“The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.”

—WORDSWORTH.

A wintry scene. Snow-piled hills stretching beyond a frozen river. On

the bank a solitary figure tall, dark and commanding, standing with eyes

bent sadly on a long narrow mound at his feet. It is Edward Sylvester

and the mound is the grave of his mother.

It is ten years since he stood upon that spot. In all that time no

memories of his childhood’s home, no recollection of that lonely grave

among the pines, had been sufficient to allure him from the city and its

busy round of daily cares. Indeed he had always shrunk at the very name

of the place and never of his own will alluded to it, but the reveries

of a night had awakened a longing that was not to be appeased, and in

the face of his wife’s cold look of astonishment and a secret dread in

his own heart, had left his comfortable fireside, for the scenes of his

early life and marriage, and was now standing, in the bleak December

air, gazing down upon the stone that marked his mother’s grave.

But tender as were the chords that reverberated at this sight, it was

not to revisit this tomb he had returned to Grotewell. No, that other

vision, the vision of young sweet appreciative life has drawn him more

strongly than the memory of the dead. It was to search out and gaze

again upon the innocent girl, whose eloquent eyes and lofty spirit had

so deeply moved him in the past, that he had braved the chill of the

Connecticut hills and incurred the displeasure of his wife.

Yet when he turned away from that simple headstone and set his face

towards the village streets it was with a sinking of the heart that

first revealed to him the severity of the ordeal to which he had thus

wantonly subjected himself. Not that the wintry trees and snow covered

roofs appealed to him as strongly as the same trees and homes would have

done in their summer aspect. The land was bright with verdure when that

shadow fell whose gloom resting upon all the landscape, made a walk down

this quiet road even at this remote day, a matter of such pain to him.

But scenes that have caught the reflection of a life’s joy or a heart’s

sorrow, lose not their power of appeal, with the leaves they shake from

their trees, and nothing that had met the eyes of this man from the hour

he left this spot, no, not the glance of his wife as his child fell back

dead in his arms, had shot such a pang to his soul as the sight of that

long street with its array of quiet homes, stretching out before him

into the dim grey distance.

But for all that he was determined to traverse it, ay to the very end,

though his steps must pass the house whose ghostly portals were fraught

with memories dismal as death to him. On then he proceeded, walking with

his usual steady pace that only faltered or broke, as he met the shy

eyes of some hurrying village maiden, speeding upon some errand down the

snowy street, or encountered some old friend of his youth who despite

his altered mien and commanding carriage, recognized in him the slim

young bank cashier who had left them now ten long years ago to make a

name and fortune in the great city.

It was noon by the time he gained the heart of the village, and school

was out and the children came rushing by with just the same shout and

scamper with which he used to hail that hour of joyous release. How it

carried him back to the days when those four red walls towered upon him

with awful significance, as with books on his back and a half eaten

apple in his pocket he crept up the walk, conscious that the bell had

rung its last shrill note a good half hour before. He felt half tempted

to stop and make his way through the crowd of shouting boys and dancing

girls to that same old door again, and see for himself if the huge LATE

which in a fit of childish revenge he had cut on its awkward panels, was

still there to meet the eyes of tardy boys and loitering girls. But the

wondering looks of the children unused to behold a figure so stately in

their simple streets deterred him and he passed thoughtfully on. So

engrossed was he by the reminiscences of Tom and Elsie which the school

house had awakened, that he passed the ominous mansion which had been

his dread, and the bank where he had worked, and the arbor by the side

of the road where he had sat out the first hours of his fatal courtship,

almost without realizing their presence, and was at the end of the

street and in full view of the humble cottage which the little Paula had

pointed out as her home on that day of their first acquaintance.

“Good heaven! and I do not even know if she is alive,” he suddenly

ejaculated, stopping where he was and eying the lowly walls before him

with a quick realization of the possibilities of a great disappointment.

“Ten years have strown many a grave on the hillside and Ona would not

mention it if she lost every relative she had in this town. What a fool

I have been,” thought he.

But with the stern resolution which had carried him through many a

difficulty, he prepared to advance, when he was again arrested by seeing

the door of the house he was contemplating, suddenly open and a girlish

figure issue forth. Could it be Paula? With eager, almost feverish

interest he watched her approach. She was a slight young thing and came

towards him with a rapid movement almost jaunty in its freedom. If it

were Paula, he would know her by her eyes, but for some reason he hoped

it was not she, not the child of his dreams.

At a yard or two in front of him she paused astonished. This grave, tall

figure with the melancholy brow, deep eyes and firmly compressed lips

was an unaccustomed sight in this primitive town. Scarcely realizing

what she did she gave a little courtesy and was proceeding on when he

stopped her with a hurried gesture.

“Is Mrs. Fairchild still living?” he asked, indicating the house she had

just left.

“Mrs. Fairchild? O no,” she returned, surveying him out of the corner of

a very roguish pair of brown eyes, with a certain sly wonder at the

suspense in his voice. “She has been dead as long as I can remember. Old

Miss Abby and her sister live there now.”

“And who are they?” he hurriedly asked; he could not bring himself to

mention Paula’s name.

“Why, Miss Abby and Miss Belinda,” she returned with a puzzled air.

“Miss Abby sews and Miss Belinda teaches the school. I don’t know

anything more about them, sir.”

The courteous gentleman bowed. “And they live there quite alone?”

“O no sir, Paula lives with them.”

“Ah, she does;” and the young girl looking at him could not detect the

slightest change in his haughty countenance. “Paula is Mrs. Fairchild’s

daughter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you,” said he, and allowed the pretty brown-eyed miss to pass on,

which she did with lingering footsteps and many a backward glance of the

eye.

Halting at the door of that small cottage, Edward Sylvester reasoned

with himself.

“She may be just such another fresh-looking, round-faced,

mischievous-eyed school-girl. Spiritual children do not always make

earnest-souled women. Let me beware what hopes I build on a foundation

so unsubstantial.” Yet when in a moment later the door opened and a

weazen-faced dapper, little woman appeared, all smiles and welcome, he

owned to a sensation of dismay that sufficiently convinced him what a

hold this hope of meeting with something exceptionally sweet and high,

had taken upon his hitherto careless and worldly spirit.

“Mr. Sylvester I am sure! I thought Ona would remember us after a while.

Come in sir, do, my sister will be home in a few moments.” And with a

deprecatory flutter comical enough in a woman at least seventy odd years

old, she led her distinguished guest into a large unused room where in

spite of his remonstrances she at once proceeded to build a fire.

“It is a pleasure sir,” she said to every utterance of regret on his

part at the trouble he was causing. And though her vocabulary was thus

made to appear somewhat small, her sincerity was undoubted. “We have

counted the days, Belinda and I, since we sent the last letter. It may

seem foolish to you, sir; but Paula is growing so fast and Belinda says

is so uncommon smart for her age that we did think that it was time Ona

knew just what a straight we were in. Do you want to see Paula?”

“Very much,” he returned, shocked and embarrassed at the position in

which he found himself put by the reticence of his wife on the subject

of her relations. “They think I have come in reply to a letter,” he

mused, “and I did not even know my wife had received one.”

“You will be surprised,” she exclaimed with a complacent nod as the fire

blazed up brightly; “every one is surprised who sees her for the first

time. Is my niece well?” And thus it was he learned the relation between

his wife of ten years and these simple inhabitants of the little cottage

in Grotewell.

He replied as in duty bound, and presently by the use of a few dexterous

questions succeeded in eliciting from this simple-minded old lady, the

few facts necessary to a proper understanding of the situation. Miss

Abby and Miss Belinda were two maiden ladies, sisters of Mrs. Fairchild

and Ona’s mother, who on the death of the former took up their abode in

the little cottage for the purpose of bringing up the orphan Paula. They

had succeeded in this by dint of the utmost industry, but Paula was not

a common child, and Belinda, who was evidently the autocrat of the

house, had decided that she ought to have other advantages. She had

therefore written to Mrs. Sylvester concerning the child, in the hopes

that that lady would take enough interest in her pretty little cousin to

send her to boarding-school; but they had received no reply till now,

all of which was perfectly right of course, Mrs. Sylvester being

undoubtedly occupied and Mr. Sylvester himself being better than any

letter.

“And does Paula herself know what efforts you have been making in her

behalf,” asked Mr. Sylvester upon the receipt of this information.

The little lady shook her head with vivacity. “Belinda advised me to say

nothing,” she remarked. “The child is contented with her home and we did

not like to raise her expectations. You will never regret anything you

may do for her,” she went on in a hurried way with a peep now and then

towards the door as if while enjoying a momentary freedom of speech, she

feared an intrusion that would cut that pleasure short. “Paula is a

grateful child and never has given us a moment of concern from the time

she began to put pieces of patchwork together. But there is Belinda,”

she suddenly exclaimed, rising with the little dip and jerk of her left

shoulder that was habitual to her whenever she was amused or excited.

“Belinda,” she cried, going to the door and speaking with great

impressiveness, “Mr. Sylvester is in the parlor.” And almost instantly a

tall middle aged lady entered, whose plain but powerful countenance and

dignified demeanor, stamped her at once as belonging to a very different

type of woman from her sister.

“I am very glad to see you sir,” she exclaimed in a slow determined

voice as dissimilar as possible from the piping tones of Miss Abby. “Is

not Mrs. Sylvester with you?”

“No,” returned he, “I have come alone; my wife is not fond of travelling

in winter.”

The slightest gleam shot from her bright keen eye. “Is she not well?”

“Yes quite well, but not over strong,” he rejoined quietly.

She gave him another quick look, settled some matter with herself and

taking off her bonnet, sat down by the fire. At once her sister ceased

in her hovering about the room and sitting also, became to all

appearance her silent shadow.

“Paula has gone up stairs to take off her bonnet,” the younger woman

said in a straightforward manner just short of being brusque. “She is a

very remarkable girl, Mr. Sylvester, a genius I suppose some would call

her, a child of nature I prefer to say. Whatever there is to be learned

in this town she has learned. And in a place where nature speaks and

good books abound that is not inconsiderable. I have taken pride in her

talents I acknowledge, and have endeavored to do what I could to

cultivate them to the best advantage. There is no girl in my school who

can write so original a composition, nor is there one with a truer heart

or more tractable disposition.”

