"Oh my constitution has always been weak," she sighed; "I take some

twenty different medicines, I believe," she added, as if she were

trying to frighten me out of the room, "you'd hardly believe it, I

know, you are so healthy."

Here we were interrupted by Mrs. Longfield's plaintive voice reminding

her invalid daughter that she had been sitting "to one side too long,"

and would "excite her spinal inflammation" if she did not "straighten

up against the cushions of her chair."

Miss Longfield sighed peevishly, as she fell back in languid obedience

to this solicitous injunction; she was constantly exposing herself

thus rashly to the mercy of her chronic complaints. Shortly after

this, dinner was announced, and we were mutually delighted, I expect,

to find the latest turn of our conversation, which threatened to be

flat and uninteresting, thus brought to a happy, though abrupt

termination.

As soon after dinner as manners would allow me to leave, I bade good

evening to my amiable hostesses, who were profuse in their regrets and

expressions of disappointment at my early departure, and I sauntered

quietly back to cousin Bessie's house.

It was not yet dark, though the moon was visible in the clear sky, and

relieved, to find myself once more alone, I walked with purposely slow

and leisure steps towards my home, rehearsing in my mind, with much

genuine amusement, my recent brilliant and highly intellectual

conversation with Miss Longfield.

As I drew near the Nyles' gate, its familiar squeak and the

accompanying clash of its iron latches, broke upon my ear. I started,

and peering through the gathering dusk, I saw the figure of a man turn

into the street and stride rapidly away in the opposite direction from

the one I was then pursuing. My heart gave a great leap, I hardly knew

why, and the blood rushed into my face, something caught in my throat

and I gave a short, hysterical cough. I had reached the gate, and the

air around it was yet laden with the scent of a rich cigar, though the

figure had passed into the distant gloom.

I pushed it open nervously, and it fell to with the same squeak and

clash as before. I stopped for a moment, and leaning over the low

railing I looked eagerly up and down the silent street. The moon

struggled through a feathery cloud at this instant, and flooded the

scene before me with its gentle light; I saw a figure again, beyond

the shadows of the tall, bare trees that lay upon the white moonlit

walk, it stopped, and turned sharply around, a little red light was

moving with it, back towards where I was standing.

My heart beat loud and fast, as the footsteps drew nearer and nearer.

I recoiled impulsively behind the projecting post beside me: I was a

coward at the last moment, the scent of the cigar became stronger and

stronger, the ring of advancing footsteps quicker and louder--they had

reached the gate and paused--there was only the post between us now. I

held my breath, and did not dare to move while this suspense lasted.

Would he never move on? I asked myself. How foolish I was to have

waited there at all? I felt tempted to make one bound and spring up

the garden-steps, but I had not courage enough even for this.

While I was busy with these thoughts, the interesting figure receded

to the outer end of the sidewalk and scanned the upper portion of the

house eagerly. I then heard him mutter an impatient "Pshaw!" under his

breath, and he turned to walk away.

All my deserted courage rushed back to me the instant I saw him moving

from me. I sprang from my hiding-place, and leaning my arms upon the

bars of the gate as before, I said timidly:

"Who is that?"

The figure halted suddenly and turned around. In a moment he was

standing beside me with his hat in one hand, the other extended

towards me.

"Why, Dr Campbell, can this be _you_?" I cried in slow bewilderment.

"Yes, Miss Hampden, it is I" he answered nervously, "Are you glad to

see me?"

"Glad" I repeated, half reproachfully, "why should I not be glad? I am

delighted to see you. Won't you come in" I asked, making a movement to

open the gate.

"I have just been to the house, asking for you," he said. "They told

me you had gone out to dine, and they could not say exactly when you

would come back. I have only to-day to spend in the town, and was

feeling quite disappointed at not finding you at home, when the

clashing of the gate arrested my attention. But tell me," he

interrupted gently, "How are you, how have you been since I saw you

last?"

"Oh, I have been well enough, thank you. Cousin Bessie is the very

personification of kindness, and gives me every comfort. I only hope

you have been as well treated as I have," I returned, with an effort

at ordinary civility.

He did not answer immediately; he looked away from me and then said

slowly.

"I have been pretty well--but not well enough. I have been studying

and working very hard."

"What, _you?_" escaped me before I could control it. He laughed an odd

little laugh and added: "Yes--_me_, I have not gone out to a dance or

pleasure party of any kind since--since you left. I have lived with my

books, day and night."

"You must have had some ominous vision in your sleep, Dr. Campbell," I

said with unrestrained surprise, "to have become converted to such

sedentary habits in so short a time."

"Yes, you are right," he answered curtly and somewhat eagerly, "I had

a strange, beautiful vision that showed me the folly and emptiness of

my life more plainly than anything else could ever have done, and I

thank that vision that I have been able to make amends in time for the

omissions and transgressions of the past."

I was half frightened at his earnest voice and serious expression, I

hardly knew what to answer him. When I did speak, I was conscious of a

tremor in my voice that must have betrayed something of the suspicion

his words had awakened in me.

"Your better life is worthier of you, Dr Campbell," I managed to

reply. "You were disposed, I must admit, to make too little of your

energies, which are above the ordinary level."

"It was hardly my fault," he said sadly, "I was in a sort of stupor, I

believe. I rejected the light of faith and morals from my life, and

tried to imagine myself above it. What else could I expect but the

result which followed?"

He was terribly in earnest, his brow was deeply contracted and his

face was whiter than the pale moonlight.

"Then you are a better man for it in every way, I perceive," was my

timid rejoinder.

"I hope so, Amey, I have tried hard to be."

I was startled by the mention of my own name in such a solemn tone,

but my heart was swelling with a rushing tide of sympathy for the man

who had so pronounced it.

"Then you will not regret it, believe me," I said, infusing a buoyant

encouragement into my voice.

"No, I will not, I feel sure," he answered, disengaging his hands and

leaning one elbow on the bar to support his face in his palm. We stood

for a few seconds in silence, during which I looked abstractedly into

the space before me. I knew that his eyes were turned upon me,

although I could not see them. Suddenly he said in a low tone, almost

in a whisper.

"I wish I could read your thoughts, Amey?"

I looked at him quickly, and laughed. Before I had time to make any

reply, the door of the house was opened wide, and cousin Bessie

accompanied by her husband and Louis, stepped out upon the platform. A

beam of lamplight fell full upon Arthur Campbell's face, which was

stern and white, he gave me his unsteady hand, and said brusquely:

"Good-night! I will come and see you to-morrow if you will let me?"

He raised his hat, and bowing with a touch of his old grace and

gallantry, he strode away.

"Well, well Amey!" said Mr. Nyle, in a teasing voice as I turned and

confronted the family trio. "I never would have thought this of _you_!

you might have told us something about it, I'm sure--eh Bessie?"

"Oh we have no right to know her little secrets" cousin Bessie gently

answered, while she drew on one glove. "Amey is sure not to do

anything foolish, I feel certain of that. Is that the gentleman who

called to see you a little while ago, Amey?" she asked, with a very

discreet curiosity.

"Yes, Cousin Bessie, it is Dr. Campbell, he attended my father in his

last illness, you know, I told you about him," I explained very

earnestly.

"Oh yes, dear I remember! he seems to be a very nice person: I hope he

will come again to see you before he goes."

"He asked leave to come to-morrow!" I answered "I suppose you don't

mind?"

"Not in the least, child, why should I?" she put in, somewhat

playfully. "Come Robert! come Louis!" she added, as she descended the

steps leading to the gate. "We are not over early. I hope you won't be

lonesome, Amey," she said, turning back, with one hand on the open

gate.

"Not she," Mr. Nyle broke in, with mischief in his tone, "she'll keep

herself busy with such pleasant thoughts that she will never miss

us--go on."

He held the gate open until Cousin Bessie and Louis had passed out. I

was standing on the topmost step waiting to see them off, and Mr. Nyle,

looking at me to attract my attention, struck an attitude exactly like

that in which they had surprised Dr. Campbell, leaning just as

languidly upon the bars.

"How silver-sweet sound lovers tongues by night,

Like softest music to attending ears!"

He exclaimed, in such a ridiculously sentimental tone, that we all

laughed outright, and cousin Bessie pulling him forcibly away by the

coat-sleeve, looked over his shoulder at me and said consolingly:

"Never mind, Amey, he can't throw stones from a glass house, he did

this kind of thing many a time in his own day--you know you did," she

added, linking her arm within his, and turning her eyes upon his

beaming face with a dash of revived tenderness and old love. I caught

his answering glance, with its accompanying smile so full of a deep

meaning, and the tears came into my eyes. I bade them good-night and

went quietly into the house.

CHAPTER XIV.

Next day Arthur Campbell came to see me, as he had said, and in Cousin

Bessie's humble little parlor, by the cheerful glowing embers, asked

me to become his wife. I might have known it--perhaps I did know it,

in spite of my wilful perverseness in denying it to myself, but I had

not imagined it to be like this. There was no thrill or joy for me in

the sound of his earnest voice, no definite sensation of that

happiness which is said to attend this circumstance, no prospect of

golden pleasures in the near future, that would find us united in

these holy bonds.

