"Regina, will you touch the bell for Hattie, that she may come and
carry away all this breakfast, which I have not touched, and the bare
sight of which surfeits me? From the amount supplied, one might
imagine me a modern Polyphemus, or, abjuring the classics, a second
old Mrs. Philipone, who positively drank four cups of tea at the last
'Kettledrum.' How fervently she should pray for continued peace with
China, and low tariff on Pekoe? I scarcely know which is the greater
hardship, to abstain from food when very hungry, or to impose upon
one's digestive apparatus when it piteously protests, asking for
'rest, only rest.'"
It was twelve o'clock on a bright, cold day in December, but Olga was
still in bed; and as she raised herself, crushing the pillows under
her shoulder for support, Regina, sewing beside her, thought she had
never seen her look so handsome.
The abundant ruddy hair tossed about in inextricable confusion,
curled and twined, utterly regardless of established style, making a
bright warm frame for the hazel eyes that seemed unusually keen and
sparkling, and the smooth fair cheeks bore a rich scarlet tinge,
rather remarkable from the fact that their owner had danced until
three o'clock that morning.
"Instead of impairing your complexion, late hours seem to increase
its brilliancy."
"Regina, never dogmatize; it is a rash and unphilosophic habit that
leads you to ignore secondary causes. I have a fine colour to-day,
_ergo_ the 'German' is superior to any of the patent chemical
cosmetics? No such thing. I am tired enough in body to look just like
what I feel, that traditional Witch of Endor; but a stroke of
wonderful good fortune has so elated my spirits, that despite the
fatigue of outraged muscles and persecuted nerves, my exultant pride
and delight paint my cheeks in becoming tints. How puzzled you look!
You pretty, sober, solemn, demure blue-eyed Annunciation lily, is
there such a thing among flowers? If I tripped in the metaphor,
recollect that I am no adept in floriculture, only know which
blossoms look best on a velvet bonnet or a chip hat, and which dainty
leaves and petals laid upon my Lucretia locks make me most resemble
Hebe. Are you consumed by curiosity?"
"Not quite; still I should like to know what good fortune has
rendered you so happy?"
"Wait until Hattie is beyond hearing. Come, take away these dishes,
and be sure to eat every morsel of that omelette, for I would not
willingly mortify Octave's vanity. When you have regaled yourself
with it, show him the empty dish, tell him it was delicious, and that
I send thanks. Hattie, say to mamma I shall not be able to go out
to-day."
"Miss Regina, I was told to tell you that you must dress for the
rehearsal, as Mrs. Palma will take you in the carriage."
"Very well. I shall be ready, if go I must."
"Bravo! How gracefully you break to harness! But when these Palmas
hold the bit, it would be idle to plunge, kick, or attempt to run.
They are for rebellious humanity, what Rarey was for unruly
horseflesh. Once no fiery colt of Ukraine blood more stubbornly
refused the bridle than I did; but Erle Palma smiled and took the
reins, and behold the metamorphosis! Did he command your attendance
at this 'Cantata'?"
"Not exactly; but he said he would be displeased if I failed to
comply with Mrs. Brompton's request, because she was an old friend;
and moreover that Professor Hurtsel had said they really required my
voice for the principal solo."
"Did it occur to you to threaten to break down entirely, burst into
tears, and disgrace things generally, if forced to sing before such
an audience? Pride is the only lever that will move him the billionth
fraction of an inch; and he would never risk the possibility of being
publicly mortified by his ward's failure. He dreads humiliation of
any kind, far more than cholera or Asiatic plague, or than even the
eternal loss of that infinitesimal microscopic bit of flint, which he
is pleased in facetious moments to call his soul."
"Of course I could not threaten him; but I told him the distressing
truth, that I am very much afraid I shall fail if compelled to
attempt a solo in public, for I know the audience at Mrs. Brompton's
will be critical, and I feel extremely timid."
"And he dared you--under penalty of his everlasting wrath--to break
down? Forbade you at your peril, to allow your frightened heart to
beat the long-roll, or the tattoo?"
"No, though very positive, he was kind, and urged me to exert my
will; reminding me that the effort was in behalf of destitute
orphans, and that the charitable object should stimulate me."
