinion on many things.

And she, knowing Ross was her amazed listener, was stirred to do her best

before him--glad her triumph over her relatives should be in his presence

and brought to her through his means. It may not have been a lovely thing

in her to desire or enjoy a victory, but ah! it is so natural, and my

little heroine had had hard lines meted out to her for years. Besides, no

woman is free, you know, from vanity: only men are that.

She stood near the door of the dancing-room. Ross came to her after every

dance, but it was always, "Not me yet, Ross--Leta, or Jennie," or whoever

stood nearest her. Even the girl to whom report had given him (with

reason) the year before was, at her open entreaty, which he could not

evade, his partner; but half the time he stood beside her, forgetful of

the dance in listening to the conversation in which she bore so large a

part.

A lull in the music after supper announced the suspension of dancing

hostilities for a time, that due strength might be gathered for the last

waltz, and then the German. The time was occupied by a very weak tenor,

who came to an ignominious end in the middle of "Spirito Gentil." Miss

Jennie Barton and her cousin Laura gave a sweet duo, in rather a tearing

style, Jennie being a fast young lady everyhow; another lady sang a

Scottish ballad as if it had been manipulated by Verdi; then one of the

gentlemen said, "Mr. Norval, I hope you will lay your commands on your

wife to sing for us."

"_I_ hope that will not be needed," he said, bowing (thinking with a pang,

"They all know her better than I do"). "I am sure she will do equally well

if we all beg the favor of her."

"She has promised me to sing," said Dr. B----, "my pretty Languedoc air,

which she has--"

"Now that's enough, you foolish old doctor!" and she went to the piano.

"Foolish old doctor!" He was the great gun of the scientific world: the

people about looked aghast at such impertinence, but the "great gun" only

laughed and said, "I am mute if you command."

How her hands trembled as she began! This was her last and greatest card:

by it she had always felt she must hold him to her for ever, or lose her

husband's love in time. She had never touched the piano before him or sung

a note, but much of her leisure since their return to New York had been

taken up, when he was out, in keeping herself in practice against the time

when she should have a chance to play for him and sing to him. She played

the sweet air, with its Mozart-like, mournful cadences, entirely through

ere she felt nerved enough to begin. Then she sang in such a voice as made

the most indifferent pause--a voice that was like purple velvet for

richness, as sweet as the breath of an heliotrope to which the sun had

just said adieu, as clear as the notes of an English skylark--this little

song:

"See, love! the rosy radiance gleams

Athwart the sunset sky:

List, love! and hear the bird's sweet notes

In lingering cadence die.

Clasp, love, thy clinging hands in mine,

And, holding fast by me,

Trust, love! I will be true, my dove,

Be ever true to thee--

So true, sweetheart, I'll be,

Sweetheart, to thee!

"Come, love! I waiting pine so long,

And weary watch for thee:

Dear love! amidst my darkest night

Thy star-like face I see.

Heart's love! ah, come thou close to me:

I'll shelter thee from harms,

From every foe or secret woe,

Close clasped within my arms:

Lie safe from all alarms,

Sweetheart, with me."

While they listened to her, those careless men and women, they thought

they began to understand why this little, plain girl had won Ross Norval.

While everybody praised her, he stood utterly silent, too moved for words

she saw, and refusing to sing again, she went up to him as the band began

to play. "My waltz, Ross," she said. He put his arm around her with a

loving gesture that made those about them smile, and whirled her off.

"He's the hardest hit man I've seen for years," said one.

"And that such a thing should come to pass, as Ross Norval in love with

his own wife, is beyond belief--after making love to everybody else's!"

"That's it! He was always the darling of fortune: the choicest fruit

always dropped his side the wall."

But Ross, as he held her in that "tight hold" which was so much admired by

his partners, said only, "Percy! Percy! I do not know you at all. How

cruel you are to me! Everybody knows you and your gifts but me."

When the German had commenced he came to her and whispered, "Do you care

for it?"

"The German, Ross? Indeed no: I am tired too, and was just coming to ask

you if I might let old Mr. L---- take me home: he says it will be no

trouble."

"And you would not have asked me to take you?" he said, reproachfully.

"Take you away from the German, Ross! Such an unheard-of thing as that!

You must think me very selfish. Indeed; I am not where your pleasure is

concerned: I only want you to enjoy yourself."

"Then, for Charity's sake, let's go home," he said.

"With all my heart if you really wish it!" and she started; then pausing:

"Are you going because you think I want to go? I do not indeed: I will

stay gladly."

"I am going because I want to--because I am dead tired, and long, with a

perfect passion, for our cozy room, the dim firelight, and my darling

toasting her pretty slippers."

"You dear, foolish Ross!" and she was gone like the wind. On their way

out, Sheldon Wilber met them in the hall, and, handing her something,

said, "To-night, little girl: if you have ever doubted, doubt no more. And

remember, a trusting heart is a priceless one;" and he was gone.

When they were home and comfortable, Ross said, "My wife, it was cruel to

let me learn your wonderful gifts through strangers: it has hurt me

cruelly."

"Oh, Ross, don't say so! Hurt you! I hurt you, my love, my love! I had

hoped no pang of the lightest sort would ever reach you through me, and

now I've grieved you sorely! It's all due to my morbid fancies, dear. I

could not ask to sing to you lest you should not like my singing: I think

I should have gone mad if you had not liked my voice, Ross I have so hoped

it would be pleasant to your ear! Do you like it, Ross? Is my voice sweet

to you?" and she held his face between her hands and looked eagerly and

steadfastly into his eyes.

"The sweetest thing I ever heard. It thrills my blood yet, that love-song

you sang."

She gave a little cooing laugh: "That is _your_ love-song, dear--your very

own." Then she said, gravely, "I must tell you _all_ about myself now,

Ross, so you shall never be able to reproach me with having given you

pain. No matter, dear: it was, true," she said in answer to his caressing

protest, "and I feel the hurt through you. I am your wife. The reason

those gentlemen are so fond of me is because--Wait;" and she slid from his

embrace and brought a pile of books: "this and this are mine; these two I

translated from the German, others from the old Provençal tongue, with

which my father made me familiar." Then she told him how lovingly she did

this work, how kind scholarly men had been to her, and how eagerly they

had sought to know her otherwise than by letter--"Until, to-night, I bade

them find Ross Norval's wife, and know the little girl who, shielded by

his name, feared nothing any more."

"Percy," he said, quite humbly, "you must bear with me, dear. I lose all

hope of winning you when I learn these things of you."

"But you are not sorry, Ross? I will not write any more if you dislike

literary women."

But he stopped her: "Dislike it! I am proud as a king of all your

endowments. But, sweetheart, you said a word just now that is worth all

else that you have told me--a word, I know, you said only half meaning it.

Oh, my little girl, will there ever come a time when, meaning it and out

of a full heart, you will say, My love! my love!"

She held him tight a long, long moment, then with one lingering love-kiss

on his lips--her very first--she said faintly, putting him away from her,

"Ross, not now--wait, my dearest. Sheldon gave me this to give to you

to-night;" and she held out a little worn letter, then buried her face

upon his breast and tremblingly waited while he read it. It ran thus:

"Sheldon, my cousin, it can never be: give up all hope for ever. I kill

it now, because it is best you should know the truth. I almost give up

my life, my cousin, when I make my heritage of woe known to you. You

will pity me, Sheldon, when you realize what agony the confession you

thus wring from me gives my heart. But if it cures your passion it is

not borne in vain. I love with an undying love, a faith that knows no

change, an endurance that years of neglect have not weakened, that years

of cruelty could never change, a man who would laugh to scorn my very

name. I love--and have loved since I was sixteen years old, until

now--Ross Norval. Keep my secret.

"PERCY HASTINGS."

It was dated four years back.

"Ross, Ross! you know it now! Oh, my love! my love!"

* * * * *

I will attempt no painting of the effect that confession had upon him. But

after a long, long time she whispered, "I will sing the last verse of your

song, dear, which only you shall ever hear." And lying on his breast, she

sang--

"Dear love I thy face above me gleaming

A sunset radiance gives:

Ah, love! thy tones' sweet cadence dying

Sings in my heart and lives.

Clasped, love, close to thy heart, thy birdling

Foldeth her wings in peace--

Trusts, love! feeling nor cold nor shadow,

Finding at last her ease,

From fear a safe release,

Heart's love, with thee."

MARGRET FIELD.

The Victims of Dreams.

My friend Bessie Haines had no mother, but her father was such a very

large man that I remember thinking, when I was quite a child, that a kind

Providence had intended to make up her loss in that way. She and I did not

live in the same city, but managed to keep up a lively friendship through

the medium of correspondence and half-yearly visits.

I was a complete orphan, and my uncle, with whom I lived, was her father's

attached friend. She had a very happy home, and I was glad to enjoy it

with her, particularly when my uncle accompanied me, for then her father

and he became absorbed in each other, and left us to our own devices--not

very evil ones, but too childish and trifling to claim the sympathy of

such very grave men as they were.

We had both become tall, womanly girls, but Uncle Pennyman and Mr. Haines

called us children, and treated us as such; and Bessie was just writing to

me about her father's telling her she must begin to think of serious

things, when my uncle remarked to me that the time was approaching when I

should prepare myself to assume the duties and responsibilities of a

rational female. Just as if we had waited to be told this, when in fact

Bessie and I had been consulting about our bonnets and dresses in the most

grave and mature manner for years past, and arranging our future on plans

that for variety and agreeability could not have been surpassed had we

been brought up on the _Arabian Nights_ and Moore's _Poems_, instead of

Baxter's _Saint's Rest_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_.

"There are several questions of vital importance that have been growing

daily stronger in my mind," said my uncle Pennyman. "My friend Thomas

Haines has a gift in clearing points and expounding meanings; so that I

feel it to be for my mind's edifying and my soul's profit to go to him for

counsel."

I was delighted to hear this. I wanted to see Bessie, and I blessed the

bond that united these good brothers in Israel and drew us together so

often. Mr. Haines was good at texts, and my uncle was wonderfully expert

at dreams. Mr. Haines was a great dreamer, and my uncle constantly

stumbled over passages needing elucidation. So we lived in harmonious

intercourse, and Bessie and I talked of all our plans and delights while

they got themselves entangled in obscurities with a commentary under each

arm.

It would have appeared, from Mr. Haines' dreams, that Bessie's mother had

been a most fussy and bothering lady, though I was told by the

housekeeper, who knew her well, that she was the mildest and most timid of

little wives while living.

According to these visions, she was constantly troubled in her spiritual

state on the greatest variety of small subjects; and my expert uncle, in

expounding her communications, was always able to draw from them strong

religious lessons, and to administer much strengthening comfort to his

friend the dreamer.

"I was hoping papa would soon have a vision," said Bessie when we were

settled together all comfortably, and she had told me how glad she was to

see me again. "Mrs. Tanner said last week that she was sure he was going

to have another, because the spire which he felt he was directed in his

last dream to put on the little chapel was all complete, and the

missionary outfit which he had believed himself called upon to provide was

ready and gone to the South Seas, and he naturally looked for more work.

When he said last week, 'Bessie, I have sent for Brother Pennyman

concerning a visitation in the night,' I was so glad, for, Winnie

dear--would you believe it?--I have been dreaming too, and I want you to

tell me if I have read my dream aright."

Now, this was the most wonderful thing that Bessie Haines could have told

me--the most startling and least to be expected altogether; for if ever

there was a wide-awake girl, it was she.

I suppose my perfectly frank stare said as much, for she blushed a little,

and continued with a very suspicious flutter, which I had learnt, in the

case of young engaged persons I knew, to look on as a bad symptom:

"I do not mean dreaming with my eyes shut, you know, but having deep,

serious thoughts, unlike the gay fancies that have held me captive all my

life."

"Dress trimmings and poetry?" I suggested.

"Yes, yes--all the useless, perishable fancies of thoughtless youth," she

replied.

This sounded more like an Essay on Vanity than Bessie Haines, and I really

was astonished, and had nothing to say for a little while, during which

she, being full of her subject, went on:

"I can scarcely trace the beginning of the--the awakening, shall I call

it?"

"You called it a dream before."

"Yes, dear Winnie, but it is so hard to know how to classify new emotions,

and this is such a peculiar one that it seems nameless. You know papa

feels bound, ever since that water-dream he had, to go down to the

Mariners' Chapel on Sunday afternoon, and I used to read solemn poetry

when it was too warm or too cold to go with him. Well, about two months

ago it was fearfully warm, and papa had come home a fortnight earlier from

the shore, on account of a suspicion he had that he had dreamed something

and had forgotten it as soon as he awoke. This indistinct warning made him

think we had better go home at all events, and home we came the first week

in September, to the roasting, dusty city. But I did not then know that I

was perhaps drawn back for a purpose; and oh, dear Winnie, there may be

something in papa's visions, after all."

"He has had a good many of them," I said.

"So he has," assented Bessie; "and I was inclined to be impatient at this

one, since it brought me home in the heat, and the house seemed so lonely,

because Mrs. Tanner was still in the country with her married daughter."

"She having received no spectral warning," I hinted.

"Oh dear! no. Mrs. Tanner never dreams: she's opposed to it. Well, the

first Sunday was so warm that I took up _Solemn Thoughts in Verse_ instead

of the Mariners'; and after I had read eight pages, it really seemed as if

I had better have tried the heat out of doors, it was getting so gloomy

within. So I got up and dressed, meaning to walk out and meet papa, and

return with him. I don't know whether it was the _Solemn Thoughts_ that

confused me, or whether I was not paying attention, but I actually lost my

way by turning at the wrong corner, and so came down Barton street toward

a little chapel that I had often noticed before. Two dreadfully red-faced

and short-haired little boys were at the entrance by the small iron gate.

They had disagreed about something, I suppose, just as I came up, and they

instantly began to fight, with the wickedest determination visible in

their freckled little faces. At first, they kicked at each other, and

growled out some awful words without the least sense, but with a great

deal of profanity in them, and then they laid down their little books and

tracts, and apparently tried to pull each other's head off. Of course it

made me quite wretched to see them hurt each other in that shocking way,

and so I interfered and tried to reconcile them, but the naughty little

souls must have had a certain amount of kicking and scratching on hand to

dispose of, for they united in bestowing it all on me the moment I came

between them.

"I was just trying to save my dress and lace sacque from their boots and

claws, when a reverend gentleman appeared at the door, and the bad boys

became sneaking cowards at sight of him. I picked up their little tracts,

while he tried to apologize for them; and it was so sad, Winnie, to think

that those dear children had not profited by their lessons: one was called

'Love One Another,' and the other, 'Be Meek and Lowly.'

"While we were talking a lady joined us, and I went into the school at

their invitation.

"Winnie, do you know anything practical about Sunday-school?"

"I went to one, and was for years in the class of an elderly maiden lady

who urged us all to learn Scripture and hymns. I was so expert and high in

favor that I could repeat forty verses at a time as glibly as a parrot."

"But I don't quite mean that sort of thing," said Bessie. "I mean a real,

earnest teaching-place, where children are gathered in and told all about

Christ's love and mercy--where they are softened and won to better

thoughts and kinder actions, and their poor little minds filled with

shining truth, instead of street dirt and abuse."

"I never thought about it before, but such an institution could not help

being a popular one, and a very useful one too," I confessed.

"Oh, I am so glad, so very glad, that you approve, dear, for I am engaged

in that work; and I did not want to write it to you, for somehow it seemed

so strange for such a thoughtless, silly girl as I have been to attempt

such a serious thing."

"As teaching in a Sunday-school?"

"Yes, in a sort of mission school for little scholars of the lower

classes. Miss Mary Pepper and I have at this time nearly two hundred boys

and girls of all ages, and some of them are very interesting and lovable,

while others are--"

"Like the two gladiators who introduced you to the scene?"

"Yes. I am afraid there are quite a number of that kind; but, Winnie, you

must like Miss Mary Pepper. Oh, she is one of the most excellent women I

ever knew, so truly, so nobly, so devotedly good. You cannot imagine what

a comfort it is to me to be with her--to feel that I am under her

influence, and may learn from her to be a little like her."

"Miss Mary Pepper?" I repeated: "then she is a young lady?"

"No--not young: indeed, she is rather elderly."

"An old maid," I remarked, coldly. "She is pretty and sweet, though faded,

I suppose."

"Why, no--not to look at: her nature is beautiful, but her manner and

figure are rather--rather unprepossessing at first."

"A stiff, hard, straight-laced old maid," I said, contemptuously. "Well,

really, I cannot see the fascination--"

Bessie's face flushed painfully: "I confess that dear Miss Pepper's person

is not so beautiful as her nature, but, Winnie, it is the cause of doing

good and trying to be good that draws us together so closely; and of

course I do not love her as I love you, my dear, precious first friend."

These last words were full of balm, for of course it was the sting of

jealousy that had made my heart resent the venerable Pepper's powerful

influence over my dear Bessie. Being once assured that it was a

second-rate power, and that I still held my supremacy, I entered into the

Sunday-school question like a second Raikes, and volunteered to help, and

try to learn the way to the young hearts that beat under the pugilistic

exterior of the juveniles of Canon lane, where the mission chapel was.

Then, having become one on this serious subject, we began to wonder what

Mr. Haines' dream might portend this time, and prepare our minds for the

verse from the prophecies over which dear Uncle Pennyman had made his

latest stumble.

"Mrs. Tanner thinks it was something about a journey, and she is quite out

of sorts on the subject: for, as she says, the house can't be shut up

without worriment, and as to staying in it alone she really has not got

the nerve."

"I do not think that Uncle Pennyman will interpret it that way, because he

cannot go too, as he is at present very deep in the minor prophets, and

has fallen out of humor with all the commentaries."

"I am so glad!" said Bessie, placidly--"so glad, I mean, that we need not

go: I think every one must find his life-work at home."

I stared a little at this, because I knew that only a few months before

Bessie Haines had wanted very much to find style and fashion abroad; but I

remembered the Sunday-school, and tried to be as serious and convinced as

I could; and to that end I talked a good deal of church interests, and the

prophecies, and _Light in Obscurity_, a new work which had utterly

confused me at the first chapter, but which I had read through to Uncle

Pennyman one warm July day when he stayed at home to keep Tom's birth-day.

That reminds me: I have not mentioned Tom, but as he was away at college,

and Bessie never seemed to like to talk of him--I'm sure I can't see

why--it is quite natural that he slipped out of my memory.

He was a ward of Uncle Pennyman, who called him his son, and indeed had

adopted him formally.

How two such opposite people ever came to love each other as they did, I

never can explain. It was not a natural, commonplace affection: it was a

strong, deep, earnest love, as firm in the hearts of both as the life that

caused their throbbings.

Tom was wild and full of frolic: if there is a graver word than gravity,

it should be used to describe Uncle Pennyman's demeanor. Tom was quick and

restless by nature, but his good sense and determination to make a niche

for himself in life, and fill it respectably, had toned down his exuberant

spirits into active energy; while Uncle Penny man's naturally slow

tendencies had become aggravated by the ponderous character of his

pursuits and tastes: all hurry was obnoxious to him, and he firmly

believed that haste was another name for sin. Yet the solemn, slow old man

loved the busy, merry young one, and neither saw any fault or failing in

the other.

There was no earthly relationship between Thomas Gray Pennyman and me, and

yet I was always spoken of as his sister by my dear, worrying old uncle.

Tom did not seem to like it, and I knew I did not.

People often said to me, "What a splendid brother you have, Miss Pennyman

but what a pity that all these handsome brothers have to be given up to

stronger ties!"

How utterly silly! I never had any patience with such nonsense.

There was not much comfort in talking to Bessie about him. I'm sure I do

not know why, but I suppose she saw that I avoided the subject; so I was

really quite surprised when she said to me, laughing and looking a little

mischievous--

"Mr. Tom is to join us by and by, your uncle says. I hope we may be able

to make it pleasant for him. I believe he likes Mrs. Tanner: he used to

like her buns when he was a boy, and I hope he has not forgotten the

fancy."

Tom coming to visit the Haines! Such a thing had never happened before,

and must mean something now. I began to feel quite uneasy, though I really

could not have explained why.

We never had much of my uncle's or Mr. Haines' society except in the

evening: they spent the day going about together and worrying texts of

Scripture with other good old men, before whom Mr. Haines liked to show

off uncle's Bible knowledge. They took some pious excursions in company,

and had a solemnly festive time, I have no doubt, for they always came in

looking perfectly satisfied with the result of their day.