“You have then been her teacher as well as her friend, she owes you a

double debt of gratitude.”

A look hard to understand flashed over her homely face. “I have never

thought of debt or gratitude in connection with Paula. The only effort

which I have ever made in her behalf which cost me anything, is this one

which threatens me with her loss.” Then as if fearing she had said too

much, set her firm lips still firmer and ignoring the subject of the

child, astonished him by certain questions on the leading issues of the

day that at once betrayed a truly virile mind.

“She is a study,” thought he to himself, but meeting her on the ground

she had taken, replied at once and to her evident satisfaction in the

direct and simple manner that appeals the most forcibly to a strong if

somewhat unpolished understanding, while the meek little Miss Abby

glanced from one to the other with a humble awe more indicative of her

appreciation for their superiority than of her comprehension of the

subject.

But what with Miss Belinda’s secret anxiety and Mr. Sylvester’s

unconscious listening for a step upon the stair, the conversation, brisk

as it had opened, gradually languished, and ere long with a sort of

clairvoyant understanding of her sister’s wishes, Miss Abby arose and

with her customary jerk left the room for Paula.

“The child is not timid but has an unaccountable aversion to entering

the presence of strangers alone,” Miss Belinda explained; but Mr.

Sylvester did not hear her, for at that moment the door re-opened and

Miss Abby stepped in with the young girl thus heralded.

Edward Sylvester never forgot that moment, and indeed few men could have

beheld the picture of extraordinary loveliness thus revealed, without a

shock of surprise equal to the delight it inspired. She was not pretty;

the very word was a misnomer, she was simply one of nature’s most

exquisite and undeniable beauties. From the crown of her ebon locks to

the sole of her dainty foot, she was perfect as the most delicate

coloring and the utmost harmony of contour could make her. And not in

the conventional type either. There was an individuality in her style

that was as fresh as it was uncommon. She was at once unique and

faultless, something that can be said of few women however beautiful or

alluring.

Mr. Sylvester had not expected this, as indeed how could he, and for a

moment he could only gaze with a certain swelling of the heart at the

blooming loveliness that in one instant had transformed the odd little

parlor into a bower fit for the habitation of princes. But soon his

natural self-possession returned, and rising with his most courteous

bow, he greeted the blushing girl with words of simple welcome.

Instantly her eyes which had been hitherto kept bent upon the floor

flashed upward to his face and a smile full of the wonder of an unlooked

for, almost unhoped for delight, swept radiantly over her lips, and he

saw with deep and sudden satisfaction that the hour which had made such

an impression upon him, had not been forgotten by her; that his voice

had recalled what his face failed to do, and that he was recognized.

“It is Mr. Sylvester, your cousin Ona’s husband,” Miss Belinda

interposed in a matter-of-fact way, evidently attributing the emotion of

the child to her astonishment at the imposing appearance of their guest.

“And it was _you_ who married Ona!” she involuntarily murmured, blushing

the next moment at this simple utterance of her thoughts.

“Yes, dear child,” Mr. Sylvester hastened to say. “And so you remember

me?” he presently added, smiling down upon her with a sense of new life

that for the moment made every care and anxiety shrink into the

background.

“Yes,” she simply returned, taking the chair beside him with the

unconscious grace of perfect self-forgetfulness. “It was the first time

I had found any one to listen to my childish enthusiasms; it is natural

such kindness should make its impression.”

“Little Paula and I met long ago,” quoth Mr. Sylvester turning to the

somewhat astonished Miss Belinda. “It was before my marriage and she was

then—”

“Just ten years old,” finished Paula, seeing him cast her an inquiring

glance.

“Very young for such a thoughtful little miss,” he exclaimed. “And have

those childish enthusiasms quite departed?” he continued, smiling upon

her with gentle encouragement. “Do you no longer find a fairy-land in

the view up the river?”

She flushed, casting a timid glance at her aunt, but meeting his eyes

again seemed to forget everything and everybody in the inspiration which

his presence afforded.

“I fear I must acknowledge that it is more a fairy-land to me than

ever,” she softly replied. “Knowledge does not always bring disillusion,

and though I have learned one by one the names of the towns scattered

along those misty banks, and though I know they are no less prosaic in

their character than our own humdrum village, yet I cannot rid myself of

the notion that those verdant slopes with their archway of clouds, hide

the portals of Paradise, and that I have only to follow the birds in

their flight up the river to find myself on the verge of a mystery, the

banks at my feet can never disclose.”

“May the gates of God’s Paradise never recede as those would do, my

child, if like the birds you attempted to pierce them.”

“Paula is a dreamer,” quoth Miss Belinda in a matter-of-fact tone, “but

she is a good girl notwithstanding and can solve a geometrical problem

with the best.”

“And sew on the machine and make a very good pie,” timidly put in Miss

Abby.

“That is well,” laughed Mr. Sylvester, observing that the poor child’s

head had fallen forward in maidenly shame at her aunts’ elogiums as well

as at the length of the speech into which she had been betrayed. “It

shows that her eyes can see what is at hand as well as what is beyond

our reach.” Then with a touch of his usual formal manner intended to

restore her to herself, “Do you like study, Paula?”

In an instant her eyes flashed. “I more than like it; it feeds me.

Knowledge has its vistas too,” she added with an arch look, the first he

had seen on her hitherto serious countenance. “I can never outgrow my

recognition of the portals it discloses or the fairy-land it opens up to

every inquiring eye.”

“Even geometry,” he ventured, more anxious to probe this fresh young

mind than he had ever been to sound the opinions of the most notable men

of the day.

“Even geometry,” she smiled. “To be sure its portals are somewhat

methodical in shape, allowing no scope to the fancy, but from its

triangles and circles have been born the grandeurs of architecture, and

upright on the threshold of its exact laws and undeviating calculations,

I see an angel with a golden rod in his hand, measuring the heavens.”

“Even a stone speaks to a poet,” said Mr. Sylvester with a glance at

Miss Belinda.

“But Paula is no poet,” returned that lady with strict and impartial

honesty. “She has never put a line on paper to my knowledge. Have you

child?”

“No aunt, I would as soon imprison a falling sunbeam or try to catch the

breeze that lifts my hair or kisses my cheek.”

“You see,” continued Mr. Sylvester still looking at Miss Belinda.

She answered with a doubtful shake of the head and an earnest glance at

the girl as if she perceived something in that bright young soul, that

even she had never observed before.

“Have you ever been away from home?” he now asked.

“Never, I know as little of the great world as a callow nestling. No, I

should not say that, for the young bird has no Aunt Belinda to tell of

the great cathedrals and the wonderful music she has heard and the

glorious pictures she has seen in her visits to the city. It is almost

as good as travelling one’s self to hear Aunt Belinda talk.”

It was now the turn of the mature plain woman to blush, which she did

under Mr. Sylvester’s searching eye.

“You have then been in the habit of visiting New York?”

“I have been there twice,” she returned evasively.

“Since my marriage?”

“Yes sir;” with a firm closing of her lips.

“I did not know you were there or I should have insisted upon your

remaining at my house.”

“Thank you,” said she with a quick triumphant glance at her demure

little shadow, who looked back in amaze and was about to speak when Miss

Belinda proceeded. “My visits usually have been on business; I should

not think of troubling Mrs. Sylvester.” And then he knew that his wife

had been aware of those visits if he had not.

But he refrained from testifying to his discovery. “You speak of music,”

said he, turning gently back to Paula. “Have you a taste for it? Would

it make you happy to hear such music as your aunt tells about?”

“O yes, I can conceive nothing grander than to sit in a church whose

every line is beauty and listen while the great organ utters its song of

triumph or echoes in the wonderful way it does, the emotions you have

tried to express and could not. I would give a whole week of my life on

the hills, dear as it is, for one such hour, I think.”

Mr. Sylvester smiled. “It is a rare kind of coin to offer for such a

simple pleasure, but it may meet with its acceptance, nevertheless;” and

in his look and in his voice there was an appearance of affectionate

interest that completed the subjugation of the watchful Miss Belinda,

who now became doubly assured that whatever neglect had been shown her

by her niece was not due to that niece’s husband.

Mr. Sylvester recognized the effect he had produced and hastened to

complete it, feeling that the good opinion of Miss Belinda would be

valuable to any man. “I have been a boy on these hills,” said he, “and

know what it is to long for what is beyond while enjoying what is

present. You shall hear the organ my child.” And stopped, wondering to

himself over the new sweet interest he seemed to take in the prospect of

pleasures which he had supposed himself to have long ago exhausted.

“Hear the organ, I? why that means—O what does it mean?” she inquired,

turning with a look of beaming hope towards her aunt.

“You must ask Mr. Sylvester,” that uncompromising lady replied, with a

straightforward look at the fire.

And he with a smile told the blushing girl that according to his

reading, mortals went blindfold into fairy-land; and she understood what

he meant and was silent, whereupon he turned the conversation upon more

common-place subjects.

For how could he tell her then of the intention that had awakened in his

breast at the first glimpse of her grand young beauty. To make her his

child, to bequeath to her the place of the babe that had perished in his

arms three long years before—That meant to give Ona a care if not a

rival in his affections, and Ona shrank from care, and was not a subject

for rivalry. And the _if_ which this implied weighed heavily on his

heart as moment after moment flew by, and he felt again the reviving

power of an unsullied mind and an aspiring nature.

X.

THE BARRED DOOR.

“A school boy’s tale; the wonder of an hour.”—BYRON.

“Did you know that your niece was gifted with rare beauty as well as

talents?” asked Mr. Sylvester of Miss Belinda as a couple of hours or so

later, they sat alone by the parlor fire, preparatory to his departure.

“No, that is,” she hastily corrected herself, “I knew she was very

pretty of course, prettier by far than any of her mates, but I did not

suppose she was what you call a beauty, or at least would be so

considered by a person accustomed to New York society.”