"Charity! Madame Roland incautiously blundered in her grand
apostrophe, hastily picked up the wrong word to fling at the heads of
her brutal tormentors. Had she lived in this year of grace, she would
certainly have said: 'Oh, Charity! how much hypocrisy is practised in
thy name!' How many grim and ghastly farces are enacted in thy
honour! Oh, Charity! heavenly maid! what solemn shameful shams are
masked beneath thy celestial garments? Of late this fashionable
amusement called 'Charity' has risen to the dignity of a fine art;
and old-fashioned Benevolence that did its holy work silently and
slyly in a corner, forbidding left hand to eavesdrop, or gossip with
right hand, would never recognize its gaudy, noisy, bustling modern
sister. Understand, it is not peculiar to our own great city,--is a
rank growth that flourishes all over America, possibly elsewhere. At
certain seasons, when it is positively wicked to eat chicken salad,
porter-house steak, and boned turkey, and when the thought of
attending the usual round of parties gives good people nightmare, and
sinful folks yet in the bonds of iniquity a prospective claim to the
pleasant and enticing style of future amusements which Orcagna
painted at Pisa, then Charity rushes to the rescue of _ennuied_
society, and mercifully bids it give Calico Balls for a Foundling
Hospital, or _Thé Musicale_ for the benefit of a Magdalen Home, or a
Cantata and Refreshments to build a Sailors' Bethel, or help to
clothe and feed the destitute. A few ladies dash around in open
carriages and sell tickets, and somebody's daughters make ample
capital for future investments, as Charity Angels, by riding,
dancing, singing, and eating in becoming piquant costumes, for the
'benefit of the afflicted poor.'"
"Oh, Olga! how unjustly severe you are! How exceedingly uncharitable!
How can you think so meanly of the people with whom you associate
intimately?"
"I assure you I am not maligning 'our set,' only refer to a universal
tendency of this advancing age. I merely strip the outside rind, and
look at the kernel, and therefore I 'see the better, my dear,'
horrified little rustic Red Ridinghood! Now, you are quite in
earnest, and you trudge along carrying your alms to this poor old
Grandmother Charity; but before long you will have your eyes opened
roughly, and learn as I did that the dear pitiful grandmother is
utterly dead and gone; and the fangs and claws of the wolf will show
you which way your cake and honey went. A most voracious wolf, this
same Public Charity, and blessed with the digestion of an ostrich.
But go you to the Cantata, and sing your best, and if you happen to
fall at the feet of pretty little Cécile Brompton, you will hear in
the distance a subdued growl; the first note of the lupine fantasia
that inevitably awaits you. Oh! I wonder if ever this green earth
knew a time when hypocrisy and cant did not prowl even among the
young lambs, pasturing in innocence upon the 'thousand hills' of God?
It seems to me that cant cropped out in the first pair that ever were
born, and Cain has left an immense family. Cant everywhere, in
science and religion; in churches and in courts; cant among lawyers,
doctors, preachers; cant around the hearth; cant even around the
hearse. It is the carnival of cant, this age of ours, and heartily as
I despise it, I too have been duly noosed and collared, and taught
the buttery dialect, and I am meekly willing to confess myself 'born
thrall' of cant."
Regina smiled and shook her head, and tossing her large strong white
hands restlessly over her pillow, Olga continued:
"Indeed, I am desperately in earnest, and it is a melancholy truth
that Longfellow tells us: 'Things are not what they seem.' You appear
disinclined to believe that I am one of those 'whited sepulchres,'
outwardly fair and comely, but filled with unsavoury dust and ugly
grinning skulls? Life is a huge sham, and we are all masked puppets,
jumping grotesquely, just as the strongest hands pull the wires.
Regina, I have gone to and fro upon the earth long enough to learn
that the most acceptable present is never labelled advice;
nevertheless, I would fain warn your unsophisticated young soul
against some of the pitfalls into which I floundered, and got sadly
bruised. Never openly defy or oppose your apparent destiny, so long
as it is in the soft hands of that willow wand--your present
guardian. Strategy is better than fierce assault, bloodless cunning
than a gory pitched battle; Cambyses' cats took Pelusium more
successfully than the entire Persian army could have done, and the
head dresses Hannibal arranged for his oxen, delivered him from the
clutches of Fabius and the legions. In my ignorance of polite and
prudent tactics, I dashed into the conflict, yelled, clawed
(metaphorically, you understand), and fought like the Austrians at
Wagram; but of course came out always miserably beaten, with trailing
banners and many gaping wounds. Regina, you might just as well stand
below the Palisades, and fire at them with cartridges of boiled rice,
as make open fight with Erle Palma. Be wise and assume the appearance
of submission, no matter how stubbornly you are resolved not to give
up. Don't you know that Cilician geese outwit even the eagles? In
passing over Taurus, the geese always carry stones in their mouths,
and thus by bridling their gabbling tongues they safely cross the
mountain infested with eagles, without being discovered by their
foes. I commend to you the strategy of silence."