It was a simple proposal of marriage from the lips of a man I

respected and liked; a man of talent, and wealth and position, who

flattered me by so generous an offer of his love. There was a glow of

fire about his sentiment, mine had none, and yet I could not have

given him up at that moment for all the world. I liked him, and I

wanted to teach myself to like him still more. He had given up the

attractions of worldly life on my account, and had gone back to the

simple faith of his boyhood, he said my memory had been his only

safe-guard where he had hitherto known no law, that I had "started up

in the darkness of his life" like a steady and hopeful beacon-light

that beckoned him on to better purposes.

"Whether you consent to marry me, or not" said he "I shall always be

the better of having known and loved you, and, if you cannot love me

in return, it will satisfy you perhaps to know that you have done me a

great good otherwise."

I sat in silence for a moment, listening to the deep vibrations of his

solemn voice, ringing through the quiet little room, the hand that

supported my thoughtful face had grown cold and clammy, something

weighed upon my heart, like an unfolded mystery, pregnant with sorrow

or joy, I knew not which. He stood beside me, leaning one elbow

against the broad, old fashioned mantel, and looking into the fire--at

length I raised my eyes, and said with a timid voice.

"I do not deserve your love, Arthur--though I would now, if I could,

if it were in my power."

"What do you mean Amey?" he interrupted with solemn enquiry.

I fidgeted with the folds of my drapery, for another few seconds, and

then answered nervously:

"I hardly know, myself," then lifting up my eyes to his serious face

again, I said as frankly as I knew how. "You have not asked me,

Arthur, whether I have ever loved any one else before?"

He kept on, looking steadily at me, until his blue eyes seemed to have

penetrated the very farthest depths of my soul; then, he answered,

slowly, and with thrilling emphasis.

"You have loved Ernest Dalton, I know. Is there any one else?"

I dropped my lids instantly, and folded my hands tightly together, his

words went through and through me. I hardly knew what to say next, but

feeling that it was urgent upon me to speak in some way, I asked in a

subdued tone, with my eyes still lowered upon my folded hands,

"How do you know I loved Ernest Dalton?"

He laughed, not gaily, nor carelessly, and taking a stride across the

room, turned and said, "It is enough, that I know it, Amey. I don't

ask you to confide your past secrets to me--neither do I blame you for

having been attached to Dalton, he is a good fellow, and though I am

not half as worthy as he is, I presume to covet the same prize that he

does--our luck is in your hands!"

"Ernest Dalton has never spoken to me, of love or marriage," I put in

hastily.

"And Arthur Campbell has" said he, pausing in his rapid strides again,

and standing close beside me--"that should make some difference?"

"So it does, and I give him the preference!" I said, rising from my

seat, and extending my cold, nervous fingers towards him. "It is true

that I have dwelt upon Ernest Dalton's memory with a glowing, girlish

enthusiasm. I have thought of him by day and by night. I have fancied

my love returned, and imagined how happy we could be together. I have

watched him with jealous eyes as he came and went, in and out of our

circles at home. I have wished him near me, when I was desolate and

miserable, and could endure no one else--but now, I would not have

things different from what they are: all that can be a finished,

sealed irrevocable past to you and me. I will marry you, if you are

satisfied with my disposition; I will devote my whole life to your

happiness, Arthur, and if I can help it you shall never have cause to

reproach me, or regret the step you have taken. If you love me, you

will not find it hard to trust me enough, even for this!"

"Amey, that is all I want to hear--you have spoken openly and

honourably, you have done me the fullest justice I could ask. I

believe your simple, earnest promises, I could not do otherwise, it

would kill me to doubt you now. I shall go back to my toil with a

lighter heart than I have had for many a day."

He left for home on the following morning, and as he rolled out of the

depot of our little town I sat alone by the fireside, where,

yesterday, I had pledged myself to him, twisting and turning a

sparkling diamond upon my finger. It was a handsome seal of our

plighted loves; inside, on the smooth round gold, the words "Arthur

and Amey" with the date of the month and year were neatly inscribed.

CHAPTER XV.

Alice Merivale came home for Christmas, that is, in the early part of

December. She had been announced for weeks before, and her immediate

circle were considerably agitated over the welcome tidings, and in

quite a flutter of conjecture and expectation concerning the result of

her extended trip.

Two days after her arrival I received a hasty little note from her, in

which she insisted upon my going to spend the holidays with her, as

she had thousands of topics to discuss with me, and was longing to lay

eyes on me again after so protracted an interval of separation.

The prospect was a pleasant one to me; that interval to which she

alluded had brought me many a reason for wishing to return to my old

home, for a little sojourn among those friends and scenes that had

special claims upon my memory and affections. I submitted her kind

offer to cousin Bessie for a decision, and was of course, encouraged

to accept it, on the grounds that I had never taken a day of real

recreation since I had come to live with her.

The day before I left was snowy and windy, and cold; it was my

birthday. Cousin Bessie took me by the hand, and leading me into the

sitting-room after luncheon, said:

"Sit there, Amey," motioning me to a low rocker that stood on one side

of the fire, while she drew up an easy chair for herself on the other,

"I want to talk to you."

With wondering surprise I threw myself into my seat and looked at her

with eager impatience, waiting for her to begin. She did not lose much

time, only while she picked up her knitting from a work-basket on the

table beside her. When she had put her needle safely through the first

stitch she turned her eyes kindly upon me and began:

"So this is your birthday, Amey? Poor Amey; I remember the day you

were born, well. I never thought at that time the world would be such

a see-saw as it has since shown itself to be. I never expected I would

be called upon to offer you the shelter of my humble roof."

I rocked myself slowly to and fro, and with a sigh answered:

"What would I have done without you, Cousin Bessie?"

This brought a sudden thought into my mind, it was so strange that it

should never have crossed my mind before, I looked up quickly into

cousin Bessie's face and asked with a puzzled and eager curiosity:

"How did you come to know I wanted a home, Cousin Bessie. Who told you

of my father's death?"

She laughed a quiet, suspicious little laugh and then replied:

"I have been waiting for this question ever since you came, and it has

been a continual wonder to me that you have not asked it. However, I

will tell you all about it to-day, and it is a long, long story from

the beginning," said she, laying her knitting down upon her lap and

taking off her glasses, which she wore only while working.

"Your mother and I, as I told you already, were brought up together in

her father's house She was as like you, my child, as your image in the

glass, and on this account I have felt that ever since you have been

with me, I have been living my young days over again with my poor,

dead Amelia, that was as dear as life to my heart. I have told you

about our school days and earlier experiences. I will now tell you the

strange sequel, for I think it is time you knew it.

"When your mother was in her eighteenth year she went to visit a

widowed aunt of hers who was very wealthy, and whose entire fortune

was supposed to be accumulating for your mother's ultimate

inheritance. While she was there she met a young student who fell

violently in love with her, and whose regard she fully reciprocated.

They were both young, and handsome and ardent; both well educated and

highly accomplished, and both devotedly attached to each other. When

your mother came back he nearly died of loneliness and grief, and she

was little better, moping around the house in quiet corners, brooding

over the fire and losing interest in her former occupations. Her

father noticed the change and suspecting the truth, discountenanced it

from the very first. He did not say much to Amey herself, but I saw

that he was resolved to throw impediments in the way of their love's

progress. He called it 'stuff' and in his desire to suppress and

condemn it, he was warmly supported by his maiden sister, who had long

ago decided that Amey's husband should be entirely of her choosing,

and should be one whose social position would restore to the Hartney

family some of the _prestige_ which they had lost through reverses.

"Amey's mother was dead at this time, which accounts for the domestic

reins being altogether in the severe Miss Hartney's hands. For awhile,

however, all bade fair to progress favorably between the young people,

some letters even had been exchanged between them, when one day Miss

Hartney came sailing into the library with a covert light of triumph

in her little piercing eyes, with the announcement to your mother, her

father and myself, who were seated around the table with our different

occupations, that she was 'going off for a few days, to Aunt Liddy's,'

and wanted to know whether we had 'any messages to send?'

"The color rushed into your poor mother's cheeks. She bowed her head

very low over her papers and muttered.

"'Oh yes, give Aunt Liddy my fondest love and tell her I am making all

haste with the screen I have promised her. I shall send it to her in

less than three weeks,' she added, daring now to look up when her

agitation had subsided.

"'Perhaps you would rather take it up yourself, eh?'" said her aunt,

pinching her ears in malicious playfulness. 'I guess I know something

about this screen for Aunt Liddy, it is a screen in more ways than

one--ha-ha,' she exclaimed in taunting mockery, but still with an

effort to keep up a simpering pretence to good-humor.

"Your mother was afraid to say a word, her father had brought her up

to look upon this sister of his as a limb of a jealous law, that would

crush or annihilate her if she slighted or disrespected her in any

way. But the crimson spots came back into her cheeks, and she fell

into a sullen, indignant silence, that lasted long after her

contemptible relative had left us with her incisive good-byes. That

was a fatal visit for your poor mother's hopes, when her aunt returned

she was armed to the teeth for her combat, it began the day after her

arrival; she had invited herself to come and sit with us as we busied

ourselves around the table in the library, as before; she wheeled her

chair towards the window, and leaning back among its cushions, she

began artfully.

"'Aunt Liddy was asking me what would make a nice wedding present,

girls; she expects to be called upon to make one very soon;' the color

crept into your mother's cheeks, and her brown hair almost touched the

paper she wrote upon. 'I told her I would ask you,' Miss Hartney

added, pointedly, 'as you're likely to know more about modern tastes

than I.'"

"'It depends on the sort of person it is intended for,' I said, very

indifferently, without looking up from my work; 'no two people

appreciate the same gift in exactly the same way.'