“I do not know of a woman in New York who can boast of any such claims

to transcendent loveliness. Such faces are rare outside of art, Miss

Belinda; was Mrs. Fairchild a handsome woman?”

“She was my sister and if I may say so, my favorite sister, but she was

no more agreeable to the eye than some others of her family,” grimly

returned the heavy browed spinster with a compression of her lips. “What

beauty Paula has inherited came from her father. Her chief charm in my

eyes, however, springs from her pure nature and the unselfish impulses

of her heart.”

“And in mine,” rejoined he quietly. Then with a sudden change of tone as

he realized the necessity of saying something definite to this woman in

regard to his intentions toward the child, he remarked, “Her great and

unusual talents and manifest disposition to learn, demand as you say,

superior advantages to any she can have in a small country town like

this, fruitful as it has already been to her under your wise and

fostering care and such shall she have; but just when and how I cannot

say till I have seen my wife and learned what her wishes are likely to

be in regard to the subject.”

“You are very kind, sir,” returned Miss Belinda. “I have no doubt as to

the good-will of your intentions, and the child shall be prepared at

once for a change.”

“And will _the child_,” he exclaimed with a smile as Paula re-entered

the room, “be so kind as to give me her company in the walk I must now

take to the cars?”

“Of course,” replied her aunt before the young girl could speak, “we owe

you that much attention I am sure.”

And so it was that when he came to retrace his way through the village

with its heavy memories, he had a guardian spirit at his side that

robbed them of their power to sadden and oppress.

“What shall I say for you to the grim, city streets when I get back?”

inquired he as they hastened on over the snow covered road.

“Say to them from me? O you may give them my greeting,” she responded

half shyly, half confidingly. Evidently for her he was one of those rare

persons whose presence is perfect freedom and with whom she could not

only think her best but speak it also. “I should like to make their

acquaintance, but indeed they would have to do well to vie in attraction

with these white roads girded by their silver-limbed trees. The very

rush of life must seem oppressive. So many hopes, so many fears, so many

interests jostling you at every step! Yet the thought is exhilarating

too; don’t you find it so?”

It was the first question she had asked him and he knew not how to

reply. Her eyes were so confiding, he could not bear to shake her faith

in his imagined superiority. Yet what thoughts had he ever cherished in

walking the busy streets, save those connected with his own selfish

hopes and fears, plans and operations? “I have no doubt,” said he after

a moment’s pause, “that I have felt this exhilaration of which you

speak. Certainly the hurrying masses in Broadway awaken a far different

sensation in a man, than this solitary stretch of country road.”

“Yet the road has its companionships,” she murmured. “In the city one

thinks most of men, but in the country, of God. Its very solitude

compels you.”

“Compels _you_,” he involuntarily answered. And shuddered as he said it,

remembering days when he trod these very roads with anything but

reverence in his heart for the Creator of the landscape before him. “Not

every one has the inner vision, my child, to see the love and wisdom

back of the works, or rather most men have a vision so short it does not

reach so far. Yet I think I can understand what you mean and might even

experience your emotions if my eyes had leisure to explore this space

and my thoughts to rise out of their usual depressing atmosphere of care

and anxiety. You did not think I was a busy man, he continued,”

observing her gaze of wonder. “You thought riches brought ease; if you

ever come to think, ‘most of men’ you will learn that the wealthy man is

the greatest worker, for his rest comes not night or day.”

She shook her head with a sudden doubt. “It is a problem,” she said,

“which my knowledge of geometry does not help me to solve.”

“No,” assented he; “and one in which even your fanciful soul would fail

to find any poetry. But stop, Paula; isn’t this the place where I found

you that day, and you showed me the view up the river?”

“Yes, and it was on that stone I sat; it has a milk-white cushion now;

and there is where you stood, looking so tall and grand to my childish

eyes! The gates are of pearl now,” she said, pointing to the

snow-covered slopes in the west. “I wish the sky had been clear to-night

and you could have seen the effect of a rosy sunset falling over those

domes of ice and snow.”

“It would leave me less to expect when I come again,” he responded

almost gayly. “The next time we will have the sunset, Paula.”

She smiled and they hastened on, presently finding themselves in the

village streets. Suddenly she paused. “Small towns have their mysteries

as well as great cities,” said she; “we are not without ours, look.”

He turned, followed with a glance the direction of her pointing finger

and started in his sudden surprise. She had indicated to him the house

whose ghostly and frowning front bore written across its grim gray

boards, such an inscription of painful remembrance. “It is a solitary

looking place, isn’t it?” she went on, innocent of the pain she was

inflicting. “No one lives there or ever will, I imagine. Do you see that

board nailed across the front door?”

He forced himself to look. He did more, he fixed his eyes upon the

desolate structure before him until the aspect of its huge unpainted

walls with their long rows of sealed-up windows and high smokeless

chimneys was impressed indelibly upon his mind. The large front door

with its weird and solemn barrier was the last thing upon which his eye

rested.

“Yes,” said he, and involuntarily asked what it meant.

“We do not know exactly,” she responded. “It was nailed across there by

the men who followed Colonel Japha to the grave. Colonel Japha was the

owner of the house,” she proceeded, too interested to observe the shadow

which the utterance of that name had invoked upon his brow. “He was a

peculiar man I judge, and had suffered great wrongs they say; at all

events his life was very solitary and sad, and on his deathbed he made

his neighbors promise him that they would carry out his body through

that door and then seal it up against any further ingress or egress

forever. His wishes were respected, and from that day to this no one has

ever entered that door.”

“But the house!” stammered Mr. Sylvester in anything but his usual tone,

“surely it has not been deserted all these years!”

“Ah,” said she, “now we come to the greatest mystery of all.” And laying

her hand timidly on his arm, she drew his attention to the form of a

decrepit old lady just then advancing towards them down the street “Do

you see that aged figure?” she asked. “Every evening at this hour,

winter and summer, stormy weather or clear, she is seen to leave her

home up the street and come down to this forsaken dwelling, open the

worm-eaten gate before you, cross the otherwise untrodden garden and

enter the house by a side door which she opens with a huge key she

carries in her pocket. For just one hour by the clock she remains there,

and then she is seen to issue in the falling dusk, with a countenance

whose heavy dejection is in striking contrast to the expression of hope

with which she invariably enters. Why she makes this pilgrimage and for

what purpose she secludes herself for a stated time each day in this

otherwise deserted mansion, no man knows nor is it possible to

determine, for though she is a worthy woman and approachable enough on

all other topics, on this she is absolutely mute.”

Mr. Sylvester started and surveyed the woman as she passed with an

anxious gaze. “I know her,” he muttered; “she was a connection of—of

the family, who inhabited this house.” He could not speak the name.

“Yes, so they say, and the owner of this house, though she does not live

here. Did you notice how she looked at me? She often does that, just as

if she wanted to speak. But she always goes by and opens the gate as you

see her now and takes out the big key and—”

“Come away,” cried Mr. Sylvester with sudden impulse, seizing Paula by

the hand and hurrying her down the street. “She is a walking goblin; you

must have nothing to do with such uncanny folk.” And endeavoring to turn

off this irresistible display of feeling by a show of pleasantry he

laughed aloud, but in a strained and unnatural way that made her eyes

lift in unconscious amazement.

“You are infected by the atmosphere of unreality that pervades the

spot,” said she, “I do not wonder.” And with the gentle perversity that

sometimes affects the most thoughtful amongst us, she went on talking

upon the unwelcome subject. “I know of some folks who invariably cross

to the other side of the street at night, rather than go through the

shadows of the two gaunt poplars which guard that house. Yet there has

been no murder committed there or any great crime that I know of, unless

the disobedience of a daughter who ran away with a man her father

detested, could be denominated by so fearful a word.”

The set gaze with which Mr. Sylvester surveyed the landscape before him

quavered a trifle and then grew hard and cold. “And so,” said he in a

tone meant more for himself than her, “even your innocent ears have been

assailed by the gossip about Miss Japha.”

“Gossip! I have never thought of it as gossip,” returned she, struck for

the first time by the change in his appearance. “It all happened so long

ago it seems more like some quaint and ancient tale than a story of one

of our neighbors. Besides, the fact that a wilful girl ran away from the

house of her father, with the man of her choice, is not such a dreadful

one is it, though she never returned to its walls with her husband, and

her father was so overwhelmed by the shock, he was never seen to smile

again.”

“No,” said he, giving her a hurried glance of relief, “I only wondered

at the tenacity of old stories to engage the popular ear. I had supposed

even the remembrance of Jacqueline Japha would have been lost in the

long silence that has followed that one disobedient act.”

“And so it might, were it not for that closely shut house with the

sinister bar across its chief entrance, inviting curiosity while it

effectually precludes all investigation. With that token ever before our

eyes of a dead man’s implacable animosity, who can wonder that we

sometimes ponder over the fate of her who was its object.”

“And no intimations of that fate have been ever received in Grotewell.

For all that is known to the contrary, Jacqueline Japha may have

preceded her father to the tomb.”

Paula bowed her head, amazed at the gloomy tone in which this emphatic

assertion was made by one whose supposed ignorance she had been

endeavoring to enlighten. “You knew her history before, then,” observed

she, “I beg your pardon.”

“And it is granted,” said he with a sudden throwing off of the shadow

that had enveloped him. “You must not mind my sudden lapses into gloom.

I was never a cheerful man, that is, not since I—since my early youth I

should say. And the shadows which are short at your time of life grow

long and chilly at mine. One thing can illumine them though, and that is

a child’s happy smile. You are a child to me; do not deny me a smile,

then, before I go.”

“Not one nor a dozen,” cried she, giving him her hands in good-bye for

they had arrived at the depot by this time and the sound of the

approaching train was heard in the distance.

“God bless you!” said he, clasping those hands with a father’s heartfelt

tenderness. “God bless my little Paula and make her pillow soft till we

meet again!” Then as the train came sweeping up the track, put on his

brightest look and added, “If the fairy-godmother chances to visit you

during my departure, don’t hesitate to obey her commands, if you want to

hear the famous organ peal.”