"Do not counsel me to be insincere and deceitful. I consider it
dishonourable and contemptible."
"Why will you persist in using words that have been out of style as
long as huge hoop-skirts, coal-scuttle bonnets, and long-tailed
frock-coats? Once, I know, ugly things and naughty ways were called
outright by their proper, exact names; but you should not forget that
the world is improving, and _nous avons changé tout cela!_
'We have that sort of courtesy about us,
We would not flatly call a fool a fool.'
I daresay some benighted denizens of the remote rural districts might
be found, who still say 'tadpole,' whereas we know only that
embryonic batrachians exist: and it is just possible that in the
extreme western wilds a poor girl might rashly state that being
sleepy she intended 'going to bed,' which you must admit could be an
everlasting stigma and disgrace here, where all refined people merely
'retire;' leaving the curious world to conjecture whither,--into the
cabinet of a diplomatist, the confession box of a cathedral, the cell
of an anchorite, or to that very essential and comfortable piece of
household furniture which at this instant I fully appreciate, and
which the Romans kept in their _cubiculum_. Even in my childhood,
when I was soaped and rubbed and rinsed by my nurse, the place where
the daily ablution was performed was frankly called a bath-rub in a
bathroom; but now _créme de la créme_ know only 'lavatory.' Just so,
in the march of culture and reform, such vulgarly nude phrases as
'deceitful' have been taken forcibly to a popular tailor, and when
they are let loose on society again you never dream that you
meet anything but becomingly dressed 'policy;' and fashionable
'diplomacy' has hunted 'insincerity'--that other horrid remnant of
old-fogyism--as far away from civilization as are the lava beds of
the Modocs. If ghosts have risible faculties, how Machiavelli must
laugh, watching us from the Elysian Fields! Sometimes silence is
power; try it."
"But is seems to me the line of conduct you advise is cowardly, and
that, I think, I could never be."
"It is purely from ignorance that you fail to appreciate the valuable
social organon I want to teach you. Of course you have heard your
guardian quote Emerson? He is a favourite author with some who
frequent the classic halls of the 'Century;' but perhaps you do not
know that he has investigated 'Courage,' and thrown new light upon
that ancient and rare attribute of noble souls? Now, my dear, in
dealing with Erle Palma, if you desire to trim the lion's claws, and
crimp his mane, adopt the courage of silence."
"Have you found it successful?"
"Unfortunately I did not study Emerson early in life, else I night
have been saved many conflicts, and much useless bloodshed. Now I
begin to comprehend Tennyson's admonition, 'Knowledge comes, but
wisdom lingers,' and I generously offer to economize your school
fees, and give you the benefit of my dearly bought experience."
"Thank you, Olga; but I would rather hear about the wonderful piece
of good fortune, of which you promised to tell me."
"Ah, I had almost forgotten. Wonderful, glorious good fortune! The
price of Circassian skins has gone up in the matrimonial
slave-market."
Regina laid aside her sewing, opened her eyes wider, and looked
perplexed.
"You have not lived in moral Constantinople long enough to comprehend
the terms of traffic? You look like a stupid fawn, the first time the
baying of the hounds scares it from its quiet sleep on dewy moss and
woodland violets! Oh you fair pretty, innocent young thing! Why does
not some friendly hand strangle you right now, before the pack open
on your trial? You ought to be sewed up in white silk, and laid away
safely under marble, before the world soils and spoils you."
For a moment a mist gathered in the bright eyes that rested so
compassionately, so affectionately on the girlish countenance beside
her, and then Olga continued in a lighter and more mocking tone:
"Can you keep a secret?"
"I think so. I will try."