"'Well, Aunt Liddy does not know very much about the prospective

bride; the groom is her friend, he is a young student of the

University there,' your mother paused, but did not raise her eyes.

'His name is--Dalton,' Miss Hartney went on with an insinuation of

malicious triumph.

"Cousin Bessie!" I cried, leaning forward with quick eagerness and

interrupting her story, "_Dalton_, did you say?"

"Yes, Ernest Dalton," she answered me quietly. "Ernest Dalton whom you

now know, and who is the cause of your being with me to-day."

I looked at her vacantly for a moment, and falling back languidly in

my seat, muttered faintly, "Go on."

"Where was I?" she resumed, looking wistfully into the space between

us; "Oh, yes--where Miss Hartney pronounced Ernest Dalton's name so

flourishingly--your mother looked up at her with a blanched face when

she said this, and asked:

"'Do you know for certain that what you say is true?'

"'Oh! my dear Amey--really--you frighten me,' her aunt exclaimed, with

dilated eyes and recoiling gesture, 'I am sure I can't say whether it

is Gospel truth or not, I only know what I heard and what I saw!'

"'What you _saw_?' your mother interrupted, huskily. 'What did you

_see_, Aunt Winnie?'

"'I saw this Mr. Dalton paying such attentions to a young lady while I

was there as would convince anyone of the truth of the rumours that

are afloat about him,' she simpered out, half-defiantly.

"'His sister, perhaps' your mother muttered, knocking her ivory

pen-handle nervously against her white teeth.

"'No, indeed--nor his cousin neither,' Miss Hartney retorted, with a

covert little sneer. 'What is it to you any way, child, who she is, or

what he does?' she then asked with cruel mischief.

"'It is all the world to me, Aunt Winnie,' your mother made answer,

rising up in solemn dignity, with a white face and quivering lips, 'It

is my life to me, for I love this man.'

"'Whatever are you talking of, child!' her aunt screamed, leaning her

thin hands on the arms of her chair, and bending towards her niece in

furious consternation. 'Pretty work this is; how will your father like

it, I wonder,' she gasped, sinking back again among her cushions in a

dry rage.

"'I don't care how anyone likes it,' said your mother quietly and

sadly. 'I am old enough now to know my own duty. I shall love, and

marry whoever I please.'

"'Well! upon my word--you don't mean to say so--do you, Queen Amelia?'

Miss Hartney returned in cold irony. 'Well then, my dear, you had

better be wider awake to your own interests,' she went on, 'for your

first attempt is going sadly against you already, poor child. I'm glad

your choice pleases you, you are not fastidious--but to all

appearances your regard is not reciprocated very warmly. May be, he is

only amusing himself during your absence, I can't say. He would be a

great fool not to take you when you are so willing, and aunt Liddy is

so fond of you, and getting old now--but it is evident that he enjoys

the society of the other girl. Aunt Liddy herself, with all her

partiality for you, confessed that Ernest Dalton's manner is much more

distant and reserved with you, than with this Inez Campuzano, with her

Spanish beauty, enough to intoxicate any silly, sentimental youth.'

"'Go on, aunt Winnie, said your suffering mother,' looking up at her

tormentor, with a glance of reproachful sarcasm. 'Go on, this is very

comforting, and you seem to relish it. What else?'

"'What else?' Miss Hartney repeated, with all the dainty sarcasm of a

disappointed old maid. 'Well! since you will know, child, I may as

well tell you--the brave Mr. Dalton is not alone in the field; he has

a powerful rival; one of those dark, heroic-looking Frenchmen of high

birth and fierce tempers. He swears he will have Mlle. Campuzano's

hand, or Ernest Dalton's heart-blood--at least this is the story I

have heard; she, in all her rich southern foreign loveliness, plays a

becomingly passive part, and is wooed, they say, first by one and then

by the other. If I were you, Amelia, I would never marry any one who

was not more faithful to me, than this, there will be little happiness

in store for you, if you do; he has plainly slighted you, in giving

cause for such vile rumours while I was in the town, and could hear of

his unbecoming behaviour--give him up child, he is altogether unworthy

of you.' Miss Hartney added, infusing something of a would-be sympathy

and solicitude unto her shrill accents.

"Your mother stood for a moment toying nervously with her white,

trembling fingers. She was so proud. My poor, dear Amelia, and this

taunting intelligence smote her to her heart's core. She swallowed a

great choking sob, and drove the blinding tears that lay upon the

surface of her large sad eyes back into the deep caverns from whence

they had sprung. She then sat quietly down, and resumed her writing.

In a month from that date, my dear Amey," cousin Bessie added in a low

hushed voice, "she was married to your father, Alfred Hampden, who had

wooed her in the meantime."

The hot tears were rolling down my cheeks during this latter part of

my mother's love-story, and when cousin Bessie looked and saw them,

she buried her own face in her hands, and wept silently for few

moments.

"And how did it end?" I asked through my sobs, impatient to know every

detail.

"Sadly enough," said cousin Bessie, wiping her eyes with a little

linen handkerchief, and folding her hands on her knees. "The truth

came out when it was too late. Young Dalton's actions had been

misconstrued by a malicious rumor, as many a good person's are. He had

interested himself somewhat in Mlle. Campuzano at the request of the

very man who, it was said, had determined to murder him, being a

devoted and earnest friend to him all along. He waited patiently for a

little while, thinking it would all come right in time; at length, he

wrote such a pleading letter to your mother, urging her to renew her

old trust in him, and to do him the justice, if not the kindness, of

believing his solemn assurances, before the careless gossip of their

mutual enemies. This letter reached our house on her wedding-day after

she had left for her honey-moon trip.

"Shortly after her return, her aunt Liddy died, and as she was left

sole heiress to the money and property, she was obliged to go to the

funeral: there, she met Ernest Dalton once again. I believe their

interview was heart-rending. She had her dignity as the wife of

another man to sustain, and he had that dignity to respect, but he

cleared himself in her eyes, and they bade one another a long farewell

in the stillness of the death-chamber, with only the peaceful

slumberer, who lay with the eternal sleep upon her cold drooped lids,

as their witness and their safe-guard.

"Your poor mother was never the same again, and succumbed to the very

first trial that beset her after this. She died, while you were yet

struggling into existence. Heaven had pity upon her blighted life, and

called her from the world of shadows and sighs that encompassed her

round about. They repented--all of them--when repentance was only

remorse, and kissed her dead lips with a passionate pleading for

pardon, that was terrible to see.

"They christened you, calling you by her name, and Ernest Dalton was

asked to be your god-father: these were the only amends they were ever

able to make. I hope Heaven was merciful to them all, for they are

dead and gone now," Cousin Bessie added, wiping fresh tears of bitter

sadness from her eyes, "but it was a cruel wrong they did her--a

cruel, cruel wrong," she repeated, swaying herself to and fro, and

looking vacantly into the fire.

"And Ernest Dalton is my guardian, my god-father?" I said in a husky

whisper, leaning towards her.

"Yes dear, did he never tell you? He couldn't speak of your mother, I

suppose," she answered when I had shaken my head in a mute reply to

her question; "he couldn't, God help him. I heard he carries her

picture and his to this day, in a little locket on his watch-chain,

and that he lives in voluntary singleness, determined that no one

shall ever replace her in his love."

The tears were swimming in my eyes again: something throbbed and

burned within my head, and my heart lay full and heavy in my breast. I

remembered the little locket I had found, and saw Hortense's and my

mistake about it now; but I would not speak of it then, I could not. I

thought of Hortense's mysterious letter, and puzzled over it in

painful confusion, but I would not mention that either, until it had

shown me its meaning more definitely. One thing I did ask, with a

trembling, unsteady voice:

"What became of this Miss Campuzano, did you hear, Cousin Bessie?"

"She married the Frenchman, dear, as she intended from the first. She

liked the name and the prospect altogether of becoming his wife."

"What was his name?"

"Bayard de Beaumont, a good one it is I believe."

"Bayard de Beaumont!" I fairly screamed after her. "Oh, Cousin

Bessie," I cried--"how very strange all this is, my nerves are on fire

with agitation. I know him. I have met him, he is the brother of my

little friend Hortense, whose family name I never happened to tell

you."

"Well! that is the man, and a poor prize he had in his Spanish

beauty," cousin Bessie went on. "She was as dazzling as the sunlight,

and as beautiful as the richest exotic, but she was as heartless as a

stone. He was the maddest man in love, they said, that ever lived. He

made an idol of that woman and simply worshipped her, and she smiled

upon him, the cold cruel traitress, as she smiled upon everybody; won

his heart and his senses with her artful wiles, and in the belief that

he was rich, as well as high-born, she married him."

"And they were not happy?" I put in eagerly.

"Happy!" Cousin Bessie repeated with terrible emphasis. "I don't think

they were happy at the close of their wedding-day. She who had been

all smiles, all sweetness before, showed herself in her true colours

then. I have been told, that while they were traveling on their

wedding-day, she coolly remarked to him that, 'there was no reason now

why she should take the trouble to be always in a stupid good-humour,

that he had taken her 'for better, for worse,' and if it was 'for

worse' she couldn't help it.'"