“No, no,” she cried. And with a final look and smile he stepped upon the

train and in another moment was whirled away from that place of many

memories and a solitary hope.

XI.

MISS STUYVESANT.

“She smiled; but he could see arise

Her soul from far adown her eyes.”

—MRS. BROWNING.

“She is a beauty; it is only right I should forewarn you of that.”

“Dark or light?”

“Dark; that is her hair and eyes are almost oriental in their blackness,

but her skin is fair, almost as dazzling as yours, Ona.”

Mrs. Sylvester threw a careless glance in the long mirror before which

she was slowly completing her toilet, and languidly smiled. But whether

at this covert compliment to her greatest charm or at some passing fancy

of her own, it would be difficult to decide. “The dark hair and eyes

come from her father,” remarked she in an abstracted way while she tried

the effect of a bunch of snow-white roses at her waist with a backward

toss of her proud blonde head. “His mother was a Greek. ‘Tell it not in

Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon,’” she exclaimed in a

voice as nearly gay as her indolent nature would allow. For this lady of

fashion was in one of her happiest moods. Her dress, a new one, fitted

her to perfection and the vision mirrored in the glass before her was

not lacking, so far as she could see in one charm that could captivate.

“Do you think she could fasten a ribbon, or arrange a bow?” she further

inquired. “I should like to have some one about me with a knack for

helping a body in an emergency, if possible. Sarah is absolutely the

destruction of any bit of ribbon she undertakes to handle. Look at that

knot of black velvet over there for instance, wouldn’t you think a raw

Irish girl just from the other side would have known better than to tie

it with half the wrong side showing?”

With the habit long ago acquired of glancing wherever her ivory finger

chanced to point, the grave man of the world slowly turned his head full

of the weightiest cares and oppressed by the burden of innumerable

responsibilities, and surveyed the cluster of velvet bows thus

indicated, with a mechanical knitting of the brows.

“I pay Sarah twenty-five dollars a month and that is the result,” his

wife proceeded. “Now if Paula—”

“Paula is not to come here as a waiting maid,” her husband quickly

interposed, a suspicion of color just showing itself for a moment on his

cheek.

“If Paula,” his wife went on, unheeding the interruption save by casting

him a hurried glance over the shoulder of her own reflection in the

glass, “had the taste in such matters of some other members of our

family and could manage to lend me a helping hand now and then, why I

could almost imagine I had my younger sister back with me again, who

with her skill in making one look fit for the eyes of the world, was

such a blessing to us in our old home.”

“I have no doubt Paula could be taught to be equally efficient,” her

husband responded, carefully restraining any further show of impatience.

“She is bright, I am certain, and ribbon-tying is not such a very

difficult art, is it?”

“I don’t know about that; by the way Sarah succeeds I should say it was

about on a par with the science of algebra or—what is that horrid study

they used to threaten to inflict me with at the academy whenever I

complained of a headache? Oh I remember—conic sections.”

“Well, well,” laughed her husband, “she ought soon to to be an expert in

it then; Paula is a famous little mathematician.”

A silence followed this response; Mrs. Sylvester was fitting in her

ear-rings. “I suppose,” said she when the operation was completed, “that

the snow will prevent half the people from coming to-night.” It was a

reception evening at the Sylvester mansion. “But so long as Mrs.

Fitzgerald does not disappoint me, I do not care. What do you think of

the setting of these diamonds?” she inquired, leaning forward to look at

herself more closely, and slowly shaking her head till the rich gems

sparkled like fire.

“It is good,” came in short, quick tones from the lips of her husband.

“Well, I don’t know, there might be a shade more of enamel on the edge

of that ring. I shall speak to the jeweller about it to-morrow. But what

were we talking about?” she dreamily asked, still turning her head from

side to side before the mirror.

“We were talking about adopting your cousin in the place of our child

who is dead,” replied her husband with some severity, pausing in the

middle of the floor which he was pacing, to honor her with a steady

glance.

“O yes! Dear me! what an awkward clasp that man has given to these rings

after all. You will have to fasten them for me.” Then as he stepped

forward with studied courtesy, yawned just a trifle and remarked, “No

one could ever take the place of one’s own child of course. If Geraldine

had lived she would have been a blonde, her eyes were blue as

sapphires.”

He looked in his wife’s face and his hands dropped. He thought of the

day when those eyes, blue as sapphires indeed, flashed burning with

death’s own fever, from the little crib in the nursery, while with this

same cool and self-satisfied countenance, the wife and mother before him

had swept down the broad stairs to her carriage, murmuring

apologetically as she gathered up her train, “O you needn’t trouble

yourself to look after her, she will do very well with Sarah.”

She may have thought of it too, for the least little bit of real crimson

found its way through the rouge on her cheek as she encountered the

stern look of his eye, but she only turned a trifle more towards the

glass, saying, “I forgot you do not admire the rôle of waiting maid. I

will try and manage them myself, seeing that you have banished Sarah.”

He exerted his self-control and again for the thousandth time buried

that ghastly memory out of sight, actually forcing himself to smile as

he gently took her hand from her ear and began deftly to fasten the

rebellious ornaments.

“You mistake,” said he, “love can ask any favor without hesitation. I do

not object to waiting upon my own wife.”

She gave him a little look which he obligingly took as a guerdon for

this speech, and languidly held out her bracelets. As he stood clasping

them on her arms, she quietly eyed him over from head to foot. “I don’t

know of a man who has your figure,” said she with a certain tone of

pride in her voice; “it is well you married a wife who does not look

altogether inferior beside you.” Then as he bowed with mock appreciation

of the intended compliment, added with her usual inconsequence, “I dare

say it would give me something to interest myself in. I don’t suppose

she has a decent thing to wear, and the fact of her being a dark beauty

would lend quite a new impulse to my inventive faculty. Mrs. Walker has

a daughter with black eyes, but dear me, what a guy she does make of

her!”

With a sigh Mr. Sylvester turned to the window where he stood looking

out at the heavy flakes of snow falling with slow and fluctuating

movement between him and the row of brown stone houses in front. Paula

considered as a milliner’s block upon which to try the effect of

clothes!

“Even Mrs. Fitzgerald with all her taste don’t know how to dress her

child,” proceeded his wife, with a hurried, “Be still, Cherry!” to the

importunate bird in the cage. “Now I should take as much pride in

dressing any one under my charge as I would myself, provided the subject

was likely to do credit to my efforts.” And finding the bird

incorrigible in his shrill singing, she moved over to the cage, where

she stood balancing her white finger for the bird to peck at, with a

pretty caressing motion of her lip, the little Geraldine of the wistful

blue eyes, had never seen.

“You are welcome to do what you please in such matters,” was her

husband’s reply. He was thinking again of that same little Geraldine; a

fall of snow like the present always made him think of her and her

innocent query as to whether God threw down such big flakes to amuse

little children. “I give you _carte blanche_,” said he with sudden

emphasis.

Mrs. Sylvester paused in her attentions to the bird to give him a sharp

little look which might have aroused his surprise if he had been

fortunate enough to see it. But his back was towards her, and there was

nothing in the languidly careless tone with which she responded, to

cause him to turn his head. “I see that you would really like to have me

entertain the child; but—”

She paused, pursing up her lips to meet the chattering bird’s caress,

while her husband in his impatience drummed with his fingers on the

pane.

—“I must see her before I decide upon the length of her visit,”

continued she, as weary with the sport she drew back to give herself a

final look in the glass. “Will you please to hand me that shawl,

Edward.”

He turned with alacrity. In his relief he could have kissed the snowy

neck held so erectly before him, as he drew around it the shawl he had

hastily lifted from the chair at his side. But that would not have

suited this calm and languid beauty who disliked any too overt tribute

to her charms and saved her caresses for her bird. Besides it would look

like gratitude, and gratitude would be misplaced towards a wife who had

just indicated her acceptance of his offer to receive a relative of her

own into his house.

“She might as well come at once,” was her final remark, as satisfied at

last with the lay of every ribbon she swept in finished elegance from

the room. “Mrs. Kittredge’s reception comes off a week from Thursday,

and I should like to see how a dark beauty with a fair skin would look

in that new shade of heliotrope.”

And so the battle was over and the victory won; for Mrs. Sylvester for

all her seeming indifference was never known to change a decision she

had once made. As he realized the fact, as he meditated that ere long

this very room which had been the scene of so much frivolity and the

witness to so many secret heart-burnings, would reëcho to the tread of

the pure and innocent child, whose mind had flights unknown to the

slaves of fashion, and in whose heart lay impulses of goodness that

would satisfy the long smothered cravings of his awakened nature, he

experienced a feeling of relenting towards the wife who had not chosen

to thwart him in this the strongest wish of his childless manhood, and

crossing to her dressing table, he dropped among its treasures a costly

ring which he had been induced to purchase that day from an old friend

who had fallen into want. “She will wear it,” murmured he to himself,

“for its hue will make her hand look still whiter, and when I see it

sparkle I will remember this hour and be patient.” Had he known that she

had yielded to this wish out of a certain vague feeling of compunction

for the disappointments she had frequently occasioned him and would

occasion him again, he might have added a tender thought to the rich and

costly gift with which he had just endowed her.

“I expect a young cousin of mine to spend the winter with me and pursue

her studies,” were the first words that greeted his ears as an hour or

so later he entered the parlor where his wife was entertaining what few

guests had been anxious enough for a sight of Mrs. Sylvester’s newly

furnished drawing-room, to brave the now rapidly falling snow. “I hope

that you and she will be friends.”

Curious to see what sort of a companion his wife was thus somewhat

prematurely providing for Paula, he hastily advanced towards the little

group from which her voice had proceeded, and found himself face to face

with a brown-haired girl whose appealing glance and somewhat infantile

mouth were in striking contrast to the dignity with which she carried

her small head and managed her whole somewhat petite person.

“Miss Stuyvesant! my husband!” came in musical tones from his wife, and

somewhat surprised to hear a name that but a moment before had been the

uppermost in his mind, he bowed with courtesy and then asked if he was

so happy as to speak to a daughter of Thaddeus Stuyvesant.