"Well, then, prepare to envy me. Until yesterday I was poor Olga
Neville, with no heritage but my slender share of good looks, and my
ample dower of sound pink and white, strawberry and cream flesh,
symmetrically spread over a healthy osseous structure. Perhaps you do
not know (yet it would be remarkable if some gossip has not told you)
that poor mamma was sadly cheated in her second marriage; and after
bargaining with Mammon never collected her pay, and was finally cut
off with a limited annuity which ceases at her death. My own poor
father left nothing of this world's goods, consequently I am
unprovided for. We have always been generously and kindly cared for,
well fed, and handsomely clothed by Mr. Erle Palma, who, justice
constrains me to say, in all that pertains to our physical
well-being, has been almost lavish to both of us. But for some years
I have lost favour in his eyes, have lived here as it were on
sufferance, and my bread of late has not been any sweeter than the
ordinary batch of charity loaves. Yesterday I was a pensioner on his
bounty, but the god of this world's riches--_i.e._, Plutus--in
consideration no doubt of my long and faithful worship at his altars,
has suddenly had compassion upon me, and to-day I am prospectively
one of the richest women in New York. Now do you wonder that
Circassia is so jubilant?"
"Do you mean that some one has died, and left you a fortune?"
"Oh no! you idiotic cherub! No such heavenly blessing as that. Plutus
is even shrewder than a Wall Street broker, and has a sharp eye to
his own profits. I mean that at last, after many vexatious and
grievous failures, I am promised a most eligible alliance, the
highest market price. Mr. Silas Congreve has offered me his real
estate, his stocks of various kinds, his villa at Newport, and his
fine yacht. Congratulate me."
"He gives them to you? Adopts and makes you his heiress? How very
good and kind of him, and I am so glad to hear it."
"He offers to many me, you stupid dove!"
"Not that Mr. Congreve who dined here last week, and who is so deaf?"
"That same veritable Midas. You must know he is not deaf from age; oh
no! Scarlet fever when he was teething."
"You do not intend to marry him?"
"Why not? Do you suppose I have gone crazy, and lost the power of
computing rents and dividends? Are people ever so utterly mad as
that? If I were capable of hesitating a moment, I should deserve a
strait-jacket for the remainder of my darkened days. Why, I am
reliably informed that his property is unencumbered, and worth at
least two millions three hundred thousand dollars! I think even dear
mamma, who mother-like overrates my charms, never in her rosiest
visions dreamed I could command such a high price. The slave trade
is looking up once more; threatens to grow brisk, in spite of
Congressional prohibition."
She sat quite erect, with her hands clasped across the back of her
head; a crimson spot burning on each cheek, and an unnatural lustre
in her laughing eyes.
"Olga, do you love him?"
"Now I am sure you are the identical white pigeon that Noah let out
of the ark; for nothing less antediluvian could ask such obsolete,
such utterly dead and buried questions! I love dearly and sincerely
rich laces, old wines, fine glass, heavy silver, blooded horses fast
and fiery, large solitaires, rare camei; and all these comfortable
nice little things I shall truly honour, and tenaciously cling to,
'until death us do part,' and as Mrs. Silas Congreve--hush! Here
comes mamma."
"Olga, why are you not up and dressed? You accepted the invitation to
'lunch' with Mrs. St. Clare, and what excuse can I possibly frame?"
"I have implicit faith in your ingenuity, and give you _carte
blanche_ in the manufacture of an apology."
"And my conscience, Olga?"
"Oh dear! Has it waked up again? I thought you had chloroformed it,
as you did the last spell of toothache a year ago. I hope it is not a
severe attack this time?"
She took her mother's hand, and kissed it lightly.
"My daughter, are you really sick?"
"Very, mamma; such fits of palpitation."
"I never saw you look better. I shall tell no stories for you to Mrs.
St. Clare."
"Cruel mamma! when you know how my tender maidenly sensibilities are
just now lacerated by the signal success of such patient manoeuvring!
Tell Mrs. St. Clare that like the man in the Bible who could not
attend the supper, because he had married a wife, I stayed at home to
ponder my brilliant prospects as Madame Silas----"
"Olga!" exclaimed Mrs. Palma, with a warning gesture toward Regina.
"Do you think I could hide my bliss from her? She knows the honour
proffered me, and has promised to keep the secret."
"Until the gentleman had received a positive and final acceptance, I
should imagine such confidence premature."
Mrs. Palma spoke sternly, and withdrew her fingers from her
daughter's clasp.
"As if there were even a ghost of a doubt as to the final acceptance!