"You can imagine how broken-hearted he became," Cousin Bessie

proceeded, seeing how impatient I was to learn the whole story. "He

grew morbid and gloomy at first, now appealing to her with the remnant

of his former passionate love for her, now indulging her every

caprice, thus hoping to guard against occasions that might provoke her

quick and cutting sarcasm; but he was always coldly and cruelly

baffled; he had married beauty and grace, and external loveliness in

the height of its perfection, but oh! what a soul was coupled with all

this!" Cousin Bessie exclaimed, shrinking into herself. "She was the

most eminently and systematically selfish woman that ever lived, and

she lived to weep and regret it. When she saw that her shameful

behaviour alienated her from the love her husband had once cherished

and professed for her, she declared herself injured and deceived, and

determined to revenge herself. This she did, at the risk of her very

soul."

"What did she do?" I asked in breathless enquiry.

"Had recourse to opium" said Cousin Bessie with a curl of her lip, and

a shrug of her honest shoulders. "And kept at it" she continued,

"until she brought herself to where she is to day!"

"Where?" I asked again, in a hushed whisper.

"To the mad-house, for she has become a raving maniac. Her last

subterfuge was too much for her, and I only hope it may not have

compromised her eternal happiness, in vainly striving to gratify a

fiendish, unreasonable wrath, and avenge imaginary wrongs. Poor thing,

her beauty was a fatal gift to her!"

With the other strange features of cousin Bessie's story still

uppermost in my mind, it is little wonder that I sank back dumfounded

and dazed, into my chair, as these final words resounded in my ears. I

could see Bayard de Beaumont, with his grave, solemn face standing

under a shadow of sorrow and gloom before me. What an infinite

sadness, his seemed to me now, when I knew all! And my dream! How

strange, how true it was. How well I knew that there was danger in

that handsome face, with its intriguing loveliness, and its mock

sincerity!

The outer door closed, while I sat silently thinking, and Louis and

Zita came in with happy, beaming faces, and their school-books piled

upon their arms. Cousin Bessie rose up, with a warning look at me, and

kissed them both, tenderly, in her usual way.

The subject of our afternoon chat was hushed in a moment, and we gave

our attention to the simple discussion of domestic topics, but it

seems to me, if Zita or Louis had been in the least suspicious they

could easily have detected the strained, unnatural efforts which

cousin Bessie and I both made to appear disinterested and free from

distractions, during the rest of that evening.

CHAPTER XVI.

By noon, next day, I had reached my old home, and was folded in Alice

Merivale's warm embrace. How beautiful she looked, standing on the

platform of the depot as we steamed in? So tall, and graceful, and

lady-like, so handsomely dressed, so striking in every particular!

I was proud to be claimed by her, when I came out, and be led

enthusiastically away by her, into their comfortable sleigh, among

their rich and luxurious robes: in twenty minutes we were at the

house, where a cordial reception greeted me on every side.

The news of my engagement had got ahead of me; there is no bridling

intelligences of this nature, whether they go up with the smoke out of

our chimneys, or creep through the key-holes of our doors, it is hard

to say, but get abroad, they must, and do.

They are served up at the _recherche_ repasts of fashionable families,

and keep time with the stitches of gossip-loving milliners and

dress-makers, they are the great prevailing attraction at tea-socials,

sewing societies and bazaars, and are not unfrequently discussed over

the genial "rosy" or behind a flavoured cigar. Rumour is the worst

epidemic that has ever visited humanity.

But as there is nothing to be ashamed of, in half of what Rumour says

about us, we may as well meet it with a friendly face, and this I did,

when my old friends teazed or congratulated me in their peculiar way.

I shall not dwell at length upon the details of my first visit to my

old home: those persons and circumstances that may interest the

reader, more particularly, shall alone claim my attention. Ernest

Dalton was not in town, he had left some days before my arrival, and

had given no definite promise to return at a late or early date. I

only learned, that he had "gone away."

Arthur Campbell, I do not count, of course, for I saw him every day at

least, sometimes twice and oftener, in the twenty-four hours; and

Alice Merivale? She had her own story, which I may as well finish for

the reader, as I pass by.

She had been home, about three weeks, when a dashing young Englishman

took the Capital by storm. One of those tall, lean, wiry-looking

fellows with clothes so well-fitting that a pocket-full of bank-notes

would have utterly destroyed the desired effect. He wore very long and

very pointed shoes, and a peculiar little hat, made of hideous tweed,

with flaps tied over the low crown with fluttering ribbons. He carried

a tall, lean, wiry-looking stick, not a bad counterpart of himself, if

it had only had a tweed cap on one end, and a pair of tooth-pick shoes

on the other, with here and there a little slit for a silk

handkerchief, or a reserved cigar. His drawl was perfect, and his

eye-glass as bright--as his wits.

In his outer pocket, he carried a little plush card-case, stuffed with

little printed visiting cards, on whose immaculate surface, the

name--Mr. Sylvester Davenport Clyde--lay in conscious dignity and

beauty. Away down in the left hand corner, like a parenthetical

guarantee of Mr. Clyde's imposing social standing, was neatly

inscribed--Portland Place, London, England.

Mr. Sylvester Davenport Clyde, of Portland Place, London, England, a

pleasure tourist in Canada, with a (figurative) mortgage on every town

he visited, and a claim on the hand of one of Canada's fairest

daughters.

It would be too hazardous of me, perhaps to declare that he had no

claim upon her heart, but with the most perfect sanction of the most

scrupulous discretion, I can safely avow, that she never loved him,

for she owned to me, she did not. She laughed most boisterously at

him, when he took his maiden snow-shoe tramp, and actually displeased

him with her ridicule, when he came up the toboggan hill after an

unfortunate slide, making strenuous efforts to shake the wet snow from

under his stiff, linen cuffs; his yellow gloves were sadly spoiled,

and his eye-glass broken; his hat was injured by being blown off in

the descent, and there were other still more grievous consequences

which need not be mentioned, since the mercy of the darkness kept them

from the general view.

She married him, however, before he returned to Portland Place. Her

father and mother shouldered the responsibility of paraphrasing his

genteel pretensions by enumerating, for the gratification or envy of

other Canadian husband-seekers, the many titled connections and

immediate relatives of their prospective son-in-law.

If all they said were true he must have been related to half the

landed aristocracy of that world-famed metropolis. What surprised me,

above and beyond all comprehension, was, that Mrs. Merivale, for a

lady who had completely forgotten that "prepositions govern the

objective case," could remember with such accurate fidelity the

endless syllables of these high-sounding titles, and the intricate

channels and by-ways through which the original blue blood came down

the stream of vanished generations into the narrow vessels that made

Mr. Sylvester Davenport Clyde's humanity sacred and precious to

fashionable eyes.

There was not much mention of whose son he was, his social prestige

had a more remote source than his immediate parentage. He was greater

as a grandson, immortal as a nephew, a very idol on fashion's shrine

when his relations by marriage were taken into account. He had endless

cousins of high-bred notoriety, who had again married into still

greater and grander families, all of whom Mrs. Merivale now reckoned

as easily at her fingers' ends, as she could the days of the week, or

seasons of the year. In this brainless boy who was, and ever must be

an alien to the finer susceptibilities and nobler aspirations of true

and sturdy manhood, the Merivales were pleased to see, a full and

happy realization of all their fondest hopes. Alice would be courted

and flattered in the highest circles; was not that what their dream

had been from the first?

And Alice herself was seemingly satisfied. Her better nature had been

crushed out entirely by her frivolous pastimes and pursuits. There was

no re-action now, no leaping up of the old flame which cast great ugly

shadows over her other life. She had stifled her struggling

conscience, had laughed its keen remonstrances to scorn, and now she

was free. Nothing now would do her but a ceaseless round of pleasures

and gay distractions. Nothing but feasting, and merry-making and song.

There must be no lull in the din of glad confusion, no pause in the

ring of that restless mirth--that mock pacifier of human scruples that

stirs and stimulates us to-day, but that to-morrow drives our deepest

misery to remorse.

They were married after Easter, and such a wedding as it was! Half the

merchants of the town might have retired upon their profits when it

was over if they had had any hankering after good society, which they

did not happen to have. Her bridal equipage, of course, came from

England and was chosen by the Dowager Lady Trebleston, a great-aunt of

the groom, who was not at all distinguished for any particular ability

to choose a wedding outfit with extraordinary taste or economy, but

whose name lent a flavour to the choice, as "Dresden" does to china,

or "Cambridge" to sausages.

It was quite disappointing to Mrs. Merivale if any of her visitors had

heard of Lady Trebleston's name, in connection with the bridal array,

before she had had the opportunity and exquisite pleasure of imparting

it. Still, she had many such disappointments, for the news had spread

like wild-fire at its first mention, and floated through the town on

every lip, regardless of discrimination.

The wedding-presents were marvels of beauty and wealth, and such an

array as there was. Alice contemplated them with many a sweeping

glance of open admiration, which was generally followed by the dancing

of a light pirouette around the room, and an exulting cry of "Who

wouldn't get married after that, eh, Miss Hampden?"

As this was not the time for remonstration of any sort, on my part, I

remained utterly passive throughout, watching the proceedings in their

origin and progress with a curious and puzzling eye. Alice was full of

the occasion; she danced and sang, and skipped about the house, in the

maddest manner possible, hugging us all around whenever some new

addition arrived to her already magnificent collection of gifts.

Such a trying on of dresses, and mantles and hats. Such endless

speculations about the ultimate crisis of the whole affair, and how it

would all come off. What the papers would say, and what people would

think. Such an arranging of after-sports, travels, and elaborate

receptions. I expected the hair, of not only the men, women, and

children, but of all the fur-bearing animals of the town, whether

alive, or in door mats, to stand rigidly on end with consternation at

sight of such realizations, and the teeth of all the combs and saws in

the country, to water with envy when the great climax would have

arrived.