“If it will give you especial pleasure I will say yes,” responded the

little miss with a smile that irradiated her whole face. “Do you know my

father?”

“There are but few bankers in the city who have not that pleasure,”

replied he with an answering look of regard. “I am especially happy to

meet his daughter in my house to-night.”

There was something in his manner of saying this and in the short

inquiring glance which at every opportunity he cast upon her bright

young face with its nameless charm of mingled appeal and reserve, that

astonished his wife.

“Miss Stuyvesant was in the carriage with Mrs. Fitzgerald,” said that

lady with a certain dignity she knew well how to assume. “I am afraid if

it had not been for that circumstance we should not have enjoyed the

pleasure of her presence.” And with the rare tact of which she was

certainly a mistress, as far as all social matters were concerned, she

left the aspiring magnate of Wall Street to converse with the daughter

of the man whom all New York bankers were expected to know, and hastened

to join a group of ladies discussing ceramics before a huge placque of

rarest _cloissone_.

Mr. Sylvester followed her with his eyes; he had never seen her look

more vivacious; had the hope of seeing a young face at their board

touched some secret chord in her nature as well as his? Was she more of

a woman than he imagined, and would she be, though in the most

superficial of ways, a mother to Paula? Flushed with the thought, he

turned back to the little lady at his side. She was gazing in an intent

and thoughtful way at an engraving of Dubufe’s “Prodigal Son” that

adorned the wall above her head. There was something in her face that

made him ask:

“Is that a favorite picture of yours?”

She smiled and nodded her small and delicate head.

“Yes sir, it is indeed, but I was not looking at the picture so much as

at the face of that dark-haired girl that sits in the centre, with that

far-away expression in her eyes. Do you see what I mean? She is like

none of the rest. Her form is before us, but her heart and her interest

are in some distant clime or forsaken home to which the music murmured

at her side recalls her. She has a soul above her surroundings, that

girl; and her face is indescribably pathetic to me. In the recesses of

her being she carries a memory or a regret that separates her from the

world and makes certain moments of her life almost holy.”

“You look deep,” said Mr. Sylvester, gazing down upon the little lady’s

face with strongly awakened interest. “You see more perhaps than the

painter intended.”

“No, no; possibly more than the engraving expresses, but not more than

the artist intended. I saw the original once, when as you remember it

was on exhibition here. I was a wee thing, but I never forgot that

girl’s face. It spoke more than all the rest to me; perhaps because I so

much honor reserve in one who holds in his breast a great pain or a

great hope.”

The eye that was resting upon her, softened indescribably. “You believe

in great hopes,” said he.

The little figure seemed to grow tall; and her face looked almost

beautiful. “What would life be without them?” she answered.

“True,” returned Mr. Sylvester; and entering into the conversation with

unusual spirit, was astonished to find how young she was and yet how

thoroughly bright and self-possessed.

“Lovely girls are cropping up around me in all directions,” thought he;

“I shall have to correct my judgment concerning our young ladies of

fashion if I encounter many more as sensible and earnest-hearted as

this.” And for some reason his brow grew so light and his tone so

cheerful that the ladies were attracted from all parts of the room to

hear what the demure Miss Stuyvesant could have to say to the grave

master of the house, to call forth such smiles of enjoyment upon his

usually melancholy countenance.

Take it all together, the occasion though small was one of the

pleasantest of the season, and so Mrs. Sylvester announced when the last

carriage had driven away, and she and her husband stood in the

brilliantly lighted library, surveying a new cabinet of rare and antique

workmanship which had been that day installed in the place of honor

beneath my lady’s picture.

“I thought you seemed to enjoy it, Ona,” her husband remarked.

“O, it was an occasion of triumph to me,” she murmured. “It is the first

time a Stuyvesant has crossed our threshold, _mon cher_.”

“Ha,” he exclaimed, turning upon her a brisk displeased look. He was

proud and considered no man his superior in a social sense. “Do you

acknowledge yourself a parvenue that you rejoice at the entrance of any

one special person into your doors?”

“I thought,” she replied somewhat mortified, “that you betrayed unusual

pleasure yourself at her introduction.”

“That may be; I was glad to see her here, for her father is one of the

most influential directors in the bank of which I shortly expect to be

made president.”

The nature of this disclosure was calculated to be especially gratifying

to her, and effectually blotted out any remembrance of the break by

which it had been introduced. After a few hasty inquiries, followed by a

scene of quite honest mutual congratulation, the gratified wife left her

husband to put out the lights himself or call Samuel as he might choose,

and glided up stairs to delight the curious Sarah with the broken

soliloquies and inconsequent self-communings which formed another of her

peculiar habits.

As for her husband, he stood a few minutes where she left him,

abstractedly eying the gorgeous vista that spread out before him down to

the further mirror of the elaborate drawing-room, thinking perhaps with

a certain degree of pride, of the swiftness with which he had risen to

opulence and the certainty with which he had conquered position in the

business as well as in the social world when he could speak of such a

connection with Thaddeus Stuyvesant as a project already matured. Then

with a hasty movement and a quick sigh which nothing in his prospects

actual or apparent would seem to warrant, he proceeded to put out the

lights, my lady’s picture shining with less and less importunity as the

flickering jets disappeared, till all was dark save for the faint

glimmer that came in from the hall, a glimmer just sufficient to show

the outlines of the various articles of furniture scattered about—and

could it be the tall figure of the master himself standing in the centre

of the room with his palms pressed against his forehead in an attitude

of sorrow or despair? Yes, or whose that wild murmur, “Is it never given

to man to forget!” Yet no, or who is this that calm and dignified, steps

at this moment from the threshold? It must have been a dream, a

phantasy. _This_ is the master of the house who with sedate and regular

step goes up flight after flight of the spiral staircase, and neither

pauses or looks back till he reaches the top of the house where he takes

out a key from his pocket, and opening a certain door, goes in and locks

it behind him. It is his secret study or retreat, a room which no one is

allowed to enter, the mystery of the house to the servants and something

more than that to its inquisitive mistress. What he does there no man

knows, but to-night if any one had been curious enough to listen, they

would have heard nothing more ominous than the monotonous scratch of a

pen. He was writing to Miss Belinda and the burden of his letter was

that on a certain day he named, he was coming to take away Paula.

XII.

MISS BELINDA MAKES CONDITIONS.

“For of the soul the body form doth take,

For soul is form, and doth the body make.”—SPENSER.

Miss Belinda was somewhat taken aback at the proposal of Mr. Sylvester

to receive Paula into his own house. She had not anticipated any such

result to her efforts; the utmost she had expected was a couple of years

or so of instruction in some state Academy. Nor did she know whether she

was altogether pleased at the turn affairs were taking. From all she had

heard, her niece Ona was, to say the least, a frivolous woman, and Paula

had a mind too noble to be subjected to the deteriorating influence of a

shallow and puerile companionship. Then the child had great beauty; Mr.

Sylvester who ought to be a judge in such matters had declared it so,

and what might not the adulation of the thoughtless and the envy of the

jealous, do towards belittling a nature as yet uncontaminated.

“We ought to think twice,” she said to Miss Abby with some bitterness,

who on the contrary never having thought once was full of the most

childish hopes concerning a result which she considered with a certain

secret complacency she would not have acknowledged for the world, had

been very much furthered by her own wise recommendations to Mr.

Sylvester in the beginning of his visit. Yet notwithstanding her doubts

Miss Belinda allowed such preparations to be made as she considered

necessary, and even lent her hand which was deft enough in its way, to

the task of enlarging the child’s small wardrobe. As for Paula, the

thought of visiting the great city with the dear friend whose image had

stood in her mind from early childhood as the impersonation of all that

was noble, generous and protecting, was more than joyful; it was an

inspiration. Not that she did not cling to the affectionate if somewhat

quaint couple who had befriended her childhood and sacrificed their

comfort to her culture and happiness. But the chord that lies deeper

than gratitude had been struck, and fond as were her memories of the

dear old home, the charm of that deep “My child,” with its hint of

fatherly affection, was more than her heart could stand; and no spot, no

not the realms of fairy-land itself, looked so attractive to her fancy

as that far fireside in an unknown home where she might sit with cousin

Ona and alternately with her exert her wit to beguile the smile to his

melancholy lips.

When therefore upon the stated day, Mr. Sylvester made his second

appearance at the little cottage in Grotewell, it was to find Paula

radiant, Miss Abby tearfully exultant and Miss Belinda—O anomaly of

human nature—silent and severe. Attributing this however to her very

natural regret at parting with Paula, he entered into all the

arrangements for their departure on the following morning without a

suspicion of the real state of her mind, nor was he undeceived until the

day was nearly over and they sat down to have a few minutes of social

conversation before the early tea.

They had been speaking on some local topic involving a question of right

and wrong, and Mr. Sylvester’s ears were yet thrilling to the deep

ringing tones with which Paula uttered the words, “I do not see how any

man can hesitate an instant when the voice of his conscience says no. I

should think the very sunlight would daunt him at the first step of his

foot across the forbidden line,” when Miss Belinda suddenly spoke up and

sending Paula out of the room on some trivial pretext, addressed Mr.

Sylvester without reserve.

“I have something to say to you, sir, before you take from my home the

child of my care and affection.”

Could he have guessed what that something was that he should turn with

such a flush of sudden anxiety to meet her determined gaze.

“The rules of our life here have been simple,” continued she in a tone

of voice which those who knew her well recognized as belonging to her

uncompromising moods. “To do our duty, love God and serve our neighbor.

Paula has been brought up to reverence those rules in simplicity and

honor; what will your gay city life with its hollow devices for pleasure

and its loose hold on the firm principles of life, do for this innocent

soul, Mr. Sylvester?”

“The city,” he said firmly but with a troubled undertone in his voice

that was not unnoted by the watchful woman, “is a vast caldron of

mingled good and evil. She will hear of more wrong doing, and be within

the reach of more self-denying virtue, than if she had remained in this

village alone with the nature that she so much loves. The tree of

knowledge bears two kinds of fruit, Miss Belinda; would you therefore

hinder the child from approaching its branches?”

