PART I

A LANDSCAPE

PAINTER

By

HENRY JAMES

NEW YORK

SCOTT AND SELTZER

1919

CONTENTS

I. A Landscape Painter

II. Poor Richard

III. A Day of Days

IV. A Most Extraordinary Case

PREFACE

The four tales comprising this volume are printed now for the first time

in America in book form. All of them were written by Henry James before

he had attained his twenty-fifth year. They are remarkable for their

maturity of thought and clarity of style.

It has been the general opinion that James, like George Eliot, achieved

his literary development rather slowly, since it was known that he was

thirty-two years of age when "The Passionate Pilgrim," his first

collection of tales, and "Rodrick Hudson," his first long novel, were

published. As a matter of fact, however, James had been writing for the

leading magazines since he was twenty-two. The first story in this

volume, "A Landscape Painter," appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for

February, 1866, and was the second story James had published up to that

time.

The tales in this volume are among the most precious in our literature,

and James himself thought highly of them, since he collected them in an

English edition, published in 1885, in three volumes with the title,

"Short Stories Revived." This collection never appeared in America. It

is strange that James should have chosen to appeal to English readers

rather than to his own countrymen. Why he did so is a question that

remains unanswered. But the present volume will serve as a corrective of

this anomaly. The tales are reprinted, not from the English edition, but

from the American periodicals in which they were first published.

It has been claimed for William Dean Howells that it was he who

discovered James, when, as assistant editor to Fields on the _Atlantic

Monthly_, he strongly recommended the acceptance of James' story, "Poor

Richard." The claim, however, is not altogether well founded, since

James had published two stories before that time. These were "A

Landscape Painter" and "A Day of Days," the latter appearing in the

_Galaxy_ for June 15, 1866. All three stories are reprinted in this

volume.

Unusual interest, however, attaches to the tale of "Poor Richard,"

because of Howell's connection with it. Its reading led to the beginning

of a friendship between James and Howells which may be considered as one

of the great literary friendships in the annals of literature. Howells

told the story in the _Century_ for November, 1882.

When the manuscript was received at the office of the _Atlantic_, Fields

submitted it to Howells for his opinion. Howells read it, and when asked

whether he would accept it, he replied, "Yes, and all the stories you

can get from that writer." "One is much securer of one's judgment,"

writes Howells, "at twenty-nine than, say, at forty-five; but if there

was a mistake, I am not yet old enough to regret it. The story was

called 'Poor Richard' and it dealt with the conscience of a man very

much in love with a woman who loved his rival. He told the rival a lie,

which sent him away to his death on the field, but poor Richard's lie

did not win his love. It seems to me that the situation was strongly and

finely felt. One's pity went, as it should, with the liar; but the whole

story has a pathos which lingers in my mind equally with a sense of the

new literary qualities which gave me much delight in it."

The final story of this volume, "A Most Extraordinary Case," was first

published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for April, 1868, when Howells was

still on the editorial staff.

I am sure these first efforts of James' pen will be welcomed by his

American admirers. They are in every way worthy of James at his best,

and so worthy of being preserved. The only regret the reader may feel is

that the author should in his later works have seen fit to adopt an

elaborate, complex and often obscure style, instead of clinging to

simple, natural language, of which these stories show him to be such a

master.

ALBERT MORDELL.

Philadelphia, July 10, 1919.

I

A LANDSCAPE

PAINTER

Do you remember how, a dozen years ago, a number of our friends were

startled by the report of the rupture of young Locksley's engagement

with Miss Leary? This event made some noise in its day. Both parties

possessed certain claims to distinction: Locksley in his wealth, which

was believed to be enormous, and the young lady in her beauty, which was

in truth very great. I used to hear that her lover was fond of comparing

her to the Venus of Milo; and, indeed, if you can imagine the mutilated

goddess with her full complement of limbs, dressed out by Madame de

Crinoline, and engaged in small talk beneath the drawing-room

chandelier, you may obtain a vague notion of Miss Josephine Leary.

Locksley, you remember, was rather a short man, dark, and not

particularly good-looking; and when he walked about with his betrothed,

it was half a matter of surprise that he should have ventured to propose

to a young lady of such heroic proportions. Miss Leary had the gray eyes

and auburn hair which I have always assigned to the famous statue. The

one defect in her face, in spite of an expression of great candor and

sweetness, was a certain lack of animation. What it was besides her

beauty that attracted Locksley I never discovered: perhaps, since his

attachment was so short-lived, it was her beauty alone. I say that his

attachment was of brief duration, because the rupture was understood to

have come from him. Both he and Miss Leary very wisely held their

tongues on the matter; but among their friends and enemies it of course

received a hundred explanations. That most popular with Locksley's

well-wishers was that he had backed out (these events are discussed, you

know, in fashionable circles very much as an expected prizefight which

has miscarried is canvassed in reunions of another kind) only on

flagrant evidence of the lady's--what, faithlessness?--on overwhelming

proof of the most _mercenary_ spirit on the part of Miss Leary. You see,

our friend was held capable of doing battle for an "idea." It must be

owned that this was a novel charge; but, for myself, having long known

Mrs. Leary, the mother, who was a widow with four daughters, to be an

inveterate old screw, I took the liberty of accrediting the existence of

a similar propensity in her eldest born. I suppose that the young lady's

family had, on their own side, a very plausible version of their

disappointment. It was, however, soon made up to them by Josephine's

marriage with a gentleman of expectations very nearly as brilliant as

those of her old suitor. And what was _his_ compensation? That is

precisely my story.

Locksley disappeared, as you will remember, from public view. The events

above alluded to happened in March. On calling at his lodgings in April,

I was told he had gone to the "country." But towards the last of May I

met him. He told me that he was on the look-out for a quiet,

unfrequented place on the seashore, where he might rusticate and sketch.

He was looking very poorly. I suggested Newport, and I remember he

hardly had the energy to smile at the simple joke. We parted without my

having been able to satisfy him, and for a very long time I quite lost

sight of him. He died seven years ago, at the age of thirty-five. For

five years, accordingly, he managed to shield his life from the eyes of

men. Through circumstances which I need not detail, a large portion of

his personal property has come into my hands. You will remember that he

was a man of what are called elegant tastes: that is, he was seriously

interested in arts and letters. He wrote some very bad poetry, but he

produced a number of remarkable paintings. He left a mass of papers on

all subjects, few of which are adapted to be generally interesting. A

portion of them, however, I highly prize,--that which constitutes his

private diary. It extends from his twenty-fifth to his thirtieth year,

at which period it breaks off suddenly. If you will come to my house, I

will show you such of his pictures and sketches as I possess, and, I

trust, convert you to my opinion that he had in him the stuff of a great

painter. Meanwhile I will place before you the last hundred pages of his

diary, as an answer to your inquiry regarding the ultimate view taken by

the great Nemesis of his treatment of Miss Leary,--his scorn of the

magnificent Venus Victrix. The recent decease of the one person who had

a voice paramount to mine in the disposal of Locksley's effects enables

me to act without reserve.

_Cragthrope, June 9th._--I have been sitting some minutes, pen in hand,

pondering whether on the new earth, beneath this new sky, I had better

resume these occasional records of my idleness. I think I will at all

events make the experiment. If we fail, as Lady Macbeth remarks, we

fail. I find my entries have been longest when my life has been dullest.

I doubt not, therefore, that, once launched into the monotony of village

life, I shall sit scribbling from morning till night. If nothing

happens---- But my prophetic soul tells me that something _will_ happen.

I am determined that something shall,--if it be nothing else than that I

paint a picture.

When I came up to bed half an hour ago, I was deadly sleepy. Now, after

looking out of the window a little while, my brain is strong and clear,

and I feel as if I could write till morning. But, unfortunately, I have

nothing to write about. And then, if I expect to rise early, I must turn

in betimes. The whole village is asleep, godless metropolitan that I am!

The lamps on the square without flicker in the wind; there is nothing

abroad but the blue darkness and the smell of the rising tide. I have

spent the whole day on my legs, trudging from one side of the peninsula

to the other. What a trump is old Mrs. M----, to have thought of this

place! I must write her a letter of passionate thanks. Never before, it

seems to me, have I known pure coast-scenery. Never before have I

relished the beauties of wave, rock, and cloud. I am filled with a

sensuous ecstasy at the unparalleled life, light, and transparency of

the air. I am stricken mute with reverent admiration at the stupendous

resources possessed by the ocean in the way of color and sound; and as

yet, I suppose, I have not seen half of them I came in to supper hungry,

weary, footsore, sun-burnt, dirty,--happier, in short, than I have been

for a twelvemonth. And now for the victories of the brush!

_June 11th._--Another day afoot and also afloat. I resolved this morning

to leave this abominable little tavern. I can't stand my feather-bed

another night. I determined to find some other prospect than the

town-pump and the "drug-store." I questioned my host, after breakfast,

as to the possibility of getting lodgings in any of the outlying farms

and cottages. But my host either did not or would not know anything

about the matter. So I resolved to wander forth and seek my fortune,--to

roam inquisitive through the neighborhood, and appeal to the indigenous

sentiment of hospitality. But never did I see a folk so devoid of this

amiable quality. By dinner-time I had given up in despair. After dinner

I strolled down to the harbor, which is close at hand. The brightness

and breeziness of the water tempted me to hire a boat and resume my

explorations. I procured an old tub, with a short stump of a mast,

which, being planted quite in the centre, gave the craft much the

appearance of an inverted mushroom. I made for what I took to be, and

what is, an island, lying long and low, some three or four miles, over

against the town. I sailed for half an hour directly before the wind,

and at last found myself aground on the shelving beach of a quiet little

cove. _Such_ a little cove! So bright, so still, so warm, so remote from

the town, which lay off in the distance, white and semicircular! I

leaped ashore, and dropped my anchor. Before me rose a steep cliff,

crowned with an old ruined fort or tower. I made my way up, and about to

the landward entrance. The fort is a hollow old shell. Looking upward

from the beach, you see the harmless blue sky through the gaping

loopholes. Its interior is choked with rocks and brambles, and masses of

fallen masonry. I scrambled up to the parapet, and obtained a noble

sea-view. Beyond the broad bay I saw miniature town and country mapped

out before me; and on the other hand, I saw the infinite Atlantic,--over

which, by the by, all the pretty things are brought from Paris. I spent

the whole afternoon in wandering hither and thither over the hills that

encircle the little cove in which I had landed, heedless of the minutes

and my steps, watching the sailing clouds and the cloudy sails on the

horizon, listening to the musical attrition of the tidal pebbles,

killing innocuous suckers. The only particular sensation I remember was

that of being ten years old again, together with a general impression of

Saturday afternoon, of the liberty to go in wading or even swimming, and

of the prospect of limping home in the dusk with a wondrous story of

having _almost_ caught a turtle. When I returned, I found--but I know

very well what I found, and I need hardly repeat it here for my

mortification. Heaven knows I never was a practical character. What

thought I about the tide? There lay the old tub, high and dry, with the

rusty anchor protruding from the flat green stones and the shallow

puddles left by the receding wave. Moving the boat an inch, much more a

dozen yards, was quite beyond my strength. I slowly reascended the

cliff, to see if from its summit any help was discernible. None was

within sight; and I was about to go down again in profound dejection,

when I saw a trim little sailboat shoot out from behind a neighboring

bluff, and advance along the shore. I quickened pace. On reaching the

beach, I found the newcomer standing out about a hundred yards. The man

at the helm appeared to regard me with some interest. With a mute prayer

that his feeling might be akin to compassion, I invited him by voice and

gesture to make for a little point of rocks a short distance above us,

where I proceeded to join him. I told him my story, and he readily took

me aboard. He was a civil old gentleman, of the seafaring sort, who

appeared to be cruising about in the evening breeze for his pleasure. On

landing, I visited the proprietor of my old tub, related my

misadventure, and offered to pay damages, if the boat should turn out in

the morning to have sustained any. Meanwhile, I suppose, it is held

secure against the next tidal revolution, however insidious.--But for my

old gentleman. I have decidedly picked up an acquaintance, if not made a

friend. I gave him a very good cigar; and before we reached home, we had

become thoroughly intimate. In exchange for my cigar, he gave me his

name; and there was that in his tone which seemed to imply that I had by

no means the worst of the bargain. His name is Richard Blunt, "though

most people," he added, "call me Captain, for short." He then proceeded

to inquire my own titles and pretensions. I told him no lies, but I told

him only half the truth; and if he chooses to indulge mentally in any

romantic understatements, why, he is welcome, and bless his simple

heart! The fact is, that I have broken with the past. I have decided,

coolly and calmly, as I believe, that it is necessary to my success, or,

at any rate, to my happiness, to abjure for a while my conventional

self, and to assume a simple, natural character. How can a man be simple

and natural who is known to have a hundred thousand a year? That is the

supreme curse. It's bad enough to have it: to be known to have it, to be

known only because you have it, is most damnable. I suppose I am too

proud to be successfully rich. Let me see how poverty will serve my

turn. I have taken a fresh start. I have determined to stand upon my own

merits. If they fail me, I shall fall back upon my millions; but with

God's help I will test them, and see what kind of stuff I am made of. To

be young, to be strong, to be poor,--such, in this blessed nineteenth

century, is the great basis of solid success. I have resolved to take at

least one brief draught from the pure founts of inspiration of my time.

I replied to the Captain with such reservations as a brief survey of

these principles dictated. What a luxury to pass in a poor man's mind

for his brother! I begin to respect myself. Thus much the Captain knows:

that I am an educated man, with a taste for painting; that I have come

hither for the purpose of cultivating this taste by the study of coast

scenery, and for my health. I have reason to believe, moreover, that he

suspects me of limited means and of being a good deal of an economist.