No one spoke of her marriage as a great and solemn change coming into

her life. No one foresaw cheerful glimpses of a happy, domestic life,

presided over by a steady sustaining unity of loves. No pictures were

drawn of quiet, fireside pleasures, in their future home, no praises

uttered of a woman's hallowed power to make life's burdens easy for

him whose happiness she is free to make or mar.

Every one said how bright a star this dazzling bride would be; the

comet of many seasons, the cynosure of many jealous and many admiring

eyes. No one said: "how loving, how devoted she will be, a model wife,

a patient helpmate, the joy and comfort of her husband's days." This

was a minor consideration. I suppose, the world knows nothing of these

stay-at-home little housewives, the angels of many a happy hearth,

whose busy fingers, beaming smiles and gentle accents are the rest and

refuge of many a toil-worn weaver at life's heavy loom. To lay aside

the world's distressing cares at sunset, to wipe his moistened brow,

and "homeward plod his weary way" to his cabin small and lowly, where

glows this cheerful love in one dear breast, in one sweet face, is to

the uncouth "ploughman" a joy, a comfort, which many a prince doth

envy.

It is not I who say it, but our century has proven beyond a question,

unfortunately, that the full Christian interpretation of the Divine

ordination concerning those "whom God hath joined together" has, like

many other principles of rigid morality, become for the most part

dependant upon that honest, toiling, sterling mass of humanity upon

which society looks down with a haughty forbearance or condescending

patronage. When we want a type of genuine manhood, let us leave the

lighted hall, where gilded folly revels, let us leave the solemn

chamber of science and of art, men have chilled it with the foul and

withering breath of infidelity and materialism, let us leave the busy

arena of commerce, men are gloating over gain and gold in their hidden

corners; let us rest with that sturdy, active, middle-class, where the

mechanic's ingenious conceptions puzzle and captivate the most

listless observer; let us watch the busy minds and busier fingers of

those men, so fascinated by their daily toil, that all the world

outside their own great pursuits has become a power beyond them, which

they neither flatter, nor defy. If the labour of the right hand be the

touchstone of men's inward morality, then how conclusively my theory

is sanctioned by the black and brawny fingers of the human industry,

whose praises I could sing forever; there is no treacherous ambush in

such natures, as I speak of now; no hidden recesses, where the animal

man may lay in wait to assault or overcome the spiritual man. Every

lurking tendency to evil is easily blighted by that stimulating

activity which brings moisture to the furrowed brow, which strengthens

the sinewy arm, and stamps its wholesome seal upon the broad and

hardened hand!

It seems odd enough, to say, that among such are found the greatest

and noblest phases of humanity, and yet, is it not so? Is not that man

great and noble, whose honest path lies straight within the precincts

of righteousness? who has lifted himself above the power of sordid

influences, who looks upon mortal throes as the stepping-stones to

immortal joys? that man to whose watchful eyes the shallow side of

nature is ever uppermost, he who serves but one master, whose only

policy is honesty, whose only stimulus is the ever-abiding promise of

a blissful hereafter, and whose attitude towards his fellow-creatures

is one of charity and kind forbearance?

I have wandered a little, while noting down the details of Alice

Merivale's fashionable wedding, and though I feel that it is doing Mr.

Sylvester Davenport Clyde a cruel injustice to bring him to the front

again, beside such pictures of exalted humanity as we have just been

contemplating, I owe it, in amendment, for my trespass upon the

reader's patience, to proceed with the interrupted thread of my story,

and can therefore only trust to the generosity of his disposition not

to dwell at any length upon the compromising nature of the contrast,

but to remember Mr. Clyde, in his more interesting character of

bridegroom, at a very showy and stylish wedding ceremony.

When the great event had come and gone, no one could tell exactly

whether half his or her sanguine expectations had been fulfilled or

not. I had an uneasy suspicion, at the time, that the soundness of the

family's mental organization had become temporarily suspended, from

Mrs. Merivale down--they seemed to have gone stark mad.

It was six weeks after the ceremony of pelting a glittering carriage

with white slippers and rice, as it rolled away from their

festive-looking mansion, that Mrs. Merivale dropped down into an

easy-chair one afternoon with the greatest languor and physical

depression, and declaring that "those fashionable weddings were enough

to knock a body up for a month," quietly fell asleep among her

comfortable cushions.

CHAPTER XVII.

There is only a little more labor for my long-used wheel, and the

threads of my uneven life will have run on to the crisis. I cannot

console myself with the thought that it has been watched through its

tedious progress, by loving or partial glances: the bobbin was faulty

and stiff at times, and the worker grew pensive and weary. Sometimes,

the sunlight broke over my toil, and I sang to the wheel as it was

rolling; but sometimes again there were shadows, and the wheel was

then heavy and slower. Sometimes, the threads grew so tangled, that I

sighed with impatience and worry, the weft bears the marks in the

weaving--they are plain, in unwinding the pirns--and still, 'twas a

labor of love, this patchwork of sunlight and shadow, this discord of

sorrow and song.

"The fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even

web" said George Eliot, and who knew the nature of the warp and weft

of our human fabric better than she! We pass from our joy to our

sorrow, as the night passes into the day, it is part and parcel of the

mechanism of our daily lives, smiling and sighing, we spin and we

weave till the twilight's gray dusk overtakes us--then our tired hands

are folded together, and the Master takes care of the rest.

From Alice Merivale's wedding, I was called to Hortense de Beaumont's

bedside. In the comparatively short interval of our separation, she

had wasted almost beyond recognition. We were mistaken when we

persuaded ourselves, that she had baffled her former attack, she had

never quite rallied, and when the March winds began to blow, her frail

constitution gave way anew. She drooped so quickly, that it was too

late when real danger was apprehended, to take her to a warmer refuge.

Madame de Beaumont looked little better than her invalid daughter from

weeping and worrying, when I arrived.

On the second day, only, was I allowed to see Hortense, and what a

change I saw! There was death in every feature, every curve of her

once beautiful face. She revived as usual, when I was announced, and

wanted to sit up and talk a great deal more than the attending

physician would allow, or than she was really able to do. They took

advantage of this desire of hers, to coax her to nourish herself more

than she was wont.

"If you take your prescriptions and obey orders, I shall let you have

a half-hour's conversation with your friend every day," said the

doctor one morning, in a bargaining tone; "if not" he added, pausing,

and looking at her seriously--after which he shook his head slowly and

emphatically, and said no more.

"Very well then, I will try to take them doubled if you like" she

answered faintly, directing a playful glance towards me, and breaking

into one of her old smiles. "I must talk to her!"

She could not "take them doubled," poor child, but she made heroic

efforts to swallow them as prescribed, in order that she might have

her talk with me. My poor Hortense! She never had but the one

half-hour's conversation with me, for she passed into a better world,

before the birds had learned their summer songs.

"Put away that book, and come here, my Amey" she said faintly one

afternoon, as I sat by her bedside watching with her. I closed the

volume and going nearer to her, sat on the margin of her bed, and took

her delicate hands in mine.

"I have something to tell you now--my big secret--that I wrote you

about, you know."

She began in broken sentences, her breath was weak and short, and her

voice like an echo.

"It would not be so long if you knew about--about Bayard,

poor--Bayard, and that dreadful--" she stopped, and a crimson spot

appeared on each pallid cheek. I leaned over her gently, and said in a

soothing whisper:

"May be I do know it, my little woman. Is it about Bayard's

unfortunate marriage? If so, they have told me the whole sad story."

She bowed her head, in answer to my question and muttered feebly:

"I am so glad because I hate to speak of it, but my secret is not

that. Do you know where Inez is now?"

I nodded affirmatively. "Well, first when she went there, Bayard had a

dreadful sickness, and he wanted to die--called out to death at every

moment to come and rescue him, though he was not prepared; he would

not hear of forgiving Inez, he declared he hated her, and was glad of

her affliction, and still, with these sentiments he wanted to die! Oh,

how I prayed against his prayer!" she exclaimed, with an effort of

enthusiasm, "how I begged of God, to turn a deaf ear to his mad

supplication, and lend a willing one to mine. I suffered an agony of

suspense, and at last, the crisis came, he struggled with it,

conquered it, and got better. So far my prayer was heard, but my

trouble was not over, he regained his health and his strength, but he

was a changed man otherwise. He hated his past life and the woman who

was so intimately associated with it; he became gloomy and reckless,

gave up his religion with all its practices of piety, and abandoned

himself to books of science, such as are the ruin of human souls all

over the world. I remonstrated with him hourly, but without avail--" a

slight coughing interrupted her here, I gave her a drink and shook up

her pillows, and feeling somewhat refreshed, she lay back again and

continued:

"Mamma thought that his solitude was perhaps his great enemy and wrote

to his college chum, Mr. Dalton, to come and visit us for a little

while." At the mention of Ernest Dalton's name a faint pink colour

rose steadily into her face. "He came and spent three months with us,

but did little good in the way we had hoped he could, but he was kind

and consoling in another way. He gave poor mamma great comfort while

he remained; when he left they sent me to Notre Dame, I don't know

why, although it proved a great blessing in the end.