“No, sir; I am not so weak as to keep a child in swaddling-clothes after

the period of infancy is past, neither am I so reckless as to set her

adrift on an unknown sea without a pilot to guide her. Your wife—” she

paused and fixed an intent look upon the flames leaping before her. “Ona

is my niece,” she resumed in a lower tone of voice, “and I feel entitled

to speak with freedom concerning her. Is she such a guide as I would

choose for a young girl just entering a new sphere in life? From all I

have heard, I should judge she was somewhat over-devoted to this world

and its fashions.”

Mr. Sylvester flushed painfully, but seeing that any softening of the

truth would be wholly ineffectual with this woman, replied in a candid

tone, “Ona is the same now as she was in the days of her girlhood. If

she loves the world too well she is not without her excuse; from her

birth it has strewn nothing but roses in her path.”

“Humph!” came from the lips of the energetic spinster. Then with a

second stern glance at the fire, continued, “Another question, Mr.

Sylvester. Does your wife consent to receive my niece into her house,

for the indefinite length of time which you mention, from interest in

the girl herself or indeed from any motive I should judge worthy of

Paula? It is a leading question I know, but this is no time for niceties

of speech.”

“Miss Belinda,” replied he, and his voice was firm though his fingers

slightly trembled where they rested upon the arms of his chair, “I will

try and forget for a moment that Ona is my wife, and frankly confide to

you that any such motive on her part, as would meet with your entire

approval, must not be expected from a woman who has never fully

recognized the solemn responsibilities of life. That she will be kind to

Paula I have no doubt, that she may even learn to take an interest in

her for her own sake, is also very possible, but that she will ever take

your place towards her as guide or instructor, I neither anticipate nor

would feel myself justified in leading you to.”

The look which Miss Belinda cast him was anything but reassuring. “And

yet,” said she, “you will take away my darling and give her up to an

influence that can not be for good, or your glance would not be so

troubled or your lip so uncertain. You would set her young feet in a

path where the very flowers are so thick they conceal its tendency and

obscure its dangers. Mr. Sylvester you are a man who has seen life with

naked eyes, and must recognize its responsibilities; dare you take this

Paula, whom you have seen, out of the atmosphere of truth and purity in

which she has been raised, and give her over to the enervating

influences of folly and fashion? Will you assume the risk and brave the

consequences?”

As though an electric shock had touched the nerve of his nature, Mr.

Sylvester hastily rose and moved in a restless manner to the window. It

was his favorite refuge in any time of sudden perplexity or doubt, and

this was surely an occasion for both.

“Miss Belinda,” he began and then paused, looking out on the hills of

his boyhood, every one of which spoke to him at that moment with a force

that almost sickened his heart and benumbed the faculties of his mind;

“I recognize the love which leads you to speak in this way, and I bow

before it, but—” here his tongue faltered again, that ready tongue

whose quick and persuasive eloquence on public occasions had won for him

the name of Silver-speech among his friends and admirers—“but there are

others who love your Paula also, love her with a yearning that only the

childless can feel or the disappointed appreciate. I had hoped—” here

he left the window and approached her side, “to do more for Paula than

to give her the temporal benefit of a luxurious home and such

instruction as her extraordinary talents demand. If Ona upon seeing and

knowing the child had found she could love her, I had intended to ask

you to yield her to us unreservedly and forever, in short to make her my

child in place of the daughter I have lost. But now—” with a quick

gesture he began pacing the floor and left the sentence unfinished.

Miss Belinda’s eyes which were of a light grey, wholly without beauty

but with strange flashes of expression in them, left the fire and fell

upon his face, and a tear of real feeling gathered beneath her lids.

“I had no idea,” said he, “that you cherished any such intention as

that. If I had I might have worded my apprehensions differently. The

yearning feeling of which you speak, I can easily understand, also the

strength of the determination it must take on the part of a man like

yourself, to give up a hope of this nature. Yet—” Seeing him pause in

his hurried pacing and open his lips as if to speak, she deferentially

stopped.

“Miss Belinda,” said he, in the firm and steadfast way more in keeping

with his features than his agitated manner of a moment before, “I cannot

give it up. The injury it would do me is greater than the harm, which

one of Paula’s lofty nature would be apt to acquire in any atmosphere

into which she might chance to be introduced. She is not a child, Miss

Belinda, though we allude to her as such. The texture of those

principles which you have instilled into her breast, is of no such weak

material as to give way to the first petty breeze that blows. Paula’s

house will stand, while mine—”

He paused and gave way to a momentary struggle, but that over, he set

his lips firmly together and the last vestige of irresolution vanished.

Sitting down by her side, he turned his face upon her, and for the first

time she realized the power which with one exception he had always

exerted over the minds of others. “Miss Belinda,” said he, “I am going

to give you an evidence of my trust; I am going to leave with you the

responsibility of Paula’s future. She shall go with me, and learn, if

she can, to love me and mine, but she shall also be under obligations to

open her heart to you on all matters that concern her life and happiness

in my house, and the day you see any falling off in her pure and upright

spirit, you shall demand her return, and though it tears the heart from

my breast, I will yield her up without question or parley as I am a

gentleman and a Christian. Does that content you?”

“It certainly ought to, sir. No one could ask more, I am sure,” returned

the other in a voice somewhat unsteady for her.

“It is opening my house to the gaze of a stranger,” said he, “for I

desire you to command Paula to withhold nothing that seriously affects

her; but my confidence in you is unbounded and I am sure that whatever

you may learn in this way, will be held as sacred by you as though it

were buried in a tomb.”

“It certainly will, sir.”

“As for the dearer hope which I have mentioned, time and the condition

of things must decide for us. Meanwhile I shall strive to win a father’s

place in her heart, if only to build myself a refuge for the days that

are to come. You see I speak frankly, Miss Belinda; will you give me

some token that you are not altogether dissatisfied with the result of

this conversation?”

With the straightforward if somewhat blunt action that characterized all

her movements, she stretched out her hand, which he took with something

more than his usual high-bred courtesy. “With you at the wheel,” said

she, “I think I may trust my darling, even to the whirl and follies of

such a society as I know Ona loves. A man who can so command himself,

ought to be a safe guide to pioneer others.”

And the considerate gentleman bowed; but the frank smile that hailed her

genial clasp had somehow vanished, and from the sudden cloud that at

that moment swept over the roseate heavens, fell a shadow that left its

impress on his lip long after the cloud itself had departed.

An hour or so had passed. The fire was burning brightly on the

hearthstone, illumining with a steady glow the array of stuffed birds,

worsted samplers and old-fashioned portraits with which the walls were

adorned, but reserving its richest glow and fullest irradiation for the

bended head of Paula, who seated on a little stool in the corner of the

hearth, was watching the rise and fall of the flickering flames.

She had packed her little trunk, had said good-bye to all her

neighboring friends and was now sitting on the old hearthstone, musing

upon the new life that was about to open before her. It was a happy

musing, as the smile that vaguely dimpled her cheeks and brightened her

eyes beneath their long lashes, amply testified. As Mr. Sylvester

watched her from the opposite side of the hearth where he was sitting

alone with his thoughts, he felt his heart sink with apprehension at the

fervor of anticipation with which she evidently looked forward to the

life in the new home. “The young wings think to gain freedom,” thought

he, “when they are only destined to the confinement of a gilded cage.”

He was so silent and looked so sad, Paula with a certain sort of

sensitiveness to any change in the emotional atmosphere surrounding her,

which was one of her chief characteristics, hastily looked up and

meeting his eye fixed on her with that foreboding glance, softly arose

and came and sat down by his side. “You look tired,” murmured she; “the

long ride after a day of business care has been too much for you.”

It was the first word of sympathy with his often over-wearied mind and

body, that had greeted his ears for years. It made his eyes moisten.

“I have been a little overworked,” said he, “for the last two months,

but I shall soon be myself again. What were you thinking of, Paula?”

“What was I thinking of?” repeated she, drawing her chair nearer to his

in her loving confidence. “I was thinking what wonders of beauty and art

lay in that great kernel which you call the city. I shall see lovely

faces and noble forms. I shall wander through halls of music, the echo

of whose songs may have come to me in the sob of the river or the sigh

of the pines, but whose notes in all their beauty and power have never

been heard by me even in my dreams. I shall look on great men and touch

the garments of thoughtful women. I shall see life in its fullness as I

have felt nature in its mightiness, and my heart will be satisfied at

last.”

Mr. Sylvester drew a deep breath and his eyes burned strangely in the

glow of the fire-light. “You expect high things,” said he; “did you ever

consider that the life in a great city, with its ceaseless rush and

constant rivalries, must be often strangely petty in despite of its

artistic and social advantages?”

“All life has its petty side,” said she, with a sweet arch look. “The

eagle that cleaves the thunder-cloud, must sometimes stop to plume its

wings. I should be sorry to lose the small things out of existence. Even

we in the face of that great sunset appealing to us from the west, have

to pile up the firewood on the hearth and set the table for supper.”

“But fashion, Paula,” he pursued, concealing his wonder at the maturity

of mind evinced by this simple child of nature, “that inexorable power

that rules the very souls of women who once step within the magic circle

of her realm! have you never thought of her and the demands that she

makes on the time and attention even of the worshippers of the good and

the true?”

“Yes, sometimes,” she returned with a repetition of her arch little

smile, “when I put on a certain bonnet I have, which Aunt Abby modeled

over from one of my grandmother’s. Fashion is a sort of obstinate

step-dame I imagine, whom it is less trouble to obey than to oppose. I

don’t believe I shall quarrel with Fashion if she will only promise to

keep her hands off my soul.”

“But if—” with a pause, “she asks your all, what then?”

“I shall consider that I am in a country of democratic principles,” she

laughed, “and beg to be excused from acceding to the tyrannical demands

of any autocrat male or female.”

“You have been listening to Miss Belinda,” said he; “she is also opposed

to all and any tyrannical measures.” Then with a grave look from which

all levity had fled, he leaned toward the young girl and gently asked,

“Do you know that you are a very beautiful girl, Paula?”