Amen! _Vogue la galère_! But the point of my story is in his very

hospitable offer of lodgings. I had been telling him of my ill success

of the morning in the pursuit of the same. He is an odd union of the

gentleman of the old school and the old-fashioned, hot-headed

merchant-captain. I suppose that certain traits in these characters are

readily convertible.

"Young man," said he, after taking several meditative puffs of his

cigar, "I don't see the point of your living in a tavern, when there are

folks about you with more house-room than they know what to do with. A

tavern is only half a house, just as one of these new-fashioned

screw-propellers is only half a ship. Suppose you walk round and take a

look at my place. I own quite a respectable house over yonder to the

left of the town. Do you see that old wharf with the tumble-down

warehouses, and the long row of elms behind it? I live right in the

midst of the elms. We have the dearest little garden in the world,

stretching down to the water's edge. It's all as quiet as anything can

be, short of a graveyard. The back windows, you know, overlook the

harbor; and you can see twenty miles up the bay, and fifty miles out to

sea. You can paint to yourself there the livelong day, with no more fear

of intrusion than if you were out yonder at the light-ship. There's no

one but myself and my daughter, who's a perfect lady, Sir. She teaches

music in a young ladies' school. You see, money's an object, as they

say. We have never taken boarders yet, because none came in our track;

but I guess we can learn the ways. I suppose you've boarded before; you

can put us up to a thing or two."

There was something so kindly and honest in the old man's weather-beaten

face, something so friendly in his address, that I forthwith struck a

bargain with him, subject to his daughter's approval. I am to have her

answer to-morrow. This same daughter strikes me as rather a dark spot in

the picture. Teacher in a young ladies' school,--probably the

establishment of which Mrs. M---- spoke to me. I suppose she's over

thirty. I think I know the species.

_June 12th_, A.M.--I have really nothing to do but to scribble. "Barkis

is willing." Captain Blunt brought me word this morning that his

daughter smiles propitious. I am to report this evening; but I shall

send my slender baggage in an hour or two.

P.M.--Here I am, housed. The house is less than a mile from the inn, and

reached by a very pleasant road, skirting the harbor. At about six

o'clock I presented myself. Captain Blunt had described the place. A

very civil old negress admitted me, and ushered me into the garden,

where I found my friends watering their flowers. The old man was in his

house-coat and slippers. He gave me a cordial welcome. There is

something delightfully easy in his manners,--and in Miss Blunt's, too,

for that matter. She received me very nicely. The late Mrs. Blunt was

probably a well-bred woman. As for Miss Blunt's being thirty, she is

about twenty-four. She wore a fresh white dress, with a violet ribbon at

her neck, and a rosebud in her button-hole,--or whatever corresponds

thereto on the feminine bosom. I thought I discerned in this costume a

vague intention of courtesy, of deference, of celebrating my arrival. I

don't believe Miss Blunt wears white muslin every day. She shook hands

with me, and made me a very frank little speech about her hospitality.

"We have never had any inmates before," said she; "and we are,

consequently, new to the business. I don't know what you expect. I hope

you don't expect a great deal. You must ask for anything you want. If we

can give it, we shall be very glad to do so; if we can't, I give you

warning that we shall refuse outright." Bravo, Miss Blunt! The best of

it is, that she is decidedly beautiful,--and in the grand manner: tall,

and rather plump. What is the orthodox description of a pretty

girl?--white and red? Miss Blunt is not a pretty girl, she is a handsome

woman. She leaves an impression of black and red; that is, she is a

florid brunette. She has a great deal of wavy black hair, which

encircles her head like a dusky glory, a smoky halo. Her eyebrows, too,

are black, but her eyes themselves are of a rich blue gray, the color of

those slate-cliffs which I saw yesterday, weltering under the tide. Her

mouth, however, is her strong point. It is very large, and contains the

finest row of teeth in all this weary world. Her smile is eminently

intelligent. Her chin is full, and somewhat heavy. All this is a

tolerable catalogue, but no picture. I have been tormenting my brain to

discover whether it was her coloring or her form that impressed me most.

Fruitless speculation! Seriously, I think it was neither; it was her

movement. She walks a queen. It was the conscious poise of her head, the

unconscious "hang" of her arms, the careless grace and dignity with

which she lingered along the garden-path, smelling a red red rose! She

has very little to say, apparently; but when she speaks, it is to the

point, and if the point suggests it, with a very sweet smile. Indeed, if

she is not talkative, it is not from timidity. Is it from indifference?

Time will elucidate this, as well as other matters. I cling to the

hypothesis that she is amiable. She is, moreover, intelligent; she is

probably quite reserved; and she is possibly very proud. She is, in

short, a woman of character. There you are, Miss Blunt, at full

length,--emphatically the portrait of a lady. After tea, she gave us

some music in the parlor. I confess that I was more taken with the

picture of the dusky little room, lighted by the single candle on the

piano, and by the _effect_ of Miss Blunt's performance, than with its

meaning. She appears to possess a very brilliant touch.

_June 18th._--I have now been here almost a week. I occupy two very

pleasant rooms. My painting-room is a vast and rather bare apartment,

with a very good southern light. I have decked it out with a few old

prints and sketches, and have already grown very fond of it. When I had

disposed my artistic odds and ends in as picturesque a fashion as

possible, I called in my hosts. The Captain looked about silently for

some moments, and then inquired hopefully if I had ever tried my hand at

a ship. On learning that I had not yet got to ships, he relapsed into a

deferential silence. His daughter smiled and questioned very graciously,

and called everything beautiful and delightful; which rather

disappointed me, as I had taken her to be a woman of some originality.

She is rather a puzzle;--or is she, indeed, a very commonplace person,

and the fault in me, who am forever taking women to mean a great deal

more than their Maker intended? Regarding Miss Blunt I have collected a

few facts. She is not twenty-four, but twenty-seven years old. She has

taught music ever since she was twenty, in a large boarding-school just

out of the town, where she originally got her education. Her salary in

this establishment, which is, I believe, a tolerably flourishing one,

and the proceeds of a few additional lessons, constitute the chief

revenues of the household. But Blunt fortunately owns his house, and his

needs and habits are of the simplest kind. What does he or his daughter

know of the great worldly theory of necessities, the great worldly scale

of pleasures? Miss Blunt's only luxuries are a subscription to the

circulating library, and an occasional walk on the beach, which, like

one of Miss Bronté's heroines, she paces in company with an old

Newfoundland dog. I am afraid she is sadly ignorant. She reads nothing

but novels. I am bound to believe, however, that she has derived from

the perusal of these works a certain practical science of her own. "I

read all the novels I can get," she said yesterday; "but I only like the

good ones. I do so like Zanoni, which I have just finished." I must set

her to work at some of the masters. I should like some of those fretful

New-York heiresses to see how this woman lives. I wish, too, that half a

dozen of _ces messieurs_ of the clubs might take a peep at the present

way of life of their humble servant. We breakfast at eight o'clock.

Immediately afterwards, Miss Blunt, in a shabby old bonnet and shawl,

starts off to school. If the weather is fine, the Captain goes out

a-fishing, and I am left to my own devices. Twice I have accompanied the

old man. The second time I was lucky enough to catch a big bluefish,

which we had for dinner. The Captain is an excellent specimen of the

sturdy navigator, with his loose blue clothes, his ultra-divergent legs,

his crisp white hair, and his jolly thick-skinned visage. He comes of a

sea-faring English race. There is more or less of the ship's cabin in

the general aspect of this antiquated house. I have heard the winds

whistle about its walls, on two or three occasions, in true mid-ocean

style. And then the illusion is heightened, somehow or other, by the

extraordinary intensity of the light. My painting-room is a grand

observatory of the clouds. I sit by the half-hour, watching them sail

past my high, uncurtained windows. At the back part of the room,

something tells you that they belong to an ocean sky; and there, in

truth, as you draw nearer, you behold the vast, gray complement of sea.

This quarter of the town is perfectly quiet. Human activity seems to

have passed over it, never again to return, and to have left a kind of

deposit of melancholy resignation. The streets are clean, bright, and

airy; but this fact seems only to add to the intense sobriety. It

implies that the unobstructed heavens are in the secret of their

decline. There is something ghostly in the perpetual stillness. We

frequently hear the rattling of the yards and the issuing of orders on

the barks and schooners anchored out in the harbor.

_June 28th._--My experiment works far better than I had hoped. I am

thoroughly at my ease; my peace of mind quite passeth understanding. I

work diligently; I have none but pleasant thoughts. The past has almost

lost its terrors. For a week now I have been out sketching daily. The

Captain carries me to a certain point on the shore of the harbor, I

disembark and strike across the fields to a spot where I have

established a kind of _rendezvous_ with a particular effect of rock and

shadow, which has been tolerably faithful to its appointment. Here I set

up my easel, and paint till sunset. Then I retrace my steps and meet the

boat. I am in every way much encouraged. The horizon of my work grows

perceptibly wider. And then I am inexpressibly happy in the conviction

that I am not wholly unfit for a life of (moderate) labor and

(comparative) privation. I am quite in love with my poverty, if I may

call it so. As why should I not? At this rate I don't spend eight

hundred a year.

_July 12th._--We have been having a week of bad weather: constant rain,

night and day. This is certainly at once the brightest and the blackest

spot in New England. The skies can smile, assuredly; but how they can

frown! I have been painting rather languidly, and at a great

disadvantage, at my window.... Through all this pouring and pattering,

Miss Blunt sallies forth to her pupils. She envelops her beautiful head

in a great woollen hood, her beautiful figure in a kind of feminine

mackintosh; her feet she puts into heavy clogs, and over the whole she

balances a cotton umbrella. When she comes home, with the rain-drops

glistening on her red cheeks and her dark lashes, her cloak bespattered

with mud, and her hands red with the cool damp, she is a profoundly

wholesome spectacle. I never fail to make her a very low bow, for which

she repays me with an extraordinary smile. This working-day side of her

character is what especially pleases me in Miss Blunt. This holy

working-dress of loveliness and dignity sits upon her with the

simplicity of an antique drapery. Little use has she for whalebones and

furbelows. What a poetry there is, after all, in red hands! I kiss

yours, Mademoiselle. I do so because you are self-helpful; because you

earn your living; because you are honest, simple, and ignorant (for a

sensible woman, that is); because you speak and act to the point;

because, in short, you are so unlike--certain of your sisters.

_July 16th._--On Monday it cleared up generously. When I went to my

window, on rising, I found sky and sea looking, for their brightness and

freshness, like a clever English water-color. The ocean is of a deep

purple blue; above it, the pure, bright sky looks pale, though it bends

with an infinite depth over the inland horizon. Here and there on the

dark breezy water gleams the white cap of a wave, or flaps the white

cloak of a fishing-boat. I have been sketching sedulously; I have

discovered, within a couple of miles, walk, a large, lonely pond, set in

quite a grand landscape of barren rocks and grassy slopes. At one

extremity is a broad outlook on the open sea; at the other, deep buried

in the foliage of an apple-orchard, stands an old haunted-looking

farmhouse. To the west of the pond is a wide expanse of rock and grass,

of beach and marsh. The sheep browse over it as upon a Highland moor.

Except a few stunted firs and cedars, there is not a tree in sight. When

I want shade, I seek it in the shelter of one of the great mossy

boulders which upheave their scintillating shoulders to the sun, or of

the long shallow dells where a tangle of blackberry-bushes hedges about a

sky-reflecting pool. I have encamped over against a plain, brown

hillside, which, with laborious patience, I am transferring to canvas;

and as we have now had the same clear sky for several days, I have

almost finished quite a satisfactory little study. I go forth

immediately after breakfast. Miss Blunt furnishes me with a napkin full

of bread and cold meat, which at the noonday hour, in my sunny solitude,

within sight of the slumbering ocean, I voraciously convey to my lips

with my discolored fingers. At seven o'clock I return to tea, at which

repast we each tell the story of our day's work. For poor Miss Blunt, it

is day after day the same story: a wearisome round of visits to the

school, and to the houses of the mayor, the parson, the butcher, the

baker, whose young ladies, of course, all receive instruction on the

piano. But she doesn't complain, nor, indeed, does she look very weary.

When she has put on a fresh calico dress for tea, and arranged her hair

anew, and with these improvements flits about with that quiet hither and

thither of her gentle footsteps, preparing our evening meal, peeping

into the teapot, cutting the solid loaf,--or when, sitting down on the

low door-step, she reads out select scraps from the evening paper,--or

else, when, tea being over, she folds her arms, (an attitude which

becomes her mightily,) and, still sitting on the door-step, gossips away

the evening in comfortable idleness, while her father and I indulge in

the fragrant pipe, and watch the lights shining out, one by one, in

different quarters of the darkling bay: at these moments she is as

pretty, as cheerful, as careless as it becomes a sensible woman to be.

What a pride the Captain takes in his daughter! And she, in return, how

perfect is her devotion to the old man! He is proud of her grace, of her

tact, of her good sense, of her wit, such as it is. He thinks her to be

the most accomplished of women. He waits upon her as if, instead of his

old familiar Esther, she were a newly inducted daughter-in-law. And

indeed, if I were his own son, he could not be kinder to me. They are

certainly--nay, why should I not say it?--we are certainly a very happy

little household. Will it last forever? I say _we_, because both father

and daughter have given me a hundred assurances--he direct, and she, if

I don't flatter myself, after the manner of her sex, indirect--that I am

already a valued friend. It is natural enough that I should have gained

their good-will. They have received at my hands inveterate courtesy. The

way to the old man's heart is through a studied consideration of his

daughter. He knows, I imagine, that I admire Miss Blunt. But if I should

at any time fall below the mark of ceremony, I should have an account to

settle with him. All this is as it should be. When people have to

economize with the dollars and cents, they have a right to be splendid

in their feelings. I have prided myself not a little on my good manners

towards my hostess. That my bearing has been without reproach is,

however, a fact which I do not, in any degree, set down here to my

credit; for I would defy the most impertinent of men (whoever he is) to

forget himself with this young lady, without leave unmistakably given.