As if I dared play this heavy fish an instant, with such a frail
line? Ah, mamma! don't tease me by such tactics! I am but an
insignificant mouse, and you and Mr. Congreve are such a grim pair of
cats, that I should never venture the faintest squeak. Don't roll me
under your velvet paws, and pat me playfully, trying to arouse false
hopes of escape, when all the while you are resolved to devour me
presently. Don't! I am a wiry mouse, proud and sensitive, and some
mice, it is said, will not permit insult added to injury."
"Regina, are you ready? I shall take you to Mrs. Brompton's, and it
is quite time to start."
Mrs. Palma looked impatiently at Regina, and as the latter rose to
get her hat and wrappings from her own room, she saw the mother lean
over the pillows, saw also that the white arms of the girl were
quickly thrown up around her neck.
Soon after, she heard the front door-bell ring, and when she started
down the steps, Olga called from her room:
"Come in. Mamma has to answer a note before she leaves home. When you
go down, please ask Terry to give a half-bottle of that white wine
with the bronze seal to Octave, and tell him to make and send up to
me as soon as possible a wine-chocolate. Mrs. Tarrant's long-promised
grand affair comes off to-night, and I must build myself up for the
occasion."
"Are you feverish, Olga? Your cheeks are such a brilliant scarlet?"
"Only the fever of delicious excitement, which all young ladies of my
sentimental temperament are expected to indulge, when assured that
the perilous voyage of portionless maidenhood is blissfully ended in
the comfortable harbour of affluent matrimony. Does that feel like
ordinary fever?"
She put out her large well-formed hand, and, clasping it between her
own, Regina exclaimed:
"How very cold! You are ill, or worse still, you are unhappy. Your
heart is not in this marriage."
"My heart? It is only an automatic contrivance for propelling the
blood through my system, and so long as it keeps me in becoming
colour, I have no right to complain. The theory of hearts entering
into connubial contracts, is as effete as Stahl's Phlogiston! One of
the wisest and wittiest of living authors, recognizing the drift of
the age, offers to supply a great public need, by--'A new proposition
and suited to the tendencies of modern civilization, namely, to
establish a universal Matrimonial Agency, as well ordered as the
Bourse of Paris, and the London Stock Exchange. What is more useful
and justifiable than a Bourse for affairs? Is not marriage an affair?
Is anything else considered in it but the proper proportions? Are not
these proportions values capable of rise and fall, of valuation and
tariff? People declaim against marriage brokers. What else, I pray
you, are the good friends, the near relations who take tie field,
except obliging, sometimes official brokers?' Now, Regina, 'M.
Graindorge,' who makes this proposal to the Parisian world, has lived
long in America, and doubtless received his inspiration in the United
States. Hearts? We modern belles compress our hearts, as the Chinese
do their feet, until they become numb and dwarfed; and some even
roast theirs before the fires of Moloch until they resemble human
_pâté de foie gras_. There are a great many valuable truths taught us
in the ancient myths, and for rugged unvarnished wisdom commend me to
the Scandinavian. Did you ever read the account of Iduna's captivity
in the castle of Thiassi in Jötunheim?"
"I never did, and what is more, I never will, if it teaches people to
think as harshly of the world as you seem to do."
"You sweet, simple blue-eyed dunce! How shamefully your guardian
neglects your education! Never even heard of the Ellewomen? Why, they
compose the most brilliant society all over the world. Iduna was a
silly creature, with a large warm heart, and loved her husband
devotedly; and in order to cure her of this arrant absurd folly she
was carried away and shut up with the Ellewomen, very fair creatures
always smiling sweetly. The more bitterly the foolish young wife wept
and implored their pity, the more pleasantly they smiled at her; and
when she examined them closely she found that despite their beauty
they were quite hollow, were made with no hearts at all, and could
compassionate no one. I have an abiding faith that they had Borgia
hair, hazel eyes, red lips, and sloping white shoulders just like
mine. They have peopled the world; a large colony settled in this
country, we are nearly all Ellewomen now, and you are an ignorant,
wretched little Iduna, _minus_ the apples, and must get rid of your
heart at once, in order to smile constantly as we do."
"Olga, don't libel yourself and society so unmercifully. Don't marry
Mr. Congreve. Think how horrible it must be to spend all your life
with a man whom you do not love!"