It generally took some time to hear the dream and find its proper

interpretation. While it was pending the expounder generally gave out his

puzzling verses, and then both pondered a good while before they arrived

at their conclusions and made them known.

Both the dream and the text must have been of an unusually difficult

nature this time, for a whole week went by without either transpiring; and

although Bessie and I watched for some allusions to them in our morning

and evening family worship, at which the two good men officiated

alternately, yet not a hint could we gain until one night at the end of

the week it seemed from Uncle Pennyman's prayer that the matter in some

wise referred to Bessie, since Divine guidance was sought under many

rhetorical forms for the welfare, future and temporal, of "the young

handmaiden, the daughter of thy servant, who would fain know thy will

concerning her."

"Bessie," said I that night, when we got up stairs, "I think I have found

out what your father's last dream was: I solemnly believe that he means to

send you out as a missionary."

Now I thought I had said something calculated to make Bessie turn pale and

gasp, but I could scarcely believe it when I looked up, expecting to find

her almost fainting, and saw her pensively, but by no means alarmedly,

shaking her head.

"I am not devoted enough, Winnie, love," she remarked. "I have not the

grand self-abnegating spirit necessary for such a work. No; mine is a home

field."

If I had not known about the young warriors of Canon lane, I should have

thought her demented: as it was, I could scarcely wait for the next day,

which was Sunday, to be introduced to the scene which had already produced

such a marked change in her character and tastes.

It transpired during breakfast that Uncle Pennyman's peace had been

disturbed by a verse in the book of Nahum, that talked about the lions and

lionesses, and their whelps and prey, in what appeared to him a mysterious

manner. Mr. Haines, who was a dear, good man, elaborated it so that we all

felt as if we had made a visit to the Zoological Gardens, and afterward

been carried into Babylonish captivity. My uncle followed his words with a

brightening face, and when they grew particularly mixed and

long-syllabled, he would exclaim softly,

"It is a great gift! a great gift!" and seem really overcome with the

magnitude of his friend's powers.

I never saw any harm in Uncle Pennyman's texts: they never worried any one

but himself; though I must confess that verse about Ephraim being a cake

not turned affected us a little. But that was because he had the ague, and

Mr. Haines was attending some kind of convention; and what with the

chills, and that unexplained cake of Ephraim's, we were kept a little

uncomfortable for a time.

But Mr. Haines' visions were perplexing: no one could tell where their

signification might point; and this sending for Tom (of course he would

never have thought of coming if he had not been sent for) made me quite

uneasy.

I began to fear that this would be the first time I had ever gone to see

Bessie without enjoying the visit; and as we walked along to Canon Lane

Chapel together, her manner was so absent and fluttered that I really did

not know what to do.

"It is a delightful and meritorious thing to be pious, no doubt," I said

to myself, "but it has not improved the manner of my dear Bessie: on the

contrary, I should say it has entirely shaken her nerves, and given her

palpitation of the heart."

When we reached the chapel we found quite a number and variety of youths

already collected around the door, and when we went into a large and airy

room, well lighted and filled with seats, a goodly selection awaited us

there.

A lady stood on a small platform with a bell in her hand: she had a large,

bony figure, and a long, bony face, and turned her eyes toward us without

changing their expression into any beam of recognition, as she used her

voice without any softening tone or tender cadence whatever:

"Miss Haines, good-afternoon. Mary Bryan, where's your brother? John Mott,

you have dropped your tract. Miss Pennyman, glad to see you. Sarah Harper,

give your sister a seat."

Bessie had pushed me on her attention between the monotonous sentences she

jerked out at her scholars, and she gave me five words just like the rest,

and dropped me off again.

Bessie seemed to become calmer after she had looked around the room once

in a hasty, fluttered way, and placing a chair for me, she threw herself

energetically into her philanthropic work.

I never knew before what a serious thing it was to be a Sunday-school

teacher, or how varied the requirements for such duty were. Thirst seemed

to be a prevailing agony among the scholars, and it seized its victims as

an epidemic does--without warning. They would just reach their seats and

drop into them listlessly, or gain them by energetic contest with some

previous intruder, and after an empty stare around them would be taken

with a sudden pang, expressed in writhing, shaking the right hand wildly

and gasping, "Teacher, I want a drink! I want a drink!"

Then they were subject to a terrible vacillation on the subject of their

hats: they would almost consign them to the care of a monitor appointed to

hang them on the pegs made and provided, when a sense of their

preciousness would suddenly present itself to their minds, and they would

rescue them wildly, and throw themselves on the defensive while they sat

upon or otherwise protected the contested article of dress.

There were six windows with broad sills in the room, and every child

seemed beset with a passionate desire to leave its seat and lodge itself

in a surreptitious manner on one of these perches, as if they had been

posts of honor.

Whether bits of bright tin, glass bottle-stoppers, ends of twine, broken

sticks and marbles were accessions to biblical instruction, or were only

so considered by the pupils themselves, did not transpire, but poor Bessie

seemed to find them stumbling-blocks in her path, and Miss Pepper had no

sooner confiscated one lot than another appeared in circulation and broke

the story of Joseph's coat into a parenthetical narrative:

"Israel loved Joseph so much that as a particular proof of his parental

regard (James Moore, stop putting that stick in your brother's eye) he

prepared a variegated garment known as a 'coat of many colors.' (John

Mink, take that marble out of your throat, or you'll swallow it.) The

bestowal of this beautiful gift (Mary Dunn, put your ticket away, and,

Sally Harris, let her hair alone) awakened feelings akin to envy and

bitterness in (Jane Sloper must not borrow her cousin's bonnet in

Sunday-school) the bosoms of his perverted brethren. (Hugh Fraley will

leave those strings at home, and, William Grove, stop climbing over the

bench.) Alas! what sorrow can evil and disobedient sons, too little

conscious (Dicky Taylor, bring that insect to me) of the sacrifices and

prayerful struggles of their venerable parents (no, Henry, not another

drink), call down upon their already care-burdened minds!"

Of course I felt sure that Miss Pepper was in earnest and meant to do

good, but I suspected that she had not what my uncle called "a gift" with

children, and I saw how much harder it made it for Bessie, who really was

a natural teacher, and who contrived to rule with a steady but gracious

firmness, and to win with a sweet simplicity that explained itself to the

minds of little ones.

I wondered not a little at her infatuation on the Pepper question when I

saw how contrary their ways and influence were. There were plenty of nice,

interesting little girls among the two hundred, and some very well-behaved

boys too; but Bessie set herself to win the unruly, and it was a lesson to

thoughtless me to see her do it. One terrible little soul, with a thin,

wiry body and tight-cropped head, fell into a conflict with a square-set,

hard-faced boy, and they rolled under the seats together just as Miss

Pepper had succeeded in raising the ill-used Joseph out of the pit with

words of three syllables. Bessie went to the rescue, and separated and

inverted the combatants, only the soles of whose boots had been visible a

moment before. She sat down with them, and although I could not hear her

words, I saw that they were slowly smoothing the angry creases of both the

thin and the square face.

"Then let him stop a-callin' me 'Skinny,'" was the last outbreak of the

injured lean one, and his antagonist confessed--

"I won't say nothin' to you no more if you stop grinning 'Flathead' at

me."

Before Miss Pepper had succeeded in describing the paraphernalia of

Eastern travel and the approach of the Ishmaelites, the two were induced

to shake hands silently across their gentle mediatrix, whose face suddenly

grew radiant with the sweetest blush I ever saw as the door opened and a

new feature was added to the scene.

I do not mean to detract from the good impulses or high motives of my dear

girl when I say that this was the key that opened the subject to me, and

made it bright and plain. It wore the form of a truly good and

good-looking young gentleman, who had just enough of the clergyman in his

appearance to show that he honored his holy calling above all things. He

gave Bessie a glance that set my heart at rest--for I naturally felt

anxious that the blush and brightness and other signs should not be thrown

away on an unappreciative object--and then he went right into his work. Oh

dear! what a difference! One could not imagine, without seeing for one's

self, what a beautiful sympathy could do with material that a hard, dry

purpose could only irritate. Of course he bowed to me, and met Miss Pepper

like an old friend, and then he began, and in beginning caught every

single wandering mind, and held it with that mysterious fascination which

individualizes, and convinces each one that he is the particular soul

addressed.

He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a

little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the

machinery of a factory in which he worked. He took every one of us there

with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be

helpful to every suffering fellow-creature. Some of us had to cry a little

at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite

self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and

more orderly in every way. Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he

planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with

personal exhortation, and told us something else. Surely no one could have

better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have

liked it related. Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a

strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the

attraction irresistible.

I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he

closed and the orderly dismission began: then he turned to Bessie, and I

saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was

being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved. Such a timid tenderness as

pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted

hers! I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted

to see him at Haines', and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom

Bessie had the good sense to appreciate.

The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary. I soon changed my

prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits. She was

the Paul that planted: being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias,

she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and

taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school

to his church duties in a different quarter.

"Bessie, does your father know--?" I began as we went homeward together.

She interrupted me: "About Miss Pepper? Oh yes, indeed! She called to ask

his permission for me to teach them, and has been at our house twice

since.

"You know I don't mean her at all," I said, laughing. "I mean her nephew,

Bessie Haines."

But Bessie faltered: she had not the courage to speak freely, since it was

evident they had not spoken so to each other yet. She knew she loved and

was beloved, but could not force the delicate secret into words, since it

was yet unavowed between them.

"All I am afraid of, Bess," said I, determined to make her practical, for

she was as ethereal as if she and her love meant to live in the clouds all

their days--"all I am afraid of is, that your father's vision may threaten

your peace; for, rely on it, Bess, it is about you and you alone, or why

should uncle keep praying for you as a 'young damsel,' and 'handmaiden,'

and 'female pilgrim,' and all that?"

Bessie seemed troubled, but she could not be brought to confidence until

the minister had opened his heart to her. I saw that, and though I had

never had a warning dream in my life, I felt it was my mission to help

her.

The Rev. Charles and I had had a little, a very little, talk, but I saw

that Bessie had named me to him--that pleased me; that he was very

desirous of gaining my good-will--that pleased me too. So I had happened

to say that I admired church architecture, particularly Gothic: some one

had said that his church belonged to that style, and he immediately,

offered to take us to examine it. I asked him to call for us next day, and

he delightedly promised that he would.

I told Bessie, and the ungrateful creature was alarmed and nervous, and

gave way to all sorts of nonsense; but I consoled her and admired him in a

way that seemed to give her satisfaction. The next morning I made a

startling discovery. I went into the little bookroom that opened out of

the great old-fashioned back parlor, where uncle and Mr. Haines sat every

morning with Scott and Clarke and Cruden open before them: I went in very

quietly, and didn't make much noise when there. Mr. Haines was talking in

a slow, set way, and I could hear the scratching of a pen over stiff

paper.

"Would you mention my reasons for recording this, my dear Daniel?" he said

to Uncle Pennyman.

"I have set them down at the commencement," said my uncle, who was acting

as scribe. "I have said that, your mind being clear and your feelings at

ease, you retired to your couch on the night of the 28th of October; that

the form of your dear wife seemed waiting for you, since you became

conscious of her presence immediately after your sinking asleep; and so

on."

"Yes," said Mr. Haines, witty a deep sigh: "it is a great thing, no doubt,

to be so guided in the visions of the night, and I have many times

considered myself greatly favored by the knowledge of the ministry of my

dear wife's blessed spirit; but, friend Daniel, if she had been a little

more explicit in this instance it would have been a great comfort to me.

Follow me now, friend Daniel. You have got it down to where she spoke.

Well, she raised her hand and seemed to point to the couch of Dorcas

Elizabeth" (that was what Bess had been baptized, and was called by her

father on solemn occasions)--"my thoughts had been dwelling on the child,

and her increasing age and future duties--and she said, 'Marry her wisely

to Thomas,' and repeated the words three times."

I heard the scratching pen and Mr. Haines' depressed, uncertain sigh, and

my own heart sank heavily. There was no Thomas to marry her to but our

Tom, and such a thing was simply preposterous and wicked. I could not, I

would not, bear even to think of it.

Oh, good Mrs. Haines, departed so long ago! why should you come back

troubling us about such, things? and, above all, why could you not as well

have said Charles as Thomas?

"I have that set down," said Uncle Pennyman. Mr. Haines sighed again in

that anxious, uncertain way of his:

"During the first day after the visitation, Daniel, I could not recall

whether my wife's appearance said, 'To Thomas, marry her wisely,' or as we

now put it down; but since you have set it clearly before me, and your son

will so soon be here, I feel that I am justified in having it stated in

that way, and that Providence is guiding me."

Oh how my heart rose against Uncle Pennyman as I listened! He was the one

to blame for such a shameful, foolish notion stealing into Mr. Haines'

head! Left to himself, any name would have suited him equally well, and

here was Tom's thrust in without any earthly reason. It was really

dreadful! I could scarcely stand on my feet when I remembered how Tom

loved his adopted father, and with what unselfish devotion he always spoke

of him. "If he's told that it will be a family blessing, he never will

have the heart to deny them and grieve Uncle Pennyman. Poor Tom! he is so

shockingly unselfish himself that he would rather enjoy a sacrifice than

otherwise, I suppose." So ran my thoughts, and I grew desperate.

Desperation awakens courage. Tom would be there in the evening, and if

anything could be done it had to be done at once.

I slipped out silently as I came: no one heard me. I did not mean that

they should do so, for, to confess the truth, I was listening on purpose.

I dressed to go out with Mr. Pepper; so did Bessie, though I must say she

was very nervous and uncertain about it. "You know papa does not know him

in--in the character of a friend of mine," she said, hesitatingly. "Miss

Pepper introduced him, and that is all."

"But that is no reason why it should be all," I said to myself, and paid

no attention to her little bashful fussiness.

When he arrived, I saw in his eyes that he meant to take advantage of the

opportunity I was making for him, and so I boldly carried out my plan. We

started, and had gone a block or two when I discovered that they were

becoming unaware of my existence and completely absorbed in each other.

"Poor dears!" I thought, "let them have a still better chance." So I

stopped in the most natural way possible at a window where trimmings were

displayed, and began to stare at some ribbon. "The very shade!" I said: "I

would not miss it for anything. Pray go on slowly, and I'll join you

presently. Keep on till you reach the church--I know the way. And be sure

you stay till I come. No, you shall not come in: I insist that you go

right on, and do not bother. I have a sort of pride in making bargains,

and they never can be made in company, you know." I laughed and wouldn't

listen to their waiting, and managed it so well that they went away as

unsuspecting and tender as two lambs. I waited till they were out of

sight, and then I started straight for home.

I was in high glee till Mrs. Tanner came up stairs.

"There are great preparations making for Mr. Tom," said she with a

portentous face. "Mr. Haines has given more orders about his reception

than I ever knew him to issue before; and, what seems strange, he actually

insists on my calling him Mr. Thomas, when I never can get my tongue round

anything but Mr. Tom, in the world."

Both seemed threatening--the preparations and the name; and when Mrs.

Tanner asked where Miss Bessie was, and heard that she had gone out, she

shook her head and said that she was afraid her pa wouldn't like it. This

convinced me that she too had guessed the nature of the vision, and made

me more than ever anxious to save poor Bessie and Tom from mutual

unhappiness. The first effort was made, and I must consider the next step.

I felt nearly sure that by this time the two dear Sunday-school workers

had become personal in their conversation, and taking up my position on

the broad sofa in the quiet, shady back parlor, I set myself to thinking

out the plan. It was a great, solidly-furnished old room, staid and

handsome like the rest of the house, and meant for comfort in every

particular. Over the mantelpiece, and directly opposite to me, was a

life-size picture of Mrs. Haines, a very young lady with a mild shyness of

expression and a great deal of flaxen hair. She had died when Bessie was a

baby, and was altogether a more childlike and undecided person than her

daughter. The wonder therefore was that she should have become so

dictatorial in the visions of the night, and undertaken to control the

family affairs after so many years, never having meddled with them while

there was a living opportunity.

I was just thinking how useless it would be to appeal to Uncle Pennyman

without--without saying something about Tom (and that under the

circumstances could not be thought of: it made me burn all over merely to

have it in my mind for a moment), when I became drowsy, and had not time

to question the feeling until I was sound asleep.

A murmur of voices roused me, or perhaps I was going to wake at any rate,

for they were singularly low, and the speakers quite unconscious of my

presence. I looked up, and in the faint light coming between the bowed

shutters and lace curtains I saw the Rev. Charles and Bessie directly

under the portrait of Mrs. Haines. He had thrown his arm around her, and,

although she struggled just a little in the embrace, held her to his

heart.

"Oh, I cannot believe it," she was saying: "it is like a dream. And Winnie

too!--to forget all about dear Winnie just because I am so happy. It is

selfish and unkind, dear, I am afraid."

He told her I was too good, too lovable to quarrel with their bliss, and

held her to his heart while he looked up to the flaxed-haired, baby-faced

mother for a blessing with quite a glow of feeling on his face and real

tears in his eyes.

There was something in mine I suppose, for when I looked too I could

scarcely believe them: the portrait seemed to show a different face

entirely. The blue eyes bent down on those upturned to meet them with a

look I had never beheld in them before, and the delicate little pink mouth

seemed to tremble with a blessing.

"Am I dreaming?" I almost asked it aloud, and the question and the sound

of Uncle Pennyman's voice in the book-room gave me a new idea. Softly I

slipped from my place and out at the open door, leaving the absorbed ones

to themselves, and joined my uncle and Mr. Haines where they were

preparing for another conflict with the commentators.

"I have had a dream," I said solemnly.

"A dream!" repeated they.

"Yes, and it was so lifelike that I must tell it to you, for I am

convinced it is no common warning, but one full of meaning and truth."

They gazed at me blankly, and I went on, fearing to stop an instant lest I

should lose my courage:

"I was lying on the sofa opposite Mrs. Haines' portrait--"

"The very place where I lay when last I dreamed," murmured her husband.

"And I saw Bessie and a gentleman hand in hand beneath it, looking up into

the sweet face for a blessing; and oh such a heavenly smile lighted it

while the beautiful lips seemed to murmur, 'She will marry wisely, dear

Thomas!'"

Mr. Haines was so shaken by my words that my heart misgave me. He covered

his face with his hands. "She used to call me dear Thomas," he said, and

the tears ran through his fingers.

"Then the name was _yours_" said Uncle Pennyman with weighty

consideration. "You remember I said it was capable of a double

application: those things are wonderful, and interpret each other. Winnie,

my dear girl, could you distinguish this person's face?"

Before I could answer, Mrs. Tanner at the door said, "Here's Mr. Tom,

bless his heart! I never can learn to call him anything else."

Tom was _so_ glad to see me! Yes, I may as well tell it, for it told

itself: dear Tom never seemed so glad before.

"Was it his face, Winnie?" whispered Mr. Haines.

If ever _No_ was said with energy and decision, it was in my reply. The

parlor door opened just as we were about to go in all together, shaking

hands and making kind speeches over Tom, and Bessie and the Rev. Charles

appeared in the act of taking leave of each other.

"That's the face!" I cried dramatically; and then I really and truly did

faint--stone dead, as Mrs. Tanner said afterward--for I was not used to

telling lies, and even white ones were exciting things to tell, and

scarcely justified themselves to my conscience by the magnitude of the

good they were to do.

When I came to myself, Bessie was hanging over me with all the love she

had left from Mr. Charles, I suppose; and I heard Mr. Haines and Uncle

Pennyman talking with Tom, and trying to explain to him the remarkable

nature of the vision that had overcome me. I sat up, and tried to laugh

and declare that it was nothing at all, though my heart kept throbbing.

"You have all had dreams," said Tom: "you have yet to hear mine. Uncle, I

dreamed that Winnie and I loved each other, and that I asked you for her

and you said yes."

"No, Thomas," said Uncle Pennyman gravely, but with a kind of breaking

about his mouth: "your eyes were open when you had that vision, and you

must not jest with serious subjects. But it is well you mentioned it, dear

boy, and it is well our child Winnie received such a remarkable direction,

since it throws light on friend Haines' visitation, and apparently the

happiness of that excellent young minister and our dear Bessie here."

"The young man has just expressed himself in corroboration of the vision,"

said Mr. Haines, much affected.