Those deep, dark eyes have a strong prohibitory force. I record the

circumstance simply because in future years, when my charming friend

shall have become a distant shadow, it will be pleasant, in turning over

these pages, to find written testimony to a number of points which I

shall be apt to charge solely upon my imagination. I wonder whether Miss

Blunt, in days to come, referring to the tables of her memory for some

trivial matter-of-fact, some prosaic date or half-buried landmark, will

also encounter this little secret of ours, as I may call it,--will

decipher an old faint note to this effect, overlaid with the memoranda

of intervening years. Of course she will. Sentiment aside, she is a

woman of an excellent memory. Whether she forgives or not I know not;

but she certainly doesn't forget. Doubtless, virtue is its own reward;

but there is a double satisfaction in being polite to a person on whom

it _tells_. Another reason for my pleasant relations with the Captain

is, that I afford him a chance to rub up his rusty old cosmopolitanism,

and trot out his little scraps of old-fashioned reading, some of which

are very curious. It is a great treat for him to spin his threadbare

yarns over again to a sympathetic listener. These warm July evenings, in

the sweet-smelling garden, are just the proper setting for his amiable

garrulities. An odd enough relation subsists between us on this point.

Like many gentlemen of his calling, the Captain is harassed by an

irresistible desire to romance, even on the least promising themes; and

it is vastly amusing to observe how he will auscultate, as it were, his

auditor's inmost mood, to ascertain whether it is prepared for the

absorption of his insidious fibs. Sometimes they perish utterly in the

transition: they are very pretty, I conceive, in the deep and briny well

of the Captain's fancy; but they won't bear being transplanted into the

shallow inland lakes of my land-bred apprehension. At other times, the

auditor being in a dreamy, sentimental, and altogether unprincipled

mood, he will drink the old man's salt-water by the bucketful and feel

none the worse for it. Which is the worse, wilfully to tell, or wilfully

to believe, a pretty little falsehood which will not hurt any one? I

suppose you can't believe wilfully; you only pretend to believe. My part

of the game, therefore, is certainly as bad as the Captain's. Perhaps I

take kindly to his beautiful perversions of fact, because I am myself

engaged in one, because I am sailing under false colors of the deepest

dye. I wonder whether my friends have any suspicion of the real state of

the case. How should they? I fancy, that, on the whole, I play my part

pretty well. I am delighted to find it come so easy. I do not mean that

I experience little difficulty in foregoing my hundred petty elegancies

and luxuries,--for to these, thank Heaven, I was not so indissolubly

wedded that one wholesome shock could not loosen my bonds,--but that I

manage more cleverly than I expected to stifle those innumerable tacit

illusions which might serve effectually to belie my character.

_Sunday, July 20th._--This has been a very pleasant day for me; although

in it, of course, I have done no manner of work. I had this morning a

delightful _tête-à-tête_ with my hostess. She had sprained her ankle,

coming downstairs; and so, instead of going forth to Sunday school and

to meeting, she was obliged to remain at home on the sofa. The Captain,

who is of a very punctilious piety, went off alone. When I came into the

parlor, as the church-bells were ringing, Miss Blunt asked me if I never

went to meeting. "Never when there is anything better to do at home,"

said I.

"What is better than going to church?" she asked, with charming

simplicity.

She was reclining on the sofa, with her foot on a pillow, and her Bible

in her lap. She looked by no means afflicted at having to be absent from

divine service; and, instead of answering her question, I took the

liberty of telling her so.

"I _am_ sorry to be absent," said she. "You know it's my only festival

in the week."

"So you look upon it as a festival," said I.

"Isn't it a pleasure to meet one's acquaintance? I confess I am never

deeply interested in the sermon, and I very much dislike teaching the

children; but I like wearing my best bonnet, and singing in the choir,

and walking part of the way home with----"

"With whom?"

"With any one who offers to walk with me."

"With Mr. Johnson, for instance," said I.

Mr. Johnson is a young lawyer in the village, who calls here once a

week, and whose attentions to Miss Blunt have been remarked.

"Yes," she answered, "Mr. Johnson will do as an instance."

"How he will miss you!"

"I suppose he will. We sing off the same book. What are you laughing at?

He kindly permits me to hold the book, while he stands with his hands in

his pockets. Last Sunday I quite lost patience. 'Mr. Johnson,' said I,

'do hold the book! Where are your manners?' He burst out laughing in the

midst of the reading. He will certainly have to hold the book to-day."

"What a 'masterful soul' he is! I suppose he will call after meeting."

"Perhaps he will. I hope so."

"I hope he won't," said I, roundly. "I am going to sit down here and

talk to you, and I wish our _tête-à-tête_ not to be interrupted."

"Have you anything particular to say?"

"Nothing so particular as Mr. Johnson, perhaps."

Miss Blunt has a very pretty affectation of being more matter-of-fact

than she really is.

"His rights, then," said she, "are paramount to yours."

"Ah, you admit that he has rights?"

"Not at all. I simply assert that you have none."

"I beg your pardon. I have claims which I mean to enforce. I have a

claim upon your undivided attention, when I pay you a morning call."

"Your claim is certainly answered. Have I been uncivil, pray?"

"Not uncivil, perhaps, but inconsiderate. You have been sighing for the

company of a third person, which you can't expect me to relish."

"Why not, pray? If I, a lady, can put up with Mr. Johnson's society, why

shouldn't you, one of his own sex?"

"Because he is so outrageously conceited. You, as a lady, or at any rate

as a woman, like conceited men."

"Ah, yes; I have no doubt that I, as a woman, have all kinds of improper

tastes. That's an old story."

"Admit, at any rate, that our friend is conceited."

"Admit it? Why, I have said so a hundred times. I have told him so."

"Indeed! It has come to that, then?"

"To what, pray?"

"To that critical point in the friendship of a lady and gentleman, when

they bring against each other all kinds of delightful charges of moral

obliquity. Take care, Miss Blunt! A couple of intelligent

New-Englanders, of opposite sex, young, unmarried, are pretty far gone,

when they begin morally to reprobate each other. So you told Mr. Johnson

that he is conceited? And I suppose you added, that he was also

dreadfully satirical and skeptical? What was his rejoinder? Let me see.

Did he ever tell you that you were a little bit affected?"

"No: he left that for you to say, in this very ingenious manner. Thank

you, sir."

"He left it for me to deny, which is a great deal prettier. Do you think

the manner ingenious?"

"I think the matter, considering the day and hour, very profane, Mr.

Locksley. Suppose you go away and let me read my Bible."

"Meanwhile," I asked, "what shall I do?"

"Go and read yours, if you have one."

"I haven't."

I was, nevertheless, compelled to retire, with the promise of a second

audience in half an hour. Poor Miss Blunt owes it to her conscience to

read a certain number of chapters. What a pure and upright soul she is!

And what an edifying spectacle is much of our feminine piety! Women find

a place for everything in their commodious little minds, just as they do

in their wonderfully subdivided trunks, when they go on a journey. I

have no doubt that this young lady stows away her religion in a corner,

just as she does her Sunday bonnet,--and, when the proper moment comes,

draws it forth, and reflects while she assumes it before the glass, and

blows away the strictly imaginary dust: for what worldly impurity can

penetrate through half a dozen layers of cambric and tissue-paper? Dear

me, what a comfort it is to have a nice, fresh, holiday faith!--When I

returned to the parlor, Miss Blunt was still sitting with her Bible in

her lap. Somehow or other, I no longer felt in the mood for jesting. So

I asked her soberly what she had been reading. Soberly she answered me.

She inquired how I had spent my half-hour.

"In thinking good Sabbath thoughts," I said. "I have been walking in the

garden." And then I spoke my mind. "I have been thanking Heaven that it

has led me, a poor, friendless wanderer, into so peaceful an anchorage."

"Are you, then, so poor and friendless?" asked Miss Blunt, quite

abruptly.

"Did you ever hear of an art-student under thirty who wasn't poor?" I

answered. "Upon my word, I have yet to sell my first picture. Then, as

for being friendless, there are not five people in the world who really

care for me."

"_Really_ care? I am afraid you look too close. And then I think five

good friends is a very large number. I think myself very well off with a

couple. But if you are friendless, it's probably your own fault."

"Perhaps it is," said I, sitting down in the rocking-chair; "and yet,

perhaps, it isn't. Have you found me so very repulsive? Haven't you, on

the contrary, found me rather sociable?"

She folded her arms, and quietly looked at me for a moment, before

answering. I shouldn't wonder if I blushed a little.

"You want a compliment, Mr. Locksley; that's the long and short of it. I

have not paid you a compliment since you have been here. How you must

have suffered! But it's a pity you couldn't have waited awhile longer,

instead of beginning to angle with that very clumsy bait. For an artist,

you are very inartistic. Men never know how to wait. 'Have I found you

repulsive? haven't I found you sociable?' Perhaps, after all,

considering what I have in my mind, it is as well that you asked for

your compliment. I have found you charming. I say it freely; and yet I

say, with equal sincerity, that I fancy very few others would find you

so. I can say decidedly that you are not sociable. You are entirely too

particular. You are considerate of me, because you know that I know that

you are so. There's the rub, you see: I know that you know that I know

it. Don't interrupt me; I am going to be eloquent. I want you to

understand why I don't consider you sociable. You call Mr. Johnson

conceited; but, really, I don't believe he's nearly as conceited as

yourself. You are too conceited to be sociable; he is not. I am an

obscure, weak-minded woman,--weak-minded, you know, compared with men. I

can be patronized,--yes, that's the word. Would you be equally amiable

with a person as strong, as clear-sighted as yourself, with a person

equally averse with yourself to being under an obligation? I think not.

Of course it's delightful to charm people. Who wouldn't? There is no

harm in it, as long as the charmer does not set up for a public

benefactor. If I were a man, a clever man like yourself, who had seen

the world, who was not to be charmed and encouraged, but to be convinced

and refuted, would you be equally amiable? It will perhaps seem absurd

to you, and it will certainly seem egotistical, but I consider myself

sociable, for all that I have only a couple of friends,--my father and

the principal of the school. That is, I mingle with women without any

second thought. Not that I wish you to do so: on the contrary, if the

contrary is natural to you. But I don't believe you mingle in the same

way with men. You may ask me what I know about it. Of course I know

nothing: I simply guess. When I have done, indeed, I mean to beg your

pardon for all I have said; but until then, give me a chance. You are

incapable of listening deferentially to stupid, bigoted persons. I am

not, I do it every day. Ah, you have no idea what nice manners I have in

the exercise of my profession! Every day I have occasion to pocket my

pride and to stifle my precious sense of the ridiculous,--of which, of

course, you think I haven't a bit. It is, for instance, a constant

vexation to me to be poor. It makes me frequently hate rich women; it

makes me despise poor ones. I don't know whether you suffer acutely from

the narrowness of your own means; but if you do, I dare say you shun

rich men. I don't. I like to go into rich people's houses, and to be

very polite to the ladies of the house, especially if they are very

well-dressed and ignorant and vulgar. All women are like me in this

respect; and all men more or less like you. That is, after all, the text

of my sermon. Compared with us, it has always seemed to me that you are

arrant cowards,--that we alone are brave. To be sociable, you must have

a great deal of pluck. You are too fine a gentleman. Go and teach

school, or open a corner grocery, or sit in a law-office all day,

waiting for clients: then you will be sociable. As yet, you are only

agreeable. It is your own fault, if people don't care for you. You don't

care for them. That you should be indifferent to their applause is all

very well; but you don't care for their indifference. You are amiable,

you are very kind, and you are also very lazy. You consider that you are

working now, don't you? Many persons would not call it work."

It was now certainly my turn to fold my arms.

"And now," added my companion, as I did so, "I beg your pardon."

"This was certainly worth waiting for," said I. "I don't know what

answer to make. My head swims. I don't know whether you have been

attacking me or praising me. So you advise me to open a corner grocery,

do you?"

"I advise you to do something that will make you a little less

satirical. You had better marry, for instance."

"_Je ne demande pas mieux_. Will you have me? I can't afford it."

"Marry a rich woman."

I shook my head.

"Why not?" asked Miss Blunt. "Because people would accuse you of being

mercenary? What of that? I mean to marry the first rich man who offers.

Do you know that I am tired of living alone in this weary old way,

teaching little girls their gamut, and turning and patching my dresses?

I mean to marry the first man who offers."

"Even if he is poor?"

"Even if he is poor, ugly, and stupid."

"I am your man, then. Would you take me, if I were to offer?"

"Try and see."

"Must I get upon my knees?"

"No, you need not even do that. Am I not on mine? It would be too fine

an irony. Remain as you are, lounging back in your chair, with your

thumbs in your waistcoat."

If I were writing a romance now, instead of transcribing facts, I would

say that I knew not what might have happened at this juncture, had not

the door opened and admitted the Captain and Mr. Johnson. The latter was

in the highest spirits.

"How are you, Miss Esther? So you have been breaking your leg, eh? How

are you, Mr. Locksley? I wish I were a doctor now. Which is it, right or

left?"