"My mother used to write me about Bayard's moods, which were now often

worse, and never better. Ah! no one knew what a burden of grief I

carried to and from the class-room of Notre Dame Abbey. Sometimes I

felt that only for my mother, death would be a merciful relief, which

is a sad conviction for one so young. One day," she said, lowering her

voice almost to a whisper and folding her thin hands over the white

counter-pane "I was praying in the chapel and I began to think

seriously of all my troubles, how dark and gloomy they looked and how

weak and cowardly I seemed! Suddenly a little voice within me began to

ask: 'Why don't you make some desperate effort to save those whose

misfortunes are making you so miserable? Why would you not try some

daring sacrifice for instance, so that your brother be set free and

the ultimate recovery and conversion of his wife be obtained?' I

hesitated and looked through my gathering tears at the flickering lamp

in the sanctuary. What sacrifice could I make? _I_ had no pleasures,

no real comforts in life--nor the prospect of any--except one, and

even that was only a shadowy, misty hope, the merest uncertainty; but

it was my dearest, best-loved fancy, and I could not do more then than

resign it, so I knelt down, Amey, where you and I knelt side by side a

few nights later before you went away, and--" a sob came into her

throat and tears dimmed her eyes; my own were moist in expectation of

what was coming. She rested a little, and allowing her tears to fall

unwiped upon her cheeks, she took up the broken thread and added:

"I pledged myself to Our Blessed Lady, in soul and body for all the

days of my life, if, by her holy intercession the double conversions

of Bayard and Inez might be accomplished before I died."

"You mean that you promised--"

"Never to marry," she added eagerly "although at that time, only

Heaven knew how I had grown to love Ernest Dalton. I did not know he

was _your_ friend then, Amey. I fancied he had spoken in a

particularly kind way to me and he could not but see how fondly I

cherished his every word and look--but I gave him up--the only

sacrifice I had to lay upon that altar of supplication. Afterwards I

saw that what I had done out of solicitude for the welfare of those

who are nearest and dearest to me on earth would, perhaps, have been

exacted of me by the cruel irony of fate. Ernest Dalton loved you all

along, I suspected it on that day when we examined his locket

together, and your strange, conscious look when I spoke of him

convinced me of it easily."

"Poor Hortense," I muttered in a half sob.--"He is my guardian, my

god-father, and the picture in his locket is not mine at all, it is my

mother's."

"Amey! Your mother's?"

"Yes, he loved her years ago before she married my father. There was

some misunderstanding between them and they drifted apart, but he has

always been faithful to her memory up to this. They say I am very like

her," I added slowly, folding my hands and looking away towards the

distant gray clouds outside.

"Her living image," said Hortense, wistfully, "if I may judge by that

little picture, but you--didn't you love him too, Amey?" she asked

with an eager look, stroking my hand gently with her own delicate

palm.

"It is a time for confessions, Hortense," I answered timidly, "or I

should never tell you this, however, we may as well be frank with one

another now. I thought I did, until I had reason to suspect that you

loved him also, from that moment I resigned him to you and refused to

think of him ever again, except as an old, esteemed and devoted

friend. I did not know at that time that he had ever known my mother,

nor did I suspect the existence of the close ties that bind us to one

another in a different way. I only knew that in encouraging my regard

for him, I might be trespassing upon the peace and happiness of your

life and that is something that Amey Hampden never would or could do

to Hortense de Beaumont above all other living creatures."

"You thought he would return my love in time and that we would

ultimately be happy together, and with this hope you made your

sacrifice did you?" she questioned eagerly.

"I did, my darling little friend! I would not come between you and

your life's projects, for all the world," I answered, clasping her

wasted form in my strong, loving embrace. "I would have been well

repaid, when I saw you happy with my help."

She leaned her head upon my shoulder and wept in silence for a moment.

I would have checked her, but there were sobs in my own voice, and

water in my eyes. At last when I had calmed myself a little, I stroked

her hair kindly and consolingly, entreating her to be quiet and

composed. "You shall harm yourself, with crying, and they will blame

me" I urged, "so cheer up like a good little woman, and be yourself

again."

She looked up quickly, as I spoke, the fresh tears trembled on her

lids, like dew upon the petals of some woodland flower, but a smile,

as bright as the sun-ray that dispels the dew-drop broke over her wan

and wasted countenance, as she answered:

"Blame _you_! Oh Amey I have never been so happy, as with you. You

have been more than a sister to me, you have done for me what no one

else in the world would have thought of doing for another but Amey

Hampden!"

"It has brought you no benefit, my little woman" I said regretfully,

"although I believed your happiness was partly in my hands at the

time."

"It has brought me more than you can ever realize, Amey," she

interrupted, falling back among her pillows, tired from her exertion.

"It has held the cup of a soothing friendship to my parched and

fevered lip whose draught has dispelled every sorrow that lay hopeless

and heavy upon my heart. If life could tempt me, now, to return to my

former vigour and strength, it need only hold up to my dying eyes the

picture of your unselfish heroism. When one has a friend, such as you

have been, the pleasures of the world have a double sweetness; in a

little while" she added, lowering her voice, and looking away towards

the western horizon, into which the setting sun had begun to dip his

yellow rays, "I will have left all these things behind me; the joys

and sorrows of my young life will recede together into the mists of

time, as I go on to my eternity--but, I know there will be some

remaining who will carry my memory, the memory of my little life, that

was not more than half spent, through all the years of her own happy

one, someone to pray for me, to commune with me in spirit, even when I

have passed into that shadow-land. And that will be you, my Amey.

Perhaps it will comfort you then, to remember that I died in peace and

contentment after all--for my poor prayer has been heard in heaven.

When I wrote you that last letter, about my dawning compensation, I

could see that I had not made my sacrifice in vain, Bayard was

changing, every one saw it, resolving himself into the better man, he

has since become, and more than that, Amey--oh, how it thrills me to

think of it!" she exclaimed with reverent ardour "a change has taken

place elsewhere! We received a letter from the superintendent of the

asylum where poor Inez is confined, telling us that she had many lucid

moments of late, and that her attendants had frequently found her upon

her knees, with streaming eyes and trembling hands, imploring

forgiveness for her past follies. This was soon followed by a second

one, which urged Bayard to go to her: her health and strength were

failing, it said, and there were great hopes of her recovering her

senses before death. His name, it further stated, was ever on her

lips.

"Bayard had a terrible struggle with his pride and his passions. He

walked the room through the whole of one livelong night, sighing and

moaning, and talking to himself in muttered syllables--mamma and I

could hear him, and he prayed unceasingly, again and again. I renewed

my promises and my life oblation. Towards morning Bayard grew calmer

and when the sun rose he unlocked his door and came to seek us in our

seclusion. How pale his handsome face had grown! How wild and

dishevelled his wavy hair! How marked were the lines of misery and

care around his mouth and eyes! He came to my bed and leaned tenderly

over me, I could see the traces of his recent conflict so plainly

then."

"'Good-bye, little sister,' he said, 'I am going away for a few days,

take care of yourself during my absence,--and pray for me.' He kissed

me with his cold, dry lips and turned away. When he came back a week

later there was a peaceful sadness where his misery had been. He had

seen Inez again; had sat by her death-bed and held her dying hand in

generous forgiveness. He believed her then that she sorely repented of

her past. Her dark hair had turned almost white, and where rich curves

of beauty had marked the outlines of her face and form there were

hollows and angles of emaciation and suffering. She died with a

pleading for pardon and mercy upon her lips, and Bayard came back a

better man. He says he will devote the remainder of his life to an

atonement for his past, and this is what I have been waiting to hear

before I could die in peace. I cannot presume to say," Hortense added

humbly, "that my poor prayers alone could have brought about these

wonderful conversions, but I suppose they have helped, the good

sisters at Notre Dame always told us to 'ask and we should receive,'

and I believe them now. What is the pledge I have made to the fruit it

has yielded? The happiness which the world affords is well lost in

such a cause as this. Is it not, my Amey?"

"Indeed it is," I answered earnestly, "but all the same I think you

have done the most noble and heroic of Christian actions in enlisting

against your own earthly happiness to favor such a cause however

worthy it may be."

"I do not regret it now, Amey," she said with a sweet, sad smile;

"when we look back upon our lives from the watch-tower of a dawning

eternity we are glad to see some noble effort standing out in relief

from all the daily transgressions that confront us. I wish now there

were more such purposes in my empty life."

"This one comprised all others, it seems to me," I put in, earnestly,

"you renounced even the possible and uncertain joys of the world. You

lived under the yoke of this voluntary self-sacrifice, which was

bringing you nearer and nearer every day to your reward."

"I have been well repaid," she answered faintly, closing her tired

lids wearily, and folding her hands; after a pause she opened them and

continued:

"When they saw how ill I was they sent for Mr. Dalton again, and he

came to see me. He told me you were on your way to visit Miss

Merivale, who was to be married in a little while, and that you were

said to be engaged to Doctor Campbell, which was puzzling news to me

at that time. He spoke sympathetically but not regretfully, I thought,

of your engagement, and I wondered more than ever what relationship

existed between Ernest Dalton and you. He praised Doctor Campbell in

the highest terms and said that you had 'made a man of him' for life.

Bayard was glad to have Mr. Dalton with us and kept him for several

weeks. He left with a promise to return soon again, I suppose he likes

to comfort Bayard while his sorrows are fresh," she added, closing her

eyes languidly and sighing faintly.