Bessie threw her arms round her father, then round me, and then she ran

away. Mr. Haines and Uncle Pennyman went out to their commentaries, Mrs.

Tanner to see to her buns: Tom and I were alone.

"What is this about, Winnie darling?" he said.

"Tom," said I, "we are all the victims of dreams."

MARGARET HOSMER.

The Cold Hand.

There is a rocky hill in what was till recently the town of Dorchester,

looking out over Boston Bay. It takes its name from the stiff black savins

with which it is covered, and which contrive to find nourishment and

support in the rock to which they cling. Some of these trees show their

great age by their gnarled and knotted trunks and boughs. Black and

impassive they stand, alike in the brightest summer or the grayest winter,

sighing restlessly in the breeze, but wailing piteously when the sea-winds

sweep over the hill. Partway up the little rocky eminence stands an old

house, now fast falling to pieces. It is a low building, with a gambrel

roof and a huge chimney. It has stood there many years, for it was built

not long after the Revolution, and it might have stood many years more had

it not been suffered to go to decay with a carelessness which seemed to

belie the general thrift of the town.

Wandering over the hill one bright winter day, with no companion but a

large dog, I stopped to look in at the window of the old house. The glass

was gone from the sash, and the sash itself was broken in many places; but

the obscurity was so deep within that I obtained only a partial glimpse of

an interior which to my fancy had a peculiarly deserted and eerie look. I

felt a desire to explore the place, attracted rather than repelled by its

forlorn look of falling age; for I came from a part of the country where

the most ancient relic dates back only forty years, and the aspect of

everything old and quaint in the place had a charm for me which I suspect

it offers to few of the natives. The front door was locked, but I obtained

an entrance without difficulty at the back, and made my way through a

little shed, which was evidently of more modern construction than the main

part of the building. I came first into the kitchen, where was a large

fireplace blackened with the smoke of long-dead fires, and a narrow, high

mantelpiece. A little cupboard was let into the side of the great chimney,

which projected far across the floor. The room was long and narrow,

running the whole length of the house, with a window at each end. The

blackened plaster was dropping from the walls and ceiling, exposing in

some places the heavy beams, and the floor was dark and discolored with

age and dust, although quite firm to the tread. By a low door I passed

into a small room lighted by two windows--one in front, the other at the

end of the house, and presenting the same appearance of desolate decay.

There were four doors in this room--the one through which I had just

entered, another leading to the rooms above, a third, secured by a bolt,

which I did not then open, and a fourth leading into a narrow passage, in

which was the locked front door. I crossed this passage, and found myself

in a room of the same size as the one I had just left. It was that into

which I had attempted to look from the outside. Here I missed the dog, who

had hitherto followed me, though with seeming reluctance, and no

persuasion could induce him to cross the threshold. This room was in

rather better repair than were the other two. There was the same high

mantelpiece, rather less narrow, and the same little cupboard let into the

massive chimney. The floor was less discolored, but there was a deep burnt

spot on it near the fireplace, as if some one had dropped a shovelful of

hot coals, or rather as if some corrosive fluid had been spilled. I

remained here a few moments, idly wondering what might have been the

history of the former tenants, and what could have induced any one to

build a house in a spot so bleak and exposed, where scarcely a pretence of

soil offered itself for a garden. As I stood there, a singular impression

came upon me that I was not alone. For a moment, and a moment only, I

became conscious of another presence in the room. The impression passed as

suddenly as it had come, but, transient as it was, it awoke me from my

reverie. Smiling at myself for the fancy, I recrossed the passage and

ascended the steep, narrow winding stairs to the chambers above. There

were four small rooms, opening one into the other, with a closet

partitioned off in each, and so low that in the highest part a tall man

could but just have stood upright. Here the ruin was farther advanced. The

floor creaked under my foot, the plaster had nearly all fallen from the

ceiling and was peeling from the walls, while deep stains on the remaining

portion showed that the rain and thawing snow had made their way through

the roof. The place had a lonesome, forlorn look, even more than usually

belongs to a deserted house, though such might not have been its aspect to

other than my unaccustomed Western eyes.

Turning, I made my way down the short staircase, and was about to leave

the house when the third door, as yet unopened, caught my eye. I drew with

some difficulty the rusted bolt, and found myself at the head of a steep

flight of stairs, seemingly longer than that which I had just descended.

It led to the cellar, and though the afternoon was getting on, I thought I

would finish my exploration, and therefore went down, though repelled by

the close and peculiarly damp air. The cellar was blasted and hewn in the

solid rock to a depth which, considering the extreme hardness of the

stone, seemed remarkable in a house so unpretending. A dim light made its

way through a narrow window at each end and fell upon the stone floor. I

walked forward, looking up at the windows, but I had not taken ten steps

before I recoiled with a start. At my feet lay a pit, seemingly of

considerable depth, and filled with water to within four feet of the top.

The cellar did not lie under the kitchen, but only under the two front

rooms and the passage, and this pit occupied the whole length and fully

half the breadth of the space of the rooms above, and, what was more

peculiar, seemed to extend even farther forward than the house itself.

Another step, and I should have fallen into it. Curious to try its depth,

I picked up a little fragment of stone and dropped it in. As the stone

touched the water, and the circles on the sullen surface began to widen, a

current of air rushed down the stairs, and the door above shut violently.

At that moment the impression which I had experienced in the room above

came back upon me with tenfold distinctness, and was accompanied with a

feeling of exceeding horror. It seemed as if there was closing around me

some evil influence, from which I could only escape by instant flight. For

one moment I resisted the unreasonable terror, and made an attempt to

explain, or at least analyze, a sensation so unwonted: the next, the

loathing dread grew too strong. I turned and hurried across the damp

floor, up the narrow stairs, and, opening the door, made my way as quickly

as possible into the outside air. The dog was waiting for me in the little

shed, and seemed delighted at seeing me again. I closed the door, ashamed

of my senseless fright, but nevertheless I was thankful that I had found

no trouble in getting out. I am not quite prepared to say, however, that

these sudden and apparently unreasonable starts are independent of

external causes. The Vermont-bred horse will be thrown into an agony of

fright when the closed cage of a lion passes by, though he has never

learned by experience that lions will kill horses, and though the lion

himself is unseen.

I walked briskly home. I had some distance to go, and had quite lost the

impression of my ghostly terror when I reached the house where I was

staying, a modern shingle Gothic erection, which in vain endeavored to

disguise its barny appearance with sundry wooden adornments modeled after

crochet-work.

"Freda," said I to my friend after tea, when she and I were sitting

comfortably by the fire in the library, "do you know anything about the

old yellow-gray house up on the hill?"

"Why, what of it?"

"Nothing, only I went into it to-day. What is its history?"

"Nothing particular. It was built for a Doctor Haywood. Have you read

Alp's last essay on the Semi-occasional?"

"Yes, and great stuff it is."

Freda looked inexpressibly shocked. I had better have condemned law and

gospel together than made light of Alp; but she put up with it, probably

considering it excusable as the utterance of a savage from the wilds of

New York.

"Never mind him now. He shall proclaim his figs in the name of the Prophet

for all time if you will tell me about the old house. I know it has a

story."

She rose and took from the drawer an old manuscript volume, which she

placed in my hands. It was a little note-book, in which the entries were

made not from day to day, but at irregular intervals, in a singularly

clear, precise hand:

"_Nov._ 3, 1784. This day my neighbor Ball's cow, getting out of the

pasture and running on the highway, was put in the pound. Took her out,

and cautioned my neighbor to have more care of the creature. _Mem.:_ To

bespeak a pair of shoes for her eldest girl.

"_Jan._ 1, 1785. This day the wind very high.

"_Jan._ 10. Neighbor Ball's cow, getting among my wife's rosebushes, did

do some damage, whereat she was much vexed. Caught the said cow, and

begged my neighbor to keep her at home, which she promised to do, but in

an hour back again. However, she is a widow.

"_Jan._ 13. Doctor Haywood, newly come to this place from the old country,

has taken lodging with Neighbor Ball. Said to be a learned man--has much

baggage, and they say some curious machines. Is curious about plants and

the like. Neighbor Ball did hint to my wife that he knew about matters

better let alone, whereat my wife did tell her that she wished he would

give her a charm to keep her cow out of our yard.

"_Jan._ 15. Dr. Haywood has bought a lot on the hill, and is to build upon

it. Has spoken to me about it. Have drawn the plan, and shall make the

estimate.

"_Feb._ 1. Doctor Haywood hurries on the work--says he is in haste to get

into his own house. Saw Indian Will to-day, quite drunk. With much trouble

got him to our house, where my wife did let him lie in the kitchen all

night. Had she not done so, the poor man might have frozen to death before

morning, for it was a very cold night. Argued with him in the morning,

whereat he promised amendment.

"_Feb._ 10. My daughter Faithful this day, with my consent, promised

herself to John Clark, skipper of the Federalist schooner.

"_Feb._ 18. Blasting out the cellar for Haywood's house. He wants it more

than common deep--says it makes the house warm.

"_Feb._ 21. Came this day upon a great hollow in the rock filled with

water, which ran in as soon as pumped but. The doctor much displeased at

first--talked of beginning over again, but finally contented himself.

"_June_ 3. Doctor Haywood moved into his house this day. Has much curious

stuff. The minister says he is a chemist.

"_June_ 8. Went up to the doctor's house to settle with him. He came to

the door and said he was too busy then, but would drop round soon. They

say he lets no one inside the place since he moved. Has taken a pew in the

meeting-house, and comes once of a Sabbath.

"_July_ 22. Doctor Haywood and me did settle accounts. He beat everything

down to the last penny--offered to pay part in attendance on my family if

sick. Did not care to settle that way, knowing his charges. Charged James

Sumner five dollars for one visit to his child, which child, nevertheless,

he did greatly help.

"_August_ 18. News came this day that the Federalist went down in the gale

of the tenth, off Marblehead, with all on board. A sore affliction to my

daughter Faithful. The Lord's will be done!

"_August_ 26. Neighbor Ball's eldest girl gets lower. Doctor Cray does no

good. She would call in Doctor Haywood if she dared, but his charges are

so high. James Sumner and me did consult together and agree to take the

charges between us. I have heard say that he has helped several poor

people free: did especially help Indian Will when he lay like to die of

pleurisy at Neponset Village.

"_Sept._ 1. Neighbor Ball, going up the hill last night to call Doctor

Haywood to her daughter Hepsey, did tell my wife that she had a look into

the south room as he opened the door, and that there were queer things

there, such as a brick furnace, all red with fire; and she did say, too,

that she saw things like snakes, only thin like mist, twisting about in

the air by the firelight, which I do hold to be her own invention or mere

foolish notions.

"_Sept._ 2. Doctor Haywood has helped Hepsey Ball some considerable,

though he says he cannot cure her, for she has consumption.

"_Sept._ 16. Doctor Haywood told James Sumner and me that he would ask

nothing for attending Hepsey Ball, but would keep on to ease her what he

could as long as she lived. He told my wife she might last a year.

"_Nov._ 3. Jonathan Phelps told me that Doctor Haywood had borrowed one

hundred dollars of him, giving security on the house and lot.

"_Nov._ 8. James Sumner this day, his wife being dead a year, did ask my

daughter Sophonisba to marry him, the which she did refuse, and snapped

him off too short. Then he spoke to Faithful, and she burst out crying and

ran up stairs, and could by no means be got to listen. Recommended James

to Hannah Gardner.

"_Nov._ 16. Doctor Hay wood this day borrowed fifty dollars of me. If he

had not been so considerate to Widow Ball should not have felt like

letting it go.

"_Dec._ 16. Coming home from Boston last night, overtook Indian Will. He

showed me a big iron tobacco-box nearly full of money--silver, with two

gold-pieces, one a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea. He got

it for a lot of deer-skins in Boston. Begged him not to drink it all up,

which he said he would not do, but would give it to his squaw. Did ask him

to come home with me, which he refused, as he meant to go on to Neponset

Village.

"_Dec._ 17. The wind blowing these two days to the land made it very high

water, coming nearly up to Governor Stoughton's elm, and covering the

road.

"_Dec._ 18. A great gale last night--much damage at sea, doubtless. The

water very high.

"_Dec._ 19. Two men out in a boat found an old hat and blanket floating by

the Point, said to belong to Indian Will: no one has seen him since the

16th. Likely he went to the tavern and got drunk, so missed his way and

was drowned by the tide.

"_Dec._ 20, Last night Indian Will's body came ashore, much beaten by the

rocks, but known to be his by those who knew him. The verdict was,

'Drowned by the tide.'

"_Feb._ 11, 1786. Doctor Haywood spent the evening at our house. He has

been more social of late, going a good deal among people, especially poor

people, to help them. Has never paid me the fifty dollars, but makes

promises. I was led on to speak of Indian Will. The doctor said the night

of the 16th he thought he heard some one cry out, but thought it some

drunken person, and besides was busy with his studies, and so did not

mind. My wife asked him what he studied. He said a good many different

matters, but that he had given it all up now, and meant to practice.

Shortly after jumped up and went away very sudden."

Here the journal came to an abrupt end. The rest of the book was filled

with accounts relating to the business of a milliner and dressmaker.

Slipped in between its leaves were two letters, written in a cramped,

scratchy hand and rather irregular in spelling. They were directed to

Sophonisba T----, Salem, Massachusetts, and seemed to be from a mother to

her daughter:

"DORCHESTER, May 1, 1786.

"My Dear Child: I take my pen in hand to let you knew that we are all in

good health, and hope you are enjoying the same blessing. James Sumner

is married to Hannah Gardner. Most people think she will have her hands

full with his children. Parson H---- married them. She wore a blue silk

at two dollars the yard. Hepsey Ball is dead. She departed this life on

the 29th of April, at half-past eight in the evening, being quite

resigned and in good hope of her election to grace. She had not much

pain at the last. Doctor Haywood called to see her in the morning, and

she being then, as we thought, asleep, did start up and cry out that

there was a black shadow, not his own, always following after him, which

made me think her light-headed; but her mother says the doctor turned as

pale as a sheet, and made as if to go off again. Your sister Faithful is

at Mr. Trueman's, helping to make up Lorenda's wedding-clothes. I would

not have had her go, but she seemed willing to undertake it. Your loving

mother, ANNA T----."

The second was also addressed to Sophonisba, who on the 3d of June was yet

visiting friends in Salem. After a few details of domestic news, it went

on:

"Doctor Haywood is missing: no one knows where he is gone. He has been

looked for in Boston, but they have found no news of him; only that a

little black boy says he saw a man like him go on board a ship bound for

the East Indies. Now he is gone, they find he owes money to a great many

besides your father. He owes to people in Boston for drugs and

medicines--some, it is said, very costly, and sent for express to the

old country. Mr. Sewell, the bookseller there, says he tried to dispose

of his books to him; and when he did not buy them, thinks he sent them

to the old country. He owes every one he could get to trust him. It is

odd what he did with all the money. It is thought Jonathan Phelps will

get the house. They went up to it and found the door unlocked. They

found nothing in the house but the furniture, and that very common and

cheap. There were none of all those things they said he had; only in the

south room a lot of bottles and jars, and a brick place built up with a

vent outside, which Parson H---- says is a furnace such as folks use

that study chemistry. There was a great heap of ashes in the fireplace,

as if he had burned papers or books there, and a great burned spot on

the floor right before it."

"Who was the writer of these?" I asked as I refolded the little old

letter, "and what became of Doctor Haywood? Was nothing more heard?"

In answer to these questions my friend gave the following narration.

The writer of the journal was my great uncle, Silas T----. Sophonisba and

Faithful were my mother's cousins. Both were much older than she, but I

have often seen Faithful when I was a girl, and I had all the story there

is from herself. The little house on the hill fell into the hands of the

chief creditor, who took down the furnace in the south room and offered

the place to rent, but no tenant ever remained there long, either because

of the bleak situation or the want of a garden. There were rumors that the

place was not quite canny. One woman, indeed, went so far as to declare

that she had seen the doctor's figure, dim and unsubstantial, standing

before the fireplace in the twilight, and that once, as she came up the

cellar stairs, something followed her and laid a cold hand on her

shoulder; but as she was a nervous, hysterical person, and moreover was

known to be somewhat given to exaggeration, no one paid much attention to

her tale.

It was certain, however, that there was a great deal of sickness in the

house. One family who rented the place lost three children by fever in one

summer, and it was remarkable that all three seemed to fall under the same

delusion, and insisted that something or some one, coming behind them,

laid upon their shoulders a cold hand. One of them, toward the last, said

that a shadow kept moving to and fro in the room, and kept the sunshine

all away. The woman who had seen the vision of the old doctor became a

widow the next month, and so much sickness and death took place in the

house that at last no one would live there, and it was shut up by its

owner.

In due course of time the father and mother of Sophonisba and Faithful

were laid in Dorchester burial-ground. Mr. T---- had never been a rich man

by any means, and when he died there was little left for the two girls,

even after the sale of the homestead. They did not, however, consider

themselves poor, but with their fifteen hundred dollars in the bank and

their trade of milliner and dressmaker thought themselves very well to do

in the world. Sophonisba, the elder, was at that time a little under

fifty--an energetic, hard-working woman, with a constitution of wrought

iron and bend leather, and no more under the influence of what are called

"nerves" than if they had been left out of her system entirely. If ever a

woman was born into this world an old maid, it was Sophonisba T----. Her

fine name was the only romantic thing about her. She had had more than one

offer of marriage in her day, but she had no talent for matrimony, and had

turned such a very cold shoulder on her admirers that the swains became

dispirited, and betook themselves to the courtship of more impressible

damsels. There was no hidden romance or tale of unreturned affection in

Miss Sophonisba's experience. The simple fact was, she had never wished to

be married. Miss Faithful was five years her sister's junior. She had

never found room in her heart for a second love since John Clark went down

in the Federalist. She had been a young and pretty girl then, and now she

was a thin, silent, rather nervous little body, depending entirely upon

her sister with a helpless kind of affection that was returned on Miss

Sophonisba's part by a devotion which might almost be called passionate.

"I tell you what it is, Faithful," said Miss Sophonisba one evening, as

they sat over their tea, "if they raise the rent on us here, I won't

stay."

The sisters had lived in the house ever since the death of their mother,

five years before. Their business had prospered, and they were

conveniently situated, but, for all that, Miss Sophonisba had no mind to

pay additional rent.

"No?" said Faithful, inquiringly.

"That I won't! We pay all it's worth now, and more too. It ain't the extra

four shillings," said Miss Sophonisba, rubbing her spectacles in

irritation, "but I do hate to be imposed upon."

"It will be some trouble to find a new place," suggested Miss Faithful

meekly, "and we can afford it, I suppose."

"I don't care if we can afford it a dozen times over," said her sister,

with increased decision. "I won't be imposed upon. If I've got either to

drive or be driven, I'd rather drive."

"Of course," said Miss Faithful, who had never driven any living creature

in the whole course of her life.

"I saw Peter Phelps to-day," said Miss Sophonisba, "and he says he'll let

us have the old house up on the hill for anything we like to give."

Miss Faithful gave a little start: "Would you like to live there,

Sophonisba?"

"Why, it's a good convenient situation, and plenty big enough for you and

me and the cat."

"But you know," said Miss Faithful, timidly, "they have told such queer

stories about it." "Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "You don't

believe them, I hope?"

"No," hesitated her sister, "but then one remembers them, you know. Widow

Eldridge always said she saw old Doctor Haywood there."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba again. "You know perfectly well

you couldn't trust a word she said about anything."

"Oh, Sophonisba, she's dead!" said Miss Faithful, shocked.

"I can't help that, child. It don't hinder her having told fibs all her

lifetime."

"Her husband died the next month."

"Well, so he might anywhere. My wonder is he lived as long as he did,

considering."

"And Mrs. Jones's three children died there."

"Well, and didn't Mrs. Gardner lose her two and that brother of hers? and

I never heard their place was haunted; and didn't two die out of the

Trueman house? and ever so many more all over town? It was a dreadful

sickly summer."

"And Sarah Jane McClean was taken sick there with fever."

"Well, they had dirt enough to account for anything. Doctor Brown told me

himself that they had a great heap of potatoes sprouted in the cellar, and

there ain't anything so bad as that."

The last vestige of a ghost was demolished: Miss Faithful had nothing more

to say.