In this simple fashion he made himself agreeable to Miss Blunt. He

stopped to dinner and talked without ceasing. Whether our hostess had

talked herself out in her very animated address to myself an hour

before, or whether she preferred to oppose no obstacle to Mr. Johnson's

fluency, or whether she was indifferent to him, I know not; but she held

her tongue with that easy grace, that charming tacit intimation of "We

could, and we would," of which she is so perfect a mistress. This very

interesting woman has a number of pretty traits in common with her

town-bred sisters; only, whereas in these they are laboriously acquired,

in her they are severely natural. I am sure, that, if I were to plant

her in Madison Square to-morrow, she would, after one quick,

all-compassing glance, assume the _nil admirari_ in a manner to drive

the greatest lady of them all to despair. Johnson is a man of excellent

intentions, but no taste. Two or three times I looked at Miss Blunt to

see what impression his sallies were making upon her. They seemed to

produce none whatever. But I know better, _moi_. Not one of them escaped

her. But I suppose she said to herself that her impressions on this

point were no business of mine. Perhaps she was right. It is a

disagreeable word to use of a woman you admire; but I can't help

fancying that she has been a little _soured_. By what? Who shall say? By

some old love affair, perhaps.

_July 24th._--This evening the Captain and I took a half-hour's turn

about the harbor. I asked him frankly, as a friend, whether Johnson

wants to marry his daughter.

"I guess he does," said the old man; "and yet I hope he don't. You know

what he is: he's smart, promising, and already sufficiently well off.

But somehow he isn't for a man what my Esther is for a woman."

"That he isn't!" said I; "and honestly, Captain Blunt, I don't know who

is----"

"Unless it's yourself," said the Captain.

"Thank you. I know a great many ways in which Mr. Johnson is more worthy

of her than I."

"And I know one in which you are more worthy of her than he,--that is,

in being what we used to call a gentleman."

"Miss Esther made him sufficiently welcome in her quiet way, on Sunday,"

I rejoined.

"Oh, she respects him," said Blunt. "As she's situated, she might marry

him on that. You see, she's weary of hearing little girls drum on the

piano. With her ear for music," added the Captain, "I wonder she has

borne it so long."

"She is certainly meant for better things," said I.

"Well," answered the Captain, who has an honest habit of deprecating

your agreement, when it occurs to him that he has obtained it for

sentiments which fall somewhat short of the stoical,--"well," said he,

with a very dry expression of mouth, "she's born to do her duty. We are

all of us born for that."

"Sometimes our duty is rather dreary," said I.

"So it be; but what's the help for it? I don't want to die without

seeing my daughter provided for. What she makes by teaching is a pretty

slim subsistence. There was a time when I thought she was going to be

fixed for life, but it all blew over. There was a young fellow here from

down Boston way, who came about as near to it as you can come, when you

actually don't. He and Esther were excellent friends. One day Esther

came up to me, and looked me in the face, and told me she was engaged.

"'Who to?' says I, though, of course, I knew, and Esther told me as

much. 'When do you expect to marry?' I asked.

"'When John grows rich enough,' says she.

"'When will that be?'

"'It may not be for years,' said poor Esther.

"A whole year passed, and, as far as I could see, the young man came no

nearer to his fortune. He was forever running to and fro between this

place and Boston. I asked no questions, because I knew that my poor girl

wished it so. But at last, one day, I began to think it was time to take

an observation, and see whereabouts we stood.

"'Has John made his fortune yet?' I asked.

"'I don't know, father,' said Esther.

"'When are you to be married?'

"'Never!' said my poor little girl, and burst into 'tears. 'Please ask

me no questions,' said she. 'Our engagement is over. Ask me no

questions.'

"'Tell me one thing,' said I: 'where is that d--d scoundrel who has

broken my daughter's heart?'

"You should have seen the look she gave me.

"'Broken my heart, sir? You are very much mistaken. I don't know who you

mean.'

"'I mean John Banister,' said I. That was his name.

"'I believe Mr. Banister is in China,' says Esther, as grand as the

Queen of Sheba. And there was an end of it. I never learnt the ins and

outs of it. I have been told that Banister is accumulating money very

fast in the China trade."

_August 7th._--I have made no entry for more than a fortnight. They tell

me I have been very ill; and I find no difficulty in believing them. I

suppose I took cold, sitting out so late, sketching. At all events, I

have had a mild intermittent fever. I have slept so much, however, that

the time has seemed rather short. I have been tenderly nursed by this

kind old gentleman, his daughter, and his maid-servant. God bless them,

one and all! I say his daughter, because old Dorothy informs me that for

half an hour one morning, at dawn, after a night during which I had been

very feeble, Miss Blunt relieved guard at my bedside, while I lay wrapt

in brutal slumber. It is very jolly to see sky and ocean once again. I

have got myself into my easy-chair by the open window, with my shutters

closed and the lattice open; and here I sit with my book on my knee,

scratching away feebly enough. Now and then I peep from my cool, dark

sick-chamber out into the world of light. High noon at midsummer! What a

spectacle! There are no clouds in the sky, no waves on the ocean. The

sun has it all to himself. To look long at the garden makes the eyes

water. And we--"Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes, and Nokes"--propose to paint that

kingdom of light. _Allons, donc_!

The loveliest of women has just tapped, and come in with a plate of

early peaches. The peaches are of a gorgeous color and plumpness; but

Miss Blunt looks pale and thin. The hot weather doesn't agree with her.

She is overworked. Confound it! Of course I thanked her warmly for her

attentions during my illness. She disclaims all gratitude, and refers me

to her father and Mrs. Dorothy.

"I allude more especially," said I, "to that little hour at the end of a

weary night, when you stole in like a kind of moral Aurora, and drove

away the shadows from my brain. That morning, you know, I began to get

better."

"It was, indeed, a very little hour," said Miss Blunt. "It was about ten

minutes." And then she began to scold me for presuming to touch a pen

during my convalescence. She laughs at me, indeed, for keeping a diary

at all. "Of all things," cried she, "a sentimental man is the most

despicable."

I confess I was somewhat nettled. The thrust seemed gratuitous.

"Of all things," I answered, "a woman without sentiment is the most

unlovely."

"Sentiment and loveliness are all very well, when you have time for

them," said Miss Blunt. "I haven't. I'm not rich enough. Good morning."

Speaking of another woman, I would say that she flounced out of the

room. But such was the gait of Juno, when she moved stiffly over the

grass from where Paris stood with Venus holding the apple, gathering up

her divine vestment, and leaving the others to guess at her face----

Juno has just come back to say that she forgot what she came for half an

hour ago. What will I be pleased to like for dinner?

"I have just been writing in my diary that you flounced out of the

room," said I.

"Have you, indeed? Now you can write that I have bounced in. There's a

nice cold chicken downstairs," etc., etc.

_August 14th._--This afternoon I sent for a light wagon, and treated

Miss Blunt to a drive. We went successively over the three beaches. What

a time we had, coming home! I shall never forget that hard trot over

Weston's Beach. The tide was very low; and we had the whole glittering,

weltering strand to ourselves. There was a heavy blow yesterday, which

had not yet subsided; and the waves had been lashed into a magnificent

fury. Trot, trot, trot, trot, we trundled over the hard sand. The sound

of the horse's hoofs rang out sharp against the monotone of the

thunderous surf, as we drew nearer and nearer to the long line of the

cliffs. At our left, almost from the lofty zenith of the pale evening

sky to the high western horizon of the tumultuous dark-green sea, was

suspended, so to speak, one of those gorgeous vertical sunsets that

Turner loved so well. It was a splendid confusion of purple and green

and gold,--the clouds flying and flowing in the wind like the folds of a

mighty banner borne by some triumphal fleet whose prows were not visible

above the long chain of mountainous waves. As we reached the point where

the cliffs plunge down upon the beach, I pulled up, and we remained for

some moments looking out along the low, brown, obstinate barrier at

whose feet the impetuous waters were rolling themselves into powder.

_August 17th._--This evening, as I lighted my bedroom candle, I saw that

the Captain had something to say to me. So I waited below until the old

man and his daughter had performed their usual picturesque embrace, and

the latter had given me that hand-shake and that smile which I never

failed to exact.

"Johnson has got his discharge," said the old man, when he had heard his

daughter's door close upstairs.

"What do you mean?"

He pointed with his thumb to the room above, where we heard, through the

thin partition, the movement of Miss Blunt's light step.

"You mean that he has proposed to Miss Esther?"

The Captain nodded.

"And has been refused?"

"Flat."

"Poor fellow!" said I, very honestly. "Did he tell you himself?"

"Yes, with tears in his eyes. He wanted me to speak for him. I told him

it was no use. Then he began to say hard things of my poor girl."

"What kind of things?"

"A pack of falsehoods. He says she has no heart. She has promised always

to regard him as a friend: it's more than I will, hang him!"

"Poor fellow!" said I; and now, as I write, I can only repeat,

considering what a hope was here broken, Poor fellow!

_August 23d._--I have been lounging about all day, thinking of it,

dreaming of it, spooning over it, as they say. This is a decided waste

of time. I think, accordingly, the best thing for me to do is, to sit

down and lay the ghost by writing out my story.

On Thursday evening Miss Blunt happened to intimate that she had a

holiday on the morrow, it being the birthday of the lady in whose

establishment she teaches.

"There is to be a tea-party at four o'clock in the afternoon for the

resident pupils and teachers," said Miss Esther. "Tea at four! what do

you think of that? And then there is to be a speech-making by the

smartest young lady. As my services are not required, I propose to be

absent. Suppose, father, you take us out in your boat. Will you come,

Mr. Locksley? We shall have a nice little picnic. Let us go over to old

Fort Pudding, across the bay. We will take our dinner with us, and send

Dorothy to spend the day with her sister, and put the house-key in our

pocket, and not come home till we please."

I warmly espoused the project, and it was accordingly carried into

execution the next morning, when, at about ten o'clock, we pushed off

from our little wharf at the garden-foot. It was a perfect summer's day:

I can say no more for it. We made a quiet run over to the point of our

destination. I shall never forget the wondrous stillness which brooded

over earth and water, as we weighed anchor in the lee of my old

friend,--or old enemy,--the ruined fort. The deep, translucent water

reposed at the base of the warm sunlit cliff like a great basin of

glass, which I half expected to hear shiver and crack as our keel

ploughed through it. And how color and sound stood out in the

transparent air! How audibly the little ripples on the beach whispered

to the open sky! How our irreverent voices seemed to jar upon the

privacy of the little cove! The mossy rocks doubled themselves without a

flaw in the clear, dark water. The gleaming white beach lay fringed with

its deep deposits of odorous sea-weed, gleaming black. The steep,

straggling sides of the cliffs raised aloft their rugged angles against

the burning blue of the sky. I remember, when Miss Blunt stepped ashore

and stood upon the beach, relieved against the heavy shadow of a recess

in the cliff, while her father and I busied ourselves with gathering up

our baskets and fastening the anchor--I remember, I say, what a figure

she made. There is a certain purity in this Cragthrope air which I have

never seen approached,--a lightness, a brilliancy, a _crudity_, which

allows perfect liberty of self-assertion to each individual object in

the landscape. The prospect is ever more or less like a picture which

lacks its final process, its reduction to unity. Miss Blunt's figure, as

she stood there on the beach, was almost _criarde_; but how lovely it

was! Her light muslin dress, gathered up over her short white skirt, her

little black mantilla, the blue veil which she had knotted about her

neck, the crimson shawl which she had thrown over her arm, the little

silken dome which she poised over her head in one gloved hand, while the

other retained her crisp draperies, and which cast down upon her face a

sharp circle of shade, out of which her cheerful eyes shone darkly and

her happy mouth smiled whitely,--these are some of the hastily noted

points of the picture.

"Young woman," I cried out, over the water, "I do wish you might know

how pretty you look!"

"How do you know I don't?" she answered. "I should think I might. You

don't look so badly, yourself. But it's not I; it's the accessories."

"Hang it! I am going to become profane," I called out again.

"Swear ahead," said the Captain.

"I am going to say you are devilish pretty."

"Dear me! is that all?" cried Miss Blunt, with a little light laugh,

which must have made the tutelar sirens of the cove ready to die with

jealousy down in their submarine bowers.

By the time the Captain and I had landed our effects, our companion had

tripped lightly up the forehead of the cliff--in one place it is very

retreating--and disappeared over its crown. She soon reappeared with an

intensely white handkerchief added to her other provocations, which she

waved to us, as we trudged upward, carrying our baskets. When we stopped

to take breath on the summit, and wipe our foreheads, we, of course,

rebuked her who was roaming about idly with her parasol and gloves.

"Do you think I am going to take any trouble or do any work?" cried Miss

Esther, in the greatest good-humor. "Is not this my holiday? I am not

going to raise a finger, nor soil these beautiful gloves, for which I

paid a dollar at Mr. Dawson's in Cragthrope. After you have found a

shady place for your provisions, I would like you to look for a spring.

I am very thirsty."

"Find the spring yourself, Miss," said her father. "Mr. Locksley and I

have a spring in this basket. Take a pull, sir."

And the Captain drew forth a stout black bottle.

"Give me a cup, and I will look for some water," said Miss Blunt. "Only

I'm so afraid of the snakes! If you hear a scream, you may know it's a

snake."

"Screaming snakes!" said I; "that's a new species."

What nonsense it all sounds like now! As we looked about us, shade

seemed scarce, as it generally is, in this region. But Miss Blunt, like

the very adroit and practical young person she is, for all that she

would have me believe the contrary, soon discovered a capital cool

spring in the shelter of a pleasant little dell, beneath a clump of

firs. Hither, as one of the young gentlemen who imitate Tennyson would

say, we brought our basket, Blunt and I; while Esther dipped the cup,

and held it dripping to our thirsty lips, and laid the cloth, and on the

grass disposed the platters round. I should have to be a poet, indeed,

to describe half the happiness and the silly poetry and purity and

beauty of this bright long summer's day. We ate, drank, and talked; we

ate occasionally with our fingers, we drank out of the necks of our

bottles, and we talked with our mouths full, as befits (and excuses)

those who talk wild nonsense. We told stories without the least point.