"I assure you, that will form no part either of his programme, or of
mine. I shall have my 'societies' (charitable, of course), my daily
drives, my 'Luncheons,' and box the opera with occasional supper at
Delmonico's; and Mr. Congreve will have his Yacht affairs, and Wall
Street 'corners' to look after, and will of course spend the majority
of his evenings at that fascinating 'Century,' which really is the
only thing that your quartz-souled guardian cherishes any affection
for."
"But Mr. Palma is not married, and when you are Mr. Congreve's wife,
of course instead of going to his club, your husband will expect to
remain at home with you."
"That might be possible in the old-fashioned parsonage where you
imbibed so many queer outlandish doctrines; but I do assure you, we
have quite outgrown such an intolerable orthodox system of penance.
The less married people see of each other these days, the fewer
scalps dangle around the hearthstone. The customs of the matrimonial
world have changed since that distant time when sacrificing to Juno
as the Goddess of Wedlock, the gall was so carefully extracted from
the victim and thrown behind the altar; implying that in married life
all anger and bitterness should be exterminated. If Tacitus could
revisit this much-civilized world of the nineteenth century, I wonder
if he could find a nation who would tempt him to repeat what he once
wrote concerning the sanctity of marriage among the Germans? 'There
vice is not laughed at, and corruption is not called the fashion.'
Mr. Silas Congreve is much too enlightened to prefer his slippers at
home to his place at the club. As for sitting up as a rival in the
'Century,' female vanity never soared to so sublime a height of
folly! and if Erle Palma were married forty times, his darling club
would still hold the first place in his flinty affections. It must
be a most marvellously attractive place, that bewitching 'Century,'
to magnetize so completely the iron of his nature. I have my
suspicion that one reason why the husbands cling so fondly to its
beloved precincts is because it corresponds in some respects to the
wonderful 'Peacestead' of the Æsir, whose strongest law was that 'no
angry blow should be struck, and no spiteful word spoken within its
limits.' Hence it is a tempting retreat from the cyclones and
typhoons that sometimes sing among a man's Lares and Penates. In view
of my own gilded matrimonial future, I reverently salute my ally--the
'Century!' There! Mamma calls you. Go trill like a canary at the
Cantata, and waste no sighs on the smiling Ellewoman you leave behind
you. Tell Octave to hurry my wine-chocolate."
She drew the girl to her, looked at her with sparkling merry eyes,
and kissed her softly on each cheek.
When Regina reached the door and looked back, she saw that Olga had
thrown herself face downward on the bed, and the hands were clasped
above the tanged mass of ruddy hair.
During the drive, Mrs. Palma was unusually cheerful, almost
loquacious, and her companion attributed the agreeable change in her
generally reticent manner to maternal pride and pleasure in the
contemplated alliance of her only child.
No reference was made to the subject, and when they reached Mrs.
Brompton's, Regina was not grieved to learn that the rehearsal had
been postponed until he following day, in consequence of the sickness
of Professor Hurtzsel.
"Then Farley must take you home, after I get out at Mrs. St. Clare's.
The carriage can return for me about four o'clock."
"That will not be necessary. I wish to go and see Mrs. Mason, who has
been out of town since July, and I can very easily walk. She has
changed her lodgings."
"Have you consulted Erle on the subject?"
"No, ma'am; but I do not think he would object."
"At least it would be best to obtain his permission, for only last
week when you stayed so long at that floral establishment, he said he
should forbid your going out alone. Wait till to-morrow."
"To-morrow I shall have no time, and all my studies are over for
to-day. Why should he care? He allows me to go to Mrs. Mason's in the
carriage."
"It is entirely your own affair, but my advice is to consult him. At
this hour he is probably in his office; drive down and see him, and
if he consents, then go. Here is Mrs. St. Clare's. Farley, take Miss
Orme to Mr. Palma's office, and be sure you are back here at
half-past three. Don't keep me waiting."
Never before had Regina gone to the law-office, and to-day she very
reluctantly followed the unpalatable advice; but the urgency of Mrs.
Palma's manner constrained obedience. When the carriage stopped, she
went in, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed, and secretly hoping
that her guardian was absent. At a large desk near the door sat a
young man intently copying some papers, and as the visitor entered,
he rose and stared. "Is Mr. Palma here?"
"He will be in a few moments. Take a seat."
Hoping to escape before his return, she said hastily: "I have not
time to wait. Can you give me a pencil and piece of paper? I wish to
leave a note."