She flushed, looked at him in some surprise and slowly drooped her head.

“I have been told I looked like my father,” said she, “and I know that

means something very kind.”

“My child,” said he, with gentle insistence, “God has given you a great

and wonderful gift, a treasure-casket of whose worth you scarcely

realize the value. I tell you this myself, first because I prize your

beauty as something quite sacred and pure, and secondly because you are

going where you will hear words of adulation, whose folly and bluntness

will often offend your ears, unless you carry in your soul some talisman

to counteract their effect.”

“I understand,” said she, “I know what you mean. I will remember that

the most engaging beauty is nothing without a pure mind and a good

heart.”

“And you will remember too,” continued he, “that I blessed your innocent

head to-night, not because it is circled by the roses of a youthful and

fresh loveliness, but because of the pure mind and good heart I see

shining in your eyes.” And with a fond but solemn aspect he reached out

his hand and laid it on her ebon locks.

She bowed her head upon her breast. “I will never forget,” said she, and

the fire-light fell with a softening glow on the tears that trembled

from her eye-lashes.

XIII.

THE END OF MY LADY’S PICTURE.

“Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.”—POPE.

Mrs. Sylvester was spending an evening at home. This was something so

unusual for this august lady of fashion to indulge in, that she found it

difficult not to fall asleep in the huge crimson-backed chair in which

she had chosen to ensconce herself. Not that she had desisted from

making every effort known to mortal woman to keep herself awake and if

possible amused till the expected travellers should arrive. She had

played with her bird till the spoiled pet had himself protested, ducking

his head under his wing and proceeding without ceremony to make up his

little feather bed, as cunning Geraldine used to call the round, fluffy

ball into which he rolled himself at night. More than that, she had

looked over her ornaments and taken out such articles as she thought

could be spared for Paula, to say nothing of playing a bar or so from

the last operatic sensation, and laboriously cutting open the leaves of

the new magazine. But it was all of no use, and the heavy white lids

were slowly falling, when the bell rang and Mr. Bertram Mandeville was

announced, or rather Bertram Sylvester as he now chose to be called.

It was a godsend to her as she politely informed him upon his entrance;

and though in his secret heart he felt anything but God sent—he was not

of a make to appreciate his uncle’s wife at her very evident value—he

consented to remain and assist her in disposing of the evening till Mr.

Sylvester should return.

“He is going to bring a pretty girl with him,” remarked she, in a tone

of some interest, “a cousin of mine from Grotewell. I should like to

have you see her.”

“Thank you,” replied he, his mind roaming off at the suggestion, into

the region of a certain plain little music-room where the clock on the

mantel ticked to the beating of his own heart. And for ten minutes Mrs.

Sylvester had the pleasure of filling the room with a stream of easy

talk, in which Grotewell, dark beauties, the coming Seventh Regiment

reception, the last bit of gossip from London, and the exact situation

of the Madison Bank formed the principal topics.

To the one last mentioned, it having taken the form of a question, he

was forced to reply; but the simple locality having been learned, she

rambled easily on, this time indulging him with a criticism upon the

personal appearance of certain business gentlemen who visited the house,

ending with the somewhat startling declaration:

“If Edward were not the fine appearing gentleman that he undoubtedly is,

I should feel utterly out of place in these handsome parlors. Anything

but to see an elegant and modern home, decorated with the costliest

works of art, and filled with _bijouterie_ of the most exquisite

delicacy, presided over by a plain and common-place woman or a

bald-headed and inferior-looking man. The contrast is too vivid; works

of the highest art do not need such a startling comparison to bring out

their beauty. Now if Edward stood in the throne-room of a palace, he

would somehow make it seem to others as a handsome set off to his own

face and figure.”

This was all very wife-like if somewhat unnecessary, and Bertram could

have listened to it with pleasure, if she had not cast the frequent and

side-long glances at the mirror, which sufficiently betrayed the fact

that she included herself in this complacent conclusion; as indeed she

may have considered herself justified in doing, husband and wife being

undoubtedly of one flesh. As it was, he maintained an immovable

countenance, though he admired his uncle as much as she did, and the

conversation gradually languished till the white somnolent lids of the

lady again began to show certain premonitory signs of drooping, when

suddenly they were both aroused by the well known click of a latch-key

in the door, and in another moment Mr. Sylvester’s voice was heard in

the hall, saying, in tones whose cheery accents made his wife’s eyes

open in surprise—

“Welcome home, my dear.”

“They have come,” murmured Mrs. Sylvester rising with a look of

undeniable expectation. Had Paula not been a beauty she would have

remained seated.

“Yes, we have come,” was heard in hearty tones from the door-way, and

Mr. Sylvester with a proud look which Bertram long remembered, ushered

into their presence a young girl whose simple cloak and bonnet in no

wise prevented Mrs. Sylvester from recognizing the somewhat uncommon

beauty she had been led to expect.

“Paula, this is your cousin Ona, and—Ah, Bertram, glad to see you—this

is my only nephew, Mr. Sylvester.”

The young girl, lost in the sudden glamour of numerous lights, shining

upon splendors such as she may have dreamed of over the pages of

Irving’s Alhambra, but certainly had never before seen, blushed with

very natural embarrassment, but yet managed to bestow a pretty enough

greeting upon the elegant woman and handsome youth, while Ona after the

first moment of almost involuntary hesitation, took in hers the two

trembling hands of her youthful cousin and actually kissed her cheek.

“I am not given to caresses as you know,” she afterwards explained in a

somewhat apologetic tone to her husband; “and anything like an appeal

for one on the part of a child or an inferior, I detest; but her simple

way of holding out her hand disarmed me, and then such a face demands a

certain amount of homage, does it not?” And her husband in his surprise,

was forced to acknowledge to himself, that as closely as he had studied

his wife’s nature for ten years, there were certain crooks and turns in

it which even he had never penetrated.

“You look dazzled,” that lady exclaimed, gazing not unkindly into the

young girl’s face; “the sudden glare of so much gas-light has bewildered

you.”

“I do not think it is that,” returned Paula with a frank and admiring

look at the gorgeous room and the circle of pleasant faces about her.

“Sudden lights I can bear, but I have come from a little cottage on the

hillside and the magnificence of nature does not prepare you for the

first sudden view of the splendors of art.”

Mrs. Sylvester smiled and cast a side glance of amusement at Bertram.

“You admire our new hangings I see,” remarked she with an indulgence of

the other’s _näiveté_ that greatly relieved her husband.

But in that instant a change had come across Paula; the simple country

maid had assimilated herself with the surroundings, and with a sudden

grace and dignity that were unstudied as they were charming, dropped her

eyes from her cousin’s portrait—that for some reason seemed to shine

with more than its usual insistence—and calmly replied, “I admire all

beautiful color; it is my birthright as a Walton, to do so, I suppose.”

Mrs. Sylvester was a Walton also and therefore smiled; but her husband,

who had marked with inward distrust, the sudden transformation in Paula,

now stepped forward with a word or two of remark concerning his

appetite, a prosaic allusion that led to the rapid disappearance of the

ladies upstairs and a short but hurried conversation between the two

gentlemen.

“I have brought you a sealed envelope from the office,” said Bertram,

who, in accordance with his uncle’s advice, had already initiated

himself into business by assuming the position of clerk in the office of

the wealthy speculator.

“Ah,” returned his uncle hastily opening it. “As I expected, a meeting

has been held this day by the board of Directors of the Madison Bank, a

vote was cast, my proxy did his duty and I am duly elected President.

Bertram, we know what that means,” smiled he, holding out his hand with

an affectionate warmth greatly in advance of the emotion displayed by

him on a former occasion.

“I hope so indeed,” young Bertram responded. “An increase of fortune and

honor for you, though you seem to have both in the fullest measure

already, and a start in the new life for me to whom fortune and honor

mean happiness.”

A smile younger and more full of hope than any he had seen on his

uncle’s face for years, responded to this burst. “Bertram,” said he,

“since our conversation of a couple of weeks ago something has occurred

which somewhat alters the opinions I then expressed. If you have

patience equal to your energy, and a self-control that will not put to

shame your unbounded trust in women, I think I can say God-speed to your

serious undertaking, with something like a good heart. Women are not all

frivolous and foolish-minded; there are some jewels of simple goodness

and faith yet left in the world.”

“Thank God for your conversion,” returned his nephew smiling, “and if

this lovely girl whom you have just introduced to me, is the cause of

it, then thank God for her also.”

His uncle bowed with a gravity almost solemn, but the ladies returning

at this moment, he refrained from further reply. After supper, to which

unusual meal Mr. Sylvester insisted upon his nephew remaining, the two

gentlemen again drew apart.

“If you have decided upon buying the shares I have mentioned,” said the

former, “you had better get your money in a position to handle at once.

I shall wish to present you to Mr. Stuyvesant to-morrow, and I should

like to be able to mention you as a future stockholder in the bank.”

“Mr. Stuyvesant!” exclaimed Bertram, ignoring the rest of the sentence.

“Yes,” returned his uncle with a smile, “Thaddeus Stuyvesant is the next

largest stockholder to myself in the Madison Bank, and his patronage is

not an undesirable one.”

“Indeed—I was not aware—excuse me, I should be happy,” stammered the

young man. “As for the money, it is all in Governments and is at your

command whenever you please.”

“That is good, I’ll notify you when I’m ready for the transfer. And now

come,” said he, with a change from his deep business tone to the lighter

one of ordinary social converse, “forget for a half hour that you have

discarded the name of Mandeville, and give us an aria or a sonata from

Mendelssohn before those hands have quite lost their cunning.”

“But the ladies,” inquired the youth glancing towards the drawing-room

where Mrs. Sylvester was giving Paula her first lesson in ceramics.

“Ah, it is to see how the charm will act upon my shy country lassie,

that I request such a favor.”

“Has she never heard Mendelssohn?”

“Not with your interpretation.”