Blunt and I made atrocious puns. I believe, indeed, that Miss Blunt

herself made one little punkin, as I called it. If there had been any

superfluous representative of humanity present, to register the fact, I

should say that we made fools of ourselves. But as there was no fool on

hand, I need say nothing about it. I am conscious myself of having said

several witty things, which Miss Blunt understood: _in vino veritas_.

The dear old Captain twanged the long bow indefatigably. The bright high

sun lingered above us the livelong day, and drowned the prospect with

light and warmth. One of these days I mean to paint a picture which in

future ages, when my dear native land shall boast a national school of

art, will hang in the _Salon Carré_ of the great central museum,

(located, let us say, in Chicago,) and remind folks--or rather make them

forget--Giorgione, Bordone, and Veronese: A Rural Festival; three

persons feasting under some trees; scene, nowhere in particular; time

and hour, problematical. Female figure, a big _brune_; young man

reclining on his elbow; old man drinking. An empty sky, with no end of

expression. The whole stupendous in color, drawing, feeling. Artist

uncertain; supposed to be Robinson, 1900. That's about the programme.

After dinner the Captain began to look out across the bay, and, noticing

the uprising of a little breeze, expressed a wish to cruise about for an

hour or two. He proposed to us to walk along the shore to a point a

couple of miles northward, and there meet the boat. His daughter having

agreed to this proposition, he set off with the lightened pannier, and

in less than half an hour we saw him standing out from shore. Miss Blunt

and I did not begin our walk for a long, long time. We sat and talked

beneath the trees. At our feet, a wide cleft in the hills--almost a

glen--stretched down to the silent beach. Beyond lay the familiar

ocean-line. But, as many philosophers have observed, there is an end to

all things. At last we got up. Miss Blunt said, that, as the air was

freshening, she believed she would put on her shawl. I helped her to

fold it into the proper shape, and then I placed it on her shoulders,

her crimson shawl over her black silk sack. And then she tied her veil

once more about her neck, and gave me her hat to hold, while she

effected a partial redistribution of her hair-pins. By way of being

humorous, I placed her hat on my own head; at which she was kind enough

to smile, as with downcast face and uplifted elbows she fumbled among

her braids. And then she shook out the creases of her dress, and drew on

her gloves; and finally she said, "Well!"--that inevitable tribute to

time and morality which follows upon even the mildest form of

dissipation. Very slowly it was that we wandered down the little glen.

Slowly, too, we followed the course of the narrow and sinuous beach, as

it keeps to the foot of the low cliffs. We encountered no sign of human

interest. Our conversation I need hardly repeat. I think I may trust it

to the keeping of my memory; I think I shall be likely to remember it.

It was all very sober and sensible,--such talk as it is both easy and

pleasant to remember; it was even prosaic,--or, at least, if there was a

vein of poetry in it, I should have defied a listener to put his finger

on it. There was no exaltation of feeling or utterance on either side;

on one side, indeed, there was very little utterance. Am I wrong in

conjecturing, however, that there was considerable feeling of a certain

quiet kind? Miss Blunt maintained a rich, golden silence. I, on the

other hand, was very voluble. What a sweet, womanly listener she is!

_September 1st._--I have been working steadily for a week. This is the

first day of autumn. Read aloud to Miss Blunt a little Wordsworth.

_September 10th. Midnight._--Worked without interruption,--until

yesterday, inclusive, that is. But with the day now closing--or

opening--begins a new era. My poor vapid old diary, at last you shall

hold a _fact_.

For three days past we have been having damp, chilly weather. Dusk has

fallen early. This evening, after tea, the Captain went into town,--on

business, as he said: I believe, to attend some Poorhouse or Hospital

Board. Esther and I went into the parlor. The room seemed cold. She

brought in the lamp from the dining-room, and proposed we should have a

little fire. I went into the kitchen, procured an armful of wood, and

while she drew the curtains and wheeled up the table, I kindled a

lively, crackling blaze. A fortnight ago she would not have allowed me

to do this without a protest. She would not have offered to do it

herself,--not she!--but she would have said that I was not here to

serve, but to be served, and would have pretended to call Dorothy. Of

course I should have had my own way. But we have changed all that.

Esther went to her piano, and I sat down to a book. I read not a word. I

sat looking at my mistress, and thinking with a very uneasy heart. For

the first time in our friendship, she had put on a dark, warm dress: I

think it was of the material called alpaca. The first time I saw her she

wore a white dress with a purple neck-ribbon; now she wore a black dress

with the same ribbon. That is, I remember wondering, as I sat there

eyeing her, whether it was the same ribbon, or merely another like it.

My heart was in my throat; and yet I thought of a number of trivialities

of the same kind. At last I spoke.

"Miss Blunt," I said, "do you remember the first evening I passed

beneath your roof, last June?"

"Perfectly," she replied, without stopping.

"You played this same piece."

"Yes; I played it very badly, too. I only half knew it. But it is a

showy piece, and I wished to produce an effect. I didn't know then how

indifferent you are to music."

"I paid no particular attention to the piece. I was intent upon the

performer."

"So the performer supposed."

"What reason had you to suppose so?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Did you ever know a woman to be able to give a

reason, when she has guessed aright?"

"I think they generally contrive to make up a reason, afterwards. Come,

what was yours?"

"Well, you _stared_ so hard."

"Fie! I don't believe it. That's unkind."

"You said you wished me to invent a reason. If I really had one, I don't

remember it."

"You told me you remembered the occasion in question perfectly."

"I meant the circumstances. I remember what we had for tea; I remember

what dress I wore. But I don't remember my feelings. They were naturally

not very memorable."

"What did you say, when your father proposed my coming?"

"I asked how much you would be willing to pay."

"And then?"

"And then, if you looked 'respectable'."

"And then?"

"That was all. I told father that he could do as he pleased."

She continued to play. Leaning back in my chair, I continued to look at

her. There was a considerable pause.

"Miss Esther," said I, at last.

"Yes."

"Excuse me for interrupting you so often. But,"--and I got up and went

to the piano,--"but I thank Heaven that it has brought you and me

together."

She looked up at me and bowed her head with a little smile, as her hands

still wandered over the keys.

"Heaven has certainly been very good to us," said she.

"How much longer are you going to play?" I asked.

"I'm sure I don't know. As long as you like."

"If you want to do as I like, you will stop immediately."

She let her hands rest on the keys a moment, and gave me a rapid,

questioning look. Whether she found a sufficient answer in my face I

know not; but she slowly rose, and, with a very pretty affectation of

obedience, began to close the instrument. I helped her to do so.

"Perhaps you would like to be quite alone," she said. "I suppose your

own room is too cold."

"Yes," I answered, "you've hit it exactly. I wish to be alone. I wish to

monopolize this cheerful blaze. Hadn't you better go into the kitchen

and sit with the cook? It takes you women to make such cruel speeches."

"When we women are cruel, Mr. Locksley, it is without knowing it. We are

not wilfully so. When we learn that we have been unkind, we very humbly

ask pardon, without even knowing what our crime has been." And she made

me a very low curtsy.

"I will tell you what your crime has been," said I. "Come and sit by the

fire. It's rather a long story."

"A long story? Then let me get my work."

"Confound your work! Excuse me, but I mean it. I want you to listen to

me. Believe me, you will need all your thoughts."

She looked at me steadily a moment, and I returned her glance. During

that moment I was reflecting whether I might silently emphasize my

request by laying a lover's hand upon her shoulder. I decided that I

might not. She walked over and quietly seated herself in a low chair by

the fire. Here she patiently folded her arms. I sat down before her.

"With you, Miss Blunt," said I, "one must be very explicit. You are not

in the habit of taking things for granted. You have a great deal of

imagination, but you rarely exercise it on the behalf of other people."

I stopped a moment.

"Is that my crime?" asked my companion.

"It's not so much a crime as a vice," said I; "and perhaps not so much a

vice as a virtue. Your crime is, that you are so stone-cold to a poor

devil who loves you."

She burst into a rather shrill laugh. I wonder whether she thought I

meant Johnson.

"Who are you speaking for, Mr. Locksley?" she asked.

"Are there so many? For myself."

"Honestly?"

"Honestly doesn't begin to express it."

"What is that French phrase that you are forever using? I think I may

say, '_Allons, donc_!'"

"Let us speak plain English, Miss Blunt."

"'Stone-cold' is certainly very plain English. I don't see the relative

importance of the two branches of your proposition. Which is the

principal, and which the subordinate clause,--that I am stone-cold, as

you call it, or that you love me, as you call it?"

"As I call it? What would you have me call it? For God's sake, Miss

Blunt, be serious, or I shall call it something else. Yes, I love you.

Don't you believe it?"

"I am open to conviction."

"Thank God!" said I.

And I attempted to take her hand.

"No, no, Mr. Locksley," said she,--"not just yet, if you please."

"Action speaks louder than words," said I.

"There is no need of speaking loud. I hear you perfectly."

"I certainly sha'n't whisper," said I; "although it is the custom, I

believe, for lovers to do so. Will you be my wife?"

"I sha'n't whisper, either, Mr. Locksley. Yes, I will."

And now she put out her hand.--That's my fact.

_September 12th._--We are to be married within three weeks.

_September 19th._--I have been in New York a week, transacting business.

I got back yesterday. I find every one here talking about our

engagement. Esther tells me that it was talked about a month ago, and

that there is a very general feeling of disappointment that I am not

rich.

"Really, if you don't mind it," said I, "I don't see why others should."

"I don't know whether you are rich or not," says Esther; "but I know

that I am."

"Indeed! I was not aware that you had a private fortune," etc., etc.

This little farce is repeated in some shape every day. I am very idle. I

smoke a great deal, and lounge about all day, with my hands in my

pockets. I am free from that ineffable weariness of ceaseless _giving_

which I experienced six months ago. I was shorn of my hereditary

trinkets at that period; and I have resolved that _this_ engagement, at

all events, shall have no connection with the shops. I was balked of my

poetry once; I sha'n't be a second time. I don't think there is much

danger of this. Esther deals it out with full hands. She takes a very

pretty interest in her simple outfit,--showing me triumphantly certain

of her purchases, and making a great mystery about others, which she is

pleased to denominate table-cloths and napkins. Last evening I found her

sewing buttons on a table-cloth. I had heard a great deal of a certain

gray silk dress; and this morning, accordingly, she marched up to me,

arrayed in this garment. It is trimmed with velvet, and hath flounces, a

train, and all the modern improvements generally.

"There is only one objection to it," said Esther, parading before the

glass in my painting-room: "I am afraid it is above our station."

"By Jove! I'll paint your portrait in it," said I, "and make our

fortune. All the other men who have handsome wives will bring them to be

painted."

"You mean all the women who have handsome dresses," said Esther, with

great humility.

Our wedding is fixed for next Thursday. I tell Esther that it will be as

little of a wedding, and as much of a marriage, as possible. Her father

and her good friend the schoolmistress alone are to be present.--My

secret oppresses me considerably; but I have resolved to keep it for the

honeymoon, when it may take care of itself. I am harassed with a dismal

apprehension, that, if Esther were to discover it now, the whole thing

would be _à refaire_. I have taken rooms at a romantic little

watering-place called Clifton, ten miles off. The hotel is already quite

free of city-people, and we shall be almost alone.

_September 28th._--We have been here two days. The little transaction in

the church went off smoothly. I am truly sorry for the Captain. We drove

directly over here, and reached the place at dusk. It was a raw, black

day. We have a couple of good rooms, close to the savage sea. I am

nevertheless afraid I have made a mistake. It would perhaps have been

wiser to go inland. These things are not immaterial: we make our own

heaven, but we scarcely make our own earth. I am writing at a little

table by the window, looking out on the rocks, the gathering dusk, and

the rising fog. My wife has wandered down to the rocky platform in front

of the house. I can see her from here, bareheaded, in that old crimson

shawl, talking to one of the landlord's little boys. She has just given

the little fellow a kiss, bless her heart! I remember her telling me

once that she was very fond of little boys; and, indeed, I have noticed

that they are seldom too dirty for her to take on her knee. I have been

reading over these pages for the first time in--I don't know when. They

are filled with her,--even more in thought than in word. I believe I

will show them to her, when she comes in. I will give her the book to

read, and sit by her, watching her face,--watching the great secret dawn

upon her.

_Later._--Somehow or other, I can write this quietly enough; but I

hardly think I shall ever write any more. When Esther came in, I handed

her this book.

"I want you to read it," said I.

She turned very pale, and laid it on the table, shaking her head.

"I know it," she said.

"What do you know?"

"That you have a hundred thousand a year. But, believe me, Mr. Locksley,

I am none the worse for the knowledge. You intimated in one place in

your book that I am born for wealth and splendor. I believe I am. You

pretend to hate your money; but you would not have had me without it. If

you really love me,--and I think you do,--you will not let this make any

difference. I am not such a fool as to attempt to talk here about my

sensations. But I remember what I said."

"What do you expect me to do?" I asked. "Shall I call you some horrible

name and cast you off?"

"I expect you to show the same courage that I am showing. I never said I

loved you. I never deceived you in that. I said I would be your wife. So

I will, faithfully. I haven't so much heart as you think; and yet, too,

I have a great deal more. I am incapable of more than one

deception.--Mercy! didn't you see it? didn't you know it? see that I saw

it? know that I knew it? It was diamond cut diamond. You deceived me; I

deceived you. Now that your deception ceases, mine ceases. Now we are

free, with our hundred thousand a year! Excuse me, but it sometimes

comes across me! Now we can be good and honest and true. It was all a

make-believe virtue before."