"It's nigh twenty-five years since the old doctor went off," said Miss

Sophonisba. "It ain't very probable he's alive now; and if he is, he won't

be very apt to come back: and if he is dead, he certainly won't. If he

did, I'd like to ask him why he never paid father that fifty dollars. I

saw Peter Phelps to-day, and he says he'll fix the place all up for us if

we'll have it, but of course I wouldn't say anything about it till I'd

spoken to you."

"Just as you please, Sophonisba," said Miss Faithful.

"He says he'll give us a bit of ground down on the flat for a garden, and

let his man dig it up for us. I went up and looked at the house. It ain't

so much out of repair as you'd think."

"Did you see the burnt spot on the floor?" asked Miss Faithful with some

interest.

"Yes, I saw it--a great blackened place. Most likely he spilled some of

his chemical stuff on it."

Miss Sophonisba was not, as she expressed herself, one to let the grass

grow under her feet. She concluded the bargain for the house next day, and

informed their landlord--who, by the by, was a son of their old neighbor,

Widow Ball--of their intention to move. That gentleman was not at all

pleased at the idea of losing his tenants. In vain he offered to recede

from the obnoxious demand of four shillings more. Miss Sophonisba told him

that she had made up her mind, and that _she_ wasn't in the habit of going

back from her bargains when she had given her word, whatever other people

might be.

"Well, Miss T----," said Mr. Ball, "I hope you won't repent. They've said

queer things about that house ever since the old doctor went off so

mysterious. Some folks said he drowned himself in that place in the

cellar."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "The old doctor never hurt any

one when he was alive, except by borrowing money of them, and it ain't

likely he'll want to do that now that he's dead; and if he did, I

shouldn't let him have it."

"Well, my mother was in the house when Miss Eldridge came running up the

stairs as pale as a sheet, and said he came behind her and caught hold of

her shoulder."

"Joanna Eldridge was always a poor, miserable, shiftless, narvy thing,"

said Miss Sophonisba, "and half the time you couldn't believe a word she

said."

"Well she was a connexion of our'n, Miss T----, and I always thought there

was something in it. Narves won't account for everything."

"Well, I never trusted her a bit more for that," said Miss Sophonisba. "I

know one time she told mother a long story about how you sent in a bill

for shoes to Widow Sumner that James had paid you before he died, and she

said you'd have made her a deal of trouble if she hadn't ha' found the

receipt. A good many folks talked about it, but I always said it was just

one of Joanna's stories."

Mr. Ball was put down, and took his leave.

As soon as the necessary repairs were finished the sisters moved into the

house, and during that summer found reason to congratulate themselves on

their change of abode. The high, airy situation was very pleasant in warm

weather, and the view over the waters of the bay across to Boston and far

out to sea, with the coming and departing ships, afforded much pleasure

and a subject of conversation to the sisters. Their little garden on the

flat throve well, and was a source of never-ending interest. They had been

troubled by no ghostly visitations. Miss Sophonisba had indeed once heard

a mysterious noise in the cellar, but on going down stairs she found that

the cat had jumped on the hanging shelf and was helping herself out of the

milk-pan.

The sisters were sitting one day toward the end of November--I think it

was the twenty-fifth--in the north room, which they had made their

work-room. The south room, according to the custom of our ancestors, still

religiously preserved among us, was shut up "for company." The kitchen

served them also for dining-room, and the largest room up stairs was their

bed-chamber. Miss Sophonisba was trimming a bonnet, a task for which she

had an especial gift. Ladies came to her even from Boston, saying that her

work had an air and style quite its own, while her charges were not nearly

so high as those of the more fashionable milliners in the city. Faithful

was altering a dress of her own. Both were much engaged with their work,

and neither had spoken for some time. Suddenly, Faithful started slightly,

and the needle dropped from her hand.

"What's the matter?" asked her sister.

"Nothing," said Faithful, rather confused.

"Yes, there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "People don't jump that way for

nothing. What is it?"

"Oh, I don't know," hesitated Miss Faithful. "I guess I pricked my

finger."

"Umph!" said Miss Sophonisba in a very incredulous way, but she pushed her

inquiries no farther.

As soon as her sister was silent, Miss Faithful's conscience began to

chide her for her little evasion. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and

as often checked herself, but the third time the words were uttered: "If I

tell you, Sophonisba, you will laugh at me."

"Well, that wouldn't kill you, child."

"No; but--well--it was only that I thought all of a sudden some one was

standing behind my chair."

"How could you think so when there was no one there?"

"I don't know, but it felt as if there was."

"Nonsense, Faithful! If you didn't see any one, how did you know there was

any one? Have you got eyes in the back of your head?"

"I didn't see it--I sort of felt so."

"'Sort of felt so!'" said Miss Sophonisba, with good-natured contempt. "If

I was you, I'd take some catnip tea when I went to bed: you're kind of

narvy."

Miss Faithful assented, and went on quietly with her sewing, but she

changed the seat which she had occupied, with her back to the cellar door,

for one close to her sister.

No further disturbance occurred till the middle of December. It had been a

very windy day. The bay was tossing in long gray-green lines of waves

crested with flying foam. The black savins sighed and wailed as they bent

to the cutting blast. The wind was east, and it took a good deal of fire

to keep the old house warm, but wood was cheap in those days, and Miss

Sophonisba, though prudent and economical, was not given to what New

England expressively calls "skrimping."

Miss Faithful, not feeling very well, had gone up stairs to bed soon after

tea. A windy day always made her uncomfortable, recalling, too vividly

perhaps, the gale in which the Federalist had gone down. Miss Sophonisba,

having some work on hand which she was anxious to finish, was sitting up

rather beyond her usual hour. Pausing for a moment in her sewing, she

heard some one walking about in the room above her to and fro, with a

regular though light step, as of bare or thinly-shod feet, on the boards.

"Why, what can ail the child," she said to herself, "to be walking about

barefoot this time of night? She'll get her death of cold;" and she put

down her work and went up stairs, intending to administer a sisterly

lecture. To her surprise, Faithful was fast asleep in bed, and no other

living creature was in the room. It could not have been the cat this time,

for Puss was comfortably purring before the fire down stairs. Miss

Sophonisba stood by the bed for a moment, candle in hand, listening for a

repetition of the sound.

Suddenly a wilder gust shook the house perceptibly. Miss Faithful started

from her sleep with a cry of terror. "Oh, I have had such a dream!" said

she, clinging to her sister.

"What was it?" said Miss Sophonisba, soothing and quieting her like a

child.

"I thought I was lying in bed just as I was, when all of a sudden I knew

that Something had come in, and was going up and down, up and down the

room."

"What was it like?" asked her sister, rather impressed in spite of

herself.

"I couldn't see: it was all shifty and mist-like--like the shadow of smoke

on the ground--and I couldn't tell if it was like a human being or not;

but it seemed to me as if I ought to know it and what it was, and as if it

was trying to make me understand something, and couldn't, just as it is

when the cat sits and looks at you. You know the creature wants something,

if she could tell what it was."

"She wants something out of the cupboard most generally," said Miss

Sophonisba; "but go on."

"And finally," said Miss Faithful with a nervous shudder, "after it had

gone back and forth two or three times--and I could hear it on the floor

too, just like some one walking in their stocking-feet--it came close up

to me and seemed to bend over me, or to be all around me in the air some

way--I can't tell you how--and I was dreadfully scared, and woke up."

"It made a noise, did it?" said Miss Sophonisba.

"Yes; and somehow the noise made me feel as if I ought to know what it

wanted and what it was."

"It was the wind," said Miss Sophonisba. "It got mixed up in your dreams,

I expect. How it does blow!--fit to take the roof off. There! the cellar

door has started open. That latch doesn't catch: I must go down and bolt

it."

At that moment the cat rushed up the short staircase from the lower room,

and springing on the bed, stood with bristling tail and glaring eyes,

intently watching the door.

"Has she got a fit?" exclaimed Miss Sophonisba; and she put out her hand

to push the cat off, but it turned to Miss Faithful, who was sitting up in

bed, and crawling under the bed-clothes, lay there trembling and mewing in

a very curious fashion.

"Some one has got in down stairs," said Miss Faithful, turning white. "Oh,

Sophonisba, we shall all be murdered!"

"Nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba, quite restored to herself at the thought

of actual danger. She caught up a great pair of tongs and started down

stairs, the candlestick in one hand, the tongs in the other, Miss

Faithful, who dared not stay behind, threw a shawl over her night-dress

and followed close at her sister's heels, while the cat crawled still

farther under the clothes, and refused to answer to Miss Sophonisba's

call. There was nothing unusual down stairs. The two outside doors were

locked, the fire was burning brightly, and Miss Sophonisba's work lay on

the table just as she had left it. The cellar door indeed, which latched

imperfectly, stood open.

"Some one has come in and locked the door after them, and gone down

cellar," was Miss Faithful's whispered suggestion.

"How could they?" said Miss Sophonisba. "We didn't hear any one; and

besides, they would have left their tracks on the floor this wet night;

but I'll go down and look. You stay here by the fire."

But Miss Faithful preferred to follow her sister. They found nothing out

of place in the cellar, into which, if you remember, there is no outside

door. Every tub and barrel and milk-pan was in its place, and the surface

of the pit of water, which served the family as a cistern, was

undisturbed.

"It must have been the door flying open that scared the cat," said Miss

Sophonisba, "Faithful, you're as white as a sheet. I shall just heat up

some elderberry wine and make you drink it;" which she did then and there,

and, no further disturbance taking place, the sisters went to bed. The

cat, however, whose usual place was by the kitchen fire, would not go down

stairs, and when at last turned out, she mewed so piteously and scratched

so persistently at the bed-room door that Miss Sophonisba gave way to her

and let her in to sleep all night at the foot of the bed.

No further annoyance took place, nor was Miss Faithful troubled with a

repetition of her curious dream. The next week, however, as Miss

Sophonisba was in the kitchen making preparations for tea, she was

startled by a scream from her sister in the next room, succeeded by the

sound of a heavy fall. She hurried into the work-room. Miss Faithful lay

on the floor quite insensible. It was some time before her sister's

anxious exertions were rewarded by signs of returning animation. When at

last she opened her eyes, she burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing and

crying.

"For gracious sake, sister!" said Miss Sophonisba, really alarmed, "what

is the matter?"

"Oh dear! oh dear!" sobbed Miss Faithful. "It was John! I know it was

John, and I could not speak to him!"

"What?" said Miss Sophonisba, alarmed for her sister's wits. "What was

John?"

"It--that--the thing that came behind me: I know it was!"

"When?" asked her sister.

"As I was sitting there in my chair something came behind me and put a

hand on my shoulder. It was John--I know it was. His hand was all cold and

wet: he came out of the sea to call me."

"Now just look here, Faithful!" said Miss Sophonisba. "John was one of the

most careful, considerate fellows I ever knew, and he was always

particular careful of you. Do you think it's likely he wouldn't have no

more sense, now that he's a saint in heaven, than to come scaring you out

of your wits in that way? Is it like him, now?"

"But oh, sister, if you had felt it as I did, clear into the bone!"

"Then it's over twenty-five years since the Federalist was lost. Do you

suppose he's been going round the other world all this while without

getting a chance to be dry? Did you see him?"

"No, but I felt it."

"Well, now if there'd been anything real there, anything material, you'd

have seen it; and if it wasn't material, how could it be wet?"

Faithful was not prepared to answer, but it was evident that she had

received a great shock. In vain did her sister argue, reason and coax. She

could not explain, but that something had come behind her, and that this

Something had touched her, she was convinced; and she added: "I do believe

it was John I saw the other night. I thought then I was awake all the

time, and now I know I was."

This last assertion quite overset Miss Sophonisba's patience, "If ever any

one was asleep," she said, "you were when I came up stairs. I thought I

heard you walking about with your bare feet, and I came up to see."

"Then you: heard it too?" said Miss Faithful, eagerly.

It was an unlucky admission, but Miss Sophonisba would not allow that she

had made it.

"I heard the wind make the boards creak, I suppose; and do you think John

wouldn't have more sense than to be walking about our room at half-past

ten at night? What nonsense!"

"You may call it nonsense as much as you like, Sophonisba," said Miss

Faithful, beginning to cry afresh, "but I know what I know, and I can't

help it."

"Well, well, dear, we won't think of it any more. You're nervous and

worried, and you'd just best put on your wrapper and lie down and try to

go to sleep."

"I don't like to stay alone just now," said Miss Faithful, timidly.

"I don't want you to: I'll bring my work up stairs and stay with you."

Miss Sophonisba helped her sister up stairs, and began to assist her to

undress. As she took into her hand the cape of Miss Faithful's woolen

dress she nearly uttered an exclamation of surprise, but checked herself

in time. On the left shoulder was a wet spot, and the dress directly

beneath was quite damp. Miss Sophonisba said nothing, of this matter to

her sister, but she made an excuse to leave the room for a moment, and

going down stairs looked to see if any water had been spilled on the

floor. There was none, and Miss Sophonisba was puzzled. She remembered

that when her sister was startled before she had occupied the same seat,

with her back to the cellar door. She noticed that the door was slightly

ajar, and it occurred to her that the cold air blowing through the crack

might account for her sister's feeling of sudden chill, if not for the

dampness. She went down the cellar stairs, carrying with her a lighted

candle. Bold as she was, a singular sensation came over her when she saw

upon each stair a print, as if some one with wet feet had ascended or

descended, and that very recently. The track was not such as would be left

by a person heavily shod: it was rather like that of one wearing a

stocking or thin slipper.

"What under the sun--" was her perplexed exclamation as she went down,

following the marks of the unknown feet until they were lost on the stone

floor. It was certain that there was no one in the cellar, but as she went

up again, and paused for a moment at the top of the staircase, she heard,

or thought she heard, close to her ear, a long, weary sigh, as of one in

pain, and a sudden breath of cold air swept past her down the stairs. She

turned, and crossing the little passage went into the south room. The

burned spot on the floor was covered by the neat rag carpet, but there

were still some slight marks on the wall of the old doctor's brick

furnace. Miss Sophonisba glanced round the room, but her eyes fell upon

nothing but the familiar and well-preserved furniture; yet there came over

her a strange sense that she was not alone. She saw nothing, but in spite

of herself a feeling of a Presence not her own gathered about her. It was

but for a moment, and then her habitual firmness and common sense

reasserted themselves.

"Stuff and nonsense!" she said. "I am getting as bad as Faithful;" and

leaving the room, she went back to her sister. Miss Faithful had sought

comfort in her devotions, and was more composed than could have been

expected. Neither felt inclined to comment on the recent disturbance. Miss

Faithful's health seemed to have received no permanent harm from the

sudden shock she had undergone, but she had a nervous dread of being

alone, which was a source of some inconvenience to her sister.

The month of December passed, and the uncomfortable impression left by

Faithful's attack was beginning to fade away from the minds of both, when

it happened that the disturbance was renewed in a singular manner.

Miss Sophonisba was alone, her sister having gone to a household in the

village to take the measure for some mourning garments to be made up

immediately. Miss Sophonisba was busy with a black bonnet intended for a

member of the same family, and was thinking of nothing but the folds of

the material directly under her fingers. Gradually there came over her a

feeling that she was not alone. She struggled against it, and resolutely

bent her mind on her work; but the impression grew upon her, and with it a

sensation of horror such as she had never before experienced. The idea

that something stood behind her became so strong that she raised her eyes

from her work and looked around. Was there anything actually there, or was

the shapeless darkness anything more than an accidental shadow? Another

instant, and something touched her cheek--something like soft, cold, moist

fingers. The touch, if such it was, was very gentle, such as a child might

give to attract attention. Miss Sophonisba would not give way. She took up

her work and went quietly on with it, though her fingers trembled. The

same long sigh fell upon her ear, the same chill breath of air swept past

her, and the Presence, if such it was, was gone, and with it the shadow.

"Well," said Miss Sophonisba to herself, "some things _are_ kind of

curious, after all!"

There had certainly been no living creature in the house but herself, for

their cat had disappeared some days before, and the loss of their favorite

had been a great vexation to both sisters. The shadow behind her chair, if

indeed it had been anything but fancy, had been too indistinct to allow

her to say that she had really seen it before it had vanished, but what

had given her the touch, the recollection of which yet caused a shiver?

She put up her hand to her cheek. The place was wet--an actual drop of

water adhered to her finger.

"Dear me!" said she, "I wish I did know what to think."

To one of her temperament the uncertainty was very annoying. She could not

bear to think that her experience was not directly owing to natural--by

which she meant, common--causes. "I am very glad Faithful was not here,"

she thought as she turned to her work again. She would not indulge herself

by changing her seat, but kept her place with her back to the cellar door,

though she could not help now and then casting a glance over her shoulder.

Neither shadow nor substance, however, made itself manifest.

That same night Miss Sophonisba woke from her sleep with the feeling that

some one had called her. She found herself mistaken, however, and lay

quietly awake, thinking over the events of the afternoon. The more she

thought the more puzzled, and even provoked, did she become. She was one

of those people who cannot bear to feel themselves incapable of accounting

for anything that is brought under their notice. A mystery, as such, is an

exasperation to them, and they will sometimes adopt an explanation more

perplexing than the phenomenon itself, rather than say, "I don't know." As

she lay there thinking over the matter, and trying to make herself believe

that the afternoon's experience was the effect of the wind or her own

fancy, she was startled by a step on the floor of the lower room--the same

light step. It crossed the floor, and she heard it on the stairs. Miss

Sophonisba raised her head from her pillow and looked around. There could

be no doubt that she was awake. She could see everything in the room: her

sister slept quietly at her side, and the moonlight shone in brightly at

the window. The slow step came up the stairs and in at the open door. She

heard it on the boards: her eyes beheld the shadow of her sister's vision,

so wavering and indistinct that she could not say with certainty that it

wore the semblance of a human form. The blood at her heart seemed to stand

still, but yet she neither screamed nor fainted, nor tried to wake her

sister. She watched the Thing as it moved to and fro in the chamber.

Suddenly it came toward her, and stood at the bedside, seeming indeed, as

Faithful had said, to be "all around her in the air," and weigh upon her

with a sense of oppression almost unendurable as the shadowy Presence

obscured the moonbeams. Miss Sophonisba bent all her will to the effort,

and with an heroic exertion she put out her hand to try by the sense of

touch if indeed she was in her waking senses. Her fingers were met by

others, soft, cold and damp. For a second, which seemed an hour, they

grasped her extended hand with a close, clinging touch that some way

seemed half familiar. For one instant the shapeless gloom appeared to take

definite form--a tall human figure, a man in poor and ragged clothes; for

one instant a pair of wistful, eager eyes looked into her own; the next,

the cock without crowed loud and shrill. Her hand was released, and with

the same long, weary sigh the ghostly Presence passed away. Miss

Sophonisba sank back on her pillow nearly insensible. She did not know how

long she lay there, but when she at last gathered her senses she saw and

felt, with an involuntary shudder, that her hand was wet and cold, and

that across the floor, plain in the moonlight, leading to the half-open

door, were the marks of wet feet. She did not waken her sister, who still

slept quietly at her side, but it was with unspeakable relief that she saw

the morning dawn at last.

In spite of herself, Miss Sophonisba was forced to the conclusion that,

except on the supposition that some inhabitant of another world had been

permitted to approach her, her experience was wholly inexplicable. "If it

comes again," said she to herself, "I'll certainly speak to it. Goodness

me!" she added, somewhat irritated in spite of her terror, "if it's got

anything to say, why don't it speak and be done with it?"

She said nothing of the matter to her sister, and she so far controlled

herself as to preserve her usual manner.

The sisters were busily engaged all day over the mourning dresses, when

toward night Miss Faithful's thread gave out and her work came to a

stand-still.

"How provoking!" said she. "Three yards more would finish, and now I shall

have to go down to the village and buy a whole skein, just for that."

"No," said Miss Sophonisba, who would not have acknowledged to herself her

dread of being alone in the house, "I think there's some like that in the

chimney cupboard in the south room: I'll get it."

She put down her work, and taking a candle went into the south room.

Placing the light on a chair, she opened the cupboard door and began

searching for the thread among a variety of miscellaneous matters. Some

slight noise startled her. She turned, and saw standing before the

fireplace an elderly gentleman, whose face was, as she thought, familiar,

though she could not recall at the moment where she had seen it. It did

not occur to her that her companion was not a living man, and she stood

for a moment with a look of surprised inquiry, expecting him to speak. The

eyes met hers in a fixed stare, like that of a corpse. She had not seen

the figure move, yet the same instant it was at her side. It, was too

much, even for her. She turned and sprang through the open door into the

passage, but not before it had flashed across her mind that the dead face

bore a horrible resemblance to the old doctor. The Thing did not follow

her, and she stood still in the passage, not daring to alarm her more

timid sister, and yet dreading inexpressibly to re-enter the haunted room.