Just then Mdme. de Beaumont came in on tip-toe with some tempting

morsel for her little invalid. This broke the strain of confidence,

and as Hortense showed symptoms of exhaustion and drowsiness, after

taking her nourishment, we lowered the blinds and stole from the room.

In a few moments she was fast asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII.

By degrees Hortense succumbed to her disease. There were no happy

revivals of her old mood now; no flickering of the old vitality that

had brightened other lives besides her own.

She dozed nearly all day long, speaking very little and hardly heeding

the questions that were breathed into her ears. The April thaw had set

in and the air was moist and chilly. There was something cloudy and

oppressive in the very atmosphere one breathed, but as the days wore

on the sunshine grew warmer and brighter, and the birds hopping from

twig to twig cleared their little throats and sang forth a merry

greeting to the advancing summer-time.

The sunshine that flooded the world without grew warmer and brighter,

it is true, but the sunshine of hope that gladdens sorrow-stricken

human hearts in hours of wearisome suspense became colder and dimmer

as each new day confirmed the painful fears of Hortense's friends

concerning her ultimate recovery.

The time had at last arrived when death's dreadful warning rested on

every feature of her wasted countenance. We no longer exchanged

cheerful glances of mutual encouragement as we glided in and out of

her chamber. All was solemn and silent as the awful visitor whose

advent was now unmistakably and hopelessly announced.

There were tears, and sobs, and aching hearts that could not plead to

Hope now, for Hope had grown powerless and passive; and so we waited

in sorrow and suspense for the dismal day that was so surely at hand,

praying and watching with our loved one while the flame faintly

flickered with a dying effort within her soul.

May came--the bright, golden month of song and sunshine--and still the

faint flame flickered, leaping up at times with a delusive strength

and activity, then sinking down again until it almost expired forever.

One afternoon I returned late. I had gone out into the fields in

search of a handful of Mayflowers. I thought they might bring a smile

to my darling's lips, and for hours I had wandered about the open

country searching amid the tender early blades for violets--white or

blue.

I was coming back as, the sun began to set, feeling tired and

low-spirited. I had found but a few little flowers, for the season was

late, and I was eager to reach my destination with them while the

freshness of their beauty glowed on their tiny leaves. When I stole to

her room, however, the door was partly closed, and Bayard was walking

slowly up and down the corridor outside.

"You cannot go in now," he said in a whisper, laying one hand tenderly

upon my shoulder, "Father Douglas is with her. Go and wait in the

little front room," he added "I will call you when she is alone

again."

I turned softly around, and crept on tip-toe to the sitting-room, at

the end of the passage; the door was partly open, and I glided in

noiselessly. In an easy chair, by the open window, with his back

towards me, sat Ernest Dalton, alone.

He did not hear me, and I stood with my hand upon the casement,

wondering what I had better do: it was only for a moment, however. He

was not the same man to me now, with whom I had parted so strangely,

after my father's death; he was neither Hortense's lover nor mine, but

a good friend to us both; he was my guardian, and the only father I

had left.

It seemed strange to me, at that instant, that I ever should have

looked upon him differently, I, who had sat upon his knee in my

childhood, and cried myself to sleep within his arms, why should I

shrink from him now, when his shoulders were bending with their burden

of sorrow, and his hair growing silver, with the bitter touches of

time?

By right, he should have been my father! My poor mother had loved him

so! perhaps he was thinking of her, as he sat there, looking vacantly

out towards the west. I stole my hand from the casement, and crept

towards him slowly and gently. Still he did not heed me, he was sunk

in a reverie too profound; a little footstool lay on the floor at his

feet, I dropped myself quietly upon it, and looked up with a smile

into his face.

"Mr. Dalton!" was all I could say at the moment.

He started, as if from sleep, and turned his sad blue eyes upon me,

with a quiet wonder.

"It is you little Amey, is it?" he said, at length, taking both my

hands and bending down towards me. "How are you, little one; are you

well and happy?"

"I am not little Amey any more, Mr. Dalton," I answered, with my hands

still in his, and my eyes turned up to his good, honest face. "I have

grown into a great woman since I saw you last; I have learned many

things--sorrowful things; they have told me the story of my mother's

life, and it has changed the whole nature of my own."

"They have told you?--did they tell you all?" he asked in a low,

tremulous voice.

"Yes, everything," I answered warmly; "Mrs. Nyle has given me every

detail."

He looked at me steadily for a moment in silence, and the tears

gathered in his blue eyes--but they did not fall. When they had gone

back again he drew the footstool nearer, and began to stroke my hair

with one gentle hand.

"Amey," he said, "I have been waiting for this day through many a long

and lonely year. I might have hastened it, I suppose, but I could

not--however, perhaps it is time enough now. You know, now," he

continued, taking my hands in his again and holding them firmly

together, "why I have watched you, and followed your progress through

childhood and girlhood, into your blooming womanhood. You know why I

shared your little joys and sorrows in your youth; why I persuaded

your father to send you to Notre Dame, when I saw how miserable your

life was at home. During your absence I managed to find out the only

surviving relative I knew you had. I feared a day might come when you

would find yourself in need of such a friend, and indeed such came to

pass. When you returned from school I met you in the Hartmanns' ball

room; I had come in late on the evening train, and found an invitation

among my letters; I knew you had come home, and expected to find you

there, so I hastened thither, and saw you, as you know, first when you

were dancing, and next in the conservatory. I shall never forget how

you looked that night, Amey; it was as if time had rolled its iron

portals back, and that forth from the buried past came the dearest and

holiest associations of my life. I saw in you, as plainly as if the

'loved and lost' one her self had stood before me, the image proud and

beautiful, of my first and only love."

"My mother?" I faltered.

"Your mother," he repeated.

"I remember now," I said, with slow, sad emphasis, "that papa looked

strangely at me that night too, and did what he had not done for years

before, he kissed me kindly and tenderly, and muttered something about

my being the 'image of his happy past,' and of his never having seen

'such a likeness before.'"

"It is little wonder, child," Mr. Dalton answered, looking wistfully

into the space between us. "He loved her, too, poor Hampden--every one

did--but I loved her first, and best--yes, I know I loved her best.

How I watched your every look and tone and gesture at this time,

Amey," he exclaimed eagerly, "they were constantly bringing back my

vanished youth, and casting fitful gleams of sunshine across my wintry

track. And you took to me. I could see the reflection of the old

love-light, faint though it was, in the eyes that were only like hers,

and not really hers--yes it was a living pledge of her early love each

time you watched for me, and welcomed me, or singled me out in a

crowded room from all the rest. It was her inheritance, that she left

you, wherewith to gladden the life that Fate had urged her to

darken,--and you did it, my little one, though it could never be quite

the same."

"I loved you, and watched you jealously, God knows I did, but it was

not with that other dead love, which shall never be revived on earth.

In the sight of heaven we belonged to one another, a pledge is a

pledge, in spite of all the subterfuges and impediments of destiny,

and we were pledged to one another. Therefore do I weep my widowed

love, as if men had called her mine, as well as heaven."

"You were the only living reminder of my past to me, and as such I

cherished and guarded you. One day I almost forgot that you were only

what you are to me--it was the anniversary of that betrothal day, and

though the winter wind blew cold and fierce without, something of the

old fire glowed anew within my breast. I said to myself as I sauntered

along the quiet street, 'I will go and see my _other_ Amey, in

commemoration of this eventful day, perhaps she will smile a familiar

smile and speak words of kindness, like those my heart remembers, of

long ago.'"

"I went up to the house and asked, as usual, for your father," he

said, breaking into a sad smile. "They told me he was in his library,

and with the privileges of an old friend I walked unceremoniously in.

It was nearly dark there, and the fire was smouldering quietly among

the gathering ashes, there was a lounge drawn up before it, on which

my 'other' Amey lay sleeping. My coming in did not disturb her; she

never moved, one hand was thrown carelessly over her shapely head, the

other hung down beside her, a rich red glow was on each pretty cheek

and the shadow of a smile upon the lips so like those silent sealed

ones that twenty odd years before had spoken their love into my

listening ear.

"I looked down upon her, scarcely daring to breathe, lest the spell be

broken. We were alone in the room--we two, and it was a day pregnant

with stirring remembrances for me. Even supposing the spirit of my

loved and lost one kept guard beside her sleeping child, would she

check the honest impulse that seized me at that moment? Would she

cover the unconscious lips, that in deepest reverence and most

hallowed and respectful love I stooped and kissed? Would she,

Amey--tell me do you think she would?" he pleaded, with a wistful

sadness.

"I don't think so, Mr. Dalton," I replied in solemn earnest. "If things

had been otherwise, no one would have had a better right to do so than

you. Even as it is, your faithful, I may say religious, love for my

poor angel-mother recommends you before all others to my everlasting

esteem and affection. Besides--" I added a little playfully--"I am your

god-child, you know!"

"I have not forgotten it, bless you '" he answered. "You have her

spirit in you," he then muttered, as if in soliloquy, and then went on

to say--

"It was on that day, that I lost this little amulet of mine--this

priceless treasure, with the image of her beauty within, I have worn

it for twenty years and more, I shall wear it until I die! I knew I

lost it in that library, and used to assure myself that it was safe,

though I would not mention it to any one. At last, you returned it to

me, and I restored it to its accustomed place. It is all I will have,

in a little while, when Arthur Campbell has taken you away from me."