"So you read that thing?" I asked: actually--strange as it may seem--for

something to say.

"Yes, while you were ill. It was lying with your pen in it, on the

table. I read it because I suspected. Otherwise I shouldn't have done

so."

"It was the act of a false woman," said I.

"A false woman? No,--simply of a woman. I am a woman, sir." And she

began to smile. "Come, _you_ be a man!"

II

POOR RICHARD

A STORY IN THREE PARTS

PART I

Miss Whittaker's garden covered a couple of acres, behind and beside her

house, and at its farther extremity was bounded by a narrow meadow,

which in turn was bordered by the old, disused towing-path beside the

river, at this point a slow and shallow stream. Its low, flat banks were

unadorned with rocks or trees, and a towing-path is not in itself a

romantic promenade. Nevertheless, here sauntered bareheaded, on a

certain spring evening, the mistress of the acres just mentioned and

many more beside, in sentimental converse with an impassioned and

beautiful youth.

She herself had been positively plain, but for the frequent recurrence

of a magnificent broad smile,--which imparted loveliness to her somewhat

plebeian features,--and (in another degree) for the elegance of her

dress, which expressed one of the later stages of mourning, and was of

that voluminous abundance proper to women who are massive in person, and

rich besides. Her companion's good looks, for very good they were, in

spite of several defects, were set off by a shabby suit, as carelessly

worn as it was inartistically cut. His manner, as he walked and talked,

was that of a nervous, passionate man, wrought almost to desperation;

while her own was that of a person self-composed to generous attention.

A brief silence, however, had at last fallen upon them. Miss Whittaker

strolled along quietly, looking at the slow-mounting moon, and the young

man gazed on the ground, swinging his stick. Finally, with a heavy blow,

he brought it to earth.

"O Gertrude!" he cried, "I despise myself."

"That's very foolish," said Gertrude.

"And, Gertrude, I adore you."

"That's more foolish still," said Gertrude, with her eyes still on the

moon. And then, suddenly and somewhat impatiently transferring them to

her companion's face, "Richard," she asked, "what do you mean when you

say you adore me?"

"Mean? I mean that I love you."

"Then, why don't you say what you mean?"

The young man looked at her a moment. "Will you give me leave," he

asked, "to say _all_ that I mean?"

"Of course." Then, as he remained silent, "I listen," added Gertrude.

Yet he still said nothing, but went striking vehemently at the weeds by

the water's edge, like one who may easily burst into tears of rage.

"Gertrude!" he suddenly exclaimed, "what more do you want than the

assurance that I love you?"

"I want nothing more. That assurance is by itself delightful enough. You

yourself seemed to wish to add something more."

"Either you won't understand me," cried Richard, "or"--flagrantly

vicious for twenty seconds--"you can't!"

Miss Whittaker stopped and looked thoughtfully into his face. "In our

position," she said, "if it becomes you to sacrifice reflection to

feeling, it becomes me to do the reverse. Listen to me, Richard. I _do_

understand you, and better, I fancy, than you understand yourself."

"O, of course!"

But she continued, heedless of his interruption. "I thought that, by

leaving you to yourself awhile, your feelings might become clearer to

you. But they seem to be growing only more confused. I have been so

fortunate, or so unfortunate, I hardly know which,"--and she smiled

faintly,--"as to please you. That's all very well, but you must not make

too much of it. Nothing can make me happier than to please you, or to

please any one. But here it must stop with you, as it stops with

others."

"It does not stop here with others."

"I beg your pardon. You have no right to say that. It is partly out of

justice to others that I speak to you as I am doing. I shall always be

one of your best friends, but I shall never be more. It is best I should

tell you this at once. I might trifle with you awhile and make you happy

(since upon such a thing you are tempted to set your happiness) by

allowing you to suppose that I had given you my heart; but the end would

soon come, and then where should we be? You may in your disappointment

call me heartless now,--I freely give you leave to call me anything that

may ease your mind,--but what would you call me then? Friendship,

Richard, is a heavenly cure for love. Here is mine," and she held out

her hand.

"No, I thank you," said Richard, gloomily folding his arms. "I know my

own feelings," and he raised his voice. "Haven't I lived with them night

and day for weeks and weeks? Great Heaven, Gertrude, this is no fancy.

I'm not of that sort. My whole life has gone into my love. God has let

me idle it away hitherto, only that I might begin it with you. Dear

Gertrude, hear me. I have the heart of a man. I know I'm not

respectable, but I devoutly believe I'm lovable. It's true that I've

neither worked, nor thought, nor studied, nor turned a penny. But, on

the other hand, I've never cared for a woman before. I've waited for

you. And now--now, after all, I'm to sit down and be _pleased_! The

Devil! Please other men, madam! Me you delight, you intoxicate."

An honest flush rose to Gertrude's cheek. "So much the worse for you!"

she cried with a bitter laugh. "So much the worse for both of us! But

what is your point? Do you wish to marry me?"

Richard flinched a moment under this tacit proposition suddenly grown

vocal; but not from want of heart. "Of course I do," he said.

"Well, then, I only pity you the more for your consistency. I can only

entreat you again to rest contented with my friendship. It's not such a

bad substitute, Richard, as I understand it. What my love might be I

don't know,--I couldn't answer for that; but of my friendship I'm sure.

We both have our duties in this matter, and I have resolved to take a

liberal view of mine. I might lose patience with you, you know, and

dismiss you,--leave you alone with your dreams, and let you break your

heart. But it's rather by seeing more of me than by seeing less, that

your feelings will change."

"Indeed! And yours?"

"I have no doubt they will change, too; not in kind, but in degree. The

better I know you, I am sure, the better I shall like you. The better,

too, you will like me. Don't turn your back upon me. I speak the truth.

You will get to entertain a serious opinion of me,--which I'm sure you

haven't now, or you wouldn't talk of my intoxicating you. But you must

be patient. It's a singular fact that it takes longer to like a woman

than to love her. A sense of intoxication is a very poor feeling to

marry upon. You wish, of course, to break with your idleness, and your

bad habits,--you see I am so thoroughly your friend that I'm not afraid

of touching upon disagreeable facts, as I should be if I were your

mistress. But you are so indolent, so irresolute, so undisciplined, so

uneducated,"--Gertrude spoke deliberately, and watched the effect of her

words,--"that you find a change of life very difficult. I propose, with

your consent, to appoint myself your counsellor. Henceforth my house

will be open to you as to my dearest friend. Come as often and stay as

long as you please. Not in a few weeks, perhaps, nor even in a few

months, but in God's good time, you will be a noble young man in working

order,--which I don't consider you now, and which I know you don't

consider yourself. But I have a great opinion of your talents," (this

was very shrewd of Gertrude,) "and of your heart. If I turn out to have

done you a service, you'll not want to marry me then."

Richard had silently listened, with a deepening frown. "That's all very

pretty," he said; "but"--and the reader will see that, in his

earnestness, he was inclined to dispense with courtesy--"it's

rotten,--rotten from beginning to end. What's the meaning of all that

rigmarole about the inconsistency of friendship and love? Such talk is

enough to drive one mad. Refuse me outright, and send me to the Devil if

you must; but don't bemuddle your own brains at the same time. But one

little word knocks it all to pieces: I want you for my wife. You make an

awful mistake in treating me as a boy,--an awful mistake. I am in

working order. I have begun life in loving you. I have broken with

drinking as effectually as if I hadn't touched a drop of liquor for

twenty years. I hate it, I loathe it. I've drunk my last. No, Gertrude,

I'm no longer a boy,--you've cured me of that. Hang it, that's why I

love you! Don't you see? Ah, Gertrude!"--and his voice fell,--"you're a

great enchantress! You have no arts, you have no beauty even, (can't a

lover deal with facts now?), but you are an enchantress without them.

It's your nature. You are so divinely, damnably honest! That excellent

speech just now was meant to smother my passion; but it has only

inflamed it. You will say it was nothing but common sense. Very likely;

but that is the very point. Your common sense captivates me. It's for

that that I love you."

He spoke with so relentless a calmness that Gertrude was sickened. Here

she found herself weaker than he, while the happiness of both of them

demanded that she should be stronger.

"Richard Clare," she said, "you are unkind!" There was a tremor in her

voice as she spoke; and as she ceased speaking, she burst into tears. A

selfish sense of victory invaded the young man's breast. He threw his

arm about her; but she shook it off. "You are a coward, sir!" she cried.

"Oho!" said Richard, flushing angrily.

"You go too far; you persist beyond decency."

"You hate me now, I suppose," said Richard, brutally, like one at bay.

Gertrude brushed away her tears. "No, indeed," she answered, sending him

a dry, clear glance. "To hate you, I should have to have loved you. I

pity you still."

Richard looked at her a moment. "I don't feel tempted to return the

feeling, Gertrude," said he. "A woman with so much head as you needs no

pity."

"I have not head enough to read your sarcasm, sir; but I have heart

enough to excuse it, and I mean to keep a good heart to the end. I mean

to keep my temper, I mean to be just, I mean to be conclusive, and not

to have to return to this matter. It's not for my pleasure, I would have

you know, that I am so explicit. I have nerves as well as you. Listen,

then. If I don't love you, Richard, in your way, I don't; and if I

can't, I can't. We can't love by will. But with friendship, when it is

once established, I believe the will and the reason may have a great

deal to do. I will, therefore, put the whole of my mind into my

friendship for you, and in that way we shall perhaps be even. Such a

feeling--as I shall naturally show it--will, after all, not be very

different from that other feeling you ask--as I should naturally show

it. Bravely to reconcile himself to such difference as there is, is no

more than a man of honor ought to do. Do you understand me?"

"You have an admirable way of putting things. 'After all,' and 'such

difference as there is'! The difference is the difference of marriage

and no-marriage. I suppose you don't mean that you are willing to live

with me without that ceremony?"

"You suppose correctly."

"Then why do you falsify matters? A woman is either a man's wife, or she

isn't."

"Yes; and a woman is either a man's friend, or she isn't."

"And you are mine, and I'm an ungrateful brute not to rest satisfied!

That's what you mean. Heaven knows you're right,"--and he paused a

moment, with his eyes on the ground. "Don't despise me, Gertrude," he

resumed. "I'm not so ungrateful as I seem. I'm very much obliged to you

for the pains you have taken. Of course, I understand your not loving

me. You'd be a grand fool if you did; and you're no fool, Gertrude."

"No, I'm no fool, Richard. It's a great responsibility,--it's dreadfully

vulgar; but, on the whole, I'm rather glad."

"So am I. I could hate you for it; but there is no doubt it's why I love

you. If you were a fool, you might love me; but I shouldn't love you,

and if I must choose, I prefer that."

"Heaven has chosen for us. Ah, Richard," pursued Gertrude, with

admirable simplicity, "let us be good and obey Heaven, and we shall be

sure to be happy,"--and she held out her hand once more.

Richard took it and raised it to his lips. She felt their pressure and

withdrew it.

"Now you must leave me," she said. "Did you ride?"

"My horse is at the village."

"You can go by the river, then. Good night."

"Good night."

The young man moved away in the gathering dusk, and Miss Whittaker stood

for a moment looking after him.

To appreciate the importance of this conversation, the reader must know

that Miss Gertrude Whittaker was a young woman of four-and-twenty, whose

father, recently deceased, had left her alone in the world, with a great

fortune, accumulated by various enterprises in that part of the State.

He had appointed a distant and elderly kinswoman, by name Miss

Pendexter, as his daughter's household companion; and an old friend of

his own, known to combine shrewdness with integrity, as her financial

adviser. Motherless, country-bred, and homely-featured, Gertrude, on

arriving at maturity, had neither the tastes nor the manners of a fine

lady. Of a robust and active make, with a warm heart, a cool head, and a

very pretty talent for affairs, she was, in virtue both of her wealth

and of her tact, one of the chief figures of the neighborhood. These

facts had forced her into a prominence which she made no attempt to

elude, and in which she now felt thoroughly at home. She knew herself to

be a power in the land; she knew that, present and absent, she was

continually talked about as the rich Miss Whittaker; and although as

modest as a woman need be, she was neither so timid nor so nervous as to

wish to compromise with her inevitable distinctions. Her feelings were,

indeed, throughout, strong, rather than delicate; and yet there was in

her whole nature, as the world had learned to look at it, a moderation,

a temperance, a benevolence, an orderly freedom, which bespoke universal

respect. She was impulsive, and yet discreet; economical, and yet

generous; humorous, and yet serious; keenly discerning of human

distinctions, and yet almost indiscriminately hospitable; with a

prodigious fund of common sense beneath all; and yet beyond this,--like

the priest behind the king,--and despite her broadly prosaic, and as it

were secular tone, a certain latent suggestion of heroic possibilities,

which he who had once become sensible of it (supposing him to be young

and enthusiastic) would linger about her hoping to detect, as you might

stand watchful of a florid and vigorous dahlia, which for an instant, in

your passage, should have proved deliciously fragrant. It is upon the

actual existence, in more minds than one, of a mystifying sense of this

sweet and remote perfume, that our story is based.