Without further hesitation the young musician proceeded to the piano,

which occupied a position opposite to my lady’s picture in this

anomalous room denominated by courtesy the library. In another instant,

a chord delicate and ringing, disturbed the silence of the long vista,

and one of Mendelssohn’s most exquisite songs trembled in all its

delicious harmony through these apartments of sensuous luxury.

Mr. Sylvester had seated himself where he could see the distant figure

of Paula, and leaning back in his chair, watched for the first startled

response on her part. He was not disappointed. At the first note, he

beheld her spirited head turn in a certain wondering surprise, followed

presently by her whole quivering form, till he could perceive her face,

upon which were the dawnings of a great delight, flush and pale by

turns, until the climax of the melody being reached, she came slowly

down the room, stretching out her hands like a child, and breathing

heavily as if her ecstacy of joy in its impotence to adequately express

itself, had caught an expression from pain.

“O Mr. Sylvester!” was all she said as she reached that gentleman’s

side; but Bertram Mandeville recognized the accents of an unfathomable

appreciation in that simple exclamation, and struck into a grand old

battle-song that had always made his own heart beat with something of

the fire of ancient chivalry under its breastplate of modern broadcloth.

“It is the voice of the thunder clouds when they marshal for battle!”

exclaimed she at the conclusion. “I can hear the cry of a righteous

struggle all through the sublime harmony.”

“You are right; it is a war-song ancient as the time of battle-axes and

spears,” quoth Bertram from his seat at the piano.

“I thought I detected the flashing of steel,” returned she. “O what a

world lies in those simple bits of ivory!”

“Say rather in the fingers that sweep them,” uttered Mr. Sylvester. “You

will not hear such music often.”

“I am glad of that,” she cried simply, then in a quick conscious tone

explained, “I mean that the hearing of such music makes an era in our

life, a starting-point for thoughts that reach away into eternity; we

could not bear such experiences often, it would confuse the spirit if

not deaden its enjoyment. Or so it seems to me,” she added naively,

glancing at her cousin who now came sweeping in from the further room,

where she had been trying the effect of a change in the arrangement of

two little pet monstrosities of Japanese ware.

“What seems to you?” that lady inquired. “O, Mr. Mandeville’s playing? I

beg pardon, Sylvester is the name by which you now wish to be addressed

I suppose. Fine, isn’t it?” she rambled on all in the same tone while

she cautiously hid an unfortunate gape of her rosy mouth behind the

folds of her airy handkerchief. “Mr. Turner says the hiatus you have

made in the musical world by leaving the concert room for the desk, can

never be repaired,” she went on, supposedly to her nephew though she did

not look his way, being at that instant engaged in sinking into her

favorite chair.

“I am glad,” Bertram politely returned with a frank smile, “to have

enjoyed the approval of so cultivated a critic as Mr. Turner. I own it

occasions me a pang now and then,” he remarked to his uncle over his

shoulder, “to think I shall never again call up those looks of

self-forgetful delight, which I have sometimes detected on the faces of

certain ones in my audience.”

And he relapsed without pause into a solemn anthem, the very reverse of

the stirring tones which he had previously accorded them.

“Now we are in a temple!” whispered Paula, subduing the sudden interest

and curiosity which this young man’s last words had awakened. And the

awe which crept over her countenance was the fittest interpretation to

those noble sounds, which the one weary-hearted man in that room could

have found.

“I have something to tell you, Ona,” remarked Mr. Sylvester shortly

after this, as the music being over, they all sat down for a final chat

about the fireside. “I have received notice that the directors of the

Madison Bank have this day elected me their president. I thought you

might like to know it to-night.”

“It is a very gratifying piece of news certainly. President of the

Madison Bank sounds very well, does it not, Paula?”

The young girl with her soul yet ringing with the grand and solemn

harmonies of Mendelssohn and Chopin, turned at this with her brightest

smile. “It certainly does and a little awe-inspiring too;” she added

with her arch glance.

“Your congratulations are also requested for our new assistant cashier.

Arise, Bertram, and greet the ladies.”

With a blush his young nephew arose to his feet.

“What! are you going into the banking business?” queried Mrs. Sylvester.

“Mr. Turner will be more shocked than ever: he chooses to say that

bankers, merchants and such are the solid rock of his church, while the

lighter fry such as artists, musicians, and let us hope he includes us

ladies, are its minarets, and steeples. Now to make a foundation out of

a steeple will quite overturn his methodical mind I fear.”

Mr. Sylvester looked genially at his wife; she was not accustomed to

attempt the facetious; but Paula seemed to have the power of bringing

out unexpected lights and shadows from all with whom she came in

contact.

“A clergyman who rears his church on the basis of wealth must expect

some overturning now and then,” laughed he.

“If by means of it he turns a fresh side to the sun, it will do him no

harm,” chimed in Paula.

Seldom had there been so much simple gaiety round that fireside; the

very atmosphere grew lighter, and the brilliance of my lady’s picture

became less oppressive.

“We ought to have a happy winter of it,” spoke up Mr. Sylvester with a

glance around him. “Life never looked more cheerful for us all, I think;

what do you say, Bertram my boy.”

“It certainly looks promising for me.”

“And for me,” murmured Paula.

The complacent way with which Mrs. Sylvester smoothed out the feathers

of her fan with her jewelled right hand,—she always carried a fan

winter and summer, some said for the purpose of displaying those same

jewelled fingers—was sufficient answer for her.

At that moment there was a hush, when suddenly the small clock on the

mantel-piece struck eleven, and instantly as if awaiting the signal,

there came a rush and a heavy crash which drew every one to their feet,

and the brilliant portrait of my lady fell from the wall, and toppling

over the cabinet beneath, slid with the various articles of bronze and

china thereon, almost to the very chair in which its handsome prototype

had been sitting.

It was a startling interruption and for an instant no one spoke, then

Paula with a look towards her cousin breathed to herself rather than

said, “Pray God it be not an omen!” And the pale countenances of the two

gentlemen standing face to face on either side of that fallen picture,

showed that the shadow of the same superstition had insensibly crossed

their own minds.

Mrs. Sylvester was the only one who remained unmoved. “Lift if up,”

cried she, “and let us see if it has sustained any injury.”

Instantly Bertram and her husband sprang forward, and in a moment its

glowing surface was turned upward. Who could read the meaning of the

look that crossed her husband’s face as he perceived that the sharp

spear of the bronze horseman, which had been overturned in the fall, had

penetrated the rosy countenance of the portrait and destroyed that

importunate smile forever.

“I suppose it is a judgment upon me for putting all the money you had

allowed me for charitable purposes, into that exquisite bit of bronze,”

observed Mrs. Sylvester, stooping above the overturned horseman with an

expression of regret she had not chosen to bestow on her own ruined

picture. “Ah he is less of a champion than I imagined; he has lost his

spear in the struggle.”

Paula glanced at her cousin in surprise. Was this pleasantry only a veil

assumed by this courtly lady to hide her very natural regret over the

more serious accident? Even her husband turned toward her with a certain

puzzled inquiry in his troubled countenance. But her expression of

unconcern was too natural; evidently the destruction of the picture had

awakened but small regret in her volatile mind.

“She is less vain than I thought,” was the inward comment of Paula.

Ah simple child of the woods and streams, it is the extent of her vanity

not the lack of it, that has produced this effect. She has begun to

realize that ten years have elapsed since this picture was painted, and

that people are beginning to say as they examine it, “Mrs. Sylvester has

not yet lost her complexion, I see.”

A break necessarily followed this disturbance, and before long Bertram

took his leave, not without a cordial pressure from his uncle’s hand and

a look of kindly interest from the stranger lassie, upon whose

sympathetic and imaginative mind the hints let fall as to his former

profession, had produced a deep impression. With his departure Mrs.

Sylvester’s weariness returned, and ere long she led the way to her

apartments up stairs. As Paula was hastening to follow Mr. Sylvester

stopped her.

“You will not allow this unfortunate occurrence,” he said, with a slight

gesture towards the picture now standing with its face against the wall,

“to mar your first sleep under my roof, will you Paula, my child?”

“No, not if you say that you think Cousin Ona will not be likely to

connect it with my appearance here.”

“I do not think she will; she is not superstitious and besides does not

seem to greatly regret the misfortune.”

“Then I will forget it all and only remember the music.”

“It was all you anticipated?”

“It was more.”

“Sometime I will tell you about the player and the sweet young girl he

loves.”

“Does he—” she paused, blushing; love was a subject upon which she had

never yet spoken to any one.

“Yes he does,” Mr. Sylvester returned smiling.

“I thought there was a meaning in the music I did not quite understand.

Good night, uncle,”—he had requested her to address him thus though he

was in truth her cousin, “and many, many thanks.”

But he stopped her again. “You think you will be happy in these rooms,”

said he; “you love splendor.”

She was not yet sufficiently acquainted with his voice to detect the

regret underlying its kindly tone, and answered without suspicion. “I

did not know it before, but I fear that I do. It dazzled at first, but

now it seems as if I had reached a home towards which I had always been

journeying. I shall dream away hours of joy before each little ornament

that adorns your parlors. The very tiles that surround the fireplace

will demand a week of attention at least.”

She ended with a smile, but unlike formerly he did not seem to catch the

infection. “I had rather you had cared less,” said he, but instantly

regretted the seeming reproach, for her eyes filled with tears and the

tones of her voice trembled as she replied,

“Do you think the beauty I have seen has made me forget the kindness

that has brought me here? I love fine and noble objects, glory of color

and harmony of shape, but more than all these do I love a generous soul

without a blot on its purity, or a flaw in its integrity.”

She had meant to utter something that would show her appreciation of his

goodness and the universal esteem in which he was held, but was quite

unprepared for the start that he gave and the unmistakable deepening of

the shadow on his sombre face. But before she could express her regret

at the offence, whatever it was, he had recovered himself, and it was

with a fatherly tenderness that he laid his hand upon hers while he

said, “Such a soul may yours ever continue, my child,” and then stood

watching her as she glided up the stairs, her charming face showing

every now and then as she leaned on her winding way to the top, to

bestow upon him the tender little smile she had already learned was his

solace and delight.

It was the beginning of happier days for him.