I have never been able to say very much in the trying moments of my

life, and so when Mr. Dalton's story was ended, I only looked out of

the window upon the gathering twilight, listening to the echo of his

plaintive accents, as they settled down upon my heart forever. After a

pause, he spoke again:--"You have promised to marry Campbell, have you

not?" he asked.

"Yes Mr. Dalton, I think he is a worthy fellow, don't you?" I replied.

"He is Amey, he is. I trust you will both be happy," was the

distracted rejoinder, and then Bayard knocked timidly at the door; I

knew what the summons meant and starting to my feet at once, I went

and obeyed it.

CHAPTER XIX.

It was my last vigil by Hortense's bed-side--for, when morning came

with its glad sun-beams, her spirit had passed away--there was no

struggle, no pain, only a sinking to rest, a falling to sleep; a quiet

transit from life's worrying turmoil, into the hallowed peace of

death!

With a handful of fresh violets, and a cross upon her breast, a lily,

white and newly-gathered, in her hand, the emblem of that purity in

which her eternal sleep had overtaken her, she lay within the quiet

precincts of her little room.

Many tears were shed, and many sighs were heaved about her! So young,

so fresh a flower in life's great garden, lying before us with its

broken stem!

We bade her our last farewell, and resigned her to the grave; I, who

had loved her with all the intimate intensity of a glowing friendship,

kissed her cold lips again and again, and turned away from her,

forever. Mr. Dalton wiped the moisture from his eyes, as he stooped

over the coffin lid, and touched her brow, fondly but reverently, with

his trembling lips, Mdme. de Beaumont fell upon the prostrate figure

of her darling, and in their last mortal embrace, swooned away! Bayard

leaning slowly over her, with a face almost as pallid as her own,

muttered in feeble sobs--"My angel! my guardian angel!" and with one

long, lingering kiss, the last he could ever give her, he turned from

her, baptized anew in her self-abnegating love, a conscious and

contrite penitent.

When the funeral was over and peace and quiet were in a measure

restored to the agitated hearts of her mother and Bayard, I made my

silent preparations to depart. Mr. Dalton had left before me. Madame

de Beaumont parted from me with the greatest reluctance, and indeed, I

was not over anxious to leave her so soon after her severe

bereavement, but my duty now lay elsewhere.

It was with the greatest profusion of gratitude and expressions of the

deepest appreciation and regard, that Bayard and his mother bade me

their last farewells. We went together to Hortense's grave in the

morning, and prayed awhile; I plucked one little sprig of early clover

that had struggled into bloom above her, and carried it away with me

as the last parting souvenir of my deeply lamented friend.

When I returned to the comfort and quiet of Cousin Bessie's home, from

which I had been estranged for many months, I began to feel the

re-action of all my recent exertions setting in. I struggled against

it with all the violence of a perverse inclination to combat it, but I

was baffled; I grew weaker day by day, and at length succumbed to the

depressing influence of a slow fever.

How good, and generous and thoughtful, dear Cousin Bessie proved

herself a thousand times over during my tedious illness. Never

complaining, never impatient, though at times I was so peevish and

trying, night after night she tended me with her own loving hands,

cheering me up when I was disposed to be gloomy, with the happiest of

predictions about my near recovery. At last, I began to show the

effects of her careful nursing, and was well enough to be helped

downstairs by Girly, or Zita or some one of that loving household--and

even here their untiring solicitude pursued me; there was no end to

the diversity of the distractions they provided for me, foremost among

which was an invitation written by Louis urging Arthur Campbell to

come and spend a few weeks at the house.

Cousin Bessie has most seriously maintained to this day that we

treated her very shabbily on this occasion; she declares she shall

never forgive Arthur, but she says it so good-humouredly that I am

tempted to suspect her sincerity.

That she should have brought us together in the fulness and generosity

of her heart, and that we should have taken advantage of the

opportunity she afforded us of enjoying one another's company from

morning until night, to plot and plan a speedy escape from her

immediate guardianship, seemed to her a selfish and ungrateful return

for so great a favour.

But she was too kind-hearted to wear her pleasant scowl very long. Mr.

Nyle would talk of a time when "somebody" that he "had since had

reason to know very well had committed just such an appalling offence,

herself and," he argued, very suggestively, "unless that 'somebody'

has had reason to regret and repent of her own rash ingratitude," he

"could not see why she should interfere with other people, who were

tempted to follow in her footsteps."

Zita and Louis laughed merrily at such allusions from their father,

whose own eyes sparkled with the "light of other days," as he spoke

them, and Cousin Bessie either bowed her head much lower than usual

over her knitting as she heard them, or looked playfully up at her

husband with a quick revival of the old time love in her pleasant,

earnest features, and entreated him to "have sense, for mercy's sake

and not have the children laughing at him."

In the first week of June, while the young summer sunshine was bright

and pleasant, Arthur and I were married, Zita was my pretty bridesmaid

and Louis our gallant groomsman; our only guests were the Rutherbys

and Mr. Dalton.

Cousin Bessie gave us a cosy wedding breakfast, and it was amid

riotous merry-making and boisterous good wishes for a long and happy

future we drove away from the little gate, where some months before

that we had begun the chapter whose joyful sequel was now in progress.

The rest is an old story, familiar to many homes and hearts, the story

of that wedded happiness which is the outgrowth of two steady,

abiding, enduring loves. I have been happier as Arthur Campbell's wife

than I could ever have been as Ernest Dalton's, and I shall state why:

When we are young, we develop a tendency to exalt and idealize the

common-place phases of life beyond all limits of reason or

possibility. We flatter our buoyant expectations with the conviction

that there is honey in the heart of every trifling flower we must

gather by life's dusty roadside, and that it needs but the magic touch

of our own hand to have it brought to the surface. This is a pleasant

delusion, which, however, is susceptible of being rudely and roughly

dispelled by an impartial experience as we grow older, when this

exaggerated tendency creeps into our loves, and it is there it holds

the fullest sway, and does the maddest mischief, the danger of a

disenchanting awakening is still greater and more hazardous. For when

we love in an abstract sense we exclusively, love in utter oblivion of

the exactions of real life; we never stop to consider that that love

which purposes to endure and strengthen with time must be coupled with

a broad, impartial view of the stubborn circumstances, which are the

facts of existence. A love that is all poetry and moonshine dies a

sudden death in the face of practical dilemmas.

I have become convinced of this many a time, though my experience of

wedded life is necessarily limited. Arthur and I have counted the

grocer's bills, and made out the wash account, with the pleasantest

smiles and most playful manner possible; and I have felt as I leaned

upon his shoulder and scanned the items before us, that he was the

dearest and best of husbands, whereas--Mr. Dalton, oh shades of poetry

and song! imagine Ernest Dalton poring over a soapy wash account. I

mention it, and Arthur joins me in the merry laugh the bare thought of

it provokes.

Mr. Dalton, however, was always our good, kind friend, while he

remained in our town. To the spirit of emigration that pervaded our

cities some years later we owe his loss. He stole away without letting

any one know of his definite purpose, and buried himself in the

solitude of the North-West prairies.

For a time he was a punctual correspondent, but there came a breach

and a pause, during which we learned of his serious illness, and

subsequently of his death. To the end he had remembered us, and no one

grieved for him more earnestly, more deeply than Arthur and I.

Some weeks after the announcement of his death had been made known to

us, I received a little box which had been found among his personal

belongings, addressed to me. It contained the identical locket which

had been in my possession once before, and which was now bequeathed to

me with injunctions to wear it faithfully, in memory of the two

departed ones, whose time-worn pictures lay safely stowed away within.

His money and other properties he bequeathed to the little fair-haired

prattler now playing at my knee. We have called him Ernest Dalton

Campbell, but Arthur says we must keep that until he is big, and in

the meantime has christened him "Toddles," which is very absurd to my

thinking, but to which, with all the edifying obedience of a Christian

wife I am bound to submit now, as well as in every matter of greater

or less moment.

I thought I had finished my story when I laid down my pen, a few

months ago, and gave a long-drawn sigh of infinite relief. Time has,

however, hastened the development of a few more items, that may be of

more or less interest to those readers who have kindly followed the

_dramatis personae_, that have been flitting through these chapters,

with a partial attention.

As I write the closing words my _dramatis personae_ come trooping to

the front, to group themselves for the final tableau--Cousin Bessie

and her faithful husband are the central and leading figures; her

hands are folded, and a happy, peaceful smile plays around the corners

of her good-humoured face.

On one side of her stands Zita, a pretty, blushing bride, leaning on

Philip Rutherby's arm; so ardent is the young bridegroom in his

admiration that he threatens to spoil the whole effect, if we keep him

before the public eye for very long. Louis is not with them, he has

been sent away to college.

On the other side of the leading figures, Dr. and Mrs. Campbell, with

a roguish gray-eyed darling, are grouped affectionately together; they

all look very happy, but I think Mrs. Campbell is the most so of any.

At a little distance from this last small circle stands our old

friend, Girly, now grown beyond all recognition into a pleasing and

promising womanhood; and away in the misty background a long-forgotten

trio loom out in sombre sullenness; they are Mrs. Hampden, and Fred

and the 'solicitous brother.' Fred is a hopeless dyspeptic, who can

give his mind to nothing else but his digestion, which unfortunate

circumstance frets his new disenchanted parent and provokes his no

longer solicitous uncle.

They are all in apparent ill-humour, so we will screen them off from

our laughing, happy band, as we rise to make our final curtsey and

retire behind the curtain of our private, domestic lives.