Richard Clare and Miss Whittaker were old friends. They had in the first

place gone democratically to the town school together as children; and

then their divergent growth, as boy and girl, had acknowledged an

elastic bond in a continued intimacy between Gertrude and Fanny Clare,

Richard's sister, who, however, in the fulness of time had married, and

had followed her husband to California. With her departure the old

relations of habit between her brother and her friend had slackened, and

gradually ceased. Richard had grown up a rebellious and troublesome boy,

with a disposition combining stolid apathy and hot-headed impatience in

equal proportions. Losing both of his parents before he was well out of

his boyhood, he had found himself at the age of sixteen in possession

actual, and as he supposed uncontested, of the paternal farm. It was not

long, however, before those turned up who were disposed to question his

immediate ability to manage it; the result of which was, that the farm

was leased for five years, and that Richard was almost forcibly abducted

by a maternal uncle, living on a farm of his own some three hundred

miles away. Here our young man spent the remainder of his minority,

ostensibly learning agriculture with his cousins, but actually learning

nothing. He had very soon established, and had subsequently enjoyed

without a day's interval, the reputation of an ill-natured fool. He was

dull, disobliging, brooding, lowering. Reading and shooting he liked a

little, because they were solitary pastimes; but to common duties and

pleasures he proved himself as incompetent as he was averse. It was

possible to live with him only because he was at once too selfish and

too simple for mischief. As soon as he came of age he resumed possession

of the acres on which his boyhood had been passed, and toward which he

gravitated under an instinct of mere local affection, rather than from

any intelligent purpose. He avoided his neighbors, his father's former

associates; he rejected, nay, he violated, their counsel; he informed

them that he wanted no help but what he paid for, and that he expected

to work his farm for himself and by himself. In short, he proved himself

to their satisfaction egregiously ungrateful, conceited, and arrogant.

They were not slow to discover that his incapacity was as great as his

conceit. In two years he had more than undone the work of the late

lessee, which had been an improvement on that of the original owner. In

the third year, it seemed to those who observed him that there was

something so wanton in his errors as almost to impugn his sanity. He

appeared to have accepted them himself, and to have given up all

pretence of work. He went about silent and sullen, like a man who feels

that he has a quarrel with fate. About this time it became generally

known that he was often the worse for liquor; and he hereupon acquired

the deplorable reputation of a man worse than unsociable,--a man who

drinks alone,--although it was still doubtful whether this practice was

the cause or the effect of his poor crops. About this time, too, he

resumed acquaintance with Gertrude Whittaker. For many months after his

return he had been held at his distance, together with most of his rural

compeers, by the knowledge of her father's bitter hostility to all

possible suitors and fortune-hunters; and then, subsequently, by the

illness preceding the old man's death; but when at last, on the

expiration of her term of mourning, Miss Whittaker had opened to society

her long blockaded ports, Richard had, to all the world's amazement,

been among the first to profit by this extension of the general

privilege, and to cast anchor in the wide and peaceful waters of her

friendship. He found himself at this moment, considerably to his

surprise, in his twenty-fourth year, that is, a few months Gertrude's

junior.

It was impossible that she should not have gathered from mere

juxtaposition a vague impression of his evil repute and of his peculiar

relation to his neighbors, and to his own affairs. Thanks to this

impression, Richard found a very warm welcome,--the welcome of

compassion. Gertrude gave him a heavy arrear of news from his sister

Fanny, with whom he had dropped correspondence, and, impelled by Fanny's

complaints of his long silence, ventured upon a friendly admonition that

he should go straight home and write a letter to California. Richard sat

before her, gazing at her out of his dark eyes, and not only attempting

no defence of his conduct, but rejoicing dumbly in the utter absence of

any possible defence, as of an interruption to his companion's virtue.

He wished that he might incontinently lay bare all his shortcomings to

her delicious reproof. He carried away an extraordinary sense of general

alleviation; and forthwith began a series of visits, which in the space

of some ten weeks culminated in the interview with which our narrative

opens. Painfully diffident in the company of most women, Richard had not

from the first known what it was to be shy with Gertrude. As a man of

the world finds it useful to refresh his social energies by an

occasional _tête-à-tête_ of an hour with himself, so Richard, with

whom solitude was the rule, derived a certain austere satisfaction from

an hour's contact with Miss Whittaker's consoling good sense, her

abundance, her decent duties and comforts. Gradually, however, from a

salutary process, this became almost an æsthetic one. It was now

pleasant to go to Gertrude, because he enjoyed the contagion of her own

repose,--because he witnessed her happiness without a sensation of

envy,--because he forgot his own entanglements and errors,--because,

finally, his soul slept away its troubles beneath her varying glance,

very much as his body had often slept away its weariness in the shade of

a changing willow. But the soul, like the body, will not sleep long

without dreaming; and it will not dream often without wishing at last to

tell its dreams. Richard had one day ventured to impart his visions to

Gertrude, and the revelation had apparently given her serious pain. The

fact that Richard Clare (of all men in the world!) had somehow worked

himself into an intimacy with Miss Whittaker very soon became public

property among their neighbors; and in the hands of these good people,

naturally enough, received an important addition in the inference that

he was going to marry her. He was, of course, esteemed a very lucky

fellow, and the prevalence of this impression was doubtless not without

its effect on the forbearance of certain long-suffering creditors. And

even if she was not to marry him, it was further argued, she yet might

lend him money; for it was assumed without question that the necessity

of raising money was the mainspring of Richard's suit. It is needless to

inform the reader that this assumption was--to use a homely

metaphor--without a leg to stand upon. Our hero had faults enough, but

to be mercenary was not one of them; nor was an excessive concern on the

subject of his debts one of his virtues. As for Gertrude, wherever else

her perception of her friend's feelings may have been at fault, it was

not at fault on this point. That he loved her as desperately as he

declared, she indeed doubted; but it never occurred to her to question

the purity of his affection. And so, on the other hand, it was strictly

out of her heart's indifference that she rejected him, and not for the

disparity of their fortunes. In accepting his very simple and natural

overtures to friendship, in calling him "Richard" in remembrance of old

days, and in submitting generally to the terms of their old relations,

she had foreseen no sentimental catastrophe. She had viewed her friend

from the first as an object of lively material concern. She had espoused

his interests (like all good women, Gertrude was ever more or less of a

partisan) because she loved his sister, and because she pitied himself.

She would stand to him _in loco sororis_. The reader has seen that she

had given herself a long day's work.

It is not to be supposed that Richard's sober retreat at the close of

the walk by the river implied any instinct of resignation to the

prospects which Gertrude had opened to him. It is explained rather by an

intensity of purpose so deep as to fancy that it can dispense with

bravado. This was not the end of his suit, but the beginning. He would

not give in until he was positively beaten. It was all very well, he

reflected, that Gertrude should reject him. Such a woman as she ought

properly to be striven for, and there was something ridiculous in the

idea that she should be easily won, whether by himself or by another.

Richard was a slow thinker, but he thought more wisely than he talked;

and he now took back all his angry boasts of accomplished self-mastery,

and humbly surveyed the facts of the case. He was on the way to

recovery, but he was by no means cured, and yet his very humility

assured him that he was curable. He was no hero, but he was better than

his life; he was no scholar, but in his own view at least he was no

fool. He was good enough to be better; he was good enough not to sit by

the hour soaking his slender brains in whiskey. And at the very least,

if he was not worthy to possess Gertrude, he was yet worthy to strive to

obtain her, and to live forevermore upon the glory of having been

formally refused by the great Miss Whittaker. He would raise himself

then to that level from which he could address her as an equal, from

which he could borrow that authority of which he was now so shamefully

bare. How he would do this, he was at a loss to determine. He was

conscious of an immense fund of brute volition, but he cursed his

barbarous ignorance, as he searched in vain for those high opposing

forces the defeat of which might lend dignity to his struggle. He longed

vaguely for some continuous muscular effort, at the end of which he

should find himself face to face with his mistress. But as, instead of

being a Pagan hero, with an enticing task-list of impossibilities, he

was a plain New England farmer, with a bad conscience, and nature with

him and not against him,--as, after slaying his dragon, after breaking

with liquor, his work was a simple operation in common sense,--in view

of these facts he found but little inspiration in his prospect.

Nevertheless he fronted it bravely. He was not to obtain Gertrude by

making a fortune, but by making himself a man, by learning to think. But

as to learn to think is to learn to work, he would find some use for his

muscle. He would keep sober and clear-headed; he would retrieve his land

and pay his debts. Then let her refuse him if she could,--or if she

dared, he was wont occasionally to add.

Meanwhile Gertrude on her side sat quietly at home, revolving in her own

fashion a dozen ideal schemes for her friend's redemption and for the

diversion of his enthusiasm. Not but what she meant rigorously to fulfil

her part of the engagement to which she had invited him in that painful

scene by the river. Yet whatever of that firmness, patience, and

courtesy of which she possessed so large a stock she might still oppose

to his importunities, she could not feel secure against repeated

intrusion (for it was by this term that she was disposed to qualify all

unsanctioned transgression of those final and immovable limits which she

had set to her immense hospitality) without the knowledge of a partial

change at least in Richard's own attitude. Such a change could only be

effected through some preparatory change in his life; and a change in

his life could be brought about only by the introduction of some new

influence. This influence, however, was very hard to find. However

positively Gertrude had dwelt upon the practical virtue of her own

friendship, she was now on further reflection led sadly to distrust the

exclusive use of this instrument. He was welcome enough to that, but he

needed something more. It suddenly occurred to her, one morning after

Richard's image had been crossing and recrossing her mental vision for a

couple of hours with wearisome pertinacity, that a world of good might

accrue to him through the friendship of a person so unexceptionable as

Captain Severn. There was no one, she declared within herself, who would

not be better for knowing such a man. She would recommend Richard to his

kindness, and him she would recommend to Richard's--what? Here was the

rub! Where was there common ground between Richard and such a one as he?

To request him to like Richard was easy; to ask Richard to like him was

ridiculous. If Richard could only know him, the work were done; he

couldn't choose but love him as a brother. But to bespeak Richard's

respect for an object was to fill him straightway with aversion for it.

Her young friend was so pitiable a creature himself, that it had never

occurred to her to appeal to his sentiments of compassion. All the world

seemed above him, and he was consequently at odds with all the world. If

some worthy being could be found, even less favored of nature and of

fortune than himself, to such a one he might become attached by a useful

sympathy. There was indeed nothing particularly enviable in Captain

Severn's lot, and herein Richard might properly experience a

fellow-feeling for him; but nevertheless he was apparently quite

contented with it, and thus he was raised several degrees above Richard,

who would be certain to find something aggressive in his equanimity.

Still, for all this, Gertrude would bring them together. She had a high

estimate of the Captain's generosity, and if Richard should wantonly

fail to conform to the situation, the loss would be his own. It may be

thought that in this enterprise Captain Severn was somewhat

inconsiderately handled. But a generous woman will freely make a

missionary of the man she loves. These words suggest the propriety of a

short description of the person to whom they refer.

Edmund Severn was a man of eight-and-twenty, who, having for some time

combated fortune and his own inclinations as a mathematical tutor in a

second-rate country college, had, on the opening of the war, transferred

his valor to a more heroic field. His regiment of volunteers, now at

work before Richmond, had been raised in Miss Whittaker's district, and

beneath her substantial encouragement. His soldiership, like his

scholarship, was solid rather than brilliant. He was not destined to be

heard of at home, nor to leave his regiment; but on many an important

occasion in Virginia he had proved himself in a modest way an

excellently useful man. Coming up early in the war with a severe wound,

to be nursed by a married sister domiciled in Gertrude's neighborhood,

he was, like all his fellow-sufferers within a wide circuit, very soon

honored with a visit of anxious inquiry from Miss Whittaker, who was as

yet known to him only by report, and who transmitted to him the warmest

assurances of sympathy and interest, together with the liveliest offers

of assistance; and, incidentally as it were to these, a copious

selection from the products of her hot-house and store-room. Severn had

taken the air for the first time in Gertrude's own great cushioned

barouche, which she had sent to his door at an early stage of his

convalescence, and which of course he had immediately made use of to pay

his respects to his benefactress. He was confounded by the real humility

with which, on this occasion, betwixt smiles and tears, she assured him

that to be of service to such as him was for her a sacred privilege.

Never, thought the Captain as he drove away, had he seen so much rustic

breadth combined with so much womanly grace. Half a dozen visits during

the ensuing month more than sufficed to convert him into what is called

an admirer; but, as the weeks passed by, he felt that there were great

obstacles to his ever ripening into a lover. Captain Severn was a

serious man; he was conscientious, discreet, deliberate, unused to act

without a definite purpose. Whatever might be the intermediate steps, it

was necessary that the goal of an enterprise should have become an old

story to him before he took the first steps. And, moreover, if the goal

seemed a profitable or an honorable station, he was proof against the

perils or the discomforts of the journey; while if, on the other hand,

it offered no permanent repose, he generally found but little difficulty

in resisting the incidental allurements. In pursuance of this habit, or

rather in obedience to this principle, of carefully fixing his

programme, he had asked himself whether he was prepared to face the

logical results of a series of personal attentions to our heroine. Since

he had determined a twelvemonth before not to marry until, by some means

or another, he should have evoked a sufficient income, no great change

had taken place in his fortunes. He was still a poor man and an

unsettled one; he was still awaiting his real vocation. Moreover, while

subject to the chances of war, he doubted his right to engage a woman's

affections: he shrank in horror from the thought of making a widow. Miss

Whittaker was one in five thousand. Before the luminous fact of her

existence, his dim ideal of the desirable wife had faded into vapor. But

should he allow this fact to invalidate all the stern precepts of his

reason? He could no more afford to marry a rich woman than a poor one.

When he should have earned a subsistence for two, then he would be free

to marry whomsoever he might fancy,--a beggar or an heiress. The truth

is, that the Captain was a great deal too proud. It was his fault that

he could not bring himself to forget the difference between his poverty

and Gertrude's wealth. He would of course have resented the insinuation

that the superior fortune of the woman he loved should really have force

to prevent him from declaring his love; but there is no doubt that in

the case before us this fact arrested his passion in its origin. Severn

had a most stoical aversion to being in debt. It is certain that, after

all, he would have made a very graceful debtor to his mistress or his

wife; but while a woman was as yet neither his mistress nor his wife,

the idea of being beholden to her was essentially distasteful to him. It

would have been a question with one who knew him, whether at this

juncture this frigid instinct was destined to resist the warmth of

Gertrude's charms, or whether it was destined gradually to melt away.