There were two desks in the apartment, but glancing at their dusty
appearance, and then at the dainty pearl-tinted gloves of the
stranger, the young man answered hesitatingly:
"You will find writing materials on the desk in the next room. The
door is not locked."
She hurried in, sat down before the desk where a number of papers
were loosely scattered, and took up a pen lying near a handsome
bronze inkstand.
How should she commence? She had never written him a line, and felt
perplexed. While debating whether she should say Dear Mr. Palma or My
Dear Guardian, her eyes wandered half unconsciously about the
apartment, until they were arrested by a large portrait hanging over
the mantlepiece. It was a copy of the picture her mother had directed
to be painted by Mr. Harcourt, and which had been sent to Europe.
This copy differed in some respects from the original portrait; Hero
had been entirely omitted, and in the hands of the painted girl were
clusters of beautiful snowy lilies.
Surprised and gratified that he deemed her portrait worthy of a place
in his office, she hastily wrote on a sheet of legal cap:
"DEAR MR. PALMA,--Having no engagements until to-morrow, I wish
to spend the afternoon with Mrs. Mason, who has removed to No.
900, East ---- Street, but Mrs. Palma advised me to ask your
permission. Hoping that you will not object to my making the
visit, without having waited to see you, I am,
"Very respectfully
Your ward,
REGINA ORME."
Leaving it open on the desk, where he could not fail to see it, she
glanced once more at the portrait, and hurried away, fearful of being
intercepted ere she reached the carriage.
"Drive to No. 900, East ---- Street."
The carriage had not turned the neighbouring corner, when Mr. Palma
leisurely approached his office door, with his thoughts intent upon
an important will case, which was creating much interest and
discussion among the members of the Bar, and which in an appeal form
he had that day consented to argue before the Supreme Court. As he
entered the front room, the clerk looked up.
"Stuart, has Elliott brought back the papers?"
"Not yet, sir. There was a young lady here a moment ago. Did you meet
her?"
"No. What was her business?"
"She did not say. Asked for you, and would not wait."
"What name?"
"Did not give any. Think she left a note on your desk. She was the
loveliest creature I ever looked at."
"My desk? Hereafter in my absence allow no one to enter my private
office. I did not consider it necessary to caution you, or inform you
that my desk is not public property, but designed for my exclusive
service. In future when I am out keep that door locked. Step around
to Fitzgerald's and get that volume of Reports he borrowed last
week." The young man coloured, picked up his hat, and disappeared;
and the lawyer walked into his sanctum and approached his desk.
Seating himself in the large revolving chair, his eyes fell instantly
upon the long sheet, with the few lines traced in a delicate feminine
hand.
Over his cold face swept a marvellous change, strangely softening its
outlines and expression. He examined the writing curiously, taking
off his glasses and holding the paper close to his eyes; and he
detected the alteration in the "Dear," which had evidently been
commenced as "My."
Laying it open before him, he took the pen, wrote "my" before the
"dear," and drawing a line through the "Regina Orme," substituted
above it "Lily."
In her haste she had left on the desk one glove, and her small ivory
_porte-monnaie_ which her mother had sent from Rome.
He took up the little pearl-grey kid, redolent of Lubin's "violet,"
and spread out the almost childishly small fingers on his own broad
palm, which suddenly closed over it like a vice; then with a half
smile of strange tenderness, in which all the stony sternness of lips
and chin seemed steeped and melted, he drew the glove softly,
caressingly over his bronzed cheek.
Pressing the spring of the purse, it opened and showed him two small
gold dollars, and a five dollar bill. In another compartment, wrapped
in tissue paper, was a small bunch of pressed violets, tied with a
bit of blue sewing silk. Upon the inside of the paper was written:
"Gathered at Agra. April 8th, 18--."
He knew Mr. Lindsay's handwriting, and his teeth closed firmly as he
refolded the paper, and put the purse and glove in the inside breast
pocket of his coat. Placing the note in an envelope, he addressed it
to "Erle Palma," and locked it up in a private drawer.
Raising his brilliant eyes to the lovely girlish face on the wall, he
said slowly, sternly:
"My Lily, and she shall be broken, and withered, and laid to rest in
Greenwood, before any other man's hand touches hers. My Lily, housed
sacredly in my bosom; blooming only in my heart."