Her terror was not merely the oppression, the natural fear of the unknown,

the sense of a nature differing from her own, which she had experienced

the past night: it was all this, together with a sense of an evil

influence, a feeling of loathing and horror, that made her sick in soul

and in body. However strong her resolution, Miss Sophonisba felt that she

could never endure, much less question, this frightful Presence. The

candle was yet burning on the chair where she had left it, and, summoning

all her strength, with an inward prayer she recrossed the threshold. The

light still burned brightly, the thread she had come to seek lay on the

floor where she had dropped it, but the figure was gone. She looked about

the room: there was no trace of living presence save her own. She had even

the courage to stoop down and examine the place on the carpet where the

Shape had stood, and which covered the burned spot on the floor; but this

time the mysterious footsteps had failed to leave their mark.

"Whatever shall I do?" said Miss Sophonisba to herself. "If Faithful was

to see what I have, she'd nigh go crazy; and what excuse can we make for

leaving the house?"

If no one but herself had been concerned, I think she would have stood a

siege from the hosts of the unknown world rather than confess that she

left the house because it was haunted. She caught herself up as the word

was formed in her thoughts. "Haunted, indeed!" she said. "I'll think I'm

losing my wits first. Stuff and nonsense!" But she paused, for through the

middle of the room, close by her side, making an angry gesture as it

passed, swept the same Shape, visible for one moment, vanishing the next.

She went back into the other room, and giving her sister the thread, sat

down so as to hide her face, busying herself with her work until she could

in some measure regain her wonted steady composure.

Miss Faithful was much engaged with her sewing just at that moment, and

her sister's unusual agitation escaped her notice. Presently she said,

"Sophonisba, isn't there a bit of old black ribbon in that cupboard? I

want something of the kind, just to put round inside the neck of the

dress, and then it will be done."

"Yes--I don't know--I think not," said her sister, with a hesitation so

unlike her usual promptness that Miss Faithful looked up surprised. "I

mean, I think there is," said Miss Sophonisba. "If you'd like to look,

I'll hold the candle for you."

"Oh, you needn't put down your work for that," said Miss Faithful, but

Miss Sophonisba dropped the ribbon she was plaiting and followed her

sister with the candle. She threw a half-frightened glance around the room

as she entered, but the Vision did not reappear. It was some time before

the ribbon was found. It had been pushed into the farther corner of the

lower shelf, which was a wide and very thick pine board, slipping easily

on the cleats by which it was upheld. One end of the roll had caught

behind this shelf, and Miss Faithful pulled the board a little forward. As

she did so a little roll of paper fell into the bottom of the cupboard.

Miss Sophonisba picked it up. It consisted of several stained and

discolored sheets of paper, seemingly torn from an account-book or

journal, and covered all over with very fine and closely-written though

perfectly legible characters, in a very precise hand.

"What is that?" said Miss Faithful.

"It's nothing of ours, I'm pretty sure," said her sister, looking at it.

"But come, if you've got what you want: let's go into the other room--it's

cold here."

As they crossed the threshold, Miss Faithful started.

"What's the matter?" said her sister, though she well knew the reason. She

too had heard the same long sigh felt the same breath of chill air.

"Why, it seemed as if something breathed close to my ear," said Miss

Faithful, turning white; "and what's more," she continued, as they crossed

the passage and entered the work-room, "I believe you heard it too, and

that you've seen things in this house you haven't told me of."

"Well, child," said Miss Sophonisba in a subdued tone, "there _are_ some

queer things in this world, that's a fact--queerer than ever I thought

till lately."

Miss Faithful did not press for an explanation: she went quietly on with

her dressmaking, and her sister, hurried though she was about her work,

set herself to examine the papers.

I remember seeing the original manuscript when I was a little girl, but it

was unfortunately destroyed by an accident. My father, however, had copied

part of it, and this copy is yet in my possession. Miss Sophonisba could

make very little of the record, which related to scientific matters of

which she was quite ignorant; and as the most important words were

indicated by signs and figures, she was completely puzzled. The writer

seemed to have been seeking in vain some particular result. She looked on

through the dates of the year 1785, and saw here and there familiar names,

and at last commenced reading at these words:

"_June_ 3. This day took possession of my house. Busied in making

arrangements. Shall build my own furnace. Am sure now that I am in the

right way. Am determined no one shall come into the house."

Much followed which Miss Sophonisba could not understand, until, under the

date of July 1, she found recorded:

"Being over at Neponset, looking for the plant witch-hazel, bethought

myself to ask of the fellow they call Indian Will. Going to the little

hovel he lives in, found him lying very ill with pleurisy. By the grace of

God was able to help him. His wife told me where to find what I sought. To

my surprise, discovered she knew much of its virtues. It may be these

people have a knowledge of simples worth investigating.

"_Sept._ 3. No nearer my great end. My means fast growing less. Have

borrowed from Jonathan Phelps, but the sum is but a drop for such a

purpose. Most like some of these people, who complain of my price for the

exercise of my skill, would give me threefold did they know what I work

for, if they might share in its result. Yet I know I am in the right way.

Should I die before I come to its end--Is Death the gate of knowledge?"

"_Oct._ 7. I advance just so far and no farther. Why is it that I see my

path so plain just to the one point, and there it stops? How small our

understanding of the endless mysteries around us! yet should something

differing from every day's experience befall us, how quickly we speak of

the _supernatural_!

"_Oct._ 29. No nearer, no nearer, and my money all but done. Took some of

my books into Boston and offered them to sell. Refused, of course. How

should they know their value? Have sent them to London. It was hard, but

patience! patience!"

"_Oct._ 30. This day Indian Will brought the plants I wanted. Have bade

him never to tell any one that he comes here. He only has ever entered. So

far as I know, he has obeyed. He thinks me like one of his own powahs.

"_Dec._ 15. At last! I have passed the crisis, and without accident. How

simple it seems, now that I know! It was my last bit of the essential

metal: like from like. Each element has its seed in itself. The poor

people say I have been good to them. Should success be final, I can indeed

help mankind.

"_Dec._ 16. Last night, lifting the crucible from the furnace, spilled the

liquor on the floor. Had I one particle more of the essential element! All

was utterly lost: no one will lend to me.

"_Dec._ 18. What have I done that I should feel guilt? What was worth the

life of such a useless creature to the interests of mankind? Why did he

not trust my word and give me what I needed when I asked him? If he had

not waked from his half-drunken sleep when I made the attempt, I would

have given him threefold. I gave him his life once: why will not that

atone? No one will know ever. I will devote my life to relieve distress.

What is such as his, weighed in the balance with my purpose? It is strange

that since then I have forgot the very essential thing in the process. I

cannot read my own cipher in which I wrote it down; but it will come, it

will come.

"_Dec._ 19. Have been all day trying to read the cipher in vain. Have lost

the key, have forgotten the chief link. Until I can recall it the metal is

useless. What if it should never come to me? This night went down to the

Point. Threw into the sea the evidences of what I have brought to pass.

The tide will soon wash them away.

"_Dec._ 20. Surely it is not meant this thing should be known. To-day a

body came on shore, bruised and shattered, but said to be identified by

those who should have known best. Now, no one will ever search this house.

Twice to-day I have been to look at the place: nothing can be seen.

Providence means I should live to finish my work--to complete that which I

alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken

off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would

the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck

at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not

human--only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us.

"_Dec._ 22. Useless, useless! My memory fails me entirely. I have tried to

go on in vain. What is this that is with me now these last two days?

"_Dec._ 25. Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this. I had no

guest but one I dare not name--

'Tumulum circumvolat umbra.'

"_Dec._ 27. To day it put out its hand: the soft wet fingers touched me. I

will go out into the world, I will go out into the world. I will help

those who are sick and in misery. Will it not be at peace then?"

Then the journal paused: there was no further entry till April 29, 1786:

"The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day. Her eyes were opened to see what I

see all the hours in the day. I must go. I have not dared to leave, lest

the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place. They begin to press

me for money. The house will go on the mortgage. Heard Phelps say if it

was his he would drain the place in the cellar. To-day received fifty

dollars from the sale of apparatus. Could not part with it before,

thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it. Perhaps it

will come back to me if I go away: it may be This will not follow me. I

will drop the gold into the same place: if it is that it wants, it will

rest. I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious. I only, of

all men, have seen unveiled the mystery. I will leave This behind. When I

am safe it may be found, and they will lay it to rest in the earth, if

that is what it seeks. Then it will cease to persecute me with its step

close at my back, its loathsome clinging touch."

Miss Sophonisba (my friend went on) looked up from her reading with such a

strange expression that her sister was startled. "Put on your bonnet,

Faithful," said she: "I'm going down to see the minister."

"What do you mean?" said Miss Faithful: "it's nearly nine o'clock."

"I don't care if it's midnight. I'm going to show these to him, and tell

him what's happened here, and he may make what he can of it."

"Then you have seen something?" said Miss Faithful, turning pale.

Miss Sophonisba made a sign of assent; "I'll tell you all about it when we

get there, but do come along now. You're work's done, and I'll take the

bonnet with me and finish it there."

They lived at some distance from the parsonage, and the roads were in even

worse condition than they are now. It was a tiresome walk, and Miss

Faithful, clinging to her sister's side, was almost inclined to wish they

had braved the terrors at home rather than ventured out into the dark. The

clergyman was a middle-aged bachelor, a grandson of the Parson H----

mentioned by Mrs. T----. He heard Miss Sophonisba's story in silence, but

without any sign of dissent. Faithful, in spite of her terror, could not

but feel a mild degree of triumph in her sister's evident conviction that

what she had seen was, to say the least, unaccountable.

Mr. H---- looked over the papers which had been found in the cupboard, and

which Miss Sophonisba had brought with her. "This is undoubtedly Doctor

Haywood's writing," he said at last. "I have a book purchased of him by my

grandfather, and which has marginal notes in the same hand."

"What shall we do, sir?" asked Miss Sophonisba.

"If I were you I should leave the house as soon as possible. If there is

anything in the air which induces such--" Mr. H---- hesitated for a

word--"sensations as these, it would be better to go."

"Sensations!" said Miss Sophonisba, almost indignant. "I tell you I saw it

myself; and what made the wet spot on Faithful's cape, and the rest?"

"I can't undertake to say, Miss T----; but if you like I will just come up

to-morrow, and we will look into the matter a little. My cousin,

Lieutenant V----, is here from his ship, and he will assist me. And

meantime you had best stay here to-night: my sister will be very glad to

see you."

Miss H---- was a particular friend of the sisters, but she could not but

feel a little curious to know the object of their visit. Miss Sophonisba

would have kept the matter to herself, but Miss Faithful, in her

excitement, could not but tell the story of their experiences. Miss H----,

however, was a discreet woman, and kept the tale to herself.

The next evening the clergyman, his cousin the lieutenant and Miss

Sophonisba went quietly about dusk to the old house. They went down into

the cellar, and the drag which the sailor had constructed brought up some

bleached bones, and at the second cast a skeleton hand and a skull. As the

latter was disengaged from the drag something fell glittering from it upon

the cellar floor: two coins rolled to different corners. Mr. H----, picked

them up. One was a Spanish piece, the other an English half guinea.

"Miss T----," said the clergyman in a low tone, "I will see that these

poor relics are laid in the burial-ground; and then--really I think you

had better leave the house."

Miss Sophonisba made no opposition.

The three ascended the cellar stairs, but as they entered the room they

paused terror-stricken, for across the floor, making, as it passed, a wild

gesture of despair, swept the Shape, living yet dead.

"What was that?" said the clergyman, who was the first to recover himself,

"_It_," said Miss Sophonisba in a whisper.

"I have seen that face before," said the sailor. "Once on a stormy passage

round the Cape we came upon a deserted wreck rolling helplessly upon the

waves. I, then a young midshipman, went in the boat which was sent to

board her. No living creature was there, but in the cabin we found a

corpse, that of an old, old man. The look of the Thing was so awful that I

could not bear it and hid my face. One of the sailors, however, took from

the dead hand a paper covered with characters in cipher, which no one

could read. This paper afterward fell into my possession, and I submitted

it in vain to several experts, all of whom failed to read it. By an

accident it was destroyed, and the secret, whatever it was, is hidden for

ever; but the face of that corpse was the face I have just seen in this

room."

CLARA F. GUERNSEY.

The Blood Seedling.

In a bit of green pasture that rose, gradually narrowing, to the tableland

that ended in prairie, and widened out descending to the wet and willowy

sands that border the Great River, a broad-shouldered young man was

planting an apple tree one sunny spring morning when Tyler was President.

The little valley was shut in on the south and east by rocky hills,

patched with the immortal green of cedars and gay with clambering

columbines. In front was the Mississippi, reposing from its plunge over

the rapids, and idling down among the golden sandbars and the low, moist

islands, which were looking their loveliest in their new spring dresses of

delicate green.

The young man was digging with a certain vicious energy, forcing the spade

into the black crumbling loam with a movement full of vigor and malice.

His straight black brows were knitted till they formed one dark line over

his deep-set eyes. His beard was not yet old enough to hide the massive

outline of his firm, square jaw. In the set teeth, in the clouded face, in

the half-articulate exclamations that shot from time to time from the

compressed lips, it was easy to see that the thoughts of the young

horticulturist were far from his work.

A bright young girl came down the path through the hazel thicket that

skirted the hillside, and putting a plump brown hand on the topmost rail

of the fence vaulted lightly over, and lit on the soft springy turf with a

thud that announced a wholesome and liberal architecture. It is usually

expected of poets and lovers that they shall describe the ladies of their

love as so airy and delicate in structure that the flowers they tread on

are greatly improved in health and spirits by the visitation. But not

being a poet or in love, we must admit that there was no resurrection for

the larkspurs and pansies upon which the little boots of Miss Susie

Barringer landed. Yet she was not of the coarse peasant type, though her

cheeks were so rosy as to cause her great heaviness of heart on Sunday

mornings, and her blue lawn dress was as full as it could afford from

shoulders to waist. She was a neat, hearty and very pretty country girl,

with a slightly freckled face, and rippled brown hair, and astonished blue

eyes, but perfectly self-possessed, and graceful as a young quail.

A young man's ears are quick to catch the rustling of a woman's dress. The

flight of this plump bird in its fluttering blue plumage over the

rail-fence caused our young man to look up from his spading: the scowl was

routed from his brow by a sudden incursion of blushes, and his mouth was

attacked by an awkward smile.

The young lady nodded, and was hurrying past. The scowl came back in

force, and the smile was repulsed from the bearded mouth with great loss:

"Miss Tudie, are you in a hurry?"

The lady thus addressed turned and said, in a voice that was half pert and

half coaxing, "No particular hurry. Al, I've told you a dozen times not to

call me that redicklis name."

"Why, Tudie, I hain't never called you nothing else sence you was a little

one so high. You ort to know yer own name, and you give yerself that name

when you was a yearling. Howsom-ever, ef you don't like it now, sence

you've been to Jacksonville, I reckon I can call you Miss Susie--when I

don't disremember."

The frank amende seemed to satisfy Miss Susie, for she at once interrupted

in the kindest manner: "Never mind, Al Golyer: you can call me what you

are a-mind to." Then, as if conscious of the feminine inconsistency, she

changed the subject by asking, "What are you going to do with that great

hole?--big enough to bury a fellow."

"I'm going to plant this here seedlin', that growed up in Colonel Blood's

pastur', nobody knows how: belike somebody was eatin' an apple and throwed

the core down-like. I'm going to plant a little orchard here next spring,

but the colonel and me, we reckoned this one 'ud be too old by that time

for moving, so I thought I'd stick it in now, and see what come out'n it.

It's a powerful thrifty chunk of a saplin'."

"Yes. I speak for the first peck of apples off'n it. Don't forget.

Good-morning."

"Hold on a minute, Miss Susan, twell I git my coat. I'll walk down a piece

with you. I have got something to say to you."

Miss Susie turned a little red and a little pale. These occasions were not

entirely unknown in her short experience of life. When young men in the

country in that primitive period had something to say, it was something

very serious and earnest. Allen Golyer was a good-looking, stalwart young

farmer, well-to-do, honest, able to provide for a family. There was

nothing presumptuous in his aspiring to the hand of the prettiest girl on

Chaney Creek. In childhood he had trotted her to Banbury Cross and back a

hundred times, beguiling the tedium of the journey with kisses and the

music of bells. When the little girl was old enough to go to school, the

big boy carried her books and gave her the rosiest apple out of his

dinner-basket. He fought all her battles and wrote all her compositions;

which latter, by the way, never gained her any great credit. When she was

fifteen and he twenty he had his great reward in taking her twice a week

during one happy winter to singing-school. This was the bloom of

life--nothing before or after could compare with it. The blacking of shoes

and brushing of stiff, electric, bristling hair, all on end with frost and

hope, the struggling into the plate-armor of his starched shirt, the tying

of the portentous and uncontrollable cravat before the glass, which was

hopelessly dimmed every moment by his eager breath,--these trivial and

vulgar details were made beautiful and unreal by the magic of youth and

love. Then came the walk through the crisp, dry snow to the Widow

Barringer's, the sheepish talk with the old lady while Susie "got on her

things," and the long, enchanting tramp to the "deestrick school-house."

There is not a country-bred man or woman now living but will tell you that

life can offer nothing comparable with the innocent zest of that old style

of courting that was done at singing-school in the starlight and

candlelight of the first half of our century. There are few hearts so

withered and old but they beat quicker sometimes when they hear, in

old-fashioned churches, the wailing, sobbing or exulting strains of

"Bradstreet" or "China" or "Coronation;" and the mind floats down on the

current of these old melodies to that fresh young day of hopes and

illusions--of voices that were sweet, no matter how false they sang--of

nights that were rosy with dreams, no matter what Fahrenheit said--of

girls that blushed without cause, and of lovers who talked for hours about

everything but love.

I know I shall excite the scorn of all the ingenuous youth of my time when

I say that there was nothing that our superior civilization would call

love making in those long walks through the winter nights. The heart of

Allen Golyer swelled under his satin waistcoat with love and joy and

devotion as he walked over the crunching roads with his pretty enslaver.

But he talked of apples and pigs and the heathen and the teacher's wig,

and sometimes ventured an illusion to other people's flirtations in a

jocose and distant way; but as to the state of his own heart, his lips

were sealed. It would move a blasé smile on the downy lips of juvenile

Lovelaces, who count their conquests by their cotillons, and think nothing

of making a declaration in an avant-deux, to be told of young people

spending several evenings of each week in the year together, and speaking

no word of love until they were ready to name their wedding-day. Yet such

was the sober habit of the place and time.

So there was no troth plighted between Allen and Susie, though the youth

loved the maiden with all the energy of his fresh, unused nature, and she

knew it very well. He never dreamed of marrying any other woman than Susie

Barringer, and she sometimes tried a new pen by writing and carefully

erasing the initials S.M.G., which, as she was christened Susan Minerva,

may be taken as showing the direction of her thoughts.

If Allen Golyer had been less bashful or more enterprising, this history

would never have been written; for Susie would probably have said Yes for

want of anything better to say, and when she went to visit her aunt

Abigail in Jacksonville she would have gone _engaged_, her finger bound

with gold and her maiden meditations fettered by promises. But she went,

as it was, fancy free, and there is no tinder so inflammable as the

imagination of a pretty country girl of sixteen.

One day she went out with her easy-going aunt Abigail to buy ribbons, the

Chancy Creek invoices not supplying the requirements of Jacksonville

society. As they traversed the court-house square on their way to Deacon

Pettybones' place, Miss Susie's vagrant glances rested on an iris of

ribbons displayed in an opposition window. "Let's go in here," she said

with the impetuous decision of her age and sex.

"We will go where you like, dear," said easy-going Aunt Abigail. "It makes

no difference."

Aunt Abigail was wrong. It made the greatest difference to several persons

whether Susie Barringer bought her ribbons at Simmons' or Pettybones' that

day. If she had but known!