There would have been no question, however, but that it could maintain

itself only at the cost of great suffering to its possessor. At this

moment, then, Severn had made up his mind that Gertrude was not for him,

and that it behooved him to be sternly vigilant both of his impulses and

his impressions. That Miss Whittaker, with a hundred rational cares, was

anything less than supremely oblivious of him, individually, it never

occurred to him to suspect. The truth is, that Gertrude's private and

personal emotions were entertained in a chamber of her heart so remote

from the portals of speech that no sound of their revelry found its way

into the world. She constantly thought of her modest, soldierly,

scholarly friend as of one whom a wise woman might find it very natural

to love. But what was she to him? A local roadside figure,--at the very

most a sort of millionaire Maud Muller,--with whom it was pleasant for a

lonely wayfarer to exchange a friendly "good-morning." Her duty was to

fold her arms resignedly, to sit quietly on the sofa, and watch a great

happiness sink below the horizon. With this impression on Gertrude's

part it is not surprising that Severn was not wrenched out of himself.

The prodigy was apparently to be wrought--if wrought at all--by her

common, unbought sweetness. It is true that this was of a potency

sufficient almost to work prodigies; but as yet its effect upon Severn

had been none other than its effect upon all the world. It kept him in

his kindliest humor. It kept him even in the humor of talking sentiment;

but although, in the broad sunshine of her listening, his talk bloomed

thick with field-flowers, he never invited her to pluck the least little

daisy. It was with perfect honesty, therefore, that she had rebutted

Richard's insinuation that the Captain enjoyed any especial favor. He

was as yet but another of the pensioners of her good-nature.

The result of Gertrude's meditations was, that she despatched a note to

each of her two friends, requesting them to take tea with her on the

following day. A couple of hours before tea-time she received a visit

from one Major Luttrel, who was recruiting for a United States regiment

at a large town, some ten miles away, and who had ridden over in the

afternoon, in accordance with a general invitation conveyed to him

through an old lady who had bespoken Miss Whittaker's courtesy for him

as a man of delightful manners and wonderful talents. Gertrude, on her

venerable friend's representations, had replied, with her wonted

alacrity, that she would be very glad to see Major Luttrel, should he

ever come that way, and then had thought no more about him until his

card was brought to her as she was dressing for the evening. He found so

much to say to her, that the interval passed very rapidly for both of

them before the simultaneous entrance of Miss Pendexter and of

Gertrude's guests. The two officers were already slightly known to each

other, and Richard was accordingly presented to each of them. They eyed

the distracted-looking young farmer with some curiosity. Richard's was

at all times a figure to attract attention; but now he was almost

picturesque (so Severn thought at least) with his careless garments, his

pale face, his dark mistrustful eyes, and his nervous movements. Major

Luttrel, who struck Gertrude as at once very agreeable and the least bit

in the world disagreeable, was, of course, invited to remain,--which he

straightway consented to do; and it soon became evident to Miss

Whittaker that her little scheme was destined to miscarry. Richard

practised a certain defiant silence, which, as she feared, gave him

eventually a decidedly ridiculous air. His companions displayed toward

their hostess that half-avowed effort to shine and to outshine natural

to clever men who find themselves concurring to the entertainment of a

young and agreeable woman. Richard sat by, wondering, in splenetic

amazement, whether he was an ignorant boor, or whether they were only a

brace of inflated snobs. He decided, correctly enough, in substance, for

the former hypothesis. For it seemed to him that Gertrude's consummate

accommodation (for as such he viewed it) of her tone and her manner to

theirs added prodigiously (so his lover's instinct taught him) to her

loveliness and dignity. How magnanimous an impulse on Richard's part was

this submission for his sweetheart's sake to a fact damning to his own

vanity, could have been determined only by one who knew the proportions

of that vanity. He writhed and chafed under the polish of tone and the

variety of allusion by which the two officers consigned him to

insignificance; but he was soon lost in wonder at the mettlesome grace

and vivacity with which Gertrude sustained her share of the

conversation. For a moment it seemed to him that her tenderness for his

equanimity (for should she not know his mind,--she who had made it?)

might reasonably have caused her to forego such an exhibition of her

social accomplishments as would but remind him afresh of his own

deficiencies; but the next moment he asked himself, with a great

revulsion of feeling, whether he, a conscious suitor, should fear to

know his mistress in her integrity. As he gulped down the sickening fact

of his comparative, nay, his absolute ignorance of the great world

represented by his rivals, he felt like anticipating its consequences by

a desperate sally into the very field of their conversation. To some

such movement Gertrude was continually inviting him by her glances, her

smiles, her questions, and her appealing silence. But poor Richard knew

that, if he should attempt to talk, he would choke; and this assurance

he imparted to his friend in a look piteously eloquent. He was conscious

of a sensation of rage under which his heart was fast turning into a

fiery furnace, destined to consume all his good resolutions. He could

not answer for the future now. Suddenly, as tea was drawing to a close,

he became aware that Captain Severn had lapsed into a silence very

nearly as profound as his own, and that he was covertly watching the

progress of a lively dialogue between Miss Whittaker and Major Luttrel.

He had the singular experience of seeing his own feelings reflected in

the Captain's face; that is, he discerned there an incipient jealousy.

Severn too was in love!

On rising from table, Gertrude proposed an adjournment to the garden,

where she was very fond of entertaining her friends at this hour. The

sun had sunk behind a long line of hills, far beyond the opposite bank

of the river, a portion of which was discernible through a gap in the

intervening wood. The high-piled roof and chimney-stacks, the

picturesquely crowded surface, of the old patched and renovated

farm-house which served Gertrude as a villa, were ruddy with the

declining rays. Our friends' long shadows were thrown over the short

grass. Gertrude, having graciously anticipated the gentlemen's longing

for their cigars, suggested a stroll toward the river. Before she knew

it, she had accepted Major Luttrel's arm; and as Miss Pendexter

preferred remaining at home, Severn and Richard found themselves

lounging side by side at a short distance behind their hostess.

Gertrude, who had marked the reserve which had suddenly fallen upon

Captain Severn, and in her simplicity had referred it to some unwitting

failure of attention on her own part, had hoped to repair her neglect by

having him at her own side. She was in some degree consoled, however, by

the sight of his happy juxtaposition with Richard. As for Richard, now

that he was on his feet and in the open air, he found it easier to

speak.

"Who is that man?" he asked, nodding toward the Major.

"Major Luttrel, of the --th Artillery."

"I don't like his face much," said Richard.

"Don't you?" rejoined Severn, amused at his companion's bluntness. "He's

not handsome, but he looks like a soldier."

"He looks like a rascal, I think," said Richard.

Severn laughed outright, so that Gertrude glanced back at him. "Dear me!

I think you put it rather strongly. I should call it a very intelligent

face."

Richard was sorely perplexed. He had expected to find acceptance for his

bitterest animadversions, and lo! here was the Captain fighting for his

enemy. Such a man as that was no rival. So poor a hater could be but a

poor lover. Nevertheless, a certain new-born mistrust of his old fashion

of measuring human motives prevented him from adopting this conclusion

as final. He would try another question.

"Do you know Miss Whittaker well?" he asked.

"Tolerably well. She was very kind to me when I was ill. Since then I've

seen her some dozen times."

"That's a way she has, being kind," said Richard, with what he deemed

considerable shrewdness. But as the Captain merely puffed his cigar

responsively, he pursued, "What do you think of her face?"

"I like it very much," said the Captain.

"She isn't beautiful," said Richard, cunningly.

Severn was silent a moment, and then, just as Richard was about to

dismiss him from his thoughts, as neither formidable nor satisfactory,

he replied, with some emphasis, "You mean she isn't pretty. She is

beautiful, I think, in spite of the irregularity of her face. It's a

face not to be forgotten. She has no features, no color, no lilies or

roses, no attitudes; but she has _looks_, expression. Her face has

_character_; and so has her figure. It has no 'style,' as they call it;

but that only belongs properly to a work of art, which Miss Whittaker's

figure isn't, thank Heaven! She's as unconscious of it as Nature

herself."

Severn spoke Richard's mind as well as his own. That "She isn't

beautiful" had been an extempore version of the young man's most sacred

dogma, namely, She is beautiful. The reader will remember that he had so

translated it on a former occasion. Now, all that he felt was a sense of

gratitude to the Captain for having put it so much more finely than he,

the above being his choicest public expression of it. But the Captain's

eyes, somewhat brightened by his short but fervid speech, were following

Gertrude's slow steps. Richard saw that he could learn more from them

than from any further oral declaration; for something in the mouth

beneath them seemed to indicate that it had judged itself to have said

enough, and it was obviously not the mouth of a simpleton. As he thus

deferred with an unwonted courtesy to the Captain's silence, and

transferred his gaze sympathetically to Gertrude's shapely shoulders and

to her listening ear, he gave utterance to a telltale sigh,--a sigh

which there was no mistaking. Severn looked about; it was now his turn

to scrutinize. "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, "that boy is in love with

her!"

After the first shock of surprise, he accepted this fact with rational

calmness. Why shouldn't he be in love with her? "_Je le suis bien_,"

said the Captain; "or, rather, I'm not." Could it be, Severn pursued,

that he was a favorite? He was a mannerless young farmer; but it was

plain that he had a soul of his own. He almost wished, indeed, that

Richard might prove to be in Gertrude's good graces. "But if he is," he

reflected, "why should he sigh? It is true that there is no arguing for

lovers. I, who am out in the cold, take my comfort in whistling most

impertinently. It may be that my friend here groans for very bliss. I

confess, however, that he scarcely looks like a favored swain."

And forthwith this faint-hearted gentleman felt a twinge of pity for

Richard's obvious infelicity; and as he compared it with the elaborately

defensive condition of his own affections, he felt a further pang of

self-contempt. But it was easier to restore the equilibrium of his

self-respect by an immediate cession of the field, than by contesting it

against this wofully wounded knight. "Whether he wins her or not, he'll

fight for her," the Captain declared; and as he glanced at Major

Luttrel, he felt that this was a sweet assurance. He had conceived a

singular distrust of the Major.

They had now reached the water's edge, where Gertrude, having arrested

her companion, had turned about, expectant of her other guests. As they

came up, Severn saw, or thought that he saw (which is a very different

thing), that her first look was at Richard. The "admirer" in his breast

rose fratricidal for a moment against the quiet observer; but the next,

it was pinioned again. "Amen," said the Captain; "it's none of my

business."

At this moment, Richard was soaring most heroically. The end of his

anguish had been a sudden intoxication. He surveyed the scene before him

with a kindling fancy. Why should he stand tongue-tied in sullen mistrust

of fortune, when all nature beckoned him into the field? There was the

river-path where, a fortnight before, he had found an eloquence attested

by Gertrude's tears. There was sweet Gertrude herself, whose hand he had

kissed and whose waist he had clasped. Surely, he was master here!

Before he knew it, he had begun to talk,--rapidly, nervously, and almost

defiantly. Major Luttrel, having made an observation about the

prettiness of the river, Richard entered upon a description of its

general course and its superior beauty upon his own place, together with

an enumeration of the fish which were to be found in it, and a story

about a great overflow ten years before. He spoke in fair, coherent

terms, but with singular intensity and vehemence, and with his head

thrown back and his eyes on the opposite bank. At last he stopped,

feeling that he had given proof of his manhood, and looked towards

Gertrude, whose eyes he had been afraid to meet until he had seen his

adventure to a close. But she was looking at Captain Severn, under the

impression that Richard had secured his auditor. Severn was looking at

Luttrel, and Luttrel at Miss Whittaker; and all were apparently so deep

in observation that they had marked neither his speech nor his silence.

"Truly," thought the young man, "I'm well out of the circle!" But he was

resolved to be patient still, which was assuredly, all things

considered, a very brave resolve. Yet there was always something

spasmodic and unnatural in Richard's magnanimity. A touch in the wrong

place would cause it to collapse. It was Gertrude's evil fortune to

administer this touch at present. As the party turned about toward the

house, Richard stepped to her side and offered her his arm, hoping in

his heart--so implicitly did he count upon her sympathy, so almost

boyishly, filially, did he depend upon it--for some covert token that

his heroism, such as it was, had not been lost upon her.

But Gertrude, intensely preoccupied by the desire to repair her fancied

injustice to the Captain, shook her head at him without even meeting his

eye. "Thank you," she said; "I want Captain Severn," who forthwith

approached.

Poor Richard felt his feet touch the ground again. He felt that he could

have flung the Captain into the stream. Major Luttrel placed himself at

Gertrude's other elbow, and Richard stood behind them, almost livid

with spite, and half resolved to turn upon his heel and make his way

home by the river. But it occurred to him that a more elaborate

vengeance would be to follow the trio before him back to the lawn, and

there make it a silent and scathing bow. Accordingly, when they reached

the house, he stood aloof and bade Gertrude a grim good-night. He

trembled with eagerness to see whether she would make an attempt to

detain him. But Miss Whittaker, reading in his voice--it had grown too

dark to see his face at the distance at which he stood--the story of

some fancied affront, and unconsciously contrasting it, perhaps, with

Severn's clear and unwarped accents, obeyed what she deemed a prompting

of self-respect, and gave him, without her hand, a farewell as cold as

his own. It is but fair to add, that, a couple of hours later, as she

reviewed the incidents of the evening, she repented most generously of

this little act of justice.