But, all unconscious of the Fate that beckoned invisibly on the threshold,

Miss Susie tripped into "Simmons' Emporium" and asked for ribbons. Two

young men stood at the long counter. One was Mr. Simmons, proprietor of

the emporium, who advanced with his most conscientious smile: "Ribbons,

ma'am? Yes, ma'am--all sorts, ma'am. Cherry, ma'am? Certingly, ma'am. Jest

got a splendid lot from St. Louis this morning, ma'am. This way, ma'am."

The ladies were soon lost in the delight of the eyes. The voice of Mr.

Simmons accompanied the feast of color, insinuating but unheeded.

The other young man approached: "Here is what you want, miss--rich and

elegant. Just suits your style. Sets off your hair and eyes beautiful."

The ladies looked up. A more decided voice than Mr. Simmons'; whiter hands

than Mr. Simmons' handled the silken bands; bolder eyes than the weak,

pink-bordered orbs of Mr. Simmons looked unabashed admiration into the

pretty face of Susie Barringer.

"Look here, Simmons, old boy, introduce a fellow."

Mr. Simmons meekly obeyed: "Mrs. Barringer, let me interduce you to Mr.

Leon of St. Louis, of the house of Draper & Mercer."

"Bertie Leon, at your service," said the brisk young fellow, seizing Miss

Susie's hand with energy. His hand was so much softer and whiter than hers

that she felt quite hot and angry about it.

When they had made their purchases, Mr. Leon insisted on walking home with

them, and was very witty and agreeable all the way. He had all the wit of

the newspapers, of the concert-rooms, of the steamboat bars at his

fingers' ends. In his wandering life he had met all kinds of people: he

had sold ribbons through a dozen States. He never had a moment's doubt of

himself. He never hesitated to allow himself any indulgence which would

not interfere with business. He had one ambition in life--to marry Miss

Mercer and get a share in the house. Miss Mercer was as ugly as a

millionaire's tombstone. Mr. Bertie Leon--who, when his moustache was not

dyed nor his hair greased, was really quite a handsome fellow--considered

that the sacrifice he proposed to make in the interests of trade must be

made good to him in some way. So, "by way of getting even," he made

violent love to all the pretty eyes he met in his commercial travels--"to

have something to think about after he should have found favor in the

strabismic optics of Miss Mercer," he observed, disrespectfully.

Simple Susie, who had seen nothing of young men besides the awkward and

blushing clodhoppers of Chaney Creek, was somewhat dazzled by the

free-and-easy speech and manner of the hard-cheeked bagman. Yet there was

something in his airy talk and point-blank compliments that aroused a

faint feeling of resentment which she could scarcely account for. Aunt

Abigail was delighted with him, and when he bowed his adieux at the gate

in the most recent Planters'-House style, she cordially invited him to

call--"to drop in any time: he must be lonesome so far from home."

He said he wouldn't neglect such a chance, with another Planters'-House

bow.

"What a nice young man!" said Aunt Abigail.

"Awful conceited and not overly polite," said Susie as she took off her

bonnet and went into a revel of bows and trimmings.

The oftener Albert Leon came to Mrs. Barringer's bowery cottage, the more

the old lady was pleased with him and the more the young one criticised

him, until it was plain to be seen that Aunt Abigail was growing tired of

him and pretty Susan dangerously interested. But just at this point his

inexorable carpet-bag dragged him off to a neighboring town, and Susie

soon afterward went back to Chaney Creek.

Her Jacksonville hat and ribbons made her what her pretty eyes never could

have done--the belle of the neighborhood. Non cuivis contingit adire

Lutetiam, but to a village where no one has been at Paris the county-town

is a shrine of fashion. Allen Golyer felt a vague sense of distrust

chilling his heart as he saw Mr. Simmons' ribbons decking the pretty head

in the village choir the Sunday after her return, and, spurred on by a

nascent jealousy of the unknown, resolved to learn his fate without loss

of time. But the little lady received him with such cool and unconcerned

friendliness, talked so much and so fast about her visit, that the honest

fellow was quite bewildered, and had to go home to think the matter over,

and cudgel his dull wits to divine whether she was pleasanter than ever,

or had drifted altogether out of his reach.

Allen Golyer was, after all, a man of nerve and decision. He wasted only a

day or two in doubts and fears, and one Sunday afternoon, with a beating

but resolute heart, he left his Sunday-school class to walk down to

Crystal Glen and solve his questions and learn his doom. When he came in

sight of the widow's modest house, he saw a buggy hitched by the gate.

"Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel, by jing! What is Dow after out here?"

It is natural, if not logical, that young men should regard the visits of

all other persons of their age and sex in certain quarters as a serious

impropriety.

But it was not his friend and crony Dow Padgett, the liveryman, who came

out of the widow's door, leading by the hand the blushing and bridling

Susie. It was a startling apparition of the Southwestern dandy of the

period--light hair drenched with bear's oil, blue eyes and jet-black

moustache, an enormous paste brooch in his bosom, a waistcoat and trowsers

that shrieked in discordant tones, and very small and elegant varnished

boots. The gamblers and bagmen of the Mississippi River are the best-shod

men in the world.

Golyer's heart sank within him as this splendid being shone upon him. But

with his rustic directness he walked to meet the laughing couple at the

gate, and said, "Tudie, I come to see you. Shall I go in and talk to your

mother twell you come back?"

"No, that won't pay," promptly replied the brisk stranger. "We will be

gone the heft of the afternoon, I reckon. This hoss is awful slow," he

added with a wink of preternatural mystery to Miss Susie.

"Mr. Golyer," said the young lady, "let me interduce you to my friend, Mr.

Leon."

Golyer put out his hand mechanically, after the cordial fashion of the

West. But Leon nodded and said, "I hope to see you again." He lifted Miss

Susie into the buggy, sprang lightly in, and went off with laughter and

the cracking of his whip after Dow Padgett's chestnut sorrel.

The young farmer walked home desolate, comparing in his simple mind his

own plain exterior with his rival's gorgeous toilet, his awkward address

with the other's easy audacity, till his heart was full to the brim with

that infernal compound of love and hate which is called jealousy, from

which pray Heaven to guard you.

It was the next morning that Miss Susie vaulted over the fence where Allen

Golyer was digging the hole for Colonel Blood's apple tree.

"Something middlin' particular," continued Golyer, resolutely.

"There is no use leaving your work," said Miss Barringer pluckily. "I will

stay and listen."

Poor Allen began as badly as possible: "Who was that feller with you

yesterday?"

"Thank you, Mr. Golyer--my friends ain't fellers! What's that to you, who

he was?"

"Susie Barringer, we have been keeping company now a matter of a year. I

have loved you well and true: I would have give my life to save you any

little care or trouble. I never dreamed of nobody but you--not that I was

half good enough for you, but because I did not know any better man around

here. Ef it ain't too late, Susie, I ask you to be my wife. I will love

you and care for you, good and true."

Before this solemn little speech was finished, Susie was crying and biting

her bonnet-strings in a most undignified manner. "Hush, Al Golyer!" she

burst out. "You mustn't talk so. You are too good for me. I am kind of

promised to that fellow. I 'most wish I had never seen him."

Allen sprang to her and took her in his strong arms: she struggled free

from him. In a moment the vibration which his passionate speech had

produced in her passed away. She dried her eyes and said firmly enough,

"It's no use, Al: we wouldn't be happy together. Good-bye! I shouldn't

wonder if I went away from Chaney Creek before long."

She walked rapidly down to the river-road. Allen stood fixed and

motionless, gazing at the light, graceful form until the blue dress

vanished behind the hill, and leaned long on his spade, unconscious of the

lapse of time.

When Susan reached her home she found Leon at the gate.

"Ah, my little rosebud! I came near missing you. I am going to Keokuk this

morning, to be gone a few days. I stopped here a minute to give you

something to keep for me till I come back."

"What is it?"

He took her chubby cheeks between his hands and laid on her cherry-ripe

lips a keepsake which he never reclaimed.

She stood watching him from the gate until, as a clump of willows snatched

him from her, she thought, "He will go right by where Al is at work. It

would be jest like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him.

I'd like to hear it."

An hour or so later, as she sat and sewed in the airy little entry, a

shadow fell upon her work, and as she looked up her startled eyes met the

piercing glance of her discarded lover. A momentary ripple of remorse

passed over her cheerful heart as she saw Allen's pale and agitated face.

He was paler than she had ever seen him, with that ghastly pallor of

weather-beaten faces. His black hair, wet with perspiration, clung

clammily to his temples. He looked beaten, discouraged, utterly fatigued

with the conflict of emotion. But one who looked closely in his eyes would

have seen a curious stealthy, half-shaded light in them, as of one who,

though working against hope, was still not without resolute will.

Dame Barringer, who had seen him coming up the walk, bustled in:

"Good-morning, Allen. How beat out you do look! Now, I like a stiddy young

man, but don't you think you run this thing of workin' into the ground?"

"Wail, maybe so," said Golyer with a weary smile--"leastways I've been

a-running this spade into the ground all the morning, and--"

"_You_ want buttermilk--that's your idee: ain't it, now?"

"Well, Mizzes Barringer, I reckon you know my failin's."

The good woman trotted off to the dairy, and Susie sewed demurely, waiting

with some trepidation for what was to come next.

"Susie Barringer," said a low, husky voice which she could scarcely

recognize as Golyer's, "I've come to ask pardon--not for nothing I've

done, for I never did and never could do you wrong--but for what I thought

for a while arter you left me this morning. It's all over now, but I tell

_you_ the Bad Man had his claws into my heart for a spell. Now it's all

over, and I wish you well. I wish your husband well. If ever you git into

any trouble where I can help, send for me: it's my right. It's the last

favor I ask of you."

Susceptible Susie cried a little again. Allen, watching her with his

ambushed eyes, said, "Don't take it to heart, Tudie. Perhaps there is

better days in store for me yet."

This did not appear to comfort Miss Barringer in the least. She was

greatly grieved when she thought she had broken a young man's heart: she

was still more dismal at the slightest intimation that she had not. If any

explanation of this paradox is required, I would observe, quoting a phrase

much in vogue among the witty writers of the present age, that Miss Susie

Barringer was "a very female woman."

So pretty Susan's rising sob subsided into a coquettish pout by the time

her mother came in with the foaming pitcher of subacidulous nectar, and

plied young Golyer with brimming beakers of it with all the beneficent

delight of a Lady Bountiful.

"There, Mizzes Barringer! there's about as much as I can tote. Temperance

in all things."

"Very well, then, you work less and play more. We never get a sight of you

lately. Come in neighborly and play checkers with Tudie."

It was the darling wish of Mother Barringer's heart to see her daughter

married and settled with "a stiddy young man that you knowed all about,

and his folks before him." She had observed with great disquietude the

brilliant avatar of Mr. Bertie Leon and the evident pride of her daughter

in the bright-plumaged captive she had brought to Chaney Creek, the spoil

of her maiden snare. "I don't more'n half like that little feller." (It is

a Western habit to call a well-dressed man a "little feller." The epithet

would light on Hercules Farnese if he should go to Illinois dressed as a

Cocodès.) "No honest folks wears beard onto their upper lips. I wouldn't

be surprised if he wasn't a gamboller."

Allen Golyer, apparently unconscious in his fatigue of the cap which Dame

Barringer was vicariously setting for him, walked away with his spade on

his shoulder, and the good woman went systematically to work in making

Susie miserable by sharp little country criticisms of her heart's idol.

Day after day wore on, and, to Dame Barringer's delight and Susie's

dismay, Mr. Leon did not come.

"He is such a businessman," thought trusting Susan, "he can't get away

from Keokuk. But he'll be sure to write." So Susie put on her sun-bonnet

and hurried up to the post-office: "Any letters for me, Mr. Whaler?" The

artful and indefinite plural was not disguise enough for Miss Susie, so

she added, "I was expecting a letter from my aunt."

"No letters here from your aunt, nor your uncle, nor none of the tribe,"

said old Whaler, who had gone over with Tyler to keep his place, and so

had no further use for good manners.

"I think old Tommy Whaler is an impudent old wretch," said Susie that

evening, "and I won't go near his old post-office again." But Susie forgot

her threat of vengeance the next day, and she went again, lured by family

affection, to inquire for that letter which Aunt Abbie _must_ have

written. The third time she went, rummy old Whaler roared very improperly,

"Bother your aunt! You've got a beau somewheres--that's what's the

matter."

Poor Susan was so dazzled by this flash of clairvoyance that she hurried

from that dreadful post-office, scarcely hearing the terrible words that

the old gin-pig hurled after her: "_And he's forgot you!--that's what's

the matter._"

Susie Barringer walked home along the river-road, revolving many things in

her mind. She went to her room and locked her door by sticking a pen-knife

over the latch, and sat down to have a good cry. Her faculties being thus

cleared for action, she thought seriously for an hour. If you can remember

when you were a school-girl, you know a great deal of solid thinking can

be done in an hour. But we can tell you in a moment what it footed up. You

can walk through the Louvre in a minute, but you cannot see it in a week.

_Susan Barringer (sola, loquitur)_: "Three weeks yesterday. Yes, I s'pose

it's so. What a little fool I was! He goes everywheres--says the same

things to everybody, like he was selling ribbons. Mean little scamp!

Mother seen through him in a minute. I'm mighty glad I didn't tell her

nothing about it." [Fie, Susie! your principles are worse than your

grammar.] "He'll marry some rich girl--I don't envy her, but I hate

her--and I am as good as she is. Maybe he will come back--no, and I hope

he won't;--and I wish I was dead!" (_Pocket handkerchief._)

Yet in the midst of her grief there was one comforting thought--nobody

knew of it. She had no confidante--she had not even opened her heart to

her mother: these Western maidens have a fine gift of reticence. A few of

her countryside friends and rivals had seen with envy and admiration the

pretty couple on the day of Leon's arrival. But all their poisonous little

compliments and questions had never elicited from the prudent Susie more

than the safe statement that the handsome stranger was a friend of Aunt

Abbie's, whom she had met at Jacksonville. They could not laugh at her:

they could not sneer at gay deceivers and lovelorn damsels when she went

to the sewing-circle. The bitterness of her tears was greatly sweetened by

the consideration that in any case no one could pity her. She took such

consolation from this thought that she faced her mother unflinchingly at

tea, and baffled the maternal inquest on her "redness of eyes" by the

school-girl's invaluable and ever-ready headache.

It was positively not until a week later, when she met Allen Golyer at

choir-meeting, that she remembered that this man knew the secret of her

baffled hopes. She blushed scarlet as he approached her: "Have you got

company home, Miss Susie?"

"Yes--that is, Sally Withers and me came together, and--"

"No, that's hardly fair to Tom Fleming: three ain't the pleasantest

company. I will go home with you."

Susie took the strong arm that was held out to her, and leaned upon it

with a mingled feeling of confidence and dread as they walked home through

the balmy night under the clear, starry heaven of the early spring. The

air was full of the quickening breath of May.

Susie Barringer waited in vain for some signal of battle from Allen

Golyer. He talked more than usual, but in a grave, quiet, protecting

style, very different from his former manner of worshiping bashfulness.

His tone had in it an air of fatherly caressing which was inexpressibly

soothing to his pretty companion, tired and lonely with her silent

struggle of the past month. When they came to her gate and he said

good-night, she held his hand a moment with a tremulous grasp, and spoke

impulsively: "Al, I once told you something I never told anybody else.

I'll tell you something else now, because I believe I can trust you."

"Be sure of that, Susie Barringer."

"Well, Al, my engagement is broken off."

"I am sorry for you, Susie, if you set much store by him."

Miss Susie answered with great and unnecessary impetuosity, "I don't, and

I am glad of it!" and then ran into the house and to bed, her cheeks all

aflame at the thought of her indiscretion, and yet with a certain comfort

in having a friend from whom she had no secrets.

I protest there was no thought of coquetry in the declaration which Susan

Barringer blurted out to her old lover under the sympathetic starlight of

the May heaven. But Allen Golyer would have been a dull boy not to have

taken heart and hope from it. He became, as of old, a frequent and welcome

visitor at Crystal Glen. Before long the game of chequers with Susie

became so enthralling a passion that it was only adjourned from one

evening to another. Allen's white shirts grew fringy at the edges with

fatigue-duty, and his large hands were furry at the fingers with much

soap. Susie's affectionate heart, which had been swayed a moment from its

orbit by the irresistible attraction of Bertie Leon's diamond breastpin

and city swagger, swung back to its ancient course under the mild

influence of time and the weather and opportunity. So that Dame Barringer

was not in the least surprised, on entering her little parlor one soft

afternoon in that very May, to see the two young people economically

occupying one chair, and Susie shouting the useless appeal, "Mother, make

him behave!"

"I never interfere in young folks' matters, especially when they're going

all right," said the motherly old soul, kissing "her son Allen" and

trotting away to dry her happy tears.

I am almost ashamed to say how soon they were married--so soon that when

Miss Susan went with her mother to Keokuk to buy a wedding-garment, she

half expected to find, in every shop she entered, the elegant figure of

Mr. Leon leaning over the counter. But the dress was bought and made, and

worn at wedding and _in-fair_ and in a round of family visits among the

Barringer and Golyer kin, and carefully laid away in lavender when the

pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to real life on

Allen's prosperous farm; and no word of Bertie Leon ever came to Mrs.

Golyer to trouble her joy. In her calm and busy life the very name faded

from her tranquil mind. These wholesome country hearts do not bleed long.

In that wide-awake country eyes are too useful to be wasted in weeping. My

dear Lothario Urban us, those peaches are very sound and delicious, but

they will not keep for ever. If you do not secure them to-day, they will

go to some one else, and in no case, as the Autocrat hath said with

authority, can you stand there "mellering 'em with your thumb."

There was no happier home in the county, and few finer farms. The good

sense and industry of Golyer and the practical helpfulness of his wife

found their full exercise in the care of his spreading fields and growing

orchards. The Warsaw merchants fought for his wheat, and his apples were

known in St. Louis. Mrs. Golyer, with that spice of romance which is

hidden away in every woman's heart, had taken a special fancy to the

seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted.

Allen shared in this, as in all her whims, and tended and nursed it like a

child. In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he

reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling. He spaded and

mulched and pruned it, and guarded it in the winter from rodent rabbits

and in summer from terebrant grubs. It was not ungrateful. It grew a noble

tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat,

and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell. The first peck of

apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first

bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman. He was loud in his

admiration, as the autumn elections were coming on: "Great Scott, Golyer!

I'd rather give my name to a horticultooral triumph like that there than

be Senator."

"You've got your wish, then, colonel," said Golyer. "Me and my wife have

called that tree The Blood Seedling sence the day it was transplanted from

your pastur'."

It was the pride and envy of the neighborhood. Several neighbors asked for

scions and grafts, but could do nothing with them.

"Fact is," said old Silas Withers, "those folks that expects to raise good

fruit by begging graffs, and then layin' abed and readin' newspapers, will

have a good time waitin'. Elbow-grease is the secret of the Blood

Seedlin', ain't it, Al?"

"Well, I reckon, Squire Withers, a man never gits anything wuth havin'

without a tussle for it; and as to secrets, I don't believe in them,

nohow."

A square-browed, resolute, silent, middle-aged man, who loved his home

better than any amusement, regular at church, at the polls, something

richer every Christmas than he had been on the New Year's preceding--a man

whom everybody liked and few loved much--such had Allen Golyer grown to

be.

* * * * *

If I have lingered too long over this colorless and commonplace picture of

rural Western life, it is because I have felt an instinctive reluctance to

recount the startling and most improbable incident which fell one night

upon this quiet neighborhood, like a thunderbolt out of blue sky. The

story I must tell will be flatly denied and easily refuted. It is absurd

and fantastic, but, unless human evidence is to go for nothing when it

testifies of things unusual, the story is true.

At the head of the rocky hollow through which Chaney Creek ran to the

river, lived the family who gave the brook its name. They were among the

early pioneers of the county. In the squatty yellow stone house the

present Chaney occupied his grandfather had stood a siege from Black Hawk

all one summer day and night, until relieved by the garrison of Fort

Edward. The family had not grown with the growth of the land. Like many

others of the pioneers, they had shown no talent for keeping abreast of

the civilization whose guides and skirmishers they had been. In the

progress of a half century they had sold, bit by bit, their section of

land, which kept intact would have proved a fortune. They lived very

quietly, working enough to secure their own pork and hominy, and regarding

with a sort of impatient scorn every scheme of public or private

enterprise that passed under their eyes.

The elder Chaney had married, some years before, at the Mormon town of

Nauvoo, the fair-haired daughter of a Swedish mystic, who had come across

the sea beguiled by dreams of a perfect theocracy, and who on arriving at

the city of the Latter-Day Saints had died, broken-hearted from his lost

illusions.

The only dowry that Seraphita Neilsen brought her husband, besides her

delicate beauty and her wide blue eyes, was a full set of Swedenborg's

later writings in English. These became the daily food of the solitary

household. Saul Chaney would read the exalted rhapsodies of the Northern

seer for hours together, without the first glimmer of their meaning

crossing his brain. But there was something in the majesty of their

language and the solemn roll of their poetical development that

irresistibly impressed and attracted him. Little Gershom, his only child,

sitting at his feet, would listen in childish wonder to the strange things

his silent, morose and gloomy father found in the well-worn volumes, until

his tired eyelids would fall at last over his pale, bulging eyes.

As he grew up his eyes bulged more and more: his head seemed too large for

his rickety body. He pored over the marvelous volumes until he knew long

passages by heart, and understood less of them than his father--which was

unnecessary. He looked a little like his mother, but while she in her

youth had something of the faint and flickering beauty of the Boreal

Lights, poor Gershom never could have suggested anything more heavenly

than a foggy moonlight. When he was fifteen he went to the neighboring

town of Warsaw to school. He had rather heavy weather among the well-knit,

grubby-knuckled urchins of the town, and would have been thoroughly

disheartened but for one happy chance. At the house where he boarded an

amusement called the "Sperrit Rappin's" was much in vogue. A group of

young folks, surcharged with all sorts of animal magnetism, with some

capacity for belief and much more for fun, used to gather about a light

pine table every evening, and put it through a complicated course of

mystical gymnastics. It was a very good-tempered table: it would dance,

hop or slam at the word of command, or, if the exercises took a more

intellectual turn, it would answer any questions addressed to it in a

manner not much below the average capacity of its tormentors.

Gershom Chaney took all this in solemn earnest. He was from the first

moment deeply impressed. He lay awake whole nights, with his eyes fast

closed, in the wildest dreams. His school-hours were passed in trancelike

contemplation. He cared no more for punishment than the fakeer for his

self-inflicted tortures. He longed for the coming of the day when he could

commune in solitude with the unfleshed and immortal. This was the full

flowering of those seeds of fantasy that had fallen into his infant mind

as he lay baking his brains by the wide fire in the old stone house at the

head of the hollow, while his father read, haltingly, of the wonders of

the invisible world.

But, to his great mortification, he saw nothing, heard nothing,

experienced nothing but in the company of others. He must brave the

ridicule of the profane to taste the raptures which his soul loved. His

simple, trusting faith made him inevitably the butt of the mischievous

circle. They were not slow in discovering his extreme sensibility to

external influences. One muscular, black-haired, heavy-browed youth took

especial delight in practicing upon him. The table, under Gershom's

tremulous hands, would skip like a lamb at the command of this Thomas Fay.

One evening, Tom Fay had a great triumph. They had been trying to get the

"medium"--for Gershom had reached that dignity--to answer sealed

questions, and had met with indifferent success. Fay suddenly approached

the table, scribbled a phrase, folded it and tossed it, doubled up, before

Gershom; then leaned over the table, staring at his pale, unwholesome face

with all the might of his black eyes.

Chaney seized the pencil convulsively and wrote, "Balaam!"

Fay burst into a loud laugh and said, "Read the question?"

It was, "Who rode on your grandfather's back?"

This is a specimen of the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor

Gershom suffered as long as he stayed at school. He was never offended,

but was often sorely perplexed, at the apparent treachery of his unseen

counselors. He was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and

incorrigible indolence. He accepted his disgrace as a crown of martyrdom,

and went proudly home to his sympathizing parents.

Here, with less criticism and more perfect faith, he renewed the exercise

of what he considered his mysterious powers. His fastings and vigils, and

want of bodily movement and fresh air, had so injured his health as to

make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever. But his faintings

and hysterics and epileptic paroxysms were taken more and more as

evidences of his lofty mission. His father and mother regarded him as an

oracle, for the simple reason that he always answered just as they

expected. A curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time

to the circle, and their reports heightened the half-uncanny interest with

which the Chaney house was regarded.

It was on a moist and steamy evening of spring that Allen Golyer, standing

by his gate, saw Saul Chaney slouching along in the twilight, and hailed

him: "What news from the sperrits, Saul?"

"Nothing for you, Al Golyer," said Saul, gloomily. "The god of this world

takes care of the like o' you."

Golyer smiled, as a prosperous man always does when his poorer neighbors

abuse him for his luck, and rejoined: "I ain't so fortunate as you think

for, Saul Chaney. I lost a Barksher pig yesterday: I reckon I must come up

and ask Gershom what's come of it."

"Come along, if you like. It's been a long while sence you've crossed my

sill. But I'm gitting to be quite the style. Young Lawyer Marshall is

a-coming up this evening to see my Gershom."

Before Mr. Golyer started he filled a basket, "to make himself welcome and

pay for the show," with the reddest and finest fruit of his favorite apple

tree. His wife followed him to the gate and kissed him--a rather unusual

attention among Western farmer-people. Her face, still rosy and comely,

was flushed and smiling: "Al, do you know what day o' the year it is?"

"Nineteenth of Aprile?"

"Yes; and twenty years ago to-day you planted the Blood Seedlin' and I

give you the mitten!" She turned and went into the house, laughing

comfortably.

Allen walked slowly up the hollow to the Chaney house, and gave the apples

to Seraphita and told her their story. A little company was assembled--two

or three Chaney Creek people, small market-gardeners, with eyes the color

of their gooseberries and hands the color of their currants; Mr. Marshall,

a briefless young barrister from Warsaw, with a tawny friend, who spoke

like a Spaniard.

"Take seats, friends, and form a circle o' harmony," said Saul Chaney.

"The me'jum is in fine condition: he had two fits this arternoon."

Gershom looked shockingly ill and weak. He reclined in a great hickory

arm-chair, with his eyes half open, his lips moving noiselessly. All the

persons present formed a circle and joined hands.

The moment the circle was completed by Saul and Seraphita, who were on

either side of their son, touching his hands, an expression of pain and

perplexity passed over his pale face, and he began to writhe and mutter.

"He's seein' visions," said Saul.

"Yes, too many of 'em," said Gershom, querulously. "A boy in a boat, a man

on a shelf, and a man with a spade--all at once: too many. Get me a

pencil. One at a time, I tell you--one at a time!"

The circle broke up, and a table was brought, with writing materials.

Gershom grasped a pencil, and said, with imperious and feverish

impatience, "Come on, now, and don't waste the time of the shining ones."

An old woman took his right hand. He wrote with his left very rapidly an

instant, and threw her the paper, always with his eyes shut close.

Old Mrs. Scritcher read with difficulty, "A boy in a boat--over he goes;"

and burst out in a piteous wail, "Oh, my poor little Ephraim! I always

knowed it."

"Silence, woman!" said the relentless medium.

"Mr. Marshall," said Saul, "would you like a test?"

"No, thank you," said the young gentleman. "I brought my friend, Mr.

Baldassano, who, as a traveler, is interested in these things."

"Will you take the medium's hand, Mr. What's-your-name?"

The young foreigner took the lean and feverish hand of Gershom, and again

the pencil flew rapidly over the paper. He pushed the manuscript from him

and snatched his hand away from Baldassano. As the latter looked at what

was written, his tawny cheek grew deadly pale. "Dios mio!" he exclaimed to

Marshall. "This is written in Castilian!"

The two young men retired to the other end of the room and read by the

tallow candle the notes scrawled on the paper. Baldassano translated: "A

man on a shelf--table covered with bottles beside him: man's face yellow

as gold: bottles tumble over without being touched."

"What nonsense is that?" said Marshall.

"My brother died of yellow fever at sea last year."

Both the young men became suddenly very thoughtful, and observed with

great interest the result of Golyer's "test." He sat by Gershom, holding

his hand tightly, but gazing absently into the dying blaze of the wide

chimney. He seemed to have forgotten where he was: a train of serious

thought appeared to hold him completely under its control. His brows were

knit with an expression of severe almost fierce determination. At one

moment his breathing was hard and thick--a moment after hurried and

broken.

All this while the fingers of Gershom were flying rapidly over the paper,

independently of his eyes, which were sometimes closed, and sometimes

rolling as if in trouble.

A wind which had been gathering all the evening now came moaning up the

hollow, rattling the window-blinds, and twisting into dull complaint the

boughs of the leafless trees. Its voice came chill and cheerless into the

dusky room, where the fire was now glimmering near its death, and the only

sounds were those of Gershom's rushing pencil, the whispering of Marshall

and his friend, and old Mother Scritcher feebly whimpering in her corner.

The scene was sinister. Suddenly, a rushing gust blew the door wide open.

Golyer started to his feet, trembling in every limb, and looking furtively

over his shoulder out into the night. Quickly recovering himself, he

turned to resume his place. But the moment he dropped Gershom's hand, the

medium had dropped his pencil, and had sunk back in his chair in a deep

and deathlike slumber. Golyer seized the sheet of paper, and with the

first line that he read a strange and horrible transformation was wrought

in the man. His eyes protruded, his teeth chattered, he passed his hand

over his head mechanically, and his hair stood up like the bristles on the

back of a swine in rage. His face was blotched white and purple. He looked

piteously about him for a moment, then crumpling the paper in his hand,

cried out in a hoarse, choking voice, "Yes, it's a fact: I done it. It's

no use denying on't.. Here it is, in black and white. Everybody knows it:

ghosts come spooking around to tattle about it. What's the use of lying? I

done it."

He paused, as if struck by a sudden recollection, then burst into tears

and shook like a tree in a high wind. In a moment he dropped on his knees,

and in that posture crawled over to Marshall: "Here, Mr. Marshall--here's

the whole story. For God's sake, spare my wife and children all you can.

Fix my little property all right for 'em, and God bless you for it!" Even

while he was speaking, with a quick revulsion of feeling he rose to his

feet, with a certain return of his natural dignity, and said, "But they

sha'n't take me! None of my kin ever died that way: I've got too much sand

in my gizzard to be took that way. Good-bye, friends all!"

He walked deliberately out into the wild, windy night.

Marshall glanced hurriedly at the fatal paper in his hand. It was full of

that capricious detail with which in reverie we review scenes that are

past. But a line here and there clearly enough told the story--how he went

out to plant the apple tree; how Susie came by and rejected him; how he

passed into the power of the devil for the time; how Bertie Leon came by

and spoke to him, and patted him on the shoulder, and talked about city

life; how he hated him and his pretty face and his good clothes; how they

came to words and blows, and he struck him with his spade, and he fell

into the trench, and he buried him there at the roots of the tree.

Marshall, following his first impulse, thrust the paper into the dull red

coals. It flamed for an instant, and flew with a sound like a sob up the

chimney.

They hunted for Golyer all night, but in the morning found him lying as if

asleep, with the peace of expiation on his pale face, his pruning-knife in

his, heart, and the red current of his life tinging the turf with crimson

around the roots of the Blood Seedling.

JOHN HAY.

The Marquis.

Mrs. Ruggles lived near Crawfish Creek. Crawfish Creek ran near Thompson

City. Thompson City was in a Western State, but now is in a Middle one. It

was always in the midst of a great country--accepting local testimony and

a rank growth of corn and politicians as the tests of greatness. The earth

there was monotonously parched in summer, and monotonously muddy at all

other times. The forests were gigantic, the air carbonic, and when the

citizens wished to give Thompson City the highest commendation, they did

so by saying that "fevernagur" was worse in some other places.

In the parlor of Mrs. Ruggles, which was also her kitchen and dining-hall,

hung a frame containing a seven-by-nine mirror, which was the frame's

excuse for being, although a compartment above and one below held squares

of glass covered with paint instead of mercury. The lower one was colored

like the contents of a wash-tub after a liberal use of indigo; and in the

centre was a horizontal stroke of red, surmounted by a perpendicular dash

of white, intersected by an oblique line of black--all of which

represented a red boat, with a white sail and black spar, making an

endless voyage across the lake of indigo. The black crosses in the sky

were birds. The black lines on the left were bulrushes. And among these

bulrushes a certain gloomy little object was either a Hebrew prophet or a

muskrat.

Above the mirror was painted a long-tailed coat, from behind which

extended a hand holding a bell-crowned hat, to whose scarlet lining the

holder seemed inviting the spectator's particular attention. There were

also a pair of legs and boots, a heavy shock of hair, a labyrinth of

neckcloth and a florid human face. Under the boots were the words,

MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.

And the beholder was ever in doubt whether the marquis was trying to stand

exclusively upon this title or was unconsciously trampling it into the

ground.

Mrs. Ruggles admired this picture. Her knowledge of French was not great,

but her ear was delicate; and thinking the words "sounded handsome," she

had deliberately conferred them in full on her first-born. When in

good-humor she was content with calling him "Marquis-dee." In fact, it was

only when chasing him into the street with a lilac bush in her hand that

she insisted on addressing him by his full name. At such times, between

each flourish of the lilac bush and each yell of the young nobleman, she

pronounced with significant fullness, with fearful exactness, the

handsome-sounding name of Marquis de la Fayette Ruggles. His playmates,

however, had not the delicate ear of the mother, and as the son had brown

specks on his face, he was popularly known as "Frecky Rug."

Mrs. Ruggles and her late husband were pioneers in the Crawfish Valley.

Subsequent settlers knew little, and apparently cared less, about her.

They knew, however, that she had been a Peables, and that Peables blood

was still doing its duty in her veins. And from her independence and

reserve they argued that the Peableses must have been "high up"--at least

in the estimation of Mrs. Ruggles. After Mr. Ruggles had been overcome by

malaria in clearing the creek bottoms the pride of the Peables blood had

sustained her in a long, brave fight with circumstances.

It was while he lay one night upon his deathbed, mistaking a watching

neighbor for his wife, that he started up, saying, "Becky, if I could

prove it to you afore I died!"

"Out of his head," was the quiet remark of Mrs. Ruggles to the watching

neighbor by the bedside. There was no further sign of delirium. That

exclamation of the dying Mr. Ruggles was a mystery to the women of

Crawfish Creek, and remains so to this day.

It may be that the pride of Mrs. Ruggles was in excess of her wisdom. It

may be if that pride had been a little more respected by the irreverent

Crawfish settlers, they would not have had occasion to wonder, as they did

wonder, how a heart so true, an honesty so stoical, a discrimination so

acute could exist with an independence so absurd, a mind so uncultured, a

sense of dignity so ridiculous as were found united in her character. It

may be that the Peables blood was worthy of receiving honor as great as

the ridicule it did receive. It may be if the world had known the

Peableses it would have been as proud of them as she was.

She was a person of scrupulous neatness, careful never to be seen by

strangers except in a tidy dress, and with her hair in a Grecian knot,

gracefully secured by a leather string and a wooden peg. "Weak creepings"

were her main reliance in the way of disease. She was also troubled, at

times, with a "fullness of the head." In addition, there were other times

when her right side "felt separate." But she seldom complained of anything

belonging to herself. Even her maladies, she took pleasure in knowing,

were very different from those enjoyed by certain other women. Unwilling

to be too familiar with any one baser than a Ruggles, she usually dined,

as she lived, alone with her noble son.

On a certain summer evening she stirred her tea a long time in silence.

She stirred it vigorously, creating a maelstrom inside her cup, where,

very like a whale in the story-books, a little crust of bread disappeared

and reappeared, and sailed round and round as if very much perplexed. Then

she unconsciously reversed the current of the maelstrom, sending the baked

and buttered whale to the bottom.

[Illustration: "She smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the

young naturalist's feelings."]

"I never see that air Miller, no odds how well I be," she remarked

mechanically to the tea-pot, "but what I feel weak creepin's come over me.

He puts dye-stuff on his baird. An' when a man's whiskers is gray an' his

head keeps black, it's a sign he uses his jaw more'n he does his brains.

An' that yaller-headed doll-baby o' his'n--the peert thing:--I'll lay

fifty cents she never washed a dish. To think o' her sayin' a thing like

that about Markis-dee!--an' there's more o' the Peables in him to-day--But

I s'pose she don't know no better." And Mrs. Ruggles rose from the table,

while the corner of her apron made a sudden journey to the corner of her

eye. It was evident her moral nature had received a wound that rankled.

A year before this time the marquis and his playmates had watched several

vigorous fellows plant a theodolite on the bank of Crawfish Creek, very

much as the natives must have watched the Spaniards plant their first

cross on San Salvador. The contract for grading the new railway bed was in

the hands of a stranger named Miller, who was said to have known better

days, and in the time of his prosperity had been thought a proper person

to be called Colonel. He was a bluff man of forty years, who appeared to

have known both the ups and downs of life, and whose determination to wear

a black beard was equaled only by its determination to be gray. Rumor said

that he had been a railroad president, that he made and spent vast sums of

money, and that his home was somewhere in the East.

His only child, Alice, ten or twelve years old, bright, fair, full of

animal spirits, who was indulged to the last degree by the roughly

generous colonel, sometimes accompanied him about the half-developed

country, searching for strange birds and blossoms in the woods or watching

demurely the laborers ply their picks and shovels while he inspected their

work.

The two rode almost daily between Thompson City and the line of

excavation, passing the house of Mrs. Ruggles and a cool spring by the

roadside near it, whence that lady had obtained the water which made the

tea which was stirred into the maelstrom which has been described. While

obtaining it, clad in her working garb, the patter of hoofs and a clear

girlish laugh--sweet as the carol of a meadow lark--came ringing along the

road. As the colonel and Alice halted to let her high-mettled pony and his

heavier Morgan drink, Mrs. Ruggles, who could not otherwise escape

observation, with becoming pride and modesty stepped behind the thick

willows, leaving the marquis with a pail of water between his legs and a

bunch of mottled feathers in his hand.

He stood dumb before the lovely girl, with her face sparkling from

exercise and enjoyment, and her golden hair escaping from its prison of

blue ribbons. While the horses drank she espied a cluster of cool violets

brightening the damp grass near the spring. The marquis had presence of

mind enough left to step forward and pluck them. Her "Thank you!" added

greatly to his embarrassment, which he expressed by vigorously twisting

the mottled feathers.

"What bird are those from?" asked Alice.

The question so increased his embarrassment that now the marquis could

express it only by chewing his cap, and she smilingly waited a moment for

the composure of the young naturalist's feelings.

"She was a low, chunky hen," said he, at length--"she was a low, chunky

hen, an' she laid a hundred an' seven eggs, an' then she had spazzums an'

whirled roun' till she died."

A burst of irrepressible laughter escaped Alice, with the exclamation,

"Did anybody ever see such a boy?" as she and her father rode away. And

those were the exceptionable words concerning her son which so rankled

that evening in the heart of Mrs. Ruggles.

The marquis gazed with hungry eyes after the airy little figure as it

dashed down the unlovely, worm-fenced road. The golden hair, overflowing

its boundaries of blue ribbon, was more glorious to him than the golden

sunshine overflowing the blue sky. They met no more at the spring, but

several times a week, from a respectful distance, he watched her riding

by. From Thompson City to the little log bridge over Crawfish Creek the

road lay for four miles through heavy woods. Then came cleared fields, and

soon the house of Mrs. Ruggles.

So the summer days went by. The season was waning, the grading was almost

done, and soon the contractor would be elsewhere. Then came one

particularly warm and sultry day. The screams of locusts everywhere

suggested that they were frying. The colonel, riding once more slowly out

toward the workmen with his daughter, was near the middle of the forest.

The trees on either hand were tall, and the road was so straight and

narrow that the sunlight scarcely touched it. The marquis, in the top of a

tall chestnut that overhung the road near the edge of the wood, was

overhauling a nest of flying squirrels--perhaps in the hope of finding

mottled feathers on their wings. From his elevation he could see for a

great distance down the level, dusty road between the trees, and far

across the surrounding country.

The sun did not shine bright, yet no cloud was in the sky. The atmosphere,

thick, oppressive, opaque, veiled the horizon with strange gloom. Not a

leaf could stir in the vast forest. Not a dimple nor the semblance of a

current broke the surface of the sluggish creek. Not a sound, save the

interminable frying of the locusts.

The colonel slackened his pace, surprised that his horse should so soon

begin to drip and pant--Alice, familiar with the road, in the mean time

riding a mile ahead. The marquis clung to the topmost branches, looking at

the still sky far above him, the still stream far below him, the still

tree-tops far around him, till he caught a glimpse of the only interesting

object to be seen--a black pony bearing its usual burden, if Alice Miller

could be called a burden, and pacing leisurely up the road beneath him. He

gazed as far as the palisade of trees permitted, but her father was not

yet in sight.

Suddenly, in the west, a single vein of lightning darted down the sky. A

few trees shuddered as if to shake the gathering shadows from their

bosoms. Then tenfold stillness. A bird flew past with a scream of terror,

the marquis looking in vain to see a hawk pursuing it. The distant moan of

a cow came from the fields. Not another sound, it seemed, was in the

world.

In an instant the south-west was black. A strange, remote murmur smote the

colonel's ear. Overhead he could see but a strip of hot, hazy sky. Had he

seen the whole heavens, he could have done nothing but go on. Quickly the

murmur became an awful muttering, then a deafening roar. The clatter, the

rush, the crash of a tornado were behind him. The groans of the very earth

were about him. The darkness of twilight was upon him. Alice and Death

were before him. A cloudy demon, towering high as the heavens, in whose

path nothing could live, was striding near and nearer.

Farm-houses were overthrown. Trees were twisted off from their roots and

torn to pieces. Wild animals and birds were dashed to death. Streams were

emptied of their waters. Human beings and horses and cattle were lifted

into the air, hurled hither and thither and thrown dead upon the earth.

The whirlwind was following the line of the road! Colonel Miller had no

opportunity to see this, nor could he ride aside from that line if he

chose. He could but cry aloud, "My darling! O God! Alice!" and lash his

horse forward. The high, close forest would keep the wind from lifting his

horse from the ground or himself from the saddle. But the great trees

crashed like thunder behind him. Their fragments whirled above him. Their

branches fell before him. The limb of a huge oak grazed his face, crushed

his horse, and both rolled to the ground, blinded with dust, imprisoned

within a barricade of splintered trunks and shattered tree-tops.

The marquis, from his high lookout, saw, before any one else, the

approaching tornado, and, descending like a flash, he yet noted its

direction. As Alice reached the foot of his tree he was on the ground, had

seized the pony's mane, was half seated and half clinging in front of her,

had snatched the reins from her hand, and was urging the frightened animal

to its utmost speed. Overcome with terror and confusion, Alice clung

instinctively to the saddle and to him, without hearing his hurried advice

to "stick like a old burdock."

They shot like an arrow up the road. The noise of the tempest was audible.

Closer it was coming, crushing, rending, annihilating all before it. The

way grew darker. The terrified pony scarce touched the ground. His only

will was to go forward, and he still obeyed a firm use of the bit. But who

could hope to outrun a hurricane? Twelve miles an hour against eighty! The

marquis heeded nothing. Not far behind, the road was but a slash of

fallen, writhing tree-tops. The sweat dropped from his face. He dared not

look behind.

They reached it--the lane, by the log bridge, running at right angles to

the road--and in a moment, behind them, that lane was choked with whirling

debris.

But in that moment they had cleared the track of the whirlwind. For the

first time Alice comprehended the conduct of the marquis. For the first

time he turned to see. A quarter of a mile each side the road the

hurricane had carried complete desolation. But after passing the heavy

timber it had veered several degrees, and was sparing the house of Mrs.

Ruggles.

With a white face she met them at the gate. A word of explanation from the

marquis--an ejaculation of mental anguish from the girl. Two fugitive

tie-choppers from the woods turned back to find the colonel's body. Mrs.

Ruggles, carrying Alice in her arms to the door--the yaller-headed

doll-baby that never washed a dish--did what she could to soothe her, but

did it as silently as possible.

Mrs. Ruggles intercepted the returning tie-choppers in the lane. A look of

eager joy was in their faces. The bruised colonel, assisted to the

threshold, sank into the big arm-chair, and Alice was in his arms. Mrs.

Ruggles did not see their meeting, not at all. No, her back was toward

them, but the corner of her apron made another journey to the corner of

her eye as the father folded his lost child once more to his heart.

His desire to express his gratitude to Mrs. Ruggles and her boy was

equaled only by her fears that he would do so. As a last resort he called

the marquis to him, and, while a tear stood on his rough cheek, drew a

handful of money from his pocket. But a bony hand appeared majestically

between them, and a voice said, "Not by no means. We're not them kind o'

persons. Markis-dee, put away the camfire."

Then a rickety gig rattled up to the gate: "Contusion--severe--no

danger--there!--be lame a while--so!--the other bandage--bridge

gone--creek half dry--bend your leg--so!--current turned up-stream--now

the shoulder--not strange Crawfish Creek should run backward--he! he!" And

the rickety gig rattled merrily off in search of broken bones.

Alice, meeting the marquis outside the door, approached him in a way that

made him tremble. What was said will never be known, but she placed her

white little hand upon his shoulder, the golden head bowed for a moment

and her sweet lips touched his sunburnt face.

By remaining quiet that night the colonel would be able to get back to

Thompson City in the morning. Before nine o'clock he was at rest in the

bed-room. A couch for Alice had been prepared in the same room. In the

other--kitchen, parlor and dining-hall--a blanket was thrown down for the

marquis, and two chairs fixed for the bed of Mrs. Ruggles. Before

retiring, however, she sat down at her lonely table, where,

notwithstanding the tea she drank to keep them off, an unusual number of

weak creepings came over her.

"I couldn't help it," was all she said to the tea-pot. Whether she

referred to the tornado, or her kindness to the sufferers, or to the

manner of rendering the kindness, no one knows. That was all she said to

the tea-pot, but to her son, who sat for a while beside her, she spoke in

a low tone: "Markis-dee, you could never c'verse with her. You're better'n

she is. Put her out o' yer head. She laughed at ye."

"But she kissed me wi' tears in 'er eyes afterward," was his answer as he

turned toward his bed on the floor.

An hour later the tea was exhausted, but Mrs. Ruggles yet sat at her

lonely table, as still as the sleepers around her. The clock struck ten:

she nervously drew a soiled paper from her bosom. Eleven: she rose with

hesitation and set the tallow candle behind the door. Then she softly

entered the bed-room and stood before the window where Alice lay. The sky

was clear again. The moon shone on the face and form of the sleeping girl,

making softer their graceful lines, richer the shadows in the golden hair,

tenderer the tint of cheek and lip.

She stepped again into the shade and stole to the colonel's bedside. His

disturbed mind had turned backward over the path of life from the sudden

death escaped, and, sleeping or waking, his memory had been busy with the

people and events of other days.

"John Miller!" she said, in a suppressed tone. He started. "John Miller, I

know ye. Common name--I wa'n't sure afore to-day. When you pulled that

money out o' yer pocket I see that in yer face that satisfied me. It's fer

the good name o' the dead I've come. Elseways I never'd ha' troubled ye."

The astonished colonel shifted his position painfully, prepared to speak

or to listen. "There yer girl lies in the light o' heaven. Nex' room my

boy lies in the shadder an' dark. He don't know, an' he never will. John

Miller, I married as honest an' as good a man as ever you see. Folks has

come to me in sickness an' trouble, an' gone behin' my back to talk. Some

said I done right to take him--'twas Christian in me. Some said I must ha'

been a fool. Some said we wa'n't married a-tall. Wasn't I a Peables?

Didn't I know 'twould be flung up to my face? Wasn't I prouder'n any on

'em?"

A moment's confusion and doubting of senses: then, as the suppressed voice

went on, the colonel remembered. A dozen years ago; before he had meddled

with railroads; back in the old town; soon after taking his father's shop;

he was plaintiff; Ruggles worked in the first room; Porter's testimony;

Becky Peables the sweetheart of both; burglary; loss trifling; George

Ruggles, for one year; came back and married when released; went West. The

old case had scarce crossed his mind for years.

"Yes, you sent him, an' I waited fer him. The day he come out I married

him. We had to dig hard. I'd do it ag'in. Now his boy's saved yer girl's

life to pay ye fer puttin' his father'n State's pris'n. Two year ago

didn't Bill Porter--sick an' a-dyin'--hunt till he foun' me here? Didn't

he go an' swear? Done fer spite. Didn't he sen' me the affydavy?--an' I've

got it safe. Got it swore to by him, with the justice o' the peace's name

signed, an' two witnissis, an' the judge's red seal on top o' that. Could

I go back an' show that paper'n tell how 'twas? Too late! George was dead.

I couldn't go. My folks a'most disowned me when I took him. I said then I

never'd step my foot into their doors. Them that gives me the col'

shoulder once don't do it no more. Come to me?--well an' good. Go to

them?--never."

The bewildered colonel, promising every possible reparation, would have

thrown himself at her feet, could he have done so, for the part he had

taken in the prosecution. But she permitted no interruption, and

continued: "He lay by the winder where yer girl lies. The moon come in on

his bed as it does on her'n. In the night, when I see the light o' the sky

shine there where he died, I feel his sperit in the room. I moved the bed

to this corner, where it's darker. I wa'n't good enough to lie there. But

'twas on his mind. He said, 'Becky, if I could prove it to you afore I

died!' An' I say, George's sperit sent Bill Porter here, an' sent you

here, an' sent me into this room to-night. Now, fer the sake o'him an'

Markis-dee, go back an' tell the truth!"

Speaking the word "truth," she vanished across the light to her dark place

of rest.

Next morning the colonel examined and copied the confession while a buggy

waited for him at the door. Respecting the evident wishes of Mrs. Ruggles,

he went away with no attempt to express the feelings that were uppermost

in his heart.

She sleeps beside her husband in the orchard. Her old log-house has been

replaced by a large white box, of which her son the marquis is proprietor.

Each year adds to his acres or his stock. An able-bodied wife, whose

industry and English are equal to his own, sits near him at the door on a

summer evening, while he smokes his pipe, takes an oakum-headed child upon

his knee, and gazes quietly in the direction of the spring and across the

grain-fields where once he saw--or rather heard, without waiting to see--a

forest swept down in a moment. He smokes and gazes as he sees again a

dazzling creature ride down the dreary road, and wonders where on earth

that face can be, and how much it has changed, and whether, through so

many years, any memory of him can linger in her heart. He says nothing.

But he hugs closer the oakum-headed child as he remembers the one romance

in his hard, humdrum life.

CHAUNCEY HICKOX.

Under False Colors.

Chapter I.

Hoisting The Flag.

A dreary, murky November day brooded over Southampton, and an impenetrable

fog hung over sea and shore alike, penetrating the clothing, chilling the

blood and depressing the spirits of every unlucky person who was so

unfortunate as to come within the range of its influence. The passengers

on the steamship America, from Bremen for New York via Southampton, found

the brief period of their stay at the latter port almost unendurable; and

while some paced the wet decks impatiently, others grumbled both loudly

and deeply in the cabins, or shut themselves up in their state-rooms in

sulky discomfort. Those who remained on deck had at least the amusement of

watching for the steamboat which was to bring the Southampton

passengers--a pastime which, however, being indefinitely prolonged, began

to grow wearisome. It came at last--a wretched little vessel, rather

smaller than the smallest of the noisy tugs that puff and paddle on our

American rivers--and the wet, sick, unsheltered passengers were gradually

transferred to the deck of the ship.

Among those who appeared to have suffered most severely from the rocking

of the miserable little steamboat was a young, fair-haired girl,

apparently about seventeen years of age, who seemed almost insensible. She

would have fallen had not one of her fellow-travelers, a lady evidently

not much her senior, thrown her arm around her; thus aided, she managed to

reach the steamer's deck and to totter down the staircase leading to the

ladies' cabin. The active, busy steward at once bustled up to the two

young girls:

"Your names, ladies, if you please. I will point out your state-rooms in a

moment. Miss Marion Nugent--Miss Rhoda Steele? Miss Nugent, berth No. 20,

state-room G--"

"Cannot I occupy the same state-room with this young lady?" interrupted

the taller girl, who was still lending the support of her arm to sustain

her half-fainting companion.

"Do not leave me, please," murmured the sufferer.

The steward threw a compassionate glance upon the pair, went away, and

after a short consultation with the unseen powers, returned and said that

the arrangement had been effected, and that they could take possession at

once of their state-room, into which he proceeded to usher them. It was

more spacious than such apartments usually are, and abounded with all

those little contrivances for comfort and convenience for which the

steamers of the North German Lloyds are justly famed. The invalid sank

down on the soft-cushioned little sofa and gasped painfully for breath.

"For Heaven's sake, get me some wine or some brandy!" exclaimed her

companion. "This poor thing seems very ill; and do tell the doctor to come

here at once."

With a quick, energetic movement, as she spoke she unclasped the heavy

waterproof cloak of the sufferer and threw it back, thus revealing a fair,

pallid face, framed in loosened curls of silky golden hair. It was a face

that must have looked singularly lovely when tinted with the rosy hues of

health, so delicate were the features and so large and blue the

half-closed eyes, but it was ghastly pale, and a livid, bluish tinge had

settled around the small mouth, whose ruby hues had fled to give place to

a sickly purple. The steward speedily returned with some brandy, the

bull's-eye was thrown open, and the cold sea air and potent spirit soon

asserted their restorative powers. She sat up, a more natural color

over-spreading her countenance, and she murmured inarticulately a few

words of thanks, while the kind-hearted steward hastened away again in

search of the doctor.

"I am subject to these attacks," she said, faintly; to her companion when

they were again left alone. "Only feel how my heart is beating."

The ship's surgeon soon made his appearance. He was a young, light-haired,

solemn-looking German, who shook his head and looked very grave as he

listened to the labored breathing and felt the bounding, irregular pulse

of the sufferer.

"It is a pity that the ship has started," he said in very good English,

"for I hardly think you are fitted to bear the fatigues of a sea-voyage at

this season of the year; and had we been still at anchor, I should have

counseled you to return to shore. But it is too late now, and you must try

to keep as quiet as possible. I would advise you to retire to your berth

at once: it will probably be a stormy night, and you had better settle

yourself comfortably before the motion begins to be unpleasant. I will see

you again in the morning, and if you feel worse meanwhile, let me know at

once."

The doctor and the steward then quitted the state-room, and its two

occupants, being left alone, surveyed each other curiously.

The active and energetic girl who had acted as spokeswoman and directress

throughout the brief scene we have just described had let fall her

waterproof cloak and stood arrayed in a black velvet jacket and dark silk

skirt, both much the worse for wear, and contrasting sadly with the neat

but simple traveling costume of her companion. But about her slender,

finely-proportioned figure there was an air of style and grace which lent

an elegance even to her shabby and faded finery, and which was wanting in

the owner of the fresher and more appropriate attire. Her face was

beautiful, with a singular and weird beauty which owed nothing of its

fascinations to the ordinary charms of delicate outlines and dainty

coloring. Her features were small and attenuated, and her complexion was

of a sallow paleness, whose lack of freshness seemed caused by dissipation

and late hours or by the ravages of illness. Heavy masses of soft silken

hair, black as midnight, with bluish reflections on its lustrous waves

_(bleu à force d'être noir_, as Alexandre Dumas describes such tresses),

untortured by crimping-pins or curling-tongs, were rolled back in plain

folds above her low, broad brow. Her eyes would have lent beauty to a

plainer face. Large almost to a fault, of that dark, clear blue which is

too perfect and too transparent ever to look black even under the shadow

of such long, thick eyelashes as shaded them in the present instance, they

were perfectly magnificent; and their lustrous azure and ever-varying

expression lent to the mobile countenance of their possessor its most

potent and peculiar charm.

She was the first to speak. "Do you not think you had better retire to

your berth?" she asked. "The rocking of the ship is increasing, and we had

better, early as it is, settle ourselves for the night, before it becomes

so violent as to prevent us from moving."

At this moment two porters made their appearance laden with packages. Two

small new trunks--one marked R.S., the other M.N.--were deposited on the

floor and identified by their possessors. The sick girl then attempted,

with trembling hands, to disembarrass herself of her apparel, but it was

not without much assistance from her companion that she was enabled to

remove her traveling costume and make her preparations for retiring. At

last, however, she was ready, and was about to make an attempt to reach

the upper berth, which was the one allotted to her by number, when a

quick, imperative gesture from her companion stopped her.

"No, no," she said: "you must take the lower berth. I can reach the upper

one without any trouble, and you are not strong enough for so much

exertion."

"You are very, very kind," said the invalid, gratefully. She sank back on

the pillow and watched the other for some minutes in silence, as she

quietly and quickly gathered up and put in order the scattered articles

with which the state-room was strewn.

"Will you not give me that little black bag?" she said at last. "Thanks!

that is it. I wished to be certain that I had put my letter of

introduction in it. Ah! here it is, quite safe. It would never do for me

to lose that letter, for the lady with whom I am going to live as

governess has never seen me, and she might take me for an impostor were I

to come without it. An English lady who was her most intimate friend

engaged me for her. I wonder what New York is like?--very rough, and wild,

no doubt, and I am afraid I shall be much annoyed by the rattlesnakes. You

are going to New York too, are you not?"

"I am."

"Have you friends there?"

"None."

"I wish I had some acquaintances among our fellow-passengers, but I do not

know a single one. Do you?"

"No."

"You have not told me your name yet. Mine is Marion Nugent; and yours--"

"Is not so pretty a one--Rhoda Steele."

There was something in the tone of these replies that quelled the

invalid's disposition to talk, and she remained silent while her companion

finished her arrangements and prepared to take possession of her berth. It

was time that she did so. The threatened gale was by this time blowing in

earnest, and the ship was commencing to roll fearfully; so, after securing

all the boxes and bags as well as possible, and hanging up all the

scattered garments, she made a hasty retreat to her couch, and lay there

only half undressed, but utterly prostrate, and as unable to touch the tea

and biscuits brought by the attentive stewardess as was her more delicate

and suffering room-mate.

Time passed on: the daylight faded from the sky, a feeble glimmering lamp

shed its faint rays into the state-room, and the great steamship went

steadily on, though rocked and tossed like a plaything by the whistling

winds and angry sea. Then midnight came: the lights in the state-rooms

were extinguished and a profound silence reigned throughout the cabins,

broken only by the ceaseless throb of the mighty engines and the noisy

clanking of the screw.

The state-room was wrapped in profound darkness when Rhoda Steele awoke

with a start as from some troubled dream. Was she still dreaming, or did

she indeed hear a strange choking sound proceeding from the lower berth?

She sprang to the floor at once, heeding neither the darkness nor the

violent motion, and clinging to the side of the berth she called aloud.

There was no answer: even the gurgling, choking sound she had at first

heard had ceased. She put out her hand, and it encountered her companion's

face. It was deathly cold, and the features quivered as if convulsed under

her touch. Again she called aloud--still no answer; and then, thoroughly

frightened, she caught up a cloak from the sofa, threw it around her, and

opening the state-room door, she rushed into the cabin. It was almost

deserted. The lamps swung heavily overhead, swayed by the unceasing

rolling of the ship; a drowsy waiter slumbered at one of the tables, his

head resting on his folded arms; and one or two sleepy passengers tried to

maintain a recumbent posture on the broad sofas that lined the sides. The

cries of the terrified girl soon brought several of the waiters to her

assistance, and Captain Wessels himself, who had not retired to rest,

owing to the stormy weather, came to ascertain the cause of the unusual

disturbance. Her story was quickly told: lights were brought, and the

captain accompanied her back to the state-room.

It was a pitiful sight that met their eyes. The young girl lay motionless

in her berth, her face tinged with a livid bluish hue, her eyes closed,

and her small hands clenched as if in agony.

"The doctor!--run for the doctor!" was the instant and universal

exclamation. The doctor came. One look at the pallid face, one touch on

the slender wrist, and he turned with a grave face to the bystanders.

"There is nothing to be done," he said. "She is dead. I feared some such

catastrophe when I saw her last evening. She was in the last stages of

heart disease."

"And who was she?--what was her name?" asked kind-hearted Captain Wessels,

looking down with pitying eyes at the fair pale face.

The steward brought his lists.

"Berth No. 22," he read--"Miss Rhoda Steele."

"And this young lady?" continued the captain, turning to the other

occupant of the state-room, who had sunk back as if exhausted on the sofa,

still enveloped in the shrouding folds of her large waterproof cloak.

She raised her head. The answer came after a moment's hesitation--came

with a strange, defiant ring in its tone:

"My name is Marion Nugent."